Perspectives on Anarchist Theoryis Creating Democracy 55 a Publication of the Institute for Lara Messersmith-Glavin Anarchist Studies (IAS)

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Introduction 2

The Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, and the Struggle to Free All Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War 6 Ashanti Omowali Alston

Where’s My Movement? perspectives Contemporary Anarchist Mothers and Community Support 18 on anarchist Victoria Law theory Movement, Cadre, and Dual Power 32 Joel Olson v.13 n.1 Why Must We Be Small? Reflections fall 2011 on Political Development and Cultural Work in Brazil’s Landless Movement 40 Tamara Lynne Editorial Collective: Lara Messersmith-Glavin, Paul Messersmith- Interview with Afro-Colombian Glavin, and Maia Ramnath. Anarchist David López Rodríguez 51 Layout & Cover Design: Josh Lisa Manzanilla & Brandon King MacPhee. Interview with Chris Borte: Perspectives on Anarchist Theoryis Creating Democracy 55 a publication of the Institute for Lara Messersmith-Glavin Anarchist Studies (IAS). The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect Practical Anarchy, NYC: the IAS. A Progress Report 64

Contact us at perspectivesmagazine@ Review: Uses of a Whirlwind and googlegroups.com. New articles, Black Bloc, White Riot 68 many not contained in our print edi- Geoff Bylinkin tion, are continually posted on line at our website. You can see them at Review: Anarchism and Its Aspirations Anarchiststudies.org, just look under and Oppose and Propose! 77 Perspectives. A. Cates Special Thanks: Adam Carpinelli, the artists, Charles Overbeck at Eberhardt Anarchist Interventions Book Series 84 Press, Ashanti Alston, Jude Ortiz, Recent Grants: Winter 2011 86 Kevin Van Meter, Lauren Fitzgerald. Donate to the IAS 88 Call for Submissions 89 Printed in Portland, Oregon by About the Artists 89 Eberhardt Press. About the IAS 90 Introduction the perspectives editorial collective on anarchist theory 3

These are some of the questions we are grappling with, and they are really the unifying theme for this issue. In trying to answer these questions, we approached people that we knew who were also struggling with these problems. There is a good deal of local work going on, with people engaging with a variety of issues and reflecting upon that work. Stating a commitment to creating he organizing theme for a social movement indicates certain this issue of Perspectives is assumptions about how we translate “building a movement.” theory into practice, choosing means TIt is for this idea that we called for that create ends through the process of articles, sought out writers, and set to doing them, linking resistance to pre- work to put a new issue in your hands. figuration to revolution. A movement is As we compiled the material printed collective, not individualized, requiring here, we began a discussion of the ideas accountability and flexible adaptation represented. Can one really “build a to circumstance. It has goals of funda- movement?” And is “building” an ap- mental change—ideas about what kind propriate metaphor anyway, with its of change, and ideas about how best implications of the use of tools, and to bring it about. It implies a positive tractors, and slow, steady (predictable) intention, an orientation toward weav- progress? Perhaps “creating a movement” ing new, functioning social relationships would be better? “Creating” suggests a into sustainable structures. broader range of activities beyond the Perhaps controversially to some mechanical act of building, implying the anarchists, it also often means being use of imagination, and perhaps a variety engaged in political organizing in rela- of approaches, including the artistic, tion to various issues and institutions. the written, and the confrontational. But that may be what’s required in order “Creative” could describe the actions to confront the realities of race, gender, of the black bloc in Seattle in 1999, as sexuality, class, age and ability-based well as that of the costumed turtles and oppressions—not as abstract theories, people locking down in intersections. but as real people’s experiences, in But “creating” also has a fantastic conno- whatever combination and degree each tation, as though it’s making something one of us knows their effects. It means out of thin air, like magic. “On the insurrection and revolution, but also the count of three, I will pull this movement more mundane day-to-day work leading out of my hat!” Can you really create up to these kinds of exhilarating times a movement? To what degree are we and experiences. It means committing agents of change, and to what extent to doing the unglamorous work without are we just part of the flow of history? the certainty of results. This leads to How do we make a movement? Initiate further questions about spontaneity a movement? How do movements grow? and organization, and the relation be- Just what is a movement, and how does tween the two; about insurrection and it happen? institutionalization, and the relation 4 Perspectives between these; about how much con- anarchist ideas and practices were scious revolutionaries contribute to the widespread throughout Spain, building circumstances of revolution, and how up after 70 years of organizing unions much we simply react to larger historical and collectives. forces totally beyond our control. (For These two anniversaries illustrate Emma Goldman, anarchism was about times in which anarchists were on the making sure things don’t get worse.) move, putting our admittedly lofty goals Finally, movement building into practice. These were times when implies—and necessitates—an interest hundreds of thousands were moved by in creating horizontal alliances and, the anarchist vision, and worked hard through action, repatterning webs of day after day to make it a reality. These connection with communities beyond a times should inspire us to again take up scene or subculture—larger communi- the struggle, to move out of our comfort ties with whom we would be sharing zones, and to again move forward. the better world, and those others who There is one more anniversary have reason to object strongly to the of note. 2011 is the 15th anniversary current one. We offer this issue in this of the founding of the Institute for spirit, and only hope it can lead to some Anarchist Studies. In 1996, Chuck answers, and probably more questions. Morse gathered a small group of anti- We’d also like to call attention authoritarian revolutionaries in his to the fact that this issue of Perspectives living room in upstate New York to comes on several important anniversaries. initiate a new project called the Institute May 4, 2011 was the 125th anniversary for Anarchist Studies, or IAS. The of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, a purpose of this new group was to raise controversial bombing which took place money to give to writers striving to just as a rally for an eight-hour work critique contemporary forms of social day was drawing to a close. Although to and political domination and propose this day no one knows who threw the visions of a truly free society. He felt the bomb—which killed eight policemen anarchist movement needed to better and an unknown number of civilians, develop theory and ideas, and required mostly from police bullets following the material means to do that, partly the blast—eight prominent anarchists in the form of economic support for were arrested and charged with murder. the writing process. At the time, the Four were convicted and executed, and Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist one committed suicide while in prison, Federation, with its continental paper although the prosecution admitted that and Spanish language Mexican edition, none of the defendants threw the bomb. was thriving, and the successful shut- This event, commemorated around the down of the World Trade Organization world in May Day marches, is signifi- meeting in Seattle was still three years in cant because it points to a time when the future. Much has happened in the anarchists were a potent social force. In last fifteen years. Chicago, over 30,000 workers belonged During its existence, the IAS to anarchist organizations, publishing has given out over $60,000 to over 40 newspapers in five different languages. writers from over a dozen countries. This is also the 75th anniversary Initially solely a grant-giving organiza- of the Spanish Revolution, in which tion, over the last decade and a half, on anarchist theory 5 the IAS has grown into additional pur- working in broader groups and coali- suits. This journal became a substantive tions. But if available mobilizations publication when the IAS newsletter about something we care about — such merged with Morse’s other project, as housing and gentrification, immigra- the New Formulation, a publication tion and borders, neoliberalization of dedicated to comparative book reviews. education, prison abolition, or Palestine The Renewing the Anarchist Tradition solidarity, for example—don’t reflect (RAT) conference has been put on our principles and don’t satisfy our by the IAS for 10 years, initially in criteria of vision, strategy, tactic, and Vermont, and last year in Baltimore. method…then what are the obstacles The IAS has sponsored radical theory that prevent us from initiating mobiiza- tracks at conferences such as the tions that DO? National Conference for Organized At least we can start planting Resistance (NCOR) and Left Forum, seeds. We in the IAS intend to continue as well as establishing a visible anti- to do this. We will continue to give authoritarian presence in conjunction grants to struggling writers to assist with aligned groups at the US Social them in the writing process. We will Forum held last year in Detroit. Most continue to offer speakers to speak in recently, we have collaborated with your town, workplace, college or collec- AK Press on a new book series called tive through our Mutual Aid Speakers Anarchist Interventions, publish- Bureau. We will continue to publish ing board member Cindy Milstein’s books in the Anarchist Interventions Anarchism and Its Aspirations and book series with AK Press. We will Andy Cornell’s, Oppose and Propose! continue to organize radical theory Lessons from Movement for a New workshops at conferences and gather- Society. This Fall will see the release ings. And we will continue to publish of the third title, board member and Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, both Perspectives collective member Maia in the form you hold in your hands, Ramnath’s Decolonizing Anarchism: An and on line, at our website: anarchist- Antiauthoriatarian History of India’s theory.org. Liberation Struggle, and next Spring will bring Javier Sethness-Castro’s -Maia, Lara, and Paul Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Catastrophe. You can contact us at: perspec- We are very excited about the [email protected] future of the IAS, and the future of anarchism. We hope the essays, talks, interviews and reviews in this issue contribute to the creation of a vibrant revolutionary movement. Movement building (or creating, or growing, or crafting) does require going outside the anarchist comfort zone, which is not to say it requires abandoning, compromis- ing or watering down our principles —a justification often given for NOT

want to get started off in a way that helps me get rid of the but- terflies, and helps get us stirred as Iwell. You know we always say, “Power to the People.” And usually the response back is, “All Power to the People.” If you don’t mind indulging me: “Power to the People!” (audience response) “All The Panthers, the Power to the People!” Second thing, to just take us back, Black Liberation again. There’s a little chant that goes along with a little march, that we used Army and the to do. I need your participation with it, if I may. It’s gonna go something Struggle to Free like this: I’m gonna say, “Hold Your Head Up High, Panther’s Marching By. all Political We Don’t Take No Jive.” When I say, “Sound Off,” you say, “Free the People!” Prisoners and Then at a certain point I’m gonna say, 1 “Break it on down.” And you’re gonna Prisoners of War say, “Free the People, Free the People, Free the People,” and then one loud Ashanti Omowali one, “Free the People!” We got it? “Hold Your Head Up High, Panther’s Alston Marching By. We Don’t Take No Jive, Got a Loaded .45. Sound Off!” (audience) “Free the People!” “Sound off!” “Free the People!” Right on! Now imagine, in certain cities and certain towns where there were chapters, there were rank and file Panthers marching down the street. And here we are with this chant. It is performance, but it’s performance that’s really important. « Jericho We are trying to show people that we Josh MacPhee 2009 are a disciplined force that is ready to 8 Perspectives act. We are trying to show people that trained us to not think of any possibility there is a new role for us to play. And that things could be different than what here we are: we’re the Black Panther white supremacy had laid down for us. Party. And it’s not only about the .45, But now here’s the ’60s and the ’60s is but not without it. telling us, “You can be everything.” But It was the organizing, it was the specifically, “Black is Beautiful! Africa is educating, it was being available to help our roots. And be proud of it.” people to figure out ways to resist that We had just came from a genera- made the Black Panther Party what it tion, and all them generations that just became. You know, we did the best we accepted that niggers ain’t shit. Niggers could. I was young: Plainfield, New will never organize, will never get it Jersey, small town. But hey, Plainfield together. You’ll never do it. Now all of had the same problems as every other a sudden, there’s something capturing town that had Black folks in ’em. We us, there’s something in the air. They’re was treated bad. We stepped forward saying Black Power, that’s tying us into like so many other young folks—teen- struggles not only in Africa, but in Asia, agers—in high school. Latin America, and right here within You gotta imagine what our par- the United States because the Civil ents thought. I didn’t come up to them Rights movement was in its upswing. one day and say, “Mom and Pops, I’m The Native American struggles were joining the Black Panther Party.” They coming up, the Puerto Rican struggles, just kind of noticed that I was hang- the Chicano struggles, the anti-war ing out with some different people, you movement, the women’s movement: it know? And now I’m not sitting in front was in the air. of the television anymore, watching So why not little thirteen-, four- the comedies, or whatever. I’m sitting teen-, fifteen-year-old Ashanti (known up here reading Malcolm X’s autobi- as Michael at the time), you know? ography and Malcolm X Speaks, to the Why not get involved? Just like any oth- point where my father would actually er, I want to know what I can do. And get angry at me. Why is my head always I don’t think I was any different from a stuck in this book? And sometimes he’d Palestinian teenager, who is answering say, “Get out of the living room.” And those questions right now, in occupied I’d be like, “OK, I guess I’ll go outside Palestine. I saw what the Civil Rights and find my crew.” movement was doing, and respected it. But it was where my head was at But when I seen those Panthers, and because I was a product of the ’60s. A when my best friend Jihad saw those product that was, in every sense of the Panthers; their magazine had a par- word, magical for so many of us. And ticular cover that had Huey P. Newton when I tell people about the ’60s, the and Bobby Seale on the cover: black thing I want them to get, as far as the berets, black leather jackets, powder Black community is concerned, is that blue shirt, all down to the combat we came alive as no other generation in boots and weapons—one on the side this country since we were kidnapped and one in the hand—we knew right and brought here 400 years before. then and there we wanted to find out We had been brainwashed, whipped, about them. And then to find out that beat down, denied; everything that had they organized survival programs, and on anarchist theory 9 they had liberation schools, where they community and help tenants figure out were actually teaching Black people how ways to resist all the stuff that landlords to defend themselves cause they said do. Here we are now trying to show it was our right. Going contrary to all people how to fight back against these the things we were seeing on television racist, killer police. Heavy duty. And I’m where the white reaction in the south telling you when we first stepped out was brutalizing Black people down in our community, people did not trust there; killing folks, not only Black folks, us. Because like me, and others, we were but even white activists who was com- called lumpen, and a lot of us were. A ing down there to help, in solidarity. lot of us were into a little hustle, maybe Disappearing them. And then maybe gangs, but nothing like the gangs now. finding them years later, and I’m sure But me, I was on the border between there’s a lot of other bodies that are still wanting to be a burglar and a revolu- in swamps somewhere. tionary. And actually, later on, kind of You know, but still, we’re com- combined both of them. ing in. Seeing all this didn’t frighten us But the Panthers showed us that or discourage us, it made us want to revolution involved engaging your com- step up more. So now we are learning; munity and organizing them. Helping Panthers from New York and Newark, to give them a sense of hope, that we different places, are coming to Plainfield could change our circumstances. And to to show us what it means to be a know that we were doing it in concert Panther. And the first thing we was hop- with all these other communities and ing to get, or get close to, was the guns! movements was heavy. But just like the other comrades, they I did not like white folks. I was a shared the stories that the things we get stone nationalist. Didn’t want to work is not the physical guns, but we get the with ’em. And it was the Panthers that books, which was the guns that we were helped to kinda broaden my perspective first given; placed in our hands, we’re on that, you know, you can’t be hating gonna read! Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched all men ’cause they’re white. You know, of the Earth, Mao Tse-Tung’s Quotations, you might not want to deal with them everybody had a Red Book, W.E.B. Du because of what they do, but if you got Bois, Robert Williams’ Negroes With a white revolutionary that’s here to sup- Guns: We are reading! And many, like port you and to be your ally, you can me, didn’t like to read at all because of embrace him or her. And even moving what school has done to us. I didn’t like into that grudgingly, I learned to relax to read. But you inspired now. There’s and accept white folks. Plainfield did something in you that’s different now, not encourage that because it’s a very and you want to know. I want to know racist place. But we’re seeing a very dif- everything about Africa; I want to know ferent kind of revolution, especially for everything about Du Bois; I want to a revolutionary nationalist group. It was know all this stuff. So yeah, I’m reading heavy. now. Gradually, the community started We got study groups: here is Black to support us. The back and forth folks sitting together, in study circles, between our desire to break a certain helping each other learn. Here we are hypnosis, and a certain psychosis, now learning how to go out in the around being a victim in society to 10 Perspectives learning that you can be free individu- as we go. Because our situation is that als, and actually start to love each other, bad. We don’t have the luxury of sitting was powerful. But the government—of back and doing all sorts of fanciful ideo- course, this is not a loving society, it’s a logical positions: we’ll figure it out as we very death-oriented society, a very hate- go. But we took hits. ful society—don’t stand for that. No My first hit, and Jihad’s first hit, group that has been kept systematically was when a cop got killed in my home- on the bottom of the society is going town. So what do they do? They get the to be allowed to come from the bot- two main organizers, and they blame tom of that society. You ain’t disturbing it on them, me and Jihad; seventeen nothin.’ The history of this country says years old, seniors in high school. They so. We understood: 500-Year War. This know we didn’t do it. They know that. is 500 years of continuation. No break. They know Mumia didn’t kill a cop. From when the Europeans first came They know that. It’s not a question of here and did what they did: Christopher innocent or guilty. They know what Columbus and all of them. We un- they’re doing: break the potential of derstood that it’s a liberation war. No this becoming a solid movement in different from the Du Bois, no different Plainfield, New Jersey. Get Michael and from the Indigenous Nations fightin’ David off the streets. Fourteen months; for sovereignty. No different than the the last four months was the trial. If Vietnamese fighting to get the United it wasn’t for the fact that we had good States out of their country. We said, lawyers, no telling. I never say that we “The United States out of the Ghettos!” would have been on Death Row, or we That may have been where they con- would have been in prison for life. My fined us. But then we began to look at thing is we would have found a way to the ghettos as, “You got us here, now get out of there. Because even during it’s ours! You get out.” And we’re gonna that fourteen months, we was on a hack take over the institutions, the voice of saw blade, cutting this window, trying Malcolm X. Take ’em over. We became to get out even before the jury got the revolutionaries, but we understood we case. Seventeen! Because we understood, are up against a monster that will kill us we are warriors, at war. No if, ands, and without a blink of an eye. buts. White jury came back with a “not Huey P. Newton had already guilty” verdict. Lawyers were able to been in jail. They were trying to frame show, classic frame up. We’re out. We’re him for the cop that got killed. Bobby back in the ranks. New York and New Seale was being framed for murder, him Jersey chapters are under heavy attack: and Erika Huggins, in New Haven, FBI forces, local police departments, Connecticut. Fred Hampton had got they’re losing numbers, the govern- killed, and Mark Clark, in 1969. We ment, the media, police forces were understood, but it didn’t stop us. As very successful at isolating us from our we read, we organized. As we read, we communities. They were very successful: fought. That’s praxis. That’s putting it calling us thugs, murderers, or just by right into practice. We are developing as terrorizing people we were dealing with. we go. We don’t have to wait to have no I was back and forth between the developed ideology, don’t have to wait New York and the Plainfield chapter. to have all the answers; we figure it out The free breakfast program in New on anarchist theory 11

York had always been very successful, and you got one of my comrades, who’s in Harlem. The Harlem chapter pro- a year younger than me. We are here. gram—every day, feeding the children. We were waiting. It is an honor to join One day, some of the children get the ranks of the Black Liberation Army.” sick. And all of a sudden some of the I’m proud of it to this day, and actually parents start pulling their children out. my children are too, and I’m happy We find out years later through the about that. But the thing is we went to COINTELPRO papers that the police get these political prisoners out of the poisoned the fruit. So that’s why they Manhattan House of Detention. pulled the children out. It’s no big I’m bringing this up for a reason. deal what they’re going to go through To be free, you have to be a little crazy. because they are that cold blooded. Harriet Tubman back and forth, how They’re not going to let anybody come many times? She’s gotta be a little crazy. in and mess this thing up. Gotta kill Nat Turner: little crazy. All those move- you, kill you. Gotta discourage people ments that gotta face the viciousness of from coming to you, gotta discourage white supremacy, you gotta be a little them. Right? But they were good. We crazy. You ain’t gonna be free otherwise, get isolated, then one day, they have by doing things so careful, and so con- charges against us and they pick us up, venient. You know, you wanna be free, people not quick to come to our sup- it’s the same thing if you want to learn port. They had Panthers who were part something, you gotta be a little daring of the Black Liberation Army, who were with the material you pick up and read. locked up in the Manhattan House of ’Cause it may change your whole life. Detention. They are political prisoners. So here we are. Manhattan They’re being charged with an ambush House of Detention is just concrete, in New York and an ambush out in San steel, buildings. The Manhattan area, Francisco. It’s actually the San Francisco the Federal Building is down there, Eight case. Here I am, nineteen years immigration, police, all around. But old. And I’m approached by one of the here’s the Black Liberation Army. We members of the Panther Party, who asks are no different from them Vietnamese me, would I become a member of a cell, guerrillas, up against the United States. the Black Liberation Army. American imperialism is a paper tiger. My partner at the time was preg- We read Frantz Fanon. And we learned nant. I have to think now, what am I from Frantz Fanon that if you can look going to do? I want to be around for your enemy in the eye, that fear will this child. Daddy. I don’t know nothing drop. Break the fear, and you’ll see about being a daddy for real at nineteen. that they’re not invincible. It’s our fear But just the idea, you know? But also, of them that keeps them in power. So I want to win this revolution. So my here we go. They’re on trial every day. decision is, goin’ under. Maybe I won’t We’re allowed to bring ’em food. Take be around for the victory, cause we still the food to the jail, we give the bag to thought it was right around the corner. the police, he goes through it, gives it But maybe the child will come into a to the prisoners. But on one particular free world. day, when we put that bag on the ta- Alright, so here I am, I come back ble, we don’t let the police go through to the Sister and I’m like, “You got me, the bag. We open it up, and we pull 12 Perspectives out the guns. We take them guards, “Power to the People. We out.” They we put them in the bathroom. And I understood. We’re gone. always verify to say this, we handcuff Next thing you know, my family them to the toilets. Because that’s the jokes about it to this day, usually when job that they do. Their attitude, I say I disappear, they just gotta turn on this because of their attitude, to be the news, you know. So they turn on free—attitude is very important. You the news, and here’s the thing about gotta believe it. You cannot have fear the Manhattan House of Detention: of these people. there’s their son’s picture. Alright, we So here they go, we’re off to the know where Michael is. Or we know second floor, to the visiting room; a where he was. In the course of other solid wall of steel, windows, telephones. things, bank expropriations, in New No contact. Got the bag with us. Next Haven, Connecticut. Now, I did not thing that comes out of the bag is an say robbery, ’cause we’re revolutionar- acetylene torch, and I proceed to cut. I ies; we don’t commit crime. But we wasn’t supposed to be the one to cut, it will go after them banks’ money, ’cause was supposed to be someone else who that’s blood money. We will fund the was a professional, who couldn’t make revolution. We will hit drug dealers. We it at the time. Somebody had to do it. will hit banks. We will hit insurance I gave myself a crash course, I did the companies. We will hit armored cars. best I could. I’m cutting. The prisoners We are at war! And that’s certainly what on the other side have taken care of the we did. But doing this bank expro- guards. The visitors on the other side are priation in New Haven, Connecticut, just regular people, they watchin’ me, Wild West shoot out, three of us are but this is New York, ain’t nobody, you captured, I’m one of them. First day know, I’m cutting. But if I was experi- in court, we tell them, you have no enced, I could’a been zip, zip, zip, push right to even try us: we are soldiers of it out, you all come on. And I’m sure the Black Liberation Army. We ain’t in some of them other prisoners would here for no justice. We’re soldiers. We have come out too. But it took me a ain’t askin’ for nothin.’ We know what long time, to the point where I had two the deal is gonna be. This is a firefight. inches to go, and the tank ran out. And They had guns, we had guns. We are that’s the thing that really cuts into the prisoners of war, at this point. When metal when you got that flame on it. So they is tryin’ to frame us, we was politi- then I got to look at the political prison- cal prisoners. With this, we’re prisoners ers, and I got to look at my comrades, of war. That type of action, and others; you know, and you got to make a deci- many of the political prisoners that sion, we gotta go! We gotta go. It was Jericho represents: Jamil Abdullah Al- hard for me for two reasons. One, we’re Amin, Albert Nuh Washington, and a not getting ’em out. Two, two of the whole bunch of others out of the Black women in our cell, it was their partners Liberation Army. And we represent behind that wall too. And their families folks from the Weather Underground, was waiting, we had them, somewhere who placed bombs in a lot of places. else. And we was all gonna hook up We make no ifs, ands, and buts about after we got everybody out. So quickly, it: we are at war. This is revolution; we we gotta go. You turn to your comrades, want to bring this Empire, as George on anarchist theory 13

Jackson says, to its knees. No ifs and families and children, didn’t talk about buts. But here we are. it. Other communities, it’s part of what We didn’t get a lot of support. The they do; you pass the stories on. Ours Left backed up from us. They called didn’t do it. us “infantile Leftists.” They used every People don’t know about us today. Marxist expression they could find. You I get out of prison, first time I get out is know, the liberals, of course, are not ’85, I go to New Haven, Connecticut, going to touch us. But they terrified I ask a high school student, “What our communities. So they were scared. do you know about the Black Panther And it wasn’t but maybe the nationalist Party?” He asks me, “Was it a martial groups, or the really solid white sup- arts group?” Eleven years! How did that porters, who stuck with us. We didn’t happen? Because the system is good at make it out of them jails, but boy did reconquest. The ’60s shook ’em up. We we try. We tried. Got sentenced to 45 shook ’em up. Even for a minute. It was years. Here I am off to Wisconsin. Next good. Even for a minute. But they got thing, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Next it together very quickly too. And they thing, Marion, Illinois. Then Lompac, know what to do. You see what they California. Then I gotta come back to do in Iraq, you know? Knock all that Connecticut. But they moved us around stuff down, put American ideology in like that, they would not allow us to be there, from prostitution to all the other anybody in the same place, together. bullshit about this fake democracy. At one point there were so many of But they did it in our communi- us, we had collectives: Panthers, BLA, ties, when they destroyed Panthers and Weather Underground, Puerto Rican other groups, they flooded our commu- Independentistas: we’re fighting, we’re nities with drugs and guns. Culturally, organizing inside. Trying to figure out just dealing with television and movies, ways to get out. These are many of blacksploitation movies. Turn on the the individuals who Jericho represent. television, you get comedy and ath- ’Cause we come out of liberation letes. Who are the spokespersons now? movements here, that operate out of Integrationists, people that’s into Black that 500-year war understanding that capitalism; you don’t hear our voices no this system is not able to reform or do more, you don’t hear Angela Davis, you anything humane. Our freedom, and its don’t hear Huey P. Newton, Eldridge death, go together. Fear. But we don’t Cleaver. You hear people who are trying get a lot of support. to fit in. ’Cause in this new neo-colonial To this day, we don’t get money; situation, you gotta get those who are foundations don’t give us money. People willing to be Uncle Toms, so that poten- in community don’t even know who tial resistance is quelled, quickly, even we are. That’s the deal. Why? Because before it starts. this system was very effective in not So the end of the ’80s, there’s only putting down resistance, but giv- nothing, going into the ’90s. Nothing. ing people so many diversions that And it wasn’t until the Panther movie encourage them to forget about that. comes out that people start to ask ques- And many parents, neighbors, family, tions. And then begin to find out there’s friends, communities, for the sake of still Panthers. Geronimo Pratt is still in.2 survival, and not endangering their All these other people are still in from 14 Perspectives the Weather Underground. Then people here comes Seattle, then here comes start asking questions. the Zapatistas, and then all these other But then 9/11 happens. So then incidents where people from nowhere, we get knocked back again. People don’t seemingly…they uprise. And sometimes even want to ask about it. They don’t in very creative ways, and lots of differ- even want to bring up the topic, because ent ways to organize. So I look at ’em, of all the hyper-patriotism that’s going and I’m like, “OK, I don’t have to be on. But our fighters, our revolutionaries, depressed. We can still do this. If one our organizers, our thinkers are still be- person fights back, we can do this. If hind walls. And now some of them are one person still dreams, we can do this.” dying. I went in with them. We was all But we gotta get to them political there in the ’70s, I mean we were in the prisoners. It’s hard. When you gotta same places together, we made a com- go visit them. You want to lie to them, mitment to each other, like, “Ashanti, and say, “Hey man, I think they got you got parole,” I’m like, “Yeah, OK us.” But when you don’t have to, you man.” can tell them, “Yeah man, I know we You know, the thing is, I get out, haven’t quite pulled it together yet, but I work for them, to help get them out. people are fighting back. They’re fight- And even back then it was still, “We’ll ing back.” And they say, “Well listen, get you out by any means necessary, just figure out ways that involve us.” whatever works.” You know, but things Some of them can come to terms with had changed. You just can’t be on the dying inside, as long as they know that corners anymore and talk about revolu- we’re carrying it on, out here, and have tion, and brother and sister would be not forgotten them. like, “Yo, what you want me to do?” They know it’s tough, because Then it’s like people are like, “Yo, what, what goes on in the prison is a micro- you from that period? I thought all you cosm of what goes on out here. It’s was dead.” Different, but it hurts. Now a microcosm. They just want us to you gotta figure out how to get that at- remember them. They want to be free. tention again. They would love to be free. But we And I’m telling you the truth, we know on the outside, and they know haven’t figured that out. We still haven’t. too from the Panther days in the ’60s, Because the power of the dollar bill, the that power is really with the people. It’s power of American cultural capitalism, with the people. is great: “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” And It’s one of the reasons why I in- they’re even trying to push the Black creasingly became an anarchist. Because Republicans. They continue to bombard I want power to the people where it our communities, and they do this to stays with the people. Everything is with other people of color communities, the people. And not just you say that, other poor communities, and people in and then after all is said and done, you general: keep them in sync, keep them got a small clique of people who are in line, so their minds don’t go to revo- really calling the shots. I want to figure lution, rebellion, insurgency. Do it. out how to make a Zapatista-style revo- But we show the possibilities. lution here in the United States, that Even when it seems like they got us, brings all of us into this picture how we here comes something happening, are, not erasing who we are. But also on anarchist theory 15 respecting all of our ways of fighting position. We gotta figure out how to back. But I know that ultimately to get get his son home. Guilty, innocent, them political prisoners out; from Earth don’t matter to me. Mumia, guilty or Liberation Front, Animal Liberation innocent, don’t matter to me. It matters Front, to the MOVE 9, to Marilyn what we do. Buck3, David Gilbert, all the Panthers, The best things that have been and others in prison: it’s got to come happening in terms of political prison- from us! It’s got to come from us in a ers is that groups that had really not way that poses a political consequence been working together, maybe really saw to this system if they don’t free Mumia; no reason, have begun to work together: if they don’t give medical attention to the liberation movements and the ani- Seth Hayes. We got to be that fist that mal and the Earth movements. ’Cause says, “If you don’t, other things may many of us in the liberation movements well happen.” Now that’s not necessarily look at the animal movements in the nice. It’s just like when Rob Los Ricos way that the media projects you, that spoke, and Jeff Luers—and I got to tell you’re all these young white kids, with you, I’m very proud of you all, I’m very these funny looks, and you’re huggin’ proud of you—but they bring up just trees, and you’re throwing red paint how murderous this system is. on people with fur coats, and we’re There’s a sense of urgency here, like, “Why do we want to mess with you know, and we can’t take it lightly. them?” Until you are in situations where All of our lives are on the line, all of you may be able to talk. Which I was. them. Indigenous Nations say, “Think Daniel McGowan, Andy Stepanian, of the next seven generations.” We gotta and people around the SHAC, I’m do that, and we also gotta think about from New York. And then I got to step those who’ve been in prison for the back and say, “Oh, that’s what you’re last thirty, forty years. ’Cause if we get about. Now I get it.” You go to one them, we are bringing not only them, of the conferences and you see these but whose shoulders they stood on. So documentaries on what they do to the we’re bringing the ancestors, and the animals, and you think, “Boy, Man is children who are yet to be born, into a motherfucker. A motherfucker.” The our scope, knowing that there’s nothing same ones that did this to us, Africans. this system can do for us. Nothing. Not And they enslaved the indigenous folks a solid thing. Unless we make them. too: enslaved them, lynched them. Even And we’re making them only until we the Italians, and the Irish, everybody can finally get ourselves in the position almost had a taste of this lynching, be- to, as we used to say in the ’60s also, ing treated bad. But it’s when you see a blade in the throat of fascism. I hate this, you gotta see how you can change to get graphic. But, when you feel the this thing, get rid of it. pain, that’s what you want. When Kent It’s that we gave it our best, in Ford tells me about his son, Patrice the ’60s. Some of them have been in Lumumba, I feel the pain, you know, in there, the same as your age right now. him. Oh man, they snatched up another You can’t do it without having them one of our children. Can’t theorize in your plans. You gotta put them on about it too much. You can’t just be your agenda. You got to. They are our on the, you want the correct political Mandelas. And I said to one of them 16 Perspectives a couple of months ago, they’re “even Yeah, I got the book Queer Theory. I’m better than Mandela.” At least Nelson sitting down, but I kinda hold the book Mandela. I go with Winnie. You know, down, I mean I still got my macho in many ways, Nelson walked them into shit, right? So I don’t want people to neo-liberalism. I’m telling you that our see that I’ve got a book that says Queer political prisoners still want a revolu- Theory; they might think I’m queer. As tion. We gotta get ’em. I’m struggling with this, I am internally So whatever your issues are: Earth, going through this process. Until I get animals, and like the indigenous folks like, “What the fuck am I doin’? Read say, “I’m talking about the two-legged, the book! Like you normally read it.” the rock people, the wing people”; that’s And so in reading it, I’m also challeng- how the indigenous folks talk, I love it. ing myself in terms of my perspective, I love it because it’s picturesque. Deep ’cause queer theory is telling me some- down, we’re all very picturesque, and thing about identity, different lifestyles, when we get Western, we get very clini- and what historical forces have done, cal. We take the color out of life. When and what capitalism does, more than we think that way then we can decenter just exploit a class. It ruins people for “Man” and begin to see ourselves as all kinds of different reasons. So now part of all these living systems again and my vision of the world changes more. It begin to figure out how to change these becomes more inclusive, a lot more life- oppressive dynamics that we’re a part of. styles, than I had, maybe in the ’60s. I look at the New York City skyline and And that’s always the challenge, I’m like, “Man, I would love to see that when you meet these political prison- thing go.” Industrialism, industrializa- ers and you start talking to them, they tion, we see what it has done. open your mind up to a reality that Also, when the movements in- you probably didn’t know. And I’m not teract, we not only really learn about talking about the reality of the prisons, each other, for the first time, but we you probably learned about that if you get to share visions. And sometimes, ever go visit. But when they start telling your vision gets enriched by the other you their stories about their people’s people’s visions, ’cause it’s things you struggles, then you have to begin to didn’t think about. From the Feminist include that in who you are, if we’re movement, you know, men, we’ve lead going to make this revolution work. So the movements for so long, but what like the Zapatistas say, “We can make a happens when the women say, “Stop it, world with many worlds that exist,” but hold it, no more.” And then you have to that starts with where we are right now, enrich your vision ’cause you have his- including folks who have historically torically left women out. And the first been left out. From the voices of women time I read queer theory, it shook me up to the bodies of prisoners, and especially when one of my best friends, who was political prisoners. So figure out ways to queer, brought up to me that I made a put them into what you do. Just today, I very fucked up statement about queer sat down and wrote Patrice Lumumba. people. So she gave me a book, Queer I said yesterday I was gonna do it, and Theory;real quick: I’m on the subway, Paulette knows me writing letters to the New York City—I love the subways, I political prisoners, I ain’t that good at do most of my reading on the subways. it. But I just felt ya yesterday, and I’m on anarchist theory 17 like, “Oh my god, that could be my much about overthrowing the govern- son.” You know, I got to write him a ment, it’s really about us pulling out letter, ’cause sometimes, that’s all it calls and creating our own world so that the for. And when it calls for something government gets lost in the shuffle.” like just writing a letter, or the political Because really it’s our energy, and I prisoners say, “Call this number, ’cause think Rob was saying that too, it’s our they’re treating me like this, I need a energy, that really keeps them going. doctor.” That may be all they’re asking Let’s stop giving it to them, let’s start us to do, and we should be jumping on giving it to each other. The ’60s taught that like…ice cream. Vegan ice cream! I us that. Let’s do this people, we are want you to feel, I am, I’m playful and together. We are the people. Right on. I’m optimistic. I am that way because Power to the People! (audience response) you stay optimistic, you do things that “All Power to the People!” give me a reason to go on, ’cause it’s been rough. I will not let this Empire have the pleasure of having a victory Notes over me. 1 This is a transcript of a talk given at So. Rob Los Ricos is out, Jeff the Law and Disorder conference, held in Luers is out, Tre is out. All three of Portland, Oregon from April 14—16, 2010. them, actually, I have seen for the first Transcription by Paul Messersmith-Glavin. time. I knew all about ’em, because oth- 2 Geronimo Pratt died on June 2, 2011 ers in their movements and us started 3 Marilyn Buck passed away on August collaborating. And I’m like, “Oh man, 3, 2010. that’s who they are, that’s what they did, right on. Right on. Right on.” We can do this together. about the author We can figure out how we can Ashanti Omowali Alston help found a Black do it together in ways that respect who Panther Party chapter in Plainfield, NJ while we are, and in ways that enrich our vi- still in high school. He later went on to join sion, so that we can get the world—or the Black Liberation Army. He did twelve worlds, many worlds exist—that we de- years as a Prisoner of War, and became an serve! We deserve the best. We deserve anarchist while incarcerated. Sometimes re- it. Empire down. Down, down, down. ferring to himself as the ‘Anarchist Panther,’ And then, we can have a party where he occasionally publishes a ’zine with that we’re dancing on it, you know what I’m name. Ashanti is a former board member of saying? We can do that. the Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS), is a So let’s get ready, by doing it in part of the Mutual Aid Speakers Bureau, and ways that we really do enjoy each other, works with the National Jericho Movement but we also know that we gotta be lov- to free all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of ing, we gotta be nurturing, we gotta be War. He’s also a recent father, and is writing understanding, because it’s hard. Lot of his memoirs. wear and tear. And they’re going to hit us. But we’re going to develop to the point where we can hit them back. And the last thing, there’s an anarchist saying that says, “It’s not so

mma Goldman “silenced the voice of the child for the sake of the universal” andE chose anarchism over motherhood.1 Voltairine de Cleyre chose not to live with or raise her own son.2 The “avowed and dangerous anarchist” Lucy Parsons was also a single mother who, after her where’s my husband’s execution, often wore herself out trying both to agitate and to take movement? in enough sewing to support her two children.3 contemporary Over the last century, anarchist movements across North America have, by and large, continued to neglect the anarchist needs of caregivers and children in their midst. This neglect most often impacts mothers and mothers and female caregivers. Despite its rhetoric and actions community to reshape other aspects of society and social relationships, anarchists reflect support —and replicate —the societal expecta- tion that the ultimate responsibility for childrearing lies with the mother. victoria law Fathers (if fathers are involved) are expected to be able to continue their political involvement unhindered by the demands of caregiving. Emma Goldman acknowledged this in 1894: “Men were consecrated to ideals and yet were fathers of children. But man’s physical share in the child is only a moment’s; women’s part is for years—years of absorption in one human being to the exclusion of the rest of humanity.”4 And, « Born In Flames (detail) as demonstrated by our knowledge of Meredith Stern block print, 2009 Lucy Parsons and Voltairine de Cleyre, 20 Perspectives even when their names are well-known, childcare shifts, this oversight reflects their tales of motherhood have often the larger anarchist movement’s contin- been overlooked in favor of their public ued failure to take seriously the needs of political activity. Other women, such caregivers. as Pearl Johnson and Mary Isaak, have In a letter to RAT organizers, been relegated to the footnotes of anar- members of Kidz’ City, an anarcha-fem- chist history, usually as the companions inist childcare collective in Baltimore, and helpmeets of male anarchists and noted, “We’ve witnessed the failure on the mothers of their children.5 the part of to many conference organiz- Little seems to have changed ers (from the most recent US Social in this regard over the past century. Forum where there was lack of planning Anarchists do not expect women to [resulting in grossly inadequate child- contribute or participate in political care] to Left Forum where there was projects or organizing after becoming no childcare at all) to think about the mothers. In addition, childrearing re- needs of parents and children until the mains unacknowledged as a legitimate last minute...Neglecting to think about political action by many. it until the need presented itself is per- In 2003, anarchist mothers in petuating the systematic neglect of the Minneapolis formed the Revolutionary needs of parents and children.”7 Anarchist Mom and Baby League Over the past six years, I in- (RAMBL) to challenge the radical com- terviewed 22 mothers across North munity’s dismissal of family issues as America who explicitly identify as an- irrelevant: “We’re frustrated when the archists. These mothers varied in terms movement for social justice steals our of age, race, ethnicity, class, partnership ability as mothers to continue to work status and sexual orientation. Many had as organizers and artists, while whin- been politically active before mother- ing that not enough parents care about hood. Some found that continued social reforms. We’re tired of activists involvement in projects and political wondering where all the parents are actions was not possible and that their when we’re sitting at home with no peers were unwilling to support—or money, no transportation and no child- even acknowledge—the challenges care,” they stated. “We expect to struggle they faced as new mothers trying to against the world; we don’t expect to stay involved. Others found their focus struggle in our own community.”6 shifting to movements and groups more The 2010 Renewing Anarchist willing to accommodate their needs as Tradition (RAT) conference is a recent parents. Many who stayed actively in- example of the continued dismissal volved were able to do so largely because of children’s and caregivers’ concerns of community and movement support. as a valid issue. Childcare was not This article seeks to foreground considered during the initial confer- the voices of contemporary anarchist ence planning; it was only recognized mothers and to prevent their stories one month before the conference after from disappearing from history like potential presenters inquired about those of past generations. In addition, it childcare. Although one organizer tried seeks to examine how community sup- to rectify the situation by calling for port has helped mothers maintain their childcare volunteers and coordinating involvement and to demonstrate ways on anarchist theory 21 in which other groups, and individuals talking about the event excitedly and can support the mothers in their midst. I felt intensely left out . . . This feeling North American anarchist history often of moving at a different speed, feeling omits the lives and roles of anarchist a gulf between us, increased. When women who are also mothers, resulting they decided to leave town when my in a loss of knowledge about them—as daughter was a month old, I left with both anarchists and mothers—as well them. They welcomed me on the trip . . . as ways in which their communities [But] in New Orleans I felt left behind. worked to support their dual roles. It took me much longer than them to Hearing stories of contemporary moth- get ready. Once walking around, I didn’t ers allows anarchists to reconceptualize have the same stamina. I had a hard motherhood and reframe conversations time carrying my daughter . . . I had to about childcare and family support as go back to the house; they went on and integral to intergenerational organizing I went home alone…Definitely, my two in our movements and communities. intense friendships were smashed by me being a mother. We had shared so much Changes accompanying but couldn’t share this transition. motherhood After losing old friendships, China During the 1980s in Washington, made new friends: “I eventually wound DC, China had been involved in many up in Santa Cruz where people are bet- anarchist political actions, includ- ter about those things. People helped ing stopping traffic to flyer about the out with Clover. My new boyfriend U.S.’s secret funding of the Contras in liked kids and helped out. And the Nicaragua, sleeping in a shantytown en- punks had to accept Clover, many be- campment demanding divestment from coming friends with her.”8 apartheid South Africa, street demon- Max had also been intensely in- strations like “No Business as Usual/ volved in anarchist organizing and direct War Chest Tour,” and participating in action in her preparenting days. “[I] got Black Flag Village (the anarchist ele- a two month sentence for a Livermore ment of a peace march from California Labs Shadowpainting action on to DC protesting the nuclear arms race). Hiroshima Day in 1993.9 [I also did] lots Pregnancy did not curtail her involve- of organizing with our anarchist cluster ment. “I traveled, I read books, I found of affinity groups, Circle A Cluster and a midwife, I hung out with my two best Reclaiming Collective, a pagan collective friends and lived similarly—went to which holds many public rituals and shows, protested Rocky Flats Plant [a also has been at the center of a lot of nuclear weapons production facility in environmentally-related direct action. Boulder, Colorado]… We did organizing of the major actions in ‘88 and ‘89 at the Nevada Test Site, Immediately after birth things changed! as well as actions at the Concord Naval My roommates were gearing up for this Weapons Station. . . [I was] in the middle big Women’s Festival; one was in a band of things, actually as an organizer, not that practiced in our kitchen. The big only as an activist participating in ac- event was a day or two after I gave birth. tions others had planned.” Max became Everyone came home from the show pregnant shortly after being released 22 Perspectives from jail and began feeling ostracized again even though I wanted to and even by her fellow activists. “I heard all sorts though I felt really lonely. I tried to of comments put out like jokes, which fill that gap by looking for parenting- were quite hurtful. People would say focused things, but I never really things like, ‘Well, now you’re not going found other parents whom I felt shared to be able to do anything.’ Talk about a enough of my values that I felt like we set up!” Her affinity groups continued could work on something together or go organizing, but “no one thought to to events together. I specifically wanted ask whether I wanted to be involved. to continue working with queer radi- I would have jumped (once I was past cals, but once you add the queer thing the first three months and nausea) but and the kid thing and the trans thing, once not invited, I guess I just assumed, there’s just not a lot of people.”11 as did everyone else, that I wouldn’t be “Since I was 11, I’ve been work- involved.” Reflecting back, she stated, ing on anarchist campaigns: black bloc, “I guess I needed to hear, ‘Hey, we miss feminist marches, Quiver Distro (out you. When do you think you’ll feel up of Santa Cruz, where I moved when I to joining us,’ or something along those was 16), guerilla gardening, living in lines.”10 collective houses,” recalled Mikki. “I feel More than a decade later, those like it’s already changed so much since who choose to become mothers report I’ve gotten pregnant. I feel a lot more similar experiences: Katie had been isolated. Like everyone goes out bike involved in radical transgendered and riding or to the bar and I don’t really queer groups in Chicago. Once she and want to do those things.”12 her partner decided to have children, Once her baby was born, she felt she found that impending mother- even more isolated. “In Baltimore, I hood distanced her from her peers. was always invited places [and] people Compounding this disconnect, she would come see me, but as soon as I and her co-parent moved to Portland had a baby, almost instantly I never where she was unable to find similar heard from anyone. Not a peep. I was political activity. “I felt really isolated in Baltimore until Hunter was seven because not only was I trans in a not weeks and I spent the whole time trying very transfriendly community and seek- to hang out with people, trying to con- ing people whom I never found, but nect, feeling so depressed and alone.”13 also I was in the process of having a kid. Others also found that their pri- That was also something that people orities shifted after becoming mothers. that I did meet couldn’t really relate to. I Those who had previously committed [also] didn’t know any people who were large amounts of time to activism and parents or who were planning to be organizing lessened their involvement: parents,” she recalled. “You don’t have “I used to spend almost all of my free as much time once you have the baby time (that is, time away from my paying to seek people out and get involved work) engaged in activism, organiz- and people [also] don’t see you as having, and politics,” recounted Rahula. ing the energy and availability or even “Nowadays I probably spend five to necessarily the kinds of focus or values ten hours a week on political pursuits, that they want you to have. I found as opposed to thirty [or] forty [that I that I couldn’t get involved in things had] before,” she stated. “One of the big on anarchist theory 23 differences is that I can’t push myself to more conscious of time and had children exhaustion, because I have a kid who themselves [like] neighborhood as- needs me to be healthy and present. So, sociations or welfare support groups … in spite of myself, I take better care of slowly as the people involved changed, I myself now.”14 started to feel unwelcome. Plus my son In some cases, previous encoun- was becoming more mobile and it was ters with police or other government hard to keep him safe. . . But there are authorities forced mothers to reevaluate plenty of groups to organize with- but their involvement and potential risks. often those that are explicitly anarchist Before pregnancy, Jessica was involved have felt the most unwelcome to kids.”16 in Free Radio Gainesville, a pirate radio Meetings and events that work station in Florida. “I was a collective for childless activists are often hard member, produced my own weekly for mothers of young children. Anna, show, authored public and press confer- a mother from Montreal, observes. ence statements, housed the station, “People don’t realize that having a meet- and even had to ‘entertain’ sexist and ing from five to seven [pm] is not the attempting-to-be-intimidating federal ideal time for parents of children who agents on my doorstep a few times. need to be in bed by seven o’clock.”17 Housing the station had to stop when Even when they want to be sup- baby came along,” she recalled.15 portive, the absence of parents and children within anarchist groups and Challenges of Combining settings has resulted in childless people Motherhood and Organizing not always understanding how to do so. “I think people were really into the Mothers have found that the idea of raising kids in the community difficulties of organizing and political but not ready for the responsibility or involvement are compounded by the they didn’t quite understand what hav- additional demands of motherhood and ing a kid entailed,” Mikki remembered. the lack of consideration of a largely “When I needed help emotionally or childless movement. someone to hold the baby while Bryan Upon moving to Wisconsin, Jess was at work and I had to pee or eat or became involved in starting an anarchist anything, people just weren’t there. That info shop. “It was great to be involved really hurt.”18 from the get-go as my little one was just Organizers often fail to take into part of it. There was about a year where account that spaces and situations that I felt really welcomed and there were work for able-bodied adults are unsuit- people who were so kind to my son. able—if not unsafe—for babies and We held well attended Radical Family small children. “I also find that move- Potlucks and several non-parents were ment spaces tend to be unfriendly to very supportive of parents/kids. But, as mobile children (in that they are dirty with most anarchist spaces, people move and often dangerous), and that folks, on and new folks come in. As the group when booking spaces for events/train- became younger, I felt less welcomed. ings, don’t think about how the space/ Also at first there were other parents but environment impacts me and my child they also drifted away. Many left to work even if I have given them advanced on other projects where people were notice that I will be there with an 24 Perspectives infant,” said Autumn. She recounted one non-existent.21 example of traveling with her partner Anna notes that in the and baby to another city to facilitate a Autonomous Social Center, “there are consensus training. “When we got there, more parents and mothers and [so] of- we found that we were staying in a room ten there will be childcare for meetings. with one twin bed and one mattress on But the people who often run the child- the floor. No pillows. No towels in the care are often the parents themselves.”22 bathroom. No food in the kitchen. We Recognizing that if they want were hungry and uncomfortable. The children and families to be included training space was changed at the last in larger actions and protests, parents minute to another woman’s home, a run have actively organized programs down spot with no safe indoor space for and spaces for themselves. During a baby to move around in. I would say the 2004 Biotech Convention in San in this situation that my needs, and my Francisco, radical parents created a kids’ child’s needs, were definitely not met, space within the convergence center. though the intention of the group was to Max, who was active in Reclaim the be welcoming. I emailed them about it Commons, recalled: after and got an apology.”19 Even when childcare space exists, A couple [of] parents decided to do a it is often inadequate in other ways, call to parents to be part of organiz- particularly when childcare planning is ing these actions and to call ourselves left until the last minute. At the 2010 Radical Family Collective (RFC). We RAT conference, the room designated started by making it a priority that we for childcare was cold and dirty. One had a specific kid zone space as part of mother who attended RAT (without the convergence center but worked out her toddler) noted, “People think a that it was not generally set up as a drop- childcare space should just be a room off babysitting scene but rather a place with crayons. There’s not necessarily a to have as a cool out area, a place where real understanding that the child can’t kids could nap, parents could hook up spend the whole day in a closed room and watch each other’s kids to spell each with pencils.”20 other, families could do art. When we got together to divvy up spaces within support the warehouse, predictably, people without kids assumed the kids should be Despite frequent hostility and in a room way back in the bowels of the general unwillingness of anarchists to place. I was very assertive on our behalf, address mothers’ and children’s con- pushy one might even say, in refusing cerns, many mothers have continued that spot and insisted that for various their political activity. reasons we needed the little room right Some have found support has up front. I pointed out that, for one, been limited to other parents. “Only kids would be in the most danger in case other moms have done childcare for of a cop riot in the convergence center me,” stated Katie. “I’ve done childcare if we were stuck all alone back there. for both of the people who’ve done Up front, everyone would be aware if childcare for me.” However support anything were about to happen and we from non-mothers has been virtually on anarchist theory 25 could quickly get the kids out. RFC also be in another room.’ Then there were had strategized ahead that as part of the the comments about how kids can be larger organizing, it was important to disruptive, to which we all as parents have out in the media that there was a were both outraged and amused. As we kid zone at the convention center and pointed out, we’d rarely been to a meet- that not only would that be a sign of ing where some adult hadn’t interrupted welcome to families, but it would also a meeting or somehow made it go on serve to put the cops on alert that the longer than planned.”23 convergence center would have families in residence. We realized that this would However, as pointed out by be likely to keep them in check … All Jessica, who organized a family bloc in all, we realized that we could help for the 2003 FTAA protests in Miami, safeguard everyone, and our convergence “When we’re talking about fellow center, by our very existence in there. So anarchist parents, we’re not talking in we had the room up front and a huge terms of support; we’re talking in terms banner outside the place announcing the of cooperation and easing each other’s kid zone and no cop attacks happened at daily life. There’s a difference!”24 the center at all. . . Some mothers have experienced Another thing we wanted to do judgment, hostility, and a lack of sup- for/with parents was to create ways to port in some groups, but have found make us feel safer about going out as others to be more friendly and open. families to street actions, fully assuming Maka, a mother in Oklahoma, recount- our right to do so, but also knowing ed that she had left groups where people we’d be facing a load of pissed off and displayed their discomfort around her violent cops. So we offered a one-day children. She recounted the first time legal workshop for families and the lure she did feel supported by the commu- was that we had a movement lawyer nity was not until her son was six years willing to offer services to any parent old: “This was just a couple of months needing them if arrested if she/he had after we became part of the collective. attended this workshop. At the work- After school one day, I was very tired, shop, parents got to learn more about so I lay down in the sleeping room at what could be the results if risking arrest the info shop while my six-year-old intentionally or if swept up and arrested son played a board game with a group without intending to be arrested … how of folks who were there hanging out. I to be reunited with kids as quickly as woke up to the sound of my son ‘having possible . . . a meltdown.’ I came out to deal with During that week, the feedback it, which was already being attempted was fabulous . . . Non-parents were re- by the folks who were there. My son ally happy to have kids around and liked was raging and angry and shouting very the family vibe, but there were a few ugly things at me. I was dealing with crotchety people who, once the action this while everyone looked on. After he was over, didn’t want kids at meetings. calmed down enough, I took him home, There was a very, very big scene about fixed him some dinner, and got him this at our post-action evaluation meet- settled down there. I left him at home ing. People would say things like, ‘We with his older brother while I went really want kids here, but they should back to the info shop for a meeting that 26 Perspectives had been planned previously. When I messengers helped them find a home. walked in the door, everyone was sit- “People here were like, ‘Of course you ting on the sofas talking. Every head need housing. It’s going to be winter turned to look at me. I felt immediately soon. We will help you find housing.’27 defensive, having experienced judgment and lack of support in other groups. Other mothers have found a Then someone said, ‘We want to know mixed amount of support from those how we can best support you in a situ- around them: “I live in an anti-racist, ation like that with Griffin. We are so anarchist collective household and my impressed with how calmly you handle housemates are committed to support- him when he’s out of control like that. ing me and my partner as parents,” Please help us help you.’ I cried.”25 wrote Rahula, a mother in California. Jessica became less involved in a Her housemates not only supported her feminist group in southern Florida when by babysitting, but also did so finan- the group continually failed to address cially while she was on maternity leave. her needs as a mother of an infant. She They also accommodated her daughter’s found that a neighboring community daycare coop at the house once a week. was more responsive to her needs: “The “Plus they have participated in making anarchist community in Lake Worth, our house kid safe and tolerated the 45 minutes north of where I live, has toddler takeover of common space.” by far shown the most shining example However, she found that outside of her of support. They go out of their way to household, “the necessary community let me know about things going on and support for moms to remain active is even think ahead of time about how/if just not there. Most anarchist events I can be involved. They will take turns are even close to baby/child safe, never being with my daughter and any other mind ‘friendly,’ and anarchists often kids present in another room or outside belch out anti-breeding rhetoric which so I can listen/contribute in a meeting. is damn close to rhetoric heard from the They let me know about kid-specific right wing about ‘welfare moms’ (which and/or kid-friendly events, like volunteer is generally code for moms of color and days at the community garden. They are poor moms). These things are the op- very involved in organizing in their com- posite of supportive.”28 munity and that largely entails getting For Maka, the activists around her involved with the kids in their own com- are a continual source of support, both munity, in support of the kids’ mostly during political events and in her person- immigrant, working poor parents.”26 al life: “At a street corner protest action a few months ago, the attendees took turns In Santa Cruz, people would get vita- engaging Griffin to keep him from being mins for me. I really needed housing bored. One person who had driven a car though and I didn’t feel like I had the had it parked nearby and had a pillow support (to get it). Or help with trans- and blanket in the back, just for Griffin portation to and from my midwife. It to lie down with when he got too cold seemed that people thought that these and bored,” she recounted. When she things would take care of themselves,” had the flu, friends from the collective said Mikki. When she and her husband called and offered to both make her soup moved to Baltimore, their fellow bike and hang out with her son. “No need for on anarchist theory 27 me to ask for help, because it was offered being a man who decides, someday in based on their knowledge of my having the distant future, to become a woman. nobody else who could cook for me and This is not at all my experience of my- care for my kids.”29 self,” stated Katie. “Being trans, there’s skepticism whether I’ve done enough I’ve never had to pay for childcare, or whether I have an authentic mother which is nice, because I have such a experience…I think that, as a commu- strong support system between my nity in general, there’s a lot of suspicion community, my family and Nicolai’s around transwomen.31 father’s family,” stated Connie. Her partner, housemates and larger political I have yet to see a conference run community are willing to watch her son by anarchists that say, ‘[for] special needs while she showers, cooks, does house- childcare, contact us.’ I’ve seen things hold chores, works a shift at Confluence that say, ‘If you have special needs,’ but Books (the local info shop), or writes for they usually mean ‘if you’re vegan’ or ‘if The Red Pill or other zine projects with you need something that’s wheelchair which she’s involved. “Everyone seems accessible for a grown-up that’s going to pretty attuned to the babies at larger be at the conference,’” stated Elizabeth, [local] gatherings so that I don’t have to whose older son has autism. “I think keep my eye on him all the time because people are scared when they hear special there are a lot of eyes on him.” However, needs or autism and [think] they won’t Connie acknowledges that her position be able to handle it. Or they don’t look. is not universally shared: “I feel lucky I mean [for] conferences that happen on because I realize not everyone has such campuses, just call the education depart- a strong support network. I’m definitely ment. There’s got to be someone who’s grateful.30 a special education major. This could be like lab time for this person! For the However, even when activist or- [2006] Providence [Anarchist] Bookfair, ganizers and movements are willing to when I asked how many people had accommodate children, some mothers experience with autism, half the people continue to be excluded, often reflecting raised their hand! So why can’t I find their marginalization in mainstream that [kind of support] or why can’t society: people think to offer that?32

As a transwoman in queer and feminist Ways that Movements radical circles, I often feel this assump- Can Support Mothers tion that I am somehow not doing my and Children share or doing things right or that I have all these privileges that other moms Every mother interviewed agreed don’t have or that it couldn’t possibly that political movements and communi- be the case, even though it is, that I ties need to support the families in their am the stay-at-home parent and have midst. Several had suggestions on ways all these experiences in common with they could do so: other moms who aren’t trans because “I need people to be friendly to there’s such an intense narrative in that my kid, to offer me friendship and com- community of a transwoman as basically radeship, to recognize and respect that I 28 Perspectives am a mom, that it’s hard, amazing, and has a 10- to 15-year-old sitting on the political work, and these needs are not edge of their seat thinking, “Wow, this is often met by the larger anarchist com- an amazing talk. I like this.”36 munity,” stated Rahula.33 “When you organize childcare, Radical events that make a point when you want us to participate, offer to include children have also inspired it. Standardize it. If you don’t under- people in other cities to organize chil- stand how to do it or what that means, dren’s programming at their events. ask us. Don’t assume you can’t do it. It’s For the past several years, the Montreal not building a rocket,” said Elizabeth.34 Anarchist Bookfair has included a Kids’ “The continued effort on the Program as part of their childcare. After national part of offering childcare spaces seeing that program, China, whose and family friendly events does a lot. If daughter is now an adult, approached folks know that these resources are avail- the organizers of the 2006 Mid-Atlantic able, they may be more likely to attend. Radical Bookfair about supporting I like when it’s announced in meetings parents’ and children’s inclusion. She or gatherings that babies and baby initially met with some resistance to noises are not only okay, but welcome,” the idea that parents could leave their suggested Connie, whose immediate children and have childcare provided. community has worked to ensure their However, by the end of the meeting, the meetings and events are child-friendly. organizers agreed to a more radical vi- “I realize it can make it a little stressful sion of supporting parents and children. in a meeting, but to not exclude parents China put out a call for volunteers and is a big deal to many of us.”35 publicized the existence of Kidz’ Corner. “We organize a lot of events for “I asked everyone, fliered everywhere, ourselves as adults, but we hardly ever went to everyplace I could think of. organize events for kids. It would be Most things didn’t pan out but you nice to see some kid-organized events, never know what will and where the even if it was a component of what a volunteer will come from,” she said. She speaker was going to do that could be recalled that, while attending meetings a representation for kids somehow,” at Red Emma’s, the radical bookstore reflected Gretchen. where planning meetings took place, she met an activist who expressed his dis- Just like we do presentations, workshops, comfort around children. Nonetheless, events, [we should] have something for China gave him a flier for Kidz’ Corner kids. It doesn’t have to be exclusively for and asked him to spread the word. kids...like there was this puppet troupe At the start of the bookfair, the in Montreal who were doing an adapta- man asked if he could watch the child tion of the Paris Commune. They made of his guest so that his guest could give all their own puppets and they did their a presentation at the info shop meeting. own show…They could have done a “He told me that they [the father and matinee [for kids]. child] stayed at his house and he was I can think of lots of speakers playing with the child that night, and who could really engage young people. it had been really good. They needed Even if it’s not young kids, like a 4-year- childcare and asked, but I said I was too old, they could do a presentation that busy setting it up [and] not open yet. So on anarchist theory 29 he came back to volunteer and watch the according to Marcos, are more politi- child, asking his partner to help him … cally astute than their elders: “Those That was my greatest success! Here was who were children in that January of a boy who said that children didn’t like ‘94 are now young people who have him, that he was uncomfortable around grown up in the resistance, and they children, and he wound up being the have been trained in the rebel dignity first volunteer, so a dad could talk at the lifted up by their elders throughout meeting. [Before this happened] the dad these twelve years. These young people had been sitting in the back trying to have a political, technical and cultural keep the fidgety child entertained. That training that we who began the zapatista dad was so happy. He thought the kids’ movement did not have. The youth is room was great. He was grinning and now, more and more, sustaining our hugging everyone on the way out.”37 troops as well as leadership positions in “At the [2009] Allied Media the organization.”39 Conference, there was a document in As Max summed up, at the end of the program about how to be kid-friend- her recollections, “Revolution sure won’t ly at the conference. It was a list of ways be handed to us, or made for us…we in which you, as a participant, could be have to shape it as we will.”40 an ally to the parents there. I think every event that purports to be kid-friendly should have a similar educational docu- notes ment about exactly what that means,” 1 Emma Goldman, Living My Life (New recalled Autumn. “It would be great to York: Dover Publications, 1970), 153. have more political organizing that re- 2 Paul Avrich, An American Anarchist: the volved around ‘families’ as a population/ Life of Voltairine de Cleyre (Princeton, N.J.: demographic. If radical organizers forced Princeton University Press, 1978), 71-2. themselves to acknowledge that most 3 Carolyn Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons: of the people they wish to organize are American Revolutionary (Chicago: Charles members of families, they would have H. Kerr, published for the Illinois Labor to rethink everything: how events are History Society, 1976), 137. organized, how campaigns are run, who 4 Goldman, Living My Life, 153. is brought to the table, etc.”38 5 Pearl Johnson is best-known as Including mothers and children in the lover of anarchist Benjamin Tucker, political spaces and events should not publisher of Liberty, and mother of their simply be viewed as a chore offered for daughter, Oriole. Mary Isaak was the wife the sake of political correctness. Instead, of Abe Isaak, publisher of The Firebrand anarchists should view children’s in- and Free Society and founder of the Aurora clusion as vital to intergenerational Colony. Although Mary helped publish both movement-building and the growth of papers, her granddaughter, Grace Ulmrath, building the worlds we wish to inhabit. only recalled that “Grandma helped sup- Anarchists can take inspiration from the port the paper [The Firebrand], and Free Zapatistas in Chiapas who, from the Society after it, by taking in wash.” (Paul start, have integrated children into daily Avrich. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History life, including political discussions and of Anarchism in America. (Princeton, N.J.: events. Ten years later, many of these Princeton University Press, 1995), 24.) children have joined the EZLN and, 6 RAMBL, “Allies, Who Aren’t.” 30 Perspectives

InfoShop News, April 09, 2003, 25 Maka, interviewed by author, 16 http://news.infoshop.org/article. February 2006, e-mail. php?story=03/04/09/1286018. 26 Jessica interview. 7 Kidz City, e-mail message to RAT 27 Mikki, interviewed by author, 2 July organizers, October 12, 2010. 2006. 8 China, interviewed by author, 16 28 Rahula interview. February 2006, e-mail. 29 Maka interview. 9 “The Shadowpainting action was in 30 Connie interview. memory of people vaporized and everyone 31 Katie interview. killed or harmed by the atomic bombs in 32 Elizabeth, interviewed by author, 31 Hiroshima and Nagasaki in ’45. There have May 2009. been shadows painted in memory all over 33 Rahula interview. the world . . . we wanted to memorialize 34 Elizabeth interview. the dead but also wanted specifically to 35 Connie interview. confront the workers, whether designers or 36 Gretchen interview. administrators, to remind them that their 37 China, interviewed by author, 16 work carries on the nuclear program which February 2006, e-mail. disrespects all life and endangers us all.” 38 Autumn interview. Max, e-mail to author, 19 July 2009. 39 Subcomandante Marcos, Sixth 10 Max, interviewed by author, 24 July Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, June 2004, e-mail. 2005. http://www.zcommunications.org/ 11 Katie, interviewed by author, 12 May sixth-declaration-of-the-selva-lacandona-by- 2009. subcomandante-marcos. 12 Mikki, interviewed by author, 2 July 40 Max, interviewed by author, 12 April 2006. 2007, e-mail. 13 Mikki, interviewed by author, 21 December 2007, e-mail. 14 Rahula, interviewed by author, 24 About the Author September 2004. Victoria Law is a writer, photographer 15 Jessica, interviewed by author, 8 and mother. She is the author of Resistance February 2006, e-mail. Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated 16 Jess, interviewed by author, 7 August Women (PM Press, 2009) and the co-editor 2009, e-mail. of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: A 17 Anna, interviewed by author, 7 Handbook for Radical Parenting Allies (PM November 2010. Press, 2012). 18 Mikki, interviewed by author, 21 December 2007, e-mail. 19 Autumn, interviewed by author, 28 July 2009, e-mail. A Response from a RAT 20 Anna interview. Organizer 21 Katie, interviewed by author, 12 May 2009. 22 Anna interview. Victoria Law and the many other radical par- 23 Max, interviewed by author, 12 April ent/ activists whose voices she channels in the 2007, e-mail. piece speak eloquently on the issues they face 24 Jessica interview. in raising greater awareness of their needs on anarchist theory 31 and the significance of kids and caregivers in truly conceive of social relations in movement anarchist spaces. But I also feel some respon- spaces as nonpatriarchal and multigenera- sibility to address one aspect of the piece’s tional…if we expect to build movements that context, by giving a little background on the last longer than one activist lifecycle, that sink Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT) deep roots and develop stable counter-forces conference in November 2010. capable of bringing about and/or surviving Many participants had found aspects a post-capitalist meltdown, with or without of the gathering problematic, in part because Zombie Apocalypse…if, like the early 20th of some lack of clarity about its function, century syndicate ideal, we hope to provide especially because of its shift from rural a form that serves both as model for the Vermont to urban Baltimore in an attempt future society AND as vehicle of effective to reimagine the conference’s format while resistance...then mutual nurturance of all ages increasing accessibility and inclusiveness. is everyone’s responsibility. RAT also went from a mainly in-house IAS This is not to say that everyone should affair to a collaboration with a division of be a hands-on caregiver--whether of young labor between a dedicated IAS working children, elders, the sick, or anyone who ever group doing programming and content, needs care, which at one point or another is and the locally-based Red Emma’s collective every single one of us. Not everyone is suited hosting and doing logistics, for the most for it, and we are entitled to retain our part brilliantly. However, one serious casu- differences of inclination, personality, and alty of this division of labor was childcare: relational style: some of us are introverted with both camps assuming it fell within the and not-particularly-nurturing, and there’s other’s domain, and with a series of gaps in nothing wrong with that. In utopia there communication...in a nutshell, there was would be tasks for each of our strengths. But none. Until participants started asking about we DO all have to care. We DO all have to what arrangements would be available, a few take active part in contributing to, facilitat- weeks before the conference date, and oh ing and supporting the work of care. And we shit! Really? How could we have—shouldn’t DO all have to actively respect the humanity they have—fuck! And someone had to make of our youngsters. Besides, where better to something happen, ASAP. Long story short, start nurturing transformations in conscious- that someone ended up being me. ness toward revolutionary futures? At first I had great reluctance to taking Clearly the fiasco had opened up on this task. It seemed like a mordant joke: some deep issues that went far beyond the I had no experience doing childcare. It had infrastructure of one conference, requiring never been my interest or my forte, and I us to think through entrenched attitudes had never felt there was any reason it should not just to childcare but to race and ability. be. As a female-bodied person, I had always In a series of meetings, email exchanges and resisted being slotted into conventional conversations, radical parents hit home the gender functions. Was it not ironic that the point that this affects every aspect of the way woman on the organizing committee was we think about the communities we want to now the one taking this on? create, the movements—and the futures— But of course, childcare should NOT we want to build. be a gendered function, or an optional after- thought, but rather something at the center —Maia Ramnath of our collective ethic AS a community-in- movement. If, in prefiguring alternatives, we

lobal capital has weak spots. I want to hit them. I do not believe, as MichaelG Hardt and Antonio Negri assert in Empire, that there is no “center” to global capital and that any strike at the beast is equally effective. Nor do I believe, as many anarchists do, that attacking any mode of oppression is equally effective. While I firmly believe that all forms of oppression are evil and must be abolished, I do not believe we can or should try to fight them all movement, simultaneously, or that we even need to. Because global capital has weak spots, cadre, and and we should hit them first. The task of anarchists and other dual power radicals is to find and exploit those weak spots. That means we must think and act strategically: we must carefully joel olson choose the kinds of political organizing we do, and we must perform that organizing in the most effective way possible. Cadre organizations are an important way of doing this. I will use my experience as a member of Bring the Ruckus (www. bringtheruckus.org) to explain the role of a cadre organization in political struggle; and how being in a cadre in- forms my work in the Repeal Coalition, a grassroots, all-volunteer, organization that seeks the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws in Arizona, including the notorious, racist law known as SB 1070. « The Kraken The purpose of a cadre, I argue, is not Alec Dunn to lead the revolution but to seek out block print, 2010 34 Perspectives and participate in those struggles—such Bring the Ruckus, for example, as the immigrant rights struggle in believes that it will take revolutionary Arizona—that have the most potential changes to create a free society. But we to bring about a dual power. do not believe that we will lead the revolution. Rather, the purpose of Ruckus Ruckus as a Cadre is to create a place where revolutionaries Organization with similar politics can debate theory, history, and strategy, and seek to put A cadre organization is not neces- ideas into practice. sarily a vanguard organization, as some The system of global capitalism, anarchists mistakenly assume. It is we believe, is the root source of exploi- simply a group of committed, active, tation, oppression, and alienation in revolutionary intellectuals who share this society. It must be abolished and a common politics and who come to- replaced with a free society in which gether to develop revolutionary thought people are able to fully develop their and practice and test it out in struggle. capacities without hurting others to do By “active” I mean one who is involved so. But how to do this? Ruckus believes in political struggle, not merely a book that in the United States, the key to reader. By “intellectual” I don’t mean abolishing capitalism is to attack white someone with a college degree but one supremacy. In a nation whose economic who makes a serious, ongoing commit- and social structure has depended on ment to understanding the world in slavery, segregation, genocide, and res- order to better agitate within it. A cadre ervation, to attack whiteness is strike a group is not a mass organization like blow at the pillars of American capital- Anti-Racist Action, Janitors for Justice, ism and the state. the Wobblies, or the Repeal Coalition, White supremacy, as our founding i.e. a political group that involves a statement puts it, “is a system that grants (potentially) large amount of people those defined as ‘white’ special privileges fighting for specific demands. Nor in American society, such as preferred does a cadre assume leadership of mass access to the best schools, neighbor- organizations (i.e. it doesn’t create “front hoods, jobs, and health care; greater groups”), although its members may advantages in accumulating wealth; a play leadership roles if they have earned lesser likelihood of imprisonment; and the respect of others in the organization. better treatment by the police and the Nor does it try to co-opt or use these criminal justice system. In exchange for organizations for its own ends, although these privileges, whites agree to police it certainly participates democratically the rest of the population through such in struggles over their purpose and means as slavery and segregation in the direction. past and through formally ‘colorblind’ Rather, a cadre group seeks to policies and practices today that still participate in those mass (or poten- serve to maintain white advantage. tially mass) struggles that have the best White supremacy, then, unites one chance to blow the lid off this society section of the working class with the and build a free one, and to work with- ruling class against the rest of the work- in them to make them as radical and as ing class.” The task of revolutionaries, democratic as possible. we believe, is to break up this unholy on anarchist theory 35 alliance between capital and middle in every moral evil. The existence of a and working class whites, so that whites moral evil, or even evidence that lots begin to think of themselves as workers of people are “on the move” fighting rather than whites and begin to act in such an evil, are not sufficient criteria solidarity with working peoples of color for us for participating in a struggle. If throughout the nation and the planet. fighting such an evil does not challenge We are not arguing that white the wages of whiteness, we will not par- supremacy is the “worst” form of op- ticipate actively in it, because we don’t pression. Nor are we claiming that regard it as strategic. if white supremacy is abolished then The purpose of a cadre organiza- all other forms of oppression will im- tion is to help distinguish those struggles mediately disappear. Rather, ours is a that seem to have more revolutionary strategic argument, based on a theory of potential than others. A cadre seeks to U.S. history, that argues that the “public determine which mass struggles have the and psychological wages” of whiteness, best chance to build a dual power. as W.E.B. Du Bois terms them, have been the principle obstacle preventing Dual Power the development of radical movements in the United States. Thus, attacking Dual power is a situation in which these wages creates opportunities to two or more social forces assert power challenge all forms of oppression, just over the same territory and fight for it as what happened with abolitionism outside of the official political institu- (which gave rise to the first wave of the tions (elections, parties, etc.). A dual feminist movement and unionization power struggle poses a revolutionary struggles) and the civil rights move- or potentially revolutionary challenge ment (which gave rise to a host of social to state power and it prefigures a new movements). society in some way. It does not aim to Ruckus cadre seeks to develop this create alternative institutions that live analysis within our organization. This alongside the existing state, but to re- means regularly critiquing it. In fact, we place the existing institutions, through a begin our annual meetings by challeng- great clash if necessary. Dual power im- ing our most fundamental concepts and plies civil war between the haves and the assumptions. (Like Marx, we strongly have-nots. The most famous example believe in a “ruthless criticism of every- of a dual power situation is the conflict thing existing,” including ourselves.) between the Provisional Government We also try to apply this analysis in the versus the Soviets in Russia in 1917 mass organizations and struggles we (Lenin’s description of that struggle is participate in. Our analysis of white where the term comes from). However, supremacy helps us choose which forms there have been numerous examples of struggle to participate in. This is why of dual power situations in the U.S., Ruckus members are active in struggles including the American Revolution, around the police and immigration, “Bleeding Kansas” in 1854, the Civil but not really around vegetarianism or War, and Birmingham in 1963 in the “anarchism.”1 midst of the civil rights demonstrations. Revolutionaries have neither the A dual power strategy works by time nor the resources to get involved participation in those mass struggles 36 Perspectives and organizations that a cadre believes borders to control labor flows, even as can bring about a dual power situation. goods and services flow freely across No revolutionary organization can cre- them. Without borders workers can ate a dual power situation; to believe organize internationally against their one can is vanguardism. Dual power exploitation. Merely by crossing the comes about through the struggles of border illegally to support their families, the great masses of people to overthrow undocumented workers express their their rulers, like in Tunisia or Egypt. belief that borders are or should be ir- The task of a cadre organization is to relevant. They suggest a world without determine, through study and debate, borders, and a willingness to clash with which struggles have the best potential those who depend on them. Immigrant to create a dual power situation, and rights struggles in Arizona thus have the then to participate in them to try to potential to build a dual power between strengthen them and make them as a world that insists on walls and fences radical as possible. and one that is indifferent or hostile to In trying to decide which struggles them. Based on that analysis, we became have the most revolutionary potential, determined to join with undocumented Ruckus members evaluate them accord- workers in their struggle. ing to our Six Criteria. The political work we engage in 1) must address sys- Repeal and Dual Power tems that attack working class people of color, 2) must attack white supremacy, We began by looking for existing 3) must have the potential to further organizations to join to do this work. the development of revolutionary con- Finding none in Flagstaff, we decided sciousness among the working class, to create our own. (We also found 4) must have the potential to build a that no organizations in Phoenix fully dual power, 5) must actively push the acknowledged the radical potential of development of a feminist praxis, and 6) immigration struggles, so we also built a should stretch the boundaries of politi- Repeal chapter there.) cal organizing. If a struggle does not The Repeal Coalition is a grass- meet these criteria, members will have a roots, all-volunteer organization that difficult time persuading other members seeks the repeal of all anti-immigrant that they should be involved in it. legislation in Arizona. We demand the For example, in 2007 Ruckus freedom of all people to live, love, and comrades in Arizona, after much debate work wherever they please, and for and discussion, decided that immigra- the right for all people to have a say in tion struggles have the most potential those affairs that affect their daily life. to create a dual power in the state. In The organization, founded in 2008, has our study of the Arizona immigrant fought the notoriously racist law known rights movement, we judged that the as SB 1070 and dozens of other anti- fundamental demand of undocumented immigrant laws in the state through people and their allies is not citizen- grassroots organizing. Repeal’s organiz- ship but the freedom to live, love, ing strategy has two parts. The first is and work wherever they pleased, and our noncompliance campaign, in which that this demand cannot be co-opted we urge individuals and businesses to by global capital. Global capital needs publicly refuse to abide by SB 1070 and on anarchist theory 37 all other anti-immigrant laws. The sec- registration drives during the civil rights ond is to develop the radical potential movement in the U.S., is a reform that of young people by creating “Freedom challenges the pillars of the capitalist Schools” that teach them how to create system itself. Repeal is a strategy to grassroots campaigns of their own, such defeat nativism, break up whites’ dis- as demanding ethnic studies programs torted class consciousness, and organize at their school. (Ethnic studies programs Arizona workers on a class basis rather were banned in Arizona in 2010.) These than a racial one. It seeks to bring work- campaigns, we hope, will pit young ers who are white and of color together radicals against the powers that be in a to fight their bosses. It seeks to improve struggle they can win and build on. the organizing capabilities of the world- We talk to people in their homes, wide working class by struggling against hold mass meetings, organize protests, the borders among them (literal and teach people about their rights, and otherwise), and to get more and more hold open meetings every week. Our whites to recognize that their interests goal is to repeal SB 1070 and other lie with undocumented workers and nativist legislation. Even more, we seek other workers of color, not with white to create a third pole in the immigra- democracy. tion debate. Right now the debate is As David Bacon notes in his limited to nativists who scream, “Kick book Illegal People, the goal of nativ- them all out!” and liberals who want to ism is to depoliticize undocumented exploit people first and then kick most workers. Nativist laws like SB 1070 of them out, providing a path of citizen- are designed to silence undocumented ship for a few. (This is sometimes called people, their families, and their allies. “comprehensive immigration reform.”) “Comprehensive immigration reform” Repeal is trying to inject a third, radical, is designed to exploit their labor while and common-sense position: In a world denying them political power. The in which TVs, t-shirts, and technical antidote is to politicize undocumented support recognize no borders, humans people and their allies by getting them shouldn’t have to either. Everyone involved in grassroots politics. For the deserves the freedom to live, love, and active participation of the working class work where they please. (This is the slo- always portends the possibility of open gan of the Repeal Coalition.) If we can class struggle. The dual power. change the debate in Arizona, we think, Ruckus members see Repeal as we can change it nationwide. a mass organization that has a better One could argue that Repeal is a chance to bring about a dual power “reformist” group, in that we seek the situation in Arizona than any other cur- repeal of laws (though we don’t go to rent struggle. Yet Repeal is not a Ruckus the courts or legislatures to do so, but front group. Non-BTR members also to the streets). But this criticism fails to helped found Repeal, and Ruckus has see the radical potential of this struggle, always been a minority presence in a potential that a dual power strategy Repeal. Some BTR members have taken recognizes. The repeal of nativist laws, on leadership roles, but that is a result like the supposedly “reformist” struggle of our commitment to the group (and, for the ten-hour working day in nine- to be honest, to our privileged status as teenth century England or the voting documented people), not vanguardism. 38 Perspectives

If we lead in Repeal it is because we and that fights for the freedom of all people earned leadership, not because we pre- to live, love, and work wherever they please. sumed it. He has been a member of two cadre orga- Ruckus members discuss Repeal nizations over the past twenty years, the at BTR meetings in order to discuss Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist strategy and tactics. We help keep Federation and currently Bring the Ruckus. Repeal alive during lulls in the struggle. He is also the author of The Abolition of We encourage political discussion in White Democracy (University of Minnesota Repeal meetings. In particular, we try Press) and is currently writing a book on fa- to help Repeal members see the inter- naticism in the American political tradition. national nature of their struggle (i.e. the immigration struggle is not limited to Arizona or even the U.S.) and its radical nature (i.e. it goes beyond the quest for citizenship or just taking care of one’s family but toward transforming society). The task of revolutionaries is to develop this “praxis,” this combination of cadre work and mass organizing. Revolutionaries need both kinds of organizations. That way, when a crisis hits and people take to the streets, they will be experienced, they will have the respect of important sectors of the working class, and they will be able to show to the working class the truly international and radical nature of their struggle. When the weak spots of global capital are exposed, in other words, radicals need to be ready to hit them—hard. notes 1 Some members of Ruckus identify as anarchists, others as communists, some as both, and some as neither. We believe that the old arguments between communists and anarchists are largely irrelevant today— though as an anarchist, let me just say that our side was right in those old debates. About the Author Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Big Bang » Coalition, a grassroots group seeking the Josh MacPhee drawing, 2002 repeal of all anti-immigrant laws in Arizona

“People ask us ‘how is it you can be a movement — how can you achieve your objectives with no weapons?’ This is not entirely true. We have political education; a critically thinking mass is our best, our most powerful weapon.” —MST cultural organizer Matto Grosso do Sul, 2004

“In revolutionary times, the masks drop very quickly — people learn in minutes what might otherwise take a lifetime to figure out. In pre-revolutionary times, it is like we are walking through a thick fog. why must we Here in Brazil, we have had over 400 years of pre-revolutionary times.” be small? —Marta Harnecker, speaking on the importance of political development in reflections Brazil on political development and cultural work in alking through brazil’s landless fog... movement I was in WGuararema, just a half hour outside the sprawling concrete city of São tamara lynne Paulo, days before the grand opening of the first MST public university, the National School of Florestan Fernandes. The workers were all members of the Movimento Sem-Terra (MST), Brazil’s Landless Movement. These volunteers from across the country were still placing the final bricks. Rows of school desks littered the surrounding patios, topsy turvy, ready for the classrooms to open. Men and women of all ages were spraying mud off the concrete, dumping buckets of water and scrub- « Support the MST bing the open floors with stiff brooms. Katie Burkart (taken from the Land & Globalization I stood in line for morning coffee with poster set produced by the Street Art my comrades in the Culture Sector of Workers), 2006 this immense movement. The Culture 42 Perspectives

Sector was one of the newest aspects of that Seattle offered, we had once again the movement, and its members were slipped into a fog. tasked with creating art, music, theatre, We were now facing two wars, a and cultural programming that inspired climate of increased political repression members, supported the movement, after 9/11, and a new wave of anti- and encouraged the critical thinking immigrant hysteria. As if these political and political development of its base. challenges were not enough, I could see I was grateful to have been invited to attitudes within our organizations that leave my studies in São Paulo and tag impeded the possibility of attracting along to help develop the mística, the a broader range of participants to the important opening performance of this struggle, and kept us certain about our historic occasion. Sleepily, I waited for identity as a small, insular group. There strong sweet coffee and squishy bread, were ongoing practices that tended to and looked down the hill at the school squash lively and insightful political in a daze. discussion. Among the obstacles were ° ° ° a tendency towards sectarianism, I had gone to Brazil because I a dogmatic approach to political wanted to see what it was like to be part analysis, a disconnect between theory of a mass social movement, and what and practice, and an elitist attitude to do here in the US to make such a regarding political development, which movement more likely. It was 2004, reinforced hierarchy based on class and and I’d grown weary of comrades in the educational background within the US quoting Margaret Mead: “a small group - effectively silencing many with group of dedicated citizens can change different class, educational, or cultural the world.” The frequent reference had backgrounds. become a kind of conciliatory slogan - a Having run into these roadblocks reassurance, perhaps, of our own sig- within political organizing, my own nificance - despite our small numbers. work had turned to the question of More importantly, the phrase seemed to political development and cultural cover up or excuse the real limitations work. As a theatre artist, I was drawn in our political, educational, organizing to a form of popular theatre that origi- work, and our failure to attract larger nated in Brazil, known as Theatre of the numbers to engage in anti-capitalist Oppressed. Like the radical pedagogy of struggle. My question was, “why must Paulo Freire, the participatory theatre we be so small?” of Augusto Boal seeks to fundamentally By this time, the momentum from alter social relationships, and to shift the the 1999 Battle of Seattle - which had balance of power between teacher and politicized me and thousands of other student, actor and audience, leadership young activists - had faded, leaving and base. It is a form of theatre that many feeling burnt out or paralyzed. invites reflection and action. Others had become more firmly en- The power of Theatre of the trenched in sectarian debates, which Oppressed is based on a similar idea were taken up by an ever-shrinking of praxis, the concept that theory and circle of the very well-educated. It felt practice are necessarily connected and like after the sharp crack of clarity part of the same thing. Through simple on anarchist theory 43 activities, participants engage ideas of and where the leadership saw its prima- power and reflect on their own lived ry task as the development of a critically experiences of it. This reflection then thinking base. I’d believed this was determines future action. possible, but it was not enough to know In one activity, two people work that. When I got an invitation to visit in pairs as one puts their face within six Brazil’s Central West to see how theatre inches of their partner’s upraised hand. and cultural work was part of the MST The ‘following’ partner is led around organizing, I knew I would have to go the room in a particular way and in a in order to experience it for myself. particular pattern that suits the leading partner. This activity invites dialogue Political Education vs. about the ways people typically cope Political Development— with power, the strategies they employ We are not a head without for gaining it back, and the ways in a body which people unknowingly give up their power. It might invite deeper reflection The Portuguese word for ‘to know’ on the dynamics of a worker dealing (saber) has the same root of the word ‘to with her boss, a disempowered partner taste’ (saborear). in an unbalanced romantic relationship, In the MST, the term ”political a student dealing with a teacher, or even education” is not frequently used and the relationship between those who is looked upon with some suspicion. In make international trade agreements — Brazil, the word “education” connotes and the unquestioned way that entire the idea of filling the head with facts, countries follow without questioning information, analysis, and theory. This the arrangement. The effectiveness of notion of filling the heads of the people such techniques lies in their ability to with facts and theories, without concern link people’s lived experiences of op- for the rest of their bodies, minds, and pression with more abstract political spirits, is an unpopular idea among concepts. This opens up political dia- members of the MST and the commu- logue that does not depend on strictly nity at large. academic knowledge and creates a space Instead, the phrase ”formação where everyone, regardless of academic politica” translates roughly to political background, is invited to engage in development. It does not mean forma- political debate. tion in the sense that participants are The summer before I left for formed like clay into obedient foot Brazil, I’d had the chance to hear a soldiers, carrying out the actions and national leader of the MST speak on holding firm the ideologies of a particu- the topic of political development lar political analysis - quite the opposite, and its connection to participatory in fact. Political development and criti- decision-making. I knew I wanted to see cal thinking are seen as the antidote to a vibrant movement with decentralized entrenched sectarian dogma. leadership, that was able to make quick Effective political development and participatory decisions, where the is a process to link these two forms national political leaders had started of knowledge; it’s what makes reflec- with only an eighth grade education, tive, critically engaged action possible. 44 Perspectives

Systemized knowledge incorporates a to move me. The visceral experience of large body of material: publications, physical resistance brought back a flood analysis, books, and philosophy classes of memories relating to my experiences that study Marx, Hegel. This includes and sense of power. I was stunned. In study at all levels, from pre-literate to about thirty seconds, my understand- those pursuing advanced university ing of myself and my potential power degrees. Experiential knowledge is the had been completely transformed, and set of experiences found or discovered a few hours later I was helping to pull in the lives of all people and the un- together an affinity group that later derstanding that they know (whether went to Seattle. No teach-in, no books they realize it or not) in great detail the or notebooks, no academic discussion way the capitalist system works, and could have accomplished what thirty the points at which it has exploited seconds of action told me about my them, traumatized them, and limited, own power and its connection to why blocked, or frustrated their deepest we were resisting the WTO. dreams and aspirations over the course However, post-WTO, the process- of a lifetime. While systemized knowl- es of political development I observed edge uses books, lectures, and diagrams, appeared to focus on information. There experiential knowledge is best tapped was an attitude that if people simply by processes of popular education, art, had the correct information, they would participatory theatre, and cultural work. see clearly what to do and take action. The intention of such popular methods This view misses the point that most is to engage, encourage and activate people feel powerless most of the time, the processes of critical thinking that their experiences of themselves and their have been dormant after long years of world are often submerged, and that adaptation to the capitalist system and many people do not have enough sense its ideology. of their own power to speak up in the This expansive view of political face of injustices in their daily lives, let development engages not only intellect, alone in the face of unjust international but also the whole body of participants: trade agreements. the senses, the emotions, the experi- Those who had gone to Seattle ences, the dreams, hopes, desires, and had been transformed by the lived fears; and the cultural, the subjective, experience of that struggle, the state the personal. repression of police on the streets and I see this as evident in regard to in the jails. However, for thousands my own entry into political activism. who did not have this opportunity, we I’d stumbled into a training where as a movement did not know how to activists were practicing nonviolent make the connections clear between resistance in preparation for the WTO people’s own sense of power and lived protests. I’d been about to leave, when experiences of oppression and the global a stranger called over to me and invited economic system. me to ‘practice resistance’ with his small group. Reluctantly, I set down my backpack and clamped down on the floor as four people tried unsuccessfully on anarchist theory 45

Example: Work, Struggle, for there is no work. And education is Education - at the School of out of reach to us without struggle.” Florestan Fernandes The discussion continued, as each person drew from his or her own I’d already been in Brazil for sever- experiences of work, education, and al months when I was invited to attend struggle, to try to come up with a logi- the opening of the School of Florestan cal sequence for these important points. Fernandes. I was excited to see this new It occurred to me that even within MST university, which would provide this movement of people with similar a central location where people from conditions, a tremendous diversity of all over Brazil - and from social move- experiences and perspectives brought ments around the world - might come each of them here to this moment. and study. The university was named for Different relationships to work, strug- a well-known activist and educator in gle, and education meant that each had Brazil, a contemporary of Paulo Freire different ideas about the way critical who committed his intellectual life to consciousness happens. the development of critical thinking of It was revealing to realize how his students. many different ways MST activists had The opening mística, which we’d entered the movement, and the ways been asked to create, was a participatory people developed a critical conscious- performance that tells the story of the ness of their circumstances. There is no current events of the movement in the single recipe. Alessa, living just outside context of its past, present, and future. the city, had grown up working the It can be a powerful way of demonstrat- land. Sharp as a tack, she had no way ing to the larger masses in visual form to get to university as she could not the reasoning behind the ‘current con- pass the tests with upper middle class jecture’ or present analysis; its creation bias in language and cultural references. was an important assignment. It was Junho was from an indigenous family, also an important process of political and grew up on the border of Paraguay, development for its members. speaking Guarani. His family joined Fifteen or so activists gathered to the movement after many, many times discuss the topic at hand, and the given being forced off their land. Another theme: Work, Struggle, Education. It MST militant, Claudio, tall and blond, seemed obvious that the task was to was a student studying theatre in the show the struggle of the movement, city but became bored and disillusioned the work done by hundreds of MST with the limitations of his study. Not residents to build the school, and the seeing a future beyond, he joined the creation of the school opening up the movement for the opportunity to create possibility of education to thousands. theatre that inspired him. Anna’s family The following dialogue ensued. moved to the North when an under- “First you work, and then you handed government campaign moved struggle for education.” poor Brazilian families to farm the “No, first you must educate, and Amazon region. This was a way to pave then struggle. Only after that does the the way for large corporations to buy work begin.” the land after the farms fail. After strug- “No, struggle must happen first, gling for years and facing near-death 46 Perspectives by starvation, she found her way into a multi-layered and lifelong political the movement and traveled here to the development process. Central West to reclaim land. Now she acts as medicine woman for the camp, Example: Reading Circles awaiting settlement. She practices the and Theatre in medicine she learned in the North to Matto Grosso do Sul heal the sick, and showed me the herbs she grows that ward off the symptoms After having spent several months of starvation in a region so desolate in the camps with my friends in the that people eat dirt to alleviate their Culture Sector, I’d been invited to be suffering. part of the organizing efforts for the It is clear that there are many National March for Land Reform, an different reasons people might join ambitious march of 10,000 people over a movement and choose to struggle 20 days, and an enormous challenge against capitalism. Some join for food, for the movement. We were asked to shelter, and greater security. Some join organize a series of theatre brigades for opportunities not found elsewhere, for the occasion, and the group had like the opportunity for land or for already met for a week in Goias. There, starting a farm. Others join to fulfill cultural workers from six of the states their dreams of a more expansive life, in the Central West spent a week creat- or for the creative potential that comes ing theatre, puppets, music and even from collective struggle. Still others doing early morning acrobatics. Never join out of intense desire for education in my life had I met activists willing to and intellectual fulfillment that is frus- wake up before 6 am, even before the trated by the exclusive closed doors of morning coffee, in order to practice Brazilian universities. acrobatics. Many had been up late into One of the successes of the MST the night studying philosophy and po- is that it has found ways of bringing litical economy. in all the different sectors of society Now, seven of us had returned who desire change, who come to the to the Central West to strengthen our movement for different reasons, all the brigade, to rehearse theatre that would reasons that the capitalist system does entertain and activate marchers as they not meet their needs. Capitalism limits rested each night, and would engage us not only on a physical, survival level, the residents of the towns we passed but it also binds our intellectual pos- through on the way. sibilities and our creative dreams. As Just after morning coffee, all mem- artists and intellectuals, we too have a bers of the Culture Sector met for study. personal stake in ending capitalism; un- Little pamphlets were passed out, “The der capitalism we will always be bound. Situation of Land in Brazil.” I could see The success of the MST is not daunted expressions on a number of the simply in its commitment to bring- dusty faces of the workers as the books ing people into the movement, but to were handed out. We were divided into keeping them engaged, keeping them five groups and each given a section to in the struggle once their basic survival read out loud. needs are met. The MST manages to Our group circled up, and we do this through their commitment to each took a paragraph of reading. For on anarchist theory 47 a few members of the group, the read- In addition, the development of ing was easy; but several struggled to five new plays would further the reach sound out the longer words. There were of this political education process from frowns of concentration and at times, a a group of five to a mass of hundreds, general sense of puzzlement. After each if not thousands over the course of the paragraph, there was a brief discussion march. Such a process shifts the par- where participants could ask each other ticipants, regardless of literacy level or questions, or comment on the content. previous political experience, from pas- I could see a brightening of faces, as one sive subjects in their learning to leaders. worker realized that the farm his family Now, as creators of the material, they had lost had been bought by one of the are responsible for helping to educate international corporations and was now a much larger mass. Such processes of growing soybeans for the US and Japan, political development redistribute pow- instead of the black and red beans that er that has been lost over a lifetime. As fed most Brazilian families. participants become creators of the ma- Once we’d finished reading our terial, they break the cycle of passivity, section, it was time for the theatre. dormancy - a necessary step of political Immediately, people were engaged, development for people who faced years moving around, animated, trying out or a lifetime of being silenced. ideas of how to show this information To be clear - there was nothing to the larger group. ‘dumbed down’ about this process. The A half hour later when we circled question of how to develop theatre that up again with the other four groups, simply and effectively communicates we had a total of five new theatre pieces ideas to a mass is a task that requires that demonstrated the situation of land even the most politically ‘advanced’ to in Brazil, and twenty-five new lead- think quickly on their feet, to respond ers - of all different levels of education with clarity to questions and confusion, - who’d been part of creating this mate- and to struggle to determine the most rial, which would be used to educate the effective ways to relate material to the masses about the purpose of the march. larger world. This method of participatory education was effective political educa- Bringing it Back tion for all levels of literacy and political consciousness. It activated all members In the US, I’d run into frustrations and got them on their feet and moving as I tried to incorporate experiential with the material. It allowed those with knowledge and the systemized knowl- more political experience and critical edge of political theory that many fellow awareness to offer leadership in the activists seemed to have easily at hand. process, by offering suggestions and I deeply wanted to connect to the theo- asking questions. It put the material in retical work, and engage in the political the words and movements of all people, debates that help frame the question regardless of education. By using their of what to do; however, I had not yet metaphors, their language, the plays had found an effective way to do this. After energy and a sense of humor that would working to develop processes of politi- speak to those living in the camps and cal education for others like myself, I’d the broader community. been told, perhaps only half-jokingly, 48 Perspectives

“First, read all these notebooks. Then, this?” There was also strong opposition maybe someday we can talk theory.” to the large notebook/flip-chart where I This kind of seemingly innocent had jotted down notes from the discus- chauvinism was commonplace within a sion for all to read. As a visual learner circle of activists that perhaps, on some myself, I found it helpful to write key level, wanted to stay small and elitist. It ideas as a way to follow an otherwise seemed to keep safe a certain number of chaotic and long-winded debate. I was ‘experts’ in the field of political theory told that flipchart notebooks where too (who tended to be men and to be white) ‘bourgeois’ for our organization. and relegated those doing actual on-the- I was stunned that a few simple ground organizing in the community changes to process faced such opposi- (often women, and in a broader sense, tion and controversy. It is clear that people of color) to some sort of second- strong resistance to alternative methods ary intellectual status. Perhaps there of discussion or political development was the underlying assumption that on- says something essential about a par- the-ground organizing - the very thing ticular culture, and begs the question that contributes to one’s experiential ‘what’s the problem?’ There are a num- knowledge of struggle - does not require ber of possibilities and cultural realities the same kind of intellectual capacity, that might explain why this is a cultural for example, the capacity to understand problem, particularly for predominantly abstract thought or interpret theory, white groups. I had not run into the as does the intellectual and theoretical same obstacles in the organizing I’d seen work of publishing papers and journals. within immigrant communities. For many of us who were less confident For many activists in the US, the academically, it was too easy to accept cultural obstacles might relate to the this sense of ‘secondary’ status in rela- historical connection between social tion to political debate, to devalue our movements and universities - a place language and the experiences gained where many white US activists have from organizing. When faced with arro- been politicized, and where a number gance of our more academic comrades, of important social movements have it was easier to withdraw our comments emerged. In recent years, working class from the political debate and focus people with relatively new access to instead on our organizing work. The universities have gained the power of result was an increasingly entrenched academic language to describe political disconnect between political theory and realities. Also, the history of settlement political practice. in the US is culturally different than Simple chauvinism wasn’t the only a historically Catholic country such the obstacle. When facilitating a politi- as Brazil, and the Protestant cultural cal conference a number of years ago, I impulse has a specific tendency to had asked participants to break up into separate the head from the body, so to small groups to more thoroughly discuss speak. Disconnect from the body and a topic at hand - in their own manner, the emotions is key in this historical of course. There was immediate resis- context, a connection which is essential tance, with perspectives ranging from in order to explore alternate methods “But I want to hear what everyone says,” of tapping into people’s experiential to “Why are you dividing us up like knowledge. on anarchist theory 49

In addition to these possibilities, I genuine political development. So do believe that strong resistance to alterna- those within the movement who may tive methods of political development have an easier time ‘learning’ the domi- may indicate an underlying impulse for nant analysis of the group rather than those with higher levels of education developing their own critical thinking to control the outcome of the political abilities to contribute to that analysis, discussion. As long as those with more or develop their own. Ultimately, this education, those seen as the intellectual limits the ability of the group to develop leadership, are present to express their a comprehensive analysis that prepares views, and as long as methods of politi- for effective action. cal education remain unchanged, those If political analysis had no way with less formal political education will of being informed by the actual issues always be slightly suppressed and the and experiences faced by members of internal hierarchy of the organization or the community, and if the theory has movement will remain intact. no way of offering assistance, insight, Therefore, the idea of talking ‘all and relevant direction for those who together’ really means: let those who are are working to organize a community more confident, educated, and who are politically, then it becomes nothing seen as leaders discuss the topic. Those more than an academic exercise. There with less confidence, formal education, is nothing necessarily wrong with this or who are less pushy are invited to - but it should not be called politics; it listen and learn - in a passive way - the should be called academics. views of those with more social, educa- Confusing academics with a po- tional, and political power. litical development creates a disconnect Interestingly, it is not only those between theory and practice, which in intellectual leadership who may resist severely limits effective political engage- more participatory forms of political ment, both in terms of developing a dialogue. A number of years ago, a complete and comprehensive analysis, friend was organizing a conference here and in terms of taking effective political in the US. When asking the participants action. to form small groups to discuss a topic In Brazil, the idea of the current in more detail, he faced objections - not conjecture, or present analysis, emerges only from the leadership but from one from both systemized knowledge: facts of the participants who seemed most and figures about agriculture in Brazil, eager to learn. “But what if the person political theory, philosophy, and an who knows the right answer isn’t in our understanding of history, but also from group?” they said, in panic. The concept the popular education work in the of one or two people having the “right camps, the lived experiences of ordinary answer” is at odds with the idea of a workers and their understanding of how collectively developed analysis that is capitalism works. There is a saying, “if based on participants’ own experiences you are not with the people, then you are and understanding of constantly chang- against them.” ing conditions. Without the perspective of the Clearly, it is not only those in masses, something constantly in flux, political leadership who may resist the analysis of the moment is yet in- the difficult, often frustrating work of complete, insufficient, and inadequate 50 Perspectives to determine an effective course of conditions of political development action. This is quite different from the processes of anti-capitalist movements idea that a small group of people can around the world. study and know what is needed to be It was time to start. The violin done to liberate society. began to play, and participants in the mística emerged from the sidelines with Back in Guararema... hammers and carrying bricks. Young and old, they began their procession As the guests arrived at the across the plenary stage, and the first of School of Florestan Fernandes, there three banners unfolded. was a buzz of excitement. Members of social movements from all over Brazil, South America, Cuba, India, France, about the author Germany, and many more countries Tamara Lynne is an activist, theatre artist took their leisurely coffee, then made and cultural worker, and founder of Living their way down to sit at the student Stages, a company committed to interactive desks, now lined up in tidy rows inside theatre for community dialogue, reflection, an enormous circus-like tent. Half a and action. www.livingstages.org. dozen translators tested their equip- ment, while the Culture Sector opened up their banners. A young girl stood with a violin, as the participants in the mística took their places. I did not know what to expect for the three days of study that opened the school, a program called ‘Political Development for Militants,’ but when I looked down at the program, I smiled. The MST organizers -who are seen internationally as leaders in the area of political development and education - had not created a program that in- structed participants the correct way to do political development. Instead, the program listed presenters from around the world, each prepared to share her or his own experiences of political education in the context of their own countries, their own cultures, their own struggles. They would offer examples of successes, failures, and the objective and subjective political conditions that gen- erated their methods. There was a sense that somewhere in the conversations, in this space of hundreds, there would be a new understanding of the current e were in Bogota at Processes for Black WCommunities’ (PCN) national meeting this past February. Our goal was to connect with people from different regions in Colombia, to possibly link with PCN members later on in our trip. We also were there to share and draw connec- Interview: tions with the work that the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Take Back Afro-colombian the Land Movement are engaged in in New York City. We also informed folks anarchist of the current situation many New Afrikans/Black people are faced with in the United States, in relation to discrim- david lópez ination, criminalization, displacement, and lack of access to jobs/resources, etc. rodríguez Our goal was to try to build solid bonds with people and figure out ways that we lisa manzanilla & could not only learn from folks there, but also to think through ways that we brandon king could concretely support one another through engaging in active solidarity. David López was actually our first contact from PCN. We met him in Medellín before the national meeting. There, David explained the problems Afro-Colombians were having in terms of their claims to ancestral lands, and shared information about Law 70 of 1993, which grants Black communities collective rights on ancestral land. He also gave an anarchist explanation for its contradictory element. Even though this law has been passed, mass displacement has continued as the law is not 52 Perspectives enforced. We talked about how even mid-February of 2010, we also partici- though the laws aren’t recognized, still pated in an expanded meeting of the having something on paper shows much PCN National Coordination Team further progress than Black people have with a PCN Working Group of Valle made in the US in regard to “legiti- de Aburrá (Medellín) where I live with mate” claims to ancestral lands. my companion, Gladyz Amu, also a In Bogota, we wanted to follow- descendent of Afrolibertarios, and our up on the conversation, and also to three children - Julián, Juan and Rafael. document it, so that we could share his I am currently part of the PCN National views, and the work that PCN does, Coordination Team in support of the with more people. PCN Working Group of Magdalena Medio and the Valle de Aburrá. I am [Translated from Spanish by Brandon King, also working on two projects with Lisa Manzanilla, and Monika Ramnath.] Black communities in the port of Buenaventura on the Colombian Pacific. David Lopez Rodriguez: I was born in Barrancabermeja in the Magdalena On Law 70 Medio region of Colombia 56 years ago, of Zambo (mixed indigenous and Law 70 of 1993 was an initiative of Afrikan ancestry) maternal grandparents Black organizations in the Colombian who were farmers and fisher folk in the Pacific supported by Black militants of low water regions of the Rio Grande of Palenque San Basilio (near Cartagena on the Magdalena. I am an anthropologist the Caribbean coast) and of a minority from the University of Antioquia in of afro-activists from cities like Cali, Medellín and started working on proj- Medellín, Bogotá, among others. In the ects in the Pacific southwest in 1985. 1991 Colombian Constituent Assembly, Beginning in 1990, I was working with with the support of indigenous con- afro-leaders on the dissemination of stituents, some of the M-19 Democratic Transitory Article 55 (TA 55)1 of the Alliance Movement and independents Colombian constitution of 1991 in the won approval of TA 55, by which it ten municipalities of the Pacific Coast recognized the Black communities in the department of Nariño, and the of Colombia as an ethnic group and negotiation process of Law 70 or the ordered that no later than in two years “law of Black communities” between to enact a “law of Black communities” them and the Colombian government. in Colombia that would enable the Since July 2004, I made my of- collective titling of lands of Black com- ficial link with PCN in Colombia, who munities in rural areas bordering the were those who I was mainly working Pacific basin according to their tradition- with since 1990 and this integration al production practices and other areas was through the Colectivo Libertarios of the country of similar conditions. It Afromagdalénicos - Afrolibertarios also ordered that the law develop rules from Barrancabermeja. In the PCN on the protection of identity and the National Assembly of 2007 in Cali, we social and economic development of participated with Afrolibertarios in the Black communities across the country. PCN Working Group of Magdalena This triggered an extensive and Medio, which we helped to form. In intensive social mobilization of Black on anarchist theory 53 communities throughout the Colombian possibility of nourishing itself from Pacific, primarily, and ultimately led to anarchism in order to understand this the enactment of the law on August 27, problematic. 1993 by the Colombian government. Starting with the historic stance Simultaneously, with the enactment of anarchism, of no or the negation of of the law came the privatization of the state, such as that proposed by the COLPUERTOS (state owned company bourgeoisie and capitalism, and also - Colombian Ports) in Buenaventura, finally by some sectors of the prole- and megaproject capitalists backed by the tariat [sic]. That has been a constant paramilitary—a concerted and calculated element of anarchism that has a lot to strategy of the State—began the process do with the Black movement, the afro- of harassing Black communities of the descendants; because since the tribes Colombian Pacific coast. In the last 25 in Africa, when the elders were forced years, Colombia has nearly five million over here to America, there already displaced with a high percentage being existed laws, there already existed ways Afro-Colombians from the Colombian of organizing long before the nation- Pacific, the Caribbean mainland, state, and precisely as an ethnic group, Magdalena Medio, Urabá, Bajo Cauca, as a Black people, there is a difference and northeast Antioquia, all areas of with the state. The state corresponds to which have a large Afro-Colombian pop- another logic and although [the Black ulation. They have largely been forced movement] recognizes a great power in to Bogotá, Capital District and major the state and therefore the need to relate Colombian cities like Cali, Medellín, with it, to mediate with it, this can not Barranquilla, Cartagena, Bucaramanga, signify that all the action of the Black and Pereira among others. The current movement is based around the state, it situation is so grave and delicate given can not neglect its own internal logic the extreme violation of the rights of which has much to do with the prin- the Black ethnic group of Colombia as ciple of autonomy. evidenced by forced displacement, that Now in the specific case of your the Colombia’s Constitutional Court question, in this context when the state ruled the sentence T025 of 2004, which grants through its laws, from within an- defines the “State of Unconstitutional archism it’s possible to ask, “but what or Affairs.” Given the increasingly severe which state is it that gives those laws?” evolution of this situation, in 2009 the And there are distinct analy- Constitutional Court, in reviewing the ses. One of those, for example, is failure of the sentence T 025, issued a the conception of the state which is new mandate called Auto 005,2 setting not exclusively the apparatus or the precise responsibilities and determining organizational structure. This is the or- State deadlines. Two years later, the situ- ganizational expression of the state, but ation continues to be one of neglect on the state is ultimately fed by something the part of the Colombian State. qualitative, which is the social relationship of capital, as those analyses suggest. On the contradictions of Law 70 Here it is very important to differ- entiate this category from the element Anarchism has much to offer in this of money which within Marxist critique part, and the Black movement has the of political economy, which argues that 54 Perspectives capital is not strictly money. Money is a social relations of capitalism. That is result of a social relationship that makes precisely what is devouring us, what is this possible, and we recognize the killing other cultural logics. It’s like an contradictions between Marxists and explanation in part to, let’s say, why an- anarchists, but we also know that there archism, the contribution of anarchism is a culture of anarcho-communism that even reinforces and gives support and that there are some elements we do to Marxist analysis [as an explanation to observe there, some similarities in the the contradictory element of Law 70]. middle of the controversy and the debate that has been presented historically, and perhaps this [element] is one of the notes important ones. 1 Transitory Article that recognizes Returning to the point, capital collective land rights for Black communities, is not metal, it’s a social relationship plus protecting cultural identity and the pro- between one human group that exploits moting economic and social development. another. This model of social relations 2 Protection of fundamental rights of generates the accumulation of wealth; people of African descent, victims of forced the accumulation of wealth is the result. displacement under the unconstitutional So in that sense, the characterization of T-025. the state, not only as an apparatus, as a repressive apparatus, as an economic For more information on the chronology of apparatus, as an educative apparatus, Law 70 see: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/ as an ideological apparatus, not only docid/469f387bc.html. as that, the state is an expression of the social relationship of capital. From that analysis, from that support how will about the interviewers it be possible, one would ask, that the Brandon King is a community organizer and social relationship of capital which is cultural worker, a member of Malcolm X exploitive, alienating, homogenizing, Grassroots Movement, Take Back the Land will recognize in its laws other cultural Movement, and a former organizer with logics, other ways, that have other sensi- Picture the Homeless. He is a New Afrikan bilities? This is a contradiction. anarchist who is a part of the Anarchist So it all depends on how well we People of Color (APOC) network. understand the state to be able to weigh Lisa Manzanilla is a xicana, radical and calibrate its own laws, and in this librarian, musician, and capoeirista. She is sense in general anarchism contributes part of APOC and the Northeast Climate to this reading. In other words, we obvi- Confluence Network. She has volunteered ously need to work with the laws of the with Books through Bars, NYC Radical state because of the great power that Reference, and No More Deaths. it has, and the necessity to concretize things on the short term for example, but that can not lead us to interpret or understand that within [the state] there is a solution to our problems. That [understanding] will resolve, even within Marxism it resolves, the n the fall of 2009, a call was put out for communities to self-organize People’s Movement IAssemblies leading up to the US Social Forum in Detroit the following summer. Led by Project South, the Southwest Workers’ Union and others, this call was answered by over 100 assemblies before and during the US Social Forum. One group who answered Interview: the call was Creating Democracy, a movement building organization based creating out of Portland, Oregon. Creating Democracy brought together 26 groups democracy to participate in a People’s Movement Assembly (PMA) in Portland. In this with chris interview, we discuss movement building and the Portland PMA with one of borte the co-founders of Creating Democracy. What are some of the common challenges lara messersmith- that you see us facing, as a movement? glavin That gets exactly to the right question that I think many of us are asking ourselves. Why aren’t we moving forward faster? For me, probably one of the highest points of the work I’ve done was organizing to shut down the WTO in Seattle in 1999. And even to this day, I feel like the strong lesson I learned from that was…what a direct action can look like and what mobilization - for a moment in time - can look like. What we didn’t have and what we’re still not doing well is doing movement building, taking something like organizing against the WTO and maintaining it, sustaining 56 Perspectives it, and building organizations that grow, conceding nothing without demand is rather than having this huge upswelling true, and it can’t be just the demand of and really great organizing leading up to a one-time direct action; it has to be the it, but then having no structure or no way demand of a large-scale, mass movement to hold people and keep them engaged. that has participation from ordinary folks, [What] we’re missing are com- from all walks of life, not just a college munity organizing skills. Community educated, group of friends. It has to be organizing is an absolutely key com- large and extend out. ponent to movement building. You can’t have a movement without com- Who were some of your role models that munity organizing practice, but the you think people were using for the WTO people who do community organizing organizing? now are mostly contained in non-profits. Whether they have great politics or not, It’s amazing [that] the most recent book the organizations are mostly are oriented in the [AK Press/Institute for Anarchist to more short-term reforms and elections. Theory Anarchist Interventions] book (I want to say that acknowledging and series, Oppose and Propose! by Andy giving due respect knowing they are the Cornell, was on Movement for a New role models for the community organiz- Society because…when I found out about ing work we need to learn from.) Also I MNS I was really inspired, and I came think there are lots of great community to find out that many of the institutions organizers…who don’t have democratic where I learned my politics and some of practice as a central focus. You can do my early organizing experience, like Food decent community organizing without Not Bombs, came through the upsurge having democratic practice. I think you of anarchist infoshops and organizing can do better community organizing and that happened in the ‘90s that traces back will build better, stronger movements if to people who came out of MNS. [For they are more democratic. example,] David Solnit, who was a men- It is useful to talk about what exists tor, Katya Komisaruk, Mike E, Asante today as a movement, and I think it is Riverwind, Dana, Lisa, all playing key useful to say that we have a movement, roles in the direct action in Seattle largely but it’s also different than the scale of came out of the Abalone Alliance and the Civil Rights movement. I don’t want Lawrence Livermore actions that were to say that what we have today isn’t a direct descendants of the MNS: using con- movement, but I think that maybe [we sensus, using large-scale nonviolent direct should use] different language, like “large action, but with anarchist politics woven mass movements.” When it gets to the in through it. Even my brief experience scale where it’s on the news every day, or with Earth First! at the time was heavily where the President of the United States anarchist influenced, and I feel many elder has to negotiate with people directly First!ers were also veterans of the anti-nuke because it looks like a city’s going to get movement. Even though, I wouldn’t say shut down—that’s the scale… What EF! was a direct descendant [of MNS], I we need are movements that are so big think threads ran through… and so powerful that we can really make the changes happen that we want. The Does CD identify as an anarchist Frederick Douglass quote about power organization? on anarchist theory 57

The shortest answer would be no. But I meet on the street, even within the the longer answer—more than any other workplace—the connections between tradition, I come out of the anarchist democratic practice and unions, demo- tradition… cratic practice and fighting for tuition …Around the world and through- reform, democratic practice and shutting out history, democratic practice—not the down the WTO. Those links are clear, weak “democracy” we have here in the and to me, I didn’t have to make any US—but strong, grassroots democracy ideological shifts or give up any com- has been part of all revolutions even mitment to revolution to talk about those that ended up being authoritarian democracy. revolutions—the early stages were democratic. It’s what moves individual people Following up on you identifying what some to take action - when you own it, when of the gaps are in what we’ve had since the it’s your revolution. So for me, I don’t WTO, what are some of the efforts that see a distinction between anarchism and you’ve been a part of to correct that, to be a democratic practice, but I think I’m still part of moving us forward? in the minority…. For example, a common thing to [One of the] challenges we’re facing in hear in the 90’s would be that anarchists terms of movement building and why are “anti-state.” To me, who is success- we’re not having more success in moving fully anti-state today? Well, the Tea Party justice work forward is a lack of improving and corporations. If you say, well, within and expanding our large-scale democratic socialism, anarchism is really a response practice. We know how to do small-group to the authoritarian Left, that’s fine to democratic work pretty well, and we know place it there. But it also has at least a what we don’t like about our crappy form relationship, if not a clear academic lin- of democracy in the US.. We can do large eage, that traces back to Haudenosaunee assemblies like the [US] Social Forum, democratic practice and Greek demo- or similar gatherings. But could we, as a cratic practice. Everywhere humans have movement, if we were in charge of the ever existed, you either have a small water system, run the water system in a unaccountable group of people making democratic way that was successful, that decisions, or you have people making would get people water without also giv- decisions together as a community. I feel ing them giardia? Could we work together like anarchists should see themselves as in a sustainable way and not be at each part of that tradition of humans trying other’s throats? Can we do governance? to make the world a better place…rather To me, three key things are: really looking than keeping themselves/ourselves in the at movement building in a much broader isolated group of “well, within the Left, sense, community organizing, and ex- within socialists, within the tiny group panding our democratic practice. of revolutionaries who talk about revolu- With those in mind, Creating tion on a regular basis, we’re the ones Democracy is a movement building that think that Communism didn’t go far organization, which can mean a lot of enough”…a really tiny sliver. things, but really, [we’re] trying to shine a I can talk about democratic practice light on movement building. CDs most with anyone. I can talk about it with my recent formation started about a year and conservative father-in-law, with someone a half ago, and included a small group of 58 Perspectives about 10 people who helped initiate and organizations with a base, a large mem- facilitate a People’s Movement Assembly in bership, to be in the same room with a Portland with the goal of participating in small activist group which is only repre- the national PMA as part of the US Social senting themselves, with folks from the Forum process. labor movement… Could those people There’s lots to say about USSF, get in a room and have conversation and but briefly, it’s the US part of the World try to make a decision together? We knew Social Forum process, which is both in that PMAs were supposed to bring a relationship with and distinct from the resolution or multiple resolutions to the WSF. Like the WSF, the USSF is a gather- National Assembly, and we didn’t know a ing where people on the Left, trying to lot more than that. So, we came up with make justice happen in the world, can our own model here in Portland that, as talk without necessarily having to have far as I know, no one else tried—to the the same ideology or organizations or level of detail that we tried—to make that even goals. One of the limitations people process as open and clear as it could be saw at the first USSF in 2007 in Atlanta so that we could try to actually say this was no formal discussion across organiza- group of people and these organizations tions as part of the social forum - no one agreed to these resolutions and they were actually trying to make decisions or trying brought to the USSF. to come up with a movement agenda. So, one response to that limitation was Can you describe the organizational models the efforts to use People’s Movement of the PMA and explain the assumptions on Assemblies— basically, really trying to which these models rest? either add to or push the social forum process towards saying, “yes, it’s good that In Portland, our PMA process was sup- we gather and assemble, but we also need portive of the National goals trying to to move from those assemblies towards move towards agenda setting, and also stronger collective action.” focused on trying to experiment with CD was aware that this work was “Can we do better small and large group trying to happen leading to the USSF decision making? Can we have a one-day in Detroit in 2010, so we wanted to meeting that’s meaningful by trying to participate and be part of it. The PMA do pre-work ahead of time?” [We asked] was brand new. It was being developed, groups to write resolutions a month before literally - the final process for the national the meeting and tried to get everybody to assembly was refined days before the read them so they could come together USSF actually happened, so we were ready to try to make a decision rather than a part of it, and began our organizing taking hours just trying to get on the same before we had a really clear sense of what page. It’s not feasible to have 26 groups we were plugging into, but we knew the like we had meet a lot more than a few general thrust. We also wanted to take the times a year [due to other organizational opportunity to experiment with models commitments]. [We wanted to see if we and democratic practice that we hadn’t could] do a successful one-day meeting seen before. We wanted to see [if it is] where we’ve tried to do that pre-work possible to get people from diverse parts ahead of time. [We were also] wanting of our movements together - for example, to experiment with different democratic people who are part of community decision-making processes, wanting to on anarchist theory 59 experiment with trying to bring groups conversations as ends in themselves, to together that don’t usually work together, move movement building questions for- meet together, trying to experiment with a ward, but also to stimulate interest around model that could try to gather goals, inter- the social forum and the Portland PMA ests, vision from groups ahead of time so and get people involved and try to make we could have a meaningful conversation connections. It was good for outreach and with people with widely divergent back- good for the conversation. grounds and experience in one day. What were some of the other strategies that What were some of the preparatory asks that you employed when you were going about you had, and how did you go about com- organizing the PMA, and in particular, municating that to people? reaching out to people in the community?

We had a “movement building conversa- There was a challenge because we wanted tion series” leading up to it, and the goal of to have a cross-section. We were experi- that was to both try to ask key movement menting. It wouldn’t be as useful to see building questions that we should be ask- 10 people who always talk to each other ing, like with the economic collapse that talk to each other and have a meaningful hit us recently, when we have such a great conversation, but could we really cross opportunity to have that conversation and organizational style? So we wanted to have dialogue and talk about alternatives. If we groups like Sisters of the Road, which hate capitalism, why can’t we talk articu- does community organizing [around lately about what we would do instead? homelessness and poverty] and has a base, Another key question we looked at was the work with Parasol [Climate Collective], nonprofit industrial complex - inspired by a study group—it’s a different structure, the book and conference “The Revolution and there are not many opportunities for Will Not Be Funded.” It was a great cri- groups like that to get in a room and have tique and beginning of a discussion, but a dialogue. Similarly, Jobs With Justice or left us hungry for alternatives to the 501c3 Rural Organizing Project does not have model. If I was going to start an organiza- as many opportunities to be in the same tion today that required a full time person room with BARK! [an ecodefense organi- to be dedicated to it without having some zation] to have a conversation. But one of magic inheritance or winning a lottery, the challenges for us was wanting to have you know, if you have a staff, there are not this really high quality discussion meant many model alternatives to having a 501c3 that at some point we had to actually close in order to apply for grants or accept dona- the door. It meant that if you came in tions to be able to fund that work. So even at the very last minute, you’re not going today, I think the critique of foundations to know what’s going on enough…We is great, but if I want to start a nonprofit want[ed] to have equal participation with today, how can I avoid the traps and the everyone in the room, so we set a deadline. pitfalls that were articulated in that book? You had to be registered by a month or We also had a great conversation with two months ahead of time, you have to white people doing racial justice work, have your resolutions submitted by this where we explored how our racial justice time, and then feedback for all the other work as white people was feeling stuck. We resolutions by a week before. People within wanted to have those movement building CD and outside CD, when they heard 60 Perspectives some of the standards we were setting, One major aspect to the way that this was they were like “You’re crazy. That’s never organized was that it was a consensus-based going to work—it’s way too extreme; model. Where did that decision come from, people are busy, they can’t, you know…” and what did it end up looking like? and those have real merit, those concerns and criticisms, but we couldn’t come up I think we need to try new things more with any other way [not] to have people and experiment more with democratic come in cold to the space. We wanted to practices because I do think that un- experiment—and in the end, 28 groups modified consensus and unmodified registered, the majority of the 28 groups parliamentary procedure have problems. put forward resolutions. I can’t say for The better we are at using some kind of sure how many of the groups actually read process that allows the fullest participa- the resolutions before they got there, but, tion possible, that doesn’t shut down you know, it wasn’t a complete failure. voices, that allows individuals and nu- Something like that could be done in the merical minorities to be heard and have future, and I think definitely improve- their concerns heard while still getting ments could be made, but we definitely things done—that’s also key to building had to struggle with closing that door. democratic mass movements. And so I’d There were a couple of groups that wanted say I’ve been a part of a lot of groups over to participate and we had to say no to in 10 years who assume that the process you the end. We were up against the deadline use is consensus, and equate consensus of the USSF, and if it were something process with radical politics and with where it weren’t a one-time event, [where anarchist politics, and I’ve also worked it was] part of an ongoing community with some groups who don’t see that at organizing effort, there wouldn’t have to all, groups that hate consensus. I think, be the same kind of closing. It could be to me, like the nonviolence versus vio- like, “well, this month, no, but the next lence debate, a lot of energy is spent with month’s meeting”…but that was a chal- consensus versus parliamentary procedure lenge for sure. in a way that doesn’t result in better It wasn’t just a homogeneous movement work. It can be just a very po- room. A group that presented a logistical larizing, pointless debate, unfortunately. challenge—and it was a great logistical But I think when it’s a conversation that’s challenge—and I think it went much bet- trying to look at new models, that’s when ter than it could have gone, was having a it’s more meaningful. group of Spanish-as-a-primary-language In particular, what we chose to do group, Comite de Solidaridad y Apoyo was take a page of history from 1981, a Mutuo. We had to have every resolution strong argument from within one of the translated into Spanish and make it avail- key sources of consensus process [for] able online, and then have simultaneous Food Not Bombs [and other] groups to- translation for any [session] or small group day tracing back to MNS. One of the key meeting. I hadn’t seen that before suc- consensus manuals that still inform that cessfully, and early on I thought that we process today is a book called “Building wouldn’t be able to without funding, for United Judgment,” and tucked in on us it was all volunteer. That was another page 33 of that book was this small page reason why the deadlines mattered—we that was saying why we shouldn’t have had to get the resolutions translated. blocking. And I don’t know actually the on anarchist theory 61 full details of how the block was intro- individuals don’t want to disrupt the duced, but I have been told that it was groupthink and so they won’t hear their introduced when consensus [began to voices. The right to block gives individu- be] used in activist circles. Quakers don’t als the ability to have their voice heard. have blocking when they use consensus We weren’t attached to calling it con- in Quaker spaces. The fact that blocks sensus—we ended up calling it “simple may have been introduced only in activ- democratic process,” although to anyone ist circles, and the people who have the familiar with consensus, this looks a hell most history with consensus don’t even of a lot like consensus. We didn’t want to use blocks, I think was a good reason get into fights about “well, you said it’s to ask the question, “Why do we have consensus, but without blocking, it’s not blocking?” The argument on page 33 of consensus…” So we tried to sidestep that. that book, when I read it the first time, my jaw dropped because I had been using What did you see that happened? consensus for at least 7 years doing organizing, and had been taught that blocks I didn’t see anything that made me feel were essential. I had actually only seen a like we were missing a huge something few blocks, and every block I’d ever seen without a block. I felt like if we had was a painful, demoralizing experience. blocking as a possible option that any par- Mostly, in 7 years—and now I can say ticipant at any point could have grabbed for 20 years—I can count on one hand onto, we would have had no resolutions. the number of times I’ve seen a block, We would have ended the PMA without and in every case it was not a positive a resolution because…I could have seen experience. So we wanted to experiment the level of concern grow so high that with using consensus without a block, to someone would have just said, “I have see how it went. We felt like if we did do a concern - I block.” Because we didn’t parliamentary procedure, it wouldn’t be have the level of trust and familiarity and as interesting of an experiment because knowledge of where we’re coming from the default decision-making procedure and what we mean when we say certain for everything around the world has been things; that makes for better process in parliamentary procedure; there’ve been general, and especially with consensus millions of experiments in the sense that process. It goes better with that level of we use it all the time, and so there aren’t familiarity and trust. My conclusion is any lessons to be learned there. that I didn’t see a problem not having [blocking], and I did see an atmosphere So, following the experimental analogy— where it easily could have gone at lot what, then, was the hypothesis being tested? worse if we’d had [it]. What was the result? That answers the question of to what degree I guess the hypothesis was, “You can take were your goals and expectations met re- the strengths and successes of consensus garding the consensus part. What about in process without keeping the block.” The terms of a movement building exercise, and theory that people who are strongly at- in terms of plugging people in to a sense of tached to a strict way of doing consensus belonging to something larger, via the Social is that without the block you get tyranny Forum—how do you feel like that went? of the majority, or people are silenced; 62 Perspectives

I think we were somewhat successful. We facilitate them and make them stronger, wanted part of the outcome of the work that’s what I would like to do; that’s to be in parallel with and supporting movement building. We just didn’t have mobilizing people around the country the capacity at the time for that. That’s towards the USSF and the National the kind of thing that I hope CD can PMA in Detroit, so whenever we would do in the future—that kind of work in put out an email, we would link to the an ongoing way, not in a one-time way. Social Forum, and we were trying to encourage people to go, as well. That wasn’t That reminds me of what a lot of people the only goal, but—I think that was talk about as one of the shining aspects of somewhat successful. There was a caravan the WTO organizing, that it had exactly that we helped make a space for…I think that kind of quality. we helped mobilize individuals and organizations towards Detroit. In that case, we all had to drop what In trying out the consensus model, we were doing to defend [against] this I would say it was a successful test. In scary threat because it was aiming a gun trying out [getting] together across against all of our heads simultaneously. I groups from different places, I would hope that we don’t have to wait for giant say it was a successful test. threats that threaten every one of us to We didn’t set as a goal “this is the do that kind of cross-movement work. beginning of a new model that we’re going to continue,” which I think What would you do differently in the frustrated a number of people who future, or what future plans do you, either participated, who were like, “This is as an individual or as CD have for this great, we need more of this. Let’s do work? Are there other movement building another one in a month.” I definitely projects that you see? had multiple nights where I didn’t get any sleep getting this done, with a full The national PMA work is still continu- time job and as a new father. I couldn’t ing. The best place to get information is maintain that, so part of our commit- http://www.pma2010.org—the website ment to each other to do this work was has all the resolutions, including the ones we would have this surge of organizing from Portland, that the Portland PMA all as this group of 10 people, and then agreed to on it, as well as the 100 PMAs reflect back and see what we would do that happened before and during the next. We’re kind of catching our breath, USSF, so that’s a piece that’s out there. I guess. In general, I don’t like to do The next work for CD is doing one-time things where people work to- some community organizing in Portland ward something, and then it kind of all and trying to wrestle with those ques- falls apart (and maybe this is overstating tions of what models work within and it), and people go home, where it’s not outside of nonprofits, with staff and clearly building relationships. We didn’t without staff, taking the lessons we do follow up work to maintain any learned from trying larger-scale demo- relationships that people built. People cratic practice, trying to experiment with did continue some on their own, but new democratic models, to have not just we didn’t help. If we were to continue a top-down decision-making process, not that and build those connections and just a small group of people making all on anarchist theory 63 the decisions, but to really share decision- encourage them…It’s happened in the making in a large-scale way that can past we had massive Labor movements reinforce movement-building, that can in the 20s and 30s that weren’t just labor reinforce shared leadership development. movements. They were people who were The more people participate, the more not directly workers in the unions that they can feel a sense of ownership, the supported those movements happening; more they have real ownership. So really it was whole communities. The Civil taking the lessons from the PMA and the Rights movement was not just people movement bulding conversation series of color, it was not just students, it was and trying to put it in practice more for not just churches; it was massive, whole, the long haul—putting it into practice large sections of society, mobilized and with a long-term vision. working together. It’s been done, and I believe that it can happen again. Part One of the problems you identified with of it is really focusing on that question: that one-day thing, something that I think why don’t we have larger, more successful resonates for people movement-wide, is that movements? What do we need to do? I issue of trust. You were talking about how think just asking that question brings us there just wasn’t that feeling of trust within closer toward making them a reality. the room, and maybe because we are all coming from such diverse end-points, some with some very particular ideological back- Notes grounds—how might we address that? 1 Outside the US, in the World Social Forum, the process is called Social Movement A lot of the things that are hard about Assemblies, and inside the US, people call decision-making become easier when them People’s Movement Assemblies. you can spread it out over time. If you 2 INCITE! Women of Color Against have just one meeting, and one decision Violence, ed., The Revolution Will Not Be that you have to make, you have to make Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial the right decision at that one meeting. Complex (Boston: South End Press, 2009). I don’t know if there is any process that 3 Elaine Nesterick, Building United will make that happen perfectly. But Judgment: A Handbook for Consensus Decision if you get to say, well, we’ll have this Making (CCR, 1981), 33-35. decision-making process and we’ll try it this day, and we’ll see what works, and we’ll try to work together, and then we’ll about the interviewer try something different the next time, Lara Messersmith-Glavin is an educator, and we’ll learn from that experience. It writer, and organizer based in Portland, becomes much easier to imagine a future Oregon. She participated in the 2010 possibility where people can work to- Portland People’s Movement Assembly as a gether and have this agreement and build representative of Parasol Climate Collective, and learn, than to try for this one-time, an outreach group that seeks to find radical one-shot where it has to be perfect. It’s solutions to climate change. She is a member an awful lot to expect if a group comes of the Perspectives editorial collective and is together for one day, but I don’t think it’s on the board of directors for the Institute for as much to expect if we are able to start Anarchist Studies. to build those links and reinforce and Anarquia Santiago Armengod block print, 2010 uring an open announce- ment time at the 2010 Renewing the Anarchist DTradition conference, a New Yorker took the microphone and suggested that people in his home city get together to organize as anarchists. This proposal has now taken root in the form of Practical Anarchy NYC. PA is a group whose goals include facilitating conversations about anarchism and praxis, and providing a platform for action. While there are many anarchists in NYC working practical on many fantastic projects, there are few spaces explicitly grounded in anarchist anarchy, nyc principles that encourage reflection, dialog, and planning. PA seeks to create such spaces for both self-described anar- a progress report chists and their allies. Our first project was to create an anarchist reading group. Since the group’s founding in January, we have read a book each month, alternating between “Classical” anarchist texts, such as Rudolf Rocker’s Anarcho-Syndicalism, and more contemporary works such as Murray Bookchin’s Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism. These books have prompted many different discussions, each providing an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between history, theory, and revolutionary praxis. When reading classic texts, such as Kropotkin’s Conquest of Bread, fundamental ideas about human nature and the promise of technology led to conclusions about revolution and the possibility of an 66 Perspectives anarchist society. In the discussion of the points raised by discussion partici- Rocker’s text, we questioned assump- pants. We also plan to experiment with tions about the privileged position of “salon”-style gatherings that will incor- a working class in bringing about a porate books, articles, blog posts, and liberated society. Throughout all the other media that focus on a single topic. readings, we analyzed the stated and Keeping a dynamic discussion group go- unstated theories that resonated with ing will involve being accessible to new us and confronted those that we found members while keeping the integrity of discordant. For all of us, the texts and the original PA vision. And of course we discussions have stimulated reflection want to ensure that the book group is on the world we live in and the future not a dead end but a path that connects we might want. people to anarchist thought and action. In addition to providing an The Anarchist Reading Group is opportunity to investigate our own only one of our projects that fuels the principles and understandings through struggle for liberation. We organized a the readings, these discussions also feed panel at this year’s Left Forum, “What’s back into our own process, becoming Unique About Anarchist Solidarity?”, occasions to consider our own anarchist generating a lively discussion on what praxis as a group. For instance, in our that means and how it can be practiced, most recent reading, Anarchy Alive!, Uri offering examples discussing real cases Gordon describes how some anarchist of anarchist forms of solidarity while organizations fail to adequately grapple also bringing up theoretical issues: what with issues of intra-group power and distinguishes anarchism from either accountability. This often manifests in the socialist left or the libertarian right? the creation of exclusive spaces - spe- With whom are we in solidarity, and cially designated meetings - for group on what basis? In the attempt to lay planning and discussion. However, the the foundations for the longer term emphasis on overtly political spaces risks relationships that underlie real solidar- devaluing other locations for participa- ity, PA members have participated in tion and creativity. The effect is to close large marches and small community off spaces that are not only important to dinners, all of which are opportunities the health of an organization but often to share with others what we are doing are places of origin for political action. and to learn what is happening among This analysis has direct implications other activists here. for how we value and plan our time New York City is alive with together at parties or drinking at bars, as activism of all tendencies, but it has well as at formal meetings. its challenges for anarchist organizing. These questions on process are While we have our native residents and of particular importance to us as PA the people who move here for the long evolves. For example, we would like to haul, the city also attracts folks who adequately document the reading group drift in and out. NYC is enormous and meetings so that we can tie together spread out - there’s more to it than the the many threads that run throughout density of the island of Manhattan - and the texts from a variety of frameworks it can be difficult for people to make it - historical, theoretical, practical - and to meetings in a given neighborhood, let synthesize the authors’ thoughts with alone feel part of a cohesive movement. on anarchist theory 67

Despite an APOC (Anarchist People of Color) collective in varying stages of activity in NYC over the years, self- identified anarchists, here as elsewhere in the U.S., tend to be white. For example, the five-year-old NYC Anarchist Bookfair, which should serve as a wide umbrella for anarchists throughout the five boroughs, still struggles to overcome a rather homogeneous subcultural reputation. Issues of race, as well as class and gender, need to be examined head on. Finally, there are many exciting radical projects here that display forms of horizontal and anti-authoritarian structure, process, and goals, even if they do not use the word “anarchist.” PA will look for instances of anarchist values in practice in our city - to examine, to critique, or to join.

About the authors Compiled by Damian, Melissa, and Tristan for Practical Anarchy NYC review: uses of a whirlwind & black bloc, white riot geoff bylinkin on anarchist theory 69

these questions by addressing radical movement building in North America in recent years. Uses of a Whirlwind anthologizes reports, strategies, and theory that give insight into the state of radical organizing in the United States today. The book is organized into four sections, following a preface by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and he world cries out for Andrej Grubacic, a foreword by Marc resistance: glaciers melt, Herbst for The Journal of Aesthetics and species go extinct, poor Protest Press, and an introduction by youthT are shot down in the streets by Team Colors Collective. The four sec- police or warehoused in prisons, fami- tions are: “Organization Case Studies,” lies are evicted from their homes, queers “Movement Strategies,” “Theoretical are beaten down, and workers labor Analyses,” and “Interviews,” with about long hours at miserable jobs for too eight essays in each section and four little money. Across the planet, power interviews at the end. exploits and brutalizes the lives of most The book begins with a solid people. People do, of course, resist. In preface by long-time anti-imperialist China, workers riot against oppressive feminist Dunbar-Ortiz and Balkan anar- conditions. Palestinian youth throw chist Grubacic, in which they ask, “How rocks (or rockets) at Israeli soldiers, do we move from resistance movement refusing occupation. In India and the to revolutionary transformation?” Philippines, Left-wing guerrilla armies Looking at different historic struggles, build power and wage war against con- these authors call for a “new libertarian- ditions they describe as semi-feudal. In socialist, inter-racial movement based on Chiapas, the Zapatistas continue to de- principles of opposition to imperialism velop autonomous politics to empower and militarization, self-activity, local the indigenous. Globally, people are institutions, and solidarity.”1 organizing to fight back. Most recently, Uses of a Whirlwind is compiled the people of Tunisia and Egypt rose up by Team Colors, a national collective of and, through mass mobilizations and radicals around the United States who, community organization, overthrew deeply influenced by the theoretical corrupt US-backed regimes. We may frameworks of Autonomist Marxism well be seeing the beginnings of a new and Postmodernist theory, have come period of upsurge and popular struggle together to analyze the state of libera- against oppression and exploitation. tory movements in the United States. Where then are social movements In their introductory essay, they argue fighting for justice in the United States? that the great social movements of the What is the state of resistance inside last century have both been shaped by the borders of the imperialist super- and have shaped the social and eco- power? How should we understand the nomic structures of capital. Thus, the struggles that take place here, and what struggles of the 1960s, the “movements are their potentials? AK Press has given of fire,” were an attack on the Keynesian us two new books that begin to answer liberal welfare state (which in turn was 70 Perspectives a structural adjustment of capital to Union, and the work of Domestic coopt and capture militant workers’ Workers United and the Right to the movements during the 1930s). The City Alliance, which organize women of “movements of fire” weakened and un- color and build radical politics with ur- dermined the welfare state model, and ban workers, called “Building Power in capital again adjusted with the renewed the City: Reflections on the Emergence attack of a flexible and brutal neoliberal of the Right to the City Alliance model. Team Colors argues that the and the National Domestic Workers new movements developing now are Alliance” by Harmony Goldberg. These fundamentally different than those of essays present examples of radical or- the past and are more “whirlwinds” ganizers doing work that is based on a than fires. Exactly what the differences Left analysis while building power with are is not entirely clear, and one is left working class and oppressed people out- with the feeling that “whirlwinds” and side of narrow activist circles. “flames” are an attempt to use poetry In the “Movement Strategies” as theory. While poetic images of fires section, radical activists and thinkers versus whirlwinds are powerful, they fail explore questions broader than the to fully explain the ways in which the experiences of particular organizations context, politics, strategies, and tactics addressed in the previous section. of 1960s militancy differs from struggles There are useful essays addressing the today. They go on to critique the coop- relationship between the global justice tation of social movements through movement and local anti-capitalist non-profit organizational structures and struggles, the politics of food, climate lack of revolutionary vision. They also justice, independent media, and more. argue that we must build movements Stevie Peace from the Team Colors that engage in real community organiz- Collective contributes a powerful ing around oppressed people’s needs piece called “The Desire to Heal: while continuing to ask the big ques- Harm Intervention in a Landscape tions about transforming the world. of Restorative Justice and Critical The book’s first section, Resistance.” In it, he looks at the work “Organizational Case Studies,” is of Restorative Justice Community where activists from various groups Action, a restorative justice group, and and movements describe, sum up, Critical Resistance, a prison abolition and analyze the struggles they have group, as two different examples of participated in. The projects described projects struggling to develop libera- vary greatly from anti-war and envi- tory ways to address violence and create ronmental groups emerging from white justice. Unfortunately, Peace’s article is anarchist countercultures to housing the only one in the book that explores organizing among working class people contemporary work against the prison of color. Stand-outs include a piece industrial complex and the police, and on organizing Starbucks workers in it does so only indirectly, in the context the context of neoliberalism, called of other arguments around harm and “The Precarious Economy and Its healing. Benjamin Shepard’s article on Discontents: Struggling Against the radical do-it-yourself queer politics is Corporate Chains Through Workplace also a gem. In this piece, Shepard makes Organizing” by The Starbucks Workers the distinction between the radical on anarchist theory 71 politics of queerness oriented toward Power movement. He argues for a syn- the total transformation of life, kinship, thesis of Black nationalism, anarchism, and sexuality and the reformist interest- and post-modernism that non-dogmat- group politics of “the gay movement” ically struggles to smash power by any exemplified by groups such as the means necessary while building move- Human Rights Campaign that seek to ments in which we support and nurture integrate gays into the dominant society each other. Grace Lee Boggs, a long-time through legal and legislative methods. revolutionary philosopher and commu- The “Theoretical Analysis” sec- nity organizer, discusses her experiences tion of Whirlwind is grounded in the in the movement, the importance of framework of Autonomist Marxism, theory, and the necessity of hope. which emerged largely from the radical The interviews are an outstanding upsurge of Italian workers and students addition to the book. These long-time during the 1970s. This political orienta- activists, theorists, scholars, and war- tion argues that social change is made riors share decades of collective study, by the often spontaneous “self-activity” experience, and wisdom. Their perspec- of working class people developing tives should be at the center of a new their own struggles independent of the revolutionary politics. It is striking that institutions of official society, including they are all participants in the Black unions and political parties. Workers, Liberation struggle in particular. This through their own concrete struggles, is not surprising given the leading role undermine capitalism and lay the basis of African American freedom struggles for a new society without depending on throughout the history of the United “condescending saviors,” be they union States. From abolitionism, the Civil bureaucrats or revolutionary vanguards. War, and Reconstruction to the Civil There are interesting pieces in this sec- Rights and Black Power movements of tion dealing with the economic crisis, the 1960s, the struggles of Black people radical democracy, and sustainable move- for freedom have been at the forefront, ment building. There is also a useful unleashing the power of other sectors piece called “Feminism and the Politics of the population to challenge oppres- of the Commons in an Era of Primitive sion and leading the transformation of Accumulation” by Silvia Federici. society for all people. It’s fortunate that The book ends with three inter- Team Colors seems to get this on some views with movement historian Robin level, though they never say so explicitly. D.G. Kelley and movement elders Unfortunately, the book contains Ashanti Alston Omowali and Grace Lee very little on the struggles of people of Boggs, all long-time participants in the color against white supremacy. In an Black Liberation movement. Kelley is anthology of radical struggle and libera- one of the most important and radical tory social movements in the United scholars of African American history ac- States, this is shocking. A few of the tive today. In his interview, he discusses organizational case studies are powerful his political background, his bottom-up exceptions to this. But as a rule, white approach to history that focuses on supremacy and militant struggles against everyday working class resistance, and it are missing from this book. the election of Obama. Alston discusses Several of the most interesting coming of age in the midst of the Black organizational case studies highlight the 72 Perspectives work of people of color organizations York) are building copwatch programs doing work around housing and worker to monitor police activity. The Jericho organizing. However, reports and analy- Movement works to free political sis explicitly dealing with Black people’s prisoners and prisoners of war. Latino struggles against white supremacy are immigrants are organizing across the nowhere to be found in the first three nation to resist US Immigration and sections. There are no full organizational Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids case studies of Black radical groups, and racist criminalizing legislation. there are no strategies for transforma- Everywhere activists, particularly people tion that explicitly put white supremacy of color, are attacking the state repres- at the center, and there is no article the- sive apparatus and criminal justice orizing white supremacy or drawing on system, which is the frontline of white the Black radical tradition. Therefore, supremacist terror. Unfortunately, these while the interviews with Kelley, Alston, struggles and the theory and strategies and Boggs are inspiring and powerful, they are developing are left out of this they feel tacked on. Additionally, be- anthology almost completely.2 cause the book’s only engagement with ° ° ° the Black Liberation struggle is through While Whirlwind is a sprawl- movement elders, it gives the impres- ing anthology and a pleasure to read, sion that the Black struggle is a thing of containing much inspiration, A.K. the past. We are left with the impression Thompson’sBlack Bloc, White Riot is that activists should learn from and be a very different kind of book. In this inspired by the Black radical tradition, work, Thompson attempts to analyze the but it is not something we need to en- core themes and dilemmas of the North gage on the ground in our work now. American anti-globalization movement. Stemming perhaps from this He particularly looks at the militant racial blind spot, there is nothing in wing of this movement, epitomized by Whirlwind that deals with struggles the Black Bloc, in which (mostly anar- against domestic state violence. Stevie chist) activists march together, hide their Peace’s piece on Critical Resistance identities, attack corporate institutions, examines the group in the context of and street fight with the police. transformative justice and harm reduc- The black bloc tactic emerged tion, not challenging the prison system. out of the German autonomen move- There are no other pieces that deal with ment, which began in the 1980s. struggles against police brutality, mass The autonomen, or “those who are incarceration, immigration enforce- autonomous,” struggle to defend squat- ment, or political imprisonment of ted housing, protest US imperialism, radicals, all of which are issues that dis- and fight against neo-nazis. This tactic proportionately brutalize and tear apart of mass anonymity used to engage working class communities of color. But in political militancy and property this work is happening. destruction spread beyond Germany Critical Resistance works to abol- in the 1990s and was embraced by US ish the prison industrial complex. The anarchists protesting ecological destruc- Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in tion at Wall Street and the first Gulf New York City and FIERCE (a queer War, culminating ten years later in the youth of color group, also in New widely publicized actions at the 1999 on anarchist theory 73

World Trade Organization in Seattle. is that, while Thompson spends pages Black blocs in the decade since have talking about the history of “middle become a common component of US class” politics, he never defines what this protests. For Thompson and others, class is or who is in it. This lack of clarity the black bloc as a tactic symbolizes the reinforces the tendency to universalize most militant wing of social protest in middle class as being the normal and its willingness both to confront the state majority position. and to defy legality. As Chris Carlsson writes in Thompson takes on the task of “Radical Patience: Feeling Effective analyzing this political phenomenon Over the Long Haul,” his contribution and its implications. Unfortunately, his to Whirlwind, “If you are not pushing intentions are overshadowed by his writ- a shopping cart down the street looking style, which is extremely alienating. ing for cans and bottles, or riding your Thompson’s prose is dense and chal- Lear Jet to your next golfing vacation lenging, seeming like a hybrid of Judith in a tropical paradise, you probably Butler and G.W.F. Hegel. At times, think you are middle class. In the his book is close to being unreadable, United States, nearly everyone believes with references to “the logic of inver- they are middle class. Whether anyone sion and conceptual negation,” which wants to admit it or not, the major- “have tended inadvertently to reiterate ity of us are working class.”5 Carlsson the restrictive epistemic frame.”3 While and other Autonomist Marxists argue it is essential that radicals grapple with that those who do not own the means difficult ideas, Thompson’s writing style of production and need to sell their tends to hide his genuine insights in labor to survive make up the work- post-graduate philosophical prose. ing class. While autonomist politics is Black Bloc, White Riot begins sometimes overly broad in its definition by identifying the North American of “worker,” this expansive materialist anti-globalization movement as a white approach is useful as a challenge to the middle class phenomenon. The forces United States’ universal “middle class” that marched in the streets against the approach, which Thompson unfortu- World Trade Organization, International nately perpetuates. Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Thompson takes on the debates Group of 8 were largely white, as that raged in the movement around race has been addressed by people such as and the importance of local organiz- Elizabeth Martinez in her piece “Where ing. Following the WTO shutdown was the color in Seattle?”4 The claim that of November 1999, Chicana move- the movement was middle class seems ment veteran Martinez’s piece “Where less clear. While those who jet-set across was the color in Seattle?” critiqued the planet to every major summit may the whiteness of the emerging anti- have economic privilege, they also are a globalization movement and the ways minority in the movement. By assuming in which radicals of color were unable a middle class movement, Thompson to participate fully. Thompson takes this universalizes the experience of privileged critique and the white activist response activists, while making invisible the to it as his jumping-off point. Many in experiences of working class militants. the movement responded to this cri- Another problem with this assumption tique by increasingly prioritizing “local 74 Perspectives organizing” with the communities most goes after the critique that black affected by capitalist globalization, bloc militancy was macho and male- largely communities of color. While dominated. He rightfully challenges the this shift was an important move away liberal and radical feminist essentialism from the “white” of the white Left, that argues that violence is inherently Thompson speaks to some of its limita- male, pointing to the role of women in tions in practice. riots and uprisings historically. Drawing While the focus on how capitalism on the work of radical women of color attacks oppressed communities in the such as Audre Lorde, he critiques the United States was an important correc- false assumptions of universalizing “sis- tive to a movement initially focused on terhood” that ends up locking militant “summit hopping,” Thompson critiques women out of Feminist politics. He the way in which a simplistic notion then goes on to suggest that rioting of “the local” separated struggles from women destabilize gender categories the context of global capital in which by crossing the boundaries of gendered they exist. He also rightfully criticizes behavior, and thus that riots can in a white activists’ tendency to romanticize limited way serve as an experiment in “oppressed communities” and seek the abolition of gender. authenticity in them and in relationship Thompson draws on Frantz to them. There also was (and remains) a Fanon’s work, arguing that violence is a tendency to view communities of color precondition to real politics. By engag- as natural and homogeneous. White ing in violent activity through black bloc activists in their quest for authentic tactics white middle class radicals began struggle idealize communities of color, to break through the limitations of rep- seeing them as stable and united. It resentational and staged opposition and would be easy to follow the adage “fol- open up space for the creation of new low the leadership of people of color” worlds and possibilities. Unfortunately, if this were true. It is not true, and Thompson’s definition of violence is Thompson points out the ways that this incomprehensibly academic and broad, white vision of communities of color ig- understood as any act “by which objects nores real contradictions around politics, are transformed through their relation- gender, and power that exist within these ship to other objects,” as well as being communities. Without being sensitive “the precondition to politics and the to these divisions, white activists often premise upon which it rests.”6 He explic- follow the “official” leadership in these itly places the act of breast-feeding in the communities while ignoring other forces “violent” category, suggesting that the that may be more radical. Thompson breast-feeding of a child undermines tra- urges white radicals to be mindful of ditional notions of autonomy and bodily these dynamics and to try to build real integrity. By this standard almost any act relationships and solidarity with people that people engage in in the world is vio- of color-led struggles, rather than tailing lent, from gardening to cooking. While conservative forces in communities of his understanding of violence as central color based on a simplistic, and ulti- to all politics is a useful challenge to lib- mately racist, view of community. eral notions of rational negotiation, this Thompson also addresses issues definition serves to make violence almost of gender in the black bloc. Thompson meaningless. If violence is understood on anarchist theory 75 as being synonymous with transforma- and what they were reading and writ- tive activity, there is no real reason for ing. Instead, one is treated to lengthy the focus on the Black Bloc rather than analyses of the movies “Fight Club” other movement actors, whose civil dis- and “Natural Born killers” (which obedience and other direct actions were Thompson somehow thinks were equally “violent.” major influences on the movement) The use of Fanon’s work is note- and the highly theoretical works of worthy, as his Wretched of the Earth Fanon, Butler, Paulo Freire, and Michel adorns many an activist bookshelf. But Foucault. These Leftist philosophers are it is not engaged here as it should be. used to make incredibly abstract philo- Fanon, while certainly a proponent of sophical points about the necessity of the necessity of violence, was first and violence for meaningful political action. foremost a fighter for and theorist of Theory is certainly a neces- decolonization. He argued about the sity in our struggle for freedom. transformative and liberatory power of Understanding it sometimes requires force and militancy within the context great concentration and hard work. of a brutal and violent system of colonial However, Thompson fails to really oppression of Black and Third World connect his theory to the practice he is people. The idea that this is easily related examining. Further, he does not give to the theatrical pseudo-violence of the reader a living sense of the activities, white punk rockers breaking Starbucks ideas, and overall composition of the windows seems dubious. In the context movement he purports to analyze. of North American settler colonial soci- ° ° ° eties whose very existence is based on the Team Colors’s Uses of a Whirlwind colonization and genocide of indigenous and A.K. Thompson’s Black Bloc, White people, and, in the case of the United Riot are both attempts to understand States, chattel slavery and apartheid, the and learn from people’s struggles against application of Fanon to the black bloc neoliberal capitalism in North America seems confused and not rooted in the over recent years. Whirlwind is a diverse, material conditions and real history that sprawling collection full of insight, Fanon always addressed. experience, and wisdom engaged in While Black Bloc,White Riot building relevant resistance. It does at contains real insights in its analysis of times lack focus as an anthology, and the debates and tensions within the sometimes feels like a 400-page issue of radical wing of the North American Left Turn magazine in its wide-ranging anti-globalization movement, it does snapshots of activity without a strategic not go very deep. Thompson quotes orientation of how struggles fit together from a handful of communiques and and what their potentials are. The CrimethInc documents, but there is anthology also has a real blind spot in little in the way of real engagement with its lack of attention to race and state the writing or debates within the move- violence, leaving its broad overview ment. One wants to get a feel for what unfortunately skewed. young radicals were thinking and doing Black Bloc, White Riot is far more as they challenged global capital. One focused in its intention to examine the wants to know what they were arguing white middle class radical wing of the about, how they lived and organized, anti-globalization movement. It contains significant insights into and important 4 Elizabeth Martinez, “Where Was critiques of the ways in which gender the Color in Seattle?,” in Colorlines, Spring and race play out in the movement, 2000. and also makes a necessary call for the 5 Chris Carlsson, “Radical Patience: importance of taking risks and engaging Feeling Effective Over the Long Haul,” in in uncompromising militant action. Uses of a Whirlwind, 306. Problematically, these insights into real 6 Thompson, 23. movement debates are the exception, overshadowed by long theoretical tan- gents and often unreadable verbosity. about the author What both of these works leave us Geoff Bylinkin is a healthcare worker and with is the necessity not only to contin- anti-capitalist activist in Portland, Oregon, ue struggling and building movements, where he is active in struggles against police but also to theorize, sum up, and share violence and white supremacy. He lives with the lessons of our work with others. Too a dog, two cats, five chickens, three ducks often, we are so engaged in our day- and many bees. He spends his little spare to-day organizing that we fail to think time obsessing over queer liberation, self- about how our work connects to our determination, and obscure historical Left vision of a radically different world. If groups. we take our work seriously, we need not only to think about these questions of revolutionary strategy, but to write about them. Both Team Colors and Thompson have made serious attempts to do this. And, for this, they deserve our thanks. notes 1 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Andrej Grubacic, “Preface: In the Wind,” in Team Colors Collective, eds., Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010), xxiv. 2 When making these critiques, it must be taken into account that this is an anthology of previously unpublished work. Team Colors worked with what was submitted to them and they cannot be entirely blamed for what is missing here. Nonetheless, the gaps in this vision of radicalism are too significant to ignore, despite how good this collection is in many ways. 3 AK Thompson, Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010), 38. review: anarchism and its aspirations & oppose and propose! a. cates 78 Perspectives

radicals needed to develop strategic campaigns that combined organizing and direct action to win ‘revolutionary reforms’ while simultaneously building alternative institutions based on radical principles, which could serve to model the future society.”3 For them, a cadre was an organization of people united by a revolutionary nonviolent politics that was commit- he Institute for Anarchist ted to creating and implementing Studies’ (IAS) and AK revolutionary organizing strategy Press’s new book se- while building its members’ political ries,T called Anarchist Interventions, education and skills and creating a begins with the publication of two non-oppressive organizational culture. books: Cindy Milstein’s Anarchism Unlike the traditional cadre model of and Its Aspirations and then Andy Marxism-Leninism, in which cadre Cornell’s Oppose and Propose!: Lessons members are professional, full-time from Movement for a New Society.1 revolutionaries disciplined by majority- Milstein’s book is a thoughtful primer rule decisions, MNS’s model, following on anarchism in the vein of Alexander the lead of the Quakers and anarchism, Berkman’s The ABC of Anarchism.2 utilized decentralized leadership and Cornell’s book is a historical case study consensus as its main method of making of an anarchist-inspired organization decisions. While this approach would called Movement for a New Society later limit the organization in many (MNS), which analyzes and evaluates ways, members believed it was the the many lessons the organization lays clearest way to build a non-hierarchical out for current anti-capitalist organizers. culture that could push forward a living Using Cornell’s book as a case study, model of revolution. The living revolu- readers are able to get a concrete exam- tion that MNS so ardently attempted to ple of many of the aspirations Milstein embody and push forward is a concrete covers in her writing and see some of example of the aspirations of anarchism the limitations of those aspirations. that Milstein argues for in her book. Movement for a New Society At the heart of Milstein’s argu- strived to be a cadre-style organization ment is the position that anarchism that combined community organizing strives to build a free and liberated and the creation of counter-institutions world through both destructive and rooted in revolutionary principles and reconstructive means. Milstein offers ideas. Cornell relates: an eloquent elaboration on the core of “MNS members believed they what she calls anarchism; this core is an could serve as ‘leaven in the bread’ of ethics of liberation, freedom, equality mass social movements responding of unequals, from each to each, mutual to...crisis, giving them the tools and aid, ecological orientation, voluntary nonviolent principles they would need associations, accountability, joy, spon- to effectively make a social revolu- taneity, and unity in diversity. These tion. In the short term, they believed, principles, historical overviews of how on anarchist theory 79 classical and modern anarchism came effectiveness and relevance seemed to into being, and theorizing about direct stem from its creative, imaginative, and democracy and current forms of protest effective mixing of theory, strategies, fill out a holistic look at anarchism. It and ideas from a multitude of liberatory is useful to see the totality of Milstein’s anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist writing as a manifesto on the principles ideologies, as well as from the way they and core values that a broadly defined retrofitted these for the context of their anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist organi- time and location. The group saw the zation or movement might incorporate revolutionary potential in taking these into its politics. principles and broadening them to be The openness, adaptability, and the foundation for organizing projects, transformational nature of anarchism promoting an internal culture, and that Milstein describes is a much- building revolutionary counter-insti- needed intervention in current political tutions. As Milstein advocates, MNS projects and organizing. It is a call equated the means to the ends, which for movements and organizations to was its great appeal to many revolution- strengthen their abilities to analyze, aries at the time. evaluate, and re-strategize as the po- However, as Cornell outlines, litical terrain changes through their MNS’s mass work, with its emphasis self-activity, agency, and organizing. Her on building revolutionary counter- articulation re-centers humanist ideas institutions, gave way to the building in revolutionary political struggle while of alternative institutions and counter- emphasizing that these principles will culture mostly because of the limitations and must be transformed as part of the of its leadership structure, consensus very nature of struggle itself. decision-making process, and homoge- Milstein argues against pragma- neous membership. Cornell argues: tism in politics. Yet the limitation of her “When the self-help efforts take book is not its lack of pragmatism, but place in the context of a revolutionary rather its lack of answers to the complex movement, such as the Black Panthers’ questions that arrive from the tension breakfast program or medical center, between pragmatism and the revolu- they take on a revolutionary character. tionary ideal; questions such as, “How To be more precise, counter-institutions do we deal with a growing reactionary become revolutionary when they carry right that is also opposed to the state?” a revolutionary ideology, build a revo- For this reason, Cornell’s look at MNS’s lutionary organization, and take place attempts to deal with these tensions and with the context of open revolutionary the balance between organizing and struggle.”4 building counter-institutions is help- Movement for a New Society ful in both better understanding what ended up prioritizing alternative Milstein is getting at and in pushing her institutions that were not becoming ideas forward in practice. revolutionary or being built through The ethics described by Milstein revolutionary struggle, but rather formed the foundation of MNS’s phi- provided a comfortable living for its losophy along with ideas, theories, and members outside of the system while practices from other traditions such as not directly challenging it. Marxism and the Quakers. The group’s The over-reliance on the creation 80 Perspectives of alternative institutions outside broadly and expansively challenge state of struggle is a central weakness of and capitalist power in addition to op- Milstein’s argument in her essay pression more generally, lifestylism or “Anarchism and Its Aspirations,” which alternative institutions cannot alone opens her book. She claims that by enact the sweeping transformation simply building alternative institutions, needed. The real power of counter- anarchists are building the revolution. institutions, rather, is that they stand in But this is only part of the work that direct opposition and resistance to the must be done. Former MNS member dominant power of capital while build- Robert Irwin highlights this truth, ing forms of a new, free world. While saying, “Revolutionary system transfor- small-scale initiatives have their place, mation toward anarchist ideals cannot a challenge to systemic power must be achieved through the proliferation happen on a broad, society-wide scale. of alternative institutions, no matter Masses of people must be engaging in how exemplary.”5 In order for alterna- direct action that both takes back power tive institutions to create dual power through resistance and redistributes and revolution, they must either start that power through the construction out as or transform into a revolutionary of horizontal institutions outside of counter-institution as part of a broader capitalism, the state, and forms of struggle for society-wide change. In oppression such as white supremacy. Milstein’s defense, she positions this Milstein gets to this point in her fourth argument differently later in the book essay, called “Reclaim the Cities: From by placing reconstructive ideas and Protest to Popular Power.” However, institutions as part of protests and broad the frame of this essay seems more struggle: “Only when the serial protest intended to temper protest movements mode is escalated into a struggle for into building reconstructive institutions popular or horizontal power can we than to place reconstructive efforts create cracks in the figurative concrete, within the context of revolutionary thereby opening up ways to challenge struggle. When paired with her earlier capitalism, nation-states, and other sys- essay on the aspirations of anarchism tems of domination.”6 and its emphasis on the importance of However, for both MNS and building small-scale alternative institu- Milstein’s vision of anarchism, what is tions, and if not read closely, it appears lacking is a clear understanding that that she is calling more for a politics of alternative institutions only become lifestyle than of revolution. Taken at counter to state and capitalist power its best, it is clear that she is trying to when they help build a revolution- push back on insurrectionist arguments ary organization, push revolutionary that fetishize rebellion as the end goal politics, and are built in the process of and place anarchist politics more in the revolutionary struggle. Both Milstein tradition that MNS was struggling for and MNS too easily slip out of the in its earlier days: a dialectical relation- realm of revolutionary ideology into ship of challenging power that considers counter-culture lifestylism. both aspects separately but sees them as In the case of MNS, the result dynamically bound together. of this slippage was the end of the Milstein’s essays “Democracy is organization. If your end goal is to Direct” and “Reclaim the Cities: From on anarchist theory 81

Protest to Popular Power” strengthen different than those of the majority of her earlier arguments for a prefigura- white people. Whether it is schooling, tive politics by placing the building of policing, prisons, access to health care, directly democratic institutions and or employment, people of color, and other forms of a free society as part of specifically Black people, have faced a challenge and resistance to capital- inequality, segregation, oppression, ism and the state. Further, she takes and exploitation at the hands of white MNS’s lessons on the use of consensus supremacy and the privileges of white- and suggests that consensus has a place ness. This legacy has split organizations in high-risk and smaller-scale decision and movements, as well as shaped some making, but that on the scale of neigh- of the most direct and revolutionary borhoods, towns, and cities where there challenges to power in the United is a lack of homogeneous identity, it will States. White supremacy’s central role take majority decision-making models in building the US empire and what to make decisions truly democratic. In has become global capital poses specific order for majority decision making to challenges to how revolutionary struggle remain democratic, it must be based happens, who leads this struggle, and on shared principles, direct criticism, what a revolutionary politics and orga- and accountability to those principles. nization should look like. Movement for a New Society itself stag- One of MNS’s greatest failings, nated when its use of consensus would which is echoed in Milstein’s envision- not allow for more diversity in identity ing of anarchism, is a lack of a clear and thought. This decision-making politics that challenges white supremacy model stunted the organization’s ability both within society and within organi- to transform itself as the politics and zations. Revolutionaries will continue society around it were changing. This to face what MNS did: a racially segre- stagnation was also bound up in the gated project that either must transform homogeneity of the membership of to centralize the experiences and lives MNS, especially in terms of race. of people of color within the organiza- Given the large role that white tional culture, politics, and leadership supremacy and racism have played or just maintain itself as majority white historically and currently in shaping organization with all the limitations capitalist and state power, lacking both that this brings. A challenge to white a firm analysis and road forward in chal- supremacy in all its forms and functions lenging this homogeneity within the must be at the core of their politics. organization itself and understanding Movement for a New Society’s the role these systems play in society recognition of the need for a truly mul- as a whole was a large limitation in the tiracial revolutionary organization in continuing relevancy of MNS to revolu- order to both effectively resist the status tionary struggle. The lack of recognition quo and to build a new society with the of this in Milstein’s arguments through- direct participation of those most feel- out her book is its largest limitation, ing its burdens meant the dissolving of and is a huge question hanging over it. the organization. The members could The experience of Black and not overcome their whiteness, which Brown people throughout the history had shaped MNS as an organization of the United States is qualitatively for the majority of its life. This was, 82 Perspectives in some ways, buoyed by their lack Milstein’s discussion of the as- of democratic leadership and a clear pirations of anarchism and Cornell’s organizational strategy that could have presentation of the lessons of Movement enacted the widespread changes needed for a New Society come at a time when to shift the organization’s culture away the revolutionary Left is facing a grow- from being so thoroughly white to being global economic and ecological ing a culture shaped and participated crisis. Organizations across the globe in by a multiracial membership. As are trying to figure out how to fight members of MNS point out, it was the for liberation effectively, successfully, conservative bent of consensus decision thoughtfully, and in a principled man- making that favors staying with the sta- ner while struggling to articulate a tus quo that kept the organization from vision of what a free and just world being able to create a “formal systematic will look like. Movement for a New method for internal education or im- Society’s cadre model—the combination provement of its analysis, vision, and of building an organizational culture strategy.”7 This is essential to challenging that develops the skills and potentials organizational barriers such as a culture of a free society while organizing with of whiteness. masses of people and jointly building Without clear and formal leader- counter-institutions that can be pre- ship, informal or covert leaders are able pared to take power—is both a useful to push the organization on a specific and relevant historical example for revo- track without having to be account- lutionaries to be looking at today. Their able to group decisions, elections, lessons—especially around the prob- or critiques, the tools that are most lematic use of consensus, the need for important to ensuring democracy in a multiracial organizational structure, an organization. Formal, democratic forms of mutual aid and support for leadership must carry out the decisions organization and community members, of the organization, even if those deci- questions of leadership, the need for sions, strategies, or theories seem to face internal education and political analysis, large obstacles to their implementation. and a strategy of dual power—are all Leaders must be directly accountable important elements that current revo- for their actions and choices in carrying lutionary organizations need to think out these decisions. If the majority of about and consider. The ethics laid out the organization’s members are unhappy by Milstein, the historical context, and with those choices or feel that they are the discussion of democracy as a core not being made within the spirit of the of revolutionary movements further decisions, those leaders can then be elaborate on what one learns from replaced. Movement for a New Society MNS’s experience. The combination of shows that this type of decisive yet di- these two books, both their strengths rectly accountable leadership must be in and limitations, lay out many of the place in order to push forward internal essential questions and ideas that revo- transformation around questions of in- lutionaries must grapple with as they ternal culture, political understanding, build organizations, campaigns, coun- principles of operation, and political ter-institutions, and social movements analysis of the contradictions facing towards the goal of anti-authoritarian, society. anti-capitalist revolution and a free, on anarchist theory 83 liberated, and just new world. notes 1 Cindy Milstein, Anarchism and Its Aspirations (Oakland, CA: AK Press/Institute for Anarchist Studies, 2010) and Andrew Cornell, Oppose and Propose!: Lessons from Movement for a New Society (Oakland, CA: AK Press/Institute for Anarchist Studies, 2011). 2 Alexander Berkman, The ABC of Anarchism (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005). 3 Cornell, 26. 4 Cornell, 104. 5 Cornell, 102. 6 Milstein, 110. 7 Cornell, 100. about the author A. Cates is a teacher and community activist living in Portland, Oregon. They enjoy listening to young adult and fantasy fiction on tape and fighting for a queer, liberated, and free world. 84 Perspectives

rationalism, industrial development, and anarchist modernity—also shaped the dynamics of South Asian anticolonial resistance, interventions with the additional dilemma of whether these were to be seen as quintessentially alien. Without imposing the contextually IAS/AK press specific language and history of Western book series anarchism, key principles neverthe- less appear in different guises, with tendencies ranging from the progressive The IAS is pleased to announce modernism of the antiauthoritarian Left the next two books in our Anarchist to romantic antimodernism and insur- Interventions book series with AK Press. rectionary nihilism. This facilitates not only a reinterpretation of the history of Due Out This Fall, 2011 anticolonialism in India but also insight into the meaning of anarchism itself. Decolonizing Anarchism: An Anarchists and antiauthoritarians Antiauthoritarian History of India’s in colonized regions have been among Liberation Struggle the most progressive (though seldom by Maia Ramnath dominant) elements in their own countries’ anticolonial resistance movements Training an antiauthoritarian lens from Mexico to China. “Western” on the history of South Asian struggles anarchists have acted on their principles against colonialism and neocolonialism, by standing in solidarity with national Decolonizing Anarchism highlights lesser- liberation struggles in places such as known dissidents as well as neglected nineteenth-century Poland to twenty- aspects of iconic figures. This reveals first-century Palestine. While it’s natural an alternate narrative of decoloniza- that there should be an affinity based tion, in which achieving a nation-state on the principles of self-determination, is not the horizon of freedom. Debates autonomy, and self-governance (plus central to the anarchist tradition—on anticapitalist and anti-imperialist) on anarchist theory 85

rebellion, many anarchists wrestle with Imperiled Life theorizes an exit the contradictions of supporting a na- from the potentially terminal conse- tionalist state-building project. quences of capital-induced climate But anticolonialism is not reducible change. It is a collection of reflections on to nationalism; it has also manifested the phenomenon of catastrophe—clima- in far more comprehensive visions of tological, political, social—as well as on emancipatory transformation. In fact, the possibilities of overcoming disaster. an anarchist vision of alternate society By means of an appraisal of the closely echoes the concept of total de- current state of the Earth’s climate and colonization on the political, economic, of the possible futures that would be social, cultural, and psychological planes. imperiled by further climate destabi- Decolonization in the global South is lization, the book clearly states that also intrinsically linked to racial and eco- dramatic revolutionary transformation nomic justice in the global North. In the must be had in the near term if human- North American context, this emphasis ity and life itself are to have something illuminates the substantive contribution of a chance to flourish in light of the of an “anarchist people of color” politics ongoing climate crisis. Its alternative, to anarchist analysis and strategy— that of a ‘solar anarcho-communism,’ is namely, foregrounding colonialism as set forth at the book’s close. a primary structure of oppression, as a Combining reportage from the nexus of the logics of state, capital, and 2010 Cancún climate negotiations with race, while combating it in nonnational- investigations into historical and con- ist, antiauthoritarian ways. temporary anti-systemic thought and praxis, Imperiled Life seeks to promote Due Next Spring, 2012 critical thought as a means of changing our historical trajectory.” Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Catastrophe Both will be available from AK Press: by Javier Sethness-Castro www.akpress.org 86 Perspectives

feel by highlighting the issues of intra-Jewish oppression through the accessible and marketable history of the International Black Panther move- recent grants ment, their research will further help the conflict to be seen not as a simple winter 2011 border struggle between religious camps but rather as the Imperialist project that it is, where the only solution is a no-state solution. Asaf is an Israeli American and a Mizrahi from an Iraqi Jewish family. The question of heritage, responsibility, and identity compel him to this project. He has spent many years in Palestine/Israel during various times in his life. He speaks, reads, and writes In the Winter of 2011, the IAS fluently in Hebrew, and therefore has gave grants to four projects. They are: access to numerous resources about the subject matter. Asaf believes in The Stolen Milk Riots: History employing both practice and theory in and Ramifications of the Israeli Black antiauthoritarian work. Clayton studied Panther Movement, by Asaf Shalev and colonial legal theory at the University Clayton Hartmann—$250 California at Santa Barbara. He first The brief existence of the Israeli published a research project in sum- Black Panther (IBP) movement has mer 2008 with the Palestinian Human gone relatively unnoticed in both tra- Rights Monitoring Group that used ditional academic publishing as well critical race theory to point out the as radical academic circles. Through disparity in legal norms between Israeli their IAS grant-funded research, Asaf and Palestinian youth engaged in law- and Clayton plan to briefly trace the ful and unlawful protest. In addition early beginnings of the IBP move- to completing the research project, he ment along with the conditions of the also spent extensive time in Mizrahi Mizrahi (the term Mizrahi applies to neighborhoods, witnessing many of the all Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry and project’s subject matter firsthand. While ethnicity) ghettos that inspired it. From the continued oppression of the Mizrahi there they will follow the IBP’s collapse and Israeli-Ethiopian communities spur due to the spread of nationalism by the him to this historical research, it is his 1973 war and Cointelpro-style repres- time spent working with the popular sion by the administration of former committees in the West Bank that give Prime Minister Golda Meir. They will him hope for peace and justice in his- then finish with a brief examination torical Palestine. of how little has actually changed for ° ° ° the Mizrahi community in terms of Translation of two chapters of socioeconomic and political dispar- Murray Bookchin’s The Ecology of ity vis-à-vis the Ashkenazi (European Freedom: “Introduction” and “The Jewish) minority. Asaf and Clayton on anarchist theory 87

Concept of Social Ecology” into that the “Stonewall” moment was one Russian, by Nadia Shevchenko—$500 example of a long history of queer aboli- By combining various disciplines, tion. While the contemporary moment including radical political theory of assimilation and police cooperation is and history with anthropology and produced via mainstream LGBT organi- environmental studies, The Ecology zations, this essay will work to undo this of Freedom makes a systematic and logic and offer its alternative. Finally, profound analysis of the causes, evolu- Eric will work to build a theory of gen- tion, and consequences of structures der self-determination as an embodied of domination, while simultaneously theoretical and political idea that must offering a vision of an ecological society be at the center of any and all radical that is free, cooperative, and just. Even analysis. Eric is finishing a PhD in the though anarchist and environmental History of Consciousness department movements in the West have been at the University of California at Santa informed by Bookchin’s ideas and con- Cruz, and is the codirector with Chris cepts since the 1980s, the majority of Vargas of the films Homotopia (2006) his works are still unknown to residents and Criminal Queers (2011). Eric’s of the former USSR. This translation writing has been published in the project will make the most fundamen- journal Social Text and in numerous tal parts of this work accessible to a anthologies. Russian-speaking audience. Nadia has ° ° ° been active in the field of social ecol- Genoa Ten Years Later: Lessons ogy for the last twenty years, working Learned for International Legal with various social and environmental Support, by Thomas—$500 grassroots movement and NGOs in Through a series of interviews and the former USSR and Eastern Europe, analysis of related literature, Thomas primarily through the radical environ- will review the progress that the Genoa mental movement “Rainbow Keepers” legal support team has made in mass (followers of Bookchin’s ideas), organiz- defense projects over the past ten years ing public campaigns and direct actions, since the G-8 summit in July 2001, translating, and working for education where hundreds were arrested and and mobilization. She received a mas- many were tortured, and will assess ter’s degrees in mathematics from Kiev the specific challenges of defend- University and in environmental man- ing against international conspiracy agement and policy from Amsterdam charges. Thomas, a law student at the University. University of California Hastings ° ° ° College of the Law, was inspired to Outlaw Lives: Gender Self- work in law after his experience as a determination, Queer Abolition, and surviving witness to the infamous “Diaz Trans Resistance, by Eric Stanley—$250 School Raid” in Genoa 2001. Thomas is This essay will serve as an intro- excited about the continuing movement duction to the emerging fields of study to end the use of the cages into which and organizing collecting under the um- we put land, people, animals, and ideas. brella of trans/queer prison abolition. Through an archival rereading of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, Eric will argue 88 Perspectives

recurring donation via either Network for Good or PayPal, from anywhere and everywhere in the world, and for as little as $1 to $10 to $100 per month (one- time and larger donations are equally appreciated). Do it today, by following this Donate to the link: www.anarchiststudies.org/support/ Insitute for donate. Of course, there are other ways to anarchist contribute financially to the IAS too. Throw a fund-raiser for us, help studies on Our distribute Perspectives in your town, or the books in our new Anarchist 15th Anniversary Interventions series, and/or bring one of our Mutual Aid Speakers List folks to talk. Our Speakers List is available at Eat one fewer vegan donut, drink www.anarchiststudies.org/speakers, and one fewer beer a month, or both—and features a bunch of new people this year. help fund anarchist written work! The IAS also encourages anarchists Just think of all the little things and other like-minded radicals to give you spend money on each month. frequently to the many other wonderful Nice things—like a book, your friend’s projects trying to build a new world latest record, or the ingredients for a from below and yet in need of funds, yummy dish to take to the community from your local collective spaces to potluck—and annoying things, like your local collectives, to all our many bus fare or rent (which is actually a big innovative publishing, organizing, and thing!). Skip just one treat and set up a agitating projects around the world. monthly donation to support the work We’re all in this together, from Cairo to of radical writers and translators around Madison, from Japan to Libya, to our the world through the IAS and our own corners of the globe. grant-giving program. You’ll also ensure In solidarity, that all the other crucial IAS proj- Cindy Milstein, for the IAS Board ects are able to sustain themselves, from Perspectives on Anarchist Theory and Institute for Anarchist Studies the Anarchist Interventions book series, P.O. Box 15586 to our Mutual Aid Speakers List and Washington, DC Anarchist Theory Track, to Renewing 20003 USA the Anarchist Tradition conference, and [email protected] more. With your help, we’ve been build- www.anarchiststudies.org ing a smarter anarchism since 1996. www.twitter.com/narchiststudies This year is our 15th Anniversary! Fortunately, we’ve now made it doubly easy to give up one soy latte each month and kick the money to the IAS instead. You can now set up a on anarchist theory 89

call for about the submissions artists

Our deadline for the next print Santiago Armengod lives in issue is January 31, 2012. All submis- Mexico City where he part takes in sev- sions should have endnotes rather than eral collectives seeking social/political/ footnotes, contain no page numbers, enviromental justice; his art is inspired and conform to the Chicago Manual by the work individuals and collectives of Style. Please include your name and do to shake off the noose around our reliable contact information. Send necks. He is a member of the Justseeds your essays or questions to: perspec- Artists Cooperative. [email protected]. Katie Burkart is a musician, pho- We are particularly looking for essays tographer, and artist living in Portland, on the following topics: Health Care/ OR. She is often touring the world with Self-Care/Wellness; Shifts in Gender her band Defect Defect. and Feminism; Religious Perspectives Alec Dunn is a printer and il- on Anarchism; and Food Systems. This lustrator living in Pittsburgh, PA. He is an open call, so all topics will be is a member of the Justseeds Artists considered. Cooperative. Josh MacPhee is an artist, de- signer, curator, and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. He is on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and is a member of the Justseeds Artists Cooperative. Meredith Stern works with garden soil, linoleum, and drums. She is a member of the Justseeds Artists Cooperative and currently lives in Providence, RI. 90 Perspectives institute for anarchist studies and hierarchy. This has made it possible to understand and challenge a variety of social relationships—such as patriarchy, pobox 15586 racism, and the devastation of nature, to washington, dc 20003 mention a few—while confronting political and economic hierarchies. Given www.anarchiststudies.org this, the ideal of a free society expanded to include sexual liberation, cultural diversity, and ecological harmony, as well as directly democratic institutions. Anarchism’s great refusal of all forms of domination renders it historically flexible, politically comprehensive, and consistently critical—as evidenced by its resurgence in today’s global anticapitalist movement. Still, anarchism has yet to acquire the rigor and complexity needed to comprehend and transform the present. The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS), a nonprofit foundation narchism emerged out of established in 1996 to support the the socialist movement as development of anarchism, is a grant- a distinct politics in the giving organization for radical writers nineteenthA century. It asserted that it and translators worldwide. To date, we is necessary and possible to overthrow have funded some sixty projects by au- coercive and exploitative social relation- thors from countries around the world, ships, and replace them with egalitarian, including Argentina, Lebanon, Canada, self-managed, and cooperative social Chile, Ireland, Nigeria, Germany, South forms. Anarchism thus gave new depth Africa, and the United States. We also to the long struggle for freedom. publish the online and print journal The primary concern of the classi- Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, organize cal anarchists was opposition to the state the annual Renewing the Anarchist and capitalism. This was complemented Tradition conference, and offer the by a politics of voluntarily association, Mutual Aid Speakers List. The IAS is mutual aid, and decentralization. Since part of a larger movement to radically the turn of the twentieth century and transform society as well. We are inter- especially the 1960s, the anarchist nally democratic and work in solidarity critique has widened into a more gen- with people around the globe who share eralized condemnation of domination our values.