Women's Day and More
Alice
an "anonymous admirer" sent us fresh flower bouquet! Thank you
whoever you are. :) <3
To celebrate the 100th birthday of women's day we've got events from
5pm today including a team quiz with prizes, discussion, workshop,
pancakes and a film at 9pm - Libertarias.
Also this eve at 7pm is the first Glasgow People's assembly :
BEYOND RESISTANCE: TOWARDS PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLIES
In times of severe repression by state and capital forces people have
got together to collectively understand the situation and then work
together to transform it.
We're leaving the question of what a people's assembly is necessarily
open so that we can build something that is NEW but at the same time
emerges COLLECTIVELY from our previous experiences and practices.
Recently in Glasgow we have seen collective reclamation of spaces and
alternative models for organising; how can we learn from these example
and start to build our vision of a future without capitalism?
People's Assemblies are being set up across the world in the hope of
establishing an alternative democratic model for social justice.
From the People's Assemblies UK website:
'Government plans for savage cuts in spending arising out of the
crisis of global capitalism will devastate jobs, services, pensions
and living standards. In response we should build People’s Assemblies
that are independent
of the state.
Assemblies should go beyond resistance and struggle for a democratic
society based on co-operation and self determination instead of profit
and corporate power.'
Wednesday 9th March
1pm Liverpool 47, Socialism on Trial
3-4pm Palestinian refugee, poet, and activist Rafeef Ziadah is in
Scotland to do events for International Women's day and Israeli
Apartheid week. She has agreed to pop in to the Hetherington to do a
matinee performance for us.
4-6pm Disproportionate Punishment? Women in the Scottish Prison system.
Cornton Vale is the only women’s prison in Scotland, and it is
notoriously overcrowded – despite the fact that most of the inmates
shouldn’t be there in the first place. Just one per cent of women in
Cornton Vale are there because they have committed a violent offence.
Previous reports have found that 90 per cent of women imprisoned in
Scotland have committed crimes related to poverty - so why are they
there?
This workshop will cover issues relating to women in prison, and how
poverty and inequality put them there.
As well as discussing these issues, we will be learning and teaching
each other to knit and crochet, so that we can make baby blankets and
other gifts for the women imprisoned during pregnancy (or who become
pregnant during their stay in a women's prison), who have to give
birth in shackles and attempt to bond with their new babies in a
horrific prison environment.
7-9pm Drumming workshop For beginners and "shamens"
9pm Film screening. 'Wild Style' was the first ever hip hop film.
Filmed in New York in 1982, it's about graffiti writer Zoro struggling
with his art and personal life, and is set in the early hip hop scene.
It features amazing performances from the likes of Grandmaster Flash,
the Fantastic 5, the Cold Crush Brothers and Fab 5 Freddy (made famous
by Debbie Harry's 'rap' in Blondie's 'Rapture'). You'll never
understand hip hop's history, or be a true fan, until you've seen this
film.
It also features Jay Z as a wee boy and a dog scratching its balls in
the middle of a shot.
Thursday 10th March
3pm Anti benefits cuts organising meeting. This follows the
leafleting outside Atos Healthcare. Please go help them there too :
ATOS HEALTH CARE, CORUNNA HOUSE, 29 CADOGAN STREET G2 7AB
We will be giving out updated leaflets advising claimants on how to
deal with the medical examination:
http://antibenefitcutsglasgow.wordpress.com/
7pm GOSSIP: Glasgow Open School Studies in Poetry #3
9pm The Ratsingers Musical Extravaganza (JLS)
Come on down to the free Hetherington for a fantastic live music set,
featuring some of the group's original material and some old country
favourites. Not to be missed!
Friday 11th March
3-5pm. 1968 and us: student protests in a historical perspective
by Maude Bracke
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/history/staff/academicstaff/maudbracke/
Much has been written about the 1968 events in France and elsewhere.
The long-standing argument that the mass mobilisations of the late
1960s across the Western world (and beyond) were a ‘cultural
revolution’ based on the transformation of lifestyles rather than a
meaningful political or social revolution, is now finally starting to
be revised.... In France, research has in recent years focused on the
massive workers’ strike of May (involving up to 9 000 000 workers). In
the first part of the talk, I would like to draw attention to some of
these historical debates, focusing specifically on the relation
between worker and student protests in France in 1968.
The second part of the talk will be a dialogue. I will raise a number
of questions surrounding legacy, continuity and change, and would very
much like to hear the views of current student activists. Some of the
similarities between the student protests of the 1960s and today are
striking. Why is it that both in the 1960s and today education
protests seem to be at the centre of wider social protests? Is
generational identity as important today as it was in the 1960s, or is
there today a stronger sense of solidarity across generations? And
finally, how useful are the theories from the 1960s surrounding the
university as a ‘factory of bureaucratic knowledge production’ (D.
Cohn-Bendit) today?
We'll be watching a film in the evening but its yet to be confirmed.
Please see the website at the end of the email to check and see.
Saturday 12th March
6:30pm Film screening : Ealing Comedy Double Bill.
The Titfield Thunderbolt and Passport to Pimlico.
Two Ealing Comedies
Introduced by Mark Freeman
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
...
When British Rail abandons the small branch line from Titfield to
Mallingford (long before Dr Beeching!), the residents of Titfield –
including the local vicar, who is a railway enthusiast – attempt to
keep the line open through their own efforts. In doing so they have to
convince a sceptical Mallingford town clerk, and the railway
authorities, and to prove that they can run the railway safely and
efficiently. They find themselves in competition with the local bus
company. Given a month’s trial to persuade the Ministry of Transport
to allow them to run the branch line on a permanent basis, the
residents work together against local opposition to get the train
running again. However, the local bus company attempts to sabotage
their efforts. Stars include Stanley Holloway and Sid James.
Passport to Pimlico (1949)
In a post-war Britain scarred by bombsites and continuing austerity
measures, the residents of Pimlico, in central London, discover that
their district is legally a part of Burgundy, and under the rule of
the Duke. No longer part of Britain, Pimlico is freed from identity
cards, rationing and licensing laws, and becomes a haven of spivs and
shoppers. The British government imposes a blockade, which is broken
by sympathetic outsiders who throw food and other supplies over the
fence that has been erected around the independent Dukedom. The
British diplomatic service is called upon to solve the problem, and to
bring Pimlico back under British control. Stars include Stanley
Holloway, Betty Warren and Charles Hawtrey.
15th March
4-6pm ‘The Revolt of the Field’: rural protest in nineteenth-century England
The formation of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union in 1872
shook the foundations of the rural social order. There was a long
tradition of covert agricultural protest, often taking the form of
rick-burning, animal maiming and informal strike activity, but the
establishment of the NALU brought a new dimension to economic and
social relations in rural communities. Although its successes in the
1870s were short-lived, it is... an important early example of labour
organisation among ‘unskilled’ workers, well before the better known
‘new unionism’ of the late 1880s. The cultural dimension of the NALU,
in particular, was very important, giving agricultural labourers a
voice to challenge the often very negative stereotypical terms in
which they were widely portrayed. This lecture will consider the role
of the NALU in challenging dominant representations of agricultural
labourers, and in initiating a culture of labour organisation among an
impoverished and exploited group of employees.
http://freehetherington.wordpress.com/
New events getting added all the time. Please check the website for
uptodate listing.
Big love,
the occupation