De-activating colonialism & Decolonising activism

Activate the decolonisation process and you end up with a treaty!” - Robbie Thorpe

Tuesday 31 August 2010, 6:30-8:30pm
MAYSAR Gym, 184-186 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Light refreshments provided

RSVP: limited numbers. clarelan@deakin.edu.au 0409 352 297

*Robbie Thorpe, Gunai & Maar Nations, voice of Treaty Republic and Black GST
will host a panel of speakers:

*Sina Brown-Davis, Indigenous Activist  & Mum from Ngati Whatua ki Kaipara

*Peter Lewis, non-Indigenous, Chair of ANTaR Victoria (Working for Land Justice and Reconciliation)

*Gary Foley, member of the Gumbaynggirr Nation, historian, lecturer and activist



Discussion of:

• What are the pitfalls and dangers for non-Indigenous people’s involvement in supporting Indigenous struggles?
• non-Indigenous people want to help but don’t know how
• How can we get better value out of our activists? Make the best use of their time and energy?
• How can we take control of our lives with the support of conscientious Australians?
• Let’s come up with a guide/protocol for activists Our energy is taken up educating generation after generation of non-Indigenous people

A community forum for reflection and action in connection with Clare Land’s PhD research, which tries to spread and deepen conversations about how non-Indigenous people support Indigenous struggles. Clare will be analysing the forum and providing copies to the community.

Gaza and Flotilla Solidarity Action Melbourne

Gaza and Flotilla Solidarity Action in Melbourne Australia 1st June 2010 Video by Izzy Music by Monkeymarc

Anti Racism Demo-Melbourne

Some racist idiots planned a demo today at Flinder Street Station. 500 anti-racism activists rocked up to meet them. They didn't show. :-)

Community Roundtable on Police Related Issues In Victoria

Dear Members of the Melbourne Anti-Intervention Collective, TransVic, Loophole, Anarchist Black Cross, 3CR, Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, Done-By-Law, Indigenous Social Justice Association, Decarceration Network, Police Issues Working Group of the Federation, Musicians Against Police
Violence, Eastern and Western Suburbs Youth workers, Community Legal Centres, Fitzroy Legal Service, PILCH, Homeless Persons Legal Clinic, Flemington & Kensington Community Legal Centre, Youthlaw, Darebin CLC, Western Suburbs CLC, Footscray CLC, Essendon CLC, VALS, Melbourne Copwatch, African Think Tank, MAYSAR, Federation of Indian Students of Australia, CHRIP, Lost Boys of Sudan, the African Youth Group, Food Not Bombs, A world without, other community organisations, and concerned friends.

You are invited to attend a special Roundtable meeting on Thursday 18th February to be held at Maysar in Fitzroy.

The Roundtable aims to provide an opportunity for our many groups to share information and explore opportunities for collaboration on tactics, strategies and campaigns on police-related issues in Victoria.

You will be aware that, despite lobbying and campaigning, Victoria passed new search, move on and public drunkenness powers passed into law in 2009. You will also be aware that three deaths in police custody occurred in December 2009 and that in each case, it is the police who are investigating these deaths.   You will also be aware that that Victoria Police is failing to adequately train its members in safety first and de-escalation principles and that police brutality against people including women and children continues in this State. You will also be aware of increasing incarceration rates of Indigenous and migrant youth and the failure of the police (and government) to acknowledge the racist attacks that are occuring against Indian, Sudanese and other people of colour.

All of us are working on the collective tragedy of a State Government and police force which is doing nothing to realistically to end racism, deaths in police custody, stop police assaults on Indigenous, Migrant, homeless and mentally ill people and where the evidence of the failure in police accountability is available in numerous official reports.

In order in increase our individual and collective capacity to creatively and effectively work and mobilise on these issues, Melbourne Copwatch invites you to a community roundtable to explore opportunities for collaboration and share information about the vital work we are all doing.

We ask that you send one or more of your members to the Community roundtable which we propose will operate as Spokescouncil. We are grateful to Anthony Kelly for agreeing to faciliate this event.

The Community Roundtable will be at Maysar  184-186 Gertrude St Fitzroy between 6-8pm on Thursday 18 February 2010.

Please bring information about your organisation and information on the campaigns you are working on to share with others.

To obtain further information, to RSVP or to join Melbourne Copwatch, please contact Melbourne.Copwatch@gmail.com

Copwatch acknowledges the Wurundjeri, the traditional owners of this country and is grateful to the Melbourne Aboriginal Youth, Sport and Recreation Centre for donating the space for this event.

Imprisoned People and Social Justice Forum

The forum will bring together formerly imprisoned people and their family members, advocates, lawyers, activists and interested community members, to discuss and workshop effective measures and strategies for social justice for imprisoned people, and a reduction in rates of recidivism. The forum will have a strong focus on Indigenous women’s experiences of the
criminal justice system.

Speakers include Rachel Herzing, (Creative Interventions, USA), Cassandra Shaylor (Critical Resistance, USA), Kim Pate (Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canada), Debbie Kilroy (Sisters Inside, QLD), Antoinette Braybrook (Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention Legal Service, VIC), Vicki Roach (human rights advocate and activist, VIC), and other men
and women with the lived experience of imprisonment.

Who Should Attend? Organisers of this forum are prioritising involvement from people most impacted by imprisonment and related issues; men and women who have been imprisoned or their family members, Indigenous people, culturally and linguistically diverse community members, consumers of the mental health system, and others.

About FVPLS Victoria, CHRIP and Flat Out: FVPLS Victoria was established in October 2002 to provide assistance to victims of family violence and sexual assault and to work with families and communities affected by violence. Flat Out has been in operation since 1988 and is a state wide
service that provides housing and re-integration support to women leaving prison. CHRIP is a project of Flat Out that aims to build the capacity of organisations that provide advocacy and support to prisoners, and establish a dedicated Prisoners’ Legal Service in Victoria.



Please find a flier and registration form attached, numbers are limited so
interested people should RSVP as soon as possible.


On the evening of the forum (Thursday 10th September) we will be holding a
celebration evening with a film screening, prisoner art show, and music.
More details to come.

Community Safety Network

This is an invitation to individuals, groups and organisations that are interested in forming a ‘Community Safety Network’.

In establishing a network around the term ‘safety’ we need to be clear about what we mean when we use that term. Threats to our ‘safety’ equally come in the form of exploitative work, institutions such as Centrelink, police, courts and prisons, as it comes from within our own communities.

As well as pursuing and supporting positive community safety initiatives, resisting and challenging these institutions are also important and legitimate strategies.

We are not interested in participating in, or developing new forms of social control.

Ideally the Community Safety Network will become a space for collaboration between groups, organisations and individuals seeking to work on specific campaigns and projects. It will also hopefully play a role in generating a grass roots politics that can both challenge the push for more police and prisons, and that can recognizes the role that these institutions play
in reproducing poverty, racism and violence.

The first meeting will be on Saturday June the 13th at the Footscray

Community Arts Centre - 45 Moreland Street, Footscray @ 2pm.

All welcome, including the kids!

At the meeting we’re hoping to have an open ranging discussion about what people would like to see the network doing.

The following people are also gonna come to give a specific talk about their work:

• A representative from the Federation for Indian Students in Australia

• Tamar Hopkins will speak briefly about the network launching a Police Accountability Campaign

• Umer will give us a run down on the work of the newly formed Melbourne Copwatch

• Phoebe Barton will give us a brief on the work currently being undertaken by the Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People and the Decarceration Network

Some ideas that have been floated for the Network are:

That the CSN facilitates a campaign for an independent police accountability body

That the network establishes a alternative police complaints mechanism that is capable of anonymously receiving reports of police misconduct, collating and publishing that information, and refering people to available support services.

That the network publishes a website that can act as a hub for news; hosts the alternative complaints mechanism; is capable of uploading stories and videos from the streets; and can connect people who are looking to get involved in this kind of work.

That the CSN acts as a mutual support network for people and communities that are experiencing both state and non-state violence

see yas down there!

'Boiling the Billy', Opportunities and Challenges of Radical Unionising

The Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation Melbourne will host a conference on Sunday 7th June.

'Boiling the Billy', Opportunities and Challenges of Radical Unionising.

Speakers include Gary Foley.

10am - 4pm

Entry by gold coin donation

Food available.

Melbourne Anarchist Resource Center

62 St Georges Rd

Northcote

For more info, call 0404 105 403 or email asfsec@gmail.com

Zapatista Film/Doco Festival - Feb 20,21,22

Zapatista Film/Doco Festival
20, 21, 22 February 2009
62 St. Georges Road, Northcote
Download festival Flyer

Inspiring, creating, fighting

“...We want a world where many worlds are possible...”
Sub Marcos, Zapatista National Liberation Army, Chiapas, Mexico

It is New Year’s Night 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. For the indigenous communities & popular activists in the Lacandona Jungle of South-eastern Mexico, Chiapas, NAFTA symbolizes the culmination of over 500 years of exploitation. During the night, 2,000 indigenous soldiers occupy several cities in the state of Chiapas and declare political and economic independence. They call themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).

The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was certainly one of the most dramatic and important instances in our time of a genuine grassroots movement against oppression, we believe that their words and practice can inspire a new generation of activist to see that it is possible for ordinary people, without wealth and advance weapons, to challenge state power successfully.

How after 15 years does the historic and ongoing Zapatista uprising continue to transform the world? How did the poetic fury of their movement become part of the rising tide that sent waves of resistance crashing through the streets of, Seattle, Genoa, Quebec, Washington D.C., France, Greece and Melbourne? What are their weapons? Was it their words? We hope we can answer these questions during and after the Zapatista Festival

The ZAPATISTA Film/doco festival will try to offers to all of us a new way of thinking about political struggle and what we means to live as a human being. We have more than 10 films documentaries from Zapatistas Communities, Mapuche struggles, Brazil (MST), Bolivia (indigenous struggles and others), and shorts presentations from different Latin American indigenous and popular grassroots organisations in struggle today.

The Festival is an inspiring first-hand account of a struggle that will challenge the way we think about the world and our commitments for change

We would like to thank everyone, who contributed to this festival with video productions, people without any experience, professionals, grassroots community productions and Chiapas media project/Promedios for their main contribution to the first inspiring Zapatista film doco festival.

All proceeds from this Festival will support the Third Latin American Solidarity Gathering
“Focus on Colombia and Chile” on July 2009, and the Lake Cowal Gathering on April-Easter 2009

At International Workers’ Centre, 62 St. Georges Road, Northcote
$15 three days (whole Festival) or $8 per day
More info lasnet@latinlasnet.org or call 0400 914 944
Detailed schedule at www.latinlasnet.org

Drinks available, NON BYO, Food provided by Food not bombs, Dinner Friday and Saturday, 7:00 PM
Organised by Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET)
Supported by Chiapas Media Project/Promedios and Mexico Australia Solidarity Network (MASN)

“The aim is to listen and learn about the struggles, the resistance and rebel movements, support them and bind them together to build a national anti-capitalist, leftist program.”, EZLN

Zapatista Film/Doco Schedules

Friday February 20
6:00 pm “Zapatista” The Movie, a production of Big Noise, 48 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
7:00 pm Dinner, Food Not Bombs
7:30 pm Bolivia, the indigenous from the Andes, a report from England, 30 minutes
8:15pm The Militarisation of Guerrero - Chiapas Media Project/Promedios (CMP/P), 35 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
9:00 pm We are equal, Zapatista women speak - CMP/P, 19 minutes
9:30 pm Festival first day close

Saturday February 21
4:00pm Brazil, “Roots” MST (Landless Movement) struggles for dignity, 42 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
5:15pm Oaxaca, Images of Repression in Oaxaca, 51 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
6:30pm Voice of the Voiceless, a direct production of communities in resistance, 12 minutes
15+- minutes open discussion
7:00pm Dinner, Food Not Bombs
7:30pm A very big train called the Other Campaign, productions audiovisual caracoles Zapatistas, 40 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
8:30pm “You are saying that we can’t pass”, 12 minutes and “Letter for our words” production”, 13 minutes Chiapas Media Projects/Promedios production.
9:30 pm Festival Second day close

Sunday Feb 22
2:00pm, “Switch Off”, Mapuche people struggles against Electric Multinational in Chile, Mapuche are the majority indigenous population in Chile, they support the Zapatista struggle, 65 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
3:40pm, On the Edge, The Femicide in Ciudad Juarez, 57 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
4:55pm, Guatemala, Coffee Justice, 14 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
5:30pm, Water and Autonomy in Zapatistas communities, 15 minutes, Chiapas media Project/Promedios
20 minutes open discussion
6:30pm food and refreshments
7:00pm “the Last Zapatistas and their impact in the EZLN, 48 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
8:30 Zapatista Festival close

"We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution."
Sub Marcos, EZLN

SHAC goes to the supreme court - 210 William St in the city

So on Thursday the occupiers of 272-278 Faraday St got served with notice that the University has gone to the supreme court to 'recover the land' at 272-278 Faraday St under order 53 . The hearing will take place on monday morning.

Please come to a protest out the front of the court from 9.30 am and then if you want come into the court for the hearing which will start at 10.30am.

Bring banners, placards and colour. Also if the feeling takes you please dress up in drag.

210 William St in the city

SHAC will be seeking an adjournment of this hearing so there is a chance
it will be delayed. The protest will go ahead regardless.

PHASS FORUMS 2008: RUDD & MANDATORY DETENTION

click for a larger image

Tues 26th @ 1:15pm in D531
Footscray Park Campus, Victoria University

Speakers include:
David Vakalis, PHASS
Pamela Curr, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Kristalo Hrysicos, refugee activist

ALL WELCOME!

>> please distribute widely <<

Independent West Papua – Melbourne Community Benefit

click for larger image

Independent West Papua
Melbourne Community Benefit 8pm,
Saturday July 5th The Corner Hotel. $10/15

In solidarity with a resurgence in demonstrations across West Papua for independence from Indonesia, the West Papuan Melbourne community is organising a massive weekend of celebration and protest.

Members of the 43 Papuan refugees who fled to Australia by boat in 2006 will perform traditional and reggae and hip-hop inspired song and dance. Supported by Melbourne's most radical hip-hop, reggae and dub crews, Agency Dub Collective, Culture Connect, Chantdown Sound, Pataphysics, B12 Shot and A Mapmouth Exploder, the Corner will present a night of true Melanasian and Melbournian revolutionary culture. All proceeds to Australia West Papua Association.

http://www.myspace.com/westpapua_melbourne