Oxford Radical Forum

OXFORD RADICAL FORUM 2010!

http://oxfordradicalforum.wordpress.com/

Comrades and travellers,

Welcome to the blog of the Oxford Radical Forum.

We are excited to announce the current programme for the Oxford Radical Forum 2010, which will be taking place Friday – Sunday, 5 – 7 March.

Once again Wadham College will play host to a broad range of critical debates and discussions on the radical left, with leading speakers, commentars, activists and academics. As always the event is entirely FREEand we are also pleased to announce a Forum dinner on the Friday night, and an evening social on the Saturday night.

We hope to see many of you at Wadham over the course of the Forum and hope that you will join us in making this another successful and fruitful event.

oxfordradicalforum@googlemail.com

Getting to Wadham College: http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/images/files/wadhmaprev.pdf

<< We view re-energising popular discussion and action on the left a necessity. Our belief in the need for an event in Oxford bringing together progressive politics stems both from a conviction in the continued and critical relevancy of Marxist and leftist ideas and theory and from the sad and persistent weakness of focused or organised progressive political organisation locally and nationally, despite such pressing conditions of political and economic crisis, and despite the very many who would under more favourable circumstances participate in such interventions. Therefore we are hosting again this forum which will continue to address these issues and draw in individuals from the two universities in Oxford, the city and beyond to consider critically ideas about social progress and transformation. Ultimately ORF seeks to contribute to a critical culture of left debate, theory and action, as well as to cement political and intellectual links between individuals and groups who will have a basis upon which to work in the future. >>

CURRENT TIMETABLE

(NB: All venues will be around the Ho Chi Minh Quad in Wadham College. The exact room will be clearly inidcated on the day.)

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FRI

2:30 – 3:45

:: DIRECT ACTION WORKSHOP

With the ‘Seeds For Change’ collective.

4:30 – 6:00

:: ENGLAND’S POSTIMPERIAL MELANCHOLIA

Paul Gilroy (author, There Aint no Black in the Union Jack; Anthony Giddens Prof., London School of Economics).

6:45 – 8:15

:: THE BLACK AND THE RED: MARXISM & ANARCHISM TODAY

Paul Blackledge (author, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History; Leeds Metropolitan University); Ruth Kinna (author, William Morris: The Art of Socialism; editor, Anarchist Studies; Loughborough University).

8:30-…

:: FORUM DINNER

All Forum attendees welcome…

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SAT

11:00 – 12:15

:: THE MEANING OF RADICALISM AND CONSUMERISM TODAY

Kate Soper (author, The Politics and Pleasures of Consuming Differently; Londen Metropolitan University); Jeremy Gilbert (author, Anti-capitalism and Culture; University of East London).

1:15 – 2:30

:: THE COLONIAL PRESENT

Patricia Daley (author, Gender and Genocide in Burundi; Oxford University); Priyamvada Gopal (author, Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nationa and the Transition to Independence; Cambridge University).

3:00 – 4:15

:: DISASTER POLITICS IN HAITI: AID, EXPLOITATION AND THE ARMY

Peter Hallward (author, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment; Middlesex University).

4:45 – 6:00

:: ON IMMIGRATION AND FIGHTING FASCISM AND RACISM TODAY

Teresa Hayter (author Open Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls; Campaign to Close Campfield); speaker from Unite Against Fascism.

7:00 – 8:30

:: ONE MILLION CLIMATE JOBS – NOW!

Jonathan Neale (author, Stop Global Warming, Change the World; International Secretary, Campaign against Climate Change); former Vestas worker and occupier (TBC).

9:00 – 3:00 (a.m.!)

PERFORMANCE // SPOKEN WORD // GIG // DJs
@ “THE CELLAR”

An eclectic mixture of live music, spoken word and comedy, arts-performance, and – after midnight – serious dance music until late.

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SUN

11:00 – 12:15

:: ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES

Laurie Penny.

1:15 – 2:30

:: MUSIC, UTOPIA AND REVOLUTION

Adam Harper (musician; dreamweaver).

3:00 – 4:15

:: MILITANT MODERNISM AND THE RUINS OF BRITISH UTOPIA

Owen Hatherly (author, Militant Modernism; architect).

4:45 – 6:00

:: INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY: LIBERATION NOW

Nina Power (author, One-Dimensional Woman; Roehampton University).

7:00 – 8:30

:: EUROPEAN POLITICS IN 2010

Stathis Kouvelakis (author, Philosophy and Revolution; editor, A Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism; NPA member; Kings College London) on the current political conjuncture in France and the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste; Richard Seymour (author, The Liberal Defense of Murder; blogs at ‘LENIN’S TOMB’) on ‘The meaning of David Cameron’…

8:45 – …

DRINKS AND FAREWELLS

Be part of building a network of activists to fight for jobs, solidarity and public services!!

Oxford Right To Work Campaign meeting

Thursday 4^th March 7.30 pm,

Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford

Speakers:

Tracey Rogers, PCS

Shao Dow, Love Music Hate Racism

Dave McGrath, CWU

Tracy Walsh, UCU Ruskin College

Sue Parkinson, UNISON steward JRII

Plus speakers from: FBU, student activist from Sussex

Oxford Right to Work Meeting 4th March

Unite to fight job and public service cuts!! Fight racism, defend the planet!!

Oxford Right To Work Campaign public meeting. Activist speakers from public and private sector unions, students and anti-racists, Peoples Charter etc...

Thursday 4th March 7.30

Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford

Come along and help build a network of activists to fight the cuts. We need to fight the cuts, whoever wins the next election.

Right to Work Conference

A conference of resistance and solidarity
Saturday 30 January, Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester 11.30am-5pm

Fight for every job
Organise to stop the cuts
Defend services and pensions
Unite the public and private sectors
Demand a million green jobs
Jobs not bombs
Defend migrant workers – jobs for all

Speakers include:
Mark Serwotka (PCS), Sally Hunt (UCU), Tony Kearns (CWU), Jeremy Dear (NUJ), Jerry Hicks (Unite), Mark Smith (former Vestas worker), Paul Brandon (Unite bus worker), Nahella Ashraf (chair, Greater Manchester Stop the War), Dave Chapple (Chair National Shop Stewards Network), Clara Osagiede (RMT cleaners’ secretary), Kevin Courtney (NUT national executive, personal capacity), Dot Gibson (General Secretary, National Pensioners Convention) and speakers from the Fujitsu strike, Royal Mail dispute, Brighton bins dispute, BA cabin crew, Superdrug… and many more.

Supported by UCU nationally and over 55 union branches so far.

There’s a deep economic crisis – and the bosses and the politicians want us to pay for it. It’s bad now, and an avalanche of cuts is coming after the election. But there’s also a fightback, and we need more of that.
Whenever there’s resistance, then we need solidarity. Many working people rallied round the postal workers’ national fight. And many have also backed the Leeds bins workers, the BA workers, the Superdrug workers and other groups who have taken action. This conference is designed to bring together those networks of resistance and to make them stronger.

This is a brilliant chance to learn from one another and spread the lessons of the fightback.

It’s not just for trade unionists, and it won’t just be about workplace struggle. We are having speakers and workshops on issues like the war in Afghanistan, anti-racist battles, decent housing, and so on. We want students, unemployed workers, anti-war activists, pensioners, campaigners for green jobs, housing activists and anti-racist activists to come.

It won’t be a talking shop. We want to organise initiatives from the conference. For example, some people have suggested a day of action around welfare ‘reform’ or a coordinated push to unionise in specific areas, or action to defend and organise migrant workers.

We want to people to bring their own ideas to the conference and to go away with stronger organisation.

Workshops include:
How can we stop the jobs massacre?
Fighting privatisation, defending public services
Don’t let them rob our pensions!
Jobs not bombs
After Copenhagen, how can we win a million climate jobs?
“The lost generation”? – students and young workers fighting back
Against racism and the scapegoating of migrant workers
How can workers get a real political voice?
Defying the anti-union laws
The welfare reform agenda – fighting for our rights

http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/

The Wave

Stop Climate Change Demonstration

Oxford Stop Climate Chaos Coalition is running subsidised coaches to the demonstration to get as many people there as possible.  Coaches leave St Giles at 10a.m. Tickets Cost £10 waged and £8 unwaged.  There is also a special price of £3 for members of Oxfordshire UNISON health branch.

Tickets can be bought online below http://web.bethere.co.uk/OSCC/ or email OSCC@bethere.co.uk or call 07985056089.

Climate change is the greatest threat to humanity and the world’s ecosystems. We have fewer than 100 months to reverse the growth in global carbon emissions, otherwise global warming will almost certainly exceed the danger threshold of 2 degrees C.

The UN Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen this December are the most important international talks in the history of humankind. They must deliver a fair global deal to keep us all safe from dangerous and irreversible climate chaos.

We are urging as many people to come to London with us to make it clear to world leaders we want immediate effective action.

 

Letter from America # 17

America Ys Guns

The recent shootings at Fort Hood army base in Texas have shocked the nation, and given rise to hours and pages of agonized media coverage. There is speculation about the shooter’s motives, his Muslim identity, and whether the crime should be classified as terrorism (as if this makes any difference to the families of the victims). As usual, the right-wing media has used the incident to engage in virulent Islamophobia. As usual, the media coverage misses the point.

Nidal Hasan’s Islamic beliefs may be relevant, as there are reports that he was increasingly influenced by radical Islam in the months leading to his rampage. There are, however, also reports that his communications with a ‘radical Imam’ were for the purpose of legitimate research. His actions may have been equally the result of his horror at the Iraq War, his fear of being sent to a war zone, his suffering from Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and his day-to-day experience in his job as a military psychologist listening to the horror-stories told by returning veterans. His being influenced by radical interpretations of Islam might be the trigger, but probably not the underlying cause, of his actions.

Also irrelevant is the debate that usually follows such events about the Second Amendment, which supposedly guarantees the right to bear arms. (It actually calls for a ‘well-regulated militia’, not for every right-wing gun-nut to be allowed to tote an AK-47.) Liberals usually call for more gun control after the latest shooting, and it’s understandable that the left should wish to oppose right wing militias such as the Minuteman, who exercise their Second Amendment rights by intimidating immigrants along the Mexican border. But, as Michael Moore pointed out in Bowling for Columbine, gun ownership is just as high in Canada as in the US, but Canada does not experience the same kind of gun-crime problems. Here in central Michigan, every second family seems to own a rifle for hunting during the deer season in the autumn. It does not make our area a hotbed of gun violence.

But of course, the usual gun-control vs gun-rights debate did not take place after the Fort Hood shooting, as the shooter belonged to the biggest, most heavily armed group of killers on the planet – the US armed forces. Any discussion of ending killing by taking the guns out of the hands of potential killers would of course come into head-on collision with official America’s love affair with the military.

The military in the US is bigger and more visible than in the UK – a larger proportion of the population is in the armed services, has been posted to Iraq, or has been killed or wounded there or in Afghanistan. Nobody is more than a few degrees of separation from an Iraq veteran (I have taught two of them in my classes). The understandable desire of people to support veterans is twisted and exploited into an orgy of militarism and patriotism, as we are constantly invited by bumper stickers or ads on TV to ‘support our troops’. Harley-Davison saw fit to ‘salute those who defend freedom’ with a youtube ad featuring scantily-clad women draping themselves over motorbikes. Presumably, the US forces in Iraq are fighting to defend soft porn and greenhouse gas emissions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6CHqSN7O-o We are not, however, invited to empathize with the troops beyond a superficial call to ‘honor their sacrifice’. We are not invited to ask why veterans are more likely to be unemployed, mentally ill, to commit suicide, or to go to prison.

The other question not being asked is why so many shooting sprees are committed by people linked to the far right. If Hasan’s crime was motivated by Islamism, then he’s in a minority – American ultra-conservatism and neo-fascism are behind more acts of violence in the USA than radical Islam. Before 9/11, the biggest act of domestic terrorism was Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building at Oklahoma City. McVeigh was a military veteran, motivated by a peculiarly American brand of right-wing politics that stresses racism, suspicion of the federal government (except when it’s fighting wars), and worship of the gun. More recently, the last year has seen the murder of George Tiller, a doctor in Kansas who performed abortions; the assault on a Unitarian church in Tennessee by a shooter who hated its members’ ‘liberal views’; and the killing of a security guard at the national Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC by a neo-Nazi. All these stories were well reported at the time, but all seemed to disappear from media discussion of gun-crime, as they do not fit the stereotype of mass-shootings being committed by (a) Muslim terrorists or (b) lone gunmen who ‘go postal’ for crazed, personal reasons. I’m not saying these killings were linked in an organizational sense, but they share a common ideology.

This ideology cannot be dismissed as the belief system of a few extremists – it shades into that of the more mainstream right. Before his murder, Dr Tiller was repeatedly labeled ‘Tiller the Baby-Killer’ by Rupert Murdoch’s ‘Fair and Balanced’ Fox News. His murderer was linked to the anti-abortion group ‘Operation Rescue.’ Right-wing protestors against healthcare reform have turned up outside meetings held by Democratic members of Congress, and even one of Obama’s speeches, openly carrying assault rifles. At election rallies held by McCain and Palin last year, members of the audience were heard shouting ‘traitor’ and ‘kill him’ at the mention of Obama.

I’m not saying the USA is about to face a fascist coup, or that the Republican Party are in league with neo-Nazis. My point is that there is – to use the old cliché – a ‘violence inherent in the system’ of the US. Fort Hood was, after all, named after a Civil War general in the armies of the slave-owning South. When a country has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, when it has military bases in over 100 foreign countries, when it occupies two countries, and funds the Israeli occupation of a third, when it has the world’s biggest arms industry, when it imprisons more young Black men than it sends to college, when it was built on the dispossession of one people and the enslavement of a second – when, in short, American capitalism polices the globe and its own people with naked violence – it is not surprising when that violence sometimes emerges in unexpected and shocking ways. As Malcolm X put it, commentating on the assassination of JFK – the chickens have come home to roost. 

 

 

Palestine Solidarity Campaign Meeting

Palestinian Child Prisoners

Public Meeting on Thursday 5th November 7-9pm
Oxford Town Hall, St Aldate's

Chair: Victoria Brittain
Guests: Danny Freidman and Karma Nabulsi