[LAF] FWD Two Radical History Events

[Ed McArthur]

Fwd   From South London Radical History Group 
Please Circulate
 
 
Eh up all

Here's two events with a historical but practical slant taking place next week, which we have been asked to publicise... Both look like well worth while to us...

Hope you can attend

Some 'news' on the future of the long-dormant South London Radical History Group may well follow in the next few days/weeks...

...........................................................

event No 1:

Resistance in the UK's Detention Centres in the Last Decade 

Time: 7 pm, Tuesday 24 June 2008
Venue: T&GWU, Transport House, 128 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8TN 

Asylum-seekers and migrants who have been locked up indefinitely by the British state are carrying out on of the most sustained fight-backs in theUK in recent years. Three major detention centres (out of 22) have been destroyed, forcing the government to release hundreds of detainees. Hunger-strikes, occupations, naked protests, dirty protests and successful break-outs involving tens and hundreds of detainees have become a regular feature of immigration detention. The government has reacted with brutal levels of repression, using assault, segregation and transfers to prisons to punish the protestors.  

The UK government has also tried several times to prosecute those involved in large-scale riots. This has rarely resulted in convictions and has more often led to public humiliation for the government and the private detention contractors. The government is persisting in its plans to rebuild ruined wings and build completely new centres at Brook House (opening 2009), Yarl's Wood (opening 2010) and Bicester (opening 2012). These will provide more profit-making opportunities for the building contractors and private detention companies but in the end are likely to face the same level of protest. 

Protests in detention centres are often ignored by the mainstream media and also by political activists. London No Borders invites you to an info night to discuss why this is the case and to raise awareness of detention centre protests as one of the front lines of current political resistance. The primary aim is not to plan future actions but to discuss what has happened already and why it has had such a low profile. We particularly welcome ex-detainees who witnessed or participated in detention centre protests and ex-prisoners who could relate this issue to prisoners' struggles.  

No Borders calls for the closure of all detention centres and an end to deportations

Email: noborderslondon at riseup.net 

and Number 2: 

Free Film show: FINALLY GOT THE NEWS - Revolutionary black unions in Detroit, 1970s

Saturday 28th JUNE, 8pm Pullens Centre, 184 Crampton St, London SE17

Followed by discussion  and chat. With speaker Brian Ashton, an ex-car industry shop steward.

Hosted by 56a Infoshop and Mute Magazine

Finally Got The News
A Film by Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner
Produced in Association with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers

FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a forceful, unique documentary that reveals the
activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside
the auto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with the members of the
movement, footage shot in the auto plants, and footage of leafleting and
picketing actions, the film documents their efforts to build an independent
black labor organization that, unlike the UAW, will respond to worker's
problems, such as the assembly line speed-up and inadequate wages faced by
both black and white workers in the industry.

Beginning with a historical montage, from the early days of slavery through
the subsequent growth and organization of the working class, FINALLY GOT THE
NEWS focuses on the crucial role played by the black worker in the American
economy. Also explored is the educational 'tracking' system for both white
and black youth, the role of African American women in the labor force, and 
relations between white and black workers.

"Although most histories of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements give
greater attention to [other groups]... the League [of Revolutionary Black
Workers] was in many respects the most significant expression of black
radical thought and activism in the 1960s. The League took the impetus for
Black Power and translated it into a fighting program focusing on industrial
workers."—Manning Marable, Director, Institute for Research in
African-American Studies, Professor of History, Columbia University

"A classic! Rather than the lock-stepped, black-bereted, leather-jacketed
Panther units of other films, FINALLY shows rather ordinary people becoming
very angry with the system. Ideological in the best sense: it is a film
about ideas [and] presents a serious strategy for mass working class
action... It speaks of a specific time and specific experiences in terms
that will remain relevant as long as working people are not able to control
their own lives."—Dan Georgakas, for Cineaste

Hosted by 56a Infoshop
http://www.56a.org.uk/

Mute Magazine
http://www.metamute.org/



Ed McArthur   07981  900  563
see Events & Issues website  
 http://www.eventsandissues.bravehost.com/events.html For LAF and lots more
 
See Book Events
http://www.freewebs.com/bookevents/
 
 


      
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