Today's Topics:
1. UK, AFED, organise magazine: Street Anarchy pt.3 - The Third
Movement | Theory and Analysis (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Movement | Theory and Analysis (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Poland, rozbrat: WE DEMAND A CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEAM FOR THE
GNIEZNO LAKE DISTRICT [machine translation]
GNIEZNO LAKE DISTRICT [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. awsm.nz: Anti-Election Campaign (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. US, NYC Anarchist Bookfair 2020 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Holand, Haag, vrije bond: "Meet & Greet": Kurdish youth &
Revolt (nl) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
[translator's note: Ruymán is a member of FAGC (Federación Anarquistas Gran Canaria or Gran Canaria's Anarchist Federation), which centres
most of its activity around the issues of housing, rent and homelessness. They are known for housing homeless people in squatted buildings
run along anarchists' principles without the members needing to share the same ideology. The biggest one so far, La Esperanza, houses more
than 260 people, around 160 of them minors. More recently the FAGC has called for a rent strike to demand better conditions for renters
during the COVID-19 crisis. The strike is supported today by more than 60.000 tenants. This is the second of a series of three articles
written in 2015 where Ruymán explains how the FAGC sees the way forward for anarchism based on their experience these years]
"On, on, onwards, for the fire is hot![...]On, onwards, as long as you live."
(Letter by Thomas Müntzer to his followers, 1525)
In the previous two articles I talked about the two types of anarchism I had identified, and of the potential and limits of the social
struggle; now I'm going to talk about the necessity for combative anarchism, committed to the social struggle, to transcend its starting
point and reach a superior revolutionary objective thanks to well-designed and solid strategy.
Analyzing the situation of activism, social movements, including the anarchist, have been on the defensive for years. We only come out to
the streets and mobilize to not lose ground. We don't know how to attack. The only thing we want is not to lose past conquests, but not to
make new ones. Fights like militant unions, housing, education or healthcare are framed today in those terms. They are respectable movements
of self-defense, not structures of attack. Honestly, I believe it is time to go on the offensive.
We need to overcome this ongoing situation where we are just trying to take punches as they come, and learn how to fight back, to trade blow
by blow, to hurt. This last decade of struggle, and especially the experience in housing, has taught me that when one focuses their
militancy in the management of a "small matter", in the preservation of what you have, you risk losing the ambition to go further. And this
can turn what was supposed to be just a phase, the means to an end, into an end in itself.
I know it's not the best for me to talk about not limiting yourself. We live in a state of retreat, as anarchists and as social activists. A
few, resigned but pragmatic, try to save the furniture from the shipwreck, and try to build something for the future. A majority is still
impervious to the lost opportunity and, lost in their liturgy of banners and hymns, don't want to see that even the most reformist
collectives have overtaken them on the left, thanks mainly to their activity. Another significant part abandons ship and, seduced by the
siren's song of the establishment, flirts with electoralism, the new parties, and starts believing something incomprehensible: that voting
is the transformative novelty; and that to abstain and create on the sidelines is the orthodoxy.
We raise our voice from the dirt, in the very heart of poverty. I won't speak to you with a clean face, neither will I shake off the dust in
your presence nor offer you a washed up hand; down here, where we get down to work, it doesn't smell good, there's no sterile debates and
rhetoric doesn't accomplish anything. While working in misery, we are trying to organise it. Let's begin!
We are not interested in the war for acronyms, the scuffles about banners, the internal feuds of families, sects, tendencies and clans. It's
like seeing two starved insects fighting over the remains. Anything that tries to drag us into that is not welcomed. We also don't want to
hear intellectuals babbling or fighting among themselves, telling us about a past that cannot be repeated or inviting us to advance while
they themselves don't move their asses from their seats. There's a new anarchist that is active, pragmatic, that wants to be adult but not
to grow old, and that is not willing to get itself tangled in the ideological disputes of its elders. Our proposal is to make a call for all
combative anarchists to work together. This verb is key: to work. To coordinate efforts based around practical work proposals, leaving
asides brainy questions about the future of a society we still are not strong enough to preconfigure. We spend hours arguing about what type
of fuels will be used in the post-revolutionary society, how will the means of production be managed, what resources will it use and which
not; and we still haven't made the revolution that'll allow us to have these problems in front of us. Because of our incompetence, we have
no capacity to decide about our present, so we try to decide about something that has no relevance and belongs to a future that is slipping
out of our hands. Let's work so that one day we could argue about these problems in workers or community assemblies, but until then let's
not waste time.
Once we come all together, willing to work together but not to think the same, to combine efforts but necessarily sensibilities, we can
select the objective. The FAGC chose housing, and everyone interested knows the results. Yes, we are responsible for the biggest occupation
in the whole Spanish state, but I already said in my previous article that that is not all, we still need a third movement. What was done
alleviated the situation of many people, it has allowed to extend the life of some of the most urgent cases; and that is already the most
important thing. But it's not enough to stay there. It would be like organising an army and refusing to declare war. Everything lived, good
and bad, must serve to extract conclusions, reflect and take the fight to a new stage.
And what about the long and surrealist shadow of assistentialism? We have learnt our lesson and found the way to avoid it. The social
struggle, by offering real solutions to real problems, allows us to get in contact with the people. But for the relationship to advance it
is essential that the person affected stops being a receiver/observer and starts being an actor. And that's achieved by establishing as
necessary that the person being rehoused takes part in their own rehousing. Do you want to receive help? Here we are for you, but first
prove that you are capable of helping yourself and others. Do you refuse? Very well, we won't give more solidarity than the one we are
offered, that's all. Whoever really needs a house will have no option but to question what they've learnt, what the system taught them,
their own way of behaving with others, before they can make a decision. It's possible that it won't produce any change, but we would have
made them confront a hard contradiction face to face. A what was said about rehousing also applies to the rest. In our last occupations we
have been applying that principle and the results have been very positive. We certainly participate in less rehousings, but the experiences
are better and the participants more in need, more committed and more active.We have also learned that behind the criticisms of
"assistentialism" we often find voices with little experience that, unwilling to abandon their ivory tower and walk among the filthy and
difficult reality, show their disdain for active militancy by looking for pretexts instead of offering alternatives. The risks of
assistentialism are not overcome from a comfortable distance while surrounded by those already convinced.
Once organised, with an established protocol to avoid becoming an NGO or a real estate agency, we are missing that last twist that I
mentioned in "Street Anarchy II", that third movement: the way of conflict.
The third movement is the one that makes the difference between conventional squatting (an act that closes its cycle on its own,
revolutionarily innocuous) and programmed expropriation of households owned by banks, with the objective of establishing a communal
management of a collective good (an act that means a direct political, social, and economical challenge).
It's not enough to occupy houses, which usually only affects a limited number of people. It's not even enough to make them available for the
people and use them for rehousing. In the end we can end up reinforcing the System by compensating for one of its shortfalls and inhibiting
people in protest by helping them get back on the capitalist train. We need to occupy and rehouse, but as part of a political strategy of
mass socialization that aims for the neighbours themselves to manage consumer goods through assemblies, just like we expect the workers to
do with the means of production.
The strategy is simple: unite with those other combative anarchists, call a popular assembly about the most urgent topic that worries your
neighbourhood (I use housing as an example because it's the field we have more experience with), offer useful tools to the neighbours and
establish contact with them. How many empty houses owned by the banks are in the neighbourhood? So occupy all of them and make the
neighbours directly manage the public good of housing. We have to take the step, cross the threshold, and turn squatting into collective
expropriation.
How many of your neighbours pay rents to the same real estate agency, bank or rich landlord? How many can't pay or are about to find
themselves in that situation? Once again, call a neighbours assembly and give that fatalism a conscious dimension. They soon are going to
lose the home because of not being able to pay the rent, so give not paying a political character: propose calling a rent strike. No one
pays, either until everyone's rent goes down (if the disposition of the people doesn't allow for anything more radical) or until the
management of the houses is put in your hands with no intermediary.
Do you organise in a libertarian union? Propose to integrate the labour struggle with the social struggle (which doesn't mean just having
good intentions, writing statements and supporting campaigns, but to start your own way of intervention and confrontation, directly
revolutionary). To compete with the establishment unions using their weapons is either a waste of time or suicide. The nature of libertarian
unionism always was multifaceted, and extended beyond the purely laboural plane. In order to survive, anarcho-syndicalism needs to adopt
integral solutions and offer tools not limited to factories or even consumer cooperatives, but that directly address the issues of the
poorest neighbourhoods. We must bring back the renters unions that anarcho-syndicalism pushed for back in the 30s, and take neighbours
demands to a different plane.
And what about the platforms that already work around housing? First, we have to distinguish between those that undertake a committed and
altruistic labour, with a revolutionary base, and those that are ineffective, are in the pocket of the political parties, or are motivated
by nefarious interests. Second, no one has the monopoly of the social struggle. If you think a campaign is lacking, that it is being used as
a pawn for electoral purposes, and you think you can offer and structure things better, more effectively, more radically, there's no reason
why you should cede the territory to anyone - none that makes us that there has to be exclusivity or imposture in the housing front. Third,
we have to be aware, as anarchists, of the necessity of articulating our own answers, our own programs, our own strategies. Yes, the fights
have to necessarily be popular and collective, open to everyone; tactical alliances are equally desirable, as long as they are limited to
the work and don't require concessions. But we have to be able to structure a differentiated road map with our own objectives, we have to
show to the people that we offer veritable solutions to the social issues, and know how to communicate that we have our own revolution going on.
The situation, thanks to the so-called "progressive candidatures", can be more favourable than what it looks like. Develop this strategy
everywhere, but don't miss the chance of honing in on wherever the "champions of housing and social policies" have reached power. Squat en
masse, with the support of the neighbours, and start laying the foundations, the theoretical support, to show the contradictions of these
"progressive parties". Whether because their insensibility and incompetence is what forces you to squat, or because they trigger or condone
a repressive reaction.
This general proposal, of intervening in a struggle based around a good (or means of production or service) to radicalise it, take it to its
final stages, and make the popular body (the assembly of neighbours or renters) that initiates and fights on said battle be the one that
ends up organising said good, is a simplified way of starting a revolution. The councils or soviets were just this in their origins. This is
what the third movement is about.
We are at a pivotal moment. Consumed by the electoralist fever, demobilized by the partisanship of the new generation, we forget that for
those down below the shit is still covering them up to their necks. The sick and the hungry, the homeless and the immigrants can't endure
any more of your vote counting or your insufferable theories. We can run away from our responsibility as long as we want, but there's
nowhere to hide. I myself tried to address this matter by creating an idyllic community of rehoused people, believing that the revolutionary
response would come later. Too concerned with guaranteeing the stability of the neighbours, and especially that of their children, it took
me two years to understand that the path of the conflict must go hand in hand with the work of creation. It may make life more uncertain,
but if the construction of the new doesn't happen in parallel to the destruction of the old (like classics like Bakunin and Proudhon
recommended), you will create a beautiful walled city, but you will leave untouched anything beyond its borders; and in the end the exterior
will breach the fortress and will do the same that humidity does to the stone.
In this moment anarchism, the entirety of the social movements, is at a crossroad. There's a gordian knot that seems unsolvable, and both
the pure theoreticians and the institutionalists intend to cut it with a penknife; from the FAGC we assert that it's time to use a
guillotine. Get involved in the neighbourhoods, don't be afraid of the hostility, the mistrust, the bickerings and the animal instincts that
I assure you you'll come across. Strike now while the mirage of recuperation hasn't yet reached even those with empty stomachs. Look for the
one who doesn't have a home or a salary or government help or hope. Call the whole neighbourhood and confront them with the idea that it's
in their hands to change their situation. Grow little by little, with effective assemblies and free from pompous speeches. Offer reality,
naked and coarse reality. And start taking, taking and taking until there's nothing you don't manage yourselves. It can be scary, but it's
the dizziness before a revolution that starts. The only thing left is for you to join. And what if you don't succeed? Goddammit, at least
you would have tried.
I've said it before but I won't stop saying it. If they exploit misery, it is our task to organise it. ?
Ruymán Rodríguez
Read Part One:- "Two Anarchisms"
Read Part Two:- "Social Struggle"
http://organisemagazine.org.uk/2020/09/25/street-anarchy-pt-3-the-third-movement-theory-and-analysis
------------------------------
Message: 2
The situation in the Gniezno Lake District is becoming more and more dramatic. The water level in other lakes in this area drops
drastically. The worst situation concerns the Wilczynskie Lake, where the water level dropped by 6 meters. It is also not good with one of
the cleanest lakes in Wielkopolska: Kownacki, Osowa Góra, Suszewskie, Wójcinski, Czyste, Ostrowskie and Niedziegiel. ---- Keywords Green
Wave Climate change ---- The main person responsible for this condition is the company ZE-PAK, which manages lignite mines located in this
region, which during 80 years of their operation pumped out 12 billion m3 of water from this area. Despite this situation, ZE-PAK, together
with its owner, Zygmunt Solorz (the richest Pole), still plans to open new opencast mines. The disappearance of these lakes will be a huge
loss for the region, and the consequences of these processes are already visible as the surrounding forests are drying up due to lack of water.
The lakes region lives mainly from tourism. When the lakes disappear, tourists will disappear with them, leading to the loss of the main
livelihood of the inhabitants. Local agriculture will also suffer because of the lack of water to cultivate the fields. Even the record
rainfall in May did not improve the situation, even then the water level continued to decline.
On September 9, the Voivode of Wielkopolska received an application submitted by residents for the appointment of a crisis team in
connection with the natural disaster in the Gniezno Lake District. There is no answer to it so far. The situation was different when the
voivode without hesitation appointed a crisis team in connection with protests against opencast mines and in order to save the lakes. At
that time, several thousand policemen were brought to the region against the protesters. For the rulers, it seems more important to protect
private business than to protect lakes and the climate, which are our common good.
We don't have time to wait any longer. This Friday, on the day of the worldwide protests of the Youth Climate Strike, we meet at 13:00 at
the building of the Provincial Office in Poznan, to demand that the voivode appoint a crisis team and urgent actions at the provincial and
national level to stop the degradation of the Lake District. Climate change won't hit us in 10 or 20 years, and the fight for water isn't a
science fiction script. They are already there today and are happening in our neighborhood, so it is so important to act immediately.
Otherwise, instead of the beautiful Gniezno Lake District, we will have a desert without conditions to work and live for people and other
creatures.
Zielona Fala
Anarchist Federation p. Poznan
https://www.facebook.com/events/324510888851180
https://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/krajowe/4730-domagamy-sie-sztabu-kryzysowego-dla-pojezierza-gnieznienskiego
------------------------------
Message: 3
At the moment the various parties are trying to convince the public to support them and give them the power to control our lives. Various
forms of media are being used towards this goal and our streets are being contaminated with the visual pollution of billboards. It's
tiresome at best and nauseating at worst. ---- Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) is hoping to counteract this power mongering
fiesta with our own message. We have initiated an anti-election campaign which so far includes a leaflet and stickers. As a small
organisation with limited resources we wish we could do more but we are making up for this with dedication. ---- We have begun distributing
thousands of our leaflets and stickers and are talking to people in multiple locations. So far this has included the Bay of Plenty, Waikato,
East Coast, Taranaki, Kapiti Coast, Wellington, Hutt Valley, and Dunedin. It will soon even include Stewart Island and Northland!
If you feel you have the time to help support our efforts, please get in touch and we can send you some leaflets.
https://awsm.nz/?p=6812
------------------------------
Message: 4
This year, the NYC anarchist bookfair is all virtual ---- Join host David Rovics as he speaks with ANARCHOARTLAB, an organizer for the 14th
annual NYC Anarchist Bookfair to be held September 25-27, 2020 ---- It's virtual, so everyone can attend! The Fifth Estate will be there.
---- This year's theme is Parallel Worlds: Creating Autonomous Communities. It's organized by a collective of Anarchx-feminist/queer
artists, and invites you to articulate practices across borders and build together the bases for viable self-governing alternative
systems.It will explore issues such as food autonomy, anarchist justice systems, resistance organizing, indigenous solidarity, decolonizing
presents and futures, and radical communal care. Visit the Book Fair site for a full list of presenters and topics, and link-in info.
https://anarchistbookfair.net/
------------------------------
Message: 5
On Saturday 26th of September Anarchist Bookshop Opstand and local Kurdish youth have organised a "meet & greet". The event is aimed at
create bonds between those who desire a different world and strengthen international solidarity. During the event there will be a
presentation and discussion based on the achievements of the social revolution in Rojava. ---- The "meet & greet" will start at 16:00 at the
Kurdish Cultural Centre at Radarstraat 23 in The Hague. There will be some food for during the discussion. Afterwards we will move to social
centre De Samenscholing (Beatrijsstraat 12; 5 minutes walk) for a more informal setting, some drinks, table football and pool.
Hope to see you all then!
Vrije Bond Secretariaat
https://www.vrijebond.org/meet-greet-kurdish-youth-opstand/
------------------------------
Revolt (nl) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
[translator's note: Ruymán is a member of FAGC (Federación Anarquistas Gran Canaria or Gran Canaria's Anarchist Federation), which centres
most of its activity around the issues of housing, rent and homelessness. They are known for housing homeless people in squatted buildings
run along anarchists' principles without the members needing to share the same ideology. The biggest one so far, La Esperanza, houses more
than 260 people, around 160 of them minors. More recently the FAGC has called for a rent strike to demand better conditions for renters
during the COVID-19 crisis. The strike is supported today by more than 60.000 tenants. This is the second of a series of three articles
written in 2015 where Ruymán explains how the FAGC sees the way forward for anarchism based on their experience these years]
"On, on, onwards, for the fire is hot![...]On, onwards, as long as you live."
(Letter by Thomas Müntzer to his followers, 1525)
In the previous two articles I talked about the two types of anarchism I had identified, and of the potential and limits of the social
struggle; now I'm going to talk about the necessity for combative anarchism, committed to the social struggle, to transcend its starting
point and reach a superior revolutionary objective thanks to well-designed and solid strategy.
Analyzing the situation of activism, social movements, including the anarchist, have been on the defensive for years. We only come out to
the streets and mobilize to not lose ground. We don't know how to attack. The only thing we want is not to lose past conquests, but not to
make new ones. Fights like militant unions, housing, education or healthcare are framed today in those terms. They are respectable movements
of self-defense, not structures of attack. Honestly, I believe it is time to go on the offensive.
We need to overcome this ongoing situation where we are just trying to take punches as they come, and learn how to fight back, to trade blow
by blow, to hurt. This last decade of struggle, and especially the experience in housing, has taught me that when one focuses their
militancy in the management of a "small matter", in the preservation of what you have, you risk losing the ambition to go further. And this
can turn what was supposed to be just a phase, the means to an end, into an end in itself.
I know it's not the best for me to talk about not limiting yourself. We live in a state of retreat, as anarchists and as social activists. A
few, resigned but pragmatic, try to save the furniture from the shipwreck, and try to build something for the future. A majority is still
impervious to the lost opportunity and, lost in their liturgy of banners and hymns, don't want to see that even the most reformist
collectives have overtaken them on the left, thanks mainly to their activity. Another significant part abandons ship and, seduced by the
siren's song of the establishment, flirts with electoralism, the new parties, and starts believing something incomprehensible: that voting
is the transformative novelty; and that to abstain and create on the sidelines is the orthodoxy.
We raise our voice from the dirt, in the very heart of poverty. I won't speak to you with a clean face, neither will I shake off the dust in
your presence nor offer you a washed up hand; down here, where we get down to work, it doesn't smell good, there's no sterile debates and
rhetoric doesn't accomplish anything. While working in misery, we are trying to organise it. Let's begin!
We are not interested in the war for acronyms, the scuffles about banners, the internal feuds of families, sects, tendencies and clans. It's
like seeing two starved insects fighting over the remains. Anything that tries to drag us into that is not welcomed. We also don't want to
hear intellectuals babbling or fighting among themselves, telling us about a past that cannot be repeated or inviting us to advance while
they themselves don't move their asses from their seats. There's a new anarchist that is active, pragmatic, that wants to be adult but not
to grow old, and that is not willing to get itself tangled in the ideological disputes of its elders. Our proposal is to make a call for all
combative anarchists to work together. This verb is key: to work. To coordinate efforts based around practical work proposals, leaving
asides brainy questions about the future of a society we still are not strong enough to preconfigure. We spend hours arguing about what type
of fuels will be used in the post-revolutionary society, how will the means of production be managed, what resources will it use and which
not; and we still haven't made the revolution that'll allow us to have these problems in front of us. Because of our incompetence, we have
no capacity to decide about our present, so we try to decide about something that has no relevance and belongs to a future that is slipping
out of our hands. Let's work so that one day we could argue about these problems in workers or community assemblies, but until then let's
not waste time.
Once we come all together, willing to work together but not to think the same, to combine efforts but necessarily sensibilities, we can
select the objective. The FAGC chose housing, and everyone interested knows the results. Yes, we are responsible for the biggest occupation
in the whole Spanish state, but I already said in my previous article that that is not all, we still need a third movement. What was done
alleviated the situation of many people, it has allowed to extend the life of some of the most urgent cases; and that is already the most
important thing. But it's not enough to stay there. It would be like organising an army and refusing to declare war. Everything lived, good
and bad, must serve to extract conclusions, reflect and take the fight to a new stage.
And what about the long and surrealist shadow of assistentialism? We have learnt our lesson and found the way to avoid it. The social
struggle, by offering real solutions to real problems, allows us to get in contact with the people. But for the relationship to advance it
is essential that the person affected stops being a receiver/observer and starts being an actor. And that's achieved by establishing as
necessary that the person being rehoused takes part in their own rehousing. Do you want to receive help? Here we are for you, but first
prove that you are capable of helping yourself and others. Do you refuse? Very well, we won't give more solidarity than the one we are
offered, that's all. Whoever really needs a house will have no option but to question what they've learnt, what the system taught them,
their own way of behaving with others, before they can make a decision. It's possible that it won't produce any change, but we would have
made them confront a hard contradiction face to face. A what was said about rehousing also applies to the rest. In our last occupations we
have been applying that principle and the results have been very positive. We certainly participate in less rehousings, but the experiences
are better and the participants more in need, more committed and more active.We have also learned that behind the criticisms of
"assistentialism" we often find voices with little experience that, unwilling to abandon their ivory tower and walk among the filthy and
difficult reality, show their disdain for active militancy by looking for pretexts instead of offering alternatives. The risks of
assistentialism are not overcome from a comfortable distance while surrounded by those already convinced.
Once organised, with an established protocol to avoid becoming an NGO or a real estate agency, we are missing that last twist that I
mentioned in "Street Anarchy II", that third movement: the way of conflict.
The third movement is the one that makes the difference between conventional squatting (an act that closes its cycle on its own,
revolutionarily innocuous) and programmed expropriation of households owned by banks, with the objective of establishing a communal
management of a collective good (an act that means a direct political, social, and economical challenge).
It's not enough to occupy houses, which usually only affects a limited number of people. It's not even enough to make them available for the
people and use them for rehousing. In the end we can end up reinforcing the System by compensating for one of its shortfalls and inhibiting
people in protest by helping them get back on the capitalist train. We need to occupy and rehouse, but as part of a political strategy of
mass socialization that aims for the neighbours themselves to manage consumer goods through assemblies, just like we expect the workers to
do with the means of production.
The strategy is simple: unite with those other combative anarchists, call a popular assembly about the most urgent topic that worries your
neighbourhood (I use housing as an example because it's the field we have more experience with), offer useful tools to the neighbours and
establish contact with them. How many empty houses owned by the banks are in the neighbourhood? So occupy all of them and make the
neighbours directly manage the public good of housing. We have to take the step, cross the threshold, and turn squatting into collective
expropriation.
How many of your neighbours pay rents to the same real estate agency, bank or rich landlord? How many can't pay or are about to find
themselves in that situation? Once again, call a neighbours assembly and give that fatalism a conscious dimension. They soon are going to
lose the home because of not being able to pay the rent, so give not paying a political character: propose calling a rent strike. No one
pays, either until everyone's rent goes down (if the disposition of the people doesn't allow for anything more radical) or until the
management of the houses is put in your hands with no intermediary.
Do you organise in a libertarian union? Propose to integrate the labour struggle with the social struggle (which doesn't mean just having
good intentions, writing statements and supporting campaigns, but to start your own way of intervention and confrontation, directly
revolutionary). To compete with the establishment unions using their weapons is either a waste of time or suicide. The nature of libertarian
unionism always was multifaceted, and extended beyond the purely laboural plane. In order to survive, anarcho-syndicalism needs to adopt
integral solutions and offer tools not limited to factories or even consumer cooperatives, but that directly address the issues of the
poorest neighbourhoods. We must bring back the renters unions that anarcho-syndicalism pushed for back in the 30s, and take neighbours
demands to a different plane.
And what about the platforms that already work around housing? First, we have to distinguish between those that undertake a committed and
altruistic labour, with a revolutionary base, and those that are ineffective, are in the pocket of the political parties, or are motivated
by nefarious interests. Second, no one has the monopoly of the social struggle. If you think a campaign is lacking, that it is being used as
a pawn for electoral purposes, and you think you can offer and structure things better, more effectively, more radically, there's no reason
why you should cede the territory to anyone - none that makes us that there has to be exclusivity or imposture in the housing front. Third,
we have to be aware, as anarchists, of the necessity of articulating our own answers, our own programs, our own strategies. Yes, the fights
have to necessarily be popular and collective, open to everyone; tactical alliances are equally desirable, as long as they are limited to
the work and don't require concessions. But we have to be able to structure a differentiated road map with our own objectives, we have to
show to the people that we offer veritable solutions to the social issues, and know how to communicate that we have our own revolution going on.
The situation, thanks to the so-called "progressive candidatures", can be more favourable than what it looks like. Develop this strategy
everywhere, but don't miss the chance of honing in on wherever the "champions of housing and social policies" have reached power. Squat en
masse, with the support of the neighbours, and start laying the foundations, the theoretical support, to show the contradictions of these
"progressive parties". Whether because their insensibility and incompetence is what forces you to squat, or because they trigger or condone
a repressive reaction.
This general proposal, of intervening in a struggle based around a good (or means of production or service) to radicalise it, take it to its
final stages, and make the popular body (the assembly of neighbours or renters) that initiates and fights on said battle be the one that
ends up organising said good, is a simplified way of starting a revolution. The councils or soviets were just this in their origins. This is
what the third movement is about.
We are at a pivotal moment. Consumed by the electoralist fever, demobilized by the partisanship of the new generation, we forget that for
those down below the shit is still covering them up to their necks. The sick and the hungry, the homeless and the immigrants can't endure
any more of your vote counting or your insufferable theories. We can run away from our responsibility as long as we want, but there's
nowhere to hide. I myself tried to address this matter by creating an idyllic community of rehoused people, believing that the revolutionary
response would come later. Too concerned with guaranteeing the stability of the neighbours, and especially that of their children, it took
me two years to understand that the path of the conflict must go hand in hand with the work of creation. It may make life more uncertain,
but if the construction of the new doesn't happen in parallel to the destruction of the old (like classics like Bakunin and Proudhon
recommended), you will create a beautiful walled city, but you will leave untouched anything beyond its borders; and in the end the exterior
will breach the fortress and will do the same that humidity does to the stone.
In this moment anarchism, the entirety of the social movements, is at a crossroad. There's a gordian knot that seems unsolvable, and both
the pure theoreticians and the institutionalists intend to cut it with a penknife; from the FAGC we assert that it's time to use a
guillotine. Get involved in the neighbourhoods, don't be afraid of the hostility, the mistrust, the bickerings and the animal instincts that
I assure you you'll come across. Strike now while the mirage of recuperation hasn't yet reached even those with empty stomachs. Look for the
one who doesn't have a home or a salary or government help or hope. Call the whole neighbourhood and confront them with the idea that it's
in their hands to change their situation. Grow little by little, with effective assemblies and free from pompous speeches. Offer reality,
naked and coarse reality. And start taking, taking and taking until there's nothing you don't manage yourselves. It can be scary, but it's
the dizziness before a revolution that starts. The only thing left is for you to join. And what if you don't succeed? Goddammit, at least
you would have tried.
I've said it before but I won't stop saying it. If they exploit misery, it is our task to organise it. ?
Ruymán Rodríguez
Read Part One:- "Two Anarchisms"
Read Part Two:- "Social Struggle"
http://organisemagazine.org.uk/2020/09/25/street-anarchy-pt-3-the-third-movement-theory-and-analysis
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Message: 2
The situation in the Gniezno Lake District is becoming more and more dramatic. The water level in other lakes in this area drops
drastically. The worst situation concerns the Wilczynskie Lake, where the water level dropped by 6 meters. It is also not good with one of
the cleanest lakes in Wielkopolska: Kownacki, Osowa Góra, Suszewskie, Wójcinski, Czyste, Ostrowskie and Niedziegiel. ---- Keywords Green
Wave Climate change ---- The main person responsible for this condition is the company ZE-PAK, which manages lignite mines located in this
region, which during 80 years of their operation pumped out 12 billion m3 of water from this area. Despite this situation, ZE-PAK, together
with its owner, Zygmunt Solorz (the richest Pole), still plans to open new opencast mines. The disappearance of these lakes will be a huge
loss for the region, and the consequences of these processes are already visible as the surrounding forests are drying up due to lack of water.
The lakes region lives mainly from tourism. When the lakes disappear, tourists will disappear with them, leading to the loss of the main
livelihood of the inhabitants. Local agriculture will also suffer because of the lack of water to cultivate the fields. Even the record
rainfall in May did not improve the situation, even then the water level continued to decline.
On September 9, the Voivode of Wielkopolska received an application submitted by residents for the appointment of a crisis team in
connection with the natural disaster in the Gniezno Lake District. There is no answer to it so far. The situation was different when the
voivode without hesitation appointed a crisis team in connection with protests against opencast mines and in order to save the lakes. At
that time, several thousand policemen were brought to the region against the protesters. For the rulers, it seems more important to protect
private business than to protect lakes and the climate, which are our common good.
We don't have time to wait any longer. This Friday, on the day of the worldwide protests of the Youth Climate Strike, we meet at 13:00 at
the building of the Provincial Office in Poznan, to demand that the voivode appoint a crisis team and urgent actions at the provincial and
national level to stop the degradation of the Lake District. Climate change won't hit us in 10 or 20 years, and the fight for water isn't a
science fiction script. They are already there today and are happening in our neighborhood, so it is so important to act immediately.
Otherwise, instead of the beautiful Gniezno Lake District, we will have a desert without conditions to work and live for people and other
creatures.
Zielona Fala
Anarchist Federation p. Poznan
https://www.facebook.com/events/324510888851180
https://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/krajowe/4730-domagamy-sie-sztabu-kryzysowego-dla-pojezierza-gnieznienskiego
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Message: 3
At the moment the various parties are trying to convince the public to support them and give them the power to control our lives. Various
forms of media are being used towards this goal and our streets are being contaminated with the visual pollution of billboards. It's
tiresome at best and nauseating at worst. ---- Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) is hoping to counteract this power mongering
fiesta with our own message. We have initiated an anti-election campaign which so far includes a leaflet and stickers. As a small
organisation with limited resources we wish we could do more but we are making up for this with dedication. ---- We have begun distributing
thousands of our leaflets and stickers and are talking to people in multiple locations. So far this has included the Bay of Plenty, Waikato,
East Coast, Taranaki, Kapiti Coast, Wellington, Hutt Valley, and Dunedin. It will soon even include Stewart Island and Northland!
If you feel you have the time to help support our efforts, please get in touch and we can send you some leaflets.
https://awsm.nz/?p=6812
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Message: 4
This year, the NYC anarchist bookfair is all virtual ---- Join host David Rovics as he speaks with ANARCHOARTLAB, an organizer for the 14th
annual NYC Anarchist Bookfair to be held September 25-27, 2020 ---- It's virtual, so everyone can attend! The Fifth Estate will be there.
---- This year's theme is Parallel Worlds: Creating Autonomous Communities. It's organized by a collective of Anarchx-feminist/queer
artists, and invites you to articulate practices across borders and build together the bases for viable self-governing alternative
systems.It will explore issues such as food autonomy, anarchist justice systems, resistance organizing, indigenous solidarity, decolonizing
presents and futures, and radical communal care. Visit the Book Fair site for a full list of presenters and topics, and link-in info.
https://anarchistbookfair.net/
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Message: 5
On Saturday 26th of September Anarchist Bookshop Opstand and local Kurdish youth have organised a "meet & greet". The event is aimed at
create bonds between those who desire a different world and strengthen international solidarity. During the event there will be a
presentation and discussion based on the achievements of the social revolution in Rojava. ---- The "meet & greet" will start at 16:00 at the
Kurdish Cultural Centre at Radarstraat 23 in The Hague. There will be some food for during the discussion. Afterwards we will move to social
centre De Samenscholing (Beatrijsstraat 12; 5 minutes walk) for a more informal setting, some drinks, table football and pool.
Hope to see you all then!
Vrije Bond Secretariaat
https://www.vrijebond.org/meet-greet-kurdish-youth-opstand/
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