2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 101 2009-09-28T07:59:18Z 0 LA CORRIENTE DOMINANTE, EL ANARQUISMO DE ESTADO. El anarquismo de estado es la corriente hegemonica (ser hegemonico ya es un mal principio) en el anarquismo del Estado Espanol y por su peso historico esta corriente ha influido decisivamente en el anarquismo mundial y ha retrasado, de una manera dificil de determinar, el desarrollo de practicas y de bases de pensamiento necesarias para acabar con el sistema. El actor mayoritario, pero no el unico ni el principal, del anarquismo de estado ha sido ]a organizacion anarcosindical, organizacion definida como no anarquista, democratica y gradualista. La principal caracteristica del anarquismo de estado es su pretension de heredar el sistema actual para <<gestionarlo bien)>, de ahi que su unica elaboracion modernizada sea la autogestion, entendida como la gestion directa, mediante la democracia directa, del mundo actual. Ademas el anarquismo de estado preconiza una organizacion del presente en funcion del futuro, ??como sera ese. futuro, si su presente esta Ileno de secretarias generales, votaciones, escisiones y expulsiones ... ?? Estos ultimos tiempos se ha iniciado un debate muy necessary, despues de tantos anos de paralisis dogmatic y de mirarnos el ombligo de los anos treinta. Los principales centros han sido, por una parte el insurreccionalismo anarquista representado sobretodo por los companeros del Estado Italiano y por otra los anarquistas primitivistas representados especialmente por ]as corrientes anglosajonas de <<green anarchy)> tanto en Oregon como en el Reino Unido, estas dos corrientes de hecho se confunden en la corriente de <<anarquia insurreccionalista verde o anticivilizacion>>. Es particularmente estimulante que el debate se desplace desde el tedioso y repetitivo cnt'scgt's (sea para distinguirse la una de la otra,'o para fusionarse en quimericas operaciones de unidad) a posiciones mas frescas e interesantes, en el fondo es un debate interrumpido por mas de 100 anos de <<anarquismo de estado>>. Llavor d'Anarquia C/ Mestres Casals i Martorell, 18 08003 Barcelona Ilavorda@hotmail.com http://www.gratisweb.com/Ilavor LIBRES Y SALVAJES Ilavor d'anarquia enero del 2002. LA CORRIENTE DOMINANTE, EL ANARQUISMO DE ESTADO. El anarquismo de estado es la corriente hegemonica (ser hegemonico ya es un mal principio) en el anarquismo del Estado Espanol y por su peso historico esta corriente ha influido decisivamente en el anarquismo mundial y ha retrasado, de una manera dificil de determinar, el desarrollo de practicas y de bases de pensamiento necesarias para acabar con el sistema. El actor mayoritario, pero no el unico ni el principal, del anarquismo de estado ha sido ]a organizacion anarcosindical, organizacion definida como no anarquista, democratica y gradualista. La principal caracteristica del anarquismo de estado es su pretension de heredar el sistema actual para <<gestionarlo bien)>, de ahi que su unica elaboracion modernizada sea la autogestion, entendida como la gestion directa, mediante la democracia directa, del mundo actual. Ademas el anarquismo de estado preconiza una organizacion del presente en funcion del futuro, ??como sera ese. futuro, si su presente esta Ileno de secretarias generales, votaciones, escisiones y expulsiones ... ?? Asi pues, los municipios actuales, los barrios dormitorios, las fabricas de armas y productos quimicos, las minas, las fundiciones, las explotaciones agricolas industriales y transgenicas, los criaderos de vacas locas.... seran gestionados correctamente, por comites de colectivizacion correctamente elegidos, que impondran ritmos y horarios de trabajo aprobados autogestionariamente, la contaminacion reducida paulatinamente y lo mas importante, las tecnologias desarrolladas para y por la dominacion, en sus buenas manos, se convertiran magicamente en instrumentos de liberacion. Al fijarse como objetivo la gestion de un sistema centralizador, es necesario disenar una macroorganizacion de comites delegados, las clasicas Confederaciones Ibericas de Comunas, Confederaciones Continentales de Comunas hasta Ilegar a la Confederacion Mundial de Comunas. Imaginamos que todo ello con Comisiones logisticas, estadisticas de gestion delegada, con un sistema contable comun y, a ser posible, un idioma comun... siguiendo la repugnante consigna de que <<la anarquia no es el caos, sino la mas alta expresion del orden>>. En el fondo nos encontramos con una incapacidad absoluta de concebir un mundo distinto del actual, y de este modo la rebeldia, un sentimiento anarquista, se vuelca en ver como podemos gestionar antiautoritariamente este mundo autoritario, no en como construir un mundo sin autoridad. Tendremos pues delegaciones, directas, pero delegaciones, comites de colectivizacion, comites de coordinacion, logisticos, de estadistica, tecnicos especialistas competentes (para vigilar los artefactos tecnologicos y el cumplimiento de los acuerdos), especialistas y gestores, en suma PODER y AUTORIDAD. ?POR QUE TENEMOS TANTAS DIFICULTADES EN CONCEBIR UN MUNDO SIN AUTORIDAD? Vivimos rodeados de la miseria, y sin embargo, todos hemos escuchado y todos somos participes de la idea de que siempre habra pobres y ricos, poderosos y humildes, listos y tontos, habilidosos y torpes, extrovertidos y apocados, altruistas y aprovechados, vivales y pringados ... Este es un lastre que hemos mamado en la familia, consolidado en las instituciones de aprendizaje (escuela, primer trabajo, calle, pandilla) y, por supuesto a lo largo de toda una vida regulada por el orden del reloj y la continua sumision, desde a] presidente del gobierno al inspector del metro. Pero no es solo esto: el lastre trasciende nuestras cortas vidas, arrastramos los grilletes de una domesticacion de siglos (7.500, 10.000, 20.000... anos). No somos capaces de ver el mundo maravilloso de plenitud y goce en el que podriamos vivir, y solo vemos posibles los tonos grises y anodinos de las metas alcanzables, porque Ilevamos las anteojeras de la domesticacion. Y, desdichadamente, lo que Ilamamos "alcanzable" no son ni siquiera migajas: las rentas basicas, los ingresos sociales, los presupuestos participativos, la cogestion.... No dejan de ser piezas de un laberinto por el que no vamos a ninguna parte, por el que permanecemos en la dominacion y la explotacion. LA POLEMICA SOBRE LA TECNOLOGIA La polemica sobre la tecnologia es facilmente ridiculizable (anarcopedropicapiedra), sobretodo con la poco afortunada etiqueta de primitivismo; pero no afrontarla evidencia que realmente no se quiere llegar a ninguna parte y que solo se busca una cierta <<profundizacion>> de la democracia: una democracia avanzada, un industrialismo blando, un control benevolente... Los anarquistas defensores de la civilizacion tecnologica olvidan que esta es el resultado de siglos de seleccion a favor de las formas de dominio y de opresion mas eficaces y que en el camino se quedaron aquellas practicas que favorecian la autonomia o se enfrentaban directamente al poder. Por ejemplo, hoy la mayoria hemos perdido las habilidades de procurarnos directamente la comida, no sabemos ni prepararla, ni siquiera los agricultores saben ya trabajar de un modo autonomo. Asi hemos perdido una cosa (que para muchos seria una tecnologia) y su lugar ha sido ocupado por el complejo de artefactos, productos quimicos, transmutados geneticos, maniobras financieras y opresion alimentaria que constituyen la teenologia de la moderna agricultura industrial. Otro ejemplo seria el del control del cuerpo de las mujeres por nosotras mismas: la mayoria (cada vez mayor) hemos perdido un conjunto de habilidades que nos permitia tener el control sobre la sexualidad y la reproduccion. Estas habilidades han sido substituidas por sanitarios, sacerdotales, artefactos clinicos, substancias quimicas, el poder economico farmaceutico, la mercantilizacion de la salud y cosificacion del cuerpo, que constituyen la tecnologia de la medicina industrializada. Como vemos no es un debate vacio, no existe la tecnologia nuclear mala (centralista contaminante, policiaca ... ) y la tecnologia nuclear buena (descentralizada, limpia, democraticamente vigilada). Existe simplemente la tecnologia nuclear, ideada para abastecer centralizadamente a hiperconsumidores centralizados y cualquier cosa que se quiera construir con ella como base devendra inevitablemente centralizada, contaminante y con vigilancia policiaca ... y por tanto un instrumento de poder. No existe una ingenieria genetica mala (en manos de corporaciones, para fomentar el control, para discriminar... ) y una ingenieria genetica buena (que nos sacara del hambre y nos curara todas las enfermedades ... ). Existe una tecnologia ideada para controlar la naturaleza y sacar de ella el maximo provecho, para inmiscuirse en la intimidad de las personas, para controlar a los individuos, que precisa enormes medidas de seguridad, centralizados... Asi pues, cualquier cosa que se quiera construir con ella como base devendra inevitablemente un instrumento de control, de dominio sobre ]a sociedad y la naturaleza y por tanto, un instrumento de poder. SER CAPACES DE ELEGIR Puestos en este punto, no se trata por tanto de discutir sobre tal o cual artefacto: ?sois partidarios de mantener la lavadora automatica?, ?y los WC?, ?tolerais la calefaccion?, los clavos se clavan con una piedra?, ?vendreis andando al encuentro de Oviedo?..., sino de poder situarnos en una posicion que nos permita conocer que es lo que exactamente pagamos por cada cosa, que implica cada una de ellas y elegir, siendo conscientes de lo que implica cada eleccion. Si elijo comer carne en cada comida, he de saber que consumo buena parte de los recursos vegetales que pueden servir para alimentar humanos (dejando aparte otras consideraciones de cariz etico), si elijo usar un coche privado, elijo un modelo energetico determinado, un modelo industrial determinado, un modelo de infraestructuras determinado y he de estar de acuerdo en soportar la carga de la destruccion del territorio, de la naturaleza, del clima y de la ocupacion del espacio cotidiano por este artefacto. En todo caso hemos de ser capaces de elegir libremente, y a lo mejor como resultado no se opta por una cosa ni por otra, sino que en condiciones nuevas se presentan opciones nuevas mucho mejores y que nosotros, enredados en una cotidianidad envolvente y lastrados por una domesficacion de siglos, no somos capaces siquiera de imaginar. El hecho es que ahora mismo no tenemos eleccion, solo podremos vivir de otra manera en el momento en que nos liberemos de las ataduras y de las coerciones de la sociedad estatal/capitalista. ?COMO QUEREMOS QUE SEA LA SOCIEDAD QUE QUEREMOS? Se exige a menudo una definicion clara y precisa de la sociedad que queremos construir, se hacen preguntas concretas: ?como se decidiran las cosas?, ?si uno no quiere trabajar que pasara?, ?las minorias podran realizar sus proyectos?, ?nadie asegurara los intercambios? .... Otras veces se pide si tal o cual practica real es lo que buscamos: ?no son antiautoritarios los zapatistas?, Zen una cooperativa no son todos iguales?, ?el ingreso social no podria ser una buena herramienta de movilizacion y de pedagogia entre los oprimidos?, ?el Foro Social Mundial no es un organismo de debate con los pies en tierra?,... Hemos de reconocer que no tenemos programa, ni programa ni receta, y ademas el hecho de tener un programa hoy seria condicionar de un modo autoritario el manana. Estamos convencidos de que solo podemos marcarnos un camino y un objetivo, LA LIBERTAD, y que sera sorprendente, y para nosotros inimaginable, aquello que crearan las personas en cuanto queden libres de la sujecion de la autoridad y de la esclavitud del trabajo. No podemos imaginar un futuro exacto porque nuestra idea del futuro es un mundo cambiante y libre, diverso y de relaciones revocables, afin y contrario, nunca fijo ni estable. En contra de los ejemplos clasicos de sociedad futura de la colmena y el hormiguero, ejemplos muy queridos por los movimientos obrero y anarquista, nosotros preferimos el modelo de sociedad no acabada, el de un ecosistema Ileno de interelaciones. Preferimos vernos como un bosque, un arrecife, una selva, lugares donde los individuos seran libres, en una sociedad libre pero cambiante. Libres de la autoridad, del estado y del capital, libres en el socialismo y la anarquia. Que no queramos definir un futuro detalladamente no quiere decir que no valoremos el ejercicio de imaginar otras posibilidades, pero, evidentemente imaginarlas, no dogmatizarlas. La capacidad de imaginar un futuro diferente es lo que nos mantiene en la lucha. Por ejemplo, en un sistema de libertad, y por tanto de ausencia del privilegio, no se puede mantener, ni extender a toda la humanidad, el modelo de consumo de energia o el de produccion de residuos de los paises industrializados. Sin embargo, el modo concreto de afrontarlo escapa a nuestras posibilidades. Podemos imaginar sistemas alternativos, incluso podemos poner en marcha experiencias <<piloto>>, pero estamos delante de unos procesos en los que estaran implicados factores que no controlamos y aun no conocemos: si hacen falta fuentes nuevas de energia, o modalidades de consumo y distribucion nuevas, o relaciones diferentes con los recursos naturales. Por tanto es evidente que esto lo han de solucionar aquellos que se enfrenten realmente al problema, y en este momento los ensayos, las experiencias, los experimentos, solo son datos, mas o menos valiosos. ?COMO PRETENDEMOS LUCHAR PARA CONSEGUIR TODO ESTO?. No concebimos la separacion entre la lucha y los objetivos a conseguir, de este modo los medios y las metas se confunden. Esta es una idea clasica del anarquismo, de la que nacen las ideas, de accion directa y de autogestion (en sus diversas interpretaciones). Por ejemplo, ]a mayor parte de ]as reivindicaciones vecinales de los anos setenta, en el momento en que dejaron de ser la expresion de una idea y una practica de cambio generalizado, se quedaron en nada: un semaforo fue una senalizacion, un parque un terreno urbanizado, un Centro Civico un marco de institucionalizacion cultural. Dejaron de ser expresiones del deseo de construir un mundo habitable, no jerarquico y mas natural. La labor de separar la lucha del objetivo fue muy rentable para los izquierdistas y para el poder municipal. Hay pues, para nosotros, una diferencia notable con aquellos que se preparan para gestionar un cambio y que centran sus actividades en los preparativos para tomar el relevo en la gestion del sistema actual. Tambien la hay con los <<alternativos>> que se quedan en lo cotidiano y no hacen el paso entre lo concreto y lo general. Por ejemplo, entre la alimentacion en la sociedad occidental (abundancia, despilfarro, adulteracion...) y la crisis alimentaria global que esta acabando con miles de personas en la mayor parte del mundo, o entre la abolicion de la deuda extema a la abolicion del capitalismo. Nosotros ademas no aceptamos unajerarquizacion de las luchas, en cada ambito son iguales entre ellas, independientemente de los <<grandes objetivos>> perseguidos o de la dureza de los metodos. Asi, igual de importante puede ser la lucha por un semaforo que la lucha contra las prisiones, todo depende de como y con que objetivos se haga. Nuestros esfuerzos se dirigen hacia la consecucion de espacios de libertad y autonomia, aunque sean individuales, ensanchamiento y mantenimiento de estos espacios, recuperar conocimientos, habilidades y practicas perdidas a lo largo de la domesticacion, intervenir siempre para promover la no delegacion y la autonomia individual y/o colectiva en aquellos conflictos y luchas en los que participemos. En la autogestion de las luchas, podemos encontrar que el efecto de esta practica es hacer ver que es posible actuar y relacionarse (entre nosotros y con el poder) de una manera diferente, y multiplicar de este modo las acciones directas. Por ultimo, es importante tener claro que cualquier actividad actual ha de tener siempre unos objetivos concretos: la abolicion del estado, del capital y de la autoridad. Y al mismo tiempo la consecucion de la anarquia como un modo de vida donde todos estemos en igualdad de condiciones Para disfrutar, en usufructo, los recursos necesarios para vivir, conviviendo con todos los seres del planeta, con todos los sistemas, pero eso si, sin modos autoritarios, SIN DOMESTICACION. Hemos de tenerlo claro y decirlo. LA INSURGENCIA NOMADA FERAL FAUN Los granjeros poseen la tierra y la trabajan. Posesion y trabajo son las actividades basicas para definir a los granjeros. Los nomadas atraviesan el espacio y lo transforman mediante el juegomovimiento y juego son las actividades basicas de los nomadas. Los granjeros necesitan habitos, rituales, consistencia, unidad. Los nomadas rompen los habitos, transforman, fluctuan, diversifican. Los granjeros deifican el orden. Los nomadas crean el caos. Cosechar es el origen de la etica del trabajo, porque el granjero es aquel cuya vida es construida a partir del trabajo de la granja. Los granjeros no pueden crear ningun momento propio que choque con las necesidades del trabajo en la tierra de otra manera, la granja fracasa y el granjero pierde su identidad, y posiblemente su supervivencia. El tiempo, una medida segura y estandarizada es esencial para el granjero su movimiento a traves del espacio no es un movimiento a traves del espacio no esencialmente sino de trabajo en la tierra. Esta basado en el orden, la regla de los ciclos medidos. El nomadismo, al menos en la actitud es esencial para la autonomia. El rechazo de la permanencia... el rechazo de un hogar. Cuando todo el espacio y el tiempo es formalmente dominado por las relaciones que constituyen el contexto social, la autonomia consiste en no estar ahi... El secreto de esta invisibilidad es un movimiento constante ... Encontrando ]as grietas donde ]a dominacion formal no es real ... desafiando a la sociedad con la propia creatividad autonoma ahi ... desapareciendo antes que las actuales fuerzas de dominacion puedan reprimir el desafio... una astuta y arriesgada danza. El movimiento fisico no es necesario para esta estrategia es la habilidad para escapar de las etiquetas, para evitar ser pillado. Pero el movimiento fisico puede mejorar las probabilidades de uno. Cuanto mas fronterizo sea el terreno sobre el que paseamos, mas amplias las posibilidades de roturas radicales, para descubrir las nuevas grietas, para los juegos salvajes... Dentro del contexto de estos paseos, zonas para una permanente "autoservidumbre" pasan a ser aspectos del contexto social para ser subvertidos por los usos y desafios de los nomadas insurgentes, en cualquier manera que de sentido, en cualquier instancia dada. No hay recetas para la autonomia. Los sitios colonizados y las vidas aposentadas me parecen cada vez mas y mas extranas. Hay algo demasiado ordenado alrededor de la mayoria de los sitios y de las vidas. Me sacan de quicio quiero joderlas. Aprecio cada individuo que actualmente rompe con ello y me pongo nervioso cuando me siento demasiado asentado. Empiezo a sentir que no pertenezco y entonces recuerdo que el concepto de pertenencia es absurdo. No necesito hacer mio cada sitio por el que paso mientras voy atravesandolo, hasta que estoy hecho con el. Una de las razones para evitar hacer proyectos insurgentes... con ]a gente inepta... es que tu facultad critica se pierde en sacar a flote su propia idiotez. Mejor ignorar a los idiotas y crear proyectos con aquellos que no estan atrapados por las viejas ideologias. Entonces nuestras facultades criticas pueden ser dirigidas hacia construirnos como insurgentes, transformando nuestras interacciones y nuestras vidas cotidianas y Ilegando a una comprension de la sociedad que necesitamos destruir. Usar nuestras facultades criticas contra objetivos faciles puede acabar con ellas. Usarlas para crear las vidas que deseamos, en guerra contra la autoridad, las afila. La crueldad es necesaria. La ilegalidad insurgente no debe ser confundida con la criminalidad. Si, los insurgentes proscritos no cometen delitos y quizas hacen bien en tener algunas conexiones perifericas en la hampa... Pero los criminales profesionales estan usando el crimen como una forma de vida, mientras que los proscritos insurgentes estan concienzudamente intentando de minar las costumbres, leyes y maneras de la sociedad, El criminal inteligente tendra amigos entre los que imponen la ley, porque esto es un buen negocio; el proscrito insurgente evitara estas conexiones, porque su deseo es la creacion de una vida que no reconozca la ley... Cualquier conexion con los que imponen la ley pone en peligro esa vida. Hay proscritos para quienes el rechazo de la ley esta basado en un principio moral normalmente una concepcion abstracta de "anarquia" o "libertad" o "individualismo". Pero estos proscritos solo quieren reemplazar la ley estatal por la ley moral. El insurgente proscrito es amoral rechaza la ley en todas sus formas, porque restringe su vida y limitas sus posibilidades. Un proscrito insurgente puede destruir una cosa robada, venderla en el mercado negro, guardarla o compartirla con los amigos, darse una vuelta o quemarla. Pero los proscritos morales se sentiran obligados a usar todo las cosas robadas para su causa. Los criminales profesionales no estan proscritos. Ellos bailan con la ley y la Ilevan a sus propios limites. Rompen la ley no por desafiarla, sino por razones economicas, En su mundo, ellos tienen quasileyes y metodos para imponerlas. Pero sus trabajos ilegales son mejores que la mayoria de los trabajos porque conllevan elementos de riesgo: la emocion de ser mas listo que ellos. Puede ser prudente para los criminales profesionales quedarse en una sito, para crear conexiones establecidas ?Pero para los proscritos insurgentes? No, nunca en un mismo sitio por mucho tiempo. El proscrito insurgente no quiere estar mas integrado en la cultura de los bajos fondos que en la cultura dominante o en cualquiera de las culturas alternativas... El proscrito insurgente esta intentado conscientemente de aumentar su poder de autocreacion en oposicion a la sociedad. Sus habilidades para hacerlo piden ingenio, coraje y la capacidad para Ilegar a ser invisible. Por eso, Jos proscritos insurgentes a menudo viven como vagabundos pasando por, pero nunca asentandose o definiendose. Sus vidas, tanto como sus actividades ilegales, son tambien un ataque contra la sociedad. UN PRIMER PRIMITIVISMO De John Moore NOTA DEL AUTOR: Esta no es una declaracion definitiva, meramente un relato personal, y busca en terminos generales explicar que se entiende por anarcoprimitivismo. No quiere limitar o excluir, sino proveer una introduccion general al topico. Pido disculpas por las inexactitudes, malas interpretaciones, o (inevitables) sobre generalizaciones, ?Que es el anarco-primitivismo? El anarco-primitivismo (el primitivismo radical, el primitivismo antiautoritario, el movimiento anticivilizacion, ojusto, el primitivismo) es un termino taquigrafico para una corriente radical que critica totalmente a la civilizacion desde una perspectiva anarquista, y busca iniciar una transformacion comprensiva de la vida humana. Estrictamente hablando, no hay una cosa tal como el anarcoprimitivismo o los anarcosprimitivistas. Fredy Perlman, una de las voces importantes en esta corriente, dijo una vez, "Al unico ista que respondo es al de violonchelista". Los individuos asociados a esta corriente no quieren ser adeptos de una ideologia, unicamente gente que busca Ilegar a ser individuos libres en comunidades libres en armonia unos con otros y con la bioesfera, y pueden por tanto rechazar el ser limitados por el termino "anarcoprimitivismo" o cualquier otra etiqueta ideologica. En el mejor de los casos, entonces, anarcoprimitivismo es una etiqueta que conviene utilizada para caracterizar individuos diversos con un proyecto comun: la abolicion de todas las relaciones de poder por ejemplo estructuras de control, coercion, dominacion, y explotaciony la creacion de una forma de comunidad que excluya todas esas relaciones. ?Entonces por que el termino anarcoprimitivismo es usado para caracterizar a esta corriente? En 1986, el circulo alrededor de la revista Fift Estate (quinto estado) de Detroit senalaron que estaban comprometidos en desarrollar un "analisis critico de las estructuras de la civilizacion occidental [,] combinado con una revalorizacion del mundo indigena y el caracter de las comunidades primitivas y originales". En este sentido nosotros somos primitivistas... " El grupo Fift Estate buscaba complementar una critica de la civilizacion como un proyecto de control con una revalorizacion de lo primitivo, lo que veian como una fuente de renovacion e inspiracion antiautoritaria. Esta revalorizacion de lo primitivo se hizo desde una perspectiva anarquista, una perspectiva preocupada por la eliminacion de las relaciones de poder. Senalando a "una sintesis emergente de la anarquia postmoderna y del primitivismo (en el sentido original), y una vision entusiasmada basada en la Tierra" El circulo de Fift Estate indicaban: Nosotros no somos anarquistas per se, sino proanarquia, lo que es para nosotros una forma de vida, una experiencia integral, sin ninguna relacion con el Poder y rechazando todas las ideologias... Nuestro trabajo en el FE como un proyecto explora las posibilidades para nuestra propia participacion en este movimiento, pero tambien trabaja para el redescubrimiento de la raices primitivas de la anarquia asi como en la documentacion de su expresion actual. Simultaneamente, examinamos la evolucion del Poder en nuestro medio para sugerir nuevos terrenos para la contestacion y la critica para socavar la tirania actual del moderno discurso totalitario esa hiperrealidad que destruye el sentido humano, y de ahi la solidaridad, al simularla mediante la tecnologia. Subrayando todas las luchas por la libertad, esta esa necesidad central: recuperar un autentico discurso humano fundamentado en la autonomia, mutuamente intersubjetivo y estrechamente asociado con el mundo natural. El proposito es desarrollar una sintesis de la anarquia primaria y la contemporanea, una sintesis de los ecologicamentefocalizados, no estatistas, antiautoritarios aspectos de las maneras primitivas de vida con las mas avanzadas formas del analisis anarquista de las relaciones de poder. El objetivo no es hacer una replica o volver al primitivismo, unicamente ver el primitivismo como una fuente de inspiracion, como una ejemplificacion de formas de anarquia. Para los anarcoprimitivistas, la civilizacion es un contexto que lo abarca todo en el cual se desarrollan la multiplicidad de las relaciones de poder. Algunas relaciones de poder basicas estan presentes en las sociedades primitivas y esta es una de las razones por ]a cual los anarcoprimitivos no buscan reproducir estas sociedades pero es en la civilizacion donde las relaciones de poder acaban dominando y arraigadas en practicamente todos los aspectos de la vida humana y de las relaciones humanas con la bioesfera. La civilizacion tambien referida como la megamaquina o Leviathan se convierte en una inmensa maquina que gana su propio impulso y acaba fuera del control, incluso de sus supuestos reguladores. Encumbrada por las rutinas de la vida cotidiana que son definidas y administradas por patrones interiorizados de obediencia, la gente se vuelve esclava de la maquina, del sistema de civilizacion mismo. Solo un rechazo generalizado de este sistema y sus variadas formas de control, sublevandose contra el poder mismo, puede abolir la civilizacion, y plantear una altemativa radical. Ideologias tales como el Marxismo, el anarquismo clasico y el feminismo se oponen a aspectos de la civilizacion; solo el anarcoprimitivismo se opone a ]a civilizacion, en cuyo seno las variadas formas de opresion proliferan y se vuelven dominantes y, por tanto, posibles. El anarcoprimitivismo incorpora elementos de varias corrientes de oposicionconciencia ecologista, antiautoritarismo anarquista, criticas feministas, ideas de los Situacionistas, teorias del zerowork (zerotrabajo), criticismo tecnologico pero va mas alla de la oposicion a una unica forma de poder para rechazar todas ellas y proponer una alternativa radical ?En que difiere el anarcoprimitivismo del anarquismo, o otras ideologias radicales? Desde la perspectiva del anarcoprimitivismo, todas las otras formas de radicalismo aparecen como reformistas, aunque ellas se vean o no como revolucionarias. El marxismo y el anarquismo clasico, por ejemplo, quieren hacerse cargo de la civilizacion, remodelar sus estructuras en algun grado, y eliminar sus peores abusos y opresiones. De todas maneras, el 99% de la vida en la civilizacion se mantiene sin cambio en sus escenarios futuros, precisamente porque los aspectos de la civilizacion que ellos cuestionan son minimos. Aunque ambos quieren abolir el capitalismo, y el anarquismo clasico quiere abolir el Estado tambien, las pautas de la vida no van a cambiar mucho. Aunque puede haber algunos cambios en las relaciones socioeconomicas, tales como el control de los trabajadores de la industria y consejos de barrio en lugar de Estado, e incluso una preocupacion ecologica, las pautas basicas se mantendra sin cambios. El modelo occidental de progreso sera enmendado meramente y todavia actuara como un ideal. La sociedad de masas continuara esencialmente, con la mayoria de gente trabajando, viviendo en ambientes artificiales, tecnologizados, y sujetos a formas de coercion y control, Las ideologias radicales en la lzquierda pretende conseguir el poder, no abolirlo. Por tanto, desarrollan variadas formas de grupos exclusivos cuadros, partidos politicos, grupos concienciados en orden a ganar conversos y planean estrategias para aumentar el control, Las organizaciones, para los anarcopriniitivos, son justo herramientas para poner una ideologia particular en el poder. La politica, "el arte y la ciencia del gobierno", no es parte del proyecto primitivista; solo ' una politica del deseo, del placer, del mutualismo y la libertad radical. ?Donde, de acuerdo con los anarcoprimitivos, se origina el poder? Otra vez, una fuente de un debate entre los anarcoprimitivistas. Perlman ve la creacion de instituciones impersonales o las relaciones de poder abstractas como las que definen el momento en el cual la anarquia primitiva empieza a ser desmantelada por las relaciones sociales civilizadas. En contraste, John Zerzan localiza el desarrollo en la mediacion simbolica en sus variadas formas de numeros, lenguaje, tiempo, arte y mas tarde, agricultura como los medios de transicion desde la libertad humana a un estado de domesticacion. El foco en el origen es importante para el anarcoprimitivismo porque el primitivismo busca, de una manera exponencial, exponer, cambiar y abolir todas las formas multiples del poder que estructuran las relaciones individuales, sociales, y las interelaciones con el mundo natural, La localizacion de los origenes es una manera de identificacion de que puede ser recuperado tranquilamente del naufragio de la civilizacion. Y que es esencial erradicar si las relaciones de poder tienen que volver a comenzar despues del que la civilizacion colapse, ?Que clase de futuro es vislumbrado por los anarcoprimitivistas? El periodico Anarcoprimitivista "Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed" (Anarquia: Un diario del deseo armado), imagina un futuro que es "radicalmente cooperativo, comunitario, ecologico y feminista, espontaneo y salvaje", !y esto sera lo mas cercano que puedas conseguir a una descripcion! No hay anteproyecto, no hay pautas prescritas, aunque es importante senalar que el futuro imaginado no es "primitivo" en ningun sentido estereotipado. Como el Fith State dijo en 1979: "Vamos a anticiparnos a los criticos, que nos acusaran de querer ir de vuelta a las cavernas o de un mero posicionamiento teorico de nuestra parte, por ejemplo, disfrutando del confort de la civilizacion mientras somos sus criticos mas duros. Nosotros no ponemos la Edad de Piedra como un modelo de nuestra Utopia [,] no estamos sugiriendo una vuelta a la recoleccion y la caza como un medio para la supervivencia". Como una correccion para esta interpretacion erronea tan comun, es importante senalar que el futuro imaginado por los anarcoprimitivistas es impreciso y sin antecedentes. Aunque las culturas primitivas proveen con indicios de como sera el futuro, y este futuro puede muy bien incorporar elementos derivados de aquellas culturas, un mundo anarcoprimitivista sera probablemente muy diferente de las formas previas de anarquia. ?Como ve el anarco-primitivismo la tecnologia? John Zerzan define la tecnologia como "el conjunto de la division del trabajo/produccion/industrialismo y su impacto en nosotros y en la naturaleza. La tecnologia es la suma de las mediaciones entre nosotros y el mundo natural y la suma de aquellas separaciones que median entre nosotros de uno a otro, Es toda la farmacopea y la toxicidad requerida para producir y reproducir el estado de hiperalienacion en el que languidecemos. Es la textura y la forma de dominacion en cualquiera de los estadios de jerarquia y dominacion dados". La oposicion a la tecnologia juega por tanto un importante papel en la practica anarcoprimitivista. De todas formas, Fredy Perlman dice que "la tecnologia no es nada mas que el arsenal de Leviathan", sus "garras y colmillos". Los anarcoprimitivistas son aquellos que se oponen a la tecnologia, pero hay un debate sobre cual es la importancia de la tecnologia para la dominacion en la civilizacion. Debemos hacer una distincion entre herramientas (o utensilios) y teenologia. Perlman muestra que los primitivos desarrollan toda clase de herramientas y utensilios, pero no tecnologias: "Los objetos materiales, las canas y canoas, los bastones para cavar y las paredes, eran cosas que un solo individuo podia hacer, o eran cosas, como una pared, que requerian la cooperacion de muchos en una ocasion particular... La mayoria de los utensilios son antiguos, y el material excedente (que supuestamente estos utensilios hicieron posible) ha estado disponible desde el primer albor, pero no dieron lugar al nacimiento de instituciones impersonales. La gente, los seres vivos, dejaron que surgieran ambos". Las herramientas son creaciones en una escala pequena, localizada, los productos o bien de individuos o de grupos pequenos en ocasiones especificas. Como tales, no dieron lugar al surgir de sistemas de control y coercion. La tecnologia, desde el otro lado, es el producto de un largo proceso encadenando sistemas de extraccion, produccion, distribucion y consumo, y tales sistemas adquieren su propia dinamica e impulso. Y como tales, piden estructuras de control y obediencia en una escala de masas lo que Perlman llama instituciones impersonales. Como el Fifth Estate senalo en 1981: " La tecnologia no es una simple herramienta que puede ser utilizada de cualquier manera que queramos. Es una forma de organizacion social, un conjunto de relaciones sociales. Tiene sus propias leyes. Si nosotros nos vamos a comprometer en su uso, debemos aceptar su autoridad. La escala enorme, las complejas interconexiones y estratificaciones de las tareas que construyen los modernos sistemas teenologicos hacen necesarias las ordenes autoritarias e independientes, e imposibles la toma de decisiones individuales. " El anarcoprimitivismo es una corriente antisistema: se opone a todos los sistemas e instituciones, lo artificial, lo sintetico, y lo mecanico, porque ello comporta relaciones de poder. Anarcoprimitivismos por tanto se opone a la tecnologia o al sistema tecnologico, pero no al uso de herramientas y untensilios en los sentidos que se han indicado aqui. Y en cuanto a que formas tecnologicas serian apropiadas en un mundo anarco primitivo, hay un debate sobre esta cuestion. El Fifth Estate remarco en 1979 que "Reduciendo a sus elementos mas basicos, las discusiones sobre el futuro deben ser sensibles sobre lo que deseamos socialmente y por tanto esto determina que tecnologia es posible. Todos nosotros deseamos calefaccion central, wateres con agua y luz electrica, pero no a costa de nuestra humanidad. Quizas sean posibles juntos, pero quizas no". ?Que hay sobre la medicina? El anarcoprimitivismo es sobretodo curar (sanar) las grietas abiertas dentro de las personas, entre las personas , y entre las personas y la naturaleza, las grietas que se han abierto a traves de la civilizacion, a traves del poder, incluido el Estado, el Capital y la Tecnologia. El filosofo aleman Nietzsche dijo que el dolor, y la manera en que lo manejamos, tendria que estar en el centro de cualquier sociedad libre, y en lo que respecta a esto, esta en lo cierto. Las personas, las comunidades y la misma Tierra han sido mutilados en un grado o en otro por las relaciones de poder caracteristicas de nuestra civilizacion. ! Las personas han sido mutiladas psicologicamente pero tambien fisicamente agredidas por males y enfermedades!. De todas maneras, las investigaciones han revelado que muchas enfermedades son el resultado de las condiciones de vida civilizada, y que si estas condiciones fueran abolidas, entonces ciertos tipos de dolor, males y enfermedades desaparecerian. Y para los que quedaran, un mundo que situa el dolor como su centro, sera vigoroso en su empeno en calmarlo, encontrando maneras de sanar los males y enfermedades, En este sentido, el anarcoprimitivismo esta muy implicado con la medicina. De todas maneras, la alta tecnologia alienadora, la forma farmacocentrada de la medicina practicada en Occidente no es la unica forma de medicina posible. La cuestion de en que consistira la medicina en un futuro anarcoprimitivista depende, como en el comentario anterior del Fifth Estate sobre tecnologia, en que es lo posible y cual el deseo de las personas, sin comprometer el modo de vida de los individuos libres en comunidades libres centradas ecologicamente, Como en cualquier otra pregunta, no hay respuestas dogmaticas a esta cuestion. ?Que hay sobre la poblacion? Es una cuestion controvertida, largamente porque no hay consenso entre anarcoprimitivistas en este tema. Algunas personas argumentan que no sera necesaria una reduccion de la poblacion; otros argumentan que sera en razones ecologicas y/o para mantener los diferentes modos de vidas imaginados por los anarcoprimitivistas. George Bradford, en How Deep is a Deep Ecology (?Como es de profunda una Ecologia profunda?) argumenta que el control de las mujeres sobre la reproduccion nos conducira a una bajada de la tasa de poblacion. El punto de vista personal de este escritor es que la poblacion necesitara ser reducida, pero que esto ocurrira a traves de una reduccion natural, por ejemplo, cuando las personas mueran, no todas seran reemplazadas, y por tanto la poblacion global caera y eventualmente se estabilizara. Los anarquistas han argumentado largamente que en un mundo libre, las presiones sociales, economicas y psicologicas para una reproduccion excesiva serian reemplazadas. !Efectivaniente, habra otras muchisimas cosas interesantes en marcha para comprometer el tiempo de la gente! Las feministas han argumentado que las mujeres, liberadas de las constricciones de genero y de la estructura familiar, no seran definidas por sus capacidades reproductivas Como en las sociedades patriarcales, y de esto resultaran niveles inferiores de poblacion tambien. Por tanto la poblacion seguramente bajara, sin mas. Despues de todo, como Perlman pone claro, el aumento de la poblacion es un puro producto de la civilizacion: "un incremento estable en el numero dehumanos [es] tan persistente como Leviathan mismo. Este fenomeno parece existir solo entre los seres humanos Leviathanizados. Los animales al igual que las comunidades humanas en estado natural no proliferan hasta el punto de empujar a todas las otras especies fuera del Campo". Por tanto no hay realmente una razon para suponer que la poblacion humana no se estabilizara una vez que las relaciones sociales Leviathanicas hayan sido abolidas y la armonia comunitaria sea restablecida. Hay que ignorar las extranas fantasias difundidas por algunos comentaristas hostiles al anarcoprimitivismo quienes sugieren que los niveles de poblacion imaginados por los anarcoprimitivistas deberan conseguirse con una mortandad masiva o al estilo de los Campos nazis de exterminio. Estas son solo tacticas calumniadoras. El compromiso de los anarcoprimitivistas con la abolicion de todas las relaciones de poder, incluyendo al Estado con todo su aparato administrativo y militar, y cualquier clase de partido o organizacion, significa que tales matanzas orquestadas quedan imposibilitadas, al igual que otros horrores basicos. ?Como podremos traer un futuro anarcoprimitivista? ! La pregunta del millon! (! Para utilizar una metafora enteramente sospechosa!) No hay reglas de duroyrapido aqui, no hay anteproyecto La respuesta facil vista por alguien como una salida facil es que las forma de lucha emergen en el curso de la insurgencia. Esto es verdad, !pero no es necesariamente de mucha ayuda!. El hecho es que el anarcoprimitivismo no es una ideologia que busque el poder. No busca capturar al Estado, tomar las fabricas, ganar conversos, crear organizaciones politicas, o mandar sobre la gente. Por el contrario, quiere que las personas pasen a ser individuos libres viviendo en comunidades libres interdependientes unas de otras y con la bioesfera que habitan. Quiere, entonces, una total transformacion, una transformacion de la identidad, de las maneras de vida, de las formas de ser, y de las formas de comunicacion. Esto quiere decir que, las comprobadas intenciones de las ideologias que buscan el poder, no son relevantes para el proyecto anarcoprimitivista, que busca su abolicion. Por tanto necesitan ser desarrolladas nuevas formas de ser y de actuar, formas apropiadas para y conjuntadas con el proyecto anarcoprimitivista. Este es un proceso en marcha y no hay una respuesta facil para la pregunta : ? Que hay que hacer?. En el presente, muchos estan de acuerdo en que comunidades de resistencia son elementos importantes en el proyecto anarcoprimitivista. La palabra "comunidad" es utilizada estos dias en toda clase de maneras absurdas (por ejemplo, en la comunidad de los negocios), precisamente porque la mayoria de las comunidades genuinas han sido destrozadas por el Capital y el Estado. Algunos piensan que si las comunidades tradicionales, frecuentemente fuentes de resistencia al poder, han sido destruidas, entonces la creacion de comunidades de resistencia comunidades formadas por individuos que tienen como objetivo en comun la resistencia es una forma de recrear bases para la accion. Una vieja idea anarquista es que el mundo nuevo tiene que ser creado sin la concha del viejo. Esto significa que cuando la civilizacion colapse por causas internas, por nuestros esfuerzos, o una combinacion de ambos habra una alternativa esperando ocupar su sitio. Esto es realmente necesario, en la ausencia de alternativas positivas, la ruptura social causada por el colapso puede facilmente crear inseguridad psicologica y un vacio social en el cual el fascismo y otros totalitarismos dictatoriales pueden florecer. Para el autor, esto significa que los anarcoprimitivos necesitan desarrollar comunidades de resistencia microcosmos (tanto como puedan ser) del futuro que vendra tanto en ciudades como en el campo. Estas necesitan funcionar como bases para la accion (particularmente la accion directa), pero tambien como lugares para la creacion de nuevos formas de pensamiento, conducta y una nueva cultura enteramente liberadora. Necesitan llegar a ser sitios donde la gente pueda descubrir sus autenticos deseos y placeres, y a traves de la vieja idea anarquista de la obra ejemplar, ensenar a otros con el ejemplo que maneras alternativas de vida son posibles. De todas maneras, hay muchas otras posibilidades que necesitan ser exploradas. La clase de mundo imaginado por los anarcoprimitivistas es uno sin precedentes en la experiencia humana, en terminos del grado y de los tipos de libertad anticipadas... por tanto no pueden haber ningun limite en las formas de resistencia y de insurgencia que quizas pueda desarrollarse. ?Como puedo encontrar mas sobre anarcoprimitivismo? El Primitivist Network (PO Box 252, Ampthill, Beds MK 45 2ZQ) puede ofreceros una lista. Revisar los papeles del grupo britanico Green Anarchist y los fancines americanos anarquistas: A Journal of sire Armed y el Fifth Estate. Leer Against Hisstory, Against Leviathan de Fredy Perlman, (Detroit: Black&Red, 1983) el texto mas importante anarcoprimitivista, y los libros de John Zerzan: Elements of Refusal (Seattle: Left Bank, 1988) y El Futuro Primitivo (New York: Autonomedia, 1994) ? Como me puede comprometer con el anarcoprimitivismo? Una manera es contactar con el Primitivista Network. Si le mandas dos sellos, recibiras una copia de la lista de contactos del PN y te apuntaran en ella. Esto te pondra en contacto con otros anarcoprimitivistas. Alguna gente comprometida con !La Tierra Primero! tambien se ven a si mismos como anarcoprimitivistas, y ellos tambien estan buscando contactos. ODIO LOS MOVILES ROBING TERRANOVA (anarquista verd insurreccionalista d'Eugene Oregon) (Transcripcion de una entrevista en Radio Klara, octubre de 2001) Mi nombre es Robin Terranova y soy un insurreccionalista verde anarquista de Eugene Oregon, y odio los moviles. En Eugene trabajo en varios proyectos para la comunidad, ayudando a la gente, desarrollando una comunidad de resistencia, intentando tambien salir de nuestro circulo de comunidad anarquista, utilizando, entre otra cosas poner en marcha medios "masmedia" independientes para fines propagandisticos. Quisiera disculparme primero por la necesidad y la medicacion de la traduccion, pero creo que es lo mejor para que todo sea mas claro. Entonces ?por que estamos aqui?. Para influir y que se amplie el circulo del movimiento de resistencia. Pienso que los dos somos criticos de todo el movimiento antiglobalizacion, porque hasta ahora no ha sido basicamente ecologico, tampoco ha sido antiautoritario., Ha sido principalmente pacifista y parece que cada dia se hace mas y mas reformista. Por tanto, nosotros esperamos poder cambiar esto. Tambien queremos ayudar para que crezca la influencia del movimiento anarquista, haciendolo con una perspectiva mas antiindustrial, que es algo que le falta a la historia anarquista, tambien estamos aqui para aprender de vosotros y cuando hayamos terminado de hablar queremos hablar con vosotros en un dialogo. Hablaremos de primitivismo que para mi es una critica vital desde la optica de donde venimos, y desde la perspectiva de la anarquia verde, que intenta recontextualizar la anarquia. ?Por que me defino a mi mismo como un insurreccionalista verde anarquista? Para mi es una forma de explicar que le falta al anarquismo. Para mi la interaccion entre el ecologismo y una perspectiva verde es inherente a la anarquia. Y dije anarquia y no anarquismo, porque la anarquia es algo que vive y crece, mientras que el concepto de anarquismo es historico y fijo, tambien ideologico. Como anarquistas estamos, por descontado, en contra de la jerarquia y trabajamos la autonomia, pero cuando se trata de ideas de nodominacion, sentimos que la critica ha de ir mas alla de lo simplemente humano, porque no estamos solos en este planeta, estamos ante una destruccion sin precedentes en la historia, cada semana desaparecen cientos de especies, cada ano son peores las previsiones del calentamiento global y de la destruccion de la capa de ozono, en Oregon estamos asistiendo a la tala de los arboles de los ultimos bosques, no pienso que haya dudas de que estamos ante un colapso ecologico muy profundo. Como anarquistas verdes pensamos en todas estas cosas. Tambien ponemos en cuestion la tecnologia y el concepto de civilizacion en general, ponemos en duda la existencia artificial, intento ser salvaje, quiero curar las heridas que me ha producido la separacion de la naturaleza, por esto soy un anarquista verde. ?Por que soy insurreccionalista? Porque para mi esto significa una parte importante de ser anarquista, oponiendome fisicamente a la opresion. Pienso que todos deberiamos ser insurreccionalistas para nuestra propia liberacion, la liberacion de los demas y la liberacion de la tierra. Y pienso que es importante ser insurrecionalista porque se acaba el tiempo. Pienso que es importante cuestionar ciertas asunciones fundamentales sobre la revolucion, y una de estas es el anarquismo y el sindicalismo clasicos, como dije no se trata simplemente de buscar la liberacion de los seres humanos, tenemos que entender que estamos conectados con todo lo que hay vivo, y si no cuestionamos la industrializacion crearemos la misma pesadilla tecnologica, Pienso incluso que hay que cuestionar la produccion a pequena escala, porque trasforma la vida misma en un producto, la division del trabajo se mantiene y tambien se mantiene la alienacion y la mediacion que produce la tecnologia. Pienso que podemos aprender desde una perspectiva critica del anarquismo historico, creo que hay que poner en duda tambien el concepto clasico del pacifismo: intento vivir pacificamente y en harmonia con los demas, pero en el contexto en el que estamos esto no es posible, el estado siempre pone fronteras y murallas entre nosotros, que yo creo que es importante que escalemos como tactica, el estado siempre ha permitido la disension pacifica y ha dejado un espacio para ello, lo hace para mantener la ilusion de un sistema democratico, la ilusion de que a ellos les preocupan nuestros deseos, perpetuando a la vez el mito de que tenemos algo que decir y decidir en lo que es de nuestras vidas, por tanto creo esencial salir de su sistema, y claro, por querer esto nos Ilaman violentos. Y podemos discutir eternamente si la destruccion de la propiedad es violencia, pero para mi este argumento no Ileva a ninguna parte. La Ilamada violencia contra la propiedad no puede ser comparada de ninguna manera con su violencia institucional, por tanto para mi esto es un tema de autodefensa, asi autodefensa frente a la policia, el aparato del estado, autodefensa frente a aquellos que estan destruyendo la tierra y autodefensa frente a todo orden, que siempre ha intentado e intentara siempre crear un sojuzgamiento. Es natural que luchemos para sobrevivir. Cuando hablamos de pacifismo, deberiamos tambien ver nuestros propios privilegios, viviendo en el mundo industrial somos responsables de la destruccion de la tierra y de la represion de los demas, muchas personas del mundo no tienen la opcion de hablar de esta realidad y todos los dias son una autentica lucha por la supervivencia, por tanto no creo que el pacifismo en si Ilegue a ninguna parte. Asi, ?Cual es nuestro papel? ?Que podemos hacer? Pienso que podemos empezar saliendonos del sistema capitalista, naturalmente mientras el sistema exista nunca seremos capaces de salir de el del todo, pero si que creo que podemos empezar creando espacios liberados y desarrollar redes de ayuda mutua, creo que es importante que reaprendamos destrezas primitivas, destrezas que en un tiempo eran parte de nuestro ser, destrezas que nos ayudaban a vivir en el mundo y no contra el, destrezas como conocer las plantas curativas, o como vivir sin tecnologia, creo que es esencial que aprendamos de nuevo a alimentarnos nosotros mismos, estoy aprendiendo permacultura, que es un metodo para cultivar alimentos dentro de los ciclos naturales y que no requiere casi nada de tecnologia, esto permite autoalimentarnos y nos pone de nuevo en contacto con los procesos naturales y organicos. Como anarquista creo necesario que cuestionemos las hipocresias internas, como el sexismo, el racismo, el nacionalismo. Creo que es importante que creemos nuestros propios medios de comunicacion, hemos de ver los media corporativos como parte de nuestro enemigo depender de ellos para difundir ningun mensaje nuestro. Hemos de ser solidarios con las personas encarceladas, tengonoticias que hay muchos en este pais, hace dos semanas detuvieron a un grupo de anarquistas italianos. De donde somos, en los ultimos dos anos, el estado ha secuestrado a 3 de nuestros companeros por acciones contra el sistema. A nuestro amigo Roc Daxten le han condenado a 7 anos y medio por tirar una piedra a un policia, mi amigo Criter ha sido condenado a 6 anos y medio por quemar un camion y mi amigo Free fue condenado a una pena de 23 anos por lo mismo. Es fundamental apoyar los movimientos clandestinos, nosotros, que somos visibles, deberiamos explicar el porque sus acciones son necesarias, en los ultimos anos me ha inspirado mucho un grupo Ilamado el Frente de Liberacion de la Tierra, son un grupo clandestino que ataca directamente a aquellos que danan la tierra, en los ultimos anos han causado millones de dolares en danos con sus sabotajes, pero se cuidan de no danar ninguna vida, trabajan en celulas descentralizadas y anonimas, han quemado factorias madereras, han destruido plantaciones de cultivos transgenicos, han quemado urbanizaciones en construccion en zonas naturales y para mi gozo han destruido muchas, muchas maquinas, para mi esto es un buen ejemplo de lo que es una practica insurreccionalista verde, pero esto solo no es suficiente. Entonces, ?como podemos avanzar? Pienso que una cosa que podemos hacer es aprender del pasado y es necesario que aprendamos de los pueblos primitivos, pueblos enraizados en la tierra, es necesario aprender de las luchas indigenas. Pienso que tambien es importante influir en las personas que estan fuera de los circulos anarquistas y desanimar las opciones reformistas. Pienso que es necesario que aprendamos del feminismo y del ecologismo, hay una conexion directa entre la opresion de las mujeres y la destruccion de la tierra. Pienso que lo mas importante es que actuemos, el nihilismo, la historia y la teoria no nos van a salvar. Pero pienso que deberiamos intentar comprender como hemos Ilegado hasta este punto, yo creo que esto empezo a crecer y a solidificarse hace unos 10.000 anos, con la domesticacion y la agricultura, que luego se desarrollo en la industria y en la cyberrealidad en que vivimos ahora, donde todo el mundo va con el movil atado al cuello. Creo que esto ocurrio cuando dejamos de fiarnos de nuestra propia experiencia y nos apartamos de nuestros instintos y empezamos a depender del pensamiento simbolico y a ver el mundo y las personas Como objetos para dominarlas, Incluso nuestra comunicacion Ilego a mediatizarse por la lengua. Pero no creo que las cosas hayan sido siempre de esta manera, creo que podemos ser libres de nuevo y si sigue creciendo este movimiento Ilegaremos a serlo, pero pienso que tenemos que cuestionar siempre los fundamentos, porque no queremos reproducirlo de nuevo. En resumen, estoy por la destruccion de la civilizacion, de la maquina de muerte patriarcal y estoy por reconectar con la vida. ! Gracias! YO CREARE MI PROPIO PARAISO Traducido, de Willful Disobedience No. 5 Hay anarquistas, los que se oponen a la civilizacion y que la apoyan, que insisten que uno debe escoger entre lo uno y lo otro. Consideran que la creatividad humana y el desarrollo tecnologico son equivalentes usando la misma falsa logica que considera el arco y la flecha de los pigmeos como parecido al ordenador y las fabricas. Es mejor ignorar a estos pensadores de poca profundidad pero no a la naturaleza de la creatividad humana. * Rechazo los conceptos de la naturaleza humana y de pertenencia a la especie. El primero es un concepto religioso que esta mejor en el basurero de la historia con dioses, fantasmas y duendes. El segundo es un intento de convertir al primero en concepto cientifico, aun falla cuando uno se da cuenta que la especie es una invencion de conveniencia Para la meta de clasificacion biologica. Transformar esta abstraccion en una entidad que esta encima del tu y del yo y de la que formamos parte, es misticismo absurdo. Entonces cuando hablo de la creatividad, hablo de la creatividad de cada individuo en si a proyectar la vida y las interacciones que desea y por lo tanto transformar su ambiente en la forma que le plazca. En otras palabras, la creatividad es la que se expresa dentro de cada uno de nosotros (lo que es unico), la diferencia fundamental que nos distingue de cualquier otro ser. La creatividad, esta expresion de la singularidad de cada individuo, requiere un mundo Ileno de otros individuos unicos y de cosas con cualidades con las que el creador interactua para transformar su ambiente. Pero estas cosas tambien ponen limites naturales a la creatividad. No importa cuanto quiera hacerlo, no puedo aletear con mis brazos y volar como un ave ni dar una vuelta sobre la superficie del oceano durante dos horas sin proteccion, ni cortar una piedra con una hoja de hierba sino en suenos. Pero los limites naturales de mi creatividad dejan un amplio margen de posibilidades que parecen infinitas. Los limites sociales impuestos a mi creatividad son los limites realmente restringentes. Estos limites son los que definen la cultura, restringen mis capacidades. Mis brazos que son naturalmente limitados en su fuerza estan ahora tambien encadenados; mis ojos con su vision miope deben ahora tratar de mirar tambien con los ojos vendados; mi voz debe ahora tratar de cantar a traves de una mordaza. Mi poder a crear ha sido usurpado por la sociedad y transformado en trabajo productivo y en consumo, me he convertido en una rueda dentada de la maquina social. No hay duda que la civilizacion es una transformacion del ambiente natural y la tecnologia es la herramienta que realiza esa transformacion. Pero es una transformacion que confisca al individuo, la creatividad y la singularidad. Su meta es el absoluto control social a traves de un ambiente totalmente controlado cada deseo es dirigido hacia los articulos de consumo que representa su realizacion; cada pasion es restringida; cada conflicto es manejado y Ilevado a un convenio que garantiza la mediocridad continua; cada accion transformada en una reaccion puntual de una maquina bien afinada. El sistema tecnologico transforma el mundo de tal manera totalitaria, no simplemente por que esta en las manos de una clase gobernante, sino porque fue desarrollado con este objetivo desde el comienzo, no solo para la transformacion del ambiente, sino para su control total, Desde la epoca del comienzo de la agricultura, la tecnologia ha sido cibernetica es decir, la tentativa autoritaria a crear sistemas de control automatico. No me interesa ser una rueda dentada de una maquina gigantesca, tampoco me interesan las transformaciones hechas por esa maquina que transforma el mundo en una masa homogeneizada. Quiero crear mi propia vida, mis propias interacciones y mis propios proyectos. Este deseo inevitablemente me pone en conflicto con la civilizacion y su maquina tecnologica y de hecho con cada forma de sociedad. Porque solo con la destruccion de estos monstruous gigantescos, insensibles y restringentes florecera mi singularidad fundamental con toda su maravilla para que pueda apreciar la maravillosa diferencia de cada ser que encuentre. Pero si vamos a destruir las restricciones sociales de nuestra creativida y las reemplazamos con las restricciones morales de los Deep Ecologists (ecologistas profundos) que se enfangan en el auto odio humanistico en nombre de su ideologia biocentrica, seremos unos idiotas. ?Por que debo negarme a la maravilla de un mundo de individuos que aprecian sus propias diferencias entre ellos, juntandose separandose y peleandose con pasion, construyendo pequenos paraisos que se transforman, crecen y desaparecen, solo o unidos como cada cual desea? Ocasionalmente he vislumbrado este mundo mientras hago proyectos con amigos. En este mundo social que se empena en negarme todo, rehuso esta babosa opcion y luchare con toda mi fuerza en contra de cada sistema y cada restriccion moral que bloquee el camino de mi deseo a crearme una vida maravillosa en este mundo. * INTRODUCCION A "MATAR AL REY ABACO" KILLING KING ABAKUS. Matar al "rey abaco" (to kill king abacus) es crear relaciones sin la medicion. Si queremos destruir el capitalismo no podemos reproducir su logica necrofilica que reduce todas las relaciones a numeros. Matar al "rey abaco" es destruir la red social que privilegia transacciones e imagines mediadas sobre relaciones directas, Porque el dinero es un equivalente general y asi es casi ilimitado en sus aplicaciones, conquista otros sistemas de valor; el capitalismo se esta transformando cualquier otro sistema de valor en el mismo. Matar al rey abaco es interrumpir este proceso de cuantificacion. El dinero puede ser el sistema de valor mas extendido, pero el capitalismo no es el unico sistema que mide el valor. La justicia, la moralidad, la ley y la cultura son todos sistemas de valor que pesan, juzgan y canalizan la accion humana. Queremos crear relaciones que desafien tales ecuaciones. Nosotros por lo tanto no queremos modelos estandarizados dentro de nuestra lucha, En la ausencia de sistemas de valor el deseo se aventura en direeciones nuevas. La insurreccion es el deseo en rebeldia contra el valor. En antigua Inglaterra las partes del cuerpo del rey eran una base para las unidades de la medida. El pie del rey era un pie. El palmo del rey Ilego a ser un palmo. Cuando el estado Ileg6o a ser mas estandarizado e impersonal la medida siguio; y asi hoy estamos gobernados por un rey impersonal que esta presente, sin pasiones, pero siempre calculando. Los primeros relojes fueron construidos para que los rezos islamicos pudieran ser regulados, cinco veces al dia, en intervalos regulares. En tiempos coloniales la mision fue usada simultaneamente para convertir gente indigena a la religion e imponer la jornada y semana de trabajo. Las campanas de la mision regularon tanto el rezo como el trabajo. El reloj era un instrumento indispensable para la estandarizacion de la jornada de trabajo. La racionalizacion del tiempo nos ha lanzado en una espiral de prisas siempre crecientes. Deseamos matar al rey que trata de forzarnos a rezar al dios del trabajo. Matar al rey abaco es crear una ruptura insurreccional con la organizacion existente del lenguaje, el tiempo y del espacio; a hablar nuestro propio idioma, tomar nuestro propio tiempo, crear un espacio para nosotros mismos. Si solo podemos concebir ideas pensadas en el idioma del estado o del capital, no podemos destruir sus logicas restrictivas. No puede haber ruptura con esta sociedad si apelamos a las autoridades que la perpetuan, en vez de actuar nosotros mismos. Para apelar a un sistema o a una autoridad debemos hablar su idioma; las relaciones que deseamos crear no pueden estar formuladas en el idioma de la autoridad. Si vivimos una serie de momentos medidos por el reloj que marca al ritmo de la productividad, vivimos momentos abstractamente repetidos, Cuando el espacio publico disminuye y se disciplina, estamos constrenidos a un espacio cuyo uso ha sido restringido a las demande la produccion y del consumo. Mientras los teoricos sociales, el anarquista, el marxista y el burgues, han teorizado bien la dimension del tiempo (historia), el espacio a menudo en detrimento de la teoriaha pasado a ocupar el asiento trasero. Esto es debido, en parte, a la influencia del Darwinismo y otras teorias de la evolucion de los siglos 19 y 20. La teoria del espacio solo ha entrado en el Marxismo con la teoria de Lenin del impetialismo y solo en el nivel de la nacionestado. Los debates, desde aquella, se han concentrado en la liberacion nacional y el colonialismo. Mientras, el espacio, ha comenzado a jugar, recientemente, un papel mas grande en la teoria social, todavia cae a menudo en ]a trampa de la nacionalidad contra el globalismo. Esta teorizacion del espacio reifica y naturaliza la nacionestado. Necesitamos profundizar nuestra comprension historica del espacio y nuestra comprension espacial del capitalismo, y tambien mirar la relacion entre el espacio, el capitalismo y el estado en una escala distinta a la de la nacion. Simone de Beauvoir nos hizo notar la importancia del cafe para la rebelion. Era un espacio donde podiamos reunirnos directamente, donde podiamos platicar con amigos y conocer gente nueva. El capitalismo ha aprendido a transformarse un lugar de reunion en un espacio controlado donde nosotros solo podemos consumir y marI char corriendo al trabajo con prisas mientras miramos nuestro reloj. Si no creamos un espacio para nosotros mismos no tendremos ningun lugar para unirnos, hablar ni emprender accion por y para nosotros mismos. Para hacer esto debemos ser capaces de imaginar lo que nos espera mas alla de las racionalidades dominantes que perpetuanlo existente. Quien se aventura a ensanchar las posibilidades de la vida, fuera de las opciones limitadas ofrecidas por el estado y el capital, se encuentra enfrentado con las estructuras de poder y sistemas del control que imponen una existencia medida. El trabajo, la ley, el gobierno, la escuela, la policia, el consumo... forman un laberinto de barreras para cualquiera que quiera ir mas alla de estos limites, vivir a su propio ritmo y no al del reloj. Asi que aquellos de nosotros que queremos proyectarnos hacia la calidad, hacia una plenitud de la vida sin medida estamos enfrentados a la necesidad de destruir este laberinto, de crear nuestra proyectualidad de vida de una manera insurreecional. Estamos por tanto en permanente enfrentamiento con esta sociedad. Para destruir estos obstaculos a nuestra propia expansion necesitamos todas las herramientas que podemos obtener; necesitamos tanto las ideas como el fuego. Nota de traduccion: Ha sido mi deseo ofrecer este texto para el debate, por encontrarlo enriquecedor, a las personas que no pueden leer en ingles. He hecho una traduccion que es voluntaria y no profesional, por tanto puede pecar de muchos defectos, solo que ha sido con todo el interes de aportar nuevas ideas. Espero haber conseguido transmitir las ideas del texto original. Las notas a pie de pagina son fragmentos de una entrevista a John Moore efectuada por J. Filiss. No estoy seguro ahora de que "corriente" sea la palabra correcta. Ciertamente el primitivismo es una posicion en el amplio espectrum del anarquismo. Soy, tambien ahora, mas critico en el uso del concepto "comunidad". Pero al lado de estos reparos, estoy bastante satisfecho con mi formulacion ( ... ) la encuentro muy restrictiva y estos dias intento evitar usarla siempre que sea posible, por un numero de razones. Primero, es un termino muy ambiguo porque como su equivalente, civilizacion tiene muchos significados, y como resultado es facilmente malinterpretado o caricaturizado. Segundo, esta siempre el peligro como se ha visto recientemente en "Fifth Estate", por ejemplo donde los comentaristas hostiles pueden darle la vuelta a tus palabras de tal manera que parezca como si tu estuvieras construyendo una ideologia primitivista e iniciando un movimiento politico primitivista, incluso cuando tu declaras exactamente lo contrario. Igualitarismo es un ideal burgues porque esto meramente significa "iguales ante la ley". Como el anarquismo quiere abolir las ]eyes y el contrato social sobre el cual supuestamente descansa, el igualitarismo no tiene nada que ver con el anarquismo. La abolicion del poder significa maximizar las posibilidades de los individuos para autoactualizarse ellos mismos, pero no tiene nada que ver con hacer a la gente igual o equivalente un objetivo imposible y potencialmente totalitario, en cualquier caso. En este sentido, uno puede discemir una burda equivalencia entre anarquia primaria y la anarquia postcivilizacion, pero nada mas. "El primitivismo" (por querer un mundo mejor) critica la civilizacion completamente desde un punto de vista anarquista y busca la abolicion de todas las relaciones de poder. Esto es un enorme contraste. Ademas, igual que los izquierdistas que adoran la abstraccion denominada "el proletariado", los ambientalistas a menudo se subordinan ellos mismos a la abstraccion denominada "la tierra". Solo hay un proyecto en marcha la autorealizacion de mi individualidad en conjuncion con una generalizada autorealizacion a traves de la destruccion del poder y la construccion de una vida libre. Las ideas y actuaciones de Alfredo Bonanno y los anarquistas insurreccionalistas italianos me chocan como ]a clave aqui. Estudiando, adoptando e innovando practicas de ataque a la vez que las Iineas desarrolladas por los insurreccionalistas, al mismo tiempo que como un cruce fertilizador de nuestras ideas y actividades con las suyas, me parece la tarea mas importante que encaran ahora los anarquistas anticivilizacion ( ... ). La colision entre el primitivismo angloamericano y el anarquismo de la Europa continental lo que me parece que esta Ilegando a ser cada vez mas inminente es probable que produzca algunas y bellas mutations. Si el "primitivism" arraign en otras partes del mundo, lo Que. borate puede ser incluso mas fascinate. 169 6 true La Diversidad Insurrectional 2009-09-28T08:08:27Z 0 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 100 2009-09-28T07:55:33Z 0 - Start complimenting yourself in a positive way instead of criticizing. - Did you know that Your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, liver every six weeks, your skeleton every three months! Your body is extraordinary and always renewing itself. - Take back being the expert of your body-question the media, fashion magazines, and the cosmetics industry. LOVING YOUR BODY - Think of your body as a tool and all the wonderful things you can do with it. - Be aware of your body. Think of it as an instrument of life, not as an ornament for other's enjoyment. - Think of people who have affected your life, community or the world in a positive way. Did their appearance play a large part in their accomplishments? - How do you feel pleasure in Your body? Then do those things. - Enjoy your body: walk, sing, stretch, dance, get a massage, take a bubble bath, etc. - Affirm that Your body is perfect the way it is. - Walk Proudly with your head held high and be confident in yourself not in your size. - Go out and do the things you love now, don't wait until 'you've lost some weight'. - Remembers Your body is not a democracy you're the only one who gets to vote. - Start complimenting yourself in a positive way instead of criticizing. - Did you know that Your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, liver every six weeks, your skeleton every three months! Your body is extraordinary and always renewing itself. - Take back being the expert of your body-question the media, fashion magazines, and the cosmetics industry. - Let your individuality and inner beauty shine. - Be your body's advocate and alley, not it's enemy. - Every day thank your body for helping you throughout the day. - Find a method of exercise that your enjoy and do regularly to feel good, not to lose weight. - If you had one year to live how Important would your body image and appearance be? - Love yourself inside and out. Taken from Body Wars: Making: Peace with Women's Bodies, Margo Maine, Ph.D., Gurze Books, 2000,1415 * FAT POSITIVITY TO-DO LIST - Get involved with your local fat positive organization - Share your thoughts and feelings through writing. Publish a story Or zine. - Educate yourself about Issues Surrounding fat-phobia. - When you see something that upsets you, Write a letter. Tell television stations, magazines, newspapers and individuals that you will not tolerate the spreading of fat stereotypes. - Research, new studies about obesity, found out the truth that isn't being reported. - Say "I'm fat" Proudly. - If you hear a fat negative comment, speak up. - If someone says you've lost weight, don't reply with a thank you. - Hold your head high, so everyone can see you walk fat without shame. - Stop hiding your figure, wear clothes that compliment your curves. - Compliment Other fat people with how great they look. - Set yourself up to be a Support base for other women finding body acceptance. - Tear down diet scam advertisements. - Demand respect at the doctor's office. You can refuse to be weighed in. - Make sure you are being heard, speak stubbornly. - Attend a "free introductory lecture' at a weight loss institution. Ask questions about the programs medical theory and success rate. Educate the other people present. - Learn the secret ingredient: ATTITUDE! - Express your rights and needs regardless of Your shape or size. - Dance, shake, swim, do yoga, ride a bike, be public with fun and comfortable movement. - Refute health versus weight thinking. Remind people you can be fit and fat. - Say hello to every large person you see with a smile. - Find out what other people are doing to promote fat positivity. Queen Size Revolution P.0 Box 4926, Portland, OR 97208 queensizerevolution@yahoo.com 168 1 true 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 0 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 2 2009-09-28T07:51:45Z 0 Anarchists believe that human beings are dynamic, complex creatures, and that the state is an unnatural and patronizing institution that attempts to replace authentic experience with efficiency, autonomy with homogeny. The ideal state is made up of simple machines, instead of individuals and communities. The state provides mass culture and employment, and the people become interchangeable cogs. The state takes a foaming mass of colors and attempts to force it into a small, square hole. Soon the simple act of existence becomes meaningless, and feelings of alienation and depression become almost universal. The only way to derive satisfaction from a system such as this is through total nihilism, which leads to a whole spectrum of other social problems, which you need only to look out your window to witness. Anarchists under the current system are the ultimate romantics, because obviously the state is alive and well, and claiming to be an "Anarchist" in a fascist system is like being a religious fanatic who, due to severe repression, is completely unable to practice their religion. From this we see that without freedom to self-govern, claiming to be an Anarchist means, well, absolutely nothing. For this reason identifying as an Anarchist in our current political state is the ultimate hypocrisy. Anarchists must constantly prove to one another and themselves that they are fighting for something attainable, that they are not just "eating the meat and ignoring the factory farm, because the factory farm might burn down someday..." When attempting to define Anarchism, it's easy to come up against a brick wall. Many people take Anarchism to be another political ideology, although politics is the study of government and Anarchy is the complete absence of government. Therefore politics would be an analysis of the systems of government, while Anarchy would be whatever it is we would naturally be doing without government. While most political ideologies have rigid, static definitions, Anarchism is the recognition that nothing we experience is static, and our interactions are as elastic and unownable as the tide. Comparing Anarchism to other political ideologies is like comparing a cherry blossom to a riding lawnmower. Anarchists believe that human beings are dynamic, complex creatures, and that the state is an unnatural and patronizing institution that attempts to replace authentic experience with efficiency, autonomy with homogeny. The ideal state is made up of simple machines, instead of individuals and communities. The state provides mass culture and employment, and the people become interchangeable cogs. The state takes a foaming mass of colors and attempts to force it into a small, square hole. Soon the simple act of existence becomes meaningless, and feelings of alienation and depression become almost universal. The only way to derive satisfaction from a system such as this is through total nihilism, which leads to a whole spectrum of other social problems, which you need only to look out your window to witness. Anarchists under the current system are the ultimate romantics, because obviously the state is alive and well, and claiming to be an "Anarchist" in a fascist system is like being a religious fanatic who, due to severe repression, is completely unable to practice their religion. From this we see that without freedom to self-govern, claiming to be an Anarchist means, well, absolutely nothing. For this reason identifying as an Anarchist in our current political state is the ultimate hypocrisy. Anarchists must constantly prove to one another and themselves that they are fighting for something attainable, that they are not just "eating the meat and ignoring the factory farm, because the factory farm might burn down someday..." Identifying as an Anarchist and working with other Anarchists can often be just as alienating as passive existence in mainstream culture. All that separates "the Anarchist" from the masses is a beautiful and nonexistent ideal, and a word that most people equate with violence and insecurity, or an exclusive subculture of you-know-what. (The white, middle class, blah blah blah has absolutely been played to death.) Therefore there is no end of conflict and confusion among communities of Anarchists, and Anarchists are never any closer to attaining the ideal that they hold so close to their hearts. What is needed is a unified move towards Revolution, Revolution being the overthrow and complete destruction worldwide of all systems of government, leaving a vacuum for something new. Anarchists must move together toward this goal, and abandon the subculture that is made possible by the very existence of the capitalist state that they claim to despise. We must realize that all sorts of peoples worldwide face different versions of the same oppression. The desire to be free of fascism is a basic human desire, a nameless desire that cannot be translated into our meager language. The word "Anarchy" itself is flawed and attempts to squeeze something human into something mechanical like a language that itself perpetuates the system we live under. In order to work towards Revolution Anarchists must realize that Revolution is the inevitable first step toward freedom and autonomy for all peoples. In an Anarchist's ideal society (you know, anarchy) it is not necessary for everyone, or anyone, to agree on the way they want to live. So why now, when that ideal is as far away as it could possibly be, are we unable to work with those who do not live the way we do? Why are we unable to communicate with people who do not fit the mold we have set for ourselves? We do not need Revolution because it is necessary for everyone to agree on the way that we want to live. We need Revolution because systems of government are sick. We need revolution because we have nothing to lose by trying, except a subculture of masturbation that makes our current existence a little more bearable. This leaflet attempts to communicate an understanding of Anarchism, Anarchists and Anarchy, as undefinable and inadequate as those words are, in a language that is repressive in of itself. to you,. in hopes of clarifying ideas you may already have been exposed to and instigating dialogue among people new to revolutionary ideas. This explanation is not at all complete. And nothing is static. Whew. 167 1 true 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 0 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 99 2009-09-28T07:50:13Z 0 Activism This pamphlet is about our roles as politicized actors. This is about punks and politics. It is an explanation and a criticism of two different forms of activism, lifestyle activism and group activism. It is an attempt to analyze the ways we try to change our world-our struggles, our victories, and our failures. It is also a recognition of the difficulty and the contradictions involved in actively resisting our system. Finally, it is a call to network and communicate for those kids involved in destroying the system and building an alternative to our world, it is a critical analysis of where we are, where we are going, and hat may help us get there. If we really believe infighting for abetter world, our resistance must be in our minds using our imaginations to criticize existing life and discover better ways to live. Arid it must be through our actions-in the real world, in our everyday lives, practicing our criticisms and working with others for a change, for a REVOLUTION that includes more than just ourselves. Activism This pamphlet is about our roles as politicized actors. This is about punks and politics. It is an explanation and a criticism of two different forms of activism, lifestyle activism and group activism. It is an attempt to analyze the ways we try to change our world-our struggles, our victories, and our failures. It is also a recognition of the difficulty and the contradictions involved in actively resisting our system. Finally, it is a call to network and communicate for those kids involved in destroying the system and building an alternative to our world, it is a critical analysis of where we are, where we are going, and hat may help us get there. If we really believe infighting for abetter world, our resistance must be in our minds using our imaginations to criticize existing life and discover better ways to live. Arid it must be through our actions-in the real world, in our everyday lives, practicing our criticisms and working with others for a change, for a REVOLUTION that includes more than just ourselves. I. Lifestyle Activism A. An Attempt at a Definition? We all know what we are talking about here. A lifestyle devoted to change, a way of living where we look toward the future by living our lives NOW in a revolutionary way. Veganism, reducing our commodity consumption, environmentalism, stealing dumpstering, squatting, not wearing animals, using political knowledge to shop for our commodities where we buy our groceries, records, clothes, books, etc.-fostering critical and intimate relationships with our friends where we deconstruct all the isms of our culture, making our "private" lives 'public, through the networks of zines/spoken word/scenes/gossip. . . (Help me think of some others) B. Positive Aspects Making the personal political is our way of saying that our lifestyles look toward a future society. In this way, we begin to feel like we are actually making a change, on a local, minute level where we resist the overwhelming and dominating influence of institutional capitalism. Through lifestyle activism, those of us who are critical of our world try to find ANY way to resist. B. 1. Interconnectedness Lifestyle activism, through the rhetoric we've developed and sometimes in our actual practice, opposes the capitalist ideology that we are all separate, isolated individuals and that nothing we do has any effect on others. Through our lifestyles we come to recognize the complex and deep connections our actions have on a world around us. We begin to realize that how we live our lives on a day to day level, CAN and DOES effect a change on the world around us. Whether it is on a microlevel, like the development of our personal relationships, fighting our own acculturated sexism or homophobia or objectification of others for profit, or on a macro-level (like the decrease of the consumption of animal products), lifestyle activism reconnects our personal lives to a larger political whole. B. 2. Reintroduction of subjective Action As we get older, jaded, fired and fed up with resisting our society, lifestyle activism keeps us mindful of our power as an individual actor-we are neither the isolated individual whose action does not mama, nor are we only able to = as a pan of a "revolutionary class," where our individual actions are meaningless unless they are pan of a mass action by a "unified* class. * B. 3. Knowledge and Action How do we imagine we would live in a better world? Can we think about a world where human happiness and a fundamental respect for others would be of value rather than profit or greed? If so, even in imagining this world we are taking a critical stance toward our own world a step toward finding the links and the interconnections that make the capitalist system work as a WHOLE. Knowledge is the first step to action, when we understand that our actions have consequences outside our own lives, we also realize that the actions of others, of corporations, of nation-states, have many complex and interconnected effects on our everyday lives. Our knowledge serves as a background for out action that in imagining a better life, we are also responsible for creating that life. The way we live our lifestyle, how we play out the everyday opportunities for resistance, these things will begin to build the foundations for a different existence not just for the few of us privileged to live this lifestyle-but for all. C. Negative Aspects To live a certain lifestyle is not enough in our efforts to change = world. Because of the contradictions involved in trying to live and survive in our system, our idealized goals of lifestyle activism often begin to return to what we criticized in the first place. We become self-involved, isolated from each other by our lifestyles (crust v. str8edge v. emo v. whatever), and opening just enough space for us to live comfortably. By neglecting other aspects of activism, lifestyle activism turns inward-just like the counterculture of the 60's, the lifestyle becomes the focus, not changing ourselves and our world. C. 1. Lifestyle Activism as End not Means Lifestyle activists often fall into the self-absorbed trap of seeing the lifestyle as an end in itself rather than a means to a better society. Overwhelmed by a world that seems impossible to change, lifestyle activists often feel that change on a macro-level is impossible. The only solution left then, is to change what little part of their own world they mm As they become more isolated and lifestyle becomes the primary focus of their activism, these folks may begin to consolidate a position of COMFORT in this world. While living a material life not that different from the ones they criticize, lifestyle activism mm into just another trend peppered with revolutionary rhetoric. The pursuit of short-term individual comfort and commodities takes precedence over any kind of group work or long-term revolution, yet at the same time this lifestyle is "punk" or "rebellious,* the justification for political apathy. C. 1. a. Existentialism or Choose Your Own Reality A philosophical grounding in existentialism, or the idea that we all can choose our own realities, often serves to justify the lifestyle activist's hesitation to join in more traditional forms of group activism. Using this philosophy, we turn inward, severing the REAL existent ties with other human beings for a stance that gravitates toward isolation and nihilism. The "existential human' can then only make her/his own life because the world is absurd and forever unchangeable, and nothing can be done toward a long-term project of "revolution." We are then separated again from the struggles of others, capitalist ideology, the belief that our own individual survival or comfort is more important than the survival of all, again legitimates our existentialist alienation from others. C. 1. b. Cynicism and Inaction After working and resisting in a lifestyle we believe to be revolutionary, we often see that our actions are not having the kind of consequences that we had hoped. We forget that revolution is a lifelong process, a generational project, and we begin to think that our actions do not make that much of a difference. Perhaps we hope for change on a large scale and we see that our lifestyles have no real impact on national policy, perhaps we do not see the consequences of our actions on a local level-we become cynical and defeated, no longer hoping, no longer working at our resistance and opposition. C. 2. Moral Superiority Often when we fight so desperately and so hard to resist our society, we come to believe that we are better than others who just don't "know" as much as us. We think that we are taking the moral high ground and it is our job, no, our responsibility to preach our gospel to others. We preach our lifestyle as the example all should follow and often our intolerance for other lifestyles leads us into antagonism with potential allies. Instead of resisting the kind of group mentality that capitalism teaches us, we form our own groups, our own gangs, our own armies, and seek out those within our own movements and communities we think are not living the kind of MORAL life that we think we are living. This again fragments us. Those not living our "morally superior" lifestyles are ostracized, those who try to live the lifestyle, fear those in our groups who would jump on any deviation of the lifestyle. Thus they are continually working to perfect the lifestyle, not perfect their world as a whole by living this lifestyle. * D. The Contradictions of Lifestyle Activism I think that in almost every instance of lifestyle activism, there will be inherent contradictions that will arise if a lifestyle becomes an end, not a means toward change. Conflicts in our rhetoric and our ideas that will arise as we try to practice our lifestyle separate from any long-term project of social change, separate from the struggles of others. These contradictions are a result of trying to live in a system rife with contradictions, yet at the same time trying to resist the system. If we do not have a coherent goal, a long-term plan of imagination that we try to realize through our lifestyle, our activism becomes just another phase of rebellion, just another commodity that capitalism can sell I on the open market, or just another ghetto where we can contemplate our navels, consolidate our comfort and live our lives without any hope for real change. II. Group or Organized Activism A. An Attempt at a Definition? A group of individuals, committed to working together toward practical and theoretical goals not addressed by our system or by other groups, gathers to participate, not only in the work of the group, but also in decision making and devising goals. The group's practical and theoretical goals may center around a variety of specific ideas or actions-actions that the group hopes will reinforce or act as a catalyst for some type of change in our social system. Group Activism relies upon the commitment of group members who are critical of our system and want to: 1) Destroy or criticize the system as it currently exists, and/or, 2) Attempt to build new ways (new institutions, ways of living, groups, etc.) that will realize their goals of a better society. A. 1. Power? Group Activists, as a beginning, may want to discuss their ideas concerning power. Is the goal of the group to gain some kind of power (institutional, electoral, popular, media)? What will be the nature of this power? In these questions, the group realizes that just by being a group (rather than individual activists), they have some kind of initial empowerment and in coordinating group actions, a chance to gain more power. Yet I think that some of the reasons we start a group is that we are frustrated and disgusted at who holds the power and how they use their power in our system. In our group efforts, power should be a constant topic of discussion-how we as a group can gain more power, what type of power we want, and how we can resist the kinds of power, the authoritarianism, which we oppose in this system. A. 1. a. Fear of Power Many activist groups oppose any use of "power" and any discussion gaining power is frowned upon. Because we languish under a system of power that relies on economic and political power, because the ways we see power being used in our daily lives involves the exploitation or subjugation of others, as activists we hesitate to seek ANY kind of power. We are wary of replicating in our groups, the forms of power that are operative in our system, where power-becomes an end in itself, not the means to achieve our goals. Yet not all power is inherently exploitative. Power is needed to consolidate a position of opposition to our system and to Fight and destroy the underpinnings of that system. A. 1. b. Positive Power If we truly believe that a revolution is needed in our world, access to power is essential. Without power, we are just another group on the margins fighting to live our lives the way we want, without interference from others in the easiest and most comfortable lifestyle we can manage. Positive power comes from working with others, not as antagonistic individuals but from empowering ourselves in our identities and our personal lives. We struggle together to build a better world, not based upon power gotten at the expense of others, but from our collective power. Granted power will have to be taken (either peacefully over time or violently) from those NOW in power, yet how else are we to change our world? In our groups, in deconstructing traditional forms of power and in realizing a new power that comes from an equal respect and regard for each of our skills, diversities, and contexts, we take the first step to building a new paradigm of power at odds with and away from this world. A. 2. Specific Organizational Direction In formulating our groups, we need to ask ourselves what we want to accomplish, why we are gathering together and how we will pursue our goals. What needs will we fulfill by being a group? %at ideas will propel our work together? Food Not Bombs, book stores, sexual abuse survivor groups, street theater, collectives, consciousness raising groups, shelters, reading groups, street gangs, the International Socialist Organization, legal advocacy , groups, police brutality watches, guerilla fighters, (help me think of others. . . ) are all groups that work together toward specific actions and practical projects that realize goals resistant to or opposing our current system. Resistance to our system cm take many forms and occur on many fronts productive, distributive, ideological, educational resistance can also come from joining or helping the victims/survivors of our society. Each group decides where they are needed most or what work they will undertake. * A. 3. Assessing the Situation In group activism, the members must assess the situation of their organization in their discussions of goals and practical actions. Every decision made by the group relies upon an analysis of the context surrounding the formulation of the group and a realistic assessment of the potential goals and actions the group may undertake. Issues of legality illegality, secrecy, size and scope of group projects, estimation of group funding, using the media. revolutionary potential of the working class, coalition building, etc. depend upon an assessment of the group's size, the commitment and time of the members, the external situation and the consequences the group could face because of their actions. To be effective as a group, the situational assessment must be an ongoing process, when new circumstances enter the context and where the group analyzes and critiques their own successes and failures. B. Group Organization Groups decide on basic issues of organization and decision-making, where discussions revolve around how the group is "run" and who will be involved in the group. Membership can be open to all or restricted to a select few. Restrictions on membership can be because of group secrecy or because of issues of identity or "safe" space, where the members decide who is to be involved. B. 1. Leadership? Do we need "leaders" at all in group situations? This is the initial question of leadership, for the assumption that underlies a dependence upon leadership is that some of us are better suited to be followers than leaders. Yet at the same time, how is group work to be carried out? How will the group be efficient and productive in their goals and actions without a "leader?" We can recognize that people have differing skill, knowledge, and backgrounds that they bring to a group without also valuing a certain skill, knowledge or background above all others. There are many ways to diffuse the issue of leadership in group situations: by keeping the decision-making power in the hands of all group members, by a constant analysis and discussion of inner-group dynamics, and by each individual exercising a restraint on their own tendencies toward "leading" others. B. 2. Decision Making The basic everyday issues of running the group are defined by the decision-making process. If each member is to take part in running the group, working as an equal and valued member, the type of decision-making process that will be used guarantees equal access and participation by all. Depending upon the kind of decision-making the group uses, the process may involve traditional or nontraditional methods of group interaction. First, the group decides how it will decide. B. 2. a. Majority Majority decision-making consists of a traditional process of group interaction where the issues are decided by a group vote, with the majority of vows resolving the issue. Often this process is formalized by using rules of order where a chairperson presides over the meeting, acknowledges questions by the members, cuts off debate when deemed appropriate and calls for a final vote, where the decision is ultimately made. This process can be participatory for all members by rotating the chairperson duties and allowing debate of a viewpoints. A group run by majority tends toward efficiency in establishing agendas and accomplishing tasks, yet the group also runs the risk of silencing a viewpoint by consistently outvoting the minority. B. 2. b. Consensus An activist group run by consensus decision-making is often characterized by long, drawn out sessions of discussion where issues are analyzed until all of the group members reach a similar stance on the issue. Action is taken, not by vote, but by general agreement of all die members. This process is directly participatory, as each member argues and compromises her/Ws viewpoint in accordance with the discussion among the general group, Consensus decision-making often does not have the kind of formalized rules of majority debate can continue on for hours until all members are convinced of the consensus. Yet this process allows those skilled in rhetoric to influence a decision and often results in much unnecessary debate. B. 2. c. Autonomous Activity In a group run by autonomous decision making, each member sets her/his own goals and agendas and uses the resources of the group to their projects in a mom r less autonomous manner. These groups are very loosely knit and group cooperation centers on being an "ally" to each member's projects rather than working together as a whole. By this approach, individual motivation and initiative grows from the support of the group- the autonomous activity of each member allows them the time to devote to their projects, yet when needed, they can ask for another's assistance. Autonomous decisionmaking is ideal for groups engaged in illegal activities and for groups that prioritize secrecy. Finally, individual activists can use this type of group orientation to gin temporary support of their activities. C. Inner Group Dynamics For a group to function and fulfill any potential for activism, the group members should c consistently engaged in a dialogue over inner-group dynamics. The efficiency and even the existence of the go" are at stake in the ebbs and fides of the individual members personal relationships. Often the process of decisionmaking will dictate the amount of group time spent on discussing group dynamics-groups run by consensus will obviously devote more time to this process than autonomously active groups. C. 1. The Political is Personal Working on interpersonal relationships as a part of group discussion may seem irrelevant or a waste of time, yet , this reinforces our belief in personal lives having political consequences. Groups interested in their revolutionary potential also need to realize that intra-group squabbles based on personal disagreements are counterproductive. Often some of the ideologies an activist group is ostensibly fighting, reappear through personal problemspower struggles, egos, sexism or racism are issues that are sometimes played out in the flows of group dynamics. The lines are often difficult to draw between what is private (if anything, as is sometimes the case in collective living situations) and what should be publicly discussed by the group. C. 2. Clearinghouses As a part of a group agenda, we make time for "clearinghouses" when personal relationships are discussed, grievances are aired and issues of what is public and what is private are dealt with. The group decides what is "going too far" in these discussions, what procedures should be developed for dealing with inner-group tensions and when discussion should be furthered or shut down. D. Practical and Tactical Issues In organizing an activist group, a number of practical or tactical issues crop up that determine the direction and the function of the group. These issues should also be discussed in terms of assessing the situation and the desires and motivations of each activist. D. 1. Traditional Methods of Protest Group activists work through many traditional channels of organized protest. Organizing demonstrations, petition drives, boycotts, mailings, teach-ins, or printing a newspaper we all traditional ways that groups choose to resist our system. the value and effectiveness of traditional protest methods weds to be evaluated by each group though before committing themselves to pursuing nontraditional forms of resistance like street-fighting, riots, guerilla warfare, bombings, etc. D. 2. Legal v. Illegal Activities Group projects can involve legal or illegal means of accomplishing the group's goals. As a starting point, groups decide whether or not they will engage in illegal activities and whether changing circumstances will also change the group's mind. Recognizing the consequences for the individual activists if they are caught, the group needs to evaluate the commitment and motivation of each member and discuss tactical issues of secrecy, going undercover, trust, and law enforcement retaliation. A knowledge of the local state, and federal laws as well as the court system is also helpful to groups engaging in illegal activities. D. 3. The Media? Should the group make use of the media? Which media (mainstream or underground, print or tv) should the group tap into? In the group discussion of this issue, we recognize that the media has its own agenda and will pursue this by the way that they "spin" stories. How the media presents a group, what pictures, quotes, or sound-bites they use and where they locate the group's issues on the public spectrum are ail questions the group must address if they choose to use the media On a deeper level, the group first decides if they are going to solicit popular support for their projects, and if so, what must the,.' do to gain the kind of support they need. D. 4. Coalition Building and Solidarity Groups Part of the task of building popular support is being able to build coalitions and solidarity ties with other activist organizations. The exact procedure of coalition building is worked out by the group with other groups that may share similar visions or tactics, or that have a resource availability (funds, ideas, labor power, media) that our group may want to share. Yet in building coalitions, the group must give up some of its own autonomy to work with and support these other activists. How important to the group is resources that another group could offer? Finally, how important is it to network and organize with and around the actions of other activists? III. The Intersections for a Revolution A combination of a lifestyle of activism and participation in group projects fulfills the two pronged attack that works toward social change. How can we be examples of a revolutionary lifestyle without also working with others toward a long-term project of revolution? We must make some compromises just to survive in this system, yet where do we resist and how far can we go? In spite of this paradox, we must learn how to simultaneously work within the system to build alternatives of production and alternatives of ideology that will sustain a NEW world. While also working to actively destroy and debilitate the institutions and the ideologies that sustain our system, we must consolidate our victories and remember our history. This is the task. Are you down? Write, communicate, network: Eric Boehme / ATR zine 118 Raritan Ave. Highland Park, NJ 08904 USA eboehme @eden.rutgers.edu 166 3 true 2009-09-28T08:07:27Z 0 2009-09-28T07:43:47Z 98 2009-09-28T07:43:30Z 0 RnB: Some movement activists have expressed the idea that violence cannot be justified for any reason, and even a few political prisoners have said that they were wrong to engage in violent acts. What are your feelings on this? How have they changed over the years? LW: Whenever we talk about "violence," I think it's important first to distinguish between the violence of the state including the army, the police, etc. and the use of armed resistance and armed struggle by oppressed people struggling for justice. Remember, too, that imperialist violence isn't just what they do with arms it also includes the genocidal results of a system that tries to destroy the history, identity, and culture of the nations it colonizes. It's malnutrition, poverty, and homelessness in the streets of the richest country on earth. Is the death of a homeless person, frozen in the winter streets of Chicago or New York, not a death by violence? If U.S. imperialism were to disarm to stop their stealing from people, cease committing genocide, stop starving people, etc. then I'd be willing to consider changing my support of revolutionary violence. Malcolm X talked about this a lot, with great passion and insight. "What are your options," he asked, "when a man's got his foot on your neck?" An Introduction by Meg Starr, Resistance in Brooklyn [RnB] The government and mainstream media have used their formidable powers to prevent real information about political prisoners Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert, Laura Whitehorn, and others from getting out. Small wonder. Like John Brown and those who stood with him, they are white people who took arms against the U.S. government, in solidarity with the oppressed. Invisible in the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC or liberal histories of the 1960s is the logic of their progression from public to clandestine activism. These three interviewed here help us to understand an important part of radical history so often distorted. They stood accused of such "unthinkable crimes" as infiltrating the Klan, robbing money from banks and giving it to Black self-defense patrols, helping to liberate framed BLACK LIBERATION ARMY (BLA) leader ASSATA SHAKUR from prison, bombing the Capitol Building in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada, and bombing the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association after the brutal murder of a Black grandmother by NYC Police. We hope that this pamphlet will help reintroduce these dedicated people to the movement and help us all with the ongoing task of figuring out the role of white radicals. Many activists joining the progressive movement over the past ten years have participated in some form of work around prison issues: protesting the growth of the prison industry, exposing control unit torture, supporting social prisoners, or working with political prisoners. All of this is important. Agitating around prisons can expose the true nature of U.S. "democracy" to people, as well as alleviating prisoners' daily suffering. The ways prison is used to control communities of color, all poor and working-class people, and women is a vital part of how the state keeps itself in power. Behind thought control in bourgeois democracy is the thinly gloved hand of repressive power. The movements of the late '60s and '70s shook the U.S. government's control over its domestic population. They were powerful because of their widespread support in oppressed communities and among white youth, their internationalism, their revolutionary vision, and the radical strategies many organizations used to confront the system, from civil disobedience to ARMED PROPAGANDA. Responding to this challenge, U.S. counterinsurgency used many repressive tactics, including incarceration, to destroy these movements. Many of the over one hundred POLITICAL PRISONERS and PRISONERS OF WAR (POWs) in U.S. jails were key leaders of the organizations they belonged to, leading national and local struggles for Black liberation, Puerto Rican independence, Native American sovereignty, and white antiwar and anti-imperialist action. Many of these prisoners became enemies of the state because they injected into the movements for social justice a most crucial element: revolutionary action. These comrades challenged the armed power of the government directly, ripping to shreds the cloak of "peaceful democracy" with which the bourgeoisie tries to cover its real crimes. In the '60s, the shift from peaceful petitioning to street demonstrations demanding the U.S. to stop its attacks on Vietnam transformed the movement into a force the government had to reckon with. The Black Panther Party didn't stop with discussions of how to empower the Black community, they seized that power through a combination of direct action and armed self-defense. Similarly, many of the political prisoners and prisoners of war engaged in actions that moved beyond discussion and protest into challenging the basis of imperialism and colonialism. For the government, this raises the specter of real civil unrest, which must be stopped at it's inception. That is why these comrades were systematically removed from their movements and communities. Each time we defend these activists and bring their presence into our work, we challenge counterinsurgency. We build off the radical strategies of our immediate movement past and gain continuity. Continuity does not mean that the strategies of the past are necessarily those of the future. It just means that dialogue with those who have dedicated their lives to revolution will enrich our vision. As Mumia Abu-Jamal's commentaries go out on the air waves, we are all strengthened. Supporting political prisoners also challenges the system's grip over our hearts and minds because their incarceration is held over all of our heads as a deterrent. It is one aspect of the repression and control of our movements, a direct carryover from the FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAM (COINTELPRO) of the 1950s and '60s. Which is more frightening: being shot by the police or being buried alive? Where do we each take our fears as we build the movements of the twenty-first century, and deal with state repression today? Successful radical movement-building will always face repression; every sincerely radical organization must therefore have some aspect of their program that responds to political prisoners. Connecting with them teaches us about the state, but it can also give us hope. This is a time when our movements are rebuilding and reevaluating. There is a lull in domestic armed struggle and militant street actions. Work around the prisoners can and should be done from a general human rights perspective. It can also be done, however, by those who are radical and envision movements of the future that will again challenge the U.S. government to its core. The political prisoners own continued dedication and activism must be one sign to us in this very repressive time that the people are stronger than the system. Whether or not a group's specific daily work is around political prisoners or prison conditions, Resistance in Brooklyn (RnB) believes that everyone working toward revolutionary goals must give greater organizational priority to the work around freedom for our imprisoned comrades. In our imaginations, we can smash the barriers of fear and prison, as we organize to tear down the very real walls. The three interviews printed here in their complete and unedited (though separated) versions, grew out of discussions that we began with David Gilbert in 1995, and continued with Marilyn and Laura through 1996 and early '97. Looking at the lack of sympathetic yet critical review of the clandestine movements of the 1970s and '80s, coupled with various statements by individuals who essentially retracted their previous revolutionary positions, we agreed on the importance of a public dialogue to encourage debate about the processes and potential for change. Some among the white ANTI-IMPERIALIST prisoners still held true to their earlier convictions, despite changes, modification, or a growth of their viewpoints. After recognizing that due primarily to the logistical considerations of communication between prisoners and from one side of the wall to the other we could not publish commentary from all of those we would have liked to include, we narrowed the list of those to take part in this first booklet to three North Americans from varying but similar political backgrounds. An important intention of this booklet is, in fact, to open a dialogue that we believe is essential to the growth of a more mature left. RnB strongly urges all those reading this who are moved to comment on a small or large part of the texts to write us their comments, for publication in a second, followup booklet. While we are especially anxious to hear from those behind the walls who participated in or led some of the movements described herein, we want the dialogue to be open to everyone concerned with a fair analysis of the periods in question and, most importantly, to everyone involved with building the revolutionary movements of tomorrow. We can be reached c/o Meyer, WRL, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 or by email [mmmsrnb@igc.org]. We view this dialogue as the beginning of what we hope to be a broader discussion on strategies and tactics, past, present, and future. The struggle, indeed, continues. Laura Whitehorn During the Vietnam War, Laura Whitehorn organized 400 women in a take-over of the Harvard University administration buildings. In the 1970s, she worked with antiracist whites to defend Black communities from attack and helped found the Madame Binh Graphics Collective, a radical art group. She was accused of being a member of the Red Guerrilla Resistance, an anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group and served a twenty-three-year sentence for conspiracy to protest and alter government policies through the use of violence against government property. She was released in August of 1999. RnB: Over the past years that you've been in prison since 1985 many changes have taken place in the world and in our movements. When you made your decision to take militant action, there was a sense of worldwide revolution on the rise. Now, although there are many trends of protest and fight-back, reaction appears to have consolidated. In this context, do you regret the sacrifice you made to fight against U.S. imperialism? LW: A resounding NO! First of all, I believe that change can never take place without resistance. No matter how overwhelming the odds, struggle is the only path to justice. Without resistance, there is no hope of a better future, and resistance often demands sacrifice. To me, the decision not to fight not to resist would mean sacrificing my own humanity. That would be much worse than the sacrifices that I've had to make. I believe that all kinds of resistance are necessary to oppose the consolidation of reactionary forces. I don't feel that any of the forms of resistance I've been involved in over the past twenty-five years from mass struggle to armed actions are irrelevant to the future of progressive movements. The armed activities I was involved in had, as their focus, anti-imperialist solidarity with national liberation struggles. And while it is true that some of the strategic underpinnings of those activities were proven incorrect like the conviction that wars of liberation within U.S. colonies would have achieved victory by now the fundamental goals of those movements remain the same. The peoples of Puerto Rico, NEW AFRIKA, and all oppressed nations in the U.S. empire still fight for freedom. The central goals of white anti-imperialists are also still relevant and alive. Whatever the methods, we still must fight against white supremacy and colonialism. None of the world changes over the past ten years have changed the need for citizens of an oppressive country to do what they can to stop the crimes of their government. If anything, these goals are more central today then in years past, because they are under greater attack. Two examples of the continuing need for militant action come quickly to mind. In 1994, when Cuba was coming under, increasingly directly U.S. attack, it seemed to me that the white left in this country should have risen to the fore in defense of Cuba. I waited to hear that all those who'd gone on the VENCEREMOS BRIGADES over the years, and all those who'd learned the very meaning of solidarity from the example of Cuba (in Africa and Vietnam, for instance), were now taking action in cities all over the U.S. to show militant support of Cuba. Though we all might be confused by the major shifts in world politics, the defense of Cuba should have mobilized thousands. Yet it didn't happen that way, despite valiant attempts by organizers of a rally in Washington and some small demos elsewhere. Another example of the clear need for militant antiracist defense by white progressives followed the SIMI VALLEY TRIAL and subsequent Los Angeles rebellion. Here again, a few rallies, statements, and demos by some white progressives did take place, but no major long-term or clearly defined resistance in solidarity with Black people was developed. At a time when Black/New Afrikans' basic human rights their existence itself was arrogantly challenged by the smug racism of white Amerika, most of the white left did not take action. I point to these examples to suggest that our fundamental concepts and principles of solidarity our commitments to anti-imperialism and to taking direct action remain true and relevant to this day. Right now I'm not even especially talking about armed actions. While strategic concepts (such as the relationship between armed struggle and mass action) may change as history itself develops, I believe that it's a serious mistake to abandon our basic goals and politics. Our resistance and analysis led us to a commitment of fight-back on all levels including armed struggle. RnB: Looking back over your own personal and political history, how did you first become politically aware and active? How and why did it lead you in an anti-imperialist direction? LW. I became politically aware over a period of time beginning with my childhood, when McCarthyism and segregation forced me to look at the serious injustices in the world. As a Jewish kid born in 1945, I was raised to hate prejudice. My parents also hoped that I would learn to fear the repression that would surely follow any resistance. The civil rights movement forced me to abandon that fear, because I witnessed the courage of Black women, men, and children in the U.S. South. My first political actions as a high school and college student were against segregation and for voting rights. As the war in Vietnam exploded, I began to join petition drives, marches, and rallies against the U.S. invasion. I felt passionately about those issues. Some of this was motivated by my own deep sense of unfairness, regarding how I was treated as a woman in sexist U.S. society. This helped me to identify with others affected by injustice. Though I didn't yet identify myself as a lesbian, I certainly did rebel against many of the roles I was supposed to be happy in, even as a child. The world events of 1968 and 1969 enabled me to make the leap from a belief that democracy simply wasn't working as it was supposed to work, to a more critical anti-imperialist viewpoint. I was deeply affected by the emergence of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY (BPP), the rise of the national liberation struggles, CHE GUEVERA'S speech outlining the strategy of "Two, Three, Many Vietnams," and my own participation in a series of confrontations with the Chicago police department. This first confrontation at the 1968 Democratic Convention made it graphically clear that liberals shniberals, and the whole Democratic Party was part of the ruling class, hiding behind the violence of the Chicago cops as they beat and gassed unarmed demonstrators. As I supported the BPP and YOUNG LORDS PARTY in Chicago, I experienced the untrammeled violence of the pigs against Black and Puerto Rican people. Even more importantly, I experienced the courage and massive desire of those communities to fight back and take control over their lives to refuse to collapse under the terror of the cops. I was present at occasions when thousands of Black people turned out in churches and on streets to hear and talk to Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois BPP. The same thing was happening with the Young Lords in the Puerto Rican community, and there was great unity in action between the Young Lords and the Black Panthers. In those churches, on those streets, in rally after march after rally, the depth and strength of the demand for freedom and political power was unmistakable. When the Chicago cops and FBI assassinated Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969, it made it clear to me what I had already accepted: that the fight of Black people would have to involve armed struggle. Like the people of Puerto Rico, the Native American nations, and the MEXICANO NATION within the U.S. like the struggle of the Vietnamese the movements fighting against the U.S. government would have to utilize armed struggle, because the U.S. state saw these struggles as tearing apart the very fabric of their empire and their illegitimate power. The BPP's ten-point program like the programs of revolutionary nationalists such as the Republic of New Afrika was based on the same goals as the national liberation struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: land, justice, economic and political independence the right of self-determination. I had always hated racism and couldn't understand why it was so deeply ingrained in every single aspect of U.S. society. After 1969, I felt that I understood it better as well as how to fight to change it. In order for the U.S. ruling class to maintain power, it was necessary for them to maintain control over the New Afrikan nation, the other internal colonies, and Puerto Rico. This dominance would only begin to change when those nations had their independence and freedom. It became clear to me that revolutionary anti-imperialism was the best strategy for fighting racism and injustice and that armed struggle as well as mass struggle would be needed. As I learned more about Vietnam from my work supporting their struggle, I understood how the context of national liberation struggle could transform a nation, and the women in particular, from powerlessness to creativity and strength. Resisting domination on a variety of levels was a major part of creating new women, new men, new nations. It also appeared that armed struggle could be a way to speed up the victory of a people and thus to lessen a nation's suffering. It seemed to me that those of us in the belly of the beast citizens of the imperialist power could shorten the war by attacking the U.S. military and political machinery inside the U.S. We could play a significant role in shortening the war by increasing the material and political costs. This was an important strategic point for anti-imperialists within the antiwar movement, and it applied to solidarity with other national liberation struggles as well. That's why I took part in mass confrontations, in attacks on military think tanks and in building takeovers at big universities. It's also why I later took part in armed actions against targets like the NYC Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the Israeli aircraft industries, and the U.S. War College and Capitol Building. Taking powerful action against the oppressor had a liberating quality that affected my view of how all of us can free ourselves. As a woman and a lesbian, the desire to fight against sexism and homophobia fueled my desire to wage armed struggle against all aspects of this oppressive society. As a revolutionary, I seek to change the entire system, not just one or two parts of it. RnB: We hear all the time about people who were revolutionaries in the 1960s and who now have bought into white corporate America. What have been your experiences with this? LW: I don't have much experience with this, but it seems to me that it underlines the fact that white people in particular can almost always "sell out" by falling back on our white skin privilege. The system just loves to welcome back its strays. I also think that individualism and greed are so strong in U.S. capitalism that they continue to erode the character and values of people including those who try to make social change, be revolutionaries, or participate in struggles for justice. I guess when things get hard, it's tempting for some to jump ship and find a comfortable niche in what looks like the winning side. How boring! And how soul destroying. RnB: Some movement activists have expressed the idea that violence cannot be justified for any reason, and even a few political prisoners have said that they were wrong to engage in violent acts. What are your feelings on this? How have they changed over the years? LW: Whenever we talk about "violence," I think it's important first to distinguish between the violence of the state including the army, the police, etc. and the use of armed resistance and armed struggle by oppressed people struggling for justice. Remember, too, that imperialist violence isn't just what they do with arms it also includes the genocidal results of a system that tries to destroy the history, identity, and culture of the nations it colonizes. It's malnutrition, poverty, and homelessness in the streets of the richest country on earth. Is the death of a homeless person, frozen in the winter streets of Chicago or New York, not a death by violence? If U.S. imperialism were to disarm to stop their stealing from people, cease committing genocide, stop starving people, etc. then I'd be willing to consider changing my support of revolutionary violence. Malcolm X talked about this a lot, with great passion and insight. "What are your options," he asked, "when a man's got his foot on your neck?" I do believe that revolutionary forces need to be extremely careful when using any kind of violence. Armed struggle does confer power on those engaging in it, and I think revolutionaries have a responsibility to act with principle and care. We must show respect for the value of human life in a way that the imperialists can only pretend to do. During the late 1960s, when the level of struggle in this country was so high, I think I tended to use the concept of "being at war" too loosely, in a way that I no longer would. I think I believed, for example, that the level of confrontation between oppressed nations and the imperialist state meant we all existed in an active state of war and that any unnecessary casualties would be justified by the wartime conditions. I don't believe, however, that this type of thinking dominated the practice of the revolutionary armed groups. Any time there was a casualty, of course, the government made sure it was broadcast far and wide. I still believe there's a war by the ruling class against oppressed people, especially against Black people. But I also think that revolutionary forces have the ability and the responsibility to make armed actions speak for themselves, so the actions don't need a lot of justifying. Whenever we have to explain or defend our actions, we are immediately at a disadvantage, because the government and police control so much of the media. I believe that fighting for justice necessitates fighting for power. I don't think, for instance, that it will be effective to fight racism in the U.S. without also challenging white supremacy and the system of imperialism that it's a part of. And I believe that fighting for power means a lot more than protesting bad things that the government does. Revolutionary violence is an important means of self-defense for oppressed communities under attack from the violence of the state. It is an integral part of fighting for power. RnB: What were the specific historical conditions that were the context for your decision to take up armed struggle? LW: The late 1960s an era of rising wars of national liberation for land and independence convinced me that in order to be part of making revolution, I had to support and take up armed struggle. Vietnam was an especially strong example of this, but I was also influenced by the anti-colonial struggles in Latin America and Africa. Because the U.S. had used arms and genocidal violence to enslave and possess oppressed nations inside the U.S. and Puerto Rico, it seemed clear that revolutionary violence would be needed to overthrow colonial control. And how could I support liberation for any of those nations, yet be unwilling to fight for it myself? I witnessed the process of nation-building that went on when Vietnam mobilized its people to fight a war of national independence and self-defense. Colonialist domination especially where white supremacy is involved tries to destroy the humanity, dignity, and character of a nation. The process of organizing to seize power the process of learning to use armed struggle for that goal is part of a process of reclaiming human worth from the oppression of colonial domination. Supporting the process of people's war, including lending material support at the level of armed resistance, made perfect sense to me. I think that the emergence of the Black Panther Party and armed organizations within the Black Nation played a particular role for me, too, because I'd hated racism so passionately but had felt powerless to make any real change. The prospect of armed self-defense and armed struggle for Black liberation directly motivated me to take up armed struggle myself, because it seemed clear to me (and still does) that racism won't be eradicated without political power Black Power. And power won't be won without armed struggle. When I began doing solidarity work with Puerto Rico in the mid1970s, my understanding of the need for armed struggle was extended, because Puerto Rico was so clearly a nation directly colonized by the U.S. It was also a nation that had been engaged in a struggle for independence with many periods that included armed warfare and armed struggle. When the PUERTO RICAN ARMED FORCES OF NATIONAL LIBERATION (FALN) began doing actions in the 1970s at the same time that I was involved in Puerto Rico solidarity work, especially the struggle to free the Nationalist prisoners it gave me hope for the future. Those actions gave an idea of what would be necessary. RnB: Do you see armed struggle as a relevant strategy in the U.S. today? LW. Yes, I don't think armed struggle is ever an irrelevant form of struggle although it may take more or less prominence at different points in history. I'm reminded of something I was told by members of the Vietnam Women's Union during a trip there in 1975, right after the victory. They told of how hopeless the situation looked under the French especially following the burning of the rice crop in the 1930s. Peasants felt there was no chance of ever winning anything. It wasn't a good time to try to organize people into the Viet Minh resistance, because of the fear. In one village, cadres of the party worked to organize the peasants to beat drums at night something that the French occupiers outlawed. An elaborate plan was made for people to beat drums in various homes and in the rice fields, forcing the French soldiers to spend an entire night searching for one offender after another. At the end of the night, the soldiers withdrew, exhausted, to the rattattat of yet another drum! The point was that the village had gained courage and hope from the activity, leading eventually to an example of how armed actions could be carried out if there was a lot of cooperation and strategic planning. When the drumbeats were replaced by arms, the French were decisively driven out of one village after another. Of course, in that example the goal of the people was clear and united. I don't mean to make a simplistic analogy, but I do think that armed actions and the building for them can play a role a different kind of role in different periods. For example, I would have cheered (and I think lots of people would have) if there'd been some small actions against the Los Angeles Police Department after the Simi Valley verdict in the case of the beating of Rodney King. At the same time as I felt that mass action was most critical in that period, I believe that small armed actions would have made a positive difference. In terms of armed self-defense, I definitely believe it has a role to play today. I don't understand why a period marked by the strength of reactionary forces needs to be a period of only legal activities by leftists. That thinking allows fear to be perpetuated! I think that it's important to have good plans and to minimize the risk of arrest in this period more busts for long sentences wouldn't help much! But I don't think that means that all kinds of creative, illegal resistance should stop. Sometimes it seems to me particularly important to be thinking about illegal forms of struggle now, just because the right wing is in such control. It would be a shame for us to be caught unprepared as the state moves more toward all kinds of attacks on human rights, and as legal forms of struggle become fewer and riskier. I do think that the nature of armed action needs to be responsive to the level of struggle at any given time and to the level of mobilization and anger focused around any particular issue in question. From my own history, I think that bombing the U.S. Capitol and other political and military buildings after the invasion of Grenada (and while the U.S. was waging a counterrevolutionary offensive in Central America) was fine and correct. But I think it was wrong to raise, in our message claiming the Capitol action, the threat of killing congressmen and senators because it doesn't seem to me that assassination was anywhere within the realm of what the anti intervention and pro-Grenada movements in this country were thinking about or would be prepared to defend. It should be noted that many people in the COMMITTEE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF EL SALVADOR (CISPES) and other groups did defend the bombings themselves both at that time and later, even when they came under FBI scrutiny and after we were busted. RnB: Given some of your histories, what are some of the achievements or errors of the anti-imperialist movement and its armed clandestine organizations that you participated in? [Answered jointly by Laura and Marilyn:] LW & MB: It's a huge question, so we broke it down somewhat mechanically, and our answers will be shorthand. We felt strongly that the two areas the anti-imperialist movement and armed clandestine groups have to be looked at together, because they developed together. For the sake of this question's order, though, we began by responding to the two areas separately. We feel that anti-imperialist politics and organizations made a number of important ideological contributions. We derived our strategy of revolutionary anti-imperialism from Che Guevara's speech to Cuba's Tricontinental Congress and from the struggles his speech represented. To paraphrase his message: "Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams" ultimately defeating the system of U.S. led imperialism by freeing the colonies (or oppressed nations) whose land, labor, and resources provide the lifeblood of that system. We analyzed imperialism as a global system the highest stage of capitalism rather than as simply being the foreign policy of capitalism. We understood imperialism as the same system functioning inside the U.S. as well as throughout the world a very important point because it led us to focus on building solidarity with the national liberation struggles inside the U.S. Support for self-determination of the "internal colonies" the New Afrikan or Black nation, Native American nations, the Mexican nation, and Puerto Rico became a central issue in all of our work. The national liberation struggles themselves had consistently argued for this position within the broader progressive movement. We were internationalists, meaning that we supported all anti-imperialist struggles around the world. We also accepted the particular responsibility to support those nations directly colonized and oppressed by our own government. We were (still are!) working for socialist revolution. North American (or predominantly white) anti-imperialist groups embraced the view that alongside the oppressed nations inside the U.S. there exists an oppressor nation, made up of white people of all classes and organized by the power of white supremacy to function as part of any ruling-class strategy. White people, we believe, need to make a conscious decision and to take explicit action to ally with the oppressed instead of the oppressor. As members of that oppressor nation, we tried to analyze the affects of white skin privilege on us and on our organizations, as well as to remain aware of the effects on the oppressed nations. One of our main achievements was to recognize that white supremacy is an institutionalized system, in contrast to the more accepted view that racism is just a matter of bad ideas and attitudes. This gave us a different viewpoint from which to fight white supremacy on its many levels. These included education, agitation, demonstrations, campaigns, confrontations, and clandestine activities. In a variety of cities and over quite a number of years, many revolutionary anti-imperialists established a strong practice of work, including: fighting the Ku Klux Klan and other right-wing organizations, defending Black and Mexican communities under attack, supporting Black and Puerto Rican prisoners, exposing right-wing groups, building campaigns against racist killer cops and Klan in the police forces, etc. We also established material aid campaigns and clandestine support work for national liberation movements inside and outside the U.S. borders. Our understanding of the importance of fighting white supremacy and supporting the Puerto Rican and Black liberation struggles also led us to support prison struggles. We initiated projects in solidarity with political prisoners and prisoners of war. We worked to expose the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which was responsible for destroying organizations, killing Black leaders like Fred Hampton, and putting others in prison. In our work to support political prisoners and POWs, we tried to educate people not only about the injustice and criminality of the system that imprisoned them, but also about who these revolutionaries are and why the government was so afraid of them. The national liberation struggles and clandestine anti-imperialist allies acted to free political prisoners like Assata Shakur and WILLIAM MORALES. Nothing can ever cast a shadow on the importance of their freedom. These were achievements the public anti-imperialist movement played a role in as well, working to create an atmosphere of support within the community and resisting police and FBI attempts to find the liberated prisoners. From 1967 to the mid1980s, both the aboveground anti-imperialist organizations and the armed clandestine groups marched, demonstrated, and fought. We did armed and mass militant actions. We built material aid campaigns for most of the leading struggles for freedom around the world from Vietnam, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, the Congo/Zaire, and Zimbabwe; to the struggles at Wounded Knee, Big Mountain, and in Puerto Rico; to the Black Panther Party and all the struggles for independence, land, and political power led by revolutionary Black Nationalists in the national territory of the Republic of New Afrika. In building this work, we tried to do what the national liberation movements themselves defined as strategically important. At both the public and clandestine levels, revolutionary anti-imperialists united with progressive movements around the world who defined imperialism as the enemy. From the late 1960s to the present, we've supported struggles that were not popularly supported by many white leftists such as in Palestine, Iran, and Eritrea. Some of our errors included being unclear about what we meant when we said our strategy was carried out "under third world leadership." At times, we interpreted what the leadership of any given struggle was arguing for to suit our own politics. At other times, we became involved in debates inside other movements that were inappropriate for us to be active in. It's fine to have opinions and positions about the liberation struggles of other peoples whom you support, but it was and is wrong to intervene in the middle of debates within a national liberation struggle. It was an achievement to try to deal with the "time table" or agenda of struggle defined by the oppressed nations, rather than as it was determined by white leftists. This was especially true in the arena of armed struggle and other forms of militancy: the national struggles, as a result of national oppression and colonization, have a different objective relationship to the state than white leftists do. There has always been some level of warfare being waged by the ruling class against the oppressed nations; genocide mandates a timetable for struggle different from the relationship between any white people and the state. In the groups we've been part of, our level of militancy and armed struggle has been determined by the level of confrontation between the national struggles and the state. A big problem of our work was our inability to organize larger numbers of white people to work with us. While many people over the years attended activities and actions that we held, our standards of commitment were so stringent that people wouldn't join our groups. Internally, our misuses of "criticism/selfcriticism" and our strict methods of leadership served to weaken rather than to strengthen members. These methods also militated against wider recruitment. A revolutionary organization should build its members, becoming stronger in the process. Our sectarian approach to relations with other North American leftists also damaged our work on many levels. On an ideological level, we weren't able to resolve the relationship between the two poles of our politics: the contradictions between imperialism and the oppressed nations and the contradictions within the oppressor nation as a whole. For one thing, we never developed a thoroughgoing class analysis, nor a practice in workplace or community organizing. We didn't think that there could be legitimate or progressive struggles that go on in oppressor nation communities for example, struggles for reproductive rights or against domestic violence so we never created programs or practice to relate to such struggles. This gave much of our work an impermanent, transitory quality, as well as a limited (petitbourgeois) class character. Many of these clashes of achievement and error played out in our politics and practice on women's liberation. Most of our group's members were women, and lots of us were lesbians. In the armed groups, women were fighters and leaders. We were organized and inspired by the examples of Vietnam and other national liberation movements, where women played leading roles and women's liberation was fought for by women combatants in the stage of winning national independence. But we were confused as to what these lessons meant when transferred from the context of an oppressed nation to our own situation. Our analysis was that as women, we wouldn't win our liberation separate from defeating imperialism and transforming the structures of society toward a more collective, socialist model. We rejected as reformist the struggles for "equal rights" in a capitalist context and defined women's liberation as requiring a revolutionary confrontation with institutionalized male supremacy a socialist revolution. Women in developing socialist countries had confronted the harsh reality that the institutions and social attitudes of male supremacy did not automatically disappear with the victory of national liberation. Women have had to continue to struggle for their rights and to redefine their roles long after liberation has been won. Despite these theoretical understandings, we were unable to develop concrete strategies to organize women of the oppressor nation beyond solidarity work. We did not join in struggles specific to women which, while reformist, are important steps in the process to destroying male supremacy and its institutions. This was even more true of lesbian and gay liberation. So many of us and our comrades were dykes, yet support for lesbian and gay liberation was barely a part of our program. We listed it as something we struggled for, but never had any programmatic work to give it life. We failed to even struggle against homophobia when it presented itself, often keeping closeted about our own lesbianism. This was true even with some of our closest comrades in various third world liberation movements. We had been part of a strong anti-imperialist sector of the early antiwar and women's liberation movements and building actions in support of Vietnam and other national liberation struggles specifically as lesbians and women. But as time went on, we lost some of the content of our politics that had embraced human liberation on a broad revolutionary scale. In all of our work, we explicitly supported armed struggle, and that was important. Too many white left groups have supported anti-colonial struggles but have condemned their armed strategies. Many other white leftists, who did support armed struggle in national movements in other parts of the world, refused to accept the legitimacy of armed struggle inside the Puerto Rican, Black or New Afrikan, Native American, and Mexicano nations. One of our main achievements is that we not only supported armed struggle but also engaged in it, in solidarity with the national liberation movements. Some of our early actions were specifically meant to take the heat off of armed organizations in the national liberation struggles, and some of those actions succeeded in doing that. At other times, clandestine work was done in concert with a particular national liberation organization. In addition, our actions raised issues or chose targets based on solidarity. All of these were part of a revolutionary practice to fight imperialism alongside the national liberation struggles. The anti-imperialist armed clandestine groups argued that it was necessary for members of the oppressor nation to fight against the crimes of our own government. By putting this principle into practice, we tried to break through some of the legalism and passivity that has kept white radicals from active resistance. As the political tenor of the country gets more conservative and reactionary, we think that this was a very important contribution. Another contribution, growing from the recognition that we need to take the state seriously as our enemy, was our practice of building some radical work on a clandestine basis. Over the last several decades, various attempts have been made to build anti-imperialist, armed clandestine organizations. None of these attempts succeeded completely; they either self-destructed because of internal political problems or were captured by the state. But the attempts the direction and the commitment not just to protest but to actually fight injustice has been an achievement. A major ideological error made by many of us in the revolutionary anti-imperialist tendency was to view armed struggle at a strategy in and of itself. We adopted this concept out of context from the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, where the position was used at a certain moment for a certain purpose. In part, we tried to argue for a model of people's war at a time when there was debate over the use of armed struggle. We argued that all efforts and resources should focus on building the armed clandestine level of struggle. This argument ended up weakening and ultimately dismantling the critical areas of mass work and public organization that had been developed. Within the clandestine groups themselves, it meant that we emphasized taking action over building infrastructure and organizing. While we said we rejected focoism or small group strategies, for generating revolutionary activity we in fact developed a small group structure. We became more and more internalized and isolated. Along with significant errors in our analysis of the political conditions of the 1980s regarding the state and the forces of repression this contributed to the eventual arrest and destruction of our group. These reflections are all very abbreviated and partial. Questions of political strategy are important to look at historically, for the future of our struggle for liberation and justice inside the U.S. At some point, this history needs to be more fully examined. We feel it's important to begin the discussion, so that neither the advances nor the errors are left to be defined by the government or by bourgeois political historians. The role of resistance and armed struggle must not be lost in these fragmented, reactionary, and sometimes dispirited times. RnB: How have your years in prison and the changes in the world over these past years affected how you view and understand the systems of imperialism and oppression? LW: Being in prison has only reaffirmed my understanding of how imperialism operates: the painful cost it extracts from its oppressed subjects and the inextricable relationship between the system as a whole and white supremacy in particular (not to mention sexism). Being in prison has also awakened me to (lie isolation and elitism of a lot of the left at least the white left. Prisoners understand so much of what the system is and how it works, while the left often talks and acts like they're the only ones who understand anything. In addition, the language and organizing strategies of the left have so often been overly intellectual and removed from the actual practice of people's lives. In terms of world changes, I like most other leftists was floored by the Sandinista electoral defeat and by the crumbling of the bureaucratic "socialist" states. I often think about how much joy I took from the part of Lenin's Imperialism where he says that opportunism won't hold sway in the working class of any imperialist power for as long as it has in the English working class. Or about how we embraced Lenin's view of the crumbling of imperialism. Or how much I believed that through people's war the liberation of Puerto Rico and New Afrika would be taking place right about now, with a strong armed and political anti imperialist solidarity movement led by white oppressor nation communists. So I guess I'd have to cop to having to adjust my views to a different scenario and time table! What hasn't changed, though, is my view that there will eventually be successful struggles that develop a new form of socialism, that the fundamental contradictions of imperialism still exist and still cause suffering and necessitate resistance. What hasn't changed is my view that human beings will not settle for a culture of death. I also do not see any of the cataclysmic changes (like the breakup of the Soviet Union) as signifying the end of revolution. I believe that history develops unevenly, with defeats and setbacks as well as victories and advances. Sometimes when I hear leftists on the outside saying how impossible it is to do something or how difficult it is to stay political because of all the changes in the world, I get a creepy feeling. It reminds me of the trap that I think some of the "old left" the people of my parents' generation who were in or around the Communist Party U.S.A. and labor movement fell into. They put all their hope in the Soviet revolution, and when Stalin's atrocities were unmasked, they lost all faith in socialist struggle. They became bitter, depressed, and some became mouthpieces for virulent anti-communism. In addition to these vast changes in the world scene, I've also, during these past eleven years, seen some more encouraging developments. All over the Southeast of the U.S., to name one, there are new organizations led by African American women that are dealing with AIDS, health, and survival issues and doing it from either a revolutionary or a progressive perspective. As some of the women themselves say, these groups will form the backbone for a resistance movement in the future. That's one example among many I can think of, just from my own very limited experience, of how people are not giving up the struggle. It may be all on a smaller and narrower plane, but the struggle keeps on keeping on. RnB: Once you're in prison, does your political work end, or does "being a political prisoner" become your political work? LW: No not at all. I'd have to say my political work consists basically of three areas: being a political prisoner, organizing and being part of the struggles for justice inside the prisons, and being part of the fight against HIV and AIDS. The first one- being a political prisoner has many parts, including trying to break through the isolation of prison via correspondence and whatever phone calls or visits are possible. I try to contribute to the struggles in support of other political prisoners and POWs, like working on the art show and campaign to free Black political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. I try to conduct myself in prison according to principles of revolutionary morality, and I try to draw, write, and whatever I can do to help people on the outside know who political prisoners and POWs are. Part of this, of course, involves explaining to other prisoners why I'm a political prisoner. The second area has taken many forms for me, the simplest being individual aid like legal help to women trying to deal with their and their children's situation. A more complex aspect of this is being part of resistance inside whether as a member of an ongoing group representing prisoners' interests (which was possible for the year I was in Baltimore City jail) or through more clandestine organizing (like at the federal prison in Lexington, KY), where those who would plot and plan knew how to find one another. Organizing resistance in prison is like doing it any place else, only harder because of the extreme repression. The process that people go through to reach a point of willingness to resist is much the same. One of the happiest moments I've had in prison was when I was part of a resistance (a.k.a. riot) against racist cop brutality at Lexington. That act of rebellion joined by well over 100 women was like a momentary taste of freedom. Fighting injustices within the prison system involves : in particular, fighting racism from the staff and the institution but also among prisoners themselves. Working on and supporting Black History Month is an important part of this every year; it's always under attack. Finally, AIDS work is something I've done ever since the years I spent in the DC jail, watching women die of AIDS-related infections while no one would even consider that women could get HIV I've been active in AIDS counseling and education groups at Lexington, Marianna and here at Pleasanton. This is not static work it involves all kinds of activism, confrontation, as well as education and support. Through this work, I've felt very connected to AIDS activists on the street, both to the individuals who have sent videos and literature and arranged for speakers and to the militants who have demonstrated against the government and given people with AIDS (PWAS) in prison a sense of power, of not being alone. This work is one of the few places in prison where I can politicize being a lesbian, in a collective situation. Dealing with the issue of women and AIDS involves fighting genocide as well as racism and sexism. AIDS especially decimates third world communities, where women are infected at high rates. One of the most discouraging things I've seen about the progressive communities on the outside is the utter inattention by the white feminist movement or what still exists of such a movement to the issue of women and AIDS. It seems to me there should be a visible, ongoing battle against AIDS by the feminist movement but nothing like that is apparent in any of the feminist publications I see. RnB: What do you think are the most urgent situations facing political prisoners in the U.S. today? LW: The death penalty, control units, and the need for release: to free all political prisoners and prisoners of war. The death penalty is an issue every progressive person needs to address and fight. Among political prisoners, Mumia's life is still in danger, and antipolice brutality organizer Ajamu Nasser was executed by the state of Indiana in December 1995. His codefendant, Ziyon Yisrayah, faces the death penalty as well [editors note: Yisrayah was executed in 1996]. I think the massive support for Mumia last summer shows that the potential exists to organize a campaign to stop the death penalty. It's such a fundamental human rights issue. Control units are torture, and we have to be able to fight them. The goal of such units is to destroy the human personality and spirit. The maximum security unit in Florence, Colorado, sounds like a true nightmare, as is the one in Pelican Bay, California, and the growing number of state units, too. I see this as a life and death issue. The extraordinary length of political prisoners' and POWs' sentences and the refusal of the government to release anyone has got to be fought. I'm one of the lucky few I'll be released in 1999, after serving fifteen years in prison on a twentythreeyear sentence. When I get out, I plan to work on a campaign for the release for political prisoners and prisoners of war, with an international and a domestic component. The sentences that political prisoners and prisoners of war have received amount to death sentences, because of our age and because of the stresses that prison puts on our health. Nearly every other country recognizes that it holds political prisoners, and many have been released. Look at all the RED ARMY FRACTION (RAF) prisoners who have been released in Germany. It's only the U.S. that doles out such huge sentences and then denies that we're political. I don't care how unreal anyone says this goal is we need to fight for and win the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of war. Many of the political prisoners and POWs in the U.S. have served at the very least twenty-five years. Most have served much more. We cannot accept being buried alive. Finally, I think it needs saying that there are far too many prisoners of war and political prisoners who get no financial, personal, or political support, even from progressive people. It's extremely rough to be locked up without the funds to buy even basic hygiene things from commissary. Yet that is what a lot of POWs face. Comrades outside can contribute through a number of channels whether through the various organizations that represent Puerto Rican and New Afrikan prisoners or through the Anarchist Black Cross Federation's War Chest program. RnB: What are your thoughts on the current political climate and on possible strategies for movement building? LW: I've pretty much answered as much as I can of this in my responses to other questions. My view of the world outside is pieced together, though it's probably not much more inaccurate than the view some folks on the outside get, depending on their particular conditions. But I don't feel really confident about my ability to say much about a direction for "movement-building" work. I do think that it's a little off to talk about building a movement. I think a movement gets built by massive response to concrete conditions, not by the urging of organizers. What I think organizers can do is to lay the basis for what may become a movement, by the steady raising of issues or by smaller projects of practice. The Mumia campaign is an example albeit an unusual one. A small number of dedicated people produced videos, articles, etc. about Mumia and made it possible for Mumia himself to have access to print and broadcast media for his writings. When the death order was signed, people in the U.S. and across the planet responded and the information was available. Then a variety of groups got built up to carry out the work and hopefully to continue it after the mass outcry died down following the stay. It seems like projects dealing with racism, anti-immigration xenophobia, and the like are important at this time. When larger numbers of people respond to something, there needs to be an infrastructure to back the response up with. I think that this is especially true in a reactionary time like the present, when everyone is scrambling to survive and we know the tidal wave hasn't even hit yet. As for armed struggle or even just creative militancy, I still think it has a role to play. It's especially necessary when there's a response to some particular outrage by the cops or any other arm of the state like the beating of Rodney King, for just one well-known example. But here, too, there needs to be some preparation, something available to be called on. That's why I think revolutionaries shouldn't be strictly reacting to current events all the time, or giving up various forms of struggle or even analyses and words because of the mood of the moment. An example here would be to stop talking about or organizing against imperialism because it's not "popularly recognized" at the moment. I don't think the lesson of our past is that we used too many forms of struggle, but rather that we misordered them, making armed struggle the primary one in the early 1980s, when it should have played a more minor role. We used too few forms of struggle, as in not having seen the importance of the struggles in Central America. We failed to work in support of the mass demonstrations and other forms that the antiwar and anti-intervention movements took. I think it would be a serious mistake now to reach the opposite conclusion and renounce armed struggle and other more militant forms of struggle simply because this is a reactionary period. * Marilyn-David-Laura-Haiku Love for the people means nonstop struggle against imperialism David Gilbert, 10/97 David Gilbert David Gilbert was a founding member of Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and returned to Columbia three years later to be active in the 1968 student strike there. He is serving a seventy-five-year-to-life sentence on charges of participating, as an anti-racist ally of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), in a 1981 failed expropriation. David can be reached directly at # 83A6158, Attica Correctional Facility, Box 149, Attica, New York, 14011-0149 * RnB: Over the past years that you've been in prison since 1981 many changes have taken place in the world and in our movements. When you made your decision to take militant action, there was a sense of worldwide revolution on the rise. Now, although there are many trends of protest and fight back, reaction appears to have consolidated. In this context, do you regret the sacrifice you made to fight against U.S. imperialism? DG: I definitely hate being in prison and, especially, the burden that's placed on my loved ones. But I knew there were risks in going up against the power structure. The seventeen years in prison have only deepened my awareness of the totally antihuman nature of this social system. For example, with AIDS, prison administrators have generally displayed an inexcusable resistance to the peer education programs on prevention that could save many, many lives, and prisons have often acted with a heartless lack of care and support for prisoners with AIDS. And now I've experienced more directly how thoroughly racism and brutality are built into "criminal justice" in this country. There are about 1.5 million persons behind bars in the today. Without romanticizing the portion of crimes that prey upon the oppressed, the terrible rate and toll of incarceration is overwhelmingly the result of unjust racial and economic structures. In terms of our case, there were certainly specific errors that I regret tactical errors and political errors, too. Maybe we can characterize them later in the interview. These mistakes led to heavy human costs on both sides, and they also constituted a setback in the struggle against injustice. But in terms of the basic principles and the broad commitment to the struggle, I have no regrets. You see, I've always had this core feeling that people matter; that people of color, women, the poor, children, lesbian and gays are all my brothers and sisters; that my sense of myself is totally bound up in what happens to all of us. Once I saw how imperialism is such a relentless destroyer of human life and potential ... there really wasn't any other choice for me, no other way but to fight imperialism. On this level my only regret is not doing so more effectively. RnB: You refer to "the system" and "imperialism." In current radical discourse, it is more common to talk of various systems of oppression. How do you define imperialism? * DG: Imperialism is built on and incorporates the structures of patriarchy and capitalism. And it is important whatever name we use to recognize the fullness of all modes of oppression: class exploitation, male supremacy and the related homophobia, white supremacy, and the host of other ways human beings are demeaned and limited. But I think it all comes together in a more or less coherent social structure, with a range of sophisticated and brutal methods for a ruling class to maintain power. The value of the term "imperialism" is that it emphasizes the importance of a global system: the crucial polarization of wealth and power between a few rich and controlling "centers" (in Western Europe, the U.S., and Japan) and the impoverished "periphery" of the third world. The wealth of one pole is totally connected with the abject poverty of the other; the human and natural resources of the third world have been ruthlessly exploited to build up the developed economies. Thus, "imperialism" speaks most directly to the oppression of three-quarters of humankind. That vantage point helps us see why third world struggles have been so central in the modern world. And there is the added resonance with the foundation of the U.S. on the internal colonization of Native Americans, New Afrikans (Blacks), Mexicano/as, and Puertoriceno/as. Those structures help to explain the depths of racism within this country and why that has so often corroded potentially radical movements among white people. "Imperialism" is a summary word meant both to include all those elements author bell hooks underscores with the phrase "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" and to emphasize the importance of solidarity with third world struggles. RnB: Looking back over your own personal and political history, how did you first become politically aware and active? How and why did it lead you in an anti-imperialist direction? DG: Growing up in a white middle-class suburb where health care, good education and economic security were pretty much guaranteed, I was a fervent believer in democracy and the myth that there was equal opportunity for all. That myth was exploded for me at the age of fifteen, with the 1960 Greensboro, NC, sit-in. Not only did the growing civil rights movement expose the disgusting racism and inequality, but it also served as an inspiring example because of its humane sense of purpose, its strong sense of community, and the hopefulness that it generated. At this same time, I began to look critically at U.S. foreign policy and saw that quite contrary to "supporting democracy" the U.S. was systematically imposing ruthless dictators throughout the third world as guarantors of U.S. business interests. Guatemala and Iran were two salient examples from 1956. The CIA overthrew democratic governments to replace them with repressive regimes more favorable to extraction of the wealth by United Fruit and Gulf Oil, respectively. When I went to college at Columbia University, the most important experience for me was the opportunity to work in Harlem. In addition to the starkness of oppression there, I was deeply moved by the vitality of the culture and the spirit of resistance. People in Harlem certainly had a much more profound analysis of the social system than the political science professors at Columbia! That's what transformed me from a left-liberal who wanted to "uplift" the oppressed (to be more like me), to a radical who saw that oppressed people could run their own community far better than any outsider. The oppressed had to become the arbiters of their own destiny; self-determination was the key for moving all social change forward. This new appreciation of self-determination, along with my earlier study of foreign policy, enabled me to be an early opponent of blood-soaked U.S. intervention in Vietnam. In March 1965, I founded and was the first chairperson of the Columbia Independent Committee Against the War In Vietnam. That work led me to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), because I was looking for some group that combined antiwar work with antiracism, a belief in democracy, and at least a vague idea of socialism. Organizing a successful demonstration or a teach-in was never my main goal. From the beginning, my concern was to find ways to keep building to the point where we could actually make a difference in overturning the injustices, toward changes that would actually affect people's lives. That impetus led me to search for a deeper analysis of the power structure we faced. In 1967, I wrote the first SDS pamphlet that defined the system as "U.S. imperialism," and that analysis was my threshold into the ensuing revolutionary period. RnB: We hear all the time about people who were revolutionaries in the 1960s and who now have bought into white corporate America. What have been your experiences with this? * DG: There are, of course, those examples that the media have spotlighted. But most of the people that I know from the movements of the 1960s still try to find ways to implement the ideals of that period. Most are in human service areas like teaching or medicine or law. Beyond being "nicer" to their "clients" than most professionals, they are open to and looking for initiatives for empowerment from within the oppressed communities. Granted, only a precious few people of these individuals have been able to continue as full-time activists or have sustained a practice of confronting the power structure, but that shortcoming is more a problem of where we are all at collectively in the current period, in terms of building the type of movement we need. RnB: Some movement activists have expressed the idea that violence cannot be justified for any reason, and even a few political prisoners have said that they were wrong to engage in violent acts. What are your feelings on this? How have they changed over the years? DG: Those who hold power envelop us in a media virtual reality that makes political violence exclusively an issue of the actions of opponents of the system. It's obscene to accept those parameters, because they demand a heartless silence about the untold and incalculable violence of the system massive and brutal, yet unnoticed because it is structured into the foundation of the status quo. So let's start with just a glimpse of what the daily functioning of imperialism means in people's lives. Each year, twelve million children under the age of five die from malnutrition and easily preventable diseases that's 32,000 per day; 1.2 billion people live with virtually no access to health care; and 1.6 billion people don't even have direct access to drinkable water. One hundred million children lack the most basic schooling. This colossal suffering is not an act of nature. We easily produce enough to meet all basic human needs. Abject poverty continues so that, for example, the 358 richest individuals in the world can amass a combined net worth of 760 billion dollars, more than the combined net worth of the poorest two and half billion people put together. Enforcing such a vicious social order requires the repressive regimes around the world that have jailed, tortured, "disappeared," or murdered hundreds of thousands actually millions of persons. I was initially a pacifist, but never one who condemned the resistance of the oppressed. The only principled form of nonviolence as beautifully exemplified by people like DAVE DELLINGER or Fay Honey Knopp is to constantly and creatively struggle against the infinitely greater violence of the social system. After seven years of activism and analysis, I reluctantly concluded that there wasn't a chance against the forces of repression without developing a capacity for armed struggle. But there certainly have to be clear moral standards regarding how that struggle is implemented. With armed struggle as with any aspiration to play a "leading" role it is very easy to fall into the corruption of ego. So it is essential to have firm guidelines to keep such actions completely directed toward dismantling the power structure and to take the utmost precautions to avoid hurting civilians. We have to be sure that our action is always to further the interests of the oppressed and to build their participation rather than to aggrandize the armed group's own power and status. There have to be forms for criticism from and accountability to the oppressed. Of course, there are also critical issues about what constitutes an effective strategy, questions that I'm not addressing here but that are far from settled in today's world. RnB: How did you respond to the charges of violence in your own case? DG: During our trial, we were besieged by attacks on armed struggle of course from the mainstream but also, in various forms, from within the left. We felt embattled, and we in turn were very dogmatic in treating armed struggle as the principle rather than as one of the necessary means to fight to stop oppression. On a personal level, I regret that we weren't capable of expressing publicly a feeling of loss and pain for the families of the two officers and the guard who were killed. Even in a battle for a just cause, we can't lose our feeling for the human element. It's not like these three men were picked as targets for being especially heinous or conscious enforcers of the system. Rather, they just happened to be the representatives of the state's and banks' armed forces who responded on that day. So it must have felt like a completely senseless and bitter loss to their families. On our side, Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata was gunned down by police two days later, an irreparable loss of a committed and courageous BLA warrior. The pain of the human losses, on both sides, is even more regrettable because of the serious political errors we made in how this action came down. I feel sorry for the losses and pain of the families of those who were killed. I feel also the pain to my own family, who never got to make choices about the risks I would take. And I feel self-critical for political mistakes and setbacks in the struggle against this criminal social system. The cost of errors that are made in the course of armed struggle are very visible. It is a lot of responsibility. At the same time, it is a shame that the very grave errors of inaction, of not fighting hard enough, are rarely even noticed. What were the costs, in terms of violence, of the terrible passivity of most of the white left during the FBI and police campaigns of the 1960s and '70s, whose acts of annihilation against Black liberation resulted in the murder of dozens of Black activists and the decimation of the movement that had been the spearhead for social change in the U.S.? What was the toll from radicals' inaction while the FBI orchestrated the murders of sixty-nine AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM) members and supporters around the Pine Ridge Reservation in the three years after the high tide of resistance there? Please keep in mind, when discussing violence, how effectively the corporate media manipulates the most humane of emotions. Whenever enforcers of the system, or its allies, are hurt, we are presented, most vividly, with the human reality of their lives and the grieving of their families. But there is a terrible media silence about the far, far greater number of innocent victims of imperialist violence. They are not considered human beings; they are relegated to limbo, considered nonentities, by a media that simply presses the eras(, button on the video equipment. Take Guatemala. I mentioned earlier that the CIA overthrew a democratically elected government there in 1956. Since then, according to international human rights organizations, tens of thousands of Guatemalan civilians peasants, Indians, laborers, women, students have been "disappeared." "Disappeared" is a euphemism for when gangs of police or soldiers illegally kidnap suspected opponents of the regime. They are never seen again because they usually are tortured and interrogated and then murdered and buried in unmarked graves. This form of terrorism is common among the U.S.client regimes in Central America; in fact, the worst abuses come from military and police units whose leadership was trained in the U.S. Or, to take just one more example, how many people in the U.S. know that the worst genocide relative to population since the Holocaust is occurring in East Timor? Since Indonesia invaded that island in 1975, an estimated 200,000 of the 690,000 East Timorese have been killed. In addition, the social conditions imposed by occupation have left the East Timorese with the highest infant mortality rate in the world. Indonesia isn't just a close ally, supported and armed by the U.S.; the brutal military regime there was installed by a CIA-supported coup that involved massacring a half million Indonesians. Of course, it was all for a good cause. Today, Indonesian women work at Nike's factories for $2.10 per day. When you buy those Nike running shoes for $80.00, about $2.60 of that goes to pay the wages of the workers who made them. There are literally millions of other examples where the human realities are totally whited-out, off screen, out of print. I'm not saying that the antidote to the media's crass manipulation of our emotions is to cynically close ourselves to the human displays they do present. What I'm asking for instead is that we open our hearts and consciousness much more widely to know about and feel the many more people who are ripped apart by the naked political repression and barbarous social conditions inflicted by imperialism. These are all human beings, whose lives matter. When we look at the issue of violence in an honest and fully human way, the primary question becomes how can we most effectively change this unjust social system? RnB: What are the specific historical conditions that were the context for your decision to take up armed struggle? DG: Between 1969 and 1970, two main realities impelled us toward armed struggle. One was the intensity the human toll of the war in Indochina, that the U.S. government continued to escalate despite massive protests. The second was the series of murderous assaults on the Black liberation movement, conducted through the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). About forty members of the Black Panther Party killed from 1968 to 1971, and more than one thousand were imprisoned. It was also a time of mass uprisings, met by deadly state repression, in numerous New Afrikan ghettos. The WEATHER UNDERGROUND ORGANIZATION (WUO) arose from a commitment to raise the level of struggle in solidarity with Vietnamese and Black liberation. We also felt that such solidarity in practice was the cutting edge for building any truly revolutionary movement worthy of that name among white people. * You have to understand the context of the times; this wasn't some narrow conspiracy of a handful of people. In the context of powerful third world struggles, there was also a surging antiwar militancy among white youth: hundreds of Armed Forces ROTC buildings, military recruiting centers, and Bank of America branches were burnt to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in demonstrations that involved breaking windows at government buildings, or disrupting meetings of bigwigs, or resisting arrest. And there was a significant minority among the millions opposing the war who supported armed struggle. It was also a time when Vietnam offered a concrete example that U.S. imperialism could be defeated, especially if it was overextended by having to fight on many fronts. RnB: Do you see armed struggle as a relevant strategy in the U.S. today? DG: To me, the primary question isn't armed struggle per se, but rather the building of a strong anti-imperialist movement, or movements. That's what is most needed to move us forward. But it would be naive to build a serious movement without awareness that when this government feels threatened, it will attack. There is also the danger of the system's spawn (at times cooperating, and at other times contending), the armed right wing. I don't think that it is wise for movement people to feel pushed into actions that they can't handle or sustain, based on elevating armed struggle to an abstract principle. On the other hand, given the nature of the forces we face, a serious movement has to pay some attention to building some ways to function clandestinely (ways of operating without being observed by the state) and toward the development of an armed capacity. While I don't have much to say on strategy, I just want to add a quick note on armed self-defense, since that is the form that is most often seen as relevant and justified. It can be important, especially when it is done to help sustain mass struggle. But people also have to be aware of the strategic danger of being trapped in a static, defensive position where the government can bring in their overwhelming superiority of force. So a lot of the initial ways that armed struggle can help build the movement will instead require a guerrilla mentality looking for ways that the "propaganda of the deed" can help identify the enemy, show his potential vulnerabilities, embody our humanism, and encourage others to activism. But as I said, armed struggle is not the primary question now; building a strong anti-imperialist movement is. RnB: Given some of your history, what are some of the achievements or errors of the anti-imperialist movement and its armed clandestine organizations that you participated in? DG: Our first outstanding accomplishment was piercing the myth of government invincibility. In 1970, the conventional wisdom was that the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) wouldn't last a year because "the FBI always got their man"! But the WUO functioned for seven years until we split and disbanded due to internal political weaknesses and carried out more than twenty bombings of government and corporate buildings without so much as injuring a single civilian. Including other formations such as the UNITED FREEDOM FRONT, there was a fifteen-year history of white anti-imperialists carrying out armed action. Our other main achievement was the political example of fighting in solidarity with third world struggles. Our practice in this area was inconsistent and inadequate, but we did succeed at times in making this work a visible priority. It was also significant that so many women participated and were leaders in the clandestine organizations, although this did not mean that we were able to overcome our sexism in terms of our program or personal relationships. A main problem was various forms of racism. It's amazing how deep this stuff runs, that even while consciously opposing it, we continued to make racist errors. In some periods, we just built our own organization, enjoying the greater resources and the protection of being white without offering significant support to Black or Latino or Native armed struggle groups under attack. At worst, we even pretended to an overall leadership of a U.S. revolution." The opposite swing of the pendulum was to put ourselves under "direct third world leadership." But that became away of intervening in their struggles by throwing our resources to the group of our choice, before the strategic issues involved had been resolved by the national liberation movement as a whole. It's not that there is a set blueprint for the correct way to relate, but we need a better consciousness to avoid both the arrogance of total unaccountability or the interventionism of picking the third world leadership. These apparently opposite forms of racism have a common element: our wanting to be validated as "the most revolutionary white folks going" either through our own claim of leadership or, once that was discredited, through getting the stamp of approval from a heavy third world group. Another serious error has been militarism, which makes the military deeds and daring of a small group all-important, rather than the political principles and the concerted effort to build a movement at all levels. This error is usually bolstered by sectarianism, a contempt for those leftists who don't engage in armed struggle or who have a somewhat different political line. These errors are dangerous because you cut yourself off from potential allies and at the same time you tend to try to prove yourself by upping the military ante beyond what you can sustain. As costly as all the above errors were, they tended to recur in one formation after another. Looking at the repetition of these well-identified errors, I have to say it might not sound very political, but I think that it is 'that ego is one hell of a problem. You can be attracted to a cause for the most idealistic of reasons and can endure personal sacrifices to build an organization, only to get caught up in all kinds of maneuvers for power and status. Once you're into this dynamic, it is easy to rationalize that your only concern is for the cause. Very decent people, once in leadership, would become highly manipulative; former iconoclasts, once they became cadre, would abandon their critical faculties in order to curry favor with leadership. These patterns recurred so often that I think recriminations over which individuals were better or worse miss the point there's been a deep problem around process for building a revolutionary movement. By process, I mean how we conduct political discussion, how we make and implement policy decisions, how we treat each other as individuals. The Leninist theory Of DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM sounded beautiful, but in my experience the result was always overly hierarchical organizations. So I can only conclude that the theory itself is seriously flawed. I don't know of any well-defined solution to these problems. The women's movement has done some valuable, if uneven, work in this area, and perhaps the CHRISTIAN BASE COMMUNITIES in Latin America have as well. It is very difficult to achieve, simultaneously, a disciplined combat organization and a fully democratic and humane process yet both are emphatically necessary. There is an important sense in which we have to try to implement "the personal is political": the ideal we express in our politics must also be put into practice in our human relationships. Why hasn't there been more written on our errors? The obstacle of not giving up security details to the state can be readily overcome by focusing on the political themes and lessons. So I believe the main problem has been our reluctance to face up to and analyze our errors, along with the lack of consensus about them. There is no way to sugarcoat it: this dearth of self-criticism and analysis is a serious failure to carry out our responsibilities to the movement. RnB: How have your years in prison and the changes in the world over these past years affected how you view and understand the systems of imperialism and oppression? DG: The most salient changes over the past fifteen years are the ruthless redistribution of wealth from poor to rich and the globalization of the economy. These trends have been widely discussed, so I won't attempt to re-summarize them here. Instead I want to mention their underside: the increased fragmentation of the oppressed. The same organization of technology that makes for telecommunications and flexible production has enabled international capital to divide those it exploits into increasingly fractious subgroups, separated according to role in production, culture, and competing survival needs. You have inner-city Blacks, various communities of immigrant workers, women in suburban factories child laborers in Pakistan, and Scottish engineers, for example, all filling very different slots in production, with very different rewards and status. I think that NightVision [Butch Lee and Red Rover, Vagabond Press, NY, 1993] is a very useful book in jogging our minds out of the set categories from the 1960s and in beginning to look at the ways that people are pitted against each other today. This situation is the exact opposite of Marx's hopeful projection that modern industry would put workers of all nations, genders, ages, and cultures into a very similar situation, thus laying the basis for common action. The increased fragmentation, competition, and culture clashes pose giant problems that we have got to address for achieving unity, or at least strategic alliances, among the oppressed and for achieving revolutionary consciousness. * RnB: Does the collapse of communism spell the end of revolutionary potential for this era? DG: It has certainly been the most visible, dramatic turnaround, and it has contributed to the general sense of global decline of the left. But to me it is not at all the primary issue. Overwhelmingly the main problem has been the series of defeats since 1979 suffered by the national liberation movements in the third world. These movements mass-based uprisings of the most oppressed created the best hope for defeating imperialism and remaking the world on a humane basis. The Soviet Bloc countries, on the other hand, were never models of socialism; their progressive contribution in the post-World War II era was in the material aid they provided national liberation. My critical view here is not some latter-day wisdom. A main reason we called ourselves the "new left" was to emphasize our break from the Soviet Bloc and the old-line Communist parties. Perhaps our stance was wrongly tinged with some of the anti-communism with which we were raised, but the main points of our critique were on target: Bureaucratic state control emphatically is not socialism, which instead means social and economic control by the working and oppressed classes themselves. That can only be accomplished through active and participatory democracy on all levels of society. Most of the East European countries had the contradiction in terms of "revolution from above." Even in Russia, where there was a real and heroic revolution based in the working class, they failed to bring the majority, the peasants, into the process. That was the basis for some of Stalin's worst atrocities. This is not to say that the people in Eastern Europe are now better off with the fool's gold of "the free market." They are losing the highly developed version of the welfare state that was the most important internal achievement of the Soviet period. But the bureaucratic welfare state did not entail the popular participation and power that is essential to socialism. The new left critique did not mean we saw the Soviet Bloc as a main enemy. Overwhelmingly the primary oppressor and destroyer of human life and potential was and still is U.S.led imperialism. But the East European countries certainly weren't our leadership or our model for an alternative. Some new leftists came around to a more favorable view of the Soviet Bloc because of the importance of its aid to struggles such as Vietnam, Cuba and Angola. But for me, for many of us, that never spilled over into seeing them as "socialist." The great inspiration and hope for the new left were the national liberation movements, both internationally and within the U.S. These movements were all-important in two ways: First, the linchpin of imperialism's economic survival is the riches they extractvia cheap labor and raw materials from their economic control of the third world. A series of victories for national liberation "the domino effect" could fatally imperialism. In fact, I would argue that even the obsessive anti-communism of the cold war was more about the support that bloc could offer the struggles of the all-important exploitation zones of the South, trying to break from imperialist control. Secondly, these revolutions involved the most desperately oppressed people and represented the vast majority in the world. Most had some sense and practice that women's liberation is essential. Also, they stood for a complete overthrow of the old order. So the exhilarating hope was that the rising of the oppressed, the world's majority, could finally reshape society in a humane way. Therefore, the political definition of this period comes from the setbacks to national liberation after 1979, starting ten years before the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. I don't know of a definitive analysis of what happened or of current prospects. The high point was Vietnam's victory in 1975 and the wave of liberation through 1979. But even though Vietnam heroically won the war, the economic and social devastation was overwhelming. In Angola, Mozambique, and Nicaragua, imperialism showed that it could use a combination of economic and "low intensity" military warfare to bleed such small countries to the point that the social gains of revolutions were obliterated, with heartbreaking human suffering. The alternative approach to such costly confrontation was the negotiated agreements such as in Zimbabwe and South Africa that left most of the old basic economic structures in place. With both sets of movements, internal political weaknesses became very telling under such pressures. And we also have major responsibility or not being able to build especially since the early 1970s strong and effective solidarity movements within the imperial nations. Even Cuba, whose revolutionary accomplishments and resolve have been exemplary, is now having a terribly rough time with the combination of U.S. economic embargo and the collapse of Soviet aid. But, in a way, the most discouraging example to me is China, because they have the size and were well enough established to not be as vulnerable to external destabilization. And they had also made the breakthrough of deep roots in the peasantry. So the reality that China with all its monumental achievements moved in a bureaucratic, repressive, and capitalist direction is particularly telling. There are a series of historic questions posed by today's crisis for the left or, more importantly, crisis for oppressed people: What is the world balance of forces between imperialism and national liberation? What level of economic development and/or international cooperation is a prerequisite for revolution to be viable? How can the internal dynamics toward state bureaucracy and/or capitalism be overcome? What will it take to build a revolutionary movement and effective solidarity within the imperial nations? That was an awfully long response. To try to put it in a nutshell: The Soviet Bloc was neither socialist nor the main opposition to imperialism. Its collapse which followed in the wake of the setbacks to national liberation is most significant for the loss of vital aid to those movements. The real revolution and hope of the post-World War II era has been the rising of the most oppressed, the world's vast majority, in the third world. So the burning questions of the day involve what happened to those movements and what are the prospects for a new period of revolution. RnB: Once you're in prison, does your political work end, or does "being a political prisoner" become your political work? DG: It is most important to recognize that for those in the most repressive conditions like the federal control unit at Florence, Colorado, or on death row continuing to be a principled political person is in itself a victory. But for most of us, there are opportunities and a responsibility to continue active political work. Being a political prisoner is not just a status designation; it's a lifelong commitment to fight against injustice. RnB: What has your political work been? DG: From the beginning of my time in prison, I've tried to remain engaged with and contribute to the movement through political writings which usually got published in small-circulation, radical newspapers. From 1992 to 1997, I've also had the opportunity to write a regular book review column for New York City's Downtown magazine. Living within an oppressed community, I've tried to continue a practice as a white antiracist. In particular, I've worked to expose, in order to put in check, the brutality and racism endemic to prisons. Unfortunately, I can't say that my efforts have been very successful. On December 13, 1986, Kuwasi Balagoon my codefendant and a courageous Black Liberation Army warrior died in prison of AIDS. Ever since then, my main area of work has been AIDS in prison. It is by far the number one cause of death among New York State inmates, killing about 250 a year. In April 1987, I founded along with Mujahid Farid and Angel Nieves the first prisoners' peer education project on AIDS in the country. Corrections saw this as a threat as a form of "organizing" inmates and I was shipped out. I've been held in the most repressive prisons in the state since then. However, other sisters and brothers have developed good programs at a few other prisons including the first major success, at the women's prison in Bedford Hills. And even here at Comstock, after a very persistent effort, we have finally managed to piece together a half-decent peer project. RnB: What do you think are the most urgent situations facing political prisoners in the U.S. today? DG: The most urgent situation is Mumia AbuJamal the radical Black journalist facing execution after being framed for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia policeman. And, as Mumia is the first to emphasize, the effort to save him has got to be part of a broader campaign for the 3,000 other people on death row to stop the brutal and racist death penalty. Mumia is an excellent writer, with a magnetic personality. That's helped to build a growing movement, and it's been exciting for me to be able to feel active in it. But people have got to understand that it is still a very uphill battle; we have to build up a whole lot more momentum to stop the premeditated murder of this vibrant brother. * A second priority would be the case of LEONARD PELTIER, where there has been well-known and well-documented proof of frame-up. And there have been a number of other magnificent comrades like NuH WASHINGTON and SUNDIATA ACOLI who have been in prison since the early 1970s. There is a particularly harmful trend now toward super-repressive prisons "control units" such as the feds' Florence or California's Pelican Bay. They typically operate with a twenty-three-hour-a-day lock-down, where prisoners are totally isolated from one another and there is a total control over movement conditions designed to drive people crazy. Political prisoners and jail-house organizers have been prime candidates for such control units. RnB: What are your thoughts on the current political climate and on possible strategies for movement building? DG: This is a very dangerous period. The mass frustration in society with the breakdown of the economic security that was previously guaranteed to the majority of whites has been channeled against those with the least power: immigrants, women and children on welfare, prisoners. Such shameless and racist scapegoating, when fully developed, is a defining characteristic of fascism. While that has been mainly directed by those in power, there is also an armed white supremacist movement that is not simply a creation of the state. Some of those formations sincerely and vehemently oppose the government (which juggles to fulfill the ruling class's range of international interests) with a program that, in essence, calls for a return to the pioneer days' ethos that any white male had the right to lay violent claim to Native American land, New Afrikan labor, and female subservience. Such movements can become a radical right "alternative" to and savior for a failing capitalism, like the Nazi party was during the 1930s depression in Germany. The left has been tarred with the right wing's brush of "big government," due to the policies of liberals on the one hand and Stalinists on the other. But actually, with our commitment to self-determination and our struggle against the warfare and police state, revolutionaries have been the most consistent opponents of the massive repression functions of government. We now urgently need an activist movement that counters racist scapegoating by dramatically shining the floodlights on the real sources of the problems: - The lion's share of public welfare that goes to the rich via staggering interest payments on government debt, bank bailouts, porkbarrel military contracts, etc. - The unaccountable big bureaucracies of the transnational corporations, run by a handful of corporate executives who determine the life choices of the vast majority of people. - The "STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS" (SAPs) imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on over seventy third world countries. These are, in reality, draconian austerity measures designed to extract debt payment and cheap raw materials for the banks and industries of the North. The SAPS are the cutting edge for destroying human life and well-being in the world today. - The growth of big government in its most virulent form prisons, police, military might, and the concomitant attacks on civil liberties. The alternative has to be all about humane use of social resources, controlled by grassroots organizations within the oppressed communities. Early ACTUP and others efforts around AIDS in the gay community provided a positive example; the environmental racism movement in many third world communities is another very good example. There is a lot of social activism going on, just not that much sense of a coherent or forceful overall movement. It seems that a big part of the challenge before us I really don't know how to do it is to find ways to connect the range of different oppressions, against our common enemy, imperialism, and to find ways to synthesize grassroots activism with a global consciousness and solidarity. * Marilyn Buck Marilyn Buck was among the first women to address the national Students for a Democratic Society (SDS, a radical, mass antiwar organization) around issues of sexism. Her experiences working with the Black community and protesting the Vietnam War led to her consistent resistance. Marilyn was an early worker with Newsreel, an educational institution which documents people's movements through film and video to this day. A longtime antiracist ally of the Black Liberation Army, she is serving an eighty-year sentence for conspiracies to free political prisoners allegedly Assata Shakur, to protest and alter government policies through the use of violence, and to raise funds for Black liberation organizations through expropriations. Marilyn can be reached directly at #00482285, FCI Pleasanton, 5701 8th Street,Camp Parks B, Dublin, CA 94568. * RnB: Over the past years that you've been in prison, many changes have taken place in the world and in our movements. When you made your decision to take militant action, there was a sense of worldwide revolution on the rise. Now, although there are many trends of protest and fight back, reaction appears to have consolidated. In this context, do you regret the sacrifice you made to fight against U.S. imperialism? MB: Though the war between the forces of reaction the imperialists and their lackeys and the oppressed and exploited peoples and nations of the world may have been won by the former, advances have been made. The story of this next century has only begun to be developed. Perhaps it may seem that there is not an ascendant movement that can win against such a powerful corporate military enemy, but he is corrupt eating away at his own entrails; and, true, there are millions of people beat down, angry, protesting, and fighting back. Look at the Zapatistas. Their voice circles the globe, fiercely crying out resistance. Who will join them next? Can we not say that at some moment before us, the movement for liberation and social justice will coalesce to challenge the power of the international financial lords who rape and pillage? Do there not continue to be contradictions among those who rule? How long can the exploited and dispossessed endure? The enemy of humanity is not invincible! So, you ask, was it worthwhile to sacrifice, when we have lost I I this is round? Absolutely. To give up my values and belief in the I rights t s of human beings to be free from oppression, to be free and I safe to live and develop societies based on inequality and injustice that it would be a sacrifice of the soul. There's no doubt that the prices paid and gains made have me saddened, angry, with a taste of bitterness in my mouth the taste of blood spilled, the bodies and minds crippled and interred. I feel immense sorrow that the human potential of so many millions including my own has been cut off, shackled, and chained. Revolutionaries are lovers of humanity with all its/our greatness and weakness. Who among us the political prisoners and POWs in the U.S. would not be doing something socially or politically progressive-if we were released from behind these walls and concertina wire. We bring an incredible amount of history, experience, and humanity to all that we do. Despite the constraints, I am not dead. I am alive, looking always to the future, always looking to be a part of political-social progress. I have too much to offer I can still think, analyze, be a productive person. I, along with all the other political prisoners, provide an example, experience, and the potential of resistance, steadfastness, hope. Those who have died are remembered, even if not by name. We are the fertilizer for the future, but are not ready to be relegated to museums, to be objects to be displayed. I feel the pain of every single day here. I regret and miss the simple things family, children, a lover, separation from comrades, and involvement in political struggle. But after each nightmare of a day passes, it is history and I look forward to what is to come. Nevertheless, my name is not Pollyanna. I believe the political, social, and economic conditions will only get worse before movements consolidate to seriously take on state power. I don't look forward to all that means, either here in the deepest belly of the beast or there in the streets. Suffering does not wear well. I see a much more brutal fascist regime on the near horizon. The legal machinery for it is in place from the death penalty, to the prison warehouse/factories, to laws based in racial genocide and class extermination. More and more people particularly those of the colonized nations will be sacrificed to its blood-consuming appetites. Who will stand up, who will be part of the resistance force that refuses to accept barbarity, genocide? I will be, however I can be. RnB: Looking back over your own personal and political history, how did you first become politically aware and active? How and why did it lead you in an anti-imperialist direction? MB: I became politically aware before I became politically active. Awareness is a process of observing the world around you, integrating your own experiences to those beyond yours. Nevertheless, without action, awareness is unrealized, or even suppressed, potential. My father was a civil rights activist a minister. So I was raised with a set of human-oriented values and ethics. But as a teenager I did not join in the civil rights movement. I did nothing. Instead I wanted to fit in, be popular, though in one sense I could not be, because of who my father was. I resented that then. I understood not too many years later. The seeds of my own discord lay in being "female" in this society. This was an oppression I could identify, understand, and ferment from this place. I could see beyond dry intellectual awareness of injustice, inequality, oppression, to the need to do something to break out of this bondage. But I did not know what to do, except be angry, alienated. So even when the war in Vietnam escalated in 1965, I still did not protest. My awareness had not gone beyond my own subjective white, middle-class, female reality. Then, in college, I did transcend that subjective isolation. There was a lot of social and political ferment. I was skeptical that sit-ins and moral outrage could end the war. But more militant sectors were rallying. When the Black Power movement emerged from the civil rights movement, raising questions of power, I was vitalized, yanked up out of my chair of skepticism and alienation, and moved to activism. Of course that also meant having to learn about and understand power and the system imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, male supremacy, capitalist exploitation. The Black Power movement gave me the tools to put in perspective my own oppression as a woman in relation to issues of national oppression and class exploitation. It also i I so challenged my complacency as a good white person who does no harm to others, but also had not confronted the haters and murderers the state, the Klan, etc. I had not acted! I joined SDS, an activist, vital student organization at that time (1967). The concept of participatory democracy for all people motivated me. So did socialism. I also began learning more about national liberation. I went from being against the war in Vietnam to being actively in support of the NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT (NLF) and North Vietnam. These women and men not only wanted to be in control of their national territory, but they wanted to construct a new society in which all citizens could participate and gain equal treatment. And if the Vietnamese had the right to build a new society, did not every other colonized, oppressed nation have that right, including right in the U.S.? Young Black men and women, young Chicanos, Asians, and Native Americans were making demand on the American state. They were and still are just demands. I, along with many other white radicals, grasped the justness and the necessity of these demands. We supported those liberation movements as well as those beyond the borders from Vietnam to Cuba to Angola, Mozambique, and Palestine. We supported insurgencies in Columbia and Uruguay, in Iran and Eritrea. * Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without struggle." Che Guevara said two, three more Vietnams and went to Bolivia, giving up his secure, relatively comfortable place in building a Cuban revolutionary society. He died there, murdered by the Bolivian army supported by U.S. CIA/military advisers. Malcolm X said that Black people must gain their freedom "by any means necessary." How could I as a white person, a socialist, and an internationalist sit by and support people struggling here and around the world, without standing up as well? It is a risk to live; one can sit still and die. When I and others were called on and challenged, we responded. We were already prepared to act: we had been moved by the experience of the Tupamaros in Uruguay who engaged in urban guerrilla warfare. We had a wealth of experience to draw on and believed it possible here, particularly because of the rise of the Black Liberation movement. In the late '60s and early '70s, those who fought against oppression and challenged the state were not called "terrorists." That is a term the U.S. government began to use later, after it lost the war to Vietnam, once it began to revise history and try to regain its position and power, once it had begun to have success in suppressing the revolutionary, liberation movements in this country, using COINTELPRO and its repressive apparatus. So now I am here, an enemy of the state, called all kinds of things from criminal to terrorist, everything but what we are political prisoners. RnB: We hear all the time about people who were revolutionaries in the 1960s and who now have bought into white corporate America. What have been your experiences with this? MB: I have been treated as an enemy of the state a traitor to the white race. So I am not holding my breath waiting for any calls. Well, I've not been asked to join white corporate America so I have no experiences in that realm. Thank goodness. Since I lost my desire to become a woman economist, Wall Street type a very short-lived desire, from a high school senior until about three weeks into Economics 101 I haven't wanted to join in the system. In fact, white U.S. culture as a whole, I find to be very deadening, even though I'm white and live in it. Perhaps it's because it is not only deadening but deadly to most people of the world (and plants and animals, by the way). But we all live in and experience this white-supremacist-based society. Our education, point of view, is formed and framed by this world we live in. Even though there are white people who have morals and ethics who reject as unjust, inhuman, the oppressive nature of this society. It is very difficult not to succumb to the privileges and comforts of this society. Even many from oppressed nations and minorities have access to some of the materialistic-consumer benefits of this society if it can be paid for in cash or on credit. It becomes easy to buy into the society but still see oneself in opposition to its excesses and injustices. Therein lies the material base of many debacles over social democracy, revolution, etc. What is most difficult is to challenge the system that makes this society and culture so alluring and habit forming. If you believe your eyes, and open them up to find yourself an addict, though perhaps you deny the addiction. After all, there are some good things. But do they outweigh the vast array of negative, deadly, disastrous consequences heaped upon the majority of the world's peoples? So it is not unexpected. I understand it, But I do not condone such accommodation, not even after nearly fifty years of living here. However, until there is a rise of progressive, radical, and revolutionary struggle, many will continue to burn out, dropout, "take a break." It is hardest to be a revolutionary in a non-revolutionary period. And we've been in a non-revolutionary period for more than fifteen years. There is cynicism, despair, defeat, and self-protectiveness and, of course, that monster, "fear." A whole generation has grown up under such conditions. I think about Bertolt Brecht's observation: There are those who struggle for a day and they are good. There are those who struggle for a year and they are better. There are those who struggle years and they are very good. But there are those who struggle all their lives, and they are the indispensable ones. RnB: Some movement activists have expressed the idea that violence cannot be justified for any reason, and even a few political prisoners have said that they were wrong to engage in violent acts. What are your feelings on this? How have they changed over the years? MB: Violence cannot be justified for any reason... Does that mean that an individual or group or nation cannot justify defending themselves when they are beaten down, murdered, starved, worked to death? * Without resistance to the evils of oppression and exploitation, colonialism would still be in full force worldwide, women would be beaten and murdered with impunity, chattel slavery would be the order of the day. Resistance and violence from the oppressed can never weigh heavier than that of the rulers and state power! Should Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Emiliano Zapata, Ho Chi Minh, Sitting Bull be dismissed as heroes of the oppressed because they fought? Even bourgeois law recognized the right to self-defense. The Nuremberg Conventions written after World War II state that citizens have a moral obligation to resist immoral and genocidal governments. I think many people have lost a sense of perspective a view of justice; they are intellectually and emotionally caught up in a false dichotomy successfully constructed by U.S. state power: everything that is active may be considered as violence unless carried out or condemned by the state itself; state violence equals the natural order of things, bestowed by power. (The state exists to ensure that the ruling owner class maintains power and control over all other classes.) In particular, political responses are criminalized, demonized. We should not allow ourselves to get caught up in government-speak. The whole hysteria over violence is whipped up to divert from the real issues of power who has it and is therefore permitted to use it against those who do not. This society is plunged into an orgy of senseless violence. It is promoted in TV, radio, movies, sports. This is truly horrifying, particularly because it is so well orchestrated and promoted by the state. Again, such violence is diversionary; to make the violence of poverty, white supremacy, against women and gay people, and of capitalist exploitation seem acceptable, natural. It is abhorrent to me not to challenge and resist such forces of death. If I did not resist, would I not be condoning state violence and terrorism? Wouldn't you? Over my many years of struggle I have learned that overthrowing this vile, people-hating system is not a simple, direct task. It is not to be achieved by random actions or acting to be acting or to relieve frustration. Action without a clear strategy based on a materialist analysis of both the objective and subjective conditions will not either necessarily advance the struggle, nor spontaneously organize the masses of people to join. At the same time, change and victory are not possible without acting. Seizing power is by its nature a violent act, even if one does not march in with rifles. Social and political change are slow conditions. In the final analysis, it will only be through organized resistance that imperialism and capitalism, with all their intrinsic forms of violent oppression, will be overthrown. And only winning will enable any of us truly to speak of justice or justification. RnB: What were the specific historical conditions that were the context for your decision to take up armed struggle? MB: At the end of the Second World War, there was a rise in the anti-colonial struggles worldwide. Nations chained and gagged by European and American colonialism rose up, ripped d the gags from their mouths, and cried, "Freedom." National liberation was on the march. Vietnam was one of those nations. They defeated the French in 1954; within a short time, the U.S. was trying to reestablish domination from the South over the North. Cuba threw off the he shackles of a dictatorship so corrupt that even the U.S. felt embarrassed to be supporting it and the mafia; it was when it declared itself independent that the U.S. instituted its war. In the U.S. after Black soldiers had returned from fighting in World War II, there was a rising up to demand justice, civil rights, economic inclusion; Latinos, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans demanded self-determination and independence. It was a historical moment. There was a sense of a new world, standing up poised to emerge from the dungeons in which it had lain shackled and gagged. People worldwide picked up arms to take back their lives, their lands, their human rights and dignity. Armed struggle was a means to drive out the imperialist dictatorship of the colonizers, to force the military or oligarchical dictatorships that were bleeding to death the masses of people in many countries. My consciousness was stirred; my complacency as an American woman nan was challenged. I had been brought up to be believe in justice, democracy, equality, and to question. And as a woman I felt held back, constrained. All the little inequalities fueled by anger and the necessity to be part of the new world. However, it was the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party that awakened many young people to the fact that there was a wax raging against the dispossessed led by this very country the belly of the beast, as Che Guevara referred to the U.S. and it was time to fight back. The Palestinians, in their own way, also had a boldness of "dare to struggle, dare to win" which electrified the whole world. How many more could I name.... This was our generation's moment. A time when even those of us from the oppressor nation could step forward to call capitalism and imperialism for what they were and continue to be the oppressor of humanity. We joined the tide of humanity to throw off the chains of our own role in the white privileged oppressor state and stand side by side in a class and national liberation's struggle. Liberation and justice benefit everyone, including those of the oppressor nation. Perhaps it does not look like it on the face of it, but to live in a society defined by injustice, cruelty, genocide, violence, and exploitation can only crush the spirit and inevitably, as it has now happened, create such a deformed, decadent society that the dominant social manifestation is fear and mental illness. I still believe we can live in a different kind of society where we all contribute according to our ability but share according to our needs, where there exists an equality among peoples and nations, regardless of skin color, language, culture, sex, or sexual orientation. Nevertheless, we now live in a moment when revolutionary momentum has been set back gravely and the forces of totalitarian fascism and capitalist greed are prevailing. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze how to rebuild the forces of liberation and justice. We must not succumb to defeat, but learn from that defeat and breathe strength and endurance back to our march forward to justice and peace. Despite all the setbacks, the increasing genocide, and commiseration of the vast majority, we are a step ahead of where we were. We have experiences, glimpses of the possibilities we did not have thirty years ago. I hear many folk bemoan the corruption of the Vietnamese economic relations, saying in the end, they are lost. But imagine, what would Vietnam be like today had they lost the war to the U.S. in the '70s? Where would the Cuban people be if they had capitulated to U.S. imperialism? Or where would young people in the U.S. today who experience the losses, the increasing exploitation, marginalization, the racial genocide, be if there were not the experience of the Black Panther Party, the REVOLUTIONARY ACTION MOVEMENT (RAM), the American Indian Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, LA RAZA, the Puerto Rican nationalists, and all the clandestine resistance organizations and we, the political prisoners, who survived even though buried alive in these prison camps? RnB: Do you see armed struggle as a relevant strategy in the U.S. today? MB: I'm not sure what the most relevant strategy is today. A focoist strategy will not likely work it worked only in very particular circumstances. In the concept of people's war, advanced throughout the Chinese revolution and Vietnamese liberation war, popular forces must first be organized and mobilized before an armed strategy can seriously begin, again in particular circumstances. Urban guerrilla warfare? Well, the base does not exist, and it certainly was smashed in the '60s and '70s. Armed propaganda? Small, armed clandestine groups were able in this country to ignite popular resistance for a multitude of reasons. Do the conditions of ferment and discontent with the state exist, or does the vast majority either have faith in the state with reforms or fear other specters raised by the state more. There are a multitude of questions to examine, analyze, and answer. I'm not in a position to understand all the social and political forces at play and do not have the benefit of significant analytical or political dialogue and struggle with people who might be trying to get a sense of direction, to regroup after this extended mourning over the "fall of the Wall." I hope the shock and sense of defeat has passed sufficiently to begin looking forward beyond the siege mentality or the single-issue focus. We definitely need a vision a clear-eyed, revolutionary analysis and a political strategy. Only in such a context can the question of armed struggle as a strategic force be understood and considered. However, we as actors in the creation of human history can build our forces, strengthen our own subjective conditions to the degree where objective conditions can be affected. We also have the necessity and responsibility to defend against oppression and exploitation. What will happen if the forces of fascism the U.S. government "go ballistic" and implement aspects of its repressive machinery? Will political folks be ready to resist to survive! to function as a resistance movement. Or will there be small groups of individuals being brave but not able to fire up the popular will to fight back against genocide and terror. The war for liberation is indeed a battle for hearts and minds. I also still believe that it will be the international class struggle primarily the former and continuing colonies will be the motor force of a resurgence of revolutionary struggle. Nevertheless, as people of the imperialist nation, it remains our responsibility and desire to support and act in solidarity with emerging struggles, as well as to create the vision and strategy to change the nature of this society! After all, is not this U.S. with its corporate capitalism and military expansiveness not a primary cause of human misery worldwide. Would we not be better able to develop human potential, democracy, justice, liberation in a non-oppressor society? RnB: Given some of your histories, what are some of the achievements or errors of the anti-imperialist movement and its armed clandestine organizations that you participated in? [See Laura and Marilyn's joint answer on page 16] RnB: How have your years in prison and the changes in the world over these past years affected how you view and understand the systems of imperialism and oppression? MB: Being in prison hasn't affected my view of imperialism. The objective reality of what imperialism is and how it functions does not change because the individual's relationship to it has changed. Prison does expose capitalist relations, at its crudest exploitation of labor, repression and very stark national oppression, white supremacist ideology, and how it all plays out in the consummate institution of repression. In this post-Vietnam war period (the postcolonial now neocolonial-period), the imperialist states in concert with their financial bourgeoisie masters and cohorts have regrouped and redeployed their forces. Because they have to scramble harder than ever for profits, control of resources, and markets worldwide, the silk gloves have been stripped off to free up the iron fist to grab more voraciously. Working people worldwide axe forced into worse conditions than ever before. Here prisons have become the vehicle of of cultural and national genocide and, perhaps as importantly, a new "captive" market and cheap labor force. The nearest institution to slavery but a kind in which to live, we must pay to be enslaved! Being in prison makes me understand, every single repressive day, how dehumanizing, cruel, and avaricious imperialism is. I am a more staunch anti-imperialist than ever. I've learned much from the disarticulation of the socialist camp. Socialism can not develop and maintain [itself] very well in one country, certainly, not when it is under attack by imperialism and international finance capital. Cuba is the strongest example remaining of what is possible under socialism; they have not lost the war. (And we all need to support them in their resistance and battle to not be washed back into the sea of capitalist corruption and imperial domination.) We have also learned how socialist principles can be corrupted. We have learned that war of national liberation does not ensure liberation from the masses of capitalist exploitation, male domination, racial discrimination or homophobia. Che Guevara was a visionary when he talked about the necessity to build the "socialist man" and woman. Women have found in liberation wars from Vietnam to Zimbabwe, have made gains in the former "socialist" bloc, and have been beat back (and betrayed). National liberation and socialism in and of themselves have not ensured our liberation as women; because in the main, we women in struggle have believed that these struggles and projects would naturally include our liberation. So we have become more strategic, more determined that we must be equal in revolutionary struggles. We cannot be token, or lulled into standing aside. I believe more than ever that if we want to rebuild the forces for revolution and social change, women must assume more ideological and active leadership. Our brothers, if they truly want to see revolutionary change, need to wake up. Liberation cannot be truly achieved off of anyone else's back. Finally, regarding the U.S. in particular. We face a century of true barbarism, more pronounced than this one in which we have at least glimpsed the potential for liberation and justice... unless and until white people who do argue for liberation, justice, and human rights take on white supremacy and do active battle against racism and genocide. This means supporting the oppressed and colonized nations' right to self-determination and independence Puerto Rico, the New African/Black nation, Native American people, Hawaiians, Mexicans. Without equality of nations, there can be no justice. There will be no economic-political system that will emerge that has the potential to defend and nurture human beings. RnB: Once you're in prison, does your political work end, or does "being a political prisoner" become your political work? MB: One can never rest on one's laurels. Without engaging in ongoing political work and struggle one does not remain politically centered. The purpose of prison is to stifle, attack, and destroy a person's ethical, political, social character. Unless we resist that, then we begin to lose who we are. It is through political work and struggle that we can maintain our political and social identities. It is easy to lose a sense of who you are. To enter prison is to enter another world where the basic propositions are different deformed. A defective mirror world that recreates the world of capitalist relations. Each of us finds different ways to work, not unlike the vast extent of political life for you who live in the world. There you may be ideologues, community activists, organization builders, solidarity and support groups, and/or cultural workers. Here we do the same. I see my daily existence as political work. This means first and foremost that I not succumb to corruption, that I be principled, honest, and straightforward in my dealings with everyone. That is not a simple undertaking. Resisting corruption is a reality for you in the world as well! I engage in political projects, including AIDS peer group work, support for cultural activities,education projects, etc. I have taught classes and am now tutoring. I see education as an important role here. Most of this work has a primarily social character but reflects my own political beliefs in the necessity to secure the tools for reliance. And of course I along with others struggle over conditions when and where possible and confront racism. Our political work would be comparable to that of you who engage in community political work. Presently most of us are actively involved in building the campaign to save Mumia from the death penalty and ultimately to free him along with all political prisoners and POWs. I participate in some of the control unit work and am an advocate that we in the left take in more strategically the death penalty as a particular embodiment of racial genocide as a class bludgeon. The left as a whole has not paid much mind to fighting the death penalty. We have been wrong not to do so. The climate created by the restoration of the death penalty has led to open hunting season against Black people in particular; the police have more license than ever to attack, brutalize, frame, and murder black people. There is a growing index of white on black violence including assaults by racist white youth, even preteens. The entire social climate has degenerated. The state can kill whom it wants regardless of issues of law and justice. The lynching mentality is becoming prevalent. Will we let the struggles led by IDA B. WELLS, W.E.B. Du Bois and countless other African people to create an anti-lynching-climate and social contract be tossed into the waste bin of history? I am also a strong advocate to free political prisoners/POWs and also to take on the U.S. prison plantation system. Being a political prisoner is not my only work. I think it is wasteful and shortsighted to relegate political prisoners to only working around themselves. Just because we axe prisoners does not mean that we have lost our reasoning analytical powers. We still have a world views based on long years of experience. Too many, even in our political movements would prefer to relegate us to museum pieces, objects of campaigns perhaps, but not political subjects and comrades in an ongoing political struggle against imperialism, oppression, and exploitation. The state tries to isolate us, true; that makes it all the more important not to let it succeed in its proposition. We fight for political identity and association from here; it is important that political forces on the outside not lose sight of why the state wants to isolate and destroy us, and therefore fight to include us in political life ideological struggle, etc. In many struggles many militants have been exiled yet they have still been considered part of their struggles, not merely objects. We, we here, could be considered internally exiled. Don't lock us into roles as objects or symbols. RnB: What do you think are the most urgent situations facing political prisoners in the U.S. today? MB: The most urgent issues in the U.S. are not exclusive to political prisoners. While we may be in the most repressive conditions, the degree of repression correlates to the overall condition of society. Our issues are extreme versions of yours. There are several aspects of the U.S. situation that are most critical: white supremacy and racial, genocidal oppression; fascism; and the brutal face of capitalism. The in-your-face contempt for human beings is alarming. Prisons are being built and overfilled. Fascism is upon us; folks do not seem to understand that the rise of the prison economy is central to that. The propaganda and pseudo-science prepares folks to believe and accept that whole sectors are born to be criminals and therefore undeserving of social programs, much less human rights. Money is being made off the commiseration of the "prison class." If one believes that the state of a society's prisons reflects the state of the society, then the clamor for more inhumane treatment of prisoners only reinforces what is the current of society as a whole. But yes, we do have urgent problems increasing repression most cruelly expressed in the control units, special housing units, etc. ripping away the full civil and human rights we have, squeezing every penny possible from us (and our families, friends, comrades) as well as our labor. The conditions are deteriorating rapidly. Cruelty has been unleashed full force. Most of the U.S. political prisoners have walked through hell for more than 10 years now, some for 25 years or more. It is getting worse. I guess one could say that the most urgent situations facing us are those of staying alive, maintaining our political and social identities. We need more support * However, I see many folks leaving political prisoner work to the side as if it and prison work are not relevant or strategic to the U. S. internal program and strategy then how can political prisoners/POWs and prisons be integral to the strategies of justice and liberation? RnB:What are your thoughts on the current political climate and on possible strategies for movement building? MB: I think we are in the midst of a fascist consolidation. The iron fist has not yet manifest itself fully, but it will. It appears to me that the white Left in general does not share such a view. Of course, in Germany in the late '20s and early '30s most German citizens did not experience rising Nazism as dangerous to their social existence not until military bombings, food shortages, etc. Most people were little concerned about the death and concentration camps. Dead and imprisoned communists, mass genocide of Jewish and Gypsy peoples and Soviet citizens, were not of concern to the vast majority. But these camps and prisons were hell for the imprisoned and moneymakers for the capitalist class seizure of property, slave labor, etc. There is a crying need for stronger antiracist organizations. I do not believe that any white person who says he or she believes in and supports the goals of justice, human rights, liberation, cannot engage in organized antiracist activity and still call her or himself progressive, radical, or left. How can any woman who identifies herself as a feminist not struggle against racism, white supremacy after all, those peoples who are oppressed are at least 50 percent women! W. E. B. Du Bois posed that the problem of the color line is the problem of the 20th century. It still is and will be in the 21st century. Issues of class and gendersex oppression cannot be separated from the issue of racial domination and white supremacy. And if we white people who are progressive will not stand up to resist racial genocide and barbaric U.S. policies, what other white people will. In the U.S. the conditions of scapegoating setting up a group (or groups) of people are well entrenched. People of African descent have been treated historically as the enemy, the scapegoats, the "other," and most of all as inferior because of one of the pillars and justifications of American history white supremacy. Not only African people are under increasing attack. All other people identifiable as not 'American" by their skin color or name or physical characteristic are also targets. There needs to be a refocusing on issues of liberation and justice. More anti-imperialism. It is not enough to hate the state because it is a state; we need to be able to support peoples around the world who are in opposition to imperialism to support ongoing national liberation movements from the Zapatistas to Puerto Rican independentistas and Black liberationists. We are in an objectively difficult period of history, where the forces for liberation and justice have lost the momentum. We, as a broad front, do not yet seem to have found a strategic vision to rebuild our forces, much less how to slow down the trampling of capitalism. A strategy to rebuild and provide a basis for advancing forward with a radical vision of ending this brutal system is not easy. We already have learned about U.S. imperialism's ability to regroup after its own losses and setbacks (the loss of the war in Vietnam, the inability to reclaim Cuba for example). We know how the State disables national liberation and class struggle internally using white supremacy, bribery and cooptation, force, COINTELPRO, assassination, and low-intensity warfare. We have definitely learned a lot in this century. These lessons should be used , to empower us, not to make us more scared of fighting back, not to make us backtrack into reformism or accommodationism. When one is white in this society, there is always something to lose. Rejecting one's white privilege for the sake of a realizable potential that is not yet experienced is hard, but definitely worth struggling for. We need to fight the growing intellectual/psychological construct that reasserts and reinforces the inferiority of non European peoples and justifies barbarism and genocide. Let's not forget how the architects of fascism in Spain, Italy, and Germany created an enemy. To even embark on a strategy of rebuilding and realization to renew a liberating vision of justice and human rights we must be clear about the strengths of state power and be prepared to defend ourselves against that power. The repressive apparatus is powerful, with its fingers stretched into every crevice or crack in the state's hegemony it can find. In Europe the resistance was initiated against fascist states. In both France but particularly in Italy, those groups led in large part by radical and revolutionary forces had the potential to claim state power in favor of the masses of people. In Yugoslavia, Tito and the resistance did succeed and created a society much more beneficial to all its members than are the fragments of that society today. If no such consciousness of these forms of struggle exist or develop soon, then I think the potential to advance will be severely compromised. People fought back against European fascism. People worked in clandestine movements. Would the imperialist big-bang war have ended German and Italian fascism and aggression without the internal resistance movements that were led in large part by anti-capitalist forces? Think about that! Or think how many more people would have been massacred... We need the capacity for, understanding of, and willingness to resist and use whatever means necessary to stand for justice, human dignity, and liberation and against national oppression, white supremacy, class exploitation,and the oppression of women and of gay people. Without this, there will be no forward-moving change in the conditions of existence for the vast majority of the peoples, at least not here in the U.S. I do not believe that there will be forward moving change in this country without both changing the system and dismantling this nation's state as an oppressor nation. I also believe this struggle can only succeed if led by oppressed peoples and nations. How we as progressive, radical, or revolutionary white people relate to the objective, material conditions of struggle will in large part define our historical ability to play a role in making the changes necessary to open the way to liberation and justice for all That is our responsibility and our challenge. * GLOSSARY OF TERMS MUMIA ABUJAMAL: a Black political prisoner on death row in Pennsylvania since 1982, convicted of murdering a Philadelphia cop in a trial widely viewed as grossly unfair; as a teenager, had been an information minister with the Black Panther Party; later became a prominent radio and print journalist specializing in exposing police brutality and other oppression against people of color in Philadelphia. The NYC Free Mumia AbuJamal Coalition can be reached at PO Box 650, New York, NY 10009, 2123308029, www.mumia.com; International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia are located at PO Box 19709, Phildelphia, PA 19143. SUNDIATA ACOLI: prisoner of war from the Black Liberation Army, arrested along with Assata Shakur in New Jersey in 1973; like her, convicted of murdering a state trooper, serving life in federal prison. The Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign can be reached at PO Box 5538 Manhattanville Station, Harlem, NY 10027. AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM): a militant aboveground movement, primarily based in midwestern and western cities, of Native American activists demanding sovereignty over lands guaranteed their nations in over 300 treaties with the U.S. government; formed in 1968, still exists today. ANTI-IMPERIALIST: an ideological position viewing worldwide capitalism as a system of imperialism , dominated by the U.S., and focusing one's analysis and activism around that view. Many political prisoners adopting this label differ from the common U.S. leftist definition of this term (limited to external domination) to include opposition to U.S. internal colonialism against oppressed nationalities, such as Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos/Mexicans, Native Americans, etc. ARMED PROPAGANDA: a revolutionary tactic involving armed attacks against government/corporate/military targets coinciding with printed statements aimed at raising public consciousness about the crimes of these institutions, and inspiring more people to heighten their resistance. BLACK LIBERATION ARMY (BLA): a network of armed, clandestine local collectives active from about 1970 to 1981, primarily composed of former members of the Black Panther Party, aiming to use military means (such as bombings and attacks on police officers) to support the broader struggle for Black liberation in the U.S.; some collectives were aligned with the wing of the Black liberation movement advocating independence for New Afrika. BLACK PANTHER PARTY (BPP): full name: Black Panther Party for self-defense, begun in 1966 by followers of Malcolm X, advocating Black nationalism, militant armed self-defense, and Black community control; at its height, had chapters in many cities throughout the U.S., an international wing based in Algeria, and a broad following among the Black community. CHE GUEVARA: a leader of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, later a Cuba economics minister, and finally a theoretician and fighter/leader with several guerrilla movements against U.S. dominated repressive regimes in Africa and Latin America, killed by CIA agents while fighting in Bolivia in 1967. CHRISTIAN BASE COMMUNITIES: specially designed towns in various Latin American countries set up by followers of Christian "liberation theology" the philosophy that Christianity should be focused on freedom of the poor from oppression; involved various self-help projects and nonviolent forms of resistance against militaristic regimes of the rich. COMMITTEE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF EL SALVADOR (CISPES): a nationwide U.S. progressive group, established in 1980, that organized opposition to the U.S. war against the Salvadorean revolution (until the 1992? negotiated settlement) and political and financial support for the leading liberation movement, the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). COUNTER INELLIGENCE PROGRAM (COINTELPRO): an FBI program formally run from 1956 to 1971, whose aim was to "neutralize, misdirect and destroy" radical-left and progressive movements in the U.S. Heaviest emphasis in the 1960s was on Black Liberation Movement, which endured forged divisive letters, violence practicing agents, office burglaries, phone/mail surveillance, police harassment, police assassinations, and frame-up criminal charges, among other tactics. Exposed in an FBI office break-in by radicals in 1971, thereafter formally "discontinued," but actually continued under other names up til today. DAVE DELLINGER: a longtime pacifist revolutionary North American and former political prisoner who has committed frequent civil disobedience, beginning with resisting military participation in World War II. A member of the Chicago Eight grouping charged with conspiracy to riot at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, Dellinger was the chief architect of the major coalitions against the war in Southeast Asia. DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM: a theory developed by Lenin which says that a communist party should be directed internally by majority vote taken during periodic congresses. These votes on strategy, basic positions and rules govern the political direction of the party. Day to day operations are taken by a central committee based on the strategy, positions and rules approved at the congress. Party members are free to advocate positions different from the party's position internal to the party but when they represent the party (externally) only advocate decisions that have been taken by the party. On any essential matter or position once a vote is taken, the whole membership must espouse and follow the "party line" that has been decided. W.E.B. DuBois: Black writer, intellectual and communist activist who wrote numerous works on Black history; one of the founders of the modern PanAfricanist movement. IMPERIALISM:the worldwide capitalist system in the 20th century, based on exploitation and control by a small number of wealthy, oppressor nations led by the U.S. of much of the world including oppressed nationalities inside the wealthy nations. Also defined by many to include the interlocking systems of white supremacy and patriarchy. For a fuller definition, see David Gilbert's comments. MEXICANO NATION: according to some activists of Mexican descent in the U.S., the lands stolen from Mexico by war and annexation between 1835 and 1848, which, they argue, should be rightfully reunified with Mexico WILLIAM MORALES: a former prisoner of war from the Puerto Rican Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN); liberated from a New York City prison hospital by the FALN in 1979 and transported to Mexico, where he was recaptured in 1983 and finally(after an international pressure campaign) allowed to accept political asylum in Cuba, where he lives today. NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT (NLF): a revolutionary organization that led the people's war of liberation against U.S. domination in the southern half of Vietnam from 1960 until its victory in 1975. NEW AFRIKA: the name applied by one sector of the Black liberation movement to the colonized nation of Black people in the U.S., which they say has a rightful claim to the land of five states in the South (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) where African slaves were most heavily concentrated, and which they advocate should become an independent nation called the Republic of New Afrika. One current voice of the New Afrikan movement is the New Afrikan Liberation Front, and its newspaper, Nation Time, PO Box 340084, Jamaica, NY 11434. PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: the nearly allwhite cops' union in New York City; frequently mobilizes against any kind of accountability, and specifically against indictments, of brutal and murderous cops. LEONARD PELTIER: leader of American Indian Movement who was framed and arrested during an FBI shooting on the Pine Ridge, S. Dakota Lakota reservation in 1976; has been imprisoned since then and has lost all appeals. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is active nationwide, and based at: PO Box 10044, Kansas City, MO 64111. POLITICAL PRISONERS: people who are jailed due to their progressive political activism, or occasionally social prisoners who are given extra prison time due to their progressive political activism while in prison. PRISONERS OF WAR: a status chosen by some political prisoners to designate that they are in prison for waging war on an oppressive government; usually, but not always, self-designated by armed combatants from colonized peoples, according to United Nations rules allowing such status. PUERTO RICAN ARMED FORCES OF NATIONAL LIBERATION (FALN): an armed, underground collective of revolutionary Puerto Ricans living on the U.S. mainland that bombed government, military and corporate buildings from 1974 to 1983 as part of its strategy to contribute to a people's war to win independence and socialism for Puerto Rico. Many of the currently incarcerated Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war were associated with the F.A.L.N., or with the Macheteros. Amnesty campaigns for their release include the Puerto Rican Human Rights Campaign, 8 Rodriguex Serra Street, San Juan, PR 00907, and the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, 2607 West Division, Chicago, IL 60622. LA RAZA: Spanish for "the race" name of a movement and a political party of progressive Chicanos/Mexicanos in the Southwestern U.S., began in the late 60s and still existing today. RED ARMY FRACTION (RAF): a network of armed, clandestine revolutionary collectives that operated in West Germany from the late 1970s until the early 1990s, bombing government, military and corporate targets, as part of building a militant anti-imperialist movement. REVOLUTIONARY ACTION MOVEMENT (RAM): a revolutionary aboveground organization of Black nationalists in the U.S. inspired by the politics of Malcolm X, operated from around 1965 to 1968. ASSATA SHAKUR: woman activist in the Black Panther Party forced underground by FBI harassment in 19701 became a leader of the Black Liberation Army; wounded when arrested in New Jersey in 1973; acquitted of numerous false charges of BLA bank robberies; convicted of a frame-up charge of murdering one of the arresting cops; freed by a BLA breakout in 1979; fled to Cuba, where she lives today after being granted political refugee status. The Hands Off Assata Cam paign, aimed at countering recent attacks on her freedom, is based at PO Box 650, New York, NY 10009. SIMI VALLEY TRIAL: the 1992 trial of cops charged with beating Black motorist Rodney King, which led to their acquittal. SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC: adherents of social democracy, an ideological position that, while claiming allegiance to socialism, aims to simply reform capitalism to expand its welfare benefits, limit corporate power and enhance labor power. SOCIAL PRISONERS: people jailed for offenses which are not consciously political in nature (usually "everyday street crimes"); see also political prisoners. STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS: dictates from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to all countries (mainly poor, Third World and Eastern European) with debts to Western banks, requiring those governments to cut social spending, remove food subsidies, fire state workers, devalue the value of their currency, cheapen exports and take other austerity measures in the interests of Western corporations. UNITED FREEDOM FRONT: an armed, clandestine organization, primarily but not exclusively of revolutionary white North Americans, that bombed government/military/ targets in the early 1980s. VENCEREMOSBRIGADE: a U.S. leftist organization that has organized, for more than two decades short trips by U.S. activists to Cuba to do concrete work (construction, cane-cutting, teaching, medicine, etc.) as acts of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. NUHWASHINGTON: one of "The New York Three", three members of the Black Liberation Army, who were falsely convicted of murdering police officers in 1971. On April 28, 2000, after spending nineteen years behind bars, Nuh died of cancer. The others of the NY3, Jalil Muntaqin and Herman Bell, continue to serve life sentences in New York State prisons. Jalil is one of the founders of the Jericho Movement, seeking amnesty and justice for all U.S. political priosners and POWs, the NYS local Jericho chapter has a focus on the New York Three and all NYSbased political prisoners. Jericho Movement, PO Box 650, New York, NY 10009. WEATHER UNDERGROUND ORGANIZATION: a network of armed, clandestine collectives of revolutionary white North Americans, successors to one faction of Students for a Democratic Society; the WUO bombed government/militiary/corporate targets as part of its anti-imperialist campaign from 1969 to 1976 and published the theoretical work Prairie Fire in 1974. IDA B. WELLS: Black woman who crusaded against lynching in the South. YOUNG LORDS PARTY: a radical organization of Puerto Rican independence activists, active in Chicago and several East Coast cities from around 1969 to 1974 some chapters emerged from youth gangs called "the Young Lords." * Resistance in Brooklyn (RnB) RnB is an affinity group that came together in 1992 to combine political action, study, and a sense of community. Coming from a variety of organizations and tendencies within the progressive movement, we bring together a history of work in a broad range of struggles. We have been active in anti-imperialist work, including in Puerto Rican, Central American, African, and Black liberation solidarity movements; we've been involved in groups doing antimilitarist, antinuclear, anti-Klan, prisoner support, women's liberation, pro-feminist men's, AIDS, and lesbian and gay liberation work. We thus understand the tactical need for "single issue" or focused campaigns. We created RnB as a space where we could discuss and work around these struggles in an interconnected and holistic way. With a strong consciousness of the power of white skin privilege, some of us have worked in primarily white groups under the leadership of people of color, while others of us have worked to build multiracial organizations. Currently, our membership is made up of European Americans. While RnB has not developed a principle of one or the other of these approaches, we do recognize the centrality that the social construction known as race plays in our work and lives. We are a group of women and men who struggle to promote feminism and women's leadership, to study the construct and meaning of gender, and respect the need for women-only space. We are queer, gay, straight, and bisexual people fighting for a world that understands and supports a diversity of sexualities and orientations, while challenging the heterosexist norms of society. Some of us have been most strongly influenced by Marxism, others by anarchism, all by at least a little of both. One of our hopes is to learn from the strengths of both ideologies, honoring the Red and the Black. In an effort to learn from the mistakes and successes of the left and from our own past work, we have tried to remain open to a range of approaches, ideologies, and contributions. Responding to the current period, we have tried to hold on to the principles that have guided OUR lives, while reevaluating those past assumptions that have proven faulty in today's changing world. Though we do not have a set policy on internal process, we use consensus to arrive at most of our decisions. We value our differences rather than legislate them away. We spend time supporting one another personally as well as politically, believing not only in the theoretical interconnectedness of the two, but also in the practical strength gained by being in a group where comrades are also friends. For a copy of our complete Principles of Unity, to get on our mailing list for upcoming events, or to comment on or write for the followup booklet to this volume, please write to us at. Meyer, c/o WRL, 339 Lafayette Street, NY, 10012, or email us at mmmsrnb@igc.org *A frank discussion of past movements, their victories and errors, and the current political climate for revolutionary struggle within the USA. With EuroAmerican anti-imperialist political prisoners David Gilbert, Marilyn Buck, and Laura Whitehorn [released). 165 14 true An Interview with Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoners: David Gilbert, Laura Whitehorn, and Marilyn Buck 2009-09-28T07:43:47Z 0 2009-09-28T07:27:18Z 96 2009-09-28T07:26:33Z 0 The village raid was part of a three month Thailand government crackdown on drugs that killed over 2,275 up to mid 2003 (the Thaksin Administration stopped publicizing the number of casualties after Human Rights groups started paying attention to the body count) and incarcerated over 6,700 suspects. (ibid.) The police campaign was largely "extra judicial" meaning cops shot suspects on sight, jailed them without trials and framed many innocents who were on a government "blacklist" of alleged drug traffickers, dealers, and users. To some who had been following Thailand's human rights record the drug war killings came as some what of a surprise. Thailand had a history of post World War II dictatorships up through the 1990's. But after a deadly 1992 crackdown on pro democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, pressure from human rights advocates lead to the establishment of a National Human Rights Commission and the adoption of the Rome Treaty in October of 2001. Hauy Khieng Sang natives in the north western region of Thailand marched from their village to Phrao government district offices 300 miles north of Bangkok to perform a cursing ritual on the 70 National Thailand Police Officers who raided their village in May of 2003 and arrested four community leaders on drug trafficking charges. Once the 200 Hauy Khieng Sang inhabitants arrived at the Phrao offices they set up a bamboo table, killed a pig and a few chickens and smeared the blood on two straw effigies representing the drug police. "We want the people in Phrao district to witness our cursing ceremony against the police, who have labeled innocent people as guilty." (Thai Villagers Place Traditional Curse on Thai Police Over Drug War, Agence France Presse May 8, 2003) The four village leaders are in the company of thousands of dead and imprisoned Thai Landers who've been accused of drug related crimes in a political climate where a government accusation is as good as a guilty verdict. The village raid was part of a three month Thailand government crackdown on drugs that killed over 2,275 up to mid 2003 (the Thaksin Administration stopped publicizing the number of casualties after Human Rights groups started paying attention to the body count) and incarcerated over 6,700 suspects. (ibid.) The police campaign was largely "extra judicial" meaning cops shot suspects on sight, jailed them without trials and framed many innocents who were on a government "blacklist" of alleged drug traffickers, dealers, and users. To some who had been following Thailand's human rights record the drug war killings came as some what of a surprise. Thailand had a history of post World War II dictatorships up through the 1990's. But after a deadly 1992 crackdown on pro democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, pressure from human rights advocates lead to the establishment of a National Human Rights Commission and the adoption of the Rome Treaty in October of 2001. But closer observers were aware of serious and continuing abuses by national police forces in its drug war. According to one June 2002 Amnesty International brief. Nothing in Thaksin first two years in office approached the level of barbarity of the drug police massacres. According to Thailand's National Human Rights Commission "On the first day of the "war" four suspects were shot dead, 264 were taken into custody and 727 met amphetamine tablets ... were seized ... On 4 March 2003, nearly a month after the anti-drug operations began; the death toll had exceeded 1,100. Among those killed were an eight-month pregnant woman, a nine-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman all of whom had been unarmed." (ibid) Reports of drug suspects who turned themselves into police who were shot in custody or, after going to police in an effort to clear their name from drug blacklists, were shot in the back after leaving police stations, were frequent. Attempts to launch an independent investigation into the 'extra judicial killings' have been thwarted by Thaksin government officials who refuse to provide documents, be interviewed, or testify about the campaign. The chair of the Commission, Charan Dithapichai has condemned the intransigence and intimidation coming from the Thaskin government but his protests have fallen on deaf ears in Thailand and in the rest of the world. A deafening silence Its not as if the Bush Administration didn't know what was going down in Thailand. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights special repporteur Asma Jahangir expressed "deep concern" about the "extra-judicial executions" in the spring of 2003. Before Prime Minister Thaksin came to the U.S. for the first time as a head of state in June 2003 Human Rights Watch sent the White House a letter detailing the drug war atrocities taking place. The June 911 letter mentioned the over "2000 killings" and quoted Thai government officials including Thaksin himself on the drug crackdown. "In this war drug dealers must die." (Letter to U.S. President George Bush: Press Thaksin on Extrajudicial Executions, Burma. Human Rights Watch June 9, 2003). It also quoted Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha referring to the drug crackdown. "They will be put behind bars or even vanish without a trace ... who cares?" (ibid) The Human Rights Watch report politely mentioned that the U.S. reputation may be "sullied by association with a bloody and murderous campaign in the name of the war on drugs" due to our on going anti narcotics training and money to the Thai police. (ibid) * The Bush Administration chose to ignore these letters and other numerous press reports documenting the scope of the Thaksin slaughter in Thailand. In fact after the first phase of the crackdown ended in May Thaksin thought he'd take a vacation to Washington D.C. to meet with Bush and tell him about all the hard work he's been doing fighting drugs. His visit to the U.S. was upgraded from unofficial to "working" in early June by the State Department and the Thai delegation secured a meeting with the president for June 12. At the meeting the two talked about the war on terrorism and Bush offered to up grade the formal security relationship with Thailand to "non NATO ally" giving the regime more access to weaponry and capital. (Thaksin in U.S.. Thailand to Become a major non-NATO ally, The Nation (Thailand) June 12, 2003). According to Thai government spokesman Sita Divari Bush also praised Thaksin's war on drugs claiming he was surprised at Thailand's success in drug eradication. The spokesmen also noted with pride "the president did not voice his concern or complain about extra-judicial killings and silencing during the three month campaign" in a dig at local press for' negative portrayals of the campaign. (ibid) A couple of weeks after the meeting the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Darryl Johnson presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for the opening of the new International Law Enforcement Academy building in Bangkok to train a new generation of drug warriors for the Royal Thai National Police. "I would like to express my respect and appreciation for the outstanding resourcefulness and support of our Thai colleagues in this joint undertaking ... Together, working through and supporting institutions such as ILEA Bangkok, we can bring about real change and improve the lives of our fellow citizens." (Embassy of the United States of America, Press Release June 27, 2003. Note: Apparently Ambassador Johnson recently chastised the Thaskin Administration for not raining in his drug police and holding them accountable for their murder of suspects. Too little too late.) Currently estimates are that over 3,000 drug suspects have been killed in Thaksin's campaign to make Thailand "drug free by December 2nd 2003", the Birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Tens of millions of U.S. dollars continue to help fund and train Thai national police forces in their continued crackdown on drug users, traffickers, and dealers. The Bush Administration's support for the Thaksin regime in the face of this brutal crackdown is an "The military and army use torture and ill treatment in detention, shortly after arrest, during transport of detainees, and in military drug treatment camps. Poor Thai people, migrants, and members of ethnic groups are particularly vulnerable." (Thailand: Widespread Use of TortureFrom Policing to Prisons. Amnesty International Press Release June 11, 2002) Amnesty went on to describe two Akha tribesmen who were seized by government agents in Chiang Rai Province for opium detoxification. The men were dropped in a ground hole. "Soldiers then poured water, coal, and ashes" on them. Hours later they were questioned, and beaten. One man died from the beatings, the other was hospitalized with a ruptured lung. A year later no investigation had been done. A few years earlier in the Suphanburi Province police were implicated in the deaths of three drug suspects in their custody No charges were filed by the Attorney General in the deaths. These two examples don't exhaust the number of cases of drug war police crimes by any stretch. Throughout the nineties and up to the present the Drug Enforcement Agency has been partners with their Thai counterparts in the drug war. This partnership developed out of U.S. concerns about heroine trafficking in the Golden Triangle in the 1970's. Since then the U.S. has provided training, intelligence and money to the Thai military and police for drug war interdiction along their northern border with Burma and internal drug enforcement. As the U.S. interdiction budget grew in the late eighties and nineties so did the scope of drug operations in foreign countries. Thailand was no exception. In 1994 the DEA and Thai police started "Operation Tiger Trap" a joint anti narcotics investigation that brought down Yang WanHsuan, a major drug dealer in 200 1. U.S. and Thailand government officials started the International Law Enforcement Academy in 1998 to "enhance the effectiveness of regional cooperation against transnational crime in Southeast Asia." Today the official U.S./ Thailand Embassy web-site states "The U.S. contributed 4.5 million in 1998 and 1999 and now provides over 1.5 million annually in operating funds." (U.S. Embassy, Bangkok Thailand Narcotics Assistance fact Sheet, www.usa.or.th/service/docs/report/narcotics.pdf) All of the above was fairly uncontroversial before February of 2003. If the Bush Administration had pulled all of its material support from the Thai police and military after reports of drug blacklists, imprisonment without trials, and mass police killings of drug suspects, the Justice Department would still would be guilty of gross negligence in its failure to heed human rights reports of on going police abuse and demand real reforms before providing them with money and equipment to carry out their repression. But not only did the Bush Administration continue to fund the Royal Thai police before, during and after its vicious drug war crackdown, it praised the campaign and proceeded to intensify relations with the Thaksin government as the atrocities were being committed by police. It's fair to ask whether any U.S. resources were used to slaughter thousands of drug suspects and whether this slaughter took place with the aid and approval of the Bush Administration. According to the DEA's own documents the U. S. has spent tens of millions of dollars training, equipping, and funding domestic Thailand drug enforcement. Its hard to imagine that the Thaksin administration would have had the ,,intelligence" or the resources to embark on such an ambitious or brutal crackdown without that support. The Thaksin Record Prime Minister Thaksin, one of the richest men in Thailand and a former police officer, was elected to office in 2001 as a benevolent populist, tough but fair. Ills dominance of Thai media made it hard for his opponents to counter this portrayal. But soon after his election he began to show his true colors. He immediately supported and cooperated with the brutal Burmese military government and ramped up the murderous repression of Burmese refugees and migrants along Thailand's northern border (He's quoted as saying "they must stay in their places and must be controlled") (Yumadee Tunyasiri. P.M. Takes a Whack at UNHCR, Bangkok Post June 28, 2003) His police forces had bloody clashes with protesters in Hat Yal Sangkhla Province on December 20 2002 over the environmentally disastrous Thai/ Malaysian gas pipeline project leaving over 100 demonstrators injured. He's also encouraged a climate of fear among press and human rights workers who dare to speak out against his policies. Pradit Charoenthaitaweea a Thai National Human Rights Commissioner received death treats after speaking out against Thaksin's drug war and was warned by Suranand Vejjajiva a ruling party spokesman not to accuse Thaksin of being a dictator. In a March 2003 radio address Thaksin himself claimed Dr. Pradit's comments were "sickening" and that the human rights commissioner was a "nonpatriot" and "whistleblower." (AsiaPacific Human Rights Network, www.hrdc.net/sahrdc) Bad things happen to those who speak the truth. Accomplice crime in itself and should be investigated by Congress. Attorney General Ashcroft could also do some digging himself to find out if any domestic laws might have been broken, but he might be too busy eagerly studying how the Thaksin regime got away with its drug war massacre to do much probing into White House complicity in the Thaksin atrocities. * Jail Break Press Mission Statement Jailbreak Press is a group of anti-authoritarians and anarchists of color who believe that our ideas about authority, Justice, and resistance have traditions that are distinct enough from traditional Anarchist views that our words and voices need to be presented independently. For example, we are anti-state, but suspect that communities of color have different experiences with illegitimate authority and, because of that, have different perspectives about how state repression works and what we need to do to win our liberation. Since the mid-nineties a new generation of anti-authoritarians and anarchists of color have been involved in various projects and networks of communication. But we haven't developed an analysis and critique of traditional Anarchism that goes beyond our desire to flee from meetings at which white males talk too much and we get treated like tokens or ghosts. There are many different anarchisms and people of color come from many different scenes and perspectives. Jailbreak Press seeks to put those different views out and spark dialogue and debate to see where we differ, where we agree, what unites us, and what defines us. We are always looking for more voices to get this party started. 164 2 true Bush Complicity in Drug War Atrocities in Thailand 2009-09-28T07:27:18Z 0 2009-09-28T06:23:49Z 95 2009-09-28T06:20:12Z 0 Boycott war, Capitalism, and boredom. grow your own food! Nothing beats it! Put a seed in the ground, get your hands dirty, pick and cook the most delicious, fresh food. Get to know the seasons and the local snails. Best of all, you'll never run out of things to learn, the garden is full of surprises. One of the main areas of research at our farm is in what has been dubbed "Paradise Gardening."* We want to turn our little five acres into an edible paradise. Fortunately nature has already done most of this for us, and if we were knowledgeable enough,we should be able to live off of the land just as it is. We would probably have to fish and gather shellfish as well in order to survive, and some of us are already doing that; but the idea of paradise gardening is that it is a kind of step between hunting and gathering and agriculture, although it's aim is to loose the agriculture part completely. It's kind of like extreme permaculture. Many hunting and gathering cultures practiced this kind of "gardening" simply by taking care of and tending the plants they were gathering from, ensuring that nothing was never depleted. One way to move in this direction is to plant a lot of perennials. Annuals require an amazing amount of work and must be replanted every year. We still have a large garden space dedicated to annuals, and with permaculture methods and seed saving, we hope to reduce the work and the cost of this part of our garden. Another problem with a garden of annuals is the nutrient depletion of the soil, but we are taking care of that problem with our handy automatic humanure factory. Perennials are the backbone of the paradise garden. Fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, bamboos, artichokes and many other plants can provide. an incredible amount of food with just about zero work involved. The Anarchist Victory Garden Boycott war, Capitalism, and boredom. grow your own food! Nothing beats it! Put a seed in the ground, get your hands dirty, pick and cook the most delicious, fresh food. Get to know the seasons and the local snails. Best of all, you'll never run out of things to learn, the garden is full of surprises. One of the main areas of research at our farm is in what has been dubbed "Paradise Gardening."* We want to turn our little five acres into an edible paradise. Fortunately nature has already done most of this for us, and if we were knowledgeable enough,we should be able to live off of the land just as it is. We would probably have to fish and gather shellfish as well in order to survive, and some of us are already doing that; but the idea of paradise gardening is that it is a kind of step between hunting and gathering and agriculture, although it's aim is to loose the agriculture part completely. It's kind of like extreme permaculture. Many hunting and gathering cultures practiced this kind of "gardening" simply by taking care of and tending the plants they were gathering from, ensuring that nothing was never depleted. One way to move in this direction is to plant a lot of perennials. Annuals require an amazing amount of work and must be replanted every year. We still have a large garden space dedicated to annuals, and with permaculture methods and seed saving, we hope to reduce the work and the cost of this part of our garden. Another problem with a garden of annuals is the nutrient depletion of the soil, but we are taking care of that problem with our handy automatic humanure factory. Perennials are the backbone of the paradise garden. Fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, bamboos, artichokes and many other plants can provide. an incredible amount of food with just about zero work involved. It is hard to find out information about lesser-known perennial plants. Many cultures all over the world grow their own varieties of perennial plants, which they use as staples. One of our goals is to find as many of these perennials as possible and give them a try. It would also be interesting to do some research into annuals that are good at self-seeding and would grow on their own if left alone, such as the old onion that I left to seed and the next year hundreds of little onions popped up! Forget about planting in rows! *The idea of paradise gardening is laid out very well in the article written by Joe Hollis that can be found on the internet and also in a slightly different version in the book "Avant Gardening." * On our property we are growing a mixture of' sizes. We planted a bunch or semi-dwarfs for food soon, but we are also planting a bunch of full-size trees. This method works out well because just about when your dwarfed trees are dying, the full-size ones are beginning to fruit. We also found a company that sells seedling of trees for very little money. These will take quite a while to grow into full size trees, but we figured why not plant them now and have a forest of fruit and nut trees in a decade or two! When choosing our fruit trees, we looked for several things. I believe the most important factor in a choosing a fruit tree for an organic garden is disease resistance. There are particular diseases that are serious problem for certain fruit trees, but some varieties have been bred to resist these. If you don't want to spray chemicals oil your trees, it is worth looking into these varieties. Another important factor for us is storage. Some fruits its store longer than others, and canning call be hard work, so the longer we call store something "dry" the better. Nuts store very well, and so do some varieties of apples and pears. You may also want to look into the possibility of buying native or wild fruit trees. There are many kinds of wild fruit trees that grow in North America including apples, pears, cherries, nuts, and the elusive paw-paw, one of the only native fruit trees in North America. Wild and native species are great because they will be naturally disease resistant in their area, and perfectly suited to the climate. You could even get crazy and find some local trees and graft your own rootstocks. To me this is what paradise gardening is all about, and we hope to do lots of experimenting with this in the seasons to come, There used to be an old apple tree growing in the middle of the woods behind my family's farm. It was planted almost 150 years ago and it still bore fruit! The fruit on wild and native trees is generally smaller and bitterer, but the bitterer a fruit is, the longer it will store. The sweeter a fruit is bred to be, the sooner it will rot. To me that is not much of a price to pay. Wherever you are the best time of year to plant trees is generally well before the local trees have put out buds. If you plant them too late, they won't have enough time to put energy into their roots and establish themselves in their new soil. When planting, make sure to give them plenty of water and also make sure that you don't put any soil above the rootstock graft. If you do this, the top tree will put out its own roots and the graft will be obsolete. You may have to put some deer fence around your young trees as well, as (leer love the young shoots. At our land, we have a deer fence around almost our entire garden, including our orchard. We didn't bother to put nut trees inside the fence since they will soon be huge, and are less appetizing to deer. You probably won't have to go as far as us with tile deer fence, unless you live in a really bad deer area. Now for the best part: trees require almost zero work! We don't even prune our trees. There is a school of thought that doesn't believe in pruning, we figure the trees know how to do it themselves and just leave them to it. The only things that we do are make sure that they have plenty of water in their first year, and mulch. We put plenty of waste mater, compost, leaves and grasses in a circle from about 4 inches out from the trunk, to about 4 feet out. This insures that they get plenty of nutrients. We also established a ground cover of white clover in the orchard area. This attracts bees for pollination, will fix nitrogen in the soil, and keep the grass down. So far we have planted: Liberty Apple, Chehalis Apple, a five-way (grafted) Japanese pear, a 3 way apricot, a 4 way cherry, a frost peach, a ginkgo, and a walnut. I hope to do an article. in every issue about our research into paradise gardening and give you updates on our garden. * Knoydart Land ownership in Scotland is one of the most oppressive situations facing human rights in the "first world". It is basically a feudal system and it has changed little since medieval times. Wealthy landowners control most of Scotland, their estates stretching for thousands of acres and including entire villages. Most of the landlords are either nobles (lords, barons etc.) or wealthy people from England or other countries. The system that exists is known as the crofting system, where crofters rent the land on which they live and work from the landlord, or "laird", as he is called. Many of these crofting families have lived and worked on their land for generations, some further back than people can recall. Yet these families are living a life that is determined by the landlord. The laird has complete power over the entire community of crofters, can sell "his" land at any moment, makes his own laws, and sets the tone for the entire community. From the mid 1700's and even up into the mid 1900's landlords displaced tens of thousands of men, women, and children from their homes, usually forcibly and brutally (many were massacred). They were forced to scrape together money to take rotten, disease-ridden ships away from their homeland. Many died on these ships. I don't have to walk far from here to come across a cleared village. You can still see rows of ruined houses, farm walls, and even the mounds of dirt where people once grew potatoes. The landlords had decided that tenants were no longer as profitable as sheep. So sheep moved in, and they are still here... The population in these areas hag never recovered, and neither has the Gaelic language. There are hundreds of heartbreaking songs written in Gaelic about this time, the Gaelic world was broken. These times are known as "the Clearances" and mark the devastating and brutal time of ethnic cleansing that was carried out against the Gaels. Recently I have been staying in Scotland in a place that overlooks a peninsula of land called Knoydart On one side of the peninsula lies Loch Nevis (Loch Heaven in Gaelic) and on the other side lies Loch Hourn (Loch Hell in Gaelic). It is one of the most desolate places in Scotland and has only a couple villages on it with a total of about 60 people that live there. The only way to reach these homes is by water, or a twenty-mile hike through mountainous wilderness. I have recently come across an important and inspiring story that comes from this place. It applies not only to the land reform struggle in Scotland, but also to the activism world as a whole. It is the story of seven men who were fed-up with the injustices that their landlord had committed and who decided to take the law into their own hands and fight for justice. The history of Knoydart around the time of the Clearances is much like that of the rest of the Highlands. In 1745, after the Scottish rebellion was crushed by the British Army in a terrible massacre at Culloden, houses in Knoydart were burnt to the ground and entire families were subjected to terrible atrocities. In the 1800's, 500 people in Knoydart were evicted and forcibly shipped to Nova Scotia. They were no longer considered profitable and were replaced by sheep. In 1934, after a series of landlords, the 60,000-acre estate of Knoydart was bought by a man named Lord Brocket. Besides being a powerful supporter of the Conservative Party, he was closely connected with the Anglo-German Fellowship, supporters of Hitler. He was often seen standing alongside Hitler himself. When Lord Brocket took control of the estate, things changed rapidly for the worse. He proceeded to fire almost all of the employees of the estate. People from the town were not allowed near the manse, or within site of it and he did not allow public access' to Knoydart at all. No campers or boats were allowed near the place. In the words of one tenant, "It was becoming a closed dictatorial regime probably in Lord Brocket's private thoughts; a jack booted private wilderness materializing as his Nazi friends engulfed Europe." After the war the estate was used as a hunting ground for rich visitors and the Knoydart crofters returning from the war to their homes came back to find that things had deteriorated greatly. Brocket was more hostile to the tenants than ever, and spent his days massacring the large deer herd on the estate. Houses were lying empty, sheep and cattle were being shipped away, and more and more farmland was being banned from use. Brocket's intentions were clear: to make it impossible for people to live there. A century before, there had been 1,500 people; now there were just 80 and 15 families were planning on leaving that year. The people of Knoydart submitted a letter to the government asking for permission to farm the land, and increase production to make it possible for people to live there, but Brocket blocked the plan. After writing several more letters to the government and getting no reply, they decided to take action themselves. On a November day in 1948 seven men who were determined to stay in their homeland marched past Lord Brocket's house and each one laid claim to 65 arable acres of land and began working it. Brocket immediately went to the courts and the land-raiders were told that if they didn't leave, they would go to prison. Each of the men agreed that they were prepared to do just that. There was huge public support for them, a fund was set up to help them and some crofters in other areas began to carry out land-raids as well. But things didn't go as planned. A lawyer became involved on behalf of the crofters, and advised them to fight the land claims legally in court instead of risking arrest. The men decided to follow his advice and what followed were a crooked court session, several appeals that went unanswered, and the continued depopulation of Knoydart. The words of one of the men. involved speak for themselves: Once in the hands of the lawyers and politicians the land raid was doomed to failure. I was in favor of sticking on the land, you know, sticking on the same as they did in the olden days. But this lawyer got us round to thinking that these modern days such things would not need to take place: do it in the legal way, you know and it would work out pretty good. But I'm afraid that was our downfall. We should have stuck on the land and done as the old boys in the olden days had done-stick on the ground till they put you in jail. We all thought it was a very good idea that it was going to be legal, but afterwards when we saw the whole thing and you look back and realize, it didn't pay to be doing it the modern way. Anything was better than the way it was. Eventually Lord Brocket sold out and left for the south (England). But not before it was too late. Now Knoydart is still used as a hunting estate by its current owners, and the population has dwindled to 60 people. The glen where the land raids took place is empty now: Only the homes of Highland Clearance victims remain, together with land on which the 1948 raid took place. Looking back those 40 years I do not regret having been part of the saga. We only stood up for our rights. Had we succeeded, Knoydart would certainly be a different place from what it is today. It failed and the, result was the death of a long established native community by an English landlord in a mini Highland Clearance. * Ceartas! Ann an 1948, faisg air a charn seo, ghlac Seanchdnar Chnoideart fearann gus croitean a dheanamh dhaibh fhein. Gad ceud bliadhna 'sann air a' mhodh seo a fhuair an Gaidheal seilbh air criomag tir a shinnsre. Tha a stri na brosnachadh do gach ginealach ur de dh' Albannaich a choir a sheasamh le ceartas. 'Sann le fearg a sheallas eachdraidh air na laghannan ainneartach a dh' fhuadaich cultar araidh as an aite bhoidheach seo cha mhor gu tur. Justice! In 1948, near this cairn, Seven Men of Knoydart staked claims to secure a place to live and work. For over a century Highlanders had been forced to use land raids to gain a foothold where their forebears lived. Their struggle should inspire each new generation of Scots to gain such rights by just laws. History will judge harshly the oppressive laws that have led to the virtual extinction of a unique culture from this beautiful place. -- Cairn in Knoydart Lamenting the Civil War So many times since antiquity the human world has barely escaped destruction yet ten thousand fortunes and a thousand misfortunes and in one void after all Puppets squabbling back and forth across the stage People brawling over a snail's horn winning or losing The ferocity of a snipe and a clam glaring at each other only to arrive at death before the tribunal of Yama the Judge of Hell When will the horses of war be turned loose on Flower Mountain It would be best to throw their bits away to the cast of the Palace -- Muso Soseki b. 1275 Welcome to Firewood # 1 There's something about building your own house, growing your own food, making your own music, art, culture, life. To me there is really no better feeling. After all that is what culture is, isn't it? It's something that we've made our own. Culture cannot be spoon-fed to us; we must create it ourselves. Things do not perpetuate by themselves. Languages die, people loose skills if they are not passed on. This is our struggle. While it is important to create our own traditions, there are valuable skills and ideas also to be found in the past I am not saying that everything that the, past needs to be put up on a pedestal, plenty of close-minded ideas can be thrown in the bin. But it is easy for the consumer-culture blob to sweep all of those old ways under the carpet as some kind of barrier to progress. This is happening all over the world. Languages are dying at an alarming rate-- the latest statistics are around one day! As imperialist languages take over indigenous languages are being lost forever. It's a kind of extinction-- a way of life and a folk knowledge is lost forever. One less way of thinking about and describing our world, a disappearing diversity. One language in China spoken only by women is down to a handful of speakers. Hundreds of languages in the Amazon River Basin are dying, and a monoculture is taking over. Even in first world countries with plenty of resources, Scotland for example, the outlook does not look good for minority languages such as Gaelic. Beyond languages, skills are also being lost. When the days of Capitalism are over, who will know how to light a fire, let alone live without plastic? How many people know how to forge metal, make ceramics, build a shelter, grow food? The only good thing about the wasteland that consumer-culture has created is that anything is possible. "Anything" is always possible. Out of the dust we are creating our own culture that is vibrant and alive*. Tribes of nomads moving quietly through the night, undetected. Coming together in secret enclaves making music and sharing ideas with one another. Always expanding the possibilities, creating the ideal conditions for moments of freedom. We must begin to learn how to use our own hands to grow our own food and build our own shelter. The less we need to rely on the things we hate, the freer we will be. --Sine December 2002 * Cabin Girl A good way to break free of chains is not to need them at all. If you know how to build a house, you'll never go homeless; you'll be less likely to have to worry about shelter. You'll know how to fix things you didn't before. You can rely less on other people and more on yourself. Where to start, what tools to use, what materials are right for the environment, how to get them it seems like a lot to know, but it's really not that hard, you can't go very wrong. It is a lot of fun to create a shelter and a space that fits you. When it comes to building, I was really inspired by my dad. He built himself a cabin in the woods when he was my age, then built a boat, then ended up building two houses for his family when he was older. As a child, whenever these houses were being built I was always hanging around, banging nails into scraps of wood. My father designed and built these houses without any education past eighth grade. I suppose this put the idea in my head, building a house is easy, anyone can do it." It's true. When I was planning to build my cabin, I did a lot of research on what kind of building it would be. Many kinds of materials were considered, and I got lots of books out of the library on building methods. Straw bale, turf, timber-frame, log cabin, welsh-round house, underground house, were all considered. In the end, due to time (we were building in the winter and needed warm shelter fast), cost, and tools, I opted for a 2 by 4 frame construction with as much salvaged material as possible. While we were building I had my little tipi to stay in and it kept me relatively warm and dry. The first thing to do was to find a salvage yard to see what we had to work with. There are a couple of different kinds of salvage yards, ones selling just good old junk from torn down buildings: windows, doors, glass, metal, wood etc. But there are also salvage yards for yuppies that are full of "distressed" furnishings. These places have lots of old windows, doors and stuff with a lot of character, but they are usually sold at extortionate prices. You can usually find a good salvage yard under "salvage" or "junk dealers" in the phone book. It's also worth checking the local dump. It depends on the laws, but some dumps will let you weed through piles of building materials. Or if you don't care about laws, you might be able to manage something. The salvage yard that we found was great. It was a little pricey at first, but once we started talking to the guy, he quickly realized that we didn't have lot of money to spend and switched from the "yuppie price" to the "kid building a cabin" price. They had neat old doors, old paned windows with peeling paint, some wood, metal for roofs, hinges and handles, we even bought an old ship's stove for wood heat. It was great, we just let our imaginations take over and let what materials were available plan what our cabin would look like. There are many other ways of finding cheap or free wood. If there is a building being demolished or gutted, dive the dumpster. If there is a building being built, check around the building site for scraps. If you're near a sawmill, ask for some off-cuts. We found a ton of driftwood at the beach that worked well for trim, stairs, railings and shelves, and it looked really cool. Look in the paper for lumberyards that are going out of business: nails and other things are sold for real cheap. The next thing that I did was to make a plan. When you are using what is called "dimensional lumber" (i.e. 2x4s, 2x8s 4x4s etc.) you can look in a good book to find out what you will need to use where. For instance, for a floor of a certain size, they'll recommend 2x8's spaced every 12 inches (this is called 12 inch centers). Books are great for helping you start out, but here are a few ways to bend the rules to save some wood and money without sacrificing the strength of the structure (books are written with building codes in mind, but we don't care about those!). It depends on what you are using for the sheathing (outside covering i.e. plywood etc.) but can generally make the centers larger. Move them from 12 to 16 inch, or 16 to 24 inches apart. This is a great way to save wood. * • The width of the wood can also be smaller in some cases. If the span is not too long, you can usually reduce a 2x10 to a 2x8 or a 2x 12 to a 2x 10. In spans greater than 12 feet, don't do this too much. • Keep your building small. Make your small space as efficient as possible. Think about storage under beds, benches, or up high. When you start to make spans over 16 feet, lumber gets a lot more expensive because you'll need thicker timbers. • Be creative, but if you're going for cheap, remember that a box is the most efficient shape to build. Think in terms of dimensional lumber. Plan your building to be in feet, in multiples of 2's 4's and 8 feet. This is more important if you're using plywood and avoids having to cut off pieces and waste wood. When you are planning, also consult books for information on nails. There are different kinds of nails for each area, and different sizes, too. Sheet rock screws are fast, but they are not nearly as strong as nails and should not be used in structural areas. The books will also tell you how to frame windows and doors. This takes a little practice, but it is not hard. Now that you have a list of materials and a plan, head to the lumberyard. Lumberyards are like junkyards; it takes a little time to be taken seriously, especially if you're a young lady like myself. Don't be afraid to ask questions, underneath the gruff lumberyard guy attitude can often be a surprisingly helpful person. One way to sound like you know what you're talking about is to know how the dimensions of lumber are measured. Take 2x4x8 for instance. First of all, the numbers stand for inches, but long ago they stopped making lumber as big as it claims to be, a 2x4 is actually only a I 3/4 x 3 '/2. The first number is the height, the second the width, or depth, and the third is the length. The first two numbers are in inches and the third is in feet. There is also a special kind of 2x4 called a "stud". These are 2x4x92 1/2 inches. They are made for building walls that are 8' high and subtract the floor sill and the roof sill. Sometimes they are cheaper, and they do save some time. It's good to know about different grades of lumber as well. You might want to check out some cheaper grades, but be careful; sometimes these can be rotten and worthless. Don't let all of this scare you. Just ask questions, but use your best judgment when buying lumber. Lumberyard prices can vary greatly, so it's a good idea to check out a few. One important thing to know about lumberyards is that there are two prices for lumber! This is never advertised, so you just have to be in the know. There's the regular price, then there's the "contractor's" price. Head straight for the contractor's desk. Now, technically you are supposed to have a contractor card to get the contractor price, but there is a lot of room to haggle. Ask for a quote, give them the list of materials you want and tell them you'll come back another day, or they can call you with the quote. This is totally normal. Even tell them you're going to other lumberyards for quotes so they know they are competing for a "bid". If you get a nice person they should give you the contractor price. Make sure they know you will be building a house, and coming back often. It's worth trying hard to get the contractor's price; it's often a third to a half less! Every lumberyard also gives free delivery. They'll usually only do this a few times so try to order everything in big loads. The yard will give you a sign to put at the driveway to your site to help the delivery person find you. Beware! You are probably building your cabin without proper building permits, so give the yard good delivery directions to your place, but do not put the sign out. This is the number one thing that building inspectors look for to find illegal buildings. I learned this the hard way, had a scare, but luckily didn't get caught! Well, now that the hard part is over, time to put together your cabin. Frame-built structures go up real fast, you'll be surprised. The basic frame of my cabin with attached wood-shop went up in less than a week, with just myself working on it. It is a good idea to get the roof up as quickly as possible so that the floor does not get too wet. Don't be worried about having to lift heavy things, through proper leverage you can move things many times your own weight. I am a fairly medium sized gal, and I didn't find anything in building my cabin that I didn't have the strength to do. When raising the walls, that is the only time you will need a friend to help, simply because you need someone else to hold the wall while you nail in temporary supports. I won't go into the details of framing your cabin here, you should be able to find a decent book with diagrams on how to do. it. It is really so easy, building a house frame-style can be done quickly and easily. You won't need many tools to build your cabin, and definitely no power tools are necessary. Cutting plywood is the only thing that takes a bit more sweat without power tools, but it is really not that hard. You should be able to build your entire cabin with: a hammer, a framing square, a tape measure (preferably 20-30 feet), a level, a saw and a pencil. That's it, now get to it! The hammer and nails are calling you, and that sweet smell of freshly cut wood is waiting. Materials: It is hard to decide what materials to use when building a shelter. There are so many things to consider and it is hard to predict what will be the best for a situation. When looking for ideas to build my cabin I researched many different methods and materials and I will attempt to give some of the pluses and minuses here. To me, the ultimate thing to look for in a structure is that it uses the least amount of resources as possible. I also like to ask myself, what will the building site look like in years to come? Will it leave behind lots of material, or will it just disappear into the surroundings without leaving a trace. Ultimately I believe that using as much of what you already have is always the best choice. Straw-bale: I think that straw-bale construction has a lot of potential, but if you pick up most books about the subject, all they are concerned with is meeting the expectations of yuppies and building inspectors. Most books on the subject really are a waste of time to the DIY builder, although there is information out there. Some things to remember: there are two types of straw-bale house, with load-bearing walls, or without. If you have a building with load-bearing walls, the roof is resting directly on top of the straw-bale walls, and if you don't have load-bearing walls, you are basically building a frame house, and using straw-bales for insulation and the actual walls. Also remember that there is a big difference between a straw-bale and a hay-bale. A hay-bale has the seed-heads in it, and it is no good for building with, it will sprout and rot. Straw-bale construction has many advantages. It provides amazing insulation. A bale house will be warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. It will be very quiet. You can build a house pretty much any shape you want to, which can be very fun. It is also relatively cheap, if you live in an area where you can get cheap straw-bales. It is also quick and easy to put up, especially if you live in a dry climate. The only thing that turned me away was the climate where I was building: the rainy pacific-northwest. There are people who say these buildings are fine in a damp climate, but they are at least hard to put up if it is raining everyday. The biggest enemy of the straw-bale house is dampness, although I am sure that this can be over come in wet climates. Cob: I don't know much about this kind of construction, but it could be great if you live in a dry climate. It is free: just mix mud and straw! * Log cabin: Now, by log cabin I am meaning lincoln-log style, with one long stacked on top of another. A log cabin is really cool, there is just one downside, and that is you need a lot of trees to make one. It is probably one of th e most inefficient uses of wood for building, and would not be worth it unless you have a ton of trees that you will be clearing any way (i.e.: for a garden). The good sides to a log cabin are that it is pretty much free if you are cutting down the trees and it will cause no displacement of resources. It also requires just an axe to build it. Traditional wood frame: I am sure that you have seen a traditional wood frame house, it is the run-of-the-mill way to construct a home in North America. It is usually built by putting up a frame of wood then covering that in plywood and fiberglass insulation. There are many bad sides to this type of construction, but I believe that if it is done in the right way it can be efficient. The lumber that you buy from a lumberyard is not harvested in your own backyard. You don't know where it comes from, and chances are the forest was not harvested in a "sustainable" manner. This really sucks! The good part is that if you are building from wood, this kind of construction uses the least amount of it. If you try and salvage as much wood as possible, you could end up buying a very small amount of wood from a lumberyard. Another thing to consider is not using plywood. It has nasty glues in it, and you can sometimes find dimensional lumber to use instead. This is definitely an easy way to build a shelter: you don't need many tools and it is cheap. The invention of this kind of construction made affordable housing available to many people, but it unfortunately involves importing a lot of wood from another source. So, salvage!! Timber-frame: This can be a great way to build a structure if you have a lot of timber on your site. It involves making joints in the timbers and fitting them together without the use of nails. It was used to make barns, old farmhouses, and Japanese temples. By using this method you can create a beautiful strong and natural structure. It uses less wood than a log cabin, and if you log the wood yourself, it could be free. Buying the timbers could be expensive since it requires very thick ones, but logging yourself is not too hard. It does require a few specialized tools like an adze and chisels and possibly a chain-saw and mill attachment and it will mean learning a whole new set of skills. But wood joinery is not hard and it is a lot of fun! Stone: Chances are you are not going to have much stone nearby where you are building but if you do, it could be a great building material. Most of the houses in Europe are built with stone. In winter months stone takes a long time to heat up, but once it is warm, it holds the heat very well. Th old "black houses" of Scotland and Ireland are beautiful, and fit into the landscape perfectly. They have thatched or sod roofs and they are very cozy and quiet inside with walls around three feet thick. Tipis and Gers: You might want to consider a tipi or ger as a shelter. A ger is the Mongolian name for a yurt and is what they prefer them to be called (the word yurt is what the Russians called them when they occupied Mongolia). Both shelters are great for squatting on land. Hey, you are just camping, right?! You can sow a tipi or a yurt yourself, but I could not find waterproof canvas cheap enough to make it worthwhile, so I ended up buying one. It was not very expensive for a home. Gers are quite a lot more expensive than tipis, but I think they would make a better permanent shelter. To tell the truth, I didn't think that my tipi was very warm in the winter months, even though I had a liner in it. i think they are great for temporary nomadic structures, but they are incredibly inefficient for heating. they are warm if you have a fire going constantly. I put a wood stove in mine. I lived for a while with an open fire and I couldn't get it to work, so I got a tiny sheet-metal wood-stove for only $30 called the New-wave stove. It's a life (or lung) saver. Pole frame: There is a lot to be said for this kind of building. It is free and it doesn't leave a trace on the land. These buildings are the reason why there is almost no sign that hunter-gatherers lived here for a million years. A pole building can come in many shapes and sizes. Its basic structure is made by the poles (small tress) tied together with rope (or nails) and then covered with small branches, driftwood, or whatever you can find. We built a very strong pole structure on our land and it only took half a day. We used sheet metal for a rood and left the sides open and used it for a kitchen with a small campfire under the roof as well. It looks beautiful; it fits right into the surroundings. there are so many variations to explore, you could bend the ples or make a long house. Look to Native American designs for inspiration. I have even seen buildings made like this and sheathed in metal from oil drums hammered out. Just use what you can find! * "Creative Action" If all we are trying to do is to protest in an "acceptable" way, we will not go very far. Who, in the end, are we trying to be acceptable to? If we are trying to meet some idea of acceptable action, we are catering to the ideas of control that we are protesting against in the first place. We do not have to agree with everyone, nor do we have to join in with them, but if we are asking for a freer world, as we do in protest, we must accept that people will have different ways of pointing out injustice. Protest is a form of expression. It is an art form and just as the boundaries of art must always be pushed, so must our expression in the form of protest be allowed to show itself. Our different forms of expression are what make the world a colorful and interesting place. This creative energy is what can drive and shape protest in the moment of action. Beyond our barriers lies freedom. Contact info: To find out the quickest and easiest way to contact me to get a copy, distribute this zinc or just to rant or say hello look up: http://www.geocities.com/firewoodzine Or, if you don't like to go near those computer things, write to me at: Sine Firewood 110 Box 1315 Port Townsend, WA 98368 Issues are $1 or a trade zine, demo, burrito... I'll review any zine, demo or burrito you send me in the next issue. Thanks! 163 4 true 2009-09-28T06:23:50Z 0 2009-09-28T06:45:20Z 7 2009-09-28T06:13:49Z 0 Eris varem comencar a interessar pels corrents anarquistes de critica a la civilitzacio, anticivilitzacio o l'etiqueta de moda de primitivistes a rel de la visita d'en John Zerzan a Barcelona I' any passat, i de la torbacio que les seves intervencions varen provocar en els altres ponents, especialment una membre d'OXFAM, aixi varem iniciar en la lectura de "future primitive" i d'aqui a texts de Fredy Perlman, John Moore, Bob Black i d'altres critics a la civilitzacio. Venint de la tradicio anarquista Barcelonina, ens va sorprendre forca la frescor i l'originalitat de molts dels seus plantejaments, fugint de compromisos amb el sistema i de posicions realistes. Encara que no ens identifiquem al cent per cent amb ells (ni amb ningu, ni tan sols entre nosaltres), hi em trobat molts encerts i pensem que el seu coneixement i el seu debat poden ajudarnos a superar l'estat de prostracio de I' anarquisme a ca nostra. Ens caldra revisar moltes de les bases que fa un temps eren forca solides, Kropotkin no es un capdavanter de l'ecologisme, sino un credul progressista, malgrat que l'aportacio dels capitols I, II i III de "Mutual aid" siguin una troballa encara avui, fins i tot des de el punt de vista biologic. I no cal dir de tot el Ilegat d'un determinat anarcosindicalisme, o com diuen alguns critics de la civilitzacio "anarquisme d'estat". Eris varem comencar a interessar pels corrents anarquistes de critica a la civilitzacio, anticivilitzacio o l'etiqueta de moda de primitivistes a rel de la visita d'en John Zerzan a Barcelona I' any passat, i de la torbacio que les seves intervencions varen provocar en els altres ponents, especialment una membre d'OXFAM, aixi varem iniciar en la lectura de "future primitive" i d'aqui a texts de Fredy Perlman, John Moore, Bob Black i d'altres critics a la civilitzacio. Venint de la tradicio anarquista Barcelonina, ens va sorprendre forca la frescor i l'originalitat de molts dels seus plantejaments, fugint de compromisos amb el sistema i de posicions realistes. Encara que no ens identifiquem al cent per cent amb ells (ni amb ningu, ni tan sols entre nosaltres), hi em trobat molts encerts i pensem que el seu coneixement i el seu debat poden ajudarnos a superar l'estat de prostracio de I' anarquisme a ca nostra. Ens caldra revisar moltes de les bases que fa un temps eren forca solides, Kropotkin no es un capdavanter de l'ecologisme, sino un credul progressista, malgrat que l'aportacio dels capitols I, II i III de "Mutual aid" siguin una troballa encara avui, fins i tot des de el punt de vista biologic. I no cal dir de tot el Ilegat d'un determinat anarcosindicalisme, o com diuen alguns critics de la civilitzacio "anarquisme d'estat". Hem tractat de resumir el tema en 4 punts per no allargarnos, recomanem, pero, Ilegir els texts que segueixen a aquest posicionament abans de donar aprovacions o rebutjos: 1.Per nosaltres es molt positiu reivindicar no ja la possibilitat d'una societat diferent, sino reivindicar el fet de que aquesta societat diferent, que ara no existeix per nosaltres, es la nostra veritable societat, que va existir durant desenes de milers d'anys i que va ser anorreada per l'adveniment de la jerarquia, la propietat privada i la divisio del treball. Ens sembla important poder fer front al les allegacions a la condicio humana i a que sempre les coses han estat aixi, i poder argumentar que sols fa uns millenis que vivim amb estat, propietat I jerarquia. En aquest aspecte "future primitive" es un assaig fonamentat, suposem que discutible, pero fonamentat. 2.Ens sembia important superar l'optimisime futurista de I'anarquisme, justificable potser fa cent i pico anys, pero incomprensible hores d'ara, quan l'escalfament global, la revolucio transgenica i l'expansio de la societat tumoral fan del "progres civilitzat" quelcom mes que discutible. No estendre la critica a les estructures estatals a l'entramat tecnocultural, el que podriem anomenar civilitzacio estat/capital/ ' jerarquia, es si mes no una inconsequencia. En aquest aspecte trobem una bona sintonia amb els grups "green anarchy" (d' Anglaterra, d' Escocia, d'Oregon i algunes de les posicioiis d' alguns dels grups de Eartf First! (mistics apart), aquests grups uneixen critica ecologica radical amb un rebuig total a la jerarquia, l'estat, el capitalisme i al compromis amb aquest .... el seu model de societat en Ilibertat, amb una autonomia individual absoluta, profundament integrada a la natura no deixa de tenir un atractiu molt gran, front l'oferta de treball industrial, estructura corporativa (comites, supracomites, federacions.... fins arribar a una monstruosa confederacio mundial amb el seu comite mundial) i domini de ILI "comunitat" (o de part d'ella) sobre la persona. 3.Especialment incisiva es la critica al que alguns d'ells anomenen "anarquisme d'estat", o I'anarquisme d' aquells quevolen heretar el sistema actual, les seves fabriques, les seves vies i mitjans de comunicacio, els seus sistemes de produccio alimentaria, el seu sistema sanitari, el seu sistema energetic ... sense comptar que en el seu si porten implicita la jerarquia, el poder, la divisio del treball... amb la pretensio de ferne una gestio "anarquista", llimantne, quan les condicions ho permetin, els aspectes mes punyents, aquest es el projecte final de bastants anarcosindicalisme, de molts dels municipalistes, dels defensors (le Rendes 4.No reivindiquem, ni nosaltres, ni tampoc ells, retornar a l' economia dels recol lectors cacadors, sino avaluar cada aspecte de la tecnocivilitzacio i tenir ben clar el preu a pagar per cada un d'ells, segur que es diferent el preu a pagar per un automobil que per un WC, per un enllumenat que per un medicament, per rellomillo que per una carxofa ... Si volem canviar la societat haurem d'anar fent eleccions, tenint en compte que la eleccio final i inicial ha de ser la Ilibertat total per tot el planeta. La pretensio de que podem conservar, en una societat anarquista, els nivells de consum d'energia i aigua actuals, els nivelis de produccio de residus de tota mena, la sobreexplotacio de sols, mars i ecosistemes, el nivell de consum de recursos no renovables es com minim un autoengany. 5.Finalment trobem molt comode que quan algu ens digui "vosaltres el que voleu es tornar a les cavernes!!!" poderli contestar "doncs mira, una mica si!". SALUT I ANARQUIA Barcelona setembre de 2001. * FUTUR PRIMITIU. La divisio del treball, que tan ha contribuit a submergirnos en la crisi mundial del nostre temps, treballa quotidianament per impedirnos comprendre el origens de l'horror actual. Mary Lecron Foster i d'altres academics afirmen, eufemisticament, que, avui dia, I'antropologia esta "amenacada per una fragmentacio greu i destructiva". Shanks i Tilley es fan resso d'un problema similar "l'objectiu de I'arqueologia no es solament interpretar el passat, sino transformar la manera en com es interpretat en benefici de la reconstruccio social actual". Evidentment les ciencies socials, per si mateixes, s' autoprohibeixen la perspectiva i la proflinditat de vista que permetrien una reconstruccio com aquesta. Al capitol dels origens i del desenvolupament de la humanitat, el ventall de disciplines i subdisciplines cada dia mes ramificat antropologia, arqueologia, paleontologia, etologia, etnologia, paleobotanica, etnoantropologia, etc reflecteixen l'efecte reductor i incapacitant de que la civilitzacio ha donat mostres des de les primeres tentines. La literatura especialitzada pot, malgrat tot, proporcionar una idea altament apreciable, a condicio d' abordarla amb el metode i la vigilancia apropiats, a condicio de tenir la decisio de travessar els limits. De fet, les deficiencies en el pensament ortodox corresponen a les exig~ncies d'una societat cada cop mes frustrant. La insatisfaccio amb la vida es transforma en desconfianca front les mentides oficials que serveixen per justificar aquestes condicions d' existencia; aquesta desconfianca permet aixi iliateix esbossar un quadre mes fidel del desenvolupament de la humanitat. S'ha explicat llargament la renuncia i la submissio' que caracteritzen la vida moderna per les contingencies de la "naturalesa humana". Tanmateix, el mite de la nostra existencia precivilitzada feta de privacions, de brutalitat i d'ignorancia ha acabat per fer apareixer I'autoritat com un benefici que ens ha salvat del salvatgisme. Encara s' invoca a "I' home de les cavernes" i a "I' home de nearderthal" per indicarnos on estariem sense la religio, I'Estat i el treball forcos. Ara be, aquesta visio ideologica del nostre passat ha estat radicalment capgirada al curs de les darreres decades gracies al treball d'universitaris com Marshall Sahlin. S'ha assistit a un capgirament quasi complet de l' ortodoxia antropologica, de fortes consequencies. S'admet d'ara en endavant que, abans de la domesticacio abans de la invencio de I'agricultura, l' existencia humana passava essencialment en l'oci, que descansava en la intimitat amb la natura, sobre una saviesa sensual, font d'igualtat entre sexes i de bona salut corporal. Tal va ser la nostra naturalesa humana durant aproximadament dos milions d'anys, abans de la nostra submissio als capellans, als reis i als patrons. Se'ns ha fet recentment una altra revelacio sorprenent, Iligada a la primera i donantli una altra amplitud i que ens mostra el que hem sigut i el que podriem ser. El principal motiu de refus a la visio de les noves descripcions de la vida dels caqadors recollectors consisteix, en considerar aquesta manera de viure amb condescendencia, com el maxim al que podia arribar una especie en els primer estadis de la seva evolucio. Aixi aquests que encara propaguen aquesta visio consideren que hi hauria un llarg periode de gracia i d'existencia pacifica i que els humans no haurien simplement tingut la capacitat mental per canviar la seva simplicitat per complexitat social i tecnica. S'ha donat un altra cop decisiu al culte a la civilitzacio quan aprenem avui en dia que la vida humana va ignorar durant molt de temps I'alienacio i la dominacio, pero tambe que, com ban mostrat les investigacions dutes a terme despres dels anys 80 pels arqueolegs John Fowlett, Thomas Wynn i d'altres, els humans de l'epoca posseien una intelligencia com a minim igual a la nostra. L'antiga tesi de la "ignorancia" va ser esborrada d'un cop i els nostres origens ens apareixien al mateix temps amb una Ilum nova. Amb la finalitat de col locar la questio de la nostra capacitat mental en el seu context, es util passar revista a les interpretacions diverses (i sovint carregades d'ideologia) dels origens i del desenvolupament de la humanitat. Robert Ardrey pinta un quadre patriarcal i sanguinari de la prehistoria, com ban fet en un grau Ileugerament menor, Desmond Morris i Lionel Tiger. En la mateixa direccio, Sigmund Froid i Konrad Lorenz ban descrit la depravacio innata de la especie, aportant aixi la seva pedra a l'edifici de I'acceptacio de la jerarquia i del poder. Afortunadament un quadre molt mes plausible ha acabat per emergir, corresponent a un coneixement global de la vida paleolitica. El repartiment dels aliments ha estat finaiment considerat com un aspecte de la vida de les primeres societats humanes. Jane Goodall i Richard Leakey, entre d'altres, ban arribat a la coticlusio de que aquest ha estat Lin element clau en el nostre acces a l' estadi d'Homo, fa almenys dos milions d'anys. Aquesta teoria avancada, als inicis dels anys 70 per Linton, Zihlman, Tanner i Isaac, ha acabat essent la dominant. Un dels arguments convincents a flavor de la tesi de la cooperacio, contra la de la violencia generalitzada i de la dominacio dels mascles, es la de la disminucio, als primers estadis de l'evolucio, de la diferencia de talla entre mascles i femelles. El dimorfisme sexual era inicialment molt pronunciat: canins prominents o "dents de combat" en els mascles y canins molt mes petits entre les femelles. La desaparicio dels grans canins entre els mascles apuntala fortament la tesi segons la qual la femella de I l'especie va operar una seleccio a favor dels mascles sociables i compartidors. La major part dels simis actuals tenen el canins mes Ilargs i grossos entre els mascles que entre les femelles, la femella no te eleccio. La divisio sexual del treball es una altra questio fonamental en els principis de la humanitat; es acceptada gairebe sense discussions i fins i tot expressada per l'ordre mateix de la expressio cacadorsrecol lectors S'admet actualment que la recol leccio d'aliments vegetals, que durant molt de temps es va considerar un domini exclusiu de les dones i d'importancia secundaria en relacio a la cacera, sobrevalorada Coln una activitat masculina, constituia la principal font d'aliments. Essent aixi que les dones no depenien, de manera significativa, dels homes per alimentarse, sembla probable que, al contrari de tota divisio del treball, la flelxibilitat i el compartir I'activitat era la regla. Com mostra Zihlman, una flexibilitat general de comportament hauria sigut la caracteristica principal dels primers temps de l' existencia humana. Joan Gero ha demostrat que els utils de pedra podien haver sigut utilitzats tan pels homes com per les dones, i Poirier en diu que "cap prova arqueologica recolza la teoria segons la qual els primers humans ban practicat la divisio sexual del treball". No sembla que la recerca d'aliments hagi obeit a una divisio del treball sistematica, fos la que fos, i es probable que la especialitzacio per sexe es vi fer molt tard en el decurs de l'evolucio humana. Aixi, si la primera adaptacio de la nostra especie va estar centra en la recol leccio, quan va apareixer la cacera? Binford soste que cap senyal tangible de practiques carnisseres indica un consum de productes animals fins a l'aparicio, relativament recent, d'humans anatomicament moderns. L'examen al microscopi electronic de dents fossils trobades a l'Africa oriental indiquen un regim essencialment compost de fruits, igualment l'examen similar d' utils de pedra provinents de Koobi Fora, a Kenia, de 1,5 milions d'anys d'antiguitat mostren que s'utilitzaven per tallar vegetals. La situacio "natural" de la especie era una dicta formada en gran part per aliments vegetals ries en fibra, en contra (le I' alimentacio moderna d'alt contingut en materies grasses i proteines animals, amb la seva corrua de desordres cronics. Els nos tres primers avantpassats utilitzaven "el seu coneixement detaIlat de l'entorn en una especie de cartografia cognitiva" per procurarse les plantes que servien a la seva subsistencia. Per contra, els testimonis arqueologics de l'existencia de cacera no apareixen sino lentament al llarg del temps. Per altra part nombrosos elements venen a contradir la tesi que mante que la cacera era molt estesa durant cis temps prehistorics. Per exemple les piles d'ossades on es veia abans la prova de matances massives de mamifers, han resultat, al examinarles posteriorment, vestigis d'inundacions o de caus d'animals. Segons aquesta nova aproximacio, les primeres caceres significatives haurien apa regut fa 200.000 anys, o mes tard. Adrienne Zihlman, va arribar a la conclusio de que "la cacera va apaareixer relativament tard en l'evolucio", i "no existia abans dels darrers 100.000 anys". Els investigadors no han trobat proves de caceres importants de grans remugants abans d'una data encara mes propera, al final del paleolitic superior, just abans de l'agricultura. El objectes mes anties coneguts son els utils de pedra tallada de Hadar, a l' Africa Oriental. Gracies als metodes (le datacio precisos, emprats avui dia, s'estima que podrien remuntarse a 3,1 milions d'anys. El principal motiu d'atribuir aquests objectes a la ma de l'home es que es tracts d'utils fabricats amb l'ajut d'un altra util, caracter trobat solament entre els humans en l' estat actual dels nostres coneixements. L'Homo habilis designa el que es creu que es la primera especie humana coneguda, aquest nom ha estat associat als primers utils de pedra. Els objectes corrents en fusta o en os, menys durables i mes rars en els inventaris arqueologics, eren tambe utilitzats per l'Homo habilis a I'Africa i a I'Asia i testimonien una adaptacio "remarcablement simple i eficac". En aquests estadis, els nostres avantpassats tenien un cervell i un cos mes petit que el nostre, pero Poirier fa notar que "la seva anatomia postcraniana era forca semblant a les dels humans moderns", i Holloway afirma que els estudis de les marques endocranianes d'aquest periode indiquen una organitzacio cerebral fonamentalment moderna. Igualment, certs utils de mes de dos milions d'anys d'antiguitat proven el predomini dels dretans, per la manera en que estan tallades les pedres. La tendencia a utilitzar prioritariament una ma, es tradueix entre els moderns en trets tipicament humans, son la lateralitzacio pronunciada del cervell i la separacio funcional marcada dels dos hemisferis cerebrals. Klein conclou que aixo "implica quasi amb certesa, capacitats cognitives i de comunicacio humanes fonamentals". Segons la ciencia oficial, I'Homo erectus es un altra gran predecessor de I'Homo sapiens; hauria aparegut fa quasi 1,75 milions d'anys, en el moment en que els humans sortien dets boscos per escamparse per les sabanes africanes mes seques i mes obertes. Malgrat que el volum del cervell no es correspon amb la capacitat intel lectual, el volum cranial de l' Homo erectus es en aquest punt similar als homes moderns del mateix genere "han d'haver tingut molts comportaments identics". Com diuen Johanson i Edey: "Si s'ha de comparar a l' Homo erectus dotat d'un mes gran cervell a l'Homo v(il)iens dotat d'un de mes petit sense tenir en compte les seves altres particularitats sera necessari permutar els seus noms especifics" l' Homo neanderthalensis, que ens hauria precedit directament, posseia un cervell lleugerament mes gran que el nostre. Per tant, aquest malaurat home de neanderthal no es pot descriure'l com una criatura primitiva, tosca en conformitat amb la ideologia bobbessiana dominant, malgrat la seva intel ligencia manifesta, reforcada per una forca colossal. Per altra part, des de fa poc, la classificacio mateixa de les especies ha pres la forma d'una hipotesi dubtosa. Efectivament, la nostra atencio estava atreta pel let de que especimens fossils procedents de diverses especies d'Homo "presentessin totes trets morfologics intermedis", cosa que contradiu, per obsoleta, la divisio arbitraria de la humanitat en categories successives i separades. Fegan, per exemple, ens ensenya que "es molt dificil tracar una frontera taxonomica clara entre I'Homo erectus i l'Homo sapiens arcaic d'una part, i I'Homo sapiens arcaic i anatomicament modern de I'altra part". Igualment, Foley nota que "les distincions anatomiques entre l'Homo erectus i I'Homo sapiens son petites". Jelinek afirma rotundament que "no hi ha cap bona rao anatomica o cultural" per separar erectus i sapiens en dos especies, i en conclou que els humans, des de el paleolitic mitja al menys, poden ser considerats com Homo sapiens". La formidable enretirada vers el passat de la datacio de I'aparicio de l'intel ligencia, de la que parlarem mes endavant, s'ha de mirar des de la confusio actual sobre el tema de les especies, a mesura que el model evolucionista practicament dominant arriba als seus limits. Pero la controversia sobre la classificacio de les especies no ens interessa mes que en relacio amb el coneixement (le la manera de viure dels nostres avantpassats. Malgrat el caire minim del que es pot esperar trobar despres de milers d'anys, s'entreveu una mica la textura d'aquesta vida i dels seus aspectes, sovint elegants, que varen precedir a la divisio del treball. El "grapat d'utils" de la regio de la gorja d'Olduvai, fet celebre per Leakey, conte "almenys sis tipus d' utils clarament identificables" que es remunten a 1,7 milions d'anys aproximadament. Es alla on apareix la destral "atxeliana" amb la seva bellesa simetrica, que va ser utilitzada durant un milio d'anys. Amb la seva forma de limina, remarcablement equilibrada respira gracia i facilitat d'us, per ser un objecte d'una epoca ben anterior a la simbolitzacio. Isaac ha fet notar que "les necessitats essencials d'utils esmolats poden ser satisfets per les formes diverses engendrades a partir del model "oldovienc" de pedra taIlada", i es pregunta conm s'ha pogut pensar que "un escreix de complexitat equival a una millor adaptacio". En aquesta epoca llunyana, segons marques de tall sobre ossades , els homes es servien de tendons i de pelt arrancada als cadavers d'animals per confeccionar cordes, sacs i folres. Altres elements fan pensar que pells servien de tapisseria mural i de seient a les cavernes, i algues de marfega per dormir. L'us del foc es remunta a quasi dos milions d'anys i podria haver aparegut abans, si no fos per les condicions tropicals regnants a I'Africa en els comencaments de la humanitat. El domini del foc permetia incendiar les coves per eliminar els insectes i escalfar el terra, elements de confort que apareixen ben aviat at paleolitic. Alguns arqueolegs consideren encara que tots els humans anteriors a I'Homo sapiens del que I'aparicio oficial es remunta a menys de 300.000 anys son considerablement mes primitius que nosaltres, "homes complets". Pero a mes a mes de les proves, citades abans, de l'existencia d'un cervell anatomicament "modern" entre els primers humans, aquesta inferioritat es veu de nou contradita per treballs recents, demostrant la presencia d' una intel ligencia humana acabada quasi des de el naixement de l'especie humana. Thomas Wynn estima que la fabricacio de la destral atxeliana exigeix un "grau d'intel ligencia caracteristic d'adults completament moderns". Gowlett examina el "pensament operatori" , necessari per l'us del martell, de la reparticio de la forca at escollir I'angle de fractura apropiat, segons una sequencia ordenada, i la flexibilitat necessaria per modificar el procediment. Ha deduit que eren necess~ries capacitats de manipulacio, de concentracio, de visualitzacio de la forma en tres dimensions i de planificacio, i que aquestes exigencies "eren comunes entre els primers humans, fa al menys dos milions d'anys, i aixo es una certesa establerta, no una hipotesi". La durada del periode paleolitic sorpren per la debil transformacio de les tecniques. Segons Gerhard Kraus, la innovacio, "at llarg de dos milions d'anys i mig, mesurada per l'evolucio de l'utillatge de pedra es practicament nul la". Considerada a la Ilum del que ara sabem de la intel ligencia prehistorica, aquest estancament es especialment desencoratjant per molts especialistes de les ciencies socials. Per Wymer, "es dificil comprendre un desenvolupament d'una lentitud tal". Al contrari, a mi, em sembla molt plausible, que la intel ligencia, la consciencia de la riquesa que procura la existencia de recol lector cacador, sigui la rao d'aquesta absencia marcada de "progres". Sembla evident, que la especie ha refusat deliveradament la divisio del treball, la domesticacio i la cultura simbolica fins una data recent. El pensament contemporani, en la seva salsa postmoderna, nega la realitat d'una divisio entre natura i cultura; malgrat tot, donada la capacitat dejudici dels essers humans abans de l' esdeveniment de la civilitzacio, la realitat fonamental es que durant un temps molt llarg han escollit la natura en detriment de la cultura. Es corrent igualment trobar simbolic tot gest o objecte huma, posicio que , d'una manera general, forma part del rebuig de la distincio entre natura i cultura. Ara be, es de la cultura coin a manipulacio de formes simboliques de base del que es tracta aqui. Em sembla igualment clar que ni el temps reificat, ni el lienguatge escrit, ben segur, ni probablement el Ilenguatge parlat (at menys en bona part del periode), ni cap forma de comptabilitat o d'art no havien tingut Iloc en la vida humana prehistorica grat l'existencia d'una intel ligencia capac d'inventarlos. Voldria manifestar, de passada, el men acord amb Goldschmidt quan escriu que "la dimensio amagada de la construccio del mon simbolic es el temps". Com afirma Norman O.Brown, "la vida no s'encotilla ni es situa en el temps historic", afirmacio que considero com una crida del fet de que el temps com a materialitat no es inherent a la realitat, sino un fet cultural, potser el primer fet cultural imposat a la realitat. Es a mesura que evoluciona aquesta dimensio elemental de la cultura simbolica que s'estableix la separacio amb la natura. Cohen ha avancat que els simbols son "indispensables pel des envolupament i el manteniment de l'ordre social". Aixo implica com indiquen, mes precisament encara, moltes proves tangibles que abans de l'emergenncia dels simbols, la condicio de desordre que els fa necessaris, no existia. En una linia analoga, Levi-Strauss ha remarcat que el pensament mitic progressa sempre a partir de la consciencia d'oposicions vers la seva resolucio. Llavors que son els desordres, els conflictes, les "oposicions"?. Entre els milers de memories i estudis tractant de temes concrets, la literatura sobre el paleolitic no proposa quasi be res sobre aquesta questio essencial. Es podria avancar com hipotesiraonable que la divisio del treball, que passa desapercebuda per la lentitud extrema de la seva progressio, i insuficientment compresa, a causa de la novetat, comenca a causar esquerdes infimes en la comunitat humana i a suscitar practiques nocives cara a la natura. Al final del paleolitic superior, fa 15.000 anys, es comenca a observar a l'Orient Mitja una recolleccio especialitzada de plantes i una cacera tambe especialitzada. L'aparicio de sobte d'activitats simboliques (per exemple activitats rituals i artistiques) at paleolitic superior es innegable, per als arqueolegs, una de les "grans sorpreses" de la prehistoria, donada la seva absencia al paleolitic mitja. Pero els efectes de la divisio del treball i de l'especialitzacio varen fer sentir la seva presencia en tant que ruptura de la totalitat de l'ordre natural una ruptura que es necessari explicar. El que es sorprenent es que aquesta transicio cap a la civilitzacio pugui encara ser jutjada com a totalment innocua. Foster, sembla ferne I'apologia quan conclou que "el mon simbolic s'ha rebel lat extraordinariament adaptatiu. Si no, com I'Homo sapiens ha pogut esdevenir materialment I'amo del mon?". Hi ha certament raons, com les que es poden veure en "la manipulacio dels simbols, l'essencia mateixa de la cultura", pero sembla oblidar que aquesta adaptacio va aconseguir iniciar la separacio de I'home de la naturalesa, aixi com la destruccio progressiva d'aquesta , fins la terrible amplitud actual d'aquests dos fenomens. Sembla raonable afirmar que el mon simbolic va neixer amb la formulacio del Ilenguatge, aparegut d'una manera o altra a partir d'una "matriu de comunicacio no verbal estesa" i del contacte interindividual. No hi ha consens sobre la data d'aparicio del Ilenguatge, pero no existeix cap prova de la seva existencia abans de l'explosio cultural de finals del paleolitic superior. El Ilenguatge sembla haver operat com un agent inhibidor, com a mitja de sotmetre la vida a un control mes gran, de posar traves a l'onada de sensacions a les que l'individu premodern era receptiu. Vist aixi, versemblantment s'hauria produit un allunyament, des de aquesta epoca, de la vida d'obertura i de comunicacio amb la natura, en direccio a una vida orientada vers la dominacio i la domesticacio que seguirien a I'adveniment de la cultura simbolica. No existeix per una altra part, cap prova definitiva que permeti creure que el pensament huma es, pet fet de pensar amb paraules, el mes evolucionat per poc que es tingui la honestedat d'apreciar universaiment el grau d'acabament d'un pensament. Existeixen nombrosos casos de pacients que havent perdut, despres d'una accident o d'una altra degradacio del cervell I el sentit de la paraula, compresa la capacitat de parlar silenciosament amb un mateix, son de fet capacos de pensar coherentment de totes les maneres. Aquestes dades ens convencen de que "I'aptitud intellectual humana es d'una puixanca extraordinaria, fins i tot en absencia de Ilenguatge". En termes de simbolitzacio en I'accio, Goldschmidt l'encerta quan estima que "la invencio del ritual at paleolitic superior podria ser l'element estructural que va donar el major impuls a l'expansio de la cultura". I ritual ha jugat el paper d'eix en el que Hodder ha anomenat 'el desplegament incessant d'estructures simboliques i socials" que ban acompanyat I'arribada de la mediacio social. Es com a mitja de consolidar la cohesio social que el ritual va ser essencial; els rituals totemics per exemple, reforcen I'autoritat del clan. Es comenca a analitzar el paper de la domesticacio, o "doma de la natura" en l'ordenacio cultural de la salvatgeria per mitja del ritual. Totes les evidencies ens indiquen que, la dona com categoria cultural, a saber, un esser salvatge o perillos, data d'aquest periode. Les figurates rituals de "Venus" apareixen fa 25.000 anys, i semblen ser un exemple de les primeres representacions simboliques de la dona amb finalitats de representacio i de dominacio. Mes concretament encara, la submissio de It natura salvatge es manifesta en aquesta epoca per la cacera sistematica dels grans mamifers, activitat de la que el ritual es part integrant. Es pot considerar tambe la practica xamanica del ritual com una regressio en relacio amb l'estadi on tots compartien una consciencia que avui considerariem extrasensorial. Quan sols els experts pretenen poder accedir a una percepcio superior, que era abans de gaudiment comu, s'accentuen i faciliten nous renunciaments a favor de la divisio del treball. El retorn Li la felicitat pel ritual es un tema mitic quasi universal, amb, entre d'altres joies, la promesa de la dissolucio del temps mesurable (la eternitat). Aquest tema del ritual posa el dit sobre la nafra que preten curar, com fa la cultura simbolica en general. * El ritual com a mitja d'organitzar les emocions, com a metode d'orientacio i de constrenyiment cultural, governa I'art, faceta de l'expressio ritual. Per Grans, "no hi ha gaires dubtes que les diverses formes d'art profa deriven de I'art ritual". Es detecta l' inici d'un malestar, el sentiment de que una autenticitat directa, mes antiga, es a punt de desapareixer. La Barre te rao al considerar que "l' art, coin la religio neixen del desig insatisfet". Al principi abstreta pel Ilenguatge, despres d'una manera mes orientada pet ritual i l'art, la cultura entra en escena per respondre artificialment a les angoixes espirituals o socials. El ritual i la magia varen dominar segurament els inicis de l'art (al paleolitic superior) i sense dubtes varen jugar un paper essencial, mentre la divisio del treball s' imposava progressivament, en la coordinacio i la conducta de la comunitat. En el mateix ordre d'idees, Pfeiffer ha vist en las celebres pintures parietals europees del paleolitic Superior el primer metode d'iniciar als nens en uns sistemes socials que ban esdevingut complexes, l'educacio va ser Ilavors necessaria pel manteniment de la disciplina i l'ordre. I l'art podria haver contribuit al control de la natura, per exemple facilitant el desenvolupament d'una nocio primitiva de territori. L'aparicio de la cultura simbolica, transformada per la seva necessitat de manipular i de dominar, ha obert la via a [a domesticacio de la natura. Despres de dos milions d'anys de vida humana passats respectant la natura, en equilibri amb d'altres especies, l'agricultura a modificat la nostra existencia i la nostra manera d'adaptarnos, d'una manera desconeguda fins Ilavors. Mai abans una especie havia conegut un canvi radical tan profund i rapid. L'autodomesticacio pel I llenguatge, pel ritual i I'art inspira la dominacio de plantes i ammals que segueix. Apareguda fa sols deu mil anys, l'agricultura ha triomfat rapidament car la dominacio engendra per ella mateixa, i exigeix continuament, el seu propi reforcament. Un cop difosa, la voluntat de produir ha esdevingut tant mes productiva quan's exercia eficacment, i de fet tant mes predominant i adaptativa. L'agricultura permet un grau creixent de la divisio del treball, crea els fonaments materials de la jerarquia social i inicia la destruccio de l'entorn. Els capellans, els reis, els treballs forcats, la desigualtat sexual, la ,uerra son algunes de les consequencies immediates. Mentre que els humans del paleolitic tenien un reqim extremament variat, s'alimentaven de varis milers de plantes diferents, l'agricultura va reduir notablement les seves louts d'apro visionament. Donada la intel•ligencia i el vast saber practic de la humanitat durant l'edat de pedra, hom es pregunta: "perque l'agricultura no ha aparegut per exemple, un milio d'anys abans nostre, en lloc de 8.000 anys solament?" Abans he aportat una breu resposta al formular la hipotesi d'una lenta i insidiosa progressio de l' alienacio fonamentada sobre la divisio del treball i la simbolitzacio. Pero al considerar les seves desastroses consequencies, resulta un fenomen espantos. Aixi, com diu Binford: "la questio no es argumentar perque I'agricultura s'ha desenvolupat tan tard, sino perque s'ha desenvolupat tan rapid?". El final del modus de vida recol lector cacador ha implicat un descens de la talla, de l'estatura i de la robustesa de l'esquelet, i apareix la caries dental, les carencies alimentaries i les malalties infeccioses. S'observa "en conjunt una baixa de la qualitat i segurament de la durada de la vida humana" conclouen Cohen i Aremelagos. Una altra consequencia ha sigut la invencio del numero, inutil abans de l'existencia de la propietat de les collites, les besties i de la terra, que es una de les caracteristiques de l'agricultura. El desenvolupament de la numeracio ha fet creixer la necessitat de tractar la natura com una cosa a dominar. L'escriptura era tambe necessaria per a la domesticacio, per les primeres formes de transaccio comercial i d'administracio politica. LeviStrauss ha demostrat d'una manera convincent que la funcio primera de la comunicacio escrita ha sigut afavorir l'explotacio i la submissio, les ciutats i els imperis, per exemple, haurien estat impossibles sense ella. Es veu aqui clarament unirse la logica de la simbolitzacio i el creixement del capital. Conformitat, repeticio i regularitat son les claus de la civilitzacio triomfant, reemplacant l'espontaneitat, i la descoberta, caracteristiques de la societat humana la que va sobreviure aixi durant molt de temps. Clark parla de "l'amplitud del temps d'oci" del recol lector cacador, i en conclou que "Es aixo i el modus de vida agradable que l'acompa nyava, i no les penuries i un llarg treball quotidia, el que explica perque la vida social va ser tan estatica". * Un dels mites mes vius i mes estesos es l' existencia d'una edat d'or, caracteritzada per la pau i la innocencia, abans de que, alguna cosa, destruis aquest mon idil lic i ens reduis a la miseria i el sofriment. L'Eden, o qualsevol que sigui el nom que hom li doni, era el mon dels nostres avantpassats recollectors cacadors; aquest mite expressa la nostalgia d'aquells que treballaven sense respir a la gleva, davant d'una vida Iliure i molt mes facil, pero ja perduda. El ric ambient habitat pels humans abans de la domesticacio i I'agricultura, avui en dia practicament ha desaparegut. pels rars recollectorscacadors supervivents d'avui en dia, sols queden les terres marginals, els Ilocs aillats no reivindicats per I'agricultura i la conurbacio. Malgrat aixo, els escassos recollectorscacadors que aconsegueixen encara escapar a les pressions enormes de la civilitzacio, estan en el punt de mira per transformarlos en esclaus (es a dir pagesos, subjectes politics, assalariats), estan tots influenciats pels contactes amb els pobles exteriors. Duffy nota aixi que els recollectors cacadors actuals que ha estudiat, els pigmeus Mbouti d'Africa Central, ban estat aculturats pels agricultorsciutadans dels voltants durant centenars d'anys i, en menor mesura, per generacions de contacte amb I'administracio colonial, despres neocolonial i amb els missioners. Per tant, sembla que una voluntat de vida autentica, que ve del fons de les edats persisteix entre ells, "tracteu d'imaginar", demana Duffy, "un modus de vida on la terra, I'allotjament, i I'alimentacio son gratuits, i on no hi ha dirigents ni patrons, ni politics, ni crim organitzat, ni impostos ni Ileis. Calculeu I'avantatja de formar part d'una societat on tot es reparteix, on no hi ha rics ni pobres i on el benestar no significa I'acumulacio de bens materials". Els Mbouti mai ban domesticat animals ni conreat vegetals. Entre els membres de les bandes no agricoles existeix una combinacio remarcablement sana de baixa quantitat de treball i abundancia material. Bodley ha descobert que els San (coneguts sota el nom de boiximans) de l'arid desert del Kalahari, al Sud de I'Africa, treballen menys i menys hores que els seus veins agricultors. De fet, en periodes de sequera, es als San, a qui els pagesos s'adrecen per sobreviure. Segons Tanaka, passen "una part extraordinariament curta del temps per treballar, i la major part per reposar i distreure's", d'altres observadors ban notat la vitalitat i la Ilibertat dels San comparats amb els pagesos sedentaris, aixi com la seguretat relativa i la manca de preocupacions de la seva vida. Flood ha remarcat que els aborigens d'Australia consideren que "el treball requerit per Ilaurar i plantar no esta gens compensat per les avantatges que aporta". En un pla general, Tanaka ha revelat I'abundancia i equilibri dels aliments vegetals en totes les primeres societats humanes aixi com en totes les societats de recollectorscacadors moderns. De la mateixa manera, Festinger parla de I'acces entre els humans del paleolitic "a quantitats considerables d'aliments sense gran esforc", afegint que "els grups contemporanis de recol lectorscaqadors se'n surten prou be, fins i tot quan ban estat arraconats vers h~bitats molt marginals". Com Hole i Flannery han resumit "cap grup sobre la terra disposa de mes oci que els cacadors i recollectors, que consagren el millor del temps al joc, a la conversacio i al relax". Disposen de mes temps Iliure, afegeix Binford, "que els obfers industrials i agricoles moderns, fins i tot que els professors d'arqueologia". Els no-domesticats saben que, com ha dit Veneigen, sols eentl present pot ser total. Aixo significa que viuen la seva vida amb una immediatesa, una densitat i una passio incomparablement mes gran de com fem nosaltres. S'ha dit que certes jornades revolucionaries valen segles; mentre, "nosaltres contemplem I'abans i el despres i sospirem pel que no es...". Els Mbouti estimen que "amb un present convenientment pie, les questions del passat i del futur s'arreglaran elles mateixes". Els primitius no tenen necessitat de records i no donen generalment cap importancia als aniversaris ni al recompte de la seva edat. En quant a l'esdevenidor, tenen tants pocs desigs de dominar el que encara no existeix com de dominar la natura. La seva consciencia d'una successio d'instants barrejantse en el flux i el reflux del mon natural, no impedeix la nocio de les estacions, pero no constitueix pas una consciencia separada del temps que els privi del present. Pero encara que els recollectors cacadors actuals mengen mes earn que els seus avantpassats prehistorics, els aliments vegetals constitueixen encara l'essencial del seu menu a les regions tropicals i subtropicals. Els San del Kalahari i els Hazda d'Africa Oriental, on la caca major es mes abundant que en el Kalahari, depenen de la recolleccio en un 80% de la seva I'alimentacio. La branca !Kung dels San recollecta mes d'un centenar de vegetals diferents i no presenta cap carencia alimentaria. Els seu regim s'assembla al sa i variat dels recollectorscacadors australians. El regim global dels recollectors es millor que el dels agricultors, la carestia es molt rara i el seu estat de salut es generalment superior, amb moltes menys malaities croniques. Lauren Van der Post es va meravellar davant l'exuberancia del riure dels San una rialla que surt "del centre del ventre, un riure que no es sent mai entre els civilitzats". Ell jutja que es un senyal de gran vigor i d'una claredat de sentits que aconsegueix encara resistir els assalts de la civilitzacio. Truswell i Hansen haurien pogut dir la mateixa cosa d'un San, que havia sobreviscut a un combat sense armes contra un Ileopard, ferit, havia al menys aconseguit ferir I'animal amb les mans nues. Els habitants de les illes Andaman, a l'oest de Tailandia, no es sotmeten a cap dirigent; ignoren tota representacio simbolica i no crien cap animal domestic. S'ha observat igualment entre ells I'absancia de I'agressivitat, la violencia i la malaltia; les seves ferides guareixen amb una rapidesa sorprenent, i la seva vista, igual que la oida, es singularment aguda. Es diu que han declinat despres de l'intrusio dels europeus a mitjans del segle XIX, pero presenten encara trets fisics remarcables, com ara una immunitat natural a la malaria, una pell suficientment elastica per no tenir les arrugues que associem a la vellesa, i dents d'una forca "increible": Cipriani conta com ha vist a nois de deu a quinze anys tocar claus entre les mandibules. Hi ha forces testimonis d'un costum de vigor a Andaman consistent a recollectar la mel sense cap vestit protector: "no els piquen mai. Veientlos, tenia la impressio d'estar en presencia d'alguna mena de misteri antic, perdut pel mon civilitzat". De Vries ha fet tota mena de comparacions permetent establir la superiofitat dels recollectors cacadors en materia de salut, entre elles I'absencia de malalties degeneratives i mentals, aixi com la capacitat de dormir sense dificultat ni molesties. Tambe va notar que aquestes qualitats s'erosionen poc a poc amb el contacte amb la civilitzacio. En el mateix ordre d'idees, es disposa de ran nombre Lie proves no solament del vigor psiquic i emocional dels primitus sino tambe de la seva remarcable capacitat sensorial. Darwin ha descrit els habitants de l'extrem sud d'America que vivien quasi nus en condicions de fred extremes. Igualment Peasley ha observat aborigens australians que passaven la nit al desert amb molt baixes temperatures "sense cap mena de vestit". Levi-Strauss ha explicat la seva sorpresa de saber que una determinada tribu d'America del Sud poden veure el planeta Venus a pie dia, proesa comparable a la dels Dogon d'Africa del nord que consideren Siriur B com l'estrella mes important, una estrella que sols es veu amb telescopis dels mes potents. En la mateixa via, Boyden ha descrit la capacitat dels Boiximans per veure, a ull nu, quatre de les Ilunes de Jupiter. Al Ilibre The Harmless People, E. Marshall ha explicat com un boixima s'havia dirigit amb precisio vers un punt situat ell una basta planura "sense matolls ni arbres per marcar l'indret", i havia senyalat amb el dit un bri d'herba amb un filament de liana lligat quasi invisible que havia marcat mesos abans, a l'estacio de les pluges, quan era verda. El temps havia esdevingut caloros, al tornar a passar per aquell Iloc, va obtenir una rel suculenta oil havia marcat amb el seu Iligam. Tambe al desert del Kalahari, Van de Post ha meditat sobre la comunicacio dels San amb la natura, parlant d'un nivell d'experiencia que es "podria fins i tot anomenar mistica. Pei exemple, sembla saber que es el que s'experimenta quan s'es un elefant, un Ileo, un antilop, un Ilangardaix, un ratoli, una mantis, Lin boabab, una cobra o un amarillis, per citar sols alguns dels essers entre els que viuen". Sembla quasi banal comentar que frequentment hom es queda bocabadat davant I'habilitat dels recollectors caqadors en seguir una pista desafian tota explicacio racional. Rohrlich-Leavitt ha notat que "les dades de les que es disposa mostren que generalment els recollectors cacadors no cerquen delimitar un territori propi i marquen un Iligam bilocal; ignoren I'agressio collectiva i refusen la competencia entre grups, reparteixen lliurement els recursos, aprecien l'igualitarisme i I'autonomia personal en el quadre de la cooperacio de grup i son indulgents i tendres amb els infants". Desenes d'estudis fan del repartiment i de l'igualitarisme el tret distintiu d'aquests grups. Lee ha parlat de "la universalitat (del repartiment) entre els recollectorscacadors", igual que l'obra de Marshall ressenya una "etica de la generositat i de la humilitat" demostrant una tendencia "fortament igualitaria" entre els recollectorscacadors. Tanaka en proporciona un exemple tipic: "el tret de caracter mes apreciat es la generositat, i el mes menyspreat I'avaricia i l'egoisme". Baer ha reportat que "l'igualitarisme i el sentit democratic, l'autonomia personal i l'individualitzacio, el sentiment protector i l'instint nodridor" com les virtuts cardinals dels nocivilitzats; i Lee ha parlat "d'una aversio absoluta per les distincions jerarquiques entre els pobles recollectors cacadors del mon sencer". Leacock i Lee han precisat que "tota presumpcio d'autoritat" al si del grup "provoca l'enuig o la colera entre els !Kung, com s'havia reportat entre el Mbouti, els Hazda i dels Muntanyencs Naskapi entre d'altres". "Fins i tot el pare d'una familia extensa no pot dir als seus fills i les seves filles el que han de fer. La majoria dels individus semblen actuar segons les seves propies regles intemes", ha reportat Lee sobre els !Kung de Botswana. Ingold ha estimat que "a la major part de les societats de recollectors cacadors, han donat un valor suprem al principi de I'autonomia individual", equivalent al descobriment de Wilson d"'una etica d'independencia" que es comuna a "les societats obertes en questio". L'antropoleg de camp Radin ha arribat a dir que "en la societat primitiva es deixa camp lliure a totes les formes concebibles d'expressio de la personalitat. No s'emet cap judici moral sobre cap aspecte de la personalitat humana com a tal". Observant l'estructura social dels Mbouti, Turnbull s'ha sorpres de trobar "un vuit aparent, una absencia de sistema intern quasi anarquic". Segons Duffy, "els Mbouti son naturalment igualitaris: no tenen caps ni reis, i les decisions que concemeixen a la banda son preses per consens". En aquest tema, com entre tants d'altres, es troba una diferencia enorme entre els recollectors cacadors i els pagesos. Les tribus d'agricultors bantus (com els Saga), que rodejant els San, estan organitzats per l'aristocracia, lajerarquia i el treball, mentre que els San no coneixen altra cosa que l'igualitarisme, I'autonomia i el compartir. La domesticacio es el principi que presideix aquesta diferencia radical. La dominacio al si d'una societat no es possible sense la dominacio de la natura. Per contra, a les societats de recollectors cacadors, no existeix cap jerarquia entre la especie humana i les altres especies animals, de la mateixa manera que les relacions que uneixen els recollectors cacadors son no jerarquiques. Es caracteristic , els no domesticats consideren els animals que ells cacen com a iguals, i aquest tipus de relacio fonamentalment igualitaria ha durat fins I'arribada de la domesticacio. Quan I'allunyament progressiu de la natura va esdevenir dominacio social patent (agricultura) no varen canviar solament els comportaments socials. Els relats dels mariners i els exploradors que arribaven a regions "novament descobertes" diuen que ni els ocells ni els mamifers tenien por dels invasors humans. Alguns grups de recollectors actuals no cacavan abans de tenir contacte amb l'exterior, per exemple els Tasadai de Filipines; i si la major part d'aquests supervivents practica la cacera " no es tracta dun acte agressiu". Turnbull ha observat que la cacera entre els Mbouti es practica sense el menor esperit a,iessiu" i suscita fins i tot una mena de penediment. I Hewitt ha notat els Ilacos de simpatia que uneixen cacador i cacat entre els Boiximans San que va contactar al segle XIX. Pel que fa a la violencia entre els recollectors cacadors, Lee ha descobert que "els !Kung troben horroros lluitar i troben estupida la gent que es baralla". Segons la narracio de Duffy, els Mbouti "consideren tota forma de violencia entre uns individus amb molt d'horror i de disgust, i no el representen mai en les seves danses o en els seus jocs teatrals". L'homicidi i el suicidi, conclou Bodley, son "veritablement excepcionals" entre els placids recollectors cacadors. La naturalesa guerrera dels pobles indigenes d'America ha estat, sovint, favricada Li pedacos per donar una aparenca legitima als projectes de conquesta dels europeus; els recollectors cacadors Comantxes varen conservar les seves maneres no violentes durant segles abans de l'invasio europea, i sols veren esdevenir violents el seu contacte amb una civilitzacio dedicada al pillatge. Entre nombrosos giLips de recol lectors cacadors, el desenvolupamentde la cultura simbolica, que va conduir rapidament a l'agricultura, esta Iligada, a traves del ritual, a una vida social alienada. Bloch ha descobert una correlacio entre els nivells de ritual i de jerarquia. I Woodburn ha establert una connexio entre la manca de ritual i la absencia de papers especialitzats i de jerarquia elltre els Hazda de Tanzania. L'estudi de Turner sobre els Ndembou d'Africa Occidental ha revelat una profusio d'estructures rituals i de cerimonies destinats a equilibrar els conflictes nascuts de l'enfonsament d'una societat anterior, mes unida. Aquestes cerimonies i aquestes estructures tenen una funcio politica d'integracio. El ritual es una activitat repetitiva; les consequencies de les reaccions que engendren tenen l'efecte d'un contracte social. El ritual fa comprendre que la practica simbolica, a traves de la pertinenca al grup i de les regles socials, es indissoluble de la dominacio. El ritual nodreix I'acceptacio de la dominacio, i , com s'ha demostrat sovint, condueix a la creacio de rols de comandament i d'estructures politiques centralitzades. El monopoli de les institucions cerimonials perllonga netament la nocio d'autoritat i podria fins i tot ser I'autoritat formal original. Entre les tribus d'agricultors de Papua, I'autoritat i la desigualtat que ella implica esta fonamentada en la participacio a l'iniciacio ritual jerarquica o sobre la mediacio d'un xaman. Veiem dins el rol del xaman una practica concreta on el ritual serveix per a la dominacio d'alguns individus sobre el resta de la societat. Radin ha descrit "la mateixa tendencia marcada" entre el xamans i els homesmedecina dels pobles tribals d'Asia i America del Nord "a organitzar i desenvolupar la teoria segons la que sols ells estan en comunicacio amb el sobrenatural". Aquesta exclusivitat sembla donarlos un poder a expenses dels altres; Lommel ha constatat "un augment de la influencia psicologica del xaman desequilibrant la dels altres membres del grup". Aquesta practica te implicacions molt evidents sobre les relacions de poder en els altres dominis de la vida, i contrasta amb periodes anteriors on les autoritats religioses estaven absents. Els Batuque del Brasil tenen entre ells xamans que afirmen dominar certs esperits i tracten de vendre els seus serveis sobrenaturals a clients, d'una manera molt semblant als gurus de les sectes modernes. Segons Muller, els especialistes en aquest tipus de "control magic de la natura, acaben naturalment per controlar tambe els homes". De fet, el xaman es sovint l'individu mes influent de les societats preagricoles, i esta en posicio de poder institucionalitzai el canvi. Johannessen proposa la tesi segons la quual la resistencia a la innovacio que era la cultura de la recol leccio va se vencuda pels xamans, per exemple entre els indis d'Arizona i de Nuevo Mexico. Igulament Marquardt suggereix que les estructures d'autoritat ritual han jugat un paper important en la posta en marxa i l'organitzacio de la produccio a l' america del Nord. Un altra especialista en els grups americans ha vist un lligam important entre el paper dels xamans en la dominacio de la natura i la posada sota tutela de les dones. Berndt ha demostrat la importancia entre els aborigens austra de la divisio sexual ritual del treball en el desenvolupament dels rols sexuals negatius, i Randolph fa notar que "I'activitat ritual e's necessaria per crear tan homes com dones adequats". No existeix "a la natura cap rao" per la divisio entre sexes, explica Bendre. "Deurien ser creades per la prohibicio i el tabu, varen convertirse en "naturals" mitjancant la ideologia del ritual". Pero la societat de recollectors cacadors per la seva mateixa naturalesa, rebutia el ritual i la seva potencialitat de domesticar a les dones. La estructura (absencia d'estructura?) de les bandes igualitaries, fins i tot aquelles mes centrades en la cacera, comporta en efecte la garantia de I'autonomia dels dos sexes. Aquesta garantia es basa en que els productes de subsistencia estan disponibles per igual per les dones que pels homes, i Clue t mes a mes, l'exit de la banda depen de la cooperacio fonamentada sobre l'autonomia. Les esferes de cada sexe estan sovint separades d'una manera o altra, pero en la mesura en Clue la contribucio de les dones es generalment al menys igual t la dels homes, l'igualtat social entre sexes constitueix "un tret major de les societats de recollectors cacadors". De let, nombrosos antropolegs han constatat que als grups de recol lectors cacadors l'estatus de les dones era superior al que tenen en tots CIS altres tipus de societat. Per totes les ,rans decisions. ha observat Turnbull entre els Mbouti, "els homes i les dones tenen igualment veu a l'assemblea, la cacera i la recol leccio son igual d'importats l'un que I'altre". Existeix una diferenciacio sexual, -sens dubte mes marcada que entre els seus avantpassats llunyans "pero sense cap idea de superioritat o de subordinacio". Segons Post i Taylor, entre els !Kumg, el homes fan de fet jornades mes llargues que les dones. Respecte al tema de la divisio sexual del treball, corrent entre els recollectors cacadors contemporanis, caldra precisar que aquesta divisio no es de cap manera universal. No mes del que era a I'epoca de Tacit, quan escrivia a proposit dels Fenni de la regio baltica, que "les dones seguint els seus propis desigs cacen com els homes, i consideren la seva sort millor que la de les altres que es planyen dels treballs dels camps", o tambe, quan l'historiador bizanti Procopi descobria, al segle VI, que els Serithifinni de la regio que es actualment Fitlandia "no treballen mai el camp, ni fan conrear a les seves dones, sino que les dones s'ajunten amb els homes per cacar". Les dones tiwi de l'illa Melville cacen normalment, com les dones agta de Filipines. A la societat Mbouti, hi ha poca especialitzacio per sexes. "Fins i tot la caca es una activitat comuna, fa notar Turnbull, certificant que, entre els esquimals tradicionals, es (o era) una empresa cooperativa portada a terme per tot el grup familiar. Darwin va descobrir el 1871 un altra aspecte de la igualtat sexual; "entre les tribus totalment barbares, les dones tenen mes poder per escollir, rebutjar o seduir els seus amants o, i per consequencia, per canviar el seu marit, del que es podria creure". Els !Kung i els Mbouti son bons exemples d'aquesta autonomia femenina, com ha fet notar Marshall i Thomas. 'Aparentment, les dones canvien de marit cada cop que elles estan insatisfetes del seu company". Marshall ha descobert tambe que la violacio es extraordinariament rara, gairebe desconeguda, entre els !Kungs. Un curios fenomen concernent a les dones reollectorescacadores, es la seva capacitat d'impedir la prenyesa en absencia de tota mena d'anticoncptiu. Diverses hipotesis han estat formulades i refutades, per exemple que la fertilitat estigui lligada a la quantitat de grassa del cos. L'explicacio que sembla plausible es recolza sobre el fet de que els humans no domesticats estan mes en harmonia amb el seu esser fisic que nosaltres. Els sentits i els processos biologics dels recol lectors cacadors no els son estranys ni se'ls fan grans; el domini sobre la fertilitat es sens dubte menys misteriosa per aquells per qui el cos no ha esdevingut un objecte exterior sobre el que s'actua. Els pigmeus del Zaire celebren les primeres menstruacions de les noies amb una gran testa de gratitud i de joia. La jove dona experimenta l'orgull i el plaer, i tot el grup demostra la seva felicitat. Per contra, entre els vilatans agricultors, una dona que te la menstruacio es considerada impura i perillosa, i se la te en quarantena per un tabu. Draper es va impressionar per les relacions disteses, igualitaries entre homes i dones San, amb la seva suavitat i el seu respecte mutu, tipus de relacio que perdura, mentre els San continuen essent recollectors cacadors. Duffy ha descobert que tots els nens d'un campament Mbouti diuen pare a tots els homes i mare a totes les dones. Els nens dels recollectors cacadors es beneficien de mes atencions i mes cura, mes de temps que els de les families nuclears aillades per la civilitzacio. Taylor ha descrit "un contacte quasi permanent" I amb les seves mares i amb altres adults dels que es beneficien els nens boiximans. Els bebes !Kung estudiats per Ainsworth presenten una precocitat marcada del desenvolupament de les primeres actituds cognitives i motrius. Aixo s'atribueix tant a la estimulacio afavorida per una Ilibertat de moviments sense traves, com al nivell de calor i de proximitat fisica entre els pares i els nens. Draper ha pogut observar que la "competicio en els jocs esta practicament absent entre els !Kung", igual que Shostack observa que "els nois i les noies !Kung juguen d'una manera semblant i comparteixen la major part del joc". Ha descobert tambe que no es prohibeix als infants els iocs sexuals experimentals, aquesta situacio es parella amb la llibertat amb que els joves Mbouti, durant la pubertat, "es lliuren amb delit i joia a I'activitat sexual preconjugal". I els Zouni "no tenen cap nocio del pecat", com diu Ruth Benedict en la mateixa linia d'idees. "la castitat com a manera de viure esta mal considerada ... Les relacions agradables entre sexes no son mes que Lin aspecte de les relacions agradables entre humans ... la sexualitat es un fet banal en una vida felic". Coontz i Henderson apleguen nombrosos recolzaments de l'idea de que les relacions entre sexes son extremadament igualitaries en les societats dels recol lectors cacadors mes rudimentaris. Les dones juguen un paper essencial a l' agricultura tradicional, pero no es beneficien d'un estatus en correspondencia amb la seva contribucio, al contrari del que passa a les societats dels recollectors cacadors. Amb I'arribada de I'agricultura, les dones varen ser domesticades igual que les plantes i els animals. La cultura que es va establir per la instauracio de l'ordre nou, exigeix la submissio autoritaria dels instints, de la Ilibertat i de la sexualitat. Tot desordre ha de ser perseguit, el que es elemental i espontani ha de ser Iligat amb corda curta. La creativitat de les dones i el seu esser mateix en tant que persones sexuades son aixafats per donar lloc al paper, expressat en les grans religions pageses, de la Gran Mare, es a dir, de l'esser fecund, nutrici, subministrador d'homes i d'aliments. Els homes de la tribu dels Munduruc, conreadors d'America del Sud, utilitzen una mateixa formula per parlar de la submissio de les plantes i de les dones: "les domem amb la banana". Fins i tot Simone de Beauvoir ha reconegut en l'equivalencia aradaphalus el simbol de I'autoritat masculina sobre la dona. Entre els Jivaro de I'Amazonia, un altra grup d'agricultors, les dones son les besties de carrega i la propietat personal dels homes; "la captura de dones adultes constitueix el motiu de moltes guerres" per aquestes tribus de les planes d'America del Sud. Aixi, el tractament brutal i I'aillament de les dones semblen ser funcions de les societats agricoles i, en aquests grups, les dones continuen avui dia executant la major part, sit16 la totalitat del treball. La caca de caps es practicada pels grups mencionats mes amunt, forma part de la guerra endemica que Iliuren per la possessio de les terres cultivables; la caca de caps i l'estat de guerra quasi constant existeixen tambe entre les tribus d'agricultors de les altes planes de PapuaNova Guinea. Les recerques del matrimoni Lenski han arribat a la conclusio de que la guerra es molt rara entre els recollectors cacadors, pero esdeve extremadament corrent a les societats agricoles. Com expressa succintament Wilson: "la venjanca, la querella, la matanca, la batalla i la guerra semblen apareixer amb els pobles domesticats i els caracteritza". Els conflictes tribals, afirma Godelier, "s'expliquen principalment per la dominacio colonial" i no s'ha de considerar que el seu origen resideix "en el funcionament de les estructures precolonials". Es cert que el contacte amb la civilitzacio pot haver tingut un efecte desestabilitzador i provocar una degeneracio, pero es pot suposar que el marxisme ortodox de Godelier (d'aqui la seva resistencia a preguntarse sobre la relacio entre la domesticacio i la produccio) no es alie a un judici Colll aquest. Aixi se'ns pot dir que els Esquimals Cooper, que coneixen una taxa significativa d'homicidis al si del seu grup, deuen aquesta violencia a l'impacte d'influencies exteriors, Pero cal fer notar que ells crien des de fa molt de temps gossos de trineu. Arens ha afirmat que, el fenomen del canibalisme es una ficcio inventada i estesa pels agents de la conquesta exterior. Pero existeixen proves d'aquesta practica entre, aqui tambe, els pobles tocats per la domesticacio. Els estudis d'Hogg , per exemple, revelen la seva presencia en certes tribus africanes fundadees sobre l'agricultura i modelades sobre el ritual. El canibalisme es generalment una forma cultural de control del caos, en el clue les victimes representen I'animalitat o tot el que ha de set domat. Es significatiu que un dels grans mites dels habitants de les illes Fidji, "com els fidjians varen esdevenir canibals", es literalment un conte sobre la plantacio, lgualment els Azteques, poble fortament domesticat i sensible a la cronologia, practicava el sacrifici huma com un ritus destinat a calmar les forces rebels i mantenir l'equilibri d'una societat molt jerarquitzada. Com Norbeck ha senyalat, les societats no domesticades, "culturalment empobrides", no coneixen el canibalisme ni el sacrifici huma. En quant a un dels elements subjacents fonamentals de la violencia a les societats mes complexes, les fronteres, Barnes, ha descobert que "a la literatura etnoggrafica, els testimonis de lluites territorials" entre recol lectors cacadors son extremadament rares. Les fronteres dels !Kung son vagues i mai vigilades, els territoris dels Pandaram cavalquen els un sobre els altres, els Hazda es desplacen lliurement d'una regio a una altra, les nocions de frontera i violacio de frontera tenen poc sentit o cap entre els Mbouti; i els aborigens d'Australia refusen qualsevol demarcacio territorial o social. Una mentalitat fonamentada sobre I'hospitalitat i no sobre l'exclusio. Segons Kitwood, els pobles de recol lectors cacadors no han desenvolupat "cap concepcio de la propietat privada". Com nosaltres hem fet notar mes amunt, a proposit del repartiment i de la definicio dels aborigens per Samson com "poble sense propietat", els recol lectors cacadors no comparteixen pas l'obsessio dels civilitzats per les coses exteriors. "El meu i el teu, Ilavor de la discordia, no tenen cap Iloc entre ells", escrivia Pietro el 1511 a proposit dels indigenes que va trobar durant el dese viatge de Cristofol Colom. Segons Post, els Boiximans no tenen "cap sentit de la possessio" i Lee ha observat que no operen amb "cap dicotomia marcada entre els recursos de l'ambient natural i la riquesa social". Com ja hem dit, existeix una Iinia de demarcacio entre la natura i la cultura, i els no civilitzats han escollit la primera. Existeixen molts recol lectors cacadors que podrien transportar tot el que necessiten en una sola ma, i que grosso modo moren amb tot el que tenien al venir al mon. Va haver un temps en que la humanitat compartia totes les coses; amb la irrupeio de I'agricultura la propietat va esdevenir essencial, i una especie va pretendre posseir tot el mon. Ens trobem davant d'una distorsio que la imaginacio dificilment hauria pogut concebre. Sahlin ha parlat d'aixo d'una manera eloquent: "els pobles mes primitius del mon tenen poques possessions, pero no son pobres. La pobresa no es una determinada quantitat petita de bens; no es una relacio entre mitjans i finalitats, es abans que res, una relacio entre les persones. La pobresa es un estatus social. I en tant que tal es una invencio de la civilitzacio". La tendencia habitual" dels recollectors cacadors "a rebutjar I'agricultura fins que els es imposada de manera absoluta" expressa una divisio entre natura i cultura, ben present a les idees dels Mbouti segons la qual qualsevol que esdevingui vilata, deixa de ser Mbouti. Saben que la banda de recol lectors cacadors i els pobles de pagesos son societats oposades amb valors antagonistes. Arriba malgrat tot el moment en que el factor crucial de la domesticacio es perd de vista "les poblacions de recol lectorscacadors de la costa oest d'America del Nord, coneguts pels historiadors, son atipics en relacio amb d'altres recollectorscacadors". Com diu Kelly, "les tribus de la costa del NordOest trenquen tots els estereotips sobre els recollectors cacadors". Aquests recollectors cacadors tenien el seu principal mitja de subsistencia en la pesca, presentaven trets aliens com la ieiarquia, la guerra i l'esclavatge. Pero quasi sempre s'ha oblidat el fet de que conreaven tabac i criaven gossos. Aixi dones, fins i tot aquesta celebre "anomalia" comporta trets que la relacionen amb la domesticacio. En la practica, el ritual abans que res, despres la produccio, sembla afermar i afavorir, amb les formes de dominacio que I'acompanyen, els diversos aspectes del declinar de la vida humana aparegut despres de l'era felic anterior. Thomas proporciona altres exemples presos d'America del Nord, el dels Xoxonis de la Gran Vall i de les tres societats que la composen , els Xoxonis de la montanya Kawich, el Xoxonis del riu Reese i els Xoxoni de la vall d'Owens. Els tres grups coneixen nivells diferents d'agricultura, marcats per un sentit creixent del territori (o de la propietat) i de la jerarquia, i corresponentse estretament als diferents graus de domesticacio. "DEFINIR" UN mon desalienat seria impossible, fins i tot indesitjable, pero crec que podem i hauriem d'assajar desemmascarar el nomon d'avui dia i com hi hem arribat. Hem pres un mal cami monstruos amb la cultura i de la divisio del treball; hem marxat d'un Iloc d'encantament, de comprensio i de totalitat per inai a parar a l'absencia en que ens trobem, en el cor de la doctrina del progres. Buida i cada cop mes buida, la logica de la domesticacio, amb les seves exigencies de total dominacio, ens mostren la ruina d'una civilitzacio que arruina tota la res ta. Presumir de la inferioritat de la natura afavoreix la dominacio de sistemes culturals que no tardara en tornar la terra en inhabitable. El postmodernisme ens diu que una societat sense relacions de poder no pot ser mes que una abstraccio. Es una mentida!!, al menys si no acceptem la mort de la natura i de tot allo que va ser i que podria ser de nou. Turnbull ha parlat de la intimitat dels Mbouti i el bosc, i de la seva manera de dansar com si fessin l'amor amb el bosc. En una vida on els essers son iguals, una vida que no es una abstraccio i que s'esforca en mantenirse encara avui dia, ells "DANSEN AMB EL BOSC, DANSEN AMB LA LLUNA". * LIFE IS SHORT. THROW HARD. Support your local BLACK BLOC! 162 6 true 2009-09-28T06:45:20Z 0 2009-09-28T06:45:14Z 2 2009-09-28T05:18:48Z 0 Women could trust men freely and be less ambivalent about their attitudes towards them. Women and men could communicate more honestly about what they want or don't want during any stage of a sexual encounter without fearing manipulation or retaliation. Mothers would not have to tell their daughters to never be alone with a man, a statement that causes anxiety in "alone" situations even when it is consensual. Rape Awareness List For Men Always interrupt anybody who you see violating verbally or physically a woman's space. Do not join in if friends egg you on in paying unwanted sexual attention to a woman at a party, in a bar, or on the street. Do not ogle, whistle at, talk to, or look over, women in ways that make them feel uncomfortable. If you are not sure what makes a woman uncomfortable, ask her. NEVER put the blame on a woman who you've heard was raped by saying things like "She shouldn't have gone there/worn that/drank that." None of these things, or anything a woman does, causes rape. Rapists cause rape, and there is NO excuse. Never believe that only attractive women get raped, or imply that a man would not have raped a woman because she "isn't pretty". Rape is a crime of aggression, dominance, hate, and violence, not a beauty contest. When a woman says no, believe her. Never imagine that "no" means "maybe" or "yes." abandon the dangerous myth that women can't admit that they want sex and men have to overcome their hesitation. "No" means "no". Always. If a woman says "maybe", but then decides "no", take "no" but for an answer (even if you feel that she has led you on, worn provocative clothing, or enjoyed being fondled). Women have the right to set limits on sexual behavior just as you do. If you think you're getting a double message, say so, Ask her what she wants. If she says she isn't sure, assume the answer is no and let it go. Never think a woman owes a man sex under any circumstances. Sexual intercourse is not a payback for an expensive meal or an evening out on the town. Teach sons and other young men that using force or the threat of force to coerce a date into sex is inappropriate, unacceptable, criminal, and wrong. Don't confuse women's rape fantasies with how they feel about actual rape studies show that a woman's rape fantasies (if she has them) involve romantic, loving scenarios and have nothing to do with the actual degradation and terror of being raped and physically assaulted. The two should never be confused. Never voice, believe, or support the idea that a woman "wanted if'. If you heard that a buddy who had been in jail for one night was raped, would you think he wanted it or enjoyed it? For more literature contact: Overground Distribution P.O. Box 1661 Pensacola, FL 32597-1661 * How A Rape Free World Could Benefit Men Women could trust men freely and be less ambivalent about their attitudes towards them. Women and men could communicate more honestly about what they want or don't want during any stage of a sexual encounter without fearing manipulation or retaliation. Mothers would not have to tell their daughters to never be alone with a man, a statement that causes anxiety in "alone" situations even when it is consensual. Men would not be stigmatized as "bad", "dangerous" or "perverts". Women could dress any way they wish including topless, naked, or sexy and everyone could celebrate women's bodies. Men could dress the way they wish without being considered "dangerous". Women would not have to use, men as their protectors. They could love them because of who they are and pot because their presence discourages attacks. Men and women could have sex that is sexual and less a matter of control, status, hostility, or dominance. Men could fear less for their sisters, mothers, daughters, nieces, granddaughters, girlfriends, and female friends. Men would no longer have to cope with the fear, pain, frustration, loss of emotion, confusion, anger, and/or silence of their,, female lovers Who have been molested or raped. Men could experience more trusting women who are less scared to make eye contact, walk with them places, or go out to, a drink and to conversation. Women could have alone time, experience nature, go for walks by themselves, and therefore be more at peace with the world, less anxious, more self aware, less likely to seem exhausted or fed up with people. Men would not have to experience women crossing the street to avoid them, avoiding eye contact, tightening in, fear when they see a man, ignoring men or running away when they see a strange man. If rape scenes were not popular, pornography could be an erotic sexual aid depicting lusty, healthy, sexual, images for those who choose to watch or read it. 161 1 true 2009-09-28T07:35:35Z 0 2009-09-28T04:44:53Z 2 2009-09-26T22:42:38Z 0 Have you ever fought for something you believed in? Have you ever taken part in a march, joined an organization, petitioned to or otherwise utilized the options available to those of us who would like to change the world we live in? If you have, you know how disappointing the work can be. The problems we face in our society are overwhelming, much larger and more complex than one person can hope to untangle. Some of us work our whole lives in various "movements" without bringing about any significant change. It's like spitting in the ocean. After a while you bum out. Slowly the fire inside you dies, until there are only embers, and then you know it's time to buy that Subaru outback and park it in front of your house in southeast Portland. Why does this happen? Why do we become disillusioned? Why do we give up? It's spring. The air is warm, the sun comes out occasionally, and the time is right to plant a garden. Grabbing a few tools you head into your backyard, only to find that *gasp* there is no backyard, only blackberry brambles. In blind fury, you chop at the branches until you can see the grass again. This is an incredible amount of work. Exhausted and completely drained of energy, you head back inside to take a nap, satisfied that you have given your all and rid your yard of blackberries. A week or two later, when you have some time off of work, you decide to have another go at your garden. Stepping out into the spring sunshine, you see that all of the brambles have grown back, thicker and thornier than ever! Angry and defeated, you give up. You never really wanted a garden, anyway. Look outside your window. What do you see? (I mean, besides the blackberry bushes.) Homelessness. Unemployment. Hunger. Pollution. Waste. Violence. Racism. To name a few. Look closer, and the list goes on. Maybe you live in a nice neighborhood. Maybe the view from your window is sunshine and BMW's and blonde, well-fed children skipping rope. Then how about the things you don't see? How about the view overseas, in third world countries, and among the lower classes all over the world? Slave labor. Starvation. Disease. Have you ever fought for something you believed in? Have you ever taken part in a march, joined an organization, petitioned to or otherwise utilized the options available to those of us who would like to change the world we live in? If you have, you know how disappointing the work can be. The problems we face in our society are overwhelming, much larger and more complex than one person can hope to untangle. Some of us work our whole lives in various "movements" without bringing about any significant change. It's like spitting in the ocean. After a while you bum out. Slowly the fire inside you dies, until there are only embers, and then you know it's time to buy that Subaru outback and park it in front of your house in southeast Portland. Why does this happen? Why do we become disillusioned? Why do we give up? Some will argue that we are not fighting in vain, that various movements of the past have been successful in changing certain aspects of our society for the better. The end of slavery, the eight hour workday, and the woman's right to vote, these were the results of mass movements and often violent uprisings. And yet the basic repressive structure of our country remains the same. Instead of Africans working in cotton fields we have Mexican immigrants picking strawberries for five, dollars a day, and prisoners (America has more people in prison than any other country) making bras for Victoria's secret in sweatshop like conditions without pay. Not to mention the slave labor overseas, which puts the clothes on our backs and the greenbacks in our economy. Women may be able to vote, but they are paid less than men for the same jobs and we have yet to see a woman president, which is proof that the basic structure of our government has not changed. * Why change the basic structure of our government? Why not treat each problem individually? Why not fight to save our forests, march to stop war, etc.? While all of the people involved in various movements in this country are doing wonderful work, and sacrificing everything to the fight for change, this is a bit like hacking away at the branches of a blackberry bush, without digging it out by the root. The work is exhausting, but as long as the root of the problem is ignored, the branches will grow back stronger than ever, leaving those fighting for social & political change exhausted and disillusioned. Let's look at the peace movement of the nineteen sixties. Millions of people were involved in the movement against the Vietnam War, yet the war continued, undeterred. The peace movement was the largest social change movement in American history, yet at its peak president Nixon initiated Vietnamization, adding five more years to the imperialist war. Obviously, if a large portion of the country is in the street shouting for peace and the war continues, something is wrong. In reformist politics, the people channel all their energies into specific issues, and can pat themselves on the back for doing good work, while the basic structure of the government is unchanged, and the symptoms of a sick system (for example war) remain. For this reason the US government encourages reformist politics. Let the steam off, and guarantee that the system itself will never be threatened. The only way to alter the basic structure of the US government, and stop the decay of our society, and societies all over the world, is through revolution. Revolution will come about only when we cultivate communities that can support themselves outside of the capitalist system. Through community support networks, we can bring about revolution simply by ceasing to depend on the institutions of capitalism, and capitalism will simply cease to exist. Corporations only exist because we buy their products. Armies only exist because civilians offer themselves up to be soldiers. A religion can only exist if people believe in a deity. As soon as that belief is gone, the deity no longer has power. Some people will argue over the outcome of a revolution, debating on different versions of utopia, but there will never be a utopia. We don't need revolution because it's necessary for everyone to agree on the way we want to live. We need revolution because our society is sick. The question is not "what if we fail," but "what do we have to lose?" 160 1 true 2009-09-28T04:44:53Z 0