David Edgar

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de septiembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

ReflexionesTestimonios

Playwrights tend to start out political and end up personal. Harold Pinter appeared to follow the opposite course. Marrying continental absurdism with British popular comedy, he changed how dialogue was written in British theatre as definitively as Cézanne changed how paintings were painted in France. Complementing his dialogue, his great speeches turn the mundane (in No Man's Land, the one-way system around London's Bolsover Street) into poetry. Despite this, those of us who followed him rejected his elliptical style and what we saw as the solipsistic apoliticism of absurdism ("Nothing means anything, nothing can be done"). So it was a surprise when, in later life, Pinter became a prominent voice of political dissent.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Jacqui Smith's announcement yesterday of tougher measures to exclude "preachers of hate" is the latest in a series of initiatives to prevent young British Muslims turning to violent extremism. A mushrooming array of guidelines for schools, colleges and councils emphasises the need to challenge the narrative al-Qaida uses to attract recruits.

These guidelines do nothing to challenge the dominant narrative by which violent extremism is commonly explained, a narrative that sees even peaceful groups as transmission belts on which insecure Muslims are shuffled towards violence. However, there is a very different narrative of British Islam, which the government is less keen to talk about.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Two thousand and six: the year of the historical analogy. Through the summer, Labour's succession crisis was compared to the Thatcher coup (punish the assassin), the Macmillan retirement (the outmanoeuvred challenger), and even the Churchill-Eden handover (the heir apparent forced to wait too long). Now, the plethora of 50th anniversaries provides more lessons from history. Coverage of the Suez crisis draws parallels between one prime minister's ill-judged Middle Eastern regime-toppling adventure and another's. And, on the streets of Budapest, anti-left demonstrators combine commemoration with re-enactment. Everywhere, the battles of the present are fought through arguments about the past.

1956 is particularly rich in such debates.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesIslam y Mundo Árabe

Well, who would have thought a bit of black cloth could have provoked such anger and such anguish. The anger is part of a growing and alarming trend. The general consensus among the anguished (such as this newspaper) is that, in Jack Straw's words, "there is an issue here".

Certainly there is. The veil question has exposed a staggering level of thoughtless illiberalism, and not just where you'd expect to find it. Hot off the mark, the Express consults its readers about a ban on the veil: "An astounding 97% of Daily Express readers agreed a ban would help to safeguard racial harmony."…  Seguir leyendo »