Opinion

Labour should ensure every child has access to a high quality arts and cultural education

Flora Dodd, Yesterday,  Left Foot Forward

Flora Dodd from the Fabian Society makes the case for rejuvenating arts education

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In his first speech as Prime Minister at Labour party conference, Keir Starmer outlined his government’s commitment to ensuring all people can access the arts. He argued ‘everyone deserves the chance to be touched by art. Everyone deserves access to moments that light up their lives’.

Whether it is music, dance, drama, art, design, or craft, arts education is valuable. Engaging in the arts in school can improve wellbeing and aid social mobility. Far from being ‘nice to have’ subjects, the arts are an essential part of a broad and balanced curriculum, and help increase attainment in other subjects. Studying the arts offers young people a wealth of skills which future employers seek such as collaboration, social skills, self-confidence, communication and adaptability. Importantly, young people enjoy the arts; they want to participate in them, and many consider creative careers. A good quality arts education is critical to Labour’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity.

Despite the benefits of arts education, it has been eroded in state schools. The past fourteen years of Conservative governments have promoted policies that has reduced the amount of time children spend on the arts in school.

For example, the EBacc and Progress 8 – accountability measures introduced in 2010 and 2016 respectively – exclude the arts from the longlist of subjects which pupils are encouraged to take at GCSE level. Both are a performance measure for schools, rather than a qualification for pupils. They have resulted in the de-prioritisation of arts subjects, and a 47 per cent reduction in the number of arts entries at GCSE between 2009/10 and 2022/23.

There is also an arts workforce crisis in schools. Evidence suggests a majority of primary teachers lack confidence in teaching the arts effectively, largely because they are generalists and not specialists. The number of secondary school arts teachers (excluding dance) fell by 21 per cent between 2011/12 and 2022/23. Recruitment targets for both music and art and design have been consistently unmet.

On top of this, schools have faced real-term budget cuts, affecting the purchasing of supplies and equipment and the utilisation of external arts provision. For many children, trips to museums, galleries and heritage sites are an important part of the school experience. They boost children’s development, yet fewer children have been accessing school trips as teachers grapple with budget cuts.

Accountability measures, workforce crisis and budget cuts have created a stark inequality in provision. Unlike state schools, private schools invest substantially in arts and culture provision, promoting a broad curriculum that allows children to pursue their passions and strengths and to build their skills and confidence.

To address this inequality in access to good arts education and break down the barriers to opportunity, the Fabian Society’s Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit published a range of recommendations in Arts for Us All: Putting culture and creativity at the heart of national renewal.

The pamphlet recommends that the arts should be fully embedded in a reformed national curriculum – and valued as an essential part of a broad and balanced education. Labour has committed to a curriculum review, which must restore regular, high-quality arts education for every pupil. At primary school, we propose that 10 per cent of the school week is devoted to teaching the arts.

Labour should implement their manifesto pledge to require the EBacc and Progress 8 accountability metrics to include a creative subject. Labour’s pledge to end one-word Ofsted judgements is also welcomed, but this should go further. New ‘report card’ assessments for school should include a specific arts section to measure the quality and accessibility of arts provision.

Greater engagement with local and national heritage should be encouraged through a museum loan box service. This would mean the government requires all publicly funded museums, galleries and other appropriate institutions to provide a school loan box scheme for primary schools. Funding could come from both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education, with additional support from charitable foundations. Labour should also consider ‘twinning’ schools with local arts organisations, focusing on community connections, increased participation in the arts, and wider opportunities for children.

That the Prime Minister chose to speak passionately about the impact of the arts on his own childhood in his Labour Party conference speech suggests that tackling inequality in arts education is a government priority. Over the next five years, Labour must transform ambition into action and ensure that every child has access to a high quality arts and cultural education that breaks down barriers and enriches lives.

Flora Dodd is a Researcher in the Fabian Society’s Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit and a co-author of Arts for Us All: Putting Culture and Creativity at the Heart of National Renewal.

Image credit: Keir Starmer – Creative Commons

UK
Former Labour MP Beth Winter quits party

Chris Jarvis Yesterday


"I cannot in all conscience remain in a political party that is pursuing an authoritarian political agenda whose primary objective is to retain the neoliberal status quo"

The former Labour MP Beth Winter has announced that she has left the Labour Party. Winter served as the MP for Cynon Valley from 2019 to 2024.

Winter said that the Labour Party no longer represents a ‘socialist vision’ and accused it of ‘pursuing an authoritarian political agenda’.

In a statement, she said: “It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as the MP for my home, Cynon Valley, elected on the transformative Labour manifesto of 2019. As a proud socialist I have remained committed to that manifesto’s vision for a fairer, more equal, and greener society ‘for the many, not the few’.

“Sadly, the Labour Party no longer represents that socialist vision and I have, therefore, decided today to cease my membership.”

She continued: “Today’s Labour Party is unrecognisable. I cannot in all conscience remain in a political party that is pursuing an authoritarian political agenda whose primary objective is to retain the neoliberal status quo, serve corporate interests and protect the ruling class”.

When in parliament, Winter was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group – the left wing group of Labour MPs in the House of Commons. Following boundary changes in advance of the 2024 general election, she lost a local selection battle to be the parliamentary candidate for the newly formed Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare constituency to Gerald Jones and subsequently left parliament.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

 

A Little Help for the Non Voter

Nov

02

2024

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from Surviving Leviathan by Peter Gelderloos

Election seasons tend to be stressful times for anarchists, especially if we’re not going to vote. There are very few common features that all anarchists share, but one of them might be that we care. We care about injustice, we care about oppression, we care that the wealthy and powerful are destroying life on the planet and trampling underfoot anyone who gets in the way of accumulation. We don’t look the other way. Granted, there are anarchists who get burned by caring without learning patience, without putting down roots. They tend to fall into deep depression, cynicism, addiction, or some form of Leftism (usually as single-issue progressives or smug Stalinist trolls), but that’s another topic.Also, people become anarchists not through declaration, but through action, by putting beliefs into practice. So when a Get-Out-the-Voter who turns to a little politics once every four years accuses us of being apathetic or inactive, it feels insulting, because it is insulting.Other times, we’re getting the lecture from dedicated progressives who actually do the work, in their way. In those cases what we deal with is not insult but extreme frustration: the patterns we name show up in our history time and time again. Voting—even though it is a normal, legal thing to do in well over a hundred countries around the world and has been that way for decades, if not centuries—has never delivered us to the Promised Land. In fact, things are getting worse.And to head off the ignorant quip that many a centrist or progressive will think themselves original for devising: no, the fact that we don’t currently have whole functional societies without any State is not a valid comparison, for two very simple reasons.

• While voting is encouraged and even rewarded, one of the few things the Right, Center, and Left can all agree on is that they will kill or imprison as many anarchists as they have to; they will evict, enslave, and genocide entire societies to make sure that there is no inhabited country in the world that is not ruled by a State.
• The entire world used to be stateless. Over the last three thousand years, we have won dozens of revolutions to overthrow the State and recreate self-organizing societies. In those free territories, society didn’t collapse. Often, the State was only able to take back control through military conquest, and plenty of times they tried and got their asses handed to them by our anti-state forebears. Five hundred years ago, just before European powers accelerated an unprecedented campaign of mass genocide and mass enslavement on every single inhabited continent, probably one-third to one-half of the world’s population was stateless, most of them intentionally so – meaning they were aware of neighboring states or past states, and possibly resisted state encroachments and reproduced a culture that celebrated its reciprocal aspects as well as its history of revolution, warfare against, or flight from state authority. They knew their lives were better without the State. As for the half of the human population that were state subjects? Most of them were slaves or servants. So… you can drop your masks now, apologists for the State.

People who put their trust in the State build their sense of history on embarrassing beliefs regarding human nature, unexamined assumptions about the inevitability of progress, or by simply accepting that “history is the history of the State” and erasing everything else. Just like the modern State is built on a foundation of violent erasure. Anarchists, on the other hand, have actually done the work to try and understand how and why states form, how and why they don’t form, how and why they get overthrown, and how and why societies resist state formation. You can find just a few examples here and here and here and here. (Going back to 1896, then the early 20th century, then the mid 20th century, then the 21st century, that’s Kropotkin, Reclus, Clastres, and finally my own imperfect contribution.)When we feel insulted or frustrated, we’re more likely to say hyperbolic things like, It doesn’t make a difference, which doesn’t help things, because clearly there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans; between Labor and the Tories; the AfD, the CDU, the SPD, and the Greens; the PP and the Socialists; the Liberal Party and the Workers’ Party… But as soon as we say they’re all the same, they spring on us, happy to have an easy route to missing the point entirely.So, though I’m sure it’s too little and too late, here is a little polemic you can share with that friend, co-worker, or family member who you just don’t want to talk with about the election one. more. time.Copy and paste what follows into an email, or—if you really want them to know how you feel—send along the whole newsletter. Hell, there might be a few others you’ll want them to read.Surviving Leviathan with Peter Gelderloos is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.hoods, and planning for collective survival.

Why I’m Not Going to Vote

I’m not going to vote, because the difference between these parties is not enough to save life on this planet. Whether the Left, the Right, or the Center has been in the saddle, emissions have been rising, life-sustaining habitats and ecosystems are being destroyed, and false solutions get more free advertising. We are now crossing irreversible tipping points. Tens of millions of people are already dying every year because of this catastrophe. If we are not personally facing starvation, disease, and homelessness already because of so-called natural disasters, our children will, and it will get worse every generation after that. The forces that are causing this still have all the power and resources and what they are doing now will be felt most acutely fifty or a hundred or two hundred years from now. We need to dedicate all our imagination and all our energies to a deeply rooted social transformation, in order to urgently create a society of survival, a society of healing, and a society of mutual aid, rather than propping up the system responsible for this massive death and suffering. No single party is responsible. They all bear responsibility.

I’m not going to vote, because I refuse to support people or institutions that are complicit in genocide. Genocide is a red line for me. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are funding and arming the Israeli military, which in a year has killed over 100,000 people, destroyed the homes of two million people and forced a million more to flee their homes. Their military has been caught systematically carrying out torture, bombing hospitals, using children as human shields, summarily executing prisoners, again and again. I’m not the one who needs to justify not voting. You’re the one who needs to justify condoning this, or explain what you’re doing to offset the harm your chosen allies are causing.

I’m not going to vote, because the Democrats silenced any meaningful responses to police killings and police racism. As they lose support from Black and Muslim voters, rather than addressing the racism in our society they simply try to appeal to more suburban whites. In swing states, where Republican campaigns rest almost exclusively on race-baiting portrayals of immigrants and dehumanizing paranoia about trans people, directly encouraging more rightwing violence against these groups, the Democrats enable that violence by refusing to push back on the bigotry. Instead they claim they are also tough on immigration rather than building solidarity between people of any origin. They repeat Republican slurs like “trans biological men” or claim it was the Trump administration that was guilty of allowing healthcare for trans people in prison, rather than standing up for trans people and showing how false the rightwing sex panic is.

I’m not going to vote, because the Democrats systemically sabotage any progressive movement in this country, and if you don’t believe in revolution then some kind of ethical progress is the only vision you can offer for change. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got caught rigging the contest to clinch the party nomination and keep out the progressive wing, led at the time by Bernie Sanders, even though Sanders consistently polled as having a much better chance at beating Trump and other potential Republican nominees. Party elders and super delegates closed ranks around Clinton, who had her origins in the pro-segregation wing of the Party, because they were more afraid of the progressive politics of Sanders than the extreme bigotry and climate denialism of Trump. Likewise, during the Trump administration, rather than focusing on the reality of police racism or the frequent assassinations and mass killings carried out by white supremacist vigilantes, and again today with the ongoing genocide in Palestine, powerholders amongst the Democrats waste no opportunity to snipe or sabotage the new progressive wing that coalesced around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The last time in this country there was a truly progressive movement directly connected to either major party was during the FDR administration in the 1930s, and his brand of progressivism only arose as a strategy to co-opt and institutionalize the subversive organizing of the working class from Black sharecroppers to the multiracial and multiethnic workers in urban factories to the army of unemployed: it was to prevent an anticapitalist revolution. So even if your sincere goal is to create a progressive, pro-State movement, you’re contradicting yourself. Voting wouldn’t be the way to do it. Supporting revolutionary movements would.
Whether we are voting or not, we know that we keep us safe.

We know that the only way to guarantee access to abortions, hormones, and gender affirming care is to organize it ourselves, whether its legally or illegally.

We know that the only way to keep ourselves safe from white supremacists and transphobes, whether they’re wearing badges or hoods, is to arm ourselves, to train, to understand operational security, and to learn surveillance and countersurveillance.

We know that the most effective responses to so-called natural disasters come not from the government nor from humanitarian agencies but from our neighbors and from total strangers practicing mutual aid; that to become even more resilient for the next disaster, the best strategy isn’t some political party, it’s building up stashes of food, water, first aid, and tools, establishing relationships of solidarity globally and in our neighborhoods, and planning for collective survival.

 

Book review: No Harmless Power

Nov

01

2024

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From Freedom News by bob ness ~

This warts-and-all bio of Nestor Makhno is folksy and refreshing

I’m an old-fashioned guy, a romantic, even. In my heart of hearts what I really, really want to do is to ride down capitalism with cavalry and lop off its head with our sabres. We tried that already, but it didn’t work. When something doesn’t work, we try something else. We’re still trying.

Over the years, there has been a lot of talk among anarchists about why cavalry didn’t work against capitalism. Failure often illuminates more than success. The anarchists’ historic retreat across Ukraine in the summer of 1919 was a thing of grief and glory. Some things that happened there had effects that never went away. Consider tachankas. These highly mobile weapons transformed cavalry warfare. This played a dramatic role in the Russian Civil War. Their evolution forked. One fork evolved into the sound truck, which strikes fear in the hearts of riot cops. The other fork evolved into the technical, a (usually light) pickup truck with a heavy machine gun in the back. They cast Makhno’s shadow far and wide. There’s even a war named after them. They called it the “Toyota War”. Look it up.

Many reliable sources trace the invention of this vital piece of improvised military hardware to Makhno himself. This alone is enough to cement his name in the annals of military history. Then there was his renowned tactical prowess. But he was more than an inventor who knew how to fight. What anarchists like best about him were his politics. They are legendary.

We all know at least the legend of the Makhnovists. It’s anarchist canon. At least we think know it. Even less do we know what really happened. For decades it was a major effort to find a book about him or even a book he was mentioned in. What could be found ranged from slander to hagiography. What we really need is a warts-and-all bio that includes an account of the people around him. To that end I recommend No Harmless Power.

Allison really did his homework. He devotes a long chapter to very brief bios of anarchists that even I had never heard of but who all had Makhno-era links to Ukraine. Some were born in Ukraine and grew into anarchists there. Others came from as far as Japan, like Ōsugi Sakae. There is lots of fascinating trivia in this story. One anarchist cavalry commander had had both feet amputated in WWI. A cavalryman with no feet! Sometimes his battalion dismounted and fought as dragoons. His men wheeled him into battle in a wheelbarrow. That’s a story you don’t hear every day, not in the works of ableist historians anyway.

Then there’s the gossip. Makhno really did drink too much sometimes (it’s not what killed him though; that’s a lie). Ida Mett thought his partner Galina was a gold digger… stuff like that. Who slept with who last and who owes who money have plagued our praxis forever. Somehow, we manage to work around it.

Allison explains Makhno’s predilection for drag as having grown out of his school drama program. At first glance it does seem out of character. He was a pretty butch guy. Some of his feats smack of classical machismo. But he wasn’t afraid to be thought of as a harmless old woman sitting on a tree stump, munching on sunflower seeds within earshot of some enemy brass who were discussing strategy. To them, (s)he was as invisible as the stump (s)he sat on. That’s how disguises are supposed to work. That’s also how patriarchy works. Patriarchy is a scourge upon humanity, but on occasion it can be turned against its practitioners.

Makhno wore other disguises, too. Sometimes he would dress as an enemy soldier of one sort or another. He had many enemies, and they wore different uniforms, which made them easy to deceive. It was in a Cheka uniform that he escaped into exile. This had been the idea of his righthand man, Lev Zinkovsky, the head of the anarchist intelligence service. I would have liked this book more if Allison had devoted more time to this part in the struggle. After all, a war without spies never happens. Anywhere. Ever. Fortunately, we have “Kontrrazvedka: The Story of the Makhnovist Intelligence Service”, by V. Azarov to flesh out this part of our story.

There could have been a chapter devoted to another fascinating character, Maria Nikiforova. She played a much bigger role in the story of the Makhnovshchina than Sakae, which is not to denigrate Sakae in any way. Sakae was a shining example of anarchists in action, but he managed to get deported before he could even meet Makhno. Nikiforova, on the other hand, fought in the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (on horseback with a sabre, and with a squadron of cavalry at her back and under her command). Fortunately, we have “Atamansha: The Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc”, by Malcolm Archibald to fill us in.

When Allison gets to the Platform, he goes deep into the machinations and personal interactions involved in the debate surrounding this document, but on the Platform itself he’s pretty neutral, at least in print. That’s wrong of him. The Platform was a colossal mistake; its adoption would have been an even bigger one. It needs to be condemned in no uncertain terms, and this needs repeating, even today. Emma Goldman herself spoke out against Platformism. Bolshevism without Bolsheviks?! Preposterous. They’d just become Bolsheviks, and we’d be back to square one. Besides, all states excel at decapitating frontal attacks. Only a decentralised movement is immune. It has no capit to decate. Why give it one?

Despite these flaws, No Harmless Power is an excellent book. Its folksy style provides a refreshing counterpoint, for example, to Skirda’s more pedantic “Anarchy’s Cossack”, which is also an excellent book.

Allison’s judicious use of snark and vernacular does much to make it accessible to modern sensibilities. It gives us moderns a look inside the anarchist movement as it used to be and to a certain extent still is today. It’s more about the people than it is about the ideology. Anarchism itself should be more about the people than the ideology. All anarchists would do well to read this book. We’d all do well to read all of anarchist history. Without history the wisdom of our ancestors eludes us. So does their folly. We need for that not to happen. So read history. Start today.

No Harmless Power: The Life and Times of the Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno, by Charlie Allison; Illustrated by Kevin Matthews and N.O. Bonzo. PM Press, 2023. 256 pages

 

Malcolm Archibald: 50 years of Black Cat PresS  

EDMONTON, ALBERTA

Nov

01

2024

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FELLOW ANARHIST COMRADE

I WAS HIS PRINTERS DEVIL 

From Freedom News by Sean Patterson

In this interview, the founder of Edmonton’s anarchist publishing house looks back on its legacy

For the past five decades, Black Cat Press (BCP) in Edmonton, Canada, has served as a local hub for the city’s radical community and as an important publisher of anarchist material. Over the years, BCP has produced many notable titles, including the first English translations of the collected works of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno in five volumes. Other stand-out works from BCP include The Dossier of Subject No. 1218, the translated memoirs of Bulgarian anarchist Alexander Nakov; Lazar Lipotkin’s The Russian Anarchist Movement in North America, a previously unpublished manuscript held at Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History; and Kronstadt Diary, a selection of Alexander Berkman’s original diary entries from 1921.

Amongst reprints of classic works by the likes of Kropotkin, Bakunin, and William Morris, BCP has also highlighted the work of anarchist researchers from around the globe, including Alexey Ivanov’s Kropotkin and Canada, Vadim Damier’s Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th Century, Ronald Tabor’s The Tyranny of Theory, and Archibald’s own work Atamansha: The Story of Maria Nikiforova, the Anarchist Joan of Arc.  

Sadly, Black Cat Press closed its doors in 2022, an economic victim of the Covid pandemic. Any future hopes to revive the press were subsequently shattered in the wake of a second tragedy. On June 26, 2024, an early morning house fire started by arsonists destroyed BCP’s remaining equipment and inventory. The loss of BCP is painful not only locally for Edmonton but nationally as one of Canada’s few anarchist publishers. Sharing BCP’s five-decade-long story will hopefully inspire others to follow in the steps of BCP’s legacy and the broader tradition of small anarchist publishing houses.

This month, BCP founder Malcolm Archibald sat down with Freedom News to reflect on a lifetime of publishing and his personal journey through anarchism over the years.

—

You have been involved with the anarchist community for many years. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you first became interested in anarchism?

Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the Cold War, I certainly had no exposure to anarchism. Nor did my family have any predilection for left-wing politics. The only book on socialism in the public library was G. D. H. Cole’s History of Socialist Thought, which I devoured. In 1958, at age 15, I attended a provincial convention of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) as a youth delegate. The CCF in Nova Scotia was a proletarian party with a strong base in the coal mining districts. After that, I was hooked on left-wing politics.

I became interested in anarchism by reading books about the Spanish Civil War. The first real anarchist I met was Murray Bookchin at a conference in Ann Arbor in 1969. Bookchin understood that many student radicals were anarchists in practice, even if they called themselves Marxists, so he emphasised the libertarian elements of Marx in his propaganda.

What anarchist organisations/groups have you been involved with over the years?

As a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, I was on the staff of underground newspapers, including an anarchist tabloid, The Walrus. Later, I helped start an anarchist magazine in Edmonton called News from Nowhere (printed by Black Cat Press). In Edmonton in the 1970s we had a branch of the Social-Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (SRAF), but most anarchist activity was centred around the IWW, Black Cat Press, and Erewhon Books. Anarchists were also involved in the newspapers Poundmaker (circulation 19,000!) and Prairie Star. In 1979, the North American Anarchist Communist Federation (NAACF, later simplified to ACF) started up, and I was active in two of their branches for a number of years but was unable to get much traction for the organisation in Edmonton.

When did you start Black Cat Press, and how did it evolve over time? What are some key moments in its history you’d like to share with our readers?

Black Cat Press started when I purchased an offset press and copy camera in 1972. The previous owner had tried to earn a living with this equipment and ended up in a mental institution, which was not auspicious. BCP became a “printer to the movement” in Edmonton, used by almost all the left groups and causes. In 1979 BCP became the unofficial printer of the ACF and printed a number of pamphlets for that organisation.

From 1989 to 2001, BCP shared space with the Boyle McCauley News, the monthly newspaper of Edmonton’s inner city, with an all-volunteer staff. The newspaper generally tried to print positive news about the community, but an exception was the issue of juvenile prostitution, a terrible blight until we started printing stories about it and the authorities finally took action.

In 1994, the government printing plant where I worked was shut down, and BCP began to operate full-time with three partners who had been laid off at the same time. Our customer base included social agencies close to our shop in Edmonton’s inner city plus various unions. In 2003, I purchased a perfect binding machine and was able to start printing books. Our first book was Kropotkin’s Anarchist Morality, a perennial favourite. Eventually, about 30 titles were printed, which were distributed by AK Press, independent bookstores, and literature tables at anarchist book fairs.

How did you come to translate Russian-language radical and anarchist texts?

I studied Russian at university and later took night courses in German, French, Ukrainian, and Polish. I first became aware of Nestor Makhno in the 1960s from a book by the British historian David Footman. Ending up in Edmonton, it turned out that the University of Alberta Library held four books by Nestor Makhno, bibliographical rarities.

I’m constantly amazed at the richness of the anarchist tradition in the Russian Empire and the USSR. For many years, The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich was the only survey work on the subject, but recently, two histories have appeared in Russia and one in Ukraine. It is a measure of the depth of the movement that these histories are practically independent of one another and pay hardly any attention to Avrich.

My first works of translation from Russian were physics articles, which don’t give much scope for originality. In translating historical texts, most of the effort goes not into the actual translation, but research on the names of places, persons, etc. and preparing annotations. I try to provide the reader with maps, graphics, and indexes, which make it easier to understand the text.

Although I generally do not work with literary texts, I did translate some poems by Nestor Makhno. He wrote a poem called “The Summons” while in prison in 1912. A search of his cell in 1914 discovered this poem, for which he was given one week in a punishment cell. While in this cell, he composed another poem, which he wrote down as soon as he was allowed back to his regular cell. But another search discovered the second poem (more bloodthirsty than the first one), and he ended up in the punishment cell again. So, it wasn’t easy being an anarchist poet!

Some of your major contributions to anarchist studies are the translations of Russian and Ukrainian primary sources. In particular, you translated and published the first English edition of Nestor Makhno’s three-volume memoirs. Can you describe this translation project?

The University of Alberta library holds copies of Makhno’s memoirs, including both the French and Russian versions of the first volume. I started translating these memoirs as early as 1979 when BCP published a pamphlet entitled My Visit to the Kremlin, a translation of two chapters in the second volume. This pamphlet was eventually published in many other languages.

Most of the work involved in preparing translations of Makhno’s works went into research about the people and places he mentions. An effort was made to provide enough material in the form of notes and maps to make the narrative intelligible to the reader.

Black Cat Press recently closed its doors after fifty years in business. The economic environment for publishing is increasingly difficult in general, and especially so for small anarchist presses. What are your thoughts on the current prospects for anarchist publishing, and what changes might have to be made to maintain its long-term viability?

Most anarchist publishers have to order a substantial press run up front and then hope to sell the books over a (hopefully) not-too-long period. BCP was ahead of its time in using a print-on-demand model where inventories were kept low so that capital wouldn’t be tied up in stock that wasn’t moving. The publishing arm of BCP was not much affected by the pandemic; rather, it was the job printing that suffered, forcing the business to close.

How have you seen anarchism (particularly in Canada) change over the decades? Canada has rarely seen an organized anarchist movement in the same way as some groups in Europe or the United States. Why do you think this is so, and do you see any hope for an organized Canadian movement in the future?

When I became active in the anarchist movement in Canada in the 1970s, the anarchists were all poverty-stricken, trying to survive in minimum-wage jobs. The next generation was much better off and had a lot of money to throw around. Now, the current generation is back to being dirt poor again, lacking the resources to make an impact. But I think the prospects for the future are good because (a) the old left (communists, Trotskyists, i.e., the alphabet soup brigade) are intellectually and morally bankrupt, and (b) the New Democratic Party (in Alberta, at least) is environmentally irresponsible. This leaves a lot of room on the left for anarchists to stake out their territory and attract young people into the movement.

Malcolm Archibald at the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair, 2013.

Thanks to Kandis Friesen for sharing previously collected interview material.

 

International exchange against military service and all militarism, Nov 15-16

Nov

02

2024

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From squat.net

In Germany and many other countries, militarism is gaining strength in the face of the new and old wars and genocides of recent years, and the structures and ideas associated with it are taking space at various levels.

At the same time, the military industry is flourishing. In addition to immense subsidies for the Bundeswehr (German army), one of the concrete initiatives is the implementation of a new mandatory military service in Germany. After this was practically discontinued in 2011, the initiators‘ plan is to introduce a new service with examinations and sanctions against those who do not take part in this procedure. Even if this proposal initially revolves around a fairly limited number of recruits and attempts to paint a moderate picture, it is to be seen as a door opener and an important tool of militarism and Germany’s NATO policy. The numbers of recruits are initially low because the infrastructure required for military service, such as places for physical examinations with the purpose of recruitment, accommodation and training, was dismantled after 2011. The model will probably also initially be a trial that will be optimized.

Whatever model they introduce, as anarchists we reject service in the name of the military and the state and will organize resistance against it.

In the spirit of anti-authoritarian internationalism, we want to exchange ideas with comrades from different contexts about military service in the states in which they live, but also about practices of refusal and resistance.

You and your context are invited to participate in this exchange.

The prerequisites are the principles of solidarity and an anti-authoritarian anti-militarism, an analysis that opposes the justification of war, collateral damage and the recognition of states and any other authority.

In the days leading up to the exchange, there are as yet unconfirmed reports of possible celebrations to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Bundeswehr, which could well take place in Hamburg. We remain open to expressing our joint rejection of such an event – stay tuned!

 

Portugal: Disgraça - help us buy our anarchist social centre

Nov

02

2024

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From gofundme

Disgraça – a story about an anarchist social centre

9 years ago, we decided to break the boredom that haunted our routines and get together to open an anti-authoritarian space. A space where we could discuss and create collective solutions to problems that we had been individualising. Today, in a city devastated by real estate speculation, the housing crisis and the elitisation of culture, we have come together in resistance, this time to put an end to the monthly extortion we are subjected to and collectively acquire the space of Disgraça. A space where we and so many others have been organising, conspiring, dreaming and having fun for the last decade – for a future based on solidarity and mutual support, as opposed to one based on the property market and private property, hostage to landlords.

It all started on 11 September 2015. Atop one of Lisbon's hills, the doors of Disgraça opened. From the vapid white walls, from the empty, echoing rooms, from the multitude of wills that converged in that place, this restless project blossomed. Walls fell, walls rose, walls were scribbled on. And as if it were a spring of insubordination from the depths of the city's subsoil, we materialised, room by room, each one's community potential. Moved by common dreams, desires and needs, we built a canteen and community space, a library, a DIY concert hall, a workshop where chaos reigns, a rehearsal room and a screen printing room, a gym (the tidiest place in the building), the free shop Desumana, and, from the memory of an empty shop front, a cosy anarchist bookshop – Tortuga.

Since then, we have devoted endless hours, individually and collectively, to the almost daily demands of the project. Demands haunted by needs for conflict management, waves of exhaustion, the thankless metronome of rent, high expenses, and life in a city that is emptying of life with each passing day. While self-management is our bulwark, we are yet to arrive at a place where we can do so sustainably. By collectively acquiring the Disgraça space, all the resistance collectives and social movements that depend on this social centre will gain greater sustainability and autonomy. Without a rent and a landlord, we can focus on continuing to create the future we envision together.

An informal laboratory of anti-authoritarian practices

The city of Lisbon, like all big cities, is increasingly hostile to ways of life that go against the mercantile logic. Many of us have been expelled from the centre to the margins by tycoons, entrepreneurs and digital nomads. And, even though their uselessness translates into a dependence on our work and the daily movement of our bodies to that same centre, they don't tolerate our involvement in the political, social and cultural dynamics of the luxury amusement park they call a city. Every month, many of us lose our homes or are at risk of losing the associative spaces where we weave affinities (let's remember our fellow resistants in Sirigaita and Zona Franca, for example). In the face of the violence of the forced displacement of people and spaces, we have organised ourselves into anti-displacement collectives, in the occupation of vacant buildings that come to life with our entry, with the collective mobilisation of the occupation of "public space" in squares, alleys and gardens.

Disgraça, this informal, often clumsy but always obstinate, laboratory of anti-authoritarian practices and ways of thinking, is organised horizontally, by volunteers who, among themselves and with those who go there, experiment, care, think, decide, make mistakes, antagonise, transform, catalyse, shelter and come together in getting closer to trying out a world shaped neither by capital nor by the exhausting rhythm of the drum of the empire, but by self-organisation, self-determination and expression, mutual aid, (de)construction of community and subversion of that which constrains us.

Over time, Disgraça has become a place of convergence and organisation of struggles in the city of Lisbon and beyond, providing space for meetings, preparation of materials, events and fundraising. Among the intricacies of maintaining and organising the space, there have been conversations and reading groups on anarchism, anti-racism, anti-colonialisms and the most diverse indigenous, queer and feminist struggles. Bridging the gap between theory on Tortuga's shelves and practice – in our lives, there have been roundtable discussions on prison abolition and prisoner support, on housing struggle and squatting, as well as strategies for resisting green capitalism, climate collapse and extractivism.

Hundreds of bands have played in the space's abysses, mirrored by the countless evenings of cinema cycles and donation-based vegan canteens. Here, DIY learning spaces based on mutual aid grow alongside workshops on anti-authoritarian health practices, food sovereignty, self-defence, free software and hardware, DIY art, recycling materials and zine production.

Now what?

In order to continue these desires and struggles, we have drawn up a one-and-a-half-year plan to secure, once and for all, this space that is so important to all of us. We've already done the first steps – on 19th of September, we signed an agreement for the space to not be sold to anyone else and put down 10% of the total amount. Now, it is time to raise up our sleeves and get down to work: we've got until the end of summer 2025 to raise the remaining 247,500 euros to secure the space for the immediate long-term sustainability of Disgraça and all the collectives that use the space.

The plan includes securing interest-free loans, fundraising events, a caravan tour all over Europe, non-state-affiliated grants and, of course, this crowdfunding. The more we can raise here, the quicker we can be rid of financial obligations and dedicate our time to supporting resistance struggles, learning from one another and organising together.

If you can't support by donation, there are of course also other things you can do:

- We're looking for comrades willing to give us medium/long-term, interest-free loans. These loans will be essential for securing the space and will be repaid upon request with a 6-month notice period.
- We're asking collectives (and folks who are both part of and not part of collectives!) who have been sharing space with us for the last decade to help us publicise this through your networks and affinity groups. We want to do this together!
- We're going to organise various benefits inside and outside the space in the coming year. We invite people around us to come and help us organise the events and/or providing support during them (like helping with groceries, cooking and cleaning). We challenge other groups in solidarity with Disgraça to do the same in their geographies.
- We want to make a caravan that passes through various anti-authoritarian spaces and festivals throughout Europe, to organise events and talks to spread the word and raise funds.

If you'd like to join this effort with any of the above ideas or others, send us an email.

See you soon :)
Love & Rage.