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...

Only ended up being able to spend a v brief time at occupy lsx this evening.  While there, though, I was struck by the number of visitors it seems to be receiving.  Tourists streamed through, taking photos, marvelling at the efficiency of something that apparently is just 'a bunch of benefit scroungers'... Hmmmm.  Well, if that's the level of organisation, cooperation and true democracy that results from benefit scrounger, maybe we need a few more in power... oh wait, maybe that's what the expenses scandal was all about... A man asked another to film him beneath the 'Tahrir Square' sign, as he spoke in Arabic about what was happening around him.  A group of German high school students were led through, and an American couple were shown around, commenting on how great it was that the camp got the backing of the church. As usual (is it already 'usual'? I guess it is), walking round, I encountered a number of meetings, talks and people chatting - about th...

Just a quickish one tonight. I ended up going down to the camp not once but twice tonight.  I had the idea to take down, from all the things on the camp's needed list, sand.  Well, grit, if you want to be technical.  I got there to be told that there'd been a call for sand just a few minutes back.  Lots of questions about where I'd got it and wonderings if I could get any more gave me the idea of going back.  So I did.  Dragged my brother out of the house at about 11.00, and headed down with even more of the stuff. All gratefully received. At the camp this evening, I was bemused once again by how much things had grown since I was there the day before.  The camp has a library now, and while I was there, a talk was being given outside it by Hamish Watson on 'Eternal Revolution - the dialectic of universal history'.  The field kitchen is now rather massive, and while I was there, I witnessed the arrival of the Info Point's new gazebo, fully formed ...