THE ‘C’ WORD: COMMUNIST ERASURE IN LIBERATION ACTIVISM

Posted on March 27, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, anarchism, Ash Sarkar, communism, featured, framing, identity, label, left, LGBTQIA+, liberation, marginalised, McCarthy, MLK, Piers Morgan, pride, radical, red scare, socialism.

by Kasper Hassett

From the first Red Scare in the US, terms like ‘communism’, ‘socialism’, and ‘anarchism’ have been subject to suspicion and scrutiny. Despite describing common views, they are considered subversive, chaotic and threatening, and cause others to be wary. Many of society’s role models, however, have been communists – especially those most associated with struggles against oppression, imperialism and bigotry. Forgetting this is no accident: when centrists and the right-wing express a shared sense of pride for achievements in activism, they place history under a rose-tinted lens, carefully side-stepping mention of their role in enforcing the barriers which required lifting in the first place.

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 1

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged ADHD, audio-visual, controversy, Covid-19, DJ Glade, Edinburgh Fringe, Elian Gray, featured, grief, identity, infuencers, Katie Elizabeth Payne, Katie Payne, Leanne Moden, Living Record Festival, Mango Lassi, Maya Katherine, mental health, Mike Masaros, music, My Mix(ed up) Tape, online theatre, performance, poetry, review, Rogue Play Theatre, Skip Skip Skip, spirituality, spoken word, The Quean's Company, theatre, theatre review, Thrash, Vivid Ashes, web series.

By Carmina Masoliver

January 2021 saw the start of the Living Record Festival, which featured over forty artists and theatre companies showcasing digital work, from spoken word audio pieces to mini-web series. It has garnered many four-star and five-star reviews. In this two-part series, Carmina Masoliver discusses her picks of the festival’s most interesting shows. You can read part two here.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM OR INSTITUTIONALISED TRANSPHOBIA?

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives, Student and tagged academia, academics, featured, gender, glinner, HE, identity, John Collins, letter, nb, Never OK, non-binary, response, rupert read, sex, Stonewall, student unions, SU, terf, trans, transphobes, transphobia, UEA.

By Robyn Banks

Once again, an array of academics have signed a letter complaining about the increased efforts by universities to recognise and support Trans* and Non-Binary students on their campuses. Their reasons for doing so aren’t worth exploring, as they are based on the same logic, or lack thereof, as many transphobes about the realities of gender, sex and identity. The problem we should focus on is that the academics who have signed this letter, and the ones before it, hide behind the claim of ‘Academic Freedom’ in order to try and justify their views.Continue Reading

THE CALL FOR MEASURED DEBATE ON GRA IS DISINGENUOUS

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, debate, discrimination, Equality Act, FairPlayforWomen, fear, featured, femininity, feminism, free speech, gender recogniton act, GRA, Graham Linehan, identity, LGBT+, LGBTQIA+, migration, online, propaganda, terf, trans, transgender, woman, Women's Place.

by Lee-Anne Lawrance

CW: transphobia

As we approach the (extended) close of the consultation to the reform of the Gender Recognition Act, one group of activists is calling for a calm and rational debate – or in their words, a ‘respectful and evidence-based discussion’.

The current debate has been dominated by a group of so-called ‘feminists’ and supporters who oppose the changes, citing ‘concerns’ for women. The concerns they raise however are based on false information. Nothing short of propaganda is used to disseminate this false information to the wider public. Continue Reading

BEYOND BURNOUT: TOWARDS COMPASSIONATE ACTIVISM

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, burnout, campaigning, compassion, competition, cooperation, featured, grassroots, health, identity, mental health, movement, neoliberalism, politics, postgraduate, protest, social comparison.

By Anonymous

Being an ‘activist’ is a crucial part of my identity. It can be a difficult thing to be, in a society where ‘politics’ is a dirty word and its practice is often at best frowned upon, but I’m glad I’ve made it to this place. To be part of wider movements, making friends with incredibly talented, dedicated and inspiring people and, in my own flawed, stumbling way, trying to make the world a little bit better, is an enormous joy and privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy.

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, berlin, book, Carmen Boullosa, carmen maria machado, Chloe Aridjis, cuba, featured, identity, latin american, Latinx, Law and Order, magical realism, Mexico, mexico heritage, novel, overview, personal, peter bush, queer, review, romance, self, short story, travel, women writers, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

On a recent trip to Mexico, I decided to take with me three books by authors of Latin American heritage, including two of Mexican background, and one Cuban. All were women. Aside from eating the most delicious chimichangas, learning about the ancient Mayan ruins, and climbing up the Ixmoja part of the Nohoch Mul, I spent a lot of my time reading these authors by the sea with a strawberry daiquiri. Within just one week I had nearly consumed them all and discovered a new love of Latin American writing.Continue Reading

WHY LUSH ARE RIGHT TO CONDEMN SPY COPS

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged #ACAB, #spycops, abuse, activism, campaigning, demonstrations, direct action, featured, identity, Lush, police, sexual abuse, surveillance, theresa may, Tories.

By Robyn Banks

CW: mentions rape, emotional abuse

Last week Lush launched their #SpyCops campaign, aiming to raise awareness of the recent spy cops scandal. Since 2010, activists have been coming forward with stories of police officers infiltrating activist networks and living out fake lives that often involved having relationships with real members of these networks. The police have used officers’ testimony from within these relationships to build evidence against these groups. This experience has been extremely traumatic for the activists involved.

REVIEW – THE HAIR WRAP DIARIES

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged African, afro, Alynda Wheat, Antonia Cooper, Barbershp Chronicles, black hair, black women, Bola Agaje, Caribbean, Chris Rock, dialogue, Emmanuella Idris, hair, hairdresser, Head Wrap Diaries, heritage, house, identity, Natalie Cooper, performance, review, roots, Shanelle Clemenson, show, story, theatre, Uchenna dance, Vicki Igbokwe, vogue, Waacking, women, Yolanda Perez-Rosselson.

by Carmina Masoliver

Piles of colourful patterned fabrics line the stage, and three women dressed in black Lycra leotards select a fabric and wrap it around their head. The fabrics are drawn across the stage as the performers’ bodies undulate in a backwards crawl, before the scene is set as a hair salon with the colours swept away in a swirl around a chair.

As the title The Hair Wrap Diaries suggests, during this Uchenna Dance production written by Bola Agaje in partnership with director and choreographer Vicki Igbokwe, we hear different stories from each performer. Yet the show is also interspersed with dance, giving it a strong sense of poetics as the words are broken up and repeated with the movements. The stories themselves are carefully selected, offering a rainbow of different generations of black women, exploring their relationship with hair.Continue Reading

WHY I WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO COLLECT DATA ABOUT MY ETHNICITY

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged antigypsyism, census, data, discrimination, ERRC, ethnicity, Europe, featured, France, government, GRT, gypsy, Hungary, identity, invisibility, Italy, law, Mapping for Change, measures, mortality, policy, population, Roma, Romani, Slovakia, statistics, Sweden, traveller.

by Jonathan Lee

A new project to count the number of Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers in London was recently launched by London Gypsies & Travellers and Mapping for Change. Their goal is to provide an accurate estimate of the numbers and distribution of GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller) people across the city.

Official census statistics on Romani and Traveller people in the UK are famously inaccurate (only 58,000 in the 2011 census). This is partly because neither group are traditionally very fond of official registers, particularly those which record ethnicity.

And why should we be?Continue Reading

WHITENESS, PALESTINE AND ‘THE JEWISH STATE’

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Apartheid, Ashkenazi, Australia, BDS, Benjamin Netanyahu, canada, colonialism, culture, detention, Emmanuel Nahshon, Ethiopia, featured, Holot, identity, imperialism, income gap, indigeneous, israel, Jewish, migrant, Mizrahim, native, neocolonialism, palestine, racism, refugee, Richard Seymour, South Africa, Susan Abulhawa, systemic racism, two state, white supremacy, whiteness, zionism.

by Scott McLaughlan

Israel’s population is 74.7% Jewish, 20.8% Arab and 4.5% “other”. According to the latest population statistics, “those of European and American ancestry make up about 2.2 million (36%) of the Jewish population, while Africans fill out another 14.5% and Asians are 11.2%.”

That being said, there are also currently around 50,000 African Migrants in Israel, most of whom are from Eritrea or Sudan. Under the UN Refugee Convention (signed by Israel in 1954) no migrant can be forcibly returned to their country of origin. Israel currently abides by this convention, but systematically refuses to grant asylum to refugees, irrespective of their status and the potential danger and persecution they have fled.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, recently spewed out the reason for the impasse: Asylum seekers threaten Israel’s identity. The Israeli cabinet has now approved the morally repugnant Holot migrant detention centre, in Israel’s Negev desert, for closure. As a result, two options were laid on the table: step up deportations or jail those who refuse to leave Israel.Continue Reading

identity

THE ‘C’ WORD: COMMUNIST ERASURE IN LIBERATION ACTIVISM

by Kasper Hassett

LIVING RECORD FESTIVAL REVIEW – PART 1

By Carmina Masoliver

ACADEMIC FREEDOM OR INSTITUTIONALISED TRANSPHOBIA?

THE CALL FOR MEASURED DEBATE ON GRA IS DISINGENUOUS

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

WHY LUSH ARE RIGHT TO CONDEMN SPY COPS

REVIEW – THE HAIR WRAP DIARIES

WHY I WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO COLLECT DATA ABOUT MY ETHNICITY

WHITENESS, PALESTINE AND ‘THE JEWISH STATE’

Support the Radical

Subscribe

by Kasper Hassett

Share this:

Like this:

By Carmina Masoliver

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Support the Radical

Subscribe