Features

VE Day 75: a living legacy and an unfinished struggle

It is easy for young people in Britain today to overlook the importance of the outcome of the Second World War for world history and the current political situation we face today. It is difficult to comprehend the scale of the sacrifice and the bravery of previous generations in the struggle to defeat Nazi Fascism.

Poetry Corner: VE Day 75 – Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?

As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.

Here we feature Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too? written by Langston Hughes. The poem is written from the perspective of a black US serviceman. It is a profound comment on the profound and structural racism on which the USA is and was based and the sad fact that black servicemen were abroad fighting to defeat the same racist and oppressive ideologies they were forced to endure at home.

Poetry Corner: VE Day 75 – Wait for Me

As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.

Here we feature Wait for Me written in 1941 by Konstantin Simonov. The poem is written from the perspective of a Soviet soldier heading to the front, addressing their spouse or partner. It became a favourite of Soviet servicemen and women at the time and continues to be popular in Russia today.

Poetry Corner: A Few Poems for Lenin’s Birthday

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to us as Lenin, was born 150 years ago on the 22nd of April. His effect on history, on revolutionary thought and on the minds of the people of this world, all remain possibly unparalleled by any figure of the tumultuous 20th century. One of the ways in which Lenin remained immortalised was by the admiration displayed for him by various artists around the world, especially writers. Lenin remains, as Marcel Liebman once wrote, a figure which nearly every insurrectionary movement claims as their heritage.

Reclaim Pride!

We’ve all been to Gay Pride at some point. Whether you marched behind the banners, covered your face with glitter or danced the night away surrounded by drag queens, there’s a special place for gay pride in the hearts of the LGBT community across the UK. However, there’s something very wrong .

Pride, sadly, is a shadow of its former self. What once started as a protest riot on the streets of New York against police harassment has become little more than a street party – decades of moderate politics, commercialisation and corporate sponsorship has turned protest signs into glossy adverts; angry slogans transformed into 2-for-1 offers at Nandos if you wear a rainbow badge.

Bridging the divide: the cosmos and the two cultures

From the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Mayans, the practises of science and literature existed in some form or another at the centre of every ancient civilisation. They represented to them what they continue to do to us today: the most fundamental desire of our species to know the world around us, and to share that knowledge with others. Tens of thousands of years came and went while spending little time at all drawing distinction between these disciplines – ones today we perceive as being repellent strangers to one another – as often they were one single entity. Ancient aborigine civilisations considered the stars the campfires of passed spirits, spawning many a story that were undoubtedly shared around more terrestrial campfires, from generation to generation, through spoken word rather than ink and parchment.

Somewhere down the line, between then and now, the entity broke in two.