Friday, 29 January 2010
Remember Howard Zinn
The American historian and social activist Howard Zinn has died. My friend Victoria Brittian has written a fitting tribute to a life well-lived. She writes:
Howard Zinn's death has the ominous feeling of bringing too close the end of an era when some western intellectuals had the magnetism of rock stars, and when their ethical and principled stand against the dominant powers of the moment moved millions to see things differently, and to act.
In today's vapid celebrity culture these heroes of yesteryear have shone ever more brightly in contrast.And as politics has become more debased, corrupt and filled with empty rhetoric, the towering survivors of that era became reference points for a generation sickened by a mainstream media which had little or no space for them.
Howard Zinn's death has the ominous feeling of bringing too close the end of an era when some western intellectuals had the magnetism of rock stars, and when their ethical and principled stand against the dominant powers of the moment moved millions to see things differently, and to act.
In today's vapid celebrity culture these heroes of yesteryear have shone ever more brightly in contrast.And as politics has become more debased, corrupt and filled with empty rhetoric, the towering survivors of that era became reference points for a generation sickened by a mainstream media which had little or no space for them.
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