Introduction ---- Every year, Black Rose Anarchist Federation /
Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra (BRRN) holds a national Convention in adifferent city somewhere in the United States. Delegates from Black Rose
Locals gather to debate and deliver the votes of members on proposals
that would substantively change the structures or direction of the
organization; collectively reflect on our past year's organizing
failures and successes; and deepen crucial relationships among our
militants from Locals spread across the country's wide geography. Since
adopting our first comprehensive political program Turning the Tide in
2023, our Convention has also served as the venue for revisiting certain
elements of this core document.
From August 9th through 11th, the Bay Area Local hosted militants from
across the country in Oakland, CA for our 2024 proceedings that marked a
particularly important milestone: a decade since our organization's
founding.
To offer a lens into our organization's internal life and share some of
the lessons we learned during this landmark Convention, what follows is
a brief summary of each day's proceedings.
Day One
Our tenth national Convention was opened with remarks from the
federation's outgoing secretary. Following this, attendees read aloud
greetings received from our sibling organizations across the globe,
including:
Organização Socialista Libertária (Brazil)
Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (Brazil)
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguay)
Federación Anarquista Rosario (Argentina)
Federación Anarquista Santiago (Chile)
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre (Colombia)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Geelong Anarchist Communists (Australia)
Anarchist Communists Meanjin (Australia)
Black Flag Sydney (Australia)
Union Communiste Libertaire (France/Belgium/Switzerland)
Embat (Catalonia)
Batzac - Joventuts Llibertàries (Catalonia)
LiZA (Spain)
Federación Estudiantil Libertaria (Catalonia/Spain)
Perspektive Selbstverwaltung (Germany)
Têkosîna Anarsîst (North East Syria/Rojava)
Perhimpunan Merdeka (Indonesia)
Our comrades' celebratory messages not only heartened us but reminded us
that Black Rose / Rosa Negra is part of a living, vital, and growing
worldwide current of organized anarchism inspired by the Platform and
especifismo.
Next up was an organizational history panel, where former members of
California-based Amanacer, Miami Autonomy and Solidarity (MAS),
Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (later, Common
Struggle), Workers Solidarity Alliance, and Common Action recounted
their experiences in these regional anarchist organizations during the
rapprochement, or unification, process that established Black Rose/Rosa
Negra. Veteran militants explained how our history begins from a
culmination of a years-long process spurred by invitational Class
Struggle Anarchist Conferences (CSACs).
Beginning amidst the 2008 financial crisis, CSACs intended to cohere an
anarchist strategy and practice beyond the limits of the period's
summit-hopping protests. Conference coordinators did not set out to
forge a national organization, but by the close of the 2010 proceedings
in Seattle it became increasingly clear that the basic level of unity
between participating organizations warranted a serious exploration of
the question. Buoyed by 2011's surge of social movement activity in the
Wisconsin Capitol protests and the Occupy Movement, as well as the
popular social explosion in reaction to the racist vigilante murder of
Trayvon Martin in 2012, members of MAS strongly appealed for national
organization at what would become our inaugural Convention in 2013.
After many years of careful construction, BRRN would publicly debut in 2014.
More than just a trip down memory lane, the panel emphasized lessons
hard learned by militants who share many decades of accrued experience
between them. Their reflections reminded us of a central reason we
emphasize the need for political organization: to reposit collective
memory that can be transmitted from one generation of militants to the next.
If you are interested in reading more about the process that birthed
Black Rose/Rosa Negra, we recommend our history page and this more
detailed account of the rapprochement process that birthed our organization.
Afterwards, the organization's national elected officers shared reports
and reflections from their one-year terms. These administrative,
immediately recallable roles are structured in such a way that they
wield no ability to alter the collectively determined course of the
organization.
Members and chairpersons of the Housing and Territorial Sectoral
Committee discuss their activity.
Day One closed with a panel discussion from members of the
organization's Housing and Territorial Sectoral Committee and organizing
highlights from BRRN Locals around the country. In the latter session,
BRRN militants emphasized the importance of deep organizing in
solidarity with Palestinian national liberation. Deep organizing entails
not just passively attending marches and demonstrations as a political
organization, but working consistently within our sites of social
insertion-the workplace, the neighborhood, the school/university-so that
we can effectively bring fighting mass organizations in these sectors
into struggles that they may not typically recognize as their own.
Day Two
We began Day Two with discussion and debate on updates to our
conjunctural analysis. Conjunctural analysis is the practice of
assessing the various social forces and conditions at the local,
regional, national scale that are coalescing to shape the present
moment, allowing us to identify strategic opportunities to tip the
balance of power. Although our organization has previously undertaken
efforts aimed at 'naming the moment,' this was the first time that the
exercise was directly and systematically incorporated into adjusting our
limited-term strategy.
In their assessments of the conjuncture, delegates shared what members
around the country had identified as important factors bearing on the
present, including, among others: a national cost-of-living crisis
squeezing social reproductive capacities; simultaneous erosion of
legitimacy for certain State institutions like the Supreme Court with
renewal for others; and the continued slow decline of U.S. hegemony
abroad coupled with the explosion of a domestic anti-imperialist social
movement demanding a ceasefire, arms embargo, and in some cases
full-throated support for Palestinian national liberation. A more
detailed and complete conjunctural analysis derived from this Convention
session will be published at a later date.
After wrapping our preliminary conjunctural analysis, the Convention
body moved to critically self-assess our progress on our limited-term
strategy. Reports from Locals helped us identify where we had made
significant advances toward our objectives-including around increasing
our rank-and-file concentrations in the building trades, public
education, service, and healthcare industries; spearheading or playing
crucial roles in organizing the unorganized; gaining ground in localized
fights against the construction of new 'cop campuses'; and further
developing our relationships with sibling organizations
internationally-as well as where we have fallen short or failed,
requiring a recalibration in strategy.
Convention proceedings on Day Two ended with Sectoral Committee breakout
sessions for participating delegates to further discuss and refine how
to implement our national limited-term strategy in each respective area
of organizing.
In the evening, we threw open the doors to the convention hall for a
public panel discussion and party. Reflecting on their past year in
campaigns, the panel of speakers featured Enrique, a Southern public
high school teacher fresh off a successful union campaign; Dera, an
organizer salting at a shop in the service industry, and Alex, a member
of faculty who has been organizing on her public university campus
around the Palestine solidarity movement.
With around 70 people in attendance, the panel's facilitator framed the
organization's theory of strategy.
Flyer for our 10th anniversary party.
"We aim to build popular power," Cameron, himself a rank-and-file union
steward, explained. "For us, popular power means the creation of
fighting social movements animated by principles of class struggle,
class independence, self-management, internationalism, democracy, and
direct action. History demonstrates that it's fighting movements built
on this basis that can challenge the state and capital...not only to
wrench reforms from them in the short term, but to build the necessary
power to kickstart a revolutionary social transformation that can topple
them both."
Answering the facilitator's questions, panelists discussed the wins,
losses, and lessons learned from their organizing efforts. Alex
emphasized the need for rooted, on-the-ground organizing around shared
needs, rather than cliquing up with others based solely on common
ideology: "To make progress in what I'm doing, I've had to work with
people in my workplace who are far from radical." She continued, "That
even means bringing along people who, for example, consider themselves
staunch Democrats."
10th anniversary public event featuring Black Rose/Rosa Negra militants
reflecting on lessons from their organizing work.
Dera, a college student who was also active in sustaining the
encampments on her campus last school year, spoke to the transferability
in lessons between that setting and her current salting effort for an
independent union campaign. "I'm taking lessons from student organizing
into the workplace, like emphasizing participation in our
decision-making processes, meeting people where they are at and really
getting to know what people's motivations and fears are to build their
confidence so they can act together collectively," she said. Dera also
plans to take her salting experiences back to campus where she can
organize student-workers and student-tenants to exert real leverage on
university bosses.
After some questions from the audience, the panel broke down their side
of the stage to make way for People's Disco DJ Jared G to set up his
turntables. Over beers, attendees and BRRN delegates talked, danced, and
enjoyed themselves late into the night.
Day Three
The final day was devoted, in the main, to the delivery of membership
votes by Local delegates on proposals, constitutional amendments, and
nominees for national administrative officers. While not quite as
exciting as Days One or Two, this portion is crucial to keeping alive
the directly democratic processes that sit both at the heart of our
organization and our vision of the world we are fighting to bring into
existence.
As our tenth national convention drew to a close, delegates said their
goodbyes, no doubt tired from the long weekend but enjoying in equal
measure a deepened commitment to one another and to the "long and
patient work" of building toward a social revolution that will abolish
class society and the system of domination which keeps it in place.
"Black Rose is my political home" said one delegate as they left to
catch their flight, "without you all, I would be fighting alone."
Onwards, Together
Delegates from Black Rose/Rosa Negra Locals around the U.S. pose for a
group photo.
From our prehistory through to the present, members of Black Rose/Rosa
Negra have faced more than our share of obstacles, made mistakes or
missteps, and sometimes struggled to find direction. Through it all,
though, members-who are the organization-have approached our work with
honesty, humility, camaraderie, and a commitment to our organization's
principles. We believe that this is evident, most importantly, to those
who we are embedded alongside in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools.
As our organization enters a period of growth, we invite those who share
our principles, agree with our program, and are engaged in long-term
organizing to reach out to us at blackrosefed.org/join. Don't fight alone.
FOR POPULAR POWER!
FOR LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM!
Black Rose / Rosa Negra
August 2024
https://blackrosefed.org/10th-national-convention-report/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten