by The Norwich Radical group

This previous 12 months was attempting in numerous methods than the primary two of this new decade, however no much less keenly felt for that. The pandemic – not over, not but, most likely not for a very long time – has whittled down everybody’s immune programs, persistence, well-being and welfare. It has additionally been exploited as a method to go extra authoritarian insurance policies into impact, within the UK and elsewhere.

In our nation alone, as our co-editor Rowan Gavin wrote in July, “unelected and corrupt powers proceed to wield violence within the title of policing, and proceed to roam our streets [as they] regurgitate bigotries that had been as soon as solely voiced in public by fundamentalists and neo-fascists.” The value of dwelling, coupled with inflation and profit-mongering, has meant a chilly, hungry winter for a lot of.

And but, Rowan identified, we “return each time to the communities of those that resist these merciless forces, right now and the following day and the day after.” We return to organise the place we are able to, discover causes to have fun after we can, and endeavour to have as a lot enjoyable as we are able to alongside the way in which.

It might appear to have develop into a chorus, one vulnerable to being emptied of that means by its repetition. But like each nice lyric there’s fact in it, a palpable fact that bears returning to each time: we’re higher, and we’re stronger, after we are united. Be it unions, chosen households, bubbles, polycules, social circles, tribes of two or extra; collectively, we’re a power to be reckoned with. Together, we are able to resist towards the solipsism of this age of the autumn of capitalism.

A youthful technology of activists, of political movers, of audio system and writers and thinkers are rising up by means of the haze of biased media and get together back-patting. Local activism and mutual help stay a patch to a collapsed infrastructure, and it’s one we apply with pleasure, with anger, and with vitality. We preserve ourselves secure, and blissful, and wholesome, collectively. Each in line with their wants, every in line with their means, as was and is and might be. Together.

The fantasy of particular person duty – for the setting, for politics, for societal change – was cooked up by firms and administrative powers. United is how we stand an opportunity, so united we will stand, and maintain accountable these actually liable for these darkish days, these distinctive instances, this fixed, debilitating disaster.

They have names and addresses, as an ideal singer as soon as stated. And we’re many.


TOP 10 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN 2022

#10 THE GIRL AND THE DRAGON, BY SUITCASE STORYTELLING COMPANY – REVIEW

The Suitcase Storytelling Company are magicians. There is not any different strategy to describe them. On a current moist and mizzly Sunday afternoon my accomplice and I took his eight-year-old daughter to a close-by neighborhood theatre, anticipating to fidget our manner by means of being mildly entertained, however hoping his daughter would benefit from the present. The set consisted of a display painted with a rudimentary set of prepare tracks set towards mountains within the background. In the foreground, a painted digital signal indicated we might be transported onto a railway station platform as quickly because the present started. A tannoy announcement repeatedly introduced that the prepare was delayed, earlier than politely asking passengers to maintain their umbrellas subsequent to them and report any sightings of dragons to coach workers.

#9 NORWICH DEFENDS DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR – DISPATCHES FROM THE ANTIFASCIST COUNTER-PROTEST

In the method of placing collectively our reporting on the far-right presence and pro-LGBTQIA+ counter-protest at Storytime with Auntie Titania in Norwich final Wednesday, we acquired a lot of accounts from individuals who attended the counter-protest. We weren’t capable of reproduce all of these accounts in our authentic article, however we consider that they provide priceless perception into the occasions in query, the power of LGBTQIA+ solidarity in Norwich, and the teachings that may be taken ahead from this motion. This article reproduces extra of the content material of these accounts, with small edits in locations for readability and to take care of anonymity.

#8 ‘REAL INTIMACY’ – THE NEUTRINOS LIVE

Sometimes you go to a gig not fairly realizing what to anticipate. I came upon I’d be masking The Neutrinos’ current double-set Norwich Arts Centre present for the Norwich Radical at comparatively brief discover, and selected a whim to perpetuate my ignorance of the band’s work till I might hear it reside. What I found, one December Saturday night in that lovely transformed church corridor, was all of the extra pleasant for my lack of expectation – in reality, I’m undecided that any quantity of pre-listening might have fairly ready me for the expertise of this present.

#7 THE GREAT COPYRIGHT SCAM

Consider this instance: Marvel Comics publishes Spider-Man, Sony makes a Spider-Man movie or videogame, and your native queer fan-artist sells an artwork zine or print impressed by that movie. There is a value related to every of this stuff: the floppy or commerce collected comedian; a cinema ticket or streaming subscription; the artwork print itself. But, there isn’t a moral consumption. ‘Illegally’ downloading or streaming the movie, torrenting or discovering a internet hosting website for the comedian, or pirating the zine are all the identical act: you’re overcoming the financial gatekeeping of artwork. With one exception: when you ‘steal’ from Marvel, Sony or every other megacorp you may even be performing some good (with reservations); when you do it to an artist who’s attempting to pay their payments, you’re an asshole.

#6 SCROUNGE, BY AMIE M MARIE – REVIEW

Shortly after the 2016 amendments to the evaluation of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), a cartoon scolding the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) started doing the rounds on social media. In it, a determine sits behind a desk declaring: “If they drown, they want PIP. If they float, they weren’t sick.” while a lady is dragged out of the workplace by her hair. Accompanied by the caption “Conservatives Disability Policy”, the illustration caught numerous on-line consideration for this comparability of the DWP’s practices to these of the elementally evil Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. Some discovered it an absurdly distasteful comparability; others deemed it a justified piece of satirical exaggeration. But as Amie M Marie deftly exposes in her new play Scrounge, the cartoon was barely hyperbolic in its analogy.


#5 OUR SUBVERSIVE VOICE: 400 YEARS OF PROTEST SONGS

Last 12 months, two-tone legends The Specials launched an album entitled ‘Protest Songs 1924-2012’. It featured covers of tracks by Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, Big Bill Broonzy and different legends of protest music – however not one track penned by a British individual, regardless of the band’s Coventry origins. This, UEA Professor John Street tells me, was a part of the impetus behind the undertaking Our Subversive Voice: The History and Politics of the English Protest Song.

#4 THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN 2022: A CROSSROADS FOR EUROPE’S ROMA

Europe stands at a vital juncture; because the pandemic enters its third 12 months with out an apparent finish in sight, the far-right attracts ever nearer to the centres of energy throughout the continent, and the very existence of the European Union as we all know it faces renewed threats from each East and West of the bloc. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to threaten new emergency measures, lockdowns, and college closures in nations throughout Europe. The influence of those measures could be keenly felt by a weak Romani inhabitants, already beleaguered by police violence, unlawful quarantines, and distance studying which denies their youngsters an training. The risk from the far-right, nonetheless – already steadily rising over the past decade inside European politics – could have a number of alternatives to maneuver even nearer to the hallways of energy this 12 months, with probably dire penalties for the continent’s largest and most marginalised ethnic minority group. In the midst of what might show to be a tumultuous 12 months for European politics, Europe’s 12 million sturdy inhabitants of Romani folks stand to lose out greater than most if the political pendulum swings the mistaken manner.

#3 WE ARE NOT YOUR BOGEYMEN – NORWICH RESISTS THE FAR-RIGHT IN SOLIDARITY WITH DRAG STORYTIME

Following the anti-LGBT protest exterior a Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) occasion in North Walsham library on 2nd August, a brand new occasion, titled ‘Storytime with Auntie Titania’ and that includes native drag artist Titania Trust, was scheduled for August seventeenth on the Millennium Library, Norwich. A counter-protest gathered exterior the library on Wednesday forward of the occasion to defend the nationwide DQSH initiative and shield attendees from the presence of far-right protestors.

#2 NORTH MACEDONIA’S SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST ROMA

On Saturday 3rd July 2021, Romani man Nevzat Jasharov (pictured above) marched by means of the streets of Skopje, North Macedonia together with his fellow Romani residents towards racialised police brutality. The protest was in response to the demise of a Czech Romani man, Stanislav Tomas, who died after police intervention within the Czech city of Teplice. Video footage of the incident confirmed a police officer kneeling on the again of Stanislav’s neck; scenes disturbingly harking back to the police killing of Black American George Floyd in June 2020.

#1 ‘BURN THE WITCH’: AN OVER-DUE DEFENCE OF AMBER HEARD IN A MANIACALLY MISOGYNISTIC MEDIA

It is troublesome to not be polarised on any given subject within the explosively divisive local weather we live by means of. However, rising from the sensationalism is an irrefutable goal fact within the high-profile trial, the place megastar Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife, up-and-coming actress Amber Heard, for $50 million over editorial defamation: a transparent instance of inherent misogyny of the media. Heard penned her self-professed subjective piece in The Washington Post, supportively discussing a ‘Transformative Moment for Women’ in the course of the peak of the #MeToo marketing campaign. The article, which was learn out in the course of the trial as a part of Heard’s opening assertion, was intelligently and boldly written, focussing on the actress’ harrowing expertise of talking out as feminine sufferer of home violence and the progressive change throughout the business that she needs to see. Further to this, there was no point out of Johnny Depp particularly or any of the non-public accounts, at present being spewed out in public, resulting from his bringing her to courtroom.


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