Glasgow Anarchist Discussion Group

After last months enjoyable discussion in Glasgow we decided to meet up again this month for another discussion. However due to time constraints the next available date is May 10th.

Gaza demos in next couple of days – Edinburgh and Glasgow

Updates on Greece and Iceland

Aftaka provide another English-language update on the unease in Iceland, including a festive anti-Coke action.

Only with the help of 6 police pigs could the Coke trucks continue their way from the center, which means that a lot of parents had to answer their kids’ question: “Why did the police stop the nice and fun Santa Clauses?”

This is a country with a population lower than that of Glasgow but many of the same problems in terms of a clique-ish government wedded to stupid development plans and personal enrichment. While its size and remoteness might make it seem irrelevant, you could also look at it as the canary in the coalmine of capitalism as the coaldamp of the credit crunch creeps onward.

Meanwhile in Greece, the streetfighting has died down and occupiers are leaving University buildings. While this isn’t as photogenic as confrontation and property damage, it is an exciting development. This movement has not been defeated: the police and state singularly failed to break it up or (it appears) isolate it from the Greek population as a whole.

…some spirit that is already spreading like fire: Municipal buildings and town halls are being occupied across Athens, and popular assemblies (λαϊκές συνελεύσεις) are being organised in neighbourhoods of both Athens and Thessaloniki. In what turns out to be one of the most positive aspects of the revolt, people are starting to take back their lives: street after street, square after square, neighbourhood after neighbourhood. This is not about a government falling, about some “justice” being paid, about a mere meeting of some demands, a vindication of some sort. The people on the streets demand nothing; they occupy, they organise among themselves, they know that there is no way back to normality, that fighting this very normality is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Friday’s Edinburgh Greek solidarity protest

Photos and information at the Alexis in Edinburgh blog. Saturday the 20th has been called as an International Day Against State Killing. More on this when we have it.

Eruptions of anger in Iceland

One of the weekly demonstrations in Reyjavik

Not to be outdone by Greece, the economic crisis has brought out a wave of popular anger in Iceland as well. This article by AFTAKA, Direct Action in Iceland is an excellent, detailed roundup of what’s going on there.

Including

Solidarity protest at Greek Consulate on Wednesday

The Glasgow Anarchist Federation calls for a picket outside the Greek consulate on Wednesday to coincide with our fellow workers general strike in Greece.