The Tower: A Songspiel

Vodpod videos no longer available.

The Tower: A Songspiel, 2010

A film by Chto Delat

This film is the final part in a trilogy of socially engaged musicals that the Chto Delat collective began work on in 2008. This cycle includes the video films Perestroika Songspiel: Victory over the Coup (2008) and Partisan Songspiel: A Belgrade Story (2009).

Filmed in April 2010, The Tower: A Songspiel is based on real documents of Russian social and political life and on an analysis of the conflict that has developed around the planned Okhta Center development in Petersburg, where the Gazprom corporation intends to house the headquarters of its locally-based subsidiaries in a 403-meter-high skyscraper designed by the UK-based architectural firm RMJM. The proposed skyscraper has provoked one of the fiercest confrontations between the authorities and society in recent Russian political history. Despite resistance on the part of various groups who believe that construction of the building would have a catastrophic impact on the appearance of the city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Gazprom has so far managed to secure all the necessary permissions and has practically begun the first phase of construction. (Although recent oblique signals from the Russian president may have thrown an insurmountable wrench into the works.)

The Gazprom tower is promoted by the authorities as a symbol of a new, modernized Russia. How are such symbols produced? How does the ideological apparatus of power function? How are projects like this pushed through despite the resistance of ordinary citizens? These are the principal questions raised by this film.

The film is structured as a confrontation between two worlds. On the one hand, we see the world of power, which is represented by a group of people working to create the new symbol: a PR manager (the head of the corporation’s branding project for the skyscraper), a local politician, the company’s security chief, a representative of the Orthodox Church, a gallery owner (who is in line to become director of the corporation’s contemporary art museum), and a fashionable artist. On the other hand, we see a chorus comprised of people from various social groups: the intelligentsia, workers, pensioners, unemployed office clerks, migrants, young women, a homeless boy, and a leftist radical.

The film is set in a corporate boardroom, where a meeting has been called to discuss the rebranding campaign for the Gazprom tower. The participants converse frankly among themselves and from time to time rehearse speeches addressed as it were to the public. They get up from the conference table, situated atop a podium, walk to the edge of this platform, and make speeches in which they attempt to persuade society at large of the need to build the skyscraper and the benefits it will bring the city and its people.

The chorus reacts to the proceedings “on high” by singing Brechtian songs and performing choreographic tableaux that illustrate their standing in society and their attitude to what is happening. These dialectical choruses, whose performers constantly contradict one another, are as it were the symbolic manifestation of debates in society about power and violence, love and beauty, and urban planning and the right to the city.

Director: Tsaplya (Olga Egorova)

Screenplay: Chto Delat

Composer: Mikhail Krutik

Set: Dmitry Vilensky and Gluklya (Natalya Pershina)

Choreography: Nina Gasteva, Mikhail Ivanov and Tsaplya

Editing: Vilensky and Tsaplya

Director of Photography: Artyom Ignatov

Sound: Alexander Dudarev

This video film was made possible with the kind support of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (Spain), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Germany, and Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior, Spain, as part of the project The Potosí Principle; and BAK (basis voor actuele kunst), Utrecht, as part of the project Vectors of the Possible. With additional support from the research project Creating Worlds, financed by Wiener Wissenschafts, Forschungs- und Technologiefonds; Vienna Science and Technology Fund, and ar/ge kunst Galleria Museo, Bolzano, Italy.

This film was produced with support from the Chto Delat Fund.

“Who Would Ever Learn Philosophy to Make Money?”: Boycott Middlesex U Now!

Courtesy of Infinite Thought, here is a video, entitled “This is a movement now” and featuring a recent speech by Tariq Ali, about the protest campaign against the announced closure of the Middlesex University philosophy program. This is the first of seven parts. You can view the rest by clicking on the “View on YouTube” icon in the viewing window.

In the light of the Middlesex administration’s unresponsiveness to protests and its escalating thuggishness, a total boycott of the university has been called.

On April 26 Middlesex University announced the closure of its highly-ranked and well-respected philosophy program. This closure has no philosophical or pedagogical rationale, and in fact it has no economic justification either: far from losing money, after covering its salary and administrative costs the program contributes more than 50% of its revenue to the central management of the university. But the management unilaterally decided that it could make more money by investing its funds elsewhere. (For an overview of the situation see http://savemdxphil.com/about/).

Despite widespread international protest of the closure in the form of thousands of letters and petition signatures, the management has shown no signs of reconsidering its decision. Instead it seems dedicated to censoring all dissent: on May 21 it suspended three faculty members and several students for the ‘crime’ of campaigning to save their own courses and jobs.

It is time, then, for supporters of Middlesex Philosophy to take a more active stance.

Petition:

We the undersigned therefore commit ourselves to an academic boycott of Middlesex University until it shows evidence of full reinstatement and continued support for its philosophy program.

Prior to such reinstatement, we will refuse to act as external examiners or to deliver talks at the school. We will encourage colleagues to reject job offers at Middlesex. We will refuse to visit campus for any reason other than to protest the decision to close the philosophy program. We will, in short, cease to engage with Middlesex as a legitimate academic institution.

Go here to sign the petition.

In response to the Middlesex administration’s suspension of several teachers and students who participated in the recent occupation, the Save Middlesex Philosophy campaign has produced this helpful visual all-points bulletin to aid management in identifying and punishing the remaining miscreants. This fellow, for example, looks especially dangerous:

Letters from Tehran

Our comrade Vahid Valizadeh, writing in Vertigo on Tehran’s visual culture (in this case, a BMW ad on the city’s Hemmat highway):

We think we are spoken to. Today’s god hails me. ‘I’ am invited to feel power, to experience pleasure. Obviously this god knows that his slaves are without power, without pleasure. But what does the duo of power and pleasure contain in its hidden layers?

As featured in the film No One Knows about Persian Cats, rapper Hichkas provides a kind of audiovisual commentary to Vahid’s essay (thanks to Louis Proyect for the heads-up):

Middlesex U: The “Crime” of Protest

This just in from Infinite Thought:

Four students were suspended on Friday 21 May: Ali Alizadeh, Nicola Goodchild, Johann Hoiby, and Hoi Yen Voong. The suspension blocks them ‘from entering any part of the University’s premises without written permission’ from management. The students have been informed by the Head of Student Services Fiona Fall (F.Fall@mdx.ac.uk) that ‘we are writing to only a few of you so far but will write to others similarly involved when they can be identified.’

Three members of staff were also suspended on Friday afternoon: Professors Peter Osborne (head of the CRMEP) and Peter Hallward (programme leader for the Middlesex Philosophy MA programmes), and senior lecturer Dr. Christian Kerslake (who learned about his suspension over the weekend), pending investigation into their involvement in the occupations. This means that half of the Philosophy staff have now been suspended from duty.

There are a number of striking things about the staff suspension notices. First of all, staff have been suspended in anticipation of (rather than following) ‘an investigation surrounding the occupations’ at Trent Park. The notices do not refer to any specific allegation of wrong-doing, and do not indicate a timetable for the investigation.

Second, the notices do not formulate a ‘proportionate’ response to the circumstances. For instance, they do not simply prevent staff from communicating with colleagues and students about further occupations or ‘disruption’ at Middlesex. Instead, they command staff to ‘refrain from contacting in any way any University employee, student or any University contractor or supplier without the prior agreement of the Dean or a member of Executive.’ It is hard to see how this command respects basic rights of association and contact. In order now to conduct a routine supervisory meeting with a research student, for instance, staff must now request permission from their Dean and provide him with details of when any supervisory meetings will take place, so that (as a recent management instruction puts it) ‘arrangements can be made for their attendance at the University.’

Third, the notices indicate that ‘the suspension is not a disciplinary penalty in itself and does not imply any decision about the merits of the case’. They instruct staff to continue to ‘ carry out all reasonable duties specified by the University in relation to the delivery of your role’ (in other words, they simultaneously suspend us from duty and instruct us to carry on working more or less as normal). Osborne and Hallward, however, have now specifically been denied permission to attend a regular once-a-term meeting of the University-wide Professors Group, scheduled for Friday 28 May. This is a group constituted and organised by academic (as distinct from managerial) Professors themselves several years ago, originally in opposition to a previous round of management cuts. The great majority of the University’s academic professors already signed a strongly-worded letter condemning the closure of Philosophy, and they are unlikely to appreciate this extraordinary and unprecedented managerial intervention in the operations of their group.

Savemdxphil@gmail.com has already received scores of outraged letters about the suspensions from academics all over the world. We will post a few more of these later today.

The implications of these suspensions extend far beyond the fate of the Philosophy programmes at Middlesex. Students and staff have been suspended for the ‘crime’ of campaigning to save their own courses and jobs. Since it is hard to imagine a more innocuous occasion for student protest than a library sit-in designed to mount a symbolic defence of endangered books and programmes, it is hard to escape the conclusion that what is at stake here is nothing less than the right to protest itself – or at least, the right to protest in ways that might have some actual impact. When he was informed of his suspension shortly after the sit-in ended on Friday, one of the students was told by management that he was indeed entitled to protest the closure of his programme by ordinary, ‘legitimate’ means, e.g. by writing letters, organising petitions, and so on. But he was also told that when thousands of people sign a petition or ‘push a button on Facebook’, this doesn’t indicate a meaningful expression of support.

It looks, then, as if the Campaign will have to continue to provide alternative opportunities for such expression. The issues at stake in this struggle are matters of urgent and far-reaching principle. If you oppose the closures and their implications for humanities teaching, if you oppose the suspensions and their implications for academic freedom and the rights of association and protest, then please attend a rally at on Thursday 27 May, from 4pm onwards, at Middlesex University’s Hendon campus.

La Huelga de la UPR (Videos)

Here are some lovely videos from the ongoing strike at the University of Puerto Rico, courtesy of the comrades at MRZine and Occupy California.

Alberto Bartolomei, 2 horas en la Huelga de la UPR

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Raymond O’Brien, 1 Universidad : 1 Pueblo

Vodpod videos no longer available.

For more details on the reasons behind the strike, see this recent interview on Democracy Now! with striking UPR student Giovanni Roberto and UPR professor Christopher Powers, and this article by Yarimar Bonilla.

You should also check out these three recent articles by Firuzeh Shokooh Valle in MRZine.

You can support the strikers by sending messages to the following addresses (these include UPR administration officials as well as advocacy organizations that are collecting copies of support and solidarity messages):

sindicos@upr.edu
presidente@upr.edu
anlupe@degi.uprrp.edu
webmaster@ogp.gobierno.pr
aipuertorico@gmail.com
plazadelmercado@gmail.com

You can use the following sample letter, addressed to the president of UPR’s Board of Regents (thanks to a comrade at the Edu-Factory mailing list for all this information):

Lcda. Ygri Rivera
President, Board of Regents
Universidad de Puerto Rico

I wish to express my deep concern over the means by which the administration of the Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR) is handling the current student strike.

I believe that the students are making fair demands through democratic steps, practicing their free speech rights, and using channels that they have collectively vetted, and which in the past have been deemed acceptable by the institution itself.

I demand that the UPR guarantee the rights of students who are negotiating fairly, transparently, and openly without violence or intimidation. These three areas must be respected: security for the students, equal participation of all interested parties, and procedural transparency. Any alternative outside such parameters would be deemed unacceptable.

Thus, I add my voice to the chorus that demands the following:
1. Remove riot police from the immediate surroundings of university campuses.
2. Allow the provision of food and water for students inside university grounds.
3. Restart negotiations immediately.

An institution of higher learning must inherently be committed to social justice and shall not facilitate human rights violations, such as the blockade of food and water, nor the current excessive display of force on its grounds and their vicinity.

I hope that the UPR can uphold its primary education mission to its students—the hope in and for the future—rather than fall prey to any lopsided interests of faculty, administration, regents, or elected officials. I urge the administration to reconsider its position and resist the temptation to impose its will through violent force. Instead, I urge the administration to facilitate an open dialog to decide the future of the university of the people of Puerto Rico.

[Spanish version of letter]

Lcda. Ygri Rivera
Presidenta Junta de Síndicos
Universidad de Puerto Rico

Quiero dejar constancia de mi preocupación sobre la forma en que la Administración de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR) está lidiando con la huelga de los estudiantes.

Entendiendo que los estudiantes están realizando un reclamo justo y mediante un mecanismo democráticamente avalado y aceptado tantos por el cuerpo estudiantil como por la propia institución educativa.

Exigimos se garantice la seguridad de nuestros estudiantes y que la administración de la Universidad de Puerto Ricobase su estrategia de negociación en la transparencia y la apertura al diálogo y no en la fuerza y la intimidación. Estas soluciones deben estar contempladas en tres aspectos; seguridad de los estudiantes, transparencia de los procesos y participación en integral de las partes interesadas.

Cualquier alternativa ajena a esto debe considerarse inaceptable.

Es por esto que hago los siguientes reclamos:

1. Retirar la fuerza de choque de las inmediaciones de la Universidad
2. Permitir el acceso de agua y alimento a los manifestantes dentro de las facilidades universitarias.
3. Restaurar el servicio de agua en las facilidades.
4. Reanudar los procesos de negociación de forma abierta y transparente.

La Universidad tiene un compromiso de responsabilidad social y no debe avalar una violación crasa de Derechos Humanos como el negar el acceso de agua y alimentos a las y los estudiantes; así como, la exhortación y despliegue de fuerzas policiacas excesivas en sus alrededores.

La universidad no existe para sí misma, ni para sus profesores, ni para sus empleados administrativos, ni para su junta de síndicos ni para el gobernador, sino para educar a la nueva cepa de estudiantes, que es la base de nuestro futuro. Exhorto a la administración de la Universidad de Puerto Rico que reconsidere su posición y resista a la tentación de imponer su criterio a través de la fuerza de una macana, y permitan que sea la fuerza del diálogo y la transparencia la que decida el futuro de la Universidad del pueblo de Puerto Rico.

No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr. Suit! (More on the Middlesex Philosophy Closure)

Sarah Amsler, “Saving Philosophy from the Suits”:

However, the anaesthetized method of this closure is also a purifying and perhaps transformative revelation: the emperor has finally admitted there are no clothes. It is not about education or research or knowledge after all. The decision did not need to be convincing in academic, professional or pedagogical terms. It was, as the dean said, ‘simply financial’. We knew it all along, but now it is confirmed: no philosophy, no matter how good, can be evaluated according to what Max Weber once called the ‘sheer market principle’. And in a world of capitalist realism, nothing that is beyond the value of profit can have recognisable public value at all. There. Perhaps now we can liberate ourselves from the temptation to valorise intellectual work by squeezing it into the narrow, instrumentalist criteria of what Alex Callinicos has called the ‘Orwellian’ inspired Research Excellence Framework, in the hope that we will find spaces there to create critical possibilities. Perhaps we will finally realise that there are — as yet — no ears to receive arguments about the importance of humanizing education, the power of ideas and research to transform the world, or the necessity of critical capacity in a frighteningly possibility-limiting social system. These should not be revelations at this very late stage in the long march of capital through our cultural institutions. Yet we remain incredulous.

“In the Middle of a Reactionary Crowd”: Attacks on Journalists in the Moscow Region

Better late than never, we guess: the New York Times on the wave of assaults on opposition and muckracking journalists in the Moscow Region, including Mikhail Beketov and Yuri Grachev, in 2008–2009, and the “failure” of law enforcement officials to make headway in the investigations of these crimes. Especially touching is the story of Pyotr Lipatov:

Farther up the M-10 Highway is Klin, where an opposition rally was held in March 2009 to protest corruption and increases in utility rates.

As Pyotr Lipatov, editor of an opposition newspaper called Consensus and Truth, was leaving the rally, three men pushed him to the ground and punched him repeatedly on the head. “Even when I was unconscious, they didn’t let me go,” Mr. Lipatov said.

This beating was recorded on video by protesters. Mr. Lipatov’s colleagues used the video to track down the men who beat him. They were police officers.

While Mr. Lipatov, 28, was recovering in the hospital, he said two other police officers visited and urged him to sign a statement saying that he had provoked the attack. He refused. The police then issued a statement.

“According to Lipatov, filming the meeting with his camera, he found himself in the middle of a reactionary crowd, was pushed and fell to the ground,” the statement said. Two videos of the demonstration show a different sequence of events.

Officials later acknowledged that police officers had been involved in the attack, but they still brought no charges. Instead, they raided Mr. Lipatov’s offices, seized computers and brought a criminal extremism suit against him. They asserted that he had sought to foment “negative stereotypes and negative images of members of the security forces.”

Fearing for his safety and more criminal charges, he quit.

University of Puerto Rico under Siege

From Occupy California:

14 MAY 2010

HUMANITIES ACTION COMMITTEE
TO STUDENTS AND CIVILIANS WORLDWIDE

STATE OF PUERTO RICO LOCKS STUDENTS INSIDE UNIVERSITY

Just yesterday, May 13th, the students of Rio Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico ratified the 22 day strike with an evident majority of votes in favor at a General Assembly that was proposed and organized by the institution’s own administration. Today, that same administration backed with full government support have intensified and reinforced their repressive schemes against the student movement stepping over our constitutional right to protest. We condemn rector Ana Guadalupe’s decision to activate the police forces against us and we reiterate yesterday’s vote demanding her resignation as well as president Jose Ramón de la Torre’s. Since 4am there has been heavy police presence around the campus; different police units have been brought to guard all possible entrances and to restrict access of students and those in solidarity. We wish to publicly alert the national and international media that up until now they have prohibited not only the entrance of civilians, but also, and more alarming, the entry of food donations and supplies needed by the hundreds of students that are currently occupying the campus. The students that reside on campus are being forced to move out and are being threatened with the non-renewal of housing contracts. We also expect water and electricity on campus to be cut off by 1:00pm.

We exhort all students, professors, workers and civilians; every member of every community, to surround the university gates as they have done themselves. We exhort everybody’s presence here today; we need everyone’s solidarity and support if we are to endure this struggle. We want to let the administration know that their attempts to intimidate have been not only repressive but exaggerated and unnecessary. We will not allow that the democracy of the university’s administration proclaims to practice be arbitrary and partial. Those who participated in the Students’ General Assembly yesterday, experienced a real democratic process in action. The assembly is sovereign and in assembly we voted to continue the strike. We are here to defend the right of all Puerto Rican students to a public education and here we will remain until the administration decides to cooperate and negotiate.

We need everyone’s solidarity and support. Ten out of eleven campuses that make up the UPR system have declared themselves on strike. All are participating in the same struggle. The same struggle being fought all over the World.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Humanities Action Committee
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus

More

• A National Strike has been called for Tuesday, May 18th!
• photos:
  

• Video of the aftermath of a student being beat after trying to get onto campus:

• Solidarity Protest in NYC for the 18th.
• Father arrested for trying to bring food to his son inside Rio Piedras:

***

From the Facebook page for the May 18 solidarity protest in NYC:

On the 22st day (May 14th) of the University of Puerto Rico student strike: The situation in Puerto Rico has intensified. Over the last few days the university students have demonstrated heroic & militant resistance. Yesterday, at a huge assembly of students at the PR Convention Center, students overwhelmingly decided to to step up the 22-day takeover/strike at the University of PR despite intimidation & harassment attempts by the university administration.

The colonial government has responded with intolerance and repressive police tactics. On this day the riot police squad was mobilized against the students! Water has been cut off to the Rio Piedras campus, the campus dorms have been evacuated, and folks have been arrested for simply trying to pass water & food through the fences to the striking students. The father of a striking student who was bringing food and water was beaten and then arrested.

Fortunately, the blockade was broken when hundreds of professors, parents, and supporters began to arrive with water and bags of food, which they successfully tossed over the fence and over the heads of the cops, unable to stop them in front of the TV cameras. In the face of this repression, hundreds of parents, workers, community leaders and concerned have joined the picket lines (at all the island campuses) to protect the striking students.

Later in the day, José Pérez, a disabled graduate student who has won the love and respect of the entire striking community for his militancy and dedication, was badly beaten, dragged on the floor, and arrested for “aggression” when he attempted to re-enter the campus, after leaving momentarily to take care of personal affairs. Professors and fellow students who tried to come to his aid were doused in pepper spray. Two more students have been also been arrested for unknown reasons.

This afternoon, the workers unions of Puerto Rico have announced a general strike (work stoppage) for Tuesday May 18th in unity with the student movement and to denounce the confrontational politics of the colonial government of PR.

A call has been made to all people & workers to mobilize in unity with the students at all the various UPR campuses on the island.

In NYC, the Network in Support of the Workers of PR CALLS for ALL TO DENOUNCE THE REPRESSIVE GOVERNMENT AND FOR SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE OF WORKERS AND STUDENTS OF UPR.

Join the NYC Protest!
Tuesday, May 18, 5:30PM
at the Offices of the PR colonial Government (PRFAA)
135 West 50th Street (between 6th and 7th Ave)

Middlesex Occupation Ends, Fight Continues

The occupation is over, the campaign continues

At 8pm on Friday 14 May 2010, Middlesex University management served a High Court injunction to end a twelve-day student occupation of the Mansion building at Trent Park. The occupation began on Tuesday 4 May, when Philosophy students gathered to protest the management’s abrupt decision to close their unique and successful programmes. The occupation quickly succeeded in focusing remarkable levels of national and international attention on the scandalous situation at Middlesex.

The injunction came into effect at 8am on Saturday 15 May. The students finally decided to end their occupation on Saturday afternoon so as to join a rally, outside the Mansion, in support of the campaign to save philosophy at Middlesex. During the rally, Tariq Ali and members of the campaign spoke out forcefully against the management’s decision to close the programmes, the way this decision was taken, and the way its consequences and implications have been handled.

Today the University management had a clear choice. They could have continued a process of negotiation with the students that management initiated, belatedly and reluctantly, after immense international pressure, on Thursday 13 May. They could have discussed concrete steps for the renewal of MA and PhD recruitment. They could have considered, with their enthusiastic students and staff, options for redesigning and relaunching the BA programme in Philosophy.

Or else: they could have made an appeal to the High Court in order to gain the legal power to drive their students out.

True to form, the management has made its decision. Faced with students who were determined to protect their subject and the future of humanities teaching at Middlesex, management decided to treat them like criminals. Rather than talk to them face to face about the renewal of their programmes, management decided to bully them off the campus.

Middlesex management has been bullying its staff and students for many years now. As everyone knows, the power of a bully ends when the people he intimidates band together and confront him. Middlesex philosophy students have taken a first step towards such confrontation: we appeal to other students and staff, at Middlesex and elsewhere, to join us in this struggle.

This occupation is over; the campaign continues.

To protest the management’s decision to expel the students, please send a message to the board of governors and members of the University executive, to the email addresses below; if you are willing for us to post your letter on our website along with other letters of support, please BCC it to savemdxphil@gmail.com.

Please check this website (www.savemdxphil.com) for future events and regular updates.

The Campaign to Save Philosophy at Middlesex
Saturday 15 May 2010
www.savemdxphil.com
savemdxphil@gmail.com

===========

Email addresses of the Middlesex University management and board of governors:

michael@partridges.org.uk; A.Gajownik@mdx.ac.uk; A.Durant@mdx.ac.uk; thelindens@googlemail.com; andrew.parsons@rlb-law.com; avrobinson1@tiscali.co.uk; l_spence1@sky.com; Bridget.Rulski@guardian.co.uk; colin.hughes@guardian.co.uk; T.Cockerton@mdx.ac.uk; P.A.Johnson@mdx.ac.uk; jritterman@blueyonder.co.uk; dinagray@btinternet.com; j.alleyne@mdx.ac.uk; geoff.lambert2@ntlworld.com; W.Ahmad@mdx.ac.uk; J.Compton-Bishop@mdx.ac.uk; j.mulroy1@btinternet.com; K.A.Bell@mdx.ac.uk; lorna.cocking@btinternet.com; M.House@mdx.ac.uk; M.Keen@mdx.ac.uk; m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk; PeterCheeseman1@aol.com; Peter.Thomas2@justice.gsi.gov.uk; RS1000@live.mdx.ac.uk; stephen.hand@lr.org; s.knight@mdx.ac.uk; T.Kelly@mdx.ac.uk; T.Butland@mdx.ac.uk; e.esche@mdx.ac.uk

Open Appeal from the Union of Inhabitants of the Kuzbass

http://vpered.org.ru/index.php?id=544&category=4

Nothing is known about the Union of Inhabitants of the Kuzbass, which has issued this appeal. We do not know whether it reflects the opinion of the hundreds of workers who blocked the railroad in Mezhdurechensk on the evening of May 14, or of one of the groups that has emerged from the protests, or even of one individual. In the bigger scheme of things, this hardly matters. What does matter is that there is not a single false word in this text. Every resident of Mezhdurechensk, every miner, and every person for whom the phrase “worker solidarity” still means something could endorse its demands. We wholly support these demands and express our readiness to carry out actions in support of the Raspadskaya miners during the coming week. We call on all leftist and labor activists to take part in this campaign. \\ Vpered Socialist Movement

***

Open Appeal from the Union of Inhabitants of the Kuzbass to the President and People of Russia and the Residents of the Kuzbass

While our labor makes billions of dollars for people who then spend it to build themselves palaces and villas where later our prime minister celebrates, we die by the hundreds in mines and our people destroy themselves for kopecks.

The latest events in Mezhdurechensk were the last straw for us — we can be patient no longer.

We will not be slaves, beasts of burden that do not have to be taken into account, however much certain people in charge would like to do this. We are tired of slavery and humiliation. Enough!

We appeal to President Medvedev. If, of course, he is really our president, and not someone else.

Our demands are as follows:

1. Release all those who have been arrested in Mezhdurechensk in the coming days and drop all criminal charges against them. Put an end  to the mainstream media’s insults and slander against the people of our town.

2. Raise the wage in all profitable mines in the region to three times above the minimum wage, but no lower than 45,000 rubles [per month, approximately 1200 euros]. It is low wages that lead to safety violations that result in our people dying by the hundreds.

3. End persecution of independent union activists who defend the interests of workers. Those responsible for this persecution should be severely punished.

4. Remove from Mezhdurechensk all the Interior Ministry forces that have been brought in from other towns.

5. Introduce in every town monthly mass meetings of the people with the head of the local administration, at which he would report to the people what useful things he has done for them over the past month and personally answer questions and receive petitions and appeals from citizens.

We will not be satisfied with other proposed solutions to our problems.

We await your answer, Mr. President of Russia. We expect an answer by the morning of Friday, May 21. If our demands are not met, we will then be forced to speak and act in the realm of politics, not of social demands.

Now we appeal to the people of our region.

In order to hear what the high authorities of our country have decided, we will gather on Saturday, May 22, outside the administration buildings in our Kuzbass towns at 4:00 p.m. sharp. We appeal not only to miners and their families to attend these assemblies, but also everyone who is not indifferent to the overall state of affairs in our land. Let the bureaucrats come out and respond to our demands. The only thing that will satisfy us is complete compliance with all demands.

We immediately warn [Interior] Minister Nurgaliev and Governor Tuleyev that we do not advise them to play tricks with us the way they did on the evening of May 14 in Mezhdurechensk. We know that we are often not heard and that instead of talking with us they bring in the OMON.

Therefore:

1) We appeal to all parties and public organizations in our country. We ask for your support, if only in the form of an official announcement that you support our demands and are prepared to work with other parties to help us defend ourselves any way you can. If you do not announce your official position before May 21, this will mean that you are in fact against the people. And we will make this fact known to the entire country. We see that so far a representative of only one party has tried to help us; the rest are silent. We will need informational support and legal assistance — this assistance is already required for our arrested brothers in Mezhdurechensk. We will also need other kinds of support from you, including organizational help.

2) We ask all mass media that are not sell-outs to tell the public about our demands. Send us your representatives on May 22 and publish truthful information about the events here, not the lies that are broadcast on TV.

3) Because we are in an informational blockade — our forums and groups on social websites have been blocked by the FSB, and the ones that remain open are crawling with paid mercenaries, special services employees, and policemen who pass themselves off as ordinary residents and deceive people and the country with their lies — we appeal to all the people of Russia to tell the truth to their friends and on the Internet, to talk about the events here so that the country knows what is happening and the [powers that be] won’t be able to crush us. If they crush us today, tomorrow they will crush you.

4) We appeal to the residents of our region to make lists of everyone who lives in your town — bureaucrats and policemen — who is involved in persecuting our popular self-defense. Make these lists and publish them on the Internet, post them in the streets. Your whole town should know these people by name. The families of people who are prepared to beat women, as happened in Mezhdurechensk, should be ashamed of their fathers, brothers, and sons. If you know someone who has been sent to other towns to beat our people, collect information about them as well. Make your own leaflets with the list of our demands and information about the meeting places on May 22, and post them on the streets and on houses. Tell all your acquaintances and friends about the demonstrations. Do not believe anyone who tells you that our action has been cancelled, even if this information allegedly comes from us. Do not believe any other mendacious slander of the sort that is already flooding all the corrupt media. Collect money to aid our brothers who have been arrested and give it to their relatives. Do not be taken in by the propaganda of mercenary pseudo-activists, people who have been bought off by the authorities. Make your own white armbands and put them on at the assembly on May 22. Organize your own clandestine cells of the Union of Inhabitants of the Kuzbass.

We will meet on the streets of our towns on May 22.

For Freedom and Justice!

***

Report from the Town Square in Mezhdurechensk, May 14 (in Russian)

After the demonstration on May 14, Mezhdurechensk residents blocked the Krasnoyarsk Railroad

Residents of Mezhdurechensk clashed with OMON riot police in the early hours of May 15