ZYGMUNT BAUMAN — My appreciation, and thanks
It’s exactly a year since Zygmunt died. I wrote this soon afterwards but now is the time to circulate it. He had such a big impact on me and I miss him. So much worse for his family. ZYGMUNT BAUMAN (1925-2017): BEING HUMAN How hard it is to write about an exceedingly famous person you’ve known […]
The Caribbean Carnival — a site for celebratory politics
I’ve loved the Caribbean carnival in Leeds since 1972. Much of my energy in 2017 was taken up with engaging ever more deeply with this extraordinary form of art and politics: Enjoying and photographing the Trinidad carnival in Port of Spain, and participating in its extraordinary J’Ouvert parade With Guy Farrar and Emily Zobel Marshall. […]
Five global challenges: how might Hizmet respond?
Hizmet, the social movement inspired by the neo-Sufi thinker Fetullah Gülen, is currently being dismembered by the autocratic president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He accuses Gülen of ordering a coup attempt on 15th July 2016, saying it was was led by Hizmet members in the army. This is strenuously denied by Gülen and Hizmet, […]
Opposing terrorism
I wrote this article with Dr Rumana Hashem, prompted both by the death threats issued against Rumana, a Bangladeshi-born Muslim academic at a British University, and the disagreement I had earlier (supported by Rumana and other feminists) with British academics who support the organisation called Cage. It forms part of my ongoing investigations into Islamism, […]