Remember Saro-Wiwa Season

27 October, 2005

…. 2 WEEKS TO GO TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY… 2 WEEKS TO GO TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY…. 2 WEEKS TO GO….

With only 2 weeks to go to the 10th anniversary of the executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogoni colleagues, here is a selection of events in the Remember Saro-Wiwa Season.

1. NEXT EVENT – 4 November Artist’s Talk with Gary Younge – Reserve your place now!
2. Remember Saro-Wiwa launches Season and Film – Screenings
3. November Panel Discussion: The Niger Delta Ten Years On
4. Organise your own commemoration event and register it at www.november10th.com

1. Next Remember Saro-Wiwa Season Event!
The Living Memorial: Artists’ Talk
Date: Friday 4th November
Venue: Museum of London, 150 London Wall
Nearest Tubes: St Paul’s, Moorgate.
Time: 7:30pm
Admission free but RSVP to [email protected].
tel. 020 7357 0055
Places are filling up for this event so please RSVP ASAP.

Speakers
Gary Younge – Journalist
Alfredo Jaar – Artist/architect, member of Remember Saro-Wiwa Judging Panel
Short listed Artists’ Panel: Sokari Douglas Camp, Siraj Izhar, Emmanuel Jegede, Emily Johns, Frances Newman/Jeff Jackson/Knott Architects.
Chair: David A Bailey

Gary Younge and Alfredo Jaar will provide a broad political and cultural context for the unique public art project: London’s Living Memorial to Nigerian writer and campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Gary Younge will provoke debate about how London reflects its multicultural history and the achievements and contributions of people of colour through public monuments and spaces. Alfredo Jaar will investigate the artistic and political challenges of such a project, in the light of his own practice as an artist working in the public realm on high-profile commissions, with many years’ experience.

This will be followed by a panel discussion and questions from the floor with the short listed artists about their ideas and wider issues around the commission.

2. Remember Saro-Wiwa launches Season and Film – Refining Memory
The reception event, hosted by the Museum of London, was a great success, with around 200 people attending and strong acclaim for the first showing of Judy Price and Andrew Conio’s 30-minute poetic and discursive film “Refining Memory”.

The film explores the issues of loss, memory, memorial and representation and how artistic practice might engage with circumstances that globalisation make part of the fabric of our everyday lives. It shows the diverse and creative ways in which the 5 short listed artists have responded to the brief for a living memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa. In doing this they have drawn out the underlying forces and circumstances that have led to the destruction of the Niger Delta and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The film is currently being screened in the 2nd floor gallery at City Hall, Queens Walk London SE1, until 10th November, and will be at the Whitechapel Gallery from 3-10 November. Further screenings will be announced soon and the DVD and catalogue will soon be available to buy for £6 (watch this space!).

3. 8 November Panel Discussion: The Niger Delta Ten Years On
Date: Tuesday 8th November
Venue: Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2.
Nearest Tubes: Liverpool Street, Old Street, Shoreditch.
Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Admission free but rsvp to [email protected]
tel. 020 7357 0055

Places are filling up for this event so please RSVP ASAP.

Speakers
James Marriott – Co-director of PLATFORM and co-author of The Next Gulf: London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria (2005)
Kathryn Nwajiaku – Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University.
John Robertson MP – Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Niger Delta.
Patrick Smith – Director, Africa Confidential
Ken Wiwa
Chair: Bronwen Manby, former researcher at Humans Rights Watch and author of The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria’s Oil Producing Communities. Bronwen is currently the Director of The Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project. www.afrimap.org

10 years on from Saro-Wiwa, the Delta has become more volatile than ever.

A return to electoral politics in Nigeria in 1999 has witnessed an increase in violence in the Delta as political candidates make use of armed gangs to gain and secure their positions. Oil stolen from the Delta’s leaky infrastructure is used to fund the arming of groups engaged in a range of activities from ethnic nationalist politics to straight forward gangsterism. Recent months have seen a frightening inflow of assault weapons.

With communities still receiving little benefit from oil production and bearing much of the cost in terms of pollution and loss of livelihood, the path to a sustainable and just future for the Niger Delta appears further away than ever it was in Saro-Wiwa’s day.

Many observers are warning that the 2007 presidential elections – a process that starts with primaries in the spring of 2006 – may provide a flashpoint for the building tensions in the Delta. Amid this increasing volatility, US and UK foreign policy appears intent on an increase in Nigerian oil and gas production to help spread the burden of their energy dependence beyond the Middle East and former Soviet territories.

There are initiatives aimed at defusing the situation but are they enough and are they being adequately supported?

Amnesty International UK and the Remember Saro-Wiwa Project invite you to hear from a range of experts on the situation in the Niger Delta and participate in a discussion on how a peaceful and sustainable future may take shape in this troubled region.

4. Organise your own commemoration event and register it at www.november10th.com
The Remember Saro-Wiwa project has focused on London with the intention of concentrating attention on London’s role in the global oil industry that has destroyed so many livelihoods in distant lands.

Many people outside of London are planning their own commemoration event on or around 10 November. Our partner organisations in the USA – Oil Change International and Earth Rights International have built a website for people to register their events so that you can find an event happening near you or attract new people to your event. If you’re planning something in your local area or are looking for an event nearer to you then go to www.november10th.com and sign up. Please check back regularly over the next week as the list of events is bound to grow quickly.

Remember Saro-Wiwa
c/o PLATFORM
7 Horselydown Lane
Tower Bridge
London SE1 2LN

tel: 020 7357 0055

Remember Saro-Wiwa is a coalition of organisations and individuals initiated and co-ordinated by PLATFORM, including: African Writers Abroad, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Diversity Art Forum, English PEN, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, Index on Censorship, Mayor of London, Minorities of Europe, Anita and Gordon Roddick, South Bank Centre, Spinwatch.
Financial supporters to date include: Arts Council England, The Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation, Greenpeace, The Lipman-Miliband Trust, The Roddick Foundation, The Staples Trust, The Tedworth Trust, PLATFORM, and private individuals.

Over 120 private individuals to date have given sums between £3 and £20,000. If wish to join our growing band of individual donors on whatever scale, send your donations/standing orders to Jane Trowell, Remember Saro-Wiwa, c/o PLATFORM, 7 Horselydown Lane, London SE1 2LN.

Making your donation subject to the UK Government’s Gift Aid scheme will release a further 28% of your gift. Please indicate that you wish to do this when you send in your donation.

Many thanks to all our supporters for your political, cultural and artistic support for this project.