Anarchistic update news all over the world - 31 May 2016
Today's 5 Topics:
1. wsm.ie: What is 'Self-Organisation'? A Basic Introduction by
Ferdia O'Brien (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Debate, Review of
citizenism in Montpellier June 2 (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - social movement, And
now: block everything! (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. CALL FOR WEEK OF ACTION in Support of Anarchist Prsioners in
Azerbaijan (28th of May– 5th of June) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Greece, On the action of Victoria Square Tuesday, May 24
(gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Listen to anarchists for long enough, and you'll hear us praising the 'self-organisation'
of various movements or groups and insisting that political activity needs to be more
'self-organised'. But what does this mean? Why is this important? ---- It can be an
odd-sounding term, but basically 'self-organisation' is doing stuff without relying on or
waiting for external leadership or a central authority. A 'self-organised' movement
doesn't wait for parties, unions, or whatever leader, to give it orders. A
'self-organised' group isn't controlled from the top-down. Self-organisation – like a
related idea, 'self-management' – is at the core of anarchism. It makes us more effective,
and gives us an opportunity to practice real democracy.
What about an example? The struggle against the water charges can largely be described
self-organised. It wasn't an idea cooked up by a central committee of lefty activists, who
then went off and stirred the masses into action, giving everyone an instruction manual to
follow. From early 2014, people – overwhelmingly not from political parties - in different
communities across the country got together and decided 'we're going to stop meters being
installed in our area'. They formed non-party political anti-water charge campaign groups,
where everyone had an equal say, and helped people in other areas to do the same. After a
thankless slow burn for months by relatively few people, this organising model spread like
wildfire.
The struggle against the water charges has been largely, but not entirely, self-organised.
The Right2Water/Right2Change committee – consisting of political parties and slightly more
militant but conventional unions - and We Won't Pay – a Socialist Party front organisation
– have been the main elements in the struggle which are not self-organised, i.e. which are
hierarchical. While both groups have made useful, and not useful, contributions to the
struggle, they both have consistently tried to establish a leadership position over the
movement as a whole, deciding the content and direction of the movement essentially from
the top-down. Despite this, impressively, the anti-water charges movement has managed to
retain most of its self-organised, de-centralised, character.
Why is this impressive or noteworthy? Well, because it makes the movement stronger and
more effective.
Firstly, when a movement is centralised, it's easier to control and attack. There is a
'head of the snake' to cut off. You can get at the whole movement by getting at the
leadership. Think about big unions like SIPTU. The union leadership can be effectively
bought off by the government, and then the government can sit back and watch the union
leadership do their dirty work, of de-mobilising workers, for them. Contrast this to a
de-centralised movement (think of hundreds of locally organised water charges groups). In
a more extreme example, imagine trying to quell a riot. Where do you begin trying to
control that? Who gives the 'stop!' order?
But this is equally true for the left. If a movement is self-organised, it's much harder
for left (or not so left) political parties to put a movement to their own ends, which
inevitably leads to a worse outcome. It usually means more votes for them at the expense
of activism that matters.
Secondly, self-organisation is empowering for people. Struggles are schools of politics.
It is a hugely important opportunity for people to learn about how the world works, learn
the practical skills necessary for making change, and learn that they as much as anyone
else has the duty and capability to make that change a reality. We need to not just think
of the immediate goal of the particular campaign, but of the big picture: how to build
towards a new, free society. If a struggle is ridden with hierarchy, it will be like
actual school in this society - we'll doss off, learn fuck all, and leave it with low
self-esteem, ready to take orders from authority figures.
Look, for example, at how much people have learned by participating in the struggle
against the water charges. How many people didn't even consider themselves political at
all, and are now hardened community activists, who feel confident organising meetings,
protests, confronting police, creating media, strategising, and so on? How many now
identify as anti-establishment, have rejected and distrust the mainstream media, the
police, politicians, and have become politically aware well beyond the water charges?
Think of the value of this moving into the future, for example in the struggle against the
housing crisis. Think of how lesser this would have been if people had just waited for the
usual line-up of lefties to set everything up and tell people what was going to happen.
We live in a society bogged down by hierarchy. Leaders and lead, command and inertia,
power and subjugation. But in revolution every person can be a 'leader' in their own
right. Anarchism emphasises taking responsibility and the initiative because nothing less
will make a better world. Every person can decide now to act to make a new society. Screw
the leaders, the professionals, and let's look to ourselves: 'I am the change'.
Ferdia O'Brien
http://www.wsm.ie/c/what-is-self-organisation-basic-introduction
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Message: 2
Lordon, Friot, Ruffin, Chouard: their common point, demand a radical change in society
based on the appeal to citizens. But what do they really offer? What are the implications
of their solutions? ---- AL Montpellier is pleased to host discussion on citizenism and
criticism, which is highly topical with the movement against the Labour Law. ---- Night in
the movement standing, we see the emergence of new thinkers that might be called
citizenists. ---- Frédéric Lordon, François Ruffin, Bernard Friot, Étienne Chouard they
have in common to propose a radical change of society based on the call to "citizens". If
these proposals can be alluring at first, she often exhibit disruptive solutions:
hierarchical social wage by type of degree, return to economic protectionism and strong
state links sometimes troubles with Alain Soral in the case of Stephen Chouard ...
What are these citoyennismes it really the name?
Public Meeting
Thursday, June 2 at 7:00 p.m.
in Bulwark
14, rue Aristide Ollivier in Montpellier
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Une-critique-du-citoyennisme-a
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Message: 3
Unionists Call "They block all! 'Meeting held Thursday, May 19, the evening of a new day
of strikes. In the great room Croizat the Labour Exchange Paris are 200 militant.es are
venu.es discuss mobilization underway. Impressions. ---- Launched on March 22, calling the
union "is blocking everything! " Participate today undoubtedly the social movement
underway with over 1,500 signatories ... including 100 union structures as such (CGT, CNT,
CNT-SW SOUTH Partners for the most part). ---- With a website and a Facebook page active,
sending thousands of stickers at the four corners of the hexagon, regular contributions
animation collective that marked the news of the fight (on the punishment, reappointment
strike ...), now the call is a thread that runs hundreds of union teams beyond their
organizational labels.
In some cities (in Marseille, Nantes ...) local collective gathering militant.es CGT, CNT,
CNT-SO, FSU and SUD-Solidaires were even born. We can therefore consider that the call has
helped anchor the economy's blocking of perspective as a condition of a winning move.
That, more or less, which gave all its interest in the mobilization meeting of Thursday,
May 19
Two interventions "thematic" a crackdown on the movement, the other on inter-linkages from
the example of Saint-Denis (93), launched the meeting. A series of interventions on the
state of mobilization by SUD and CGT trade unionists from different professional sectors
followed - SNCF, Computer, Aerial, education, étudiant.es, Commerce - which helped to
better measure the difficulties ... but also the will to fight!
Interprofessional structures clôturaient the "party meeting" the CNT, CNT-SO, the Inter
trend Emancipation and the Union syndicale Solidaires thus spoke. Finally, a quick summary
and some proposals were made before giving the floor to the room for interventions that
stressed the need to build convergence strikes and organize the blockade of the economy.
What can we learn from this meeting?
First question, sensitive, resistance to repression remains highly topical: at the meeting
were announced putting into custody five comrades Solidarity étudiant.es in Rennes and
Lille, search of premises Solidaires Ille-et-Vilaine, and, worse, incarceration in
preventive of a comrade from the CGT Valenciennes . We have to organize more and more
necessary inter-union solidarity.
Other ads of the evening, that she blockade of refineries sparked applause from the
audience. Especially as the economic blockades in many cities are now part of the
repertoire of action, strategy driven by the call "It blocks all! "Fully sticking to the
reality of the struggle.
There remains the question of the strike. Few interventions have demanded an incantatory
call for a general strike 'directions' union, as it is clear that the strike "push-button"
is not a possible scenario (or even desirable) ... and this, simply because it remains to
convince at the base and on the ground to stop working for even a few hours!
However, for everyone, the strike is not a step that we can remove. It is simply to do as
much as possible with the reality of the mobilization on our workplaces and articulate
strike action and mass blockades of self-organization experiences.
Theo Roumier (collective animation of the call "It blocks all!")
Read also the appeal "are blocking the repression! "
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Appel-Bloquons-la-repression
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Et-maintenant-tout-bloquer
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Message: 4
Anarchists from Azerbaijan, Bayram Mammadov and Qiyas Ibrahimov, spraypainted the monument
of Haydar Aliyev. The message was: “Happy slave days”. This action was done on the eve of
Heydar Aliyev’s birthday on May 10, 2016, which is annually being celebrated by the
government in a wasteful manner. Given an absolute personality cult of Aliyev, such an act
was severely condemned by the government (under the leadership of his son Ilham Aliyev)
and the activists were arrested on May 10, 2016. Police have planted drugs on them to
avoid charging them on the grounds of hooliganism. ---- This is not the first dirty trick
of Azerbaijan goverment. The government that try to create a sense of happy citizens and a
free govenment and cover every threat against its absolute power with conspiracies, try to
demonstrate every political activists as drug addicts, caging the every revolutionary
action behind the lies.
Heroins which are planted by police are punishable by up to twelve years of
imprisonment.
To apologize for their acts in front of Heydar Aliyev’s monuments or to
suffer hours of torture… This is the message to our comrades who didn’t
deny their actions. To deny their political personality or 12 years of
imprisonement!
We, as anarchists, are in solidarity with our comrades who chose direct
action and transformed their words and theories into a force in motion. So
be it in Azerbaijan, in Greece, in Chile, in Spain, Ister Azerbaycan, in
all over the world, our ideas cut across all boundaries.
We stand by the recalcitrants against this authoritarian circus.
We call every comrades from around the world join the Solidarity and Action
Week in Support of Anarchist Prsioners in Azerbaijan (28th of May– 5th of
June).
Power to Bayram Mammadov and Qiyas Ibrahimov who are in hunger strike!
Destruction for Prison Cells!
Until the Diffusion of every symbol of repression with the hammer of freedom!
ABC Istanbul
http://abcistanbul.blogspot.com.tr/
Anarsist Tutsaklara Iskenceye Kars? Azerbaycan Konsolosluklar? Önüne Çagr?- Call For Week
Of Action for Anarchist Prsioners in Azerbaijan
https://karakok.wordpress.com
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Message: 5
On Tuesday, May 24 held-gathering microphone in Victoria Square. - Follow the
antiwar-anti-state demonstrations in positive mood and pulse through the streets residing
immigrants (Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides) towards Monastiraki. - The course framed 300
persons, quantity proportional to the seasonal ebb of social resistance. - In the body of
anarchist-antiauthoritarians participated immigrants, implementing the project for the
racing concurrence solidarity and immigrants. - On the way, in harmony with the content of
anarchist demonstration fonachtikan and slogans were written. ---- Also, the Stateless
newspaper distributed in Arabic-speaking version. At the same time, leaflets were thrown,
was sharing texts and posters for the court martial of O.A.S D.Chatzivasileiadi.
The reason for setting the date of the course, was the first World Humanitarian UN summit
on poverty and migration, which took place in Istanbul on 23-24 May. The content of the
discussions moved to renegotiate Turkey relations -E.E light of new data forms the
construction of TAP, the rise of nationalist movements in Europe and the overall role
played by Turkey in the region. They praised their success in reducing migratory flows and
the establishment of dozens of concentration camps. These among others (eg direct inflow
of funds of 6 billion, the exchange of visa for Turkey to transform its counter-terrorism
legislation) under the umbrella of the management of the migration problem and increasing
poverty. The "humanism" has focused on the prerequisites for economic and geopolitical
interests, the control and flow of capital, as in the commercialization and control of
immigrants. On the same day, the Greek State decided to militarise the Idomeni zone with
thousands of uniformed, starting the discharge and switching operation of 8,000 caged
migrants in concentration camps, cutting off any update information and exerting arrests
at criminalized solidarity.
Our era is gradually becoming more and more demanding political issue emerging from the
impositions of capitalism. The historicity requires political will and fighting spirit.
The necessity of our political and business establishment, the structure and outward
function of a revolutionary movement.
It must be so, major case to ensure the radical characteristics and strategic directions
of antithesmikou- antisystemic struggle.
anarchist / anti-authoritarian assembly for migration
FREEDOM TO IMMIGRANTS
WAR SOLIDARITY AND IMMIGRANTS TO BE THE END OF CAPITAL AND MEMBER
Next meeting Thursday 2/6 18:00
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