Today's Topics:
1. cnt-ait: The other assault on the Capitol 25 years ago ...
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. higinio carrocera FAI: A thousand people demonstrate in
Slovenia in support of the self-managed center of Rog (ca, de,
it, fr, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Slovenia in support of the self-managed center of Rog (ca, de,
it, fr, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, UCL AL #312 - Ecology, Agriculture: Seasonal hiring,
permanent pain (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
permanent pain (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. grupo aurora: IFA statement - The global pandemic and its
consequences are overwhelming the working class,
consequences are overwhelming the working class,
the exploited
and the oppressed people. (ca, de, it, pt)
and the oppressed people. (ca, de, it, pt)
[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Embate - Revolutionary Anarchism in Portugal (ca, de, it,
pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. UK, anarchist communist group ACG: China: the repression
against the Uighurs (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
against the Uighurs (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. France, AL #312 - Digital, Interview: Stéphane Ortega
(Balance of power) "Limiting our dependence" (ca, de, it, fr,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
For French people, the Capitol is not only the US institution, it is also the
name of the City Hall of Toulouse, 4th city in France in term of inhabitants, and
France's capital of anarchist movement since one century. ---- This story of the
assault on the Capitol Hill in Washington reminds me of another assault, just 25
years ago, but in Toulouse ... December 17, 1995, was the last demonstration
against the "Pension and social securty reform" ("plan Juppé" in French, named
from the 1st minister of that time, Juppé). The social movement against Plan
Juppé has been the widest since May 68, a renewal of contestation, with massive
demonstration and large general strike in public transport branch, paralyzing the
country for one month.
For the last demonstration of the movement, Unions had decided to make it a show
off, to demonstrate strength and calm, and above all to organize the movement's
funeral with great fanfare. They wanted to stop the strike and street movement,
to make place to round tables negociations. Christmas was approaching, it was
time for the «confectioners' truce» (tradition in France that all type of
conflicts are stopped during Christmas holidays). The Unions had therefore
decided to exhaust us in circling around the city center but above all not to
return to the center so as not to hamper the shops and stores on these eve of the
holidays[1].
There had been a huge crowd at this demo. It is even the biggest demo ever seen
in the history of Toulouse, 100,000 people ... Arrived at Esquirol square, after
walking in circles all afternoon, walkers still had a desire for something
more... The demo couldn't stop there... We didn't feel tired despite the endless
journey. A friend disguised as a ninja turtle, ski mask on the face, an helmet
and a DIY shield made with a speed limit sign starts to shout«it's at the Capitol
that we will have fun». While the Unions turn right to go towards the Carmelites
square, the demo branches off to the left and continues towards the Capitol
square. We are several thousand. Arrived at the Capitol square, (the Cap'), the
place is invaded.
The friends of InfoSud (autonomous magazine of the time) try to hang their black
banner on the Capitol's gate. The doors opens. Parked at a corner of the square,
behind the red and black banner of your favorite anarchosyndicate, the companions
say to themselves «it seems that things are moving at the Cap's doors, they have
managed to get into the city hall». 2 friends run to see what's going on. They
are followed by 2 other fellow mates, then 20, then 200,then everyone who is
rushing to the doors. The rest of the demonstration follows the movement...
In fact the doors had opened to let out the mobile guards (anti-riot elite unit)
piled up in the courtyard of the Capitol building. Getting outside, they were not
wearing any protective equipment, only wearing their caps... When the wave rushes
on them, the impact is frontal on the plexiglass shields. The flag poles come
down. A few caps fly. Teeth too. The blue line is scattered. Anti-riots flee and
get back quickly into the Capitole to lock themselves in the town hall. From the
first floor, on the balcony of the Capitol, mobile guards smash the window
glasses of the Hall of illustrious people and swing the tear gas to drown the Cap
Square. But the demonstrators do not move, even ask for more. Families with
strollers barely take shelter under the arcades surrounding the square. Workers
on striker and autonomous squatters help each other to gather garbage cans (the
garbage collectors had been on strike for several weeks) on the door of the
Capitole Opera House which is inside the City Hall, and set it on fire. The door
starts to burn ...
The demonstrators are spreading in the small streets around the Capitol to take a
stand. A customer rushes out of the hairdresser, in a blouse and his hair full of
shampoo: the rioters were in the process of overturning his BMW to make a
barricade of it. In Paragaminière street, other rioters help the shopkeeper of a
small convenience store to bring in his shelves; in exchange the shopkeeper gives
them water and lemons against the tear gas. A few cars are overturned to
obstruct, small groups harass the cops without stopping. Young people from
working-class neighborhoods, on a strolling in the city center, are joining the
movement. The cat and mouse game lasts several hours, taking advantage of the
night that has just fallen. The «sugars,» those white cop vans, zigzag to avoid
the projectiles and the trash that fall on them.
Not a single person was arrested, and also not a single store window fell: that
night, despite shopping day and Christmas Eve, the targets were the cops. Young
and old, activists and onlookers, all together. Pure rage, without opportunism
neither consumerist nor political.
The following day the news headline » Anarchists assault on Capitole: 200
Anarchists behind a Red and Black Banner Attack the Capitol. They threw away
whatever they had in their pockets: bolts, beer bottles, etc. The thugs get
involved «. Baudis, the Mayor of Toulouse, speaks of an insurrection. A federated
anarchist group, whose name will be kept silent for pity,made a statement to
complain that «the police headquarter obviously took no measures to prevent the
demonstration from accessing the Capitol square » (the Police union, FASP, will
also complain on the same tone... ) and reject any confusion between anarchists
and thugs. The CNT-AIT for its part, only disputes that - contrary to what
newspapers wrote - the demonstrators didn't joined the demo with any projectiles
in their pockets and asks the question of police provocations ...
In the evening with our friends of the anarchosyndicate, we had a great meal in
the self-managed restaurant of Titi and Nicolas. The caps - war prizes - turn
from one head to another, we laugh, one compañera takes out the accordion, we
sing and laugh loudly.
It was the best Christmas of my life ...
The reform pension has been withdrawn, and would be reintroduced only 10 years
after. May be this assault on the Capitol had played a small role in this
Little Mouna ...
[1]Here is what the "Dépêche du Midi", the main newspaper of Toulousesaid in its
edition the day before the demo: «To spare the city center shopping streets, the
Capitol square, the town hall and the prefecture from the demonstration, admit
that it is a feat! This is the concession made by the Unions ... who do not want
to make their movement unpopular by «too many demonstrations». For shops and
retailers in the centre, this means (finally!) peace in front of their stores.
It's terribly important on this first Saturday of the Christmas rush. The same
satisfaction is obviously valid for buyers: they will not feel any discomfort.
The city center (clean since yesterday) will be free of any event, and perfectly
accessible. ... We salute this great loop... of great capacity, open and
intelligent, which «does not strangle the city. When the demonstration will be in
Saint Cyprien square, we will be quiet in town! On the other hand, Esquirol
square and Languedoc street will be drowned in demonstrators, say around 4 pm to
4:30 pm, at the time of the dislocation. " the police authorities and the unions
had obviously planned everything... except a minor glitch...
http://cnt-ait.info/2021/01/23/capitole-95-en/
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Message: 2
IFA - Despite the intimidation, the unprecedented police occupation of the city
of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the repression, Nazi provocations and coronavirus
measures, we were able to carry out this Friday one of the strongest
demonstrations in solidarity with the autonomous space Rog. Up to 1000
individuals attended the demonstration in the city. The police were unable to
seriously repress her: only one arrest, some fines, etc. We are also receiving a
lot of support and solidarity from around the world. We understand this struggle
- which will continue these days - as a struggle against gentrification, the
capitalist colonization of our lives and cities, the repression of the police
state ... and we are trying to build a broad anti-capitalist and anti-fascist
front around the issue.
According to wikipedia, Rog's factory(also known asFactory Rog) is a
squatinLjubljana,Slovenia, occupied and open since 2006. Before that, it was an
abandoned building near the center of Ljubljana for 15 years, after which the
company bicycle manufacturing companyRog willquit. due to high logistics costs.
The building is historically best known as the factory where Rog bikes were
manufactured between 1953 and 1991.
Today, the former Rog factory serves Ljubljana and the wider community as a space
for alternative content that is lacking in an otherwise heavily institutionalized
Slovenia. Its 7,000 square meters (75,000 square feet) house many collectives and
spaces: multiple gallery spaces, art studios, twoskateparks(including the largest
indoor skatepark in the Balkans),Rog Social Centerfor disadvantaged groups (such
as migrants and refugees) , various concert venues and nightclubs, a bicycle
repair shop, etc. These groups offer a rich program of social and cultural
activities. All users participate directly and make decisions collectively
ingeneral assemblies.
The legal status of the use of the factory spaces has been controversial from the
beginning and escalated on June 6, 2016, when construction workers entered the
spaces to begin the demolition process by order of the Mayor of Ljubljana,Zoran
Jankovic. On June 14, 2016 the local court decided to stop the demolition of the
buildings until the conflict is resolved through the court.
https://higiniocarrocera.home.blog/2021/01/24/un-millar-de-personas-se-manifiesta-en-eslovenia-en-apoyo-al-centro-autogestionado-de-rog/
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Message: 3
A tragedy that occurred in October made even more visible the need to organize to
warn about the working conditions of seasonal workers, and to defend their
rights, in a context of competition between them and them, and while the recent
unemployment reform adds to this precariousness. ---- In La Motte du Caire, in
the middle of the apple harvest campaign, Sunday, October 11, 2020, a 32-year-old
seasonal worker was found suffocated dead in her vehicle on an undeveloped plot,
without access to water or electricity. A makeshift heater improvised by the
victim is the cause of his death. The seasonal and seasonal workers still present
in the peaceful village, upset by the death of their colleague, have organized
themselves to inform the media, institutions, consumers, the population, local
actors and other colleagues of this sinister accident which for them is not
inevitable, but one of the consequences of a reception in unworthy conditions.
An email address and a blog have been opened by the Demains collective in order
to receive testimonials[1].
Omar Bárcena CC BY-NC 2.0
Seasonal agricultural work such as harvesting requires significant labor over a
short period of time, as local labor is often insufficient to ensure the season.
All put in competition
Farmers then appeal to foreign and French seasonal workers from other regions,
who must find temporary accommodation, while the agricultural work is done. The
private offer remains insufficient, unsuitable, and economically unattractive for
these numerous precarious staff seldom paid more than the social minimums imposed
(when they have the chance to be declared). Most are in autonomous mobile housing
(camping, vans ...) and the small campsites in these rural areas are quickly
saturated.
Some operators give themselves the means to receive their staff in dignified
conditions, others do not (overcrowded collective housing, wild camping on a
plot, without the provision of sanitary facilities or drinking water, without
electricity). The workers are forced to accept these unworthy conditions, so easy
has it become to be replaced. The case of this seasonal is not isolated.
The living and working conditions of these seasonal workers raise many questions
about the agricultural model, migration policies, agricultural wage labor or
consumer information. Many agricultural areas are now turning to teams of
seconded workers, made available by international service companies.
These kinds of foreign temping companies hire these people for the desired length
of time - an unexpected flexibility for farmers, and very tough competition for
"traditional" seasonal workers . Some companies even have their own transport
company and links with the country of origin in order to guarantee the loyalty of
the seconded (scholarships, social benefits).
Subject to the charges of the sending country, they must however respect part of
French law: hourly minimum wage, union rights, working time, payment of costs
linked to secondment. In reality, seasonal workers are poorly informed of these
rights, rarely speak French and find themselves isolated in the fields. Frauds
are then numerous: the payslips do not reflect the real remuneration, the
unverifiable number of hours often violates the agreements and the providers
multiply the deductions of expenses (food, accommodation, etc.).
After half a century of the common agricultural policy, our agriculture has
undergone many transformations. The number of farms is decreasing as their
average size continues to grow, aiming to increase volumes, yields and profits to
cope in an open and deregulated market.
The opening of markets at European and international level weighs on employment.
The detachment in the building has caused great debate, but not a word on the
agricultural temporary workers. While environmental issues seem to be of
increasing concern to consumers, social issues are never mentioned: under what
conditions do fruit pickers work? Trade union work is particularly complicated in
the agricultural world.
Faced with this observation, the Confédération paysanne, as a union for the
defense of family farming and workers of the land, took up the subject and worked
to denounce the misdeeds of the agricultural model and violations of rights. humans.
Because agricultural liberalization has serious consequences in France and
elsewhere, international work is being carried out. Supporting peasant
agriculture is to encourage a model which respects the right to income of
peasants but also of seasonal workers, it is to defend the rights of all workers
of the land, farmers or employees, from here or elsewhere. It is to remind
consumers that environmental but also social issues are paramount and that they
have the right to know.
The hard blow of the unemployment reform
Other sectors such as tourism and catering are regularly singled out following
numerous deaths linked to accommodation conditions. This is particularly the case
in ski resorts, where environmental conditions are particularly harsh.
In 2015, the Hautes-Alpes department carried out a study on seasonal
accommodation at nine resorts: nearly half of the people employed were not
satisfied, when they were not housed in their trucks fitted out in station car
parks, these sometimes pushing the vice to the point of driving them out under
the guise of fighting against the precariousness of these housing conditions. The
situation has not really improved since, despite the provision of additional
housing, sometimes too expensive.
With the recent unemployment reform in France, the status of seasonal workers is
once again undermined. You must now have worked six months to receive the return
to work allowance, a period often difficult to achieve in seasonal jobs. If the
seasonal workers of the ski lifts have obtained from the Ministry of Labor,
following their mobilization last winter, a support plan, this is not the case
for the other sectors concerned.
With the Covid-19 crisis, the threat is even greater for this sector, which
concerns more than a million people in France. Many of them are likely to be
added to the wave of expected layoffs, without the compensation that has so far
allowed them to survive in slack periods.
Edouard (UCL Alpes-Provence)
Validate
[1] The collective can be contacted at solidarite.saisonniers@mailo.com or via
their site demains.altervista.org.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Agriculture-Embauche-saisonniere-douleur-permanente
------------------------------
Message: 4
It is the part of the world population most affected by the pandemic and, at the
same time, the most committed to protecting the health of all. ---- The state and
capitalist system is showing more clearly its weaknesses and contradictions. The
acceleration of authoritarian processes taking place worldwide is aimed at
defending the power, privileges and benefits of the ruling classes. ---- In
various regions of the world we are witnessing the deterioration of the living
and working conditions of hundreds of millions of people. The hoarding of natural
resources is underway and essential goods, such as land and water, are
increasingly concentrated in the hands of large landowners. Few large companies
in different sectors such as e-commerce, technology, media, pharmaceuticals,
retail, and the automotive industry prospered during the pandemic, earning
hundreds of billions of dollars. In many countries the military budget has been
increasing and the warlike tensions between states are being exacerbated in a
growing concert of racist, fascist and nationalist propaganda.
Governments around the world are strengthening security agencies, both to further
control and repress the population, and to expand the power of the police forces.
Meanwhile, the segregated population is living the current situation in total
deprivation, in Gaza as in the ghettos of big cities, or in Lesvos, in
immigration detention camps and in prisons all over the world. Often governments
use measures to prevent coronavirus infection to attack fighting movements.
In all corners of the world there are forms of resistance. These struggle
movements in some cases are not only resisting the hardening of authoritarian
policies, but are trying to create an alternative. We are with the peoples who
rebel in the United States against racism and the police, or in Nigeria against
the special security forces, in France against a new police state, against the
violence of genocide and the repression against the Mapuche people in Chile. We
stand with those who fight against dictatorship in Turkey and Belarus, or against
authoritarian regimes in Thailand and Indonesia. Wherever the anarchist movement
is present, it is an active part of these struggles. In various regions of the
world, anarchists are committed daily, defending spaces of freedom,
Now more than ever it is necessary to strengthen the internationalist dimension
of anarchism, to confront the ongoing authoritarian processes, to relaunch a
revolutionary perspective in a world that capitalism and the state led to collapse.
https://grupoaurora.noblogs.org/post/2021/01/23/comunicado-de-la-ifa/
------------------------------
Message: 5
Hands of the Masses: building Revolutionary Anarchism in Portugal ---- We are at
the end of 2020 and the class struggle is intensifying, in Portugal and in the
world. The interests of the capitalist class continue, increasingly, to make
themselves felt and dominate our lives, to exploit us, to limit ourselves, they
continue to condemn us to misery and death, with or without pandemic, with or
without economic crisis. A class continues to have to sell its labor force to
survive, in increasingly precarious conditions. That class is us, unemployed
workers, precarious in this world. ---- The State remains the violent and
dissociating apparatus that defends patronage and property, and to do so, it does
not look to the means and is not concerned with maintaining its benevolent
theater when the people face its domination. Parties that aim to dispute the
state and representative apparatus to supposedly transform or benefit from only a
few advantages of electoral policy continue to be assimilated and to contribute
to the extension of a game that we do not want to play. Parties that aspire to
control and use social movements as echo chambers for their percentages,
affiliations, and interests, continue to undermine the potential of our class
spaces when they do not encounter an organized, autonomous and sufficiently
strong opposition. It is necessary to break the hegemony of these defeat
orchestrators,
Anarchism, the movement of lives and the interests of the working class in this
struggle, remains pertinent and its need is more than current, urgent. It is our
duty and role to ensure the presence, initiative, dispute and alternative
direction towards a revolutionary, socialist and grassroots addition to the
social movements. The revolution will be of the masses, made and thought by the
masses creatively through their organizations and structures so we must assume
what we are: hands of the masses ready to act and reflect strategically for our
autonomy and liberation. At the moment, in Portugal, the anarchist movement is
poorly structured and does not present any programmatic direction with a view to
revolutionary construction, on the contrary, it is limited to some "bubbles of
autonomy" and libertarian spaces, which although important
We observed two prevailing attitudes towards action in what can be considered an
anarchist movement in Portugal. On the one hand, a cultural sector, where an
attitude of maintaining a state of the art disconnected from the battlefield
reigns, is lost in nostalgia or is lost in individualistic lyricalism and devoid
of praxis, built of itself for itself. In this perspective, anarchism is
understood as a cultural utopia capable of being built in isolation and distant
from the concrete needs of the working and marginalized people, exclusively
through pedagogy and propaganda without strategy. On the other hand, there is a
sector invested in being in the countryside whose approach to social movements is
still in a disjointed and disorganized way, which for this reason we will call
activist. Without tactical dispute and permeated by taboos about the roles that
we can play and the preparation that we must have, we are thus left to the mercy
of opportunistic forces, already mentioned above. We believe that practice
without theory is as great an evil as theory without practice. It is necessary to
plan the action, carry out a strategic construction with a revolutionary
orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical basis also revolutionary.
The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice, where actions
disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating identity
niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants. We believe that
practice without theory is as great an evil as theory without practice. It is
necessary to plan the action, carry out a strategic construction with a
revolutionary orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical basis also
revolutionary. The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice, where
actions disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating
identity niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants. We
believe that practice without theory is as great an evil as theory without
practice. It is necessary to plan the action, carry out a strategic construction
with a revolutionary orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical
basis also revolutionary. The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice,
where actions disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating
identity niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants.
But everything is not just desert. In the last four years, comrades have been
doing important work trying to resume the methods of revolutionary unionism in
the student environment, where they embraced the creation of an organized and
structured project, ideologically plural, autonomous, combative and class that
dares to build and dispute spaces of the movement student promoting forms of
struggle and agendas that strengthen the and students, that challenge the modus
operandi of capitalist and statist institutions, instead of leaving them hostage
to formal or informal apparatus by parties and interests outside the immediate
reality of those below; and that managed to boost relations nationally and
internationally. Also, in the last year, a similar initiative has emerged within
the field of struggle for precarious workers. We took part in these initiatives,
which were essential for our militant construction. They were also necessary to
realize that they, by themselves, are not enough. It is necessary to go further,
towards the construction of a Political Organization that takes care of the
demands of the revolutionary struggle, which focuses on the role of theoretical
and strategic construction for the moment of rupture.
That said, there is still a third problem at the theoretical level that afflicts
those who identify with libertarian ideals in Portugal. Part of Portuguese
anarchism permeates an idealistic view that social movements must call themselves
anarchists in order to be combative. In the absence of political organization
through which to conspire and deepen their theoretical postulates, they seek to
transform their movements into their organizations. Thus, instead of movements
and social spaces concentrating on their objective material struggles, they waste
time and energy discussing subjects completely unrelated to what that space
proposes, even willing to implode them in case of disagreement. As defenders of
revolutionary unionism, we observe and understand that movements and their
subjects become combative and revolutionary through a liberating, supportive
practice that encourages direct action without representatives and intermediaries
in the defense of the class's interests by the class itself. Reflecting on the
same problem, Bakunin writes that
"... the founders of the International Association acted with great wisdom by
initially eliminating all political and religious issues from the Association's
program. Undoubtedly, they lacked absolutely no political opinions, nor
well-defined anti-religious opinions; but they abstained to issue them in this
program because their main objective was to unite above all the working masses of
the civilized world in a common action. "
- The Politics of the International, by Mikhail Bakunin
There is a lack of an organization that proposes a theoretical, ideological and
programmatic work of the revolution that we defend, that in the anarchist
tradition comes to group, train and direct, from the analysis and common
decisions in a coherent conceptual field, the action and the militancy that knows
that he wants a stateless society, organized by those who work, where the freedom
of the other extends us to infinity. We propose to start building such a space.
The time now is to act and begin to outline the tasks to be carried out in this
first organizational and struggle effort.
In the same way that an anarchism that does not see classes or without a working
class project is not anarchism, an anarchism that abstains from the field,
immobilized, is not anarchist either. We need an anarchism that is present and
that recognizes in the proposal of its presence an anarchism in movement, an
anarchism of structural and ideological clash. A part of that anarchism already
exists and is now made public through this publication and collective.
Long live the peoples' struggle against capital and the bourgeoisie!
Long live the memory and practice of Libertarian Socialism!
Advance the construction of Revolutionary Anarchism!
Pro-Anarchist Collective in Portugal
https://www.facebook.com/embatecopoap/posts/114591310484057
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Message: 6
Xinjiang, or Chinese Turkestan as it was once known, has been a Chinese sphere of
influence for many centuries. Lying to the west of China, it was through the
oases cities that the silk route to the West ran. It was fought over by different
Chinese dynasties in their wars with the Xiongnu tribal confederacy to the north,
and then with successor steppe empires. ---- Xinjiang was occupied by the
Uighurs, a Turkic grouping that has lived there from at least the 8th century.
The area was declared an autonomous region after the establishment of the
Communist Party's People's Republic of China in 1949. There are 10 million
Uighurs in Xinjiang, most of them Sunni Muslims. In the 1950s large numbers of
Han (ethnic Chinese) began to move into the area, leading to a rise of 21 million
in the present day. As a result, the Uighurs now count as only 45% of the
population. This immigration policy was a deliberate tactic by the Chinese
government, encouraged by oil and gas fields in the region. Alongside Chinese
workers are Chinese capitalists taking advantage of these rich assets. The
economic boom that resulted did not noticeably benefit the Uighurs, as both state
and private sectors tended to hire Han workers rather than Uighurs, based both on
nepotism and discrimination.
As a result, the economic gap between Uighurs and Han has increased tremendously,
fuelling resentment. To overcome this, the Chinese government encouraged, from
2002 onwards, Uighurs to move to the factories and building sites of eastern
China. To both encourage this, and at the same time attack the Uighur language,
courses in Mandarin Chinese were offered, as well as industrial training. Those
who refused to move faced heavy fines. This has resulted in 1.5 million Uighurs
relocated to other parts of the Chinese Republic.
The Chinese government has pursued a policy of sinification (making other
cultures more "Chinese"), forcing Uighurs to abandon their language for Mandarin
and give up other aspects of their culture. Mandarin is the only language spoken
in Xinjiang universities, and the poverty of the lower classes of Uighurs has
made learning Mandarin difficult. The Uighur language is regarded as "out of step
with the 21st century", by the Stalinist overlord of Xingjiang, Wang Lequan.
Islamic fundamentalists have taken advantage of the resentment against the
Chinese government to spread their ideas in Xinjiang. The ethnic and economic
tension in Xinjiang led to riots against the Han Chinese in the city of Urumqi in
2009.
From 2017 the Chinese government intensified its sinification programme and its
attacks on Uighur language and culture. Detention camps were constructed, and
now, up to 1 million have been imprisoned there. These camps go under the name of
"re-education and training centres". It is not just Uighurs who suffer in these
camps, but members of other Turkic language groups like the Kazakhs and the Kirghiz.
In part this is a drive against practitioners of Islam, with those wearing beards
or the veil being detained. Another aspect is punishment for links with family
members and relations outside of China. At the same time, a purge of Uighurs
within the local Communist Party, and among intellectuals, academics and literati
has seen many of them ending up in the camps.
Conditions in the camps are rumoured to be harsh, with a fierce regime of
indoctrination imposed there. Some face daily beatings, others face
"self-criticism sessions" and the mind-numbing repeating of patriotic slogans.
Things are not much better outside the camps, with many police and military
checkpoints, indoctrination routines like raising the Chinese flag and forcing
people to take oaths of loyalty to the "People's" Republic. Video cameras
dominate Uighur neighbourhoods as well as the constant presence of police
patrols. Spectacles of military drilling are another sign of intimidation and
repression. In addition, a policy of forced sterilisation appears to be being
carried out in the camps.
The autocracy, ruling from Beijing, defends its imperialist policies in central
Asia and Tibet by looking towards the cynical support of the USA and its allies,
including Britain, for the Uighurs and Tibetans. It can then justify its policies
by citing opposition to Western imperialism. It is joined in this by a chorus of
assorted Stalinists and a minority of Trotskyists around the world, who in the
name of anti-imperialism, dismiss the repression of the Uighurs as bogus, and
thus defend the Chinese autocracy.
Anarchist communists should clearly show that they support neither Beijing nor
Washington over the question of the Uighurs. We need to encourage and support
international solidarity and attempts to stop arms sales to China at a grassroots
level, including the refusal of dockers and seafarers to transport arms, which
will be used against both the Uighurs and against future revolts of workers and
students. Pressure needs to be exerted on corporate chains like Apple, Nike, Gap,
Muji, Uniqlo, H&M, Esprit and Adidas who are profiting from forced labour in the
Xinjiang camps. The region produces the majority of the cotton output in China
(84%), and some of this is manufactured by forced labour. Other products coming
out of the camps include human hair products.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2021/01/25/china-the-repression-against-the-uighurs/
------------------------------
Message: 7
In order to better understand the relationship between Facebook and independent
media such as Relations de force, we interviewed Stéphane Ortega, of the
editorial staff at the end of November. ---- Alternative Libertaire : Why is it
essential for you to be on Facebook ? ---- Stéphane Ortega: Facebook has shaped
the uses of the population, particularly in terms of "consumption " some
information. He made himself indispensable. For them, as for the media who want
to be read. To support a media like ours, that is to say independent, open
access, and which attempts to remunerate its journalists through donations, it is
essential to develop a large audience. However, we must seek this readership
where people have become accustomed to finding information. Otherwise, it amounts
to condemning yourself to be confined to a marginal niche, made up of small
networks that know us beforehand. And finally disappear quickly, because we are
unable to make a living from our work. In addition, today, having an impact by
releasing a particular piece of information, without benefiting from a possible
virality on social networks, turns out to be almost mission impossible.
What was the impact of your ban ?
Stéphane Ortega: Immediate. Between October 15 and November 3, the period of ban
on Power relations on Facebook, visits to the site were halved. None of our
articles reached 1000 readers during this period except the one explaining the
risk of the death in the medium term of our media. But even that one didn't get
the echo it should have.
What lessons do you take from this episode ?
Stéphane Ortega: We are going to initiate a reflection to try to limit our
dependence on Facebook. Of course, there would be the possibility of investing in
free networks or regularly encouraging our readership to disseminate our articles
by other means. By mails or text messages for example. And we probably will.
However, we are not under any illusions: it is not the balance of power alone
that will change the way people "consume" information. And we will still have to
reach people where they are. Especially those who do not know us yet.
Interview by Léo (UCL Lyon)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Entretien-Stephane-Ortega-Rapports-de-force-Limiter-notre-dependance
------------------------------
(Balance of power) "Limiting our dependence" (ca, de, it, fr,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
For French people, the Capitol is not only the US institution, it is also the
name of the City Hall of Toulouse, 4th city in France in term of inhabitants, and
France's capital of anarchist movement since one century. ---- This story of the
assault on the Capitol Hill in Washington reminds me of another assault, just 25
years ago, but in Toulouse ... December 17, 1995, was the last demonstration
against the "Pension and social securty reform" ("plan Juppé" in French, named
from the 1st minister of that time, Juppé). The social movement against Plan
Juppé has been the widest since May 68, a renewal of contestation, with massive
demonstration and large general strike in public transport branch, paralyzing the
country for one month.
For the last demonstration of the movement, Unions had decided to make it a show
off, to demonstrate strength and calm, and above all to organize the movement's
funeral with great fanfare. They wanted to stop the strike and street movement,
to make place to round tables negociations. Christmas was approaching, it was
time for the «confectioners' truce» (tradition in France that all type of
conflicts are stopped during Christmas holidays). The Unions had therefore
decided to exhaust us in circling around the city center but above all not to
return to the center so as not to hamper the shops and stores on these eve of the
holidays[1].
There had been a huge crowd at this demo. It is even the biggest demo ever seen
in the history of Toulouse, 100,000 people ... Arrived at Esquirol square, after
walking in circles all afternoon, walkers still had a desire for something
more... The demo couldn't stop there... We didn't feel tired despite the endless
journey. A friend disguised as a ninja turtle, ski mask on the face, an helmet
and a DIY shield made with a speed limit sign starts to shout«it's at the Capitol
that we will have fun». While the Unions turn right to go towards the Carmelites
square, the demo branches off to the left and continues towards the Capitol
square. We are several thousand. Arrived at the Capitol square, (the Cap'), the
place is invaded.
The friends of InfoSud (autonomous magazine of the time) try to hang their black
banner on the Capitol's gate. The doors opens. Parked at a corner of the square,
behind the red and black banner of your favorite anarchosyndicate, the companions
say to themselves «it seems that things are moving at the Cap's doors, they have
managed to get into the city hall». 2 friends run to see what's going on. They
are followed by 2 other fellow mates, then 20, then 200,then everyone who is
rushing to the doors. The rest of the demonstration follows the movement...
In fact the doors had opened to let out the mobile guards (anti-riot elite unit)
piled up in the courtyard of the Capitol building. Getting outside, they were not
wearing any protective equipment, only wearing their caps... When the wave rushes
on them, the impact is frontal on the plexiglass shields. The flag poles come
down. A few caps fly. Teeth too. The blue line is scattered. Anti-riots flee and
get back quickly into the Capitole to lock themselves in the town hall. From the
first floor, on the balcony of the Capitol, mobile guards smash the window
glasses of the Hall of illustrious people and swing the tear gas to drown the Cap
Square. But the demonstrators do not move, even ask for more. Families with
strollers barely take shelter under the arcades surrounding the square. Workers
on striker and autonomous squatters help each other to gather garbage cans (the
garbage collectors had been on strike for several weeks) on the door of the
Capitole Opera House which is inside the City Hall, and set it on fire. The door
starts to burn ...
The demonstrators are spreading in the small streets around the Capitol to take a
stand. A customer rushes out of the hairdresser, in a blouse and his hair full of
shampoo: the rioters were in the process of overturning his BMW to make a
barricade of it. In Paragaminière street, other rioters help the shopkeeper of a
small convenience store to bring in his shelves; in exchange the shopkeeper gives
them water and lemons against the tear gas. A few cars are overturned to
obstruct, small groups harass the cops without stopping. Young people from
working-class neighborhoods, on a strolling in the city center, are joining the
movement. The cat and mouse game lasts several hours, taking advantage of the
night that has just fallen. The «sugars,» those white cop vans, zigzag to avoid
the projectiles and the trash that fall on them.
Not a single person was arrested, and also not a single store window fell: that
night, despite shopping day and Christmas Eve, the targets were the cops. Young
and old, activists and onlookers, all together. Pure rage, without opportunism
neither consumerist nor political.
The following day the news headline » Anarchists assault on Capitole: 200
Anarchists behind a Red and Black Banner Attack the Capitol. They threw away
whatever they had in their pockets: bolts, beer bottles, etc. The thugs get
involved «. Baudis, the Mayor of Toulouse, speaks of an insurrection. A federated
anarchist group, whose name will be kept silent for pity,made a statement to
complain that «the police headquarter obviously took no measures to prevent the
demonstration from accessing the Capitol square » (the Police union, FASP, will
also complain on the same tone... ) and reject any confusion between anarchists
and thugs. The CNT-AIT for its part, only disputes that - contrary to what
newspapers wrote - the demonstrators didn't joined the demo with any projectiles
in their pockets and asks the question of police provocations ...
In the evening with our friends of the anarchosyndicate, we had a great meal in
the self-managed restaurant of Titi and Nicolas. The caps - war prizes - turn
from one head to another, we laugh, one compañera takes out the accordion, we
sing and laugh loudly.
It was the best Christmas of my life ...
The reform pension has been withdrawn, and would be reintroduced only 10 years
after. May be this assault on the Capitol had played a small role in this
Little Mouna ...
[1]Here is what the "Dépêche du Midi", the main newspaper of Toulousesaid in its
edition the day before the demo: «To spare the city center shopping streets, the
Capitol square, the town hall and the prefecture from the demonstration, admit
that it is a feat! This is the concession made by the Unions ... who do not want
to make their movement unpopular by «too many demonstrations». For shops and
retailers in the centre, this means (finally!) peace in front of their stores.
It's terribly important on this first Saturday of the Christmas rush. The same
satisfaction is obviously valid for buyers: they will not feel any discomfort.
The city center (clean since yesterday) will be free of any event, and perfectly
accessible. ... We salute this great loop... of great capacity, open and
intelligent, which «does not strangle the city. When the demonstration will be in
Saint Cyprien square, we will be quiet in town! On the other hand, Esquirol
square and Languedoc street will be drowned in demonstrators, say around 4 pm to
4:30 pm, at the time of the dislocation. " the police authorities and the unions
had obviously planned everything... except a minor glitch...
http://cnt-ait.info/2021/01/23/capitole-95-en/
------------------------------
Message: 2
IFA - Despite the intimidation, the unprecedented police occupation of the city
of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the repression, Nazi provocations and coronavirus
measures, we were able to carry out this Friday one of the strongest
demonstrations in solidarity with the autonomous space Rog. Up to 1000
individuals attended the demonstration in the city. The police were unable to
seriously repress her: only one arrest, some fines, etc. We are also receiving a
lot of support and solidarity from around the world. We understand this struggle
- which will continue these days - as a struggle against gentrification, the
capitalist colonization of our lives and cities, the repression of the police
state ... and we are trying to build a broad anti-capitalist and anti-fascist
front around the issue.
According to wikipedia, Rog's factory(also known asFactory Rog) is a
squatinLjubljana,Slovenia, occupied and open since 2006. Before that, it was an
abandoned building near the center of Ljubljana for 15 years, after which the
company bicycle manufacturing companyRog willquit. due to high logistics costs.
The building is historically best known as the factory where Rog bikes were
manufactured between 1953 and 1991.
Today, the former Rog factory serves Ljubljana and the wider community as a space
for alternative content that is lacking in an otherwise heavily institutionalized
Slovenia. Its 7,000 square meters (75,000 square feet) house many collectives and
spaces: multiple gallery spaces, art studios, twoskateparks(including the largest
indoor skatepark in the Balkans),Rog Social Centerfor disadvantaged groups (such
as migrants and refugees) , various concert venues and nightclubs, a bicycle
repair shop, etc. These groups offer a rich program of social and cultural
activities. All users participate directly and make decisions collectively
ingeneral assemblies.
The legal status of the use of the factory spaces has been controversial from the
beginning and escalated on June 6, 2016, when construction workers entered the
spaces to begin the demolition process by order of the Mayor of Ljubljana,Zoran
Jankovic. On June 14, 2016 the local court decided to stop the demolition of the
buildings until the conflict is resolved through the court.
https://higiniocarrocera.home.blog/2021/01/24/un-millar-de-personas-se-manifiesta-en-eslovenia-en-apoyo-al-centro-autogestionado-de-rog/
------------------------------
Message: 3
A tragedy that occurred in October made even more visible the need to organize to
warn about the working conditions of seasonal workers, and to defend their
rights, in a context of competition between them and them, and while the recent
unemployment reform adds to this precariousness. ---- In La Motte du Caire, in
the middle of the apple harvest campaign, Sunday, October 11, 2020, a 32-year-old
seasonal worker was found suffocated dead in her vehicle on an undeveloped plot,
without access to water or electricity. A makeshift heater improvised by the
victim is the cause of his death. The seasonal and seasonal workers still present
in the peaceful village, upset by the death of their colleague, have organized
themselves to inform the media, institutions, consumers, the population, local
actors and other colleagues of this sinister accident which for them is not
inevitable, but one of the consequences of a reception in unworthy conditions.
An email address and a blog have been opened by the Demains collective in order
to receive testimonials[1].
Omar Bárcena CC BY-NC 2.0
Seasonal agricultural work such as harvesting requires significant labor over a
short period of time, as local labor is often insufficient to ensure the season.
All put in competition
Farmers then appeal to foreign and French seasonal workers from other regions,
who must find temporary accommodation, while the agricultural work is done. The
private offer remains insufficient, unsuitable, and economically unattractive for
these numerous precarious staff seldom paid more than the social minimums imposed
(when they have the chance to be declared). Most are in autonomous mobile housing
(camping, vans ...) and the small campsites in these rural areas are quickly
saturated.
Some operators give themselves the means to receive their staff in dignified
conditions, others do not (overcrowded collective housing, wild camping on a
plot, without the provision of sanitary facilities or drinking water, without
electricity). The workers are forced to accept these unworthy conditions, so easy
has it become to be replaced. The case of this seasonal is not isolated.
The living and working conditions of these seasonal workers raise many questions
about the agricultural model, migration policies, agricultural wage labor or
consumer information. Many agricultural areas are now turning to teams of
seconded workers, made available by international service companies.
These kinds of foreign temping companies hire these people for the desired length
of time - an unexpected flexibility for farmers, and very tough competition for
"traditional" seasonal workers . Some companies even have their own transport
company and links with the country of origin in order to guarantee the loyalty of
the seconded (scholarships, social benefits).
Subject to the charges of the sending country, they must however respect part of
French law: hourly minimum wage, union rights, working time, payment of costs
linked to secondment. In reality, seasonal workers are poorly informed of these
rights, rarely speak French and find themselves isolated in the fields. Frauds
are then numerous: the payslips do not reflect the real remuneration, the
unverifiable number of hours often violates the agreements and the providers
multiply the deductions of expenses (food, accommodation, etc.).
After half a century of the common agricultural policy, our agriculture has
undergone many transformations. The number of farms is decreasing as their
average size continues to grow, aiming to increase volumes, yields and profits to
cope in an open and deregulated market.
The opening of markets at European and international level weighs on employment.
The detachment in the building has caused great debate, but not a word on the
agricultural temporary workers. While environmental issues seem to be of
increasing concern to consumers, social issues are never mentioned: under what
conditions do fruit pickers work? Trade union work is particularly complicated in
the agricultural world.
Faced with this observation, the Confédération paysanne, as a union for the
defense of family farming and workers of the land, took up the subject and worked
to denounce the misdeeds of the agricultural model and violations of rights. humans.
Because agricultural liberalization has serious consequences in France and
elsewhere, international work is being carried out. Supporting peasant
agriculture is to encourage a model which respects the right to income of
peasants but also of seasonal workers, it is to defend the rights of all workers
of the land, farmers or employees, from here or elsewhere. It is to remind
consumers that environmental but also social issues are paramount and that they
have the right to know.
The hard blow of the unemployment reform
Other sectors such as tourism and catering are regularly singled out following
numerous deaths linked to accommodation conditions. This is particularly the case
in ski resorts, where environmental conditions are particularly harsh.
In 2015, the Hautes-Alpes department carried out a study on seasonal
accommodation at nine resorts: nearly half of the people employed were not
satisfied, when they were not housed in their trucks fitted out in station car
parks, these sometimes pushing the vice to the point of driving them out under
the guise of fighting against the precariousness of these housing conditions. The
situation has not really improved since, despite the provision of additional
housing, sometimes too expensive.
With the recent unemployment reform in France, the status of seasonal workers is
once again undermined. You must now have worked six months to receive the return
to work allowance, a period often difficult to achieve in seasonal jobs. If the
seasonal workers of the ski lifts have obtained from the Ministry of Labor,
following their mobilization last winter, a support plan, this is not the case
for the other sectors concerned.
With the Covid-19 crisis, the threat is even greater for this sector, which
concerns more than a million people in France. Many of them are likely to be
added to the wave of expected layoffs, without the compensation that has so far
allowed them to survive in slack periods.
Edouard (UCL Alpes-Provence)
Validate
[1] The collective can be contacted at solidarite.saisonniers@mailo.com or via
their site demains.altervista.org.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Agriculture-Embauche-saisonniere-douleur-permanente
------------------------------
Message: 4
It is the part of the world population most affected by the pandemic and, at the
same time, the most committed to protecting the health of all. ---- The state and
capitalist system is showing more clearly its weaknesses and contradictions. The
acceleration of authoritarian processes taking place worldwide is aimed at
defending the power, privileges and benefits of the ruling classes. ---- In
various regions of the world we are witnessing the deterioration of the living
and working conditions of hundreds of millions of people. The hoarding of natural
resources is underway and essential goods, such as land and water, are
increasingly concentrated in the hands of large landowners. Few large companies
in different sectors such as e-commerce, technology, media, pharmaceuticals,
retail, and the automotive industry prospered during the pandemic, earning
hundreds of billions of dollars. In many countries the military budget has been
increasing and the warlike tensions between states are being exacerbated in a
growing concert of racist, fascist and nationalist propaganda.
Governments around the world are strengthening security agencies, both to further
control and repress the population, and to expand the power of the police forces.
Meanwhile, the segregated population is living the current situation in total
deprivation, in Gaza as in the ghettos of big cities, or in Lesvos, in
immigration detention camps and in prisons all over the world. Often governments
use measures to prevent coronavirus infection to attack fighting movements.
In all corners of the world there are forms of resistance. These struggle
movements in some cases are not only resisting the hardening of authoritarian
policies, but are trying to create an alternative. We are with the peoples who
rebel in the United States against racism and the police, or in Nigeria against
the special security forces, in France against a new police state, against the
violence of genocide and the repression against the Mapuche people in Chile. We
stand with those who fight against dictatorship in Turkey and Belarus, or against
authoritarian regimes in Thailand and Indonesia. Wherever the anarchist movement
is present, it is an active part of these struggles. In various regions of the
world, anarchists are committed daily, defending spaces of freedom,
Now more than ever it is necessary to strengthen the internationalist dimension
of anarchism, to confront the ongoing authoritarian processes, to relaunch a
revolutionary perspective in a world that capitalism and the state led to collapse.
https://grupoaurora.noblogs.org/post/2021/01/23/comunicado-de-la-ifa/
------------------------------
Message: 5
Hands of the Masses: building Revolutionary Anarchism in Portugal ---- We are at
the end of 2020 and the class struggle is intensifying, in Portugal and in the
world. The interests of the capitalist class continue, increasingly, to make
themselves felt and dominate our lives, to exploit us, to limit ourselves, they
continue to condemn us to misery and death, with or without pandemic, with or
without economic crisis. A class continues to have to sell its labor force to
survive, in increasingly precarious conditions. That class is us, unemployed
workers, precarious in this world. ---- The State remains the violent and
dissociating apparatus that defends patronage and property, and to do so, it does
not look to the means and is not concerned with maintaining its benevolent
theater when the people face its domination. Parties that aim to dispute the
state and representative apparatus to supposedly transform or benefit from only a
few advantages of electoral policy continue to be assimilated and to contribute
to the extension of a game that we do not want to play. Parties that aspire to
control and use social movements as echo chambers for their percentages,
affiliations, and interests, continue to undermine the potential of our class
spaces when they do not encounter an organized, autonomous and sufficiently
strong opposition. It is necessary to break the hegemony of these defeat
orchestrators,
Anarchism, the movement of lives and the interests of the working class in this
struggle, remains pertinent and its need is more than current, urgent. It is our
duty and role to ensure the presence, initiative, dispute and alternative
direction towards a revolutionary, socialist and grassroots addition to the
social movements. The revolution will be of the masses, made and thought by the
masses creatively through their organizations and structures so we must assume
what we are: hands of the masses ready to act and reflect strategically for our
autonomy and liberation. At the moment, in Portugal, the anarchist movement is
poorly structured and does not present any programmatic direction with a view to
revolutionary construction, on the contrary, it is limited to some "bubbles of
autonomy" and libertarian spaces, which although important
We observed two prevailing attitudes towards action in what can be considered an
anarchist movement in Portugal. On the one hand, a cultural sector, where an
attitude of maintaining a state of the art disconnected from the battlefield
reigns, is lost in nostalgia or is lost in individualistic lyricalism and devoid
of praxis, built of itself for itself. In this perspective, anarchism is
understood as a cultural utopia capable of being built in isolation and distant
from the concrete needs of the working and marginalized people, exclusively
through pedagogy and propaganda without strategy. On the other hand, there is a
sector invested in being in the countryside whose approach to social movements is
still in a disjointed and disorganized way, which for this reason we will call
activist. Without tactical dispute and permeated by taboos about the roles that
we can play and the preparation that we must have, we are thus left to the mercy
of opportunistic forces, already mentioned above. We believe that practice
without theory is as great an evil as theory without practice. It is necessary to
plan the action, carry out a strategic construction with a revolutionary
orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical basis also revolutionary.
The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice, where actions
disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating identity
niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants. We believe that
practice without theory is as great an evil as theory without practice. It is
necessary to plan the action, carry out a strategic construction with a
revolutionary orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical basis also
revolutionary. The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice, where
actions disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating
identity niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants. We
believe that practice without theory is as great an evil as theory without
practice. It is necessary to plan the action, carry out a strategic construction
with a revolutionary orientation, and for that it is necessary a theoretical
basis also revolutionary. The lack of these elements leads to a hell of practice,
where actions disconnected from concrete results have the sole effect of creating
identity niches, or, at worst, the moral exhaustion of possible militants.
But everything is not just desert. In the last four years, comrades have been
doing important work trying to resume the methods of revolutionary unionism in
the student environment, where they embraced the creation of an organized and
structured project, ideologically plural, autonomous, combative and class that
dares to build and dispute spaces of the movement student promoting forms of
struggle and agendas that strengthen the and students, that challenge the modus
operandi of capitalist and statist institutions, instead of leaving them hostage
to formal or informal apparatus by parties and interests outside the immediate
reality of those below; and that managed to boost relations nationally and
internationally. Also, in the last year, a similar initiative has emerged within
the field of struggle for precarious workers. We took part in these initiatives,
which were essential for our militant construction. They were also necessary to
realize that they, by themselves, are not enough. It is necessary to go further,
towards the construction of a Political Organization that takes care of the
demands of the revolutionary struggle, which focuses on the role of theoretical
and strategic construction for the moment of rupture.
That said, there is still a third problem at the theoretical level that afflicts
those who identify with libertarian ideals in Portugal. Part of Portuguese
anarchism permeates an idealistic view that social movements must call themselves
anarchists in order to be combative. In the absence of political organization
through which to conspire and deepen their theoretical postulates, they seek to
transform their movements into their organizations. Thus, instead of movements
and social spaces concentrating on their objective material struggles, they waste
time and energy discussing subjects completely unrelated to what that space
proposes, even willing to implode them in case of disagreement. As defenders of
revolutionary unionism, we observe and understand that movements and their
subjects become combative and revolutionary through a liberating, supportive
practice that encourages direct action without representatives and intermediaries
in the defense of the class's interests by the class itself. Reflecting on the
same problem, Bakunin writes that
"... the founders of the International Association acted with great wisdom by
initially eliminating all political and religious issues from the Association's
program. Undoubtedly, they lacked absolutely no political opinions, nor
well-defined anti-religious opinions; but they abstained to issue them in this
program because their main objective was to unite above all the working masses of
the civilized world in a common action. "
- The Politics of the International, by Mikhail Bakunin
There is a lack of an organization that proposes a theoretical, ideological and
programmatic work of the revolution that we defend, that in the anarchist
tradition comes to group, train and direct, from the analysis and common
decisions in a coherent conceptual field, the action and the militancy that knows
that he wants a stateless society, organized by those who work, where the freedom
of the other extends us to infinity. We propose to start building such a space.
The time now is to act and begin to outline the tasks to be carried out in this
first organizational and struggle effort.
In the same way that an anarchism that does not see classes or without a working
class project is not anarchism, an anarchism that abstains from the field,
immobilized, is not anarchist either. We need an anarchism that is present and
that recognizes in the proposal of its presence an anarchism in movement, an
anarchism of structural and ideological clash. A part of that anarchism already
exists and is now made public through this publication and collective.
Long live the peoples' struggle against capital and the bourgeoisie!
Long live the memory and practice of Libertarian Socialism!
Advance the construction of Revolutionary Anarchism!
Pro-Anarchist Collective in Portugal
https://www.facebook.com/embatecopoap/posts/114591310484057
------------------------------
Message: 6
Xinjiang, or Chinese Turkestan as it was once known, has been a Chinese sphere of
influence for many centuries. Lying to the west of China, it was through the
oases cities that the silk route to the West ran. It was fought over by different
Chinese dynasties in their wars with the Xiongnu tribal confederacy to the north,
and then with successor steppe empires. ---- Xinjiang was occupied by the
Uighurs, a Turkic grouping that has lived there from at least the 8th century.
The area was declared an autonomous region after the establishment of the
Communist Party's People's Republic of China in 1949. There are 10 million
Uighurs in Xinjiang, most of them Sunni Muslims. In the 1950s large numbers of
Han (ethnic Chinese) began to move into the area, leading to a rise of 21 million
in the present day. As a result, the Uighurs now count as only 45% of the
population. This immigration policy was a deliberate tactic by the Chinese
government, encouraged by oil and gas fields in the region. Alongside Chinese
workers are Chinese capitalists taking advantage of these rich assets. The
economic boom that resulted did not noticeably benefit the Uighurs, as both state
and private sectors tended to hire Han workers rather than Uighurs, based both on
nepotism and discrimination.
As a result, the economic gap between Uighurs and Han has increased tremendously,
fuelling resentment. To overcome this, the Chinese government encouraged, from
2002 onwards, Uighurs to move to the factories and building sites of eastern
China. To both encourage this, and at the same time attack the Uighur language,
courses in Mandarin Chinese were offered, as well as industrial training. Those
who refused to move faced heavy fines. This has resulted in 1.5 million Uighurs
relocated to other parts of the Chinese Republic.
The Chinese government has pursued a policy of sinification (making other
cultures more "Chinese"), forcing Uighurs to abandon their language for Mandarin
and give up other aspects of their culture. Mandarin is the only language spoken
in Xinjiang universities, and the poverty of the lower classes of Uighurs has
made learning Mandarin difficult. The Uighur language is regarded as "out of step
with the 21st century", by the Stalinist overlord of Xingjiang, Wang Lequan.
Islamic fundamentalists have taken advantage of the resentment against the
Chinese government to spread their ideas in Xinjiang. The ethnic and economic
tension in Xinjiang led to riots against the Han Chinese in the city of Urumqi in
2009.
From 2017 the Chinese government intensified its sinification programme and its
attacks on Uighur language and culture. Detention camps were constructed, and
now, up to 1 million have been imprisoned there. These camps go under the name of
"re-education and training centres". It is not just Uighurs who suffer in these
camps, but members of other Turkic language groups like the Kazakhs and the Kirghiz.
In part this is a drive against practitioners of Islam, with those wearing beards
or the veil being detained. Another aspect is punishment for links with family
members and relations outside of China. At the same time, a purge of Uighurs
within the local Communist Party, and among intellectuals, academics and literati
has seen many of them ending up in the camps.
Conditions in the camps are rumoured to be harsh, with a fierce regime of
indoctrination imposed there. Some face daily beatings, others face
"self-criticism sessions" and the mind-numbing repeating of patriotic slogans.
Things are not much better outside the camps, with many police and military
checkpoints, indoctrination routines like raising the Chinese flag and forcing
people to take oaths of loyalty to the "People's" Republic. Video cameras
dominate Uighur neighbourhoods as well as the constant presence of police
patrols. Spectacles of military drilling are another sign of intimidation and
repression. In addition, a policy of forced sterilisation appears to be being
carried out in the camps.
The autocracy, ruling from Beijing, defends its imperialist policies in central
Asia and Tibet by looking towards the cynical support of the USA and its allies,
including Britain, for the Uighurs and Tibetans. It can then justify its policies
by citing opposition to Western imperialism. It is joined in this by a chorus of
assorted Stalinists and a minority of Trotskyists around the world, who in the
name of anti-imperialism, dismiss the repression of the Uighurs as bogus, and
thus defend the Chinese autocracy.
Anarchist communists should clearly show that they support neither Beijing nor
Washington over the question of the Uighurs. We need to encourage and support
international solidarity and attempts to stop arms sales to China at a grassroots
level, including the refusal of dockers and seafarers to transport arms, which
will be used against both the Uighurs and against future revolts of workers and
students. Pressure needs to be exerted on corporate chains like Apple, Nike, Gap,
Muji, Uniqlo, H&M, Esprit and Adidas who are profiting from forced labour in the
Xinjiang camps. The region produces the majority of the cotton output in China
(84%), and some of this is manufactured by forced labour. Other products coming
out of the camps include human hair products.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2021/01/25/china-the-repression-against-the-uighurs/
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Message: 7
In order to better understand the relationship between Facebook and independent
media such as Relations de force, we interviewed Stéphane Ortega, of the
editorial staff at the end of November. ---- Alternative Libertaire : Why is it
essential for you to be on Facebook ? ---- Stéphane Ortega: Facebook has shaped
the uses of the population, particularly in terms of "consumption " some
information. He made himself indispensable. For them, as for the media who want
to be read. To support a media like ours, that is to say independent, open
access, and which attempts to remunerate its journalists through donations, it is
essential to develop a large audience. However, we must seek this readership
where people have become accustomed to finding information. Otherwise, it amounts
to condemning yourself to be confined to a marginal niche, made up of small
networks that know us beforehand. And finally disappear quickly, because we are
unable to make a living from our work. In addition, today, having an impact by
releasing a particular piece of information, without benefiting from a possible
virality on social networks, turns out to be almost mission impossible.
What was the impact of your ban ?
Stéphane Ortega: Immediate. Between October 15 and November 3, the period of ban
on Power relations on Facebook, visits to the site were halved. None of our
articles reached 1000 readers during this period except the one explaining the
risk of the death in the medium term of our media. But even that one didn't get
the echo it should have.
What lessons do you take from this episode ?
Stéphane Ortega: We are going to initiate a reflection to try to limit our
dependence on Facebook. Of course, there would be the possibility of investing in
free networks or regularly encouraging our readership to disseminate our articles
by other means. By mails or text messages for example. And we probably will.
However, we are not under any illusions: it is not the balance of power alone
that will change the way people "consume" information. And we will still have to
reach people where they are. Especially those who do not know us yet.
Interview by Léo (UCL Lyon)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Entretien-Stephane-Ortega-Rapports-de-force-Limiter-notre-dependance
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