Yesterday I watched the South Sudan Theatre Co perform Cymbeline at the Globe Theatre, part of the Globe to Globe celebrations that are part of the 2012 cultural Olympiad. It is hard to sum up what the performance meant to a theatre company born in camps for people displaced by war, who for generations read Shakespeare in secret and only dreamed of their own national theatre. This was Shakespeare performed by a barefoot cast in tribal jewellery with their own very personal understanding of Cymbeline – a war between Imperial Rome and ancient Britain has its own resonances for a new independent country – but it was also Shakespeare as Shakespeare would have understood it – raw, emotional, physical, and at times hilarious. The piece I wrote about its origins for the Independent Arts pages is here.
Meet The Author
The dawn of South Sudan’s independence was an astonishing moment I felt privileged to witness from inside a maternity hospital in Juba, writing a story about the birth of the new nation’s Midnight’s Children. Fresh from the plane home from South Sudan, I did this Meet The Author interview with the BBC’s Nick Higham…
Welcome Africa’s Newest Nation
I’ve just returned from the brand new country of South Sudan, the first time I’ve been back in a decade. I’ve spent a lot of time there in my head in the years in-between writing my novel, Something’s Going To Fall Like Rain, so being there in person was amazing.
It was also deeply surreal – the last time I was there the idea that there would be peace in the south (however fragile) and independence from the north was completely inconceivable. It was incredibly moving watching the Sudanese flag being lowered and the new Republic of South Sudan flag (the old rebel SPLA flag) being raised in its place. It was also a moment to reflect on the two million people who have died for this moment of freedom.
While I was there I met the first baby born into the new country, a little boy born on the stroke of midnight, called Independent Moses.
I also saw some of the desperately needed work Unicef is doing. The new South Sudan is now one of the world’s poorest countries with almost zero infrastructure, few roads, schools or hospitals and up to a million people coming home. So it badly needs help.
But freedom is an astonishing moment nonetheless for South Sudan and the African continent – and if anyone can make it work it is the South Sudanese.
Hope not Hate blog, 2010
I’m on the Daily Mirror’s site until the general election, blogging about the progress of the Hope not Hate campaign – a Mirror and Searchlight-backed initiative that celebrates our modern, diverse country and opposes the racist BNP….
Click here for the blog and here to join the campaign….
Sudan elections: London demo, April 10
Sudan goes to the polls on April 11th – in what could be its first democratic elections since 1986.
It has the potential to be a huge step forward for the whole country, but there also needs to be huge international pressure to ensure the elections are free and fair.
Sudan 365 are following up the drumming demonstration on January 9 with a second vigil, on the eve of the election.
Supporters are asked to gather outside the Sudanese Embassy on Saturday April 10.
There are four calls to action:
1. Civilians to be protected throughout the elections in Sudan.
2. The international community must not be a ‘silent witness’ to serious violations of human rights.
3. Elections must be free and fair.
4. The need for peace and development, human rights and civilian protection in all Sudan
More details here as they become available…
LSE literary festival, reporting war
Saturday morning saw an early crowd turn up at LSE for ‘War Stories: How to bring the battle to the book’, where I shared a platform with Andrew Mueller, an Australian, UK-residing PJ O’Rourke for our times (imagine a country & western version of PJO with less fear & loathing), and the Sunday Times’ Stephen Grey, who recently wrote a moving tribute to my former Mirror colleague Ruper Hamer on his blog…
the event was organised by POLIS, a new journalism and society thinktank, their report is here…
all three of us had written about our different wars in different ways, mine through fiction (journalism originally, but somehow needing a fictional narrative to say everything journalism left unsaid), Andrew through writing an often funny travelogue that tells you exactly what it was like to be in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam and other places not for the faint-hearted, and Stephen through investigation and analysis, working backwards from the point of conflict to uncover what was actually going on…
robin hood tax launches
Have been working on the launch of the Robin Hood Tax, a gorgeously simple yet brilliant idea on how to repair the gaping hole in public finances left by the banking crisis…. The banks pay a tiny 0.05% tax on their big city transactions, generating up to £250 billion globally, which is shared between protecting frontline public services at home (eg NHS, child poverty, housing), helping people in poor countries, and fighting climate change in the developing world…
Supported by 60+ organisations from charities and NGOs to unions, churches, faith groups, Richard Curtis & the team behind Make Poverty History and Comic Relief, and thousands of ordinary people, the campaign aims to find a constructive way for the banks to pay back…
The campaign launch was in several papers including the Guardian last Tuesday, led by the Evening Standard the previous day, and on BBC Breakfast, GMTV, ITV lunchtime news, Today, as well as being supported by 58,000 people on Facebook, and trending at the top of Twitter (#robinhood, #rht) for two days…
On day 2, Robin Hood’s IT merry men were very confused to see the ‘NO’ votes on the website suddenly start climbing out of all proportion – and traced the No Voting IP address to Goldman Sachs – oops – which made the Guardian front page here…
The No campaign has been building ever since, but today, 350 economists from all over the world, including two nobel prize winners, have come out in the Independent today to say it’s not just a pipedream, it makes great economic sense…
much more to come, will keep this blog up to date with the news, but you can join the campaign or debate at www.robinhoodtax.org.uk – and see the 3min Richard Curtis/Bill Nighy viral film that helped launch it all….
Drummers for Sudan, the film
Click here to see a wonderful viral campaign film organised by Jamie Catto of Faithless and featuring the lovely Richard Jupp of Elbow, Radiohead’s Phil Selway, Stewart Copeland (Police), and Jonny Quinn (Snow Patrol), leading the drum call for peace in Sudan. They are joined in the film by drummers from all over the world, and today by live drummers in 15 countries including London (starting this minute outside Downing Street if anyone can make it…)
Sign up to the campaign for peace at:
http://www.sudan365.org/
Sudan campaign event, Saturday 9 January
This week sees a critical moment for Sudan, with aid agencies, diplomats, grassroots activists and ordinary civilians all warning of the possibility of a return to war. To sound the alarm, a whole series of events are happening this week…. There’s an inter-agency report from a whole host of NGOs and campaign groups including Christian Aid, Oxfam International, Save the Children Sudan and TearFund, a Chatham House report, a debate in the House of Lords, a visit from Sudanese Archbishop Daniel Deng to see the Archbishop of Canterbury and Gordon Brown, and Glenys Kinnock, Minister for Africa is off to north and south Sudan on a fact-finding mission…
There’s also the chance for anyone who can reach London in the snow to act – on Saturday, there will be a big demonstration calling for peace outside 10 Downing Street. The event kicks off at 11am, with speeches from 1-2pm and a warmer event afterwards at St John’s Church in Waterloo with hot tea and coffee. There are a few extra elements to the events that I’ll update this website with on Saturday… The idea is beat a drum for peace, so bring something to hit… It’ll kick off a whole year’s campaigning for Sudan as part of a global coalition called Sudan365…
join the Facebook Group here….