Edinburgh Anarchists

Those of you thinking of coming to Ed Afed’s Resistance Film Festival tomorrow / Saturday should take note that the start time has moved to 12:30.

So now you don’t have to feel guilty about skipping a bit because you don’t like to go to the pub before lunch

Edinburgh AFed are curating a one-day, free, film festival on Saturday 20th March at the Banshee Labyrinth on Niddrie Street (formerly Nicholl Edwards). Celebrating “cultures of resistance” across the world, the diverse films share the theme of collective action against political or economic injustice.
A conscious shift away from the documentary-heavy format of most activist film festivals sees the screening of new and old class-conscious classics.
They include John Sayles’ Matewan, featuring the screen debut of indie singer Will Oldham as a teenage preacher in a mining town standing together in the teeth of state and capitalist siege.
And last year’s Army of Crime, which makes Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds look like a cartoon. The Group Manouchian, refugees and Jews, actively resisted the Nazi occupation of France, a country which despised them as terrorists and “aliens”. In its uncompromising politics and refusal to gloss over difficult moral choices, this 2009 film could prove to be a 21st century “Battle of Algiers” and is sure to provoke debate.
If Spanish anarchist feminists and Serbian anarchosyndicalism sound like too much, there will be the opportunity to relax with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bagpuss’s wildcat strike. As well as rock karaoke, beer, books and friendly chat. All welcome.

On Sunday 24th May, 3pm, in ACE there will be a screening of ‘Rocking the Foundations’ a really inspiring film about a militant Australian union, The Builders Labourers Federation of New South Wales.

The union took the struggle from wages and conditions to a new level, and initiated strikes, green bans, and other direct action, on environmental, political, and social issues!

The film screening will take place on Sunday 24th May at 15.00 in ACE.

Hosted by the Industrial Workers of the World, Edinburgh Branch

At the Forest Cafe, Tuesday at 7pm, two films exploring migration issues, followed by a discussion. No Borders.

Full details at the Indymedia event calendar.

‘Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy’
Compelling documentary presenting three stories of immigrants who left their homes in Bolivia, Haiti, and the Philippines after global economic powers devastated their countries.

‘Outside of Europe’
Critical, short documentary examining the exclusionary nature of EU immigration and border policies. Throws light on human right issues that arise from the expansion of the European Unio, and shows footage of the 2007 Ukraine No Border Camp.

There’s a war for minds going on around this issue at the moment. Neo-Malthusians (they think there’s too many people) and straight-up xenophobes all want to use concern over climate change to attack immigrants and the poor (see comments here). So we see newspaper articles and conferences scaremongering about hordes of refugees heading to despoil the UK’s beautiful pristine land.

We have to be absolutely clear about this: climate change is an issue of consumption, not population. The rich pollute, the poor suffer. The discussion after these films could be a good place to think around how to get the No Borders position across in the face of powerful interests looking to scapegoat refugees to divert attention from their own crimes.