22 Jul 2010 | Uncategorized
James MacIntyre at the New Statesman is, er, a little unhappy at Nick Griffin’s appearance at Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s garden party today.
When it emerged that British National Party leader and author of “Who Are The Mindbenders” Nick Griffin had been invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace, I was invited to defend the decision on BBC Radio Five Live. The former Labour MEP I discussed the topic with was shocked — shocked! — by this outrageous insult to the Queen’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic subjects — especially those serving in the armed forces.
The argument against Griffin attending functions such as this is almost compelling: post-Empire, Britain’s over-riding narrative is the defeat of Nazi Germany. Witness the dismay at David Cameron’s truthful description of the UK as a “junior partner” in World War II. While it’s plainly true that the UK could not have survived without logistical support from the US pre-1941, and the Nazis would not have been defeated without US troops post-1941, for even the most unpatriotic Britons it still seems beyond the pale to suggest that the war was won by anyone other than a few plucky Spitfire pilots flying out of Biggin Hill. Maybe with some help from the Russians, at a push.
Griffin’s status as leader of Britain’s most prominent neo-fascist party clearly makes his invitation to the Palace a problem.
But if MEPs are to be invited to the Queen’s house for tea as a matter of protocol, as the palace claims, then a snub of Griffin would be far more problematic.
The BNP is a legal political party. Should the palace deny a member of a legal political party the same privilege it extends to others, the monarchy immediately becomes politicised. Undesirable, and constitutionally problematic.
So, you have two choices: ban the BNP (not a move I could ever support), or, sooner or later, let Nick Griffin eat a few cucumber sandwiches in the garden of Buckingham palace. It would seem the palace has made the decision to get this one out of the way.
Update: Channel 4 News is reporting that Griffin was refused entry to Buckingham Palace after he “overtly used his invitation for political purposes”
This I find problematic. While it’s obvious from a cursory glance that Griffin is using his invitation as vindication, (“…I will be there for the one million British patriots who now vote for this party despite all the hate from the media liars, the old parties and their thuggish far-left allies.”), aren’t people in Griffin’s position as MEP invited exactly because they are elected? Implying they are representing the people voting for them?
By pointing out Griffin’s politicisation of the event, has the palace allowed itself to become politicised?
19 Jul 2010 | News, United Kingdom
Former Index on Censorship editor Sally Laird died recently after a long battle with cancer. Here, Robert Chandler appreciates an extraordinary translator and journalist
On 15 July I received this message from Mark Lefanu, the husband of Sally Laird: “This is to convey the sad news that Sally died early this morning after a long and gallant battle against cancer. The last days, in hospital, were peaceful and even beautiful, surrounded as she was by the love and care of doctors and nurses, along with the support of beloved daughter and sweet friends.”
Since 1993 Sally and her family had been living in Denmark. I went there to say goodbye to her just two weeks ago. Sally knew she was dying, and she approached death as she approached life — with courage and humour. Towards the end of May, when I was arranging a date for my visit, she wrote, “We have various guests coming off and on through June, but with little gaps in between — and after that — total emptiness from July onwards when I am supposed to be dead but any brave soul is very wecome to plant a flag in my diary.” I replied that, in that case, I would book my train tickets for early July.
Sally was unusually gifted in many ways, probably in more ways than I know. Whatever she set her mind to — a large portfolio of drawings of a family of bears produced at the age of thirteen, her work as chief editor of Index on Censorship in her late twenties and early thirties, the many reviews on Russia-related books that she wrote for Prospect, the TLS, the Guardian and the Observer — she carried out conscientiously and with imagination. Her translations of Petrushevaksaya and Sorokin are note perfect. And I know no book that presents a more nuanced picture of Soviet literary life in the post-Stalin years than Sally’s Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers (OUP, 1999).
The death of a friend always makes one regret lost opportunities. I regret that we never realized our project of collaborating on translating a selection of Ivan Bunin’s short stories — though it is some consolation that I did, at least, have the opportunity to tell her of my regret. I regret that I did not see Sally more often. I do, however, remember all our meetings clearly, and with joy.
Read Sally Laird’s Index on Censorship article “Hope For Dissenters” from 1987 here
19 Jul 2010 | Uncategorized
The Observer’s Nick Cohen writes about Index’s event with the Belarus Free Theatre at the Free Word Centre:
The Belarus Free Theatre arrived in London last week and seemed to take us from the 2010s to the 1970s. Everything was as it had been in the cold war. Just as Havel and Kundera came to speak for oppressed Czechs, so the actors from Europe’s last dictatorship are the most prominent and bravest critics of Belarus’s rotting Brezhnevian state. Just as Tom Stoppard was a friend to east European dissidents during communism, so he is a friend to Belarussia’s underground artists today. Following tradition once more, Stoppard welcomed them to Britain on behalf of Index on Censorship, which Stephen Spender created in 1972 to speak for persecuted Soviet writers.
Read the rest here
16 Jul 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News
Index on Censorship is sad to announce the death of Sally Laird on 15 July 2010. Born in 1956, Laird was USSR editor for Index on Censorship between June 1986 and November 1988 and went on to become editor in chief until August 1989. During her time at Index she used her Oxford and Harvard education and knowledge of Soviet affairs to contribute regularly to the magazine on the topic of the USSR. Laird left Index to concentrate on her personal work and went onto translate a series of Russian novels. Later she co-authoredTill my Tale is Told: Women’s Memoirs of the Gulag and wrote Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers.
Obituary to follow
