March 26th & Beyond | Global Assemblies / Rome and London United

[Mark Barrett]

Hi there

I managed to get the following article put up on the New Statesman site, but
they took out all the links I'd put in (see below) and published it at the
end of the day when they promised me it would be up 1st thing (otherwise I
would have given up on them and sent the following around sooner!) plus they
manged to put it up somewhere no-one will ever look with a crappy picture to
boot.

Anyway, it's at
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2011/03/assemblies-across-assemblybut
the fully linked article is set out below.

Would be great if lots of people could comment on the NS site so we can show
them how many of us are up for this so that next time they will put stuff in
a more prominent place!)

And of course, please circulate the following which includes links to
Unicommon in Rome - SOLIDARITY! - if you have time.

Thanks and up the Common Revolutionary Global Network.. !!!

Mark
 <http://www.resist26.org/>

 *What are we Protesting For ?
The Power of the People's Assembly!*

George Monbiot has recently
written<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/march-26-protest-aims-first-draft>that
the creative groups mobilising for March 26th need to become
'propositional' and not just oppositional. He is right about this, yet
he misses the main point. For many of us, the fight against austerity is
about far more than merely resisting job losses and reduced services, and
calling for state reform. Fundamentally, it is an opportunity to bring into
being a new political model based on the power of democratic structures, or
what some of us call people's
assemblies<http://www.socialistproject.ca/relay/relay30_gindin.pdf>.
Therefore, our proposition is not to the state, but to our fellow marchers
and the wider public.

To sum it up, here then is our simple manifesto:

(1) We are fighting for a new model of
democracy<https://groups.google.com/group/project2012/web/crd-principles?hl=en>,
and not for mere state reforms
 (2) As was shown with the Iraq invasion, we cannot defeat the cuts with
marches from A to B
(3) We want to go beyond defence of the welfare state and organise to
liberate people. By way of a common politics of constitutional
change<http://www.peopleincommon.org/archive/C421.html>, community
welfare or 'common-fare'<http://www.gemeinwohl-oekonomie.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Common_Welfare_Economy.pdf>
.

(4) These aims cannot be achieved by old political structures such as
parties, unions and sectarian pressure groups.
(5) They can be achieved ONLY through new forms of political
organisation<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/about/>
(6) We are calling these new, common organisational forms People's
Assemblies. PAs are a non-sectarian, strategic organizing tool which, when
joined up have the potential to transform
society<http://www.aworldtowin.net/documents/assemblies.pdf>everywhere.
(7) In Canada the Greater Toronto Workers’
Assembly<http://www.workersassembly.ca/>is building a movement of
trade unionists, workers, students, and social
movements which cuts across the usual sectarian lines. And there are many
other examples worldwide
<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/03/international-examples-of-peoples-assemblies/>of
Popular Assemblies springing up in recent years. It is clear that Assemblies
have the potential to build a movement to peacefully transform the way that
services are owned and run locally and nationally, but also internationally
too.
(8) After the march on Saturday, we should like to see People's Assemblies
spring up in cities and rural locations across the country and further
afield.
(9) During last December's UK student protests, campus-based
assemblies<http://studentassembly.org.uk/>of students and local
anti-cuts campaigners temporarily appeared across the
country, with over 300 in attendance at Cambridge
University<http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/assembly-fight-voldemorts-cuts>and
a regular Student Assembly established in London.
(10) More recently, anti-cuts campaigners occupied  Lambeth Town Hall and
declared themselves to be a People’s
Assembly<http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/23/protesters-occupy-lambeth-hall-cuts?INTCMP=SRCH>
in
solidarity with the movement
(11) At the recent National Educational
Assembly<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/01/national-education-assembly-reports/>and
the European Assembly in Paris last February students and workers
voted
for the formation of campus-based and city-wide assemblies across the UK and
Europe
(12) On March 24th-26th in addition to actions in the UK, there will also be
international demonstrations
<http://www.thecommonseminar.org/kafca/kafca-A4-screen.pdf>against austerity
and the financialisation of human life. Many of these actions have been
organised by Popular Assemblies across Europe and
world-wide<http://www.emancipating-education-for-all.org/SoR_2011>.

(13) After the march this Saturday, we plan to camp the night in Hyde Park
and Trafalgar Square.
(14) On Sunday, we are inviting everyone to participate in a National
Constituent Assembly in Hyde Park, from around 11am to plan future strategy
together, and in particular to commit to building permanent People's
Assemblies in their local communities so that we can begin the process of
democratic revolution here in the UK, Europe and world-wide.
(15)  It is possible to imagine, and collectively build a world in which
everything gets properly looked after through commonly owned and run public
services working alongside the best of the services we already have. This is
our dream, to perfect democracy and the political economy of public service
provision so everyone can live in dignity, and be empowered to shape our
culture together as equals. The key to making this great dream a
reality is the development of new structures, working People's Assemblies
and the embrace of a new local to global politics of the common.
(16) Thomas Paine said it far better than we can: "we have it in our power
to build the world anew"
(17) For more information, have a look at the People's
Assemblies<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/> web-site,
and help us make the Network grow. Better still, join us on Saturday night
and on Sunday morning in the park!

Mark Barrett

The Faculty of Arts University of La Sapienza -Rome is now occupied in
solidarity to London struggle!

Moreover on the 26th of March italian students will be in London, to
block the city together with English students. UniCommon will be there
with those are fighting against the rising fees and european
austerity.  It will not be a demo like the others: it is a european
day of struggle launched in London on 30th of January, a common day
after month of resistance.
We have learnt to block the city through the savage demos in Paris
during the NoCPE movement of 2006, while in London students have build
up book-shields like us in Rome last year. This amazing sharing of
practice bring us to London on side by side to Puerto Rico,
Wisconsin's students and Maghreb people.
We want to go to London to say clearly to the English Government, as
well as to the Italian's one, that the only cuts we like are those on
army and war! Cut the war not our education!
At the same time we are organizing a huge demonstration in Rome to
support "Common goods" as energy, knowledge and water, we will block
the city and make actions to support UK mobilization starting from
now: we have occupied the Faculty of Arts, La Sapienza University,
Rome!

26 March: Meeting point is at P.le Aldo Moro, University La Sapienza, Rome.


----------------------------

El 26 de marzo los estudiantes italianos se ponen en marcha  hacia
Londres, para bloquear la ciudad juntos con los estudiantes de Londres
 UniCommon decidió estar presente, junto con aquellos que están
luchando en contra de un aumento en las tasas de matrícula y contra
las medidas de austeridad en Europa. El 26 de marzo no es un
acontecimiento como los demás:  es un día europeo de lucha
lanzado en
Londres el 30 de enero, un día de todos, construido a través de estos
meses de lucha.
 
Hemos aprendido a bloquear la ciudad gracias al
movimiento contra el CPE enParís en 2006, en Londres  han construido
libros escudos como se hizo en Roma en diciembre, es  esta increíble
circulacion de las luchas y de las prácticas que nos ha llevado a
Londres,  y nos pone al lado de los estudiantes de Puerto Rico, New
York y con los compañeros del Magreb.
Llegamos a Londres para decir
muy claramente, tanto al gobierno  Inglés que al gobierno italiano,
que es posible cortar solo el gasto militar! Cut the war not our
education!
El mismo día en Roma está organizada una grande manifestación para los
bienes comunes como la energía, el agua, el saber, donde iremos a
bloquear  la ciudad y haremos acciones  en apoyo de las protestas
británicas.

Nos vemos en P.le Aldo Moro, Universidad La Sapienza, Roma.


----

About Book Bloc project:

Knowledge is Power: Let's arm ourselves!!
We protect ourselves from the dismissal of knowledge by creating book-
shields, arming in cooperation, between a book and the other. We
occupied squares, monuments, streets, schools and universities. We
defended ourselves from the clashes of police, we spoke different
languages, different stories. But a thing unites us, behind the
shields: rage, because ignorance is not neutral. We face an attack to
our desire by the governments of half Europe, in the name of an
unprecedented austerity. We must defend ourselves.
Plexus, Nexus...Book Bloc: we are in Rome, London, Cairo, Tunis,
Wisconsin, Puerto Rico...We've been in the struggles, changing them,
subverting their national borders and their grammar. UniCommon starts
from the beginning beyond the national space. The Book Bloc project is
born immediately in the striated space of borders, in its unbearable
segmentations within the university, the knowledge, our bodies.
National borders are like disciplines: they must be destroyed!

UniCommon

info: www.unicommon.org
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