Dawn Foster (1986-2021) was a journalist and author whose body of work apeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Independent, Jacobin, Tribune, and the London Review of Books; alongside Dissent and The Nation in the United States. The subjects of her articles focused very strongly on gender, sexuality, poverty, housing, and disability. Dawn herself suffered from epilepsy and had very rare condition called schwannamatosis – where non-cancerous tumors grew around her nervous system. She wrote about the reality of living with chronic health issues and her quality of life. She died this week after health complications stemming from her lifelong illnesses. She was 34.
She was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and later lived in Newport, South Wales to a family in poverty, and unemployed. She attended Caraeleon Comprehensive High School, and Bassaleg High School, before getting a scholarship to Warwick University.
The commentaries of Dawn Foster illustrated vividly the reality of 2010s austerity era in Britain – documenting new or refined forms of social murder created within that time, and the consequences brunted by working-class people. Details of the brutality ensued by a callous government animated by a philosophy which emphasized the withholding of responsibility towards the disadvantaged; a system that forces parents to take out loans to bury their infant child because councils do not receive enough funding, the war on the poor fought through the very Ministry of Work and Pensions; and a very heavy focus on social housing. The experience of the Grenfell Tower fire proved to be an emotionally taxing experience, as she headed to South Kensington to see the community organising for the now displaced residents.
I remember when Dawn Foster came to Croydon in 2018 invited to speak during an event organised by Croydon Rent Party. She was very eloquent, gracious and kind. I’m somewhat embarassed to mention that I didn’t actually know of her prior to that even. I think of the young people radicalised and galvanized by the conditions of austerity which produced events like that, and coalesced to form what was to become Corbynism, and the damage what cynical operators within the Labour Party bureaucracy did to help deny the change that this country needed. Indeed, Dawn’s last article for the Guardian took aim at one of the principle agents for this sabotage. Unfortunately, Tom Watson’s contacts contacted the Guardian which eventually led to the termination of her contract with them.
Foster is remembered for not valorising a so-called political saviour – which should be the absolutely correct approach for the Left regardless of the opportunities what present itself for it. She is also remembed for in a culture of careerists, been uncompromising in her pursuit of honest reporting, and the reality of the situation as she saw it. Rest in Power.
Because It Doesn't Affect You 