Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Reclaiming part of our heritage
CIARAN WALSH on why the local labour movement and left will be commemorating the Oxford Levellers this week
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THE Levellers Day Festival held in Burford, Oxfordshire, during May is a well known feature of the radical calendar.
It commemorates the execution of three Leveller soldiers after Oliver Cromwell suppressed the threatening and popular Leveller mutiny in the New Model Army.
The movement in the army was a direct challenge to the grandees in Parliament: to the unjust oppressive dispensation they intended to replace absolute monarchy with; to the proposed colonial war of suppression and appropriation in Ireland; and also a cry for popular democracy and equality.
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