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Rosemary Bechler

Rosemary Bechler is openDemocracy's mainsite editor.

1968: 50 years on

Ludwig Binder, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Grenfell

Grenfell Tower

Fire in neo-liberal London
ANGELA MCROBBIE
Words of fire
LYNDSEY STONEBRIDGE
“Developers can get away with murder” – an interview with Kensington’s Emma Dent Coad
NATHAN AKEHURST
One law for the poor at Grenfell Tower
STEVE TOMBS AND DAVID WHYTE
Housing activists stand up to dodgy landlords and council bullies
REBECCA OMONIRA-OYEKANMI AND IZZY KOKSAL
Burnt Alive, Grenfell Tower is watching us
ANTHONY BARNETT
A fire in the world’s laundromat
ADAM RAMSAY

NAWA latest

NAWA

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Net neutrality

Net Neutrality gives equal access to the whole web. It is now at risk.

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Justice in the world's light

Geoffrey Bindman, Isabel Hilton, and Juan Garces 15 June 2001
The man who ruled Chile for twenty years was brought to account by judges in Spain and Britain, and ultimately Chile itself, for crimes against humanity. Does this globalising of justice run roughshod over national sovereignty? The architects of Pinochet’s arrest tell their story. The piece is followed by two responses from openDemocracy readers.General Augusto Pinochet was Chile’s president – some would say dictator – from 1973 to 1990. In the Autumn of 1998, he visited London for a medical check.

Ireland and Europe

openDemocracy readers 15 June 2001
The Irish 'no' vote sparks off some thoughts on Europe from openDemocracy readers.

Bringing oxygen into the magic circle

Richard Collins 14 June 2001
The debate about public service broadcasting has been conducted in a pre-web frame. The whole argument is being altered by the experiences of new forms of public information as we go digital, says the British Film Institute’s head of education.

Yugoslavia and Europe : breaking up, making up

Dejan Jovic 14 June 2001
A decade of war and dissolution in ex-Yugoslavia makes the region the test of whether a post-Cold War Europe is possible. What will Europe become when the Balkans is no longer its simple mirror-image?

Troubled links to the narrow land

Stephen Howe 14 June 2001
Everyone outside Israel with a stake in the country walks on eggshells in times of crisis. But what happens to memory and hope in the perspective of violence without end? A thoughtful report from the emotional front line.

We are all the future

Diana Brooks 14 June 2001
Resisting new supermarkets and seeing a plc purchasing her health centre has taught this Worcester Woman far more about the modern world than Westminster’s childish waffle. In this interview, she reveals that democracy for her means accountability and an end to facelessness. But how to breach the circle of power?

Ireland's 'no' is EU's opportunity

Paul Gillespie 14 June 2001
The Irish people’s rejection of the Nice treaty is a roadblock to EU reform and enlargement. It is also a demand for a new political culture in the EU. Will the politicians and bureaucrats at last respond to democratic challenge?

Wanted: clear minds on divided lives

Richard Brooks 14 June 2001
The British election campaign is no time for philosophical argument. Even so, Tony Blair explicitly rejected the idea that overall growing inequality should diminish. A bleary-eyed young Millbank organiser emerges into the sunlight to ask: can the left afford to agree with him?

Voting alone

Todd Gitlin 14 June 2001
Turnout is down across the world. The ‘crisis of democracy’ is more than a cliché. But is the problem not too little choice for potential voters, but too much?

Jennifer Lopez: my part in her downfall

Caspar Melville 14 June 2001
In 1999, on the cusp of global fame, the singer-actress Jennifer Lopez was interviewed in her native New York by an obscure music journalist from London. Where is she now? We don’t know. But the latter rose dizzily to work for openDemocracy, and tells here the tale of a celebrity encounter with a difference.

Mr. Town meets Mr. Country

Richard Rogers and John Jackson 14 June 2001
From BSE to foot & mouth, from hunting to the Countryside Alliance, from Maff to Defra - out of crisis the countryside has moved to the top of the political agenda. But where is the Urban Alliance? Are the cities losing their way? And how can the fractured relationship of the last decade be healed in the next?

It's idealism that's the problem

Clare Fowler 11 June 2001
Worcester has offered tradition, homeliness, and prosperity to this proud Englishwoman and journalist. But she tells in this interview how her tranquillity is disturbed by threats to her country’s well-being.

Abolish the secret ballot

Anthony Barnett 8 June 2001
The secret ballot once empowered people, now it exposes voting to manipulation. As UK turnout dips below 60% and e-democracy spreads around the world, let’s take public possession of how we vote instead of hiding it away.

Swedish public service - for seniors only?

Tomas Lindbom 8 June 2001
Public service TV goes hand in hand with established, nationally based political systems. It is the medium for the nation not for the network society.

Enlightened regulation: the future Indian way?

William Crawley and David Page 7 June 2001
India’s broadcasting media, driven by advertising and international business, has exploded into diverse life in the last decade. The public broadcasters, once so powerful, are drifting. Is there a role for regulation?

In Kosovo, statehood is the solvent for war

Scarlett MccGwire 7 June 2001
This report from the front line of the post-war shift from war to politics in Kosovo challenges Western media stereotypes of its Albanian majority.

Polishing the precious jewel

Anne Smith 7 June 2001
From Cathedral to farmers’ market, the city is a source of secure identity for this Worcester woman we interviewed. But how do her Christian values and nostalgia for the 1950s face up to today’s violence, materialism – and Tony Blair?

Swedes do it better

Gunnela Stahle 7 June 2001
“My cow wants fun” said the writer of children’s books - and people listened. The head of the Federation of Swedish Farmers explains how her country’s history and culture planted the seeds of an ethical food system.

Taxation without representation?

Sam Harman 7 June 2001
The licence fee for out-of-touch public service: taxation without representation?

Not good enough

Roger Graef 2 June 2001
We need public service broadcasting to be protected more than ever. The commercialisation of the BBC and C4 are reasons to fight for them.

Something in the water

Mary Dhonau, Jenny Jennings, and Eileen Moir 1 June 2001
In this interview for Worcester Women... three neighbours meet when the shit backs up into their kitchens. They play the "game", beat the system, and meet the queen.

The challenge of EU enlargement - East and West

William Outhwaite 1 June 2001
Chris Bobinski and Reinhard Hesse agree at least that EU enlargement is the greatest challenge for the present generation of Europeans.

Whatever happened to the north-east?

David Hayes 30 May 2001
Sunderland is known for its football, its car factories, and now its "metric martyr". But behind the headlines a deeper process may be underway. Is the city and its region leading England into Europe?

Clipping the politicos down to size

Emma Auster 25 May 2001
Worcester Women fit none of the stereotypes. Emma Auster, for instance, is a single mother - and a self-employed businesswoman. But will she even vote?

Dreaming of the moon at seventy

Edith Little 25 May 2001
Retirement for Edith Little means more time to teach computer classes and campaign against fox-hunting - there is a future to be embraced. In this interview, a "silver surfer" continues the Worcester Women series.

A stork's eye view from Poland

Krzysztof Bobinski 25 May 2001
The EU can’t be a true home for Poland if there is no room for storks and loose ends. The Poles feel pulled in two directions. Europe, yes, but which Europe? Krzysztof Bobinski responds to Reinhard Hesse's 'letter for Europe'.

High Noon for the centre left

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Tom Nairn, Matthew Taylor, and Matthew d’'Ancona 25 May 2001
‘This is it’ for the centre left in Britain, Matt d’Ancona tells us, and Matthew Taylor agrees. Yasmin thinks they’re too wrapped up in policy, Tom senses reality denial about the future of Britain, and Anthony argues the general election misses the point. Now it’s your turn to ask them your questions.

Circling the wagons around the constitution

Laura Sandys 25 May 2001
Faith in the constitution has made mummies of the founding fathers. A European came to Washington, found it suffused with self-righteousness, and left.

Silent spring and living landscape

Ann Pettitt 25 May 2001
Foot and mouth is an alarm call. But are the British already reaching for the sentimental snooze button? A Welsh smallholder challenges walkers, townies and consumers to wake up, as well as farmers.

After the white papers: green dreams, brown sites, blue sky

Roger Scruton and Ken Worpole 25 May 2001
City & Country’s two editors, one from the Wiltshire countryside and the other from Hackney in London, join forces in search of a new urban-rural relationship.