Jan 28, 2009

cool new open access journal by and for activists and academics

It's a journal of research for and from social movements, called Interface and the new issue includes articles like

* Movement knowledge.What do we know, how do we create knowledge and what do we do with it?

* Action research: mapping the nexus of research and political action.

* Extensão universitária: compromisso social, resistência e produção de conhecimentos (Continuing education: social commitment, resistance and the production of knowledge).

* Redes para a (re)territorialização de espaços de conflito: os casos do MST e MTST no Brasil (Networks for the reterritorialisation of spaces of conflict: the cases of the Brazilian MST and MTST).

Check it out. Lets support open source publishing by reading, citing and publishing open source!

The call for papers for issue two, on the theme of "civil society vs social movements" is online here. The deadline for submissions is May 15th, 2009; issue two is due out in September.

Jan 17, 2009

songs for solidarity

Sometimes it seems easier to hear things, to see things, in/with a song. This one is by Michael Heart (no, not Hardt).

Jan 7, 2009

war 2.0



War is now being waged on youtube. The Israeli Defense Force's channel of videos of the bombing is beyond creepy. Supposedly youtube has taken down the worst ones! ha. But there are also some incredible disturbing home videos being put up *from the ground* in Gaza like the one above (which I find very hard to watch). Youtube really is an incredible resource when no outside media is being allowed in. Of course, after so many years of being blockaded and trapped into a ghetto (which is now to top it all off being bombed), how many Palestinians will have the resources to own a digital camera that takes video? Right now who still has internet to upload it? Who has the generators to get electricity to run the computer? That any of these videos are getting out at all is amazing. Of course, these views from the ground are not nearly as widely seen as the IDF ones from the planes, and as disturbing as watching them is, I do think sharing them is important solidarity work.

Jan 3, 2009

yes, the international accompaniers are staying in Gaza

Foreign passport holders were allowed to leave, but there are 8 activists with the International Solidarity Movement that are staying. They are

Alberto Arce - Spain
Ewa Jasie
wicz - Poland/Britain
Dr. Haider Eid - South Africa

Sharon Lock - Australia

Vittorio
Arrigoni - Italy
Jenny Linnel - Britain
Natalie Abu Shakra - Lebano
n
Eva Bartlett - Canada

Their powerful statements about why they are staying are here.

They include:

"As international observers, we have the responsibility to ensure that the international community has access to the reality of Israel’s attacks on Gaza.” Vittorio Arrigoni

"Our lives are no more important than theirs and we will stay during their suffering in solidarity and to document what Israel is preventing foreign journalists from revealing.” Eva Bartlett

Well no, their lives may be no more important (though of course, geopolitically they are treated as if they are), but then, they are choosing to put their lives on the line when they could leave. There is a real chance that in this chaos some of them will die. Especially now that they are accompanying ambulances (which, yes, have been targeted by Israelis), and since the Israeli's have been bombing places a second time once rescue crews are there trying to get people out of the rubble (this I learned from the reports from these accompaniers).

Let us honor their chosen risk by at least reading their reports - a much easier way of doing solidarity.