SLACkers: Solidarity in Song

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November 26, 2007

Food and Drink: a slackers’ ritual

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“The basic structure is a banquet or a picnic. Each player must bring a
dish or bottle, of sufficient quantity that everyone at least gets a
serving. Dishes can be prepared or finished on the spot, but nothing
should be brought ready-made (except wine or beer thought these could
ideally be home made). The more elaborate the better. Attempt to be
memorable…The banquet could have a theme…Surrealism, Native
American, Black and Red (all food black or red in honor of anarchy)
etc…” – Hakim Bey

November 23, 2007

Anti-Consumerist Carol Singing – December 22nd

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Singing again in the cathedrals of consumption. It was so good last year!

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2006/12/359039.html?c=on#c163901

Here are some of the songs we’ll sing ….

Consumer Wonderland (To the tune of Winter Wonderland, lyrics by Erica Avery) The TV’s on / are you watching?
Another product / that they’re hawking
one more thing you need
to make life complete
Welcome to Consumer Wonderland

In the stores / you will hear it
“Pricey gifts / show holiday spirit”
That’s what they call it
to get to your wallet
Welcome to Consumer Wonderland

At the mall we can go out shopping
and buy lots of stuff we can’t afford
we’ll have lots of fun with our new toys
until we realize that we’re still bored
When you shop / ain’t it thrilling
until / you get the billing
the money you still owe the stuff broke long ago
Welcome to Consumer Wonderland

Uh Oh We’re In The Red, Dear

(To the tune of Rudolph the red-nose reindeer)

Uh oh we’re in the red, dear
On our credit card it shows
Christmas is almost over
But the debit line still grows
Shopping like Santa’s zombies
Sent our budget down in flames
But all our Christmas spirit
Helped the giant retail chains

I’m so foggy Christmas Eve
Wondering how we’ll pay
Christmas doesn’t seem so bright
When our finances are tight

So here’s a plan for next year
Let’s forget the shopping spree
Let’s give a gift of love, so
All our Christmas gifts are free

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Slow down ye frantic shoppers for there’s something we must say
If you would spare a moment all the stores would go away
Big business has been telling us what Christmas means today

Now it’s time we decided for ourselves, for ourselves
Yes it’s time we decided for ourselves.

To some folks Christmas means a time for gathering with friends
And enemies might take it as a time to make amends
But TV says it’s time for pricey gifts and selfish ends

Now it’s time we decided for ourselves, for ourselves
Yes it’s time we decided for ourselves.

Some people feel that Christmas is when Jesus makes a call
For others it’s a time to stress good will and peace to all
But advertisers tell us it means Santa’s at the mall

Now it’s time we decided for ourselves, for ourselves
Yes it’s time we decided for ourselves.

Jingle All The Way

Chorus:
Profits here, profits there,
profits everywhere
Christmas time is funny
we smell money in the air
Advertise, glamorize,
fool you with a flair.
Let’s make sure that Christmas
is a businesslike affair.

You’re eating up our lies and dashing to the stores
Then all our prices rise and how the money pours
If we don’t keep you drugged and watching your TV
You might see the hypocrisy
then where would business be?

Chorus

We’ll tell you how to think and tell you what to try
What to eat and drink and how to live and die
And if our plan succeeds, when Christmas-time is nigh
Instead of seeking love and peace you’ll hunt for gifts to buy

Chorus

Buy and Sell

To the tune, Silver Bells; by Erica Avery

City Sidewalks busy sidewalks
lined with advertising
It’s the big retail season of Christmas
Children begging for each new thing
toys for mile after mile
and the mood of the season is clear

Chorus:
Buy and sell (buy and sell)
Buy and sell (buy and sell)
It’s Christmas time for consumers
Ching-a-ching (ching-a-ching)
Cash tills ring (cash tills ring)
Must we spend Christmas this way?

Maxing credit, running debits
buying things we don’t need
with the money we don’t really have
Children crying, parents sighing
there’s no time for our friends
and the reason behind it is clear

Chorus

Carol of the Toys
To the tune Carol of the Bells; by Erica Avery

High voices: Barbie Dream House
Mi-ickey Mouse Beanie Babies Tamagotchis

Low Voices: Too Much stu- -uff

High voices: Cabbage Patch Dolls Ninja Turtles Super Nintendo Tickle-me-Elmo

Low voices: Too much Stu -uff

Repeat, changing key each time

http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/resources/carols.html

To the tune of Little Town of Bethlehem

Oh gentle folk of London Town

Think how they feed us lies

All through the streets the shops compete

Urging us to buy and buy

Whilst elsewhere explodeth

Another bomb tonight

As innocents fall

Were in the shopping mall

This doesn’t quite seem right.

Spend all our cash, we’re feeling flash

As the queues continue to grow

Buying luxury goods and loads of food

for folks we hardly know

Whilst in so many places

The people starve and die

As I carve my bird

It’s quite absurd

that we buy into this lie

Then at new year the sales appear

And everything’s reduced

In store we see new product lines

And know that we’ve been duped

We wish that we had waited

Until now to buy

The model’s been updated

It makes us want to cry.

To the tune of Once in Royal David’s City

Once in dirty London City

Stood a huge big fuck off shop

Where they sold their goods aplenty

And the shopping did not stop

Branded bags all overflowing

All their savings quickly going

Thus consumerism wild

Yule’s cheer message has defiled

Thus consumerism wild

Yule’s cheer message has defiled

To the tune of Silent Night

Silent night holy night

Bombs go boom,Soldiers fight

Round the stores the suckers trawl

Buying crap for one and all

Shop until you drop

To the tune of Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Oh come all ye shoppers

Burdened and despondent

Come all ye followers of ma-a-mon

Come and buy things

Sparkly and reduntant

Oh come let us ignore it

Oh come let us deplore it

Oh come let us abhore it

Money and greed.

Ring tills with profit

Ring in exploitation

Ring all ye registers of capitalism

Glory to profit

At it’s highest

Oh come let us ignore it

Oh come let us deplore it

Oh come let us abhore it

Money and greed.

To the tune of Away in a Manger

Away in a sweatshop

A pittance for pay

Work under age children

With no time to play

Making trainers and T-shirts

And luxury goods

Threatened with violence

And given no food

The stars in the media

Encourage our greed

Making us want things we don’t really need

Wasting resources

And coercing our brains

Using up carbon with little to gain.

November 15, 2007

Reclaim the Night: Saturday 24th November

RECLAIM THE NIGHT 2007
SATURDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2007
Assemble 6pm Trafalgar Square

Women’s march to University of London Union for mixed rally for men and
women with speakers, stalls, bands and DJs til late Reclaim your right to party!

In Britain, there are an estimated 47,000 rapes every year. And each year, an estimated 300,000 women are sexually assaulted (British Crime Survey 2001). Yet Britain’s conviction rate is the lowest ever, at just 5.3 per cent.

To get involved or for more information, contact the London Feminist Network:
www.ldnfeministnetwork.ik.com or e-mail londonfeminist@yahoo.co.uk

SLACKERs will be on the singing block with these songs – come and join us!

RECLAIM THE NIGHT
(Peggy Seeger)

Though Eve was made from Adam’s rib
Nine months he lay within her crib
How can a man of woman born
Thereafter use her sex with scorn?
For though we bear the human race
To us is given but second place
And some men place us lower still
By using us against our will

If we choose to walk alone
For us there is no safety zone
If we’re attacked we bear the blame
They say that we began the game
And though you prove your injury
The judge may set the rapist free
Therefore the victim is to blame
Call it nature, but rape’s the name

CHORUS: Reclaim the night and win the day
We want the right that should be our own
A freedom women have seldom known
The right to live, the right to walk alone without fear

A husband has his lawful rights
Can take his wife whene’er he likes
And courts uphold time after time
That rape in marriage is no crime
The choice is hers and hers alone
Submit or lose your kids and home
When love becomes a legal claim
Call it duty, but rape’s the name

And if a man should rape a child
It’s not because his spirit’s wild
Our system gives the prize to all
Who trample on the weak and small
When fathers rape, they surely know
Their kids have nowhere else to go
Try to forget, don’t ask us to
Forgive them — they know what they do (CHORUS)

When exploitation is the norm
Rape is found in many forms
Lower wages, meaner tasks
Poorer schooling, second class
We serve our own, and, like the men
We serve employers — it follows then
That bodies raped is nothing new
But just a servant’s final due

We’ve raised our voices in the past
And this time will not be the last
Our bodies’ gift is ours to give
Not payment for the right to live
Since we’ve outgrown the status quo
We claim the right to answer “No!”
If without consent he stake a claim
Call it rape, for rape’s the name

FIGHTBACK

Lyrics and Music by Holly Near

By day I live in terror,

By night I live in fright

For as long as I can remember,

A lady don’t go out alone at night

No, a lady don’t go out alone at night

CHORUS

And so we’ve got to fightback! In large numbers

Fightback! I can’t make it alone

Fightback! In large numbers

Together we can make a safe home

And so we’ve got to fightback! In large numbers

Fightback! I can’t make it alone

Fightback! In large numbers

Together we can make a safe home

But I don’t accept the verdict,

It’s an old one anyway

Cause nowadays a woman can’t go out

Even in the middle of the day

No, can’t even go out in the middle of the day

CHORUS

Women all around the world,

Every colour, religion and age

We have all one thing in common,

We can all be battered and raped

CHORUS

Some have an easy answer,

Buy a lock and live in a cage

But my fear is turning to anger

And my anger is turning to rage

And I won’t live my life in a cage — no!

CHORUS

Something Inside So Strong

The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The farther you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, cos there’s….

Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong

The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that’s mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you
Cos there’s……

Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong

Brothers and sisters
When they insist we’re just not good enough
When we know better
Just look ‘em in the eyes and say
I’m gonna do it anyway x 4

Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong

Brothers and sisters
When they insist we’re just not enough
When we know better
Just look ‘em in the eyes and say
I’m gonna do it anyway x 4

Because there’s something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho’ you’re doing me, so wrong
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong

BREAD AND ROSES

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

We Were There
by Bev Grant

We have ploughed and we have planted
We have gathered into barns.
Done the same work as the men
With babies in our arms.
But you won’t find our stories
In most history books you read.
We were there and we’re still here
Fighting for the things we need.

Cho: We were there in the factories,
We were there in the mills,
We were there in the mines,
And came home to fix the meals.
We were there on the picket lines,
We raised our voices loud.
It makes me proud, just knowing
We were there.

From the textile mills in Lawrence
To the sweat shops in New York,
From the fields in California
Where our children had to work,
We fought to make a living
Bread and roses was our cry.
Though they jailed and beat our bodies
Our spirit never died.

We were Polish, We were Irish
We were African and Jew
Italian and Latina
Chinese and Russian, too
They tried to use our differences
To split us all apart
But the pain we felt together
Touched the bottom of our hearts.

We are teachers, we are doctors,
We are cooks and engineers.
Letter carriers, truck drivers,
Conductors and cashiers.
We operate machinery,
We fly the big airplanes.
And we help to build our unions,
We got struggle in our veins.

October 25, 2007

Slackers: Singing, Pedagogy and Sustainable Activism

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The South London Activist Choir (Slackers)

One Slacker’s account of Singing, Pedagogy and Sustainable Activism

Part 1

“We are slackers. We don’t have a conductor, a lead singer, a boss, a manager, a producer, a press officer, or an artistic director. We are each all of these roles and are constantly learning new roles.”

Slackers, the South London Activist Choir was born out of a trip into the west end in December 2006, following a call out by one of our number to sing anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist Christmas carols in various large departmental stores with useful and interesting crisscrossing escalators as slides to play on. We had such fun we decided to meet up in the New Year and see what other activism could be done with singing.[1]

We met fortnightly, sometimes even weekly throughout spring 2007. Our next public appearance was at the Anti-War demo on February 24^th which had an anti-trident theme as the replacement of Trident was then being debated in Parliament. We sang ‘We can’t live in a Trident Submarine’ and everyone who heard it smiled and some joined in.

We then did a gig as the Fat Cat choir in a saloon / wild west night at the Ivy House in Peckham in March; we were hilarious, cribbing off song sheets, getting the words wrong, showing the audience the wrong words to sing along with, dressed as corporate Nasties fat on the blood and sweat of their workers. We sang a version of ‘Don’t fence me in’ (Oh, give me land, lots of land, lots of cash and lots of power / Don’t fence me in / Don’t you say I can’t pay workers 20 cents an hour / Don’t fence me in / I think it’s cute to pollute, and so if your nation / bans my toxic product without compensation / I can turn and sue you for expropriation / Don’t fence me in[2]). We sang “we’re gonna keep on singing badly” because that somehow liberated us from the pressure of being any good, it got more of a response, and was much more fun than all that damned effort trying to be good.

There was another foray into corporate London when Starbucks thought it would be good PR to invite choirs into its stores as part of the Sing London festival. Well, we couldn’t resist and with a “Starbucks’ domination of the world failed / Because their coffee tastes of shit / And exploitation / Putting small cafes out of business / Stopping workers unionise” to the tune of Moondog’s Nero’s expedition and a “Whenever you drink coffee in Starbucks, remember, just remember / Whenever you drink coffee in Starbucks, remember, just remember / Starbucks, McDonalds exploitation innit / Starbucks, McDonalds same old shit, innit” (to the tune of Goethe’s quote-song “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it, just begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”), we were rewarded with a Starbucks apron from an employee. Customers supping their brown swill weren’t so amused however, refusing eye contact and pretending to be deaf.

All the while, we were meeting in each other’s houses to practice, work out tunes, eat food together (We are Snackers too), and to gradually get to know each other better. There was a suggestion to do a workshop-performance at the South London Gallery’s Weasel event and we decided to go for it. I felt that this was moving in a slightly different direction for a collective practice just starting to gather momentum, and felt positive and empowered about this. This was thanks to a very peaceful and wrinkleless experience of working together which, on retrospect, had cohered due to people actually turning up when they said they were going to. But still, the decision to perform cast a slim shadow of risk that we couldn’t afford to linger in for too long. Would the gig go down well?[3] Was it really where we want to be putting our energies? What if there were only 4 of us on the night, because people had gradually dropped out … the energy not being quite right and no one being able to put their finger on exactly what the problem was? Would we have the attitude and energy to create an experience which sucked its sustenance from the milk of attitude and energy rather than training, talent, and skill[4]. We’d had no experience of working together in this particular configuration, we just had the shared experience of turning up for a sing together in our free time, because we believe that singing in public places is a means of tackling something or other in capitalism we had yet to define.

The first meeting to plan the workshop was hectic and full on. All of us had ideas and assumptions about what to do and the way it should be done. Some Slackers had professional experience in leading workshops. Keen to resist the ‘common sense’ idea that such people should therefore become leaders in devising the workshop; I was reminded of a comment in David Graeber’s ethnography of Direct Action,

“In DAN[5], accusations of high-handed authoritarian behaviour tended to most frequently occur when activists got involved in work too similar to roles they were used to doing in the corporate world. If one has a great deal of experience in say, public relations techniques, or video editing, contributing one’s knowledge to the movement does seem like the obvious thing to do. But often proves extremely difficult for those used to using those skills in the corporate world to fully break from the habit of treating those with less experience as subordinates, especially at first. Some actually avoid getting involved in work too similar to what they do in the formal sector for just that reason.” [6]

But there must be a way of utilising skills acquired in corporate or ‘formal’ organisations in anti-capitalist projects in which we don’t merely reproduce the social and emotional behaviours of; fossilised leadership, fossilised acceptance of leadership, the non questioning of orders, the following of orders, extreme anxiety that the project (product / service) isn’t good enough, the tendency to controlling behaviours (“If I don’t do it, it just won’t get done”), lack of motivation due to feelings of disempowerment, and manipulative behaviour to cover this lack of motivation from bosses.

I have a kind of sixth sense that trusts in the collective process of self-regulating, leaderless groups that everything necessary to perform a particular action will be thought of, mentioned, set in motion, chased up, and taken care of, and that the group doesn’t depend on any one person to do so. This process does away with having to always have an opinion in order to participate, creating space for other forms of participation, such as listening, witnessing, observation and reflection. A group going through the various stages of making a decision will come up with a more multi-faceted, multi-coloured, sophisticated plan than one person going through the same stages on his/her own. Even if some aspects of the resulting action don’t seem necessary to me, that’s probably because I can’t see what other people can see when they argue for them. I might even stand aside – a crucial strategy for achieving consensus - from the decision to pursue a particular course of action that I don’t want to do but have no objection to other people doing. As Slackers, we are aiming for a process in which aims are collaboratively stated and then each collaborator throws in what skills they can offer to achieve the aim. Alternatively, one person might have an idea for a project that she doesn’t have the skills to achieve alone. If the suggestion is agreed as a common point of interest, people with relevant skills in the group are there to ‘patch up the holes’ in ability and experience. This creates the interesting possibility for people to lead from ‘behind’ as it were, in terms of skills and experience. (All you need is love.) Most interesting of all is when the aim is quite open, as it was on this occasion, and we were all free to let our creativity go for a wander before deciding on a course of action.

This process can be seen as a form of libertarian pedagogy, which for these purposes I’m going to describe as a situation in which the aim of the teacher is to become unnecessary to the learning success of the student, because the student has learnt how to learn. In the case of the Slackers, we unravel dependence on a single person in order to learn new things. Similarly, knowledge of the subject is largely irrelevant for a libertarian ‘teacher’ (and this shift in approach makes the very word a paradox). This point is made in Jacques Rancière’s book The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation which describes the story of Joseph Jacotot, a French philosopher of education, who claimed in 1818 that neither knowledge nor explanation were necessary for learning. Knowing no Flemish, Jacotot found himself able to teach French to Flemish students who knew no French. He devised methods that would allow, for instance, illiterate parents to teach their children how to read (and potentially themselves in the process). It describes the liberation that results when that most subtle of hierarchies, intelligence, is overturned. The aim of the teacher therefore within the framework of libertarian pedagogy is to become dispensable to the learner. The conditions for this however, have to be right. Before I gave up teaching full time, learner autonomy was the buzz word. I was very excited by this opportunity to exercise what I saw as an anarchic principle within an institution. Yet the reality was of an overbearing structure that pushed for results and sat bum down on the face of learner/mentor initiatives craving time and space to learn in freedom. The institution farted in my face too many times and I gave up trying to bring about change from within. If there is a hierarchy in an organisation predetermining the outcome of a particular activity, freedom to experiment and time to develop is curtailed. Stress levels are increased and stress is never conducive to learning. So while no one person, not even a teacher in a learning situation, is indispensable when working collectively and in consensus, environmental conditions have to be friendly to the aims of a group trying to work this way. Otherwise, the fire-and-hire world of cut-throat, competitive corporations turns this liberating concept into a ‘no-one is indispensable’ mantra which is whispered down a main tanoy system into the open plan office, sending shivers down the spines of executives, who can only try to gain comfort from a 6^th cup of brown swill from Starbucks.

In trying to work without hierarchy and a fixed leadership, we also need to be wary of what Jo Freeman called ‘The tyranny of structurelessness’ (1970) in which despite best intentions, some sort of leadership inevitably emerges (due to different skills and experience). I think the idea of temporary leaders is a useful one here. Jumping forward a couple to months to September, on the initiative of one Slacker, we prepared a rewrite of Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’ for the biennial death fest called Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEI), (arms dealers paradise in the Docklands, subsidised by the taxpayer[7], protected by the police to the tune of £4m.

‘This is an invitation to every nation Please come to DSEi[8] where the weapons aren’t too pricey. Ain’t misbehavin’, I’m savin’ my arms for you.’

This slacker assumed temporary leadership, not of the whole action, but of getting people on board with this song, and the practice of it (teaching us the tune, showing how the words scanned). On another occasion, I generated interest in doing a voice workshop with artist-activist Maggie Nicols. I did the work of setting up contact with Maggie and finding a date good for all, but, nearer the time of the workshop, asked for help with other tasks, such as handling donations on the day. If one person does all the work, there is a risk of alienating some people in a group who might not feel consulted or involved or even aware of what’s going on; all of which are big demotivators and fodder for backstabbing or gossiping within groups. It can be difficult assuming leadership for a task within a group that is trying to do away with leadership, but an acceptance of temporary, rotating leading roles is one way of unmasking power and utilising the skills and energy of people within the group.[9]

The second meeting for the SLG workshop was great. We pushed on with devising a running order of songs and activities, and ended up making placards (which had already been started by a placard-making working group), basically huge song sheets for workshop participants to sing along with. It was good working together, the group dynamic was gathering momentum, enabling trust that everything would be said and done by the collective whole. And lots was said and done, not everything we needed for the final workshop because nothing gets done all at once, and more was said and done than I could ever have achieved on my own or with just one or two others.

And then it was the night itself. We’d arranged to meet an hour before the doors opened to run through and warm up. We’d actually left quite a few little details to be finalised at the last minute and tensions were quite high again. This was made worse by the fact that we hadn’t formalised a decision making process. We’d left this quite informal, and had never designated a facilitator for any of our meetings. There were only 8 of us, it had seemed a bit bureaucratic to insist on this formality. Yet it would definitely have enabled us to make quicker decisions under the pressure of time before our workshop, with one person, a temporary leader, collecting proposals and pushing for agreement on them, rejecting irrelevant or repetitive comments.

This was the invite on the blog

Come and sing with us on Saturday 21st July 8pm!We’ll be singing some of our songs, showing how we work together – we spend just as much time negotiating how we sing and organise as we do singing – and that’s our special charm. Come and sing along. Your voice is just as important as ours !We are interested in organising so that we can explore some possible answers to these questions: How can we rise to the challenge of working collaboratively? How can our voices become stronger?How can we collectively make decisions so that every voice counts? Artistic production is still very much an individual experience and since working in groups is one of the biggest challenges in our competitive and individualistic society, how can we learn to create in a more collaborative way? A society with many different voices will survive better than a society with only a few voices, or only a few voices that are heard and acted upon. Voice on, voice up, voice outward, voice towards, voice together, Você (in portuguese) meaning YOU, add in the ‘i’, and get VOICE[10]

The workshop flowed and flew (see report by another Slacker). We were part of a night called ‘Banding together’ – a night dedicated to bands, groups, people making music together. We were by far the largest group on the night (apart from the audience, and they came on board with us). The workshop couldn’t have gone better; as we hadn’t planned the workshop to death, there was room for beautiful things to happen. Such as, when teaching ‘Ke arona’[11] each part of the harmony (sop, alto, tenor, bass) taught their section, group by group. This meant the groups not learning their part at any one time were just chilling for the moment and chatting amongst themselves or with the slacker who was going to teach them the part. When it came to each part of the harmony, slackers from other parts slid over to help. We had kind of planned this but it worked so smoothly and easily. We couldn’t have planned it better. Some things are best when there is an angle of improvisation.

After the workshop we all felt such a high. We beamed and blagged more beers from the SLG bar, confident to approach any of the punters there and talk to them about how they’d found the singing. We’d managed to reach out to people in a way that made them want to respond and join us. We changed the undercurrent of energy in that large space. Sometimes activists have little to feel satisfied with, let alone proud of. This night we did.

Part 2

“Groups of people always form patterns. Some groups build a sense of stability over time. Others, burning up energy around specific enthusiasms, are more transient. Occasionally, groups switch into interactive mode – working together, drawing vitality from one another. Then, in equal measure, they separate. Splitting. Re-forming. New lines of thinking. Always becoming.”[12]

Since this workshop, slackers have had a hectic timetable of organising singing actions for the Climate Camp[13], then for the arms fair as mentioned above. The No Borders camp followed in September and there are a 101 other struggles and actions that we want to support and be part of. Taking direct action to bring about the downfall of capitalism involves travelling around the city and country taking creative, musical action against our target. Direct Action, as David Graeber argues in his ethnography, is not symbolic. It involves confronting those responsible for capitalism and trying to stop them from carrying out their plans (Chapter 1). I would argue that creative, musical resistance can afford a higher level of symbolism, as it is aiming to undermine the beliefs that underpin capitalism in the people who deliver it. I acknowledge inspiration from the Vacuum Cleaner, the Space Hijackers, the Rebel Clown army (CIRCA) and the fabulous training ground of the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (London, October 2004). Capitalism is in our social relations as well as formal and economic institutions, and we are all responsible for it, even if to varying degrees. A song sung to commuters on a rush hour train, encouraging them to reconsider the rat race treadmill of their lives has the potential to influence them to swerve out of their roles in carrying out capitalism. Capitalism is a mental block. We chip away at it.

The Slackers are just starting to collectively devise an effective action. With our desire to attack capitalism both directly and indirectly, burnout is always a danger. Burnout is defined as long term involvement in situations that are emotionally demanding, and is caused by “a combination of very high expectations and chronic situational stresses”[14]. Bringing about the downfall of capitalism could be considered one such ‘very high expectation’. A tactic of temporary non-action or withdrawal and quiet observation may be equally important to the achievement of long term aims. There is a tension between the urge to action (“If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”[15]) which stems from the ‘I count’ attitude which motivates every anarchist-activist and which we hold dear to our hearts. However, a constant “We must do something NOW!” can impede the flow of creativity that helps to build dynamic, sustainable groups. Slackers is an attempt to prevent this kind of burnout and create a sustainable form of activism through the creative energy that emerges from our singing sessions, and from the way that we interact with the world. The workshop at SLG was part of this process; learning the new communication skills of working in this group without hierarchy, as well as musical skills … improving our musicality, lyric writing, harmonising, even sight reading and instrument playing, are one way of nurturing our activist selves within a warm bundle of creativity. Sustainable activism will accompany an individual on his or her life journey, adding new skills so we are not still doing the same old protest years down the line, and unable to adequately respond to a changing capitalism. Cathy Levine wrote in her response to the Freeman article on structurelessness, “A feminist friend once commented that, ‘being in the women’s movement’ meant spending approximately 25% of her time engaging in group activities and 75% of her time developing herself …(but) we tend to plunge ourselves head-first into organisational activities, neglecting personal development, until one day we find we do not know what we are doing and for whose benefit, and we hate ourselves as much as before the movement.” [16] This is sacrifice-capitalism contaminating not only social relationships (it’s almost impossible to work with someone suffering from burnout) but also my relationship with me. As an antidote to burnout, it seems pertinent to remember the anarchist principle of free association – anyone who wants to can be a Slacker – and participation is entirely voluntary. Our acronym is a constant reminder not to take ourselves too seriously. The drop in, drop out nature of our meetings may take a while to get used to; involvement fluctuates considerably from person to person and each person’s involvement may vary depending on the project. It might be a case of adapting to this fluidity, rather than getting frustrated when a project collapses for lack of people prioritising it. If we are sensitive to our different energies, one project might collapse but another, completely unexpected, might spring into being.

Since the Carnival against Capitalism in the City of London, June 18^th 1999, or perhaps since the piece of writing ‘Give up Activism’[17] which criticised that event and the separation of anti-capitalist activists into exactly the kind of elitist vanguard that we are quick to criticise in other movements, there has been a slow but sure diversification of strategies of resistance. These forms, from those emerging out of the mobilisation against the G8 in Scotland (2005); the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA), the Trapese Collective, Activist Trauma Support and various publishing initiatives[18], to those entering our political vocabulary from beyond this island; SOMA, an experiment in anarchism[19] and No Borders initiatives, prioritise the learning of new skills, observation and acceptance of emotions, and awareness of our own borders and limitations. Most of these initiatives embody resistance to capitalism as a social relation. They recognise that while it is true that direct democracy and direct action are infectious and likely to radically transform those immediately experiencing them, so many people who (we) might want to join us are restricted from having this access or bring their own barriers that block such transformation. There is a very real need for varied and creative approaches (clowning, creating non-hierarchical, honest relationships in everyday life, emotional support) in order to bring about personal and social change.

If we acknowledge that climate change could call into question everything that we thought we knew about the world, and demand that we revolutionise our skill set, a new and urgent attentiveness to pedagogy is necessary. No-one can know a priori how to change the world, or live in an increasingly unstable one. We can only learn in the process of doing. In the Slackers workshop-performance described above, we were guided not by a fixed idea of what we wanted to achieve, but by a commitment to working together and utilising the resources we had between us. We weren’t acting as ‘activists’ against an enemy target, but worked together with the energy of the other people in the space, and our collective action brought about a shift in energy and attitude. Using the word ‘activist’ can implement a kind of hierarchy that can be used to distance us from people we want to be closest to. A welcome blurring of boundaries between ‘activists’ and ‘non-activists’ will come about by listening more and to voices we’ve never heard before. After all, oppression and resistance are happening everywhere around us, not just in the places where we think they occur. “A rethinking of the way in which those of us who perceive ourselves as belonging to this movement relate to those perceived as ‘outside’”[20] may involve being ideologically active in a variety of everyday spaces; the streets we walk down, the places we hang out in at the weekend, sites of work and consumerism. To paraphrase Alice Walker, Activism could be as everyday as the rent we pay, which doesn’t mean it’s routine, predictable, nor an obligation, but rather a responsibility – a way we respond to the experience of desiring to live despite capitalism. And something happens when we use our voices as an instrument of resistance – we don’t all have to sing the same song, we just need to be opening our mouths and making a noise – and as voice joins together with voice, something of the mental block of capitalism is dislodged, and the small, powerful kernel of our ability to transform is given some space to breathe..[21] And something happens when we use our voices as an instrument of resistance – we don’t all have to sing the same song, we just need to be opening our mouths and making a noise that resonates, a sound that vibrates – and as voice joins together with voice, something of the mental block of capitalism is dislodged, and the small, powerful kernel of our ability to transform is given some space to breathe.

Ceri Buck

openbracket(at)riseup.net

(o moon pen ( I

haven’t finished yet (

London, October 2007

[1] Singing as protest is a tactic that is as old as the hills. My intention here is to talk about our singing interventions with the kind of import that you might read in an article about the black bloc, within a context of contemporary activism, and as ‘anarchistic’ rather than anachronistic.

[2] We didn’t write this. We got it from a website for an anti-WTO action.

[3] Freedom to fail is a freedom that simply exists. Either we embrace or we don’t. Sometimes we don’t because of external factors; parental or other authority figure pressure. Sometimes we fail to embrace it because we’ve internalised this external pressure as fear.

[4] Some Slackers have never sang in a choir before, have had limited opportunities to make music, can’t read sheet music and don’t understand musical jargon. Other Slackers however are talented singers and musicians. We present a wide range of skills and experience.

[5] Direct Action Network, a pan-North American network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian affinity groups, collectives, and organizations that was formed to coordinate the direct action portion of anti-WTO mobilization in Seattle in 1999. It stopped functioning shortly after 9/11 2001 and its websites are no longer maintained.

[6] Direct Action: An Ethnography – David Graeber, unpublished. Quote from Chapter 7 Meetings

[7] Mark Thomas has calculated that each of the 60 – 65,000 jobs in the arms export business is subsidised by the taxpayer by over £13,000 As used on the famous Nelson Mandela p.144 Ebury Press 2006

[8] pronounced ‘dicey’ by protestors, so it does rhyme

[9] Freeman’s suggestions to deal with the tyranny of structurelessness include:

Clarifying what tasks are assigned to what individuals
Distributing responsibilities as widely as possible (perhaps by rotation)
Ensuring all have equal access to information and resources

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html and also as a very nice little pamphlet from Dark Star / Rebel Press entitled Untying the knot: Feminism, Anarchism and Organisation including the Freeman essay and Cathy Levine’s response “The Tyranny of Tyranny” published 1984 and I picked up a copy from the Infoshop, 56a Crampton Street, London, SE1

[10] http://lambethbandofsolidarity.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/slackers-workshop-performance-weasel-the-south-london-gallery/

[11] A South African song meaning ‘All power to the people / our enemies are on the run’. We picked up this song from another political choir, Raised Voices. It’s one of our faves but for the musical illiterates like me, it’s difficult to find the right note to start off on.

[12] The Cunningham Amendment, Volume Nine, Number Four. The journal of the East Pennine Anarcrisps. Subscribe by sending some stamps to 1005 Huddersfield Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD12 8LP. One of my favourite anarchic reads.

[13] Combined with the art project of a burial ark to mark the death of the world as we know it, we went on a procession from the squatted campsite to BAA headquarters at Heathrow with the funereal ‘Harmondsworth, Sipson, Tuvalu, Harlington, New Orleans / Once, before the runways orchards grew / Now we’re drowning in kerosene’ August 14-21 2007 www.climatecamp.org.uk

[14] ‘Sustainable Activism & Avoiding Burnout’ leaflet produced by Activist Trauma Support, picked up in the Well being tent at Climate Camp 2007 www.activist-trauma.net

[15] Last seen on www.tarapixie.net (October 2007) – an urgent (it really is!) call to protect a sacred landscape in the heart of Ireland from road construction.

[16] “The tyranny of tyranny” in Untying the knot p.18

[17] ‘Give up Activism’, Anonymous, in Do or Die: Voices from the Ecological Resistance, 9 (2001) http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no9/activism.htm

[18] Including Shut them down, a valuable reflection on the mobilisation against the G8 in 2005, and Turbulence, a newspaper/journal dedicated to exploring this ‘movement of movements’ spiralling out from Seattle, published June 2007

[19] Developed over the past 35 years in Brazil, originally as psychological support for those involved in the struggle against Brazil’s military dictatorship. Soma uses drama, sound and movement to create spontaneous group interactions and asks what skills we need to learn to resist capitalism and to create non-hierarchical relationships in our everyday lives. Contact Jorge.goia@bol.com.br for further info about Soma workshops in the UK and Europe.

[20] “Gleneagles, Activism and Ordinary Rebelliousness” by Ben Trott in Shut them down p.228

[21] “Activism is my rent for living on this planet” – Alice Walker

October 16, 2007

the Ecstatic Mourning Revue

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the Slackers are involved in and support the Ecstatic Mourning revue

The ‘Ecstatic Mourning Revue’ is a righteous, ramshackle, joyous-in-the-face-of despair musical/visual extravaganza. We’re on the lookout for collaborators for Songs of Ecstatic Mourning, the working title of a still open-ended project that will be we hope a very joyous, very soulful, very choral, very melancholic, very lunatic bit of conscious musical journeying. We’re facing a pretty tempestuous, uncertain future as climate chaos kicks in and the end of oil forces all kinds of changes upon us, some positive, some pretty scary. Most of what we hear about this is strangely detached and factual – we think it’s time for some crazy, heartfelt, radical music to help inspire us to resist the madness and to propel us into the most positive future possible. This could be a properly structured ‘musical’ with a narrative running through it, or just a collection of songs played by a gang of musicians, with spoken word stuff in between. It needs plenty of voices, with almost a gospel vibe at times (although we don’t have religious beliefs ourselves). It needs to hit you in the gut, as well as having a good streak of dark humour. We’d like it to work outside, preferably in the street, and possibly while on the move, New Orleans-style. As well as musical types, there’s sure to be a place for visual artists, costume-makers, film-makers, photographers etc., in case that’s what you do. Maybe we’ll hear from you soon – please write to ecstaticmourning@riseup.net Thanks for reading and good luck to all of us in 2007 and beyond. Love and blossomism from various ecstatically mournful ragamuffins PS. In case you’re wondering, the name came up when one of us was trying to describe what it was like dancing to James Brown after hearing of his death…

http://www.myspace.com/ecstaticmourningrevue

October 16, 2007

Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?

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Some slackers have reached the starry heights of buskerdom, on the latest roving Artangel project – Did you kiss the foot that kicked you? A tribute to Ewan MacColl (small c big C) and to mark the opening of M15 files on him last year. This was also part of the Ecstatic Mourning project (songs of sorrow and joy for the climatically changing world – more info here ).

Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?

“Give me the making of the songs of the nation, and I care not who makes its laws”.
Andrew Fletcher, 1703

“Music is doing something to everyone who hears it all the time”.
Arnold Perris, Music as Propaganda, 1984

Ewan MacColl wrote Ballad of Accounting in 1964.The lyrics follow a simple structure, considered to be unique among his three hundred compositions. The song offers criticism as self-reflection, repeatedly posing provocative and direct questions:

Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?
Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?

Government records released in 2006 through The National Archive show that from 1932, security service MI5 held a file on MacColl. One report claims that he was ‘a communist with very extreme views’ who needed ‘special attention’. The file also states, as a cause for concern, that MacColl had ‘exceptional ability as a singer and musical organiser’.

Ruth Ewan’s Did you kiss the foot that kicked you? involves the co-ordination of over one hundred buskers around London. Performing both under and above ground, the buskers incorporate Ballad of Accounting into their usual repertoire. Their individual acts share a collective purpose. The week-long series of performances slips quietly into the rush-hour routine, as the scattered recitals filter into the subconscious of those passing by.

Busking is about something other than just being an able musician or a street entertainer; it is a raw performance, an autonomous act.

Legislation has almost eradicated busking; by-laws and policing keep all but the hardiest musicians from the streets, while others pursue bureaucratic routes into designated areas. The recent introduction of music licensing has restrained the natural spontaneity of performances across a range of live venues.

The entirety of Did you kiss the foot that kicked you? cannot be experienced by any one person. We may or may not be aware of the song’s fleeting presence in the city: a bold brass section as we cross the Thames or a quiet voice accompanied by a guitar as we turn off the main street.

Ballad of Accounting
(Words/Music: Ewan MacColl)

In the morning we built the city
In the afternoon walked through its streets
Evening saw us leaving
We wandered through our days as if they would never end
All of us imagined we had endless time to spend
We hardly saw the crossroads
And small attention gave
To landmarks on the journey from the cradle to the grave,
cradle to the grave, cradle to the graveDid you learn to dream in the morning?
Abandon dreams in the afternoon?
Wait without hope in the evening?
Did you stand there in the traces and let them feed you lies?
Did you trail along behind them wearing blinkers on your eyes?
Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?
Did you thank them for their scorn?
Did you ask for their forgiveness for the act of being born,
act of being born, act of being born?Did you alter the face of the city?
Did you make any change in the world you found?
Or did you observe all the warnings?
Did you read the trespass notices, did you keep off the grass?
Did you shuffle off the pavement just to let your betters pass?
Did you learn to keep your mouth shut,
Were you seen and never heard?
Did you learn to be obedient and jump to at a word,
jump to at a word, jump to at a word?Did you ever demand any answers?
The who, the what or the reason why?
Did you ever question the setup?
Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?
Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?
Did you settle for the shoddy?
Did you think it right
To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight,
never make a fight, never make a fight?What did you learn in the morning?
How much did you know in the afternoon?
Were you content in the evening?
Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school?
Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool?
Did the place where you were living
Enrich your life and then
Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men,
all your fellow men, all your fellow men?

(WOW! This gets me in the gut, just like Listen Little Man by Wilhelm Reich. It was great singing it. I sang on the Soho Square pitch, the park closed early so we wandered around soho singing, outside a church, up the road by the Astoria, onto Charing X road, into Starbucks, up Old Compton Street, then a short spell outside a sex shop on the same. Rounded off with Vegan food in Govinda’s. Life doesn’t get much better than this!).

More info on www.balladofaccounting.org

October 3, 2007

Slackers at Heathrow Climate Camp 2007

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“Harmondsworth, Sipson, Tuvalu, Harlington, New Orleans

Once, before the runways, orchards grew.

Now, we’re drowning in kerosene”

We sang, we enjoyed the food from the Anarchist Teapot tent, we contributed to the compost toilet and loved and loved the self-organised energy of the camp! Climate Camp rocked!!

Stop the Third Runway!

www.climatecamp.org.uk

www.notrag.org

July 23, 2007

SLACkers bring the house down at the SLG

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Bruce wrote:

The main space of the South London Gallery had for the Weasel festival an extremely garish, psychedelic, partially 3-D mural on the back wall, composed of blown-up photographs and drawings. A triangular, day-glo pink and blue stage was set up, its point directed at the main space. A wee bar was set up near the entrance. We Slackers (eight of us) had our final preparation meeting in the foyer over a huge tub of pineapple chunks. To the strains of the Errorists soundchecking in the main room we went through our programme and ironed out almost all ambiguities, decided who was doing and saying what and when. When we sang through our opening (and closing) tune, we were all immediately impressed with the warmth of the acoustics in the gallery. The words, a paraphrase of Goethe, are Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it; just begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

People started arriving in dribs and drabs. When we started there were probably around 50 people in the room.

1. We dispersed among them and started singing the above song, in unison and then as a round.

2. Using placards with the lyrics on them, we gently tried to get people to sing a three-part number,this room singsmoving into the light simple, so-o-o simple
while wandering around the room. 3. Standing in a circle, we each said something about what Slackers are (leaderless and conductorless, angry and happy and hungry, inclined to sing in bandstands, not necessarily that worried about singing in tune, an antidote to cynicism, out to make your life just that bit more … confusing, etc).

4. Warm-ups: a quick selection of stretches and limb-shakes, face exercises, and ascending and descending arpeggios of the words We like to sing in the street which went amusingly high and low.

5. We divided people into four parts (low, high, middle-low and middle-high), getting them to stand around the room. We spoke through the song (Ke Arona) and explained it was an ANC song that meant All power to the people; our enemies are on the run. We sang it and then taught the parts to each group, two of us per group. There was a handful of people who stood back but mostly people were joining in. We had more lyric-placards to wave around.

6. After a mere five minutes’ practice or so (the room taking on a very relaxed workshoppy we sang it through altogether, and it sounded really good. Everyone clapped at the end and it certainly felt as if people had surprised themselves.

7. Finally Rachel and/or Cara explained how we sometimes change the lyrics of songs, and to demonstrate we hummed the first tune again, then sang it with the lyrics some of us had previewed in several branches of a certain coffeeshop chain in central London a couple of weeks ago: Whenever you drink coffee at Starbucks, remember, just remember: Starbucks, McDonalds, exploitation, innit. Starbucks, McDonalds, same old shit, innit. (NB ‘Innit’ is South London shorthand for ‘I daresay you would be happy to concur with the preceding sentiment, my good man.’) After a few goes through we went back to the Goethe-y version on which we ended. Carl announced that our next appearance would be at ‘ an airport near you‘.

The next acts, DJ Rubbish (a funny freestyle rapper and his dj) and The Errorists (a trio of cello, suitcase and vocals with a Morrocan(?) flavour), despite clearly being good, were done no favours by the echoey acoustics that had suited us so well. Feedback from friends and strangers alike was positive — the sense was that people had initially been embarrassed or scared, but settled into it and ended up enjoying it. The whole thing took half as long as we’d initially intended. My friend Joe described the experience as ‘liberating’ and I know what he means.

July 11, 2007

SLACkers workshop-performance @Weasel, the South London Gallery

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Come and sing with us on Saturday 21st July 8pm!

We’ll be singing some of our songs, showing how we work together – we spend just as much time negotiating how we sing and organise as we do singing – and that’s our special charm. Come and sing along. Your voice is just as important as ours !

We are interested in organising so that we can explore some possible answers to these questions: How can we rise to the challenge of working collaboratively? How can our voices become stronger?How can we collectively make decisions so that every voice counts? Artistic production is still very much an individual experience and since working in groups is one of the biggest challenges in our competitive and individualistic society, how can we learn to create in a more collaborative way?

A society with many different voices will survive better than a society with only a few voices, or only a few voices that are heard and acted upon.

Voice on, voice up, voice outward, voice towards, voice together,

voice = Você (in portuguese) meaning YOU, add in the ‘i’, and we get voice

And this is the rest of the line up. (this has been copied from myspace which I hate cos we’ve got to learn to live without Murdoch in our lives but SLG haven’t put the lineup on their own website)

The Weasel’s Calendar

14 Jul 2007