caravia/activism

An elderly woman who has lived through both world wars has begun a two-day protest outside the base which houses the UK's nuclear deterrent.
Alice Beer, 94, is spending the weekend at the Faslane naval base on the River Clyde, leading a group called Goats, (Golden Oldies Against Trident).

She is among about a dozen senior citizens who are part of a contingent of protesters from Leicestershire. About 60 demonstrators cheered as Mrs Beer arrived in her wheelchair.

Mrs Beer, who has been politically active since her teenage years in Vienna, opposing the rise of fascism, said that an end to Trident and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was a cause very close to her heart.
"We'd rather have the money spent on something for peace and not for war"

She said: "I'm very glad to have this opportunity to come here and, as they used to say in the war, 'to do my bit'.
"It's very, very important and we have lots of people here so I hope people pay attention to the cause.
"We feel we want to do all we can to stop Trident, we don't want any more of them after its gone either."

Thanks to Nancy and Butch for sharing this important site. Only with courageus soldiers refusing to go the war we can stop the evil scurge of the war. No to any war!!

Beautiful news from Israel! The peace process starts here, with youngsters from both sides saying no to violence and to war!

"Name: Omer Goldman
Age: 19
Location: Tel-Aviv
Why I am one of the Shministim:
"I believe in service to the society I am part of, and that is precisely why I refuse to take part in the war crimes committed by my country. Violence will not bring any kind of solution, and I shall not commit violence, come what may."
First Sentence: 22nd Sept. - 10th Oct. 2008 (18 days)
Second Sentence: 12th - 24th Oct. 2008 (10 days)

Omer Goldman, has had to confront the values of her own family. She is the daughter of the former deputy head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service and who is still considered one of the most powerful men in the Israeli security system. Omer, without her father's permission visited a Palestinian town in the West Bank and at a check-point, alongside Palestinians, her supposed enemies, was fired upon by Israeli soldiers, "We were sitting by the roadside talking and soldiers came along and after a few seconds they received an order and fired gas grenades and rubber bullets at us. Then it struck me, to my astonishment, that the soldiers were following an order without thinking. For the first time in my life, an Israeli soldier raised his weapon and fired at me."

Although, not surprisingly, her father does not support her decision to refuse, he still supports her as a daughter. "He and I have very similar characters. I, too, fight to the end for what I believe in. But we are opposites ideologically."

In her declaration of refusal she stated:

"I refuse to enlist in the Israeli military. I shall not be part of an army that needlessly implements a violent policy and violates the most basic human rights on a daily basis.

Like most of my peers, I too have not dared to question the ethics of the Israeli military. But when I visited the Occupied Territories I realized I see a completely different reality, a violent, oppressive, extreme reality that must be ended.

I believe in service to the society I am part of, and that is precisely why I refuse to take part in the war crimes committed by my country. Violence will not bring any kind of solution, and I shall not commit violence, come what may. "

Women in India taking the Law in their own hands, stopping husbands and fathers of beating and killing women. Great, to oppose the Laws made by the patriarchate!

Excellent initiative!

"SLUM-TV wants to documents the lives of the people in the
slum and to reevaluate these lives through the camera. A camera
always attracts attention. Our partners from the
slum film and document the life in Mathare.
The small movies are then shown in public places in
Mathare, like a newsreel. In Mathare, there exist a variety
of self-established cinemas. Mostly American
and African films and European football is shown there.

Analogous to weekly news-shows in the early age
of television our partners want to show their contributions
in these cinemas, and maybe to charge a small entree fee
in order to finance videotapes and other material.
Copies of the videos are sent to Vienna. We will also try to
distribute them under "Creative Common" licenses. That means
non profit orientated community TV's could use material for free,
but has to name authors. All other users would have to pay.
From the proceeds the manufacturers in the slums benefit again."

SPARC, grounded by Sheela Patel, try to change the conditionss of the slums improving people's own ways to take decisions and make networks.

"The slums have to be acknowledged for what they are. Communities which are contributing to the economy and deserve the legal recognition of their existence (many currently are `unofficial', which means residents have little security or land rights).

Next. That those same communities should have an equal say in how their community should develop and grow and this means really acting on what `partnership' really means. Sheela would agree that partnership in much development speak is lip service. Organisations say they `partner' with their communities but do not really understand or respond to the community needs, especially when the risks of doing so for their own organisation is high.

This really is the crux of Sparc. `There is a big gap between saying that you want to partner, and actually doing it', said Sheela. She finds that after 3 or 4 years most NGOs are afraid to take risks, whereas most poor peoples lives are full of risks. Too often, Sheela believes, the interests of the institution are put before the interests of the constituency that they serve. For SPARC it has taken nearly thirty years to build relationships with the slum communities, to build the trust which is required for the change to occur but that is how long it has taken to now do what they do.

And what to they do? Many things. Mainly SPARC acts in an advocacy role for the slum communities, representing their needs and rights to government. They have been pushing for land rights reform, pressing for tenancy agreements within the slum, so that dwellers can invest in housing and infrastructure, and so have `security nets' to fall back on. What you need to secure those nets though, Sheela explained to me, `is large numbers of people, working over a long period of time'. Which is where SPARC comes in, acting as a catalyst to bring a collective voice together; those large numbers Sheela talked about, and not being afraid if this takes time.

The idea behind SPARC was to share the risks with the slum dwellers, and always maintain their relevance to the needs of the communities their partner with. "The question was, can we put the skill sets of what poor people have when they survive in such difficult circumstances', explained Sheela, `and can we match them to the skills sets we have, so we can produce a complementary set of skills sets that can push this process beyond where it is, to transform this".

Sheela summarised. `So the process is how to form the partnership, and how to form strategies and mechanisms for people to stay organised over a long period of time, because you just don't get tenure in two years."

Amazing!!!

"At 4.30 am on the 91st anniversary of the October Revolution, the Voina group burned a skull and bones onto the facade of the House of the Government of the Russian Federation. The Jolly Roger, lit up at 4.30 am, was the signal for the start of the parliament's siege, carried out by Voina activists.

Archive footage for the Voina group training session on November 7 '08 - the Anarchist siege of the White House in Moscow, Russia's parliament.

At 4.30 am on November 7 activists of the Voina group hijacked the seat of Russia's parliament, Moscow's White House.

A skull and crossbones appearing on the facade of the White House was the signal for the start of the parliament's siege by a battalion of Voina activists. Urban militants scaled the 7-meter high main gate to take control of the territory surrounding the White House. After holding ground and destroying pieces of video surveillance, Voina militants left the territory unharmed, with stunned troopers from the Federal Security Service appearing only minutes later.

91 years before, in 1917, a revolutionary mob in St. Petersburg put the residence of the Russian Emperor, the Winter palace, under siege, following a blank shot from the "Avrora" battleship - the historical start of the October Revolution.

The Jolly Roger is the symbol for piracy and Anarchism. Piracy is seen by the group as the definite economic technique for survival while battling capitalism. Anarchism is accepted as the political method for self-organization of the rebellious and independent collective.

In the 17-18th centuries pirates used to fly the Jolly Roger before their attacks on vessels and ports. Voina fired it's laser gun to signal across river Moscow for the siege of the White House to begin."