TALKS + DISCUSSIONS:
· Tuesday 7th June:
STONEHENGE + BATTLE OF THE BEANFIELD 1985
SOUTH LONDON RADICAL HISTORY GROUP presents Andy Worthington, author of 'Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion', remembering the 1985 'Battle of the Beanfield'. If you don't remember it, it was probably one of the bloodiest police riots ever. Not so much a battle as a trashing. Part of a political conspiracy reaching right into the heart of the State, the 'Battle' smashed the Stonehenge Free Festival, which a year earlier had attracted thousands of people. A hidden history of a scene and way of life that would be a huge influence on rave and squat culture and resistance in the 90's. Possible showing of 'Beanfield' video.
The Pullens Centre, 184 Crampton St Walworth SE17 7.30pm Free
· Friday 10th June:
HISTORY NO! >> THE FUTURE!! Presentations + Chat
South London Radical History Group has been putting on talks and walks for over three years now with stuff on forgotten local radicals, gentrification and enclosure, witch trials, squatting and so on. Practical History is a well maintained website that archives documents and writings that would otherwise be lost on topics that bring the past alive and kicking once again into the future. It has also organised interventions for the memory of William Blake and the Homestead strikers against a newly laid (corporate?) gloss on these radical identities. Past Tense Publications is the publishing wing of a loose collection of history types putting out cheap pamphlets based on the researches that come out of the obssessions and manias of the above.
This is open discussion around themes and tensions of mapping local radical history: on fiery radicals getting older, on cynicism. Does radical history signal a retreat from the future? Does digging up a radical past build up local colour and 'heritage' that aids gentrification? What is history anyway, how good is our memory of what really happened and is that important? Aren't riots and arrests just a spectacular version of history? Put together by individuals involved in the above three projects, these themes come out of the work and practice, ups and downs, and current feelings in these groups. We will also present our own short history of what we have been up to and what we hope to get up to in the future, barring spontaneous revolutionary upheaval getting in the way of our researches. 56a - 7.30pm
www.geocities.com/pasttensepublications/
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/
Also worth checking out this day:
Magic, Mystery and Hidden History of the Brockley area
A set of talks put together by South East London Folklore Society for the Brockley Max Festival
- Brockley Footpath - an ancient track-way?
- Down With the Fences: The Battles against the Enclosure
- Runa Megin
- The Brockley Thing + The Woodcraft Folk
- Ghosts and Monsters of Brockley and Surrounds
- Merriton and Brockley: A possible prehistory
- The Battle of the Beanfield and Stonehenge
3pm - 8pm Free
Brockley Jack Theatre 410 Brockley Road, Brockley, SE4 2DH
www.selfs.org.uk
· Saturday 18th June:
Mapping URBAN FARMING + FREE FOOD Talk
Hints and tips on how to collect the many free and wild foods that survive in the urban environment. Help will be on hand for identification of plants and some suggested harvest locations around Southwark. A one hour talk with plants and pictures. 56ª Infoshop - 6pm (Vegan Caff afterwards 8pm til Midnight)
· Friday 24th June:
ISRAEL / PALESTINE: The Map
One land, two people. That's how it's usually represented. And after all, both Palestinians and Israelis display the map, the one map from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river, from the gulf of Aqaba to the Lebanese border. If you can't read Arabic or Hebrew you might not notice the difference between a Israeli and a Palestinian map. But is it really one land? What happens when one place has two names?
After 1948, hundreds of Palestinians villages were destroyed, and their inhabitants became refugees. The remains of these villages - usually no more than a tombstone, a mosque or a few stone walls - are kept hidden from public view, they are never marked, and they disappeared off Israeli maps. Mountains, valleys and historical sites were all renamed in Hebrew in a massive campaign in the 1950's. The Palestinian map was kept alive through the memories of refugees and the work of historians, geographers, writers and political activists. Lately, a Israeli group called 'Zochrot' started posting signs in Arabic and Hebrew commemorating these destroyed villages, in an attempt to increase Israeli awareness to the tragedy of 1948, the Palestinian 'Nakbah'. This talk will discuss the work of 'Zochrot' and the politics of naming as it is manifested on signs and maps in Israel/Palestine. The talk will also discuss the conceptual geographies which Jews and Arabs had, before Zionism and the British mandate; and about the adoption of the north-south Western geographical map as a political symbol, by both sides of this conflict.
Infoshop at 7.30pm