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Bristol Radical History Festival 2023
Event Details
Date: Sat 22nd Apr, 2023
Time: 2:20pm to 2:30pm
Location: Foyer Level 2
Venue M Shed, BS1 4RN
Price: Free
With: Zoe Gibbons
‘Women’s Threads of Bristol’ aims to create a comprehensive visual illustration of places in Bristol that are named after women – roads, buildings, parks, blue plaques, murals – all are relevant. It encourages exploration of who these women were and what they did to earn recognition.
But, just as importantly, it asks people to suggest who they think should be on the map. Who were our female community champions? Which women dedicated their lives towards science, health, teaching, equalities, the arts?
Across history many women have been left off the map – it’s time to put them on!
‘Women’s Threads of Bristol’ project is supported by, and part of, Bristol Women’s Voice celebrations for International Women’s Day 2023.
The project is ongoing, nominations can be emailed to info@zoegibbons.com
Other events at this year’s festival:
Trades Union Now
“William Morris” Returns to Bristol
Doris Hatt : Art, Principles and Politics
Trade Unions Then – Tramways 1901 and Print 1985-86
The Bristol Bus Boycott : Race, Unions and Civil Rights
The life and legacy of artist, activist, eco-feminist and writer Monica Sjöö (1938-2005)
Curating Angela Carter: Bristol, Art and Writing
100 Years of Struggle
Red Notes Choir
Cholera Humbug! Epidemics and Radical Politics in the 1830s
Labour Revolt in Britain 1910-14
Painted out of History – Ellen and Rolinda Sharples Hazel Gower in conversation with Leigh Thomas
Facing up to the Fascists: Confronting the National Front in Bristol in the 1970s
Anarchist Black Cross Dresden.
Long English Version
Since the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have been working with friends on the ground as well as comrades from Belarus, Russia and Poland. This has been made possible by thousands of donations from people around the world who have understood the importance of international solidarity at this critical moment. And for this we would like to thank all those who responded to the calls and provided help, not only with money, but also with direct actions, logistics and media work.
We are partly from these places and partly we are just very connected personally and politically with the region, the political events, the people and their struggles. We see ourselves as anarchists.
In almost nine months of organizing, we have had many different challenges that have shaped our work with fellow anarchists in Ukraine, and we would like to share some of these challenges with you as an important critical assessment of what has been achieved by the international anarchist solidarity movement during this time.
It’s November, which means it’s the time for red paper poppies again. When I’m asked why I’m not wearing a poppy it gives me pause for thought. Unlike many that obediently wear their poppy I do actually think about what I’m doing nowadays, if I choose to wear or not wear one I will at least do so mindfully and with purpose. Don’t get me wrong when I was young, I used to blithely wear my red poppy and remember all the dead people I had never met and never knew. Then, later, I would wear my white poppy to challenge that narrative of only remembering those who died as soldiers in the war. I’ve moved on again since then.
When I’m asked why I’m not wearing a poppy there are several reasons behind that. Most people that ask won’t want the answer. I suppose the easy answer is that I think that it’s more important to help the living than remember the dead. That’s a sound bite so let’s go deeper.
Even as a child I instinctively understood that history was important. We had to remember the suffering from the past to learn how to stop it happening again in the future. It should be a process of evaluation and improving. In my innocence I thought that’s what the red poppy stood for. That in some way we could prevent war by wearing it. As I got older I somehow came to believe that we could prevent war by remembering all the victims; soldiers, civilians, men, women, children and animals. I’ve come to the understanding that if this were true we would no longer have war or suffering or death, because remembering isn’t enough. We need to understand the reasons for it and put in place prevention and cures.
War – what is it good for? Well, it’s very good for making some people very rich. It’s very good for killing people, but not just any people; it doesn’t kill politicians and not so many rich people. It appears that the majority of people who are killed are going to be the poor old working class. Who does the fighting and the killing? It’s not so much the rich and the officer class is it? It’s the working class, privates, our children, the boys with the stars in their eyes off looking for adventure, and family, decent pay and heroism. Taken away to serve the ruling classes in a bid for control of the planet’s resources.
When I’m asked why I’m not wearing a poppy I reflect on the glorification of war, the way the poppy is used as a recruiting tool. We wouldn’t need to raise money through charities to support the victims of war if we did away with the wars of the ruling classes. The best way to support those victims is to stop making them.
I used to wear the white peace poppy, of course I was a pacifist back then, a hippy child of innocent heart. I used to believe in peaceful protest. In my naivety and because it made sense to me in the fight for justice and peace and equality, I thought it would make sense to the ruling classes to give up their wealth and their power, I don’t know why I thought they would want the same things that I did. I thought we could march and that when we had enough people we could just ask for what we want and make a better world for everyone through co-operation.
I think I’ve grown up a bit since then. Why would the rich give up their power over us voluntarily. The more power we take the more they will try to defend what they have. They don’t care about fairness or equality, that’s a lie they spin to the working class to get them to comply with the system from which they benefit the most.
When I’m asked why I don’t wear a poppy, these are the thoughts that go through my mind. How does it benefit anyone to wear these symbols? They are symbols of compliance, they are to distract us by making us think about the dead rather than the living, a great display of pageantry and theatre to entertain us. The class war continues while we look the other way and remember, but we never learn, we just remember the past when we should be looking into the present. Looking at all our class who die and are killed by the system, the same one that caused the wars in the past and that causes the continuing class war today.
When I’m asked why I don’t wear ay poppy, these are the thoughts that go through my head but I don’t have the words to express those thoughts and they wouldn’t understand or care if I did. They would take it as a criticism but it’s not. If you want to wear your poppy, if that’s your thing, if that’s how you make a difference in the world go ahead. I don’t care if it’s red, white, purple, black or rainbow coloured, I appreciate the sentiment behind the idea of trying to stop war. I just don’t think a poppy has the power to do that, I’ve lost faith; I think we need to think about it more.
When I’m asked why I don’t wear a poppy and why I won’t be attending Remembrance Day this year I ask the question why don’t you wear transgender badge? Why won’t you be attending transgender day of remembrance when we stand together to remember a group of people that died this year around the world? Killed by the system, the same one that continues to kill people even to this day, young people who had to die for the crime of just wanting to be themselves. Because maybe if we remember the present instead of the past we might be able to figure out a way to stop it all happening again and again into the future. We do need to take action though – Watch, record, evaluate, understand and take action.
Transgender Day of Remembrance – 20th November – Think it over!
The Workers Solidarity Federation, Pakistan section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Association (IWA), are currently engaged in relief efforts to communities affected by the extraordinary floods caused by climate change.
Throughout 2022, Pakistan experienced an unusually intense heat-wave, with temperatures exceeding 50 degree celsius by May. With over 7,000 glaciers, Pakistan’s glacier count is only outnumbered by the polar regions1 , and the high temperatures, that affected much of South Asia, caused glacial melt, which in turn triggered the failure of ice dams and outburst floods. Water from these outburst flood travelled along tributaries and flowed into the main rivers, including the Indus River, Pakistan’s largest, causing their banks to break. The end result are the flash floods in Pakistan, exacerbated by the record monsoon rains that began in June. The events in Pakistan can be added to the list of spectacular instances of capitalism-induced climate breakdown.
The floods in Pakistan have so far affected two-thirds of Pakistan’s districts, destroyed two million acres of farmland, caused over 1500 deaths, and led to the displacement of 33 million people,2 with Unicef suggesting 16 million children affected so far. 3 All reasonable estimates indicate that millions in Pakistan now face the prospect of malnutrition and infections, particularly those caused by water-borne diseases.
In response to this, on 23rd August, members of the Workers Solidarity Federation, founded in May 2020 as the Pakistan section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Association (IWA) established an emergency fund for disaster relief and began distributing food in flood-affected areas.4 In the course of the floods, some of their members involved in distributing aid in Balochistan became homeless5 , despite this they continued to distribute over 200 meals to families in the region.6 Since then, their relief efforts, supported by anarchists from around the world, have provided direct disaster relief to thousands of people affected by the ongoing floods in Balochistan and Sindh, in an extraordinary tale of mutual aid and transnational solidarity. On 4th September, WSF established a Flood Relief camp in Karachi.7 , distributing goods and cash to those in need.8 On 10th September, in Balochistan, WSF provided tents to people displaced by the floods. On 13th September, WSF members distributed food to people in the Dadu district of Sindh, travelling by boat across the flooded area9 , providing food supplies to 105 families10 . On 18th September, in Balochistan, WSF distributed food rations tents, mosquito nets, and infant care to the effected people in coming days.11 . On 25th September, WSF installed water tanks to provide clean water and distributed food.12 As at the time of writing, their relief efforts continue.
In the wake of any major disaster, where state and capital are absent, and a community is left to fend for itself, people self-organise on the basis of a need to survive. The self-organisation of disaster communities, to an extent, embodies anarchist principles of decentralised organisation, socialisation of resources, mutual aid, and co-operation. These principles come to the fore amidst disasters because they are taken as the most expedient option for maximising people’s chances of survival, but they are also measures that contradict the logic of capital and the state, which sooner or later will reclaim the lost territory, unless it is prevented from doing so by a large, armed, anarchist body.
The activities of the WSF-IWA are some of the most significant and heroic examples of anarchist praxis to date, and are particularly extraordinary considering that the WSF is only two years’ old.
To support the relief effort of the WSF, donate here: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8NfSnN0RXl 13
https://libcom.org/article/pakistan-floods-anarchist-global-relief-effort-wsf-iwa
Updated Schedule Information:
Times: Saturday Oct. 1 – Sunday Oct. 2 11AM – 16:30PM UTC+2 (Central Europe) Transmission Live on You Tube, Recording Will be Available After
Times for some other countries:
10AM – 15:30 UTC + 1 (UK, Ireland)
12:00 – 17:30 UTC+3 (Western Russia, Ukraine)
14:00 – 19:30 UTC+5 (Pakistan, Parts of India and Russia)
16:00 – 21:30 UTC+7 (Indonesia)
17:00 – 22:30 UTC + 8 (Western Australia)
19:00 – 00:30 UTC+10 (Eastern Australia)
6:00 – 11:30 UTC-3 (Chile, Brazil, Argentina)
5:00 – 10:30 UTC-4 (Eastern US)
4:00 – 9:30 UTC-5 (Mexico, Peru)
Schedule October 1
10:30 – Welcome. Introduction
11:00 Towards Anarchosyndicalist Principles: the Genesis and Founding Congress of the IWA, December 25, 1922- January 2 1923 – Piotr Nowak, ZSP
12:00 The Development of the IWA – Laure Akai, ZSP. A history of the impact of repression and war, of divisive issues in the International and attempts to revive international anarchosyndicalism over the last 50 years.
13:30 Break
14:00 The Development of Anarchosyndicalism in the Balkans – Ratibor Trivunac, ASI
15:00 The History of Anarchosyndicalism in Austria – WAS
Oct. 2
Sessions with Online Presentations:
11:00 Approaches to Technological Progress and Industrialism in the IWA in the 1920s-1930s – Vadim Damier, KRAS (Russian with English Translation)
12:30 Russian Anarcho-Syndicaliism and the IWA, 1920-1930s – Dmitry Rublev, KRAS (Russian with English Translation)
14:00 Break
15:00 100 years of the IWA in Latin America. A revolutionary syndicalism with an ideological definition and finalist proposal. – Pedro Peumo, Solidaridad Obrera, Chile (Spanish with English Translation)
Construction and engineering employers have begun warning their workforce against taking part in a wildcat strike over pay on Wednesday 10th August, as strike action has spread from unionised workplaces into new areas such as Amazon warehouses.
Recent weeks have seen industrial action across the UK, as official strikes called by unions such as the RMT, Unite and CWU have been joined by unofficial wildcat actions. The wave of wildcat actions started with a strike at Cranswick Continental Foods in Pilsworth, and has now spread to Amazon warehouses, with workers at sites in Tilbury, Rugeley, Coventry, Bristol, Dartford and Coalville walking off the job or staging unofficial slowdowns over pay, and reports of the action spreading to Belvedere, Hemel Hempstead and Chesterfield.
Wednesday 10th August could see an even more dramatic escalation, as rumours are spreading of a national wildcat strike among engineering and construction workers planned for that day. Nothing seems to have appeared in the national media yet, but the Teesside Gazette has warned of the disruption that could be caused by roads being blocked near site entrances, and STV has mentioned that the Grangemouth oil refinery in Falkirk is likely to see hundreds of maintenance workers walking off the job.
By Black Rose / Rosa Negra Labor Committee
Over the weekend of June 17-19, some 4,000 union members and affiliates congregated in Chicago for the 2022 Labor Notes Conference. Owing both to the fact that the biennial conference had been postponed in 2020 and to a modest (but nonetheless exciting) uptick in new union activity in recent months, most notably at Amazon and Starbucks, this year’s event set a new record for attendance.
Labor Notes began its life in 1979 as a monthly newsletter intending to challenge the sedate business and service models of AFL-CIO affiliated unions. The newsletter focused on spotlighting and linking together rank-and-file reform caucuses within these unions. Today, Labor Notes the periodical lives on, while Labor Notes the organization has dramatically expanded in scope to support year round “troublemaker” training schools and a publishing wing, in addition to its growing conference.
Labor Notes the organization acts on the social-political, or intermediate level, within the US (and Canadian)
Received via Global Women’s Strike and English Collective of Prostitutes.
Joint Statement
International brands must act urgently and cease all production in Myanmar to weaken the military dictatorship and force them to step down
On February 1st 2021, the military in Myanmar carried out a coup and arrested the elected government members and seized power as the State Administrative Council (SAC). On February 5th, when a general strike and street protest known as the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) began, women garment workers were on the frontlines. Some 3,000 women workers came by bus from their factories in the industrial zones to join the protests in Yangon.i Garment workers remain central to the CDM. Millions of people have taken to the streets, risking their lives and their livelihoods, to demand an end to dictatorship and in support of democracy for Myanmar.
Thousands of garment workers (90% women) have been on strike for months. The army and police have responded to the peaceful protests with deadly force, including shooting live rounds into the crowds. Over 1300 people have been killed by the military and police in the past ten months, More than 1,750 have been detained, and raped and tortured in other ways while in custody. Women trade union leaders and workers from the garment industry are among those killed and arrested.ii iii In order to repress the workers’ opposition, military personnel have been deployed at factory gates, and martial law has been imposed in the industrial zones so that protesters are judged by a military tribunal under military law, risking years in prison.
Before 2010 many Western brands were unwilling to operate in Myanmar because they didn’t want to be associated with the draconian working conditions and other atrocities taking place under military rule. Along with 19 other brands, H&M, Primark, Tesco and New Look have signed an industry agreementiv – known as Action, Collaboration, Transformation (ACT) – that commits to ensuring the local factories producing their goods uphold workers’ rights to a living wage, collective bargaining, safety and other guidelines for termination and compensation. ACT has ended operations in Myanmar, but many brands that have signed the agreement, like H&M and Lidl, are still sourcing from Myanmar. This is unacceptable. Now that military rule has returned, the same ruthless conditions are recurring and worker’s rights cannot be ensured – why are brands not pulling out?
Reportedly factory owners and employers are taking advantage of the coup to undermine worker’s rights. Many permanent workers have been sacked and replaced with temporary workers on a daily wage. Employers are also known to be working in collaboration with the army to destroy the trade union movement by informing on trade union activists, providing soldiers with names of trade union members they find problematic or who oppose the military coup and having them arrested. Most trade union organizers are now in hiding, yet still active in the movement.
Despite wages for garment workers in Myanmar being among the lowest in the world, multinational corporations are a significant source of income for the military junta. The cut-make-pack (CMP) garment sector exports for the fiscal year 2020/21 were reported to value US$3.24 billion. The garment industry in Myanmar constitutes US$6bn of annual exports (approx. 30% of all exports).vi Many factories sit on land owned by the military with rent from the factories funding them. In addition to exploiting workers to fund the coup, the military is also widely reported to be exploiting natural resources to further finance their crimes. The destruction of people and destruction of the natural resources go hand in hand.
On September 3, 2021, two of the largest trade unions in Myanmar, the All Burma Federation of Trade Unions (ABFTU) and the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) put out a joint statement condemning the actions of the employers and calling on Western brands to stop sourcing their products from Myanmar suppliers.vii Garment workers organised in the Industrial Worker’s Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) as part of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar are calling for comprehensive economic sanctions.viii
“Together with the Myanmar Labour Alliance, a coalition of 185 organisations including trade unions and students, teachers, health workers, engineers’ networks, strike committees, and youth, women and LGBT networks are calling for comprehensive economic sanctions to remove the military regime and restore democracy, human rights, and workers’ rights in Myanmar as quickly as possible. The brands and their lobbyists must stop insisting that they can stay in the country under these conditions. By staying in the country, they objectively defend and legitimize a terrorist regime.”
Khaing Zar Aung: President of the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM), an executive committee member of the Confederation of Trade Union Myanmar (CTUM), and a member of the Myanmar Labour Alliance.
Given that over two-thirds of Myanmar’s garment exports are for the UK/EU and US markets,ix we have an opportunity and an obligation to act in solidarity with the garment workers and all those opposing the coup and the military’s crimes in Myanmar.
We, the undersigned, join the trade unions of Myanmar in their call for international brands and retailers to urgently take action:
1.Withdraw from Myanmar to put pressure on the military dictatorship to step down.
2. When withdrawing, consult with Myanmar garment unions for an exit plan to ensure transparency and due compensation to the workers, and contribute humanitarian aid to the workers and people of Myanmar.
3. Publicly join the international condemnation of the military coup in Myanmar and call for democracy to be restored. Actively support the Civil Disobedience Movement, trade unions and the National Unity Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (NUG) in their efforts to stop this brutal military dictatorship.
Issued by Global Women’s Strike and No Sweat
Signed by…
Another family has been moved into the hostel Brimstone House in Victoria Street in Stratford during the last eight weeks. This means that Newham Labour council and Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz still think that rooms built for single young people are adequate to house families. This has to stop! People need to be housed in decent housing. Shame on the council and those in local government who sit by and let the housing crisis in Newham escalate whilst people suffer and homes remain empty.
This family is a father, a mother and a four month old baby. There is just about space for a double bed and a sofa. Currently the father sleeps on the sofa while the mother sleeps with the baby in the bed, which is against the advice from midwives, health visitors and GPs about safe sleeping for babies. It is just not appropriate for an adult to sleep all night on a sofa.
There is little or no ventilation, the room is quickly filled with cooking smells which can be overpowering, and the toilet flush does not work properly despite repeated requests for it to be fixed, it has not been repaired. The alarm continues to go off in the building and there is drilling early in the morning. It is no wonder that these parents are distressed, tearful and unwell. There is no space and nowhere to put their belongings. It is clear that Brimstone House is no place to raise a child and the housing is not suitable.
Meanwhile, the roomy council flats around the corner on Carpenters estate remain empty and there are trees growing out of them! What a waste. We want to save every single council flat on this estate because this housing offers the chance for long term stability, community and cheap rent. A chance for a decent life.
Please join us on Saturday 18 December 12-2pm on the Carpenters Estate where over 400 home have stood empty for over a decade, where currently a ballot is underway and where the council is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to secure a yes vote to its regeneration scheme which will mean demolishing 60% of the estate.
We need more council homes, not fewer!
We need families like the one above from Brimstone House, and the thousands of others on the housing waiting list and those in temporary and emergency accommodation, to be housed decently.
Join us on Saturday 18 December at 12 noon in the middle of Carpenters Estate in Stratford (near the shop) to fight for housing, to make a stand against capitalism, against racism in housing and to restore people’s dignity.
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