“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s (sic) original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Oscar Wilde. In our turbulent times, in the light of ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally, the right to protest must be protected more than ever. The […]
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Truth Matters: “Beauty is truth– truth beauty,”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” These exquisite lines come at the end of “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” by John Keats, their circularity and essence encompassing moral, ethical and artistic philosophies to frame, inform and infuse our lives. Art is often […]
Wars Against Women
“The world is waging war on women,” said Pragna Patel many years ago, at that time director of Southall Black Sisters. Her words were judicious. As time has passed, as more and more evidence across the globe has been gathered, the numerous ways in which women are restricted, subjugated and murdered have come to […]
‘…something evil this way comes’
“The bad thing of war is, that it makes more evil people than it can take away,” Immanuel Kant ‘Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind…’ This immortal phrase from the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, referring to the horrors […]
‘Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins’
War, famine, genocide, and hotly contested elections. We think of Orwell’s novel 1984 as presaging a dystopian future, however it’s this year of 2024 which is delivering horror, unconscionable suffering, and threats from the authoritarians of the far-right. A bleak scenario, only faintly ameliorated by the election results in Britain and France. Whilst Gaza is […]
July 4th – Vote Transformation
The UK is one of Europe’s most economically unequal countries. In the 2024 World Happiness Report the UK is ranked at number 20, a drop from the previous year where it was at number 19. This year’s ranking places the UK lower than Lithuania and Czechia, with the bleak finding that in the UK, […]
1970s British-Asian Feminism
The following article on the first British-Asian feminist group, was written as background material for Tate Britain’s ‘Women in Revolt’ exhibition tour to Edinburgh (25/5/24 – 26/1/2025) and Manchester (7/3/2025 – 1/6/25). We’re making this article available, as a contribution to the history of British-Asian feminism. Additionally, we would like to reference the book ‘Finding […]
Terror and Territory
Perhaps I was naïve, believing in goodness, kindness, the essential decency and fairness of humanity and its ability to create great works of art, engage with issues of justice and morality, develop science and medicine, practise love and sacrifice, and being open to feelings of transcendence in the presence of truth and beauty. Israel’s war […]