An American Literature undergraduate from South Wales that is currently living in New Orleans, USA. Fixated on Welsh politics, environmental studies/injustice and ecocriticism. Often found watching Gavin & Stacey far too much. Tara was a regular writer for the Perspective section from May 2016 – May 2017.
Articles:
(01/05/17) – How Should We Acknowledge National Sins?
Content warning: Holocaust/genocide, slavery, white supremacy
Under the cloak of night, on the 24th of April this year, an obelisk that celebrated members of the Crescent City White League was removed in New Orleans. It was erected in 1891 to honour the group that, twenty years prior, launched a failed insurrection against the Reconstruction Louisiana state government, murdering police officers in doing so. Its plaque in 1931 read: “the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.”
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(03/04/17) – Republicans are Right about Domestic Energy, but Trump’s Order Won’t Help
In January I wrote an assessment of Obama’s environmental record during his eight-year presidency. In my piece I discussed the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the fragile cornerstone of the U.S.’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, and how this one central piece of environmental legislation during the Obama era could prove to be a house built upon sand. On Tuesday President Trump proved his willingness to blow down that house and signed the Energy Independence Executive Order.
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(06.03.17) – Why Sadiq Khan is Wrong about Racism and Nationalism
Sadiq Khan really put his foot in it last week when he tweeted out his intended speech for the 2017 Scottish Labour Conference. The section that read “There’s no difference between those who try to divide us on the basis of whether we’re English or Scottish and those who try to divide us on the basis of our background, race and religion” created a fierce backlash on social media. He was forced to clarify that he was “not saying that nationalists are somehow racist or bigoted – but […] we don’t need more division and separation.” But the damage was already done, and Khan’s controversial comments (coupled with some missteps by Corbyn and Dugdale) hung over the conference like the smell of rotten egg.
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(06.02.17) – Public Lands are Under Threat in America
America’s National Park Service (NPS) has been catching a lot of attention in the press recently. After tweeting out pictures from Obama’s 2008 inauguration and Trump’s, the NPS’s twitter account was instructed to temporality stop using twitter. The account for Badlands National Park defied the gag however, tweeting out facts about climate change, leading to speculation that this was an act of criticism directed at President Trump’s past comments concerning global warming. So-called “rogue” accounts from NPS employers have since sprung up on twitter, though it should be said that the identity of the account-holders are not verified.
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(05.02.17) – Resistance Voices: Those Who Marched for Women
In the aftermath of the Women’s March — a worldwide protest in resistance to Donald Trump on Saturday January 21st 2017 that saw an estimated 4.6million people take to the streets in the US alone — The Norwich Radical’s Tara Gulwell and Cadi Cliff put a call out. This article is the product of that call out, which asked for thoughts from those who identified as women and who attended one of the many Women’s Marches on why they marched. These are just some voices, but they speak from across the UK and the US in an act of collaboration, solidarity, and resistance.
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(23.01.17) – Obama’s Complicated Environmental Legacy
By the time you are reading this, Trump will be president of the United States. Soon Scott Pruitt will be head of the EPA (or behead the EPA). As I’m writing this, Obama is singing his swan song and making his final goodbyes as President. The gulf of time between me writing and you reading is small but salient. It is the time to reflect upon what it is Obama leaves in his wake. Contradiction has characterized so many aspects of Obama’s presidency, but what of his environmental record? Well – it’s complicated.
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(11.12.16) – Inside the Sick World of a Trump Rally
I attended a Trump rally in Baton Rouge on December 9th, the main purpose of which was to campaign for the Republican candidate for the Louisiana Senate, John Kennedy. Having lived here through election day and becoming involved in American politics on such a personal level, I went there to try and gain an understanding. An understanding that could help to explain the reasoning behind voting for the most despicable demagogue of my lifetime.
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(28.11.16) – Why the Left Should Care About Celtic Independence
“Flags don’t build houses”, said Jeremy Corbyn last year, criticizing Scottish nationalism and the SNP. Well, no, they don’t, but neither does an unelectable party, so swings and roundabouts really. But he does have a point: nationalism as a political framework doesn’t inherently support leftist values, or the working class, or is particularly anti-capitalist.
In fact, the strongest argument I hear against Celtic nationalism from the English left is that it doesn’t solve the foundational economic equality at the heart of class oppression in the UK. I’m a Welsh nationalist and I agree. But the left shouldn’t care about Celtic independence because it’s intrinsically anti-capitalist, because it’s not that – the left should care because leftist ideals should encapsulate anti-imperialism.
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(14.11.16) – Katrina is Not Over
I wanted a break from research. Spending an evening at a bookstore to clear my head seemed like a good idea. Living and studying in New Orleans can be exhausting. Researching a dissertation on the Katrina disaster of 2005 is a privilege – but also a daunting task. I walked around the shop happy to not think of anything for a while, but then I saw the heading ‘KATRINA’, and I couldn’t resist. The section consisted of only a few books, titles that I already knew, tucked away on a bottom shelf near the back. I was shocked by the lack of choice. This is New Orleans, after all. Even if I was in the gentrified, college-dominated Uptown, surely this area still had something to say on what happened. I ran to the store clerk and asked if they had any more books on Katrina, and he replied: “We used to have tonnes of them. But after time people forgot. People stopped caring.”
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(14.05.16) – Socialism in the Senedd? The Wales That Could Have Been
Like many other young, lefty Welsh voters in the recent assembly elections I became completely fed up with Welsh Labour and Carwyn Jones. With rising austerity in Wales, I longed for a much more aggressively socialist program for my nation. In that desire was born my support for Plaid Cymru. I became smitten with their commitment to socialism and environmentalism. I also support Welsh independence as a long-term goal, and of course who can deny Leanne Wood’s enthusiasm and charisma? On the flip-side of Wood’s charm was Jones’ arrogance in thinking he was undefeatable and his implicit support of UK state hegemony.
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(15.11.15) – Meet the Women Reviving Nature Writing
Among the young students who frequent this magazine it’s a safe bet to assume that most of us aren’t running to the nature writing section when we walk into our nearest bookshop. So let me introduce you to the women aiming to change that. Forget the image of a rambling old man in the woods with a Thoreauian beard, and come meet Cheryl Strayed, Kathleen Jamie and Helen Macdonald.
The Norwich Radical 