[Reader-list] One day/ All day: April 27

[Trebor Scholz]

> 
>>>>> (apologies for cross-posting)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Right2Fight 
>>>>> 
>>>>> A cross-disciplinary initiative on the theme of police violence.
>>>>> 
>>>>> One day, all day.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sarah Lawrence College, New York
>>>>> 
>>>>> 27 April 2002
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.molodiez.org/right2fight/slc.html
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> BROOKLYN, NY: A Haitian New Yorker named Abner Louima is tortured by
>>>>> members of the NYPD.
>>>>> A broken broomstick is shoved into his rectum and mouth while his
>>>>> attackers scream racist epithets. The crime takes place on August 9, 1997.
>>>>> Four officers are convicted. On February 28, 2002, three of the four
>>>>> convictions are overturned. One officer is granted a new trial; two others
>>>>> are set free outright.
>>>>> 
>>>>> As weapons and methods of surveillance become more sophisticated and grass
>>>>> roots dissatisfaction with political and economic systems grows, in many
>>>>> parts of the world policing is becoming increasingly brutal and intrusive.
>>>>> From 80s video surveillance, alarming in its own right, we have moved on
>>>>> to far more invasive forms of policing:  automated face recognition
>>>>> technologies in use on the streets of London; iris scans imposed on Hadj
>>>>> pilgrims arriving in Mecca; techniques elaborated to spy on the most
>>>>> private exchanges online and off; ³Echelon,² an espionage system devised
>>>>> to scan vast quantities of e.mails and telephone calls worldwide, in real
>>>>> timeŠ
>>>>> 
>>>>> From a world best described as an analog panopticon, we have moved into
>>>>> what independent curator Inke Arns calls a pancodicon* :  a world of
>>>>> digital surveillance and electronic space in which our most intimate
>>>>> thoughts can be charted. In this world, what few protections were afforded
>>>>> those who stand in opposition to the status quo are lost, snatched back by
>>>>> systems of policing -- local, national and global -- bent on breaking all
>>>>> but the tamest forms of resistance.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Such attacks on liberty are, needless to say, not new. Entire systems of
>>>>> economic and political domination have been built upon policing at once
>>>>> extraordinarily violent and intrusive. Among these, one might cite the
>>>>> very system on which the country we live in was founded. From the arrival
>>>>> of the first slave ship at Jamestown Harbor in 1619 to the contemporary
>>>>> streets of our largest cities, from the era of Jim Crow lynchings to the
>>>>> beating of Rodney King and the killing of Amadou Diallo, the United States
>>>>> has been a place of violence meted out at the hands of a few bent on
>>>>> controlling and silencing the many.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Once, men and women of African descent, in this land, were deemed 3/5th of
>>>>> a human being; today, so many men of African heritage -- one in every ten
>>>>> -- are behind bars or otherwise ensnared in the criminal justice
>>>>> juggernaut**  that one can legitimately speak of a genocide under way. In
>>>>> Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, women and men of Native American, Latino
>>>>> and, increasingly, Asian heritage are questioned, arrested, incarcerated
>>>>> at rates in no way commensurate with their representation in the
>>>>> population at large. Post 9/11, over a thousand Arab men are in US jails,
>>>>> still waiting to be charged with a crime; in many cases, their own
>>>>> families have not been told where they are.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Elsewhere too, state violence has broken and continues to break lives,
>>>>> spirits, entire peoples. Violent repression was the cornerstone of the
>>>>> colonial project, in Africa and Asia alike.  Patrice Lumumba of Congo,
>>>>> murdered by Belgian-trained gunmen mere months after his country gained
>>>>> independence; Ruben Um Nyobe, heartbeat of Cameroon¹s struggle for
>>>>> self-determination, killed in a French ambush in 1958;  Steve Biko, beaten
>>>>> to death by South African police in 1977... Theirs are but the best known
>>>>> names -- a paltry few ³history² deigns to recall among those of hundreds
>>>>> upon hundreds of thousands who died, many resisting, killed by authorities
>>>>> in power only because they had the means to destroy.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In Europe, as the industrial age emerged, workers died by the thousands.
>>>>> In Napoleonic Paris, boulevards were cut through the city in wide swaths
>>>>> to make the task of shooting discontented factory hands easier, should
>>>>> they take to the streets en masse. As the 19th century drew to a close, in
>>>>> the UK and US, strikers seeking better wages were clubbed and shot. In the
>>>>> wake of a May Day protest that brought 80,000 workers to Chicago¹s
>>>>> Michigan Avenue, police violence exploded. Within days, eight men were
>>>>> arrested.  A  trial was held, centering on a bomb all agreed none of those
>>>>> indicted had planted. Five of the men were sentenced to death; the three
>>>>> others were remanded to prison for life.
>>>>> 
>>>>> One would like to think that such excesses are a thing of the past. They
>>>>> are not: 
>>>>> 
>>>>> ABNER LOUIMA
>>>>> 
>>>>> AMADOU DIALLO (1)
>>>>> 
>>>>> LUC BENOIT BASILEKIN (2)
>>>>> 
>>>>> SUSANA GOMEZ, RONALD RAUL RAMOS (3)
>>>>> 
>>>>> SEATTLE, QUEBEC CITY, GENOA (4)
>>>>> 
>>>>> SEOUL, JAKARTA, BRISBANE (5)
>>>>> 
>>>>> JOHANNESBURG, PARIS (6)
>>>>> 
>>>>> BULGARIA, ALGERIA (7)
>>>>> 
>>>>> VIRGINIA (8)
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> (1) THREE YEARS AGO, A GUINEAN IMMIGRANT NAMED AMADOU DIALLO WAS STRUCK
>>>>> DOWN IN A HAIL OF BULLETS FIRED BY NEW YORK CITY POLICE. HE WAS REACHING
>>>>> FOR IDENTIFICATION; THE OFFICERS ASSUMED HE WAS REACHING FOR A GUN. THEY
>>>>> FIRED FORTY-ONE BULLETS. NINETEEN HIT THE TARGET.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (2) IN FEBRUARY 2001, THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMEROON INSTITUTED THE
>>>>> OPERATIONAL COMMAND, A PARAMILITARY TASK FORCE BRINGING TOGETHER MEMBERS
>>>>> OF THE LOCAL AND NATIONAL POLICE AND THE ARMY. THE C.O.¹S OFFICIAL PURPOSE
>>>>> WAS TO END A CRIME WAVE IN THE CITY OF DOUALA; IT WAS MEANT IN FACT TO
>>>>> BRING TO HEEL SECTORS OF THE POPULATION OPPOSED TO THE REPRESSIVE RULE OF
>>>>> THE GOVERNING PARTY. IN ITS FIRST SIX MONTHS, THE C.O. PERPETRATED 500
>>>>> EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS; BY YEAR¹S END, 1000 PEOPLE HAD DIED.  ONE OF
>>>>> THE FIRST WAS LUC BENOIT BASILEKIN.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (3) IN APRIL 1996 IN GUATEMALA CITY, SUSANA GOMEZ WAS RAPED BY TWO
>>>>> NATIONAL POLICE OFFICERS; SHE WAS SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. IN SEPTEMBER 1996,
>>>>> RONALD RAUL RAMOS WAS SHOT AND KILLED BY A TREASURY POLICE OFFICER; HE TOO
>>>>> WAS SIXTEEN. MORE THAN TEN OTHER STREET CHILDREN WERE MURDERED THAT YEAR,
>>>>> LIKELY BY POLICE. TWELVE MONTHS LATER, NONE OF THE PERPETRATORS IN THESE
>>>>> CASES HAD BEEN APPREHENDED.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (4) IN SEATTLE, QUEBEC CITY AND GENOA, OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, UNARMED
>>>>> WOMEN, MEN AND CHILDREN CALLING FOR A MORE MEASURED APPROACH TO
>>>>> GLOBALIZATION THAN HAS BEEN PROPOSED BY SUCH BODIES AS THE WTO AND WORLD
>>>>> BANK WERE ATTACKED BY POLICE WIELDING BATONS, RUBBER BULLETS, WATER CANONS
>>>>> AND TEAR GAS. SIMILAR VIOLENCE GREETED UNARMED PROTESTERS AT MAY DAY
>>>>> RALLIES THROUGHOUT ASIA AND THE PACIFIC IN 2001, FROM SIDNEY AND BRISBANE
>>>>> TO KARACHI, SEOUL AND JAKARTA.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (5) IN FEBRUARY 2002, A COLONY OF SQUATTERS WAS VIOLENTLY DISPERSED IN
>>>>> CENTRAL JOHANNESBURG. THE POLICE LEVELED THE INHABITANTS¹ MAKESHIFT HOMES
>>>>> AND DESTROYED THEIR BELONGINGS. THE SQUATTERS WERE MADE TO BOARD BUSES AND
>>>>> WERE DRIVEN OUT OF THE CITY, WHERE THEY WERE UNCEREMONIOUSLY DUMPED, MILES
>>>>> FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY. THE METHODS EMPLOYED IN THIS DISPERSAL WERE
>>>>> SIMILAR TO THOSE USED IN FORCED REMOVALS OF THE APARTHEID ERA.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (6) ON SUNDAY OCTOBER 17, 1961, ALGERIANS LIVING IN PARIS ORGANIZED A
>>>>> PEACEFUL MARCH TO PROTEST A CURFEW ON PERSONS OF ARAB DESCENT. THE POLICE
>>>>> MOVED IN. THEIR COMMANDER WAS MAURICE PAPON, WHO DURING WWII HAD OVERSEEN
>>>>> THE REMOVAL OF 1560 FRENCH JEWS TO GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS. TWO HUNDRED
>>>>> UNARMED ALGERIANS WERE SHOT, BLUDGEONED AND DROWNED.  PAPON REMAINS FREE.
>>>>> DAILY, FOR NO REASON BUT THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN, PERSONS OF NORTH AFRICAN
>>>>> DESCENT ARE DETAINED, ARRESTED, BEATEN AND SHOT ON FRENCH STREETS.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (7) SINCE 1994, RACIALLY MOTIVATED VIOLENCE AGAINST ROMA GYPSIES IN
>>>>> BULGARIA HAS INCREASED DRAMATICALLY. MUCH OF THIS VIOLENCE IS PERPETRATED
>>>>> BY POLICE AND PRIVATE SECURITY FIRMS. IN THE COURSE OF ONE WEEK, IN APRIL
>>>>> 2001, EIGHTY YOUNG PEOPLE WERE KILLED BY THE POLICE IN KABYLIA, IN
>>>>> NORTH-EASTERN ALGERIA.  ALL WERE MEMBERS OF THE MINORITY BERBER ETHNIC
>>>>> GROUP.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (8) ON MARCH 1, 1999, A SEVERED HEAD WAS FOUND IN A RICHMOND, VA PARK.
>>>>> THE VICTIM WAS A GAY MAN. THE PARK HAD BEEN THE SITE FOR SEVERAL MONTHS OF
>>>>> A POLICE ³STING²:  UNDERCOVER OFFICERS HAD BEEN APPROACHING GAY MEN,
>>>>> PROPOSING SEX, THEN PROMPTLY ARRESTING THOSE WHO SHOWED INTEREST. THE
>>>>> ARRESTS WERE WIDELY REPORTED. THE PUBLICITY GIVEN THEM MAY WELL HAVE
>>>>> ENCOURAGED THE MURDERER.  WHY THE MANY PLAINCLOTHES OFFICERS PRESENT IN
>>>>> THE PARK ON THE NIGHT OF THE MURDER FAILED TO SEE ANYTHING IS ANYONE¹S
>>>>> GUESS.
>>>>> 
>>>>> IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA, IN NORTH AFRICA AND EUROPE, AMNESTY
>>>>> INTERNATIONAL AND THE INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS
>>>>> COMMISSION REPORT CASE AFTER CASE OF RAPE, TORTURE AND MURDER INVOLVING
>>>>> TRANSGENDER AND BISEXUAL, LESBIAN AND GAY PERSONS, ALL TOO OFTEN BY
>>>>> POLICE.
>>>>> 
>>>>> From Cape Town to Ramallah and Queens, this state of affairs is drawing
>>>>> the attention of artists. In an age of mass media and cleavage to the
>>>>> status quo, voices, images, sounds are emerging that speak of this
>>>>> violence with power and outrage. Right2Fight showcases an important
>>>>> international group of cultural producers whose work stands at the
>>>>> forefront of this movement.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Right2Fight is an emphatically cross-disciplinary undertaking: from
>>>>> web-based projects to graffiti, from sculpture to video, installations to
>>>>> street wear, Hip Hop to posters, experimental music and photography to
>>>>> performance poetry. The event's contributors speak as few can to the
>>>>> social and ethical costs of police violence, to the dangers inherent in
>>>>> allowing such violence to proliferate, and to the responsibility we share,
>>>>> as individuals and communities, to denounce and battle it in all its
>>>>> manifestations.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Right2Fight is not a symposium. It is a constellation of spoken word
>>>>> interventions, performances, film and video screenings, installations,
>>>>> showings of net art and web-based pieces intended to prompt dialogue and
>>>>> questions.
>>>>> 
>>>>> This day-long collision of ideas, technologies and images seeks to
>>>>> transcend mere catharsis. The goal is not to satisfy neo-liberal guilt but
>>>>> to engage in concrete action. Activists and representatives of human
>>>>> rights organizations dedicated to ending police violence will be present
>>>>> to explain their work. Those who wish will learn, here, how they can
>>>>> become actively involved in the fight, channeling their emotions into
>>>>> actions, their words into deeds.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Right2Fight is not an indictment of all police officers. It does, however,
>>>>> condemn the brutality to which more than a few law enforcement communities
>>>>> resort. In light of recent events, the organizers hold, it is more
>>>>> important than ever to address issues of intolerance, prejudice and
>>>>> violence.
>>>>> 
>>>>> In the US and abroad, these have a disproportionate impact on the poor and
>>>>> marginalized. Millions suffer, die, are broken daily. Against this, its
>>>>> dehumanizing effects and causes, Right2Fight takes aim.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Contributors include:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pam Africa (Philadelphia)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Chris Bratton (Chicago)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Camerata New York
>>>>> 
>>>>> Robbie Conal (San Francisco)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Adam de Croix (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dee Curry (NewYork)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Graff (New York)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ashley Hunt (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Emily Jacir (Bethlehem/Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Carol Jacobsen (Ann Arbor)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Richard Kamler (San Francisco)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jared Katsiane (Boston)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Deborah Kelly (Sydney)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Goddy Leye (Amsterdam/Yaounde)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Mr. Lif (Boston)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Malam (Douala)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Brad McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Julia Melzer and Liz Canner (Los Angeles/Boston)
>>>>> 
>>>>> No One Is Illegal (Germany)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sally O¹Brien (New York City)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pass-Fix (Munich)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Horit Peled (Tel Aviv)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jenny Perlin (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Picture Projects (New York City)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Lesego Rampolokeng (Soweto)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Oliver Ressler (Vienna)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Martha Rosler (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jayce Salloum (Vancouver)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dread Scott (Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sara Scully and Jessica Rockstar (New York City)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Trebor Scholz (Berlin/Brooklyn)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Gregory Sholette (Chicago)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Merian Soto and Pepon Osorio (Bronx)
>>>>> 
>>>>> DJ SKI HI (Bronx)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Stolen Lives Project (USA)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Herve Yamguen (Douala)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Herve Youmbi (Douala)
>>>>> 
>>>>> The event's organizers are an urban historian who works in Central Africa
>>>>> and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College (Dominique Malaquais) and a Brooklyn
>>>>> based, East Berlin-born interdisciplinary artist whose work has been
>>>>> extensively shown in Europe and the Americas (Trebor Scholz). The two
>>>>> share a commitment to tactical media, street activism and visual culture.
>>>>> Both curate, speak and publish widely, focusing on issues of social
>>>>> concern and the everyday.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> *   Inke Arns, posting to the ³Spectre² online mailing list, 3/9/02.
>>>>> 
>>>>> ** Neil Websdale, Policing the Poor.  Boston:  Northeastern University
>>>>> Press, 2001. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Contact: Dominique Malaquais <malaquais at yahoo.com>
>>>>> 
>>>>>               Trebor Scholz <treborscholz at earthlink.net>
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 

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