Free Jock Palfreeman!

Posted on February 19, 2012 by @ndy

March 15, 2012 has been declared a day of action in solidarity with imprisoned anti-fascist Jock Palfreeman. Among other things there will be a rally outside of the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in London (186-188 Queen’s Gate) @ 11.00am. Green Left Weekly has published an Open Letter from Jock which I’ve re-published below.

On February 18 in Sofia, “Some 1000 participants joined the so-called Lukov March, a procession deemed to be neo-Nazi, whose organizers defend it as patriotic”. On the same date in Dresden and earlier on February 13 neo-Nazi gatherings were disrupted by large numbers of protesters. On February 13, an estimated 13,000 people formed a chain around the centre of the city while 2,000 others confronted perhaps 1,600 neo-Nazis and 5,000 police at the central railway station.

Dear Comrades,

As of around August 2011 I have been convicted without right of appeal in the highest court of Bulgaria. I was left with a 20-year sentence in a maximum security prison.

However, what did change in the court’s decision was that unlike the first court’s verdict, the court of appeal ruled that there were Roma present and there was a “physical fight between the Roma and the group of boys”.

Seeing as the Roma were 2 and the “group of boys” were 15 the use of the word “fight” is being stretched. The neo-nazis from South Division Levski Ultras have denied that there was a “fight” with any Roma and even deny that Roma were there at all.

Yet the appeal court, although contradicting the neo-Nazis on this point, went on to claim that the statements from the neo-Nazis were truthful. Strangely the crux of the prosecutor’s arguments was that there was no fight between the neo-Nazis and Roma and there weren’t even Roma there, hence the accusation against me that I attacked them without cause.

This was also the excuse given by the investigator and prosecutor for not bringing the Roma to court as witnesses. Now, however, the court has ruled that Roma were there and that yes there was a physical fight between the Roma and neo-Nazis, but the court stops short at discrediting the neo-nazis as witnesses and made no attempt to find these “new” witnesses.

Until today the only evidence used to prosecute me were the statements from the neo-nazis themselves. There is no other [corroborating] evidence or witnesses to the indictment or court findings that I “for no reason attacked 15 men with the intent to kill them”.

I have not changed my explanation of events from the beginning, and they remain the same after four years of being kidnapped by the Bulgarian state. I witnessed the 15 neo-Nazis all attack two Roma due to the colour of their skin. I intervened to defend the two Roma. The 15 neo-Nazis then attacked me and I defended myself.

For these reasons and many more we are trying to revitalise the solidarity movement with my case and all the connotations that my case involves, i.e. racism, violent neo-Nazi gangs and their mates who defend them the corrupt police, corrupt courts and the corrupt prison system.

The neo-Nazis wouldn’t be able to attack people on the streets if it wasn’t for the protection afforded them by the police and courts. It’s telling when hundreds of the state’s agents are needed to stop me, a lone individual. However against their hundreds I have morality, I am right and they are in the wrong and this is why it takes so many of them.

I am putting out a call to action to all those opposed to racism both on the street and in its institutionalised form of fascism. This March 2012 organise yourselves to the Bulgarian embassies or consuls in your cities. Let the Bulgarian state know that the matter is [not] yet settled and that you don’t recognise the court’s decision to incarcerate me and protect the racists.

I am also trying to transfer to Australia to be closer to my family and to escape the persecution against me by the prison administration at the behest of those connected with my case. Yet the Head Prosecutor Boris Velchev and his lap dog prosecutor Krassimira Velcheva have already tried to coerce me into retracting my transfer request.

I refused to retract my request and as such the Prosecutor’s Office of Bulgaria is refusing to answer my requests, based on Bulgarian laws, to transfer to Australia.

March 2012 solidarity demands are:

• Jock’s case be re-opened due to missing evidence primarily the two Roma witnesses/victims.
• The neo-Nazis are punished for their past race hate crimes and prevented from committing more.
• Jock is allowed to transfer to Australia and all foreigners who wish to transfer to their countries.

Letters of demand can be sent to the following relevant addresses:

• Head prosecutor of Bulgaria, Boris Velchev, Ns 2 Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia 1061, Bulgaria
• Directorate of International Legal Assistance and European Integration, Krassimira Velcheva, 2 Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia 1061, Bulgaria
• Minister of Justice, Diana Kovacheva, Ns 1 Slavanska Street, Sofia 1040, Bulgaria
Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Boiko Borrisov, Ns 2 Dondukov street, Sofia 1123, Bulgaria
• President of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneviev, Ns 2 Slavanska Street, Sofia 1040, Bulgaria
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, N2 29 “6th September” street, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria

Solidarity to all my comrades both outside and inside.

See : FreeJock for more infos on Jock’s case and watch Australian Story, Conviction (June, 2011).

Bonus!

HRLC assists Australian to take case to European Court of Human Rights
Human Rights Law Centre Bulletin, Vol.70 (February 2012)

An application has been lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Jock Palfreeman, an Australian man who was convicted of murder in Bulgaria in 2009, who faced inconsistencies throughout the court process in Bulgaria. Mr Palfreeman appealed unsuccessfully against both his conviction and sentence to the highest court in Bulgaria. Mr Palfreeman’s application to the European Court is based on a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which enshrines the right to a fair trial. In particular, Mr Palfreeman claims that the Bulgarian courts failed respect his right to a fair trial by:

failing to respect his right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in violation of Article 6(2) of the Convention;
placing the prosecution at an unfair advantage in breach of the principle of ‘equality of arms’ enshrined in Article 6(1) of the Convention;
not providing him with adequate facilities for the preparation of his defence in breach of Article 6(3)(b) of the Convention; and
failing to provide reasoned judgments in violation of Article 6(1) of the Convention.

Mr Palfreeman is being provided with pro bono assistance by the HRLC, DLA Piper and Peter Morrissey, Julian McMahon, Ruth Shann and Phoebe Knowles of counsel.

Posted in Anti-fascism | Tagged | 13 Comments

Twits and Nazi flying saucers

Posted on February 17, 2012 by @ndy

Um… OK.

Twitter sued over Hardy tweet
Michelle Griffin
The Age
February 17, 2012

See also : Moaron Defamation (December 27, 2011) | #MTRsues.

In other news, NAZIS! FLYING SAUCERS!

Nazi sci-fi film Iron Sky becomes Berlin talking point
Emma Jones
BBC
February 15, 2012

Semi-professional Holocaust denialist Ernst Zündel wrote about Nazi flying saucers.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Film, History, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Who is Arthur Kemp?

Posted on February 15, 2012 by @ndy

Update: X-posted @ Harry’s place.

A short while ago my blog was the subject of a complaint. As a result, I have had to temporarily remove one image. The image is of a man named Arthur Kemp. In the image — a photo — Kemp is sitting down and there is a Nazi symbol in the background. To the best of my knowledge, the image appears on (a) few other sites. Prominent examples include:

Edmund Standing, The BNP: Not very British, January 3, 2010 | [img]
Harry’s place, Arthur Kemp: BNP Reichsminister des Auswärtigen, October 25, 2009 | [img]

A former South African policeman, Kemp (1962–) left South Africa for England in 1996, joining the British National Party. According to Heidi Beirich, in 2004 he began work for the BNP and “is well respected by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany”. Having previously conducted ideological training for party members (2007), in early 2009 Kemp became responsible for selling merch for the BNP (via ‘Excalibur’), then from late 2010 administered the BNP website (a role he had undertaken previously, along with being spokesperson on ‘foreign affairs’). In March 2011 he left the party under acrimonious circumstances. You can read a fuller profile on Kemp on the SPLC site: Heidi Beirich, Dangerous Liaison, Intelligence Report, Winter 2007, No.128.

Apart from his activism on behalf of the BNP and his authorship of several crackpot treatises on race, history and politics, Kemp is probably best known for his involvement in the trial of the murderers of Chris Hani. Hugh Muir and Matthew Taylor, White supremacist aids BNP, The Guardian, June 10, 2004:

Mr Kemp was one of a number of far-right activists arrested after Hani’s murder. He was later released without charge, but Clive Derby-Lewis, to whose wife Mr Kemp was said to have supplied a list of names and addresses, including Hani’s, was one of two men sentenced to death. He was said to have organised the shooting.

The Polish-born Janusz Walus, who was convicted of shooting Hani, was found to have material drawn from Mr Kemp’s list in his flat. Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

At the murder trial Mr Kemp admitted producing the list but denied having knowingly supplied a “hitlist”.

From 1989 until 1992 Mr Kemp worked for Die Patriot, the newspaper of the extremist South African Conservative party. According to the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, he has spoken at Nazi meetings in Germany and written for the magazine Nation und Europa, which was founded by a former SS officer.

Most recently, Kemp has been denounced by former wife Karen on a now-deleted blog (and elsewhere by his son), while winning favour with the Australian Protectionist Party, which in May 2010 featured a video of one of Kemp’s “excellent” speeches on its site. Otherwise, with Ostara Publications Kemp is keeping busy (re-)publishing racy tracts, including seminal works by Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), Madison Grant (1865–1937), Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950) and of course The Great Man himself. Inter alia, Nell Irvin Painter provides a really useful overview of such literature in The History of White People (WW Norton, 2010; see also the work of Theodore W Allen).

As for the BNP, it appears to be in serious political and financial decline. It may survive the current crisis or give way to some other party, of which several have formed in the few years since Gri££in and Brons won seats in the European Parliament.

Posted in Anti-fascism | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Greece, Hedges, black blocs, anarchy… Straya!

Posted on February 13, 2012 by @ndy

Update : #Anonymous Takes Down #Greek Police and Government Web Sites as #Athens Erupts (February 13, 2012) | Occupied London/From the Greek Streets and Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ provide ongoing coverage and commentary in English.

Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.

~ Chris Hedges, The Greeks Get It, May 24, 2010

The Black Bloc movement is infected with a deeply disturbing hypermasculinity. This hypermasculinity, I expect, is its primary appeal. It taps into the lust that lurks within us to destroy, not only things but human beings. It offers the godlike power that comes with mob violence. Marching as a uniformed mass, all dressed in black to become part of an anonymous bloc, faces covered, temporarily overcomes alienation, feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness and loneliness. It imparts to those in the mob a sense of comradeship. It permits an inchoate rage to be unleashed on any target. Pity, compassion and tenderness are banished for the intoxication of power. It is the same sickness that fuels the swarms of police who pepper-spray and beat peaceful demonstrators. It is the sickness of soldiers in war. It turns human beings into beasts.

~ Chris Hedges, The Cancer in Occupy, February 6, 2012

Yeah well anyway, the Greek government is on the verge of approving has approved some new measures in the endless quest to keep Europe’s bankers happy–and the MPs responsible have repeatedly expressed the notion that ‘there is no alternative’.

Where have I heard that line before?

In some respects they are of course correct. So too, those who argue that whichever way the Greek government turns, it’s unlikely to be able to avert a social explosion. Precisely what form this takes and how many of the other PIGS join the revolting Greek masses is anybody’s guess. There have been large and militant demos in Athens and elsewhere in Greece (curiously, it appears that only Italian-language media is blaming The Black Bloc Anarchists™ for the smashy smashy) and at the same time Portugal has witnessed the largest public demonstrations in decades–which is kinda interesting.

Closer to home, multi-billionaire Gina Rinehart has written a poem complaining about oppressive tax regimes and the lack of cheap, quality labour, a recent study suggests many casual workers have difficulty paying the rent, and a few fools in Klan hoods have reportedly harassed members of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

Q. In which country is banging on windows and shouting stuff considered a ‘riot’?
A. Straya.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Broken Windows, History, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Robert Critchley : Not racist

Posted on February 11, 2012 by @ndy

‘White supremacist’ cop not a racist: lawyer
Aja Styles
February 10, 2012

Sentence delay for tip-off cop
AAP
February 10, 2012

A WA court has heard that former WA policeman, Robert (David) Critchley — convicted in December of attempting to pervert the course of justice — is not a racist.

Or so his lawyer, Anthony Elliot, has argued.

“However, state prosecutor David Dempster submitted that it was difficult to accept any other reason for Critchley’s actions other than that he was sympathetic to the racist cause and the need for general deterrence was still relevant.”

Racist or not, Critchley’s sentencing has been delayed until February 21 (AAP) or possibly February 25 (Styles).

Last year, Critchley was found guilty of trying — by way of former Skrewdriver guitarist Murray Holmes — to tip off a suspected neo-Nazi and alleged member of Combat 18 (Australia), Jacob Marshall Hort, that in January 2010 his phone calls were being monitored by police.

In May 2010, Hort, along with Bradley (Neil) Trappitt and Dominic Helmut Peter, were charged with various minor offences inre shots being fired into the dome roof of the Suleymaniye Mosque in Queens Park on February 4.

Pleading guilty, Trappitt was fined over $9000 for his troubles while Holt (who also pleaded guilty) was given a seven-month jail sentence suspended for 12 months.

I dunno what happened in the case of Peter.


Above: Bradley, Jacob and some other bloke enjoying a laugh. The banner reads ‘Quick & the Dead’ (Murray’s other band). (See also : A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia, December 2, 2010.)

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

I am the cancer! I am the dynamite! I am the table! I am, I said!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by @ndy

LOL.

Twitter informs me that some bloke called Chris Hedges has written a rather silly critique of The Black Bloc Anarchists™ called ‘The Cancer of Occupy’. It presents a rather daft (which is to say inaccurate) account of the origins of the black bloc and ascribes to its adherents a range of political positions which are rather, um, controversial. Naturally, his article has provoked a range of responses.

Two things.

Whatever its precise content in Oakland or elsewhere in the Occupy movement in the US, to the best of my knowledge the black bloc is better understood as a tactic having evolved among autonomist (or autonomous) social movements in Germany in the late 1970s and early 1980s, spreading elsewhere in Europe in the ensuing decade, and finally arriving at The Centre of the Universe in the early 1990s. See : George Katsiaficas, The Subversion of Politics, AK Press, 2006 (online) and David Van Deusen and Xaviar Massot (editors), The Black Bloc Papers, Breaking Glass Press, 2006 (online).

I dunno WTF is going on on the ground in Oakland but it’s kinda unfortunate that Hedges’ essay is as badly-written as it is as it addresses some serious questions regarding WITBD. Otherwise, the flaws in Hedges’ analysis are fairly self-evident I think; from his distorted account of the black bloc’s origins and conflation with a particular mode of anarchist politics (invoking John Zerzan, an essay not published by Zerzan on the EZLN, and so on), to an otherwise inexplicable reliance on Derrick Jensen for expert opinion and an under-theorisation *cough* of the relationship between violence and the state, police, media and social control.

*shrugs*

More later maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Oh yeah. David ‘The Beast’ Graeber writes ‘Concerning the Violent Peace-Police: An Open Letter to Chris Hedges’, n+1, February 9, 2012; Peter ‘Monstrous’ Gelderloos dissects Hedges in ‘The Surgeons of Occupy’, Counterpunch, February 9, 2012.

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, State / Politics, Student movement, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

The God Debate II: Harris vs. Craig

Posted on February 8, 2012 by @ndy

Sam Harris will be speaking @ the 2012 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, April 13-15. See also : Moaron The Rise of Atheism… (March 16, 2010) | The Rise of Atheism : 2010 Global Atheist Convention (March 14, 2010).

Posted in !nataS, Broken Windows, Death, State / Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Australia First Party ~versus~ Australian Protectionist Party (2012 Edition)

Posted on February 8, 2012 by @ndy

The Australia First (AF) and Australian Protectionist (APP) parties — the two largest (Federally-registered) parties on the white nationalist fringe — look set to have another lean year in 2012. On the one hand, both major parties remain committed to “Fortress Australia”, and the country is blessed with a Prime Minister who “feels inclined to declare [her]self more offended at the accusation that [she] is racist than at the racism of the concentration camps over which [she] presides”. On the other hand, the population as a whole appears to be increasingly wedded to a paranoid nationalism to which both major parties give expression. As such, it would seem that much of the political territory which might otherwise provide organised expressions of white nationalist politics a foundation upon which to (re-)build has already been occupied.

Australian Protectionist Party

The APP held a tiny rally of supporters (excitedly titled ‘Stop the Parasitic Illegals! Deport Illegals Now!’) outside of Villawood Detention Centre on Sunday (February 5). The protest attracted less than 10 people (The Usual Suspects) and the semi-fictitious ‘Australian Defence League’ was sadly unable to send more than one representative (though in fairness to the ADL, if its English leader Martin Brennan was not on the other side of the globe, this number may have doubled). Thus while on paper the party has over 500 members it effectively functions as a dumping ground for the loonier elements of the Tory party fringe, providing a ‘safe space’ for deranged and sub-literate racists to express their butthurt. Indeed, the political ignorance and naiveté regularly displayed by its members would almost be touching — if the sentiments typically expressed weren’t so vile.

To date, the largest APP rally took place in Sydney on July 30, 2011. On that occasion the protectors were joined by the defenders in the ADL and a small platoon belonging to a short-lived splinter group of the Southern Cross Soldiers. (Two previous attempts to hold similar rallies against Islam and immigration in Melbourne, organised under the umbrella of the ADL, were largely abortive.) Given that wearing as well as waving the Australian flag has now become the costume de rigueur on Australia Invasion Shoe Survival Day — and ‘Fuck Off We’re Full’ a stable addition to the vulgar tongue — it remains possible that the APP will be less pathetic in future. However, while Cory Bernardi spearheads the Crusade against Islamo-fascism within the Australian Parliament, the APP has a poor record of public protest, and in the absence of any real political talent must instead rely on real or imagined Muslamic terrorist outrage to fuel its fire.

Australia First Party

Australia First spares itself any public embarrassment by simply not holding public rallies. Like its rivals in the APP it does, however, engage in semi-regular media provocations, the latest being the ‘Eureka Youth League’. In the past week, the EYL has gained some press by distroing agitprop around a number of University campuses, pitting Australian students against “aliens with dollars”. In targeting University students in this manner, AF is intruding upon the territory previously reserved for the ‘Nationalist Alternative’ groupuscule, although given the miniscule size of both sectlets there may be room for more than one racist, reactionary mob on campus.

Eureka Youth League

The EYL was officially launched at the beginning of 2010 in order to replace the failed brand that was the Patriotik Yoof Leauge (PYL). The PYL was formed in the early- to mid-2000s, gained a few adherents on a handful of campuses (including neo-Nazi elements belonging to the local Volksfront franchise) but eventually, after some additional media attention following the Cronulla riots (December 2005), became the exclusive property of a middle-aged tennis player in Brisbane named John Drew (an AF member who was expelled from the party in early 2009). In between its establishment and collapse its most notable spokesperson was Luke Connors, a Melbourne student who later joined the APP before retiring from politics, denounced by some of the more crazed elements on the far right as a ZOG agent.

As when Saleam’s former party National Action adopted the Eureka flag as its symbol, the EYL name was previously associated with the (far) left, in this instance the CPA. (On NA, see : Troy Whitford, A political history of National Action: Its fears, ideas, tactics and conflicts, Rural Society, Vol.20, No.2, April 2011.) In general, EYL propaganda is virtually indistinguishable from the kind Saleam was producing as a student activist back in the late 1970s and early 1980s (see : David Greason, I was a teenage fascist, McPhee Gribble, 1994).

Why it should appeal to any greater number of students now than it did then is something of a mystery.

See also : Australia First ~versus~ Australian Protectionist Parties: Sutherland Shire (October 17, 2010).

Posted in Anti-fascism | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

From #MTRsues to Workers’ Struggles in China

Posted on February 7, 2012 by @ndy

The Continuing Saga.

In summing up, it’s the Constitution, it’s Mabo, it’s justice, it’s law, it’s the vibe, and, uh… No, that’s it. It’s the vibe.

Oh, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Blogger Jennifer Wilson has published another letter from Melinda Tankard Reist‘s law-talking guy Ric Lucas off Colquhuon Murphy. Somewhat oddly, Lucas writes that Wilson “should reflect upon the fact that you have seriously flouted your obligation to uphold the Universal Declaration” of Human Rights by publishing allegedly defamatory comments on her blog.

I see.

Lucas adds that MTR “would much rather you came to your senses and realised that a person who wishes to be taken seriously as a social commentator, who has pretensions as a scholar of human rights with a PhD should check their facts, and not indulge in flights of libellous fancy”. By this logic, a failure on Wilson’s part to uphold and to be a ‘real’ scholar of human rights will likely mean a lengthy and hideously expensive court battle will ensue.

Like Kylie sang, we all have our cross to bear.

Elsewhere, Lucas is described as being someone “who once represented Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and former treasurer Peter Costello and their wives in a successful action against publisher Random House over false claims in a memoir by Bob Ellis”. (Bob has a blog, incidentally.)

That was in the late 1990s. Since then, Lucas has been involved in a number of other cases, including one in which a British blogger, Bruce Everiss, was sued by Evony, a US games company, in an Australian court. In March 2010 the case was dropped; Michael Thompson of Ars Technica explains why Evony is ‘the game everyone loves to hate’ here.

Reflecting on his experience blogging, Everiss wrote (May 13, 2010):

The first [problem] is that libel laws are being abused to suppress free speech by those who have things to hide. Great swathes of the internet are now censored by London libel lawyers sending out threatening letters to protect often nefarious characters. You may live in America, but this effects [sic] you, the internet is being censored for the whole world.

Our libel law was designed to protect the landed gentry from the tittle tattle of their servants. So it is incredibly difficult and expensive to defend against, no matter how truthful your words are, cases are typically over a million pounds now. And you are guilty till you prove yourself innocent, which goes right against natural justice and gives a massive advantage to those who are abusing the law. So the only option when threatened is to give in, as happens many thousands of times. We really, really don’t have free speech. Those with money control what is said about them.

Evony is itself a remarkable game, both because of the company’s quite notorious use of semi-pornographic imagery to promote it but also because of accusations of ‘goldfarming’, an industry documented by Cory Doctorow in his 2010 novel For the Win. In Doctorow’s imaginary world, the virtual workers form a virtual union called the IWWWW or Webblies. In the real world, on Friday Ralph Ruckus will be speaking @ Jura in Sydney on Contagious Strikes – Workers’ Struggles in China:

In mid-2010, a strike wave rolled through China’s factories, the most widespread and militant struggle of China’s internal migrant workers so far. The struggle shook the Chinese regime and provoked a world-wide debate: Is this the beginning of the end of the low-wage-model that stands behind China’s rise to the “factory of the world” and provides the rest of the world with cheap consumer products? The strikes continued in 2011, and together with riots and peasant uprisings they are indicators for the increasing pressure for social change in China.

This talk/discussion (including a ten-minute film) will focus on the strikes, the formation of a new working class movement in China, and the implications for social struggles around the world.

Posted in Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

anarchist notes (february 6, 2012)

Posted on February 6, 2012 by @ndy

Gabriel Kuhn has written an interesting review of some of the definitional problems that emerge from Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt’s book Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (AK Press, 2009) in Perspectives 2011 (Institute for Anarchist Studies).

Also of interest is the new publishing project LBC Books. Among their first few titles is Occupy Everything — “a book where anarchists, in their own words, express how and why they engaged in Occupy, what methods they used, and evaluates the success of Occupy on anarchist terms”. (See also : AK Press, Ardent Press, Autonomedia, Black & Red Books, Christie Books, CrimethInc, Eberhadt Press, Freedom Press and PM Press. Oh and Digital Elephant…).

disaccords is a new blog documenting political upset, social turmoil and lulz in Australia. “By choosing to report an incident here, we make no claims as to the (political) motivations of any actors. We just want to amplify the news of incidents that shatter, however briefly, the myth of consensus and social peace, and show that various forms of resistance are possible – are present – here.”

*Another, forthcoming (anarchist, group) blog is titled Anarchist Perspective — more on that later.

In a few weeks (Saturday, February 25), a new, local anarchist publication called Sedition will be launched. Sedition is a joint by Jura (Sydney), the Melbourne Anarchist Club (Melbourne) and Organise! (Adelaide).

In March (10/11/12), an anarchist gathering known as Camp Anarchy will be taking place @ Yarra Junction. So too Such is Life (9/10/11), “a DIY punk festival organised on a not-for-profit basis. It first took place in 2004 and is the only festival of its kind happening in Australia.” This year it’s taking place @ Goongerah.

Meanwhile, in Egypt (Egyptian anarchists seek self-governed society, The Daily News, January 20, 2012):

Horizontal authority

Instead of vertical authority, anarchists call for horizontal cooperatives organized “by the people, for the people”. Supporting multi-independent syndicates is one of their goals. They support the idea of workers taking over factories and companies which will be self-managed by elected workers committees.

Abdullah gave the example of the Ultras, Egypt’s organized football fans. These groups are horizontal networking movements with grassroots support. They are leaderless and have joined the revolutionaries in the common fight against police brutality, and so they share common ground with anarchists.

The ultras are also being slaughtered by the Egyptian state:

Egyptian football protests: death toll reaches 11
Ten protesters and one security officer killed in Cairo and Suez in aftermath of deadly football violence
David Batty and agencies
guardian.co.uk
February 4, 2012

At least 11 people have been killed in clashes with Egyptian security forces amid ongoing fallout from the 74 deaths at a football match in Port Said earlier this week.

Five people were killed when hundreds of demonstrators in Cairo clashed with police near the interior ministry on Saturday morning. The protesters are demanding an end to military rule and retribution for those killed in the riots after Wednesday’s match…

There have been accusations that plainclothes officers took part in the riot. Some have alleged that riot police intentionally allowed the violence in Port Said to happen to retaliate against fans of the visiting team Al Ahly, known as ultras, who played a key role in clashes with security forces during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

See also : Whose Egypt?, Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, Vol.34, No.1, January 5, 2012.

Posted in Anarchism | Tagged | 5 Comments