Feb 1, 2012
CONTENDING FOR THE LIVING Red Pepper, Feb-March 2012 2011 has been hailed in the media as a year of “protest” in the abstract, but it’s been more challenging and concrete than that. In defiance of received political wisdom, mass action in the streets returned with undeniable impact. Contests over space and the public domain became… Read more
Oct 1, 2011
CONTENDING FOR THE LIVING Red Pepper, October-November 2011 Events over the summer brought to mind William Blake’s uncompromisingly angry poem “London”, written in the early 1790s under the impact of revolution in France and repression at home. The poet wanders “through the charter’d streets / near where the charter’d Thames does flow” where he encounters… Read more
Sep 7, 2011
Red Pepper The second Global Week of Action in Swaziland, organised by the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, which concludes this Friday (9th September), has already scored remarkable successes amid terrible sacrifices. The week marks a new highpoint in the on-going confrontation between an absolute monarchy that for decades has plundered the country and an increasingly emboldened… Read more
Jul 27, 2011
The Guardian, 27 July [A longer version of this article will appear in the August issue of Red Pepper.] Now entering my fifth year of living with multiple myeloma, a haematological cancer, I reflect back on a roller-coaster ride of symptoms, treatments and side effects. Whatever else this experience has been, it’s been an education…. Read more
Jun 1, 2011
CONTENDING FOR THE LIVING Red Pepper, June-July 2011 In 1818, Shelley visited his friend Byron in Venice, where his Lordship was camped out in a decaying palazzo, ruminating on the city’s faded glories. Their conversations – on human freedom and the prospects for social change – formed the basis for Shelley’s poem Julian and Maddalo,… Read more
Mar 25, 2011
In the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland writes that liberal interventionism is “fine in theory” but goes wrong “in practise”. I’d suggest that it goes wrong in practise because it’s deeply flawed in theory. The hypocrisy, double standards and selectivity displayed in the western military action in Libya defy enumeration, but just for a start…. In Yemen… Read more
