Thursday 3 October, 6pm
Maple Street Books, 7523 Maple Street, New Orleans, LA
with Cherri Foytlin
Please join us Thursday, October 3rd, at 6PM, for a reading and discussion with Mika Minio-Paluello and Anna Galkina of Platform, and Cherri Foytlin, co-founder of Gulf Change and Bridge The Gulf blogger. We will discuss resistance against BP’s environmental injustice, from the Gulf to the Caspian, and present Platform’s new book, The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London (now in paperback).
In a unique journey from the oil fields of the Caspian to the refineries and financial centres of Northern Europe, Platform tracks the concealed routes along which the lifeblood of our economy is pumped.
In The Oil Road, the human scale of village life in the Caucasus Mountains and the plains of Anatolia is suddenly, and sometimes fatally, confronted by the vast strangeness of the oil corporation BP. Pipelines and tanker routes tie the fraying social democracies of Italy, Austria and Germany to the repressive regimes of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. A web of financial and political institutions in London stitches together the lives of metropolis and village.
Platform is a London-based arts, human rights and environmental justice organisation. Based on core values of solidarity, creativity and democracy, Platform uses art, literature, activism and education to achieve long-term systemic change. We have been imagining a world beyond oil for more than 30 years, and are trying to make it a reality.
What has been said of The Oil Road:
“★★★★★…The Oil Road opens the lid on the often-shady energy economy, weaving absorbing travel reportage into powerful investigative journalism…. If you want to know why oil matters, read this book.” – Time Out (book of the week) ”
“An elegantly written travel book…will make you think the next time you fill the tank.” – Financial Times
“Beautifully written as well as formidably well-informed…A pleasure to read” – Neal Ascherson, author of Black Sea
“As global powers scramble for the last of the world’s diminishing resources, comes this book – well researched and written with empathy, integrity and imagination. It is timely and much needed.” Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love
A Capitol Hill police officer arrests activist Diane Wilson on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 17, 2010, as BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before the Energy and Environment subcommittee on Oversight d Investigations hearing on the role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and oil spill. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
Friday, 4 October, 7:30 pm
Loyola University
114 Miller Hall
James Marriott will speak as part of Platform’s US tour to release the book The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London. The London-based group Platform have scrutinised and challenged the workings of global oil companies for the past 15 years.
Communities living above and next to oil reserves play an important role in the global energy future – as well as being historically subjected to repression, poverty and human rights abuses. By strengthening the movements and community groups at the fossil fuel frontline, we can also create the space for socially & ecologically just alternatives to extraction.
Community campaigns demanding human rights and climate justice take different forms in Nigeria and Egypt, Azerbaijan and Alberta – but are there common approaches? How are these struggles linked up? And what can be role of campaigners and researchers in privileged parts of the Global North in supporting them?
