In the age of post fordist societies and the new crisis of the occidental world a new popular demand for freedom is necessary. Apples from the Underground is a blog inspired by the underground subcultures of resistance , rave music creativity , temporary autonomous zones and radical theory. Therefore it remains open to everybody to send news , ideas and essential thoughts. Apples from the Underground is also a way to give inspiration to other initiatives , zines and underground iniatives to start function in this crazy society based on oppression and control. Feel free to contact and send us your news and opinions

greetings from the apples-underground.blogspot.com

this blog runs by underground ravers around Europe
but especially Fancypunk contributor of insti2te progressive party palaver

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Demonstration at the Serbian Embassy in Budapest

In the evening of 29 September the coalition of anarchist movements of Budapest represented by comrades from Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Ukraine, as well as LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) activists from various countries - Hungary, USA, Serbia, Austria, Russia etc. made a short demonstration in front of the Serbian embassy in Budapest. The major aim was to protest against state repression and governmental policies in Serbia.

The reasons - case studies - were:

a) imprisonment of 6 anarcho-syndicalists in Belgrade:
5, as it turned out later, 6 activists were accused without any evidence in a solidarity action (related to December events in Greece and murder of 15 y.o. anarchist) that took place on 25 August at the Greek embassy in Belgrade. They may get 3-15 years of prison: http://asi.zsp.net.pl/;

b) cancellation of Pride Parade in Belgrade one day before its date:
it was proclaimed that any demonstration is prohibited in Serbia from the date when the Pride Parade should have taken place, although the neo-nazi demo still happened that day.

The demo was supposed to be a short one, as it was not registered.


First, two big transparencies were put on the fence of the embassy


then the info-board of the embassy was covered by flyers (http://anarhobud.blogspot.com/2009/09/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html);


after some messages for the support of LGBT activists in Belgrade were put on stone parts of the fence;


a letter to the ambassador of Serbia in Hungary was put in the mail box together with some flyers. The letter aimed at attracting attention to the cancellation of Belgrade Pride Parade and asking for involvement of the Serbian authorities in LGBT issues and protection of LGBT rights;


finally, the rest of flyers were distributed among the participants (ca. 30) of the demonstration and thrown on the territory of the embassy and around.

This was a peaceful action aiming at attracting authorities' attention to current policies of the Serbian state and calling them to take action and protect rights of the groups that are victims of state repression - anarcho-syndicalists and LGBT activists.

Additional information: http://www.anarhobud.blogspot.com/

source balkans.puscii.nl

Thursday, September 24, 2009

A Street Party aka. Kálvária Ball in Budapest


Kálvária Square Ball


When
September 26, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.


Where
Kálvária square, 8th district, Budapest


Program
Kálvária Free Picnic: varios dishes made of the dumpster dived food collected at the market
Free Shop: a possibility to exchange clothes and things, bring something you do not need and take whatever you feel you need
Bad Kids Kálvária program
Discussions about life and future among representatives of NGOs, activists and civil people
Dínom-Dánom concert

Come and participate, taste the free food, share your thoughts, ideas and opinions about life and how to make it better!

Details (in Hungarian): http://kalvariabal.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Saturday 26 of September

An other interesting event organized by FUNXION collective and Urban danja in Athens , this time it will take place in Padeios university. NOCTURNAL from the UK is the special guess of the night. The party will be open air at the yard of the university building.
septempercopy


report from the Gay Pride in Budapest

This year’s Pride Parade in Budapest was calm and rather boring, as fewer people showed up compared to the previous year. Indeed, Pride Parade 2008 was rather violent with neo-nazis and average observers, apparently homophobes, throwing eggs, tomatoes and bottles into the participants of Pride Parade 2008.

>> By the way, this violence is caused by the government headed by ex-prime minister Gyrcsany as before 2007 and 2008 the Pride Parade was peaceful and boring for the media. <<

The only positive thing about 2008 Pride was high attention of the media and increased security (Not all cops are bastards after all) this year. Not only Andrassy avenue, where the Parade took place this year, but also parallel streets were closed and surrounded by fences. Basically, a big part of central Budapest including metro was closed.
>> The right to free assembly is a basic constitutional right. But in gulyas democracy of Hungary this right has to be protected by hundreds of policemen and rows of fences. <<

Crowds of people were to be observed outside the fences, apparently not as many as previous year. Moreover, this day was a football match between Hungary and Sweden and most probably most hooligans were already at the stadium by the end of the Parade. The Parade participants turned out to be hard nuts for those willing to attack them, as police was escorting them even after the end of the Parade at Deak sq. and Blaha Lujza sq., as all the participants were recommended to go to Blaha Lujza by metro.
This decision was based on previous year’s accident when at the end of Pride Parade it turned out that the participants were trapped because most of neo-nazis gathered at the end point of the Pride 2008, Heroes’ sq.

To the Pride 2009 itself: there were a number of groups and individual people from both Hungary and abroad. The opening speeches were delivered by Juris Lavrikovs, Paata Sabelashvili (ILGA Europe) who welcomed the participants and shared tehir thoughts of the importance of the Pride. There were two cars with sound systems, a froup of people carrying a rainbow flag, and a number of smaller groups including Amnesty-Hungary (the yellow group) and the pink-black bloc.
Overall, it was just another good opportunity for queer people to claim for their right for equality and for their supporters to express their solidarity. Hopefully, the peacefulness of Pride Parade 2009 will become a good tradition and the tolerance in Hungarian society to queer people will grow to the level that no fences will be needed in the future.

Long Live Pride Parade in Budapest!

Fuck Parade fall out

http://datacide.c8.com/fuckparade-fallout/

The yearly Fuckparade was taking place again in Berlin on August 22. The gathering point was Revaler Strasse, where the 17 trucks were warming up for the parade. A part of this warm up were also the obligatory speeches. For this, the Fuckparade organisers invited Hans Cousto and Dr. Motte, whose talks can be seen here. They deserve some attention, especially what Motte had to say.
Hans Cousto (who speaks first on the clip), is an author who published books on subjects such as “Cosmic Octave - Origin of Harmony” or “MDMA Tuning”. His angle is the same I criticised a couple of years ago in a praxis newsletter: The state is asked not to sell off its property to people who want to extract value out of “our” party culture, meaning “capitalists in other parts of the world”. He pleads that for a lively culture there is need for free spaces available to all. Fine, but to lobby the state to provide these spaces is pretty naive to say the least. In our opinion it’s politically objectionable - but all this is nothing new and would not be worth mentioning here if it wasn’t for Dr. Motte’s elaborations that follow on the clip at 4:20.
Dr. Motte is the founder of the Loveparade and a techno musician. Ironically the Fuckparade once upon a time set out to counter the commercialism and conformism of the Loveparade. When Motte himself lost control of the (now defunct) Loveparade, he started taking part of the Fuckparade.
He’s worth quoting:
After introducing himself he says: “I want to briefly sum up how I would like to define our electronic life culture. In a Nazi book about symbols I have read something great! You have to imagine - it was about runes!” He then not only describes the man rune, he also puts down the microphone and impersonates it streching out his hands and then says “it means something very beautiful, unfortunately” the peace movement turned it upside down and made it into something “greedy”, because the original man rune means something like creative development in freedom, according to Dr. Motte (or his “Nazi book”), and “this is the expression of our electronic music, and our politicians should please preserve our freedom and not sell it to property fonds who don’t care because this is our coutry, our country!!” After shouting the last words, and some applause by the Fuckparade audience, he continues: “It doesn’t belong to them but to us all, and I demand from all politicians also our mayor with his bad, gay politics that no one needs, to champion our ideals, our free spaces (…) for our free culture, not the culture of the empire from above”.
This tour de force took less than three minutes, but raises a number of questions. How can he link what he calls “our electronic life culture” to a “Nazi book” about runes? What does he mean with the “bad, gay politics that no one needs” of Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit (who is openly gay)?
The second point was picked up by the mainstream press (Der Tagesspiegel from August 27-08-09), and Motte “apologized” to the mayor saying that “as an Anarchist” he respects the freedom of everybody else, including sexual freedom. But what did he mean? “The neoliberal politics” of the mayor is the answer. Gay = neoliberal?
The use of the word “gay” as “something bad” should not be tolerated at a supposedly left wing event that the Fuckparade purports to be. At least this time the statement became controversial at all - because it was not the first time he made it: At an anti-gentrification demo (Megaspree) on July 11 of this year he also went on about the “gay politics” of the gay mayor - on his own blog he still quotes himself saying it. Only now that he’s “found out” he “apologizes” (how serious he is about it is illustrated by the fact that his statement from the July 11 demo is still on his own website which suggests that the “apology” is just a PR exercise in damage control).
But even worse - and not picked up by the mainstream press - is that he explicitly bases his definition of “our electronic life culture” on Nazi esotericism - and was not challenged at the Fuckparade itself about this.
There has been very different kinds of research into the history and meaning of runes. This is not the place to go into it, but it is worth noting that the rune “research” of the Nazis is largely based on Guido von List, a charlatan who claimed to have received his rune wisdom in visions, author of “Das Geheimnis der Runen” (Secrets of the Runes) from 1908. I am no expert in the field but it appears that List’s Runology is practically completely made up to fit his völkisch-nationalist ideology. Via other far right esotericists such as Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and Karl Maria Wiligut this became the basis for the Nazi interpretation of runes. Although we don’t know which book exactly Dr. Motte is referring to, we have to assume (since it’s a “Nazi book”) that it reflects the völkisch-racist and anti-semitic ideology of the mentioned authors.
Other enthusiasts for the man rune include Death In June who use it in the header of their web site as well as on the cover of their album “The Wörld Thät Sümmer”.
At least the Fuckparade realized they had to distance themselves clearly from Dr. Motte and did so on their web site on Sept. 1.

Monday, August 31, 2009

New Book on Techno, Rave, Club Culture “Global Nomads Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa By Anthony D’Andrea”

It seems interesting actually I would like to read it

The book of the Antony D’ Andrea who makes the blog Global raver known also as Techno Tony :) )

globalraver

About the Book

Global Nomads provides a unique introduction to the globalization of countercultures, a topic largely unknown in and outside academia. Anthony D’Andrea examines the social life of mobile expatriates who live within a global circuit of countercultural practice in paradoxical paradises.

Based on nomadic fieldwork across Spain and India, the study analyzes how and why these post-metropolitan subjects reject the homeland in order to shape an alternative lifestyle. They become artists, therapists, exotic traders and bohemian workers seeking to integrate labor, mobility and spirituality within a cosmopolitan culture of expressive individualism. These countercultural formations, however, unfold under neo-liberal regimes that appropriate utopian spaces, practices and imaginaries as commodities for tourism, entertainment and media consumption.

In order to understand the paradoxical globalization of countercultures, Global Nomads develops a dialogue between global and critical studies. By introducing the concept of ‘neo-nomadism’, this new theorization overcomes some of the shortcomings in studies of globalization.

This book is an essential reference for researchers and students of Sociology, Anthropology of Globalization, Cultural Studies, as well as Tourism, Lifestyle Migration, Subculture, Rave/Club, and New Age studies

These are just a few of the topics covered:

- Aesthetics of the self: post-sexualities in a digital age
- Counterculture and commodity
- Hippie scenes: autonomy and tourism
- Club scene in Ibiza: underground and industry
- Ethnography of the largest nightclub in the world
- Psytrance scene in Goa
- Nomadic spirituality in psychedelic rituals
- Global Countercultures

You can find Global Nomads at main online booksellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, eBay, Borders etc), you can click on the link on the right side of this blog, or you can obtain it directly from Routledge website:
http://www.routledge.com/books/Global-Nomads-isbn9780415553674