I first met the Manchester Guardian in 1961. That was in Mexico City, where I had a fellowship to study at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma. I was fluent in Spanish. But the Mexican newspapers were often financed by, and always under the thumb of, the Partido de la Revolución Institutional – the all-powerful PRI.
I think I picked the Guardian from the display of newspapers because of its interesting paper. It was a sort of tissue paper called “airmail weight newsprint”. But, as I read the actual news, I was particularly impressed by a casual indifference to the United States. At that time we Americans were obsessed with baseball, football and local and national politics. The world was whatever wars, hot or cold, were going on. One attraction for me about the Guardian was news about an actual socialist party, Labour, not subjects of suspicions of un-American activities. Another attraction was stories about the dissolution of empire and the emergence of anti-imperialism. To see reports on the dissolution of Dutch, British, Portuguese, French and Belgian empires gave a hopeful sense of the way of the world.
Through the years I’ve been an off and on subscriber to the Guardian Weekly. Anything that presents an alternate reality to contrast with the gruelling degradation of Trumpland is welcome.
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