[OccupySheffield] White Flag Revolution

[marknbarrett at googlemail.com]

Hey Everyone !

I am proposing with others like Manuel (www.whiteflag.info) on the Take the Square TTS International platform that we raise the white flag internationally in our activities in May. 

To go with that, here are some personal  ideas on how / why it might work.... 

[I do reliably expect to get shot down here, but anyway here goes as I hit 'send']

The white flag could be raised internationally and used by different localities to show we are a new world order based on a peace between/existing above the nation-state level ( ie a new global superpower and its demand for nuclear and other multilateral disarmament ) and at the same time clear demands at global and local levels,  for example ( and as localities and groups decide) : 

(i) the ending of anti-democratic violence whether it be state terrorism in Syria,  Palestine,  Egypt etc or corporate terrorism eg Shell in Niger Delta or financial market terror in the form of private and public debt imposed austerity eg in Greece , rest of Europe / world 

(ii) jubilee, ie in the wake of said debt cancellation / general ceasefire ( white flag, blank slate ) the reset/ reboot/ new start / liberation space for all sorts of new, locally relevant forms of self-determination. Ie effectively re-written constitutions featuring, for example: 

- free political parties and trade unions, free elections, a  national representative body, the right to assembly, separation of military, police, judiciary, religion and state, and so forth (in the case of Syria, Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, China, Kurdistan, Scotland, England etc) 
 
- new more deeply democratic decentralised, direct democratic assembly and on-line participation based political models and the inspiring new forms of social productivity that can come with it  eg in Greece, Spain, UK, Europe-wide, USA and elsewhere ( as with all of this, as and when good people aspiring to equality compassion and dignity organise for it)

- a combination of these and/ or others unmentioned or still to be dreamt up ;) 

(iii)  the democratisation / transformation / overthrow of present global institutions and the prevailing economic model ( ie  the UN, G20, NATO,  IMF, World Bank, bond markets   etc) through debt cancellation, reformed fully representative institutions, an end to corporate subsidies, the global regulation of capita, new forms of taxation and redistribution to the global south etc  be driven by genuinely democratic world processes (Ie directly connected to the new civil society processes and constitutions!) 

(iv) An end to national borders as the new global settlement kicks in

A very crazy manifesto.. ? or,  the beginnings of a way or perhaps a conversation by which we might find common cause with our sisters in brothers in Syria, Greece and everywhere else ... ?   

Besos! 

Mark
Sent from phone