How It Went: No Glory, Manchester, November 15 2014

This was a great success- and it was a lively buzzing atmosphere at the MMU Business School on Saturday 15th November for the No Glory Day School. Fifty people attended and we learned a lot from one another, exchanged ideas, thought about future activities by creating a time line which covered local, regional, national and international events. We ran a banner workshop throughout the day and we produced a beautiful banner. 

Ali Ronan gave an inspiring opening talk appropriately titled “It is our duty to clamorously and unceasingly agitate”, which told the largely forgotten stories of women who campaigned for peace throughout World War One, focusing on Manchester women in particular.

Penny Hicks from Stop the War Coalition facilitated one of the two workshops on building an anti-war movement today while Chris Clayton’s workshop looked at research into conscientious objectors giving local researchers a chance to share their findings.

After lunch Lindsay German gave an excellent talk on how 100 years of war has changed women’s lives.

This was followed by Ali Ronan sharing her research on publicity and handbills which gave an insight into the bravery and resourcefulness of activists a century ago and allowed contemporary activists a chance to think about their own publicity.

Meanwhile Jean Spence led a moving workshop on creating and producing imaginative/photographic narratives of remembrance, using material she had bought from eBay and from records found in a local Boys Club.

The day finished with a look at both the timeline which participants had been adding to throughout the day, and showing off the banner to much applause.  We went away feeling inspired.

 So November wasn’t all about the cultivation and cult of ceramic and other poppies (the latest opium of the people?)…

In addition:-

Bolton Quakers organised a series of four lively and well attended talks about WW1 throughout November 2014

·         Barrie Mills led a talk about the Northern Peace Board and the work of Manchester Quaker and University tutor, John W Graham who was instrumental in coaching COs for the military tribunals that were set up after the Military Service Act 1916. Graham was an active member of the local No Conscription Fellowship

·         Ali Ronan gave a talk on the network of anti-war women across the NW

·         Cyril Pearce gave an illustrated talk about his extensive CO database

·         Malcolm Pittock gave a very moving talk about his uncle Alfred Evans who was an absolutist CO and was taken to France in the summer 1916 and threatened with execution. This was commuted to hard labour and Evans was a prisoner until 1919.

“None of the books are quite accurate about him because they do not know that he had a serious eye condition, which developed in the 1920s and which a botched operation only made worse. So when he was required to register for fire watching in WW2, he could easily have used medical evidence to get himself excused, for his sight was too bad for him to do it. But it was the principle of the thing that he objected to and so he did not refer to his eyesight when refusing to do firewatching and was sentenced to three months imprisonment. A CO friend of his, Jock Murphy, who had managed to obtain unconditional exemption (I think he obtained it when conscription was reintroduced but before the war was declared) went to prison with him. He was thus one of of the very few CO's to be imprisoned in both wars. What was also distinctive about him was that in WW1, he objected primarily on religious and secondarily on political grounds. He was a Roman Catholic and his position was closely similar to that of the Catholic Workers today, who reject both the doctrine of the so-called Just War and all social injustice. At 21, and working class through and through, he had worked it out for himself with the assistance of Leo Tolstoy and Karl Liebknecht.”

 - Malcolm Pittock on Alfred Evans, Dec. 2014

See also: 

Max Plowman and the Literature of the First World War by Malcolm Pittock,

 in The Cambridge Quarterly

Published on behalf of Cambridge Quarterly

Volume 33, issue 3, pages 217-243
Published in print January 2004 | ISSN: 0008-199X
Published online January 2004 | e-ISSN: 1471-6836 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/33.3.217

PREVIEW: This article argues that Max Plowman, the only member of the armed forces to be court-martialled for refusing to return to the Front in the 1914–19 War, has been oddly neglected. Consideration both of his case and of his Memoir, A Subaltern on the Somme, however, can illuminate the partly parallel case of Siegfried Sassoon, and lead to a reappraisal of the orthodox account of the literature of the First World War.

Undercover Policing: update on campaign

(Further to our meeting of May 2014 - see comments on blogpost)
An activist reports:

Islington Against Police Spies: Sack Bob Lambert

A Successful Picket – So What’s Next?

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Friday 28^th November at our picket of London Metropolitan University to demand the sacking of Bob Lambert. Former police spy, Special Branch manipulator, abuser of women, agent provocateur, Lambert is now lecturing at London Met on policing and criminology. (If you don’t know who Bob Lambert is, check out the PDF leaflet.Which you can also spread as wide as possible… )

THE PICKET: 30 people came, we brought some provocative placards, friends brought a sound system down, which racked up the noise some… we handed out some 800 leaflets, mainly to London Met students and staff. We also had a lot of conversations; mostly people, when they hear even a part of Bob’s back story, are shocked and angry – more than one thought we were making it all up, because some of it is so outrageous, it sounds like a paranoid’s conspiracy trip. Local press came and asked us questions – we will have to see if and how they report the picket.

So all in all, as an opening of a campaign, not bad.

But what we want is to see Bob Lambert leave London Met. Preferably under a cloud, forced out, either sacked, or brought to the point where he has to resign. Realistically we know this CAN be done.

It’s not necessarily going to be easy – but we think we are capable of making enough bad publicity for our local university that they think twice about employing him. Looking at it this way, this demo is only a beginning.

So we are planning further actions. We hope to keep up a regular program of events until Bob Lambert goes. Hopefully this campaign will get stronger until it’s irresistible.

Further events are being discussed; obviously with it being the run-up to Xmas many things shut down. So you’ll have to watch this space for what we do next.

However – this campaign is also yours; your ideas, flashes of inspiration, suggestions and offers to get involved are of course more than welcome.

In the meantime: please do protest to London Met.

[Contact details available from the campaign] 

Email us: islingtonagainstpolicespies@gmail.com

Please be aware: we created this email address at half an hour’s notice in order to print our first leaflet. However we have already experienced what we shall call technical problems related to our use of gmail. So we may well change our email address soon (though we will continue to monitor this gmail address.)

For more info on undercover police spies see: campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com;    @copscampaign            http://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/   

Next RaHN Meeting: ACTIVISM AND THE UNDER-FIVES

As soon as the women's movement started, so did campaigns for more and better childcare...

The next meeting of the Radical History Network of NE London group will focus on how pressure was put on institutions and local authorities to provide cheap, good quality provision.
There is also an important story to be told about how alternative provision was set up outside the mainstream, while sometimes the two approaches overlapped.
Come along and share your experiences, and discuss how this connects with campaigns today.
Speakers will include:

Gail Chester – The struggle for council and community nurseries in Hackney from the 1970s onwards

Ivor Kallin – When Islington nursery workers shared a platform with the miners
 + other contributors from campaigns in higher education and community settings

UPDATE: 3rd speaker for the meeting now confirmed:

Andrea Francke – History of nursery campaigns at the Royal College of Art and London College of Communication 

Plus discussion and exchange of news & views.

Wednesday 10th December 7.30 p.m 
Wood Green Social Club 3 Stuart Crescent, N22 5NJ
 (off the High Rd, near Wood Green tube)
Free to attend, all interested people welcome.

*Playgroup, Ealing, c1975
*Pre-school provision in the 1970s was limited and had to be paid for: typically, playgroup – if there was one in the area with a vacancy and the child was accepted – from age 3, on two or three mornings a week during term-time.

Photos from demo against cutbacks in early-year education, Ealing, c.1979/80.
Girl and boy on the right have placards reading:
“I didn’t get where I am today by staying off school till I was 5.”

'What is Radical History?': Forthcoming Conference and On-going Debate

UPDATE:

Finalised speakers for upcoming conference entitled 'what is radical history?'

 on 24 March 2015 at Birkbeck.   (PDF timetable available on website.)

There are 6 panels split over three sessions, with 2 panels running concurrently in each session. 

The day concludes with a roundtable featuring Dr Becky Taylor (Birkbeck), Dr Robbie Shilliam (QMUL), and Mike Jackson (Gays and Lesbians Support the Miners).

Session 1: a) Radical historiographies, and b) Urban and rural workers.

Session 2: a) Political commitment, and b) The state and authority.

Session 3: a) Social movements and protest, and b) Radical education.

"We are very pleased with the quality and variety of the abstracts submitted and very much look forward to the day. We hope you can join us!"

For more information see: http://radicalhistoryconference.wordpress.com/

Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/15643334635

This Call for Papers led to the email discussion summarised (anonymised) below

'What is Radical History?': A One-Day Post-Graduate Led Interdisciplinary Conference
Tuesday, March 24th 2015. Birkbeck, University of London

'Historical writing always has some effect on us. It may reinforce passivity; it may activate us. In any case, the historian cannot choose to be neutral; [s]he writes on a moving train.' Howard Zinn
We invite post-graduates to submit abstracts for a one-day conference exploring the relationship between rigorous historical research and active political engagement. In 1970 Howard Zinn asked a question still important for politically-engaged academics today: 'what is radical history?' This conference will provide a space to re-engage with this debate, both to ask what we can learn from radical historical practice of the past but also to question what has changed in the intervening decades, and what a radical history might look like now.
We invite contributions from post-graduates from any disciplinary background who have a strong historical component to their research. We have identified three themes on which we especially invite reflections:

1. What identifies 'radical history' as 'radical'? Does its radicalism lie in its subject of study or in the approach of the researcher?
2. How does 'radical history' negotiate the relationship between 'objectivity' and politics?
3. What use is 'radical history'? Does it have a role to play in emancipatory politics?

We welcome theoretical responses to the question 'what is radical history?' as well as contributions rooted in empirical research. We invite submissions of 10-20 minutes in length: these could be collaborative or individual in nature, and encompass interviews, short films, and papers, as well as other appropriate methods. We aim to generate a multidisciplinary analysis of the nature of 'radical history' today and of the challenges that politically active researchers across various departments currently face within academia and wider society.

The conference will end with a round-table between activist-academics including Dr. Becky Taylor (Birkbeck, History, Classics and Archaeology) and Dr. Robbie Shilliam (QMUL, International Relations), and an audience-participatory discussion.

The event will be free to attend.

Prospective speakers are invited to submit abstracts of 250-300 words. Separately, please also include your name, affiliation and contact details, as well as full-details of the presentation method and any audio-visual or mobility requirements.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 22nd December 2014.
For more information about the conference, or to submit an abstract, please email the organising committee: Luca Lapolla (Birkbeck), DiarmaidKelliher (Glasgow) and Julie Russell (Exeter) at: radicalhistoryconference@gmail.com.
Please also see our website for more information.
We are very grateful to the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London for funding this conference.

From/to RaHN email list:

5-11-14 Sounds like it could be interesting but it seems from the post that only postgraduates are allowed to submit stuff? Is 'radical history' only for academics or would be academics?
Many of us involved in 'radical history', although some of us have doubts about the meaning of the term, are not academics, graduates or even 'historians'. Our interest in the past is linked powerfully to our interest and experience in the present and our desperate need to change it. To paraphrase some dodgy old geezer - history is too important to be left to historians. Many of us also have serious doubts about academia and its relationship to capital and the reproduction of value. Although useful work can be done by academics, to limit discussion in this way (a mistake too often fallen into these days) would be laughable...

5-11-14 A contribution to the 'What Is Radical History?' conferenceRather than a paper, I sent in the following contribution / definition / appeal based on that used by the Radical History Network of North East London:
To all people wanting to oppose oppression and to support positive alternatives...
Celebrate our history, avoid repeating our mistakes, and get inspiration to help create a better society for the future.

5-11-14 [To conference organiser,] Can we agree that radical history would not exclude contributions from people who do not happen to be academics or post-graduates?

5-11-14 [Reply, copied to list] ... I've had a few responses, so it seemed easier to send one reply this way. We utterly agree that 'radical history' (or history in general) is not only done by academics or people working inside the system. Utterly. And, for obvious reasons, it is in some ways easier to be 'radical' when you are not an academic and not forced to conform to certain rules and norms in respect of how you produce and present your work. However, because, for one reason or another, all three of us have decided to get a PhD, we find ourselves needing to negotiate these rules, boundaries and confines in respect of our work and our politics. I think we three struggle with this in different ways and so we decided to organise this conference to see how other postgrads deal with this relationship. From my perspective at least, the subtext to the conference is: can radical history even be done within academia? The longer I stay in academia, the less positive I feel about that... Also, there were strings attached to the funding which stipulated a PGR conference. Therefore, what we have tried to do is include long Q&A sessions (30 mins for each 'theme') as well as a long audience participatory discussion at the end of the day to open things up a bit. We're also not charging an entrance fee and are providing free food and drink. We really hope that you, and others interested in the question, will come with interesting and provocative questions to ask the panellists and students. Finally, we would also like to continue the discussion outside of an explicitly PGR / academic context and, once this is over, would welcome further discussions with people about how we could put on more events which look at 'radical history' outside of an institutional context. We all share your concerns about the importance and utility of 'radical history' and the need to change the now. Many thanks.

6-11-14 Interesting exchanges, that may connect to a radical history in its own right :
Bulletin for the Study of Labour History
Around 1980 were debates along lines of non academic / academic, non professional / professional.  Where labour history existed and who pursued the work?
The debates focused on at least two matters. One, an editorial in the Bulletin that may inadvertently have suggested that professional meant academic trained, because academic training was necessary to be professional. Two, that the History Workshop and especially Raphael Samuel's pushing for emotionally engaged history was counter to this criteria of professional adequacy.  However, one contributor from Ruskin raised the problem that HW was not in fact the originator of labour history, which had its inspiration elsewhere in the college.  There were also comments that the then HWJ Editorial Board may have been less inclined to labour history than it professed.
For a less exclusive arrangement, we might look across the border to Cymru and Llafur, started in 1970/71.  That greater openness may have been because Cymraeg history is very different to English, not least in terms of culture, class, education and learning.
Hope contributions continue.  Maybe they could find expression in staged exchange at some point?  Call for papers anyone?

8-11-14 Hi all, If anyone is interested - and with the view to continuing a discussion on 'radical history' after the conference - we are asking for people to submit responses to the question 'what is radical history?' which we will then publish on the blog. http://radicalhistoryconference.wordpress.com/contributions/ We* would really love it if you could submit pieces along the lines of the short discussion already had on this list as it's an incredibly important point of view. And anything else that you would like to say!

[* Contact details on call for papers above]

And on the relevance of this debate to a particular type of research:

6-11-14  Interesting indeed.
To introduce myself... my history (into the present) is a fusion of activism, policy work and research ... and - more recently, also part-time academia. My background is in monitoring police and intelligence since the 1980s, the focus on corporate spying on campaigners was added a bit more recently.
I am now working with what we have called The Undercover Research Group: a small set of dedicated activist-investigators who individually and collectively have already been diligently researching the subject of state and corporate spying for a number of years. Many exposures in the mainstream media were initially based on the research of activists – several of them directly linked to our group, eventually supported by investigative reporters at the Guardian.
Trying to get funding for the work of some of us (research and building a website), we pitch charities as well as academia ... only to discover that the work is often considered too political for either.
However, I strongly believe in research that is driven by commitment as long as the result is well-sourced. MIT emeritus professor Gary T. Marx (indeed) is convinced that research on dirty tricks cannot be done by academics alone, he said something like “While secrecy seriously hampers research in the field of surveillance, academics rely on the work of investigative journalists, citizens and on the occasional whistle-blower. Ideally, bringing together research from different fronts would result in projects and publications that draw from the best of those worlds”.
Taking this a little further, the story ‘from below’ has to be told, or change will not happen. In their research on terrorism victims in Italy, Bull and Cooke (2013) describe the process that transforms objects of state interference (as a form of state violence) to what they call ‘agents of truth’. They understand ‘the act of storytelling’as a method that complements investigative research, which is of interest as a social process and valuable as a political strategy.
In a similar way, people targeted by undercover operations and those now involved in the research, become campaigners on this issue ‘attributing a public and social meaning’ to their experiences.
Well, this might be an academic way of Bull and Cooke to say what we already know.
Somehow, the label ‘academic’ still seems to add a certain kind of value to one’s work, which we might want to use if it helps the cause, so to say, but needs to be undermined at the same time... have a look at this: http://resistancestudies.org/

NEW from PAST TENSE

A bumper bundle of publications just announced…

2015 LONDON REBEL HISTORY CALENDAR
Only £5.00
Postage & Packing: £1.50

Past Tense’s second annual London Rebel History Calendar, commemorating some of London’s radical, riotous and rebellious (and even some repressive) anniversaries. An interesting and subversive anniversary for every day of next year!
As a contribution to the past 100 years' resistance to war, there’s a fair few World War One dates scattered herein...
In four funky colours, "pithie and profitable for all readers"; how can you afford not to...?

... AND there's EIGHT NEW PAMPHLETS FROM PAST TENSE:- 

1. THE BATTLE FOR HYDE PARK
Ruffians, radicals and ravers, 1855-1994
Twentieth Anniversary Edition.
£1.00
P&P: £1.00

Hyde Park in central London has been the scene of conflicts between the state and its opponents for at least 150 years, with protagonists including Karl Marx, the unemployed, anarchists, and almost every radical or counter-cultural current that has ever breathed the London air. This pamphlet covers some of this tumultuous history of sex, drugs and rioting.The first edition of this publication came out late in 1994, (produced by Practical History, one of the projects from which past tense emerged) shortly after the massive demonstration and riot against the Criminal Justice Act with its repressive provisions against ‘raves’, protests, trespass, and so on.
This new edition, produced for the 20th anniversary of the October 1994 Criminal Justice Act Riot, includes additional material not in the original text.

2. Through a Riot Shield: The 1985 Brixton Riot
£2.00
P&P: £1.00

A rip-roaring account of the events of September 1985, when a large-scale riot broke out in Brixton, in angry response to the police shooting and crippling of Cherry Groce, mother of 6, in a dawn raid while searching for her son.

3. In the Shadow of the SPG
Racist policing, Resistance, and Black Power in 1970s Brixton
£3.00
P&P: £1.00

“The revolt of Brixton’s young blacks against the police did not begin in 1981... thousands and thousands of young blacks have grown up in British society having little contact with any other section of British society but the police and courts...”
In the ten years before the Brixton Riot of April 1981, Brixton’s black youth faced routine attacks by the local police, backed by regular military-style invasions by the Special Patrol Group. But racism,
harassment, beatings and arrest sparked strong resistance...

4. Strange Confused Tumults of the Minde:
Wanderings in the past, present and future of radical pamphleteering. £1.50
P&P: £1.00

Since the beginning of printing, political pamphlets have been one of the most popular way to spread radical ideas. Short, sharp, easy to read and distribute; by their very nature, pamphlets lent themselves to underground ideas. But in the age of blogs and twitter, does political pamphleteering have a future?

5. We Are Not Removing: The 1915 Glasgow Rent Strike.
£2.00
P&P: £1.00

In 1915, during World War 1, one of the largest rent strikes in urban history broke out in parts of Glasgow, in response to steep rent rises imposed by private landlords. 20,000 joined the refusal to pay rent, organizing a grassroots movement that physically resisted evictions and contested them in the courts, and forcing the British government to passing legislation to control rent levels. The Rent Strike was a significant factor in the development of subsidised public housing. Past tense WW1 series, no 1.

6. Mutinous Swine: A Strike of Jailed  Conscientious Objectors in Wandsworth Prison, 1918-19
£1.00
P&P: £1.00

In the centenary of World War One being commemorated by the British government, local councils, schools, museums and the press and media of all stripes, lip service is being paid to the fact that several thousand mostly young men refused to fight. But accounts like this one, of how they were treated, are unlikely to be given anything like the airing that the orthodox script of ‘national unity’, ‘a war for democracy’, ‘the spirit of sacrifice’ will receive.
Of some 16,000 or more men who refused to be conscripted to serve in the slaughter and claimed Conscientious Objector status, at least 6000 were court-martialled and jailed.
But for many imprisonment was far from the end of the story. In prisons and work camps, many were beaten, tortured and starved. And they fought back: through hunger strikes, refusal to work, underground newspapers, and agitation.
This pamphlet details just one episode from this long hidden history. The humour and stubbornness of their rebel spirit shines through the years.
past tense World War 1 Series, no 2

7. The Wilhelmshaven Revolt, by Ikarus: A Chapter of the Revolutionary Movement in the German Navy 1918-1919.
£3.00
P&P: £1.00

In 1918 the war-weary German sailors and soldiers mutinied, and a radical uprising launched the German Revolution. Wilhemshaven, on the North Sea, was a leading centre of the revolt. The revolutionary ‘Ikarus’, a participant in the events at Wilhelmshaven, gives an account of this
crucial episode in the mutinies that ended World War 1.
past tense World War 1 Series, no 3

8. William Covell and the Troubles at Enfield in 1659
JM Patrick
£1.00
P&P: £1.00

An enclosure struggle sparks a discussion of how land should be used, in the wake of the English Civil War.
A great revolution always involves changes in land ownership. That the Puritan Revolution was no exception is proved by the story of agrarian riots in 1659, over property rights to Enfield Chase, a tract of land in Middlesex about nine miles from London. The struggle was between ‘Intruders’ who had purchased part of the Chase and ‘Inhabitants’ who had traditional feudal property rights, including rights of common, over the area.
Their quarrel reproduced in miniature the conflict between moneyed men attached to the new
capitalism and men whose wealth consisted mainly of “feudal” rights and properties - the conflict which underlay the English Revolution. Just as the agrarian struggles of the Diggers helped to provoke the communistic writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the struggle at Enfield inspired the collectivist theories of local thinker William Covell.

we ALSO have a new poster:

• We Remember: THE BURNING OF NEWGATE PRISON BY THE GORDON RIOTERS, 6th
June 1780
£1.00 (double-sided A3 poster)
P&P: £1.00

Intended to be the first in a new poster series, 'We Remember', commemorating events, struggles, movements and individuals from UK radical history that inspire us; 'The Burning of Newgate' not only depicts the cataclysmic destruction of this most hated English prison, but relates some of the 700 years of resistance to Newgate that the Gordon rioters formed just a part of...

AND HOW CAN YOU GET HOLD OF THEM?

So the above are all available from the publications page at website:
www.past-tense.org.uk
where you can pay by paypal.

Alternatively by post, from:

Past tense
c/o 56a Infoshop
56 Crampton Street
London
SE17 3AE
These publications will soon also be available in London’s radical bookshops.

Remembering the real:

Refusal...

Resistance...

                                                                    Revolt!

AND from a kindred-spirit group:
A booklet Bristol Radical History Group have recently published on resistance to WW1 in the Forest of Dean and in Bristol.

Coal On One Hand, Men On The Other: The Forest of Dean Miners’ Association and the First World War 1910 - 1920 by Ian Wright is a detailed case-study of resistance to conscription and the 'comb out' amongst the 6,000 coal miners of the forest. This struggle was principally over control of the union, the Forest of Dean Miners’ Association, whose leadership was collaborating directly with the government in its policy of intensifying coal production whilst conscripting miners' for the western front. It exposes the process for forcing miners' into the British army which challenges the idea that formal Conscientious Objection was an option for many working class people in 'war industries'.
More details here. 
The booklet is RRP £5 (A5, 106 pages with photos/maps), but can be purchased at trade rates (SOR £3.50) for bookstalls and groups by contacting BRHG at brh@brh.org.uk....

Illustrated talk: Tottenham, 26 November.

Emily Johns and Gabriel Carlyle of Peace News will be speaking on the subject of 

Movements and People (not just Conscientious Objectors) who opposed World War 1.

The event is being co-organised by Tottenham Quakers and Haringey CND.

http://theworldismycountry.info/

http://theworldismycountry.info/talk-in-tottenham-26-nov/

Another chance to see...

DOCUMENTARY FILM ON THE INSPIRING LIFE OF SYLVIA PANKHURST.

The next meeting of the London Remembering the Real World War 1 Group will take the form of 

a FILM SCREENING of 'Sylvia Pankhurst: Everything is Possible'

 on Thursday 6 November, at 7 p.m. (note : earlier than usual start time).

 at  (usual venue) 88 Fleet Street, St. Bride’s Ave., EC4 1DH.

(Blackfriars Tube)

www.therealww1.wordpress.com

<< This feature length documentary chronicles Sylvia Pankhurst’s life as suffragette and revolutionary socialist. She was imprisoned more than any other suffragette for her tireless campaigning and unlike her mother Emmeline and sister Christabel, who dropped the fight for votes for women to support the 1914 war effort, Sylvia refused to sacrifice the fight for universal suffrage until it was won. Her opposition to the war and her internationalism were and remain exemplary and her bravery in fighting for equality and opposing all misanthropic trends puts her, as one interviewee put it, ‘up there with the angels.’ >>                www.worldwrite.org.uk/sylviapankhurst

Previouslyon this blog: Sylvia Pankhurst’s Variously Radical Life 

SHS Conference: Not Such a Lovely War

Saturday 1 November 2014

The Socialist History Society are holding a Day conference on:
 the origins and consequences of the First World War
" that will present a view very different from that officially celebrated by the media and government."
Speakers confirmed so far: 
Kevin Morgan on 'Class cohesion and spurious patriotism: trade union internationalism in the First World War',
Stan Newens on 'Imperialist Rivalries and the Origins of the First World War'; 
Keith Flett on 'So Bloody Much to Oppose - grassroots opposition to World War One', 
Helen Boak on '"Down with the war! We don't want to starve any longer.": German working-class women and the First World War'. 
Helen Toomey on ‘The arms trade before, during and after the First World War’.

Venue: 
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL. 
11.00 am to 4.30 pm. (NB: time as originally listed was incorrect) 
Free attendance.

Also from the SHS events list:

Tuesday 4 November 2014	Stop the First World War. Pietro Dipaola on "1914 and the Schism in International Anarchism"; Tony Zurbrugg on "Not Our War" Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL. 7.00 p.m.
Tuesday 11 November 2014	Stop the First World War. Ian Birchall on "From Slaughter to Mutiny"; Christopher Read on "WWI and the Russian Revolution to 1923" Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL. 7.00 p.m.

Come and see us at the Anarchist Bookfair this Saturday!

Sat 18th October 10am - 6pm at Queen Mary's University, on Mile End Road. See map and further details on the website via the link below.
http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/

Radical History Network of North East London will have a stall at the bookfair with our general leaflet, pamphlets from many of the most recent meetings plus details of many of the past meetings. Also other relevant literature and booklets. If you missed a meeting/discussion on a particular topic you might want to get yourself a copy of the booklets produced from them.

We haven't got enough people to look after the stall for the whole day - if you are a supporter and are coming anyway, and can spare an hour or two. help would be  welcome.

But please still come and say hello either way.

Next RaHN meeting will be on the topic of Radical Childcare and will be on Wednesday 10th Dec. (Full title and specifics not yet confirmed - but if you have any experience/interest in this topic please get in touch beforehand, or just come along to the meeting - all contributions welcome!)

Meeting that may be of special interest to RaHN supporters:

5.00pm – 6.30pm

Terrorism, Feminism and a Century of War, 1914-2014

In June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a student influenced by both anarchism and nationalism, shot Franz Ferdinand and triggered the First World War. Tragically, many of Europe's socialist and feminists then supported this horrific war. However, a few courageous activists, such as Sylvia Pankhurst and the East London suffragettes, did oppose the bloodbath. Mutinies and revolutions across Europe eventually ended the First World War. But capitalism - and its wars - continued for another century. As the capitalist bloodbath continues in the Middle East and the Ukraine, what hope is there for a movement that finally ends war? 

Speakers: Bojan Aleksov on Gavrilo Princip; Laura Schwartz on 'Feminism and the Great War'; Gabriel Levy on the civil war in the Ukraine.

Organised by: 'Remembering the real World War One' (London)

http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/whatson.html

Frank Kitz memorial stone fund

Nick Heath writes:

“I have been in contact with a member of Frank Kitz's family. Frank Kitz, you may remember, was one of the leading lights in the Socialist League, and a working class anarchist who devoted his life to social emancipation.* He died in extreme poverty and is buried in a common grave in Morden cemetery in London.

I and members of the Kitz family would like to honour the life of FK by providing a memorial stone at the cemetery. The inauguration of the stone would be marked by a ceremony.”

Those who would like to contribute to a fund to pay for the stone can make cheques or postal orders out to N. Heath and send

c/o London AF, Freedom Bookshop,

Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High Street,

London E1 7QX

* and “One of the instigators of the 1892 Lammas Day Land Riot in Leyton!”

Kitz, Frank (1849-1923)

Works by Frank Kitz

·     Kitz, Frank. Recollections and Reflections.

Works about Frank Kitz

·     Heath, Nick. Kitz, Frank, 1849-1923.

·     Kavanagh, Mat. Some little known anarchists: Frank Kitz.

·     Kitz, Frank. Recollections and Reflections.

http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/15dvs1

Events: London Anarchist Book Fair and After

25 October 2014, London: 

Emily and Gabriel from Peace News will be talking about the 

feminist opponents of World War One

at Feminism in London 2014. 1.30 – 2pm in the Jeffrey Hall.

http://theworldismycountry.info/feminist-opponents-of-ww1-25-oct/

[and before:] HACKNEY FLASHERS EXPOSED:
40th Anniversary of a Women’s Photographic Collective, 1974-1980

Sunday 12th October 2014, 2-5pm

Chats Palace, 42-44 Brooksby’s Walk, London E9 6DF

The Hackney Flashers Collective was active as a feminist agitprop group in
London 1974 -1980. The group produced two photographic/graphic exhibitions
addressing complex ideas about women’s lives as workers and as mothers,
inside and outside the home:  Women and Work and Who’s Holding the Baby.

To mark the recent launch of the Hackney Flashers website the group are
calling a meeting of the generations: how did they work as a collective in
the 1970s? How is the struggle for the most basic of women’s rights being
carried on now, forty years later?  A rare chance to see some of the
exhibition panels from  the time and to discuss work still to be done.
Free and open to all. Should be exciting!

http://hackneyflashers.com/2014/06/21/coming-soon-40th-anniversary-event/

(some bits Iabout the group here:
https://hackneyhistory.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-hackney-flashers/ )

Terrorism, Feminism and a Century of War, 1914-2014

Bojan Aleksov on Gavrilo Princip, the assassin who triggered World War One

Laura Schwartz on feminism and the Great War

Gabriel Levy on Putin and the war in the Ukraine

5pm, Mason Lecture Theatre

Anarchist Bookfair

Saturday 18 Oct.

Queen Mary Uni., Mile End Rd. E1 4NS.

See www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk for more on a day of meetings: Peter Linebaugh, Middle East, Africa, Guy Debord, feminism, anti-fascism, abortion, workplace & housing struggles etc…

****************

Paine, Carlile, Cobbett, Chartists, Marx, Morris, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Matchwomen, Pankhurst, Goldman

‘RADICAL HISTORY OF FLEET STREET’ WALK

with PETER LINEBAUGH,

author of: 'The London Hanged'

Sunday 19 October, 2.30pm

St. Bride’s Avenue, Fleet St. EC4 1DH. Blackfriars Tube.

maydayrooms.org

***************                                               

FILM SCREENING

'Sylvia Pankhurst: Everything is Possible'

Thursday 6 November, 7pm.

88 Fleet Street,

St. Bride’s Ave., EC4 1DH.

Blackfriars Tube.

www.therealww1.wordpress.com  

Nottingham

A unique opportunity to hear from an activist from the Balkans who has been on a speaking tour about Central European and Balkan uprisings from an anarchist perspective. She was at the recent Balkan anarchist bookfair event in Bosnia and is in a position to talk more generally about the latest developments in the region.

Venue: The Sparrows' Nest.

http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/index.php/events-at-the-nest/95-event-october-2014 

Date: Tuesday 21st October 2014.

Time: Starts 7pm (ends 9pm approx.)

We would appreciate an indication of numbers so please us email in advance info@thesparrowsnest.org.uk to say you are coming (or if you need directions), but equally just turn up.

Note also: the meeting takes place following the London Anarchist Bookfair and the AFem2014 anarcha-feminist conference so we will have a lot of new goodies and information to share!