social movements
The Schlurfs – youth against Nazism
A short account of the Schlurfs, working class Austrian youth who rejected the values of Nazism
Schlurfs, no, not little blue gnomes but young people in Austria who rejected what the Nazis had to “offer” – the whole package of militarism, the work ethic, authoritarianism and race hatred.
Living Learning
An introduction to the new Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African shackdwellers movement launched in Pinetown (near Durban) at an event attended by hundreds of people, two days before the ANC militia attacked Kennedy Road.
Out of Order: A living learning for a living politics
We are poor, not stupid.
- Ashraf Casiem1
The oppressed have been…reduced…to things. In order to regain their humanity they must cease to be things and fight as men and women. This is a radical requirement. They cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become human beings.
- Paulo Freire2
The slow burning fuse - the lost history of the British anarchists
John Quail's excellent history of the anarchist movement in the UK from its origins until the 20th century.
Text taken from the excellent John Gray archive
http://www.geocities.com/~Johngray/fusetitl.htm
Unfortunately the whole text has not been scanned, available here are the introduction and first seven chapters. If anyone can help us OCR the rest please get in touch.
Where there's smoke... anarchism after the RNC
A critical review of anarchist organization in relation to the 2008 US Republican National Convention.
I. We've got the numbers, they've got the guns..
Resisting degradations and divisions: an interview with S'bu Zikode
S’bu Zikode is the elected president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a radical and radically democratic shackdwellers’ movement in South Africa that has committed itself to waging its struggles independently from party-political and NGO control.[1] This is an excerpt from a longer interview.
Richard Pithouse: What is your understanding of a living politics?
Anarchist groups in Poland - Lódź 1905 - 1939
Social and political situation in Lodz at the beginning of XX century:
At the beginning of XX century Lodz was a dynamically developing centre of the cotton and woollen industry. The favourable location of the city and its developing industrial infrastructure caused a rapid migration of the workers in search of the employment in its factories. At the same time, very low salaries and the lack of social security institutions caused the numerous unrests, until the year of 1906 and the general strike with so called “Lodz’s lockout” that follow.
The troubles begun in November 1906, when the management of Poznanski’s cotton factory decided to fire 96 workers, that they believed to be the leaders of the conflict and unrest within the factory.
Recapturing the spirit of 2006; reflections on the second statewide APPO conference - Claudio Albertani
A report on the February 2009 APPO conference in Mexico. The report illustrates the internal struggle between the social movement and the political forces who want to reduce the social movement to their own obedient political constituency.
A native of Italy, Claudio Albertani is an anti-authoritarian activist and writer who has lived in Mexico for many years. He has written extensively about social movements in Mexico and recently published a book, El espejo de México (Crónicas de barbarie y resistencia).
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Sekwanele! Social movement struggles for land and housing in post-apartheid South Africa
This article, published in the current issue of Left Turn magazine in the USA, gives a useful overview of the militant grassroots movements in South Africa.
Sekwanele! [Enough is Enough!]: Social Movement Struggles for Land and Housing in Post-Apartheid South Africa
By Toussaint Losier
Amabhulu anyama
Asenzeli iworry
[The black capitalists]
[Are making us worry]
- Chorus of a contemporary protest song, sung in Xhosa
The APPO two years on: Where now for Oaxaca's social movement?
Two years later what is left now in Oaxaca? Has the APPO been reduced to a memorial mechanism to commemorate its fallen? Is it accurate, as URO keeps insisting with epileptic vigor, that, "nothing is happening" here? Or are we seeing a movement in chrysalis, reconsolidating only to reemerge just as vibrant, but even smarter, than before?
This fall in Oaxaca marks a season of commemorations. Already marches for fallen APPO members Jose Jimenez Colmenares and Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes have woven their ways through the streets of the city, pausing at the spots they were murdered in 2006, holding ceremonies at the Cathedral. Twenty-four more such processions await Oaxaca in the coming months.
Commentary on the Sussex not for Sale campaign at Sussex University
Critical article on the Sussex Not For Sale campaign at the University of Sussex, written by an active member of the campaign.
Higher education is going through significant transformations on an international, or at least European, level. The UK is not immune to these changes. Whilst there have been various small protests in places around the country to resist these changes, no major local campaign has existed as of yet. Sussex not 4 Sale was born out of this context.
