Action And Worth Reading On... The New Right -- New Internationalist

new internationalist 133 March 1984

THE NEW RIGHT

Action and worth reading

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IDEAS FOR ACTION

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Women’s Action Group in Female Excision and Infibulation (WAGFEI)
c/o Minority Rights Group
36 Craven Street,
London WC2 5NG
Tel 01-930 6659

AIMS

To promote research and education on female genital mutilation.

To create an international awareness and understanding of this problem.

To work through UN agencies, governments, development agencies and non-governmental organisations to bring about change in this area.

To encourage and to find support for local initiatives.

METHODS

By publication and distribution of factual information on the subject. By direct contact with women, governmental and non-governmental bodies directly concerned. Through lectures and talks we try to inform the public properly on the subject.

SUCCESSES

We have put the subject onto the Agenda of the UN Commission on Human Rights, urging the Commission to find the appropriate channel to break the deadlock and get governments to take up committed action to end the practice. We are in the process of getting a number of research and educational projects off the ground. Our efforts have led to the publication of a few books by women from countries directly concerned. Within the UK we have been instrumental in breaking the silence on the subject through our educational work.

FAILURES

We are disappointed that we have not been able to initiate much work in Africa on this. We lack the necessary back-up to actively seek, meet and offer support to the right organisations who will be able to initiate change.

FUTURE PLANS

Top priority is to concentrate in areas where the most drastic and the most damaging of the operations exist and to find support for local initiatives. We continue to work to interest decision-makers in this issue. Our final plan is to get a base established within Africa working strictly on this.

HELP NEEDED

We are eager to be in contact with all people of goodwill, especially in relevant areas of Africa who are aware of the political sensitivity and have something positive to offer towards progress on work in this complex socio-cultural aspect of development.

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Committee on Overseas University Libraries Support
321 Chapel Street
Ottawa, Canada K1N 7Z2
Tel: (613) 232-3569

AIMS

To mobilize interest and resources in Canada to assist Third World university libraries with the provision of books, periodicals, equipment and support.

METHODS

The Committee will evaluate and process requests fromuniversity libraries in developing countries and from Canadian groups with established links with overseas universities.

On approval of the request, an attempt will be made to link the overseas institution with one or more interested Canadian universities or faculties.

Alternatively, a Canadian university with an existing linkage with a Third World university, or an interest in establishing such a linkage, might apply to COULS on behalf of its overseas partner.

SUCCESSES

In our brief history we have provided 18 application forms to Universities in several developing countries. We have made one sizable shipment of periodicals to the Université du Burundi and another to the Federal University of Technology in Yola - Nigeria.

FAILURES

We have been fortunate in encountering only a few complications in shipping materials.

FUTURE PLANS

To explore the possibility of handling requests from Francophone universities and to co-operate with Francophone universities across Canada.

HELP NEEDED

We need to establish a network of local committee co-ordinators that can work with us in responding to the requests of a particular institution as the need arises.

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Lysistrata,
11 George Street,
Brighton, East Sussex.
Tel: 0273 694600

AIMS

To link up wimmins peace groups both nationally and internationally by spreading news of wimmins direct action, especially small groups who do not get media coverage, and to provide information to isolated wimmin and wimmins groups.

To give space for wimmin to express their own views concerning all issues to do with peace.

To link with all wimmins’ struggles so we can challenge, expose and eradicate the corrupt mentality that prevents true peace.

METHODS

Producing a magazine that is accessible to all wimmin. Working collectively, but not as a close defined group to enable all wimmin to be involved.

SUCCESSES

In the last three months we have produced 2 issues of LYSISTRATA and feedback has been positive.

FAILURES

We haven’t, as yet, made contact with as many groups as we would like.

We haven’t as many wimmin involved as we need to enable the magazines’ production and distribution to reach its fullest extent.

FUTURE PLANS

To use LYSISTRATA to further the aims of the wimmins’s peace movement.

To find ways of reaching all wimmin.

To provide a taped version of the magazine for blind/partially sighted wimmin.

HELP NEEDED

We need ideas for fund-raising.

We need more contacts, especially from wimmins’ peace groups overseas.

We need more wimmin to contribute to the magazine either by distributing it in their own areas, writing articles, sending photographs, poems or anything concerned with peace and peace action. We need more wimmin to get involved with the actual production of LYSISTRATA.


	This page of New Internationalist is written by the groups featured on it. The space is available free and a guide for writing entries can be obtained from New Internationalist, 42 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EP.

Worth reading on... THE NEW RIGHT

Warning: it’s easy to be sucked into heavy political tomes on the meaning of conservatism, but the essence of the subject is its contemporary nature and appeal to more than academics. Some of the more approachable books include:

Thunder on the Right - A Guide for Understanding the New Right and its Role in American Politics of the 1980s. By Alan Crawford; Pantheon 1980.

A good read from a former New Right journalist and activist. Still a conservative, the analysis is shaky but documentation and range of information formidable. Good introduction to the American scene.

The PolitIcs of Thatcherism. Edited by Stuart Hall & Martin Jacques; Lawrence & Wishart 1983. A collection of expanded articles from Marxism Today. Despite the patchy quality of the collection and some very off-putting jargon, probably the best starting point for an understanding of the British scene.

After the New Right. By Nick Bosanquet; Heinemaun 1983. A book to be treated with respect, this writer has a fine brain. Elegant. balanced, intellectual and of international relevance. Highly recommended.

Britain in Decline - Economics Policy, Political Strategy and the British State. By Andrew Gamble; Macmillan 1983. A progressive, intelligent analysis of the economic collapse of the country (in other words we agree with it). The bonus is the clear and easy-to-understand writing.

The fluid and contemporary nature of this political phenomena means much of the thinking and writing on the subject is appearing in periodicals. Of particular interest in North America are a special issue of Radical America, Sept. 1981; and from a Conservative perspective regular articles in William F. Buckley’s National Review. For the New Right angle then Irving Kristol’s Public Interest is a must. From the British side, much of the current discussion is going on in the pages of Marxism Today and New Socialist Particularly outstanding are Stuart Hall’s, The Culture Gap in Jan.84 issue Marxism Today and one breathtaking overview piece, Bitter Harvest, by David Edgar in Sep/Oct. issue New Socialist.