Can the Moon be a person? As lunar mining looms, a change of perspective could protect Earth’s ancient companion  

August 26, 2020 11.39pm EDT

Everyone is planning to return to the Moon. At least 10 missions by half a dozen nations are scheduled before the end of 2021, and that’s only the beginning.

Even though there are international treaties governing outer space, ambiguity remains about how individuals, nations and corporations can use lunar resources.

In all of this, the Moon is seen as an inert object with no value in its own right.

But should we treat this celestial object, which has been part of the culture of every hominin for millions of years, as just another resource?

The Moon Village Association public forum on August 18 debated whether the Moon should have legal personhood.
Why we should think about legal personhood

In April 2020, US president Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on the use of “off-Earth resources” which made clear his government’s stance towards mining on the Moon and other celestial bodies:

Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space.

Lunar resources include helium-3 (a possible clean energy source), rare earth elements (used in electronics) and water ice. Located in shadowed craters at the poles, water ice could be used to make fuel for lunar industries and to take the next step on to Mars.

As a thought experiment in how we might regulate lunar exploitation, some have asked whether the Moon should be granted legal personhood, which would give it the right to enter into contracts, own property, and sue other persons.

Read more: Five ethical questions for how we choose to use the Moon

Legal personhood is already extended to many non-human entities: certain rivers, deities in some parts of India, and corporations worldwide. Environmental features can’t speak for themselves, so trustees are appointed to act on their behalf, as is the case for the Whanganui River in New Zealand. One proposal is to apply the New Zealand model to the Moon.
Heritage and memory

As a space archaeologist, I study artefacts and places associated with space exploration in the 20th and 21st centuries. Previously, I worked with Indigenous communities to mitigate damage to heritage sites caused by mining. So I have a keen interest in what mining means for human heritage on the Moon.

Places like Tranquility Base, where humans first landed on the Moon in 1969, could be considered heritage for the entire species. There are more than 100 artefacts left at Tranquility Base, including a television camera, experiment packages, and Buzz Aldrin’s space boots.


The Apollo 11 Landing Module, with the Solar Wind Experiment and TV camera in the background. These artefacts were left on the surface on the Moon in 1969. NASA

Objects like this are full of meaning and memory. But these objects not just made by humans – they also shape human behaviour in their own right. It’s in this context that I want to consider two aspects of lunar personhood: memory and agency.

Can we support the legal concept of personhood for the Moon with actual features of personhood?

Does the Moon remember?

The 17th-century philosopher John Locke argued that memory was a key feature of personhood. It’s now acceptable to attribute memory to environmental features on Earth, like the oceans.

There are many different types of memory, of course – think of memory foam, a space-age spin-off with terrestrial applications.

One reason scientists want to study the Moon is to retrieve the memory of how it formed after separating from Earth billions of years ago.

This memory is encoded in geological features like craters and lava fields, and the regions at the lunar poles where shadows two billion years old preserve precious water ice.

Permanently Shadowed Regions at the lunar South Pole in blue, captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These unique regions only occur in two other locations in the solar system, Ceres and Mercury. NASA/GFSC

These are like archives storing information about past events. The most recent layer of memory records 60 years of human interventions, sitting lightly on the surface. This belongs to human heritage and memory, but it is now lunar memory too.

Read more: Friday essay: shadows on the Moon - a tale of ephemeral beauty, humans and hubris

Does the Moon have agency?

The international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) maintains the Planetary Protection Policy. This policy aims to prevent harm to potential life on other planets and moons. The Moon requires little protection because it is considered a dead world.

Recently, social media went wild with a story that self-described TikTok witches had hexed the Moon. More experienced WitchTokkers reacted with fury at their hubris in meddling with powers they didn’t understand.

Despite its apparent irrationality, there was something delightful about this story. It showed how the Moon is thought to interact with human life on its own terms. The “witches” took the Moon seriously as an agent in human affairs.

When humans return to the Moon, they will not find it a dead world. It is a very active landscape shaped by dust, shadows and light.

The Moon reacts to human disturbance by mobilising dust that irritates lungs, breaks down seals and prevents equipment from working. This is neither passive nor hostile – just the Moon being itself.

The Moon as an equal partner

Australian philosopher Val Plumwood would see the Moon as a co-participant in human affairs, rather than formless, dead matter:

When the other’s agency is treated as background or denied, we give the other less credit than it is due. We can easily come to take for granted what they provide for us, and to starve them of the resources they need to survive.

So this leaves me with a question: if the Moon is a legal person, what does it need from us to sustain its memory and agency? How can we achieve what Plumwood calls a “mutual flourishing”?

The answers might lie in our attitudes.

We could abandon the idea that our moral obligations only cover living ecologies. We should consider the Moon as an entity beyond the resources it might hold for humans to use.

In practice, this might mean trustees would determine how much of the water ice deposits or other geological features can be used, or set conditions on activities which alter the qualities of the Moon irreversibly.

The record of human activities we leave on the Moon should reflect respect, as we are contributing to what it remembers. In this sense, the TikTok witches had the right idea.





This article is based on a presentation at a Moon Village Association public forum organised by the Office of Other Spaces, Catapult UK and the Space Junk Podcast, and supported by Inspiring NSW and the Hunter Innovation and Science Hub.
Author
  

Alice Gorman 
Alice Gorman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
Disclosure statement

Alice Gorman is a member of the Moon Village Association, For All Moonkind, and the Advisory Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia.
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Flinders University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.


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Copyright © 2010–2020, Academic Journalism Society

Huge Indonesia mine resumes operations after lockdown protest
Issued on: 29/08/2020 -

More than 1,000 employees had staged a demonstration at the main entrance to the mine HUSYEN ABDILLAH AFP

Timika (Indonesia) (AFP)

Operations have resumed at the world's biggest gold mine in Indonesia, the company that runs it said Saturday, after workers blocked access to the site in protest at being stopped from visiting their families over virus concerns.

The miners at the Grasberg complex in the country's easternmost Papua region reached an agreement with the US-based operator Freeport, which said it would resume bus services for workers to return home.
This week more than 1,000 employees demonstrated at the mine's main entrance over the decision to cancel bus services to the city of Timika in response to fears about the spread of coronavirus infections.

Many workers had been unable to leave the site -- a high-altitude open pit that is also a major copper mine -- for six months.

Freeport spokesman Riza Pratama told AFP Saturday that the roadblock had been removed after a long negotiation period.

Several buses departed from the mine late Friday, carrying some workers who had been granted a leave of absence, said local company spokesman Kerry Yarangga.

These bus services will be run with stringent health protocols including Covid-19 testing, Yarangga said.

In May, Freeport said it would reduce the number of staff at the mine, which employed about 25,000 people, after infections rose in the area.

© 2020 AFP

Digging up graves: an Indonesian community honours its dead
Issued on: 29/08/2020 -

Torajan families unearth deceased relatives and clean their graves in a ritual known as "Manene" Hariandi HAFIZ AFP

Toraja (Indonesia) (AFP)

Families in a mountainous community on Indonesia's Sulawesi island dig up their mummified relatives every three years, clean them and dress them in their favourite clothes to honour their spirits.

The "Manene" ritual is carried out by the Torajan people, either before or after the August harvest, when deceased family members are unearthed and their graves cleaned.

"Sometimes we even have a conversation with them, asking them to wish us health, prosperity and health," Rony Pasang, whose family carried out the tradition on Saturday, told AFP.


Pasang dug up several dead family members including his grandmother and great aunt -- with his children and grandchildren paying respect to the shrivelled, mummified corpses.

The family members in the village of Panggala were unearthed and laid out to dry in the sun, before being dressed.

A feast was also held and a pig slaughtered for the occasion.

The death of a relative involves many intricate ceremonial steps for the Torajan people, who number about a million.

The deceased are mummified through an embalming process that used to involve sour vinegar and tea leaves. These days though families usually inject a formaldehyde solution into the corpse.

After many months, the souls of the dead are freed -- and immortality assured -- with an elaborate multi-day funeral ceremony called Rambu Solo.

A majority of Torajans are Christians but they retain many animist rituals and beliefs.

E-Locust: How apps are helping counter pest infestation in KenyaIssued on: 28/08/2020

By:Julia Sieger

Insects can be a nuisance, but they are also a great source of inspiration for scientists who are looking to push the limits of innovation through a process called biomimicry. In this edition of Tech 24, we take a closer look.

Fears for food security in East Africa are mounting as swarms of locusts gorge themselves on crops. This year's outbreak seems to be the worst in the last 70 years. We tell you how smartphone apps can now help track real time information to better understand the locusts' breeding process.

Plus, from satellite imagery to supercomputers, Dhananjay Khadilkar tells us how scientists are deploying technology to predict the paths of these swarms.

While insects can be a nuisance, they're also proof that nature displays the most powerful and beautiful innovations and that humans still have much to learn. A great example of so-called biomimicry is the research conducted by PhD students at the University of Washington. They were able to create a low-power, low-weight, wireless camera system the size of a coin by mimicking the eyes of beetles. We talk to co-lead author Vikram Iyer about why creating a vision system for small robots is so challenging.

In Thailand, student protesters take a leaf out of Harry Potter and Hunger Games books

At a recent rally on August 24 at Chiang Mai University, Thai student protesters raise three fingers in a show of resistance that pays tribute to the Hunger Games series.

THAILAND / PROTESTS - 08/27/2020

Since mid-July, students in Thailand have taken to the streets in a pro-democracy movement that is the most powerful series of protests since the 2014 military coup. This generation is capitalising on their youthful energy and pop culture knowledge to use non-traditional forms of protests –including lifting dissent symbols from the Hunger Games series, staging Harry Potter-themed protests and holding open-mic nights calling for an end to military rule.

In almost daily protests, students in Thailand are calling for the establishment of a more democratic system in the country. Specifically, protesters are asking the government to disband parliament, reform the constitution and stop the harassment of activists. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy. Since the military coup in 2014, a council of army leaders under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has held power. The prime minister is a former army chief. Protestors say that the close relationship between the monarchy and the military are a threat to democracy in Thailand.

Older generations have often resisted openly criticising the nation’s monarchy – Article 112 of Thailand's criminal code declares that any citizen who "defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent" can receive up to a 15-year prison sentence. But this younger generation is fighting back, using all the tools of social media at their disposal. Across social media platforms, students are organising under the hashtag #เยาวชนปลดแอก (#YouthsLiberation).

Harry Potter and the Hunger Games
One of the students' most commonly shared symbols of resistance is a three-fingered salute. This is borrowed from the Hunger Games young adult books. In the dystopian series, the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, uses this salute as a call for revolution against the oppressive rule of the president. Thai youth first started invoking this symbol in 2014 right after the military coup, and it has been resurrected this year.





อยากถามว่า ครูอายไหม ??
เป็นกู กูอายนะ .. ????

สีกากี หากแปลตรงตัว คือขี้ข้าราษฏร์ ..#โรงเรียนหน้าเขาไม่เอาเผด็จการ#เยาวชนปลดแอก #ขีดเส้นตายไล่เผด็จการ pic.twitter.com/soQuJFe7w1 B A N K K E R (@BANKIVXCII) August 17, 2020
In this video, shared on August 25, a teacher tries to take a paper away from students speaking on stage. In response, the students raise three fingers and the crowd erupts in cheers.

On Monday, August 24, many students at Chiang Mai University joined an evening of speeches, rap, singing and protest. Thousands of students, as well as other citizens, gathered at the Ang Kaew Pavilion to speak out (and sing) against Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and King Maha Vajiralongkorn.





#เยาวชนปลดแอก #ประชาชนปลดแอก #ขีดเส้นตายขับไล่เผด็จการ #ประยุทธ์ออกไป #ประเทศที่บอกเสรีแต่ไม่มีสิทธิ์เลือก#ไม่เอาเรือดำน้ำ#ไม่เอารัฐประหาร #รัฐบาลส้นตีนคนเชียร์ก็ส้นตีน#รัฐบาลเฮงซวย#เผด็จการจงพินาศประชาธิปไตยจงเจริญ #เผด็จการจงพินาศประชาธิปไตยจงเจริญ

Cr. Goodmondayshoot pic.twitter.com/Vm6wnUJleA Leader Democracy (@LeaderDemocracy) August 25, 2020
In this photo, taken at a rally on August 24, the speaker raises her hand in a three-fingered salute. The crowd responds. Photo taken by Instagram user GoodMondayShoot and reshared.

During one popular rally on August 3, students dressed up as Harry Potter characters and met at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok. The protesters waved chopsticks serving as wands into the air as they called for the end of military leadership in the country. Leaders at the protest claimed that the Harry Potter theme referenced their call to decrease the military’s influence in government and to strengthen peoples’ civil rights and liberties.





ร่วมกันเสกคาถาผู้พิทักษ์ ‘เอ็กซ์เป็กโตร พาโตรนุม’ ใส่ผู้คุมวิญญาณที่คอยดูดกลืนความสุข เจ๋งงงงงง #เสกคาถาไล่คนที่คุณก็รู้ว่าใคร #เยาวชนปลดแอก pic.twitter.com/hIpHC2zhy0 คุณพี่อยู่จังหวัดอะไรค๊าาา (@cnew888) August 3, 2020
A student wearing a Hogwarts robe from the House of Slytherin speaks at a recent rally on August 3. The caption reads, “Together, cast a guardian spell. 'Expectro Patronum' to put on the dementors who absorb the delight.”


18.50 น. มายด์ นศ. ม.มหานคร ผู้ปราศรัยคนที่3 กล่าวถึงข้อเรียกร้อง3ข้อของ #เยาวชนปลดแอก กล่าวว่าการยุบสภาจะเกิดขึ้นได้เราต้องเอาสว.ออกไปจากระบบการเมือง พร้อมเชิญชวนผู้เข้าร่วมตะโกน 3 ครั้งว่า “เราจะไม่หยุดจนกว่าอำนาจมืดจะหมดไป” #เสกคาถาไล่คนที่คุณก็รู้ว่าใคร pic.twitter.com/n3egwlOz5B TLHR / ศูนย์ทนายความเพื่อสิทธิมนุษยชน (@TLHR2014) August 3, 2020
These photos from the same protest show a student speaker in a Hogwarts robe. The caption explains that she listed the demands of the #YouthsLiberation movement and told the audience to chant three times,"We will not stop until the dark power is over".


Resistance in schools

Besides calling for a true democratic system, students are also protesting the strict regulations imposed on youth in Thailand. In schools, students are required to sing a song that praises the 12 Thai values – notably discipline and filial piety. There are also mandatory haircuts, which is a rule dating back to when Thailand was run by a United States-supported military field marshal.

Since the protests started, though, many students are refusing to sing this Thai anthem, instead lifting their hands in the three-fingered salute. Some schools have tried to ban the salute. In the past week over 100 students have reported being harassed after either wearing white bows or making the three-fingered salute in protest, according to the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

โรงเรียนเราร่วมกันชู3นิ้ว หลังทำเสร็จครูก็ได้มีการออกมาพูดว่า มันไม่สมควรทำในรร.มีกฎ มีกรอบ แล้วได้มีการถามว่าอยากจะมีใครออกมาพูดไหม ตามในคริปเลยค่ะ พี่นางฟ้าของเรา #โรงเรียนหน้าเขาไม่เอาเผด็จการ pic.twitter.com/vOuGrgPsWY Clz (@__chxrlie) August 17, 2020
In this video, shared on Twitter on August 17, a student explains that a teacher admonished students for this symbol of resistance. The caption says: “Our school raised 3 fingers. After this was done, the teacher came out and said this should not be done in the school...”

ชอบรูปนี้มาก เอเนอจี้แบบพวกหล่อนไม่ให้ชั้นผูกโบว์ขาวไปโรงเรียนใช่มั้ย ได้! ชั้นเอาไปผูกหน้ารั้วกระทรวงศึกษาธิการแม่งเลยค่ะ ลูกศิษย์มิสซิสสร พวกเธอทำดีมาก #เลิกเรียนไปกระทรวง #เยาวชนปลดแอก #WhatHappensinThailand pic.twitter.com/xv37DuVKWk คุณนง (@yournosyfriend) August 19, 2020In this photo, shared on August 19, students tie white bows on the fence of the Minister of Education.

Government crackdown

The arrests of prominent youth protest leaders has been widely documented and shared on social media. The arrest of Panupong “Mike Rayong” Jadnok prompted a strong backlash. Jadnok was arrested with five others who had all participated in an earlier protest, named Free Youth, at Thammasat University Rangsit campus on August 10. According to the warrant, Jadnok is accused of sedition, violating the law against assembly due to Covid-19, and unauthorised use of loudspeakers.



In this Facebook live video, shared Monday August 24, activist Panupong “Mike Rayong” Jadnok is arrested by the police.
This powerful series of youth protests is technically considered illegal due to Thailand’s restrictions on assembly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But the movement shows no signs of slowing.

The Thai government recently took steps to try to restrict the protesters' influence on social media. On Monday, August 24, the government ordered Facebook to partially restrict access to one group on the platform that opposes the monarchy. There are over a million members in the group, which was created by a Thai academic who lives in Japan. Although Facebook complied, denying users in Thailand access to the group, Facebook said in a statement that it will take legal action against the Thai goverment.

Elsewhere on social media in Thailand, the hashtag continues to trend – and the rallies continue.

This article was written by Sophie Stuber

No country for grieving men as artist Ai Weiwei turns a lens on Wuhan outbreak

Issued on: 28/08/2020

An ICU team at work in a Wuhan hospital in Ai Weiwei's documentary, 'Coronation'. © Ai Weiwei Films

Text by:Leela JACINTO 

"Coronation", Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s latest documentary directed remotely from Europe, probes how ordinary citizens in Wuhan coped during the height of the coronavirus pandemic under the gaze of the all-monitoring state determined to relay a narrative of efficiency, not human loss or sorrow.

An elderly Chinese mother and her adult son under lockdown in her apartment are going through the awards the retired woman won during her loyal service to the Communist Party in the ranks of “ordinary cadres” as she describes it.

Merit plaques, in ceremonial red and gold wrapping, are being plunked, one after the other, on the table. “Look! Look! Look!” she mutters with every thump as her son – clearly not a Party believer, but still indulging his mother – chuckles.

   

Li Wen, an artist, and his mother during the Wuhan lockdown © Ai Weiwei Films

Next, a roll of old certificates is flattened on the table. “You kept all of them,” says the son as he rattles out the certification years. “This one’s torn,” he suddenly exclaims. “This was written by Lin Biao in 1970. Making Revolution. Mao Zedong Thought,” he reads from the ripped paper. “Lin Biao wrote it. No wonder you tore it,” he chortles.

“I didn’t. I didn’t,” replies the old woman unsmiling as her son, an artist, giggles.

“Then who tore it?” teases her son.

The old woman though is not amused. “No idea,” she sternly replies. And with that, the matter is closed.

Lin Biao was at the peak of his career as First Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC) when he signed the elderly mother’s 1970 certificate. He was CPC founder Mao Zedong’s right-hand man during the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, which decimated the Chinese economy, cultural tradition and killed millions, according to historians still debating death tolls.

When the Cultural Revolution, which was launched by Mao, ended in 1976, Lin was officially designated a “traitor”. A once loyal party servant was made the fall guy and the chapter was declared closed, eliciting tight “No idea” dismissals from “ordinary party cadres” four decades later.

The mother-son conversation occurred in an apartment in the central Chinese province of Hubei earlier this year under a lockdown, better known as the “Wuhan lockdown” after the provincial capital and epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s one of many revealing scenes in Coronation, a nearly two-hour documentary by leading Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, released this week.

As China experiences yet another turmoil in its long history, the contest for the narrative of the coronavirus chapter is up for grabs. With Beijing seeking superpower status, the winning interpretation could have national and global implications.

Coronation provides both, the official narrative touted by Chinese authorities, as well as the counter-narrative that Beijing is at pains to conceal. The historical verdict is likely to focus on Hubei during the December 2019 to January 2020 period, when the first cases of a pneumonia-like infection were detected in Wuhan before the infection tore through the world, killing more than 800,000 people so far and wreaking havoc on the global economy.


‘Everything started 17 years ago’

The documentary begins on January 23, the day Wuhan went into a lockdown, and ends on April 8, when the restrictions were finally lifted, following five main characters as they navigate the tight constraints.

Ai, who has been living in exile in Europe since 2015, made Coronation remotely and in secret, providing directions to amateur cinematographers filming in the epicentre as well as securing already filmed material.

The 63-year-old contemporary artist declined to disclose details of the filming or how he accessed footage to protect the people in China who worked on the project. But Ai has past experience in video art projects: his prodigious multimedia oeuvre includes guerrilla-style documentaries and short clips that cast a raw lens on social issues.

Back in 2003, while he was still in China, Ai produced a 26-minute short, Eat, Drink and Be Merry, during the SARS outbreak, which is believed to have originated in the southern Chinese city of Guangdong. Beijing’s handling of the SARS outbreak, including discouraging press coverage and delayed reporting to the World Health Organization (WHO), drew international criticism.

So, when the news of the latest outbreak in Wuhan started to emerge, Ai immediately plugged into the situation with a clear idea of the medium he would employ for his next project.

“From the very beginning I was thinking of how to structure a film without being in that city,” said Ai in an emailed response to FRANCE 24. “Two conditions made it impossible: First, I was forced out from China since 2015, living almost like a political refugee. Second, on January 23, Wuhan was shut down. No one was allowed in or out. Before that, we already began to think of how to achieve a documentary.”

The 2003 experience proved critical, said Ai. “Eat, Drink and Be Merry is probably the only independent documentary made about SARS, about Beijing and how the government covered up information which caused a public panic. So, everything started 17 years ago,” he noted.


The efficient, all-watching state

Coronation though is very different from the wry, exuberantly defiant Eat, Drink and Be Merry.

But then China in 2020 is not quite like the China of 2003.

Beijing’s global ambitions, regional expansionism, crackdowns against minorities and clampdowns in autonomous zones have increased under President Xi Jinping. The mounting human rights violations have also sparked a heightened official defensiveness, marked by China’s aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy on the international stage and increased surveillance inside the country.

Technology has also aided the state’s scrutiny of its citizens and the pandemic has provided the perfect justification to monitor every move they make.

Coronation begins with a couple returning from a Chinese New Year break in their ancestral province to Wuhan, where they work, on the night of January 23.

Driving through desolate, snowy streets, they stop at a petrol station, where a shivering attendant tries but fails to take their temperatures. Within minutes, a police car pulls up. The couple’s self-isolation papers and IDs are checked and, a few questions later, they are allowed to carry on, a procedure accomplished with utmost calm and efficiency.

Beijing has been keen to highlight its efficient handling of the crisis and Coronation shows that the single-party state did indeed put up a public health feat by the end of January.

Medical teams arrive from across China to Wuhan, cheered by synchronised “Go Wuhan!” chants from masked reception teams at the airport. Robots disinfect public areas. Inside hospitals, audio tracks of beeps from medical equipment accompany nursing teams in protective gear as they treat patients in a bleak, dystopian universe.

Medical teams in Wuhan, China, get disinfected in a still from Ai Weiwei's "Coronation". © Ai Weiwei Films

Wuhan’s much touted emergency field hospitals, constructed within two weeks, are also on display in the film. In one characteristically Ai Weiwei sequence, a doctor enters through the front door of a just-built field hospital and walks for nearly four minutes, the camera following him in a single shot, as he makes his way through labyrinthine corridors, with signs scrawled on the new walls with markers, until he finally reaches his examination door.

Trying to grieve without apparatchiks

The state response grows more sinister in the second half of the documentary as a son tries to collect the ashes of his father, a Covid-19 victim, alone, without the deceased’s work unit members accompanying the grieving son.

There is no place for grief or a processing of sorrow in the People’s Republic of China. Nothing that can contradict the state narrative of cheery, “win-win” efficiency is allowed. Functionaries, party members, work unit colleagues and sundry officials hustle relatives through a mind-numbing bureaucracy of death, hovering over rushed burials, hurrying loved ones, numbed with grief, along.

Since the filming of the documentary, one of the five main characters – a construction worker brought into Wuhan to build hospitals but then barred from returning to his home province – has committed suicide.

Meng Liang, a construction worker, works his phone trying to get home from Wuhan in a still from Ai Weiwei's "Coronation". © Ai Weiwei Films

Another, a son determined to grieve for his father without hovering, monitoring apparatchiks, is right now “under heavy surveillance by the public security”, according to Ai.

The artist in exile has also faced pressure from Chinese authorities due to Coronation. “Since the film came out, the public security has contacted my mum, trying to convey the kind of trouble this film has made for China. I suggested that they watch the film, inviting them to have a discussion with me on whatever point they disagreed with and why they think a film with such an objective point of view could cause a tremendous crisis in terms of ideological discussion,” revealed Ai.

Censorship, self-censorship inside and outside China

Since he rose to national and international prominence in the late 1990s. Ai has critiqued and provoked the Chinese political establishment with his daring multimedia works, tackling themes such as corruption and the state’s assault on personal liberties. The Communist Party’s gigantic structure, employed in the pursuit of stability, a Chinese obsession, has many adherents in the country.

Ai puts it down to state thought-control. Discussing the generational divide between the elderly, party award-winning mother and her artist son, he noted that, “It is clear that the elderly generation are in stronger support of the system. But the younger generation are not much different from the older generation. You can see how successful the authoritarian regime has been in controlling information and in brainwashing over the past 70 years. There is no foundation for questioning or criticism of any sort.”

But if there’s censorship inside the country, there’s also a form of market-driven self-censorship outside China, Ai believes. The legendary contemporary artist said he initially wanted to showcase Coronation at film festivals. But so far, there have been no takers.

“They are heavily dependent on the sales market and China provides the biggest market,” he noted. “None of them can avoid not to bow their heads toward this attractive market. All filmmakers, including the festivals which host their films, desire to have their films presented in China. That clearly illustrates why all those festivals and production companies self-censor.”

"Coronation" can be viewed on Vimeo on Demand (globally, except the US) and on Alamo on Demand in the US.

UPDATED 
Banksy-funded migrant rescue boat calls for urgent help in Mediterranean
Issued on: 29/08/2020 - 08:03

The Banksy-funded, German-flagged migrant rescue vessel Louise Michel. © @MVLouiseMichel

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by:FRANCE 24Follow

A refugee rescue vessel funded by British street artist Banksy said it was stranded and needed urgent help on Saturday after lending assistance to a boat in the Mediterranean that was carrying at least one dead migrant.

The German-flagged Louise Michel said it was overcrowded and unable to move after encountering another boat attempting to cross the expanse dividing Europe and Africa with 130 people on board.

"There is already one dead person on the boat. We need immediate assistance," the crew of the 31-metre (101 feet) Louise Michel wrote on Twitter, saying other migrants had fuel burns and had been at sea for days.

The vessel's crew of 10 had earlier rescued another 89 people from a rubber boat in distress on Thursday, and said European rescue agencies had so far ignored its distress calls.

#LouiseMichel is unable to move, she is no longer the master of her manoeuver, due to her overcrowded deck and a liferaft deployed at her side, but above all due to Europe ignoring our emergency calls for immediate assistance. The responsible authorities remain unresponsive.— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 29, 2020

The boat -- named after 19th-century French anarchist Louise Michel -- was around 90 kilometres southeast of the Italian island of Lampedusa early on Saturday, according to the global ship tracking website Marine Traffic.

Thousands of people are thought to have died making the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean to flee conflict, repression and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.


We repeat, #LouiseMichel is unable to safely move and nobody is coming to our aid. The people rescued have experienced extreme trauma, it's time for them to be brought to a #PlaceOfSafety. We need immediate assistance.— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 29, 2020

Banksy's decision to fund the high-speed boat follows a body of work by the artist that has levelled scathing judgements on Europe's halting response to the migrant crisis.

'I can't keep the money'

Painted in hot pink and white, the Louise Michel features a Banksy artwork depicting a girl in a life vest holding a heart-shaped safety buoy.

The motor yacht, formerly owned by French customs, is smaller but considerably faster than other charity rescue vessels -- enabling it to outrun Libyan coastguard boats, according to The Guardian.

Its crew is "made up of European activists with long experience in search and rescue operations" and is captained by German human rights activist Pia Klemp, who has also captained other such rescue vessels, the paper reported.


🔴The @MVLouiseMichel is urgently requesting assistance, on scene with a boat in distress.

They report ~130 men, women and children on board, in desperate need of rescue. They say that one person is already dead. #EU, this encroaching state of emergency is on your watch! https://t.co/7fSyVKNR36— MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) August 28, 2020

Banksy's involvement in the rescue mission goes back to September 2019 when he sent Klemp an email.

"Hello Pia, I've read about your story in the papers. You sound like a badass," Banksy wrote.

"I am an artist from the UK and I've made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously I can't keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy."

Klemp, who initially thought it was a joke, told the paper she believed she was chosen because of her political stance, The Guardian said.

"I don't see sea rescue as a humanitarian action, but as part of an anti-fascist fight," she told the paper.

The crew with diverse backgrounds "all identify as anti-racist and anti-fascist activists advocating for radical political change," The Guardian said.

'Incognito'

A spokesman for Burriana's port confirmed that the Louise Michel docked there on June 23 and left on August 18.

"During this time, they have been repairing and preparing the boat but they did it by themselves, they did not use the port services", he told AFP.

About Banksy, "if he has been here, he came incognito," the official said.

The Louise Michel left Burriana on August 18 "under the strictest secrecy", The Guardian reported.

‼️ There is already one dead person on the boat. The others have fuel burns, they have been at sea for days and now they are being left alone in an #EU (!) Search and Rescue Zone. Don't let it become a body count. Do your job. Rescue them.— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 28, 2020

Early this month, humanitarian organisations said they would resume migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea, where none have operated since the Ocean Viking docked in Italy in early July.

Before the Ocean Viking's last mission, rescue operations in the Mediterranean had been suspended for months due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year from North Africa with more than 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the International Organization for Migration.

(AFP)

Banksy-funded ship rescues 89 migrants from Mediterranean

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- A rescue boat funded by British street artist Banksy pulled 89 migrants from the Mediterranean Sea this week, the operation announced Friday.

The boat, the Louise Michel, is splashed with bright pink paint and features reproductions of the artist's famous artworks, including one of a girl holding a heart-shaped life preserver. The vessel is named after a 19th century French feminist anarchist.

"After dealing with dehydration, fuel burns and injuries from the torture they suffered in Libya, they have a moment of respite. Together with the crew, they are waiting for a Port of Safety," the ship's Twitter account said.

The Louise Michel's website says it was established because of European countries' policy not to respond to distress calls from non-Europeans.

Banksy funded the ship -- a former French navy boat -- with the sale of his artwork.

"We onboard the Louise Michel believe we are all individuals, nationality should not make a difference to what rights one has and how we treat each other," the ship's mission statement reads. "We answer the SOS call of all those in distress, not just to save their souls -- but our own."

More than 40,000 migrants have made the trek to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea since January, most from Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Syria and other Middle Eastern and North African countries. This year, 443 people have died attempting the trip, according to data from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

This year is on track to have the fewest number of crossings since 2014, when the refugee crisis began in the region. Migration peaked in 2015, when 1.03 million people crossed the Mediterranean and 3,771 died. More than 5,000 died in 2016 despite about one-third the number of crossings from the previous year.

The Louise-Michel said the migrants it rescued were from Libya, where dueling governments are fighting for control

Yesterday morning, #LouiseMichel responded to a distress call from #Moonbird air reconnaissance plane. 89 people were rescued and brought on board Louise Michel. The survivors need a Place of Safety now.#SolidarityAndResistance pic.twitter.com/HWde3hYFqT— LouiseMichel (@MVLouiseMichel) August 28, 2020

Freud's Vienna private rooms open, bereft of furnitureIssued on: 29/08/2020 -

Sigmund Freud's private rooms in Vienna are open to the public after renovations 

ALEX HALADA AFP

Vienna (AFP)

All of Sigmund Freud's private rooms in Vienna opened to the public on Saturday -- though they are devoid of any furniture since the Jewish founder of psychoanalysis took everything with him when he fled to London during World War II.

"We are dealing with an exhibition showing that there is nothing left here," architect Herman Czech told journalists this week ahead of the Sigmund Freud Museum's re-opening after 18 months of renovations."Bringing back the sofa from London would have been a falsification of history," he added, referring to the famous couch, on which Freud diagnosed his patients.

So the rooms -- increasing the exhibition space from 280 to 550 square meters (330 to 660 square yards) in a bourgeois building in Vienna's posh ninth district -- contain only a few personal items.

Those include Freud's books, his tanned satchel and his box of chess and tarot games in light wood.The famous Viennese doctor, theorist, art collector, publisher and writer stayed at Berggasse 19 between 1891 and 1938 with his home on the first floor adjoining his practise.

Only the waiting room, which could already be visited previously, still has its original furniture.

When he left for exile in London in 1938, threatened by the Nazis because he was Jewish, Freud took away most of the other furniture -- the absence of which reflects "the loss of culture and humanity" of the Hitler-annexed Austria, according to Czech.

As part of the permanent exhibitions now open to the public, the fate of Freud's dozens of neighbours deported to concentration camps is also discussed.

Director Monika Pessler says the newly renovated and enlarged museum, tracing Freud's work and life with photos and films and including a library, aims to bring to life his teachings.

Freud died at the age of 83 in 1939.

The museum first opened in 1971 with the blessings of Freud's youngest daughter, Anna.

It welcomed nearly 110,000 visitors -- 90 percent from abroad -- in 2018 before it closed for works.

Its reopening originally planned for earlier this year was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

       As a psychological instrument introduced into psychotherapy, Tarot has an uncanny ability to reflect and predict subjective experience.  While beyond the scope of this paper, I have detailed Tarot’s therapeutic assests in the following ways: (1) its essential visuality and nonverbality in the service of envisioning; (2) its economy, complexity, and condensation in the service of brevity;  (3) its multidimensionality and relative simplicity in the service of “depth perception”; (4) its inherent numinosity and evocative powers that stimulate emotional arousal, and  (5) its intentionality and extraordinary versatility in the service of therapeutic utility and efficacy.²   I would add to this list a sixth, namely, its cross-cultural appeal and accessibility, particularly as an “image-net”  it is not burdened by language like virtually all other schools.

           There is a certain historical irony along such party lines, one which I believe has very little to do with Tarot cards per se, but much to do with the modernist dismissal of anything thought to be ‘occult.’  Why should this be?   It is known, for instance, that of the two psychological giants of the 20th century, it was Sigmund Freud who had firsthand experience with Tarot, not Carl Jung.  As a dabbler in Kabbala, the occult dimension of esoteric Judaism believed by many to form the basis of Tarot, Freud apparently regularly experimented with Tarot cards early in his career.  In fact Bakan (1958) suggests this arcane symbolic tool contributed significantly to Freud’s early formulation of the unconscious:

Participation in the B’nai B’rith in Vienna was one of the very few recreations that Freud permitted himself–among his recreations was his weekly game of taroc [sic], a popular card game based on Kaballa.  It was there that he first presented his ideas on dream interpretation.³

   This information however was suppressed, Bakan conjectures, due to the fierce anti-semitism that pervaded Viennese society at the time.  Sigmund Freud and Tarot cards, who would think?  Jung, on the other hand, the accomplished scholar and enthusiast of a great range of esoteric topics, by all indications was never adequately schooled in Tarot.  In fact, throughout his voluminous writings addressing so many related systems, only one mention of Tarot is ever made, to wit in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious,  [paragraph 81] Jung remarks: 

https://moonlightcounseling.com/tarot-freud-and-the-wise-doctor-from-zurich-essay/


Astrology, Tarot Cards and Psychotherapy
With psychotherapists’ encouragement, troubled people are seeking solace in pseudoscientific practices such as astrology and tarot cards
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/astrology-tarot-cards-and-psychotherapy/

Anarchy and Communism

Carlo Cafiero
1880
At a congress held in Paris by the Centre region, one speaker, who stood out because of his
fierceness against anarchists, said: “Communism and anarchy would scream to find themselves
together.”
Another speaker who also spoke against anarchists, though less harshly, cried out, in speaking
of economic equality:

“How can liberty be violated, if equality exists?”
Well! I think that both speakers are wrong.
There can absolutely be economic equality, without having liberty in the slightest. Certain
religious communities are living proof of this, because the most complete equality exists there as
well as despotism. Complete equality, because the leader dresses himself in the same cloth and
eats at the same table as the others; he distinguishes himself in no other way than by his right to
command. And the supporters of the “Popular state?” If they did not meet obstacles of any sort,
I am certain that they would eventually achieve perfect equality, but at the same time as perfect
despotism, because, let us not forget, the despotism of the present State would augment economic
despotism of all capital that passed through the hands of the State, and all would be multiplied
by all the centralization necessary to this new State. And that is why we, the anarchists, friends
of liberty, propose an all-out attack on them.
Thus, contrary to what was said, we have perfect reason to fear for liberty, even where equality
exists; though there can be no fear for equality anywhere where true liberty exists, that is to say,
anarchy.
Finally, anarchy and communism, far from screaming to find themselves together, would
scream at not finding themselves together, because these two terms, synonyms of liberty and
equality, are the two necessary and indivisible terms of the revolution.
Our ideal revolutionary is very simple, we will see: he is composed, like all of our predecessors,
of these two terms: liberty and equality. Only there is a slight difference.
Educated by the dodging that reactionaries of all sorts and of all times have done of liberty
and equality, we are wise to place next to these two terms an expression of their exact value.
We thus place, next to these two terms: liberty and equality, two equivalents of which the clear
significance cannot give rise to ambiguity, and we say: “We want liberty, that is to say, anarchy,
and equality, that is to say, communism.”


Anarchy today is an attack, a war against all authority, against all power, against all States. In
future societies, anarchy will be a defense, the prevention brought against the reestablishment
of all authority, of all power, of any State: full and entire liberty of the individual who, freely
and pushed only by his needs, by his tastes and his liking, combines with other individuals in
groups or partnership; free development of partnership which federates itself with others in the
commune or in the neighborhood; free development of communes which federate themselves in
the region – and so on: regions in the nation, nations in humanity.
Communism, the question that occupies us most specifically today, is the second point of our
ideal revolutionary.
Communism today is still an attack; it is not the destruction of authority, but the taking, in
the name of humanity, of all the wealth that exists on the globe. In the society of the future, communism will be the enjoyment of all existing wealth, by all men and according to the principle:
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, that is to say: from each to
each according to his will.

It is necessary to remark – and this responds to our adversaries, authoritarian and statist communists – that the taking of possession and the enjoyment of all existing wealth must be, according to us, the doing of the people themselves. The people, humanity, not being individuals
capable of seizing wealth and taking it into their own two hands, we must conclude, it is true,
that it is necessary, for this reason, to institute a ruling class, of representatives and agents of
the common wealth. But we do not share this opinion. No intermediaries, no representatives
who always end up representing nobody but themselves! No moderators of equality, moreover,
no moderators of liberty! No new government, no new state, whether it calls itself popular or
democratic, revolutionary or provisional.
The common wealth being disseminated over the whole world, all rights to it belonging to
the entirety of humanity, those thus who find themselves on the level of this wealth and in a
position to use it will use it in common. People of such a land will use the planet, the machines,
the workshops, the houses, etc., of the land and will serve everyone in common of them. Parts of
humanity, they will exercise here, de facto and directly, their right to a part of the human wealth.
But if a resident of Peking came into this land, he would find himself with the same rights as the
others: he would enjoy with the others all the richness of the country, in the same way that he
did at Peking.
He was thus quite confused, that speaker who denounced anarchists as wanting to set up
property as belonging to corporations. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, if we had destroyed the State to replace it with a multitude of smaller States! To kill the monster with one head to entertain the monster with a thousand heads!
No, we have said it, and we will not stop saying it: no go-betweens, no brokers or helpful
servants who always end up becoming the true masters: we want all the wealth existent to be
taken directly by the people themselves and to be kept by their powerful hands, and that the
people themselves decide the best way to enjoy it, be it for production or consumption.
But people ask us: is communism applicable? Would we have enough products to let everyone
have the right to take as they wished, without demanding from individuals more labor than they
are willing to give?
We respond: yes. Certainly, we can apply this principle: from each according to their ability,
to each according to their need, because, in future societies, production will be so abundant that
there will be no need to limit consumption, or to demand from people more work than they are
willing or able to give.
Right now, we cannot even begin to imagine this immense growth in production, but we can
guess at it by examining the causes that will provoke it. These causes can be summed up in three
principles:
1. Harmony of cooperation in the different branches of human activity will replace today’s
fighting that translates into competition.
2. Large-scale introduction of all kinds of machines.
3. The considerable conservation of the forces of labor and of raw materials, facilitated by the
abolition of harmful or useless production.
Competition, fighting, is one of the fundamental principles of capitalist production, which has
as its motto: Mors tua vita mea, your death is my life. The ruin of one makes the fortune of another.
And this relentless fight happens from nation to nation, from region to region, from individual to
individual, between workers as well as between capitalists. It’s a war of the knife, a combat of all
forms: body to body, by groups, by squads, by army corps. A worker finds work where another
has lost it; one industry or many industries prosper where other industries decline.
needs of vanity and corruption!
And when all this force, all these materials, all these tools are used for industry, for the production of objects that themselves will serve to produce, what a prodigious growth in production
we will see appearing!
Yes, communism is applicable! We can of course let everyone take according to their will, since
there will be enough for everyone. We will no longer need to demand more work than anyone
wants to give, because there will always be enough products for tomorrow.
And it’s thanks to this abundance that work will lose the dreadful character of enslavement,
in leaving to it only the charm of a moral and physical need, like that of studying, of living with
nature.
This is not just to say that communism is possible; we can affirm that it is necessary. Not only
may we be communist; we must be communist, or else risk missing the point of the revolution.
In effect, after the collectivization of tools and raw materials, if we conserve the individual
appropriation of products of work, we will find ourselves forced to save money, subsequently
an accumulation of greater or lesser wealth, according more or less to merit, or rather, to the
skill, of individuals. Equality would thus have disappeared, because those who had managed
to accumulate more wealth would already have been thus elevated above the level of the others.
There would no longer remain more than one step before counter-revolutionaries could establish
the right of heritage. And, in effect, I heard a renowned socialist, a so-called revolutionary, who
supported the individual attribution of products, finish by saying that he saw no drawbacks of
a society that accepted the passing on of these products by inheritance: this, according to him,
would be unlikely to have any repercussions. For those of us who know closely the results at
which society has arrived with this accumulation of wealth and their passing on by inheritance,
there can be no doubt on this subject.
But the individual attribution of products would re-establish not only inequality among men,
but also inequality among different forms of work. We would almost immediately see the reappearance of “clean” and “dirty” work, of “noble” and “dreadful” work: the former would be done
by the rich, the latter would be the assignment of the poor. So it would no longer be calling and
taste that led a man to dedicate himself to one type of activity as opposed to another: it would be
self-interest, the hope of gaining more in a certain profession. In this way, laziness and diligence,
merit and lack of merit, good and bad, vice and virtue, and, by consequence, “reward” on one
hand and “punishment” on the other, the law, the judge, the henchman, the prison, would all
reappear
.There are socialists who cling to supporting the idea of individual attribution of products of
work, arguing the sense of justice.
Strange illusion! With collective work, that imposes upon us the necessity of large-scale production and large-scale implementation of machines, with this ever-growing tendency of modern work to serve itself of the work of preceding generations – how will we be able to determine
which parts of the product belong to whom? It’s absolutely impossible, and our adversaries themselves know this so well that they end up saying “Well, we will use as a basis for distribution the
hours spent working,” but, at the same time, they themselves admit that this would be unjust,
because three hours of work from Pierre might produce as much as five hours of work from
Paul.
In the old days, we called ourselves “collectivists” because this was the word that distinguished
us from individualists and from authoritarian communists; but, in the end, we were all quite
simply anti-authoritarian communists, and, in calling ourselves “collectivists,” we thought we
were expressing by this name our idea that everything must be pooled, without distinguishing
between the instruments and materials of work and the products of collective work.
But, one day, we saw a new shade of socialists sprout up who, resuscitating the errors of the
past, admiring themselves philosophizing, distinguishing themselves on this question, finished
by making themselves the apostles of the following thesis:
“There exist,” they say, “use value and production value. Use value is that which we use to
satisfy our personal needs: the house we live in, the food we consume, clothing, books, etc., while
production value is that which we use to produce: it is the workshop, the sheds, the cowshed, the
warehouse, the machines and tools of all sorts of work, the sun, raw materials, etc. The former,
which serve to satisfy the needs of the individual,” they say, “must be attributed to the individual,
while the latter, which help everyone to produce, should be commonly owned.”
This is the newly discovered – or rather, renewed as needed – economic theory.
But I ask you, you who give the favorable title of “production value” to the carbon that feeds
machines, to the oil that serves to oil it, to the oil that illuminates its work – why do you refuse
this title to bread, to the meat I eat, to the oil with which I season my salad, to the gas that
illuminates my work, to all that aids the living and working of that most perfect of all machines,
the father of all machines: the man?
You class as production value the meadow and the stable that serve to shelter cows and horses,
and you exclude the houses and the gardens that serve the most noble of all the animals: the
man?
Where is your logic?
Besides, you yourselves who imagine yourselves as the apostles of this theory, you know perfectly well that this demarcation does not exist in reality, and that if it is difficult to draw it today,
it will disappear completely the day that we are all producers as well as being consumers.
Thus, it is not this theory, we see, which could give a new force to the supporters of individual
attributions of the products of labor. This theory has only obtained one result: that of unmasking
the game of these few socialists who would like to limit the range of revolutionary thought; it
has opened our eyes and shown us the necessity of saying straight out that we are communists.
But finally, let’s address the one and only serious objection that our adversaries have brought
against communism.
We all agree that we are necessarily moving towards communism, but we observe that at the
beginning, products will not be abundant enough; it will be necessary to establish rations and to
divide up resources, and that the best part of the products of labor will be based on the quantity
of work that each person has done.
To this we respond that, in a future society, even when we are obligated to ration resources, we
must remain communists: this is to say that the rationing must be done according not to merits,
but to needs.
Take the family, that small model of communism (of an authoritarian communism more than
anarchist, it is true, which, besides, in our example, changes nothing).
In the family, let’s suppose that the father brings home a hundred cents every day, the eldest
son three francs, a younger boy forty cents, and the youngest only five cents a day. Each brings
this money to the mother who keeps the cash and feeds them. Everyone earns different amounts,
but at dinner, everyone serves themselves as they please according to their appetites; there is no
rationing. But the bad days come, and being entirely broke forces the mother to no longer rely
on the appetite and taste of each person for distribution at dinner. It is necessary to ration and,
be it by the initiative of the mother or by the tacit agreement of the whole table, the portions are
reduced. But see, this sharing does not happen according to earnings, because it’s the youngest
children who receive the most generous helpings, and the best piece of the meat is reserved for
the old woman who earns nothing at all. Even during a food shortage, the family operates on
the principle of rationing according to needs. Could it be otherwise in the human family of the
future?
It is obvious that there would be more to say on this subject, if I were not speaking in front of
anarchists.
We cannot be anarchists without being communists. In effect, the slightest idea of limitation
already contains the seeds of authoritarianism. It could not be realized without immediately creating the law, the judge, the policeman.
We must be communists because it is in communism that we will realize true equality. We must
be communists because the people, who do not understand the collectivist sophistry, understand
communism perfectly, as our friends Reclus and Kropotkin have already remarked. We must be
communists, because we are anarchists, because anarchy and communism are the two terms
necessary for the revolution.

Gdansk deal and birth of Poland's Solidarity

THE VATICAN CIA VERSION

Issued on: 29/08/2020 - 12:58

Striking workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, on August 20, 1980 

JORMA PUUSA LEHTIKUVA/AFP/File

Warsaw (AFP)

Forty years ago, on August 31, 1980, strikers at Poland's Gdansk shipyard and the communist regime signed an historic deal enabling the creation of Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union.

Unthinkable weeks earlier, the Gdansk agreement followed two months of social unrest across the central European country, which was sparked in July by an increase in meat prices.

Protests intensified on August 14, as 17,000 workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk went on strike to demand, among other things, reinstatement of an employee, Anna Walentynowicz, who had been fired. Their demands for trade union freedom spread.


- Lech Walesa: charismatic orator -

Lech Walesa, a 35-year-old electrician at the yard who had been fired four years earlier for activism, scaled the huge site's outer wall and took the lead of the strikers, emerging as a charismatic speaker.

The management gave in very quickly on several points, but the strikers wanted more, and in particular the creation of free unions.

The strike quickly took on a political dimension with the arrival on site of dissident intellectuals, who adopt an advisory role to the strikers.

The workers had in their minds the bloody repression of the strikes of December 1970 -- the uprising at the Gdansk shipyards had led to the fall of the leader of the Communist Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka.

They were also well aware of the intervention by the Soviet leaders of the communist bloc in 1956 in Hungary and in 1968 in Czechoslovakia.

But they were spurred on by the legendary words "be not afraid" spoken a year earlier by Polish pope, John Paul II, during a visit to Warsaw, capital of the deeply Catholic country.

On August 17, the Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) led by Walesa said 191 workplaces were on strike. By the end of the protests they would total 700.

Day and night the families and supporters pressed themselves against the closed gates of the shipyard bearing food, drinks, flowers and offering moral support.

Holy images lined the outer walls of the industrial site. Across the country masses were held in support of the strike.

"There was something behind our struggle, something like the will of God, in particular concerning my own role," Walesa, a staunch Catholic, would later say.

On August 22, deputy prime minister Mieczyslaw Jagielski headed a government delegation to Gdansk to negotiate. The talks were broadcast to the shipyard by loudspeakers.

- Accord on independent trades union -

On August 31, an AFP bulletin wrote of "an agreement between the authorities and the strike committee in Gdansk, Walesa announced".

On television Walesa then declared the end of the strike. He burst into the national anthem, with the deputy prime minister singing along with him.

"We have not got everything we wanted. But we have got what was possible in the current situation. And we will get the rest later," Walesa said.

The accord authorised an independent union -- a first in the entire Soviet bloc -- provided for the right to strike, a limit on censorship, salary increases, the broadcast of a Sunday mass on radio-television and the freeing of political prisoners.

"Up to now there was an understanding, in Poland as in all the other socialist countries, that the working class, being itself in power, had no reason to go on strike, nor to set up unions independent of the party it represents," AFP wrote at the time.

Signing of the agreement took place "in the shipyard's big conference room, decorated with a crucifix and a bust of Lenin, under the rattle of flashes and the roaring of television cameras from several countries," AFP reported. Walesa signed the document with a pen bearing the effigy of the pope.

The final negotiations were followed "by workers clumped together around the shipyard's loudspeakers, sitting on a pile of bricks, perched on makeshift benches," AFP wrote.

Some 18 months later, General Wojciech Jaruzelski decreed martial law to ban the union, which had managed to unite 10 million members.

Tens of thousands of union activists were arrested, including Walesa, who was detained for 11 months.

The union continued its activities underground before being legalised in 1989 as the communist bloc crumbled.

In October 1983 Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize, before being elected president of Poland in 1990 at the country's first democratic election.

© 2020 AFP