Israel/Hamas – with blood and fire or with doves

Ruth HartleyColonialism, Conflict, Displacement, Feminism, Human rights, Justice, Migration, Politics, Power, Racism, Refugee, War5 Comments

The right side in the Israel/Hamas war. The whole world is engaged with, but divided over the Middle East war. It’s a risk to venture an opinion, but it seems to me that there is only one right side and one way to protect children and that is to find peace for both sides. What I’ve learned in the war-torn […]

Let’s Play Football

Ruth HartleyApartheid, Climate change, Colonialism, Conflict, Displacement, Home, Human rights, Justice, Migration, Politics, Power, Race, Refugee, War8 Comments

The wrong tweet? Gary Lineker made an error in the tweet that had him cancelled from hosting Match of the Day on the BBC. Delivering her policy statement in the House of Commons, Home Secretary Suella Braverman declared that Britain was being ‘invaded by a huge influx of refugees.’ – there are a hundred million who want to come to […]

Fly with me

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Art by Ruth Hartley, Books by Ruth Hartley, Displacement, Installations, Migration, Refugee, When We Were Wicked2 Comments

We have a wonderful red Chinese kite that we bought in Shanghai in 2007. It’s a giant squid that flies with beautiful ease, but needs both space and wind. Here in our village we have space, but not much wind. That’s changing with the climate. The wind we get now is gusty, dusty and inconstant. In Zambia I would see […]

Belonging and longing for home

Ruth HartleyDisplacement, Exile, Home, Identity, Journey, Migration, Race, Refugee2 Comments

Settlers and the unsettled I grew up in a settler community of new homes but the land we took was already the home of African peoples. Many of my school friends’ families were Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who had nowhere else to go and hoped one day to go to Israel. I quote from a friend Paul M who […]

What is an identity? How do we identify ourselves?

Ruth HartleyCreativity, Family, Human rights, Identity, Photography, Poetry, Refugee2 Comments

How do we identify ourselves? What is identity? What criteria do any of us use to identify ourselves? Is it appearance? Tribe? Work? Status? Religion? Why do we need an identity? What do we use our identity for? To belong somewhere? To exclude another or many others? What identity do we think we have in someone else’s eyes? We are […]