<div>Hi Everyone :-)</div>
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<div>Am in the middle of a million things, so, this sent in haste..</div>
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<div>Whether with words, ideas, plans, music or poetry, a huge thanks to all who came along and made the Parliament Hill Democracy picnic last Saturday such a lovely event. Especial thanks to the musicians and poets who we all had the pleasure to enjoy, and to Sandra and Attica for hospitality afterwards. A brief report is given below.</div>
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<div>Hopefully some photos will follow (do send if you have any for the website..) ? </div>
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<div>Also, Sally, Baraka & I need a bit of help with getting the next picnic organised. Any offers of help with Facebook admin and designing / putting up posters much appreciated (see below)</div>
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<div><strong>Next Democracy Picnic:</strong> provisionally scheduled for SUNDAY SEP 27th at ALEXANDRA PALACE. PLs join the Facebook group at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19199003786">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19199003786</a> and consider becoming an administrator so we can share the load of getting the info out there. Also we need people to help put up posters in the local area; we can all go together one day and do it if people are up for it.. will be fun. Again,pls email me if you'd be able to help with this. </div>
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<div><strong>Rough Future Plan</strong> is to travelling democracy picnic now and next spring at a number of London highpoints, eg Ally Pally, Greenwich, Crystal Palace, Richmond Park, Primrose Hill before descending from the heavens to the bowels of hell (aka the GLA) Scoop Amphitheatre for a theatrical festival type picnicky thing. Plans are also afoot for a nationwide real democracy gathering in the midlands in November. More on this later. Especially appropriate to send this message today as it is the 20th Anniversary of the Pan European Picnic which helped to bring down the Iron Curtain and so make possible a united, grassroots Europe. Scroll down to below the following Picnic Minutes section to where it says <em>The Pan European Picnic Anniversary</em> for more info. Picnics rock!</div>
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<div><strong>Picnic Minutes</strong></div>
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<div>For all those that couldn't make it on the 15th, here is a quick report... </div>
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<div>Sun shone, view great, blank placards (though not enough) were in attendance. Including children, around 40 people (plus, wider Heath public who enjoyed various performances). Atmospher: fun, spiritual-political, fam-friendly, a bit bolshy in places but overall good natured: serious yet light-hearted - a good start :-) </div>
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<div>First we enjoyed delicious food together, then chaotic but lovely go-round with introductions, a bit of scrapping for attention between young and old, some spontaneous poems, songs and various statements of information and belief. Turned out, not only was it Indian Independence day on Saturday, it was also the eve of mother Mary's (Catholic) Feast of Assumption, which supplanted the original, Pagan sacred day of Isis. Someone pointed out that the stars on the EU flag apparently represent the stars of Mary's crown ("When I went down to the river to pray, studying about that good old way and who will wear the starry crown, oh Lord show me the way") so here's to a Europe Grassroots United for REAL Democracy!</div>
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<div>Also, it turned out that Saturday was the good Raga's 68th birthday, which we calculated to be 884 years in lunar cycles. A good sing song was of course had by all. </div>
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<div>Intros were then followed by a lively debate. About democracy, its failings, potentials, requirements for realisation and origins. Controversy over whether we live in one (ie a democracy) or not, how much further we can go on the present paradigm, what democracy might actually look/ feel like and whether there has ever been a successful, good, democratic society in the past. On latter point, some wanted to big up the Greeks, subject to obvious failings in excluded women and slaves from Forum, but as instigators of first "real-ish" democracy (in that they required their people (or, more accurately "free citizens") to attend and (directly) make decisions, even going so far as paying them. </div>
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<div>Others put forward the view that many indigenous have been practicising forms of democracy for eons, way before flashy Athenians. Debate ensued as no-one could actually name a good tribe that had a fully democratic society. Eventually the Iroquois were put forward as a model, although I have since been told they practised cannibalism. ha ha . </div>
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<div>ANYWAY, what we seemed to agree on - in that no-one took issue to these points - was that (a) democracy works best at the human -scale, face to face level (b) this means a much needed revival of community will come with it if we achieve it (c) it's about genuine and a truly radical equality at heart and (d) a democratic society in which communities are strong will be good for both the environment and renewed social relations and(e) things need to change a lot and that therefore, perhaps, real democracy - whatever that actually is - is our only hope. </div>
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<div>Important questions about how to link cultural / social change HER with changes to the world economic system, so that our struggle supports not only our fellow man and woman here, but everywhere else at the same time, were also raised </div>
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<div>Go-round included a discussion - and some controversy about - process. So, what actually makes for democratic process? Following this, some wayward use of a hastily introduced piece of serioulsy advanced technology: the talking "broad bean pod" - in place of a stick - ensued. This was far from perfect, but seeing as we hardly new each other and we were made up mainly of a bunch of opinionated types. a humourous balance between rules, flexibility, ego and discipline was, er, at times approached ;-) </div>
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<div>Some may have found the anarchic quality of proceedings frustrating. although undeniably amusing. Myself, I was just happy to hear Blake being quoted and even sung at every opportunity, and to meet some lovely people who had made the effort to come along and find out more. </div>
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<div>And then, thanks to the good lady Baraka, the head-part was followed by the heart. A beautiful maori(?) song in honour of our brothers and sisters struggling on the other side of the world - thanks for this, really really special. </div>
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<div>Ok, enough discipline already - back to the picnic!</div>
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<div>Last but most definitely not least, we split off to enjoy each others individual company before enjoying performances from, among others, space girl, david pepper, poet tree man, rob rub and rainbow lizzie. huge thanks to all of you, and to everyone else who made it so sweet and special. Here is Space Girl's poetry page.. </div>
<div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/spacegirlspoetrysalon" target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/spacegirlspoetrysalon</a></div>
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<div><strong>Next picnic, as mentioned will be at Alexandra Palace</strong>, which has great access and also we can support Sally and the local people there's project to make it what it should be, the People's Palace (see <a href="http://sallyallypally.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://sallyallypally.wordpress.com</a> and (now out-of date <a href="http://www.saveallypally.com/" target="_blank">http://www.saveallypally.com</a> ) Provisional date for this is Sunday 27th </div>
<div>Sept; pls put in yr diary for - "the peoples' palace picnic", and as mentioned before, pls can people volunteer to be Facebook administrators (and promoters) and / or to help put up posters the local area? </div>
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<div><strong>What Would Gandhi Do?</strong> One thing we didn't do, which was the original idea, lost in the spontaneity was debate what Mohandas Gandhi would do, if alive today, about the state of democracy and community in this land. Answers on a postcard or recycled paper picnic plate, please :-)!</div>
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<div><strong>The Pan - European Picnic Anniversary</strong></div>
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<div>Today August 19th is the anniversary of the first pan - european picnic, which helped to bring down the iron curtain (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-European_Picnic" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-European_Picnic</a> and see also today's article by Adam Lebor, below). Can we make another one happen in coming years, only this time for the walls to come down in a different kind of way?</div>
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<div>Will now subscribe newcomers to the project 2012 forum / planning list... </div>
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<div>And thanks again for a lovely day!! </div>
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<div>Peas, </div>
<div>Mark</div>
<div>PS here's that article and more info about the 1989 picnic</div>
<div><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6801126.ece" target="_blank">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6801126.ece</a> </div>
<div><strong>Freedom is now flowing from West to East</strong></div>
<div><strong>In August 1989 as communism collapsed, Britain was a beacon to the new regimes. Today we are squandering our liberty</strong></div>
<div>Adam LeBor</div>
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<div>I’ve spent much of the past 20 years living in or reporting on the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Nowadays, with Budapest, Prague and Warsaw two hours away by budget airline, it’s hard to imagine that before 1989, half a continent was imprisoned behind landmines and barbed wire, its citizens terrorised by secret police, intentionally ground down by the endless, intrusive demands of the one-party state.</div>
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<div>I saw those borders torn down, democracies arise and the basic freedoms that we take for granted — speech, movement and public protest — enthusiastically embraced.</div>
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<div>Twenty years ago today the world witnessed the power of the crowd. Hungary’s reformist communist Government permitted the pan-European picnic near the city of Sopron, on the border with Austria, as a symbol of its commitment to a united Europe. The border was to be opened so that about 100 dignitaries and officially approved picnickers could cross freely back and forth. But Hungary was crowded with thousands of East Germans desperate to escape to the West. Many camped near the site of the picnic, waiting for the crucial moment. When the border was opened at three o’clock they surged forward. The guards did not open fire. They stepped back and allowed the East Germans to break through.</div>
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<div>This, not the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, was the tipping point. August 19, 1989, accelerated a chain of events that brought down communism and the Soviet Union itself. Such is the power of the crowd.</div>
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<div>After 1989 Big Brother was no longer welcome in Budapest, Prague or Warsaw — he moved to London to be ever more warmly embraced by successive Labour administrations. The birthplace of political liberties, the home of the Magna Carta, is now one of the most intrusive democracies in the world. Labour governments have introduced surveillance and monitoring systems of which the communists could only dream. Of course, Britain is not a real police state. But it is certainly sliding further into authoritarianism.</div>
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<div>Perhaps because I live abroad, each time I return home I can clearly see quite how subtle and dangerous a process is unfolding. A series of Home Secretaries have presided over a steady, stealthy shredding of our civil liberties. I am amazed at how supine citizens allow local and national government to intrude ever further into their daily lives, logging, tracking and recording everything from household waste disposal to mobile telephone use.</div>
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<div>These small changes seem to herald a more dramatic constitutional shift: the rewriting of the social contract under which citizens are apparently regarded not as active participants in society, but, at best as irritants to be monitored, and at worst as potential criminals to be pre-emptively arrested, just as George Orwell predicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four.</div>
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<div>The phrase Big Brother has entered common parlance. But Orwell’s book was published in 1949 as communist regimes in Eastern Europe cemented their control through “salami tactics”. These were invented by Matyas Rakosi, Hungary’s communist leader from 1948-56. He sliced away freedoms sliver by sliver, until he established one of the most feared dictatorships in Eastern Europe. When the communists took over a town, for example, they did not appoint the mayor, but a deputy, to work behind the scenes and stealthily take control of the police and municipal administration.</div>
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<div>In my more cynical moments I imagine Labour ministers following a similar methodology. They would never say openly: “We intend to criminalise public protest; to grant sweeping blanket powers of arrest to the police and change the very foundation of law, making citizens prove their innocence, rather than have the police and judiciary prove their guilt while demonstrating.”</div>
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<div>Nor would they say: “We intend to privatise formerly public spaces and hand over state functions of public order to armies of unaccountable security guards.” Instead, changes are introduced stealthily, rarely debated by Parliament and are nodded through with the acquiescence of the Opposition, in the name of that useful catch-all “security”.</div>
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<div>Whether by design or not, that seems to me to be happening.</div>
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<div>Security is an issue. Communist regimes sought control for its own sake, to preserve their monopolies of power. The Labour Government has had to respond to a new wave of terrorism, perpetrated by British citizens who use the internet and covert communication techniques.</div>
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<div>Preventing further terrorist attacks is part of a government’s duty. But preventing government from intruding too far into our daily lives is our duty — one we have so far singularly failed to carry out.</div>
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<div>In the communist era Hungarians, Czechs and Poles looked to Britain as a beacon of fairness. After 1989 our Parliament, judiciary and free press were models for them. The former one-party states are now vibrant democracies. Despite corruption and a sometimes prickly nationalism, most of the new EU members can be proud of their transformation into modern civic societies.</div>
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<div>While our freedoms wither, theirs flourish. It’s a common sight to see far-right demonstrators in front of the Hungarian parliament, hurling abuse and calling for the resignation of the Government. The police watch, nobody is arrested and everyone goes home peacefully. And when the police do use force, there is a vigorous national debate about balancing the right to protest and public security.</div>
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<div>Twenty years after the collapse of communism, Eastern Europe is showing us what freedom means. At last, there are signs that we are waking finally from our stupor. in 1989 the East Germans camped on the Hungarian-Austrian frontier showed the world the power of the crowd. So take to the streets, people. While you still can.</div>
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<div>The Budapest Protocol, Adam LeBor’s thriller set in present-day Hungary, is published by Reportage Press</div>
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<div>Also, <strong>for a more in-depth article on Aug 19th 1989</strong>, see</div>
<div><a href="http://www.berliner-mauer.de/laszlo-nagy/lazslonagy-en.htm" target="_blank">http://www.berliner-mauer.de/laszlo-nagy/lazslonagy-en.htm</a></div>
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