No Profit In Prisons – Sina Brown-Davis speaks against the prison industry

Te Wharepora Hou

*Te Wharepora Hou member Sina Brown-Davis speaks at the NO TO SERCO rally at Mt Eden Prison on Saturday 01 August 2015*

Photo courtesy of Jos Wheeler.

Tēnā koutou ki ngā iwi kua huihui mai nei. Kei konei ahau ki te taha o te rōpu Te Wharepora Hou. Kei konei ahau me te hunga e whakahē ana ki ngā whareherehere. Ko Sina Brown-Davis ahau nō Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara.

I am like many gathered here today, the family of a loved one inside. I refused to be ashamed of having a father as a prisoner, even though my dad is incarcerated, I will stand by him and love him unconditionally always. Prisoners are human beings, with human rights, I am sick of the sadistic and vengeful attitude that this country has towards prisoners. I am sick of a racist and punitive system that has resulted in the mass incarceration of Māori…

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Welcome to the Palestinian Circus

An important commentary on the everyday restrictions faced by Palestinians to their culture and lives. Shame on those who oppose BDS as a way of supporting a population living under a racist apartheid regime!

Tolpuddle 2015

FOR ATTENTION OF NIGEL COSTLEY

SOUTH WEST TRADE UNION CONGRESS

Dear Mr Costley,

This year’s Tolpuddle Festival was an inspiring, vibrant event that was good for the soul after the recent depressing election results and the vicious attacks on trade unionism, disabled people and those, in and out of work, living in poverty.

I am a veteran trade union activist, Mother of the SOGAT Chapel at The Press Association for 15 years and have been an activist in the Palestine solidarity movement for over four decades. It is brilliant that so many unions, branches and chapels have affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and have taken up the cause of the occupied Palestinian people. Thousands of trade unionists have recognised that this is the anti-apartheid issue of our time and have responded with solidarity and empathy. They have heeded Nelson Mandela’s statement that no-one can be free without the freedom of the Palestinian people. Many South Africans, including Ronnie Kasrils, have observed that the situation for Palestinians is ‘worse than apartheid.’ The brutal military occupation, the use of weapons of mass destruction against captive civilians with nowhere to run, mass arrests and detentions without trial, abuse of child prisoners, the constant threat of ‘transfer’ based on racial identity, ethnic ‘cleansing’ of swathes of Palestinian land, the abuse and second-class status of Palestinians, including ethnic ‘cleansing’ of Palestinian villages within the State of Israel, the racism endemic in Israeli trade unions…the list is endless.

Please do not be offended if I suggest that the inclusion of a stall promoting the State of Israel was an affront to the memory of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and to the overwhelming number of attendees at the festival who strongly oppose Israel’s genocidal policies and who tirelessly campaign on behalf of the besieged, long-suffering and courageous Palestinian people.

If you examine the Facebook page and website of this pro-Israel group, you will see a link to the extreme right-wing ’think tank’ the Henry Jackson Society, plus many other distasteful, racist and extremist comments.

I had heard there was a ‘reconciliation’ stall at the Festival and I initially approached them in a friendly manner, inquiring if there were any Palestinians involved in their group. I was met with extreme aggression and told ’they are killing us…they are over there’ (pointing to a lone, young man on the PSC stall). Rather than attempt to engage with the stall-holders, I made a complaint to stewards in the marquee. Later, I also registered a complaint at the information tent where I saw many others lining up to do so.

A South African woman who was collecting for Medical Aid for Palestinians outside the Martyrs Marquee on Saturday was harassed by the pro-Israel stall holders and told ‘You are collecting for weapons’ and ‘Palestinians breed too much.’ She also made a complaint to organisers. It was deeply shocking that the stall was allowed to remain for the rest of the day, after this racist abuse had been reported. If people of colour cannot come to Tolpuddle without being insulted in this way, is this not a failure of the anti-racist ethos of the trade movement?

Having examined the pro-Israel Facebook page and seen the triumphalist comments posted there, I conclude that the entire endeavour was staged as a provocation in order to garner publicity. The widespread accusation of anti-semitism as a response to criticism of Israel is a co-ordinated by a well-funded propaganda machine directed by the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) that receives funding from the Israeli Embassy. The Henry Jackson Society is a part of this, along with extremist websites such as Harry’s Room.

I do hope you will not mind if I disagree with your comment that the ‘Israel-Palestine’ issue is perhaps not one that should be discussed at Tolpuddle. The pro-Israel group states in its publicity that it went ‘into the lion’s den’ to counter the role the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has played in raising the issue of the Israeli occupation and apartheid system within the trade union movement. Their aggressive actions over the weekend demonstrated their inability to defend the indefensible by legitimate means. It is deeply worrying that senior organisers within the trade union and Labour movement are unable to distinguish between an extremist, hard-core, zionist group and ’soft’ zionist groups such as Peace Now, who believe in ‘reconciliation,’ albeit in the context of continued occupation. You could have consulted Jews for Justice for Palestinians for a knowledgable, measured evaluation of the group in question.

Palestinian trade unionists have been invited to speak at trade union conferences and desperately need our solidarity and support. It would be entirely appropriate to invite a Palestinian trade unionist to be a keynote speaker at Tolpuddle, rather than try to evade the issue by citing ‘security’ issues.

I sincerely hope that you will take up this suggestion with your colleagues.

In solidarity,

Diane Langford

No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride!

From: Frankie Green 

Subject: An open letter to Flo Lewis, ‘LGBT in UKIP’ – ‘I didn’t march for this.’

Date: 5 June 2015 19:04:41 BST

To: news@pinknews.co.uk

No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride.  

An open letter to Flo Lewis, ‘LGBT in UKIP’:

Dear Flo,

I was very lucky to be able to take part in the first Pride march in London during time within the Gay Liberation Front. In your article in Pink News asserting that your group had a right to march in this year’s Pride, you cite that original march as an historical precedent that your group is heir to. It seems to me that you have somewhat misunderstood the facts regarding that event, and I am therefore writing to provide some information that may be useful. In light of the welcome news of the decision that your group will be disallowed, I would like to add my comments to the debate.

 

Firstly, despite your thinking that the first march almost completely consisted of gay men, I assure you that many women were amongst those ‘few hundred men who marched, years before my birth,’ who faced ‘serious abuse and threats when they set off from Hyde Park. They were pioneers and must be celebrated for their courage.’

 

Those women, of whom I was one, went on to work in hundreds of organisations working for the rights of lesbians because of what we had experienced including losing custody of our children, our jobs and housing, being stigmatised and ostracised or incarcerated as mentally ill. Some of us have worked in coalitions with gay men and others and in Trades Unions against class exploitation, racism, ableism and sexism. We have also worked in the overlapping causes of justice for those, including LGBT people, seeking refuge after fleeing persecution elsewhere in the world (often as a result of British military intervention in their countries of origin) and combating racism in its myriad forms (also a direct legacy of British imperialism and colonialism) and the principles of human rights, feminist and anti-racist causes – and continue to do so. 

 

I’d like also to let you know those women and men in GLF came from and celebrated a variety of European and world-wide backgrounds. We were well-aware of the traditional practice of scapegoating immigrants, and anyone regarded as ‘other’ by racist mindsets (as if Britain was not a nation formed by migrants), by the political establishment, as a means of turning people against one another and diverting attention from real common enemies, such as unjust systems of power, economic greed and mean-minded notions of nationalism. In the current rightwing climate, we see the same old same old dynamic in the hate-mongering attempt to stir up resentment against involvement in Europe, immigrants and people in need of safety. Ironically, all the while – if preserving national sovereignty were something you cared about – it should be obvious that the real threats to democracy actually come from the machinations of global corporate capitalism such as TTIP, e.g.

I remember clearly how our intentions back then were based on progressive principles of sharing, open-heartedness, internationalism and human solidarity. We were not simply about ‘equality’ – a much-misused term. Most of us were not seeking equality within an unjust system, but radical social transformation. The clue to what was going on is in the names! Gay Liberation Front, Women’s Liberation Movement. If you are interested in history then you will see that at the time of our movements’ flowering, the world was undergoing huge changes brought about movements in countries throwing off colonialism, the Black Power movement, the civil rights movement … in that context we analysed the political situations of patriarchy, capitalism, white and male supremacy, and developed an understanding of the links between oppressions.  We felt ourselves part of a time in which the struggle for universal liberation from oppression was in ascendency. We were joyful and celebratory as part of that zeitgeist, not only because of developing a pride in being lesbian or gay. Our activism was carnivalesque in the sense of turning the world upside down, inverting and mocking the traditional power structures. I cannot speak for other women and men who formed that original contingent, or subsequent generations of activists (though if any of them read this they are welcome to add their names to mine), but I can say for myself that I believe most of us in that optimistic era never dreamt of a time when a group such as UKIP would co-opt our activism, our language and our cause in a specious attempt to give itself legitimacy. You misrepresent the notion of inclusivity and render it superficial at best if you think we could be connected in any way to the kind of narrow, xenophobic views espoused by UKIP.

In 2012 I was again fortunate, being able to be amongst people at the front of the London march with the banner “Veterans of 1972,’ marking the fortieth anniversary of that first march. Simultaneously I was proud to be part of the anti-pinkwashing campaign, marching against the attempts by Israel’s government to hijack hard-won rights as a propaganda smokescreen for its oppression of the Palestinian people under the slogan: No Pride in Israeli Apartheid. (This follows a slogan adopted by an Israeli LGBT group opposing the ongoing theft of Palestinian land, ’No Pride in Occupation.’) I saw this as a continuation of GLF’s radical tradition of solidarity; standing opposite the South African embassy I recalled countless demonstrations in Trafalgar Square calling for an end to that previous vile apartheid system. With thousands of other people I’ve marched for that cause and many others, including subsequent Pride marches and anti-Clause 28 with my family and friends comprising a hugely diverse mixture of humanity.

I didn’t march for this: a noxious political party representing an appeal to the basest elements: fear of others, ignorance, bigotry and repression. The presence of UKIP on a Pride march is an affront to those who took part in long struggles for justice. The racist and anti-democratic nature of UKIP cannot be disguised by its adopting a tactical veneer of respectability, and it is a travesty to present yourselves as victims bravely facing intolerance.

I sincerely invite you to rethink your positioning of yourself in alliance with this party and to join the worldwide movements for justice and liberation.

No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride.  

Yours sincerely

Frankie Green