(revolution-news.com) Amid calm euphoria, increased state repression, and mass-media lies, people in Bosnia and Herzegovina move from street protests to plenums, or public assemblies. Plenums are about taking back the power: political parties are banned from participating.
(struggle.ws) Mujeres Libres (Free Women) were a group of women anarchists who organised and fought both for women’s liberation and an anarchist revolution during the Spanish Civil War. The work they did is truly inspirational. Their example shows how the struggle against women’s oppression and against capitalism can be combined in one fight for freedom.
As anarchists they rejected any relegation of women to a secondary position within the libertarian movement. In the 1930’s feminism had a narrower meaning than it does now, and they rejected it as a theory which fought for ‘equality of women within an existing system of privileges’. They argued “We are not, and were not then feminists. We were not fighting against men. We did not want to substitute a feminist hierarchy for a masculine one. It’s necessary to work, to struggle, together because if we don’t we’ll never have a social revolution. But we needed our own organisation to struggle for ourselves”.
They said: “We are aware of the precedents set by both feminist organisations and by the political parties… We could not follow either of these paths. We could not separate the women’s problem from the social problem. Nor could we deny the significance of the first by converting women into a simple instrument for any organisation, even.. our own libertarian organisation.
The intention that underlay our activities was much broader: to serve a doctrine, not a party, to empower women to make of them individuals capable of contributing to the structuring of the future society, individuals who have learned to be self- determining, not to follow blindly the dictates of any organisation”.
(libcom.org) Protests and demonstrations broke out in Tuzla on Wednesday night and have spread to the towns of Zenica, Mostar, Bihac and Sarayevo. In the northern industrial city of Tuzla, thousands of workers have been made redundant with many of them losing their pensions and health benefits.
Reuters reports that many workers have taken to the streets and have been joined by students. Government buildings and the police have been attacked and confrontations continue. Unemployment is officially 27.5% in Bosnia (officially) and the ruling cliques here are widely seen as gangsters. It’s early and we should be careful but this looks to be different from events in Ukraine which is subsumed in nationalism and inter-imperialist rivalries.
Türkçe bölümler için: vimeo.com/channels/geziparkibelgeseli
email: gezidocumentary513@gmail.com
Source: http://vimeo.com/7620673
Watch it here for free: http://mubi.com/films/vers-madrid-the-burning-bright/watch
(mubi.com) With VERS MADRID Sylvain George makes a “newsreel” with the cinematic experiments in mind conducted by the likes of for example Robert Kramer, Jean-Luc Godard during the seventies. A newsreel which presents views, scenes, political moments of class struggle and revolution in Madrid in 2011, 2012, 2013. As a “newsreel experimental”, the film tries to present political and poetical experiments, but also shows new forms of life, implemented by generations which have remained too long in silence. Past and future meet in the present at Place Puerta del Sol, where they are constantly reinvented. —Joana Ribelle
After documenting the inhuman conditions in which tens of Africans refugees live in the streets of Northern France with his two films Les Éclats and Qu’ils reposent en révolte (Best Film in the 2011 edition of Bafici), Sylvain George now goes to Madrid to document and understand the different demonstrations that took over the city streets in early 2011. His approach is almost journalistic, with that objective tone that we know doesn’t really exist –like those newsreels that were screened in theaters back in the Thirties and Forties, or like Jem Cohen recreates them in one of his latest films (Newsreels: Reports from Occupy Wall Street). But two years after the events (and ten years since the Argentine 2001, which shares several common features), it is amazing to witness how that material can turn into something else, even despite of itself. A historical event that allows us to analyze with more information, contextualize, and maybe even understand something about modern societies, and where they are heading to. —BAFICI
Source: http://mubi.com/films/vers-madrid-the-burning-bright
(roarmag.org) This collection of photos by activist Jenna Pope recounts the events surrounding the destruction and occupation of Gezi Park in early June this year.
When major protests against the destruction of Gezi Park engulfed Istanbul this past summer, American photographer and activist Jenna Pope was quick to decide that she needed to be part of this. Within days she arrived in Turkey, camera in-hand to photograph and report on the biggest popular uprising in the history of the country.
The Gezi Park protests began with two dozen activists occupying the iconic park in the center of Istanbul to protect it against destruction. They tried to stop the government’s plans to turn this last natural refuge in the concrete jungle into another unnecessary and unwanted shopping mall. After a violent police crackdown on the peaceful protesters, the marginal environmental resistance quickly turned into a countrywide uprising against Prime Minister Erdoğan’s authoritarian rule. Street battles were fought between the extremely violent police forces — which used water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to subdue the ‘Çapulers’ — and the defiant resistance movement.
For a period of two weeks — without a doubt the two most significant weeks of the entire Gezi protests that saw the rise and fall of the Taksim commune — Jenna was on the streets of Istanbul documenting the police violence and the determination of the protesters, supporting the movement, and spreading the word about what was going on in Turkey to a global audience. Jenna’s pictures have played an important role in creating awareness about the situation in Turkey at the time, not only showing the dark side of the protests in the form of the disproportional police crackdown, but also, and more importantly, the solidarity amongst and the defiance of the protesters…
More about this at > http://roarmag.org/2013/11/gezi-park-photography-jenna-pope/
(infoaut.org) Today a new step after the October 19 Porta Pia camp was made by the Italian movement. A new siege was called beneath the capitol’s power seats – namely the State-Regions roundtable, that was meant to work out a national housing policy decree – at a time in which rampant speculation and evictions gravely undermine the basic housing rights of the citizens.
In the early morning the Housing Struggle Movements in Rome managed to block and postpone three evictions in different parts of the city, while similar initiatives of solidarity were carried out in the cities of Milan, Turin and others. In Cosenza a former monastery in the city’s downtown was occupied by needy families, and in Palermo homeless people, precarious workers and social centres activists camped outside the town hall, with the mayor nowhere to be seen. In Pisa, activists from the social movements occupied an abandoned cinema, staging a roundtable on the crisis and livestreaming the events in Rome.
The march started out in the central parliamentary square Piazza Montecitorio, heading towards the via stamperia building in which the State-Regions roundtable was taking place. Police wagons on its way were pelted with eggs, smoke bombs and various objects by the demonstrators which rallied behind the big banner already shown on October 19: “[We want] Only one great work “House and income for everyone!”. The migrants, evicted and homeless people at the head of the march then approached and confronted the heavily armed police forces in Via del Tritone, managing to push them back on their wagons. Relentlessy, demonstrators wearing V for Vendetta masks started to climb up the wagons, and the police reacted with truncheons and tear gases, some of the latter being thrown by an helicopter on the backside of the crowd, packed with families and children.
Pictures: http://eagainst.com/articles/italy-the-siege-of-palazzo-chigi-from-the-top-of-the-police-wagon/
(earthfirstjournal.org) With an eye to getting their message out to young people, demonstrators calling for a departure from nuclear power on Sept. 29 changed course from their usual venue and took to the streets in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya and Harajuku districts.
Protesters shouted slogans such as “We’ve got enough electric power” and “No nuke reactors on earthquake-prone islands” as they marched past Marui City Shibuya and other fashionable commercial establishments packed with trend-conscious youths.
By Leila Shrooms for Tahrir-ICN
Omar Aziz (fondly known by friends as Abu Kamal) was born in Damascus. He returned to Syria from exile in Saudi Arabia and the United States in the early days of the Syrian revolution. An intellectual, economist, anarchist, husband and father, at the age of 63, he committed himself to the revolutionary struggle. He worked together with local activists to collect humanitarian aid and distribute it to suburbs of Damascus that were under attack by the regime. Through his writing and activity he promoted local self-governance, horizontal organization, cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid as the means by which people could emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the state. Together with comrades, Aziz founded the first local committee in Barzeh, Damascus.The example spread across Syria and with it some of the most promising and lasting examples of non-hierarchical self organization to have emerged from the countries of the Arab Spring.
In her tribute to Omar Aziz, Budour Hassan says, he “did not wear a Vendetta mask, nor did he form black blocs. He was not obsessed with giving interviews to the press …[Yet] at a time when most anti-imperialists were wailing over the collapse of the Syrian state and the “hijacking” of a revolution they never supported in the first place, Aziz and his comrades were tirelessly striving for unconditional freedom from all forms of despotism and state hegemony.”[1]
(Tahrir – International Collective Network)
The events of the past couple of days are the latest step in a sequence of events by which the military can consolidate its hold on power, aim towards the death of the revolution and a return to a military/police state.
The authoritarian regime of the Muslim Brotherhood had to go. But what has replaced it is the true face of the military in Egypt – no less authoritarian, no less fascist and for sure more difficult to depose.
The massacre carried out by the army against pro-Morsi supporters in Nadha Square and Raba’a has left around 500 killed and up to 3000 injured (Ministry of Health figures- the reality is likely much higher). It was a pre-orchestrated act of state terrorism. It’s aim is to divide the people and push the Muslim Brotherhood to create more militia’s to revenge and protect themselves. This in turn will enable the army to label all Islamists as terrorists and produce an “internal enemy” in the country which will allow the army to keep the military regime in an ongoing state of emergency.
They go after the Muslim Brotherhood today, but they will come after anyone who dares to criticize them tomorrow. Already the army has declared a state of emergency for one month, giving the police and military exceptional powers, and a curfew has been declared in many provinces for the same amount of time from 7pm to 6am. This gives the army a free hand to crack down on dissent. It is a return to the days before the revolution, where emergency law had been in place since 1967 and it provided the framework for wide-spread repression and denial of freedoms.
The character of the new regime is clear. Just a few days ago 18 new governors were appointed, the majority of which hail from the ranks of the army/police or even remnants of the Mubarak regime. There has also been an ongoing attack on workers who continue to strike for their rights (such as the recent army attack and arrest of steel workers on strike in Suez). The military regime is also hunting for revolutionary activists, journalists have been beaten and arrested, foreigners have been threatened against being witness to events. Both local and global media has told half truths and built narratives supportive of a political agenda. The counter-revolution is in full flow and it knows how to break the unity of the people in its effort to divide and conquer.
In the past two days there has been a rise in sectarian reprisals, with up to 50 churches and christian institutions attacked. The army and police were not seen protecting these buildings of the Christian community. It is in the interest of both army and the Muslim Brotherhood to stoke tensions and create fear and hatred in the people. They will fight for their control of the State as people’s blood fills the streets.
We condemn the massacres at Raba’a and Nadha Square, the attacks on workers, activists and journalists, the manipulation of the people by those who vie to power, and sectarian attacks. For the revolution to continue the people must remain united in their opposition to the abuses and tyranny of power, against whoever it is directed.
Down with the military and Al-Sissi!
Down with the remnants of the Mubarak regime and business elite!
Down with the State and all power to autonomous communities!
Long live the Egyptian revolution!
Source: https://tahriricn.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/tahrir-icn-statement-on-events-in-egypt/
@ggregator 