This year marks the 140 year anniversary of the first anarchist International held at
St.Imier, Switzerland, in 1872. In celebration of the anniversary an international
gathering was called in St.Imier in mid-August. A contingent of Collective Action
militants attended the gathering along with thousands of other anarchists from around the
world to discuss politics, create new international ties and, of course, have some fun.
--- From August 8th to the 12th, the small Swiss town was taken over by anarchists
attending the gathering. It was hard to calculate the exact number of attendees as the
venues and sleeping sites was spread across the entire town and there was a constant flow
of people leaving and joining the gathering throughout the week, but estimates have ranged
from 2,000 to 4,000.
Needless to say with such huge numbers of attendees, and an international gathering of
this magnitude being so rare for the current generation of anarchists, the organisation of
the event held up in many areas but also had it shortcomings.
The accommodation for the attendees consisted of three camp sites and a sports hall hired
by the organisers, and many more attendees hiring out hotel rooms and houses. The two
biggest camp sites were located on top of Mount Soleil, and for a small fee of 10 Swiss
Francs transport from St. Imier to Mount Soleil was provided for the duration of the
gathering via a funicular. The Collective Action militants were staying in one of these
camp sites on Mount Soleil and the facilities provided were very good. There was an
adequate amount of toilets and hot showers available all day and night. A kitchen was
present to provide breakfast every morning and then double up as a bar to provide alcohol
in the evening. The camp sites were big enough for everyone?s tents and allowed enough
room for fires in the evening that provided a good environment to drink and get to
socialise with comrades from around the world. Despite the chilling nights and one alcohol
induced violent situation the accommodation was well organised and made as comfortable as
camping can be.
The food throughout the gathering was fantastic! There were three kitchens in all
organised by three different food collectives. One kitchen already mentioned was located
in the Mount Soleil camp sites that only provided breakfast. The other two kitchens were
located in St. Imier, one by the book fair and the second in the middle of the town
conveniently located between the venues. The two kitchens in St. Imier provided breakfast,
lunch and dinner, and tea, coffee and water throughout the day. Considering the huge
amount of people the kitchens had to provide food for, all the meals well cooked, tasty
and well proportioned. The kitchens were well organised and based on co-operation allowing
people outside of the kitchen collectives to prepare and serve food. There was a
recommended daily donation of 10 Swiss Francs per day for the meals and unfortunately it
appears that not everyone respected this because on the last day the kitchens were
stressing that they were currently down 3,000 Swiss Francs.
All the daily activities took place in St. Imier, and the social centre, ?Espace Noir?,
was the main hub. There were another 7 venues spread across the town that were holding
talks, round-tables, gigs and movie showings throughout the week, and the local ice rink
was drained for the week long book fair. Unfortunately the spaces, organisation and
content of the talks had many shortcomings.
The format to the talks was too open and at times frustratingly disorganised. Minus a few
talks there was no system in place for translations which lead to many talks opening by
asking if someone was able/willing to translate x language into y and z. It wasted a lot
of time that could have been used to talk about more topics in greater detail and, at its
worst, lead to arguments and vital details being lost in translation.
The content for many of the talks and round tables also lacked depth. A lot of them felt
like introductions to topics, which is fine if talks are provided for the more seasoned
anarchist as well, which in this case were not. Anarchists from all over the world were
present and not enough effort was made to allow the experiences faced by anarchists in
different regions of the world to be shared. Moreover the talks were frustratingly
retrospective, which again is not a bad thing if they are balanced out with talks on
praxis, or used to highlight problems we face today, but this was not the case. Historic
internationals have debated both the social ills of the day as well as attempting to find
unity on the relevant praxis to create a coherent anarchist response but this was missing
from many of the presentations. There is by no means a shortage of topics in this area -
from new social movements (like Occupy and anti-austerity coalitions) to the emergence of
new tactics in struggle ( like direct unionism or insurrrectionary riots). Instead
references to these things were either cursory or needlessly triumphalist, for example,
uncritically citing the Occupy movement as a "gain" for anarchist ideas. Areas of
essential interest, such as the situation in Greece, were presented by outside observers
and raised disputes from Greek activists in attendance. The plenary was also marred by a
similar incoherence of political vision with interventions ranging from the essential
adoption of Esperanto to the need for the formation of a parliamentary party!
We were also forced to question as to why in a congress held in the middle of an economic
crisis, and presented publicly to the press as "an anarchist response to debt", was only
one round-table devoted to the subject. This meeting, billed as 'the Crisis and the
PIIGS', also raised critical questions on the interpretation and cause of the crisis,
particularly the views of the IAF-IFA representative that it could be largely attributed
to the activity of a select core of financial institutions and banks. However aside from
the intervention of a member of the CGA (Coordantion des Groupes Anarchistes) and the
excellent presentation by Paul Bowman of the Workers Solidarity Movement (the
technicalities of which I suspect were largely lost in translation) no space for debate
and criticism was permitted on this topic in the limited time available. This should have
been a central theme of the congress.
There was also a lack of gender and colour politics, no safe space from the beginning and
next to zero accessibility for the disabled. As a movement we need to be tackling problems
of inclusiveness and accessibility, and creating a safe environment for everyone to
express their opinions, concerns and struggles so we can learn to counteract these areas
of struggle. Unfortunately, this seems to be a problem still prevalent within the
international anarchist movement.
The general organisation of the event was carried out by a small collective that spent
most of its time isolated in a room in Espace Noir. If another international gathering is
called in the future it would be great to see anarchist principles of co-operation and
shared responsibility at the forefront of the organising. If this were the case we
probably would see a lot of the highlighted problems remedied. In spite of the negatives
we would like to congratulate the organisers of the gathering as the amount of hours put
in to organising such an event must be astronomical, but we should learn not to make the
same mistakes twice.
During the gathering the CA militants were able to build new international contacts and
further forward some debates within our own theory. The Anarkismo tent and delegates had
the biggest influence on us, showed the highest level of organisation as well as, in spite
of a more limited programme, the clearest political content. This included an excellent
presentation by the FARJ (Federa??o Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro) on the history and
lessons to be drawn from the First International, something again that was conspicuously
missing from the main programme. It was also one of the few disabled accessible spaces.
One stand-out talk we attended was by a Zimbabwean comrade known as Biko - connected to
the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) - on the historical and contemporary
political and economic situation in Zimbabwe. The talk was comprehensive, eye opening and
the start of a new friendship for us. It gave us an opportunity to hear about the
situation in Zimbabwe from the other side of the news coverage. This was presented as an
anarchist communist perspective but also incorporated the experiences and problems faced
by everyday workers and trade unionists when trying to organise against the regime.
Despite huge repression Biko and his comrades have organised around four fronts consisting
of a political studies circle, an arts collective, an Indymedia collective and a
permaculture collective that provides herbal remedies for HIV sufferers in communities
where medical treatment is inaccessible. The ?Uhuru Network? has managed to set up a
commune where the four fronts can live collectively. Biko supplied us with CDs made by the
network to sell here in the UK - they will be up on our website shortly - and CA will be
putting on benefit gigs for these comrades to help supply them with literature and
printing equipment for the political studies circle, and recording equipment for the arts
collective.
Our meeting with Anarkismo delegates was a high point of the gathering for us, and we
would like to send our thanks to them for providing such an informed, stimulating debate.
It felt encouraging to be talking and debating comrades that share our passion for
political education and critical thinking. It was uplifting to know that some were using
an international forum to exchange and debate theories and praxis to better understand how
anarchists today need to organise. The breadth of experience was truly astounding and it
was great to conduct discussions with like-minded people from across the globe. This was
in contrast to other parts of the gathering where it felt that Swiss, French and German
(perhaps understandably) anarchists were over-represented.
In all, for the CA militants attending, the gathering was highly enjoyable. As in all big
meetings it is often the conversations and debates conducted outside of the official
meetings that prove must useful and it was great to be around so many funny, caring and
interesting people. We didn?t feel like the shortcomings were big enough to make the
gathering unsuccessful but they gave us lessons to take forward to any future
international gatherings.
Posted By
Collective Action
Sep 5 2012 14:03
Tags
UK Collective Action conferences
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