Planet - The Welsh Internationalist

Excerpts from Planet 215

Nuclear Power: Who Cares?

James Stewart looks at the reasons why there is such apathy among Welsh activists, politicians and media towards plans for a new nuclear power station just 15 miles from Barry.

Education Should Be a Leveller

Carl Emery interviews Education Minister Huw Lewis on PISA and poverty, and asks to what extent Welsh education can really foster a more equal society.

Welsh Keywords: Cyfraith

Catrin Fflur Huws tells the story of Cyfraith (‘Law’) in Wales after devolution: ‘…and so by getting Cyfraith out of its box, and unfastening some of its wrappings, more things had changed than the Mother of Parliaments had foreseen. 1997 was a more important year than people had realised.’

The Street Punks of the Tsunami Museum

Marjaana Jauhola and Acehnese punk Yudi Bolong describe how an alternative sense of belonging is created across the city of Banda Aceh and the wider world by the punk movement, in the face of persecution by the authorities.

Emperor Tan and the 'Yellow Peril': Sinophobia and Cardiff

Anthony Brockway traces a history of Cardiff’s connections with anti-Chinese prejudice, from the looting of laundries to the media backlash against Vincent Tan.

'The Sacred Cause of Liberty and Freedom?'

Gethin Matthews comes to some controversial conclusions about the reasons why so many Welshmen felt compelled to fight in the trenches, and appeals for more openness to the complexity of Wales’ involvement in the conflict.

Rocky Acres: Robert Graves, Harlech and the Great War

Mary-Ann Constantine explores the importance of the hills at Harlech to Robert Graves’ poetic imagination and emotional survival, as a craggy Eden in between episodes of hell in the trenches.

Retracing Wales: Langland to Llangennith

Stephen White describes both the intoxicating joy of surfing on the south Gower coast and the complex territorial politics it produces, in our ‘Retracing Wales’ series of creative responses to the Wales Coast Path.

The World Turned Upside Down

In words and illustrations folklorist Peter Stevenson explores the honourable tradition of cross-dressing as political subversion in Wales and beyond.

A Refusal of Britpop and Blairism

On the 20th anniversary of the release of The Holy Bible by the Manics, Rhian E. Jones argues that despite an embarrassing association with adolescent angst, the album also powerfully and presciently articulates crises facing society today.

Catching Up With Ngugi

Ned Thomas looks back at his relationship with the work of Kenyan writer and activist Ngugi wa Thiong’o, via the Mau Mau Emergency, editing Planet and teaching literature in Wales. What does Ngugi’s work say about inequality in the world we live in now?

Back to Bangor

We are proud to publish an extract from the autobiography of the late poet Tony Conran, who contributed so much to in Wales.

Focus section

Mike Parker... on politics

Helen Pendry... on Bookshops

Peter Lord... on Art

Reviews section

John Osmond reviews Roy Jenkins

Robert Rhys reviews Poets' Graves/Beddau'r Beirdd

Greg Hill reviews The Dig