South London Protest Cafe - Do justice/ Eat cake

[Marmora Man]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> It's not patronising to assume people who don't

> have time to get properly involved / deeply

> involved (as you suggested) in any specific issue

> will be informed enough to discuss it

> intelligently. As anyone who has ever gotten

> deeply involved in anything knows, issues are

> often difficult and complex with lots of grey

> areas and require more than general interest to be

> properly understood.

>

> For example, people are often rightly concerned

> about the carbon footprint of the food they eat

> and therefore decide to buy "local" as a means to

> reduce this. However, the issue is vastly more

> complex. In certain parts of the world certain

> livestock and produce require less energy to

> cultivate due to the properties of the area

> (sunshine, soil quality etc). Also, in certain

> poorer countries, where labour costs are lower

> human beings vs. carbon-fueled machines are

> responsible for more of the cultivation process,

> again lower carbon footprint. Both of these

> things can influence the final price of imported

> foodstuffs and might in part be why certain

> imported produce is cheaper than locally produced

> products. The transportation of food is only on

> element that determines its true carbon footprint

> and your lamb from a British farmer might actually

> be entail the use of more carbon-energy than lamb

> cultivated and then shipped from New Zealand when

> the entire production process is taken into

> account.

And this elegant exposition of why one single issue is more grey than Black & White doesn't take into account the economic advantage that may accrue to an otherwise impoverished nation, area or region from investing in agriculture and exporting the product.

So importing green beans from Kenya / prawns from Thailand / lobsters from Ireland / sugar from the Caribbean may possibly have a higher carbon footprint than sourcing the same on an ED allotment / fish pond / sugar beet field but it's production and export may be enabling the funding of local intrastructure and schools in the area through taxes on the business while also giving wages and dignity to the employees as well as providing them with an understanding of entrepreneurial skills.

How do you balance this "good" against the "bad" of higher carbon footprint - always assuming that you do agree that man made carbon is contributing to climate change - many would disagree.

[LondonMix]

Exactly MM. I wanted to keep things simple but its truly a mindfield of complexity once you expand the point beyond just carbon-footprint issues.

Lulastic-

If that?s what you want there is nothing wrong with that per se. It?s a bit like watching a film with your very interesting and intelligent friends when you were at uni and then debating the points?the tension that exist between food independence for the country vs. ensuring affordability (via cheap imports) for the poor in the UK, how this interacts with world poverty etc. etc. However, the idea that having this sort of discussion every 6 weeks will contribute to ?making the world a better place? as your original post suggested is na?ve. If you really want to make a difference you need to get properly informed and also provide people with links to well organised groups. What you are describing is just a social gathering for like-minded people who like to discuss social justice issues. Like I said, that?s fine if you have the time and inclination but hardly what your original post purports to do.

[Lulastic]

LondonMix - I'm confused, I am not sure you read my last post, in which I agreed that having expert input is vital- we will aim for this.

I added that there is another empowering model, which we also aim to support, which is pooling knowledge.

In a previous post I agreed with another poster, and once again agree with you, that tapping into existing organisational goals can be vital too - already Oxfam is involved and we will be looking for other campaigns to support.

Whenever I have tried to describe what the cafe is I have used the words "discuss" and "act" - two pillars that are critical for "making the world a better place" - as opposed to just a social gathering for like minded people.

Sometimes when like-minded people with good intentions get together with social justice on the brain, big things happen. I suspect the abolitionists who first met in a room down the road in Clapham spent quite a lot of time to-ing and fro-ing and working out what they could do with their limited resources and knowledge, but there they began a campaign that ended the transatlantic slave trade.

Sometimes you just need to try things, in order to play a part in changing things.

['bout now]

"whaddowewant?" CAKE

"whendowewantit" NOW.

[LondonMix]

In your other posts I didn't really get the impression that this was the main thrust of how you were organising yourselves but if so, I wish you luck. Your comparison with the abolitionist movement is off base-the big difference is that they were organised around a specific issue rather than a generic world view that plans to jump between different issues every 6 weeks. I honestly think you are well intentioned but I think you really do underestimate what?s involved in formulating an informed position on a complex issue and the focus required to then work on that issue to make a difference.

Everything about the way you?ve presented this caf? raises doubts for me: the generic notions of social injustice, the knee jerk idea of protest, that it will meet every six weeks and that your first response to my suggestion that the discussions need to be informed to be helpful was to accuse me of being patronizing, etc.

It all just seems very romantic and na?ve.

Lulastic Wrote:

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> LondonMix - I'm confused, I am not sure you read

> my last post, in which I agreed that having expert

> input is vital- we will aim for this.

>

> I added that there is another empowering model,

> which we also aim to support, which is pooling

> knowledge.

>

> In a previous post I agreed with another poster,

> and once again agree with you, that tapping into

> existing organisational goals can be vital too -

> already Oxfam is involved and we will be looking

> for other campaigns to support.

>

> Whenever I have tried to describe what the cafe is

> I have used the words "discuss" and "act" - two

> pillars that are critical for "making the world a

> better place" - as opposed to just a social

> gathering for like minded people.

>

> Sometimes when like-minded people with good

> intentions get together with social justice on the

> brain, big things happen. I suspect the

> abolitionists who first met in a room down the

> road in Clapham spent quite a lot of time to-ing

> and fro-ing and working out what they could do

> with their limited resources and knowledge, but

> there they began a campaign that ended the

> transatlantic slave trade.

>

> Sometimes you just need to try things, in order to

> play a part in changing things.

[Worker]

No, thanks, that narrows it down nicely.

Jessie Wrote:

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> @Worker - issues 'of a social justice nature,

> either local issues of global issues'. Anything

> else i can help with?

[Lulastic]

Shiver my timbers, Londonmix, it is REALLY hard not to be offended by your comments, you know. I have worked for over ten years in policy, international development and community organising. I know exactly what is "involved in formulating an informed position on a complex issue and the focus required to then work on that issue to make a difference."

After working with hundreds of groups and networks, on a huge range of issues, in campaigining and training, I realise that what it takes, more than anything, are people who are optimistic and determined enough to use the skills and resources they have to be part of a movement for a more just world.

I chose the abolitionists specifically because their task was so huge - not at all singular, it encompassed a huge variety of injustices and it took them decades to actually target the transatlantic slave trade.

Finally, of course, attendance isn't compulsory. Just leave it to us dreamers, but there is no need to drag the whole concept of "ordinary people trying to make a difference" down.

[LondonMix]

What are you on about? I am a firm believer that ordinary people can and do make a huge difference by participating in a variety of ways across a wide range of issues. I think meeting every 6 weeks to discuss any issue that generically relates to social justice, watching movies and every 12 weeks inviting someone who is specialized and informed in that week?s topic is not a focused enough strategy to accomplish very much. If that offends you then so be it. I also don?t think that protesting is always the most effective way of engaging on an issue. Again, if that offends you, so be it.

[Worker]

Thing is, I think a lot of ED people from a wide variety of backgrounds would be interested in contributing to specific causes (cf. issues) that they support or take an interest in. But contributing to an undefined cause with 'protest' as the only noted modus operandi is more difficult to commit to, even if it?s only an hour of their time to attend your meeting. You only have to read a few of the threads on here to realise that people have very different ideas of what social justice is (to use a flippant example, some consider the presence of a low-cost supermarket in ED to be social justice, others couldn't give a monkey's and just want Belgian chocolate coated raisins).

[Lulastic]

Londonmix, yeah, sorry. That last sentence of mine was uncalled for. I have (apart from perhaps when I was being a bit over sensitive) valued your input on this thread.

Worker, I think you are right. It is tricky.

I guess we'll just navigate it all as we go.

Personally, I'm still excited. And the film is really interesting...

[Lulastic]

Wednesday night's info: http://www.facebook.com/events/188994984568305/

[Huguenot]

Seems to be quite a lot of simplistic single issue stuff there about food and sustainability in isolation.

It rather smacks of year zero campaigns to get us all back in teepees that fails to recognise that food is part of a global exchange of products and services that are mutually interdependent.

Nothing about 'protest' that's apparent.

However, these food enthusiasts would be well placed to remember that the greatest protest in the food revolution is unlikely to be the campaigners themselves, but more likely to be those large proportions of society that don't take kindly to being told what to do or eat by well-to-do middle class liberal do-gooders on a poverty tourism trip.

[Chippy Minton]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> I may call in. I am working in the South West at

> present but should be passing Camberwell on the

> way home on Weds evening.

Watch out Lulastic...I think MM may see himself as some sort of Peter Skellen to your Frankie Leith in this situation ;-)

[LondonMix]

Good luck!

Lulastic Wrote:

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> Londonmix, yeah, sorry. That last sentence of mine

> was uncalled for. I have (apart from perhaps when

> I was being a bit over sensitive) valued your

> input on this thread.

>

> Worker, I think you are right. It is tricky.

>

> I guess we'll just navigate it all as we go.

>

> Personally, I'm still excited. And the film is

> really interesting...

[Alec John Moore]

I had a look at the Best before trailer and I don't see the simplistic single issue stuff that H refers to. Maybe he's looking at something else. I don't get the poverty tourism comment either but I do remember stories about mums pushing their preferred food for their kids through the school fence when Jamie Oliver was trying to improve the nutritional value of school dinners. Still, you'll find prejudice wherever you look if you look hard enough.

Personally, I'm really interested in food - you may recall my thread earlier this year about Live Below the Line - and I hope to go to the screening tonight. I'm really impressed by the growing concern there is about the way our food is produced and distributed. But I'm also interested in the widening interest in food and its cultural, social, environmental and ethical dimensions as well as the nutritional and economic.

[Huguenot]

It's single issue because it believes it can address food issues separately from the entire geopolitical context.

Poverty tourism was a metaphor - clearly nobody is on tour here - but it referred to middle class well off busy bodies trying to tell the great unwashed what to eat and grow. Many people don't have the luxury of choice.

[Alec John Moore]

Hadn't noticed that amongst the references to oil, money and power but I only watched the trailer. Maybe some consideration of the geopolitical nature of food insecurity will emerge from the discussion. We all have limited choice but some have more knowledge and an interest in taking action.