Fuck Their Crisis!

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A word to those who have lost, or who could lose their job because of the ‘economic crisis’, a word to those whose boss has told you it was no longer ‘profitable’ to continue working, a word to those who may soon find themselves outcast and starving amid the wonders YOU have made. YOU, who have the power to stop all armies, all industries, all economic theft if united in solidarity with your fellow worker, neighbour or women — please take note.

Have you not worked hard all of your life, since you were old enough for your labour to be of use in the production of wealth? Have you not toiled long and hard for somebody else? And in all those years of drudgery have you not produced thousand upon thousands of dollars' worth of wealth, which you did not then, do not now — and unless you ACT — never will, own any part of?

We produce about three times as much in an hour of work as we did in 1947, but are we living or earning three times as well? Are we working a third less? Far from it. In fact, wages are only slightly higher than they were 25 years ago. We are working longer and harder than ever, while someone benefits from the fact that our work is producing more — and that someone is definitely not us.

Yet your employer told you that it was the ‘economic crisis’ and ‘loss of profit’ which cost you your job. PROFIT, put simply, is ROBBERY — it is the surplus/extra value of your work/labour that goes straight into the bosses pocket.

When bosses talk of profit loss, not being ‘productive’, or not being able to ‘afford’ to pay workers, it actually means less money for your boss, managers or company shareholders. When work is relocated elsewhere they do so to exploit and pay someone else half the price they used to pay you. Don’t blame foreign workers or the regions/countries they move production to, blame the boss!

It is the ECONOMIC and INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM which must be changed. No job summit, no re-shifting of the working week, no scheme by decree will ever solve the problem of the Capitalist system. Capitalism needs to be ended, not propped up by government regulation. An economy based on allowing the few to control, gamble and profit from YOUR labour is not only immoral, it does not work! THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF THIS.

Look at it this way — why should some NOT EVER HAVE TO WORK and not have to worry about how and when the bills/food will be payed? Why should some be unemployed or facing unemployment, hungry and hard-pressed, in a time when our society is equipped with the finest technology and the suitable means to feed the world THREE TIMES OVER, to REDUCE WORK TO A BARE MINIMUM, to end harmful industry and poverty, to use technology and machine FOR THE GOOD OF ALL? Why should you and your fellow workers be LOCKED OUT of the workplace by a handful of employers who have the keys to the machinery YOU work, and which YOU could use in a more sustainable, more human and more equal manner?

The current crisis is not simply a bad ‘patch’ — it’s seeds lie in the current economic system. Unless you remove the root, the weed will always grow back. Has this crisis not happened before? Will it not happen again? Any reforms that refuse to destroy the system itself falls short of the radical change we really need.

This ‘crisis’ is the direct result of CAPITALISM. It is time to put it to an end. We need to socialise and SELF-MANAGE the means of production ourselves — not through voting, not through reform — but OURSELVES. We need to destroy the RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION — ways of working which gives someone else the power to make all the decisions and force us to be slaves, continually controlled, ordered around, watched over, over-worked and endlessly exploited. Together we need to take direct control our own lives, our workplaces, and our communities.

Our task is to engage in DIRECT ACTION. We cannot remain passive while factories continue to close and people lose their jobs. While unions do nothing but negotiate redundancy packages. While ‘our’ government sugar-coats the cyanide. Price rises, rent rises, wage cuts and plant closures must be resisted with occupations, mass solidarity and collective action. OCCUPY THE WORKPLACE! Expropriate their wealth and share it with your workmates! TOGETHER we have the power to put an end to Capitalism — without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn!

No flyer will ever alleviate the loss of an income, or feed those in need — but remember this — YOU did not create this economic crisis, the SYSTEM did. ENDING THE SYSTEM WILL END THE CRISIS, and create a new system based on workers’ self-management, mutual aid, de-centralisation, and equality. Refuse to pay for THEIR crisis. Refuse to be passive. Now is time for us to take action.

To Tramps, the Unemployed, the Disinherited, and Miserable

As the 'economic crisis' plays havoc with growing numbers of Aotearoa workers, as the merry-go-round known as Capitalism continues its warped cycle, as Job summits fail to address the real issues — I thought of a text written in 1884 by Lucy Parsons. Obviously no text is going to alleviate the loss of someones job or feed those in need, but it makes it no less important. Parsons' 'Tramps' — now outdated in some respects — still commands a striking presence in today's climate.

TO TRAMPS, The Unemployed, the Disinherited, and Miserable.

A word to the 35,000 now tramping the streets of this great city, with hands in pockets, gazing listlessly about you at the evidence of wealth and pleasure of which you own no part, not sufficient even to purchase yourself a bit of food with which to appease the pangs of hunger now knawing at your vitals. It is with you and the hundreds of thousands of others similarly situated in this great land of plenty, that I wish to have a word.

Have you not worked hard all your life, since you were old enough for your labor to be of use in the production of wealth? Have you not toiled long, hard and laboriously in producing wealth? And in all those years of drudgery do you not know you have produced thousand upon thousands of dollars' worth of wealth, which you did not then, do not now, and unless you ACT, never will, own any part in? Do you not know that when you were harnessed to a machine and that machine harnessed to steam, and thus you toiled your 10, 12 and 16 hours in the 24, that during this time in all these years you received only enough of your labor product to furnish yourself the bare, coarse necessaries of life, and that when you wished to purchase anything for yourself and family it always had to be of the cheapest quality? If you wanted to go anywhere you had to wait until Sunday, so little did you receive for your unremitting toil that you dare not stop for a moment, as it were? And do you not know that with all your squeezing, pinching and economizing you never were enabled to keep but a few days ahead of the wolves of want? And that at last when the caprice of your employer saw fit to create an artificial famine by limiting production, that the fires in the furnace were extinguished, the iron horse to which you had been harnessed was stilled; the factory door locked up, you turned upon the highway a tramp, with hunger in your stomach and rags upon your back?

Yet your employer told you that it was overproduction which made him close up. Who cared for the bitter tears and heart-pangs of your loving wife and helpless children, when you bid them a loving "God bless you" and turned upon the tramper's road to seek employment elsewhere? I say, who cared for those heartaches and pains? You were only a tramp now, to be execrated and denounced as a "worthless tramp and a vagrant" by that very class who had been engaged all those years in robbing you and yours. Then can you not see that the "good boss" or the "bad boss" cuts no figure whatever? that you are the common prey of both, and that their mission is simply robbery? Can you not see that it is the INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM and not the "boss" which must be changed?

Now, when all these bright summer and autumn days are going by and you have no employment, and consequently can save up nothing, and when the winter's blast sweeps down from the north and all the earth is wrapped in a shroud of ice, hearken not to the voice of the hyprocrite who will tell you that it was ordained of God that "the poor ye have always"; or to the arrogant robber who will say to you that you "drank up all your wages last summer when you had work, and that is the reason why you have nothing now, and the workhouse or the workyard is too good for you; that you ought to be shot." And shoot you they will if you present your petitions in too emphatic a manner. So hearken not to them, but list! Next winter when the cold blasts are creeping through the rents in your seedy garments, when the frost is biting your feet through the holes in your worn-out shoes, and when all wretchedness seems to have centered in and upon you, when misery has marked you for her own and life has become a burden and existence a mockery, when you have walked the streets by day and slept upon hard boards by night, and at last determine by your own hand to take your life, - for you would rather go out into utter nothingness than to longer endure an existence which has become such a burden - so, perchance, you determine to dash yourself into the cold embrace of the lake rather than longer suffer thus. But halt, before you commit this last tragic act in the drama of your simple existence. Stop! Is there nothing you can do to insure those whom you are about to orphan, against a like fate? The waves will only dash over you in mockery of your rash act; but stroll you down the avenues of the rich and look through the magnificent plate windows into their voluptuous homes, and here you will discover the very identical robbers who have despoiled you and yours. Then let your tragedy be enacted here! Awaken them from their wanton sport at your expense! Send forth your petition and let them read it by the red glare of destruction. Thus when you cast "one long lingering look behind" you can be assured that you have spoken to these robbers in the only language which they have ever been able to understand, for they have never yet deigned to notice any petition from their slaves that they were not compelled to read by the red glare bursting from the cannon's mouths, or that was not handed to them upon the point of the sword. You need no organization when you make up your mind to present this kind of petition. In fact, an organization would be a detriment to you; but each of you hungry tramps who read these lines, avail yourselves of those little methods of warfare which Science has placed in the hands of the poor man, and you will become a power in this or any other land.

Learn the use of explosives!

Dedicated to the tramps by Lucy E. Parsons.

A definition of Class — Solidarity (1961-92)

A short snippet from 'The Bolsheviks And Workers' Control' by Maurice Brinton. Solidarity's definition of class — though active between 1961-1992 — is still relevant today, and clearly demolishes the myth proposed by some that class no longer exists.

We hold that the 'relations of production' - the relations which individuals or groups enter into with one another in the process of producing wealth - are the essential foundations of any society. A certain pattern of relations of production is the common denominator of all class societies. This pattern is one in which the producer does not dominate the means of production but on the contrary both is 'separated from them' and from the products of his own labour. In all class societies the producer is in a position of subordination to those who manage the productive process. Workers' management of production - implying as it does the total domination of the producer over the productive process - is not for us a marginal matter. It is the core of our politics. It is the only means whereby authoritarian (order-giving, order-taking) relations in production can be transcended and a free, communist or anarchist, society introduced.

We also hold that the means of production may change hands (passing for instance from private hands into those of a bureaucracy, collectively owning them) with out this revolutionising the relations of production. Under such circumstances - and whatever the formal status of property - the society is still a class society for production is still managed by an agency other than the producers themselves. Property relations, in other words, do not necessarily reflect the relations of production. They may serve to mask them - and in fact they often have...

This is not a manifesto — towards an anarcho-design practice

 

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"It is no longer enough today to lock ourselves in our studios and produce culture. We must engage in our world in as many ways as possible. We need to ground our artistic production in the realities of our lives and those many others around us."
—Realizing The Impossible: Art Against Authority

If graphic design is understood as the expression and reflection of a particular set of values, systems and interests, then most artistic practice today tends to express the interests of the class that controls and profits from society. It is these interests that dominate the standards of value in design, defines its emphasis, and excludes its more subversive, egalitarian alternatives. As a result, graphic design is the tool that communicates, beautifies and commodifies the interests of those in power. Its communicative strength is overwhelmingly used in an economic/commercial sense—consciously or unconsciously used to exploit; to raise profit margins and material wealth for the benefit of a select clientele. While graphic design sometimes lends its talents outside of the commercial realm in the form of an informative and communicative visual language, and in academic, self-authored, or research-based practices, the primary role of graphic design is that of the visual instrument of the powerful—the seller of sales, the convincer of consumers. Its strengths are employed by the corporate body (or state-sanctioned by capitalist/socialist totalitarian governments) in order to reinforce their position of power. And while design academia can wax poetic about the virtues of graphic design and its specialised visual language (conveniently side-stepping more tangible issues) the design industry practitioner, whether one chooses to acknowledge his/her role or not, must realise that their labour is nothing more than the harbinger of consumerism, used in the service of monolithic capitalism and all of its ails. Without the aid of graphic design, those who sustain the ills of society have no face, no visual identity, no point of reference, and most importantly, no effect.

While recognising in the libertarian tradition that no individual designer, group, institution or government has the right to define the role in which graphic design should play,1 it is important to encourage alternative design practices in an attempt to counter the exploitative position it has consciously stepped into. Analysis of the capacity inherent in design practices to alleviate current exploitation, and to aid in more alternative modes of social organisation is needed (and has begun in limited pockets of the design world).2 Design then, must explore the peripheral space outside of advertising totally devoid of any commercial use—or more specifically, for the movement towards a humane and libertarian society, that is to say, a more autonomous existence based on self-management, mutual aid, solidarity and direct participation and control over one's affairs. As the potential producer, educator and visual face of social change, graphic design could weld its creative future with more pressing concerns than market shares and profit margins.


"One cannot, in the nature of things, expect a little tree that has turned into a club to put forth leaves"
— Martin Buber

It is interesting to ponder the power graphic design holds within the current capitalist system. Corporates and their friends in government have all tapped into the powerful and almost unrivalled marketing resource that is graphic design. Better By Design,3 hand-in-hand with business interests, has marched towards a better future for consumerism. And no wonder—what other non-physical coercive technique can instill a company logo in the mind as early as two years old?4 Unchecked, the increasing role of graphic design as advertising's lackey will continue to have irreversible effect on our mental, visual and physical environment.

In 1964, and again in 2002, the concerns of above were brought forward in the form of the First Things First Manifesto, signed by designers, photographers, artists and visual practitioners interested in steering their skills along a more social and worthwhile path. "Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention... charitable causes and other informational design projects urgently require our exper-tise and help." Calling for a shift in graphic design's priorities, the signatories of the manifesto recognised the potential for their skills to aid more humanitarian causes. The 2002 manifesto, as a tentative step in reviving Ken Garland's original ideas for today's practitioners, and as a step towards visual 'reform', is greatly noted. However, regardless of how well meaning and sincere the ideas brought forward in these documents were, it is necessary to critique their statements in more radical terms.

While proposing “a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting, and democratic forms of communication”, the manifesto falls short in recognising any kind of tangible, radical change. The First Things First Manifesto of 2002 fails to recognise that the 'uncontested' and 'unchecked' consumerism they wish to re-direct is so engrained in the social relations of capitalism that anything short of the complete transformation of those social relations will never effect true change. Proposing the shifting of priorities within the system rather than the shifting of the system itself—as history has proven in both state socialism and the farce of parliamentary democracy—will do nothing more than file down the rough edges of our chains. The fact that rampant globalisation and corporate hegemony go hand in hand with the current system is the real issue concerned graphic designs could be questioning. In fact these systems, "far from being a guarantee for the people, on the contrary, creates and safeguards the continued existence of a governmental aristocracy against the people."5

With this in mind, the following text proposes to explore the graphic designer’s role (if any) in revolutionary, direct action towards the transformation of society, in specifically anarchist terms.


"It is said that an anarchist society is impossible. Artistic activity is the process of realising the impossible."
— Max Blechman, Toward an Anarchist Aesthetic.

The basic ideas of Anarchism have been misinformed, misinterpreted, and misunderstood throughout its existence. For many people, the anti-authoritarian stance of Anarchism coupled with negative press on the part of those threatened by it, associates it with chaos and disorder. However this is far from the truth.

Anarchist communism (or libertarian communism) is the belief that no one has the right to control or exploit another, and that coercive authrotiy (as opposed to voluntary association) is the mainstay of inequality—socially and economically. Anarchists strive for a social system of human beings living, interacting, and relating in a way that is the most fair, equal, and free of any kind of exploitation. This includes the many forms that oppression takes—economic or political, patriarchal or racial, and more.

"A mistaken, or more often, deliberately inaccurate interpretation alleges that the libertarian concept means the absence of all organisation. This is entirely false: it is not a matter of 'organisation' or 'nonorganisation', but of two different principles of organisation... of course, say the anarchists, society must be organised. However, it must be established freely, socially, and, above all, from below."6 The idea of non-hierarchical forms of organization are central to anarchism—only through direct action and self-management will we enjoy complete emancipation in our lives and the daily decisions that they entail. These ideas are far from utopian, as those who fear its potential would lead us to believe, and as the millions of men and women throughout history who have subscribed to, and lived out, anarchist ideas. They are no more utopian than the thought that far-removed, parliamentary 'representatives' can intimately and effectively answer our many wants and needs as individuals and communities.

Anarchist communism is not a fixed, self-enclosed social system but rather a definite trend in the historic development of society, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. For anarchists, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but a vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents within them, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of people is influenced by religious or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious human personality will become, the more it will become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.7


"As anarchists, we have seen our politics denigrated by other artists; as artists, we have had our cultural production attacked as frivolous by activists."
—Realising the Impossibe: Art Against Authority

It would be wrong to view this text as some kind of blueprint for anarchist design action. This is not a manifesto. Nor is it the justification for graphic design as a specialist, elitist profession to continue in its current form in the 'aid' of social change. As the early anarchist Proudhon wrote to Marx, "Let us not make ourselves the leaders of  a new intolerance. Let us not pose as the apostles of a new religion, even if it be the religion of logic, of reason".8 And while there is a definite place for the graphic designer in an activist role, both in an educational and provocative sense, designers must not make the mistake of becoming some kind of vanguard group of directors. Whereas Marxism is often justified in both political and academic fields in this  respect—defending the role of a necessary vanguard party to lead the ignorant  masses to liberation—anarchism vehemently refutes and rejects this concept.

It is the responsibility of anyone with an understanding of visual communication to consider the effect their work has on the lives of others, especially the most marginalised, and the most oppressed. Instead, the design practitioner, through the basic act of joining their moral principles with their material production, should, and could, greatly contribute to the transformation of everyday life—towards a more just and humane society. The conscious graphic designer could instill in people's minds a broader sense of possibility, using the communicative powers of artistic imagery to empower, encourage and enrage. It is important to shift societies' many urgent concerns from the fringes and into the public realm, in a direct and unavoidable manner. However, purely negative and angst-ridden critique (while sometimes useful) can only go so far—it is the sense of positive possibilities that need to be associated with the ideas of revolutionary change. The marginality of alternative social relations must be overcome—its ideas rendered public, transparent, and shared.

Mainstream media do a rather convincing job of keeping our private critical thoughts isolated. It is an important task to illustrate that the critical and questioning ideas we may be having individually are, more often than not, shared by others, rather than letting them be diffused and disarmed by those in power through religion, politics, education, and popular media (including, of course, graphic design). Graphic design can publicly and prolifically become the visual manifestation of these shared ideas. "Ideally, art can inspire hope, encourage critical thinking, capture emotion, and stimulate creativity. It can declare another way to think about and participate in living. Art can document or challenge history, create a framework for social change, and create a vision of a more just world. When art is used in activism it provides an appealing and accessible entry point to social issues and radical politics".9 Graphic design can act as one catalyst for further involvement in social alternatives, and social struggle.


“Artists speak out against the war for one week but serve the capitalists all year.”
—Black Mask #4

However images alone are not enough. It is not just what the work of a designer says or does that perpetuates the dominant social relations of today, but how that work is made. Design is an overwhelmingly individual act. Yet further exploration of collective participation in the design process can set the basis for future non-hierarchal, collective organisation. Ways of working with others when making work could essentially form patterns and guides for the self organization of a more libertarian society. Therefore the act of making work could be as empowering as the visual message itself, pointing the way towards social relations on a more macro level. This exploration has exciting and liberating possibilities: "Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no utopia of a perfect social order, as it has so often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human living conditions, which are always straining after higher forms of expression…"10 Allowing anarchist inspired design to collectively explore and illustrate those 'higher forms of expression' can do nothing but broaden the scope and awareness of more just social relations between people.


Endnotes

1. In relation to the anarchist concept of 'no gods, no masters'—or, that ‘the exploitation of man by man and the dominion of man over man are inseparable, and each is the condition of the other’.
2. Design collectives such as Justseeds, The Street Art Workers, Drawing Resistance, the Beehive Collective, Paper Politics, Taring Padi, and the Prison Poster Project are just a few examples. See Realising the Impossible: Art Against Authority by Josh Macphee and Erik Reuland (AK Press, 2007).
3. A government initiative aimed at helping New Zealand companies 'increase their exports and profits through the better use    of design in their products and services'. Check it out at www.betterbydesign.org.nz.
4. See Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (Penguin Books, 2002).

5. Michael Bakunin in Anarchism by Daniel Guerin (Monthly Review Press, 1970).

6. Voline in Anarchism by Daniel Guerin (Monthly Review Press, 1970).

7. Paraphrased from Rudolf Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice (AK Press, 2004).  
8. From Anarchism by Daniel Guerin (Monthly Review Press, 1970).  
9. Colin Matthes, Realising the Impossible: Art Against Authority by Josh Macphee and Erik Reuland (AK Press, 2007).  
10. Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice (AK Press, 2004).


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Tino Rangatiratanga?

Great comment from Indymedia.

The systems of trustboards and runanga were modelled off of the Maori Affairs model and has circumvented the traditional system of checks and balances within most iwi areas.

The very structure of some iwi is now based on what is the mordern corporation with share holders, CEOs, board of directors etc.

The major difference being that most of the members of the iwi are not active participants in the planning and restructuring of the iwi model or even the day to day runnings, but are bystanders watching corporate elites with timi bit of knowledge and knowhow of modern corporations, finance and investment, playing with the blood money payed as hush money by the Government, now used by corporate iwi elites to forge a new class of Maori elite rich fat cats.

Tino Rangatiratanga is rapidly being swapped for the illusion of power that masses of putea gives, and all the empty souless development projects that will add huge financial asset bases to the books of these iwi corporations.

These iwi corp leaders are frauds, they stand as imposter rangatira, brown people in suits who are using the mana of the iwi (and the power that exists when people are bandied together as an iwi is with their autonomy that comes from such unities) to build their own empires at the behest of future generations of Maori that will have to learn about their culture in a museum and reruns of Waka Huia on tv.

Those future generations that will learn about the ocean as it was, the seabed and foreshores as they were, the forests that used to be, the rivers as they used to be, the lakes as they used to be, the mana that their tribes used to have, everything in past tense.

And when all the putea is gone, and the assets have been sold off by creditors to pay the bills, the fishing trawlers hocked off for a song because the fish stocks were fucked years before the crown craftly handed Maori the quotas in a swap for our mana moana, when the land turns to dust from years of over fertilisation that took palce long before it was returned to Maori in a treaty settlement, when the foreshores that used to team with fish, shell fish and other marine life are covered in mussel spat from the over use of mussel farms smothering every bit of life from the seabed...

...and when the last Maori dies that could fluently converse in te reo Maori, and all that we know now is gone or exists as replicas or computerised, or preserved like a mokomokai in some museum, I hope that all of us that lived through this period of time, wherever we may be at that time, be it rarohenga or beyond, I hope we hang our heads in shame, for it is in this generation, our generation, that the final hammer and nails have been handed to us, to this generation, to nail into the coffin of the people currently called Maori and we are either nailing them in hard, or standing by watching without interfering.

This bullshit being passed off as iwi settlements and iwi investment and this new unprecendented rise in cooption of Maori representation into Parliament, needs to be stopped now and those perpetrators need to be held to account. The masses of Maori uninvolved in these doings still hold the mana and do have the ability to put pay to the short sighted deluded actions of a few elitests and wannabe dogooders who are convinced that this is the right way forward for Maori.

Kia mau tonu ra ki to kawau maro

Karawhiua!

Te Iwitoa

Constructive Anarchism mailing list

A mailing list has been set up for anyone interested in class-struggle anarchism and discussion of the ideas proposed in 'Constructive Anarchism' (see here).

The mailing list address is:
constructive (at) anarchism.org.nz

To sign on to this list, please visit:
lists.anarchism.org.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/constructive

We can also use www.anarchism.org as a forum for further debate — it is being refreshed and re-designed as we speak! There is also a section specifically designed to talk about class and constructive anarchism.

Check out:
anarchism.org.nz/forums/index.php/board,11.0.htm

With the upcoming Anarchist Hui's it seems like a good time to throw some ideas around, especially around class issues, industrial networks, community unionism and the global economic crisis — and then to put them into practice.

The Mess Hall, Chicago.

Mess Hall is an experimental cultural space. Located in the Roger’s Park in Chicago, Mess Hall is a place for visual culture, creative urbanism, sustainable ecology, food democracy, radical politics, and cultural experimentation. Mess Hall runs on the generosity of those who use it. This allows us to provide everything for free - from food and drinks to workshops and events.

Over the past five years, hundreds of events have taken place from art shows, film screenings, discussions, meetings, potlucks, sewing rebellions, performances, and everything in between.

Mess Hall links:

Mess Hall website:
http://www.messhall.org/

(BRAND NEW!) Mess Hall blog:
http://messhallarchive.wordpress.com/

Type rest of the post here

Give up art and save the starving?

If art and design is understood as the expression and reflection of a particular set of values, systems and interests, then most artistic practice today tends to express the interests of the class that controls and profits from society — the bourgeois or corporate class and their markets. It is these interests that dominate and control the standards of value in art — that defines its emphasis, and excludes its more subversive, egalitarian alternatives. Likewise, when our society places so much importance on the individual, technical virtuosity of an artist instead of the social motivations and commitments of that artist, one doesn’t have to look much further than the world of art and culture in our society to see where fascism breeds.

These are heavy and rather confrontational definitions of mainstream art, but one only needs to experience the fishbowl of a typical art opening to take them as truisms.

But what of alternatives? For practitioners of a completely different kind of art, these dominant understandings make using the term ‘artist’ rather problematic. Are we artists, or something else? Should we separate ourselves from the term ‘art’ altogether — or reclaim it for an entirely new set of standards and values, values in tune with our political, social and economic realities? Or, do we completely destroy the separation of art and everyday life, as the Situationists tried before us? Do we take it one step further, to ‘give up art and save the starving’, to ‘paint all the paintings black and celebrate dead art’, as Tony Lowe would have us do. And why not? Capitalism and the global financial crisis continues its drunken march of exploitation, playing havoc with the millions of working people who always suffer the effects of the hangover while never being invited to the party. For practitioners truly willing to empower more than just themselves — the barricades — and not the gallery, may be the new canvas on which to create.

Of course, practitioners with any kind of decent analysis should already be ‘on the barricades’. Cultural production plays an integral role in the current way of life — it is the means by which a monopoly of content and control by a few over the many is kept in check. Consumption, and the spectacle of consumption, contribute to the alienation and social poverty we currently experience. And yes, that includes hip, avant-garde, ‘edgy’, political work supposedly with ‘something to say’ while continuing to hang upon the white (or brick) walls (or pages) of our capitalist utopia.

If we decide not to leave art for dead, and instead embrace its omnipotent potential for radical, social change — it will be important to collectively create perspectives and values which clearly illustrate the realities of everyday, working life, and the possibilities of libertarian alternatives. Rearrangement of our institutions — cultural ones included — is simply evasive. A tree that has turned into a club cannot be expected to put forth leaves. Any artistic practice short of advocating the abolishment of capitalism and replacing it with logic, frankly, should be left to die.

Alec Icky Dunn, Thicket. 1 color block print.

Artist. Aboriginal. Anti-Capitalist — the works of Dylan Miner

It's such an empowering and exciting experience when you come across great things for the first time — books, ideas, friendships — and in my case, revolutionary printmaking. Sadly, as time moves on, we often overlook those things which meant so much to us at a particular time. So when it pops back up to remind you of that initial buzz — to relive the experience all over again — it's a bit like finding a $20 note hidden away in that rather obscure inner pocket in the depths of ones overcoat. Sweet.

Stumbling upon Dylan Miner's personal website was an experience not dissimilar.


I first came across Dylan's work in 'Wobblies: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World' — his illustrations accompanied the chapter headers in a bold and distinctive black and white style, easily managing to stand out amongst the other amazing graphical historiographies which also littered the pages. I eventually found more online at Justseeds.org, and now, his personal site.

His use of various printing techniques, the bold block colours and IWW and anarchist revolutionary content easily won an adherent, but what I really like is his line work. I'm no art critic (as you can tell), but there's something inherently human in the odd, humorous and sometimes warped interpretations Dylan presents — the portrait of 'Bakunin' for instance, or "Power in a Union'. The physical weight of the linework, the boldness, the jerks and jaggered woodcut strokes — and yet at the same time, the personality of his mark making — often makes me smile, even when conveying such confrontational and political themes. And I think for folks making such charged and meaningful work, that has to be a good thing. There is a place for alienating and negative work, but there's also a (rather large) place for work which can challenge and deconstruct the ideas of the viewer in a positive and empowering way. To that end, the work of Dylan Miner serves as a worthy example.




View links for more work.

As We (Still) See It!

1 — Throughout the world the vast majority of people have no control whatsoever over the decisions that most deeply and directly affect their lives. They sell their labour power while others who own or control the means of production accumulate wealth, make the laws and use the whole machinery of the State to perpetuate and reinforce their privileged positions.

2 — During the past century the living standards of working people have improved. But neither these improved living standards, nor the nationalisation of the means of production, nor the coming to power of parties claiming to represent the working class have basically altered the status of the worker as worker. Nor have they given the bulk of mankind much freedom outside of production. East and West, capitalism remains an inhuman type of society where the vast majority are bossed at work and manipulated in consumption and leisure. Propaganda and policemen, prisons and schools, traditional values and traditional morality all serve to reinforce the power of the few and to convince or coerce the many into acceptance of a brutal, degrading and irrational system. The ‘Communist’ world is not communist and the ‘Free’ world is not free.

3 — The trade unions and the traditional parties of the left started in business to change all this. But they have come to terms with the existing patterns of exploitation. In fact they are now essential if exploiting society is to continue working smoothly. The unions act as middlemen in the labour market. The political parties use the struggles and aspirations of the working class for their own ends. The degeneration of working class organisations, itself the result of the failure of the revolutionary movement, has been a major factor in creating working class apathy, which in turn has led to the further degeneration of both parties and unions.

4 — The trade unions and political parties cannot be reformed, 'captured', or converted into instruments of working class emancipation. We don't call however for the proclamation of new unions, which in the conditions of today would suffer a similar fate to the old ones. Nor do we call for militants to tear up their union cards. Our aims are simply that the workers themselves should decide on the objectives of their struggles and that the control and organisation of these struggles should remain firmly in their own hands. The forms which this self activity of the working class may take will vary considerably from country to country and from industry to industry. Its basic content will not.

5 — Socialism is not just the common ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. It means equality, real freedom, the end of oppression based on restrictive male/female social roles, reciprocal recognition and a radical transformation in all human relationships. It is people's understanding of their environment and of themselves, their domination over their work and over such social institutions as they may need to create. These are not secondary aspects, which will automatically follow the expropriation of the old ruling class. On the contrary they are essential parts of the whole process of social transformation, for without them no genuine social transformation will have taken place.

6. A socialist society can therefore only be built from below. Decisions concerning production and work will be taken by workers' councils composed of elected and revocable delegates. Decisions in other areas will be taken on the basis of the widest possible discussion and consultation among the people as a whole. This democratisation of society down to its very roots is what we mean by ‘workers' power’.

Self-managed institutions and collectivities will be the living framework of a free society. There can be no socialism without self-management. Yet a society made up of individual self-managed units is not, of itself, socialist. Such societies could remain oppressive, unequal and unjust. They could be sexist or racist, could restrict access to knowledge or adopt uncritical attitudes towards 'expertise'. We can imagine the individual units of such a society - of whatever size or complexity (from chicken farms to continents) - competing as 'collective capitalists'. Such competition could only perpetuate alienation and create new inequalities based on new divisions of labour.

Genuine freedom will only be possible when our lives are no longer the object of economic, cultural and political forces which we experience as external to ourselves, and which constantly tend to regenerate capitalist or authoritarian social relations. A socialist society would therefore abolish not only social classes, hierarchies and other structures of domination, but also wage-labour and production for the purpose of sale or exchange on the market. Th fulfil their needs and desires, people would live and work in free co-operation. The national frontiers of armed states would be replaced by a democratic human community, on a world scale. The elimination of competition (and the decay of competitive attitudes) would have profound social effects which we can hardly imagine today.

7 — Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

8 — No ruling class in history has ever relinquished its power without a struggle and our present rulers are unlikely to be an exception. Power will only be taken from them through the conscious, autonomous action of the vast majority of the people themselves, The building of socialism will require mass understanding and mass participation. By their rigid hierarchical structure, by their ideas and by their activities, both social-democratic and bolshevik types of organisations discourage this kind of understanding and prevent this kind of participation. The idea that socialism can somehow be achieved by an elite party (however 'revolutionary') acting 'on behalf of' the working class is both absurd and reactionary.

9 — We do not accept the view that by itself the working class can only achieve a trade union consciousness. On the contrary we believe that its conditions of life and its experiences in production constantly drive the working class to adopt priorities and values and to find methods of organisation which challenge the established social order and established pattern of thought. These responses are implicitly socialist. On the other hand, the working class is fragmented, dispossessed of the means of communication, and its various sections are at different levels of awareness and consciousness. The task of the revolutionary organisation is to help give proletarian consciousness an explicitly socialist content, to give practical assistance to workers in struggle, and to help those in different areas to exchange experiences and link up with one another.

10 — We do not see ourselves as yet another leadership, but merely as an instrument of working class action. The function of SOLIDARITY (or any libertarian socialist group—Ed.) is to help all those who are in conflict with the present authoritarian social structure, both in industry and in society at large, to generalise their experience, to make a total critique of their condition and of its causes, and to develop the mass revolutionary consciousness necessary if society is to be totally transformed.

The above text is the aims and principles of Solidarity UK (1961 - 1992), a great libertarian socialist group close to council communism and class struggle anarchism. The aims and principles are still, if not more, relevant today. See 'For Workers Power' for a majority of their collected texts, or find some of them online here.

TypeSHED11 — Design Escapism 101

As typographers, graphic fashionistas, advertising moguls and the elite of the visual communication world come together in Wellington this week for 'TypeSHED11', I thought it might be fitting to revisit my earlier text on an alternative graphic design practice. Of course, design, or more specifically typography, is off the radar for the majority of everyday, working people — so it may seem an odd topic to focus so much attention on. Yet it is a profession that has a huge impact on the lives of working people whether they understand the complexities of typography or not — mainly in the mass consumption and the spectacle of the capitalist society to which both design and our everyday lives belong.

"Graphic design has predominately been, and still is, the tool which beautifies, communicates and commodifies a set of ideas, ideals or products within various tenets of our social and economic relations. Unfortunately, it is fair to say that this creative tool is overwhelmingly used in an economic/commercial sense — consciously or unconsciously using its talents to exploit — to raise profit margins and material wealth for the benefit of a select clientele. While graphic design lends its talents outside of the commercial realm in the form of an informative and communicative visual language, and in academic or self-authorship, research-based practices — the primary role of graphic design as a medium is that of the visual instrument of the powerful; the seller of sales, the convincer of consumers — employed by the corporate body or state-sanctioned by capitalist/socialist totalitarian governments in order to perfect and reinforce their hegemonic positions. And while design academia can wax poetic about the virtues of graphic design and its specialised visual language — conveniently side-stepping more tangible issues — the design industry practitioner, whether one chooses to acknowledge his/her role or not, must realise that their labour is nothing more than the harbinger of consumerism, used in the service of monolithic capitalism and all of its ails. Without graphic design those who sustain these ills of society have no face, no visual identity, no point of reference, and most importantly, no effect.

If one takes the above view, which I obviously do, then to analyse the worth of such a conference as 'TypeSHED11' is a valid one. From a brief look the program on their website, there seems to be no space dedicated to any kind of social change work. There is one workshop called 'Bridging Culture' which mentions the latest conflicts in Palestine (for research purposes), but to use the their own words, the workshop sounds more like a pep talk in globalisation and diversity of the market. "Technology, mass media and the global village concept have made the world smaller and the cross-cultural audience bigger for the design profession. It is becoming a must for designers to think beyond their local boarders and to be able to create visual communication materials that makes sense to a diverse audience." Of course I could be wrong, but I sincerely doubt that there will be discussion on how graphic design could alleviate, instead of activate the current exploitative system we live in — or the complex situation facing the people of the middle east.

"Design then, must explore the peripheral space outside of advertising; totally devoid of any commercial use — or more specifically, for the movement towards a more humane and libertarian society, that is to say, a more autonomous existence based on self-management, mutual aid, solidarity and direct participation and control over one's affairs. As the potential producer, educator and visual face of social change, graphic design could weld its creative future with more important and pressing concerns than market shares, profit margins and consumption rates."

If there in fact WAS talk of social justice work in Wellington this week, then that would be a tentative start. But, like the 'First Things First Manifesto' of 2002, we should question the locality and the direction of that way of thinking.

"While proposing 'a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting, and democratic forms of communication', the manifesto falls short in recognising any kind of tangible and radical change. The 'First Things First Manifesto' of 2002 fails to recognise that the 'uncontested' and 'unchecked' consumerism they wish to re-direct is so engrained in the very system we participate in, that anything short of the complete transformation of social priorities, structures and organization will never effect true social change. Proposing the shifting of priorities within the system rather than the shifting of the system itself — as history has proven in both state/democratic socialism, and the farce of parliamentary democracy — will do nothing more than file down the rough edges of our chains. The fact that rampant globalisation and totalitarian corporate hegemony go hand in hand with the current system is the real issue concerned graphic designs could be questioning. In fact these systems, "far from being a guarantee for the people, on the contrary, creates and safeguards the continued existence of a governmental aristocracy against the people."

So, what is the alternative, if any, that graphic design could play towards radical, social change? This is the crux of my original text, and the topic of a type of praxis we could undertake as practitioners interested in a more egalitarian way of existing.

The everyday individual or anarchist design practitioner, through the basic act of joining their libertarian principals with their material production, should, and could, greatly contribute to the transformation of everyday life — towards a more just and humane existence. As educator and mediator, it is the responsibility of anyone with an understanding of visual communication to instill in people's minds a broader sense of possibility, using the communicative powers of artistic imagery to empower, encourage and enrage. It is important to shift societies' many urgent concerns from the fringes and into the public realm, in a direct and unavoidable manner. However, purely negative and angst-ridden critique (while sometimes useful) can only go so far — it is the sense of positive possibilities that need to be associated with the ideas of anarchist communism. The marginality of current grassroots movements must be overcome — the isolation of both activist groups and concerned individuals thoughts must be rendered public, transparent, and shared.

Mainstream media do a rather convincing job of keeping our private thoughts as seemingly isolated and illogical. It is an important task to illustrate that the critical and questioning ideas we may be having individually are, more often than not, shared as a whole, rather than letting them be diffused and disarmed by hegemonic structures and institutions such as the popular media, the church and the state. Graphic design can publicly and prolifically become the visual manifestation of these shared ideas. "Ideally, art can inspire hope, encourage critical thinking, capture emotion, and stimulate creativity. It can declare another way to think about and participate in living. Art can document or challenge history, create a framework for social change, and create a vision of a more just world. When art is used in activism it provides an appealing and accessible entry point to social issues and radical politics".9 As the initial point of contact with more in-depth and varied forms of activism, graphic design can act as the essential catalyst for further education, involvement, and more importantly, direct action.

However, images alone are not enough. Further exploration of participation and facilitation in design and the design process can only set the basis for future non-hierarchical, organic organisation. Structures and ways of working with others raised in ones practice could essentially form patterns and guides for the self organization of a more libertarian society. Therefore the act of making work could be as empowering as the visual message itself. Both collective and personal processes of making work could lead the way in eventual liberation on a more macro level, exploring the 'unlimited perfectibility' of both design activity and social organization."

Type rest of the post here

Treaty of Waitangi (or Tino Rangatiratanga) for beginners

From Arena.

Conversations around the Treaty of Waitangi tend to generate a lot of heat, but not much light. Some Maori people and their supporters claim that the Treaty has not been honoured. Those with somewhat redder necks say the Treaty should be scrapped because "after all, we're all one people, aren't we?" Many fair-minded people stay silent during these conversations, because they feel the Treaty is too complicated and they don’t have enough knowledge to challenge some of the claims made for or against it. This article is for those people.

In fact, the issues raised by the Treaty are very simple and easy for everyone to understand. The Treaty was an agreement between the British Crown on the one hand and Maori chiefs on the other. For the purposes of the Treaty, the British recognized those Maori who signed it as representing the whole of Maoridom as a nation. It was first signed at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands on February 6, 1840, and there were basically two versions, one in English and one in Maori. Most of the chiefs signed the Maori version.

There are basic differences between the English and the Maori versions, since the Maori version is not a literal translation of the English Treaty. However, under the terms of international law, which governs the signing of agreements between nations, only the Maori version has any legitimacy. This is important, because the differences in the translation are crucial to understanding why many Maori feel the Treaty has not been honoured.

The Treaty of Waitangi consists of a preamble and three basic clauses, called "Articles". (Some Maori signed a version of the Treaty with four articles, but there is little disagreement about the meaning of the fourth, and we can safely ignore it, at least until we have an understanding of the first three.)

In the English version, Article one signs the rights of sovereignty in New Zealand over to the Queen of England. That means that the power to make and enforce laws over the whole country was given to the British Crown. But in the Maori version, something very different, called "kawanatanga", was granted to the Crown in Article I.

An understanding of what is meant by the term kawanatanga is crucial to an understanding of the Treaty, and of the role of Pakeha people and Pakeha institutions in Aotearoa/New Zealand today.

Kawanatanga is a transliteration of the English word "governorship". The difference between kawanatanga and sovereignty is at the heart of many disputes over the Treaty. The present Government cites Article I of the English Treaty as the basis of its claim to sovereignty - the right to rule - in New Zealand. But the claim just doesn’t stand up. Maori who signed the Treaty were led to understand that the status of kawanatanga granted to the British in Article I was a good deal less than that of full sovereignty, or tino rangatiratanga. In their view, they were certainly not signing away their sovereignty when they signed Article I.

So what did they think they were signing? According to records made at the time the Treaty was signed, a missionary by the name of Williams, who had translated the Treaty into Maori, explained the difference between kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga in terms of the Biblical story of Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the Governor of Judea at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, and as such he was said to exercise "kawanatanga" – governorship. The Maori chiefs were led to understand that Pilate did not have the power of life and death over those he governed. His kawanatanga was something a lot less than the tino rangatiratanga - the chiefly authority - that the Chiefs themselves exercised.

Further, the phrase tino rangatiratanga had previously been used to translate the word "sovereignty" in the 1835 Declaration of Maori Independence. This document, signed five years before the Treaty, was an agreement in which the British Crown had recognized the sovereignty of Maori chiefs in New Zealand. Many of the same chiefs who signed the Declaration also signed the Treaty and would have recognized the use of the phrase from that.



So Article I of the Maori version granted something less than complete sovereign authority to the British, but there is some confusion about what it actually did grant. Fortunately, the confusion is easily cleared up.

The preamble of the Treaty refers to creating good order and harmonious relations between settlers and Maori. That’s because relationships between Europeans and Maori up to that point had been less than ideal. Settlers tended to be a rowdy, uncultured lot who nevertheless considered that the colour of their skin made them superior to the "savages" they encountered in Aotearoa. Maori communities close to European settlements like Kororareka (today called Russell) suffered from frequent looting, rape, general drunkenness and disrespect from white visitors. Defensive measures taken by Maori often resulted in military reprisals. Attempts to bargain with representatives of the British Crown for stricter enforcement of behaviour standards got nowhere because the British Crown was powerless - legally and physically. Despite being able to commandeer the British Navy to punish Maori villages who had dealt summary justice to a lawless whaler, the Crown was unwilling to establish a police force for white folks, because it didn’t have any legal authority in Aotearoa.

The British Resident at the time, a man called James Busby, advised the Chiefs that no-one had any recognized legal authority in Aotearoa. He recommended that the Chiefs get the British Crown to recognize their authority.

That was how the Declaration of Maori Independence came into being. In this document, the British Crown recognized, as noted earlier, that Maori Chiefs exercised sovereignty (tino rangatiratanga) in Aotearoa. But the fact that the British Crown recognized Maori sovereignty did not mean that the settlers were going to follow suit. The lawlessness continued. After another five years, Maori chiefs around Northland had had enough. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in an attempt to give the British Crown authority over settlers in Aotearoa.

In this way, Article I of the Treaty granted the limited authority of kawanatanga over the Pakeha population of Aotearoa to the British Crown.

Just to make the position absolutely clear, Article II was completely unequivocal in the Maori version. Article II reserved tino rangatiratanga - full sovereign authority - over their lands, forests, fisheries "me o ratou taonga katoa" (and everything they valued) to the chiefs. It further stipulated that any land bought by settlers could not be bought directly from Maori, but had to be acquired by the British Crown first. This carries the clear implication that land acquired by the Crown became land over which British kawanatanga would be exercised. The rest of the land would remain under Maori law.

Article III stated that everyone in Aotearoa would have the rights and privileges of British subjects, but clearly avoided handing Maori any responsibilities or duties to the Crown.

As each chief signed, Governor Hobson is reported to have said to them: "He iwi tahi tatou" (we are one people). It is significant that he said this in Maori, since in the intervening years, most people have taken his words to mean that Maori should become brown-skinned Pakeha, rather than that Pakeha were now to become more like Maori.

After the initial signing at Waitangi, the Treaty was taken to various places around the country and eventually collected signatures from over 500 chiefs. Governor Hobson however, became bored by the process at one stage and claimed the South Island by "right of discovery". Some major tribes, including the Waikato tribes (united in later years under the Maori King) and Tuhoe, to name just two, never signed the Treaty.

Today, many people think that the Treaty gives Maori certain rights. It does not. The rights of sovereignty which Maori exercised for at least 800 years before the arrival of the Pakeha could not and still cannot be "granted" by the Crown. The British Crown officially recognized those rights in the 1835 Declaration of Maori Independence, and that recognition was reaffirmed in Article II of the Treaty. In effect, the Treaty does not give Maori any rights they didn’t already have, but it does give Pakeha certain limited rights - the rights covered by the term kawanatanga.

The Treaty of Waitangi is today the only legal basis for the presence of non-Maori settlers here in Aotearoa/NZ. Maori never gave up their rights (as the Crown claims), nor were they ever conquered, despite several attempts. If we take away the Treaty, the legal right of non-Maori people to live in this country is removed with it. The Treaty of Waitangi is actually about Pakeha rights, not Maori rights. And those rights do not include the right to rule Maori people or Maori land.

That is why many Maori feel the Treaty has not been honoured.

From Arena.

Another gem from Justseeds.org

Roger Peet — Why Do We

Another pithy inspirational motivator. As you climb down into the pit, the pit climbs also down into you. Originally appeared in a Bread & Roses exhibit in NYC a couple of years ago, Josh has been bugging me since to print it for Justseeds. And lo!

Two-color silkscreen print
16"x20"
Heavyweight cover paper
Signed/numbered edition of 46

See more at justseeds.org.

Type rest of the post here

Happy New Year from Katipo Books!

Katipo Books is part of a developing workers co-operative. We are in the process of setting up a not for profit radical bookshop and publishing group based in Christchurch / Otautahi. The majority of our stock is sourced from small independent publishers — not from the corporate giants! Visit www.katipo.net.nz.

Katipo Books is hoping to find its own space soon (so we won't just be operating out of Jo's garage)...we are looking for somewhere with room to have workshops in screenprinting, linux and publishing as well as the info and book shop. Please contact us if you can help us with our search. Ideally it would be best for us to be inner-city, but it also needs to be affordable and accessible to the public so we can't be too picky.

There is also an idea being floated around at the moment for a radical book library in Otautahi so hopefully we'll see lots of new stuff happening in Christchurch this coming year.

Would you or anyone you know like to get involved in the co-op? If so we would like to extend an invitation to come along to a meeting... we normally meet once a fortnight, and it's a fairly relaxed sort of thing. We always need more people to run stalls, upload books onto the website, posting and packaging orders and we are going to need more folks when we get the info and book shop happening, so please get in touch with us if you are at all interested!

Thanks to everyone for your support so far and for buying books from us. It enables us to pay our bills and to keep developing as a co-operative workers organisation.

Peace and love for the new year!
from Katipo Books
Jo, Amanda, Dan, Jared and Kerry.

Image above by Justseeds.org.

“Sometimes we shoot the same way” – the attack on Gaza, internationalism and the Left

A great anarchist communist perspective on the situation in Gaza has just been written by a member of the Anarchist Federation (UK). To view the article with its links and sources intact, please visit here at libcom.org.

Here is a snipet from the main text:

"It is ultimately futile to debate the responsibility for starting the conflict. According to Haaretz, the Israeli attack has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire. Like any military force, the IDF had military options prepared from the beginning, which have been implemented in order to break Hamas, stop its embarrassing rocket attacks, and to deliver an electoral boon to the ruling party. Hamas’ rockets were clearly already lined up and ready to strike Israel’s civilian population. Both sides required a spark in order to launch the conflict and advance their internal aims – Hamas to consolidate their position by forcing the collaboration or elimination of rival factions, Israel in order to provide a spectacular PR win prior to the elections and to slow down the confrontation between the state and the settlers. This was provided by the Israeli cross-border raid on the 4th of November."

"Against this background, internationalists always have an important role to play. At every instance, we must plainly and clearly state that solidarity with the victims of war as real concrete human beings does not mean solidarity with capitalist factions in a war from which they seek to benefit, does not mean supporting a cross-class, abstract national collective and its ethnic “rights” to lands, and does not mean abandoning coherence to support a victory for a facile “anti-imperialism”. The defense of clear internationalist positions against leftist hysteria is of vital importance. It is for the benefit of those drawn into the demonstrations out of disgust at the attack on Israel, but repulsed by the hypocrisy of claiming to be anti-war whilst supporting one of the sides in it."

Or click 'Read More' to view the full text.

A libcom user and Anarchist Federation member analyses the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict, and the response of the left to events.

Israel’s brutal attack on the Gaza strip has elicited widespread revulsion, and has led to protests across Britain and the world. It is clear that the Israeli state has committed atrocities which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek an end to. Its savage bombing of one of the most densely populated places on earth has resulted in over a thousand deaths. Nowhere is safe – Mosques, schools and UN sites have been attacked by the IDF. Even by the “civilised” standards of warfare between nation-states, which allow for a reasonable degree of “collateral damage”, several incidents stand out for their brutality. There is mounting evidence that the IDF is following its senior partner, the US, in using white phosphorous as an offensive weapon in civilian areas. Banned under international law, white phosphorous munitions are chemical weapons with a pattern of splash damage similar to cluster bombs, but which spread blazing chunks of phosphorous and smoke laced with burning particles. The result is either death from suffocation or from severe burns, sometimes down to the bone. The IDF is responsible for herding civilians into a building before shelling it, killing scores of civilians in attacks on UN schools, shelling aid convoys, and destroying aid stockpiles during an attack on the UN headquarters in Gaza. The attack has displaced over 90,000 people, and combined with the crippling blockade of Gaza which preceded it, utterly destroyed Gaza’s economy and infrastructure.

It is ultimately futile to debate the responsibility for starting the conflict. According to Haaretz, the Israeli attack has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire. Like any military force, the IDF had military options prepared from the beginning, which have been implemented in order to break Hamas, stop its embarrassing rocket attacks, and to deliver an electoral boon to the ruling party. Hamas’ rockets were clearly already lined up and ready to strike Israel’s civilian population. Both sides required a spark in order to launch the conflict and advance their internal aims – Hamas to consolidate their position by forcing the collaboration or elimination of rival factions, Israel in order to provide a spectacular PR win prior to the elections and to slow down the confrontation between the state and the settlers. This was provided by the Israeli cross-border raid on the 4th of November.

Following the launch of the brutal airstrikes and ground invasion, the sides behaved precisely as could be expected. Hamas, unsurprisingly, have shown themselves not to be consummate humanitarians. There have been a number of reports of refugees being held at the Rafah border crossing , preventing them accessing medical care in Egypt. Egypt blames Hamas, whilst Hamas claims that the injured refugees restrained themselves out of contempt for Egypt, refusing the care of the medical teams on the other side of the border (despite their not refusing the aid the IDF is obliged to provide, and despite the Gazan hospitals being devastated). Both sides were shown for the hypocrites they are when Gazan refugees breached the border themselves, to be faced by Egyptian border guards firing their rifles into the air. The capitalist factions in Gaza and the West bank have used the desired opportunity provided by the conflict to move against each other – Hamas has been killing, kneecapping, imprisoning and beating its rivals in Gaza, whilst Fatah has been doing the same to Hamas in the West Bank, on top of banning protestors from confronting checkpoints or the IDF. Rather than join the “resistance”, ordinary Palestinians in Gaza have been fleeing en masse. It seems that the factions are moving to a ceasefire now their perceived aims have been met. And the price for this has been a mountain of dead working class Palestinians.

The conflict has spawned international revulsion, and a protest movement in Britain which has undertaken demonstrations in most major towns and cities, receiving a good deal of media coverage, especially after minor rioting in London on the 10th of January. Though there has been a genuine grassroots response to the conflict, many of the demonstrations have been organised by either the Stop the War Coalition, associated in the minds of many with the defeat of the campaign against the Iraq war, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The atmosphere of the protests has differed from place to place, from demonstrations of a more humanitarian nature demanding the end of the bombings to virulent nationalism and support for Hamas. Most demonstrations contained a mixture of both. Libertarian Communists, anarchists and other internationalists have been involved from the start, seeking to provide an alternative on the ground to the nationalist ideologies which are pervasive within the anti-war demonstrations. The Sheffield and Manchester Anarchist Federation groups produced a leaflet which they distributed at demonstrations in the cities, and which were circulated in various forms by comrades in the Solidarity Federation, Organise!, No Borders and the libcom group in a display of fraternalism within the movement. Anarchists in London organised a distinct bloc against all nation states and the wars they wage, whilst another internationalist leaflet was produced and circulated at demos by the ICC.

At the same time, there is plenty of opportunist leftist politicking around the issue. The Socialist Workers Party once again aligned itself with various liberal voices, demanding that the UK expel Israel’s ambassador and recall its embassy staff from Israel. The stupidity and opportunist posturing involved in asking Britain, which is responsible for maintaining an occupation in Iraq which has resulted in 1,033,000 deaths in the past 6 years, to bring Israel in line with civilised international behaviour isn’t lost on most people with critical faculties.

But there are more fundamental qualities to the demonstrations which are alarming, and which stand in stark contrast to the attempts to spread an internationalist perspective on the conflict. As important as our efforts in this regard are, they represent a minority view in opposition to leftist “common sense”. To suggest that being anti-war might mean opposing both the capitalist factions engaged in it might not be that controversial to ordinary people, but is met with hysterics from leftists. As a result, there has been much in the anti-war movement that is troubling. Support for overseas nationalist movements has been common currency amongst leftists since the early twentieth century, and the belief that “national liberation” forces can strike a blow against “imperialism” and therefore open a space for an advance in the global struggle against capitalism remains common.1 For many leftists, “imperialism” comes down to US foreign policy and that of its proxies and allies such as Israel, and whatever force stands in opposition to this is “anti-imperialist”. For them, imperialism is not the tendency of the “anarchic” system of nation states to create a situation where states must assert themselves often against an empirical economic advantage (as in Iraq, where exploitation of resources could have taken place through cutting a deal with Saddam, rather than an expensive occupation which comes down to control of strategic resources). So where we might see a smaller imperialist scheme in opposition to a larger one, such as in the conflicts between US and Venezuelan or Iranian foreign policy, many leftists see “imperialism” confronting “anti-imperialism”. By a similar logic, to leftists, Hamas isn’t a bourgeois faction with its own aims and the agency to pursue them, but a “resistance” movement fighting an Israeli attack. As such even the Trotskyists who claim that they provide no political support to Hamas laud its “heroic” resistance – a resistance which has been utterly futile, and has consisted mostly in killing Israeli civilians, including (not that it matters) Arab-Israelis, and giving the IDF an excuse to slaughter the civilian population in Gaza.

Of course, part of this thinking is as a result of basic liberal democratic arguments on international relations – a “nation” which is attacked has a “right” to “resist”. And following on from this, for many leftists, if you dispute this frame of reference, you are a “collaborator” with the “aggressor”. This is added to rhetoric about Hamas being “democratically elected” (as if the Israeli government wasn’t). This view is common, and fundamentally reactionary in that it requires not a class analysis, but a national one.

But the crudest leftist defence of Hamas has come in the form of the argument that, if there was a left/socialist/anarchist (delete as applicable) presence in Gaza, we and Hamas would be “shooting the same way”. Presumably they don’t mean at civilians, but at “Israel”. This overlooks Hamas’ aims and actual activity when faced with rivals, but ultimately leads to the position that we should side with the less powerful bourgeois faction when they are fighting one another, even if in this case this is in a context where “resistance” means being obliterated by one of the most advanced militaries on the planet.

Firstly, no-one with any interest in the working class improving its own conditions and ultimately taking political power for itself should have any interest in defending Hamas. Beyond the fact that they peddle a reactionary, mystifying, sexist, homophobic and anti-working class ideology, their track record in repressing workers is open to see. Teachers’ struggles have been caught between the hammer of the Hamas government and the anvil of Fatah aligned unions. Armed Hamas police have escorted teachers back into the classroom, whilst their bosses have sacked them and replaced them with loyal Hamas supporters. Hamas have closed medical facilities when faced with doctors’ strikes. The unions in the Palestinian territories are factional and bureaucratic, as all are, but the fact that the same unionists have been attacked by both factions shows how independent working class struggle would fare against these groups. Hamas offer as little to working class people as their rivals in Fatah, whose allies in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades attacked Palestine Workers Radio for “stoking internal conflicts”.

The AF’s leaflet arguing that “On both sides of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting Hamas and its ‘resistance’ movement” was met with criticism for claiming that support for Hamas is rife. But beyond the Hamas flags, which aren’t uncommon at demos, every call to support the “Palestinian resistance” means support for these factions. There is no vague, amorphous resistance to support, but real groups with real policies carrying out real actions in the real world. For this reason it is necessary to say precisely who and what you are supporting. The internationalists have been clear in stating their support for the victims of war, for self-organised campaigns such as those in the West Bank against the wall, for Israeli refuseniks and those who struggle against the war machine in Israel. Those who laud “the resistance” and chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are either unthinking or disingenuous when they say this doesn’t mean supporting Hamas, however “critically”.

As an example of the easy translation of "soft" support into outright support for Hamas, a group from the Trotskyist Alliance for Workers Liberty2 who turned up at a demonstration in Sheffield recently with a placard reading “No to the IDF, no to Hamas”, were assaulted by Palestine Solidarity Campaign organisers (who also have a record of attacking the liberal gay rights group Outrage!, fronted by the well known media stuntist Peter Tatchell, for raising a dissenting voice at demonstrations). The SWP contingent, including local Respect candidate Maxine Bowler, cheered the assault on, and lectured the AWL for being “scabs”. Similarly, genuine internationalists have met accusations of "elitism", that they offer Palestinians nothing, as if leftists were offering anything other than (ultimately meaningless) political support. Most of them aren't stupid enough to try to get arms and funds to the "resistance" they celebrate. But its not uncommon to see leftist impotence translate into overinflated self-importance.

But on top of the dubious nationalism which is commonplace, there has been a resurgence in classical anti-Semitism. Following earlier attacks on Starbucks, in the same night a Tesco store was attacked in East London the area was daubed with graffiti reading “kill jews.” Graffiti reading “free Palestine, kill the jews” has gone up in South Manchester. Such statements simply mirror Hamas’ own anti-Semitism and conspiratorialism, which can be seen in its propaganda and charter. But there is also the more structural anti-Semitism which is common in leftist discourse, especially concerning the (demonstrably false) view that US foreign policy is a product of a pro-Israel lobby in the west, which has already been argued against well. The common comparisons between the Israeli attack and the systematic and industrialised extermination of Jews during the holocaust, beyond its appalling inaccuracy (was the invasion of Iraq a "holocaust"?), feeds into this.

Against this background, internationalists always have an important role to play. At every instance, we must plainly and clearly state that solidarity with the victims of war as real concrete human beings does not mean solidarity with capitalist factions in a war from which they seek to benefit, does not mean supporting a cross-class, abstract national collective and its ethnic “rights” to lands, and does not mean abandoning coherence to support a victory for a facile “anti-imperialism”. The defense of clear internationalist positions against leftist hysteria is of vital importance. It is for the benefit of those drawn into the demonstrations out of disgust at the attack on Israel, but repulsed by the hypocrisy of claiming to be anti-war whilst supporting one of the sides in it.

Django, 18/01/2009