Articles by John Berger

Saturday 5th November

Railtracks

John Berger and Anne Michaels, 5 November 2011
"Impossible now to think of train travel without a kind of tenderness - as if that is what love is: arrival after arrival". A conversation between the writers Anne Michaels and John Berger, in dialogue with a photographic journey through southern Bohemia, evokes the intimate meanings and shared belongings that unfold to the rhythm and the heartbeat of the world the railways made.
Tuesday 23rd August

The Time We Live

John Berger, 23 August 2011
What might we hope for from life? Watching the London riots from afar John Berger finds a small passport that lets him visualise what is missing from a looter's expectations
Monday 29th December

John Berger: a life in Gaza

John Berger, 29 December 2008

We are now spectators of the latest - and perhaps penultimate - chapter of the 60 year old conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. About the complexities of this tragic conflict billions of words have been pronounced, defending one side or the other.

Today, in face of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the essential calculation, which was always covertly there, behind this conflict, has been blatantly revealed. The death of one Israeli victim justifies the killing of a hundred Palestinians. One Israeli life is worth a hundred Palestinian lives.

This is what the Israeli State and the world media more or less - with marginal questioning - mindlessly repeat. And this claim, which has accompanied and justified the longest Occupation of foreign territories in 20th C. European history, is viscerally racist. That the Jewish people should accept this, that the world should concur, that the Palestinians should submit to it - is one of history's ironic jokes. There's no laughter anywhere. We can, however, refute it, more and more vocally.

Let's do so.

John Berger

Tuesday 4th April

Wall and Bulldozer

John Berger, 4 April 2006
A pitiless market is met by an anomic politics. John Berger dissects the official language of crisis in France.
Friday 13th January

Undefeated despair

John Berger, 13 January 2006
John Berger and his family went to organise painting and drawing workshops for children in Ramallah in November 2005. Here are his reflections.
Wednesday 16th February

That have not been asked: ten dispatches about endurance in face of walls

John Berger, 16 February 2005
“The worst cruelties of life are its killing injustices.” John Berger on poverty, desire, storytelling, and the future’s gift to the present.
1
The wind got up in
the night and took our plans away.
(Chinese proverb)

Thursday 30th December

Quicksilver

John Berger, 30 December 2004
Susan Sontag, born in 1933, died in New York on 28 December 2004.
Tuesday 26th October

The decisive moment: John Berger interviewed

John Berger, 26 October 2004
The importance of the United States election on 2 November is so great that all considerations except one – defeating Bush - need to be set aside, John Berger tells openDemocracy editor Anthony Barnett.
Monday 16th August

Michael Moore, artist and patriot

John Berger, 16 August 2004
A sloppy, cynical piece of propaganda? No, says John Berger: Michael Moore’s documentary film “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a historical landmark inspired by hope – and its maker is a true artist deeply committed to his country.
Sunday 13th April

To the mountain

John Berger, 13 April 2003
Iraq, the Republic of Fear under Saddam, is now ruled by a Coalition of Fear. The distinguished writer John Berger said on the eve of war that lies prepare the way for missiles. Now he sees revealed in the desperate chaos of Baghdad the blindness of a force whose pitiless weaponry and limitless ambition offer no insight into the truths of its conquest.

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” George W. Bush

Baghdad has fallen. The city has been taken by the troops who were bringing it freedom.

Sunday 12th January

Shame, not individual guilt

John Berger, 12 January 2003
It is 12 January 2003 and US president Bush has rallied his troops for what he calls “The first war of the 21st century”. What is your view of this crisis, where, briefly, do you stand? This is the question we are putting to people around the world, especially those with their own public reputation and following. Our aim, to help create a truly global debate all can identify with.
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