Socialist Review issue

February 2016 #410

Review cover
Open the borders, let them in

News

by Sally Campbell
Hate crime rose a staggering 18 percent in the year to October, with 83 percent of the increase fuelled by racist incidents. Official Home Office...
by Simon Assaf
On the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring revolutions the rumblings of discontent continue to cause panic in the regimes. Arab rulers remain...
by Simon Guy
Billionaire Donald Trump has pulled the debate for the US Republican presidential nomination so far to the right that we saw the spectacle of left-...

Features

Feature
Christine Buchholz

The refugee crisis continues, and so does our rulers' racist offensive. Christine Buchholz explains the situation in Germany since the Cologne attacks.

Feature
Raya Ziyaei

In January activists from anti-racist group We Are Wakefield travelled to Dunkirk on the north coast of France to take solidarity to the refugee camp. Raya Ziyaei tells the story of their journey...

Feature
Michael Bradley

The low level of industrial struggle in Britain today is frustratingly at odds with the political radicalisation represented by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Michael Bradley sets...

Feature
Noel Halifax

Knighted by the British crown for his work in Africa and later executed for high treason for his work in Ireland, Roger Casement was a unique figure. Noel Halifax tells the story of this pioneer...

Feature
Alex Callinicos

Alex Callinicos looks back with warm memories, not only at the life of Ellen Meiksins Wood, who died last month, but on her early identification of, and critique of, 'Post Marxism' and her...

Feature
Susan Rosenthal

Continuing a strand of debate, Canadian socialist Susan Rosenthal argues that we must look to social rather than individual solution to mental ill health.

Opinion

Opinion
by John Newsinger
Rupert Murdoch has emerged virtually unscathed from the phone hacking scandal, which some naive optimists hoped might actually bring his empire down. This much has been clear for some time, but it...
Opinion
by Barry Conway
Over at the privileged cloisters of Oxford University there’s a bit of bother over the statue of Cecil Rhodes. On one side are those who want it removed as an icon of racism and oppression, and on...
Opinion
by Joseph Choonara

The junior doctors' strikes raise questions about how socialists should define the working class.

Opinion
by Bob Fotheringham

The Corbyn effect has not been able to turn around the Labour Party's disastrous general election result in Scotland. Bob Fotheringham outlines the obstacles facing Labour in the Holyrood...

Obituaries

by David Gilchrist
Salvador Dali is alleged to have proclaimed, when asked if he took drugs, “I am drugs!” And so, for some of us in the mid-1970s, David Bowie was music. Bowie was a glamorous break with a music...

Letters

by John Newsinger
Just one point with regard to Shaun Doherty’s excellent article, “On Corbyn’s Side for the Wider Left” in last month’s SR. His criticism of Green MP Caroline Lucas was unfair. On 7 January she...
by Terry Sullivan
Mark O’Brien’s article on Freud and sexuality (“Freud, Sex and the Socialist Imagination”, December SR) is both unclear and wrong. Consider a question he poses: "Is our mature sexual...
by Kelly Foster
The photo accompanying the article on the Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship (January SR) showing two black men in front of grafitti saying “KBW” was wrongly captioned as being taken in...

Reviews

Books
by Sheila McGregor

Clara Zetkin’s life saw some of the most momentous events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

She was a leading member of the German Socialist Party until the outbreak of the First...

Books
by Tony Phillips

1956 was a year of change across the world. The apparently stable international order imposed by the victorious powers at the end of the Second World War was challenged by a series of dramatic...

Books
by Alan Kenny

“I kill a man and most people forgive me. However, I love a man and many say this makes me an evil person.” These are the words of world boxing champion Emile Griffith. A Man’s World tells the...

Books
by John Newsinger

An Israeli security company, International Security and Defence Systems (ISDS) — with the very active support of the Israeli government — was brought in to advise the Brazilian government on...

Books
by Mark Farmer

This is a work written by academics. They spell out their own attitude to UKIP in the introduction as “refusing to condemn without first consulting the evidence”. They have clearly been given...

Books
by Ken Olende

Many vital leaders through 200 years of struggle against racism, imperialism and capitalism are forgotten, or appear simply as footnotes. So it’s always a pleasure to be reminded of their...

Books
by Ruairi O'Neill

Kieran Allen’s new book is an essential and unparalleled joy to read. I grew up in Derry during the troubles, witnessed the signing of the Good Friday agreement, and watched the rise and fall of...

Books
by Dermot Smyth

This book addresses many popular misconceptions about money and debt. Ninety seven percent of money that circulates within the economy has not actually been created by the state, but by private...

Film
by Bob Light

If you trace the so-called principles of the Labour MPs who voted to bomb Iraq — and who will no doubt soon vote to renew Trident — their slug-trail invariably leads to Washington. Right-wing...

Art / Exhibitions
by Frances Newman

Lee Miller, the iconic woman who modelled for some of Man Ray’s most evocative images, was far more than an object of beauty. This photographic exhibition is testament to that.

It tells...

Art / Exhibitions
by Julie Webster

This exhibition of work by artists in former Yugoslavia has been curated by Lina Džuverović.

It brings together over 30 leading artists and groups from the “golden years” of the Socialist...

Film
by Adam Cochrane

Welcome to Leith is a feature-length documentary which chronicles the struggle of the residents of Leith, North Dakota, to rid the town of a white supremacist.

Leith is a tiny, quiet town...

Film
by Kate Hurford

Mavis! is an enjoyable, feel-good documentary that depicts the successful and ongoing career of soul and gospel singer Mavis Staples. The documentary follows Staples as she tours and reminisces...

Film
by Elaheh Rostami-Povey

Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director, has made many films, challenging class, gender and ethnicity inequalities in Iran. He has been threatened with imprisonment and has been banned from travelling...

Music
by Stuart Curlett

If you haven’t yet been exposed to Fat White Family, they are a South London six-piece that have gained prominence in the last two or three years, mainly through their energetic (and very, very...