3 TIPS FOR ETHICAL TOURISM
September 25, 2016By Eve Lacroix
When travelling to a new place you know to anticipate that things are not the same as at home— and you will discover in which way quickly enough. This could mean hearing a new language, covering your head and shoulders when entering a place of worship, or drinking a different type of coffee. You may learn to point your feet away from the statue of the Buddha, eat with a fork and spoon, greet people with a kiss on the cheek, or even expect incoming traffic on a different side of the road. Keeping in mind all the differing customs helps to properly respect the historical, spiritual and cultural significance of landmarks, locations, or places of faith.
FRESHERS GUIDE #3: ADOLESCENTS AND ALCOHOL
September 23, 2016By Robyn Banks
This weekend, thousands of fresher’s will descend on University towns across the UK, and pubs, clubs and takeaways prepare themselves for busy nights and big takings. Four years ago I was a fresher in Norwich, and this week my younger sister is hitting the town in Brighton for the first time. Before either of us even arrived in our respective new towns, we knew the score: pre-drinks, pub, club, after-drinks. Our party dresses were the first to be packed and the first to be unpacked. We grow up in a culture where we know that the first year of university is about drinking, surrounded by tales of students who spend more money on beer than on food and the collective assumption that this is what our maintenance loans are for, and gently edged towards arranging our own priorities similarly. If the entire first year is not about drinking, then fresher’s week definitely is. That’s the first weekend and the first week. And the second weekend. And some of the second week. Fact.
DAVID CAMERON ‘RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RISE OF ISIS?’
September 22, 2016by Rob Harding
Is anyone else starting to feel a little bit sorry for David Cameron? At this point it’s starting to look like the only redeeming feature of his 2016 so far has been that the accusation of pig fellatio is no longer the worst thing that’s happened to him in office. On the 12th of September he quit as a Conservative MP, claiming that he ‘didn’t want to be a distraction’ for Theresa May, and on the 14th we found out why.
A report released by a Foreign Affairs Select Committee found that ‘Through his decision-making in the national security council, former Prime Minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to develop a coherent Libya Strategy.’ It alleges that Cameron’s decision to commit military force to intervene in the Libyan revolution was poorly planned and done without considering the consequences, and ultimately led to a power vacuum that was eventually filled by Daesh. Very distracting.
SKEPTA AND THE RETURN OF THE BLACK PUNK ETHOS
September 21, 2016by Candice Nembhard
Grime’s re-emergence into mainstream channels of music should be viewed as nothing less than a testament to the masses of hungry music listeners searching for an angry energy tandem with their feelings of creative distrust with the music industry complex. Whether you see its re-surfacing as positive or negative; its influence has grown so much so, we are willing to finally give it long overdue credibility.
NORWICH FOODHUB: SAVING FOOD — FIGHTING HUNGER.
September 21, 2016by Rowan Van Tromp
Since my original article, Norwich’s War On Food Waste, was published a lot has changed, so I thought it was time high time for an update.
First, to recap, when the original article was published in November 2015 the seeds had been sown for the formation of an organisation with three main aims:
To collect food that would otherwise be wasted by retailers due to it having passed it’s sell-by or best-before date, or as a result of over purchasing.
To bring this food to an accessible centrally located unit to be weighed, sorted and recorded.
To coordinate the redistribution of such food to organisations helping to tackle food poverty in the city.
365 DAYS WITHOUT CHANGE — HOW THE ARTS AFFECT OUR ENGAGEMENT WITH CONFLICT.
September 21, 2016by Jess Howard
Content warning: this article contains upsetting images.
In 2015 I wrote an article on an image of a Syrian child’s lifeless body being lifted out of the sea on a beach close to a Turkish resort. The photograph shocked people around the world at the time. It demonstrated the severity of the Syrian conflict, as the child in the photograph, and his family along with him, had been attempting to travel to Greece to seek refuge. September sees the anniversary of the photograph being taken, but how have our attitudes to photography and conflict changed in the past year?
THE EU REFERENDUM – 12 WEEKS ON
September 18, 2016by Kelvin Smith
The last trip was just before the EU referendum; through France, Spain and Portugal, preoccupied with the possibility of a leave vote, but knowing somewhere deep inside that it would never, could never happen. So much for gut feelings.
THE SOURCE
September 15, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Evelina De Signoribus (1978 – ), ‘La fonte’
The day when you have only one thought
the sea shivers and the wheat moves the field
everything calls for the return
though the roads have never been this many
to choose but one, clearly
FANNING THE FLAMES OF WAR IN SYRIA
September 14, 2016By Faizal Nor Izham
While Islamophobia continues to run rampant on the streets of Europe, one critical aspect that tends to be overlooked by the mainstream media when it comes to the Western world’s relationship with the Middle East is the steady stream of armed aid the former provides to pro-Western regimes in the latter. Understanding the main source of grievances in the Arab world may offer us a clue as to why there is so much tension stemming from the Middle East today. For example, it’s no secret that the British government has for a long time been highly complicit in its arms dealings with Sunni Saudi Arabia, often used by the oil-rich kingdom to exterminate Shi’ite Houthi rebels in Yemen. And even more recently, leaked emails from Hillary Clinton also indicate that she is fully supportive of fanning the flames in Syria even further through the export of arms to extremist groups such as ISIS.
Read more…
DATA-MINING: STILL THINK YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE?
September 14, 2016By Gunnar Eigener
Data is a commodity. It is a digital blueprint of our lives that we leave behind wherever we go on the internet and in life. Many of us consider it to be of little interest. After all, what does it matter where or what we shop for? Who cares about the sites we search for via Google and what pages we like on Facebook? Well, it turns out that our governments and private companies do.Read more…
FIVE IMPRESSIVE FACTS ABOUT THE GREEN PARTY LEADERSHIP
September 11, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Last weekend, the Green Party crowned its new leader, at its largest conference to date. The result came as no surprise to anybody – Caroline Lucas and her Co-Leader running mate Jonathan Bartley were elected with an overwhelming mandate, scooping up a phenomenal 86% of the vote. Given that the result was largely a foregone conclusion at the point that candidates were announced, and that the election would naturally get swallowed by the much larger, more adversarial battle in the Labour Party, this was a subdued, uninspiring election.
In spite of that, the Green Party and their leadership are unique, fascinating and impressive in a whole range of ways. Here are five of them.
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BOARDS, BORES, AND THE EROSION OF LOCAL DEMOCRACY
September 9, 2016by Olivia Hanks
I had the dubious privilege of being in the public gallery for the first meeting of the re-established Greater Norwich Development Partnership (GNDP) earlier this week. This board, made up of councillors from Norwich, South Norfolk and Broadland, is tasked with developing a strategic document, the Greater Norwich Local Plan (GNLP), which will dictate where housing, roads and other infrastructure will be built in the area over the next 20 years.
The meeting, which was scheduled to last from 3.30 until 5pm, finished at 4.10 with very little discussion having taken place. You might have thought that, having been successfully taken to the High Court for failing to consider alternative options during the creation of the GNLP’s predecessor the Joint Core Strategy (JCS — I promise that’s the last obscure abbreviation), the board would be asking itself a lot more questions this time around. Although it was admittedly a more or less introductory meeting, agreeing the board’s terms of reference and the next steps, there was an opportunity for comments, which was taken up by only three members.
This matters because these dozen men — and shockingly, they are all men; all white; none under 50 or so — are shaping the future of Norwich and the surrounding area. It matters because sometimes it is hard to spot the moment for intervention until it has already passed.
UNIVERSITY OF KERALA AND FEMINIST THOUGHT
September 9, 2016by Sam Naylor
From the 8 – 24th of August I attended a Generation UK – India programme. The fortnight programme was organised between the British Council and the University of Kerala, which was founded in 1937, to engage 46 British students and graduates with a taste of Contemporary India: Culture and Society. The study placement covered a lot of ground, ranging from a lecture on Indian foreign policy to visiting their ancient manuscript library, to learning the state language of Malayalam and gendering Indian popular cinema. The course’s content was as diverse as the state we were studying in and the people who attended the study trip.
FRESHERS’ GUIDE #2: ECSTASY AND THE SEROTONERGIC SQUAD
September 8, 2016by Robyn Banks
Ecstasy, or MDMA, has long been a popular student party drug. Despite being relatively safe for use, not many people understand the chemical change in the brain that comes with being high on MDMA, and the rise in students being medicated for anxiety and depression threatens to make a once rare overdose in to an all too common event.
BLACK ERASURE IN ART
September 8, 2016by Candice Nembhard
In the niche space we call the ‘art world’, the discrediting or downplaying of black artists has not gone unnoticed as it has undocumented. That’s not to say critical discussion of African/African diaspora art has not been made; it is to suggest however that favourable and more accessible criticism is blessed upon the dominant sphere of white, European Art. For many black artists, including the likes of Kerry James Marshall, publicising the potential racist nature of art history opens up the narrative of what really goes on in the art world.
IMMIGRATION: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
September 7, 2016by Natasha Senior
Globalisation has generally been unkind to the young. Yet, as a demographic, we took its side in the EU referendum. Because ultimately the union has positively shaped our culture, as global business, and academic ties, bought international communities together all over Europe. This type of integration has profoundly enriched the way of life in the metropolis. But it would be incorrect to think that people all over the country are benefitting in the same way, because this level of cohesion is politically disallowed from crossing beyond the city confines. Indeed, the impact of globalisation, and the nature of integration, has been overwhelmingly detrimental elsewhere in the country.
[Read more…]
THE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS IS A CRISIS OF RACE
September 6, 2016by Emmanuel Agu
Perhaps not in its inception, though undeniably, the climate change crisis is one of race. The protest today launched by the UK chapter of the Black Lives Matter stands as a call to arms in opposition of worrying statistics of the UK’s Influence on both global climate change and the local effects — highlighting the disproportionate nature of these adverse affects on communities of colour in the west and world wide.
TRISTAN THINKS ABOUT THE NEWS, WHILE EATING RICE AND BEANS
September 6, 2016by Julian Canlas
Isaiah 11:2 New International Version (NIV)
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—Tristan does so without the fear of God, like a pinprick—
a spitting image of all those heretics and unknown curses—no doubt, in this bog of a living room, where moments
of explosions become dictators, pushing him headfirst
DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
September 4, 2016by Asia Patel
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SARAJEVO ROSES, THE STARI MOST: A TRIP TO BOSNIA
September 3, 2016by Rob Harding
MOSTAR
Nearly every building in east Mostar bears war wounds. Tumbledown ruins stud the streets like broken teeth. The imposing concrete hulk of an abandoned bank juts into the sky over midtown, surrounded by parks and covered in graffiti. The famous Old Bridge over the river Neretva is notable both for its beauty and the fact that these marks are absent. Destroyed in 1993 by Croat tanks, the Old Bridge is one of the few things in this wounded city that has been properly rebuilt.
UNESCO plaques stud Old Town, listing countries that donated money to rebuild the bridge and the surrounding areas. It was a tourist landmark before the war, and it feels like the only part of Mostar the world really cares about — certainly, there doesn’t seem to be any money to clear the minefields on the surrounding hillsides, or to treat Bosnia’s tens of thousands of post-war PTSD victims. Tourists don’t visit them, after all, so it’s not like the spirit of international co-operation applies in the way it does to the pretty scenery in Old Town.
A CHILDHOOD MEMORY
September 1, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Maddalena Lotter (1990-), ‘Un ricordo d’infanzia’
We built a house on the sand
then we stamped on it.
On its ruins our supreme leader
decreed it was time to go
PRETENSION IS A SCOURGE
August 30, 2016by Sunetra Senior
On Friday June 23rd 2016, millions of us woke up to the rattling reality of a momentous decision: the pound had plummeted to a 31-year low, our young people had lost the right to live and work nearby abroad, and oh yes – the UK as we knew it was now officially in a state of civil conflict. But this isn’t going to be another article about how we should respect the people who voted Leave – though of course we should – nor one that commiserates upon how we’ve tragically lost touch with the ‘underprivileged and disadvantaged’ of us, for the simple fact that it is the sole circulation – and indulgence of – such statements that is fanning the right-wing heat blowing an insidious hole through our country.
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SOCIAL CLEANSING 101: NORWICH CITY COUNCIL AND ARTICLE 4
August 29, 2016by Lucy Auger
The estimated cost of living for students currently stands at £12,056 per year excluding course costs, and their average income from loans and funding leave students having to find an extra £6,071 each year. You would be forgiven for assuming that Norwich councillors would want to keep rent low and appeal to as many students as possible considering that students make up such a significant proportion of their voters, however it seems that the councillors themselves are not quite on the same page.
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TODAY’S POLITICS: SPEAKING IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
August 28, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Britain’s EU Referendum was a messy, unpleasant affair. Events that took place, the way campaigns were run, the rhetoric of certain advocates on both sides taught many lessons about the state of Britain. The referendum, and its subsequent result, have served as an amplifier for some unsettling and disturbing aspects of our politics and society – from racism and xenophobia, to the desperation and disaffection felt by people and communities across the country. All of these have had substantial coverage and comment in the press, as politicians and columnists have lined up to blame anyone and everyone – the political class, migrants, the Leave campaign, Jean Claude Juncker, Tony Blair.
GIRL DRESSED AS A FOX, LINCOLN HIGH STREET
August 28, 2016by Jake Reynolds
Is that her mother whose arm she is touching? She holds a tablet
to the charity shop window and photographs nothing much. There
is nothing much to photograph when wearing a fox-head (which I
think of as brave on a day as hot as this). The tail perks up from
the waistband of her jeans, a wad of fur swaddling a pliable wire.
SOCIAL EQUALITY, NOT SOCIAL MOBILITY
August 26, 2016by Olivia Hanks
Theresa May’s indication earlier this month that she will reintroduce selective schooling has reignited the debate on ‘social mobility’. Tory backbenchers believe the secondary modern system (or the grammar school system, as they insist on calling it) was good for social mobility, but various reports support the opposite view, that selective schooling entrenches inequality. Of the tiny percentage of children from working class backgrounds who attended the old grammar schools, two-thirds did not manage to achieve three O-levels.
FRESHERS’ GUIDE #1: WEED ETIQUETTE
August 25, 2016by Robyn Banks
UCAS deadlines have passed, interviews are taking place across the country, college students are going through the clearing process. For many, university isn’t just about learning- it’s about the life experiences, the parties, and the new experiences you’ll have within your own minds. That is to say, drugs, and namely those most common university drugs: alcohol and cannabis.
MISOGYNOIR IN SPORT
August 25, 2016by Candice Nembhard
To this day, I am unable to pinpoint what exactly about sport coverage brings out numerous forms of oppression and respectability politics. It should come as no surprise that something as global and consistent as the Olympics should regularly undermine or overstate the achievements of many hard-working sportsman – thus propagating outdated and sexist narratives within competitive sport.
RACIAL PLURALISM IN THE OLYMPICS
August 24, 2016by Julian Canlas
The 2016 Olympics in Rio, Brazil, has resulted in a lot of firsts. Nine countries are celebrating their first ever gold medal, including first-time entrant Kosovo, whose sovereignty the Olympics committee recognised only two years ago. The Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) was also formed to ‘bring global attention to the magnitude of the refugee crisis’. Despite not having won any medals, their significance lies in their representation. The ROT acts as a symbol of hope to those who have been forcefully displaced from their home country that the dreams of these displaced athletes will happen despite all the unfair hardships, injustices and atrocities they have experienced.
CISGENDERED OR NOTHING – THE ABSENCE OF LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS IN FILM
August 23, 2016by Jess Howard
Earlier this month, Warner Bros and DC released their latest superhero film Suicide Squad, sending mixed reactions across the internet as viewers commented on the film’s plot line and the sexualisation of squad member Harley Quinn. Audience and critics’ opinions aside, what is explicitly noticeable within the film is the lack of LGBTQ+ characters, such as DC character Batwoman, for example – if Batman can make a cameo, why not her? In a world with superheroes, Killer Crocs, and witches, why are production companies still refusing to feature LGBTQ characters in their films?
(PART 2) THE OTHER SIDE: A LOOK AT EUROPE
August 22, 2016by Rob Harding
Well folks, these last few weeks your humble correspondent has been travelling around Eastern Europe on a hastily-booked last chance tour. I’m four cities in and thought I’d share a little of the mood on the street from Warsaw, Vienna, Prague and Budapest. Part two of this article looks at Vienna and Budapest.
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THOUGH IT MAY BE CRACKED, THE GLASS CEILING REMAINS
August 21, 2016by Emmanuel Agu
Classically, a university education especially one of Russell group or Red-Brick standard universities has been marked as a distinction of class mobility, we know that the those in the upper percentage of wealth in this country are typically high academic achievers.
(PART 1) THE OTHER SIDE: A LOOK AT EUROPE
August 20, 2016by Rob Harding
Well folks, these last few weeks your humble correspondent has been travelling around Eastern Europe on a hastily-booked last chance tour. I’m four cities in and thought I’d share a little of the mood on the street from Warsaw, Vienna, Prague and Budapest.
NUS JOINS THE FIGHT AND BACKS RENT STRIKES
August 19, 2016by Lewis Martin
It was announced yesterday under the cloud of A-level results that the National Union of Students (NUS) has given full backing to the rent strikes that have been happening at numerous universities up and down the country. Their reasoning behind this is that due to the rise of living in university housing on campus or other university owned places, it has almost become a secondary set of fees on top of the already high tuition fees.
BLUE OF DELETION
August 18, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Maria Attanasio (1943-), ‘Rosso…’
Red
which now is blade and shears
flaking wall shadow
ISLAM: THE NEW VIETNAM WAR SYNDROME
August 16, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
“Since the news, little kids haven’t played outside, as if their moms are afraid someone might snatch them out of their yards and send them off to war.”
Kimberly Willis Holt, ‘When Zachary Beaver Came To Town’
In the early hours of 26th July, Satoshi Uematsu drove to a home for the disabled where he had previously worked and stabbed 19 residents to death and injured 26. Shortly before handing himself in, he tweeted “May there be peace in the world…Beautiful Japan!!!!” Once in custody, he said that ‘it is better that disabled people disappear’. Barely a week later and at a rally Donald Trump claimed to have seen video footage of $400 million being transferred to Iran by the US government as well as recounting the time he saw Muslims celebrating the devastation of 9/11. One of these stories received little attention while the other gathered headlines.Read more…
THE RIGHT TO ENVY
August 15, 2016by George Laver
If, over the last year or so, anybody has been monitoring political discourse, it should have come as no surprise that the Labour Party has collapsed into meltdown. From an anti-electoral onlooker’s perspective, it is over trivial matters; but to the dedicated parliamentarian, it is a cause for some concern. In particular, there are the issues surrounding supposed “entryists” and “Trotskyists” amongst the rank-and-file of pro-Corbyn Labourites (1). A bitter repeat of the witch hunts against members of the “Militant tendency” in the 1980s (2), this too would be no surprise to those who had the foresight to expect it.
Whilst I am not writing this to defend Trotskyism – or even to defend entryists tactics, parliamentarianism, and so on – I am writing in defence of those who hold viewpoints that are considered outliers to the common political discourse; and in spite of the fact that left-wingers are brandished with the label of “the politics of envy,” there is a perfect justification for envy. It is not a label from which we should blush and shy away.
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NO MAN’S SKY – A REVIEW
August 14, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
I stand in the shadow of a yawning cave mouth bristling with brightly coloured crystals and glowing mushrooms. The sky is emerald, the hills are teal. A scarlet starship squats, smoking, on the ground. A polite voice tells me that my life support is low. The planet is Peonidas. The game is No Man’s Sky.
NOT SATISFIED, BUT IRATE – WHY STUDENTS MUST BOYCOTT THE NSS
August 13, 2016by Lucy Auger
Just last week, a key date in the university calendar fell for another year – the release of the results of the National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS, completed by thousands of final year undergraduate students each year, is a data collection tool that is used to promote competition and rank student satisfaction in universities across the country.
CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD BY GROWING VEGETABLES?
August 12, 2016by Olivia Hanks
Our grandparents might have been rather nonplussed to hear growing your own food described as a radical act, but in a society that views people chiefly as consumers, any step towards self-sufficiency is pretty subversive.
In France, where citizens generally attach more importance to food and its origins than in the UK, the last few years have seen an explosion in the number of small-scale organic food producers: in 2015, an average of 200 new organic farms sprang up every month.
WE GET THE POLITICIANS WE DESERVE
August 11, 2016by Robyn Banks
Since the day the Labour party shot itself in the foot and used the turmoil in the conservative party as an opportunity to break its own ranks, a great divide seems to have appeared among the left. While Corbyn’s election as Labour leader swelled its membership with young and idealistic newcomers, many worry that he is still not electable. After he was deemed too left wing by the PLP and his opposition deemed too right wing for the membership, it became clear that what was needed was a new face- to package Corbyn’s ideas in to a smoother, less radical and more electable politician. Enter Owen Smith. Despite there being no dramatic differences between Corbyn and Smith’s publicly professed politics, the left wing of the internet has spiralled in to bickering about nuances and rumours from the past, dividing itself in to the radicals and the Blairites, the entryists and the game theorists. What was once a political discussion has now become some kind of complex emotional entanglement.
THE MISEDUCATION OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS
August 11, 2016by Candice Nembhard
When I think back on my time in grammar school education, it is not with entirely fond memories. I was a working class, BAME student, whose parents were working tirelessly to make sure my educational needs were catered for — be it my uniform, school trips or even paying the annual school fund. Even so, little could be done on their part to protect me from the overly-competitive nature of the grammar school system; an educational structure that paraded itself as a diverse and inclusive market only out of an innate self-fulfilling prophecy to produce a particular class of intellectuals.
It is this underlying vision for education that further widens the gap between the lowest earners in Britain and those that are at the top. The division of children at the age of 11 to test their intelligence further predates to a privileged notion that intelligence is hereditary, and if not, that it can be bought.
EACH PERSON IS A FISH
August 10, 2016by Julian Canlas
the room gleams like water–all of them here are fish
from either the sea or the lake, salt and fresh,
their fins flapping–a vision of ecstasy, the smell–pungent redefined, their slippery scales glimmering
in their pursuit of perfection. how do they survive
CORBYN CAN ONLY BE PM IF HE LEARNS FROM SMITH
August 10, 2016By Natasha Senior
We have now entered the world of post-truth politics where satire has died because reality is beyond farcical. Remember a while back when that cabinet minister half-arsed her job? Instead of spending taxpayers’ money on something worthwhile she rolled out some vans with “go home” billboards, in a completely misguided attempt to get ‘illegal’ immigrants to leave. She then quickly had to reel them back in after realising it actually looked a little xenophobic (and also because it was the stupidest idea ever). Despite this and numerous other examples of May’s sheer incompetence in government, she assumed the role of Prime Minister on a technicality and the ineptitude of her opponents. I suppose I am thankful she got the job rather than them (but only in the sense I’d be thankful if I’d lost only all my extremities to frostbite instead of succumbing to hypothermia). Despite this and her complete lack of a vision for the future of Britain, other than the fact that “Brexit means Brexit”, and given her party has absolutely no mandate to carry out anything at this point, the Conservatives still sit 16 points ahead of Labour in the polls. That is a terrifying reality.
Read more…
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WOMEN IN TRANSLATION MONTH – WHAT’S RADICAL ABOUT THAT?
August 9, 2016by Katy Derbyshire
If you read fiction, think of a translated writer. Just the first one who pops into your mind. Let me guess: Stieg Larsson? Karl Ove Knausgård? Thomas Mann? Marcel Proust? Haruki Murakami? If you thought of a woman off the top of your head, I salute you.
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MY MENTAL HEALTH AND POKEMON GO
August 8, 2016by Daniel Delargy
CW: depression
Since graduating from UEA, things kind of went downhill for me. I graduated with the grade I wanted, but I was stuck as to what to do next. I had no job, no sense of personal accomplishment, deteriorating relationships, and to top it all off I moved back in with my parents and felt ashamed because as the eldest child, I had this expectation that I had to be this success story which my siblings could look up to.
My old habits started returning. I tried to get back into an old hobby of mine, running – but quickly dismissed it. I hid myself away.
INTERPRETATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM
August 5, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Trigger warnings: Female Genital Mutilation, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Torture
How does Islam actually fare in terms of human rights, and is it really any different from any other religion? The “religion of peace” has been getting a poor reputation in Western media over the issue for decades, with human rights abuses in Muslim countries often stretching from the major to the mundane. Female genital mutilation, the stoning of homosexuals to death, the subjugation of women – the list goes on and on. Apostasy is frequently met with the death sentence in conservative states such as Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, individual liberties in these countries, such as speaking up against the state, are frequently curtailed on the pretext of actually insulting the religion itself. Just ask Raif Badawi, the Saudi activist and blogger who dared to criticize the Saudi regime and was sentenced up to 1,000 lashes from the theocratic state for his troubles.
Read more…
THE CAKE IS NOT A LIE — NERDSPHERE AND FITNESS
August 5, 2016by Alex Valente
Content Warning: body issues, body shaming
In recent weeks, people with access to the internet on a regular basis have probably not been able to avoid reading news about a new application for smart phones, featuring a trendy geek icon that never really went away: Pokémon GO. As revealed in a totally legit super serious study by artist Justin Hall on Dorkly, the Niantic game is, in fact, part of a ploy to create superstrong, superbuff supernerds. True story.
To actually stray on the side of serious, though, the application has indeed helped some players (we will be discussing this in terms of people with disabilities, looking at positives and negatives – such as the not-as-helpful gaping flaws for physical disabilities – in an article soon) to engage with others, and spend time outdoors (plus, this). Both results, in the most generalised way possible, are healthy habits and attitudes, and being hailed as the best thing to happen to nerds since Dungeons & Dragons.
NEOLIBERALISM
August 4, 2016by Julian Canlas
drank from lakes
that turned out to be droughts
cut our lids
to see the future
tricked crops
into growing
mined coal with safety pins.
‘It’s time for celebration, not gawking
at deaths crushed by credit,’ you say.- 2
CONFESSIONS OF A CORBYNITE: WHY I’M VOTING FOR OWEN SMITH
August 4, 2016by Elliot Folan
Six years ago, as a baby-faced 16-year old, I remember sitting in two different meetings within a few months of one another. In one of them, a youth magazine I was working on was told that its funding was being cancelled because of the incoming government’s spending cuts. In the other, I sat in my first local Green Party meeting as activists, fresh from losing overwhelmingly in their target ward, talked about traffic lights and solar panels. The contrast between the two meetings — one a reminder of the impact of politics on everyday life, the other a completely oblivious talking shop — strikes me to this day. Though the party initially struck me as directionless, I stayed until 2014 regardless: I believed in the Green Party’s vision, and I hopped around my city (and the country) looking for ways I could help. I explained away inefficiency, poor practice and a frustrating lack of strategy because I believed in the cause. But at the end of it all, the Green Party ended up gaining no seats in 2015.
I relate this story because, as a 22-year old who’s now in the Labour Party, I see numerous people doing exactly the same thing that I did in my teenage years; except rather than doing it with a party, they are doing it with a single man — Jeremy Corbyn.
GINKGO – ART, TRAVEL, AND ETHICAL CLOTHING
August 3, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
On a recent trip to Hanoi, in Vietnam, I wandered the streets to see where the day would take me. This included going into lots of little art galleries, all housing incredible oil paintings and photography. In L’Institut Français de Hanoi, there was an experimental installation where a series of life-size photographs leaked onto the floor, and a white sculpture hung down from the ceiling like a cloud. Upstairs there were lots of neat illustrations from a range of artists. There was one smaller gallery that stood out from the rest where the eccentric art dealer with short turquoise-dyed hair spoke about the meaning behind each painting, telling me about Vietnam’s history with lacquer paintings as I admired a large glittering image of space.
WE ARE NOT NUMBERS: NORWICH SPEAKS OUT ON BREXIT
August 2, 2016by Hannah Rose
Norwich residents came together last month to show support for migrants after a Romanian shop was set fire to. On the same evening Norwich held a rally in favour of staying in the EU. The division was palpable that night. But the reality is that there are no two clear sides to the debate—there never was, even if the mainstream press had us believe it.
DICTATORSHIPS & DEMOCRACY
August 2, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
“Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Abraham Lincoln
Democracy has long been the banner to which Western leaders rally their troops to fight under. The Brexit referendum is a prime example of extreme democracy, progress for some at the expense of others. The desired outcome for the Leave campaign is for the UK to become a self-governing democracy. Just how much more democratic will the country become?Read more…
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UEA AND THE RAINBOW FLAG: SOLIDARITY OR PINKWASHING?
August 1, 2016by Lucy Auger
Victory! The University of East Anglia has at long last agreed to fly the rainbow flag for the first time in the university’s history. After over three years of campaigning by UEA’s lgbt+ activists, university managers finally gave in and flew the rainbow flag ahead of this year’s Norwich Pride. Undoubtedly, this is testament to the efficacy of persistent campaigning and to the dedication of student activists both those currently at the University and those who have since left it behind.
‘A MESSAGE TO THOSE WHO PATRONISE US’
August 1, 2016by George Laver
Take a moment, to reflect
The anger of youth
Without disrespect
“WE’RE FIGHTING A DOUBLE BATTLE IN THIS WHITE-DOMINATED WORLD” – AN INTERVIEW WITH THE TUTS
July 31, 2016by Chris Jarvis
2016 will be the year of the Tut. After a crowdfunding campaign that achieved double its original target, The Tuts are set to release their debut album – Update Your Brain – in September. The all-woman three piece from Hayes have nurtured a loyal and growing fan base in their first few years, with tours alongside UK veterans Kate Nash, The Selecter and Sonic Boom Six helping to build a wide creoss-genre appeal.
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OUR GREENS IN THE NORTH
July 30, 2016by Martie Warin
I was born and raised in the pit village of Easington, close to the North East coast in County Durham. The Colliery was thriving and a great place to live when I was a growing up. There were plenty of jobs at the pit and everyone looked out for each other. It was (and still is in a lot of ways) a safe and caring community. Sadly, our way of life was turned on its head in 1993 when the wheel stopped turning, and despite a community rending period of strike action, the pits were closed. People suffered then, and continue to suffer the effects now. The cuts of recent years continue to rub salt into the wounds of these once proud people. Now I know coal mining is certainly not Green, but compassion and justice are!
KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH THE GREEN PARTY’S SOUL
July 29, 2016By Shahrar Ali
I love this party. That’s not a phrase I’m afraid to use about it. Because every institution has a soul and that’s something, if you re-elect me, I would like us to keep in touch with.
It’s very important for us Greens, you see, because we go into politics not as a career but as a vocation. And although our critics might accuse us of idealism – by which they mean naivety – we’re nothing of the sort. We’re objective. We understand that we’re at the last chance saloon. If we don’t get a grip of sleepwalking into climate change oblivion then who else will?
GAME OF LOANS
July 29, 2016by Sam Naylor
I’m sure there were resounding cheers from students and would be university slackers when universities across England began detailing their 2017 tuition fee rates. Some places, like the University of Manchester, have already stated that 2017 students can enjoy a mild increase to £9,250 per year of undergraduate study, whilst institutions like our local favourite UEA have been more cautious on their website assuming a 3% inflationary increase year-on-year (which is pretty much the same thing but it’s like Manchester has included a picture of the middle finger whereas UEA has written hahaha in small letters.)
WELCOME (?) TO RIO
July 28, 2016by Aline Zouvi
Comics journalism covering the current situation in Brazil, as the country prepares for the 2016 Olympic games.
GRADUATING WHILST BLACK
July 28, 2016by Candice Nembhard
I graduated! I actually graduated. Mortarboard thrown, picture taken, congratulatory conversations with parents and friends and then you hear the dreaded, “What are you doing next?”
It’s not that I have never given much thought to what would come post-university — quite the opposite. The last few months prior to dressing in my cap and gown have been filled with endless job applications, copious redrafts of my CV and looking into Masters programmes both in the UK and elsewhere – I cannot be the only one. I am certain the same can be said of other BAME students whose road to graduate employment is a lot more uncertain and suspiciously taxing.
CAN THE GREEN PARTY PROGRESS A PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE?
July 27, 2016by Andrew Cooper
I got back from the Green Party’s Deputy Leadership campaign trail yesterday and it’s been great to see so many Green Party activists at each of the 8 hustings I attended. I was fortunate enough to manage to get to them all.
What has become clear is that there are many questions that still remain to be answered about the Progressive Alliance being suggested by Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley. My own view is that it’s certainly worth trying but there are major obstacles to overcome.
SHOCK, AWE, BOREDOM – PUBIC HAIR IN ART AND FASHION
July 26, 2016by Jess Howard
(Note: Some links NSFW.)
I’ve written articles focusing on body hair before, with my previous article specifically discussing pubic hair. I was questioning why we, as a twentyfirst century audience, have such a problem with modern day depictions of perfectly natural hair growth in a way that, historically, viewers haven’t always had a problem with. Since then, Sarah Louise Bryan has gone a step further, and designed and produced an outfit consisting of a bra and floor length skirt, both made entirely out of pubic hair.
Bryan created the dress after spending six months collecting pubic hair, in a bid to create an item of clothing more shocking and scandalous than the infamous meat dress that singer and performer Lady Gaga wore to the MTV video music awards in 2010. “I really wanted the world’s most unique and disgusting design” said Bryan “so when someone sees a design they know it was me instantly”. But should we consider the creation an act of attention grabbing media fodder, or address and analyse what the creation, and the media’s reaction, says about our attitudes to body hair as a whole?
GREENS NEED TO BE AT THE FRONT OF THE FIGHT FOR A PROGRESSIVE BREXIT
July 25, 2016by Amelia Womack
Like almost half of the country, I woke up pretty devastated on June 24th. It’s now been a month since the result was announced, and we’re only just beginning to get hints of the ramifications – whether it’s the collapse in funding to research, or the threat of EU nationals here potentially being kicked out as they’re used as a bargaining chip for the Brexit negotiations.
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MUSIC TO WATCH TRUMP BY
July 24, 2016by Mike Vinti
Content warning: mentions racism, rape
Well, that’s it folks, it’s official. Donald Trump is the Republican nominee and one step closer to wiping out all sentient life on earth, sorry I mean the US presidency. It’s been a pretty terrifying week watching the Republican National Convention, even on this side of the Atlantic, and the hate levels are only set to rise as the human whoopee cushion begins his flatulent rampage towards the Whitehouse. Now, it’s been clear for sometime that the Republicans were going to have a cloud of methane with a wig floating on top for their nominee however all the pomp and plagiarism (looking at you Melania) has got us thinking about what music should play in a presidential election, particularly one with such apocalyptic overtones.
DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATION
July 24, 2016by Simon Ashley Cross
Never was it more important to have common sense for the common good in politics. The Green Party is having it’s biannual leadership contest and very much against the grain of the unscheduled bun fights of the other large parties there is no infighting, no bullying and no bricks thrown. The party will continue to respect our members and offer them a fair choice.
THE LABOUR PARTY, PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY, AND THE POTENTIAL FOR ALTERNATIVES
July 23, 2016by George Laver
There is an ongoing split within the Labour Party, and it is one that will not be able to reconcile itself easily. Two trends have emerged from amongst its ranks. One is keen on maintaining a centralist position, whilst the other is determined to sweep the party further to the left – and therein lies its abject failure. In order to secure itself behind the levers of authority, it will first need to secure a majority within its own ranks and further at the polls. Even within the confines of its own parliamentary rank-and-file, it will necessarily require the submission of opinion to a “general will” of the Party, epitomised in Eagle’s comment that the party must “come together so we [they] can have one candidate”. This is designed to be able to carry it forward for any degree of credibility in the eyes of government supporters, although it loosely translates to a restriction of voice for the sake of a higher count at the ballot box.
BRITAIN NEEDS A PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE
July 23, 2016by Jonathan Bartley & Caroline Lucas
This week’s House of Commons vote to renew Trident and the scrapping of the Department for Energy and Climate Change are the latest reminders of the scale of the task we face together as progressives.
The future looks far more dangerous and insecure even than it did just a few weeks ago. The UN has found our welfare system seriously wanting. Over a million people still rely on food banks. And hate crime is on the rise.
NO LIMITS TO THE GREEN PARTY’S GROWTH
July 22, 2016By Clive Lord
I almost invented the Green Party. Well, I only re-invented it a few months after it had been founded circa Christmas 1972. I attended a meeting as an enquirer in March 1973, at which I agreed with every word of the four actual founder members: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had just published Limits to Growth, which explained that indiscriminate economic growth could not go on for ever on a finite planet. It got one important fact wrong, and missed one other, but the gist was and is correct, and according to the latest research by James Hansen, could be coming home to roost sooner than expected.
THIRD CULTURE SYNDROME: THE STRUGGLE AGAINST POST-BREXIT RACISM
July 22, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
On Saturday 9th I took part in the Anti-Racism and Anti-Austerity March in London, and it was during this event that I met two lovely young ladies of colour – one was Irish-Palestinian by descent (whose parents were both Catholic and Muslim) and the other was a Moroccan-French Muslim. It seemed rather fitting that, on this day, I chose to march against creeping racism in post-Brexit Britain alongside other people of mixed heritage.
Read more…
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THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: A REVIEW OF TRIBUTE ACTS
July 21, 2016by Hannah Rose
Tribute Acts is a bittersweet piece of autobio-theatre written and performed by Tess Seddon and Cheryl Gallacher from Theatrestate. Set against a space-age backdrop, Tess and Cheryl introduce their fathers via a pre-recorded video link. The dads look uncomfortable in their suits and ties. Their daughters are wearing spacesuits. The gulf between parent and child is obvious, and the unease is palpable.
THAT HE WAS REAL
July 21, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Margherita Rimi (1957-), ‘Che c’era vero’
– They say nothing is real –
I make up a language
because I’m embarrassed
UNITY ON THE LEFT
July 20, 2016by Kat Boettge
Whatever the future holds we must work together for unity. After this dreadful referendum and the Brexit vote we must all pull together. The country appears divided, the young vs the older generations, the north vs the south, the “leavers” vs “remainers”. Such divisions, promoted by the wealthy and powerful, have helped them to avoid responsibility for their economic crimes and allowed the 1% to prosper at the expense of the 99%. Meanwhile the left is facing turmoil.
THE COLD WAR, REHEATED
July 19, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
The Cold War peaked with the Cuban Missile Crisis and ended with the falling of the Berlin Wall. It left scars across the globe, many of which are still felt today. It tore societies apart. It created a feeling of angst and paranoia in those who lived through it. The lack of trust the West and East held for each other hasn’t really gone nor have the players changed that much. For younger generations, it used to be hard to imagine what a time like that must have been like but as this century progresses, it’s becoming easier.
NORWICH GATHERS IN THE NAME OF UNITY
July 19, 2016by Hannah Rose
Norwich is reeling after The Village Shop, an Eastern European food store on Magdalen Street, was targeted in an arson attack in the early hours of July 8th. A brick was thrown through the window, waking owner Maria Purgen, and a fire then broke out inside. People in the nearby kebab shop came to the scene and shouted out to the family upstairs, who escaped via the backdoor. The emergency services were called and by 3:50am firefighters had extinguished the blaze.
FIVE WAYS TO MAKE THE GREEN PARTY BETTER
July 18, 2016by Alan Borgars
We, the people of Britain, currently face a difficult and uncertain future, especially in light of the recent decision to vote to leave the EU by a margin of 3.78%, or just over one million votes. The United Kingdom still suffers from a self-serving, cold-hearted, money-loving government whose main intent is to keep themselves in power indefinitely by any means they can and continually oppress everyone who is not rich and powerful.
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GREEN PARTY, LET’S GET SERIOUS ABOUT ECONOMICS
July 17, 2016by David Malone
We need to have a serious debate in the party, first and foremost, about finance and economics. It seems to me that one of the defining facts of our times is that around the world the established political parties have surrendered to the idea that economics and finance no longer need to be under democratic control. This is wrong and dangerous.
A CULTURE OF RESISTANCE: FIGHTING FOR RADICAL ART IN INCREASINGLY GENTRIFIED NORWICH
July 16, 2016by Jack Brindelli
As the dust continues to settle on soon to be post-EU Britain, I’ve been thinking a lot about the place I call home. Norwich has been my city for quarter of a century now, and as my Granny says of such milestones, “You get less time for murder.” Norwich is infamously disconnected from the world, with visiting football fans often singing “there’s only one road in Norfolk” to Guantanamera at Carrow Road – and as much as it pains me to admit it, the isolation is a real problem. The fact we’re so cut off from outsiders rubs off on our city’s attitudes towards culture in particular – with a quintessentially Little England village-mentality that boasts of being an UNESCO city of literature in a town perpetually threatening its libraries with cuts, and renders us fiercely defensive of our “doing different” status-quo, who year on year wheel out the same tired Lord Mayor’s procession, Castle firework display, and cover-band music festival, while remaining collectively suspicious, and sometimes even hostile to new ideas.
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5 WAYS WE CAN REALLY TAKE BACK CONTROL AFTER BREXIT
July 15, 2016By Olivia Hanks
When a vote to ‘take back control’ has given us a new Prime Minister elected by no one – not even by her own party, let alone the country – it’s tempting to give up on it all in despair and just run around collecting imaginary monsters instead. Those, at least, we can control.
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THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
July 14, 2016by Candice Nembhard
There is something to be said for the recent solidarity protests in London, Birmingham and Manchester as organised by the Black Lives Matter movement. Never have I seen such a positive, unionised display of blackness that has caught the eye of not only the media, but also the average citizen. As more articles are released, I am becoming more intrigued by the role that social media has played in galvanising mass movement, and implementing revolutionary politics that will leave behind a long lasting message for people of colour to come.
My experience in the UK regarding institutional violence against people of colour was that the baton was always passed to our stateside counterparts. It is not difficult to see why, when sites such as Twitter and Tumblr opened us up to the lives of Trayvon Martin, Ayesha Jones, Eric Garner and Sandra Bland — long before it caught the attention of popular news sites and news networks. It was important that these narratives were being discussed, as it gave people of all races an insight into the practices within forces that are designed to safeguard us —especially in a society of 24-hour surveillance.
DEALING WITH BREXIT DEPRESSION
July 12, 2016by Kelvin Smith
Content warning: mentions depression
A sign of depression, I was once told, is that you do things that you know are against your own best interests. By this measure, the ‘leave’ vote on 23rd June was an example of a depressed populace voting ‘leave’ not because they thought things might be better, but because a majority didn’t care if they actually got worse. Now for the first time, we really are all be ‘in it together’ — in the shit that is: happy as pigs.
DID BLAIR HAVE A HERO COMPLEX?
July 11, 2016by Natasha Senior
It is difficult to remember a time when Tony Blair was considered a real hero. But that was the mood when he won the 1997 general election in a landslide. ‘New Labour. New Britain’ was his slogan, as he put an end to the old Labour politics that the people distrusted and vowed to carry Britain proudly into the new millennium. People were chanting his name in the streets, the euphoria was palpable. A stark juxtaposition to where we are today, 13 years after the Iraq War began, the world still reeling from Blair’s decisions. A hero is the last thing we would call him now.
Blair has always been regarded as a master tactician who could easily manipulate the situation to his favour and he knew that he possessed this extraordinary power. But it is how he wanted to wield this power that would cause his downfall. He wanted to leave a legacy. A grand ambition that could only be realised through a grand accomplishment: striking down the biggest villains of the world, one after another.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE IRAQ WAR
July 11, 2016by Julian Canlas
Content warning: mentions sexual abuse, torture, Islamophobia
On 15 February 2003, the now-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke out to the largest anti-war demonstration in British political history. In front of two million people at Hyde Park, London, he exclaimed, ‘Stop now or pay the political price!’ He was warning about the consequences of attacking Iraq.
THE LOUD SILENCE OF WHITE ARTISTS ON #BLACKLIVESMATTER
July 10, 2016by Mike Vinti
This week, racial tensions in America have been reignited by the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castle and five members of the Dallas police. The response from the the majority of people of all races has been one of shock and sadness, with many black musicians and artists using their platforms to voice their solidarity with the victims and their support for the BlackLivesMatter movement.
Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z both released statements following the attacks, with Jay-Z even releasing his first new song – Spiritual – in years to support the BLM movement. UK rappers Stormzy and Novelist, two increasingly political artists in their own right, have spoken out, highlighting the issue of police violence in the UK as well as the US. RnB icon Miguel has recorded a song listing the names of black Americans killed by police with plans to update it every week. These are just some of the interventions made by high profile musicians in the last week.
AND THEY SAY RACISM IS DEAD
July 10, 2016by Asia Patel
SOME WORRIES, MATE: THE ONGOING AUSTRALIAN ELECTION
July 9, 2016by Rob Harding
Who’s the Australian prime minister?
Don’t worry if you don’t know. In addition to Australia being very far away, it’s rarely covered by either the British or American media unless someone’s found an entertaining new way of being killed by the wildlife. Even in the digital age, Australia is culturally and politically isolated from the Anglophone western world, marginalised by the sensationalised nightmare of American politics and Anglo-American cultural dominance.
The other reason you might not know is because Australian politics is a turbulent sea of leadership challenges and political manoeuvring. Since 2007 five different prime ministers have been in office — Labor’s Kevin Rudd from 2007 to 2010, was deposed by Julia Gillard, who led a different Labor government until 2013 when Rudd pushed her out again. The infighting was one of the reasons for the rise of the infamous Tony Abbot later in 2013, who ruled for two years before being booted out of office by Malcom Turnbull, the current Liberal Prime Minister, in September 2015.
Last week, a federal election began across the country to elect all 226 members of the Australian parliament.
CRITERION
July 7, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Selenia Bellavia, ‘Criterio’
From the closed recesses of a star
you ask me the real portion
of the clothed hypothesis
you cannot imagine
you do not know the rustle
of the river undivided by an ethos
172 VERSUS 400,000: THE NUMBERS BEHIND LABOUR’S NEXT LEADERSHIP RACE
July 6, 2016by Elliot Folan
So, it’s now looking almost inevitable that there will be some sort of challenge to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, most likely from Wallasey MP Angela Eagle. YouGov gave us a taste of what this would look like with their poll of Labour members last week, but members aren’t the only people who vote in Labour Leadership elections; the £3 registered supporters and affiliated union supporters get a vote too, and they all count the same. So, is it possible to make an estimate of what the full Labour leadership contest would look like based on the numbers we have? I would say yes, and this article is an attempt to do that, as well as a look at other important numbers for the contest.
CROMER, 2013
July 6, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
The rush of the lapping waves of the sea,
the sound of shells, smell of salt, is where,
the humdrum left behind, I can just be.
The horizon before me, I can stare,
watch where the sea meets sky and then it leaves –
nowhere I’d rather be than standing there.
THE LIES WE LOVE TO HEAR
July 5, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
Content warning: mentions xenophobia
The EU referendum result is the beginning of the UK’s divorce from the mainland. In Austria, the recent election results were declared void and must be re-run, giving the far-right Freedom Party another chance at victory. Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France and Geert Wilders’ Dutch Party for Freedom are exploiting every moment of Brexit to force referendums of their own. It seems we have learnt nothing from the past as we hurtle towards far-right governments, high-unemployment and less financial security. Meanwhile in the US, Donald Trump had to delete a tweet deemed anti-Semitic.
These are just some of the recent events that continue to expose the deep flaws within Western societies but none more so than the ease with which politicians are able to con the public into believing blatant untruths and the ability of the public to turn, literally overnight, into unpleasant, frothing-at-the-mouth racist, xenophobic animals. In the case of the UK, these two flaws are actioned by a minority of people, yet seem to encompass the behaviour of the entire country — a perception enabled by another deep flaw, the media.
NOTHING AS IT SEEMS: A REVIEW OF WILL TEATHER’S INFINITE PERSPECTIVES EXHIBIT
July 5, 2016by Hannah Rose
Tiny cheerleaders, an umbrella on the moon, portraits of dead rock stars – all of these and more can be found in the uncanny paintings of Will Teather. Time’s inconsistency runs throughout this unnerving exhibition. Teather plays with time in a way that would be funny if it wasn’t so unsettling. But then again, isn’t that the mark of a significant piece of art? To catch the viewer unawares?
THE STUDENT MOVEMENT MUST GET BEHIND CORBYN
July 4, 2016by Lucy Auger
Battle lines were drawn and war was declared on Jeremy Corbyn when soft left political heavyweight Hillary Benn kick-started a coup within the Labour Party. Consisting of organised resignations by many Shadow Government Ministers on the hour, every hour, the last fortnight’s developments risk leaving Labour permanently cracked down the middle.
THE CLIMATE BETRAYED AGAIN — AND WHO BETTER TO DO IT?
July 4, 2016by George Laver
With the recent news that the Swedish government has backtracked on its pledges at the Paris climate agreement by selling off state-owned coal assets to private buyers EPH, now is a better time than ever to ask: when is it enough?
It should come as no surprise that governments will betray the public façade of agreement on positive terms. Such is the cycle of history. I am thinking, in particular, of the Paris Agreement that took place just last year. Not yet past its stage of infancy, and already it has been shot in the back. The selling off of a lucrative coal asset to private industrial proprietors has set a clear line for where their favour lies and where the climate — which has recently passed a dire milestone — sits in the rank of importance.
This agreement, climate scientists from Stockholm University have warned, will violate the terms of the Paris Agreement. Even so, it is not as if it can be claimed that the Swedish government has worked around loopholes in the agreement. At least if this were the case, with all technicalities applied, the government would not be violating the agreement — that is not to say that they would not be violating climate integrity. But even so, the case as it exists is one of straight up betrayal — and who else could we expect it from?
TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK – AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIK PETERSEN OF MISCHIEF BREW
July 3, 2016by Chris Jarvis
In the early 2000s, American punk music underwent one if its periodical renovations on the underground scenes. Bringing together punk rock’s anger, pace and aesthetic and meshing it with the instruments, skill and stories of folk music, folk-punk shifted the goalposts of what it meant to be a punk band. While Against Me! are probably the most famous, Defiance, Ohio the most innovative and influential, Mischief Brew are probably the best. A decade after their first full-length release Smash the Windows they continue to produce rebel rousing and exciting music, with last year’s This is Not for Children shows their ongoing versatility and eclecticity endures.
LICENCE TO HATE: POST-BREXIT BRITAIN
July 2, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Content warnings: xenophobia, racism, racial slurs
You’d think that after more than three decades of multiculturalism in the UK, racism should have, more or less, become a thing of the past. Yet bigotry has decided to rear its ugly head once more after the recent EU referendum, with many of those who voted for Brexit, in particular those from a working class background, feeling the result has given them the right, and indeed social acceptance, to begin verbally chasing out migrants, in some kind of vague collective bid to “get [their] country back”.
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‘DEVOLUTION’ AND THE TRIUMPH OF TORY DOUBLESPEAK
July 1, 2016by Olivia Hanks
“Let local people decide!” urged George Osborne in his budget speech last summer, as he announced details of his plans for English devolution. What an excellent idea, as, on the face of it, almost everyone across the political spectrum agreed. Unfortunately, local people did not ask for devolution, had no say in deciding its form or content, were kept entirely in the dark about negotiations, and, in the case of East Anglia, are now to be ‘consulted’ on a deal of whose existence they are probably unaware and which, the Treasury has confirmed, there will be no opportunity to amend.
Report after report, from councils, public sector bodies and journalists, has enthused about the ‘golden opportunity’ to give local people a say in the decisions that affect them. Even those expressing serious reservations have praised the ‘principle’ of devolution — ignoring the glaring fact that when you examine the detail of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act, or of individual ‘deals’, this principle is conspicuous by its absence.
WHAT IS DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. WE ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF OUR FUTURE.
July 1, 2016by Natasha Senior
I keep replaying the same slide show, projecting it on the back of my mind. I see the temperature rising, 9/11, the Iraq war, financial collapse. I enter the ballot box for the first time, eager for change. The coalition forms. Mass extinctions. The SNP wins a majority. Tuition fees triple. The Arab Spring. House prices rise. Riots. The Olympics. Food banks. Austerity. Austerity. Austerity. Benefits slashed. The NHS in turmoil. The Eurozone crisis. Scotland votes for unity. Greece votes for change. They are hung, drawn, quartered. We reach the 1°C threshold. The ballot box takes away a piece of me every single time. The far left brings hope but the far right brings hate. They spread their infectious disease. Storms, droughts, forest fires. Everything I fear begins to materialise in front of my eyes. Refugees fleeing the wars we started but we just condemn them to their fates. Floods everywhere. Terrorism. Xenophobia. Half-truths and outright lies. A vote for fear, a vote for suspicion, a vote for fascism.
The weather joins us in this violence as we drive another dagger into the heart of the world. I tell myself lies to ease the pain, looking for ways to return to the past. Hindsight is 20/20 but we never learn from our mistakes. Hatred and fear, symptoms of this deeply tortured nation. I want to leave this place, I want to end the nightmare, but there is no place on Earth that isn’t infected. I collapse into the carnage. I am in free fall. At the mercy of the past. It’s over.
But it is not over. I will not let it be over.
CORBYN OR REVOLUTION
June 30, 2016by Robyn Banks
They said he was unelectable. Throughout Corbyn’s rise to labour leader, those of us who supported him were continually told not to. Conservative commentators watched in angst, and told us it would never happen, and the right wing of the labour party begged members to vote for somebody more moderate, more appealing to the wider electorate, more ‘electable’. But, still, he garnered 59.5% of votes in the 2015 Labour leadership election. 87,000 people joined the labour party after his victory, and more than half of labour members this January had joined since the last election, with many signing up in order to vote for him in the leadership race. 13,000 more have joined this week to support him. It’s clear that he offers something that many people want.
THE GENERATION GAME
June 29, 2016by Kelvin Smith
The older people I know are not rejoicing about the result of the referendum. They are sad, angry, shocked. They are doing what they can: signing petitions, writing to their MPs, looking for rays of hope in (to borrow and reclaim the phrase purloined by the current xenophobic tendency) a country they do not recognise. An additional hurt comes from a feeling that, on top of this, they are being demonised; portrayed as self-satisfied and uncaring as they bask in their privilege of free education, secure pension rights, a place to live and a little money in the bank. The word ‘baby-boomer’ has become a term of abuse. ‘Pensioner’ has become code for selfish old bastard.
The principle of the secret ballot means that the British voting system cannot provide definitive information about the demographics of the ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ votes, but this has not stopped the press from putting forward as fact the idea that older voters were the reason for a ‘leave’ majority. I have not seen any statistics that explain this except for a reliance on polls that we all now know are unreliable. But then this has been a referendum based on lies so there’s no reason to think this should be any different.
MONEY AND MONA LISA – THE VALUE OF ART
June 28, 2016by Jess Howard My younger brother is 14, and with that is coming all manner of traditional 14 year old behaviours. Sulking, door slamming, wearingContinue Reading
HANG ON
June 27, 2016by Cadi Cliff
BREXIT — THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES STARTS NOW
June 27, 2016by Josh Wilson
For all those who voted and campaigned to leave the European Union I would like say congratulations, we may have had a difference of opinion but that shouldn’t leave any animosity between us. For all of those that voted and campaigned to remain within the EU, like myself, it is okay to cry. It is okay to feel upset, angry and disappointed. It is not easy to let go of something you believed in so passionately. The future is scary; it is uncertain what direction the country will now head in, whether we will enter into another period of recession and who our next Prime Minister will be now David Cameron has said he will resign. But this is exactly why we must come to terms with the fact that Brexit is going to happen, and the fight has only just begun.
The referendum was largely fought between different sides of the right-wing of British politics, but the opportunity now lies with the Left. I truly believe everyone on the Left, whatever your party affiliation and which ever way you voted must unite and galvanise around a campaign for a progressive exit from the EU. This view was recently aired by Paul Mason in the Guardian, although in fear of being a hipster, I thought of this before it was ‘cool’ (You can read Paul’s more eloquent article here). In this article I want to cover another angle and lay out some of the biggest battles that are going to be thrown our way in the very near future.
MEANWHILE, SOME GOOD NEWS: PEACE IN COLOMBIA
June 26, 2016By Rob Harding
You know what? Everyone’s writing about how my racist Gran and 17,000,000 of her mates have screwed the UK over. Instead, let’s talk about something positive.
On June 23rd 2016, while the eyes of the world were decisively elsewhere, the Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos emerged from negotiations in Havana with the left-wing FARC rebel group and announced a ceasefire. This ceasefire is the first major break in a fifty-year conflict which has claimed 200,000 lives and left Colombia a mess of drug trafficking and insurgencies. While the deal is nothing more than a ceasefire, it has been hailed by many Colombians as the first step in a peace process that’s been a long time coming.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL BREXIT
June 26, 2016by Mike Vinti
Are you hungover and full of existential dread? Do you have a crippling fear that life will never be the same? Have you said the phrase ‘lets face it we’re fucked’ in the last 24 hours? If you have then boy, do we have just the songs for you.
A EUROPEAN LIFE
June 25, 2016by Kelvin Smith
I was born shortly after the end of the Second World War in a nursing home that overlooked the Mersey, open to the world, “on the stream of trade” as my school song had it.
At primary school we drew Spitfires and Hurricanes in aerial dogfights with Junkers and Messerschmitts. There were bomb-sites in the towns and cities and there were Emergency Water Storage Tanks (marked EWS) everywhere. My first non-English words were Hände hoch and Achtung, closely followed by Frère Jacques. My parents had few foreign friends, although a Dutchman, a fellow chemist, had stayed with them in the early 1940s and he returned home with a broad Lancashire accent. “Reet bloody champion”, he would say.
WE ARE ORLANDO, BUT PERHAPS WE ARE OMAR MATEEN TOO?
June 24, 2016by Emmanuel Agu
Content warning: mass shooting, homophobia, mental health
In the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting, myself members of queer societies and wider society are yet again pulled into self-reflection in this time of despair. The tragedy stands as a solid reminder that those who live queer lives are aberrant; there are those who can never accept us — our death is the only thing that can appease them. A solid reminder that when these atrocities strike our communities — those who are struck hardest will be the queer people of colour, our trans siblings and disabled siblings. It was a solid reminder of the extent of homophobia within our society leads to; whilst simultaneously exposing the exclusion of faith within our spaces of activism and self-organization. It is entirely uplifting to see people from across the world and many facets of society declare their solidarity following #weareorlando trend; I am filled with pride and affirmation that the life style myself and my kinfolk live are valid, we deserve recognition, we deserve to be able to celebrate our cultures — to simply exist, without fear of decimation and harm.
I do not mean to detract from these displays of solidarity, but it is necessary to also ask one another to what extent are we responsible for the development of Omar Marteen?
LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS
June 23, 2016by Joshua Ekin
Content warning: mentions suicide, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, mass shooting, murder
A massacre in an LGBT+ space, by a Muslim, with a legal gun, and alleged connections to Daesh. It’s easy to see how contemporary American anxieties converge in the political aftermath of the Orlando shooting. The media response to this — the largest massacre in modern American history — exposes how truth is controlled by the present political regime.
For those who do not spend their days fretting about radical social discourse, homophobia can be difficult to define. Before Obama legalised same-sex marriage federally, it dominated the media conversation, establishing rights as the fulcrum of group empowerment. While the LGBT+ movement focused on this, statistics revealed that LGBT+ kids across the world were entering sex-work and committing suicide at an alarming rate. If such statistics were ever mentioned, it was to bolster marriage as the unequivocal endowment being denied to the LGBT+ community. The institution Australian Marriage Equality claims that the ‘higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, early school leaving, conflict with peers and parents and suicide ideation [are] all directly related to the discrimination.’ Marx might have called this ‘bridal false-consciousness.’
FIRST LOVE, OF COURSE
June 23, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Valentina Pinza (1982-), ‘Primo amore, naturalmente’
It was love, but we didn’t notice
none of us knew
years have passed
enough
for us to forget everything, the breathing and all the rest
we’ve thrown out those t-shirts
summers and summers ago
maybe even the following year;
that night we watched the stars
who said wishes are lonely?
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IN THE EU IS A LIE
June 22, 2016by Lucy Auger
Last Saturday, on the 18th June, a procession of 250 vehicles containing food, clothes, tents and other aid were turned away at the border by the French Border Police. This cruel attempt to prevent aid from reaching refugees in Calais takes on an even crueller irony when considering that the incident took place two days before World Refugee Day. The irony of the situation becomes ever clearer whilst the border stood firm between refugees and aid, as the Remain campaign reached a crescendo in the last week of campaigning, still citing ‘freedom of movement’ as a core principle of the EU.
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VOTE LEAVE: BREXIT AND THE CRISIS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT
June 22, 2016by Abbie Mulcairn
For a long time, I have been a strong supporter of a so called ‘#Lexit’ from the EU, rejecting both the capitalist stance of Cameron, and the mainstream xenophobic leave campaigns. Nearly all discourse surrounding a Left Exit of the EU is dominated by Liberal Remainers, who ignore the genuine voices of the working class which is tired of decreasing living standards and austerity measures across Europe.
STOP USING INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY IN ONLINE DEBATE
June 22, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
“You can’t even use apostrophes.” I may not have always said it, but I’m certainly guilty of thinking it and similar things to do with punctuation, spelling, and grammar. Whether directed at someone during an online debate, or used to make yourself superior because someone else has bigoted views or an unfavourable political standpoint. Even in cases where someone is verbally attacking you and making personal comments, you’re not the better person for commenting on their intellect or education.
WE ARE WHAT WE VOTE
June 21, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
Content warning: mentions racism, xenophobia, homophobia, mass shooting, murder
Our world seems to be approaching a turning point. Donald Trump is now, essentially, a nominated US presidential candidate. The chances of the UK leaving the EU are realistic, potentially paving the way for German and French referendums. Resistance to antibiotics is climbing to dangerous levels just as the Zika virus furthers its reach. The damage to the environment continues unabated. A man walked into a nightclub and killed many innocent people, either in the name of religion or because he was, sadly, unable to connect with his sexual identity. There seems to be a sense of things unraveling across the globe.
While this might understandably seem like the end of days to some, the truth is slightly blander although maybe just as unpalatable. We have allowed ourselves to get to this point. Us. You and me. Certainly not always by choice but we have allowed a system to continue that relentlessly sabotages us over and over. Time after time we let in those we know deep down will do us no good. Certainly the system seems rigged and that we are, in essence, voting for the lesser of how ever many participating evils there are. But the lesser evil is still evil. It’s not hard to understand why Russell Brand pushed the notion of not voting.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: NORFOLK’S MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS
June 21, 2016by Hannah Rose
Last week I met with two mental health campaigners following an RSA-hosted event at St Michael’s Church called: ‘Combatting Norfolk’s Growing Mental Health Problem.’ The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a fellowship-led organisation, whose aim is to encourage “the sharing of powerful ideas to deliver a 21st century enlightenment.” I’d gone in the hope of being enlightened.
Sadly, I was not.
THERE IS NO THIRD BOX TO TICK: ‘LEXIT’ IS NOT AN OPTION
June 20, 2016by Elliot Folan
So. The referendum is nearly upon us. And the reactionary Leave campaign rolls on, with Farage unveiling his latest piece of racist propaganda and Leave.EU exploiting the homophobic murder of 49 LGBT+ people for political gain. The leaflets that keep dropping through my door from the official Vote Leave campaign, meanwhile, tell me that we must take back ‘control of our borders’ and rid ourselves of EU regulations that protect workers’ rights. The campaign to leave the EU has had no left-wing voices in it, despite the hopes of lapsed Lexiter Aaron Bastani (who has flipped, and will now vote to Remain). Yet some activists, and a handful of Labour MPs, continue to push the narrative that an exit from the EU will be a triumph for progressive politics.
I understand this view. I don’t want to pretend that I find it incomprehensible, or that it’s without any rational basis. The European Union is an institution weighted towards transnational capital, its decisions are made in backroom committees far from public scrutiny or understanding, and the only directly elected institution — the European Parliament — lacks the formal powers of a proper Parliament. The left-wing critiques of the European Union are not without foundation.
CULTURE FOR (WHITE) FASHION
June 19, 2016by Asia Patel
IS ANOTHER EUROPE POSSIBLE? – AN INTERVIEW WITH NATALIE BENNETT
June 19, 2016by Rowan Gavin
With just four days until polling day, the EU referendum continues to dominate news headlines and pub conversations. Like many, I have been exhausted by the fearmongering, unconvincing and generally depressing arguments churned out by the mainstream campaigns on both sides. So when The Norwich Radical asked me to interview Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, about the positive Green case for staying in the EU, I was excited to hear some refreshing ideas on the topic. I also got the chance to speak to David Raby, a Green Party City Councillor in Norwich.
AN UNUSUAL LOVE STORY: APPRECIATING THE DEPTH OF FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS
June 18, 2016by Sunetra Senior
The story of Noamh Baumbach’s 2012 film ‘Frances Ha’ focuses on the drifting friendship between two women in their late twenties. There is a particularly poignant scene where Frances (Greta Gerwig) awakes to find that her best friend, Sophie, (Mickey Sumner) has left without saying goodbye after spending the night sleeping over when they haven’t seen each other in a long time. As Sophie’s car pulls away, Frances runs after her screaming her name. This boldly illustrates the highly sentimental nature of many women’s friendships and the pain that inevitably results because, we as a society, do not respect it. Indeed, through all the big life changes Frances explicitly undergoes — moving between different apartments, facing financial troubles, and trying to launch a tentative dancing career —what remains as palpably constant are the unrequited affections for her ever elusive friend.
Unfortunately, this is very much reflective of what happens in ordinary life.
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REFERENDUMS: THE LOWEST FORM OF DEMOCRACY
June 18, 2016by Olivia Hanks
It’s a view that has been voiced more and more often in recent weeks, as the EU referendum campaign descends ever further into hyberbole and hysteria: we don’t want this referendum. We didn’t ask for it. For the sake of appeasing a few Tory backbenchers who were putting pressure on the prime minister, the British public has been forced into a decision we are not properly equipped to make.
This is not to disparage that public — it would be the same anywhere. Asking millions of people a simple binary question is not a good way to make complex decisions. We elect politicians based on a vision they set out for us, and we expect them to then use their time, knowledge and access to professional expertise to implement it as best they can. Referendums allow politicians to duck tricky questions during election campaigns: instead of taking a position on difficult issues, they can declare rousingly to the people that “this will be your decision” — which might sound very appealing. After all, who doesn’t enjoy being asked what they think?
CAN I HAVE AN EDUCATIONAL REFUND?
June 16, 2016by Candice Nembhard
It’s not wrong to ask what university is actually for, is it? As a soon to be graduate, it almost seems expected to find myself questioning what I have been doing for the last three years. Admittedly, a lot of all-nighters and sleep, but more importantly, I am pondering as to what I’ve actually learnt in my time as a student.
I’ve had a flick through all my old notes, essay papers, and emails and amidst it all, I am struggling to find that hallmark which encapsulates what it means to be a student and a humanities one at that. I am not necessarily taking a stab at the content of my degree, rather I am querying its usefulness, and how I can apply what I’ve been taught into my daily activities. No doubt there are many modules, books, and ideas that will stay with me for some time to come, but my question is, what is the practical value of obtaining a degree and should there even be one?
WRITING OVER THE ACRONYM
June 15, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Content warning: mass shooting, homophobia.
In response.
At midnight they dance the devil’s dance
Gleeful in their devianceAs sun rises
Their hearts Pulse in the ecstasy
Community and camaraderieUnprovoked and unannounced
Space safe no moreOh hold your breath then count to ten
Then fall apart and start againAll the way to forty nine
Mommy I love you.*
SELFIES AND SELF-PORTRAITS
June 15, 2016by Jess Howard
After finding myself caught in a particularly upsetting example of British weather on Monday afternoon, I decided my time hiding from the rain would be best spent nosing round the Impressionist collection currently held in the Courtauld gallery. After fanning away the tears that inexplicably began to spring from my eyes as I stood in front of Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folie-Bergère, I stood for a while to look at Vincent Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, painted shortly after the artist removed his own right ear.
Once I had gotten over my annoyance at the people taking photos of the works around them on their smart phones, instead of just looking at them – which I’m sure could make up another article entirely – I continued to look at the painting, the first real piece of Impressionist art I think I have ever seen in person.
THEPEWPEWLIFE AND WHY I’M HOPELESSLY ANGRY
June 14, 2016by Rob Harding
Content warning: mentions mass shooting, homophobia, Islamophobia.
As you know, on Sunday a homophobic mass-murderer killed 49 people and seriously wounded 53 others in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He used a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle, took hostages and was only finally killed when the Orlando police rammed the wall of the club with an armoured vehicle and forced him to come out, before gunning him down.
News media and political statements have been full of Islamophobic vitriol and scaremongering. Owen Jones walked off Sky News after deciding he was sick of listening to Mark Longhurst and Julia Hartley-Brewer trying to downplay the homophobic aspects of shooting up a gay club in favour of a more anti-Daesh approach — despite the attack not yet being confirmed either way if in any way connected to Daesh. As Julian Canlas commented for The Norwich Radical, ‘It is not just an ‘Orlando nightclub massacre’. It is an Orlando lgbtQ+ Latinx nightclub massacre.’ Florida governor Rick Scott suggested that the best thing one could do to aid victims of the shooting was pray, and dodged questions about what could be done to stop further shootings— the NRA logo practically glistening behind his eyes.
WE’RE HERE. WE’RE QUEER. AND WE MATTER: THE HIDDEN FACE OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY
June 14, 2016by Julian Ignacio Canlas
Content warning: mentions racism, homophobia, suicide, arson, massacre, mental health
On June 12th 2016, a mass shooting happened at Pulse, gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, USA. 49 people were killed and 52 injured, mostly of Latinx descent. Across the world, lgbtQ+ communities and allies have been organising vigils and other events to express support and condolences.
‘Look, you don’t understand this because you’re not gay,’ Owen Jones said, before storming out of a Sky News debate on the massacre, after the two presenters refused to see the incident in a lgbtQ+ context.
ANTI-CONFESSIONAL 3
June 13, 2016by Jake Reynolds
I don’t know where I go
but boy, do I go.
Meadows, mole-holes,
traps of dead thistle.
Manholes for ditches.You’ve been ditched. Remember?
I watched you cough dust and wipe
sand from your eyes. You said
you’d seen me in a past life.
We were here, on this dirt road.
WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER: FOOTBALL, POLITICS, AND THE ROLE OF MUSIC
June 12, 2016by Mike Vinti
This weekend saw the start of Euro 2016, every European’s second favourite quadrennial football tournament. As I write, football fans of every stripe have descended on France and the op-ed writers of every political persuasion are spending their time priming think-pieces about what the clashes between England fans and the French police say about the EU referendum. However, the arrival of not-quite-the World Cup 2K16 also brings with it a chance to break away from eye-ball gauging mundanity of the referendum – to instead talk about, you guessed it, the relationship between music and football.
Football and music have always been locked in something of a confusing relationship. As someone who doesn’t really watch Football but listens to a lot of music, catching snippets of fan-made chants, usually through Facebook videos, has been my main access to the culture surrounding Britain’s favourite sport. The more attention I’ve paid to how the two interact, the more I’ve come to realise that music plays a huge, often vital role in the world of football.
THE GENDER SLIDER – LGBT+ REPRESENTATION IN GAMING
June 11, 2016by Rob Harding
TW: Homophobia, transphobia.
On June 2nd, the latest in the life-simulating retail behemoth Sims franchise, The Sims 4, was patched to allow players to create non-binary and transgender characters. As IBTimes reported, the free update ‘unlocks over 700 items of clothing’ for either of the game’s binary genders, allowing ‘Female sims [to] wear suits like Ellen [DeGeneres], and male Sims [to] wear heels like Prince.’ This update has apparently been a year in the making in conjunction with GLAAD, but it was launched with little fanfare (most major gaming sites haven’t picked up the story, and there’s been comparatively little buzz online) and provided completely free of charge.
That last part was the most surprising for those versed in the gaming zeitgeist. EA, which owns The Sims’ publisher Maxis, is famous for its brutally exploitative commercial tactics and complete lack of corporate ethics, but they do have a surprisingly positive reputation for LGBT equality, at least amongst their workers. While it’s depressing that it took four massive games, sixteen years, 114 (and counting) editions and expansions and billions of gamer-hours of deleting the ladders leading into swimming pools to finally realise the dream of letting people put boy clothes on their girl Sims, it is encouraging that even a product like The Sims is finally starting to include people who aren’t just cisgender and straight.
iMOAN 2.0
June 10, 2016by Joe Cook
We’re the generation of bright screens and a dark future
Biological computers
A digital ball and chain
But when things go wrong we can’t turn off and on again
We live in a world where the most important connection is WIFI
And memories are captured in pixels rather than eyes
GENERATION PARK NORWICH: TOO BIG TO FAIL?
June 9, 2016by Suzanne Jones
In March this year the Evening News reported that Generation Park Norwich (GPN) had run out of money, leaving its backers (Norwich (NPH) LLP) with debts of £3M. The ‘green’ credentials of UEA, the leading advocate of the scheme, had been further undermined by the complete failure of their own biomass project, at a cost of £10M, and were first reported in the Norwich Radical in August 2015.
Norwich City Council (NCC) seemed to be back to square one after spending 12 years and £700k of public funds trying to come up with a viable use for the Utilities Site, to the east of the city centre. To quote Clive Lewis, the Norwich South MP, the whole scheme seemed to be ‘dead in the water’ before it had even got off the drawing board.
Yet now, like a phoenix from the incinerator’s ashes, it has miraculously risen again; ‘mysterious’ new backers have emerged, and things are back on track for the planning application to finally be heard in July or August. How is it that proposals which have been dogged by controversy, bankruptcy and delay refuse to die? Are there reasons why Generation Park Norwich (GPN) is just too big to fail?
iMOAN
June 8, 2016by Joe Cook
We live in a magpie society
Shiny objects we crave
If you want to live like a king you best work like a slave
When there’s spoilt brats talking about their sweet 16
There’s childrens whose drinking water ain’t even clean
Daddy didn’t get you the car you wanted?
I hope that old mansion you live in turns out to be haunted
REVIEW – EMILY HARRISON’S ‘I CAN’T SLEEP ‘CAUSE MY BED’S ON FIRE’
June 8, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
I have seen Emily Harrison share her work countless times at Burn After Reading events, and at my own night, She Grrrowls. She never fails to amaze me in the way she is able to articulate herself, speaking out about mental health issues – amongst other subjects – interwoven with links to gender and class. When I read lines about imaging someone loves you ‘when you simply asked/during a routine blood test, ‘Emily, how are you doing today?’ I sort of imagine she’s what I would be like if I were an extrovert.
The first couple of poems are familiar to me, and it’s hard not to picture Harrison on stage delivering these words, because as much as it’s incredible to be able to read the pieces, seeing them live is an important part of the way the text works, as it tends to be with Burning Eye Books – the go-to publisher for writers who refuse to remain on one side of the page/stage divide.
SWEET TRANSVESTITE? REPRODUCING FILMS IN 2016
June 7, 2016by Jess Howard
When it comes to film remakes, many viewers are very protective of their original cinematic loves. In the same way that people react to novels being turned into films, many feel that film scripts should be left well alone, with the common opinion being that it was the original script, cast, and production that made their old favourites work so well. However, as with any form of art, films are constantly ageing, and so new perspectives are constantly being developed and incorporated.
MAYBE TUESDAY
June 6, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Ginevra Lilli (1972-), ‘Magari martedì’
They come, small line of dromedaries
in the desert. Thirsty words
lined up, also tied up
one to the other. One line
seemingly obedient. Consenting.#WEDESERVEBETTER
June 5, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
CASUAL RACISM: WHY IS IT STILL A PROBLEM IN ASIA?
June 4, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Disclaimer: mentions violence against women, casual racism
Last week, the Internet was sent into its usual frenzy over the latest political correctness issue. Amidst the now sadly all-too-common Western-centric controversies, such as actress Rose McGowan raising the issue of the use of casual violence against women in movie posters to market ‘X-Men: The Apocalypse’, the Internet also reacted strongly to a television advert from China that was making its rounds on social media. The ad, featuring national detergent brand Qiaobi, contained levels of racism considered disturbingly casual by most standards.
In the commercial, a pouch of Qiaobi cleaning liquid is forced into a black actor’s mouth by a Chinese woman, who goes on to bundle him head-first into a washing machine. After a few cycles, she opens the lid and in his place, a Chinese man emerges instead. He proceeds to wink at the camera before the tagline appears onscreen: “Change begins with Qiaobi”.
HAS CAROLINE LUCAS KILLED THE GREEN LEADERSHIP ELECTION?
June 3, 2016by Olivia Hanks
The Green Party has come a long way in the last few years. When Natalie Bennett took over from Caroline Lucas as leader in 2012, the party had 13,000 members and won just over a quarter of a million votes in the 2010 general election. In 2015, that rose to more than one million votes, while membership shot up to 60,000. The party is now embarking on its first leadership election under these drastically changed conditions. With Bennett announcing last month that she would not be re-standing for the leadership, the stage was set for an exciting contest for the votes of this vastly increased electorate, with many hoping for a debate on the direction of the party and anticipating the emergence of new voices.
EUROPE, YOUTH, AND AN ENDURING TASTE OF NATIONALISM
June 3, 2016by Sam Naylor
On the 20th and 21st of May, myself and thirteen other students from the University of East Anglia (UEA) attended the European Youth Event (EYE) in Strasbourg. Over 7,500 young people attended the event, coming together to share ideas on how to tackle youth-related issues through interaction with European decision-makers and speakers.
Through attending plenary sessions on addressing youth unemployment and migration, to panels of Human Rights Heroes and ERASMUS+ opportunities, right the way through to pop-up-tent-style refugee meetings and anti-war talks, EYE provided a space for European youth to imagine a progressive future for the continent and its young people. Sadly, this sparked the cynic in me as the European Union is by no means a shining institution of perfection. An inner voice continued to nudge, searching for some sort of foul play; was the event just one big act to get European youth on board with the EU project? Or is it fair to view young people as more likely to push for their ideals and move away from business-as-usual politics and policies? I’d still like to believe in the latter.
FORTY POUNDS
June 2, 2016by Robyn Banks
Is this vague dissent I feel?
Or apathy? Resigned to fates
Predicted, and foodbank meals,
By sociologists and states,
BLACK STUDENTS IN WHITE EDUCATION
June 2, 2016by Candice Nembhard
In May 2016, Birmingham City University announced it will be accepting applications for its new degree in ‘Black Studies’— the first of its kind in Europe. The course is said to be an interdisciplinary area of study that will look into migration of the African diaspora, black scholars, and the effects of economics within black communities. Estimated to parallel the popular and esteemed African-American study programmes present at the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Howard University, this programme is finally addressing an underlying problem within British education. More specifically, why black voices have long been ignored or overridden in academic spheres. As a Birmingham native, I have never been more proud to witness this advancement, but we cannot stand by the belief that its implementation is enough.
‘ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER TOURISM’: THE DARK SIDES OF THE CRUISE INDUSTRY
May 31, 2016by Rob Harding
TW: Sexual assault
On the 22nd of May, the Oasis-class cruise ship Harmony of the Seas set sail from Southampton docks on its first commercial voyage. The world’s largest cruise ship, the Harmony is owned by Royal Caribbean and can carry up to 5,400 passengers as well as 2,100 crew. The ship will be sailing on various European cruise routes until October, when it moves to the Caribbean for the winter. The vessel resembles a block of brutalist flats with a pointy bit at the front, and rooms can cost up to £3,000 for a seven-day cruise. The industry boomed in the early 2010s and is still going, with over around 22.5 million passengers carried worldwide in 2015 at a profit of somewhere around $39.6 billion.
WHO NEEDS SEQUINS WHEN YOU’VE GOT YOUR OWN HARP? N&N FESTIVAL REVIEW OF WILD LIFE
May 30, 2016by Hannah Rose
‘Can you define an audience the same way they define you?’ This was one of the questions asked by a young performer in Wild Life at the Norwich Playhouse, showcasing as part of the Norfolk and Norwich festival 2016. A question left hanging throughout the duration of the play, if that’s what it should be called. Wild Life is an extraordinary piece of metatheatre exploring the teenage psyche through a montage of music, performance, sound recordings, and monologues. Its cast is composed of ten 15-22 year olds from Norfolk, all with exceptional singing and songwriting skills.
LONDON
May 30, 2016by Jake Reynolds
In response.
I find London throwing tennis balls
against the walls of my bank account
when overdrawn and, in despair,
I find it again in the coin London plucks
from behind my ear. Once, I dropped London
in the sea. The dolphins own it now.
WOMEN AND PUNK: SHAPING THE GENRE 40 YEARS ON
May 28, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Last week, Music That Matters looked at the 40th anniversary of punk and how our understanding of its history is typically one which erases the efforts and achievements of women musicians and people of colour. Today, the scene is often still seen as a male and white space, with punk shows frequently having male dominated crowds queuing up to see white men thrashing on guitars in shabby venues.
But it looks like things are changing. 2016 feels like it is becoming a rebirth of women in punk, and critically, as if it is women of colour who often are leading the way. More women are touring, more are getting bigger stages and longer sets, and more are getting the media coverage that they deserve. Among the nostalgic reflection, this year, dozens of punk albums will be released. Some will become instant classics, others will fade from memory as quickly as they came. Here are 10 bands leading the British punk scene this year, and the women that are making them shape the future of the genre.
BEYONCÉ AND HER REFRESHING LEMONADE
May 27, 2016by Emmanuel Agu
Lemonade, Beyoncé’s latest album, is aptly named. In the political climate we live in with constant reminders of the atrocities that black people face, and a music industry that seems to be losing its greatest and brightest this year, nothing could have been more refreshing than this album for popular culture and especially for black women. This is undoubtedly the strongest piece of work Beyoncé has ever produced — musically, visually, and politically. With features and samples from a wide variety of artists including James Blake, Jack White, Diplo and for a second time another sample from Outkast’s’ ‘Spottieottiedopaliciousness’ (which I will never complain about), Knowles-Carter goes from strength to strength and I am truly left to question if it is ever possible for her to release an album less brilliant than its predecessor.
NORFOLK AND NORWICH FESTIVAL: PEDAL-POWERED CAR CHASE
May 26, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
Saturday. 9:30pm. I’m sitting cross-legged on the grass of Chapelfield Gardens, and all around me the Garden Party is still going strong. The Adnams Spiegeltent is a roar of chatter and noise, and beside it a large mechanical dragon — rather charmingly named Elsie — turns the air orange with the glow from her flamethrower-covered body. I’m not here for either of those events, great though they were. I’m here for Pedal-Powered Car Chase, a fifteen-minute performance involving inventive live music, a handful of plucky volunteers, and some exercise in the name of making us think.
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FROM ‘ON LIVING’
May 26, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Martina Campi (1978-), from Sull’abitare
From the following academic day Penelope
drags on her face a pale-sided sun
and, to one side, unravels, extraordinarily powerful
backwards, tightly wrapped up in
cellophane, for the nights to come, the great labour 
REVIEW: DICKO/MATTHEW DICKERSON IN YALLOPS
May 25, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
Along St Augustine’s Street in Norwich, you will find a collection of gallery spaces that are part of Nunns Yard. These include Nunns Yard itself, Yallops and Thirteen A. They offer small unconventional spaces to exhibit contemporary art work, including a smaller hire fee of £10 per day for students.
During a recent visit to Norwich, I spent some time at Yallops Gallery and saw the private view of Matthew Dickerson’s fine art illustration work. He is known more for digital illustration and concept art, yet this exhibition featured nine framed original hand-painted ink pieces on A3 paper. These were on sale for an affordable price of £150.
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EXPERIENCING FAITH: THE SPIRITUALITY OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
May 24, 2016by Liam Hawkes
Religion gets a pretty bad rep in the media, and some of the time it is justified. The following reflections are not intended to directly deal with the oppressive histories (and some present-days) of particular religious doctrines. Instead I want to reflect on the structure and nature of faith and spirituality, to investigate the effect it can have on our everyday lives. These reflections are in part inspired by my experiences of the faith of others, looking from the outside. This semi-voyeuristic experience of faith and spirituality led me to question the structure and direction of my own beliefs and how they could be grounded in a kind of blind faith.
I do not want to claim that religion is just a passive component of a believers’ personality, because a lot of the time it very much defines and shapes their understanding of themselves, and their world. No matter what history faith has had, or the extremes fundamentalists go to, or the religious violence which has permeated human history, there is something fundamentally fascinating, and ultimately useful, about faith and spirituality. I think that a knowledge of the comparative structures of religions and experiences of spirituality can enrich our lives, and we should not ridicule or dismiss those with strong faith in their religion.
THANKS JEREMY, BUT I DON’T WANT YOUR SYMPATHY
May 24, 2016by Finn Northrop
Trigger warning: Rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence
Last week was Mental Health Awareness Week, and each year this presents a fantastic opportunity for huge numbers of committed activists to not only raise awareness of a variety of mental health conditions but also to promote self-care and self-help methods, and to give people the bravery to seek help whether that means reaching out to a close friends or taking to the step of going to their GPs and seeing what services are available to them.
THE ARROGANCE OF THE QUEEN AND ‘LIVING WITHIN OUR MEANS’
May 23, 2016by George Laver
On Wednesday 18 May, the ceremonial state opening of parliament accompanied by the Queen’s speech took place. Pomposity and excessive grandeur aside, what it meant for the radical mind was something altogether divergent from the norm; a fresh load of unpicking and semantics in which to delve in order to blow away the proverbial smoke from the mirror. The point of interest, however, came with the Queen’s declaration – without a hint of irony – that we all must “live within our means”. Undoubtedly, this opened up a lot of questions to be answered – whose means? what is this statement saying? why are we to live within them? – within the broader context of class society.
‘SUCCESS AS A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY’ – THE MARKETISATION OF THE HE WHITE PAPER
May 23, 2016by Lucy Auger
We are being scammed again. The Higher Education White Paper, whilst deliberately wordy and confusing, is the latest attack on our right to a free and fair education system. Quite poignantly, our government’s HE White Paper is titled ‘Success as a Knowledge Economy.’ As the name suggests, it is a blueprint for the further marketisation of education. It is a model deliberately constructed to strangle universities of funding so that they can never improve when they fail to meet new Teaching Excellence Framework standards, and it is a further attempt to rank and commercialise universities where education is seen as a commodity to be bought and sold, and students are taught that they exist only as consumers.
TACKLING THE STIGMA OF MENTAL HEALTH IN ASIA
May 22, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Disclaimer: mentions suicide, depression, physical and mental abuse
Tackling the stigma against mental illness is arguably gaining ground among Western students and in Western society in general. However, the task of helping to achieve widespread understanding and acceptance of mental health still remains highly stigmatized in Asian cultures, regardless of which region of the world they’re in.
There may be increasing discourse on the human rights of the mentally-unwell, as well as the demand for their social inclusion and the need for resources to tackle mental health, but the issue remains seriously ignored in the developing world, or even among diasporic Asian communities in the West. In fact, what the dialogue really needs to address is the larger issue at hand that mental health-related problems are still exceptionally stigmatised in Asian society.
PUNK AND ERASURE: 40 YEARS LATER
May 22, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Anniversaries are strange things. Almost exclusively, they consist of rose-tinted, uncritical and nostalgic assessments of whatever they seek to commemorate. 2016, forty years since the ‘birth’ of punk, appears no different. Expect Union Jacks, safety pins galore and excessive images of John Lydon in BBC sanctioned documentaries. Expect descriptions of how important Malcolm Mclaren was to punk’s success, claims that New Rose was without contention the first punk rock single and a neat lineage where pub rock became punk – a very British phenomenon.
Inadequate as such histories are, they are demonstrative of the problem we have with understanding punk as a cultural occurrence. Debate rages amongst fans about whether punk was ever grassroots, whether it was ever political, whether any of the anti-establishment ethos was ever genuine, or instead fabricated by an astute record industry seeking to find the new zeitgeist. Adherents of either theory will read selectively into the evidence and ignore anything which would disprove their dogma.
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THE STRUGGLE OF PAINTING YOUR MANY FACES
May 21, 2016by Umber Ghauri
When you are agender, queer, Pakistani/arab/brown, feminist, perceived as a woman and have mental illnesses, deciding how to express your identity can be a little difficult. I’ve always been interested in how the choices I make about my appearance affect my own self-image. And as a makeup artist it is fraught territory. But I think its fraught for anyone and everyone.
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AIR POLLUTION IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE
May 20, 2016by Olivia Hanks
The news that Boris Johnson buried a report on air pollution around schools while mayor of London does not exactly come as a surprise. Johnson’s record on air quality was atrocious – despite widespread concern over the issue throughout his eight years as mayor, virtually nothing has been done to alleviate what the World Health Organisation has called a public health crisis. The Campaign for Clean Air in London and the Environmental Audit Committee have been highly critical of Johnson for his inaction. And although London is the worst offender, many UK cities are in breach of EU laws on pollution, with little sign that the problem is being taken sufficiently seriously. Castle Meadow in Norwich has recorded nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels above EU legal limits every year since 2007 – a situation which Bert Bremner, the Labour city councillor with responsibility for environmental issues, described in a BBC Look East interview (interview starts at 4:31) earlier this year as “not dangerous […] the reality is what you feel when you’re there”. This, replicated across the UK, is the attitude that has led to inertia on this issue for so long – the ‘my grandma smoked 80 a day and she lived to 102’ school of argument.
NORFOLK AND NORWICH FESTIVAL 2016: GET OUT THERE AND GET TALKING
May 20, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
A crush of smells. A roar of voices. Low, sultry light — the kind of light that encourages deep talking and kisses in corners. The Murderers is one of the city’s best pubs, and for good reason. But after just one drink I was out the door and off into the chilly dark with one thing on my mind. Just a few streets over a man was about to do some very odd things in the name of art, and I was dead set on being there. The event was Flat, and it marked the beginning of the annual Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Not even the cold or one rude whistler could spoil the mood. The first half of Flat was spellbinding, watched in silence by an enthralled crowd. The second half was less about mesmerising leaps and more about thinking, asking its viewers questions about their perceptions of time, space, and gravity. That’s how it always is with art. You think you’re just here to watch a man jump around in a harness? Surprise! Have some deep thoughts instead. It’s a constant no matter the medium, and while it may weird out some it’s also the most important thing that art does. Art makes us think. It makes us talk. Art without conversation is meaningless.
GLOBAL RAPE: SEXUAL ASSAULT IS EVERYONE’S CONCERN
May 19, 2016by Candice Nembhard
Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault
South African high court Judge, Mabel Jansen, has come under fire in regards to recently published comments in which she claimed black men find gang-rape of a “baby, daughter and mother a pleasurable past time.” Jansen’s accusations came alongside a series of other inflammatory comments in which she likened rape and murder as cultural pastimes within the (South African) black community. Although Jansen later reported that these comments were taken out of context, this does point to a larger issue of how we understand rape, both as a social and theoretical practice.
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THE 10 PEOPLE WHO COULD BE THE NEXT LEADER OF THE GREEN PARTY
May 19, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Something somewhat unprecedented is happening. The media is paying attention to the internal workings of the Green Party. Since Natalie Bennett announced her intentions not to stand for re-election as the party’s leader, speculation has begun to bubble around the online media about who her replacement might be. Early predictions from pundits included the party’s 2016 London Mayoral Candidate Sian Berry, former European Parliamentary candidate Rupert Read and Member of the House of Lords Jenny Jones have each ruled themselves out of the race (Sian Berry was technically ineligible to stand in the first place).
Almost immediately, Ladbrokes opened a market on the race, initially comprising the obvious frontrunners, before eventually taking random, and sometimes outrageously comical suggestions of potential candidates from Twitter. Unsurprisingly, then, little light has been shed on the realistic contenders, the notable exception being The Guardian’s quote heavy coverage, and Josiah Mortimer’s round up in Open Democracy. We have a long way to go from now until the end of the election in September, and much could change between now and then, but here is some mostly unfounded speculation on who the big contenders could be.
UN PEACEKEEPING’S SEXUAL ABUSE PROBLEM, PART 2
May 18, 2016by Rob Harding
TW: Sexual assault, rape, genocide.
Last week, we looked at the UN’s recent history of sexual assault and corruption on peacekeeping operations around the world. Despite the best efforts of two secretary-generals and nearly 20 years of reported crimes, the UN has yet to eliminate the persistent problems of ‘transactional sex’ and straight-up assault from among its peacekeeper forces. The crimes are committed both by members of various national militaries contributed to UN forces and by civilian employees, all of whom are currently essentially immune to prosecution. But what is the United Nations doing about it? What other action could be taken?
The United Nations isn’t ignoring this problem, and after the forced resignation of Babacar Gaye, (commander of the particularly abusive MINUSCA mission in the Central African Republic) in August 2015 the organisation has actively begun implementing new measures to prevent this kind of peacekeeper abuse. Unfortunately, the action that’s been taken so far hasn’t been particularly heartening.
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RADICAL MENTAL HEALTH, AND WHY WE NEED IT NOW MORE THAN EVER
May 18, 2016by Emma Draper
Disclaimer: mentions loss, bereavement, depression
Until 2013, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) incorporated a ‘bereavement clause’ into the criteria for major depressive disorder, excluding patients from a diagnosis of clinical depression if they suffered bereavement in the last two weeks. Put simply: if someone you love has just died and you cry all day and can’t eat and everything is terrible — well, that’s a healthy and expected response which we call ‘grief’. The removal of the clause by the American Psychiatric Association was contentious, with accusations made that psychiatrists were trying to ‘medicalise’ mourning. One commentator called it the most controversial decision since the removal of homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in 1973.
For me, this illustrates a lot of pertinent questions about how we think and talk about mental illness. What does mental wellness look like? How do we draw the distinction between the normal fluctuations of a healthy mindset and ‘pathological’ functioning? Does having the authority to categorise what mental states are ‘normal’ give psychiatrists social and ideological influence beyond their remit?
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NORFOLK POLITICS: POWER, CORRUPTION, AND LIES?
May 18, 2016by Phil Di Palma, Norwich Green Party
There has been widespread Labour Party outrage since 9th May, when the four Green councillors on Norfolk County Council (Norfolk CC) made public their decision — agreed in April after many months of discussion — to no longer support Labour’s George Nobbs, leader of a so-called “Rainbow Alliance” of Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP councillors since 2013. Two recent pieces in the Norwich Radical, by Josh Wilson and Hannah Rose, discuss this issue and the Greens’ role in a “Left Alliance”. Here, I will answer the questions “how can the Green Party justify withdrawing support for a party of the left”, and “has their decision resulted in a ‘new order’ at Norfolk CC?”.
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RODRIGO DUTERTE: PRO LGBT, PROLETARIAT DICTATORSHIP
May 17, 2016by Julian Ignacio Canlas
‘I don’t care if I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.’
-Rodrigo DuterteDisclaimer: mentions rape
Rodrigo Duterte’s personal politics is defined by a confusing blend of liberal and authoritarian beliefs. His politics have certainly elicited a wide variety of reactions, capturing the imagination of even the Western media outlets through racist depictions of international politics — or not. Even more varied and stranger are his supporters, ranging from religious leaders to the LGBT community, to sex workers and farmers. So how exactly did the new president of the Philippines, dubbed ‘The Punisher’, manage to enthrall the masses?
4 REASONS WHY NATALIE BENNETT HAS BEEN A GREAT GREEN PARTY LEADER
May 17, 2016by Chris Jarvis
On Sunday evening, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett announced that she would not be standing for re-election in the forthcoming Leadership Election. After four years at the helm of what is now the third largest political party in England and Wales, the media and followers of politics have begun to reflect on her time in office and the legacy she is leaving behind.
Unsurprisingly, a substantial proportion of the coverage has focussed on the Australian born leader’s shortcomings, reminding us of her ‘brain fade’ in an LBC interview with Nick Ferrari or the time she seemed to support decriminalising membership of organisations such as ISIS in an unforgiving clash with Andrew Neil on The Sunday Politics. Those things notwithstanding, it is clear to that Bennett has undoubtedly been an effective and successful Leader, who will be remembered more for her long list of achievements, rather than by her failures. Here are just four of them.
HIGH VERSUS LOW ART: WHAT DESERVES A SPACE IN THE GALLERY?
May 17, 2016by Jess Howard
Often, we start out with an initial opinion of a topic, event or article, and end up completely changing sides once we have engaged in an in-depth exploration, and this is exactly what has happened with an article I recently read.
In early May 2016, a particularly scathing opinion piece was written by Guardian journalist Jonathan Jones regarding the presence of magazine covers in gallery spaces. The article, titled ‘Kate’s Vogue shots shouldn’t be in a gallery. They’re not art.’ discusses Jones’ opinions on whether or not photographs of Kate Middleton have the right to be hanged in The National Portrait Gallery. Regardless of how we feel about the photographs, or indeed the monarchy, it does raise an important question. Namely, what constitutes high or low art, and what is deserving of exhibition space.
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL: NUS DISAFFILIATIONS
May 16, 2016by Lucy Auger
Today, the Higher Education White Paper was published, with its proposals for entrenched market forces in Univerisites and further increased tuition fees. The media narrative beforehand, though, was not of the hard work NUS have put into fighting this, but instead on disgruntled Students’ Unions looking to sever their ties from their national union. In one week, two universities have disaffiliated from NUS. The 9th of May saw Lincoln SU vote in a referendum to disaffiliate, and on the 12th, Newcastle followed suit. With more referendums to come, most notably at Oxford and Cambridge, it is highly likely that we will see more disaffiliations. Now more than ever, we must recognise the growing disillusionment with NUS that has been gaining momentum at an alarming rate all year.
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: CAROL ANN DUFFY’S POETRY DESERVES CELEBRATION
May 16, 2016by Jake Reynolds
Here’s something that will make poetry sound a little more dangerous (but not really), and doesn’t involve tattooing Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ from your neck to your toes: it is said that the poets chosen for the UK’s prestigious poet laureateship are plagued with a curse.
That is to say, the poems written during a poet’s tenure as poet laureate – an honorary position in which there is no strict demand but certainly an expectation for the poet to write original poems for important national occasions – are sub-standard when read in light of poet’s earlier, or later, work.
THE RIGHT TO HATE: SEX, SCIENCE, AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
May 15, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
TW: sexual assault, rape.
It’s time we talked about sex. Or, actually – it’s time we talked about how we talk about sex. For people who put sex in every conceivable form of media, we get awfully squeamish when it comes to talking about it like grown-ups. We’d rather let ways of talking about sex remain unchanged for decades than update them to be less 1950s and a lot more healthy.
Let’s get to the point: how is it that the same species that can build spaceships and write masterpieces such as Hamilton came up with the phrase “the right to mate?” And why is it still in common use?
REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC – AN INTERVIEW WITH MATT OF DEAD CITY RIOT
May 15, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Describing themselves as “more than simply a group of musicians” and as “part of an ever growing, international, revolutionary movement continuously moving towards freedom, justice and peace, Dead City Riot are one of Bristol based Riot Ska Records’ greatest imports. Blending hardcore, ska and reggae, DCR’s imagery, sound and lyrics ooze their political values and beliefs. A brief look at their Facebook page is illustrative of this, with its “Refugees Welcome” images, calls to celebrate International Workers Day and the description of their genre as “revolutionary music”.
SKEPTA, CHANCE THE RAPPER AND RAP’S DIY REVOLUTION
May 15, 2016by Mike Vinti
The last week or so has seen the release of two of the most anticipated projects in recent musical history; Skepta’s fourth album Konnichiwa and Chance the Rapper’s third mixtape Coloring Book.
With both MCs having made a name for themselves over the past couple of years as being pioneers in their respective fields of rap music, the release of their full length efforts has served to cement their reputations and effectively crown them as kings of their respective sides of the Atlantic. However, while both projects are excellent musically speaking, what’s most interesting about the hype surrounding both Chance and Skepta is that they’re both totally independent artists.
UN PEACEKEEPING’S SEXUAL ABUSE PROBLEM, PART I
May 14, 2016by Rob Harding
TW: Sexual assault, rape, genocide.
Founded in 1948, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations is intended to ‘help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace.’ Their role is not as direct military intervention during conflicts; instead, they observe ongoing peace processes and stop ceasefires and peace treaties from collapsing back into armed conflict, while also working to help refugees and the displaced. Peacekeepers aren’t just soldiers- they also employ aid workers, diplomats, medics, engineers and negotiators. They’re the ‘world’s army’, with their distinctive blue helmets and white-painted vehicles, and in their prime they’ve stood up to global superpowers and stabilised seemingly irredeemable trouble spots.
Despite very public failures like the disastrous Somalia mission and the failed attempts to prevent genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, the United Nations continues to operate peacekeeping missions around the world. They work to protect and improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world – those living in some of the world’s worst war zones.
Unfortunately, that’s the problem.
LOCAL ELECTIONS REVEAL A LOW TURNOUT AND A DELICATE HARMONY
May 14, 2016by Hannah Rose
Norwich strengthened its status as a Labour hold council at the local elections on May 5th, winning four seats from the Greens in Mancroft, Nelson, Town Close and Wensum. With this the case, it might seem surprising that the role of Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner went to Conservative Lorne Green, who quite comfortably beat Labour’s Chris Jones. Looking at the city result you quickly see that Jones was the preferred choice – by a 10,000-vote strong margin. So Norwich wanted Labour – but Norfolk didn’t. This result is a stark reminder of the difference in political opinion between the city and the rest of the country – a county where UKIP and Conservative have half the seats.
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SOCIALISM IN THE SENEDD? – THE WALES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN
May 14, 2016by Tara Gulwell
Like many other young, lefty Welsh voters in the recent assembly elections I became completely fed up with Welsh Labour and Carwyn Jones. With rising austerity in Wales, I longed for a much more aggressively socialist program for my nation. In that desire was born my support for Plaid Cymru. I become smitten with their commitment to socialism and environmentalism. I also support Welsh independence as a long-term goal, and of course who can deny Leanne Wood’s enthusiasm and charisma? On the flip-side of Wood’s charm was Jones’ arrogance in thinking he was undefeatable and his implicit support of UK state hegemony.
A WHITE VENEER: THE HIDDEN PREJUDICE IN LIBERAL CULTURE
May 13, 2016by Sunetra Senior
The seed for this article was planted when I was watching Aziz Ansari’s ‘Master of None’: a clever, New York-based sitcom about a young, Indian actor trying to make it. Here was Ansari, a talented Asian comedian – who just by being himself – was getting the respect he deserved. Very few actors in Hollywood have been able to build their careers up to a point where they can claim producer/writer status; let alone those facing institutional racism. This guy had joined the ranks of Happy Days’ Ron Howard, creator of hit, indie show Arrested Development, and Saturday Night Live’s Amy Poehler, who went on to write the warm, bureaucratic satire Parks and Recreation. So why, despite all this, was I still feeling uneasy?
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RECLAIM THE POWER: WHY I JOINED HUNDREDS TO SHUT DOWN THE UK’S LARGEST OPENCAST COAL MINE
May 13, 2016by Benjamin Brown
On Tuesday May 3rd, there was an aberration from my normal routine. Rather than dragging myself reluctantly out of bed, I was up at dawn, tense and excited. Rather than preparing for a day of work, I was zipping myself up in a bright red jumpsuit and scrawling a contact number for legal support onto my arm with permanent marker. Today was the day I would join with over three hundred other protesters and take part in an act of mass civil disobedience against Ffos-y-Fran, the UK’s largest opencast coal mine.
Our convergence on this site, near the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil, was at the invitation of local campaigners from the United Valleys Action Group. We came to stand in solidarity with their fight against the mine whilst amplifying our call for green jobs and a future free from fossil fuels. An end to coal, and an end to the political intransigence that has delayed action on climate change for far too long.
THE WEEK THE BAY WENT A LITTLE BIT BORGEN
May 13, 2016by Alexander Phillips
After seventeen years of ground-breaking government/managed decline [delete as your political persuasion demands] the National Assembly for Wales entered its fifth phase this week. Last week’s election was one which saw the governing Welsh Labour party lose just one seat; Plaid Cymru make minor inroads (+1) ; the Welsh Conservatives fall back (-3) ; and the Welsh Liberal Democrats reduced to a single member (-4). It also saw the new force of UKIP join the establishment with a total of seven seats.
All this left the Assembly finely balanced, with Welsh Labour precariously holding 29 of the 60 available seats. This means that in order to form a government, agree budgets and pass legislation, a minority Labour government will need the support of two or more opposition members on every occasion until May 2021, unless a coalition is formed.
UKIP came to the Assembly with the promise of shaking things up.
ANONYMOUS CAN’T HACK BLACK LIVES MATTER
May 12, 2016Content Warning: References to racial violence, homophobic slur.
by Eve Lacroix
Ghost Squad, a branch of the hacktivist group Anonymous, targeted official Black Lives Matter (BLM) websites http://www.blacklifematters.org and http://www.blacklivesmatter.com between the 29th and 30th of April. Using a technique called Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which consists in persistent and repetitive HTTP requests to crash a server, Ghost Squad shut down both websites temporarily.
5 REASONS WHY ITALY CONFUSES THE $#!T OUT OF ME
May 12, 2016by Alex Valente
Italy. Land of saints, poets, and sailors, but also of pizza, mafia, and mandolins. Italy. One of the most beautifully received countries in the world, but also one of the most corrupt, even according to its own population. Italy. The country that somehow voted for Silvio Berlusconi more than once since 1992. The country that for some reason hosts the Vatican since 1929. My country of birth, and the country I have moved back to after eight years in the UK.
Italy still confuses the *insert passionate hand gesture here* out of me.
STATE MEDIA AND THE DETERIORATION OF FREE SPEECH
May 11, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
Out of the May 5th elections the biggest story was the criticism of the coverage by the BBC and other mainstream media outlets. Particular focus of this was on BBC Question Time and the BBC Political Editor, Laura Kuenssberg. This isn’t the first time that Kuenssberg has come under fire and it probably won’t be the last. A petition was doing the rounds demanding an independent review of how biased her actions may have been but has now been taken down. Additionally, the lack of coverage over the alleged Tory fraud in the last General Election has generated a sense of distrust in the BBC, an organisation that states: ‘impartiality lies at the heart of the public service and is the core of the BBC’s commitment to its audiences’.
PASSWORD
May 11, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
He types my name in for a password
but it isn’t long enough
so he uses seawater instead.- 1
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GREEN PARTY COUNCILLORS ON NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL
May 11, 2016by Josh Wilson
Dear Richard, Andrew, Elizabeth & Adrian,
I joined the Green Party 6 years ago, just before the 2010 General Election. Previously I hadn’t been all that interested in party politics, but when looking through the manifestos for various political parties I was immediately drawn to the Greens. The joining together of economic, social and environmental justice made sense to me.
On Friday at the County Council Annual General Meeting (AGM) you all abstained from the leadership vote, knowingly handing power from a Labour-led rainbow coalition to the Conservative Party.
THE INHERENTLY RADICAL IDENTITY OF MULTICULTURALISM
May 10, 2016by Julian Canlas
‘You are not alive to please the aesthetic of colonized eyes’
– Ijeoma UmebinyuoAn interesting thing happens when fully-assimilated BME in the West engage in politics, whilst retaining and proudly displaying their multicultural and racial identities as minorities—they become characterised as ‘radical’ and disruptive to the everyday function of society. Here are examples of how various politicking non-white figures have been portrayed:
Prior to Sadiq Khan becoming mayor of London on May 2016, Khan suffered from smear attacks by Zac Goldsmith. Goldsmith’s attacks included ‘Sadiq Khan won’t stand up for London’s Tamil community’ and ‘his party supports a wealth tax on family jewellery,’ with the latter based upon the uncomfortable, racist assumption that this taxation is a defining political issue for South Asians. Goldsmith also branded Khan as a ‘radical,’ belonging to ‘a Labour party that thinks terrorists is its friends’.
The newly-elected first Black Muslim president of the NUS, Malia Bouattia, depicted as an ISIS supporter for having been against a 2011 motion condemning ISIS, because of its apparent wording that demonises all Muslims, despite later supporting a revised version condemning ISIS and Islamophobia. She has also been criticised as anti-Semitic despite publicly declaring her stance as anti-Zionist due to Israel’s continued violation of human rights by its continued military occupation of Palestine.
WHAT THE GLOB IS GOING ON IN BRAZIL?
May 10, 2016by Aline Zouvi
MY AFTER DARK EXPERIENCE AS ANOTHER STUDENT’S LIFELINE
May 9, 2016Disclaimer: mentions suicide
by Olivia Davis
Nightline is unique.
A phone call at 3AM under normal circumstances as a regular student would result in a sigh or occasionally, slight frustration. However, at Nightline it is an opportunity for a student to reach out when they may be feeling at a low or a vulnerable point in their life. As a volunteer listening service operating at over 50 universities in the UK with over 2000 student volunteers, Nightline operates as a reliable network for fellow students.
Norwich Nightline is open for both UEA and NUA students, 8PM-8AM everyday of term, regardless of exams or holidays. “We’ll listen, not lecture” is the main policy volunteers abide by in our mission to provide others in need of guidance.
THE EU REFERENDUM AND THE FAILURE TO ENGAGE STUDENTS
May 9, 2016by Lucy Auger
Increasingly I am being forced into situations that leave me feeling incredibly conflicted politically, and the EU referendum is no exception. By the 23rd of June I will either have to vote in line with a bland collection of right-wing moderates under the banner of the ‘Britain Stronger In’ campaign, or cast a vote that is seen by many as a vote for isolation and a complete rejection of European solidarity. This is not an article about which way you should vote or why, and it’s not even an article about why you should care. This is an article about why, in spite of months of propaganda, all sides of the debate have so far failed to inspire myself and the other 47% of students that are expected to stay home on 23rd June.
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TOGETHER WE CAN BE MORE – AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS OF LUVDUMP
May 8, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Luvdump came kicking and skanking out of Bury St Edmunds in 2007, bringing to life their aggressive mix of melodic punk rock and ska-core. 2013 saw the release of their second full length album, Age of Austerity, alongside their relocation to the North West, where they have made their home ever since. A regular on the UK ska and punk circuit, Luvdump have continuously maintained a political current to their music, lifestyles and lyrics, with the social conscience of the band seeping through almost every song.
MALE BEAUTY IS A BEAST
May 8, 2016by Sam Naylor
Disclaimer: mentions body dysmorphia, body shaming
Type into Google images “attractive men” or “attractive male body” and see what pops up. I’ll just give you a moment to scan over some of those photos. Done? Good. In both searches a grossly disproportionate number of these men are celebrities but more importantly they’re white. Switch tabs to “attractive male body” and you are met with a sea of torsos and chests sculpted by the media gods. Chiselled jaw lines, blue or green eyes and ‘designer’ stubble appear to be just three of the ingredients to get you on your way to being an attractive male.
At first glance (and second and third) you might wonder why this representation of the male form is a problem for anyone. I’ve spoken to male friends before that don’t see anything wrong with wanting to keep their bodies healthy and in shape. I agree, I’m not saying that exercise and a good diet are things to be raged against, quite the opposite. It is an issue when this idealised version of a muscular physique, which is predominately portrayed as white, is paraded as our default-sexy setting.
MAYOR SADIQ KHAN: LONDON’S MUSLIM FACE OF TOLERANCE
May 7, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
It’s been a pretty rough decade or so for Muslims. Since 9/11, negative images of the Islamic world have been relentlessly smeared all over the Western media, in a manner often mirroring the Orientalist perspective of Arabs as described by the historical anthropologist Edward Said. Ever since the Europeans first encountered Arabs during the time of the Crusades, Middle Easterners have been perpetually stereotyped as the social “Other”, known to act and appear completely differently from Westerners. Furthermore, the otherwise diverse Islamic world is frequently reduced to exclusively “exotic” stereotypes such as bearded mullahs, shady sheikhs in their groups of concubines, terrorists, Bedouin, belly dancers and harem maidens. Meanwhile, Muslim women are constantly portrayed as quiet, modest and uneducated, covered from head to toe and traveling several paces behind domineering males.
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WHY ANOTHER EUROPE IS POSSIBLE: INTERVIEW WITH MARINA PRENTOULIS
May 7, 2016by Olivia Hanks
With just over six weeks to go until the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, the Remain campaign has two considerable problems. Firstly, the EU is so flawed, so bloated and undemocratic, in the eyes of virtually everyone, that it is very difficult even for those who will be voting Remain to get truly excited about it. Secondly, at the head of the campaign is David Cameron, a man so universally disliked by people of all political persuasions that it is a miracle he continues to cling to power.
There is very little in the lead Remain campaign to offer hope or inspiration to anybody. The three key points on the home page of Britain Stronger in Europe read #Better Economy. Better Leadership. Better Security’, which, reading between the lines, might be interpreted as follows: “We’ll make sure Britain keeps consuming the world’s resources at an unsustainable rate, while ensuring all the resulting wealth is concentrated at the top. Oh, and we’ll see to it those dirty foreigners don’t get their hands on any.”
IT’S TIME TO REFORM UNION COUNCIL
May 6, 2016by Elliot Folan
For the last 3 years, I’ve sat on the UEA Student Union Council. Council has the power to set SU policy, call referendums, mandate Officers to take political stances and actions, rewrite the SU budget and elect members of various committees. In the last year, however, it has become clear that its ability to exercise these powers – and to represent the 14,000 students that make up UEA’s student population – has been hamstrung by various issues. A handful of councillors have blamed the rules of Council, but I strongly disagree: there are only a few rules that every councillor should know, and those can fit on one side of an A4 piece of paper. The rest are all rules that the Chair and Deputy Chair should know in intense detail, and interpret and explain for the rest of the meeting.
THE MUDDY AWARDS 2016: CELEBRATING NORFOLK’S INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES
May 6, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
Ah, Norfolk… with its bustling, pocket-sized capital, miles of gorgeous coastline, on-trend restaurants and bars and natural beauty at every turn, it’s no wonder more and more people are moving to this beguiling county every year. You could (I know I do) call it the loveable black hole of the UK. I mean, it sucked me in – and my parents, and doubtless somebody you know as well!
Right at the pinnacle of what makes Norfolk so special is its diverse range of fabulous local businesses, each working tirelessly to maintain excitement in the face of global brand encroachment. These plucky businesses – and the people behind them – are fundamental to keeping Norfolk unique and exciting, but competing in a market brimming over with global competitors is hard work. As Karl Marx famously warned, globalisation and big business could one day crush the unique little brands that keep local cultures alive. So how do we help local businesses and stop them from being swept away by mass-market chains?
STUDYING YOU: STUDENTS WITH GRIEF AND MENTAL ILLNESS
May 5, 2016by Candice Nembhard
When I was in my last year of primary school, I experienced the death of a pupil in the year below; her name was Demi. She had epilepsy and was known to have regular fits, but they were often manageable and not entirely life threatening if responded to sufficiently. I distinctly remember one lunch time as I headed towards the playground, that I passed by Demi having another fit. Teachers and paramedics cornered me off, so as not to make a bigger scene and I ran off to the playground to inform others. Of course we were all concerned, but were mostly pacified in the knowledge she was in the best possible care.
The next morning at school, my teacher informed us that Demi had died. She was only 10 years old — they had been unable to restart her heart. In that moment, I felt a level of responsibility. I saw her in her last moments and passed it off as another episode that would soon rectify itself to see Demi in good health. Counsellors came into school and assemblies were given, but they did nothing to attend to the hurt and regret I felt for not being able to do more. I know that Demi’s condition was never my immediate concern, but there was always that part of me that took on the blame for witnessing her final moments. For many pupils including myself, it was their first experience with death and consequently grief.
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IT’S GRIM UP NORTH: HOW THE NORTH OF BRITAIN HAS BEEN LEFT BEHIND
May 4, 2016by Pierce Robinson
The North – South divide in the British Isles is still one of the most controversial topics in contemporary UK politics and society. The economic and political differences between the two ends of the country have been a common characteristic of these islands for decades. If you live anywhere north of Birmingham, the signs that you have entered a different part of the country are clear, even just the fact that you would choose gravy chips over a kebab – but most importantly, the level of poverty increases dramatically. The United Kingdom has the highest level of inequality in Western Europe, yet with a capital city that continues to flourish every day, why are we not seeing the similar signs of fortune increase in the North?
I’M AN IMMIGRANT NOW, SO WHY DON’T PEOPLE HATE ME?
May 3, 2016by Josh Wilson
Just over a month ago I moved from the UK to the beautiful New Zealand – the home of the mighty All Blacks, the cute Kiwi bird and jumping into an abyss supported by nothing but a piece of string in search of some elusive sense of ‘excitement’ (also known as a bungee jump). I am going to be here for at least a year; with the graduate job market looking so feeble back home I decided working in a bar somewhere with a bit more sun wasn’t such a bad idea.
This makes me an economic migrant, and there are a lot of us young Europeans over here. So why aren’t people outraged that I am stealing a hard working Kiwi’s job or putting undue pressure on the welfare state? I should probably point out at this point that I am a white British atheist, and I think this may be very important in trying to answer the question of why I’m not victimised and resented by the vast majority of New Zealanders.
MAY
May 2, 2016by Jake Reynolds
Can such delights be in the street, / And open fields, and we not see’t?
–Robert HerrickI rock up against the banks
in the shore of my sleeping
when a cluster of pollen
tricks its way into my bedroom
like smelling salts.MOVING OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE – AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDY DAVIES OF REVENGE OF THE PSYCHOTRONIC MAN
May 1, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Manchester hardcore punks Revenge of the Psychotronic Man are no stranger to politics. Their music is released through TNSrecords, home of the likes of Faintest Idea, Autonomads, and Rising Strike, all known for their uncompromising and explicitly political works. Revenge of the Psychotronic Man bassist and vocalist Andy Davies helps to co-run the label, and he took the time to talk to The Norwich Radical about how he sees his politics, its relationship to the music he produces and the relationship between this and the wider world, as part of our series Music That Matters.
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WHAT TO DO WITH MASS MURDERERS – THE TRIAL OF ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK
April 30, 2016by Rob Harding
Trigger Warnings: Islamaphobia, casual Ableism
Last week, an infamous mass-murdering terrorist was granted repayment of his legal costs and a court-enforced relaxing of the conditions under which he is imprisoned for the killing of 77 people. In her ruling, Judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic agreed with his claims of inhuman treatment and reminded us that the European Convention on Human Rights states that the right to not be treated inhumanely applies to all people, therefore including ‘terrorists and killers’ under its protection.
“TACKLE DRUG DEALERS, NOT DRUG USERS”, SAYS GREEN PARTY PCC CANDIDATE
April 30, 2016by Norfolk Green Party
Martin Schmierer, the Green Party candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Norfolk, has indicated that he would prioritise dealing with large criminal gangs that supply drugs rather than focusing on low level users of class C drugs.
BEYONCÉ, HILLSBOROUGH AND UNITY THROUGH SONG
April 29, 2016by Mike Vinti
It’s been a pretty big couple of weeks in the pop world. Prince died, Beyoncé pulled a well, a Beyoncé, and today (Friday April 29th) Drake has released his new album VIEWS. If ever there was a week to remind us of popular music’s impact on society and culture, this is the one.
While each of these moments are significant in their own right and worthy of articles of their own, of which there have been many, together they’ve demonstrated the power of music to unite people. Be it through, grief, shock or pure unadulterated hype, the three most significant cultural moments of the past eight days have used music to bring people together and for a few days at least, forget about those intent on tearing us apart.
A SOCIETY THAT IS FAIR TO ALL: VIEWS OF GUNNAR EIGENER, GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR SEWELL WARD
April 29, 2016The Norwich Radical is embedded in our home city. We seek to be a platform for debate and discussion of progressive and radical politics within Norwich. We know that the ballot box is only one of many ways of making change, but that elections play a major role in shaping and determining the future of our political landscape. In light of this, we got in touch with candidates standing in the Norwich City Council elections on May 5th, asking for their views on the biggest problems facing Norwich, and their vision for what the Council can do.
by Gunnar Eigener, Green Party candidate for Sewell Ward
I joined the Green Party just prior to the last General Election. I’m not sure why it took me so long to do so. Like many people, I spent years on the sidelines watching government after government cultivate a financial system in their favour, allowing their corporate financiers and allies to get away with crimes that the ordinary person on the street would be charged and imprisoned for. I’ve seen inquiries cover up the misdeeds of establishment figures. Like others, I have stood by and listened to the devastation caused by unbalanced political policies and seen the gradual loss of frontline services. I think part of the problem was I didn’t know where to turn. It’s hard to find optimism in the sordid world of politics.
I read the Green Party manifesto for the last election. I was almost sure that they had read my mind when compiling it. It spoke to me of a desire to make the world a better place without the need to bring down and rebuild society. It examined what’s wrong and proposed ways to fix the many problems we are faced with. It wasn’t perfect. Some of it seemed almost a bit outlandish, a bit leftfield at times. But thinking about it, I realise that the problems we have are not new and neither are the solutions that are put forward to resolve them.
SEEING IS BELIEVING: WHY WE NEED MORE ASEXUALS IN OUR MEDIA
April 28, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
It’s not news to know that we live in a hypersexual world, where the adage ‘sex sells’ is used to excuse a lot of the overtly sensual imagery thrown at us in day-to-day life. Sex is everywhere, even in adverts for things as mundane as sandwiches. It’s this steamy atmosphere that asexuals are facing as they finally begin to attain recognition in society, and there’s a distinct sense of what an uphill struggle it is.
Asexuality’s simplest definition is the lack of sexual attraction to any and all genders. Unfortunately, most allosexuals (people who aren’t asexual, and do experience sexual attraction) tend to get all amused and patronising when the words “I’m not interested in sex” are spoken in their vicinity. This is further exacerbated by the fact that this simplest definition is typically for the benefit of allosexuals, and does little to explain just how complex asexuality is.
BEAUTY
April 28, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Rosita Copioli (1948-), ‘Beltà’
Look, everything returns, even the markings on the wall
and behind the bushes the eyes of our heavens
without a reason to be tend towards a return,
they return not to forget, how much each
and every one finds their own pleasure – adspice
BLAST FROM THE PAST – CHRISTINA AGUILERA: STRIPPED
April 27, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
I have a strange memory of Christina Aguilera performing Genie in a Bottle on Top of the Pops and my dad asking if I liked her songs. Strange, because it’s so unremarkable to be kept inside my head. At this stage I her career, she had made her big break, and soon enough I was listening to her album, with hits such as What a Girls Wants and Come On Over (All I Want Is You). Yet, it was three years later, when she released what I will always think of as her best album: Stripped.
I was having a hard time at school, and listening to this album was the very definition of empowering. I had been pushed out of a friendship group during a time where looking back, I honestly believe I was depressed, and this escalated to the extent where I felt I was a target for lots of different groups at school. I did make some new friends, and remember connecting with one of them through a shared love of this album. This was before we had learnt to talk about why it is that Beautiful holds so much resonance with us, but fourteen years later and we are still friends, now sharing a love of bell hooks.
IN THE INTEREST OF LOCAL PEOPLE: VIEWS OF JAMES ANTHONY, LIB DEM CANDIDATE FOR TOWN CLOSE
April 27, 2016The Norwich Radical is embedded in our home city. We seek to be a platform for debate and discussion of progressive and radical politics within Norwich. We know that the ballot box is only one of many ways of making change, but that elections play a major role in shaping and determining the future of our political landscape. In light of this, we got in touch with candidates standing in the Norwich City Council elections on May 5th, asking for their views on the biggest problems facing Norwich, and their vision for what the Council can do.
by James Anthony, Liberal Democrat candidate for Town Close.
I’m James Anthony, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Town Close. I’ve always been interested in politics and how ordinary people can make extraordinary changes to the world around them. I believe that any level of government, local or national, should always work for the people and never the other way round. Individuals need to be free to live their lives and government should only interfere with that right when the rights of others are at risk. This is why I became a Liberal Democrat.
As I have paid close attention to the workings of Norwich City Council and attended a number of council meetings, it has become clear that more of the city needs an increased liberal voice in local government to stand up for the interests of residents. I believe I have what it takes to be that voice. This is why I jumped at the opportunity of standing to be a city councillor for Town Close.
GLOBAL POVERTY: THE GROWING ACCEPTANCE OF HARVESTING ORGANS
April 26, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
A 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal about human organs for sale showed a glimpse into yet another aspect of human nature, particularly of the wealthy and elite, that demonstrates our willingness to exploit just about anything possible. It talks about how in the West many people need, yet die, as a result of waiting for organ transplants, especially kidneys and livers. Somehow, this leads to the justifying of creating a global organ marketplace with imagined safeguards in place that would prevent exploitation. Never does it seem to occur to the authors that this entire suggestion is exploitative as they end the article with the belief that, despite initial horror at the idea, eventually ‘the sale of organs would grow to be accepted’.
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NORWICH CITY COUNCIL LOCAL ELECTIONS: CAN A LABOUR COUNCIL DO IT ALL?
April 26, 2016by Hannah Rose
I cycled through a hailstorm last Saturday so that I could attend a Labour Party rally at the Silver Road community centre. The things we do for politics, I said to myself, hailstones pinging off my helmet. Clive Lewis, Norwich South MP, hosted the event with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who was making a visit on his campaign rounds in light of the upcoming local elections on May 5th.
The Norwich City Council election will be a significant juncture since Corbyn-mania. The Council is currently a Labour and Green hold, with 39 councillors and 13 elected wards: 22 Labour, 14 Green, 3 Lib Dem. Not a blue badge or Union Jack bowtie in sight.
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO RADICAL FILM — 11AM, APRIL 30TH, NORWICH ARTS CENTRE
April 25, 2016by Jack Brindelli
Film is often wrongly pigeon-holed as a passive medium — simple entertainment to be used for distraction or escapism. But throughout its history, cinema has never been ‘just entertainment’. At its best, film-making is combative, subversive and revolutionary.
Norwich is a city built on a proud Radical heritage, and the inaugural Norwich Radical Film Festival aims to build on that legacy to inspire the community to engage with ideas and movies that will shake the world. As the first of four monthly events leading to our main festival in August, we are proud to present “A Beginner’s Guide to Radical Film”, taking place on Saturday 30th April 2016 between 11:00–16:00 at the Norwich Arts Centre.
MALIA BOUATTIA – RADICALISM AND OPTIMISM
April 25, 2016by Lucy Auger
On the 20th April, at this year’s NUS Conference, Malia Bouattia was elected as the new president of The National Union of Students, making her the first black, female NUS president, and the first Muslim to ever hold the position. NUS has not seen an incumbent president lose their election since 1969, and this year we feared would be no exception.
MASCULINITY
April 24, 2016By Asia Patel
#WORSTGOVERNMENTEVER – AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS T-T
April 24, 2016by Chris Jarvis
‘Worst government ever!’ growls the chorus of Chris T-T’s latest single. The lead track on his forthcoming album 9 Green Songs, set to be released on June 3rd is a blistering attack on Conservative Britain. The song is emblematic of the reputation that Chris T-T has developed as being a singer-songwriter known not only for the music he produces, but also for the politics that he espouses along the way.
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RBS IS CUTTING FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENTS. DOES IT MATTER WHY?
April 23, 2016by Olivia Hanks
The news that Royal Bank of Scotland has cut its investment in fossil fuels by 70% is only the latest in a string of decisions by high-profile investors to pull back from oil and coal. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has divested from companies that derive more than 30% of their sales from coal; and, last month, the Rockefeller Family Fund announced that it would no longer invest in fossil fuels.
The fact that both Norway and the Rockefeller family derive their wealth from oil has not been lost on commentators. Whether or not you consider it hypocritical to invest ‘dirty’ wealth in ‘clean’ projects (if so, what should be done with it instead?), the low price of oil and coal has offered a perfect PR opportunity with no financial sacrifice.
SHAKESPEARE’S 400TH ANNIVERSARY — A CELEBRATION, PART 3
April 23, 2016by Ellie Howell, JTG, Adam Dawson, Saraswathi Menon
From an idea by Jake Reynolds.
April 23rd will mark four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. I won’t patronise you by introducing him. I contacted ten people — some undergraduates, some Master’s students, some UEA alumni — and asked them who their favourite Shakespeare character is. Or, more specifically, which character had the most profound effect on them. The responses have been read in a variety of different and fascinating ways. Some ground the character in the text, while others branch across to discuss film portrayals, personal experience, and cultural commentaries. The characters you will see championed here over the next three weeks come from current and former students of literature, creative writing, American studies, film studies, scriptwriting and performance, politics and international relations, and more. What binds them is their passion — the Shakespearean character, whoever he, she, or they may be, still survives the death of their creator, alive and rattling in our minds as they did to Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
THE POLLS AREN’T WRONG: SADIQ KHAN WILL BE LONDON’S NEXT MAYOR
April 22, 2016by Elliot Folan
With the London Mayoral election nearly upon us, opinion polls for the contest are finally beginning to emerge in force. And each one of them tells the same story: Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate, is in the lead.
He wasn’t always. Back when the race for the Mayoral nominations began, Khan and the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, were much closer – at one point Goldsmith had an 8-point lead. But as the race began in earnest, Khan opened up a large lead that hasn’t gone away. Currently, a simple average of polls in the last month (7th March-7th April, when the last poll was conducted) puts Khan on 54% to Goldsmith’s 46%.
RADICAL POETS AT THE UEA POETRY FESTIVAL
April 21, 2016by Fern Richards
Over the past couple of years, the UEA Poetics Project has been doing the important job of sneaking radical poets into the institution without much fanfare. The Norwich Radical featured an article by Linda Russo fairly recently – one of the readers at the last Poetics Project event – but apart from that, not a huge amount has been written about these readings. As a fan of radical poetry, political poetry, anti-establishment poetry, I thought it might be worth giving a small preview of the second UEA Poetry Festival, or at least its featured readers, Sandeep Parmar and Sean Bonney.
PUNK’S PLACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
April 21, 2016by Mike Vinti
This year, as I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot of as we move closer to summer, marks 40 years(ish) of punk. As such there’s a plethora of punk-themed exhibitions, celebrations and, inevitably, memorabilia knocking around with the aim of inducing some punk-nostalgia in the generation that came of age during the mid to late 70s and early 80s. However, while there’s much to celebrate about punk’s legacy, and the modern punk scene itself, a lot of the ‘official’ anniversary celebrations are somewhat missing the point.
DEAR STUDENTS: IT’S OK TO BE RICH
April 21, 2016by Candice Nembhard
As someone who prides themselves on coming from a Black, working class background, I can honestly say that my attitude towards wealth, especially inherited wealth is not as big a deal as many may think. I am fully aware that an institution such as university is a privilege, which in itself brings together people of different backgrounds and different experiences in their upbringing. That in part is what makes the experience of being a student all the more interesting — being invited into a world unbeknownst to you.
In that respect, university life is a microcosm of our society: people of differing economic status and political alliances co-existing, (for the most part). As I said, my attitudes to wealth are largely unaffected, but I cannot deny that I have noticed that attitudes towards wealth from students who come from a ‘privileged’ background, often comes with the feeling of shame.
THE DOMESTIC REBEL
April 20, 2016By Paige Selby-Green
I live in a small flat with my partner of three and a half years. We have a joint bank account. We know all of each other’s grossest habits, and we love each other with everything we have. But you wouldn’t know that a relationship like that is possible for a queer couple like us if you only had popular media as a source.
SCARLETT AND YELLOWFACE—THE CASE OF SLANT EYES IN 21ST CENTURY MAINSTREAM MEDIA
April 19, 2016by Julian Canlas
(Writer’s note: I specifically wrote this article focusing on East and South-East Asian portrayals. Despite being in the same continent, I do think that South Asian and Western Asian representations in media differ vastly from those of East and South-East Asians.)
There’s no doubt: East and South-East Asians in mainstream media can’t exist without being reduced into racist caricatures. Asians, including me, cannot exist beyond the characterisation of our slant eyes, buckteeth, and thick accent. We are good at maths, martial arts, and being meek. We are not artists, but tech geniuses. We cannot be main characters, only sidekicks. Only comic reliefs, either sexless nerds or docile sex fetishes, and ladyboys. Because if we do, we turn white.
THE DEBATE
April 18, 2016by Jake Reynolds
In response.
This is not rightness or righteousness
the wrongness of your terror
let’s say we say something terrible
say we say sing, find the music in
nothing or every- thing…
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – KIRA COX
April 18, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – CHLOE SCHENDEL-WILSON
April 18, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – DANIEL NIKOLLA
April 17, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – ANA OPPENHEIM
April 17, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: THE BOSS AND BATHROOMS
April 16, 2016(Trigger warnings: Transphobia)
By Rob Harding
You wonder where the hell they find these people sometimes.
Two weeks ago, one of the Tennessee state lawmakers pushing an anti-trasngender rights ‘Bathroom Bill’ through their state legislature was exiled from his offices and denied access to several other areas of the legislative building on the grounds that he posed ‘a continuing risk to unsuspecting women who are employed by or interact with the legislature.’ Last year, former presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee told the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters that he wished he’d been able to pretend to be transgender in high school in order to shower with the girls. (Additional trigger warning: What.) Oh, the sexual assaults he could have committed if there was a legal loophole to allow it.
And these are the people pushing laws supposedly aimed at protecting American women and children from sexual assault. Americans are rallying behind real sex offenders to try to stop imaginary transgender sex offenders.
SHAKESPEARE’S 400TH ANNIVERSARY — A CELEBRATION, PART 2
April 16, 2016by Jo Thompson, Jake Reynolds, Hannah Whaley, Alex Valente
From an idea by Jake Reynolds.
April 23rd will mark four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. I won’t patronise you by introducing him. I contacted ten people — some undergraduates, some Master’s students, some UEA alumni — and asked them who their favourite Shakespeare character is. Or, more specifically, which character had the most profound effect on them. The responses have been read in a variety of different and fascinating ways. Some ground the character in the text, while others branch across to discuss film portrayals, personal experience, and cultural commentaries. The characters you will see championed here over the next three weeks come from current and former students of literature, creative writing, American studies, film studies, scriptwriting and performance, politics and international relations, and more. What binds them is their passion — the Shakespearean character, whoever he, she, or they may be, still survives the death of their creator, alive and rattling in our minds as they did to Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
THE CULTURE INDUSTRY AND THE DEATH OF CULTURE
April 15, 2016by Liam Hawkes
As a 20-year-old young man today, I find myself surrounded by a society and culture which seem to lack substance in a lot of ways. I have had a lot of enlightening conversations with friends about this, and one of the conclusions we reached is that we are the generation of nostalgia, imitation, and regurgitation. We think back to the golden filters of 60s or 70s music as the paradigm our experiences now should imitate. We idolise the past because of the lack of originality in the present.
I feel part of a reflective generation which instead of projecting creativity into the future, we simply project it into the past to achieve a nostalgic warmness to keep us comfortable. This doesn’t surprise me when I look at the advent of pop culture and what is considered ‘talent’, or the celebrities of today. This is all a downward slope from the crossing the threshold of the millennium and feeling more culturally empty than ever before.
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – JOE HASLAM
April 15, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
THE WAR ON DRUGS IS RACIST: EXPLORING THE USA’S CRACK COCAINE EPIDEMIC
April 14, 2016By Eve Lacroix
John Ehrlichman, an aide to President Richard Nixon, has confirmed what black activists and drug policy reformists have known for decades: the War on Drugs is not only a failure, but it is also a racist and controlling political tool.
NOW
April 14, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Elisabetta Destasio (1968 – ), ‘Ora’
Now:
we are the word, the movement
the undertow and the tree’s crown.
Room, street corner,
the night.
Words, whispered.- 2
THE BLIND SPOTS OF THE GERMAN ENERGY TRANSITION — 2ND ROUND FOR ENDE GELÄNDE
April 13, 2016by Dorothee Häussermann
Last August, more than 1000 people rushed into one of Germany’s biggest open-cast lignite mines and stopped mining operations for a day. This action of civil disobedience went under the slogan ‘Ende Gelände — stop the diggers — protect the climate’; ‘Ende Gelände’ translates as ‘here and no further’. The campaign called for an immediate coal phase-out, emphasizing the urgency for DIY solutions to the climate crisis in the face of governmental inaction.
What is the problem? Isn’t Germany the paragon of energy transition? Aren’t ecologists and economists alike inspired by progressive policies such as the feed-in tariff that supported the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources? Even Naomi Klein’s film This Changes Everything depicts the German ‘Energiewende’ as a way to go forward. So what are these activists complaining about?
DEBRIS STEVENSON — PIGEON PARTY
April 13, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
Deborah ‘Debris’ Stevenson is founder of The Mouthy Poets, based in Nottingham, who are a collective of 50 young poets. A poet herself, with a blurb of incredible achievements, I can’t help but envy her success as someone so near my age (she’s actually younger). Watching from the outside, I can see how much she has grafted to get where she is today, and her enthusiasm for what she does shines through at workshops, performance events, and is inside every well-chosen word on the pages of the Pigeon Party (2014) collection with flipped eye publishing.
Poems are enclosed in two-part poem After The Blackstone Rangers, which sets the scene for the collection. They describe a childhood growing up in cities, where “everyone was learning”, whether rolling cigarettes, or dancing. The words are both familiar and unexpected; a place where love and friendships are based on fun that is “still disposable and warm” — referring to the “can of Scrumpy Jacks”— but also holding a wider resonance, like most of Stevenson’s work.
THE PANAMA PAPERS: NOT THE BEGINNING AND NOWHERE NEAR THE END
April 12, 2016By Gunnar Eigener
“The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.”
Denis Healey, UK Chancellor 1974-79
The leak of over eleven million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca only really scratches the surface. Like all tax havens, there is a long history of corruption and exploitation to which the tale of Panama is no exception.In 1937, then US Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote a letter to President Franklin D Roosevelt, singling out the Bahamas, Panama and Newfoundland as places where:
‘stock-holders have resorted to all manners of devices to prevent the acquisition of information regarding their companies. The companies are frequently organised through foreign lawyers with dummy incorporators and dummy directors, so that the names of the real parties in interest do not appear.’
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DANGEROUS WOMEN ARE COMING TO NORWICH
April 12, 2016by Hannah Rose
Can women’s voices be heard above the din of war? Silly question, really. It’s not how loud we shout, but what we do with our words that count. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) takes this tenet seriously – they’re feminist wordsmiths with a long history of using international legal and political frameworks to bring female voices into the peace process. And WILPF is coming to Norwich. The new WILPF branch will be the eighth such establishment in the UK, and will be formalised at their AGM on the 16th April 2016.
THE PANAMA PAPERS AND THE MYTH OF PUBLIC SERVICE
April 11, 2016by George Laver
Following the unexpected leak of around 11.5 million documents from a law firm based in Panama, known as Mossack Fonseca, an upheaval of an internationally unprecedented scale has begun. Just this week in Iceland, protests managed to uproot and depose the Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson following the revelations of his involvement with the law firm. It would seem that Iceland’s now-former PM is at least a little more receptive to the voice of protesters than our own.
It is ours who instead decided to reflex their power first through soft means – rejection of discussion, suddenly producing papers on the matter, or even averting the discourse to another open window – which will eventually filter through the armed wings of government in response to protest, being an increasingly well-armed police force and, if push came to shove, the army. Already in response to the revelations in the UK, there have been protests attended by the thousands, with many more set to occur within the next fortnight. Even amongst the calamity, I feel that there is a key question being missed: What vacuum in public appeal does this present? Tackling the cause at its root, it is this question that much be redressed; although it is formally an issue concerning tax, the deeper principle at hand – and truths which can be demonstrated – surround the very nature of public service.
SEX WORKER SOLIDARITY – OUR GENERATION’S GREATEST LABOUR STRUGGLE
April 11, 2016By Lucy Auger
As the cliché goes, it seems that there are few things older than the ‘oldest profession’. One thing that definitely shares its age though, is the stigmatisation and prejudice directed towards its practitioners. Sex workers have for generations been one of the greatest ‘others’ within society. Today, things are much the same, with the exception that there are growing numbers of people that are stepping in, showing solidarity and attempting to shift societal perceptions in order to begin the process of winning hard fought rights.
BATMAN, THE PANAMA PAPERS AND THE EVILS OF CORRUPTION
April 10, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Two weeks ago, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opened to mixed reviews from film critics, but nonetheless went on to perform spectacularly at the box office. Just this week, the Panama Papers were also unleashed into the public sphere, from the world’s fourth-biggest offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. The 11.5 million document leak featured startling revelations on a web of shady offshore accounting, involving twelve prominent world leaders including David Cameron. Implicating a total of 143 world politicians, their families and close associates, the leaks demonstrated the various ways in which elite rulers have been exploiting secretive offshore tax regimes.
NOT YOUR PUNK – AN INTERVIEW WITH NIKOLAI JONES OF KING PRAWN
April 10, 2016By Chris Jarvis
In 1993, a new icon was born. King Prawn’s incendiary sound emerged from London, and paved the way for countless other bands on a burgeoning and ever developing scene. Over the next decade, they would lay waste to notions of genre as album after album would reinvent punk, ska, hip-hop and hardcore blazing a trail for many others to follow. Sonic Boom Six, Random Hand, The King Blues all built upon the legacy of King Prawn. So diverse and innovative, they coined their own label to define their music – Wildstyle, and their rebel rousing songs combined with their flagrant disregard for musical convention led to comparisons with American rap-metal pioneers Rage Against the Machine.
THE FUTURE OF THE STUDENT MOVEMENT: NUS ELECTIONS 2016 – ROSIE MCKENNA
April 9, 2016The Norwich Radical was born in the student movement, and we continue to be an active part within it. We recognise that while official structures are not the sum total of the movement, they play an undeniably important part and to understand the political consciousness of the student movement, you need to, in part, look at the National Union of Students. As we move into election season for the new NUS President, Vice Presidents and National Executive Council, we contacted all candidates in those elections and offered them the space to write about their election campaigns, why they are standing and their vision for NUS.
By Rosie McKenna
I’m currently taking a sabbatical year out of my studies to be Vice President Academic Representation at Edge Hill Students’ Union. Next year I’ll be going back to the third and final year of my drama degree, as well as being EHSUs part time Women’s Officer. And, hopefully, I’ll also be representing you on the NUS National Executive Council.
SHAKESPEARE’S 400TH ANNIVERSARY — A CELEBRATION, PART 1
April 9, 2016by Molly Pearson, Nándor Révész, Beth Saward
From an idea by Jake Reynolds.
April 23rd will mark four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. I won’t patronise you by introducing him. I contacted ten people — some undergraduates, some Master’s students, some UEA alumni — and asked them who their favourite Shakespeare character is. Or, more specifically, which character had the most profound effect on them. The responses have been read in a variety of different and fascinating ways. Some ground the character in the text, while others branch across to discuss film portrayals, personal experience, and cultural commentaries. The characters you will see championed here over the next three weeks come from current and former students of literature, creative writing, American studies, film studies, scriptwriting and performance, politics and international relations, and more. What binds them is their passion — the Shakespearean character, whoever he, she, or they may be, still survives the death of their creator, alive and rattling in our minds as they did to Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
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FIVE REASONS WHY TRAVEL DOESN’T MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON
April 8, 2016by Olivia Hanks
Do you keep thinking you should travel more, but find yourself doing other things instead? If so, the internet would like you to believe you are a bad person. Hyper-motivational Instagram culture has led to a panoply of blogs enumerating the reasons Why Everyone Should Travel and Why Travel Makes You A Better Person. International travel, once the privilege of the very few, has passed straight through the stage of being considered a right: cyberspace now deems it a responsibility.
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BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: REHASH OF INJUSTICE
April 8, 2016by Sam Naylor
Disclaimer: Filled to the brim with spoilers and undergraduate level gender studies analysis *gasp*
Just for a moment whilst sitting with phone wrapped in hand, imagine that I am a renowned film critic — tall order I know. Now picture the scene of zero-star ratings being awarded to films. I am that film critic that awards a zero rating to the backwards 50s tripe that is Batman vs Superman. As you can tell I am totally not bitter about wasting my money and time, with 153 minutes of my life being dragged out before my eyes, as I endured a steroid-induced-figurine-smacking-debacle.
Initial rant over: what I’d first like to address is the films portrayal of its female characters. Now with a film title like Batman vs Superman I was aware that the main arc of the story would revolve around these two colossuses, but I’d hoped that in 2016 we’d moved far enough away from female roles as fillers and crutches for their male onscreen co-stars.
PETER TATCHELL, LEFT UNITY AND OTHER DINOSAURS
April 7, 2016by Robyn Banks
Once upon a time, there was a period in history when everyone on the left was in agreement. In this time of solidarity many campaigns were fought and won and nobody within the movement felt excluded. The boundaries of race, gender and class were broken down, sectarianism was a distant memory and everybody held hands and formed the party of the glorious left.
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EDUCATION AND COLOUR: THE IMPORTANCE OF BME STUDENT COMMUNITIES
April 7, 2016by Candice Nembhard
From #oscarssowhite to #rhodesmustfall, a spotlight has been shone on the lack of diversity and positive representation for POC across numerous institutions. Although these discussions have been catalysed in online spheres, the implications of these hashtags reference the real experiences of silencing and downplaying the importance of solidarity among BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) people — particularly in student environments.
In 2015, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) conducted a study that suggested more BME students as opposed to White British students were enrolling in university — despite statistically ‘underperforming’ in academia. A general consensus made by researchers was that students from minority households have higher aspirations regarding education than their white counterparts, even with the increase made to tuition fees and the potential privatisation of student loans at hand.
THE RIGHT TO QUALITY OF LIFE: WHY A NORWICH GRANDMA SHAVING HER HEAD
April 6, 2016by Laura Aghassi and Lisa Mikaiel
A 76 years young Norwich Grandma is aiming to raise enough money to purchase an electric wheelchair for Reid Manson, by having her hair shaved off. The event is taking place at the Forum on Saturday 18th June at 2 pm.
Anne Dupon, a Norwich Grandma was moved by the story of Reid, a young man in her local community, whom she met through her involvement in The Big Local (a lottery funded community project). Reid suffers from several debilitating conditions. He has epilepsy, fibromyalgia, M.E. (Myalgic Encephalopathy) and FND (Functional Neurological Disorder). The FND has left him with left sided weakness and leg paralysis, equivalent to having had a stroke.
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THE NEW ‘LEFT-WING’ MCCARTHYISM?
April 6, 2016by Peter Tatchell
In February The Norwich Radical carried an article by Chris Jarvis entitled ‘How I fell out of love with Peter Tatchell’. This is Tatchell‘s reply.
A reply to the sectarian distortions of Chris Jarvis.
The future of progressive politics is under threat, again. But this time from the left. Historically, socialists and greens have made gains by building broad alliances around a common goal, such as the campaigns against the poll tax and the bombing of Syria. We united together diverse people who often disagreed on other issues. Through this unity and solidarity, we won. The government of the day was forced to back down.
Nowadays, we are witnessing a revival of far ‘left’ sectarian politics and it is infecting the Green Party too. Zealous activists, seemingly motivated by a desire to be more ‘left’ and pure than rivals, are putting huge energy into fighting and dragging down other campaigners.
UNDERSTANDING THE FRENCH LABOUR REFORM: THE LAST RADICAL ATTEMPT TO INVERT HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
April 5, 2016By Julian Ignacio Canlas
On 9th and 31st March, a series of protests unfolded throughout France. Students and workers came together to reject the reform on the labour code proposed by the current French Minister of labour, Myriam El Khomri. But what does this reform—the El Khomri law—really represent? And, with 71% of French people against the El Khomri law, why is it considered to be detrimental for wage earners?
THE POWER OF ARTISTIC RECONSTRUCTION
April 5, 2016by Jess Howard
Since Daesh first made itself known at the turn of the 21st century, a significant number of religious and historical buildings, artefacts and objects of cultural significance have been destroyed, in what the Secretary-General of The United Nations Ban Ki-moon once described as ‘a war crime’. In response to this, a series of art works have been created to replicate the objects that have been destroyed since Daesh first established itself, which leads us to consider the ways in which artistic reconstruction benefits culture and society.
“I’M NOT JUST SOME TOKEN BUNNY”: ZOOTROPOLIS RAISES THE BAR
April 4, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
Disney’s 55th animated feature has been five years in the making, with a social commentary as relevant today as it was when the writers first put pen to paper. The film is an anthropomorphic crime caper following rabbit police officer Judy Hopps and con-man fox Nick Wilde. It’s full of laughs, but the lingering importance is in its more serious side.
BAN KI-MOON PLANS A HOLIDAY
April 4, 2016by Jake Reynolds
In response.
Ban Ki-moon wonders if he’ll look much better
wearing a bindi. He Googles to see if they sell
them at the airport. Everyone has been having
so much fun, and now it’s his turn. Darling!
he cries. I’ve booked a ticket to a ‘foam party’!
THE CORPORATE UNDERGROUND
April 3, 2016by Mike Vinti
The lines between the underground and mainstream music worlds have been blurring for a while now. As with the majority of issues facing the music industry these days, this is largely because of the internet. While it’s been an undeniably positive force on music itself, allowing fans and artists to connect more easily as well as opening whole new worlds of music to potential fans, it’s also made underground music more marketable.
This may not sound like a bad thing, and to a large extent it isn’t. While it would be great if musicians could live off credibility alone, in the ruthless world of capitalism in which we live, you need to be stacking that P if you want to survive. Where this increased marketability becomes less positive however is when corporations start getting involved.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY – AN INTERVIEW WITH JAKE OF SHOCK ! HAZARD
April 3, 2016By Chris Jarvis
For most, Norfolk boys Shock ! Hazard will appear as something of an antilogy. Their sound and aesthetics are clearly rooted in and influenced by early heavy metal pioneers like Led Zeppelin and the less flamboyant hair metallers of the 1980s – thumping riffs, extended guitar solos and screeching vocals galore. More than anything, this sound and this scene has been known for its bone-headed hedonism, its sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll attitude, and the carefree and unrestricted antics of its participants; hardly the place you go to find revolutionary calls to action or heavily politicised lyricism. Putting aside the question as to whether participation in a counter-culture is an inherently political act for a minute, unlike other musical movements, from punk to folk to hip-hip, this straight-up, hard hitting, in your face rock and roll, has made its name in part for being almost overtly apolitical.
THE EMBARRASSING GRANDDADDY OF THEM ALL – 5 MATCHES, 5 WAYS WWE NEED TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT
April 2, 2016By Jack Brindelli
Falling viewing figures, shoddy box-office returns, and major scandals including a number of Hall of Famers ranging from racism to murder have hit the company hard since WrestleMania 31, last year. As we prepare for what could be a make or break ‘Mania in Texas, let’s take a look at the key bouts at the world’s biggest Sports Entertainment event, to see how they reflect the internal fissures in the WWE universe – as well as society at large.
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SESAME CREDIT AND THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET
April 2, 2016By Rob Harding
We live in the future. It’s easy to forget that.
Just look at the internet. A set of technologies that jumped from military geek-toy to utter ubiquity in just two decades. While only 3/8ths of the world’s population have regular access to the internet -the vast majority of them in North America, Europe and the CIS (the former Soviet Union countries) – other nations are rapidly expanding into the chaos of the digital frontier.
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THE ELF OF SEXUAL DISCOVERY
April 1, 2016by Paige Selby-Green
It’s not just the Netflix account that has parental controls. Life itself comes riddled with rules about what’s appropriate for children. Considering how important childhood is to the person they will grow up to be, it’s understandable that we want to shield them from any negative influences. It’s unfortunate then that this well-meaning idea of childhood censorship also includes queerness as being among topics that are ‘too adult’ for children to know about. This censorship of queerness hurts more than it helps, leading to lots of confused teens and twenty-somethings who are still figuring out their identities thanks to childhoods where the only kind of relationships they were exposed to were heterosexual ones.
DETENTION CENTRES AND THE STUDENT MOVEMENT
March 31, 2016Harmondsworth detention centre, near Heathrow, is set in an anonymous business park. You can only tell it’s a detention centre because of the barbed wire.
Campsfield detention centre, near Oxford, is accessible by a nondescript turning on a nondescript a-road. The whole site is ringed by a line of trees.
Yarl’s Wood, however, is even more hidden than the rest. It sits hundreds of meters back from the road, behind a double layer of fencing, miles and miles out into the Bedfordshire countryside.
It is, essentially, a prison. Like every detention centre, it doesn’t contain people accused and convicted of crimes — it contains people without UK passports. Specifically, Yarlswood contains women and children.
OF THE WORLD
March 31, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Maria Luisa Vezzali (1964 – ), ‘del mondo’
you lower your head to cross the doorway and beyond the threshold the world breathes
with vision, a restless wave that carries the smell of houses, damp,
rust, ashes, petrol, ages that vortex towards dusk
IN DEFENCE OF SOCIAL PROPERTY: ‘KILL THE HOUSING BILL’, RENT STRIKES, AND OTHER CALAMITIES
March 30, 2016by George Laver
On 13th March 2016, a rally took place in support of the ‘kill the housing bill’ campaign, aimed at confronting governmental attacks on council and social property and redressing our attitudes towards it. Since then, numerous student-led rent strikes have also ignited. The cause for anger in both of these movements stems from different stimuli, but both address issues of rent and property.
The first, from the legacy of Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ scheme, which initially undermined council housing; the final blows were to come from this Housing and Planning Bill. The second, from the frankly ridiculous cost of rent that is borne by students in London — although this could extend across the UK, as many students will readily testify to the advantage-taking circus that are landlords. Geared towards annihilating social housing, the Housing and Planning Bill in particular aims at increasing the rent payments of council house tenants in wealthier areas. A natural product of this would be the forcing of people out of their council houses and into the arms of another set of robbers — or, private landlords.
In response to this, the demonstration of March 13th attracted thousands of protesters, targeting their motions towards the fact that sharp increases in rent would facilitate an eviction of council tenants in all but name. These issues should be labelled for what they are: the government taking control of people’s very lifestyles. By increasing rent prices, they are forcing movement; it seems to bear many similarities to a covert attempt to stimulate the private housing sector. Once again, their interests lie in private property — we are merely pawns on the board.
THE HOURGLASS
March 30, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
grains of sand pass like biology
my body ticking like a heart
my love straining like tea
RENEWABLE ENERGY AND THE REAL PRICE OF OIL
March 29, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
The realisation that renewable energy is going to be essential for the future is being embraced by more and more countries. With their geothermal and hydropower, Iceland’s electricity supply is 100% renewable energy. Thanks to it’s water projects, the African country of Lesotho has almost 100% renewable electricity. Albania runs on 85% renewable while Paraguay’s Itaipu dam provides 90% of its electricity and 19% of Brazils. By July 2015 Denmark had already produced 116% of its electricity needs and went on to sell its excess over the rest of the year. Infrastructure is being prepared to transform the way countries generate their power and investment is increasing. Renewable energy is becoming more and more accepted. San Jose in Costa Rica and Vancouver in Canada are just a few of the many cities committed to transitioning to 100% renewable energy over the coming decades.
Yet with so much promise for the future, how is it that oil continues to present such a complex issue?
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THE HEWETT ACADEMY: IS DONALD TRUMP SAILING THIS SHIP?
March 29, 2016by Hannah Rose
Who is your political role model? Mandela? Aung San Suu Kyi? I choose Harriet Martineau— one of Norwich’s very own, and the first female sociologist. But in a Year 11 assembly at The Hewett Academy on the 8th March (International Women’s Day), none other than America’s most risible Republican, Donald Trump, was advocated as a role model for self-belief, and one that students should be taking notes from if they want to pass their exams. Forget Martin Luther King and forget Emmeline Pankhurst, please welcome to the stage the man who called for the complete shutdown of Muslim immigration, and whose political speeches are a gutter-stream of bigotry. Hewett Vice-Principal Anthony Little (also Conservative councillor for Norwich South constituency) might equate Trump’s success to inimitable self-confidence, but others might put it down to simply having more money than sense. The truth – or at least a key part of it – is that Donald Trump does not have magical reserves of self-belief. He has simply been seduced by the skewed fantasy of himself.
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NO PLATFORM AND THE AMPLIFICATION OF THE STUDENT VOICE
March 28, 2016by Lucy Auger
NUS’ ‘No-Platform’ policy is the refusal to allow ‘racists or fascists’ to speak at NUS events or alongside NUS representatives. Bearing in mind that this policy is often conflated with attempts by individual Students’ Unions to ban certain speakers from their campuses, it has been dubbed by many as an attack on free speech, and further confirmation that the ‘intolerant student left’ have become more concerned with hiding in their progressive echo-chambers than with serious, healthy debate.
A SIMPLE MESSAGE
March 27, 2016by Asia Patel
MAINTAIN AND RESIST – AN INTERVIEW WITH IAIN OF AUTONOMADS
March 27, 2016By Chris Jarvis
Bringing together anarcho punk aesthetics and lyrical themes with dub and ska sounds, Manchester based Autonomads are the ultimate sound clash. Their releases move seamlessly between genres. 2012 EP No Man’s Land exemplifies this at their best, drifting from aggressive growls of ‘No more GMP, get out of our city!’ to the bouncy ska singalongs like Supermarket Sweep, before toning down for mellow moments such as Dubbing Up the Downfall, no song sounding suddenly discordant or out of place. Throughout all of their music is an obvious and explicit political underpinning. On Conditions of the Working Class, they declare ‘our oppression’s still the same, as it used to be’ and on their anti-green washing anthem 2000BP they make clear ‘ethics for profit, that’s treason’.
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BE MY ROCK? TRACEY EMIN AND THE OBJECTUM-SEXUAL COMMUNITY
March 26, 2016by Jess Howard
This week Tracey Emin – creator of the infamous My Bed piece – announced that she had married a rock. The press, understandably, reacted vehemently, with many rolling their eyes at Emin’s well-known performance artist ways, or mocking her for doing something so seemingly comical. What the press have failed to discuss is what Emin’s recent marriage, and the backlash she has received, has done for people who identify as objectum sexual.
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THE MORALITY OF TAX
March 25, 2016by Olivia Hanks
I’m writing this because I’m unhappy about small businesses not paying tax.
Yes, you read that right.
We all know about the coffee chains and technology giants that are siphoning off society’s wealth and making no contribution; I’m talking about the small, local businesses that are the real lifeblood of every town’s economy.
EXPOSURE DOESN’T PAY RENT, BUT NEITHER DOES SNOBBERY
March 24, 2016By Robyn Banks
“Exposure doesn’t pay rent”- it’s something we’ve likely all heard before, whether you’re a business looking to save money on photography, asking a friend for a favour or simply scrolling through Tumblr. The line “We can’t pay you, but it will be great exposure!” has become the bane of every artist’s life, and it’s understandable why. There has never been a sector of the workforce who have been asked so frequently to work for free as the creative sector. However, I don’t believe there has ever been such an individually vocal sector of the UKs exploited workforce, either.
WHERE ARE THE #PRAYERSFORNIGERIA?
March 23, 2016by Cadi Cliff
On Tuesday night, landmark buildings from Germany to Dubai were lit up with the Belgian flag — a sign of solidarity after the horrific attacks in Brussels. The attacks — two bombs at the city’s main airport, and one at a metro station near the EU headquarters— have killed at least 30 individuals and injured hundreds of others. Daesh (read: the so-called Islamic State) have claimed responsibility for the attacks. It’s the most violent terrorist attack to hit Europe since the November attacks in Paris, which killed 130. But this is not the first, or even 100th, terrorist attack since Paris — though this certainly will be reported on by the Western media far more than the rest combined.
Since Paris there have been hundreds of terrorist attacks worldwide. Attacks that didn’t result in tricolour Facebook profile pictures; attacks that didn’t lead to projected flags on lumps of architecture. Their narratives are only a headline, barely breaking. The descriptions are factual, not empathetic. There is no footage of candlelight vigils played on a loop on the news outlets. The shock factor simply isn’t there for the media splash if it’s a country that gets attacked again and again and again.
REVIEW: WOW FESTIVAL 2016, PART 2
March 23, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
The first part of this review, covering some of the events taking place on the Saturday, can be found here.
On Sunday, I attended the Trans Identities panel, featuring, Jane Fae, Munroe Bergdorf and Kate O’Donnell. I often feel that it is difficult to fully understand the trans experience without having lived it, yet put simply, the audience was asked to raise their hands whether they knew their gender at the age of five, alluding to those who transition as desiring the opposite to what they are referred to by others. As the panel highlighted, I’m of the view that to be a Feminist, you need to fight for all women, and that includes trans women. As Crenshaw argued, that is the crux of intersectionality. It’s not really the same if it’s only certain women for whose rights you fight. So, all I can do is listen and search to find out more about what it means to be trans, or gender fluid, or any other non-binary gender identity. It’s a complex topic, and I think most people in the audience could have stayed at least an hour longer. To explore more, you can catch Rebecca Root and O’Donnell in BBC drama Boy Meets Girl, which for some reason, BBC iPlayer don’t have to view.
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AN ORDINARY DAY
March 22, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Alessandra Racca (1979-), ‘Un giorno qualunque’
In the match
between what we call good
and we despise as evil
today a bomb will make noise
smoke will assault the eyes
scattering shards on screens
and people
a woman’s tears
will stand still 
VAGINAL KNITTING, GIRL ON GIRL CRIME?
March 22, 2016by Jess Howard
Content warning: the article mentions menstruation and physical discomfort.
In 2013, performance artist Casey Jenkins from Melbourne, Australia, caused a storm on the internet by knitting for 28 days in a gallery space using wool she had inserted into her vagina. The piece was titled Casting Off My Womb, but was christened Vaginal Knitting by the press. Almost 3 years later, Jenkins is knitting from her vagina once more, producing a commentary on the abuse she received when her original piece went viral.
LET THE WORLD SHAKE: THE LYRICAL ACTIVISM OF PJ HARVEY
March 21, 2016by Jake Reynolds
On October 2nd, 2011, PJ Harvey appeared on The Andrew Marr Show alongside David Cameron. As soon as Marr mentions that Harvey’s then-latest album, the glorious Let England Shake, tackles ‘a big political subject, in this case Britain and war’, Cameron grits his teeth and asserts that he is ‘very keen’ on the album. Harvey’s polite laugh is the kind we all offer when confronted with a mildly xenophobic taxi driver.
‘Do you think they [the government] are doing alright on culture?’ Marr asks. At this point, Harvey gently and articulately condemns the ‘100% cuts’ in her home county of Somerset. She laments the notion that economic growth in Tory Britain is viewed as the only worthwhile goal. Bizarrely, Cameron awkwardly nods, as if a brief and sudden shot of humanity has temporarily penetrated his reptilian hide. She is, of course, swiftly and patronisingly cut off. ‘You’d better go and get your guitar ready,’ Marr says, clapping his hands together. And so the camera crops her out and focuses back on the men in suits.
THIS MAN
March 21, 2016by Rebecca Tamás
This man is an angel
because
he is not a manI reject the penis as my chosen ontology
even when his penis is in my hand
even when his mouth is open like a sodden
breast- 2
ON LOVE, PUNK AND CAPITALISM
March 20, 2016By Armando Razo
In 1981, news anchor for NBC, Tom Snyder, asked the only band that matters why did they decided to be introduced as a “news giving group” instead of a “Rock & Roll music group” to which Joe Strummer, eloquently replied: “Too many songs have been written about love already, subject’s covered… The news is news, right? So it’s not boring, I mean… it’s what’s happening now”. So what’s happening now? It’s 2016 and we have sources of information everywhere, some of which are important, some irrelevant. Some true, some false. Some will endure the test of time and some will be instantly forgotten. But, do we really know what’s happening now?
ONLINE DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
March 19, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
One novel I’ve always been meaning to finish is the the award-winning sci-fi classic Neuromancer by William Gibson. Since the initial publication of the counter-cultural novel in – of all years – 1984, it went on to inspire the ‘cyberpunk’ movement in the science fiction genre, as well as the ‘high-tech, low life’ type neo-noir aesthetic that often goes with it. Neuromancer has also gone on to inspire popular films such as Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix.
But what makes the novel so prominent in popular culture is that fact that it was the first to coin the term ‘cyberspace’, i.e. a ‘consensual hallucination’ replicated artificially by millions of interconnected computer users – which in turn makes up the Internet as we know it today. The story revolves around a washed-up computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to pull off the ultimate hack (not dissimilar from Keanu Reeves’ original role in The Matrix). This in itself can be seen as an allegory for counter-cultural movements literally taking place within this ‘Matrix’ – a term first coined by the novel way before the movie of the same name was released – a world within the world, similar to the setting of the Tron films.
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ROBOTS WON’T BUILD OUR FUTURE — WE HAVE TO DO IT OURSELVES
March 18, 2016by Olivia Hanks
The Labour Party’s deputy leader Tom Watson wrote in The Guardian last week about the challenges posed to society by automation. Rapid developments in artificial intelligence over the last few years have brought this issue to prominence once again, and spawned a proliferation of articles saying, effectively, “We know we said this in the 60s, but this time we mean it — robots are going to take over the world!”
The fact that fears of mass unemployment caused by machines proved largely unfounded in the 19th century and again 50 years ago doesn’t mean that we should ignore this issue. Far from it — it presents us with an opportunity to rethink our entire approach to work.
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PROFIT BEFORE PUPILS — SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER
March 17, 2016by Cadi Cliff
Wednesday was Budget Day and George Osborne set out plans for a huge shake-up of the schools system. He announced that schools in England must become academies, independent of local authorities, by 2020. It’s farewell to your old council-run comprehensive and hello to corporate sponsored academies — and no, you don’t get a say in the matter.
Along with junior doctor contracts, the majority of the public have not supported the government’s argument on academies — so the Tories have gone and imposed them anyway. Democracy, right?
ITS A LANGAUGE FING
March 17, 2016by Alex Valente
Unless you’re an internet native, have dyslexia, or just didn’t read it, the title of this piece is probably irritating you to no end right about now. It took me a while to intentionally write ‘wrong’. I do not apologise.
I was having a conversation with an ex-student and friend a couple of weeks ago, about how language is being dealt with by certain university courses, and we stumbled over some of the commentary brought about by Nietszche and Cixous. The points, respectively, boil down to: we use language to create truths that underpin our concept of reality; that reality is predominantly, and prescriptively, structured — mostly in a kyriarchal way. While I am not disagreeing entirely, the danger is to view language as more of an abstract entity than what it really is.
REVIEW: WOW FESTIVAL 2016, PART 1
March 16, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
I have been going to Women Of the World festival at Southbank’s Royal festival Hall for years on my own. I sometimes feel tentative about talking about women’s rights with friends and family unless I know for sure someone will be on board. This has worked well it seems, as gradually, and through being vocal online instead, more and more friends have become interested in finding out more. This was the first year that I brought a friend along one day, and a family member (Feminist Gran).
I believe I could also do something different to get more friends on board, especially those who have been curious in the past, but remained relatively untouched by my ranting. In this piece, split into two parts to accommodate the weekend events, I will review and discuss some of my personal highlights of the festival, with the intention of raising more awareness and showing what WOW is about.
ENVIRONMENTAL WARS: KILLED BY THE CORPORATE STATE
March 16, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
In the early hours of Thursday 3rd March 2016 in La Esperanza, Honduras, an unknown number of assailants broke into the house of environmental and human rights campaigner Berta Cáceres and killed her. The only witness to the crime, Gustavo Castro Soto, a Mexican national, has been denied permission to leave the country with a 30-day immigration alert put in place against him. According to Global Witness, at least 109 people have been killed between 2010 and 2015 in Honduras, all with links to campaigns against a number of projects, including mining, logging and dams.
NORMALISING CBT; MAKING VISIBLE MENTAL HEALTH
March 14, 2016by Sunetra Senior
If your friend says ‘I’ve started going to the gym’ it is considered undisputedly positive; if they tell you ‘I’m getting CBT’, suddenly the atmosphere becomes tense. They seem to feel awkward as they tell you, and you don’t quite know how to react. They might as well have told you they’ve contracted an STD. But Cognitive Behavioural Therapy — ‘a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave’ — is only good for you. It is evidence of a sensible choice. And yet, sweating, starving and interfacing with an inanimate, rectangular scale every morning, is more attractive to people than sitting in a comfortable chair and talking leisurely with someone you trust.
“MILITANT ANTIFASCISTS BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY” – AN INTERVIEW WITH DASKO OF RED UNION
March 13, 2016by Chris Jarvis
There are a few bands whose influence flutters through generations, transcends time and knows no geographical borders. Joy Division, Metallica, Kraftwerk, David Bowie. In the punk scene, the influence of The Clash is far greater than even their seminal contemporaries such as The Damned, Ramones and Sex Pistols. In fact, save perhaps for later acts Operation Ivy, Minor Threat and Refused, the level of impact they have had on music goes unrivalled. Talking to Dasko of Serbian punk rock band Red Union for our series Music That Matters, it is evident that The Clash’s rebel rousing of the late 70s has made its way into the hearts of this Novi Sad band.
WE ALL LOVE STUDENT ELECTIONS!
March 11, 2016by Sam Naylor
It’s over, people. Candidates and students alike will be breathing deep the post-election buzz. Well not everyone and probably not even most people. Though a record breaking year for UEA elections, still only 19% of those who could vote did — there was a total of 3404 votes. Granted this is student elections and across the country it appears engagement at this level is struggling to grab the majority’s interest but it still supposes a democratic deficit. Negativity aside for a sentence, it was great to see the highest turn out ever for the voluntary position of Ethical Issues officer. However, letting the gloom resume, the positions for mature and post-graduate students received a shockingly low turnout — only a 7% turnout for mature students and an even lower 4% turnout for post-graduate students. This begs to question: are our democratic procedures within university effective?
Without diminishing the achievements of candidates, student elections are in part a glorified popularity contest. Policies are an important aspect of the elections, but people play a much larger part of the parcel. You know how it is — voting for friends, or friends of friends or that girl that you met at a house party once and she kind of seemed like a decent human being. I can’t see a way for this to move beyond the realm of people politics or the ‘Union Bubble’ with its internal divisions and machinations.
INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY AND THE EU SHAMBLES
March 10, 2016by Robyn Banks
This International Women’s day was supposed to be devoted to refugee women. Well, it was in name — the EU parliament website published a series of articles highlighting the plight of women refugees, such as the fact that two in five are underage. But as EU leaders hammered out a deal on the long night between Mother’s day and International Women’s day, it seemed that the only thing the EU really planned on doing to help women refugees was to use them as fodder for a Brussels photo exhibit.
For a long time, people in the EU from both left and right have been questioning if what they see is really what they get, and nothing is more exemplary of this dishonesty than the EU’s recent deal with Turkey. On two days when much fanfare was made about Mothers, about the trauma of women refugees, about family reunification, we learned about the EUs most absurd plan to date. The plan involves a one in, one out scheme whereby boats crossing to Greece from Turkey carrying ‘irregular’ or ‘illegal’ migrants — e.g. everybody not using official channels, refugee or otherwise — would be intercepted and forcibly turned back. In return for paying their life savings and risking their lives to make the dangerous crossing to Europe by dinghy, they will be sent to the ‘back of the queue’ for asylum seeking.
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THE FORCEFUL EVICTION OF THE ELDERLY — THE POLICE STATE AND ITS LINKS TO CAPITALISM
March 10, 2016by George Laver
It is no secret that the UK has maintained its long and proud tradition of housing a police state. The job entails committing to what has been ordered — at the expense of surrendering the human ability / right to make choices based upon morality, and taking into consideration the subsequent impact of the actions once carried through. This surrendering of our moral faculties to a higher power handing out orders carries with it a heavy burden — the absolute collapse of human dignity has been brought about by those who were simply following orders.
If they have been ordered to stand between the starving and a warehouse stocked with food, they will do it; if they have been commanded to hold a barrier between a person and their family, they will do it; and – in full relevancy to the focal point of this article – if they have been told to evict somebody from a home for the sake of maintaining property rights, they will do it. As such, this article aims to deliver an analysis of the modern day tyranny of private property and where it leaves us.
WHY ACTIVISTS SCREAM #BLACKLIVESMATTER AT BERNIE SANDERS
March 9, 2016By Natasha Senior
Something amazing is happening. We are finally talking about racism. And I mean really talking about it. We are asking why it is, that in the US, black people are targeted significantly more than white people in terms of police violence. We are talking about institutional racism, wherein every single year we see little to no racial diversity in the academy award nominations. We are talking about symbolic racism, in which academic institutions seem to see nothing wrong with commemorating racist historical figures. It is not a coincidence that these conversations are taking place at the same time because we are in the midst of a powerful international movement called Black Lives Matter, which is taking a battering ram to every single racist barrier you can think of. But it is also going for the ones you might not have thought of, because now it is forcing us to introspect as we examine the places we thought were free and open spaces.
PRINCE OF WALES ROAD – THERE AND BACK AGAIN
March 9, 2016by Micha Horgan
Stumbling across George Plunkett’s photo collection, my immediate thought was: ‘looked cool back then, what happened?’ The photos, which were taken on the dates listed, have a Tardis-like capacity to take the viewer back to a Norwich long since gone. It was a time of quaint cars, hand-painted signs, curiously shaped buildings, stylish hats, trench coats and inherent glamour – most of us can’t help but love it.
This habit of romanticising the aesthetic of times past begs the question: ‘Why is it that we find the past so appealing?’
YIK YAK AI
March 7, 2016by Jake Reynolds
I need you to know I am hungover I need you to know
I went out and got alcohol poisoning I am in bed eating
pizza I am the real deal I need you to know I am the god
of all your comedy give me what I need I need you to
know I am jealous of you but I cannot say it properlyVOICES OF HOPE COMING OUT OF THE DARKNESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHNNY DOOM OF POLICE BASTARD
March 7, 2016For anyone of my generation who group up in the Midlands with a taste for alternative music, Johnny Doom is something of an icon. Tuning into Kerrang Radio (when it was still broadcast on FM), it was the dulcet tones of this Brummie legend that would really excite, much more so than even the anarchic Tim Shaw or the esoteric Nick Margerisson. Unsurprisingly, he has won accolades for his wry radio conversations, being named Brummie of the Year in 2008.
But Johnny has a long history within music outside of his radio work. Becoming active initially in the late 1980s in the influential Crust Punk band Doom, Johnny went on to form the less acclaimed, but equally important Police Bastard, who fuse a raw and brutal aggression with thrash metal riffs and hardcore compositions. Encapsulated within that sound is an anti-authoritarian politics which is evident even from the band’s name. Because of this, we decided to talk to Johnny Doom about his politics and the role it plays in his music as part of our series Music That Matters.
THE FUTURE OF THE NHS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN NHS WORKER
March 6, 2016By Michael Champion
The NHS is the pride of the UK. Providing emergency and long term care free at the point of contact, Aneurin Bevan’s scheme is now in its 68th year. However, the pressures it now faces have increased dramatically. An aging population with increasingly complex healthcare needs has increased the quantity of high quality care required, and thus the demand for competently trained professionals. Coupled with multiple funding crises (including repayment of PFI and necessary maintenance of existing infrastructure) and bureaucratic reorganisations, the ability of the NHS to manage this increased demand has been tested, especially during periods of wider macroeconomic pressure.
UEA AND SUSTAINABILITY — FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS
March 6, 2016by John Heathcliff
As each day passes, it becomes clearer and clearer that UEA’s relationship with sustainability is one of convenience rather than conviction. Revelations about over £10 million of losses from the failed biomass project on the campus and the recently mothballed ‘Generation Park’ in Norwich have demonstrated the fundamental ineptitude at the heart of decision making at the University. Grand, white elephant projects intended to bring significant reputational benefit to the institution as well as new revenues have become undeniable disasters. National media have run the story, highlighting the amount of public and student money spent on failed projects that could have instead been spent on education and effective research.
Looking at these errors in isolation is bad enough. If you join together the dots, it only becomes worse.
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THE TRUTH OF THE JUNGLE EVICTION: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION
March 5, 2016by Robyn Banks
On Monday, French authorities moved in to begin a mass eviction of the Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle, resulting in ‘clashes’ between the police and activists alongside refugees. Unfortunately, that seems to be about as much as anyone really knows. As my house is currently full with donations for the camp, I was pretty invested in finding out exactly what was going on. Which charities should I contact now? What do they need? Where will all the refugees go and how many of them will remain?
As I scrolled through page after page of pictures of tents on fire and riot police, every headline seemed to be ‘Clashes between police and…’ and even those that were helpful were contradictory. It seems that misinformation is rife, whether deliberate or due to the incompetency of authorities on the ground, and even long term and well informed activists in the camp have been confused.
SHOULD SCIENCE FICTION BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY IN ACADEMIA?
March 5, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Science fiction as a literary genre has long been ignored by both the academic and literary world as one that can be taken seriously. However, attitudes towards the genre are slowly changing. It is gradually being accepted and taught by many universities today, with literary modules dedicated to it emerging. It can also be potentially seen as a welcome break by those who are weaned off interpreting the likes of Chaucer or Shakespeare.
Stereotypically, science fiction would traditionally be thought of as a ‘childish’ genre featuring spaceships, Martians, laser guns, and time-travel. In fact, prior to the space race of the 1960s, stories published during the 1920s and ‘30s were often relegated to pulp magazines ordinarily consumed by teenagers and often bore the same kind of literary reputation that comic books had during the same era. For the same reasons, the genre was also not financially lucrative. Numbers of books sold by publishers were limited and writers were often forced to churn out several books per year just to make ends meet. It was also the type of profession many would be reluctant to admit to on social occasions.
AYLAN KURDI: 6 MONTHS ON
March 4, 2016By Jess Howard
Last year, I wrote an article on what a photograph of a drowned Syrian toddler’s body being lifted from a beach in Turkey could tell us about the Syrian civil war. About how the common misconception that refugees are coming to western countries in order to receive benefits and take money from our governments was entirely incorrect, and how these photographs show us the risks these people are taking just to survive.
Aylan Kurdi, along with his brother Galip, mother Rihan and father Abdullah, were travelling from Syria to the Greek Island of Kos. Their goal was to eventually travel to Vancouver in Canada, where Abdullah’s sister Teema had lived for a number of years. However, during their journey to Kos the boat in which they were travelling capsized, and the two young boys and their mother subsequently drowned.
THE EU REFERENDUM – WHAT IS BEING OFFERED TO US?
March 3, 2016by George Laver
Amidst the giants of British politics, there is an ever-growing rift that threatens to split central parties in all directions. Even though the stereotypical dichotomy of the right-wing representing anti-EU camp – playfully dubbed ‘Brexit’ – and the left-wing representing the pro-EU camp tend to stand up to truth, there are subdivisions within the parties that make this a more complicated matter. In particular, the main figures on both sides having differed opinions over the matter.
For example, Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that he believes Britain should remain in the European Union (EU), whilst London Mayor Boris Johnson – an associate and old Eaton friend of Cameron’s – is thoroughly backing the ‘Brexit’ campaign. If anything, it shows that this point of contention can trigger big differences amongst the closest of allies. It is not just these individuals that we must consider, but also the collateral damage that their campaigning has: those who see their efforts will more often than not draw inspiration from them, casting an influence over their vote when the day arrives.
VENICE, AGAIN
March 3, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Verusca Costenaro (1974 – ), ‘E Ancora Venezia’
Venice, again
and the taste of your distant steps.Water sliding over waves of words,
telling each other of dreams and struggles.
COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGES
March 2, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
we grew up on html
love was a cartoon heart
pink or red
we dissected some cold slab of meat in science labsand with that, every Disney film turned dirty
we would publicise our most private thoughts
kidding ourselves it was poetry
when it was catharsis at best
UUEAS ELECTIONS – NON PORTFOLIO AND MATURE STUDENTS CANDIDATES
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Non Portfolio and Mature Students Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.
UUEAS ELECTIONS CANDIDATES – LIBERATION OFFICERS
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Non Portfolio and Mature Students Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.
UUEAS ELECTION CANDIDATES – ETHICAL ISSUES AND ENVIRONMENT
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Non Portfolio and Mature Students Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.
UUEAS ELECTION CANDIDATES: UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION OFFICER
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Undergraduate Officer, and Postgraduate Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.UUEAS ELECTION CANDIDATES: ACTIVITIES AND OPPORTUNITIES OFFICER AND WELFARE, COMMUNITY AND DIVERSITY OFFICER
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Activities and Opportunities Officer, and the Welfare, Community and Diversity Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.UUEAS ELECTION CANDIDATES: CAMPAIGNS AND DEMOCRACY OFFICER
March 2, 2016The Norwich Radical contacted the candidates for this year’s Student Union elections. Here are the people running for Campaigns and Democracy Officer that responded.
You can vote for your favourite candidates until Tuesday 8th March at midday on ueastudent.com/vote.
THE FINE ART OF WAR: PROFIT, DEATH AND THE GLOBAL ARMS INDUSTRY
March 1, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
“You must not fight too often with one enemy
or you will teach him all your art of war.”Napoleon Bonaparte
Last week the European Parliament voted in favour of an EU embargo on selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Although non-binding, it remains nonetheless an interesting attitude taken by a trading block which in 2013 made €36 billion in arms export licenses. The attitude is not without reason however. Saudi Arabia has been involved in a conflict with Houthi rebels in Yemen for over a year resulting in bombings of a number of Medicines Sans Frontier hospitals, the deaths of thousands of civilians and the use of internationally outlawed cluster bombs. This embargo has come late in the day but it is still a positive action.
THE SMART CRUNCH
March 1, 2016by Andrew McArthur
The world looks on with bated breath as the FBI and Apple discuss the access rights to the iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino killer Syed Farook. But the world isn’t interested in the injustice of another American killer being granted his rights to privacy, despite the lives he ruined.
If the FBI is granted access rights to Farook’s device, the integrity of smart technology would suddenly be thrown into question. If you follow the work of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, then it becomes clear that the security of most electronic communications has been compromised for a long time.
SERIOUSLY VIVACIOUS READING: A FEMINIST POETICS OF LITERARY INQUIRY
February 29, 2016by Linda Russo
I wrote To Think of her Writing Awash in Light as a way to investigate aspects of literary women’s lives that tend to be overlooked. The questions that interested me – how do lived spaces (domestic, urban, or natural spaces or environments) effect women’s relationships to their materials and ideas and language? How do women navigate these spaces and their various prescriptions for what women should or can do? – suggested a geographic inquiry, one that required leaving my desk and books behind to wander about and write in various environments, literal and imaginary.
SOUNDTRACK OF THE REVOLUTION – AN INTERVIEW WITH SPUD OF LOBSTER
February 28, 2016by Chris Jarvis
The Midlands have been for many years a breeding ground for the very best talents on the UK ska scene. In the 1980s, it was the pioneering sounds of Coventry’s two-tone bands – The Specials and The Selecter that led the way. Nowadays, Birmingham has a lively and burgeoning scene of acts that are fusing traditional reggae and dub music with the energy and raw anger of punk and hip-hop. Building on the reggae vibes of Brummie legends such as Drongos for Europe, Steel Pulse and UB40, Lobster and their peers have built a sound and a scene that brings together the many traditions of these musical legacies. Throughout this, they have maintained a focus on politics and conscious lyricism. Because of this, we decided to talk with Lobster’s frontman Spud about his and the band’s outlook and the implications this has for their music as part of our series Music That Matters.
#STANDWITHJNU AND ITS RIPPLE EFFECTS
February 27, 2016by Kunal Chattopadhyay
Seldom has an incident in an Indian University received so much international coverage and solidarity as the ongoing confrontation in Jawaharlal Nehru University. 450 scholars, among who were names like Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar, as well as JNU alumni, signed a statement. 358 academics from Universities across California issued a letter in which they condemned the harassment of students for their political beliefs. The letter called the police crackdown on the students an “alibi for the incursion of an authoritarian regime onto the university campus”. Oxford University and the University of Chicago among others have sent in their support. Within India, solidarity actions developed in Delhi, Chennai, and various academic institutions, including notably Jadavpur University in Kolkata. And there have also been massive, unrelenting state and rightwing attacks, including physical violence.
THE EASTER RISING: ‘WE SERVE NEITHER KING NOR KAISER’
February 26, 2016by John Sillett
Ireland was Britain’s first colony and British imperialism has done all it can to hang on to it. The Easter Rising of April 24th1916 followed a long history of the Irish seeking to be a free nation through armed rebellion. However the 1916 rising, although a failure in itself, had distinct traits that previous rebellions did not have.
The method of subjugation of Ireland by the British was Landlordism and the use of planters — the bringing in of English and Scottish Protestant settlers to work the land in what was a Catholic country. Surpluses from the country estates were sent to absentee landlords in Britain. Attempts before 1916 to free the country from foreign rule rested on a leadership by the Irish gentry and middle class traders and farmers. This nascent native ruling class — which also included settlers who had assimilated into Irish culture — proved unable to lead a decisive struggle for national liberty.
SCAM CALLS AND THE DEATH OF THE LANDLINE
February 25, 2016By Robyn Banks
I ditched the landline when I first came to University in 2012. With my mobile phone almost surgically attached to my hand, it didn’t seem to make sense to pay money I didn’t have every month for a phone with no caller ID, and which in order to answer I had to jog across the house on a time limit only to find it wasn’t actually me they wanted to speak to. I’ve lived quite happily without one since then, and I didn’t really think about landlines again until this term, when I spent 2 days a week sitting next to one.
BANNING THE BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI GOODS?
February 24, 2016By Gunnar Eigener
The UK Government’s decision to prevent local authorities and public-sector organisations from boycotting Israeli suppliers has been widely criticised. The British Cabinet Office stated that such boycotts ‘undermine good community relations, poisoning and polarising debate, weakening integration and fuelling anti-Semitism’. In an opening speech to a visiting UK trade delegation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: ‘I want to commend the British government for refusing to discriminate against Israel and Israelis and I commend you for standing up for the one and only true democracy in the Middle East’.
DEADPOOL AND SEXUALITY: MINIMUM EFFORT
February 24, 2016by Beth Saward
Bringing in a staggering $132.7million, Deadpool had the biggest opening weekend for an R-rated movie, beating The Matrix Reloaded’s previous 2003 record. It’s safe to say that the Merc with a Mouth has been a success. Tim Miller’s direction combined with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s screenplay manage to stay true to the comic’s sense of humour.
Those fans who were worried about how Deadpool’s infamous fourth-wall smashing would translate to the screen weren’t disappointed (even if a beautiful opportunity was missed during Stan Lee’s obligatory cameo). Reynolds, who’s said in interviews that he’s waited 11 years to make Deadpool, plays Wade Wilson with an infectious glee that you can’t help but enjoy. Despite all of this, the film leaves a somewhat unpleasant aftertaste.
THE TRANSLATABLE NATURE OF ANXIETY
February 23, 2016by Liam Hawkes
There’s something about the nature of anxiety which makes it a distinctly personal, solitary thing. Anxiety in its many forms is an insidious creature which so easily permeates even the most confident of personalities. We can see in the press about the terrible nature of mental health care in the UK at the moment, and the pledges towards the improvement of the system. When we see that 75% of people receive no help with their disorders, or on average people wait for up to 10 years before treating their anxiety. Is it not time to think a little more deeply about our own experiences and whether they are translatable?
Things change, people change, and anxiety is a coping mechanism. It is a method of mourning for past experiences or uncertainty future events. Existentially speaking, it is inescapable. It is the acute awareness of one’s own mortality. In this sense then, existential anxiety and anxiety in general seems to exist for a perfectly understandable reason. However, the debilitating nature of the disorder can sometimes be so intense that it cannot be expressed. And does this suggest something which is not inherently social about the experience? Which could perhaps make it untranslatable.
THE NEOLIBERAL PROBLEM WITH CHINA
February 22, 2016by Will Durant
“In China, such change over the past three decades has been informed by three principles: the lower the level of government, the more democratic the political system; the optimal space for experimentation with new practices and institutions is in between the lowest and highest levels of government; and the higher the level of government, the more meritocratic the political system.”
That was Daniel A. Bell writing in The Atlantic last year about the Chinese ‘model’. This kind of thinking is everything that I loathe about neoliberalism. We’re presented with the idea that economists like Alan Greenspan and Mark Carney are these supreme experts who are just tinkering for the common good. Forget their past careers in multi-national corporations, they’re for the people. You know, like how the ‘Chicago Boys’ were simply working for the people of Chile. Just like the experts in the ol’ PRC right now. It’s not like their advice, enforced by the state, is unreliable or anything. So who needs the popular vote when you can have a few geniuses tinkering the system?
I STAND UPON THE WATCHTOWER
February 22, 2016by Jake Reynolds
after Harper Lee
It was February, it was cold, you’d come in
from break time and your fingers
would seize into a rigor mortis claw
IDENTITY, POLITICS, AND THE MOTHER TONGUE
February 21, 2016by Ananyaa Bhowmik
“Do you think mother‐tongue is a patriotic idea?”
“Of course it is”
“How?”
“Well, we happen to live in a state where the regions were divided according to language. Can you feel patriotic towards your region in a country like India? Patriotism is an inclusive concept while mother‐tongue gives you identity when identity politics is played. It isolates. It is a constant struggle between feeling proud of your mother‐tongue while being included. By the way…”
“Yes?”
“‘Mother’ Tongue is a Patriotic concept. A conundrum, don’t you think?”
In light of recent events in JNU, and being part of a University (Jadavpur) that is one of the greatest supporters of those “anti‐nationalists”, it is perhaps amusing to note that I am attempting to discuss as patriotic an idea as mother‐tongue, in occasion of UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. The University ground is a battlefield as each group tries to define what being a patriot truly means. Cries of “Vande Mataram” (All hail the Mother) ring out. In a country that has forever been portrayed as the Mother Goddess‐an object of devotion that is inaccessible, idolized, rigid and unchanging; a mere bearer of children, stripped of any other form of identity, in a burning country where youthful souls struggle to establish individual identities and right to choice, I sit writing on mother‐tongue. Mother‐tongue, which made me a Bengali, all because of a mere genetic accident. And where it all really began.
EDUCATION AND AGITATION – AN INTERVIEW WITH SAM BELL OF THE ROUGHNECK RIOT
February 21, 2016By Chris Jarvis
Much like how their hometown of Warrington is overshadowed by neighbouring Manchester and Liverpool, The Roughneck Riot have for many years been overshadowed by their peers on the celtic punk scene. Flogging Molly, Dead Kennedys, The Real McKenzies and The Tossers are the big league, and everyone else is overlooked and often forgotten. But The Roughneck Riot excel in the field of the tried and tested blend of folk music instruments and thudding punk rock just as much as any other. With mandolins, accordions and banjos, Roughneck Riot like many other celtic punk bands are part of a movement that for many years has bene redefining what it means to be a rock band and what punk music is.
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CLASS, EMPIRE, AND CRICKET: CAN IT EVER BE RADICAL?
February 19, 2016by Josh Wilson
I know what you are thinking, cricket is the least radical sport apart from maybe professional bowls. The only way it can truly be radical is if the unprotected fielding masses rose up to take out the heavily padded bourgeois batsman and aim for the heads of the aristocratic umpires. But the game today is the preserve of the middle and upper classes in the UK and has a very apparent colonial legacy across the globe. It is a game that often puts people to sleep but has been used very specifically as a cultural export of an empire that once covered a quarter of the globe and is responsible for some of the worst atrocities in human history. Empire is a part of British history that should never be glorified and that we should be collectively ashamed and horrified by. But a poll was released about a month ago that showed 43% of people are actually proud of our colonial past.
I am going to be honest — I am a big cricket fan. It was the sport that I grew up with alongside football. But the history of the sport is something that I have become uneasy with. So I thought I would go on a research mission and look at whether my love affair with cricket should come to an end or if it is just another part of our culture that we can enjoy whilst understanding the historical significance of it.
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EDUCATION IS NOT A BRAND OF TOOTHPASTE
February 18, 2016by Philippa Costello
Any third year undergraduate with a pulse will be aware of the impending juggernaut that is the National Student Survey (NSS). If they are not aware, they almost certainly will be soon. The months of phone calls, posters, and haranguing at every possible opportunity will see to that.
OF THE STOMACH
February 18, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Valentina Ferrari (1991 -), ‘Dello stomaco’
What’s left
of the stomach
is a fist in your throat,- 14
HOW I FELL OUT OF LOVE WITH PETER TATCHELL
February 17, 2016by Chris Jarvis
I didn’t want to write this article. For a long time, Peter Tatchell was one of my political heroes. Reading about the infamous Bermondsey by-election when I was 15 and going through the process of being outed and the abuse and violence that came with that, understanding that people such as Tatchell had put themselves through that 25 years prior so that the world we live in was more tolerant and more accepting, was a comfort and an inspiration. Tatchell’s continuing radicalism throughout his long career in activism and into his elder years had me in awe. One of the proudest moments I’d had as a student activist was organising a talk by him at my University and just chatting with him in the pub afterwards. But it’s become obvious that we need to talk about Tatchell.
There’s no denying that Peter Tatchell and people like him have been an incredible force for change in social attitudes and legislation in the UK when it comes to LGBT rights and human rights more broadly. From that violent and unpleasant by-election in 1983, through to his attempted citizens arrests of Robert Mugabe and his unequivocal support of human rights worldwide, Tatchell has been at the forefront of radical direct action, and progressive movements.
REVIEW – THE BOOK OF MORMON
February 17, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
“You’re not going to like that,” my partner said, when I told him I was going to see The Book of Mormon. Made by the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, I was aware it was a controversial production. I had also seen Avenue Q, which shared the same musical composer/lyricist, Robert Lopez. I knew there might be “offensive jokes”, despite South Park always being on after my bedtime when I was at primary school; I was relatively unfamiliar with the programme beyond 10-year-olds singing about chocolate salty balls in the playground… But I had heard good things, so I asked my Gran for us to see it as my Christmas present.
THE EU: ARE WE REALLY IN THIS TOGETHER?
February 16, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
‘War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.’ – George Orwell
In the aftermath of acts of terrorism — spotlight grabbing though it might be — politicians reach out, indirectly and through other politicians, to those affected. It demonstrates that perhaps they possess some element of humanity themselves. The media briefly shows the caring actions of the people of those countries and cities devastated, physically and emotionally. Then, once all has been said and done, business returns to normal.
We point and laugh across the pond at the circus that is Donald Trump’s presidential bid. We criticise the depths to which the Republicans stoop to find a scapegoat for America’s problems. Yet what we fail to recognise is that the same process is taking place here — it is simply spread across European governments instead of being conveniently bundled up into one laughable narcissistic crazy-haired package. We try to convince ourselves that not in Europe would we allow such bile and hatred come from one individual and we don’t. But nor do we look at the bigger picture and see that very same bile and hatred come in the form of legislation and government actions.
RIP MARSHAWN MCCARREL
February 14, 2016by Asia Patel
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LOVE, HERB AND REGGAE – AN INTERVIEW WITH TAJ WEEKES
February 14, 2016by Chris Jarvis
February 12th saw the release of St Lucian born musician Taj Weekes’ fifth full length album Love Herb and Reggae – a collection of fourteen bouncing, mellow reggae tunes with his band Adowa. In 51 minutes, Taj’s lyrics cover the full assortment of reggae’s lyrical history, touching on politics, human rights, marijuana and love. And yet from the opening hook, to its final, fading gasps, it never slips into cliché or stereotype, proving itself to be original and unique and without doubt their strongest record to date.
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UEA AND ITS DISAPPEARING BIOMESS
February 13, 2016by Suzanne Jones
You may have seen my previous article ‘Generation Park and UEA biomess’ for The Norwich Radical (29.08.15), which told the tale of UEA’s five year struggle to get their biomass energy centre to work. Given their advocacy of the current Generation Park Norwich proposals, I now wish to examine how the university has dealt with this failure and the double standards it reveals in their approach to environmental questions.
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DYSTOPIAN FUTURES; HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
February 12, 2016by Sam Naylor
I’ve always felt an affinity towards the sci-fi and fantasy universe and embracing all of the nerdy stereotypes that are bestowed to Trekkie and Excelsior’s alike. The out-of-this-world-experience that mediums such as superhero comics or dystopian literature can offer young people is a form of much needed escapism.
LET’S TALK ABOUT REPRESENTATION
February 12, 2016by Matilda Carter
This week Bernie Sanders made his full transformation from democratic figleaf for Hillary Clinton’s inevitable candidacy to serious contender, if still the underdog. In a mirroring of Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the Labour leadership, Sanders has swept away the idea of socialism as a dirty word amongst the party faithful and has exposed the lack of ideas and vision from the compromising, centrist party leadership. Much like Corbyn’s rise to power, however, it is notable that millenials have voted in their droves for an old white man to be their saviour.
So far Clinton has refrained from playing the gender card, though many of her supporters have failed to, but this defeat in New Hampshire will open the floodgates. Clinton was always supposed to be the first female President in the minds of the Democratic leadership and they are going to do all they can to remind Bernie’s supporters of the opportunity they will lose over the coming months.
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FGM (FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION) – IT’S A FIRST WORLD PROBLEM TOO
February 11, 2016Content warning: female genital mutilation
by Lauren Marsh
“Because women and girls are not valued equally as human beings, they are treated as less than such. Female genital mutilation is an example of this that has to be stopped” -Waris Dirie
I have just returned from spending 3 months volunteering in Nigeria with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) as part of the ICS programme. International Citizen Service (ICS) is a once-in-a-lifetime volunteering opportunity open to all 18-25 year olds, backed by the UK government.
There is a strong emphasis on guided learning for the volunteers and to engage with this all volunteers had to take part in something called an ACD (Active Citizenship Day) — the aim of which is to present a global issue to the rest of the team to raise awareness and encourage them to instigate change. My Nigerian host home counterpart Bunmi and I presented ours on the subject of FGM (female genital mutilation.)
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“I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF AS AN ECONOMIC LIBERAL” – AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLIE KINGSBURY, LIBERAL YOUTH CO-CHAIR
February 10, 2016by Chris Jarvis
It’s no secret that the Liberal Democrats are far from the most popular political party in Britain today. After the General Election, they were left with just 8 MPs, and were ousted from their position as junior coalition partners in Government. For the preceding years, they attracted mockery, ire, and ridicule in equal measure, not least from young people and students, a group who once made up a significant proportion of their voter base – especially in the dizzy days of Cleggmania.
I’m still fascinated, then, by the fact that they have managed to maintain a sizeable membership through this time, including among young people. Why would a young person join the Liberal Democrats, and why would they remain active in the party? This intrigue is what led to me interviewing Charlie Kingsbury, current co-chair of Liberal Youth as part of a series of interviews focusing of the role of young people in shaping British politics.
HE AND I GO, IN AN AYGO
February 9, 2016In November 2015, we ran an article entitled ‘Meet the Women Reviving Nature Writing’, which explored and ran with the idea that women are slowly becoming the writers championing the idea of nature as the site of solace, interrupting the male-dominated narrative of conquering and dissecting.
“When we step outside and look up, we’re not little cogs in the capitalist machine. It’s the simplest act of resistance and renewal” – Kathleen Jamie.
Here’s an original piece from someone who stepped outside and looked up.
by Leigh Louise Horan
Recently I enjoyed my first extended foray into North Wales. I had been to Wales many times prior to being with my boyfriend, Dewi, who hails from Bangor, but the extent of my journeys across the border had included daytrips or school outings. I had experienced my fair share of tramping across the beach at Llandudno when I was younger, or complaining my way up the back of Snowdon. I had spent many a time hiking various routes around and across Moel Famau, and explored both Chirk and Powis castle. However, my lack of car and driving ability meant I had never been able to dictate my own experience of North Wales, and get to explore in the way I’d like.
WRAP’S FOOD WASTE ELEPHANT
February 9, 2016by Rowan Van Tromp
Weighing in at an estimated 15m tonnes per annum, the UK’s food waste mountain is an issue that is finally been given the kind of attention it warrants, thanks to the persistence of campaigning groups like Feedback and The Real Junk Food Project, who both featured on Channel Four’s series Hugh’s War on Waste – the latest in a long line of environmental food campaigns lead by TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Launched in conjunction with the series, a petition by This Is Rubbish has gained nearly a quarter of a million signatures. In an open letter to the CEO’s of the ‘Big 4’ supermarkets, it calls on retailers to collaborate with each other, as well as WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme), to measure on-farm food waste so that it can be benchmarked by 2018 and ambitious targets can be set to reduce it by 2025.
‘THE RULES APPLY, UNLESS…’ — DOUBLE STANDARDS WITHIN CONSERVATIVE MUSLIM SOCIETIES
February 8, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
We keep reading news reports on the Islamic State, immigration from Syria and all-round growing Islamophobia that we often forget that there are other real, everyday problems affecting Muslim countries that are very easy to overlook. The increasing trend in focusing on much broader, impersonal issues by the international media has a tendency to de-humanise Muslims altogether, making it easy to forget that they too face ordinary problems, which often have nothing to do with the abovementioned huge issues.
In an increasingly globalised world, it is inevitable to encounter people from families who have settled in host nations with customs and norms that are different from their own. Coping with this culture clash and confusion of identities is therefore an increasingly common complaint, albeit one that is not always raised publicly. For example, Arabs who have been raised in the West not only have to endure daily Islamophobia (whether they are actually Muslims or not — other religions in the Middle East also include Christianity, Judaism, Baha’i, Druze, Yazidism and Zoroastrianism), they also have to deal with the inevitable clash of East meets West.
STANDOUT PINTS FROM THE MILLION
February 8, 2016by Jake Reynolds
In response.
211
The pennies from the old guy
in the flat cap
with a Brewers Fayre menu
creased in his creasing hands
that old guy
so studiousUNDENIABLE INTERACTIONS – AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLEM OF ANTILLECTUAL
February 7, 2016Dutch trio Antillectual are known for their fast, thumping, melodic hardcore, which they have toured extensively across the globe since their debut album in 2005. Bringing together influences and sounds reminiscent of bands varying from Bad Religion, Strike Anywhere and Rise Against, they have held onto one of the central tenets of punk rock, socially conscious lyrics and a progressive political outlook. Songs such as No Human is Illegal, Another Guide (To Comprehensive Capitalism) and To All Members of Parliament illustrate this attention paid to political issues and their attempt to address them through their music. Given this context, The Norwich Radical spoke to frontman and guitarist Willem about their political outlook, why Antillectual chose to fuse music and politics, and the impacts they believe political music can have as part of our series Music That Matters.
BOTCHED BODIES
February 6, 2016Trigger Warnings: Eating disorders, self-harm
By Sunetra Senior
The main appeal of Leslye Headland’s underrated 2012 film ‘Bachelorette’ was how it treated commonly stigmatised women’s disorders such as bulimia, self-harm and nymphomania. Rather than treading delicately, the comedy-drama shows the three main characters, close friends Regan, Katie and Gena (Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fischer and Lizzy Caplan) – each with their respective ailment- in an unapologetic, borderline celebratory way.
THE DEFAMATION OF BILL COSBY: BLACK COMMUNITIES AND RAPE CULTURE
February 5, 2016by Emmanuel Agu
In the three years since the origin of Black Lives Matter campaigning- we as a people have plenty to be thankful for.
Amongst the continuous protests against non-indictments of cops who slaughter us; despite being refused entry to the venues that play our music and profit from our culture, we have made progress.
The movement only gains further ground each day: the suffering of our people is openly documented for all to see, and pioneering individuals in the movement are meeting with possible presidential candidates. The most important achievement of the movement lies in the renewed energy within a generation. Though it is often exhausting hearing the same harrowing accounts; to continuously explain valid theory and personal lived experiences to voices that will attempt to silence you- I am firm in the belief that the only way we can initiate radical change within structured oppression is through continuous and accessible discourse.
THE RESPONSE TO TERRORISM: STRIPPING CITIZENS OF THEIR NATIONALITY?
February 5, 2016by Eve Lacroix
2015 was a turning point in French security. After the attack of the 7th of January on the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and the multiple coordinated attacks in Parisian public spaces on the 13th of November, French President François Hollande decided to retaliate with a hardline approach, including a joint operation with the US forces of 20 airstrikes on the town of Raqqa in Syria.
After the November Paris attacks, President Hollande declared France in a state of emergency for three months. Those three months are soon coming to an end, and he plans to prolonge this measure when it runs out on the 26th of February. The state of emergency permits officials and police officers to raid houses and impose house arrests of suspected terrorists without passing first through the court. It is clear that this problem is ongoing. In the newspaper Le Figaro, a government report is cited stating that the number of radicalised individuals reported to authorities doubled since April 2015.
COMICS, A PROGRESSIVE MEDIUM
February 4, 2016by Alex Valente
Repeat after me: comics is a medium, not a genre. Good? Good. Let’s start from there. Comics is (yes, plural noun, singular verb) a medium. As such, it has the power to channel ideologies, reflect society, provoke ripples in current trends, generate new ones, validate certain opinions, undermine others, and most of all — it influences a gigantic audience, it creates a dialogue between readers and authors.
Sometimes that dialogue is out of sync. Sometimes a side shouts louder than others. Sometimes it falls short of everyone’s expectations and hopes. And sometimes, really good things happen, and excellent conversations take place.
POETRY HITS THE HEADLINES, BUT IS IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?
February 3, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
For those who are partial to a bit of poetry, you’ll probably have heard by now that Sarah Howe has been awarded this year’s T.S. Eliot prize by judges Pascale Petit (chair), Kei Miller and Ahren Warner. You may also have seen this article, which questioned the negative tinge of the criticism of which Howe has received. Katy Evans-Bush argued that these criticisms were more to do with Howe’s age, gender and ethnicity (Howe is of dual Chinese-British heritage). Some seemed baffled both that it was possible to win on a first collection, yet also that it took her ten years to write. Surely the fact that she spent so long producing the poetry might suggest how it became possible to win? I mean, that, or witchcraft.
OSCARS 2016
January 31, 2016by Asia Patel
NEW YEAR, NEW POLITICS – AN INTERVIEW WITH LANDE OF MUNCIE GIRLS
January 31, 2016By Chris Jarvis
In November, Muncie Girls announced the release of their debut album From Caplan to Belsize, set for a release in March 2016. They followed up this announcement with two singles – Gas Mark 4 and Balloon, and kicked off the New Year with vocalist and bassist Lande being featured on the cover of Kerrang Magazine as one of the ‘Stars of 2016’ as well as being interviewed and played on Daniel P Carter’s Rock Show on Radio 1. It looks as though 2016 will be the breakthrough year for Exeter based indie-punks Muncie Girls. Having been part of what is so often a political scene, The Norwich Radical spoke to Lande about the new album, the politics behind it and how she sees the role of political music our series Music That Matters.
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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS – THE OWL SANCTUARY’S NEW DAWN
January 30, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Last night, I saw Capdown at The Owl Sanctuary for the second time in two years. Amidst the circle pits, the skanking, the stage dives, the crowdsurfing, the singalongs, introducing Capdown’s Strength in Numbers, gaffer of The Owl Sanctuary, Dan, announced that although its current Cattle Market Street venue will be closing its doors this Sunday, they have just landed a deal to re-open at a location elsewhere in the city.
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IF MILO YIANNOPOULOS REALLY WANTED TO HELP MEN, HIS ‘PRIVILEGE GRANT’ WOULD SEND THEM TO THERAPY, NOT UNIVERSITY
January 29, 2016by Matilda Carter
Try as I might, I can’t seem to ignore Milo. I know his type — I see them a lot in my line of work. The spoilt little boy who thinks he’s so clever, desperate to be noticed for all the dirty words he knows or the time he said “or what?” to a teacher. Milo seems to fancy himself an anti-authoritarian, but this is only true in the sense of a child screaming at his parents for only giving him one pack of sweets.
Once again, the perpetual adolescent has entered my inner sanctum with his ‘Privilege Grant’, a university fund only available to white men which Milo probably thinks is a Swiftian satire of social justice rhetoric. You know when people ask you to do something and you answer with no, shortly before doing what they asked? This joke works on about that level. Ah, you actually thought I was doing something to combat male privilege, but I’m arguing that MEN are the oppressed ones. Yeah, that’s the opposite of what you think, isn’t it? That must rile you up.
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PAGANISM – THE NEXT GENERATION
January 28, 2016by Robyn Banks
I’m a pagan.
You’re probably thinking of Satan worship or Ouija boards right now, right? Or figuring I must just be really in to Marilyn Manson. What if I told you I was a witch? Would you think of Hogwarts and broomsticks? Are you laughing yet? If you’re a Dawkins loving new atheist, fair enough. But if you’d defend anybody else’s right to their faith, you’re probably a hypocrite.
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THE FREEDOM OF A LIBRARY
January 28, 2016by Rowan Whiteside
All across the country, libraries are being closed. This has been happening for years: quiet reservoirs of knowledge and fantasy disappearing from villages, towns, cities. Since David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010, library funding has dropped by 16% and we have 549 fewer libraries.
It is difficult to really assess the impact of this. We know that visits to libraries have dropped by almost 14%, but we don’t know how many lives have been changed, how many jobs have been lost, how many children can no longer borrow something new to read. 549 libraries is an abstract figure. It sounds like a lot (because it is), but it doesn’t actually show what has been taken away. And what has been stolen is so much more than statistics can show.
WHY WE NEEDED CHARLIE HEBDO’S CARTOON OF ALAN KURDI
January 27, 2016by Natasha Senior
The series of coordinated sexual assaults and robberies across Cologne on New Year’s Eve, prompted an outcry from the media when it came to light that a majority of the perpetrators were refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. A steady stream of articles surfaced examining and criticising Angela Merkel’s mantra of “refugees welcome”, all of them reeking with an infuriatingly smug “I told you so”. The tabloids dealt with the news with as little finesse as you’d expect—publishing quotes from questionable sources about how some refugee was overheard to be describing western women as sex objects (as if this was somehow representative of the opinions of all refugees). Others have taken a more sympathetic approach, pointing out that these refugees probably didn’t understand our esteemed cultural practice of not robbing and sexually assaulting people.
Amidst all of this was a cartoon published by Charlie Hebdo depicting Alan Kurdi, the drowned toddler whose body was photographed washed up on a beach in Turkey. This haunting image has come to represent the plight of refugees. In this particular cartoon he was portrayed to be all grown up and groping a woman in Germany. Rightfully, this elicited a furious media backlash.
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A HEATHROW HOOLIGAN IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL
January 26, 2016by Ella Gilbert
I’m writing this in something of a state of shock. Yesterday, following a hastily shortened trial, and alongside twelve others of the #Heathrow13, I was found guilty of aggravated trespass and being ‘unlawfully airside’ (as it’s known in the biz – whatever that biz may be) and told that it was “almost inevitable that you will all receive immediate custodial sentences”. Everyone else was evidently shocked too. There were gasps in the public gallery as this bombshell was dropped, and cries of “shame on you!” from supporters watching.
DISNEY PRINCESSES REDESIGNED AS…. PATRONISING AND DISCRIMINATORY
January 26, 2016by Jess Howard
The majority of us will have seen articles featuring ‘Disney princesses redesigned as’. They’ve been tattooed, hungover and turned into pin ups. This time, however, writer and illustrator combo Danielle Sepulveres and Maritza Lugo have teamed up to produce a cartoon featuring Disney princesses visiting the gynaecologist, to promote sexual health awareness and cervical cancer. I have previously discussed why I disagree with cartoons being used to highlight sensitive issues, and this example is no exception.
LABOUR’S NEW PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST ANALYSED
January 25, 2016by Alex Hort-Francis
We examine Corbyn’s new campaign video to find all of his secret clues…
It’s been four months since Jeremy Corbyn sold his soul to a crossroads demon in exchange for leadership of the Labour Party, and he puzzlingly still hasn’t been discovered to have accidentally brutally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving. This can only mean that the Conservatives have forgotten about poor old J-Corbs amongst the understandable orgy of anus cocaine and fox strangulation that normally follows a majority Tory general election result. To remedy this, Much Newer Labour have commissioned a party political broadcast to remind us all what our favourite unshaven underdog has been up to before he unmysteriously convinces himself to commit suicide in a wood with no witnesses at some point later this year.
‘CREEPY, BUT SWEET’: FAN-FICTION THROUGH THE BIASED LENS OF LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
January 25, 2016by Jake Reynolds
When I told a sub-editor of The Norwich Radical that I wanted to write an article in which I explore the fan-fiction community, his first words of advice were ‘steer clear of mpreg’. You can Google ‘mpreg’, if you like. If you’d rather not, socio-political zeitgeist Buzzfeed offers a simple definition: ‘the term for a genre of art and literature where a man is pregnant.’
This is precisely what fascinates people about fan-fiction: its alleged tendency to steer towards the bizarre, the unknown, and, some would say, the un-publishable (although nowadays the proliferation of fiction appearing online throws the whole question of what is/is not ‘publishable’ into question). Talking about fan-fiction right now conjures that which we have seen before – excerpts of sexually charged dialogue between Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes and Andrew Scott’s Moriarty, for example (a pairing so popular that Sherlock co-creator and renowned fan-teaser Steven Moffat wrote a scene in which the two lean in for a kiss, albeit in his usual roundabout, not-quite way).
But of course, we know that not all fan-fiction is like this.
SURVEILLANCE & TOLERANCE: HOW YOUR GOVERNMENT IS CONTROLLING YOUR MIND
January 24, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens,
as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.” – David CameronEver since Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks and The Guardian’s revelations about state surveillance and data gathering were largely greeted with indifference by the public, governments across the globe have continued to find ways to watch and obtain information about their citizens. Yet increasingly it is the actions taken by these governments in response to healthy criticism and protest and the sinister erosion of human rights that should strike a worrying chord in each and every person.
PROGRESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH IN EVIL HOUR
January 24, 2016By Chris Jarvis
Darlington’s melodic hardcore punks are on the up. Off the back of a new EP, increased media coverage including a feature in Vive Le Rock magazine and The Mixed Tape, they now have tour dates in the diary with Ignite and UK Subs and they look to make 2016 their year. Inspiring comparisons with Rise Against, In Evil Hour combine the speed and aggression of modern hardcore with scathing attacks on the state of society of and politics. It is this latter feature of their music that led The Norwich Radical to talk to frontwoman and guitarist, Alice and Gareth about their political outlook, how it interplays with their musical outputs and what role they see this fusion having in shaping political change as part of our series Music That Matters.
HOW FAR CAN FEMINISM GO IN ASIA?
January 23, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
Over the past century women have made great strides towards gender equality in the Western world. From the Suffragette movement of the late 19th and early 20th century in Britain to the commonplace election of female MPs today, women’s rights in the West are increasingly becoming the norm. Feminism has even played a role in the world of science fiction, with prominent authors such as Margaret Atwood and Ursula LeGuin imagining hypothetical future societies in which gender barriers, and in some cases gender itself, have been removed completely for the betterment of the human race.
DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK
January 22, 2016by Mike Vinti
We’re barely a month into 2016 yet it’s becoming plain to see the musical trend that’s going to dominate the next twelve months: comebacks.
For as a long as there’s been a history of popular music there have been comebacks, it’s a natural part of the scene. The bands and musicians you idolise as a child and throughout your teenage years hold a special place in your heart and that’s always going to translate into a desire for more music and more shows form those artists; nostalgia is a powerful force.
Of, course, where there’s nostalgia, there’s money. Artists that have been around for longer can charge more for tickets, command larger production budgets and utilise the demand from fans to open doors not available to their more contemporary peers. This is doubly true for those than have been away and come back again. From Blur to Black Sabbath, Take That to Jay-Z, the combination of die-hard fans and risk averse record label execs sets the stage perfectly for a comeback if you’ve been officially out the scene for more than five years. Money and nostalgia, it seems as simple as that, right?
ZAMBIA: WHERE THE STREETS ARE PAVED WITH COPPER
January 22, 2016by Josh Wilson
The past few weeks have seen a growing debate about the impacts of slowing growth in China on the global economy. But I want to talk about the potential impacts on Zambia specifically.
Zambia — a country most people know exists but are not always 100% sure quite where it is located on a map. For a bit of background, it is a landlocked country the size of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland combined, with a population of just 14.5 million people. It is situated just above Zimbabwe and below the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was a British Colony until Independence in 1964; Kenneth Kaunda won the first election after independence and ruled the nation from 1964 until 1991 when a multi-party democracy was resurrected and has continued since. Zambia has some of the most pristine nature reserves in Southern Africa, with one of the most concentrated populations of Leopards on the continent.
This beautiful country also has an awful lot of copper.
WHAT PEOPLE THINK
January 21, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Manuela Dago (1978-), ‘Cosa pensa la gente’
It’s a wordy problem
even not being able to say
not being able to explain
explain your words
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RICHARD YATES: AN ACCIDENTAL FEMINIST?
January 20, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
I first came across Richard Yates’ work through Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in the screen adaptation of Revolutionary Road. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the book in HMV, for something ridiculous like £1, that I actually read his work. I loved them both equally. Maybe I’m just a sucker for all things retro, but I felt he was extremely talented at capturing the human condition in characters who were entirely believable; both romantic and tragic. His ability to do this seemed to extend to a variety of characters and situations when recently reading his Collected Works.
IN TRANSITION – AN INTERVIEW WITH JOSH CHANDLER MORRIS OF HOPE IN HIGH WATER
January 19, 2016by Chris Jarvis
For years, Josh Chandler Morris was known as the energetic frontman of skacore band Anti-Vigilante, whose powerful stage presence, piercing sax segments and fast paced vocals thrilled crowds across the country including on tours with veterans of the ska scene such as King Prawn and Inner Terrestrials. Nowadays, Josh has teamed up with Carly Slade to form Hope in High Water, a two piece acoustic folk band, whose focus is much mellower and whose lyrics are less focussed on the political issues that Anti-Vigilante were well known for. But because of Josh’s background, The Norwich Radical decided to discuss with Josh his political outlook, how it interplays with his musical outputs and why his most recent outfit has decided to steer away from the politics as part of our series Music That Matters.
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SEXY FILTHY GYPSIES: THE STRUGGLE FOR ROMANY IDENTITY THROUGH THE ARTS
January 17, 2016by Jonathan Lee
In the post-imperialist Western world, liberal society is becoming ever more self-aware of social and cultural sensitivities, most evidently in the influence of the arts as a vehicle for perceptions of race, gender, sexuality and culture. Cultural appropriation is a topic hotly debated, and one where the divide between appropriation and appreciation can sometimes be uncertain. This ambiguity and subsequent argument is usually tied to power relationships, dichotomy in stereotypes (e.g. black hairstyles being perceived differently on white heads) and most often, the struggle for the appropriated culture to control its own identity.
The struggle for Roma to self-determine their own public identity — that being which is perceived by those outside of the Romany community — has historically been dominated by stereotypes of the ‘Gypsy other’. These myths, biases and often outright lies likely stem from the Middle Ages with arrival of the Roma in Europe. In an age of relative racial homogeneity, the Roma appeared as a foreign, outsider race whose dark countenance was associated with evil in a time of church hegemony and bigotry. The associations forged with the Roma during their early arrival were compounded by subsequent centuries of persecution and hatred, often based on conceptions of ‘the Gypsy other’ rather than interactions.
PURGE YOUR INNER TORY!
January 17, 2016By Jennifer and Harriet Doveton of Colour Me Wednesday
People often ask us, in broad terms, what it’s like being a ‘political’ band. ‘Music’ and ‘Politics’ are treated as a volatile and unusual combination but to us it always seemed odd to try to talk about ‘political music’ as separate from ‘music’ and ‘politics’. Politics affects every part of our lives, to us, everything is political.
BEING BISEXUAL AND GENDERQUEER IN A ‘HETEROSEXUAL’ AND ‘CISGENDERED’ RELATIONSHIP
January 16, 2016by Chris Jarvis
In one form or another, I have been ‘out’ for about eight or nine years. Obviously the concept of being ‘out’ is far more nuanced than a simple one stage event, act or process. The reality is of course much, much more complicated. Each time you meet a new person, each time you move to a new town, each time you start a new job that process has to start again, from the beginning.
Coming out is never an enjoyable experience for me, no matter how many times I have to do it. Throughout my life, there have been few things that have terrified me more than coming out to new people. I am not yet actively or consciously come out to my parents, despite now being 23. So much of the time it seems much easier to sit in silence and not rock the boat rather being upfront with the truth, even if that truth forms an important, albeit not defining, part of my identity. Why would I choose to risk potential isolation and victimisation when things could sit so much more comfortably in ignorance?
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OUR MOVEMENT TO END THE MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA MUST BE PRO MED
January 15, 2016by Matilda Carter
The buzzword in politics at the moment, or at least one of them, seems to be mental health. Mental health must be treated as just as important as physical health, say the Lib Dems, we are all victims of mental health problems say Labour and the stigma of mental health must be removed say the Conservatives. It is welcome that, this week, the Conservative government have pledged to increase funding for mental health services, even though the combined effect of government measures over the last six years on people with mental health issues is somewhat less than perfect. Terrible even.
Still, this is a good time if you, like me, suffer from mental health conditions which you previously felt were bars to a social and professional life. Unfortunately, the huge expansion in understanding of mental health issues has led to the emergence of a counterproductive and deeply problematic movement against the use of medication. These are people who see mental health issues as natural and see medicating as an attempt to destroy the uniqueness of people suffering from mental health conditions. Presumably this is because all of their information on mental health conditions comes from watching House and Rain Man.
DANCE WITH US TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
January 14, 2016By Eloise O’Hare and Michelle Savage
Norwich Rising Co-organisers14th February is V-Day – a global day of action to demand an end to violence against women. The United Nations estimate that one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That’s one billion women. Dance with us on Saturday 14th February 2016 at 1pm at the Forum and help us to Break the Chain of violence.
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THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FUCKING STUDENT BUBBLE
January 14, 2016By Robyn Sands
Once upon a time, a man named Tony Blair looked in to a mirror, turned out the lights and repeated ‘Education, education, education’. Little did he know at the time that this event would herald the eventual downfall of civilisation through the birth of a whole new kind of student totally unlike the hardy and privileged students of old. If you come on to UEA campus at night you’ll see these new students, sleeping peacefully in their incubated pods in the library and the lecture halls, wrapped in blankets of bubble wrap and trigger warnings. They’re a bit like adults, these students, but not quite. They’re certainly adult enough to have a tabloid smear campaign waged against them, but, unlike other adults, these students have never seen the outside world.
THE NEW GENERATION – AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH CLARE, CO-CHAIR OF THE YOUNG GREENS
January 13, 2016By Chris Jarvis
Hannah Clare is part of the first wave of ‘new Greens’ in the 21st century. Preceding the ‘Green surge’ of last year, these are members of the Green party, predominantly young members, who joined up some time following the Iraq war and before 2013. Many were frustrated by the drab political landscape in other parties, and by the seeming betrayal of the parties they might otherwise have supported – first the Labour Party over Iraq and subsequently the Liberal Democrats over tuition fees and the coalition government. They place political emphasis on radical social justice to compliment the strong environmental concerns of the Green Party while simultaneously recognising and acknowledging that the systematic and societal oppression of different groups is fundamentally and intrinsically linked to other political concerns and therefore calling for an intersectional approach to tackling political issues. Over the last two years in particular, this generation of Greens has begun to have a more significant influence within the party, proposing and winning policy debates and having increased success in internal elections.
CARTOONS AND CONSENT
January 12, 2016by Jess Howard
You would think that consent is a straightforward issue. If someone does not want to have sex with you, or is not able to tell you they want to have sex with you, then don’t have sex with them. Period. But, sadly, this is not always the case, and there is often a haze and grey area around the issue. So, to clear up any confusion, a number of artists have taken to drawing step by step analogies about the issue, in attempts to make it as clear as possible. But my question is: are we reducing a dangerous issue to nothing more than a doodle?
HOW CAN WE LEARN TO IDENTIFY WITH OUR PLANET?
January 12, 2016by Liam Hawkes
I haven’t read a lot of science fiction. I have only heard of a handful of authors, and probably couldn’t name many of their books. But as soon as I turned the first page of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, I was hooked. His beautiful philosophical musings – in Bill Johnston’s English translation – about the nature of consciousness, perception, and the environment struck a chord with me. Which started me thinking about how we interact with our own environment here on Earth, and how perhaps we could benefit from a revaluation of our ideals.
DAVID BOWIE
January 11, 2016by Jake Reynolds
I.
My grandfather saw him on the docklands at four
in the morning, a flash in the waning light of a jazz bar,
a man honking his way out into fog with aplomb
REVIEW: DAVID BOWIE’S BLACKSTAR
January 11, 2016by Mike Vinti
This review was written over the weekend, when David Bowie was still alive. In light of his death last night, much of the meaning of this album has changed and one can’t help but see this album, released just three days before his passing, as Bowie’s final gift to the world. In this review, no great weight is placed on the allusions to death or nagging sense of dread throughout, the aspects of the album that stand out most today. In my naivety I guess I thought he’d live forever. Listening in light of the news, ‘Lazarus’ especially feels like a resigned goodbye, lines such as ‘I’ve got scars you cannot see’ and ‘just like that bluebird, I’ll be free’ seem to warn the listener of Bowie’s fate and one can’t help but feel like a fool for missing them.
THE FAR RIGHT IN BRISTOL
January 10, 2016by Freddie Foot
The refugee crisis and the attacks in Paris has led to a reevaluation of European values and Europe’s overall unity. It has also stoked existing islamophobia and anti-immigration politics in the UK.
Those who were at, or read about, the far-right protest in Bristol in October would have noticed the organisers were the ‘Bristol United Patriots’ (BUP), a far-right group who ‘will defend our country our families and our culture against any threat to the peace and security of our nation’. The demonstration centered on opposing the housing of Syrian refugees while there was a British homelessness epidemic. The BUP had stated that “This demo is to highlight the homeless situation amongst the ex-service personnel living rough in Bristol and Somali rape gangs operating in this area. All nationalist and patriotic groups are welcome to fly their own flags.”
While Bristol has a strong history in anti-fascist activities and a relatively weak far-right, it is still worth understanding this new group and its intentions in the city. Readers will be pleased to know that it was difficult to look into the history of the far-right in Bristol. No one from the BUP wanted to speak to me about the protest or their organisation and seemed extremely defensive when I approached them.
BASTARD COPPERS: AN INTERVIEW WITH JON FAWKES OF THE FILAMENTS
January 10, 2016Bouncing onto the scene in the early 2000s, The Filaments’ fusion of ska and dub with a street punk reminiscent of the second wave of punk in 1982 made them stand out on the burgeoning circuit of the time. More stripped down and raw than contemporaries such as Capdown, The Filaments offered something more primal than the rest of the scene. Their sound has since been replicated and developed by younger acts, Faintest Idea being the most notable.
2016: THE AGE OF AGORAPHOBIA?
January 9, 2016by Faizal Nor Izham
I kicked off 2016 by … not going out at all.
At first glance, that would not seem completely unusual. Many would prefer to stay indoors than brave the rain, cold, and the above-average bustle of crowds on New Year’s Eve — however this was during a recent holiday spent in London, which hosted some of the most spectacular fireworks displays in the country. Watching the display afterwards online, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret at not being there to see them in real life. Having said that, fireworks are usually the same old spectacle anyway, regardless of the event.
Another factor behind not going out this time was due to mild agoraphobia on my behalf— agoraphobia being the fear of going outdoors and wide open spaces. This, admittedly, was perpetuated recently by the constant bombardment of paranoid news stories from the media on the possibility of more terror attacks. ‘Security will be tight’ some said, with experts speculating even more attacks are to be expected in 2016. No matter how resilient a person thinks they are to all this, feelings of paranoia can eventually get to you.
ADULTS MAY SOON BE ALLOWED TO SELF-DEFINE GENDER
January 8, 2016by Eve Lacroix
A report due to be released this month by the Common’s Women and Equalities Committee may prove to be a great step forward in terms of legal rights for the transgender community in the UK. Official existing acts that protect transgender people are the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, in which changing one’s gender became legally recognised, and the 2010 Equality Act which prohibits transphobic discrimination.
These two acts have proven insufficient, and to address current issues, one of the Committee’s tasks is to assess and research improvements that need to be made to achieve greater transgender equality. Conservative MP Maria Miller, who chairs the committee, has stated that “as a society and a government we should be looking at ways of trying to strip back talking about gender… We need to understand that gender stereotyping can be as damaging for men as it can be for women.”
BLACK‘N’BEAUTIFUL
January 7, 2016by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Ribka Sibhatu (1962-), ‘So bella nera’
Black market
black cats
black Friday..!
And they call me
‘of colour’.- 3
KILLING CULTURE: THE CLOSURE OF THE OWL SANCTUARY
January 7, 2016by Chris Jarvis
Last night, my Facebook timeline erupted. It’s customary for this to happen every once in a while, typically following an international atrocity or a major political event. Instead, this time it was in relation to the news that beloved Norwich music venue The Owl Sanctuary is set to close its doors at the end of January. Waves of solidarity swept across the internet, with the venue’s lengthy, emotional and angry announcement on their Facebook page being shared more than 2,000 times within three hours. Friends, musicians and fellow Norwich public spaces all joined in to stand with their venue and condemn its closure. I couldn’t express my rage.
FLOODING, RESPONSIBILITIES AND OTHER AWKWARD ASPECTS OF POLITICS
January 6, 2016by Gunnar Eigener
Were a report ever to come out claiming that the Houses of Parliament or Whitehall were at high risk of being flooded and severely damaged, you could pretty much guarantee that money would be found in a timely fashion to make sure those risks never occurred. So why are so many parts of Britain flooding despite experts providing advice on how to prevent it? Why do governments ignore experts? How often has this occurred and what effect have these decisions had? Have lives been needlessly lost?
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REVIEW: WARSAN SHIRE’S HER BLUE BODY
January 6, 2016by Carmina Masoliver
In 2013 I was amongst around twenty poets long-listed for the first Young Poet Laureate for London prize. I remember meeting Warsan Shire that day; she seemed quiet, perhaps nervous, yet confident and bold. We performed one piece to a panel of judges, and I was either before or after Shire. Although she prefers writing to performing her work, I remember being blown away by not only the words, but the delivery of her poem Ugly. I remember that I had already heard lines quoted by Kayo Chingonyi from a workshop he was leading for students at the school where I work. It was no surprise when Shire was shortlisted, much less when she won.
To have the power to write poetry that sticks in the mind is certainly a gift that Shire bestows in much of her work. I have since had the pleasure of seeing Shire again at the launch of the first Podium Poets anthology, by Spread the Word, and attended workshops lead by her on an Arvon retreat. As an aspiring poet, she is an inspiration to many as a writer and as a human being.
BODY HAIR IN ART HISTORY AND MODERN CULTURE
January 4, 2016by Jess Howard
Owing to a particularly traumatic experience with a bottle of hair removal cream, I recently started thinking about body hair. For years fashion photographs have been telling us that men and women alike should trim, wax, shave, and pluck in order to look beautiful and presentable. This opinion is reflected in the visual arts of today, with models seldom seen with body hair and advertising campaigns even choosing to show women shaving a hair free leg, to prevent the ultimate taboo of showing body hair in the ad itself. Today it seems body hair is off the menu, but how does this compare to artistic examples throughout history?
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SOMETHING MORE – AN INTERVIEW WITH DABS FROM NEW TOWN KINGS
January 3, 2016By Chris Jarvis
Hailing from Colchester, eight piece ska band New Town Kings offer a rounded sound drawing influences from across the history of ska and reggae music. Since 2007, they have been and sharing stages over the years with some of the bigger names in the scene, from Reel Big Fish to Gentleman’s Dub Club and from The Skints to The Aggrolites. Next week, they will be playing on the same bill as Zion Train and Mungo’s Hi-Fi. The long and varied list of acts New Town Kings have played with demonstrates the diversity in their sound – blending traditional ska, two-tone and reggae with hints of ska punk and the odd hip-hop vibe. Although not necessarily known for their political music, and more so instead for their strong and energetic live performances, New Town Kings recordings, whether it be News Stand, La La World or Change are steeped in political undertones. For this reason, I interviewed frontman Dabs Bonner to discuss his and the band’s political outlook, the relationship it has to their music and how he views it in a wider political context as part of our series Music That Matters.
FUCK SOCIETY
January 3, 2016by Asia Patel
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UK FLOODING: THE NEW NORMAL IN A CHANGED CLIMATE
January 2, 2016By Natasha Senior
Storms have mercilessly battered Britain, one after the other over this festive period, bringing with them severe and unrelenting floods. The scale of damage and devastation was unprecedented, but it was not unpredictable. We’ve seen these storms growing with intensity every year. And, whilst a few might naively blame El Niño for this recent bout, we know that climate change is the driving factor. The government and general public appear to have accepted this, but even so, whenever a frank discussion about the consequences of climate change is put forward, it seems to be met with some underlying scepticism. This systematic dismissal of the difficult questions leaves us wholly unprepared for what’s to come and the recent floods have served as a sobering reminder of this.
UEA: A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
January 1, 2016By Robyn Banks
Raise your hand if you have ever criticised a foreign nation over their attitude to human rights. Keep it up if you’ve ever thought it a good reason to break aid or trade links with another nation. And now, raise your hand if you’ve ever thought that the UK couldn’t ignore an aspect of the human rights convention without serious consequences.
IN 2016 WE NEED BETTER HEROES
January 1, 2016by Matilda Carter
I’ve been hearing a lot in the last few weeks about how 2015 was the year that trans gained mainstream acceptance and that this development was all thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox and that Amazon show that fails to understand the trans experience in any way. No matter who I speak to, I am told that I must hero worship Jenner and Cox for creating a world in which I can walk down the street with a slightly lower chance of being violently attacked, but I’m not going to fake enthusiasm to people I don’t like any more, because this year I will be demanding a better standard of hero.
Let’s ignore Jenner’s homophobia and support for the Republicans for a second. I’m even willing to ignore her belief that the hardest thing about being a woman is deciding what to wear. Pointing out that Caitlyn Jenner sucks is so 2015. In 2016, we must demand better heroes because we cannot leave a world where we are told we are not to be valued because of the journey towards our true genders, only to enter a world where we are only valued because of the journey towards our true genders.
YES, AN ELECTORAL PACT WOULD BENEFIT LABOUR AND THE GREENS
December 31, 2015By Elliot Folan
Once again, talk of a Green-Labour electoral pact has come back into the public eye, thanks to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn daring to not express outright hatred for Caroline Lucas, a position taken as suggesting a possible pact. Regardless of Corbyn’s actual intentions, the news item has gotten people discussing the possibility of a pact once again. As I suspected would happen, when I first wrote a piece on this issue earlier this year, there’s been a sceptical and sometimes angry reaction from some elements within the Green Party. One member, in particular, outlined their position in a Bright Green article, saying that “there are no guarantees, no accurate statistics, that suggest ‘Lefty’ electoral pacts will win seats”. I’d like to respond to anti-pact sentiments, and to that article in particular.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL? – AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN ROBB OF GOLDBLADE
December 31, 2015By Chris Jarvis
For twenty years, Goldblade have been tearing up the British punk scene. Notorious for their anthemic, straight up punk rock with the odd bits and pieces borrowed from rockabilly, hardcore and street punk, the Manchester based band are infamous among fans for their energetic and powerful live performances (I once described them to a friend when I was fifteen as the best live band on the planet after seeing them open for Misfits on their 30th anniversary tour). But like many in the punk scene, Goldblade are also known for their political and social conscience, and so we decided to talk with their frontman John Robb about his political outlook, the relationship it has to his music and how he views it in a wider political context as part of our series Music That Matters.
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VICTIM BLAMING – NORFOLK CONSTABULARY AND CONSENT
December 30, 2015By Jo Swo
Just like how a teacher is expected to have a clear understanding of the subject their teaching, police should have a clear understanding of the crimes they are fighting. How else can you identify the crime and help the victim? This is a very simple analogy to a very complicated issue: rape and sexual assault. The factors that protect rape and rapists are the same that perpetuate rape culture; victim blaming, lack of education, and the fallibility of consent. Over the last year I have been troubled with the Norfolk Constabulary’s attitudes towards consent and their continual victim blaming. During Fresher’s week a police officer took a photo of an incapacitated student who was slumped on Price of Wales Road, covered in vomit and unconscious, which was then uploaded onto Twitter with the hashtag ‘KnowYourLimits’ and @ing UEA and the Student’s Union.
ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? ARMCHAIR ACTIVISM – A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
December 29, 2015By Josh Clare
The thing which I most enjoy about each Christmas since I learnt that there wasn’t a magical man bringing me countless gifts is the time available for reflection. This year as I sit by the open fire of my mother’s house, far too full on turkey next to the sleeping dog there is only one thing that I can think – how lucky I am. Sure, I have a rigorous job, but it’s certainly nothing like the dirty, tiring job my dad had or the chicken farm jobs my far-too-young mum had to take on as a child. I’m the first generation in my family to be enabled to think for a job and when I stop to contemplate about what that means I’m so grateful for the sacrifices that others have made to get me here but also, sadly, embarrassed by how I’m spending my opportunity, my ability.
FASHION AND FOOD: THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT ATTACK EATING DISORDERS HEAD ON
December 29, 2015by Jess Howard
While some may see it as a separate entity altogether, fashion is unquestionably a form of art. From the creative process that designers progress through to create high fashion pieces, to the advertising campaigns used to sell them, fashion design influences the masses. But this is where the industry often encounters conflict: thousands of people are being diagnosed with eating disorders each year, and many are pointing their fingers at the fashion industry, for itss insinuation that thinness represents the epitome of beauty.
In an attempt to combat this, France recently passed a bill stating that fashion models must prove they are healthy weight in order to appear on runways and in advertising campaigns. Failure to comply with this new ruling could lead to up to 6 months in prison and a £54,000 fine. Further more, magazines and advertising campaigns will now be required to make it clear to consumers that their images have been retouched. The purpose of this bill is to attempt to dramatically decrease the percentage of people in the country who develop anorexia, but is this going to work?
2015 FOR THE NORWICH RADICAL – A YEAR IN REVIEW
December 28, 2015By Chris Jarvis
The Norwich Radical has just come to the end of its first full calendar year in operation. From humble beginnings, we have come a long way, and this is exclusively down to the dedication of our writers and the support of our readers over the last twelve months. In 2015, we have had over 60,000 visitors to our website, and more than 90,000 views on The Norwich Radical pages. We’ve had a phenomenal year, and I wanted to write a little note to give thanks for all of the work that has been put into our publication and to all of you, our readers, for sticking with us and continuing to read, share and join the discussion on our content.
YEAR IN REVIEW
December 28, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response to 2015.
I saw terror through a lens
and the public shaming friendships.
We called it proper work.Feeling so very comfortable eating churros with a bunch of pregnant women! Just what I needed, the perfect chill yummy food birthday!!!!
BORDERLINES – WHEN MIGRATION SHAPES TRANSLATION
December 27, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
THE 10 BIGGEST POLITICAL LOSERS OF 2015
December 26, 2015By Chris Jarvis
2015 has been a tumultuous year for politics. From the rise of the SNP to the shock victory of the Conservatives in the General Election and from the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party to the decimation of the Liberal Democrats, it has been a year like no other. As the year draws to a close, our Co-Editor, Chris Jarvis offers analysis as to who are the 10 biggest political losers of 2015.
A WHATEVER RAMBLING MOMENT
December 24, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Leyla Khalil (1991-), ‘Un attimo qualsiasi di sproloquio’
A whatever rambling moment
which, by the way, they decided to call free internal discourse or interior monologue or stream of consciousness.
There must be – I just wrote mustard instead of must be and noticed it right away – some sort of difference dammit, I mean I’m sure there is but the essence at the end of the day is the same: they’re all ramblings.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
December 24, 2015by Asia Patel
THE FORCE AWAKENS: GROWING SUPPORT FOR RIGHT AND LEFT WING POLITICIANS
December 23, 2015By Josh Wilson
In Star Wars there are (arguably) three major factions; the Jedi, the Sith and the Galactic Republic. The Jedi strive for peace and harmony in the galaxy, whereas the Sith work for personal gain and power over others. The Republic is a democratically run institution that attempts to foster trade and good relations between planets and species.
In politics there are also three major groups; the far Left, the far Right and Centrists. The far Left work for economic equality through state implemented wealth redistribution. The far Right tend to use divisive and racist policies to create growth for a minority of people and to solidify their economic and political power. Centrists, who can often be seen to lean to the left or the right, tend to argue for free markets, promotion of trade and limited state intervention.
THE 10 BIGGEST POLITICAL WINNERS OF 2015
December 23, 2015By Chris Jarvis
2015 has been a tumultuous year for politics. From the rise of the SNP to the shock victory of the Conservatives in the General Election and from the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party to the decimation of the Liberal Democrats, it has been a year like no other. As the year draws to a close, our Co-Editor, Chris Jarvis offers analysis as to who are the 10 biggest political winners of 2015.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF WAR
December 22, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
When soldiers go to war, they face a grave peril. On the battlefield they face a danger that most of us back at home have no comprehension of. If we follow the logic of the Government regarding their policy of airstrikes in Syria, it is likely that boots on the ground may very well become part of the military intervention to defeat Daesh. Once again, young men and women will be asked to put their lives on the line for their country and for democracy. Irrespective of your view on a particular military venture, such men and women deserve our respect, but should our government really be sending our armed forces into war yet again, if they aren’t able to uphold their promises to look after them and guarantee their welfare when they come home?
SELF CARE: ADULT COLOURING BOOKS
December 21, 2015by Jess Howard
TW: Suicide, self-harm, anxiety.
A year ago, hearing the words adult colouring books would have conjured up bizarre images of decorating mildly pornographic imagery with gel pens and coloured pencils. Fast forward to the end of 2015 and colouring books designed specifically for adults has become the new craze. From Harry Potter-themed books to those focused on the 1960s, almost everyone has encountered this new fad at some point. But where does it stem from, and does it really work?
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DONALD TRUMP: THE RESULT OF FIFTY YEARS OF RACISM
December 20, 2015By Ben Pavey
Donald Trump has been drawing a lot of flak recently regarding his call to deny all entry to the US to Muslim immigrants, a call which has been derided by a spectrum of people from his own party to politicians abroad. But the weakness of some of the condemnations- Ted Cruz’s “Not my policy” or Reince Pribus’ “I don’t agree”- hint that the fervor is not as heartfelt as it should be. The problem for most of the party is that the Republican party has made unashamed racists part of their base. Trumps remarks are not, as various candidates have tried to suggest, an outlier of republican thought, but the logical end point of the past 50 years.
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GENERATION PARK – A STRAW MAN?
December 20, 2015By Suzanne Jones
The Paris talks on climate change produced an agreement to keep global temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius. Current predictions are for a rise of about five degrees Celsius.
Early in the New Year a decision will be made on whether to give planning permission for the biggest straw-burning incinerator in the world to be built in Norwich. It will be called Generation Park.
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THE JUNGIAN APPEAL BEHIND STAR WARS
December 19, 2015By Faizal Nor Izham
What is it about Star Wars that makes it so endearing to the public consciousness? Is it really all about the lightsabre duels, the weird and wacky alien characters, or the intense melodrama behind the story that reaches almost soap opera-like proportions? Fans and critics have long speculated the secret behind the franchise’s popularity over the course of three generations, but the truth may actually lie behind the fact that it is a form of modern-day mythology that is universally relatable to this day.
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THE POPPY IS A SYMBOL OF WAR
December 18, 2015By Robyn Sands
If I believe something, does that make it true? If you believe that the poppy is a symbol of peace and remembrance, does that mean you’re right and I’m wrong? Is the meaning of a cultural symbol decided by its creators, by the powers that be who would use it, or by the culture at large who see and understand the symbol? Or, is it simply enough to repeat something over again until it means what you want it to mean?
MOMENTUM IS NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER
December 17, 2015By Chris Jarvis
I’ve been a member of the Green Party of England and Wales for five and half years, and as such, I’m often criticised for sticking my oar into the internal affairs of other political parties, particularly when it comes to my views on the Labour Party and its electoral and political strategies. But when it comes to the Labour Party, I just can’t help myself.
HOW DO YOU STOP A WAR THAT HAS ALREADY STARTED?
December 16, 2015By Jack Brindelli
“More than 1,000 people have taken part in a rally in central London to protest against the Government’s decision to launch airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.” That was how Sky News began their coverage of the latest Stop the War march on the 13th of December. Now I appreciate Sky have form when it comes to underestimating demonstrations, but a demo that can’t have been larger than 3000 gave them ample to chance to do so this time. Even so, the grandiose phrasing seems almost to pity what is a comatose giant of an organisation. Let’s just go over that again; “More than 1,000 people” from an organisation that once boasted a mobilisation of more than 1,000,000.
KYLIE JENNER’S WHEELCHAIR PHOTOSHOOT
December 15, 2015by Jess Howard
The Kardashian/Jenner family are rarely far from the press. From Caitlyn Jenner’s sensational Vanity Fair cover early this year, to the recent birth of Saint West, they are seldom out of the news. Recently, it has been model and the youngest of the Kardashian sisters, Kylie Jenner, who has been in the limelight.
Causing controversy by taking part in a photoshoot in which she posed passive and sexually in a gold wheelchair, Jenner’s photoshoot, directed by photographer Steven Klein, and accompanying interview, were part of a feature in Interview magazine, and it is explicitly clear why the internet has reacted in such a passionate and infuriated way.
CATCHING THE FISH OF SUSTAINABILITY
December 14, 2015by Liam Hawkes
Most people never entertain thoughts about where their clothing has come from. The demand for fast, cheap fashion has overwhelmed the garment industry for many years now, having a devastating impact on millions who work in the confines of the industry; and similarly a devastating impact on the environment.
TALK
December 14, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
When he touches down he is walking, all talk,
cornered in Hallmark by British small talk.He’s brought whiteness. It made his polls snowball.
BORDERLINES – THE PRIVILEGE OF PASSPORTS AND THE DANGER OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP
December 13, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
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BEAUTY IS IN THE HANDS OF THE AFFLUENT
December 12, 2015By Sunetra Senior
This article is inspired by the bizarre reaction I have encountered as a reasonably dressed British-Asian travelling through the less diverse, major cities in Western Europe. At first I thought I was being paranoid – after all it is hard not to be aware of your starkly contrasting skin-colour in a sea of predominantly white faces. But this particular behaviour became undeniable in places of public transit – such as the queues at passport control and the underground – where you would need to cut the tension with a laser from a high-quality diamond factory. People weren’t just looking, they were gawking.
And the most interesting part was that it wasn’t malicious. There was no sneering or narrowing of eyes, but rather lingering looks of astonishment and intrigue. Eventually I began to wonder, and do excuse my ‘French’ when I say this, could it be that these dear people were not used to seeing a person of ethnic minority actually looking good?
HUMAN PROBLEMS, HUMAN SOLUTIONS – AN INTERVIEW WITH BABAR LUCK
December 12, 2015By Chris Jarvis
In underground music circles, Babar Luck is something of a legend. For more than twenty years, he has been a staple feature of the UK punk scene, blending and smashing genres along the way. Starting as the bassist of seminal London band King Prawn, notorious for their eclectic influences which drew upon hardcore, reggae, metal, punk and hip-hop, Babar has gone on to have an illustrious solo folk career, as well as working on new bands such as East End Trinity and collaborative projects The Babylon Whackers and Suicide Bid, while providing guest vocals for friends and comrades in the scene such as Sonic Boom Six and Random Hand. Babar Luck’s musical outputs have been beyond any doubt, inhumanly prolific.
THE RADICAL’S YEAR IN MUSIC
December 11, 2015by Mike Vinti
2015 has been a pretty incredible year for music, especially that of a socially conscious political nature. Kendrick Lamar cemented his position as the year’s GOAT (Great of All Time for you non-rap-nerds out there) with To Pimp a Butterfly, Sleaford Mods gave a voice to the victims of austerity with their acerbic, bassline backed rants and grime blew up so fast that half the teenagers in the country switched from Hypebeast to Road Man in the space of a month. As it’s the time of year where every goddamn publication lists their top 10, 20, 50, 100 etc. albums we figure we’d run through the year’s best moments, in no particular order, with a special end of year Radical Playlist.
REPRESENTATION ISN’T ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU – PART 2
December 11, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
To be forthcoming; yes- living and working conditions for black people have reached some atrocious lows in Obama’s two terms as president: the worst black unemployment rate in 28 years was recorded at was 16.8 in March 2011; 28 percent of all African Americans were living in poverty in 2013, and two out of five African American children lived in relative poverty – the most harrowing statistic of all: a $131,000 disparity between the average income of the white household and the African American.
Perhaps the biggest paradox of all is a Black President coexisting with the Black Lives Matter movement independent of the government. Statistics like these really do not encourage much faith in Obama and his ability as a ‘black president’- but again to merely look at these statistics without considering the economic climate Obama was thrust into would be a misrepresentative and reductive analysis. The ‘Great Recession’ in 2008-13 is widely understood to be caused by a deregulation of wall street during Bush’s Administration and was characterised by fiscal austerity, collapsing of housing markets due to irresponsible lending from the banking sector which (amongst many other contributory factors), could perhaps be lead us to reason these effects on the black community.
IS AA THE ONLY WAY?
December 10, 2015by Eve Lacroix
The meeting of the surgeon Dr. Bob S. and stockbroker Bill W., both hopeless alcoholics and members of the Episcopal Oxford Group, proved to be a turning point in the history addiction treatment. They built on the Oxford Group’s evangelistic Christian values with the added formulation that alcoholism was not simply a moral failing, as American society considered it, but a physical and spiritual malady. They broke away from the Oxford Group, creating the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s and starting up a regular meeting. Their vision differed from the Oxford Group in that it stressed that addiction is incurable.
Groups popped up all over the country, and today you can find AA meetings everyday in most cities in community centres and churches, in prisons. Specific groups are male or female-only meetings, homosexual-only meetings, and AlAnon meetings are open for friends and family members of alcoholics. Programmes following the same format also exist, such as Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous… AA and NA are such an institution that State-side, to reduce a DUI, many people who do not consider themselves alcoholics attend court-mandated meetings, receiving, in AA speak, “a nudge from the judge.”
THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE
December 10, 2015by Alex Valente
Star Wars. One of the biggest franchises not only in its field, but spanning a multimedia galaxy, has now become even larger after being acquired by Disney. Ranging from books to comics, toys to videogames, music to clothing, costumes, and theme parks. Drawing in accolades, from die-hard fans to casual viewers, from across the world. Star Wars. One of the most impactful, politically muddled, and bizarrely misguided products – and symbols – of Western media.
It was inevitable. As a self-professed nerd, casual toy collector, avid comics-reader, in the presence of one of the biggest releases in cinematographic history about to hit screens worldwide, I could not not dedicate an article to Star Wars. As a Norwich Radical writer, on the other, I also cannot not recognise the immense (infinite?) power and sway the franchise holds, in popular and consumer culture. Just how much of it is really looking forward, and how much is stuck in A Long Time Ago..?
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REVIEW: THE WORLD GOES POP
December 9, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
I was moved to go to this exhibit with its promise that it would move beyond the mainstream artists we think of when we think of pop art, such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard Hamilton, working in the 1960s and 70s. I enjoy the work of these artists, but having seen them all before, I was intrigued to see more women exhibited, as well as those across the globe.
The literature on the exhibition states it ‘expands the notion of pop art into a far wider geographical context, showing how different cultures and countries contributed to the movement.’ With Warhol’s famous Campbell soup cans we had a critique of consumerism, yet the images shown at The World Goes Pop aim to challenge social imbalances, including the role of women and civil rights. Here, I will discuss some of my highlights from the exhibition.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?
December 6, 2015by Asia Patel
THE PARIS CLIMATE SUMMIT: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HUMANITY TO SEIZE
December 5, 2015by Natasha Senior
For many millennia to come, the climate crisis will be the defining moment of our history. When we first shovelled the crushed, decayed, fossilised remains of prehistoric creatures into engines, we found that we could create plentiful power. It is this power that has allowed us to coexist in huge societal networks, to eliminate disease and travel to outer space. But these tremendous strides in humanity have come at a huge price.
The infrastructure of our society relies on consuming, we no longer share local resources within small communities, but transport them across the world and transform them many times until they take the barely recognisable forms of commodities we use every day. In each step of this process we lavishly spend fuel, a resource that we once treated as ever-lasting, but now we see it’s running out. But our biggest mistake was that we thought we were getting all of this for free when in fact, all this time we’ve been borrowing huge amounts from the environment. And as we see the Earth changing drastically, with the oceans acidifying and the weather becoming increasingly unpredicable, we know that the time has come to settle the debt. These next few weeks, as world leaders gather at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, we will decide as a species how to return what we owe.
A THOUGHT ON SELF CARE THIS WINTER
December 4, 2015By Sam Naylor
The Christmas month has arrived. For some this realisation comes with a groan as materialism and capitalism grips the nation tightly, churning out ‘heartfelt’ Christmas adverts for supermarkets and the repetitious spew of songs from Christmas pasts. Though I am guilty of a deep rooted love for the festive period, where family and friends merge in the winter landscape. December is also the month for many University students where deadlines loom overhead, either intensifying the stressed-out mentality or acting as a dampener to the winter wonderland. The juggling act to keep all the tasks moving smoothly begins to experience shakes and wobbles. Now I’m not saying that being a student in the UK is the hardest life (though the scraping of maintenance grants and proposed change to nursing and midwifery tuition payments will certainly make matters much worse), but it isn’t just Netflix and takeaways either.
TRANS IS SO IN RIGHT NOW
December 4, 2015by Matilda Carter
The other day I was sat in an unfamiliar lounge flicking through social media on my phone
Every twenty minutes or so my pager bleeps and I jump up to action and attend to needs like cups of teas, changing incontinence pads and occasionally inspecting bypassing catheters
Social media is different at night, because people have gone to bed and my feeds are cavernous briefings of what my friends and influential figures think
During my intermittent work I find things I wouldn’t usually seek out as the banks of familiar information run dry
EAGLES OF DEATH
December 3, 2015by Chris Jarvis
The skies over Damascus are silent tonight
as the Eagles of Death whistle through the air
and the Bataclan looks on betrayed and manipulated.
A weeping cloud dampens the scarred earth with tears
and little splatterings of embers dance amongst the rubble.
UNITING THE FIGHTS – JUNIOR DOCTORS, AUSTERITY AND WAR
December 2, 2015By Jack Brindelli
The world is in turmoil at home and abroad, and with rows over the savage autumn budget, and the ominously impending vote to bomb Syria, still taking up the majority of campaigners energies, it is easy for good news to fall through the cracks. Still, when a victory, or even a temporary stay of execution, is won, it is important not only to enjoy the moment, but also to ask why. This week the Junior Doctors stopped the government in their tracks, and goodness knows we could all use a formula for that.
THE MEMORY OF THE WORLD IS SHORT
December 2, 2015by Ellen Musgrove
Cherokee writer and academic Daniel Heath Justice writes in The Kynship Chronicles that ‘the memory of the world is short, and death rides hard in the forgetting.’ Being indigenous and queer, Justice knows very well the selective amnesia of the nation-state, and the resistance that demands.
Such an introduction may seem obscure, but this perceived obscurity demonstrates the problem I want to discuss. The same nation-state amnesia is imbricated in “western” society’s selective mourning of recent terror attacks, the current refugee crisis, and now renewed military intervention.
ART: WHY DOES IT MATTER?
December 1, 2015by Jess Howard
With the threat of terrorist attacks and war seeming to dominate every newspaper front page and website, it can be easy to ask if we should still place any importance on the visual arts. With daily news telling us that more and more people are dying, starving, or becoming homeless, many may ask if we should concern ourselves with art at all. But, when we really consider it, we can see that an aversion to what may be deemed frivolous and unnecessary is actually completely impossible.
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LETTERS TO CATE BLANCHETT
November 30, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
Cate Blanchett, it’s come to this. You know they say the world will end when
BBC Radio Four stops broadcasting? Well, I’ve been playing with the dials on
my Roberts Revival RD60 DAB and I don’t know about you but down my end I
swear the voices are getting fainter and fainter.Cate Blanchett, look, it’s like this: the world is a ruin, like I said. I’m not pulling
your leg. I wrote a poem called Strikes because I thought talking about
doctors and bombs was really clever, see, because… sure, you get it. BORDERLINES – WHY WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW
November 29, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
HOW TO SPEND £130,000: A POEM IN SOLIDARITY WITH FOSSIL FREE UEA
November 28, 2015by Jake Reynolds
On the flit of hazel dormice
tripping through boscage,a chaffinch chirping in maddening circles
between the calligraphic twigs,a wrens’ bingo hall with trinket wins
and a brief presentation on the history
of shoots and shrubbery,
NORMALISING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES: A LOOK INTO COMMUNITY CARE
November 27, 2015by Eve Lacroix
Between 2010 and 2015, budget cuts to mental health trusts in England have seen a decrease of 8%. Statistics reported by BBC News and Community Care revealed this meant almost £600m less funding despite a 20% rise of referrals to community mental health teams. Social worker Terry Skyrme works in a crisis team functioning in Norfolk and Suffolk. In 2014, he decided to start a campaign to improve services in the area, booking a room for 100 people, and seeing 300 turn up. With not enough hospital beds available, some people suffering from acute mental health distress are instead made to sleep in prison cells.
Sleeping in a prison cell is an unsettling image of social exclusion that comes with suffering from these often invisible illnesses. Yet, the mental health charity Mind estimates 1 in 4 people will suffer with a mental health issue in their life. With 50 million prescriptions being written for antidepressants in the UK each year, sufferers come from all parts of our communities.
CONSTELLATIONS
November 26, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Gilda Musa (1922-1999), ‘Costellazioni’
Coppering of stars, gold
illuminated designs, visible flashing
vanguards of a thousand million invisibiles,
sigils of a space that’s close and signs
of remote spaces
LET’S TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN PARIS, NOT SHOUT
November 25, 2015By Josh Wilson
I wrote an article a few weeks ago about how there is no chance for anyone to win outright in Syria. Since that article the tragic events in Paris have taken place and leaders from around the world alongside ordinary citizens have reacted to the news. As with all heartbreaking events, reactions have been fuelled by emotion, with the debate surrounding tricolore Facebook photo becoming a heated element of reaction to the atrocity. Many took up the option offered by Facebook to drape the French flag over their profile picture. I do have my reservations about this, mostly regarding Facebook picking and choosing which tragedies to offer this show of solidarity for. However, in a time of grief and high emotion I think this is a debate best left for another time.
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REVIEW: HANNAH SILVA’S ‘SHLOCK!’
November 25, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
Hannah Silva’s work can be difficult to penetrate; there is not necessarily a fixed meaning, and in the notes given prior to ‘Schlock!’ she quotes Kathy Acker by saying to ‘get rid of meaning. Your mind is a nightmare that has been eating you. Now eat your mind.’ This in itself requires interpretation: we place so much emphasis on meaning in our lives, this can destroy our minds, and so perhaps the best way to remove the self-doubt that I’m going to be “wrong” in my view of the work is to eat my mind, take control of the way the dots connect, and the ways they don’t.
THE END IS NOT NIGH: THE REVOLUTION IS ALREADY HERE
November 24, 2015By Gunnar Eigener
“Political action without the support of radical mass movement inevitably becomes hollow.”
Chris Hedges
Positivity seems in short supply. Looking at the news and you might think that the end of days is upon us. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Relax. It might just be a glimpse, but there is something on the horizon.
There is no doubt that there are many terrible things happening to the planet and to its people. Yet history has taught us that in times of adversity people come together. It is easy to see how often people go against the wishes of their governments, to act humanely, decently. Just think of the migrant crisis and see how Europe have reacted. Think of the images and stories of citizens giving up their possessions and food and water to help strangers on their gruelling journey. In times of difficulty, humans are capable of great and generous acts. Under the right circumstances we will think nothing of giving away our material goods and food to others in need. If only we could realise that every time is the right circumstance.
I AM A SOCIAL MEDIA ZOMBIE
November 23, 2015By Sam Naylor
A feeling of instant gratification is on the menu and I know where I rush to get my fix. For most of us social media has become a daily part of our lives. How many of us wake up in the morning and check our social media presence? It is one of those little habits that has become a fixture of my daily routine and one that we’re finding increasingly difficult to disconnect from. We’ll just scroll one more time, just click that last video, read the article from that last link. Facebook is a great way to get your opinions out to all 1,125 of your ‘closest friends’ and for you to experience theirs. It can often feel like an extension of our own thought process, that we could just post that instantaneous nugget of knowledge as a status update. In fact Facebook cares that much about what we have to say that it politely asks “What’s on your mind?”, urging us to divulge in an opinion that it oh so wants to hear. The false companionship and the sense of familiarity that social media apps give us are aspects that keep us coming back, which have me glued to virtual text on a screen rather than worrying about dialogues set in the ‘real world’. Facebook is not a substitute for our own opinions.
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EQUALIMANIA
November 23, 2015by Sunetra Senior
For my first article, I thought it would be fitting to explore the relationship between two neglected areas of society that I feel passionately about: the representation of women and mental health issues. Deep down, the thought of a connection existing between emotionality and the female sex might evoke those uncomfortable, backward cultural connotations – women as fragile, women as prone to hysteria, and on the softer side of it, women as the ‘gentler’ sex.
However, bringing Freud into the discussion might not be so wrong because the real problem, the ongoing obstacle for both those with depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder and the whole host of legitimate clinical disorders that I couldn’t possibly all list here, and the limitations that women still face day-to-day, is the wider, ideological practice of repression: namely society’s refusal to acknowledge the significance of psychology itself.
THE COMMUNITY, OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF PUNK – AN INTERVIEW WITH FAINTEST IDEA
November 22, 2015By Chris Jarvis
Faintest Idea are a street punk influenced ska band hailing from the Norfolk coastal town of Kings Lynn known for their energetic live shows, filled with singalongs, skanking and rivalling horns. The lyrical content of their music, as with much of the underground ska-punk scene, is littered with radical and anarcho politics. Through a series of questions, The Norwich Radical tried to tease out the reasons behind their politics, the relationship it has to their music, and how they see their role in a wider political context as part of a new series – Music That Matters.
AFTER PARIS – THINKING FOR OURSELVES
November 19, 2015by Micha Horgan
The events that took place in Paris are deeply upsetting; the implications, vast and immeasurable. Immediate thoughts are naturally for those killed and injured and those who loved and depended on them but beyond this there is a lot to think about. Blame, heightened surveillance, further scrutiny of immigration policies (at a time when this is not needed) and other discriminatory backlash will be at the forefront of our media in the coming months.
Following Friday’s events the rhetoric from some people has been that the Western world is “no longer safe”, that we are moving into a darker time. What is certain is that it is time to think.
THE VOICE YOU DIDN’T HEAR – A BRITISH-IRAQI WOMAN ON PARIS
November 19, 2015By Dahlia Al-Abdullah
The events that unfolded in Paris have been devastating, as have the other numerous attacks of terrorism that we have seen ripple out across the globe over the last few days, months, and years. To acknowledge the other mass killings in Lebanon, Iraq, Kenya etc. is not a way of trying to play down this act of terrorism. Terrorism exists. Terrorism is absolutely disgusting. What happened in Paris is enough to instil enough fear in me to want to stay away from any big cities for a while.
THE SPECTRE OF IDEOLOGY
November 18, 2015by Jack Brindelli
In the years following the Second World War, Britain had shifted in ways many thought impossible. In the 1950s, amidst the fading colonial legacy of a crumbling empire, with increasing levels of immigration and the decreased faith in the power of the free market led, the country’s middle class felt stranded. These revolutionary changes in the country’s fabric radically challenged the ideas they had been raised to adhere to in the name of success. Middle England was holding out for a hero – and boy did Ian Fleming’s gin-swilling womaniser give them one.
James Bond is a cultural artefact – an ideological snap-shot, emerging initially as the embodiment of the established order, in order to defend it. Such was the archetypal appeal of the character, and so in tune was he to the fears of the middle class, that he soon moved seamlessly between mediums. In a world where Britain’s influence seemed to be waning, and where marginalised races and genders were pushing for equality, Bond showed Middle England could still have it all – no wonder he’s cited as being David Cameron’s inspiration for foreign policy, 007 is a conservative’s wet-dream.
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WITH LABOUR IN OPEN REVOLT AGAINST CORBYN, I’M STICKING WITH THE GREENS
November 18, 2015By Josiah Mortimer
It’s now three months since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party. For Greens, it’s posed some interesting questions.
For a start, Greens didn’t really know how to respond to the new political context. The party positioned itself as the left party for so long (and rightly), but few had thought about what might happen if the Labour Party actually turned left. Suddenly, the political space for the Greens appeared to shrink dramatically. And for a while, there was silence.
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WE DON’T NEED TO TALK ABOUT ISLAM, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT HUMANITY
November 17, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
The terrorist attacks in Paris have brought back a feeling of despair, that no matter where we live, there is always someone who wants to hurt us. The shaky camera footage of police storming a building, the bangs of smoke grenades, the echoes of gunfire, have sent a shockwave through France, Europe and the world. In the aftermath, a reaction is already beginning and anger will turn on Muslim individuals, communities, businesses and places of worship. Already a petition to “Stop all immigration and close UK borders until ISIS is defeated” is circulating and has got over 383,000 signatures so far. This will not solve anything, nor will blaming Islam.
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LITERATURE VS GENRE – SECONDS OUT (PART 2)
November 17, 2015by Mike Carey
Continued from part one, published on The Norwich Radical two weeks ago.
I hate to rake up ancient history, but here’s another example from a little further back – dredged up because in this case it is a writer of literary novels (Edward Docx, in the Observer in 2010) who’s saying this, so the agenda is maybe a little more naked.
Even good genre… is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material. That’s the way writing works and lots of people who don’t write novels don’t seem to get this: if you need a detective, if you need your hero to shoot the badass CIA chief, if you need faux-feminist shopping jokes, then great; but the correlative of these decisions is a curtailment in other areas. If you are following conventions, then a significant percentage of the thinking and imagining has been taken out of the exercise. Lots of decisions are already made.
Considering that Docx rails against “a fundamental dishonesty” in the way this subject is usually discussed, I’m going to pick my words with care.
AEGIS
November 16, 2015by Jules Ignacio
In the dark, the reconnaissance units
spread out on the mountaintop—the stage—
gawking at the riots, with their sniper eyes.
PARIS WAS THE PLACE
November 16, 2015by Jake Reynolds
Paris was the place where everyone was all stripes and garlands
and the women were just beautiful cats squashed into Rorschach tests
and chain smokers found afternoon joie de vivre in Sartre’s Huis Clos- 1
MEET THE WOMEN REVIVING NATURE WRITING
November 15, 2015By Tara Gulwell
Among the young students who frequent this magazine it’s a safe bet to assume that most of us aren’t running to the nature writing section when we walk into our nearest bookshop. So let me introduce you to the women aiming to change that. Forget the image of a rambling old man in the woods with a Thoreauian beard, and come meet Cheryl Strayed, Kathleen Jamie and Helen Macdonald.
FROM SOCIAL MOVEMENT TO POPULAR CULTURE: BLACK LIVES MATTER
November 13, 2015By Mike Vinti
Protest and pop are unusual bed fellows. The noisy, often chaotic world of protest can often seem like the antithesis of the sleek, PR heavy world of modern pop music. However, the two have a long a history together. Whether it’s Punk, the Rock Against Racism movement or afro-beat pioneer Fela Kuti running for President of Nigeria, there are plenty of instances where protest and pop music have joined forces to fight injustice. This is happening again today, not only with the renewed attention on feminism as we discussed two weeks ago, but also with the prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement.
THE TAMPON TAX SHOULD BE REMOVED: LOOKING AT EU LEGISLATION
November 12, 2015By Eve Lacroix
The average uterus-owning person bleeds about five days a month from the age of 12 to 50. Considering this, sanitary products are undeniably essential health items. Pads, tampons and menstrual cups are taxed 5% in the UK, thus classifying them as non-essential, luxury items. According to that classification, some ridiculous examples of “essential” items are Jaffa Cakes and crocodile meat, exempt from VAT.
SHELTER
November 12, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Antonella Anedda (1955-), from Notti di pace Occidentale.
She was running to shelter, covering her head.
She belonged to a tired image
not dissimilar from any other woman
surprised by sudden rain.- 1
REVIEW: THE HOLLOW OF THE HAND
November 11, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
On 9th and 10th October, the Royal Festival Hall played host to the premier of ‘The Hollow of the Hand’ – a collaboration between musician PJ Harvey and photographer-filmographer Seamus Murphy. It was essentially a book launch, but it will also be a project that includes a film to be released next year. It’s a relatively new breed of art, with politics at its heart, where reportage and art combine to create a particular type of documentary where the genre is combined with artistic photography/videography, poetry, and music.
The project saw Harvey and Murphy travel to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington DC. Murphy stated that they went to these countries without any agenda, without a particular message they wished to convey. It appeared Murphy enjoyed going down the road less travelled, and cited a chicken coop in Kosovo as an example of the kinds of places he liked to visit, and was glad Harvey felt the same way.
THE REACH OF CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
November 10, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
The exploitation by corporate sponsorship of many different aspects of our lives is so deeply embedded that we barely express any outrage at the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of it all. Yet it is this sponsorship that attempts to deceive us into believing these companies should somehow be part of our lives, that we should embrace them. Integrity and morals are left outside the boardroom, deals are struck, and brands and corporate logos are pushed into our line of vision and within earshot at every opportunity. The sums are vast and are already eclipsing any sense of decency in pursuit of more money.
The problem that we are facing is that those in power adhere to the desires of the corporate sponsors. You just have to look at the TTIP and TISA deals to see how the rights of citizens and any concerns for their health and safety are overridden in favour of advancing corporate globalisation.
THE COLOUR OF SAYING NO
November 10, 2015by Sara Helen Binney
It was November, and the school hall was packed with pupils and teachers freed from lessons. In the festive atmosphere people mingled and chattered and joked. A few nervously practiced their Bible readings; I stood, arms crossed, before a school administrator. She shook her collection box.
‘Poppy?’ she said. It wasn’t a question.
I said, ‘no.’ I doubt I was very polite – I was sixteen, angry and definite.
‘You have to wear a poppy, for the service,’ she said.
‘Why?’ I demanded.
‘Everyone has to wear a poppy.’
‘But I don’t agree with it. Can’t I refuse?’
‘You have to take a poppy – just make a donation.’Neither of my parents had ever worn a poppy. They brought me up listening to the anti-war songs of the folk revival, and took me to CND marches while I still struggled to pronounce ‘disarmament’. But at school, saying no wasn’t an option. I eventually put a penny in the box.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND THE PRACTICE OF TOKENISM
November 9, 2015By Candice Nembhard
Throughout my two, soon to be three, years at UEA I have not only witnessed racial discrimination but have also been a victim to it; everything from casual uses of racial slurs to instances of fetishes and exoticism. It may come as a surprise to some, but not once have I felt that the union has provided an opportunity, be it caucuses or panels to discuss the safety of ethnic students, unless pressured by activist groups or even the media. As October and Black History Month ends, I thought it would serve me and perhaps some other people of colour (POC) well, to reflect on how racial issues, in particular; the experience of black or brown students are often overlooked, diminished, or outright rejected, unless given a socially acceptable platform such as Black History Month or student elections.
UK STEEL PRODUCTION IS ABOUT A LOT MORE THAN JOBS
November 9, 2015by Rowan van Tromp
Steel is a primary component in infrastructure, vital to the effective functioning of modern, industrialised economies. It is used to make buses, bridges and buildings, as well as train tracks and in engineering for power generation, including wind. However it is also a core element in infrastructure and products damaging to our civilisation – oil rigs, cars, and polluting coal power plants.
We undoubtedly need steel, but what we should be using it for, whether we should be producing it in the UK, and if so how much we should be producing, is more than a question of skilled labour and production capacity.
WHITE POPPIES
November 8, 2015by Asia Patel
DIVESTMENT, OCCUPATION AND AN UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL STUDENT MOVEMENT
November 7, 2015By Chris Jarvis
I’m an elected Sabbatical Officer at UEA and I’ve just come from a 26 hour occupation camp on my campus which was the culmination of a two-year campaign calling for UEA to join institutions across the world to divest their money from the fossil fuel industry. We occupied for 26 hours, one hour for every £5,000 the University currently has invested in fossil fuel companies. Often, such action would not be supported by elected student officers, and in the worst instances condemned by them.
BODY ART IN THE WORK PLACE
November 7, 2015by Jess Howard
Covering the body with tattoos has been a tradition among multiple socio-economic groups for centuries. From identification to decoration, the act of adorning the skin with ink is in no way novel or unique. Day to day it is incredibly common to see tattoos on people of all ages, from the first tattoo immediately after the 18th birthday, to the person in their mid forties with an exquisite and elaborate full sleeve. In short, ink is everywhere.
Yet the stigma attached to visual tattoos in the work place shows minimal chance of disappearing. When I started my first ‘proper’ job, I was told that tattoos were not allowed to be visible, and even today, ten pieces of ink later, I find myself wearing long sleeves to interviews and asking if my potential employer would like me to cover them up. Even I, a woman who has long loved body art in all of its forms, assume that the stigma is still attached.
REPRESENTATION ISN’T ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU, PART 1
November 6, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
More so than ever before with our current Conservative government- UK politics has always been something I’ve personally felt very distanced from. Those who occupy positions of power that govern the direction our nation is heading in are often far richer than I, public/grammar school educated, significantly whiter and straighter than I could ever hope to be – I’ve accepted that fact a long time ago, and it’s not something I see changing in near future.
Don’t misunderstand me though, I will never and apply the often far-reaching and misdirected scope of white liberalism (see Caroline Crampton and Louise Mensch twitter feeds) and contend privileged members of parliament can never hold the interests of the oppressed at heart in their campaigns and motions- effective representation is far more than a skin deep observation.
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THE FOSSIL FREE OCCUPATION
November 5, 2015By John Heathcliff
It’s 8.30 pm on 5th November 2015, and for the first time in over four years UEA students have gone into occupation, just outside the Vice Chancellor’s office. It’s a cold winter night, and it’s raining quite heavily, but the protesters – resplendent in orange jumpsuits – are huddled together under a blue tarpaulin, which is swaying in the wind. Banners and placards are hung across the railings of the square, with one proclaiming loudly: “DIVEST”. There aren’t many students around yet to see the occupation, but there will be more tomorrow, because the protesters are staying for 26 hours: each hour representing £5,000 of the money that UEA invests in fossil fuels. This is the UEA Fossil Free occupation.
WHEN RESPECT GETS PREJUDICED PART 2: PEOPLE WHO CALL OTHER PEOPLE NEGATIVE
November 5, 2015by Robyn Sands
Last time I ranted about people in the corporate world who hold everyone to extraordinary levels of time management and efficiency because the God of capital accumulation dictates that it must be so. This week I want to rant about the flip side of that coin, self-care culture. You know what that is. Articles that pop up on your newsfeed such as ’10 ways nobody should make you feel’, ‘tips for looking after yourself’ and ‘How to get negative people out of your life’, right? People involved in this crap might call themselves ‘highly sensitive people’ and talk about other people as ‘energy vampires’ or as ‘toxic’. You know who they are.
This might sound all fine and dandy, if it wasn’t just as dogmatic and unyielding as corporate culture and also just as susceptible to replicating societal inequalities as every other movement. And the people who suffer most when others act on this ideology are the very people the movement claims to be protecting- people with mental health issues. If you struggle with low moods and feel that it’s important to keep negative or toxic people out of your life, think about how it feels to be struggling with low mood and characterised as a negative or toxic person.
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LITERATURE VS GENRE – SECONDS OUT (PART 1)
November 3, 2015by Mike Carey
The argument about the relative merits of literary and genre fictions just keeps running and running. There’ll be periods of decorous silence, and then it will break out again, usually in the form of some egregious statement in a broadsheet or magazine, and it will be like it never left.
One thing you tend to notice after a while, though: it’s almost never writers of genre fiction who are picking the fight. To be fair, it’s often not “literary” writers either – it’s academics taking up the cudgels on their behalf; considerately telling us which stories are worth serious consideration and which aren’t. And I guess we appreciate the help, right? Because it’s a bewildering fictional landscape out there and an innocent young seeker after truth could easily go astray.
NORWICH’S WAR ON FOOD WASTE
November 2, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
Those of you who know me, have read my articles or listened to me speak, will know that I am passionate about environmental sustainability within the food supply chain. I have highlighted issues of soil degradation associated with inorganic farming, as well as the vast resource usage and carbon emissions related to meat and dairy consumption, but there is one environmental issue that I have campaigned on more than any other, and that is food waste.
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FAMILY PLANNING
November 2, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
1. Policy
They watched him play alone
with teddies in a queue
for so long
that sometimes when drunk
they made love to be illegal, butrumour has it the lady from
the tea-shop had her second
needled out
in the dark places between
the legal buildings. 
A NEW WAVE: FEMINIST PUNK
November 1, 2015by Mike Vinti
Feminism has been in the news a lot recently. Whether it’s Femen’s brand of topless demonstrations, protests at the premier of the film Suffragette or straw-man attacks on the movement in the Spectator, for a movement that’s been active for some decades now, its seems that 2015 was the year the cause really broke into mainstream circles.
Pop music in particular has been significantly influenced by feminism this year. Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj established themselves as sex positive feminists and two of the biggest musicians on the planet, bands like Catfish & the Bottlemen are publicly derided for the kind of indie-lad-band antics that would have been celebrated in the NME five years ago and Whirr pretty much just wrecked their career by slinging misogynistic insults at the trans-fronted, feminist punk band G.L.O.S.S on Twitter. Two years ago we had ‘Blurred Lines’ – now we have clearly defined boundaries of consent.
BORDERLINES – AN INTERSECTION OF PRIVILEGES
November 1, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
STUDENT POLITICS – JAPAN’S NEXT BIG THING?
October 31, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
The words “democracy” and “Asia” aren’t always known for going together. But with the proliferation of the Internet and social media, Asia appears to be learning a few lessons from other developing nations when it comes to democratic reform. The Arab Spring, the online democratic movement which eventually culminated in protests in Tunisia and Egypt, is surely a recent example that could be learned from.
The Internet has certainly had a liberating effect on this region, previously known for being conservative in terms of political expression and dissent. The Japanese political sphere, for example, is usually not renowned for being politically active or outspoken. But that’s slowly starting to change.
EMIGRATION: WHY ARE PEOPLE LEAVING THIS ISLAND?
October 31, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called ‘Damn It’.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms
As the Conservative government struggles to find its beating heart and resolve the issue of immigration both here and at the root cause, another issue is steadily making its way to the surface – although it is unlikely to garner as much attention as its opposite issue – emigration. At the moment it isn’t so much about the numbers as it about the reasoning: why are so many people eager to abandon the United Kingdom?
DEEP DISCOMFORT
October 29, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Valentina Diana (1968-), from Bastarde Senza Gloria
Poems are not mats
on which to lie and catch some sun
and say It makes me think, how lovely!
that it really is like this.
A NARRATIVE OF SOLIDARITY: THE WORK PENALTY, JUNIOR DOCTORS AND BRITISH STEEL
October 28, 2015by Josh Wilson
Politics is about narratives. The problem is that these narratives have a real impact on people’s lives. We are likely to have a decade of Tory rule, a decade of the systematic destruction of our welfare state and all modes of the redistribution of wealth. Corporation tax rates have reduced significantly under this government, as well as the tax rate for the richest in society. We have seen significant cuts to public spending across the board including local governments, arts and higher education. But the Tories are good at narratives. They have weaved a myth of austerity despite it going against the economic consensus. We are still feeling the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and yet people seem to barely talk about this and be more concerned by spending levels than an out-of-control banking system.
On a majority of just 17 seats in the House of Commons the Conservatives seem confident, but I believe this confidence can be knocked using a few counter-narratives. A narrative of solidarity, one that illuminates the Tories as a party that is anti-poor, anti-worker and only on the side of the richest in our society. The three policies that are key to this narrative are the work penalty, junior doctors’ contracts and the British steel industry.
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REVIEW: SUFFRAGETTE – THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER
October 28, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
I went to see ‘Suffragette’ with a lot of mixed expectations. I’d heard the reviews weren’t that great, my mum described it as ‘slow’ and there’d been criticism for the lack of BME women in the film (zero). There were also issues of Carey Mulligan’s accent and the fact the film was advertised as having leading roles by herself, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter. These may seem like minor points, but they reveal deeper issues beneath their surface.
THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH: SHOULD WE FEAR THE WALKING DEAD?
October 27, 2015By Jack Brindelli
I AM
October 25, 2015by Asia Patel
THE CHANGING FACE OF POVERTY IN LONDON
October 24, 2015By Natasha Senior
I often hear that too many Westminster policies only benefit London. This part is technically true. London is not only the financial capital of the UK but the financial capital of the world—a fact reflected in how disproportionately powerful and wealthy it is compared to the rest of the UK. The country’s government and national media are both based in London which invariably means that the issues discussed will tend to be skewed towards the area (something I only realised when I moved away). But for all the ways you could describe the city’s privileged position—even if your personal choice of adjective is less than favourable (crowded, impersonal, selfish… etc.)—try to bear in mind what exactly you’re describing. Is it the City of London or the citizens of London? Because the distinction between them represents two profoundly different worlds, divided by wealth, housing and opportunity. This is a divide that deepens every year at an alarming rate.
WHEN RESPECT GETS PREJUDICED
October 22, 2015by Robyn Sands
Last year, I dropped out of uni. My life was falling apart around me, I’d run out of new excuses for extension requests on my assignments, I was failing to meet any of my responsibilities. My finances were in chaos, I wasn’t eating and I was totally failing to prioritise by continually allowing my grades and self care to slip in order to meet my obligations to other people, which I was barely doing anyway. I was always late, I couldn’t sleep, I managed to check my emails about once a month and consequently fell further and further out of the loop. I pushed my friends away, clawed them back, worried they all hated me and yapped on and on about just how irrevocably miserable I was. I was afraid of my lecturers, assuming they all had some kind of report card about me in their heads in which they totted up all of the missed classes, late assignments, and failings on my part and were sure to judge me for it. I became so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed, so I asked if I could drop out and try the year again in September.
A KIND OF RIOT GRRRL POETICS
October 21, 2015by Emily Critchley
My situation as both a writer and a feminist involves my trying to think carefully about how interior/private and exterior/public ‘realms’ constantly mutually inform one another.
Though I am sceptical about the explicit social/political power of poetry, I believe the thinking done by and through it, and other art forms, may have implicit and incremental social effects; as Leslie Scalapino put it: ‘poetry is society’s secret interior’.
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THE SHAME OF EUROPE’S FORGOTTEN SLAVES
October 20, 2015by Jonathan Lee
Kon mangel te kerel tumendar rroburen chi shoxa phenela tumen o chachimos pa tumare perintonde.
“He who wants to enslave you will never tell you the truth about your forefathers.”In the mid to late 19th century, Bucharest was a city typical of the reformist changes of the era. The influences of the Late Enlightenment and Romanticism in cultural arts were emerging in public administration, economics and politics. The growing call for egalitarianism across Europe had given birth to revolutionary movements and philosophies, out of which Marxism, Idealism and Existentialism, to name a few, began to take shape. Bucharest saw increasing civil mobility as anti-aristocratic sentiment spread, culminating in Prince Bibescu renouncing the throne. The increase of Liberalism across Europe was matched by feats of human endeavour and the creation of centres of intellectualism in the major cities of the continent.
In Bucharest, the Grand Theatre of Bucharest was constructed in 1852, a modern water supply network was put in place and the Cișmigiu public gardens were created. During the mid to late 19th century the city was transformed by gas street lighting, the creation of the University of Bucharest, a tram system and the establishment of the National Bank of Romania. The wave of modernity and reform which was sweeping the continent was becoming ever more present in the visible character of the city.
PORNOGRAPHY AS ART
October 20, 2015by Jess Howard
Earlier on this month, Playboy magazine announced that their publication will no longer be featuring nudity as of March 2016. Citing the rise of easy access to internet pornography, the company has decided to pull their famous images from the publication in a bid to reconcile their disintegrating readership with their increasing online audience, which went nudity free at the end of last year.
Playboy made a name for itself during the 1950s, when sex and nudity where far less mainstream and far more taboo. Having previously worked for Esquire, after leaving due to a financial disagreement (when he was denied a raise of $5) founder Hugh Hefner set up the publication from his home in Chicago, Illinois. Unsure as to whether or not the publication would thrive, the first magazine was undated in case a second issue was not produced. Having purchased a nude image of film star Marilyn Monroe, taken before she had found success in the entertainment industry, Hefner placed it on the cover. As we now know, the magazine was to be a huge success.
BOOKS, OR, THE APOCALYPTIC INSTITUTION, OR, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD
October 19, 2015by Jake Reynolds
The following poem includes 44 chopped-up book titles of novels that have won the Man Booker Prize. This poem comes after Marlon James won the prize last week with his brutal and cacophonous novel A Brief History of Seven Killings.It is quite something. I remember the days of children
dreaming of spending their inheritance on booksnow waiting patiently, in that English way, for nothing
to happen, staring blindly at the ghosts that besiegethe moon late at night, push it, give marching orders
and last warnings. Those small assassins send troublesto elected people, young and old, gathering them as books
often do, from bodies, sacred fleshy remains, sea-woodchewed offshore. The history dividing them: no matter.
for every hunger pang, famished child, books.BORDERLINES – GROWING UP A TERRORIST
October 18, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
RAISE THE PITCHFORK: MUSIC AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA
October 16, 2015by Mike Vinti
It was announced on Wednesday that influential music blog Pitchfork – virtual second home to many music nerds – has been sold to Condé Nast, the publishing group behind Vanity Fair and Vogue.
On the face of it, this is a pretty boring piece of news to anyone other than music journalists; Condé Nast is no longer the giant of media it once was, and Pitchfork has a relatively niche audience. As such, this announcement has been met with derision by many in the blogosphere, perhaps wary of the old-world Nasties infringing on their ad revenue, alongside some legitimate concerns for the diversity of its audience and contributor pool. Yet aside from the dull business of one company purchasing another, the deal proves far more interesting than it first appears.
THE HORRORS OF HORROR
October 15, 2015by Alex Valente
In the beginning, there were giant evil gods. Then we arrived, and started telling stories of things that go bump in the dark, of what lies between the cracks, of what lurks under the bed. Fears began to take shapes, looking more like tales of caution and of danger. They took the shape of bogeymen and chainsaw wielding killers, nightmare creatures and monsters from the deep. Afraid of sexuality? Vampires, werefolk and secluded cabins will tell you not to. Alcohol and drugs also covered. Religious terrors? We have possessions, exorcists, ghosts and devils aplenty. Coulrophobia, arachnophobia, nyctophobia? Here’s a clown-looking spider that waits for you at night.
Whatever new things we discover scare us, we create a monster for them. We try to impose order, and keep it under control. We give it a recognisable, if unsettling and still scary, frame. Then, at some point, we pushed too far.
NO ONE CAN WIN IN SYRIA – SO WHY ARE WE TRYING?
October 14, 2015By Josh Wilson
I am going to be honest, I have no idea exactly is happening is Syria. Now is when I should stop writing an article about the Syrian War right? Of course, that doesn’t seem to stop everyone else from having an opinion, so I’m going to have a punt.
The Syrian ‘Civil’ War, that seems like it is now as international as the Cold War, has raged for more than 4 long years. The death and displacement it has caused is the most severe in recent history. There are so many players and interests that anyone that says they have a solution that is fool proof is lying to you. With Assad, a plethora of anti-government rebel groups, ISIS all backed by various outside sources, notably the US and Russia as well as other regional powers. The thought that any one of these groups can ultimately win and create lasting peace in the country seems like a fanciful claim to me.
HUMAN RIGHTS FOR SALE
October 13, 2015By Gunnar Eigener
“The State shall protect human rights in accordance with the Sharia”
Article 26, The Basic Law of Governance, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia have been let onto the UN Human Rights Council. Who thought this would be a good idea? Well, apparently the UK and US governments do. The US State Department welcomed the news, while the recently exposed deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia leaves us with little doubt over how the government feels about this appointment. David Cameron’s inability to justify the secretive deal in an interview with Jon Snow shows just how hollow any beliefs he proclaims to have in defending human rights are.
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JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, CORBYN IS NOT A GREEN
October 12, 2015by Rowan van Tromp and Lesley Grahame
As Caroline Lucas so eloquently put it, “Climate change is not just another issue that we add to a list of policy areas, it’s the lens through which we see everything, and there is no evidence yet, that that kind of understanding is in Jeremy or indeed the rest of the Labour Party”. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party is something that offers hope to all of us who oppose the neoliberal religion and the brutality of the current government. But even if Corbyn can help break the consensus over austerity, he is both unable and unwilling to promote true ecological sustainability, something at the core of all Green policy.
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DAVID RICHARDSON HEARTS FOSSIL FUELS
October 11, 2015By John Heathcliff
On Thursday October 22nd, a coalition of student run societies and campaigns are coming together to put on a debate on UEA’s investment policies, specifically in relation to the fossil fuel industry. Similar discussions are taking place all across the country as student activists organising under the banner of ‘Fossil Free’ are lobbying their institutions to end all financial links with fossil fuel companies on the grounds that such links are inextricably linked to the catastrophic effects of climate change. At UEA, students have been campaigning for over 2 years for senior managers to divest funds from the industry, and have garnered support, taken mass action and put significant pressure on the University.
IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW
October 11, 2015by Asia Patel
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE PARTY
October 10, 2015by Natasha Senior
When George Osborne took to the stage at the Conservative party conference, he had an air of confidence that spoke volumes. He tapped into a sense that has been palpable for a while now, the widely held belief that he is the saviour of the British economy. Soaked with ambition, he painted for us his bold and vibrant vision for Britain, creating a northern powerhouse and putting the working, taxpaying people at the heart of his plans. He decreed his party the builders of Britain and the only true party of labour whilst unapologetically championing his more liberal politics. Then as the applause rolled in, showering him with reverence and adoration, the next five years unfolded in front of me and I could see this man winning the 2020 general election. The thought of it made me feel sick to my stomach.
“WHEN’S WHITE HISTORY MONTH?” AND THE IDENTITY OF ‘BLACK’
October 9, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
Let’s face it, the history we are exposed to in this state is white-oriented, Eurocentric and frequently glamourizes the power and history of Britain’s Imperialism. School curriculum’s explain theorems, recount stories and literature of white heroes, white professors and white creatives. Our history museums and art establishments are filled to the brim of treasures looted from Africa and Asia that continue to remain in our state for claims of ‘greater accessibility’ for the rest of the world- Infact even within the castle of our Monarch sits the remains of buried princes forcibly taken from their homes. In the supremacist society we live in- white history is celebrated and panegyrized daily, don’t be so ignorant as to ask for your time of remembrance when society does not exclude you.
Black history month exists in defiance of the structures that chose to exclude those that supremacy excludes- but one must, ask what does it mean to be black?
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BAHAR MUSTAFA’S CHARGE SHOWS WHY FEMINISM SHOULDN’T RESPECT THE LAW
October 8, 2015by Robyn Sands
It all started with a Facebook event. Goldsmiths Student Union Welfare and Diversity officer, Bahar Mustafa, wanted to find out how she could help women and non-binary students of colour at her university. Aware that the voices of these minority groups were often difficult to hear, she decided to organise an event to talk to women and non-binary BME students alone. She created Facebook event and politely requested that men and white people did not attend the event for people who weren’t men or white people. I don’t pretend to understand the reasons that white men at Goldsmiths were so upset that they weren’t wanted at the BME meeting, but they were, and before long the story had made it in to the right wing press and Bahar was splashed across the pages of the Daily Mail. After being put under harsh scrutiny and being the subject of a campaign of harassment, Bahar tweeted that familiar sentiment which has come to epitomise the frustration of third wave feminists, from Bikini Kill to Jezebel, in the form of a hashtag: “#Killallwhitemen”.
TRIGGER
October 6, 2015by Cadi Cliff
In response.
Troup County, January 26th 2015, 5
What is it about the rifle, the pistol, the Ruger 22?
Protection you can prop, old-school, by the front door
keep walking the perimeter of your picket fence
come on boy, let’s have some father son time
LENSES
October 5, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
I can’t wait to get out of these clothes and braid
our legs together, hold collarbones like fridge handles
and wait for the glow, then poke your dimples
like they are soft depressions on a hot cake.I like Evie, for a girl. Rory for a boy. And I like the way
that you are everything, that you hold the world up
as a photograph of a photograph, or how you sing
when you re-enact The Lion King with the cat.BORDERLINES – OH, I DON’T MEAN YOU
October 4, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
I DID MY BEST TO LEARN THE RULES
October 3, 2015by Robyn Sands
I did my best to learn the rules.
The world was a nice place,
children shared, we waited our turn,
we helped those in need and said thankyou and please.The board was black and the chalk was white,
together we learned to read and write,
I tried to learn the rules.
There used to be racism,
there used to be war,
there used to be poverty and workhouses and suffering
but Martin Luther King had a dream and women won the vote
and everyone shared now, and waited their turn
and Tony Blair painted rainbow children on my primary school walls.
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION – THE GREEN PARTY CONFERENCE
October 3, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
Last weekend Green Party activists descended on the South coast of Bournemouth for the Party’s Autumn Conference. Many of the 2,000 plus members and supporters were in attendance for the first time, a reflection of the #GreenSurge in membership, which has more than doubled to over 60,000 since the start of the year.
Conference is the ultimate decision making body of the Green Party, through which all party policy is created. Unlike other Westminster parties, anyone can directly affect the process of policy creation, simply by becoming a member and submitting a motion — to either change or remove existing policy, or to create new policy where there are gaps. It’s this form of bottom up politics that empowers members to contribute to the areas of policy they are passionate and knowledgeable about.
FEED YOUR BRAIN
October 2, 2015by Mike Vinti
Flying Lotus’ new project, alongside Shabbaz Palaces and Thundercat, WOKE released their first single on Monday. Featuring George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic, it’s a typically psyched out, funk laden cut, overflowing with strange samples and squelching synth lines.
Since the release of You’re Dead! last October, Flying Lotus’s profile has been growing. No longer merely the preserve of open-minded hip hop heads, he’s broken out to become a critical darling and gained lucrative mass appeal, having produced tracks on Kendrick Lamar’s latest LP To Pimp a Butterfly. Flying Lotus is also the founder, and head of, record label Brainfeeder, a collective of musicians from around the world specialising in experimental electronic music and hip hop, with a heavy jazz influence.
Brainfeeder has provided a home not just for Flying Lotus’ pet projects such as WOKE, but for some of the most challenging and boundary pushing artists currently recording. As its founder’s profile grows and grows, now is the perfect time to explore some of the other artists on its roster and their releases over the years.
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INVECTIVE AGAINST AUTUMNAL DISPLAYS IN SUMMER
October 1, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Alessandra Racca (1979-), from Bastarde Senza Gloria
Jackets in August
coloured, behind the glass
reminding me that soon
summer will be overYou’re so cute,
jackets,
so cruel 
GENTRIFICATION & CEREAL – WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT INEQUALITY IN LONDON
September 30, 2015by Josh Wilson
On Sunday a group of protesters threw paint and cereal at a café in Shoreditch called ‘Cereal Killer’, which only sells bowls of cereal. The reasoning for this demonstration, which also hit a letting agent, was an opposition to gentrification in the area. Gentrification is when house prices in an area rise and richer people start to move in, increasing prices further and pushing less well-off inhabitants out of the area. A key example of this is Stratford, transport links and infrastructure was improved for the Olympics pushing up prices and pushing out many residents.
But was targeting a café justifiable?
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ARTS FUNDING: YOUNG PEOPLE, WOMEN AND INTERSECTIONALITY
September 30, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
When the Conservatives came to power this year, without even the Liberal Democrats to soften the inevitable multiple blows, many artists buckled up for more difficult years. I’m not one to buy the starving artist cliché, but it’s a reality that in these times, where arts funding is being cut (despite receiving a proportionally meagre amount), that being any kind of artist is going to be a struggle. It also means that it is sold as a less viable career path for young people, and the arts are placed back in the hands of the wealthy elite.
EU NATIONALISM AND THE REFUGEE CRISIS
September 29, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
‘Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or to die for and no religion too.’ John Lennon
As record numbers of refugees flee wars and conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa seeking some semblance of normality in Europe, an ingrained racism and skewed sense of nationalism is seeping out of the barely healed wound of financial recessions and austerity cuts. As front line services are cut to the bone and the ability to look after our own homeless and vulnerable citizens seems distinctly lacking, the idea of supporting other people from other countries is turning into a poisoned chalice. Original plans to relocate 120,000 refugees have reduced the number to 66,000. Balkan states are erecting fences along their borders but to no avail. Far-right parties who were taking ever bigger numbers of national votes before this crisis began, are now exploiting it to spread hatred and fear. Protest movements in Germany and Austria have formed, and shown aggression and resistance to the influx of refugees, while the UK Independence Party allows hate-mongers like Katie Hopkins to speak at their party conference. Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s National Front political party suggested that the Ebola virus would be able to solve Europe’s immigration problem.
THE WRITING OF A REFUGEE
September 28, 2015by Jess Howard
At the end of last month, an image of a refugee in Beirut appearing to be selling a handful of biros, with his young daughter held to his chest, went viral. The image was captured and tweeted by activist Gissur Simonarson, whose Twitter feed was then flooded with requests for him to identify the pair. Simonarson quickly set up #BuyPens to find them, and within thirty minutes they were identified as Abdul Halim Attar, a single father of two, and his daughter Reem.
After identifying Abdul, through a woman who saw him daily around his house, Simonarson then set about organising a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.com, with the aim of raising funds for him and his family. Since the date this article was written the campaign has raised $190,824, completely overtaking the original target of $5,000. The amount of money that has been raised is incredible, and will completely change the lives of Abdul and his children.
STUDENT FINANCE – COUNTING THE COST OF BASIC UNFAIRNESS
September 28, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
This summer George Osborne announced that the current system of non-repayable, means-tested maintenance grants would be scrapped and replaced by additional maintenance loans. He deemed it “basic unfairness” to ask taxpayers to fund grants for people who are likely to earn a lot more than them.
Perhaps then it’s his experiences of the tax affairs of Tory party benefactors, such as Michael Ashcroft (also known as Lord Ashcroft to those who adhere to the moronic social phenomenon of ‘peerage’), that blinds the Chancellor from the logical conclusion that earning more justifiably means paying higher taxes, to, for instance, provide an equal means by which people can access higher education.
IF NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES ARE SET, CORBYNOMICS WILL LOOK CONSERVATIVE IN COMPARISON
September 27, 2015by Matilda Carter
When the right-wing press are not engaging in personal abuse and out of context smearing to discredit Labour’s new leader, they occasionally give their opinion on his policy. The most discussed by far is what has been, slightly unfairly, dubbed Corbynomics. The premise is simple: in recessionary times allow the Bank of England to print money to fund infrastructure projects essentially transferring money from the financial economy to the real economy. It may seem like a silly idea, but the Bank of England has engaged, since the financial crash, in a kind of Corbynomics by proxy: printing money to sure up bank balance sheets, making them more likely to lend and slowly, whilst transferring through several financial institutions, stimulate economic growth and liquidity. That’s called Quantitative Easing.
The biggest objection to Corbyn’s policy from the right-wing (other than laughable comparisons to Zimbabwe) is that by directly politicising monetary policy and creating money out of thin air to build infrastructure, inflation will rise. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, alongside former Shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie and former leadership candidate Yvette Cooper, has made a logical argument that inflation rises always hit the poorest hardest.
HOT NEWS: MISS PIGGY’S NEW LOVE INTEREST
September 27, 2015by Asia Patel
BORDERLINES – THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH
September 26, 2015Borderlines is a collection of thought pieces, some creative, some direct accounts, some memoirs, all true. Borderlines collects stories from people who are not fleeing from one country to another, but rather chose to move, or were made to do so by a series of non-threatening circumstances. In these stories there is anger, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, optimism. They are all different, and yet all striking in their approach to the subject matter.
Borderlines aims to show the reality of migration, and how we are all, in our own way, migrants.
THE MIGRANT CRISIS DOES PLACE EUROPE UNDER THREAT
September 26, 2015by Robyn Sands
The migrant hoard was coming, a swarm of extremist middle Easterners desperate for new teeth who were going to simultaneously take all of the jobs and all of the job seekers allowance and probably wouldn’t even take a can of lager to the job centre like a proper British. They were going to threaten our way of life, make us all Muslim and were probably responsible for the recession. But somewhere along the way something changed and they became refugees — women, children, young men escaping war torn countries — deserving of our help and accommodation.
Talk of exits and bailouts have been plaguing the EU recently, and for a while it seemed as though the ‘migrant crisis’ was going to be the narrative sold to pull us all together, to make a case for the borders of Fortress Europe and to show that the EU was a big union capable of solving big problems. But then the public mood seemed to change. Suddenly people were ferrying van loads of donations to the camps at Calais and networks of volunteers seemed to spring up across the country. Syria was in the news again and ‘Refugees welcome’ marches attracted thousands. The establishment responded, but only with compromise.
FOOD EDUCATION: AN OPEN LETTER TO TIM BAKER
September 23, 2015Dear Tim Baker,
My name is Rowan Van Tromp, I am 22 years old and have spent the past academic year working as a teaching assistant at a secondary school in Norwich, following graduation from the University of East Anglia in June 2014.
After seeing Charlton Manor Primary School on the Channel 4 programme Jamie’s Sugar Rush, I was so inspired by the work you are doing, I have decided to write you a letter to share my own experiences with you and my strong advocacy of the model you are working to.
During my time at the school I worked in a learning support unit for children who presented behavioural issues and had been taken out of mainstream class as a result. Within the unit I worked with a number of Year 7 boys who were overweight for their age group. Almost every day they would come into school laden with sugary drinks, crisps and sweets, which they had purchased themselves out of money given to them by parents.
THE DEATH OF THATCHERISM?
September 22, 2015by Alex Hort-Francis
Corbyn’s first week shows direct democracy is essential to empower his supporters, and keep is enemies at bay
Watching the Andrew Marr show the morning after the Labour leadership election felt like waking up in a fictional alternate history; people like that never get into positions of power in the real world. Along with coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s win was an interview with the cyborgified brain of Adolf Hitler, who criticised Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, followed by Keith Richards on what his coven of deathless vampire musicians thought about the resurgence of Britain’s left.
The prompt media attack on Team Corbyn has been equal parts predictable and absurd. Within hours of his appointment as shadow chancellor the internet was plastered with the irrelevant factoid that John McDonnell once whimsically commented he would, were he a time traveller, return to the 80s and assassinate Margaret Thatcher — a premise I’m hopeful Chris Mullin turns into a feature-length tv drama.
LEADERS
September 21, 2015by Jake Reynolds
My teacher covers peanut brittle with a tea-towel
then takes a hammer and smashes it into pieces.
Like a magic trick, she whips the towel off and tells us
to each grab a shard. It is a lesson about fairness.
JOOLS HOLLAND AND THE DEATH OF LIVE MUSIC
September 20, 2015by Mike Vinti
On Wednesday, Later…With Jools Holland returned to our screens for its 47th series. Featuring Foals, Disclosure and My Morning Jacket among others, it was an entertaining, if safe, start to the show’s latest run. Later… is the flagship programme for BBC Music and much of the British music scene generally, and has always hosted a mix of established and up and coming artists. However, recently its bookings have become predictable, their performances lacklustre and the show itself stale.
ISLAMAPHOBIA HAS BECOME THE NORM
September 19, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
Islamophobia appears to be so casual nowadays to the point that it is increasingly becoming the norm. On Friday, during a town hall rally in New Hampshire, US presidential candidate Donald Trump failed to condemn an outspoken audience member who called for the ridding of America of Muslims, and claimed that President Barack Obama is not an American.
“We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims,” the man told Trump. “We know our current president is one.You know he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man.”
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OUR ENVIRONMENT: STARING INTO THE ABYSS
September 18, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
“When the last tree has been cut, when the last river has been poisoned, when the last fish has been caught then we will find out that we can’t eat money.” Anonymous proverb
We look to politicians, policy-makers and leaders of industry for guidance and reassurance that the world we live in is being taken care of, for us to live in now and for future generations to enjoy. We shouldn’t bother. When it comes to the environment it’s hard to know where to turn to and who to trust. Donald Trump once tweeted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” According to a Greenpeace report, the Koch brothers have invested about $79 million in anti-climate change research and like-minded groups. Last week saw the sale of National Geographic to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox whose news channel, Fox News, was found in 2013 to be only 72% accurate when reporting on science-related segments.
Here,in the UK, the Conservatives have cut support for onshore wind farms and solar installations and changed their minds about fracking on sites of scientific interest (SSSIs).to make any place fair game. New legislation ensures that the United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA) must change its selection process for members, potentially giving more influence to energy and fuel industry representatives and reducing the level of expertise available to the board. Meanwhile, going as far back as 2011, Florida officials within the Department of Environmental Protection were told not to use the terms ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability’.
FACING FORWARD – COLLE DI MASSENZIO
September 17, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Silvia Bre (1952-), ‘Colle di Massenzio – Prospettiva frontale’.
The wind is always here in this place this time of year.
Maybe you depend on traditions like this one –
the points you connect collect the space
and you breathe. And you admire it,
you compare it to the sky triumphing
at the immeasurable height of its arches.
A RADICAL GUIDE TO THE US ELECTION
September 16, 2015By Josh Wilson
Citizens of America will not enter a polling booth for over a year but yet the Presidential election seems to be in full swing already. So what even is a primary? Are there any radical candidates? And is Kanye really running to be leader of the ‘free world’? Hopefully this radical guide to the US election will be able to clear things up a bit.
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HOMEWORK REVIEW: MOLLY NAYLOR AND KATIE BONNA
September 16, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
Homework nights used to be a bit of a boys’ club, being a product of the all-male poetry collective Aisle 16. I’d been to an event where they shared that in their youth they had the rule that no girls were allowed. They became somewhat of a poetry boyband, and original members – Luke Wright, Joel Stickley, Chris Hicks, Ross Sutherland, John Osborne, Joe Dunthone and Tim Clare – have gone on to achieve great things. Most of these poets also have a Norwich connection, having attended UEA.
They’re also very much still involved in Homework, with Sutherland hosting this particular one. The premise of this night, based in Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, is that each poet has a month to create a new piece of work and the show itself is a presentation of their homework in the form of a literary cabaret. Each month is themed and features a special guest. It’s very popular, so arriving early for a good seat is a must. Honorary female members, Molly Naylor and Katie Bonna, have been making their mark here for some time, and I thought it would be worthy of a feature to shine the spotlight on them.
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NORWICH FARMSHARE: A COMMUNITY SUPPORTING SOIL
September 14, 2015By Rowan Van Tromp
In 2013 the UN Commission on Trade and Development released a report titled “Wake Up Before It’s Too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate”. It recommended a rapid and significant shift away from “conventional, monoculture-based… industrial production” of food that depends heavily on external inputs such as nitrogen fertiliser, agro chemicals, and concentrate feed. Instead, it says that the goal should be “mosaics of sustainable regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers and foster rural development”.
#DRAW4ATENA
September 13, 2015by Asia Patel
CAMERON WOULD RATHER GO TO WAR THAN HELP A REFUGEE
September 12, 2015by Natasha Senior
A photograph of a single refugee, a toddler in a red t-shirt, a lone and lifeless body washed up ashore, face down in the sand. This is what it took for the citizens of Europe to see the refugees for what they are, not as groups of migrants, scroungers and opportunists, but as human beings facing unimaginable horrors. But even despite the righteous indignation that has followed, galvanising citizens and governments across Europe into opening up their borders, their homes and their hearts, this government remains as cold and ruthless as the waters that have claimed the lives of thousands of refugees’. Refusing to participate in an EU-wide quota system, David Cameron has instead thrown in a token gesture of accepting just 20,000 over the next 5 years, offering asylum only to those who have yet to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
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LET US SIT AND TELL SAD STORIES: CREATIVE WRITING STUDENTS AND THE NEED FOR OPTIMISM
September 12, 2015by Jake Reynolds
Trigger warnings for mentions of rape, assault, substance abuse, violence.
When I tell people that I have recently moved into a house in which my bedroom window looks out onto a graveyard, I get one of two reactions. The first is a wince. ‘That sounds bleak.’ The second is a strange, slightly glazed and dreamy look. ‘Wow. Think of all the writing you’ll get done. That’ll be so inspirational.’
When I joined UEA as an English Literature with Creative Writing undergraduate in 2013, the prospect of my bedroom window allowing me to peek in over a graveyard was quite a dismal thought. As I prepare to enter my final year, nothing has changed. Yet being a creative writing student, there is an assumption that being so close to death in such a striking and obvious way can be nothing but a gift for what is, presumably, my twisted and morose mind.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO PEGGY HUBBARD, SEAN HANNITY AND FOX NEWS
September 11, 2015By Emmanuel Agu
For a while now I have been trying to do everything in my power to avoid directly writing around police brutality, (specifically in America) and the black lives matter movement. In all sincerity, there are an endless multitude of articles written around this with a much longer word limit than that which I am offered; but given recent stimuli- I could not stay silent for any longer.
A couple of days ago I had the misfortune of encountering this viral video.
STALKERS ARE NOT TROLLS
September 10, 2015by Robyn Sands
A man overhears you saying something he doesn’t like, and yells abuse at you. You leave, but later on he looks up all of your personal information – your work address, home address, your parents’ home address – and sends it to you with a threat to come over to rape and/or kill you. How would you describe this kind of person? A stalker? Possible axe murderer? Would you contact the police? How would you feel if the police told you to just ignore it?
A DISMAL DAY OUT
September 8, 2015by Mike Vinti
Banksy’s anti-theme park is a strange thing to behold. After all the media hype and ensuing comment pieces, it’s hard to know what to expect when entering through its cheap, plastic doors. The queues outside set the tone rather nicely, reminiscent of Dismaland’s mainstream counterparts and laying the foundations of what promises to be a dismal experience.
Once at the front, visitors get their first taste of Dismaland’s stewards. Adorned in Mickey Mouse ears and pink hi-vis vests they are the antithesis of your average, over-friendly theme park worker, barely making eye contact and offering nothing but disdain to those who pass them by.
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WHAT CAN A PHOTOGRAPH TELL US ABOUT HUMANITY?
September 8, 2015by Jess Howard
In my last article for The Norwich Radical I talked about risks, the risks of those who disregard their personal safety, instead preferring to take time to photographs of death, danger and carnage on their smart phones. This article is going to continue in a similar vein, focusing on the risks that individuals are willing to take, but for far different reasons. This week I will focus on the dangers that thousands of refugees are currently encountering, as a means escaping the war and conflict in their home countries.
IGNORANCE WAS A WOODLOUSE
September 6, 2015by Jake Reynolds
burrowing into places dark and damp,
tucking itself into a brittle clot
and festering.Its womb was the catacomb
where its armour grew.
A wretched place, free from light.
WHY WON’T THE USA TAKE MORE SYRIAN REFUGEES?
September 6, 2015By Faizal Nor Izham
Over the past week, footage of Syrian refugees has bombarded international news channels. Most of the four million fleeing Syrians – currently living in overcrowded refugee camps in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey – often go on to travel thousands of miles through central Europe, and across the Mediterranean, to countries such as Austria and Germany. Many have attempted to find their way onto boats, trains and trucks crossing the Channel to the UK.
THE PEOPLE WANT
September 4, 2015by Jo Thompson
Hard to look, hard to understand
the softness of his drowned bones
rocked here by the waters.How quickly banners can catch alight,
a mumble in the crowd growing up,
becoming certain of itself: the people
want to topple the regime. All’s parched,
and everywhere the green sickens yellow.
Outstretched hands wither into fists.
OF THE INFERTILE VOICE
September 3, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Roberta Dapunt (1970-), from ‘Le beatitudini della malattia’.
So I want to be like the rowan among the larch and the firs
covered by infinite snow. Layered by white
embraces, irreparable sluice of cold reason.- 4
FEMINIST PICKS: EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL
September 2, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
After five days at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I’ve taken a pick of five Feminist pieces to review. Known for the extensive comedy programme, three of these are comedy acts, and then I’ve thrown in some poetry and theatre for good measure.
OUR POLITICAL WELFARE STATE: GREED AND IGNORANCE IN WESTMINSTER
September 1, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
“Whenever governments adopt a moral tone- as opposed to an ethical one – you know something is wrong.”
John Ralston SaulMPs and politicians talk about getting people off benefits and out of the welfare culture. Perhaps they should lead by example and get off the gravy train, courtesy of the taxpayer.
Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has claimed around £31,000 in London hotel stays despite owning a home in Essex. Andrew Lansley, MP for South Cambridgeshire, has previously claimed £5950 in London hotel stays despite owning a flat about 1 mile from Parliament. Speaker John Bercow claimed £367 for travelling to Luton – to talk about the MPs expenses scandal. Richard Benyon MP, worth £110 million, received about £120,000 in housing benefits, largely from immigrant tenants in his properties. Yet he stated: “Labour want benefits to go up to more than the earnings of people in work. It isn’t fair and we will not let them bring back their something for nothing culture.”
BLAIR AND BROWN HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ON CREDIBILITY
August 30, 2015by Matilda Carter
For a political analyst who swears by the idea that only parties on the centre-ground can win elections, Labour may just be about, to coin a phrase, to write the most-signed suicide note in history. Jeremy Corbyn, an opponent of the Blair-Brown “modernisation” project and staunch advocate of socialism, is the frontrunner to become the party’s new leader, with odds that started as 100/1 becoming so short that Paddy Power has already paid out bets made in his favour over three weeks from the announcement of the result.
A #Labourpurge and a legal challenge notwithstanding, the Labour that emerges from this election will be a very different beast. Top-down party management will be eschewed for the empowerment of the, now, huge number of members of the party, foreign policy will drastically change and, perhaps most importantly, Corbyn’s Labour will break the austerity consensus that has set over Europe.
BEARDS
August 30, 2015by Asia Patel
WORK UNTIL YOU’RE HEALTHY OR WORK UNTIL YOU’RE DEAD
August 29, 2015by Natasha Senior
This is the message that Iain Duncan Smith and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) have been espousing over the last five years as benefits sanctions become ever more stringent. And now we are starting to get closer to understanding just how far they’re willing to go. After mounting public pressure and many Freedom of Information requests, the DWP have been forced to publish statistics showing that over 2,300 people have died after losing their benefits following fit for work assessments.
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GENERATION PARK AND UEA’S BIOMESS
August 29, 2015by Suzanne Jones
‘Generation Park’ is a proposal to build a biomass incinerator in the heart of Norwich which is being fronted by Professor Trevor Davies, of UEA. This isn’t the first biomass development Prof. Davies has been involved in. In 2009 he was the leading light in a project to construct a wood-burning incinerator that would provide power and heat for the UEA itself.
In assessing the suitability of the Generation Park proposals for Norwich, it might be instructive to know how successful or otherwise Prof. Davies’ biomass plant at UEA has been.
THE NME WITHIN: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE RADICAL MUSIC PRESS?
August 28, 2015by Jack Brindelli
‘THE TAB’ AND ‘BISEXUALITY’: SAYING YOU’RE A JOURNALIST IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR BEING ABLE TO WRITE COHERENTLY
August 28, 2015by Blythe Aimson
According to The Tab’s William Lloyd, I am not Cara Delevingne. Damn. I wish someone had told me sooner. No wonder DKNY aren’t returning my calls.
In all seriousness, The Tab recently published Lloyd’s article ‘Saying you’re bisexual is no substitute for being interesting’ (original article found here via donotlink). The central points of his argument are as follows: most people who identify as bisexual are lying; you must have slept with someone of the opposite sex to be ‘legitimately’ bisexual; bisexuality is a largely modern phenomenon caused by the desire to be dramatic and interesting on social media.
The first error in Lloyd’s pretty abysmal article is the assertion ‘So this is it: the gay-straight binary is collapsing’, as though gay and straight are the only two sexualities to have ever existed before social media told us otherwise. It’s true that the media has recently fixated on bisexuality as hip subversive trend, as more celebrities open up on the subject, such as his example Cara Delevingne, but this certainly doesn’t mean that bisexuality never existed before Miley Cyrus said so.
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ARE WE THE NAZIS NOW?
August 27, 2015by Robyn Sands
On the anniversary of VE day this year I tried to drive to the supermarket in my home town and was met by crowds of people in Sunday dress, lining the roads leading up to the war memorial and laying down wreaths of poppies as they waited for the procession, which I could hear approaching even from my car, complete with marching band. They were doing so to honour the soldiers lost in WW2; those who fought for our country, or, more ostensibly, those who fought for ‘freedom’.
There were many causes of the Second World War, but what we remember the Nazis for -the version of history we learn in school- is the holocaust. Children in history classes are taught to denounce a fascist regime which placed one type of person, the ‘true’ Aryan German, who was ‘really’ from Germany on the basis of their fair hair and white skin, in a hierarchy above other types of people who were not as worthy. This list included people who were disabled, gay or mentally ill but focussed mainly on Jews, who were considered to have little or no right to the land they lived in because of their ethnicity and heritage. They were not ‘true’ Germans. And it was freedom from this regime, freedom from persecution and discrimination, that most of us proudly believe we fought for. And it’s this which is epitomised in the phrase “If it weren’t for our brave soldiers, we might all be speaking German now”.
HOW SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT MISOGYNY IN RAP?
August 26, 2015by Mike Vinti
Between Spotify releasing data showing that hip hop is the most widely listened to genre of music, and the imminent release of Straight Outta Compton: The Movie, rap has been in the news a lot recently. With the spotlight firmly on Dr. Dre & Co., and in light of a fantastic article for Gawker by journalist and MC Dee Barnes, detailing the abuse she faced from the former NWA member and how women were excluded from the movie, questions have begun to be asked about the treatment of women in hip hop.
In many ways these questions are long overdue. As with many other genres, women have been all but erased from the popular narrative of hip hop’s history, and many rappers still use misogynistic language today. The latter of these is the most frequent, and most generalised, complaint levelled against hip hop and rap, and has been since the genre reached mainstream popularity.
PERSONAL MEDIA: RISK OR RESPONSIBILITY?
August 25, 2015by Jess Howard
It’s easy to say that a vast percentage of the Western world is able to access the internet on a daily basis. Laptops, computers, tablets – the list of accessibility is almost endless. And then, of course, we have smart phones. A hand held device that allows you to become a researcher, writer or photographer at the swipe of a thumb. Our hands have control of who we want to be, what we want to see, and when we want to see it. Be it on a train, buses or during our walk to Starbucks for our morning latte.
Personally, embarrassingly, I don’t think I could function without my phone. As a writer I am constantly jotting down article ideas or passages for potential short stories. Some stay, some are discarded, but the majority of them are stowed away in the Pages app on my iPhone. I fall into the same category as everyone else when it comes to my pocket-sized, electronic best friend.
AN AFFAIR IN THREE ACTS
August 24, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
‘Everyone knows. The world knows. It knows. But they’ll never know, they’ll never know, they’re in a different world.’ — Harold Pinter, Betrayal
Act I
Look at the way you’re looking at me.
I upped the contrast and bleached my teeth.I wanted to go for lunch next week.
I have pictures of him, a right Clooney.We took an old canoe out to sea.
He came in my mouth and called me sweet.He wondered if you’d like to meet.
You can tell he was raised by a proper family.
DON’T COUNTER VIOLENCE WITH MORE VIOLENCE
August 23, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
Despite almost 14 years of Western nations waging a ‘war on terror’, not much has been achieved in the way of making the world a truly secure place for all. With Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden now considered yesterday’s news, the Iraq war that was waged after 9/11 — widely considered by critics to be “pointless” — merely gave birth to another terrorist threat in the form of ISIS. Today, some sections of the Western media continue to be awash with Islamophobic articles on an almost daily basis, further fueling the public’s misconception of Islam and its supposed roots in terrorism. This in turn has affected Britain’s immigration and multicultural policies to an extent, and has only served to further heighten levels of prejudice against Muslims.
It begs the question: has the Western response to 9/11 really been that worthwhile?
BURNHAM CAN’T SAVE US: A RESPONSE TO ‘THE BEATING HEART OF LABOUR’
August 22, 2015by Chris Jarvis
On August 21st, The Norwich Radical published an article — The Beating Heart of Labour — where the writer endorsed Andy Burnham in the Labour Leadership Election. Over the next 1,000 words, I intend to address the primary arguments in that article and why I believe them to be fundamentally wrong; why I believe Andy Burnham to be just as damaging to the Labour Party, its electoral prospects and likewise the country as Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, and why Jeremy Corbyn, albeit far from a political panacea, is without doubt the best candidate in the election and therefore the arguments presented in the previous piece are misguided and wrong.
The first major pitfall of the argument is rooted in what the article itself critiques — that Corbyn is unelectable. While Senior is right to reject the mythical notion of ‘electability’ as the primary motivation a member should have in selecting one leadership candidate over another, by suggesting that ‘economic credibility’ is central to any successful general election strategy, she fails to dismiss the electability myth for what it is— a rhetorical creation designed by a right wing media and out of touch political commentators to silence radicalism and deviation from political norms. The concept of a candidate or a political perspective as being ‘electable’ as we commonly understand it relies on the assumption that public opinion is somehow unmovable — that the political position of the electorate is largely static, and the role of political parties is to move towards it, and whichever is best and simulating this elusive point of view will win any forthcoming election.
ECONOMICS AFTER CAPITALISM
August 22, 2015by Colin Hynson
Derek Wall Economics After Capitalism: A Guide to the Ruins and a Road to the Future. Pluto Press, 2015. £13.00
In the last months of 2011 countries across the world witnessed an explosion of protest under the banner of ‘Occupy’. Inspired by uprisings of the Arab Spring and the Indignant movement in Spain and angered by the effects of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, large groups of anti-capitalist and anti-corporatist demonstrators took over public spaces and set up camp. The Occupy protests in New York and in London were the ones that occupied most public attention although there were Occupy protests in many cities across the world, including on Norwich’s Hay Hill.
The Occupy protestors were subject to all of the usual attacks and criticisms from conservative commentators and pundits and there was one thing that they all agreed on. It was easy to see what the protestors were against but much more difficult to find out exactly what they were for. There was no list of demands, no manifesto and no programme of action. Yet for many supporters of the Occupy movement this wasn’t a weakness but a sign of strength. It allowed diverse groups from environmentalists to socialists and anarchists to come together and draw attention to a problem that needed fixing, i.e. capitalism, whilst agreeing that there were many ways that could solve that problem.
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THE BEATING HEART OF LABOUR
August 21, 2015by Natasha Senior
For the conservatives, the civil war waging within Labour is extremely fortuitous. Their borderline majority in the House of Commons was nothing to celebrate especially as they fully inherited the fractured Britain that they’d created in their last government and now the party itself is even starting to buckle under the pressure of growing Euroscepticism. Instead of capitalising on this unrest by raising up arms against them, the left-wing are too distracted by the arms they’ve raised against each other.
In the meantime the Tories have been getting away with murder. We don’t bat an eyelid as they rebrand the living wage, cut tax credits, and extend plans for fracking. This metaphorical war is starting to have very real consequences and if Labour cannot unite beyond the leadership election then without a strong opposition, these sinister policies will grow in size and intensify.
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CORBYN SUPPORTERS “TOO STUPID” TO VOTE SAYS SENIOR LABOUR SOURCE
August 20, 2015by Josh Wilson
A senior Labour figure is expected to make a speech tomorrow morning from the grave of Clement Attlee. They will explain that they believe the majority of the Labour Party membership are “too stupid” to vote in the coming election. Therefore anyone that votes for the bookies favourite candidate, Jeremy Corbyn, is not fit to vote and their ballot should be made void.
This news comes after a string of prominent Labour Party members have racked up the anti-Corbyn rhetoric. With Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Milliband, as well as fellow candidates Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper all making speeches in recent days denouncing the socialist policies propagated by Corbyn. This strategy is being colloquially referred to as ‘doing a Scotland’, after the highly organised fear campaign that was initiated in the days leading up to the historic independence referendum.
IT’S NOT ALL GOOD, FELLAS
August 19, 2015by Alex Valente
You’re finally at university. In the first couple of weeks, you meet up with new flatmates and friends to play a game. Someone suggests yet another drinking game. Someone else mentions wink murder. Then you go for one in which everyone plays to win over the other team without knowing who belongs to which: will you be the uninformed majority, a simple civilian, or are you the informed minority – a mafioso?
Or, perhaps, your group decides to start an activity together. Maybe it’s an unofficial running team. Maybe it’s a reading group. Maybe it’s something else entirely. But it doesn’t matter. You’re the team. You’re the squad. You’re the mafia. Because the Mafia is cool. I mean, we know it’s a bad thing, of course. But they looked cool doing it. There’s organisation, and loyalty. There’s no harm in just using the word. Right..?
POLITICIANS: NO TRUST, NO VALUE
August 19, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
“Members of the public would be forgiven for thinking that it is MPs who are lazy and that it is parliament that is failing to provide good value for money.” – Margaret Hodge
We have become desensitised to any wrong-doings of those in the political establishment. We’re used to it, we almost expect it and we certainly aren’t surprised anymore when these revelations hit the papers. Only this time it has reached the top, in former Prime Minister Edward Heath. There is no evidence and nothing to back up these claims so far but when someone in the highest and most powerful position in the land, dead or not, is being ‘looked’ into, it’s hard to feel positive about those who are entrusted with the well-being and future of ourselves and the land.
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LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX: THE INSTITUTE OF SEXOLOGY AND SEX IN THE AFTERNOON
August 18, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
I didn’t know what to expect from The Institute of Sexology, exhibited at the Wellcome Collection, but it was probably not the mass of phallic and explicit penis-shaped trinkets, supposedly associated with power. What would have been nice is the inclusion of similar vagina-inspired adornments. Nevertheless, it was bound to be that an exhibition about sex would highlight patriarchal power and women’s submissive role throughout history.
DEAR CREATOR
August 16, 2015by Asia Patel
10 MYTHS ABOUT GENERATION PARK
August 15, 2015by Suzanne Jones
A private company have submitted plans to build a biomass incineration plant in Norwich. This document looks at some of the myths surrounding this development.
Myth 1 – Generation Park is being built ‘for the benefit of the people of Norwich’.
Looking at the so-called ‘Community Energy Centre’ on Generation Park’s website, you might think that this is a ‘not for profit’ development. In fact, its primary purpose is to make money for its investors, mainly ‘anonymous backers’ who will benefit from £M’s of government subsidies, paid for by the taxpayer. Generation Park would receive approximately £34M in annual subsidies alone.
WHAT MESSAGE ARE WE SAYING WHEN WE LEAK CELEBRITY NUDES?
August 15, 2015by Jess Howard
Content Warning: Nudity – Trigger Warning: Rape
Recently, Kim Kardashian posted a naked selfie on Instagram to prove that she was having her second child with Kanye West, after speculative claims that she was too thin to be pregnant. Demi Moore famously posed nude for photographer Annie Leibovitz whilst 7 months pregnant with her daughter Scout, for the cover of Vanity Fair, and Playboy magazine has been photographing naked women for their publication for years. Cosmopolitan even features a nude male photo in their monthly magazine, to raise awareness for testicular cancer.
These photographs are fully consensual, and it was the individual’s choice to pose for these picture. However, it is not uncommon for these types of images to be posted without consent.
WHERE ARE OUR ACTORS?
August 14, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
In the last 20 years there has been a trend of homegrown UK BME actors/actresses abandoning UK television- where they gained initial notoriety; and heading to America to further their careers. Notable examples would be Chiwitel Ejiofor, Parminder Nagra, and Archie Panjabi. With blockbuster hits and critically acclaimed films under their belts like ‘12 years a slave’, ‘Bend It like Beckham’, and ‘East is East’ for these aforementioned individuals; an apparent lack of talent is definitely not the factor.
DREAM MACHINES
August 14, 2015by Jack Brindelli
Popular culture moves in mysterious ways. For years it can seem like a particular trope or sub-genre has died off before bursting from its suspended animation and illuminating our screens once more. For years it appeared vampires and zombies had been permanently banished to the cinematic shadows before rising triumphant from their cultural tomb, terrifying new generations of cinema-goers at the turn of the century. Similarly, in 2015, the robot seems to be undergoing something of a resurrection. For the past decade considered clunky and kitsch, Artificial Intelligence has suddenly monopolised the top-billed releases of the year – droids are back in the big-time. The question is why?
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THE DWP FIGURES WON’T MATTER IN OUR CULT OF THE PUBLIC PURSE
August 13, 2015by Robyn Sands
Over the past few months, a lot has been made of the apparently soon to be released DWP statistics on the number of people who have died after their benefits were stopped. Over 235,000 people signed a petition asking for them to be released, but the government has been accused of constant stalling in an effort to keep the real number hidden. The DWP claims they are stalling because they plan to release the statistics in a more contextual and understandable fashion, arguing that the statistics alone “. . . were likely to be misinterpreted. Specifically, incorrect conclusions were likely to be drawn as to causal links between assessment outcomes and mortality. Such misinterpretations would be contrary to the public interest, particularly given the emotive and sensitive context of mortality statistics”.
This makes sense, especially given the ability of statistics to be misinterpreted and used for one’s own ends. It might not be clear, for example, how many of those people would have died anyway from terminal illness, as benefits are stopped when a person enters hospital, or how many of those benefits were stopped for legitimate reasons. The well-known 10,600 figure which circulated earlier in the year turned out to include not only those who had their benefits stopped 6 weeks before their death, but those who had them stopped 6 weeks after. Far from having a hand in the deaths of 10,600 people, the government may have simply stopped the benefits of 10,600 people who were already dead. But to my mind, we don’t need to use an impersonal number to criticise our benefits system.
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LABOUR LEADERSHIP ELECTION INFOGRAPHIC
August 11, 2015By Alex Hort-Francis
Who’s Backing Whom? 
THE SWARM
August 10, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
It was a murmuration demoted from dusk to night-time,
a climb of buzzing cloud, the open mouth of a life-line,
the sparkle of darkness at the end of a tunnel, the vertigo
of a hungry stomach pressed against lorry tarpaulin,
CALAIS, MIGRANTS, MYTHS AND REALITY
August 9, 2015By Faizal Nor Izham
In my last article, I looked at Theresa May’s recent plans to further crack down on immigration by banning international students from working in the UK before, as well as after, graduation. This is to be achieved through various visa controls, as part of the Conservatives’ plan to cut net migration to “tens of thousands” by 2020 – despite the fact that the UK continues to suffer from skills shortages in many industries.
A SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY COULD WIN THE NEXT ELECTION, BUT THEY’LL NEED TO LEARN FROM MARGARET THATCHER
August 9, 2015by Matilda Carter
Left-leaning politicians and political commentators tend to only invoke the name of our first woman to be Prime Minister in two ways: with the deafening thunderclap of pure evil or with a conciliatory tone; expressing the validity of many of her arguments. If the left truly want to be in a position to change the country for the better though, we need to begin thinking about Thatcher not just as a towering, transformative ideological figure, but also as an astonishingly talented political strategist.
IF KATIE HOPKINS REALLY RULED THE WORLD
August 8, 2015By Robyn Sands
Katie Hopkins’ new show, If Katie Hopkins ruled the world, debuted on TLC this Thursday 6th August. While a Mail article claimed that the show had trouble garnering any guests, Hopkins herself claimed that people were so desperate to align themselves to her overall image of petty hate and kneejerk reactions she had to turn people away, which doesn’t really explain why the first guests include a washed out daily fail columnist, a reality TV star and a woman so irrelevant she’s been denounced by even the darkest corners of feminism.
THE WHITE BOY’S GUIDE TO GANGSTA RAP
August 6, 2015by Mike Vinti
Since its inception gangsta rap has been a thorn in the side of the establishment. Brash, violent and loud, its explosion in the late 80s and 90s tore up the rule book of hip hop and reshaped the genre in its own image, introducing the world to the harsh reality of life on the streets of black America. With the cinematic release of ‘Straight Outta Compton’ a week away (August 15th) it only seems fitting to look back at some of gangster rap’s greatest and explore its legacy thirty years on.
Gangsta rap is hip hop’s bratty younger brother, fed on the social conscious rhymes of early hip hop but filled with the anger of a generation excluded from the yuppie party of the eighties. Like punk before it, its church is broad, ranging from the smooth, sun-drenched rhythms of G-Funk, to the hard edged, sample heavy boom bap of Wu Tang Clan. Frequently criticised by those on the left and the right for glorifying violence and misogyny, scapegoated for the prevalence of crime in black communities, and beloved to many a hip hop head, the story of gangsta rap is the story of poverty in America, as relevant to this day as it was back in ’86.
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SPACE SPACE I CRAVE
August 6, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Alda Merini (1931-2009), from ‘Vuoto d’amore’
Space space I crave, all the space
to sweetly move, wounded;
I crave space to sing to grow
fall and leap across the ditch 
THE GREEK CRISIS: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND
August 5, 2015by Josh Wilson
The Greek financial crisis has done what all news stories do when they do not have an abrupt or exciting ending. It has faded from the homepages of all major news websites, to a small box down the page a bit and eventually only being found by using the search bar. Out of sight, out of mind as the saying goes, but it was just a month ago that Greece voted on whether to accept austerity measures and have since been systematically ignored by their government and international creditors.
In that crucial referendum on whether to accept or reject further cuts to services and higher taxes in order to release bailout funds, 61.3 per cent of people voted against austerity. Yet just days after this democratic exercise, it was shown to be nothing more than a democratic sham.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE NOT SO CURIOUS CASE OF TERRORISM
August 4, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
US President Barack Obama recently gave an impassioned address at the US Coast Guard Academy:
‘I understand climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, yet what we also know is that severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram. It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East.’
As expected, this speech was met with derision from the Republican Party and its media allies, claiming that taking further steps to help resolve the environmental issue could affect the US economy. It’s hard to see what steps Obama is taking to prevent climate catastrophe in light of recent events: the US Department of the Interior has allowed drilling in the Arctic region to go ahead, the Keystone Pipeline still remains a dangerously unresolved issue and land sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe and Yavapai-Apache Nation is about to be handed over to a mining corporation. While it’s business as usual for government-corporate relations, a growing threat is dismissed as scaremongering.
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GENERATION PARK: POWER AND PROFIT
August 3, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
Plans will soon be submitted by NPH (Norwich) Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) for the controversial £370m ‘Generation Park’ development, based on the 30 acre former utilities site in the Thorpe Hamlet area of the city. The proposals include 120 low carbon homes, as well as student accommodation, an education centre, a new energy research and development centre, 11 acres of parkland, new cycle routes and the promise of job creation. All this and at no cost to the council taxpayer! Well, at least not in direct monetary terms.
The site will also be host to a straw-pellet burning energy plant that could produce electricity equivalent to powering 88,000 homes, as well providing heat on demand to surrounding businesses and homes via a district heating network, with claims of up to a 25% reduction in the city’s carbon footprint as a result.
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SANDRA BLAND: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS IN DEATH AND ARREST
August 2, 2015by Asia Patel
BRINGING POWER BACK TO LONDONERS: MP GARETH THOMAS’ VISION FOR LONDON
August 2, 2015In May 2016, London will go to the polls to decide who will replace Boris Johnson as their new mayor. A number of progressive parties from across the political spectrum are standing candidates in that election. We’ve got in touch with all those who are seeking nomination from their parties, asking why London should elect them, what their key policy priorities are and how London will be changed if they are elected. We’ll be publishing their responses over the next few weeks.
by Gareth Thomas, MP Harrow West
I think Londoners should be given more of a say in the decisions that shape the future of our city. That is why I introduced the London Devolution Bill into parliament, and that’s why if I was Mayor I would call for a referendum in September 2016 to secure public consent for devolving more powers and responsibilities to London.
NEVER CALL ME AN OREO
August 1, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
Often within BME communities the term “Acting white” coupled with pejoratives i.e “bounty/coconut/” are exchanged as a way to insult and demean one another- and for those people of color inhabiting predominantly white environments we find- oddly these are given often as mere observations and to some individuals, a thinly veiled compliment. Personal and shared experiences through lower schooling and higher education would have led me to believe that ‘acting white’ can be seen as a variety of things:
Speaking an English vernacular that isn’t observed in a vast majority of grime music videos.
Refusing to wear boot cut jeans and timberlands on non-school uniform day.
A passion for singer/songwriters and metal core ( odd juxtaposition but, forgive me)
A close circle of predominantly white friends.
This mindset however is problematic and regressive and for PoC to use on each other is self-deprecating. By choosing to use these insults we encourage and foster a space for internalized racism within our respective communities, and further promote colonialist ideals within society as a whole.
THE ARTIST AS THE CELEBRITY
August 1, 2015by Jess Howard
Artistic expression is primarily focused on creation. Regardless of an artist’s political, financial, social, or moral agenda, they are using a creative process to express their thoughts and views. Quite simply, art is creation.
However, a recent news story brought to light the act of destruction in creativity. With Turner prize winning video artist Douglas Gordon attacking Manchester’s newly built HOME theatre with an axe, causing excessive damage to the £25,000,000 theatre.
AN OPEN LETTER TO ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE
July 30, 2015by Robyn Sands
CW: Domestic violence
Like so many other politically engaged people I know, I follow the blog Another Angry Voice. A couple of days ago one of his articles appeared on my timeline, and it seemed to be about feminism. Yay, feminism, my favourite subject! I agree with about 90% of what is written on his blog, frequently share his infographics and articles and generally understand him to be a well meaning, intelligent and rational man who’s work I admire. Naïve, I clicked the article.
Over the next few days the article resurfaced on nearly every feminist group or page I follow, and I wish that was where I had first seen it because most of these groups use trigger warnings which could well have saved me from having to drive to work 20 minutes after reading, late, choking back angry tears and almost killing cyclists. But those tears will be useless if I don’t direct them in to something productive, so here is my open letter to Thomas G Clark, creator of Another Angry Voice.
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A CINEMA WORTH FIGHTING FOR
July 29, 2015by Jack Brindelli
The Norfolk People’s Assembly have voted in co-operation with the Norwich Radical to establish a local Radical Film Festival, with the inaugural festival expected to be hosted in February 2015. As we begin to make provisions for that though, we need ideas, practical and fantastic and everything in between. The first organising meeting for the festival will take place on Saturday the 1st of August, at 3pm in the Playhouse Bar’s Playroom, and is completely open to the public. But why does a cultural project like this even matter in the depths of Austerity? Can we really be wasting our time on building imaginary worlds when our real one is under such threat?
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‘ONLY HOPE CAN WIN’: LABOUR NEED TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE – ELECTING CORBYN IS THE FIRST STEP
July 28, 2015by Alex Hort-Francis
There’s an exchange in the original 90s British version of House of Cards (it’s on Netflix and just as good, if not better, than its US counterpart) that goes like this: the Conservative prime minister asks an advisor, “How do you rate the performance of this Government?” The advisor replies, “You’ve got 46% of the people, and that means you can afford to ignore the rest. The opposition has no chance because it’s got no powerbase. Most of the ‘underclass’ aren’t even registered to vote. You’ve virtually destroyed the two-party system.”
Some things apparently never change.
DARK NIGHT STRANGLES THE TRAVELLING LAMP
July 27, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
Commander Coates of New Earth Transfers descends
from a helicopter’s exoskeleton and battles the gales
to signal Anna Garvey, protestor, handcuffed to the rubble
of a Wonder. He fixes goggles to his eyes, flashes his ID.
Don’t tell me, he says. You swallowed the key.These streets have spent a year in the tinny grips
of radio screech. He tells her she’s going to catch
her death, and reaches in a pouch on his belt
for a halo of rusty keys. Drones stare from the helicopter.
Don’t tell me, he says. You’ve made up your mind.
CLAMPDOWN ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS WOULD ONLY HURT BRITAIN MORE
July 25, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
part of a new government clampdown on immigration, Theresa May recently unveiled new plans to ban international students from working during their studies — replacing current laws enabling them to work up to 10 hours a week — as well as force them out of the UK upon graduation. This is in spite of the fact that the country continues to suffer from skills shortages in many industries.
The plan is part of the Conservatives’ pledge to cut net migration to ‘tens of thousands’ by 2020. About 121,000 non-EU students arrived in the UK from June 2013-14, while only 51,000 were reported to have left — resulting in a net influx of 70,000 migrants.The move followed a previous plan by May to force overseas students to return home after they have graduated, which had been blocked by the Tory leadership. The party’s previous pledge, from its 2010 general election manifesto, would have required students to leave the country and re-apply if they want to switch to another course or apply for a work permit.
CULTURE CU*TS
July 24, 2015by Mike Vinti
The future of the BBC is uncertain. Despite John Whittingdale’s assurances everything is going to be ok, you can’t help but wonder — if they’re abolishing grants for disadvantaged students, cutting disability benefits and generally meddling in the NHS, why would they save the BBC? As the Tories start to enact their new budget, it seems nothing is safe.
The cuts have already started. Though its programming has been weak in recent years, the loss of BBC Three is symbolic of the Tories plans for the rest of the broadcaster. It hardly seems like a coincidence, especially in the context of Osbourne’s refusal to scrap the free license fee for over 65s, that the BBC’s youth-focused channel was A) its most neglected or B) the first of its services to go. The Tories’ cuts to the welfare state have disproportionately affected young people ,and if previous attempts are anything to go by, so will its gradual disintegration of the BBC.
This will be easy for Cameron and his underlings in the department of Culture, Media and Sport to achieve. The BBC has been losing young viewers and listeners from its TV and Radio stations for years.
THE SKY STILL HOLDS US
July 23, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Mariangela Gualtieri (1951-), from ‘Naturale sconosciuto’
The sky still holds us
does not expel from its rotation
this round home of ours
and we reach the final ledge
with light articulated by stars
no longer looked at if not to call
their name.- 1
IN DEFENCE OF TELLING GIRLS THEY CAN
July 22, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
I have recently come across a lot of backlash against the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, including this article from The Guardian. Whilst I’ve read arguments that Sport England would do well to challenge the massive pay gap between men and women in sports, I reject the notion that it should be in spite of this campaign, claiming that it’s not needed, that it’s patronising, or that it’s actually about sex.
COULD JEREMY CORBYN BE THE SAVIOUR OF THE BRITISH LEFT?
July 21, 2015by Josh Wilson
Whilst the second round of Tory austerity begins to bite, the party of working people is deep into its leadership election, with just under a month to go until the results are announced. In a shock poll last week Jeremy Corbyn, the veteran socialist candidate, came out on top with the pollsters saying he has ignited a grassroots campaign of young Labour activists. But is this softly spoken, unassuming lefty going to be the saviour of the British Left?
There is no doubt that Corbyn is a principled and unwavering politician and campaigner. He famously split from his partner due to a dispute over sending their child to the local comprehensive school in inner city Islington. But is the wider public ready for a party leader that wants to boycott Israel, renationalise the railways, and scrap nuclear weapons?
THE GREAT NATURE ROBBERY
July 21, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
“The time has come for all good men to rise above principle.” Huey Long
In September 1999, the government of Bolivia relinquished control of the water of the city of Cochabamba to a business venture, Aguas del Tunari. Part of the contract required the building of a dam (a long desired vanity project of the city’s mayor, Manfred Reyes Villa) so in order to raise the capital, the price of water was raised by an average of 35%. In blissful ignorance of the workings and realism of Bolivian income and earnings, it was stated that “if people didn’t pay their water bills their water would be turned off.” Massive demonstrations began in early 2000 as the water rates took their toll on families and businesses. The Bolivian government declared a ‘state of siege’ and the demonstrators were met with brute force, warrantless arrests, limited travel and, almost inevitably, the death of protesters and soldiers. It was perhaps the televised recording of the lethal shooting of student Victor Hugo Daze that heralded the end. The business executives were no longer safe and fled the country. The government terminated the contract and demonstrators were released. While hailed as a victory for the people, half of the citizens of Cochabamba remain without water.
AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVID MCNALLY: MAKE NORWICH CITY FC A ZERO CARBON CLUB
July 20, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
Dear Mr McNally,
I was pleasantly surprised upon hearing the news that Norwich City FC are committed to introducing the living wage — as set by The Living Wage Foundation — to all permanent colleagues across the business by the 2016/17 season, as well as reviewing wage policies of external agencies and contractors who work at the club, to make sure staff also receive the Living Wage by 2016-17. Whilst this is a great step forward in becoming a club that takes its social responsibility seriously, we’re still lagging way behind on environmental sustainability.
One club that’s made huge strides forward in this area is Forest Green Rovers, owned by Dale Vince, the founder of the green energy company — Ecotricity. Since taking over in 2010 the club has implemented many measures to improve their environmental performance and in doing so has achieved the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) — the gold standard for environmental performance, along with international recognition as the world’s leading club in this field.
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THE LONDON TUBE STRIKE: CRAB LOGIC AT ITS MOST CRABBIEST
July 19, 2015by Alex Hort-Francis
Last week saw a 24 hour strike by London Underground staff, with commuters and tourists left to make their own way across the city. The dispute centred on a new, much-heralded night-time service, which unions claim would impose changes to the working conditions of Underground staff without proper consultation. Union members voted overwhelmingly for strike action, with concerns about safety on the Underground voiced.
Watching people’s responses to the Tube strike is an exercise in forced deja-vu, with the same arguments repeated across the web: ‘plenty of people work harder for more hours and less pay’, ‘if they adon’t like it they’re free to find another line of work’ and the classic ‘they should suck it up and work harder like the rest of us’. The common denominator being that because the striking workers already have better pay and conditions than many of the city’s commuters they aren’t justified to take action to stop these conditions changing without their consent.
There is actually already a term for this: ‘crab mentality’ (although I happen to think ‘crab logic’ is a bit snappier).
DAHLIAS, CLASS AND CRACK COCAINE
July 18, 2015By Anthony Moore
In British summertime, gardens across the country provide a beautiful illustration of how social class permeates even the choice of flower that people will grow if they have the chance or inclination.
Around the start of July, you will start to see some outrageous colours as dahlias begin to bloom. Dahlias are originally from Mexico, they can be found as far south as far as northern Colombia. A plant of the Aztecs, a scream of psychedelia. First brought to Europe in the 1790s, they were inevitably given a colonial name: after Anders Dahl, one of Linnaeus’s pupils. Dahlias have no scent and rely on colour to attract pollinators and have evolved a startling colour range: every part of the rainbow except blue.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS, DECENTRALISING CAMPAIGNS, AND ORGANISING COMMUNITIES – WHY TOM WATSON MP IS STANDING TO BE LABOUR’S DEPUTY LEADER
July 17, 2015Whether we like it or not, the Labour Party is the largest vehicle of progressive electoral politics, not only in terms of membership and number of parliamentarians, but also in the impact it has had on our political system and society. Labour are currently debating their past, present and future through both a Leadership and a Deputy Leadership election. We have contacted all the candidates standing in both of these elections, asking them to explain their vision for the Labour Party and the country and we will be publishing their responses over the coming weeks.
by Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East
The politics of organisation matter. A lot. I’m seeking the deputy leadership to do one thing: write and execute the election battle plan so that our new leader will be Prime Minister.
I’m not underestimating the scale of the task but our ambition should be to win back power in 2020. The politics of organisation are central to the existential debate that’s now taking place in the party. Our leadership candidates are setting out their vision, explaining how they will appeal to the country, and offering their analysis of what went right and wrong with our policy agenda in the campaign. I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of what went wrong with our campaigns and election organisation.
MANUFACTURED BIAS
July 16, 2015by Jake Fisher
If you were to ask any baby boomer what they feel about the BBC they would almost certainly tell you one thing: it ain’t what it used to be. Long gone are the Reith days of ‘to inform, educate, and entertain,’ they would say, while bemoaning the politicisation of the Corporation, and the falling quality of its programming. It ain’t what it used to be. It shouldn’t come as any shock then that once again there’s likely to be a huge shift in the BBC’s functions and operations; in the space of two weeks two announcements have been made that almost certainly guarantee that whatever the BBC structure may be now is not what it’ll resemble in 48 months’ time.
The first came roughly a fortnight ago when it was revealed that 1,000 Beeb employees would lose their jobs as the Corporation seeks to make up a £150m shortfall in its budget. Cutting a thousand jobs will only save the BBC an estimated third of that shortfall, as opposed to say increasing the Licence Fee by a few pounds per licence, but since that would equate to raising taxes, we know that the current government would never dream of doing that.
RE-IMAGINING NORFOLK: AN IDEOLOGICALLY MOTIVATED MUGGING
July 15, 2015by Jack Brindelli
On Monday the 20th of July the Norfolk County Council will meet for their Policy and Resources committee to begin working towards the forecast cuts of £169million to local services. It is a shameful capitulation to the national austerity policies that are destroying People’s lives across the United Kingdom.
Hardly inspired by Norfolk’s proud history of doing different, and fighting against tyranny and inequality for a better life, the grand scheme of the County Council’s much heralded ‘rainbow coalition’ to outfox the Tories, who council leader and Labour stalwart George Hobbs & Co went to such great lengths to keep out of local power, is to out-cut them. The ‘downsizing’ of public services is actually shaping up to be £50million more than even the criminal demands of the Conservative government, in order to buy the Council ‘breathing room’. I assume this cheery phrase used in this gloomy context is meant in the same way that Russian scientists famously kept a dog’s head ‘alive’ for a period of time with machinery — we may well live, but not well.
THE MYTH OF ASIAN DEMOCRACY
July 14, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
Although Asia as a whole will always be making great strides economically, much more remains to be seen in the way of democracy and human rights. There has always been the myth that Asian values and democracy are incompatible — a well-known fact in Asia, especially in the more developing countries — but in the Internet and social media age, there appears to be a renewed demand for freedom, especially when people’s livelihood and most basic rights are in jeopardy.
However, despite these assumptions, a more thorough analysis shows that Asian history is actually rich in philosophies and traditions that are well-steeped in democratic ideals.
RENT CONTROLS, CHEAPER TRAINS, AND CLEANER AIR: SIAN BERRY’S VISION FOR A RADICAL LONDON
July 13, 2015In May 2016, London will go to the polls to decide who will replace Boris Johnson as their new mayor. A number of progressive parties from across the political spectrum are standing candidates in that election. We’ve got in touch with all of them who have declared their intention to stand, asking why London should elect them, what their key policy priorities are, and how London will be changed if they are elected. We’ll be publishing their responses over the next few weeks.
by Sian Berry, Green Party Mayoral Candidate
Along with a group of truly excellent colleagues, I’ve put myself forward to be the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London in 2016.
I’ve stood before, taking us up to 4th place in 2008 from 7th the time before, and in 2012 Jenny Jones took us to 3rd place. This makes next year a crucial election for Greens in London. It will take a really focused effort to improve on that, and in this encounter, experience will count for more than usual. I have that experience and am very grateful to receive Caroline Lucas’ backing to take the challenge on again.
We really are seeing incredible things across Europe. In Barcelona and Madrid, and most recently and significantly in Greece, the people are overwhelmingly rejecting top-down, imposed and ever-deeper austerity. When you look at what Barcelona’s Mayor is doing to halt evictions since being elected on the crest of a wave of citizen activism, it’s clear that we have accepted a rough deal for too long in London but that we can make different choices.
GO SET A WATCHMAN
July 13, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
Atticus, he was real nice. – Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
the room is ripe with adolescent sweat
pressed periwinkle to our backs as flies swoon
in circuits around our teacher perched on a table
with her feet inches from the ground
and whoever is still awake quietly questions
her decision to imitate Calpurnia’s accentAPRIL 2016
July 12, 2015by Asia Patel
STOP THE ARMS FAIR!
July 10, 2015by Campaign Against Arms Trade
Saturday 18 July, 2pm – 5pm. Friends Meeting House Committee Room, Upper Goat Lane, Norwich NR2 1EW.
This September, the world’s weapons industry plans to arrive in London for a huge arms fair: Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI). The results of DSEI are felt around the world as people are killed, economies are devastated, refugees are traumatised and peaceful protest is crushed.
THE ‘SHARING ECONOMY’: HOW ABOUT DOING SOME SHARING?
July 10, 2015by Colin Hynson
Uber and Airbnb, the two poster–children of the ‘sharing economy’, have found themselves in the public spotlight for several months. One reason for this is their rapid growth. Uber, an on–demand taxi service, is now operating in 290 cities worldwide, over one million Uber trips are taken daily and the number of new drivers registering with Uber is growing by 50,000 a month. Airbnb, the room–rental service, now has vacancies in over 190 countries and has been used over 35 million times since it started in 2008.
This growth has led to both companies being described as ‘disruptive’. They have come in and shaken up taxi and hotel businesses across the globe. This has led to a backlash. In London and Paris taxi drivers have held rallies protesting that their livelihoods are being threatened. There are also legal challenges as cities from Delhi to Montreal and Brussels have clamped down on both companies.
TRANSONNET XIV
July 9, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Loredana Magazzeni (1957-), from Transonetti ‘XIV’
I have no one but me, I am no other,
body of mine appealing to reason,
not to the plural echo of this hour,
nor to the promise of processing.Gender queries the tongue
and level within level it translates it
follows mixed routes in performing
its transhumanation, across the border- 1
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – IS IT JUST ME?
July 8, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
Recently, I went on a school visit to see To Kill a Mockingbird at The Barbican, and whilst I think the actors played their parts incredibly well – especially Zackary Momoh, who played the role of the falsely accused Tom Robinson – I’m not writing here to give a glowing review. I read the book around the time I started my job at the school three years ago, yet the play, adapted by Christopher Sergel, had a different impact on me.
Actors slipped in and out of character to read directly from the book, narrating through a multitude of different accents, obviously showing that they were each sentimentally and emotionally affected by the text. However, this sentimentality was lost on me, and as the production drew on, I came to think of it as unnecessary that it was being heralded to such acclaim in 2015.
ALL ABOARD! THE POLITICAL TRAIN IS HERE!
July 8, 2015by Josh Wilson
Everyone has their favourite mode of transport right? No? Oh, well I do and it is the train! Some people think it is weird that I enjoy travelling on tracks, but for some reason I do. Don’t worry this is not going to be a love letter to my dear choo choo-ing and chug chug-ing transportation machines. Trains are political too.
From ownership, to cargo, to projects like HS2 and Crossrail that cost billions of pounds whilst northern cities remain barely connected to each other but just really well connected to London. Trains have always been political and with rising fares, multiple ego projects, and continued inequality between the South-East of England and the rest of the UK, it is time we start really having a conversation about our rail network.
ARE WE FALLING BEHIND AS A PROGRESSIVE CULTURE?
July 7, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
Last week Germany announced that 62 former military bases were to be turned into wildlife sanctuaries. While these sanctuaries aren’t going to make a huge dent in the ever-increasing IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, this action is in itself representative of how some countries are taking positive steps where possible. The military bases could have been sold for real estate development. France passed new legislation that all new buildings must have solar panels and/or plants on the roofs, the Dutch government have ordered emissions to be slashed by 25% within 5 years, and in 2014, Switzerland topped the Environmental Performance Index as the world leader in challenging environmental issues. The United Kingdom came 12th, but with the forth-coming expansion at Heathrow, the cutting of subsidies to onshore wind farms and the determination to press forward with fracking, is the UK at risk of dropping further down the index?
THIRD PLACE FOR ENGLAND, FIRST PLACE FOR WOMEN IN SPORT
July 6, 2015by Robyn Sands
In previous years, you could be excused for not realising the women’s world cup was on. Not this year. We have been one of the few countries to broadcast every game live, albeit that games were only moved from soon to be online only BBC Three to BBC One for the quarter final, and the games have attracted a lot more attention than they have in the past. An unnecessarily sexualised image of a female footballer didn’t even cross my path, and FIFA announced that for the first time women’s football teams will appear in their annual playstation game. Perhaps it’s because we did so well, coming in third place, and everyone loves a winner, or perhaps it signifies greater steps towards the equality of women’s sports in culture.
THE RIVER WENSUM STRATEGY: A JOINED UP, COMPARTMENTALISED, CONSULATION
July 6, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
Last month Norwich City Council opened up a public consultation on the river Wensum to gather views that will be used to shape a strategy aimed at breathing new life into the river — enhancing it for the benefit of the city and its residents. The strategy forms part of a joined up approach, bringing together the four main bodies (Norwich City Council, the Broads Authority, Norfolk County Council and the Environment Agency) with statutory responsibility for the river.
The consultation asks interested parties to raise general issues and opportunities that the strategy could address — pertaining to the management of the river and its surroundings, as well as river access and use — but makes it necessary to categorise them as relating to either business, leisure or the environment. This pigeon-holing of issues and opportunities is a real flaw in the consultation, mirroring a wider societal issue of evaluating the value of nature through an anthropocentric lens.
I AM A TRANS WOMAN, I DO NOT HAVE A GENDER IDENTITY
July 5, 2015by Matilda Carter
I fit under the trans banner, in fact have frequently used the word transgender to describe myself. That’s important to take account of, because without it what I’m about to say may get a little confusing. In many ways I adhere to a slightly older feminist tradition than many people of my age today, in that I don’t just consider gender a social construct, but an oppressive system of rules and regulations about how we all must behave.
To this end, when I talk about gender, I use the terms male, female and intersex to refer to the real, actual, immutable categories of human being that exist in terms of biological sex and man, woman and non-binary to refer to socially constructed notions of what those physical, real categories of human being mean. As a trans person, it might seem strange that I believe gender to be both socially constructed and harmful, but that’s because I do not trace my experience or identity from gender, but from biological sex.
A GAMBLE ON GREECE
July 4, 2015by Natasha Senior
In the beginning of this year, the people of Greece voted in the radical left-wing party, Syriza — lead by Alexander Tsipras. They did this to send a message to Europe, a message that Greece cannot bear the weight of austerity anymore. But this is a message to which no one listened; instead, the Troika — consisting of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank — continued to reel out Angela Merkel’s increasingly redundant party line that Greece has to meet its obligation.
This was how the people of Greece were to view it: as an obligation. An obligation to be treated by the rest of Europe like petulant children who need to be disciplined, an obligation to let their economy shrink to devastating levels, an obligation to stand by as poverty engulfs them.
YES I’M BLACK, NO YOU MAY NOT TOUCH ME
July 3, 2015by Emmanuel Agu
Right.
So I suppose this starts as incredibly clichéd as every article you’ve ever read central to this topic, so apologies for the start. My story looks like this initially: a surprisingly overconfident, yet tragically naïve 18 year old city kid sets off to university, desperate to finally leave the comfort and restraint of home, yearning for a new circle of friends with few inhibitions; eager to explore depths of his sexuality and surrounding community. None of this realistically, was achievable with a 12:00pm curfew (African parents. Let’s just leave that one there.)
Fairly rapidly I’m granted a few of my first desires- fresher’s week had me out and as drunk as I could ever wish to be, I was very quickly surrounded with an open minded, assertive circle of young men and women, a second circle of friends as eager as I was to see what life was like living free the constraints of a second generation African upbringing, and finally a group of flat mates that squabbled and clashed and reconciled in a clockwork fashion that felt like a family away from home.
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CAITLYN JENNER CAN HAVE HER GOLD MEDAL CAKE AND EAT IT
July 2, 2015by Robyn Sands
Caitlyn Jenner’s controversial coming out made headlines this month, and attracted hate and support in equal measure. While transphobia is always difficult to accept, the worst kind of bigotry has to be from those who veil it behind half-arsed logic and think they can justify their hate with a rational argument. It was in this vein that #givebackthegold was born.
This petition to persuade Caitlyn Jenner to give back the gold medal she earned competing in the 1976 Olympic men’s decathlon has garnered over 15,000 signatures on change.org. The accompanying text reads “Ms. Jenner (as talented as she is) claims that she has always believed herself to be truly female, and therefore, was in violation of committee rules regarding women competing in men’s sports and vice versa. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that we must ask whether or not it is proper that Ms. Jenner should retain her olympic records in light of this”.
THE STRENGTH OF THE VULNERABLE
July 1, 2015by Jack Brindelli
“I was taken aback at how brutal the police were,” begins Marion Fallon, a local anti-cuts activist from Norwich, and eye-witness to the events of Wednesday June 24th. “To attack such physically less able people, to protect the elite, really showed how democracy isn’t working. I don’t suppose it occurred to [the police], that disabled people are feeling they have to take more and more drastic measures, as we’re not being listened to and not being treated fairly and equally. I feel very, very worried and scared going forward as the Tories have taken us back decades in what was fought very hard for.”
She was speaking to me after a number of disabled protesters had attempted to gain access to Prime Ministers Questions in demonstration against the government’s ending of the Independent Living Fund. Marion, who is in constant pain and unable to walk without the aid of a stick, is also a first-hand witness of the government’s shameless remodelling of social security, as a recipient of disability benefits, and is extremely concerned for the future.
EARTH FIRST! GATHERING!
June 30, 2015By Indra Francesco – Earth First!
Walking into the field of my first Earth First! gathering was like coming home. At last, here were people passionate about the planet not only with a plan for how to stop its destruction but also for how to put into practice the world we want to live in.
There were around 200 people from all different backgrounds and ages, in a family friendly, low impact camping field for a week. There were workshops on everything you wanted to know about campaigning: gender politics, ecology, legal and security issues, tree climbing, using direct action as a tool, political theory – all run by intelligent, compassionate and experienced activists.
SOCIAL MEDIA, APPROPRIATION, AND THE ART WORLD.
June 30, 2015by Jess Howard
Artistic appropriation is in no way a new phenomenon. Painters and sculptors have been reproducing their own versions of classic art works for centuries. Picasso for instance, took his own stance in the 1950’s when he appropriated Eugene Delacroix’s The Women of Algiers, by painting the women from behind. And Andy Warhol famously lost a lawsuit in the 1960’s over the design of his Flowers piece. But how does the art world address this kind of appropriation when an image has been sourced directly?
Last month Richard Prince, no stranger to appropriation, caused controversy with his New Portraits exhibition, by displaying a series of images in the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles that he had directly taken off of Instagram. There was no editing, no unique angle, and no form of reproduction. He simply blew the images up, added one last comment, and hung them in gallery. They then proceeded to sell out at the Frieze Art Fair, with the pieces reaching over £56,000 each. This brings into question the idea of possession and identity, both on the internet and within artistic expression. If you place images on a public forum, do they automatically become public property?
JUST HOW DIVERSE CAN AMERICAN POLITICS TRULY GET?
June 29, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
The run-up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election has been full of surprises so far — whether for better or for worse is another matter altogether. Not long after former First Lady Hillary Clinton announced her campaign, Jeb Bush, brother of George W. and former governor of Florida, subsequently announced his own candidacy. America could potentially have its first-ever female president, or its third Bush president within the space of three decades.
Then it got a bit funny. Business magnate and television personality Donald Trump decided to offer himself up for election, much to the collective delight of Internet — the announcement itself was barely spared by popular satirists such as Stephen Colbert on his popular television show. Finally, Louisiana governor, Indian-American Bobby Jindal, announced that he too would be running for president.
After two successful terms with America’s first-ever black president, it does seem that America is now hankering for more diversity in its politics.
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DAWN
June 29, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response. Artwork by Asia Patel.
Dawn peeps
with a sleepy eye of triumph
as two cirrus clouds overlap
like milky arms on a ribcage. 
WE NEED MORE THAN MARRIAGE
June 28, 2015by Matilda Carter
Over the last couple of days, two important moments that demonstrate the state of play for LGBT+ rights in the United States occurred. The first and, I would argue most important, was the silencing of Jennicet Gutiérrez by Barack Obama whilst trying to draw attention to the treatment of undocumented trans women in immigration detention centres under his administration. The second was the Supreme Court’s decision that marriage is a constitutional right regardless of sexuality. Both were, self-evidently, shared ferociously over social media sites yet, whilst there seemed to be a general consensus that the second was a good thing, the first sparked vicious arguments and finger pointing within the LGBT+ movement. Why? Because for many trans women, including this writer, the first was an all too familiar story of being told to stand in line and not show the movement up.
HEY YOU! YES, YOU ABOUT TO POST ON YIK YAK ABOUT FEMSOC
June 28, 2015by Asia Patel
Content Warning: brief mentions of harassment, rape threats, sexual harassment, menstrual blood, some examples of trolling including concern trolling (regarding body weight), mild swearing.
My name is Asia. I’m on the UUEAS Feminist Society committee for next year. I was last year too, and it’s really opened my eyes to how straight-up rude and cruel people like you can be to other people who are striving for equality. I want to get real with you, adult to adult.
RADICAL REVIEW: VINCE STAPLES – SUMMERTIME ’06
June 27, 2015by Mike Vinti
Introducing the Radical Review; a semi-regular feature focusing on one artist or album in depth, getting to grips with the work in question and its politics.
Given the recent tragedies in the US, it seems appropriate to kick things off with California rapper Vince Staples’ debut album Summertime ‘06.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Vine Staples is no stranger to the dark and conflicted oeuvre that Summertime ’06 pedals. Emerging on the scene 4 years ago as a loose affiliate of Odd Future, Vince has always dealt with the harsh reality of life in his hood of Long Beach California (LBC to you Nate Dogg fans out there). His most known track ‘Nate’ deals with his childhood, watching his father hustle, selling drugs and going to prison in order to provide for their family, and much of his other work dwells on the same themes.
FOUR REASONS TO JOIN FRACKANPADA
June 26, 2015by Clare Fauset
What better way to resist fossil fuel expansion and capitalism this summer than to occupy a beautiful site slated for destruction, sharing tactics and ideas with people taking action from across Europe?
People fighting fracking and campaigning for a more just and sustainable energy and economic system will come together this summer for an international anti-fracking camp in the Basque Country, Spain. The Frackanpada will take place from the 13-19 July and here’s a few reasons why you might want to pack your tent and sunblock for a trip to the Basque Country:
AN ENVIRONMENTAL DELUSION
June 26, 2015by Gunnar Eigener
In our post-election society, the environment is no longer top of the agenda. Austerity, budget cuts, economic instability, and the public’s reactions to these things and others, flood the headlines and social media day after day. As the left continues to fragment after a brief period of unity and the many return to their various causes and movements, the environment continues to degrade. The political party manifestos that promised so much for the world around us lie abandoned in party and movement offices and usually a good few clicks away on the internet.
The Labour Party stated that tackling climate change “is an economic necessity, the most important thing we must do for our children, our grandchildren and future generations.” Maybe in 5 year time they will get to apply that statement. In the meantime, David Cameron recently stated that, “The UK is already playing its part, but we need to do more to get the private sector involved, fostering research and innovation into new clean energies, and supporting growth and jobs,” he said. “Quite simply, it’s time the market got to work on climate change.” Rather than think of the environment in terms of necessity for survival, Cameron clearly still sees the environment as a business opportunity.
A CLIMATE OF POSITIVE THINKING — YEAR OF PUBLISHING (AND TRANSLATING) WOMEN 2018
June 25, 2015by Alex Valente
The year is 2015: Ali Smith’s How to Be Both wins the Bailey’s Women Prize for Fiction. Malorie Blackman concludes her extraordinary term as Children’s Laureate. The Nebula Awards feature women in all but one entry. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is awarded to author/translator team Jenny Erpenbeck and Susan Bernofsky for The End of Days. 40 nominations for the Eisner Awards are women, ranging from writers to editors, colourists to pencillers, inkers and letterers.
And yet, research conducted by author Nicola Griffith proves that despite the multiple recent spotlights on the literary stage for women — both on the page and behind it — there is a significant disparity in their treatment when it comes to recognition. Collating data and results from the past 15 years of a number of prizes for literature, Griffith has found that books featuring women, focusing on women or written by women have a track history of receiving fewer awards than those by, about and from men.*
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SOON EVERY HOUSE WILL HAVE ONE
June 24, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
I first found out about Holly Hopkins by attending a ARTNAKED Poetry Session at Library Club in London, where she cut into the awkward silence of a tightly packed room with a mixture of chatting and poetry. For some, it would have offered an opportunity to gain an insight into her work, and for those like me, it inspired a purchase of her pamphlet Soon Every House Will Have One (smith | doorstop, 2014).
OXFAM UEA RESPOND TO EAST ANGLIA CHILD NEGLECT FINDINGS
June 24, 2015by Oxfam UEA
Oxfam UEA have supported Action for Children’s call for a national strategy on child neglect after research published today found that nearly a third of young people (31 percent) in East Anglia said they have been very or quite worried about whether another child is being looked after properly at home.
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WHY IS THE ‘TERRORITST’ LABEL SO NARROW IN THE MEDIA?
June 23, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
The recent Charleston shootings on June 17th — in which nine people were shot and killed inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church — has raised eyebrows from all quarters as to why suspect Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, has not been labelled by the media as a ‘terrorist’ for his hate crimes.
The reason being, as offered by several news outlets, is that convenient labels such as ‘terrorist’ or ‘thug’ would automatically be applied if the attacker were Muslim or black. However, Roof, like many other ‘lone killers’ the United States is becoming increasingly known for, has instead been given labels such as ‘mentally ill’ and ‘angry loner’.
OUR HOUSE, IN THE MIDDLE OF NORWICH
June 22, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
House music, unlike other forms of music, is arguably apolitical — given the absence of lyrics. That doesn’t mean that the scene is apolitical however, as Lithuanian DJ Ten Walls found after committing commercial suicide following his public condemnation of homosexuals over Facebook. Subsequently one of the biggest house festivals in Europe, Hideout Festival in Croatia, cancelled his set, stating: “Hideout Festival is an inclusive event, which is open and accessible to all. Our fans and customers are important to us and we do not tolerate or condone any form of hate. For this reason, Ten Walls will not be playing at Hideout Festival this year.”
From its outset in the mid 80’s, house music has been about inclusivity, openness of expression, and removing society’s invisible boundaries. It is an environment intolerant of abuse and discrimination, with violence actively discouraged. The beauty of house music is in its diversity, fluidity, and ambiguity. What house represents for one person may be different to the next, yet they are still drawn together by the same four bar loop. The music in itself is like a socially binding drug.
CLIMATE CAMP, RHINELAND 2015: ENDE GELANDE – LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND!
June 21, 2015by Klimacamp im Rheinland
In August, the 6th Climate Camp in the Rhineland (Germany) will take place. From the 7-17th August there will be 10 days full of workshops, networking, exploring sustainable lifestyles, and direct action.
Why a Climate Camp, anyway?
With its three open cast mines and five power plants, the Rhineland coalfield is Europe’s biggest emittant of carbon dioxide. The power plant Niederaußem alone emits about 29 million tons of CO2 per year. That is almost one ton per second — more than one person in Bangladesh causes in a whole year. While the ailing power company RWE can make a lot of profit with that, it means the loss of their livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people especially in the global south. This year’s Climate Camp will most likely take place in the immediate vicinity to the open cast mine Garzweiler, right where the destruction of the global climate begins.
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COUNTRYSIDE SOCIALISM
June 19, 2015by Matilda Carter
Before I came to Norwich as a student and became properly involved in party politics, I grew up in Arundel & South Downs: one of the safest Tory majorities in the country. It might have been tempting to have painted my left wing politics as the product of rebelliousness or a rejection of the suffocatingly middle-class surroundings I grew up in, but the reality is something very different. My left wing views are not a rejection of a stale, middle-class, conservative environment, but a product of a very different kind of English socialism that was in abundance where I grew up. It is this countryside socialism which the Green party must tap into if the left are ever to win in Britain again.
THE GATHERING STORM OF AUSTERITY
June 19, 2015by Natasha Senior
The People’s Assembly Against Austerity national End Austerity demonstration takes place on Saturday 20th June. Assemble: 12pm, Bank of England (Queen Victoria Street). March to: Parliament Square.
Like a storm in the sea sending a tidal surge our way, the past 5 years under austerity tell us of looming devastation. We saw it gather momentum on the horizon, as the waves of cuts started to roll in — pay freezes for the public sector, caps on benefits and cuts to social housing. This left in its wake a falling GDP per capita, a decline in affordable housing, and the rise of food banks. And now that those responsible for this have been re-elected, we are shamelessly informed that the storm is not over, the worst is yet to come and we will not be rescued.
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I’M PROUD TO BE A FEMINIST ‘BULLY’
June 18, 2015by Robyn Sands
Last week Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir Tim Hunt, addressed an audience of senior female scientists at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls”, he said, “Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.” This was reportedly met with stony silence, which is hardly a surprise. He later clarified that, although the comments were intended as a “joke”, he meant what he said and was just trying to be “honest, actually”. Women present at the conference took to twitter to voice their discomfort, sparking a twitter storm of derision, humour and critique. The story made the national press and less than 48 hours later, Sir Tim Hunt had resigned from his faculty position at University College London.
This week, the Daily Mail published a story by Sarah Vine titled ‘March of the feminist bullies!’. In it she referred to the complaining women as humourless “feminazis”, as “stupid, pampered, spoilt” and lamented the fact that “men like [Tim Hunt] can’t be allowed to go around the place making giant scientific breakthroughs of the kind that may one day lead to, oh I don’t know, a cure for cancer, unless and until they have fully submitted to the will of the mob”. And, in true sisterly fashion, wrote that she despaired of her sex.
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WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
June 18, 2015by Jack Brindelli
Contains spoilers.
Let’s get something perfectly straight. The proponents of 21st century capitalism do not want to be your friend. As much as the likes of Starbucks and Apple might wax lyrical about fair-trade, rainforest friendly, organic, aspirational community funds,, they are not interested in improving your living standards, and they don’t care if you dream big, or live with dignity. They have only one true desire; —they want to bleed you like a stuck pig until your veins run dry, and their cups overflow with crimson cascades of our life-force. Metaphorically… more or less.
And we know it too. Capitalism, like any self-respecting cannibal, wears a human face — but it sits uneasily with us. Subconsciously we know that even in a world where it is the dominant ideology, it has all the sincerity of a crocodile’s grin. That’s why we all need a sanctuary — a place of refuge from the dull buzzing rhetoric of productivity, aspiration and progress that continuously echo round our heads every time we tune into society.
STOP ARMING ISRAEL! TAKE ACTION TO ‘BLOCK THE FACTORY’
June 16, 2015by London Palestine Action
Activists from London Palestine Action call on anti-arms and Palestine solidarity campaigners to join a mass action at Elbit arms factory on July 6th.
Israel’s attack on Gaza last year exposed once again the awful consequences of the ongoing brutal occupation and colonisation of Palestine. The scenes of mutilation and devastation shocked people everywhere. Once again, the struggle faced by Palestinians in their resistance to Israeli oppression was impossible to ignore.
Across the world, the sheer ferocity of the massacre had thousands, even millions of people responding to the call for global solidarity and action. Many took to the streets in enormous demonstrations of outrage, others organised occupations of government buildings and complicit businesses. In the US, dock workers formed the #blocktheboat campaign and refused to allow Israeli ships to land. Unprecedented public pressure mounted for governments and arms companies to stop arming Israel.
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THE LAST WORD
June 15, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
The Last Word Festival is a annual festival of spoken word events at The Roundhouse. The organisation supports young artists with their work, giving them a platform to showcase their work, as well as featuring well-established names in poetry, such as East Anglia’s own Luke Wright. The programme was full of acts happening in every crevice of the building, spilling out into bar, where Talking Doorsteps videos were available to listen to on headphones in seating booths. Read on to find more about some of what this year had to offer.
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ROBIN SONG
June 15, 2015by Jake Reynolds
In response.
I descend / Toward the brink… – Thomas Hardy
The robin pegs its washing on the line, following a feud
in which a red snuck its way into whites. Its dark eyes
probe the meadow, robed in dismembered scarecrows.It seethes at a pinkish shirt, and curtly calls for the culprit
to come forward. I will find you, it chirps, I will take joy
in severing your spinal cord, in hanging you to dry. HEY VEGETA!
June 14, 2015by Asia Patel
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RADICAL ANTI-AUSTERITY FROM THE EUROPEAN LEFT SHOULDN’T BE IGNORED
June 12, 2015by Antonio Esposito Ryan
Pablo Iglesias’ party Podemos is just over 100 days old, yet it threatens to dismantle the monotonous duplicity in Spanish politics. Both the centre left ‘socialist’ PSOE and the centre right Populares are under threat from the party’s recent surge in support.
Iglesias, a lecturer at the University Compultense de Madrid, was known for his hyperactive stunts — such as asking his students to stand on their tables and assess power. He is unique in his approach to critiquing power amongst his academic counterparts; consistently reminding his students to continually scrutinize power. Iglesias vehemently opposes the neo-liberal capitalist orthodoxy of Thatcher and Reagan, and created Podemos as a backlash response to the highly critical politicians deriding the anti-austerity ‘indignado’ protests of 2011 in Puerta Del Sol. The establishment moaned saying the protestors should create their own political party. Iglesias responded to the request with a miraculous result.
NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS
June 12, 2015by Mike Vinti Earlier this week it was announced that Virgin Money will be putting out a series of credit cards bearing classic Sex PistolsContinue Reading
FAKE IDENTITY
June 11, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Fernanda Romagnoli (1916-1986), ‘Falsa identità’.
Sooner or later someone finds out:
I am already dead- 1
IF CLIMATE CHANGE WAS AN ILLNESS, WE WOULD IMMEDIATELY START TREATMENT
June 10, 2015by Dr. Hayley Pinto
About 18 months ago I had a life changing experience. I read the intergovernmental panel on climate change report. Before that I thought I was reasonably environmentally aware. I wasn’t. The more I have read, the more evident it seems that climate change is the defining issue of our age. We are on the brink of making our planet uninhabitable, for everyone — not just the poor, the vulnerable, people in Africa and Bangladesh, but also for the rich and privileged, those who have contributed to the problem and those who have not.
Climate change is not just a matter of global warming. A hotter planet means drought, floods, storms and sea level rise. These things are already happening. The 11 million people living in Brazil’s Sao Paolo are experiencing a drought so severe they are trying to drill wells through concrete in the city centre. California is in its 5th year of drought.
GOVERNMENT SLASHES COUNCIL FUNDING – THE GREEN PARTY VIEW
June 9, 2015by Andrew Boswell and Richard Bearman, The Norwich Green Party
During the General Election campaign, the Green Party warned of another 5 years of continuing and unprecedented cuts to Local Authority budgets. We pointed out that the coalition and Labour backed the ongoing austerity programme, and that only the Green Party, SNP, and Plaid Cymru opposed this assault on public services. Unfortunately the election was strongly influenced by the TV party leaders debate, together with misleading sound bites and on-the-hoof policy changes designed to win over undecided voters. The election outcome does not reflect the lack of public support for more cuts to local services.
But plans announced this week by Norfolk County Council are seeing more devastating cuts to public services in Norfolk. Under its ‘Re-imagining Norfolk’ strategy, the Council has asked councillors and officers to plan for 25% of cuts to services in its Budget for the next 3 years. Current government funding reductions, pushed through by the Tories nationally, will require the council to cut its services by at least 15%. However the Labour, UKIP, and LibDem alliance has voted for plans to cut 25% instead of the required 15% to allow ‘headroom’.
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FOOD WASTE – IS LEGISLATION THE BEST PATH TO FOLLOW?
June 8, 2015by Rowan Van Tromp
The past few weeks have seen waves of literature surrounding the issue of food waste by supermarkets, following the French parliament’s decision to pass legislation compelling retailers with 4,305 square feet of store space to donate any unsold, but still edible, food, to charity or for use as animal feed or farming compost. All stores which fall under this criterion are obliged to sign agreements with charities to facilitate the redistribution of such food by 2016, or could face penalties of up to €75,000.
Calls have since been made for the UK to follow suit, and no wonder given that the UK far and away wastes the most food out of any European country — amounting to 15bn tonnes a year according to the government backed organisation WRAP, although just over 1% of this comes from stores.
HACKNEY’S ‘CRIMINALISING HOMELESSNESS’ PSPO COULD SURFACE IN NORWICH UNDER A DIFFERENT GUISE
June 5, 2015by James Dixon
Hackney Council have recently come under fire for their pursuit of a Public Safety Protection Order (PSPO) which critics say would start ‘criminalising homelessness’ in the Borough. It would ban ‘rough-sleeping’ and ‘loitering’ and those found to be breaking the PSPO could be served with a maximum fine of £1000. The morals of fining those who have nothing and segregating homeless people away from centres of populace have been pointed out: the council has been derided from homeless charities to pop singer Ellie Goulding.
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INTRODUCING CAITLYN JENNER
June 4, 2015by Jess Howard
Disclaimer: mentions sexual assault.
Caitlyn Jenner, who rose to fame as the stepfather of the elder Kardashian sisters, and father to Chris Jenner’s two youngest children Kendall and Kylie, revealed herself to the world this week in a stunning cover photo for Vanity Fair. Shot by world renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, the July cover finalises Jenner’s transformation from former decathlete gold medal winner, to beautiful woman. Dressed in lingerie and posing in a style reminiscent of the late Marilyn Monroe, the shot is respectable yet coy, showing the world that Caitlyn has finally physically become the woman she was born to be.
The cover scored Jenner a new world record, amassing 1 million twitter followers in just 4 hours. She tweeted ‘I’m so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can’t wait for you to get to know her/me’. However, whilst reactions have been predominately positive, supporting Caitlyn in her transition that was revealed in a tell-all interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer in April, the cover has caused mixed reactions in the trans community.
THE FIGHTBACK STARTED HERE
June 3, 2015by Jack Brindelli
To say May was a difficult month to be a radical would be something of an understatement. In the fallout of a general election result that cannot be described as anything other than catastrophic, it was difficult to salvage much in the way of hope for the coming 5 years of Conservative majority rule. If you thought the Coalition years were bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. This time out, David Cameron’s stinking band of free-market extremists aren’t so much promising to cut down to the bone, as breaking out their probably-not-even-metaphorical bone saws in preparation for an amputation.
In what East Anglia’s lone Labour MP Clive Lewis recently described as the “sea of blue” that is Norfolk, that’s reflected by the repugnant new “Reimagining Norfolk” strategy announced on the 1st of June by County Hall. Over £169million in new cuts have been green-lit by the Council, which is aiming to reduce spending in adult social services, children’s services, fire and rescue services — you know, the unessential luxuries of life. Presumably this means the Council are “Reimagining Norfolk” as a Mad Max-style, demented desert dystopia, where the disabled, unemployed, poorly paid and terminally ill will have to barter with water companies in order to extinguish their child’s flaming carcass for an extortionate price.
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH FEMINISTS AND NIPPLES?
May 31, 2015Content warning: nudity.
by Asia Patel
ASEAN NATIONS CONTINUE TO BE SILENT ON THE ROHINGYA CRISIS
May 30, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
The recent Rohingya crisis in South East Asia is nothing new — clashes between the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, have been ongoing since 2012 through a series of riots. By October of that year, Muslims of all ethnicities had begun to be targeted.
The riots were supposedly triggered by widespread fears among Buddhist Rakhines that they would soon become a minority in their own ancestral state. Riots sparked after weeks of sectarian disputes, which included a gang-rape and murder of a Rakhine woman by Rohingyas and the killing of ten Burmese Muslims by Rakhines.
POP POWER
May 29, 2015by Mike Vinti
It has been three weeks now since David Cameron Inc. and things haven’t exactly started smoothly — there have been protests up and down the country, the SNP are already pissing off half of Westminster, and the new Cabinet is somehow worse than the old one.
Hanging over it all is the question of what the left is going to look like over the next five years and how best to fight the newly upgraded conservative government and their inept, yet terrifying, policies for the new parliament.
GO-FUCKITIS
May 28, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Anna Lamberti Bocconi (1961-), ‘L’affanculite’, which features in the collection Bastarde senza Gloria, published by Sartoria Utopia.
The go-fuck-itselfness of a life
of relais-relax, really quite quiet- 1
GIRLHOOD: A CALL TO ACTION
May 27, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
Girlhood, or Bande de Filles, is a French film directed by Céline Sciamma, centring on the character of Marieme, played by Karidja Touré. Taking place in a suburb of Paris, Marieme undergoes several transformations throughout the film, shown through her name change to ‘Vic – for Victory’, as well as through her appearance, sexuality, increasing misdemeanour behaviour, and relationships with family and friends. The film was humorous with Marieme’s knowing smile being a feature throughout, yet it also provided important social commentary.
The fact that seeing a French film with young black girls at the centre is so unusual, let alone it being shown in Odeon Cinemas (and not merely restricted to independent screens), plus the women playing the group of girls all being found through theatre classes and high schools as opposed to agencies, shows that there is a need for more film like this.
MOVEMENT FOR DIVESTMENT AT UEA GROWS – 95 ACADEMICS JOIN THE CAMPAIGN
May 26, 2015by Chris Jarvis
For over a year and a half, students at UEA have been campaigning for the University to end its financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. This is part of an international movement for divestment that has been growing since it was first launched in 2012 in the United States by environmental activist Bill McKibben. Since its inception, five universities in the UK have taken active steps to divest from the industry, recognising the unequivocal link between fossil fuels and runaway climate change. In the last month alone, three universities – SOAS, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford have all committed to remove their investments from all or part of the fossil fuel industry, in addition to countless other institutions, including more than 20 US Universities and Oxford City Council ending their links to the industry in the last few years.
FIGHT AUSTERITY – MARCH ON THE STATE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT
May 25, 2015by Hannah Sketchley, National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
The State Opening of Parliament is a frankly bizarre occasion. In the heat of the sun, lots of people wearing ludicrous uniforms parade around Parliament Square and the surrounding area, do a bit of figure marching and fence the public out of their roads to make way for the Queen. Following the poor woman being wheeled around in what looks to be a terribly uncomfortable gilded coach for several hours, in and out of the figure marching furry hats, she toddles into Westminster, reads a speech someone shoves in front of her and bang! The new government is consecrated, official and running the country for the next five years.
This year, the State Opening of Parliament is on Wednesday, May 27, and the Tories will have their government legitimised by every flavour of pomp and circumstance going. They will do so with just 37% of the vote, and with the consent of 24% of eligible voters in the UK.
TIM FARRON COULD SAVE THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
May 24, 2015by Chris Jarvis
Media outlets are covering the Labour Leadership election to the point of saturation, with countless people both within and outside of the party throwing around suggestions as to why Labour lost the election, and therefore who would be best place to succeed Ed Miliband. On the one side, there have been bitter New Labourites, such as Peter Mandelson and Dan Hodges who have been clamouring that Labour’s problem is that it has spent the last five years purporting some form of utopian Marxism, that is so radically unelectable that the party must lurch rightwards in order to appeal to the mythical floating, ‘centrist’ voter and in doing so, select a Blairite leadership candidate.
Likewise, many on the left, including ten of the 2015 intake of Labour MPs have argued instead that to emerge from their election defeat in one piece and to reconnect to the five million voters who left Labour since 1997, the party must oppose austerity, must challenge, rather than pander to, big business, and reject the recent neoliberal past. Resulting from the election and this subsequent debate, commentators have suggested that Labour is going through a process of ‘pasokification’ or else that is unable to effectively define what its purpose is, viewpoints not solely confined to the left – Channel 4’s Paul Mason has suggested that Labour is facing an existential crisis.
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RALLY AGAINST AUSTERITY NORWICH
May 24, 2015by Jack Brindelli
At 12 noon on the 30th of May, hundreds of ordinary people will gather in Norwich’s Haymarket, as the Norfolk People’s Assembly hosts the local wing of a national day of action against the new Conservative majority government, after the general election earlier this month. We at the People’s Assembly are steadfastly opposed to the Tories vicious plans for Britain, and the implications they will have for the people of Norfolk. On David Cameron’s watch as Prime Minister, the country has become bitterly divided along the lines of wealth inequality. His government’s cuts have shamefully targeted society’s most vulnerable – from the disabled, to the unemployed.
SOAS CLEANERS CONTINUE OUR TIRELESS STRUGGLE
May 22, 2015by Justice for SOAS Cleaners
Despite having achieved the benefits of sick pay, holiday pay and pensions in April 2014, we expected to have opportunities to do overtime jobs that were denied because of favouritism exercised by the previous ISS site manager.
In March 2015 a new ISS site manager came to SOAS, and we continue with the expectation of how it will be solved. The problems carry over for many years, but the situation has not changed, instead of giving opportunities to the current staff to do additional/overtime hours when the permanent staff are off sick or on annual leave, now ISS management are contracting external agency staff with zero hours contracts and that was not the goal of our J4C campaign to have a workforce at SOAS with different terms and conditions.
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HOW TO HAVE A GOOD NIGHT IN NORWICH
May 22, 2015by Jo Swo
It’s not exactly radical to say we live in a victim blaming society. I’m not just referring to sexual assault either, which that phrase is now so well associated with. We are blamed, and blame others, for drinking too much, staying out too late, not planning journeys home, going out in the first place, and leaving drinks unattended to go for a quick smoke outside. As a consumer, you are held accountable for everything that could possibly happen, whether or not it’s in you control, because you chose to put yourself in that position (i.e in a club/bar).
Going out is a fantastic paradox, because it’s when people want to relax, drink, and let down their guard, but the environment you’re in is universally accepted as unpredictable and often dangerous. You pay for the privilege to step onto private property, it could be in the form of a stamp at the front door or a drink at the bar, and you are left to your own devices (or the devices of others).
LABOUR’S LEADERSHIP ELECTION AND THE SIMMERING TENSIONS IN THE PARTY
May 21, 2015by Chris Jarvis
Almost immediately following the realisation that Labour had lost the General Election, various figures within the Party’s parliamentary ranks began licking their lips at the prospect of ascending to positions of leadership. With the dust largely settled, there are four announced contenders for the impending power struggle — Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Mary Creagh, and Liz Kendall, with Tristram Hunt all but announcing his candidacy on Question Time this past Thursday.
Although they vary in style, the minority of prominent issues and in the degree to which they purport reactionary views on welfare and migration, all of these candidates are firmly placed on the right of the Labour Party, both within parliament and outside of it. None of them are proposing a radical separation from the political trajectory the Labour Party has been on since the establishment of the New Labour project.
RECLAIM THE POWER: MASS ACTION CAMP, DIDCOT
May 20, 2015As we have seen throughout history direct action has been central to inspiring social change – at this year’s Mass Action Camp in Didcot, from 29th May to the 2nd June, Reclaim the Power are inviting you to get involved.
by Lindsay Alderton, Reclaim The Power
With the re-election of the first fully Conservative Cabinet in Downing Street for 18 years, many have spent the last few weeks reeling in shock, fearing what lies ahead in the oncoming months and years. The implications are severe — over the last five years we’ve had a crushing run of bitter austerity measures, job losses, scapegoating attacks on migrant rights, mass sales of social housing, over a million using food banks, and suicides over benefit sanctions.
At a time when the world’s leading scientific community are imploring us to keep fossil fuels in the ground, our environmentally hostile government is pressing ahead with plans to scrap crucial subsidies for onshore wind farms, as well as championing fracking and investment in North Sea oil.
STUDENTS: END AUSTERITY NOW! JOIN THE NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
May 20, 2015by Liam McCafferty
Over the last five years, students have felt the impact of austerity. With the recent election shock of a Conservative majority, we can expect further hardship: more cuts, more pain. But how exactly have students been affected by austerity, and why should we care?
‘MY CHOICE’ AND WHETHER IT IS A BURDEN TO US ALL
May 19, 2015by Srishti Dutta Chowdhury
Disclaimer: Mentions female foeticide, abortion, and domestic abuse.
As part of the Vogue Empower project, that was initiated in October 2014, to commemorate the seventh year for Vogue in India, Homi Adajania’s video ‘My Choice’ features some prominent faces in the country of India. Besides Deepika Padukone, there’s Adjania’s wife, actress Nimrat Kaur, film critic Anupama Chopra, and Director Zoya Akhtar, among others.
The video went viral on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, in a matter of days — which is great news except it garnered negative criticisms everywhere. The reservation against the video by feminists and gender activists is understandable. According to a large number, while the video seeks to raise questions such as ‘If men can do what they want, why should women be deprived of the same right?’, it falls short of effectively addressing the question of women empowerment.
END AUSTERITY NOW – NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
May 19, 2015by Romayne Phoenix and John Rees
by Romayne Phoenix, Chair of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity
Saturday June 20th will be the first time that we can all meet together after the general election and the shocking and unexpected result of the Tory Party in power. This looks set to be a massive demonstration. We need to join up and celebrate the strength of our growing numbers and we need to celebrate each and every successful act of resistance.
by John Rees, member of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity National Committee
There has already been an explosion of protest in response to the threat of an ever deepening austerity programme coming from this Tory government. In Newcastle, Cardiff, Sheffield, Peterborough, and many other places there have been thousands taking to the streets already. In Bristol seven young women, all A-level students, called a protest on a weekday evening and 3,500 people turned up to march through the city centre. But people want a national focus to demonstrate their anger.
COLOR RUN
May 17, 2015by Asia Patel
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THE GREEN PARTY MUST MOVE AWAY FROM ‘LIFESTYLE POLITICS’
May 16, 2015by Freddie Foot
The dismal election results are not only apparently a victory for ‘blue collar conservatism’ but potentially also Blue Labour or a renewed variant of Blairism. Two of the initial favourites for the leadership of the Labour party, Chucka Ummana (who has now removed himself from the contest) and Liz Kendell, are Blairites, and the media has been a flood with Labours failure to connect with ‘aspirational’ voters and business.
Labour seems to be moving to counter what is admittedly a genuine threat of Blue Collar Conservatism driven by collapse of organised Labour and a relatively socially liberal Conservative party. This leaves a (by no means new) gaping hole fit for a truly progressive movement.
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THE PLACE FOR POETRY: PERFORMANCE
May 15, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
‘The Place for Poetry’ conference at Goldsmiths took place from the 7-8th May, and I attended it with She Grrrowls, as well as within my poetry collective, Kid Glove.
Hannah Silva, known for her success as a poet both on page and on stage, delivered her research on ‘Repositioning Performance.’ It was filled with quotations, energy, and analysis of a Salena Godden performance. Immediately it linked to the ever-complex discussion about the page/stage divide, connecting to Malika Booker’s paper later, as well as the She Grrrowls Q&A, whereby BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) poetry is positioned as ‘performance’ or ‘spoken word.’
BE AWARE OF MENTAL HEALTH, NOW MORE THAN EVER
May 15, 2015by Aaron Hood, UUEAS Students with Disabilities Officer
Mental health has always been an immensely important issue, I don’t know about you but I think something which effects as many as 1 in 4 people ought to be taken somewhat seriously. Given the results of the election the issue will be more important than ever. Heartless welfare cuts, draconian welfare sanctions, and secure and dignified work becoming even sparser. In such desperate times we will need each other more than ever.
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THE PLACE FOR POETRY: VISUAL CULTURE
May 14, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
‘The Place for Poetry’ conference at Goldsmiths took place from the 7-8th May, and I attended it with She Grrrowls, as well as within my poetry collective, Kid Glove.
The end of the first panel I’d attended discussed the importance of white space and the ole of images as part of the process, and linked nicely to the next panel about the relationship between visual art and poetry, which I was interested in due to my own project Poetry&Paint. Sophie Collins spoke of Mary Richardson’s defacement of Venus to highlight the hypocrisy of such an outcry, and she also touched on the Guerrilla Girls, leading to new kinds of art by women largely disregarded within ekphrastic poetry, and highlighting a collection entitled ‘In the Frame: Women’s Ekphrastic Poetry’, published in 2009.
The focus was a discussion of Rachael Allen’s 4chan poems. I hadn’t heard of the website ‘4chan’ before, but it seemed a unique concept to create poems from the basis of an image-based bulletin board, which — being the internet — provided useful commentary on the role of gender, acting as a platform for feminist art work.
BITTERNESS
May 14, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Amalia Guglielminetti (1881-1941), ‘Un’amarezza’.
A bitterness without word:
but absinthe and bile and venom
every bitter thing, from my bosom
gurgling to my throat stirred.- 1
THE PLACE FOR POETRY: FRAGMENT AND PROCESS
May 13, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
‘The Place for Poetry’ conference at Goldsmiths took place from the 7-8th May, and I attended it with She Grrrowls, as well as within my poetry collective, Kid Glove.
I arrived in time for the first panel session, and I chose to attend ‘Fragment and Process’. This featured three women; the equal representation of gender throughout the conference was something refreshing. In fact, without realising it I solely saw women presenting their papers that day. Susan Watson spoke about translations of Sappho, with Anne Carson at the centre. This was the first talk that inspired me to take note of unfamiliar authors and texts. Watson provoked interest from the onset, when she explained that the original Greek contained feminine endings, indicating the poet was a woman, whilst in the English translation, the gender of the speaker was not prescribed in this way.
THERE ARE MORE WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT THAN EVERY BEFORE
May 10, 2015There is no other way of cutting it – this election result is an absolute disaster for Britain. We are set for five years of utter misery, with further cuts to public services and welfare, further privatisation of the NHS and our education system and further attacks on migrants, the unemployed and the disabled. The Tories have won and we are stuck with them.
While it’s important now to get angry, to get agitated and get organised, it’s equally important to look at the future with a degree of optimism to stave off defeatism. There are, through it all, small glimmers of hope. Our Co-Editor Chris Jarvis will, over the next few days, be looking at some of them.
by Chris Jarvis
Beneath all the headlines of Tory victory and everything that is now to come, an interesting shift has taken place on our political landscape. Lying underneath the surface is a change in the kind of people presented in the public eye as political leaders.
Thursday’s election produced a parliament that has more women than ever before. 191 of the 650 Members of Parliament elected last week are women and 100 of the 232 Labour MPs, just shy of half are women. The number of women in the parliamentary party of the SNP and the Conservatives also increased. While this is far, far from where we should be in terms of women’s representation – in total, just 29% of MPs are now women – the steps towards parity should be cautiously welcomed.
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ANTI-TORY MPS ARE GREATER IN NUMBER NOW THAN BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION
May 10, 2015There is no other way of cutting it – this election result is an absolute disaster for Britain. We are set for five years of utter misery, with further cuts to public services and welfare, further privatisation of the NHS and our education system and further attacks on migrants, the unemployed and the disabled. The Tories have won and we are stuck with them.
While it’s important now to get angry, to get agitated and get organised, it’s equally important to look at the future with a degree of optimism to stave off defeatism. There are, through it all, small glimmers of hope. Our Co-Editor Chris Jarvis will, over the next few days be looking at some of them.
by Chris Jarvis
Although the Conservatives narrowly tipped themselves over the line to form a majority once all the seats were counted after polls closed on Thursday, the irony of the election is that the parliamentary arithmetic is actually less in the Tories favour than it was in 2010.
If you add all the MPs together who are likely to vote with the Tories on the majority of their programme, the number now stands at 350 — that is the combined total of UKIP, Liberal Democrat, Democratic Unionist, Ulster Unionist, and Conservative seats. After 2010, it stood at 371. That means that the combined weight of the progressive, or at least anti-Tory parties, are in greater number now than they were after the last election. Between the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, the SDLP, and Sinn Fein, there are 299 MPs, compared to 276 in 2010.
THE CASE FOR ELECTORAL REFORM IS NOW IRRESISTIBLE
May 9, 2015There is no other way of cutting it – this election result is an absolute disaster for Britain. We are set for five years of utter misery, with further cuts to public services and welfare, further privatisation of the NHS and our education system and further attacks on migrants, the unemployed and the disabled. The Tories have won and we are stuck with them.
While it’s important now to get angry, to get agitated and get organised, it’s equally important to look at the future with a degree of optimism to stave off defeatism. There are, through it all, small glimmers of hope. Our Co-Editor Chris Jarvis will, over the next few days be looking at some of them.
by Chris Jarvis
No election in British history has so clearly highlighted the incompatibility of the first past the post electoral system with sense than this one. Ever since 1983, when the SDP-Liberal alliance won 25% of the vote, and yet received only 23 seats in parliament, the faults in the bizarre system we use to elect our parliament have become more and more apparent.
A NATION DIVIDED: TIME TO REBUILD THE FIGHT
May 9, 2015by Chris Jarvis
We’re now set for five more years of Tory government. It will be vicious, it will be brutal, it will be hard. Cameron will govern without caution, without concern for electoral prospects and without hiding the ideological agenda which has driven the direction he has taken the country since 2010.
Since 2010 we have seen the decimation of the welfare state, creeping privatisation of the NHS and education, and the hollowing out of the public sector. From now on, this is only set to get worse. What has been touted by the Tories as economic prudence and getting the country in order will be accelerated. The shrinking of the state will begin in earnest.
DRIVING: NEW DELHI
May 9, 2015by Leigh Louise Horan
Scratch painted, steel, chrome;
dust daubed and dented.
The plastic scent
The sweated hands –
The harsh, ill cemented.- 1
THE MET GALA: A DEMONSTRATION OF WEALTH OR IGNORANCE?
May 8, 2015by Jess Howard
Disclaimer: article discusses sensitive topics — features forced abortion.
The annual Met ball returned to New York this week. Held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the event charges ticket prices from upwards of £900, all in aid of The Met Costume Institute that opened in the 1940’s. The event is best known, however, for the guests that frequent it. Beyonce, Kim Kardasian and singer Lady Gaga all graced the red carpet. Draped in designs that supposedly followed the designated theme — ‘China: Through the looking glass’.
Celebrity interpretation was ‘interesting’ and, in some cases, borderline racist. For instance Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson chose to accompany her Chanel Haute couture mini dress with a bag by the same designer. However, far from being a fun and exciting piece of couture, the bag featured a Chinese woman with stereotypically fine slits in place of eyes. As if Chanel, and indeed Johnson, were unaware of the thousands of Asian woman undergoing plastic surgery for the sake of achieving the western eyelid shape.
THE AGE OF REASON REDUX
May 6, 2015by Jack Brindelli
It was Norfolk’s — and arguably history’s — finest polemicist, Thomas Paine, who best summed up the illogical institution of monarchy when he wrote, “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves of it. Otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it to ridicule, by giving mankind an ASS for a LION.” Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense rocked the world when it was first published some 240 years ago – inspiring revolution in America, and resentment amongst the ruling class in Britain. It left them trembling at the prospect of revolution on their own doorstep, as the former Corset-maker from Thetford dared common folk everywhere to question exactly why we should offer the inbred parasites atop our society anything but contempt, and the wrong end of a sword.
There have, of course, been some earth shattering changes since the days of Paine — but before you get too comfortable, think hard, ye serfs, on the events of Saturday May 2nd.
THE PROSPECT OF A PROGRESSVE ALLIANCE IS TRULY EXCITING
May 6, 2015by Chris Jarvis
Imagine waking up on the 8th of May and the parliamentary arithmetic given by our obscenely anachronistic and antiquated electoral system adds up well. Imagine that between a grouping of progressive parties — Labour, the SNP, the Greens, Plaid Cymru, and the SDLP — there is a clear left of centre majority in parliament.
And then imagine an alternative. Imagine that an array of reactionary and right wing parties, a smorgasbord of Eurosceptics, xenophobes, sell out liberals, and firebrand Northern Irish Unionists led by a buoyant Tory party are tipped over the mythical 326 towards cobbling together some form of government.
Which would you prefer?
TIDAL ANNOUNCED NEW ELECTION STREAMING SERVICE FT. MUMFORD AND SONS
May 4, 2015by Mike Vinti
On May the 7th our fair isles will take to the polls. Across this (hopefully) green and pleasant land, the great multi-headed beasts, known to our political class as hard-working families, will be herded into schools and council buildings to cast their vote. It’s going to be, without a doubt, the most anti-climactic, and longest, election of our times. And what’s worse, E4 won’t be on all day.
But there’s good news guys! Jay Z’s new streaming service, Tidal, and your corporate Media overlords have teamed up to bring you a brand spanking new, musical, multi format, interactive #Election2k15!
To a soundtrack of thundering synthetic drums and the beeps of Britain’s metaphorical life support machine, the great shamans of the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and *whisper it* Sky, will debate, debunk and defibrillate #Election2k15: Now That’s What I Call Democracy.
SIGNAL BOOST: CAN TRANSLATION BE RADICAL?
May 3, 2015by Alex Valente, in conversation with Cadi Cliff
This conversation starts in Norwich. The fault is mine, of course, as I start doubting my place within the Norwich Radical, and the role that I, as a translator of poetry, could possibly play in a radical, progressive, critical publication. Enter Cadi Cliff, editor and co-founder, green radical, and a mountain range of humanity.
This conversation, then, is a dialogue of sorts; a voicing of those doubts, translator to editor, reader to reader, uncertain radical to radical, on the place of translation, and poetry, within these virtual walls.
REBUILDING THE STUDENT MOVEMENT – THE LEFT TAKE NUS
May 3, 2015by Chris Jarvis
Those on the left have for many years taken one of two views of NUS. Either they have seen it as a body which is so far removed from students on the ground, from progressive and grassroots struggle and dominated by a right wing cabal of careerist New Labourites that it is irrevocable and beyond reform, or else they have played a role of antagonistic opposition within the structures.
The dust has now settled on this year’s NUS conference, and it is clear that something important has swept through NUS, and that previous analysis is no longer relevant. Four of the six President and Vice President positions have been won by progressive candidates, as well as ten of the National Executive Council places elected to the Block of 15. Labour Students, the insidious, repugnant and reactionary group of ultra-Blairites, was all but eradicated, winning only one seat on the Block of 15.
HUMAN RIGHTS A ‘BLIGHT’ IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
May 2, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
The question of implementing human rights always seems to be a tricky one in countries outside of the Western world. While human rights and freedom always seem universally-agreeable on paper, the West’s history of colonisation often renders it unfavourable in some countries, as it would be interpreted as an extension of colonialism and therefore the Western way of life itself.
This often creates a Catch 22-like scenario in countries which are now in dire need of freedom and democracy in the face of political oppression. Arguably, some countries consider human rights a luxury rather than a ‘need’ but in others, many of their citizens now feel their own livelihood is being jeopardised. In some cases, there is even a possible danger of nations going bankrupt altogether. In the 21st century and the Internet Age, one of the more prominent regions grappling with the contestable issue of human rights, is Southeast Asia.
DIVIDE AND RULE: UKIP’S DAMAGE TO THE WORKING CLASS
May 1, 2015by Katherine Lucas
Since its formation in 1993, UKIP has prided itself on its anti-system rhetoric.
Under Nigel Farage’s wisdom, UKIP has latched onto fears about immigration, and in doing so, has done enormous damage to the working classes. Put simply, inciting racial tension is in no way beneficial to a social group that includes people who come from all over the world.
Perhaps it should be of little surprise that a party run by a former inner-city London stock broker do not have the interests of the working classes at heart, but that is certainly not in line with his promises. Through exercising ‘divide and rule’, Farage has injected tension among those who previously stood a better chance of securing change through collective action.
COUNTRY OF LOVE
April 30, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Grażyna Miller (1957-2009), ‘Paese d’amore’.
And I, here to take in the old land
beauty and love call to me.
Lost souls find refuge here
– spirits parched for truth,
violated by the lies of history.- 1
WOMAN VERSUS WORLD
April 29, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
Hollie McNish: Versus tour — Open Banking Hall, Norwich. Hollie McNish has been on this particular tour for a long time now, having had it extended from the first set of dates. In the format that one would expect a music gig to be in, this proves — if nothing else — that poetry can work in this setting. As a poet, part of what I loved was McNish’s refusal to write something more theatrical with lots of movement, or to strive for a narrative arc. A poet who likes to keep things simple — this stripped down approach was refreshing and inspiring.
UNIVERSITIES AND SEXUAL ASSAULT: THE HUNTING GROUND
April 25, 2015TW: rape, sexual assault, sex-shaming
by Asia Patel
On the 15th April 2015, the Union of UEA students held a free film screening of The Hunting Ground, a documentary about sexual assault on american college campuses. It was made by the same Academy Award-nominated team that created The Invisible War, a film about sexual assault in the United States Military. The documentary was followed by a skype call with the director, Kirby Dick, and a discussion with a panel consisting of Holly Staynor (Welfare, Community and Diversity Officer), Beth Smith (Women’s Officer), Anjali Menezes (Sexual Assault Awareness Committee), and me from the UEA Feminist Society Committee.
The documentary itself focused on the stories of survivors of sexual assault, particularly of Andrea Pino and Annie E. Clark, two former students at the University of North Carolina who were raped on campus. In the US, reports such as those of sexual assault can be dealt with solely by the college itself, with people in place to decide relevant actions to be taken upon attackers, and to support survivors. However, when these two survivors reported their rapes, they were not supported by their university.
FOCUS E15 ARE ON THE FRONT LINES OF WOMEN’S LIBERATION
April 23, 2015by Robyn Sands
The Focus E15 campaign began suddenly in August 2013 when 29 young or expectant mothers, who had been residing in the Focus E15 hostel for homeless young people, were served eviction notices by East Thames Housing Association after Newham council severed its funding. Appealing to the council for help, the E15 mums were told that due to cuts to housing benefit and a lack of social housing, they would have to be relocated as far away as Manchester or Birmingham and suffer the consequences of being plucked suddenly from their homes, families and support networks.
The move, which many consider to be one of many changes taking place involving the relocation of people on low incomes to outside of London — a form of social cleansing — prompted one of the most fiery and successful grassroots anti-cuts campaigns under the conservative government. The Focus E15 mums got organised, protested and held marches and occupations for ‘social housing, not social cleansing’ to pressure Newham Council. Although the campaign was born from individual need and the right to have a roof over your head, when the E15 mums act women everywhere benefit.
THE MASQUE OF APATHY
April 22, 2015by Jack Brindelli
Last week, legendary British director Mike Leigh announced his next film project was to be a dramatisation of the events surrounding the Peterloo Massacre. Leigh reportedly plans to begin in 2017, two years before the massacre’s second centenary, and cited its “universal political significance” as to why it was such an important story to re-tell now. That universal significance, the political mainstream would have you believe, was as a fable to remind us of the importance of using our right to vote. People died fighting for your vote after all.
The slaughter itself took place on St Peter’s Field, Manchester on the 16th of August 1819, when a crowd of up to 80,000 ordinary people gathered to demand that they be represented by parliament. When local magistrates called for the arrest of radical orator Henry Hunt, an armed cavalry charge sent to capture him and disperse the crowd murdered 15 civilians in cold blood, and wounded as many as 700 — an act of ‘heroism’ that seems to inspire the London Metropolitan police to this day.
THE SLOW DEATH OF UK’S MULTICULTURALISM?
April 20, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
Following the BBC Challengers’ Election Debate sans David Cameron, it appears the UK’s hotly-contested immigration issue could finally be put to rest after May 7.
In his speech, Ed Miliband proposed setting up a task force that would enforce heavier fines on firms which exploit low-paid workers and undermine the minimum wage. On the other hand, the Lib-Dems have outlined plans to boost local apprenticeships while the Tories pledged to make pension’s campaigner Ros Altmann a minister for consumer protection.
This follows a Telegraph report last month that the UK may continue to accept 300,000 more immigrants over the next five years, despite pledges by David Cameron to reduce 2014’s net migration of 298,000 to ‘tens of thousands’.
While pragmatic solutions are most welcome, the aftermath of the constant blame on immigrants would surely have taken its toll by now. When things start to get tough, they’re usually the first to be blamed. Depressed wages? Blame it on the immigrants. Rise in crime? Immigrants. Not enough housing? Again, immigrants. Yet structural problems continue to persist because enough not is being done to address them.
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE: SAHAYA JAMES FOR BLOCK OF 15
April 19, 2015In the run up to the National Conference of the National Union of Students, we have offered all candidates for President, Vice President, and BlockContinue Reading
UEA JOINS MOVEMENT FOR BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS
April 18, 2015by Chris Jarvis
Within the student movement, no issue does more to polarise individuals and create bizarre bedfellows than Israel-Palestine. No other topic, not even No Platform or the Free Education/Graduate Tax row arouses such emotion, nor splinters political factions so dramatically. Israel-Palestine is the single biggest division in the student left. What other issue sees the right-wing Labour Students join forces with Trotskyist group Workers’ Liberty?
Debating the conflict causes each side to throw accusations of complicity in violence and some form of discrimination at the other, amidst howls of inaccessibility. Passion is always in abundance.
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE: RICHARD BROOKS FOR VICE PRESIDENT UNION DEVELOPMENT
April 18, 2015In the run up to the National Conference of the National Union of Students, we have offered all candidates for President, Vice President, and BlockContinue Reading
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE: HANNAH WEBB FOR BLOCK OF 15
April 18, 2015In the run up to the National Conference of the National Union of Students, we have offered all candidates for President, Vice President, and BlockContinue Reading
HOME GROWN PART 2: GRIME
April 17, 2015by Mike Vinti
Last time round we focused on the explosion of hip hop taking place across the UK, this week we focus on the UK Rap scene’s mainstay: Grime.
Grime initially took off in the early 2000s thanks to pioneering production and vocal stylings of artists like Skepta and Wiley, whose invention of ‘Eski-beat’ birthed grime as we know it. Characterised by double-time rapping and generally sticking around 140 bpm, grime is hip hop’s faster, louder, and often far more hype cousin. Unfortunately, I was eight years old in 2002 and subsequently missed out on a lot of ‘OG’ grime. In better news however, after a lull in which the closest thing to grime you’d find on the radio was Wiley’s rather ill-considered attempts at pop, grime is back. With it comes a wealth of fresh, young, talent, raised on the genre’s roots and unafraid to experiment.
TO MY CHILD-TEACHERS
April 16, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Chandra Livia Candiani (1952 -), ‘Ai miei maestri-bambini’
I keep your walking
glue each step to the ground
I stay
for you I wake up
draw my face
beneath fingers and water
I keep your words
like bread dunked
in the milk of memory- 1
WOMEN FASHION POWER: NOT A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION
April 15, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
For an exhibition with such an empowering title, I was intrigued to see what was being shown. Displayed at the Design Museum, it presented a timeline of women’s fashion until the present day. That said, the question of power was up for discussion, from the tiny corsets that squish women into an hourglass (arguably, the most dominant shape shown to be desirable throughout history), to the laughable early swimming costumes that showed an aversion to exposed flesh (it was simply a waterproof outfit).
On one hand, I couldn’t help but feel that aspects of fashion should be questioned and critiqued. In the Victorian period, women cinched in their waists with these corsets, and added fabric to their hips to emphasis the same shape that women are now striving to achieve through cosmetic surgery and Gok Wan’s cinch belts (the former sometimes having led to deaths). Surely, our bodies are not simply a fashion statement?
TACKLING MENTAL HEALTH – NOW OR NEVER
April 12, 2015by Faizal Nor Izham
In the aftermath of the Germanwings crash, Britain’s call to take mental health more seriously has never been more relevant. German pilot Andreas Lubitzmade headlines for killing himself and 149 others in a plane crash after reportedly going through a bout of depression (which he is said to have suffered from since 2009). Although the perpetrator of the March 24th crash was a non-Briton, this nevertheless makes the issue of mental health more urgent no matter which part of the world you’re from.
Tackling mental health is met with stigma across cultures. Terms to describe individuals are often derogatory, if not downright offensive — words like ‘loony’ and ‘nutter’ will often be tossed around a little too casually. Despite calls from celebrities such as Stephen Fry to take the matter more seriously — Fry has long made his battle with bipolar disorder public — efforts to combat the stigma in the public sphere will always be a tricky issue.
EU GETS READY TO SEND SYRIZA THE ‘YOU’RE DUMPED’ TEXT
April 11, 2015by David Peel
We are a few weeks away from the General Election in Britain, and austerity is moving front and centre. Not NHS privatisation, not school academies, not McJobs or homelessness, but their mother and father – the ideology of austerity. The phoney election war between the major parties, otherwise known as the ‘cosy consensus’, is about to be dealt a blow.
It has emerged, if reports in The Times are right, that the EU has asked Finland to draw up plans for a Grexit, where Syriza doesn’t walk out of the EU, it is pushed. EU leaders are fresh out of patience with Greece, and their mood was not improved when Syriza leader Alex Tsipras turned to their bitterest enemy, Vladimir Putin, for help.
THE MALE GAZE WON’T CURE EATING DISORDERS
April 9, 2015by Robyn Sands
Eating disorders and low self-esteem in women and girls have been making headlines in both feminist discourse and the mainstream press for years, usually being linked in a variety of ways to the media, be it advertising or the homogenous representation of women. 1.6 million people in the UK suffer from some form of eating disorder, of which 89% are female, and anorexia nervosa has been reported in girls as young as six.
The issue has resurfaced again recently after Dr Aric Sigman, a professor in child psychology, has said that boys are an ‘untapped army’ who can prevent girls’ diet disorders by telling them how attractive they find ‘curvy’ women. At the same time, France unveiled a plan to ban models deemed too skinny from the catwalk. Both of these prevention measures are well meaning, but both are rooted in a profound misunderstanding of eating disorders that could do more harm than good.
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COMMON PEOPLE
April 8, 2015by Jack Brindelli
May 2015 is a landmark in modern British culture, and it just so happens to coincide with a general election where, more and more, being seen as ‘one of us’ is adjudged more important than actually helping us. Next month, it will have two whole decades since the original release of Pulp’s tragically timeless ‘Common People’. The song — which is broadly recognised as one of the defining anthems of Britpop, reached number 2 in the charts 20 years ago — was kept from the supposedly prestigious top spot by the caterwauling Robson-and-bloody-Jerome.
But while Unchained Melody limped on for another 5 years thanks to a cringing Gareth Gates cover, only Pulp’s music can truly be said to have stood the test of time; misinterpreted as it is to this very day by the crowd of preening, self-obsessed hipsters who regularly grace St Benedict’s Street on a Saturday night. And I have to ask before I get bogged down in polemic, if any of our readers might happen to be amongst the number whooping and prancing about in the Birdcage to this, how can you not see that this song is a howling stab of rage directed at poverty tourists like you?
Have you quaffed so much craft ale that the world is just a tweed-patterned blur at this stage, or is your fashionably unkempt lumberjack beard just growing upwards into your brain?
CRUEL OR CREATIVE? – ANIMAL TATTOOING, A DIVIDED OPINION
April 7, 2015by Jess Howard
Last month an image appeared on my Facebook news feed of a heavily tattooed cat. Completely fake, of course, the image accompanied a blog post about the ethical and artistic implications of animal body art. It raised a significant issue. Is tattooing pets a sign of creativity, or cruelty, on the part of the owner?
Searching through Google, many news stories feature pet owners being vilified for inking their animals. An online petition to make the practice illegal has amassed over 180,000 signatures, and it has already been banned in the state of New York. However I was unable to find any direct statements regarding the legality of the process in the UK.
The featured blog post predominately focused on two artists — Ernesto Rodriguez, from North Carolina, and Mistah Metro, an artist from Brooklyn. Rodriguez inked his Pit bull in his basement studio, whilst Metro tattooed his pet whilst the animal was sedated having undergone surgery.
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE: LEON FRENCH, INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR NATIONAL PRESIDENT
April 6, 2015In the run up to the National Conference of the National Union of Students, we have offered all candidates for President, Vice President, and BlockContinue Reading
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE: VOTE SHAKIRA FOR VP FURTHER EDUCATION
April 5, 2015In the run up to the National Conference of the National Union of Students, we have offered all candidates for President, Vice President, and BlockContinue Reading
HOME GROWN PART 1: UK HIP HOP
April 4, 2015by Mike Vinti
For the past few years, hidden away from the mainstream media, and even much of the music press, British Rap has been flourishing. Rap in the UK comes in two major forms; Grime and UK Hip Hop. The Grime Renaissance of 2014/5 has seen the genre reinvigorated, keeping the best elements of its mid-2000s domination and pushing its boundaries both in terms of lyricism and production. On the UK Hip Hop side of things, labels like High Focus and Blah! Records have been slowly gaining more and more of a following, carving out a fresh faced, DIY oriented scene and shrugging off the ‘crusty’ aspersions that have come with the genre for so long.
Due to the frankly immense volume of rap music coming out the UK right now, this article will be in two halves, each dealing with one side of Britain’s rap world — this week, UK Hip Hop!
A LEGITIMACY CRISIS AND THE POTENTIAL GAME-CHANGERS: AN SNP-LABOUR COALITION
April 3, 2015by Katherine Lucas
With the election race officially underway, another hung parliament is looking an increasingly possible outcome in May, a scenario in which the Scottish National Party (SNP) have the potential to be game-changers.
Ed Miliband vs. David Cameron is a question advantageous to the current incumbent of Number 10 — to the general population, meanwhile, it is akin to being asked whether they’d like to be shot or hanged.
Miliband and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon looked close to coming to blows at the seven-party election debate, but in reality their respective parties can be advantageous to one another. The fear – at least in Westminster – is that the Left cannot be reliant on separatists which threaten the union. Spain is an obvious comparison, if their government were to seek out a Basque-based party. On the other hand, Northern Ireland is perhaps a more helpful reminder of a power-sharing experiment which has been relatively successful. Sinn Fein, rather than using their place at Stormont to peddle their campaign for Irish re-unification, they are basically a device putting pressure on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to issue fairer policies across the community.
PHOTOJOURNALISM: SHOOT OR SAVE?
April 2, 2015by Jess Howard
The world of fashion and artistic photography are always portrayed as incredibly glamourous. Pre-organised shoots or models dressed in couture to advertise the latest perfume. Photojournalism falls into a slightly different category. Sitting on the boundaries between art and reporting, a photojournalist’s job is to depict the events and suffering that words are unable to convey.
But how does a photojournalist disconnect from the suffering they are capturing, without wanting to help those in the picture?
SPRING
April 2, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian by Grazia Deledda (1871-1936), ‘La primavera’
Winter had even refreshed
the colour of rocks. Descending from mountains,
silver veins, a thousand silent rivulets,- 1
THREE WOMEN POETS
April 1, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
This article reviews three books by writers who occupy both the page and the stage. My first experience of all three of these women was as poets on the stage, yet reading them was entirely different and allows time to mull over the words in a way you can’t necessarily with live performance.
THE GREEKS MUST NOW FINISH THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION THEY STARTED
March 28, 2015by David Peel
Outside the Finance Ministry in Athens is the Camp of Struggle, where cleaners sacked from their jobs by the previous government of Greece, as part of its EU-imposed austerity regime, demand their jobs back.
We are now months into the anti-austerity Coalition, led by Syriza, and the cleaners have not got their jobs back, despite promises from Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis. Syriza pledged to introduce legislation to rehire them, alongside thousands of others. It hasn’t. The cleaners have said that if Syriza does not deliver, they will turn their protest against the new popular government. And for now, polls continue to show Syriza has popular support, and would win another election, but the fragile unanimity in its own ranks is fracturing.
ISRAELI ELECTION: NOT AS BAD AS YOU MIGHT THINK
March 26, 2015by Sam Alston
Having called an election, Prime Minister Netanyahu won a renewed mandate with an Israeli parliament (Knesset) that hewed to the right to the extent of being xenophobic. 20 seats out of the 120 seat went to centre parties lacking historic roots, clear ideology or a commitment to peace process. This describes both the result of the Israeli election of March 2015, and the Israeli election of 2013.
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I AM BECOME THE EATER OF WORLDS: BRAY WYATT, UNDERTAKER, AND THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE
March 25, 2015by Jack Brindelli
Wrestlemania is here – and I have a challenge for you. I dare you to watch. I literally dare you. Yes, that’s right, WWE, ‘make-believe fighting’ if you really must label it that, where grown men and women play-fight on television for the entertainment of billions worldwide. “But Jack,” I hear you cry, “You’re a culture writer for the Norwich Radical! Surely you know better than to revel in such uncultured pastimes?!”
Now, in order to refute that, I could go into a lengthy and tedious history of the marriage between art, philosophy and combat. I could talk to you about wrestling in the world’s first democracy of ancient Greece, at the dawn of western civilisation. I could talk to you about the ancient Eastern martial arts that inspired Bruce Lee to greatness. I could reference Roland Barthes famous essay on the subject if I wanted. I could, but frankly, I don’t fancy pandering to the inherent class-snobbery behind suggesting wrestling is a ‘lowly’ distraction.
TEENAGE KICKS: PUNK AND POLITICS
March 20, 2015by Mike Vinti
Recently I came across the 2012 film ‘Good Vibrations’. A stirring tale, based on real events, about a man, Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer), who opens a record shop on the most bombed half mile in Europe — Great Victoria Street, Belfast. Terri’s mission is to use music to bring people together as sectarianism tears the city in two. It is through this shop that Terri first encounters punk. For Terri, punk changes everything, and the community of rowdy teenagers that make up Belfast’s scene come to symbolise hope, both for him and the city.
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WOMEN OF THE WORLD FESTIVAL, 2015: PART 2
March 19, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
It was my third year of attending the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival, first envisaged and implemented by Artistic Director Jude Kelly, five years ago. The programme was full of interesting performances, discussions, and workshops. I’ll be focusing on some of the arts related events. Part 1 can be found here.
Sunday began with ‘Lips’ choir singing cover songs from artists such as Kelis, Sia, Destiny’s Child and Livin’ Joy’s Dreamer. They sparkled in a mix of sequins, shirts and bow ties, and drew a massive crowd. Poet Bridget Minamore began Who Owns Your Body? on the subject of street harassment, particularly highlighting the racial differences, reflecting on a trip to Peru.
THE MOUNTAINS
March 19, 2015by Alex Valente
Original Italian ‘Le Montagne’, by Antonia Pozzi (1912-1938)
Like immense women taking over the evening:
stone hands folded on their chest
they stare at crossroads, silent
in the endless hope of returns.- 1
WOMEN OF THE WORLD FESTIVAL, 2015: PART 1
March 18, 2015by Carmina Masoliver
It was my third year of attending the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival, first envisaged and implemented by Artistic Director Jude Kelly, five years ago. The programme was full of interesting performances, discussions, and workshops. I’ll be focusing on some of the arts related events.
After work on the Friday, I caught Kelly’s discussion with radio DJ Lauren Laverne. It was refreshing to hear Laverne’s honesty about the music industry; when she started a band in the early 90s, they were asked who wrote their songs, and recently when interviewing an all-female band, they told her they were still being asked the same question. She emphasised the need for women to support other women, naming Jo Wiley as an important mentor, and how she has set up a new company with Sam Baker called The Pool, wanting to give other women opportunities they would not have otherwise.
INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S DAY — ERASING CLASS STRUGGLE FROM FEMINISM
March 17, 2015by Robyn Sands
The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day on the 8th March in 1975, but the day actually has its roots in a variety of strikes and class struggles across industrialised nations long before.
On March 8th in 1857 there was a strike at a New York City garment factory. Here women and girls between the ages of 13 and 25, mostly Jewish, Russian and Italian immigrants, worked 81 hours a week for three dollars, of which one and a quarter went for room and board. The strike was sparked when factory foremen, noticing that the women were less ‘energetic’ if they were allowed to eat before working, changed the factory opening time to 5AM. For a day the factory workers marched and picketed, demanding improved working conditions, a ten hour day and equal rights for women. Their ranks were broken up by police. Fifty one years later, on March 8th 1908, their sisters in the needle trades in New York marched again in honour of the 1867 March, this time demanding the vote, an end to sweatshops and child labour. And then, in November 1909, came the uprising of the 20,000.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS IN THE AUSTERITY ELECTION
March 15, 2015by David Peel When you think of anti-austerity movements changing the face of national and international politics, you don’t think of Britain. Greece and Spain,Continue Reading
NORWICH FASHION WEEK 2015 – THE CITY NEVER LOOKED SO UGLY
March 13, 2015by Adam Edwards
The start of spring brings with it one of the fixtures of Norwich’s cultural landscape. Norwich Fashion Week 2015 is now drawing to a close, and the more I reflect on it, the uglier it seems.
I’m sure I’m not alone in the reservations I have about this, or any other event that tries to promote fashion as a force for good in our communities, lives and world. That said, I’d also like to try to move the debate beyond the realms of body idealism, anti-feminism and classism that are inherent in the fashion industry, and not remotely obfuscated in provincial events such as our city’s. I want to progress the argument into the realm of the truly terrifying, into which Norwich Fashion Week readily transports us.
We’re all aware of the uncomfortable truths that tremble at the edge of thought when we consider disposable fashion, but I want those truths dragged under the light of scrutiny.
UNITE AND FIGHT: WHY WE MUST BACK HEWITT
March 12, 2015by Jack Brindelli
4 years ago, the late, great socialist icon that is Tony Benn addressed the Burston Rally in rural Norfolk. The rally is an annual event to commemorate “the longest strike in history”, where Tom and Annie Higdon defied the local authorities to open a ‘strike school’, after being sacked for agitating for better study and work conditions. They stood alongside 66 of their 72 students and their parents, and hand in hand with the community against their unfair dismissal – and they won. And at that year’s rally, Tony drew one vital lesson from that past struggle for those facing the inhuman austerity cuts of this decade — “Tie your ropes together.”
In the face of an unelected Tory regime, hell-bent on slashing disability benefits, privatising our education system, and in the process of razing our National Health Service to the ground, the multitude must stand united against this bare-faced tyranny. We may be affected differently to the separate cuts within each of our lives, but if we are to overcome them, and to build a society of dignity and freedom for all, we must recognise the common ideology that underpins each austerity measure.
On Sunday night, over one-hundred parents, teachers, students and community activists packed the St Alban’s Church Hall to discuss the plight of another Norfolk School in the here-and-now.
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A GREEN VIEW ON MIGRATION: VIEWS OF NORWICH SOUTH CANDIDATE LESLEY GRAHAME #4
March 11, 2015by Lesley Grahame, Green Party Norwich South candidate. People who ‘get on their bikes’, as Conservative politicians advise, do so for many reasons — some life-threatening, someContinue Reading
UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION- WELFARE, COMMUNITY AND DIVERSITY CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on anContinue Reading
UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION – UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on anContinue Reading
UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION – LIBERATION CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on anContinue Reading
UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION – NON PORTFOLIO CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on anContinue Reading
UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION – ACTIVITIES AND OPPORTUNITIES CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on anContinue Reading
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UUEAS STUDENT ELECTION – ENVIRONMENT AND ETHICAL ISSUES CANDIDATES
March 8, 2015Candidates in the Union of UEA Students 2015 student election were contacted by The Norwich Radical. Responses received by the deadline are presented here, unedited, on an
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