The NEU kept children and teachers safe during the pandemic, yet we are disgracefully slandered by the politicians who have truly failed our children by not funding a proper education recovery programme — here’s what is needed, explains KEVIN COURTNEY

Writing about the recent death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch made an extraordinary claim about the ending of apartheid in South Africa in 1994.
“Columnists did not cut it. Activists could not have done it. Peaceful protest did not do it. Sports boycotts, books, badges and car boot sales did not do it,” she argued. “It took revolutionaries, pure and simple. People willing to break the law, to kill and be killed.”
Fellow Guardian writer Owen Jones tweeted in support: “Apartheid was brought down by revolutionaries, not peaceful protest. Brilliant piece by @afuahirsch.”

New releases from Steady Habits, Jeff Tweedy, and Tom Skinner

IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation

Reviews of new releases by Wednesday, Suede, and Nation of Language

Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band