Public Meeting.
Venue: SOAS JCR
Date: Sept 30
Time: 5pm
All welcome
200 SOAS students attended our filmshowing of the brilliant Shane Meadows film 'This is England'. Inspired by both the film and the Q&A with Alison from Love Music Hate Racism,(LMHR), 30 stayed behind to organise leafletting and a demonstration outside Camden Town Hall.
At our Freshers Fayre yesterday they set up a LMHR society and gathered another 200 members. They will now put on music events at SOAS and will help with national music events.
BOOK LAUNCH AND EXHIBITION OPENINGS.
You are invited to the Private View of The Liberty of Appearing: photographs of Egyptian working people
Photographer Yasser Alwan, opens his exhibitions at: CHATS PALACE, 42-44 Brooksby's Walk, Hackney E9 6DF, Thursday 2 October. Preview: 7-10pm.
Yasser also opens the exhibition at: The Gallery at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, Friday 7 November, 7.30pm
Yasser will be having a slide show and talk hosted by Dr Nadje Al-Ali, Reader in Gender Studies & Chair, Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS (room details to follow), 13th November, 7pm
The book contains 100 pages and 80 B&W photos and will be on special offer at the openings.
"Yasser Alwan's photographs express a profound humanitarian egalitarianism that is rare in the long history of art as a whole and almost unique in the relatively short history of photography."
Dr John Molyneux, Senior Art Theory Lecturer, University of Portsmouth
"These are wonderful photographs. They are very simple, the subjects shine out, and here is humanity without any sentimentality." Red Saunders, photographer & founder Rock Against Racism.
From a group on Facebook...."We are a group of Jewish- Israeli teens who are refusing to join the IDF for it has been occupying the Palestinian territories since 1967. In Israel, the law ruled that every 18 year old- healthy, Jewish, Israeli, teenager is to join the military (this varies between 2-3 years and sometimes more). Our group is refusing for political reasons, standing up against the occupation and declaring: we will not support it! The Six Day War broke out on June 5th, 1967 and Israel has not left the West Bank since. Gaza strip was conquered too, and military forces still rule the place. We are saying END THE OCCUPATION IN THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES. Join our struggle and support our cause. Here we will be available to provide you with more information about the subject. We want and need your support. Sign the petition, join and support us and spread the love we are trying to promote! We want to end occupation, we want to change the face of the militaristic Israeli society to make it a better place, WE WANT PEACE." |
| Location: | Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel |
Support IFCELS staff - Stop the cuts
We, the undersigned, staff and students at SOAS are appalled by the treatment meted out to our colleagues in IFCELS by the School’s management. We call on SOAS management to:
Reverse the decision to deny IFCELS staff the pay and contract terms agreed with UCU
Lift the threat to cut staff jobs or hours in order to make savings
Lift the threat to close or privatise IFCELS
We wish to send a message of solidarity to colleagues in IFCELS and pledge our support for them in their fight to defend their jobs and conditions.
Name Department Position
eg. Clare Solomon BA Study of Religion 2nd year student
Return your details to Graham Dyer, SOAS UCU president at the email below
For more information about the campaign email gd1@soas.ac.uk
| Candidate | Party | Votes cast |
|---|---|---|
| Linda Chung | Liberal Democrats | 1242 |
| Stephen Dorman | British National Party | 29 |
| Stephen Phillips | Conservative | 1114 |
| Anya Reeve | Green | 140 |
| Larraine Revah | Labour | 289 |
Linda Chung was duly elected borough councillor for Hampstead Town ward. The voter turnout was 36.70%.
The pesky mite moved so fast i couldn't quite get a clear shot...
A woman asked me if i was going to send the photo to the student newspaper gossip pages. No, i replied, i'm introducing him (i guess it's a him!!) to the new students to remind them not to leave their leftover food all over the floors - our underpaid, overworked cleaners should not have to slave after overpaid, underworked middle class tosspots who expect everyone else to clean up after them...
On Friday the 12th Sept Newcastle College invited onto campus the army in order to do a presentation to recruit students with the promise of financial assistance for college and University fees. This time last year the Students’ Union passed a policy against Army recruitment on campus and banned the Army from the fresher’s fair.
Last Friday an emergency protest was organised by students at Newcastle College. Artem and other students went into the presentation to ask simply ‘How many of our students would be killed’? for this he was threatened with security and in the end left of his free will.
The following Monday Artem was told by phone that he was being suspended for a week pending an investigation and a disciplinary hearing on the 22nd Sept.
No other student involved in the protest is being punished for the same activities that Artem carried out. This is simply a way to spread fear and intimidation in order to paralyse any student activism, democracy or accountability.
Those of us who wish to defend our rights to speak out, to vote, to stand in elections or to organise on campus as activists should have the right to do so. Democracy and human rights are not something that you leave at the doorstep of the college but something that you carry with you everywhere you go.
Defend democracy, defend our right to speak out, defend Artem Liebenthal!
What you can do...
1) Email to complain to the college > linda.moore@ncl-coll.ac.uk
2) Email Artem in support > artem_88@web.de
3) Join the protest (details below)
4) Get support from your Students’/Trade Union
Join the protest
PROTEST OUTSIDE HIS DISCIPLINARY HEARING
MONDAY 22ND SEPT 12NOON, ASSEMBLE ON
ELSWICK EAST TERRACE
(Please bring union banners, delegations etc. etc.)
I know lots of females who really do go to the toilet together so i was mildly amused to find a pub in Manchester provide a service for us to actually wee at the same time too
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Either way, I hope their next demonstration is not headed, once again, by the real fascists. On January 29th, the BNP candidate for Mayor of London lead a 22,500 strong police demo. Unfortunately I was in Berlin otherwise I would have gone to harass them with our very own un-FIT team. I wonder how many copies of the Socialist Worker we sold on this demo?
?
Sunday, 7 September 2008.  |
Numbers of protestors are increasing. The police “are not attacking us because you are here,” one of the women said. “If you leave, they’ll eat us. They only get scared of the press.”
On July 23 2008 SOAS (School of Orientali-ist and African Studies) pays homage to deceased academic who helped West steal Iranian oil.Ann Katherine Swynford Lambton, OBE FBA, first came to SOAS as a student and later as a teacher.
Lambton’s interest in the Arab world was sparked in her teens – according to a friend, when she read T. E. Lawrence’s Revolt in the Desert!!!
She enrolled at SOAS in 1932 after meeting Denison Ross, the orientalist and director of the then still called School of Oriental Studies.
When Ross then persuaded her to concentrate on the Persian world, she registered for an honours degree course in Persian with subsidiary Arabic.
Historian Prof. Ervand Abrahamian in his book Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic records that:
"The British, determined to undermine Mossadeq from the day he was elected premier, refused to negotiate seriously with him ... Professor Lambton, serving As a Foreign Office consultant, advised as early as November 1951 that the British government should persevere in 'undermining' Mossadeq, refuse to reach agreement with him, and reject American attempts to find a compromise solution. 'The Americans,' she insisted, 'do not have the experience or the psychological insight to understand Persia.'" - Ann Lambton
'Breaking the Silence' exposes the horrors that imperialistm unleashed upon the Afghan people, and locates this in the broader context of the "war on terror".
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has signed a historic power-sharing deal with his long-time political rival, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
The two smiled and shook hands at the ceremony in the capital, Harare, attended by African dignitaries.
Mr Tsvangirai said the agreement provided the best hope for Zimbabwe and called on President Mugabe to work together to implement the deal.
Mr Mugabe said he was committed to national unity and would do "his best".
Photo copyright Guy SmallmanSome 4,500 young people turned out last Saturday in Rotherham for an indoor carnival against the fascists organised by Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR).
Meanwhile in Stoke, a coalition of anti-racist organisations is calling on people to demonstrate against a planned BNP “national rally” to be held in the city on Saturday 20 September.
The Rotherham carnival – LMHR’s largest indoor event to date – was headlined by The Kaiser Chiefs and included sets from Reverend And The Makers, The Courteeners, hip-hop act Fallacy and poet Skint & Demoralised.
Bands and speakers spoke out against the BNP from the stage and urged the overwhelmingly local and working class audience to get involved in the campaign against the Nazis.
Campaigners with Rotherham Unite Against Fascism (UAF) plan to build on the carnival by leafleting Brinsworth, one of the two wards in the town with a BNP councillor, this weekend.
Read more in the Socialist Worker here
Open meeting: ALL welcome.
Food grown on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is being sold in Britain, often to customers who assume they are buying goods from Palestinian-owned farms.
Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Somerfield have all admitted sourcing produce from Israeli-owned farms on Palestinian territory but claimed that labelling the goods 'origin: West Bank' gave enough information for the customer to make an informed choice.
Even rightwing Foreign Secretary David Miliband was concerned enough about the issue to raise it with British officials in Jerusalem during his visit there last November.
....
Although we can't overturn capitalism through individuals boycotting certain goods, would a collective campaign like this have an impact. I know that similar campaigns were put in place over South African Apartheid-how does this boycott compare? Answers below please...
'A victory for one is a victory for all'
I was so inspired by a meeting at SOAS this week.
25 cleaners and trade union reps and other activists from various cleaners campaigns attended a meeting at SOAS on Tuesday to discuss victories and strategy. Among us were people from RMT Eurostar, RMT Tubelines cleaners and RMT reps, SOAS Unison, SOAS UCU, SOAS SU, Queen Mary, Royal Mail, Birkbeck College and various other people.
All three speakers spoke about the confidence their campaigns have gained from having support from other groups and stressed the need to continue building links and extending solidarity. Contributions followed.
Stalin Vermudez, the SOAS Unison branch chair spoke first. Having worked for 7 cleaning companies he explained how all cleaning companies are cowboys, despite the fact that we had OCEAN managers in the room, he said that they all “exploit their workers and that's why they have managers-to do the dirty work”. After hearing about SOAS's success cleaners at Birkbeck have begun to join the union and a campaign has started to make some headway. Birkbeck management accused SOAS of 'opening a can of worms'.
In meeting to debate and decide which cleaning company to employ SOAS management said that 'we are known for going out on a limb-we should be leading the way on workers rights'. I doubt whether this was a sincere statement or just to appease me, as Student Union Governing Body member.
An engineer from Eurostar told us how 74 engineers refused to cross the picket line on the day of OCS cleaners strike action. The engineers are now facing disciplinary action. They now see this disgraceful and illegal move as an 'open door to join the dispute'. They thanked us for all our support on the picket lines and our People Before Profit stunt and leafletting sessions and said they would not have been brave enough to take solidarity action if we had not been there to support them. They said that 'if people can see you fighting others will fight with you'.
OCS think that cleaners are unorganised and wouldn't fight and have relied on this (assumption?) presumption to prevaricate over the terms and conditions of the contract. Their contract is up for renewal and therefore they have nothing to lose. More planned action is pending the outcome of further scheduled negotiations.
Tubelines cleaning rep, Philip Mambuliya (??) argued that 'nothing comes to us sitting in our armchair-we have to fight for it'. ... 'if you dont stand for something, you fall for anything.'
Although Tubelines are very happy with winning the London Living Wage, they are still in the process of negotiating better terms and conditions and of course having to fight against deportations. The TUC have spoken out against the use of immigration controls and have planned a meeting at SOAS on Sunday.
SOAS's Unison Black members rep reiterated the feeling of the meeting when she said that 'exploitation IS racist. Management bang on about their Equal Opps policies but these are no more than empty promises.'
Another speaker told how management at their workplace are taught 'how not to get caught discriminating'. After her succesfull campaign she assured us that it is not a mountain to bring the cleaners in-house and how united we could beat these bullies. She spoke about how the Home office raids 50 workplaces per week and that they have a target of 5,000. Many workplaces dont want to organise migrant workers because they are too high maintenance.
Further, a new law has been introduced, even landlords who dont chek papers are subject to fines of £10,000.
We all left the meeting feeling confident and ready to take the struggle to another level. We need to opush the campaigns across other campuses and other workplaces in London. and we discussed further action.
14 new people signed the People Before Profit charter, 10 of us went to the meeting on the Recession at Friends Meeting House and
Today 80% of NUJ members at the BBC Arabic service in Broadcasting House at Oxford Circus voted for strike action.
How dare they. 
