Showing posts with label red and black. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red and black. Show all posts

Wednesday 15 August 2018

France, May-June 1968.

      To mark the 50th anniversary of the  1968 May-June events that shook France and reverberated throughout Europe, the Kate Sharpley Library have brought out a excellent pamphlet, written by a participating eyewitness at the time,  Flûtiste Le (the flute player). How have we moved forward in 50 years?


       An anarchist eyewitness to the revolt of May-June 1968, Le Flûtiste ("the flute player") looks back on the highs and lows of Paris' student-worker rebellion. Topics covered include, student life before the revolt, the barricades of the Latin Quarter, the student and worker occupations and strikes and the part played by the anarchists in the upheaval.
      "Having been hit by a grenade and come under gas attack, I had made up my mind to join the demonstration at Denfert-Rochereau. ... First I watched as the head of the demo paraded past, made up of trade union bigwigs and their henchmen; then came heaps of more or less unknowns such as the Situationist Guy Debord whom I spotted on his own, just him and a friend. Then, all of a sudden, my eyes were treated to the unbelievable spectacle of a forest of black-and -red flags, with a sprinkling of black flags! ... The public's curiosity about and interest in anarchist ideas was born right there and then. Anarchy, which the Stalinists and socialists generally - not to mention the bourgeois - had declared a dead duck in the land of Utopia, was rising like the phoenix from the ashes! Its burial licence had expired, to the great annoyance of all those respectable folk."

        First of all, on the outbreak of the fighting in Paris, between 300-400 anarchists were attending the gala of the Federation Anarchiste that evening in central Paris on May 10th. Members of other groups were present on that evening, including the Union of Anarchist Communist Groups, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Union and the anarcho-syndicalist union the CNT.These were on hand to reinforce the barricades that were set up that evening in the Latin Quarter, a culmination of weeks of unrest in the universities. To his credit Dany Cohn-Bendit of the March 22nd student movement used his megaphone to call for the taking over of the area. The writer describes this then anarchist as “hard to stick” as a person(more on that later).
       “Get this: what few leftwing or “leftist” students there were on hand tried to talk them of digging up the streets or building barricades and berated the barricade builders as “provocateurs”. They were promptly seen off…”
      The writer describes the lightning spread of barricades through the neighbourhood.”The clashes were violent in the extreme; many young people refused to give ground (to the police) and like out-and-out kamikazes, threw themselves into the hand-to-hand fighting”. He also notes that “local residents, outraged by the sight of the police brutality, sided with the students, tossing down buckets of water to dampen the effects of tear gas grenades and taking demonstrators into their homes”.As a result of the fighting and the vicious brutality the trade unions and left wing organisations were forced into calling a demonstration for May 13th. Over the coming days strikes broke out spontaneously around France.
         The leftists now attempted to hijack the movement, setting up literature stalls in the courtyard of Sorbonne university and token committees that they controlled.
The demonstration on May 13th brought out between 500,000 to one million people. The writer notes the “forest of red-and-black flags with a sprinkling of black flags”.
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 31 December 2012

RED AND BLACK.


       There is nothing like a bit of emotion to get you all fired up. I've seen this show three times and if it comes round my way again, I'll probably go and see it once more. Enjoy.



ann arky's home.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS!!

       It is possibly not the most stylistic or easy flowing Christmas poem ever written, but it is a nice thought.
I'm Dreaming of a Red and Black Christmas
'Twas the night before Christmas, And all through the land,
Factory workers were slaving to meet high demand,
For video games, DVDs, and cheaply built toys,
To be given the next morning to spoiled American girls and boys.
The workers had had it, They were at their wits end,
Worked day and night with no time off, The bosses would not bend.
Then over the loudspeaker on one factory floor,
Boomed a fat boss's voice, "WORK FASTER! PRODUCE MORE!”
“Our profits are way up, but not quite enough,
Our shareholders aren't happy – you've got to make more stuff!”
That was the last straw. The workers would take no more abuse,
So they stopped working and jammed up the machines 'till they were of no more good use.
And with a collective burst of rage, the workers cried,
“That's enough! We've had it with this shit!” They marched up to the boss's office and demanded, “If you don't give us some time off, we're all going to quit!”
“Quit?!”, laughed the boss, “Go ahead, not a problem!”
I'll have your replacements here by 4 AM tomorrow!”
“Plenty of poor schmucks need a job so badly,
I can pay them peanuts, and they'll take this shitty job – GLADLY!”
“In fact,” smirked the boss, “I'll save you AND me the trouble...
“YOU'RE ALL FIRED! Now get your asses out of here, ON THE DOUBLE!”
Well, what happened next can't really be told,
Because no worker who was there that day will tell,
Of the action taken that was so bold. All we know for sure is that after that day,
A whole new meaning was given to the phrase “Christmas sleigh”...
On that cold snowy Christmas Eve night the news spread like wildfire,
And suddenly, the workers' situation didn't seem so dire. Throughout the land in every factory around,
Workers rose up with this new boldness they had found.
They eliminated their bosses and formed democratic workers councils instead,
And from that day ever after, it was called “Red and Black Christmas”,
because hierarchy in the workplace... ...was finally dead.

ann arky's home.