2022: The Radical Year Ahead
Posted by Pete on 5th Jan 2022
2022 is looking like another busy year in the radical calendar!
So, another year comes to an end - and what a year it's been...
Donald Trump finally left the White House in January - though he did take some persuading.
Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is clinging on for dear life in Downing Street. I mean, after all the money he spent on the flat refurb, it would be a shame to kick him out so soon!
With Covid still rearing its ugly head, things can seem a little grim at the moment - especially if you focus on the negatives.
But even in the darkest times, we at Radical Tea Towel like to focus on the glimmers of hope that history offers us.
Want to keep up to date with radical history in 2022? Then check out our amazing calendars!
Click to view our 2022 Calendars
The Uruguayan historian, Eduardo Galeano, complained about how he was taught history at school:
“They taught us about the past so that we should resign ourselves with drained consciences to the present: not to make history, which was already made, but to accept it. Poor History had stopped breathing.”
Another radical historian, the late Howard Zinn, spoke of a past defined by “the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience.”
This is the history that's often left out of school textbooks and big budget TV documentaries, “to keep us intimidated and without hope.”
This was the history Zinn and Galeano tried to tell – and it’s the history we try to tell, too.
Know your Tolpuddles from your Newport Risings? Our Radical Map is the perfect way to swot up on radical events in British History.
Click to view our Radical Britain Map
In 2022, that means marking 110 years since the Lawrence Textile Strike in Massachusetts, the 60th anniversary of Jamaican independence from the British empire, and the 40th anniversary of the anti-nuclear weapons protest at Greenham Common.
It'll also be the 390th anniversary of Baruch Spinoza’s birth, the radical Jewish-Dutch philosopher who believed in the power of history to change the world:
“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”
Actually, it's a particularly good year for important birthdays: 2022 will also mark 250 years since Charles Fourier, one of the founders of French socialism, was born.
And on the 5th of May, we'll be celebrating the 140th birthday of one of England’s greatest radicals,
Sylvia Pankhurst.
Sylvia Pankhurst was a radical on every front: a suffragette, a socialist, an anti-fascist, an anti-imperialist and so much more.
Click to view our Sylvia Pankhurst tea towel
On the other side of the ledger, it will be the centenary of Michael Collins's assassination.
One of the great Irish revolutionaries, “the Big Fella” was shot in Cork on 22 August 1922, during the Irish Civil War.
It will also be 40 years since the South African anti-apartheid activist, Ruth First, was killed by the South African secret police in Mozambique.
There’s much for radicals to mourn, commemorate, and celebrate in 2022, and we’ll be doing so with words and, of course, tea towels.
Whether they're used to clean the dishes or hung on sitting-room walls, our tea towels have been day-to-day tools of political expression for over a decade.
And we're excited to announce that 2022 will see some brand new additions to our tea towel collection.
From the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca to the White Rose activist Sophie Scholl, from the Storming of the Bastille to the launch of the NHS, a motley crew of rebellious characters and revolutionary events will be entering the Radical Tea Towel universe.
And that universe wouldn’t exist without you and your support. So, with gratitude in our hearts, we wish you an immensely happy New Year, and we’ll see you for lots more radical history in 2022!
Oh, and one last thing: if you haven't heard, our New Year Sale is now on. This is our biggest sale yet, so make sure you don't miss out!
