tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78242249055749964322024-03-13T22:36:45.602-07:00Deeper into the MindfieldThis blog is set up purely for the purposes of storing articles to point people to. It is not intended as a discussion blog. Sorry :-)Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-60216639479834818962012-05-19T14:29:00.001-07:002012-05-19T14:29:45.988-07:00Clare Solomon and Sean Rillo Raczka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16699520594304588229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-86741399882378272442010-05-19T07:22:00.001-07:002010-05-19T07:22:01.354-07:00Using Twitter effectivelyTo maximise the number of people that visit our site as a result of <span class="il">Twitter</span>, we need to make sure we do a couple of things when using the "retweet" feature.<br />
<br />
First, edit the standard text that you are provided with. More people will visit the site if it doesn't look like you've just retweeted an electronic form. I would suggest removing the "@Counterfire", and perhaps putting in your own description of the article's contents, rather than just the title.<br />
<br />
Second - and critically, I really can't stress this enough for <span class="il">Twitter</span> - make use of hashtags. These are a feature on <span class="il">Twitter</span> that allow tweets (the posts you write) to be grouped by topic. They are very easy to use: you just write "#hashtag" at the end of your post, replacing 'hashtag' with a single-word topic. So, for example, people writing about the UK election have been adding '#ukelection' to the end of their post. '#dontdoitnick' was very popular for a while, as was '#iloveimmigrants' the other week. You can use more than one hashtag in a tweet, too, if you think something is relevant to more than one topic.<br />
<br />
A complete tweet generated from the site, but using hashtags and with my own edits, might then look something like:<br />
<br />
Lindsey German on Lib Dems sacrificing policies for government posts | Counterfire <a href="http://bit.ly/cvbWH2" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cvbWH2</a> #ukelection #libdemfail #libtory<br />
<br />
I've changed the description, and added three hashtags: #ukelection, #libdemfail, #libtory. <br />
<br />
<span class="il">Twitter</span> displays, at any given point in time, the most popular topics being tweeted about. If you log in, you'll find the list on the right-hand side of the screen - select 'UK' from the country option to just seen those that are popular in the UK. If you want huge numbers of people to see your tweet, it's as well to pick something from this list - #ukelection has been a good bet of lat, but there's usually something politics related on there.<br />
<br />
Also, keep an eye on what hashtags the people you follow are using - if you see something coming up repeatedly, try and tag along with that.<br />
<br />
It really is the use of hashtags that will make <span class="il">Twitter</span> work for us. If we don't use them, we won't crack out of the circle of our existing followers - and I think there's an awful lot of crossover amongst us on that one.<br />
<br />
One other thing about <span class="il">Twitter</span>: academic research, and before that just casual observation, suggests that <span class="il">Twitter</span> use is very different to other social networking sites, like Facebook. People tend to have more complete strangers in their network, and the number of conncetions people have with others follows a different kind of distribtution: instead of a few wildly popular people having thousands of friends, while the average is just c.50, the connections are more evenly distributed.<br />
<br />
What this tells you, I think, is that <span class="il">Twitter</span> has a different function to other sites - it acts like the glue between different social networking sites, and people take things off <span class="il">Twitter</span> and use them elsewhere, rather than remaining within <span class="il">Twitter</span> to use them. So people will find something on <span class="il">Twitter</span>, and then email it to their friends outside of <span class="il">Twitter</span> - I've do this myself - whereas on Facebook, people most share links between their friends on Facebook, posting stuff onto their profile.<br />
<br />
That means, in turn, that the number of direct hits from <span class="il">Twitter</span> may not be very high, but that it can act to amplify the effects of social networking elsewhere, with successful tweets driving more hits from Facebook, blogs, and from emails. If we can get its use right, we can start to drive up visits to Counterfire rapidly, with minimum effort.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16699520594304588229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-91954604885891665172010-02-20T08:22:00.000-08:002010-02-20T08:22:09.665-08:00Christian Fuchs and a Marxist analysis of the internetIt gets interesting from about page 10. Email me at revolution @ soas.ac.uk and i will send you the PDF documentit is much easier to read...<br />
http://ejc.sagepub.com<br />
Communication<br />
European Journal of<br />
DOI: 10.1177/0267323108098947<br />
2009; 24; 69<br />
European Journal of Communication<br />
Christian Fuchs<br />
Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy of the Internet<br />
Information and Communication Technologies and Society: A<br />
http://ejc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/1/69<br />
The online version of this article can be found at:<br />
Published by:<br />
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Information and Communication<br />
Technologies and Society<br />
A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy<br />
of the Internet<br />
Christian Fuchs<br />
A B S T R A C T<br />
This article argues for the need of Critical Internet Theory. It outlines<br />
how such a theory operates by the example of the role of gifts and com-<br />
modities in the Internet economy. It is argued that after the crisis of the<br />
‘New Economy’, the emergence of what is termed ‘Web 2.0’ signifies the<br />
increasing importance of the Internet gift commodity strategy. This strat-<br />
egy commodifies the users who produce content and communications<br />
online on free access platforms so that advertisement rates are driven up,<br />
and functions as a legitimizing ideology. In this context, the notion of the<br />
Internet prosumer commodity is introduced.<br />
Key Words capital accumulation, Critical Internet Theory, critique of<br />
the political economy of the Internet, social software, Web 2.0<br />
Introduction<br />
In summer 2007, The Economist asked on its cover: ‘Who’s afraid of Google?’<br />
and pointed out that Google is an example for an Internet-based business<br />
model that helps ‘people to find information (at no charge) and [lets] adver-<br />
tisers promote their wares to those people in a finely targeted way’ (The<br />
69<br />
Christian Fuchs is Associate Professor at the ICT&S Centre for Advanced Studies<br />
and Research in Information and Communication Technologies and Society,<br />
University of Salzburg, Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18, 5020 Salzburg, Austria<br />
[email: christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at].<br />
European Journal of Communication Copyright © 2009 SAGE Publications<br />
(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) www.sagepublications.com,<br />
Vol 24(1): 69–87. [10.1177/0267323108098947]<br />
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Economist, 1–7 September 2007: 9). Thus far this strategy has been successful,<br />
as Google has, with a five-year sales growth rate of 222 percent in 2006, been<br />
the second-fastest growing technology company worldwide.<br />
1<br />
This article introduces the concept of Critical Internet Theory and<br />
gives an analysis of the accumulation strategies employed by corporations<br />
like Google in the capitalist Internet economy. It discusses some theoreti-<br />
cal aspects of the political economy of the Internet and deals with the fol-<br />
lowing questions. What theoretical foundation is needed for studying the<br />
Internet and society? What is Critical Internet Theory? How relevant is<br />
the antagonism between productive forces and relations of production in<br />
the Internet age? What is the role and relationships of gifts and com-<br />
modities in the Internet economy?<br />
Critical Theory<br />
The critique advanced by Critical Internet Theory is a Marxian one in the<br />
sense laid out in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right<br />
that it grasps ‘the root of the matter’ and is based on the ‘categoric impera-<br />
tive to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, aban-<br />
doned, despicable essence’ (Marx, 1844: 385).<br />
Taking Marx’s writings as totality, one can identify three central aspects of<br />
Marxian critique that are ordered according to three philosophical dimensions.<br />
• Ontology – dynamic materialism: Critical theory is materialistic in<br />
the sense that it addresses phenomena and problems not in terms<br />
of absolute ideas and predetermined societal development, but in<br />
terms of resource distribution and social struggles. Reality is seen<br />
in terms that address ownership, private property, resource distri-<br />
bution, social struggles, power, resource control, exploitation and<br />
domination.<br />
To make a materialistic analysis also means to conceive society<br />
as negativity; to identify antagonisms means to look at contradic-<br />
tory tendencies that relate to one and the same phenomenon, cre-<br />
ate societal problems and require a fundamental systemic change<br />
in order to be dissolved. To analyse society as contradictory also<br />
means to consider it as dynamic system because contradictions<br />
cause development and movement of matter.<br />
In order to address the negativity of contemporary society and<br />
its potential, research also needs to be oriented on the totality. That<br />
dialectics is a philosophy about totality in this context means that<br />
society is analysed on a macro scale in order to grasp its problems<br />
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and that reasons for the necessity of positive transformations are to<br />
be given.<br />
• Epistemology – dialectical realism: The material world is seen as pri-<br />
mary and is grasped, described, analysed and partly transformed<br />
by humans in academic work. Analyses are conducted that are<br />
looking for the essence of societal existence by identifying contra-<br />
dictions that lie at the heart of development. Critical theory<br />
analyses social phenomena not based on instrumental reason and<br />
one-dimensional logic, i.e. it operates (1) under the assumption<br />
that phenomena do not have linear causes and effects, but are con-<br />
tradictory, open, dynamic, and carry certain development poten-<br />
tials in them and hence should be conceived in complex forms;<br />
and (2) is based on the insight that reality should be conceived so<br />
that there are neither only opportunities nor only risks inherent in<br />
social phenomena, but contradictory tendencies that pose both<br />
positive and negative potentials at the same time that they are<br />
realized or suppressed by human social practice.<br />
Dialectic analysis in this context means complex dynamic<br />
thinking; realism an analysis of real possibilities and a dialectic of<br />
pessimism and optimism. In a dialectical analysis, phenomena are<br />
analysed in terms of the dialectics of agency and structures, dis-<br />
continuity and continuity, the one and the many, potentiality and<br />
actuality, global and local, virtual and real, optimism and pes-<br />
simism, essence and existence, immanence and transcendence, etc.<br />
• Axiology – negating the negative: All critical approaches in one or the<br />
other respect take the standpoint of oppressed or exploited classes<br />
and make the judgement that structures of oppression and<br />
exploitation benefit certain classes at the expense of others and<br />
hence should be radically transformed by social struggles. This<br />
view constitutes a form of objectivity.<br />
Critical theory does not accept existing social structures as they<br />
are, it is not interested in society as it is, but in what it society<br />
could be and could become. It deconstructs ideologies that claim<br />
that something cannot be changed and shows potential counter-<br />
tendencies and alternative modes of development. That the nega-<br />
tive antagonisms are sublated into positive results is not an<br />
automatism, but depends on the realization of practical forces of<br />
change that have a potential to rise from the inside of the systems<br />
in question in order to produce a transcendental outside that<br />
becomes a new whole. The axiological dimension of critique is an<br />
interface between theory and political praxis.<br />
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Critical theory is interested in why there is a difference between<br />
actuality and potentiality, existence and essence, and aims at find-<br />
ing ways of bridging this difference. It aims at the establishment<br />
of a cooperative, participatory society and asks ‘basic moral ques-<br />
tions of justice, equity and the public good’ (Murdock and<br />
Golding, 2005: 61).<br />
The ethical dimension is not unfounded, but grounded in the essence of<br />
society as such; its transcendence is constituted by the immanence of soci-<br />
ety, cooperative human potentials.<br />
Critical theories are dialectical and realistic and axiological. That<br />
critical thinking is still very important and influential today can, for<br />
example, be seen in the prominence that Roy Bhaskar’s Dialectical Critical<br />
Realism has gained in recent years (e.g. Bhaskar, 1993).<br />
In 20th-century Marxism, the critical analysis of media, communica-<br />
tion and culture has emerged as a novel quality due to the transformations<br />
that capitalism has been undergoing (Sandoval, 2008). First, there have<br />
been subjective approaches that primarily stress how humans produce,<br />
reproduce, consume or transform media and culture. Early 20th-century<br />
approaches include the theory of Antonio Gramsci, on the one hand, and<br />
the theories of Bert Brecht or Walter Benjamin, on the other hand. The first<br />
line of thought has since been continued, e.g. by some cultural studies<br />
scholars like Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart or Stuart Hall, the sec-<br />
ond by scholars like Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Marchart, 2006). Second,<br />
there have been objective, more structure-oriented, approaches that prima-<br />
rily stress repressive aspects of media structures (Sandoval, 2008). Many of<br />
these works are grounded either in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Frankfurt<br />
School critique or Louis Althusser’s theory of ideological state apparatuses.<br />
The focus on ideology has been challenged by critical political economy<br />
scholars like Dallas Smythe or Nicholas Garnham, who stress the economic<br />
functions of the media, whereas others like Vilém Flusser, Noam Chomsky,<br />
Edward S. Herman or Herbert Schiller have continued to stress the role of<br />
media as producers and diffusion channels of ideologies. Third, there have<br />
been broader approaches that stress that media have different (intercon-<br />
nected) roles in capitalism. These approaches can be understood as trying to<br />
bridge some of the gaps between the other approaches, they focus on at least<br />
some of the following dimensions (and in some cases on the interconnec-<br />
tions): media products as realms of capital accumulation; media as means of<br />
advertising and circulating products; media as ideological legitimatory sys-<br />
tems; media as systems that reproduce human labour power, media pro-<br />
duction, products, circulation and reception as contradictory forces that<br />
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reflect domination and class struggles; alternative media. Such broader<br />
approaches include, for example, those of Oscar Gandy (1997), Robert<br />
McChesney (1998, 2000), Horst Holzer (1994), Graham Murdock and<br />
Peter Golding (1997, 2005), Douglas Kellner (1997, 2002), Manfred<br />
Knoche (2002) and Herbert Marcuse (1969, 1972) (see Sandoval, 2008).<br />
Broader critical approaches can be considered as superior to narrow ones<br />
because they allow the explanation of aspects of reality that are ignored by<br />
the latter. However, although there are differences between certain strands<br />
of Marxist media and cultural theory, they are united by the focus on cri-<br />
tique, i.e. the negation of capitalism and domination.<br />
My own approach addresses media like the Internet not as primary<br />
objects of interest, but as a concretization of the analysis of the develop-<br />
ment dynamics of capitalist society, for which a social theory is needed<br />
(Fuchs, 2008). The focus on media, communication and technology needs<br />
to be embedded into the broader societal context; communication is<br />
‘embedded within the wider structures and processes of a given social for-<br />
mation’ (Garnham, 2000: 4). Hence, first of all, critical social theories are<br />
needed that allow concretizations. I use the term ‘Critical Internet Theory’<br />
in order to stress that a Marxian analysis of the Internet and society is<br />
needed. Critique is an element that bridges approaches like the Critique of<br />
the Political Economy of the Media and Frankfurt School Critique. The<br />
figures and writings that have most influenced my thinking have been<br />
Hegel, Marx’s philosophical works and Herbert Marcuse.<br />
2<br />
Although my<br />
own approach stresses this line of thinking, Critical Internet Theory could<br />
be used as an umbrella term that covers a broader range of Marxian-<br />
inspired approaches in studying the Internet and society. Critical Internet<br />
Theory is not an autonomous theory. It is part of the larger canon of<br />
Marxist theories of society and communication, to which it is linked.<br />
Towards a critical theory of informational capitalism and<br />
the Internet<br />
In this section, first the notion of Critical Internet Theory is introduced,<br />
then the antagonism between the public and private character of informa-<br />
tion is discussed as an expression of the antagonism between forces and<br />
relations of production.<br />
Critical social theory of the Internet<br />
The study of the Internet and society in particular and ICTs and society in<br />
general has during the last years been labelled under categories like<br />
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Internet research, ICTs and society, social informatics, informatics and<br />
society, new media research, information society theory, information soci-<br />
ety research/studies, Internet studies, Web research, etc. My contention is<br />
that to study the relationship of Internet and society, not just any sort of<br />
Internet research is needed, but a Critical Internet Theory. Critical<br />
Internet Theory (see also Hofkirchner, 2007) is not a separate endeavour or<br />
an independent theory. It is a concretization of a Contemporary Critical<br />
Social Theory (see Fuchs, 2008) that is anchored in Marxian critique.<br />
Applying critical social theory and critique of the political economy<br />
of capitalism to the Internet can be characterized along the three dimen-<br />
sions of critical theory that were identified in the first section.<br />
• Ontology – dynamic materialism: The Internet does not exist in a<br />
vacuum – it is embedded in the antagonisms of capitalist society.<br />
It reflects societal problems in complex ways and social actions<br />
carried out with the help of the Internet have complex effects on<br />
the antagonistic structure of society. Online action shapes and is<br />
shaped by the antagonisms of contemporary society. In order to<br />
find out how the lives of humans are affected and transformed by<br />
the Internet, the Internet needs to be analytically related to the<br />
broader societal context.<br />
Critical Internet research grounds the necessity of a cooperative<br />
and participatory societal totality and the contribution that the<br />
Internet can make in this context. A critical theory of Internet and<br />
society is negative insofar as it relates the Internet to social prob-<br />
lems and what society has failed to become and to tendencies that<br />
question and contradict the dominant and dominative mode of<br />
operation and hence have the potential to become positive forces<br />
of social change for the better. It looks for ways of how the<br />
Internet can support practical forces that aim at transcending cap-<br />
italism as a whole.<br />
Based on the insight that the basic resources are highly<br />
unequally divided in contemporary society, to construct a critical<br />
theory of Internet and society means showing how the Internet is<br />
related to questions concerning ownership, private property,<br />
resource distribution, social struggles, power, resource control,<br />
exploitation and domination. In such an endeavour, a reactualized<br />
notion of class is of central importance (see Fuchs, 2008: Ch. 7.3).<br />
• Epistemology – dialectical realism: A theory of Internet and society<br />
that is dialectical and realistic identifies antagonistic tendencies of<br />
the relationship of Internet and society and their opportunities<br />
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and risks in order to help people and social groups to position<br />
themselves and find practical guidelines for action in the com-<br />
plexity of the contemporary world.<br />
• Axiology – negating the negative: A standpoint theory of Internet and<br />
society shows how the two competing forces of competition and<br />
cooperation result in class formation and produce potentials for the<br />
dissolution of exploitation and oppression. It is based on the judge-<br />
ment that cooperation is more desirable than competition, which<br />
is just another way of saying that structures of exploitation and<br />
oppression need to be questioned, criticized and sublated.<br />
Based on the notion of Marxist critique (see Horkheimer, 1937;<br />
Marcuse, 1937), Critical Internet Theory can be conceived as identifying and<br />
analysing antagonisms in the relationship of Internet and society; it shows<br />
how the Internet is shaped and shapes the colliding forces of competition and<br />
cooperation; it is oriented towards showing how domination and exploitation<br />
are structured and structuring the Internet and on how class formation and<br />
potential class struggles are technologically mediated; it identifies Internet-<br />
supported, not yet realized potentials of societal development and radically<br />
questions structures that restrain human and societal potentials for coopera-<br />
tion, self-determination, participation, happiness and self-management.<br />
Why is a Critical Internet Theory needed, and not just Critical<br />
Internet Research? If a theory is understood as a logically interconnected<br />
set of systematic hypotheses that describe worldly phenomena and the lat-<br />
ter’s foundation, structure, causes, effects and dynamics, and empiricism as<br />
the observation and collection of data for constructing systematic and<br />
reflected knowledge, then one arrives at two levels of science. There is no<br />
theory that is not grounded in empirical observations and no empirical<br />
research that does not make some theoretical assumptions. However, there<br />
can be a different stress of the two factors, and hence one can distinguish<br />
between theoretical research (primarily theoretically informed) and empir-<br />
ical research (primarily empirically informed). Why is social theory so<br />
important for Internet research? The emergence of the Internet has<br />
resulted in a plurality of concepts such as Internet economy, digital<br />
democracy, cyberculture, virtual community, cyberlove, eParticipation,<br />
eGovernment, eGovernance, online journalism, social software, Web 2.0<br />
and so forth. There is no clear meaning of these terms; some of them<br />
remain very vague or contradictory. The task of Critical Internet Theory is<br />
to discuss how the fundamental concepts that characterize modern society<br />
and its negation can be applied to the relationship of Internet and society<br />
so that they function as critical categories.<br />
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My book Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age (Fuchs,<br />
2008) addresses these questions in more depth; it is a critical neo-Marxist<br />
theory of what I have termed transnational informational capitalism. New<br />
media as such do not have clear-cut effects; they are antagonistically struc-<br />
tured and embedded into the antagonisms of capitalist society. The antag-<br />
onism between cooperation and competition that shapes modern society,<br />
limits self-determination and participation, also shapes the technosocial<br />
Internet system. Under current societal conditions, which are characterized<br />
by the colonization of society by the instrumental logic of accumulation,<br />
risks and competitive forces dominate over realized opportunities, coopera-<br />
tion and participation on the Internet. The rest of this article discusses one<br />
specific realm of Critical Internet Theory in order to give an example of<br />
how such an analysis operates. It deals with the antagonistic relationship of<br />
gifts and commodities in the capitalist Internet economy. This antagonism<br />
is based on what Marx termed the antagonism between forces and relations<br />
of production.<br />
The antagonism between productive forces and relations of production<br />
in informational capitalism: information as gift and commodity<br />
Information-based productive forces The dialectical antagonistic character of<br />
social and technical networks as the motor of competition and cooperation<br />
in informational capitalism reflects Marx’s idea that the productive forces of<br />
capitalism are at the same time means of exploitation and domination and<br />
produce potentials that go beyond actuality, point towards a radically trans-<br />
formed society and anticipate a fully cooperative design of the means of pro-<br />
duction. The productive forces of contemporary capitalism are organized<br />
around informational networks (Fuchs, 2008). It is due to three specific<br />
characteristics of such structures that they come in contradiction with the<br />
capitalist relations of production and are a germ form (Keimform) of a soci-<br />
ety that is based on fully cooperative and socialized means of production:<br />
• Information as a strategic economic resource is globally produced<br />
and diffused by networks. It is a good that is hard to control in<br />
single places or by single owners.<br />
• Information is intangible. It can easily be copied, which results in<br />
multiple ownerships and hence undermines individual private<br />
property.<br />
• The essence of networks is that they strive for establishing con-<br />
nections. Networks are in essence a negation of individual owner-<br />
ship and the atomism of capitalism.<br />
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Informational networks both extend and undermine capital accumula-<br />
tion. Informational networks aggravate the capitalist contradiction between<br />
the collective production and the individual appropriation of goods:<br />
The contradiction between the general social power into which capital<br />
develops, on the one hand, and the private power of the individual capital-<br />
ists over these social conditions of production, on the other, becomes ever<br />
more irreconcilable, and yet contains the solution of the problem, because<br />
it implies at the same time the transformation of the conditions of produc-<br />
tion into general, common, social, conditions. (Marx, 1894: 274)<br />
Networks are a material condition of a free association, but the coop-<br />
erative networking of the relations of production is not an automatic result<br />
of networked productive forces; a true network society in the sense of an<br />
association of free and equal producers (Marx, 1869: 62) is something that<br />
people must struggle for and that they can achieve under the given condi-<br />
tions but that could very well also never emerge if the dominant regime is<br />
successful in continuing its reign. Networks are forms of development as<br />
well as fetters of capitalism; paraphrasing Marx one can say that informa-<br />
tional capitalism is a point where the means of production have become<br />
‘incompatible with their capitalist integument’ (Marx, 1867: 791).<br />
The antagonistic economic character of network capitalism has two<br />
opposing sides, the cooperative one of the informational gift economy and<br />
the competitive one of the informational commodity economy.<br />
Knowledge is in global network capitalism a strategic economic<br />
resource; property struggles in the information society take on the form of<br />
conflicts over the public or proprietary character of knowledge. Its pro-<br />
duction is inherently social, cooperative and historical. Knowledge is in<br />
many cases produced by individuals in a joint effort. New knowledge<br />
incorporates earlier forms of knowledge; it is coined by the whole history<br />
of knowledge. Hence, it is in essence a public good and it is difficult to<br />
argue that there is an individual authorship that grounds individual prop-<br />
erty rights and copyrights. Global economic networks and cyberspace<br />
today function as channels of production and diffusion of knowledge com-<br />
modities; the accumulation of profit by selling knowledge is legally guar-<br />
anteed by intellectual property rights.<br />
In society, information can only be produced jointly in cooperative<br />
processes, not individually. Hence, Marx argued that knowledge ‘depends<br />
partly on the cooperation of the living, and partly on the utilisation of the<br />
labours of those who have gone before’ (Marx, 1894: 114). Whenever new<br />
information emerges, it incorporates the whole societal history of infor-<br />
mation: that is, information has a historical character. Hence, information<br />
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in essence is a public good, freely available to all. But in global informa-<br />
tional capitalism, information has become an important productive force<br />
that favours new forms of capital accumulation. Information is today not<br />
treated as a public good, rather as a commodity. There is an antagonism<br />
between information as a public good and as a commodity.<br />
If the grounding feature of information is that it is a social, histori-<br />
cal, dynamic good, then its essence is its public character. According to<br />
Hegel, truth means the correspondence of essence and existence of a thing.<br />
So based on Hegel’s logic of essence, one can argue that an information<br />
society, in which information is a commodity (informational capitalism) is<br />
a false information society because it restricts access and transforms infor-<br />
mation artificially into a private good. A true information society in con-<br />
trast then is an information society in which knowledge is available to all<br />
for free and is coproduced in cooperation processes.<br />
The antagonistic character of information That informational capitalism is<br />
dominated by corporate interests can be visualized by figures like the fol-<br />
lowing: the total GDP of all 53 African states was US$1,000,913 billion<br />
in 2007.<br />
3<br />
The total assets of the top six knowledge corporations (AT&T,<br />
Vodafone, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, Nippon, Telefonica)<br />
4<br />
were<br />
US$1,132,41 billion in 2007 and hence larger than the total African GDP.<br />
This shows the huge economic power of knowledge corporations.<br />
Knowledge that is produced, transmitted and communicated with the<br />
help of technologies influences human thinking and decisions. Hence, the<br />
existing agglomeration of economic capital by knowledge corporations<br />
gives them a tremendous power for influencing human thinking and deci-<br />
sions. They control definitions of reality and are able to create one-dimen-<br />
sional views of reality that neglect negation and critique of dominant<br />
views that represent dominant interests. Corporate power allows the con-<br />
trol of worldviews, labour and quality standards, markets, political power,<br />
prices, technological standards and consumer behaviour. Proprietary mod-<br />
els that aim at accumulating capital with the help of media like the<br />
Internet form the dominant reality of informational capitalism.<br />
However, an alternative production model has been developed that to<br />
a certain extent challenges capitalism and sees economic goods not as<br />
property that should be individually possessed but as common goods to<br />
which all people should have access and from which all should benefit.<br />
This model stresses open knowledge, open access and cooperative produc-<br />
tion forms; it can, for example, be found in virtual communities like the<br />
open-source community that produces the Linux operating system, which<br />
is freely accessible and to which, due to the free access to the source code<br />
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of its software applications, people can easily contribute. The open access<br />
principle has resulted in global open-source production models where peo-<br />
ple cooperatively and voluntarily produce digital knowledge that under-<br />
mines the proprietary character of knowledge (if knowledge is free and of<br />
good quality, why should one choose other knowledge that is expensive?)<br />
The open-source principle has also been applied to other areas, such as<br />
online encyclopaedias (Wikipedia) and online journalism (Indymedia).<br />
Eric Raymond (1998) has characterized the free software community<br />
as challenging the ‘cathedral-like’ software development methods of cor-<br />
porations by cooperation and self-organization. Rishab Ayer Ghosh (1998)<br />
sees the open-source Internet economy as a ‘digital cooking-pot’ that takes<br />
in whatever is produced, clones its whole contents, and gives them to who-<br />
ever wants it. Open-source principles are not automatically anti-capitalist.<br />
One can distinguish various approaches: first, a neoliberal position of rep-<br />
resentatives who want to subsume and commodify open access and open<br />
content (e.g. Tapscott and Williams, 2006). Second, a social democratic<br />
view aiming at a dual economy that besides informational commodities<br />
also guarantees the existence of information commons (e.g. Benkler, 2006;<br />
Lessig, 2006; Vaidhyanathan, 2004).<br />
5<br />
Third, a critical position that views<br />
information as essentially common good and argues for a cooperative infor-<br />
mation society that transcends capitalism and the commodity form of<br />
information, and in which information is a commons (e.g. Atton, 2004;<br />
Barbrook, 1998, 1999, 2007; Söderberg, 2002).<br />
Open-source software has been realized mainly within projects such as<br />
the Linux operating system. Special licences (termed copy-left) such as the<br />
GNU public licence have been developed for ensuring that free software has<br />
an open access to its source code. Free software hardly yields economic<br />
profit; it is freely available on the Internet and constitutes an alternative<br />
model of production that questions proprietary production models.<br />
Digitization allows the easy copying of knowledge such as texts,<br />
music, images, software and videos. The Internet enables the fast and<br />
free global distribution of knowledge with the help of technologies such<br />
as peer-to-peer networks (Napster, Audiogalaxy, KaZaA, KaZaA Lite,<br />
LimeWire, Morpheus, Edonkey, WinMX, iMesh, Bearshare, Blubster,<br />
SoulSeek, BitTorrent, Overnet, Toadnode, Grokster, etc.). The informa-<br />
tional content can be stored on different physical carriers; the possession<br />
of digital information by one person does not imply the non-possession<br />
of it by others. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)<br />
has sued operators of such network applications, but whenever one oper-<br />
ator has been forced to quit its services, others have emerged. This shows<br />
that information and informational networks like the Internet are hard<br />
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to control and are embedded in social struggles over the public or pri-<br />
vate character of information.<br />
The two poles of a dialectic are not only separated and different, they<br />
are also entangled and meshed. In the case of gifts and commodities, this<br />
means that the gift form is subsumed under the commodity form and can<br />
even be used directly for achieving profit.<br />
The gift commodity Internet economy: social<br />
networking platforms<br />
There is a commodified Internet economy and a non-commodified Internet<br />
economy. Only those aspects of the Internet economy that are non-profit<br />
gifts, that just have use value and no exchange value and are hence provided<br />
without costs for the users and without selling advertisement space, can be<br />
considered as decommodified or non-commodified. Examples are file-shar-<br />
ing platforms, Wikipedia, Linux and Indymedia. Commodified Internet<br />
spaces are always profit oriented, but the goods they provide are not neces-<br />
sarily exchange values and market oriented; in some cases (such as Google,<br />
Yahoo, MySpace, YouTube, Netscape), free goods or platforms are provided<br />
as gifts in order to drive up the number of users so that high advertisement<br />
rates can be charged in order to achieve profit. In other cases, digital or non-<br />
digital goods are sold with the help of the Internet (e.g. Amazon), or<br />
exchange of goods is mediated and charged for (online marketplaces such as<br />
eBay or the Amazon Marketplace). In any of these cases, the primary orien-<br />
tation of such spaces is instrumental reason: that is, the material interest of<br />
achieving money profit, a surplus to the invested capital.<br />
In the early phase of the World Wide Web, platforms that provided<br />
content were important business models. Many new stock companies in<br />
the areas of Internet content and Internet services had emerged up to the<br />
mid-1990s. By the years 2005 and 2006, accumulation strategies related<br />
to the Internet had shifted from a primary focus on information to a focus<br />
on communication and cooperation (Fuchs, 2008). Some scholars like to<br />
designate this transformation as the emergence of ‘Internet 2.0’ and ‘Web<br />
2.0’, although the main purpose behind using these terms seem to be a<br />
marketing strategy for boosting investment. The most characteristic<br />
example of Web 2.0 are the social networking platforms like MySpace or<br />
Facebook, which allow the online maintenance and establishment of social<br />
relationships by an integrated use of technologies like email, websites,<br />
guest books, forums, digital videos, or digital images. So, for example,<br />
MySpace is a Web platform that allows users to generate personal profiles,<br />
on which they can upload pictures, text, videos, music, and keep their<br />
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personal blogs. It networks users with a friendship system (users can add<br />
others to their friend list and post comments to their friends’ guest books),<br />
discussion forums, interest groups, chat rooms and a mail function. Such<br />
platforms have both a commodity form and ideological character.<br />
The commodity form of social networking platforms<br />
Commercial Web 2.0 applications are typically free to users; they generate<br />
profit by achieving as many users as possible by offering free services and<br />
selling advertisement space to third parties and additional services to<br />
users. The more users, the more profit, that is, the more services are offered<br />
for free, the more profit can be generated. Although the principle of the<br />
gift points towards a postcapitalist society, gifts are today subsumed under<br />
capitalism and used for generating profit in the Internet economy. The<br />
Internet gift economy has a double character: it supports and at the same<br />
time undermines informational capitalism. Applications such as file-shar-<br />
ing software question the logic of commodities, whereas platforms such as<br />
Google and MySpace are characteristic of the capitalist gift economy.<br />
Internet 2.0 is characterized by this antagonism between information<br />
commodities and information gifts.<br />
The Internet gift commodity economy can be read as a specific form<br />
of what Dallas Smythe has termed the audience commodity (Smythe,<br />
2006). He suggests that in the case of media advertisement models the<br />
audience is sold as a commodity. ‘Because audience power is produced, sold,<br />
purchased and consumed, it commands a price and is a commodity. . . . You<br />
audience members contribute your unpaid work time and in exchange you<br />
receive the program material and the explicit advertisements’ (Smythe,<br />
2006: 233, 238). Audiences would work, although unpaid; the consump-<br />
tion of the mass media would be work because it would result in a com-<br />
modity, hence it would produce that commodity. Also the audience’s work<br />
would include ‘learning to buy goods and to spend their income accord-<br />
ingly’, the demand for the consumption of goods and the reproduction of<br />
their own labour power (Smythe, 2006: 243ff.).<br />
With the rise of user-generated content and free access social networking<br />
platforms like MySpace or Facebook and other free access platforms that yield<br />
profit by online advertisement, the Web seems to come close to the accumu-<br />
lation strategies employed by capital on traditional mass media like television<br />
or radio. The users who ‘google’ data, upload or watch videos on YouTube,<br />
upload or browse personal images on Flickr, or accumulate friends with whom<br />
they exchange content or communicate online on social networking platforms<br />
like MySpace or Facebook, constitute an audience commodity that is sold to<br />
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advertisers. The difference between the audience commodity on traditional<br />
mass media and on the Internet is that in the latter the users are also content<br />
producers: there is user-generated content, the users engage in permanent cre-<br />
ative activity, communication, community building and content production.<br />
That the users are more active on the Internet than in the reception of televi-<br />
sion or radio content is due to the decentralized structure of the Internet that<br />
allows many-to-many communication. Due to the permanent activity of the<br />
recipients and their status as prosumers, I would in the case of the Internet<br />
argue that the audience commodity is a prosumer commodity or produser<br />
commodity. The category of the prosumer commodity/produser commodity<br />
does not signify a democratization of the media towards participatory systems,<br />
but the total commodification of human creativity. Much of the time spent<br />
online produces profit for large corporations like Google, NewsCorp (which<br />
owns MySpace) or Yahoo (which owns Flickr). Advertisements on the Internet<br />
are frequently personalized. This is possible by surveilling, storing and assess-<br />
ing user activities with the help of computers and databases. This is another<br />
difference to television and radio, which due to their centralized structure pro-<br />
vide less individualized content and advertisements. But in the area of the tra-<br />
ditional mass media also, one can observe a certain shift as, for instance, in the<br />
case of pay-per-view, televotings, talkshows and call-in TV and radio shows. In<br />
the case of the Internet, the commodification of audience participation is eas-<br />
ier to achieve than on other mass media. The rise of the Internet prosumer<br />
commodity also shows that the visions of critical theorists like Benjamin,<br />
Brecht or Enzensberger of an emancipatory media structure has today been<br />
subsumed under capital. New media do carry a certain potential for advancing<br />
grassroots socialism, but this potential is antagonistically entangled in the<br />
dominant structures and it is unclear if the capitalist integument can be<br />
stripped away. Personalized advertisement on the Internet is an expression of<br />
the tendency towards what Deleuze has termed the ‘society of control’ as an<br />
aspect of contemporary marketing and capitalism, in the sense that individu-<br />
als are activated to continuously participate in and integrate themselves into<br />
the structures of exploitation (see Fuchs 2008: 149ff.), during as well as out-<br />
side wage labour time.<br />
The more users make use of advertisement-based free online plat-<br />
forms and the more time they spend online producing, consuming and<br />
exchanging content, communicating with others, the higher the value of<br />
the prosumer commodity they produce will become, the higher the adver-<br />
tisement prices will rise and the higher the profits of the specific Internet<br />
corporations will be. ‘The price that corporations pay for advertising spots<br />
on particular programmes is determined by the size and social composition<br />
of the audience it attracts’ (Murdock and Golding, 2005: 65).<br />
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In Web 2.0, social relationships are commodified. An alternative are<br />
non-commercial, non-profit open-source platforms that focus on social and<br />
political networking. Social networking poses possibilities for group forma-<br />
tion and cooperation, but the dominant forms are shaped by individualized<br />
communication and corporate interests. However, the social potential that<br />
emerges from these sites could be channelled into collective political projects.<br />
The ideological character of social networking platforms<br />
Contemporary new media discourse frequently argues that Web 2.0 – the<br />
domination of the World Wide Web by applications that support com-<br />
munity building, communication and user-generated content and that is<br />
characterized by technologies such as blogs, social networking platforms<br />
and wikis – means a democratization of society because information con-<br />
sumers could become prosumers and participate in knowledge production<br />
and discourse. So, for example, Tapscott and Williams (2006: 145) argue<br />
that Web 2.0 democratizes the media: ‘If mainstream outlets were to<br />
engage and cocreate with their audiences in a more profound way, surely<br />
this could only accentuate positive attributes such as balance, fairness, and<br />
accuracy, while making the media experience more dynamic.’ This<br />
renewed deterministic techno-optimism argues that the availability of<br />
more tools with which more people can now publish and communicate<br />
information in easier ways on the Internet implies a democratization of the<br />
media. But the degree of participation in the media not only concerns the<br />
availability of production and circulation technologies, but also how visi-<br />
ble information is, how much attention it gains, how much difference it<br />
makes, how much control of actual decision processes is enabled and the<br />
degree to which the structures of ownership, power and discourse are<br />
shaped in participatory and cooperative ways.<br />
If democracy is understood as the production of information by all that<br />
has no significant political effects and leaves dominant power structures<br />
untouched, then an ideological way of legitimating existing modes of domi-<br />
nation is present. Everybody can then voice her or his opinion on the Web,<br />
but nobody will care about it because the real decisions are still taken by the<br />
elite groups. The information produced then constitutes an endless flood of<br />
data, but not significant political voices. Web 2.0 can be and is appropriated<br />
by politicians, parties, corporations and the representative political system to<br />
give voice to the people without listening and to give people a say in politi-<br />
cal decisions. Citizens can communicate political ideas, but in their everyday<br />
life they hardly have transformative institutionalized power. Web 2.0 can<br />
result in the illusionary impression that citizens today can make a difference,<br />
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whereas in reality they cannot influence policies and live in a world that is<br />
dominated by corporate interests and corporate control. Web 2.0 under such<br />
conditions is an ideology and an expression of repressive tolerance (Marcuse,<br />
1969). The repressive tolerance of Web 2.0 is a contemporary expression of<br />
what Marcuse almost 40 years ago termed ‘totalitarian democracy’.<br />
Web 2.0 not only functions as repressive tolerance, but also as mar-<br />
keting ideology for advancing capital accumulation by selling audiences as<br />
commodities. Web 2.0 applications like social networking platforms keep<br />
individuals busy generating personal information that they display online<br />
in social networking profiles, blogs, etc. Most of these applications are built<br />
in such a way that each participant has his or her own space that he or she<br />
creates and maintains. Others are welcome as friends who are accumulated<br />
in friends lists and who comment in guest books or on blog entries, but<br />
inherently social platforms where users co-create are largely missing. Social<br />
networking platforms in their current form further advance individualiza-<br />
tion. (1) They are ideological expressions of individual creativity that cre-<br />
ate the illusion that individual expressions count in capitalism because they<br />
can be publicly displayed on the Internet (the problem is that this individ-<br />
ualized information hardly influences political decisions and power struc-<br />
tures). (2) They are based on instrumental reason because on platforms like<br />
MySpace networking becomes a performance-driven and competitive effort<br />
oriented around accumulating as many friends as possible (Fuchs, 2008).<br />
Another problematic aspect of social networking platforms is that they are<br />
huge collections of personal information that if accessed by corporations or<br />
state apparatuses give a new dimension to surveillance.<br />
Social networking has an ideological character: its networking advances<br />
capitalist individualization, accumulation and legitimization. An alternative<br />
would be platforms that allow group profiles, joint profile creation, group<br />
blogging, and that are explicitly oriented towards collective political and<br />
social goals. I suggest that what are needed primarily today are fundamen-<br />
tal transformations of the political and economic system towards participa-<br />
tory systems that are supported by new media. This today is not the case;<br />
what happens right now is the commodification and colonization of society<br />
and with it, of the media and Web 2.0 by dominant interests.<br />
Social networking platforms are an example of the simultaneity of the<br />
ideological and commodity character of media. The ideology of individu-<br />
alization drives user demand, which allows the commodification of audi-<br />
ences that yields profit. The commodification of audiences allows the<br />
further extension and sophistication of social networking platforms, which<br />
in turn attracts more users and so further advances individualization.<br />
There is a dialectic of commodification and individualization.<br />
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Conclusion<br />
The approach advanced in this article is one that argues for the need of a<br />
critical social theory that is applied to contemporary media like the<br />
Internet. The notion of critique has been understood as a Marxian form of<br />
critique and it has been argued that such an understanding is needed in<br />
order to address the societal problems of transnational information capi-<br />
talism. Critical theory should have as one of its tasks today the analysis of<br />
the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism and how they are related to<br />
the Internet (and other media and technologies); it is dialectical, realistic,<br />
materialistic and a standpoint theory that opposes all forms of domination<br />
and exploitation and argues for the advancement of a cooperative society.<br />
It aims at showing how the relationship of Internet and society is shaped<br />
by and shapes societal antagonisms, and which suppressed development<br />
potentials of society have not yet been realized.<br />
Notes<br />
1. Source: Forbes online lists, forbes.com<br />
2. My focus on Marcuse is based on the insight that he is the most dialectical crit-<br />
ical theorist (see Fuchs, 2005a, 2005b) because he conceived media and cul-<br />
ture simultaneously as ideological and as potentially liberating. Like Adorno,<br />
he stressed the critical role of art, but in contrast to Adorno, he also saw the<br />
possibility for a critique of capitalism by alternative media. Marcuse’s analysis<br />
of Hegel is a reading that stresses a subject–object dialectic that transcends<br />
deterministic interpretations of Hegel and Marx. He was one of the first<br />
authors who (in his book ‘Reason & Revolution’) stressed the importance of the<br />
Hegelian logic of essence and the role of the Marxian philosophical writings<br />
for grounding a humanist Marxism. Such an approach seems to be especially<br />
important today in a situation where a post-Soviet Marxism is needed and<br />
Marxism is struggling to throw off its Stalinist dogmatization. One aspect of<br />
the media that Marcuse (just like Horkheimer and Adorno) did not see is their<br />
direct economic role in the form of media products that are sold as commodi-<br />
ties. In this respect, Marcuse’s theory needs to be enhanced by Critical Political<br />
Economy approaches.<br />
3. Source: World Economic Outlook Online Database, April 2007 (accessed 25<br />
June 2007).<br />
4. Calculation based on capital assets, Forbes 2000, 2007 Listing of Largest<br />
Corporations, 29 March 2007).<br />
5. The social democratic position can, for example, be found in the works of Siva<br />
Vaidhyanathan (2004). He argues that there is a conflict between anarchy and oli-<br />
garchy that has been amplified by the rise of digital network technologies.<br />
Characteristics would be free access values and freedom on the one hand and prop-<br />
erty values and control on the other. As a solution, he suggests a middle-ground,<br />
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a civic republicanism that transcends ‘thick communicationism’ and ‘individual-<br />
istic liberalism’ (Vaidhyanathan, 2004: 191) and that offers easy and cheap access<br />
to culture via public institutions as well as incentives for cultural production.<br />
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Barbrook, Richard (1998) ‘The Hi-Tech Gift Economy’, First Monday 3(12); at:<br />
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87–124 in P. Golding and G. Murdock (eds) The Political Economy of the<br />
Media, Vol. 1. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar<br />
Garnham, Nicholas (2000) Emancipation, the Media, and Modernity. Oxford: Oxford<br />
University Press.<br />
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Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37(4): 471–500.<br />
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gesellschaftstheoretische Konzeptionen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.<br />
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Fischer.<br />
Kellner, Douglas (1997) ’Overcoming the Divide: Cultural Studies and Political<br />
Economy’, pp. 102–20 in M. Ferguson and P. Golding (eds) Cultural Studies<br />
in Question. London: Sage.<br />
Kellner, Douglas (2002) ‘Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture’,<br />
pp. 9–20 in G. Dines and J.M. Humuz (eds) Gender, Race and Class in Media.<br />
London: Sage.<br />
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(ed.) Medienökonomie in der Kommuniktionswissenschaft. Münster: LIT.<br />
Lessig, Lawrence (2006) Code: Version 2.0. New York: Basic Books.<br />
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pp. 1–26 in R.W. McChesney, E.M. Wood and J. Bellamy Foster (eds)<br />
Capitalism and the Information Age. New York: Monthly Review Press.<br />
McChesney, Robert W. (2000) ‘The Political Economy of Communication and the<br />
Future of the Field’, Media, Culture and Society 22(1): 109–16.<br />
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J. Schröter, G. Schwering and U. Stäheli (eds) Media Marx. Bielefeld: transcript.<br />
Marcuse, Herbert (1937) ’Philosophie und Kritische Theorie’, pp. 227–49 in<br />
Schriften, Vol. 3. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.<br />
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Jr and H. Marcuse (eds) A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.<br />
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in Marx Engels Werke, Vol. 18. Berlin: Dietz.<br />
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Economy of the Media, Vol. 1. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. (Orig. pub. 1974.)<br />
Murdock, Graham and Peter Golding (2005) ’Culture, Communications and<br />
Political Economy’, pp. 60–83 in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds) Mass<br />
Media and Society, 4th edn. New York: Hodder Arnold.<br />
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Sandoval, Marisol (2008) ‘Alternative (Online-) Medien in kritischen<br />
Gesellschaftstheorien’, master’s thesis, University of Salzburg.<br />
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Works. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (Orig. pub. 1981.)<br />
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F U C H S : I C T S A N D S O C I E T Y<br />
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Downloaded fromSolomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-68226203838440604782010-01-26T20:03:00.001-08:002010-01-26T20:03:38.947-08:00marxist archaeology for Suzie. Xxx><br>>>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-47583055771064239072009-12-10T08:23:00.001-08:002009-12-10T08:23:31.752-08:00Good use of video on the UpTake<div><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Hello, hello, UpTakers! The team is settled in Copenhagen, and I wanted to pass along the many ways you can follow our coverage of the <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Funfccc.int%2F2860.php" target="_blank">UN Climate Change Conference</a>, our first international news coverage. The conference lasts until December 18th, and we'll be there, cameras in hand, for the entire thing. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Livestreams</strong><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;">From about 2 AM CST - 12:30 PM CST, we're live-streaming the sessions inside the Bella Center on our <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theuptake.org" target="_blank">front page</a>. We'll alert you on our <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Ftheuptake" target="_blank">Twitter account</a> when a session is live, or you can check the badges below our video on the front page. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Many sessions run simultaneously, so you can switch channels on our video player by clicking Copenhagen 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the right-hand side of the player. After the sessions are over for the day, we'll replay the entire day on the front page.<br />
<br />
<strong>Fancy, produced video<br />
</strong><br />
We're also publishing edited pieces throughout the day. Examples: we talk with Naomi Klein of The Nation about the <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fthe-uptake.groups.theuptake.org%2Fen%2FvideogalleryView%2Fid%2F2616%2F" target="_blank">concept of hope</a>, and what it means for this conference. Watch a <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fthe-uptake.groups.theuptake.org%2Fen%2FvideogalleryView%2Fid%2F2613%2F" target="_blank">musical demonstration</a> outside of The Bella Center before Day One. And should Africa be <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fthe-uptake.groups.theuptake.org%2Fen%2FvideogalleryView%2Fid%2F2612%2F" target="_blank">represented</a> by Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenaw at the conference?<br />
<br />
<strong>Read our tweets</strong><br />
<br />
Our team is twittering furiously throughout the day. Check our <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fis.gd%2F5f3Pz" target="_blank">live blog</a> for all the tweets in one place, or add them individually: <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fchuckumentary" target="_blank">Chuck</a>, <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fjasonbarnett" target="_blank">Jason</a>, <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fmmcintee" target="_blank">Mike</a>, <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fjacobrwheeler" target="_blank">Jacob</a>. (Oh, say hi to Jacob Wheeler, journalist from Chicago who's helping us out in Copenhagen.) <br />
<br />
<strong>A gaggle of videos and links (kind of like a pride of lions)</strong><br />
<br />
We're also collecting video on the conference from all over the web <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fcopenhagenclimate.mirocommunity.org%2F" target="_blank">here</a>, and you can read daily link round-ups from our interns, Alicia and Kelly, <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Ftheuptake.org%2Fen%2Findex%2Fblog%2F" target="_blank">here</a>. (Say hi to Alicia and Kelly, everyone.)<br />
<br />
<strong>Embed us! Steal our RSS!</strong><br />
<br />
If you'd like to embed our livestream player, go to our <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theuptake.org" target="_blank">front page</a> and click on the Embed button at the bottom of the video player. That'll bring up the code. Click on the channels on the right to bring up that channel's embed code.<br />
<br />
If you'd like an RSS feed of our videos, take our Blip RSS <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fuptake.blip.tv%2Frss" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>We left our heart in Minnesota</strong><br />
<br />
We don't miss the snow, but we're not ignoring you, Minnesota. Check our <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitter.com%2Fuptakemn" target="_blank">Minnesota Twitter account</a> for our local live-streaming schedule, and for local videos. Our citizen journalist supreme, Craig Stellmacher, shot this great <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=48112374&msgid=601509&act=T19N&c=311484&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fthe-uptake.groups.theuptake.org%2Fen%2FvideogalleryView%2Fid%2F2614%2F" target="_blank">video</a> of Sarah Palin and her fans at the Mall America.<br />
<br />
As always, if you have questions, or want to say hi to the team, you can write us at <a href="mailto:info@theuptake.org" target="_blank">info@theuptake.org</a>.<br />
<br />
Tak! (And thanks for watching.)<br />
<br />
The UpTake<br />
<a href="http://www.theuptake.org/" target="_blank">http://www.theuptake.org</a></span> <br />
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</tbody></table>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-23821532978922675602009-11-16T08:49:00.000-08:002009-11-16T08:50:00.067-08:00Clare, Kevin & Elly's flying bday party circus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AeHHXqQpajY/SwGCOxFTYBI/AAAAAAAAAz0/SMcvgozMD5s/s1600/n174572630517_4162.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AeHHXqQpajY/SwGCOxFTYBI/AAAAAAAAAz0/SMcvgozMD5s/s320/n174572630517_4162.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>What can we say? Anyone up for a spot of Pythonesque flibbertygibbits?<br />
<br />
Since we have this wonderful space we want to bring together the best of a bad bunch and celebrate our madness with you.<br />
<br />
Fancy dress absolutely essential: Monty python your little socks off. Prizes for the crackerest costumes and free drinks for the most drunk person!<br />
<br />
Date: November 26th<br />
Time: from 7pm - 12am<br />
Venue: Resistance Gallery, Poyser St, London, E2 http://tinyurl.com/resistancegallerymap<br />
<br />
<br />
With Dj's:<br />
<br />
Clare Solomon<br />
Kevin Deane <br />
Elly Badcock<br />
<br />
and many more...<br />
<br />
Film showings of Life of Brian top of the bill, Flying Circus playing on the mezzanine from 7pm<br />
<br />
This is a strictly No Politics Party: what other sort would we want?!<br />
<br />
"Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who."<br />
<br />
On the night we want to have art, visuals and plenty of interactiveness so feel free to contribute anything to the evening.<br />
<br />
For those of you who havent been to this venue before (dubbed the avante gard space of our time by the Metro!) you are in for a treat. Normally the space for, as it says on the tin, all sorts of resistance stuff our birthday party will definitely be in spirit of the venues aims.<br />
<br />
Anyway, hope you can come. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately due to space constraints we may have to do a sort of door policy so please indicate if you are or maybe coming and then change as and when you know that you are more definite (make sense?)<br />
<br />
Ciao 4 now and, in the good words of our mate Monty,Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-2169988185015334082009-08-22T18:20:00.001-07:002009-08-22T18:22:58.408-07:00Fire-fighting in Cyber space: An exploration of Internet Use for mobilisation and democratic accountabilityDownload the original attachment<br />Fire-fighting in Cyber space: An exploration of Internet Use for mobilisation and democratic accountability<br /><br /> <br /> <br />John Hogan, Reader in Industrial Relations, University of Hertfordshire, UK (J.1.Hogan@herts.ac.uk) <br /><br />Andreja Zivkovic, Lecturer in HRM, University of Hertfordshire, UK (a.zivkovic@herts.ac.uk) <br /> <br /><br />Abstract<br /><br />This paper examines the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) by Firefighters in the UK to generate solidarity and maintain collectivism. This is pursued through the examination of how ICTs were utilised in the conduct of the national industrial dispute that raged within Britain’s fire service between 2002 and 2003. It seeks to conceptualise this rich experience of cyber-organisation through the use of the analytical template of distributed discourse. From this perspective ICT has profound implications for collective deliberation and organisation, in that it facilitates communication to occur rapidly, at low and distributed cost; attenuating the time-space poverty of participants by allowing for asynchronous communicative exchanges and by bringing together those separated by distance. Flows of information may now escape institutional boundaries as never before. The communicative possibilities are for more extensive interaction, greater density of communication, sharper visibility and higher levels of transparency.<br /><br />Through the examination of official and unofficial firefighters web sites, combined with virtual and real time in-depth interviews with key actors, this paper examines the specific domain of union governance, and suggests that tendencies towards oligarchy (sustained by control over the flow of information, access to superior knowledge, skill in the art of politics and a membership diverted by the pulls of work, family and leisure) are challenged by the distributed discourse that lies at the heart of organizing in the information age. In particular, we draw out the possibilities for greater equality of knowledge, distributed control over the means of communication, the enhanced communicative skills of more ordinary union members and a reconfiguration of the time-space dimension of communicative practice. Finally, the paper explores the role that distributed forms of communication and organisation can play in trade union renewal, particularly in promoting participatory democracy and overcoming tendencies to bureaucratic inertia in trade unions. <br /> <br /><br />Paper presented at Trade Unions in the Information Age workshop, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Lancaster, June 28th-29th, 2006<br /><br />Introduction<br /><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language….In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue. <br />Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” <br /> <br />There is little doubt that we are living through a period of profound transformation, not least when confronted with the new possibilities unleashed by the seemingly permanent revolution in the world of information communication technology. The revolution in communicative possibilities is highly significant for trade union organisation and mobilisation. It is our contention that the space created for “the spirit of the new language”, distributed discourse, might well be opportune for a movement seemingly locked in the embrace of failure. However, there are compelling reasons to conclude that adaptation to the language and logics of the “Information Age” is labouring under the unbearable weight of tradition, most notably the obsession of centres of power to remain within the paradigm of the “native tongue” of control. In fact, it is rather telling that when a major conference was hosted by the TUC to discuss the implications of the internet in May 2001, one of the central calls was for the establishment of an “Internet Czar” to codify legitimacy and oversee union activity and presence on the internet. <br /><br />Between the autumn of 2002 and the summer of 2003, a bitter national industrial dispute raged within Britain’s fire service. Fire fighters under the leadership of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) mounted an ambitious campaign for a substantial increase in wages. Events over the period included widespread demonstrations, a large number of meetings between the FBU and National Employers, high profile government-sponsored reports, moves to change the law governing the service, deep divisions between the labour and trade union leaderships, and most dramatically, a series of national strikes, all of which received wide spread media coverage. The dispute ended on June 12th 2003, when a delegate conference ratified the recommendation of the FBU leadership to accept a highly controversial, and for a substantial minority unsatisfactory, settlement, one that may yet unravel and ignite further conflict. It is perhaps ironic that people at times accused of embodying the spirit of “old” labour should pursue their struggles into cyber-space. But that is precisely what they did and continue to do.<br /><br />The web campaigns associated with the Fire Fighters’ Dispute stand as a clear example of the way in which trade unionist in Britain, from every level, have been making increasing use of new ICTs (information communication technologies), especially the internet, within their union-related activities. This is a significant change. In 1999 we argued (Hogan and Grieco, 1999) that the level of activity had been low and reflection slow to develop. Much has changed. There has been a notable development of interest within academic circles and within official trade unionism, along with increased union activity in cyberspace. Within this paper we provide a brief summary of these developments. Here we indicate that while there consideration of the ways in which internet use might complement and change the conduct of existing trade union activities (servicing, organising and mobilising), there is little understanding of the ways in which democratic structures and processes of trade unionism might be challenged. To develop our understanding, it is important to move outside of the realm of national official union presence on the internet, to incorporate an appreciation of the contributions of local, unofficial and individual activists. Our contention is that it is the lay member web sites which illustrate the impact of the internet on processes of union democracy, voicing of lay members, and the ways in which the who, the what and the where of trade union activism are changed by the capabilities of new ICTs. Hence, we return to the Fire Fighters’ Dispute to indicate how its associated web activity illustrates some of these key themes.<br /><br />Surveying the Terrain<br /><br />Debates about the place of new ICTs and their use by unions have formed part of the most recent segments of the ‘union renewal debate’ concerned with how unions might reinvigorate membership numbers, collective bargaining coverage and gain a renewed organisational, political and societal role after twenty five years of derision. Views that trade unions must engage with new technology or die are common: “what does seem certain is that unions that do not get to grips with the digital world will atrophy” (IRS, 2001; Lee, 1997; Diamond and Freeman, 2002). Space constraints only permit a very brief overview here. The main features of the internet, which are seen as having the potential to affect conventional modes of trade union activity involve: the ability to access information on a 24 hour basis, the ability to transcend the need for physical presence, the speed of communication, the extended reach of communication (particularly across dispersed populations), and relatively low cost..<br /><br />Optimism has been derived from the observation of the ways in which the increased information provision and dissemination potential of the internet can improve the services that are provided to members, including contact with representatives, advice and guidance, and education provision (Diamond and Freeman, 2002; Greene et al, 2000; Greene et al, 2003; Kirton and Greene, 2002; Greene and Kirton, 2003). Furthermore, the internet is seen as an alternative tool of organising new segments of potential membership, particularly younger workers (Greene, 2001). In addition, web sites can provide mechanisms to aid activists and encourage participation of more of the membership, particularly those currently under-represented (Greene and Kirton, 2003). This fits in with the general diffusion of an ‘organising culture’ within the British trade union movement, moving away from the servicing of existing members (Heery et al, 2000; Gall, 2003). The medium of the internet has also been identified as a means to strengthen international labour co-operation and solidarity (Bailey, 2000; Lee 1997; Carter et al, 2003), while, in labour disputes specifically the internet is seen as providing a vital networking and campaigning tool, leading to the enhanced maintenance of solidarity across dispersed membership bases and facilitating the co-ordination of conventional physical pickets and demonstrations (Pliskin et al , 1997; Carter et al, 2003; Greene and Kirton, 2003)<br /><br />The issue of union democracy has also been the subject of debate, and one of our own areas of particular interest. We have argued in particular that internet and email communication hold with them the potential to facilitate processes of ‘distributed discourse’. In a trade union context, this involves greater equalities of knowledge to a larger number of people across a wider area, offering enhanced spaces for voicing of interest and dissent. Processes of distributed discourse through internet communication mean that knowledge need no longer to be subject to centralist iron laws of oligarchic formation, where the line is dictated from a hierarchical centre. Part of this is the way in which the internet provides mechanisms whereby voices which may be silenced or marginalised within official channels can be heard, and whereby ordinary members are able to impose transparency on their elected officials and representatives, contributing to increased accountability (Hogan and Grieco, 1999; Hogan and Greene, 2002; Greene et al, 2003; Carter et al, 2003). <br />Unions Online? <br />Moving on from optimism of potential, scepticism makes an appearance when the conservative nature of internet use by trade unions in Britain is observed. Admittedly, initial research indicates that use of ICTs is widespread. (Fiorito, 2001; Diamond and Freeman, 2002). In addition, most of the larger TUC affiliated unions now have a significant web presence, (Ward and Lusoli, 2002). However, it is clear that unions have not been as innovative as they could have been. Indeed, Ward and Lusoli see them as ‘dinosaurs in cyber-space’. Unions appear mostly concerned with basic information provision rather than with mechanisms to facilitate interactive discussion. Some (primarily very small ones) still without a web presence, while visibility for local branches is very limited (Ward and Lusoli, 2002) A survey by Poptel also supports views that unions are fairly conservative in their aims; for example, while respondents ranked most potential uses of the internet highly, they were much more equivocal about innovations such as on-line voting. Overall, there is still a strong preference for trade union participation of the face-to-face, physical form, confirmed by other evidence in the education sphere (Kirton and Greene, 2002). In addition, it is clear that there is some resistance to the notion of distributed discourse. In fact, when the LSE staged a conference on Unions and the Internet in 2001, hosted and co-organised by the TUC, at the centre of discussion was the proposal that Britain’s unions need an ‘Internet Czar’, to oversee the web presence and web activities of the UK trade union movement.<br /><br />In the end, it should be noted that the most persuasive commentaries on unions and the internet recognise that ICTs are not a panacea for the ills of the trade union movement (Greene and Kirton, 2003; Greene et al, 2001; IRS, 2001). Nevertheless, it is also clear, that much of the research and commentary, as well as TUC and union policy suffer from an almost exclusive focus on official and nationally-based union websites, where arguably the most resistance to distributed discourse may be found. We have argued elsewhere (Hogan and Greene, 2002; Greene and Hogan, 2001) that the examples of the most innovative use of the internet, which offer the greatest challenges to conventional trade union activities are to be found outside of official structures, within lay or ordinary member locations. This is where we turn to next in looking at the Fire Fighters’ Dispute. <br /><br />Fire Fighting in Cyber Space <br /> <br /><br />As the fire fighters’ pay campaign unfolded, one FBU union activist, Simon Hickman, established an unofficial web site in the June of 2002, the 30k FirePay.co.uk site (http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/). Given space limitations, it is impossible to convey its full extent and depth. However, there are a number of features that are particularly noteworthy. The site is a very rich information resource, containing electronic archive and news materials, links to notices of rallies and meetings, news of strike schedules, and directed links to the facility to lobby MPs electronically and to view the official strike bulletins on the official/national FBU site. There is a search engine, invitations to contact the site and facilities to directly communicate the address of the web site to friends. The links to external sites is limited to those dealing specifically with the dispute. Following an attack on the site in November 2002, Mr Hickman was compelled to move to a dedicated server, a cost that viewers are invited to contribute to, made possible by amongst other things an online electronic debit payment facility. Perhaps most interesting of all is the space made to interact and discuss the campaign and other matters of concern in chat rooms and forums. The registration process to enter discussion is quick and straightforward, interactions are moderated and the product of debate is openly available for view in separate interest groups. <br /><br />There is no doubt that the 30k site has been seen as important. By the end of 2002, the site came third in an international poll of the best labour movement websites (official or unofficial) for the year (http://www.labourstart.org/lwsoty/) and has generated a staggering volume of visits and participation. While space constraints prevent a comprehensive assessment, there are a number of key observations that can be made. <br /><br />Multi-Voicing and Visibility <br /><br />Between August 19th 2002, when the site began to monitor and record site visits, and July 8th 2003, the site was visited 487,418 times, with the viewing of 2,959,367 pages, while there were nearly 5,000 visitors registered as members of the chat rooms and forums, who combined to contribute to the posting of over 126,000 messages. Both the 30k site and the FBU official site deploy the same software for generating statistics about visits, which allows easy comparisons to be made. On the available evidence, we can see that the unofficial site1 clearly outperforms the official site2. The average number of visits per day at the time of inspection, July 8th 2003, stood at 1,168 for the official site and 1,875 for the unofficial site, average visit length was 1 minute 37 seconds for the former and 9 minutes 20 seconds for the latter, in terms of the average number of pages viewed per day, the official site scored 1,538 while the unofficial site registered 9,744. Thus, while mindful of the perils of relying upon polls as well as raw statistical data, such evidence suggests that the 30k site did achieve a significant level of visibility for the cause, while providing a communicative space for the multiplication of voices in a manner that could not be achieved in real time and space. Furthermore, the evidence suggests support for our contention that the relatively low cost and distributed character of the technology provides ready means for actors outside of official structures and with far fewer resources to access the means of developing and transmitting information, to such good effect that they can even out perform established institutions. <br /><br />Skill Development <br />The power provided to the non-expert is illustrated when one profiles the web master of the 30k site. Hickman is not a computer professional. He is a fire fighter and an FBU station representative. As he explains,<br /><br />“The initial set-up took a couple of days if that. I run a few personal sites so I had the hang of it really. http://www.salfordfire.co.uk/ was the first one I set up and that site has changed allot since that was started in '98 but has given me the tools to run this site. Day to day running of the site….Normally a couple of hours updating it daily, that's searching for news and any other ideas that have been passed to me.<br /><br />The time consuming part is the forum. I have 5 people helping me moderate it...” (correspondence with authors) <br /><br />A number of key issues are suggested here. The task and cost of managing the site are distributed, from the many who supply information to the few others who share in the task of moderating remotely. That said, cyberspace does not exist as a ‘virtual’ paradise, free from the burdens, ties and demands of everyday life, for as Hickman has also pointed out, his activities have placed upon his domestic space and time considerable pressures, indicating that internet communication still takes considerable time to do properly. However, there is no doubt that the costs of matching the product of his efforts through conventional communicative means would have been prohibitive. <br /><br />While it is evident that Hickman developed his skills over time through practice on the web, it is also the case that his site is a space in which skills are developed. Beyond the development of understandings that might come from debate, the site also allows individuals to share ideas about how to systematically analyse documents and to draft responses and to then share the products of their efforts with other visitors. For instance, in one stream of discussion a contributor posted their thoughts on the White paper put forward by the government to modernise the fire service, asking for critical comments so that the quality of response might be improved. Another stream included the posting of a letter that one activist had published in his local newspaper, outlining the arguments in support of the pay claim, an intervention that was greeted favourably by others, many of whom committed themselves to use it as a template for their own letter writing efforts. These examples illustrate our argument that virtual asynchronous meeting has the advantage of allowing for communicative skills to be developed and confidence to be built through rehearsal in safe spaces (Greene et al, 2003). <br /> <br /> <br /><br />Transparency, Performance Auditing and Accountability <br /><br />The 30k site also illustrates our arguments about the implications of internet communication for the enforcement of transparency, performance auditing and accountability. Many contributors to the site commented on what they perceived to be inadequacies in the democratic credentials of the FBU and its leadership: <br />“…the only truly democratic point of this dispute was the initial strike ballot. Since then democracy has been placed back on the shelf where this union has kept it for many years. This site ….is the only democratic outlet left to us. Meetings are re arranged or called at short notice, motions are ruled out of order by archaic rules intended to stifle debate, huge branches are cancelled out by groups of 5 or 6 who's branches carry equal weight. <br /><br />Democracy also works on the majority making an informed descision based on all the facts and they haven't exactly been forthcoming have they? (posted at 21:39 on 5/6/03). http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=13978 <br />When the FBU leadership attempted to persuade the union membership that they should settle, the site became a forum in which the offers were discussed Amid accusations that the centre was attempting to restrict the flow of information between branches to prevent a momentum of opposition developing, some of the contributors to the 30k site used the space to organise opposition, part of which involved exchanging information about how the campaign to reject the proposals was developing in different locations. The site also became a forum for complaint about the voting methods used to conclude the dispute http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=14116. Since the conclusion of the pay campaign, the site has carried a number of messages calling for the resignation of the General Secretary and other leaders. Here readers are reminded of the transformation of the positions adopted over time, allowing the easy comparison of statements of defiant confidence early in the dispute with the “resignation to realism” at the close. Furthermore, amid allegations that the union leadership was so wary of criticism that it was attempting to postpone the 2003 annual conference, the 30k site became a place where activists from different branches and regions could post the result of the resolutions passed in their localities calling for the conference to take place, while it was noted that such information would be useful to collate for the purpose of exposing the extent to which the leadership of the union were prepared or not to accommodate the wishes of the membership (see:http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=15215). <br /><br />Union Democracy, Disintegration and Distributed Discourse? <br /><br />In noting the critical voices released on the 30k site, one might be left with the impression that the FBU nationally was completely unwilling to entertain the possibility of constructing such an open forum. However, interviews with an FBU official reveal that such an experiment did take place at the beginning of the dispute. An open forum for the posting of messages was made available and the site was inundated with communications, but the decision was made within two days to close the space, for while a very high proportion of the postings were supportive of the pay claim, there were a significant minority of emotive and critical remarks from “army wives”, as well as abusive and vulgar interventions. From then on, messages were solicited, but before being posted they would be checked to see if they were “appropriate”. The rationale provided was that the union was involved in a high profile dispute, there was intense and hostile media attention and that to make the web site a host for the defamatory and critical could only damage the reputation of the fire fighters and their organisation. Commenting on the 30k site, the observation was made that the site had been “loyal” at the beginning of the dispute, but that it had lost its value as it degenerated with postings abusive and insulting to the leadership, while revealing an unwillingness to accept the majority democratic decision to accept the final settlement. <br /><br />There are plenty of notices on the 30k site that give credence to the above position. However, while it is practically impossible to know how far the practice of censorship extends, an inspection of content does reveal a remarkably open dialogue, with postings from opponents of the strike, advocates of the final settlement (see for example: http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=9637), as well as the critical of leadership performance. It is clear that sharp divisions can surface when debate reigns relatively unconstrained, but should this be regarded as necessarily damaging to a union and if so, more than the hidden resentment that may lie undetected and therefore all the more difficult to redress when silence prevails? While the FBU site concentrated mainly on image management, the unofficial site provided this space. What is more, every branch and region of the FBU that has a web site maintains a link to the 30k site, emphasising the point that cognitive policing on the internet can be readily subverted as centres of control are by-passed. In any case, there are different and at times more effective ways of maintaining unity. Processing individual dilemmas and doubts through collective communicative spaces, where participants have the time to consider their responses and suggestions may take the raw emotion out of debate. This is shown on the 30k site in the discussions around whether or not it is worth retaining union membership following the bitter disappointment at the perceived failings of the FBU’s leadership (http://www.30kfirepay2.co.uk/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=14825). What is more, although it would be naïve to suggest that endless debate is a worthwhile end in itself, we would suggest that to make a virtue out of repression, whether in the name of collective discipline or for the sake of effective marketing, necessarily closes off openness to the expansive imagination and creativity that are seen as so lacking, yet necessary for renewal (Hyman, 1999) <br />Conclusions <br />While there is no doubt that the 30k site is regarded as important by many of those who have and continue to participate within its realm, success or otherwise is difficult to measure with precision, while the contours of future development and impact are yet to be seen. However, as a lived and living experience it provides a number of significant lessons: the internet is an increasingly important space for the conduct of union-related activities; its low and distributed cost of operation makes it a more accessible space within which visibility can be gained and for communication skills to be nurtured and developed; and, by providing space outside of institutional restraints, it can be exploited in more innovative and interactive ways, to highlight and perhaps attenuate the deficiencies of official union web presence and communicative practices. Yet, Unions are caught in a dilemma; on the one hand, between engaging with a communicative form that is popular and in many ways expansive and on the other, with the traditions of “collective responsibility”, combined with maintaining unity in the face of adversity. How this is to be resolved, is an open question. We suggest that it is fruitful to begin with reflection upon the emerging reality that is distributed discourse and the proposition that,<br /><br />“Sterility, banality, orthodoxy-that is what ensues when debate is stifled in the name of order…It is what happens when power overwhelms imagination-especially the imagination of those out with power, whose imagination could rewrite history.” (Clegg, 2002) <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /><br />References <br />Bailey, C. (2000), The Labour movement and the internet, Asia labour Update, Issue 34, March-May <br /><br />Carter, C., Clegg, S., Hogan, J. and Kornberger, M. (2003), The Polyphonic Spree: The Case of the Liverpool Dockers, Industrial Relations Journal, 34:4<br /><br />Clegg, S. R. (2002), Why Distributed Discourse Matters, in Holmes, L. et al.(eds.) Organising in the Information Age: Distributed technology, distributed leadership, distributed identity, distributed discourse, Ashgate.<br /><br />Diamond. W. and Freeman, R. (2002) 'Will unionism prosper in cyberspace? The promise of the internet for employee organisation', British Journal of industrial Relations, 40: 3, 569-596.<br /><br />Fiorito, J. Jarley, P. and Delaney, J.T (2003) Information technology, US union organizing and union effectiveness’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 40: 4, pp 627-658.<br /><br />Gall G. (ed) (2003) Union Organising: Campaigning for trade union recognition, London: Routledge<br /><br />Greene A.M. (2001) 'Unions and the Internet: Prospects for Renewal?', European Industrial Relations Observatory, October, http://www.eiro.eurofound.ie/2001/10/Feature/UK0110108F.html<br /><br />Greene, A. M. and Hogan, J. (2001), Oligarchic Violence in Trade Unions: Challenges in Cyber-Space, Paper presented to the 19th Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism, June 30-July 4, 2001, Dublin.<br /><br />Greene, A. M. and Kirton G. (2003) ‘Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: Mobilising women activists' Industrial Relations Journal, 34/4.<br /><br />Greene, A. M., Hogan, J. and Grieco, M. (2000), ‘E-Collectivism: Emergent Opportunities for Renewal’, in B. Stanford-Smith and P. K. Kidd (eds.), E-Business: Key Applications, Processes and Technologies, Omsha: IOS Press, 845-851.<br /><br />Greene, A.M., Hogan, J. and Grieco, M. (2003) ‘COMMENTARY: E-collectivism and distributed discourse: Opportunities for trade union democracy’ Industrial Relations Journal, 34/4.<br /><br />Heery, E. (2003) Trade Unions and Industrial Relations pp278-304<br /><br />Hogan J. and Greene, A.M, (2002) 'E-collectivism: On-line action and on-line mobilisation' in Holmes, L. and Grieco, M. (eds.) Organising in the Information Age: Distributed Technology, Distributed Action, Distributed Identity, Distributed Discourse, Ashgate: Gower<br /><br />Hogan, J. and Grieco, M. (1999) ‘Trade unions on line: technology, transparency and bargaining power’, Paper presented at a Workshop on Cyber Ontology at the University of North London, October, 1999.<br /><br />Hyman, R. (1999). Imagined Solidarities: Can Trade Unions Resist Globalisation?, in Peter Leisink (ed), Globalisation and Labour Relations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Pp. 94-115.<br /><br />IRS (2001), 'Going digital: A lifeline for trade unions?' IRS Employment Trends, 730.<br /><br />Kirton G. and Greene, A. M, (2002) ‘New Directions in Managing Women’s Trade Union Careers:Online Learning’, Women in Management Review, 17:3/4, 171-179.<br /><br />Lee, E. (1997), The Labour movement and the Internet: the new internationalism, Pluto Press: London<br /><br />Pliskin N., Romm, C. T., and Markey, R. (1997), ‘E-mail as a weapon in an industrial dispute’, New technology, Work and Employment, 12: 1, 3-12.<br /><br />Ward, S. and Lusoli, W (2002) ‘Dinosaurs in cyberspace? British trade unions and the internet’, paper presented at the Political Studies association Annual Conference, University of Aberdeen, 4-7 April.Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-41330425019443625182009-06-26T04:07:00.000-07:002009-06-26T04:09:08.293-07:00Free SOAS 9: 4 events/protests. 1st one tmrw<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px; "><span style="font-size: 12px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Sorry for such a long email. Our google group is not working for some reason (please call me if you have any technical knowledge on this)</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Please distribute this message widely.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>1) Call for action at Yarlswood tmrw, Saturday 27th</b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>2) Lobby Home Office on Tuesday 30th</b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>3) Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign Wednesday 1st July</b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>4) SOAS Occupiers host lunchtime filmshowing and food at Marxism, 4th July</b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">=============================</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-size: large; "><b>Let them stay..<br /></b></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="font-size: large; "><b>Our cleaners are not criminals! </b></span><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Staff and students at SOAS are calling for Alan Johnson, Secretary of State<br />for the Home Office, to grant leave to remain with permission to work for<br />Marina Silva and Rosa dePerez, two of the SOAS cleaners picked up in a<br />brutal immigration raid on 12th June. Marina, who is 63 and has applied for<br />asylum, following het brutal honour killing of her husband and threats to<br />her own life, and Rosa, who has four children to support in Nicaragua,<br />remain in detention following the raid. Their colleagues, including six<br />months pregnant Luzia, were deported within 48 hours of the raid.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Cleaners at SOAS had demanded and organised for dignity at work with many<br />joining a union. They had succeeded in winning union recognition from the<br />privatised cleaning firm ISS and raising their pay to the London Living<br />Wage—higher than other colleges in the area. It is of grave concern that the<br />raid, organised by ISS, took place shortly after this campaign and on the<br />very day on which UNISON was due to protest in support of an activist who<br />had played a leading role in organising the cleaners at SOAS.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Please support our campaign:<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">*Lobby the Home Office, Tuesday 30th June, 5.30-6.30pm*<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2 marsham st, millbank, Sw1<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">*Sign the letter requesting leave to remain is granted to Marina and Rosa*<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/2009/06/send-this-letter-to-home-office-now.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">http://freesoascleaners.<wbr>blogspot.com/2009/06/send-<wbr>this-letter-to-home-office-<wbr>now.html</a></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">For more information go to: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139); ">http://freesoascleaners.<wbr>blogspot.com/</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">*Stop the Deportation of SOAS University Cleaners!*<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">*Supported by SOAS UNISON and UCU*<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--<br />In solidarity<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a rel="nofollow" href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139); ">http://freesoascleaners.<wbr>blogspot.com</a><br />Email freesoasclean<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?_done=/group/freesoascleaners/browse_frm/thread/8093c7d842f09281%3F&msg=ae5c693444bf0419" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">...</a>@<a href="http://googlemail.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">googlemail.<wbr>com</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Please distribute widely<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "></p><table width="350" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="font-size: inherit; "><tbody><tr><td align="center" width="140" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/freesoascleaners/attach/ae5c693444bf0419/let+them+stay.png?part=4&view=1" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); "><img src="http://groups.google.com/group/freesoascleaners/attach/ae5c693444bf0419/let+them+stay.png?part=4&thumb=1" style="border-top-width: 2px; border-right-width: 2px; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-left-width: 2px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-bottom-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; " /></a></td><td style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; "> </td><td valign="center" align="left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><b>let them stay.png</b><br />238K <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/freesoascleaners/attach/ae5c693444bf0419/let+them+stay.png?part=4&view=1" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">Vi</a>ew</td></tr></tbody></table></span><br /><div>==========================</div><div><span style="font-size: 12px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>Call to action in solidarity with detainees at Yarl's Wood detention centre: </b><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* JUSTICE FOR THE SOAS 9<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* VICTORY TO THE HUNGER STRIKERS!<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Two weeks after nine cleaners at SOAS were taken into<br />detention, take action for justice for the SOAS 9 and in solidarity with<br />detainees in Yarls' Wood on hunger strike for demand including: freeing<br />children who are detained, adequate access to health care, quality food and<br />real privacy. Hundreds of people in Yarls Wood are being denied the medical<br />care they need including a woman with epilepsy and a 5 months' pregnant woman<br />in the families' section. Families have been on hunger strike for over a week<br />now and we need to show them our support!<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> <br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Forward this message widely>>>>>><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">SAT 27 JUNE - DAY OF ACTION IN SUPPORT OF DETAINED<br />MIGRANTS </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Morning – Action to let<br />the Yarl’s Wood detainees know that we stand with them in opposing the<br />injustice of immigration controls, the imprisonment of innocent people and the<br />denial of basic access to healthcare. Call 07952 254487 for more information. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1pm – March and speak out against cuts in ESOL Teaching <br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Meet Bethnal Green Gardens (Next to Bethnal Green<br />Tube) for march with UCU (University and College Union) and Tower Hamlets<br />College students and staff, over cuts in Jobs primarily in ESOL (English for<br />Speakers of Other Languages). March to Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel, for<br />speakers and rally. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">4.30 pm – Picket the Home Office's Communications<br />House 210 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BR (1 minute from<br />Old Street tube, 205 bus goes straight from Whitechapel)<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Speak out and rally including speakers from migrant<br />workers struggles and Yarl’s Wood.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The building looks anonymous but immigration reporting<br />centres are places of fear for asylum seekers, who have to report to them<br />monthly, weekly or even several times a week. They are places of<br />detention and several SOAS Cleaners were held here on the day they were<br />arrested. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> TAKE ACTION NOW - Send messages of solidarity for </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the hunger strikers to: londoncoalitionaginstpove<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?_done=/group/freesoascleaners/browse_frm/thread/b7c391e74b785b6a%3F&msg=02639d56281b7af0" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">...</a>@<a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">g<wbr>mail.com</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Contact SERCO (who run Yarl’s Wood) and demand that<br />the strikers’ demands are met - 01344 386300 - homeaffa<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?_done=/group/freesoascleaners/browse_frm/thread/b7c391e74b785b6a%3F&msg=02639d56281b7af0" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">...</a>@<a href="http://serco.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">serco.com</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Contact Yarl’s Wood and demand that the strikers<br />demands are met: The duty manager01234 821517; The switchboard is 01234 821000;<br />Health'care' 01234 821147<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Forward news about the SOAS 9 and the hunger strike<br />as well as this call-out to any email lists you are on or press contacts you<br />have<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Take action to demand exceptional leave to remain </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">for the SOAS 9: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/2009/06/send-this-letter-to-home-office-now.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139); ">http://freesoascleaners.<wbr>blogspot.com/2009/06/send-<wbr>this-letter-to-home</a>-office-not.html<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* If you can donate towards credit for detainees’<br />mobiles or travel costs for solidarity visits, email londoncoalitionagainstpove<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?_done=/group/freesoascleaners/browse_frm/thread/b7c391e74b785b6a%3F&msg=02639d56281b7af0" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">...</a>@<a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); "><wbr>gmail.com</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> <br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">More information on SOAS 9: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139); ">http://freesoascleaners.<wbr>blogspot.com/</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">A detainee involved in the hunger strike's story:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://londonmigrantworkers.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">http://<wbr>londonmigrantworkers.<wbr>wordpress.com/</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">More information on the hunger strike: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.caic.org.uk/node/43" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">http://www.caic.org.<wbr>uk/node/43</a> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">==============================<wbr>==============</p></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12px; "><div><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear Bloomsbury living wage supporters,<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b>The Bloomsbury Living Wage campaign will meet at <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">1pm Wednesday, the 1st of July, in the Institute of Education canteen.</span></b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "> </span></b></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">All are welcome! Please bring a friend and come with practical ideas to discuss, possibly including:<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* supporting the promising living wage campaign happening within the<br />Institute of Education, itself.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* building support for Rosa de Perez and Marina Silva, two of the "SOAS 9"<br />currently detained at Yarlswood removal centre in Bedford who were arrested<br />Friday the 12th of June as part of a strategy to undermine SOAS cleaners'<br />struggle for better pay and conditions.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Jesse Oldershaw<br />07917122929<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Background:<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The Bloomsbury Living Wage campaign is the network of living wage campaigns<br />at UCL, SOAS, Birkbeck, Institute of Education, London School of Hygiene and<br />Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Senate House. It seeks the better pay and<br />conditions for low-paid contract workers across the Bloomsbury (WC1) area,<br />in line with the GLA's London Living Wage. The London Living Wage (LLW)<br />takes into account London's high cost of living. It was increased in May<br />2009 to £7.60/hour - 25% higher than national minimum wage. The LLW package<br />also includes fair sick pay and holiday pay and respect for trade union<br />rights. There have so far been successful living wage campaigns at SOAS,<br />Birkbeck and LSHTM.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Email livingw<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?_done=/group/freesoascleaners/browse_frm/thread/3569b9368388ed05%3F&msg=7776ab58df9836d3" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">...</a>@<a href="http://unions.bbk.ac.uk/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">unions.bbk.ac.uk</a> for more information and join the Facebook<br />group at<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=64798072148" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr>group.php?gid=64798072148</a><br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-<br /></p><div>==============================<wbr>=====</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Meet SOAS Occupiers at Marxism. Outdoor film showing and food.</b></div><div>Please reply to event if you want to come so we know how much food to prepare.</div><div><a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=96483986237" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">http://www.facebook.com/event.<wbr>php?eid=96483986237</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: 'lucida grande'; font-size: 11px; ">We filmed the whole thing. We want you to show you what we did and will answer questions and discuss where next for the campaign.<br /><br />Start up your own campaign. If this can happen at SOAS of all places it can happen anywhere. This needs to be stopped. Our fellow workmates should not be living in a state of fear.<br /><br />HANDS OFF OUR WORKMATES<br /><br />Please join us for an outdoor filmshowing of a number of our videos and photos's.<br /><br />Including food and discussion.<br /><br />PLEASE RSVP so we know how much food to prepare.<br /><br />If it is raining we will transfer to our common room.<br /><br />This is a truly SOAS affair-we hope you join us.</span></div></div></span></div></span>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-72666470478180434562009-06-24T02:49:00.000-07:002009-06-24T02:50:05.811-07:00Iranian elections crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="hide"><div style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 8px; border-bottom-width: thin; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "><a href="https://mail.google.com/a/soas.ac.uk/?view=att&th=12207d189aba9386&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw">Download the original attachment</a></div></div><div style="margin-top: 1ex; margin-right: 1ex; margin-bottom: 1ex; margin-left: 1ex; "><div><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;"><b><u>Iranian elections crisis </u></b></span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Naz Massoumi / Sun 21 June</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">A pivotal and unpredictable process of events are taking place in Iran that have serious implications, not only for the lives of Iranians, but for the future of political Islam. What the courageous protests and the violent repression on the streets represent is a struggle over the true legacy of the Iranian revolution which established the Islamic Republic 30 years ago. To understand the complexity of the current situation, we need to address a number of important questions.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Sunday’s Chatham House report has answered key questions over vote-rigging. It found a turnout of more than 100% was recorded in conservative provinces Mazandaran and Yazd. But putting the election result to one side, if the protests have demonstrated one thing it is the breadth and scale of Mousavi’s “green wave”. Not limited to the middle-class, northern Tehran ‘elite’ the movement has shown its deep social roots. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Of course millions of Iranians did vote for Ahmadinejad and for valid reasons - in support of his populist hand outs, pension rises and state subsidies. For example, he introduced a law that provided insurance to three million female domestic carpet-weavers. He cleverly grouped Mousavi with the corrupt political powerhouse ex-President Rafsanjani whose family had funded the reformist campaign. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">However this tactic was far more effective in 2005 – when he could pit himself against the likes of Rafsanjani as the unknown blacksmith’s son ready to ‘cut the hands of the oil mafia’. He could revive the economic populism of the 80s, which benefited the poor, in stark contrast to Rafsanjani’s 90s economic liberalization which increased inflation and inequality. In 2009, as a President who has failed to deliver on promises of reducing corruption and inequality (both have increased) and against an ‘establishment’ candidate like Mousavi - whose term as Prime Minister in the 80s associates him precisely with those populist policies - it just didn’t wash.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">More importantly, with 70-80% of Iranian industry still state owned, organisations that were set-up in the 80s to provide social and welfare programmes have now become massive capitalist enterprises owned and controlled by the state bureaucracy including the military. The Revolutionary Guard, for example, controls 30% of the Iranian economy. In power, Ahmadinejad has shown to defend and represent the interests of this bureaucracy. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Hence during the election campaign it was in fact Mousavi who was greeted as the ‘man of the mostazafin (oppressed)’ even in Ahmadinejad strongholds like the eastern town of Birjand. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Mousavi’s mix of revolutionary credentials and call for greater social and political freedoms, in which his wife Zahra Rahnavard played a decisive role in representing the grievances of women, gathered greater momentum than the campaign which saw the election of reformist President Khatami in 1997.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">We cannot underestimate how deep the crisis goes. Twenty years ago, it was Rafsanjani and Khamenei’s conservative alliance that wrestled control of power over the ‘leftists’ (like Mousavi) at the top. Now Rafsanjani’s daughter has been arrested and he himself is in the religious city of Qom (where Khamenei is already unpopular) trying to convince the clergy to move against Khamenei. Five senior clerics have already protested but as Iranian academic Ali Ansari argues a serious intervention from an essentially quietest clergy ‘could be decisive’</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">What’s behind all this? One factor is Khamenei himself. Lacking the political charisma, popularity and authority of Khomeini, he has relied on constitutional changes and an alliance with radical conservative elements to maintain and strengthen his position as Supreme Leader. Another is the reformist demise. Despite being a formidable force in the 1990s the Presidency and parliament majority, by 2005 they had lost all centres of power to conservatives.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">There were reasons for this. Khatami held the movement back at its peak, condemning university students in 1999 who had risen up to defend the banning of a reformist newspaper. A demoralised movement then boycotted the Presidential election in 2005 - another reason behind Ahmadinejad’s victory (interestingly he only just beat Karoubi to second place in the first round).</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">This time round the reformist voters turned out in huge numbers knowing a high-turnout would benefit them (with 70% of Iranians living in the cities). This explains the explosion of anger over the election result and refusal to halt demonstrations. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">But a far more important consequence of conservative control was the debate it precipitated in the movement which questioned the very theoretical foundation of the Islamic Republic - <i>velaayat-e faqih</i> (rule of the jurist). It has now reached a point where the majority opinion in the reformist movement believes the only solution for Iran is a separation of religion from the state. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">This does not, as some suggest, spell the end of political Islam. Rooftop chants of “Allahu Akbar” late into the evening (reminiscent of the Iranian revolution) and Mousavi’s ‘green’ (representing Islam and peace) movement is a reminder that religion still plays an important ideological framework. But the call for secularization of the state by an Islamist reform movement is undoubtedly a turning point. So important is this, that Mousavi was ‘ready for martyrdom’ and calling for a general strike if arrested. Indeed, the stakes are high for both the leadership and the demonstrators.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">This raises huge questions for the movement in Iran. It’s a no brainer that the interests of a powerful capitalist like Rafsanjani or Mousavi conflict sharply with the office worker throwing rocks at police and putting his life in danger. After all, the maior factor of Khatami’s demise was the continuation of Rafsanjani’s privitisation and neoliberal reforms, which alienated the poor. Unfortunately Mousavi in power is likely to follow a similar path. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">So whilst working with them, the left must form a critique of its reformist leaders. It should challenge their ties to neo-liberalism and raise the struggle of the poor and the working class. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">It must also try to win over Ahmadinejad supporters. There is evidence of this with slogans like “Baseej why kill your brothers?” (the Baseej come from the poor) and reports that some Baseeji are refusing to attack protestors. A leading women activist, who had been beaten in the protests told us that the armed forces have been told not to attack women which has raised the question of whether unofficial, conservative vigilantes are actively organizing to attack protestors.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">A further challenge is to organise separately from the leadership. The demoralization with Khatami stemmed from resting too much hope in his promises of reform. Mousavi is after all a key figure in the regime during some of its most horrific excesses.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Crucially there’s the question of western powers wanting to use this movement as a way of undermining the obstacle Iran presents to their plans for the region. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Under Khatami the government’s opportunist support for the US invasion of Afghanistan provided a valuable lesson. As a consequence, Iran found itself in the ‘axis of evil’, surrounded by US military bases in neighbouring countries Iraq and Afghanistan and a massive American naval fleet in the Persian Gulf. Ahmadinejad’s victory and popularity (in Iran and the region) relied heavily on his fiery antagonism towards the US and Israel.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Mousavi is, in fact, not the ideal candidate for the US. He does not recognise Israel, has vowed to continue with uranium enrichment and openly committed to the ideals of the revolution – that’s why he is popular with Iranians. Though Obama’s administration is likely to deal with any Iranian leader. As activists in Egypt and Saudi Arabia will attest, the struggle for democracy will be a lot harder in Iran with a government backed by the US. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Despite Obama’s talk of ‘not meddling’ in Iran’s affairs, the conservatives can still point to the $400 million dollar budget allocated to ‘covert operations’ in Iran, especially with the bombing of a mosque in Shiraz last month.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">Given the Iranian government’s monopoly on anti-imperialism, this is the hardest of challenges for the movement in Iran, but a critical one which must be taken up. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">But for now the main priority is to be at the forefront of the democratic struggle. Because if this movement is crushed, life for Iranians (and the left) will be a lot worse off.</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">As activists in the West, we must throw our full support behind those who have taken to the streets in Iran against their rulers. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">At the same time we must also highlight the hypocrisy of our own governments and media organisations. Their support for democracy stands in stark contrast with their refusal to recognize the democratic election of Hamas in Palestine or the vote-rigging of Mobarak’s dictatorship in Egypt. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;font-size:100%;">So whilst expressing solidarity with Iranians, we must warn against the dangers of imperialist powers abusing the situation by continuing to our campaign against the existing suffocating sanctions and any catastrophic plans for war. That way, we allow the Iranian democracy movement to continue without foreign intervention or interference. </span><br /><br /><br /> </p></div></div></div></span>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-58633790701480169412009-05-26T10:05:00.000-07:002009-05-26T10:07:42.844-07:00Racist allegations at SOAS?Read the first section <a href="http://www.solomonsmindfield.net/2009/05/racist-allegations-at-soas-su-will-not.html">HERE</a><br /><br />There was, however, an eyewitness to the alleged incident, Pablo<br />Grisales, a cleaner working temporarily in the post room. One might<br />have expected the investigating managers to ask for a written witness<br />statement, but that is not what happened. Pablo was called into an<br />intimidating meeting with three managers present (Richard Poulson,<br />Sian Jones and an OCEAN manager) and was read out a prepared statement<br />which he was not shown and which he was asked to confirm. He was given<br />no opportunity to qualify that statement (indeed, he was prevented<br />from doing so) or to provide his own independent statement of events.<br />That unsigned "statement" then became the "witness statement". No<br />written report of that investigatory meeting was provided except for<br />the manager's file note.<br /><br />At the disciplinary hearing Pablo attended in person to provide his<br />own witness statement which supported Stalin's recollection of events<br />that there had been no threats. But this was dismissed by Sharon Page<br />as a fabrication and she chose to believe the non-existent "witness<br />statement" from the investigatory meeting. She decided to privilege<br />the "evidence" of the managers' claim that Pablo had verbally<br />confirmed their prepared statement over that of Pablo's. What else<br />could one expect at SOAS? Obviously a black cleaner is less reliable<br />than two white managers.<br /><br />Here's what Sharon Page actually said: "In my role as Chair I was<br />being asked to conclude whether two long serving and trusted managers<br />were telling the truth, or whether Pablo Grisales had changed his<br />recollection of events. On the balance of probabilities I concluded<br />that I believed the two managers. I was satisfied that the evidence by<br />(the complainant) and the SOAS managers was on balance far more<br />credible than that of Jose Bermudez and Pablo Grisales."<br /><br />What kind of reasoning is this? Pablo had not “changed his<br />recollection of events” because he was never given the opportunity to<br />give his recollection of events during the investigatory meeting. The<br />managers were clearly not witnesses to the events. And just why is the<br />complainant's view "far more credible" than Stalin's or Pablo's (the<br />only independent witness to the incident)? Prejudice can be the only<br />explanation. To say that this borders on downright racism would be an<br />understatement. Sharon Page made her decision to dismiss Stalin on her<br />perception of the complainant's perception. One white manager's<br />perception of a white complainant's perception of a black employee. No<br />contest in SOAS.<br /><br />The greatest lack of credibility in this whole affair is in the way<br />the incident was investigated and the how the decision to sack Stalin<br />was arrived at. Even more incredible is the conclusion of the<br />"payroll" appeal panel which could regard Sharon Page’s conclusions as<br />being in any way “reasonable”. Quite frankly, this stinks. The whole<br />SOAS disciplinary process has been brought into utter disrepute.<br /><br />We cannot allow this to pass. As promised, UNISON and UCU will make<br />available all the documentation and evidence relating to this case so<br />that our members can make up their own minds. UNISON are currently<br />balloting for industrial action and UCU will support them taking such<br />action. Meanwhile a genuinely independent panel of professors will be<br />established to examine the evidence and documentation and<br />reinvestigate this miscarriage of justice.Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-53361196740129350752009-05-05T06:32:00.000-07:002009-05-05T06:45:21.041-07:00So much for liberating women in Iraq<div align="justify">A Briefing Paper<br />OF<br />INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT<br />Prepared by<br />Kristen McNutt, Researcher, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers<br />Presented to<br />The United Nations<br />Commission on Human Rights<br />2005 Session<br />March<br />Geneva<br /><br />Iraqi female detainees have been illegally detained, raped and sexually violated by United States military personnel. Women who stay at home in traditional roles are more likely to be imprisoned as bargaining chips by US troops seeking to pressurize male relatives, according to the New Statesmen (UK) . In December 2003, a woman prisoner, “Noor”, smuggled out a note stating that US guards at Abu Ghraib had been raping women detainees and forcing them to strip naked. Several of the women were now pregnant. The classified enquiry launched by the US military, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed the note by “Noor” and that sexual violence against women at Abu Ghraib took place. Among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there were, according to Taguba's report, images of naked male and female detainees; a male Military Police guard “having sex” with a female detainee; detainees (of unspecified gender) forcibly arranged in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; and naked female detainees. The Bush administration has refused to release photographs of Iraqi women prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including those of women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although these have been shown to Congress). UK Member of Parliament Ann Clwyd (L) has confirmed a report of an Iraqi woman in her 70s who had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Clwyd said: "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."<br /><br />The Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, reports that In the middle of the night, American soldiers broke into the home of Mithal al Hassan and arrested both her and her son. “The soldiers later ransacked the apartment. Denounced as part of a vendetta, Mithal was condemned without trial to eighty days of horror in the company of other women prisoners who, like her, were subjected to abuse and torture. She has since spotted her tormentors on the internet.” A culture of honor prevents many women from telling stories of rapes. The account given by “Selwa”, illustrates this. In September 2003, Selwa was taken by US military personnel to a detention facility in Tikrit, where an American officer lit a mixture of human feces and urine in a metal container and gave Selwa a heavy club to stir it. She recalls, “The fire from the pot felt very strong on my face.” She leans forward and sweeps her hands through the air to show how she stirred the excrement. “I became very tired,” she says. “I told the sergeant I couldn’t do it.” “There was another man close to us. The sergeant came up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘If you don’t, I will tell one of the soldiers to fuck you.’” Selwa could not continue with the story. An Iraqi girl, Raghada, reports that her mother, imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, was forced to eat from a toilet and was urinated on.<br /><br />Iman Khamas, head of the International Occupation Watch Center, a nongovernmental organization which gathers information on human rights abuses under coalition rule, has said; “one former detainee had recounted the alleged rape of her cell mate in Abu Ghraib.” According to Khamas, the prisoner said; “she had been rendered unconscious for 48 hours.” She claimed; “She had been raped 17 times in one day by<br />Iraqi police in the presence of American solders”.<br /><br />Another woman, "Nadia," reported that she was raped by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. She continues to be "imprisoned" by painful memories that left her psychologically and physically scarred. Late last year, attorney Amal Kadham Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq". Amal Kadham Swadi states that “sexualized violence and abuse committed by US troops goes far beyond a few isolated cases.” It is unknown as to exactly how many female detainees there are. ‘The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that 30 women were<br />housed in Abu Ghraib last October, 2003, which was reduced to 0 by May 29, 2004”.<br /><br />Swadi visited a detainee held at the US military base a Al-Khakh, a former police compound in Baghdad. The detainee disclosed that, “Several American solders had raped her and that she had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm”.<br /><br />These and other incidents are being covered up for US domestic consumption. President G W Bush has insisted that these were the actions of a few and were not the result of military policy. However, a fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, points to complicity to sexual torture by the entire Army prison system. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December<br />of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and<br />wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib.<br /><br />The cover-up by the Bush Administration appears to include the silencing of victims. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University, who is interviewing female prisoners as a volunteer for Amnesty International, reports that the woman, called “Noor,” who smuggled the letter out of Abu Ghraib, is now presumed dead. “We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbors said that her family had moved away. I believed that she was killed”.<br /><br />It is well known that the US has a culture of rape: one in six women in the United States has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault. Reinforcing the climate of sexual violence, photos purporting to be of raped Iraqi women by US troops are surfacing on the web, with some are later removed. Actual pictures can be viewed, as of this writing, at the La Voz de Aztlan website which reports that many of the pictures are now on pornographic sites.<br /><br /><strong>Women Civilian War Casualties<br /></strong>In October 2004, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website counted casualties of the US attack against Fallujah. IBC concluded that 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that dozens of Iraqis, including 20 medics, were killed when he US bombed a medical clinic in Fallujah. The clinic was just erected to substitute for the main hospital which was seized by the U.S. on Monday. One doctor told Reuters "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands." Because of the serious assault on medical neutrality, on 18 November 2004 the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers filed an emergency petition at the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of “unnamed, unnumbered patients and medical staff, both living and dead, of the Falluja General Hospital and a trauma clinic.” International Educational Development, Inc, joined this action immediately thereafter. </div><div align="justify"><br />According to the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, napalm appears to have been used on women and children during the US attack on Fallujah.<br /><br /><strong>U.S. Military Prevents the Delivery of Medical Care to Women Civilians</strong><br /><br />The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the impediment of medical operations during war. The main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah was raided twice by US soldiers and the Iraqi National Guard; first on November 29, 2004 at 5:40 am and again the next day. Staff reported; “In the first raid about 150 soldiers and at least 40 members of the Iraqi National Guard stormed the small hospital”. Staff reported; “They divided into groups and were all over the hospital. They broke the gates outside, they broke the doors of the garage, and the raided our supply room where our food and supplies are”. Staff members were then handcuffed and interrogated for several hours about resistance fighters. One staff member recounts; “The Americans threatened that they would do what they did in Fallujah if I didn’t cooperate with them”.<br /><br />Medical care for civilians was blocked by snipers that are set up along the roads to Fallujah that fire on ambulances. Doctors from the main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah are reporting; “The Americans have snipers all along the road between here and Fallujah. They are shooting our ambulances if they try to go to Fallujah”. In addition, medical supplies are being blocked from being sent to hospitals by US troops. In nearby Saqlawiyah, Doctor Abdulla Aziz reported that supplies were being blocked from reaching or leaving Amiriyat al-Fallujah; “They won’t let any of our ambulances go to help Fallujah. We are out of supplies and they won’t let anyone bring us more”. </div><div align="justify"><br />Obstruction of medical care to the civilian population of Iraq seems to be a pattern that has persisted. Dr. Abdul Jabbar, orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General Hospital claims that; “The marines have said they didn’t close the hospital, but essentially they did. They closed the bridge, which connects us to the city, and closed our roads. They prevented medical care reaching countless patients in desperate need. Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved?”.<br /><br />In addition to blocking supplies and aid to victims, hospital staff has been handcuffed and interrogated and patient care has been violently disrupted. “We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our medical instruments,” reported Dr Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi present during the raid on Fallujah General Hospital. She reported abuse to civilian patients as well; “troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them against the wall…I was with a woman in labor, the umbilical cord had not yet been cut,” she said. “At that time, a U.S. soldier shouted at one of the [Iraqi] National Guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver”.</div><div align="justify"></div>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-76258946779420046742009-04-27T11:22:00.001-07:002009-04-27T11:22:56.026-07:00Critically examine the use of a ‘makeover paradigm’ in a media text of your choice.Critically examine the use of a ‘makeover paradigm’ in a media text of your choice.<br /><br />‘Makeover’ in the sense of an alteration of appearance of girls and women along lines of ‘fashion’ and ‘taste’ has recently become a popular television genre in its own right, promoted from its television birthplace in partial slots during daytime programming to ‘primetime’ higher audience entire programmes in the mid-evening (Moseley, 2000). Critical examination of these texts reveals a number of interesting discourses at play, in particular that of self-production along gendered lines. I have chosen to examine the media text What Not To Wear (BBCTV, 2001- ) as it is a recent example of ‘makeover television’ which has achieved great popularity among UK audiences by progressing from the short makeover slot of daytime television, to a programme dedicated to teaching (mainly) women in the UK ‘what not to wear’, or rather, what to wear by analysing their lives through popular psychology, borrowing from behavioural therapy and the discourse of self-help. <br /><br />In order to critically examine the use of a ‘makeover paradigm’ in What Not To Wear I focus on a particular episode entitled ‘Young Mums’ (BBC1, 27th September 2004 ). Although the analysis is based on this particular episode, the show follows a tight format therefore much of the analysis could be applied to other episodes of the same programme. To ground the analysis in the historical context of makeover, I will first examine the makeover genre itself. The analysis will provide a brief outline of the What Not To Wear format, then critically examine a number of the discourses inherent to the ‘paradigm’ of makeover as presented in ‘Young Mums’. <br /><br />First, the discourse of the production of the self through transformation (Rose 1989), particularly the production of a ‘feminine body-subject’ (Bartky, 2003:33) will be examined. Second, the use of governance, regulation and surveillance will be analysed with reference to Foucault. Third, the way in which the language and symbolism of popular psychology is borrowed by the hosts to create a semblance of therapy as part of the re-production of self. Fourth, the role of the hosts as ‘expert’ and the form of language and touch used to convey the hierarchy of knowledge and class will be considered. Finally, the sites of resistance visible within the episode will be explored. <br /><br />As Moseley (2000:303) argues, makeover ‘has been a continuing staple of the woman’s film . . . feminine beauty culture . . .[and] women’s magazines’. The central theme to this genre has been the individualistic ideology of self-improvement (Rimke, 2000:62, Weber, 2005: 4) with a narrative of progress whereby any woman, if she tries hard enough, and consumes the right products, can become her ‘true’ self (Weber, 2005). Underlying this ‘possibility’ is the concept of responsibility to produce and maintain the ‘best’ self possible – a responsibility to oneself and those around not to ‘let oneself go’ (Weber, 2005:4). The makeover paradigm as displayed on television follows this formula, with the revelation of the self in a climactic finale (Moseley, 2000:304).<br /><br />What Not To Wear is the British daughter of the daytime television makeover paradigm. Presented by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, self-defined style ‘experts’, the programme has so far aired 4 series. Though each series has differed slightly in format the basic formula is the same, featuring two women’s makeover transformation: <br />Conversation with one of the presenters in a set that is symbolically designed to look like a psychotherapist’s office.<br />Friends and family are interviewed on the subject of the women’s ‘style’, Trinny and Susannah examine their wardrobes, often discarding or destroying items.<br />Watch their videos and discover ‘what people really think’ of them.<br />Scrutinise themselves and scrutinised by the presenters in a 360 mirror, often in a favourite piece of clothing. <br />Given a set of style ‘rules’ to follow when shopping and given £2,000 to spend.<br />The shopping task is divided into two days – on the first, they shop on their ‘own’ while being filmed, on the second, Trinny and Susannah evaluate the clothing that has been bought, then shop with the women to direct them.<br />Their hair and make-up is styled by stylists.<br />The revelation – the ‘new’ woman is revealed to herself in a mirror.<br />The ‘new’ woman is revealed to (usually) delighted friends and family.<br /><br />The particular episode analysed here features two women, identified as ‘badly dressed mums’ (BBC1, 2004), Michalina, aged 35 and Sara, aged 26. <br /><br />The formula for the show illustrates the discourse of the production of the self (Rose, 1989). This production occurs through a narrative of transformation (Moseley, 2000:304) in which a woman who is seen as someone who does not ‘fit in’ to an image of current styles of femininity is transformed during the episode. As illustrated below, this self is by no means finally produced, but requires constant re-production under an internalized and external gaze (Weber, 2005). <br /><br />Rose (1989:103) argues that this self-production is a modern construct, where consumption is the way in which we ‘shape our lives’ by creating, managing and marketing ourselves from a range of consumable options. In line with this argument, What Not To Wear presents a discourse of self-fulfilment through consumption.<br /><br />The ‘self’ that is produced for each woman on What Not To Wear is presented as the ‘true’ self that had been hidden from the world. This fairly essentialist concept that ‘inside’ each of these women is a ‘true’ self, waiting to be unveiled is demonstrated in the language used by the presenters throughout the ‘Young Mums’ episode. Particular to this episode is the discourse surrounding ‘being a mother’ and the effect of this on a woman’s subjectivity. At the end of the episode, Trinny comments of Michalina’s husband: “he got back a woman he thought he’d lost, and I think that’s a big thing for a man when a woman has kids, that they sort of – sometimes stop being a wife” (BBC1, 2004). The way in which both women are portrayed throughout the episode is as a collection of identities; mother, employee, wife . The premise of the episode is that their ‘mother’ identities have taken over. <br /><br />Importantly for the discourse of self-production, these identities are presented and analysed as always relational to another. Sara searches at the end of the programme for recognition of her transformation from Carl, her husband. The need for his gaze is commented on throughout the shopping task in a way in which suggests, as Weber (2005:14) puts it “being looked at in an appreciative or sexualized way affirms a woman and, in turn, allows her to be more confident”. Susannah attempts to convince Sara to buy a dress she does not like because it will have Carl “standing to attention within seconds of you walking in the door”.Similarly, Michalina feels that her ‘improved’ self will be able to “be herself” and “not have to worry about people sniggering behind my back” (BBC1, 2004). <br /><br />The self that is produced to ‘fit in’ in this way is presented as what Bartky (2003:33) terms ‘the ideal body of femininity’. Although the presenters do not attempt to alter the women’s bodies in the same way as the plastic surgery of Extreme Makeover (Weber, 2005), the ‘rules’ given to the women are in line with what Trinny refers to as what the women ‘should’ be. In the case of young women, that is “sexy, trendy and fun” (BBC1, 2004). Women should look feminine, and that means showing, or creating a traditional ‘hourglass’ figure (often by wearing heels which force women to walk in a way that pushes them forward and draws attention to the compartmentalised body parts of breasts, bottom and legs considered to be feminine and likely to illicit the ‘gaze’) (Bartky, 2003), wearing makeup and styling their hair. Weber (2005) refers to this homogenisation of production as ‘the economy of sameness’; an idealisation of image that has been criticised by feminists not just for lack of creativity, but also for the way in which it is tied up with the gendered nature of social power, whereby women are represented and traded as passive objects and suffer at the hands of social and physical abuse (Bartky, 2003:35).<br /><br />The ‘feminine body-subject’(Bartky, 2003:33) that is revealed at the end of What Not To Wear is not the finalised ‘self’. Throughout the episode the women are instructed in the ‘disciplinary practices’ (Bartky, 2003: 33) required to continually re-produce and govern themselves. In analysing this mode of self-surveillance, it is useful to refer to Foucault’s (1977) framework for analysing relationships of power so pervasive that they are exercised upon the individual themselves through self-surveillance. <br /><br />One of the key ways in which Foucault (1977:200) conceptualises the omnipresent nature of surveillance is through the Panopticon; illustrated as the architectural design with a central, supervisory tower at the centre with cells to be supervised around the periphery. The role of the 360 mirror in What Not To Wear, is structurally similar to the Panopticon and serves to act as the focal point for ‘self surveillance’ of the women. Asked to scrutinise her body from every angle, the woman inhabits the central, supervisory space and looks into each cell onto the divided aspects of her body that must be disciplined. <br /><br />In the ‘Young Mums’ episode, both women enter the 360 mirror in a piece of clothing they like. Trinny and Susannah use a combination of mockery, criticism and praise to first show the women they are not how (or who) they should be, then inform them how they should be.<br /><br />Sara is informed by Trinny, as the presenter pulls her dress tight to her body; “You have a figure to show off, so you need to get that waist back – you know, we’d like to see more” Susannah, reinforcing the message, pulls her dress up, stating “you’ve got great legs, you’ve got such good ankles you should show them off” (BBC1, 2004). Michalina is laughed at by the women in a display of class elitism, when her assertion that the clothes she is wearing look “quite classy” is met with schoolgirl-style ‘cruelty and viciousness’ (McRobbie, 2004:106). Susannah, in a voice laden with sarcasm, praises Michalina for talking “about the outfit with such conviction” and Trinny is unable to contain her disgust, screaming “I think that is SO HIDEOUS!”. Both comments are met with confusion from Michalina, who clearly does not consider herself to look hideous. Interesting, considering Trinny’s tendency for raising her voice, and reminiscent of Rowe’s (1997:79) analysis of the reaction to ‘unruly women’ who take up ‘too much space’ is her assertion that Michalina comes “running and charging at us” with her bright clothes, and that this frightens people. By the end of the episode, Michalina affirms the comments that the presenters made at this first site of surveillance, signalising its internalization and necessity for constant regulation to prevent relapse. Looking at her new produced self, Michalina agrees with the presenters, stating; “I was a blob…a clown and a blob” (BBC1, 2004). <br /><br />Rose (1989:227) places the rise of self-regulation in the nineteenth century, in the context of a shift from individuals controlled by an interventionist state, to individuals controlled much more closely by themselves and those around them. Intrinsic to this regulation and ‘production of selfhood’ (Ibid:231), he argues, are the ‘techniques of psychotherapeutics’. Importantly, this link is clear in What Not To Wear. At the beginning of the episode, the presenters conduct conversations with the women to “probe their minds” (BBC1, 2004) in an environment culturally recognisable as that of a psychotherapist, with the women ‘probed’ on a chaise longue. During these conversations, the presenters refer to ‘feelings’ and the language of popular psychology, contributing to the assertion common to the genre of ‘self-help’ that it is the individual inside, not structural constraints of society, that lead to problems (Rimke, 2000:64) and that by altering her appearance, the woman will alter her life. In a style similar to that of the daytime television talk show, the short conversations do no not offer ‘sufficient space or time for personal emotions to be fully developed’ (Macdonald, 2003:83) and are very much directed by the presenters.<br /><br />During Sara’s conversation, she starts to talk about the fact that her identity seems to be consumed by looking after her triplets (earlier in the programme, Trinny illustrated the hard work involved in looking after three children). Rather than explore the many structural constraints that are involved in this exhausting (and seemingly unrewarded) work, Trinny responds to the statement with the question “how does your husband feel about how you dress?” (BBC1, 2004). At the end of the programme, Trinny refers back to this feeling of identity loss, indicating that the ‘new’ Sara can be the centre of attention. Revealingly, Trinny comments that people will no longer constantly ask her about her children, but will now focus on her clothes instead, indicating that she feels Sara’s identity is her clothes.<br /> <br />The presenters also borrow from behavioural psychology, invented to ‘render human conduct amenable to reshaping’ (Rose, 1989:239). Trinny and Susannah use both reward and punishment in order to ‘reshape’ the women. At a key moment in Michalina’s shopping task, Trinny begs her to buy a dress, giving up on the ‘rewarding’ of compliments and screams in Michalina’s face; “JUST BUY THE OUTFIT OK!” (BBC1, 2004). This illustrates that What Not To Wear lies firmly in the discursive tradition of self-regulation through psychotherapeutics (Rose, 1989:227). <br /><br />Within the genre of self-help, particularly makeover, the role of the ‘expert’ is key (Giles, 2002:606). Trinny and Susannah present themselves as therapist and teacher. They adopt a position of authority that can be conceptualised in the way that Foucault (1984:61) has analysed the therapist and priest who gains power through confession. They intervene ‘in order to judge, punish, forgive, console and reconcile’ (Foucault, 1984: 61-2). The hierarchy evident in this authority manifests itself both in the language used by the presenters when addressing the women and the ‘economy of touching’ (Bartky, 2003:30) whereby the presenters touch the women often aggressively and intrusively. <br /><br />The language used by the presenters often takes on a patronising tone; the difference between Trinny admonishing Sara’s children for not eating with their spoons, and the order to Michalina to get “back in your box, try the other thing on” (BBC1, 2004) is barely noticeable in tone. The way in which the presenters grab, pull and on one occasion rip the knickers, from the women is intrusive and humiliating at times for the women . Trinny and Susannah also touch the women in a way that would usually be associated with animals; they are ‘herded’ around and continually have their thighs patted and slapped. Although this form of touch is presented as jest, it echoes the power hierarchy within a society where women are often subject to un-requested touch and bodily intrusion, including high incidence of rape . The message given out that it is acceptable to herd and intrude on women ‘for their own good’ is a dangerous one. <br /><br />This clear hierarchy is one of both knowledge (of ‘what to wear’) and class. The presenters are from upper-middle class backgrounds and display their opinion of the way in which the other women dress with ‘extreme bodily displeasure’ (McRobbie, 2004:105). Their class difference is illustrated by and reinforces their role as ‘experts’ and is tied to their knowledge of ‘style’. Trinny displays this by telling Sara; “we might know a bit better than you” (BBC1, 2004).<br /><br />Although the power relations within the makeover paradigm of What Not To Wear are pervasive and permeate into the minds of the women being made over, as Foucault argues, this form of power depends on ‘a multiplicity of points of resistance’ (1984:95). Certainly, there are multiple points of resistance throughout the episode. Often this resistance is played up to the camera, to the audience as fellow participant; Michalina, picking up a pair of brightly coloured trousers, says “they are lovely, aren’t they [pauses, puts them back on the shelf] … no, I’m gonna be good [picks them up again] no, I’m not gonna be good.” (BBC1, 2004).Similarly, as a site of class resistance, Sara argues with the presenters on the necessity of spending over £100 on a pair of jeans. Although both women thank the presenters for their ‘new’ selves, and seem genuinely happy at the end of the episode, this does not reduce the importance of their resistance throughout their encounters with Trinny and Susannah. <br /><br />The ‘Young mums’ episode of What Not To Wear is critically examined above in relation to discourses of self-production, surveillance, popular psychology and the authority of expert and class. The makeover paradigm within What Not To Wear is part of the discursive production within society of ‘feminine body-subjects’ (Bartky, 2003:33) through self-production (Rose, 1989) and surveillance. There is a great deal more that could be critically evaluated within the media text What Not To Wear. The role of surveillance could be examined in far more detail, particularly in the earlier series where hidden cameras were used to survey the women. Although not used in the episode analysed here, some episodes of What Not To Wear have featured video diaries, which could be viewed through a Foucauldian analysis of the role of confession (Foucault, 1984: 63). In terms of this particular episode, the women were actually revisited by Trinny and Susannah for the 2005 series of What Not To Wear, which could be analysed in terms of resistance, surveillance, governance and the portrayals of class. Although analysing such texts often meets with a resistance of its own, it is important considering the cultural weight and sites of power within the makeover paradigm as demonstrated above. <br /> <br />Bibliography<br /><br />Bartky, S, (2003), ‘Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’ In Weitz, R (Ed) The politics of women’s bodies : sexuality, appearance, & behavior . New York : Oxford University Press<br /><br />Foucault, M, (1975) ‘Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison’. Harmondsworth : Penguin<br /><br />Foucault, M, (1981), ‘The History of Sexuality’. Harmondsworth: Penguin.<br /><br />Giles, D ‘Keeping the public in their place: audience participation in lifestyle television programming’ Discourse Society, Sep 2002; 13: 603 - 628.<br /><br />Hume, E ,(2005) ‘Talk Show Culture’ (Online). Available:<br />http://www.ellenhume.com/articles/talkshow3.htm<br /><br />Macdonald, M (2003) ‘Exploring Media Discourse’. London : Arnold<br /><br />McRobbie, A (2004) ‘Notes on ‘What Not To Wear’ and post-feminist symbolic violence’ in Adkins,L (ed) (2005) Feminism After Bourdieu , Blackwell Publishing Ltd: Oxford pp 99-109<br /><br />Moseley (2000), ‘Makeover takeover on British television’. Screen 41(3)pp299-314<br /><br />Rimke, H, (2000), ‘Governing Citizens Through Self-Help Literature’ Cultural Studies, 14(1) pp62-78<br /><br />Rose, N (1989), ‘Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self’. London : Free Association Books.<br /><br />Rowe, K, (1997), ‘Roseanne: Unruly Woman as Domestic Godess’ in Brunsdon et al (Eds), (1997), Feminist Television Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press<br /><br />Truth About Rape Campaign, (2005) (Online). Available: <br />http://www.truthaboutrape.co.uk/index2.html<br /><br />Weber, B (2005) ‘Beauty, Desire and Anxiety the Economy of Sameness in ABC’s Extreme Makeover’ Genders: 41.<br /><br />What Not To Wear, ‘Young Mums’, BBC1, 27th September 2004, 7pm <br /><br />What Not To Wear, BBCTV, (2001- )Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-72582862718166952162009-04-21T05:17:00.001-07:002009-04-21T05:17:49.770-07:00Why racism is very much White on Black.Share<br />15 April 2009 at 17:51<br />I feel compelled to clarify the definition of racism, its meaning and its context. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while because of situations which have arisen over the past couple of years while I’ve been involved in student politics. <br /><br />Whenever the issue of racism arises in student unions and especially if it is in the context of elections the same themes, the same complaints, the same questions arise, time and time again.<br /><br />Essentially they can be all answered if one understands the meaning of racism and its history. Once that is done, the answers to questions such as ‘Why don’t we have a White student’s officer?’ will become clear as well as an understanding of why, generally speaking, when we refer to racism in the West it is the discrimination of Black people as opposed to White people.<br /><br />Firstly, a definition of race:<br /><br />“subspecies: (biology) a taxonomic group that is a division of a species; usually arises as a consequence of geographical isolation within a species”<br /><br />Of course, this is the scientific definition but it is also the definition which is the root to understanding the development of racism as it occurs in the contemporary world.<br /><br />Taking the scientific definition we realise that the concept of ‘race’ has no validity in Homo sapiens. When the human species is viewed as a whole, underlying genetic variation and expressed physical traits exhibit gradients of differentiation, not discrete units. Therefore, humans do not fracture into races (subspecies).<br /><br />So how then do we have ‘racism’ within the Human race?<br />This is where history serves its purpose. Racial classification is a modern phenomenon dating back to the 15th century during the slave trade when the Colonialists encountered sub-saharan Africans and referred to them as Negro (meaning Black in Spanish). <br /><br />Maintaining that Black people were "subhuman" was the only loophole in the then accepted law that "men are created equal" that would allow for the Triangular Slave trade to flourish. The same logic was applied in order to further the aim of Colonialism beyond Europe. This notion seeped in to the recesses of the Western establishment as it was this fundamental reasoning which allowed them to build their vast Empires. The result has been a systematic oppression and discrimination of Black people since then. <br /><br />So when a Black person suffers from racism – understanding it in its historical context, it is just that. Being thought of as a being from a different race, rather than that of the human race.<br /><br />When a White person suffers ‘racist’ abuse, behind that abuse, the degrading idea of the person being sub-human is not entertained by the perpetrator which is why, technically speaking, White people don’t suffer racism. They could suffer from abuse but not racism.<br /><br />The other issue which I suspect will increasingly become a common perception is that racism no longer exists or is no longer such a problem in society. The logic being that America has a Black President or some other equally naïve reason.<br /><br />Racism still exists in big and small ways. In small ways …we still have ‘flesh coloured’ plasters in that one perfect shade of pinkish beige, the colour of human flesh (sic). ‘Default’ printer settings are clearly programmed with only White people in mind – try printing off your picture in black and white. In big ways…we are currently occupied in wars which are steeped in racist ideology. Black history is still not incorporated in to mainstream education.<br /><br />The point is that racism is still very much a reality today and therefore the need for challenging and eliminating racism is still relevant. The responsibility to eliminate this particular form of discrimination falls more greatly on students who will be the movers and shakers of tomorrow’s world. <br /><br />My suggestions for activists against racism would be to equip themselves with a thorough understanding of the history of racism and all its current formations. This will allow an informed campaign to materialise which will undoubtedly lead to a more effective campaign.Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-26378967260830036262009-04-13T09:49:00.000-07:002009-04-13T09:51:44.572-07:00Hossein Derakhshan and Virtual Iran-Free the Blogfather<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AeHHXqQpajY/SeNtmficHTI/AAAAAAAAAa0/_NfqnLYQc7A/s1600-h/hossein.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AeHHXqQpajY/SeNtmficHTI/AAAAAAAAAa0/_NfqnLYQc7A/s320/hossein.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324219692550462770" border="0" /></a><br />The Iranian blogging phenomenon was triggered after the contribution of Hossein Derakhshan on how-to to write blogs in Farsi and one of the most recurrent themes analysed by academics interested in Iran's youth culture.<br /><br />Hossein Derakhshan now imprisoned since last November 2008 contributed in establishing bridges of communication between a country with a limited public sphere like Iran and the rest of the world. The phenomenon he contributed to represents the need for alternative platforms of expression and is a vehicle for social development and assertion of Iranian Identity both within and outside the boundaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the usage of new media technology sets Iran the challenge of global free-flow of information.Hossein’s arrest is the prove of the danger that new media set to the I.R.I. This leads one to question: is Iran ready to use those media to develop its own “Neither East nor West” particular political, social and economical non-western-like model in setting the country back into the race of worlds most influential country? Or is it going to use them to increase its isolation from the international panorama by threatening the safety of Iranian online journalists and bloggers hence contributing to it’s own demonization?<br /><br />Hossein Derakhshan is an Iranian-Canadian blogger and journalist and a fellow student at SOAS, University of London, who spent the last eight years between Canada and the U.K before his return to Tehran in the past month of October 2008. Hossein, aka Hoder, is hailed as the "blogfather" of Iranian Blogging because in 2001 he published guidelines of how to blog in Farsi on the site blogger.com. contributing to the boom in blogging that has led to Iran being today amongst the ten biggest blogging nations of the world according to Technorati statistics on the State of the Blogosphere.<br /><br />According to Derakhshan (Khosravi 2008:157), the popularity of blogs among young people in Iran symbolises the great changes that Iranian society has undergone during the past two decades. The Iranian blogosphere is a reflection of the increasing tolerance in Iran’s society, he says. (1) His blog Editor:Myself or Rooznegar blog by Sina Motallebi his fellow blogger and journalist, were held by the Online Journalism Review as powerful tools for free-speech that linked Iran with the West.<br /><br />Since the time of Hossein's statement to the current day, blogging has been widely embraced by Iranians throughout the whole spectrum of Iranian society, inside the country and within diaspora communities. Clark Boyd, technology correspondent for the BBC World Service, wrote in his 2005 article about Persian blogging around the globe that Internet has become the main medium for information, news, analysis and information exchange for Iranians inside and outside the Iran.<br /><br />The fact that blogging is embraced by religious and political figures such as the President Ahmadinejad, could symbolize that the IRI is moving towards a more tolerant model of society that looks into the new media as a tool to overcome the isolation that certain policies have drawn the country into. The almost equivalent presence of topics concerning conservative politics, religion, secular and reformist ideas on the Iranian blogosphere is surprising, states Mark Jones in his Blogging Iran article to Reuters in April 2008. However, blogging is still a risky activity for Iranians, particularly for those who publish under their own name, as we can see by the recent death in prison of Omidreza MirSayafi.<br /><br />The arrest of Hossein Derakhshan in Tehran last November has come to destabilise the world of free-speech activism, in which the "blogfather" was a major figure. Accused of “espionage for the Israeli government” at first and later of “insulting religion“, Derakhshan travelled to Israel in 2006 and 2007 and blogged about this experience as well as the intentions behind it. Treating these as a mission for peace activism, he attempted to present the human face of Israel to Iranians and to reassure Israelis that the average Iranian does not want to cause any harm to their country. Since then, he has continued to write prolifically, putting forward controversial opinions in defence of the IRI, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the right of Iran to develop nuclear energy. Activists and members of the Iranian diaspora started tagging Derakhshan as an "Agent of the Regime" and many heated discussions can be followed on his weblog until the day of his arrest last November 2008.<br /><br />To all those willing to take a closer look at the contribution of Hossein Derakhshan to his country's development of public sphere and free-speech, it is well worth looking at the Iranian blogosphere which he helped generate. Numerous blogs, used by an extremely wide range of people, reflect a vast range of debate topics. Nevertheless, we can claim that Hossein is one of the pioneers of technological and cultural development for the IRI, that he so clearly stands out to defend from diverse threats. His weapon is no other than his words defending his belief in the Iranian republic.<br /><br />The IRI could be growing towards a more tolerant model if we take the increasing presence of Iran in the blogosphere. However, the filters, the successive arrest of bloggers and Internet journalists like Hossein Derakhshan , Sina Motallebi - among many others- and the death of bloggers such as Omidreza MirSayafi show us something different. Still, Iranian’s mark a daily presence on the web. In parallel to the reality of the country itself, a Virtual Iran is developing despite the attempts on restrainin the free-flowing information. The attempt of control of Virtual Iran’s free speech can affect the development of the “real” Iran as well as the image passed on Internationally.<br /><br />Independently of the content of the speech itself, the Internet is a tool for freedom of speech. Blogging represents the possibility of discussion, debate and freedom of expression for the individual, and is arguably conducive to individual and social progress. The development of Iranian blogosphere is a symbol of the development of Iranian society and the changes of the IRI. The fierce critique to some of it’s content, especially to those defending a pro-regime position, might only symbolize the lack of experience of free-speech by some particular individuals. However, the importance is that the blogosphere is there and must strive to maintain it’s diversity and contribute to Iran’s development.<br /><br />Iran could be developing slowly into a new state model where new technologies serve s its own inner development, and simultaniously allowing Iran to be back in the race as world leading country. However, the control and use of new technology to threatening its own people might only increase its unpopularity and isolation from the rest of the world. The answer lies not only in the daily choices of Iran’s Govern, but also on how much it allows negative international pressure to interfere in inner politics that degenarate on an increasingly self-threatening paranoid state.<br /><br />Let us hope that Hossein Derakhshan's passionate quest for a progressive and tolerant Iran does not fade with his arrest and – for now – uncertain future.<br /><br />If you want to contribute to the Request of the immediate release of Hossein Derakhshan visit the website freetheblogfather.com and sign the petition.<br /><br />By Maria Rijo Lopes da Cunha.Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-42522735076354597972009-03-23T08:36:00.001-07:002009-03-23T08:36:47.126-07:00Rodchenko & Popova: down with art as a means to escape a life not worth living. <br />http://ping.fm/Kbng9Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-90771164307576326042009-03-21T09:18:00.001-07:002009-03-21T09:18:27.024-07:00shares Alberto Toscano's paper from the On the Idea of Communism conference. Ta Infinite Thought: http://ping.fm/IA83iSolomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-61881086558667472442009-03-08T07:31:00.001-07:002009-03-08T07:35:35.291-07:00On the Commodification of Communism<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Proposed by: Clare Solomon </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">Seconded by: Ed Emery</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) Birkbeck are hosting a conference entitled: On the Idea of Communism with big name speakers such as Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou and more.</div><div>2) These speakers are from a broad range of schools of thought on the left.</div><div>3) This conference costs £100 for employed people and £45 to students.</div><div>4) There are no concessions for people who can not afford these sums.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) A university should not charge, especially students, for academic conferences.</div><div>2) Charging for an event like this goes against the spirit of Communism (see comment below). </div><div>3) Charging for this event is politically motivated.</div><div>4) Students have enough financial troubles without having to pay even further to engage in academic dialogue.</div><div>5) Universities should be a place of learning and not for making money.</div><div>6) Marketisation of education will lead to a narrow output of educational programmes.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) Write a letter to Birkbeck expressing our disappointment and objection.</div><div>2) Invite the speakers of this conference to speak for free at SOAS on March 14.</div><div>3) Promote this conference if the speakers agree to do it.</div><div>4) Ask the Executive of SOAS SU to decide on further actions should they not.</div><div>5) Support students who wish to express their objections in other ways.</div><div>6) Fight against increasing marketisation of education.</div>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-21779924504000052372009-03-07T01:44:00.001-08:002009-03-07T01:44:44.761-08:00No to 'lasting partnerships' with police: No to spying on campus.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; "><p align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><b>No to 'lasting partnerships' with <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span>: No to spying on campus.</b></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; ">Proposed by: John Angliss</span></p><p style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; ">Seconded by: Clare Solomon</span></p><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">This Union Notes that:</span></span></p><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><br /></p><ol><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>The City of London <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">Police</span> approached the Students' Union with the view to establishing</span></span><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>"lasting partnerships" with "senior members of counter-terrorism operations"<br />for "future collaboration"</span></span></span> <span lang="en-US"><span>with SOAS students through the Home Office's PREVENT programme.</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">After long discussions the Students' Union (SU) executive voted no to this proposal</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">We passed a motion last year saying no to spying on campus.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">Several SOAS students have been approached with the offer of £100 to attend meetings of various societies and feed back information</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">Five SOAS students this term have been either harassed, arrested and/or handled roughly by the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span>.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">The City of London <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">Police</span> specialise in three areas, one of them being Terrorism.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#333333;"><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists</span></span></span> (Ref: the Guardian 17 Feb 2009)</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>The Centre for Social Cohesion has also issued an extremely right-wing report which manipulated SOAS students comments (</span></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>Islam on Campus: A survey of UK student opinions-</span></span></span><span>CFSC June 2008</span><span lang="en-US"><span>)</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>Even the NUS warned us that we had been mentioned in this report numerous times and that we might face...</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">SOAS SU has procedures in place that ensure societies and their speakers follow guidelines.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">The SU officers are elected and therefore can be held accountable</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">If <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> are needed on campus SOAS SU is capable of deciding when and where.</span></span></p></li></ol><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">This Union Believes that:</span></span></p><ol><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">This proposal is nothing short of an attempt to encourage SOAS students to spy on their fellow students and to recruit SOAS students to the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> force.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-style: normal; ">This programme will only serve to help the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> identify students and further put them at risk</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">SOAS Students' Union or the school should not be used to spend money on what is the<span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span>'s job to do. We should not be asked to do their dirty work: we will not spy on students</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">Focus groups are groups of students who are not elected and, therefore, undemocratic and can not be held accountable.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">SOAS has no control of what or how information is utilised or disseminated</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">Muslim students are under increasing suspicion which leads to being fearful to speak out against war and oppression</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">That a Students' Union should have a say over how its University money is spent</span></span></p></li></ol><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><br /></p><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">This Union Further Believes that:</span></span></p><ol><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">If SOAS students want to join the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> there are many ways to do this without having SOAS Students' Union using time and resources to do this.</span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;">Asking students and lecturers to spy on each other creates divisions and mistrust.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "></p></li></ol><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>This Union resolves to:</span></span></span></span></p><ol><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>Uphold and support the SU executives decision not to engage in this process</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>Oppose further attempts by the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> to engage with our students for propaganda purposes</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>Reserve the right to decide when and where we invite the <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">Police</span> onto campus</span></span></span></span></p></li><li style="margin-left: 15px; "><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; "><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-size:85%;"><span lang="en-US"><span>Defend students who have been victims of <span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">police</span> intimidation</span></span></span></span></p></li></ol></span>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-71117833010085305012009-03-02T04:05:00.000-08:002009-03-08T07:30:58.850-07:00Full motions document for SOAS UGM 25th Feb 2009<div>SOAS Students’ Union</div><div><br /></div><div>Union General Meeting UGM</div><div><br /></div><div>Thursday 26 February 2009</div><div>Room: JCR</div><div>4:00pm</div><div><br /></div><div>AGENDA</div><div><br /></div><div><ul><li>Welcome & Introduction by Chair<br /></li><li>Matters arising from previous UGM and update(s)<br /></li><li>Students’ Union Officers’ Reports<br /></li><li>Q & A for Union Executives<br /></li><li>Motions-<br /></li></ul></div><div><ol><li>Safe Spaces Policy<br /></li><li>Make Apartheid History<br /></li><li>Stop the BNP- On the Streets and at the Ballot Box<br /></li><li>No Means No!<br /></li><li>On the Commodification of Communism<br /></li><li>Liberty’s ‘Common Values’ Campaign<br /></li><li>Solidarity With Gaza<br /></li><li>Mobilisation Against the G20 and NATO Conference <br /></li><li>Gender Neutral Toilets<br /></li><li>Single Equalities Act Bill<br /></li><li>A Charter For Gaza<br /></li><li>SOAS Airplot Patch<br /></li><li>Working with FE Colleges on the Future of Education<br /></li><li>Coal- Fired Power Stations<br /></li><li>Save Our Universities: Save London Met<br /></li><li>Strong and Active Unions: Supporting Student Activism<br /></li><li>Increase the Union Entertainments Budget<br /></li></ol></div><div><br /></div><div>Emergency Motions</div><div><br /></div><div>Any Other Business (AOB) and announcements</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Safe Spaces Policy</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: John Angliss</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Hanadi Katerji</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) That this Union has excellent anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies to ensure that students as individuals will not be discriminated against or harassed because of their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.</div><div>2) That there are types of discrimination which do not target individuals, but instead target groups. For example, a recent piece of graffiti seen in the Institute of Education reads "attack all the Jews" whilst last term at the NUS Afro-Caribbean students were targeted as a group by some sabbaticals.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) Allowing offensive behaviour or speech to go unchallenged in a way</div><div>which makes people feel humiliated, excluded or silenced is harmful to</div><div>freedom of speech at SOAS.</div><div>2) That SOAS ought to put a policy in place to protect its students</div><div>from intimidation simply because of group membership.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To add to the SOAS Constitution the following:</div><div>"SOAS Safe Spaces Policy.</div><div>Threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour should not be directed at racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation or religious groups in the SOAS Union in a way likely to intimidate members of these groups. In the event that any individual is found to have broken this policy they will be subject to the disciplinary procedures of the Students Union." </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Make Apartheid History</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Mjiriam Abu Samra</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Elian Weizman</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The Union Notes:</div><div>1) Israel is responsible for ethnically cleansing 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, on whose lands and properties, the state of Israel was later established. The expulsion – planned and systematically carried out by the founders of the state of Israel – was essential to the creation of an expressly Jewish state.</div><div>2) In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, the occupation of which remains till today. The ongoing occupation changed its form but not its essence, thereby ignoring UN resolution 242 which calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied” in the 1967 war.</div><div>3) Israel continues to build an eight metres high wall on Palestinian land inside the post-1967 occupied West Bank, contravening the July 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice and causing the forcible separation of Palestinian communities from one another and the annexation of additional Palestinian land.</div><div>4) Within the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues a policy of settlement expansion in direct violation of the forth Geneva Convention. The settlements are for Jews only, housing approximately 500,000 residents, and are made possible through the settler-colonial theft of Palestinian Arab land. </div><div>5) The official ideology of the state of Israel is Zionism, embodied in the state’s laws which grants special rights to Jews and thereby structurally discriminating its Palestinian citizens. This ideology promotes racism and xenophobia through acts of parliament, supported by a set of racist laws under which different laws regarding citizenship, housing, land ownership, and marriage apply depending on whether someone is classified in law as “Jewish” or “non-Jewish”</div><div>6) Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and South African anti-Apartheid activist wrote in The Guardian on the 29th of April 2002: “I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.”</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes: </div><div>1) Israel is an Apartheid state.</div><div>2) Apartheid is racism and therefore we should oppose it.</div><div>3) Equality and human rights should be upheld.</div><div>4) Israel should stop discriminating against the indigenous Palestinian population.</div><div>5) The Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland and Israel should implement all international law that it is currently violating.</div><div>6) The Occupation is illegal and it should end immediately.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves: </div><div>1) The SOAS SU should endorse the events of the Israeli Apartheid week which will take place in different academic institutions in the UK and worldwide. </div><div>2) Affiliate our Union to the “The International Campaign To End The Siege On Gaza” and engage in education campaigns to publicise the injustice of Israeli apartheid.</div><div>3) Affiliate our Union to the “Campaign for Academic Boycott of Israeli Institutions” carried out in the UK by BRICUP and by PACBI in Palestine.</div><div>4) Issue a press release announcing the result of the debate on this motion and to mandate the Co- President Finance and Communications to report on the outcome of this debate on the SU Website and all relevant Union media. </div><div>5) The Union will support the work done by various individuals and institutions whose agenda aims at ending Israeli Apartheid practices and policies, among them Israeli based platforms such as Zochrot and various human rights organisations.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Stop the BNP – On the streets and at the ballot box</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">(Welfare zone amendment to motion 710)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Matt Richards</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Symeon Brown</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) The Nazi BNP is aiming to win a seat in the European elections in June by blaming the economic crisis on immigration.</div><div>2) That they are using the election campaign to try and get back onto the streets. BNP "flash" stalls have appeared in many towns to distribute leaflets and promote their organisation.</div><div>3) The BNP's leadership believe that to wield real power they need to turn their electoral success into a bigger core of activists capable of mobilising racists on the streets.</div><div>4) That the BNP's membership lists have revealed they have a number of members in positions of responsibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Further Believes: </div><div>1) We need a clear understanding that the ultimate aim of the BNP is to use its electoral success to build a movement on the streets capable of destroying all forms of democracy.</div><div>2) It is the anti-democratic fascist ideology of the BNP, not distaste for its particular policies, which leads us to "No Platform" it.</div><div>3) That we have to promote the idea that no-platform is about building a mass movement to remove the BNP from our Unions, Universities, workplaces and communities. </div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To reaffirm NUS’ no platform for fascists policy.</div><div>2) To develop an anti-fascist strategy that goes beyond elections to challenging the BNP on the streets and our campuses.</div><div>3) To support the LMHR carnival in Stoke on Trent on May 30th.</div><div>4) To send this motion to NUS conference 2009 as an amendment to motion 710 in the welfare zone after deleting resolves 5. To send the proposer of this motion or their proxy to compositing.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">No Means No!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Elly Badcock</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Hilary Aked</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>That the London Student headline story last week, “Asking for It”, reported that a third of students believe that rape is partially or totally a woman’s fault if she’s drunk or wearing revealing clothes.</div><div>That London Mayor Boris Johnson has cut funding to rape crisis centres around London by more than half.</div><div>That on Wednesday, the activation of a rape alarm in the lower ground floor toilets received no response from security.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>That rape is never a woman’s fault.</div><div>That if a woman can’t and/or doesn’t say ‘no’, consent is not implied.</div><div>That women should be able to dress however they so choose without assumptions or prejudices based upon it. </div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>To support a SOAS ‘No Means No’ campaign, culminating in a day of action with the money going to rape prevention and rape crisis charities. </div><div>To provide clearer and more easily available information and support for victims of sexual assault, both in the student welcome packs and at campus information points.</div><div>To support any action in response to the funding cuts mentioned above.</div><div>To call on the Student’s Union to include self-defence classes as a part of Fresher’s Week, funded by the school.</div><div>To force the school to implement a strategy for responding to emergency alarm calls and ensure security staff are trained how to deal with the alarm calls.</div><div>To install rape alarms in the male and gender-neutral toilets.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">On the Commodification of Communism</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed by: Clare Solomon </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded by: Ed Emery</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) Birkbeck are hosting a conference entitled: On the Idea of Communism with big name speakers such as Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou and more.</div><div>2) These speakers are from a broad range of schools of thought on the left.</div><div>3) This conference costs £100 for employed people and £45 to students.</div><div>4) There are no concessions for people who can not afford these sums.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) A university should not charge, especially students, for academic conferences.</div><div>2) Charging for an event like this goes against the spirit of Communism.</div><div>3) Charging for this event is politically motivated.</div><div>4) Students have enough financial troubles without having to pay even further to engage in academic dialogue.</div><div>5) Universities should be a place of learning and not for making money.</div><div>6) Marketisation of education will lead to a narrow output of educational programmes.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) Write a letter to Birkbeck expressing our disappointment and objection.</div><div>2) Invite the speakers of this conference to speak for free at SOAS on March 14.</div><div>3) Promote this conference if the speakers agree to do it.</div><div>4) Ask the Executive of SOAS SU to decide on further actions should they not.</div><div>5) Support students who wish to express their objections in other ways.</div><div>6) Fight against increasing marketisation of education.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Liberty’s ‘Common Values’ Campaign</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Farah Elahi</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Nizam Uddin</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) The Human Rights Act 1998 introduced the rights of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.</div><div>2) In December 2008, a poll conducted for Liberty by ComRes found that 87% of respondents do not remember ever seeing or receiving any information from the Government explaining the Human Rights Act.</div><div>3) Liberty's 'Common Values' campaign aims to broaden respect and understanding for human rights values and the Human Rights Act. Primarily the campaign aims to explain the Human Rights Act to people who are hostile to it, or who have little / no knowledge of it</div><div>4) Liberty (also known as The National Council for Civil Liberties) is one of the UK's leading civil liberties and human rights organisations. Liberty works to promote human rights and protect civil liberties through a combination of test case litigation, lobbying, campaigning and the provision of free advice.</div><div> </div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) In fundamental rights and freedoms, the shared values that protect every member of the human family and the society we seek to build together</div><div>2) It is important that there is a law that protects rights and freedoms in the UK, and that people are made aware of these rights </div><div> </div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To support the aim of Liberty's campaign 'Common Values', protecting and promoting human rights values and the Human Rights Act, and we agree to pledge our support in name.</div><div>2) To pass on information to the student body about Liberty's campaigns</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Solidarity with Gaza</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Society and Citizenship Zone: Amendment to motion 803</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed by: Clare Solomon</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded by: Hilary Aked</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) That the massacre of over 1300 in Gaza is the result of a bombardment by one of the most heavily armed states on the planet against one of the most densely populated ghettos in the world.</div><div>2) The Israeli government has been left free to act because of the acquiescence of western leaders and the background of the “war on terror.”</div><div>3) That all this takes place as a result of 60 years of occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people backed by the Western states.</div><div>4) That the student solidarity movement for Gaza has been one of the biggest in a generation including over 25 student occupations and sit-ins.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Further Believes:</div><div>1) That the Palestinians have a right to resist the occupation and decide their own future.</div><div>2) That the Palestinian “state” is completely at the mercy of the Israeli government which has broken up the democratically elected government of Palestine.</div><div>3) There is no equivalence between the two sides. We must base our position on solidarity with the people of Palestine.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To support students following through the demands of the occupations. (Scholarships for Palestinian students, donating spare equipment to Gaza, support fundraising for Gaza, disinvestment from arms companies).</div><div>2) To encourage Students Unions to twin with Palestinian universities.</div><div>3) To support future protests over Palestine by the Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity campaign. </div><div>4) To send this motion to NUS conference 2009 as an amendment to motion 803 in the society and citizenship zone after deleting resolves 4. To send the proposer of this motion or their proxy to compositing.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Mobilisation Against the G20 and NATO Conference</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Feyzi Ismail </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded by Haroun Lazim</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) The leaders of the most powerful nations in the world – the G20 – are meeting in London on 2nd April to discuss the global economic crisis.</div><div>2) NATO is meeting on 4th and 5th April in Strasbourg, France to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NATO.</div><div>3) Most G20 leaders refused to condemn Israel's attack on Gaza or the continuing blockade, while NATO leads the occupation of Afghanistan and is positioning Afghanistan as the new front of the war on terror.</div><div>4) The US, Britain and other countries still sell arms to Israel while the devastation and death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.</div><div>5) SOAS has been at the forefront of student activism, initiating and supporting the student occupations against the bombing of Gaza.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) The economic crisis is the worst crisis since the 1930s and will have destructive consequences for students, working people and the poor worldwide.</div><div>2) British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, and more aid should be sent to Gaza to address the humanitarian crisis. </div><div>3) Britain and the US have spent billions of pounds on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have injected billions more into the global economy to stave off its total collapse.</div><div>4) There is an inextricable link between the economic crisis and the occupations – the same countries that are responsible for the occupations and responsible for the economic crisis – and it is working people who are fighting in the wars abroad as well as fighting for jobs and public services at home.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To support and mobilise the maximum number of students to participate in the anti-war march and rally in London on 1st April and protest against the G20 meeting on 2nd April, called by Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the British Muslim Initiative and CND. </div><div>2) To support the mobilisation on 28th March organised by the Put People First campaign calling for the G20 leaders to put jobs, justice and climate first.</div><div>3) To publicise and support the protest against the NATO conference in Strasbourg, France in association with the Stop the War Coalition. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gender Neutral Toilets </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Caroline Smart </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Apphia Nichols</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>People go to SOAS. Some are men, some are women, and some are people who are gender diverse or transgendered </div><div>That all of the toilet facilities are exclusive to either men or women, except the disabled toilets</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>Equal opportunities policies which refer to discrimination on grounds of sex can now be considered automatically to include discrimination on grounds of transsexualism. This university should adopt current anti-discriminatory codes of practice regarding transgendered people ( see Press for Change Employment working Group http://www.pfc.org.uk)</div><div>That all people should be protected from discrimination and harassment on the grounds of gender identity or gender presentation.</div><div>That transgendered people and people who's gendered identity is not immediately visable should be able to use toilet facilities without being regarded with suspicion, riddicule or hostility</div><div>Most people of indeterminate gender end up using the disabled toilets by default. This is unacceptable</div><div>By having unisex as well as single gendered toilets everyone has an appropriate choice </div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>to create / allocate one toilet facility on the ground floor, or wherever is practical and safe, which is gender neutral/unisex, and can be used by both men, women and transgendered people in each of the following: </div><div>The main college building, The Brunei Gallery, Vernon Square, as a matter of urgency, and to liaise with the appropriate authorities to consider a more comprehensive system of alternating single sex gendered toilets with unisex toilets. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Single Equalities Act Bill (Appendix A)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Rukayah Sarumi</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Hana Riazuddin</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) The Government is currently working on and trying to pass through a Single Equalities Act Bill in the Spring term.</div><div>(2) This bill is currently considering extending 'positive action' to the workforce to redress the under representation of Women and Minorities.</div><div>(3) This union also notes that there is a serious underrepresentation of students from minority backgrounds at Britain's leading universities and schools.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes: </div><div>1) For Britain to progress as a thriving and creative society we must make equality a reality in the lives of everyone who lives, works or studies in this country. This can be a country where we are all able to participate fully and equally in society as the people we are, in all our ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. Our schools, colleges and universities can be places where no one is diminished by racial, gender or other forms of prejudice, stereotyping or discrimination.</div><div>2) To achieve these aims it is essential that our educational institutions, at all levels, be integrated so that they truly reflect the diversity of Britain’s youth.</div><div>3) We have the opportunity to place integration on the national agenda as never before. The Government is introducing a new Equality Bill this year. For the first time the Government will make Positive Action possible in this law. It will be possible to make race or gender a factor in employment and promotion, in order to counteract existing historic structural and systematic discrimination that has traditionally kept Black, Asian, other minority or women workers out. If we are serious about ending racism and sexism in education we must fight boldly for this scheme to be extended to the whole educational system.</div><div>4) Equality is the key to our future and separate education can never be equal.</div><div>5) We need to change the situation where, for example, black, Asian, and other ethnic minority students are seriously under-represented in the leading universities, and our schools are becoming more segregated than the neighbours in which students live.</div><div>6) This will require a creative, determined and active approach from all sections of society to devise and enforce Positive Action plans and programmes that can achieve integration and make strides towards equality. It will take action on all fronts to make the words in the Single Equalities Bill a reality in our lives.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) Join the call for the Government to include in its forthcoming Equality Bill a statutory requirement for Positive Action schemes that will take race and gender into account as factors in the admission if students to our schools, colleges and universities, so that they truly reflect the diversity of the young people of Britain’s towns and cities and the nation as a whole.</div><div>2)Campaign for SOAS to take a public position supporting the extension of the Single Equalities Bill to educational admissions processes in schools, colleges and universities.</div><div>3) Actively campaign for SOAS to implement Positive Action in its recruitment and student applications process. </div><div>4) Publicise and build for the Movement for Justice- called national demonstration for the extension of the Single Equalities Bill to Education.</div><div>5) Endorse and publicize the Movement for Justice Students Conference in May, which will bring students from schools, colleges and universities together at SOAS to discuss a national campaign of action</div><div>6) Encourage other Student Unions to adopt this motion and publicise widely the stand that SOAS Union has taken</div><div>7) SOAS Black Officer(s) to carry out a working group made up of a wide array of SOAS students open to work in conjunction with other unions to implement the policy of this motion.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">A Charter for Gaza</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Marianna Riddle</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Haroun Lazim</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) The Israeli assault on Gaza has left 1,300 people dead, and destroyed hospitals, schools and universities. </div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) We must call on our University to support the reconstruction efforts in Gaza. In particular, to support the rebuilding of the education system. </div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To lobby the University to: </div><div>a. Support the reconstruction of the education system in Gaza.</div><div>b. Withdraw all investments in the arms trade. </div><div>c. Set up a boycott, divestment and sanctions society.</div><div>d. Create scholarships for students from Palestine, and ensure University authorities guarantee safe passage for Palestinian students to get to the UK without hindrance.</div><div>e. Build links with academic institutions in Palestine, including twinning with a Palestinian University.</div><div>f. Support the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">SOAS Airplot Patch</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed by: Hanni Schoelermann</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded by: Yamuna Soto</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1. If the approved Heathrow airport expansion plans to go ahead and the third runway is built as planned, Heathrow airport will be responsible for emitting 27 million tones of CO2, making it the biggest single source of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.</div><div>2. These expansion plans directly contravene the UK government's pledge to cut UK carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1. The Heathrow expansion will negatively impact on the global climate and send climate change spinning out of control, for which reason we need to show our clear discontent und unwillingness to accept the expansion plans.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1. We condemn the investment in hugely carbon-emitting projects for the above stated reasons.</div><div>2. The SOAS Union will look into the viability of buying a plot of land on proposed runway ground and thereby take a clear stance on the matter. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Working with FE colleges on The Future of Education</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Katie Boothby</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Sebilio Lillo</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1) At the UGM on the 19/11/08 the union was mandated to campaign for free education.</div><div>2) The union is already engaged with other universities on campaigning for this.</div><div>3) Most of us here will not be directly affected by further changes to government funding of education. </div><div>4) It is further education student that will bear the brunt of any further changes.</div><div>5) SOAS has partner further education colleges (City & Islington, city of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, City Lit, Tower Hamlets and Westminster Kingsway)</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) The fight for a free education will not be won over night. It will require sustained effort and unity across institutions and organisations.</div><div>2) Further Education students are the future for Higher Education Institutions.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) Organise a free day long teach in for local FE college students. The Teach-In will cover background on the history of HE funding and current approaches to the issues surrounding it. It will also give an introductory guide to campaigning for Free Education.</div><div>2) Create links within the colleges to promote and develop this and future events. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Coal-fired Power Stations </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Proposed By: Hanni Schoelermann</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Seconded By: Yamuna Soto</span></div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1. Coal-fired power stations are the fastest growing source of carbon emissions in the UK and most other industrialised countries and make it impossible to meet the carbon reductions necessary to stop climate change.</div><div>2. UK reliance on coal-fired power stations is sending us into climate chaos by grossly contributing to total UK carbon emissions.</div><div>3. Despite the above, billions of pounds are invested into new coal-fired power stations in the UK alone every year, with the plans such a power station in Kingsnorth only being a recent example.</div><div>4. Carbon capture and storage does not work, and nor does there exist a carbon-neutral technology for coal-fired power plants.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1. Our responsibility as a Union is to increase awareness of the above problems linked to coal-fired power stations.</div><div>2. If no action is taken in this matter, the planned projects will go ahead and spin the climate out of control.</div><div>3. Instead of investing in coal, investments should centre on renewable energy that is actually low-carbon (thus excluding biofuel and biochar power stations).</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1. The Union condemns investments in coal-powered and non-renewable energy plants.</div><div>2. The Union actively supports campaigns in the matter and works to increase awareness of the sensitivity and urgency of the issue.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Save Our Universities: Save London Met</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">(Education zone amendment to motion 605)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Proposed By: Katie Boothby</div><div>Seconded By: Ben Sellers</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1) That we must remain committed to the idea that another education is possible.</div><div>2) Education could be about finding and developing the potential of everyone but is instead about giving people skills for employment.</div><div>3) “Teaching” universities that have driven forwards widening participation are failing through lack of funds and the government’s narrow skills agenda.</div><div>4) Students at London Metropolitan are now paying the price for the governments market driven policies.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Further Believes: </div><div>1) London Met has had its teaching budget cut by £18 million with the government clawing an extra £38 million in back payments.</div><div>2) University management quickly announced that at least 330 staff would lose their jobs to balance the books. No staff unions or students were consulted during the crisis.</div><div>3) Universities should be run democratically by staff and students not as a business by unaccountable managers.</div><div>4) We should demand that the government increase central funding at London Met and across the sector through taxation.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To support the “Save London Met” campaign alongside UCU and Unison.</div><div>2) To help organise a national day of action for London Met to include days of action on campus with meetings and collections for London Met UCU.</div><div>3) To publicise all protests and meetings called by the campaign.</div><div>4) To link it with a national campaign for free education and grants for all funded by progressive taxation.</div><div>5) To send this motion to NUS conference 2009 as an amendment to motion 605 in the education zone after deleting resolves 5. To send the proposer of this motion or their proxy to compositing.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Strong and Active Unions: Supporting Student Activism</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Amendment to motion 503</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Proposed by: Clare Solomon</div><div>Seconded by: James Kirkham</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1)That the wave of student occupations over the massacre in Gaza marks a turning point in student politics.</div><div>2) Over 20 Universities have gone into occupation in 2009 often linking up with each other to exchange speakers and experiences.</div><div>3) The NUS’ position has been unreservedly hostile echoing an argument usually found in the right-wing press that protests are “intimidating”.</div><div>4) NUS’ position has opened the doors to some Student Unions collaborating with their Universities to victimise student activists.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Further Believes:</div><div>1) That the student occupations enjoyed huge support from the general student population and some of the mainstream press.</div><div>2) That our unions should help spread, promote and support students protests to engage new activists.</div><div>3) That the occupations point to a type of student unionism directly opposed to the managerialism of trustee boards and best practice.</div><div>4) That if we could unite NUS with the activism of the occupations we could revitalise many of our unions.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1) To promote the tactic of student occupations.</div><div>2) To oppose the victimisations of students involved in the occupations – whether by their university or their union.</div><div>3)To create a legal briefing to help activists planning an occupation (within the spirit of this amendment).</div><div>4) To invite speakers from the occupations to talk about their experience at NUS events.</div><div>5) To send this motion to NUS conference 2009 as an amendment to motion 503 in the strong and active unions zone after deleting resolves 5. 14) To send the proposer of this motion or their proxy to compositing. </div><div><br /></div><div>Increase the Union Entertainments Budget</div><div> </div><div>Proposed By: Ben Sellers</div><div>Seconded By: Hanadi Katerji</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Notes:</div><div>1. That the current budget for all entertainment outside Freshers’ week is £3000.</div><div>2. That this year the Union Bar is on course to make a profit for the first time since 2005/6.</div><div>3. That, according to the last set of Union accounts, the Union has a surplus of over £250k.</div><div>4. That, with one exception, the Union has provided live music every week of the academic year, and on several occasions more than once per week. Performers at these events have been a mixture of SOAS students and professional musicians.</div><div>5. These events have consistently attracted large amounts of students, including Union members.</div><div> </div><div>This Union Believes:</div><div>1. That there is a definite correlation between attendance at Union entertainment events and an increase in revenue at the SOAS bar#[1].</div><div>2. That, although the Union Executive have negotiated hard to bring in professional musicians at exceptionally low rates, the current budget restricts their ability to book quality acts.</div><div>3. That an increase in the amount allocated to entertainments is likely to be recuperated in bar revenue.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Union Resolves:</div><div>1. To increase the Union entertainment budget for 2009/10 from £3000 to £5000 with the approval of Union trustees. </div><div>2. To take this extra money from the SU trading account.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Appendix A</div><div>The Single Equality Act – the biggest piece of equality and diversity legislation in 40 years! (Source: http://www.singleequality.co.uk/single_equality_act.php)</div><div>What is it?</div><div>As part of the General Election manifesto of 2005 the Labour Government pledged a new Single Equality Bill to replace, streamline and simplify existing legislation. </div><div>With over 40 years of equality related law we currently have</div><div>nine major pieces of legislation</div><div>around 100 statutory instruments setting out connected rules and regulations and</div><div>more than 2,500 pages of guidance and statutory codes of practice!</div><div>This Bill is now at an advanced stage and has been widely consulted on (with some 4500 responses to consultation).</div><div><br /></div><div>It is anticipated it will be taken back to Parliament with the results of consultation at the end of 2008 and should receive Royal Assent in the spring of 2009, when it will become an Act of Parliament and enter the statute books.</div><div>What will it mean for employers?</div><div>There will be an impact on all employers as it will include new legislation. </div><div>It should also help small and medium sized employers who may be struggling to keep up with diversity legislation and good practice. It will be written in Plain English!</div><div>It is likely to include:</div><div>Introduction of a new Equality Duty on the public sector – this will bring together the three existing duties on race, disability and gender, and extend to gender reassignment, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief</div><div>Outlawing of age discrimination in the provision of goods and services</div><div>Requirement for transparency – in gender pay, ethnic minority and disability employment</div><div>Extension of positive action – this is being viewed by some as making positive discrimination lawful when faced with 2 equally well qualified potential employees!</div><div>Strengthening enforcement – this may include extending discrimination cases to allow for representatives to take a case to court, and not just the victim</div><div>How can Single Equality Training and Consultancy (SETC) help you?</div><div>At SETC we are viewing this as an excellent opportunity for employers to revisit their diversity policies and procedures and develop new strategies to bring the organisation bang up to date. SETC can offer consultancy and training to develop diversity strategy, policies and procedures tailored to your needs with the associated training for management and frontline staff in all aspects of age, gender, disability (including access audits through DWAL ‘Disability – with a Life’), race, sexual orientation and religion or belief.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Appendix B</div><div><br /></div><div>Schedule 1: Union General Meeting (Constitution pp. 15- 17)</div><div>1. A Union General Meeting (UGM) shall be held at least once a term. The proposed dates shall</div><div>be determined by the Sabbatical Officers and advertised at the start of the year, and no less than ten days before a meeting. Any change to the published proposed dates shall be advertised as widely as possible using electronic and printed media.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. An Extraordinary UGM may be called at no less than three days’ notice in term time by</div><div>(a) the Union's Sabbatical Officers; or</div><div>(b) the Union Executive Committee; or</div><div>(c) 75 ordinary members of the Union by a petition submitted to the Co–President Finance &</div><div>Communications.</div><div>The agenda of an Extraordinary UGM shall include only those items which by their very nature</div><div>cannot wait for the next scheduled UGM.</div><div>The Co–President Finance & Communications (or in his/her absence, one of the other two</div><div>Sabbatical Officers) shall rule on whether or not the item requires consideration by an</div><div>Extraordinary UGM.</div><div><br /></div><div>3. The organisation of the UGM shall be the responsibility of the Finance & Communications</div><div>Sabbatical Officer, or shall be arranged by the Union Executive Committee if the Finance &</div><div>Communications Sabbatical Officer is the cause of the meeting. The UGM date and motion</div><div>submission deadline shall be publicised as widely as possible using electronic and printed media.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. The deadline for submission of motions shall be three working days before the meeting, at which point the agenda including motions in full shall be publicised as widely as possible by the meeting organiser using electronic and printed media. All motions must be proposed and</div><div>seconded by ordinary members of the Union (which includes Sabbatical and part-time Union</div><div>Officers).</div><div>The quorum for the UGM shall be 50 ordinary members except in the cases listed below</div><div>where a quorum shall be 80 ordinary members:</div><div>(a) motions of no confidence in a Union Officer;</div><div>(b) motions to amend the Constitution and Schedules.</div><div>A quorum shall be assumed unless specifically asked to be taken by any one ordinary member,</div><div>except in the two cases listed above where a quorum count shall be taken as a matter of</div><div>course.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. There shall be a Chair for the UGM who shall normally not be a member of the Union. It shall be the responsibility of the organiser to select and brief the Chair. The Finance & Communications Sabbatical Officer shall act as Deputy Chair or, if inappropriate, a member voted for by the UGM. The Chair shall not preside over an issue in which s/he has a vested interest, and should immediately state this if it is the case and pass the Chair to the Deputy.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. The Chair shall be responsible for the smooth running of the meeting and shall enable all</div><div>opinions to be aired. In the event of any situation arising not being covered by meeting</div><div>regulations, the Chair shall rule on the procedure to be adopted in that meeting. If necessary,</div><div>steps shall accordingly shall be taken to amend this Schedule to cover such a situation in the</div><div>future.</div><div><br /></div><div>7. Any member of the Union has the right to attend and speak at a UGM. Any non-member who</div><div>wishes to attend and/or speak must inform the organiser beforehand who will obtain receive the permission of the Chair. Any member wishing to speak must raise her/his hand. The Chair of the meeting shall decide the order of speaking.</div><div><br /></div><div>8. There shall be minutes of the UGM. The minutes shall be taken by the Union Secretary or nominee. The Union Secretary shall produce the agenda and papers for the UGM and shall distribute them in advance. The papers shall include the minutes of the previous meeting, management or executive officers’ reports and the text of submitted motions. The agenda of</div><div>meetings shall normally be taken in the following order:</div><div>· Welcome from the Chair</div><div>· Checking the minutes of the previous meeting for accuracy</div><div>· Matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting</div><div>· Management reports</div><div>· Questions about management reports</div><div>· Reports from the Union Executive Committee</div><div>· Questions to the Union Executive Committee</div><div>· Debates on submitted motions</div><div>· Debates on emergency motions</div><div>· Any other business</div><div>Amendments to the running order may be requested by the UGM at any point and passed by a two thirds majority vote.</div><div><br /></div><div>9. All debates on motions shall proceed as follows:</div><div>· the proposer of the motion shall make a speech</div><div>· any changes to the motion shall be raised (according to paragraph 10 below)</div><div>· the Chair shall invite a speech against the debate</div><div>· the Chair shall balance the number of speeches for and against the debate</div><div>· the Chair shall invite any questions and statements relating to the debate and</div><div>consider any new proposed changes to the motion (according to paragraph 10</div><div>below)</div><div>· the proposer of the motion shall have the right to sum up.</div><div><br /></div><div>The vote shall be taken by a show of hands, with proof of ordinary membership. Proxy votes are not permitted. The Chair shall not normally be allowed to vote, unless s/he is a member of the Union and there is a tie, in which case s/he shall have a casting vote. In the case of a tie that cannot be resolved, the motion shall be carried forward to the next UGM.</div><div><br /></div><div>10. Changes to the motion shall proceed as follows:</div><div>· any changes to the motion shall be raised after the proposer has spoken</div><div>· the Chair shall invite and take a speech against the changes</div><div>· the Chair shall balance the number of speeches for and against the changes</div><div>· the Chair shall leave time for questions and statements before the vote</div><div>· when all changes have been voted upon, the main motion shall be discussed and</div><div>voted upon.</div><div><br /></div><div>11. A majority of one is required to pass a motion with the following exceptions:</div><div>· motions of no confidence require a two-thirds majority vote</div><div>· motions to amend the Constitution require a two-thirds majority vote</div><div>· motions to suspend any section of the Constitution require a seven-eighths majority vote.</div><div><br /></div><div>12. Emergency motions may only be discussed at the discretion of the Chair, if they deal with</div><div>issues which by their nature could not be passed on to the next UGM. The motion shall be</div><div>submitted in writing to the Chair before the start of the meeting.</div><div><br /></div><div>13. The following procedural motions may be moved during debate and shall only apply to the</div><div>motion under debate at the time of the motion being moved:</div><div>(a) that the meeting has no confidence in the Chair;</div><div>(b) that the ruling of the Chair be overturned;</div><div>(c) that the Chair make a ruling on the procedure, quoracy or conduct of the meeting;</div><div>(d) that the motion be taken to a vote without further discussion;</div><div>(e) that the motion be dismissed;</div><div>(f) that the motion be referred to the next UGM;</div><div>(g) that the motion be taken in parts;</div><div>(h) a request for a Point of Order;</div><div>(i) a request for a Point of Information.</div><div><br /></div><div>14. In the event of a procedural motion 13(a) or 13(b) being proposed, the occupant of the Chair shall leave the Chair which shall be taken by the Deputy Chair.</div><div><br /></div><div>15. In the case of 13(a), there shall be one speech for the procedural motion and the challenged occupant shall have the right to reply immediately prior to the vote. </div><div>In the case of 13(b), the challenged occupant may return to the Chair but must abide by the decision of the meeting upon the challenged ruling.</div><div><br /></div><div>16. The quorum may be challenged under procedural motion 13(c), at which point the Chair shall make a ruling on whether or not the meeting has a quorum. If the meeting is found not to have a quorum, no motions may be passed and the meeting shall only continue at the discretion of the Chair.</div><div><br /></div><div>17. If members are unable to see, hear or require clarification this may be raised under procedural motion 13(c), at which point the Chair shall make all appropriate possible steps to rectify this.</div><div><br /></div><div>18. In the case of 13(d), being passed, no further discussion on this motion shall be permitted. If carried, the proposer of the motion shall immediately sum up and the motion shall then be put to the vote.</div><div><br /></div><div>19. In the case of 13(g), being passed, a vote shall be taken on each individual resolution of the motion.</div><div><br /></div><div>20. In the case of 13(h), a Point of Order shall be raised by a speaker requesting "a point of order".</div><div>It must be framed as a question to the Chair, must relate specifically to the conduct of the</div><div>debate at that time, must never refer to the subject matter under debate and must contain no</div><div>argument.</div><div><br /></div><div>21. In the case of 13(i), a Point of Information may be requested through the Chair by a call of</div><div>“information”. Points of Information must be phrased as a short question to the meeting, and</div><div>must be used solely to seek or offer strictly information. They must not refer to matters of</div><div>opinion.</div><div><br /></div><div>22. At all times procedural motions shall take precedence over all other business.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-28430536044115773242009-01-25T04:28:00.000-08:002009-01-25T04:30:00.115-08:00Israel Social TV mission statementVersion:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000015970 StartFragment:0000000493 EndFragment:0000015953 <p align="CENTER" style="margin-top: 0.16cm; margin-bottom: 0.16cm"><u><b>Social TV: Letter of Inquiry</b></u></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm; line-height: 0.49cm"><br /><br /></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Organizational Overview</b></u></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> is a none-partisan Israeli social change initiative, using strategies of public education and independent media (mainly video articles), aims to empower civil society and the peace and social change movement in Israel as a whole. Founded in 2006 as an Israeli project, Social TV has been operating under the Syncopa Community framework. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> has already produced over 250 short video programs for its website, building a video library that includes coverage of demonstrations, direct actions, lectures, and alternative cultural events, etc'. Daily, there are hundreds of visitors to </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> website, and an additional 12,000 are reached through weekly e-mail updates. Run by an entirely volunteer staff, </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> has also become a platform for other non-profit organizations in Israel (please refer to last page of the letter of inquiry).</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Mission Statement</b></u></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><u> </u></span> </p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> was founded to give visibility and evoke awareness and sympathy to issues of social justice in its broader sense. Thus, Social TV seeks to break the monopoly of privatized neo-liberal media, by providing alternative media that is created and maintained from below, through the grass-roots efforts of the citizens. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> aims to become a cooperative media organization which promotes democratic values and foster active participation within civil society, raising awareness about the political and social issues within Israel, and within the increasingly globalized world. </span> </p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> seeks to become a model of socially responsible communication throughout Israel and the Middle East, which is able to be duplicated and reproduced.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">Thus </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> seeks to impact the current reality, as a social change organ striving to promote human rights, social justice, equal distribution, and political co-operation between diverse groups in society.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b> </b></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%; page-break-before: always"> <span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Background and Needs</b></u></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">It is well-established that mainstream media is shaping the mindset, political and social consciousness of the next generation, and constructing reality through the select material presented and disseminated. Increasingly, through an accelerated series of mergers in the news media, this situation has been compounded, enabling a few large commercial conglomerates to dictate the media agenda, creating a close fit between big government and commercial interests. </span> </p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">The situation in Israel, a small, highly industrialized and developed country, has reached a crisis point. For years a hegemonic historical and political outlook has dominated Israeli society, perpetuated by a few large institutionalized media outlets (radio, newspaper, and television), and by the interconnected process of educational and military which every Israeli youth undergoes. Facing increasingly intense political, social and environmental conflict, including 40 years as a foreign occupier, Israel is also concurrently within the grasp of an intense push towards privatization. </span> </p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">Privatization has meant that Israeli media is increasingly controlled by a number of large commercial conglomerates, and thus nearly all of the country’s media is filtered through the institutionalized commercial interests of a few select individuals and families (appendix 1). This is a process of inter-locking ownership, where the owners of financial and commercial enterprises (who control all the means of production), also control all the modes of communication that reach the public. This situation is dangerous because it limits the spectrum of issues and viewpoints presented in the media, threatening the basic tenants of a democracy.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> program is designed in response to this situation. By providing critical news and information that is detached from corporate agendas, </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> is putting media back into the hands of the public, reaching a target audience of adept internet users who are held captive by mainstream news. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Aims</b></u></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> mandate is to provide an alternative internet TV platform to promote equality, justice, civic education and culture which stands in contrast to institutionalized commercial media, breaking the link between capitalism and media. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> target population on the electronic internet community, a confident population of youth and adults who are computer literate and active citizens involved in activities and outreach events through social justice organizations. </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> aims to:</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Promote civil and political awareness in place of commercial consumption and strengthen Israeli democracy </i></span><span style="font-size:85%;">by highlighting the plurality of alternative events, organizations, and agendas within Israel.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Create a platform for Israeli social change organizations</i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> to exhibit and advertise their educational, social, and cultural events, which are often neglected by mainstream media.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i>Redefine the value scale</i></span><span style="font-size:85%;">, by targeting the standard values represented and disseminated by mainstream media, in order to implement a fundamental shift in the central values and beliefs of society.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Activities</b></u></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">Each of </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV’s</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> projects have two components: I) educational seed training stage, and II) creation and production stage. These two stages will enable </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> to build an enduring framework, ensuring the organization long-term trajectory through creating a solid infrastructure. The list of </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> projects for the upcoming year includes:</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Project: ‘Spotlight on Social Change’</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> an alternative talk-show, will run on a bi-monthly basis throughout the year. Each show would be comprised of a conversation between a featured guest and the host.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Theme Articles Project</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> providing a stage for evolving issues marginalized in the mainstream media, themes includes privatization and centralization within Israel, alternative Israeli-Palestinian initiatives towards cooperation, and the struggle for worker’s rights.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Non-online channels of distribution</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> - mainly mastering high quality Educational DVD Library, containing Social TV’s articles collection, for distribution throughout Israel to learning centers and schools, academic institutes, youth movements, social change groups etc</span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="cy-GB">'…</span></span></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Mobile Social TV</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> - is a project designed to actively bring the organization’s materials to the general public by screening at outdoors public spaces, focusing on communities in social and geographical periphery. This will be done in the context of debate-oriented social events, as to strengthen the sense of civil society</span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span lang="he-IL">.</span></span></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%; page-break-before: always"> <span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><u><b>Accomplishments</b></u></span></span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Since its establishment in 2006, </span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><b>Social TV</b></i></span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> has becoming a leader of alternative media in Israel, producing groundbreaking reports on events, lecturing at locations throughout Israel, and increasing their coverage in the mainstream media. A sample of the Social TV’s accomplishments thus far includes: </span></span> </p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Early and exclusive coverage of non mainstream Israeli citizens who organized massive protests against the war in Lebanon in July of 2006.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Educational lectures and seminars which have been given at academic institutions throughout Israel including The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleges in Tel Aviv and Akko.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-left: 1.38cm; text-indent: -0.64cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"> <span style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">A diverse range of articles written about the organization in the mainstream media, signaling the growing recognition of Social TV as a vital force for media advocacy in Israel.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>The growing numbers of organizations which have presented their content on Social TV’s website include:</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span> </p> <p align="RIGHT" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size:85%;">The Coalition Against Trafficking </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> B’Tselem </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Gush Shalom </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Gush Shalom </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Yesh Gvul </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Coalition for the Promotion of Animal Rights </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Zochrot </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> New Israel Fund </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Shatil </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> The Workers Hotline (Kav Laoved), and others.</span></p> <p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><u><b>Contact Information</b></u></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <table width="568" border="0" cellpadding="7" cellspacing="0"> <col width="175"> <col width="175"> <col width="175"> <tbody><tr valign="TOP"> <td width="175"> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Ehud Shem Tov</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Director, Social TV</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Tel: +972 (0)52-5433100</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Fax: +972-(0)3-5187793</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm"><a href="mailto:ehud@social.org.il"><span style="font-size:85%;">ehud@social.org.il</span></a></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm"><a href="http://www.tv.social.org.il/"><span style="font-size:85%;">www.tv.social.org.il</span></a></p> </td> <td width="175"> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm"><br /> </p> </td> <td width="175"> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm"><br /> </p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 150%"><br /></p> <p style="margin-top: 0.14cm; margin-bottom: 0.14cm; line-height: 0.49cm"><br /><br /></p>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-60861293855074258532009-01-18T02:39:00.000-08:002009-01-18T02:41:40.679-08:00Evidence of the tends for ethnic cleansing?FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br /><br />Under cover of announcing humanitarian relief for injured Palestinians, it is now emerging that<br /><br />Israel is planning the transfer of tens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt. <br /><br />Evidence of the Israeli transfer plan has been sent to London based Islington Friends of Yibna** [IFY]. Earlier today, Sat 17 Jan 09, IFY received a photo of tents [see attached] outside the main hospital in Egyptian Rafah, near the border with Gaza. <br /><br />The white tents with no markings are being erected by the Egyptian Army, starting last night, Fri 16 Jan 09. The photo was taken this morning [Sat 17 January 09]. The soldiers stated that 5,000 tents were planned for refugees from Gaza.<br />Further information is available from our contacts in the Egyptian side of Rafah [Rafah was divided by Israel after it occupied Gaza and Sinai in 1967; Israel divided Rafah when Sinai was returned to Egypt].<br /><br />From our contacts in Yibna Refugee Camp in Gaza we have learnt that, in the north east of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, Israeli tanks have surrounded and sealed off the Al Sarayh neighbourhood, for more than the last 48 hours. There are many injured people trapped there, the Israelis are not allowing access for the Red Cross and many people are dying of their wounds, isolated and with no medical treatment. <br /><br />We have grave concerns that Israel will target the Al Sarayh neighbourhood to be the first to be transferred and that this might be within the next 24h. <br /><br />While Al Sarayh is completely isolated, with no access even to the Red Cross, Israel can prepare and carry out its plans without any witnesses from the aid agencies to alert the international community. While preventing Al Sarayh from accessing any medical treatment, Israel would portray a transfer as an Israeli humanitarian gesture to allow them access to medical treatment in Egypt. Given that Israel has been bombing Al Sarayh non-stop Israel would portray a transfer as a humanitarian gesture to allow them to escape the killing fields of the constant Israeli bombardment [thus claiming they will be safer in Egypt and giving them the “choice”]. <br /><br />Israel is NOT on a mercy mission. While presenting this transfer as a humanitarian gesture, allowing injured Palestinians and their families out across the Rafah border crossing for hospital treatment, the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse Gaza and transfer Palestinians to Egypt is not new. This is an advanced stage in the Israeli plan to ethnic cleanse the 1.5 million Palestinians out of Gaza [e.g. see the video interview in English of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a year ago, on 18 Jan 08, calling for the Palestinians in Gaza to be transferred to the Sinai desert as a humanitarian gesture]. Those forced now to leave, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture, will never again be allowed back [just like they have never been allowed back to the homes from which they were ethnic cleansed in 1948]. The Palestinian refugees, ethnic cleansed from Gaza, would continue to be hunted down by Israel, even if they would be later transferred further into the Sinai desert.<br /><br />It appears that the ceasefire agreement with Egypt [part of the Israeli “unilateral” ceasefire due to start on 17 Jan, 2400 GMT] paved the way to the erection of the tents by Egyptian forces and that Egypt agreed to allow Israel to ethnic cleansed dozens of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt, under the pretext of a humanitarian gesture.<br /><br />Earlier this afternoon, PM Gordon Brown announced that injured children would be taken out of Gaza for medical treatment and food aid would be stepped up. IFY spoke with medics in the Egyptian Rafah,and they said that today the Egyptian soldiers rejected ALL the food they provided for Gaza, while on other days they allowed some food in [though in no way proportionate to the needs of 1.5 millions]. As for the medical treatment, that could be the cover story for the ethnic cleansing of dozens of thousands, especially as the tents are near the hospital <br /><br />By last week, more than 40,000 people in Rafah have already been forced out of their homes by the day and night Israeli bombardment, making transfer easier as there is now no need to get them out of their houses, many of which are now bombed ruins. There’s nothing left for the Palestinians in Gaza [even the cemetery in Rafah was bombed] and they have been terrorised for so long, that it is hard to estimate how much more violence Israel would need to exercise to force them to leave Gaza<br /><br />It is not anticipated that Israel would immediately ethnic 1.5million Palestinians in Gaza, but that it would pursue its completion when it feels there are international circumstances that would allow it.<br /><br />Photograph of the tents attached.<br /><br />For further information and updates please contact Yael Kahn on +44 (0)7880 731 865 or Rob Langlands on +44 (0)7977 490415<br /><br />Regards, <br />Yael Kahn, Chair of IFY: +44 (0)7880 731 865<br /><br />Rob Langlands, Secretary of IFY: +44 (0)7977 490415 <br />Islington_Yibna@yahoo.co.ukSolomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-49661800277185012572009-01-17T10:14:00.000-08:002009-01-17T11:03:46.711-08:00National NUS President et al play more dirty tricks...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial;font-size:13px;">Here are the series of emails and other shocking behaviour from the NUS NEC with regards to the Black Students campaign.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial;font-size:48px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial;font-size:13px;">The first is an email from Bell (NUS Black Students' Officer) that she was attempting to send to every sabbatical in the country. Liberation Officers do not have the authority to send emails to the whole of the NUS directory, but Bell has taken the time to copy and paste all the emails from the directory into a word document - a task that is perfectly legitimate. It is her right to communicate with students' union sabbaticals and especially when she is communicating the policy of the Black Students' Campaign.<br /><br />- Please read email 1 (below) -<br /><br />You will see that several highly respected political figures have joined the campaign to defeat the NUS Governance Review.<br /><br />However, only a third of the way through sending her emails, Bell discovered that her email account had been BLOCKED. Bell's email window on her computer literally vanished before her eyes. Maintenance of the NUS email service had been planned, but not as early as the messages were being sent.<br /><br />Shortly after this happened, email 2 from Wes was sent to every delegate from last term's Extraordinary Conference.<br /><br />- Please read email 2 (below) -<br /><br />The sending of this email raised Bell's suspicions that the NUS email was not down. Infront of her very eyes her blackberry displayed something along the lines of "verifying web settings... Password changed". She had been LOCKED OUT OF HER BLACKBERRY. She immediately called IT services who did not pick up, and so was fast realising that somehow she had been blocked from sending any emails at all. A direct violation of the Black Students' Campaign's autonomy, and their right to send emails that are IN LINE WITH THEIR POLICY.<br /><br />Yesterday (Friday) morning Bell went into NUS HQ to sort out the problem with her services... She went to the IT dept and was told to "speak to Wes" regarding her lack of Blackberry services, and blocking of her email account. After a phone conversation it was revealed that Wes had authorised both of these actions to occur.<br /><br />Emails 3 and 4 that are also shown below are emails from Bell to Wes, please read them.<br /><br />This disgusting behaviour from the National President is indicative of the tactics of the Pro-Governance leadership in stifling the debate. To suggest that Bell has "misled" respected political figures including LABOUR MP DIANNE ABBOTT is frankly offensive to not only Bell, but also the signatories of Bell's original statement.<br /><br />To over-ride the autonomy of the Black Students' Campaign and to act in these ways is so unbelievably underhanded and corrupt it defies belief.<br /><br />This comes just a day after the announcement during an NEC meeting of the National President that he will be "writing to the LGBT Campaign to register his disgust" at LGBT's vote to be anti-Governance Review, because, in his words, the committee is "unrepresentative". Shocking and ridiculous words from a man who believes that two extraordinary conferences is representative of students' wants.<br /><br />1) BELL'S ORIGINAL EMAIL<br /><br />Doreen Lawrence, Benjamin Zephaniah and Diane Abbott are among those who have united to express concern about the National Union of Students (NUS) proposed new Constitution.<br /><br />The NUS Black Students' Campaign has launched a statement calling on NUS to delay adopting the new Constitution until an Equality Impact Assessment – which would identify the new Constitution's impact on Black, disabled, lesbian gay, bisexual and trans students (LGBT), and women – has been conducted and reported.<br /><br />Founding signatories of the statement include Doreen Lawrence OBE, Dr Benjamin Zephaniah, Diane Aboott MP, Cllr Salma Yaqoob, Keith Vaz MP, Operation Black Vote (OBV), Lester Holloway, Editor of The New Nation and Lee Jasper.<br /><br />In November NUS made a commitment to conduct an Equality Impact Assessment, after being mandated to do so by delegates at NUS Conference. NUS has now announced that the new Constitution will be voted on at a Conference on January 20th, despite the fact that the Equality Impact Assessment has not yet even been commissioned.<br /><br />The new Constitution would reduce the influence and authority of elected representatives of Black, disabled, LGBT and women students, by removing these Officers from the most powerful decision-making body in NUS. Diversity of participation in the events that determine NUS' policies and priorities would also be undermined by the new Constitution.<br /><br />Doreen Lawrence OBE said: "I am disappointed to hear that as the 10th anniversary of the Lawrence Inquiry approaches, NUS is planning to roll back Black students' representation. I was proud to support the creation of a Black Students' Officer in NUS, the position is vital in ensuring NUS properly represents Black students and challenges institutional racism. Undermining the Black Students' Officer's powers and influence would be disastrous for Black students. I urge the leaders of NUS to reconsider their proposals."<br /><br />Dr Benjamin Zephaniah said: "After years of struggling to get young Black people represented at all levels of higher education the NUS should be respecting and supporting Black students who are facing racism, harassment and prejudice in schools, colleges and universities. It saddens and disappoints me to see that instead of encouraging representation they are sidelining the Black Students Officer, which in real terms means that many of the needs and concerns of Black students will be ignored. This is a step backwards."<br /><br />Diane Abbott MP said: "NUS should be actively encouraging more Black students to participate in its activities, but instead these proposals will shut out many Black students from key decisions in NUS. With Black people shockingly under-represented in Parliament, and in other powerful positions in society, NUS should be acting to strengthen, not weaken the position of Black students in its leadership."<br /><br />Simon Wooley, Director, OBV said: "On the day that people around the world will be celebrating the inauguration on the first Black US President, Barack Obama, the NUS leadership are showing scant regard for Black representation."<br /><br />Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS Black Students' Officer said: "We are extremely concerned at NUS' refusal to wait for the findings of an Equality Impact Assessment before adopting a new Constitution. In November NUS made a public commitment to conduct an impact assessment, but now it is backtracking by scheduling a vote on the new Constitution before an Equality Impact Assessment has even been commissioned. The concerns of Black students about a reduction in our representation and participation in NUS have been ignored as the leaders of NUS seek to rush through this fundamental decision without proper consideration."<br /><br />The full text of the statement is copied below:<br /><br />"We are deeply concerned at the National Union of Students (NUS) decision to proceed with adopting a new Constitution before an Equality Impact Assessment on the proposals has reported.<br /><br />The NUS Black Students' Campaign has expressed strong concerns that Black students' representation and participation in NUS will be reduced if the new Constitution is introduced. The LGBT Campaign has also expressed concern at the proposals. Both have called for an Equality Impact Assessment to be conducted to identify the impact of the new Constitution on Black, Disabled, LGBT and Women students.<br /><br />Equalities legislation, including the Race Relations (Amendment) Act, Gender Equality Duty and Disability Discrimination Act, recognises the need for regular Equality Impact Assessments to identify any discrimination in an organisation's policies and procedures.<br /><br />NUS has announced that an Equality Impact Assessment on its proposed Constitution will be unable to report until March or April 2009, but it still plans to take a decision to implement the new Constitution in January 2009. This would make it impossible for the impact assessment to influence the proposed Constitution before it is adopted, and so would render the entire process almost meaningless.<br /><br />We call on NUS to ensure no decisions are taken about the proposed Constitution until a full Equality Impact Assessment has been conducted and its findings reported."<br /><br />2) WES' RESPONSE -<br /><br />Dear all,<br /><br /><br /><br />Please find below our official response to an email that we are aware that was sent to many of you earlier today.<br /><br /><br /><br />Best wishes,<br /><br /><br /><br />Wes<br /><br /><br /><br />NUS President Wes Streeting said:<br /><br />"Claiming that NUS' reform proposals should not be debated until an equality assessment is completed is a cynical political ploy, which has nothing to do with equality and diversity and everything to do with blocking changes which the majority of NUS members have been requesting for years. It is disappointing that some respected political figures have been misled about the intentions of these proposals.<br /><br />"If the changes to NUS' constitution are passed next Tuesday, they would not be implemented until the summer, which gives plenty of time for an equality assessment to be completed and acted upon.<br /><br />"The fact remains that the reform proposals actually double the number of dedicated Black Students' representatives on the NUS National Executive, and improve support for our Liberation campaigns. They would also give the Black Students Officer the opportunity to be elected to sit on the management committee of NUS for the first time."<br /><br />3) BELL'S RESPONSE TO WES -<br /><br />Dear Wes,<br /><br /><br />I write to express in the strongest terms my objection to your claim that the Black Students' Campaign's call for an Equality Impact Assessment is, in your own words, "a cynical political ploy."<br /><br /><br />As you will know, Equality Impact Assessments are recognised by equalities legislation as crucial in identifying and challenging inequality. To suggest those who wish to challenge such inequality and discrimination are engaged in "a cynical political ploy" is offensive.<br /><br />Your suggestion that those who have voiced their concerns - including Doreen Lawrence OBE, Dr Benjamin Zephaniah, Diane Abbott MP, Cllr Salma Yaqoob and many others - must have been misled is insulting and inaccurate. They, like hundreds of Black students, are expressing legitimate concerns about the rolling back of Black students' representation in our national union.<br /><br /><br />You will also be aware that published guidance on Equality Impact Assessments stresses that it is important for impact assessments to be conducted, and those affected consulted before a proposed policy is introduced. Your claim that an Equality Impact Assessment can be conducted after a decision on the new Constitution has been taken directly contradicts such advice. In addition, your suggestion that changes will not be implemented until the summer is quite simply false - the proposed schedules would lead to some changes (for example the abolition of regional conferences and nominations for the new National Executive Council) being implemented just days after the Extraordinary Conference meets.<br /><br /><br />Further, I requested an impact assessment was conducted when I took office in July. My committee made the same request. Clearly a request made in July, when no extraordinary conference had been called to discuss the proposals, cannot be dismissed as an attempt to 'block' changes being made on Tuesday.<br /><br /><br />Your decision to bar my access to my email account while I was sending this statement to my contacts was reprehensible. You then followed this by sending your statement to what I believe may have been a list of all sabbatical officers in the country and people who attended the last extraordinary conference. Your claim to want a proper debate on the proposed Constitution rings hollow when you act to block me from communicating with students, while using the powers of your office to send a statement rubbishing the concerns of the Black students' campaign. If you are truly interested in a full and fair debate, why not send the Black Students' Campaign statement to the contacts who have received your statement, and allow them to make up their own minds?<br /><br /><br />I have copied this email to my committee. We feel that your actions show complete contempt for our concerns about the new Constitution. It is your right to disagree with us, Wes, but to accuse us (and the LGBT committee, who also advocate an Impact Assessment) of 'a cynical political ploy' when all we are doing is asking for a procedure designed to challenge institutional discrimination, is disgraceful and brings NUS into disrepute. Expect many members of the Black Community to be furious at your comments.<br /><br /><br />Bell<br /><br />4) BELL'S SECOND EMAIL ABOUT THE SCANDALOUS BLOCKING OF HER EMAIL ACCOUNT AND BLACKBERRY SERVICES<br /><br />Dear Wes,<br /><br /><br />Further to our telephone conversation, I write to convey my strongest possible objection to the action you have taken to suspend my access to my NUS email account and my Blackberry service.<br /><br /><br />You have acknowledged this was in response to my sending out an email - which outlined Black students' concerns at the governance review - in accordance with Black students' campaign policy.<br /><br /><br />Such actions constitute a direct attack on the autonomy of the Black students' campaign. As Black Students' Officer I am accountable to Black students, and for you to disrupt my work in carrying out Black Students' Campaign policy is absolutely unacceptable and a violation of our autonomy as a liberation campaign.<br /><br /><br />It is also completely unacceptable for you to take such action without following any formal procedure. I was not even informed that this action had been taken until I telephoned!<br /><br /><br />I have copied my committee into this email and the rest of the NEC, and ask that you explain to myself and the committee why you believed it was appropriate to disconnect my email account. Please note that sending an email to contacts I have collected and those which are publicly available in the NUS Directory, does not constitute grounds for barring my access to my email account or for claiming that I have broken any protocols. Moreover any issues could have been dealt with by giving me a phone call. To say that you did not have the time to do this is an unacceptable response when you had the time to call IT services to suspend my accounts and to send a write and send a statement to a wide database of people.<br /><br />I ask that you give your assurances that this will never happen again, and you issue a written apology for these reprehensible actions.<br /><br />Bell</span></div>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-22061076455641068272009-01-17T10:10:00.001-08:002009-01-17T10:10:56.099-08:00Continued: NUS Black Students' Officer condemns the failure of the NUS National Executive to condemn the slaughter in Gaza<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><div style="margin-top: 6px; margin-right: 6px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 6px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; min-height: 1100px; counter-reset: __goog_page__ 0; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial; "><i>please circulate widely</i><br /><div class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; "><br /><b>NUS Black Students' Officer condemns the failure of the NUS National Executive to condemn the slaughter in Gaza</b><br /> <br />As Israel's overwhelming military attack on the people of Gaza continues with devastating consequences, NUS should do all it can to support those working to end the military onslaught.<br /> <br />Unfortunately, at an NUS National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Wednesday, a majority of NEC members refused to clearly oppose Israel's overwhelming acts of military aggression and commit NUS to taking action to bring an end to the violence in Gaza.<br /> <br />Instead NUS NEC has adopted a policy that fails entirely to acknowledge the disproportionate, brutal slaughter of the people of Gaza, the fact that over 1000 Palestinians, including at least 322 children, have died since the conflict began, and the humanitarian crisis that has developed in Gaza with its borders sealed imprisoning the population and reducing supplies of essential medicines, fuel and food to far below the minimum necessary.<br /> <br />The NES NEC has also failed to support any of the protests called in opposition to the war in Gaza, failing to represent the views of the great majority of British students who are horrified by the carnage they see every day on TV. <br /> <br />Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS Black Students' Officer said: "The position of the NUS NEC is in stark contrast to the views expressed by United Nations officials, British MPs, the British trade union movement, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF and numerous aid agencies.<br /> <br />On Wednesday the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, stated that "There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law."<br /> <br />Over 100 MPs have signed a motion which "expresses outrage at Israel's overwhelmingly disproportionate use of force in Gaza which continues to inflict massive civilian casualties, particularly amongst children and which has involved strikes on aid convoys, United Nations schools and medical personnel." MPs have called for meaningful action to be taken – including calling for an arms embargo, and for the EU to demonstrate that its trade agreement with Israel is conditional on Israel respecting human rights.<br /> <br />The European Union has also taken action, suspending further negotiations on upgrading its relations with Israel, as the head of the European Commission delegation to Israel suggested it was "not appropriate" to continue discussions while Israel was "using its war means in a very dramatic, in a powerful way in Gaza."<br /> <br />Over 570 Jewish signatories have placed an advert in The Times, calling for action, including an immediate ceasefire, end to the blockade, investigation into possible war crimes, the suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement and an arms embargo to Israel.<br /> <br />The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen. Yesterday the headquarters of the United Nations refugee agency (UNRWA) in Gaza was bombed by what UNRWA believe to be white phosphorus shells. The use of white phosphorus as a weapon is prohibited under international law.<br /> <br />Already a majority of Gaza's residents have no clean water, electricity supplies are limited, and meagre supplies of food and medical equipment are being exhausted.<br /> <br />I do not believe the NUS NEC is representing the views of the great majority of British students when it blankly refuses to condemn the slaughter of civilians by Israel and demand their withdrawal and an end to the blockade of Gaza. Any student, student union or society opposed to NUS NEC's position on this issue should email Wes Streeting, NUS National President (<a href="mailto:wes.streeing@nus.org.uk" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">wes.streeing@nus.org.uk</a>), and urge him to ensure NUS reconsiders its approach.<br /> <br />Students should also participate in local protests being organised across the country every weekend, including on Saturday 17th January, and many other occasions bringing their banners to show where students really stand on this issue. They can also pass motions in their students' unions calling for an immediate ceasefire, the lifting of Israel's blockade and for NUS NEC to adopt this policy and support public protests."<br /> <br /> Please find below copies of the motions discussed at Wednesday's NEC meeting – the first motion is the one submitted by myself and two other NEC members, which was rejected. The second motion is the one adopted by NUS.<br /> <br />End the humanitarian crisis in Gaza for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege [This motion was rejected by NUS]<br /> <br />NEC Believes:<br />1. Over 770 Palestinians have been killed during the first thirteen days of Israel's military offensive in Gaza, and over 3000 more have been injured. 4 Israelis have been killed and 32 injured by Hamas rocket attacks.<br />2. On Tuesday 6th January over 40 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a United Nations school. Earlier that day three people were killed when another UN school was attacked. On Sunday 28th December the Islamic University of Gaza was attacked, destroying buildings housing laboratories and other educational facilities and severely disrupting the education of over 20,000 students.<br />3. Israel's air-strikes and ground invasion have created what the International Committee of the Red Cross has described as a "full-blown humanitarian crisis". The United Nations, and several aid organisations have also warned of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Over a million Palestinians are denied access to electricity and clean water, and Save the Children has reported a "severe shortage of food." The World Bank has warned of a public health crisis, as almost the entire population of Gaza has been left without clean water, and the sewage system is on the brink of collapse.<br />4. This humanitarian crisis currently faced by the Palestinian people of Gaza is exacerbated by Israel's blockade of Gaza that has continued for over eighteen months. The blockade prevents people moving freely in and out of Gaza, and prevents vital supplies including food and medicine from reaching the people of Gaza.<br />5. The UN relief agency Unrwa has been forced to suspend its aid operation, as according to their spokesperson: "Our installations have been hit, our workers have been killed in spite of the fact that the Israeli authorities have the co-ordinates of our facilities and that all our movements are co-ordinated with the Israeli army."<br />6. The basis for a settlement to the immediate conflict is clear, Israel must end its military attacks, withdraw from Gaza and end the blockade of Gaza allowing normal movement of goods and people and Hamas must ensure that all rocket attacks from Gaza cease.<br />7. The Universities and Colleges Union has called for an immediate ceasefire, and for Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza.<br />8. Tens of thousands of people protested against the attacks on national demonstrations supported by the Northern TUC, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Annie Lennox, Alexei Sayle, Brian Eno and many others.<br /> <br />NEC resolves:<br />1. To call for an immediate ceasefire - an end to Israel's attack on Gaza and an end to Hamas rocket attacks – and for an end to Israel's siege of Gaza.<br />2. To support the demonstrations calling for an end to Israel's attack on Gaza, and circulate information on these demonstrations to Constituent Members.<br /> <br />Supporting our members in international conflict [This motion was passed by NUS]<br /> <br />NEC Believes:<br />1. The ongoing crisis in the Middle East is a tragedy which must be stopped through peaceful resolution and an end to violence.<br />2. Although the Middle East conflict is one of the most complicated and difficult in the world there are peace initiatives in place which could bring about an end to the violence with enough commitment from all parties.<br />3. The victims in this conflict are the moderate innocent civilians on both sides who overwhelmingly support peace based on a two-state solution. <br />4. The conflict in the Middle East stirs up great emotion across the world and that is often translated onto campuses across the United Kingdom. <br />5. No international situation should result in a racist backlash in this country and we have a responsibility to protect our members from any such racism. <br />6. NUS President Wes Streeting was correct in saying that "we shouldn't pretend that NUS can speak with one voice on the complexities of this conflict." <br />7. The situation in Gaza is changing on a daily basis<br />8. This conflict should not be characterised as Jewish people versus Muslim people<br /> <br /> NEC Further Believes:<br />1. There must be an immediate ceasefire including an end to Hamas rockets and the Israeli military operation with the aim of re-starting the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.<br />2. The loss of innocent life on both sides of this conflict is tragic and world leaders have a responsibility to ensure that this senseless loss of life is brought to an end in both the short and long term.<br />3. Both sides should do all they can to ensure the right to education<br />4. Education can and should play a vital role in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the conflict.<br />5. That Hamas is a terror organisation as defined by, amongst others, the European Union, and that is has consistently opposed peace initiatives in the Middle East preferring instead the path of violence based on vicious anti-Semitism. They are banned by the UK Government<br />6. There has been an unacceptable rise in anti-Semitic incidents during the current round of fighting<br />7. NUS must do all it can to avoid any sort of racist backlash or deteriorating relations between groups of students as a result of an international conflict. <br /> <br />NEC Resolves:<br />1. For the NEC to officially endorse the statement on the NUS website and the comments made by National President Wes Streeting. It reads<br />We call for an immediate ceasefire - an end to both Israel's military operation and to Hamas rocket attacks. <br />NUS also condemns the significant disruption to education that has been caused by the conflict to both Israelis and Palestinians. The right to education is a human right as stated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it's a right we must defend. Education will be central to finding a peaceful resolution in the Middle East.<br />Deeply concerned<br />Wes Streeting, NUS National President said: "We are deeply concerned with the escalating violence in the Gaza strip and Southern Israel and the devastating impact on the innocent Palestinians and Israelis who have lost friends and loved ones and those who live in fear. World leaders must pull out all the stops and pile on the pressure to bring peace and security to the region in both the short and long term.<br />We stand in solidarity with Israeli and Palestinian students in calling a for an immediate ceasefire - an end to Hamas rocket attacks and the Israeli military operation and a fair, just and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people."<br />Support<br />If you are an Israeli or Palestinian student at a UK institution affected by this crisis, please contact your local students' union for support or contact NUS to seek further guidance and support. <br />2. To re-affirm our commitment to a peaceful two-state solution in the Middle East and doing all we can as a national union to support those involved in dialogue and negotiations and to oppose those who try to derail them.<br />3. To publicly condemn incidents of anti-Semitism and support those students who have been affected.<br />4. To support our members who are directly affected by the conflict either through their inability to leave the region or who face a backlash on campus because of their nationality, religion or race.<br />5. To write to the President of the Stop the War Coalition, as a fee paying affiliate, and express our concern over some of the anti-Semitic actions, chanting and placards which we have witnessed at recently organised StWC demonstrations</div><div><br /></div></span></div></span>Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-84988138315708068052009-01-17T10:06:00.001-08:002009-01-17T10:06:56.975-08:00Further response to Wes from BellI write to express in the strongest terms my objection to your claim that the Black Students' Campaign's call for an Equality Impact Assessment is, in your own words, "a cynical political ploy."<br /><br />As you will know, Equality Impact Assessments are recognised by equalities legislation as crucial in identifying and challenging inequality. To suggest those who wish to challenge such inequality and discrimination are engaged in "a cynical political ploy" is offensive.<br /><br />Your suggestion that those who have voiced their concerns - including Doreen Lawrence OBE, Dr Benjamin Zephaniah, Diane Abbott MP, Cllr Salma Yaqoob and many others - must have been misled is insulting and inaccurate. They, like hundreds of Black students, are expressing legitimate concerns about the rolling back of Black students' representation in our national union.<br /><br />You will also be aware that published guidance on Equality Impact Assessments stresses that it is important for impact assessments to be conducted, and those affected consulted before a proposed policy is introduced. Your claim that an Equality Impact Assessment can be conducted after a decision on the new Constitution has been taken directly contradicts such advice. In addition, your suggestion that changes will not be implemented until the summer is quite simply false - the proposed schedules would lead to some changes (for example the abolition of regional conferences and nominations for the new National Executive Council) being implemented just days after the Extraordinary Conference meets.<br /><br />Further, I requested an impact assessment was conducted when I took office in July. My committee made the same request. Clearly a request made in July, when no extraordinary conference had been called to discuss the proposals, cannot be dismissed as an attempt to 'block' changes being made on Tuesday.<br /><br />Your decision to bar my access to my email account while I was sending this statement to my contacts was reprehensible. You then followed this by sending your statement to what I believe may have been a list of all sabbatical officers in the country and people who attended the last extraordinary conference. Your claim to want a proper debate on the proposed Constitution rings hollow when you act to block me from communicating with students, while using the powers of your office to send a statement rubbishing the concerns of the Black students' campaign. If you are truly interested in a full and fair debate, why not send the Black Students' Campaign statement to the contacts who have received your statement, and allow them to make up their own minds?<br /><br /><br />I have copied this email to my committee. We feel that your actions show complete contempt for our concerns about the new Constitution. It is your right to disagree with us, Wes, but to accuse us (and the LGBT committee, who also advocate an Impact Assessment) of 'a cynical political ploy' when all we are doing is asking for a procedure designed to challenge institutional discrimination, is disgraceful and brings NUS into disrepute. Expect many members of the Black Community to be furious at your comments.Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824224905574996432.post-65527659854327022012009-01-17T10:05:00.001-08:002009-01-17T10:05:21.256-08:00Wes's responseDear all,<br />Please find below our official response to an email that we are aware that was sent to many of you earlier today.<br /><br />Best wishes, Wes<br /><br />NUS President Wes Streeting said:<br /><br />"Claiming that NUS' reform proposals should not be debated until an equality assessment is completed is a cynical political ploy, which has nothing to do with equality and diversity and everything to do with blocking changes which the majority of NUS members have been requesting for years. It is disappointing that some respected political figures have been misled about the intentions of these proposals.<br /><br />"If the changes to NUS' constitution are passed next Tuesday, they would not be implemented until the summer, which gives plenty of time for an equality assessment to be completed and acted upon.<br /><br />"The fact remains that the reform proposals actually double the number of dedicated Black Students' representatives on the NUS National Executive, and improve support for our Liberation campaigns. They would also give the Black Students Officer the opportunity to be elected to sit on the management committee of NUS for the first time."Solomon's Mindfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15839682718877331425noreply@blogger.com0