Eighteen months on from our last interview with Wanlov and M3nsa a.k.a the FOKN BOIS, Aspecks managed to catch up with these pioneering artists to talk about the upcoming release of their unique pidgen musical “Coz Ov Moni”, which they filmed on location in Ghana.

The film has been accepted by the Pan-African Film festival in Los Angeles, the Black Film Makers Festival in London and on the day the promotion video above was released the FOKN BOIS received news that the Rio International Film Festival has accepted “Coz Ov Moni”. Check out the videos below from our conversation where M3nsa and Wanlov explain some of their motivations behind a film which they describe as a cultural exchange programme. Having been privileged to see a sneak preview of this fresh, funny film we cannot wait for the prospective international release dates (with subtitles in english, french, spanish and chinese) and for people to see what happens to the FOKN BOIS “Coz Ov Moni”.

Part Two after the jump…

[read more..]

HACAN Clearksies is a campaigning organisation that resulted from the merger of the HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) and Clearksies, the South Londonorganisation that sprung up in the 1990s in response to the problem of noise pollution from aviation in the area. Originally starting life in the 1960s HACAN are no strangers to campaigning on aviation issues, especially when it comes to night flights. Indeed, in 2001 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found in HACAN’s favour, and against the Government. The court agreed that night flights were an infringement of our human right to a good night’s sleep, however, the Government appealed and the court upheld the appeal in July 2003. Although the idea of night flights seemed to be have been kicked into the long grass with the go-ahead for construction of a third runway, it appears that as so often in the past, the insatiable juggernaut that is BAA (Heathrow’s operator) continues to steamroller over the rights and lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

[read more..]

As part of their campaign against night flights at Heathrow Airport, community organisation HACAN Clearskies commissioned some t-shirts from Aspecks. You can find out more about HACAN and their campaigns at www.hacan.org.uk. Plus keep an eye for future HACAN posts and updates as the night flight campaign takes off.

This manifesto for 21st century was written by Lindsey German for the Counterfire.org website. Check after the jump for videos of Lindsay launching the manifesto with Nina Power.

1. Globalisation and neo liberalism have had a profound effect on the lives of millions of women. Capitalism itself has created new forms and manifestations of women’s oppression.

2. Women’s oppression is a product of class society which has existed for thousands of years. It was only with the development of capitalism that large numbers of women developed a consciousness of their position and the ability to do something about it.

3. Women have been drawn into the workforce in millions but working in factories, offices and shops has not led to an improvement in women’s lives far less to liberation. Women suffer exploitation at work as well as still shouldering the double burden of family and childcare as well as paid work.

4. Women’s traditional role as wives and mothers has not disappeared but has been reinvented to fit in with the needs of exploitation. They are now expected to juggle all aspects of their lives and are blamed as individuals for any failings in family or work life.

5. The talk of glass ceilings and unfairly low bonuses for women bankers miss the point about liberation, which is that liberation has to be for all working women and not just a tiny number of privileged women.

6. Although all women suffer oppression and face discrimination, their life experiences are radically different. Women are not united as a sex but are divided on the basis of class. Middle and upper class women share in the profits from the exploitative system in which we live and use this benefit to alleviate their own oppression. Working class women are usually the people who cook, clean and provide personal services for these women, receiving low wages and often neglecting their own families to do so.

7. Women are more than ever regarded as objects defined by their sexuality. The commercialisation of sexuality with its lad and ladette culture, its pole dancing clubs and its post-modern Miss World contests keeps women being judged as sex objects as if nothing has changed since the 1950s.

8. This objectification, alongside women’s role as supposedly the property of men, leads to domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse. This abuse is under recognised and under reported. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that these issues began to be viewed as political.

9. To control their own lives, women must control their own bodies and sexuality.

10. Capitalist ideology prioritises the family and the subordinate role of women and children within it, while at the same time forcing individual members of the family to sacrifice ‘family life’ because of the pressures of work and migration.

11. The priorities of the profit system and the existence of the privatised family means that women’s oppression is structured into capitalism. Any genuine liberation has to be connected to a wider movement for human emancipation and for working people to control the wealth that they produce. That’s why women and men have to fight for liberation. Socialism and women’s liberation are inextricably connected.

12. We will not win without a fight. Every great social movement raises the question of women. In the 19th century the movement for women’s emancipation took its name from the movement to abolish slavery. In the 20th century women’s liberation took its name from the movements against colonialism around the world. 21st century women’s liberation has to fight to change the world and to end the class society which created oppression and exploitation in the first place.

[read more..]

Regular readers of Aspecks’ blog will remember our first salute to the art of movement and know that the essence of parkour is self expression, a attribute that Aspecks likes to promote. Well Aung Zaw Oo from the US in the video below certainly knows how to express himself, combining parkour, gymnastics, martial arts, skateboarding and juggling!!! You can see more self-expression on Zaw Oo’s YouTube channel.

[read more..]