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.

NORWICH DEFENDS DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR – DISPATCHES FROM THE ANTIFASCIST COUNTER-PROTEST

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged activism, alt-right, Bradley Walsh, conspiracy theories, Drag Queen Story Hour, drag queens, far-right, fascism, featured, gender critical, LGBTQIA+, Neo-Nazis, norfolk, North Walsham, norwich, patriotic alternative, police, queer solidarity, racism, Titania Trust, trans rights.

By The Norwich Radical Editorial Team

In the process of putting together our reporting on the far-right presence and pro-LGBTQIA+ counter-protest at Storytime with Auntie Titania in Norwich last Wednesday, we received a number of accounts from people who attended the counter-protest. We were not able to reproduce all of those accounts in our original article, but we believe that they offer valuable insight into the events in question, the strength of LGBTQIA+ solidarity in Norwich, and the lessons that can be taken forward from this action. This article reproduces more of the content of those accounts, with small edits in places for clarity and to maintain anonymity.

WE ARE NOT YOUR BOGEYMEN – NORWICH RESISTS THE FAR-RIGHT IN SOLIDARITY WITH DRAG STORYTIME

Posted on August 20, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged activism, alt-right, bnp, Bradley Walsh, Chris Mitchell, conspiracy theories, Drag Queen Story Hour, drag queens, far-right, fascism, featured, gender critical, Jeff Marsh, LGBTQIA+, Mark Collett, Neo-Nazis, norfolk, North Walsham, norwich, patriotic alternative, police, queer solidarity, racism, Steve Blake, Titania Trust, trans rights.

By Anonymous

Content Warning: descriptions of fascist violence & racist ideology

Following the anti-LGBT protest outside a Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) event in North Walsham library on 2^ndAugust, a new event, titled ‘Storytime with Auntie Titania’ and featuring local drag artist Titania Trust, was scheduled for August 17th at the Millennium Library, Norwich. A counter-protest gathered outside the library on Wednesday ahead of the event to defend the national DQSH initiative and protect attendees from the presence of far-right protestors.

WE LIVE IN A CORRUPT AND VIOLENT STATE – JOHNSON’S RESIGNATION WON’T CHANGE THAT

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged austerity, Boris Johnson, british empire, Covid-19, david cameron, fascism, featured, fields of wheat, Gil Scott Heron, homophobia, Johnson resignation, keir starmer, Labour, metropolitan police, Michael Gove, Nato, police, police violence, politics, pride, protest music, queen elizabeth, racism, RMT, security prosperity respect, theresa may, Tories, trade unions, transphobia, uk.

By Rowan Gavin

At long last, the Johnson juggernaut has run out of road. The Bohnson’s repeated scandals, criminal convictions, outright racism and transphobia were not enough to unseat him; in the end all it took was a few opportunistic cronies seeing a chance to pull their knives. Et tu, Gove?

OUR SUBVERSIVE VOICE: 400 YEARS OF PROTEST SONGS

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged activism, Alan Finlayson, billy bragg, Bob Vylan, calypso, class war, Dave, Diggers Song, empire, england, Englishness, fascism, featured, folk, Folk Against Fascism, Gerrard Winstanley, Grime, hip-hop, history, hymnals, John Street, long read, Lord Kitchener, Maggie Holland, metal, migrants, music, national identity, nationalism, norwich, Norwich Arts Centre, Our Subversive Voice, petrol girls, political communication, protest, protest songs, punk, reggae, rhetoric, Songs of Hope and Protest, Stormzy, The Common Lot, The Specials, The Young'uns, UEA, uk, windrush.

By Rowan Gavin

Last year, two-tone legends The Specials released an album entitled ‘Protest Songs 1924-2012’. It featured covers of tracks by Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, Big Bill Broonzy and other legends of protest music – but not one song penned by a British person, despite the band’s Coventry origins. This, UEA Professor John Street tells me, was part of the impetus behind the project Our Subversive Voice: The History and Politics of the English Protest Song.

UN VOTES TO COMBAT NAZISM – BUT THE WEST OPTS OUT

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged china, cold war, diplomacy, EU, fascism, featured, foreign policy, ideology, India, King Salman, Narendra Modi, nationalism, Nazism, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Nazism, politics, racism, Russia, Saudi Arabia, second world war, socialism, uk, Ukraine, UN, united nations, USA, West, white supremacism, xenophobia.

By Howard Green

On December 16th, the UN General Assembly passed a proposal entitled ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’. 130 out of 193 UN members voted in favour of it, and only two against: the United States and Ukraine. Similarly alarmingly, all EU member states and the UK abstained from the vote. Why are the nations who take so much pride in having defeated Nazism 75 years ago now refusing to vote in favour of combating it?

RESISTANCE IN BUDAPEST: STUDENTS DEFY LATEST MOVE IN VIKTOR ORBÁN’S CULTURE WAR

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged agnes heller, antisemitism, Attila Vidnyánszky, central european university, eva s balogh, fascism, featured, freeSzFE, George Soros, György Karsai, hungarian, Hungary, index, jobbik, László Upor, mafia state, movemente, national curriculum, Nazi, occupation, Orban, populism, protest, Roma, Romani, rroma, student, szfe, theatre, university.

by Bernard Rorke

On the Wednesday evening of the 2nd of September, in a narrow street in Budapest’s eighth district, a large crowd gathered in solidarity with the students who have staged an occupation of Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE). The students had sealed the entrances to the building with red and white tape in protest against the latest power grab by the far-right government of Victor Orbán.

From the first-floor balconies, students stood silently in yellow face masks with clenched fists, while below, leading figures from Hungary’s cultural and literary scene recited apposite verses from the country’s rich reserve of defiant, liberty-loving poetry. The students closed the event with a folk song and the crowd joined in defiant chants of ‘Szabad Ország, Szabad Egyetem! (Free Country, Free University!)’.

THIS ELECTION IS THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES – HERE’S HOW WE CAN WIN IT

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged art, Brexit, campaigning, doorknocking, environment, family, fascism, featured, general election, general election 2019, green new deal, higher education, inequality, jeremy corbyn, Labour, marketisation, memes, momentum, music, NUS, political art, politics, public services, register to vote, social media, student debt, students, unions, universities, vote, young people.

By Bradley Allsop

The world is on the brink. A shattered environment, gargantuan inequality, a burgeoning mental health crisis, fascism openly spreading across Europe, public services at breaking point… but also the possibility of more radical and progressive change than we’ve seen in decades. Higher education specifically also faces two radically different paths ahead of it: continued marketisation, eroding academic integrity, burdening a generation with enormous debt, crushing academics under enormous workloads, increasingly insecure employment and workplace stress – or publicly funded higher education that opens up space to imagine and create a different sort of campus.

THE RISE OF POPULISM IN 21ST CENTURY POLITICS

Posted on October 9, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, alt-right, artivism, empathy, far right, Farage, fascism, featured, France, freedom party, generation identity, indentity, le pen, Lega, migration observatory, MSM, national front, Nazi, populism, racism, reactionary, Salvini, social media, Trump, uk, UNHCR, xenophobia.

by Matt Musindi

Politics has become more divisive and polarised than ever, and it is the populists who have been the main beneficiaries of these political divisions. A populist is someone who consistently promises to channel the unified will of the people. Going off this definition, most political parties in liberal democracies are populist and yet this is not the case – why?Continue Reading

COUNTERACTING ANTI-IMMIGRATION YOUTH GROUPS IN THE UK

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, alt right, artivism, empathy, far right, fascism, featured, France, freedom party, generation identity, indentity, Lega, migration observatory, MSM, national front, Nazi, New Routes Integration, racism, reactionary, social media, stand up to racism, UEA, uk, UNHCR, xenophobia.

by Mary O’Driscoll

Despite the visceral reaction that some may experience at the sight of the terms ‘far-right’ and ‘youth movement’ sat next to each other, the rise of anti-immigration far-right youth movements in European countries cannot be contested. Not only are far-right political parties moving closer to the mainstream, but young people are getting involved in movements opposing immigration. The values of far-right nationalist political parties such as National Rally (previously known as National Front) in France, Austria’s Freedom Party, and the League in Italy have been embodied in youth movements such as Generation Identity- a group that made the jump across the channel to the UK in 2017. With the painfully hypocritical border-focussed rhetoric of Trump’s United States, and the equally ironic anti-immigration discourse of a Brexit Britain, many people are under the impression that ‘Western’ countries are too generous to newcomers.Continue Reading

fascism

FIGHTING FOR TRANS RIGHTS IN A FAR-RIGHT NATION

By a Norwich LGBTQ+ activist

NORWICH DEFENDS DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR – DISPATCHES FROM THE ANTIFASCIST COUNTER-PROTEST

By The Norwich Radical Editorial Team

WE ARE NOT YOUR BOGEYMEN – NORWICH RESISTS THE FAR-RIGHT IN SOLIDARITY WITH DRAG STORYTIME

By Anonymous

WE LIVE IN A CORRUPT AND VIOLENT STATE – JOHNSON’S RESIGNATION WON’T CHANGE THAT

By Rowan Gavin

OUR SUBVERSIVE VOICE: 400 YEARS OF PROTEST SONGS

By Rowan Gavin

UN VOTES TO COMBAT NAZISM – BUT THE WEST OPTS OUT

RESISTANCE IN BUDAPEST: STUDENTS DEFY LATEST MOVE IN VIKTOR ORBÁN’S CULTURE WAR

by Bernard Rorke

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