Frequently Asked Questions
In no particular order…
“Who are you lot then?”
We (Muntjac Collective) are a group of Asian & Black working class [1] and lumpen [2] anarchists [3] in diaspora across the “UK”, we came together after defending ourselves during the fascist pogroms in the summer of 2024, we recognized the shortcomings of the anarchist & global majority [4] abolitionist mediascape(s) and decided to make a publication, publishing house, print shop, blog and network by and for people like us.
We, as individuals, are involved in many branches of the anarchist & abolitionist movement(s) and recognize a need to confront the sexism, racism, political “color blindness” [5], zionism, class reductionism [6], transphobia and pacifism [7] in the anarchist movement and the sexism, authoritarianism, assimilationist politics, nationalism and conservatism in the Asian & Black diaspora “radical” political sphere.
Furthermore (as many people have asked this) many of us are disabled and the majority of us are Queer.[8]
As far as we can tell, we are the UK’s only public Global Majority explicitly anarchist organisation, one of two in all of western europe along with POC Bats in the Netherlands being the other one. It’s rough out here.
However, we don’t want to give anyone the impression that we’re “the” voice of anti-assimilationist racialized people in this country, there are dozens, we just want to amplify them much louder.
“What’s on the website?”
Everything, hopefully..
On the right hand side of every page is our sidebar with our email address, mailing address, searchbar, linktree, cool quote from ancestor Lucy Parsons and our logo.
Recent Posts: Articles in a big feed you can slowly crawl through.
Articles: Articles in a list you can quickly go through.
Magazine: Each issue of the magazine, in all its printable formats.
Submissions: Parameters for submitting articles to the magazine, with specific instructions which vary from issue to issue.
Zines: All of our zines, downloadable and printable.
FAQ: The page you’re on right now.
Stockists: Everyone who stocks the magazine so far, please contact us if you want to join the ranks of these wonderful people.
Fellow Travelers: Other projects we enjoy.
Solidarity With The Sudanese Anarchist Gathering: About the ongoing fundraiser for SAG and our archive of materials on the Sudanese revolution and Sudanese Anarchism.
P.S. If the website looks a bit awkward and you want it more simplified, press F9 on a computer and you’ll enter the reader view.
“Why Call It ‘Muntjac’?”
The Muntjac deer is an (adorable) “Invasive Species” of deer to Britain, brought here from the colonies by some rich fuck heads who wanted to shoot them for fun and they escaped, just like us eh’.
“What does ‘4th World’ mean?”
We are still in a friendly debate about how wholeheartedly we embrace the term/concept but “Fourth world” can be defined as “Subpopulations existing in a First World country, but with the living standards of those in a third world, or developing country.” This piece I just ripped off verbatim does a better job of explaining.
“Are you *politically* Black?”
No, we feel that this had its historic use but it is no longer useful and we don’t identify with it. Several of us are, however, actually Black.
“Are you lot fuckin’ maoists or something?”
No, we are anarchists. We’re not nationalists or separatists either.
“Can white people read Muntjac?”
This is a fun one… We don’t care what white people do with the stuff we make, we expect other groups including white ones will want to print zines we make and that’s fine, white people can read or print the magazine too, no issues! Just we’d rather white people don’t make huge loads of money off of selling it and if you do, maybe give us some, as a treat?
“How Can I Support Muntjac?”
Buy/Subscribe to the magazine. [KO-FI]
Write/Design for us. [SUBMISSIONS PAGE]
Distribute our publications and tell us about it.
Let’s collaborate, if you’re a group of global majority anti-authoritarians and you want support for your project, we’re all ears.
Join us.
“Can I Join Muntjac?”
Yes, if you’re a working class or lumpen global majority anarchist writer, poet or artist.
There is no obligation to constantly contribute time to the project, however it’s polite to keep the rest of the group informed if you’re burnt out or need a break, we’ll remove you from the group if we don’t hear from you for a long time, though you can of course keep us updated to prevent this or re-apply afterwards. Most of us are ‘Activists’ in the sense that we’ve all witnessed and experienced the cycles of burnout and none of us are rich enough to be full time activists. We are an open group but joining requires you go through our onboarding process (we add you to a signal group and ask you loaded questions as a vibe check) but after that you’re one of the deer tbh.
There’s no ‘leadership’, ‘central committee’ or ‘lead editor’, everyone just chips in depending on how much they can be bothered. Some of us are ex-members of the UK’s many failed Black or Asian anarchist orgs and we know the pain of struggling against the grain.
To apply, send us an email about what yourself, what you like doing and what you’d like to help us with to get started. It doesn’t matter what kind of anarchist you are, be that Platformist, Syndicalist, Insurrecto, Nihlist, whatever as long as you’re not a fuckin’ anarcho-terf.
One large stipulation is that due to the nature of the project (since it includes handling money & addresses), IRL direct action type shit needs to be arranged elsewhere, we have no intention of putting demos on as Muntjac as its an entirely different can of worms to making zines, media and a magazine.
P.S. We don’t demand new members tell us which race of specific ethnic group we’re in.
“How does Muntjac work??”
We are all volunteers, we aren’t a ‘proper’ NGO or a political party and as such we don’t have the money to pay ourselves, however it is a long term goal to get enough subscribers to consistently pay authors and artists who work on the magazine.
We’re not just comrades we’re also friends (how undisciplined!!) so we go to gigs, events and for food with each other. We’re not keen on becoming the fucking Situationists, so obssessed with being correct that we alienate eachother and the people around us nor do we want to end up like the racialized though there are of course, hardlines that most of the radical movement(s) have crossed for us and thus we are beefing with several groups.
All of our media is anti-copyright and to fund the print side of the project we sell zines and other bits to keep us in ink and paper, we’ve decentralized our printing to a handful of members who have printers, lots of us show up at from time to time all over the country, if you want us to come to something you’re doing, get in touch.
Notes / Jargon Buster
[1] Working Class, people in a capitalist society who have to sell their labor for wages from their employer to make ends meet.
[2] Lumpen, a marxist-derived term that we use to refer to the underemployed, sex workers, housing insecure, homeless and other “criminal” people who wouldn’t normally be considered working class by your average trade unionist.
[3] Anarchism is a (anti)political and social movement, lens of analysis and way of life based on the principles of Direct Action, Solidarity, Accountability and Mutual Aid. We share a hatred for this world, its defenders and its false critics. As such we do not support capitalism*, any state**, nor its police, including the peace police. Anarchists (at least, the ones worth speaking to) reject all authority and try to organise their lives in a way that prevents the creation of hierarchical, domineering relationships between people.
[4] Global Majority here refers to the people(s) who make up the majority of the world’s population, i.e. everyone but white people. We use this term as the term POC is too mechanical plus it’s not actually used in this country.
[5] While we recognize that race is a social construct based on colonial nonsense, people are affected by racial dynamics in real life and thus we struggle to support people against state and extra-state racism, with the history of British Unions being outwardly racist, anyone with an even remote interest in antiracism would recognize this, but they don’t…
[6] Many “anarchists” claim that there is no real political ground to fight on besides class struggle which is tripe if you’ve ever had as much racism as we’ve all had from white leftists and anarchists.
[7] Pacifism is a counterinsurgent tactic, constantly forced down the throat of racialized people as the part of the whitewashing of our radical histories, the worst part is that in Britain this logic has penetrated so far that many “anarchists” actually think you’re a cop if you do something “violent” in a protest context.
Further reading: https://www.indigenousaction.org/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/smash-pacifism-zine.pdf
[8] Queer, a reclaimed slur for LGBTQIA+ people who reject allocishetropatriachal ideals and norms.
*Capitalism, an economic system in which people are exploited in exchange for access to commodities bought and sold through the doctrines of the market, private property or state ownership. Property being owned by the state is fundamentally the same as property being owned by the ruling class privately as the state then becomes the new ruling class. The logic of Capitalism also seeks to commodity everything, even beyond commodities such as; relationships between people, knowledge and access to
** The State, an organisation with a monopoly on the ‘legitimate’ use of violence over a given territory. In Britain, the state is the Police, Security Apparatus and the Armed Forces.