Surely agitprop about the fiesta should focus upon the terrible damage that is being done by the trade in death, not on specific racial groups. Of course Asians are welcome to the DSEi, and so are the 'white abos, soap dodgers and weekend Zapatistas' that you seem to despise so much (ie the vast majority of global justice protesters in this country). If the Bengali population is so up to date on the damage done by the new world order (as they may well be) then I'm sure they'll come along without being patronisingly singled by a racially-based propaganda campaign. It's true that good people who happen to be Muslim have done a lot in the fight against neoliberalism, but so have, for example, elements of the Latin American Catholic church - does this mean that activist propaganda should be promoting Catholicism? Many activists (including myself) want nothing to do with organised religion of any kind, it's a load of bullshit usually used by the powerful for mind control and yes this applies to Islam as well. To promote a religion or to target racial groups with our publicity would be devisive and sectarian. The arms trade hurts all of us - the Muslims and others who get killed by it and (obviously to a far lesser extent) us 'white abos' and British Bengalis who pay for Britain's heavily subsidised arms industry with our taxes. We want to go fuck it up together, and Asians were, are and always will be very welcome to help out.

Its great that local people (whether black or white) will be getting involved in the Fiesta. I've argued all along that it was vital to organise support in the working class areas around the conference centre, not just to parachute in the "usual suspects" to have their demo and then go home again, leaving Canning Town to sort out the mess. You've drawn attention to the white middle class hub of this particular part of the anti-Capitalist movement, which is important to recognise - the question is how to get more working class people involved, and how to make sure that people of colour can feel at home within the anti-Capitalist current. If you're organising and playing a part in the Fiesta, that's great. I hope that your intention is real rather than just sarcastic. See you there.

I can take the point of the criticism, but I don't understand the tone. Maybe the writer knows more about the organising of events around DSEi than me. I think it's a fair point about the imagery used, but that's more a problem for the movement as a whole, as it has been taken from photographs of previous protests. In future we should be looking at the messages we send out to. But to make this sound like a conscious decision to exclude people from the protests is disingenuous.

As far as I know, local flyers are/have been prepared for the local area, including tranlsations appropriate for the local Bangladeshi anhd Somali communities.

Well done to whoever posted this article, it's about time the white middle class complacency of the 'movement' was challanged.
Weekend Zapatista writes that agitprop against the arms fair should focus on the terrible damage done by the arms trade and not be directed at specific racial groups. But the three most widely distributed leaflets for the event are primarily of images of white kidz partying, with a couple images of white people with weapons of mass destuction and some passing references tagged on about the arms trade, which come somewhere down the list well after bluesuede shoes.
Hardly racially non-specific imagery, Unless being white is presumed to carry the privelege of being non-racialised by others.
I'm not suggesting that the activists who are working so hard for the fiesta are consiously racist. I'm saying that unless we critically examine the unconsious presumptions that we have internalised from the classist, racist, heterosexist society that we have been brought up in, we are going to reproduce the exclusive norms of that society in the movement we are building.
As for Weekend Zapitista's apparently rhethorical question should activist propaganda be promoting Catholic religious references? -
well, in the case of Disarm DSEi, the answer would seem to be yes-
-the word Fiesta afterall means a celebration of a Catholic Saint's feastday, while leaflet no.3's image of dancing peasants is taken from a Flemmish Catholic religious painting. It seems that the pervaisiveness of Christain imagery in Western secular culture, and by extension in Western activist culture is so normal that it goes without notice. I'm not saying avoid all religious references, but why not include other religious traditions. Why not the hand of Fatima or images of a dancing Shiva.
Although there are a fair few working class, non-white, and gay activist in the movement, but until the way we actively challange the culturally exclusive methods by which our agitprop is constructed (albeit unconsiously), we will continue to communicate to the majority of people that is is a white, young, middle class thing.