Our study of Indigenous anarchist movements abroad has encouraged us to more closely study the theory and solidarity actions for settler-Indigenous solidarity coming out of so-called “Canada.” The zine Social War on Stolen Native Land: Anarchist Contributions from Black Banner Distro (2017) engages with an alternative perspective that assumes that people have their own valid reason for struggling, and that by coming together from a shared position, we can have stronger and more powerful relationships. Through the lens of past anarchist activity in Canada, the zine explores the ways – both theoretical and practical – in which settler anarchists have attempted historically to act in solidarity with Indigenous resistance.
The reading is available in Screen or Imposed PDF Format on SproutDistro: https://www.sproutdistro.com/catalog/zines/anti-oppression/social-war-stolen-land/
As always, we are meeting at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. The next meeting is Sunday May 14 @ 6:30PM.
After our enthusiastic conversation about the Zapitistas’ model of Participatory Democracy, we wanted to delve more into Zapatista cosmovisión (worldview) and organization by reading Subcomandante Marcos’s “I Shit On All the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet,” which is a response to the Basque liberation movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna’s (ETA) advocation of vanguardist politics. We also teased out the idea of future readings about Rojava in a continuation of our exploration of democratic centralism. Therefore, we decided in anticipation to also include the Feminist Anarchist Border Opposition’s Why Misogynists Make Great Informants, which tackles misogyny and gender violence in left-activist circles and movements.
Our next reading will be the academic article Participatory Democracy in Action: Practices of the Zapatistas and the Movimento Sem Terra, which covers the Zapatistas’ and Movimento Sem Terra’s (Landless Movement-MST) methods of organizing through participatory democracy, which emphasizes obligation to participate in decision making and a shared concern for autonomy.
“On Revolution and Equilibrium” by Barbara Deming extensively quotes Frantz Fanon to argue for revolutionary non-violence. Instead of attesting to some imaging sense of ‘purity’ she states it is more important to avoid becoming ‘dizzy’ than to aspire to be pure. What kind of future do we want? Who will be involved in building this future? These are the questions Deming asks while putting Fanon forward to argue for a blance between self-assertion and respect for others.