what phonk music does to you is so funny because I was sat in bed just now and its 12.46 at night and im BAWLING because all my first year professors have been fired and there are more redundancies to come (goldmsiths uni cuts) and were all just terrified our subject departments and degrees are about to cease to exist and alot of Masters students' courses no longer exist because all of their staff members are now gone but Murder In My Mind - Kordhell came up and like my kneejerk reaction was to do that stupid ass mogging-mewing face and pretend im in an edit and it happened to fast it caught me off guard and i just pissed myself laughing (i have the late night funnies rn so anything makes me laugh but especially my own behaviour)
what phonk music does to you is so funny because I was sat in bed just now and its 12.46 at night and im BAWLING because all my first year professors have been fired and there are more redundancies to come (goldmsiths uni cuts) and were all just terrified our subject departments and degrees are about to cease to exist and alot of Masters students' courses no longer exist because all of their staff members are now gone but Murder In My Mind - Kordhell came up and like my kneejerk reaction was to do that stupid ass mogging-mewing face and pretend im in an edit and it happened to fast it caught me off guard and i just pissed myself laughing (i have the late night funnies rn so anything makes me laugh but especially my own behaviour)
Solidarity From 5000 Miles Away: A Letter To UC Santa Cruz's 'Students For Justice In Palestine' - by August Sappho
sourced from the UCSC SJP Instagram
Today the world bore witness to what took place at the UC Santa Cruz campus, the crossing of the barricade from police and the beating and arrest of occupying students. A brutal and deeply cruel decision made by those who see violence as an inevitable necessity in this world. As we would view community and family and peace they envision their weapons and riot gear. In the face of a genocide where people need protection the most it is the police and adjacent institutions who have upheld and exacerbated the systems and cultures of brutalising civilians. As they had done years before during the vietnam war they repeat themselves, unchanged by the cries for mercy in a language they do understand but choose not to hear. Every decision made by officers in these protests is an explicitly deliberate choice. Their choice to hide their badge numbers and IDs, their choice to not wear body cams and to not allow the press to enter and bear witness.
These choices then, are indicative of the wider problem at hand and is a microcosm of what those students in California and us in London are fighting. A militarised police state who will readily resort to violence and respond only with force. This is a battle against those who will raise arms and batons at those who they deem as lesser or unworthy. Unworthy of taking up space, unworthy of holding an opinion worth listening to and of existing in a better future. For them, freedom is a pipe dream and what we are all doing gives them an easy excuse to paint themselves as the ‘so-called-heroes’ of their community when in reality they are no better than heavy-handed thugs. The henchmen and bullies of our governments. The police have never and will never be allies to the people and their response to student protests will forever embellish this status quo. They are an institution built to serve and protect the interest of the highest bidder. An institution that has historically upheld and enforced barbaric laws without question. One that simply follows orders.
The arresting of 80 students because Larive found a protest was disruptive as a protest ought to be is unforgivable. Larive comments on how the students ‘undermined academic freedom’ and would ‘prevent free inquiry’ are all stupendously ironic from the woman who so readily siced the dogs on her students for exercising this academic freedom, this notion of free speech that is meant to be at the very least constitutionally upheld in America. Their freedom to inquire and question. No, this was an act of cowardice and complicit malice. This is a university chancellor comfortable in her power unwilling to change or learn from her very own students. This is a university whose higher ups have already made up their minds and are in no way interested in ‘free inquiry’ or any form of ‘integrity’.
The students of Goldsmiths University of London and “Goldsmiths4Palestine” stand with the University of California, Santa Cruz and “Students for Justice in Palestine”. You have our full support and solidarity from 5000 miles away. In a different continent and time zone we share hope and an indomitable human spirit for those who remain under fire and warfare.
footage from before the riot sourced from the UCSC SJP Instagram story
smth I feel like I see a lot of reading people writing about history (including historians sometimes) is that they'll do a sort of 'overview' of the area or period with little sections on different aspects of life (not inherently a bad thing to do. but) where you'll get like. a section on idk. priests (fine) and then a section on The Lower Classes (good to have ig but way too sidelined considering the portion of the population this represents) and then you'll get a section on Women & almost without fail the whole section on women is (maybe bar a mention or two) about upper class women as though we hadn't just touched on class three seconds ago. and on the one hand there's some source bias here for sure but rather than trying to find information or discuss the lack of information on poor women (or enslaved women! who get even less of a mention) they just sort of.... go along with it & present that as though it's the case? idk idk it bothers me so much both in the way it ignores class as something that affects every aspect of life but gets relegated to a section but also in the way it ignores (& de-genders to a certain extent) the whole existence of poor women (a major part of most populations in history) And how it frames the whole gender of 'woman' as an inherently frivolous luxurious sort of thing (which is also connected to how you get this weird sort of homophobia where effeminacy is framed as a symptom of degenerate wealth & not something poor people (who are apparently inherently masculine) can have too). which is how you get the common but insane take that e.g. by ancient standards sparta treated women 'well' and helots 'badly', when the fact is that the majority of women in sparta were helots. anyways this is particularly about gender and class but I think it's a mistake to treat any of these categories as too separate bc you get some really weird impressions of history that way
Stańczyk, oil painting created in 1862 by Polish artist Jan Matejko. It is one of Matejko’s best known works and is an iconic image in Poland.
Historical painting has always been a vital thread in Polish art, and Matejko chronicled Polish history with a verve and romance that earned him a central place in his homeland’s artistic consciousness. Court jester to several Renaissance-era Polish kings, Stańczyk was said to be a man of extraordinary wisdom. Not afraid to wield his satirical wit to criticize those in power, he came to personify the fight for truth over hypocrisy and even Poland’s struggle for independence.
In this painting, Matejko has turned the jester into a symbol of his nation’s conscience. While a ball at the court of Queen Bona (wife of Sigismund I the Old) is in full swing, Stańczyk sits slumped in depression, having just discovered—presumably indicated by papers on the table—that the Polish city of Smolensk has been lost (1514) during war with Moscow. Seating him apart from the rest of the court emphasizes that only he foresees that the war will be disastrous for Poland.
Matejko’s characteristic theatricality and lighting make the painting appear like a scene from a play. The principal player, in a fanciful costume that highlights his seriousness by its contrast, is placed centrally in a spotlight. In the wings, we glimpse the bit players, while outside a window a comet falls portentously. The face is a self-portrait of Matejko himself, and the artist’s finely detailed style adds to the mood, picking out everything from the plushness of the drapes to the distant sparkle of a chandelier. For centuries Stańczyk featured in the work of an array of Polish artists and writers, but this striking image is the one that has endured.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR -
Ann Kay is a writer and editor with a degree in the history of art and literature at Kent University and a postgraduate qualification in graphic design from London University. She has also studied book design and jewelry-making. Her work appears in Encyclopaedia Britannica as part of a joint publishing agreement with the publisher of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die and 1001 Amazing Places You Must See Before You Die, where the work originally appeared.
image taken of the liberated zone CCA stairwell [Wed 19th May 2024]
We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the student occupation of the CCA building and their demands for an end to university complicity in genocide. We support that call and their protest.
The student group Goldsmiths for Palestine has led a campaign on campus demanding an end to university complicity and silence on Israeli apartheid and genocide. Through two student occupations of campus buildings (Professor Stuart Hall building [20 February-27 March 2024] & the Library [1-3 May 2024]), the group managed in early May to win concessions from the senior management team around a set of demands.
In the month since those commitments were published, communications and negotiations with senior management have deteriorated. Warden Frances Corner and Chief Financial Officer/Acting Chief Operating Officer Imran Chughtai have also been absent from the last two meetings. While they remain committed to some demands (eg. implementation of new scholarships for Palestinians in the coming academic year), we have little faith that they will follow through with addressing financial institutional complicity (click here to read about Goldsmiths’ financial complicity).
Further, they were unable to meet the most simple of demands: to release a collaborative statement condemning Israel’s actions and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Senior management's most recent proposed draft used such offensive language that both Goldsmiths for Palestine and the Students Union found it unworkable.
In light of this, and horrific intensifications of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing, including the Rafah tent massacre this week, the students are re-escalating and entering an occupation/encampment in the CCA. The CCA is significant due to its connection with the Gertler family who are directly complicit in enabling genocide (click here to read more about the Gertlers’ complicity). We escalate once more to ensure that the demands are fully met, but also to re-centre the urgency of ending the killings, destruction and horrors which Israel continues to inflict. We also rejoin the global wave of student encampments calling for an end to university complicity and standing in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
Goldsmiths students, staff, friends, and alumni: join us. This must be a call from us all. We reject an institution that co-opts the student movement for Palestine whilst continuing to fund genocide. We reject a duplicitous and cowardly Warden and senior management that hides from accountability- the same management currently pushing through an unprecedented 130+ full-time equivalent redundancies.
We demand Warden Frances Corner and the senior management team attend an open meeting with students and staff in the occupied CCA building to address their inaction.
SIGN THE OPEN LETTER TODAY AND STAND AGAINST UNIVERSITY COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE
Goldsmiths Centrists and Palestine: How To Ignore A Genocide - by August Sappho
On some unfortunate Tuesday in October 2023, I was sat shoving a piping hot cheese toastie down my throat in between morning lectures and sat idly with 2 other people in the refectory. Creative Arts students I'd met in the freshers chat who, whenever I had tried to share the contents of my lectures excitedly, had shut me down on the basis of politics being complicated and uncomfortable table talk. Desperate to make friends and coming from a family of people who typically get headaches at the dinner table caused by my ramblings and ravings, I understood and obliged; after all, I want to build bridges, not be the scary monster underneath them. That is until the curious question of Palestine came up, and I stayed quiet. Surely, these self-proclaimed apolitical progressives would be sensible. “I just think it’s all so complicated, really! People need to read up more before they come to broad conclusions!*” Yes, they absolutely should. What a rational take to have formed in the face of a sudden media flurry. In my own opinion, education, and more importantly, history, is the cornerstone of enriching one's ideas and understanding. The same way you use butter in a stew, and like butter, the professionals use a lot of it. And, like butter, it fattens me up, nourishes me and brings me a great deal of comfort.
Mid-way through the summer term, I was struck by pure delight that I am living in a time where I can access any and every book I could ever dream of accessing either via the internet or a library or simply buying it. I sit, live and breathe in a country where the tuition fees are, yes, expensive but far from American and where people take great risks on their whole lives just to brush it with their fingertips, arm outstretched over a chasm of hope. Unfortunately, my table mates had decided not to utilise any of this incredibly accessible research and immediately followed their statements up by berating and shaming a lecturer in the media department for wearing a pro-Palestine jumper. They alluded very heavily that he should face some sort of consequence or simply not be allowed to wear it. After all, what does Palestine have to do with Creative Arts? I continued chewing very slowly and very tense. I did think about saying something but decided against it. Months later, I blew up at them because these same apolitical progressives had one too many times scoffed, played devil's advocate and questioned people, including myself, into an uncomfortable corner over political meet-ups, rallies and open letters. Questioning tactics, phrasing, aims to no avail beyond being arseholes - have we tried just being really super duper nice to management guys? I almost laughed when I’d seen one of them had started learning Hebrew out of the blue on Duolingo.
Unfortunately, those self-proclaimed progressives aren't anything new at Goldsmiths University of London. It has a real troubling culture of letting people only engage in what they are comfortable with and not think much beyond that. Gay rights are legal in this country and, therefore, not controversial and, consequently, easy to support. Racism is illegal in this country and, therefore, not controversial to speak up against and easy to publicly oppose. Feminism has had many successful waves here, and so it is not out of the ordinary to call yourself a feminist (without being able to explain much theory behind any of what makes these ideas up or what distinguishes them). Unfortunately, these are also easy things you can add to your social media bios with no further thought, with the sole intent of virtue signalling and repelling conservatives online. While I am grateful for all these comforts and people's ability to declare themselves as such openly, they are often done on a very face-value level and do not always mean you're a particularly good anti-racist or a good ally or a good feminist. They often trick people who have done their homework into a false sense of security. No,they use these words in a way where the thinking has been done for them. You do not have to fight; you just have to pick the glaringly obvious option. They do not have to form moral opinions on the suffragettes bombing mailboxes, the Stonewall Riots or violent plantation liberation attempts from the likes of John Brown. They can simply sit and enjoy the luxury of not ever having to deal with the hard-hitting stuff and pretending they would have come to those conclusions anyway.
Palestine, then, has acted as an axe, splitting whole student bodies around the world into two general camps. Between those who will occupy, sign letters, donate money, raise hell in the name of justice. In the name of what is good. Between those who will learn and listen and between those who will rattle on the same few talking points, claim to see both sides and claim things are just oh-so-complicated when they simply are not. Those who swear themselves by ideals of liberty and freedom and yet cannot muster a grain of sympathy to fight for those who have none. Those who will even go to the extent of the disenfranchisement of their peers and bullying if it means maintaining close contact with their comfort zones, and Palestine makes them very uncomfortable indeed—hearing chants and seeing flags and skirting around the videos of the bodies and the rubble, having to relocate your lecture or walk past a very obvious liberated zone. It makes it an unavoidable topic, puts politics in the face of those self-proclaimed progressives, and asks them, “Do you care enough to make a change?”. And the answer is a simple no. Instead of engaging with the reading they promised themselves publicly as a show of intellect, they choose to occupy their hours sending secret complaints to the warden, huff in frustration at marking boycotts, and get uncomfortable while swearing they're involved in all this and fully supporting it. Yet following lists, open letter signatures, and the things they mutter to each other paint a different picture. It is as if they know they are on the wrong side. They look left and right to see predominantly white middle-class faces like their own and prime ministers of conservative governments and think of it as some bizarre coincidence. They know they are wrong not to be reading, learning or keeping up to date which is why they maintain their opinions and feign progress until they are awkwardly called out or the simplest of questions peels off the scab.
“It’s [the occupation of the library] hindering students who have every right not to join the protest to do well in their end-of-year assignments!”—a message sent by one of the beloved October centrists. In a conversation that blew up into me confronting them for how they have treated several people, they hammered in that the student occupation of the library was unfair on themselves personally and other students like them. However, the occupation wasn't situated anywhere near the exam rooms nor on an exam day and was solely in the bottom floor front section of the library, where students are allowed to make as much racket as they want already, and people frequently do group projects there for this explicit reason. Anyone who has been to any library knows the bottom floor is always designated as the loud floor, and the higher up you go, the quieter it gets. Our library is quite impressive in size, so while unavoidable on the ways in and out, once you are inside, it was never going to be hard to find a spot to block them out. They did not know this, however, as it had never impacted them beyond hypotheticals in their head, and their argument wasn't dependent on having actually kept their eyes on what students were doing but rather finding anything to scream inconvenience at. All I could think was how funny that a student occupation of a library could be deemed as some unforgivable act because it impacts them directly, but a genocidal occupation in which their university has a hand in just isn't worth the time of day. The warden herself referred to the library occupation as something that ‘threatened’ students.
Let me conclude them with a different quote from the fictional Robin Swift from R.F. Kuang’s ‘Babel’ whose words perfectly encapsulate this ordeal.
“Across the town, students were fast asleep. Next to them, tomes by Plato and Locke and Montesquieu waited to be read, discussed, gesticulated about; theoretical rights like freedom and liberty would be debated between those who already enjoyed them, stale concepts that, upon their readers’ graduation ceremonies, would promptly be forgotten. That life, and all of its preoccupations, seemed insane to him now; he could not believe there was ever a time when his greatest concerns were what colour neckties to order from Randall’s, or what insults to shout at houseboats hogging the river during rowing practice. It was all such frippery, fluff, trivial distractions built over a foundation of ongoing, unimaginable cruelty.”
*the first conversation is paraphrased as best as I can remember it, as I do not record my conversations with people
Students at Goldsmiths University of London have restarted their protests in the face of footage that surfaced from Rafah and in response to Frances Corner showing little sign of taking student demands seriously and even less intent to hold up to her divestment agreements, which were made at the beginning of May 2024.
Protests at the uni have been covered by Al Jazeera and The Socialist Worker. Updates can be found on their Instagram @goldsmithsforpalestine. A vote of no confidence has been kick-started by the Student Union and will commence on June 7th 2024.
In meetings leading up to this vote, there has been a stark lack of support of any kind or any intent to vote against the no-confidence proposal. Students unanimously stand against the Warden.
Todays speech from Comrade GTC member of g4p - marking the beginning of the liberation zone,
"A spectre is haunting these walls. The spectre of neo-liberal austerity, of genocide complicity, of coloniality, of neo-colonialists, of institutional decadence. A spectre we thought we had managed to repel, to contain- to push away from this institution so that it could flourish as a space of refuge of uncapturable knowledge production and liberation of our bodies and desires. And yet, while the imperial chains of command persist in their relentless execution of the genocide, that same spectre haunts us again.
Whispering into our ears that "condemning an ongoing genocide wouldn't comply with the official responsibility of an institution". That if there is a war, it is due to a lack of education in the region, and a couple scholarships more may bring a resolution to this so-called 'Middle East crisis'. When I say today that we are here to remind them that we are the living matter that animates this place, the compost that from which it can grow.
We reiterate today the most radical rejection for the management of this university, a management which has failed us all. It had failed the members of this academic community by imposing an ideologically motivated, regressive […] disregarding our voices in the process. It has failed the students by ignoring their request for more accountability, the vast majority of students demanding from the university a political stance on the slaughtering of our fellow Palestinian students. I will not recall the horrific scenes coming out of Rafah right now. Those scenes of colonial violence dismissed by the SMT as a 'humanitarian catastrophe'.
Their empty promises, those empty promises of commitment, reconstruction, of Gazan educational reconstruction while the very material conditions that made education possible in this place are systematically eroded. That same undemocratic governance that disregards the aspirations of students and staff alike. Friends and comrades, we officially announce today that the CCA (Centre for Contemporary Art) is now a liberated zone."
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
prguitarman
romaincrisis
janainaart
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
