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I'm sorry but there's  a crucial lack of rigour in these recent debates -
the CGF seems to be where institutional Geography and the Britsih
universities were  back in the bad-old days of the 1980s before the
modernisation of research.  Clearly what we need is an agreed, peer-reviewed
system to measure radicalism.  I recommend that Raju convenes the first
Radical Assessment Exercise.  Each of us should then submit up to 4 radical
acts which would then be judged and graded on a scale from 1 to 5.
Especially radical acts would get a star.

Examples might include:

Reading Das Kapital to your children as a bed time story (reading it in
Russian from the official CPSU version of the collected works counts as
international recognition.)

Driving past a Shell garage with an empty tank in the middle of Wales* (I've
actually managed this one - boy do I suffer for my radicalism)
* Doing this in Nebraska or the Northern Territories counts double

Stopping the traffic in central London - a form of everyday militancy which
can be achieved every day - usually between 5 and 7 in the evening.

Getting stopped at US immigration because you wrote critical, problematising
commentaries all over the visa form (for UK radicals this also counts as
international output.)  

We could do this exercise every four years, although this could produce
problems as we try to do too many radical acts at once to meet the deadline.



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David Gilbert
Department of Geography,
Royal Holloway,
University of London,
Surrey TW20 0EX.

Tel (01784) 443653
Fax (01784) 472836
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