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
Latest editorial
Witnessing the BBC’s omissions on Fallujah
IAN SINCLAIR reveals how the mainstream media is downplaying US-British crimes in Iraq
US marines bombard Fallujah in 2004
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
“THE chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying, it is omission or de-emphasis of important data,” US historian Howard Zinn says in You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, the 2004 documentary about his life.
A good example of this truism is a recent episode of Witness History on the BBC World Service, with US Colonel Andrew Milburn recounting his time fighting in what BBC presenter Alex Last calls “the battle for Fallujah” in Iraq.
In the short radio piece — each segment of Witness History is just nine minutes long — Last provides some context for listeners: with the 2003 US-British invasion and subsequent occupation creating significant opposition, the city of Fallujah, in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, had become an insurgency stronghold.
Similar stories
PATRICK CHURA reflects on the mass murder of civilians in wartime and his own visit, 10 years ago, to My Lai where US soldiers slaughtered over 500 men, women, children and infants
Trump threatens war and punitive tariffs to recapture Iranian resources – just as in 1953, when the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and US corporations immediately seized 40% of the oil, says SEVIM DAGDELEN
As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion