The spectre of revolt is once again haunting Europe – just when our rulers expect us to start paying for the bailout of their system. In the last few months Greece has found itself at the leading edge of an economic and political hurricane which shows no signs of abating.
What can we learn from recent events in Greece? And how can that help strengthen struggles against austerity here in Leeds?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
6:00pm – 10:00pm
The Common Place, Leeds.
CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?
Can we survive their ‘recovery’?
As the economic crisis deepens, we face mounting austerity
and yet more cuts. In Leeds, the planners’ dreams lie in
tatters, while across the globe the threat of climate change
hangs heavy in the air. How do all these crises converge?
How can we begin to think about a diff erent sort of world? An open and honest discussion on Another Leeds is possible…
Sat 10th October
A journey through time and space exploring Leeds’ radical past and re-imagining our possible futures… Meet 1.30pm at The Dragon Hotel, Whitehall Rd, Leeds LS12 4TJ.
Bring w
alking shoes and thinking hats…
A public forum with speakers on the G20 in London, the recent mass arrests in Nottingham, and the policing of dissent in Leeds
Thursday, May 14, 2009, 7:00pm
The Common Place
23 Wharf Street
Leeds
www.thecommonplace.org.uk
Download flyers here:
crisis_police_140509_a4
Indymedia report of our event on 28/2/09.
On Saturday 28h February 2009, a special event was hosted at The Common Place social centre in Leeds, UK. Arising from a need to assess the global economic crisis from a radical perspective whilst making links to local affairs, this meeting was arranged by the tentatively named “We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis” group. It featured speakers from Leeds, Greece, Iceland and Italy as well as an open discussion, an authentic Greek vegan meal, screening of “The Potentiality of Storming Heaven” and performances from three of Yorkshire’s finest DIY bands (original publicity material here).
Ideas Board
As well as providing an opportunity to learn and discuss recent events and a Greek-themed cultural forum, there was a vector towards future intervention. The event itself functioned as a fund-raiser, splitting the proceeds between a fund for the support of the prisoners taken during the recent uprising in Greece, support for Konstantina Kuneva and support for The Common Place.
This article is accompanied by audio recordings of the speakers. The reader is advised to listen to these before reading the notes that follow, which summarise the speakers and the unrecorded discussions. [Technical note - the recordings are presented in two alternative formats, ogg and mp3. The first 5 files in the list above comprise the entire recording in the preferred ogg format. The last two in the list comprise the entire recording in the deprecated mp3 format.]
The first speaker explained how this meeting had come about. The organisers had been meeting as a local group and trying to find appropriate political responses to the economic crisis, hence the name We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis. We were inspired by the responses of anarchist groups in other parts of the world- by responses to government arrogance in the face of capital flight as in Iceland, by responses to spending cuts in education in Italy, by responses to escalating repression, xenophobia and state corruption in Greece. These events were all linked by being manifestation of state responses to the collapse of neoliberalism. In each case, ordinary people had risen up to assert that we won’t carry the burden of the failure of an economic system that we’ve long since denounced and fought against.
We considered the problem posed by the speed at which the crisis evolved. In Leeds, we had been thinking about a price reduction campaign but this was difficult to follow through for at least two reasons – some people thought it irresponsible to be demanding cheaper food because of the impact this would have on farmers for example, and before we could resolve this we’d found ourselves faced with deflation. We had felt ourselves caught in a change of historical epoch, trying to find ways to reterritorialize before opportunities slip away.
Our guest from Greece spoke briefly about two examples of how Greece had changes since the uprising – he spoke again later with a more personal account of the events of December 2008. One thing that had changed was the way in which a huge solidarity mobilisation had been possible after the attach on Konstantina Kuneva. A march of at least 10,000 people happened, whereas before the uprising there would have been a tenth of this number. When people were dissatisfied by the response of the reformist trade unions, they occupied the unions’ head quarters. When betrayed by the corporate media, their buildings had been targeted too.
The other aspect of change since the uprising is the increased brutality of attacks against ‘left’ targets. In the example described, a far-right group had attempted to throw a hand grenade into a meeting of conscientious objectors at a social centre. The attack failed but would have killed about 40 people.
From Iceland, we heard how the government had been brought down as the nation slipped from being the fourth richest in the world into chaos. Notably, Britain is similar to Iceland in its heavy reliance on the financial services sector for income, so the possibility of a similar financial collapse here seems to be at least plausible – so how can we accelerate it? How can we push the capitalist beast into the abyss before it mutates into something uglier still?
The threat facing Iceland now is that the interim ‘leftist’ government may be replace by remnants if the old regime. If this happens, it is possible that they would seek recapitalisation from the IMF who would undoubtedly demand a massive increase in exploitation of oil, aluminium and hydroelectric power with disastrous results for the wilderness.
In Italy, the Anomalous Wave has been struggling against ‘fascist’ gangs, most of whom are children. There has been much tension around educational institutions. As in Greece and Iceland, the corporate media have grossly misrepresented the situation to the detriment of the left. The situation is similar to the ‘strategy of tension’ used by the CIA in the 1970s.
In the discussion that followed (no audio recorded), many people expressed concern that the resurgence of the far-right seems to be causing problems across Europe. Some thought that this represented a familiar and unitary ‘opponent’, others that something new is happening with increased ferocity of attacks and (more) widespread police complicity.
Somebody thought that a campaign in Leeds against train fare increases had been misconceived because ‘working class’ people tend to use buses. We went on to discuss some more constructive ideas about actions. Would it be possible to gather outside supermarkets and decide how much we would pay for our food? Would we be able to start ‘neighbourhood assemblies’, at which we could take control of our collective lives bypassing our elected representatives? Or should we mobilise to bring down this government, incumbent as it was through the evolution of the current crisis? As a lever for this should we demand a jubilee, a universal annulment of debt?
Amongst the challenges ahead is the need to transcend the apparent clash of Red and Green struggles. We spoke of developing the resilience of our communities through local food production and the urgency of a just transition to a low-carbon economy. But how can there be any sort of economy, carbonated or ‘sin gas’, when the entire basis of valorisation is in doubt? These questions needs further exploration but the ground has been prepared. The opportunity for intervention, the fulcrum to pull future history in our direction, needs to be found before a new monster evolves to replace the old.
After dinner, our Greek speaker gave a moving personal account of the uprising that I will not attempt to summarise. Listen for yourself. Then we watched The Potentiality of Storming Heaven, a film combining photo reportage, news captions and poetic ejaculations to music.
The next meeting of We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis is at 8pm on Wednesday, March 11th at The Common Place, Leeds.
We Are An Image From The Future -We won’t pay for their crisis!
An afternoon of talks, discussions and ideas, with speakers from Greece, Italy and Iceland.
An uprising in Greece… An uncontrollable wave of refusal spreading from Italian schools and colleges… Widespread unrest threatening to topple the Icelandic government… Rioting in Latvia and Bulgaria… How does all this relate to the current global crisis, and to rising debt and spiraling unemployment in the UK? How is it connected to struggles here in Leeds against deportations, in defence of the social wage, against climate change? And how does it fit into a wider resurgence of struggles for autonomy, such as action around the upcoming G20 summit and April Financial Fools Day?
*Saturday 28 February – The Common Place *
3.30pm–7pm – followed by Greek food and a benefit gig
FOLLOWED BY
7pm a Greek meal to raise money for Greek prisoners (£5,including wine)
8pm Benefit gig featuring (£3/£4 entry):
A talk on the recent Greek uprising
Fieldhead:
Ambient elctronica from Forest of Soundster
Gareth S. Brown:
Oddball post-minimalist composition from one man false ensemble
7 Hertz:
Chamber trio (violin, double bass, clarinet) playing music that is one part folk, one part improv, and one part miscellaneous.
Announcing the leafleting of Leeds train station as the start of a new train fare reduction campaign 4.30pm, January 5th, Leeds train station.
The start of the New Year will be greeted by huge price rises in train fares of between 6 and 12%. This at a time when falling inflation and oil prices have reduced train company running costs but the global economic crisis has made it much harder for passengers to pay. There couldn’t be a worse, more unfair time for fare rises.
The huge crisis of climate change means we need to make public transport far cheaper and accessible not more expensive. These price rises are insane and we’re not going to take it any more.
As the start of campaign to reduce public transport fares we are leafleting the rush hour crowds on January 5th, the first Monday back at work after the New Year. The leaflets will make it clear that if the train companies don’t reduce their fares we will do it for them through a campaign of mass refusal to pay the new fares.
We will be meeting 4pm at the Common Place (www.thecommonplace.org.uk) and then begin leafleting the train station at 4.30pm. We want as many people as possible to turn up for the leafleting and make a real statement of intent, so please advertise this as widely as possible. The massive bailouts of the banks show that these are exceptional times; well if they are exceptional for them they should be exceptional for us. We need to take exceptional action or we will be left holding the can. We won’t pay for their crisis.
The next meeting of the “We won’t pay for your crisis” group will be Wednesday 7th January 8pm at the Common Place. All welcome. In Feb we will be hosting a talk about the recent resistance in Greece,along with a benefit gig to raise money for those imprisoned during this period. We won’t pay!
We are living through exceptional times. The government agree and they’ve made exceptions to normal rules and laws, suspended competition laws to let Lloyds buy HBOS and bailed out the banks to a sum of 50 billion pounds, with a further 200 billion to be made available to them under what’s called the ‘Special Liquidity Scheme’. To top all this there is a food crisis resulting in food riots across the globe, and of course the climate crisis, Peak Oil and gas etc.
Across the UK people are organising. In London a price reduction campaign has been initiated, calling for a reduction of rising food prices at supermarkets. Elsewhere the “Cardiff Chartists” in Wales and the “Robin Hoodies” in Barnsdale (South Yorkshire) are discussing a variety of potential responses.
We have called this meeting both to further discuss the implications of the current crisis for us and potential responses here in Leeds. These could take many forms, from resisting evictions and cuts in social expenditure to joining the Price reduction campaign, or some other form of “autoreduction”.
No one quite knows how things will turn out, but it does appear that there is an opening, maybe an opportunity to re-evaluate our lives, to look at living in different ways; capitalism simply doesn’t make sense anymore. After all, exceptional times call for exceptional measures!
Visteon News Feed LibCom News Radical Perspectives on the Crisis – daily news summaries from the financial press
