Gatwick No Border Camp 2007

http://no-racism.net/article/2244

[ 27. Aug 2007 ]

Gatwick No Border Camp 2007

From 19th to 24th of September 2007 a noborder camp will take place at Gatwick Airport near London.


As the government started to build a :: new immigration prison (Brook House at Gatwick Airport, near Crawley), the :: No Border Camp is getting :: closer: Sept 19-24. Among the :: various actions announced, Saturday, the 22nd, will see a :: demonstration from Crawley to Tinsley House, the already existing immigration prison at Gatwick, next to the planned site of the new centre. There will be workshops both :: at the camp and at :: Goldsmith University the week before, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the :: Battle of Lewisham.

Days after the Home Office :: told refugees "We'll do everything we can to send you home", 26 migrant prisoners :: escaped from Campsfield, Oxfordshire, following days of protests. The riot was the latest episode in the migrants struggle inside detention after the :: Harmondsworth riots last November.

Relentless protests, both inside adn outside detention, have managed to put many detention and deportation profiteers on the map. On 17 August, activists :: occupied the office of XL Airways in Crawley to protest against the charter airline's role in forecul deportations on behalf of the Home Office. Several :: demonstrations have been announced for August 28th to protest against a planned charter flight to :: deport a number of rejected asylum seekers to DR Congo.

See also indymedia

Background info on the Gatwick No Border Camp 2007
No Borders & Migration Struggles
from various sources, 30 Aug 2007: From 19th to 24th of September 2007 a noborder camp will take place at Gatwick Airport near London.

As the government started to build a new immigration prison (Brook House at Gatwick Airport, near Crawley), the No Border Camp is getting closer: Sept 19-24. Among the various actions announced, Saturday, the 22nd, will see a demonstration from Crawley to Tinsley House, the already existing immigration prison at Gatwick, next to the planned site of the new centre. There will be workshops both at the camp and at Goldsmith University the week before, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham.

Days after the Home Office told refugees "We'll do everything we can to send you home", 26 migrant prisoners escaped from Campsfield, Oxfordshire, following days of protests. The riot was the latest episode in the migrants struggle inside detention after the Harmondsworth riots last November.

Relentless protests, both inside and outside detention, have managed to put many detention and deportation profiteers on the map. On 17 August, activists occupied the office of XL Airways in Crawley to protest against the charter airline's role in forecul deportations on behalf of the Home Office. Several demonstrations have been announced for August 28th to protest against a planned charter flight to deport a number of rejected asylum seekers to DR Congo.

Two years of No Borders UK
It was before the G8 2005 in Scotland that initiatives started to network around the issues of Freedom Of Movement in the UK again. A Make Borders History demo took place in Glasgow during the 2005 G8 summit in Scotland, calling at several institutions and companies involved in the Border Regime. Shortly after the G8, actvists forced the YMCA to withdraw from an "ayslum slavery Scheme".

During the following year, No Borders groups were set up all over the country, in London, Brighton, Cardiff, Nottingham, Leeds and other cities. Regular demonstrations targeted immigration reporting centres and as well as detention centres.

The year 2006 saw the first UK-wide No Borders Gathering in London (on 11-12 March) at the Square Social Centre. Exactly one year later, another gathering was held in Glasgow at the Unity centre.

The initiatives naturally had different focal points, from fighting against dawn raids [1 2 3 4 5 6], anti-deportation actions (e.g. in Leeds ), campaigning against the point-based system, to solidarity with migrant workers (e.g. justice for cleaners) and, of course, demonstrations at immigration prisons.

In Glasgow, people started Unity, a union of by and for asylum seekers. In London, Harmondsworth became another focus of protests as well as building up practical support for detainees.

The October 7th Network organised a demonstration in London as part of the Transnational Day Of Action for migrants' rights. However, when the Home Office disclosed plans to build a new immigration prison at Gatwick, the new Brook House became a focus for the whole network.

The upcoming No Border Camp is organised by No Borders groups from Birmingham, Brighton, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Nottingham, Sheffield and Cardiff and supported by Barbed Wire Britain, Unity, Feminist Against Borders, West Midlands Antifa, Sex Workers Union, Vapaa Liikkuvuus (freedom of movement-group in Finland), Campaign to Close Campsfield, No One Is Illegal, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and many more.

The next Camp public meeting will take place on September 2nd in Brighton.

There will be a meeting on Monday 3rd September in London to discuss the Tinsley House demonstration.

Events During The No Border Camp:
Thursday, 20th September

Welcome Demonstration - Crawley Town Centre, 5pm-7pm. To inform people about and invite them to participate in the No Border Camp.

Friday, 21st September:

Gathering at Lunar House, the Home Office reporting centre in East Croydon, 10am-2pm. A convergeance between those who have papers and those who don't; information-sharing, exchanging stories, food and music.

Saturday 22nd September

Transnational Demonstration at Tinsley House detention dentre at Gatwick, 12pm-2pm. Tinsley House, which has a capacity of 146, was the first purpose-built detention centre in the UK. The new planned Gatwick detention centre is to be built close by.

Later that day, groups will present their work and experiences in a Transnational Forum at the camp.

Workshops

Announced workshops so far include ones with migration controls, ID Cards, practical support of people in detention, the political situation in the Middle East, alternative media, experiences from campaigns against companies and much more.

Migrating University

Migrating University is a set of workshops at Goldsmith University in the week before the No Border Camp.

Indymedia at the No Border Camp

As usual, IMC UK will be present at the No Border Camp. There will a public access tent, help with publishing and image processing, as well as workshops about alternative media.

http://www.wombles.org.uk/article2007081224.php

Thomas for US President.

Europe launches her own presidential candidate for the US Election in 2008

The Europe 2008 Exploratory Committee is sending representatives in July 2007 to canvass the US for a suitable native-born American presidential candidate. The candidate will pledge to run for president in 2008 on a platform of European issues such as

· Enhanced international cooperation through bodies like the UN and EU
· To leave the case of Iran for Europe to deal with
· Withdrawing all US troops from Iraq, replacing them with UN forces and European intellectuals
· Quick implementation of the Kyoto protocol with a further pledge to cut greenhouse emissions by 50% in 2050
· Recommit Federal Government to the rule of law
· Recommit the US to the International Criminal Court treaty and 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
· The immediate closure of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay
· A universal national single-payer health care system
· Cutting federal funding for faith-based initiatives and charitable choice programs
· Banning religiously-based curricula in government-funded public schools
· Slashing all tariffs on European-make vehicles
· Limiting bans on indoor smoking
· Increasing federal funding of stem cell research, abolishing all restrictions
· An ambitious federal programme of subsidies for soccer and cricket schools across the nation

The delegation will be headed by PNEC Chairman Thomas Altheimer and Senior Press Officer Simon Robertsen, acting as exemplary Europeans.


Altheimer says this to the press:
“We have a huge task in front of us but I am confident that Europe eventually will win the hearts and minds of the great American people. The character and the abilities of our presidential candidate will obviously not be of capital importance, as he or she will be assisted at all times by a team of capable European advisers. The only requirements are to be able to appear likeable to the general public and to dress in style—except for the latter, not unlike the current incumbent.”

Simon Robertsen adds:
“Ours is a message of common-sense, secularism, good taste—and maybe also of slight decadence. Foremost it is a message of hope. Unlike the nationalist Europe of the past, modern-day Europe has, through painful experience, matured to offer the world thoughtful, visionary, multilateral leadership—moving the world towards an all inclusive future where every individual is given a voice. I believe we will see a new cosmopolitan world order arise from this campaign.”

CONTACT:
www.europe2008.org
robertsen@europe2008.org
Tel: +44 (0)7946 733 092
Tel: +44 (0)7812 796 740
Fax: +44 (0)8701 349 567
See www.parallelaction.com for further information and documentation

May Day in Kennington

I Link a lot to Transpontine's Neil, but missed him in the Park. This below is his latest post (somewhat truncated)/J

"Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Workers of the World Relax

The May Day picnic in Kennington Park was fun yesterday, with about 50 people hanging out in the sunshine. The maypole, featuring an imitation surveillance camera on top, was taken in a procession from Camberwell Squat Centre with a banner reading 'Workers of the World Relax'. Another said 'Kennington Park - A common place for all', referring to the park's pre-enclosure history as a common, where the Chartists gathered in 1848. A leaflet given out stated 'Today the Park is still being enclosed, this time socially, as groups of people who use the place collectively to hang out and have fun - playing volleyball or football - are being forced out'.



Later down at Brockley Social Club, the Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir hosted an evening of songs including 'Bandeira Rossa' and 'Power in the Union'. I gave a short talk on the history of May Day in South London.


Judging by Baggage Reclaim's fine photos, the Jack in the Green procession from the Borough also went well yesterday...."

Transpontine

For a while I have been reading this blog - its well worth the what's on and the curios:

A Transpontine Top Ten

A big weekend is planned in Deptford and New Cross on May 5th and 6th, with loads of live music happening in local pubs and other venues (including one very exciting international act, fingers crossed). Keep an eye on Rocklands for emerging details. Anyway for the programme I've come up with a Transpontine Top Ten of songs/artists linked to the area. In no particular order, here it is:

1. The Only Living Boy in New Cross (1992): Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine had a top five hit with this tale of ‘greboes, crusties and goths’
2. New Craas Massakkah – Linton Kwesi Johnson (1984): dub poet’s take on the 1981 New X Fire.
3. Up the Junction – Squeeze (1979): South London kitchensink drama from band who started out on Deptford Fun City records
4. Mad Dot – The Band of Holy Joy (1986): ‘when I walk up the New Cross Road when I’m starved and I haven’t been fed’.
5. Nancy Boy – Placebo (1996): former Drakefell residents who met in a pub in Deptford.
6. Action Time and Vision – Alternative TV (1978): Deptford and ATV’s Mark Perry started Sniffin’ Glue, the original punk fanzine.
7. Gravity’s Rainbow – Klaxons (2006) :first single on Angular records when they were just a little band in New Cross. The song title references Thomas Pynchon’s novel, which features a rocket explosion in Greenwich Park.
8. Cloudbusting – Kate Bush (1985): Kate started her career living in Brockley and playing gigs at the Royal Albert in New Cross Road and the Rose of Lee (now Dirty South)
9. Judy Teen – Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (1974): glam rocker grew up in New Cross.
10. Death Cab for Cutie – Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1967): Bonzos met at Goldsmiths in New X, performed this song in The Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ film and gave a name to current US emo rockers.

Fairly arbitrary I know, the list could be a lot longer. What would your suggestions be?

Posted by Transpontine at 5:00 PM

[I've added the image - from the compilation album of a couple of years back - used to be able to buy it downstairs in the NX MoonBow Cafe]

Kennington and Oval

Today, avoiding real work that is piled up on my desk, and waiting on the gas inspector to check my pipes and tell me what I already know - ie that my listed Edwarding building is not allowed to have a gas boiler outlet sticking out where it does - for shame... well, I thought a leap into local history would redeem my (actually my landlord's) crimes against heritage listings... so I have been reading about the neighbourhood. Strange stuff, for example, I live on Kennington Park Road just down from the Oval - site of the first Ashes test (heh, cricket eh?) - where the following wartime incident from the VauxhallandKennington site amuses:

"The Oval Airman

There was an interesting incident near the Oval. The largest and last of the daylight raids on London took place on 15 September 1940. Over 180 German planes were shot down and a German airman, Robert Zehbe, baled out of his stricken Dornier bomber and landed in front of Alverstone House in Harleyford Road. Pieces of his plane came down elsewhere in central London, including in the forecourt of Victoria Station. Zehbe was attacked by a mob of furious women but was rescued by the police and driven across the Oval's turf and Vauxhall Bridge to the Millbank military hospital, where he died next day. There was a suggestion that he had been seriously injured by the Oval mob, but it is equally likely that he was badly injured before he landed.

Information about this incident was provided by historian Martin Smart. ... Pieces of the bomber are now in the RAF Museum, Hendon."

Its not all stirring battle of Britain/mob of furious women stuff though, reminding me that Kennington park is a site of all manner of horrors - used for hangings as well as political meetings, charged down by the police and corn law incidents, the Chartists, and, if you follow up the article I cite from here, you can find out all you need to know about Kennington:

"Fascinating information and stunning revelations including Public Executions,A Radical Black Methodist, The World's First National Labour Movement - The Chartists * the Significance of 10th April 1848 * The World's First Photograph of a Crowd * the Occupation of Our Common by the Royal Park * The Horns Tavern and Charlie Chaplin * The Princess of Wales Theatre * The Scandal of the Unmarked War Grave * The Squatters * 'Red Ted' * The Return of the Commons Spirit" - From Working Press: Kennington Park - birthplace of British democracy

and - pushing the political meetings theme a little:

"'Red Ted' Knight’s socialist council started the annual fireworks displays in the Park. By 1984 the park was again being used for political gatherings. The demonstrators on the Anti Apartheid Rally of that year used the park as an assembly point. In subsequent years the park has hosted many important political gatherings including; Gay Pride (starting 1986), National Union of Students (1986), Irish Solidarity Movement (1986), Vietnamese Community event (1989), Anti Poll Tax March (1990), Kurdistan Rally (1991), Integration Alliance (1993), TUC (1993), Nigerian Rallies (1993), Campaign Against Militarism (1993) and Reclaim the Streets (1997). These events often reflect key moments in the political history of the time and are an important part of the democratic process". From: Kennington Park - birthplace of British democracy

... well, there's lots more to write on this. For now I will just also go back to note that theunmarked war grave is now marked, however minimally. So minimally that I did not know that the south field of the park, where in summer people laze about not going to demos and where there is often a 'funfair', was also tragically the site of the largest single bomb loss of life in the Blitz when an air raid shelter was hit on 15 October 1940 (again from VauxallandKennington):

"The shelter was large enough to accomodate hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people, and it filled the whole of the south field in Kennington Park - the field opposite what is now the cafe. The outline of the buildings can still be seen from the air, especially when the ground is very dry - see the photo. But the shelter was an unpleasant place, and people only went there because the government stopped them going down into the nearby underground stations. One witness reported that “The public shelter was horrible, smelly. It had a mouldy slab of concrete for a roof. But you couldn’t go anywhere else - the Oval Station was full of barbed wire … they wouldn’t let you near it.”"

I've included the picture and you can indeed see the evidence - the ill-defined area to the south of the trench pattern shows where the bomb hit. There's more on the bombing here (a pdf file). More to read... And with this I give notice of the start of a thread, sort of, on wartime stories that I'll come back to soon so as to relate the adventures of grandfather Thomas Mouat Tate... Stay tuned...

DisOrient X

You've read about some of this on my main site which is called Trinketization so I'm also posting it here just to try to achieve blanket coverage in my own claustromaniac world. Details in text and on the flyer as jigged by the design team that is Anamik Saha.

Dis-Orient X - friday 17 November

Ten years after the book Dis-Orienting Rhythms: the Politics of the New Asian Dance Music (zen books 1996) we've decided to have a party (or a wake) and discuss, and dance, about the new world disorder.

Workshop Goldsmiths Cinema - 3pm - 6pm

speakers - Sonia from ADFED, Anamik Saha of Goldsmiths, Sanjay Sharma, John Hutnyk, Aki Nawaz showing the new Fun-da-mental video, & panel discussion chaired by Ash Sharma...
finish 6pm

Then...

From 7.30pm (after hungry folks have eaten at a local diner):

Dis-Orient X club night New Cross Inn 7.30 - 12.

New Cross Inn is on New Cross Rd next to "the venue"
with Aki Nawaz from Fun-da-mental and SPARK! on the decks

- a benefit for the 1857 Indian war of Independence Commemoration Committee
(donation at the door)

All welcome
(special discount offer on the controversial F-D-M album "ALL IS WAR" on the night)

Come along. Bring friends.
.

The Golden Hind

From our good friends at "Avast Ye Applications":

Seán Mac Mathúna writes: "There are four statues on the front of Deptford's old town hall in NewCross Road. Three of them are connected with slavery in the West Indies: Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and Oliver Cromwell. In 1652, Cromwell had been a regular visitor to Deptford to oversee the building of two ships The James and The Diamond - built solely it seems, for expeditions to the Caribbean aimed at displacing Spanish power in the region. Maurice Thomson, a resident of the Manor House at Lee ... was said to have been a personal friend of Cromwell's and involved in these expeditions. They were part of a network of businessmen interested in the vast wealth that could be derived from the sugar/slave trade."

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/blackheath_slavery.htm

and from the endearingly entitled 'Enchanted learning' site...:

"Sir Francis Drake (1545-1596) was a British explorer, slave-trader,privateer (a pirate working for a government) in the service ofEngland, mayor of Plymouth, England, and naval officer (he was anAdmiral)."

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/d/drake.shtml
.

New Cross and Rotherhithe

Bob from Brockley writes:
"New Cross and Rotherhithe
From Goldsmiths blogger, John Hutnyk, a nice post on Prangsta in New Cross.From one of the most beautiful blogs on the web, a good place for a cup of tea and a think, a post on H's Cafe, Neptune Street. (If you like this, check out sibling blog eggbaconchipsandbeans.)
Tag: sarf london
posted by bob at 4:04 PM "
[JH - clearly this is a reciprocal cross referencing love in. Check out Bob's comments on the 'cold' Chomsky (inc.). Ha, rattle the cages of the captive Gods (you know where all that MIT funding comes from don't you Noam?)]