Writer | Poet | Politics, ethics, beliefs | Art | former director @Ekklesia_co_uk | NUJ | @TUG_SNP | Music: @MusicTippett @YesSolidMental
Leith, Scotland
Joined May 2008
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'Transforming Christian-Muslim relations', with Rowan Williams, @monasiddiqui7 & @simonbarrow Videocast now online youtu.be/iyMWv_U4T9Y
Simon Barrow retweeted
On the “prepare 3 days worth of rations, in case of emergency” — I keep seeing people ask “what they know” — but it’s not some secret, these threats or a combination of them have all been hurtling towards us:
FOOD AND CLIMATE
• El Niño crop failures, worsened by fertiliser shortages and storms
• Extreme heat and flooding hitting already fragile food systems
WAR
• Trump loses the midterms badly, then attacks Iran again, risking nuclear war
• Wider escalation involving Russia or China
TECHNOLOGY
• An AI-engineered bioweapon
• AI-enabled attacks on national infrastructure
• AI job loss on a massive scale, with no plan for unemployment, leading to mass social conflict
DISEASE
• Pneumonic plague that appeared in Russia, in the news for a day, then dropped
• Antimicrobial resistance
• Weakened pandemic response as aid budgets are cut
INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMY
• Collapse of the UN and the humanitarian system, leading to mass refugee flows and global instability
• Another massive and worse sovereign debt or financial crisis
Simon Barrow retweeted
Iain McGilchrist on how we've become mesmerised by a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking.
From his magnum opus, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴.
ALT If we are wreaking havoc on ourselves and the world, and if our best intentions lead to paradoxical outcomes, it is because we have become mesmerised by a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking, the product of a brain system which evolved not to help us understand, but merely to manipulate the world: that of the left hemisphere. We have become blind to what the subtler, more intelligent and more perceptive right hemisphere sees. Consequently we no longer seem to have the faintest idea who we are, what the world is, or how we relate to it. Indeed there is a sense in which we no longer live in a world at all, but exist in a simulacrum of our own making. — Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World
Simon Barrow retweeted
The most important fact about the Israeli election is that there are 5.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, plus thousands of Druze in the Golan Heights, who are governed by the Israeli state, but who can’t vote.
Simon Barrow retweeted
Some of the sharpest analyses of Israeli politics come from Daniel Levy.
This should be subtitled in every language. Short, clear, impeccable.
Daniel Levy | Former Israeli Peace Negotiator | US/Middle East Project (@USMEP):
Netanyahu did not alone commit genocide for 3 years. He did not alone maintain decades of illegal occupation. It was system-wide.
Eisenkot was part of it & served in the military. He sat in the emergency unity security cabinet after Oct. 7 - during the genocide.
Israeli generals, soldiers & judges - all part of a system-wide mobilization. Dissenting voices existed but remained marginal.
Simon Barrow retweeted
In the new film “Fatherland,” Thomas Mann is a standard-bearer for a tradition of liberal humanism that, though in many ways noble, proves completely incapable of fending off the most terrible evils. jacobin.com/2026/10/film-fat…
Simon Barrow retweeted
When the Oxford children's dictionary discarded dozens of nature-words—"dandelion," "fern," "starling"—as irrelevant to children's imagination and replaced them with words like "broadband" and "cut-and-paste," this inspired act of resistance was born: themarginalian.org/2019/06/1…
Simon Barrow retweeted
Defeat of Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) is not just a victory for the Left its a remarkable victory for forms of direct, participatory democracy bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/1…
This evening in Edinburgh in person with guitarist Graeme Stephen, Metropolis, and the human-technology relationship will be special. 7pm, Saturday 31 October. Book here. eventbrite.co.uk/e/with-feel…
Simon Barrow retweeted
This is what solidarity looks like: Two children’s laureates to give royalties to Sally Rooney after her UK sales halted theguardian.com/books/2026/o…
Simon Barrow retweeted
So clear -- why I am an anti-Zionist ⤵️
Position statement.
If Zionism were simply about establishing the right of Jews to live safely wherever they are, including in their ancestral homeland, I would be a Zionist.
But this isn't what Zionism is about. It is, and always has been, about creating a Jewish-majority state in a land where the majority of people are not Jewish. This necessarily means either removing most non-Jews or denying them citizenship. Zionists have done, and are still doing, both.
I believe in the right of ALL people to live safely wherever they are. I oppose every means used to drive people out of their homes and lands: mass murder, ethnic cleansing, systematic violence, denial of citizenship, violation of basic human rights.
Zionism uses all these means to create and maintain its Jewish state.
Therefore I am an anti-Zionist.
Simon Barrow retweeted
A beautifully engaging piece—"being rescued from the provicialism of our own moment" is desperately needed everywhere.
As if some automated sorting has taken place, we no longer hold the capacity to consider where someone else landed. I suspect even wonder itself has been lost.
Simon Barrow retweeted
Actually, no.
Zionism is about 130 years old.
No Jewish text or teaching before that time was about taking over the Land of Israel by force and taking it from other people.
That is not a Jewish value. Our religion never proposed or suggested that.
Zionism, a modern, political ideology, arose as a rebellion against religion.
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My latest piece for @bellacaledonia.
Simon Barrow retweeted
This is exactly right — it’s corporate media, not “mainstream” media. It’s literally not the mainstream.
Amy Goodman: I don't call the corporate media the mainstream media. I think we represent the mainstream.
Those who care about war and peace, the climate catastrophe, LGBTQ issues, racial justice, the immigrant crackdown—are not a fringe minority.
Not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority, silenced by the corporate media, which is why we have to take it back.
Simon Barrow retweeted
My favourite item of the week was Andy Burnham urging people to ‘Be Ready’ for worsening climate threats - the day after opening up Jackdaw, a gas field that will emit over 35 million tonnes of CO2e fiftysixdegreesnorth.substac…
Simon Barrow retweeted
Much US foreign policy seems to manifest as bullying or crawling at present. As war fever is exalted, thus diplomacy withers. "As long as it is assumed that war is always an available option, we will not be forced to imagine any alternative to war."- Stanley Hauerwas
