Social Centre March on Mlaba Dublin
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80 pB anarchistnews and views www.freedompress.org.uk 6 OCTOBER 2007 INSIDE ►► ^ | t h s in custody The Burmese uprising The union business Svartfrosk column page 4 page 5 page 8 MAKING WAY FOR THE OIYMPICS unday the 23rd September was a as well as ethnic minorities such as HALL sad day in the history of gardening. Gypsies and Irish travellers. SIt was the day the Manor Gardens The compulsory purchase of the Allotments were closed by the Olympic Olympic Park land has been funded by Delivery Authority. public money, and as such it can be It was also the day former allotment argued that it should stay in public holders and many other people decided ownership, post Olympics. Exactly to march and demonstrate their concern what will happen to the land remains over the way in which development undecided, but both Ken Livingstone I n RIVER and so called regeneration is soaking and Ruth Kelly have publicly stated 100 yrs o f * Z up much needed green space. Martin that they plan to bankroll the Olympic Slavin, an Olympic researcher, was on project by selling off land within the cultivation 8 GRASS- the march and comments that “so park to developers when the Games are wiped out for I called regeneration projects like the over. As the Olympic project runs further iROOTSI Olympics are more about the careers and further into financial difficulty, the ftwks footpath of those involved in the Olympic pressure will be on to claw back as much industry, and the profits of developers money as possible. This will inevitably jko ilQ J Photograph and construction companies than they mean getting into bed with property are about improving the lives of developers who, along with the £ ST ARM tc> ordinary people”. construction companies, will be the m m The Manor Gardens Allotments, main beneficiaries of this project. RISKS by Wells were a little piece o f the countryside in An added tragedy to this story is that London, auji yvere given to the gardeners much what will form Olympic Park ot Last London by Mayor Witters, an was previously available for use, on a old fashioned philanthropist. As well non-income dependent basis, as a cycle as the allotments, the Olympic project circuit, allotments, social housing, has swallowed up a huge chunk of land football pitches, and little nooks and been lost to what will more than likely in which the Olympic Park is situated. covered in this discussion was the way in East London, most of it compulsorily crannies where all sorts of marginal be an Olympic legacy of expensive flats With the Olympic Delivery Authority these large projects evolve. First plans purchased under the largest ever land business and artists had found a foot within gated communities; a sterile, awarding planning permission to itself are made, then a s o -c a lled consultation acquisition programme in Britain. The hold. There was also a rave scene at privately owned area similar to the Olympic project can be pushed takes place and then the work begin s. transfer of the Olympic Park land is Hackney Wick, with tired and dazed Docklands. through virtually unchecked. However the meeting agreed that the virtually a mirror image of what Mayor ravers leaving parties on Sunday It would be impossible to sell the Sunday’s march from Hackney Town consultations were generally a public Villiers did all those years ago. mornings whilst the well dressed Olympics to the nation for three weeks Hall to the new security gates of the relations exercise and that they made A thousand people, and businesses j congregations of the many African of sport, so those making their living Olympic construction site was a sign little difference to the outcome of employing 15,000 workers, are already Churches filed by. It was an area that out of this project have marketed it on of the public’s misgivings over this projects, which are usually forced facing eviction and housing prices in had grown organically over more than the supposed benefits of a legacy which deeply flawed project. After the march through despite any public misgivings. the area are escalating. Those affected a century and, though it has some rough remains unplanned. The project has there was a meeting where discussions The Olympics appears to be a case in by the project will be mainly those on edges, it had an authenticity rarely central government backing and New were held relating to development and point. low incomes, residents of social housing, found in 21st century London. This has Labour controls all four of the boroughs regeneration. One interesting point Mike Wells DUBLIN SOCIAL CENTRE MARCH ON MLABA he Seomra Spraoi collective was a library and a ’zine archive, a free- The project’s openness, accountability cross South Africa, shack dwellers send Ward 25 Councillor Yakoob Baig formed around December 2004, shop, a kitchen and an office. All and democracy is an achievement - are rejecting forced removals and to collect the memorandum. Yakoob with the aim of creating a space in facilities are free and entertainments something the collective strove for Aasserting their right to the city in Baig was buried on 14th September Dublin to emulate the autonomous are generally by ‘suggested donation’. from day one. Derek, who has spent a series of popular mass protests 2005. Thousands of people have social centres of other European cities. After spells in a small room in time in social centres in Britain, unparalleled in post-apartheid South participated in the discussions that Almost three years later, the collective Abbey Street and a bigger room on Germany and Spain, reckons Seomra Africa. There have been thousands of have flowed into the development of have launched a new social centre off Ormond Quay, Seomra Spraoi now Spraoi need no longer look to the protests in the last few years. This our carefully worked out Capel Street in Dublin. It’s being used occupies two floors of a building on continent for inspiration. “I remember week has seen mass action all over the memorandum. We do not intend to for benefit gigs and political meetings, Mary’s Abbey, on the Luas line just off the first Seomra leaflet said the centre country. give it to a ghost. We are finished with arts/crafts workshops, screen-printing, Capel Street. It has a big venue room, would be ‘a model of participatory On Tuesday 25th September 5,000 Baig, just as we are finished with banner-making and bike workshops. two further sizeable rooms and about democracy’, which sounds lofty, but shack dwellers from th^Joe Slovo Bachu and Dimba and all the rest of Entertainment includes a weekly movie five smaller rooms. It’s big, it’s bright compared to centres I’ve been at in settlement in Cape Town went to the the councillors. They have never night, a contemporary storytelling and it’s a bustling mix of political and Europe, Seomra Spraoi has far more High Court to register their intention spoken for us and we took a decision, night, and regular gigs and socials. non-political activity. people actually involved in the running to oppose housing minister Lindiwe two years ago, to speak for ourselves. The centre has three computers and Since taking up residence at Mary’s of the place, and in the decision Sisulu’s planned forced removals. “While Abahlali are marching wireless broadband throughout the Abbey at the start of July, the project making.” Members of Abahlali baseMjondolo through Clare Estate and Sydenham, building, table tennis and pool tables, has moved into an exciting new phase. “I’m also struck here by the involve were there in support. Yesterday in the policy-making elites will be Lots of new faces have appeared; open ment of plenty of non-activist types. Johannesburg people from the Protea meeting with the business elites in weekly meetings of the collective It’s not a cultural ghetto, which places South, Kliptown, Thembelihle, and the ICC for their ‘Housing Summit’. ISSN 0016-0504 consistently boast between 20 and 25 abroad often are. Rather than being Thembisa settlements marched on While they plan how to make money people; six working groups also meet just a hang-out for an activist Sisulu’s offices in Pretoria. Thousands in the name of the housing crisis we regularly to make it all happen. community, it seems to me a place of shack dwellers are due to march on will be marching. On the Esplanade Volunteers work a ‘welcomers’ rota, so that’s creating a new type of Mayor Mlaba in Durban on 29th an urgent application will be heard in that there is someone in the Seomra community.” September. the High Court. It has been brought who can welcome you, show you There is an ongoing discussion Abahlali, the largest organisation of by Abahlali to interdict the notorious around, tell you about the place and about how expressly political Seomra militant shackdwellers in the country gangster landlord Ricky Govender 9 770016050009 point you to the kettle. page 6. column 5 says: “It is rumoured that Mlaba will page 6, column 5 2 Freedom 6th October 2007 J r Total protest W: Around 30 activists blockaded a Total petrol station in Yorkshire to protest against the company’s heavy involvement with the military junta in Burma which Around the world is responsible for the deaths of several protesters in just the last few days. DENMARK: In Denmark we are civilians in the town of Haditha, was coating line. The staff currently receive “During the talks to renew IBM’s Total is in a joint venture with the calling in solidarity with the evicted cleared of failing to properly investigate unemployment compensation but hope Italian internal collective agreement, Burmese dictatorship in the Yadana gas Ungdomshuset Social Centre, for a the massacre.