Religion & politics

Yes, the day will come

Interesting, isn’t it, that the same thought is often conveyed in different languages, by oppressed people living through difficult times, across the world. Battling Apartheid, the South African poet, Mongane Wally Serote, put it most elegantly: It is a dry white season dark leaves don’t last, their brief lives dry out and with a broken heart they dive down gently headed for the earth not even bleeding. it is a dry white season brother… indeed, it is a dry white season, but seasons come to pass. The Irish have Tiocfaidh ár lá (Our day will come). Strange And Arash Azizi, who has written a...

Unwell women

Elinor Cleghorn , author of Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World , reflects on witch trials, birth control and fainting couches. Elinor spoke to Justine Canady. In your book you tell the story of Anne Greene, who had a stillbirth and was put on trial in 1650 for “Destroying and Murdering Bastard Children”. This would have been during the most intense stages of the witch trials. How should feminists understand this historical period? The crossover between feminist history and the feminist health movement in the 1970s really reinvigorated attention around the...

Capitalism, religion, and reaction

Capitalism, wrote Marx in the Communist Manifesto, had “drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour… in the icy water of egotistical calculation”, but it has also “compelled [us] to face with sober sense [our] real conditions of life and our relations with our kind”. Before capitalism and the sciences which arose with it, religion dominated human discourse. People had little possibility of understanding or affecting the mysteries and disasters around them, so (as the origins of the word disaster exemplify: bad stars) filled in with stories of the malice or benevolence of spirits...

The cross in the White House and the flag in the sanctuary

Bradley Onishi’s book Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — and What Comes Next is an attempt to trace back from the 6 January 2021 riot at the Capitol the influence of White Christian Nationalism (WCN) and see how it has become, according to Onishi, a core part of the Trump-MAGA movement. He concludes that 6 January will not be the last attempt at a coordinated, violent insurrection against democracy. He also tells his personal story about how he became a born-again Evangelical in Orange County, California, a teenage zealot in the Rose Drive Friends Church...

Snares in Poland after election

There is much to agree with in Ann Nukeman’s article on the Polish election ( Solidarity 687 ). I would like to add some further detail on the mobilisation of pro-choice voters and a more critical assessment of Lewica, the main left-wing electoral alliance. The All-Poland Women’s Strike, the organisation that provided the most prominent leadership in the 2020-21 mass protests against the near-total abortion ban, supplied a website where people could enter their postcode to see a list of politicians in red who do not support abortion. However, Women’s Strike’s role was minimal and politically...

Iran: another woman killed by hijab police

On 1 October a 16 year-old school student, Armita Garavand, was attacked by officers from Iran’s notorious “morality police” as she entered a Tehran metro station with two friends. Armita was accused of not wearing the mandatory hijab. She was badly injured during the assault and has since died from her injuries. The Iranian state, recognising the similarity between this attack and the murder by the morality police, in September 2022, of Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, has done everything possible to restrict access to information about the attack on Armita Garavand...

Israeli activists call for a "return to a politics based on humanistic and universal principles"

Picture shows a protest organised by Standing Together, many of whose leaders have signed the statement. In the photo, Uri Weltmann, one of Standing Together's Jewish leaders, holds the megaphone for Ghadir Hani, one of Standing Together's Palestinian leaders. Both have signed the statement. This statement was co-signed by dozens of Israeli peace activists, mostly Israeli Jews but including some Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is reposted from the website of Yachad, here . We, Israel-based academics, thought leaders and progressive activists committed to peace, equality, justice, and human...

All the Rage 2023: A socialist feminist dayschool

Internationally the right's culture war is gaining ground, attacking LGBTQ people, in particular the trans community, rallying against immigration, and restricting reproductive freedoms. Working class women are at the sharp end of this assault and at the forefront of fighting back. Join us at for a day of workshops and talks to discuss where we stand and build a movement that can turn the tide. 10am-6pm + after-party until late. Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road London E1 5QJ Free childcare & London crash space on request SESSIONS (click on links for session details): • Opening Plenary...

Iranian workers protests spread

On 27 September 17 workers employed by the Iranian company, the National Steel Group, were sentenced to prison and flogging. The trial took place in the southern city of Ahvaz. The workers were charged with, “disrupting public order by inciting disturbance and controversy” and their “crime” was to demand wage increases, and that the company implements the very basic protections provided by Iran’s employment law. The workers can avoid three-month prison terms if they pay fines of 2.5 million tomans (about £40). The fine will be difficult to pay as the working-class has been the main victim of...

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