Reminder:
N.B. Although the event itself is not until next summer, the deadline for proposals is September 14th 2015:
"Please send a 250 - 500 word proposal, including a description of the format and content of the proposed paper, session, workshop, meeting, screenings, or performance. Include an abstract if appropriate, and the names of any other speakers or participants. AT THE TOP OF YOUR PROPOSAL PLEASE INDICATE THE CONFERENCE STRAND (A –E above) TO WHICH YOU THINK YOUR PROPOSAL RELATES MOST CLOSELY. Please submit your proposal to Katy Pettit, Raphael Samuel History Centre administrator (k.pettit@uel.ac.uk) by Monday September 14th."
===========================
Independent Working Class Education special
Events during Edinburgh Festival.
[Both
events free: details in the web links.]
Monday 17th
August at 1.00
WORD POWER BOOKS
43-45 West Nicolson Street
Edinburgh
EH8 9DB
Keith Venables and Rob Turnbull
will introduce
"A Manifesto for Independent
Working Class Education"
Tuesday 18th
August at 7.30
Ragged University at
Leith Beer Company, 58 The
Shore, Leith,
Edinburgh EH6 6SL
Keith Venables on "A World to Win: learning from the past - making the
future"
[following Donald Carrick on
Genghis Kahn]
Food available.
FUTURE IWCE EVENTS (See website) include:
"Women Making
History"
19th
September. London. Unite the Union HQ (new
venue)
Programme:
Researching
What does the Record say?
Women, Work and Trade Unions,
Lessons for Today.
"Rewriting IWCE:
making it make sense for me!"
30th
September. Leicester Friends Meeting House.
===========================
Peterloo
picnic - 196th anniversary commemoration
On
Sunday 16 August from 1 to 3pm the Peterloo Memorial Campaign group are
organising an event in the open space in front of Manchester Central Conference
Centre, to mark the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre.
There
will be banners, marchers arriving, and the reading of the names of those who
died, as before. This year the organisers are also calling on people to bring a
simple meal of bread and cheese, to participate in The Peterloo Picnic,
'thereby completing what the protesters originally set out to do'. There will
be a giant spiderweb map, with picnic blankets marking each of the towns that
sent marchers to St Peter's Fields.
The
event is free but tickets should be booked in advance here.
===========================
Working Class Movement Library, Salford
51 The Crescent,
Salford,, M5 4WX
The re-arranged talk about the 1945 welfare reforms by Pat Thane takes place on Wednesday 16 September at 2 p.m.
The Library exhibition Spirit of `45: from warfare to welfare is open Wednesdays to Fridays 1-5pm (and the first Saturday of the month 10am-4pm) until 25 September.
'Protect' - new installation at
WCML
This
installation by Al Johnson, shared between ourselves and the People's History Museum,
celebrates the determination shown by the miners and their families against
implacable political determinism during the miners’ strike 1984-1985.
Al is a sculptor and was commissioned by the Mitchell Arts Centre,
Stoke-on-Trent, to make a new work to commemorate the miners' strike. Protect is the result
of that commission. The curved police riot shield acts as a central form
for the installation. These freestanding objects, both riot shield and
protective armour, are made from red stained plywood. On each shield a
statement, slogan, or quote evokes the mood and moment of the strike.
The installation is on view
until 17 September whenever the Library is open, although we particularly
encourage you to come during our 'drop-in' times of Wednesdays to Fridays
1-5 p.m.
Keir Hardie centenary
conference - booking now open
Saturday 26 September 2015 will mark the centenary of the death of James Keir Hardie at
the comparatively young age of 59. But in those 59 years Hardie had changed the
political landscape of Britain. This conference, which takes place at WCML,
aims to celebrate the impact Hardie had on British society and the legacy he
left for those who followed.
Programme
There will be a keynote address by David Howell from the University of York,
followed by papers on Hardie and Wales, Hardie and Ireland, 'Hardie, Carlyle
and the Hero’ and ‘Hardie and the Great Unrest: Struggles, Strikes, and
Internationalism’. Full programme details at www.wcml.org.uk/keirhardie100.
The conference is organised by the Working Class Movement Library and De
Montfort University, Leicester
and is sponsored and supported by the North West Labour History Society, the
Society for the Study of Labour History and the Keir Hardie Society.
Conference
Registration
£20 waged and £7.50 unwaged including refreshments and lunch. Places must
be reserved and paid for in advance. Please email Royston Futter, trustees@wcml.org.uk
Heritage Open Days tours
The
Library is marking Heritage Open Days 2015 with 'behind-the-scenes' tours on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 September at
2pm. You can book in advance via enquiries@wcml.org.uk.
For details of Heritage Open Days events across the UK head to www.heritageopendays.org.uk.
Talk on William Morris and stained glass To
mark Heritage Open Days there will be a talk at 11am on Saturday 12 September
at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre, Tameside Central Library, Old
Street, Ashton-Under-Lyne OL6 7SG. Paul Renshaw will speak about ‘The stained
glass of William Morris in Greater Manchester’. His talk will focus on Tameside
and incorporate other stained glass designers in the Victorian era. Attendees
will then be free to visit any of the historical buildings that are open and see
the stained glass.
If you would like to book a place on the talk please ring 0161 342 4242.
Autumn talks at the Library
WCML's
Wednesday afternoon talks start up again on 16 September at 2pm with a talk by Pat Thane (postponed
from June) on the 1945 welfare reforms. This talk runs alongside the Library
exhibition Spirit of '45: from warfare to
welfare, which is on until 25 September.
Future talks: 30 September
2pm 'All our own
work': the pioneers of Hebden Bridge and their co-operative mill
Andrew Bibby introduces his new book, which tells the tale of the early
worker-run cooperatives in Britain and in particular the fustian mill in Hebden
Bridge which operated for almost fifty years as a cooperative.
14 October 2pm Nat, Sam
and Ramona - the story of a Spanish Civil War photograph
A talk by Marshall Mateer based on new research from items in the WCML archive.
This is the story of three volunteers – Nat Cohen, Sam Masters and Ramona Siles
Garcia - during the early months of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. [See previous post for the Joe Jacobs connection]
28 October 2pm Artist Tim Dunbar will give a talk alongside his exhibition Guernica in Manchester
re-representation, which will open on 2 October.
Full details of all
forthcoming events at the Library can be found at www.wcml.org.uk/events
===========================
Politics and
Pride
The People's History Museum (Manchester) is celebrating LGBT+ history and activism
over the bank holiday weekend. They say: 'Discover how the history of
gender and sexuality has been affected by society, politics and activism over
the past 200 years in our LGBT historytour on Friday
28 August. Then head down to venues on the Oxford Road
Corridor for Political Pride,
a weekend of alternative events to take Pride back to its roots on 29-30 August. We’ll
be there banner making, badge making and displaying some of our LGBT+
collections. The programme is packed with workshops, discussions, performances
and free family friendly fun'.
===========================
Wakefield Socialist History
Group News
*On Sunday 9th August we
have the Kinsley Evictions Guided Walk. It starts 2pm at Winding Wheel by
Fitzwilliam Railway Station. The guide is John Gill.
*On Saturday 12th September we have the
Featherstone Massacre Commemoration: more details to follow.
*On Saturday 17 October, the Wakefield Socialist
History Group are holding an event at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street,
Wakefield..starting at 1pm.
THE
FALL OF SAIGON: Forty Years Since the Vietnam War.
Speakers:
Matthew Caygill (Left Unity) and Stephen Wood (Alliance for Workers Liberty)
Free
admission and free light buffet
From the Convenor:
The US left Vietnam in a state, Nick
Davies (2015) says, of "physical ruin." There were unexploded
shells and landmines. Agent Orange had destroyed the forests.
Orphans roamed the street and Saigon was in the grip of a heroin epidemic.
The US had promised $3.5 billion in
reconstruction at the Paris Peace talks. When it lost he war it didn't
pay a penny. Rather it leaned on the IMF, World Bank and UNESCO to make
sure they too denied Vietnam any help.
In the early days the country struggled. Peasants
were given ration cards in exchange for their crops so there was no incentive
to produce.
Faced with these difficulties the Party
abandoned the command economy in the mid to late 80s in favour of "market
socialism." Entrepreneurs were allowed to "colonise"
spaces not filled by state managed enterprises (Brown 2015).
The 7th Party Congress -five years later-
ratified policies that would integrate Vietnam "into regional and global
systems." These changes were known collectively as "doi
moi" - renewal. Foreign investors flocked in and, in 1994, the US
finally lifted its' trade embargo.
Davies (2015) says there were elements in the
Party that still wanted to defend "socialism." Poverty was
reduced. Primary schools were built. There was free health care.
Around 2000 however the rate of change
accelerated and the political balance shifted. State industries were sold
off. Vietnam joined the World Trade Organisation. It became a fully
integrated member of the global capitalist economy.
Today Vietnam "no longer stands up for the
poor." The country's labour code has been watered down (at the behest of
multi-nationals). The "official" unions do little and the
minimum wage has been frozen. Charges have reappeared for education and
health. And all the time party officials pocket money from
privatisation. "Transparency International" says Vietnam is
phenomenally corrupt.
*On Saturday 21 November we look at the
Left's attitude past and present to Europe at a meeting, "Europe and the
Left" at the Red Shed. Again it starts at 1pm.
===========================
Still time to see:
DREAM TO CHANGE THE WORLD: THE LIFE & LEGACY OF JOHN LA ROSE
An exhibition running until 29 August 2015
Islington Museum,
245 St John Street,
London
EC1V 4NB
The Dream to Change the World exhibition is the culminating event in the George Padmore Institute's five year project to conserve and open up to the public John L Rose's personal archives.
John La Rose (1927-2006) was a poet, essayist, publisher, trade unionist, cultural and political activist. He belonged to a Caribbean tradition of radical and revolutionary activism whose input has reverberated across
continents.
===========================
Conference: Early Bird booking up to 13th September
Health Through Peace - November 2015 - A two-day forum for health professionals and campaigners interested in issues of
war, violence and conflict.
The organiser writes: It's shaping up to be a really interesting event. I was in Friends House
yesterday, and am excited that we'll be filling 'The Light' with so many great
speakers, ideas, and people: it's an inspiring building, and will lend itself
well to our aims!
