Tag: Brixton

The Long March – a play in solidarity with South African workers

The Long March is a play by the Sarmcol Workers’ Cooperative, performed in both Zulu and English, about the 970 striking workers in South Africa in 1985 who were all fired by BTR, a British multinational corporation. They worked at Sarmcol, a rubber company owned by BTR. The play is based on the experiences of the workers involved, forming a union, campaigning for their rights and what happened when they were all sacked 3 days into the strike.

The Long March toured Britain in 1987 and was performed to a packed crowd in Brixton on 1 November.

You can read more about the Sarmcol strike and the workers’ cooperative that was established during the dispute here http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/the-great-sarmcol-strike

The dispute was finally settled in 1998 when Sarmcol/BTR agreed to pay R11,7m in compensation to the 970 workers they sacked in 1985.

You can read the very informative programme for the play here The Long March

Nuclear Dawn

The Nuclear Dawn mural. Painted on the side of Carlton Mansions by Brian Barnes, Dale McCrea and people who lived in the building. Barnes painted a vision of nuclear death astride London, a mushroom cloud in the background, whilst politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan are safe in a bunker. A dove becomes the CND peace symbol. Finished in 1981 the mural was part funded by Lambeth Council as part of its ongoing effort to highlight the danger of Mutually Assured Destruction in the event of a nuclear war.

For information can be found here.