Edinburgh Anarchists

You have I think 2 more nights to see Kieran Hurley’s one-man show Hitch as part of the Forest Fringe. It’s a simple but beguiling, feel-good illustrated talk about a trip he took to protest against the G8 in Italy in 2009. From the programme:

On the 8th of July last year, the leaders of the eight most powerful countries in the world met for three days in the earthquake-ravaged town of L’Aquila in Italy to make plans for the future of our society and our planet. On 27th June, I hitched a lift from Glasgow, alone, to be there too.

Featuring live music from experimental pop duo Over the Wall, Hitch is an intimate storytelling performance which tells of the experience of the journey, asking questions about the meaning and purpose of political protest, the limits of personal power and the possibility of change.

Fun for those of you nostalgic for summit-hopping or whatever your first experience of people power was, but I imagine it makes for decent entertainment for non-politicos as well. Anyone that’s been young and determined.

Plus it’s free.

The lovely people at VisionOn.tv are organising a training course tomorrow, “It’s a free short course in fast-turnaround activist news reporting, being held at the Forest Cafe”.

Citizen TV Reporter Training
When: Saturday 24th July 2010 – 10am-6pm Come and meet everyone and watch
some films at 7pm on Friday 23rd July
Where: Forest Cafe <http://theforest.org.uk/>, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh
EH1 1EYCost: Free / donation

Places are limited, so please fill in the
application form at http://visionon.tv/training/application. Lack of
experience is no barrier. Commitment to making social change with video is much more important!

******************
Video Training for Social Change

Make the news you don’t see on the news.

visionOntv <http://visionon.tv/> has created easy templates<http://visionon.tv/production>for rapid-turnaround citizen video news reports.

These reports can be made by absolute beginners, or by people with skills but little time.

Make watchable and effective films for the widest possible audience.

Our training programme is bold and unique. We have taken away the obstacles to making effective films by radically simplifying the whole process. Come to the workshop to learn how to make fast-turnaround video news reports. Our production templates will enable you to make films with whatever equipment you already possess. You can even make videos with no camera at all!

Please bring the items of portable recording equipment you have – video camera, stills camera, mobile phone, laptop computer. We will use them during the workshop.
Please note: to complete your productions, an extra session on Sunday morning (at Forest Cafe) will be necessary.

A joint production with Undercurrents <http://undercurrents.org/>.

After the Success of Saturday’s AntiNazi Demos there will be a Fundraiser for ACE in the upstairs of the Forest Cafe on Wed 24th From 10pm featuring :-

• Oi Polloi,
• Bomb Berlin
• Witches Revenge

Also before that from 9pm “Talk to Frank” will be on Downstairs in the Cafe with the Fantastic Fabulous Freeloadin Frank and the Bucking Fastards.

With Contributions from Wise L Leathermonk and The Weather Underground.

Message fae Old Hat Books Collective:

Hello all!

Please come along to our Femstruation Week reading party this Wednesday!

The theme is “What Your Mother Never Told You!”

Decide for yourself what this means and come along and read us some things that made you think!

Short passages, haikus, poems, slogans, whole books, plays or jokes, please come and share!

There will be tea, but please bring cakes to share too!

The parties are always fun and good places to see what the library is about and to meet new people and hear lovely words!

Wear an old hat if you’d like too!

5pm – 7pm!

Please tell all your friends and make this event of Femstruation Week fully rad!

Over and out,

Old Hat Books. xxx
Oh, you can bring pictures too, to show and tell. We like pictures.

Our friends at the Edinburgh Anarchafeminist Kollectiv have released the programme for the previously-trailed Femstruation Week, taking place from 13th-20th February.

Events include “Bloody Valentine” on the 14th, “What Your Mother Never Told You”-themed open reading event courtesy of Old Hat Books, and more,

Details at their website.

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.

We’ll be out and about at the Don’t DiY Alone event this weekend. Come get your seditious literature from our stall at the Zine-o-rama on Saturday & Sunday, upstairs at the Forest Cafe, learn how to fix your bike and learn about getting involved with the IWW to help you & your co-workers get your boss off your back (4-6pm on Saturday).

There’s more going on than I can cover here. See the event’s website for more.