Kester Brewin

  Interesting video here showing Slavoj Zizek at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York. His speech can be read in full here, but what I love about the video is that, for some technological reason no doubt, he cannot himself speak. The crowd around him who can hear directly have to shout out [...]

The media coverage in the UK has been limited, but I think the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest is interesting, and I hope it turns out to be significant. There was comment on BBC radio the other morning suggesting variously that it was the Democratic equivalent of the Republican ‘Tea Party’ movement  - though I’m not [...]

It’s Black History Month again, a festival I have expressed some concerns about in the past – not because I don’t think Black history should be celebrated and represented, but because giving it a ‘special’ place in a particular month may actually serve to reduce its representation, as we can compartmentalise it, rather than integrate [...]

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, and in the last few days how it might relate to the discussion of whether ‘newness’ is possible. This isn’t meant as an holistic critique or discussion of the events all those years ago, instead I’ve been drawn to thinking about the [...]

I’ve been away for a couple of days, so haven’t posted again on the aftermath of the night of looting that gripped various locations in London, and then spread to other cities in the UK. But in the mean time I’ve faced some criticism for my previous post for a) appearing to back away from [...]

  It’s perhaps too soon to work out what the hell really happened in London last night, or why. I stayed up til 2am following the news and the Twitter feeds, and I have to say it was one of the saddest nights I’ve ever spent in the capital. There has already been some debate [...]

Fuckers Are you the same, that yank dogs with choke leashes, and smash shops? Tight necks, chain nooses and restricted passage-ways: the dispossessed will tonight by force, take possession of dogs and televisions women and matches and, for a moment, burn brightly before waking, smouldering with no cause to kick the ashes of what time [...]

As the US battles with itself over the debt crisis, and Europe struggles to get to grips with economically weaker nations threatening the Euro, I’ve been mulling over a conversation I had with Tom Sine and another significant leader who’ll I’ll call B at Wild Goose a month or so ago (I won’t name him, [...]

I’ve resisted commenting too quickly on the tragedy that’s unfolded in Norway. I think sometimes we need to hold back from immediately pushing views into a space that should simply be reserved for grief and self-examination. But as the nation of Norway itself begins to process what’s happened, I wanted to offer a couple of [...]

Been quiet here with end of term busyness and stuff, but as we come to the first Sunday in… well, around 150 years, where there’s not been a News of the World to buy, I wanted to offer some reflections on the phone-hacking scandal. It’s pretty much dominated the UK news for weeks now, and [...]