Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Decembre - Student and
High School Movement 1986: A Spring in Winter (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Feminist Encounters, Le
Mans, 21-22 January (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Greece, "Black & Red" APO - Concentration solidarity
tomorrow morning 10.00 Tsimiski with Ag. Sofias, in solidarity
with the demands of the strikers hunger & thirst Maziotis-Rupa
(gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, AF London: A message of hope for the New Year
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. freedom news: Your guide to 2017 anarchist bookfairs in the
British Isles (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. wsm.ie: Revolution in Rojava - audio of Dublin launch and
discussion by author (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
1986 marks the return of the right to business. Surprising on the liberal wave coming from
the United States (Reagan) and Great Britain (Thatcher), and relying on the rallying of
the Socialist Party to these same neoliberal policies, the government of Jacques Chirac
undertakes a policy of privatizing banks And public enterprises, essentially the result of
the nationalisations of 1981. Under the pressure of the National Front, which progressed
at each election and had elected 35 deputies to the National Assembly in March 1986 thanks
to proportional representation, To attack the right of the ground to limit the access to
the French nationality. Finally, at the Ministry of the Interior, the Pasqua-Pandraud
tandem embodies a reinforcement of security policies. But he quickly encountered a student
resistance and then a railroad that showed a remarkable capacity for self-organization.
The will to privatize the new power also affects national education even if it does not
take the same forms. Higher education is the target of liberal, conservative and
corporatist attacks on the part of right-wing parties, but also of pressure groups and
academic universities headed by the National University Union ( UNITED).
With the bill of the Minister of Higher Education Alain Devaquet, these lobbies are
satisfied with a good part of their demands among which the autonomy of the universities
and therefore the return to an organization in corporatist faculties as before 1968. The
universities Could issue their degrees, which would put an end to their national character
and create a hierarchy between the universities according to their means. But what puts
students and high school students on the streets is mainly the introduction of a selection
at the entrance of the university in addition to the bac and the strong increase of the
rights of Strengthening the class character of higher education.
Facs wake up
The first mobilizations began with protests in several cities (Brest, Bordeaux, Marseille,
Montpellier, Quimper) between 30 April and the end of May. They increased in autumn 1986.
Both UNEF, UNEF ID (independence and democracy close to the PS) and UNEF SE (student
solidarity, close to the Communist Party) are fighting the bill adopted in the Council of
Ministers On July 11, but do not openly claim its withdrawal.
In October, as soon as the academic year of the students wishing to act for the withdrawal
of this bill constitute collectives of mobilization in many universities. The latter bring
together student unionists who do not accept the oppressive opposition of the two UNEFs,
libertarians, Trotskyists or students without affiliation.
These collectives carry out information and awareness-raising work. They make known the
text of the counter-reform and their critical analyzes through billboards, information
booths, leaflets and general assemblies, which then have a modest but ever-increasing
participation.
Student unions opposed to the Devaquet bill and these collectives are calling to
participate in the demonstrations and the public service strike day on October 21st.
Student mobilization is much stronger than in the spring. On the same day 400 students
from the University of Caen gathered in a general assembly on the initiative of UNEF-ID,
animated in this city by activists of the Young Communist Revolutionaries and the Ligue
communiste révolutionnaire, Launched an appeal calling for the withdrawal of the Devaquet
project and calling for the establishment of mobilization committees throughout France,
both unionized and non-unionized.
However, the UNEF-ID remains wait-and-see and its national office refuses to call for a
strike. For their part, a dozen mobilization committees meet in Caen on the basis of
Caen's appeal. They called for the general strike and the holding of a coordination
meeting of all the committees at the faculty of Jussieu (Paris) on November 21st.
Blood on the pavement
On November 17, the general assembly student of Villetaneuse votes the strike. It was
followed by that of Caen on the 18th. The strike spread immediately to the Paris region
and then to the other regions. The UNEF-ID, overwhelmed, is obliged to rally to the
movement. The strike became widespread and spread to high schools. The national high
school committee is holding its first meeting on 25 November. A first demonstration with a
national rise in Paris is held on 27 November, it brings together hundreds of thousands of
students and high-school students, while the deputies debate the bill in the National
Assembly.
The government began to be seriously shaken to the point that Monory, the Minister of
National Education, announced the re-examination of the disputed points of the project.
On 4 December the demonstration is even more massive, ending in clashes between groups of
demonstrators and the police at the Invalides. On the night of December 5-6, policemen
beat a student, Malik Oussekine, as he returned home, he died as a result of the beatings.
Devaquet resigned on 6 December. The national student co-ordination calls on the
population and the trade union confederations to support and protect by their presence
demonstrations in the face of police repression. In several cities, students and
high-school students go to companies to meet with trade unions for this purpose, sometimes
during hours of union information, such as EDF, the post office, The SNCF and Renault in
particular. Chirac under the pressure of the youth supported by the majority of the
population finally withdraws the bill on December 8. On 10 December between 300,000 and
400,000 people silently demonstrated in Paris with the motto Never again. The student
co-ordination pronounces its dissolution on December 12 after calling for the holding of
states general with a view to proposing another reform of the university. They were held
in Saint-Denis in March 1987.
The strike lasted 3 weeks but it marks a whole generation, many young people are aware and
emerge from the lethargy in which the experience of the PS-PC government plunged workers
and youth from 1981 to 1986. But what Remains one of the main achievements of this
movement is its capacity for self-organization (mobilization committees, strike
committees, coordination). The latter influenced the great strike of the railway workers
of December 1986 - January 1987, those of the teachers in 1987 or the nurses in 1988. This
influence is lasting and can be appreciated in the evolution of the workers' trade
unionism, since this Mode of organization is then claimed by a part of the opposition
CFDT, then by the trade unions SUD.
Laurent Esquerre (AL Aveyron)
Libertarians in high school and student strikes
It is little to say that the libertarians were like fish in the water in November-December
1986. Some are then organized to the Anarchist Federation, others to the Union of
Communist Libertarian Workers or to the " Communist libertarian organization. Most are not
affiliated with these organizations and find themselves in local libertarian collectives
brewing different sensibilities. They are found in strikes and in self-organizing
structures more locally than nationally. A part of these collectives try to co-ordinate
notably on the initiative of the Coordination libraire student of Nanterre which has about
twenty members in this fac, but despite a meeting in this direction. The strike movement
does not lead to any structuring. This is the reason why the youth of the Union of
Libertarian Communist Workers created the Young Libertarian Collective, both distinct and
close to the UTCL. The CJL broadcasts its first tract on December 10 in Paris, during the
great demonstration in memory of Malik Oussekine. It develops its activities and
settlements at the national level until 1991, when the majority of its members decided to
participate in the creation of alternative libertarian.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Mouvement-etudiant-et-lyceen-de
------------------------------
Message: 2
Organized by AL and the CNT at the rotunda of the association house, 4 rue d'Arcole. ----
At Le Mans on 21 and 22 January ---- The detailed program ---- Discussions: ---- Saturday
2 pm-4pm ---- Feminist demands in the trade union movement (Maud, union activist). ----
Saturday 5 pm-7pm: ---- Family, work: the two sides of the same exploitation (Christine,
political activist). ---- Sunday 11 am-1 pm ---- Labor contract and sexual contract: the
question of the inequality of consent (Irene, ---- philosopher and sociologist) ----
Sunday 2 pm-4 pm ---- Good practices in gynecology (Yoanna, medical student) ----
Exhibitions: ---- Female genital mutilation in rich countries ---- The FN is a danger for
women ---- Slogans and Quotes ---- Projections: ---- Saturday 12:45 ---- Projection of
Poilorama, when the hair tries to save his skin: a documentary web series of Arte
Saturday 8:30 pm
Projection The materialist feminism, Delphy conference in 2013. 1h. We talk about it
afterwards if we want to.
Sunday 10am
Projection Why women are smaller than men,
documentary Véronique Kleiner (France, 2013).
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Rencontres-feministes
------------------------------
Message: 3
Modern totalitarianism is not hidden. Instead, the power lies in showing -and epivallei-
the most inhuman face. The state and the government of the Left, envious glory Frederica
abduct the six year old Nikos Maziotis anarchists and Pola Roupa and keep enclosure away
from their relatives. Phys -economic pressure aimed at parents and revenge, meaning that
constitutes the core of state brutality. ---- Parents start immediately hunger and thirst
strike demanding to be paid here and now custody of the child to his relatives. We stand
in solidarity with the demands and the struggle of Maziotis-Roupa and also demand the
release of the child and returning to his relatives immediately. ---- So long as the
political and religious leaders of our troupe will playful mood with crosses and spell,
making ridiculous statements known for development, democracy and prosperity we invite you
to anarchist solidarity gathering at 10.00 am at the intersection of Tsimiski and Ag. Sofias.
Collegiality for social anarchism "Black and Red", a member of the Anarchist Political
Organisation -O.S-
https://maurokokkino1936.wordpress.com/2017/01/10/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Wonderful stuff from Neil Ascherson in latest London Review of Books. This should be
spread on a wide level as a message of hope in these sad and dark times: ---- "....the
Spanish War can be remembered for its epiphanies. What happened in and around Barcelona in
the first years of the war did not last, did not happen in most of Spain, ended in tragedy
and a viciously disputed memory and made little difference to the war's outcome. Adam
Hochschild, in Spain in Our Hearts, suggests that the foreign journalists covering the war
were so obsessed with the military struggle and the Republican leadership in Madrid that
they hardly noticed the revolution going on outside their hotels. And yet Barcelona in
those years, rather than what was done on the battlefields, was a brief revelation of
something latent but dazzling in humanity: the hope to fly like angels.
It was one of those moments only Europe seems to do. The granite mountains of government
and wealth, the ravines of class and the dark forests of the law, suddenly turn out to be
cardboard stage scenery. Ordinary people kick them down and fall into one another's arms.
Everything is to be held and done in common; nobody is to be unwillingly obeyed; in the
sunlight of what Robert Burns called ‘social love', human beings return to their true
nature of unselfish sharing. It's a transfiguration first seen in the French Revolution;
most recently (in flashes) during the 1968 ‘events' of Berlin and the Paris May. We, or
our children, will see it again.
In Barcelona and Catalonia, this epiphany was released (they wouldn't have liked the word
‘led') by anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. Orwell arrived there in December 1936 to
‘fight fascism' and walked about the streets in a daze, trying to adjust to a place where
waiters and shop assistants spoke to him as an equal and where he was denounced for trying
to give a lift-boy a tip. He wrote, with touching Englishness: ‘All this was queer and
moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some way I did not even like
it, but I recognised it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.'"
https://aflondon.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/a-message-of-hope-for-the-new-year/
------------------------------
Message: 5
Every year the anarchist movement has its biggest get-together at the London Anarchist
Bookfair at the end of October. But there's a lot of similar events going on between now
and then, and we've done a roundup below so you're never short of a book or two. ----
January 28th: Derry Radical Bookfair ---- Venue: Pilots Row Community Centre, Rossville
Street ---- 12pm-5pm ---- The Radical Bookfair will play host to participants from all
over Ireland and beyond. It will take place during a week of events hosted as part of the
Bloody Sunday March for Justice leading up to the annual Bloody Sunday March, with a
series discussions and debates, film and theatre centred around a wide range of local,
national and international contemporary social justice issues.
The collective is making a special effort to bring radical small publishers who wouldn't
usually be seen in mainstream bookshops, covering local, national and international
interests including social and labour history as well as themes covering radical feminism,
queer liberation, anarchism, marxism, republicanism and environmentalism.
There will also be a number of campaign groups tabling stalls highlighting ongoing human
rights and social justice issues.
More details on tabling stalls and participants click on to:
https://derryradicalbookfair.wordpress.com
February 18th: Cardiff Anarchist Bookfair
Venue: Cathays Youth & Community Centre, 36 Cathays Terrace
Starting 10am
Hosting workshops, talks and debates, plus a hall full of stalls, food, live music and
much more. Afiach are also releasing compilations ‘If It Was Easy They Wouldn't Call It A
Struggle' and ‘Prosecute The Arms Dealers' to coincide with this years' bookfair. One of
the compilations will be raising money for Stop The Cardiff Arms Fair, and the other for
Cardiff Defendant Solidarity.
To host a talk or workshop, or have a stall, email cardiffanarchistbookfair@riseup.net
Facebook event updates
April: Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair
Details TBA, keep an eye on their Facebook page
Dublin Anarchist Bookfair
Now in its 12th year, no official word yet, but likely enough to put here. Organised by
the Workers Solidarity Movement, keep an eye out for their updates.
May 20th: Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair
Venue: Showroom & Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row
10am-6pm
The Sheffield bookfair is one of the longer-running around Britain, with this being its
eighth year of hosting a wide range of stalls, talks and film screenings. Details and
audio of some meetings from previous years can be found in their archive here.
Further details TBA, keep an eye on their website.
Info on rates and an application form can be found at the bookfair's "For vendors, groups
& activists" page. To get in touch email sheffield@bookfair.org.uk.
June 24th: London Radical Bookfair
Venue: Goldsmiths University, New Cross
Organised by the Alliance for Radical Booksellers and featuring the annual Bread and Roses
award for radical literature, the London Radical Bookfair is fast becoming a fixture in
the activist summer calendar.
More info to follow, updating on their Facebook page. For enquiries email Cristina at
cristina[at]housmans[dot]com
October 28th (provisional): London Anarchist Bookfair
It's not been confirmed yet, but the London Anarchist Bookfair has historically been on
the last weekend in October. The biggest gathering of anarchists in Britain and always
full of fascinating talks, workshops and of course more books than you can shake a red and
black stick at. Many smaller publishers including Freedom launch their latest titles on
the day.
For updates, check their website and Facebook pages.
December?: Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair
Details TBA, keep an eye on their Facebook page. For enquiries, email
manchester@bookfair.org.uk.
Will they/won't they
Bristol: Held their last bookfair in April 2016, but there's a shortage of volunteers to
do it again this year and they're not sure if it'll happen. Email
bristolanarchistbookfair@riseup.net for enquiries or to get involved.
Norwich: Happened in August last year, the organisers feel it went well and are hoping to
do it again in 2017 but no details as yet. 2016 event here.
Bradford: The 1in12 Club doesn't always do Bookfairs, but when it does they're
interesting. Last time was September 2014
Belfast: Usually held around mid-October but nothing announced yet, updates here.
https://freedomnews.org.uk/your-guide-to-2017-anarchist-bookfairs-in-the-british-isles/
------------------------------
Message: 6
Revolution in Rojava" is an eye-witness account on the experience of creating a bottom up
social order which actively challenges all forms of oppression and exploitation. The
struggle in Rojava (a mostly Kurdish region north of Syria), despite the extent of
counterrevolutionary and imperialist forces aligned against it, continues to nurture an
autonomous, grassroots resistance across its multiply ethno-religious communities. ----
Ercan Ayboga, co-author of "Revolution in Rojava" launched the book on a speaking tour of
Ireland in December, the audio is the Dublin meeting where Ercan spends over an hour
discussing the revolution with the audience. The meeting happened shortly after the fall
of East Aleppo so this important event is also touched on. ---- The book describes in
detail the experiences of the participants, the social and ideological evolution of the
popular struggle, and most importantly, the attempt, in the most adverse circumstances
imaginable, to nurture horizontalist social structures that make tangible an inclusive and
participatory society, based on radical democracy and a cooperative economy
https://www.mixcloud.com/workerssolidarity/revolution-in-rojava-author-ercan-ayboga-on-democractic-conferderalism-womens-libertion/
http://www.wsm.ie/c/revolution-rojava-audio-dublin-launch
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