Britain, AF Organise! magazine Issue 84 Summer 2015 -
CONTENTS + Editorial
CONTENTS ---- Editorial ---- Fight for the City: Social cleansing. Social warfare. ----
Poking a future monarch with a stick ---- War and Barbarism ---- Rojava: Reality &
Rhetoric ---- A load of crystal balls: the Election and Beyond ---- What the Suffragettes
did for us ---- Sylvia Pankhurst on Parliament ---- Report from AFem 2014 Anarcha-feminist
Conference in London ---- Culture: Theo Van Rysselberghe ---- Review: The Wobblies in
Their Heyday ---- Review: The Method of Freedom ---- Obituary: Colin Parker ----
Editorial: What's in the Latest Organise! ---- As this issue of Organise! goes to press at
the time of the election. As we say here, whoever wins the election the governments always
gets in. Whichever brand of politician ends up in the majority or whatever coalition is
lashed together we know that the current programme of capitalist austerity will continue.
It will result in even more devastating cuts than we have already experienced, coupled
with a strengthening of police powers to curb any opposition. As the crisis that is
capitalism rumbles on, we must be prepared to fight against its latest representatives
whoever they may be.
Fight for the City explains some ways in which opposition can be developed, in this
instance focusing on the housing struggle. Social cleansing and gentrification, another
facet of the capitalist crisis, are effecting towns and cities across the world with
increasing speed and we must learn how to organise against them with similar speed and
tenacity.
We also include an in-depth analysis of the resistance to austerity in the UK so far.
Looking back over the past five years of Student Occupations, TUC strikes, UK Uncut
Actions and mass rioting. We take a look at the strengths and weaknesses and how we can
build a more effective resistance.
Another aspect of the crisis of capitalism is the descent into war and barbarism. We look
at the various plays of both the big powers like the US, Russia and
China and local powers like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel in the Near and Middle East.
Our opposition to capitalism and the State must always have a strong anti-militarist and
internationalist emphasis.
We include a critical look at the situation in Rojava from French revolutionaries, which
questions the rebirth of the PKK into libertarian organisation.
The question of voting, not voting, and what we can even vote for anyway, is discussed in
Crystal Balls. This theme is continued in the article on what the Suffragettes won for us,
with a no-nonsense view on the use of Parliament by Sylvia Pankhurst to back it up. This
is followed with a look at the contemporary
Anarcha-Feminist movement with a report from AFem 2014.
Also in this issue is an article on the Belgian painter Theo Van Rysselberghe, who like
many other painters in France and Belgium, took up the anarchist cause. In addition we
have our usual book reviews, which includes a look at a new collection of the writings of
Malatesta, one of the most pragmatic of anarchist revolutionaries, and a book on how the
State usedthe most ferocious means to crush the IWW, a mass organisation of the working
class, in order to protect their war interests.
We finish this issue of Organise! on a sad note as we remember Colin Parker, one of the
founders of the Anarchist Federation, who died early this year.
---
Organise! magazine #84 Winter 2015. The Anarchist Federation http://www.afed.org.uk
http://www.afed.org.uk/publications/organise-magazine/445-issue-84-summer-2015.html
Download free PDF of last issue: http://www.afed.org.uk/org/org83.pdf [large file size 17MB]
