Ash Sarkar

Ash Sarkar (born 17 April 1992)[1][2] is a British journalist and left-wing political activist. She is a senior editor at Novara Media[3] and teaches at the Sandberg Institute.[3] In 2017, she taught Global Politics at Anglia Ruskin University as an associate lecturer.[1] Sarkar is a contributor to The Guardian[3] and The Independent.[4]

Ash Sarkar
Sarkar in December 2019
Born (1992-04-17) 17 April 1992
Enfield, London
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity College London
OccupationJournalist, academic, activist

Early life and education

Sarkar grew up in Palmers Green, North London and was raised by her mother, a social worker. Sarkar's great-great-aunt, Pritilata Waddedar, was a Bengali nationalist who participated in armed struggle against the British Empire in 1930s Bengal.[5] Her grandmother is a hospital carer.[1] Her mother is a social worker[1] who was an anti-racist and trade union activist in the 1970s and 1980s,[5][6] helping to organise marches after the racially motivated murder of Altab Ali.[6] Sarkar says that, as a child, her mother briefly met Mao Zedong while in Beijing.[7]

She attended a comprehensive school before moving to a selective grammar school for sixth form education.[1] She gained undergraduate and master's degrees in English Literature from University College London.[8]

Career

Sarkar is a senior editor at Novara Media and teaches at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.[9] In 2017, she taught Global Politics at Anglia Ruskin University as an associate lecturer.[1]

She is a contributor to The Guardian[3] and The Independent.[1]

Political views, controversies and reception
Sarkar at The World Transformed 2017

In her writings and commentary, Sarkar has expressed anti-imperialist,[10] feminist,[11] anti-fascist,[12] and libertarian communist[13] views. She has taken part in anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Trump protests[14] and joined a hunger strike to protest against the detention of asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre.[15] She supported the Stansted 15's actions against deportation flights.[16] After a clip of her telling Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain that she was "literally a communist!" went viral, Sarkar clarified her views as libertarian communist, a "long termist" who supports Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity policies.[13][8][17][18]

Sarkar's writing and broadcasting makes liberal use of humour and London slang, and she has written that politics "should be joyful and exuberant."[8]

Although she only became a Labour Party member during the UK General Election campaign in late 2019,[19] Sarkar (and Novara Media more generally) has become closely associated in media commentary with Jeremy Corbyn's democratic socialist project:[20] The Times has described her as "Britain's loudest Corbynista".[1]

In November 2017, responded positively to calls by a speaker at a World Transformed festival to "make the left hate again", pointing to Philip May, husband of the then-Prime Minister, as a legitimate target.[21] Sarkar declared: "I'm on Team Hate".[21]

In January 2018, Sarkar suggested to Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell that the British national anthem be changed to a "grime banger" such as "Wearing My Rolex".[22]

In September 2018, Sarkar defended anti-Zionist activist Ewa Jasiewicz, who had spraypainted "Free Gaza and Palestine" onto a wall of the Warsaw Ghetto.[23]

Personal life

Sarkar lives in North London[24] and is a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. She is a Muslim.[8]

gollark: How long ago was this "glitch"?
gollark: Yes, using cheaty abilities which people are denied by by the silly, lacking API.
gollark: What happened to this "breeding list"?
gollark: The page is there.
gollark: I skimmed it, but that's it.

References
  1. Fisher, Lucy (4 June 2018). "Meet Ash Sarkar, Britain's loudest Corbynista". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  2. Caesar, Ayo [@AyoCaesar] (17 April 2020). "28 today" (Tweet). Retrieved 17 April 2020 – via Twitter.
  3. "Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  4. "Ash Sarkar". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 July 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  5. Sarkar, Ash (5 February 2018). "My great-great-aunt was a terrorist: women's politics went beyond the vote". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 July 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  6. Sarkar, Ash (21 August 2018). "This isn't just a culture war – we need a radical anti-fascist movement right now". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  7. Jones, Owen (20 July 2018). "Owen Jones meets Ash Sarkar | Is communism 'literally' back?". Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  8. Hogan, Michael (22 July 2018). "Interview: 'That's when I lost my temper': Ash Sarkar on her clash with Piers Morgan". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 July 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  9. "Shadow Channel", Sandberg Instituut.
  10. Sarkar, Ash (5 February 2018). "My great-great-aunt was a terrorist: women's politics went beyond the vote | Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  11. Sarkar, Ash (8 March 2018). "Let's put the politics back into International Women's Day | Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  12. Sarkar, Ash (21 August 2018). "This isn't just a culture war – we need a radical anti-fascist movement right now | Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  13. Diavolo, Lucy (15 July 2018). "Meet Ash Sarkar, the Communist Who Called Piers Morgan an 'Idiot'". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  14. "Piers Morgan clashes with anti-Trump protester who calls him an 'idiot'". The Irish News. 12 July 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  15. Sarkar, Ash (28 February 2018). "By demeaning refugees, Tories have caused the Yarl's Wood hunger strike | Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  16. "Ash Sarkar Meets the Stansted 15". Novara Media. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  17. https://www.ft.com/content/59ca75e0-7598-11e9-b0ec-7dff87b9a4a2
  18. "'I'm literally a communist' T-shirt – literally free market economics | Coffee House". Blogs.spectator.co.uk. 17 July 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  19. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000d22y#playt=00h31m04s BBC Radio 4, Any Questions, 10 January 2020
  20. Chakelian, Anoosh. ""Luxury communism now!" The rise of the pro-Corbyn media". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  21. Tim Shipman (26 November 2017). "Left aimed hate at Philip May | News". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  22. "The UK National Anthem Probably Should Be a "Grime Banger," You Know". VICE. 18 January 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  23. Hugo Rifkind (11 September 2018). "The shameful silence of Labour's top team | Comment". The Times. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  24. "Meet the voices resetting the political agenda in the UK". Dazed. 4 July 2018. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.