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 […]

The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah

Ruth HartleyColonialism, Displacement, Family, Migration, Politics, Race, Racism, Southern Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe2 Comments

New Year in another country On New Year’s Day we fled from France across the snow-covered Pyrenees pursued by stormy winds and heavy rain. There we wandered along empty twisting roads among ruined and isolated stone villages and ancient monasteries in the  brutal mountains of Spanish Aragon. In our hotel room the television showed no news and told no stories […]

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 […]

Margins, boundaries, barriers, borders, thresholds, transitions and liminal spaces

Ruth HartleyDisplacement, Journey, Migration, ZambiaLeave a Comment

Bordering We were blocked, stopped and stuck at the border between Mexico and Belize for five long hours. It was a strange way to exist – a state of waiting in which nothing happens. We didn’t have the right papers. We were in Limbo, that place of meaningless suspension in which you wait endlessly for judgement on your soul. Being […]