Anti-politics: elephant in the rooom

Great post from Elizabeth Humphrys and Tad Tietze here about the crisis of politics and what this means for movements today.

Global uprisings conference videos now online

Videos from some of the main sessions at the Amsterdam "Global uprisings" conference are now available here.

Casualisation in the university

An excellent essay by Aline Courtois and Theresa O'Keefe, available via "Defend the University" here.

Interface vol. 5 no. 2 now out

Interface: a journal for and about social movements http://interfacejournal.net

Volume five, issue two (November 2013):

Tenth issue celebration

http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/

Volume five, issue two of Interface, a peer-reviewed online journal produced and refereed by social movement practitioners and engaged movement researchers, is now out, celebrating our tenth issue. Interface is open-access (free), global and multilingual. Our overall aim is to "learn from each other's struggles": to develop a dialogue between practitioners and researchers, but also between different social movements, intellectual traditions and national or regional contexts.

Like all issues of Interface, this issue is free and open-access. You can download articles individually or a complete PDF of the issue (8.7 MB). Please note that you can also subscribe (free) on the right-hand side of the webpage to get email notification each time a new issue or call for papers is out. This issue of Interface includes 533 pages and 29 pieces, by authors writing from / about Australia, Austria, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the USA among other countries.

 

Articles in this issue include:

§  Lesley Wood, Peter Waterman, Sara Motta, Alice Mattoni, Mandisi Majavu, Elizabeth Humphrys, Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Laurence Cox
Interface tenth issue

§  Anna Szolucha,
No stable ground: living real democracy in Occupy

§  José Antonio Cerrillo Vidal,
From general strike to social strike: movement alliances and innovative actions in the November 2012 Spanish general strike

§  Panagiotis Sotiris,
Reading revolt as deviance: Greek intellectuals and the December 2008 revolt of Greek youth

§  Giuseppe Caruso,
Towards a new universality: the World Social Forum’s cosmopolitan vision

§  Heleen Schols, Garan Hobbelink, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Sat Trejo, Marianne Maeckelbergh, Markos Vogiatzoglou, Laurence Cox, Ewout van den Berg,
Social movements and the European crisis: activist and researcher reflections

§  Yavuz Yıldırım,
Avropa Sosyal Forumu yolun sonunda mi? İstanbul 2010 ve sonrasi  (TR)

§  Amy M. Lane,
Breaking through the “invisible prison”: the National Federation of the Blind and the Right to Organize, 1959

§  Patricia Aljama y Joan Pujol,
Reflexiones sobre la institucionalización del movimiento LGBT desde el context catalán y espanol (ES)

§  Eric Turner,
The 5 Star Movement and its discontents: a tale of blogging, comedy, electoral success and tensions

§  Franz Seifert,
Transnational diffusion of a high-cost protest method: open field destructions in France, Germany and Spain

§  Connor T. Jerzak,
Ultras in Egypt: state, revolution and the power of public space

§  Stanislav Vysotsky,
The influence of threat on tactical choices of militant anti-fascist activists

§  Raphael Schlembach,
The “Autonomous Nationalists”: new developments and contradictions in the German neo-Nazi movement

§  Mi Park,
The trouble with eco-politics of localism: too close to the far right? Debates on ecology and globalization

§  Christian Fuchs,
The Anonymous movement in the context of liberalism and socialism

§  Emily Brisette,
Waging a war of position on neo-liberal terrain: critical reflections on the counter-recruitment movement

§  Grzegorz Piotrowski,
Social movement or subculture? Alterglobalists in Central and Eastern Europe

§  Yulia Lukashina,
Collective action frames and Facebook fan and group pages: the case of the Russian Snow Revolution 2011 - 2013

§  Françoise Hamlin,
Calculating success: teaching movement legacies

§  Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish,
Between success and failure: dwelling with social movements in the hiatus

This issue’s reviews include the following titles:

§  Raúl Zibechi, Territories in resistance: a cartography of Latin American social movements. Reviewed by Colleen Hackett.

§  Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright. Beyond the fragments: feminism and the making of socialism (new edition). Reviewed by Laurence Cox.

§  Shigematsu, Setsu. Scream from the Shadows: The Women’s Liberation Movement in Japan. Reviewed by Julia Schuster.

§  Chris Crass. Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis and Movement Building Strategy. Reviewed by Lesley Wood.

§  Wood, Lesley. Direct Action, Deliberation and Diffusion: Collective Action after the WTO protests in Seattle. Reviewed by Neil Sutherland.

§  Mattoni, Alice. Media Practices and Protest Politics – How Precarious Workers Mobilise. Reviewed by Mark Bergfeld.

§  Gerbaudo, Paulo. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. Reviewed by Maite Tapia.

§  Hill, Symon. Digital Revolutions: Activism in the Internet Age. Reviewed by Deborah Eade.

§  R. D. Smith. Higher Hopes: A Black Man’s Guide to College. Reviewed by Mandisi Majavu. 

A call for papers for volume 6 issue 2 (November 2014) of Interface is now open, under the heading "Movement internationalism(s)", deadline May 1st 2014. Along with themed submissions we welcome pieces on any aspect of social movement research and practice that fit within our mission statement (http://www.interfacejournal.net/who-we-are/mission-statement/). We can review and publish articles in Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Czech, Danish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Zulu. The website has the full CFP and details on how to submit articles for this issue at http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Interface-5-2-CFP-issue-6-vol-2.pdf
 
The forthcoming issue of Interface (May 2014) will be on the pedagogical practices of social movements. The deadline has been extended until December 1^st 2013.

 

Ken Saro-Wiwa audio archive

NUIM Library has set up a "Ken Saro-Wiwa audio archive" as part of the project surrounding the Nigerian activist's letters to Irish solidarity worker Sr Majella McCarron, now published as "Silence would be treason". The archive includes extensive interviews with Sr McCarron as well as Ken Saro-Wiwa's brother, Dr Owens Wiwa and the three editors of the book, Ide Corley, Helen Fallon and Laurence Cox. It can be accessed here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Aide to MLK speaking in Maynooth

The Rev. Harcourt (Harky) Klinefelter was Dr Martin Luther King's associate director for public relations at the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) in the last few years of Dr King's life, and a personal friend. He has a long and distinguished involvement in the fields of nonviolent activism and conflict resolution.

The lecturers' union IFUT, the MA CEESA and a number of other organisations are organising a short Irish speaking tour for Rev Klinefelter. On Monday, November 25, he will be in Maynooth and will address a meeting in the Iontas Seminar Room at 4.00. (Iontas is building no 41, map reference 7C at http://www.nuim.ie/location/maps/CampusMap.pdf).

All are welcome, admission is free and there is no need to register.

Workshops at Festival for Choice, Sat 16th, Dublin

We are very excited to announce two workshops 

at the Festival for Choice 

on Saturday 16th November 2013 

at The Abbey Hotel (two doors down from Twisted Pepper)

3pm The Female Body in Protest

A reflection on the female body as a contested site and exploration of feminist gestures of challenge, resistance and dissent that may inform the practice of protest in Ireland with published scholar and activist Theresa O'Keefe and performance artist Amanda Coogan.

 

4.30pm Choice and Allies

This workshop for men (both cis and trans) and non-binary individuals who call ourselves feminists or feminist allies looking at look at positions, politics and the practicalities involved in advocating abortion access.

Full details online at: https://www.facebook.com/events/197955257053668/

Shanty-town struggles in South Africa

There's a strong article by South African shack-dweller activist S'bu Zikode in today's Guardian, well worth reading.

Conference on international solidarity, TCD this December

A fascinating one-day conference coming up in TCD on December 6th. Co-organised by David Landy (TCD MPhil in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict); Jose Gutierrez (Latin America Solidarity Centre) with keynote from Peter Waterman (Interface journal) and some really interesting speakers. Full details here.

Launch of "Silence would be treason: last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa"

Ken Saro-Wiwa was a noted Nigerian literary figure, activist for the rights of his indigenous Ogoni people, organiser against Shell's activities in the Niger Delta and campaigner for human rights and democracy. His organisation MOSOP, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, which saw 60% of the population join a single protest against Shell, was the target of brutal  repression by the then military regime, including mass killings and destruction of villages. Saro-Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni activists were convicted on trumped-up charges and executed by the then military dictatorship on November 10 1995 in the face of an international outcry. Shell recently settled with the families of those executed for $15.5 million.

Silence would be treason publishes for the first time an extraordinary series of letters and poems sent by Saro-Wiwa to Irish solidarity activist Sr Majella McCarron during his time in military detention. The last writings of a man on trial for his life, they were smuggled out of military detention in food baskets. Clear, direct and extraordinarily readable, these letters and poems are the last expression of a voice the regime was determined to silence: a voice for indigenous rights, environmental survival and democracy, many of whose battles were won despite his death and whose voice comes alive today again in these extraordinary letters.

Donated by Sr Majella to the National University of Ireland Maynooth on foot of Maynooth students' involvement in Shell to Sea, the letters have been transcribed and edited by Helen Fallon, Íde Corley and Laurence Cox with a foreword by Nigerian environmentalist and poet Nnimmo Bassey. This publication by Daraja, CODESRIA and Action Aid makes the letters available to an international audience in an accessible paperback edition, suitable for campaign and educational use and supporting the distribution of affordable copies in Africa. As the energy multinationals gear up for another assault on the planet, on indigenous populations and on democracy, the ideas in this book have never been more significant.

Silence would be treason: last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa (edited by Helen Fallon, Íde Corley and Laurence Cox, foreword by Nnimmo Bassey).
Dakar / Bangalore: Daraja / CODESRIA / Action Aid, 2013.

198pp + illustrations, paperback $14.95. Available here

The journal.ie coverage here

Participation and the practice of rights "Tools for change" winter school, Belfast

Tools for Action Winter School 2013   Do you want to know how human rights can be used to make change? Learn more about 'Tools for Action' at the PPR Winter School. Learn about organising grassroots groups, find out how change is won… and lost: the anatomy of a campaign and how power responds.  20th and 21st November, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast   Places are limited. To register, please complete the online Tools for Action School Application Form before Thursday 14TH NOVEMBER 2013.   “It is the way human rights work should be, but isn’t, done” Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights speaking on the work of PPR (January 2013) Since 2006, Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) has worked with people to use human rights in addressing a wide range of social and economic problems relating to social housing, mental health, regeneration, unemployment, and children’s play. As a result, people we have worked with have made real and lasting changes in some of Northern Ireland’s most marginalised communities. Our work has shown us that government decision making which excludes the most vulnerable leads to poor outcomes on the ground. Therefore PPR’s work supports disadvantaged groups to hold government to account, and ensure they play a meaningful role in decision-making processes which affect their lives.PPR’s unique approach to creating change makes use of international human rights standards, community organising, policy work and campaigning. In November 2012 PPR’s approach was recognised by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as a best practice example of how communities can claim their rights.  What previous participants say: “There were so many ‘wow’ moments… it feels like scales falling from your eyes.” Alan Cowan, Dundee,  Ardler Surgery Focus Group   “I would rate the summer school as one of the best training sessions I have ever completed." Irene Keane, Belfast, SHINE   “The summer school was a brilliant and inspiring event for me and I am sure for the other participants, it was like a breath of fresh air – just what we need in these times.” Eamonn Keenan, Belfast, PlayBoard NI Fees PPR is keen to ensure that we can continue to provide sustainable support to grassroots groups for free, so we ask those individuals and organisations who can afford it to pay a contribution for their participation (although this is still heavily subsidised). This will be donated to the Inez McCormack Fund, to enable us to offer bursaries for childcare, travel and subsistence to enable the participation of those who would otherwise not be able to attend. For those attending the Winter School from organisations that have funding, we recommend a £100 contribution per attendee. For waged individuals attending, we recommend a £40 contribution.  A buffet lunch and refreshments are provided as part of the fee. If you have access needs or dietary requirements please let us know when you register. Find out more about the The Inez McCormack Fund here

Debt Justice - gathering momentum - celebrating struggle (Nov 9th, free transport)

The Debt and Development Coalition Ireland have released the programme for their event 'Debt Justice – Gathering Momentum – Celebrating Struggle’, commemorating twenty years of Debt and Development Coalition Ireland’s involvement in the Global Debt Justice Movement.

The event, which they are co-hosting with community campaign group Ballyhea Says No To The Bondholder Bailout, is taking place in Charleville Park Hotel, Co. Cork, on Saturday November 9th.

Speakers include Argentinian scholar-activist Alan Cibils (some of Alan's work is attached) and Tim Jones from Jubilee Debt Campaign UK. They also have some fantastic community activists from Ireland, among them Cathleen O'Neill from Kilbarrack Community Development Project and John Bissett from Canal Communities local Drugs Task Force and St. Michael's Estate Community Regeneration Team.

They are organising a free bus from Dublin on the day, leaving Dublin at 7am and returning to Dublin that night. Teas and coffees and lunch will be provided also. To book email campaign AT debtireland.org

New issue of Irish Anarchist Review online: solidarity beyond the workplace

Irish Anarchist Review no 8 is now fully online.

This issue of the Irish Anarchist Review, explores the idea of solidarity, beyond the workplace, as it extends to women in struggle, travellers, migrants and others. We look at how, solidarity and mutual aid, should involve, not just supporting the exploited and oppressed, but in assisting them in their struggles, and rather than presenting ourselves as saviors, with the solution to their problems, to listen and help amplify their voices as they work towards their own solutions.

Contents: 

Solidarity for ever?
Apartheid, Irish style
Horizons of our Imaginations: Anarchist & Educations
Many shades, second sex
The conquest of Robots
Creating an Anarchist Theory of Privilege
Interview: Anti-Deportations Ireland
Solidarity, Engagement and the Revolutionary Organisation
Why I became an anarchist
Spanish Civil War walking tour
Book review: Anarchy in a Cold War
Interview: Quebec student movement

Links to each article and the PDF file of the whole magazine can be found here.

Solidarity with Roma community and no to racism

From Anti Racism Ireland

 

The removal of two Roma children from their families by the state earlier this week has left us feeling deeply shocked and angry but has also served as a reminder that racism is very present in everyday Ireland including institutions of state, and that the government needs to do more to curb it and to protect minority groups like the Roma (see the attachment on the attacks on Roma community in Belfast).

Campaigns and calls for inquiry are already underway from many groups. We think its very important that we mobilise around this issue by taking actions to keep racism at the center of the debate about what happened. We can already see the public debate shifting from racism and racial profiling to issues of procedural failings.

The ARN would like to call a public mobilisaton to show solidarity with the Roma community and against Traveller racism and all forms of racism. We would like to do this in co-operation with as many individuals and groups as possible so please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to support such a protest.

 

On Tuesday 5th November 2013 at 2pm , Minister for Justice Alan Shatter will face questions in the Dail and we are calling a lunchtime protest to call on Minister Shatter to address the following issues without delay:

1. Ethnic profiling should be illegal - ethnic profiling must be made illegal, with proper sanctions and monitoring systems put in place.

2. Make racism a crime - Ireland must recognise racist crime in Irish law

What happened this week showed us that racism is prevalent in institutions of the state. We need to push hard to have the reality of state racism recongnised and that steps are taken to stamp it out. We know such things can happen again. One of the problems with racist practices by authorities is that it effectively gives others permission to be racist. There is a justified fear of a rise in racist crime -look at Belfast- and we must have the legal means to sanction and deter such crimes.