The Paper Edition Zero

8/3/2019 The Paper Edition Zero

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THE

PAPEREDITION ZER0MARCH 2011

raise raise, raise your voice

those who chant

wont die


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THE PAPER | MARCH 20112

EDITORIAL

The people who disobey. The people who resist in the obscurity of everydaylife. The people who, when forgotten too long, remind the world of theirexistence and break into history without prior notice There is no oppressionwithout resistance. There is only time stretching more or less slowly before

unexpectedor out of sightthe collective heroism of a people arises.Sadri Khiari, Tuisia activist ad writer

We have witnessed amazingevents on television - mostlyvia Al Jazeera in whichpuppets of power are being

pushed away and a new world born. Theysay these are youth revolts and call themspontaneous eruptions of demands for civilliberties and democracy. Yet across NorthAfrica, everywhere from the streets to thefactories to the universities, there are strong,established and radical organisations.In the story we are told the liberties and

democracies demanded are, of course, likeours. The newly humanised Arab streetis compared with 1989 and the triumphof freedom over authoritarianism. Thisall seems like the kind of transition theywish to see. A shift to stable democracies,where wealth isnt redistributed, wherehierarchies and inequities go unchallengedand, most importantly - the oil ows. Sonotes of caution are issued: rights must berespected - the right to property the mostsacrosanct of all.

Pause this scene - what is unfolding?

A re-activation of the colonial machine of

power emerges in the distinction betweenus and them. These revolts can - andfrighteningly most probably will - allowfor the reappearance of these methods ofdomination onto these oil rich territories,continuing the extraction of valuableresources and labour. It happened backthen, in the world after the Second World

War, when most of the colonies in Africabecame independent, and there is noreason to believe it will not happen now.In the world after the 2008 nancial crisis,the colonial machine is enabled to completeits task: to clear the political grounds andprepare the terrain for another cycle ofdisplacement, dispossession, and death.

The question at stake, then, is whetherthe movements can maintain momentum,continue to mobilise and stay organised.If not, new regimes will likely [re]appear,

similar to the ones so recently pushedfrom power. The newfound self-condenceof the people will ght to co-exist with arecomposed elite that remains suspiciousand fearful of the people. If the mobilisationscontinue we might see the establishmentof parliamentary democracies. But thereis another option, that of a continuingrevolution; tearing open the economic andpolitical structure, refusing the dying PaxAmericana and instituting another wayof living together beyond both an emptydemocratic theatre and an economic systembuilt on blood and sweat, that prots onlythe few. It is within this choice that ourhopes and dreams lie. The images thatwe see, of those that are not us, promiseso much.

If we desire to be more than mere spectators,we need to get closer and closer to the screenand nally crack the looking-glass. It maybe that making a collective newspaper is as

much about investigating the behind-thescenes practices, the mechanics of workingtogether, as it is about the nished product.What can we learn from doing together?

Which of our own experiences might proveuseful to all of the other clusters of peopleout there learning, like us, what it means tocreate collectively? In grappling with thesequestions, we trip up a lot, we argue overwhat should be printed in The Paper andover what we want it to become.

In the next edition (Edition One) we will bepaying attention to Fear and Disobedience.How is fear used to govern and rule andhow, through resisting the discipline,violence and laws imposed on us, can westand together and feel strong? As we lookaround us at university lecturers ballotingfor strike action and at trade unionists,workers and students preparing for the 26March demonstration we gain couragefrom the sense that our own squabbles,terrors, jokes and projects might be part ofsomething bigger - something that demandsto be taken seriously.Frot cover image: Uiversit professors march o Tahrir Square

| Hossam el-Hamalaw | www.arabaw.org

ContributorsCamille Barbagallo, Nic Beuret, FedericoCampagna, Alice Corble, Jodi Dean,Mara Ferreri, Saskia Fischer, Hossamel-Hamalawy, Kate Hardy, Bue Ruben

Hansen, John Hutnyk, Virinder S Kalra, Jeanne Kay, Rashne Limki, Eddie Molloy,Morten Paul, Vijay Prashad, Dave Riddle,Dora Kaliayev, Francesco Salvini, LauraSchwartz, Charlotte Turton

Prited b Hato Press i support of The Paperwww.hatopress.et

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3THE PAPER | MARCH 2011

Read shoplifting article on the train, and

of course it seems utterly harmless tome, not even particularly enlightening.The real issue is how to get the tags withelectronic codes off the garments so thatone can pass the detectors on the way outof bigger shops (which it seemed to bedescribing), and I feel sure that system wasalready in place well before 1995. Odd./ Maria Collins - Sweden

Great paper. I agree with the correspondentwho suggested that other news be included.For example, Tunisia. I think it should notbe assumed that universally, today, a pieceof paper is more lasting than what happens

on the web. There has been a bit of a mind-set change. I also think that deliberatenon-hierarchical behavior -- supposedlymuch practiced in the United States --ignores the fact that people are differentand a vanguard, people who actually areworkhorses, invariably appears. I myselfhave found the work of supplementingvanguardism more useful than denying theemergence of a something that one need notcall a vanguard, but that surely is one. Myown feeling is that the classroom shouldbe used as an instrument rather than bewritten off. Educational institutions are alsoplaces of change. As for evaluations, I am

100% opposed to them, on the other handit is a genuine double-bind, when studentsactually look for placement, they inevitablycompete. How to get around this? I verymuch appreciate Anyones contributionwhere a distinction is made betweenworking in anonymity, trying to build a realcollective, and star activists showcasingthemselves. I think the point can also bemade about taking fundraising as an end initself and as activism. My congratulationsto this effort and I hope it continues./ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), the

English romantic poet, wrote about theGreat French Revolution:

Bliss was it i that daw to be alive,But to be oug was ver heave!--Oh! times,I which the meagre, stale, forbiddig wasOf custom, law, ad statute, took at oceThe attractio of a coutr i romace!

Whe Reaso seemed the most to assert her

rights,Whe most itet o makig of herselfA prime Echatress--to assist the work,Which the was goig forward i her ame!

Well, without any attempt to come off astoo pompous, I found these words tting todescribe the excitement with which I readthe rst issue of The Paper (which, btw,ttingly enough, I received a copy of on lastSaturdays demo)! Hats off to the whole crewfor having put together a twelve page papersmacked with articles that are both wittyand thought provoking: a truly exemplarypiece of a revolutionary newspaper! Socongrats again and best of luck in the future!

/ Adam Fabry - Brunel University

Read your rst issue. Loved it. Cutabove the rhetoric. Keep it coming./ Boo

I think that Issue Minus 1 is great. My ownreservation would be this: I was disturbedthat one or two of the authors seemed totake it as axiomatic that representativedemocracy was dead or pointless. Thisassumption is worse than nave it is false,and it is tantamount to a sign of psychologicalappeasement. In saying that it is false, I

mean to reference for example the arrival ofthe Green Party at last in Parliament is thisreally to be taken as making no difference?Are we really saying that the movementnow underway doesnt care whetherGreens or Tories and New Labouritesare elected? In speaking of psychologicalappeasement, I mean to reference theway in which giving up altogether onrepresentative democracy risks being akind of blind-alley of purism, and a givingup of hope. It takes strength to continue tohope, despite its terrible current state, thatdemocracy in this country can be revivedand enriched, even via Parliament. I hope

that the Paper will encourage such strength./ Dr. Rupert Read, Reader in Philosophy -University of East Anglia

I just came back from Syntagma Square.The sight of it tonight was surely not whatmost of us would have hoped for: evenif during the day (for the rst time ever)

protesters attempted to hold on the square,

riot police would clear off wave after waveafter wave of protesters. I went home, I gotsome rest, I went back. There they were,tiny groups of people still massing up,trying to walk up the stairs leading to thecourtyard outside parliament: thieves,thieves. People who had never met eachother before. People who saw this as agame, almost. I see around twenty of themgather around a fountain. They decide theyshould poke some fun at the police standingopposite them all serious, ever-watching.They pretend they are going to bypasstheir row and head for a left exit from thesquare. Within minutes, I count ve police

cars spinning to the scene: Everyone to thePolice HQ, everyone is being detained.

Is this surprising, extreme? With the eventsunfolding over here in the past few daysand weeks not really. Why are peoplenot allowed to congregate at Syntagmaanymore? The explanation is easy enough:they understand that it only takes a tiny bitfor enough people to be empowered and tocreate a snowstorm in return. Our strugglemust now be precisely about trying tooccupy and keep public space, to becomefully visible. There were a few thousand ofus this morning at Syntagma who seemedto have realised that. There were another

twenty or so who realised it, the hardway, tonight. As we grow in numbers,as we become more and more visible, westart building condence that just aboutathig is possible. Today was a good start./ AnonymousA letter from Syntagma Square, Athens

Contact usEmail: [email protected]

Send your letters to the editorial collective,

event listings, drawings, reports, articles,photos and other bits and pieces for thenext edition: by March 16th. We have a freesubscribers postal service, so to receive thenext edition email your contact details.

The Papers mailbox was full this month with letters,comments and questions from friends and foe. So dontbe shy and keep em coming.

Correspondence

What the fear is our permaetpresece i public space

I freelance for the Eveig Stadard. Simplequestion - is it not irresponsible to givethousands of cash-strapped students adetailed step-by-step guide to shoplifting ina newspaper part-funded by the universityand presumably ultimately the taxpayer?/ Tim Stewart


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The Shoplifters Conundrum: Musingson a (non) scandal

I

f you take a look at the Letters section ofthis edition of The Paper, you will ndthe following polite inquiry: is it notirresponsible to give thousands of cash-

strapped students a detailed step-by-stepguide to shoplifting in a newspaper part-funded by the university and presumablyultimately the taxpayer? This simplequestion, in the words of the author, isnot an isolated case in the feedback wereceived in the weeks following EditionMinus One. From the Eveig Stadardsdesperate stalker attempts to get a quote,to spontaneous reactions of readers pickingup The Paper for the rst time, much of thereaction and attention largely remained onthe DIY guide: The Art of Shoplifting. Evenamong our editorial collective, there wasmore internal debate as to the place thisarticle should take in the nal layout thanfor any other article.

Yet The Paper Edition Minus One wasfull of potential for controversy and re-envisioning. The repressed rose out of thekettle in an ominous cloud of rage. Copswere denied access to the plane of laboursolidarity. We were encouraged to abandonthe kind of hope that made us stand ourgrounds and to conquer new territoriesinstead. The riot act was read. Why, then,was it the DIY guide that was considered soshocking above all the other radical contentof the newspaper? I tend to take a hint

from the infamous quote when a feministis accused of exaggerating, shes on theright track and believe that whatevermakes people uncomfortable, defensive, oreven scared, is a proof of its effectiveness;it points to a space of vulnerability, thepromise of potential disruption.

Thus I ask: why would a DIY guide toshoplifting be more effective in creatingthat uneasy feeling? Why did it feel morethreatening? One explanation might lie in

the form. More academic/analytical articlesmight seem more innocuous because oftheir theoretical frame, but a hands-onguide implies concrete action. The Paperalso published How to Make a CollectiveNewspaper, though. Yet the EveningStandard did not dispatch a photographerand journalist to question us aboutrethinking the structures of collaborativeproduction.

The question might be nave. It might seemobvious. Shoplifting is illegal. Collectivelyproduced newspapers printed on A3sheets by a Risograph are not (even if they

more or less directly encourage otherillegal behaviours). Thats our rst hint,but lets go further. Are the sacrosanctityof property, the notion of a commodity,the untouchability of prot more deeplyengrained in our collective unconsciousthan other forms of illegal behaviours? Ifso, what strategic insights does this give usabout what we have left to deconstruct inourselves and about which new targets toattack in our struggles?

Just when we thought the Evening Standardhad surely given up, on 22 February theDail Mail published an outraged article:

University Students publish guide toSTEALING without being caught. Thescandalous uncovering of our celebrationof criminality then swooshed into themedia cycle and got relayed from Metro tothe Dail Starin such a display of copy-pastejournalistic looting that one might wonderwhere the authors respect for [intellectual]

property had suddenly gone. The onlinecomments to these articles, though, revealedan angle that hadnt previously occurred tome: people thought the article was a joke!One forgiving comment said: Students aretaking the mick. Having a lark. Messingabout. Its a joke. Its probably a jibe that,when the tuition fees rise, they wont beable to afford to buy anything. Hilarious

indeed. Which is the most worrisome?That the possibility of students shopliftingbe found utterly scandalous? Or that itwould be disregarded as too surrealisticallyunimaginable to be believed? The secondscares me most. Now Im nding myselfhoping for more outrage! Wheres ourvandalism DIY? Our drug-smugglingguide? We will keep them coming, and youbetter believe it.

This questioning takes us to new wickedterritories, pushing forward the frontiersof our political imaginations towards apolitics of dangerousness. More boundarieshave to be broken, the false sense of securitymanufactured by the end-of-history lullabyof neo-liberalism has to be dismantled.Lets make the world a dangerous placedangerous not just for those for whomit has never ceased to be dangerous, butfor those who have been spared untilnow. A critical step will be to turn theescalation in the practices of intimidationtowards the student and other resistivemovements against their perpetrators: thefear-mongering apparatuses of the kettle,the hunting-down and arrests of studentprotesters, the riot horses. To subvert andretaliate. But the equally policed lines

of collective imaginaries also have to bebroken down - cultural shock and awe - sothat from this newfound sense of insecuritymight rise unsuspected res in the mostunlikely places.

Dora Kaliaev from the University for Strategic Optimismstirs up a media storm in a (stolen) tea cup and pours hotwater on it all

If we accept this idea, thatthe revolutioar eterprise

of a ma or of a peopleorigiates i their poeticgeius...we must reject

othig of what makes poeticexhalatio possible. If certai

details of this work seemimmoral to ou, it is because

the work as a whole deiesour moralit...

Jea Geet, Soledad Brother: thepriso letters of George Jackso

This questioig takes us toew wicked territories


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Post-fordist productiontest

MORTEn PAUL

What do academics do, whenthey go on strike? ourprofessor asked during oneof the many discussions

last autumn, only to give the answerimmediately: They use the additional timeto work on their research. His questionwas intended to encourage a more self-conscious perspective on the protests. Itpresupposed a fundamental differencebetween industrial and academic work

and questioned the appropriateness of thelatters protest forms in the former context.In hindsight I wonder if the statement doesnot pose a more general question: Is theresomething like a post-fordist articulation ofprotest, how does it look, and what wouldit mean for our most recent protests?

After Millbank a multitude of initiativesturned towards the student issue sprangup anew. Protest forms proliferated,putting the lessons learned by criticaltheory to practical use. These creativeprotests supplemented the more traditionalmodes of demonstrations and universityoccupations, often transforming them. The

use of social networking to organise anddisseminate rapidly led to the formation ofnew groups. Articles appeared in academic journals and lifestyle magazines, writtenby the same people either blogging and/or protesting. In January, The Paper waspublished, the rst newpaper dealingexclusively with the student protests. Anincreasing number of research projects arebeing conceived, incestuously based oncontacts acquired throughout the protests.These projects often incorporate thealternative methods they attempt to analyse.Lectures, conferences, teach-ins, etc. aretaking place daily, attended by peopleorganising more lectures, workshops, etc,sometimes nanced by art councils, publicfunds and universities themselves.

It is this short circuit that I want to call apost-fordist mode of protesting. Are wecreating a self-perpetuating circulation ofinformation, afliations and people? Andis the suspicion that by feeding back into

academia this circulation also entails anotherway of accumulating social and culturalcapital not warranted, despite all the bestintentions? Flexibility, mobility, creativity,networking, personal engagement, self-organisation and a familiarity with newmedia are some of the key ingredients tothe rapid success of our protests. But theyare also the mantra of neo-liberalismsreorganisation of higher education. What ifit is this similiarity that eventually allowsfor the integration and neutralisation of ourprotests?

By adopting a post-fordist organisationfor our protests, many of its negativeconsequences are inevitable: By mid-December exhaustion was visible at everyoccupation. Not to be dismissed as anunfortunate side effect, self-exploitationto the point of breakdown is inherent topost-fordism. Precarious self-employmentabolishes the benets of the division oflabour. Networking, on the other hand,has yet to provide an adequate alternative,because it does not challenge the centralposition of the competing individual. Study,work, engage, create, disseminate, apply,move, meet, talk, write; see connectionswhere they exist, build them, if they aremissing; do something special, do more,repeat in random order.

Our protests replicate this modus operandi.Having eliminated enough, somehowaverage seems to be the default. Thisdiscontent introduces a variation ofalienation. The products of our protests areconstitutively decient, without us beingallowed to articulate this deciency. Tosee people trying to keep spirits up afterthe parliamentary vote had passed wassomewhat dismaying. Michel Foucaultsliberating do not think that one has to besad in order to be militant had transformedinto a cruel imperative for optimism.

That the goal of non-hierarchical self-organisation is not only very demandingbut can also result in its opposite ispalpable in many accounts of universityoccupations. There are no ofcial leaders,but nonetheless many de facto leaders

emerge. Set up as additional structures,these self-organised cells often fail tochallenge the institutional frameworkthey accrue from. Establishing continuouscommitments is difcult, because mobilityis deeply ingrained into the designatedtrajectory of contemporary academiaeven within one institution. Because ofthe multiple locations and modes of ourengagement, recourse to resentment and afetishisation of spontaneity is common. In away, it provides the glue for our initiativesand actions. But if we turn the problematic

around we might ask what ad-hocallegiances, important as they are, preventfrom entering into the discussion? Whatis still missing, it seems, is a widespreadcross-social and internationalist analysis.Given our political differences, this analysiswill necessarily diverge. But only if theseaccounts are articulated and contest eachother, can appropriate forms of protest andresistance develop.

If the recent student protests mark theabolition of the education-deal in thedeveloped nations, they bear the potentialof a political questioning far more radicalthen the student revolts of 68. After allprecarious workers of art, education andthe creative industies have nothing tolose but their feedback questionnaires.It is the generalisation of the condition ofprecariousness facilitated by post-fordismthat engenders the chance for a widerstruggle to emerge. It could provide afoundation to a political project. However,it also presents a challenge. Precariousnessdoes not equal precariousness. As students,academics or workers in the creativeindustries we are in a privileged positionand have therefore still a lot of privileges tolose, even if it is sometimes only a slightlymore impressive CV. Complicity is not

accidental: specic modes of productionallow for and facilitate the transformation ofprotest participation into cultural capital. Indoing so a gap appears that separates thosewho can put their participation in proteststo work, from other forms of precariouslabour that is not easily bridged.

Complicit is ot accidetal

----------

Uiversit professors march o Tahrir Square | Hossam el-Hamalaw


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EDDIE MOLLOy

What were the features of thoseheady days back in Novemberand December when it seemedthat 16 year olds were making

the government shake and a new movementwas in the pangs of birth? What excitedus so as missiles were hurled and cavalrycharged? For now we nd ourselves on theother side of the holidays heading towardsyet another break and having attended ademonstration that insisted on the existenceof a movement. But our movementsimmediate aim of defending education isfast retreating from view.

It is necessary at this point to take stockonce again of where we are, how we gothere and where it is we can and shouldgo. This is no simple reminiscence nor is itidle speculation. It derives from a concern,shared by many, that the changes that aretaking place in our society and our worldmay be beyond us in reach and scope;rendering a situation characterised by adecit of democracy even more immune tothe most basic of democratic demands.

The change in mood between thedemonstrations of October and Novemberlast year was characterised by a change inthe form and magnitude of the protests.The placid (citizen expressing a democraticright/lets march from A to B) attitudecrumbled in the face of genuine rage andenthusiasm. The petty numbers of the policemixed with the surging mass of protesters

overcame the reservation and timidity that

such protests usually display. In the faceof what seemed to be a last chance, joyexploded as people danced in the wreckageof Millbank.

Subsequent weeks saw kettling, policehorses charging and mobile groupusculesroaming the streets of the West End as thepolice tried in vain to contain these dancinggures of revolt. The brutality of the policeand the ideologically driven nature of thegovernment became savagely clear. To thismix was added the collapse of the legitimacyof the NUS leadership (if indeed anylegitimacy could be ascribed to them at all)and an explosion of university occupationsin which protest mingled with new andimaginative educational practices.

The emergence of the London Assemblyfurther isolated the NUS from the grassrootsrevolt that was everywhere appearing.Nevertheless, it became apparent aroundand after the vote on 10 December thatno clear strategy for the movement hademerged, with even the apparent suspensionof sectarian activity by the radical lefthaving done little to aid the situation.Indeed the general consensus now appearsto be that the student movement lookforward to and build the Trade Union

Congress (TUC) demonstration planned for26 March 2011.

This position is problematic, however, inthe agging enthusiasm and relevancefor anything to do with central London.

It is precisely there that the governmentand their police have shown themselvesto be strongest. The former through theirtotal control over parliament and the latterthough numbers, violence, and kettling.The education reforms have been passedand any belief in the accountability ofthe government has been broken. Allthat remains is for the universities, localcouncils, colleges, hospitals, schools,libraries and childcare centres to implementthese loathed cuts.

It is precisely for these reasons that weshould be looking at where we are, wherewe are strongest and where the governmentis weakest. For students, it is clear that this

place is amongst ourselves. In our halls, inour classes, on our campuses and in ourcommunities. Let them try to kettle theuniversity and we will live there. Let themtry and close our classrooms and we willbuild barricades. Let them try to divide usfrom our neighbours and friends and we willteach them the meaning of solidarity. It isnow that we must stop the implementationof the cuts and in doing so we need to standin the way of precisely those people whoare implementing the cuts. This is the taskthat faces us now. The streets of Londonmay not yet be ours, but we are not aloneand it is our collectivity which is ours. Onlyfrom here can we defeat this governmentsassault on our lives and communities. Thismarks a retreat to be sure, but a retreat tothe only possible victory.

Let them tr to kettle the uiversitad we will live there

A retreat to be sure, but a retreatto the only possible victory

Going back to the only thing that is really ours

[email protected]

S

urrounded by institutions anduniversities, there is newly occupiedspace where education can be re-

imagined. Amidst rising fees andmounting pressure for success, we valueknowledge in a different currency: one thateveryone can afford to trade. In this school,skills are swapped and information shared,culture cannot be bought or sold. Here isan autonomous space to nd each other, to

gain momentum, to cross-pollinate ideasand actions.

If learning amounts to little more thanpreparation for the world of work, then this

school is the antithesis of education. Thereis more to life than wage slavery. This is apart of the latest chapter in a long historyof resistance. It is an open book, a pop-upspace with no xed agenda, unlimited inscope. This space aims to cultivate equalitythrough collaboration and horizontal

participation. A synthesis of workshops,talks, games, discussions, lessons, skillshares, debates, lm screenings. Our timein these buildings is short, we have thenext couple of weeks to zhumba, zhumba,

zhumba. Lets take education into our ownhands.

Propose a session, share your knowledge,extend your skillz, or just come down tothe space - for venue and more details seehttp://www.reallfreeschool.org/

DeSchool, D-Skool, ReallyReally Freeschool

Protesters

,TahrirSquare|Hossamel-Hamalawy


7/16

7THE PAPER | MARCH 2011 Compulsor volutar work is a absurdoxmoro, a perfect example of Orwells newspeak

Loveable and Capable

Compulsory voluntary work is set to becomes a permanentxture in our welfare system. Dave Riddle gives a rsthand account of being put in place(ment).

Ihave been referred to Working Links,my local (part private, part government-funded) employment provider. Iam expected to attend from 9:30am

until 4pm, Monday to Friday without fail;otherwise my benets will be suspended.

The rst few days were spent in workshops:motivational training (IALAC I AmLoveable And Capable); improving yourCV colour from red to green (analogicalto the trafc light code); and cold-calling(speculatively phoning potential employers

for jobs they dont have). For these rst fewdays, I sat like a school kid waiting for thelunch bell, unresponsive and insolent.

However, I then started to realise thatthe Working Links staff consultantsdid in many ways want to help me getwork. And not, as I had suspected, just asdisguised government agents trying toforce me into badly paid retail jobs. Manyof the consultants at Working Links hadthemselves been long-term unemployed (2years or more), and their rst jobs after thisperiod were in Jobcentres or recruitmentagencies.

One method used to get people backinto work is to nd them a voluntaryplacement. Voluntary labour is quiterightly getting a lot of negative mediaattention at the moment, as David Cameron

slashes public sector jobs only to force thisnewly unemployed workforce into thevoluntary sector (the Big Society). But thereis also a positive side to voluntary labour,as a way of easing particularly the long-term unemployed and young people withno experience to put on their CVs backinto work. Voluntary work can be goodfor the long-term unemployed who mayhave become depressed, socially isolatedperhaps, and quite hopeless. When you areunemployed for a long time, you kind offorget what working was like, especially on

the level of routine - getting up early, beingout all day, living a separate daily life fromones partner/family. Voluntary work canalso be a creative and liberating experience;you choose to give your time to somethingyoure interested in (of course, compulsoryvoluntary work is an absurd oxymoron, aperfect example of Orwells Newspeak).

After the failure of my own attempts to ndwork after graduating in 2009 (with a 2:1 inPhilosophy, from Warwick University aprestigious member of the Russell groupno less), after my gateway period (thetime you are given on the dole to nd workyourself), I have opted for the subsidisedwork-placement option and will soon beginworking as a literacy and numeracy tutorfor Springboard, Hackney. This will involveworking 25 hours a week, for a minimum ofeight weeks, for nothing, not even bus fare.

The person I can thank for nding me thisplacement is a man known within WorkingLinks as The King. While working at theJobcentre, King claims to have discoveredwork placements as a great way of gettingthe long-term jobseekers back intowork. This, however, created tensionsat the Jobcentre between King and hiscolleagues, as he was spending more timewith individuals and this contradicted theunwritten speed-sign policy, an integralpart of the conveyor-belt approach towelfare. Eventually, after months of hassle,

King found a job at Working Links and leftthe Jobcentre.

I was told another story about a consultantat a competing employment providerwhich operates much more in line withthe new Conservative approach to welfare.After refusing to apply for a number of jobs suggested to him, a client was toldthat his benets would be suspended forthree months as a consequence of failingto carry out a reasonable jobseekersdirection (see www.benetsnow.co.uk onsanctions). The client returned the nextday with a cup full of his own urine and

threw it in the consultants face. I thinkthat this is an understandable reaction to asanction that will deprive this person ofhis - and possibly his familys - only meansof living.

ESOL (English for Speakers ofOther Languages) provisionnow faces its biggest attack yet.Eligibility changes proposed by

the government will mean that in many

places around 70 per cent of students willno longer be eligible for funded courses.Under the government strategy on skills,the only people eligible for full fundingare those on active benets jobseekersallowance (JSA) or employment supportallowance (ESA). Those on so called non-active benets such as income support or

on low incomes, including spouses, will notbe eligible, nor will asylum seekers, migrantworkers and refugees. In addition ESOL inthe workplace will no longer be funded.

A planning meeting held on January 12thorganised by an ESOL Alliance was attendedby around 70 people and a campaign set upcalled Action for ESOL.

Meetings of ESOL students and teachersare starting to happen in colleges andcommunity centres around the country andteaching resources are being produced.

Sign the petition against the cuts here:www.gopetitio.com/petitio/41552.html

Find out more about the campaign atwww.atecla.org.uk

ESOL is Under Threat

Abdel Moeim Riadh Square | Hossam el-Hamalaw


8/16


N

etworked cultures and socialmedia are embedded incommunicative capitalism,a form of capitalism where

communication itself is a productive force.Our words and energies, our opinionsand critiques, provide media content,commodied spectacle. The few protfrom the words, ideas, and expressions offeeling of the many. To grapple with howcontemporary politics is recongured,to update radical politics so that it cantransform this setting, we must jettison thecritical vocabulary of the late sixties andunderstand how we are political now.

First, technological rationality is not theproblem. Our technologies are not a set ofcommand and control protocols that insertus into a large, uniform structure, assign

us numbers, and direct us to our properplace. Contemporary communicationtechnologies are congured by users,consumers, capitalists, programmers andstates, as well as by trial and error. They areproducts of contingenciesold decisionsand new. Twitter did not result from rationalplanning, it makes little sense to repeatcritiques of planning and centralisationtoday. Think of any code written byMicrosoft; it is sloppy and lled with errors.Think of Apples constant changes andupgrades. The world of communicativecapitalism is technologically turbulent,with multiple platforms, applications andcodes owing into and out of each other in

unpredictable ways.

Second, what entraps us in our currentsetting is not a set of constraints that gounder the name of reason: our networksare affective. Wanting friends and drivento express our creativity and individuality,we embrace social media. The sharing of

thoughts and feelingsthe more intensethe betterties us into mediated practicesof expression. As Franco Bifo Berardidescribes it, the pathologies of the present

are not those of repression but of hyper-expression. This does not mean thereis no repression, it is part of a generaldescription of our present setting incommunicative capitalism. What is at stakeis the repression of alternative politicalpossibilities. As a general phenomenon,repression operates at a level differentfrom that of the repression of specic socialsectors; it operates in advance to preventthe emergence of alternatives, to blocknew possibilities from our imaginationsbefore they even arrive. Stuck in the micro,imagination has a hard time moving to themacro, to communicative capitalisms basicsystem and structure.

Third, we are not alienated. More precisely,alienation is not a primary attribute ofcommunicative capitalism even as specicconditions of alienation persist for someworkers in some sectors. Instead, weare enjoined to communicate, share ourfeelings. Network culture is participationist.The system depends on our participatory,expressive actsso long as they keeptheir place in the media networks. We aresupposed to cultivate respect for multipleopinions, open-mindedness, sensitivityto difference, as if our environment wereresponsive to our needs and concerns.We are supposed to talk, even when this

very talking has lost political efcacy anddisplaces attention from actual sites ofextreme brutality and precarity. All aroundus people are engaged, expressive, andcreative.

Fourth, and most important: we are notpost-political. Even before the protests of

November and December 2010 and the headydays of revolution in Tunisia and Egypt,we were active, politicised. The despoticnancialism of neoliberal capitalism andthe aggressive militarism of the so-calledwar on terror are blatant political attackson people and ways of life. Their seizure ofour goods and lives, our futures, uses statepower as an instrument of class domination.Many of us have been vitally engagedaround these and other struggles. What,then, are positive corollaries to these rathernegatively formulated ideas? How do theseindications of the distance between oursetting in communicative capitalism andthe mass culture of the last sixties show upin network cultures?

First, our networks are affective. Wecirculate our feelings and hopes, our angerand rage. We connect our impulses tocriticise, reject, resist. Circulating intensitiesamplify one another and combine into evermore present and undeniable forces.

Second, our connections are communicative.

For many of us, our physical locationsdo not provide our primary politicalconnections. We might be unemployed,temp workers or students. We might workin sectors with high degrees of turnover.Many of our connections do not stemfrom our workplaces or even from ourneighborhoods. They traverse multipledomains. Sometimes this traversal canamplify concerns, enhancing their capacityto register with more and more people.Other times this traversal is a popularizingthat takes the edge off. Our connectionsfeel atter, more like matters of taste thanpolitical conviction.

Third, we are active and engaged. Thepolitical problem is not that our voices aremissingwe are talking and expressingmost of the time. Many of us are prettywell informed about crucial issues. We areconnected with networks of people whocare and who are doing thingsmaking

We are political

We ca reach almost everoe. The challege lies ihow we orgaise ourselves after weve bee reached.

What is politics made of? Jodi Dea takes a look attechnological determinism, affect and communicativecapitalism

Protestors i Tahrir Square | Hossam el-Hamalaw


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posters, writing blogs, emailing variousgures and ofcials.

Fourth, communicative capitalism arisesout of antagonism. Whether one uses theMarxist term, class conict, or emphasizesmultiple contemporary antagonisms,the dynamic interactions circulating inour contemporary setting stem fromfundamental division. Each political

engagement derives its intensity from thisdivision. We know there are substantialinequalities, patterns of systemicexploitation, oppression, and violence.

These four components provide theconditions of possibility for revolutionarychange. So wheres the change? Why, in theUS, UK, and much of the EU, does radicalchange seem impossible to grasp? Becausethe rst three componentsaffectivenetworks, communicative connections, andactive engagementare the ideologicaldimensions of communicative capitalism

that fragment, disperse, and redirectthe fourth.

This fragmentation, dispersion, andredirection manifests itself in multiple ways.One way is through the decline of symbolicefciency. As Slavoj Zizek explains, thisdecline points to how symbols do nottravel, even though our interconnectedmedia provides an infrastructure that

lets them intersect and converge. Whatmeans one thing to me means somethingelse to someone else. I see a photographof police brutality. Someone else sees thereestablishment of law and order. I associateLenin with emancipatory change. Someoneelse links him to totalitarian oppression.The overall effect is that the communicationpractices that connect us also providebarriers to the organisation of an oppositionwith duration. Participation, the sharing ofmultiple insights and opinions, of criticallyresponding, redirects radical energies intocircuits of communication instead of onto

the streets. The solution is not to stopwriting and reading (although we might bebetter off if we tried to get to the point ratherthan consider every option and alternativeno matter how unlikely). The solution is tosupplement communicative networks withdedicated and organised people on thestreets. We can reach almost everyone. Thechallenge lies in how we organise ourselvesafter weve been reached.

Strong organizations do not emergeorganically and spontaneously. Planningmatters. Knowing that people will bethere when you need them, that someonehas your back, is crucial for an oppositionthat builds something new. Fortunately,the aura of participatory media is wearingoff and the energy of organised action isincreasing. The challenge is making surethat this energy is focused on antagonismand not redirected back into the circuits ofcommunicative capitalism.

Kowig that peoplewill be there whe

ou eed them,that someoehas our back,

is crucial for aoppositio that builds

somethig ew.

AnOnyMOUS

That Friday in January 2011 willbe a day that my six workmatesand I will never forget. At 10 a.m.UK border agents entered our

workplace saying that they had received areport about people working illegally there.For my mates and I it was a crushing blowbecause seven out of the nine of us weredetained. For some it was the day whentheir dreams were shattered, for others itwas the tragedy of being separated from

their families as a result of this action.Among the seven detained, there weretwo women. One of them cried a lot out, ofanger and impotence for not being able todo anything. Afterwards we were divided.The women were taken to a detention centrein north London and the men to anotherdetention centre near Gatwick Airport.

Cases such as ours have been happeningevery day for the last two months followingdifferent raids of UK border agencies inworkplaces and in places where manypeople spend time hanging out. Manypeople have been detained and taken todetention centres that to me are just likeprisons. Hundreds of people are detainedfor over three months and up to threeyears for different reasons. For the Chinese,Indian and Pakistani for instance, it isimpossible both to leave and to return to

their countries since their embassies willnot provide travel documents.

Of the seven detained, six were deportedto their countries of origin, and I, thanksto God and to the efcient help of a feworganisations acting in solidarity withmigrants, got my freedom back. But I still

have to walk a long way in search of theacknowledgement of my rights as a humanbeing, the right to freedom, the right tofree movement, the right to dignied workregardless of race, colour or the place whereyou are from.

I invite everyone to look for mechanismsto stop deportations, and to work andcollaborate with sending information tothe people detained in different detentioncentres. We have to ght so that stories likeours are not repeated and so that human

rights are recognised in this and every othercountry in the world. Thank you.

A day I will never forget

Idepedet Uio of Real Estate Tax Collectors Tahrir Square | Hossam el-Hamalaw


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FEDERICO CAMPAGnA

Recently, I have been asked severaltimes by Italian friends andcomrades to talk about the Britishstudent movement. I must confess

that their questions always made me feelslightly embarrassed.

At rst, I tried to forget about thisuncomfortable feeling, talking about therise of a new civic participation, whichhad been lacking in this country since the

1980s, with the brief exception of the anti-war movement of 2003. Then, in my heartof hearts I acknowledged that in the UKat the moment there is not a movementas such, but rather a constellation of smallgroups and organisations.

But that feeling of discomfort would notbe forgotten so easily. So I tried again,gathering all the hope I had and created anarrative along the lines of this-is-just-the-beginning and lets-give-it-some-time.Still, the discomfort would not leave me.From an intuition of a problem, it turnedinto a medical premonition of a disease.Something is rotten within the movement,

and it is not just the fact that there is nomovement as such.

So I took a deep breath, stepped back,and decided to move beyond the facadeof slogans and banners that often, andforemost, confound those who carry them.On the other side of political and pseudo-

political labels and claims, I found onlypeople. Yet, if I still wanted to satisfy mydesire to discover the origin of that feeling,I had to try to understand this multitudeusing simpler lters than the existentialone. As a good Marxist would do, I decidedto start with the class lter.

Of course, I was aware of the fact that classtoday has become an increasingly blurreddemarcation of social differences. A furtheradjustment of the lter was necessary. So Istarted looking at the people that composedthe movement under the simple lens oftheir individual economic positions.

Looking at the socioeconomic compositionof the movement, the differences werestunning. On the one hand we have aproletariat, or even sub-proletariat, mass,represented mostly by youth coming fromethnic minority backgrounds. They areoften present at demonstrations wherethey seem to take the role of physicallyconfronting police brutality, and takingviolent pleasure in the odd act of vandalism.Despite their role, and the fact that they arethose who will be hit the hardest by themeasures of austerity, their involvementin the decision-making process of themovement is almost completely absent.The movement seems to have forgottenthem. You will never have seen them atthe general assemblies, held in occupieduniversities, or in the various meetingspromoted by the more cultured side of

the movement. Once the demonstrationis over, they will not look for the otherparts of the movement, and the rest ofthe movement will denitely not look forthem. Maybe this has something to do witha more general negative attitude of the lefttowards the so-called lumpenproletariat,which further marginalises the most fragilepart the underclasses.

Then we have another mass that perceivesitself as middle class. This is, at leastnumerically, the core of the movement.However, the middle class itself is on thepath to extinction, slowly disappearing likean obsolete language. In fact, for the vastmajority of young middle class people, theeconomic indicators (in terms of familywealth, welfare benets, current incomeand potential future income) place themincreasingly closer to the dispossessedproletariats than to the wealthier endof their class. Despite this, the commonfeeling amongst the young middle class isof an innate belonging to the same culturalworld of the upper classes (with which,despite their apparent hatred, they believethey share the same cultural values),

alongside a deep, almost automatic, feelingof being other from their proletariat andsub-proletariat comrades. This feeling ofotherness is perfectly exemplied by thegeneral attitude that the middle class (leftor right wing alike) has towards the mass ofsub-proletariats that they dene as chavs.

Dangerous Alliances: Class and the Student Movement

It was the upleasat feelig of beig swidled

We put our son down on the waiting listfor the nearest nursery when he was twoweeks old, because we had been warned

that there were long waiting lists. I was dueto start back part-time at my old job afterChristmas when my son turned one andthought that by then hed have a place, butwhen I inquired they told me he wouldntget a place before he was two. We have nowfound a child-minder, by going through thecouncils accredited list, but this works outmore expensive than a nursery and you arerelying on one person, so today when shecalled and told me she was sick I had tophone my work and take holiday as I donthave anyone to fall back on.

The other problem is that the governmentoffers free nursery places part time when a

child is 3 years old, but if you have beenworking and are on maternity leave youmust return to your job when your childis one, not three. As it is difcult to get anursery place many women have to leavetheir old job or go part-time. CurrentlyI work one day a week just to cover mychildcare costs. There is obviously a realneed for more nursery places so women canhave a choice about going back to work.

Nurseries, as we know themtoday, are a relatively newphenomenon. Until the 20th

century most people startedwork before they reached ten years old.There was no public support for workingmothers, who depended on relatives andchildminders to look after their youngchildren.

In the 1970s, the Womens LiberationMovement demanded free, state-fundedchildcare as vital for women to escape thehome and traditional female roles and toparticipate fully in public life. Feministsand community activists struggled to setup community nurseries, controlled byparents and the community and funded bythe state. The National Childcare Campaignwas set up in 1982 to further these demands.It has since evolved into the Daycare Trustwhich continues to campaign for more andbetter quality childcare.

As a result of such campaigning, combinedwith the increasing numbers of womenentering the labour market, the last 10 yearshave seen a huge expansion in the numbersof nursery places and free places for childrenaged over 3. New Labour aimed to expandchildcare places and set up Sure Start centres.

In addition to providing childcare, SureStart included toy libraries; psychologists;access to retraining, support, information

and a space to meet for parents. All of theseservices are particularly important for thoseon low incomes. However, childcare taxcredits cover only 70 per cent of childcarecosts. Parents in the UK still pay moretowards the costs of childcare than in anyother European country. Waiting lists forgood childcare are long, and the nurserysector is still dogged by high staff turnover,poor pay and staff conditions.

Now, the future of Sure Start centresis under threat. Jobs will be lost, somecentres may have to charge for servicesand others will close. It is easy to forgetthat nursery provision, whilst not perfectin many respects, is essential for familiesand communities. Campaigns to defendnurseries and childcare services have wonin places such as the boroughs of Hackneyand Lewisham. It is essential that we defendnurseries, childcare services and activitiesin every borough that they face cutbacksor closure.

Source: Femiist Fightback newsletterhttp://www.feministghtback.org.uk/

The question of childcare

Interview with a parent


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Demonstrations and Diversions

VIRInDER S KALRA

The follow up to the TUC/ StudentsAgainst the Cuts demonstrationin Manchester on 29 January hasbeen a media led storm about the

supposed chanting of Tory Jew at AaronPorter, NUS President. The Dail Mail, thatbastion of progressive thought, headlinedStudent leader faces barrage of anti-Jewishabuse at rally as protesters accuse himof being a Tory. This was followed by aprogram on Radio 4 exploring the way that Jew is used as racist epithet amongst theyouth of Manchester. This use of racism asa way of avoiding the actual issue at stakeis not new, but seems to be part of a widertrend of vilifying those who are resistingthe state in any way.

At the Manchester demonstration, eggs werethrown at Porter and the stage for a numberof correct reasons. Firstly, the demonstrationitself was an insult to the people who turnedout as it went from a place where there wasno public (Manchester Museum) throughan area where all the shops were closed atthat time (Wilmslow Road) to a park which

at that time no one visits (Platt Fields). Agroup of protesters rightly heckled Porterfor his capitulation during the protests inLondon. Whilst the chants of You ToryYou could be misinterpreted (you canmake your own mind up from the YouTubevideo clip: http://tinyurl.com/5tqavey).Their anger was not misdirected. To theircredit, a group of students did then forman impromptu march back up WilmslowRoad to get into the City Centre and were

subsequently harassed and kettled by thepolice.

The second point is that the mediacoverage of the issue of racism (Sk newsand then the BBC) totally eclipsed that onthe demonstration and, of course, on theissues of cuts, not only in education, butacross the board. Delegitimising strugglesor even justifying repressive action - racistManchester students getting locked up bythe police is more palatable than young

people defending their right to an education- has become an integral part of propagandathat seeks to make all resistance illegitimate.It seems as if resistance itself is now subjectto a kind of set of rules and regulations thatare set by the media. When newspaperssuch as the Dail Mail begin using racism asa way of delegitimising protest it is time toshout louder.

Our reporter in Manchester counts the good eggsand the bad

...it is time to shout louder

And nally, we have the upper classes. Most

of them are studying at Oxbridge, have awealthy family background and have abright future ahead, mainly thanks to theirfamily connections and their universitynetworks. They might be a minority in termsof numbers, but they seem to have electedthemselves as the voice of the movement,holding the most part of the media powerwithin the movement, which, in our age,means one of the most immediate formsof power. Oxbridges domination over allBritish media (from The Guardia, to theBBC, to The Su) and over the Parliament isinfamous. In Italy we would call this maa, inthe United Kingdom it is normalised underthe denomination of ruling elite, the maindifference being that Italian maa is usuallyclass-neutral, while the British elite systemis very much class-based, and of courserace-specic. In December 2010 reportswere published which showed that 89 percent of Oxford students and 87.6 per cent ofCambridge students of that year came fromthe top two socioeconomic groups, and thatonly one African-Caribbean student wasadmitted to Oxford, none to Cambridge, inthe year 2009.

Having looked through the lens andseen what lay behind the simple ideaof the movement, I could not help butask myself how this was possible. How

could activists be so willing to disregardsuch strong contradictions in the socialcomposition of their movement? Howcould they, and in particular their middle-class core, decide to accept as comradespeople destined soon to occupy positions ofpower over them, while treating as othersthose who increasingly share with them an

underprivileged socioeconomic condition?

Why did they never think to invite theirnatural class enemies to stay away from amovement intended to be in defense of theunderclasses?

Maybe this has also to do with a 1968-esqueleft mythology, according to which studentsare at the forefront, and the driving force,of any possible social revolution. However,being a student is and always has been avery limited condition, both in terms oflength of time and of social accessibility. Itis one that does not t well with the slowand persistent pace required by any seriousattempt to create radically progressive socialchange. Being a student often means falling

into an obsession for issues related to theeducation system, rather than focusing onchallenging the general social and economicstructures and patterns of inequality thataffect the whole of society. This is especiallyso in the UK, where students seem not tobe able, or willing, to distinguish betweenthose who share their imposed place insociety from those who determine socialimpositions altogether.

It was here, at the end of theseconsiderations, that I found again thatfeeling of embarrassment. It was muchcloser now to the point of revealing its truename. It was the unpleasant feeling of being

swindled.In the last few months, I have spent a hugeamount of energy participating in theBritish movement. I was in the somehowprivileged position of being both a studentand a worker at the same time, as well as ananarchist, which allowed me the freedom

to move in and out of any specic group

or label. I cant say that I have not enjoyedthe wave of activism and enthusiasm thathas animated countless demonstrations,meetings and occupations. However, I cantdeny this feeling of being swindled eachtime I saw the Oxbridge kids on the newswith their heated, romanticised accountsof what the movement was. I couldnthelp but feel defrauded of my energy everytime I saw young people from Peckham orCroydon being marginalised by a methodof organisation that privileged universitiesas the chosen place of decision-makingand debate.

However, it is true this is just the beginning.

We should give it more time. Let us hope thatthis yet-to-come movement will have theclarity of mind to attempt a thorough self-criticism and to redene its class alliances.Let us hope that the temptations of glamourwill give way to a deeper understandingof the patterns of inequality. Let us startworking today to expand the organisationalbase to include those who are more exploitedand endangered, and thus more entitled tolead the struggle. Let us move our meetingsfrom central universities to marginal areasof the cities. Let us relocate our attack fromthe Parliament vs. University dichotomyto the heart of the exploitative system - tobanks, ofces, factories, churches and the

media. And let us forget about second-handmythologies, and reopen our imaginationto a general, radical, even utopian vision ofwhat kind of new society is necessary.

Through Europe - http://th-rough.eu/


12/16

THE PAPER | MARCH 201112 The issue is ot et settled

Libyas Lost Promise

VIJAy PRASHAD

When Colonel Muammar al-Qadda overthrew King Idrisin 1969, Libyans heaved a sighof relief. Idris had sucked the

oil prots of this oil-rich country for hisown betterment. Little went to a populationthat slumbered through life with humanindicators below most countries that had nosuch resource. Qaddas coup was in linewith a series of such endeavors that beganin Egypt in 1952 with the Free Ofcersmovement. These were low-level militaryofcers who commanded regiments, but didnot come from the elite classes (the Generals

who commanded the entire general staff).Their lowly roots predisposed them to thewoes of the masses, who had struggledto remove the colonial powers but hadnot benetted from ag independence.The Colonels were their deliverance insocieties where the civil branch had beeneviscerated.

Qaddas promise to Libya was that hewould turn the oil wealth toward thecreation of a socialist society. Over the rsttwo decades of his rule, Qadda directed aset of economic policies that had a markedsocial impact. The State took over the oil

elds and raised the oil rents it chargedthe multi-national oil rms. The moneywas diverted to social welfare (increasein housing and health care). The regimeconstrained private enterprise, encouragedworkers to take control of about twohundred rms and radically redistributedland (such as in the western region of Jefara).

The State re-monetarized the currency, andallowed only a shallow ceiling for wealth.It was a straightforward redistribution ofwealth conducted as a currency change.

But Qadda himself was not keen on thefull agenda of socialism. There was to be nosocialist democracy. His own democracywas always centered around him, his clan(the Qadhadhfa), and his friends fromthe military and childhood. Even so, thedemocratic set-up exceeded what had beenallowed by King Idris. Over time, the limiteddemocratic spaces strained against both therhetoric of the regime and aspirations of thepeople. Qadda also promoted a radical

version of Islam, with his Islamic Legion(1972) sent off to conduct insurgenciesfrom Chad to the Philippines. The Islamicmilitant in Qadda was only brought toheel when he himself was threatened byan assassination attempt in 1993 and withthe rise of militancy in nearby Algeria.Qaddas political Islamism was hastilyconverted into paranoia about al-Qaeda inthe Maghreb.

After 9/11, Qadda hastily offered hissupport to the U. S. In October 2002, ForeignMinister Mohammed AbderrahmanChalgam admitted that his government

closely consulted with the U. S. oncounterterrorism, and a few months later,Qaddas heir apparent Saif al-Islam al-Qadda warmly spoke of Libyas supportfor the Bush war on terror. If you went toQaddas website at this time, youd haveread this remarkable statement from the oldColonel, The phenomenon of terrorism is

not a matter of concern to the U. S. alone.It is the concern of the whole world. The U.S. cannot combat it alone. It is not logical,reasonable or productive to entrust the

task to the U. S. alone. It needed Qadda,who was in sheer terror of groups suchas the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Itmust have chilled Qadda to nd that IbnSheikh al-Libis funeral service in May 2009was attended by thousands in his town ofAjdabia (al-Libi was arrested in Pakistanin 2001, and he died in Libyan custody,apparently with a wink and a nod fromEgypts Omar Suleiman).

Ajdabia, al-Libis hometown, is in theeastern part of Libya, the historicalvillayat of Cyrenaica (another town here isBenghazi, which was the ashpoint of theunrest in 2011). Eastern Libya is proud of its

long tradition of resistance against foreignauthority. Its tribes led the resistance againstthe Ottomans and then against the Italianoccupation. The hero of the ght againstthe Italians was Omar al-Mukhtar, whoseface adorns the Libyan ten dinar bill andwhose struggle was made immortal for theworldwide audience by Anthony Quinnin the 1981 lm (nanced by Qaddasgovernment), The Lion of the Desert. It isalso from the eastern provinces that theSanussi order of Islam emerged, out ofwhich comes King Idris. The Sanussi ordercontinues to command the loyalty of a thirdof the Libyan population. Some of them still

hold Qadda responsible for the removal oftheir king. The Saadi confederation of theEast was left out of the new dispensation.The returns of the oil rent and the socialwage pledged by the new revolutionaryregime offered only parsimonious help tothe impoverished East.

The announcement of new US sanctions repeats a tragicscenario all too familiar, the second time as farce

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Neglect of the East festered, but by the1980s, Qaddas regime turned as well onthe rest of the country. Unimaginative use ofthe oil surplus led to economic stagnation.

Qadda earned a reprieve when the UnitedStates bombed his compound, killinghis daughter Hanna. The Libyan peoplerallied around him and his regime. Anti-Americanism, easy enough with Reagan atthe helm in Washington, provided cover forwhat Qadda called the revolution withinthe revolution. This was the Libyan phraseto describe the entry of neo-liberalism, orwhat Qadda called popular capitalism.In 1987, anemic import-substitution policiescame to a close and reforms in agricultureand industry ooded out of IMF manuals.By September 1988, the governmentabolished the import and export quotas,

allowing retail trade in the new souqs toourish in the cities.

UN sanctions in 1992 threw the reformsinto turmoil, and it allowed the old Qaddato emerge out of the sarcophagus that hehad become. Cracks in the ruling elite attimes slowed and at time speeded up thereforms. The main face of the neo-liberalagenda was Shokri Ghanem, who would beremoved as Prime Minister of the cabinetin 2006 for the more important role as headof the National Oil Corporation. Ghanemaggressively pushed for foreign investmentinto the oil sector, and hastened toimplement the Exploration and ProductionSharing Agreements with companies thatranged from Occidental Petroleum toChina National Petroleum. Britains TonyBlair and Frances Sarkozy went to kissGhanems ring and pledge nance for oilconcessions. It is the reason why the Britishgovernment freed the Lockerbie bomber

and that Berlusconi bowed down beforeOmar al-Mukhtars son in 2008 and handedover $5 billion as an apology for Italiancolonialism. In his characteristic bluntness,

Berlusconi said that he apologised so thatItaly would get less illegal immigrants andmore oil.

Alongside Ghanem is Qaddas son, Saif,who wrote a dissertation at the LondonSchool of Economics in September 2007on The Role of Civil Society in theDemocratisation of Global DecisionMaking: from soft power to collectivedecision making (the work was advisedremarkably by David Held). Saif arguedfor the need to give NGOs voting rights atthe level of international decision making,where otherwise the United States and itsAtlantic allies hold sway. The essentialnature of NGOs, he argued, is to beindependent critics and advocates of themarginal and vulnerable. To allow NGOsto temper the ambitions of the North is farmore realistic, Saif argued, than to hope totransform international relations. That kindof realism led to his faith in the reformsand in his recent call for the harshest armedviolence against the protests in Tripoli andBenghazi. Civil Society, in the languageof neo-liberalism, is restricted to the work ofestablishment NGOs that are loath to revisesettled power equations. The ragged on thestreets are not part of the civil society;they are Unreason afoot.

The Basic Peoples Congress complainedabout the reforms in September 2000.They did not appreciate the privatization ofthe state-owned enterprises and the creationof free trade enclaves. Their periodical, al-Zahf al-Akhdar, fulminated against foreign

rms and the tourism sector. A sectionwithin them was also angry at Qaddaspolitical concessions to scale back the UNsanction and to earn favor in European

capitals (Libyas end to its nuclear programwas part of these concessions). The Congresstried to hold the tempo of reform down.Their actions irritated the IMF, whose 2006report concluded, Progress in developinga market economy has been slow anddiscontinuous.

Uprisings in the east combined withthe neo-liberal efforts from Tripoli havealienated large sections of the populationagainst the Gadda regime. Little of theluster of 1969 remains with the old man. Heis a caricature of the aged revolutionary. Weare far from the revolutionary instigatorwhose watchword was the masses takecommand of their destiny and their wealth.The game will be up when the militarytilts its support (that two Colonels in theirMirages have sought refuge in Malta ratherthan re on the crowds in Tripoli is an earlyindication of one direction, but on the otherare those other pilots who did open re onthe crowd). The issue is not yet settled.

The masses have come out. Old rivalriesand new grievances are united. Some ofthem are for reactionary tribal purposes,and others seek liberation from reforms.Some cavil that a country of 6 millionwith such oil wealth does not look like the

Emirates, and others simply want to havesome more control of their lives. But mostwant release from the hidden corridors ofthe Libyan labyrinth.

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H

ourly paid postgraduateteaching assistants at the Schoolof Geography, University ofLeeds, have been informed that

that their wages are to be cut by half, asuniversity departments seek to trim theirbudgets in response to the removal ofgovernment funding for higher education.

Previously, teaching assistants (TAs) couldclaim separately for time spent on markingand preparation, in addition to the actualtime spent teaching itself. Now TAs mayonly claim for their teaching hours at arate of 14.10 an hour. Assuming that anhour of teaching requires only an hour ofpreparation, then the new rate of pay is justover the minimum wage at 7.05 an hour. Inreality, it often requires at least three hourspreparation, equating to much less than the

minimum wage. Never mind marking.

As precarious workers with little effectiveunion protection, we are especiallyvulnerable to these sort of unilateral attackson wages, terms and conditions. We are

clearly viewed as an easy target by thosewithin the universities whose job it isto decide who will bear the brunt of thecurrent education cuts. No doubt we, likeall the unpaid interns trying to break into jobs market, are supposed to be gratefulthat we are offered the opportunity tolabour for peanuts on the grounds thatwe are investing in our future careers andmay one day be offered one of the fewremaining permanent jobs that haventbeen culled as an offering to the gods ofscal responsibility.

Postgraduate teaching staff across the UK(and beyond) need to get organised. We

need to be in a better position to resist

such attacks. Yet there is currently a lack ofaccessible information or communicationabout how working conditions and ratesof pay differ between departments andinstitutions. Getting clued up about theconditions within which this work is carriedout is an important rst step. To this end,members of Leeds-based group the Really

Open University are currently in talks withthe University of Leeds Students Unionabout possibility of the latter carrying outa survey of postgraduate teaching workacross the University.

In the meantime, we want to start talkingto other postgraduate teaching staff. Areyou a research postgraduate engaged inteaching and/or marking at a university? Ifso, we would love to hear from you aboutyour working conditions, rates of pay, andwhether these have been suffered as a resultof the cuts. Drop us an email at this address:[email protected]

Precariousness and the university

We are clearl viewed as a eas target

As the cuts begin to bite, PhD students in Leeds are makingplans and getting organised

The Plebs LeagueBritains Plebs Magazine was established in1909 and connected students at the RuskinSchool (Oxford) with a vast network ofafliated worker self-education groupsacross the UK. The Plebs Magazine andits associated pamphlets were generatedthrough collective readings, discussion, andanalysis of texts and social circumstances.

Adult education reading groups developedperspectives of radical ideals, that wereissued in the magazine and in pamphletform and disseminated through publicreadings. Plebs League linked its 450students at Oxford a combination of tradeunionists and middle class students withthe over 7000 afliated students involved inreading groups outside of the school. Thepublications were fundamental to makingtransversal links between work insideand outside of educational institutions. Inthe words of Walter Vrooman, one of theinitiators of the Ruskin School:

We shall take me ad wome who have merelbee codemig our social istitutios, adteach them istead how to trasform thoseistitutios, so that i place of talkig agaistthe world, the will begi to methodologicalland scientically possess the world

Source: www.post-16educator.org.uk

Revolutioaries i Tahrir Square | Hossam el-Hamalaw


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15THE PAPER | MARCH 2011 We are a geeratio who lives precariousessas a permaet coditio

Translations

Student Strikes at the University of PuertoRico, 2010-2011

RASHnE LIMKI

On 21 April 2010 - 200 students at theUniversity of Puerto Rico (UPR) achievedwhat few other student coalitions have inthe past couple of years: transforming whatbegan as a 48-hour campus occupation into afull-edged, sustained, system-wide strike,thus forestalling the conservative economicand social designs of the state. The historic60-day strike, which began at Ro Piedras(UPRs main campus) and eventuallyspread to all 11 campuses, did not end withplacated students and staff returning tobusiness-as-usual, only to be undermined,yet again, by status quo forces. Indeed, the

battle at UPR still rages with the stakeshigher, and the show of force, on both sides,stronger. What is remarkable about the UPRoccupation/strike is the gathering strengthand longevity of the action.

As of 17 February 2011, the president of RoPiedras has resigned and the police have

been withdrawn from campus. While thisis a small, but signicant, victory for theprotestors, they have not yet given up, withthe blockades of Ro Piedras still in effect.After the conclusion of the rst phase ofstrikes in 2010, it became evident that theausterity measures initially proposed hadmerely been postponed. Student fees havebeen doubled for the present semesterand 10 academic programs at Ro Piedras,including its internationally-renowneddepartment of Hispanic Studies, have beenplaced on pause. Despite this set-back,students continued to organise intermittentstrikes and student action continuedthrough the holidays and into the present.

Anticipating this student action, the statere-deployed its security forces to occupy the

Ro Piedras campus and has also spent $1.5million to hire a private security companyto control protestors. The present strikeshave been characterized by violent clashes including physical restraint, the use ofpepper-spray, tear-gas and rubber bullets between security forces and protestors as

well their supporters. But as one protestor,pinned under the heel of a police boot,summed it up: [This] only demonstratesthe weakness of the government, itmobilises brute force in this way, it onlydemonstrates their weakness and their fearof us. They know we are right. They knowthe public agrees with us, and thats whythey need to use violence.

Universities today, especially publicuniversities, have done a phenomenal jobof manufacturing consent selling scalineptitude and misguided budgetarypriorities as the workings of inevitable anduncontrollable market forces. The successof the UPR strike, then, cannot be measuredsimply on the basis of whether any tangibleoutcomes were achieved. Rather, its success

lies in the very persistent and resilient praxisthat has put to rest any doubts regardingthe possibility or efcacy of a strike withinthe contemporary political landscape.

http://mrzie.mothlreview.org/2011/upr160211.html

Translation is a practice. And as with every practice thereare politics in translation.

Report from Paris - Saint-Denis Meeting,11-13 February 2011

COMMOn STATEMEnT

We, the student and precarious workersof Europe, Tunisia, Japan, the US, Canada,Mexico, Chile, Peru and Argentina, met inParis over the weekend of the 11th-13thFebruary, 2011 to discuss and organise acommon network based on our commonstruggles. Students from Maghreb andGambia tried to come but France refusedthem entry. We claim the free circulationof peoples as well as the free circulationof struggles.

In fact, over the last few years, ourmovement has assumed Europe as the spaceof conicts against the corporatization ofthe university and precariousness. This

meeting in Paris and the revolutionarymovements across the Mediterranean allowus to take an important step towards a newEurope against austerity and the revoltsin Maghreb.

We are a generation who livesprecariousness as a permanent condition:

the university is no longer an elevator ofupward social mobility but rather a factoryof precariousness. Nor is the universitya closed community: our struggles forwelfare, work and the free circulationof knowledge and people dont stop atits gates.

Our need for a common network is based onour struggles against the Bologna Processand against the education cuts Europe isusing as a response to the crisis. Since thestate and private interests collaborate in thecorporatization process of the university,our struggles dont have the aim ofdefending the status quo. Governmentsbail out banks and cut education. We wantto make our own university a universitythat lives in our experiences of autonomouseducation, alternative research and free

schools. It is a free university, run bystudents, precarious workers and migrants;a university without borders.

This weekend we have shared and discussedout different languages and commonpractices of conict: demonstrations,occupations and metropolitan strikes.

We have created and improved our commonclaims: free access to the university againstincreasing fees and costs of education, newwelfare and common rights against debtand the nancialization of our lives, and foran education based on cooperation againstcompetition and hierarchies.

Based on this common statement:

We call for common and transnationaldays of action on the 24th-25th-26th ofMarch, 2011: against banks, debt systemand austerity measures, for free educationand free circulation of people andknowledge.

We will create a common journal ofstruggles and an autonomous media ofcommunication.

We will promote a great caravan and

meeting in Tunisia because the strugglesin Maghreb are the struggles we areghting here.

We will meet again in London in June.

We will be part of the G8 counter-summit in Dijon, June 5-7.

Oil ad Gas Workers o St rike | Hossam el-Hamalaw


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DIY GUIDE No. 2

POLICE GUIDE TO FACILITATINGPEACEFUL PROTEST

The Paper Edition Zero

Documents

Transcript of The Paper Edition Zero