Mar 23, 2010
The following article was written in February for the Barts Hospital website. During the three years I’ve been in treatment at Barts for multiple myeloma, I’ve given thanks many times to the NHS and the people who built and sustain it. Since I grew up in the United States and still have close friends and… Read more
Aug 1, 2009
[This essay was published in 2007 in the book Selling US Wars, edited by Achin Vanaik, Olive Tree Press.] I am so terrifed, America, Of the iron click of your human contact. And after this The winding-sheet of your selfless ideal love. Boundless love Like a poison gas. DH Lawrence, “The Evening Land”, 1923 “The… Read more
Apr 5, 2008
Versions of this article appeared in The Hindu and The Guardian’s Comment is free It’s testimony to the awkward power of Martin Luther King’s life and work that so much effort has gone into sanitising his memory. Today he’s commemorated as an apostle of social harmony, a hero in the triumphant march of American progress…. Read more
Apr 1, 2008
Red Pepper, April-May 2008 The Mysterious Chemistry of Social Change: the USA 1968 in Retrospect The last thing the legacy of 1968 needs is nostalgic commemoration. Even as it was happening, it was being packaged for consumption. Nor should we celebrate it in the name of some abstract spirit of resistance. It was a year… Read more
Jan 27, 2008
Versions of the article below appeared in The Guardian and The Hindu This week marks the 40th anniversary of an event that seemed to turn the world upside down. In the early hours of 31 January 1968, soldiers of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Army of North Vietnam launched what came… Read more
