Author: Kay Green
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A people without a land (part one)

This is about an event I went to around three weeks ago. I didn’t get around to publishing it at the time but now, seeing the exclamations and arguments around social media after the events of the last few days, I thought I’d better get on with it, but with a message from ‘Breaking the…
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A people without a land (part two)

Social media post this week from Breaking the Silence… This article is here because I went to an event about the Shu’fat Community Centre, but didn’t get around to publishing my account of it before the latest outbreak of horrors in Israel/Palestine. If you want to read my original post (there’s a link at the…
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Winchester Writers’ Conference and the End of the World

How long ago was it? It feels like a hundred years, and just last year. Hang on, Terry Pratchett gave the plenary speech … When did he die? I picked up a book in the library and it reminded me of something important. It was … Okay … it was well over a decade ago.…
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Beyond political despair

Seeding despair in the enemy is a classic ploy. Don’t fall for it. We failed to change the Labour Party from within, but those of us who are now on the outside can do what we like – the problem is, many aren’t sure what to do. They say they feel “politically homeless”, they say…
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Whodunnit?

Don’t ask me which women’s issue this article is about… I have written elsewhere about a “controversial” meeting that happened in my town a few weeks ago. It shouldn’t have been controversial beyond the room it took place in. If political groups want to talk to people with a range of views, whether they agree…
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No, this is the best feminist book … no, THIS is… No, wait…

We were sitting around cabaret tables, at the end of the main conference day. In front of us, a promising array of glasses and cutlery and other shiny things. At the top of the room, on the other side of an expanse of empty carpet that would no doubt soon be full of activity, long…
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Activists’ dilemma

Isolated? thwarted? Fed up of people saying ‘but who can we vote for?’ If you’re an activist, I bet this has happened to you: a service-providing organization that has money and clout starts doing something destructive in the community. You can’t find a political party that’s willing to deal with it but, as a seasoned…
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How to use all that anger wisely

I went to a really interesting talk that a lot of people didn’t want me to go to last month. It was laid on by the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Apparently, even some members of their own organization had their doubts about it. It’s because the speaker was David Miller, who seems to have the…
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All human life

All human life on the planet is born of woman – Adrienne Rich That quote introduces the editor’s column in the latest edition of The Radical Notion which I intended to lose myself in, but people just kept lending me books, and suggesting I read books, some of which were immediately irresistible and so the…
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What this government wants

Our town has a tradition that we know goes back 500 years, but it probably goes back way longer than that. The same tradition that so many coastal towns, especially small-boat fishing towns have. When people are lost at sea, we gather on the beach to send them a final salute, to just stand still,…