FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE: SOCIAL MEDIA, CELEBRITY, AND MIGRANT RIGHTS ACTIVISM IN ITALY

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Aboubakar Soumahoro, activism, agriculture, campaign, cheap labour, digital media, Donald Trump, exploitation, featured, human rights, immigration, Italia, Italy, labour rights, mafia, migrant rights, politics, popular support, Salvini, social media, trade union, twitter.

CW: Murder, suicide, abuse

by Alessandra Arpaia

In recent years, Italy has undergone enormous internal change as a result of mass immigration from sub-Saharan African countries. The situation has been exploited and manipulated from every angle by the Italian media, politicians and organised crime gangs, fostering hostility towards migrant labourers as well as fuelling their exploitation. Right-wing political elites are adept at harnessing the power of social media to influence the masses; but this is a tactic that needn’t be irreplicable for social justice movements and activists on the Left, too.

LAND JUSTICE AND THE 2019 LABOUR MANIFESTO: A LOCAL PERSPECTIVE

Posted on November 24, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Community, Perspectives and tagged 2019 election, 2019 Labour Manifesto, agriculture, environment, featured, ge2019, homelessness, housing, Labour, land, land justice, Land Justice Network, norfolk, norwich, social justice.

by Yali Banton-Heath

A massive issue facing the UK at the moment is right under our noses and indeed right under our feet. That issue is land. Though land injustice may stem from historical legislation such as the Enclosure Acts and the shrinking of the commons through large-scale land grabs over past centuries, the phenomenon continues today, with land inequality becoming ever-increasingly stark. Land is moving more and more from public control into wealthy private hands, with land and housing prices rocketing over recent decades as a result of speculative inflation. In 1995 the total value of land in the UK was around £1 trillion, that figure is now more than £5 trillion.

POWER, FOOD AND LAND: SEEDS OF HOPE AND RESISTANCE – PART 2

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged agriculture, community supported agriculture, environment, Eves Hill Community Market Garden, food, food sovereignty, food system, La Via Campesina, local, Norwich Farm Share, resistance, soil, sustainability.

by Lotty Clare

We are all actors in a global hegemonic food and agricultural system that is increasingly undemocratic, unjust, and dominated by corporate interest in the hands of a rich minority. Part 1 explored how this has happened and the impacts of power concentration and intensification of agriculture globally. Much of the food we buy from supermarkets is packaged in plastic, , and has thousands air-miles attached to it as it has often been shipped across the world before reaching our trollies. The public has lost a connection to the land and lacks any kind of relationship to where its food comes from, and how it is grown, and indeed there is a great deal of ignorance around food production, nutrition, storage and even cooking. Sadly, it is ultimately the poorest and more marginalised people in society who are impacted the most by food poverty, having to buy and consume cheap food with poor nutritional value. Amidst rising levels of food poverty in the UK, we also have vast amounts of food waste on a household and commercial level, as about ⅓ of food is wasted.

POWER, FOOD AND LAND: HOW THE RICH FEW HAVE MONOPOLISED FOOD AND AGRICULTURE – PART 1

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged agriculture, Andreas Gucklhorn, environment, EU subsidies, farming, featured, food, food system, India, intensive farming, Joao Marcelo Marques, Lotty Clare, middle class, monsanto, The World Bank Group.

by Lotty Clare

Land is a topic that is not at the centre of political news or conversations in the UK, yet land and how we value it is central to environmental, social and economic sustainability worldwide. Land is central to food security, culture, conflict and peace, and society as a whole. Food is a human right, and yet it is a commodity privy to the powers of the market, and not guaranteed for many people. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few mega corporations who monopolise global agriculture and food systems.

BANANA LINK – THE NORWICH ORGANISATION DEFENDING BANANA WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged activism, advocacy, Africa, agriculture, agrochemicals, Banana Link, bananas, Cameroon, Compagnie Fruitière, costa rica, education, environment, featured, Freedom and fairness for Fyffes workers, fruit, gender equity, ghana, health, Honduras, International Union of Foodworkers, Latin America, living wage, maternity rights, norwich, trade unions, worker solidarity, workers rights, World Banana Forum.

By Paul Lievens, Banana Link Communications Officer

Bananas have been part of our diet for thousands of years, and are the most popular fruit in the world, with over 100 billion bananas eaten around the world every year. In the UK, each of us eats on average around 10 kg, or 100 bananas, per year. Grown across the tropical regions of the world, banana export production provides an essential source of income for hundreds of thousands of rural households in developing countries. However, many of the plantation workers who produce our bananas fail to earn a living wage and do not have their labour rights respected, while the intensive use of agrochemicals harms the health of workers and the surrounding environment.

WE ARE EUROPE AND REMAIN SO

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged agriculture, Article 50, Brexit, Britain, british empire, citizens, class, education, EHIC, EU membership, Europe, european, european life, fair play, featured, mobile phones, mobile roaming, monarchy, NHS, opinion, personal, public services, travel, uk.

by Kelvin Smith

On the eve of the EU Referendum I published a piece, A European Life, that concluded: “My whole life has been lived in the context of this complex and sometimes conflicted continent and whatever the result of the referendum tomorrow, I am just one of very many British people who are not about to leave Europe. We are Europe.” Now, one year into the Article 50 period, one year from the deadline date of 29th March 2019, has anything changed?Continue Reading

LAND RIGHTS ACTIVISM AND THE GLOBAL GREEN MOVEMENT

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Ade Zuchri, Africa, African Green Revolution, African Greens Federation, agriculture, BK Dalit, conservation, DAkar, deforestation, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, farming, Frank Habineza, GEN, Global Greens, Global Greens Congress, GM, GMOs, Green, Green Party, Greens2017, indigenous, indigenous activism, Indonesia, Indonesian Green Union, Joko Widodo, Kofia Annan, land clearances, land rights, monoculture, monsanto, Nepal, Nepali Greens, Papa Meissa Dieng, Rwanda, Samtra, Scotland, Scottish Parliament, Senegal, Sumatran orangutan, Sumatran rhino.

By Olivia Hanks

It is at the heart of our housing crisis, provides our food, and is still the principal determiner of wealth in the UK. Yet most of us in England do not spend very much time thinking about land. So it was an exciting and stimulating experience to attend a panel discussion at the recent Global Greens congress in Liverpool about land rights and how they form a vital part of the green movement worldwide.

FIDEL CASTRO AND CUBAN SOCIALISM

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged agriculture, apologism, authoritarianism, blockade, cold war, cuba, cuban missile crisis, dictatorship, education, fidel castro, healthcare, history, imperialism, revolution, socialism, USA, war.

By Chris Jarvis

Content warnings: mentions execution, torture

Throughout the twentieth century, as ‘socialist’ regimes sprung up across the world, their leaders and key figures were consistently deified in the west. Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Guevara, Chavez, Allende; all were adopted as icons of the revolutionary left, with posters of them adorning walls across the world, and their words taken as gospel. For a time, much of the left in Europe and the USA endorsed Stalinism, even as the true horrors of the gulags, the famines, the mass executions, the anti-semitism began to be revealed. The unbelievable death toll of Mao’s ‘great leap forward’ was brushed aside by apologists. Colonel Gaddafi was revered by many as a valued comrade, even as he ordered mass executions and dismantled trade unions.

CULTURISING NATURE – HOW WE’VE LOST OUR CONNECTION TO THE NATURAL WORLD

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged agriculture, Britain, countryside, Emily Brady, environment, environmental, environmental philosophy, environmentalism, george monbiot, international, natural world, nature, philosophy, wildlife.

by Liam Hawkes

For many who choose to ascribe to it, environmentalism is a clear moral question. We have a moral responsibility to care for and not abuse our planet. This is possibly one of the most common and important aspects to any environmentalism as it provides a motivation for action. Not just sitting comfortably saying we should do things, but actually getting out there into the world and doing them. This active engagement with nature and the environments around us goes much of the way to ground environmentalism in the practical, not theoretical. This is why our own individual understandings of what and where nature is can be the key to unlocking the inner tree hugger in us all.Continue Reading

CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD BY GROWING VEGETABLES?

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged agriculture, brittany, consumerism, farming, food, France, french, international, nantes, notre dame, organic, organic agriculture, organic farming, politics, reclaim the fields, self-sufficiency, society, via campesina.

by 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.Continue Reading

agriculture

POWER, FOOD AND LAND: HOW THE RICH FEW HAVE MONOPOLISED FOOD AND AGRICULTURE – PART 1

BANANA LINK – THE NORWICH ORGANISATION DEFENDING BANANA WORKERS’ RIGHTS

WE ARE EUROPE AND REMAIN SO

LAND RIGHTS ACTIVISM AND THE GLOBAL GREEN MOVEMENT

FIDEL CASTRO AND CUBAN SOCIALISM

CULTURISING NATURE – HOW WE’VE LOST OUR CONNECTION TO THE NATURAL WORLD

CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD BY GROWING VEGETABLES?

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