Wasi has something to share

Here are the videos of Nawal Al Saadawi at the Occupy LSX camp a couple of weeks ago.  There are a couple of interviews, and a few clips of Dr Nawal talking to the camp.  It was a brilliant, inspiring occassion, and I just wish I'd got the videos out sooner. First interview - "I feel I am in Tahrir Square - I feel we are in one world - I feel this is a global revolution...We have the same goal" Second interview, with the Guardian - "we have to be one, we have to be one" "Tahrir Square everywhere!" Slightly circular discussion with a tourist - 'election can be a deception - we have to decide when the election can come... we, the revolution" Address to the camp on the steps of St Paul's - "the struggle is global ... we live in one world...we are together...we have to fight together...one world"

The excitement of Dr Nawal's visit set off a day of celebration and wider sharing of inspiration, as Occupy LSX celebrated their first full week at St Paul's.  The actions of the Dean of St Paul's (closing the Cathedral with no apparent good reason) did not detract from the Public Assembly, and perhaps swelled its numbers - i spoke to a few tourists who were sympathetic to the aims of the camp, thought the closure of the cathedral was, at best, unnecessary (and also foolish), and who were happy to be entertained and welcomed on its steps instead. The camp's open day started with spoken word poets and musicians who managed to mix political engagement with lyrical skills that pulled in an evergrowing crowd.  Stone steps and pavement aren't exactly the ideal bleachers, but no-one seemed to notice or care, as were appraised of the new political abc, and reminded that Jesus was a revolutionary. The floor was then opened to activists, and representatives from groups fr...

A week ago, St Paul's Occupy LSX camp was visited by the brilliant author and life-long activist, Dr Nawal Al Saawadi, one of the outstanding voices and faces of the Egyptian revolution.  She came to share her own experiences, and words of encouragement.  She urged the campers not to be moved, to stay for as long as they needed to, and to believe the struggle would not be in vain.  Visiting the camp on her 80th birthday, she refuted that this was a movement of the youth - it is, she stated, 'everyone's revolution'.   As she moved about the camp, she was followed like a sage dispensing wisdom to adoring followers.  Which , I guess, is almost exactly the case.  What was also lovely was how she was also inspired by the existence of the camp, and the Occupy movement around the world - she motioned to the camp: "To me, this feels like Tahrir Square...being here is like living a dream" Rather than try to reproduce her simple but totally rousing words of ...

the past week seems to have zoomed by faster than the speed of neutrinos on uppers!  i wish this analogy could be applied to me also, but unfortunately, I seemed to have compensated by sinking into a go-slow, overloaded with: - work-work (i leave my current job in a week, and there suddenly seem to be way too many loose-ends that need securing),  -home-work (visitors from liverpool; a naming ceremony; packing to go to nigeria, and more importantly, getting my mum off yesterday morning...we arrived at the airport at 5.40am...i dozed my way through work),  and life-work (um, well, i say 'work' - tweeting, readingarticles, being in touch with friends and going to see John Osborne's brilliant 'John Peel's Shed' have hardly been taxing - they just take time). my eager blogging of the week before has fallen by the way side this week, but maybe in part because there's been so much going on, it's been a bit much fitting in the part where i sit down and rel...

Few words today, as I am falling down tired.  Realised that my enthusiasm and need to get to the camp every day, and determination to blog every night is meaning even less sleep than I usually get.  Still, probably more sleep (and definitely more comfortable) than those sleeping out on the cobbles, with just a a few pieces of canvas and zotefoam (new word, learnt tonight - thanks AG) as a pretence at shelter. Tonight at camp, the projector showed pictures of occupy groups around the world.  I was open-mouth stunned at the sea of people in so many of the places shown.  The solidarity of this movement is such an important element - feeling, seeing, knowing it is not just us, we are not alone in this struggle, in these feelings of discontentment.  This is truly a global movement, and I hope it is true that it is 'too big to fail'. Over by the sukkah, a Jewish service was held for the festival of succot (please, please correct me if I have this detail wrong!)....

The news this morning (especially that around the brutal eviction of Dale Farm) had me start the day feeling fed up and more than a litle hopeless.  What I see at Occupy LSX, and hear from the Occupy Movement in general, restored the hope that things can be different. Today I got to spend a good few hours at the camp.  Every day I note this, but... every day, it seems, in between my visits, there is growth and there is progress.  Talks, workshops and working groups continue - having attended a working group myself for the first time since Saturday, and also signing up to the Indy Media team, I find still a great level of incusion, real listening, and a welcoming of various ideas and opinions. General Assembly - rumours that the Cathedral have asked Occupy LSX to leave were officially quashed.  It seems The Times and the Evening Standard have got their facts wrong (great journalism as usual, then!) - a good inidcation, perhaps, that the initial positive reportin...