This is my latest piece that I've written for the River Valley Seeds of Solidarity substack. I wrote about the current situation in Cuba, the Nuestra America flotilla, and some historical context to their struggle for liberation.
Para Siempre, Por Cuba. https://t.co/1NPu0K7rjE
“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.” -Assata Shakur
Last year, my friend Hasan Piker addressed the Oxford Union. He spoke cogently (https://t.co/UQCKLCjKpH) on the rise of antisemitism, fascism and the dangerous conflation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
This coming Friday, The Econoclasts (that is, Wolfgang Munchau and I) were to host him at a live event at the Kings Cross Town Hall.
Alas, the Starmer government decided to ban Hasan from entering the UK. Why? Without even saying so explicitly, they hinted at Hasan's... antisemitism!
Join the club Hasan - your ban brings back memories of two years ago when I was banned from entering Germany for the hideous crime of organising, alongside German Jews, a conference on the ultra-subversive topic of the 'A Just Peace in the Middle East'.
These days, it seems, you are banned as an antisemite if you oppose the Palestinian genocide and the ideology that drives it.
And, as Freddie tweeted just now, your being silenced leaves those who purport to value free speech above all else utterly unperturbed.
Such are the 'interesting' times we are enduring...