P.E.D.A.L departure weekend write up

On the weekend of the 19^th and 20^th March 2011, 15 incredibly dedicated and brave young people prepared to set off for there 100 day cycle ride to Palestine in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are still under enforced occupation. The choice of a bicycle representing there belief in low carbon travel in a world threatened by climate change.

Along the way they will be staying with communities of resistance. So far they have linked up with the Calais No Borders krew, been involved in a mass day of action in Brussels, have swapped many seeds in Austria to spark discussions around food autonomy and the threat of GM and patented seeds and are currently cycling through Slovenia and Croatia.

On the weekend of departure – whilst the cyclists were doing last minute packing -  many people attended the workshops that had been put on by P.E.D.A.L to give people a better understanding of why they were embarking on such a long journey for an issue that is so far away. Israeli and Palestinian activists hammered home the reasons for why the cycle ride is so important. They spoke of the confused majority of Israeli people who have been tricked by the Israeli government and media propaganda programme. What was so clear from the workshop by Anarchists Against The Wall & the International Solidarity Movement is that under any circumstances – an enforced occupation with impossible checkpoints of a whole population is a fundamental breach of all human rights conventions. Palestinians are rightfully angry and a long term solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict needs to be worked out NOW. Enforced occupation is not a solution.

Seeds for Change did a workshop on consensus decision making. An organising technique where everyone is included in any form of a decision making process, a technique P.E.D.A.L will be using along the way in all the different situations they will be getting themselves into. Consensus decision making allows for NO leaders, everyone is empowered to speak and decisions have to be agreed by all. If governments across the world embraced consensus we wouldn’t have half the problems that exist today.

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination hosted a workshop on art & permaculture. Those who took part split off into pairs and each silently acted out one principle of the permaculture approach while the rest of the group had to work out which principle they were trying to act out. A difficult and enjoyable task as some of the principles were fairly difficult to work out. For example “Obtain a yield”.

So We Stand – an emerging group who organise with communities around race, class and gender issues gave a workshop on environmental justice from London to Palestine – environmental justice is a movement which is big in America but starting to make waves here in the UK. Dan Glass from So We Stand explained “how environmental degradation and pollution has disproportionate effects.”  What he meant was that those who cause environmental problems, US in the west, are not the ones who have to suffer the worst effects – it is those in the poorer south who bare the brunt of the impacts.

Adam Weymouth told his amazing story for the first time of his walk all the way to Istanbul and the weekend was rounded off by the UK premiere of ‘Paths Through Utopias’. An inspiring documentary following post-capitalist utopia communities across Europe. A film which everyone must see.

Thank you P.E.D.A.L for such an interesting weekend and good luck! Keep up the inspiring  job you are doing.