Anarchistic update news all over the world - 16 May 2016
Today's Topics:
1. ucl-saguenay: 'The smell of death hangs everywhere':
Blockade drives Gazans to suicide par Collectif Emma Goldman (fr)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Alicante, Talk Social Movements: Autonomy and Political
Action by Gavroche (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. classwarparty.org: National demo against Philip Green’s
TopShop, 14th May (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. wsm.ie: Dublin marks real anniversary of 1916 rising with
peoples events on 24th April - photos & videos (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #260 - New Grills: In
social movement service (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Doctors and officials say devastating impact of Gaza war is to blame for growing numbers
attempting to take their own lives ---- A father threatened to throw himself from a
rooftop on the same day that his wife had given birth to their seventh child, saying he
could not afford the hospital bills (MEE/Mohammed Asad) ---- Mohammed Omer ---- Monday 11
April 2016 12:00 UTC ---- Last update: Tuesday 12 April 2016 8:28 UTC ---- 531
532googleplus2 1065 ---- Topics: GazaSiege ---- Tags: gaza, Suicides, Occupation ---- Show
comments ---- GAZA - It only took a small spark to extinguish the 43-year-old life of
Mohammed Ghazal. Driven to the depths of despair, Ghazal doused himself in fuel and set
himself on fire during a visit last week to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Dier al-Balah. ----
Ghazal, from the Nussirat refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip, suffered with
depression but had stopped attending appointments and receiving treatment for the
condition in 2014, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
“He covered himself with a large amount of fuel and died almost immediately, in spite of
efforts to save him,” it said in a statement about Ghazal’s death.
The case is just one among many in recent months, with doctors and officials linking an
increase in suicides to the desperate conditions and lack of opportunities endured by many
people in Gaza as a result of the decade-long blockade by Israel and Egypt.
In the first quarter of 2016, at least 95 people tried to kill themselves, according to
unpublished research by the Euro-Med Observers for Human Rights monitoring group, while
suicide rates in the first months of 2016 increased by 30 percent compared with the same
months between 2013 and 2014.
“The last war on Gaza led to a total collapse of the Palestinian economy, and unemployment
is one of the main reasons behind most suicidal cases,” Ramy Abdu, the director of
Euro-Med, told Middle East Eye.
Many cases of suicide are not acknowledged in public because the subject is still
considered a taboo in a society where men are expected to provide for their family,
dealing with life’s problems without complaining or asking for help.
Yet the pressures of the blockade have made it an impossible task for most people to meet
those expectations.
Currently 80 percent of the population of Gaza live below the poverty line, while youth
unemployment stands at 44 percent.
“I have lived my life, and my wish is to end it. Now, I am going to end it and that’s my
last hope,” wrote Younis Briem, a 32-year-old man from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza
Strip, on his Facebook page on 9 February.
Briem's status update gained 30 "likes". Fifty minutes after posting it, Briem set himself
on fire in the street in Bani Suhaila, near the entrance to eastern Khan Younis.
Some nearby taxi drivers tried in vain to extinguish the flames but Briem died of 70
percent burns before anyone could reach him with containers of water.
Abu Mohammed al-Briem, Younis’s cousin, said it was not the first time he had spoken of
suicide.
'He could not afford a dignified life'
“He never suffered from any psychological disorders, as people have been saying - he was
always under heavy social and economic pressures, and as a father of two children, he
could not afford to secure a dignified life for them. For these reasons, he committed
suicide,” he told Middle East Eye.
Sources close to Ghazal’s family claim that he too faced economic worries and alleged that
the hospital had refused to return his ID document until he settled a bill for 500 NIS
($132), which he could not afford to repay. The hospital did not comment on the allegation.
Other recent cases of people attempting to kill themselves because of economic
circumstances have also been reported.
At Al-Shifa hospital, a crowd was reported to have stopped a man, who complained that he
could no longer afford to live, from cutting his veins with a knife.
Another suicide was avoided when a father threatened to throw himself from a rooftop on
the same day that his wife had given birth to their seventh child.
According to reports, the man complained that he could not afford to pay for his wife’s
hospital bills after the Palestinian Authority had cut his salary.
Police and neighbours managed to talk him down, but only following assurances from the
office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that his salary would be reinstated.
Gaza officials refused to provide official statistics to MEE about the number of suicides
in Gaza, but Yahya Moussa, a member of Palestinian Legislative Council, told MEE that a
“high increase” in suicides had occurred since the blockade began in 2006.
Fadel Abu Hein, a Gaza-based professor of psychology at Al-Aqsa University, told MEE that
some of those who had committed suicide had written messages explicitly blaming the
blockade, with one man writing: “Open the future up for us, or else we are going to end
[our lives] with our own hands.”
“Unemployment and poverty are the two important pillars which make humans lose sight of
the importance of their existence,” he said.
“Youths suffering from depression, frustration and despair, who feel that their life is
not giving them anything, can easily convince themselves that ending it is easier than
being totally controlled by others.”
Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, told MEE that
the increase in suicides in Gaza were indicative of the “deep despair” endured by many in
their daily lives.
“I have long admired and been inspired by the spiritual resilience of the people in Gaza
in the face of the prolonged ordeal imposed by Israel's policies of occupation, blockade,
and use of excessive force,” Falk said.
“This will to live as well as possible under the most difficult of circumstances seems
endangered by this alarming rise in suicides, which seems to express deep despair, a loss
of any hope in the future, a condition of total demoralisation.”
'Oppression is haram too'
While there is sympathy for the families of those who succeed in killing themselves, the
majority of the population prefers to remain silent because suicide is generally
considered to be forbidden in Islam.
“Committing suicide is haram, but oppression is haram too,” Imad Hamattou, a Gaza-based
scholar, told MEE.
“Behind every suicidal case there is a human story, the smell of death hangs over
everything in Gaza. The problem is that an average person can’t manage his daily life.”
Suicide is also banned under Palestinian law, with those who attempt and survive often
taken to prison, adding further to their despair.
In a recent court case in Rafah attended by MEE, a young man was jailed for a month for
attempting to kill himself, with the judge justifying the sentence as “an attempt to
protect his life”.
“Even if you put me in prison, I will attempt suicide again the moment I am out of jail!”
the man shouted at the judge. “This is my body and not your body. It is my life I want to
end, not yours!”
Mohammed Rashwan, a lawyer and human rights activist at the same court, told MEE that
cases of attempted suicide were being brought before the courts on an almost daily basis.
“It exhausts my mind to think about all these cases, and I am not exaggerating when I say
that suicide has become a phenomenon in Gaza,” he told MEE.
“It is not enough to criminalise suicide attempts. There has been a massive explosion of
frustration among young people. All they need is 5 NIS to buy a litre of fuel to burn
their tired bodies and troubled minds.
“They have lost hope, they have lost perspective, borders are closed and they feel
trapped, unable to find jobs or continue their academic studies.”
In January Younis Briem had posted photographs on his Facebook page of children who had
been homeless since Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014, as well as images showing how recent
heavy flooding had devastated the neighbourhood.
“I feel choked… and nobody is feeling me,” he wrote. Nine days later he was dead.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/smell-death-hangs-over-everything-suicides-surge-gaza-1009651158
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Message: 2
Through this text we want to invite you to the lecture-discussion to be held next May 14
at 11:30 in the People's Casal del Tio Cuc, which we have brought together two
organizations militant libertarian spectrum: Embat and Mutual Support ---- We have taken
the decision to invite militants and Mutual Support Emabt to discover, here in Valencia,
new organizational developments within the libertarian movement. ---- These two
organizations represent a new momentum of anarchism after the lessons learned after 15-M.
---- The reflux of the mobilizations and the institutionalization of struggles that has
occurred, has caused an interesting debate that has as its main focus the question of how
to make anarchism longer the "Jiminy Cricket" of political parties become a real
alternative to seek its implementation in social movements. And so advance their goals of
social revolution.
In a context in which the demonstrations have lost bellows for various reasons, including
the aforementioned takeover of various electoral proposals, the need to think about what
has been the role that libertarian activists have had in recent years. The emergence of
15-M led to many a hope and an example of popular organization. Following this movement
they have emerged and charged different forces struggles (anti-eviction, tides, etc.).
Social movements have been the real popular movement, and after reaching what advocates of
the electoral process called the "glass ceiling" in many cases these movements have placed
their trust in political parties that claim to represent.
In this context Embat and Mutual Support arise. Two organizations seeking to continue the
struggle for outside institutions to understand that the key is the popular mobilization
to achieve the desired social changes. They opt for participation in social movements and
try to generate confluences between them to form a political subject to be considered
regardless of who is or is no longer in the government.
It is time we begin to look at us with humility and respect that reflect the libertarian
movement is in this situation of irrelevance.
That is why we have invited these two organizations we have the process, the reason for
their existence, you see the situation as intended to carry out the fight.
https://lavilallibertaria.wordpress.com/
http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/36362
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Message: 3
The UVW – a new kind of guerrilla fighting union ---- Sat 5pm 14 May 2016 – Every TopShop
nationwide but main demo at the flagship store in Oxford Street, London ---- While the
trade union behemoths spend their time passing motions – ahem – and flogging porcelain
figurines to their members, another kind of union altogether has been emerging on the
streets of London. While Len McCluskey has been promising an autumn /winter/ spring/
summer of discontent – without delivering even a week – for the past decade the UVW has
been delivering discontent by the bucketload on the streets and inside the bosses
businesses. ---- Fearless, lively, musical. Video sussed. Not scared to ask for help from
‘outsiders; their actions have caught the imagination of many and brought successes like
Sothebys in quickfire time.
On May 14th they take on Sir Phillip Green and his TOPSHOP empire. Other low paid workers
are rallying to their cause – the bakers union, fast food workers are coming to Oxford
street – like a mini-general strike of the low paid.
Two weeks ago the Met turned out twice the number for the small UVW picket than they did
for the anti-austerity march nearby. No doubt they will again on the 14th at 5pm. All the
more reason to support them comrades.
EVERYBODY OUT!
It is confirmed that Loughborough will also be the site of a solidarity demo with the
Topshop 2 on 14th May. There are now 10 cities set to simultaneously vent their rage
against TopShop and Philip Green on 14th May: London, Cambridge, Norwich, Norfolk,
Liverpool, Loughborough, Sheffield, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
https://www.facebook.com/uvwunion/
https://twitter.com/uvwunion
Sat 5pm 14 May 2016 – Every Topshop nationwide but main demo at the flagship store in
Oxford Street, London (more…)
http://www.classwarparty.org.uk/topshop/#more-3463
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Message: 4
We spent the day of the 100th anniversary of the 1916 rising on the streets of Dublin
recording the various peoples commemorative events. This was the actual anniversary on
24th April rather than the religious nationalist and state favoured date of the Easter
weekend a month back. ---- In a lot of ways this seperation was a very good thing as the
state commemorations with its parades of soldiers and sealed off areas for dignitaries
behind which hated politicians laid wreaths had little positive to be said about it. ----
The events on Dublin on the 24th April were all organised by non government groups who in
all cases would have little in common with the politicians of the previous month. Indeed
while the state used the Easter weekend to engage in some awkward back patting the
commemorations on the 24th tended to emphasis the failure to deliver the republic that was
fought for, even if the different groups may well gave disagreed about just what that was.
A failure that was bookended on the 24th by the racist graffiti that appeared on the Moore
street historic site in the early morning and the Garda removing the Irish Traveller
caravan from the Pavee Point contingent towards the back of the final march. The graffiti
was quickly painted over and Pavee Point said that while “We believe that this [caravan
removal] was for genuine Health & Safety reasons. However, we feel that the situation
wasn’t handled as it should have been.“ But both served as reminders that we are a long
way from the Proclamation’s rhetoric of ‘cherishing the children of the national equally’.
The largest of the non government 1916 commemorations was led off by a bloc marking the
once ( but no longer ) forgotten role of women in the 1916 rebellion. The obscured role of
women in the rebellion turned out to be the main common theme of many of the people's
commemorations, reflecting the current political reality in an Ireland that continues to
deny women bodily autonomy, north and south
We Facebooked a 200+ image 1916 photo album as part of our contribution to archiving the
100th anniversary as well as shooting and editing the videos below.
This first batch of photos in the album we have labelled historical as it mostly consists
of contingents and individuals who had dressed up in the uniforms of the time or were
carrying historical banners.
The second batch are civil society, ie the unions, community groups and campaign groups
that organised delegations for one or the other of the commemorations on the 24th
The 3rd batch are the banners of groups from outside Ireland who had travelled here for
the commemoration and those of the Palestinian community in Ireland who had a sizeable
turnout. The boundaries of these categories are not of course clear, the previous batch
included a lot of anti-war banners some of who are carried by people who had travelled.
And this one includes union banners from Britian that could have been included with the
2nd civil society batch.
Batch 4 are the bands, there were a lot of these, particularly on the National Graves
Assocaition march from the GPO to Glasnevin - this was by far the most traditional of the
events on the days and even included a band from the sectarian Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Batch 5 is Political Parties (which were mostly Sinn Fein Cumann banners) and photos of
individual people on the stage or in the crowd that caught our photographers eye.
The Women of 1916 - Marie Mulholland speaks at the Citizens Commemoration
One of the highlights of the 1916 commemorations in Dublin was this speech to the Citizens
Commemoration by Marie Mulholland stressing not only the role of women in 1916 but the
fact they had to come back again and again to struggle when the republic turned out to be
not what they fought for. She then brought this forward to the modern day and the
continued denial of bodily autonomy to women north and south of the border.
The rank & file in 1916 - Lorcan Collins
Yhe historian Lorcan Collins talks about the composition of those who turned out for the
rising, pointing out that in contrast to the way they are often presented they were far
more likely to be ordinary workers than poets.
One of the welcome surprises from Sundays commemorations was this emotional song about
Citizen Army lovers taking part in the rising by Brendan Devereux. He says of it “I wrote
this song to commemorate those in the Irish Citizen Army who fought during the Easter
Rebellion 1916. The Irish Citizen Army was the military wing of the Irish Transport and
General Workers Union, and was established in the wake of the 1913 Lockout. My
Grandfather, Patrick Devereux, and his sister, MollyAnne, were members of the Irish
Citizens Army, and they fought during Easter Week.”
It was sung at the start of the National Graves Association event outside the GPO and
we’ve mixed in footage and photos of the various commemoration events of April 24th to
make this video.
Brendan has a website at where you can purchase his music and his own recording of this
song on Youtube
He provided the full lyrics there, the first two verses (Copyright Brendan Devereux) are
As the sun went down on Dublin Town in Easter in 1916
Two lovers walked through cobblestoned streets as the Jarveys called from the Green.
Though their hearts were young they were feeling sad, not knowing what tomorrow might bring,
For they had made a vow 'neath the Starry Plough they'd serve neither Kaiser nor King:
And they'd answer the call to Liberty Hall, and they'll rally with James Connolly.
She was a milliner by trade from Harmony Row, he was a docker from off the North Strand,
And during the Lockout of 1913 they played in the union piped band.
And when the Irish Citizen's Army was formed, they were there at the head of the queue,
And they'd fight for the rights of the working class, a fight that was noble and true:
And they'd answer the call to Liberty Hall, and they'll rally with James Connolly.
The Foggy Dew sung by Fergus Russell at the GPO
This was the single most popular bit of live content we posted on the day with some 70,000
views. "The Foggy Dew sung outside the GPO in Dublin 100 years after the moment the 1916
rising against the British empire lit the flame of what became a global anti colonial
revolt that over 50 years extinguished that empires 'pink on the map'"
A critical look at 1916 from an anarchist perspective
Check our Facebook page ( Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland) ) for some of the video we
also shot on the day and for the photo and video posts to come.
http://www.wsm.ie/c/dublin-marks-real-anniversary-1916-rising-24th-april
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Message: 5
After years of absence, the Rotisserie reopened in early March, close to the premises
which she was expelled in the tenth arrondissement of Paris. Supporters, onlookers and
revelers were at the rendezvous. ---- That's it! Scrub your ladles, polish your pots,
sharpen your cleavers, made crystal singing and clinking cutlery: New Rotisserie is
open[1]! ---- The 11 and 12 March, the team representing the various collectives involved
inaugurated the premises at 4, rue Jean et Marie-Moinon, Paris Xe, on behalf of the
Rotisserie itself, to finance equipment purchases last . Because yes, if it's a new taste
era opening there, the prelude to political and culinary epic NRL is also and above all a
story of dosh. Recall the general idea: in exchange for a flat fee to rent and expenses,
association or collective member may invest the restaurant for an evening or Sunday lunch,
and organize a meal which she will keep the profits to finance its projects, whether to
organize a cultural event or pay the lawyer of fellow trade unionists repressed-es.
Construction of New Rotisserie (masonry, plumbing, electricity, first equipment) was
funded on the remains of the former Rotisserie, and especially thanks to the City's
grants. But from now on, it will not receive any operating subsidy: while there will
always be the risk of not being able to pay rent during off considerably but it wins in
autonomy from the government.
Autonomy in the heart of the project
So to take place, should share in the cost: as adhering association, first (20 euros the
year) and standard 70 euros for a Sunday afternoon or evening or Monday, and 80 euros for
the other nights.
And autonomy, which is the heart of the project (well, just behind the dosh ...): the CNVT
'promotes self-management, it belongs to its members and become what they will do. And has
even been partly built by them, since they must mosaic that decorates the residents and
neighborhood children, and trapping, the pews, the bar and the shelves were made by the
collective self-directed A carpentry through wire and some volunteer arm.
To see the crowds, these evenings were particularly successful: around 200 meals or drinks
were served and the wine is poured on the bottom waves to Bella Ciao played in the street
by the invisible wind, gathered for the occasion. To give you an idea, in just two days
(but two grueling days in the kitchen and service), the CNVT has collected some 2450
euros. Not even enough to finance the revolution, but it's a start. Reservations are open!
Marco (U 92)
[1] www.lanouvellerotisserie.org
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Nouvelle-Rotisserie-Au-service-du
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