Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group MACG

Dear Comrades,


The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group has published an edition of The Anvil, containing 
a single article about Donald Trump: 
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/president-trump/
For the pdf, https://melbacg.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/anvil-vol-6-no-1-v-web.pdf
which has our wonderful illustrations, please go to Vol 6, No 1 on the page
containing our collection of editions of The Anvil:
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/
In Solidarity,
Ablokeimet for MACG.

Australia, Melburn, Statement: Endorsing Anarkismo Editorial Statement by Anarchist Affinity

Australia, Melburn, Statement: Endorsing Anarkismo Editorial
Statement by Anarchist Affinity (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)

Adopted at the Anarchist Affinity general meeting of 6 September 2015. ---- 1. Anarchist 
Affinity endorses the Anarkismo editorial statement. The editorial statement is consistent 
with our politics, strategy and stated principles. ---- 2. Anarchist Affinity endorses and 
supports the concrete goals of the Anarkismo project. ---- Appendix – Editoral statement 
---- We identify ourselves as anarchists and with the “platformist”, anarchist-communist 
or especifista tradition of anarchism. We broadly identify with the theoretical base of 
this tradition and the organisational practice it argues for, but not necessarily 
everything else it has done or said, so it is a starting point for our politics and not an 
end point. ---- The core ideas of this tradition that we identify with are the need for 
anarchist political organisations that seek to develop:

Theoretical Unity
Tactical Unity
Collective Action and Discipline
Federalism

Anarchism will be created by the class struggle between the vast majority of society (the 
working class) and the tiny minority that currently rule. A successful revolution will 
require that anarchist ideas become the leading ideas within the working class. This will 
not happen spontaneously. Our role is to make anarchist ideas the leading ideas or, as it 
is sometimes expressed, to become a “leadership of ideas”.

A major focus of our activity is our work within the economic organizations of the working 
class (labour organizations, trade unions, syndicates) where this is a possibility. We 
therefore reject views that dismiss activity in the unions because as members of the 
working class it is only natural that we should also be members of these mass 
organizations. Within them we fight for the democratic structures typical of 
anarcho-syndicalist unions like the 1930’s CNT. However, the unions no matter how 
revolutionary cannot replace the need for anarchist political organisation(s).

We also see it as vital to work in struggles that happen outside the unions and the 
workplace. These include struggles against particular oppressions, imperialism and indeed 
the struggles of the working class for a decent place and environment in which to live. 
Our general approach to these, like our approach to the unions, is to involve ourselves 
with mass movements and within these movements, in order to promote anarchist methods of 
organisation involving direct democracy and direct action.

We actively oppose all manifestations of prejudice within the workers’ movement and 
society in general and we work alongside those struggling against racism, sexism, 
[religious] sectarianism and homophobia as a priority. We see the success of a revolution 
and the successful elimination of these oppressions after the revolution being determined 
by the building of such struggles in the pre-revolutionary period. The methods of struggle 
that we promote are a preparation for the running of society along anarchist and communist 
lines after the revolution.

We oppose imperialism but put forward anarchism as an alternative goal to nationalism. We
defend grassroots anti-imperialist movements while arguing for an anarchist rather than 
nationalist strategy.

We recognise a need for anarchist organisations who agree with these principles to 
federate on an international basis. However, we believe the degree of federation possible 
and the amount of effort put into it must be determined by success at building national or 
regional organisations capable of making such international work a reality, rather than a 
matter of slogans.

Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - PROTEST SPIKES OPERATION FORTITUDE by ablokeimet

(en) Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - PROTEST
SPIKES OPERATION FORTITUDE by ablokeimet

BORDER FORCE GESTAPO GO TO HELL! Dear Comrades, A snap protest in Melbourne today forced 
the cancellation of an ominous police state operation. The Melbourne Anarchist Communist 
Group has published an account: 
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/protest-spikes-operation-fortitude/ For the 
information of overseas readers, Flinders St Station is the main railway station in the 
centre of Melbourne and the intersection at which it is sited is a crucial node for road 
transport through the Central Business District. ---- This afternoon, an angry 
demonstration of 200-300 people in Melbourne forced the cancellation of a police press 
conference to launch “Operation Fortitude” and then forced the cancellation of the 
operation itself. ---- In a media statement released in advance of the planned press 
conference, an Australian Border Force official said, “Tonight and tomorrow evening 
(Friday and Saturday) Metro Trains, Yarra Trams, the Sheriff’s Office, Taxi Services 
Commission and the ABF will join Victoria Police as part of the inter-agency operation”. 
He also said that, as part of what they called “Operation Fortitude”, Border Force 
officers would be positioned at various locations around the city and would speak “with 
any individual we cross paths with”.

News of the planned operation spread like wildfire across the Internet and the phone 
network. The MACG joined 200-300 other protestors at Flinders St Station at 2:00 p.m. and 
all were extremely angry at the prospect of Border Force coppers stopping people and 
asking them to show their papers to prove they were in the country legally. Speakers 
pointed out that Border Force was either going to be stopping people at random, or was 
going to be engaged in racial profiling. Neither of these options is acceptable. It was 
also agreed by the crowd that it would be a good idea for people to intervene if they see 
Border Force coppers stopping people and checking ID – getting them to justify what 
they’re doing and informing them of our objections. The MACG thinks that’s an excellent 
proposal.

As debate raged across the Internet, the protest moved from the steps of Flinders St 
Station into the middle of the Flinders and Swanston Sts intersection so that it would be 
impossible for the media to ignore. The disruption successfully spread the news that these 
Gestapo tactics from Border Force were not only arousing outrage, but would be resisted. 
When news came that the press conference was going to go ahead inside Flinders St Station, 
the protest moved into the station itself. When the border cops realised they were the 
centre of attention, they decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated 
to the station’s police office.

At 2:35 we received the news that the press conference was called off. At 2:45 a media 
report was announced, stating that Operation Fortitude had been cancelled. Victoria Police 
said “We understand there has been a high level of community interest and concern which 
has been taken into consideration when making this decision.” Someone in the Victoria 
Police Media Unit is going to get an award for understatement over that sentence.

The demonstration broke up at 3:00 p.m. in celebration. The MACG warns, however, against 
complacency. A Twitter storm and a demo of a couple of hundred might be enough to take 
down a misconceived PR stunt for Border Force, but to defeat the Border Force itself and 
the racism that it enforces at the Government’s behest, we will need a movement of the 
whole working class, organised in the workplace. The Fascists of the United Patriots Front 
certainly need to be taken on and defeated, but it must be recognised that, at this stage 
of proceedings, they are amateurs at racist violence. The State employs an entire Border 
Force of professionals who are a lot better at it and who do it for a living.

Australia, Statements and opinions from the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group by ablokeimet

(en) Australia, Statements and opinions from the Melbourne
Anarchist Communist Group by ablokeimet

This is the text of a presentation given by a MACG member during a debate on the class 
struggle approach to Anarchism held at the Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday 8 
August 2015. It was delivered almost verbatim. ---- Thanks. I’m going to take it for 
granted that we want an Anarchist society – one where capitalism and the State have been 
abolished, where all forms of social oppression are eradicated and the human race lives 
sustainably and in harmony with the Earth. What we’re debating here is how to get there – 
the path from present day capitalism to an Anarchist society. ---- The traditional 
Anarchist view of the route to an Anarchist society is through a workers’ revolution, 
which occurs as the culmination of a progressively intensifying phase of class struggle. 
This is the position I support. I think workers’ revolution is both possible and 
necessary, for reasons I will go on to elaborate.

First of all, though, I’d like to clear up the concept of class, since it is often a 
source of great confusion. The working class is composed of those with nothing to sell 
except their labour. You don’t have to work in a factory to be working class, or even to 
have a job at all. You don’t have to be a white, heterosexual male, either.

Now, I’m going to read out a list of categories of people. See if you’re in any of them:

* Your main source of income is interest, rent and/or dividends;

* You own a business and work inside it for your main income, regardless of whether you 
employ anybody else. It doesn’t count if the so-called “business” is the supply of your 
own labour to a single employer that supervises your actions as it would an employee and 
is only doing it to avoid taxation and/or industrial relations laws;

* You are a manager in the public or private sector with the right to hire and fire;

* You are a copper, a prison warder, a military officer or member of the security services 
(e.g. ASIO);

* You are a Member of Parliament or a local government Councillor, or a judge, magistrate 
or person with similar powers (e.g. member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal).

* You are employed by a trade union, political party or NGO as an organiser or office bearer.

* You are reasonably confident that, in the next five or ten years, you will be in one of 
the above categories. It doesn’t count if you’re just hoping or if you’ll need a bit of 
luck for it to come off;

* You stand to inherit, whether from a spouse, parent or otherwise, millions of dollars 
over and above a house to live in.

If you’re in one of those categories, can you put your hand up? You don’t have to say 
which one it is, because there are some it may be embarrassing to admit to being a member 
of. OK. Everyone who didn’t put their hand up is a member of the working class. You have 
an objective interest in getting rid of capitalism, over and above any ethical commitment 
you may have. Those of you who did put your hand up, you can still join the struggle as an 
ally, provided you have the ethical commitment to do so. You’re just not in the same 
position to have an impact.

So, what’s important about the working class? As we’ve just shown, it comprises the vast 
majority of society. You can’t change society without having at least a majority of the 
working class on your side and, if you want a revolution, the vast majority. Second, it is 
the experience of co-operation in the capitalist workplace that provides the experience 
that is necessary to co-operate in the class struggle. Solidarity in the struggle is based 
on the solidarity learnt in production. This is fundamentally different from the 
experience of small business traders or of peasant farm-owners in the Third World.

Many people point to the large numbers of workers who hold reactionary, Right wing ideas 
and conclude that this makes workers’ revolution impossible. All this proves, however, is 
that we haven’t had a revolution yet. It’s true that many workers are sexist, racist, 
homophobic, transphobic or hold to other oppressive ideas. The key is to realise that 
class struggle is the way to overcome them. The classic case is the Great Miners’ Strike 
in Britain, where the consciousness of miners and the rest of the mining communities 
achieved advances in a year that took the working class in the big cities a generation. 
I’ll come back to this role of class struggle later.

The decisive arena of struggle in capitalist society is the workplace. This is because the 
workplace is where the capitalists derive their power. Therefore, to take this power off 
them, the workers need to organise in the workplace to take the power themselves. There 
are other important arenas for struggle, but they are secondary. If we leave the workplace 
to the capitalists, we hand over the resources of the entire economy to them.

Other strategies

It should be noted here that the unemployed and most students are working class, but they 
have virtually no social power. Students will achieve far less by withholding their study 
than they would through withholding the labour of flipping burgers and waiting on tables 
that they do to support themselves while studying. In the Third World, the peasantry are, 
almost everywhere, thoroughly integrated into and subordinated by the global capitalist 
market. They can mount no systemic challenge. While the Zapatistas are an inspiration, 
their struggle hasn’t been able to spread beyond the Chiapas and won’t do so. The decisive 
levers of power are in the cities and can only be reached by the working class.

Insurrectionism is an approach to Anarchism that Anarchist Communists like me reject 
unequivocally. Insurrectionists often have a good class analysis, but they only use it to 
identify who is on what side – i.e. who they’ll throw rocks at and who they won’t. They 
never use their class analysis as a guide to deciding how to act, how to struggle. 
Insurrectionism takes on the State at its strongest point, its armed wing. Except in some 
passages of high-flown rhetoric, it substitutes the militancy of a small minority for the 
self-organising activity of the class as a whole. Taken to its logical conclusion (which 
it was by some in the 1970s in some countries), it leads to guerrilla warfare, which is a 
recipe for bloody defeat.

Parliamentary reformism is another dead end, though I don’t expect many adherents here. 
The record of reformist political parties should be enough to show that this doesn’t work, 
but there are two deeper reasons for concluding that Parliamentary reformism can’t work. 
The first is that this is an inherently national form of struggle, based on capturing the 
machinery of the nation State. In the era of neo-liberal globalisation, there is no 
possibility of using that State for substantive reforms, let alone the abolition of 
capitalism. As the recent experience of Syriza in Greece has shown, winning government is 
merely a way of putting yourself in the position of imposing brutal attacks on the working 
class that voted you into office. You don’t have a choice to do anything else.

The other reason it can’t work is that it bypasses the class struggle that is essential to 
burning out the Right wing prejudices that infect the working class and divide it against 
itself. Only the process of class struggle, escalating to the point of revolution, can 
build the iron solidarity which is necessary to found society anew on libertarian and 
co-operative lines. Workers will transcend greed and selfishness by the act of revolution 
and thereby allow society to operate upon new principles.

The Simpler Way

Now let me turn to the politics of Ted Trainer, whose position [name deleted] here largely 
defends. Ted posits that capitalism must be abolished and a radically non-authoritarian 
society established, but rejects class struggle. Instead, he wants people to turn away 
from the system and build sustainable alternatives. He sees that the State and the 
capitalist system it defends will collapse from people withdrawing from under it, in a 
situation aggravated by resource scarcity and environmental collapse.

The first thing that must be said about Ted’s strategy is that it is remarkably similar to 
that of the Utopian Socialists who flourished in the first half of the 19th Century. It 
especially makes me think of Charles Fourier, one of the most libertarian of them. The 
difference is the environment in which Ted Trainer thinks the movement will grow. The old 
Utopian Socialists weren’t expecting resource scarcity or limits to growth.

The second thing to say is that Ted is over-egging the pudding somewhat when it comes to 
the sort of ecological limits within which humanity has to operate. The abolition of 
capitalism will enable the abolition of large sectors of the economy, which exist solely 
to maintain the current distribution of wealth and power. Advertising, finance, real 
estate, insurance, the military and the State bureaucracy can be abolished at a stroke, 
thus saving all the resources devoted to them and allowing an immediate reduction in the 
working week through the reallocation of labour that entails. And that’s only the start.

In addition, high quality goods that are made to last can replace the shoddy ones that 
prevail today. Hands up everyone who’s sick of kettles and toasters that break down as 
soon as the warranty expires.

And the last part of Ted’s over-egging is energy. We will have a budget of renewable 
energy within which to work, but it will be relatively generous. Wind farms and solar 
power can be backed up by hydro-electricity to provide a substantial amount of energy, 
perhaps as much as currently generated today.

Altogether then, it will be possible to reduce resource consumption greatly, even as Third 
World living standards are considerably increased. We can dispense with private jets and 
dune buggies, but everyone deserves modern health care and clean hot and cold running water.

The final thing to say about Ted Trainer’s strategy is that it can’t work. It won’t get to 
where he wants to go. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, property. Resources in a 
capitalist society are owned by capitalists or the State. This counts especially for land, 
which is crucial to Ted’s vision. The working class was created by the enclosure of the 
commons and the State maintains the enclosures. If you want those resources, and we 
definitely need them, we have to fight for them. And secondly, I return once more to the 
necessity for class struggle. Without class struggle, only tiny minorities will become 
interested in ideas of transcending this society. To get the mass of the population on 
board (i.e. the working class), it is necessary for workers to learn the lessons through 
the struggle for their own interests. Without that, most workers, and therefore most 
people, will remain committed to some form of capitalism. It is only in the crucible of 
class struggle that the human race can forge and become committed to the vision of a new 
society.

Australia, Rebel Worker Vol.34 No.2 (223) July-Aug. 2015 - Debate on the General Strike from Rebel Worker

 (en) Australia, Rebel Worker Vol.34 No.2 (223) July-Aug. 2015
- Debate on the General Strike from Rebel Worker

Paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Network www.rebelworker.org ---- Debate on the General 
Strike ---- The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott(Liberal Australian Prime 
Minister) is developing, but needs to go a lot further and a lot faster. Each day that 
goes by without an organised working class response is a day that Liberals harm working 
class people and democratic rights in Australia further, a day to destroy the environment, 
torture refugees, wage imperialist war in West Asia, stoke reactionary social forces and 
stack public offices with Right wing zealots. To wait till the next election is to concede 
Tony Abbott the right to commit any crime, no matter how appalling. ---- The Senate Won't 
Save Us Firstly, many of the atrocious measures contained in last May's Budget were waved 
through because they were part of the appropriation bills which give the government 
authority to spend public money.

This is how cuts to school and hospital funding for the States, cuts to higher education 
and many program cuts have gone ahead uncontested. Secondly, relying on the Senate allows 
the Government to wangle deals with Right wing independents and minor parties if they have 
to - neither Labor nor the Greens can be trusted to oppose government attacks 
consistently. The Government got the abolition of the mining tax and its anti-refugee 
legislation through, so placing faith in the Senate is a recipe for disappointment. The 
Labor Party Won't Save Us The ALP, whatever its previous philosophy, is now a thoroughly 
neo-liberal party. Many members continue to fight the good fight inside it, but decades of 
rule changes have ensured that the leadership always wins.

Labor's differences with the Liberals are marginal and, left to their own devices, when in 
power they would implement most of the attacks they now profess to oppose. We have seen it 
already under Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard. Now the ALP serves Big Business even more 
slavishly. Anybody who thinks Bill Shorten would chart a substantially different course 
from Abbott, let alone reverse his attacks on workers, has rocks in their head. The Union 
Officials Won't Save Us Virtually the entire union bureaucracy is loyal to the Labor Party 
(most of the exceptions having thrown in their lot with the Greens - good luck with 
that!). The limit of their ambitions is a return to a Labor government, with the more 
photogenic of their number landing plum parliamentary seats for themselves.

The officials will not challenge the neoliberal consensus unless their own positions are 
threatened - and not necessarily even then. They quake in fear before the State apparatus 
and have no faith in their rank and file members. They cannot even defend the institutions 
over which they preside, let alone mobilise a movement that can stop broader government 
attacks on the working class. We Have to Save Ourselves Only by organising a movement at 
the base of our unions can we fight back. We have to mobilise a rank and file groundswell 
in favour of a general strike to stop all of Tony Abbott's attacks. Once the movement is 
strong enough, we must be prepared to act independently of the union officials. When we 
create facts on the ground, the officials will be forced to either lead the struggle 
against Abbott or be bypassed. Take Back Our Unions, Take Back Our World The organised 
rank and file necessary to build the general strike against the Abbott Government is also 
necessary to fight subsequent attacks on the working class by Australian capitalists. The 
union bureaucracy must be shattered and those genuine elements within it must dissolve 
into the rank and file movement. By its nature, capitalism continually attacks workers and 
siphons off ever more wealth and power to those already rich and powerful. To end the 
attacks for good, our rank and file movement must link up with similar movements overseas 
and rise up in worldwide revolution against capitalism. To contact the Campaign for a 
General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott, look for that name on Facebook, or E-mail: 
generalstriketostopabbott@gmail.com From The Anvil.

Reply:

Your discussion of the proposed campaign for a General Strike seems quite vague, abstract 
and lacking in consideration of significant historical precedents and the nitty gritty of 
actually getting it going in the harsh conditions of contemporary Australia. The typical 
abstract propaganda churned out by leftist sectlets.

In particular there is an absence of discussion of "Strike Waves", which often result in 
General Strikes. The most significant and largest was the General Strike of May 1968 in 
France. It was called by the union hierarchy for one day as a measure to gain control of 
the spreading waves of wildcat strikes and factory occupations. However, the grass roots 
disregarded this ploy and continued with the General Strike. As a result of the union 
hierarchy's rorting of a ballot among Paris underground workers regarding the continuation 
of the strike, it was able break its momentum. These workers initially returned to work, 
but subsequently went back on strike, when the ballot rigging was discovered, but the 
damage had been done. Workers in other sectors had been demoralised and returned to work.

In the Australian context, the union hierarchy in Sept. 1999, played an important role in 
orchestrating a small public sector strike wave. The State Sec. of the now, Rail, Tram and 
Bus Union, intervened in a campaign by the grass roots to fight moves to restructure 
Sydney Trains stations for privatisation. Forming an important spearhead of the employer 
offensive. Militants, assisted by the ASN and the Sparks network, had won a mass meeting 
to support the campaign. Following intervening in the campaign, the Union State. Sec. 
called next day a NSW wide lightning rail strike. It formed the apex of a strike wave, 
which also included NSW nurses and Sydney garbage collection workers. It was aimed at 
achieving a variety of goals e.g. influencing an ALP conference in Sydney on the weekend, 
so to gain a greater hold on the NSW ALP Govt., preventing militants organising a public 
information campaign about privatisation and taking direct action, alienating commuters, 
so as to head off grass roots industrial action by public transport and other workers 
during the upcoming Sydney Olympics in 2000, etc. (1) Whilst, one of the most significant 
strike waves in recent times, which culminated in several one day general strikes called 
in Victoria, by "Left" sectors of the union hierarchy was the campaign against the penal 
provisions of the Industrial Court and the freeing of Clarrie O'Shea in 1969.

In regard to the "rank and file" movement, which you consider will play such an important 
role in work to get a general strike going, the rarity these days of workplace papers, 
illustrates its current poor health. One of the very few notable exceptions is the 
"Sparks" network based in Sydney. It's currently, assisting militants to establish the 
grass roots organisation, which would be vital in initiating future strike waves, which 
can lead eventually to major action against the Abbott Government and create the 
transitional steps leading to the emergence of breakaway mass syndicalist unionism. (See 
"State Transit Newsflash" page 4 in RW Vo1.34 No.2(223) July-Aug. 2015)

In conclusion, if you are talking about getting a formidable "rank and file" movement 
going and building the capacity to launch strike waves and ultimately a general strike, 
work to assist Sparks is vital. Particularly in regard to developing new sections e.g. 
Victorian tramways and buses, Qld railways and Brisbane buses, etc, and so assisting 
militants in the day to day class struggle. It's this type of serious sustained activity, 
which is required, rather than the easy stuff of "abstract" appeals for general strikes 
via banners and occasional leaflets at demos, articles, etc, favoured by leftist sectlets 
or wasting much time manufacturing the micro bureaucracy of a so called "anarchist" 
federation and salivating over the "clockwork" operation of its structures and the holding 
of likely its exotic, navel gazing jamborees.

Ed.

Notes:

1. See "Anarcho-Syndicalism: Catalyst for Workers Self-Organisation" and 
"Anarcho-Syndicalist Strategy for Australia Today", in the archive section of 
www.rebelworker.org
-----

Australia, The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group The Anvil Vol 4 No 3 May-June 2015 - Reclaim Australia is one brick in the wall Let's knock the whole wall down

https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/ ---- The articles will be published as separate 
articles over coming weeks. ---- In Solidarity, Ablokeimet for MACG. ---- Let's knock the 
whole wall down ---- We must go a few steps further, therefore, than just engaging in 
anti-racist and antifascist organising. We must fight the ongoing displacement of 
Aboriginal people from their homelands in Western Australia. We must fight the mass 
incarceration and illegalisation of people seeking asylum in this country. We must 
confront all of these “single” issues. They are part of an entire against the working 
class and our communities, by the Government, capital and the State. ---- Reclaim 
Australia is one brick in the wall Let's knock the whole wall down ---- It looks like we 
are in for another round of Reclaim Australia's Islamophobic, racist and anti-Left 
mobilisations around Australia, particularly in Melbourne. Lately we have seen the racist, 
Fascist thugs raise their heads, ready to organise not only against Muslim communities, 
but also against anyone who opposes them.

We have seen the split from Reclaim Australia, the ugly United Patriots Front (UPF) trying 
to storm Richmond Town Hall believing that by doing so they could destroy the what they 
imagine to be the main organisers against their rally in Federation Square back in April. 
They thought they could destroy the Left and the antifascist movement. What they actually 
showed was a few dozen thugs wearing swastikas and other Nazi paraphernalia, failing to 
“give the Left a lesson”.

We believe that, in order to fight back and effectively kick out their new round of hate 
mobilisations ion 18 July, the whole antifascist movement must not follow the same faults 
that have been apparent on 4 April. There is an urgent need for a trade union and mass 
community mobilisation. We need the migrant communities’ participation in the 
counter-rallies and other activities planned for 18 July in Melbourne and for the next day 
in the rest of the country.

The counter-rally on 4 April was comprised mostly not only of white activists but also of 
mostly Anglo-Australian militants. With the important exception of activists from the 
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR), and some non-white supporters of larger 
organised Left and Anarchist groups, the non-white and the migrant communities were simply 
absent. The same happened in the most recent counter-rally against United Patriots Front 
at Richmond Town Hall on 31 May.

This description of the weaknesses of the mobilisations so far is not meant to discredit 
the efforts of the organisers of these events. Every effort towards kicking the Fascists 
out and building of an effective antifascist movement is welcome. Rather, we say this to 
emphasise that the task in front of us is larger than the work we have done so far.

The task we face is to draw the mass of the working class into direct and active 
participation in the movement. On the one hand, the Muslim and Asian communities who are 
the immediate target of Reclaim Australia. On the other hand, the union movement, which is 
the Fascists' ultimate target. Without these two sectors, the anti-racist, antifascist 
mobilisation is likely to be seen as a war between fringe groups of our society to which 
few will pay attention. This orientation, however, does not mean we recognise the leaders 
of the Muslim communities or the union movement as having a veto on our activities.

Through our mobilisations we seek to halt the progress of the far Right. We must realise 
the far Right are only a symptom of the government push to criminalise Muslims, indigenous 
people, immigrants and people of colour. They label them as potential terrorists and thus 
enemies of some imagined “Australia”.

We must go a few steps further, therefore, than just engaging in anti-racist and 
antifascist organising. We must fight the ongoing displacement of Aboriginal people from 
their homelands in Western Australia. We must fight the mass incarceration and 
illegalisation of people seeking asylum in this country. We must confront all of these 
“single” issues. They are part of an entire against the working class and our communities, 
by the Government, capital and the State.

Capitalism generates racism and produces the potential for Fascist groups to emerge. To 
abolish racism and to eliminate the Fascist threat for good, we need a workers’ revolution 
to overthrow capitalism.

*This is the main article of the latest issue of “The Anvil”, newsletter of Melbourne 
Anarchist Communist Group (MACG). You can download the issue (and all the back issues) 
from here http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

Related Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com

Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - May Day Statement 2015

Dear Comrades, This afternoon, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group distributed its May 
Day statement for 2015 at the 8 Hour Monument in Melbourne, opposite the Victorian Trades 
Hall building. The statement is at the bottom of the page in the following link: ---- 
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/leaflets/ ---- 
https://melbacg.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/may-day-2015.pdf ---- MAY DAY 2015 ---- A 
Capitalist Australia ---- Australia today is in the grip of economic decline and gloom. 
Wages are stagnant, unemployment is up on last year and the mining boom has gone 
comprehensively bust. Last year's Federal Budget, which outraged the working class, has 
plunged the Coalition Government into deep unpopularity, but hasn't sparked large scale 
resistance. The Government continues as the most reactionary in living memory: reckless 
and anti-scientific environment policies; divisive dog whistling and scapegoating of 
Muslims, which has sparked the Fascist “Reclaim Australia” movement; unprecedented 
boosting of militarist propaganda; and now the appallingly racist attempt to close down 
remote Aboriginal communities. We'd be tempted to say they could hardly sink any lower, 
except they'd probably take it as a dare.

A Capitalist World

Across the rest of the world, the scene is even worse. The Japanese Government of Shinzo 
Abe is rehabilitating the ugly World War II militarism as quickly as he dares. A 
fratricidal war continues in Ukraine, with Russian intervention and with Fascists being 
present on both sides of the conflict. In Greece, the Troika are punishing the population 
for their impudence in electing a government which promised (with however little hope of 
success) to end their murderous austerity program. In China, the tyrants of the so-called 
“Communist” Party crack down on the few civil libertties won in recent years. And in West 
Asia, the United States leads imperialist military intervention whose futility is exceeded 
only by its deadliness and destructiveness, while Da'esh and other religious 
reactionaries, a Frankenstein's monster of Uncle Sam's, wage jihad and engage in atavistic 
bloodthirstiness.

Resistance Hope, however, has not died. There is resistance. In South Korea, a general 
strike is underway against anti-union laws, rampant illegal employer practices and attacks 
on pensions. In India, steelworkers last year won an important wage struggle. In the 
United States, an immense movement continues to grow against police murder of black 
people. In China, strikes continue despite the repression and continue to force wages up. 
And here in Australia, the threat to remote Aboriginal communities has provoked massive 
Aboriginal resistance and increasing numbers of non-Aboriginals into solidarity with them.

May Day There is a force which can unite this resistance and that is the international 
struggle of the working class. This force is what we celebrate today on May Day. As 
workers standing together around the world, we can put a halt to employer and government 
attacks, to religious sectarianism and to war.

And by building a working class movement that can stand together ever more strongly, we 
can make the revolution is necessary to abolish capitalism forever. We can establish a 
society of libertarian communism, a society with neither State nor classes, a society of 
liberty, equality and solidarity, where peace can prevail at last and we can begin to 
repair our relationship with the Earth.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
PO Box 5108 Brunswick North 3056
1 May 2015
http://www.melbacg.wordpress.com
macg1984@yahoo.com.au


In Solidariy,

Ablokeimet
for MACG.

Australia Sydney Opera House Utzon Room May 10‏

Australia Piano Quartet May 10 Invitation

Dear APQ Friends,   We are very excited to be presented by the Sydney Opera House again in 2015 in a series of eight concerts in the stunning Utzon Room overlooking Sydney Harbour. It would be great to have you attend some or all of the concerts! We are offering a special 15% off offer through the Opera House for all the programs. This Mother's Day, May 10, at 2pm and 6pm we remember Gallipoli 100 years on in a rare Sydney performance of Frederick Septimus Kelly's String Trio (completed in Double Bay in 1914), alongside a new commission by Sydney Chamber Opera director Jack Symonds, which reflects on ANZAC through the unique prism of Frank Gehry's architecture. To close we will raise the Opera House sails with the passionate exuberance of Schumann's beloved Piano Quartet.  Book now using promo code 'APQ15' to avoid disappointment!  https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/tickets/reserveticket.aspx?productionnumber=111119&performancenumber=0&esc=APQ15 Looking forward to performing for you soon,   Warmest wishes   Tom, Bec, James & Daniel             EXCLUSIVE TICKET OFFER FOR FAMILY & FRIENDS!   We are thrilled to have launched our 2015 series, to be presented in the intimate surrounds of the Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room.   We have an exciting program planned for this year – a special mix of chamber music masterpieces from the likes of Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn performed alongside newly-commissioned works from contemporary Australian composers.  Honouring the centenary of Gallipoli will be a highlight of the series, with the music of WWI woven throughout this year’s season.   We would love to see family and friends in our audience and for a strictly limited time,  we can offer 15% off the price of standard tickets.   Book now to avoid disappointment! SAVE 15%   10 MAY | 8 AUG | 3 OCT | 13 DEC   *Transaction fee of $5 - $8.50 applies to all bookings (excluding Insiders).         Mother's Day Concerts May 10, 2015 UTZON ROOM SERIES 2015 FOLLOW ON TWITTER FRIEND ON FACEBOOK FORWARD TO A FRIEND

Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group Anzac Day Statement

Dear Comrades, The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group today distributed its statement on 
the centenary of Anzac Day at the 8 Hour Monument in Melbourne. Anzac Day is a national 
holiday which the capitalist class in Australia is increasingly using to promote 
militarism. Please see the following link and click on "Anzac Day 2015" at the bottom of 
the page: https://melbacg.wordpress.com/leaflets/ ---- It was notable that the reception 
for the leaflet was considerably more positive than in previous years. A much larger 
proportion of passers-by took one. It was also noted that the ethnic background of the 
recipients was significant. If the person offered a leaflet was Anglo, they were more 
likely than not to decline. If the person was non-Anglo, they were more likely than not 
to accept.

In Solidarity,

Ablokeimet
for MACG.

END ANZAC DAY

One hundred years ago today,
Australian soldiers landed on
the shores of Gallipoli, a Turkish
peninsula not far from Istanbul.
They were part of an invasion force
comprising British, New Zealand
and other allied troops, in a plan to
knock the Ottoman Empire out of
World War I and deprive Germany
of an ally. The episode was a fiasco
from day one and ended when the
last of the invaders left with their tails
between their legs in January 1916.
In the interim, over 100,000 died.

WWI was no accident. Although
triggered by the assassination of an
Austrian Archduke by Gavrilo Princip
in 1914, it was a conflict waiting to
happen. The Balkan War of 1912
had nearly ignited war between the
Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary
and the Ottoman Empire)

and the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia), but diplomacy
narrowly kept the lid on things. The fact that the respective belligerents
hadn’t quite finished preparing their forces probably had something to
do with averting the war, too. And if diplomacy had worked in 1914,
something else would have sparked it the next year or the one after. This
was a showdown which would not be long delayed.

Australian troops were fighting
in no noble cause. The
Gallipoli campaign was a sideshow
in WWI, which was a
crime against humanity. It
was a clash between two rival
imperialist alliances, a squalid
contest over resources,
markets and territory in which
15 to 18 million soldiers and
civilians were killed to advance
the power and profit of their
rulers. The Australian troops
fought not for “freedom and
democracy”, but for “God, King
and Empire”. The empire in
question was British and there
was precious little freedom
and democracy in British India,
in Britain’s African colonies or
even in Ireland. The empire on which the
sun never set was also one on
which the blood never dried.

The other belligerents in WWI brush up no better. France had snapped
up a huge colonial empire in Africa. Germany, a late-comer to the
colonial game, wanted a bigger share of peoples to dominate. Austria-Hungary
was a feudal relic, full of mutually hostile nationalisms. The
Ottoman Empire was worse, a decomposing wreck kept backward for
centuries by its Sultans. Russia was notorious for the autocracy and
oppressiveness of the Czars. Italy conducted an auction, finally siding
with the Entente after being promised a slice of Austria. And Belgium,
poor little Belgium, over which the British Government cried crocodile
tears, maintained a particularly gruesome empire in the Congo. We
could go on – about Serbia, Bulgaria, the United States, Japan and so
on, but the picture wouldn’t change.

There was resistance to the war, though you’d never guess it from the
memorials across Australia, or from the militarist propaganda disguised
as histories of Australian troops’ actions at Gallipoli, on the Western Front
or in Palestine. Not everyone was prepared to follow Andrew Fisher, the
Prime Minister of the day, who promised to fight “to the last man and
the last shilling”. At the very start, the Industrial Workers of the World,
a revolutionary syndicalist (i.e. revolutionary unionist) organisation,
denounced the war in the strongest terms. Defying massive pressure
from the Government and all official institutions, they described it as
a war for profits and called for those who owned the country to do the
fighting for it, as the workers had no stake either way.

After the debacle at Gallipoli, Australian troops were sent to the Western
Front. Trench warfare had reduced the situation to a stalemate, where
generals regularly wasted tens of thousands of lives in futile offensives
trying to break through the other side’s lines. Sandbags, barbed wire and
machine guns, however, gave entrenched defenders an overwhelming
advantage, so when officers ordered their troops over the top, most were
mown down.

The rapidly rising death toll depleted the armies of all belligerents.
In Australia, Billy Hughes, Labor Prime Minister in 1916, decided
conscription was necessary. To get around mounting opposition in the
Labor Party, he sent the issue to a referendum. The IWW’s anti-war work
had born fruit, however, and the referendum was narrowly defeated.

Hughes wasn’t one to take “No” for an answer. He ratted on the ALP, took
24 accomplices with him and kept the post of Prime Minister as leader
of the new Nationalist Party. He tried another conscription referendum
in 1917 and lost it by a bigger margin than the first time. The anti
conscription forces were also more radical the second time around, with
outright criticisms of the entire war being more prominent.

Hughes, though, had his revenge. In 1917 he banned the IWW and
began a wave of persecution that crushed the organisation. The Sydney
12 were framed for arson and received long sentences. A major defence
campaign eventually succeeded in freeing them, but the IWW never fully
recovered and the Government had established a precedent for union
busting in the name of national security.

Back in Europe, the strains of war brought many of the belligerents
undone. Russia erupted in revolution in 1917 as the Czar’s autocracy
was compounded by military and economic incompetence. At the same
time, the French army was convulsed by mutinies – and the German
generals, not wanting their troops to get the same idea, threw their armies
against British sectors of the front.

In 1918, however, the entry of the United States to the war and the
deployment of new technology like tanks helped to break the stalemate.
Germany’s increasing military setbacks provoked desperate measures
by the High Command. The fleet was ordered to launch a suicidal attack
on Britain’s Royal Navy. The sailors responded with mutiny and, within
days, Germany was a fire with revolution. The Kaiser abdicated and the
new government agreed to an armistice. In the aftermath, the AustroHungarian
and Ottoman Empires also collapsed.

Anzac Day is built on a lie. World War I was ended by workers’ revolution,
not by the heroism of Australian or any other military forces. Anti-war
movements broke the governments of Russia and then Germany and
threatened to sweep away several more. And it is workers’ revolution
which can sweep away the governments of all imperialist powers,
including Australia, which wage war on oppressed countries today.

Today’s capitalist politicians use the blood of the Anzacs to create backing
for current and future wars. This is especially the case with Tony Abbott,
the current Prime Minister, who shamelessly boosts militarism in order
to convince people in Australia that they need to support the imperialist
war being waged in West Asia at the moment. Instead of glorifying
the military prowess of the Anzacs, we should be building the working
class movement which can sweep away all capitalist States. We need
a revolution that will establish libertarian communism, a world of liberty,
equality and solidarity, where war and militarism exist no more, except as
exhibits in museums and lessons from history.

END AUSTRALIAN IMPERIALISM



Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
PO Box 5108, Brunswick North VIC 3056
http://melbacg.wordpress.com/
macg1984@yahoo.com.au

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - Racism and labour organising in Australia by Tom

Australia is a country with an undeniable history of racism. It is a history of 
outstanding colonial cruelty. The Australian state is built on genocide and colonialism, 
and this legacy seeps through into all aspects of our political and social lives. The 
current issue of 457 visas harkens back to times such in 1878, where Australian sailors 
unions held strikes to fight the use of Chinese and Pacific Islander labour, claiming they 
had no right to work in Australia, and were taking what was 'rightfully' the white man's. 
This is a dangerous repetition of history, as strikes were common in this same era to try 
and block immigration, and helped start the White Australia policy. ---- While it is 
indisputable that racism infects the white Australian working class, some sections of the 
working class have a powerful history of combating racial divides - despite the divisive 
attitudes of the Australian media, bosses, and politicians who would seek to exploit it. 
The Eureka stockade - a defining moment of Australian labour history - was a historical 
moment of multicultural resistance, where workers of many nations, races and creeds 
rebelled against colonial authorities. Nor is this the only example; Freedom Rides, and 
the Builders Labourers 'Black Bans', among others, give us a hint of the potential for 
working class Australians to take part in the struggle against racism from above and 
amongst their own.

The 457 visa issue is one of the most recent battles around jobs defined by national 
boundaries. 457 visas allow the bosses to exploit the weaker labour laws, lower wages and 
conditions that exist in other nations, and provide them with an opportunity to pit 
workers against one another. The visa allows foreign skilled workers to be 'sponsored' by 
an Australian business to work in the country for the duration of the contract. Bosses can 
pay 457 visa workers less than the minimum wage, which allows them to undercut the wages 
of workers in Australia. However, rather than seeing that foreign workers are being 
exploited by such visas, the media and some leaders of the union bureaucracy claim that 
the bosses are helping these workers, and that these workers are 'taking our jobs.'

It is reprehensible to play the 'stolen jobs' card, when our movement should be calling 
out all forms of exploitation. But not only is this blatant fear-mongering, it is 
completely disingenuous too. The right-wing faction of some unions claim overseas workers 
are taking jobs in the industrial-labouring sectors, but of the 160,000 on 457 contracts, 
about 70% of them are highly paid managers in the private industries. This is hardly 
foreign workers 'stealing' the jobs of blue collar labourers we are presented with. None 
the less, the 30% of workers on these contracts deserve our support, not the condemnation 
and dismissal of our union leaders.

Exploited workers in Australia on any kind of temporary working visas should be assisted 
by the unions. If these workers are organised to fight for their rights and treated as 
equal to the Australian working class by the unions, then the labour movement can help 
stop exploitation both overseas and at home, and help eliminate the unjust division 
created by the bosses. Top politicians or business leaders may claim to have the interests 
of "Australia" at heart, but they are only considering what serves their interests - they 
use immigration as a political tool to win the vote of the working class. It is a card 
they can play to maintain political power, by exploiting fear and insecurity.

But it is not a card that is always successful, and Australian labour history provides 
important examples of when Australian labour has organised to fight racism. A famous 
example is the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the early twentieth century, 
through to its defeat by the government in the 1920's, which had one of the nation's most 
militant legacies of labour organising. The IWW organised in solidarity with workers of 
all colours, and of any legal status. They were famous for defending the rights of workers 
who the traditional unions (namely the Australia Workers Union) would not touch. As then 
and now, to challenge this exploitation of racist fears by bosses, the fight against 
racism needs to come from below. Marginalised peoples will fight for their own rights and 
white and privileged workers need to be prepared act in solidarity, and encourage 
anti-racist attitudes amongst one another.

The 1946 Pilbara workers strike provides a brilliant example of indigenous resistance to 
class exploitation, and how white workers can support these struggles. In Pilbara, Western 
Australia, exploited Aboriginal workers organised a mass strike demanding basic human 
rights, equal wages, and native title, which would turn out to be one of the longest 
strikes in Australian history. This was during a period when the Australian courts did not 
consider Aboriginal people to be as 'evolved' as white men. But workers do not always 
believe the lies of the bosses, nor do they always consider the courts to be the sole 
arbiter of what is right and wrong. The strike was supported by the Communist Party and 
several unions, who organised rallies and raised funds in support, as well as using their 
press to disseminate information combating the racist lies of the state and the bosses.

Examples like this show that the possibility for successful working class anti-racist 
political action always exists. But to make these actions a reality, we need to think more 
about what genuine solidarity looks like and how we can support the leadership of people 
of colour in our organising. Every time we decry racism, every time we organise labour 
across national lines paying no heed to 'legal' or 'illegal' migration status as granted 
by the state, every time we stop fascist organising, every time a refugee is freed, we are 
battling the will of the bosses and politicians and reactionary elements of our own class, 
while strengthening our communities and movements. We need to create autonomy for labour, 
provide real equality, and construct a movement as strong as it is diverse. Only when this 
is realised can workers unite to stop their exploitation at the hands of bosses and 
politicians.

From The Platform, issue three, published October 2014.

This entry was posted in Articles and tagged labour, racism, unions by Tom

http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/racism-and-labour-organising-in-australia/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - The Forgotten War by Kieran

White Australia has a Black History ---- The First World War is the war the Australian 
ruling class wants us to remember. They are spending hundreds of millions over the next 
two years making sure we never forget. It's the war they would have us believe created 
Australia. And Australia was created in a war. But it was another war. A war our rulers 
would rather pretend never occurred. ---- Australia began with an invasion. In 1788 nearly 
eight hundred convicted criminals and nearly four hundred military personnel landed in 
Sydney. They began construction of an advance base of operations, and kicked off a war of 
conquest that would span 140 years. ---- When the invasion commenced there were at 
approximately 750,000 people living in 350 distinct nations on the Australian landmass. By 
1900, only 93,200 first Australians survived. At least twenty thousand Aboriginal people 
were killed or murdered in untold battles and massacres from Hobart to the Kimberley. 
Approximately two and half thousand white invaders were killed as Aboriginal people 
resisted extermination.

The heroes of Aboriginal armed resistance are not remembered. The Australian War Memorial 
refuses to acknowledge their struggle as a "war". In legislation, the Australian War 
Memorial is established to commemorate "wars and war-like operations in which Australians 
have been on active service" which includes "any military force of the ground raised in 
Australia". Presumably, then, the following people do not exist.

Windradyne

In January 1824 the Wirudjuri people under the leadership of Windradyne embarked on an 
ambitious guerrilla war to roll back the expanding white settlement of Bathurst. Over 
eleven months the Wirudjuri burnt out stations, dispersed sheep and cattle and killed 
settlers. By August the Sydney Gazette stated that the Wirudjuri had exposed "the strength 
and wealth of the Colony... to destruction". New South Wales Governor Thomas Brisbane 
declared martial law in the Bathurst area, regular soldiers were dispatched from Sydney, 
and by December a series of massacres had claimed the lives of over one thousand Wirudjuri 
men, women and children.

Yagan

In 1829 white invaders established a colony at Swan River in what is now Western 
Australia. Noongar people first attempted to isolate and avoid these settlers, but a 
series of murders by white settlers in December 1831 eventually led to an armed response 
by Noongar warriors. Initially warriors under the leadership of Yagan and Midgegooroo 
responded to the depredations with acts of traditional retribution (spearing), however as 
white violence escalated Yagan in particular pursued an armed campaign against the 
settlement. Crops and buildings were burned, livestock was scattered, and an ambitious 
series of robberies was conducted. Yagan's interactions with white settlers were not 
always hostile, and he was eventually killed by two shepherds he had befriended. They shot 
him, and cut off his head to claim a reward offered by the colonial government. Yagan's 
head was pickled and taken to England to be publically displayed.

Jandamarra

By 1890 white settlers were colonising the Kimberley region. Jundamurra was a Bunuba man 
employed as a tracker in the service of the white Police. In 1894 he was deployed against 
his own people. Jundamurra rebelled. He killed liberated prisoners, seized weapons, and 
commenced a three year guerrilla war against white settlers, soldiers and police. 
Eventually his band was tracked down, and Jundamurra was captured and killed. Like many 
other black resistance fighters, he was beheaded and his remains were put on public 
display in England.

Jandamarra, Yagan and Windradyne are but three of the names that have (barely) survived a 
deliberate campaign of forgetting and denial. The vast majority of black resistance 
fighters were simply murdered and forgotten, with their actions dismissively explained away.

The Australian ruling class wish to minimise, and forget black resistance and white 
atrocities because remembering has important political consequences.

The acts and history of resistance demonstrate the reality that this continent's original 
peoples never ceded their right to self-determination. Far from surrendering or fading 
away in the mists of time, Aboriginal peoples fought tooth and nail to defend their lands, 
laws and people.

This war of conquest and resistance was economic as well as genocidal. Cattle and sheep 
were crucial to the first capitalist accumulation and extraction on this continent, and 
Aboriginal resistance often focused on economic warfare against these interests - the 
dispersal or spearing of herds and the burning of farms and crops. The white response to 
economic warfare was genocide, with the burning or a crop or death of a single white 
settler met with wholesale massacres. It is no coincidence that massacres follow the 
cattle from Gippsland and the mass murder of Gunai in the 1840s to Coniston and the 
massacres of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye peoples in 1929.

To recognise this is to recognise something about the system of land ownership in White 
Australia. Every plot of land, every house, factory and cattle farm, is built upon the 
murder and destruction of Aboriginal peoples. There are reasons the Australian ruling 
class would rather forget the frontier wars and remember Gallipoli, but no matter what 
they might say, it was the war of conquest unleashed in 1788 is the war that created 
Australia.

The invasion and conquest of this continent created the Australian state, as colonial 
administrations were erected and then consolidated. The invasion and conquest laid the 
basis for the first cycle of capitalist accumulation to occur in Australia, as agriculture 
and mining extracted wealth from stolen lands. And it is the invasion and conquest that 
created the Australian working class, as hundreds of thousands were transported or enticed 
with the promise of stolen land.

Further Reading and Resources:

For more information on Windradyne, Yagan, Jandamarra, and many other figures who led or 
engaged in armed resistance to the white invasion of this continent, check out The 
Forgotten Rebels: Black Australians Who Fought Back, by David Lowe. All quotes in article 
from this source.

Gary Foley's Koori History Website is the goto place for all manner of documents, articles 
and resources on koori history. Of particular relevance to this topic is Foley's index of 
resources on Genocide in Australian History.

Also recommended for those of us in Victoria, the Victorian Massacre Map.

The Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee and Dr Joe Toscano have 
published this excellent booklet on one instance of armed resistance that is of particular 
relevance to us here in Melbourne. Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were Tasmanian 
Aboriginal fighters who survived the genocide in Tasmania, only to be executed in 
Melbourne for their resistance to the expansion of white settlement in Victoria.

First Nations Liberation continue to resist the regime of colonisation in Victoria to this 
day.

This entry was posted in Articles and tagged racism, war by Kieran

http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/the-forgotten-war/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - 'Calling out' and the limitations of accountability processes by Rebecca Winter

Content warning: sexual violence, rape apologism. ---- Recently, I've been getting into 
discussions about whether calling out perpetrators of sexual violence and their supporters 
is a useful tactic. Some people have suggested that calling out is often unhelpful and 
doesn't allow healing to occur. Instead, they suggest that we should focus on less public 
ways of responding to sexual violence. Apparently, we need to have more compassion for 
perpetrators and belief in their ability to change. ---- It has become fairly common for 
people to criticise 'calling out', as though public criticism of the actions of others 
began with the invention of tumblr. Some of these criticisms come from a genuine desire to 
think about how we can build more effective cultures of criticism within the left. But all 
too often, people criticise calling out to avoid dealing with underlying disagreements 
about which actions are actually worth criticising in the first place.

When it comes to calling out perpetrators of sexual violence, the criticisms often miss 
the mark. One problem is that it's often not clear what is really meant by calling out in 
the first place. Is someone calling someone else out if they tell their friends they were 
raped? Or if they name the perpetrator to those around them? What about if they talk about 
their experiences in a group environment? Or does calling out only refer to public 
Facebook or website posts?

Given this ambiguity, saying that calling out is unhelpful risks discouraging sexual 
violence survivors from speaking about their experiences. I worry that it will set up a 
hierarchy of the 'good' survivor who deals with their trauma in private, or with a small 
group of supporters, and the 'bad' survivor who talks publicly about their experiences and 
names the perpetrator. Our society already has an intense focus on and judgement of what 
survivors do in the aftermath of being assaulted. We need to be careful not to increase 
this by focusing on how publicly people talk about sexual violence.

The main reason why calling out can have bad consequences is that rape culture is still 
strong and thriving. Naming a perpetrator or speaking about sexual violence in public 
still often gets an extremely hostile response from friends of the perpetrator and others 
who wish to deny the prevalence and seriousness of sexual violence. We should be focusing 
on creating an environment in which survivors can speak about their experiences without 
having to endure shaming and hostility in response, rather than encouraging them not to 
publicly name the people who hurt them.

We must not underestimate the importance of calling out as a method of alerting people to 
the existence of perpetrators, if this is what the survivor wishes. The person who raped 
me tried to assault four other women before he raped me, but I didn't find out about this 
until it was too late. If there had been more open communication and if the people around 
him had not ignored his behaviour, then maybe he wouldn't have been in the sort of 
environment where he could repeatedly try to assault women and get away with it. I 
certainly would have appreciated a warning or call out.

In opposition to calling out, accountability processes are sometimes presented as the 
'ideal' way to respond to sexual violence. Accountability processes involve a "group that 
mediates between an individual and the person calling them out, or separate groups 
supporting each person and facilitating communication between them. These processes 
usually involve setting out conditions or 'demands' for the person who's been called out 
as a means of restoring safety or trust and preventing the harm from happening again, and 
some method for following up to ensure that these demands are met" - Accounting For Ourselves.

Accountability processes are one (important) way we can attempt to respond to sexual 
violence in our communities, and some survivors have found this approach to be really 
useful. But we need to avoid presenting accountability processes as the best or only just 
way to respond to sexual violence. In practice, the sort of public calling out that some 
people seem to find most confronting often happens after the failure of accountability 
processes, or other less public ways of responding to sexual violence. Calling out a 
perpetrator of sexual violence in a public setting is typically a response to being 
unheard elsewhere.

It's worth remembering that accountability processes carry their own risks and 
limitations. For instance, a rapist's friends will often support them and respond to a 
survivor talking about their experience of violence by banding together to attempt to 
discredit the survivor. Accountability processes may not be possible in the context of 
this level of contempt. Multiple people I know have pursued accountability processes, but 
found that they provided the people who assaulted them with more opportunities to continue 
emotional and other forms of abuse. One survivor was assaulted a second time while 
undergoing an accountability process.

Accountability processes can end up being used as a way of trying to deny the damage that 
has been done. If they are not directed by the wishes of the survivor, they can become a 
way for people to attempt to bring a perpetrator back into a space or community with a 
minimum of fuss, with no real attempt to respond to the survivor's needs.

Sometimes it is suggested that we should be 'calling in' perpetrators of sexual violence, 
rather than calling them out. In an influential article, Ngoc Loan Tran argues that we 
need to "let go of treating each other like not knowing, making mistakes, and saying the 
wrong thing make it impossible for us to ever do the right things." They suggest that we 
need to develop an ethic of calling in - the "practice of loving each other enough to 
allow each other to make mistakes." This idea has immense value when thinking about how to 
build a diverse collective politics against intersecting forms of oppression and 
exploitation. But the idea of calling in was never put forward as a way of addressing 
issues of sexual violence. In fact, it was presented with the explicit disclaimer that 
calling in is not meant to provide justification for a "fuckery free-for-all."

Instead, it is meant to refer to building community with people who you can trust and find 
common ground with. But in many cases this basic level of trust is broken when people 
choose to perpetrate sexual violence. Trust can't always be repaired, especially given the 
lack of resources we have to spend the years that might be required to convince a hostile 
perpetrator that what they did was wrong. We need to remember that most cases of sexual 
violence are not a mistake or due to a misunderstanding, but happen because of a 
perpetrator's intentional or reckless disregard of another person's right to control their 
own body and sexuality.

I believe that people can change for the better, in general. But there's a big difference 
between thinking that people can change, in a general sense, and thinking that particular 
perpetrators are likely to change in the foreseeable future, or that I should put my 
energy towards trying to get them to change.

The realisation that some people are unlikely to change or understand the damage they have 
done to others is a bitter one, but ignoring this can also be dangerous. The person who 
assaulted me went through a cycles of apologising for his actions and then trying to 
assault someone else (which I only found out after he raped me). I don't think I will ever 
trust that an apology from him is genuine. I don't trust that he will change given his 
pattern of sexual aggression towards women. And I don't think that this is because I lack 
compassion. Some people are too invested in sexual violence as a form of control for 
genuine change to be a believable prospect. Acknowledging this should not be seen as a 
failure of a survivor's character.

None of this means that accountability processes aren't worth pursuing, if that is what a 
survivor wants. It is important for us to put energy towards facilitating these processes 
for survivors who do want to try them. But it is also important to acknowledge the 
limitations of accountability processes and understand that it's not a lack of compassion 
that can make survivors decide not to take part in them. We need to support survivors in 
the variety of different (limited) ways people have found to cope with sexual violence, 
and this is going to include calling out and exclusion as well as accountability processes.

Further References:

Elizabeth Switaj, Why I Reject Forgiveness Culture.
http://stirjournal.com/2014/09/29/why-i-reject-forgiveness-culture/

For more on this topic see Rebecca's article from The Platform issue 1, Silent No Longer: 
Confronting Sexual Violence on the Left.
http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/03/silent-no-longer-confronting-sexual-violence-in-the-left/

by Rebecca Winter.

http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/calling-out-and-the-limitations-of-accountability-processes/

Australia, Melbourne, Anarchist Affinity - A quick guide to staying safe and being effective: all out against ' Reclaim Australia'!

(en) Australia, Melbourne, Anarchist Affinity - A quick guide
to staying safe and being effective: all out against 'Reclaim
Australia'!

If you're going out against Reclaim Australia tomorrow, it's totally legitimate to feel a 
bit anxious or worried about what the day might have in store. We hope that this quick 
primer will provide you with a few tips and resources about how to be keep one another 
safe, how to be effective and (hopefully) have a bit of fun running the racists out of 
town. ---- Get organised: ---- If you're not already involved in organising against 
Reclaim Australia, there's still time. Search for the counter rally page in your city, 
read up about what's going on and consider making contact with the organisers to answer 
any questions you might have. ---- Talk to your friends, your family and anyone else about 
what you want to do, and get them to come along with you. The more of us there is, the 
easier & more fun this is all going to be.

Have a plan:

1. Check out the transport options, figure out with your friends how you're gonna get 
there on the day and then stick to that plan. Getting out of bed on time really matters 
tomorrow! Also sort out how you are going to get home in advance, and have a back up plan 
in case of changing circumstances.

2. Know where you're going & what the protest area looks like. Look at a map & try to 
memorise the layout of the streets around it. Figure out how you will move between 
transport & the rally area.

3. Dress appropriately for the conditions in your city. Whatever the weather, hats and 
sunglasses are going to be useful if you're standing outside all day & they can also help 
protect your identity (if that's something you are concerned about). It's also a good idea 
to stash a change of top in your back pack, in case you want to change it up on your way home

4. Bring water, snacks, sunscreen, umbrella/raincoat, a bit of cash, photo ID and any 
medications you require (in their original packaging)

Get informed:

There's plenty of really useful stuff on the internet about preparing for an action like 
this. At the very least, it would be worth checking out Fitzroy Legal Service's Activists 
Rights Handbook for basic stuff about your legal rights when on a political demonstration 
or action.

We also think this guide from South London Antifascists is useful, although not all the 
points they raise are relevant to activists in Australia.

Also important to have a look at is the Melbourne Street Medic Collective's website. They 
have an extensive list of resources available covering many different aspects of political 
action including preparation, staying safe & self care.

Safety & strength in numbers:

This is pretty common sense really but it is worth repeating.

Any time you got out on an action, no matter what sort, we reckon it's worth buddying up. 
This will not only help you communicate, co-ordinate and get things done on the day, but 
it will keep you all safe.

Pick a buddy, stick with them, and co-ordinate amongst a broader group of people so 
everyone can check in & be accounted for.

Whatever dangers do exist when dealing with the far-right can be effectively minimised on 
the day provided we stick together & look out for one another.

If you don't have a buddy or a group of contacts to coordinate with, then ensure you to 
get to the event before the scheduled start time, stick with the crowd & try to make some 
friends.

Remember that solidarity is contagious. If you are feeling nervous, chances are someone 
else is too. Speak up, reach out & support one another.

A few points about Nazis:

Given that every nationalist, white-supremacist & neo-Nazi organisation in the country 
(including the Australia First Party, the Australian Defence League, Nationalist 
Republican Guard & former Australian Protection Party Nick Folkes' vanity project the 
'Party For Freedom') is being encouraged to attend the Reclaim Australia rallies, consider 
the following points.

1. It is important to consider the potential threat posed by hardcore nationalists without 
overstating it. Though they claim to be the "master race", and love to act real tough, 
they're rather less impressive in person. Some are individually dangerous but it's easy to 
avoid this danger with a few simple precautions.

2. Different towns in Australia have different levels of far-right activity, so it really 
depends where you are as to what flavour of racist bonehead you might be dealing with. 
Some general rules still apply though: if you're walking down the street and a gang of 
boofy blokes wearing flag-capes comes towards you, consider walking somewhere else.

3. Current fuhrer of the Australia First Party (formerly the Australian Nazi Party) "Dr" 
Jim Saleam has issued a series of dictats to his swastika-licking mates about how they 
ought to behave themselves on the day. They're encouraging people to leave the nazi getup 
& sieg-heiling at home, wrap themselves in the Aussie flag (presumably to cover up any 
fascist tattoos) & spread the word about good ole Adolf in a gentle, less threatening way. 
Basically, they're going to try to be on their best behaviour.

4. Fascists on di attack? We will film them back! Though self-appointed leader of Reclaim 
Australia Shermon "shit on a mosque" Burgess is trying to play down his connections to 
racists, fascists and boneheads around 'Straya, we are well aware of the company he keeps. 
Unfortunately, this information doesn't seem to matter much to his followers, but it is 
still important to identify the nazis on the day, both to keep people safety, but also to 
try & make Reclaim organisers sod the nazis off (like they promised to).

5. The most important thing you can do to stay safe is to look out for one another & stick 
together. There is no more important time to do this than when the rally breaks up & 
everyone goes home. Fascists are bullies, but they're also cowards & some may hang around 
in the city to look to pick a fight. We can protect ourselves from this threat by making 
sure we move in a group (to the station etc), with purpose & with a clear idea of where 
we're going. Know the location, know the exit routes & stick to your plan.

Be careful around the police:

It doesn't matter what you actually think about the police, love em or hate em, you will 
definitely have to deal with them on the day. The Activists Rights Handbook is a much more 
rigorous & comprehensive guide for dealing with the law than we have room for here, but 
here are a few tips:

1. Don't talk to them unless you are detained or arrested. You don't have to speak to the 
cops, and no matter how nice they are, the reason they speak to you is to gain information 
that they may attempt to use against you or someone else. Better to be safe and say 
nothing at all.

2. Elect a police liaison to negotiate on your group's behalf. Instead of allowing the 
cops to decide who they want to put pressure on, choose a confident person whose job it is 
to communicate with the plod if/when it is necessary.

3. Don't waste your time trying to reason with them about why nazis shouldn't get to 
parade around in public. They either don't care, or it's their job to not care. An 
organisation as corrupt and institutionally racist as the police force cannot be used as a 
tool to confront racism.

4. Use your common sense & don't do anything silly. By all means defend yourself & your 
friends if attacked, but don't initiate anything with the boneheads, no matter what they 
say or do. Collective action is what makes antifascism effective, not individual bravado.

Have fun:

For the most part, the kind of muppets who will drag themselves along to a rally about the 
"evils of Islam" on a bloody public holiday are pitiful, pathetic and ridiculous. Make 
good use of that fact.

It's likely that most of their attendees are so attached to their silly conspiracy 
theories that they are well beyond rational debate. But they are not beyond ridicule.

Blast them with music, sing them songs, chant them down. Dance your ass off to anti-racist 
tunes, explain to passers by why they're plonkers, bring along a vuvuzela.. whatever!

The most effective forms of resistance involve everyone participating how they're best 
able, so bring your skills, creativity and your friends and let's make a go of it!

Stand together, stay safe, no pasaran.

Bonus!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIPD8qHhtVU

Anarchist Affinity are an anarchist communist group organising in Melbourne, Australia