Four fronts of the British culture wars
The first time I met Rosemary Bechler, we sat on the grass of London’s Embankment, ate ice cream, and immediately understood each other. She was a former member of the Communist Party who had lost every hint of Stalinism, but none of her radicalism. The last time I spoke to Rosemary – one of openDemocracy’s founding figures and a key force throughout our 20 years until she died last month – we had a debate about identity politics.
“My generation of activists,” she said, “started their sessions with something which went from the planet right down to London N6. They had these grandiose analyses of the entire world, then it comes down to what you might do something about. And they were interested in the front line of class struggle.
“I think that leads to a totally different kind of politics than the one that identity politics, including of the Left, leads to.”
