Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Western foreign policy and the dangerous ignorance gap
The enormous distance between the reality of Western foreign policy and the Western public’s understanding of what their governments do in their name is dangerous, writes IAN SINCLAIR
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
WHILE the mainstream media’s self-serving obsession with so-called fake news and Russian interference in elections looks set to continue for a long time, a far more serious problem with Western journalism is conveniently ignored.
This could be called the dangerous ignorance gap of Western foreign policy, the often huge gulf between the reality of what the US and Britain do in the Middle East — painfully understood by the populations on the receiving end of Western interference — and the woeful level of awareness the US and British general public and commentariat have about these interventions.
The aggressive and illegal 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq is a key site in understanding this divergence.
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