The Nerve's heroes of the year

My heroes this year are the journalists of Gaza. I stand in awe of how they’ve kept reporting in the most unimaginable circumstances and I’ve been distressed by the lack of coordinated solidarity from western news organisations. More than 240 have been killed since the war began and without them, the world would have little idea what’s happening. They are our eyes and ears. 

I also want to pick out one other individual, the Right Rev Mariann Edgar Budde. On the day after the inauguration, President Donald J Trump and his entire family sat in the front row of Washington DC’s cathedral to listen to a service that was livestreamed around the world. 

I watched it live and my jaw fell to the floor when, while delivering the sermon in the rather dull monotone that only ordained vicars seem to speak in, the bishop suddenly electrified the church and the world with the words she spoke. 

Looking straight into Trump’s eyes, she asked him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

It was just an extraordinary moment. There was nothing Trump could do. He couldn’t interrupt or walk out, he just had to sit there and take it. 

For someone to address Trump directly, to force him to sit and listen to the words, and to do so in spite of the personal risks was hugely inspiring and important. She showed that it is possible for individuals to speak out and to make a difference, to have nerve, when we’ve seen so many companies losing theirs, is a light in the darkness. 

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land.”

This year, we’ve seen big corporations settle spurious lawsuits and media titles roll over. But Budde shows us that it is possible to speak up and to speak out and that standing up for the underdog is never in vain. She is a hero for our time. 

It was in the poetic year of 1984 that Margaret Atwood wrote the classic dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale.  In it, she imagines the US hijacked by far-right Christian nationalists, who create a false-flag Islamic terror attack in order to bring in military rule and create a white supremacist dictatorship that subjugates women. They name this new nation “Gilead”. 

It is not difficult to see the parallels between Atwood’s salient fiction and the real-life Project 2025’s pro-natalist, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. There are now prominent Maga voices and religious leaders endorsing an end to the 19th amendment, which guarantees American women the right to vote. Atwood is 86 years old and out on an international book tour, entirely unsurprised by this political landscape but still fighting it with dignity and wisdom. 

I’ve called the new Guilty Feminist podcast season and grassroots movement The Road to Gilead because Atwood gave us a pop-culture shorthand for what we’re now on. Maga is setting its cap at the UK and Europe, explicitly stating its agenda for far-right parties in power across our continent, and Atwood is our guide. 

Not only is she a visionary, she can write an extraordinary sentence – a genuine artist as well as a tireless activist. In the Guardian in 2018, she satirically wrote on the state’s interference in reproductive rights: “One proposal might be to declare women persons from the neck up, but things from the neck down. The things could then be requisitioned by the state, like parcels of land … The head would be, legally, a she; the body would be an it.”  

How does she conjure this audacious bravery? Perhaps she reveals the answer in her novel The Blind Assassin: “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.” In 2026, my aim is to make sure what she wrote will be read … and to never, ever let the bastards grind us down. Thank you, Margaret. 

Deborah Frances-White is a comedian and writer who hosts the Guilty Feminist podcast. The next Road to Gilead live shows start in February and there will be a Road to Gilead Open Space grassroots day on 17 January 

The Turkish writer and political thinker Ece Temelkuran left behind her place of birth, along with her mother tongue, a decade ago. Learning English as an adopted language of exile, in 2019 she wrote How to Lose a Country – a memoir charting just seven short steps from democracy to fascism. This was followed by a manifesto for social change in Together, and with it the urgent hope of humanity’s return to trust, compassion, courage and kindness.

In early 2026, Temelkuran will land her most ambitious book to date. Taking the form of a series of intimate, warm-hearted letters addressed to the growing international community who find themselves displaced and “unhomed”, Nation of Strangers reveals how a sense of belonging Is contingent on the necessary strength we can draw from one another, without alienation or estrangement.

Fearlessness personified, clear-thinking, brave and true, Ece (“the c is pronounced like the g in generator”) is my Nerve hero of the year.

Michael Morris co-founded ArtAngel and is a Nerve contributing editor

Washington Post opinion writer Karen Attiah was one of hundreds of Americans punished by their employers for talking about Charlie Kirk's bigotry in the wake of his killing. In Attiah's case, she had correctly identified America's culture of enabling white male violence, something the Post’s leadership apparently viewed as unforgivable. But Attiah did not go quietly. Why would she? After all, she had previously championed freedom of speech around the globe as a Post editor, including when her columnist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated by the Saudi Arabian government. When Columbia University cut funding for her course on race, media and international affairs, Attiah launched Resistance Summer School, a roaring success that has turned into a thriving independent course. And when she lost her job in September, Attiah filed a grievance through the Post union and kept publishing on Substack. “Institutions may cancel me, but my pen and my teaching will not be silenced. If anything, my voice will be sharper now,” Attiah wrote. And it resonates.

Kat Tenbarge is an award-winning independent journalist who writes the newsletter Spitfire News about internet culture and politics

Elijah's path as a cultural disrupter began as the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending: simple Post-it-note prompts encouraging people to put down their phones and actively participate in being creative. An innocent call to action would morph into multimedia visual installations, a book and an ongoing lecture series. 

Elijah challenges accepted norms around DJ worship and the lack of support shown to Black British-based music artists, directly calling out institutions such as Radio 1 Xtra and the Mobos. His continued engagement is firmly centred on removing power structures and barriers built by gatekeepers and so-called experts, and democratising the playing, making, and enjoyment of music by any and everyone. Vive la revolution.

Tee Max is a photographer and Nerve contributing editor

Anyone who watches the documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack will be horrified by the evidence it presents on how Israeli security forces target doctors and hospitals. As I sat through the bloodshed and grief, I was deeply aware of what it must have cost all those involved to tell their stories, and also what it must have cost the reporter, Ramita Navai, to bring these stories together. 

Navai – full disclosure, a friend of mine – is no stranger to harrowing tales. She has reported from dangerous situations throughout the world from Guatemala to Syria, gone undercover in Afghanistan, and won a string of awards. She is absurdly brave, but also rigorous. When the BBC commissioned Navai to take on this story, with others including Ben de Pear, they did so because of her brilliant track record. But when the BBC faced the heat, they were prepared to throw her under the bus. 

Looking for a way out of broadcasting a film that shone such a clear light on Israel’s crimes, they scapegoated Navai. On the spurious basis that her clear-eyed criticisms of Israel might seem partial, they suggested that she should be downgraded from the film’s presenter to a contributor. Navai rightly pushed back on this suggestion, saying it was “racist, sexist and defamatory”, as it flew in the face of her standing as an experienced and respected journalist. The film moved to Channel 4 – where you can watch it now – and is winning numerous awards. We need more journalists with the integrity of Navai, who don’t lose their nerve in the face of overt danger or disheartening cowardice.

Natasha Walter is a writer and Nerve contributing editor. Her new book, Feminism for a World on Fire, will be published in May

This year’s Turner prize winner, Nnena Kalu, is the first learning-disabled artist to win the award. She exposes how uneven access still is in the art world simply by existing as an artist – unapologetically and on her own terms. 

Kalu should have been taken seriously from the start, and her story encapsulates the battles that persist across the industry. She didn’t need permission; she simply needed respect from platforms routinely given to others. I met her in 2020 while working on one of her exhibitions. She was fully in command of her practice, making assured decisions about space, structure, materials and movement. It was a joy to watch her get so much out of making her work, as well as dancing to her much-loved disco music, of course! 

Attempts by a few critics to undermine her success only sharpen the point: who gets to decide who is an artist? Saying it looked as though “zero thought" went into her practice is factually incorrect, never mind ableist. Kalu being a successful artist shouldn’t be radical – but it is. She may have barriers and naysayers, but she also has the majority, and now the victory, to prove her place in the industry. The rosettes worn by her team on the night of the award said it best: “Idol, legend, winner, whatever.”

Meg Molloy is the founder of Working Arts Club and works as a director at a commercial art gallery in London. In 2025 she was named as one of Zetteler’s 25 for 2025

This year, I have been impressed by Mehdi Hasan's ability to unflinchingly and surgically dismantle, attack and engage with beliefs spread far across the political spectrum. As founder of new media company Zeteo, the British-born journalist has squared up to the most terrifying strains of the Right with a wit so sharp his opponents only seem able respond with death threats. Hasan's approach is refreshing as very few of today’s progressive thinkers will - for good reason - engage with counterparts who are blatantly ahistorical, fascistic, or have a name that rhymes with Neers Dorgan. Hasan feels like the messenger who is sent ahead, in the hope that anyone, anywhere, will engage with truth.

Anandita Abraham is the Nerve’s editorial assistant