WANT TO KNOW THE SOUL OF WALES? LISTEN TO HER MUSIC

Posted on November 16, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Perspectives and tagged Aled Jones, arts, Bonnie Tyler, British, Bryn Terfel, Catatonia, Charlotte Church, cool cymru, cwl cymru, cymru, Datblygu, eisteddfodau, featured, Feeder, Gorky’s Zygotic Mwnci, Gwenno, hiraeth, John Cale, Katherine Jenkins, mining, music, Pais Dinogad, pop, Rebecca Riots, rock, Shakin’ Stevens, Shirley Bassey, song, Stereophonics, Super Furry Animals, Thatcher, the Manic Street Preachers, tom jones, Trampolene, Wales, Wales Act, Welsh, Yma o Hyd, Ysgol Sul.

by Jonathan Lee

The oldest known song in the British Isles dates back 1,400 years and it’s written in Welsh.

Pais Dinogad was sung in Rheged, a kingdom of Yr Hen Ogledd (the old North), in what is now modern day Cumbria and the Scottish Lowlands. The song is a simple lullaby, telling a baby of his father, Lord Dinogad, who is out hunting in a time long before Anglo-Saxons or even Gaels had arrived in this part of Britain.

It probably wouldn’t be described as an absolute banger if we’re completely honest (although this lyre-wielding, tattooed, metal-head gives it a real good go). It’s nonetheless incredible that it’s still being sung at all today, and that its lyrics are broadly comprehensible to modern Welsh speakers.Continue Reading

PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: COMPULSORY DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, NOT ANTI-SEMITISM

Posted on August 16, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged Addameer, anti-semitism, Apartheid, Arabic, arrest, B’Tselem, BDS, Benjamin Netanyahu, British, detention, discrimination, featured, Gaza, hebrew, human rights, IHRA, IOF, israel, Jeremy Cobryn, Jewish Voice for Peace, language, law, Nablus, occupation, palestine, racism, testimony, torture, UN, witness.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

CW: torture

May 2017 saw Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention uniting to take part in a hunger strike. Every Friday during the strike, street protests were held in solidarity and various other events took place under the motto ‘salt and water’. Some of my friends from Nablus, viewing horses as inextricable from ‘non-horsey’ aspects of life (their lives are absorbed by riding horses; taking selfies with horses; racing horses; breeding horses; bathing horses…) demonstrated solidarity non-violently by riding their horses into Nablus city centre, carrying Palestinian flags and calling for solidarity with the prisoners.Continue Reading

REVIEW: THE LIGHTHOUSE #15 – THE QUEER ISSUE

Posted on June 17, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged British, Colin Graham, creative criticism, essays, event, heterocentrism, intergeneration, Jo Surzyn, journal, launch, LGBT+, Lighthouse, literature, Louis Pigeon-Owens, Megan Crosbie, nb, non-binary, norwich, poem, poetry, queer, review, Richard Scott, Sophie Meyer, Sophie Robinson, stories, Sue Borge.

by Eli Lambe

Timeliness occupies this issue. Reflections on what queer writing has been and what it is now are shown through this collection to be vital, contemporary, and necessarily complex. The readings at the launch were accomplished, and the variety of writing spoke to the talents of the editing team in recognising and celebrating each piece. The pieces were arranged and selected to be complementary, to offer common threads and common goals, while still preserving the singularity of each piece – the queer writing here is collected as moments of solidarity, of community.Continue Reading

PASSING INTO HISTORY, LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE – MARTIN MCGUINNESS

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged army, Ballymurphy Massacre, Bloody Sunday, Bobby Sands, British, catholic, Chuckle Brothers, Civil Rights, Derry, DUP, easter rising, Gerry Adams, Good Friday Agreement, H-block, hunger strike, Ian Paisley, independece, INLA, IRA, Ireland, Irish, james connolly, Martin McGuinness, Michelle O’Neill, NI, protestant, PUP, resistance, RUC, SDLP, Shankill, Sinn Féin, Stormont, terrorism, TUV, UDA, uk, Ulster, UUP, UVF.

by Chris Jarvis

“I was proud to be a member of the IRA. I am still 40 years on proud that I was a member of the IRA. I am not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say something different.

”I do have a very deep sense of regret that there was a conflict and that people lost their lives, and you know, many were responsible for that – and a lot of them wear pinstripe suits in London today.”

Martin McGuinness

On January 30th, 1972, 13 people were shot dead by the British Army on the streets of Derry – a city that was, and to this day still is, a part of the United Kingdom. The crime for which these 13 people were murdered by the British state was marching through their hometown to demand an end to internment without trial for suspected members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. Those interned were subject to torture as part of their detention. Bloody Sunday, as it came to be known, took place just one year after the Ballymurphy Massacre, where 11 people were killed across 3 days in Belfast.Continue Reading

A EUROPEAN LIFE

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged art, Brexit, British, colony, continent, culture, diversity, Dutch, emotions, EU, EU ref, EU referendum, Europe, european, European cities, food, freedom, freedom of movement, frere jacques, hitchhike, holiday, Italy, Lancashire, languages, Liverpool, memory, military camps, multiculturalism, multiculture, music, paris, reading, Russia, stateless, theatre, thoughts, travel, Vienna, work, World War Two, wwii.

by 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.Continue Reading

I’M AN IMMIGRANT NOW, SO WHY DON’T PEOPLE HATE ME?

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged All Blacks, Australia, British, bungee jumping, colonialism, Commonwealth, discrimination, economy, empire, EU, Europena, expat, fear, immigrant, immigration, internship, job, Kiwi, migration, New Zealand, NZ, other, population, privilege, terminology, uk, visa, white privilege, work, Zambia.

by 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.Continue Reading

CLASS, EMPIRE, AND CRICKET: CAN IT EVER BE RADICAL?

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged British, british empire, british history, class, colonial past, colony, cricket, empire, India, international cricket council, racism, radical, sexism, sport, Sport England.

by 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.Continue Reading

“I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF AS AN ECONOMIC LIBERAL” – AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLIE KINGSBURY, LIBERAL YOUTH CO-CHAIR

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Brexit, British, british politics, Charlie Kingsbury, Cleggmania, david cameron, economics, election, environment, Europe, free speech, free trade, Greenbelts, housing, interview, jeremy corbyn, John Stuart Mill, Labour, libdems, Liberal Democrats, Liberal Youth, nick clegg, NUS, referendum, schools, series, student union, theresa may, Tim Farron, Tory, tuition fees, uk, young, young people, YPSP.

by 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.Continue Reading

POETRY HITS THE HEADLINES, BUT IS IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #derangedpoetess, Ahren warner, award, Bloodaxe, books, British, Chinese, collection, creative writing, criticism, family, headline, heritage, Kate Tempest, Katy Evans-Bush, Kei Miller, Loop of Jade, media, MSM, news, Pascale Petit, poem, poems, poet, poetry, racism, Sarah Howe, sexism, T S Eliot, writing.

by 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.Continue Reading

BORDERLINES – GROWING UP A TERRORIST

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Borderlines, Inter|national and tagged Al-Qaeda, bicultural, biculturalism, bomb, Borderlines, British, foreigners, growing up, identity, immigrant communities, immigration, Libya, migrant, migration, passport, racism, school, slurs, Taliban, terrorism.

Borderlines 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.Continue Reading

British

WANT TO KNOW THE SOUL OF WALES? LISTEN TO HER MUSIC

PALESTINE SOLIDARITY: COMPULSORY DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, NOT ANTI-SEMITISM

REVIEW: THE LIGHTHOUSE #15 – THE QUEER ISSUE

PASSING INTO HISTORY, LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE – MARTIN MCGUINNESS

A EUROPEAN LIFE

I’M AN IMMIGRANT NOW, SO WHY DON’T PEOPLE HATE ME?

CLASS, EMPIRE, AND CRICKET: CAN IT EVER BE RADICAL?

“I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF AS AN ECONOMIC LIBERAL” – AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLIE KINGSBURY, LIBERAL YOUTH CO-CHAIR

POETRY HITS THE HEADLINES, BUT IS IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?

BORDERLINES – GROWING UP A TERRORIST

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