All posts by BASE

21.3.2023 – Stand Against Police and State Violence

Two years on from Bristol’s first of many #KillTheBill protests on 21.3.2021, campaigners against increasing police & state powers and violence will march and rally in central Bristol. Meeting at 5.30pm in the Bearpit, marching to Bridewell police station. Campaigners will express solidarity with all those brutalised, arrested and imprisoned for standing together and fighting back against police and state attacks on us all; and with all communities, genders & races bearing the brunt of misogyny and racism. Be there.

Text from the flyer image:
“On the Tuesday 21st March 2023 we will hold a demonstration in front of Bridewell police station against the violence of the police and the British State.

34 people, mostly young, have been imprisoned for over a total of 100 years for the uprising that took place on this day 2 years ago. An uprising that was self defense against the brutality of the police towards demonstrators and in response to the rape and murder of Sarah Everard and the PCSC Bill.

In those two years we have seen the police continue to brutalise and murder young black men, refugees have been left to die in the channel, we have seen suicides and murders at the hands of the prisons, the inherent and vile misogyny and racism of the police has been openly exposed and we have seen increasingly repressive legislation against protest and the organisation of working people.

The police and prison system continues to attack and disappear the already most marginalised and oppressed areas of society.

At the same time the state protects and furthers a system of systematic poverty. It protects the wealthiest and most powerful who live as they please off of our backs whilst one step out of line puts us in prison. The state punishes those who are the victims of its policies.

We want to come together on this day to show who’s side we are on, to show our solidarity with the Kill The Bill prisoners and their families and all people brutalised by the British State and its institutions of repression.

We will hear from those affected and those involved in organizing resistance”.

Support for #KillTheBill Protestors, Defendants and Prisoners
If you need support then contact these groups:
Bristol Defendant Solidarity
email – bristoldefendantsolidarity[at]riseup.net
mobile – 07510 283424
Twitter – @bristoldefenda1

Bristol ABC Prisoner Support
website; email – bristol_abc[at]riseup.net
Twitter/Instagram – @bristol_abc
Crowdfunder – KillTheBill Prisoner Support Fund

Bristol Anti-Repression Campaign (Barc)
email – bristolantirepressioncampaignktb[at]riseup.net
Instagram – @bristolantirepression

Justice For Bristol Protesters
email – justiceforbristolprotesters[at]gmail.com
Twitter/Instagram – @JBPProtest
You Tube

JUST STOP OIL: OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AT THIS TIME – BRISTOL

TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/our-responsibilities-at-this-time-bristol-tickets-569436238117 

“If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.”

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (May 2021)

“I believe that what we do in the next 3 to 4 years will determine the future of humanity”

Professor Sir David King, former UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser (2021)

Allowing the extraction of new oil and gas resources in the UK is obscene, a genocidal policy that will kill our children and condemn humanity to oblivion. It just has to stop.

There can be no new oil anywhere in the world, if governments are serious about climate (the IEA). If we continue down our current path it will destroy families and communities. We will face the starvation and the slaughter of billions – and the utter betrayal of our children and this country.

This choice of rapid transition to a low energy, low carbon world or social collapse is now inevitable. We can do it now, in an orderly manner – creating millions of proper skilled jobs and protecting the rights of workers in sunset industries – or we wait for the unavoidable collapse.

Climate collapse will mean the end of workers rights, women’s rights, all human rights. It is already the greatest injustice visited on the global south in human history. It is time to put everything aside, it’s either survival solidarity now or collective failure.

Come and hear more.

Just Stop Oil

Queer Families Stay and Play

Queer Families Stay and Play is a DIY group for LGBTQ+ families, to play and hang out with each other. As a DIY space, those attending can bring along toys and activities to share if they want to.

There will be a shared vegan meal towards the end of each session. Please bring cutlery for smaller children and babies.

Children of all ages are welcome.

Help in setting up and tidying away is always welcome.

Pay what you can to help cover costs of room hire and food, but if you have no money, don’t worry about it and come along anyway.

Conflict Club

A peer organised meet-up to explore practical conflict navigation and support skills using discussion, role-play, theatre of the oppressed and other tools. ⚙️🤔👌

Next meeting: 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟮𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝟯:𝟯𝟬-𝟱:𝟯𝟬,  𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲, 𝟭𝟰 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗱

(Community Dinner from 6pm)

Topic: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁

We will look at simple models of stages and processes of conflict, and apply these to contexts relevant to our lives experience.  This is one reference:
 https://restoringrelations.org/index.php/about-conflict/stages-of-conflict

Are you

  • involved in supporting and navigating conflicts in your community?
  • interested in transformative approaches to conflict?
  • curious about how we can use embodied learning to connect the theory to our everyday lived experience?
  • keen to develop your skills and awareness in this area?

Come along! This is an experimental space, with group agreements around confidentiality, care for each other, and care for our communities. This is not a formal training space which will ‘qualify’ you for mediation or other conflict support work. It is also not a space where you will be able to receive ‘expert’ advice for specific conflict situations.

We hope it will be a regular reflective, supportive space where people with a range of backgrounds and approaches can learn from each other and develop ideas and skills in community, with different folks stepping up to facilitate. We sometimes plan our sessions in discussion with BARC (Bristol Anti Repression Campaign) Transformative Justice & Abolitionism reading group –  we think our sessions are complementary to each other- but this project is entirely independent from BARC.

We first met in October 2022, and here’s some notes our sessions so far and resources that might help you figure out what we’re about…

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JrylClp3bOkOLLvqMPHvfbRFVdrnw-eq_no6dTxjbo/edit?usp=sharing

Join our Whatsapp announce group here for updates: https://chat.whatsapp.com/CkNI0rEH7oBKuipfilllsV

We also announce our sessions via BASE social media and invite friends to share them – we hope to grow a network that is diverse in experience, background and context 🌈

Parenting Beyond the Couple Norm

Saturday 11th February, 11am – 1pm, BASE Library

Do you parent or want to parent beyond the couple norm? With more than 2 adults? With a friend? As a single parent? Do you believe it takes a village to raise a child? Are you raising children in a multi-generational household? Does the typical nuclear family model of parenting seem to be lonely and not enough support and adult company? What might be possible and what are the challenges?

Queer, polyamorous and all other identities welcome.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/parenting-beyond-the-couple-norm-discussion-tickets-519004585687

BENEFIT FOR NO BORDER ACTIVISTS ON PL/BY BORDER

10th of February 2023, 7pm – midnight, BASE Events Room.

docu screening – talks – merch stand

Join us for an evening of screenings and talks with no border activists from Poland and Germany

Our group put together a documentary in the summer presenting testimony from people attempting to reach Europe through Poland’s heavily militarized border zone and activists challenging the border with clandestine shelter and passage.

After more than one year from the beginning of the, so called,”migrant crisis” on the Poland-Belarus border we want to share our experiences and collectively reflect on the necessity for an internationalist mobilization against border regimes.

The crossings are still happening, and we are working to keep the financial solidarity flowing so funds raised will support with actions including gas for cars, safehouse hosting costs, phones, legal and medical support for people on the move.

We made cool scarfs, t-shirts and socks to fundraise for the cause !!!!

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Here’s a blurb for the documentary:

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Solidarity and Hidden Resistance in the Polish-Belarussian Woods

Seven months before Ukraine’s mass exodus to the EU, a humanitarian crisis of a different nature was already taking place at the edge of Fortress Europe. Where on one side refugees are met with unanticipated generosity, 100 km further North, Poland is constructing a border wall through Europe’s oldest natural forest to prevent the “wrong refugees“ from crossing. Many have frozen to death in the forest, been abused by border guards or pushed back to Belarus countless times. Polish activists supporting people in the emergency state zone, where human rights observers, journalists and humanitarian aid are forbidden, are massively criminalized. In a documentary filmed in June 2022, refugees and activists who uphold these hidden structures of solidarity talk about their experiences and the difficult work that needs to be done regardless.

Entry: pay as you feel, all donations will go towards direct actions ongoing at this border.

Conflict Club

Thursday 2nd of February, 6:30 – 8:30, BASE Events Room.

A peer organised meet-up to explore practical conflict navigation and support skills using discussion, role-play, theatre of the oppressed and other tools. ⚙️🤔👌

Are you

  •  involved in supporting and navigating conflicts in your community? 
  • interested in transformative approaches to conflict?
  • curious about how we can use embodied learning to connect the theory to our everyday lived experience?
  • keen to develop your skills and awareness in this area?

Come along! This is an experimental space, and we will develop group agreements around confidentiality, care for each other, and care for our communities. This is not a formal training space which will ‘qualify’ you for mediation or other conflict support work. It is also not a space where you will be able to receive advice for specific conflict situations.  We hope it will be a regular reflective, supportive space where people with a range of backgrounds and approaches can learn from each other and develop ideas and skills in community.

We first met in October 2022, and here’s some notes from that session and resources that might help you figure out what we’re about…

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JrylClp3bOkOLLvqMPHvfbRFVdrnw-eq_no6d-Txjbo/edit?usp=sharing

Everyday anarchism – Scott Branson

Scott Branson, author of Practical Anarchism is going to be facilitating a conversation on anarchist alternatives to major structures in our lives like work, education, policing, health and laws and representative democracy.

Daily Anarchism, or Bringing the Revolution Off the Street

Many of us have experienced that in the intensity of facing off against the violent forces of the state during street protest, one may form bonds of solidarity and clear space for a vision of a new world. But what happens after? How can we perpetuate a social revolution into our daily lives? These are questions that abolitionists, anarchists, feminists, and queer radicals have been asking, speaking from a place of desire to live more fully in those moments. An everyday anarchism helps us rethink what revolution and transformation can be, starting with our relationships and activities. It doesn’t matter if we smash the state but still can’t take care of ourselves or one another. Looking at how the ingrained state logics silence or erase the ways of organizing our lives that are easier and make more sense, we can see how we can prepare ourselves for liberation.