Contents:
Introduction, On Justice by Maia Ramnath, Paul Messersmith-Glavin, Sara Rahnoma-Galindo, and Lara Messersmith-Glavin for the Perspectives Collective.
Interviews from an Uprising, by Sarah Coffey reporting from Ferguson, MO where she spent six months.
The cover for Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prisons and Redemption, Walidah Imarisha’s new nonfiction book on prisons, coming out on AK Press in conjunction with Institute for Anarchist Studies in early 2016! We’re excited to be involved in editing and publishing this … Read more
Come celebrate the release of the new anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements!
Featuring readings by:
Co-editor Walidah Imarisha
Contributor Gabriel Teodros
Contributor David F. Walker
Audio recording of Mumia Abu Jamal reading his essay
Onsite collaborative print making with attendees–walk away with a FREE print!
IPRC
1001 SE Division, Portland, OR
Monday, June 15th 7 – 9 pm
Supported by: Independent Publishing Resource Center, Bitch Media, Momentum Alliance, Institute for Anarchist Studies
For the Long Haul: Care, Intention, and Steadiness in Radical Organizing
Pour le long terme : Prise en charge, dessein et stabilité dans l’organisation radicale
(français ci-dessous)
Sunday, May 24, 11am-12:45pm
Centre d’éducation populaire de la Petite-Bourgogne et de St-Henri (CEDA)
2515 rue Delisle (métro Lionel-Groulx) – Room #123 Montreal, Canada
Anti-authoritarians across North America face many similar challenges as we work to build movements capable of transforming the world: How can we manifest our values through our organizing? How can we move beyond self-selected activist circles? How can we avoid getting stuck in dead-end ways of doing things? Drawing on interviews with experienced organizers, this workshop will distill lessons for developing effective, visionary movements and open a space to discuss what we are learning together.
Paul Messersmith-Glavin, of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, will be speaking on climate and capitalism at Knox College on Friday, May 15th, 2015 in Galesburg, Illinois. He is donating half his honorarium to the IAS.
This is the translation of the new prologue written for the Spanish version of Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Catastrophe (IAS/AK Press, 2012), entitled Clima, Ecocidio y Revolución, which is being published by Bloque Libertario/Revuelta Epistémica in Mexico City.
“The revolution is for the sake of life, not death.”[1]
– Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension
I am very glad that this translation is being published in Spanish. It is important that critical writings be shared. Given that Imperiled Life came out nearly three years ago, I see it as necessary here to provide a brief update of some of the most important events that have taken place in these years, particularly with regard to environmental questions—as well as to reflect on the present status of anti-systemic social movements and to make some recommendations for eco-anarchist strategy and praxis.
The forces responsible for changing the climate and endangering the future of humanity have names. Names such as: Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco and Petroleos de Venezuela. They are the predominant groups responsible for playing havoc with our collective future. In fact, two-thirds of historic carbon dioxide and methane emissions can be attributed to exactly ninety entities. They are based in forty-three countries and extract resources from every oil, natural gas, and coal rich region in the world. They process the fuels into products that are sold to consumers in every nation on the planet. Of the top 85 emitters, 54 are in industrialized countries and 31 are in developing nations.[2] Knowing who and where they are demonstrates that an end to the problem is within our reach. In order to stop global climate change all we need to do is put pressure on these isolated entities, right?
Wrong. While these are the primary economic forces responsible for climate change, it would be a mistake to think if we stop these particular companies from conducting business as usual, we can solve the problem. They are only the most public faces of a system that goes much deeper.
Preface
This essay examines one of the most important historical events of the past decade, the 2008 Greek rebellion and its possible relationship with the rise of the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRIZA) to power. My aim is to eludicate this revolutionary moment without exhausting my focus on urban violence, which I consider a second priority. I will elaborate on the anarchist elements of the revolt and the influences in the general attitude of the public. Certainly (and to avoid crucial misunderstandings) the December revolt would be unimaginable without having incarnated some of the most fundamental anarchist elements that are widely embraced by a large part of the Greek youth (and most of all we cannot ignore Exarcheia – district of central Athens – where the revolt begun, an area of particular symbolism, which for years was the main epicenter of the Greek anti-capitalist movements). However, it is certainly wrong to classify it as a purely anarchist event as it is believed by many activists across the world. This very common false assumption has led to a peculiar but also unacceptable mystification for the Greek anarchist space. Contrary to that, the vast majority of young Greek anarchists seem to be reluctant to abort sectarianism and idolatrous invocation to ideological puritanism, which isolates them from the public sphere. Thus, instead of allowing their presence to become a significant protagonist in the country’s antagonistic movement, to propose radical alternatives beyond liberalism and parliamentarism, their absence from the procedures that shape a new political consensus results for all populist initiatives to become entirely consumed by the rhetoric of party mechanisms. This, precisely, explains the rise of the SYRIZA, which although has not much to do with horizontalism and direct democracy, should not be discarded since its victory in the recent elections of January, 2015 is of utmost important (I will discuss this issue in relation to the December revolt).
This discussion will address how capitalism is responsible for the climate crisis, looking at how it intersects with patriarchy and racism in creating a changed climate. We will explore to what degree, if any, capitalism is capable of solving the crisis, and the opening this presents to revolutionaries. We will also explore how the climate crisis offers those of us organizing in oppositional movements the ability to link various struggles. We will examine the threat our situation poses, but also the opportunity it offers to fundamentally transform society.
“By marking our own text with the signs of battle, we hope to go a little further towards a more open and self-aware discourse.” – Partha Chatterjee[2]
In the aftermath of the failed revolutions of 1848, the exiled Russian radical Mikhail Bakunin published a pamphlet titled Appeal to the Slavs by a Russian Patriot. Bakunin, not yet an anarchist but already showing anarchistic tendencies, called for the destruction of the Austrian Empire and the establishment of a federation of free Slav republics. Typical to what would later become the anarchist analysis for which he is known, Bakunin asserted that the peasantry was the revolutionary class that would be the decisive force in bringing down capitalism and empire. In reference to the uprisings, Bakunin praised what he called the “revolutionary spirit” of “all those who suffered under the yoke of foreign powers.”[3] He called for greater solidarity among the colonized and warned against doctrinaire ideology:
“The oppression of one is the oppression of all, and we cannot violate the liberty of one being without violating the freedom of all of us. The social question…cannot be resolved either by a preconceived theory or by any isolated system… We must, first, purify our atmosphere and make a complete transformation of our environment, for it corrupts our instincts and our will by constricting our hearts and our minds.”[4]
From its earliest articulations, revolutionary anarchism was not only anticapitalist, but also anti-imperialist and anticolonialist.[5]
