Media tropes assail us constantly. New catchphrases turn up in what we read and hear that we soon find ourselves using, more or less heedlessly.
Catchphrases like “white privilege”, “rewilding”, “nonbinary”, “Islamophobic” ... We may begin a bit puzzled, but before long they are part of our everyday lexicon. We neither question their origin, nor reflect on their integrity.
Whether we realise it or not, and usually we don’t, these expressions begin life as someone’s bright idea. “Islamophobia”, for instance, was popularised in the English-speaking world by American Palestinian academic and anti-Western activist Edward Said in a 1981 book called Covering Islam [the term had previously existed in French but not really in English]. It was a way of weaponising a sense of victimhood. Now it is government policy to address it.
What is needed in Northern Ireland now?
Living in Belfast, the cultural response to a Sudanese suspect who allegedly stabbed a white person in June’s evening daylight …