Andrew Blackman portrait

Ten years ago: Why I Protest

This post is part of a series of stories and articles I wrote exactly ten years ago, on this day in 2003. Here I talk about my reasons for protesting against the Iraq war, which had just started at that…

RIP Brian Haw

Was saddened this week to hear of the death of peace activist Brian Haw. There are not too many people in these times who live completely honest lives. We may have our opinions about the way we’d like things to…

William Cuffay, Black Chartist

Just read an interesting pamphlet called “The Story of William Cuffay, Black Chartist.” It’s quite a story. His grandfather was an African, sold into slavery in St Kitts, where his father was born a slave. Somehow he ended up being…

Enough! Enough!

Thanks to Contemporary Anarchist for drawing my attention to this protest against the occupation of Palestine being organised by a coalition called “Enough! Enough!“.   London, June 9th 2007, 1:30, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Be there or be apathetic.

The Vocabulary of Protest

Some day I’m going to compile a list of all the adjectives used by journalists writing about protesters. Sometimes protesters are irresponsible, obstructive or stubborn, other times they are aggressive or violent, and usually the word anarchist crops up sooner…