editorial
Looting, arson and organisation
The riots, and the responses they have elicited (which are depressing both in their mundane predictability and their dystopian surreality), are dominating discussions by left-wing activists up and down the country. We’re not going to re-hash these conversations here; what the events of the last few months have shown us, is that it’s not about us any more. It never was. But the idea that ‘we’ (activists/anarchists/lefties) occupy some privileged vantage point from which we can put the world to rights, with our tried and tested methods and arguments, is more absurd, more irrelevant now, than it ever was.
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crisis
The Mirror Cracks from Side to Side – Of Global Uprisings and Movement in an Age of Austerity»Emma Dowling and Begüm Özden Firat ask how we can learn from the experiences of previous rounds of internationalism to invent forms of organisation that respond to the present crisis.
labour movement
“Unite march to parliament whereas the rank and file plan to meet up with the education march” - Interview with a spark»A rank and file electrician tells us about the plans for November 9th and the ongoing industrial dispute.
Interview
An interview with John Holloway»In this interview with Shift Magazine, John Holloway talks about Open Marxism, the state, rage, and the real democracy movement.
“Real Democracy”: Interview with Michael Hardt
Book Review
Fairy dust for all!»
A review of the FREE ASSOCIATION’s new book ‘Moments of Excess: Movements, Protest and Everyday Life’, and of their book launch event in Manchester.
lifestyle
Give up Lifestylism!»SHIFT editors Lauren Wroe and Josie Hooker introduce our new article series that has a critical look at the dilemmas of an ‘ethical lifestyle’.
climate action
Remember, remember: Climate Camp»
In this article we take a retrospective look at the Camp for Climate Action, and SHIFT’s involvement with it.
religion
Anarchism and British Islamism: putting things in perspective»A response by STEVEN JOHNS of libcom.org to Paul Stott’s article “British Islamism: Towards an Anarchist Response”.
antifa
Fascism, fundamentalism, and the left»
PHIL DICKENS argues that nationalist and Islamist ideologies feed off each, in a way the left has not recognised.
student movement
NUS elections: interview with candidate Mark Bergfeld»Ahead of the National Union of Students elections in April 2011, we publish here an interview with the left-wing candidate Mark Bergfeld.
“I doubt Bergfeld has the strategy to win”, says Patrick Rolfe, Really Open University
“Let’s critically support Mark”, says Jess Bradley, Students for Sensible Drug Policy
