The eight meter high Apartheid Wall bordering the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem features a tattered and faded replica of Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting “Guernica.” The painting famously commemorates the bombing and massacre of nearly 1,600 civilians by Nazi German and Italian warplanes during the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Hand-painted barbed wire and a Palestinian flag frame the Wall’s reproduction. The caption above reads:
For those who prefer history chopped up into neat slices, John McCain’s modest concession speech on the lawn of the Arizona Biltmore on November 5, 2008, seemed like a clean cut of the knife. With the economy in a nosedive, it was not just the end of a presidential campaign. The neoliberal era seemed to be over–its reigning troika of deregulation, marketization, and privatization cast into disgrace, along with its most recent fiscal vehicles such as debt leveraging and speculation in finance and land. Nowhere was the devastation more visible than in McCain’s hometown. Phoenix had flown highest in the race to profit from the housing bubble, and it had fallen the furthest. Footage of the metro region’s outer-ring subdivisions reclaimed by sage grass, tumbleweed, and geckos was as evocative of the bubble’s savage aftermath as photographs of the Dust Bowl’s windblown soil had been of the Great Depression.
China Miéville is the recipient of multiple awards for his speculative/science/weird fiction novels, and the only author ever to win three Arthur C. Clarke Awards. His most recent novel, Embassytown, came out in May 2011 and has received enthusiastic reviews. As well … Continue reading “Socialist Irrealism: an interview with China Miéville”
When it comes to dealing with misfortune and injustice, the most effective tool to use if we want to make sure that troubles will persist without relief is a simple sentence: That’s water under the bridge. No use crying over … Continue reading “The Water Keeps Flowing”
The Natives should have died off by now. To still be alive is a miracle. Can you taste two billion year old air on your breath or the remnants of primordial seas in your sweat? Do you feel e-coli breaking bread in your bowels? Does your heart synch up with these words, these poetic echoes of ancient ancestors? Self and other, simultaneously…
This is the final session in a two-day workshop organized by the Transnational Institute, a group that bills itself as “a worldwide fellowship of scholar activists.” The overarching theme of the workshop was Defying Dystopia: Struggle Against Climate Change, … Continue reading “People's Alternatives”
Rosa Gonzalez of Green For All in Oakland was the facilitator of this session. She began by talking about the talks. They’re very challenging. On the way into Joburg, she got into a conversation with a cabbie that underlined people’s … Continue reading “Oral Testimonies from the Climate Wars”
Monday, December 5 This afternoon I attended a panel about the Rights of Nature with some of the foremost international proponents of the notion: Cormac Cullinan (lawyer and author of Wild Nature) Shannon Biggs (lawyer and director of Community Rights … Continue reading “The Rights of Nature”
Sunday, December 4 Winnie Overbeck, Coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement, begins this presentation on Fake Forests. He was introduced by Wally Menne of Timberwatch. Winnie, he told us, is going to explain why we oppose industrial tree monocultures. My … Continue reading “Fake Forests”
Friday, December 2 REDD stands for the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. The idea is that forest-dwelling peoples around the world will be paid not to cut down their habitats. … Continue reading “REDD Teach-In”
Friday, December 2 The day’s activities began with a Climate Justice Tribunal. The model here, of course, is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which became a model for conciliatory justice after hearings in the transition to democracy during the mid-1990s … Continue reading “Climate Justice Tribunal”
Thursday, December 1 This session was organized by groundWork, a South African environmental justice and service organization. The panel began with a presentation by Mithica, a worker with the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, a coalition of African civil … Continue reading “groundWork – building social movements in and beyond Durban”
Wednesday, November 30 Just came from an amazing event of the South African rural women’s movements. There were nominal speakers, but the real focus of the event were the groups of women who trooped in, dressed in traditional clothing, singing … Continue reading “Capitalism is Organized (Environmental) Crime”
As plenty of proud nostalgic discourses locate the residues of hip-hop culture circling the drains of sample exhaustion, scene fatigue, patched-in cameos, or the same old cushy R’n’B, people world over just keep going about inventing new worlds of musical … Continue reading “"In One, All": Senegalese Women Freestyle Artists Unify the Global Ghetto”
Kabu verdi / Nu bai / Gosi nu sta na Portugei / Nu bai / Es ta ben y sai / Chullage “Cape Verde / Let’s go / Now, we’re in Portugal / Let’s go / They [my people] … Continue reading “Bearing Witness and the Challenges of Community in Global Hip Hop”
