How, why and when capitalism was restored in China
Part 8 of China in the age of American decrepitude The overthrow of capitalism in China in the early 1950s took place under very unfavourable circumstances. From nearby Korea, US […]
Category Archives: education
Is Science a social construct? – a response to Richard Dawkins
With characteristic certainty and self-assurance, Professor Richard Dawkins recently tweeted his irritation with those who describe science as a social construct. “Science is not a social construct. Science’s truths were […]
If this is how you propose to defend free speech, then freedom of speech is in grave danger
An open letter to Jan Thomas, Vice-chancellor of Massey University. Massey University in Wellington is the venue for an event on 13 November called Feminism 2020, organised by Speak Up […]
Teachers in New Zealand take a step towards West Virginia, and ponder their next move
A nationwide one-day strike by 50,000 teachers in both the primary and secondary sectors took place in New Zealand on 29 May. It was the first time in the history […]
Young Harry Holland: the soapbox preacher
Harry Holland and the early labour movement in Australia and New Zealand – Part 2. (For Part 1 click here). Little detail is known of Harry Holland’s childhood. Despite being […]
What is a social revolution and how does it come about?
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to watch Maestra, a short documentary about the 1961 mass mobilisation to eradicate illiteracy in the early years of the Cuban revolution.1 […]
Balkans 1996
I often have reason to complain about Facebook, but sometimes it ‘works’ so well, the way nothing in the past ever did, and I am grateful for it. A short […]
National myth-making – and a new antidote
April is the month when national myth-making goes into high gear in Australia and New Zealand. It was on 25 April 1915 that a combined Australian–New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) […]
Education, the professions, and a lousy compromise
The world’s oldest profession is – contrary to the popular saying – the scribe. The scribe arose together with the rise of written language and number in antiquity, because reading, […]
Defending Malala: the well-intentioned errors of some atheist campaigners
Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani woman who campaigned for equal rights for women, especially the right to education, is a worthy recipient of the European Union’s Sakharov prize for human rights. […]
A communist at large 