Homeless Street Papers of the World. By Uncle Monty.

Homeless Street Papers of the World.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.

Part Two of Two.

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Listen up homeless street vendors of the world. Don’t think you’re

the only soul in the world flogging your street rag, ‘cause you ain’t.

Listen up then to some of the names or titles of street papers I

found from around the world at the 13th International Conference

of Network Street Papers (INSP).
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Hold your breath now, here we go with some of the street

publications with all sorts of odd and interesting names that

you’ve never perhaps heard of before until now …
Megafon, Driewekelijks, La Calle, Megaphone, Boca De Rua,
Gazeta Uliczna, StreetWise, Kralji Ulice, Hecho, Trott War, Donau
Strudl, Terra Dimezzo, Hempels, OCAS, Asphalt, L’Itineraire,
Binbhi Bicti, and Z. These 17 street periodicals thus named herein

are just a fraction of the more than 80 other street sheets published

around the world each month or weekly or whenever for homeless

street folkz to sell to try and make themselves some legitimate

bread or money or dough or greenbacks on the mean and

fraught streets of the world.
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Argentina's Patricia Merkin of Hecho.

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Globally, there’s about a quarter of million homeless street

vendors on six continents. Twenty countries within Europe

have over 40 street papers covering about 18 languages in all.

While America has the most street rags of any single country

in the world at some 20 right now. Asia has the least number

with only three countries claiming street paper status. And in
the whole of Africa, only four nations there can claim weekly
or monthly street sheets. Nigeria, Africa’s largest country,

is soon to start its own street publication within the next

couple of months so its representative Yomi Kuku (shown

below) told me at the street paper international conference

held at Scotland’s biggest city of Glasgow. It is here that the

world headquarters of the International Network of Street

Papers (INSP) is also based. In the same Scottish city at the
same time as the INSP Conference, there was also underway
The 2oo8 Civicus World Assemby, which I briefly popped in

to see, and Refugee Week Scotland ’08 under the banner

“Different Pasts, Shared Future.” Who needs anymore of such

bullshit like that? The UK is already swamped with too many

so-called “refugees” and useless Third Worlders without any

more of them invading us … I’m sick of such a bangwagon of
bloody bleeding hearts and Holy-Than-Thou Tear Jerkers

that insist we take more and more of the world’s unwanted

refugees and parasitic immigrants. Last year, the UK had

over 280.000 asylum seekers to feed, house and shelter

while their applications for asylum is under legal

consideration. They are a growing and constant

threat to the native homeless, whose rights are

being ignored and shafted to accommodate and appease

more iffy refugees and god forsaken foreigners. With all

intent and purpose, the British Government under New

Labour has made the United Kingdom the open dumping

ground for the swarming masses of immigrant locusts

from all of Black Africa. We cannot move for them.

Enough is by far enough.
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Brasil's Maria Margareth Lins Rossal of Boca de Rua.

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Homeless street papers vary widely in editorial content,
sterling page design, printing quality, artistic layout,

innovative graphics, outstanding photography, ongoing

circulation, public status, story focus, and street vendor

presence. In thumbing thru some of the world’s street
papers, I couldn’t help but notice that most of them were
a standard 30 pages in length, while a couple had only an

8-page publication and few with over 45 pages. The majority

were monthlies. Stylistically, some were high gloss magazines

and others more like local newsletters. Few if any of the street

papers were much older than 10 year old since they started to

first hit the streets. Most all of them carried a social message

of needing to rid the world of homelessness. Yet, ironically, the

rise of more street papers is circumstantial evidence of more

global homelessness rather the less at this first decade of the

21st century. And the more political the publication, the more
left leaning it seemed to be. The most expensive counties
to buy street papers was in England, Scotland, Wales and

Ireland. The cheapest countries was Russia, Burundi,

India, and Argentina. Advertisements and ad revenues

were the mainstay of the world street papers I informally

reviewed, although one or two were completely ad free.

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One thing that was consistent, no matter what or

where the street sheet, was news features or profiles

about their own street vendors. But for heaven sake, that

should be how it is anyway. To ignore your vendors, is at

the peril of the publication’s life and limb and the liveli-

hood and well being of the vendors themselves. There is

a tendency to give lip service only to such vendors, es-

pecially when the street paper becomes more part of the

established status quo or it moves from its original roots

of subculture to that of a mainstream publishing organ.
The more successful the paper, the less it becomes a

street paper per se. Rather, it then veers, or even

joins, the ranks of the horse-blinking Bourgeoisie.
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Nigeria's Yomi Kuku of Search and Groom

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One of my concerns in attending the INSP Conference
was the question of profits for the vendors. Most only get

a slither of the profits from such street papers. I think it is

about time that vendors are included in profit sharing so

that the more profit the paper makes, the more income the

vendor gets. Some street sheets are more profitable than

others, obviously. Some operate on a shoe string, while a

few others are annually a multi-million dollar corporate

operation at where the vendors work tirelessly like under-

paid and under-appreciated bumble bees for the Big

Queen Bee. And the more profits she seems to make, the

less seems to be given to the street vendors. It should be

the other way around, shouldn’t it? The more profits the

corporate entity makes, the more should go into the

pockets of the vendors. But I think in the distant future,

homeless street vendors as we know of them today will

ultimately be dispensed with on the streets or reduced

in substantial numbers.
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Some of the INSP conference delegates.

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Let's look now at the situation for the hoped-for street

vendors and first street paper in murderous Zimbabwe

under the vile madman of Robert Mugabe, who should

have been arrested and detained when he and his vicious

cronies left the cruel country in their audacity to attend

the UN Food Conference in Rome just last month. Mugabe

should have then been charged under a prepared criminal

warrant from the International Court of Justice in The

Hague for national genocide of his own people and crimes

against humanity. Instead they let him "escape" back to

Zimbabwe to commit even further outrageous crimes

and to steal the election from MorganTsvangirai, who has

now fled to the Danish Embassy for his own safety from

Mugabe's murderous mob.

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Such then in the present backdrop of the hopes of those

seeking to begin the first street sheet in the troubled

Southern African country that continues to move toward

a total Black Fascist Nation (BFN). In a prepared written

statement issued at the INSP Conference, the visa-barred

representatives from Zimbabwe stated a variety of

reasons why, for over a year now, they have striven "to

create a street paper that will assist the unemployed and

homeless members of the country's urban community"

without success due to the anti-media laws and internal

circumstances beyond their control. With hundreds of

thousands now homeless due the the violent actions and

so-called reforms of the Mugabe regime and its economic

and social destruction compounded each day, I cannot

imagine any kind of emerging street paper in Zimbabwe

until all that is presently endangering the stability of the

country is fixed for the better. Zimbabwe is an ongoing

nightmare that never seems to end as the world looks on

impotently at one of the world's tyrants that is Robert

Mugabe. Once the nightmare ends, then perhaps plans

to bring about a viable street paper will see the light of

day on the streets of Harare and elsewhere.

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I now have a few closing thoughts on the 2oo8 INSP

Conference. First, it was well organised and profess-

ionally presented that was a credit to all those who

worked to bring the annual conference to the fore.

And secondly, of those who I met there, I was de-

lighted with meeting them. I would say they were a

credit to the world's street paper movement of which

they represented so well. For me as a street vendor, I

was glad to unofficially represent my fellow vendors,

from wherever and however they are, at the 13th

International Conference of homeless street papers

of the world. I hope, I represented them well.

Cheers everybody, Uncle Monty.

+St. John The Baptist, 2oo8.

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I now leave you with a few other

images of mine of Scotland's Glasgow:

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Scotland's Glasgow at Leigh Quay.

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A Huge Community Ad for Glasgow2014

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Street violinist at Glasgow's Sauchiehall St.
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