The Ryan Report into the abuse of children in Irish schools run by Roman Catholic religious organisations is a sobering document. Its contents are so shocking that it takes a certain act of will to believe in its findings. Reports of sexual violence of every conceivable kind co-exist with descriptions of systematic or casual brutality […]
In 2001, Chris Carlsson writing in Processed World (the magazine that he helped found), outlined the challenge facing community activists after the Seattle protests:”It is common for radicals in our era to describe easily what they are against, but when it comes to what we are for, a painful silence descends. (A couple of notable […]
Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin books, was in many ways a crucial though unlikely figure in the counter-culture of the sixties, defending D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ from obscenity charges. In this article Horatio Morpurgo, Lane’s grandson, writes a compelling and personal history of Lady Chatterley’s Defendant.
In 1985, while Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul-Haq was still in power, the BBC drama department commissioned dramatist Tariq Ali to write a three part drama on the circumstances behind Zia’s coup in 1977. The resulting three part series, The Leopard and the Fox dramatised the conflict between elected prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Zia […]
One of the most infamous attacks against civilians, during the brief and bloody end-phase of the second world war in Italy, took place on March 24th 1944. The victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre were three-hundred-and-thirty-five Italian men, a fact recognised by all. Less clear, at least in popular memory, have been those ultimately responsible […]
Europe has started to reflect seriously about such issues as knowledge migration and the demographic challenge of a greying population. A number of OECD reports show that in order to maintain its current welfare level, the European Union will soon have to attract a highly educated labour force from elsewhere. For example, OECD Secretary-General Angel […]
The questioning of the role of the public gallery is not a new phenomenon. It is something that has been argued over since its very conception, and the debate is ongoing.
Introduction I record that on July 31, 1383, there died the ill-famed Letta, daughter of Federigo di Pierozzo Sassetti, in the house of Giovanni di Noldo Porcellini, in the Borgo Ogni Santi. She was buried by the friars of the church of Ogni Santi at the hour of vespers. May the devil take her soul, […]
The Inner Life of Conflict It is customary to think of the Cold War as having been a post–World War II phenomenon, tersely strung between Stalin and Gorbachev. Whilst that may be so within a narrowly–defined system boundary, it is psychologically naive. To appreciate the wider and deeper perspective, we must inform our discourse with […]
In July of 1982, just a month after the discovery of his body – hanging from some scaffolding under Blackfriars bridge – a London inquest ruled that Italian Banker Roberto Calvi had committed suicide. It was a verdict that raised eyebrows in England, and provoked disbelief in Italy. Calvi, known as ‘God’s Banker’ because of […]
