exploited cleaners protest against anarchists

whilst perusing uk indymedia, i found this epilogue to the g8 actions, from a local activist. whilst s/he has good things to say about the lasting positive effects of the mobilisation, the article is critical of the apparent division of labour:

The few activists left to tidy up other people's mess were not the bigmouthing, theoretical and ideological proofed academics or wanna-be intellectuals, who are so quick in telling everyone what to do and how

no surprise there then. i'll read this as the middle-class "trustafarians" used to others doing such menial tasks for them. let's just say that this didn't go unnoticed for me either. who did end up doing the shit jobs?

most of the reliable, hard working people present, were the silent, unobtrusive types, and most of them were female, who kept themselves usually in the background a lot, who talk less and work more, and have earned my total appreciation, respect and admiration for what and how much they worked, how reliable they are, whilst also doing one of the least
acknowleged, but one of the most important work: tidying up the mess left behind.

oh, that's ok then, it was the underclass. those people who aren't continually involved in glorious direct action, but provide the essential nuts and bolts that make it possible in the first place.

now, i'm no one to talk. i wasn't able to stay for the cleanup at stirling, although this was largely because i was relying on a certain minibus leaving at a certain time to get back to notts. nonetheless, i did notice a certain division of labour at the horizone that i commented on soon after returning, and it kind of relates to the issues of individualist vs. collectivist approaches discussed here. there was certainly a sexist division resulting in women doing the jobs most like traditional 'housework' (i.e. cleaning, cooking) which is pretty abhorrent when you consider the supposed values of our "glorious" movement. another division occurred between the assertive and inflexible, and those who were more flexible and willing to adapt to others' needs. as with the gender divide this is not simply a difference, but an exploitative arrangement with one group having a less pleasant time than the other.

a major problem that i saw was that many had come seduced by the thought of getting involved in daring and adventurous activism, with little thought that it takes a hell of a lot of entirely unglamorous work to make that happen. as a result many did not contribute to the running of the camp, merely sitting around and waiting for the next action to go on. there was also a lot of fairly dubious "anti-authoritarianism" which seemed to assume the purpose of ensuring that certain individuals were not "told what to do" and consequently did bugger all. of course, we don't want people to really be told what to do and coerced into exploitative arrangements, but there should be a recognition that exploitation also occurs when no one tells anyone else what to do, as certain groups will end up doing more work than others. all stuff to bear in mind before we turn up at the next eco-camp expecting to have action served up on a plate...

get out of our house

the past few days have been fairly hectic, but today i've been able to peruse the news at my leisure again. i'm immediately hit by some disgusting behaviour by some of the country's most notorious organised terrorists - that's right its labour party conference time.

apparently a mr walter wolfgang, labour party member for 57 years, had the temerity to suggest that jack straw's pathetic attempts to spin the war on iraq (for the umpteenth time) were "nonsense". he did so vocally and repeatedly, nobly disrupting the attempt of a preacher of hate to justify his terrorist acts. unfortunately it seems blair's security forces hadn't been briefed on who the violent extremists were as they proceded to forcibly eject the 82 year old from the building, and then prevented him from re-entering using the notorious section 44 of the prevention of terrorism act. notorious for, amongst other things, preventing anti-war protesters from travelling to actions at raf fairford, and for intimidating anti-arms trade protestors at dsei in 2003. the prevention of terrorism act seems to be acquiring orwellian status.

blair's apology (not coming soon enough to actually prevent mr wolfgang's ejection you understand) came with the following pathetic attempt at justifying his violent acts:

The stewards of conferences are volunteers and we are going to have to look at how we train them but obviously it should not have happened.

it should not have happened of course because the stewards should have been trained to screen out anyone with a moral conscience at the door. apparently blair argued that there was no attempt to stifly government politics. how long can we allow these radical clerics to poison innocent minds with such lies? "I think it is a bit of a leap [to evoke a wider civil liberties debate]" he said to the today programme (a safehaven for extremists), "I have just been through an election campaign when people had the chance to criticise me." presumably that means he's now allowed a 2 year period where people aren't allowed to criticise him at all then? it's surely no surprise that people are a tad worried about their civil liberties.

We have tolerated people coming here from abroad and allowed them to say what we want. If people come here and preach hatred against Britain I think we are entitled to say to them that they cannot do that.

...did he really say that! that people coming from abroad (like mr wolfgang, a refugee from nazi germany) are only allowed to say what "we" want, and if they criticise britain we should chuck them back. surely no one can be in any doubt now over the extreme authoritarianism that drives blair and consequently the direction of politics in this country. mr wolfgang, i'm sure, will have seen this all before. just to really confirm blair's fascist agenda though:

I cannot honestly stand up in front of people and say 'I can protect you' unless we have really tough powers.

this is a classic authoritarian pose. we are the strong that must protect you, the weak. mr blair, given your protection of the people of afghanistan, iraq, diego garcia & rwanda, i think this yours is protection we can do without. your "protective measures" in the muslim world are what has brought the bombs to london in the first place.

blair's message is simple: if you don't agree with us get out of our house, be it at the party conference or within the borders of the country he has usurped. but the more he sets himself up as a protector with an iron rule, the more insecure we become. rule through violence and absolutism sows the seeds of hatred in response to it. when that response cannot find an outlet through whatever accepted channels are available in the political system it will seek other outlets. if criticism of the party elite is not accepted and acted upon, it finds its expression elsewhere in the heckling of odious speeches. if massive criticism of government foreign policy is ignored and peaceful protests are repressed by state security forces, the protests become more direct, like the break ins into air bases. the more rigid the authority becomes the more it forces its opponents into illegal and violent acts. an evil power has taken over our house and is kicking everyone else out. it's time we told blair and the politics he espouses to get out of our house.

roll up, roll up!

it's that time of the academic year called 'freshers' week', in which aforementioned freshers are directed out into a hideous tent thing on the sports field, tortured with university radio loud enough that any chance of conversation is eradicated, and are propagandised at with abandon by corporate sponsors. oh, did i mention, they're also encouraged to get involved (rather less wholeheartedly) in student societies, such as the nottingham student peace movement, an anti-war group in which i'm involved. we're shoved to the far end of course, not being as important as snug lounge bar or deloitte.

ironically, for those with some idea of the peace movement's history, we're cosied up next to aiesec this year. we've had confrontations with them over the past two years by: 1) disrupting their careers fair with anti-oil and arms company propaganda and 2) refusing to let them jump on our bandwagon at events due to their involvement with aforementioned companies. fortunately these companies seem to employ different 'fun' young students every year to run around in uniform telling everyone how amazing they are, so we didn't have to face any hostility.

recruitment has been interesting. i sense a bit less enthusiasm for anti-war activities, presumably because people have become desensitised to the horrors of iraq. we still got a fair few people signed up yesterday tho, including some quite interested indeed. apparently one guy introduced himself as being "into rioting" which i think should further scare the tories (who described us as being "full of radicals", which doesn't mean much coming from them mind). there were, as ever, some tense moments with patronising idiots who think they know everything about the occupation just because they've watched the occasional bbc report. lots of flyers going out for our mark curtis event and critical mass, and we'll have to work hard to keep people involved.

enough chatting. time to get back to dodgy house music and (largely) apathetic youth!!!

burying bad news

on tuesday it was this

[T]wo British soldiers, reportedly dressed as Arabs and driving a civilian car, attracted the notice of police at a checkpoint.
According to the Iraqi authorities they refused to stop, instead allegedly firing at the officers, killing one and wounding another.

...by today it is this:

UK soldiers have described the moment when they were forced to flee their burning armoured vehicle during unrest in Basra, southern Iraq, on Monday.

similar change of focus in the guardian:

The soldiers, who were said to have been wearing Arab headdress, were accused of firing at Iraqi police when stopped at a road block.

becomes:

British soldiers yesterday gave dramatic accounts of how they escaped from their burning Warrior armoured vehicles after an angry mob attacked them with petrol bombs in downtown Basra, following the explosion of violence on Monday night.

what is not being reported is this:

The two soldiers were using a civilian car packed with explosives, [an Iraqi Interior Ministry source] said.

funny that isn't it? rather than focusing on the fact that british soldiers have been caught posing as terrorists (possibly with bomb-making equipment), the media is now distracting everyone with tales of how heroic our gallant plucky lads are. the furious iraqis are of course 'mobs', not people intent on seeing murderers being brought to justice. the only background in the latest bbc story is that the soldiers were involved in a "rescue operation", not that they were undermining iraqi sovereignty in a desperate attempt to prevent undercover operations coming to light.

but then there couldn't possibly be anything underhand going on could there? we know our media would swiftly expose that...

don't worry, we're completely screwed!

have been joining trufflesniffer's woe about the terrifying state of climate change. what with news this week about record losses of arctic sea ice, and the recent discovery that siberia's permafrost is melting, it's time to be afraid... very afraid. scientists are now suggesting that we may have passed the 'point of no return' after which global warming becomes locked into a positive feedback loop with no possibility of reversal. surely now our governments will be prepared to do something about it? well, no actually.

george monbiot, in yesterday's grauniad, reported his dismay at seeing big business' requests for government support for their environmental projects being refused, because instituting the measures would constitute "an unwarranted intervention in the market". unwarranted, you understand, because the possibility of avoiding the end of the world is too big a price to pay for untrammelled profiteering. today's guardian has news of a report by the tyndall centre for climate change research with dire warnings about the growth of aviation. dr kevin anderson is quoted as saying:

If the UK government does not curb aviation growth, all other sectors of the economy will eventually be forced to become carbon neutral.

this is apparently for the ridiculously short-sighted reason that aviation and shipping emissions are not counted as part of a country's CO2 emissions, even though it is widely acknowledged that aviation is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases. a return transatlantic flight can produce 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per passenger, more than the average african produces in a lifetime. why aren't we doing anything about it? well, everyone likes a sunny summer holiday, don't they?

we can't rely on government solutions to climate change. we'll have to try to implement them ourselves, despite the huge obstacles in our path (like the fact that it could already be too late). it's easy to be overpowered by the sheer scale of the problem but the devastating nature of the potential consequences should be enough to drive us to action. maybe we should be eschewing the luxury of holidays to distant destinations in favour of the development of sustainable local communities. let's not get disheartened. we've got to do what we can!

commissioner of sewers for st. louis

as my blog's title is ripped off one of his books, i feel the need to pay the occasional bit of homage to william s. burroughs every now and again. this is one of my favourite bits from the adding machine, a realistic appraisal of what it +really+ takes to get into "power":

To take a microcosmic example: my humble ambition to be Commissioner of Sewers for St. Louis, and my boyish dream of what I would do when I occupied this position. These dreams were outlined in an essay I wrote for Harper's in response to the question "When did you stop wanting to be President?" I imagined a soft sinecure, crooked piping deals, my house full of languid vicious young men described in the press as "no more than lackeys to his majesty the Sultan of Sewers." I supposed my position would be secured by the dirt I had on the Governer, and that I'd spend my afternoons in wild orgies, or sitting around smoking the Sheriff's reefer and luxuriating in the stink from ruptured sewage lines for miles around.
But why should I have been appointed Commissioner for Sewers in the first place? The duties are nominal; no skill is required. I am not appointed on my knowledge of sewers or my ability to do the job. Why, then? Well, perhaps I have worked for the Party for a number of years; I am due for a payoff. However, I must also have something to give in return...
Now an under-the-counter deal in cheap piping involves contractors, auditors and a whole battery of fixes, fixers and cover-ups, all of which have to be paid for in favors and cash. So my house is not full of languid vicious young men - it is full of cigar-smoking, bourbon-swilling fat-assed politicians and fixers. I have something on the Governor? I'd better be very damn careful he doesn't have something on me. The Commissioner, like Caeser's wife, must be above suspicion; certainly above the suspicion of sex orgies and drug use. I would have been out of my mind to compromise myself with the Sheriff. Sure, I can call on him to fix a parking ticket, but I'd better keep my hands off his confiscated marijuana unless others in high positions are also involved. And even if I could wangle a few special police to guard the sewers against communistic sabotage, they would not be handsome youths. More likely I would be stuck with the Sheriff's retarded brother-in-law who can't make the grade as night watchman, and with two or three other washouts from police and guard positions.
So if I can't do what I want as Commissioner of Sewers, still less can I do what I want as President of the United States.

terrorism in the whites only zone

you would be hard-pressed to have avoided the news that new 'anti-terror' legislation is headed our way again. in the wake of the london bombings the government had to be seen to be doing something tough, and this seems to be the latest salvo. the disillusioned kid, who i might add holds a bachelors law degree and therefore knows more about the nitty-gritty of these things than me, has the low down here. apparently the key section is this bit:

(1) A person commits an offence if

(a) he publishes a statement or causes another to publish a statement on his behalf;
(b) the statement glorifies, exalts or celebrates the commission, preparation or instigation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of acts of terrorism; and
(c) the circumstances and manner of the statement's publication (taken together with its contents) are such that it would be reasonable for members of the public to whom it is published to assume that the statement expresses the views of that person or has his endorsement.

there is no definition of terrorism in the act and dk assumes that this will come from terrorism act 2000:

1. - (1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where-

(a) the action falls within subsection (2),
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

(2) Action falls within this subsection if it-

(a) involves serious violence against a person,
(b) involves serious damage to property,
(c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,
(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

(3) The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied.

dk then goes on to discuss some of the legal grey area between the targetting terrorism of the religious extremist variety vs. 'terrorism' of the activist variety (e.g. gm crop trashing, protesting against arms fairs, etc.) the point is that if people trashing crops can be defined as terrorists, this law will make anyone who says those people were doing a good thing terrorists too. dk also, correctly i would say, makes the assumption that these new laws are less likely to be used against white activists than against asian muslims, who are obviously intended as their target.

this is a particularly regressive use of the law, and an erosion of our civil liberties. the targeting of muslim extremists suggests that there is something about islam that is to blame for terrorism, where as robert fisk suggested recently, all of the abrahamic religions (and i would suggest most other religions too) are based on scriptures with verses that are steeped in blood. for example, the new testament's anti-semitic portrayal of the jews as 'christ-killers' which according to john shepherd, principle lecturer in religions studies at st. martin's college, lancaster "contains passages that would … be actionable under British laws against incitement to racial hatred". fisk also points to the significance of the jewish festival of purim for one extremist:

Thus, for example, Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli military doctor who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994, committed his mass murder on Purim, a festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jewish communities from the Persian empire which was followed by large-scale killing “to avenge themselves on their enemies” (Esther 8:13).

clearly the qu'ran cannot be singled out as a source of incitement to commit crimes for religious purposes. clearly there is nothing unique about islamic extremism - there are extremists of all faiths, such as pat robertson, the christofascist who recently called for the assassination of hugo chavez. will the new 'terror' laws do anything to tackle extremism, or are they really anti-muslim laws? are these laws going to make anyone more safe or are they a device with which to criminalise an 'undesireable' section of the british community?

all of which brings me to gary younge's latest article in the guardian, on the hypocritical nature of calls for muslim integration into british society. this is how 'good' muslims are being portrayed, as those who are well 'integrated', who do as we do, who think as we think. the government's taskforce on tackling 'muslim extremism' will reccommend later this week that integration is the key. but as younge correctly points out, it isn't the muslims that need integrating, it's the whites.

A YouGov poll for the Commission for Racial Equality last year showed that 83% of whites have no friends who are practising Muslims, while only 48% of non-white people do. It revealed that 94% of whites, compared with 47% of people from ethnic minorities, say most or all their friends are white. There is no good reason why white people should go out of their way to befriend ethnic minorities. But the truth is some go out of their way not to. A Mori poll for Prospect magazine last year showed that 41% of whites, compared with 26% of ethnic minorities, want the races to live separately.

but of course, the popular discourse doesn't allow the possibility that there could be white ghettoes, and segregated white communities:

And so it is that it seems to make no difference how segregated their lives, white people rarely ever seem to live in ghettoes. When a group of white people gather, they call it a country club, boardroom or - for most of the last century - House of Commons.

as younge points out with examples of jewish integration into german society before the nazis, and black integration into white american society during slavery, it is not integration that is the key to a just society, rather the status which the races hold. only equality of races and an abolition of the racial hierarchy will bring about a society in which everyone feels that they have a stake and are a part of. with laws designed to be used against one people of one religion only, we are heading further and further into the white ghetto.

profiling revisited

a while back jon made a controversial statement about racial profiling on his blog. he suggested that the police would be justified in biasing terrorist searches towards people of certain ethnic groups.

well it looks like the police thought so too.

the indy reports that:

Civil liberties campaigners and black groups have reacted furiously over orders to the British Transport Police which say terrorist suspects are of "Asian, West Indian and east African origin". They have urged the Commission for Racial Equality to investigate.

i argued then, and continue to, that it would be racist and counterproductive. the comments that i posted to jon's blog contain the full arguments, but a major component was that it would reinforce white privilege and a racial hierarchy. jon seemed to disbelieve that such a hierarchy existed.

an article in the la times from a few years back that was recently posted to me (The great 'white' influx - Wed, Jul 31st, 2002) has some interesting facts about white privilege and conceptions of whiteness in the usa. according to the piece "Regardless of color, two-thirds of immigrants choose that designation [white] on census replies". a recent afghan immigrant to the us is reported as saying "She regarded white as synonymous with American, with belonging, with fitting in."
USC demographer dowell myers explained what the new whiteness was all about:

What white traditionally meant - the WASP, the blond hair, the California drawl, the Hells Angels motorcycle riders - is being overlaid with new images of white Russians and Armenians ... Iranians, North Africans and Latinos...
White is the most polyglot category, and it's morphing.

racial boundaries seem to shift with social currents. historically many 'white' peoples were not considered white in the usa: spaniards, french, italians and russians were not considered anglo-saxon enough to be classed as white in the times of benjamin franklin.

whiteness is aptly summed up by matthew kelley, publisher of the journal mavin, thus:

Whites live in a society that was created for them, that caters to them, where they are the norm. They fit...
So to a lot of people being white is almost indefinable. It's just this kind of comfort that you don't recognize unless it goes away. It's like describing air.

so it's not surprising that everyone wants a piece of the white pie. it confers the privilege of your race becoming invisible. who wouldn't want to be included? well, that's the sticking point. because for such privileged minorities to exist there have to be underprivileged ones too, like african americans and native americans in america, and black and asian people in britain. these people aren't likely to be considered white by themselves or their anglo-saxon compatriots. they can't be included even if they wanted to be. they have to submit to racist police orders like those detailed in the independent article. whiteness is an unobtainable ideal that we ought to do away with.

a violent movement

you'd think i'd heard enough of unintentionally bad jokes courtesy of the police force this week, but i couldn't help passing this one on. a member of the 'uk peace army' reports that he was stopped and searched, and subsequently arrested on the way to a planned peaceful protest against the erosion of civil liberties, at the eu justice & home office minister's conference in gateshead. the fact that a civil liberties protest was stopped before it was even started is ironic enough, but it gets better/worse:

Initially the arrests were for "Breach of the Peace", but later changed to "Conspiracy to cause Criminal Damage". The cops were heard to say that they were taking it so seriously because "anarchism is a violent movement that started in Spain in the 1930's"!

their ignorance, our suffering. same as it ever was.

the stench of death

thanks to a last minute offer of a lift from a friend and fellow activist, i managed to get down to the docklands yesterday, to protest against "the world's largest international tri-service defence exhibition". that's defence systems and equipment international (DSEi, or dicey to most activists), an enormous arms fair held at the excel centre. the fair is held every other year and has become a regular fixture in the anti-war campaigner's calender. didn't take my camera so pics kindly supplied by the posters at uk indymedia, who've also got a fairly comprehensive timeline of actions. for those who might not know why we were protesting, people like this were exhibiting weapons like these, protected by police with tactics like these. hope that clears a few things up.

police defend a fleet of warships swarming with arms purchasers from a group of peace activists

we headed down loaded up with vegan lemon cake and a bear suit (more later), and were approaching custom house dlr station at around 11am, the time the blockade of the station called by disarm dsei was supposed to happen. every station on the way was swarming by yellow-jacketed coppers as was the train. we also got our first glimpse of the arms dealers and buyers, mainly rich fat middle-aged white men in expensive suits. some had at least the shred of decency to look ashamed of themselves. at the station a few black-clad people leapt to unravel sheets of plastic in order to try and push their way up the station steps. they weren't enough people tho and the masses of police quickly arrested those carrying the equipment. without enough time to feel disappointed, the rest of us were quickly escorted out of the station and into what seemed to be an attempt at a pen. we quickly dispersed to get a plan together.

walked through the estate for a little while then doubled back towards the far end of the excel centre, near the prince regent dlr station. no police about but we did bump into a few fellow protestors looking for the critical mass. we managed to find a vehicle entrance to the excel centre with a handy pedestrian crossing and, by making continual use of the crossing, started up a tailback of cars and taxis taking delegates into the centre, who whilst stationary, were hassled by us about their involvement in the arms trade. we were soon accompanied by four police on foot and the sudden arrival of a riot van. we noticed that taxi drivers without passes weren't being allowed into the cordoned off area, so delegates were being forced to walk down the path, right past us, to get to the entrance at the dlr station. they would soon be invited to talk with us as they passed. c was by now wearing the bear suit with a sign saying 'against bearing arms'. this went on quite successfully for the best part of an hour until the police started getting bored. bored of telling us that if it wasn't for the arms trade we'd all be speaking german now (apparently being overcome by a nazi non-violent revolution), and bored of our disinterest in their crude attempts to gather information on us ("so you've come a long way today then?" being the phrase used by +every+ met officer who tried to speak to me). they started waving vehicles through when the lights were red, then one came and hassled me about a picture of an injured iraqi kid on the sign i was holding. apparently if he found out that it was a picture of a dead kid there'd be trouble. i decided it was an injured child and when he realised i was going to ignore him he left me alone. obviously a real law then that one. of course, they were just 'facilitating' our actions and not trying to stifle protest against an industry dealing in death.

...need we say more?

the critical mass passed and we walked back down towards custom house to catch up. near custom house we shouted at the delegates taking lunch breaks on the terraces of excel, and saw some activists in wheelchairs take to the streets and get ineffectually hassled by police. up to a junction on silverhill way, at the west side of excel where a group of activists were being cut out of a lockdown by police, and were successfully blocking one carriage of the flyover backed up by the stationary critical mass on the bridge.

activists locked on to a metal and concrete weight

we headed up onto the bridge to join the spontaneous party that had started, with the sound system playing folk music and a bit of country dancing going on... lots of good placards (se pic below), people dressed as flesh eating zombies and vampires (obviously trying to blend in with the delegates) and a huge purple and pink disarm dsei banner. people decorated the streets with chalk slogans and, urm, bears.

chalking up another bear-faced murder...

quite!

after a bit of dancing the cyclists remounted and those of us on foot marched on over the bridge and took a left towards the west entrance to excel. we were halted at the gates near some penned in clowns and decided to stop and protest for a bit. the police seemed intent on penning us into a fenced off area out of the way of the incoming delegates and ineffectually tried to stop people jumping back out into the street. some guys climbed up lampposts and strung up a banner saying 'unwelcome corporate bloodsuckers' and the police formed up a line by the gates. they unwisely tried to get cars carrying delegates through which prompted a mass sitdown, and then when they persisted on foot, with an angry mob. tensions continued as there was some incident where the police manhandled a woman violently, seemingly for personal reasons (he waited around til more police arrived then quickly got his mates to bundle her into the back of a van), creating another angry mob. they arrested a guy in a suit and zombie fangs leaping over the barriers but to the guy's credit it took about four or five to stop him trying to leg it. two lines of police moved in, to pen everyone into the area, which i and others had seen coming and evaded, but j got caught up in it.

we decided to meet up with j when she got out of the pen, but follow those who got away in the meantime. they'd carried on to the far side of the dock where they'd reassembled on the quayside. we could see a line of warships docked by the excel centre, and tents and amphibious equipment set up outside. the waters were patrolled by five police boats, loaded with coppers with cameras whispering to each other and trying to look hard. announcements to the delegates across the water were made through the soundsystem and by samba. one brave/insane guy even leapt into the water and started swimming across only to be swiftly turned back by a black dinghy. j was there amazingly quickly apparently having been able to walk out of the pen when the police weren't looking. the police attention was already increasing and we reckoned it would only be a matter of time before they tried to pen us in again. our little group split off and attempted to walk all the way around and over the far bridge to get back to our original spot to hassle delegates on their way home. after a long hot walk we were told by police, in the usual garbled language they use when they're trying to lie and get away with it, that they weren't allowed to let us cross the bridge on foot (barely concealed satisfaction). that was fine tho - we got a bus from city airport over the bridge instead and gave the coppers a little wave on the way past.

protestor on the roof of a silverlink train at canning town

it was now about 5 and we decided we'd better start going back in order to get home at a reasonable time. we tried to get on the dlr at prince regent but no trains were running at all from there because protestors had got on the roofs of trains further up the track. at custom house a particularly stupid copper said we weren't allowed onto the platform because the station manager had asked them not to allow anyone involved in the protests to use the station. he didn't seem too happy about my questions about the technicalities of this, whether we could speak to station staff, why the london transport ticket inspectors seemed happy to let me through until instructed by him to do otherwise, and on what grounds he was choosing who was a protestor and who wasn't. resigned ourselves to getting a bus to canning town and waited on the pavement with a few people who were shouting at the rows of arms dealers on the station platform through the wire fence. this was getting the police hot under the collar and they failed miserably to move them along not getting anywhere against the protestors' passionate defence of their rights to protest using the rare opportunity to come face to face with merchants of death. clearly having enough one cyclist (pictured below) was informed he was being arrested for obstruction of the highway. we pointed out that he was on the pavement, a public right of way. the cop then manhandled him into the road told he was now obstructing the highway and told his mates to arrest him for it. fortunately the incident was being filmed by another activist so hopefully the guy won't get away with it. he then proceded to threaten us with arrest until we pointed out that we were waiting for a bus at a bus stop and there's this small thing called the law that would prevent him from doing it. fortunately our bus arrived before he did. once again the met go out of their way to stamp on the right to protest.

now don't go telling me about wishywashy things like the law sonny, you're nicked

so we got to canning town and were still being hassled at every junction and every platform by police demanding to know where we were going whether we'd been involved in the protests today, etc, etc. none of this treatment to the suits mind, lined up with their raytheon goody bags and dsei caps for the kids. we continued giving them a hard time on all the dlr trains we had to get on due to the massively disrupted service. in the carriages i noticed there was something terrible in the air. an all pervading scent emanating from the networking dealers sharing business cards, from the well-heeled delegates and their arrogant looks. the stench of death.

spot on!

this is the upshot of this. more piccies here! and don't forget to vote on the matter.

the ubiquitous disclaimer: a lesson in propaganda

i know that this is going to be controversial, but i think it's something that's well worth thinking about. something i've been interested in for a while is the way in which the media works to produce a 'reality' that is widely seen as objective, whilst it is inevitably produces something subjective. i'm particularly influenced by herman and chomsky's propaganda model of the media, and those like medialens who apply it to the british media. the crux of this model is that, due to the ownership and control of the corporate media, it inevitably produces a message that is pro-corporate, and pro-establishment.

what got me going was the increasing realisation that every commentator on the london bombings has somewhere included the disclaimer that runs something like "of course, the bombings were totally unjustifiable". these are not found just in the mainstream media, but also from respected left wing journalists such as john pilger ("While not doubting the atrocious inhumanity of those who planted the bombs (as if anyone could)"). of course, in that piece pilger went on to lay the responsibility with tony blair, but the inclusion of the compulsory disclaimer detracts from this view. first i want to examine why i think this insertion has become ubiquitous.

were anyone to not include the disclaimer, particularly a fairly radical writer, the 'moral' powers that be would descend upon it and villify the author as a supporter of terrorism. the unspoken rule is that unless you specifically condemn terrorism, and in britain specifically the 7/7 bombings, you are sympathetic to the perpetrators and are therefore fair target for a tirade of outraged criticism. this is reinforced by the government's aims to introduce 'terror laws' to specifically prosecute those who make statements in support of terrorism. if you support terrorism you ought to be deported or locked up in belmarsh say the government, with some degree of public support. those who fail to condemn the bombings and terrorism as a blanket term are increasingly seen as terrorist sympathisers who are worthy of similar treatment. writers, especially those with views that put the blame with the establishment, go to great lengths to distance themselves from terrorism hence the appearance of statements to the effect of "no matter what else i think, i think the london bombings were entirely unjustifiable". once this became a recurring theme of such opinion pieces it morphed into a necessary one. if x includes this, you can imagine writers subconsciously realising, i'm going to have to as well.

herman and chomsky's propaganda model suggests that information must be able to pass through various filters to make it into the final media product. the fourth of these is flak, essentially criticism from external apparatuses. they describe it thus:

If flak is produced on a large scale, or by individuals or groups with substantial resources, it can be both uncomfortable and costly to the media. Positions have to be defended within the organization and without, sometimes before legislatures and possibly even in courts. Advertisers may withdraw patronage. Television advertising is mainly of consumer goods that are readily subject to organized boycott. During the McCarthy years, many advertisers and radio and television stations were effectively coerced into quiescence and blacklisting of employees by the threats of determined Red hunters to boycott products. Advertisers are still concerned to avoid offending constituencies that might produce flak, and their demand for suitable programming is a continuing feature of the media environment. If certain kinds of fact, position, or program are thought likely to elicit flak, this prospect can be a deterrent.

it is clear that any article perceived to be condoning terrorism can never pass through this filter and emerge in the media. government officials would leap to condemn it, the public would be outraged and there may even be legal ramifications. no sane publisher would print such a piece, even if they agreed, because they would be vilified and boycotted.

to return to herman and chomsky, the fifth filter is ideology. manufacturing consent was written at a time when the official threat to the west was still communism, hence the references to the "red menace". in modern times, the official threat to the west is terrorism. terrorism is the spectre invoked to explain an increasingly broad range of threats to state power and corporate interests, including certain segments of protest movements and those fighting for human rights and self-determination. the government propaganda message, largely faithfully adhered to by the media, is that anything we say is terrorism is the same as the london bombings, which we say were totally unjustifiable attacks on civilians. terrorism becomes the dark intangible terror lurking in every shadow, which we should never try to understand. those who do attempt to understand the motives of terrorists are immediately victims of flak and are considered terrorist sympathisers.

when a tape made by one of the london bombers, mohammed sidique khan, was widely aired, establishment and media figures leapt to refute his claims to be "a soldier" responding to "crimes our government commits abroad" by stating that terrorism is never justifiable (see alex's excellent blog article). these weren't real refutations of khan's arguments, they were attempts to stifle the debate about establishment responsibility for the bombings. they were flak, pure and simple, a demonstration to the media that any attempt to try to understand khan's motivations would be publicly denounced so don't even think about it. whilst many still do have the courage to speak up about blair's responsibilities, and the obvious connection between britain's role in the 'war on terror' and our increasing vulnerability to terrorism, these arguments are still accompanied by the disclaimer. i don't doubt that this is an unconscious reflex but it is proof of the power of the censors.

of course, there are very few of us who don't condemn the acts of the bombers, that were so obviously designed to cause loss of civilian lives and increase our fear. that's not the point. this is something so obvious and widespread a view that it is surprising that it still needs to be mentioned like a mantra with such regularity. it is an ideological bias. comment pieces never feel the need to say "of course, the british/american/israeli/turkish (insert state of choice here) government's continued terror against the people of iraq/afghanistan/palestine/kurdistan (insert people of choice here) is totally unjustifiable and abhorrent". writers do not struggle to distance themselves from warmongering butchers when they have power over their reputations and paypackets. the difference is ideological, not objective. it reinforces the idea that what "they" do to "us" is despicable and not even worthy of empathy, whilst what "we" do to "them" is actually good work to improve our security and prosperity.

one thing that does come through from mohammed sidique khan's statements are that he did not feel secure:

Until we feel security, you will be our targets.
Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight.
We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.

this is really not very different to the rationale behind the 'war on terror', simply make the 'we' and 'my people' refer to westerners, and the methods of repression bombings and kidnappings, and this could be a statement by bush or blair. both types of terrorism are grotesque and feed one another's insecurities. we must stop them both.

new orleans vs. mumbai

was posted this by my dearly beloved - as she points out, the author's motives may be suspiciously nationalistic, but the comparison is instructive. this is also a bit of a riposte to all those keen to put down katrina as an illustration of 'what happens' when society breaks down. in a much more collectivist society, such as india, the damage wreaked by natural disasters is considerably less because people pull together and look after one another better. i'm sure that in this case there was a much stronger will on behalf of the authorities to do something in the mumbai case too, which always helps.

race update

just read this nice summary of some of the problems of race, from a white perspective. i think the most important thing that comes across is that it is preceisely white fears of non-whites that are the root of the racism, and are obstacles on the route to a 'raceless' society. the author, robert jensen, hits the nail on the head with his description of experiencing fear of being seen through when discussing race in the presence of a black man. by sharing this experience in the debate he was able to overcome it, to some extent. i know from my own personal experience that talking about these fears and working through them is a great help, and empowers me to try to move beyond a white perspective to something more universal. it seems that, whilst you feel the fear you can't get out of your skin.

also, i blogged last week about the invisible nature of race (and gender) privilege, and said i was going to try and make it more visible. here are some of the things i thought about my race:

• if someone is describing me they are unlikely to refer to my race
  
• i can get on a train wearing a rucksack without clearing the carriage
• i can answer the question "where are you from?" without having to explain what country my family's origins are in
• i can walk around most of my city/country, safe in the knowledge that i will see many other people of my race
• if i produce a record, it won't be filed under 'white music'
• if i write a novel, i won't feel under pressure to discuss racism or 'my culture' within it
• i don't have to assert the fact that my culture is about more than 'food and festivals'
  

there are, of course, loads more things to say, but i was conscious of not repeating the existing lists verbatim. if anyone's thought some other good ones, feel free to post in the comments box.

fixin' to die

i've noticed a recent tendency in the uk, following the government's authoritarian crackdown's in the wake of the london bombings, to focus inwardly in an attempt to retain our civil liberties at home. lest anyone forget tho, the blackhole of guantanamo bay continues to subject british citizens to unbearable torment.

today's guardian reports news of a mass hunger strike of inmates at the gulag where "More than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay are in their fifth week of a hunger strike". the inmates are protesting their continued degradation and alleged humiliations and qur'an desecration. binyan mohammed is quoted as saying:

People will definitely die. Bobby Sands petitioned the British government to stop the illegitimate internment of Irishmen without trial. He had the courage of his convictions and he starved himself to death. Nobody should believe for one moment that my brothers here have less courage.

this is precisely what the americans fear - the mass death of detainees on their watch.

this is a second hunger strike, the first of which is alleged to have been ended by a cruel trick:

The administration promised that if we gave them 10 days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington DC.

the inmates are obviously in a very poor condition if they're starting to believe that rumsfeld would ever let that happen. mohammed continues with some graphic details of the routine his fellow prisoners endure:

Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation and they publicly desecrated the Qur'an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF'd [visited by the Extreme Reaction Force] for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 hours - Therefore, the strike must begin again.

given the intensely repressive conditions in which the men are being held, it is no wonder that they are grimly holding onto control of the only thing they have left - their voluntary cooperation. by refusing to eat they hope to retain their humanity by not submitting to the machine of interrogation and punishment. as to whether their hopes to die rather than to endure the torture will be fulfilled a pentagon spokesman was blunt:

They are being held in the same standards as US prison standards... they don't allow people to kill themselves via starvation.

clearly the us' aim is to force the men into submission, to make them slaves to a wrathful american master. this is bentham's panopticon in the 21st century, an institution of total control where surveillance is complete and freedom is evaporated. surely no one can remain in doubt that this is the logical conclusion of our security obsessed society.

we must fight to destroy control wherever it arises. each new cctv camera and each new law to criminalise thought takes us one step closer to guantanamo.

mubarak, mubarak, or mubarak

whilst regular readers will know my feelings about the sham democracy of the uk, there are plenty of countries that have to endure much worse. egypt is one of them. since reading the works of sonallah ibrahim, i've come to have a better knowledge of the endemic corruption and greed that rules egyptian politics, and has resulted in hosni mubarak retaining the presidency for the past 24 years. well, it looks like it will be mubarak for the next 6 as well.

the independent reports on a 'false' election, defied by pro-democracy activists, and characterised by a major pro-mubarak agenda:

Cairo polling stations were decked with massive pictures of President Mubarak and burly members of his ruling National Democratic Party wearing Mubarak badges hovered around voters, taking their ballots from officials and handing them to voters exhorting them to do their duty to the 77-year-old strongman.

no wonder they were nervous - this was the first time egyptians have been given a choice of candidates (rather than a yes-no referendum), and they were no doubt keen to maintain the status quo. the elections took place under emergency law, which according to secretary general of the egyptian human rights organisation hafez abu saada, restricts political campaigning in general, and results in a lack of support for presidential rivals due to the extra powers granted to the president.

in an interview with german paper das spiegel, nuaman gumaa, the only rival to mubarak and chairman of the liberal wafd party, claims that:

The people want total change. They want to get rid of the entire political gang that has been in power for the past two and a half decades. They hate this clique. People want freedom, they want democracy, and they want to enjoy the economic benefits of this freedom. The majority of our people live in poverty. We must establish social justice, otherwise a change doesn't make any sense at all.

exactly what kind of social justice gamaa has in mind is debatable however, as the wafd party has seen largely as a party of business with close ties to the usa and other western powers.

in the meantime, demonstrations by the pro-democracy kifaya (enough) movement have continued. their slogan is "enough corruption, enough authoritarianism, enough hypocrisy and enough negativity", but the movement's rallies have been restricted by martial law imposed by the state of emergency. whilst on the surface the move to allow alternative candidates in the election and the (last minute) decision to allow independent election monitoring are positive moves, real democracy still seems a long way off.

rapex

according to a reuters report (South Africa anti-rape condom aims to stop attacks, Wed Aug 31) "A South African inventor unveiled a new anti-rape female condom on Wednesday that hooks onto an attacker's penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual assault in
the world." the 'rapex' aims to offer protection to women in a country where 50,000 rapes occur anually, aiming to physically deter the attacker, and alert hospital staff and police to potential rapists.

whilst i would welcome any development that offers women protection against rapists, it seems that the rapex could be a very counter-productive invention. presumably, if such a device is readily insertable and removable, anyone with the physical force to rape can presumably force a woman to remove her rapex too (once they become a widespread deterrent). there's also the worry that, by causing the rapist physical pain, violence will be meted out to the wearer of a rapex when sexual assault is frustrated.

Other critics say the condom is mediaeval and barbaric -- an accusation [Sonnette Ehlers, inventer of the device] says should be directed rather at the act of rape.

well that's certainly true. but maybe technology is not the answer.

celebrate with jeremy

i learn with delight from indymedia, that poster boy for the posh boorish twat association of britain, mr. jeremy clarkson, is soon to receive an honorary degree from oxford brookes. read the article for details of how to join the celebratory party. the article also lists some choice quotes from the great man himself which i'd love to share with you:

clarkson, doctor of bicycle appreciation:
In the wake of the London bombs we're told that many commuters are now switching to bicycles… can I offer five handy hints to those setting out on a bike for the first time. Do not cruise through red lights. Because if I'm coming the other way, I will run you down, for fun. Do not pull up at junctions in front of a line of traffic. Because if I'm behind you, I will set off at normal speed and you will be crushed under my wheels…. Do not, ever, swear at or curse people in cars or trucks. You are a guest on roads that are paid for by motorists so if we cut you up, shut up.

clarkson, doctor of climate change science:
Cars are a symbol of our release, our freedom, so enjoy them. Stop twittering on about the damage they do to the environment

clarkson, doctor of social policy:
So, they’re lowering the age of consent for homosexuals to four, teachers will be allowed to promote sodomy in schools and the Army is to become a hotbed of single-sex fumbling. I therefore find myself wondering. How long will it be before we get "Gay Lanes" on the motorway?

clarkson, doctor of politics and animal welfare:
I read that the Tories are rejecting bright, well-educated candidates for being ‘too posh’. They've had a gay summit to make sure they're seen as ‘inclusive’ and leader Michael Howard is keen to open the door to as many ethnic minorities as possible. Why? We're talking about running the country here, not some two-bit outreach group for partially-clubbed seals

clarkson, doctor of eugenics:
Cars sit in the Japanese psyche along with spoons and mashed potato. They don’t come naturally, ... I reckon the genetic North Pole is a 6ft 5in Brit and the genetic South Pole an 11-year-old Japanese schoolgirl

so congrats to jeremy. and if anyone has the blueprints for a monster bike capable of permanently squishing his bouffoned hair down into his cowboy boots, i will pay good money for its rental. go on, i'll slip you an honorary degree into the bargain.

arbeit ist sheisse

the independent reports that the german anarchist pogo party has caused a storm with its "no-holds-barred political broadcast featuring bare-breasted women, raucous partying and alcohol-fuelled vandalism." apparently the party's slogan is "Arbeit ist Sheisse" (work is shit). i suspect that election night in germany might be a little more interesting than it is over here...

update (09/09/05): apparently their manifesto also includes the aim of "humankind's complete and
ultimate return to stupidity." 1m people saw their broadcast.

the barbarians at the gates

been forwarded an interesting blog post entitled get pissed: destroy, by alistair liv, about the never distant clash of cultures often found in temporary autonomous zones. the post centres around starhawk's evaluation of the horizone experience, at the scotland g8 protests. describes her as "one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality" but aforementioned friend has described her as an "eco-pagan, but she probably wouldn't describe herself that way". anyway, here's what she has to say:

While the vast majority of people were there to mount and support actions against the G8, there was a small but significant group of the festival/party crowd, who drank heavily, imbibed, I'm sure, other consciousness altering substances, and caused an immense amount of trouble to the rest of us. Overall Scottish and British culture is much more alcohol-focused than us U.S. puritans are used to, at least in action situations, and even the most serious activists like their beer and some loud disco music to unwind with at night.

yes, you've heard it all before. it's the old favourite "serious activists" vs. "party people" antagonism. i remember this debate coming up in a meeting at stirling, and at the morning meeting at the earth first! gathering. the problem usually seems to be that there are, broadly speaking, two main camps within the protest camp: those who are "serious" activists, who are often middle-class it has to be said, get up early to do yoga and get the kids breakfast, before going out to blockade, and those who are part of the travelling festival community and rave til the early hours with cans of "spesh"(-ial brew) before getting up and going out to the blockade or not bothering. this is simplification and stereotyping to the max, so apologies there. and no doubt there's more crossover than i'm hinting at. it seems to be a divide between those who see life as one long party, without boundaries, and those who see it as something clearly demarcated with boundaries that should not be crossed (i.e. having music on after 1am, drinking before 6pm). i suppose i like to sit on the fence. i think the party is a vital aspect of the autonomous space (and, well, life in generally really). as emma goldman famously once said: "If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution." i guess i feel the same. nonetheless, it does become a problem when thoes doing the dancing (etc) forget about the community in which they dance, and stop taking personal responsibility for its wellbeing. in a campsite with young children, it seems very selfish to party at their expense. some sort of compromise can easily be made (hence the establishment at earth first! of quiet and noisy fields).

the drinking too easily becomes a liability for everyone, not just the drinkers themselves. for example, at stirling there was the infamous toilet incident. for bureaucratic reasons the camp had to hire some portaloos for the site, which then had to be cleaned by a lorry coming from outside. this worked fine until the police blockade, but even then the police were allowing the lorries in and out. apparently tho, on thursday some pissheads revelling at the gates decided to mount the vehicle, dance on it, and threaten to kill the driver if he didn't let them use it to batter police lines. the driver was understandably upset and the company refused to come back for several days leading to an outbreak of dysentry on the site. this, according to starhawk, "illustrated some of the wild contradictions in the camp." they were a minority tho, and a consensus (if rather unrealisable) decision was made to give the offender the opportunity to either clean shit pits for the rest of his time at stirling or leave the camp, if ever caught, was made. a bit authoritarian perhaps, but dysentry epidemics aint much fun.

this, i think, illustrates the dilemma of anarchist communities. whilst it's easy in theory to say that there will be no rules and everyone will be free, i think that true freedom can only come when you're not having to deal with selfish wankers the whole time. i want everyone's desires to be satisfied, not just my own, and it's possible with a bit of thought and consideration. starhawk poses similar questions:

Does anarchism simply mean that no one can ever tell me what to do, whatever state of consciousness I'm in or however I'm affecting the good of the whole? How do we respect the individual freedom of those who are in no state to make rational decisions or listen to the needs of others, and who gets to decide? And at what point does the good of the whole override the absolute freedom of the individual?

these issues also seem to be at the heart of the left / post-left anarchist divide.

alistair liv suggests that the divide has a long history:

I guess anyone who has been involved in any kind of alternative actions/ spaces over at least the past 25 years will recognise the problem. Way back in 1981/2 , at least according to Albert Meltzer, it was drunken punks wot trashed the Wapping ‘Autonomy’ (Anarchy) Centre. John Pendragon made a similar complaint to me (circa 1986) about ‘punks’ destroying the Travelling / free festivals culture… although a few years later blame shifted to the acid house rave scene. At Greenham in 1982 , it was the Peace Convoy from Stonehenge - though here it was men in generally rather than punks that were seen as the problem. At Greenlands Farm, Glastonbury in 85, it was the ‘Brew Crew’, with similar problems on the M11 campaign at Claremont Road in 94.

he quotes a friend who has an alternative theory to the simple 'clash of cultures' one tho: that alternative spaces attract those with mental health problems, and in such a concentration that the resources for dealing with these problems are overwhelmed. his idea was that those without a community (who had been rejected by existing communities) sought solace in the more welcoming alternative community. it seems that that rubs up the 'normal' within that community the wrong way. if this is the explanation then it's probably best that we're all more understanding of one another, and less quick to penalise and criticise. nonetheless, alcohol and other drugs can be avoided, and an emphasis has to be placed on individual responsibility. as someone mentioned at earth first!, it seems that our understanding of gross-level political interactions and motivations has not filtered down to influence our individual interactions and motivations. it's only when we have revolution at all levels of society that our politics will be meaningful.

left vs. post-left anarchism

wow, do i ever talk about anything other than anarchism? global warming is melting siberia and trashing new orleans, thousands are dying in iraq, and these are just the atrocities that make it into the papers. and what do i do? talk about the arcane differences between strands of anarchist thought. well, it's something to mull over as the ship hits the iceberg eh!

this stems from an interesting discussion i've been having with andy on the lenton anarchist forum list. basically it started (at the end of another about poststructuralism) when andy wrote:

An anarchist ethic means - decide what you wanna do and go do it. The starting point is desire, not abstractions/"spooks"...
I think anarchism is basically a politics of desire (yes, a "selfishness" of sorts, but an enlightened "selfishness", not a narrow one...

The differences between politics-of-desire anarchism (expressed by various "post-left" tendencies such as those around the journal "Anarchy: Journal of Desire Armed", Situationism, etc.) and more traditionally normative kinds of anarchism (such as the "left" anarchists in various anarchist federations - AF, SolFed etc) is one of the main issues of dispute among anarchists at the moment, and one of the main organisational divisions also.

i was a little confused:

but doesn't an "enlightened" selfishness necessitate self-repression? the temporary negation of desires for the bigger prize (e.g. putting oneself at risk of arrest and punishment by taking part in direct action)..

perhaps you could explain this a little more. is the difference between [left and post-left factions] a difference of emphasis or a difference of philosophy (or even a difference of methodology)? presumably you favour the former "post-left" anarchists over the left anarchists for their embrace of desire, but what is the practical difference? i suppose again that i'm asking what is enlightened desire, and how is it possible to prevent it turning into a more basic desire, such as that upon which systems of repression are based?

perhaps i'd not been specific enough in my understanding of repression. andy wrote:

I'm not sure as I'd call that "repression". I'd call that conflicting desires. Repression in the full sense only happens when either you come to value the non-satisfaction of desire as a good in itself, or you push desires down into the unconscious so you're no longer aware of them. I see what you mean, that there's a certain similarity in cases of delayed gratification, taking risks and so on, and these things can certainly convert into repression if you aren't careful, but I don't think it's the same thing.

fair enough. what about direct action?:

Actually I usually feel the opposite regarding direct action - that my "gut" urge is to take instant and extreme action when faced with the provocations of the world, and that it's the ego acting as a constraining force, looking for better "strategic" options. And this I think is what post-left anarchism usually builds on - action which is fuelled immediately by rage against the system, and which gets around threats of state reprisals not so much by being self-sacrificing as by being so strongly and immediately felt as not to be deterred.

which gets me back to the core of my opposition to the "post-left"ists:

but how does this stop anarchists falling into the trap of becoming boorish parochial reactionaries like the countryside alliance/racist bigots/pro-war demonstrators? the anger must surely be directed by a coherent view of how society should be, shouldn't it?

so what exactly is this post-leftism anyway? andy wrote:

Post-left anarchism on the other hand takes desire as a starting-point and is more sceptical and historical/reflexive in its use of identity-categories. There's also a tendency in practice for post-left anarchists to be very interested in ecology and often also animal rights, and in unfashionable issues of exclusion and oppression such as the liberation of children, mad liberation, solidarity with prisoners, indigenous struggles, and countercultural resistances of various kinds (from sexual liberation issues to graffiti and squatting). Basically, post-left anarchists organise loosely, around fragmented struggles connected through networks which expand outwards rather than forming together into anything solid (something like Critical Mass being a good example of the kind of thing they encourage).

...well this is all sounding like my bag...

Primarily they organise as a movement "against" capitalism/industrialism/ecocide (rather than "for" a specific existing category), and tend to prioritise direct action over organisation-building.

...but this is the bit i'm not so keen on:

not being 'for' anything is pretty nihilist isn't it? i wouldn't want to find myself part of any movement without any kind of vision of what it wants, only lots of complaints about what it doesn't want. for a start it's just a bit depressing! a recurring criticism levelled at anarchists, in my experience, is that, whilst many agree that the existing system is awful, anarchism doesn't have an alternative. do post-left anarchists agree?

by "agree" here i mean, do post-left anarchists agree that there should be no alternative vision, and instead we should emphasise the primacy of methodology, which seems to be what they propose. then there's the problem of collectivism vs. individualism. andy wrote:

In theory there doesn't seem to be a great deal between the two types, since in theory the leftists also commit to network rather than hierarchic organisational forms, and since they sometimes theorise class/community as an extension of individual needs/desires. But in practice they tend to get along very badly, which suggests there is something fundamental in the various differences. Unfortunately the leftists have not responded very effectively to the challenge posed by the post-leftists, tending to revert to a style of response ("they're wrong because they don't take class seriously enough" or "they're wrong because they're individualists instead of collectivists") which tends to simply reinforce the critique without really challenging it.

yes, these aren't particularly well thought out arguments, but i must admit i sympathise with them:

i must admit, i'm often one to complain about individualism of fellow anarchists as
opposed to what i see as an essential spirit of collectivism, as an emotional reaction rather than a rational one. nonetheless, i do find it rather uninspring and alienating how you can go into some social centres/squats/action camps, ready to find common ground and to be welcomed, and get a rather cold response. it's fair enough, but for me solidarity and a sense of community are pretty vital factors to political organising.

i await andy's responses. in the meantime, he's sent a load of links to resources on post-left and left anarchism:

post-left

• http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/ioaa.html

left

• http://www.infoshop.org/inews/index.php?topic=11&page=2
• http://www.zabalaza.net/theory.htm

post-left bashing

• http://anarchism.ws/postleft.html
• http://redbetweenthelines.modblog.com/
• http://www.freewebs.com/plawiuk/
• http://www.anarchist-studies.org/forum/message/18/
• http://colours.mahost.org/articles/white4.html

all of which makes me realise that i'm not the only anarchist with nothing better to do than spend my life on the web... anyway, back to those links...

unpacking invisible knapsacks

i was alerted to this via my gf being alerted to this via a link from nella's "nice feminist post". the original article, white privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack, by peggy mcintosh leads to a useful trip all unaware victims of international whiteydom would be advised to take. briefly, the white author makes a list of the daily effects of white privilege she experiences, in attempt to make the effects of white supremacy visible to herself. she describes how "For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject". she notes certain trends in the list:

I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.

the male privilege checklist, "an unabashed imitation of [the aforementioned article by peggy mcintosh]", follows a similar structure of self-exploration and eductation. the male author mentions the following important point:

An internet acquaintance of mine once wrote, "The first big privilege which whites, males, people in upper economic classes, the able bodied, the straight (I think one or two of those will cover most of us) can work to alleviate is the privilege to be oblivious to privilege." This checklist is, I hope, a step towards helping men to give up the "first big privilege."

this is, i think the key to understanding how the majority of racism and sexism works, and why so many of us white males are loathe to accept that we are part of this execrable system. these are the issues that bell hooks explores so well in talking back, and describes as part of a "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy". i hope that through a similar process of self-examination i can start to relinquish the subconscious privilege that i wield over others, and i thought i'd try compiling my own lists in order to reshape my consciousness of who i am. watch this space...

spreading like a hurricane

it seems like the disaster area of new orleans has given everyone in the blogosphere something to write about (almost universally with shock and horror at the handling of it). it's given the anarchists amongst us the unwelcome experience of having the capitalism-engineered disaster zone compared to anarchy, something i wanted to debunk, and disillusioned kid has taken up here. nella gets angry about the hijacking of tragedy by christofascists here.

i was pretty dismayed to see trufflesniffer's dismissive post entitled 'Two words for Anarchists' with the entry 'New Orleans'. i can only assume he hasn't been getting enough sleep. it gets worse tho in his latest, where he laments the lack of jackboots on the ground:

The whole point of the army is to establish a monopoly on the use of force as quickly and convincingly as possible. They're the Hobbesian bedrock of all modern liberal societies, and need to be out in force in emergencies whenever existing civil infrastructure get wiped out to stop theft, rape and murder becoming 'rational' behaviour for an individual or group to engage in.

if you're that bothered you can follow the whole discussion thread on his site. what follows is a summary. there are two immediate criticisms that i made to the above point:

1. the presence of an occupying force, which is more or less what the troops will be in new orleans, is usually associated with theft, rape and murder committed by that force. after all, according to your logic when someone can get away with these things they will do them (something i'll dispute in point 2), and whilst the presence of soldiers under shoot-to-kill orders will make ordinary citizens a little more cautious about their misdemeanours, those wielding the force are not under such pressure. it becomes 'rational' for the soldiers to get away with what they can.


2. you seem to think that the moment the ordinary checks and balances aren't in place everyone becomes a deranged psychopath indulging themselves at whim. would you in such a situation? i wouldn't. this looks like a very simplistic and amoral view of human nature, not one that i consider accurate. of course, there will be a minority that will act in this way, but they do under "normal" conditions too when they get the chance. all that changes is that these behaviours become more overt, and require less engineering on behalf of their perpetrators. perhaps, also, you've been mislead by the lurid mainstream media reports of looting, encouraged by the us government's focus on the maintenance of order over minor things like helping the disaster's victims. why is this the case? because the us gov is like all states, it relies on its people's acceptance of its monopoly on the use of violence. it is essential for the governments' credibility that first) it retains this monopoly, and only then b) that it maintains an image of protecting its citizens (or at least the ones who matter). on both counts the bush administration's credibility is looking fairly non-existent.

trufflesniffer replied thus:

Without police in high-density societies, the existence of just a few psychopaths amongst the general population would make it 'rational' for most people, with normal pathologies, to become isolationist and fear strangers - because the possibility of one lethal encounter with a stranger out of even two-hundred good encounters makes not fearing the Other too dangerous (a version of the life-dinner principle). In this kind of social environment, it becomes rational for pathologically normal people to begin fearing strangers universally - because 'stranger = bad' becomes an effective heuristic for staying alive (when a group is self-sufficient, they have no need to approach outsiders for help, and no reason or opportunity to break the heuristic).

as usual, i have to attempt to filter out some of the sociobiological jargon that i don't understand, but i think it's fairly obvious what trufflesniffer's point is. i disagree:

[fear of strangers/Others] is the case with or without a police force. the only difference that a police force makes is that it gives psychopaths a place from which to prey upon people with impunity.

the only +real+ security comes from a social safety net, whereby people look out for one another and use the power of greater numbers to tackle the anti-social. gun- and taser-toting demigods with a license to shoot don't make me feel much less at risk of a knifing in an empty street, but they do give me more 'others' to be suspicious of.

i await a reply, but in the meantime, feel free to join the debate...

anarchy in new orleans?

the mainstream media have been quick to liberally, and inaccurately, apply the term 'anarchy' to describe the terrible situation in new orleans and the surrounding states, including this headline from the indy. shevek debunks this on indymedia. chaos certainly. anarchy - not likely. with national guard fresh from iraq being flown in to shoot to kill and armed gangs roaming the streets a definite hierarchy is present. in all the attention focussed on the threats to state authority, the real victims are being forgotten:

In times of crisis the seemingly peaceful social relations are violently exposed in their true light. While the rich quickly leave to their second homes, the poor were are left behind. Some reluctantly accepted help from the state and where ushered into the Superdome, not knowing what else to do. Others, unable to go, or unwilling to leave behind their only possessions remained, choosing to brave out the storm.

it's not hard to see that the poor and the black are the worst off in this situation. gary younge points this out in his guardian column:

[T]he lives and the livelihoods of the poor without cars to escape, sturdy homes to protect them and insurance to fall back on, were the most vulnerable. In one of the poorest states in the country, where black people earn half as much as white people, this has taken on a racial dimension.

in the midst of all this george bush is displaying his usual disdain for the dispossessed by not bothering say anything at all the first day, now calling for "zero tolerance" towards looters, who are often ordinary people desperate for basic food and drink. bush's promises of aid sound hollow given that it is rapidly emerging that resources have been diverted away from fema (the federal emergency management administration) towards much more important things, like attacking poor brown people in other countries, and enriching the already hyperrich at home. according to the independent:

The Army Corps, like every other authority charged with preventing the flooding of New Orleans, has had its budget cut repeatedly in recent years. The Federal Emergency Management Administration has had its resources diverted towards the Bush administration's "war on terror", and many of the National Guardsmen who might have been in place to intervene sooner have been diverted to Iraq.

the parallels between new orleans and baghdad were bound to be made considering yesterday's emerging dual tragedy, that dion dennis describes as the katrina-baghdad "strange attractor". how american's will view the situation in iraq, and how their attitude towards global warming will change in light of this tragedy is yet to be seen.

in fact important lessons for those intent on reminding us all that bloody revolution is the way forward can be learned from the situation. true anarchy +cannot+ come about in one fell swoop until the existing power structures have been dismantled and disarmed. otherwise the vulnerable are bound to be preyed upon, and the wealthy will send in their hired guns to maintain the law. until people are self-reliant shortages of state aid will be catastrophic. katrina has not caused anarchy, it has exacerbated the hierarchical system of pillage that rules our lives.

What drives support for this torturer?

1st september is independence day in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. Had true independence ever reached this beleagured country there would be no need to write this article today. However, Islam Karimov (pictured), the current dictator of the country, seems intent on ensuring that Uzbeks are mere obstacles in the path of his greater glorification, to be suppressed and tortured at whim.

"I'm prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic…If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip off his head." - President Karimov reacting to acts of violence in Uzbekistan in March 1999. The government originally blamed the incidents, including a bus hijacking, on "criminals" and later on "Islamic extremists." Agence France-Presse, April 2, 1999.

The Uzbek state has been waging a war of intimidation and torture against what Human Rights Watch call "independent Muslims", those whose belief and practice of Islam do not conform to official guidelines and institutions, for the past decade, resulting in "the arrest, torture, public degradation, and incarceration in grossly inhumane conditions of an estimated 7,000 people." The effect of this widespread violence is that, in the words of former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, "[t]he conviction rate in criminal and political trials in Uzbekistan is over 99% - in President Karimov's torture chambers, everyone confesses." According to Human Rights Watch's 2004 report the methods include beatings by fists or with truncheons or metal rods, rape and other sexual violence, threats to rape family members, use of lit cigarettes and newspapers to burn detainees, asphyxiation with plastic bags or gas masks, the tearing out of fingernails, and immersion in boiling liquids.

Talib Yakubov, Chairman of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, lists a number of the "accomplishments" of the Karimov regime's "far-reaching cleansing based on religious beliefs" in the 2002 Report of the Society. These include:

• banning loudspeakers in mosques for the call to prayer
• enlargement (by a factor of 10) of the militia
• the drawing up of a list of 250,000 "unreliable citizens"
• imposition of harsher legal sanctions for religious beliefs
  
• concentration camps set up to detain "prisoners of conscience"
• sanctioning of the planting of evidence by security forces
  

Uzbekistan's terrible human rights record normally never makes it into the mainstream press, and I imagine that few people could give much information on the country off the cuff. This is largely because Uzbekistan is an ally of the Western powers, who don't want undue attention focussed on the deals they cut with Karimov in private. Lynn Pascoe, the US State Department's deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, explained that Uzbekistan is a US ally in the "War on Terror":

Uzbekistan has been an early and outspoken supporter of the war on terrorism. Indeed, it has played a critical role in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and provided the military base at Karshi-Khanabad, now home to roughly 1500 US servicemen and women, without rent or as part of a broader defence agreement.

It's the usual story then. No amount of human rights abuses can deter a great power from supporting its military and strategic assets. According to Rohan Pearce's article in Green Left Weekly, the US provided US$508 million in aid to Uzbekistan, between 1992 and 2002. Some aid money was finally withheld in July 2004 in an apparent protest over the lack of democracy in the country. The "War on Terror" link goes further than this, however, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported on 1st May 2005, that there was growing evidence that the US was sending prisoners for torture in Uzbekistan, as part of its "rendition program". Former intelligence agents had apparently named Uzbekistan as a surrogate jailer for terror suspects, and the New York Times had obtained evidence that US-registered planes had landed in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.

Whilst US backing for the Karimov regime is undeniable, British involvement appears to be rather more covert. It may be that, as is often the case when the US directly supports oppressive regimes, the British government is a private supporter but seeks to hide this in public. According to Craig Murray, a British army team was sent to Samarkand in March this year to teach the Uzbek military marksmanship. Alex Doherty notes in an article for ZNet, that the UK government has taken a "(non) position on Uzbek human rights."

In a house of commons debate on Uzbekistan Simon Thomas MP commented that Uzbekistan has "perhaps a worse human rights record than Zimbabwe." Whilst Tony Blair has been outspokenly critical of the Mugabe regime and pushed hard for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth he has said exactly nothing about our new ally. A database search of all British newspapers reveals that Tony Blair has not once commented on Karimov or his regime.

One individual who has spoken out, fearlessly and at the cost of his job, is Craig Murray. UK ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002-2004, he continues to be a harsh critic of the Karimov regime and UK support for it. In the wake of the Andijan massacres, in which 500 Uzbeks were killed by security forces after armed protestors had stormed a jail, White House spokesman Scott McLellan insisted that the protestors should have sought democracy "through peaceful means, not through violence". Murray was quick to rebuff the comment, stating that "This is not Georgia, Ukraine or even Kyrgyzstan. There, the opposition parties could fight elections." He pointed to the state-imposed media blanket on the massacres, and to the violent breakup of past peaceful protests. Murray's suggestion for a non-violent measure to end the tide of human rights abuses, is to call for sanctions to be imposed on Uzbek cotton:

[Uzbekistan] is the world's second largest exporter of cotton. Citing the use of child and serf labour, concerted trade sanctions against Uzbek cotton and textiles containing Uzbek cotton should be the way forward. Given the self-interest of the very powerful US cotton lobby and the new frost in US-Uzbek relations, this might even be achievable.

I would call on all those who read this, to lobby and campaign for such sanctions to be imposed. We must continue to put pressure on the government to withdraw its tacit support for the Karimov regime, and all such regimes where terror and torture of civilians are a way of life.