Let’s stir it up
News from JAH, 15 January, 2026
“The stone that the builder refused
Will be the head cornerstone”
Bob Marley, Acoustic Medley, Songs of Freedom, 1992 (recorded 1971)
Soul Rebels,
2026 is upon us.
The year has started as it means to go on. On New Year’s Eve whilst the 99% wished each other love and peace, the warmongers plotted. Trump for Venezuela’s oil and to distract the American electorate again. Xi Jin Ping rubbing his hands with glee at the license he now has to do the same in Taiwan … when he is ready.
We are indeed in The Hour of the Predator, the title of a new book by Giuliano da Empoli.
But extraction and violation is only part of our story.
On January 1, in New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani took over as Mayor. His inauguration was a celebration and a rebuttal of Trumpism, although his name was not mentioned once. A diverse group of school children sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Lucy Dacus sang the labour movement anthem, Bread and Roses (as reported on in Rolling Stone):
“Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.”
Watch the whole inauguration here.
Do not doubt. 2026 is going to test us. How do we prepare?
We have to think as much as we do.
We have to organise inwards as much as we organise outwards.
A sense of existential emergency needs to be balanced with quintessential calmness.
In Africa we need to look more deeply and consistently into our own continent, rather than being distracted by the high jinks of the populist leaders fronting up the collapse of the old world order in a West in crisis.
This article about the civil war in Sudan, putting the ongoing genocide into the context of Sudan’s rich history of civilisation and colonial interference, struck me.
We need to hold onto hope.
There is resistance everywhere and it is taking many forms. Hunger strikes. Protest. Civil disobedience. Satire. Comedy. Revolution.
Here are a few of the inspiring stories I spotted in media reports over the turning of the year:
In Israel: The volunteers putting their bodies between Israel settlers and a Palestinian village
In Canada: Santas and elves rob Montreal grocery store to ‘give food to the needy’
In the USA: South Park writer buys ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ domain name
In London Greta Thunberg got arrested for supporting Palestine Action and calling for the release of the hunger strikers. Read this lovely background article: Greta Thunberg came to stay – and my kid may have inadvertently helped her get arrested
Writing is also a form of resistance. Read this powerful essay by Redi Thlabi, The quiet violence of acquiescence and why journalism cannot afford detachment; and this one by Naomi Klein, Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s tweets were wrong, but he is no ‘anti-white Islamist’. Why does the British right want you to believe he is?
As I’ve written previously, we are in a battle to shape the future operating system of the planet. Inequality is rising. The rich, whose wealth grew by $2.2 trillion in 2025 (see these tables from the Financial Times and Bloomberg shared by Adam Tooze is his prolific substack) are getting inconceivably ultra-rich.
Authoritarianism is consolidating. But movements against inequality and poverty are rising too:
In Brazil: Brazil’s Massive Landless Workers’ Movement Leads the Way
The USA: Working Families bet on 2026 as the right time for a third US party after a wave of wins
Iran, where tragically over 500 protesters have already been murdered : National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) | Parliament in Exile
To hope or not to hope
In The Betrayal, a poem he wrote in the 1999s, Liverpool poet Brian Patten recalls the working class community where he grew up, describing:
“…. People whose pockets
Were worn thin by hope. They were
The loose change history spent without caring.”
In the years since then history has not got any kinder. Hope is still a minx. Billions have lost it. To many, hope might seem a middle class luxury.
We must have hope in the gathering resistance, but not romanticise it.
We must be inspired by individual and collective acts of opposition. But not see each new uprising as some sort of turning point. Achille Mbembe explains in his 2020 great book Brutalism “It is true that people are rising up in several countries of the world, and in the process, they are enduring ferocious forms of repression. At the same time, many have stopped believing in genuinely transformative action. They struggle to imagine any break with the existing frameworks of thought and action. They have actually thrown in the towel and turned against the project of human emancipation.”
The truth is that at this moment – despite the resistance – the people are losing. The powers ranged against us are growing.
As the wife of Renee Nicole Good put it: “We had whistles. They had guns.”
Another world is possible. We can win. But winning requires organising.
Winning requires seeding hope amongst billions of people in alternatives.
Emergency
Sign of the times.
It should not be. A Labour government in the UK, led by a human rights lawyer who was once a Trotskyist, has banned Palestine Action, involved in non-violent direct action to protest the genocide of Palestinian people.
To add mortal insult to major injury Starmer and crew are refusing to intervene to meet the demands of a group of young, awaiting trial, Prisoners For Palestine who are on a hunger strike. Heba Muraisi has now been on hunger strike for 71 days.
Listen: The Palestine Action hunger strikers close to death – podcast
UN experts, including Francesca Albanese, who have urged the British government to protect the lives and rights of the hunger strikers, have been ignored. So too have worldwide protests and petitions.
Activists unusual: Malebona Precious Matsoso
Malebona Precious Matsoso is an activist who fills me with hope.
She models a public servant whose priority remained the public and whose ethics remained service. For nearly three decades she held senior positions in South Africa’s public sector, including as the Medicines regulator and then the Director-General of the Health Department.
Yet she remained accessible to activists.
And committed to advancing equality in access to health care.
In recent years, as co-chair of the International Negotiating Board she played a pivotal role in ensuring the WHO’s new Pandemic Agreement was adopted in 2025 despite attempts to sabotage it by the USA, Argentina and Israel.
Although not perfect (what negotiated agreement ever is?) the Agreement is one of the few examples of the power of multilateralism in 2025.
As a result Nature recognised Precious as one of the “top 10 people who shaped science in 2025”.
Read: The first global pandemic treaty — and the woman who made it happen ; * Nature’s 10 names Witsie for role in global pandemic treaty - Wits University
Thank you Precious.
What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
As is my custom, I preface this newsletter with a quote from Bob Marley. The Acoustic Medley, which Bob recorded in 1971, is a beautiful but very hard to find medley of mainly love songs that capture Marley’s voice and versatility. You won’t even find it on Spotify.
It’s my gift to you.
Listen and let it lift your spirits.
At his inauguration Zohran Mamdani told supporters that he had been advised “to lower expectations”. His response:
“I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed but never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”
That’s the spirit with which we should embrace the struggles that await us in 2026: Organise expansively and audaciously. Don’t surrender your dreams. Hold onto your soul.
I wish you joy, compassion, peace, solidarity, courage and energy.
Love and peace,
Mark
Heywood
If you enjoyed this newsletter please forward it to other soul rebels. They can subscribe by contacting me at markjamesheywood@gmail.com
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