S (unorganised)

letter S

Saudi Arabia: prison riot 2/11/13

Saudi Arabia: cops clash with foreign workers in visa crackdown….100 cars burntlater version claims that cops intervened after foreign workers attacked Saudis 9/11/13

Singapore: accident sparks first riot for over 40 years (video here) (more here) (a female cop reflects on the riot here). Interesting mainstream analysis here, putting the riot in more context than normal mainstream stuff     8/12/13

South Africa: government mini-star “condemns the recent spate of violence, destruction of private and public properties, and looting of goods in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, and Western Cape… [and] commends the police for intervening and quelling the situation.” 7/11/13

South Africa, Bekkersdal: 7 voting stations closed down after violence by localsmunicipal building torched, roads barricaded 9/11/13

South AfricaWestern Cape: truck torched, field burnt & shots fired in farmworkers wage strike 11/11/13

South Africa: Group 5 experiences 30% increase in strikes”Junaid Allie, Group Five’s human resources director, attributed this increase to a higher percentage of the workforce that was not unionised: 21.6 percent of the group’s 13 719 employees belonged to unions this year compared with 26 percent in 2009.” [my emphases] 25/11/13

South Africa: report on service delivery protests 12/12/13

South Africa, Soweto: report showing that only 20% of electricity bills are paid 21/12/13

 

Spain

Spain, Valencia: TV station workers facing imminent redundancy seize control of broadcasting 7/11/13Spain: insulting officials to be made a criminal offence (more here).PARTICIPANTS in unauthorised demonstrations could be slapped with fines of €600,000 if a new law is passed. Under the Citizen Security bill, due to be drafted next week, any ´social uproar´ leading to harassment or insults of officials will be made a criminal offence. Unsanctioned protests outside political offices will be outlawed, alongside disorderly conduct by people hindering any means of identification….Other offenses deemed serious are to include publishing images or personal data of policemen, interrupting public events… vandalism of public property…”

Spain hasn’t had much in the way of social movements considering the attacks being made on the working class there (people seriously impoverished without any hope of an exit); admittedly some of the “indignados” movement had something to it, particularly in Barcelona, if I remember correctly – though that was over 2 years ago. I suppose they’re pre-empting the possiblity of something bigger by making even small initiatives  seem very scary for those daring to take them. And not just “seem”. But those who think these measures show that the  rulers are panicking about a possible insurerection in the near future sound over-optimistic to me – though I’d love to be proved wrong. The rulers globally seem to be constantly manouevering in the various forms of divide and rule, of carrot and stick, differing  according to the different  local cultures and conditions that seem to work for them, to ensure that no particular country rises up for fear that once again that could be exemplary and spark proletarian courage in other countries, for fear that their crisis could be seriously contested the only way it could be: internationally. Spain is just one local version of this underlying fear by the rulers, but nowadays, as never before, I get the feeling that it would only take one country to seriously explode (which would mean that a significant amount of proletarians felt they had “nothijng to lose” in the desperate 19th century sense) for it to result in some domino effect  of open class war spreading everywhere. For the moment, however, I don’t see Spain as being the likely catalyst. Written 20/11/13

Spain, Alicante: the fire next time….? 28/11/13

Spain, Madrid: clashes with cops over new intensification of totalitarian state/market terror (video) (more here, another videoThe new law includes  fines of up to 600,000€ merely for publishing photos of cops. 14/12/13

Sweden: the true spirit of Christmas 21/12/13