Anarchic update news all over the world - 16.08.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  [Chile] Chillán: 3rd Feminist Meeting "The Rebellion of the
      Witches", August 17 and 18 By ANA (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Collective Rupture (RC): "If they do not lower those of
      organized crime against our people of the sierra, we will make
      incursions with weapons TO LIBERATE THE PEOPLE" (ca) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Rojava, internationalist commune: "We're creating a society
      based on free women": voices of Shengal women #3
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Germany, FAU benefits from the increased transfer of
      knowledge within the new International -- The IKA as an
      educational institution (de) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #285 - LGBT Fights: Having
      a space for political advocacy (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  US, black rose fed: FOUR WOMEN ICONS OF THE SYRIAN
      REVOLUTION (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  anarkismo.net - zabalaza.net: Tearing racism up from its
      capitalist roots: An African anarchist-communist approach
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





The witches' coven today with its new meanings, and as it was in the past, is presented to 
us as a meeting place where the witch, the creative woman, who possesses and shares 
knowledge, connects with nature , with its body, its territory, its wisdoms and its 
companions, with whom it seeks its own space, outside the structures of the patriarchy and 
its mechanisms of domination (among them the institutionality that disguises itself as an 
ally). This is a call to think of ourselves again in a space of our own, created by and 
for women and to water our history out of the logic of patriarchy, because there is no one 
better than ourselves to do so. ---- "My proposal is to think together, get out of the 
patriarchy and meet in other planes and other imaginary ones. It is a direct invitation to 
the im agination of women, which has been constantly denied ... "-  Margarita Pisano

Separatist meeting on  Friday , August 17  and  Saturday, August 18 , in the city of 
Chillán, at CSO Libertad, located on Avenida Libertad, between Yerbas Buenas and Av. 
Argentina. For the girls who want to stay, we will have an enclosure and the desire to 
receive them, we only ask that they let us know in advance to order the environment.

Space for FVM Fair[do it yourself]! Bring your fair!

We wait for you with love and the most beautiful cafuné!

Smoking and alcohol free activity

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/events/240486283215438/

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Message: 2






In the face of a new aggression against the people of the Sierra de Guerrero with a 
shoot-out recorded as intimidation last week in the communities of Puentecillas 
(municipality of Leonardo Bravo) and El Ranchito (municipality of Heliodoro Castillo), the 
comandancia and the members of the Community Police of the Peoples of General Heliod oro 
Castillo give an ultimatum to the Mexican government to take action in the face of the 
problems of generalized violence and forced displacement in the region, since otherwise, 
"armed self-defense will be incurred in all villages where they have asked for our help to 
expel these thugs from organized crime. " ---- Along with other nuclei of police and 
community guards such as Teloalapan, Apaxtla, and various libertarian groups at the 
national level, it is noted that the necessary actions will be taken to strengthen the 
exercise of armed and revolutionary self-defense that has germinated the seed of peace and 
tranquility in different municipalities of Guerrero.

http://rupturacolectiva.com/si-no-le-bajan-esos-del-crimen-organizado-contra-nuestra-gente-de-la-sierra-vamos-a-incursionar-con-las-armas/

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Message: 3





This article is part of our series on life for Êzidî (Yazidi) women, written by a member 
of the Internationalist Commune who is currently working in the women‘s structures in 
Shengal. ---- Only the Kurdish movement intervened when the Kurmanci-speaking Êzidî people 
suffered genocidal massacre at the hands of Daesh in 2014, yet earlier this year the 
guerillas were forced to withdraw from Shengal. Meanwhile the Êzidîs face continued 
repression and discrimination from the hostile Iraqi state, who stand by as the fascist 
Turkish army launches assaults on the Shengal region. ---- Our comrades in England, Plan 
C, are currently raising money to tackle the severe health crisis among the Êzidî people 
in Shengal. See here to learn more about their campaign and the struggle of the Êzidî 
people, and how you can send financial support.

Summer has arrived in Shengal. It‘s a hot Friday and I‘m sitting in the mountains in Camp 
Zerdesht, a refugee camp for Êzidîs internally displaced during the Isis genocide against 
their people in 2014. I‘m sitting in a patch of shadow, happy for some wind, happy to be 
able to think and write. Half a year ago, when I arrived in Shingal, it was coldest 
winter: now the temperature is always above 40 degrees.

I work here with YCÊ, the union of Êzidî Youth, which was created in 2017. We work across 
the whole region and I am often on the road, from one town to another, from the camp to 
the city, crossing desolation, army checkpoints, the mountains, passing shepherds coaxing 
sheep towards pasture or kids playing in the ruins of their neighbour‘s home.


The Serdesht camp for displaced Yazidi people, where one Commune member is organising with 
young women
First of all I had to learn Kurmanci, to be able to understand the people around me and 
the society. Arriving here from a West European country I had to get rid of my orientalist 
mentality and get to know the society, to be able to understand and not just judge what I 
don‘t know or what doesn‘t make sense to me.

Our goal is to organize the youth, from the kids to young men and women; to teach (or in 
my case learn with them) more about their own culture, language, region and history; and 
to empower them to overcome fears and trauma, creating different future perspectives than 
just running away to Europe. Especially here in Shengal it is obvious that the children 
are the future. Only by starting our work with the youngest can we change society in a 
permanent and deep-rooted way.

Most of the region is still empty. Thousands and thousands of people flew to Europe or 
South Kurdistan and didn‘t return until now. That creates a feeling of loneliness, as well 
as the desire to leave. Most of the youth are without work, and spend their days simply 
hanging around at home or in coffee shops and dreaming of going to Europe, imagining 
freedom and endless possibilities.

The feudal family structures are very strong and the role of the young women is cooking, 
cleaning and getting married. To break this structure, and to give women the possibility 
to decide themselves what to do with their lives, we need a lot of understanding and patience.

For young women that never left their house, or at the most attended school for a little 
while, it‘s often difficult to find the strength or will to do something new, to go to 
other places or see a lot of new people. When you heard your whole life that your place is 
the kitchen, it takes time to overcome your fears and find the courage to leave. And even 
if the young women are willing to learn or work, it‘s usually much more difficult to win 
over the fathers.

Education is a crucial tool in helping Yazidi women to develop autonomy
Most of our work is to visit families, to get to know the situations of the young women 
and the family in general, to learn about their sorrows, their problems, and their hopes. 
We discuss with the families about our work, the situation of the region and the Middle 
East in general, live and laugh with them, and in my case also share my perspective on the 
realities of life in Europe.

Additionally we have houses for the youth in in nearly all towns, where we arrange 
different courses, ranging from art and culture courses like dance, music or singing 
groups, through reading and language lessons, to sport groups like soccer and volleyball. 
 From time to time we arrange visits to Rojava, or South Kurdistan, join demonstrations, 
make actions or organize festivals.

Sometimes it‘s hard to stay positive and keep high moral in a society that‘s so 
traumatized, depressed and lacking in any perspective for the future. But on the other 
hand, that‘s exactly the reason we are working here. That‘s why we are struggling every 
day to create an organized, free society, based on strong and free women, especially here 
in Shengal, where the Êzidîs saw the most horrific side of what Daesh did. I was tired of 
reading the news each day and learning what fresh horrors were happening around the world, 
I came here to learn and work, to be part of the change. Each laughing girl is my payment.

Heval Viyan

http://internationalistcommune.com/were-creating-a-society-based-on-free-women-voices-of-shengal-women-3/

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Message: 4






On May 13, 2018, the International Labor Confederation (IKA) was founded in Parma. An 
important focus of this new international association of syndicalism is the exchange of 
knowledge, educational concepts and personal encounters among trade union activists from 
different regions. In the last three months, several activities have already been 
initiated in this sense. ---- For example, on the weekend of June 15-17, a member of our 
Spanish sister union CNT from L'Hospitalet de Llobregat was in Germany. In Hanover and 
Berlin, Jordi spoke about current "Perspectives of Syndicalism in Catalonia". He explained 
the position of the Catalan CNT, which distances itself from both Spanish and Catalan 
nationalism. At the same time, it engages in local social struggles and opposes the 
violence of the Spanish state against civil society. In addition to the public events, 
there was an exchange of experiences with the local activists of the FAU. Among other 
things, Jordi visited the Union Coop operation Flying Roasters in Berlin .

On July 7, members of the CNT, the FAU and the IP from Poland met at FAU in Berlin to 
discuss the training concepts of these three organizations. Participants are responsible 
for developing these concepts within their organizations. They teach union members how to 
set up an operations group and how to successfully manage labor disputes. One finding of 
the day is that, despite some differences in the size and structure of each organization, 
the same challenges are constantly coming to the fore, such as the continuous activation 
of union members within companies.

Between 20 and 22 July, a comrade of the International Committee of FAU from Hannover 
finally took part in the "free university" of the CNT in Traspinedo near Valladolid. This 
trip gives the FAU even deeper insights into the union work of our Spanish sister trade 
union. In particular, we can now use CNT tools and techniques to analyze farm structures 
and social dynamics within farms. This knowledge will be passed on to the active members 
of the FAU within the next few months.

That's just the beginning. In the near future we will also intensify the exchange of 
experiences with the other sections of the IKA from Greece, Italy, the USA and Argentina. 
In the medium to long term, the IKA wants to establish union structures within 
transnational corporations.

http://www.fau.org/artikel/art_180812-122713

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Message: 5





Faced with the institutionalization of the Pride Marches, alternatives have emerged. 
However, is this enough to make the political demands of LGBT + struggles more visible ? 
 From the example of Gay Pride Night, reflections around existing spaces, and those to 
create. ---- The month of June is the season of Pride marches, organized in all major 
cities of France (under the control of prefectures) by LGBT + associations. Over the years 
institutionalized as a day of visibility of LGBT + representativity around the world, it 
has gradually turned into a festive and commercial march, with consensual themes, 
displaying fewer and fewer militant and claiming demands. ---- In recent years, no longer 
finding their place in these depoliticized and festive marches, activists have come 
together to find a more "  political  " and inclusive project.

For an alternative and militant march: this was what was carried out during the creation 
of the "  Night Pride  ", held the day before the traditional march, and which brought 
together many of its LGBT activists in previous years. . Having experienced a meteoric 
popularity until exporting to other cities in France, like Lyon and Toulouse, it will not 
take place this year in Paris as announced by four of its former initiators and 
initiators. Indeed, those had conceived it as a "  political tool, likely to produce 
effects, to analyze in situation  ".Now, they pose today the excesses of a punctual 
gathering, without any real slogan other than an intra-community gathering, which has 
become a "  static rather than dynamic catch-all  " that would offer a counterbalance more 
radical in the march of pride without questioning or additional reflection.

The Pride March, a place to reinvest
Nevertheless, the Pride March takes on more demanding colors than in previous years. There 
is a strong reinvestment of the marches through radical processions, and more and more 
associations denounce the liberal and xenophobic doctrine of the government. In 
particular, its budget cuts in the health sector, which target the most vulnerable, 
migrants and migrants, and more generally organizations in the health, medico-social and 
community sectors. Several associations also denounce the Asylum-Immigration Act, which 
provides for prohibiting an HIV-positive person from applying for a residence permit for 
treatment once he or she has been dismissed from the "  classic  " asylum right .

It is by default that these marches, marginal or official, would like to offer LGBT + 
people the only spaces, or almost, visibility and demands. Beyond a day or a week in the 
year, the activists concerned need spaces of constant expression more than punctual. It is 
in the daily struggle that political or associative organizations must allow LGBT + people 
to come together and organize themselves to fight and fight back against all forms of 
oppression, whether state, social or fascist, because patriarchal homophobia, transphobia, 
and all LGBT + discrimination remain, present day after day.

Tom (AL Côte-d'Or)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Luttes-LGBT-Avoir-un-espace-de-revendication-politique

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Message: 6





We are reposting this article by Leila Nachawati Rego, originally published in Spanish in 
El Diario and then translated into English and given additional context in a piece 
republished on Global Voices by Joey Ayoub, as part of our participation in the Campaign 
in Solidarity with Middle Eastern Political Prisoners. ---- In 2011, Syrians took to the 
streets to protest for justice. Seven years later, and with more than 500,000 killed, 
media attention to Syria has dwindled. This is the story of four Syrian women whose 
personal histories challenge us to not to forget the revolution and what it stands for. 
---- Fadwa Suleiman ---- Fadwa Suleiman. Photo by Rami Jarrah. Used with permission.
Fadwa Suleiman, an actor from the city of Aleppo, was one of the most recognizable faces 
in Syria for years. In 2011, when protests erupted in the city of Homs, she became a 
revolutionary icon. Surrounded by protesters, the image of Fadwa with short hair and a 
Palestinian keffiyeh presented a powerful contrast to her glamorous appearance of just 
months before. Even her voice, whose sweet cadences had seduced a whole generation of 
Syrians, sounded different as she raised her voice, hoarse with passion, to galvanize the 
citizens of Homs, asking them to continue the movement of civil disobedience that inspired 
resistance against what many saw as a growing dictatorship. The fact that she-like Syrian 
dictator Bashar Al-Assad-belonged to the Alawite sect challenged the official narrative 
that aimed to discredit the protests. Fadwa eventually fled to France after the 
authorities announced their intention to find and capture her dead or alive.

May Scaff

May Scaff. Photo shared on her Facebook page.

May Scaff was also an actor. I remember the look of fascination my partner gave her in the 
summer of 2008 in Baal's Cave, the Damascene bar that we frequented. "It's May Scaff. I 
love her," he told me, making me jealous of the beautiful woman who laughed and danced, 
surrounded by friends. I told her this story when we finally met in 2013 in Amman, at a 
meeting of Jordan-based Syrian human rights defenders, and I remember she laughed 
heartily. Over food and drink, we had long conversations about the present and future of 
the country, back when we were still hoping for justice. In the last photos of her, nearly 
seven years after the start of these protests in which she had actively participated, her 
face had hardened and her hair was almost entirely gray. It was hard to recognise the 
relaxed beauty of another time.

Razan Zeitouneh

Razan Zeitouneh. Photo used with permission.

Razan Zeitouneh is a symbol of Justice with a capital J for Syrians abandoned to their 
fate. A well-known human rights lawyer specialized in human rights, she defends political 
prisoners and founded the Human Rights Association in Syria. Razan also coordinates the 
Local Coordination Committees. Her work has made her a target of both Assad's regime and 
the extremist groups that attempted to hijack the popular uprising. When Syrians imagine a 
future Syrian Minister of Justice, Razan's name is often mentioned.

Lama Albasha

The student Lama Albasha. Photo shared by her friends on Twitter.

Lama Albasha was born in 1992 and studied at the University of Damascus. In images her 
friends shared on social media she's posing for the camera, wearing a white blouse and 
white trousers layered with a bubblegum-pink skirt to match her polka-dotted slippers, her 
hand on her hips. Her sunglasses are perched liked a diadem atop her hijab, a popular look 
among Syrian women. In another image she's in the foreground, in dark clothes with a 
Palestinian keffiyeh around her neck. She is looking at the camera and smiling. I read 
that she was detained in November of 2014 in the city of Tal, the neighborhood where she 
sat on one of the local councils set up after the uprising's earliest stages in 2011. She 
had responded to a call from a woman saying she was interested in private lessons in 
English which turned out to be a trap. She was captured and turned over to the 
government's security service.

Three dead, one missing

The actress Fadwa Suleiman died in Paris in August of 2017 after a long battle with an 
illness. In her last interview, she said: "Even if they erase everything, we musn't let 
them erase our dream. If there's only one Syrian left, I am sure that he or she would 
build the Syria that we love. Syria isn't a country, it isn't a geographical entity. It's 
an idea. The noble revolution of the mind and soul that will last in time and space."

The student Lama Albasha is one of the thousands of names on the infamous ‘death list', a 
catalog of those executed or who have died under torture in government prisons. Prisons 
such as Saydnaya, which Amnesty International described as a ‘human slaughterhouse'. 
Lama's family learned, on accessing the general security register on July 31, 2018, that 
she had died years ago in prison, alleged of a heart attack.

The lawyer Razan Zeitouneh has been missing since December 2013. "Those like us who 
document deaths, we do not cry," she wrote, before being kidnapped by a group of masked 
men in Douma in the suburbs of Damascus. Just a few days later, the United Nations 
announced that it was giving up on counting the victims of war in Syria, citing an 
inability to keep up.

The actress May Scaff was found dead on July 27, 2018, in the apartment she shared in 
Paris, the city where she sought refuge in her final years. "I will not lose hope and I 
ask you never to lose it," were her last public words on social media. "Our country is 
called Great Syria, not Assad's Syria."

http://blackrosefed.org/four-women-icons-of-the-syrian-revolution/

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Message: 7





Racism has been a curse in South Africa, and remains embedded in the society. But how 
scientific are racist ideas? Where do they come from? And how can we fight racism and 
create a truly equal and fair society? What do we as revolutionary anarchists think? ---- 
Racial conflict, inequality, and hatred are not natural, but fed and reared by capitalism 
and the state. To really change the system, we need a massive programme of upgrading 
education, health, housing and services; an end to the racist heap labour system; a 
challenge to the ideological control that splits the working class; and a radical 
redistribution of wealth and power to the working class and poor -which in South Africa, 
means primarily the black working class and poor -as part of a social revolution.
Tearing racism up from its capitalist roots: An African anarchist-communist approach
by Bongani Maponyane (ZACF)

Racism has been a curse in South Africa, and remains embedded in the society. But how 
scientific are racist ideas? Where do they come from? And how can we fight racism and 
create a truly equal and fair society? What do we as revolutionary anarchists think?

Different races?
The heart of the idea of "race" is that there are different basic types of people, with 
different appearances - and different, built-in abilities, cultures and behaviours. This 
then gets tied to the ideas like: races have unequal abilities, every member of race acts 
in one way all the time, races cannot co-exist peacefully with special rules, and some 
races are born to rule, others born as "hewers of wood and drawers of water."

Even if these ideas are not openly said so much these days (leaving aside people like 
Penny Sparrow), they still exist, in common ideas like: some races are better at sports, 
some races are crueller, some are greedier, or that "races" are always conflict, or that 
you can't trust people in different "races," or that inventions are made by different "races."

But these ideas are false. It is true people look different. The fact is there is only one 
humankind. All humans have a common descent from Africa. Nature doesn't strike twice, it 
never creates the same thing twice. Different races were not born in different areas. 
Evolutionary evidence shows common ancestry (a "monogenesis"). That means humans are one 
species, with one common origin and one set of common abilities and one common human nature.

As people migrated around the world and around Africa, there was some variation in 
appearance and body. Nobody survive in that hot sub-equatorial regions without dark skin 
pigmentation: where temperature is extremely hot, at 35 degrees Celsius and up, very dark 
skin with a lot of melanin is a people had to be more light-skinned in colder and less 
sunny climates. People become whiter in such climates. Limited transportation created more 
isolation between areas, so there was sharper variation in some cases.

Science and society
So there is really one specific species that moved out of Africa to Europe, Asia and the 
Americas, but this did not lead to new species. Instead we can think of a common family of 
African descent, with many children, but a lot of mixing due to migration, wars and trade.

Science shows clearly that all races have the same abilities. Evolutionary and biological 
evidence shows no variation between what people think of as races, in terms of the brain 
or other abilities, but it shows lots of variation inside "races."

So even to talk about "races" is actually a problem. What is the meaning of the word? In 
fact people don't even agree on what defines a "race." For example, some people considered 
white in South Africa, like Jews, were not considered to be "real" Europeans in a large 
parts of Europe. Adolf Hitler's racism saw Eastern European whites (Slavs) as sub-human 
people. People with any black African ancestry are today defined as "black" or "African" 
in the USA, but those exact same people would be defined as "Coloured" but not black 
African in South Africa. The race category "Caucasian" includes white Europeans, but also 
Arabs, Berbers, Lebanese, Turks and Indians, but in apartheid South Africa, Christian or 
Jewish Arabs and Lebanese were defined as white, but Muslim Arabs and Turks as Coloureds, 
and all Indians (no matter the religion) were defined as a specific Indian group.

The racial inequalities we see in many countries - with black African people often victims 
of extreme racism - does not come from nature. It comes from how society is set up. I will 
show below how racism is built by capitalism, colonialism and states.

Evolution
Sadly, racist ideas have abused the theory of evolution. This theory explained why people 
are all basically the same, and also why some groups look a bit different to other groups. 
People today are all part of one species: homo-sapiens or modern humans. This is very 
different from earlier types like homo-erectus. It is completely wrong to think that some 
people are somehow less evolved than others, or closer to apes.

This horrible abuse of evolution by racists has led some people to reject the idea of 
evolution, thinking it claims means blacks are less than whites. In fact the theory shows 
people are the same! Charles Darwin, who pioneered the theory, insisted all humans had 
common African descent and were one group.

Inventions?
This evolution is a very powerful challenge to racist ideas. The theory of evolution 
proves that we as humankind come from one source, and are all basically equal in all 
spheres of ability.

It is nonsense to say one "race" invented something, or to try claim credit for an 
invention in the past, just because you look similar to an inventor. Inventions are made 
by individuals, existing in a specifics society, and are made possible by certain types of 
social structure, and always draw on earlier ideas and innovations - including from 
different societies. All the achievements of people in the past are a common human 
heritage, not owned by any group.

The roots
When we see racism in modern day society, we need to understand it does not exist because 
what we call "races" are unequal in the flesh or mind, but because we live in a society 
based on domination, exploitation, hierarchies and oppression.

In South Africa we can clearly see how modern-day racism emerged from how society 
developed. During the apartheid period, black (meaning black African, Coloured and Indian) 
people suffered systematic racism, affected wage levels, services, neighbourhoods, racism, 
and rights. The white population (around 15% of the population) earned 65% of the total 
income, while black Africans, at 75% of the population, got 28%. Poverty was linked 
closely to race and persisted over time: for example, while 8 out of 10 white children 
completed high school, around 2 out of 10 black Africans reached and passed matric.

Racist labour system
This was because capitalism in South Africa developed in the context of European colonial 
context and dispossession, and a system of white supremacy. The loss of land and a battery 
of repressive racist laws and practices enabled an economy based on cheap black labour. 
Black African peasants who succeeded in farming for markets were pushed out of business 
and into wage labour.

The British Empire was central to many of these processes, and foreign investors, mainly 
British, were for decades central to the creation of a massive commercial mining industry 
from the 1870s, based on cheap and unfree black labour. Commercial farms emerged around 
the mines, and also rested on cheap black labour. Massive exploitation, in a racist 
system, was the bedrock of South African capitalism, and helped fund the state through 
taxation and through state enterprises. The state built railways, roads and big 
industries, all of which increased state and capitalist power.

As manufacturing developed on a massive scale from the 1920s, the racist cheap labour 
system continued. The state enforced racist measures - low wages, rights abuses, hostels 
and migrant labour, the township system - which generated the cheap black labour 
capitalism devoured. Racial and ethnic division between blacks, and between blacks and 
whites, helped fracture the working class. Unions usually followed racial lines, and black 
Africans were not given full union rights until 1995.

The future
The legacy of this system is everywhere in South Africa. The racist crimes of capitalism 
and the state were not erased in 1994, Racism was institutionalised, and today the 
township system, the migrant labour system and the cheap black labour system continue, and 
shape the class system. Poverty, unemployment, low wages and poor conditions are still 
linked closely to race. Today, the old white capitalist sector works with the new black 
state elite to oppress the largely black working class. Continuing inequality perpetuates 
racial conflicts, and also generates new forms of racism, such as the massive xenophobia 
that exists in South Africa since 1994.

In closing, racial conflict, inequality, and hatred are not natural. All people are equal, 
and racial conflict is not caused by people by people looking different. Racism, over the 
last few hundred years, was fed and reared by capitalism and the state. To really change 
the system, we need a massive programme of upgrading education, health, housing and 
services; an end to the cheap labour system; a challenge to the ideological control that 
splits the working class; and a radical redistribution of wealth and power to the working 
class and poor -which in South Africa, means primarily the black working class and poor 
-as part of a social revolution.

https://zabalaza.net/2018/08/10/tearing-racism-up-from-its-capitalist-roots-an-african-anarchist-communist-approach/#more-5590

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31102

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