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04 red pepper feb | mar 2010

03 EditorialNot flocks or herds

06 Leters Noticeboard

08 PlatitudesThe world according to Steve Platt

15 Asylum watchInformers in the classroom

39 Democracy nowOpen to abuse

51 Natural born rebelIndigenous activist Aida Quilcué

66 BoktopiaSalma Yaqoob

56 Anything but background music

Mike Marqusee celebrates flamenco: music that is popular but ‘utterly alien to pop’

58 An anthropology of civil warEwa Jasiewicz looks at

Austrian director Michael Haneke’s film The White Ribbon, an unflinching gaze into the roots of violence

60 An alien gazeHerta Müller’s work casts experiences of oppressive authoritarian regimes in strikingly poetic language, writes Lyn Marven

62 Bok reviewsFour pages of reviews

Free to all subscribers with this issue A copy of Turbulence: ideas for movement (further copies can be ordered through editors@turbulence.org.uk)

Red Pepper is on Twitter as ‘RedPeppermag’ 10 Cop out?Protesters from around the world came together outside the

Copenhagen climate conference. Ben Lear reports

12 From Hopenhagen to FlopenhagenWhat actually came out of Copenhagen? Oscar Reyes suggests much of the process was flawed from the beginning

26 News futuresWe must protect trusted news sources and liberate them from the free market, says Natalie Fenton

28 What would rupert murdoch say?Saving local newspapers is not a matter of money but of political will, argues Jeremy Dear

42 IN PICTURES: Dressing downAn illustrated look at the new book Dress Behind Bars:

Prison Clothing as Criminality

46 Hope for the inocentIs the Criminal Cases Review Commission doing its job? Jon Robins investigates

16 Ireland risingThe Irish trade union movement must defeat the government’s plans for cuts, writes Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins

17 Government eats up the GrensFormer Irish Green Party member Bronwen Maher rues her ex-colleagues’ support for the coalition government in Ireland

18 Bin there, won thatA strike by refuse workers in Leeds triggered a wave of public support. Peter Lazenby reports

20 Rocking the systemHilary Wainwright looks at demands for a community-run Northern Rock

21 Royal Bank of Sustainability?

Since we own RBS, shouldn’t we have some say in how it is run? Kevin Smith puts the case

22 Tales of the riverbankMolly Scott Cato proposes an alternative vision of banking

24 Banks for the peopleRethinking the financial system from a socialist perspective could have popular resonance, argues Costas Lapavitsas

30 italy: beyond BerlusconiVittorio Longhi on the coalition opposing the removal of migrant workers in Italy and Giulio D’Orema on investigative journalist Marco Travaglio

33 EU: Brussels’ new pontiffThe EU’s college of cardinals has picked its first pope,

writes Leigh Phillips. Why aren’t we angry?

40 Iraq: Rats fle a sinking ratAlex Nunns on Chilcot’s Iraq war inquiry

41 Palestine: The war on ‘lawfare’Israel calls for international law in aid of Palestine’s ‘legal terrorism’. Daniel Machover explains the need to resist

52 Chile: Heirs of PinochetThe left must halt future advances by the Chilean right,

says Roberto Navarrete

54 Western Sahara: HUNGER STRIKERStefan Simanowitz reports from Lanzarote on the remarkable victory of a hunger striker

Cover STORY

34 ESAY: The future leftStuart White outlines the key values of republican democracy and explores whether they can be fused with red and green politics. Cover illustration by Andrzej KrauzeSPECIAL THANKS

‘Bin there won that’ (page 18) and ‘Rocking the system’ (page 20) are part of our series on emerging political movements, made possible with the help of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust feb | mar 2010 red pepper 05