Today's Topics:
1. Britain, solfed: Laibaz dispute update (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. alasbarricadas: Netherlands, The prohibition of access to
areas in the repressive context of The Hague (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL n° special - Change
society, without being fooled (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. wsm.ie: Two woman travel - and expose the impact of
Ireland's abortion ban - Repeal the 8th Amendment
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. France, Alternative Libertaire AL n° special - High
Schools: Coordination Nantes: An example of self-organization
(fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Alternative Libertaire AL n° special - Switzerland:
basic income, the wages to the test (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. wsm.ie: Protest takes place against homophobic attack in
Phoenix park that the state is ignoring - video (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Manchester Solidarity Federation has been in dispute with Laibaz restaurant in Bolton
since the beginning of July over wage theft, below minimum wage pay rates and other
matters - see earlier post below. ---- The campaign has included a number of demand
letters backed up with two successful phone blockades aimed at preventing take away
orders. In the light of Sunar Alom's refusal so far to enter negotiations to resolve the
dispute, Manchester SF has escalated its actions against Laibaz over the weekend of August
20th/21st. A 3rd phone blockade on the evening of the 20th has been followed up with a
postering campaign in the vicinity of Laibaz. ---- We thank people for the fantastic
support so far and urge you to continue this to force Sunar Alom to return the wages he
has stolen and to prevent him from robbing workers in the future.
SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST LAIBAZ. AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
http://www.solfed.org.uk/manchester/laibaz-dispute-update
------------------------------
Message: 2
On August 3, several anarchists in The Hague, Netherlands, and one of another town
received a notification of Mayor Van Aartsen for two months prohibiting access to
Schilderswijk, a central working-class neighborhood with many immigrants. The mayor is
based on the "Law of Football", first used against political activists. In recent times,
anarchists in The Hague have had to deal with severe repression repression, much of it
coming directly from the mayor's office. ---- 50,000 euros of damages because the eviction
of De Vloek ---- On September 9, 2015, during the eviction of the social center De Vloek
who had squatted 13 years, they were arrested ten people. Five of them remained in prison
for two weeks after being accused of assaulting the police. Several months after his
release, the ten people who had been arrested received a letter from the mayor of The
Hague with a claim for damages of 50,000 euros. Upon further investigation of the details
of the amount of the claim, it was clear that relied heavily on costs that had nothing to
do with the eviction: removal of containers filled with debris that supposedly were used
to make barricades, surveillance the field after the eviction (of Vloek was demolished
directly after the eviction) and cleaning graffiti street (the street not cleaned, but
resurfaced a few weeks after the eviction under scheduled maintenance).
This huge sum was not paid, has resulted in a lawsuit that is still ongoing. A demand for
such a high amount is rare, but it is something new. Previously, after the eviction of
Ubica a squatter of Utrecht, also an exorbitant sum as compensation was required. The
punishment of those who resist not only achieved through imprisonment; also they try to
shed the "guilty" to financial ruin. In this case the motivation was also punishing people
who resisted eviction: was the VVD political party van Aartsen, who asked the city council
to reclaim all the "damage".
Closing the Autonomoom Centrum
The mayor, however , did not stop in the claim for damages during the eviction of De
Vloek. The Autonomoom Centrum (AC) also had to pay the price. The AC was evicted from its
location in the Bezuidenhout neighborhood where it took more than five years.
Subsequently, three buildings were squatted in Harstenhoekweg in order to continue the
activities of the AC.
The mayor, along with the owner of one of the buildings building, tried to use as a ruse
to evict the alleged danger of asbestos. A demand that the mayor lost, allowed the
building was not evacuated. A few months later, a letter arrived saying that the mayor
intends to close the building where the AC because it houses an illegal cafeteria. This is
how the mayor has tried to close the places that are structurally important for the
anarchist movement. The procedure for closing the AC is still ongoing.
Insurrection in the Schilderswijk
When Mitch Henriquez was suffocated to death by police in 2015, thousands of people in the
neighborhood Schilderswijk rose against the police and the state. Hundreds of people
attacked the police station and there were four nights of clashes with police. The
insurrection was an expected reaction to last murder of the police and all the years of
racist police brutality in the neighborhood.
For years, the anarchists and anti-fascists, who are Chinese in the shoe mayor, have been
taking measures against racist police brutality in the neighborhood. Several neighborhood
organizations had tried to address the problem of police brutality, but all these groups
worked together with the police and the municipality, or tried to sit with them to
negotiate. The antifascists and anarchists struggle against the police and their violent
practices is always uncompromising and will not work with the police or municipal
government. The mayor and police have spent a lot of time trying to break the connection
between anarchists and the rest of the neighborhood. agents were presented at community
centers where leaflets are distributed to intimidate people and tell them not to work with
antifascists and anarchists; otherwise, it could have consequences for their subsidies. In
addition, the police took charge of removing posters and several demonstrations were
banned by the mayor. Before and after the demonstrations, agents maintained youth sections
through intimidation.
This, however, did not give the desired result. Many neighborhood residents flocked to the
demonstrations and after the death of Mitch Henriquez neighborhood rebelled en masse.
Later, the mayor and the police tried to pin the blame anarchists, using them as
scapegoats and trying to break the solidarity of the neighborhood. This witch hunt against
anarchists continued in late April, when an anarchist was arrested in the Schilderswijk on
suspicion of having spread the Anarchist Nespaper (Anarchist Newspaper), which included a
text on the uprising in Schilderswijk. The companion spent four days at the police station
accused of incitement against authority. Later he was asked a penalty of 8 weeks, but was
acquitted. The Interior Ministry has appealed.
In addition to the above examples, anarchists and anti-fascists in The Hague they receive
a "special" attention of police and the mayor. Demonstrations are banned, are addressed in
the streets to intimidate, there have been attempts by police to buy informants, and any
action that anarchists are involved can expect a large police presence.
Bureaucratic repression
In addition to traditional forms of repression such as raids, arrests and prison
sentences, while repression has manifested during the last period in a more subtle,
bureaucratic and administratively. This makes it more abstract and less prone to
solidarity. If the walls of repression are clearly visible in the case of a fellow
prisoner, however, in this form of repression, one is caught in a net of current legal
proceedings and appeals. In the case of prohibited areas, they are trying to break the
active area of the fight prohibiting certain people set foot in a neighborhood where
social struggle being waged.
We are not victims
We do not expect the repression ends here. The mayor and the police will adhere to the
current plan. But we do not feel in the least, as victims of repression. The police and
the mayor must decide for themselves whether they want to deal with a group of anarchists.
Repression is not going to become an easy target and apathetic victims. Each blow received
one of us will be returned. It only makes us more determined to continue the struggle for
freedom unconditionally. Because we have nothing to lose, only to win, because we are like
weeds that are growing between the bricks um suffocating state that their time has passed
and it is time anarchy-and no police officer or mayor will stop us!
Our struggle for freedom is stronger than its repression!
Some anarchists in The Hague
http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/36811
------------------------------
Message: 3
While capitalist society is in crisis, the challenge is more necessary than ever. But it
can take various forms, more or less productive ... Between citizenism the néoréformisme
and self radicalism, dead ends and pitfalls abound. Decryption. ---- Those who have
attended Nuit standing at one time or another of the movement have been confronted with a
variety of protest speech. Cetains seem innovative, others simply rehash old républiaines
moons, sometimes disarming ingenuousness, sometimes very sophisticated ... All deserve to
be discussed. ---- Citizenism harmless protest ---- The rise of citizen movements
corresponds to the relative decline of the labor movement since the 1980s: access of the
less affluent to mass consumption, encouragement - especially by social democracy - the
identity of "middle class", identification social by consumption and less by the
profession, fragmentation of large concentrations of workers, but also habitat areas
(spread of residential areas and peri-urban), crisis situation less favorable to the
claims, and finally disillusioned with the collapse of State socialist project (as PS or
PC version), which had organized the labor movement for decades.
In this context, certain movements, both left environmentalists and anti-globalization,
trying to invent a new form of protest. For this they willingly inspired by old national
myths, including those of the French Revolution of 1789. The figure of the "people"
replaces that of the proletariat, that of the citizen replaces that of the worker.
Often these movements waving rattles as the "Sixth Republic", the magical convocation of a
"Constituent Assembly", the drafting of a "new Constitution", the "draw" As leaders ...
subversion symbols and social progress, they reappear La Marseillaise and the Tricolour,
more consensual than the International and the red and black flag (or red and black).
This identity change is not without practical mutation. The terrain of the struggle tends
to move. It moves away from the sphere of production - with pickets, its factory
occupations and blockades of goods flows - for the public space, with its places of business.
If citizens do not prohibit movements protest in the economic field - as do the Occupy
Wall Street and Occupy - their approach is quite different. Criticism of employers, as
owning class, deciding the nature of production and working conditions, and extorting
surplus value, in the heart of the struggles of the labor movement, turns into a moral
critique of the few bosses' thugs ". More commonly still, it is replaced by an opposition
between "the richest 1%" and 99% that remain, even completely goes out the window in favor
of a critique of the only speculators, bankers and shareholders.
Finally, if the caste politician is challenged because seen as disconnected from the
people's aspirations, confidence is reaffirmed to the state and the national framework
seen as bulwarks against transnational bodies - when they are only two modalities of the
same capitalist power .
Certainly, no protest movement, even revolutionary, is immune against a risk of recovery
by the system. But if he remains at the stage of citizenism, as saying he condemns himself
to be perfectly harmless.
Smoke and mirrors néoréformistes
The idea of social change and revolution, through constituent assemblies and the
establishment of a Sixth Republic, advanced by mélenchonistes conveys the illusion that
the top-down patterns could cause actual social relations . But these are not ideas that
make movement and revolution, but actual social relations, affirming finally materialize
ideas, become dominant. These are the power relations that create the laws, not the
reverse. Ditto for a Constitution.
The citizens' revolution is as illusory as the electoral strategies and are reformist,
because all three are crossed by the illusion of sovereignty policy on the economy. It
would suffice to bang your fist on the table for the allegiance of the ruling class
democracy. But the ruling class does not tolerate democracy if it does not interfere with
its interests. So if, by sheer chance, a radical left party managed to take power
democratically, he would find himself powerless against the ruling class - senior
executives from industry, finance, police and the army - holds real levers of power.
The left could actually exercise power at the national level, only if it is supported by a
powerful social movement, organized and combative in duration. Such a prospect has little
to do with politicking strategies of the radical left, who see in social struggles that an
electoral springboard (JLM 2017 is the best example) and even detrimental to the revolt by
dangling the illusion of a hand or a possible victory at the polls. In case of victory at
the polls, they can also lead to the weakening of the social movement made trailer of
government action. This is what happened in France in 1981, in many countries in South
America since the 2000s.
Even with a proletariat solidly organized and combative at national level, such a policy,
respectful of republican legality, leads to failure, as was the case with Syriza in
Greece. Without a strategy based on the direct intervention of workers', with the central
objective the expropriation of the capitalists, socialization and self-management of the
economy, it necessarily falls in the management of capitalism, the compromises, denial,
and finally the deadlock. When the system of ownership of production and means of exchange
will have been fundamentally transformed, it will then be time to draft a Constitution
carving in stone the principles of the new company.
The illusion of a moral capitalism
If large sections of the radical left are bearers of illusions from a strategic point of
view, they are also a programmatic perspective. Overall, in the majority of programs,
proposals, claims include measures such as changes in taxes, reducing income inequality,
debt cancellation, increased taxation of capital out of Europe and the euro, monetary
sovereignty, nationalization and state investments to support production and employment.
These measures underpin a proposed moralized capitalism, a social market economy,
national, and international competition with the neoliberal countries. This left generally
considers that France is a rich country, and the crisis, debt and poverty are the result
of the greed of a handful of non-sharers and malicious individuals, it would be sufficient
to submit or foreclose.
The belief in the success of a social and moral capitalism reflects a total
misunderstanding of the root causes of the systemic crisis of capitalism, and the reasons
for the slowdown of the economic boom after the war[ 1 ]. Failing to attack the source of
problems of the capitalist market economy (uncertain exchange, replacement of human labor
by the machine, private property, competition), the proposals of the radical left can not
curb the long term, ongoing recession movement.
To get out of the systemic crisis, social change is needed. This is to break with the
private ownership of means of production, competition, commodity exchange, modes of
integration of the labor force. So it is revolutionizing the ways to produce, distribute,
share and decide.
The against-culture, creative but enfermante
Unlike the reformist project is developing a revolutionary challenge to the system,
including G is involved.
However, part of that challenge, rather than seeking to bind the minority radical
practices with mass protest, tends to live in vanguard whose way of life and action would,
in themselves, a program. From this point of view, the class struggle and the union would
fight only the way to access the world of goods and bourgeois comfort that we reject. They
would not be a revolutionary lever, but reinforce the established order and the influence
of consumer society on the population.
The revolutionary process itself, with its strategic, organizational, educational
requirements, and the patience it requires, tends to be denigrated because it would be a
fantasy autorépressif, preventing the immediate revolt. During the revolution, too distant
prospect, therefore opposed riotously design of revolt "immediate, here and now."
Certainly the revolutionary challenge can be accompanied by a cons-culture, creative and
cohesive carrier ... but we also measure all that that may have enclosing if this
against-culture is misunderstood many. We must keep the ambition to lead the majority
struggles sine qua non of a true social revolution, and keep pouring in a form of elitist
complacency, or avant-garde anarcho-Blanquist postures. If we let isolate the many, this
is a godsend for power seeking figures of the internal enemy and scapegoat.
The challenge for revolutionaries in a period which is not, it is both to share a critique
of the capitalist system and against constuire broad powers that will prepare its abolition.
Flo (AL Marne)
[ 1 ] "The law work, the ultimate stage of capitalist crisis" Alternative Libertaire, June
2016
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Changer-la-societe-sans-se-faire
------------------------------
Message: 4
The government are trying every trick to delay a referendum to repepeal the hated 8th
amendment. Every day they do so means another 12 women have to make the difficult journey
to England to access abortion. Department of Health figures reveal that 25,000 people from
Ireland have had to travel to access abortion in the last five years. ---- Starting at 5am
today two women making the journey are tweeting about their experiences of doing so. ----
Follow & retweet the account @TwoWomenTravel as two women travel to England for an
abortion & tweet @EndaKennyTD at each stage. ---- It also has to be remembered that
significant amount of people can't access abortion through travel becuase their migrant
status denies them travel papers or because of poverty or controlling partners. All
additional reasons why the 8th Amendment must be repealed now without further delays. A
national demonstration demaning repeal takes place in Dublin Saturday 24th September.
We believe in real options and real choices for women. A woman who wants to have a child
shouldn't have to spend the rest of her life looking after it. This is why we favour the
option of full child-care provision paid for by the state, maternity leave and flexi-time
for working, public creche facilities and restaurants. The present role of many women as
full-time unpaid childminders within the family must be ended.
A woman who finds herself pregnant and does not wish to remain so should have a right to
free, safe abortion on demand. This is not an abstract political slogan, we don't go
around shouting "free abortion on demand" in the belief that it can only be gained in the
context of a socialist revolution. We believe that it is merely one of the basic first
steps in freeing women from the constraints placed on us by capitalism.
Our argument for abortion rights rests on womens' right to control our own fertility. The
quality of a woman's life can never be made equal to that of an unborn foetus. The foetus
is totally dependent on the mother it cannot be said to have an independent existence. To
give it such rights (as per the Irish constitution) reduces women to the status of
breeding machines or walking wombs. Just as an acorn can become an oak tree, a foetus can
become a human baby. But a foetus is no more a baby than an acorn is an oak tree.
However, politically, there is little point in entering debates on "when does life begin?"
or viability of the foetus. Our arguments must must focus on a woman's right to control
her own body.
The WSM is entirely opposed to women's oppression. Women's biology, pregnancy and
child-bearing has copper-fastened our inferior position in capitalist society. This has
been extended so that we are also stuck with child rearing and child-minding within the
family. Therefore women's access to work, education, leisure and any chance of
self-advancement has been strictly limited. This is especially true for working class women.
Women have always tried to control their own fertility. Anti-abortion laws have resulted
in back-street abortions and induced miscarriages. World-wide, one woman dies from a
back-street abortion every three minutes. Winning full control over our own fertility is
an essential step towards ending womens' oppression. The technology has been developed
under capitalism to make this both safe and possible. Women must have the right to use
this technology to decide if and when to have children.
We support a woman's access to full, free and safe contraception. If she finds herself
pregnant but does not wish to have a child then she should have access to free, safe
abortion on request.
At 5am this morning ?#?TwoWomenTravel? started to detail their journey to the UK to obtain
an abortion on Twitter. At 6am 200 people were following the account, by 11am it was over
6,000 people, demonstrating the real hunger that now exists to RepealThe8th
The government as with previous governments are doing everything in their power to avoid
and delay calling the needed referendum. On September 24th you will have a chance to force
them to act when enormous numbers will take to the streets of Dublin for the annual March
for Choice at 1.30.
This is the year we must Rise & Repeal!
http://www.wsm.ie/c/two-woman-travel-irelands-abortion-ban
------------------------------
Message: 5
The mobilization of the schools was brief but massive, bringing a new generation to
organize. In Nantes, coordination interlycéenne against the labor law is made so
remarkable. ---- From March 9, the high school students and high school students were
numerous in Nantes streets and several high schools blocked by organizing themselves
spontaneously on the social networks. A handful of them linked through student union, met
to create a interlycée coordination for measures against the labor law. A Facebook group
bringing together sixty people a dozen schools Nantes was then created to share
information daily. Meetings were held before and after each day of action in the premises
of the Solidarity Trade Union, available. Coordination has gained momentum and is becoming
better organized. Common leaflets were written and broadcast on schools. Banners have been
made to the protests.
Represented at the Inter
Faced police violence, and in the absence of a procession "young" able to defend and
remain grouped, coordination has set up "yellow jackets": people wearing a vest siglé
"fight interlycée" and first-aid equipment, have been maintained the cohesion of the
procession. Note that they and they were never seen as a security service.
The school holidays were an opportunity to organize more symbolic actions, apart from
demonstrations. In early April, the local Medef 44 were overgrown schoolgirl coordination
and the mobilization committee of the University of Nantes. A press conference was held
there and a banner was displayed. The link between high schools and facs was sealed in
action! Teams were to meet the workers' front companies or canteens when fliers
broadcasts. The idea was to encourage them to take over - this was the case! The castle
walls were also decorated with a giant banner: "The working class people of today and
tomorrow say stop!" Representations of comic crime scene on the ground, accompanied by the
same caption, "Labour law killed me," flourished in the city.
Subsequently, coordination schoolgirl participated in the creation of the local community
"We all blocks! "And was represented in the inter-union!
Everyone could get involved as much as he wanted in this self-managed and coordination
without hierarchy, give advice or simply relay information about his school. If the
approach baccalaureate hampered mobilization, a new team was born militant! No doubt it
will continue the fight, strengthened by this experience!
Sidonie (coordination interlycéenne Nantes against the Labour Act)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lycees-La-coordination-nantaise-Un
------------------------------
Message: 6
The unconditional basic income (RBI) is a concept that has undoubtedly booming. Following
a vote that saw its implementation curtly rejected by the Swiss people on 5 June, but
return on an attractive prisoner of his political straitjacket concept. ---- Works are we
to live or do we live to work? If this old question nagging especially those who have the
opportunity to ask, it has the merit to highlight an interesting phenomenon. And provided
that they receive an acceptable compensation, most wage earners are more attached-es to
the nature of the business conducted at the money [ 1 ]. ---- It is from this
de-correlation between activity and income that the issue of RBI becomes relevant. It
indeed offers to each one to receive a monthly allowance he or she is an employee-e or
not, from birth to death. If someone occupies an activity, the allowance is deducted from
his salary before return to a zero sum game. In consideration of this implementation, the
traditional benefit systems are abandoned.
In the vote on 5 June, the Swiss rejected 79% the implementation of an RBI for the monthly
payment of an allowance of 2 500 CHF (2 100 euros) per month to all. This rejection was
expected. The initiative was supported only weakly by the Greens; the remaining parties
are headwind against this initiative. In a country where the unemployment rate fell to
3.3% in May, it is not difficult to climb the "honest workers" against "parasite-lazy"
profiting from welfare to feed his idleness. Behind the Epinal image of full employment
voluntarily maintained by Switzerland, lies a reality made of experienced part-time which
women are the first victims, first at the time of custody, then when comes the time to retire.
Deciding the direction of personal choice
Supporters of Yes have much highlighted the possibility for each individual to decide what
meaning to personal choice. This vision, generous and futuristic, appealed probably
another number which are confronted daily-es: that of recognition of the "care" (care),
which is a real hidden work. Childcare or care for art elder probably expect a societal
recognition as useful and necessary activity for everyone whose RBI could be the first mark.
Others interested in RBI. This is particularly the case of the Finnish Government that
will test the payment of a monthly allowance (€ 500) in 2017 during a pilot experiment on
5000 people. The RBI thus made its way but is not it a siding? If the prime activity on
wages, is not the wage should be deleted? If the management of common tasks (domestic or
care) must be recognized, they must not be shared by everyone rather than under-monetized
by way of alms thrown to those especially those who provide?
Nico (AL Paris-Nord-Est)
[ 1 ] See for example the work of Dan Ariely.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Suisse-Revenu-de-base-le-salaire-a
------------------------------
Message: 7
Last night (18 August) saw a protest against homophobic attack in Phoenix park take place
at the Central Criminal Court at Parkgate street. ----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnxXE8JwRM ---- A Polish gay man was attacked by a mob
while cycling in the Park at the end of July. When he reported the attack to the Garda
they showed little interest in pursuing it. ---- A demonstration was called after the
attack was reported by LGBTQ media. It was only then than mainstream media reported it at
all - but it a problematic way. They tried to create excuses for why the man had been
attacked - 'victim-shaming’. This included the fact it took place near sunset as if that's
an odd time to cycle in the park. Sunset is actually when the park is often at its most
beautiful
But regardless the point is we should never expect people to exist in a state of fear
modifying their behaviour and checking over their shoulder 'just in case’. This attack
involved a gang of over 10 young men egged on by others. That's where the blame entirely
lies and it’s their behaviour that must change.
Up to 100 people took part in the protest, the location was chosen because its very close
to the Park entrance but is also representative of the way the state has sought to ignore
and not investigate the attack, an illustration that the Garda cannot be relied on to
tackle homophobia.
More details of what happened and why the protest was called
http://www.wsm.ie/c/protest-homophobic-attack-phoenix-park-garda
http://www.wsm.ie/c/protest-against-homophobic-attack-phoenix-park-video
