Hey this all sounds good although i'm a bit surprised that a venue associated with the listings magazine, 'What's On', that's not exactly known for any political substance, more a lifestyle listing magazine for students, has any links to grassroots or libertarian groups.

To our knowedge, none of the Grassroots/Libertarian groups we know of have been invited to the event which includes Birmingham Indymedia, Food not Bombs, Critical Mass, WMA, people from the Nursery Social Centre Collective, South Asian Alliance, Birmingham NoBorders - I could go on.

Can someone from Cafe One or 'What's On' magazine enlighten us?

I speak for Cafe One and Whatsonuk in inviting all progressive people in Birmingham to our events. This will be a regular monthly event, not dominated by any one agenda or outlook.
As a Fairtrade cafe-venue and publishers of Whatsonuk (which is a nationwide listings guide for young people and students and one of the highest circulation free mags in the UK) we are multicultural and inclusive, encouraging student activism and engagement with campaigns, especially Fairtrade.

We are much more a cultural organisation than a political one, and most of our events are about music and artistic collaborations. Tomorrow night we have breakdance crews, salsa dancers, and a live DJ jam featuring Soweto Kinch, Mad Flow and Shimm One amongst others.

The discussion, film showing and open mic is themed on Fairtrade issues and def. not on sectarian politics.

If we can help progressive students and young people move beyond differences and enjoy cutting edge creative culture, that is our aim.

As a neutral, creative space we make Cafe One available for free to all progressive groups.
We host meetings for People and Planet, Ethical Trade, Christian groups, community banks and yoga sessions, and have no bias or prejudice in making it freely available.

Cafe One is run by Sam Alim, who is under threat of deportation by the Home Office as many of you will know. Our events are a good chance to show solidarity with him.

Thanks to all our friends and supporters in the city that make Cafe One such an exciting project. Think global act local !

Monopolise Resistance

The SWP try to hijack anti-war protests

Schnews published a pamphlet Monopolise Resistance – how Globalise Resistance would hijack revolt in early September last year, just before the attacks on New York and Washington. We published it in response to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)’s sudden involvement in the anti-capitalist movement through its wholly-owned subsidiary Globalise Resistance. We warned that the Labour-voting-slogan-shouting-anti-direct-action politics of the SWP posed a real danger to the vitality and independence of the anti-capitalist movement. We also argued that we would only be able to stand up to this attack if we became better organised, more open to new people and more grounded in our communities. All this still stands, despite the attacks.

September 11th saw a monster that the US state had created come back to bite its maker. The gangsters who carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon were established, nurtured, pay-rolled, trained and supported by the US government, much like the death squads in South America and puppet regimes in south east Asia, installed to carry out its fight against ‘world communism’. All this is denied of course, as the attack is used by the more powerful and heavily armed gangsters in the White House to launch a ‘war against terrorism’ that marks a significant escalation of the war that is constantly waged by the rich countries against the peoples of the majority of the world. War, racism, economic domination and, increasingly, the threat of nuclear first strikes against people the US or UK government don’t like is on the agenda. Capitalism was never nice, but recently it has turned decidedly nastier.

The only response to this baring of capitalism’s teeth is to broaden and deepen anti-capitalism. It’s a sick system and, more than ever, people are questioning its existence – we should be building serious opposition to get rid of it altogether. Unfortunately, the problems we discussed in Monopolise Resistance have become even starker than before.

In Britain, where a Labour government sends troops to Afghanistan to turn rocks into rubble, the only reasonable response is to sabotage the war effort and support those attacked by it. Much activity has taken place – blockades of the British invasion force’s HQ at Northwood, lock-ons at Downing Street, civil disobedience and occupations, sit-down protests. But at every turn the SWP has been there to calm things down and make it all acceptable to the Labour Party.

Since the start of the war against Afghanistan, the SWP has switched its resources from building Globalise Resistance to building another front organisation the Stop the War Coalition which they say "…unites Labour MPs, Asian community organisations and the Socialist Workers Party". As ever, their aim is to make an organisation acceptable to Labour Party members, not one that will effectively challenge the war-drive. Meetings of the coalition would refuse to discuss direct action, despite pleas from activists to do so. SWP stewards on a march organised by the coalition tried to get 600 people staging a sit-down protest in Whitehall to stand up and "go and listen to the speakers" – Labour MPs.

These aren’t isolated examples – they flow from the SWP’s view that there are millions of Labour Party members just gagging to join the SWP if they are argued with enough. As an internal instruction put it soon after the war against Afghanistan started,

"There are many people who are very critical of Bush and American imperialism’s interventions and attacks over the last decade. We should go big on recruiting these people. We are likely to have long conversations with people over this but we could also get some very big sales".

So we can’t do anything that might upset these potential recruits - even sit down protests are too hardcore for these ‘revolutionaries’. In Dublin on Mayday – our day, for christ sake - Globalise Resistance even went as far as apologising to a trade union leader for getting heckled –

"Globalise Resistance regrets the inappropriate behaviour of some of its members on Mayday, and would like to assure you that most of those involved were not GR members. As you know we are a diverse group and some of our members have strong views concerning the trade union leadership. We would like you to know that the behaviour of these members does not reflect the views of Globalise Resistance as a group".

Hand in hand with this pathetic brown-nosing of pro-capitalist politicians goes the denial that it is possible to be involved in anti-capitalism without being in the SWP – or, at the very least, one of its many subsidiaries like Globalise Resistance or Stop The War Coalition. In order to portray themselves as revolutionary, they play down the day-in, day-out activities of thousands of anti-capitalists involved in campaigns, groups and collectives that have nothing to do with their sect.

Recently SWP leader Alex Callinicos described the fight against the Criminal Justice Bill in the mid 1990s as "reflect(ing) a broad anti-Tory consciousness that did not go beyond, for most of those involved, supporting the election of a Labour government". In fact, the thousands of people actively involved in that fight shut down motorways, occupied decaying buildings in order to turn them into community centres and faced arrest and imprisonment – all the time attacking all politicians, Labour or Tory, for their support of repressive laws. The SWP were not involved in any of this activity. Instead, the SWP were forcibly arguing with those involved in this direct action to "support the election of a Labour government".

Monopolise Resistance was an attempt to challenge this sort of hypocrisy. The SWP can only pose as ‘revolutionary’ by rewriting history, denying the existence of a living, organic anti-capitalist culture in this country – one that sides with the majority of humanity in its fight against capitalism - and turning the anti-capitalist movement into sad little pressure group thanking ‘left-wing’ Labour MPs for speaking at their meetings. Well thanks, but no thanks - we want more than that. We want a movement that doesn’t compromise with war, with racism, with exploitation, with all the day-to-day shit that capitalism throws at us. And it’s up to us to make it happen.

Read ‘Monopolise Resistance – How Globalise Resistance Would Hijack Revolt’ in full at www.schnews.org.uk/monopresist/index.htm

dont you think that your views monopolize this post..25 paragraphs of political ranting, it sounds like its going on at that gig in bham and buffy (what a dork!!) all that rambling and you cant even choose an interesting name, fuckwit!

I gotta agree with you al, this event looks really good from a musical/cultural tip and that's why it's so dissapointing that the SWP's wholly-owned subsidiary, Monopolise Resistance has been given a platform, particularly alongside a film like the Take which is about workers acting autonomously to reclaim their workspaces - something GR doesn't have a fucking clue about!

And by the way al the post by 'Buffy' appears to be a cut 'n paste from the Schnews website from a leaflet they got together warning people about the SWP's anti-capitalist front, Globalise Resistance some time ago (it could do with being updated).

Just so yous know, Schnews is a very well respected radical alternative news paper from Brighton. They know their shit!

Perhaps if the listing magazine and it's cafe were a bit more clued up about what the SWP and it's associated fronts like GR, Respect, ANL and others, are really about and what motivates them, then the evening would be even better and posters like Soylidarity wouldn't feel obliged to distance themselves from the event. Respect to Soylidarity for letting us all know :)

To be honest I hope it goes well and the student groups invited get what they can out of the event in terms of networking and I also hope they can see through the veneer of GR and get involved in real radical grassroots stuff and not just sign up to some SWPie front or work for Respect's electoral machine.

Think we're all looking forward to an autonomous occupied social centre in the future for Brum where none of this Cafe PR stuff and astro-turfing is gonna be on the agenda!

Guy Taylor?

jesus

talk about shooting yourself in the foot

respect to soy for letting people know

Sorry, Soy, I went along to the event and had a very good time there. This Guy Thomas/Taylor bloke that spoke was pretty informative and had good stuff to say. Wasn't like you warned us. Didn't once try to sell me a paper and I couldn't tell that I was being pulled into the SWP!

I do find it wierd that you tell people not to go to the event, then end up your message saying that you are going yourself - have you had the anti-SWP immunisation that us mere mortals haven't had access to?

I think people broad-minded enough to read Indymedia are also intelligent enough to decide for themselves who is and who isn't worth listening to and what events we can and cannot attend.

I think you are a patronising wanker and hope that Guy Thomas/Taylor gave you a mouthful when you "... give my two pennies worth to Mr Guy Taylor." Bet he shat hisself! - is his name Thomas or Taylor anyway?

Hello beggoon, I have been involved in grass roots movements and campaigns in Birmingham for only 18 months, and I have met numerous people who either used to belong to the SWP/GR/Respect or have had run-ins with them. A lot of people join the SWP because they do not know of any alternative activist groups, and the SWP put a great deal of effort into recruiting people. Why is this a problem? Because they are a political party and whether you agree with them or not does not really come into the equation. They put equal effort into convincing/badgering anyone who joins them to tow the party line (decided rather undemocratically from above, not below) and that any other way apart from their's is wrong, specifically pouring scorn on any ideas which do not involve going to a demonstration or lobbying MPs. Many people end up doing unpaid work selling their newspapers to keep them financially afloat.

I have also heard of a specific incident where the SWP publicly claimed responsibility for other people's hard campaigning work on the local news! Also, a campaign I worked for was invited to a Respect hustings meeting to hold a stall, and when we got there we were told not to speak to anyone unless they spoke to us! Why? Because they wanted to be associated with the work we were doing, but also wanted the monopoly on people's attention for their election campaign.

So fair do's to soy for warning everyone! At least a few more people went there with their eyes wide open. How many people have wasted their time with the SWP before they cotton on to what they are really about, or realise there are other groups who don't just dicate orders to their members but where everyone has an equal say?

Fortunately I thought the event was quite a good social, and hopefully people have forged some worthwhile links. Given how won over you were by Guy Taylor perhaps you should consider joining! Here is the application form. Only £10 - 30 per month to be a member!

 http://www.swp.org.uk/swp_dd01.php

MD,

I am not so naive and new to activism that I do not know the SWP or their ways. What I wrote about before was that Soy decided that it was safe for him to go to the event and no one else - hypocrisy. Also that the event was really good, and there was no 'problem' from the SWP there - I saw three of their members there, hardly something to fear! And spreading rumours that insinuate the event was hijacked by the trots probably meant there was less people there than there might have been which is a shame.

Taylor did say that Critical Mass was a good thing and he said that fairtrade is not an alternative to activism. Who gives a fuck if he's in the SWP if he says things like that? And if you seriously think I'd join the SWP (or anyone else) on the basis of a 5 minute speech about fairtrade you must be delerioius.

Hi Beggoon,

Firstly, since you do PR work for Café One/WhatsOn, and invited Guy Tailor in the first place, I would hardly say you are impartial when commenting on the quality of A/ the event and B/ Guy Tailor's talk.

Secondly, you seemed to have misunderstood the purpose of my addition to the article. The article advertises a chance to network with other activist groups, for an event which was briefed to me in its inception as a “‘Philosophy Café”’with music and workshops to follow”. Now, when this gets continually cut within an inch of becoming non-existent (a mere hour or so of discussions, at 7pm when many attendants would still be on Critical Mass!) then it’s no longer a ‘Philosophy Café” but simply a music event. Apolitical musical events don’t get listed on Indymedia, or else I’m sure it would be inundated with adverts for nights at the Works and other such cultural detritus. Similarly SWP events do not get listed on Indymedia. So if the reality of the event had been made transparent in the first instance, it would have never been on Indymedia. In my comment, I didn’t want to deter people from the event as a whole, but to warn those who wanted an opportunity to network with other groups to not waste their time – as there would be no such opportunity.

I might add that about 12 people from various groups that I work with did still attend, and from what I can gather, had a really good time. But they knew what to expect, which is only fair to them. I went – not because I’m superior at deflecting the debilitating radioactive waves emitted by SWP members (although I must admit, I am rather good at this also) – but because I knew the music and rest of the event would be good, and to show support for the Café – into which I have put a lot of my spare time. I don’t see that as hypocritical. What you conveniently forget is that it was a cathartic decision for myself to undo a lot of time and effort that I had put into inviting the various activist groups, all for something that could have easily been remedied by structuring the ‘philosophy/discussion’ aspect of the evening and cancelling Guy Tailor. With regards to Mr Tailor “shitting himself” upon receiving my two-pennies worth, what kind of two-pennies did you expect me (or anyone else) to give him? A stabbing? Prune juice? Anyway, I digress.

Soy-lidarity!