| Mihajlo Acimovic on Fri, 12 Nov 1999 02:56:33 +0100 |
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| Syndicate: Invitation |
Hi My name is Mihajlo Acimovic. I am an activist from ex-Yugoslavia, currently staying in Vienna. I am organising some workshops, lectures, discussions, etc. This is the planned schedule for November Saturday, 13.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 FIRST FASCISM, THEN ACTIVISM A discussion about the weaknesses of antiracist and antiwar groups Sunday, 14.11., 14.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 ENVIRONMENT AND WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA Workshop Tuesday, 16.11. 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 ABOUT THE SOROS FOUNDATION Lecture/Workshop Thursday, 18.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART ONE Lecture Friday, 19.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART TWO Lecture Sunday, 21.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART THREE Lecture Tuesday, 23.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 LANGUAGE LEARNING, MEDIA AND SCHOOL EDUCATION Workshop Thursday, 25.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN PRACTICE Workshop Friday, 26.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 FREE RADIOS AND RADIO CULTURE Workshop Sunday, 28.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 ENVIRONMENT AND WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA Workshop Tuesday, 30.11., 20.00, ARGE f|r Wehrdienstverweigerung, 1., Schottengasse 3a/1/4/59 HOMOSEXUALITY AND BISEXUALITY IN YUGOSLAVIA Lecture/Workshop Below are some txts that should explain what each thing is about Saturday, 13.11., 20.00 FIRST FASCISM, THEN ACTIVISM A discussion about the weaknesses of antiracist and antiwar groups Most people only start acting on a an issue when they feel immediately personally endangered. Big actions against the FPO are happening only after it won 1.2 million votes. The Antiwar Campaign in Serbia started almost two months after the war in Kosov@ began. The demands for releasing Mummia Abu-Jamal have only gained momentum after Tom Ridge signed the death sentence. Most people only react when they see the problem hitting them in the face. On top of that, Austria has a population which is completely used to obeying orders and rules has very little initiative or tradition in resisting authorities and generally believes that it should do nothing, because nothing can be done. It has a dark age school system, though the media situation is bearable. What can be done in this situation How can we activate the masses What kind of cultural subversion works best How to stretch the borders of publicly allowed behaviour Can preventive actions be organised instead of retaliatory, to things like war, racism and nationalism In other words, how to make other people be socially active like ourselves. Sunday, 14.11., 14.00, Sunday, 28.11., 20.00 ENVIRONMENT AND WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA Workshop The lecture is primarily centered around the period of the NATO bombing, when most of the environmental damage was done. Issues are - Bombing of chemical factories - effects on humans - Poisoning of Danube, Sava and Morava waters (three biggest rivers in Yugoslavia) - Water and Soil poisoning - Poisoning of Belgrade city water - Destruction of oil refineries and missile fuel depots. - A story about Pancevo - Huge floods in July, in Jugoslavia, Hungaria, Romania, with no media coverage - Very strange weather over Serbia, Panonia... - What colour is the cloud? What will come out of it? - Effects of Depleted Uranium weapons use - Strange crops, no crops and rivers with dead fish - Whatever else the participants are interested in Tuesday, 16.11. 20.00 ABOUT THE SOROS FOUNDATION Lecture/Workshop The Soros foundation invests over 400 million USD a year, almost entirely in ex-Yugoslavia and the ex-Soviet block. The so-called independent media in those countries are usually economically dependent on Soros and the same goes for many human rights groups, peace groups, etc. Wether the governments approve of Soros functioning or not, they all reckognize it as a major social factor in their countries. The lecture will concentrate not on where the money comes from but on what is done with the money and how. Included are: - Who is George Soros (very brief) - What the money is officially spent for - What are the possible motives for this - Media control and utilisation - Debate Clubs, Open Clubs, youth indoctrination camps... - Rebellion at Youth Open Club Belgrade - Control of Activism - Collecting information - does CIA have a competitor, or a new branch? - Dominating new technologies - Creating a new middle class for Eastern Europe - Cooperation with the educational system of the Republic of Kosova - Connections to EU governments and ease at obtaining travel visas - NGO forums, peace groups and autonomous radios - Divisions within the foundation - How the foundation itself is structured - Cooperation with USAID, Foundation For Peace and Non-Violent Conflict resolution, others... - Other possibilities for funding activism in Eastern Europe - Whatever the participants are interested in Thursday, 18.11., 20.00 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART 1 Lecture The lecture aims to explain the basic causes of the war and to unmask the interests at starting and maintaining the war. It will go chronologically, briefly mentioning the events in the last two centuries and will concentrate on the events from autumn 1996 to the beginning of the war in March 1999. - Was the war caused by the student-led mind revolution which shook Serbia in 1996/7 or by the Albanian student demonstrations in 1997 - Why the election boycott campaign in 1997. was ignored in western media and why the police beatings in Pristina were broadcasted live, while beatings of Belgrade protestors on the same day were ignored - Why Milosevic, NATO and the Kosov@ Albanian leadership wanted the war - Who funded and armed the UCK - How Milosevic produced a climate of public support to UCK among Kosov@ Albanians - Why police did not try to stop the growth of the UCK - Why the UCK killed 84-year-old people - Why police retaliations against UCK were directed only at civilians, when UCK stronghold locations were hardly secret - Resistance and alternatives Friday, 19.11., 20.00 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART 2 Lecture The lecture concentrates on the period between 3.3.1998. and 24.3.1999. The period of a civil war between the police of Serbia, the Army Of Yugoslavia and some paramilitaries on one side and the UCK on the other Also the time of a powerful Antiwar Campaign in Serbia, student protests, strikes, workers' demonstrations in Kragujevac, etc. - How it began and why? - How the police attacked village populations, but avoided hurting the UCK - Why the Antiwar Campaign started too late - And why the student protests started even later - Why Albanian peace groups refused to join the Antiwar Campaign or make a campaign of their own - About Serb and Albanian demonstrations in Pristina in Spring of 1998. - Why the 1998. Antiwar Campaign in Serbia and the student protests didn't exist for western media - Why NATO didn't start bombing in October 1998. - And why B92 was silent about NATO troop landings in January 1999., during a supposed peace process. - Story about the "Otpor" campaign in Serbia - Whose peace? - Rambouillet agreement and other pretended negotiations. - Desertion, conscientious objection and other ways of avoiding military service in Yugoslavia Sunday, 21.11., 20.00 THE KOSOV@ WAR - PART 3 Lecture This one concentrates on the period of the NATO bombing campaign, from March to June 1999. - One day before the war - Bombing day - Bombing - what? an attempted analysis of the main targets of NATO bombings and the motives involved in target selection, including: 1. Why NATO chose to bomb chemical industries 2. Why empty buildings were trashed by bombs while real targets were spared 3. Refugee collumns, tourist buses, residential areas and other collateral damages - A short analysis of the media situation in Serbia during the bombing - "Antiwar rallies" in Belgrade and government organised "spontaneous rallies to save our bridges" - Antiwar demonstrations in Serbia, during the bombing - Situation within the Yugoslav army during the bombing - troop mutinies, disobedience, etc. - An analysis of military mobilisation techniques in Yugoslavia and their effectiveness - What genocide? Why Milosevic made the world believe there was a genocide happening in Kosov@, when it was ethnic cleansing instead - How strong was the UCK? - Milosevic's mercenaries abroad - a disection of anti-NATO demonstrations in western countries, concentrated on their relation to nationalist ideology and people like Milosevic and Seselj - Between the hammer and the anvil, prisoners of NATOsevic - NATOsevic Refugee politics - Environmental damages of the war - Belgrade markets: "These are high quality vegetables. The fields where they grow are not contaminated with any chemicals or radiation" - Don't drink the water - it's poisoned - Aftermath Tuesday, 23.11., 20.00 LEARNING LANGUAGES, MEDIA AND SCHOOL EDUCATION Workshop Knowing other languages and xsing other cultures is not only cruscial for communication with members of those cultures. It is also decisive in the cultural self-defining of a person and often in it's openness to other cultures and other ways of living. By supporting or inhibiting travel and language learning, those who control the social system also decide what level of racism and nationalism they want to create. The less people are able to communicate with foreigners and members of other cultures, the more they are suceptible to anti-foreigner indoctrination. Inhibiting the learning of other languages or even dialects has proved very important to the anti-foreigner indoctrination policies of EU, Milosevic, Lukasenko, etc. The idea of this workshop is to observe different media and school approaches to learning languages, including translation of foreign films and television programmes, allowing people to buy books in original languages, subventioning the use of state language! s in media, the school language education politics, etc. The workshop will try to explore how different approaches to these things affect people's relationships toward foreigners, nationalism, racism, etc. and how much these approaches are a result of deliberate directioning or just side-effects of irresponsible policies. It will also consider the possibilities of opening different media spaces in an all-things-translated-no-need-for-you-to-learn-anything societies like Austria. Thursday, 25.11., 20.00 ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN PRACTICE lecture/workshop The inadequacy of the official education system and it's inhibition of peoples' desires for knowledge has forced many people to organise alternative educational systems, with different structure and goals than the official one. The purpose of these systems is normally to support critical thinking, teach things that should be thought at school, expose the lies taught by school teachers or simply to serve as addition to the official education. This workshop will concentrate on some examples of alternative educational systems and possibilites for establishing an alternative educational system that would fit the needs of the participants. Workshop includes: - Open University Belgrade (1980s) - Long-lasting student protests as a form of (self)-education - Youth Open Clubs - Debate Clubs - Autonomous Cultural Factory - Activist camps and education/indoctrination camps - workshops - Petnica reasearch station - Republic Of Kosova education system (since 1990) Friday, 26.11., 20.00 FREE RADIOS AND RADIO CULTURE Workshop Radio has played a key role in the functioning of many social movements. From the resistance to nazi occupation during World War II, to today's Radios B92, Index and Pancevo in Belgrade and Rebel Radio in the USA. An example from Italy has shown how radios can direct the behaviour of entire communities. Rebellious radios create their own subcultures and greatly modify the dominant cultures. Their very existence brings change to people's thinking. The subject of the workshop will be what happens within these radios and what kind of culture they create. The workshop will observe recent examples from other countries and try to learn from them. If there is sufficient interest, it may be followed by a discussion on what could be done in Austria, wether through radio Orange or otherwise. Tuesday, 30.11., 20.00 HOMOSEXUALITY AND BISEXUALITY IN YUGOSLAVIA Lecture/Workshop The lecture will explore the specific position of homosexuality in Yugoslavia and the specific forms of discrimination. It includes: - Where and how discriminated sexual behaviour is expressed - Short history of the conditions for homosexuals and bisexuals in Yugoslavia - Legal treatment of homosexuality - Medical treatment of homosexuality - Forms of discrimination - Homosexuals and bisexuals in the government - The Army Of Yugoslavia and homosexuals - Homosexual/Bisexual activism in the last 10 years - Treatment of sexual minorities at student protests a - Homosexuality/Bisexuality and political parties - Comparisments to the situation in Austria - Possiblites for change - Other Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com ------Syndicate mailinglist-------------------- Syndicate network for media culture and media art information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate to unsubscribe, write to <syndicate-request@aec.at> in the body of the msg: unsubscribe your@email.adress