COLLABORATION FOR RESISTANCE

As activists and researchers and practitioners we each try to create around us our version of reality. We play our our own notions of justice, and we tremendously fail because in our enthusiasm for expansion (in our mad search for fulfillment from without) we fail to realise that a journey similar to ours is being played out by every single other person, and thus we and our values / interventions are more impositions than solutions.

 

One of the problems is of ’seeing’. We see only what the mind knows – or even wants to know, and most of the time only what we are trained to know. To me art has always been a challenge to the way i see the world, and in my reactions to art, the way i see myself. The other thing about art is that it communicates to different dimensions to different people – ways in which no formal scientific report in neatly formatted A4 paper can ever hope to do (except rarely when it contains art…..)

 

It is for these reasons …. and many unexplainable urges that I am proposing an ongoing dialogue between activists, researchers and artists. The proposal is for an artist to sit in on our discussions, attend our workshops, our fact finding missions, to listen to us, feel us, our experiences, our frustrations and the people we work with and their lives, their frustrations….and creat art…. to help us see beyond our traditional ways of seeing. To help us see better and to communicate different dimensions of our experience to a larger group . I am sure during the process the artist too will learn about the world in a different way and learn about himself / herself too…..

 

those interested do contact me….

subharakhal@gmail.com

+91 9940246089

in solidarity

 

rakhal

sitting on the sidewalk

Dear Friends,

I am observing a one day fast today (17.05.08) in solidarity with the Bhopalis. I was part of nearly 150 people who signed up and sat in front of the state guest house today. Shweta Narayan is on the 8th day of her fast along with others in delhi. She seemed in high spirits and quite resolute… quite humbling.

I guess that missing a days food will do good to me more than anything else. however i think the fact that nearly 150 individuals decided to give up their work and sit on the roadside was in itself a great feeling. Like i had written earlier I think the pangs of hunger if nothing else will remind me of the state in which many brother and sisters live on a daily basis. however watching the world whiz past, the police, the press and the big leaders come and go did leave me with a feeling of unease about – what we are really up to and how?

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and we sit on a fast
in protest
and the world whizzes past
mostly uninterested
some curious.

and there are the slogans
heartfelt
raised voices
but somehow routinized.

and there is the press
interested only in a byte
an angle
and a good shot,
they come and go
leaving once some vague
editorial mandate is complete
a bonhomie among themselves
with little involvement with the protest

and there are the police
walking up and down
doing what, no one is sure
some read the press release
some read the banners
but prevented by
the uniform they were
to be human
and show emotion

and there are the leaders
who come
and give fiery speeches
after getting duly briefed
and go

and we continue to fast
resolutely
angrily
with a passion
that seems only our own……

written during the fast on the 17th of June 2008.
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while the poem seems a bit cynical i think what i really felt was not cynicism but an urgency to get on with things….and a confusion of how!! we are making some headway ….but in reality are they merely crumbs…..the corporate agenda just seems to be sweeping us aside….

strength to the bhopalis!!

strength to the people!!

rakhal

Some amazing music videos

Two powerful songs of protest and resistance.

http://www.youtube.com/user/susmitbose

Just copy this onto your address bar and you will open up into Susmits site on youtube…there are two videos as of now.

The Revolution will not be televised

This a great film about the abortive coup against the Hugo Chavez led government in Venezuela. It clearly shows how the anti-people, pro-corporate powers work.

Follow the link to see the film.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

UNTITLED

The most beautiful thing

for those who have fought a whole life

is to come to the end and say;

we believed in people and life,

and life and the people

never let us down.

Only in this way do men become men,

women become women,

fighting day and night

for people and for life.

OTTO RENE CASTILLO

What this is all about?

One of the most important aspects of resistance is its culture….by culture i simply mean the way we (as a community) do things. the culture of resistance has to be different from the dominant culture….it is a culture of celebration, of diversity, of openness, of spontaniety…. I hope to bring together in this blog various aspects of this culture that i come across and that inspires me and i hope will inspire you……

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