Nude Egyptian Protests Morsi

Today in Stockholm

Femen are certainly not scared of a little controversy – and neither is anti-islamist Egyptian activist Alia Magda al Mahdi, for that matter.

Alia became famous for publishing a nude photo of herself on her blog about a year ago, describing the act as “screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy”, positioning herself as a “secular, liberal, feminist, vegetarian, individualist Egyptian” and an atheist since turning 16. She was recently denied entry into France where she was to participate in a nude protest by feminist provocateurs, Femen, outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris. The organisation claimed that Alia had been denied entry into the country by “European secret services”, and that “Unknown forces affecting the management of airlines Lufthansa and Scandinavian airlines” had deprived her of the opportunity to travel to the protest – although there seems to be little evidence for such a conspiracy at the moment.

Alia wrote this about the event on her blog four days ago:

“Yesterday, I was going to protest against the Egyptian draft constitution with Femen and other Arab women in front of the Egyptian embassy in Paris.

One day before, Inna Shevchenko booked me a plane ticket from Gutenberg Landvetter Airport to Paris on Lufthansa and paid for it online, but I couldn’t check-in at the airport. The ticket office woman told me that my ticket was canceled because the payment was not completed. I thought it was an error and had another Femen member buy me a ticket for the next flight on Scandinavian Airlines. I got a boarding pass, checked-in, passed airport security and was waiting for my flight. Then, the same woman came to me and told me that she got a warning about me and I have to show her the credit card used to pay for the ticket and it has to be mine or I will not take that flight. I replied that thousands of people travel with tickets paid for by other people everyday, event holders always pay for participants’ travel expenses, I traveled this way three times before on KLM and Ryan Air and the first ticket was also paid for by someone else. She spoke to me in a not nice way, took the boarding pass and told me to collect my luggage. The woman who gave me my luggage removed the sticker that was stuck to it when I checked-in.

I am disappointed that my freedom of expression is also oppressed in Europe.”

Undeterred by this little hiccup, Femen activists travelled to Stockholm to meet Alia and stage a nude protest there instead – outside the Egyptian embassy.

Femen’s ‘press release’ :

“International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt!

Apocalypse of Muhammad

Today in the snowbound Stockholm the world has seen apocalyptic picture. 

International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt! Before the decisive day of the referendum in Egypt activists came to the Embassy of Egypt in Stockholm to support Egyptian heroes who are resisting the sharia-dictatorial draft of the constitution of the president Morsi. FEMEN calls people  of Great Egypt to deny this religious bondage of newly appeared prophet Morsi and to give the chance for Egypt for the rightful democratic development.

“Sharia is not a constitution” – it has been written on Alia’s naked body. Her genitals have been covered by the poster shaped like Koran. The three posters in the hands of activists are the symbolic  religious books. In that way  FEMEN warns the world about the danger of the transformation secular constitution into religious. FEMEN warns muslim brother Morsi, if he gave an orders to shoot at his own people then his last resting will be the Nile with crocodiles, not the pyramids. 

Fuck off religious slavery! Viva freedom and human rights!”

Post on Femen website

Alia al-Mahdi’s Blog

Update: This video of the protest has just been posted by Femen on Vimeo

Putin Lights Up the Fires

New single from Pussy Riot

From The Guardian

The Pussy Riot Trial

I never thought I’d say this, but massive respect to Madonna for her stunt supporting Pussy Riot. People like Yoko Ono and Sting have made statements in support of the band and stuff, but only Madonna went to Russia personally and performed in front of a crowd of thousands of people with their name scrawled across her fucking back! I know she’s a master of cynically using controversy for her own publicity and everything, but fair play to her for this one – I just hope it makes sufficient impact. The fact that sentencing has been delayed may indicate that they are wavering under growing public support for Pussy Riot’s plight.

Madonna’s performance certainly seems to have offended the right people, with a Russian deputy Prime Minister (and former ambassador to NATO) tweeting “With age, every former slut tries to lecture everyone on morality” and a priest from the Russian Orthodox church urging believers to call in bomb threats to disrupt the gig! It sounds like they are clutching at straws to me. You can read more on this in The Guardian.

Pussy Riot’s closing statements yesterday took the form of a rousing speech against the authoritarian regime in Russia, leaving no doubt in my mind that these women are true freedom fighters and intelligent artists who have been demonized as part of a wider crackdown on dissent in the country.

The closing statements from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in trial. 8 august 2012:

“Yesterday (on the 7th of August according to the website lenta.ru) Madonna’s performance took place. Madonna performed with the inscription “Pussy Riot” on her back. More and more people see that we are kept in pre-trial prison illegally and because of an absolutely false accusation. I am astounded by it. I am astounded by the fact that truth really triumphs over lies though we are physically here, in the cage. We are freer than all the people sitting opposite us on the side of the prosecution because we can say everything we want and we do it. As for the people from the side of the prosecution, they say only words passed by a political censor. They can’t say such words as “punk-prayer” and “Virgin Mary, redeem us of Putin!” They can’t say the lines from our punk-prayer that are related to the political system. They probably think that another reason why we are to be put into prison is our rebellion against Putin and his system. But they can’t say it because they are prohibited to do it. Their mouths are sewn. Unfortunately, they are just puppets at this trial. I hope they will realize it and will also head for freedom, truth and sincerity because all this is more important than static nature, affected decency and hypocrisy.

Because we don’t really have religious hatred, and never had it, our accusers have no choice but to resort to using a false witnesses. One of them – Motilda Ivashchenko -got ashamed and did not appear in court. And there is no more evidence of our hatred and enmity, in addition to this so-called expertise. Therefore, the court, if it would be honest and fair, must admit inadmissible evidence, due to the fact that this is not a rigorous scientific and objective text, rather dirty and mendacious piece of paper times of medieval inquisition.

Prosecution is ashamed to voice excerpts from lyrics by PussyRiot, because they are in fact the evidence of the lack of motive. I’ll present you this excerpt here, I think it’s very valuable. It’s from the interview for the “Russian Reporter” magazine, that was given on the next day after the performance in the Chuch of Jesus The Savior: “We feel great respect to any religion and to orthodoxy in particular, that’s why we’re so distressed about that, so great and so positive as it is, Christian Philosophy is being used in such a filthy way. Our brain is getting blown out by that all this beauty is being now used from the back. All of this is quite painful to observe.

14:47 In the end I’d like to quote one of the Pussy Riot’s songs, as if curiously enough all of them turned to be fateful. Including the one which says: “Head of the KGB, their major saint, guides the protesters to detention under escort”.

15:06 And what I’m going to quote right now is this very line: “Open all doors, take off your shoulder straps, feel the air of freedom with us”.”

Good luck Pussy Riot, you have our love and respect.

Free Pussy Riot Now!

Digital Amnesty

The Price of Being a Western Dissident

Julian Assange is doing humanity a favour by exposing through the US Embassy Cables that “Oil motivates U.S. policy more than fighting terrorists” and that the killing and torturing of tens of thousands of civilians by the US and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan through the Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs is evidence of war crimes.

However, to Assange’s dismay, as a western dissident, he does not enjoy the soft-power of being a Chinese dissident. The “free” world politicians fail to acknowledge the nobility of his work in exposing human rights violations and war crimes committed by NATO and the US. President Obama described his act as a “deplorable documents dump”; former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich believed that he should be “ treated as an enemy combatant”; Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called him a “high-tech terrorist”; while Sarah Palin wanted him to be “hunted down like al-Qaeda.” Other politicians including some mainstream media “pundits openly call for his death.”

As an instant response, WikiLeaks has been blocked from being accessed by federal employees of the US. It is the same in Germany.

Read the rest of the article on dissidentvoice.org

Stop Government Snooping

Sign the petition here

Spread your cheeks

Naomi Wolf writes in The Guardian about how the US State is increasingly using sexual humiliation to subjugate it’s citizens.

Is the Occupy movement and other domestic unrest scaring the powers-that-be into ever more draconian security policies?

Why have security forces been given the power to strip-search US citizens at random? Is this encroaching fascism the conservative’s inevitable response to an increasingly anarchistic (even revolutionary?) mindset in America’s youth?

Whatever the answer is to any of these questions, this is scary shit.

Read it

Anonymous Message to the American People

Violence and Occupation

The crackdown on the Occupy protesters in the US has been a violent, coordinated and federal attack on a largely peaceful, mainstream movement. Were they really that much of a threat to those in power?

Naomi Wolf writes in the Guardian on the shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

Very much worth a read, although I’m not as shocked, maybe, as she is. The Occupy movement is not just challenging the unregulated banking system and profiteers on Wall Street, it is challenging the right to excessive wealth in itself, it is effectively declaring war on the rich – and sadly, these bastards run the planet for their own profit, and historically, will gladly go to war to defend their vast fortunes against the rabble. The rich just struck first.

I Am Not A Number

I feel the need to put into words some of the mental ramblings that have been preoccupying me of late. I apologise for any lack of coherence herein, please bear in mind that in some respects I am just thinking aloud.

Big changes are happening to the political landscape. Could this be the beginning of the end for Democracy in Europe? Are we being ushered into the new age of the Technate as a last-ditch attempt at saving free market Capitalism? It is far too early to tell, and I am certainly no expert in the subject, but I feel this is something we must strive to understand, and quickly, before it is too late to stop what may have been already set in motion.

Italy and Greece have now had their democratically elected governments removed, and in their place Technocratic administrations have been imposed, to make the “unpopular” decisions required to rescue their respective economies. Milanese students took to the streets yesterday to protest against this unelected “bankers’ government”. Police responded by charging the students with batons. In Athens too, violence broke out in protest against the new unity government, as thousands of demonstrators and anarchists met with thousands of police officers armed with “stun grenades”. “Down with the government of socialists, conservatives and fascists,” a protester’s banner said. Greece’s third largest party, the Communists, and the smaller leftist Syriza party have pledged to fight to bring down the government to prevent further cuts, in a country mired in a deep recession since 2008.

When I imagine a world run by Technocrats enforcing strict economic restraints, I am reminded of George Lucas’s Kafkaesque debut feature, THX 1138 – a dystopian nightmare vision in which human emotion is controlled through government-administered narcotics, where names are replaced by codes, people become numbers and every aspect of life is run to a stringent budget. The film is extremely cogent and leaves a lasting impression, akin to that of Huxley’s Brave New World or Terry Gilliam’s outstanding feature film, Brazil. It highlights the inhumanity, latent within bureaucratic systems of control, the dangers of totalitarianism and the fragility of freedom. But surely the fledgling Technocracies of Italy and Greece will be very different from this bleak cinematic experience? Surely this sort of dark fantasy could not be actualized in 21st Century Europe? What happens when you forcibly remove Democracy, does freedom vanish overnight? Are we on the brink of something sinister?

While THX 1138 certainly raises important issues and warns us of the potential dangers of such systems, it could just as easily be seen to be an overly simplistic and overtly sensationalist critique of Soviet Communism – and while this agenda may do nothing to undermine the legitimacy of its harrowing message, because of this bias we cannot rely on it, in any way, to tell us about the true nature of Technocracy.

So what the hell is Technocracy? It is a concept few people understand.

According to the fountain of knowledge that is Wikipedia,  Technocracy is a form of government where important decisions are made by scientists and experts, rather than elected politicians.

Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body. In a technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field.

Technical and leadership skills would be selected through bureaucratic processes on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than democratic election by those without such knowledge or skill deemed necessary. Some forms of technocracy are envisioned as a form of meritocracy, a system where the “most qualified” and those who decide the validity of qualifications are the same people. Other forms have been described as not being an oligarchic human group of controllers, but rather administration by discipline-specific science, ostensibly without the influence of special interest groups.^[1]

As of 2011, Italy has a technocratic goverment – see Monti Cabinet.

Politics is supposedly about ideals and morals as much as it is about systems’ management, but this aspect seems missing from the Technocratic vision. The primary problem with this sort of government must be to do with accountability. How can you be sure the experts placed in charge are working in the best interests of the people, and not merely serving their own interests or those of a wealthy ruling elite? In a Democratic system, at least the people can supposedly vote-out a government that is not working for them – although you often hit upon the problem that none of the electable parties are working for the people!

What may come as a surprise to some, is that many of the trailblazers of Technocracy, were some of the great thinkers on the historic Left, such as Henri de Saint-Simon and Friedrich Engels, who believed an authoritarian, State-controlled economy, was the only way of creating and preserving an egalitarian society. A scientific socialist theorist, Engels envisaged that the state would eventually die out and cease to be a state, when the government of people and interference in social affairs was replaced by an administration of things and technical processes – a sort of anarchic Technocracy. But surely this sort of system can only exist in a positive state if the people have given their consent to this sort of economic management – otherwise ruthless control of those people is needed to keep that system in place – and you are back to totalitarianism, THX 1138, Huxley et al. I doubt this is what Engels had in mind. Unchecked rule by bureaucrats has become a trademark of totalitarian regimes, such as those that existed in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. George Orwell described Technocracy as a precursor to Fascism. What was Adolf Eichmann if not a Technocrat? How can this be reconciled with Socialism?

More “wisdom” from Wikipedia:

In the economy of the Soviet Union, state ownership of the means of production was combined with central planning, in relation to which goods and services were to be provided, how they were to be produced, the quantities, and the sale prices. Soviet economic planning was an alternative to allowing the market (supply and demand) to determine prices for producer and consumer goods. The Soviet economy utilized material balance accounting in order to balance the supply of available inputs with output targets, although this never totally replaced financial accounting. Although the Soviet economy was nominally a centrally-planned economy, in practice the plan was formulated on-the-go as information was collected and relayed from enterprises to planning ministries.

Socialist economists and political theorists have criticised the notion that the Soviet-style planned economies were socialist economies. They argue that the Soviet economy was structured upon the accumulation of capital and the extraction of surplus value from the working class by the planning agency in order to reinvest this surplus in new production – or to distribute to managers and senior officials, indicating the Soviet Union (and other Soviet-style economies) were state capitalist economies. Other socialists have focused on the lack of self-management, the existence of financial calculation and a bureaucratic elite based on hierarchical and centralized powers of authority in the Soviet model, leading them to conclude that they were not socialist but either bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism or deformed workers’states.

Or indeed Technocracies. Certainly my own political awakening and evolution has been marred by these past failings by supposed Marxists, trying to impose a “fair” economic system through extreme authoritarian control, the so-called Thermidorian phase – and while I can see why such a conservative period, post-revolution, may be necessary to establish a new system, my gut reaction to an all-powerful state is simply to fight it. How can a Technocracy ever be considered socialist if the people have no say in how it is being run? It simply becomes another system of control, where a ruling elite of “experts” is in charge and the masses do as they are told.

I very much doubt that these new Technocratic governments in Europe will begin to resemble Stalin’s bureaucrats – they are all working for the bankers and the existing financial elite after all, a system which relies on the free market. But this opens up a bigger debate for anyone left on the Left, for all those involved in the Occupy movement worldwide, and for all those who wish to end predatory capitalism. It reveals a dichotomy in my own thinking that just won’t go away. How do you create a fairer society without destroying people’s freedom?

I sometimes feel I have the head of a Marxist and the body of an Anarchist, and although they are fighting for the same thing, they are also fighting with each other and differ very much in how to go about it. When I take the Political Compass test, I come out as extreme Left Liberal – or Anarchist.

This is how you’d expect a Lefty with an aversion to all authority to come out! Freedom is the embodiment of Anarchism. The act of fighting for freedom is Revolution. All revolutionaries in the act of revolution are therefore Anarchists!

But that is not the end of the story. I sometimes think that being a Left Libertarian may actually be a contradiction in terms. I have read papers on the subject which have made me think a little differently about what Liberalism actually means. That Left and Right are divergences towards state-control from either side of a Liberal centre-ground, that resembles Laissez-faire capitalism – commerce without government intervention – or “freedom to trade”. I am also very aware that the importance placed in Individual Freedom is often at the expense of the collective good. People re-branded in their own minds as consumers place their own choices and freedoms above all else – and this props up and encourages free market capitalism, begging the “devils-advocate” question: is capitalism the natural outcome of Anarchy? I’m not so sure about this, but there are many who think so.

Many Neo-liberalists, individualists, mutualists, economists and advocates of the free market consider themselves Anarchists to some degree – people such as Friedman, Murray Rothbard and even Ayn Rand believed in freedom of the individual and reduction or elimination of the state. Murray Rothbard maintains that Anarcho-Capitalism is the only true form of Anarchism. I’m not saying that I agree with this at all, or that I cannot conceive of an Anarchist society being fair and egalitarian – but it does flag up an important question. Would people be any safer from exploitation without the state? And now I feel like a Socialist again!

I have no answers to any of these questions, I’ll be the first to admit. But I am, at least, asking them!

One of the problems with the current resistance movements across the world (fighting corporate greed and for the rights of the 99%) is that by and large they aren’t asking these questions. They reject all prior political movements and “-isms” without proffering any alternatives. The lack of any solid theory behind the movement, and knowledge of prior political ideas, may be its undoing. If you reject Communism, Socialism, Corporatism, Free-Market Capitalism and Technocracy as systems that have failed, what do you accept? What, indeed, are you fighting for?

I can understand why the Occupy movement and Anonymous, and others, reject being pigeonholed politically – all these old political philosophies have their pitfalls and problems. But I do oppose the idea that a new system will emerge out of nowhere, with no reference to, or study of, systems and ideas that have come before. Without a deep historical understanding of these things, we may be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

It really does feel like the movement is in its infancy in this respect. There is a naivety at its core which belies its noble intent. My chief concern is that while the movement is working out what it is, trying to answer crucial questions like: Can you have real Freedom and real Fairness? What replaces Capitalism if it falls? How will we fight all those that oppose us? While we are all still finding our feet, Technocracy may well sneak in and take over by the backdoor, supplanting democracy, and all our freedoms and hopes for fairness may be usurped. Social engineers and psychologists may be brought-in by the new management team, to deal with these voices of dissent, which are so detrimental to the national credit rating. People’s beliefs and opinions and rights are of no value when there are severe deficits to reduce. They do not compute. The chants from protesters may disappear as the subsequent crackdowns intensify, then triumph, and all that can then be heard, above the gentle hum of myriad machines, is a muffled whisper: “I am not a number”

Who are the real thieves?

The uniform condemnation of these rampages through the Shopping Malls insisted that the youth involved were criminals. But why did it happen now?

For to ignore this last essential part of the question changes what is meant into a general characterisation of those involved to being always appropriate. “They are always bad!” You can’t do that! The current situation must have precipitated it, and caused some to go and get what they seemingly couldn’t have, and would never have!

For the Youth are an unusual section of Society to be dispossessed, but that’s what they are today. And even more than that, they are also excluded from access to such things even later, for they are also being deprived of a future too! They have taken away their access to skills that was always their right, and even the chance of an education by the Higher Education fees going through the roof. And even those who have managed to get through to what they thought would be an assured future, now find themselves unemployed. And all this while the boys at Eton can still go exploring in Arctic Svalbard, while others can holiday in the Canadian Rockies, and call for tax cuts for the rich.

When you cut off all possible progress, the ideas of the lumpen proletariat (the thieves and bullies) seem the only way out.

And remember, the legal thieves who normally get away with “taking away”, do it on a vastly more massive scale. Why has no-one called the PPI scheme (Payment Protection Insurance) exactly what it was – thieving – “You pay us to protect you when in financial difficulties (and then in the fine print) and we wont do it!”

Some of the Big Banks not only caused the catastrophe of 2008, and were bailed out by US, but within a couple of years they were pulling this new scam to get something for nothing – and one particular bank had to pay 1 billion pounds back in a single year.

Meanwhile large numbers of MPs were stealing by fiddling their parliamentary expenses. And at the same time the pensioner who had saved all his life to get an income from the interest on his savings was getting 0.5%, while inflation was romping along at 4.5 %. He was getting poorer by the day and the interest would not even cover his gas bills. And if he (as he is constantly urged) were to switch his savings to shares, in the present climate, he risks losing the LOT!

Come on! Don’t let these people tell YOU how to behave!

For those who run things steal, one way or another, as their modus operandi. When you are at work and make things – who thereafter owns them, sells them and makes a profit from them? Is it YOU – the maker? You know the answer!

Just listen to the politicians talking about the riots. Ed Milliband says the same as David Cameron, who says the same as the Police Chiefs. And while these kids are rampaging (yes, KIDS!), the elderly wealthy are pressing for water cannon and rubber bullets and even the bringing of the military onto the streets.

Come on! Turn the clock back to when we fought back: when Scargill has a hero.

Remember those who run the show are all TORIES – whatever they call themselves! They were in power in the 50s, the 70s and the 80s, and precipitated riots then too.

Do you subscribe to the Big Society, where you do things for nothing, and they continue to sit on top?

Do you remember Socialism? Or have they removed your politics too?

“Robots of Brixton” by Kibwe Tavares

Amazing anime depicting the future for the downtrodden area of Brixton, London. This truly is a masterpiece and something which people should really try to take a message from. “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” – Karl Marx

Kibwe Tavares – Direction, animation, modeling, lighting, texturingetc…
David Hoffman – Photographer Brixton riots archive.hoffmanphotos.com/​
Mourad Bennacer – Sound Designer designsonore.tumblr.com/​
DJ Hiatus “The Great Insurrection” hiatusmusic.net

Anger for Doomed Youth

On April 11th 2010, Nick Clegg predicted in interview that if the Tories were brought to power, there would be rioting on the streets of London, to great derision by Cameron and the media. It was, of course, a transparent attempt to win votes. I wonder, however, if that moment went through his mind yesterday as he was confronted by the citizens of Hackney, desperate for answers as their homes and shops burnt. ‘Is this how England is going to be now, after the cuts?’ asked one man. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ was his weak, soft-voiced retort. The folk on the ground know it; even shopkeepers whose reactionary views are only to be expected have been heard to suggest it is the disenfranchisement of our youth that is behind this wanton destruction of property. This depth of thought seems to end, however, when the situation is interpreted by the media and those in power. Like the desperate children they so fear, the right only call for retribution, for an end to a situation they despise, without dissecting the reasons why it has escalated to this point.

Capitalism is in crisis. The evidence is all around us. Famine kills thousands while we reinforce hospital beds to deal with the obesity crisis. Oil wars rape the middle-east. Revolution and repression reign in Syria, Egypt and Lybia. There is so much international upheaval that following global politics is a full-time job. Governments around the world are cutting services because of deficits caused by greed. The poor are being made to pay for the mistakes of the super rich and unemployment is sky-high. In the UK, youth centres, sure-start centres, are closed down. Schemes offering books for disadvantaged children and subsidising food for young mothers are slashed. Many communities are in dire straights. Police morale is at an all-time low after too many cuts and too much corruption. The markets slump again in what is now being coined a double-dip recession and teenagers take to the streets in the worst riots for a generation. It all begs the question: what the fuck is going on?

The right-leaning media appears to offer few answers. Talks of ‘pure criminality’ (whatever that is) and swift ‘justice for the perpetrators’ wear thin. Can we really be so short-sighted as to think these kids just appear, evil, intent on destruction? How can we so universally, so ruthlessly condemn children who are behaving in the exact way society has trained them to behave? They value what we trained them to value: wealth, power and materialism – they are children of capitalism. Our society created this underclass, and kept them quiet with material aspiration… now there is no hope for material aspiration, this is the only place they have to go…

This is not Egypt, this is not Sudan. Our poor are not starving, our prisons (at least the ones based in the UK) are not places of torture and systematic abuse. During the Arab Spring, many of us were discussing exactly why such an uprising was impossible in this country. We cited our advantageous economic condition, the relative comfort and high living standards of our poor, stating that it would take much more then a little economic hardship to push the British over the edge. In hindsight, I think we neglected to address the potency of extreme inequality in this equation. As the gap widens, and the capitalist machine continues to push excess as an indicator of success, such anger is inevitable. Universal hardship unites us, but when we scrape together pennies for a loaf of bread, and pass six audis on the way to the shop, hatred and hopelessness begin to take hold. In their hopelessness, why should these children care about the repercussions of their looting and arson?

These riots have not been a grass roots rebellion, and they have been universally condemned from both left and right, but since when was vandalism labeled violence? Why are we only outraged now they are destroying property and not each other, in their quest for unattainable material possessions? It is this right-wing division of “us and them” which causes these sorts of problems in the first place. Continuing with this attitude towards our country’s disadvantaged youth will only help perpetuate this division. Reaction provokes reaction and the powers that be seem unwilling to address the bigger picture only talking in terms of short-term solutions. If these kids believe they are not part of society it is because they aren’t. Not the blasting of water-cannon nor the shooting of rubber bullets will solve that problem. Let us not forget, it was a shooting at a stop and search incident which provided a catalyst for these events in the first place.

In our gang culture it is viewed that there is an on-going war with the police, and these kids must feel they have had their first decisive victory in that war. In a battle for London’s streets last night, it is laughable to conceive that the police did anything other than lose.

Floatfly & Micolagist

The Century of the Self

We’re big fans of Adam Curtis here at Red Eye. He is quite possibly one of the most important documentary filmmakers of our time. He uses historical news footage, interviews and a powerful narrative to draw lateral connections and reveal hidden trajectories in our recent past – trajectories that have shaped our present world and the way we think about it. His new series All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, recently aired on the BBC, and is well worth watching, giving as it does, a unique angle on how computers have changed the way we think about the world. More on this soon…

The Century of the Self is now a cult classic, and probably the best introduction to his work. It was originally a four part documentary, but is included here as one file… I hope this doesn’t put people off watching it in full, as it is a work that really needs watching in it’s entirety. It draws a huge arc across the 20th century starting with Freud and how psychoanalysis began to be used by advertisers and the propaganda machine to control the population, the illusion of democracy, the rise of consumerism and individualism and the death of socialism. It is our history in the raw perfectly told. Essential viewing for all.

Egypt Sentences Blogger to 3 Years

There follows a link to a New York Times article about an Egyptian blogger said to be the ‘first prisoner of conscience in Egypt after the revolution,’ The blogger, Maikel Nabil, 25, was sentenced to 3 years for criticizing the military, nothing else, and his views were of pacifism- he was also a conscientious objector and campaigner against conscription. Nothing he was charged with would be legal under democratic law.

Read more in The New York Times

Facebook Censorship- A Frightening Development

This week, during the royal wedding, 50 facebook groups have been shut down, all of them left-wing and anti-cuts groups. Perhaps not surprising, but certainly very frightening, this is one of many actions the current government has taken to repress its enemies and whistle-blowers. Facebook, it seems right to conclude, is no longer safe for activists. Perhaps it never really was.

I was suspicious of facebook initially. Reluctant to create an internet alter-ego, and wary of the information already present even in more traditional free email websites such as hotmail. I am the kind of person who deletes all her emails as she goes, and also the kind of person who is faced with sudden bouts of internet paranoia, especially when intoxicated- What if they are tracking me? What if they ‘know’. Of course, when I sober up, I remind myself I am neither a terrorist or a trafficker- and so not of enough interest to warrent that kind of financial investment… But even in the cold light of day, I am uneasy of a website through which any random acquaintance (or any random person if you are one of those incomprehensible people who feel no need for privacy settings) can see where I am going, who I am in a relationship with, and what I am into.

Still, despite my reservations, eventually I too was dragged into this weird world, this hazy extraneous self, my profile created by an insistent friend. She was appalled that I had not joined, and seemingly obsessed with this website. Her and her house-mates would sit in their separate rooms, not talking, but facebooking each other. I was actually astounded by this at the time, but now think nothing of doing it myself. More then any other website, facebook has begun to reflect and extend my conciousness. It serves as a map of my personality and opinions, my main method of communication, and an occasional massage for my self esteem.  I still worry about privacy and do all I can to keep it exclusive, but Facebook, I have since argued, is primarily a Good Thing. In an age when many feel a loss of the sense of community, Facebook allows you to see the village within the urban sprawl, connecting you with people and allowing you to map your relationships with others. I am hooked, and many others are with me, to the sense of community, the sharing of information, and the platform it gives for discussion. It politicizes people, it allows you to form groups and raise awareness, to express what you care about- and even to start or spread a movement. It used to be that I would tell a few friends about a protest I was attending, now I tell everyone I know, in the hope that as many as possible will be inspired to attend.

The power of the social network to turn these unstructured public debates into real, positive action was illustrated poignantly by the recent revolution in Egypt. Even the most apolitical of us could not fail to be moved by such an event. What a show of humanity’s unbreakable will, a blow for the downtrodden. A beacon of hope for those giving up on change. The megalomaniac ruling right, who had of course supported this repressive and, for them, economically viable regime, struggled in their tangles of lies, exposed as unarguably amoral and self-serving for anybody still unconvinced. This motivating event has changed the psychology of a generation for whom revolution resided mainly in the history books. The first televised revolution, the first true revolution of the new millennium, and it would have been far more difficult without social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. Arguably sparked when the first of many activists, a 26 year-old woman, named Asmaa Mahfouz, wrote on Facebook: “People, I am going to Tahrir Square”, this was truly an uprising facilitated by the modern age. The message was to promote a movement which eventually led to the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Groups such as ‘We are All Kaled Said’, ‘Operation Egypt’, and others led the rallying cries that were crucial to the revolution, mobilising huge amounts of people, reaching unprecedented amounts of protesters in an intelligent way, with discussion and pictures, and calls to contact those without internet by mobile and word of mouth. During the period of unrest, the regime cut off the internet connection for the entire country in an attempt to counteract the uprising.

The slow, queasy, shameful reaction of our own western repressive regimes was enraging to say the least. But they were taking notice. And they are now set to prevent anything akin to this from happening in the west.

The 50 facebook groups blocked included many anti-cuts protest groups, such as Bristol Uk uncut, No Cuts, chesterfield Stopthecuts, BigSociety Leeds and No quater Cutthewar, ArtsAgainst Cuts, and also socialist and anarchist groups such as Socialist Unity, Ecosocialists Unite, Firstof Mayband, Don’t Break Britain United, SWP Cork, York Anarchists (according to http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2011/04/mass-facebook-purge-of-activist-groups/) All groups promoting activism, and planning protests against the current government. That they were taken down at all is sinister, that they were taken down under this government and at a time when the high-profile royal wedding was angering dissidents and free thinkers across the uk, is altogether petrifying.

This was not all our current regime was doing to suppress free thought at the time of this national embarrassment. Police were given a ‘Shoot to kill’ order for protesters, whose banners were confiscated if considered to be ‘offensive’, squats were raided across the country, and we all ‘celebrated’ to the sounds of sirens day and night. Many arrests were made. Several activist groups were shut down. (see this link for an article about some of the squats which were raided in London, Bristol and Brighton http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/guy-aitchison/political-policing-in-britain-ahead-of-big-day). All the major newspapers featured leading articles praising the event and even the headlines in the Guardian and Independent for the day of the wedding, were, quite frankly, laughable- if not horrifying. It would seem that the government, partly in lieu of the upcoming loss of over 10,000 police officers, partly in lieu of further crackdowns, decided to see what they could get away with. David Cameron’s announcement to the people to party with abandon was really an attempt to cause a ruckus- so that they were able to test a limited police force, and so crimes against free speech such as the deleting of facebook groups and the blatant censoring of the left-wing media could take place without criticism.

When questioned about the shut-down of these groups, facebook has stated that the groups were  ‘technically in violation of Facebook’s terms of agreement, which state that participants in social media must not make use of a “fake name”.’ Fair enough. But it seems highly unlikely that these are the only groups for which this is true. Are all extremist right-wing groups, for example, without pseudonyms? Why, if this small violation of terms was the reason for the clampdown, were the only groups targeted those involved with left-wing, anti-capitalist activity? Even more sinister, this has happened before. ‘We Are All Kaled Said’ was also removed from facebook in november last year. (follow this link to a report from the time on the ‘We are all Khaled Said’ website about the closing of their facebook group) According to a pro-facebook article in  mashable.com ”The Page mysteriously disappeared as activists prepared to substantiate what would likely be rigged elections in November of last year. It turned out someone had likely notified Facebook that the Page administrator was using a pseudonym, a violation of Facebook’s terms of service.” The question is, who did such a thing?

At best, the groups were systematically reported by the authorities.  But this seems too convenient, it must take rather a while for the site to research and prove such a violation, let alone 50 of these types of groups on one day, the day of the royal wedding. It just doesn’t make sense. The government, the global corporate machine, has seen fit to silence voices of dissent. Not in China, Not in Egypt, but here, in the UK. And it is not just these activist groups that are being watched. This blogger has herself fallen victim to the facebook censorship machine. Am I on a list? I doubt it. I am, if anything, a prolific ranter, and peaceful protester. I am not worth police time. But I have had posts deleted- posts critical of the policing planned for the royal wedding, and I am not the only one. As the weekend went by, I saw more and more status updates from my more outspoken friends, about their debates being removed from their walls. I reposted mine 3 times. Third time lucky, I removed the word ‘shot’ from my post. Bingo.

I have encountered this before. I remember in the heyday of MSN messenger, I discovered that you could not update your MSN status to ‘I hate MSN’. This and swearing was automatically censored by msn back in the early noughties- I don’t use it now so I am unsure as to whether or not this  is still as obvious… but my point is that it is really not difficult to write software that does this kind of editing automatically. And, of course, simultaneously searches for keywords and builds a database of people who use such words, ready to investigate when they reach a certain quota. People whose profiles are then readily available for investigating authorities to peruse at their leisure- the same investivating authorities that obviously have enough power to shut down activist groups. Just as dangerous as the obviously planned and pointed destruction of fifty dissident groups, this kind of software can make it impossible for the individual to express… to share and promote their views- even to a select group of friends. Facebook has become a reflection of my mind- and I am apparently guilty of thoughtcrime.  It is nothing else but the worst kind of censorship, and a sudden threat to the internet revolution which is a movement away from the biased, corporate-led drivel of mass media.

We must fight this with all that we have. My initial reaction, which was to consider deleting my account, has quickly become resolve to defend my views more ardently, to be more outspoken than ever, and to encourage others to do the same. The fact remains that, with sheer volume, we can make it unfeasible for this type of thing to continue. It is still logistically impossible to police the internet efficiently. I shall remain on facebook, and if they do choose to investigate me, they will find me with my middle fingers pointed straight up, defiant. But let us also remember that this is symptomatic of a growing policy of repression- and let us be increasingly vigilant of our enemies.

Floatfly.