Meydan: Why must a radical geography be anarchist? Why is important to talk about anarchism and geography with relation to each other?

It’s a response to a 1972 article by Steem Fook, who wrote a piece called “why a radical geography must be marxist?”, so I said, I must not be marxist. Radical geography had become an area of study that has become very much dominated by marxism and Harvey had profound influence on the trajectory of radical geography. My concern with that is the stagnation that’s involved when an entire field is dominated by one perspective. From the late 1960’s marxism was dominated by particularly white males in anglo-american geography and they were content to ignore feminists. There’s a lot of critique to be made not only of Harvey but other geographers and other marxists who have continued to hammer on this marxist message without ever having taking into consideration the feminist and anarchist critiques. If we have something called radical geography, how is that this distinct neglect of anarchism when we have this earlier tradition a hundred years ago, Kropotkin and Reclus were writing about anarchism from a geographical perspective. There was a colonial enterprise when Kropotkin and Reclus and a few others said this is terrible, we need to have an anti-colonial geography.

Does David Harvey still propose a central model of geography based on the state? What should be done to break the marxist hegemony on geography?

I think breaking the hegemony of marxism in geography is already happening. Young scholars are no longer inspired by marxism, even in the way 10 years ago they had. They recognize that the kind spatial politics that marxism is articulating, there is something interesting there in a historical sense, but it doesn’t resonate in the same way that an anarchist spatial politics does with what’s happening on the streets, in our neighbourhoods, all across the world. Anarchism has its finger on the pulse of what’s going on in our communities because anarchism is a spatial practice that arises from those communities. marxism on the other hand, has been, right from the outset, something that’s dwelled in the domain of theory without having the kind of grounded reality that an anarchist politics has. Within academia there is this enterprise of academics, creating their own little empire of knowledge and information, so there is this decided effort to push people to a marxist trajectory. If you look at the title of my phD dissertation, the compromise with my committee was to put post marxism in the title because they didn’t want me to have anarchism in the title of a phD dissertation.

I think in the last couple of years we’ve sort of blown the lid off that sort of caption marxism have had. Last year in Italy, I was involved in organizing a first annual anarchist geographers conference something like 75 people showed up. I think the reason for the interest comes then from that there is so much left unsaid within a marxist politics and the way that marxism and David Harvey in particular wanting to conceptualize space in the kinds of relations that come from their emphasis on a spatial politics that preferences the state.

I see the authoritarianism, I see the statism, I see the hidden vanguard within Harvey’s work. Harvey always wants to play himself off like he is this friend of anarchists. If you read Harvey closely he’s very antagonistic and has a deep sense of animosity for anarchists, anarchism in general, certainly anarchist ideas.

There is so many limitations in the statist authoritarian perspective that marxists want to continue to work with, and I think when we start to ask critical questions about where the violence is coming from, in this world, it draws us to capitalism, which marxists recognise, but in that equation of capitalism where is the state in all of that? And the state is always in the front and center. The state facilitates capitalism. You can’t have capitalism without a state and you can’t have a state without capitalism. The historical record proves this to us in the sense of the Khmer Rouge engaging foreign rice markets to prop up their supposedly egalitarian society, Emma Goldman had scathing critique of communist Russia and the way that it was engaging in capitalist enterprises, the same thing in China, and so each and every example of where supposedly we’ve seen the reigns of the state captured by folks who are wanting to turn it into another direction away from capitalism, capitalism continues to fold itself into the process of the state. The is the nature of hierarchical relations. They are exploitative through and through, and what better way to exploit than through the means of capitalism. I don’t think contemporary marxists have come to grips with this, or can come to grips with this. There is no accounting for it.

David Harvey says that anarchism is a slippery slope to neoliberalism because of the decentralised politics that anarchism wants to evoke. Of course this is nonsense. Because a decentralised capitalist project looks nothing like a decentralised anti-capitalist project. It’s a ludicrous assumption but it’s something that Harvey always wants to ploy.
I have read Rebel Cities when it came out and I was just pissed off because there was so many mischaracterizations of anarchism embedded in the kind of spatial politics he was wanting to evoke. The other thing is the question of scale. Harvey goes to scale repeatedly to say that an anarchist project is impossible and it’s just this very localized idea that just simply doesn’t work and when anarchists respond saying well look at Murray Bookchin’s municipal libertarianizm or think about the way that Kropotkin was articulating a federalist idea of anarchism, Harvey just says well if it looks like a state, and walks like a state and quacks like a state, it must be a state. He misrecognizes the kinds of horizontal organising that anarchists imagine, this reconfiguration of our political geographies in a horizontal sense, rather than a hierarchical sense as being the equivalent of the state. Let’s think for a minute what is a state. A state is about having a police force, it’s about having discernable laws that are enforced by police, it’s about having a military. Where are these components within a federalized version of anarchism in the sense that Kropotkin was talking about. They don’t exist, so Harvey’s wanting to actually make these mischaracterizations, I think very purposely.

Not just to blame Harvey, his ego is fed repeatedly by the wider academic community. Why is David Harvey unchallengeable? Marxists particularly get uptight about this because they buy so heavily into the idea of cult of personality. We see this around the figure of Marx himself, as though he was the only person who was writing and thinking about these kinds of ideas at the time he was writing. Here is we see that the parallels between author and authority, they have a similar root word, so what is an author? My name appears on my books, but am I the actual author of that, I’m the compiler of that information, but all of my ideas built off conversations with the communities that I engage in. And the same with David Harvey and the same with Marx.

If we start to remember that in our spatial practices as well in the kind of politics we want to evoke, than that changes the way we think about organising. If it’s not just about David Harvey or some other academic or a politician or an elected official telling us what to do, rather it’s about us thinking about these ideas for ourselves and working them out together, that evokes an entirely different geographical imagination than the one that marxists are wanting to push forward.

You use the concept of commons in your book. What is commons?

In some ways it’s a very straightforward and simple idea, it’s been made complex because the capitalistic world that we live in has lost this idea of what a commons actually is. At a base level, I’d boil it down to the commons being the actual geographical expression of mutual aid, the way Kropotkin articulated mutual aid as reciprocity and cooperation.

The thinking is constrained by the political imagination that is at least some of the literature, like Henri Lefebvre and Habermas, in the way that they articulated notions of public space and private space. Private space very overtly referring to the spaces of capital they claim, on the other side, we have public space where in an idealized form that it is a space for the people, by the people, of the people and there is no sort of intervention or authority that constrains that space. The reality of course is those space are frequently controlled by the state. If we have a political imagination that wants to see public space as only a state based domain, that that limits the possibilities of what we can do with space. Or we can broaden out further and reclaim public space to transform it into a communal space and articulate it in such a way that it comes closer to the vision of the commons that we like to see.

The other way that the commons has been confused is the entire notion of property and how that is so taken for granted. The question of property is something that I wrestle with very explicitly in my work in Cambodia, That wrestling is a reflection on the lived experiences of everyday rural Cambodians who have a very different geographical understanding of property. Their notion is based upon actual use rather than a legal certificate of a piece of paper that says you own the land. So they understand it in a sense that Pierre Joseph Proudhon wanted to articulate a distinction between property and possession. Everyday Cambodians understand land holding as a possession. What is property in contrast? And this is the way that Proudhon was wanting to frame it in his most well known “What is Property?” In which he answered, property is theft. Proudhon said property is rooted in the idea of sovereign right, which is then bestowed upon a proprietor where it becomes, his right to use and abuse that property as he wishes. Property becomes fundamentally a means for exploitation which stands in stark contrast with possession. And property of course vested in sovereign right, in the past meant the divinity of kings, but in the present moment it means the sovereign state and the legal authority that comes with it becomes a means for unleashing the violence of the state. There are soldiers who shoot and have even killed Cambodian villagers for not walking off the land when they told to do so. Property isn’t just theft as Proudhon was trying to articulate, it’s also violence, very explicitly. It is a means of domination, a means of violence. It’s something that’s lost in present understanding which relates to the commons, in the sense that the world is increasingly constrained in this view spatial politics that is rooted only in property as though that’s the only way to conceive of land holding and only way of how we define and articulate various spaces, that it has to be proprietary relations. And there is huge enterprise behind this. We have the IMF and the World Bank, who are more than willing to enact Cadastro regimes upon any country they’ve got their hooks into to enforce a property system because of course it’s been the bedrock of capitalism.

A commons thinks in the landholding in the same way as Cambodian villagers do, instead of being a individual possession, it’s a communal possession. It’s based on the actual use of a community and so, when we start to think of public space as a commons, we’re going to see significant resistance from the forces of property, the forces that are trying to continually prop up the notion of property, very explicitly the state. Once again, we see how the state and capitalism come into concert with each other. The state is thoroughly woven into capitalism, it’s impossible to untangle that.

In the context of neighbourhoods, we see efforts to actually create a commons. We have this huge narrative about capitalism and about the state and the way they condition us in particular ways, and of course they do, but we also have agency, both at the individual level, but also at community level. Very simple things like organising a childcare co-op instead of one mom or dad soldiering by themselves all alone with their children and putting their children in paid childcare, what happens when you organise a group of mom and dads together. Then you start to think, what kind of space would we need to actually make this work? If we start to live closer together and we start to live in a more collective kind of way. So all of these ways of rethinking the commons, there is a distinct spatial politics that’s embedded within them, but therein is the challenge because the world is constructed for us to think in terms of property relations and to think of ourselves as lone individuals against the world. What makes life beautiful is these kind of connections that we have for each other, so it’s about reimaging how we bring ourselves together and trying to reconfigure our spaces in ways that work towards a sense of value that includes the commons.

You talked about Reclus and Kropotkin at the start of Radical geography and went back and studied them. Who else in the course of geography can we read who are thinking in parallel with anarchism? And that are sources for Anarchist Geography?

AAG, the largest geographical organisation in the world, 10,000 people show up and we make sure that we have a few anarchist geography sessions in yearly conference. The IDU, we organised sessions on Kropotkin in Moscow and Bolivia last year.

In 2016, there was a trilogy on Anarchist Geographies, you’ve covered it in newspaper before. What are the kind of ways which anarchism is resonating with the empirical work that you’re doing, and so one of them was focused on pedagogy, one on theory, and one on more empirical forms of resistance.
Currently I am collectively working with others on four volumes on Anarchist Political Ecology, so another sort of trajectory for anarchist geography is an anarchism more generally to go and to explore what are the ecological implications of the arguments that we’re making.

We put the call for papers out and the response is overwhelming. This is the beauty is that there is so much interest in this, rather than having a cut throat approach to academia where we choose only the “best papers”, we work with all of the ones we received and as inclusive as possible, and really start to try to create the networks, foundation for anarchist geographies to blossom even further.

Also getting involved in some of the Anarchist Studies Conferences, North American Anarchist Studies Network, they have a conference every year, this year it was in Quebec and also the Anarchist Studies Network in UK, I know many geographers go to those conferences as well. Just trying to build the foundation of this being something that is no longer taboo and that increases awareness and wants to draw more people into it rather than being my thing or your thing, this very specialized nhieshe, let’s try and expand this as far as possible, is the overarching objective.
I think there is a lot of people who are doing work that is in the vein of anarchism, but they won’t necessarily define themselves as an anarchist. Dorian Massey’s book For Space (2005) shows geography is a process, a living breathing thing that continues to evolve, we’re continually shaping it and reshaping it. The potentiality of space to be reshaped not just by state or capitalism but actually by ourselves, that there is no preconditioned destination that we are headed towards.

Audrey Kobayashi on the politics of race. Rhys Jones, doing work on borders, Federico Ferreri is a historical geographer, scouring the archives and finding letters that were written between Kropotkin and Reclus. Other anarchist geographers like Anthony Ince, Gerónimo Barrera doing work on anti-statist geographies. Richard J. White in everyday relations of mutual aid. Ophélie Veron, exploring anarcha-feminism.

Yesterday there was a question about Rojava Revolution. The geographies and processes like Rojava, like Chiapas are important for us. What can you say about these kind of experiences which is directly related with geography?

I’ve not had any connection with either of these particular communities, so it’s hard for me to articulate. There is decidedly spatial politics within the movements that have been created there, so I think that’s fantastic and inspiring to see, but it’s very difficult for me to say, ok this is what they should be doing, or they did this right, they did that wrong, and these sort of things. I don’t think it’s my place as an outsider to make those kinds of value judgements.
The way that I locate my politics is, even in the work I did in Cambodia, I’m an outsider in that context. I’ve been going to Cambodia for almost 20 years now and speak the local language which helps facilitate a bit of a deeper connection, and of course my daughter is adopted from Cambodia which makes a stronger personal relationship as well, but I’m not Cambodian, so I can’t speak for Cambodians and what the political vision they’re wanting to articulate is. My way that I approach is to want to work with those communities rather than to impose my views upon them and speaking with them like what is the message if I’m writing a paper on the work that I’m doing in the communities with the people I’m working with, what is the message you want to transmit back to the world? So I think it’s always important for that message to the extent possible to come from that people who are directly involved in the struggle, to have them voice their view and their opinion about the successes of their movement, the missteps of their movement, and the future possibilities of that movement.

In the same way, I am inspired by these movements, I think they’re critically important in the sense that they give, as an anarchist academic, they give us something very tangible to say, there are real world applications to what we’re thinking about. This isn’t just theory, there are ideas that being manifested in very particular ways. Look at how the work of Murray Bookchin has been taken up. The kinds of ideas that come out of that had been applied in a very particular sense, that part if it is interesting and inspiring.

This interview published in 46th issue of Meydan. 

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We have interviewed CNT Foreign Relations Secratary Miguel Perez about CNT’s general strike, oppression, attacks and political developments following the Catalonia Referandum.

– What does Puigdemont’s last speech mean? Everyone was expecting more radical speech, especially afterwards the police attack to the Catalan people during the referandum process. Is this a part of strategy?

As you know, the situation changes in Catalonia by the hour. It’s very difficult to keep pace with events, even for comrades on the ground. So, by the time this interview goes to press, I’m sure any answer will be outdated!.
However, yes, Puigdemont gave a speech, kind of declaring independence but putting it immediately on hold, to allow for “negotiations”. To be honest, it wasn’t clear to anyone what he meant and, in any case, the prospect of the central government engaging in meaningful negotiations was non-existent. To all regards, his was an attempt to buy time, though it obviously led to nowhere. So, I don’t think it was part of a strategy, but rather a tacit recognition of his lack of choices.
On the one hand, the Catalan government has no way to enforce a single sided declaration of independence. This would immediately prompt the central government to suspend the local parliament (which is very likely to happen as of tomorrow, 28-10-2017, anyway) and use the police or the army to crack down on the independentist movement. But any declaration of independence is always going to be single sided, as the central government is NEVER going to agree to that.
On the other hand, he’s in a government coalition with some leftist hardcore independentist parties, which are pushing for that declaration to happen and threaten to withdraw their support and bring down the local government otherwise. There’s also a lot of people (tens of thousands) all the time in the streets, in rallies and demonstrations, demanding independence, adding pressure on Puigdemont and his government, calling them traitors (with reason).
He’s the prototypical right-wing moderate nationalist politician, who stirs up people’s mobilisation to serve his own ends and interests, and then finds himself trapped by that same mobilisation. I bet he now just wants to hide in a dark place and cuddle!
But the solution is at hand. The central government is about to step in with even more repression, which will allow Puigdemont to say that he tried hard to have a negotiated solution, but to no avail.
What will happen after this weekend is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t look well.

– Before the referandum, we have witnessed many protest for the independence of Catalonia. What about the counter-protests of nationalists? Who had organised these protests? Did Catalan people really join these marches? What is the affect of these protests?

There’s always been a large part of the Catalan people who wanted independence, but this has by no means been unanimous. Even within nationalists, not all of them wanted independence. For instance, Puigdemont’s party, which has been ruling Catalonia on and off for the last 40 years, never had any declared independentist aims. It was rather comfortable making dealings with the Madrid government to achieve other goals within the framework of the Spanish constitution and regime. So, yeah, it’s likely many Catalans do not support independence, though it’s clear the vast majority do, by now. Even if they didn’t before the 1st of October, police repression may have done a great deal to convince them of the need to break away from Spain!
The main problem is in the rest of Spain. The country’s unity has long been a rallying banner for the far right, and we are already seeing many people leaning more to the right as a reaction to the Catalan drive for independence. This can give new breath to fascist groups, which were until now fairly small (though far too big to my liking!). They are already staging rallies and demonstrations of their own, or taking part in larger rallies for Spain’s unity, where they’re been worryingly well received by those attending.
This drive to the (far) right is in consonance with the calls for more repression that many “democratic” forces are issuing these days, which does not fare well for any dissidence. It’s a truly worrying perspective.
Giving the developments in Turkey over the last few years, I’m sure you can relate to the threat we’re facing here, even when there also are, no doubt, huge differences.

– How does CNT’s perspective on Catalonia Referandum? As anarchists, how do we understand the position of Catalonia; as freedom of the people or as a declaration of a new state? 

In any situation of social upheaval and mobilisation, like the one going on in Catalonia at the moment, there are always many agendas at play. Right now, for most people on the street, the main issue is creating a new independent state. There’s no hiding it. It’s a purely nationalist agenda.
But by mobilising hundreds of thousands of people, getting them to organise meetings in their neighbourhoods, attend rallies, etc., other issues are coming to the fore, as well. For example, it’s OK to complain about police violence on referendum day, but most activists don’t forget that the Catalan leaders of today ordered a similar repression against the Indignados movement in 2011. So by no means nationalist leaders keep a tight control on the people, once you get them out on the streets. There’s a constant tension between strictly nationalist aims and other social and economic issues creeping forward, that is mostly regulated by events on the ground.
We, in CNT, see this as a chance to put our message across, encourage people to organise by themselves and go beyond strictly nationalist issues. Our position, as stated in our congress agreements, renewed in December 2015, is that we stand for people’s self-determination across the whole world (obviously, in Catalonia too). But we understand self-determination not as state building, but as self-management, that is, it must include issues like workers control of production and consumption, a direct democracy from the bottom up in a confederation, etc. On that respect, we’re neither concerned nor worried by the creation of a new state, but our concern is to advance the cause for self-management of the working class.
I know it’s a fine line we have to walk here. We’re trying to avoid playing into the hands of nationalist politicians, while being out in the streets with the people, for instance, against repression, and putting our message across. We’ve been criticised for it and there has been (and is) a lot of debate within our ranks about how to best do it. It’s only normal that at difficult times we hesitate on the way forward. I’m confident that CNT’s internal mechanisms for debate and collective decision making will allow us to steer the best course we can think of.
But consider this: there have been hundreds of events (demonstrations, rallies, the referendum itself…) to support independence, and CNT has neither called to take part in them nor supported them in any way. Instead, our comrades have been extremely active on the ground (where we have the means, which are far less that we would like or need), addressing meetings, talking at rallies, putting out leaflets and posters, explaining our point of view and stressing the need to go beyond just a demand for independence. I don’t think anyone can say we have just given in to the nationalists!

– We know the attraction of anarchist movement on Catalan independence movement in history. How is the situation now, what is the affect of anarchist movement in Catalonia now?

The anarchist and libertarian movement has, by no means, the influence and presence that it once had in Catalonia. Back in the days, when nationalist politicians wanted to stir the people into action to support their aims (as they are doing now), they had to go through the anarchists and the CNT, who might decide to support them or not. It made sense then to discuss the relationship between anarchism and nationalism on practical terms and in particular situations.
Large as it can be, when compared to other parts of the world, the anarchist movement in Catalonia is much smaller than it was in the 1930s and its ability to determine events is negligible. Same with the CNT. Saying otherwise would be fanciful. The best we can hope for is to influence matters, when there are large mobilisations, putting our message across. This we are trying to do, as explained.
In this context, having arguments about whether one libertarian organisation’s positions are playing into the hands of the nationalists is wishful thinking. Nationalists are going to play their hand anyway, because they don’t need us to get the people out in the streets anymore. Once they have put the wheels in motion, all we can do is trying to put our message across and take matters beyond their intended original goals. Which is no small task, considering our means, by the way. We can either do that, or stay away altogether and watch events unfold passively. This is the only real option. As a revolutionary organisation, CNT has decided not to shy away from the challenge.
All that said, my understanding is that there are different attitudes towards independence among the anarchists. While groups like Embat share a similar analysis to ours (with countless differences, no doubt), others have taken a decided anarcho-nationalist position and support independence outright. The fact is that we have found common ground with some anarchist organisations, to the extent that they featured in our call for the general strike in Catalonia on the 3rd of October and in our joint propaganda.

– As CNT, you have organised a general strike for supporting the Catalan people against the fascist reactions. Did the strike reach its aim in Catalonia and Spain?

The strike was only to take place in Catalonia on the 3rd of October, while many other solidarity rallies were called for, across Spain, for that evening. It was organised together with many other smaller unions, some closer to the nationalists, some more libertarian-leaning, so it was a joint initiative.
In the days leading to the independence referendum on the 1st of October, the central government had been building up a massive police presence across Catalonia to stop it from happening. As was anticipated, the repression on the day was widespread. Many of us could tell in advance that this would in turn lead to more protests and a period of civil disobedience, which was indeed the case. As such, it was only natural for us to call for a general strike, as the tool of choice for the unions and the working class in general, to protest, but also to disrupt police operations.
The shared perception is that the strike was a success. Many people stopped working for the day and tens of thousands joined the different rallies. In many towns, pickets blocked the roads to prevent police reinforcements from getting in or from moving around, getting supplies, etc.
As for CNT, we would have liked to be able to do more and have a larger presence across Catalonia. While some unions, that have a strong local presence, were incredibly active and successful, others were not so much, as their numbers are smaller, they are less active, or both. But altogether it was well worth it. Having CNT pickets in towns with banners reading “for liberties and rights! Bring down the regime!”, or comrades addressing thousands strong rallies with our distinctive message can only be viewed as positive.
One thing worth mentioning, is that this was the first time in some 40 years, that a general strike was organised by alternative unions, without the two mainstream business unions being involved. That’s a change of paradigm for you, right there. On this respect, it was a resounding success.
I also have to mention the solidarity that many comrades across the globe have shown, organising pickets or rallies in Spanish embassies, putting up our statements, etc. As you might know, CNT is in the process of creating a new international, together with our sister organisations, FAU, USI, FORA, IWW, etc. This has already strengthened our ties (and it shows, there were more than 50 events on the 3rd across the globe!), while many other organisations, including DAF, have expressed their solidarity in many different ways. We can’t be thankful enough to all of you.

– Another referandum had occured in Başur(South) Kurdistan. And Iraq is getting control of the cities of Kurdistan one by one. Turkey and Iran are also supporting this situation. How do we understand all of these events, if we want to read the Kurdistan and Catalonia referandum together? Is it something like a wave in whole world? 

Yes, and there was also a referendum in Scotland which might be repeated soon after the vote on Brexit!
Has the dead bell for the nation state been told? I’m afraid not. If you look at these events, they aim at creating new states, as is the case in Başur. Barzani’s project for an independent oligarchic petrol state is similar in many ways to the Catalan leaders’ idea of statehood. Different flag and language, same old structures and economy. Maybe there’s a global trend towards breaking lager states into smaller ones, I don’t know, but this wouldn’t necessarily be a positive development.
Some anarchists argue for independence saying that the smaller the state, the easier it is to fight against it. Sure! That’s why San Marino and Monaco (or the Vatican City, for that matter) are long stablished libertarian communist societies. Jokes aside, it’s difficult to see how smaller states that are the outcome of a long communal struggle for independence are going to be less homogeneous and easier to crack than larger colonialist centralised ones.
Instead, what I find extremely compelling are the examples of society building from below that we have in Rojava and many other Kurdish communities. Specially since, in accordance with democratic confederalism, they do away with the notion of the nation state. I think these examples provide a clue to the whole situation and are an inspiration to all.
Because what we see globally is a breaking down of the tacit pact that has kept “democratic” societies going on for decades. As the economic crisis ravaged many societies across the world, from 2007 onwards, and it became obvious that the elites (political and economic, this including business unions) could no longer guarantee the expected level of income to the working class, waves of unrest swept across the world. In some places, this meant the rise of xenophobic fascist politicians, in some others, massive protest movements. Mix this with countless local factors and some years later you have certain local elites at the forefront if independentist movements.
Is this another case of “change everything, so everything stays the same”? I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is if this energy can be harnessed towards deep revolutionary change, beyond the original plans of the politicians.
We can only find the answer to this question by pushing in that direction.

Thanks for the answers. We salute the struggle of CNT.

Thank you to Meydan Newspaper for letting us explain our views.
IN SOLIDARITY!

This interview was published in the 41. volume of Meydan Newspaper

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Kim kazanırsa kazansın, biz ABD işçi sınıfı, her iki adayın temsil ettiği neoliberalizm, emperyalizm ve beyaz üstünlüğünün günlük zorluklarıyla uğraşmak zorundayız. Buna karşı koymak için, falanca adaya karşı çıkmanın ya da filanca adayı desteklemenin ötesine geçmeliyiz ve öncelikle bu adayları yaratan ve şimdi bir şey yapmazsak gelecekte daha birçok Trumplar ve Clintonlar üretecek olan toplumsal düzene karşı koymak ve onun temellerini sarsabilecek, ırkçılık karşıtı, militan toplumsal hareketleri geliştirmeliyiz.

Clinton’un siyasi sicili, Bill Clinton’la birlikte Arkansas Vali Konağı ve Beyaz Saray’daki zamanlarından New York Senatörlüğü ve sonrasında Obama’nın Dışişleri Bakanlığı’ndaki kariyerine kadar, “neoliberal aday özgeçmiş örneği” olarak ders kitaplarına alınacak
derecede dolu. 80’lerde tutsak siyahları Arkansas Vali Konağı’nda köle iş gücü olarak kullanması; 90’larda sosyal yardımları kaldırması; 2000’lerde Wall Street bankalarından milyonlarca doları alıp, Haiti’de asgari ücretin saatte 24 sentten 61’e yükseltilmesini engellemesi; 2010’larda Libya ve diğer yerlerde emperyalist askeri müdahaleleri yönetmesi…

Bunlar, Clinton’un sınıfımızın zararına, pazarın çıkarına hizmet eden bir kariyeri nasıl yaptığının sadece birkaç örneği. Donald Trump, pazara hizmet eden aynı temel politikalar üzerine farklı bir perspektifi temsil ediyor. Zenginlere uygulanan vergileri azaltmak; ticaret anlaşmalarında tekrar pazarlık yaparak ABD şirketlerinin lehine koşullar elde etmek; göçmen işçileri – özellikle Müslüman ve Meksikalı olanları – ABD’den uzak tutmak; sosyal yardımları, eğer geriye kalan olduysa,kesmek ve ABD’nin emirlerine uymayan yabancı ülkeleri bombalamak istiyor. Trump’ı destekleyen ve giderek büyüyen bir hareketinse, ırkçı şiddetin patlamasına yol açma tehlikesi var.

Trump kampanyası, beyaz kimliği ile ilgili. Bu, ABD siyaseti için olağan dışı değil. Bill Clinton’ın başkanlık kampanyaları, beyazların tarafında olduğunu göstermek için, siyahkarşıtı sosyal yardım reformları ve “suça müsamaha göstermeyen” politikalar üzerinde kuruluydu. Ancak Trump, beyazlık söylemini, George Wallace ve Pat Buchanan kampanyalarından beri görülmemiş düzeyde açıkça ve küstahça dillendiriyor. Bu yüzden Trump destekçilerinin %90’ı beyaz. Trump’ın beyaz gücünü geri getirme vaatleri, bütün sorunlar için yoksulları ve azınlıkları suçlaması ve bunları açıkça yapması, şimdi “Alternatif-Sağ” ya da “Alt-Sağ” olarak imaj değiştiren neo-faşist hareketin büyümesine yolaçtı. Alt-Sağ ideolojik kökenini, Avrupa Yeni Sağı, ilkel muhafazakarlık ve “bilimsel” ırkçılığın ve antisemitik komplo teorilerinin değişik biçimlerinden alıyor. Trump kampanyası, o olmasainternetin uzak köşelerinde sürgün olacak bu hareketlerin birleşme noktası oldu. BeyazAmerika’nın yüzeyinin hemen altındaki ırkçı ve heteroseksist nefreti açıkça dillendiren Trump, Alt-Sağ’ın ana siyasi ve toplumsal görüşlerini ana akıma taşınmasını temsil ediyor.

Trump ve Alt-Sağ programının başarısı, onlarca yıldır süren iş güvencesizliği, sendikal gücün yokluğu, serbest ticaret nedeniyle işini kaybetmeler, sosyal yardımların erimesi, artan ekonomik eşitsizlik ve genel güçsüzlüğün ardından beyaz işçi sınıfı tarafından hissedilen öfkeyi teşhis etmesinden geliyor. Onlarca yıl neo-liberalizmden sonra ümitsizliğe kapılan ortayaşlı-beyaz işçi sınıfı erkekleri, uyuşturucuya, alkole ve intihara yöneldikçe ortalama yaşam süreleri düştü. Trump’ın buna gerçek bir çözümü yok, çünkü zaten bu sorunların gerçek nedeni, benimsediği kapitalist politikalar. Ama beyazlık söylemi öfkeli beyaz işçi sınıfına kolay bir cevap sunuyor:”Sorunlarınızın nedeni siyahlar ve esmer göçerler; onlara karşı benim gibi zengin beyazlarla birleşirseniz, doğal olarak bütün beyazlara ait olan yüceliği gerialabilirsiniz.” Beyazlık, Trump gibi zenginlerin, işçi sınıfının bir kesiminin desteğini satın alarak onları daha fazla ezilen işçi sınıfı kesimlerine karşı yöneltmesine yarayan, sınıflar arası birlik görevi gören tarihi bir keşiftir. Bu ümitsizlik çağında, beyazlıkla gelen ayrıcalık ve üstünlük algısı, bir çoğuna çekici bir alternatif gibi görünür. Trump’a karşı koymak için, kampanyasının dayandığı beyazlık temelini sarsmak gerekir. Yıkıcı beyaz kimliğine yapabileceğimiz en büyük karşı koyuş, ırklar arası, cinsler arası, cinsiyetler arası sınıf farkındalığıdır.

Bu, beyaz işçileri, başkalarını ezenlere katılarak ayrıcalık kırıntısı elde etmeye çalışmaktansa; siyahların ve diğer ezilenlerin mücadelelerini destekleyip, kapitalizmi ve devleti yıkmanın kendi çıkarlarına olduğuna ikna etmek demektir. Beyazlık yalanının kendisini tersine çevirmektir. Beyaz komşularımıza ve beyaz iş arkadaşlarımıza, ezilen halklarla birlikte katılacakları özgürlük mücadelelerinde kazanacaklarının, beyazlığa tutunarak kazanacaklarından daha fazla olduğunu göstermek için, daha güçlü toplumsal hareketlere ve militan demokratik sendikalara, çeşitliği fazla ve bağları güçlü toplumlara, akıl dışı nefret ve milliyetçilik yerine toplumsal bağlarla dolu yaşamlara ihtiyacımız var.Trump’a ve onu yaratan koşullara karşı uzun vadeli bir strateji olarak ihtiyacımız olan budur.
Ama daha acil olarak, Trump kampanyasının etkisiyle sokağa inmekte olan Alt-Sağ beyaz milliyetçi mobilizasyonu durdurabilecek bir militan faşizm karşıtlığına ihtiyacımız var.

Bunun anlamı, onlarca yıl kaldırımın üstünde savaşılan faşizmle doğrudan mücadelenin genişletilmesi ve ABD şehirlerinde bir hareket haline gelen ırkçılık karşıtlığının güzelim ateşiyle entegre olmasıdır. Black Lives Matter (Siyahların Yaşamları Değerlidir), polisin
varlığının özünde olan beyaz üstünlüğüne karşı koymak için patladı ve bu ırkçılık karşıtı hareketle birlikte, sayıca ve arkasındaki seslerin çeşitliliğiyle güçlü bir faşizm karşıtı hareket yaratabiliriz. Bunun anlamı, bütün ırkçılık olaylarına karşı mücadeleye devam etmek ve faşistler Trump kampanyasından destek ve görünürlük elde etmeye çalışırken, beyaz milliyetçiliğe militan bir cephe yaratmak demektir. Tüm alanlarda faşist örgütlenmeleri engellemeli, aynı zamanda devrimci bir alternatif vizyonu sunmalı ve hareketimizin özgürlükçü bir geleceğe doğru kazandıklarını göstermeliyiz.

Trump’ı ve onun temsil ettiklerini yenilgiye uğratmanın en somut yolu, birden çok cephesi olan, devrimci, ırkçılık karşıtı bir toplumsal hareketi geliştirmektir. Black Rose’daki yoldaşların, Black Lives Matter eylemcilerinin ve diğer birçoklarının, bu yıl Chicago’da
engelledikleri Trump mitingleri gibi, Alt-Sağın her tür örgütlenme çabasını engellemeliyiz. Irkçı polis şiddetine karşı öfkeyle sokaklarda sel olmalıyız ve hareketi, sistemin ırkçılığına karşı inşa etmeliyiz. Trump’ın işçi sınıfından destekçilerine alternatif sunan ve onlara işçi
sınıfının renkli insanlarının verdiği mücadeleleri desteklemek için bir sebep veren hareketler örgütlemeliyiz. Bu da, yüreklerde ve sokaklarda olacak bir mücadele, sandıkta değil.

Black Rose Anarşist Federasyonu Üyeleri

The post “Trump Hakkında Ne Yapmalı” appeared first on Meydan Gazetesi.

Habemus pacem? Challenges on the road from Havana to Colombia

After three years of negotiations, a peace accord was signed in Havana, Cuba, between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC-EP, while the process with ELN is bogged down and that with the EPL is not even on the political agenda. The forecasts that had feared the possibility of a breakdown in the negotiations have been proved groundless, and it completes the cycle of a struggle that should necessarily open new scenarios and possibilities. The decision of this insurgent movement to abandon arms seems irreversible and, whatever happens, it will keep on the path of what has been called its “reincorporation into civilian life”. Even while this accord does not generate structural changes, it undoubtedly represents a significant advance for the rural population which, though invisibilised, is a not-insignificant 34% of the country’s population and provides an opportunity for the popular movement to potentially articulate the big tasks that remain ahead. None of this is set in stone. It will all depend on the clarity and the organisational and mobilising capacity of the popular movement.

It (the agreement) is yet to be ratified by the Congress as also the final signing in Colombia, which will be towards the end of September. No great surprises are expected at the tenth conference of the FARC-EP, which should ratify the accord on September 19. The referendum, through which the agreements will be submitted for endorsement by the people, has been agreed upon for October 2. In the referendum, these will have to obtain 4.5 million votes for a “yes” so that the agreements are ratified and it is for this that it is so important to motivate the people and close the doors to a return to total war between the state and the FARC-EP [1]. Despite the discursive poverty of the retrogrades who are campaigning for a “no”, it would be foolish to scoff at its appeal among many urban sectors still under the authoritarian spell of Uribism [2]. Even so, the biggest challenge is to reach the required target for the approval of this referendum.

Historic, but…

Even though the agreement is an historic occurrence, the little enthusiasm that it generated with the announcement of the final signing, as well as during the entire process, does not cease to surprise. Though there is no lack of reasons to celebrate, there is hardly any celebratory mood. There hasn’t been a general party atmosphere that accompanied other peace processes as in Northern Ireland or in El Salvador, to name a few, and it hasn’t even come close to approaching the democratising effervescence that was felt in 1990 for the peace process with M-19, the EPL, the MAQL and the PRT. It is painful to admit that, at least in the urban centre, there has been more enthusiasm in the marches against the FARC-EP than now that peace has been signed with it, which shows that the establishment’s media war against the rebels has had a toxic effect in great measure and has isolated it considerably from a large segment of the population which still thinks that the insurgents are responsible for all that is bad in Colombia.

The predominant attitude of those calling to vote “yes” in the lead-up to the referendum seems to be a lukewarm “war is worse” or a sour “we’ll have to swallow some bitter pills”. Other voices calling to vote “yes” are not doing it so much in support of the contents of the agreements but to explicitly vote for the disappearance and disarming of the FARC-EP [3], as a final coup de grace, a corollary to the mobilisations of February 2008 against the FARC-EP stimulated by the government of Alvaro Uribe. Very few sectors – the Left predictably – are calling for a vote in clear support for the contents of the agreement, though many sense that a triumph of “no” would be truly catastrophic. It is a disagreeable reality but one that we will have to understand to change it.

The difficult connection

Various factors would seem to explain this phenomenon. First, before everything else, it is a peace process that the majority of the Colombian population perceives as something that is happening in a distant country to resolve an equally distant conflict that is being played out in the pathways of a rural world unknown to this urban majority. To this has to be added the fact that during the process, the media did it no favour with its permanent attack on the insurgents. Neither has the tardy work of the so-called pedagogy of peace helped. The government’s efforts to popularise the contents of the agreements in Havana, or to stimulate debate around it, have been exceedingly poor when non-existent. In turn, the insurgency’s efforts to “involve the people” in the peace process have been unable to, or not known how to, extend beyond its traditional areas of influence or those political sectors who have always asked for a political solution to the conflict.

What does this peace process signify for a transvestite in the marginal slums of Bogota? What does peace signify for an indigenous woman migrant in a provincial capital? What does it signify for the sub-contracted and precarious workers? What does it signify for the multitude that survives on under-employment? For those who sniff glue because they can’t afford bread? To have to remind the people that “the peace is with you”, as the Left’s referendum campaign states, simply makes it evident that the links of peace with the common citizen are not evident, that the peace process is seen as something unconnected to them.

Neither fatalism nor triumphalism: An accord is possible with the current correlation of forces

It was known that Socialism would not be achieved through negotiations. Some basic reforms have been sought that help overcome the structural causes that gave rise to the conflict, but the agreement is not peace with social justice that the popular sectors engaged with the negotiations to the conflict sought. There is no peace either because the conflict with the ELN and the EPL continues, as also with possible dissidents, because paramilitarism goes on throughout the country, because the repressive structure that criminalises political dissent and social protest still exists, because the structural violence that kills with hunger and preventable illnesses persists – there is no social justice. But this does not mean either that the agreement isn’t a significant step or that there is no room for “moderate optimism” to use the jargon during the process. There should not be room here from the Left to shout “treachery”, but neither should there be hallucinatory triumphalism. The agreement is what it is: all that the FARC-EP could sign up to with the existing correlation of forces, clearly favourable to existing bloc in power.

The verdict of history could be very harsh on the constituent parts [4]. A glance at what has been agreed to automatically leads us to question if, in reality, so much blood should have been spilled to achieve agreements that, in the bulk, mean that the government must comply with constitutional mandates that it already has beforehand, combined with the expansion of the existing political system, not to its transformation [5]. There have been some important achievements awhile, above all relating to the modernising of the countryside, but the agrarian programme of the guerrillas of Marquetalia, together with the minimum programme that inspired the FARC uprising for decades, remain an aspiration: the problem of the concentration of land is very much alive. Now it has been complicated even more with the boost that agro-industries will receive through the Zones of Interest for Rural, Economic and Social Development (Zidres). Perhaps this process could have had an agreement with greater transformative potential and could have generated greater popular enthusiasm. Perhaps.

The peace of… Santos?

The government promised not to touch the model and kept its word with the oligarchy. The ELN’s opinion of the Havana agreement, according to a communiqué dated August 5, is compelling: it does not change the reality of the country and keeps “intact the ignominious regime of violence, exclusion, inequality, injustice and pillage” [6]. A communiqué of a dissident sector of Front 1 of the FARC-EP that opened up with the process refers to the agreement in similar terms [7]. But what has been agreed upon should not be judged excessively hard: achieving a different scenario or an agreement that would really exemplify this desire for peace with social justice was not something that would depend, naturally, only on the FARC-EP. It would necessarily have had to be supported by a broad popular mobilisation in support of these transformations and to develop the transformative potential of some points on the agenda as also the political proposals presented by the insurgents in each of these. But the possibility of generating a big alignment between this peace process with the wave of growing popular protest of 2008-2013 did not materialise. The government, through co-option, division and segmentation, halted this wave at the same time that it successfully isolated the peace process from the daily life of the population. The agrarian strike of 2013 was the key moment in unshackling this discussion and generating a massive public sympathy between the themes discussed in Havana and the daily reality of the country, a moment that generated a bridge between the countryside and the city where the interests of the popular sectors were sketched out in contradiction to the bloc in power.

After the strike, and faced with the breach of contract by the government, the popular mobilisation in the street was disincentivised, which some sectors considered “inopportune”, with the surprising excuse that “destabilising” Santos was to weaken the peace process (and strengthen Uribism), aimed at an electoral strategy that was disastrous for the Left. In this context, the peace process ended up fettering itself to the figure of Santos, one of the most unpopular Presidents in history, who used it to be re-elected at the same time that he redefined the terms of peace and could pass on to the offensive. After insisting so much that the keys to peace belonged to the people, it was handed over to Santos on a silver platter. Such “recognition of the will for peace” of Santos, a President who started governing with the mandate to perpetuate “democratic security”, disfigured the reality that the peace process was achieved in a large part owing to the popular mobilisation, which had its climax in 2012-2013 [8]. The peace process in the collective imagination was not only indissolubly linked to the figure of Santos but also moreover with the launching of the referendum by personalities of the old politics was associated with national politicking. Is there anything surprising then about the lack of enthusiasm?

New resistance post-conflict and the development of a social and political opposition

The chief government negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, claimed that this agreement was the “best possible” [9], an ambiguous affirmation which shows that though they might have been able to impose many of the terms of the pact, neither were they able to impose everything. The agreements are like an open door, which the oligarchy as well as the popular sector can take advantage of. The oligarchy will look at accelerating the penetration of inversion capital in agro-industry and mineral extraction. It will depend on the popular sectors, on their struggles and their organisation, whether this scenario materialises or not. It will also depend on the popular sectors if the government complies with the agreement since – as the communities of Putumayo of Catatumbo and the country itself can vouch for – it specialises in laying snares and defaulting on those below, and those who think that international oversight of the U.N. or the guarantees is a guarantee that the government will comply are guilty of excessive naivety.

Unfortunately, there is still too much disorganisation and segmentation of the struggles. A new Left will have to be reconfigured and so too the creation of new collective leadership and a broad process of organisation and popular mobilisation. Despite the great insistence on Left unity, what is certain is that a great constructive effort is necessary before everything else to reach all the oppressed sectors, the excluded, and the hungry who need a new model. It needs audacity, vision, decisiveness, plenty of dialogue, listening to others and much organisation. Only basing on a broad organisation and the active search to create spaces in which the discontent can be expressed constructively, it will be possible to speak of a unity that is much more than the mere sum total of the same old leaders. A unity has to form organically around the minimum axes of common action and from the proposals of the thousand and one struggles that the people develop daily. It also requires a new form of understanding and doing politics, truly from below, from the popular world, escaping the old vices of traditional politics like from pests, in place of accepting them little by little as if these were signs of maturity. For all this, it is necessary to dissociate from the figure of Santos and reclaim the vocation of the Left (grabbing this political space of Uribism which it occupies fraudulently) is a fundamental step that could lead to seducing the people once again with the idea of constructing peace with social justice, linked to a process of mobilisation and social transformation.

An uphill struggle, a people with experience and perseverance

For now, the dice is loaded in favour of the dominant bloc. The triumphalism of these sectors is evident in the declarations of the Colombian army commander, General Alberto Mejia, who said the army was ready to guarantee the safety of the ex-guerrillas: “For us it is not a humiliation, for us it an honour because those who safeguard them are those that won the war, because those who safeguard them are those who remained with the arms, those who safeguard them are those dressed in the uniforms of the Republic” [10]. Clearly, there could be a debate if FARC-EP is defeated or not, something that is open for discussion, or the pyrrhic nature (in the best of cases) of this supposed victory of the army, but it is necessary to recognise that, whatever this insurgent group thinks, the dominant bloc has the hegemony today, not the popular sectors. The “monopoly of force” that the oligarchic state claims has to be opposed with an even bigger force than its army and its arms: that of an organised people. Though much is said that politics will not be done without arms, as the African revolutionary Amilcar Cabral used to say, in capitalism all struggles are armed: the state always has the arms and uses it against the people when its interests and domination are threatened [11]. When the people exercise their right to do politics on the streets, ESMAD, the police or the army will repress them politically, with force and with arms, supported in the restructuration that the USA (who else?) is implementing for the public security forces post-conflict and with the new police code and the law of citizens’ security.

The support for “yes” in the referendum should not obviate that this in neither the end of the process nor the start of the construction of a new society but another step in a long history of resistance, in the long road towards the conformation of a new popular bloc capable of imposing on the oligarchic sectors an alternative mode, radically democratic, egalitarian and libertarian. It is also necessary to recognise that beyond the debate about the nature of the peace or the intrinsic structural violence of the system, without the ELN or the EPL it is not possible to speak of the construction of peace, for which enclosing the political solution around these other insurgent expressions becomes a political, ethical and moral imperative. It is important to think critically today in the social forces and the political currents, the complicated territorial, national, regional and international context in which they have to operate [12] and to apply self-criticism to correct the mistakes and this way reverse this unfavourable correlation of forces for the popular sectors. Today, rather than being immersed in easy formulae, replacing the slogans for or against, it is more suitable to apply Gramsci’s maxim of pessimism of the intellect – the objective difficulties are so immense – but optimism of the will; we are conscious of the enormous potential of the struggles of the Colombian people as also the valuable experience accumulated in almost a century of resistance. Only this way can a project that actually enthuses the ensemble of the Colombian people and gain their confidence be developed. And with an enthused people, the transformative forces will be unstoppable.

José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
31st August, 2016

Notes

[1] Sadly in the preceding months, sectors of the Left wasted too much ink and saliva attacking the idea of a referendum, which they saw as an option excluding their call for a constituent assembly, a constituent assembly which, in the current situation, would probably be unfavourable to the popular sectors and could even signify a step back from the 1991 Constitution. Good ideas aren’t enough, the context and circumstances in which they have to be carried out need to be understood.

[2] The media, once again, in its task of fabricating perceptions, bandy polls that at times give “yes” the victory and, at times to “no”, depending on the political agenda of the moment.

[3] Viewed in this sense, the editorial in the Espectador of August 25, “peace understood as disarmament and the end of conflict with the different guerrillas has been the agenda of all the Presidents (…) [but] we have never before had a proposal so close to disarming the FARC. Whatever it is, the country for the first time has the opportunity of thinking without the existence of this guerrilla group”.

[4] For a war to be considered “just”, according to Jus and Bellum, one of the parts should demonstrate that it could not obtain what it obtained without recourse to arms. This will be the raging dispute for decades to come in Colombia, just as it continues to be in Ireland two decades after the peace process in the country.

[5] Look up the complete agreement here http://static.iris.net.co/…/…/acuerdo-final-con-las-farc.pdf

[6]http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=215328&titular=p…%FAa-

[7]http://www.elespectador.com/noti…/politica/frente-de…41831 The FARC-EP communiqué that accuses these dissidents of having “economic” motivations (mining, narcotrafficking) is unfortunate because it ignores the reasons – mistaken or not – which are eminently political and these types of accusations hurled at a group that left from within it could easily come around to hurt it and perpetuate the dominant stereotypes about the Colombian insurgency which, like all stereotypes, tend to be mistaken.

[8]We have written extensively on these themes at its time. Some of these articles are: “¿Tiene Santos las llaves de la paz?”, “Sólo la lucha decide”, “El proceso de paz ¿secuestrado por el miedo?” and Habemus presidente: mandato por la paz con injusticia social.

[9]http://www.semana.com/na…/articulo/proceso-de-paz-de…91131

[10]http://www.semana.com/na…/articulo/proceso-de-paz-co…91112

[11]https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1968/ppt.htm It is important not to fall for an idealistic, liberal and bourgeois vision of the state as an embodiment of “social contract”or “common good”. The state is an apparatus of domination, of class, designed to serve the oligarchic sectors and exercise violence when the subaltern sectors rebel. Any conquest favouring the interests of the popular sectors is despite the state, not thanks to it.

[12] Before initiating the peace process, there was controversy with a letter that Medófilo Medina had sent to then leader of FARC-EP Alfonso Cano, who was assassinated in a few months in an absolutely defenceless condition by the express order of Santos, at a time in which both were discussing about negotiating peace. On that occasion, it was said that one of the reasons for which the FARC-EP would demobilise was the regional context, in which the Left had come to power through elections. From that viewpoint, would the current scenario, marked by the destitution of Rouseff and the deepening of the Venezuelan crisis change the evaluation of these sectors regarding the political possibilities of the FARC-EP? To read the controversy,http://www.anarkismo.net/article/20115

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A Tournament That Has No Winner Or Loser: Anti-Fascist Martial Arts Tournament

The third of the Anti-Fascist Martial Arts Tournament in Greece was organized in Katsaneio Hall in Thessaloniki on 17th, 18th, and 19th of June. We are sharing an Interview with Malamas Sotirious and Anna Kavoura who took place in the Tournament.

MG: How long The Anti-Fascist Martial Arts Tournament  has been organized? How did this kind of idea come to your mind?

Malamas: This year we are organizing the tournament for the third time. We thought that we could organize a tournament like this because we had experience before, and also we thought that as anti-authoritarians and anarchists it would be very nice to make that kind of thing real. We discussed it among us, and then we decided to do it.

MG:Which branches of Martial Arts are involved in the tournament?

Malamas: The branches that are involved in the tournament are boxing, kick box, jiu jitsu, muay thai, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and wrestling.

MG: Is it possible to attend the tournament individually? Are there collectives, squads or social centers that attend the tournaments as teams? If so, what are their names?

Malamas: Yes, it is possible to attend the tournament individually. Besides that, there are many squads, collectives and social centers which are participating in the tournament. Those collectives, squads and social centers also help us a lot and show their solidarity during the organization of the tournament. Some of those are Micropolis and Sholeio social centers in Thessaloniki, a squad called Terra Incognita which is also in Thessaloniki, and some other squads in Kavala.

zeynep, anna and malamas while interviewing

MG: Is it allowed for women to join the tournament?

Malamas: Of course, it is. In last years, there were women fighting against men . There isn’t any restriction about that, but sometimes it is hard for a woman to match with a man because of some issues, such as weight or branch of martial arts. If they are okay with the match, and also if a man and a woman want to fight with each other, then they l can. In the tournament, it is possible for a woman to fight against a man.

MG: In some photographs, we see that both of the fighters raise their hands just like they are both winners.

Malamas: In the Anti-Fascist Martial Arts Tournament, there isn’t any winner or loser. That is why in those photos both fighters are raising their hands. We discussed that whether it would be good to assign a winner and a loser or not before, but we are against competition and any kind of dominance, especially in sports. We don’t want any kind of competition or anger in the tournament, and also to destroy solidarity and sharing among us. We are organizing this tournament for solidarity and also to remain together against fascism. In order not to face with these kind of problems, we take the personal capabilities and characteristics of the fighters into consideration while pairing them, so that in the tournament, fighters can enjoy to be in that kind of physical activity and have fun instead of knocking out other fighters.

MG: So, why do you call it “the tournament”?

Malamas: We don’t believe that the aim of a tournament is to assign winners and losers. For us, a tournament means to be part of a togetherness

MG: What do you do when you encounter  problems that are against the principles of the tournament, such as ambition to knock out or sexist swearwords?

Malamas: Up to now, we have never faced any sexist swearwords.

Anna: I have been attending the tournament for two years, and when I first attended I found the concept of the tournament a little weird. There was no winner and there was no loser. That is why I had some doubts about the success of these tournaments, but during this process, I realized that the tournament had a very nice atmosphere. I have seen very successful show-downs, and also very successful fighters. All those fighters naturally want to put a good fight there. The audience protested the man with negative acclamations, and showed that they disapprove what he has done. People in the tournament doesn’t want to see someone get beaten; they want to feel the solidarity between the fighters, to see them respect each other and have some good time.

Are there any other events in the tournament? If so, what are they?

The tournament takes place for three days. Panels, meetings and speeches are done on the first day. Fights are done on the last two days. For example, last year the topic of the speeches was the struggle against fascism in Big Cities. There were lots of people attending from different places, such as Italy, Sweden, Athens, etc… For example, a person made a speech about fascism in the football industry, how hooligans can be violent and fascist and what are the reasons of it. Another person made a speech about the fascism in Germany. A person who came from Italy, who was also the boxing champion of Italy, made a speech about a sports center which was operated with the principle of self-organization, and also the solidarity and communication network of this kind of sports centers. On the first day of the tournament, we share that kind of information before show-downs

Do you see the advantages of martial arts in the street?

Malamas: (laughing) Yes, probably. Actually yes, we DO see the advantages, definitely.

Have you ever encountered any fascist attacks or police attacks to the tournament?

Malams: No, we haven’t. But once we saw a declaration that Neo-Nazi Party made.  In the declaration there was written something like they were disturbed by the existence of a such tournament. Of course they were going to be, it is something to be expected because fascist groups find “soldiers” for themselves in this field, and they consider us and our tournament as a “threat” for themselves.

Thank you for the interview. Always in solidarity…

Interview: Zeynep Coşkunkan – Furkan Çelik

This interview was published in the 34. volume of Meydan Newspaper.

The post A Tournament That Has No Winner Or Loser: Anti-Fascist Martial Arts Tournament appeared first on Meydan Gazetesi.