EDITORs Michael Calderbank, Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Emma Hughes, James O’Nions, Hilary Wainwright SUBEDITOR Steve Platt PRODUCTION EDITOR Tom Walker DESIGN & PRODUCTION Tom Lynton Website editor Andy Bowman Commissioning editors Tim Hunt, Siobhan McGuirk Environment editor Oscar Reyes Latin America editor Pablo Navarrete Europe corespondent Leigh Phillips Political corespondent Alex Nunns Activision editor Isabel Parrott WRITERS Kevin Blowe, Naimi Bouteldja, Nick Buxton, Sue Branford, Matthew Carr, Lena de Casparis, Katie Coyne, Mihail Dafydd Evans, Nick Dearden, Andrea D’Cruz, Kate Ferguson, Gemma Galdon Clavell, Jan Goodey, Ben Hayes, Keith Hayman, Stuart Hodkinson, Mathew Little, Grace Livingstone, Vittorio Longhi, Enzo Mangini, Donald Morrison, Roz Paterson, Laurie Penny, Mark Perryman, Jon Robins, Angela Saini, Chris Sands, Lorna Stephenson, Sally Tallant, Graham Usher, Derek Wall, Jonathon Wright TRANSLATORS Una Hamilton, Pablo Navarrete, Ilaria Perlini PICTURE RESEARCH Louise Emily Thomas VISUALS Andrzej Krauze, Tim Sanders PUBLISHER Fiona Osler fiona@redpepper.org.uk advertising Siobhan McGuirk ads@redpepper.org.uk

Office MANAGER Ian Gollan bokkeper Matt Barker acounts Bob Tydeman SUBSCRIPTION SALES Packpost 01296 489 550, office@redpepper.org.uk ADVISERS Anthony Arblaster, David Beetham, Huw Benyon, Roy Bhaskar, Victoria Brittain, Sue Bowen, Tony Bunyan, Louise Christian, Tony Cook, Jeremy Corbyn MP, James Curran, Larry Elliot, Diane Elson, Max Farrar, Trevor Griffiths, Barbara Gunnell, Nigel Harris, Billy Hayes, Pete Jenner, Penny Kemp, Bruce Kent, Hugh Kerr, Richard Kuper, Michael Kustow, Colin Leys, Su Maddock, Michael Mansfield QC, Martin McIvor, Simon Mohun, Sheila Rowbotham, Denise Searle, Amanda Sebestyen, Jane Shallice, Aleks Sierz, Kate Soper, Jonathan Steele, Dave Timms, Guy Vincent, Gary Younge, Stuart Weir THANKS TO Nishma Doshi, Siobhan Fahey, Chris Honeywell, Nigel Varley, Joe Ruffell, Kirsten Forkert, Demelza Jones, Lauren Smith

RED PEPPER 1b Waterlow Road, London N19 5NJ tel 020 7281 7024, fax 020 7263 9345 office@redpepper.org.uk www.redpepper.org.uk ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES UK £29 (students, retired, low wage, unemployed £24), Europe £35, rest of the world £40, institutions £50

Red Pepper is a member of INK, the independent News Collective, trade association of the UK alternative press www.ink.uk.com

Red Pepper is published by Socialist Newspaper (Publications) Ltd (Reg. No. 02644973, VAT No. 507 5026 20) and printed by Cambrian Printers Ltd, Aberystwyth. Distribution: COMAG Specialist Division, Central Way, Feltham, Middx TW14 0RX (020 8844 1000) and Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN (020 8986 4854). Red Pepper accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material. Only ­submissions with SAEs will be returned. © Socialist Newspaper (Publications) Ltd 2011. All rights reserved ISSN 1353-7024.

Red Pepper’s cover is FSC certified stock and paper stock comes from sustainable forestry. All inks are soya oil based and print cartridges recycled.

03 Editorial Michael Calderbank

06 Letters and noticeboard Jeremy Hardy thinks

08 Plattitudes The world according to Steve Platt

13 Know Your Enemy Discrediting Britain

21 Asylum Watch Seeking sanctuary

39 Under the radar Keeping our streets safer

40 Justice gap Big Society brings little aid

47 Guerrilla guides Surviving the royal wedding

50 Mike Marquse Palestine’s wandering poet

66 Booktopia Owen Jones

52 Basil Davidson: A fine writer and fighter ichard Gott looks at the life of a very British sort of dissenter

56 Radical cities: Dublin Donal Fallon kicks off this new feature as he takes us on a tour of the Irish capital

58 Art attack Neela Doležalová

investigates a theatre project dramatising the cuts

60 Reading Rosa Peter Hudis, editor of a new volume of Rosa Luxemburg’s letters, speaks to Red Pepper

62 Book reviews Hobsbawm, Morales, posters, Zapatistas, the open web and Accumulation of Capital n Follow our Red Pepper blog for the latest news and views from around the left n More on the anti-cuts movement and the March 26 demonstration n After Japan, how can we step up the campaign against nuclear power?

Red Pepper is on Twitter as ‘RedPeppermag’

04 red pepper apr | may 2011 10 Twets from Tahrir How the Egyptian revolution unfolded on Twitter

12 Ammar 404 The internet and the Arab uprisings,

by Zahera Harb

14 Brothers unbanned Mansor Mirza on the Muslim

Brotherhood

16 The fire this time: the revolt against the dictators Red Pepper maps the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa

18Revolt like an Egyptian Tahrir Square activist Gigi Ibrahim shares her experience of overthrowing a dictator

22 After the flash bulb Student article competition winner it Withnail calls for others to stand with the movement

25 Coalitions of the winning anda Tattersall explores how community organisations and unions can work together

28 Holyrood hopes Ken Ferguson asks how the

Scottish left can respond to anger at the Westminster cuts consensus

30 Labour’s last stand Rahul Mahajan looks at the fightback in Wisconsin

32 Europe’s silent coup d’etat The EU is taking economic decisionmaking away from its member states, reports Leigh Phillips

34 The revival – and the retreat – of the state?

a-Jon Chang on the state response to the neoliberal crisis. But it’s the movement that matters, responds Oisín Gilmore

42 Debate: AV, yes or no? Hilary Wainwright and Kevin lowe debate the Alternative Vote

45 Closed curtains at the palace

James Gray looks at attempts to let the Freedom of Information Act shine a light on the royals

46 Royal toast Donald Morrison rounds up some alternative approaches to the royal wedding

48 Heading the state Andrew Blick explores the constitutional role of the monarchy, and how we could ditch it

Illustration by MARTIN ROWSON

red pepper apr | may 2011

05