Arzu addresses Andy Burnham about the poem V, which he claims has affected him deeply, and asks why then he has failed to discuss the disunited state of the nation, or call out the epidemic of racism. Listen here or read below Apparently V by Tony Harrison (1985) had a profound
Scheduled for Ashura 2026. Written Muharram 2009. Read below the video. The Rising I am Hussain and I have risen so too Qasim, Abbas and Hur and Zainab, dear Zainab bears witness to our deaths again in preference to life with humiliation. And amongst her tears and those
Arzu recalls the response of friends and people she met in Bosnia the day after the UK’s Brexit Referendum. In the result to leave the European Union, and the campaign that led up to they saw their own experiences before the Bosnian war unleashed in the British public space. Ten years on,
This blog is a big thank you to all of the overwhelming support for the poetry volume, Every Day and Every Land: Poems on the Tragedy of Karbala. Find more details on where to find it and where profits go to below. I wanted to share one of the poems that I contributed
Arzu argues that we need to join the dots and realise that the narratives of the UK and the west more broadly as ‘liberal’ ‘tolerant’ and ‘just’ are fictions that we have internalised. This week’s sentencing of the Filton Four, and the decision by the Court of Appeal to uphold the proscription
An appeal to the United Nations to curb the actions of and isolate the United States. A quick note after some months of silence. This important letter was sent to the United Nations Secretary General today. Some 145 figures from political, academic, religious and civil society backgrounds have signed their names to
Once again, actually not once again, but as usual, the BBC and its senior correspondents let us down. Obfuscating truth. Spinning as if they are a PR company brought in to manage a celebrity caught with pants down crisis, rather than an ongoing genocide cessated hardly, if at all. Once more the
Yes, St. George was from Turkey, but reminding everyone persuades no-one because racism is illogical, argues Arzu Read the full article below the audio This is a quick note. There are many (as there have always been) witty ripostes to St. George’s and these days Union flag flying. The (no longer so)
Some thoughts from Arzu on the anti-migrant ‘protests’, court rulings against asylum hotels, narratives around grooming gangs and how they all align post the 2024 summer pogroms in the UK. Yesterday the High Court granted a temporary injunction against Somani Hotels housing asylum seekers at one of their hotels in Epping.