Our defence is not for a piece of land, but for the protection of life’s ability to unfold itself (Nûda, member of the YPJ, the women’s defence units, 237). This is a meticulously researched and critically argued book from an author writing not only about but from within the Kurdish women’s movement. In the West, Dilar Dirik is one of the most prominent and articulate voices on the role of women in the Kurdish struggle for participatory democracy, ecological sustainability, and women’s […]
On a wet and windy night on the 4th January 2024, upto 200 people attended the first Bristol Allotmenteers Resist! public campaign meeting, at St Werburgh's community centre. By 7.05pm it was standing room only. By 7.20pm I was up at the front, with old pal Mike Feingold, the respected local food grower and permaculture teacher. We had 10 minutes max between us, and Mike was going to talk on his 30yrs of allotment experience in Bristol. We'd agreed that I would, quite literally, do '1000 years […]
The Women For Life on Earth march took place in 1982 and as we pass 2022, 40 years later we are drawn back to the work of Monica Sjöö, artist, activist and writer, who continued to hope that the struggle, courage and sacrifices, particularly of women imbued with Her trust in the Goddess would make the difference to our protection of Gaia, our Earth Mother. Monica was a Swedish born visual artist, resident in Bristol and her paintings and writing were foundational to the development of feminist […]
7.00pm, Tuesday 22nd November, Filwood Library, Filwood Broadway, Bristol BS4 1JN The garden-city movement has had a significant impact on the development of Bristol as we know it. It aimed to create new neighbourhoods based on high-quality planning and housing design. This would transform the prospects for their residents by combining the best features of urban and rural life. BRHG member Steve Hunt will survey the influence of garden-suburb style planning upon Bristol’s spatial geography, from […]
Raymond Williams’s novel, The Fight for Manod was first published in 1979. As we know, 1979 was an important year, seemingly a watershed year. In this year Margaret Thatcher was elected, and Ronald Regan launched what was to be his successful presidential campaign. Yet the social forces that pushed them into prominence and the form of capitalism on stilts now commonly known as Neoliberalism didn’t of course suddenly emerge overnight from nowhere. Like deadly toadstools, the mycelium that brought […]
"Being a Letter from Sixteen Working Men of various trades, to the Sixteen Aldermen of Bristol." This impassioned and lucidly argued letter, written in 1871, set out demands for improvements to the quality of life for Bristol’s working people: clean air, parks, bathing places, libraries, a fish market and an end to bridge tolls. Over the subsequent 20 years most of these demands were met. However, 150 years on from that letter we find ourselves fighting to retain some of those historic gains, in […]
Socialist and feminist novelist Angela Carter is one of the most acclaimed late-twentieth-century English writers, famous for short-story collections such as The Bloody Chamber and novels including Nights at the Circus and Wise Children. Angela Carter’s ‘Provincial Bohemia’ takes Carter’s life and work in Bristol (1961-1969) and Bath (1973-1976) as a starting point to explore the artistic, radical and experimental communities that flourished at that time. Newly recorded interviews and other […]
Book review and discussion of Extinction Rebellion: This is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook, ed. by Clare Farrell et al. (London: Penguin, 2019). Question: Who was described as a ‘true feminist green revolutionary’ in October 2019? (answer at the end; no scrolling now…) ‘Run comrade, the old world is behind you!’ went one of the slogans in Paris 1968. This is still true, comrade, and, catastrophically, the old world of predatory capitalism is rearing up in front of us too. […]
Screening time is approximate. Reclaim The Streets: The Film (various, c1998, 50 minutes) Reclaim The Streets was a prominent 1990’s network of collectives that organised mass street parties to transform the urban environment. RTS initially emerged from the road protest movement and sought to liberate spaces from car culture. Large anti-capitalist mobilisations included the takeover of London’s M41 Motorway in 1994, the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism of 1999 and May Day 2000, which saw maypole […]
Screening time is approximate. Who Bombed Judi Bari? (2012, Mary Liz Thomson, 95 minutes) "This feature documentary filled with music, humor, and inspiration is a blueprint for activism in these more than urgent times. The Martin Luther King of the Redwoods, Judi Bari was an Earth First!er, AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations] and IWW labor organizer, radical feminist, world class orator, author of Timber Wars, fiddler and songwriter, fundraiser, mother […]
