Peace and Justice

I had a good time yesterday at the Lewisham Peace and Justice event at the Albany. I didn't get to see much of the music although did catch a bit of the wonderful Strawberry Thieves socialist choir, who were great fun. The discussions, films and debates earlier in the day were engaging, interesting and moving by turns.

It was difficult to watch the slide show from Guy Smallman who is a photo journalist who has been reporting from Afghanistan. I've got great admiration for the man who has refused to be an embedded journalist and wonders around Afghanistan without British troops chatting to villagers, Taliban and all sorts. Many of the stories he had to tell and show us were very strong stuff about civilian casualties (I think they used to call them collateral damage, a clinical term for dead children) and the economic destitution that Afghan people live in now.

The film and discussions on Palestine and also on Love Music, Hate Racism were more optimistic and inspirational. There was lively discussion through out and when I presented my short film (for the eco-bit) I only wished we'd had more time for discussion about climate change, capitalism and what on Earth we're going to do.

One thing that a few people asked me was whether they could get hold of the film so I thought it would be useful to post a link to where you can watch it online, or even download it for free.

What I liked about The Story of Stuff is that instead of looking for one particular bad person to blame it looks at how environmental degradation is built into our economic system, and therefore if we're to change what's happening we can't rely on single solutions to act as a magic bullet but we have to assess what we're producing, how, why and who for.

Well worth a look.