Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 13.07.2018

Today's Topics: 

   
1.  [Greece] Video: Greek anarchist talks about his fight
      against ISIS by Tasos Kokkinidis By ANA (pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  [US] Brief chronicle of the 12th Anarchist Book Fair in New
      York: "This year was one of the best years" By ANA (pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  freedom news: Fuck Assad, fuck his Western lackeys: An
      anarchist statement on Eva Bartlett (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  [Indonesia] Update on anarchists made prisoners in
      Yogyakarta By ANA (pt) [machine translation] 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  [Bangladesh] Libertarian Conference in Sylhet brings
      together dozens of people, By ANA (pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  rusga libertaria - KURDISH STRUGGLE & RESISTANCE - A BRIEF
      REFLECTION ANARCHIST ON THE PRACTICAL PROCESS 
      OF STRUGGLE - SWOOP
      LIBERTÁRIA (it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





A Greek anarchist, a member of the Rouvikonas (Rubicon) group, who traveled to combat the 
Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, talks about his experience of war and the reasons that led 
to the fight. ---- The testimony of Nikos Mataragas is in the documentary  Belkî Sibê 
(Maybe Tomorrow): A Journey Through War and Revolution , produced by Alexis Daloumis and 
Shadow Crew. ---- Mataragas, with a partially destroyed wall and a Kalashnikov (AK-47) at 
his side, talks about his experience in Ragga. ---- He says he had weapons training for a 
month before he started fighting. He also says that he spent seven months on the front 
lines, fighting alongside the armed group Battalion of International Freedom, 
participating in several fights, in which some of his colleagues died.

"It was a painful experience," he says, but that made him more determined to keep fighting 
ISIS.

The volunteer says that the communist past of his family made him defend minorities.

His childhood made him internationalist: "In our house we never had the flag of Greece," 
he says, however, denies that it is anti-Greece.

Over time, he decided to follow a different path from his parents and began to call 
himself an anarchist.

Mataragas says that although he is from Rouvikonas, the decision to go to fight in Syria 
was his.

>> Video in Greek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsGq-W7bsxo&feature=youtu.be

Source: 
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2018/06/19/greek-anarchist-fighting-isis-in-syria-speaks-out-video/

Translation> Lucas Insuela

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Message: 2





This year was the  Book Fair of  the Birds [June 9], we wanted to emphasize that 
anarchists are black birds, a symbol of freedom, and only all of us together can build the 
community of anarchy. A community based on free and supportive people. ---- This year was 
great, we all learned a lot. At  the Art Festival  we ask ourselves: How many people are 
you? Just yourself? Or everyone? ---- We understand that every moment that we work only 
for ourselves we fail, so we try to understand the dynamics of anarchist interaction, and 
this is surprising because we need to create this dynamic, which is totally different from 
the white capitalist hetero patriarchal supremacy. ---- This year we had many workshops, 
such as: "Body Politics: Invisible Disability," Pain and Gender "," Antifa: Winning the 
War Against the Alt-Right "," Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement: As Black as the 
Resistance, "" Modeling the Family Through a Transverse and Non-Binary Perspective: An 
Exploration, "" Birds Are Anarchists: Complex Systems of Decentralization, "etc.

And our  Art Festival  was opened by Ben Morea, which was an honor for us.

The  Film Festival  was organized from people in Spain and Brazil, included some Americans 
and was so relaxing after many hours of pleasure and constructive discussions in the 
workshops.

It has been 12 years organizing the  Book Fair ... For me this year was one of the best 
years. I am very happy when the community is united in harmony and constructive interaction.

Definitely, this was the year of the black birds!

Collective of the Anarchist Book Fair of New York

Related Content:

https://noticiasanarquistas.noblogs.org/post/2018/06/08/eua-12-feira-do-livro-anarquista-de-nova-iorque-acontece-neste-sabado/

anarchist-ana news agency

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Message: 3





Tomorrow Eva Bartlett, a self-appointed "independent journalist" who fancies herself an 
expert on Middle East will be speaking in London. It seems like a good time to repost this 
excellent statement from  the anarchists in Hamilton, Canada, on Bartlett and why she and 
other Assad apologists need to be opposed. (zb) ---- "We are convinced that liberty 
without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery 
and brutality." -Mikhail Bakunin ---- Hamilton had the unfortunate distinction of being 
the only city on Eva Bartlett's Canadian tour to host not one, but two presentations by 
the self-described independent journalist. In the days since, some of us have been asked 
by people in the Hamilton activist scene our thoughts on the events and, given that 
anarchists were publicly named as opponents of the event, "authoritarian" ones at that 
(the irony is not lost on us), we would like to clarify some thoughts.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian blogger who has focused her writing on the middle-east: 
specifically Palestine and Syria. She shot to sectarian-internet fame when she managed to 
get filmed taking questions in front of a UN backdrop. According to her backers, Bartlett, 
unlike the Main Stream Media, is one of few sharing the "truth" about Syria. Unlike these 
outlets, she can lay claim to being "on the ground", and not under the influence of the 
NATO-backed western media.

While we appreciate the skepticism towards the mainstream media, as well as a general 
disdain for western imperialism, the so-called anti-imperialists who back Bartlett want us 
to believe that the near-consensus global and small press reports of the atrocities 
carried out by Assad regime simply didn't happen. Or, to paraphrase Bartlett, it's 
possible that a few mistakes have been made by Assad's army, but she hadn't heard of 
anything in particular. Sound conspiracy theory-ish yet? There's more.

Bartlett's conspiratorial claims, many of which have been debunked online (by sources 
which, by virtue of contesting Bartlett's claims, are considered unreliable), have found a 
welcome home on such websites as GlobalResearch.ca, a site that sounds very professional 
and...well...researched when she's citing it in front of a crowd. When you check the site 
out though, you'll find that it devotes an entire section of it's content to 9/11 truth 
articles, hosts articles by Alex Jones/Infowars, alt-right figure Paul Joseph Watson, and 
describes itself as "a major news source on the New World Order".

That the far-right and the authoritarian left are feeding at the same conspiracy trough 
should give us pause, and all the more so when Bartlett, practically quoting Donald Trump, 
dismisses all information that doesn't fit her narrative as fake news. As well, the 
conspiracy theory that there must be a guiding, conspiratorial hand behind mass movements 
because oppressed people could never rise up on their own has its roots in anti-black 
right-wing American conspiracy theories that refuse to accept that black people could 
possibly organize to make demands for justice. It doesn't stop being condescending and 
racist when it's said about Syrians.

Bartlett's selling point for her material is that she, again unlike mainstream reporters, 
has been "on the ground". That's true inasmuch as she was in the region still understood 
as Syria, but she has not set foot in any non-regime areas.[1]In fact, she distinguishes 
between the people whose stories she claims to be innocently recounting as true "average, 
every-day Syrians", contrasting them with the millions of Syrian people who have populated 
areas that have been out of Assad's control, who she only refers to as terrorists. One of 
these "average Syrians" she quotes is an Assadist army general who, wouldn't you know it, 
tells a western self-styled journalist getting the Assad tour of Syria that he's refusing 
to attack a neighbourhood because there are too many civilians. Woah! Really digging deep 
with your investigation, there, Eva!

Unfortunately for Hamiltonians, Eva is not the only one who has sipped heartily of the 
kool-aid. She was hosted by a couple small Hamilton groups, at least one member of which 
has referred to Assad as "benevolent" at a rally for refugees and has had a 
state-sponsored tour of regime-held areas. Indeed, the true colours of the organizers were 
shown when a Syrian comrade whose family has been affected by the Assad regime was 
initially going to be denied entry, and when these same revolutionaries invited the cops 
to stand guard at the event's entrance.

While we have no interest in defending the liberal and hollow "freedom of speech" that the 
organizers disingenuously heralded, if we do support a "free speech", it is one of 
preventing a centralized government from controlling the expression of ideas - something 
obviously absent in the "anti-imperialists'" socialist-utopia Syria[2]- rather than a free 
speech of there being no consequences to one's ideas. As anarchists we believe that talk 
is not divorced from action, that spreading conspiracies and pontificating about conflict 
in another country have real-world impacts: allowing state violence in Syria to continue. 
It is for this reason that we encourage people on any of this tour's stops to disrupt 
Bartlett's spouting of dictator-worship. Many of the "anti-imperialists" have great ideas, 
some of them are our friends, some of them have done work that we support. But we maintain 
that their position on the Syrian conflict is unprincipled, despicable, and, 
paradoxically, imperialist.[3]

The "anti-imperialists" would retort that there is no room for nuance, that not picking 
sides is playing into the imperialist plan: one is either with Assad or with empire. But 
if they were listening, they'd know that we have always picked a side: in solidarity with 
the Syrian anarchists, antiauthoritarians, and thousands of other rebels who managed to 
organize neighbourhood councils and mutual aid networks while up against insurmountable 
odds and the attacks of a bloodthirsty dictator's regime.

As anarchists, we oppose imperialism and we also oppose authoritarianism wherever people 
rise in struggle against it. We do not recognize the rights of local powerful cadres to 
draw borders and use the discourse of sovereignty to oppress the people inside those 
borders; we do not believe that elections, especially not ones carried out amidst immense 
repression, give any legitimacy to those elites; we do not believe in lesser evils or that 
the Russian state is somehow not imperialist; we reject the absurd and disempowering 
narrative that behind every social movement there must be a conspiracy. In the Syrian 
revolution, we see many inspiring models of large-scale grassroots organizing that seeks 
to reduce hierarchy and transform society, in spite of the immense violence they have 
experienced from Assad and his allies, western bombs, and reactionary religious militias. 
This struggle will continue in the years to come and we need to continue organizing to 
support it.

For more information on the story of Syria's revolution and counterrevolution, we heavily 
recommend checking out the work of Leila al-Shami. Below are some links to some of her 
pieces as well as others who refuse to toe the line of either NATO or Putin.

Down with Assad, Down with NATO, Down with the Islamists, long live the Syrian revolution!

- Some anarchists in Hamilton

https://freedomnews.org.uk/fuck-assad-fuck-his-western-lackeys-an-anarchist-statement-on-eva-bartlett/

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Message: 4





" Prison is a stage on the path of revolutionaries towards freedom. It's an intermediate 
stop, but not an end "- Conspiracy of Fire Cells ---- From 1 May 2018 until today (July 4, 
2018), the anarchists held in Yogyakarta have not yet been tried in court. The information 
given is that the anarchists should have been transferred to Cebongan Prison in Sleman on 
June 29 of that year, but the prosecutor's office has kept them at the Yogyakarta police 
station (Polda Yogyakarta) since 1 May for the process of investigation. However, the 
planned transfer was canceled and the period of detention in Polda Yogyarta was extended 
until July 30, under the pretext of further investigations. Our suspicion is that the 
extension of the investigative process is due to the fact that it is a political case, 
since it is evident from various perspectives that the action of May 1 was a protest 
against the government.

Regarding the condition of the anarchists taken prisoners, one of them - Brian Valentino, 
better known as Ucil - was taken to hospital for suffering from shortness of breath and 
stomach problems. At the moment, Ucil is recovering, but continues to maintain the mood 
and is always making the prisoners laugh.

On the others, everyone is healthy both physically and psychologically, despite this, we 
know that they are under pressure from various social strata, especially the police and 
the state.

We will continue to provide information on the prisoners made anarchists and on the case 
process. We thank all the friends who have shown solidarity for the anarchists imprisoned 
in Yogyakarta.

" Unfortunately, the dream we carry in our hearts is too great to avoid the risk of 
beating headlong with the monstrous wall of authority that rises in defense of the State 
and Capital " - Nicola Gai

More information:

Instagram account: @palang__hitam

Website:  palanghitam.noblogs.org

Email:  civilrebellion@riseup.net

Translation> Baderna

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Message: 5





On Sunday,  July 8 , in a community space in the city of Sylhet, companions and companions 
of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation of Bangladesh (BASF) held a  Libertarian Conference 
with the participation of several women working in the plantations (better known as 
"gardens"). ---- The  Conference  was replete with reflections and talks about 
anarcho-syndicalism, self-organization, international solidarity, the harsh conditions of 
labor exploitation in tea plantations, among other subjects. The General Secretary of the 
AIT ( International Association of Workers ) participated in the event. ---- 
bangladeshasf.org Related Content: 
https://noticiasanarquistas.noblogs.org/post/2018/05/03/bangladesh-prime-de-maio-em-sylhet-nossa-luta-e-arradicar-todos-os-de-autoritarismo/
anarchist-ana news agency

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Message: 6





Our starting point ... ---- The intention of this text (without claiming to be something 
long and deep) is to contribute, somewhat, to the reflection on the struggle and 
resistance of the Kurdish people. It is not part of a closed intention, much less as the 
"owner of the truth", but rather of the proposal of open reflection and with firm feet on 
historical and theoretical contextualizations that depart from the very battle front; 
through the militants who run the world in search of ample solidarity with the struggle 
and resistance of the Kurdish people in struggle. Much has been said in the last few 
months mainly when the US and Russian warlike support in the anti-ISIS process was 
reported. Reflecting on this "support" in a closed, scrawny and mechanical way can lead us 
to the mistake of neglecting the potential for confrontation and the seriousness and 
firmness in the project of Democratic Confederalism,

Wow, not closed, reflection ...

The process of Kurdish struggle came to be seen by the United States and Russia after the 
Kurds defeated the Islamic State / ISIS / Daesh in Kobane; for an obvious reason: It is 
the region of great interest because it is the passage of oil in the Middle East and, 
giving access to the sea, facilitates the gas flow of Russia etc.. It is at this time that 
the two countries begin to send arms and troops, using the speech that their support comes 
because the Kurds are fighting against the Islamic State / ISIS / Daesh. In fact, US 
support is not directly to the Kurds; the United States came to support the Syrian 
Democratic Forces (SDF), an international coalition against the Islamic State / ISIS / 
Daesh, which has Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, etc. In short, what the US is 
"supporting "Is the fight against" terrorism "; not the struggle for Kurdish liberation, 
which is more comprehensive than the struggle against the Islamic State / ISIS / Daesh. 
Proof of this is the fact that even while participating in the international coalition 
that also has Kurdish fighters, the US Department of Defense maintains several Rojava 
groups on its terrorism watch list. At the same time,

It is necessary to understand that within the movement of the Kurds there are several 
parties and groups; the PKK is influential but does not have full control. What we claim 
is not the whole of it, but what the left wing has built. This work comes from a long 
time, is a base work of decades. And it is to him that the left of the world needs 
solidarity. The entire Kurdish liberation movement is in dispute, by local and 
international forces. That is why the work of the socialists has been constant with the 
people, in order to transform culture, building self-defense and seeking to form an 
organization outside the State - deconstructing the idea that they have to claim 
independence and then form a Kurdish nation-state simply. When one tries to construct with 
the people the self-defense and the autonomy, is precisely so that these people do not 
remain hostage of governments and external forces at the moment the war ends. Marxist / 
anarchist / other critically-placed militants are aware of what the entrance of the United 
States and Russia entails; and know that after their conflict they will impose their 
measures- "It is very easy, and convenient for certain powers, to appropriate the struggle 
in Kobane for their own agendas. But as Salih Muslim and others said:the Kurds will not be 
anyone's mercenaries . No more fighting for the others. If people really want to support 
long-term democratic structures in the long run , they must undertake radical political 
actions, such as recognition of the Rojava cantons and their defense forces , as well as 
the elimination of the PKK from the list of terrorist organizations "(Dilar Dirik, 
activist in the Kurdish Women's Movement).

The strategy that seems to draw itself is to prepare the people for that moment. It is no 
coincidence that work is not only on the barricades, but rather on day-to-day work in 
still-populated cities and refugee camps. While a type of internationally representative 
policy is being made, and some forces prefer that sphere, by the general council of the 
cantons of Rojava, leftist militants are in the communes and popular assemblies with the 
people - in addition to the army. There are thus two powers in parallel, which still 
resembles the official (general council) and the power of the people being built. 
Currently, if the general council impose some measure from above, communes have the power 
to veto and put another measure into practice. Thosepowers are disputing and, when one 
speaks of revolution, what is being said is that, after the liberation of the Kurds, the 
idea is that it overcomes the power of the people - with autonomy, democratic 
confederalism, freedom for women, self-defense of the people . It is this work of 
strengthening the people for self-defense and autonomy and against the patriarchy that we 
must claim!

We must defend this project of revolution and emancipation aimed at and within the limits, 
put into practice by the socialist wing; especially with regard to women, affected more 
particularly by patriarchal culture than we do here in our bourgeois societies - for 
example, there was still a crime of honor, forced marriages and women forbidden to use the 
street space. Despite all the regrets, after this process and even if the revolution does 
not avenge, Kurdish women will never be the same, Kurdish men will never be the same, 
Kurdish people will never be the same!

https://rusgalibertaria.noblogs.org/arquivos/917

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