Ready, aim, fire!

Posted on March 31, 2007 by @ndy

Gee whiz, that didn’t take long.

Antifa is taking aim, says local neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth (National-Anarchist-Online, March 29, 2007):

“Well, I can live with it! It’s the typical antifa smear. A lot of the stuff is wrong, some is right, and you have the usual smear. I wish they would debate on logical terms.”

Bathtub full of power tools!

    One more thing I forgot to add: Udo Voigt wasn’t the last of Herfurth’s kameraden to be denied entry to Australia. In 2005, Sydney Forum organisers invited another neo-Nazi to lecture Australians on politics. His name was Gerd Finkenwirth; it was his job to talk to all them foreigners about NPD.

Some turkey named Flávio Gonçalves replies: “OMG, you go to [bonehead] gigs?”

Herr Herfurth, again: “Why not? I have a lot of good friends who are [boneheads]. They might not be [the] flavor of the month, but I can say that there are a hell of a lot of good people in there.”

Turkey, again: “Went to a couple, I no longer do that sort of thing. It’s only fun when you drink lots of beer. But I also went to a couple of Antifa concerts… it’s a funny story actually how that come about, me along with the SHARP and RASH crowd… I’ll tell it someday.”

Troy Southgate: “Oooh, I’m really scared now.”

No, just stupid.

As ever.

And speaking of the numerous “good people” who are boneheads:

‘Bonehead pair admit racist attack on teens’
Nelson Mail
March 28, 2007

Two men who police say are [boneheads] are being held in custody after admitting a racially-motivated attack on three Asian students in Nelson [New Zealand / Aotearoa].

Following the March 17 attack, 28-year-old Harry Shannon Dennis McCormack told police he did not like Asians and decided to stop outside the Nelson store where the assault happened because he wanted to hurt the students. Daniel Bryan Kitto, 20, told police he joined in the assault because he was trying to prove something to his mates, a court heard on Monday.

McCormack, a painter, and Kitto, a labourer, each admitted a charge of assault with intent to injure and two counts of assault when they appeared in the Nelson District Court.

Both Nelson men were convicted and remanded in custody until May 1 for sentencing…

Prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer said on the afternoon of March 17 Kitto and McCormack were in a car with three other people when they saw the three Asian victims, aged between 14 and 16, in Buxton Square.

The men yelled abuse and racial taunts at the Asians, telling them to “go home”, Mr Stringer said.

The Asian trio walked along Waimea Rd and sat outside the Night Owl store, when Kitto and McCormack came upon them again.

McCormack, who was driving the vehicle, stopped and got out, and as he approached the Asians somebody from the vehicle was heard to say “we’ve been looking for you”, Mr Stringer said…

Earlier last year:

Bonehead fights for life after jail attack
Emily Watt and Tim Hume
Sunday Star Times
June 4, 2006

A [bonehead] prisoner was last night on life support in Christchurch Hospital after being beaten up by Mongrel Mob members the day after being transferred from another jail.

The 33-year-old suffered a fractured skull after an apparent hit by the gang members at Christchurch Men’s Prison on Friday morning.

He had been transferred from Dunedin Prison the day before.

Police would not name the man, but said he had been serving a three-year sentence since 2004.

Prison sources said he was hit over the head with a blunt instrument in his cell about 9am. He was then rolled off the balcony on to a concrete floor. Witnesses believed he must have been unconscious when he was pushed off the balcony, as he landed on his head. At hospital he was given head and spinal x-rays and was last night in a serious but stable condition.

Prison sources speculated the attack must have been over an existing issue because the man had spent only one night in prison.

They said the man was affiliated with white supremacists.

And a week ago, another bonehead, James Burmeister, died. Burmeister had links to the now-defunct Church of the Creator (1973–1996) — which, after a court case, became the World Church of the Creator, until 2002, when it became known as the Creativity Movement — as well as the National Alliance (according to one source).

National Alliance was led by a good fascist named Dr. William Pierce (1933–2002). Upon his death, the NA disintegrated, and produced a splinter group, National Vanguard. Last week, on March 23, 2007, NV claimed it had been forced to close because of unspecified actions by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The reality, however, is a little different: “In the latest disaster to hit the American radical right, Kevin Alfred Strom, the founder of [NV] and a major neo-Nazi leader for nearly 20 years, has been arrested and charged with child pornography and witness tampering.”

Ooops.

But that’s not all…

In Australia, the WCOTC was led by Melbourne resident and former National Action member Patrick O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan himself is no stranger to prison, having been convicted in August 2002 of stabbing a fellow bonehead at a party in Fitzroy in May 1999. In September 2006, the leader of O’Sullivan’s ‘Church’ — previous leaders having been imprisoned for various other crimes — also went to jail:

White Supremacist Sentenced for Sexual Assault in Michigan
ADL
September 25, 2006

Joel Nathan DuFresne, 28, of Northern Michigan, a “reverend” in the racist and anti-Semitic Creativity Movement, was sentenced to a prison term of 50 to 75 years for first degree criminal sexual conduct on September 22, 2006. He was also sentenced to a second term of 25 to 50 years for third degree criminal sexual conduct. DuFresne was convicted of these charges on August 18.

The first degree charge includes injury to the victim, who is in this case DuFresne’s former girlfriend and the mother of his son. In a statement to the court DuFresne declared, “If I would have known how this was going to turn out, I would have shot her.”

But back to Burmeister.

Oddly, Burmeister’s death wasn’t at the hands of one of his erstwhile comrades. In this case — a rare example — the bonehead died of ‘natural causes’, in a US prison.

Why was he in prison?

Bonehead killer dies in federal prison
Paul Woolverton
The Fayetteville Observer
March 22, 2007

…[James] Burmeister, 31, shot to death… Michael James and James’ friend, Jackie Burden, during a [bonehead] initiation ritual in Fayetteville in December 1995.

Burmeister and another soldier were sentenced to life in prison for the murders. A third soldier involved was freed after he testified against the other two.

The murders brought the national spotlight to an ugly side of Fayetteville and Fort Bragg and prompted the Army to investigate the presence of racists, extremists, gangs and other such groups in its ranks…

[Read the July, 2006 SPLC Intelligence Project on the recruitment of neo-Nazis and other racist/fascist ‘extremists’ by the US Armed Forces here.]

In 1995, 20-year-old James Norman Burmeister II of Thompson, Pa., was a private in the 82nd Airborne Division [“All the Way!”] and involved with white supremacists. He and others had previously gone to black neighborhoods in Fayetteville to attack and harass black residents.

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 7, he and two other white soldiers — Spc. Randy Lee Meadows and Pvt. Malcolm Wright — went into a poor, mostly black neighborhood near downtown Fayetteville to kill someone. The venture was part of a [bonehead] initiation rite, prosecutors said…

The soldiers saw James and Burden walking on Hall Street, a dirt road off Campbell Avenue. While Meadows waited in the car nearby, Burmeister and Wright approached James and Burden.

Meadows heard six shots.

One grazed James’ forehead. Another hit him on the left side of his head, killing him instantly.

Burden, reaching for a small pocketknife in her pocket, tried to run. She got 10 feet before a bullet in her back knocked her down.

Burmeister shot her three more times: once on each side of her head and once on the top of her head.

All of the head shots were within 2 feet of the victims, investigators said.

Burmeister, Wright and Meadows were arrested over the next several days.

In 1997, juries found Burmeister and Wright guilty of first-degree murder. Burmeister’s jury deadlocked 11-1 on whether to sentence him to death. By law, he automatically received a life sentence. Wright’s jury voted for life. Neither man had any chance for parole…

In 1999, Burmeister was moved from the state to the federal prison system to protect him from retaliation for the murders. State officials said his reputation as a racist made him a target…

These are the kind of people Gary invites to The Birmy (with the support of a handful of local ‘punks’). One bonehead who won’t be able to make it is from Santiago in Chile:

Neo-Nazi Death Brings Chile’s Street Wars Back Into Focus
The Santiago Times
March 20, 2007

Marcos Briones, a 25-year-old neo-Nazi, was beaten to death March 10 by a group of Colo-Colo soccer fans who were awaiting public transportation at Santiago’s Plaza Italia, a transit hub that connects the rich Santiago boroughs with their poorer neighbors.

Local resident Héctor Escudero said he was woken by screams but thought they were nothing out of the ordinary – drunk soccer fans traditionally congregate in the plaza on game nights.

But the commotion went on for more than 40 minutes. Escudero went to his window and began filming the scene. “There was a person on the ground and another person was trying to protect him. The soccer fans were beating him with metal bars and bats,” said Escudero. “They were outnumbered, and the attackers started to hit with more intensity. The police were close, but they didn’t do anything.”

Police and medical teams intervened only after the soccer hooligans dispersed, but not before loud cries of “Heil Hitler!” were exchanged…

Weird scenes.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism | 2 Comments

Neo-Nazis Go Marching

Posted on March 30, 2007 by @ndy

Al Jazeera carries a report (‘German neo-Nazis on the march’, Barnaby Phillips, March 27, 2007) on the apparent upswing in support for neo-Nazism in Germany, particularly in eastern (ex-Communist) Germany:

A report this week in the Tagesspiegel newspaper revealed that racist attacks committed by neo-Nazis and other far right groups had reached their highest levels since the reunification of Germany in 1990.

The crime rate rose by 14 per cent last year to 18,000 extremist offences according to the report, with 1,100 of those acts of violence, an eight per cent annual increase according to federal police figures.

In one of the most serious [?] incidents in July last year, far right supporters in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt burned the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, causing outrage among German politicians and anti-racist groups.

In another incident in the state later in the year, teenagers forced a 16-year-old classmate to parade around school wearing a sign with an anti-Semitic, Nazi-era slogan…

However in the east of Berlin, the presentable face of the far-right can be found.

Udo Voigt has been the leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP) since 1996.

The party has been consistently labelled by successive German governments as descendants of the Nazis but that did not stop its candidates winning 12 seats in the state parliament of the eastern region of Saxony in 2004.

It followed that success by winning six of 71 regional parliamentary seats in another eastern state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern last year…

The extent of neo-Nazi penetration of the state is illustrated not only by formal representation in the country’s parliaments, but also its police and security apparatus. Thus the bodyguards assigned to former Central Council of Jews in Germany Vice President Michel Friedman were recently revealed as being neo-Nazis, while expressions of surprise are apparently expected but not forthcoming at the revelation that the ranks of the German police may contain officers-who-aren’t-exactly kosher.

In Australia, the NDP/(NPD) is most ably represented by German-born, Sydney-based neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth: — a close political ally of Dr. James Saleam, co-founder and host (with Saleam) of the annual fascist gathering the Sydney Forum, and member of both the Australia First Party and Blood & Honour Australia. Herfurth is also a “good friend” of NPD Fuehrer Voigt, but was unable to extend a personal welcome to him when he was invited to address the Sydney Forum in 2003 because the Australian Government denied him a visa. The denial of a visa to Voigt was on the basis of ‘Public Interest Criterion 4003’, which states: “The applicant is determined by the Foreign Minister, or a person authorised by the Foreign Minister, to be a person whose presence in Australia – (a) is, or would be, prejudicial to relations between Australia and a foreign country, or, (b) may be directly or indirectly associated with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”. Note that since 2006, part (a) has been changed to refusal where a person’s presence would be “contrary to Australia’s foreign policy interests”.

In addition to attending last year’s Ian Stuart is Dead Celebration at The (neo-Nazi) Birmy in Melbourne, Herfurth travelled to Perth in order to help (re-)establish a branch of the neo-Nazi music network in that city and — until recently — David Innes has also been of assistance in this regard. Herfurth and Innes are also responsible for establishing another neo-Nazi sect in Australia: ‘New Right’.

Established in the UK in January 2005 by the well-known fascist dingbat Troy Southgate (whose last Big Idea was something he called ‘National Anarchism’), New Right is an attempt to bring together what passes for a fascist intelligentsia… like, people what read books… ‘n’ that. An indication of how much smarts New Reich Australia has may be gained by reference to their awkward invitation to form a ‘black bloc’ to protest the “G20” meeting in Sydney this year!

While Southgate also plays neo-Nazi muzak (for a band called… H.E.R.R.!), in his career as a fascist, Southgate has skipped merrily from one bunch of losers to another: from the NF in the 1980s to the ‘International Third Position’ in the early 1990s to ‘National Anarchism’ by way of the ‘National Revolutionary Faction’ and before that the ‘English Nationalist Movement’. Lately, Southgate has been trying to form a rapprochement with the BNP, previously denigrated for their ‘electoralism’. And

    I’m gonna tell all you fascists you may be surprised / The people in this world are getting organised / You’re bound to lose you fascists, bound to lose

    Race hatred cannot stop us this one thing I know / Your poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go / You’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose

    All of you fascists bound to lose / You fascists bound to lose / All of you fascists bound to lose / You’re bound to lose! / You fascists! / Bound to lose

    People of every colour marching side by side / Marching across those fields where a million fascists died / You’re bound to lose you fascists, bound to lose

    I’m going into this battle and take my union gun / We’ll end this world of slavery before this battle’s won / You’re bound to lose you fascists bound to lose

    ~ Woody Guthrie, 1942

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 2 Comments

Trotsky versus technology

Posted on March 29, 2007 by @ndy

Yay! My favourite group of Trotskyites, the Spartacists (Hate Trotskyism! Hate the Spartacists!) have spat the dummy over Wikipedia. In a typically snarling polemic — ‘Wikipedia: A Million Monkeys Typing’, Workers’ Mop & Bucket, No.888, March 16, 2007 — the mad bastards denounce Wikipedia (motivated at least in part, I suspect, by their inability to control it). So, be warned comrades! Despite pretensions to the contrary: “…Wikipedia is no encyclopedia. A menace to historical knowledge, it is a New Age fraud that often provides a sanctuary for libel and character assassination”. Which, coming from the Sparts, reads like grounds for a demarcation dispute (see ‘Kronstadt 1921: Bolshevism vs. Counterrevolution’, Spartacist, No.59, Spring 2006, in which ‘Russian Archives Refute Anarchist Lies, Again’).

As Marxist materialists, our worldview is rooted in historical and scientific truth. Thus Workers’ Mop & Bucket has had a strict, years-long policy of not using Wikipedia as a factual source of any kind…

The Web is a powerful and useful tool. But it also has a lot of garbage. The New Yorker article Stacy Schiff [‘Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?’, July 31, 2006] remarked that Eric Raymond, the open-source software pioneer whose work inspired Wales, stated that “‘disaster’ is not too strong a word” for Wikipedia. A founding partner of Wikipedia who has since extracted himself described what he left behind as “difficult people, trolls, and their enablers.” What better habitat for the dregs of yesterday’s Spartacist-hating “Marxism” and “Trotskyism” Internet newsgroups, the kind of people who probably have not left their computers, bathed or seen sunlight in weeks? As for cyberspace frauds, we are reminded of David North’s Socialist Equality Party, an organization of dubious political bandits that years ago liquidated its paper in favor of the “World Socialist Web Site” — a medium through which it can rewrite its history when convenient.

The Web is often lauded as a means of mass participation and democracy. But neither facts nor scientific laws are determined by such methods, much less by an anonymous, multiplayer, fantasy computer game. Science is the product of hard work and a rigorous critical assimilation of the achievements of past cultures and epochs, and it is embodied in the work of authoritative figures and institutions. This does not suit the petty-bourgeois Wikipedia crowd, which is thriving in a period dominated ideologically by the bourgeoisie’s “death of communism” myth and the attendant growth of religious superstition. Wales himself is an Ayn Randist free marketeer. Whatever resentments Wikipedia’s fans have of the genuine ills of bourgeois academia have been twisted into a secular variant of George Bush’s faith-based idiocy.

In the period of its revolutionary ascent, the bourgeoisie fought for knowledge as crucial for economic progress and as a weapon against feudalist clerical tyranny. Diderot’s Encyclopedistes helped to ideologically arm the Great French Revolution of 1789-93. Today, capitalism in its death agony creates a barrier to the expansion of the means of production while dragging culture back into a new dark age. What quality education the U.S. bourgeoisie maintains is increasingly restricted to elite universities. The growth and influence of Wikipedia occurs in a period when public education is in tatters and masses of ghetto and barrio youth rot in today’s Bastilles.

Embracing science and the scientific method, we Marxists understand that only the revolutionary overthrow of the decaying bourgeois order by the proletariat will pave the way for the elimination of scarcity, making mankind’s great achievements and knowledge available to all.

Long Live Marxist Science As It Is Embodied In The Work Of Authoritative Figures And Institutions!

Down with Wikipedia And Its Million Typing Monkeys!

For The Defeat Of Ignorance Concerning The Spartacist League of Australia — From The Near East, To Ireland, The Caribbean And New Caledonia!

Rebuild The Spartacist-Trainspotting Tendency!

Break From The Bad Leadership!

For The World Part-ay Of Socialist Revolution!

Incidentally, at an earlier stage, the SWP (UK) had similar concerns regarding the ‘horizontal’ distribution of knowledge, as is revealed in a text distributed by it in August 1995 in relation to the ‘IS List’, republished by a Surrealist.

Posted in !nataS, Media, Trot Guide | 4 Comments

Andrew Bolt & the ‘anarchist/s’

Posted on March 28, 2007 by @ndy

In his latest column, tabloid hack and global climate change scientician Andrew Bolt has made another stunning revelation: Michael Duffy once called himself an anarchist! Which prompts the exclamatory remark: who the hell is Michael Duffy? Well, apparently he has a gig at another corporation, the ABC. Further, “The ABC’s token “conservative” turns out not only to be a former anarchist and admiring biographer of crazed Labor leader Mark Latham, but after a couple of years with the ABC has given his first-ever vote to — surprise! not! — the Greens”. Yes, further truthiness regarding the ABC’s role as Communist front.

Whatever. Apparently, as a recent graduate (1978) of Macquarie University, Duffy “joined an anarchist group”; much to the horror of his middle class parents (‘Right every time’, Debra Jopson, Sydney Morning Herald, July 5, 2003). Gerard ‘I’m-not-a-member-of-the-lunar-right, no-really’ Henderson claims elsewhere that “Writing in The Bulletin on July 20, 1999, Catharine Lumby commented that columnist and publisher Michael Duffy “once ran an anarchist bookshop in Sydney”‘ (‘The battle is not to be left behind’, The Age, December 24, 2002). If so, that would mean Duffy was once a member of either the Black Rose or — more likely, given the time-frame — Jura collectives, but I can find no independent verification for that claim. Duffy soon came to his middle class senses, in any case, and pissed off to pursue a career as a government bureaucrat, editor (Independent Monthly 1993–1996 (1989–1996)), failed publisher (Duffy & Snellgrove 1996–2004/5; as reason for its closure, one source cites poor sales, another the impact of the GST(?)), and most recently as an(other) opinionated yuppie.

Oddly, in the last few years, and as part of his ongoing polemic against the environmental movement (and The Greens in particular), Bolt has seized on the work of an anarchist historian, Peter Staudenmaier, in particular the book he co-authored with Janet Biehl (Murray Bookchin‘s partner), Ecofascism: Lessons From the German Experience (AK Press, 1996 and online):

The reappearance of fascism in many western countries threatens all the freedoms the left movements have managed to gain over the last half century. Equally disconcerting is the attempt by fascist ideologists and political groups to use ecology in the service of social reaction. This effort is not without long historical roots in Germany, both in its nineteenth-century romanticism and in the Third Reich in the present century. In order to preserve the liberatory aspects of ecology, the authors, as social ecologists, explore the German experience of fascism and derive from it historical lessons about the political use of ecology. Including two essay[s] — “Fascist Ideology: The Green Wing of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents” and “Ecology and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-Right” — Ecofascism examines aspects of German fascism, past and present, in order to draw essential lessons from them for ecology movements both in Germany and elsewhere.

That Hitler was a ‘green’ is false (as is the more popular claim that Hitler was a vegetarian). Nevertheless, in a column published on July 17, 2003, Bolt cited Staudenmaier’s work as supporting his argument that the contemporary environmental movement is an expression of fascism; hence the jocular title: ‘Are green activists closet Nazis?’. Later that same year, Tory Senator George Brandis, inspired by Bolt’s genius, also cited Staudenmaier’s work, and, like Bolt:

The book that caught Senator Brandis’s attention is titled Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience. Along with my co-author Janet Biehl, I explore there the little-known legacy of right-wing ecology and its appropriation by one faction of the Nazi party in the 1930s. Our book says quite explicitly that there is no inherent connection between classical fascism and contemporary Green politics. What gave rise to the convergence of ecology and fascism seventy years ago was a specific set of historical circumstances and a specific version of ecological thinking, which our book examines in detail.

The excerpts which Senator Brandis presented to his colleagues ignored this crucial context, and thus failed to do justice both to the very grave history that the book recounts, as well as to the current relevance of these issues in today’s world.

Moreover, the concrete parallels that Brandis emphasized -– an ostensible excess of radical zeal on the part of some Australian Greens, as well as their supposedly cynical attitude toward democratic institutions -– are at best tangentially related to the ideological commonalities between environmentalism and fascism that my research reveals.

The Nazis certainly did not come to power because the predecessors of the Greens in Germany were too vocal in their opposition to the militarist and authoritarian tendencies of their day.

It is possible that the Australian Greens are indeed awash in mystical and antihumanist ideas, as Senator Brandis’s portrait would have it; to comment on that question exceeds my competence. If such is the case, however, it scarcely means that fascism is on its way.

Perhaps Brandis’s ill-considered invocation of the rise of Nazism will have a salutary effect after all, if it spurs his intended targets among the Greens to study this background further. For the present, however, it would seem that vociferous disagreement with the status quo -– even if its tenor is too strident for some -– represents a significant bulwark against political demagoguery, not a step toward dictatorship.

That Senator Brandis apparently confused this sort of vigorous dissent with the lack of dissent that allowed fascism to flourish in the first place indicates that we still have a lot to learn from the history of political shortsightedness…

See also : Brandis defends Greens-Nazis comments, Lateline, October 21, 2003

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Anvils, Angry White Kids, & Veils

Posted on March 28, 2007 by @ndy

An Angry White Kid responds to a recent text, ‘No to racism & The veil’, by the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MAC-G) here.

I’ll add my two cents later. Maybe.

(Hey, I’m slack.)

One cent:

The article on ‘The Veil’ to which Angry is responding is taken from the first issue of The Anvil, the newsletter of the MAC-G (January/February, 2007). It states that ‘The Veil’ — by which term is meant Islamic women’s dress as a whole — is both a symbol and an instrument of women’s oppression. According to the MAC-G, as physical instrument, the veil — of which the experience of a Guardian journalist wearing a niqab, a “strict” form of Islamic dress, is taken as being typical (Zaiba Malik, ‘Even other Muslims turn and look at me’, October 17, 2006) — is oppressive because it restricts freedom of movement and constricts the wearer’s ability to breathe, thereby rendering its wearer weak(er) and (more) physically vulnerable.

The second reason the veil is objectionable is because of its use as a means of patriarchal social control. That is, it is understood in Islamic societies that should a woman choose not to wear the veil, she is effectively granting men permission to sexually assault her. Such forms of control are, it is noted, not absent from Western societies such as Australia, but assume a different form. Thus under Western dress codes the wearing of the veil is not, in this sense, mandatory; but a woman who is condered to be exposing ‘too much’ of (parts of) her body, in many if not all contexts, also invites ‘unwanted’ sexual responses in men (and is assumed to be at least partly responsible for their occurence if she does). What distinguishes the use of the veil from Western dress codes, however, is its more apparent function within such (presumably Islamic) societies as gave rose to its use.

This, then, is the basis on which the MAC-G argues that the use of the veil should be opposed, and that the societies in which its use predominates among women be altered such that the wearing of Islamic dress by women is no longer being coercively achieved through the threat of rape or sexual assault.

What then, is to be done (and to whom?), in order for these changes to occur?

Outlawing the use of Islamic dress, it is argued, somewhat mysteriously, won’t bring about these changes, and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw’s recent refusal to meet with women in Islamic dress is objectionable because it reproduces the same logic; that is, men should be in a position to impose dress codes upon women. Outlawing the veil is also objectionable — again, in reference to Western societies — because for some Islamic women it has a different symbolic content: the ‘defiant’ expression of a cultural difference. It is also acknowledged that the veil may be used by women as an instrument by which they may actually extend the scope of their freedom, especially in ‘negotiations’ with family and community members.

In essence, then, the most reasonable position to take for those opposed to women’s oppression is to defend a woman’s right to wear what she chooses without economic, legal, political or social penalty. In addition, “anti-Islamic racism” must be fought, and fought not only because it is wrong, but also because it reinforces the tendency of Islamic women to wear the veil as an assertion of ‘difference’.

Two cents:

Angry draws attention to a couple of potential faults in the MAC-G’s line of reasoning. First, the manner in which it conflates religion with race: Islam is a religion, not a racial category. Therefore, strictly speaking ‘anti-Islamic racism’ is a nonsensical category.

Secondly, he accuses the (white, Western, male) MAC-G of arrogance, arrogating to itself the right to recommend a course of action to a population of 500 million non-Western, Islamic, women. Further, this fault is compounded by the assumption that the experiences and understandings of such a vast category of people can easily be summarised in such a manner. In this way, the MAC-G perpetuates a colonialist mentality, one criticised by writers such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and described by her as embodying a “methodological universalism”. Such an approach robs women of their political agency.

Angry’s third criticism relates to the actual physical limitations the wearing of the veil imposes. The suggestion is that it would make more sense to cite the experience of women who wear the niqab frequently, rather than once, as in this case. And reading the article itself confirms that it is based, very much, on one woman’s experience, one who also claims that “The women I have met who have taken to wearing the niqab tell me that it gives them confidence. I find that it saps mine. Nobody has forced me to wear it but I feel like I have oppressed and isolated myself.” Malik also states that “I don’t understand the need to wear something as severe as the niqab, but I respect those who bear this endurance test — the staring, the swearing, the discomfort, the loss of identity”. For Malik, wearing the niqab is discomfiting and oppressive; for some other Muslim women, the niqab provides a sense of confidence and a confirmation of their identity as Muslim women.

It’s in this respect, I think, that the MAC-G’s failure to distinguish between the wearing of the niqab and the wearing of any form of Islamic dress by women becomes most apparent. In other words, the niqab is one of a number of forms of Islamic dress, not the only, and the wearing of it, its necessity and its significance, is contested. A recent article in Newsweek on the subject of the significance the wearing of the veil has for Europe’s Muslims, for example, reveals an array of different attitudes and approaches (Fareena Alam, ‘Beyond the Veil’, November 21, 2006).

The fourth criticism Angry has of the MAC-G’s analysis centres on “[t]he image of Muslim men as rapacious sex fiends”. I think that this criticism is probably mistaken, as it assumes that the MAC-G is making a normative statement with regards the essential nature of men’s sexuality in Islamic societies. As I see it, the argument that the MAC-G is making is in reference to Islamic religious doctrine, and its understanding of male sexuality — not that of Islamic men as a whole. Thus “[i]n societies where the veil is customary, the assumption is that women are sex objects and a man in the presence of an unveiled woman to whom he is not related cannot reasonably be expected to control himself and keep within the bounds of morality. Women who do not wear the veil are therefore seen as ‘asking for it’.” This raises an empirical question: how is sexuality understood “in societies where the veil is customary”? Further, is it true that there exists in such societies this assumption regarding the probable implications of the wearing of the veil (and its refusal)?

Finally, with regards the question of the symbolic meaning of the veil, it makes sense to fight against those cultural currents which seek to coerce Islamic women into wearing one: to the extent that ‘Islamophobia’ is one such current — and to the extent that the wearing of the veil is little other than a ‘defiant’ reaction to such prejudice — the removal or diminution of Islamophobia in Western societies will likely witness a concomitant decrease in the prevalence of the veil. However, I am unclear regarding the question of whether or not the MAC-G regards the veil to be objectionable beyond this basis. Given the identification of the niqab with Islamic women’s dress as a whole, it would appear that it might, and that consequently, the MAC-G actually seeks the abolition of Islamic dress codes (for women — and for men?) as a whole.

Three cents:

Um…

Posted in Anarchism, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Evil & Dangerous Woman (Rude Grrl) Outta Jail

Posted on March 27, 2007 by @ndy

“The most evil and dangerous woman in Germany”, a/k/a Brigitte Mohnhaupt, has been released from a German prison:

‘Ex-Member of Red Army Freed From Prison’
Geir Moulson
Washington Post [AP]
Sunday, March 25, 2007

BERLIN — A one-time leader [of] Germany’s Red Army Faction was released Sunday after a quarter-century in prison for her involvement in some of the radical left-wing group’s most notorious murders, a prison official said.

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, was released from the Aichach prison in Bavaria, prison director Wolfgang Deuschl said. He said she was picked up by acquaintances and took personal belongings including some books, but did not give further details.

A Stuttgart court last month approved parole for Mohnhaupt, ruling that she could go free after serving the minimum 24 years. Combined with an earlier prison term, she has spent 29 years behind bars.

Her case — and that of Christian Klar, another Red Army prisoner whose bid for clemency President Horst Koehler is considering separately — have set off a debate about whether it is time to show mercy on imprisoned members of the group.

The two cases have brought back painful memories of the Red Army Faction’s heyday in the late 1970s, when the group left a trail of dead bodies in its struggle against what it considered capitalist exploitation of workers.

Mohnhaupt was arrested in 1982 and convicted of involvement in nine murders, including those of West German chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, Dresdner Bank head Juergen Ponto, and Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the head of the country’s industry federation. She was given five life sentences for murder.

Mohnhaupt shot Ponto three times when he resisted a kidnapping attempt in 1977, according to her conviction.

In other cases, she was involved in planning killings and attacks — including a 1981 rocket-propelled grenade attack on the car of U.S. Gen. Frederick Kroesen, then the commander of U.S. forces in Europe. Both the general and his wife were injured.

The Stuttgart court, supported by prosecutors, last month decided Mohnhaupt no longer posed a threat.

In its decision, the Stuttgart court noted that Mohnhaupt was not willing to completely repudiate her violent past. But it added that Mohnhaupt, at a closed parole hearing, said the time for “armed struggle” was over and acknowledged inflicting suffering on the victims’ families.

Mohnhaupt had a job offer and an apartment lined up — in a place that the court did not disclose. She will be on supervised parole for five years and must report regularly to authorities.

Mohnhaupt was a top figure in what was sometimes called the Baader-Meinhof gang, after an earlier generation of leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, who both killed themselves in prison.

[Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan Carl Raspe reportedly killed themselves on October 18, 1977 while being held in Stammheim Prison: Ensslin hanging herself and Baader and Raspe shooting themselves, Baader reportedly shooting himself in the back of the head! For these and many other reasons, some continue to believe that they were in fact murdered. The circumstances surrounding Meinhof’s death, on May 9, 1976, also in Stammheim, are also suspicious, and her death was followed by demonstrations throughout Europe…]

The middle-class leftists emerged from German student protests against the Vietnam War, launching a violent, 22-year campaign against what they considered U.S. imperialism and capitalist oppression of workers.

At its peak, West Germany was shaken by the Sept. 5, 1977, kidnapping of employers’ federation head Schleyer in an attempt to extort the release of Baader and others from prison.

When the government of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt did not free Baader, Arab supporters hijacked a Lufthansa jet to Mogadishu, Somalia. German commandos freed the hostages but the kidnappers killed Schleyer, whose body was found in the trunk of a car in Mulhouse, France. Baader and two other Red Army Faction members killed themselves in prison.

The organization killed 34 people and injured hundreds, some simply unlucky enough to be driving or accompanying their prominent targets. It declared itself disbanded in 1998, a decision Mohnhaupt said she agreed with.

The ‘real’ story of the RAF, of course, is a lot more complicated — and a lot more interesting — than is revealed in the above bastardised account. In April 1992, the RAF declared it had ceased attentats (political assassinations). A year later, in one of the RAF’s last major actions, the Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt blew up the Weiterstadt prison, declaring that:

…Weiterstadt prison is exemplary of how the state deals with the splintering and broadening contradictions: more and more people are faced with prison, prison, prison – and this prison was also supposed to act as a deportation prison as a part of the racist state refugee policy.
In its technological perfection of isolation and differentiation of imprisoned people, it was to be a model for the rest of Europe.
Weiterstadt, after Berlin-Ploetzenzee, was to be the second fully-conceived maximum-security prison for women, and it was being billed as “the most humane prison” in Germany. But behind this notion is hidden its scientifically further-developed concept of the isolation, differentiation, and total control of prisoners. It is the principle of reward and punishment in a high-tech form that forces prisoners to be disciplined and subordinate and which forces them, even if it means breaking them, to give their “cooperation”.
The electronic surveillance system was the most expensive and highly-developed in all of Europe, with which all aspects of the prison could be controlled and utilized for the psychological program of destroying all attempts at solidarity, friendship, and self-determined organization…

Commenting on the manner in which German society has been rattled by her release, Jeffrey Fleishman in the LA Times (March 26, 2007) opines that “Her case also has revealed that vestiges of extreme leftist politics still resonate among certain intellectuals who never realized their anarchist dreams”, which is kinda odd given that the RAF were a Marxist-Leninist organisation. Locally, similar ideological confusion is evident in Stuart Munckton’s review of Build it Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (Monthly Review Press, 2006), in which he writes that:

However, [Michael A.] Lebowitz doesn’t argue that simply introducing a model involving workers’ management is enough to change society. He polemicises against the anarchist academic John Holloway, who argues against seeking to win state power to achieve change [Change the World Without Taking Power, Pluto / University of Michigan Press, 2002; also available online @ libcom]. Lebowitz points out that this argument “has been refuted in two clear ways”. First of all, looking at the experience of the Venezuelan revolution, he argues: “Can we even begin to imagine the changes that are occurring here now without the power of the state?” Lebowitz refers to Marx’s arguments on the need for workers to win state power to transform society, explaining that it needs to be a form of state power fundamentally different to the capitalist state, organised democratically as the self-government of working people.

— ‘Two, three, many Bolivarian revolutions!’, Green Left Weekly, No. 704, March 24, 2007

Blah blah blah, Lenin Lenin Lenin.

Other problem is, Screamin’ John Holloway, while he may be an academic, is not actually an anarchist. His text — despite its somewhat deceptive title — makes only a handful of dismissive references to anarchism, but is otherwise based very firmly in a (libertarian) Marxist analysis of society and political economy.

On Venezuela, see El Libert@rio, an anarchist periodical from Venezuela [English]; also Incendio, in particular an account of the Alternative Social Forum held in Caracas, January 23–29, 2006:

The objective of creating a week-long space fermenting dissidence against the Venezuelan government, the state-centric left, traditional political parties and Capital was achieved with success beyond expectation. The goal of spreading a multiplicity of political visions and strategies was achieved without the logistical support of the Venezuelan army and without any promotion or funding weighted with bureaucracy. The second objective, reconstructing a grassroots network of autonomous social movements, inspiring new ways of doing politics and building a transformational movement, is a project that transcends the time-span of a week. For this reason, each one of the organizations that convened at the ASF is moving forward with diverse programs at a variety of levels. The recovery of various movement agendas is critical: ecologists, students, neighborhood organizations, feminists, indigenous peoples’ movements, youth, citizens and campesinxs form an emancipatory challenge to our stagnant political system characterized by redundant electoral cycles and agendas imposed from above.

Posted in Anarchism, History, State / Politics, War on Terror | 2 Comments

NSW State Election : Results

Posted on March 24, 2007 by @ndy

As expected, Labor has been returned with a slightly reduced majority, losing one seat (Lake Macquarie) to an Independent and one seat to the Nationals (Tweed). And John HoWARd’s really really really close friend Pru Goward has won the seat of Goulburn.

    NSW State Election 2007 Guide according to everyone’s favourite psephologist Antony Green.

In the (safe Tory) seat of Cronulla, Australia First came Last, John Moffat receiving 1,193 votes (3%) of 43,950; only narrowly defeating Ian Formal on 1,013. Warren Feinbier of Australians Against Further Immigration, meanwhile, received a few dozen more votes with 1,299 (3%).

In The Gold Coast Bulletin (‘Australia First cadidate [sic] rates his chance of election low’, March 1, 2007), it was reported that Little Mister Moffat ‘expects to attract at least 10 per cent of the primary vote in a consciousness raising exercise, waking people up to what he terms as the coming catastrophe of becoming “Asianised”.’ If AFP’s vote is added to that of AAFI, and if these votes can be read as expressing a shared fear of Asians, 6% of voters in a safe Tory seat voted in support of racist candidates. Beth Smith, the religious right candidate (Fred Nile‘s Christian Democratic Party, CDP) received 1,963 votes (Hallelujah!), or 5% of the total, while Greens candidate Naomi Waizer received 7% (2,948 votes).

On the other side of the political spectrum, the results for the Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Equality Party have been even worse: Pip Hinman (SA) in Marrickville received 666 votes (2%) and Patrick O’Connor (SEP) just 216 votes (1%) of a total of 45,540. (Ian Formal received 1,340 votes.) In Wollongong, SA candidate Jess Moore received 591 votes (1%) of 45,217, and in Heffron, James Cogan (SEP) received a similarly small number, just 875 votes (2%). However, the worst result for the socialist candidates appears to have been achieved in Newcastle, where Noel Holt (SEP) did really really really badly, acquiring just 110 votes (0%).

In the Upper House (Legislative Council), SA received 12,525 (0.38%) of a total of 3,280,997 votes (electors enrolled on March 5, 2007: 4,374,029), thus soundly defeating not only Dawn Fraser (2,469 votes) but the Human Rights Party (11,883 votes) and Save Our Suburbs (9,111 votes). Their next task will be to leap ahead of the Horse Riders Party / Outdoor Recreation Party which, with just 19,416 votes (0.59%), is surely do-able come the next state election in 2011.

On the other hand, Terry Cook and Nick Beams — “a leading figure in the Australian and international socialist movement for more than three decades” — appear to have failed to obtain any result at all, ‘cos Beams and Cook (and Divjak and Jobson and Symonds and Head and Zabala and Hopperdietzel and Robinson and Hood and Klindo and Plater and Lohr and Christian and Redzovic) got stuck in Group D on the ticket. Well, sorta:

Another anti-democratic electoral mechanism has prevented the SEP’s Legislative Council slate from appearing “above the line” on the ballot paper. To choose candidates in the upper house, voters can either select their preferred party or group above the line, by simply marking “1” in the relevant square, or they can mark a minimum of 15 boxes for individual candidates listed on the lower half of the ballot paper. Most people choose to vote above the line as it provides the least complicated means of selecting one’s preferred party.

The SEP, however, has been forced to list its candidates below the line because NSW electoral laws require those above the line to allocate a preference for another party or group. The official pretext is that for a vote to be valid in the upper house, a minimum of 15 candidates must be selected. Since the minimum number in a Group is 15, if one or more candidate dies before election day, a group may end up with fewer than the minimum number of candidates. This argument is entirely spurious, because there are 65 members in the upper house, and the 15-candidate requirement is completely arbitrary…

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics, Trot Guide | 2 Comments

Baron von Hund removes his tinfoil helmet?

Posted on March 24, 2007 by @ndy

‘Baron von Hund’ — ie, David Innes when he’s not playing Dungeons & Dragons on Stormfront — has recently decided to retire from the public eye; presumably in order to pay more attention to the restoration of the Order of the Temple — ie, real life. Innes’ two most public promotional activities were his monthly BBQs, held at his house in south-eastern suburban Perth, and, more recently, his weekly Internet radio show, Chunder Down Under. (Innes also maintains a website, a kind of ‘White Supremacism For Beginners’, the history of which is rather amusing too.)

Innes’ decision to remove his tinfoil helmet is a somewhat noteworthy development.* That’s because he — along with his brother Paul (‘Steelcap_Boot’) and partner Lilith (Peterson) — have for the last few years been doing as much as their meagre talents will allow them to promote the expansion of “Mister” Don Black‘s (see below) business into the local racist market. Thus April’s BBQ — “Remember it’s not just a BBQ, it’s an event!” — was planned to feature speechifying by Der Baron, access to a library of neo-Nazi muzak (ie, Innes’ CD collection), racist texts (with words as well as pictures), and various other forms of racist and fascist propaganda, much of it peddled — potatoes and melons wholesale prices straight from the lock-up — by his bonehead brother Paul. Oh, and a “range of meats and beverages for all appetites”! All in a ‘safe, secure and private’ (sic) location.

“Christ, if that doesn’t get you excited about coming to the April BBQ — what the hell will?”

Well, nothing, now that it’s cancelled.

For fans of ex-KKK Grand Dragon/Wizard (1974–1978) David Duke‘s rantings and ravings, this is a severe blow… although obtaining a copy of Duke’s Finderskeepers, “the advice book for women Duke published under a female pseudonym [‘Dorothy Vanderbilt’] in 1976 which included instructions on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex”, would undoubtedly be a coup.

In addition to praising the virtues of Black’s business plan and distributing racist and fascist propaganda (both in Perth and other parts of Australia), Innes’ kkklan has embarked on an informal plan to establish what racists in the United States refer to as a P.L.E., or “Pioneer Little Europe” — ie, the creation of new territories for occupation by Europeans of short stature. Well, I think. (Christian Kerr may know more.) Whatever: it’s doubtful whether the expressed desire for lebensraum will provide sufficient motivation for Innes and his little kkklan to leave their loungerooms in the Perth foothills.

Don Black

Besides being the subject of the most cringeworthy forms of deference by local racists, Don Black is a Florida businessman, owner and chief administrator — Hauptverwalter — of the Stormfront website. He is also an ex-KKK leader (1978–1987), having assumed the leadership of the groupuscule David Duke left to pursue his ongoing campaign to make himself more palatable to the tastes of a less crazed audience. Black himself is probably most notorious for his unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of the [island of Dominica] in 1981. According to Matthew Lauder, ‘Operation Red Dog: Canadian neo-nazis were central to the planned invasion of Dominica in 1981’:

On April 27, 1981, two Canadians, Wolfgang Walter Droege and Larry Lloyd Jacklin, along with eight Americans, were arrested in New Orleans by ATF, FBI, and US Customs agents in an early morning raid. Later, four more Canadians would be arrested, including Marion McGuire, James McQuirter, Charles Yanover, and Harold Woods. All of the Canadians and Americans arrested were members of the far right with the exception of Yanover and Woods. Yanover was a well-known Mafia crime figure from Toronto while Woods was a psychiatric patient in love with McQuire. Woods was arrested in Dominica after trying to break McQuire out of prison.

On Dominica, Patrick John, the former Prime Minister, Major Fred Newton, the commander of the army, three additional army officers, and two civilians (including Dennis Joseph, the former manager of the Dominican broadcasting service) were arrested. In total, more than 20 people were tried and convicted of conspiracy charges in Canada, the US, and Dominica.

The invasion, named Operation Red Dog by the mercenaries, was simple. The group of neo-Nazis planned to travel from New Orleans to Dominica on a chartered boat, land at night in rubber boats, meet up with John and his guerrilla force of disgruntled army veterans and Rastafarian rebels, and then lay waste to Dominica’s police force and political leaders. Contrary to Stanley Barrett’s analysis (1987), the primary purpose of the invasion was not to establish a base of operations for white supremacists, but rather to set-up a series of lucrative businesses including cocaine manufacturing plants, casinos, hotels, brothels, and a gun running operation. Considering the size of Dominica, which is only 300 square miles, and its military and police force, the coup was achievable…

If not actually achieved: weird shit, nevertheless, and the beginnings of a great Hollywood film script. Incidentally, while Black survives and even thrives by milking credulous white racists of their money, Droege does not, having been shot dead by a fellow cocaine addict named Keith Deroux on April 13, 2005: on June 16, 2006, Deroux was sentenced to 10 years jail after pleading guilty to manslaughter (Don Black served three years for his part in Operation Red Dog).

Innes’ decision — assuming it’s genuine; you can never tell with this mob — to cease both his chundering and his monthly BBQs has been accompanied by some wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the few dozen regular Australian Stormfront forum members who’ve noticed. It’s also been accompanied by aggrieved speculation as to why, precisely, Innes has decided to throw in the towel, and much applause for boofhead’s attempts to popularise a Dinky-Di version of David Duke’s cosmetically-enhanced nonsense locally.

Much of the angst being expressed by the (other) racists on Stormfront regarding Innes’ sudden and unexpected announcement that he’s taking his bat and ball home to suburban Perth (of particular note is Ben Weerheym‘s reference to ‘silly things’; presumably referring to his gang painting swastikas on a war widows’ retirement village) appears to revolve around their belated discovery that not only does the site and its politics attract individuals suffering all kinds of mental pathologies similar to their own, but also some who don’t. This is especially the case with regards the violent boneheads associated with Blood & Honour Australia, who appear to have played no small part in Innes’ downfall.

The Stormfront mob’s incomprehension at the nature of their own milieu would be amusing if it wasn’t equally evidence of the pathetic nature of their political narrow-vision; not to mention the extent to which it relies on a desperate and never-to-be-fulfilled phantasy of White racial supremacy. While this obviously serves a necessary psychological function for the teenage boys who flock to it, it really doesn’t form the bestest foundation for a social movement. As for political parties, the party of choice — Australia First — is led by the son of Lebanese migrants.

* Well, I noticed anyway; but then I, like John Safran, find Stormfront to be both entertaining and informative. John Safran to the Grand Dragon of the KKK: “I’m whiter than Hitler. I’ve got blonde hair and blue eyes and Hitler had brown hair and brown eyes. At school I’d be the one beating up Hitler for being a wog”.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics | 2 Comments

600

Posted on March 23, 2007 by @ndy

Fuck me.

600 posts.

What’s the point?

Dunno.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the cemetery…

When the police
When the police come for me I go to Rio
De Janeiro, my-oh-me-oh
I go wild and then I have to do the Samba
And La Bamba
Now I’m not the kind of person
With a passionate persuasion for terrorism
Just communism
So I give in to the rhythm
And my feet follow the beatin’ of my hear-eart…

On March 17 in Brazil, Italian authorities, in collaboration with Brazilian and French authorities, as well as Interpol / Team America (Fuck yeah!), captured a leftist-terrorist-turned-crime-writer named Cesare Battisti, a former member of Armed Proletarians for Communism. Great name eh? (Italian PM Romani Prodi, on the other hand, is quoted as stating that Battisti was a member of the Red Brigades; ‘Leftist Italian militant arrested in Rio’, The Age, Reuters, March 19, 2007.) Battisti himself reckons that, while he was an armed proletarian fighting for communism, he never shot anyone, instead confessing that “I am guilty, as I have often said, of having participated in an armed group with a subversive aim and of having carried weapons. But I never shot anyone” (‘French police say Brazil has arrested Italian fugitive’, International Herald Tribune AP, March 18, 2007; also ‘Militant turned crime writer caught in Brazil’, Staff and agencies, Guardian UnLiMiTeD, March 19, 2007).

Having had his right to asylum in France revoked in 2004 by a right-wing gub’mint, Battisti fled to Brazil. To Rio. de Janeiro. My-oh-me-oh.

…Battisti was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison in Italy in 1990 for the murders of a prison guard and a [fascist] butcher in the late 1970s. The conviction was confirmed by Italy’s high court in 1993. He is accused of being an accomplice to two other murders, including the killing of a police officer.

As it happens, the police officer in question, Luigi Calabresi, was considered responsible for the murder of Giuseppe Pinelli (October 21, 1928 — December 15, 1969), an anarchist, railway worker and activist with the Anarchist Black Cross; most recently under assault by Norwegian authorities. Calabresi was shot to death outside his home on May 17, 1972.

    Of course, Pinelli’s murder served as the inspiration for not only a police murder — allegedly committed by Lotta Continua — but also a play: The Accidental Death Of An Anarchist by trouble-making, Nobel Prize-winning Italian playwright (and Leninist) Dario Fo. On January 22, 1997, three men — Adriano Sofri, Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio Pietrostefani — were given 22-year sentences after being found guilty of his murder. Bompressi’s sentence was stayed on the grounds of ill-health, Pietrostefani was not ‘found’ by authorities (2003), while Sofri has become a cause célèbre. Read more about Il Caso Sofri here. An Amnesty International report on justice, Italian-style — including a reference to not only Sofri, but the police murder of Carlo Giuliani in 2001 in which the judge overseeing an inquiry into the murder “concluded that a pistol was the only means which the first officer had at his disposal to confront the demonstrators’ violent attack; that, after waving his pistol in warning, he had fired the fatal shot but had not aimed at Carlo Giuliani but into the air, and that the shot’s trajectory was deflected by a chunk of plaster thrown by a demonstrator” — is, um, here. You can also read one of Sofri’s essays ‘On Optimism’ here. Oh, and Fo talked a little about Il Caso Sofri in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 7, 1997):

    “Recently, I took part in a large conference with lots of people where I tried to explain, especially to the younger participants, the ins and outs of a particular Italian court case. The original case resulted in seven separate proceedings, at the end of which three Italian left-wing politicians were sentenced to 21 years of imprisonment each, accused of having murdered a police commissioner. I’ve studied the documents of the case – as I did when I prepared Accidental Death of an Anarchist – and at the conference I recounted the facts pertaining to it, which are really quite absurd, even farcical. But at a certain point I realized I was speaking to deaf ears, for the simple reason that my audience was ignorant not only of the case itself, but of what had happened five years earlier, ten years earlier: the violence, the terrorism. They knew nothing about the massacres that occurred in Italy, the trains that blew up, the bombs in the piazze or the farcical court cases that have dragged on since then.”

Pinelli’s arrest, one of a number of mass arrests following the bombing (which police immediately blamed on local anarchists) and subsequent murder by police 72 hours later (Pinelli was thrown from a fourth floor window at a Milan police station) was triggered by a bombing at the Piazza Fontana on December 12, 1969, which killed 16 people and injured 84 (or possibly 90). The bombing was conducted by members of the Ordine Nuovo (New Order), acting under the instructions of the Italian secret service, and was one of a number of fascist ‘outrages’ committed during this period in Italian history, the most bloody of which was the Bologna train station bombing on August 2, 1980, in which 85 people were killed and over 200 injured.

In 2001, Italian courts sentenced three men — Carlo Maria Maggi, Delfo Zorzi and Giancarlo Rognoni — to life imprisonment for the Milan bombing. “A fourth defendant, Carlo Di Giglio, who was alleged to have been a CIA informer at the time of the bombing, turned state’s witness and received immunity from prosecution” (‘Trio get life for 1969 Milan bombing’, CNNNN, June 30, 2001). CIA complicity in the case is not surprising, as it — and its predecessor the OSS — have been busy in Italy since the 1940s, doing what the CIA does best.

As it happens, the three fascists had their sentences overturned in 2004. As for Battisti, there’s still some possibility of his continuing to reside in Brazil, as it “has a long history of allowing political fugitives to remain in [the country], and the Supreme Court said Battisti could possibly escape extradition if he is granted political refugee status. But he would still face extradition if the high court concludes that the crimes he was accused of were acts of terrorism” (‘Brazil gives Italy 40 days to request extradition of fugitive’, International Herald Tribune, AP, March 20, 2007).

See also : ‘Brazil holds runaway Italian terrorist’, Tom Phillips (in Rio de Janeiro), The Guardian, March 20, 2007; ‘La Ballata del Pinelli’ (J. Fallisi, 1969); Stuart Christie, Stefano Della Chaie: Portrait of a Black Terrorist, Anarchy/Refract, 1984; Tom Behan, Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre, Pluto Press, 2000.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, History, Music, State / Politics, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Josh Wolf // Tasneem Khalil

Posted on March 22, 2007 by @ndy

Don’t fight the new media : A new organization agitates for journalists’ rights
Josh Wolf
San Francisco Bay Guardian
March 22, 2007

When I first found myself incarcerated, there were six other journalists in the United States under the threat of imprisonment for practicing their profession. They have since all been spared the unfortunate fate of incarceration, but at the time it seemed that the press was under a full-scale attack, and it was necessary to develop a united front to defend against the growing tide of corporate and government repression.

As a result, Free the Media was born. In its function as an online and meet-space organization, Free the Media is intended to help organize and agitate whenever and wherever the free-press guarantees under the Constitution are threatened.

The forum is also focused on exploring the complex issues and controversies that continue to develop within this changing media landscape. Finally, it is my hope that Free the Media can serve as an open platform to bring people together in order to work on the development of new media solutions that will help ensure a healthy and resilient independent press for years to come.

The face of the media is in flux right now, and it’s still unclear where this current is headed. While some professionals in the field are resistant, I’m inclined to welcome the expanding landscape. Though there has never been a shortage of reporters, market influences have resulted in countless stories being neglected in favor of more popular fodder. With the recent surge of self-published and independent online journalism, the stories that are not economically viable finally have the opportunity to see the light of day.

These new, developing voices are more diverse than perhaps ever before, and the stories they tell are often more intimate and compelling than anything a professional outsider can deliver. At last those voices that are often silent, the disenfranchised, can be heard without the aid of a brave, insightful editor of a major newspaper.

Twenty years ago Peter Sussman of the San Francisco Chronicle began publishing accounts from inside the Lompoc federal penitentiary by Dannie Martin. These firsthand reports allowed the newspaper’s readership an opportunity to vicariously experience life in prison. Today through prisonblogs.net, 10,000 Dannie Martins could conceivably contribute to the discussion with their own unique perspective on incarceration.

The media is changing. This we know for sure. But what remains to be seen is the role professional journalists will take in developing this new landscape. Will the battle lines be drawn with two classes of warring voices, or will we work together in solidarity to develop a massive chorus as diverse and eclectic as our society itself? As journalists, is our commitment to an economic system, or is it to the pursuit of the free flow of information? The power is in your hands. Choose wisely.

    Josh Wolf, a freelance videographer, has been in federal prison for more than 200 days, making him the longest-imprisoned journalist in US history. Last week the Freedom of Information Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists honored him with a special citation; Wolf, for obvious reasons, was unable to accept the award in person, but he sent along this piece.

Don’t trust blogs, Malaysian minister tells press
[AFP]
The Age
March 21, 2007

A Malaysian minister has told domestic newspapers not to quote from Internet blogs or use them as sources of information, accusing the websites of spreading rumours, reports said Wednesday.

Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin said most websites were aimed at being provocative and were run by frustrated journalists and political pundits, the Star daily reported.

“Do not quote them because you are disgracing yourself as you are the authority. Do not give credit to such anarchist websites,” Zainuddin was quoted as saying…

Judging by the embargo placed on reportage of Wolf’s case by the Australian media — despite the fact that Wolf is the longest-imprisoned journalist in US history, and one whose plight is recognised by a number of journalistic associations in both the United States and elsewhere — the Malaysian minister is correct. Don’t trust blogs, and certainly don’t report on bloggers going to prison. Instead, join with the police and the state in criminalising dissent.

And speaking of (anarchist) blogs and journalism, see also Tasneem Khalil. He writes on Bangladesh for Anarchists and welcomes you to Modhupur: ‘…best described by an independent observer as: “An open laboratory where the adivasis are the guinea pigs suffering endless experimentations at the hands of the forest department, multi-national corporations and their guardian institutions, the church, Bengali settlers, and the department of defense.”‘

Sound familiar?

Posted in Media | 3 Comments