The Gift

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We’ve a real gift of a podcast for you this episode, since “gift” was our theme. Of course, we didn’t all stick to the theme – this is Ungagged after all…

In this episode, Red Raiph will be retelling The Raven, Em Dehaney will be talking about Christmas gifts and not always getting what you want, Chuck Hamilton will be reading White Ribbons For Indy, an article written by the Ungagged collective, and later coming back to read his own piece, The Monkey Trap, Ola’s Kool Kitchen will be chatting about how white supremacists on social media fan the flames of hate and misinformation and Richie Venton will be back with the second part of his piece on the 1917 Russian Revolution. Paul Sheridan will be telling us all about the Diggers movement, Damanvir Kaur will be giving us the latest in the Free Jaggi campaign, and George Collins will be talking about the rise and fall of Empires.

We will also be hearing from Victoria Pearson, reading her short story The Clock Strikes Christmas, An Alternative Christmas Tale, and  Steve McAuliffe with his poem “Why is Tyranny a Dirty Word?”, Debra Torrance will be talking about the Gift of Hindsight, and Ruth Hopkins will be telling us exactly why we should be horrified at Trump referring to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”, and Derek Stewart Macpherson will be giving us a whole stockingful of of gifts, talking about the Gift of comedy, the gift of freedom, and the dubious “gift” Trump just gave Jerusalem.

We’ll have all of that, plus music from Blackheart Orchestra, Jackal Trades, David Rovics, Mullen, Joe Solo, Steve McAuliffe and The Mighty Ur, Argonaut,  Sharon Martin,  The Cundeez,  Gallows Circus,  Those Unfortunates, The Wakes,  Attila The Stockbroker, The Kara Sea, and Robb Johnson.*

This episode was presented by Debra Torrance, Edited by Neil Anderson and produced by Victoria Pearson.

Neil Scott wasn’t able to be in this episode, but he still found time to write a gift for you. Check out his short story A Gift Comes Calling…

And Teresa Durran also just missed out on this pod, so has written a poem for you to enjoy, called Advent.

* All money from Merry Christmas One & All, the Single by Robb Johnson, will go to the Brighton Community Night Shelter & Sussex Homeless Support, so please buy if you can, for 79p, from iTunes

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Ungagged is a not for profit co-operative, and we rely on the generosity of our listeners. If you’d like to donate us the cost of a newspaper or a cup of coffee, you can do so through PayPal here.

 

We Need to Talk About Libya

Teresa Durran 

There were many more casualties resulting from the Twin Tower attacks than the 2,974 people who died in New York that day on 9/11. As well as those poor souls, there have been countless thousands killed in the resulting war on terror carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, and the fall out still continues, with victims continuing to be created in the wake of the chaos inflicted across the Middle East.

The latest iteration of this appeared in reports which came via CNN, who have recently published an investigation they have been carrying out in Libya following reports about slave auctions. Incredible as this is to believe in 2017, the evidence they have amassed looks pretty convincing. There are still thousands of people trying to reach the Mediterranean who cross Libya’s borders each year. This has contributed to the wave of boats trying to cross the Med, which is of itself a tragic tale of greed, need, prejudice and misery; figures complied on 24/10/17 show that more than 18,800 people had been intercepted so far this year, with over 111,000 successfully reaching Italy, the vast majority of whom travelled from Libya.

However, latterly Libyan coastguards (and militias) have been attempting to address this, and crossings have therefore dropped sharply since the summer. Nonetheless, migrants and refugees still continue to travel to Libya, which has led to a surplus of would-be passengers. People smuggling has become big business in the country, so the people behind it have done what any good capitalist would and diversified. If you believe people smuggling represents a good opportunity to make a profit, why would you baulk at extending this to slavery? What would be the difference to you between herding hundreds of people in a boat and sending them to an uncertain fate, and parading them as goods for sale at an auction?

Although the 1926 Slavery Convention was ratified by Libya in 1957, slave auctions have resurfaced there partially because of the instability caused by the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. He was undoubtedly a brutal dictator, but his overthrow highlighted the dangers of creating a power vacuum, and over half a decade later, Libya is no closer to being stable. Although there were no shortage of Western countries willing to get involved in air strikes under the auspices of NATO in 2011, there doesn’t seem to be a similar impulse to help deal with the fall out. As a result, Libya has effectively two governments operating out of Tobruk and Tripoli, a shattered economy and its own internal refugee problem. Small wonder that there seems to be little resource or will around in the country to deal with slave auctions.

CNN casting an international spotlight on this may bring about change; certainly, several countries seem to have been galvanized into action. One headline reads ‘Burkina Faso recalls ambassador to Libya over ‘slave markets’ report’ while another says ‘France pushes U.N. to impose sanctions over Libya migrant crisis’. However, Donald Trump’s war of words with CNN has proved a gift to the Libyan media; as he had repeatedly denounced the network as peddlers of ‘fake news’, the Libyan broadcaster Libya 218 has used trump’s tweets on the subject to doubt the veracity of the slave auction story, saying;

“Here the possibility arises that the channel has published the report of slavery in Libya to secure an as yet hidden political objective.”

What a mess. An ill thought out ‘war on terror’ initiated by the US post 9/11 brought, as widely predicted, greater instability to an already frighteningly unstable part of the world. The knock-on effect of this enabled NATO intervention in the Libyan civil war and the instability resulting from that and other nearby conflicts created the conditions for the slave auctions. And now their reporting may well be hobbled by the current US president, who is ignorant of, and entirely careless about, the effect of his words abroad. While he rides up and down in his golden elevator and continues his privileged life by other, more lucrative means, the tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free will just have to continue to yearn.

The Hidden Pod…

Available FREE on iTunes and Podbean

On this “hidden” themed Ungagged we’ll hear from Em Dehaney, on the hidden hate uncovered by Brexit and Trump, Victoria Pearson will be discussing the extraordinary situation unfolding in Rojava, Syria,  Chuck Hamilton will be giving us the 4th part of his Meaning of Life series, George Collins will be talking about the hidden culture of indigenous Americans, Debra Torrance will be talking hidden disabilities and hidden agendas, Sarah Mackie will be fact checking Theresa May’s claims about nurse numbers in the NHS,  Richie Venton will be chatting about the High Court descision regarding tribunal fees, and Neil Scott  will be discussing the rise of the right wing in traditionally left wing online spaces.

With music from The Empty Page, Phat Bollard, James King and the Lonewolves, Birdeatsbaby, Guttfull, The Eastern Swell, Girobabies, The Wakes, Those Unfortunates and Nervous Twitch.

Ungagged is a not for profit co-operative, and we rely on the generosity of our listeners. If you’d like to donate us the cost of a newspaper or a cup of coffee, you can do so through PayPal.

 

Fight The Power!

 

Available FREE on iTunes and Podbean

On this episode of Ungagged, presented by Neil Scott, we’ll hear from Chuck Hamilton, on how we sold our revolution for a pair of trainers, Em Dehaney, talking about how she has never been to America, but America is in her, George Collins, and Eileen Eddy of Radio KRFP talking about cultural and political imperialism.

Red Raiph asks just what exactly happened to that Big Onion,  Debra Torrance casts her mind back to the 80s and finds that we’ve not come along very far. Simone Charlesworth makes her debut on Ungagged, jumping in at the deep end with a brief history of Sarin, and Steve McAuliffe presents his poem America First.

In this episode of Ungagged we are joined by guest speaker Priya, who volunteers at Umbrella Lane in  to tell us about the current laws in the UK regarding sex work, and why she thinks the Nordic model is dangerous.

With Music from XSLF, The Babel Fish Project, Argonaut, Joe Solo, Bratakus, Dolls, IDestroy, Bugeye, and Lilith Ai.

 

(Produced by Victoria Pearson, edited by Neil Scott and Neil Anderson)