Note: In line with our solidarity statement with the Gitxsan, we are postponing our next circle to December 15th and encourage VARC goers to instead attend the anti-pipeline benefit show in town where Kolin Sutherland-Wilson will also be speaking. Kolin a Gitxsan land defender, artist, and troublemaker from the House known as the Git’luuhl’um’hetxwit, of the Fireweed Clan, hailing from the Village of Anspayaxw, where he is currently serving as Chief Councillor.
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Our last reading discussion revealed how the (“Liberal Democratic”) military industrial complex preys on working class inequalities to seduce people into selling their bodies in labour to the state. Which lead us to a question: what about disabled bodies the State deems “unworthy?”
Our next reading will be a selection from Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and our conversation will be prefaced with the short 10 Principles of Disability Justice. Leah writes passionately and personally about creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour, and creative “collective access” — access not as a chore but as a collective responsibility and pleasure — in our communities and political movements.
Our Chapter 1 selection is available via Screen or as a custom imposed zine (short-edge).
We ask you to please read the pieces ahead of time. We also encourage everyone to bring suggestions for our next readings.
As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. The next meeting is Sunday December 15th @ 6:30PM.
PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square. They need help from volunteers.
PPS: A global majority-prioritized Liberation Reading Circle, unaffiliated with VARC, has also started at Camas. Their first meeting was Wednesday, December 4th from 6:30PM-8:00PM. This was their reading.
Remembrance Day, in “Canadian” national mythology, signals the end of World War 1, an imperialist travesty where the ruling classes of France, Germany, England, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Russia fomented war fever against each other, which also distracted from and weakened working class uprisings in their countries, harnessing energy instead towards squabbles over imperial carve-out rivalries globally. As Canada’s then Prime Minister Robert Borden saw it, the fight in supporting the British, was “to put forth every effort and to make every sacrifice necessary to ensure the integrity and maintain the honour of our empire.”