[ Subscribe to category feed ]

category: Europe

Experiments with truth: 3/12/10

  • Workers belonging to CGIL, Italy’s biggest labor union, will walk off their jobs today for four hours to protest cuts at companies such as Fiat SpA, Alcoa Inc. and Antonio Merloni SpA. The strike called by CGIL, with a membership of 5.5 million people, and a demonstration in city centers will cripple traffic and cause delays in public transport and air travel.

Environmental activists may soon benefit from “paradox of repression”

According to The Guardian, the head of a right wing group known as the Young Britons’ Foundation has called for trespassing environmental activists to be “shot down” by police.

In October last year, when Greenpeace activists scaled the Palace of Westminster to protest against climate change policy, he called on police to “next time shoot them down … start with water cannon and if that doesn’t work, maybe crank it up a level or two”.

His words are more than just bluster, however, considering that the Young Britons’ Foundation is in the business of training Tory parliamentary candidates.

So what if police did start using water cannons on climate protesters? My hunch is that such brutality would result in what Michael Nagler calls a “paradox of repression.” Environmentalists might gain more public sympathy than they have ever enjoyed before, much like the civil rights movement did after Birmingham.

Does that mean they should welcome the water cannons? No. But it does mean that protesters shouldn’t let threats such as these scare them away from taking action. They pose a threat of their own if they remain committed to action.

What do you think? Am I being to optimistic? Would the general public ignore, or perhaps even applaud the use of water cannons against a Greenpeace activist who scaled a government building or national monument? Would the mainstream media not be sympathetic?

Experiments with truth: 3/8/10

  • In Pakistan, the workers of the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses (NPIW) continued their protest and sit-in in front of Karachi Press Club on Friday, protesting against the Sindh government over delay in regularizing the services of employees.
  • In the Philippines, Gabriela – the country’s foremost alliance of progressive women’s organizations -  has declared March 8, International Women’s Day, as a “day off” for Filipinas, to be spent out in the streets, marching, protesting and asserting their rights.

Experiments with truth: 3/4/10

  • An Irish town council has removed a page in its guestbook signed by the Israeli ambassador to protest Israel’s diplomatic record after the alleged use of fake Irish passports by the Jewish state’s spies.
  • Students at Sussec University in England are staging a sit-in to protest plans to make 115 staff redundant, which will close the environmental science degree and impact on English, history and life science departments.

Experiments with truth: 3/2/10

  • Carrefour SA’s 116 stores in Belgium were closed Saturday because of a strike over planned job cuts, said a company spokesman who put the resulting sales loss at the company-owned outlets at 14 million euros ($19 million).
  • Three Chinese death-row inmates who say they were tortured into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit have staged a hunger strike to draw attention to their case.
  • Tens of thousands of protesters calling themselves the Purple People took to the streets of Rome on the weekend in a sign of mounting opposition to the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The group, Il Popolo Viola, wore purple sweaters and scarves, Berlusconi masks or striped prison dress to protest against what they say is the undermining of Italian democracy by Mr Berlusconi in his battle with the country’s legal system.

Experiments with truth: 2/26/10

  • Hundreds of students from several Jordan, Utah district schools walked out of their classes Thursday morning to protest announced budget cuts that could slash teacher ranks, increase class sizes and impact extracurricular activities.
  • Nine days after an off-campus student party mocked Black History Month, UC San Diego went through a day of protests, on Wednesday, drawing attention to the small number of African American students enrolled at the beachside campus.

Experiments with truth: 2/22/10

  • Greece faces a growing fuel shortage as a customs workers’ strike halts the flow of petrol into the country. Customs workers have extended their strike against wage freezes and bonus cuts until this Wednesday, when unions across Greece will hold a general strike that is set to bring the country to a standstill.
  • Last week, A group of lawyers from the Law and Democracy Platform, an Turkish NGO working to strengthen the rule of law while respecting democratic values, protested against the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) decision to strip prosecutors conducting a probe into jailed Erzincan Chief Prosecutor İlhan Cihaner of their special authorities.

Experiments with truth: 2/19/10

  • Three activists began an occupation of Marfork Coal Company’s main offices in West Virginia yesterday. Marfork is a subsidiary of the coal extracting giant Massey Energy. The protesters plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant.
  • Belgian train drivers went on strike Tuesday to protest safety conditions after the collision of two commuter trains left at least 18 people dead.

Experiments with truth: 2/12/10

  • Ikea offered Wednesday to meet with labor union leaders after strikes shut down several stores in France — but only if six workers end a sit-in at its Paris office first. Workers walked off the job starting Saturday in protest over pay.
  • In Iran, numerous opposition figures reported police harassment on Thursday, including the firing of tear gas and paint balls at protests in the capital Tehran.
  • Also in Tehran, workers of Tohid Tunnel gathered in front of the entrance of the tunnel they work for in protest of unpaid salaries. The gathering resulted in the closure of the connections between north and south Chamran Freeway from Milad tower to the entrance of Tohid tunnel.
  • Tomorrow, citizens of Florida and Destin will have the opportunity to show their opposition to oil drilling off Florida’s coastline. Hands Across the Sand encourages Florida residents concerned with pending drilling legislation to gather on beaches at noon and hold hands forming lines in the sand against oil drilling in coastal waters.

Experiments with truth: 2/10/10

UNLV8

  • Hundreds of students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas walked out of class yesterday and gathered for a rally outside a building where lawmakers were holding a finance committee meeting. The lawmakers agreed to hear their concerns over the proposed budget cuts.
  • At least 50 women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England entered the fourth day of a hunger strike yesterday to protest against their detention and conditions, with ­several reportedly fainting in corridors and almost 20 locked outdoors wearing few clothes.
  • 200 people marched toward the US embassy in Port-au-Prince yesterday, crying out for food and aid, while about 50 more gathered outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed. They chanted, “Down with Perval” as they protested conditions and Preval’s lack of leadership.

The end of the Orange Revolution

On Sunday, voters in Ukraine elected Viktor Yanukovych as their new president, marking an end to the Orange Revolution. Yanukovych, for those who don’t remember, was the pro-Russian former prime minister who was ousted by the mass nonviolent movement after a rigged vote in 2004.

While I’m not one of the conspiracy theorists who see the “color revolutions” as orchestrated by the US, the election of Yushchenko was undoubtedly in the interest of the West, as was the Rose Revolution in Georgia the previous year.

Yushchenko had long been an advocate of economic “liberalisation,” according to an interesting piece by Niall Green, and oversaw the privatization of state-owned assets in the 1990s while he was head of Ukraine’s central bank.

His continued pursuit of these “free market” policies as president – including pushing for the country’s ascension to the World Trade Organization and turning to the International Monetary Fund for a massive $16.5 billion emergency loan (with all the usual strings attached) in 2008 – led to worse conditions for Ukrainian workers and a serious decline in the standard of living for the majority of the population during his tenure.

While some believe that Yanukovych has come around on these neoliberal economic policies in recent years, everyone seems to be arguing that he will also reorient Ukraine back towards Russia.

This story of dashed hopes after nonviolent movements or the leaders they install embrace toxic economic reforms – sometimes with little or no input from the public – is unfortunately not new. A tale similar to Ukraine’s could be told about South Africa after Mandela’s election, Georgia after the 2003 Rose Revolution, and Poland following Solidarity’s victory at the polls in 1989, as I document here.

Some responded to my article very critically, saying that we shouldn’t expect these movements to right every wrong. And I completely agree. Every movement is human and will make mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that we should remain silent about where nonviolent movements fall short. That is the only way we will avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.

Therefore, when a nonviolent revolution pushes more people into poverty, which Martin Luther King wrote is a form of violence that “hurts as intensely as the violence of the club,” we shouldn’t shy away from critiquing them.

Experiments with truth: 2/8/10

  • Hundreds of London Underground maintenance workers went on the first of a series of 24-hour strikes Friday morning in protest over new roster arrangements. They will continue to cause disruptions at the same time every Sunday from February 14th until the dispute is resolved.
  • The entrance to Kaiser Permanente’s Moanalua clinic in Hawaii was briefly shut-down on Thursday when protesters from Local 5 staged a sit-in. Kaiser employees and Local 5 members came to rally for a new contract that they say won’t out-source union work.

Bombspotters sneak into NATO nuclear base in Belgium

Vredesactie (Peace Action), a “movement that radically acvocates a society in which conflicts are settled without violence or the threat to use violence,” posted this video on YouTube on Monday of a group of Bombspotters sneaking into the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium, where they say around 20 NATO nuclear warheads are stored.

According to their website:

April 3rd will be a European Day of Action to ban nuclear weapons. Mass actions will take place at every European NATO nuclear weapons base in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Belgium.

To learn more about the history of Bombspotting actions, which involve widespread “civil disobedience by trespassing and inspecting military bases and headquarters,” click here.

Experiments with truth: 2/5/10

The Columbian/Troy Wayrynen

  • More than 250 Washington State University Vancouver students staged a “mass walkout” to protest budget cuts to academic programs, the elimination of crucial financial aid, and continued tuition hikes.
  • Canadian anti-Olympic protesters are promising a series of protests starting this weekend, culminating in a march on the opening ceremonies Feb. 12.

Experiments with truth: 2/2/09

  • A large number of staff at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, including security personnel, walked off the job yesterday and attended union meetings in protest against plans to outsource two employee canteens. Other employees who have downed tools include baggage handlers, the fire department, cleaning crews, technicians and drivers.
  • Immigrants held in a South Texas detention center have begun an indefinite hunger strike. Its the second mass hunger strike in a year. Some of the detainees say they’ll refuse to eat until they are released.