Friday, April 3, 2009

First Perth Praxis a great success!

The first Perth Praxis event, held at Earthwise Community Centre, was a wonderful success.

Roughly thirty people from many walks of life attended the dinner and discussion.

See below for two comments from participants (from the associated article at www.perth.indymedia.org)

We decided to hold Perth Praxis fortnightly but in order to make it accessible for people with children we will be rotating between Saturday afternoon picnics and Friday dinners.

So the next event is a picnic and discussion on Easter Saturday the 11th of April, 3pm in the South-East Corner of Hyde Park.

Local activist Phil Chilton (PHD Candidate in History at UWA) will discuss the "Easter Rising" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising ) as well as elaborating on the personal experiences that have shaped his political thinking.

Hopefully see you there!

E-mail ray@perth.indymedia.org if you would like to be added to the announcement only e-mail list.

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As a lifelong cynic, fatalist and prophet of doom I attended this event and managed to leave it without my usual sense of crushing dejection.

I look forward to the next, to learning more about the IWW in Perth and to examining the viability of a Foundation for (genuine) Democracy.

- Kolya L

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I had to leave the Friday event before it finished as my very good little munchkins who accompanied me were way past their bedtime, but I was very happy. Attendance was good, the vibe was fantastic, and the half hour of conversation I was able to hear was very encouraging. I am very pleased about the decision to carry on with this. Fortnightly is ambitious, but hey it means more people can probably attend at different times!

What I especially took away was that the various lefties there generally recognised that the left in Perth is quite small, and isolated, and thus often becomes self absorbed and very individualistic (contrary to an earlier post). One consequence is that we are not always very nice to each other as Victoria pointed out, that we fail to develop a sustaining culture (acknowledgment to Mar), and forget to build and enjoy a worthwhile present (paraphrasing Riccardo). As a consequence people get burned out, if not self destructive, the turnover is high, and we fail to develop the structures and support that enable people to pursue a long term humanly worthwhile experience in the Perth left.

I felt the event could be the first baby step towards building such a sustainable collective (yes there's that word and in response to the earlier comment I don't think you can have an effective collective without empowered individuals, they are not antipodes [except under capitalist ideology] but a unity) culture of support. I would urge everyone to focus on Perth Praxis not as another activist group, but as a gathering place to celebrate, to enjoy, to recharge, to connect and reconnect, to draw nourishment from, to share. After much doubt I have become converted by Ray's idea of getting people to share their life stories as a way into political discussion, as by getting to know people we build empathy, trust and understanding, which enables us to work better together, despite theoretical and tactical differences.

A humble suggestion: what about asking people who have talents in music or poetry to jam at our sessions or give some readings - to add a creative element to the food and conversation?

Looking forward to our next event!

- Cedric

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. James Connolly became a member of both the Socialist Labor Party and the IWW when he was living in the USA. After his return to Ireland, he got involved in the Easter Rising of 1916. You'll see pix of him in most Irish bars e.g. Fibber McGee's in Leederville. http://www.fibbermcgees.net/home.html
    Looking forward to the picnic and Phil's presentation.
    For more on what FW Connolly thought, you point your browser here:
    http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/index.htm

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  3. Oh yes, one more thing....some of you were interested in finding out about Community Solidarity. Here's the link to their Yahoo Group: http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/wasolidarity/

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