31 August, 2011
populist racism in britain and europe since 1945, conference, northampton
[Via Rene Wolf]
Populist Racism in Britain and Europe since 1945
An International Conference
Thursday, 22 Sept. and Friday 23 Sept. 2011, Park Campus, University of Northampton
The Radicalism and New Media research group at the University of Northampton will host a two-day international conference called “Populist Racism in Britain and Europe since 1945”. Following an established tradition, this conference will bring together scholars, practitioners and third sector professionals, engaged in ground-breaking research on the causes, nature and effect of populist racism, or who are seeking to provide a practical response to a vast array of concerns associated with its impact. With the rapid rise of populist racism penetrating the political, social, and cultural spheres, as well as the mass media, a burst of studies on this cannot have come at a more apposite time. However, the scholarly works in general – to practitioners’ and officials’ disappointment – often fall behind the developmental trajectories of populist racism, sometimes due to the lag-time between writing and actual print publication of innovative research. The agenda behind the International Conference “Populist Racism in Britain and Europe since 1945” is exactly to reduce the lag time between undertaking research and disseminating important findings, so these have a timely impact on practice. At the same time scholars of populist racism will have an opportunity to engage in a much needed, dynamic dialogue with practitioners, which will allow academics to align their research priorities. The conference will therefore provide a combination of theoretical and empirical studies on populist racism by established and young scholars, as well as papers and reports from practitioners and civil servants.
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
22 September 2011
Registration and Coffee: 9:00 – 9:30
Welcome and Opening Keynote: 09:30 – 10:15
Hans-Georg Betz, “Populism, Nativism and Contemporary Radical Right-Wing Ideology”
Parallel panels I: 10:15 – 11:45
Panel 1a: Central-Eastern Europe
– Swaan van Iterson, “Believing in a Better Hungary: Radical Right Idealism among Students in Budapest”
– Svetlana Dimitrova, “Euroscepticism and Populism: The Resources of Anti-Establishment Politicizations and Their Critics in Bulgaria after 1989”
– Alina Polyakova, “Civil Society and Right-Wing Politics: Explaining the Right’s Success and Failure in Central Eastern Europe”
Panel 1b: Populist Racism and Lone Wolf Terrorism in Europe
– Matthew Feldman, “Comparative Lone Wolf Terrorism”
– Paul Jackson, “Lone Wolf Terrorism and Right-Wing Extremism”
– Rafael Pantucci, “How Xenophobic Are Lone Wolf Islamists?”
Coffee Break: 11:45 – 12:00
Parallel Panels II: 12:00 – 13:30
Panel 2a: Eastern Europe
– Parikrama Gupta, “Racism in Russia: Not a Problem for the Russian State”
– Ganna Grytsenko, “Right-wing Populists in Ukraine and Their Protest Activity”
– Andreas Umland, “Zhirinovskii as a Fascist: Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalism in Documents of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia in the early 1990s”
Panel 2b: Populist Racism against Roma and Sinti travellers
– Zbigniew Wojcik and Lukasz Gazda, “Roma: NOT Hard to Reach Community”
– John Coxhead, “Roma: Deconstructing Populist Xenophobia”
– Gabriela Augustynowicz-Casey, “The Roma: The Need of a New Language of Social Communication”
Lunch Break: 13:30 – 14:30
Parallel Panels III: 14:30 – 16:00
Panel 3a: Western Europe
– Mehmet Gökay Özerim, “Anti-Immigrant Policies as a New Tool of Populist Racism in Western Europe”
– Brigitte Beauzamy, “The Role of the Radical Right in the Politicization of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”
– Aurelien Mondon, “Nicolas Sarkozy’s Legitimisation of the Front National”
Panel 3b: “Representing “Otherness”
– Fabian Virchow, “Visual Dimensions of Far Right and Racist Populist Performance”
– Darya Malyutina, “From Racism to Cosmopolitan Sociability: Perceptions of ‘Others’ in the Conditions of Superdiversity by Russian-speaking Migrants in London”
– Trev Preston, “Boots, Braces and Blogs: Representations of Right-Wing Extremism in Britain”
Coffee Break: 16:00 – 16:15
Parallel Panels IV: 16:15 – 17:45
Panel 4a: Northern Europe
– Daunis Auers, “Mapping Populist Racism in the Baltic States”
– Simon Oja, “From Skinheads and Shouting to Suits and Debating”
– Kristina Boréus, “Right-Wing Populism and Discursive Discrimination in Austria, Denmark and Sweden”
Panel 4b: The Psychological Dimension of Populist Racism
– Jane Callaghan, “There’s Something Happening Here: Visual Images of the EDL and BNP”
– Paul Crofts, “‘Us’, ‘Them’ and Defining the ‘Other’: The Role of the Media in Supporting Prejudice, Discrimination, Human Rights Abuses and Contributing to the Rise of Islamophobia. A Case Study from Kettering/UK in 2010”
– RNM Group presentation (TBC)
Coffee Break: 17:45 – 18:15
Concluding Keynote: 18:15 – 19:00
Aristotle Kallis, “The ‘Contagion’ Dynamic of the Far-Right”
Conference Dinner: 20:00 –
Jade Restaurant, The Racecourse, Northampton
23 September 2011
Registration and Coffee: 9:00 – 9:30am
Opening Welcome: 9:30 – 9:45
Prof. Nick Petford, Vice-Chancellor, University of Northampton
Keynote: 9:45 – 10:30
Fiyaz Mughal, OBE: “The EDL: Using the Cover of Countering ‘Islamic’ Extremism to Promote Anti-Muslim Racism and Hatred”
Police Panel: 10:30 – 11:30
Right-Wing Extremism (TBC)
Coffee Break: 11:30 – 11:45
Launch of RNM Group’s report on the English Defence League: 11:45 – 12:00
Dr Paul Jackson and Dr Mark Pitchford
Panel by Practitioners: 12:00-13:45
- The Think Project: Geraint Whittaker, Laura Lake and Rocio Cifuentes.
Searchlight: “The Post War Impact of Julius Evola on British Politics and Beyond”
– Alfio Bernabei, “The Mind of Julius Evola: Between Fascism and Mysticism”
– Gerry Gable, “The Devil’s Disciples: From Fiore to Griffin”
– Sonia Gable, “Are Griffin’s Appeals for Race and Civil War Helping Britain’s Far Right?”
Lunch Break: 13:45 – 14:45
Book (and Series) Launch: 14:45 – 15:00
Far-right.com, first in ‘Mapping the Far Right’ series, eds. Paul Jackson and Gerry Gable
Academic Panel: 15:00 – 16:30
– Gavin Schaffer, “The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television 1960-1980”
– Nigel Copsey, “Au Revoir to ‘Sacred Cows’? The Nouvelle Droite’s Impact on Britain’s Far Right”
– Anton Shekhovtsov, “Far-Right Music in Britain”
Coffee Break: 16:30 – 16:45
Concluding Round table discussion: 16:45 – 17:30
Wine reception and conclusion to conference: 18:30 – 20:00
Featuring an exhibition and discussion by leading European Roma artist Delaine Le Bas
**********
For further details, please contact the conference organisers:
Dr Anton Shekhovtsov (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Dr Paul Jackson (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
Dr Matthew Feldman (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
To take part in the conference please download the registration form, fill it out electronically and e-mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
30 August, 2011
piece on the marching ban
By me for the Guardian. Ignore the misleading title: they always choose them for you, and they wouldn’t let me change it.
30 August, 2011
historical materialism book projects
The Historical Materialism Book Series is looking for book proposals of the following type:
- scholarly monographs on Marx and Marxism, or applications of Marxist methods to particular fields and issues
- translations of works by non-anglophone Marxist writers
- republications of Marxist classics with a new editorial apparatus
- thematically coherent anthologies of Marxist texts
Please send all proposals, with a full account of the proposed structure and argument of the proposed volume (including estimated total word length and delivery date), as well as its position in relation to the existing scholarship to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
PhD dissertations are welcome as long as the author is prepared to engage in rewriting to transform it into book form.
All HM books are published in hardback form by Brill and in paperback format by Haymarket Books.
The HM Book Series is also looking for copy-editors and translators to collaborate with the publishing programme. Please send your CV to the aforementioned email.
29 August, 2011
grundrisse reading group
Reading Grundrisse - Working through the Rough Draft
Reading Group Proposal
Start Date: beginning of October 2011
Regular Meetings: fortnightly, mid-week (Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday), evening (c.6.30 pm—c.8.00 pm)
Location: central London, semi-formal, easy access to refreshments
For details and to register your interest go here.
26 August, 2011
defend the right to protest statement on proposed blanket ban on marching in september
[Complex issues around this situation, but asking the state to ban protest pushes them closer to banning all protests. There have also been some highly dubious arguments floating around lately regarding the costs of protest (e.g. this letter signed by MPs, councillors and mayors). For a good response to this letter see Islamophobia Watch. See also We have a right to march against the EDL racists at Socialist Worker. We are waiting to hear whether the ban will be approved (likely) and how exactly it will be enforced - whether the police will merely stop the EDL march and the counter-march on the 3rd, or whether all protests will be banned, as implied by the application. A legal challenge to the ban is being mounted (if there’s time) on the grounds that the ban contravenes articles relating to freedom of assembly. Whatever happens a) this sets an extremely worrying precedent for the future of protest and b) come out to oppose the EDL on Sept 3rd who’ll still be coming, ban or no ban.]
On the August 25th, the Metropolitan Police put in an application to the Home office to ban marches in five London boroughs for a period of thirty days, effective from midnight on September 2nd. While this application relates primarily to the planned EDL march through Tower Hamlets on September 3rd, it will also ban the counter-march planned to oppose the EDL. The proposed blanket ban will also affect any march planned during the thirty days (with the exception of funeral processions and annual local marches) not only in Tower Hamlets, but also Newham, Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest and possibly the City as well. This potentially includes East London LGBT Pride (24th September), marches to defend libraries and other public services, protests against the DSEi Arms Fair (13th September) and many other protests. This type of ban is extremely worrying for civil liberties and appears to directly contravene Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which protect the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.
The blanket ban on marches is part of an on-going attempt to undermine the right to protest in the UK, and follows on the heels of serious charges and sentences being handed out to protesters, students and others, at recent demonstrations, as well as increasingly brutal police tactics at protests (horse charges, baton rounds) and pre-emptive arrests before major events (the royal wedding, Notting Hill carnival). This proposed ban should also be seen in the light of the SOCPA (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act) ban on protest in Westminster, and the on-going attempts to remove peace protesters from Parliament Square. While Defend the Right to Protest do not regard what the EDL do as ‘protest’, but rather as violent attempts to intimidate religious and ethnic minorities, the police and government response in the form of a blanket ban threatens to define all protest as illegitimate. Defend the Right to Protest condemn both the EDL and the proposed ban on marches, and send a message of solidarity to those protesting against the EDL on the 3rd September.
24 August, 2011
handsworth songs, free screening, 26 august
[Thanks to Dave for sending this along. Wouldn’t normally put Tate stuff up but as it’s this film and it’s ‘free, no bookings taken first-come, first-served’ it’s ok. Recently watched this film, and am hopefully interviewing John Akomfrah soon for Film Quarterly. Along with Hall etc’s Policing the Crisis, this is one of the best things to look at to understand what’s happening now/what happened then].
Friday 26 August 2011, 19.00
More details here.
Handsworth Songs
John Akomfrah / Black Audio Film Collective, 1986, 16mm, 60 min
In October 1985 Britain witnessed a spate of social unrest in Birmingham and in urban centres of London. These violent events were marked by the death of an elderly black woman, Joy Gardner and a white policeman, Keith Blakelock. Handsworth Songs takes as its point of departure these events and the subsequent response by the British media.
The film evokes a broad range of voices, tones and registers and contends that the meaning in the malaise of the 1980s riots is to be found in events outside the frame of contemporary reportage, in moments which seemed to have little affective relation to the expressions of discontent which characterised the riots.
In response to the recent civil disturbances in Britain, this screening of Black Audio Film Collective’s iconic film Handsworth Songs is followed by a conversation with three members of the Collective, John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, in dialogue with artist, critic and curator Kodwo Eshun of the Otolith Group. The event aims to contextualise recent events and offers a space to discuss possible cultural responses. Handsworth Songs is one of three works by Black Audio Film Collective recently acquired for the Tate Collection
Black Audio Film Collective was a cine-cultural film group formed in 1982 by seven former college friends in London. The group wrote theoretical papers, ran screenings of experimental and third world cinema, held filmmaking workshops and produced films that explored identity politics, representation and filmmaking aesthetics.
Handsworth Songs will be featured in the exhibition Migrations at Tate Britain, 31 January - 12 August 2012.
Tate Modern Starr Auditorium
Free, no bookings taken
first-come, first-served
22 August, 2011
a brief history of rioting
Not sure where this is located, but the photo is from indymedia.
22 August, 2011
auto italia exhibition and events
WE HAVE OUR OWN CONCEPT OF TIME AND MOTION
Auto Italia
434-452 Old Kent Road
London
SE1 5AG
Temporary website here.
25th – 28th August 2011
Open from 12 noon each day
Auto Italia in collaboration with Federico Campagna, Huw Lemmey, Michael Oswell and Charlie Woolley present ‘We have own concept of Time and Motion’: a four day event devoted to the idea and practice of self-organisation.
Featuring a temporary bookshop run by the new cooperative organisation Book Bloc, archival material selected by participating artists and commissioned furniture by Charlie Woolley, the exhibition space will become a base for the production of new work and ideas. Through a series of events this project will investigate pre-conceived ideas of self-organisation and the role of gender politics within this. The project will examine models of organisation especially from the position of an artist-run space, how this fits within a neo-liberal framework and is potentially complicit in the growing precarity of all labour. The project title references the fourth issue of the publication ‘Class War’, which controversially introduced Autonomist ideas to the London anarchist scene in the mid 1980s.
Workshops and panel discussions will be held throughout the event by Auto Italia, Book Bloc and the Deterritorial Support Group, along with daily podcasts recorded and distributed online. A new publication will be produced outlining the live programme along with interviews and discussions from Art Torrents and AAAAARG amongst others, with an additional supplement made during the course of the project in the exhibition space by Michael Oswell.
‘We have our own idea of Time and Motion’ comes from a network of artists who have formed around Auto Italia. It is a product of artists finding affinity with each others’ projects, ideas and aspirations. It draws on the intangible expertise, knowledge and network which Auto Italia is a part of and will produce new information that can develop a wider narrative for the future of grass-roots projects and artist-led organisations.
Thursday 25th August
1pm – Workshop lead by the Free Association
The Free Association is a developing of people loosely based in Leeds exploring writing, collective reading and the notion of affinity.
7pm – Mark Fisher in conversation with Marina Vishmidt
Mark Fisher and Marina Vishmidt will be considering whether art work (as comparable to housework) provides a possibility for a post-capitalist future.
Mark Fisher is the author of Capitalist Realism (Zer0, 2009). He writes regularly for Film Quarterly, Sight&Sound and The Wire, and on his own weblog, k-punk. He teaches at the University of East London, Goldsmiths, University of London and the City Literary Institute.
Marina Vishmidt is a writer, editor, and a Ph.D. candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, who works mainly on art, labour and the value-form. She contributes to Mute, Afterall, Texte zur Kunst, Ephemera, Kaleidoscope, Parkett, and related periodicals, collections and catalogues.
Friday 26th August
7pm – Presentation and workshop from Nina Wakeford
Nina Wakeford discusses self-organisation versus policing within the Women’s Movement in London during the mid 1980s.
Nina Wakeford trained in sociology and anthropology at Cambridge University and Oxford University (DPhil) before developing an art practice. She currently holds an ESRC Fellowship at Goldsmiths.
Saturday 27th August
6pm – Book Bloc launch
Featuring speakers from The Alliance of Radical Booksellers.
The Alliance of Radical Booksellers is a network supporting independent radical bookstores in the UK. They help with a variety of practical aspects of bookselling, as well as providing a sense of community.
Sunday 28th August
3pm – Nina Power in conversation with Franco Berardi Bifo
Federico Campagna, from online publishing platform Through Europe, chairs this discussion between two figures both renowned for their combination of critical thought and direct action.
Nina Power teaches Philosophy at Roehampton University and writes on many topics including, most recently, police and protesting. She is a founding member of the Defend the Right to Protest campaign.
Franco Berardi Bifo is a contemporary writer, theorist and activist. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975-1981) and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first free pirate radio station in Italy (1976-1978).
22 August, 2011
policing the crisis, stuart hall and others
This highly relevant book from 1978 appears to be out of print.
You can, however, download what looks like a fully-searchable pdf of this text here (click ‘request download ticket’).
Although the book is about ‘mugging’ or rather the way in which British society ‘reacts to mugging, in the extreme way it does, at that precise historical conjuncture - the early 1970s’, its resonance with the media/police/judicial response to the recent unrest is profound. As the precis of the book puts it: ‘It explains how and why, in Britain in the 1980s, arresting and convicting black muggers has come to be synonymous with “policing the British crisis”. Sound familiar?
19 August, 2011
help get the facts out there: riotwiki
The false narrative that it was small and independently-owned businesses that suffered the most in recent unrest serves a useful media purpose - to further entrench the ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative of ‘good’ (broom-wielding, ‘community-minded’, etc.) and ‘bad’ (‘purely criminal’) Londoners.
But anyone who walked around Brixton, Walworth Road, Peckham etc. will have noticed that it was overwhelmingly chain-stores and bastions of economic misery (banks, bookies, highly-exploitative loan shops, pawn shops, arcades etc.) that got their windows broken.
Riotwiki seeks to overturn the DeLoot etc. narrative and detail which shops exactly got targeted before people forget. Please help with this important project if you can, and undermine the dubious ideological discourse that would see those involved in the recent unrest depicted as ‘mindless’, and as somehow less representative of London than those who felt compelled to ‘clean it up’.
18 August, 2011
people against riot evictions group
On Facebook here.
18 August, 2011
the haircut before the party event, this friday
This Friday, we invite you to come celebrate the opening of the Salon Reading Room, PDF fileshare and launch the first in the series of chapbooks publications.
Michael Harding will present a script with 10 parts to be performed on the evening, drawing on extracts of selected texts from the collection. Also, local writer, Gerry King, will be reading from his book ‘Lubin Tales’, an extraordinary collection of short fictions that incorporate photo-collage and linguistic invention into their tales of provincial misdeeds.
We are also excited to be launching the first chapbooks, with the publications further exploring ideas raised within the salon. These include:
‘An Introduction to Becoming’ by anon,
‘Communicative Action: A Dialogue’ by Evan Harris,
‘My Soul At Work: Following Bifo with the help of Depeche Mode’ by Eleanor Ivory Weber
and ‘The Trial of Lewis Blisset, a ballad’, by Ali Bucron
At the same time, why not search through thousands of pdf’s (with contributions from USB Crew and David Graeber) with our fileshare, print-by-donation or B Y O U S B.
We will be open for haircuts as usual from 12pm and readings will start at 6pm.
Hope you can join us
—
TheHaircutBeforeTheParty
26 Toynbee Street, E1 7NE
Thursday-Saturday 12-6pm
thehaircutbeforetheparty.net
@HaircutsBTP
18 August, 2011
paul gilroy on the recent unrest
Read the whole talk here:
‘I was sitting in Highbury magistrate’s court this morning, watching the magistrate giving people who had no criminal record months and months before their case would even be heard. And those young people, some of whom were not with their families but were on their own, could not have been defended successfully even by someone like Michael Mansfield. It’s a sham what’s going on down there. For people who’ve been charged with violent disorder, 2 out of 3 of them have been remanded in custody, and that is a scandal, not justice.’
...
‘The government wants to introduce new laws to criminalize the wearing of masks. The only people who really get away with wearing masks in our society right now is the territorial support group [of the Met police]. [applause] I don’t hear Jack Straw saying, “I can’t see their faces.” [laughter] So that suggests to me that there’s a double standard at work here, and we need to pressure that.’
...
‘If we go down that road, we’re headed toward a society that’s run on the basis of mass imprisonment. And that’s not just about making the prisons bigger and fuller, making them engines for making money for private corporations, but it’s also about turning your schools into prisons, and turning your streets into prisons, and turning your community into something that’s much more like a prison. And we do not want that society based on mass imprisonment. That’s not our future. We are not Americans, we are not Americans.’
18 August, 2011
great plaque nights, august 20th
English Heretic present Great Plaque Nights: Live at The Montague Arms, New Cross, London
Saturday
August 20th
From 7.30pm till 12.00pm.
We will be performing 4 pieces in honour of plaque recipients.
Documenting Witchcraft, the ritual misuse of psychedelics and psychopathology in the Home Counties, traversing the M4 corridors of a sleazy inner cinema, we will reveal the lurid soul of the suburban world through celebrated mediums:
Dick Bush (ritual cinematographer of Blood On Satan’s Claw and Dracula AD 72)
Robert Cochrane (self-delivering 60s witch cult leader)
Ian Ball (the most dangerous working class dissenter this country has ever seen)
Dr. Robert Vaughan (hoodlum scientist and anti-hero of JG Ballard’s Crash)
Ably assisted by the imagined progressive and baroque soundtracks of Christos Fanaras
With screenings by Will Fowler, courtesy of the BFI:featuring two rare films, hinting at the pagan, military palimpsest - (‘Face Of A County’ and ‘Water Wrackets’)
Directions:
Montague Arms 20th August 2011,
289 Queen’s Road, London SE14 5JN,
New Cross,
London
Nearest Rail
New Cross Gate
Trains run every 20 minutes from London Bridge (5 min journey)
http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/LBG/NXG/200811/1856/dep
Buses:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaround/maps/buses/pdf/newcross-2181.pdf
16 August, 2011
no riot evictions + protest
[Via Dan Hancox]
Website here.
Petition to Wandsworth Council here.
UPDATE: An e-petition on the same topic can be found here.
UPDATE: No to Evictions event THIS Thursday (Facebook event here).
UPDATE: See this blog entry for interesting (if depressing) details regarding the legality/media role in this.
Thursday, August 18 · 5:00pm - 8:00pm
53A St Ann’s Hill Wandsworth London SW18 2EZ
This is the home address of the council leader of Wandsworth Council. They have served a single-parent family with an eviction notice after the tenant’s son was charged in court over disturbances during the recent troubles.
This may be within the letter of the law, but it violates all sense of justice and fair-play. Indeed, it cannot do otherwise, because its aim is not justice but revenge. Forcing a mother and her son into homelessness isn’t the answer, it’s a disgrace.
Let’s send a clear message that we will not accept this spiteful attitude.
Ravi Govindia - not in our name - not with our money.
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS
Follow us on twitter: @EndEvictions
Facebook Group (search for “End Unjust Evictions”)
Email: endevictions@ gmail.com
16 August, 2011
second issue of stir now online
And can be found here:
Summer 2011
Return of the Public?
Interview with Dan Hind
The public may well have made its return to the political stage but the real question is whether it can come back in its own right rather than as the docile invention of a financial elite?
Sod It! Radical Gardening?
by George McKay
‘Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks’. But how can a garden be an attack, a flower a critique, a trowel an agent of social change?
Food Justice — Changing ‘there’ by changing here
by Matthew Steele
I remember as an undergrad reading Ivan Illich’s 1968 speech to American students working in Mexico and having the once-clear vision of my life’s path confused. Illich’s rather simple, passionate, and poignant criticism has stayed in the back of my consciousness ever since.
Don’t Defend the University, Transform It!
by Amy Clancy
The future of the university hangs in the balance and the instinct to defend it against a wholesale attack seems to be an obvious response. But what is it that so many rush to defend?
The Prejudice Against Prometheus
by Alberto Toscano
As the last echoes of a bullish neoliberalism fade, and we are asked to accustom ourselves, indefinitely, to austerity’s hair-shirts, it’s worth reflecting on whether the attitudes learnt over the past few decades retain within them the resources for effective opposition.
Grow a Grocery!
by Debbie Clarke
Back in the early 90s, Unicorn Grocery’s founders felt frustrated at their lack of shopping options, and aimed to create the kind of place where they wanted to shop themselves—where their needs were met and their ethics not sold out. And so Unicorn was born.
Mobilisation vs Pacification in Brazil’s Favelas
by John Gledhill
Brazilians really are crazy about football, and poor Brazilians are as pleased as everyone else that Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup (and 2016 Olympics). Yet families who built their own homes on land to which they did not have secure title also worry about being forcibly relocated because of urban redevelopment in preparation for 2014.
Bound by Law? Tales from the Public Domain
Reviewed by Rashmi Rangnathi
Can a tree and its properties be copyrighted, and those who customarily use it be criminalised? Can the girl scouts be sued for singing copyrighted songs such as “Puff the Magic Dragon” around the campfire? Recently, a corporation trademarked the phrase ‘Radical Media’. With the increasing privatisation of our cultural assets, can we change the system that allows corportations to own our intellectual products?
14 August, 2011
jonnie marbles on his time in prison
Here:
‘An hour later and we’re rolling through the gates of Wandsworth Prison. Its 40 foot walls are iced with barbed wire and spikes, which I reckon is gilding the lily, to be honest. Who has a 40 foot ladder?’
14 August, 2011
owen on recent unrest
Owen writes very well about architecture/social division of London here:
‘All of us, all along—if we’re honest for a microsecond—knew this was a ludicrous way to build a city, to live in a city. I, like most of the people now waving brooms in the air and representing the ‘real London’, was not born in London, and I know only two or three people who were. Occasionally, during the 12 years I’ve lived in the city, I’d often idly wonder when the riots would come: when the situation of organic delis next to pound shops, of crumbling maisonettes next to furiously speculated-on Victoriana, of artists shipped into architect-designed Brutalist towers to make them safe for Regeneration, of endless boosterist self-congratulation, would finally collapse in on itself.’
13 August, 2011
austerity and anarchy
Link from @SeumasMilne:
This paper (from the abstract): ‘From the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended to go hand in hand with politically motivated violence and social instability’
9 August, 2011
piece on the context for events in london
For the Guardian here.
UPDATE: Good letter from John McDonnell MP in today’s paper also referencing The Spirit Level:
Haven’t the warnings been there, from as wide a range of people from Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett to Rowan Williams? We are reaping what has been sown over the last three decades of creating a grotesquely unequal society with an ethos of grab as much as you can by any means. A society of looters created with MPs and their expenses, bankers and their bonuses, tax-evading corporations, hacking journalists, bribe-taking police officers, and now a group of alienated kids are seizing their chance. This is not to condone but to understand. Addressing inequality is the only way we can avoid a rerun of these riots.
John McDonnell MP
Labour, Hayes and Harlington
7 August, 2011
michael mansfield to defend alfie
Michael Mansfield is coming out of retirement to defend Alfie (story here). He’s also made a couple of more general statements regarding the policing and sentencing of recent protests:
‘Mansfield and other leading legal figures believe Gilmour and Fernie were made scapegoats to show disapproval of public objections to government policy at a time when the process of democracy was weakened by the disempowering of politicians by the expenses scandal.
“There is a direct comparison to what was going on during the miners’ strike,” said Mansfield, “a shameful tradition … of riot squads or tactical support groups or response units, whatever you want to call them. They go in hard and heavy, and the whole idea is to intimidate, not those who are not intending to commit crime, but those who are presenting opposition to the government.”’
