Social struggles

Students at the University of Glasgow are celebrating after the university’s principal Anton Muscatelli conceded defeat, so ending the longest student occupation in UK history. Hard-won concessions include a new postgraduate club, no further cuts to courses and no compulsory redundancies at the university. As part of the deal, students will be able to question the principal in a mass open meeting in October as there has been a perceived lack of transparency surrounding management decisions…

In Ireland, the Rossport Solidarity Camp has had a busy summer, with regular blockades of Shell’s efforts to complete the next section of their Corrib Gas Project. During a week of action in July, Shell managed to complete just 40 truck movements – as opposed to the expected 159 every day. The project is already a decade late and three times over budget.

I was in Hackney when I got the text, on my way to an organising meeting on local responses to the riots/uprisings. Police vans were cruising up and down Dalston High Street, nervous shopkeepers were standing in doorways and hipster NGO/graphic designer types were sinking pints outside a trendy pub. “Deptford Community defence meeting outside Ladbrokes on the high street @ 8.30 – to put out fires should they occur.”

I made a U-turn and got there early. I used to live in Hackney but…

On 13 August, 3,000 people of all ages and backgrounds, mainly from Hackney and Haringey, but with additional support from all around London, marched from Gillet Square, Dalston in Hackney, to Tottenham Green in Haringey. The march was organised and publicised just two days before by the hastily-formed North London Unity Assembly initiated mainly by Turkish organisations and the Haringey and Hackney Anti-cuts Alliances.

The aim was to provide a united community response to the recent…

Riots bring out a confusion of responses and a whole parade of paradoxes on the left and from the proponents of radical, but peaceful, political change. Much of what is said is thought but not felt, while much of what is felt remains unsaid...

The first undiscussed difficulty is the fact that the gut reaction of much of the left to news of a riot is one of support for the rioters. This is more than the “I understand but cannot condone their actions” stance of the after-riot opinion…

Dale Farm in Essex is the UK’s largest Travellers’ community. The residents have been fighting for ten years to remain there but now 90 families of 500 people, many of them children, face eviction from 31 August. The Conservative-led Basildon Council has set aside £18 million for an eviction which could take weeks, while supporters have set up a solidarity camp at the site.

The community at Dale Farm are predominantly Irish Travellers and many have lived there for 30 years. They own…

The present state of affairs on English streets is bad enough but the situation is exacerbated by the platitudinous responses made by most politicians who seem both to have no idea of what is going on or how to respond to the situation without making it worse. The platitudes come out thick and fast: “pure criminality”; “only a minority of the population” (has Cameron any conception of what it would be like to face even a small mob of youths?); “nothing justifies such lawless behaviour”; “…

Westminster students, sabbatical officers and staff from the University of Westminster students’ union (UWSU) joined over 50,000 students from across the country at the National Union of Students (NUS) central London demo on 10 November.

We were protesting against the Government’s plans to slash the university teaching budget and raise the tuition fee cap (how much students might have to pay a year for a university education). At 9.30am Westminster University students started…

2 May saw University of St Andrews students take to the streets in protest against the closure of Fife Park, one of the University’s two budget halls. A proposed replacement hall would see prices for accommodation rocket from the present £52 per week to a possible £110–130!

The Lower Rents NOW! campaign, a self-organised and independent student and supporters group, has been organising to stop the closure and organised and mobilised for a march and protest camp.
St Andrews…

Karl Marx saw the red flag with Che Guevera’s silhouetted face on it on my bedroom door. Looking surprised he said: “Che. I read about his life. Tapain leh maanuhuncha? Do you respect him?”

I said yes, I did “respect” him. The question was so sincere that I didn’t feel right to add that Che had also become an over-hyped pop-art icon. It was kind of nice that this young man had no idea about that. Usually kids know the face without knowledge of the revolutionary stuff.

“And…

Campaigners are preparing to join Camp Constant next to Dale Farm, Essex, to help resist the eviction of 1,000 travellers from their homes. The eviction is predicted to cost up to £9.5m. www.dalefarm.wordpress.com

After over nine years of legal battles, the established traveller community of 80 Gypsy and Traveller families at Dale Farm in Essex is facing the largest eviction in recent history, likely to cost over £18m. Dale Farm is appealing for support, for activists and for legal observers: 07961 854 023; www.dalefarm.wordpress.com

Within four days of a campaign launch, over a hundred people have signed up to withhold their television licence fee in protest over threats to the Welsh language channel S4C. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) are campaigning for the UK government to guarantee independence and sufficient funding for the channel.

Amongst those who have said they won’t be paying the tax that funds the BBC are the singers Dafydd Iwan, Gai Toms and Bryn Fôn and the academic Dr…

Evocative, well-written account of post-Katrina struggles for social justice in New Orleans by (white) participant-journalist Flaherty, with plenty of lessons for activists further-afield. Indeed, as Flaherty himself notes, “These struggles are global, and should concern us all.” Not to be missed.
 

In Appalachia, coal companies blow the tops off mountains in order to mine the thin layers of coal underneath. They call it Mountaintop Removal (MTR) and its impact on local communities and the environment is predictably devastating. Opposition is rare, as those who stick their necks out “often get whacked in the head”. Nonetheless, over the past five years hundreds of people – both locals and outsiders – have stood up and taken part in nonviolent resistance to MTR. This is their story.…