In a hierarchical society, whom do police protect? Who has more to fear from crime, and who has more to fear from police? In some communities, the police are like an occupying force; police and crime form the interlocking jaws of a trap that prevents people from escaping oppressive situations or rescuing their communities from violence, poverty, and fragmentation.
Our next reading is on alternatives to policing and community-based, self-organized ways to take care of our social needs and problems. Anarchists wish to create a society that can protect itself and resolve internal problems without police, judges, or prisons; a society that does not view its problems in terms of good and evil, permitted and prohibited, law-abiders and criminals.
We will discuss the common question asked of anarchists: ‘Yes, but who will protect us without police?’ that kicks off chapter 5, “Crime” from ‘Anarchy Works’, an excellent introduction to anarchism and response to many of the popular criticisms and reactions to the anarchist worldview, by Peter Gelderloos. Peter Gelderloos is an American anarchist and activist, and author
You can read the chapter online here:
A PDF version of the reading is available for download at the top of the ‘Readings’ column, from the right-hand menu.
As usual, we will be meeting at 2620 Quadra Street, on unceded Lekwungen territory. Doors will be open at 6:50pm, and discussion starts at 7pm.
On Tuesday September 24th, we will be reading a classic pamphlet by Algerian-French militant, author, theorist and Nobel Prize awardee Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) titled “Neither Victims nor Executioners” (1946). This essay was first serialized in 1946 in the French Resistance newspaper Combat (founded, 1941) and addresses the issue of violence. 
This week we are reading “Through Separation to Community” by German anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870-1919). Landauer is best known for arguing the State is “a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.” Novelist, playwright, author of three theoretical works and editor of the anarchist newspaper, Der Sozialist (intermittently published between 1893-1899; 1909-1915), he endured frequent stints in prison before the outbreak of World War One. Landauer anticipated the war would lead to revolutionary uprisings and, in November 1918, when workers and soldiers rose up and overthrew the conservative government of Germany’s second largest state, Bavaria, he joined the effort. 
This week, the circle decided to read a chapter from the acclaimed anarcha-femininst and witch, Starhawk. Starhawk is founder of the Reclaiming Tradition of witchcraft, which combines magickal practices with social and ecological activism, communialism, as well as sustainable land-based reclaiming techniques, such as permaculture gardening, and so on.
For the next reading, we are looking at the first part of The Coming Insurrection. You can find the whole text here – but remember, in preparation for Aug 13th, we are reading circles 1 to 4. 
In this 2012 article, J. Rogue examines the history of essentialism in anarchist and socialist feminist movements. Through transfeminist critiques of essentialist viewpoints, Rogue delivers a powerful statement and call to action for all anarchists to “integrate the principles of (trans)feminism into our organizing within the working class and social movements”.
For the next anarchist reading circle, we will be discussing a selection from Barbara Ehrenreich’s Dancing in the Streets: A history of Collective Joy. A history of how the European peasantry was itself colonized and de-paganized by the Church (and particularly by the Reformation and Enlightenment values), pointing to a discussion of how people of European descent can ‘re-indigenize’.
For the next anarchist reading circle, we will be discussing Rebecca Solnit’s ‘A Paradise Built in Hell: The extraordinary communities that arise in disaster.’ During our last session we had a discussion about the whole ‘pessimistic/optimistic’ debate regarding human nature, whether or not our intrinsic sociability or orientation to help each other would arise in the event of system collapse (or if we even have such an orientation), etc.
For the next reading we are turning towards the matter of Anarchist Pedagogies with the opening chapter from the edited volume called, aptly enough, Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education. The text is called “Anarchism, the State, and the Role of Education” by Justin Mueller. I am most intrigued by the section differentiating anarchist pedagogical thought from that of Paulo Friere’s. YOU can find a .pdf to download and read for your self on the right hand side of our website.