Articles by: Gavin Lewis

Author Biography:

Gavin Lewis is a freelance Black British mixed-race writer and academic. He has published in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States on film, media, politics, cultural theory, race, and representation. He has taught critical theory and film and cultural studies at a number of British universities. He is a member of the British trade union Bectu.

Critical Attitudes to Israeli Colonialism and the Diversity of Nazi Victims in Popular Culture

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

23 Nov 2023

In support of Israeli exceptionalism, the reality of the eugenicist Nazi regime and the diversity of its victims have been re-spun as purely anti-Semitic.

Subverting the Grievances of Anti-Racism and the attack on Diane Abbott MP

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

15 Jun 2023

The evils of the slavery and colonialism gravy-train—of which apartheid Israel is the only latest manifestation—are absented from history and the Western racist-imperialist agenda can be spun as a giant white saviour narrative.

Post-WWII Film and the Rejection of Western Imperialism

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

5 Apr 2023

Here the strict, demarcations, brutalities and abuses of a military prison, represent the structures of western class and race oppression – three years after Lawrence of Arabia the racism depicted, is even more overt.

Pressure: A Personal Reflection on British and Western Establishment Racism

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

26 Jan 2023

To the uninitiated, this might seem like a severe personal history but among Black Britons, these types of events are often treated as tame, standard encounters that easily occur in a society in which Black Lives Matter’s deaths at the hands of the police are regarded as mere policy.

The IPCRESS File: The Spectator and the Faux Rebellion of Neoliberal Identity Politics

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

19 May 2022

...multiple points of identification are being offered to align with current demands of supposedly multi-cultural, neoliberal niche-marketing. This however subverts genuine representations and generates a number of anachronisms.

The Left’s Right Turn: Behind the media myth of neoliberal Blairite social ‘achievements’

Arena Quarterly no. 9

Gavin Lewis

Mar 2022

Are UK Labour and other such subverted parties globally that are ostensibly of the Left still worth voting for?

Stand in Solidarity with Ken Loach: against the Israel lobby’s smear campaign

Arena Online

Gavin Lewis

4 Mar 2021

… in February 2021 the Master of St Peter’s College, Oxford, Judith Buchanan, apologised to Jewish students for offering a speaking invitation to Loach, who is one of its alumni, a veteran film-maker, a globally respected human rights activist, and a champion of socialist human solidarity.
"The UK petitioners—neoliberal feminism and its unequal outrage

Julian Assange and the Femocracy, by Gavin Lewis

Arena Magazine no. 160

Gavin Lewis

Jun 2019

The UK petitioners—neoliberal feminism and its unequal outrage
"On 25 November 2018 former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard appeared on the BBC global…

Informit: Julian Assange and the Femocracy

Arena Magazine no. 160

Gavin Lewis

Jun 2019

PDF available from Informit

On 25 November 2018 former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard appeared on the BBC global news channel's 100 Women series. On the show's website, Gillard was described as having 'used her experience to help advance women and girls around the world through the promotion of education and leadership'. Obviously the women she'd 'helped' didn't include the refugees she attempted to dump on Malaysia, or those refugee women and children imprisoned in the internment camps Gillard…
"Britain’s neoliberal media and New Imperialism

The Unspoken ‘Wog’ Slur, by Gavin Lewis

Arena Magazine no. 158

Gavin Lewis

Feb 2019

Britain’s neoliberal media and New Imperialism
"Britain's neoliberal media and New Imperialism. In 2005 rioting and racial attacks broke out in…

Informit: The unspoken ‘wog’ slur

Arena Magazine no. 158

Gavin Lewis

Feb 2019

PDF available from Informit

Britain's neoliberal media and New Imperialism. In 2005 rioting and racial attacks broke out in Cronulla, a beachside suburb of Sydney. Many of the assailants had daubed banners and even their bodies with the sentiment 'wogs out'. The targets of their attacks were Lebanese Australians. The absurdity of this abuse was that 'wog' is an abbreviation of 'gollywog', an infantilised representation of Black African diasporic identity in doll form. Despite the seemingly ethnicspecific nature of…
"The October 2018 conviction of twenty men from Huddersfield in Britain for assorted rape and…

Informit: Muslim-sexual-abuse moral panic

Arena Magazine no. 157

Gavin Lewis

Dec 2018

PDF available from Informit

The October 2018 conviction of twenty men from Huddersfield in Britain for assorted rape and sexual-assault charges has reignited a moral panic about Muslim and Asian men and a supposed ethnic proclivity for sexual abuse. This has been stimulated by anti-Muslim activist and former English Defence League organiser Tommy Robinson illegally live-streaming events from the court, leading - in what seemed a calculated act of martyrdom designed to incite - to his prosecution for contempt-of-court…