Today's Topics:
1. facebook.com: Anarchist(ic) & Libertarian Socialist(ic)
Authors of Speculative Literature by DAN CLORE
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. wsm.ie: How we Won Repeal - audio from #DABF 2018
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Federation of Argentine Regional Workers - fora-ait: Against
adjustment and repression, Resistance and organization By: SROV
(ca, it)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. black rosefed: IS STUDENT ACTIVISM ENOUGH? By Patrick St.
John (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. anarkismo.net: Migration: Europe and Aotearoa/New Zealand by
Pink Panther - AWSM (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. anarkismo.net: The naked emperor and the new Syria by Kahled
Aboud (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
All of the following supported or advocated some form of Anarchism and/or Libertarian
Socialism (using these terms in a broad, inclusive sense), at least at some point or in
some works, and can be considered (sometimes with a little stretching) authors of
speculative literature (also straying a bit further into the non-fantastic side of Gothic,
Weird, Symbolism, Decadence, Surrealism, etc., as well): ---- (Please suggest possible
additions.) ---- Paul Adam ---- Poul Anderson ---- Iain (M.) Banks ---- William Blake ----
Charles Baudelaire ---- André Breton ---- William S. Burroughs ---- Edward Carpenter ----
Ivan Chtcheglov ---- Alex Comfort ---- Joseph Déjacque ---- Samuel Delany ---- Max Ernst
---- Charles Fourier ---- Anatole France ---- Allen Ginsberg ---- William Godwin ----
Robert Heinlein ---- Aldous Huxley ---- James Joyce ---- Franz Kafka ---- Velimir Khlebnikov
Bernard Lazare
Ursula K. Le Guin
Harry Harrison
Jaroslav Hasek
Timothy Leary
Ken MacLeod
Stéphane Mallarmé
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Stuart Merrill
Octave Mirbeau
Michael Moorcock
Alan Moore
William Morris
Fredy Perlman
Marge Piercy
Herbert Read
Ishmael Reed
Mack Reynolds
Jean Richepin
Arthur Rimbaud
Eric Frank Russell
Ed Sanders
J. Neil Schulman
Ilan Shalif
Nisi Shawl
Robert Shea
Mary Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lewis Shiner
L. Neil Smith
Norman Spinrad
Starhawk
Bruce Sterling
Laurent Tailhade
J.R.R. Tolkien
Francis Vielé Griffin
Kurt Vonnegut
Stanley G. Weinbaum
H.G. Wells (Men Like Gods; Star-Begotten: A Biological Fantasia; etc.)
Hans Widmer (aka P.M.)
Oscar Wilde
F. Paul Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey)
Robert Anton Wilson
Mary Wollstonecraft
Xo d'Axa
Yevgeny Zamiatin
https://www.facebook.com/notes/dan-clore/anarchistic-libertarian-socialistic-authors-of-speculative-literature/2048577265157451/
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Message: 2
One day in May we Repealed the 8th amendment. It is three months later. It is 35 years
later. Now that the dust is settling this session of the 2018 Dublin Anarchist bookfair
reflected on the struggle of abortion rights in Ireland, and in particular the abortion
referendum.[audio] ----
https://www.mixcloud.com/workerssolidarity/how-repeal-of-the-8th-amendment-was-won-in-ireland-audio-from-dabf-2018/
---- What did we do well? ---- What did we do badly? ---- What did we learn? ---- What
should we have done differently? ---- Speakers: Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird (Rally for
Choice), Maire Ni Mhordha (WSM), Mary Coogan (ARC Dublin), Kathy Darcy (Arc Cork) ---- The
conversation covers: experiences of canvassing, tensions in the campaign between local
groups and HQ, the messaging of the campaign, importance of time & space resources,
problems with political parties using the campaign to harvest activists, the challenge of
working in very broad campaigns for anarchists, the use of Savitas image in the context of
racism in Ireland, the emotional cost of the campaign, women get shit done.
For more bookfair recordings see https://www.wsm.ie/anarchist-bookfair
https://wsm.ie/c/how-we-won-repeal-audio-dabf2018
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Message: 3
The government does everything possible to defend the interests of global economic power.
On the one hand they advance in a military deployment throughout the country for social
and territorial control, favoring the looting of the world powers towards our natural
resources. On the other hand, they aim to strongly reform labor legislation to increase
corporate profits, under the well-known argument that current regulations discourage the
arrival of investments. To achieve all this needs to strengthen the submission to the
working people by all possible means, which we can notice in the increase in the number of
detainees and detainees in several workers' mobilizations, such as shipyards in La Plata
and the Ministry of Agribusiness.
But we know that repression does not stop in jail but continues with cold-blooded
shootings with full state support. Example of this is the current trigger-happy symbol,
the Chocobar policeman, who was congratulated and backed by the government, as well as the
defense of the gendarmes who murdered Santiago Maldonado. These acts take the muzzle to
the police to shoot first and ask later. One of the saddest consequences and that fills us
with anger of this free way to the police is the murder of Ismael Ramirez of 13 years, in
Chaco after the repression of a neighborhood claim in a supermarket.
On the other hand in labor matters, workers have been enduring a permanent and continuous
offensive on our working and living conditions. The objective of this offensive is to
increase business profits through labor flexibilization and precarization, since the
adjustment variable to achieve this are the methods and results of labor exploitation,
that is, the conditions of hiring and the value of our salary. The precarization has a
double purpose: in addition to increasing the exploitation of the labor force, it produces
confrontations and differentiations among the working class itself, facilitating our
discipline being in permanent division.
In these moments where layoffs are the order of the day, one of the main employer measures
are the dismissals of the 'eventual', 'contracted' or 'outsourced' personnel; not only
because of the low cost, but also because of the ease with which they can do it because
there is no resistance from the permanent plant, and much less from the unions. These
employer strategies are seen in the diversity of contractual situations and in the
naturalization of precarious conditions in which we enter the labor market with eventual
contracts, or internships, or directly 'in black'. High turnover is one of the main
obstacles for the organization, since it is very difficult to generate a horizontal
solidarity bond between both types of workers (permanent and temporary),
This situation is not new, although it appears to be complicated precisely by the
diversity of labor relations, the depth of the fragmentation and, above all, by the
absence of combative trade union organizations that face this. Throughout the history of
the class struggle there have always been obstacles that hampered the organization but the
working class always found ways to resist these abuses, and this time should not be the
exception. In addition, there are often clear differences in the actions of existing trade
union organizations. We have the well-known union bureaucracy, entrenched in the unions
serving the current government, with the maximum exponent of the CGT. But we can also
affirm that there was, is and will be resistance.
In the construction of strategies to combat precariousness, union activism faces several
obstacles, among the main ones we can mention:
* Anti-union and persecutory policies of companies; in front of which, the extremely
clandestine militancy is resorted to until making an "election of delegates" incorporating
the precarious plant to the union demands.
* The union bureaucracy that constantly prevents any change in the company, becoming even
a direct and visible enemy without disguise when union activism is publicly displayed.
* Business policies that encourage competition and individualism to achieve effectiveness
or the 'move to plant', which is mainly faced through the daily discussion and concrete
organizational processes.
* The difficulty already mentioned to build groups that unify the effective plant of the
eventual.
* The development of new technologies that promote the unipersonal companies blurring the
relationship of dependence and companionship, hiding a gigantic labor fraud.
* The large number of small premises with little staff, where the relationship with
employers is direct and is at a great disadvantage, as they favor black work and personal
agreements to the detriment of collective bargaining agreements.
These obstacles, although they seem impressive and invincible, can be overcome by creating
spaces of solidarity for encounter and exchange; presenting common demands in fight plans
and negotiations; promoting instances of assembly organization where the precarious plant
is included, making the whole of their own claims. There is also the tactic of building
own trade union organizations, parallel to those already existing. The cases of SIMECA in
the motorcycle industry dissolved a few years ago, the Sitraic in Construction, UTC in the
textile sector or the AGTSYP in the Subway are examples of this.
The different ways workers' responses have taken to the entrepreneurial strategies of
precarization of employment and division of the working class are processes and long-term
constructions. They vary from the self-organization of the precarious plant, through the
solidarity between workers against the union leadership, to situations in which the
initiative is taken by the entire union.
The grassroots organization is the beginning and sustenance of the various forms of
workers' resistance and articulation, having to deal with the bureaucratic union
structures and directorates legalized by the State and the bosses.
Our role today
The need to work clandestinely without exposing himself until he has enough strength to
ensure the possibility of responding to the always present employer reprisals with the
complicity of the union bureaucracy is verified. In the same sense, coordination with
social organizations in campaigns of denunciation and agitation was shown to be effective,
especially in short-term urgent matters. As for practical methods, the assembly and direct
action remain fundamental weapons of the working class. These are effective in confronting
the advanced bosses, since they break with the vertical scheme of state trade unionism and
accustom workers and workers to participate, debate, make decisions and defend their ideas
and interests.
However, in all cases it was necessary to use some legal tools, which helped to sustain
the workers' demands, or to protect those who were organizing. In those cases in which the
trade union organization acted, the tendency was to disintegrate the divisions within the
effective sector with the most precarious sector; building spaces for joint participation
and unifying demands.
On the other hand we also know that the achieved achievements try to be reversed by
employers when the correlation of forces changes, even going so far as to eliminate all
types of trade union organization. What this shows us is the need to consolidate
organizational processes by claims in stable and lasting groups. Maintaining permanent
union organization within the workplace gives us the ability to sustain achievements and
channel new demands.
We must continue accompanying those around us and continuously think how to organize
ourselves to face so much aggression from the State and capitalism. When the Power
overcomes the threats and subtle measures of discipline to enter a new stage of
submission; when they put a foot on the head to overcome any kind of resistance; and when
the repression increases daily, we must ensure our presence in the streets with the
laburo, the neighborhood and the working people.
Our duty is to be there, without setting ourselves up as a vanguard, promoting
coordination, organization and direct action. We have the conviction that emancipation
will be the result of a process of struggle and popular organization, and knowing that
today we are a small part of the working people, who seek to leave a mark in the
construction of their freedom.
In this difficult and harsh panorama we sustain the tremendous potential that the FORA has
as a class, union and social organization to serve the struggle of the working class. And
being consistent with this communal and ungovernable spirit, we are aware that our main
task is to participate in the process of organization of workers, building forms of trade
associations based on federalist values that give life and form to the FORA
Only with a horizontal and federalist Organization will the workers stop running after the
urgency imposed by the different governments and build a society of free and equal people.
The new world looting
The last genocidal dictatorship in Argentina began a profound process of "commercial
opening" and, consequently, of emptying the national industrial created by the Peronist
welfare state in the previous decades. Then with the return of Democracy, the different
governments were in charge of continuing this advanced process of global economic power,
embodied in the large employers and multinationals, bringing with it all the violation and
progressive loss of all rights of the working class that could get.
The privatization of public services in the 1990s completed the scenario. Most of these
capitals came from the world powers, who sought full control of the economic flow and
direct all social wealth to their coffers. With the sale of YPF we were the first country
in the world to privatize its oil company, crowning this looting of the world powers.
However, when we analyze the current form of privatization of natural resources, we must
take into account some differences with respect to the privatizations of those years.
Today it is not about simply controlling the economic flow, but directly controlling the
stock, that is, every company that settles in our region to exploit a natural resource,
also seeks to control the portion of territory where that raw material is located. What is
privatized in this case is the territory itself. This process of territorial looting has
as protagonists transnational corporations such as Barrick Gold, Chevron and Monsanto.
This type of companies (soybeans, oil, cellulose plants, open-pit mining, and 5-star
tourism) need to expel native peoples from their "new" territories,
To illustrate this looting we have a very specific example: On January 11, 2017, through
decree 29/2017, President Mauricio Macri empowered the Ministry of Finance to take debt
for 20,000 million dollars, defining jurisdiction in favor of courts in New York and
London. Then he left record that Argentina renounces the "Sovereign Immunity" and excluded
from this withdrawal the Central Bank reserves, diplomatic goods, cultural heritage, bank
deposits and other means of payment. What this decree allows, and not innocently, is that
the natural resources, that is, the territory itself, remain as a Guarantee in case
Argentina can not afford to pay interest or debt capital.
The criterion of these world powers is, basically, "We need to continue invading and we
need their natural resources", being able to pressure in such a way that they allow to
install American military bases and establish colonial agreements with the British. As
examples, from September 1, 2017 to August 31, 2018, the "Combined Exercise Program",
CORMORAN, allowed the US military to walk through Trelew and Bahía Blanca without
problems. On May 2 and 3, 2018, the Armed Forces of the United States entered Argentina
under the excuse of carrying out joint military exercises in the national territory,
despite the fact that the Congress did not authorize it, turning a blind eye or through
open complicity. On May 14, 2018, Argentina and the United Kingdom sign a memorandum of
understanding for scientific cooperation in Antarctica. A little over 600 km from the
Malvinas Islands, the British company "Echo Energy PLC" announced the drilling of the
first of its oil wells in the Province of Santa Cruz. Finally, in an act of generosity,
the "Southern Command of the USA" donates to the government of the Neuquén province the
construction of a base for humanitarian purposes. In the web of the North American
military organism can be read "to take advantage of the capacities of fast response, the
collaboration of partner nations and the regional cooperation within our area of
responsibility to support the objectives of national security of the USA, to defend the
southern approaches of the United States and promote regional security and stability. " A
little over 600 km from the Malvinas Islands, the British company "Echo Energy PLC"
announced the drilling of the first of its oil wells in the Province of Santa Cruz.
Finally, in an act of generosity, the "Southern Command of the USA" donates to the
government of the Neuquén province the construction of a base for humanitarian purposes.
In the web of the North American military organism can be read "to take advantage of the
capacities of fast response, the collaboration of partner nations and the regional
cooperation within our area of responsibility to support the objectives of national
security of the USA, to defend the southern approaches of the United States and promote
regional security and stability. " A little over 600 km from the Malvinas Islands, the
British company "Echo Energy PLC" announced the drilling of the first of its oil wells in
the Province of Santa Cruz. Finally, in an act of generosity, the "Southern Command of the
USA" donates to the government of the Neuquén province the construction of a base for
humanitarian purposes. In the web of the North American military organism can be read "to
take advantage of the capacities of fast response, the collaboration of partner nations
and the regional cooperation within our area of responsibility to support the objectives
of national security of the USA, to defend the southern approaches of the United States
and promote regional security and stability. " In an act of generosity, the "Southern
Command of the USA" donates to the government of the province of Neuquén the construction
of a base for humanitarian purposes. In the web of the North American military organism
can be read "to take advantage of the capacities of fast response, the collaboration of
partner nations and the regional cooperation within our area of responsibility to support
the objectives of national security of the USA, to defend the southern approaches of the
United States and promote regional security and stability. " In an act of generosity, the
"Southern Command of the USA" donates to the government of the province of Neuquén the
construction of a base for humanitarian purposes. In the web of the North American
military organism can be read "to take advantage of the capacities of fast response, the
collaboration of partner nations and the regional cooperation within our area of
responsibility to support the objectives of national security of the USA, to defend the
southern approaches of the United States and promote regional security and stability. "
As we see this government comes to accelerate a new process of plundering the country,
which responds to the urgent needs of the powers, making the plunder is carried out
directly through territorial occupation and seeking the complete silence of the working
class. It is our task to unmask this nefarious plan and continue participating in the
workers' resistance.
FEDERAL COUNCIL
Federación Obrera Regiónal Argentina
http://capital.fora-ait.com.ar/2018/09/contra-el-ajuste-y-la-represion-resistencia-y-organizacion/
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Message: 4
Freddie DeBoer has a blogpost up at Jacobin, titled "Student Activism Isn't Enough." It's
classic Freddie: write an entire essay shitting on student activism, then closing it by
saying actually, student activism is pretty great and important, keep it up! ---- DeBoer
claims "the university can't be the key site of left-wing (or any other) organizing." ----
A reasonable response is wait... who says that it is, or should be? It's a straw man
argument. The best he can muster as an opponent is the Port Huron Statement: a 55-year-old
student manifesto written by students so hopelessly campus-centric that they write, "the
university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a
better life," and so cut off from labor organizing that it was written at a United Auto
Workers retreat.
That said, he makes several points to support his claim. Unfortunately, they are hardly
unique to higher education, and could easily be used to make the argument that, say, the
workplace "can't be the key site of left-wing (or any other) organizing." Let's look at each.
There's not a lot of people on campus? It's true! But look to any other sector of the
economy and you won't find the "vast majority" DeBoer suggests we aim for. Hell, only half
of the U.S. population is actually employed at all.
Campus activism is seasonal? Also true! But of course, so is a significant proportion of
low-wage jobs, particularly in the agricultural and service sectors. Workplaces without
summer breaks see lulls in momentum, and even most unionized firms see a noticeable
downtick in worker activity between contract fights.
College students are an itinerant population? Surely. It's hard to organize anywhere with
significant turnover. Like, say, the average American workplace. In 2016 the average
annual turnover rate across all industries was almost 18%. At least on campuses the
turnover is steady and predictable, which makes planning a lot easier.
Town and gown conflicts can make local organizing difficult?Definitely. Though the
workplace-community divide is just as real, even (and at times especially) when both sides
are well-organized and see their immediate interests as unrelated, or in conflict.
Students are too busy to devote too much time to organizing? Doesn't this apply to pretty
much everyone trying to scrape by today?
College students have a natural and justifiable first-order priority of getting employed?
And as DeBoer does note, employees have a natural and justifiable first-order priority of
staying employed. What's worse: having social media posts about campus protest actions in
your history, or having your previous employer warn prospective bosses that you're a
union-organizing malcontent? Sure, employees can build up "social capital," but you would
have to have quite a bit to weather the storm once right-wing trolls start calling your boss.
College activism can either be a low-stakes place where students learn and grow safely, or
an essential site of organizing - but it can't be both? It's a truism that the
newly-organized and politicized will make mistakes. That's hardly the sole domain of
college campuses. Almost 1 in 3 union elections fail, not to mention the countless
organizing drives that never make it that far. Blunders, overreaches and miscalculations
are made. Ask any seasoned labor organizer about the first workplace they tried to
unionize, and if they acted differently when they organized their tenth. Organizing is
best learned by doing, and the higher the stakes the stronger the lessons are. Low-stakes
and high-stakes organizing happens all the time, sometimes simultaneously, both on campus
and in the workplace. The small group of workers who push their employer for a better
break room are, win or lose, learning the skills that will serve them well when they
decide to unionize.
Organize the campus's workforce according to labor principles? This is the odd one out:
it's the normative claim in his self-described list of empirical claims. DeBoer states
that campuses should be organized "according to labor principles, not according to any
special dictates of academic culture," which I suppose means something like organizing a
faculty union instead of a faculty senate? And that does make a lot of sense. But it
leaves unaddressed the very topic of his blogpost: students, many of whom, as he points
out, are also workers. The particular web of material relationships between students,
faculty, and administration - all mediated by larger systems of capital and the state-defy
the easy importing of organizing frameworks developed elsewhere, to the point where "labor
principles" as a phrase becomes too vague to be helpful.
The California Autonomous Student Movement is active in the Los Angeles area. Connect with
them on Instagram and Twitter @CASMovement.
A better title for his post would be "Student Activism is Hard," because that's the only
case he manages to make. All sites of struggle are difficult to organize. But its
difficulty is hardly a reason to dismiss it. Indeed, there are very good reasons why the
left should concern itself with student organizing and include it as a component of any
grand strategy for organizing the working class.
Consider the role of universities within contemporary capitalism, and the structural
position students occupy within it. Universities are important nodes within local,
national, and global economies, not least due to their research output and the sheer size
of their endowments (half a trillion dollars in the U.S.). They are uniquely vulnerable to
popular pressure in ways many other large institutions are not. The best kinds of student
organizing, like that done by United Students Against Sweatshops and Student/Farmworker
Alliance, leverage those pressure points to great effect. Universities raising worker
compensation have contributed to upward wage pressures far beyond campus. And the way
universities structure their endowments can have profound effects: student and faculty
organizers, having spent many hard years pressuring University of California to divest its
funds from South African firms, were personally thanked by Nelson Mandela for their role
in the struggle against apartheid.
Consider the role of universities and students within the history of left organizing and
revolution. Contrary to DeBoer's portrayal of them as job-seekers first and foremost,
students often have the least to lose and are most willing to, through their actions,
create openings for wider class-wide organizing and resistance. Students and young people
have played critical, and usually inciting, roles in social upheaval in the West
stretching back to the Middle Ages. It was with a student protest march that the 1956
Hungarian Revolution kicked off. It was student organizers who formed SNCC and built one
of the most important civil rights organizations in American history. It was student
fraternization with workers that so frightened officialdom on both the right and left in
France in 1968. It was a student strike's expansion into a generalized revolt against
austerity and precarity that toppled Québec's increasingly authoritarian government in 2012.
And even when students are organizing campaigns primarily for student benefit, identifying
collective interests based on their material position within a system seems like a good
thing to pursue if we want a reinvigorated class politics. When done right, organizing for
student power is just a hop, skip, and a jump from organizing for worker power.
Extracting significant concessions from capital will require us to organize and seize the
initiative across multiple sectors of the economy. But instead of embracing an ecumenical
spirit, DeBoer wraps up his blogpost with a false dichotomy: "it is the organization of
labor, not of students, that must be the primary focus and goal of the American left."
If the left were to draw a sharp line between student organizing and the larger project of
organizing labor it would only harm both sides, as well as isolate and stunt the growth of
the very student activists DeBoer loves to scold. The conditions around us and the tasks
before us demand more from the left than tidy categories dividing the working class. The
forces of capital are complex and nuanced. We have to be too.
Patrick St. John is a former student organizer who lives in the Burlington, Vermont area
and is a member of Black Rose/Rosa Negra. This piece has been republished from his blog.
http://blackrosefed.org/is-student-activism-enough/
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Message: 5
This article looks at the phenomenon of recent migration to Europe and Aotearoa/New
Zealand, highlighting both commonalities and differences. ---- The fascistic Sweden
Democrats have become the third largest political party in their Parliament in this
month's elections. The two main political parties have stated they won't form a coalition
with them. However, there might not be an option if they want to avoid having to go back
to the polls. ---- All over Europe ultra-nationalist and racist parties are springing up
and winning elections. Why? ---- Since at least 2012 Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen have
been plunged into civil wars that have been marked by levels of atrocities, massacres and
other war crimes on a scale that haven't been seen in decades. Millions of people have
been driven out of their homes and forced to leave their war-torn countries. Millions more
are on the move, cast out by repressive regimes or the loss of livelihoods as the result
of economic, political and social instability or upheaval in their countries.
It's estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that there are fifteen
million Iraqis and Syrian refugees and internally displaced people (Millions of refugees
at risk in the Middle East as winter funds dwindle, October 3rd, 2017, UNHCR website). It
is impossible to tell how many of these refugees have fled to Europe but the European
Parliament estimates that around 2.5 million migrants entered Europe between 2015 and 2017
("EU migrant crisis: facts and figures", European Parliament News, June 30th, 2017). Most
of them have ended up in Germany and Italy.
Their arrival in Europe was initially mostly welcomed but the sheer numbers of people
arriving quickly began to overwhelm local housing providers, social agencies and other
organisations. It also didn't help that a few were involved in anti-social crimes. Of
course, the establishment media coverage was often sensationalist around those isolated
incidents. On January 3rd the BBC website had an article emblazoned with the headline
"Germany: Migrants ‘may have fuelled violent crime rise'." On January 17th the New York
Times had the headline "A Girl's Killing Puts Germany's Migration Policy on Trial".
However, it was the far-right vigilante mobs in Chemnitz in Germany who were hunting down
and attacking foreigners, including two migrant teenagers - an Afghan and a Syrian - who
were accused of killing a German man that finally revealed how deep anti-migrant
sentiments run there.
It's not just in Germany that this sentiment is being expressed. Xenophobic views have
played a major role in the election of anti-immigration nationalist governments in
Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
In Aotearoa/New Zealand we haven't faced large numbers of refugees putting pressure on
already over-stretched social services, state housing and health care. That is primarily
the result of the tyranny of distance but it's also because general immigrants encounter a
points system to determine if a person has the qualifications, skills or wealth that the
bosses and government deem valuable. The more points a person has the more likely s/he
will be allowed to move here.
Refugees don't go through the points system. They go through a refugee centre where they
learn about local cultures, customs and laws. By the time they enter the community they
will usually have a place to live, an income (often a social welfare benefit) and someone
to help them to integrate.
As a result of the points system, processing procedures and geographical isolation it's
nearly impossible for undocumented immigrants to get here. This has helped to create the
belief that immigrants are better educated, harder working and wealthier than many of the
locals so they are more likely to be hired to work in better paying jobs than their
counterparts in Europe. There is also a more prevalent culture of accepting immigrants and
refugees here. Perhaps this is a legacy of the fact everyone here with the exception of
the tangata whenua are fairly recent immigrants themselves or descendants of immigrants.
As a generalisation, ignorance rather than outright bigotry tends to have been the biggest
barrier faced by the most recent arrivals in Aotearoa.
However, it would be misleading to claim there's no anti-immigration sentiments. Some
people labour under the delusion that the Muslim community is seeking to impose Sharia law
upon this country ("Sharia Law Inside New Zealand", www.whaleoil.co.nz, April 13th, 2017)
while others, like the Salvation Army, believe that immigrants are taking jobs away from
the unemployed ("Too many jobs going to migrants - Sallies", RNZ, October 19th, 2016).
Perhaps the biggest source of discontent with immigrants in recent times was due to the
mistaken perception they were driving up house prices to the point few locals can afford
to buy a house. Riding on the back of this anti-immigrant populism, the Labour-led
government banned foreigners from owning existing housing stock earlier this year. Thus
far, house prices show no signs of coming down.
It would also be wrong to assume that life has been sweet for all of the immigrants coming
to this country. According to the RNZ website exploitation of migrant workers living in
New Zealand is becoming such a big problem that the government has set up an inquiry to
look into the issue. ("Migrant exploitation cases growing - advocate", RNZ, March 8th, 2018.)
Despite some grumbling from certain quarters immigrants and refugees are mostly still
welcome in Aotearoa and, at a time when countries in the rich regions of the northern
hemisphere are calling for an end to immigration and taking in refugees, many here want
the refugee quota to be doubled from 5000 a year to 10,000. So why are so many Europeans
supporting anti-immigration parties?
In Europe it's hard for some in the middle class to grasp that much of Europe's working
classes have still not recovered from the 2008 Great Recession. The majority of the
migrants have ended up in areas where there is already high unemployment, shortages of
affordable housing and poverty caused by austerity measures that have hit the poor and the
working classes the hardest. For a lot of workers these migrants are seen as competition
for scarce resources. It also doesn't help that these areas sometimes have minimal
cultural diversity. The local people aren't used to living with anyone but other people
from their own culture, ethnicity and nationality. This is particularly true in the case
of Austria, eastern Germany, Hungary and Sweden.
For all concerned in Europe the migrant crisis has been one heck of a culture shock and
this has led to the rapid rise of populist anti-immigration, alt-right identitarian and
other fascistic groups. It has also led to violent clashes between migrants and
extreme-Right groups, especially in Germany. There has been some effort to counter this,
but the mainstream attempts have often been things such as marches or music festivals.
While holding anti-fascist rallies and concerts can be a component of a co-ordinated and
comprehensive fightback, they will achieve little beyond the symbolic in themselves.
Two key issues mark the difference between European and Aotearoa/New Zealand immigration.
The first is that the immigrants and refugees coming here mostly want to be here. In the
case of Europe many of the migrants don't want to be there. They are stuck in Europe
because there's no other option. As the Irish Times article "Road to Damascus: the Syrian
refugees who want to go home" (December 2, 2017) makes clear they face legal, financial
and practical hurdles which prevent them from returning and many, if not most, of them can
expect to be arrested, conscripted or executed if they ever set foot back in Syria.
The second is that most immigrants coming here are lifestyle immigrants looking for a
better life for themselves and their families in a country perceived as relatively
peaceful and stable and economically and environmentally better than their places of
origin. The reality of course is more nuanced than that.(there are real problems of
economic disparity, housing, environmental damage and social and economic legacies of the
colonial robbery of indigenous people etc.) but that's the perception or draw card at
least. Many have the option of returning home if they choose. Even the refugees in New
Zealand seem to like it here and most of them would prefer to stay rather than return
home, ("Resettled Syrian refugees talk of life half a world away from their homeland"
Stuff website, June 25th, 2016.) In Europe they're not looking for a better life. They're
looking for a place where they can feel safe and stay alive until they can return home.
Immigration is a big issue everywhere but there are differing factors which drive
immigration in different parts of the world, despite the fact there is a common underlying
economic system. Also, the impact on the societies which immigrants end up in can be
primarily positive, negative or a combination of both. That's the complex reality.
When local working people perceive they have largely been forgotten it should not come as
a shock when their reaction to immigrants is far from welcoming. It should come as no
surprise when they vote for demagogues and political parties preying on their fears. It
should also not be a major revelation when liberals end up being abused for their
willingness to open up opportunities to these migrants. After all, they aren't moving into
the nice middle class neighbourhoods where most liberals live or applying for the types of
jobs that most liberals are employed in.
The migrants risking literally everything to get to Europe are not to blame for the
situation they find themselves in. Blaming them and running them out of town (literally in
some cases) is not the solution. Nor is electing racist and ultra-nationalist leaders and
political parties into office. The only solution in the longer term is to sort out the
mess that colonial powers of the past, primarily France and the United Kingdom, and
various current local tyrants, despots and rival regional powers have created. That means
people at the grassroots working hard to alter the map of the area in their own favour, to
amend the artificial boundaries and hierarchical structures in place now and finding more
natural alternatives. These islands would also benefit from a similar process.
We also need to address the built-in inequalities and injustices of a Capitalist class
system that pits local workers against migrant workers for the same jobs and resources.
This same class system also entrenches many of the tyrants and despots whose actions have
forced millions of people in the Middle East and North Africa to flee to Europe. It also
divides immigrants into various classes of desirable and undesirable people with working
class people often being relegated to the ranks of undesirables who never get selected for
refugee or points systems quotas.
In this country immigration control is relatively easy because these islands are so remote
and so it's difficult to get here. As noted, the people who migrate here mostly want to be
here and they are, for the most part, accepted by the local people. It is worth noting
however, that the points system and, therefore, those who can get into Aotearoa, is
weighted heavily in favour of the middle classes and petty bourgeoisie classes.
To conclude, we need to put our heads together and work out methods for dealing with both
the differing and shared aspects of the immigration phenomenon that exist in the antipodes
and Europe. Perhaps then we might get real solutions to the challenges posed by
immigration and the bigger threat that lurks behind most of the world's injustices:
Capitalism.
Related Link: http://awsm.nz/2018/09/16/migration-europe-and-new-zealand/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31133
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Message: 6
The so-called Syrian Civil War is Syrian in name only. It has seen combatants from scores
of countries flooding into the jihadist fanatic armies, while Israel, Turkey, the US,
France, the UK, Iran, Russia, the Arab monarchies, they all have meddled, bombarded,
funded their own armed proxies and contributed in many ways to destroy the country. Syria
is a shame on humanity, seen by everyone as an opportunity to flex their muscles and test
each other's red lines, limits and capacities. And we've been surprised to see the Russian
emperor come out absolutely naked in this power-game. ---- The conflict in Syria has,
above all, demonstrated the limits of the military power of Russia. All the jingoistic
rhetoric of Putin-loving elements about Russia's military might have been exposed to the
world for what it is: a sham. The emperor is naked -Russia is nothing but a rundown state
with pretentions of being a super-power, which may be able to bully the Georgians, but
south of the Caucasus, it is others who run the show. And the war in Syria has proved just
that. Despite the massive success of the operations to defeat jihadists in Syria and to
boost the government of Assad -the only leader of the only country who would be willing to
give them a military base in the Mediterranean-, Russia has clashed against a formidable
military force which tests the limits of its hard power. This was demonstrated by Erdogan
time and again, but particularly with the Sochi meeting which made partition of Syria
official, showed that Turkey wouldn't back down to Russia's threats and showed its
willingness to protect the most back-warded jihadists imaginable. It is Erdogan, not Putin
who sets the agenda and who determines what is acceptable and what is not in Syria. Russia
was humiliated, proving that getting into a course of conflict with a NATO country is no
option for them. Their limits were exposed for everyone to see.
It is not the first time that Turkey slaps Russia in the face. They downed a Russian
fighter; their ambassador Andrei Karlov was assassinated in Turkey by a policeman whom
jihadists in Idlib parade as a hero; and what does Russia do? Some economic measures
against Turkey only to be back a couple of months later with a stronger than ever
relationship. They drum-beat like King Kong and then do nothing. Not because they are
sensible, or hold the higher moral ground, or because they try not to escalate things.
They don't do anything because they can't. Simple as that. The outdated Russian army is
efficient enough to carpet bomb -they lack capacity for precision targeting- gangs of
armed jihadists who spend most of their time reading the Q'uran as opposed to military
theory anyway. But confronted to a real army, such as Turkey, they will back. Sergey
Lavrov, their minister of foreign affairs, yelled from the top of his lungs that the
territorial integrity of Syria was out of question and they would bomb the terrorists in
Idlib. In Tehran Putin was saying that a cease-fire was out of question. But Turkey only
needed to move its military forces into the region to convince Putin to sit in the
negotiating table one week later and accept a de-militarised zone; indeed more than what
Erdogan had originally asked for. And what about the territorial integrity of Syria and
the fight against Al-Qaeda? Well, now Syria has been officially partitioned and the
Al-Qaeda gangs will be well looked after by their Turkish sponsors.
To add injury to insult, that very night a number of targets in Syria, including Latakia
where Russia has its military base, came under attack by Israeli fighters. The highly
inefficient Russian air-defences not only didn't manage to stop most of the bombs to hit
target, but they actually managed to down a cargo place with 15 Russian soldiers behind
which the Israeli fighter jets had taken shelter to attack Syria. The Russian Minister of
Defence comes out to say that Russia reserves the right to take appropriate measures
against hostile Israeli actions... and what will happen? Guessed right. Nothing. This is
just bluffing. Putin already came out to say that the Israelis didn't mean it and in a
couple of days everything will be back to business as usual. Israel will keep bombarding
Syria as the please, and Putin will declare that his love for Netanyahu is eternal and
that a dozen dead Russians are not that big a deal at all. They will come out of this with
a relationship stronger than ever. The harder you hit Putin, the stronger the relationship
will be after the blow.
But if you give him what he wants, then he will trample all over you. Look at Assad,
renewing the Russian military base until 2049, when Putin accepts the partition of Syria,
and actually coordinates with Israel their bombardments so they don't hit Russians but
‘kill as many Syrians as you like, sir' -what kind of strange alliance is that? But it is
not only that Russians will not stop Israel from bombing their supposed ally -they
actually can't do anything about it. The Latakia bombings demonstrated that Russia can't
even defend the surroundings of their military bases. Let's see if anyone would dare to
bombard jihadists even miles away from the Al-Tanf US military base in Southern Syria! If
Russia can't protect even its own bases and their own military personnel, what can Assad
expect in terms of protection from future bombardments and interventions?
As for poor Syria, its future looks grim as hell. Assad has been left with a partitioned
country and nothing much of a say in the future of it. The Kurdish have been increasingly
turned into a proxy army for the US and their dependence on them was tested with the
Turkish invasion of Afrin: it fell like a house of cards. Their enclave will be turned
into a US protectorate in exchange of oil and military bases -which sooner rather than
later will be officially sanctioned by the US, which will never allow a Turkish military
incursion where their military bases are. Erdogan's limits are not set by Russia, but by
the US and Israel. Thus, all the transformative and emancipatory potential of the
experience of Rojava, the only honourable page written in this senseless conflict, will
come to nothing. The US will never allow any serious challenge to ‘capitalist modernity'
in their protectorate. They will possibly allow women co-chairs all over the place to
prove the world how progressive Rojava is, same as Israel and their gay parade marches,
proof that they are a "progressive" country, nevermind the plight of Palestinians. But to
question class relations and imperialism in Rojava? To be serious about self-government?
That is really difficult to happen under US sponsorship. Possibly far more pressure will
be put on them to distance from the PKK which is getting shattered in Turkey and Northern
Iraq. The Kurdish are prisoners now of US presence in Syria, and no amount of PR exercises
will change the fact that if your autonomy depends on the presence of a foreign empire, it
is empty chatter.
Was there another possible outcome? Yes. A pragmatic alliance between Assad and the Kurds,
which would have allowed for Assad to remain as president and the Kurdish to get a degree
of autonomy, stood a real chance of defeating Turkey and its proxies, while keeping a
certain autonomy from their foreign patrons. A far cry from the scenario every party would
have wished for, but no doubt the best possible scenario that could have come out of this
absolute humanitarian disaster called Syrian Civil War. But precisely the proxy nature of
the conflict didn't allow anyone to see this chance. The Kurdish thought, and still think
(surprisingly, even after Afrin), that the US is their friend. The Assadists thought that
Russia was their friend. Imperialism has no friends, only interests. Whether it is the
proper US imperialism, or the pathetically hallucinatory Russian imperialism, they only
looked for their interests. Israel has won a weak neighbour unable to defend itself and
under constant threat from the jihadists pockets kept live by Turkey. Turkey will manage
to keep the Kurdish at bay and annex new territories in Idlib, Al-Bab, Jarabulus, and
Afrin through proxies to feed the neo-Ottomanists dreams of its caliph. The US won oil and
14 military bases Russia keep their only military base in the Mediterranean, one which
they can't even defend. But there it is. And the Arab or Kurdish Syrians? Irrevocably
partitioned into protectorates and unable to have a say in their own future. What a prospect!
Welcome to the New Middle East that Bush foresaw back in 2001.
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31135
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