The lifelong activist says he’s been beaten up 300 times and had 50 bricks through his window. But he tells how his most dispiriting clashes – such as the ongoing NUS row – have been those with other gay rights campaignersPeter Tatchell lives where he has always lived,in a tiny flat round the back of the Elephant and Castle roundabout. In the 1990s, interviewers were always surprised by his modest environment, and on that ritzy,fin de siecle logic that he was pretty well-known, so why wasn’t he rich?The world has now become accustomed to the fact that he will never find a way to monetise his quest for global justice, and younger activists will probably gape in amazement that he can afford to live in London at all. But his set is still a surprise,stacked high with posters and folders; endless, endless paperwork; dramatic, or trenchant demands – Arrest President Mugabe; Free Raif Badawi – printed in well-kept and unassuming Helvetica on A3 bits of paper. We could create a third category of hoarder: clean hoarder,dirty hoarder, cause hoarder – and Channel 5 could make a documentary approximately him.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com