The Tribes of Melbourne documents the Melbourne punk scene of the mid-1980s, and *s Depression, End Result, G.A.S.H., Perdition (Adelaide), Vicious Circle and Phil MacDougall of Reactor Records and ‘Sunglasses After Dark’ fame. It was written and directed by Tina McQuade and produced by Steven Goddard and released — in some fashion — circa 1983. Or possibly 1984… or 1985? For more infos on the history of Australian punk SEE! AustralianPunk.com by the redoubtable Les and READ!
an interview with Phil (Maximum Rock’n’Roll, No.245, October 2003) here.
Note that Phil/Reactor released a 40-track Depression comp last year (review by Trevor Block: “It’s interesting to ponder how they might fare in today’s climate, when punk is a meaningless marketing term and protest seems to be the domain of dreadlocked hippies not angry bootboys”). The history of the Reactor Records label is re-told by Chris Spencer in a neat little pamphlet released c.1997, and includes some notes by Depression member Smeer (now tattooing @ Chapel).
TV Smith & The Thought Criminals : ‘Safety In Numbers’ (1977)
All you pretty people who’ve been taken over
Had better start looking for your own answers
‘Cause there’s no safety in numbers anyway
Or in a “new” wave…
And remember folx, as Vomit Visions sang in 1979: ‘Punks Are The Old Farts Of Today’!
England started everything
new wave conquered all the world
all of it is fucked up now
that’s what no one else sees
Johnny Lydon is just a liar
he is not rebel hero
nihilism ain’t his way
only madmen live today
’67 hipster love
but in fact it wasn’t smart
did the punks learn anything
they just act as being mean
Britons are potential stars
but they don’t see what they really are
aiming at a big success
that’s why punk became a mess
Punk has always been a gimmick
no one ever was for real
nailing women is a must
hate and danger what a lust
We don’t like the fellow men
those who do just follow trends
we ain’t normal we are mad
punks and hippies what a drag
Punks are the old farts of today
fade away we don’t care
Over June and July, 2009, three people will finally go to trial for their role in the G20 protests in Melbourne in November, 2006. These people — Sina Brown-Davis, Tim Davis Frank, and Sunil Menon — are facing charges ranging from ‘Riot’ to ‘Unlawful Assembly’, with ‘Aggravated Burglary’ and ‘Assault Police’ playing the role of Malcolm in the Middle. Note that ‘Aggravated Burglary’ is an unusually serious charge — the maximum sentence for which is 25 years gaol — & arises from brief occupations of a Defence Force recruitment centre and the offices of Tenix, a military contractor; occupations which involved nothing more serious than the use of red glitter & water pistols. (Akin Sari remains in jail serving a 28 month sentence. Other accused pleaded guilty to reduced charges & received fines &/or compensation orders &/or suspended sentences &/or bonds.)
On the day of rest – Sunday the 14th of June – there will be a fundraiser to help pay for the legal defence of these people & keep them out of gaol. All proceeds from this gig will go to the G20 Defence Fund.
Bands playing are:
WIM
WINTER PEOPLE
EMMA DAVIS
SUI ZHEN
ANARCHIST DUCK
PLUTO GONSKY
and friends…
Ticket prices: $10 (shirkers) – $15 (workers)
PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ON AND HELP KEEP GOOD PEOPLE OUT OF BAD PLACES!
Bonus!
o n e
…While the main focus of [the “war on terror”] has been fear-mongering about Muslims, Howard, Iemma, the cops and the media were not going to miss the opportunity to try to equate demonstrations with terrorism, in order to intimidate people out of protesting.
In this they were assisted by the actions of a small number – the so-called “Arterial Bloc” – at the demonstration against the G20 leaders in Melbourne last November. In a totally elitist fashion, these people decided to throw themselves at the police lines without reference to the thousands of demonstrators who had come to the rally.
It is not accidental that the NSW police constantly referred to these events as the “justification” for their massive militarised presence at the APEC protest, nor that it was G20 footage of small groups of masked idiots in white chemical suits that the media ran to “prove” the protest at APEC was going to be violent… ~ Diane Fieldes, The lessons of the anti-APEC protests, Socialist Alternative, No. 121, October 2008
t w o
On some occasions antiquated or infrequently used laws are pressed into service or old laws are used in new ways. At least 200 people were arrested at AIDEX 1991 (an international defence equipment exhibition supported by the Australian government) on the unusual basis of ‘an ancient common law procedure which enables [police] to arrest a person when they have a reasonable apprehension that a breach of the peace is imminent’… The ‘Austudy 5’ were charged with rescue and unlawful assembly after a 1992 demonstration about Austudy in Melbourne on the basis of their presence at the rally rather than acts they were alleged to have committed…
The potential for new law to be created and novel applications of existing law to be found is not limited to public protest. However, the extensive catalogue of potentially applicable offences and the range of circumstances in which they may be applied suggest that the unregulated space available for public protest is limited. The supposedly stable border between lawful and unlawful protest also emerges as a fiction.
If this is the case, it also raises a paradox centred on the relationship between dissent and the community. If dissent is defined as both essential to community but also criminal conduct, and community is defined partly by the exclusion of criminal conduct, then dissenters find themselves encouraged on the one hand and yet excluded on the other. ~ Mary Heath, ‘Policing and Self-Policing in the Shadow of the Law: Negotiating Space for Public Dissent’, Criminal Justice in Diverse Communities, a special issue (Vol.17, No.1) of the journal Law in Context, Federation Press, 2000
t h r e e
The anarchist crazies involved in the ultra-violence were in no serious sense part of the demo. Just like their black bloc mates in Europe they simply exploited the demo for their own purposes… The left should offer no comfort to these crazies. We should do whatever we can to isolate them. They are wreckers. If they grow in Australia it will simply make it harder to build future protests and movements. ~ Mick Armstrong, Socialist Alternative / Austudy 5), November 19, 2006
In March 1992, a protest was held in Melbourne regarding a Government proposal to cut Austudy. Supposedly, 22 police officers were injured during the subsequent ‘riot’, two of whom required hospitalisation. “Professional protesters” were blamed for the “ultraviolence” which resulted both in these injuries and, more significantly, in the fact that police were forced to release from custody (the back of a divvy van) four individuals they’d arrested during the course of their (and hundred of others’) successful efforts to break through a police line in front of Parliament House.
According to one report (Students’ city brawl, Robyn Dixon, Bruce Tobin, David Bruce and Hugo Kelly, The Age, March 28, 1992):
…The officer in charge of the operation, Inspector Doug Hocking, described the brawl as the worst violence he had experienced in 22 years.
Last night two police constables were in St Vincent’s Hospital — one with broken ribs and the other with severe bruising to his groin — and 20 other officers had been treated for minor injuries.
During the confrontation:
One mounted policeman was pulled from his horse and attacked with pipes and poles. His horse bolted down Lonsdale Street before being stopped.
Bottles and sticks were thrown.
The four students who were arrested were put in a police van but as the van drove off, students overtook it and blocked its path at the corner of Lonsdale and Spring streets.
Protesters scribbled graffiti on the side of the van and vandalised some of its electrical fittings…
[NUS official] Brendan Darcy [later adviser to Kevin Andrews] blamed habitual student agitators from groups such as the International Socialist Organisation, the Spartacists, Resistance and Left Alliance members…
Students grabbed metal barricades from nearby construction sites and put up a barricade. The mounted police were jabbed with the three-metre long bars and thrashed with placrads and other objects. bottles and cans were also thrown…
In another account (Sally Morrell, Get-tough vow on riots, Herald-Sun, March 28, 1992):
…Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Mr John Frame said there was clear evidence of the International Socialists organising and carrying out the violence… Mr Frame said the International Socialists’ tactics were to latch themselves on to planned demonstrations and turn a peaceful protest violent…
Best of all:
“The deputy chief police commissioner, Mr John Frame, has started criminal investigations into what he called a “small core of anarchists” responsible for violence during a student protest outside Parliament last Thursday…” (Gerard Ryle, Anarchists blamed for uni protest, The Age, March 30, 1992)
– and –
THE ANARCHISTS
It is time to expose the International Socialists for what they are: anarchists out to disrupt public order by manipulating people with genuine grievances. This week these parasitical wreckers were at it again, this time outside Victoria’s Parliament House.
They hijacked a rally of students protesting against a proposal to replace the Austudy allowance with a loan scheme. The students had every right to join their colleagues across Australia to put forward their point of view. But the International Socialists turned the rally into a riot in which 22 police were hurt and the Premier had her office window broken.
The same old faces were there at the barricades. The same ones prominent during the Bush visit, the Hoechst dispute, the AIDEX turmoil in Canberra and, closer to home, the violence that erupted during an industrial dispute at the office from which this newspaper is published.
The police will lay charges over Thursday’s events if they can. But this is not enough. The International Socialists organisation is, by definition, imported. The immigration authorities should find out whether any of its members who are not Australian born are, through their actions, in breach of the permits under which they remain here. If so, let’s send them home. They are not welcome!
Exactly the same statements were trotted out then as are being trotted out now, only whereas in 1992 it was senior police claiming that this was “the worst violence… seen in Melbourne for 20 years”, now it’s Mick Armstrong. And whereas now Akin Sari has been sent down for 28 months (and dozens of others still face charges), then it was Mick himself who was up on charges, along with four of his comrades: Jeff Sparrow, Jill Sparrow, Marcus Banks and Johnathan Sherlock. And finally, whereas then ‘the left’ was expected to rally ’round Mick and the other members of the ISO, now…
I, an impoverished citizen/captive of Australia, would like to extend a warm invitation for you to visit “my” country — and to answer some questions. I have watched developments in Venezuela with great interest, frequently by reference to the writings of my anarchist comrades. I have been impressed by the great efforts that the Venezuelan people have taken — in standard bourgeois phraseology — to “improve their living standards”, as well as the efforts of anarchists in that part of the world to develop a critique of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. Like them, I have also noted with some concern the moves that your government has made to use popular discontent to establish a government based on authoritarian rule in all spheres of society — from the workplace up to the national government.
Although I am already on the opposite side of the globe I feel that my desire for the abolition of work, total subversion, and a permanent worldwide proletarian revolution with “unrestrained pleasure” as its only goal further entrenches the gulf that lies between us. Every country — and one should remember in this context that a) all nations are hallucinations and b) Paul Keating’s memorable description of Australia as being ‘The Arse End Of The Earth’ — has its own traditions and culture and has to find its own solutions, but what “Venezuela” has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia (having already provided new t-shirt designs and an alternative holiday destination to Cuba for Environmental Leninists of one sort or another).
In this light I believe that a visit to my-country-right-or-wrong by yourself (but more likely yourself in the company of a large and rather intimidating security presence) would not only help to improve the awareness of the Australian people of developments in Venezuela, but also be an unparalleled opportunity a) to strengthen the ties of friendship and solidarity between our two peoples and b) for an autonomous cell of the Biotic Baking Brigade to smear vegan cream in your face in tribute to your status as President and Great Leader.
Sincerely,
________________________
All signatures will be posted to Nelson Davila, Venezuela’s charge d’affaires in Australia, Canberra. (Todas las firmas de invitación serán enviadas a Nelson Dávila, Encargado de Negocios de Venezuela en Australia, Canberra.)
If you would like to confirm the signature of yourself or your organisation for identification and for promotion of President Chavez’ visit please contact: Jody Betzien 0425 887 078 or email info[at]venezuelasolidarity[dot]org
“After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail…”
First, fitzroyalty. By Brian. It’s like, totally about my old stompem ground Fitzroy. In one post — broccoli is a political weapon — Brian examines the largely imaginary group ‘Yarra National Anarchists’, and their world-historical battles with the FASCIST Steve Jolly. To wit, the fact that some council workers apparently sabotaged their attempt to grow some vegetables in a patch of dirt on Smith Street.
Seriously.
Note to Brian: the reason this particular handful of little twerps are
vewy
angwy
with Steve is because he is an
Evil
Communist.
Further, on two separate occasions — May Day in 2008 and a later public rally in opposition to Government-sponsored censorhip of the Intertubes — EVIL COMMUNIST FASCIST members of Steve’s party elected to inform the handful of ‘national anarchists’ who rocked up to shoo! — which they duly did. Final word to Rick: “I always get a bit of comic relief from the National “Anarchist” sites. If you don’t want people to read your site and leave comments close it down. We would just get our gardening news from elsewhere.”
Boom-tish.
Secondly, the lurid Fugitive Desire, produced in an underground bunker somewhere by “a clandestine, grassroots collective of autonomous revolutionaries, cultural saboteurs and radical ecologists”. A brief post on the concept of autonomy reminds me that in an interview Mario Tronti (are you there grumpy?) argues that ‘The Anti-G20 Protests Lacked Politics’. Which, in turn, brings to mind the fact that: “Local members of the provincial anarchist organization Common Cause fear Hamilton police are seeking to criminalize local organizers after a Hamilton police report identified the 2nd annual Hamilton Anarchist Book Fair as a potential source of hate crime…”
Which just goes to show that Andrew Bolt is read far and wide.
Thirdly, a plug for Unity News. Currently, Diane Denise (D’oh!) is documenting the campaign to keep the British National Party from invading Europe.
Fourthly, Ariel Salleh. Not a blog, actually, but a website dedicated to Ariel’s writings exploring the relationship between ecology and feminism. “Her most recent book – Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice [Spinifex Press, 2009] – is a collection of essays written with a team of internationally distinguished women, addressing the deficit of sex/gender awareness as it affects the conceptualisation of political economy, ecological economics, and sustainability studies.” Good stuff.
Finally, check out caitlin ate‘s Cat Friendly House. Fucking a w e s o m e. (NB. The new design is very very difficult to read for an old cat like me, what with my soreback, partial deafness, deteriorating eyesight, gammy leg… I mean, I can’t bust heads like I used to, but I have my ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the tram to Collingwood. I needed a new needle for my turntable, so, I decided to go to Carringbush, which is what they called Collingwood in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to catch the tram cost ½d, and in those days, pence had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Give me 12 pence for a shilling,” you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…)
Will the Global Economic Crisis (GEC) facilitate social change? And do the recent ‘Group of 20’ (G20) protests reflect a rise in anarchism? Donna Yan and Bonita Silva investigate. ~ ‘A is for Anarchy’, Vertigo, Bonita Silva and Donna Yan, May 19, 2009.
Ah… student journalism. This particular example has covered all four bases:
1) Hacks: Paola Totaro. Tom Whipple.
2) Crackademics: Stewart Davidson. Benjamin Franks. George Crowder. Lawrence Davis.
3) Slacktivists: Karen Kennedy. Katrina Byrne.
4) One-and-a-half teenage fascists: Alex. Scott.
1) Hacks
Paola’s sterling contribution to G20 reportage I’ve already discussed; Tom Whipple is Tom Whipple.
2) Crackademics
Stewart lectures the world from Glasgow. A member of the Anarchist Studies Network, Disco(ntented) Stu makes the obvious point that not all G20 protesters in London were anarchists; further, that the term is applied by hacks without regard for its accuracy; and finally that “[t]he inaccuracy of this portrayal is beside the point from a propagandist’s point of view”.
Like Stu, Benjamin is a member of the ASN (as is Lawrence). Ben agrees with Stu, and adds that:
Some aspects of the protests were consistent with anarchism… These include attempts to contest hierarchical power, open, participatory planning, and finding co-operative links between different political groups. However, [Ben] is not convinced the economy determines social change… “It should be remembered that many of those taking part in the protests, indeed those actors who provided the most memorable images of the protests, were not protestors but state officials – mainly the police. And of course other important participants were the largely conservative/economic liberal journalists, columnists and broadcasters, who were pivotal in framing the events in particular ways.”
George is quoted as follows: “The idea that the current crisis – or anything else – will lead to ‘a rise in anarchism’ strikes me as absurd”; while Lawrence “believes the opportunity for meaningful social change will depend on our future actions, or the opportunity will arise for global elites to convey the appearance of structural change. He says: ‘If people the world over are content to give their power away to elites in exchange for promises of reform, if in other words they try to achieve democracy by waiting for it, then they will wait forever’.”
So much for the crackademics.
3) Slacktivists
“Non-violent anarchist activist” Karen notes that many do not understand ‘anarchy’, and it is associated with ‘violent rebellion’. Violent (presumably) anarchist activist Katrina, on the other hand, a member of the Jura Books collective in Sydney, agrees that ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchism’ are widely misunderstood, and stresses the fundamentally co-operative nature of the anarchist vision.
4) One-and-a-half teenage fascists
Bonita and Donna also sought comment from bloggers. First, Alex: author of “a popular blog site detailing anarchist issues in Australia”.
I’ve no idea who ‘Alex’ is, but his or her blog is not popular; nor does Alex have any association with any existing anarchist group. Finally, Alex is hardly prolific: their only post for 2009 (May 1) notes the invitation from B&D to submit an opinion for their article. In December 2008, Alex complains about internet censorshit; in October, s/he notes that Victoria Police has spied on activists; in September (and there are 24 other entries for the year 2008) Alex complains that a now-deleted blog singled him/her out for criticism.
Apparently, an entry on this blog identified Alex as a ‘national anarchist’ and the blogger requested personal information about Alex to be sent to myself; someone Alex “believed to be a true Anarchist and comrade (with whom I did not necessary [sic] agree with on everything, but supported on my blog anyway)”.
Which is all very odd.
In any case, as far as I’m aware, and based on his/her own writing, Alex is a Christian who would like to live in a segregated, Christian, community, and understands ‘national anarchism’ (see below) to allow for this possibility. Hence, s/he is sympathetic to ‘national anarchism’. His/her understanding of ‘anarchism’, in other words, is highly idiosyncratic, and bears little relation to either its contemporary or historical forms.
So much for Alex.
The second oddball is Scott, a teenage ‘national anarchist’ from Geelong:
Some anarchists believe that although the turnout at the G20 protests was due to the economic instability, protests are not reason enough to prove a rise in anarchism has occurred. Scott, a representative of the Victorian National-Anarchist network says: “A lot of those involved in the G20 protests around the world are more often than not interested more in expressing their anger toward an exploitative establishment than being involved in positive grassroots activism. What happens at a G20 protest may be an example of how angry people are with world leaders but it’s hardly an example of anarchism in action.”
Hmmm.
A know-nothing, Scott is indeed a representative of the “Victorian National-Anarchist network”, a network which consists of a handful of teens and one or two adults, all of whom have gravitated to ‘national anarchism’ by way of the far right. Scott himself is a refugee from the white supremacist website Stormfront, and a continuing supporter of the neo-Nazi network ‘Blood & Honour’, having attended at least one of its annual events, and being chums with the representative of the “Victorian Blood & Honour network”. This particular group of neo-Nazis recently came to media attention by way of organising a gig in Perth (April 25) to celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII and, prior to this, by way of the public exposure of the membership of this network of Canberra-based neo-Nazi Nicole Hanley, a senior manager for Thales, a major arms manufacturer and military supplier (Hanley was subsequently suspended from her position).
While the fascist teenybopper was a member of Stormfront, he produced what is probably one of my favourite comments. Thus:
For the record, NoCrusties is a teenage fascist from Melbourne. By his own admission, he travelled to Sydney to take part in the ‘anarchist’ ‘black bloc’ organised by Welf Herfurth. On Stormfront, he makes the following comment regarding the photo below, which I think explains why the New Right should be opposed better than I ever could:
Today, 05:35 AM
NoCrusties
Australian Nationalist
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 460
Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun
They are celebrating the girls graduation from Jewish strangulation school?
“…The photos provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos, the so-called Auschwitz Album, a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by a survivor in another camp. Those photos depict the arrival at the camp of a transport of Hungarian Jews, who at the time made up the last remaining sizable Jewish community in Europe. The Auschwitz Album, owned by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, depicts the railside selection process at Birkenau, the area where trains arrived at the camp, as SS men herded new prisoners into lines.
The comparisons between the albums are both poignant and obvious, as they juxtapose the comfortable daily lives of the guards with the horrific reality within the camp, where thousands were starving and 1.1 million died…”
That a teenager who has celebrated the Holocaust, attended neo-Nazi events, is being tutored in politics by a Sydney-based neo-Nazi named Welf Herfurth (originator of both the ‘New Right’ and the ‘national anarchists’ — and co-founder, most recently, of another fascist groupuscule named ‘Volksfront Australia’) — and is and has continued to be involved with a range of fascist projects — should be selected by two student journalists from Sydney to re-present ‘anarchist’ opinion on the ‘global economic crisis’ may be unfortunate, but the possibility still exists for this oversight to be corrected.
Either way, my feeling is that it will end in tears.
Another black man loses his life on the street
A young punk goes down by knife in the east
The worst of vermin are on the rise
A little kid is beaten down outside her home
Onlookers don’t help, she takes the beating alone
They look away and ignore her cries
Chorus
We’ve got an enemy to beat
We’ve got to meet them in the street
There’s a time to fight and that time has come
We’re coming for you, naziscum!
While another easy victim is left to die
The authorities they turn a blind eye
Reports are filed and nothing is done
‘Cause these are the killers they themselves create
Ugly symptoms of a racist state
Like the father, so the son
Chorus
And now they’re marching under the black flag
Stolen to replace a swastika filth rag
It seems they are too stupid to understand
That it represents the opposite of their ideology
The antifascist black flag of anarchy
Is not for their filthy hands
CHILE: FUNERAL HELD FOR ANARCHIST KILLED BY OWN BOMB, The Santiago Times, May 25, 2009
Anarchist Attempted To Plant Bomb At Police Training School
Mauricio Andrés Morales Duarte, 27, was cycling near the Police Training School in San Bernardo on Friday morning with a companion when a homemade bomb he was carrying in his backpack exploded, killing him instantly. His companion, who is yet to be identified, was not killed, and a security camera showed him fleeing the scene on a bike immediately following the explosion…
During the early morning of May 22, we lost our beloved comrade Mauricio Morales Duarte. According to the bourgeois press, Mauricio was transporting an explosive device in downtown Santiago. The device exploded unexpectedly, and our comrade died in combat.
Long live comrade Mauricio Morales! Mauricio joins the list of fallen combatants under the democratic regime in Chile. He was a dedicated and militant anarchist. We remember Mauricio as a youth combatant like so many before him…
In 1995, Ken Loach directed Land and Freedom (written by James “Jim” Allen: 1926–1999), a bastardised version of Homage in which the ‘anarchists’ were lumped in together with the POUM. (See the review ‘Land & Freedom (or: I Couldn’t Afford the Rights to Homage to Catalonia)’, Black Flag, No.207: “I feel sorry for poor old Ken Loach, it must be terrible being a working class hero trying to make a film about the Spanish civil war when the enemy has all the best tunes. Thankfully he can sleep at night ‘cos he nicked them. I’m not talking about the fascists, of course, but the anarchists. In fact it would have been impossible to make a film about the POUM without extensively nicking from anarchist heritage because the POUM had none of their own…”)
Hugh Hudson will direct the bigscreen adaptation of George Orwell’s “Catalonia,” with Colin Firth and Kevin Spacey attached to star. Arclight Films is repping the film at the Cannes market.
Hudson (“I Dreamed of Africa,” “Chariots of Fire”) will direct from a script by Bob Ellis…
Bob Motherhugging Ellis “has had a long and close involvement with politics, covering as a journalist twenty-four [electoral] campaigns in Australia, the UK and the USA, and writing speeches or slogans for Kim Beazley, Bob Carr, Mike Rann, Jim Bacon, John Faulkner, Cheryl Kernot, Bob Brown and Mark Latham.”
Fuck.
Note that something like 57 Australian citizens went to Spain to fight as part of the Communist ‘International Brigades’. One who did not was the Englishman Harvey Buttonshaw, who settled in Australia after WWII. Harvey, “went to Spain to fight with the Syndicalists in 1936, and told George Orwell to pull his head in, or he’d get shot, just before exactly that happened. He is among the group shown on the front cover of [one particular edition of] Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.”
Further:
The scale of Franco’s post-Civil War pogrom against his opponents and “enemies of the church” may never be known. The most conservative figure for executions between 1939 and 1946 is around 50,000; others estimate the number as high as 370,000. All that can be said is that local authorities in Spain are still [2004] excavating the mass graves of Franco’s victims, the Republican desaparecidos [disappeared], sixty-three years after the end of the war. There was also the still unanswered question of the fate of the 10,000 children of anti-Francoists taken away by the regime’s social services, priests and nuns and never heard of again… ~ Stuart Christie, Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me, AK Press, 2007 (2004)
One of my own, initial introductions to anarchist thought came by way of the local, Melbourne Spanish anarchist community in exile, members of which re-published Noam Chomsky’s essay ‘Notes on Anarchism’ in 1991. In this context, see also : General Strike : ‘Federation’, November 28, 2008.
We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, that we can also build palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least bit afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.
Former KKK Grand Poobah-turned-fundamentalist Xtian Johnny Lee Clary has declared that there are some bedsheet-wearers in WA. Correction: the KKK has “infiltrated” Perth.
Whether by boat or plane is unknown.
“I know that the Ku Klux Klan is in Western Australia. I know that they’re in the Perth area”, he said in Perth this week.
“The National Front is here, I know that the Nazi Party is here. I’ve talked to people here and they’ve said to me ‘I know so and so, that belongs to the Klan'”.
In reality, there’s been a KKK presence in Australia for many years; it has never attracted widespread support; what little support it has generated has been mostly restricted to a small number of rural towns (Cairns, Toowoomba, Townsville); there is little evidence of any violent activity on the part of the Klan(s); the Klan is split into numerous rival factions; of late, there has been no upsurge in Klan activity either in Perth, in WA, or in Australia as a whole. Further, there is no ‘National Front’ or ‘Nazi Party’ in Perth, in WA, or anywhere else in Australia; rather, there is a loose assortment of neo-Nazi cranks, some of whom are members of formal organisations, most of whom are not.
In terms of the KKK’s appeal, it is extremely limited. Moreover:
Ethnic Communities Council of WA president Ramdas Sankaran said racist elements in Australia had been strengthened “thanks to the demonisation of religious and ethnic minorities” by former [P]rime [M]inister John HoWARd and his senior colleagues.
This ‘demonisation’ has paid political dividends. First, in combination with a Tory dirty tricks campaign against it, by eclipsing the appeal of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party. Secondly, by shoring up support for the Tories by way of capitalising on continuing racist residues in a country with an explicitly and formally-endorsed history of racism and continuing colonial dispossession.
That said, a lone KKK supporter did rock up to the Invasion Day celebrations conducted by the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ in Melbourne this year, and a handful of keyboard warriors have done their best to embiggen the Klowns on Stormfront Down Under in the last few years.
A visitor from Patagonia, Argentina, Elio Brat, will speak about workers’ self-management in factories (Zanon) and indigenous struggles (Mapuche) in Argentina.
WHEN : 7pm WHERE : Old Council Chambers, Trades Hall (corner of Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton)
For more information, please call : Rodrigo 0414 970 418 or Lucho 0400 914 944.
Write to: lasnet[at]latinlasnet[dot]org.
Visit: Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET).
Speakers include Gary Foley.
Entry by gold coin donation.
Food available.
For more info call 0404 105 403 or email asfsec[at]gmail[dot]com.
IWA Secretary Arrested
Ratibor Trivunac, a member of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative and General Secretary of the International Workers’ Association, was convicted yesterday evening to ten days prison for burning the US flag in the centre of Belgrade. A group of anarchists organized an illegal protest yesterday as a reaction to the visit of the US Vice President Joseph Biden to Belgrade. During the protest Trivunac burned the US flag and read a statement condemning the role of the USA in reproduction of capitalist relations, wars, exploitation and discrimination in the world.
Belgrade district judge Goran Milutinović sentenced Ratibor and ordered him to be immediately sent to prison without giving him a chance for appeal. Other comrades that have been arrested were released without charges. Our lawyer will try to appeal the sentence today.
Burning of the flag is a symbolic act of protest and we find the actions of judge Milutinović to be scandalous. We refuse to obey orders, we refuse to keep quiet! We will always burn the symbols of exploitation and oppression!
We would like to call for international actions of solidarity if Ratibor is not released by Saturday morning. We will keep informing you of developments.
The IWA Secretariat can be contacted, as usual, by telephone number +381-63-263-XXX or email (we would prefer by telephone as we may not check the email regularly during the following days).
Freedom for Ratibor!
Long live the IWA!
On behalf of the IWA Secretariat,
Nikola Pavlović
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Secretariat of the International Workers Association // Secretariado de la Asociación International de los Trabajadores
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
