State of Emergency - a convergence of ideas, actions and events : Melbourne Indymedia

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::::::::::::::: S T A T E O F E M E R G E N C Y

::::::::a convergence of ideas, actions and experiments
:::melbourne:::21-24 May:::2004:::

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RED ALERT

Armed guards patrol 'civilian' aircraft. Travellers from suspicious
states entering the USA are fingerprinted and photographed. Anti-terror laws
allow anyone to be arrested without warrants or legal representation. Arms
budgets inflate. The US runs a police state in Iraq while Australia becomes the
'sheriff' of the Asia-Pacific: interning its unwanted visitors here,
providing military intervention there. Fear of the 'invading hordes' is
the law. For the rulers of the global empire, the time since 9/11/2001 has
been a 'state of emergency'.

But for the exploited, the poor, the different, the disenfranchised,
nothing much has changed. Capitalism has always manufactured panics. It has
always exploited our bodies, our minds, our time, our creativity, the planet on
which we live. It has always forced us to move or given us no choice but
to flee, reclassified us as illegal to suit its needs, barricaded itself
against our strength and life and designed ever more spurious 'threats'
to the state in order to shut down its people. Our daily lives are just as
difficult as before. The state of emergency is not the exception, but
the rule.

WELCOME TO THE STATE OF EMERGENCY

In response to this, we invite you to join us in creating a real state
of emergency -- an emergency borne of our resistance, our desire, our need
to seize control of the conditions of our lives and our city.

State of Emergency is a series of workshops, forums and ad hoc events
that will happen over four days during May 2004 in Melbourne. It will be a
space in which we can share tactics and skills for disruption. A space
in which we can talk, find connections, think, learn, engage, dance, make
art, make out. We want to bring it all together for a few days of grace --
and we want you there.

HOW?

State of Emergency will reclaim an inner-city warehouse, squat it and
make it public for four days. It will be meeting-place, bar, cafe, cinema,
music hall, accommodation, playspace. We do this as a declaration of our
intent to reclaim our worlds and our lives. We squat to resist private property,
to create an autonomous space, organised without bureacracy.

We will be holding panel discussions, screenings, music, and other
random events. But we want to make the time open for your participation and
input.
Run a workshop, make a puppet, make some art, show a film, give a
performance, hold a discussion. We want this to be an open space, a
space created by the people who enter it.

WHAT IT IS

Too many of the current 'oppositional' organisations -- parliamentary
parties, non-government orgnisations, 'activist' groups -- think
resistance means taking on the role of creators of a future, more 'humane'
state'.
We want to create a space where resistance can mean something else.

Our aim is to draw together a number of threads from different struggles
and interweave them. Some of the threads we invite you to think about are:

The Meaning of Sovereignty -- indigenous independence, land, statehood,
freedom of movement and identity politics;

War Everywhere -- wars not just in Iraq and on Terror but on freedoms
supposedly guaranteed by 'democracy', wars on people without land and people
without money;

Precariousness and Survival -- the coming ubiquity of casual work, the
alienation and atomisation of our daily lives, submerged in infotainment and
reality TV;

Green movements and their collisions with trade unions.

START DREAMING, CREATING, CONTRIBUTING...

Please help us make the State of Emergency real. We need people to
invent workshop ideas, panel ideas, skill-sharing ideas, games, actions,
possibilities, situations, dances, secret handshakes, screening
programs, art and decoration, music to play. We need volunteers to help with
childcare, cleaning up, audiovisual equipment, furniture, food, drink,
communications and anything else you can think of to contribute. We need
bodies, to reclaim the squat and protect it. We need your input and your
help to pull this thing off.
To get involved: email stateofemergency@popstars.com;

call the infodesk on 0400 655 014;

or bring your ideas to a weekly meeting --3pm Saturdays at Irene Community
Warehouse, 5 Pitt St
Brunswick (off Lygon st)

WHO WE ARE

We are a bunch of loosely connected people based in Melbourne who have
worked together around things like: undocumented migration and freedom
of movement, squatting and social centres, anti-capital and anti-state
action, media activist projects and other struggles. We organise using
principles of autonomy and self-organisation.

Mailing Address: PO Box 127, East Brunswick 3057.