FIGHTING FOR TRANS RIGHTS IN A FAR-RIGHT NATION

Posted on April 28, 2023 by Norwich Radical in April 2023, Perspectives and tagged activism, Alister Jack, anti-vaccine, bbc, bnp, Boris Johnson, Brianna Ghey, Covid-19, daily mail, discrimination, drag queens, ehrc, far-right, fascism, featured, gender recognition reform, government, HOPE Not Hate, lgbtQ+, LGBTQ+ rights, liz truss, mainstream media, media transphobia, migrant rights, norwich, Norwich Trans Pride, patriotic alternative, racism, Section 35, Sophie Labelle, Telegraph, Tories, trans rights, transphobia, uk.

By a Norwich LGBTQ+ activist

CW: references to transphobic policy and rhetoric, neo-nazi ideology, far-right violence

Last August, The Norwich Radical published coverage of a drag queen storytime event at the Millennium Library. The event was targeted by far-right organisations, and defended by a much larger group of LGBTQ+ Norwich residents and allies. Since then, far-right protestors in smaller numbers have attempted to disrupt more LGBTQ+ community events in the city. Meanwhile, the government has continued to ramp up anti-trans rhetoric and policy, aided and abetted by the bile of the mainstream press and the complicity of so-called ‘gender critical’ figures in academia and popular culture. This is more than a ‘minority concern’. It is a large-scale civil rights struggle against an establishment more fascistic by the day.

KEIR, WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY DOING? AN ANALYSIS OF LABOUR AHEAD OF LOCAL ELECTIONS

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged Blair, conservatives, economic, election, jeremy corbyn, keir starmer, Labour, labour party, local election, new labour, NHS, norfolk, norwich, politics, rishi sunak, Tories.

by Sunetra Senior

Labour has shown to lead by 20 full points in the first major political poll of 2023. That number has since jumped to 28 at the time of writing. This looks potentially promising ahead of the looming local elections. However, it has not been because of the leading power of Starmer but rather the lingering legacy of the corruptive Conservatives, including the habitual trademark ‘sleaze’. This is hard to shake off, even with a full head of gel and the snappiest suit from the most exclusive vault: the last few months saw the kempt PM, Sunak, come under pressure to sack, and not simply investigate, his cabinet member Zahawi, under fire from the HMRC for dodging tax and later controversially settling the issue with a payment of £1 million. Meanwhile, Dominic Raab joined Priti Patel in the hall of shame amid accusations of the favourite Tory pastime:serial bullying the junior staff. Such institutional indiscretion, of course, is but a microcosm of the national socio-economic devastation that continues to ravage the UK. An extension of the Tories’ self-serving tenet, widening social inequality, financial desperation of middle and low-income households, exploding xenophobia and the generally cowed demeanour of present-day Britain, are the direct social result.

THE NORWICH RADICAL IN 2022

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community, Inter|national, Perspectives, Student and tagged 2021, antigypsyism, archive, arts, cop26, covid, debate, editorial, election, featured, fight, gypsy, immigration, mental health, new year, norfolk, norwich, open letter, police violence, politics, populism, radical, recruit, resist, review, solidarity, state violence, student media, transgender, UEA, year.

by The Norwich Radical team

This past year was trying in different ways than the first two of this new decade, but no less keenly felt for that. The pandemic – not over, not yet, probably not for a long time – has whittled down everyone’s immune systems, patience, well-being and welfare. It has also been exploited as a means to pass more authoritarian policies into effect, in the UK and elsewhere.

In our country alone, as our co-editor Rowan Gavin wrote in July, “unelected and corrupt powers continue to wield violence in the name of policing, and continue to roam our streets [as they] regurgitate bigotries that were once only voiced in public by fundamentalists and neo-fascists.” The cost of living, coupled with inflation and profit-mongering, has meant a cold, hungry winter for many.

And yet, Rowan pointed out, we “return every time to the communities of people that resist these cruel forces, today and the next day and the day after.” We return to organise where we can, find reasons to celebrate when we can, and endeavour to have as much fun as we can along the way.

BDS IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged anti-semitism, Apartheid, BDS, ben gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu, displacement, featured, genocide, israel, jenin, Knesset, mahmoud al-saadi, meir kahane, monday.com, neutrality, norwegian refugee council, palestine, shireen abu akleh, terrorism.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

Between January 1^st 2022 and 25^th November 2022, Israeli forces killed 199 Palestinian civilians, including 47 children, and at least 15 women. Perhaps the most high profile killing occurred in May 2022, when Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head by Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) whilst covering a story in the Occupied West Bank. She was wearing a press vest at the time, marking her clearly identifiable as both a journalist and a target. Others present at the time, including a colleague who was injured, made it clear that there were no Palestinian fighters near them when they were targeted by direct fire. This incident was, in effect, a continuation of Israel’s deliberate policy of targeting journalists as a means of shutting down any reporting which can contradict the Israeli state narrative – and, once more, Israel escaped without repercussions.

BODILY SENSATION AND MENTAL INSIGHT – AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH JANE WALKER

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Perspectives and tagged arts, books, Carmina Masoliver, Caroline Bird, elaine aaron, hannah jane walker, highly sensitive people, highly sensitive person, hsp, interview, theatre.

by Carmina Masoliver

Hannah Jane Walker is the author of The Power of Feeling Sensitive in a World that Doesn’t, which was released earlier this year. I know Hannah as a poet and theatre maker who created a show about being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). The term, coined by psychologist Elaine Aron, refers to people who score highly on sensory-processing sensitivity. This often appears as increased emotional sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli, and a complex inner life. As a fellow HSP, I contacted Hannah to interview her about the book and being an HSP.

A MARMALADE SANDWICH FOR NO ONE

Posted on September 17, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged charity, colonialism, death, featured, funeral, grief, lizzy, mourning, paddington, performance, qeii, Queen, queen elizabeth, queenie, queue, republican, royal, royal family.

by Anonymous

Hamlet, Act I, Part V
“So the whole ear of Denmark
Is, by a forgèd process of my death,
Rankly abused.”

Throughout her long reign, the late Queen Elizabeth II was heralded as a symbol of continuity, permanence, stoicism and unity. After all, what is the point of a British monarch if not to be an ambulatory synecdoche? And if this synecdoche remained enigmatic and silent, all the better for her to serve as a vessel filled with whatever her people chose.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS: DON’T PAY UK

Posted on August 31, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged bills, BP, Britain, don't pay, don't pay uk, energy, energy bills, featured, fossil fuels, mass action, nationalisation, poll tax, poverty, privatisation, strike, taxes, Tory, TUC, uk, Ukraine.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

Energy bills are set to rise by 80% from 1^st October, taking the average household’s annual energy bill to £3,549. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) estimates that the average UK household’s income in 2023 will be £2,054 per month, making the cost of energy equivalent to around two months’ salary. Meanwhile, the poorest among us have been forced onto pre-paid meters which enable energy companies to charge even more for the same energy. Welcome to Tory Britain.

NORTH MACEDONIA’S SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST ROMA

Posted on August 19, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged 1312, Andiras Redjepov, Bekim Demir, court, ERRC, featured, Jusinov Erdal, long read, macedonia, Nevzat Jasharov, police, politics, racism, Roma, sentence, Skopje, Stanislav Tomas, Sutkie Mustafova, torture, Trajan Bekirov, trial.

by Jonathan Lee

CW: violence, police brutality

On Saturday 3^rd July 2021, Romani man Nevzat Jasharov (pictured above) marched through the streets of Skopje, North Macedonia with his fellow Romani citizens against racialised police brutality. The protest was in response to the death of a Czech Romani man, Stanislav Tomas, who died after police intervention in the Czech town of Teplice. Video footage of the incident showed a police officer kneeling on the back of Stanislav’s neck; scenes disturbingly reminiscent of the police killing of Black American George Floyd in June 2020.

‘BURN THE WITCH’: AN OVER-DUE DEFENCE OF AMBER HEARD IN A MANIACALLY MISOGYNISTIC MEDIA

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abuse, actor, amber heard, aquaman, arts, borderline, BPD, Camila vasquez, cinema, defamation, depp, domestic violence, DV, Elaine Bredehofte, featured, feminism, johnny depp, justice, media, metoo, misogyny, Penney Azcarate, pirates of the caribbean, televised, the sun, trial, Washington Post.

by Sunetra Senior

Content warning: abuse, domestic violence, sexism

It is difficult not to be polarised on any given topic in the explosively divisive climate we are living through. However, emerging from the sensationalism is an irrefutable objective truth in the high-profile trial, where megastar Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife, up-and-coming actress Amber Heard, for $50 million over editorial defamation: a clear example of inherent misogyny of the media. Heard penned her self-professed subjective piece in The Washington Post, supportively discussing a ‘Transformative Moment for Women’ during the height of the #MeToo campaign. The article, which was read out during the trial as part of Heard’s opening statement, was intelligently and boldly written, focussing on the actress’ harrowing experience of speaking out as female victim of domestic violence and the progressive change within the industry that she wishes to see. Further to this, there was no mention of Johnny Depp specifically or any of the personal accounts, currently being spewed out in public, due to his bringing her to court.

It is worth remembering that Depp lost his prior lawsuit against The Sun for referring to him as ‘abusive’, and in which the British judge found him guilty on 12 counts of the alleged domestic violence. To use the defendant’s own words in court then, he has ironically made democratic activism solely “about him.”

OFFSHORING: A DEMONSTRATION OF CONSERVATIVE CRUELTY AND XENOPHOBIA

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged al aqsa, asylum, borders, Boris Johnson, Bosnia, channel, conflict, featured, Home Office, homes for ukraine, immigrant, migrant, migration, Nato, nauru, offshoring, palestine, politics, Priti Patel, racism, refugee, Russia, Rwanda, Syria, uk, Ukraine, UN, UNCHR, war.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

CW: mentions of suicide, sexual assault

The war crime-laden conflict in Syria has not ended; Saudi Arabia (at the time of writing) continues to drop British-made bombs on Yemen; Israel is once again escalating its policy of state-sanctioned slaughter of Palestinians; the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, reducing armed violence, but increasing the risk of persecution and repression; Bosnia is teetering on the edge of a relapse into conflict; violence in the Central African Republic is ongoing; human rights abuses in Eritrea and Ethiopia continue. These are merely a few examples of the conflicts and instabilities which blight the lives of civilians who otherwise simply wish to live a life of safety, health and happiness.

Safe routes of asylum to the UK should be available to all who need them, not least because Britain is complicit in an untold number of conflicts and repressive governments around the globe. Yet of all those who require support and protection, only Ukrainian refugees are deserving of such assistance, according to the Conservative government; one clear demonstration is the introduction of the government’s ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme. Of course, Ukrainians should be welcomed to the UK – or any other country they’d prefer to claim asylum in – but so should refugees from any other context of conflict or persecution. Just as Russia has obliterated parts of Ukraine leaving a trail of war crimes in its wake, so too has it devastated swathes of Syria. Why then, as a nation, are we willing to be so selective as to who we will welcome as refugees?

Perspectives

FIGHTING FOR TRANS RIGHTS IN A FAR-RIGHT NATION

By a Norwich LGBTQ+ activist

KEIR, WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY DOING? AN ANALYSIS OF LABOUR AHEAD OF LOCAL ELECTIONS

by Sunetra Senior

THE NORWICH RADICAL IN 2022

by The Norwich Radical team

BDS IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER

by Sarah Edgcumbe

BODILY SENSATION AND MENTAL INSIGHT – AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH JANE WALKER

by Carmina Masoliver

A MARMALADE SANDWICH FOR NO ONE

SAFETY IN NUMBERS: DON’T PAY UK

by Sarah Edgcumbe

NORTH MACEDONIA’S SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST ROMA

by Jonathan Lee

‘BURN THE WITCH’: AN OVER-DUE DEFENCE OF AMBER HEARD IN A MANIACALLY MISOGYNISTIC MEDIA

by Sunetra Senior

OFFSHORING: A DEMONSTRATION OF CONSERVATIVE CRUELTY AND XENOPHOBIA

by Sarah Edgcumbe

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