gold

So today, instead of starting my next assignment I watched this documentary concerning water:

blue gold

I have been attempting to do research to find a transnational corporation that has been accused of violating human rights. Of course, i was not lacking in options of cases to study. It seems in the ever expanding global situation the people of the world are routinely being pushed to the bottom of the list of state priorities as the big money and natural resource scramble take precedence.

After a few days of initial research i settled on the case of Bechtel water vs the people of Cochabamba Bolivia in 2000. Bechtel bought the water system and hiked the prices up so high some people were forced to spend almost half their monthly income on water alone. I remember hearing about this situation many years ago and completely disbelieving that a corporation could privatize water. Water is an essential human right. It is the cause of life and a necessity to exist. I remember being shocked at the details of the contract between the Bolivian government and Bechtel, stating that the people may not even collect rain water for private use.

I thought i would get some background information via this documentary that was released last year, highlighting some of the conflicts over water that are occurring around the world right now as i write, and the nature of the transnational beast.

The case in Cochabamba appeals to me personally as it shows the power of the pressure of the people. By rising up against the corporation and government policy (and World Bank debt relief policy) the people won. As noted in blue gold, the people were asking who the government troops and police were protecting... the transnational corporation or the governments contractual interests? Because it certainly was not the people of Bolivia.

At the cost of one 17 year old boys life, and the wounding of many others, the people of Bolivia showed that resistance is possible and effective.

print break

A young and extremely talented young illustrator by the name of verity keniger
(who also happens to be a beautiful and very good friend of mine)
has just sent me some gifts via the wings of the scottish/swedish postal system over the north sea into my gloveless mitts.

in my little package of treats i have:

• three beautiful prints
• a lion button
• and a small pouch of tobacco.

what a dreamy combo.

If you have not heard of this young talent you should check out her website here
and her excellent blog (of which i am an avid fan) here
and get your hands on some prints because i cannot take my eyes of them.

all images copyrighted to miss verity keniger

take take take...

Today i finally got around to watching this British documentary feature film that was released a few years back:

Taking Liberties

A witty (and at some points borderline cheesy) take on the present and historical attack and mutation of the British citizens liberty and freedom. When acts against individuals that when found separately seem slightly harmless, vaguely benign for the greater good and a bit 'over the top' are placed in one documentary together, in quick succession, it strongly highlights how each change in law and legislation affects the next, and it makes you sit back and think...
shit.
what happened there?

So much has changed since world war 2 and since 9/11 that it seems our very value system is up for manipulation by the government. god forbid the people taking a stand with their 'freedom of speech' and 'right to protest'... For a couple of minutes before the documentary started I thought that we lived in a participatory democracy, the very same ideology the uk are supposedly slowly spreading via free markets and neo-liberalism to the rest of the world... but again, I am reminded that capitalism rules the roost, the economy and interstate relations come before the people, and that politicians are liars.

long live all the Brian Haws in the world who have the balls to say no.

an arm and a leg

yesterday the government cuts were announced in the uk.
It seemed inevitable with a con-dem government in place that the burden of the problem will fall on those at the bottom of the pile... and voila! don't even pretend to be suprised when in the headlines today the guardian reports an analyst for the Institute for Fiscal Studies stating "Overall families with children seem to be the biggest losers."

i find it incredible that the government will refuse to listen to what the people want, yet when it comes to payouts, they begin with the solidarity talk, the 'we're all in it together' talk.. considering that most top dog MP's have never had a job in their lives (outside of parliament) i cannot imagine they can comprehend what it is to be made redundant in the already shocking climate...

what a suprise.

and further more, the protests happening on the streets of london by those affected by the cuts- amongst them students and the newly unemployed, are not reported in the media. the moment a group of protesters break into a government department there is shock and horror and a little review in the guardian.

the cut will be around £81bn from the state.. including local government, higher education, the welfare state...

reading this article from the children and young people now website makes me despair.

working for human rights on a global scale makes me fully furious that the UK can't get its priorities right... it targets the most vulnerable, protects those at the top and says 'there is no plan B' and expects the people to sit back and drink it up.
which to be honest they probably will do... because even when hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest (as we saw with the war against Iraq in 2003) we get ignored.

"The UK is still one of the richest countries in the world; we should be ashamed that even one child is living in poverty, let alone almost three million."

- Maggie Jones, chief executive, Children England

grrrrr

this is what democracy looks like

I was going to write something here about the seattle WTO protests in 1999...

but i think you should just watch this instead...
solidarity in action.

el problema

the problem

Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa.

In 1975 Spain left the territory without holding the United Nations recommendation of a referendum.

This resulted in an illegal occupation by Morrocco which is still in place.

The Saharawi people are violently oppressed and not allowed to express any national identity, be it songs, flags, public demonstrations... they are not even able to mention the occupation- it is referred to as 'the problem'

hib & kika

off the map just brought me a big smile and a thought of a girl i know...

" We all have our own borders. On one side is what's easy, what's known, what we've been told is true and have taken for granted; it's comfortable here, it's familiar. But the other side is wider than possibility, it's brilliant with potential, and it looks like our dreams, whatever they are. Maybe for you that means having family or taking up sailing, maybe its poetry in Prague or solitude in Barcelona; maybe it's learning how to be really close to someone. Big or small, they are not the 'dreams' we've had handed to us, goodjob / bighouse / newcar - these are real dreams, real fragile fledgling dreams, which is why they're often so frightening. But they're ours, if we can find them and hold on to them, if we can catapult ourselves across whatever border of fear or doubt or tiredness seems to keep us from them. In the end, the only thing standing between each of us and what we most want, is ourselves. We're our own border guards. And sometimes the crossing is easier than expected..."

sunday blu's

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

papergirl

how did i not know about this little gem?
I inadvertently found this collective via a blog of jordan sieler who has written a fantastic little article about community for the papergirl magazine based in berlin.

papergirl has got everything i love in it:
- girls on bikes
- people making art
- giving things out for free

and it all gels together when the girls (and boys) on their bikes give the home made art out for free to people on the streets of the city. genius.

its so simple it rings of choosewhatyouread, another fantastic community project slowy seeping into the bus terminals and train stations of cities around the world...

i cant wait to see if my 2011 london times will bring me some art and bikes and giving of things.

photo from just.ekosystem.org

rights

Coincidentially I have been writing an assignment this week on a clash of rights... concerning the flotilla attack by Israel back in May that resulted in the death of 9.

Today I was sent the following trailer for a documentary to be released concerning a protest staged in Scotland against the Jerusalem Quartet, a group of Israeli musicians.
At the moment there is a massive campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the state of Israel, to express non-compliance and non-legitimisation of the blockade on Gaza and treatment of the Palestinian people. This includes a cultural and academic boycott.

The 5 members of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign protested the Israeli group and were promptly ejected, arrested and set to try for breaching the peace.

However, this was revoked and replaced with a racially motivated charge.

This raises questions as to whether this is admissible in law.
To criticise a nation states actions is not to criticise a race of people.
To use strong words to describe situations as genocidal is not to be racist.
And by exercising a right to express their own belief as to what is occurring in Palestine is not to be anti-semetic.

If this charge is passed in an extreme sense it could mean that you are unable to openly criticise Israel in a public arena.

And I wonder if other nations might jump on the bandwagon?

for nanna anna .1

The game show blared from the tv set in the front room – a new flat screen high definition model that Uncle Aleksander had bought Anna on her 80th birthday a few years ago. It jutted from the wall beside the fireplace, silver and alien, the latest addition to the menagerie of out of place items paying tribute to each era past in that large house on Belvoir Road.

Klara paused as she softly closed the front door behind her, catching canned applause trickle from the next room. Holding out her hand she steadied herself on the peeling peach dado rails that used to be train tracks for her toys as a child, kicked off her school shoes and shouted hello to her Nana. Klara dropped her bag to the floor where a small, carpeted suitcase had been propped up against the wall. Today she felt more grown up than 16 and the strange mixture of sadness and guilt collected in a lump in her throat and forced her teeth to clench as she placed her keys quietly on the sideboard at the bottom of the stairs.

The game show soldiered on, all white teeth and toupee’s urging on the middle aged women in bright sweaters and clashing lipstick. Anna stared blankly at the screen, watching the blurry pictures appear and fade in front of her cataracts. Today she couldn’t bring herself to shout back to Klara with her usual gusto and instead she muttered to herself, cursing the game show’s winners, the losers, the tv set and her son Aleksander for ever thinking of giving her such a ridiculously pointless thing. She could barely make out a face from the smudges of colour on the screen. Her body was giving up on her. Thank God her memories worked, even if they were only in Polish these days.

Klara swung around the door to the front room where Anna sat, still mumbling.

“Fancy a cup of tea Nan?”

“Yes darling, that would be wonderful” she replied, not moving her gaze from the tv.

Klara paused and watched her Nan for a moment. The old lady sat hunched in the corner of the beige sofa, smartly dressed, short hair combed, cardigan and slacks perfectly pressed, shoes laced. She looked as though she was about to attend an elderly parent’s evening. Or church on a Sunday. Her hands sat limply in her lap, withered like gnarled branches, almost blue to look at.

“Happy birthday Nan”, Klara said.

Anna looked up and smiled as her granddaughter left the room.

copen haven

I have had a brilliant little mini adventure with mollitas this weekend to copenhagen to meet up with two of my favourite human beings.

amongst lots of walking, beer, laughing, smoking, market shopping and lake sitting we spent some time in christiania on their 39th birthday.

christiania is a freetown haven in the middle of copenhagen city. It is full of all sorts of wonderful people and self built houses and little secret places beside lakes and inside nooks and crannies with none of the forced sheen of perfect society. I had a quick conversation with a danish resident, who was informing me of the beauty of the scilly isles when reached by boat. This was rather lovely and surreal as he told me about the party that was to ensue that night. The food was good, the people friendly, the lakes beautiful, and i generally felt that this was a place where they were trying to being honest with their society... warts and all, it was there, mixed up in between the recycled garbage and hash stalls.

a turbulant history is tied up in violent, theatrical and peaceful struggles for autonomy and independence from Denmark. The squatters and believers in a self ruled community have faced vast political opposition from the day of christianias creation. But I don't really know the ins and outs of the place so i won't pretend to..
i just had a lovely day wandering around the city with my good friends and a bottle of their excellent christiania home brew.

century of selves

I am sat here trying as hard as possible not to stare out of my window and instead do some reading for my assignment due next week...

so i thought i would write a small note about a series a friend of mine has just reintroduced into my life:

the century of the self

I remember watching this is at university.. it was so compelling i saw some of it sat in the library with headphones on, crammed into one of the small wooden boxes stacked with video players from the early 80's. the headphones even had the little foam removable covers. that made me smile.

It made the rounds through my friends, passed from computer to computer, filling our little creative minds with possibilities of what could have been and how it all has ended up. we finished up a little bit angry, and a little bit more confused about the state of the world.

almost 4 years on, some friends and I sat through the second episode of the series and something clicked with me that I hadn't thought of before. the whole documentary is so condemning of capitalism, of freud, of the individual self.. of democracy.
but in such a charming British way it barely seemed to scuff the edges of dissent.

what is democracy? Can democracy exist without capitalism? Is democracy ultimately the best thing for us? With the current climate of financial meltdown and credit crunch situation hitting the people hard every day, no one seems to notice the message written in the skies above all the broken promises that the governments public relations information (aka propaganda) that is asking for change...
but democracy keeps changing with us, following us with new promises of bright futures and change for the better...
i don't know if the word really has any meaning for me anymore.
maybe its time for a new word that holds a new idea inside?

nanna annas

conflict

...and so the conflict begins

One week in to my course and we are focusing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The UDHR is a framework which acts as an ideal to which all nations should be striving to accept and enforce in their respective countries. There are some fundamental elements of the UDHR which I believe in completely. The right to life, the right to expression, freedom of movement, special measures to safeguard children and so on. However, the link between law and enforcement of these rights is tenuous and obtrusive - intrinsically by some of the rights themselves.

Today i spent some time describing to some of the Swedish students how instances of direct action have been pardoned in a law of court as acts on behalf of human rights in the UK: The right to life being the most obvious, and a protection of this right. The trident three, the decommissioners. I was asked what the point was of having laws against breaking and entering if they are just going to be broken.

I instantly thought to myself that it was obvious. The right to life is imperative and fundamental- the most important as it is the primary factor that enables human rights: to be able to be alive and live a life. But the right to private property is a capitalist notion... yet it is considered a human right in the UDHR. Surely the two are hugely differential in their importance and their application? You cannot compare the two on the same level.
Are laws created in the vein of the current ideology not there to be tested? Or else how does humanity grow?

As George Bernarnos says:

"Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses."

How can law which is supposed to be created by 'the people' in a 'democracy' determine their rights? surely such legal positivism is corrupt in favour of the authorities who create and enforce such 'rights'? Rights are conceptual and idealistic, they are borne from humanity.

The UDHR is a westphalian ideal. It is capitalistic in its shape, form, ideology, economical focus, interstate relations, refusal to address weapons of destruction, ignorance of the arms trade, avoidance of the environment. It imposes the idea of what the capitalist half of the world demands for the rest of the world in order to operate. This is how the world works right now. And I am beginning to wonder if the UDHR perpetuates such a situation or whether it is 'trying to make the best of a bad situation', struggling to enforce the rights of the/a minority within an ideological system which systematically disregards their needs? After all it is the shape of the world today, whether we like it or not. Whilst we protest for change there are still people in need living each day to the next, trying to get by. existing.

This conversation was followed by a statement arguing that nations need weapons. they need defenses because of the way the rest of the world acts- to protect themselves. To which I was shocked. I was shocked on two accounts. firstly because I am a hippy by nature. I believe in peace and the use of force and violence against the person is something I disagree with because it scares me how much power is instilled within a country/person when they have the option to remove the right to life... for another human being or for an entire nation or group of people. I, niavely, presumed that the person i was talking with would also be a hippy, believing in peace through non violence. Perhaps they do believe in peace... But through a 'static' violent presence? I don't know.

Secondly I was shocked with myself. I had just raised a question concerning where the International Covenant for Political and Civil Rights has been drawn from. I used the example of Haiti disbanding their army due to a succession of military coups, ultimately leaving them vulnerable to attack. So the needs of the people as individuals diminished the needs of the nation. Yet the nation is active as a protector of the people. Again 'nation' is another concept, one which operates powerfully in the current world order. But I had not considered that I was myself highlighting the importance of military and armed protection to a nation. ooft.

some food for thought.

tbc.

combatants

This week I stumbled across this group:

combatants for peace

In line with some other inspiring grassroots community orientated reconciliation work happening in the Palestine and Israel, this group is working for a future for Israelis and Palestinians that is free from violence. It began jointly by Israeli's and Palestinian's who were previously active in the violence of the conflict- soldiers, combatants, resistors..

the goals of the group are:

• To raise the consciousness in both publics regarding the hopes and suffering of the other side, and to create partners in dialogue.
• To educate towards reconciliation and non-violent struggle in both the Israeli and Palestinian societies.
• To create political pressure on both Governments to stop the cycle of violence, end the occupation and resume a constructive dialog.

The education is done via an interesting role of narrative- not dissimilar to the narrative of the documentary encounterpoint; based on sharing, empathy, education and awareness. The role of story is something which calls to individuals in a way nothing else is able to. To hear the other side of the story, to hear and experience it yourself is something which cannot be paralleled. I hope they continue their good work in the area...

promotional video is here:

Les 7 doigts de la main

Earlier this year I was whisked away for my birthday to Edinburgh to see this show by someone who knows me better than most. It was the best gift I have ever had.

The show was breathtaking, raw, fluid, interesting, tense and hilarious.
I cannot express how much I enjoyed being in the theatre that ngiht, watching these people throw themselves around in front of me. it was an absolute treat.

They are doing a new show at Sadlers Wells - Psy. it looks to be a good un.

A wonderful show in a wonderful city with a wonderful person.

Les 7 doigts de la main

MM

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

Heard of her?
No I haven't either.
Apparently she's a big deal in the anthropology world.
I can understand why.

göteborg

Erasmus Mundus MA Human Rights Practice starts here:

Göteborg, Sweden.

Things i have found out already:

• The city is quite small, and quite like a sort of alps-esque version of brooklyn-meets-berlin-meets-amsterdam without the street art...?
• There is a massive massive park with penguins, seals, deer and a lake on my doorstep
• The Institute of Global Studies- my academic home, is an old seminary with an orchard
• The other students on my course are hugely interesting, experienced and from diverse backgrounds
• I'm going to have to work Hard. Capital H
• I am a very very lucky young person
  

exciting times.

*good luck holly bear by the talented ms aurelia lange

tempest

On my last weekend in the UK before leaving for Scandinavian shores i went to boom town fair.

I had an amazing weekend full of dancing, reggae, sunshine, smiles and monkey suits. Good friends, good hugs and wellies. i am a lucky girl indeed.

The Old Theatre venue brought me this treat when i was wandering in to see the lovely people working on the site.

The sound that caught in my ears was this little dream.
little did i know she was one fo the inspiring voices behind Barnardo's the teens speech.

Kate Tempest and the sound of rum. enjoy enjoy.