ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Latest editorial
Red
by Neil Young
Rosa Luxemburg memorial at the site where her corpse was thrown into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
i.m. Rosa Luxemburg
Yours is the ghost in the waters even now.
When you were tipped into the Landwehr Canal
Europe sank. Too many worlds
that might have glanced their way
into being were not hewn.
A rifle butt, a shot to the skull,
the squalor and contempt of a few
hired men, that’s all it took.
History shrank. Peoples and nations
shrank to the drench of your skirt.
In some other version,
I can glimpse you keep on walking
beyond this moment,
the rifle is paused,
the trigger-finger hesitates:
Adolf stews obscurely in a gutter,
the sailors of Kronstadt prevail,
Leon goes back to reviewing,
the world tilts with you, Rosa,
this is your revolution worth knowing.
More from this author
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
