pault

you don’t have to be a black blocker…

This started as a comment on a comment of aland’s about my suggestion that he posted his piece on Sheffield Indymedia. It ended up being too long for a comment and turned in a blog entry. I hope all that made sense.

Mmmm. Not sure I agree with aland’s comment. IMC UK’s mission statement is the relevant document here.

First para reads:
The Indymedia UK website provides an interactive platform for reports from the struggles for a world based on freedom, cooperation, justice and solidarity, and against environmental degradation, neoliberal exploitation, racism and patriarchy. The reports cover a wide range of issues and social movements – from neighbourhood campaigns to grassroots mobilisations, from critical analysis to direct action. [my emphasis]

Now, I don’t think that arguing for better facilities for children and saying that Sheffield City Council should be doing what they take Council Tax for is outside this at all.

The Sheffield-IMC group have said that one of the good things about working on a small geographical area [rather than nationwide] is that we can have content that isn’t all big actions and demos in London, but is much more community based. Having a legitimate concern about the enviroment in the area where you live and your children play is intensely political as far as I’m concerned.

I would love to see reports of Tenants’ & Residents’ Associations [random example] activities on IMC-Sheffield, because it is people doing for themselves rather than being told what to do by bureaucrats and politicians. The great thing for me about Indymedia is that it is bottom-up, non-hierarchical and breaks the rules about what is political or not. It makes no sense to me to then have a “is it political [enough]” hurdle.

Originally posted on burngreave.net.

posted by pault at 22:07, 23 June 2003 | burngreave , community , imc , politics , sheffield