Edinburgh Festivals Truth 2025

Evening light high street

Arts as hope – as Truth, connection, liberal thought, new horizons.

I travelled on warm sunny days and with high anticipation for new inspirations. The high street was extra buzzing with the festival crowds – as was the station!

 

**The festivals theme for 2025 was THE TRUTH WE SEEK**

Its about searching for truth – to remind the world of the role of culture and the arts. And of the Freedoms needed to Create.

The Festival Fringe began in the 80s, to compliment the main international festival and to offer platforms for all kinds of artists. The Fringe festival is the place to be seen, and to get exposure. 

This year with 400 shows, 1.2 million in ticket sales, thousands of visitors and with provocative bold shows. To question yourself. From the mainstream musicals shows, the ever popular comedy, to experimental new work. There are questions over who is investing and the domination of the big venues?

*AWARD, Fringe First Scotsman, good drama - Jean Frank, "Eat the Rich, Maybe not your Mates!"

 

There are classy performances on the main EIF stages. I went to several challenging EIBF talks on film, politics, and poetry. 

This year I attended the excellent ‘Make it Happen’ with Dundee Rep and Brian Cox at the Festival theatre: the Festival Chorus performed an overwhelming Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Usher Hall. Palestinian festival at Portobello. All that joy of IN PERSON events.  

**QUOTES from the festival:

*Search for the Truth rather than impartiality” Joyce Macmillan, Scotsman 15^th August, BBC impartiality risks being complicit in the spread of misinformation

“Brexit, Trump, Gaza, have all made journalists impartiality a barrier to uncovering the truth.”

Nicola Sturgeon, Fearful of the rise of the far right during a chat at EIBF with journalist Kirsty Wark

Brian Cox, We need good people. 

Kate Dickie, “I love England as a neighbour, but if you’re roof is leaking, you don’t ask your neighbour to fix it.”   Tariq Ali, fighting the empire. 

 

*Richard Demarco - “Reform is a danger to the Edinburgh Festivals”, he claims.

The rise of the Far Right is trying to shut down freedom of thought for creativity. How much does the media reflect truth today, and not simply Soundbites and Clickbaits - and the lack of informed debate. How is impartiality possible when one side peddle obvious lies.

 

* Martin Roche writes, “‘They fear the author, writer, poet, dancer, playwright, composer, musician, and great performer – because great art requires freedom. Where culture is dictated by strong men, it is produced not by free minds but by people in fear.” 

 

Encourage the global majority, There is healthy competiveness, but also questions around whether the festival has become too much a flashy theme park, dominated by the big venues and expensive shows? Next year will be Edinburgh’s 80^th one!

 

Crowds high street

**Demarco’s Festival of Thought

Freedom to find truth

Freedom to Create

Scottish Festival cultural icon, Richard Demarco calls for “a Festival of Thought” 

to help save liberal democracy and with no politicians.

“..to bring to the city the world’s finest liberal thinkers from the humanities, from the Arts and culture, from all the sciences and technologies. “There should be no separation between science and the Arts. Leonardo Da Vinci, perhaps the greatest artist ever to live, was a great scientist, an engineer and artist.”…..Edinburgh’s history as the home of the Scottish Enlightenment. He envisages a flowering of ideas and, eventually, a new kind of university of all the disciplines and all the talents.”  

Demarco calls for his friend Robert Sturus to come of Scotland for the EIFs 80the birthday. Sturus is Director of Rustaveli State Theatre of Georgia and he brought Shakespeare’s Richard II to Edinburgh. Political debate today is thin, ill-informed and ignorant and uses “immigration” as a scapegoat from the real failings that are facing us – the cost of living, the widening inequalities, the rich elites getting ever richer. Economist Richard Murphy, claims the neoliberal economic policies are failing us, pretending there can be uniformity across the board…….

 An academic from Dublin suggests that “America should never have united, under its centralised control.” The Maga movement for instance, appears to be culture wars between the extreme left and the extreme right. And the toxic online culture, which can’t differentiate between healthy debate and saying I dislike you, because of your views……Trump attempts to shut down free debate and take control of hugely respected American universities. Could we trust Putin or Trump to allow unfettered publishing of poetry or novels? Trump marginalizes the media over anyone who challenges him. And tells the Smithsonian museum how to tell the 'American story'. 

All Nationalisms are different. By contrast Scots Nationalism is about our self determination, and according to political theory expert Tom Nairn, Scotland’s nationalism is unique – as Scotland jumped ahead to a modern state 1700s. By contrast European states moved to a modern state 1800s, due to the uneven nature of capitalism. We should find out what unites us, what we have in common rather than what divides us. 

Evening crowds Edina High street

The Silk Roads EIBF 2025

 

In 2015, British historian Peter Frankopan changed the way we think about the historical relationship between East and West, with his book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. The book shifted focus from the West towards Eastern civilisation, religion, and industry, and opened up research on previous eras of exchange and collaboration. 

The Silk Roads was a ground breaking book that explored the significance of the east on the development of ideas and trade: and shifted views of global power and on the history of our great civilizations. His new Silk Roads book is his updated version. 

 

Peter Frankopan, who is professor of Byzantine studies at Oxford university gave an energetic and enthusiastic talk, that at times also jumped with too much information overload and was not a seamless narrative. He praised the historic beauty of Edina. 

His book explores the spread of people, trade and ideas & religion (Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam) – across Persia before developing in the Mediterranean. He places the centre of the world further east, beyond Mesopotamia, and the Caucuses, in Iran and the “stans” - and not the Mediterranean. He spoke of the great city of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul which was the centre of the Roman empire. Also other great cities of Babylon and Mesopotamia. And the Mongol empire. The ancient Dunhuang at the British library. 

 

The Silk roads was first coined in 1871 by German geographer, Ferdinand van Richthofen. Christianity spread and Islam too. Science and philosophy spread from east to west long before the voyages of Columbus. 

 

He stated that the exploration of the silk roads was started by Alexander the Great who travelled across the Persian empire. He headed east to the home of the great cities and people and he brought the Greek culture to Indus valley and the Buddha was given form. Two thousand years ago Chinese silks were worn by the Carthaginians and Iranian elites used Provencal pottery. There were Indian spices in Afghan and Roman kitchens.

 

He challenges ‘euro centrism’ with fascinating stories of the rise of globalization. In 1492 there were the European voyages of discovery of the west outwards with the exchange of people, goods and ideas. In our European museums layouts we display firstly Egypt, Greece, and Rome and therefore view the narratives of civilization as centre around the Mediterranean. The Silk Roads is about how the Pacific connects to Britain and Europe. Trade changes history and access to rare metals and also caused the spread of disease.

 

However he ignores the achievements of the Far East – such as gunpowder, mechanical clocks and compass. Chinese paper making was brought to Persia (Chinese block printing 6^th century) and movable –type printing press Pi Sheng 1040. And India – science, maths, astrology.

 

Are the Silk Roads now only a bridge between the geopolitical powered of the west - Europe, North America, and to the emerging east of China and India? There is also no mention of the European enlightenment or the thriving life around the North Sea.

 

India has to choose between Russia and Europe. 

Russia is the biggest supplier of refined fuel, 

Shanghai, top 20 ports many into Africa. 

UAE investing in Africa.   

 

Peter Frankopan is a British historian, writer. He is a professor of global history at Worcester College, Oxford, and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research. He is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. He is best known for his 2015 book The Silk Roads.

 

 

 

Lindsey Hilsum Poetry in Times of War EIBF 2025

It’s the Poetry we’ll remember

Channel four foreign news correspondent gave a talk at Edinburgh international book festival 2025, on her book I Brought the War with me, about her poetry in times of war. She always carries a book of poetry with her. After her horrific experiences of fighting in Rwanda, she felt she needed philosophical more than psychological help.

 

She says that people remember the great poets of the world wars, and not the journalists reports. 

When in Ukraine in 2022, at a town called Izium, she stood beside an apartment block split apart by a missile. Fifty four people had been killed in the Russian attack six months before. 

 

"Purple and yellow wild flowers were growing in the rubble that filled the chasm between the two parts of the block. It is not the houses. It is the space between the houses,” I thought. “It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.” 

She then thought of James Fenton 1981 poem A German Requiem, about selective memory in the second world war. 

 It is not your memories which haunt you.
It is not what you have written down.
It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.

“The idea that the spaces between the houses symbolised gaps in memory, and that forgetting might be essential if people were to live together in peace, 

Poetry helps us see parallels with the past, and puts up a mirror to our fears.

 

Hilsum spoke of her often traumatic experiences covering many foreign wars over her 40 years of experience…” Many journalists are resilient, and – at least for now – I would count myself as fortunate in this regard. Witnessing the suffering of others, surviving danger and experiencing grief are all profound experiences, to which nightmares, anger, tears and bouts of despondency are all normal, human responses. They are not necessarily signs of a clinical condition.”

She explained that Poets don’t have the answers. But they may help us understand our own actions and reactions and find a way through the darkness.  

She got into reporting via aid work in Central America in the 70s. ‘I didn’t really know that war was brewing across the region – my concern was social justice, and, at 20 years old, I just wanted to have an adventure and change the world. (I succeeded in the former but not – needless to say – in the latter.) In 1982, I moved to Kenya to work for the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund, Unicef.

She realised her main skill was to pivot to journalism. “Reality overcame the illusions I harboured. Nearly every country neighbouring Kenya – Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia – was going through civil war… I found that while reporting on people in war zones was at times upsetting and occasionally terrifying, it was also rewarding and exciting. I felt that I was living through history as it happened. Later, I was lucky enough to get a job with Channel 4 News, based in London, and while I have never been exclusively a war correspondent, I have spent a lot of my career reporting conflict”

She spoke of the great war poets, and said that many war poems are written by women. “I am drawn to what Wilfred Owen described as: “The pity of war, the pity war distilled.” 

Hilsum, was handed a rose in Velyka Novosilka, eastern Ukraine, by Oleksiy, who was cycling across town to see his friend, at the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in June 2023.” 

“ journalism is ephemeral. We rarely read the stories written by reporters who covered the first and second world wars. We do, of course, read the poetry. They focus on what is critical now – this village taken, that truce broken, a new atrocity by occupying forces. But poets through the ages have turned the horror of war into transcendent works of beauty and meaning.

The late Irish musician Frank Harte said: “Those in power write the history; those who suffer write the songs.”

 This is an extract from I Brought the War with Me by Lindsey Hilsum, which is published by Chatto & Windus on 19 September (£16.99). 

II  Extract from her memoir, she explains why her own words were not always enough    

My TV news report reflected some of this, but it did not have the allusive power of the poem.

“In my nearly four decades as a foreign correspondent, I have always carried a book of poetry with me. While the images we show have great impact, I feel that journalistic language sometimes fails to convey the intensity of the experience. Maybe Fenton’s poetry resonates with me because he was a war correspondent as well as a poet – he sees what I see but has found a more compelling way of expressing it, as if he is working in three dimensions while I am stuck in two. We journalists pride ourselves on the clarity of our prose and on making complex stories simple. That’s our job – to explain why terrible things are happening and to challenge the euphemisms used by politicians and military spokespeople. We also try to convey the thoughts and feelings of the people we meet, and a sense of what it feels like to be on the ground. Yet we may lose the deeper meaning, the universal import of what we have witnessed or the contradictory emotions that war engenders.”

She got into reporting via aid work in Central America in the 70s. "I didn’t really know that war was brewing across the region – my concern was social justice, and, at 20 years old, I just wanted to have an adventure and change the world. (I succeeded in the former but not – needless to say – in the latter.) In 1982, I moved to Kenya to work for the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund, Unicef."

”She realised her main skill was to pivot to journalism. “Reality overcame the illusions I harboured. Nearly every country neighbouring Kenya – Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia – was going through civil war… I found that while reporting on people in war zones was at times upsetting and occasionally terrifying, it was also rewarding and exciting. I felt that I was living through history as it happened. Later, I was lucky enough to get a job with Channel 4 News, based in London, and while I have never been exclusively a war correspondent, I have spent a lot of my career reporting conflict”

War gives your life purpose and meaning… the colours are brighter and the mountains clearer

She spoke of her personal reporting of war zones – “The lives of those who have had war visited upon them, the children, conscripts and civilians, are desperate and miserable. But those who visit war – aid workers, journalists, military volunteers – share a secret. War gives your life purpose and meaning."

 Suddenly you believe you know what matters and what can be dismissed as unimportant. The colours are brighter and the mountains clearer. You live in the moment.” 

This is an extract from I Brought the War with Me by Lindsey Hilsum, which is published by Chatto & Windus on 19 September (£16.99). 

 

Nicola Sturgeon memoir Frankly at the Front list EIBF 2025

Former Scotland’s first minster Nicola Sturgeon, was interviewed by journalist Kirsty Wark at the McEwan hall to discuss her newly released memoir Frankly: as part of the Edinburgh International book festival 2025,

 

Wark: Sturgeon was first elected in 1991 and now 33 years later here is her memoir Frankly. She writes about her anxiety and being introverted – which she had to work to overcome. But that masking came at a cost. In eight and a half years she won eight elections. Sturgeon reflected that these were volatile times and an incredible period in Scottish history.

 

Wark commented that Alex Salmond looms large in her book. Nicola replied that he was a strong, charismatic leader and a force for good. They complimented each other. His approval mattered to her and his disapproval counted. Was it coercive control, Kirsty asked, Nicola didn’t believe so.  

 

The White Paper, Stronger for Scotland, Salmond couldn’t do the details and he never fully read the hundreds of pages Nicola believes, on his trip to China. (I have to assume the main people who read all the hundreds of pages, would have been unionist opponents). Alex both undermined and bolstered her. He was integral to her life and she felt a profound sense of sadness at his death. Alex advised her that her then husband Peter Murrell should not be chief executive – all rather poignant now. She spoke of all the optimism around the inydref. 

Sturgeon’s Record in Office, what was she proud of? She mentioned the Pre school education while this has still not reduced the attainment gap. Nicola said she was proud of Baby Box, doubling early years support and the Scottish child payment – but all this needs to work through the system. Nicola commented that poverty is a big part of the problem. She set up a National investment bank.

 

The Trans issue was a bruising time and highly polarising. Sturgeon wondered, could there have been a less divisive way? The tenor of the debate has been vicious, with all the prejudices of the far right and that these extremes need to be ignored. She appeared very tense during the trans chat.

The general election 2017. She had a severe chest infection. and thought she would collapse at the first leaders debate. Salmond lost his seat and he then refused to take her calls. 

 

The trial and acquittal of Alex Salmond - There was no evidence of a conspiracy: who leaked the story she questioned, as journalists didn’t know. The dark arts of media manipulation, the leak turned him into a victim. He said he behaved badly, with at times inappropriate behaviour.

Wark questioned was she collegiate enough, was she too insular? 

Nicola said she was enjoying being single and that she now hopes to travel maybe to Europe, to lay aside the glass bowl of Scottish politics. She was very young getting into politics. She spoke of reading more books – my passion, solace and inspiration. Wark mentioned the FMs Reading Challenge and support for libraries.

 

She said that things are stuck here in Scotland, but that they can come unstuck suddenly. There is no magic solution and that we must connect to the real challenges of poverty and the economy. After her chat one man said that he had lived over thirty years in Hong Kong and returned to a Scotland transformed. This was a very positive chat, with a supportive audience with clearly many SNP voters!

Many have questioned why the two Big Beasts of Scottish politics of our devolution era have ended up in the justice system: have ended up being hounded. What’s really going on? Herald journalist Iain MacWhirter, has questioned this on BBC Radio Scotland, asking why this has happened. After all we don’t have former PMs in the courts, even as we know there has been gross negligence and corruption. Both Sturgeon and Salmond have been taken in for questioning, and subsequently found innocent of all charges. (Salmond of inappropriate behaviour, Sturgeon of embellishment. And that big tent outside Nicola’s house). 

All day the book festival buzzed with press – both print journalists, broadcasters and photographers. From Scotland and abroad. Some were promised one to one interviews. But Sturgeon’s Press conference in the afternoon was a rushed affair. As if she couldn’t wait to get away. Then again she did have another event in Glasgow later to promote her new book