Art in El Salvador

I have to confess to a quite extensive ignorance, until very recently, of the rich artistic culture of the tiny Central American country of El Salvador. Above the main entrance of Westminster Abbey, here in London, there stands a rendition in stone of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated on March 24 1980 by a CIA-backed death squad while saying mass, in the early stages of what would become a horrific, decade-long civil war.

So my abiding impression of this tiny country was one of darkness and pain.

What a delightful surprise it was, therefore, to discover the work of an artist like Fernando Llort, a Salvadoran artist who died only this year. Llort, described by some cultural institutions in the country as El Salvador's National Artist, produced bright, colourful, joyous paintings and murals, as well as a range of handicrafts. They have been described by some as reminiscent of the playfulness of Joan Miro.

Llort originally studied architecture before moving to Europe to continue his studies in theology in France and then Belgium, before settling on art while in the USA. To escape the tense political situation in the cities and large towns of his home country, Llort and a group of other artists moved to the town of La Palma, in the mountains up in the north of El Salvador, quite close to the border with Honduras.

Here they led a simple life, getting to know the landscape and people of the town well, and where Llort began to paint in the simple, two-dimensional primary colours he would later become synonymous with, where nature blends with day-to-day rural life. They carved handicrafts out of wood and sold them from their own Semilla de Dios (Seed of God) workshop, inspiring a local handicrafts movement, with many more cooperative workshops soon opening up in the local area.

Llort maintained his connections with the local handicrafts movement around La Palma even after he was forced to return to San Salvador.

You can see the work of Fernando Llort on his official website: https://www.fernando-llort.com

Check out my NEW May Day design on Red Bubble!

If you like the Art Nouveau stylings of my May Day pencil drawing you may want to check out the higher resolution images now up on Red Bubble:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/russmcp/works/31544437-may-day

Thanks to the magic of Red Bubble you can also wear the design as a T-shirt, put it on your wall, or should you wish, get it as a greeting card to fill with messages of solidarity for your friends and family.

Corporate Watch Pose Alternatives to Capitalism

How many times do you hear people say something like: "Look, I know capitalism isn't perfect, but what are the alternatives?"

To go some way towards answering this question, Corporate Watch UK have collected an interesting and illuminating collections of articles and reports in the Alternatives section of their website. Here you will find articles on the worker-run fair trade food cooperative Zaytoun - which aims to give a fair deal to Palestinian farmers - and democratic confederalism in Kurdistan, as well as analysis of the Eurozone crisis and much more.

It's well worth a visit, and not just for the amazing artwork on display. 

The independent micro state of Sweetstopia 2015

This is a very well put together little 16 minute documentary by the Drift Report about last years' occupation of the Sweets Way Estate in Barnet, north London. Sweets Way has been one of the many frontlines in the gentrification of London, which has been transforming the city from a place where ordinary people live into a mere investment opportunity for the global super rich.

The Sweets Way occupation lasted many months, as vulnerable social tenants held out against eviction by private developer Annington Homes, supported by young and seasoned housing and land rights activists. As time went by the site developed into "Sweetstopia", which had aspirations to be an independent micro state, a desire rooted in contemporary history with its echoes of Frestonia (the community that occupied Freston Road in west London back in the late 1970s).

Its a good short film, well worth a watch, as it features some beautiful and inspiring murals, along with a brief explanation of practical DIY permaculture. 

In the autumn of 2015 bailiffs finally succeeded in evicting the last tenants and occupiers (including a disabled father), and the area has become a fenced off ghost town. It is inspiring how long they held out, and how much support they received. I think some supporters may have moved on to running the nearby Dollis Valley Resist Community Centre.

London...where resistance is fertile!

Yorkley Court Fundraiser

Related to my previous post on here, I wanted to share this powerful song by Muddy Summers & The Dirty Field Whores. It is filled with beautiful music and fiery lyrics, and has been recorded as a fundraiser for the more than twenty human beings who have been made homeless by the eviction of Yorkley Court Community Farm, to help them rebuild their homes and lives.

If you have the cash then do please click along to https://muddysummers.bandcamp.com/track/landgrabber-for-yccf and donate what you can.

If you don't have the cash you can still share the song with anyone you know who might enjoy it.

One love x

The need to reclaim the fields

So, Yorkley Court Community Farm, the land occupation down near Lydney in the Forest of Dean, is under siege. The possession order has finally been served, and the land rights activists involved have now apparently scattered into the surrounding woods.
Within the current framework of UK land law, this was all sadly inevitable, in spite of several instances of successful eviction resistance at the site over the last couple of years, it now seems that the prime movers will need to find a new site or fresh tactics for highlighting the gross inequalities of land distribution in England and Wales.
Sadly, I was never in a position to visit Yorkley Court. Now it seems I never will. So it goes.
One of the values of occupations like this is not necessarily their permanence or longevity, although undoubtedly more can be achieved within a given community over a longer time frame, nevertheless a feeling of permanence may inevitably run the risk of contributing to a sense of entrenchment both in membership and imagination, as members become more fixated on the day to day running of the space and less on challenging the dominant culture.
What matters is the example of another way.
This is as true of Yorkley Court as it was of other land occupations of the last five years or so, including some I have visited and reported on here and elsewhere such as the Hounslow Community Land Project and Runnymede Eco Village. Where else can people go to find ordinary women, children and men, no different from themselves, who have chosen instead of endlessly theorising or petitioning for a better and more equitable world, to create a working model in the here and now? By the very nature of their work they create a literal 'demonstration' of an alternative, more ecological and liberated future, that any visitor can bear witness to. Some passersby may be so inspired they even choose to become a part of it themselves.
I have little doubt that those who participate, at whatever level, in experiments such as this remain forever changed by the experience, their awareness of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this way and life informed by their own direct experience rather than any second-hand testimony such as this.

Commoning and Commons Rising

"Gentrification" is a term used to describe the process whereby a previously low rent neighbourhood sees a shift in the core demographics of its population, usually driven by a combination of factors, including increasing numbers of affluent, middle class professionals moving to the area, pushing up rents and providing the economic basis for a more consumer-driven local economy. Other factors usually play a part as well however, not least among them may be decisions made by local councils to make planning decisions which deliberately allocate more land for the construction of luxury flats and none for genuinely affordable, social housing. The result of this process is what many people have described as a kind of 'social cleansing' in which indigenous members of the community find that they can no longer afford to live in the area and are eventually forced to move away.
This process is simply the end result of what happens when individuals, businesses, and government, simply accept the individualistic, acquisitive nature of capitalism as a given. It isn't, of course, and the predominance of this way of life hasn't stopped committed groups of people coming together to build alternatives. It simply makes it a bit harder.

There's always alternatives, often difficult but always worthwhile

What are the alternatives though? I have always been keen on searching out practical examples of living alternatives, in the hope that I may find a kind of reverse process, a "de-gentrification," an attempt (to borrow an old legalistic term) to un-enclose the enclosures of an increasingly privatised world, a world of individuals and nuclear families, competing against each other in increasingly gated off communities filled with surveillance cameras and private security guards.
Sometimes groups of people band together to live communally, not so much like a student residence, but like an extended family, sharing meals and resources, and offering practical and emotional support to one another. But if you are still paying rent to a private landlord you remain subject to rent rises and lack control over how you maintain your own property, so some people form housing cooperatives, becoming their own landlords. The Sanford Housing Co-op in New Cross, south east London is a good example of a large project which has been around since the 1970s. Of course, unless you have a large sum of capital to begin with, you will likely still have to deal with banks and building societies though.

Other approaches are more radical still. Squatting dis-used land is an old practice which challenges one of the very fundamental assumptions of capitalist life - the nature of private property. It is a   practice that has made possible community centres like the Bonnington Cafe in London's Vauxhall, played a significant role in protest movements, and led to the creation of entirely off-grid communities like the threatened Runnymede Eco Village in Surrey.
Of course, living together in a shared house with shared resources, whether by forming a housing cooperative or by squatting it, is really only one manifestation of a broader trend which has had many different names over the years, but which increasing numbers of people now choose to call "commoning" - a handy term which describes the process of either reclaiming the old commons, or creating new forms. 

The most effective approach seems to be to build stronger, more resilient communities, capable of protecting their own interests. A good example may be the way residents of the villages to the north of Heathrow airport have worked together to oppose a third runway, which would have meant the destruction of their homes and communities. The key to their success lay in the very broad-based nature of the campaign. While the locals fought for their homes, environmental activists set up community protection camps in the area to create hubs for the local community whilst highlighting the negative consequences for the climate of expanding the airport. The first of these was the Camp for Climate Action, soon followed by Grow Heathrow, which remains to this day. Even the inhabitants of neighbouring wealthier boroughs opposed the expansion on the grounds of increased noise pollution.

During May, following the general election result which returned the Tories to power with a slim majority (a party seemingly committed to destroying all alternatives), I found it quite rejuvenating to be able to pay a visit to the community of my colleague Earthian in the east end of London, just prior to his setting out on the latest leg of his peace pilgrimage, advocating for world peace and a world without borders. Three months into their latest occupation of a surprisingly clean and modern former primary school, the community were having an open day with talks and music, including one given by a speaker from the group Commons Rising, which has helped clarify and give structure to a wide range of different projects I had discovered over the last few years, and many I had not.

So what is the commons and commoning?

Put briefly, the commons (or 'commoning') is a term we can apply to anything that involves ordinary people coming together to create something which serves a communal need, rather than someone's personal profit. In the commons, the only rules are those that ensure everyone profits. But rather than being a form of charity (where the 'haves' give to the 'have-nots' and thereby uphold an essentially unequal relationship) in order to build a true commons, our basis must ideally come from a feeling of equality and solidarity, of shared struggle and shared interests.

Manifestations of commoning does not even need to exist in physical space, like a housing co-op or community cafe. Online projects like Wikipedia and the Internet itself are good examples of the commons taking other forms.

For more information, check out: 

http://commonsrising.ning.com/

Amended: June 28th 2015

Learning to Talk the Language of Peace

 
A friend recently gave me a book by Jonathan Schell called The Unconquerable World: Why Peaceful Protest is Stronger Than War (2004). It is a thoroughly argued polemic written at the height of the United States' Bush-era arrogance. I was about halfway through reading it when I got the news that Schell had passed away.
It is primarily through a detailed analysis of the evolution of what he terms "the war system", as well as in numerous historical examples of apparently bloodless social and political change, that Schell finds cause for hope and makes his case for the supremacy of nonviolence in bringing about lasting social change.
As someone who has spent my whole life as an inhabitant of the WISE Isles I was particularly interested to read about the "Glorious Revolution" of 1789.
An observation which Schell makes towards the end of the book also caught my attention. It is the fact that there is, as yet, no positive word in the English language for 'nonviolence', or 'nonviolent action', if you will. The word itself is a negative because it refers only to a lack of violence. The importance of this observation ought to be clear to anyone who, reflecting on the almost subconscious way in which violent, militarist thinking and logic has colonised our language and thought ('bullet' points, anyone?), has paused to think about what it takes to build a culture of peace. Reclaiming our language is part of that. 
Many people have tried, but none have yet caught on. Gandhi perhaps came closest when he coined the term 'satyagraha'. The closest you can come to an English translation of this word is to talk about 'truth force' or 'soul force', and Schell draws parallels between this and what nonviolent Soviet dissidents like the playwright Vaclav Havel called 'living in truth.'
Schell also gave some consideration to Hannah Arendt's attempts to reclaim the word 'power' from its traditional usage as an expression of force, which may have influenced the concept of 'people power'. Schell himself chose the phrase 'cooperative power' as something distinct from 'coercive power'.
It seems that, at least for the time being, we will have to make do with a wide array of terms before we find one that best captures the essence of positive action.