UNITED IN THE FACE OF CRISIS – THE STUDENT LEFT NETWORK

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged campaigning, casualisation, climate change, corporate, democracy, education, far right, featured, fossil fuel divestment, higher education, individualism, inequality, Labour Students, left, living wage, marketisation, mental health, NUS, NUS turnaround, prevent, profiteering, rent strike, representation, social justice, student activists, student debt, student left network, students' unions, uk, universities.

By Bradley Allsop

Make no mistake – higher education in the UK is in crisis. After decades of uncertain policy and three successive Tory-led governments with a clear desire to marketise and corporatise our campuses, we’re left with a generation burdened with debt, with an explosion in mental health issues among students, with universities bereft of democracy and increasingly fuelled by precarious labour, with Students’ Unions that are often little more than marketing arms of their universities, and with continuing inequalities in educational attainment. The passionate learning, debate and inquiry that should be the soul of education has become little more than a thin veneer pasted over profiteering and corporate-style expansion.

FREEING EDUCATION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS – BEYOND TUITION FEES #5

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academic staff, activism, apathy, Beyond Tuition Fees, borders, Community, consumerism, culture, diversity, economy, elitism, Free Education, government, higher education, individualism, international students, internationalism, jeremy corbyn, Labour, learning, lecturers, maintenance loans, marketisation, migration, politics, privatisation, solidarity, stress, student debt, tef, theresa may, Tories, tuition fees, UCU, UEA, USS strikes.

By Lotty Clare

It is a time of extraordinary potential for change in UK Higher Education. Labour’s promise to end tuition fees has defied the critics and united many behind Corbyn’s political project. But what will the implications for universities be if this comes to pass? And what can we do to leverage this progress? In this series, the Norwich Radical and Bright Green are bringing together perspectives from across the sector to explore these questions.

We face many challenges as students in 2018. Painfully high tuition fees along with eye-watering maintenance loans means that lower income students will leave university with over £50,000 of debt. Bafflingly, Prime Minister Theresa May only recently came to the realisation that poorer students are getting deterred from going into higher education. By contrast, the Labour Party’s promises to scrap tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants are of course a welcome relief for many prospective students – UK national students that is. Labour have seemingly barely considered the possibility of doing the same for international students. At the University of East Anglia, non-EU international students pay about £14,800 annually, on top of having to prove that they have access to thousands of pounds for living costs. If education is a right, why are we privileging wealthier international students in this way? What would Britain look like if we abolished or at least dramatically reduced fees for international students?

PLATONIC POLYAMORY: A 2018 VALENTINE’S CONCLUSION

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged affection, Ash Sarkar, cbt, Community, Elf Lyons, emotion, empathy, featured, february, humanity, individualism, intimacy, LGBTQIA+, loneliness, mental health, network, Novara Media, personal, platonic, politics, polyamory, relationship, romantic, sentimental, single, support, unity, valentines.

by Sunetra Senior

This Valentine’s Day was distinctive. In addition to the usual encouragement of self-love, and sending of gushing gifs amongst female friends, more people were sending greetings to family members and stressing the importance of acts of love within the community. Ash Sarkar, Senior Editor of Novara Media, said emphatically in a video message: ‘when you stop a charter flight from taking off and deporting asylum seekers, that’s love’. Perhaps an effect of delayed liberal mobilisation, after such angry right-wing resurgence, the concept of growing close to one another is being gradually – literally – redefined to be more liberal.Continue Reading

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged activism, capitalism, collective action, consumerism, corporate power, crisis, democracy, ecological crisis, ecology, economic crisis, economics, elites, featured, future, GE17, government, housing crisis, individualism, inequality, jeremy corbyn, Labour, mental health, momentum, neoliberalism, organise, Oxford Dictionaries, political apathy, political parties, politics, possibility, poverty, snap election, society, technology, tuition fees, uk, wage stagnation, westminster, word of the year, young people, youth culture, youth engagement, youth politics, youth turnout, youthquake.

by Bradley Allsop

Young people can’t catch a break. On the one hand, we’re scolded and ridiculed for our apparent lack of engagement with traditional political institutions, which is generally assumed to be a result of our ‘laziness’ or ‘apathy’, with our disillusionment and distrust with politicians that have continually failed us apparently precluding our ‘right to complain’. On the other hand, when we do engage politically, in those rare moments when we do seek to take an active role in our futures, we’re painted as thuggish, fragile or naïve. In short, the message we continually get is: “engage – but not like that!”

SELF EDUCATION, NEW SOLUTIONS

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged adulthood, books, Brexit, capitalism, ChildLine, collective action, connectivity, consumerism, conversation, coping, corporations, democracy, disaster, education, environment, environmentalism, events, facts, free thought, globalisation, government, hope, ideology, individualism, information, information overload, knowledge, knowledge is power, learning, local groups, mental health, Naomi Klein, news, No Is Not Enough: Resisting The New Shock Politics, politicians, politics, power, reading, resistance, schools, security, self education, social consciousness, society, sociopolitical situation, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, Trump, truth, voters, voting, young people.

by Laura Potts

Schools stand as institutions of education, aiming to enhance and aid growth in various forms. Children growing through the school system will eventually leave as adults. However, in my generation, there is a trend away from exploring a key part of adulthood: continued self education.

REVIEW: TWO LITTLE DUCKS EDINBURGH FRINGE PREVIEW

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged anti-establishment, bbc, Birds of Hell, border control, Brexit, Calais, child abuse, Edinburgh Fringe, environment, EU referendum, future generations, government, guilt, history, individualism, internationalism, Leave Campaign, Lewis Buxton, Matt Abbott, Michelle Fisher, norwich, Norwich Arts Centre, nostalgia, older people, performance, performance poetry, Pete Murdoch, poetry, politics, Radio 1xtra, refugee crisis, refugees, review, spoken word, The Roundhouse, tradition, TS Eliot, Two Little Ducks, violence, volunteering, Words First.

by Laura Potts

CW: Mentions violence against children

More than any other art form, spoken word performance art allows an audience to directly interact with the thoughts of the artist. This kind of interaction can often change minds more effectively than argument or statistic, making spoken word art a very progressive medium. As a spoken word enthusiast and an artist on a student budget, I was therefore excited to attend Matt Abbott’s pay-what-you-can preview of his Edinburgh Fringe show ‘Two Little Ducks’ at the Norwich Arts Centre recently. And my excitement was certainly justified – Two Little Ducks is a powerfully thought-provoking, politically driven work.

OUR LEADERS ARE DRAGGING US BACK TO THE COAL AGE

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged activism, barack obama, climate, climate change, coal, collectivism, COP 21, corporations, creative subjects, creativity, democracy, Donald Trump, Earth Day, environment, environmental literacy, environmental sustainability, environmentalism, equality, fossil free, free thought, freedom of expression, future, future generations, global warming, government, individualism, media, national interest, paris, Paris Climate Agreement, people and planet, people's climate march, Pittsburgh, progress, progressive, qualifications, selfishness, student activism, trade deals, UKYCC, USA, West, youth movements.

by Laura Potts

We expect time to encourage positive progression, as new minds surface and opportunities ripen. But recently we are seeing more of the opposite achieved by the leaders of some of the greatest western ‘powers’. Last week, the current president of the United States announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate deal. This will have seriously detrimental effects on the environment and the future of our planet.

EASTER EGGS AND THE CAMPUS CONVENIENCE CONSUMERISM CONUNDRUM

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged beauty, berlin, bins, chocolate, climate change, coffee, coffee cups, consumerism, convenience, Easter, Easter eggs, environment, environmentalism, excess, food industry, food waste, future generations, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, individualism, life, luxury, Milena Glimbovski, nature, NUA, on-the-go, Original Unverpackt, packaging, plastics, recycling, Sara Wolf, spring, student life, students, UEA, universities, Wake Up and Smell the Waste, waste, young people.

By Laura Potts

As spring approaches, so do the grasping hands of Easter and the shelves full of egg-shaped chocolate treats, in a hundred sizes and colours. But the main thing I notice as I walk through the supermarket is the quantity of packaging that comes with them. Each egg is sealed in plastic and stored in a cardboard box, and most come with other individually wrapped chocolates. The brightly coloured decorations upon the eggs and boxes are reminiscent of nature and the beautiful colours of spring.

The great irony, of course, is that the packaging boasting this decoration directly contributes to the destruction of that natural beauty. Through this attitude to resources, companies are investing in a ‘throw away society’, and future generations will have to carry the burden.

REVIEW: THE ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM, ADAM BUICK AND JOHN CRUMP

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged Adam Buick, arts, book, book launch, capital, capitalism, change, climate change, climate crisis, crisis, David Perrin, future, generations, globalisation, individualism, inspiration, John Crump, music, norwich, political apathy, political theory, progress, progressive, review, revolution, socialism, society, Space Studios, The Alternative to Capitalism, Theory and Practice, utopianism, young people.

by Laura Potts

On Saturday March 11th, I attended the launch of a fascinating new book from Theory and Practice publishing: ‘The Alternative to Capitalism’ by Adam Buick and John Crump. Many of us feel hostile towards capitalist structures. Being properly informed is vital to structuring our opposition effectively. I can heartily recommend this book as an addition to the education of anyone interested in the possibility of bringing capitalism down. Its content is manageable, it is inclusive not alienating, and most importantly it inspires hope in an alternative society.

TIME TO FUCKING STAND

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 2016, alt-right, authoritarian states, bigotry, capitalism, Cathy Newman, daily mail, DAPL, dread, dreams, Erdogan, Europe, facts, fake news, fascism, fear, fight back, First Nations, future, get ready, Golden Dawn, hate crimes, homophobia, humans, individualism, Italy referendum, Junot Diaz, Kashmir, KKK, Lind Tirado, Marine Le Pen, Modi, Movimento 5 Stelle, mysogny, neo nazi, neoliberalism, North Dakota, Orban, Pakistan, politics, putin, racism, radical hope, refugee camp, resist, Roland Martin, sarah kendzior, Snoopers Charter, standards, taking a stand, Teen Vogue, transphobia, Trevor Noah, US, violence, white nationalism, write.

by Alex Valente

Content warning: mentions racism, xenophobia, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and the general mess that is 2016.

And so the world has suddenly changed, again, seemingly even louder than before. For a lot of people who claim to be interested in following politics, nationally or internationally, the events of the past month can feel like a shock. We’ve all trying to find someone to blame, someone to accuse, someone to stand in front of us as we look in a mirror, and global media has been having a field-day of think-pieces on the issue. But quite frankly, who cares?

We fucked up. We’ve been doing so for a long time. We’ve been doing so with every time we didn’t speak up, stand up, stand in the way of neoliberalism, aggressive capitalism, individualism and their opening the gates to full-on, fully backed racism, xenophobia, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and so many other horrors that not even patriarchy-mythologised Pandora could be blamed for them all.Continue Reading

individualism

FREEING EDUCATION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS – BEYOND TUITION FEES #5

PLATONIC POLYAMORY: A 2018 VALENTINE’S CONCLUSION

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

REVIEW: TWO LITTLE DUCKS EDINBURGH FRINGE PREVIEW

OUR LEADERS ARE DRAGGING US BACK TO THE COAL AGE

EASTER EGGS AND THE CAMPUS CONVENIENCE CONSUMERISM CONUNDRUM

REVIEW: THE ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM, ADAM BUICK AND JOHN CRUMP

TIME TO FUCKING STAND

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