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» Anarchic update news all over the world - 24 December 2016
Anarchic update news all over the world - 24 December 2016
Today's Topics:
1. Prison Sentence to Managing Editor of Anarchist Meydan
Newspaper in Turkey by Devrimci Anarsist Faaliyet - DAF (ca)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Indonesia, anarkis.org: Houses Stars: Sowing Autonomy in
Central City [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Novembre - Who benefits
from crime? (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. colectivo libertario evora (JOSÉ ESTEVÃO) "ANARCHISM WILL
HAVE TO HAVE A FUTURE" (pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. US, Workers Solidarity Alliance WSA - ideas and action: A
Free Market Fantasy By Geoff R & Bryer Sousa
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Tunisia: Jemna, or the resistance of a dispossessed
community of its agricultural land by Habib Ayeb (fr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
An investigation was started by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's office about our
newspaper related to articles "Both Arrival and Departure of State is From Fear", "Banned
Until Further Order", and "Recreating Life" in the 30. issue of our newspaper published on
December 2015 with the caption "Banning Everything". The lawsuit following the
investigation ended after almost a year of trials. ---- On the summary judgment yesterday,
the court sentenced the managing editor of our newspaper Hüseyin Civan to 1 year and 3
months of imprisonment with the charge "making the propaganda for the methods of a
terrorist organization constituting coercion, violence or threats through legitimizing or
praising or encouraging the use of these methods".
As we emphasized in the articles leading to the investigation, "State will never be able
to captivate the passion of freedom of and the conviction of freedom of the peoples".
As an anarchist newspaper knowing that the free life that we believe in can only be
created through struggle, we will never give up writing what we stand up for and
distribute what we write. We will continue to resist, act and write against oppression,
investigations, custodies and arrests.
------------------------------
Message: 2
That is, we have a kind of grip in the activity this community. The spirit of
independence, autonomy and collective management and attitudes so the basic value. ---- R
ome Star, or often called Rubin, is a collective / community which is unique in skena
Bandung. They are basically an alternative learning home for children in central Bandung
area, Nangkasuni exact. But in practice, they do more than just study house. Rubin
involved in many positive things that are often forgotten or even abandoned by many
community-based either music or culture, or even reverse movement organization that merely
rests on political issues. ----They, not stuck in the philanthropic movement is also not a
rigid political organization. They are involved in many lines of social life besides being
a collective focus on alternative learning space was of course. From the start of the
solidarity of natural disasters, such community empowerment productive workshops to
mobilize action of protest against evictions in the poor city of Bandung. Rubin diaspora
to this day not only at some point other Bandung city but also in the outer regions of
Bandung, even involved in the activation of the home study in the area of land conflicts
in Moro-Moro, Lampung.
When and where Home Star started activity?
January 2004, in the densely populated residential area Wastukencana Area (Gang
Nangkasuni) Bandung.
What about the idea initially?
More coincidence, although the initial dream of the initiator of an alternative education
space already exists. The purpose of a coincidence, because the room was a beginning of a
hang some friends in a terrace house happened to be in the top of the house there are
rooms that are not used (warehouse). The idea of collecting children's books to make
reading room only and a joint flow of friends that used for the initial needs (cleaning
rooms, ngecat, put up lights). After that yes, ngalir activism and space apart in wearing
a read, so where children play at the time.
How forms of activity that had been done?
Star home focus on alternative education of children. Although on some occasions we do
activities outside the education and children. As a form of Home Star relate to anyone, as
long as the activity does not interfere with internal activity berelasinya and change the
basic value of the house is the star itself.
Why children and education?
The house itself actually comes from the reality star, this Indonesia, who would not want
us always faced with many issues in the community. Why children? Yes we see it as an
expectation, when reality itself today is difficult to move towards better, we see the
future a hope that where children are now going to be an actor at the time. And education
itself becomes a tool to make a change in that direction. Something built through
knowledge, live educational models such as what to try built.
What makes the Home Star claimed to alternative education space?
Because the models and methods of education that we try to make a different to most
institutions of formal education, like most schools. As we know the general education
model implemented in school are more likely in a pattern or uniformity of the system, both
physically and values are built. We try to make some sort of anti-thesis of the system to
use in the schools. For us education should be a means to humanize humans, not humans make
candidates' robot or machine "that will live not for the desire or choice of man himself.
We had some sort of guidance in the process of education or assistance to children, first
with Multiple Intelligent . That is, we believe and try to prove that man must have been
born with innate intelligence or potential for diverse, with eight intelligences
(logical-mathematical, kinesthetic, personal, personal INTAR, musical, visual-spatial,
natural, linguistics). And again, logic, ethics, language. Because humans as individuals
that are related to the environment and the people we think are important have those three
things. But that does not mean we as guardians of moral or ethical children, we just
finished a facilitator that provides an overview of how to build a sense of empathy,
tolerance and other things to do with the crowd. Derivatives with other classes or study
groups are so daily activity now with a variety of delivery methods are more fun and not
stuffy.
Target of education itself?
This is just an effort of a process that we ourselves would like every child that we
accompanied to live by passion it without ruling out that as humans, we understand how to
interact with anyone, anywhere. Moreover, could have the value and benefits in other
respects. Because we are aware of the conditions today, not out of the education system as
well. The orientation of education today does not give a choice of every individual in his
life, the point of education is now one part of a service provider that will meet the
needs of the market, in this cheap labor.
Had mentioned earlier about the basic value of Star House. Meaning?
That is, we have a kind of grip in the activity this community. The spirit of
independence, autonomy and collective management and attitudes so the basic value.
Although very open in our activities related to many parties, be it individuals or other
communities. Due to the Star House engaged in the scope of the essence of education should
be open to anyone, as long as the basic value is not compromised. Moreover with friends
who have the same spirit.
Form of management's own star house like?
It's simple to manage but it takes tremendous energy to be able to maintain this activity.
Joint venture ideas, energy to matter the most simple way of running the Home Star. There
are three categories of volunteers in Home Star, although from the outset there was no
intention to classify, only a single process that eventually formed. First, the volunteer
who had classroom learning or mentor. Second, the friends who took care of the
operational, activity coordinator rich, finance, create letters / secretary, external care
of the household and the care of the same was not much.
One again this immense circles, which allows a lot of people involved, such as Home Star
for either internal or external agenda rich responded to certain issues in the form of
campaign or events where a lot of friends who could be involved. From the start of my
friends who had a production of the shirt or some kind of fulfillment logistics or media
campaign agenda until the performers can anyone be involved.
Not to mention the contribution of my friends in the work portion of the other, a lot. In
this region we are talking about how to manage the goodwill of anyone who wants to
contribute. But there are things from the past so dreams, how the Star House in terms of
satisfying its needs completely self-contained, do not have to venture continues. Wing
economics had always been so characteristic, once we stick with for a grocery shop, making
and selling ice, vegetable gardening to create the work of the results of the auction of
children. But the way it was during this time not a long term temporary nature. Of all the
ways that have been tried, now we start to make economic activity through community
empowerment, coffee, from the garden to the process of selling coffee, although this
business is still at the stage start. What is clear through any how we will continue to
nyoba do so independently. Back again is the principle of management is now open and based
on the agreement of all volunteer , both of abilities or needs.
During the house itself berkegiatan Star Bandung and certainly never in touch with other
communities, usually the pattern of relationship like?
We had been open to relate to anyone, not just in circles among the education community
but could relate to other communities. Live viewing only purpose related / berjejaringnya
what rich. If not troubled by the habits and the way we work so hayu (let-ed), but if the
intention of strange Punten we do not follow.
That is weird?
Diajakin we ever go into an agency as a campaign tool, because they see we have the
capacity for ngejalanin their program. Yes obviously we refused, although diiming lure of
material and facilities.
Star of eye glass house itself sees the function of the community in a city like?
Community for us a vehicle at the forefront in responding to the issues that exist in the
city, in accordance with the characteristics of their communities. Communities need to
talk as a means of balancing the city / region. Community social capital must be very
great to do something in response to anything that happens in an area, rather than an
instrument that is used for the purposes that are basically not for the good of the
community / people. Punten , many communities that eventually become a tool for an
interest and even damage. In terms of beneficiaries and not the community itself or those
who feel, but instead the institution or specific companies.
And in Bandung herself? What Home Star view of Bandung?
In the context of education in general, we try to create a sort of anti-thesis of the
education system to try to create a version of the means and methods of education that we
consider more humane. It was actually a message of how we speak that there is something
wrong with education in this country, especially in Bandung. On behalf of many development
programs of the city government that is detrimental to society and it adversely. Education
should be a means of illumination for the public in seeing the policies of city
government, it could be a tool to unite people as well it should. Spaces chat or coffee
could be a kind of educational media as well as to citizens or communities actually.
In terms of balancing the city, houses Bintang efforts like what?
In community we always establish communication with friends other communities, not just
the education community wrote, but other communities as well. Networking within many forms
of activities, whether it was a tactical / strategic. Mutual learning and strengthen the
management of the community to a long-term, try to be a facilitator for many communities
meet to practice advocacy in some areas victims of natural disasters or humanitarian such
as displacement and invite other friends add our voices.
This article was published in the CD booklet Organize: Benefit Compilation for Community
Empowerment released by Grimloc Records.
http://anarkis.org/rumah-bintang-menyemai-otonomi-di-tengah-kota/
------------------------------
Message: 3
All violence against women, from street harassment to domestic violence, serves only one
thing: to strengthen the domination of men over women. ---- Behind the violence,
patriarchy! ---- All these violences are the most visible and the most terrible part of
this domination. They are there to remind women that they are dominated. ---- All these
violence are part of a system, that is, they are not isolated, they are not independent of
one another. ---- All these violence are connected and work together. The system in which
they enter is the patriarchal system. ---- Patriarchy is a system of domination of women
by men. It is a set of laws, rules, traditions, imposed or inculcated habits that serve to
preserve the dominant position of men in society. Women's struggles have made it possible
to name and challenge the patriarchy, but despite the progress made, this system remains
firmly anchored and men continue to benefit from it.
Some numbers:
All working time combined, men earn 23.5% more than women;
On average, women devote 3h26 per day to domestic tasks, compared with 2h for men;
There are only 27% women in the National Assembly and 25% in the Senate;
78% of part-time employees are women.
How can such an unequal system continue to exist? Because laws, court decisions, media
discourse, customs, and so on. Continue to guarantee the domination of men.
And when all this is not enough, violence against women is the last resort and tool that
men have to assert their domination. There is a real tolerance towards this violence,
despite a still too small evolution in the gravity of the condemnations and in the
increase of the complaints.
The judicial system, for example, guarantees impunity for the perpetrators, the "Context
of sexuality in France" survey carried out by INSERM and INED reveals that 20.4% of women
aged 18-69 were victims of violence Sexual relationships in their lifetime. Similarly, the
State estimates each year that 84,000 women between the ages of 18 and 75 are victims of
rape in France. Nevertheless in 2014, only 5,558 complaints were filed and among them,
only 1318 resulted in a conviction. Such figures show that rape is a crime unpunished.
But even for those who do not experience this physical violence directly, no woman escapes
everyday sexism. The threat of potential physical violence affects all women in the street
or in the home. No woman is immune to a violent spouse, unwanted sexual intercourse,
sexual harassment at work, insulting or touching in public spaces, and these perpetual
threats are Emancipation, the ability to take risks and have self-confidence. Women must
collectively succeed in emancipating themselves from this fear and in putting the
necessary means in place to guarantee their safety.
What are the interests of men in patriarchy?
* At work: women serve as a variable of adjustment for employers (who are predominantly
men) and are therefore more often part-time or on precarious contracts. Male employees
also benefit from the situation, since female employees are going to make less progress
and are less likely to shade them.
* At home: men benefit from the free domestic work of women (care of the children,
household, kitchen). They can also enjoy free sexual services in the name of an alleged
conjugal duty.
* In society: men feel all powerful in the public space (in the street, on the cafe
terrace, etc.) and they completely dominate political social life, whether in institutions
(on the Senate or the National Assembly) or in the media.
Since violence against women is part of a system, the only way to really stop it is to
blast that system, that is, to blow up everything that keeps the patriarchate in place:
sexual norms , moral standards, family norms, insecurity imposed by capitalism ...
In the meantime, it is of course to reduce the violence. And it must be done. But we must
bear in mind that the struggle will not stop until the foundations of the patriarchate
have been destroyed.
It is a daily struggle in which weapons are solidarity and sorority.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?A-qui-profite-le-crime
------------------------------
Message: 4
José Estevão is a Portuguese anarchist, living for more than four decades in the
Netherlands, where he took refuge as a refractory to the colonial war. Alentejo, natural
mining village of Aljustrel, has a daily militant activity in Amsterdam - now has been
very active in supporting refugees - but regularly visits Portugal, having participated in
the Libertarian Meeting of Évora , held in May. Recently he was interviewed by Chilean
companions (the Anarchist Federation Place of Valdivia), an interview translated now into
Portuguese. * as B ---- At the International Congress of Anarchist Federations had the
opportunity to travel to Amsterdam and be affectionately received by fellow Okupa
BinnenPret (which in Dutch means "beautiful inside"), where I did an interview with
prominent and veteran Acrata fighter Jose Estevao, currently a member of
Anarcho-syndicalist Amsterdam Group (ASB)
How did you come to anarchist ideas?
Well, many, many years ago. In my student days I came into contact, in the city where I
studied in Évora (Portugal), with comrades who were linked a little to surrealism, to art,
and had some influence from a Portuguese surrealist with whom they maintained contacts and
libertarian traditions. And, on the other hand, because of the influence of the French,
the French anarchists, who had much connection with the surrealist movement, and that was
one of the bases of my anarchism. On the other hand, another base comes from my land, in
the south of Portugal, a mining village that has a very great tradition of revolutionary
syndicalism, of anarcho-syndicalism. This tradition was lost a little with fascism, but I
have always heard people talk about it and I always knew that it had had influence in my
land, and that is the source of my anarchism. Then everything grew when I came to the
Netherlands as a political refugee, I had many contacts with Spanish refugees who had been
here since 1939, and with these people I became even more an anarchist and, of course,
with the anarchist movement in the Netherlands, which is very Small but that has always
existed as here in Amsterdam with a specific anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist group.
In what year did you have to emigrate and why?
I explained to you a little bit, I came as a political refugee, because there was a
fascist dictatorship in Portugal at the time, I came in the early 1970s for political
reasons because there things were much worse, but also for cultural reasons, since it was
linked to Surrealist movement which is basically a libertarian movement. And another very
important and very concrete reason, which also made me feel very bad, was the wars that
the Portuguese had in the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea, well, I
was making war on everyone and saying that I defended what was your. I had refused to go
to war, and as a conscientious objector, I had to leave the country, and like me many
companions went mainly to France, Holland and Sweden and that is the reason why I came
here. After having come, the revolution of the carnations was given in 1974, I still
returned to Portugal, and I was not there because at that time my first child had been
born for what I was here, but I always travel there for long periods, although Always
coming back.
And, as someone who has always been linked to anarchism in the Netherlands since the
1970s, what are your references?
See, in Holland there is a great libertarian movement. It is not an organized movement,
but in Holland and Amsterdam the culture of young people has always been very open and
there is obviously a trend that looks sympathetically at our ideas. Amsterdam is a place
where many things happen and as I told you. It is not a very organized place, there was a
syndicalist tendency, where the anarchist comrades were in a union that was not
specifically anarchist, but they were there and there were anarcho-syndicalists. And there
has always been a very large and strong antimilitarist movement, part of a tradition of
anarchism here in Holland side by side with alternative experiences and, of course, there
was a strong trade union movement. In the 1970s there was a great and open movement, it
was occupied a lot in those years, the law allowed it and the people occupied and there
were huge occupations, because the city had an old zone in decadence and the young people
occupied, many students. This was also good for libertarian ideas, and right there many
people became aware of and formed anarchist and libertarian groups. I have always belonged
to a specific group in Amsterdam, there have never been many groups, they are a bit rare,
but I always thought that it is necessary to decentralize and federate, even though people
want to stay close together. Also in the student movement with movements of very important
international repercussions, such as Provo , the cabbaters, which are half Situationists,
are very interesting movements, well documented, there are films about them, and it was
very climate that lived here . Now things have changed.
Regarding this, how do you see the future of anarchism in Holland and Europe in general?
It is impossible to answer. But I am optimistic, we as libertarians have a vision of the
future, we have to be optimistic and I believe that there are possibilities here. Here, at
present, there are two organizations: the Crije Bond with 150 people and the AAA with 30
people and it is very small at the moment. We are doing a very difficult job, but I
believe there is a possibility that in the squat movement, for example, and by the
influence of our ideas, although it can not be said to be a movement controlled by us, a
movement Closer to us, and we have to keep fighting for it. As well as support for
refugees, which is a struggle that is also being waged and which involves maintaining
spaces like this, which is the most important in Amsterdam, and for us anarchism has to
have an anti-capitalist and anti-state base, so that We have to give concrete content to
it, and it is in this that we work, organize and study and where we live, all this is a
common space (you can explain better to the companions where we are). This is a place that
serves a lot for this, serves as an example, but closes us much inside it. But, in fact,
anarchism still has a lot of work to do in the neighborhoods and all this, there is work
that needs to be done, but that is not being done, people are still very much in their
spaces, occupations and Political spaces like this. I often believe that there is a
possibility because capitalism suffocates us, so we must move things forward, and I am
aware of this and try to do what is possible, and I think that anarchism will have to have
a future.
https://colectivolibertarioevora.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/jose-estevao-o-anarquismo-tera-que-ter-futuro/
------------------------------
Message: 5
As of late, those of us based in the US, who attend to internet-based discussion threads
as well as chat forums concerning ‘radical’ social, political, and economic philosophies
may be taken aback by the relatively recent degree of attention that “Free Market
Anti-Capitalism” is being afforded. These ideas are generally concentrated in two US based
organizations: The Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) and The Alliance of the
Libertarian Left (ALL). Upon surveying the range of intellectual influence that seems to
be underpinning the river of thought engulfing ALL and C4SS, it becomes readily apparent
that their ideological malfeasance stems from US-centric forces. ---- That is to say, the
“Free Market Anti-Capitalists” seem to, in part, parot particular commentaries professed
by Benjamin Tucker, Henry George, Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, ‘thinkers’ who
generally argue for a synthesis of Austrian economics and 19th century American
individualist anarchism. Moreover, they have so creatively termed “free market
anti-capitalism,” the general idea being that state-capitalism, or even capitalism
generally, should be replaced with “free” or “freed” markets.
These organizations by and large do not draw from left libertarian influences outside of
the US (Europe, South America, etc.), which reject these ideas in favor of what’s commonly
referred to as libertarian socialism or libertarian communism; roughly, international
federations of popular councils and assemblies coordinating the economy via negotiated
cooperation. Those in this milieu tend to draw from concrete proposals from people like
GDH Cole, Cornelius Castoriadis, Peter Kropotkin, Robin Hahnel and others. In fact, C4SS
and ALL’s “free market anti-capitalist” ideas are quite marginal, with respect to the
common internationalist understanding and conception of the libertarian tradition.
Additionally, these organizations draw from extremely reactionary influences. Murray
Rothbard was a ‘race realist’ and Nazi Holocaust denier who supported and celebrated Harry
Elmer Barnes’ World War II ‘historical revisionism.’ Today, Rothbard is known for being
one of the principle founders of the far-right position known as “anarcho-capitalism.” Of
further concern, Mises was an ultra-right apologist for Italian fascism who went so far as
to state that “It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the
establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention
has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won
for itself will live on eternally in history.”
Naturally, the question of whether or not “free market anti-capitalism” should be
disregarded, in general, for it is hardly worth discussion. Yet, as already invoked, a
striking rise in interest and discussion by those of the ‘Left’ begs us to comment herein.
In Toward an Anarchy of Production, Jason Lee Byas, C4SS Fellow states that “Individualist
anarchism has often been described as a kind of ‘free market anti-capitalism.’
Individualist anarchism supports a ‘free market’ in the sense that it supports private
property, money, commerce, contracts, entrepreneurship, and the profit motive. Not only do
we oppose any violent repression of those things, but we welcome their presence as crucial
to a free society. Individualist anarchism is “anti-capitalist” in the sense that it
supports mutual aid, worker autonomy, and wildcat unionism. Any society marked by the
domination of labor by capital is one that we oppose.” (1)
To ‘left libertarians,’ it should be quite clear that Byas is actually arguing in favor of
class collaboration; working class people collaborating with the bosses. Class struggle
libertarians know that private property is a major basis for capitalism (which
historically presupposes colonialism, imperialism, and the use of the state to defend said
private property). And they also know that there is no liberty for the working class
whatsoever in class collaboration, since liberty for the working class means can only come
about via the triumphal conquest of the class war and therefore taking direct control of
the existing economy as a means of placing it in the hands of the working class while
moving towards stateless socialism.
Therefore, it stands to reason that the ideology evoked by Byas and others is by no
genuine means anti-capitalist. Ironically, the ‘free market’ positions of ALL and C4SS is
virtually pro-capitalist, due to the fact that it supports the societal roots capitalism
depends on, including, most strikingly, private property. It is more correct to call this
position something like “market liberalism”, but it’s strikingly similar to
anarcho-capitalism, which is an extreme ultra-right view that free markets should
coordinate the economy without any outside interference.
Adam Smith, the Scottish economist who in 1776 provided the business class with the
necessary blueprint to uphold the so-called spirit of the industrial age, “gain wealth,
forgetting all but self…” nevertheless concluded that private conglomerates of wealth and
power would diminish the role classical nation-states played in domestic as well as
international relations. More specifically, he suggested that that the crafters of legal
statutes and political policy in his day ensured that their selfish interests were “most
peculiarly attended to [no matter how] grievous” the consequence experienced by others
(2). To think that markets could remedy the tendency of those in positions of power
advance their interests through exploiting the laborers and working class is utopian at best.
Benjamin Tucker, one of the principal figures of the individualist anarchist tradition
also contradicted Byas when he penned that “Liberty will abolish interest; it will abolish
profit; it will abolish monopolistic rent; it will abolish taxation; it will abolish the
exploitation of labour; it will abolish all means whereby any laborer can be deprived of
any of his product”. Of course, this is directly in conflict with Byas’ description
provided herein, where he seemingly attempts to retrofit the original anti-capitalist
individualist-based anarchist tradition to mean a form of market liberalism where private
property and the “profit motive” are defended as “crucial to a free society.” We class
struggle libertarians do not generally identify with the individualist anarchist
tradition, but at the same time we’re not about to mischaracterize the strong
anti-capitalist elements of it.
Byas later goes on to back up his class collaborationist “anti-capitalist” position by
straw-manning anarcho-communism. He describes it by saying “decisions about resource
allocation are made through gift or democratic planning. Explicit trades, especially when
mediated by some other good functioning as money, are either absent or extremely rare.
(The world I’m considering is one that we might describe as anarcho-communist).” But an
anarcho-communist position presupposes identifying with some concrete political economic
proposal(s), such as Kropotkin’s “Conquest of Bread.” Byas makes no reference to any such
proposal, thus ultimately continues to argue against an “anarcho-communist” position he
made-up.
This seemingly confused position doesn’t end with Byas. Kevin Carson, who holds the “Karl
Hess Chair in Social Theory” at C4SS is another influential contributor to this position.
Carson believes that the end of capitalism is an approaching inevitability due to
employers supposedly struggling to maintain hold over intellectual property claims as a
result of increased file sharing over the internet and open source software. Yet, file
sharing programs and websites are constantly being shut down, and more to-the-point,
there’s no evidence of industries, like pharmaceuticals, being challenged in any serious way.
In an interview with Adam Kokesh (an anarcho-capitalist) on his YouTube channel “ADAM VS
THE MAN”, Carson says “I think what we’re gonna see is an era of uh… what John Robb calls
‘hollowed-out states’ that are becoming fiscally exhausted from a shrinking tax base
unable to provide the subsidized infrastructures and other subsidies that big business
depends on. We’re gonna see corporations gradually shortening their supply and
distribution chains and shrinking market share as local and neighborhood garage factories
take over production and […] we’re gonna see a radical decentralization and
re-localization of the economy and we’re gonna see a lot of corporate a government
dinosaurs go down in the tar pit.” (3)
That’s a mightily bold prediction regarding the end of capitalism and is far removed from
reality. As class struggle libertarians we know that the only positive alternative to
capitalism, that we can currently conceive of, must center upon the working class taking
direct control of existing factories and workplaces such that they are able to then
re-arrange the economy to make it directly accountable to the workers and therefore
community members needs through worker self-management. Capitalism isn’t just going to go
away on its own, which is why we need to build mass popular working class movements to
overthrow it and replace it with socialism.
To conclude, the extreme decentralization Carson proposes isn’t desirable. Different parts
of the world have different resources and to some extent, particular forms of production
will very likely have to be coordinated internationally. That doesn’t mean production has
to be “centralized;” instead, it means that a political economy needs to be scalable to
meet the needs of the people invested in it. This is why libertarian socialists propose
international federations of popular councils and assemblies coordinating the economy.
Limiting production to “neighborhood garage factories” means severely limiting what people
can produce.
***
(1) Jason Lee Byas, “Toward an Anarchy of Production”
(2) “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith
(3) Kevin Carson on ADAM VS THE MAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4bVhiOD8fI
http://ideasandaction.info/2016/11/free-market-fantasy/
------------------------------
Message: 6
Periodically, some people announce with aplomb that in Tunisia, the "spring" of 2011 is
definitely closed. The experience of farm workers here Jemna commented by Habib Ayeb and
reported in a story of Nawaat shows alone, it is not. Their struggle is for dignity and
social justice, which, along with freedom, was part of the central slogan of the
unfinished revolution of 2011. These are the same objectives pursued by the tens of
thousands of employees who participated in the Waves of strikes in 2015, or unemployed
youth who periodically block phosphate production in the Gafsa mining basin or, more
recently, gas exploitation in Kerkennah Island. ---- What is particularly interesting in
the case of Jemna is What endures, since 2011: ---- - occupy land their ancestors had been
robbed, ---- - self-organization of agricultural workers ---- - collective management of
production under popular control.
In the rest of the country, beginning a comparable process had begun in early 2011 1 , but
it was quickly halted. As far as they are concerned, the agricultural workers of Jemna
have maintained and deepened this course for nearly six years.
Faced with the considerable economic, financial, political and social crisis that Tunisia
is going through, their struggle sketches out in filigree what could be an alternative to
the neo-liberal policy pursued by governments that have followed each other since 2011.
Agricultural workers in Jemna demonstrate that by taking control of their own affairs they
have managed not only to escape part of the poverty but also to finance a number of local
public services whose population is sorely deprived.
It is not surprising in these conditions that their action triggers a hateful campaign of
the possessed and corrupt haunted by the specter that the land belongs to those who work
it. On the side of neo-liberal power, the opposition is frontal in the face of an
experience of which it fears spreading throughout the country.
Alain Baron, Union Syndicale Solidaires
==========
Can the law supplant legitimacy?
In recent weeks the Tunisian direct their gaze towards a small oasis called Jemna located
in the Tunisian desert, somewhere between the oasis of Kebili, in the north and those of
Douz, south 2 .
- Some, particularly on the government side, part of the political "class" and the
mainstream media, see it as a typical example of the flagrant breach of the law and an
unpardonable attack on authority and haybat ) of State. For them, what happens in Jemna is
a form of organized banditry that must be condemned and punished.
Others, especially the inhabitants of the oasis, see it as a legitimate occupation of land
which is their rightful claim.
- Others see it as an unexpected opportunity to oppose the current powers and organize
political mobilizations with different and sometimes contradictory objectives and visions.
To go beyond the polemics and discourses that have surfaced over the last few weeks, it is
important to revisit, even briefly, the history of this small oasis which is becoming a
point of political crystallization that goes beyond, In many respects, the nature of the
problem and the actual situation on the ground.
Jemna, a "colonial" problem
Jemna, was "born" in the early twentieth century, only a few years after the beginning of
French colonization was, first, a land settlement 3 . While most settlers chose to settle
in the north and northwest, others preferred to go south, probably for the sun, but more
surely to specialize in the production of dates Whose exportation to France was
necessarily easier since it did not compete with "local" productions (in metropolitan
France). The originality of the product was obviously a central element in the choice of
the latter.
Thus Maus de Rolley moved to Jemna and in 1937 he created the new palm plantation, an
"extension" outside the ancient oasis. Today the palm covers about 306 hectares of which
185 date palms planted with almost 10,000 feet 4 .
Although I have not been able to verify it in archival material, it is clear that the
local populations, who held the land concerned collectively and indivisibly, received no
compensation whatsoever. A pure and simple dispossession that remained in the local
collective memory for several decades before reappearing strongly a few times during the
post-colonial period and especially from 2011 and the fall of the Ben Ali regime. I'll
come back to that.
At the time of independence, the country's new authorities planned to continue the
technical "modernization" of the agricultural sector by fully adopting the colonial model,
based on large private property, mechanization, intensive use of chemical inputs
Fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, seeds and selected seedlings ...), the
concentration of agricultural land, the expansion of irrigation and the intensification of
crops. This choice was summed up by the influential members of the political elite of the
time, led by Habib Bourguiba, who declared in a public speech held in the oasis of Tozeur
in 1964 that " The land what it can give, it is necessary to make use of modern techniques
... the example of the former French colonists is there to edify us ". This declaration,
which establishes colonial agriculture as "the model to follow", reveals the "modernist"
vision of the new president and his friends at the time, including a certain Beji Kaid
Sebsi who has occupied for almost two decades In the palace of Carthage.
Thus, for seven decades, power has been constantly orienting the agricultural sector
towards technical modernization in a political process that breaks with local social
structures, traditional law, local know-how and various forms of Collective
appropriations, regarded as archaic and above all as constraints and obstacles to the
economic development of the country. Breaks that explain to a great extent the current
conflicts around the land that multiply throughout the country and not only in Jemna.
In 1964, when the power is resolved finally to nationalize the land, saying colonial, he
decided to group-owned by the state, what is now called "frontier lands 5 " or even the
land "socialist" (aradhi ichtirakyya 6 ), instead of the "give back" to the heirs of the
former owners or redistributed for the benefit of small farmers and landless peasants.
This choice was reinforced by the policy of "cooperatives", which sought to group
agricultural land under structures copied on the model of the Soviet kolkhozes and to
suppress private properties, starting with small-scale peasant farms and collective
so-called tribal lands.
In the aftermath of the 1960s, the country embarked on a policy of liberalization of
agriculture, which was accelerated to the present day thanks to an agricultural structural
adjustment plan (PASA) imposed in 1986 by The World Bank and the IMF in the aftermath of
the 1984 riot riots. During this long period, Tunisian agriculture is fully subservient to
an intensive, productivist and export-oriented model with a "blind" "comparative
advantages 7 ". The decision to develop the production of dates and extend the surfaces of
palm fits perfectly within this framework, the Tunisian south with favorable climatic
conditions to monoculture 8 date palm.
Meanwhile, part of the state land was allotted in private property or long term rental,
private investors, usually from the circles of power and close to one-party 9 . Thus,
between 1974 and 2002, the palm plantation was managed by STIL (Tunisian Dairy Industries
Company), which went bankrupt in 2002, before passing under the control of two relatives
of Ben Ali, an entrepreneur of Public works and a senior official from the Ministry of the
Interior, with a new lease.
During all these years, the inhabitants of Jemna tried to recover the palm plantation by
addressing the various political leaders in charge of the file and in particular of the
State lands. Numerous correspondences have been sent, but to no avail. The official
position of power does not change: land belongs to the state and there is nothing to
negotiate.
-------------------------------
Read the second part
Periodically, some people announce with aplomb that in Tunisia, the "spring" of 2011 is
definitely closed. The experience of farm workers here Jemna commented by Habib Ayeb and
reported in a story of Nawaat shows alone, it is not. Their struggle is for dignity and
social justice, which, along with freedom, was part of the central slogan of the
unfinished revolution of 2011. These are the same objectives pursued by the tens of
thousands of employees who participated in the Waves of strikes in 2015, or unemployed
youth who periodically block phosphate production in the Gafsa mining basin or, more
recently, gas exploitation in Kerkennah Island.
What is particularly interesting in the case of Jemna is What endures, since 2011:
- occupy land their ancestors had been robbed,
- self-organization of agricultural workers
- collective management of production under popular control.
In the rest of the country, beginning a comparable process had begun in early 2011 1 , but
it was quickly halted. As far as they are concerned, the agricultural workers of Jemna
have maintained and deepened this course for nearly six years.
Faced with the considerable economic, financial, political and social crisis that Tunisia
is going through, their struggle sketches out in filigree what could be an alternative to
the neo-liberal policy pursued by governments that have followed each other since 2011.
Agricultural workers in Jemna demonstrate that by taking control of their own affairs they
have managed not only to escape part of the poverty but also to finance a number of local
public services whose population is sorely deprived.
It is not surprising in these conditions that their action triggers a hateful campaign of
the possessed and corrupt haunted by the specter that the land belongs to those who work
it. On the side of neo-liberal power, the opposition is frontal in the face of an
experience of which it fears spreading throughout the country.
Alain Baron, Union Syndicale Solidaires
==========
The Revolution by the Field
It was not until early 2011 and the fall of Ben Ali, to see things move on the ground,
despite the formal opposition of the new authorities and the various governments that have
followed each other since 2011. Let's resume the evolution of the situation since January
2011:
- January 2011: The "Revolutionary Committee of Jemna" takes possession of the disputed
palm grove and dismisses the former "tenants";
- quite quickly contacts are made with the national authorities, but without reaching a
solution when to the bottom of the question namely the right of the local populations to
the lands and palm groves of the oasis.
- an association was born in the wake but did not obtain official status and still does
not have a legal existence in the eyes of the public authorities;
- year after year, management of the palm grove improves and its accounts are permanently
checked by an independent consultancy, located in Gabes. The benefits are increasing.
After losses of several hundred thousand dinars in 2010 - 2011, the accounts for the year
2015 show profits of over 1.5 million Tunisian dinars. It had been decades since a
comparable record had not been recorded. Mr. Tahar Tahri, the president-elect of the Jemna
Oasis Defense Association, explained to us during a recent visit to the oasis that
"deficits registered before 2011 were artificially" organized "to" cover " Theft and
corruption that were erected in management mode ".
Politically, the good economic health displayed by the association strongly played in its
favor and attracted the real support of the population of the oasis.
I myself witnessed it at a general public meeting held in mid-September 2016 in the
central square of the village, with the participation of a large number of people from
different backgrounds Generations. During this meeting, many people expressed themselves
freely to give their opinion and recommendations in response to the government's proposals
transmitted by the minister in charge of State domains (amlak eddawla). In one way or
another, all the speakers expressed themselves against the proposed solutions and the
committee in charge of the association adopted the same position, as it had committed
itself to it by the voice of its President at the beginning of the meeting. A fine example
of "local democracy" 2 .
The proposals made at the meeting in early September 2016 in Tunis, representatives of the
association and senior officials of the State Secretariat of State and Land Affairs,
headed by Mr. Mabrouk Korchid , Do not really relate to the status of disputed land, which
the State still considers to be its exclusive property, but on the relationship between
the legal owner-state and the association. These solutions concern precisely the
"management" of the next date harvest that should start in the coming weeks.
To summarize, the association must accept the following two points to prevent the use of
force by the state:
- the association puts the entire crop coming to the State which undertakes in turn to
return the Expenditure incurred during the current financial year;
- the association is transformed into an Agricultural Development and Development
Corporation (SMVDA), a status dating back to 1990 to encourage private investment in
public lands. For its part, the State agrees to rent the palm grove to this SMVDA for a
long term (usually forty years).
Pending a final solution, the State threatens to ban, if necessary by force, organizing
the auction of harvest (up 3 ).
Thus, the State refuses any dialogue on the substance of the problem and rejects any
possibility of "restoring" the land and the palm plantation to the inhabitants of Jemna,
who consider themselves the only legitimate owners. By forcing the association to accept
one of the proposed solutions, the State wants to see it recognized as the legal status of
the palm plantation that of exclusive ownership of the State. This legal trap did not
escape the members of the association and the local population, hence their refusal to
respond positively to the proposals made by the persons in charge of the file.
Jemna or the Pandora's box: the explosive file of the State lands and the question of land
Behind the position of the State there is the fear that a possible "retreat", on its part,
on the specific and rather explosive file of Jemna, including an acknowledgment of the
current occupation of the palm plantation and the right Of the local populations on the
lands of the oasis, is reflected in the appearance throughout the country of hundreds or
even thousands of other Jemna. This explains the situation of current political stalemate
on a complex land problem which, in fact, can only be resolved by a proactive policy of
redistribution of State land. However, such a choice is tantamount to a form of agrarian
reform incompatible with the liberal orientations of the present power.
Yet all the social, economic and environmental difficulties of the agricultural sector are
such that the passage through reform seems to me inevitable, contrary to what the tenors
of economic liberalism think today at the top of the state.
As regards the populations of Jemna and the members of the association, a retreat on the
main claim - the land right of "ancestors" - would inevitably result in an implicit
recognition of the illegality of their actions since 2011, Unilateral renunciation of a
"common" good and a self-delegitimation that would be fatal to them.
On the substance and on a wider political and spatial scale, it is known that Tunisian
agriculture suffers from many structural problems. Quickly, here are some things to
clarify and respond to the urgency of radical solutions that break with the policies
followed since the country's access to political independence
- a peasantry, about 500 000 families (almost 20 % Of the total population), poor and
unable to provide basic food security to all its members;
- an agrarian structure characterized by injustice and gross inequality in access to
agricultural resources and especially land: farmers with less than 5 hectares constitute
54% of the total but have only 11% the total agricultural area, while only 3% of farmers
own more than 50 hectares farms but have 34% of the total agricultural area 4;
- the majority of large producers produce mainly for export, with the active support of
the State and the financial system, in order to maximize profits and reduce risks;
- Private (and even public) agricultural investment is fundamentally speculative and
non-productive. The primary objective of investors is to secure capital, with the
agricultural sector relatively less exposed to risks, including political and
geopolitical, than the tourism, industry or service sectors. The case of the rapid
agricultural development of Sidi Bouzid is the typical example of the speculative drifts
of investments in the sector. It is sufficient to recall that the governorate of Sidi
Bouzid, which has become the main agricultural region of the country, in terms of
production, exports and attraction of public and private investment, is at the same time
the fourth poorest governorate in the country With a poverty rate of over 40%.
- "legitimate" claims concerning crown lands, formerly "colonial", are extremely numerous
and the case of the palm groves of Jemna, today fortunately mediatized, is only the tree
that hides the forest. A possible tactical compromise between the state and the militants
in Jemna will only reinforce the determination of other communities and villages to
recover what they consider to be their land. Faced with such a widespread shield on
agricultural land, the state will only be able to retreat. So why wait? There is a real
urgency in meeting expectations and reforming the agricultural sector as a whole, starting
with land tenure, for more land, economic, social and environmental justice. This is valid
for Jemna as for all other regions and territories.
In conclusion: the Right to Defend (DAD) rather than the Zone to Defend (ZAD)
The current mobilization around Jemna is very happy, even if it seems to me that some of
its actors are more driven by short-sighted politician calculations than by deep
convictions that the land must belong first to those who Cultivate to feed and feed others.
Many of its mobilization actors see no difficulty in supporting the activists of this
oasis while denying the very principle of the redistribution of agricultural land to its
legitimate owners (in particular the heirs of the former owners dispossessed of their
property by the settlers) . Their shock argument is that agricultural land is already too
fragmented and fragmented to promote adequate agricultural development when they do not
fall into the stigmatizing clichés of "peasants[who]are too lazy, ignorant, and incapable
of following the development of techniques And agricultural technologies ... ".
Political support is really only effective when it is based on deep convictions fueled by
a minimal knowledge of the complex and profound problems that lie behind this or that event.
Undoubtedly, Jemna deserves the support of all because she is today in the front line
against a power that does not adhere to the principles of law, legitimacy and social and
environmental justice and willing to fight, Including through repression.
My own support is total and radical. But, contrary to what some think, Jemna is not an
isolated case with a specific problem. It is the top of the iceberg that hides a
generalized injustice, a blatant failure of more than 70 years of land, agricultural and
food policies. Support for Jemna must extend to the need for another agricultural policy.
Some activists propose to make Jemna a ZAD modeled on many experiences of ZAD, which have
multiplied in recent years in France. It seems to me that we should think more in terms of
DAD and demand the principle of the inalienable and unconditional right to land and
natural resources that must first serve to feed the population rather than to accumulate
capital. This demand for justice is all the more urgent because if nothing is done, no
local community will be immune to increasingly savage dispossession processes.
While the actions of the peoples and militants of Jemna may appear "illegal", in the eyes
of the law in force, they are nevertheless legitimate.
Original article:
https://habibayeb.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/jemna-ou-la-resistance-dune-communaute-depossedee-de-ses-terres-agricoles/
Original article:
https://habibayeb.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/jemna-ou-la-resistance-dune-communaute-depossedee-de-ses-terres-agricoles/
Who are we?
Text in PDF format
Self-management is both a goal and a path. As a goal, self-management is the form of
organization and mode of functioning of a society based on the participation of all and
all in all economic and political decisions at all levels of the sphere Collective for the
emancipation of each and every one. As a path, self-management is necessary to accumulate
forces, to demonstrate that dominions and hierarchies are not fatal, and that another,
post-capitalistic society is possible. Self-management is, from this point of view, a
concrete utopia.
The Association's ambition is to promote reflection and popular education on the subject
of self-management. It aims to share experiences critically without transforming them into
normative models, and to support any initiative in the direction of an emancipatory
project. It brings together men and women, trade unionists, cooperatives, associations,
feminists, ecologists and politicians from different walks of life.
After being strongly present in the mobilisations and the political debates of the 1970s,
Self-management reappears today thanks to multiple struggles and experiences in the world
(direct democracy, takeovers of companies, cooperatives, resistances and practices
alternative to system). Capitalist globalization and the ecological crisis require us to
update a certain number of debates.
There is no turnkey model of a process of transformation of society, nor of the completed
forms of a self-managed social organization. Nevertheless, begin
to ask some fundamental questions is to try to answer them:
Forms of socialization;
Reconciliation of local and global interests;
A combination of meeting social needs, productive capacities and ecological imperatives;
Redefining adequate institutions for democracy;
Challenge by the self-management democracy of the current institutional forms;
Effective gender equality at all levels of decision-making;
The place of the self-management process in transformations and ruptures.
Our objective is necessarily international and our approach altermondialiste. We are
looking for partners with similar aims in all continents.
------------------------------