Massive sell out

Some time at the end of last week, I was sitting in the Portland Cafe and noticed some flyers that had been left on most of the tables in the immediate vicinity. It was for The Times' "Top 100 Graduate Employers", a book distributed by careers services for free. The list, according to the flyer, is based on research conducted on more that 15,000 final year students leaving UK universities in 2004. I was intrigued to find out where exactly large numbers of my fellow students were going.

Predictably, the results were astoundingly awful. Some companies and sectors were listed on the rear of the flyer. Talk about an anti-capitalist's nightmare! The list included oil multinationals (ExxonMobil & Shell), banks (Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland), arms manufacturers & (ab)users (Army, BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence, Rolls Royce), and big pharma (AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline). There were many other activist "favourites" in there too: ASDA (Walmart), British Nuclear Group, Marks & Spencers, and McDonalds (tellingly). I'm sure if you're reading this website you don't really need any introduction to the multiple sins of these transnational villains. If, however, you do, I'd advise you to check out Corporate Watch, and the links i've (hurriedly) included above.

Of what remained, there were plenty of accounting and consultancy firms, financial services, marketing and media corporations. Mobile phone companies and supermarkets. The kind of really useful jobs that we couldn't live without. Ok, so the NHS did make it on there, and a teacher recruitment programme. And the truly fine body of men and women that make up the Metropolitan police (should have filed them under weapon abusers).

It would appear that students don't give a shit, except about the money of course. It could be that people genuinely don't know about the concerns that activists for social justice raise around some of these corporations. However, from a recent leafletting campaign around a careers fair at the university I took part in, I would say that it's mainly the "don't care" camp. Some people who read our leaflets about Shell and Rolls Royce were genuinely shocked, but most would just shrug their shoulders and continue their enquiries about pay and promotions. It's easy to brush out of sight concerns about the ultimate use (and possible great harm) of your future career, when listening to the seductive tones of a company rep. The companies wouldn't really be allowed to do these things, would they?

The necessary myth about the ultimately harmless nature of corporate activities, is a very worrying one. Whether we like it or not, students at universities like our own are going to be the captains of industry, the leading politicians, and influential thinkers of the imminent future. If there is no dissent about the choices that are acceptable to make in choosing a career, and if there is no questioning of the role of one's life except for personal profit, now whilst we are young and idealistic, god help us in 10 or 20 years time. Sure, we can have ethical careers fairs, and that's a good place to start in getting people thinking, but we have to be more radical than that. It's the idea of thinking about having a career, rather than having a full and complete life, that I object to. It's time we challenged the prostitution of our abilities, and the control that the corporate job market holds over people. We should be making people ask what they would prefer: someone to design the next generation of mobile phones that we all have to slavishly buy, or someone who's going to provide a useful role in a community. It's time we started thinking of what we 'should' be doing with our lives.

Ceasefire expansion

Those of you who've been following NSPM's output over the last few years will know all about Ceasefire, our extremely irregular but always classic publication (!). A new version is to be released imminently, in the (slightly modified) style of the last few editions. We'll probably be distributing it some upcoming events, but if you can't make it then you can download the electronic version, as soon as it's available, from the Ceasefire web page.

I recently sent out a few posts on the planning list and had a very small meeting with a few interested people, about the potential expansion of Ceasefire. We were agreed on the aim of getting some more challenging and radical ideas out to a wider audience via the newsletter, but had different ideas on how to go about it. Whilst others were in favour of persuing Student Union grants and (selected) advertising to get a really big circulation going, I think I would favour a more gradual buildup of the project. For a start, I think we would be hard-pressed to approach the circulation of Impact, the glossier, more insipid student magazine. It would require a lot of money going into printing a newsletter that would create a lot of waste. Whilst I agree with the principle of exposing a wider audience to Ceasefire, I would be loathe to see it become as disposable as Impact, and also don't personally have the time to persue money for the project.

What I propose as an alternative first step in the process is to make members of other societies who are likely to be sympathetic aware of Ceasefire. Not just aware, in fact, but make their members realise that we would value their contributions of writing, editing, etc. To do this, it has to become less of a NSPM affair, and more of a cross-society project. We could send the new issue out to SEEN to promote it as a project in need of input. Once this has been acheived, I foresee a gradual increase in interest in Ceasefire, increasing the circles in which is read, and improving the quantity of material available to put in it. What would be good would be to devote space to regular columns, features, and contributors, as well as space to one-off comments and analysis. It could become a space for communication between societies and individuals, as well as for communication to the 'outer world' in general. Any thoughts, comments and contributions? Email NSPM.

Geoff Hoon: Bit of a Twat

When we heard that Geoff Hoon, Secretary of Defence/Minister of War was coming to the University we thought it was too good a chance to miss. Although the turnout on our part wasn't great, about 10 of us turned up to have our say. The bulk of our efforts went into flyering the crowds outside. We also waved some placards around. Our efforts were surprisingly well received (at the very least, nobody threw anything) and we attracted the interest of the student magazine Impact who took photos and asked why we were there. Hopefully we'll get a mention in the next edition.

We gave out perhaps a hundred copies of the flyer, maybe more (we'd printed around 200). Considering I'd knocked them together in a hurry the previous day, I was quite proud of them and think they strike an appropriate, intelligent tone, but then what do I know?:

QUESTIONING HOON

Geoff Hoon has come to the University, ostensibly to 'answer your questions'. While we have no intention of preventing him speaking, we feel that with 'coalition' forces currently involved in a major assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, that his visit should not pass unchallenged. This being the case, a number of possible questions spring to mind:

' How does he respond to the charge that 'sending 850 British troops to reinforce 130,000 Americans can only be a political gesture, designed to ease President George Bush's re-election'? (Scotland on Sunday, 24/10/04) And further, does he believe that this justifies the five deaths the unit has sustained since the redeployment?

' Why has he refused to apologise for the invasion of Iraq, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it was predicated on lies, half-truths and omissions?

' In light of the recent report in the Lancet which estimated that 1000,000 Iraqis had died since the invasion of Iraq, does he not accept that the rhetoric about 'liberating' Iraqis is beginning to sound more than a little hollow?

If you think these are important questions we encourage you to push the Minister on them. You may also want to join our picket and/or get involved in the event below.

Below I appended details of the demonstration against a visit by Hone Office Minister David Blunkett to Nottingham which was supposed to be happening later that evening (the less said about which the better, as this turned out to be a false alarm) and contact details for the Peace Movement.

Surprisingly enough, we got into the hall where Hoon was to speak without difficulty, which was something we hadn't planned for. Unfortunately this meant that we then had to wait around for forty-five minutes until he arrived, because he was running late. He explained, on arrival, that his tardiness had something to do with British soldiers being dispatched to the Ivory Coast. He explained that they had been sent "I hope not to fight" but to evacuate British citizens in the country.

He began his talk with a brief account of his professional life in which he explained that he had been in his current job for 5 years and a Foreign Office Minister prior to that. He also recounted how as an MEP he had been in Berlin when the wall fell. Unfortunately this anecdote was tarnished slightly by his assertion that young people like us couldn't conceive of a situation where a country was divided by a wall as Germany had been during the Cold War. In fact, as one questioner pointed out later and most of the audience realised as soon as he had said it, we hardly need to imagine this and need only look to the construction of the "security fence"/"Apartheid Wall" by the Israeli Government which is continuing apace.

He then opened up to allow people to ask questions. These came from a variety of perspectives, although none of us managed to get asked. They also generated a number of interesting responses on the part of the Minister. One was his acknowledgement that the limited attention focused on Afghanistan prior to September 11th was "a mistake", an unusual example of honesty (perhaps the only one of the day?). Later he asserted, in response to allegations by a member of the audience, that there had been no murders at Deep-cut Barracks and no cover up. Instead the various deaths at the barracks were suicides. Perhaps my favourite remark was his claim that "three and a half more people" voted for Bush than Kerry, obviously a mistake, but an amusing one nonetheless.

A number of questions were posed about Iraq, Afghanistan and the "War on Terror" more generally, many of them highly critical. These provided the most interesting insight into the real Hoon. I was struck by the fact that he seemed to be taking much of the criticism very personally. He seemed to see attacks on the policies he had pursued as personal attacks on himself. He based his arguments on assertions that "young people like you" would be the victims if he failed to act forcefully against terrorism. (A similar argument arose in the context of "Son of Star Wars", or support for Israel.) His dismissive, defensive attitude simply reinforced my view that he is in fact - as the title to this post suggests - a bit of a twat. Somehow he still seemed to get raptuous applause at the end, although there was a sizeable minority of people in the room who refused to clap, myself included.

On reflection, it would probably have been better if we had prepared some kind of action which Hoon was actually likely to see. Our activities did a good job of reaching out to those in the audience, but probably had no impact on the Minister himself, despite the fact that he, and the policies he has pursued, were ostensibly the target of our protest. This is something to think about for the future. Cabinet Ministers don't come often, but with an election coming up sometime next year it is inevitable that this will not be the last time one of the fuckers decides to show their face at the university. Next time we'll be ready. And we'll give 'em hell.

What shall we do about Fallujah?

As Richard has recently written on this blog, the assault against the city of Fallujah has begun. The Nottingham Stop the War coalition has opted for its usual strategy on such occasions, that is, to call for a demonstration in Market Square. This is to coincide with other actions up and down the country (or so we are to believe, Indymedia had only three such actions listed when I checked this morning). Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that the assault of Fallujah will be bloody, and doubtless come at the costs of many many civilian lives, I think there is growing dissent in the anti-war movement about the types of tactics we use, and there usefulness.

Within the movement itself there has been, for some time, a division between those wanting to call for more and more national demonstrations in London (despite the dwindling numbers), and those wanting to opt for direct action approaches, such as Mil Rai's little adventure, blogged about by Richard at the weekend. The demonstration option was enshrined from the moment that 1-2million people took to the streets of London in protest against the invasion of Iraq on 15th Feb 2003, but many seem to ignore the fact that recent demonstrations have acheived nothing like such numbers (even with the aid of Europeans coming to London for the ESF). The popular support for such actions is no longer there. Even those turning up complain of knowing exactly who is going to speak and what they're going to say before they get there. The media give such demonstrations scant coverage and politicans find it easy to ignore them. They have become impotent and drain our resources.

The direct action alternatives proposed by such organisations as Justice Not Vengeance, and Trident Ploughshares, are to train small groups of committed activists to non-violently obstruct the physical structures associated with the military and government, in an attempt to make it more and more costly to ignore their protests, effectively forcing the end of military actions. This type of action has the advantage of requiring significantly fewer people to undertake, it doesn't need to be publicised (although this can give it a dual role), and actually forces some kind of response on the side of those targetted. But there are serious issues raised with this kind of action. In speaking to fellow activists about such approaches in recent days, about the Mil Rai incident and others, I hear a lot of voices of caution. People are wary about any actions that could potentially alienate the public and allow activists to be easily cast as the villains. People are wary about being arrested and facing the possibility of prison sentences and fines for actions that they perceive as having a minimal effect on the system they are attempting to change. People are wary about the motives of those who carry out such actions, that they are too willing to cast themselves as heros in some kind of epic struggle. I think that many of these are valid and need to be addressed.

In my experience, an act of extreme violence and oppression, like the US-British assault on Fallujah, inspire in us who have thought about the consequences of such acts, a deep urge to end them. We look to the people in the anti-war movement for solidarity and inevitably end up protesting using the methods that they are used to using. In the case of the Stop the War coalition this usually means having a demo. The general public are very used to such actions now, and have generally decided whether they agree and are sympathetic or not. In either case a further demonstration is likely to have little effect on how they act. Indeed, the way these demos are organised and carried out, in true paper-selling style, may alienate not just the public but many people who would otherwise be willing to stand with us. If we are frustrated with the lack of StW's progress, and are willing to be more 'radical', we may mean some form of direct action. This may provoke more of a response from the authorities but it is likely to be more repressive as well. I do not suggest that this in itself is any reason not to engage in such action, however, if we are asking people to put themselves at risk of punitive measures by the police we should be able to show that their actions have meaning and are having an effect. I don't really see this as being the case at present.

The decision that I have arrived at about the forms of protest that I have described above are that they are effective only where there is mass public support for them, or where they strike at the heart of the oppressive machinery that we are trying to stop. In all other times our role in the peace movement has to be in mobilising that support. In providing the information that is needed to change the public perception of world events. To attempt to persuade people to think about world issues in a different light. To keep promoting that althenative perception. To expose the deep flaws in the current mass media. Not only these, but also to attempt to build peace, through supporting our local communities and building strong co-operative partnerships among groups. If we seek to end tyranny on a global level we have to show that peaceful alternatives exist at a local level. And of course, we have to end tyranny within ourselves first. But that's another blog, for another time...

And so it begins..

The assault on Fallujah has begun. The attack opened with US forces taking the city's hospital (and, incidentally, according to the ITN lunchtime news arresting all "military-aged males", i.e everyone over the age of 14). The New York Times helpfully explains the motivation behind the move:

It was the second time in six months that a battle had raged in Falluja. In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw.

American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

Rahul Mahajan provides a rough translation of what this means, "The hospital was shut down because doctors told people how many innocents were killed by the American assault, thus making it a military target. Any pretence of civilization is now gone."

There's a demonstration against the assault on the city this evening in Market Square from 5pm and probably in cities across the country.

Missed Me?

Dan sent me this by email, but hasn't posted it here. As he suggest, it may be of interest to anyone who was wondering what Milan Rai's been up to since he spoke at Nottingham Uni:

An anti-war protester has been arrested outside the Foreign Office in Whitehall in a dramatic visual protest against the imminent attacks on Fallujah.

After climbing onto the side of the Foreign Office building next to the gates of Downing Street, the protestor stencilled “Don’t Attack Fallujah, Black Watch Out” onto the wall and splashed it with fake blood.

He was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.

Shortly before being detained, the protester, Milan Rai, said:

“Today is a day of fear for the people of Fallujah. They need our active solidarity.”

The protest comes as the anti-war movement mobilises against the massive assault planned on Iraq’s cities.

On Sunday, a protestor scaled the gates of Downing Street and remained for 45 minutes, while others blocked traffic in Oxford Circus.

Around 500 people including Professor Stephen Hawking gathered in Trafalgar Square last night in a Naming the Dead ceremony to remember those who have died in the Iraq war.

Similar ceremonies took place in other town centres around the country.

An emergency demonstration against the looming attacks in Iraq will take place in Parliament Square at 2pm on Sunday 7th November. A funeral procession will proceed to the Cenotaph to lay white flowers for those at risk.

For those of you who don't know there will be demonstrations across the country when troops begin the assault on Fallujah. In Nottingham there will be a demo at 5pm in Market Square.

Vote and/or Die

By the time I finish writing this, it may well be accurate to say that the day of the US Presidential Elections, which have so dominated politics this year, have finally arrived. To my mind, this is a good thing, if only because it means the whole affair will soon be over. Many of my friends and fellow activists have got very worked up about the election insisting that a Kerry victory is vital for the survival of the human race or that a vote for Nader is the only way to express opposition to the occupation of Iraq and the duopoly of power. I happen to think it's all pretty irrelevant.

Regardless of who ultimately emerges victorious little will change and I certainly wouldn't want to be living in Fallujah over the coming days and weeks. This has done little to stop the shrill cries of those positioning themselves in the Kerry or Nader camps (insofar as people living thousands of miles from the States with no ability to influence the elections can be considered within candidates' camps). Zeynep Toufe's poston the election is a breath of fresh air and I endorse everything she says, with the caveat that as a non-US citizen I acknowledge that it's a bit rich for me to start telling people who are how they should vote. You really should take the time to read it in full, but for the lazy among you, the following passage is particularly important:

To everyone who is voting for Kerry because they are against Bush and the war, I say: what's more important than your vote is that you get out there and fight tooth and nail against the Kerry administration which is certain to be belligerent, perhaps in finer, more refined ways than Bush.

To everyone who's voting for Nader thinking that's the correct way to stand up to the two-party duopoly I say: the duopoly is quite happy if all you do is show up on election day, vote for Nader and become relatively dormant until the next election. In fact, the real work is between elections.

Now go and read the rest.

Democracy in Action?

A few weeks back, Canadian activist and blogger Justin Podur suggested a "people's referendum" on the occupation of Iraq in which people would be asked if they believed that troops should leave. As a model he pointed to a referendum on the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) in Brazil, organised by the Landless Peasant’s Movement (MST). Apparently 10 million people voted in this, with 98% expressing opposition the FTAA. Podur concedes that there is nothing comparable to MST in the west and that the idea has potential pitfalls, but argues that it is a potentially powerful campaigning tool. I refer to this now, not just because it is an interesting idea which merits greater comment than it seems to have received, but because I took part in something along these lines over the weekend.

Nottingham Stop the War Coalition organised a "ballot" on the withdrawal of the troops which they held in Marker Square. The exercise involved in encouraging people to express their support, opposition, or lack of opinion on the question of whether the occupying forces should be withdrawn from Iraq by marking a box next to their preference on a ballot paper. These ballots were then collected in a "ballot box" (in fact a cardboard box wrapped in black bags with a hole in the top). When counted afterwards, there were something like 230 votes in total (I forget the exact number) of which 90% were in support of withdrawal. The general consensus among those running the stall was that the event would be continued for at least a further week (if only to try and recover the cost of printing).

The idea seemed to interest people and considerable support for withdrawal was expressed, much of it apparently fuelled by anger over the redeployment of the "Black Watch". There were issues with people who oppose withdrawal refusing to participate, apparently because they misunderstood the idea, perhaps not unreasonably as it was obviously a "Stop the War" stall, the large banner behind us leaving nobody in doubt on that point. This will inevitably have skewed the results, but the 10% who didn't vote for withdrawal suggests that not all supporters of the war were put off and giving the whole exercise a degree of legitimacy. That said, there were questions about whether people were reading the questions and some people may have ticked the "No" box, thinking they were expressing their opposition to the occupation, when in fact they were supporting its continuation. The question could hardly be described as complicated and the only way I can see of surmounting this problem is improved communication between those manning the stall and those voting.

The real test of the whole exercise as a tactic will be what we are able to do with it to raise awareness. South Nottingham Labour MP and committed anti-war activist Alan Simpson (one of very few politicians I have any respect for) was supposed to make an appearance at the stall, but failed to do so. The media who had been contacted, were similarly absent. Nonetheless, there is talk of trying to make the final count into an event and using that to attract media interest. Even if we are successful in that regard, it still leaves the question of how we use the results we get at the end. Clearly, problems remain, but I thought Podur's idea had real potential when I first encountered it. I'm now more sure of that then ever.