Hear from Reham Bastawi, Nora Ziegler, Henry_, Black Sheep, Susan Clarkson and others on: play and revolution, dialectics and exhaustion, friendship and housework, an Old Testament story and Omegle, and much more. Why not have a paper copy of Bad Apple delivered to your door? You can subscribe for as little as £1 per month on Patreon. Any money we make goes towards printing the zine, maintaining our website, and tabling at bookfairs and similar events. Peace and Solidarity! Henry, Nora, and Reham x

By Nora Ziegler The dominant culture tells us that we must either be isolated or suppress our differences for the sake of connection. Offering and receiving hospitality can enable us to work across differences, recognising the risks of exploitation and abuse, as well as the opportunities for solidarity and transformation.  I live communally with 5 other people.  We eat together, we support each other with our different needs and struggles, we meet together every week to discuss all kinds of issues that arise when people live together. Every morning, some of us also gather for prayer which involves a call…

By Rumana Hashem  This article draws on some thoughts and reflections on how we can use anti-racist activism and collective organising to overcome trauma caused by abuse and hate. How can we take action against racism-sexism and other kinds of violence, when we are so distressed and traumatised? What do we do when victim support services are so limited?  The notion of therapy which I found new in its effectiveness at a personal level is participation in anti-racist and anti-fascist protests. Based on my participation in a series of anti-fascist protests and solidarity rallies held recently across the UK, I…

By Cat Odenkirk I recently went to a book club where we discussed Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It charts a young Black woman’s growth and survival in a dystopian hellscape. Lauren grows up in a walled-in small tight-knit community, which manages to get by. Outside the walls, there is extreme violence and drug-fuelled chaos driven by the absolute desperation of people who have nothing, in a society collapsed. She believes that it is only a matter of time before the walls are broken down and they will have to be able to survive the brutality outside. She…

By Henry On Sundays I cycle down onto Hackney Marshes with my husband. On a wide flat area of reclaimed land, between channels of the River Lee, white painted goal posts line up across acres of rough mown grass. There are over eighty football pitches! By the time we get there, a bit late, most are empty except for a few games dotted about. We cycle around and look for an interesting one to settle down to watch. Teams of older men, young boys, women, girls, mixed teams, represent nearby communities. Listening to the shouts and complaints of the players,…

by Libaharan Ravindran We grew up strong in nature, rooted to indigenous ways,  Using old ice cream tubs for placing curry in, being zero waste,  When I spot one of us in a green, rural space,  My back goes soft and my heart expands wide,  To engulf the resting of my nervous system quietly,  We face racism next to verandas of blue skies and open fields,  The contradiction of biodiversity and racial injustice goes missing,  In the whiteness of colonial minds, we barely exist;  On the margins, we thrive like heather and juniper groves,  A melanated nature is justice lending…

By Lianne, who is (in no particular order) a fundraiser, campaigner, educator, writer and Minister in Training at One Church Brighton.  Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has brought forth bread from the earth.  Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine.  Braided bread glistens. Dark juice swirls. Eyes are caught, Smiles shared. This meal,  This gathering, An act of resistance.  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.  I breathe a little easier. Feel the ground under my feet.  Amen …

Between Ghazal and Reham Joyland is a ground-breaking Pakistani film that pushes the boundaries of Pakistani cinema. It tells the tale of an unhappily married Haider who falls for a transgender woman called Biba. The film was initially banned in Pakistan but was then approved for release after some edits.The central theme of the film is desire. The desire that Haider feels for Biba. That Mumtaz feels for her husband Haider and the longing for freedom. The suppressed desire that his father Rana feels for his neighbour Fayyaz. Due to the constraints in Pakistani society with rigid patriarchal societal roles…

By Beth, a trans person keeping a low profile.  I recently attended a workshop about power and group dynamics facilitated by the lovely people at Bad Apple zine, during which I made a realisation that chilled me to my very core.  We discussed the role of faith when giving oneself to a project. Specifically, having faith in the people who hold power within the group/community/organisation. In faith we give ourselves to a cause, in return we trust that we will be valued and safeguarded.  Power dynamics persist everywhere. “We are all equal” and “no one has any more power than…

By Ghazal Tipu It is common knowledge that a mosque is a man’s space that he has carved as his own spiritually and institutionally. There is often limited or no space for women to pray. It is no surprise that Muslim female campaigners have been calling for increased mosque space for women for some years. Earlier this year, the Open My Mosque campaign launched a report finding that 59 percent of respondents had female friends or family unfairly or negatively treated in a mosque. There were also accounts of women being blocked from entering, including two who had been violently blocked…

Sharif Gemie Sea, sand, sun The noisy marketplace with Onions, olives and oranges The tight breeze-blocked street ends In a blue Mediterranean illusion Bricks, dust, heat The most crowded place on earth Three religions watch each other Their calm evaporates in the intensity A punch-up in a church, a stabbing in the dark A protocol of lies, the romance of racism Rifles in the cafes, bullets at the funerals, shrapnel in the playgrounds Hating falsehoods laughing loudest A nightmare where no-one awakes Walls, sand, guards A line on the ground A division imposed The air is imprisoned The kites aren’t…

By Jacob Berkson Bio: Jacob is a bad Jew or at least wants to be such. He has a background in full dress analytic philosophy and is currently studying law. He wants to see a world without borders. The wells of Abraham and Isaac Isaac and Abraham both spend their days wandering a wilderness in a land that had been promised to them but was not yet theirs. They both have and resolve, albeit differently, a dispute with the local king Abimelech over the ownership of, or at least access to, wells that they have dug. Abraham, it would appear,…

We are excited to share Bad Apple Issue 5 including stories of haunting, an interview with a peace activist turned labour councillor, reflections from the anarchist bookfair in London, poetry and lots of Baaaad apples. Bad Apple Zine is free, independent, and completely DIY. If you’d like to contribute articles or art please get in touch! Peace and Solidarity! Henry, Ghazal, Nora, and Reham x

By Henry Like many, I have scraps of verse, mostly psalms and poems, in the back of my mind, ready to be called on as needed. I quite often forget the order of the lines or change them around so much that when I see them in print they seem all wrong. One of these, ready to be called on in a new enquiring period of life, is the Benedictus. Turning sixty, I discover, brings new struggles, in which I grow to accept things are not as they seem, in which familiar prayers and meditation lose their power and others…

The submissions deadline for Bad Apple Issue 5 is MONDAY 6 NOVEMBER. If you would like to write/draw/create something for Bad Apple, please get in touch. We’re happy to offer support with writing, discuss ideas, give feedback etc. Contact: badapplemagazine@protonmail.com We’re also exploring the possibility of organising a collaborative writing workshop so if you’d be interested in this sort of thing, please let us know. And finally, we’ve started a Patreon in case any of you would like to and are able to support us with a regular donation of £1 per month: patreon.com/badapplemagazine Any money we make goes towards…

By Benji Benji is a member of the Kurdistan Solidarity Network and an occasional attender at hislocal Quaker Meeting with a long-standing interest in both the Quakers and other home-grown radical movements. The Kurdish freedom movement often talks about the ‘two rivers’ of history: the river of Capitalist Modernity and the river of Democratic Modernity. The former refers to the history of state hegemony, capitalist realism and Darwinian competition that forms the only history most are ever exposed to, whilst the latter refers to the far older history of democratic society, communalism and mutual aid that predates it and has…

Henry and M, an interview What is squatting? Squatting is when you occupy empty or unused commercial buildings. In England, legally, it has to be a commercial property. The place that I’m living in now used to be a centre that provided support for people who had come out of the social care system. The building was sold in trust, which means the landlord bought it from the Council for cheap on the promise that he was going to rebuild it as something for the community. But this landlord in particular has been known… there’s other situations where he buys…

By Nora Ziegler Atheism is a part of religious life. People of faith do not believe the same things equally or consistently and some don’t believe at all. Antitheism separates religious faith from atheism and from radical politics. It is tempting to respond to antitheists by invoking the many religious revolutionaries around the world, whose faith informed their politics and helped them to stay strong and committed in the face of violent persecution. However, white Christians should be very careful to appropriate revolutionary Christian legacies for our own religious identities. Christianity has been and is a tool of white supremacy…

By Joyoti Grech Cato I remember standing on the rajbari island, my feet re-rooting my body in the red earth of Where I Come From. My ancestors – warriors, weavers, women, men and all genders- surround me, my cousin and my friend by my side, the wide river below us and Bhante island[i] across it from us. Dada pointed out the vihara on the Bhante island, and told us how Bhante’s goodness is known and respected even by the occupying army. The Commanding Officer overseeing the militarisation of our home, the building of cantonments and human shield villages of enforced…

Bad Apple Magazine is a project of passion and we’d like to invest a bit of time and effort to get the word out! We’re asking for help to cover the costs of printing the zine so we can take it to radical book shops, bookfairs and social centres. Here’s a link to our fundraiser. Also, if you’re able to supports us more consistently, please sign up to our Patreon where you can have the option of receiving a printed zine once its published sent to you by post. Thank you! 😀

We’re excited to share the third issue of Bad Apple Magazine which is now available to download here! This issue features an interview with Mohamed Abdou, the author of ‘Islam and Anarchism’ (2022 Pluto Press), talking about ethics of hospitality, learnings from Tahrir Square, post-structuralism, and the role of personal faith in social justice organising. It also includes a report about interfaith work in North and East Syria, an article about non-binary experience of the Buddhadharma, and a Muslim christmas carol. As always, our zine is free, independent, and completely DIY. If you’d like to contribute articles or art please…

Bad Apple Magazine is looking for articles, poems and art for our Winter issue! Deadline is 30th November 2022

Book Review by Nora Ziegler Selma James is a founder of the Wages for Housework (WFH) campaign which later became known as Global Women’s Strike (GWS). James’ new book “Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet” includes articles, press releases and essays from 50 years of grassroots organising against poverty and violence. James is based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre which is home to a radical coalition of feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist groups including Women Against Rape, English Collective of Prostitutes, All African Women’s Group, Queer Strike among many others. I first got to…