Strike! Fighting for the Future of Higher Education
Solidarity with all my colleagues who stood out on picket lines today, and will do so again tomorrow and Friday, and again next year if their demands are not met. 33 universities are striking on pay and pensions; 21 on just pay and 4 on just pensions. University and College Union (UCU) has called the pay dispute ‘The Four Fights’:…
Kill or Cure: Cancer & Coronavirus
Well, be careful what you wish for. When in my last post I asked for 2020 to be a year of healing, little did I dream that the universe would respond in epic fashion. Now it’s two weeks into the UK lockdown, and like most people, I’m still adjusting to the dystopian world we find ourselves in. An invisible…
2020: Let the Healing Begin (Please!)
What a year it’s been. Much as I believe in active hope, I found the General Election result incredibly demoralising. Not only was the Conservative majority achieved with a minority of the popular vote, and the bullying help of a billionaire media, I just can’t see how Brexit can be ‘done’ without destroying the United Kingdom. But Tory voters don’t…
Building Jerusalem . . . in Jerusalem
September sings, but the chords of summer echo on, not least of my visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories in late July for readings from A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry, the bilingual anthology I edited last year for Smokestack Books. Travelling with Rachel Searle, the Director of BlakeFest (Bognor Regis) – for whom I am consulting on…
Syria: Who to Trust?
I haven’t posted about Syria this week because I’ve been thinking a lot about what to say. In recent weeks I’ve met people who’ve told me that: 1) Assad has to stay because otherwise Syria will end up being controlled by a US-Wahhabi-Zionist alliance, and Christianity will be wiped out in the Middle East – once there is peace, though,…
‘A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer’ . . . and Fascism
I’m home from a weekend in London where, with the help of wonderful friends and a small wheelie suitcase I celebrated the end of chemo by taking a few baby steps back into the world beyond Brighton hospital clinics – and a big breath of freedom before my operation on Dec 6th. Thanks to the success of my chemotherapy cycles,…
Defying Dark Skies: the Eco-Warriors of the West Bank
As promised, here are my photo diaries from my recent week in the West Bank. I made it in to Israel-Palestine safely from Cyprus, though what possessed me to put a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet in my hand luggage, I do not know! Although it is not illegal to visit the West Bank, you have to do so…
Bearing Witness in Lebanon: A Photo Diary Tour
As FB friends know, I’m just back from an incredible two weeks in the Middle East; first in Lebanon, as a member of charity Interpal’s Bear Witness women’s convoy, visiting refugee camps; then the West Bank, where I was exploring the Palestinian eco-resistance to the Israeli occupation. I chose to write about my trip on Facebook partly because I didn’t…
Blind Creations: Lighting the Grow/volution!
As the Greeks vote a resounding NO to austerity, here in the UK disabled activists prepare again to storm Westminster on Wednesday to protest the abolishment of the Independent Living Fund. Everywhere the war on the poor is cutting deep, and people are fighting back. We living in desperate times, and yet also there’s an exciting spirit of defiance…