MA CEESA deadline extension

It turns out that somewhere on the Internet there is a second application deadline for this year's CEESA floating around (a legacy from some attempt to plan things ahead, thirteen months ago), so sincere apologies to anyone who saw that (or who saw both and was confused).

Most importantly, this means that if anyone has not applied yet but wants to we will still accept applications. The sooner the better, of course.

Our apologies too to anyone who had a struggle to get their application in for the "real" deadline today!

Linking community struggles: Rossport, June 1 - 4

The seventh annual Rossport Solidarity Camp gathering is taking place in Erris, Co.Mayo from the 1st-4th June. You are invited to take part in workshops/discussions, skillshares, music and fun!

We hope for this year's gathering to link up community struggles from all over Ireland, bringing people together to share skills and campaigning experiences.

As the current government ignores the pain being inflicted by their policies on the ground and democracy seems to slip further from sight, communities are organising themselves to show that another Ireland is possible. Rossport Solidarity Camp is hosting a weekend for people from different communities to meet up, exchange stories and experiences, and network. There is a lot we can share and learn from each other!

Come for the workshops, stay for the fun! There will be a couple bands and DJs, and hopefully a session around the fire one night, so bring your instruments!! Workshops will run Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday.

If you can't make it up to Mayo yourself but you would like to help out, please help us publicise the event by printing up posters and fliers and posting them up wherever you can!

All the best from everyone at the camp.

Political police photos, from 1913

Wouldn't you know it - as soon as Scotland Yard got a camera they used it to take covert photos of those dangerous, terrorist ... suffragettes.

Plus ca change...

Photos here, and a great bunch they are too.

RTS 2012 - ten years after

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“Reclaim the Streets” Party taking place at a secret location in Dublin.

Dublin, April 27th, 2012

On Saturday the 28th of April, hundreds are expected to gather for Reclaim the Streets. People will be meeting at the Spire on O’Connell Street at 2pm, and the exact location of the event will only be disclosed on the day itself.

A soundsystem, DJs, face-painters and dancers will congregate to turn a small section of Dublin’s city centre into a carnival of hope and creativity. Donal Corcoran, one of the event coordinators comments “There hasn’t been a Reclaim the Streets party in almost a decade and it’s time that changed. This is about reclaiming public space and creating a positive atmosphere and a hub of entertainment for a few hours”.

Organisational measures have been taken to ensure that there will be an atmosphere that caters for everyone. Cyclists will form a ‘critical mass’ en route to the party, music, participative artwork, free food and facepainting will all form part of the entertainment. People involved in coordinating are optimistic that the event will be successful. Donal states “The police used violence to clear RTS back in 2002. But we are making it clear from the start that we don’t want that, we condemn violence and don’t see any place for it at an event where people have come out solely to have a good time. We will also ensure that the site is cleaned up before we leave and are encouraging people to keep the streets litter free”.

Despite the clashes that marked 2002, Reclaim the Streets has always been something special for partakers and onlookers alike. It’s the only event of its kind in Ireland, and it is attracting a great deal of attention on the streets and especially on social media. Currently there are over 700 confirmed guests on the Facebook event page, and stickers have been sprouting like mushrooms on electrical boxes and lamp-posts all over the city. Donal Corcoran concludes “Adding to the mystique behind Reclaim the Streets, no one really knows where it is or what it’s going to be like until the day itself, and it is organised spontaneously by all the people who attend it, which sets it apart from commercial and lucrative approaches to entertainment.”

ENDS

Contact Information:

Donal Corcoran

0861260359

0857189621

Breivik and Pete Seeger

Norwegian fascist Anders Breivik got a mass answer today in Oslo and elsewhere across Norway where huge numbers of people (40,000 in Oslo alone) came together to sing "Barn av regnbuen", a 1973 hit singer-songwriter Lillebjorn Nilsen which for Breivik represented the "Marxist brainwashing of Norwegian children".

Here's the original, Pete Seeger's "My rainbow race" (with Spook Handy, 2010). Simple enough stuff, of course, but as Niako Daolin once said, "any child of three knows this, but even a man of eighty can't do it":

"Some folks want to be like an ostrich / bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams / can unclench all those greedy hands".

Our masters' voices...

Lovely article from MediaBite about the Official Voice of Wisdom represented by the mainstream media on the subject of austerity - and how it has failed to convince ordinary people to do what they are supposed to do. Neatly complements this WSM article responding to a couple of UCD law academics who think they have special insight into civil disobedience.

That recording, once more

This will probably be the last heard of the Rossport "rape tape" - because, as the Irish Times has noted, the Ombudsman's recommendations of disciplinary action against gardai who have misbehaved at Corrib have never been acted on. In other words, gardai have carte blanche to do whatever they like in defence of Shell. This, of course, is what Jerrie Ann Sullivan has been stressing all along: that the case is not just about her, but about a culture of sexualised violence which is tolerated at the highest levels - as it is if the Garda Commissioner refuses to take disciplinary action, and the Minister for Justice defends gardai against those making the complaint.

This site has carried a series of background pieces about the issue, particularly about the recording: see here, here and here. For the original events, see here, here, here and here.

For an explanation of the issues involved in this, see this statement by a number of academics involved in the case. The only significant point to emerge following this statement is the Ombudsman's strange claim that it rejected offers to have Ms Sullivan's confidential research data, present on the same camera but recorded a month earlier, deleted under mutually acceptable conditions by a third party, because of the need to have technically competent staff do it. As the Ombudsman's own report makes clear, it does not itself have such staff but had to outsource technical work on the camera...

As the dust settles, ordinary citizens in Erris have to go back to a situation of daily occupation and harassment by an enormous force of gardai and private security along with the overwhelming impact of the construction and haulage works and a situation where the Ombudsman has refused to investigate other threats of sexual violence recorded from gardai. And all so the state can continue handing over natural resources to multinationals in the midst of a massive economic and financial crisis...

"This is how we do it": dialogues about another world

There will be a livestream (starting tomorrow, Friday - 7 pm EST so midnight Irish time, but the weekend events are at easier times) of this remarkable event:

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT
A Festival of Dialogues
about another world ///
/// under construction 

Friday, April 20 at 7p in The Great Hall
GRACE LEE BOGGS in conversation with ANDREA SMITH and NELSON JOHNSON moderated by AMY GOODMAN

Saturday & Sunday Afternoons in The Rose Auditorium

Show-and-Tell presentations from South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and throughout the US

There are people and communities all across the world who are no longer waiting for the systems around them to change, who are engaged in alternative practices right now -- in the workplace, in politics, in public safety initiatives, in media and communications, in new economic systems and more. This year Foundry Dialogues will feature the practices and experiences -- the how -- of some of these remarkable innovators.

In our lifetimes, in these times, how do we realize a more just, democratic, sustainable way of life? This is how we do it.

It features presentations from members of Brazil's Movimento Sem Terra and the Brazilian Solidarity Economy Forum, The South African Shackdwellers' Movement (Abahlali baseMjondolo), La Vaca (an Argentinian communicationscooperative) as well as seasoned elders and newer organizers from throughout the US and the city.

You can check-out the full schedule, and the livestream (when it begins at 7p EST tomorrow/friday), at http://thefoundrytheatre.org
 

Feminist activism in Ireland event, May 19th

Interesting-looking conference in the Sean O'Casey Centre on "Feminist activism in Ireland: past, present, future". Details here.

Let's get fiscal: women's perspectives on the austerity treaty

Feminist Open Forum event:

Let’s Get Fiscal: Women’s perspectives on the Austerity Treaty
Thursday, April 26, 7pm until 9pm Central Hotel, Exchequer St, Dublin

Mary Lou McDonald, TD, Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, will discuss the politics behind the treaty and why institutionalising austerity is bad for citizens, communities and women.

Dr Niamh Gaynor, DCU, will explain what austerity policies involve in general with a specific focus on their impact on women in African countries. Niamh will also draw parallels with women in Ireland.

Sinead Pentony, head of policy, TASC, will deconstruct the treaty itself, explain how it differs from Nice, Lisbon and other EU treaties and analyse its effects on the most marginalised in our society.

Clare Daly, TD, ULA, will examine the outcome of four years of austerity and explain why she is calling for a No vote in the forthcoming referendum.

Public talk on UK experiences of migrants resisting racism

People seeking asylum, racism and the state:
Experiences of effective resistance from the UK

Dr Rhetta Moran, RAPAR (Refugees and Asylum Seekers Participatory Action Research), Manchester


Public talk, Tuesday 24th April, 7.30
TCD, Aras an Phiarsaigh (Pearse House) Room 0.09
Directions here


Grounded in over 10 years of participatory action research as - and with - people seeking asylum, Rhetta will offer an overview of the theoretical framework that underpins RAPAR (www.rapar.org.uk), a human rights organisation based in the city centre of Manchester and extending throughout the UK and into Ireland. Some examples will follow that demonstrate how people who have been failed by the State via the asylum system have gone on to resist through RAPAR. By working collectively to stop their own persecution and secure their safety, these cases model ways of exposing and transforming actions, fashioned by the State, that are as dangerous as they are inherently racist.  Another world is possible...   


The event is free and all are welcome.

Co-hosted by:
 

MPhil In Race, Ethnicity, Conflict, Department Of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin http://www.tcd.ie/sociology/ethnicracialstudies/ and 

NUIM MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism http://ceesa-ma.blogspot.com

For further information contact: Laurence Cox or David Landy  085 7121058

Thinking social movements in the Irish crisis

I've uploaded two working papers on understanding social movements in the Irish financial crisis here - may be of interest to some readers.

Film on Spanish general strike against austerity (March 29th)

Activist researchers Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh have made a lovely short (7-min) film in English about the recent general strike in Spain - very interesting in terms of the current Irish situation. With unemployment soaring, the strike included conventional strike activity along with neighbourhood activity, a consumption strike, direct shutting down of brand shops which refused to shut - and more generally a coming together of the indignados with workplace and neighbourhood activity.

Migrant activism seminar

There's a seminar on migrant activism and integration from below in TCD on Friday May 4th. Topics include European racism, the relationship between representation and self-determination, and social movement perspectives for migrant associations. Sounds like a good event.

Garda Ombudsman and PR spin

Village magazine has a good article on the Garda Ombudsman's behaviour around the Rossport "rape tape" here. The substance is that as far as the Ombudsman's actions go, the women who made the tape public have been treated as the perpetrators rather than any of the police involved, along with their academic supporters. Here is a report from Shell to Sea on GSOC's behaviour, with statements from Jerrieann Sullivan and from her academic supporters. Earlier updates on this case and background information can be found here.

These problems are not unique to Ireland: as we write, Interface researcher and freelance journalist Austin Mackell is facing trial in Egypt. According to the police, he and his translator Aliya Alwi along with US masters student Derek Ludovici paid children to throw rocks at a police station. His real crime? Trying to interview a leading trade union activist and opponent of the military regime. Jerrieann Sullivan's real crime?

Reclaim the Streets Dublin

Ten years after the police riot on Dame Street, Reclaim the Streets is returning to the Dublin scene. The facebook page is here - should be good.