Next time, we will be discussing Sobre la violencia en una época de catástrofes AKA About violence in a time of catastrophes (2023). We will also be pairing it with an excerpt, Chapter 7: Trusting, from Worth Fighting For: Bringing the Rojava Revolution Home. (2023)
About violence in a time of catastrophes is a short essay (machine-translated from Spanish) exploring the principles of anti-colonial violence and pleas for its audience to take a principled, intersectional stance against right-wing Islamic Jihadism, taking into account the experiences of Iranian and Afghan comrades. It is available for free on the Anarchist Library or as a custom imposed zine short-edge PDF.
Worth Fighting For: Bringing the Rojava Revolution Home is the story of two internationalist volunteers who became part of the Rojavan revolution, such as martyrs like Anna Campbell, who left her home in England and travelled to northeast Syria – the Rojava region of Kurdistan – to join the women fighters of the YPJ in the battle against the Islamic State. One year later, she was killed in the Turkish invasion of Afrin. The text is a critical reflection from these volunteer activists on what we can “bring back” to our movements at home on Turtle Island. Our reading, Chapter 7: Trusting, explores dismantling individuals’ state mentality in a time of War to create bonds of trust. It is available as a custom imposed zine short-edge PDF.
A screen reader with scans of both texts is available here:
We ask you to please read the pieces ahead of time.
As always, we meet at Camas Books and Infoshop, 2620 Quadra Street, on unceded Lekwungen Territory at 6:30pm on Sunday October 27th. Bring a tea and a notebook!
Last week’s discussion introduced us to Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish Worker’s party, who, after he was jailed indefinitely by the Turkish State, turned to a number of new sources to revisit his previous Marxist-Leninist nationalist ideology. He did a ‘180’ and turned to the writings of the anarchist social ecologist Murray Bookchin, and from there developed his own vision of anarchism, which he called “Democratic Confederalism.”
Our next reading circle is scheduled for Tuesday, February 26th from 6:45 – 9pm; discussion starts at 7pm. As always, we meet on unceded Lekwungen territory at Camas Books and Infoshop (2620 Quadra Street).