The UK government proudly calls the aim of its immigration policy to be the creation of a "hostile environment," while refugees drown in the Mediterranean and Britain votes to leave the EU against claims that "swarms"of migrants are entering Britain. Meanwhile, study after study confirms that immigration is not damaging the UK's economy, nor putting a strain on public services, but immigration is blamed for all of Britain's ills. Yet concerns about immigration are deemed "legitimate" across the political spectrum, with few exceptions. How did we get here?
Maya Goodfellow offers a compelling answer. Through interviews with leading policy-makers, asylum seekers, and immigration lawyers, Goodfellow illuminates the dark underbelly of contemporary immigration policies. A nuanced analysis of the UK's immigration policy from the 1960s onwards, Hostile Environment links immigration policy and the rhetoric of both Labour and Tory governments to the UK's colonial past and its imperialist present. Goodfellow shows that distinct forms of racism and dehumanisation directly resulted from immigration policy, and reminds us of the human cost of concessions to anti-immigration politics.
In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.
In this important collection of interviews with the acclaimed radio journalist David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 world.
Barsamian has a unique rapport with Chomsky - having conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with him than any other journalist - and here explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed: the 2004 presidential campaign and election; the future of Social Security; the increasing threat of global warming; and new dangers presented by the United States' ever-deepening entanglement in Iraq.
The result is an illuminating dialogue with one of the world's leading thinkers - and a startling picture of the turbulent world in which we live.
After being forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange is now in a high security prison in London where he faces extradition to the United States and imprisonment for the rest of his life.
The charges Assange faces are a major threat to press freedom. James Goodale, who represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, commented: “The charge against Assange for ‘conspiring’ with a source is the most dangerous I can think of with respect to the First Amendment in all my years representing media organizations”.
It is critical now to build support for Assange and prevent his delivery into the hands of the Trump administration. That is the urgent purpose of this book. A wide range of distinguished contributors, many of them in original pieces, here set out the story of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, the importance of their work, and the dangers for us all in the persecution they face. In Defense of Julian Assange is a vivid, vital intervention into one of the most important political issues of our day.
In this chronicle of political awakening and queer solidarity, the activist and novelist Sarah Schulman describes her dawning consciousness of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Invited to Israel to give the keynote address at an LGBT studies conference at Tel Aviv University, Schulman declines, joining other artists and academics honoring the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Anti-occupation activists in the United States, Canada, Israel, and Palestine come together to help organize an alternative solidarity visit for the American activist. Schulman takes us to an anarchist, vegan café in Tel Aviv, where she meets anti-occupation queer Israelis, and through border checkpoints into the West Bank, where queer Palestinian activists welcome her into their spaces for conversations that will change the course of her life. She describes the dusty roads through the West Bank, where Palestinians are cut off from water and subjected to endless restrictions while Israeli settler neighborhoods have full freedoms and resources. As Schulman learns more, she questions the contradiction between Israel's investment in presenting itself as gay friendly—financially sponsoring gay film festivals and parades—and its denial of the rights of Palestinians. At the same time, she talks with straight Palestinian activists about their position in relation to homosexuality and gay rights in Palestine and internationally. Back in the United States, Schulman draws on her extensive activist experience to organize a speaking tour for some of the Palestinian queer leaders whom she had met and trusted. Dubbed "Al-Tour," it takes the activists to LGBT community centers, conferences, and universities throughout the United States. Its success solidifies her commitment to working to end Israel's occupation of Palestine, and it kindles her larger hope that a new "queer international" will emerge and join other movements demanding human rights across the globe.
Left Cultures will delve deep into the left’s cultural past to discuss gems of storytelling within film, literature, music, art and poetry. Culture which has influenced and inspired an eclectic bunch of comrades to continue in this tradition by creating new cultural endeavours on the left today. Colliding together the past and present to celebrate the power and rich diversity of storytelling on the left with personal accounts, beautifully illustrated throughout.
Contains the speech of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in which she tells her story of surviving an attack by the Taliban for defending girls’ rights to education and how she continues to fight for these rights today.
'A biography of the Black Muslim who became a leader of a movement to unite black people throughout the world.'