"Victoria" Anarchist Reading Circle
Reading for Revolution
For our next meeting we are reading Murray Bookchin’s classic text “Listen Marxist!” from 1971. This historical text was a significant intervention in the cultural milieu of the Left. This was the time when Marxism was considered the supreme ideology and dominated radical spheres, except for the anarchists.
You can get the reading from this link to the Anarchist Library.
A Conversation with anarcho-Indigenous Sovereigntist, Mel Bazil
Saturday, Jan. 19: doors, 6:30 PM; talk, 7 PM. David Lam Auditorium, room A144, McLaurin Building, University of Victoria
Unceded territories of the Lekwungen-speaking Songhees and Esquimalt peoples and the SENĆOŦEN-speaking W̱SÁNEĆ peoples
Indigeneity, Decolonization, ReIndigenization, and Anarchism
Join with Mel Bazil to explore the long-term relationships that we can forge for the sake of real relations with Indigenous peoples and their struggles. Mel was born to Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en origins. He is a father, a counselor, community leader, and is participating in Nation building on his home territories. Anarchy, Indigeneity, Decolonization and Re-Indigenization have served Mel well.
Mel is also a supporter of the Unis’tot’en Action Camp (ongoing since 2009). The camp asserts Wet’suwet’en sovereignty over unceded territories. It enforces a ‘Free and prior informed consent protocol’ to ensure only those who support Wet’suwet’en interests are allowed access.
Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs statement regarding the recent RCMP assault – THIS IS NOT OVER
http://unistoten.camp/thisisnotover/
Presented by the Victoria Anarchist Reading Circle
In Spring 2011, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Northern Syria (Rojava) established a People’s Council of West Kurdistan around the concept of “democratic confederalism” wherein diverse peoples and political actors united under an autonomous anti-state structure of self-governance. Three regional “Cantons” formed a federated structure encompassing most of northern Syria. Rojava’s revolution was defended by two militias — the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The emergence of a secular, feminist, anti-authoritarian system of self-governance in the midst of Syria’s civil war was an extraordinary event and military victories against the Islamic State (notably the heroic rescue of minority Yezidi peoples besieged by Islamic State forces in the Sinjar Mountains) brought the Rojava revolution to world attention.
Join Professor Ozlem Goner to learn about the roots of the Rojava revolution, its ecological, feminist, and anarchic democratic vision, as well as current threats to Rojava poised by Turkish armed forces in alliance with Russia.
Two events are planned:
Monday, January 13th, 7:00pm, Room 129 MacPherson Library, University of Victoria (unceded WSÁNEC & Lekwungen (Songhees & Esquimalt) Territories).
Tuesday, January 14th, 7:00pm at Camas Books & Infoshop (unceded Lekwungen Territory)
Ozlem Goner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Goner has written on a range of issues, including memory and historicity; political economy and the environment; and outsider identities. In 2017 her book, Turkish National Identity and its Outsiders: Memories of State Violence in Dersim, was published by Routledge. She is a steering committee member of the US-based Emergency Committee for Rojava.
Donations In support of Rojava are welcome!
Happy New Year and welcome back from the holidays. To begin 2019, we are proposing a reading arguing for the need to abolish all political parties. It was originally written in 1957 by the French socialist, mystic, and activist, Simone Weil.
The reading is available as a .pdf on the right side of our website. Start on page 8.
As always, we will be meeting at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra st (unceded Lekwungen territory) at 7 pm sharp.