The global, Co-operative Commonweal a long desired dream is now becoming a practical reality: it is a vision of global peace and security, through practical, local and co-active co-operation.
Over the past seven years, this dream has been turning into real, tangible action. Here, I hope to share these developments and give some pointers to the next steps.
These developments got under way in 1995, when The International Co-operative Alliance (the ICA) met to refresh the…
Fiction
George Orwell, 1984 (New American Library Classics, 1990. ISBN 0451524934, 268pp).
Orwell's prophetic view of the future of the world is a chilling dystopia in which totalitarian control and conformity prevail.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (Harperperennial Library, 1998. ISBN 0060929871, 268pp)
In exchange for crime being virtually non-existent in Huxley's imaginary utopian world, there is an absence of personal freedom.
Margaret Atwood,The Hand-maid'…
Several years ago I was involved in an intensive period of peace campaigning. I protested at Faslane, blockaded an arms factory, disputed with directors at the BAE Systems shareholders' meeting, trespassed at the nuclear submarine base at Barrow, and vigilled outside the DSEi arms fair.
These were exciting and challenging experiences, but I came away from them with growing doubts about the peace groups I had worked with. How did the methods we adopted actually contribute towards…
Aimed at people who are fed up with barefaced lies from politicians, big business and the media, and who have had enough of a world where corporate profit comes before life and dignity, Earth First! invites those who want to share ideas on direct action for “people and the planet” to its Summer Gathering from 16 to 20 August.
The gathering will include workshops, discussions, outings, and entertainment. Workshops already planned include kids' workshops, legal workshops, discussions…
A number of groups offered training for G8 actions. This is the perspective of one trainer from one group: the Action Trainers Group - a loose collective of trainers from around the UK working since DSEi 2003 to provide training for mass actions and to develop direct action training in the long term in the UK.
Aims Offering good relevant training to contribute to individual, group and mass actions being as empowering, effective and safe as possible. Training new trainers. Demonstrating…PN: So, tell us a little bit about this book... how it came about, why you decided to do it now
Rex: I wanted to leave a good record of what happened cos I felt that the existing record was spotty and not particularly correct historically... I just wanted to leave a better record.
Myself, I'm a journalist, throughout my career in Greenpeace in the 1970s, I was also a journalist. I'm still a journalist and - I approached the story as I would approach it as a journalist and as an…
During the weeks and months leading up to the London European Social Forum (ESF) there was much controversy as to whether a minority had managed to undermine the democratic nature of the forum itself. The history surrounding the ESF, the World Social Forum (WSF) and the World Economics Forum (WEF) needs to be understood to see clearly how serious a de-democratisation of the ESF could be.
The WEF has been running for over thirty years in different forms, but always acting as a think…
On the last evening of the World Social Forum, I was standing in the Azad Maidan, surveying the crowds and getting ready for the evening's concert. Two eager young men who suddenly came forward and began to introduce themselves interrupted that moment of reverie... “Good evening sir”, said the first, “I am Francisco DSa, from the Citizens Peace Committee of Rawalpindi”. After a few minutes of talking, he said, “Oh, we are hoping to meet with as many Indians as possible while we are here. We…
To assess something which you're intimately involved with is difficult. While I was out of the main Dublin-London axis for the War Resisters' International Triennial Conference, “Stories and strategies - nonviolent resistance and social change”', I was nevertheless centrally involved.
This meant that while aware of much of what was happening, beforehand I was not so much in the whirlwind and during it I was too busy to engage in some of the conference. But in any case a…
As we went to press the European Social Forum (ESF), held in Florence, had just got under-way, with more than 30,000 people signing up to attend.
Women in Black Against War, during the big march. PHOTO: SPADA/IMC ITALYAnd as with Genoa last year, we were also receiving the usual reports of activists being turned away from the border and pulled off coaches by immigration officials. Several had received week-long bans preventing them for entering Italy for the duration of the…
The second World Social Forum (WSF), attended by an estimated 50,000 people representing hundreds of organisations from all over the world, took place from 31 January to 5 February in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It coincided with the government-to-government World Economic Forum, taking place in New York.
The WSF focused on opposing, and developing alternatives to, globalisation. WSF attenders demanded new workers' rights, agrarian reform, and the government's respect for international…
I was attending a Council meeting of the War Resisters' International (WRI) for the first time and I thought, as many participants did, that the council meeting would be an opportunity to discuss our views, particularly in light of the threat of war.
But the discussions about this during the council meeting were short, due to a lack of time, and I was disappointed that it was mostly financial and administrative issues that were discussed. While this was how I felt then, I realised…
The War Resisters' meeting may have had two parts - Council and seminar - but most of the themes discussed throughout the week were common to both: anti-militarism, conscientious objection, nonviolence, women in the anti-militarist movement, feminism, and the gay and lesbian movement.
The Council meeting of the War Resisters' International (WRI), which takes place in a different country each year, lasted for three days, followed by four days of seminars and workshops which took place…
This is a very useful work, which includes a 76-page bibliography that might well be described as an essential reading list for radicals.
The most useful part of this publication is devoted to directory of radical periodicals, which provides not just contact details, but also descriptions of what political issues they cover. However, these are mostly Canadian, US and British periodicals.
Many of them will already be well known amongst North American activists. For example:…
In February 2001, a little later than originally planned, 70 people from 20 countries on five continents met for a week at the Gandhi Labour Foundation in Puri on the Gulf of Bengal, in order to exchange experiences of empowerment, to raise questions, and to search for new answers1.
The venue was well-chosen. The Gandhi Labour Foundation, an educational centre of the Gandhian union movement, lies at the edge of a place of pilgrimage – Puri – and only a few minutes walk from the…
