Craftivist Collective: The giant global love letter

Check out these great pics from the Craftivist Collective‘s latest action, which took place at the Hayward Gallery last week.

To coincide with Tracey Emin’s exhibition ‘Love is what you want’, which explores themes of love, the collective produced a giant embroidered letter asking gallery-goers to show love to ‘our global neighbours struggling in our unjust world.’

Around 60 crafters ‘signed’ the letter by stitching their names onto tags, along with a sentence describing the ways in which they would try make a difference to the world.

I love projects like this – they prove that contemporary craft can be relevant and topical, as well as providing a fun and engaging way of involving the public in activism. It’s far more enjoyable than just signing yet another e-petition.

If you’d like to get involved with the group’s actions, head to the Royal Festival Hall cafe at 6.30pm tomorrow to join the ‘Don’t Blow It‘ workshop and learn how to stitch a letter to your MP onto a hankerchief.

Photos courtesy of Robin Prime

Craftivist Collective and Climate Rush present the great British railway stitch-in!

With all the images of riot police, smashed-up banks and balaclava-clad protesters littering the media over the last few months, it’s really refreshing to see quirky and creative activism also going on.

I love this idea from the Craftivist Collective – a band of activists who protest using art and craft – and environmental campaigners Climate Rush.

The groups are coming together to hold ‘stitch-ins’ at railway stations around the UK on Sunday 10 April in protest against the 31 per cent hike in rail fares expected over the next four years.

They will be sewing fabric train coaches embroidered with statistics, facts and quotes, which will be strung together to create a ‘petition train’ and presented to the Minister for Transport, Philip Hammond, on Saturday 16 April.

I can’t wait to see the finished results of this brilliant spin on the traditional sit-in and petition. If you’re interested in attending then check out the Railway Adventures website.

You can also read my account of the 2009 Climate Rush roadshow here.

Uk UnCut protests: A one-woman (or man) way to campaign

On Saturday 4 September activist Bryony Evens found a clever and original way of contributing to the UK UnCut protests against tax avoidance.

Targeting Philip Green, who owns what seems to be half the high street and has been appointed to advise the Government on spending cuts despite being a suspected tax dodger, Bryony found a way of protesting that doesn’t require placards, crowds or chants and can be carried out in any arcadia-owned store at any time of day.

Read her blog and ‘One woman protest’ description here

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal: Using social networking to push for change

What has the internet brought us? Lolcats, the crazy frog and countless autotune remixes? Most well-known internet viral phenomena ranges from the banal to the irritating. But recently, more people than ever are starting to see social media as more than just a means to waste time at work. We are beginning to discover just how effectively we can use the web to push for social change and justice.

One such viral campaign I have stumbled upon recently is the call to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), the controversial US law which bans gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving in the military

President Barack Obama pledged to repeal the law as part of his presidential campaign but moves have been consistently blocked by republican senetors, in particular John McCain. But campaigners have not given up, and the online push to repeal the law has spread like wildfire over the internet.

You Tube has become awash with ‘My DADT story’ videos,  in which ex-servicemen who have been discharged for being gay or lesbian speak to the camera about their experiences.

One of the most shared is by is ex-Sailor Jared Mcintosh. On 3rd August he posted a video explaining how he took a mobile phone containing pictures of him and his boyfriend on to a restricted submarine. The official reason for his dismissal was given as both taking banned equipment in to a restricted area, and for being gay.

The video soon racked up over 60,000 hits and Jared posted several follow-ups. The beauty of the internet is that it allows us to share stories such as this which would otherise pass by unheard. In this case, these young peoples’ stories have brought the injustice of DADT to the attention of people who perhaps would never have considered its implications.

Even Lady Gaga has joined in the online campaigning. In the past she would have had to go through traditional media to broadcast such a message – unlikely given its content.

But has any of this acheived anything? Last week saw the publication of a US Pentagon study which found over 70% of military personnel don’t believe openly gay soldiers serving in the army would lower morale in any way, and public support for a repeal is at roughly 65%.

With stats like this, holding off a repeal is looking tougher than ever for the seante.

We’re all domestic extremists now…

In case you missed it, the internet has been awash the past few days with discussions about how the police have kindly deicided to label anyone attending protests or political meetings domestic extremists and are busy putting together all the pictures they’ve managed to snap of them into a lovely giant collage. Costing £9 million.

Overspending on useless projects at a time when huge cuts are being made in public services and the general threat to democracy and free speech aside, I’m interested to know exactly who this term applies to. Are the Michael Jackson fans protesting about his portrayal in a new film ‘Domestic Extremists’ too? Or the football fans unhappy about Americans buying their clubs? What about those brave old souls united in the noble fight against that cause of suffering and injustice, the, errrr, wheelie bin? Domestic extremists, the lot of them.

On a lighter note, here’s a nice picture of a bunch of Domestic Extremists gathered under the London Eye at the weekend as part of the 350 campaign aganist climate change. The Guardian has a great gallery of Domestic Extremists the world over partaking in other 350 events.

Blog action day 2009: Building a mass movement to combat climate change

For those that don’t know, Blog Action Day is an event which takes place every year on 15 October, where bloggers to unite and push for social change by posting on the same subject. Last year’s was poverty, and this year’s is one which has been playing upon my mind heavily in 2009: Climate Change.

This was the year in which I had my ‘Wake up Freak out‘ moment. I’ve always had a good grasp of what climate change is (unlike many people, sadly), thanks to those scribbled whiteboard diagrams in GCSE Geography showing the earth and the sun. I never doubted the fact that humans are contributing to it. I just didn’t fully understand how drastically our lifestyles need to change, and how soon. I thought that if I bought low energy bulbs, recycled my milk cartons and encouraged everyone I knew to do the same, then that would be enough.

But a combination of The Age of Stupid and George Monbiot’s Heat terrified me into realising that the emission cuts which the science demands can’t be made by personal consumer choices alone. Sure, it’s important to recognise the choices you make in your lifestyle and accept some personal responsibility, but by believing the solution lies with the individual we fail to analyse or critique the system we live in which makes consumers out of us all. What we need is top-down intervention to halt our addiction to fossil fuels, stop cutting down the rainforest and build a fully sustainable society. And the government are only going to do this if we scream and shout and kick and make enough noise to let them know that it’s what we want. They’ve so royally fucked up the public’s trust in them this year thanks to expenses, failed bank bailouts and other such cheery things, they’re too scared stiff to take action themselves. We need to tell them to do it.

So how do we go about building a mass movement in the style of the Suffragettes or the American civil rights movement when it comes to climate change? It’s tricky. Both these successful movements had clear goals in mind: there was a visible injustice which needed to be addressed and laws which needed to be changed. Climate Change is far more difficult to mobilise people behind because it’s not something we in the west can see and feel happening (yet). It’s something which seems like it willonly  happen in the future, in some place far away, not right in front of us right now. The fact that today’s emissions take effect in 30 years time, meaning we must act now in order to save the future, has proved troublesome to communicate.

Which leads me onto another hurdle which lies in the way of creating a mass movement to combat climate change: poor communication of the science involved. Monbiot has demonstrated how those with vested interests (i.e. Oil Giants) have exploited the lack of public understanding surrounding science to spread the myth through the media that there is debate over the existence of ‘Man Made Global Warming’, as they tend to call it. Many people don’t understand that you can only trust scientific studies if they have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, allowing half-truths, fabrications and outright lies to be spread. Many in the media now realise they have been duped by these oil-funded ‘experts’ and have banned them from partaking in the conversation, but their influence has reached deep: 56% of the public thinks there is disagreement amongst scientists over the causes of climate change, compared with less than 3% of scientists themselves.

But, even if we do manage to communicate all the issues effectively, how can we persuade the average person to spend their hard-earned weekends scaling fences, chaining themselves to things and generally risking arrest and a criminal record? Firstly by showing that it works, which I believe groups like Plane Stupid are already doing – compare how prominant climate change is in the national conversation now to how it was three years ago, partly thanks to their exploits. Secondly – by being inclusive and accomadating. I hate to say this, but a lot of activists seem to exist in quite a cliquey bubble – what good is that in attracting new blood in to a movement which needs to grow and expand if it is to acheive its goals?

Of course there are always going to be those people who starkly refuse to listen to the science, who don’t want to hear anything which suggests they should change the way they live, who think anyone who chains themselves to parliament is a lunatic. I’m not interested in engaging with them – I think it’s a waste of time. The people I want to reach out to are the ones who are already worried about our planet – who take the time to recycle, re-think getting on that plane, and try buy organic veg – but haven’t yet taken their first steps into direct action. I want to tip them from just being eco-concious consumers to becoming full-on activists. And the louder noise we make, the sooner they will realise that mass action is both necessary and effective.

So if you’re reading this and fancy adding a spot of civil disobedience to your organic veg, here’s three things you can do:

1. Go on The Great Climate Swoop this Saturday. Cancel the rest of your weekend plans and help shut down a coal-fired power station!

2. Join Climate Rush on 5 December when they rush the houses of parliment

3. Book a week off work and head to Copenhagen this December for all sorts of climate-related protest and action!

Happy mis-behaving!