Part 2
Today's Topics:
1. Britain, RESISTANCE BULLETIN #159 - STILL ANGRY NOT
APATHETIC – (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. anarkismo.net: Tokologo #5/6 - No Illusions: 2016 Elections
no Solution for the Masses by Warren McGregor - TAAC, ZACF
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. anarkismo.net: The Brazilian Anarchist Uprising of 1918 by
Rebel Worker - Overview of the 1918 Brazilian anarchist uprising.
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
POST-ELECTION SPECIAL ISSUE: This issue contains reports of people fighting along side
refugees and asylum seekers, winning against their dodgy landlords, and acting in
solidarity with people sleeping rough. All this is being done without the wet blanket that
is Jeremy Corbyn or the hope-filled lies of political parties. ---- Wake Up! Wake Up
gatherings, where people are given opportunity to use quality PA on the streets of towns
and cities are mushrooming over the country. Debates which divide and rule us,
encompassing racism, extreme religion, sexism, Islam and austerity are taking place in
market streets. The views of the right and the racist are openly being challenged out of
doors without the use of darkened meeting rooms and the need to read in advance.
Equipment is provided by Community Bandstand and,
during sessions, no-one is allowed to outshout another
speaker, ensuring a degree of voice for all involved.
The first Wake Up! Manchester followed on from some
arrests in the summer of 2014 at the anti-fracking site at
Barton Moss. PA equipment was used outside the police
station where the arrestees were held and quality debates
began. Initially, the Wake Up! sessions were musical, with
serial monologues but they soon developed into debates.
Recently in Manchester, a rabid Christian using his own PA
was peddling his church on Market Street. He was
challenged, using another street microphone with"What
happens to all the money you collect?". Mobile mikes were
distributed and a large crowd got involved in a debate
which challenged the power of the church and the role
money plays in sustaining it while the poor and homeless
remain on the street.
In Bolton, an EDL member was mouthing off their usual
Islamophobia. A large crowd gathered and through debate
and discussion, the racist ideas were dismantled. It is risky
giving voice to those like the EDL and the religious right,
but by taking them on in a public forum, the Wake Up!
team believe that it is more effective to break down their
ideas and it is worth this risk to attack the ghettoised
opinions.
For some people, access to new anarchist ideas is limited
by a fear of reading and limited literacy. Wake Up! gets
around this by allowing for street debate. When you have a
conversation with a person you have an opportunity to
clear up misunderstandings there and then.
Currently Wake Up! Operates in Bolton Manchester
Liverpool and Wigan. New Wake Up! groups are
developing in Ipswich, Newcastle, Bangor and Sheffield. If
you would like to set one up in your local area contact
www.communitybandstand.wordpress.com
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www.communitybandstand.wordpress
? Will provide PA systems
? Megaphones
? Cameras telescopic banner poles
You will need to cover petrol/diesel money
Advice on setting up a Wake Up!
? Choose a space with
? Good footfall
? Space for a banner behind
? Space for PA equipment, e.g. outside a closeddown
shop with shutters.
? Pick a regular time so people can find you
? Check local by-laws. In some areas, when
challenged by the law, cops left when informed
it was a civil issue and the council were welcome
to come and discuss it with them. This may be
different in your area.
------------------------------------------https://afed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Resistance159.pdf
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Message: 2
Many in the working class hope the 2016 local government elections will prove a turning
point. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the 2014 elections easily, but its
grip is weakening. The ANC-allied Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) has split, the
radical metal union NUMSA expelled. The ANC could even lose control of at least one of
giant "metro" municipality in 2016, possibly greater Johannesburg or Nelson Mandela Bay -
probably to the moderate Democratic Alliance (DA), not the ANC breakaway, Economic Freedom
Fighters (EFF). ---- THE VOTE WON'T FREE YOU ---- We anarchists and anarchist sympathisers
in the TAAC (and ZACF) have stated consistently our opposition to elections to state
power. State institutions of political power are the graveyard of the struggles of the
working class and poor. Elected representatives, no matter what party, are quickly
co-opted into these wealthy halls of ruling class power, no matter their origins. There
they wheel-and- deal with others in the ruling class, including full-time (and unelected)
senior state managers, like the directors and generals, and the capitalists who spend time
and money lobbying, bribing and striking business deals with the politicians.
All state policies are in in the interests of furthering exploitation and profit-making.
The only exception is where mass power forces politicians and bosses to make changes - out
of fear. The massive student struggles of 2015 forced a fee freeze in all universities, as
well as an end to outsourcing (privatisation) in some - achieving more in 2 weeks than EFF
actions in parliament did in 2 years. Struggle is how you win change, not dropping paper
into a box every few years.
THE PARTIES ARE RUN BY ELITES
The ANC rules, again, over a "better life" for the ruling class, the capitalists and state
managers, with massive economic problems, unemployment and poverty for the rest of us. Its
much-praised welfare system papers over the cracks, but does not come close to ending
poverty and suffering with its tiny grants, and lack of assistance to the unemployed
millions. Corruption by both politicians and capitalists, disastrous management by party
"cadres" in SABC, ESKOM and other state enterprises, and neo- liberal policies are the
sign of the dark times. New Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene has repeatedly promoted
austerity in his budgets and speeches. The ANC has meanwhile centralised executive power
in the Presidency and Treasury, making parliament even more useless than normal.
But the problem is not just the ANC, let alone ANC leader President Jacob Zuma - as rival
parties like to pretend. The state, by its very nature, ensures the exploitation and
domination of the working class and poor, and it corrupts and co-opts all who sit at its head.
THE EFF IS NO DIFFERENT
The EFF has proved no exception. EFF leaders signed a public pledge (the "Sankara Oath")
stating they and their families would use state facilities like schools and hospitals,
consult the masses and build an honest state.
Within hours of taking office, EFF MPs broke this promise, and also added that they would
be making full use of generous parliamentary salaries and perks, like free flights. As for
honesty, Malema's expensive lawyers have spent the last few years helping him dodge jail
time for corruption, racketeering and tax fraud, arising from extensive involvement in
corrupt privatisation contracts.
And consultation? The EFF is top- down in character, held together by the expelled
leadership of the ANC Youth League, notably Malema and Floyd Shivambu.
3 EFF MPs were expelled in 2015 after providing evidence Malema used EFF funds for
personal expenses. The 2014 EFF national conference post- elections was also used to purge
critics, and other heavy-handed interventions into branches and regions also helped centre
power in the Malema group.
The EFF sees the gap in the voting market as African youth stuck in impoverished
townships, as well as struggling workers battling vicious bosses. Like the ANC itself, the
EFF knows the value of staying in the public eye, of grand promises, of a rhetoric
continually referencing "revolutionary" slogans, yet devoid of any revolutionary action,
of politics built around the uncritical support for charismatic leaders, and of using
party funds to build a network of patronage to centralise power.
THE POLITICS OF PUBLICITY STUNTS
The obsession of historically white-owned media with Malema, as "black bogeyman," provides
free publicity. To access state office and benefits, it needs their votes; this is the aim
of events like the "pay-back-the-money" shouting campaign in parliament. (Even so, EFF
still secured only 6% of the vote in 2014 - more youth stayed away from voting than voted
EFF).
Fundamentally, EFF is built on spectacular publicity stunts arranged from above, empty
promises (like the 2015 land occupation campaign that was quietly cancelled),
multi-million dollar rallies with free t-shirts, and so-called "socialist" catch-phrases
to win poor black people's votes e.g. "nationalisation," "economic emancipation," "land
reform." Its ideology is shifting, but has strong flavours of exclusivist Africanist
(anti-minority) nationalism and Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, to brand it as radical and take
the space the ANC seems to have vacated.
REAL CHANGE COMES FROM US
This type of politics is no basis for revolutionary transformation. It keeps the system
where the masses are spectators, not players, where freedom is seen as something brought
from on high, by great leaders, where change comes through parties and elections - not
from the people, themselves. And its nationalism, hiding class divisions, including
between the (wealthy) ANC and EFF leaderships and their (poor) mass voting base, further
confuses the issues.
The 2016 elections will simply repeat the politics of spectacles, of the circus of
politics, based on the 3 main parties. Nothing will be achieved, hopes will be dashed, and
at most some faces in the ruling class will change.
THE STATE IS YOUR ENEMY
We in the TAAC again declare that the state is in no way the avenue for working class
struggle. It is a site of ruling class power - and no matter the colour of your beret,
whether black (ANC), blue (DA) or red (EFF), you and your party cannot change this
essential characteristic of state power - it will change your party.
By voting you give your right to create social change to a party, a bunch of people you
don't know, to do as they wish. Real working class power lives in our organisations -
trade unions and grassroots social movements, organised democratically - and in our spaces
- the streets, the neighbourhoods, the shop-floor, the meetings. Here we must do the hard
work of building a working class counterculture for revolutionary transformation, and
through daily struggle, build counter-power against the ruling class and their
institutions, the state and corporations, to create the change we want.
We continue the call:
DON'T VOTE! ORGANISE COUNTER- POWER!
Related Link:
http://zabalaza.net/2015/11/25/double-issue-5-6-of-tokologo-the-newsletter-of-the-taac-now-available/
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29044
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Message: 3
SOURCE: "Rebel Worker" (Australia), volume 19, number 1 (163), p. 17. Original author not
known. ---- 81 years ago Rio de Janerio was shaken by a series of events that culminated
in one of the most important episodes in the history of the Brazilian workers movements an
insurrectionary strike designed to bring down oligarchic republican government and replace
it with a workers’ and soldiers council. ---- From 1917, class-conscious Brazilian
workers, particularly in Rio de Janerio and Sao Paulo had been organising at an
accelerated rate. In July that year, Sao Paulo had ground to a halt after a general strike
triggered by the police murder of a young shoemaker. For Four days the city was turned
into a battlefield with countless clashes between the masses and the security forces.
In Rio de Janerio, which was the capital in those days, militants from the FORJ (Federação
Operaria do Rio de Janeiro) had been busy with a campaign against the cost of living and
by May there had been nearly 50 rallies, in spite of police bans. Alongside this process
the FORJ was painstakingly reorganising the trade unions. By the middle of the year this
was bearing fruit with the establishment of the Civil Construction Workers’ Union (UOCC)
and the Textile Workers Union (UOFT). Brutal repression of the Corcovado Textile Plant
strike in May and the collapse of the New York hotel on July 7 with the deaths of dozens
of workers exasperated the carioca (Rio) workers. On July 17 1917, a gathering at the FORJ
head quarters decided to go on strike. The strike quickly spread to a number of
industries, strengthening the unions which experienced dizzying growth from them on.
1918 opened under the shadow of the revolution in Russian which triggered a wave of
optimism and unrest in the conscious proletariat the world over. In January, libertarian
militants established the Rio de Janeiro Anarchist Alliance, a specific social propaganda
organisation.. 1st March saw the establishment of the General Workers Union (UGT) when the
FORJ was banned by the police after general strike.
In April, following a fortnight on strike, the shoemakers won the eight and a half hour
working day. The press started to speculate about a planned general strike and the police
cracked down on the UGT. With a state of siege decreed, May Day was marked in a big UGT-
sponsored rally in the Theartro Maison Moderne in the Praça Tiradentes. June and July saw
strikes by cabinet-makers, marble workers, colliers, dockers and hat- makers, with several
textile plants being brought to a standstill. On August 3, a strike was called for better
wages and shorter hours for the shipbuilders and the tram workers. The strike resembled an
uprising following clashes between the populace and the security forces in the Rua da
Conceição in Niteroi. Several troopers from the army’s 58th Chasseurs defected to the
strikers two of them being shot dead in the exchange of fire. This raised workers’
expectations of forging an alliance with the lower ranks of the armed forces as had
happened in Russia.
As the cost of living rose throughout the country there was an upsurge in strikes and
demonstrations in virtually every state capital and industrial city. Again there were
rumours of a general strike looking in Rio and this caused the upper echelons of the
Republicans some concern. Meanwhile, in the city of Petro-polis in Rio state, the famished
populace looted and fought with the police. Disaster struck at the end of September. Rio
was hit by the Spanish flu epidemic which claimed the lives of thousands of workers. The
police rounded up workers active on the Committee to Combat the Epidemic as the
bourgeoisie and the authorities fled to the safety of the mountains. By November, the
epidemic was easing off, but starvation continued to claim hundreds of lives.
The approaching uprising was presaged by a flurry of activity. The textile employers
refused to heed the weavers demands; the newspapers were filled with reports of
proletarian revolution in Germany, the ending of the First World War, and of Delfim
Moreira standing in for ailing elected President Rodrigues Alves on November 15.
On November 18, the weavers declared a strike in the mills in Rio, Niteroi, Petropolis,
Mage and Santo Aleixo simultaneously. The metalworkers and construction workers threw
their weight behind. In the mid-afternoon, strikes began to converge on the Campo de Sao
Cristovao. The police ordered them to disperse and tried to make arrests. The workers
retailed and shooting started. Two bombs went off at the police station and the crowds
invaded the premises. Shortly after that troops intervened to clear the police station and
scatter the workers who were attempting to invade the army stores. The fighting spread
into neighbouring streets and cavalry charges scattered the rebels. Controversially, Edgar
Rodrigues, in his 1972 book based on depositions from militants, argues that the workers,
having learned from a caption that the uprising had been betrayed, kept things low-key.
The uprising was doomed in advance.
The soldiers’ treachery and failure to go over to the rebels put paid to the plans
painstakingly worked-out over months. The details of those plans were known in advance to
the police and army. One serviceman, Lieutenant Jorge Elias Ajus, had infiltrated the
movement and taken part in all of the meetings and was even placed in charge of the
rebellion’s military strategy. The plan was that after capturing the army’s stores, the
workers and mutinous soldiers would make for the city centre and attack the prefecture,
Police headquarters and the barracks of the Police Brigade. Meanwhile, workers from
southern zone were to attack the Palacio do Catete and the Chamber of Deputies after which
the establishment of a Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council would be proclaimed.
In the early evening of November 18 all of the movements ringleaders and almost 200
anarchist militants, workers and ‘suspects’ were arrested. At the gates of the Confiaça
factory, police killed the weaver Manuel Martins and wounded another who died a few days
later. The funeral procession, even though banned, was escorted by hundreds of workers. In
spite of violent repression, the weavers’, metalworkers’ and construction workers strike
dragged on for a further two weeks. On November 20 the repression led to the closure of
these unions premises and on November 22 the UGT was disbanded by order of the federal
government. The 1918 uprising was so no starry-eyed adventure of little consequence; it
was an attempt by the workers themselves to effect their liberation, based on their own
experiences of struggle and organisation and their desire to see the yearned for Social
Revolution made a reality. The finest tribute we could pay these comrades is our struggle
to keep alive the flame that will light the way to a classless, exploitation-free society
with neither State nor domination.
(Digitised by Leroy Maisiri, ZACF, South Africa).
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29031
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