Anarkismo Network

If you are not familiar with the infamous Come Here to Me blog then you should really have a look at it or the book and join thousands of other readers finding out about social history in Dublin. There are over 2,000 stories on the site addressing many different facets of everyday life and culture in Dublin from forgotten lanes, to overlooked monuments through to stories about the Gards, the eating habits of Dubs, and clubbing in the 50's and everything in between. The site has won a number of awards over the years and two of the authors spoke at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair to a crowd of academics, librarians, archivists and many interested members of the general public.

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Regular bulletin of the AF (Britain)
MAY 2013 RESISTANCE is out. THE GREEN SHOOTS OF REVOLT (Bedroom Tax), Pro-choice in Ireland, Benefits interviewee campaign, Bristol Bookfair report (and forthcoming Sheffield bookfair), Greece migrant worker attacks, Bangladesh factory solidarity, Jock Palfreeman prisoner support.

Mayday in Dublin save a collection of historic trade union banners and the Fintan Lalor pipe band lead over 1,000 people from the Garden of Remembrance to Liberty Hall. The march is organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) and featured ten banners created for the ITGWU by the artist Jer O’Leary with images of militant syndicalist trade union leaders  Jim Larkin and James Connolly and scenes from the 1913 Lockout.

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Yes to mass struggle and its protest and resistance
No to the militia & tribal war
No to wage war and the States intervention against the mass struggle and its resistances

We know that the collective noun for a group of geese is a gaggle and for cows a herd, but what is the appropriate term for a plurality of doctors? According to the Irish state and political class, it would seem the correct name is an Alibi of Doctors.

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Anarchism in Barcelona in the lead-up to the 1936 Spanish revolution.  This is the audio and video of the  talk given at the 2013 Dublin anarchist bookfair by Chris Ealham (author of 'Anarchism and the City: Revolution and Counter-revolution in Barcelona, 1898--1937')

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300,000 public service workers may shortly be forced to strike, something that may very well transform the potential for radical politics in Ireland.  The purpose of this Open Letter is to provide information for activists who are not working in Public Services in order to explain the importance of the No vote to Croke Park. It is important in terms of the general struggle against austerity and we want to suggest some ways you can help make sure this fight is won, in particular by coming to a discussion of just that on Wednesday 8th May at 7.30 in the Teachers Club. (RSVP on Facebook)

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Earlier this year two Irish anarchists delivered talk at Jura books in Sydney regarding the history of anarchism in Ireland, the politics of the WSM and how it organises. The speakers also referred to its ongoing involvement in campaigns and struggles from shell to sea, anti-war activity and involvement in the CAHWT.

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The WSM has always argued that the X-Case legislation was not enough but even so we were shocked to finally see the details of the bill Fine Gael and Labour are preparing.  We expected it to be a small but almost insignificant step foward.  Instead there is a clear danger that women with unwanted pregnancies will be worse off than before if the final bill resembles what has been presented so far.

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A SHORT HISTORY OF MAY DAY The first of May is a moment for us to remember the Chicago Haymarket Martyrs of 127 years ago. These Chicago anarchists helped to lead the major battle of the day, not only for the 8 Hour Day, but also for social liberation. The origins of May Day go […]

A short history of May Day

The first of May is a moment for us to remember the Chicago Haymarket Martyrs of 127 years ago. These Chicago anarchists helped to lead the major battle of the day, not only for the 8 Hour Day, but also for social liberation.

The origins of May Day go back to May 4, 1886, marking the Haymarket Massacre. This memorable day began as a rally of striking workers who were demanding an eight-hour work day, climaxing with a bomb produced by an unknown individual while the police dispersed the peaceful rally. The blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.

Eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy during the legal proceedings that followed. Although the evidence was scarce, and it could not be proven that any of the eight defendants had thrown the explosive projectile, seven were sentenced to death and one to 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted to life in prison, and another committed suicide before his hanging. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois’ new governor pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the evidence that was used during trial.

Since this day, we honor those who have fought, sacrificed and died for the defense and advancement of the working class.

Present conditions Since the events of Haymarket, we have wrestled much from the capitalist class and the state through struggle. During the past 30 years, these forces have attacked our small, yet hard-fought-for gains. Continued attacks on working conditions, increasingly precarious and low wage work, deindustrialization, and marginalization have become the new normal. Governments have imposed round after round of social austerity measures, where workers and families have been expected to swallow cuts to public funding of services so that the richest can continue to profit from the fruits of our labor.

Today’s struggles/Tomorrow’s struggles

Despite this grim situation, today we have much to celebrate and look forward to. Over the last year, we have seen in Québec the biggest social movements in Canadian history spearheaded by combative unions to fight against neoliberal cuts to education and for quality free education. The Chicago Teachers Union went on strike and joined with parents and community members to protect their bargaining rights and working conditions and fight school closures. Workers from various fast food chains, warehouses, car washes and superstores, which have historically been near impossible to organize into business unions, have been participating in strike actions and various direct action in the demand for better working conditions. Unionized longshore workers have been fighting to hold the line on additional concessions to the bosses in one of the last bastions of union density and shopfloor power. While we celebrate these efforts and whatever small victories gained thus far, working class victory can only come from struggles owned and controlled by the workers themselves, not from above but from below and built with their own self-activities.

These developments within the broader labor movement are a welcome sight in comparison to what is seen by some as a decade of relative inactivity. We see it as important that the workers and community partners involved in these campaigns recognize that they are confronting head-on the relationship between the ruling and working classes, and that successfully challenging this relationship will require more than one-day strikes and solidarity rallies. It will require nothing less than workers forcefully overcoming barriers of race, migration status, gender, sexuality, and gender identity to unite as one class, bound by continuous solidarity, and always pushing forward through escalations of action.

The need for a new workers’ movement

We hope this new, combative spirit by some workers invigorates a new and militant workers’ movement in North America—a workers’ movement that will no longer wait for politicians and bureaucrats to resolve the growing inequalities and oppressions. This spirit might bring a new wave of workers to replace the stale unionism with more democratic, combative and autonomous labor organizations which realize that laws and political institutions are put in place for the defense of the ruling class, and that only our own labor organizations, autonomous from the political institutions, can bring about the effective fighting force needed to replace the current, and build a new world.

This new workers’ movement should be allied with supportive movements, such as those against cuts to social services and education, and those movements against all forms of oppression and inequality. We see the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression as we wage these struggles, along with the fights against the expansion of and brutality of police forces and prisons, the criminalization of the poor and undocumented, and the continued attacks on reproductive freedoms. As these and many other forms of oppression work in conjunction with class exploitation, we must build movements which see common interest in these struggles and which actively and mutually oppose the assaults on one another.

A new world to build

By engaging in these struggles, we gain necessary experience, initiate needed debates, and confront the current austerity agenda of the elite outside of current labor laws. Through struggle, we lay the possible foundations of a future world. Through struggle, we can as a class start to imagine and organize for a classless society and one completely emancipated from all forms of oppression. This May Day, just like every other, is a call for workers to organize against the everyday exploitation of capitalism. In the spirit of those who fought for the eight hour day, let us continue the fight for the advancement of our class.

We need to look toward building a society without power, profit, and privilege, in which working people in workplaces and communities make the decisions about how our work is done and what we want from it. We need a movement that fights for real gains within the context of this society while using its own organizations as the basis for a new one.

In Struggle & Solidarity,

Prairie Struggle Organization
Wild Rose Collective
Four Star Anarchist Organization
Common Struggle/Lucha Común
Workers Solidarity Alliance
Free Association of Anarchists
Miami Autonomy & Solidarity

Arkib, Beit Ummar, Bil'in' Ma'asara, Nabi Saleh, Ni'ilin, Qaddum, Sheikh Jarah, Sheikh Jarah, Silwad, South of Hebron Hills, Susiya, Tel Aviv-Jaffa
The traditional Chinese course: "Have an interesting life" is fulfilled these months in the East of the Mediterranean: The elite in Syria massacre its rebelling people, the Israeli state continue with the cleansing of the Palestinians and have a second neo-liberal front with own people; Turkey just in the north cut the last ropes of the Ottoman empire and Egypt to the south is fermenting more than ever in its long long History. The elites of the European countries of the north who ruled and exploited our region for centuries start to feel and behave in the panic of tiger riders who fear that the ride is nearing its end and the confrontation with the tiger is nearing... And the joint struggle in Arkib, Beit Ummar, Bil'in' Ma'asara, Nabi Saleh, Ni'ilin, Qaddum, Sheikh Jarah, Sheikh Jarah, Silwad, South of Hebron Hills, Susiya, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, continue. [http://www.anarkismo.net/article/25474]

Back before many people had discovered the internet a small group of anarchists including this writer began work on the Anarchist FAQ. We were tired of having to provide the same basic explanations over and over as new people joined the news net group, alt.soc.anarchism, so we began the FAQ so newcomers could be referred to it.

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This is a glimpse into a process of investigation into ourselves and each other. It’s neither the beginning nor the end and so it’s open to change. It’s never static. For now, at least, it’s the culmination of a year of conversations around what it might look like to be part of a movement that cultivates an environment of collective and self-care, support, revolutionary love and self-determination. The opinions that will follow are my own but i will use the word ‘we’ throughout this piece to reflect that these ideas were inspired by others and created through conversation and dialogue. I take responsibility for them but am open to suggestions and the possibility that they will change where better versions replace them.

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As class-struggle anarchists dealing with the relations between gender, race and class, we must, in theory and practice, pick a path between two pitfalls. On one side is economic reductionism – the reduction of all political questions to the social relations of production – which erases the perspectives and struggles of women, queers and people of colour; submerges their voices within an overly generalised class narrative, in which the idealised Worker is implicitly white heterosexual and male; or consigns their struggles to a secondary importance compared to the “real struggle” of (economic) class against class.  On the other is a stultifying and inward-looking liberal-idealist identity politics, concerned fetishistically with the identification of privilege and the self-regulation of individual oppressive behaviour to the (near) exclusion of organised struggle, which, while amplifying the voices of the marginalised, consigns them to an echo chamber where they can resonate harmlessly.

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Anarchists Are Really Against the State: A Response to Marxists
Marxists argue that anarchists really do advocate a state, or something indistinguishable from one, but do not admit it. But what anarchists advocate is the overturning of the existing state and the creation of a new, nonstate, association of councils, assemblies, and a popular mililtia. There is no such thing as a "workers' state."

Political Declaration of the “ European conference in solidarity with the agrarian and popular struggles , and in support of the talks for Peace with Social Justice in Colombia.” Dublin, April 20-21, 2013

The massive vote by union members to reject the 'Croke Park Extension' proposals was a clear and unambiguous rejection of government attempts to impose yet another 1billion of austerity cuts on public service workers.  It was also a clear statement of opposition to the trade union leadership's decision to enter talks on the basis of these cuts in the first place.

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This article is a plea to campaign members and activists to vote down proposals that have been put in to this Saturday's CAHWT conference to endorse a slate of candidates in elections and to instead concentrate our collective energies on building the mood of political protest that is necessary to defeat the property tax in the immediate future. The WSM will be distributing this text as a leaflet on Saturday, let us know if you would like to help.

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In a wide ranging interview Paul Bowman talked to Felipe Corrêa (FC)  a Brazilian anarchist who is member of Organização Anarquista Socialismo Libertário [Libertarian Socialist Anarchist Organization] (OASL) about anarchist orgainising in Brasil, just how global the crisis really is and the forthcoming World Cup.