Today's Topics:
1. Collective Rupture (RC) Declare civil self-governments in
Soran and Pshdar of Iraqi Kurdistan after massive anti-government
protests - Demián Revart (ca) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Décembre - Claude
Guillon: "The Enraged made the revolution, but they were made by
it" (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. anarkismo.net: Lapu-Lapu Petmalu - A Re-articulation of
anti-colonial Struggle in the archipelago by Bas Umali
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. ASCED - International text call: anarcho-syndicalism and
intersectionality (fr) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Ireland, Derry Anarchists are pleased to announce our second
annual Radical Bookfair (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
The insurrectional panorama in Iraqi Kurdistan has been an isolated subject thanks to the
efficient media fence of the 'first world' and the pacifying contributions of its NGOs
after the 2003 US invasion and the series of crimes against humanity that were gestated by
the oil wars . In this jumble of geopolitical interests, not only have they stolen their
oil, natural resources and territories from the Iraqi population - regardless of whether
they are Kurds, Arabs or Yezadis - but also their sense of identity to the principle of
community and their autonomy, sponsoring the national divisionism through the founding of
the Islamic State (of which its full name is "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" for
arising in that demarcation), the strengthening of relations between theRegional
Government of Kurdistan (an oligarchic regime that has centralized political life and
better known by its acronym in English "KRG") and the US, or simply, pondering aspirations
in civil society to resemble the American spot after living 8 years in a daily imposition
of cultural exchanges.
Still having a historical relief in the conformation of the first experiments of
democratic confederalism in the Qandil Mountains by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
since 1999, the Iraqi region has walked slowly compared to the processes that extend in
Syrian (Rojava) and Turkish (Bakur) Kurdistan. The main cause: the counterrevolutionary
role of the KRG presided by the family of Masoud Barzani and in short, the fallacy of
"regional autonomy" that has implanted a recalcitrant nationalism in the people, serving
as support for the permanence of the regime.
However, "the KRG project has failed" . Today, this is the main slogan that accompanies
the unparalleled and satisfying aromas of burned town halls, barricades and tear gas in
more than ten cities in the region.
Iraqi Kurds launch slogans in Sulaymaniyah in a police siege, December 19.
Since Tuesday, December 19, a chain of insurrections broke out in the villages of
Raparines, Rania, Koysinjaq, Kifri, Kalar, Ranya, Taqtaq, Chamchamal, Koya, Rawanduz,
Halabja, Said Sadiq and Qaladze, with the main demand that the KRG renounces the political
administration of the area. The villagers' anger resides in three fundamental aspects: 1)
the retention and cancellation of the salaries of teachers and public officials, which has
been a frequent problem since October 2015; 2) the general discontent over an economic
crisis that worsened in late 2014 after the global fall in oil prices and a huge cut in
the public budget decided by the central government of Baghdad, which shows corruption and
disinterest in development local economic activity by the KRG, and;Referendum for the
Independence of Iraqi Kurdistan held on September 25 and in which 92.73% of the votes were
for the YES, which continued an armed intervention on October 15 by the Iraqi army that
continues to spread so far and in which the response of the KRG, again, denoted its
concord and political positions in favor of the parent government (although in the speech
intended to defend the citizens of their region).
The protests are reaching extraordinarily radical, anti-party and arsonist levels: "the
offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Barzani and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) - which is a coalition of the former - are among the buildings engulfed in
flames. "[1]the correspondents of the Deutsche Welle inform from the places of the facts.
In addition, militant comrades claim that this is "a total rejection of all parties and
groups of power", The buildings of the reformist opposition parties such as the Gorran (in
English "Gorran Movement for Change"), the Turkmen Front and other more extremist groups
such as the Islamic Union of Kurdistan have also been set on fire.
Map of the main capitals in conflict and the delimitation between the Kurdish zone and the
Republic of Iraq. Source: Al Jazeera.
Although Mosaud Barzani resigned as president after 12 years beginning on June 14, 2005
and ending on November 1, people continue to demand that the KRG desist from power, since
his nephew Nechirvan Barzani now is in the lead Possibly nepotism -and according to this
very rough conjuncture- will not happen in all the provinces to the 'democratic
alternation', due to the expansion of the faces of the economic blockade to subtract
territorial portions from the Kurds in favor of the central government, and likewise, for
the statements of the KRG that enraged the Iraqis even more:
"We will not remain inert before what happens in Kurdistan, and if there is any aggression
or prejudice against any citizen, we will take charge of punishing those responsible"[2].
The consequences are already resented in the heart of the discontent. International
flights to the capitals of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah have been canceled in full until
February 28 by orders of the Ministry of Transport[3]; the Baghdad authorities seek as a
place to take over the joint administration of the oil wells and industrial refineries
that the Kurds rehabilitated during their territorial extension after the Mosul
Offensiveat the beginning of 2015; fellow journalists report that the internet signal has
been intervened since last Tuesday, as well as constant cuts in the electric service;
Young people and children keep barricades on the outskirts of town halls and government
buildings, so that they are not put to use until the demands of the Iraqi people are met.
Reaching across borders, this anti-systemic wave is being replicated in several cities in
Iran with the intention of overthrowing the Islamic Republic due to rising prices and
corruption shown by the government (since and after) after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. on
November 12, holding on to a decisive slogan of struggle: "FREEDOM OR DEATH"[4].
Young people and children from Sulaymaniyah erect barricades and remain in the guards
outside the town halls to prevent them from being put back into use.
Up to the moment of writing this article, more than 25 deaths have been reported among
police and demonstrators, 5 of them were shot by guns in the city of Ranya on Tuesday,
December 20.
***
We would be idealists trying to elucidate in such a short period of time that these dozens
of cities advance their processes to a model of civil self-government, however, the PKK
has declared citizen self-administration along with the communities that have exerted the
greatest social pressure -and therefore, entitled in this text- of the districts of Soran
(Erbil) and Psdhar (Sulaymaniyah) in the provinces of Erbil and Pshdar [5], respectively.
Before the media, villagers say that "autonomous areas are being created to replicate the
confederalist system of Northern Syria because the KRG's experience in power failed ."
It's too clear: corruption and loyal governments will not be forgiven.
The practice of the strongest civil self-government in the region is in the city of
Shengal, where the population - Christian, Yezid and Kurdish - lived a 'Hollywood rescue'
in August 2014 after a gradation of bombings by the United States and its allies -France,
England, Russia, etc.- in coordination with the KRG to "annihilate ISIS". The
confederalist guerrillas HPG (Popular Defense Forces) and YJA Star (Units of Free Women)
with the support of the YPG and YPJ of the Syrian Rojava, exercised 100% of the rescue
work and since then, the population has been grateful with enormous loyalty to
organizations allied with the PKK that extend the practice of democracy without a State
throughout the Middle East [6]. In mid-2015, he was satisfiedthe Democratic Autonomous
Assembly and the Democratic Administration Board of Shengal (integrated in the general
body named TEV-DEM), announcing its self-government program "Êzidîxan" at the end of
October 2017. Its main achievements are: the assembly organization under the federative
principle; the communion of religious groups and the eradication of their political power;
the international recognition of Yezadis as an original people for their constitutional
respect before a history full of massacres against them; and the popular supervision of
the armed self-defense bodies, that is, that the work of the militias will reside in the
sole mandate of the local assemblies.[7].
"The Co-Chairs of the Democratic Autonomous Assembly of Shengal, Co-Chairmen of the
Democratic Management Board and other officials offered a press conference in order to
declare the Autzidîxan Democratic Autonomy project. The statement was read in Kurdish and
Arabic. "
On the other hand - and being the most sensationalist episode - we contemplate the heroic
participation also of the YJA Star and the HPG during the state of siege in the town of
Kirkuk in mid-October, which along with the inhabitants in arms, defended the city for
avoid a military massacre of the central government during the seizure of oil wells
controlled by local companies[8]. In those moments, the Peshmerga (the military arm and
official of the KRG) fled in terror when seeing the tanks and battalions enter the
territories, giving the reason once more to the effectiveness of the armed self-organization.
"Resident of Kirkuk holds a long weapon during the military stalking of the central
government in the region."
***
After this breviary of the most recent regional years and experiences where "God is
great", there is only to support the path of democratic confederalism - both those who
build it with facts and solidarity from a distance - to cross as a bridge in the stream in
more regions throughout Kurdistan.
Critical notes and references
[1]"Protests rage in Iraqi Kurdistan", Deutsche Welle , December 19, 2017. (
http://www.dw.com/en/protests-rage-in-iraqi-kurdistan/a-41868334 )
[2]"Anti-government protests in Iraqi Kurdistan kill at least five", Financial Times ,
December 20, 2017. ( https://www.ft.com/content/5d7cb500-e56f-11e7-97e2-916d4fbac0da )
[3]"Iraq: International flight to Kurdistan extended", Middle East Monitor, December 29,
2017. (
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20171229-iraq-international-flight-ban-to-kurdistan-extended
/)
[4]"Protests over alleged corruption and rising prices spread to Tehran", The Guardian ,
December 30, 2017. (
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/29/iranian-police-disperse-
anti-government-protests )
[5]"PKK has announced a self-administration in parts of Soran region in Erbil province and
Pishdar region in Sulimania that they control because 'KRI experience is a failure'; they
are copying Northern Syria's system in the new self-rule area, " Iraq Liveuamap, December
25, 2017. ( https://iraq.liveuamap.com/en/2017/25-december-pkk-has-announced-a
-selfadministration-in-parts )
[6]De Antueno, Nicolás, Anarchism and revolution in the 21st Century (2017). "The
impossible revolution: Revolution in Syrian, Turkish and Iraqi Kudistan".
[7]"Self-government and Democratic Autonomy is declared in the city of Shengal in Iraqi
Kurdistan", Collective Rupture (RC), August 20, 2017. (
http://rupturacolectiva.com/se-declara-el-
autogobierno-y-la-autonomia-democratica-en-la-ciudad-de-shengal-en-el-kurdistan-iraqui /)
[8]Consult this text of my authorship regarding the invasion in Kirkuk: "Stop the war
against the Kurdish people!: Iraqi army invades the city of Kirkuk, citizens and Kurdish
guerrillas defend it", Collective Rupture (RC), October 16, 2017. (
http://rupturacolectiva.com/alto-a-la-guerra-contra-el-pueblo-ku
http://rupturacolectiva.com/declaran-autogobiernos-civiles-en-soran-y-pshdar-del-kurdistan-iraqui-tras-masivas-protestas-antigobierno/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Jacques Roux, nicknamed " the red priest ", is one of those anonymous who made the
French Revolution and who were victims of the Terror. Little known, he is often remembered
for this sentence, which he pronounced against the National Convention (the Legislative
Assembly of the First Republic): " Freedom is only a vain ghost, when a class of men can
to starve the other with impunity. The biography devoted to him by Walter Markov, a
German historian, is finally translated and published by Libertalia editions, 50 years
after its first publication, after a major work of updating led notably by Claude Guillon.
---- Libertarian Alternative : Although a priest, Jacques Roux participated in
revolutionary events in the current of " Enraged ", considered precursors of communism
by Marx. How can one explain this singular journey, from a privileged order to the most
radical revolutionaries ?
Claude Guillon : Roux is part of the lower clergy, where one engages when one comes from
a poor family, to acquire a little education and a " state ", a job. Many " little "
priests played a role in the Revolution, starting with those who represented their order
at the Estates General, rallying the third estate, and others in popular societies, which
they often were - at the beginning - the secretaries.
Obscure teacher in a provincial institution, exiled in the capital to escape the
consequences of a confusing story, it is typically the kind of character whose history
would not have retained the name ... if the Revolution had not opened, as the chocolate
Pauline Léon or the post office employee Jean-François Varlet, new horizons. These people
made the revolution, but they were made by it.
In June 1793, Jacques Roux gave a famous speech, passed to posterity under the name of "
Enraged Manifesto ".
Jacques Roux is the oldest of these activists, who will be called later " Enragés ".
He is 37 years old in 1789. Having become parish priest of the Gravilliers, in the center
of the popular Paris, he knows the craftsmen and the workers, whom he marries, baptizes
and buries. He also knows the price of the staples and the working day, and the misery of
the people. He is convinced of the usefulness of women in the revolutionary process,
including the Society of Republican Revolutionary Women, that Pauline Leon and actress
Claire Lacombe will rally to the Enraged, chasing the more moderate Jacobines.
Although it is impossible to guess his feelings before the Revolution, it is possible that
Roux was part of the priests who considered their role from a point of view more social
than religious, without faith and even less particular fanaticism. Let us remember,
however, that at the time religion pervades all of society and that the absolute monarch
is supposed to hold his legitimacy directly from " God " !
The civil constitution of the clergy (1790) roughly separates the French clergy into two
halves. The radicalization of the popular movement, the opposition of " refractory "
priests (to the oath that is demanded of them), then the anticlerical movement, called "
dechristianisation ", will make the position of a Jacques Roux very difficult. He has of
course taken the party of the revolution, but it is convenient, for Robespierre for
example, to attack him as a priest. Roux complains and denounces the priests as
charlatans. He announced his intention to marry a " good republican ", perhaps the
woman he was cohabiting with, but he did not have the time.
How to define the Enraged and what can they bring us today ?
Claude Guillon : First of all, I must say that the study of the French Revolution seems
to me useful and refreshing, since the majority of the people who make it are almost
without intellectual baggage (even when they know how to read and to write) and, by the
force of things, deprived of all the revolutionary knowledge that today fills our
libraries. Now, not only do they put down a multi-secular monarchical system, but they
immediately invent new ways of making decisions, of doing politics - all without
electricity, antibiotics and washing machines ...
The qualifier " Enragés " was awarded retrospectivelyto activists whose demands meet,
to the left of the Jacobins and the Mountain. They act mainly in Paris, but also in Lyon,
with Chalier (Leclerc lived there) and Orleans (Taboureau de Montigny). They want to push
the Revolution towards its logical consequences in terms of equality of conditions, direct
democracy (imperative mandate and revocability of elected officials), and participation of
women in social life. They and they do not constitute a party, with members - even if the
Republicans are a society of 300 women, who can mobilize many others - and that the
Jacquesroutins meet at Les Gravilliers. But they are clearly identified by Robespierre as
a coherent stream, which he will get in two weeks out of circuit, chasing Roux, Leclerc
and Varlet of the Cordeliers club and closing the Republican Society, prelude and pretext
for the prohibition of all women's clubs. Arrested and persuaded, rightly, that he will be
sentenced to the guillotine, Roux commits suicide in prison on February 10, 1794.
Emblem of the section of Gravilliers, which included Jacques Roux, where we recognize the
motto "Freedom and Equality. Win or die ".
Why translate this biography, already 50 years old, of an East German author ?
Claude Guillon : From the beginning of the XX th century, the first historians who are
interested enough to Enragés to produce monographs on each other are Soviet: they will go
through Stalin's camps. In France, Albert Mathiez (who does not like Roux), Daniel Guérin
and Albert Soboul give them a good place in their analyzes, but only Maurice Dommanget
publishes a book about Jacques Roux (and Pierre Dolivier, another radical priest), and
Marie Cerati on the Revolutionary Republicans.
Walter Markov, historian, academic from East Germany worked ten years on Jacques Roux and
Enragés. He has published four books in the GDR, including a large volume in French
containing all the writings (speeches, pamphlets and diaries) of Roux, which we wanted to
reproduce on a CD-Rom that accompanies the book. The reader can therefore follow the story
by referring to the documents. Markov also translated texts into German and published many
articles (we take several of them).
Markov writes a difficult German, which has given a hard time to our editorial team: the
translator Stéphanie Roza first, Jean-Numa Ducange and me. Moreover, even if it was known
French historians of the Revolution, and helped by them (Soboul, in particular) to do his
research in France, his " hero " and main subject of study posed problem: it was
feared in France, let him shade Robespierre ! The fact that this translation project can
succeed today is first and foremost the repair of a political and historical injustice,
with regard to the " red priest ". Jacques Roux but also with regard to his biographer
and best connoisseur in the world. The fact that this book appears in Libertalia, a
libertarian publisher, in co-publication with the Society of Robespierrist Studies and on
his initiative, is a further sign that the lines have moved since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In addition to the formatting of the text, to make it accessible in French, we did a work
of checking and updating references and bibliography and added a critical device,
nonexistent in the original volume.
Is there anything to discover and make known to the Enraged ?
Claude Guillon : I am sure of it ! I published in 1993 a biography of Leclerc and Léon (
Two Enraged of the Revolution, The Digitale), supplemented since by an article on Pauline
Léon in the Historical Annals of the French Revolution (2005). In the second and recent
edition of Our patience is over (IMHO, 2016), a collection of Enragés texts, I added a
text and a bio-bibliography of Taboureau de Montigny, which is hardly more familiar to us
than when Mathiez nicknamed him " the enraged unknown . " I think that Varlet, author
of the famous formula " For all being who reason, government and revolution are
incompatible " Deserves a book of its texts. As for the society of Revolutionary
Republicans, I will have the opportunity to come back to it since I am preparing a book on
women's clubs during the Revolution. The French edition of Markov's book on Jacques Roux
gives the French-speaking audience the level of knowledge of the German public. I hope
this edition will spark further translations, and all of this new research work. And since
we are talking about publishing and Libertalia has republished Bourgeois and Naked Arms by
Daniel Guerin (of which I wrote the preface), I hope that we will be able to re-edit one
day, in a more accessible form, his big work in two volumes The class struggle under the
First Republic. Short ! historians and editors, the building sites are not lacking !
Interviewed by Renaud (AL Alsace)
Read: Markov, " Jacques Roux, the red priest "
The biography of Walter Markov allows us to reconstruct the path of this character of
which we know very little, including in his career before the Revolution. Having become a
young priest, without being able to guess a particular enthusiasm for religion, he held
various positions of vicar and teacher in the Charente. He is noted for his sermons a
little too favorable to the revolution, which are implicated following riots targeting
some properties of the nobility of the region in April 1790.
Returned, he leaves his region and arrives in Paris, at the moment when the civil
constitution of the clergy forces the priests to take an oath of fidelity to the
Constitution ... which many refuse. While nothing seemed to push him back into the clergy,
this opportunity allowed him to find a place of vicar in Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, left
vacant by one of the refractory priests.
In this popular district, he participates in the popular societies that make up this first
revolutionary Commune of Paris and persists in defending the poor people of Paris, to
bring the social question to the National Convention. On June 25, 1793, he spoke on behalf
of the Gravilliers section and the Cordeliers club. His " address to the Convention "
later renamed " manifest Enragés " causes violent responses of Robespierre including.
More than just a story of events, Walter Markov manages to reconstruct the actions of
Jacques Roux, with which he is sometimes not very tender, despite the few traces left by
this character, and especially the little information on his privacy and beliefs. The book
is also accompanied by a CD Rom that includes other texts by the author, or other
historians, including Claude Guillon, but also texts by Jacques Roux or testimonies on the
work of Walter Markov.
Walter Markov, Jacques Roux, the red priest, Libertalia, 2017, 20 euros.
MARKOV, A NON-CONFORMIST
A heterodox Marxist, Walter Markov chose to live in the GDR after the Second World War,
which he had spent in prison (since 1934) because of his communist activities. But
suspected of ' titism "And excluded from the United Socialist Party (SED) in 1951,
interested in the Enraged while Stalinist doctrine put forward the figure of Robespierre,
his relations with the East German power have always been strained. His research on the
French Revolution was complicated by the ban on traveling to France, which in 1957 forced
him to cross the border illegally by night and land in Paris early in the morning. He had
to spend all his time at the National Archives, do his research in record time and rely on
the help of his university friends in France, to succeed in writing several books on
Jacques Roux. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Walter Markov joined the Party of
Democratic Socialism (PDS), which succeeded the SED, and died in 1993.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Claude-guillon-enrages-revolution-jacques-roux-1793
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Message: 3
An attempt to re-read anti-colonial history of the so-called "Philippines" according to
anti-authoritarian framework and in contrast to nation-state agenda of mainstream and
republican. ---- Somebody asked: Who discovered the Philippines? ---- Someone answered:
Magellan. ---- One could butt in: Who killed Magellan? ---- Typical answer: Lapu-Lapu ----
Follow-up question: Who killed Lapu-Lapu? ---- Typical answer: Kusinero (Cook) ---- I
refer to this conversation as novelty. It is pop. Meaning, an ordinary person whether they
attended school or not could relate to it. Surely people will have various
interpretations, opinions and levels of appreciation to this conversation- A conversation
that could establish a connection. ---- I am really curious to hear how exactly a
Filipina/Filipino nationalist will expound this novelty conversation in favor to their
national idea of national pride.
It has been five centuries since Magellan came to The Visayas. A distant past that in the
context of millennials, can be thought of as irrelevant.
On the other hand, we could ask the opposite: despite of its antiquity, why do people
still ask such a silly question? Perhaps this event is recognized by many as the precursor
for extensive changes that has been introduced to many communities within the imaginary
boundary claimed by the Republic of the Philippines. Our social setting would have been
different if King Philip rejected Magellan's proposal.
Who discovered the Philippines?
This is a silly question. "Philippines" is not a thing to be discovered. It is not a piece
of artifact that you can apply the finder's keeper principle. It is absurd to believe that
the Philippines is something waiting to be found.
This novelty conversation has been with us for many decades. We keep hearing this in
different occasions, from household, to school, circle of friends, in my work, in rural
and urban communities.
Probably it is more appropriate to ask who founded the Philippines?
The "silly" question would want you answer a particular name - Magellan, who represented
the power of the Monarchy. Magellan will be killed by Lapu-Lapu later on the follow-up
question.
Whenever I hear people making fun out of the question "who discovered the Philippines" I
sense different meaning and a mischievous feeling.
Why ask such question? Is there any hidden intention?
Now a days, people's sense of history revolve around the idea of Spanish colonization and
KKK uprising which led to the establishment of a republic. A historical period that
connected many communities in the archipelago to the modern setting dominated by
nation-states characterized by centralized social relationships and absolute truth along
with poverty, hunger, injustice, discrimination and ecological destruction.
Spain is perceived as the villain that brought sufferings to the people; it is also
considered as a "master" who introduced the idea of civilized life. Since civilization is
viewed as the benchmark of development; it is plausible to think that we owed Spain of our
progress.
Mainstream history is basically Eurocentric. It will inevitably treat pre-Hispanic culture
and lifestyle as underdeveloped. Savage and retrogressive that needed to be changed
according to the standards of colonizers.
That is exactly what we are now. We challenge the negative attributes of the society
introduced by colonizers while invoking alternatives which is also introduced by colonizers.
For instance, the KKK challenged the Spanish authority by asserting its capacity to
self-rule through the system introduced by colonizers. Revolutionary ideas carried by
anti-colonization are western in origin.
Why are we obsessed with European alternatives? Do we have no viable alternatives of our
own? Do we find local wisdom and practice as obsolete and ineffective?
Except Lapu-Lapu, we rarely refer to the pre-KKK uprisings. Uprising that challenged
colonial rules by asserting indigenous systems and re-instituting cultures handed down by
our ancestors. Pre-KKK uprisings were mostly community-based.
Most people respect Jose Rizal's contribution to "Filipino" struggle for freedom. But
people rarely refer to his early works where he clearly recognized our indigenous identity
and described our ancestors systems as prosperous, equitable and more perfect compared to
colonial rule.
The systems of our ancestors were more humane and ecologically sustainable that was
brutally destroyed by modernity through the nation-state. Ironically, we adopted
nation-state framework to counter colonial rule. With this framework we fail. After
hundred years of struggle, our communities continue to suffer in issues and problems which
are alien to us during pre-hispanic times. Despite of which, we still hold on to the
promise of nation-state that basically proved to be a failure in terms of providing
equity, sustainability and progress.
The novelty question is being asked constantly and spontaneously perhaps because our
history is haunting us. The terms Philippines and Filipino are not ours. These are ideas
being imposed and coercively used to describe and define us by our colonizers. These are
the very attributes that reinforced disconnection to our indigenous self. These ideas made
us think we are more superior to other culture. What is the need of superiority? Is it to
defeat and out compete other people and to undermine other's cultural orientation?
Our own culture should be our guide in our search for self-determination. Our
self-determination is no justification to control other. Our ancestors' system displays no
center. They do not have uniformed conduct that exercise control. What they had were
diverse cultural orientations that cut across around the archipelago and in Southeast Asia
which the dynamics were facilitated by marriage, kinship, trade and war (panggayaw).
We are not Filipinos. We are people raised by our diverse culture. Our culture is a gift
from our ancestors. It is no perfect but it has the complete set of elements under the
theme mutual-cooperation and respect.
There is no such thing as "perfect culture". But ours is far more humane and ecologically
sound compared to the nation-state and capitalism that introduced massive killing of
people, destruction of culture and destruction of the earth.
There is no one big formula that could provide a single solution to the problems we
currently confront, but at least we have the wisdom from our ancestors that provides us a
framework that is proven to be effective and is currently utilized by existing indigenous
cultures across the archipelago.
Lapu-Lapu's victory is iconic. The message it conveyed it not about nation and
sovereignty. It is about the defense of autonomy of Mactan Island. It was the struggle
that wase followed by numerous resistance aimed to re-institute the indigenous set-up and
to protect their autonomy.
The fragmentation of cultural communities should not be viewed as weakness. It represents
freedom and autonomy. They have indigenous means to connect and integrate; fragmentation
will only become a weakness if one has the intention to control and dominate.
Related Link:
https://onsiteinfoshopphilippines.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/lapu-lapu-petmalu-a-re-articulation-of-anti-colonial-struggle-in-the-archipelago/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30760
------------------------------
Message: 4
Greetings, ---- You are invited to contribute to the following text call: ----
https://cedasasced.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/international-text-call-anarcho-syndicalism-and-intersectionality/
---- It can be a new text or an old one that is already published elsewhere. ----
Information about the Anarcho-Syndicalist Collective for Education and Diffusion (ASCED)
follows the text call at the end of this email. ---- Solidarity, ---- ASCED members ----
******* To all anarchists who read these lines, ----If anarcho-syndicalism has your
interest, you are invited to send us before March 15th 2018 a text of one page (two pages
maximum) elaborating your anarcho-syndicalist perspectives on the fight against
discrimination and on the intersectional struggles that affect women, racialized,
migrants, LGBTQ, disabled, indigenous people, etc. We strongly encourage people who are
discriminated to write a text.
The formula is very open. You don't have to be an expert in this field. Your text can be a
personal testimony, a personal reflection, an historical perspective on the scale of your
area or the world, an editorial, a poem, etc. We are also open to texts that do not relate
directly to the suggested theme. For example, you can talk about anarcho-syndicalist
perspectives on gentrification and class struggle in general. On the other hand, we will
keep the freedom not to publish the texts which correspond to a form of oppression /
exploitation (like anarcho-capitalism, nationalism, racism, social democracy,
marxism-leninism , etc.).
We encourage you to write so that your text is accessible to a large anarchist public,
since our goal is popular education and theoretical development for all. Since we wish to
operate in a bilingual manner, we will translate as much as possible the texts received
before February 15th 2018.
This theme aims to highlight the practices and struggles of anarcho-syndicalists today to
get rid of a certain image and cliché that we might have, that of a movement of white
heterosexuals settlers men. Is it possible to focus on the struggles of the working class
on an anarchist anti-oppressive basis today? How do you integrate the emancipation of
oppressed groups in the struggles of the popular movements and more particularly in the
anarcho-syndicalist struggles / groups? Can we develop a revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist
perspective in specific struggles?
All the received texts will be published on Internet (and printed as much as possible)
around April 2018 in a notebook of reflection on our blog. This will act as a common basis
for participants in a discussion day called « Forum on Anarcho-Syndicalism » to be held at
the beginning of May 2018 at the DIRA anarchist library in the territory of Tio'Tia:Ke
(Montreal, Quebec, Canada) under the theme of the perspectives of anarcho-syndicalist
struggles against discrimination and oppression (more information to come on this subject).
You can send your text to cedas-asced@riseup.net before March 15th 2018 and before
February 15th 2018, if you wish to have the chance to get it translated in the other language.
***************************************
WHAT IS THE ASCED?
Created in August 2017, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Collective for Education and Diffusion
(ASCED) is made of anarchist militants from different parts of Quebec province (Canada).
We are a French-English bilingual collective with no organizational affiliation. Our aim
is to spread anarcho-syndicalist ideas to facilitate the application of revolutionary,
egalitarian, anarchist strategies in the mean to fight against specific oppression and
capitalist exploitation (in both it's private and statist forms). Our approach is popular
education and self-education. We have a reading circle and we wish to spread
anarcho-syndicalist material ( documentary projection, zines, texts, books, blog, etc.).
In the end we wish this process feeds debates in social movements (community groups,
unions) and among oppressed and exploited social groups so that collectively we can
radicalize our practices and social change perspectives.
cedas-asced@riseup.net
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Message: 5
Following last years successful first ever Radical Bookfair in Derry we will begin plans
to hold a second one at 2018. ---- Following on from this years event held during the
Bloody Sunday week of events we have had continuous support and encouragement to make the
Radical Bookfair an annual event as part of the political calendar of Derry. Our first
Radical Bookfair played host to many participants from all over Ireland, England, Scotland
and Wales played part of the Bloody Sunday week of events leading up to the annual Bloody
Sunday March, which itself hosted a series discussions and debates, film and theatre that
centred around a wide range of local, national and international contemporary social
justice issues. ---- As ever we would like to extend our hand to participants again to the
Radical Bookfair with different visions, ideas, practices and radical traditions. Again we
hope that our second annual book fair will be used as an opening in support of small press
publishers and independent book sellers and producers, circulating radical reading
materials and information from independent distributers, non-party political campaigns and
groups to share their publications and merchandise, which normally would be hard or
impossible to find at mainstream book shops. Books of local, national and international
interests including social and labour history as well as themes covering radical feminism,
queer liberation, anarchism, marxism, republicanism and environmentalism.
It is worth noting that Derry has a long and proud tradition of working class radicalism
which has influenced many historical events, standing out beyond most other cities that
has both challenged and changed society around us for the better.
Further details of the 2nd Annual Derry Radical Bookfair will be shared here as we
organise closer to January 2018.
www.derryradicalbookfair.wordpress.com/
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Anarchic update news all over the world - 6.01.2018
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