TWO BILLION BEATS BY SONALI BHATTACHARYYA – REVIEW

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Anoushka Chadha, B.R. Ambedkar, British South Asian, Dalit, featured, Gandhi, history, immigration, islamophobia, left-wing theatre, Leicester, momentum, Orange Tree Theatre, people of colour, racism, representation, review, Safiyya Ingar, school, SOAS, Sonali Bhattacharya, Sylvia Pankhurst, teenagers, theatre, Two Billion Beats, uk, war on terror, young people, youth politics.

By Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya

The presence of South Asian characters in British theatre is not the extreme rarity it once was. Whilst South Asians and people of colour more widely are still hugely underrepresented in theatre – as actors, writers, directors and in storylines – there has undoubtedly been some progress in recent years. What remains less visible, however, is South Asian characters engaging in rich discussions of history in all its complexity, from a questioning, left-wing perspective. If this is not for you, you should probably avoid playwright and Momentum activist Sonali Bhattacharyya’s Two Billion Beats, showing now at London’s Orange Tree Theatre.

JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS AT KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged abuse, academic staff, accountability, Bush House, campaigning, cleaning, deportation, direct action, discrimination, economic discrimination, exploitation, featured, gendered labour, health and safety, homophobia, immigration, immigration raid, IWGB, Justice for Daniel, KCL J4C, King's College London, LSE, LSE J4C, migrant labour, migrant rights, neoliberalism, occupation, outsourcing, pensions, racialised labour, Servest, sexual harassment, SOAS, SOAS J4C, SOAS nine, solidarity, students, trade unions, UCU, UCU strike, UKVI, Unison, university management, University of London, university staff, UVW, workers, workers rights.

By KCL Justice for Cleaners Campaign

Content warning: mentions sexual harassment, homophobic abuse

This week, the KCL Justice for Cleaners Campaign released a short film revealing the struggles of migrant cleaners at King’s College London, a day before management made a recommendation to the College Council as to whether to end the outsourcing of cleaning. Through the film, cleaners speak in their own words about the violence of the outsourcing model and how mistreatment at KCL is normalised.

SHAME ON SOAS – OCCUPIERS PROTEST TREATMENT OF CATERING STAFF

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #SHAMEonSOAS, BME, Bouygues, catering, closures, Community, Elior UK, fair pay, London Living Wage, Lucas Lecture Theatre, migrant workers, ob cuts, occupation, occupy, outsourcing, peaceful protest, redundancies, rights, SOAS, SOAS refectory, SOASJ4C, student activism, student unions, unions, universities, women workers, workers rights, zero hours contracts.

By SOAS Justice for Workers

Yesterday, on the 8th anniversary of the deportation of 9 SOAS cleaners, students of SOAS began an occupation of the Directorate on the Main Building first floor. We are taking direct action in resistance to the planned shut down of the refectory and outrageous threats made by management to the livelihoods of members of our community. We stand in solidarity with the catering staff, and all the exploited workers of SOAS, in their fight for dignity and respect.

POST-TRUTH POLITICS AND THE WAR ON INTELLECT

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged american politics, american presidential election, austerity, brendan o'neill, Brexit, british politics, Cameron, class, cuts, david cameron, debt, deficit, Donald Trump, elitism, EU, EU referendum, european politics, european union, fedia buric, george osborne, grantra, intellectualism, international politics, inter|national, media, Michael Gove, politics, pomerantsev, post-truth, putin, SOAS, spiked magazine, the sun, Trump, US election, US president, US presidential election, USA, vladmir putin, vlandislav surkov, working class.

by Robyn Banks

“Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer.”- Mikhail Bakunin

There’s a new buzzword in the air. We are now living, it is claimed, in a post-factual or post-truth society, where facts no longer matter to the general public. At face value it seems like a bizarre claim. But while politicians and the media have always lied to the public, if you consider the audacity of the lies of the last decade in contrast to the sheer number of tools available to us to find out the truth, you begin to see the point.Continue Reading

BLACK STUDENTS IN WHITE EDUCATION

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives, Student and tagged academia, African American, Afro European, American values, Amiri Baraka, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Birmingham, Birmingham City University, black education, black history, black literature, black scholars, black students, black studies, black voices, black writers, BME, contemporary blackness, development, education, gender studies, Harry Potter, Harvard, HBCU, Howard, international development, Jackie Kay, John Agard, literaturer, Malorie Blackman, Marlon James, Ming Te Wang, racial pride, racism, sexism, SOAS, The Colour Purple, university, Why is my Curriculum so White?, womanist, Womanist Society, Yale, Zadie Smith.

by Candice Nembhard

In May 2016, Birmingham City University announced it will be accepting applications for its new degree in ‘Black Studies’— the first of its kind in Europe. The course is said to be an interdisciplinary area of study that will look into migration of the African diaspora, black scholars, and the effects of economics within black communities. Estimated to parallel the popular and esteemed African-American study programmes present at the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Howard University, this programme is finally addressing an underlying problem within British education. More specifically, why black voices have long been ignored or overridden in academic spheres. As a Birmingham native, I have never been more proud to witness this advancement, but we cannot stand by the belief that its implementation is enough.Continue Reading

DETENTION CENTRES AND THE STUDENT MOVEMENT

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives, Student and tagged #DontDeportLuqman, #SaveLord, #setherfree, #shutdownyarlswood, activists, barbed wire, border regime, Campsfield, campus, children, deportation, detainee, detention centre, direct action, discrimination, divest, divestment, freedom, Harmondsworth, Home Office, immigrants, immigration detention, Justice for Cleaners, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, LGBT+, mobilisation, Movement for Justice, NUS, prison, racism, sexism, Sheffied SU, Sisters Uncut, SOAS, student activism, student movement, student unions, students, sussex, uk passports, universities, women, Yarl's Wood, Yarlswood.

by Sahaya James

Harmondsworth detention centre, near Heathrow, is set in an anonymous business park. You can only tell it’s a detention centre because of the barbed wire.

Campsfield detention centre, near Oxford, is accessible by a nondescript turning on a nondescript a-road. The whole site is ringed by a line of trees.

Yarl’s Wood, however, is even more hidden than the rest. It sits hundreds of meters back from the road, behind a double layer of fencing, miles and miles out into the Bedfordshire countryside.

It is, essentially, a prison. Like every detention centre, it doesn’t contain people accused and convicted of crimes — it contains people without UK passports. Specifically, Yarlswood contains women and children.Continue Reading

SOAS CLEANERS CONTINUE OUR TIRELESS STRUGGLE

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged activism, campaign, cleaners, justice, privatisation, SOAS, student.

by Justice for SOAS Cleaners

Despite having achieved the benefits of sick pay, holiday pay and pensions in April 2014, we expected to have opportunities to do overtime jobs that were denied because of favouritism exercised by the previous ISS site manager.

In March 2015 a new ISS site manager came to SOAS, and we continue with the expectation of how it will be solved. The problems carry over for many years, but the situation has not changed, instead of giving opportunities to the current staff to do additional/overtime hours when the permanent staff are off sick or on annual leave, now ISS management are contracting external agency staff with zero hours contracts and that was not the goal of our J4C campaign to have a workforce at SOAS with different terms and conditions.

THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUES: JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS SOAS

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged campaign, cleaners, employment, justice, rights, SOAS, student, uk, university, welfare, work, workers rights.

by Justice for Cleaners SOAS

The Justice for Cleaners SOAS campaign is led by the cleaning staff at SOAS, with the support of students and university staff. The cleaners campaign began in 2006, and in 2008 won decent London living wage. Last year, after a series of strikes, the campaign won their demands for sick pay, holiday pay, and pensions.

However, the campaign has not yet won their key demand of the cleaning staff, which is to be brought back in house (to work directly to SOAS instead of a subcontractor). Since the early 1990s SOAS cleaners have been subcontracted by a succession of private companies, all of which have been allegations of victimization and intimidation of the cleaning staff, including persecution of the J4C campaigners and trade union representatives, and through attempts to undermine working conditions.

SOAS

TWO BILLION BEATS BY SONALI BHATTACHARYYA – REVIEW

By Ananya Wilson-Bhattacharya

JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS AT KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

SHAME ON SOAS – OCCUPIERS PROTEST TREATMENT OF CATERING STAFF

POST-TRUTH POLITICS AND THE WAR ON INTELLECT

BLACK STUDENTS IN WHITE EDUCATION

DETENTION CENTRES AND THE STUDENT MOVEMENT

SOAS CLEANERS CONTINUE OUR TIRELESS STRUGGLE

THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUES: JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS SOAS

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