Tatamkhulu Afrika, 83 this year, had his first novel obliterated by the Blitz. Of Middle Eastern origin, he fought the Nazis in World War Two and apartheid in South Africa. In German prison camps he performed with Denholm Elliott. And in South Africa he is a renowned poet.
Now, finally, his prose is available in print. It's powerful stuff, based on his experiences as a PoW in North Africa and Occupied Europe. In content and style, though, the book is less a standard WWII…
The lyrics were recognisably Korean, but then the song became understandable as the chorus burst forth in punk staccato: “Fucking USA”.
It was the title refrain from a hitherto obscure Korean singer, Yoon Min Suk,that has struck a cord recently with young Korean music fans. The Koreanhigh school students, many clad in Usd esigner labels, reveled to the beat. KwonHyuk Hwan, 17, was particularly forthcoming: “I hate fucking Bush. US must get out of Korea.” Kim Myung Su, 16, said: “…
Ever find yourself losing your edge? Descending into woolly liberalism? Perhaps even thinking (No!) that those corporations might just, possibly, be reformable?
If there is any mental brake to that slippery slope, this book of cartoons is it. Polyp applies his cruelly sharp wit to globalisation, militarism, corporate power and hypocritical greenwash, exposing the intellectual and moral inconsistencies of so many official statements and positions that we have become so used to that…
Palestine, Palestine is an unusual creature, a film about this beautiful and terrible land which shows something of everyday life in the West Bank.
It is not a documentary as such, although it deals with real people and their day-to-day existence. It has more life and lyricism than that. But it is also grounded in reality and makes inescapable the way that the Israeli presence is not just a matter of the brutal incursions which hit the Western news but a daily challenge to the…
This powerful play received its first British production at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester last year. It tells, through the experiences of a small group of characters, of the pivotal events in the liberation struggle of an unnamed African state.
The beginnings of armed struggle are met by the British authorities not with dialogue but violent oppression, including the arrest of moderate leaders. These tensions are played out through the characters of Tshembe Matoseh, an…
The name Arthur Wragg will no doubt be familiar to some of PN's more senior readers. He joined the Peace Pledge Union in 1935, and contributed regularly to Peace News in the late 1930s. Later, he would design posters for the PPU, and his pacifism and social radicalism would inform much of his work during a career which spanned over five decades.
It is difficult now to fully appreciate the impact that Wragg's drawings would have had on contemporary audiences. Yet…
The first Independent Media Centre (IMC) came to life in Seattle in November 1999. It was set up to cover a specific event: the protests against the World Trade Organisation. The Seattle IMC produced a printed publication called The Blind Spot, which was distributed on the streets during the demos, as well as creating a website that became an enormous success.
Since then “independent media” and “open publishing” have become buzz-words among activists everywhere. Indymedia is…
Cultural resistance is, it seems, in the air at the moment. There's been British novelist Nicholas Blincoe, calling for a cultural boycott of Israel by disrupting Israeli folk-singer Noa's performance at a London music festival; the theatre producer who decapitated a marble statue of Baroness Margaret Thatcher as a protest against global capitalism; and George Michael, challenging US foreign policy in the pop charts, an attitude also adopted by a host of high-level-artistic figures in the US…
Some people still reduce Zapatismo to Marcos. Pure racism. An educated white man was surely manipulating those poor, illiterate Mayas. They cannot say what he is saying and even less conceive such a movement... Unabated racism.
But what about the crowds? A year ago, subcomandante Marcos and 25 Zapatista commanders travelled to Mexico City. For the first time, millions were able to see and hear them. Time and again the crowds did not allow the other Zapatistas to speak. Marcos! Marcos…
I started off as a street musician in Dublin in 1986, filling in the hours while my three daughters were at school. The streets get into the bloodstream after a while - the freedom, the fresh air, the uncertainty of it all, the peace.
What started off as a hobby became a part-time earner. Arriving in Dublin with the three girls, I met other musicians, we played together on the streets and had fun. Having studied the Irish language (old and medieval) and being under pressure from…
It has become fashionable again among a few artists and groups in some alternative publishing companies here in France - but also, I believe, in Belgium, Switzerland, the US, Canada, and Britain - to talk about culture and resistance...
For me the topic conjures up this comment: agriculture and culture are both spaces of struggle against the elements, wastelands of liberties, areas of autonomy. This is also the place where the forces, hopes and actions to change the world lie.
…The idea behind this project was to link storytelling - the theme of the 2002 WRI Triennial - directly with the history of the WRI. How, then, to do this? The answer, to WRI worker Roberta Bacic, rested in the large collection of old, dusty, unsorted photographs in the office files.
Why not invite activists and former staff members of the older generation to a working session to identify people, places and times caught by the camera long ago? This group activity would stimulate…
AWOL magazine is the product of a “workshop of artists, activists and revolutionaries”.
Started in 2000 and jointly funded by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and ROOTS/War Resisters League, AWOL aims to “provide a space for marginalised voices to dialogue to be heard, a place to resist and grow”. The emphasis is on providing an alternative to a dominant culture “saturated with pro-military propaganda”.
In practice the AWOL “project” is a combination…
In Serbia the REX/B92 cultural centre describes itself as “a laboratory for research of new fields of culture”.
The centre is a member of TEH (Trans Europe Halles), network of European independent cultural centres and the coalition of centres for creative development and use of new media (ECB - European independent cultural centres network).
REX projects include
Ring Ring. International New Music Festival (held every year in May, since 1996) Mladi YU vizuelni (Young…The fragile peace of the impoverished African country of Mozambique rests uneasily on caches of thousands of weapons left over from 16 years of civil war.
Albino Forquilha, coordinator of the Transforming Arms into Ploughshares project of the Christian Council of Churches, recently explained to Canadian peace and development activists how this project helps his country.
After the devastation of the civil war, Mozambique has a high level of unemployment and of violent crime. Ex…
