Today's 6 Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #258 (Feb) - Culture,
Meeting with José Ardillo "You have to recreate the conditions
of autonomy" (fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. New-Zealand, AWSM: Easter Rising (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. i-f-a.org: What sort of Uprising do we need in Iraqi
Kurdistan? (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Zabalaza News: African Anarchist Collective Tokologo #5/6 -
Dear Mama: Poetry against the Anti- Foreigner Attacks in
Grahamstown, 2015 by LEROY MAISIRI (ZACF) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. New Zealand, awsm: A better paid wage slave is still a wage
slave (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Israel-Palestine, Anarchist Communist Ahdut (Unity) call for
May Day march in Haifa! (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Spanish libertarian writer currently residing in the Cevennes, José Ardillo has published
several novels and essays, and numerous articles. After reading renewable Illusions,
instead of critical approach, we wanted to meet him to open some more debate ---- Jocelyn:
Can you explain what is the "profound cultural transformation" which do you think is
necessary to change society? ---- José Ardillo: Cultural transformation is a
transformation of values. Today, we live in a consumer culture, and we should move towards
a culture of autonomy. And to understand the culture of dispossession that is undergoing
today, we must examine - without idealizing - the societies and cultures of the past,
which were much more independent. This will be guided by values, not while sober or
effort, but especially of ownership of means of production. And adapt them to our ideas of
freedom, rights, etc. The values do not come from a moral position a priori, but rather
the physical reconstruction necessary to establish a logic of autonomy.
What is this autonomy which constitutes you say and for you, with equality, the basis of a
new society?
I start with a close reflection of that of Ivan Illich, whose books came out in the 1970s
have greatly inspired the environmental movement of the time. Illich was in contact with
the indigenous cultures of Mexico, and these people, despite an apparent material poverty
enjoyed great autonomy, had many skills, and finally mastered their material culture.
Illich from there to criticize the Western progressive and industrial model, which comes
from modern prejudices on comfort and progress, and that is creeping into all institutions
(schools, medicine, transport, energy), imprisoned the working class who ends up fighting
for this model. Preindustrial cultures were therefore more autonomous in the sense that
they had mastered the means of production, for construction of housing, agriculture,
health, etc.
There were echoes analyzes of Illich in libertarian thought, especially in Paul Goodman
and Colin Ward, and next there was the movement against-culture in the United States, the
development of the anti-nuclear struggle in France in Spain. All this fed the ideas about
autonomy within the environmentalist current, at a time when ecology was still linked to a
libertarian society project. But from the 1980s, there was a sort of specialization of
ecology, which is oriented to the management of issues of nuisance, pollution, etc.
But today, in France at least, autonomy is often seen as an individual or community
retreat into autarky, without much collective dimension.
I think that any attempt to regain control of his life is valuable in itself as a
self-education process. And often in these projects, there are interesting dimensions, as
the experience of direct democracy, all form some seeds ready to germinate. But the
problem of our time, not just on the ecology, is the general loss of a collective language
of a political perspective that federates this a bit.
You refuse "the industrialization of the world", whether from private or state monopoly.
But would a libertarian industry, especially eco-friendly, feasible?
In my book, I criticize Kropotkin, who in fields, factories and workshops is a bit too
optimistic on the issue of energy and technology. Nevertheless, it makes a very
interesting vision for integrating industrial technology in an environment still
earthbound. I forbid this same general idea, to mix agriculture with a small local
industry, and especially to revive this productive culture, without falling into the
romantic ideal of "all the peasants."
But for that you need to recreate the conditions of autonomy, both cultural and material,
and therefore reinvest rural areas today because few people live in the country and
participate in productive activities. We are rather in urban and service companies, which
complicates the recovery of production means. We need a more balanced relationship between
town and country.
We must also correct the major aberration of empowering technology. For example, at the
beginning of mechanized transport, the railway or trucks were used to transport goods to
the city. But today it was reversed, road transport is an end in itself and the production
is based on the transmission network.
Similarly, in recent decades, there has been a fusion between technology and private
consumption, as the technology is part of the private comfort. I think a technical level
and specialization is something positive, but we must find new technological balance,
where the technique is a means and not an end in itself. Above all, it should not be too
base our emancipatory projects on technology as has often been done among anarchists. For
example, I Bookchin criticism for its progressive side, because he thought that in the 70s
cybernetics and automation were ispo facto means that we opened opportunities.
Should we go to certain goods and services?
We can spend a lot of gadgets, it's obvious. Other objects, such as private cars, are
grotesque and unmanageable. But before wondering where to put the limit, it is already
open democratic debate on if we want to set limits, and why. I think we have mostly think
in terms of lifestyle, of direct involvement in the satisfaction of material needs. Try to
be more independent, to be freer and more independent.
What forms of property do you see for a new society?
It is already clear the access to the land. Then the little property there is a debate
within the anarchist current. It is conceivable, instead of a private property, personal
property, not to fall either in a too dogmatic concept of collectivization, as it is
sometimes made the mistake made the anarchists, for example in Spain, even if it is much
discussed at the historical level.
I think it is interesting to take inspiration from ancient forms of collective ownership,
without idealizing them. The renewed interest in the issue of common property in this
direction. There are also interesting things in Mexico with the ejido, a communal form of
collective property, and which shows that other things are possible.
What do you think of the consideration of environmental issues in current libertarian
movement?
There are interesting reflections among anarchists, but overall, if ecology is still
something that needs to be careful, it's not something that structure our project. It is
also the fact that we are in a very urban culture, and that for decades we have focused on
defensive struggles against capital, that sometimes appear as an end in itself.
The libertarian movement in general remains too tied to the history of workers' struggles,
anti-repression and anti-capitalist struggles, or against the extreme right, which of
course meaning, but we lost the utopian dimension, constructive. In contrast, in the 1930s
in Spain, this dimension was strong, with a culture of athénées parallel to a culture of
service, which is then manifested during the war with collectivization.
A crucial question is whether the dialectical capital / labor must remain the privileged
space of struggle, or whether to look elsewhere. Sometimes it is much layer on the main
roads of the left, the anti-globalization, and we do not find the true source of our
libertarian thought, which is precisely the construction of something new, independent,
autonomous.
Interview by Jocelyn (AL Gard)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Rencontre-avec-Jose-Ardillo-Il
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Message: 2
This year people in Ireland are commemorating the centenary of what became known as the
Easter Rising. In April 1916, a small mixed group of Republicans and Socialist-influenced
revolutionaries took over buildings in Dublin and declared a Republic. This lead to nearly
a week of bitter urban warfare between them and the British army. The immediate result was
a loss for the revolutionaries and the execution of 14 of their leaders. Along the way
however, their example inspired both the domestic population and others overseas and lead
eventually to the foundation of the current 26 county state in the south of Ireland. ----
There are important lessons and questions regarding the Rising. For example, who should
economic and social revolutionaries align with? Can nationalism ever be progressive? Is
urban warfare a valid tactical option? If so, when? How does the Uprising tie-in with
subsequent events in Irish history? Below are some articles that address these and other
key questions form an anarchist perspective:
http://www.wsm.ie/c/1916-connolly-blood-sacrifice-british-imperialism
http://www.wsm.ie/c/1916-dublin-left-republicanism-anarchism-class
http://www.wsm.ie/c/james-connolly-history-irish-left-anarchism
http://www.wsm.ie/content/1916-rising-and-class-struggle-ireland-1886-1923
http://www.awsm.nz/2016/03/22/easter-rising/
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Message: 3
Before the uprising of March 1991 in Kurdistan, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) armed forces (Peshmarga) virtually did not exist,
except for the ones on the borders with Iran and in very remote areas. This new situation
resulted from the Iran/Iraq war and the Anfal campaign run by the former Regime that cost
the life of over 180 thousand villagers who were evacuated and disappeared with their
villages completely destroyed by way of demolition. When the uprising happened, the
government forces were kicked out by the mass movement, and then the PUK and KDP with the
help of US and Western countries came back. In the short time, they controlled these towns
and cities that liberated by people.
In May 1992, they formed and shared Administration through a scenario of the fake
election. On 05/10/1992 they started fighting the PKK, this lasted about 3 months. In
1995, PUK and KDP became separated and started fighting one another and divided Kurdistan
between them.
During the fighting PUK had defeated KDP almost completely, therefore, the head of KDP,
Masoud Barzani, asked the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for his support.
On 31/08/96, the former regime’s army had arrived Erbil and rescued the KDP. Afterwards,
the KDP launched attacks on PUK and managed to control many areas including towns, cities
and villages, which were under the control of the PUK previously. The PUK had no choice
but to ask the Iranian regime for support, so with the help of Iran, PUK managed to gain
control of those places that been lost to the KDP and set up its own administration. After
this fighting, PUK and KDP controlled different regions of Kurdistan. KDP set up its
Administration in Erbil and the towns around it. PUK set up its own Authority in
Sulaymaniyah and the towns around.
In 2003 the former regime fell after the invasion of Iraq by the US and Western countries,
nonetheless an extraordinary opportunity was created for PUK and KDP to form Kurdistan
Regional Government, the KRG has formed as the result of the election of 2005. The second
election after the invasion was in 2009. From 2005 to 2014 both parties (PUK & KDP) were
the major powers in KRG. In the last election of 2014, the balance of power slightly
changed. The so-called Movement of Change (Goran) that was formed in 2007, came second in
the election, it entered the government shared power with KDP, PUK, Islamic organizations
and other small parties. However, the corruption, terrorizing of people, disappearances,
killing and assassinating of political activists, writers, journalists and women continued.
In short, no serious reforms took place while ’Goran’ shared power with KDP, PUK and the
rest. In fact, the situation has got worse. In October of 2015, the KDP sacked all the
MPs, Ministers and the heads of Parliament from ‘Goran’, Movement of Change, and were not
allowed to return to Erbil. Since then there has been no effective parliament in Kurdistan.
It is People who are in crisis not the KRG
Kurdish people in Iraqi Kurdistan (Bashur) under the control of KRG have dramatically
suffered economically and politically. KRG has failed to pay its employees of 1.4 Millions
since October 2015. From this month the teachers are supposed to receive only half of
their wage. The KRG blamed the Iraqi central government for not sending the proportion of
its annual budget of 17% when due. The KRG supposed to export 550 thousand barrels of oil
daily via central governmentt, then the central government should releases the proportion
of the 17%. Iinstead, the KRG has been selling the oil directly bypassing the central
government and kept the money without showing any official record of the detail income, or
how it was sold and to whom.
The KRG stated there are also other reasons contributing to the drying up its budget such
as the tumbling of oil prices, war with Isis and the cost of having over 1.5 Millions of
refugees from Syria and the south/ middle regions of Iraq.
Since October of 2015 trade, market, construction work has all slowed down and all
projects have almost been stopped due to running out of money. In addition, thousands
especially young people have left Kurdistan heading to Europe. It is difficult for people
in Kurdistan to live in such miserable situation under the KRG. Therefore, people do not
have any choice other than protesting and boycotting work, mainly in the towns and cities
under the control of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
From the start of this month demos and protests of small scale have started in Erbil, the
capital of KRG, that controlled by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Many of the offices
and schools from primary to secondary have been closed because the teachers and other
employees have no money to pay transports fares to reach their workplaces. The prices of
everything has risen consequently, many shops and companies have been closed.
Like elsewhere it is the people who are in crisis not the system, not the government. It
is people who are lack of confidence, dependant on political parties. It is the people
lost faith in themselves and look for a leader to lead them. It is the people who have not
learned from previous experiences, they still believe in the notorious and powerful
historical lie of Parliamentary election.
We do not need any kind of uprising
There have been many uprising in different countries in the past. More recently 1979 in
Iran, 1991 in Bashur, Iraqi Kurdistan, and in the last five years the “Arab Spring”
continues. However, the uprising in all these countries ended up with a terrible civil war
or Regime change that in fact was not much better than their former rulers. The reasons
for that are simple, either led by political parties or by people with no plan for the
post-uprising and eventually tamed by US and Western countries. They mainly wanted to
change the power not the society, they wanted the political revolution, not the social
revolution, and they wanted to make changes from the top not the bottom of the society.
Because of this they easily fell under the influences of the US, and other western
countries’ political and neu-liberal economy. In the end, not only have failed to bring
real changes, in fact, the post- uprising served the elites, upper class and the interest
of the current system much better than previous regimes. The failure also disappointed
people and made them not to believe in most of the protest, demos, and even uprising.
At present, there are lots of talks and suggestions among the Iraqi Kurdish especially
into the ranks of communists, authoritarian socialists, lefties and the liberals for the
uprising. What they want will not bring the better outcome than what has happened in the
Arab Countries in my opinion.
In order to avoid that rout and bring the real changes we need to form radical,
non-hierarchal local groups that are anti-authority, anti-state and anti-power. We need to
organize ourselves in the neighborhoods, factories, work places, schools, universities, on
the streets, and the villages. We need to form communes and cooperatives, to set up
people’s assembly, citizen assembly, libertarian Municipalism in every village, city, and
town. Using direct action and direct democracy in decision making that should be the way
of progressing and developing people’s power. We need to do all these independently of the
political parties.
Our goals must be to change the society from the bottom to the top, from the political and
regime changes to economical, educational, social and cultural changes. We need to work on
building people’s power instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat or any other class
power.
We do not just need an uprising. We need a kind of uprising that enables us to make real
changes in establishing a socialist/anarchist society. This can be done through Democratic
Confederalism, Libertarian Communalism.
By Zaher Baher. Feb 2016
Website: zaherbaher.com
http://i-f-a.org/index.php/fr/article-2/745-what-sort-of-uprising-do-we-need-in-iraqi-kurdistan
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Message: 4
Starting on Wednesday 21 October 2015, around 300 shops, mostly small businesses owned by
people from countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Somalia, were targeted, many
burned and looted. Mobs, provoked by rumours of murders and mutilations by "foreigners"
and spurred on by malicious forces including local taxi drivers, attacked the
"foreigners." Heroic efforts by the local Unemployed Peoples Movement (UPM) and other
township residents to halt the carnage were not enough. The UPM says, "We are all the
victims of colonialism and capitalism. We all need to stand together for justice. If
unemployed young men chase a man from Pakistan out of Grahamstown they will still be
unemployed and poor the next day. The students have shown us what unity can do." Working
class, see this divide-and-rule for what it is!
Dear Mama...
36 whatsapp messages, 16 missed calls later and mama still wants to know how I am. I try
and tell her:
I am okay, I am alive, I am indoors, I won't go outside again. I am okay, I am alive, I am
indoors, I won't go outside again.
42 whatsapp messages later, 23 missed calls and mama still wants to know how I am.
In the midst of loudness have you ever experienced days without sound, in the midst of
feet stomping, drum beating, spear handling, have you ever felt the weight of silence.
As the mobs approached, with the snitch of hatred, intention to kill, to end a life based
on difference, I have to imagine that type of fear is paralyzing.
I am okay, I am alive, I am indoors, I won't go outside again. I am okay, I am alive, I am
indoors, I won't go outside again.
To fall in love, marry have children, watch them grow in a foreign land long enough to
watch them, get to watch you being beaten to death. To have your 8-year old first born son
get pinned down as the crowds do whatsoever they please with his mother.
I am okay, I am alive, I am indoors, I won't go outside again. I am okay, I am alive, I am
indoors, I won't go outside again.
I have always thought there is nothing more industrious than a "foreigner". The ability to
begin again against all odds in another land.
To never look back at what was, with no understanding of what will be, but to be brave
enough to assert themselves in new communities.
The story of a foreigner brings back remnants of Abraham's story, Moses story, Josephs
story. Even Jesus as an infant had to flee into Egypt and become a foreigner. You would
think by now the story of the foreigner is one to uplift and uphold.
62 whatsapp messages, 30 missed calls, mama desperately needs to know how I am, the
quivering fear in her voice, her insistence for me to distance myself, to abandon heroism.
To "Just stay put", "It is well, but stay put".
Mama wants to know how I am.
I am okay, I am alive, I am indoors, I won't go outside again. I am okay, I am alive, I am
indoors, I won't go outside again.
Mama wants to know how I feel.
Dear Mama for the first time today, I woke up a makwerekwere [the despised "foreigner"]
https://www.facebook.com/zabalazanews/posts/1719675574943804
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Message: 5
The Government recently announced a 5 cent increase in the minimum wage to be payable from
1 April, bringing it up to $15.25 per hour. This new rate will see someone working a
40-hour week getting a pre-tax weekly wage of $610, although it should be noted many
thousands of minimum wage workers are part-time, and work fewer than 40 hours per week.
---- Often such an increase is met with the complaints of a loss of jobs, but before our
bosses start pleading poverty even the Government seems unconcerned by this and
confidently declared that the 3.4 % increase will not “hinder job growth.” Indeed,
economists are increasingly of the opinion that gentle rises in minimum wages are at worst
neutral and at best actually creates jobs. When low-income people got a pay increase they
tend to spend it in their communities and help the local economy.
While any increase in the wages of workers is always to be welcomed a minimum wage is not
the same as a living wage, and those behind the Living Wage Movement maintain that even
this rise still sees the minimum wage well below what people actually need to live a full
life.
The living wage is seen as not just meeting subsistence needs, or a basic cost of living,
but also takes into account larger social and cultural needs, such as having money to
spend time with family, time for enjoyment, time for education and self-improvement, and
enabling a more dignified existence. The Living Wage Movement calculates that the rate for
a worker to be able to participate as an active citizen in the community, and not just
survive, should be a minimum of $19.80 per hour. This movement has had some success at
getting its voice heard and, there are now nearly 50 fully-accredited living wage
employers in New Zealand, up from 27 last year.
Tales of workers struggling for, and getting, higher wages if they can, is always a good
thing, but is it enough? The Living Wage Movement will improve the living conditions of
some workers; and any struggle is good for developing confidence in the workers’ own sense
of ability to change the world in which they live. Real and achievable struggles like this
are more valuable than abstract plans and theorizing, even defeats can be used to teach
valuable lessons, such as the importance of solidarity and unity, and demonstrating the
common interests of the working class against the exploiting class.
Admittedly wage battles, like all immediate struggles, are limited, but, at the end of the
day, a working class that is not able to take the basic step of fighting for an increased
wage will be unlikely to manage to organise and fight to completely change society, which
has to be our ultimate aim, as all victories under the existing capitalist system are
partial. Rising prices, cyclical periods of rising unemployment, and attacks on working
hours and conditions will continually erode better wages that have been won through struggle.
A fight for a living wage may be a step in the right direction, but has to be linked with
the knowledge that better wages are not enough since wages are always less than the value
of what the worker produces, with the surplus value being claimed by the employers. A
better-paid wage slave is still a wage slave; and higher wages do not remove this
exploitation and the resulting inequalities. If we want to end the permanent fight for
better wages we need more than redistributing income from the employer to the worker, we
need to see the establishment of a society that would not be divided into employer and worker.
No amount of reform will eliminate the irreconcilable clash of interest between the
capitalist and the working class. The wages system cannot be made fairer. So while
supporting workers’ struggles for better pay, we also say that instead of just asking for
a fair day’s wage we need to demand the abolition of the wages system, and ultimately
widen the struggle to take the means of production into common ownership and under the
democratic control of the whole people.
http://www.awsm.nz/2016/03/23/a-better-paid-wage-slave-is-still-a-wage-slave/
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Message: 6
Being a worker in the state of Israel is a rather sorry affair. Most of us receive low
pay, with living expenses costly. Rent is high, even if you share an apartment; raising
children empties out the money you don't really have. And these pleasures are dependent,
of course, on you having been able to find work... Care for an apartment? You'll have to
enslave yourself to the banks for decades, and always live in fear of losing your job. In
our workplaces we live under the the dictatorship of managers and stockholders, promoting
themselves and their interests at the expense of the workers and society at large. Most of
them do not observe even the feeble, minimal protections of the labor law. And if we are
women, or Arab, or Mizrachi, or Ethiopean, or an African asylum seeker, or a member of
another marginalized group - we also suffer from structural discrimination in pay and
employment.
On the other hand, in the mansions and luxurious high-rises - life is
sweet; business is booming; profits abundant. And the politicians, in
the coalition and the "opposition" do their part for the Capitalists.
And what about the unions? These abstain from conducting serious
struggles against the employers and the state. Their cowardice and our
passivity form a vicious cycle of class impotence against the Capitalist
establishment. Some of their higher-ups are even intricated in the
parliamentary parties and the national political establishment.
In the 1967-occupied territories the situation is far worse still:
Extreme unemployment rates (in Gaza - inconceivably so); even making
your way to work and back is sometimes an arduous and dangerous journey;
and the military might arrest you, shoot you, inviade your house or bomb
it, and the list goes on. As for the pay, it's a sad joke.
If we expand or view a little further, we will see the workers of Egypt,
bearing the burden of a military dictatorship; and the terrible tragedy
in Syria, bleeding the deaths of a thousand civilians each month -
workers, farmers, unemployed - and Millions who have had to flee their
homes, towns and country, to be spared the horrors of this war.
So we march, this year as well, on May Day,
calling for struggle against class oppression and exploitation in society;
calling for an anti-Capitalist social revolution;
and in solidarity with our working class brothers and sisters,
in this country, in the region and in the world.
This May Day marks the 130th anniversary of the original events of
Haymarket square, Chicago, in 1886. During the mass struggle to shorten
the workday from 10 to 8 hours, 8 Anarchist activists were convicted in
a show trial and sentenced to murder. May Day has since been a day of
commemoration for those who have fallen in struggle, and a call for its
continuation.
This is an open invitation,
to every worker, student or retiree,
unionized or otherwise,
to join the march
which will begin at the bottom of the Ba'hai Gardens (on
Ha-Gefen/Al-Karmeh street)
will go down the German Colony
and continue towards Paris square.
Blocks affiliated with parliamentary parties are not welcome.
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