Campaigning for justice for the world's poor in Oxfordshire
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London is organising a debate on controversial trade deal TTIP on 11 January. Participants include Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader, and Mark Dearn of War on Want. It will take place on Monday 11th January. This is not a Global Justice Now event.
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/events/ttip-debate
CETA, TTIP, TiSA. The boring-sounding abbreviations hide a sinister reality: these are a set of trade deals designed to take rights away from citizens while making it easier for corporations to exploit people and resources. We’re holding a big public speaker meeting to address the issue.
Friday 6th November
Wesley Memorial Church, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, OX1 2DH
Speakers include
The event is free – please do come along!
38 Degrees members are coming together at hundreds of locations across the UK to campaign against TTIP on Saturday 22nd. People will be collecting signatures for an enormous petition against it. Put your postcode into the 38 Degrees site to get info on what’s happening in your part of Oxfordshire.
This mobilisation isn’t organised by Global Justice Now, but we fully support its aims.
Climate change, capitalism and citizen power were just a few of the things discussed at last night’s Global Justice Oxford relaunch. Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, travelled from London to help us celebrate.
Why the relaunch? We used to be known as WDM (World Development Movement) but in recent years it’s become clear that the meaning of the word “development” has changed to the point where it actually describes the kind of approach we’re fighting against.
So WDM polled members around the country, consulted all the local groups (like ours) which form such an important part of the organisation, then took a democratic decision to change the organisation’s name to Global Justice Now in January 2015. Local groups have renamed themselves on the same pattern and have been holding relaunch events up and down the country to celebrate the change.
It was cheering to see a healthy turnout for our event – surely they weren’t all motivated by the delicious cake on offer! – and so much engagement with the issues. We talked about corporate takeover of global resources, alternative models for energy generation, higher education, the Greek economy and more.
We showed three films to give some context about our campaigns. If you missed the event, you can watch the (short) fims on YouTube..
How our banks finance climate change (4mins)
The story we’re told is that there’s no money to fight climate change… but apparently there’s plenty of money spare for causing climate change?
Naomi Klein Says Climate Activists Need to Get Comfortable Attacking Capitalism (8 mins)
Interview with the author and activist, whose Oxford book launch sold out the Sheldonian Theatre last autumn.
IBEKA, micro hydro power in Indonesia
Energy doesn’t have to be corporate-owned, environmentally damaging and expensive. The IBEKA story presents a positive alternative to the “Big Energy” model.
A consistent theme in everything we talked about was the idea of challenging the narrative: not accepting the stories we’re told about how the world does and should work, but coming up with our own stories. One great example is the dreaded Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (better known as TTIP) which might have been accepted as a broadly positive trade deal if there hadn’t been such a well-orchestrated campaign against it. Global Justice Now has been working in collaboration with other organisations to expose the truth of TTIP at national and European level; meanwhile, at a local level, several of the campaigners from Global Justice Oxford have been working with Oxfordshire campaigners from other groups such as 38 Degrees.
We had to bring the fruitful discussion to an end when time ran out, but we hope to see some of the people who came last night at our next “regular” meeting on Tuesday 14th April.
Saturday 18th April will be an international day of action against TTIP and other damaging trade deals.
Why should corporations have the right to sue governments for making decisions that damage their profits? Under TTIP, this could be a reality. Cigarette companies suing governments for bringing in plain tobacco packaging, energy companies suing governments for phasing out nuclear power…this kind of thing has already happened under similar trade deals elsewhere.
The global fightback continues with a day of protest, awareness-raising and action on Saturday 18th April. There’s nothing specifically happening in Oxford that we know of, but the interactive map on the Global Justice Now website shows just how many different things are happening all over the world. The site also gives details of what’s happening in central London and Manchester, but they won’t be the only UK protests!
A few months ago, hardly anybody had heard of TTIP. Now? A million people have signed a petition opposing it. This new wave of opposition is thanks to the combined efforts of various organisations, including 38 Degrees and of course WDM. If you haven’t signed the petition already, please do sign it and share it far and wide. To be in with a chance of stopping TTIP, we need to keep this momentum going!
