Anarchia

There can be no doubt that being asked questions with a gun to your face is one of the scariest things that can happen to someone, and so I won’t delve too much further into those specific situations, except to say that the main thrust of my argument still holds true - not saying anything is always a better option for the overall safety and liberty of everyone concerned.

Too many people however, when confronted by Police without firearms (whether at their houses or after being called in for questioning) still talked. Too many people talked to the media, armed with only microphones. The excuses for this have been varied, from thinking one was doing the right thing, to not thinking at all, however in all cases talking had a negative effect, whether directly or indirectly.

The Police intelligence gathering in Operation 8 had two aspects - information gathered specifically to aid in the prosecution of those individuals arrested on October 15th (and any further arrests that Police stated they wished to make), and information gathered to help in building an overall picture of the Tino Rangatiratanga, anarchist and activist movements and communities across Aotearoa with a sinister eye to the future.

Some people answered simple questions like “Do you know person X?”, thinking that either the fact that they knew them didn’t matter, or assuming that the Police already knew the answer was in the affirmative. In doing this, they assisted Police to further enhance their maps of who is connected to who, who works with who. Regardless of whether or not it had relevance to Operation 8 in specific instances, it certainly will help them in investigating any future activity.

When confronted by Police at your house, if they don’t have a warrant, make sure they leave your property immediately. No ifs, no buts. Don’t answer any questions, don’t let them walk around your back yard uninterrupted, don’t leave them alone unwatched until they’re gone. If they have a warrant, then let them in and watch them for as long as possible (theoretically, you should be able to watch the entire search, but Police aren’t exactly known for obeying the rules). While watching, make sure you don’t tell them anything. Don’t answer questions, don’t engage in idle chit-chat. Cops aren’t friendly except for when they think that will help them in finding out the answers to their questions - if they’re being nice, it’s not because they’re nice people, it’s because they want to lull you into talking. Don’t fall for their trap.

If you feel like you need to answer a call for questioning, either talk to a lawyer first, or if you can get a pro bono lawyer, take one in with you. Again, don’t answer anything. Don’t sign anything either, there is no requirement for you to do so. Try to recall everything they ask you - it could prove useful for working out their lines of enquiry, or discovering the extent of their surveillance.

Perhaps the worst example of talking to the media during the aftermath of Operation 8 was the front page story in The Press in Otautahi/Christchurch, with quotes from somebody claiming to be a friend of one of the people called in for questioning. This friend was quoted as saying things which should obviously not have been said to anyone, let alone a journalist from a large media organisation. A saying which is apt here is “If you don’t know anything, don’t talk about it. If you know a little, say even less.”

This isn’t a game. This isn’t about your moral indignation that you have “nothing to hide”. Operation 8 was not the usual bullshit charges of Disorderly Behaviour seen at a protest, where one could have a reasonable expectation of being found not guilty, if the charges ever reached trial. The potential charges in Operation 8 could have resulted in some serious, long term jail time, and even the lesser Arms Act charges still carry a potential of up to four years. This isn’t a game, and those talking to the Police or the media are risking the liberty of those they claim to call friends. The coercive arm of the state arrived on our doorsteps – and will potentially use the information gathered for many years to come.  Inviting a cop in for a cup of tea undermines the good work you and many others have been doing, and can put waste to organising that has taken months or years of effort to do.

At the end of the day, it comes down to a simple question of where you stand. Do you stand with those fighting for justice and liberty, or with those who seek to repress it? If you stand with the former, then it should be second nature that we do not do anything to help those who stand with the latter. One of the lessons learnt since October 15th is a very simple one, one of who can be trusted, and of who breaks trust placed in them. It would do us all well to remember that.

Aotearoa Indymedia aims to be a space where people feel inspired to read, write and comment on news and events happening across Aotearoa (and the rest of the world). In order to fulfill this aim, the Aotearoa Indymedia Editorial Collective is empowered to enact the Editorial Policy, which mainly means hiding spam, abusive and duplicate posts and comments and cleaning up the newswire (ie - via moving local posts from the elsewhere newswire if they are posted in the wrong place, or fixing up the formatting of posts when requested by the author).

The Editorial Collective also writes most of the feature articles (the ones in the centre column, like this), sometimes from scratch and sometimes via collating articles from the newswire (or a mix of both!)

Prior to the Police raids of October 15th, the editorial collective had three main editors - all had been editing for some time and so were experienced with what needs to be done. These three did much of the work on Aotearoa Indymedia, helped by the rest of the editorial collective (some of whom have less-regular internet access, others of whom are new, still others who have many projects they are involved in for whom Indymedia takes a low priority). During the raids, two out of those three editors were arrested, and both are currently being held in Auckland Central Remand Prison. As the only one of those three left, I have endeavoured (with help!) to keep Aotearoa Indymedia as up to date as possible with information on the raids and protests, but there are limits to how much an increasingly small collective can do.

Now, perhaps more than ever since Aotearoa Indymedia began, we need your help. If you are interested in taking an active role in the Aotearoa Indymedia Editorial Collective, then please email imc-aotearoa-ed (at) lists.indymedia.org. The process for joining the Collective can be read here.

If you spot a duplicate, spam, troll or abusive post, please DO NOT reply to it, but rather email imc-aotearoa-ed (at) lists.indymedia.org with the URL and the reason you think it should be hidden, and I or one of the other editors will attend to it as soon as possible. You can also frequently find some of us on the global Indymedia IRC server, which is also being used as a regular updating space on the current raids/hearings for Indymedia folks from all over the world.

In solidarity,
Asher, (Aotearoa Indymedia Editorial Collective)

Recently I was up in Auckland for the Anarchism Is Organising conference. On the second day of the conference, I ran a workshop on “mental health, mental illness and anarchist community support”. The workshop wasn’t on the agenda prior to the conference, but after some thoughts and a discussion that touched on the subject the previous afternoon, I decided to run it. Not long after I made the offer, I suddenly became incredibly nervous when I realised I hadn’t ever run a discussion on the topic before, and had no idea how to structure it or what to do. After a bit of thinking, I decided that attempting to get anything concrete out of it probably wouldn’t actually work, and therefore attempting to do that would only serve to be demoralising. Instead, I decided that getting people to open up and share their stories would be the most positive first step that we could take.

By lunchtime Sunday, with the workshop just a few hours away, I’d decided on a format - one that began with me opening up and telling my story, from scratch. Trying to put the years of pain and hardship into words, the awful experiences with medication, the lowest lows, the scariest times. I also decided to talk about the incredible lack of support that I felt in the Wellington anarchist community. The discussion would be the first time I had ever talked about my experiences in a large group, and I wasn’t feeling confident or even particularly safe (especially considering I’d only met a large number of the participants the day before), but I’d made the decision to speak out and I wasn’t going to change that. I confided my worry to a friend shortly before the discussion started that I would tell my story, and noone else would feel safe or comfortable enough to tell theirs. While I can totally understand why this might be the case, I was pretty concerned as to how that would affect me - leaving myself so open and exposed.

Then it started. I talked, remembering things that I had long forgotten (whether accidentally or on purpose). Feelings came back to me as real as when I’d first felt them. At times, I had to stop, while at other times swinging the chair in front of me or letting loose a few tears seemed to calm me down a little. When, while talking, I looked up at the rest of the group, I made sure to try to focus on a couple of people who I trusted the most, and the looks in their eyes helped me to continue. Still, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to talk about in public.

When I finished, there was a brief silence, and then I looked around and there were others wanting to speak. At that point, I felt like a weight had been lifted. For the next two hours, around ten others shared their stories of mental illness, of medication and psychiatry, of community support (or the lack of it), of friends (or the lack of them). It was honestly one of the most beautiful things I’ve been a part of. That so many people felt able to talk so openly and honestly about their deepest held secrets amongst a group of people they didn’t know was incredible. The discussion could easily have gone on longer, but after we’d gone one hour overtime we really had to stop to allow other workshops to take place.

After we’d finished, I gave a big hug to a friend of mine, and we went outside for a ciggarette. A few others joined us and we talked about how we felt after the workshop (emotionally drained but inspired covers it well, I think). A couple of people talked about the possibility of setting up a mental health support group in Wellington, which would be awesome if it gets off the ground.

I also talked afterwards to a couple of people who have never experienced mental illness, who came to listen and learn. What they said only made me more confident that what happened was the most positive first step we all could have taken. While it may never be possible to understand exactly what we go through, speaking that honestly and extensively is probably as close as it gets.

At the moment, it seems like online is my only connection to the world outside my front door. I’ve only left the house once in the last week (maybe longer? I lost track…) and that was only to the petrol station across the road to get out some cash (to order in comfort food…mmm, vegan pizza). Even then I had to drag one of my flatmates with me because I didn’t feel up to going outside on my own.

I’ve skipped at least two meetings, the most recent of which was yesterday, because I don’t feel up to seeing other humans right now. I’ve even been avoiding the two people I live with (both of whom read this blog, hi!) for the most part…

Tomorrow night I’ve got a meeting that I really want to go to, for a new collective I’ve just joined. I especially want to go because I haven’t actually been able to attend a meeting of that collective yet, in the few weeks since I told them I wanted to join. Hopefully I’ll feel up to going - I think I’ll probably try to force myself even if I don’t - but the thought of being around a group of people brings up feelings I don’t know how to label - fear, anxiety, nervousness….

These feelings have happened before, they seem to come during especially bad patches of my depression (although not always).  Not really sure what to do about them. Part of me has an inkling that forcing myself to have as much human contact as possible would be healthy right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy…

Imagine this scenario: For the past 3 nights, you haven’t slept - of course, you’ve slept a few hours during the middle of the day, so you’re still somewhat functioning, but the sleep has been constantly broken and shitty even when it has existed. The fourth night, you decide you are going to try to sleep no matter how you feel, no matter how fast your mind is working, no matter what. At around 3:30am, you finally feel like there’s a small chance you can squeeze out some sleep, so you go to bed. You decide that old favourite method, reading yourself to sleep, and pick out the thing on your bookshelf that its been longest since you’ve read. You glance at it, think to yourself “thats not the best bedtime reading” but nothing else seems interesting, so you go to bed and start reading. The reading material you picked? Support, a (fucking excellent) zine about sexual assault and supporting survivors.

And that, my friends, was a really bad idea. Anyway, to cut a long story short, you read the whole zine, then turn out the lights. Your mind runs faster than ever, and eventually, you get out of bed, because there’s no way in hell you’ll be getting to sleep tonight. You go online, and post your experience on your blog, for some inexplicable reason in the third person. The end…

Grumpy. Down. Shattered. Emotionally exhausted. Blergh. Not great. Mentally fucked. Crappy.

These are all words I’ve used to describe my state of mental health to my friends, all woefully inadequate. The total lack of language I have to adequately convey the (at times) complete debilitation I feel no doubt is a contributing factor to the lack of support I frequently get from friends (see Depression and support). If I can’t describe what I’m going through, how can I ever hope to get what I need in terms of support?

During recent reflection, I have realised that a number of times this year, I was feeling something I’ve always denied to myself. Only in the last week have I finally been able to label where I was (and perhaps still am) - suicidal (at times verging on, at times more than that). Perhaps, if I had used that word, my friends may have had a better understanding of my mental state. Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel that much of the response would have been to deny my experience, to tell me I was “over-dramatising” the situation.

After suffering from mental illness for 8 years, I’ve got very good at putting on masks when interacting. In all but my lowest periods (and sometimes even then), all but those who know me the best (and sometimes even them) see a very different array of emotions to those which I am actually feeling. I’ve gotten pretty good at appearing happy or at least content, at feigning enthusiasm or excitement. For me, these false emotions serve two main purposes:

• A coping mechanism - I figure that I’m stuck with my mental illness, and other than tinkering on the edges, there’s not actually a hell of a lot I can do about it at its roots. By putting on a mask, I am still able to participate to some extent in things, whether they be socialising, political activism or whatever.
• An avoidance of pity - There are few things that frustrate me more than being pitied, and, unfortunately, that is frequently the response I get from friends when I let my mask drop. If its not pity, I get patronised, which is just as bad. By projecting fake emotions, I’m able to interact with people without being pitied or patronised for my mental state.

Unfortunately, these masks also certainly serve a negative purpose, to hide my true state from my friends and therefore lessen the chance of receiving the support I need. Together with the lack of language I possess for when I do choose to voluntarily drop my masks, is it really surprising that the vast majority of the time, I feel like I’m going through this alone?

A taster of the upcoming second issue of my zine, Anarchia. Shouldn’t be too much longer til it’s done. 

Growing up as a Jew in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the month of December has always played host to some weird feelings that I’ve never quite been able to pin down, and certainly never able to name. This year, for the first time, I have really tried to dig deep within myself and work out what it is about the “holiday season” that really gets to me, and for the first time, I have been able to get a real feeling for the issues, and to put a name to them - Christonormativity.

Christonormative practices legitimise and privilege Christianity and Christian practices as fundamental and “natural” within society, to paraphrase Cathy Cohen’s definition of Heteronormativity. In doing so, of course, they serve to delegitimise my experiences and culture as a Jewish person and further alienate me from the surrounding society. Needless to say, this becomes most noticable in the “Christmas period”, with advertisments, songs, signs, trees, tinsel and family gatherings, even amongst my nominally atheist friends.

In a South Park episode I once saw, Kyle, the Jewish character, sings a song with the chorus “I’m just a Jew, a lonely Jew, on Christmas”. Indeed, this has traditionally been the feeling I have had around this time of year, as many of my friends return to their parent’s hometown to celebrate this so called “secular, family holiday”. I recall when growing up never quite knowing how to talk about this - even on a simple level, as a child, wondering what to say in January when friends asked “so, what did you get for Christmas?” The question was asked with a surprising frequency, even from friends who knew I was Jewish. My answers changed from year to year as I became more and more sure of my own culture - what began as attempts to fudge the question and move the discussion on soon moved into affirmative statements of my Jewish identity, These affirmative statements, however, are often met with a response that I’m sick of hearing: “Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday, it’s a secular family one!”

This is the key to Christonormativity - rather than outwardly and openly forcing Christianity upon people (as in the Inquisition), Christonormativity seeks to make Christian practices applicable to all and to allow non-Christian practices only so long as they reside within a Christian framework (see the relatively new tradition of giving presents at the Jewish festival of Channukah, often at a similar time to Christmas). In doing so, it disempowers those who are not part of the dominant Christian culture and gives them two choices: assimilate or consign yourself to the margins.

Through the implicit threat of violence, this pressure to assimilate or marginilise has been internalised by the Jewish community. Right through my childhood, we were told it was not a good idea to be “too” open about our Jewishness, and in a community where the majority of people have family members who either survived or were murdered in the Holocaust, this feeling was especially strong. We should be proud of our culture, we were taught, but there’s no need to take it beyond the walls of our homes and community centres. The threat of violence was visualised by the community security that would stand at the entrance to any community event. This threat was further reinforced by many ultra-Zionist members of the community - those who would constantly state that Jews needed Israel because, even though New Zealand might seem friendly at the moment, things could change at any moment, and ultimately, we could only trust Jews to look after Jews.

Many friends of mine who have moved to Israel from elsewhere have expressed how one of the things they enjoy most about living there is the fact that they live in a culture where it is normal to be Jewish and to celebrate Jewish holidays - in short, Israel has replaced Christonormativity with Judeonormativity. Unsurprisingly, the dominant culture pays little heed to the many Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bah’ai and others who live there, who have become the minority cultures and again, given that same choice - assimilate or be marginalised. Again, the threat (often acted upon) of violence is used to enforce and display the power of the dominant Judeonormative culture.

There is a third option that the varying forms of religonormativity tries to hide from us, an option infinitely preferable both to assimilation and to marginalisation. This option, of course, is social revolution - a revolution to destroy not only religonormativity, but also capitalism, patriarchy, statism, racism and all other forms of oppression and social control.

This post was written last night, without an Internet connection, hence it is only being posted now.

I’ve suffered from depression more or less non-stop for the last 8 years, since I was 14 (see Mental illness: My struggle). Early on, I used to use that tired old joke, “I don’t suffer from depression, I enjoy every minute of it!” but it didn’t take to long for me to realise that that only served to further minimise and marginalise the all-too-real suffering I was going through in the eyes of others (“He can joke about it, surely that means it can’t be too bad”).

My support networks during those 8 years have ranged from the fantastic to the barely existent, changing with the various social circles I have mixed with during that time. Yet, when I think back to times where my support network has been all I could have hoped for, I find it hard to remember what it actually was that they did. In my latest especially depressive patch (as distinct from my routine depressive state), currently running into its 5^th month, I certainly feel a lack of support, but I also have a total lack of an idea as to what I want or need.

Part of me longs for my friends to take the lead at this point – for them to gather together and do something, anything, to provide some support, even if it’s totally inadequate or not what I need. At the same time, I fear the patronising mentality that is so common towards sufferers of mental illness (even from fellow sufferers). I don’t want to have to deal with being patronised on top of everything else.

Because suffering from mental illness takes a radically different form for every person, even fellow sufferers are unable to provide any framework that is likely to be effective – I know sufferers who cope best when totally left alone, and I know sufferers who can’t bear to be alone for even a minute. Our differing experiences demand different strategies of support, which makes it that much harder to develop community strategies (see Building “mad” friendly communities) for supporting sufferers that can be readily applied whenever someone requires help.

I’m not really sure, at this point, of the purpose of this post. It’s about 20 minutes since I wrote that last paragraph, 20 minutes of sitting here trying to think of a positive, or at least constructive, outcome to begin to head towards. But I guess that I really don’t know where to go from here. I can only hope that this serves as a catalyst for people to take a good look around them and to question how they can best support their friends who are suffering right now. In the meantime, though, I’m sure I won’t be the only one crying alone tonight.

I wrote the following last night after watching a movie - apologies if it isn’t totally coherent, neither was my brain at that stage…

I’ve just finished watching Everything Is Illuminated, and it brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts in my head, far more so than any other Holocaust related movie I’ve watched. I think that’s because rather than focusing on the horrors of the Holocaust, it focuses on something which I experience far more – the knowledge of a lost past, of a lost heritage.

Only one of my grandparents were born in Aotearoa – the other three all migrated here. Two came in the 1920’s, while one escaped from Poland just before the Nazi invasion. Of the heritage of those three (all long passed away) I only have a vague knowledge of the last, my Mother’s father.

He was one of only a few of his family to survive, the rest dying in the Holocaust. I have no idea how, where or when – all I know is they did not survive.

It’s a strange thing – If I knew my family’s heritage, I probably would barely give it a second thought. But because I don’t, that lack of knowledge is something that surrounds everything I do.

In the not too distant future I’ll be going to Poland, to a town called Bialystok, where he grew up. I’ll be going to the concentration camps, where countless lives (perhaps some of my family’s) were taken in the most cruel and calculated circumstances. I’m going there, not in the hope that I’ll find anything I don’t already know (that could only be a fools game), but just to see, to feel, to experience, even if for a moment, what has been taken from me and so many other Jews (and Roma, queers and others).

That lack of a past engulfs me, imprisons me. When I feel so disconnected from what family I have left alive, it is the family long dead that I wish I could reach out to. I wish I could have met them, have asked them all the questions I want answers to. One of my foreign born grandparents died long before I was born, the other two when I was just 2 years old. And so I never really knew any of them. I was never able to talk to them about their hometowns, about what life was like, about their decisions to come to the other side of the world, and, perhaps most importantly, about what they left behind.

Instead, I sit here, typing on a computer, trying to put into words that which cannot be described. Trying to imagine what they might have been like. Trying to imagine what I would have done in their place. Trying to imagine what they would say of the choices I have made in my life. Trying, above all, not to forget.

The topic for the latest Carnival of Anarchy is Anarchism in your area. So I thought I’d tell you all a little about whats going on with anarchism in the town I grew up (and have spent most of my life) in, Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington, at the bottom of the North Island of Aotearoa / New Zealand. This post does come a little late, but I’ve been busy the last couple of days so didn’t get a chance to write.

Wellington is a city of around 150,000 people, with around 400,000 in the region, making it the second largest city population wise in the country. In terms of anarchism and political activism, it is by far the largest though, although still relatively small.

In 2005 a few Wellington anarchists got together to organise a weekend focussed on the Wellington anarchist community - in the build up to this, we got together a list of around 95 self-identified anarchists to invite to the weekend (around 60 attended over the two days), so that gives you an idea of how many people there are floating round. The majority of anarchist activity, however, is probably done by around 20-35 people.

While there are only a handful of explicitly anarchist groups in Wellington, there are a number of other groups/organisations/institutions/projects with heavy anarchist involvement. I’ll try to detail most of them here briefly, although I’m sure I’ll forget a bunch!

Anarchist Groups

Wildcat Anarchist Collective - Wildcat calls itself a class-struggle anarchist group, and has undertaken a variety of activity throughout the 2-3 years it has existed, from protests to leafletting to discussion sessions to producing a weekly broadsheet. Currently Wildcat is continuing with its weekly discussions on a range of topics relating to anarchism, producing the Aotearoa Anarchist, an Aotearoa anarchist zine and irregularly producing SNAP!, it’s (formerly weekly) news broadsheet. Despite it being the only class focussed group in Wellington, a large number of class-focussed anarchists are not involved in the Wildcat collective - this is due to a number of reasons, including personality clashes, disagreements with Wildcat’s activity and the (perhaps at times, although certainly no longer true) perception that Wildcat was solely the domain of old(er) white men.

The Freedom Shop - By far the oldest anarchist group in Aotearoa, the Freedom Shop collective has been runing for close to 12 years. The collective runs Wellington’s anarchist infoshop, selling anarchist books, zines, pamphlets, patches, badges and more. The Freedom Shop first opened it’s doors on May Day 1995 and despite its original home being moved to make way for a motorway bypass, the shop has withstood 2 moves and plenty of adventure to reside in it’s current home of Shop 204b, Left Bank, just off Cuba Mall in the heart of Wellington’s central city. While the collective has gone through ups and downs, its currently in a fairly strong state. In addition to the shop, the Freedom Shop also does anarchist bookstalls at community festivals (most recently the Island Bay fair last week), conferences (most recently the Aotearoa Indymedia conference in Auckland in January) and other places (like the Parihaka Peace Festival 5 or so hours north of Wellington in January). The shop is open 10am-8pm Monday - Friday and 11:30am ish - 8pm ish on Weekends.

Wellington Anarcha-Femmes - The Welly A-Fems have been going on and off for some time now, and in their current form have monthly discussion meetings, organise actions and events and support sessions. I can’t say I know too much more about them, so I’ll leave that one there.

A-Men! - A group of male-identified anarchists who used to get together weekly to discuss and work on issues relating to patriarchy and male privelige. Sadly dormant at the moment, but could spring back to life any minute now?

Poneke Black Pages - An annual “yellow pages” style directory for anarchist and activist groups in Wellington.

Groups with heavy anarchist involvement

Magnetic Fridge Diary - Contrary to its name, this diary is neither magnetic nor a fridge. What it is, however, is a monthly calendar (folded A3 size) of activist and community events that gets distributed around Wellington (current print run of 200). Each issue generally has a theme and contains a handful of short articles/reviews on that theme - for example, the March issue focusses on the Iraq invasion and International Wom*n’s Day. The March issue is at the printers now, so keep an eye out for it around town in the next couple of days, Wellingtonians!

Wellington Animal Rights Network (WARN) - WARN is a motley crew of vegans that do stalls, actions, public meetings, film nights and whatever else springs into their heads. Activity fluctuates from heavy to barely living at seemingly a moments notice, but the group continues. They also have an office which is useful for storing animal liberation propaganda.

Peace Action Wellington - PAW organises around anti-war and anti-militarism issues. Originally a mix of anarchists, socialists (of varying flavours) and liberals, it is now mostly (though not entirely) anarchist in composition. Its most recent activity was a protest against the visit of John Howard to Wellington, and is currently planning for events around the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Oblong - Oblong is a collectively (predominantly anarchist) volunteer run internet cafe, which also currently houses The Freedom Shop. Political art/photo exhibitions adorn the walls, with plenty of political conversations filling the room at all hours of the day. Infrequent workshops are held, including training on basic computer usage, linux and other open source software and more. The shop is open 10am-8pm Monday - Friday and 11:30am ish - 8pm ish on Weekends.

W(((i)))ndymedia - W(((i)))ndy is the Wellington collective that helps run Aotearoa Indymedia. They also run several large-scale film nights a year and produce a monthly (or so) print newspaper, mostly consisting of articles and photos from the Indymedia website.

128 - For many Wellington anarchists, 128 is their second (or sometimes first!) home. 128, located at 128 Abel Smith St (original name, eh?) is the local anarchist/activist community centre. The house, formerly a squat, is now leased on a peppercorn rental. The house is situated near the central city, about 5 minutes walk from Oblong/The Freedom Shop, and has three live in caretakers. It has plenty of space for meetings, parties, film screenings, yoga, dance practices and visiting activists from around Aotearoa and overseas. It also houses: Revolting Books, an anarchist library; a Wom*ns space, the Mechanical Tempest, a bike workshop; an open art space; a wood workshop; Kotahi te Ao, a grassroots film project and more.

Save Happy Valley Wellington - The local group of a national coalition working to save a place called Happy Valley, on the West Coast of the South Island of Aotearoa, from being turned into an open-cast coal mine by state-owned mining company Solid Energy. Organises film nights, fundraisers, protests, stalls and public meetings, and encourages people to go to the 13 month old occupation of Happy Valley and now the 3 week old occupation of nearby Mt Augustus as well.

Community Gardens - Anarchists are involved in two community gardens projects in Wellington - Common Ground out near the South Coast of Wellington, and Arlington Gardens, in the central city near a large area of council flats. Additionally, the Innermost Garden project is a refugee, migrant and local wom*n’s project to establish their own community garden in the near future.

Aotearoa Jews For Justice - AJFJ came into existance late last year during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. It is a collection of (mostly anarchist) Jews, ranging from anti-Zionist to non-Zionist and left-Zionist who organise around issues relating to Israel/Zionism, racism/anti-semitism and Tino Rangatiratanga (Maori self-determination). The group is predominantly based in Wellington. It has been dormant so far this year but should be back into it in the near future.

By and large, in recent years, anarchism in Wellington has been dominated by lifestylist and individualist currents (and a less kind person might add reformist to that), although these have never been all encompassing. Over the past 6 months or so, I have begun to notice a move (back) towards a class-struggle focus (although frequently not exclusively so) by a number of local anarchists, and a simultaneous move towards a post-leftist stance by a number of others. Could this be a mini-split in the making? Only time will tell.

All in all, anarchism in Wellington is cemented by a number of friendship circles and cliques that simultaneously help the community exist/stay active and make it hard for (especially less confident) new people to enter and get involved. Also, for long term activists outside of the friendship circles, it can be hard to remain “in the know”.