"Together Against Capitalist Wars and Against Capitalist Peace!" May
2024. ---- After a promising start on Wednesday 22nd, things appeared to
fall apart on Thursday. After an event hosted by Kites not Drones, news
of cancellations came as the original Congress Centre, secured, and paid
for in February withdrew at the last minute to the consternation of
delegates, ---- It was at this point the various visiting comrades
decided to proceed with a parallel program in the absence of
confirmation of alternatives. This group of around 50 secured spaces on
the Friday to initiate discussion and debate.
59 predominately anarchist groups were invited to the 'official'
Congress. 10 decided to work with the parallel group (for easy ref
calling itself the 'Self Organised Assembly' or SOA.), 8 of them
exclusively. Whilst not all the invitees were able to attend, the
remainder that did continued to focus on the Congress weekend.
The context was hard for outsiders to grasp, but threats and
provocations had preceded any events compelling the organisers to issue
the following statement:
"The organizing team ...has been facing provocations and sabotages for a
long time, which are supposed to complicate the organization of the
anti-war activities... we are watching the attacks of our opponents grow
in intensity."
AnarCom made the decision to devote its limited resources to meeting and
discussing with specific groups who had approached us while waiting for
further news on the Congress venue.
We remained in contact throughout with both the Organising Committee and
comrades from the Czechoslovak Anarchist Society (CAS), gaining insights
from their experience. From them we learned:
"The anarchist movement in the Czech Republic has been in crisis and in
retreat for several years now, including the split over the war in
Ukraine. Afed has few members, but it has strong media coverage and
background (autonomous centres, contacts to ex-anarchists, nowadays left
liberals at universities).
So, when they started to preach pro-war propaganda, the anti-militarist
voice was not heard, and they poisoned the thinking of many people -
especially the youth."
There was general consensus the loss of the first venue was attributable
to sectarian (or rather pro war partisan) sabotage.
Additionally: "...there was an anarchist bookfair in Prague this
weekend. It's very well attended, last year about 2000 people passed
through. We, as anti-militarists, were not invited, as it was
co-organised by Afed and the Ukrainian Solidarity Collective were
performing there with their pro war propaganda."
There may have been a lot more going on for them than we were privy to.
It is worth remembering as context that Czechia is a firm supporter of
Ukraine in the middle of an election, next to a country (Sovakia) which
just had an assassination attempt on its PM.
We were able in part to attend the relocated Congress on Saturday and
participate in some discussion. There were around 50 people there at
any one time and litterature stalls. It took place in an ecology
training centre with lunch provided and amenities for other
refreshments. We had not seen the majority of attendees before.
Amongst key topics were the splits in the so-called movement, the
division of our class through the exploitation of culture-wars and the
centrality of the action of our class rather than our own efforts to
change the forces on the ground.
Though good examples of blockade actions at some Italian ports in
conjunction with unionised workers were shared - acknowledging the
implied limits of ideology and bureaucracy on the potential for more.
A recurring question from the Wednesday to the Saturday had been "what
can we do?". We suggested this question be turned around to ask
ourselves "what are we doing?"
Only we can answer this ourselves on the ground and our defining
geographies and political and social circumstances will inform us of
resources and potential.
Continuing security concerns had led to request for mobile phones not to
be used to communicate for the Sunday session which we were unable to
attend as unfortunately we couldn't access the email links notifying us.
Other comrades continued their parallel program throughout and elements
of the SOA were working on some form of communiqué by the time we left.
We look forward to seeing the outcome of the work of that group.
We have continued to liaise with comrades - perhaps a coalition of the
willing - to draw learning from this and to find common ground for a
joint statement, primarily relating to the wars and the veritable split
in our movement. We will report more on progress on this in the coming
days.
https://anarcomuk.uk/2024/05/31/prague-congress-report-part-2/
_________________________________________
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
2024. ---- After a promising start on Wednesday 22nd, things appeared to
fall apart on Thursday. After an event hosted by Kites not Drones, news
of cancellations came as the original Congress Centre, secured, and paid
for in February withdrew at the last minute to the consternation of
delegates, ---- It was at this point the various visiting comrades
decided to proceed with a parallel program in the absence of
confirmation of alternatives. This group of around 50 secured spaces on
the Friday to initiate discussion and debate.
59 predominately anarchist groups were invited to the 'official'
Congress. 10 decided to work with the parallel group (for easy ref
calling itself the 'Self Organised Assembly' or SOA.), 8 of them
exclusively. Whilst not all the invitees were able to attend, the
remainder that did continued to focus on the Congress weekend.
The context was hard for outsiders to grasp, but threats and
provocations had preceded any events compelling the organisers to issue
the following statement:
"The organizing team ...has been facing provocations and sabotages for a
long time, which are supposed to complicate the organization of the
anti-war activities... we are watching the attacks of our opponents grow
in intensity."
AnarCom made the decision to devote its limited resources to meeting and
discussing with specific groups who had approached us while waiting for
further news on the Congress venue.
We remained in contact throughout with both the Organising Committee and
comrades from the Czechoslovak Anarchist Society (CAS), gaining insights
from their experience. From them we learned:
"The anarchist movement in the Czech Republic has been in crisis and in
retreat for several years now, including the split over the war in
Ukraine. Afed has few members, but it has strong media coverage and
background (autonomous centres, contacts to ex-anarchists, nowadays left
liberals at universities).
So, when they started to preach pro-war propaganda, the anti-militarist
voice was not heard, and they poisoned the thinking of many people -
especially the youth."
There was general consensus the loss of the first venue was attributable
to sectarian (or rather pro war partisan) sabotage.
Additionally: "...there was an anarchist bookfair in Prague this
weekend. It's very well attended, last year about 2000 people passed
through. We, as anti-militarists, were not invited, as it was
co-organised by Afed and the Ukrainian Solidarity Collective were
performing there with their pro war propaganda."
There may have been a lot more going on for them than we were privy to.
It is worth remembering as context that Czechia is a firm supporter of
Ukraine in the middle of an election, next to a country (Sovakia) which
just had an assassination attempt on its PM.
We were able in part to attend the relocated Congress on Saturday and
participate in some discussion. There were around 50 people there at
any one time and litterature stalls. It took place in an ecology
training centre with lunch provided and amenities for other
refreshments. We had not seen the majority of attendees before.
Amongst key topics were the splits in the so-called movement, the
division of our class through the exploitation of culture-wars and the
centrality of the action of our class rather than our own efforts to
change the forces on the ground.
Though good examples of blockade actions at some Italian ports in
conjunction with unionised workers were shared - acknowledging the
implied limits of ideology and bureaucracy on the potential for more.
A recurring question from the Wednesday to the Saturday had been "what
can we do?". We suggested this question be turned around to ask
ourselves "what are we doing?"
Only we can answer this ourselves on the ground and our defining
geographies and political and social circumstances will inform us of
resources and potential.
Continuing security concerns had led to request for mobile phones not to
be used to communicate for the Sunday session which we were unable to
attend as unfortunately we couldn't access the email links notifying us.
Other comrades continued their parallel program throughout and elements
of the SOA were working on some form of communiqué by the time we left.
We look forward to seeing the outcome of the work of that group.
We have continued to liaise with comrades - perhaps a coalition of the
willing - to draw learning from this and to find common ground for a
joint statement, primarily relating to the wars and the veritable split
in our movement. We will report more on progress on this in the coming
days.
https://anarcomuk.uk/2024/05/31/prague-congress-report-part-2/
_________________________________________
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
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