muntjac – Page 9 – Muntjac Magazine

Free Association of Autonomous Fire – ACTION CLAIM FOR NIKOS ROMANOS AND SIDIQ/AND ALL THOSE WHO WERE KILLED BY COPS/BANDUNG

Posted on 14/12/2024 by muntjac

DITERIMA DARI SITUS anarchistnews org

ACTION CLAIM FOR NIKOS ROMANOS AND SIDIQ/AND ALL THOSE WHO WERE KILLED BY COPS/BANDUNG

We claim that the attack and arson of a police post in Bandung, West Java on December 13, 2024 coincided with World Anti-Police Day. This attack and arson is in solidarity with our imprisoned comrade Nikos Romanos, as well as Sidiq and all imprisoned anarchists. This attack is also in solidarity with the victims of police brutality who have lost their lives all over the world and in this fascist country. Police agencies will never disintegrate on their own just like the state, they must be destroyed!

Until all are free!
Until all prisons are destroyed!
Fire on the prisons!

Free Association of Autonomous Fire

______________________________________________________

Kita mengklaim aksi penyerangan serta pembakaran terhadap pos polisi di daerah Bandung, Jawa Barat pada tanggal 13 desember 2024 bertepatan dengan hari anti polisi sedunia. Tak lupa penyerangan dan pembakaran ini adalah bentuk solidaritas untuk kawan kami Nikos Romanos yg terpenjara, juga Sidiq dan semua anarkis yg terpenjara. Penyerangan ini juga ditujukan untuk solidaritas kepada korban kebrutalan polisi yg telah memakan korban jiwa di seluruh dunia dan di negara fasis ini. Badan kepolisian tidak akan pernah hancur dengan sendirinya sama seperti negara, mereka harus dihancurkan!

Sampai semua bebas!
Sampai semua penjara hancur!
Api ke penjara!

Free Association of Autonomous Fire

poet of da soil – A 4TH WORLD INNA BABYLON

Posted on 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Issue 1 of Muntjac Magazine

4TH WORLD – “Subpopulations existing in a First World country, but with the living standards of those in a third world, or developing country.” – read An introduction to the 4th World by MerriCatherine and Kiksuya Khola

(make maps out of tha ashes – tha ancestors guide us)

i can tell u what we remember:

a friend recounting how they watched riots on the news at 10 years old

asked their mum if they could go

they had a lot to be angry about

and we have a lot to be angry about

mark duggan made london, liverpool, nottingham, bristol and gloucester burn

niggas who brought babylon 2 its knees

and they remember

and they’re afraid

its why no matter what u vote these parties all hate immigrants

its why you’ll see TSG vans at every rally

and citizenship don’t mean anything when they can remove it

the easiest way 2 find out if you’re british is tha colour of your skin

babylon law codifies white civility in stone

and whoever diverges knows how cruel a state can be

council estates turned penitentiaries

mosques declared training grounds for jihadists

but when it comes 2 terror

what is terror if not august race riots and bibby stockholm

if not PREVENT harassing children

And 1 in 5 BLK mothers dying

And BLK kids are 4x more likely 2 be sexually assaulted strip searched

because NHS and Met Police aint 2 different from EDL

white supremacy coats every breath we take on dis island

but think back

think back

2011 – 1985 – 2001 – 1981

every flame is purifying

1976 carnivals they made pigs scatta by chanting soweto

time 2 make pigs scatta by chanting harehills and moss side

by chanting brixton and barking

chanting peckham and palestine

tower hamlets and haiti

croydon and congo

postcolonial peoples

chanting world black revolution

and fourth world uprising

fourth world(?)

third world oppressions as a first world problem

every european country with a black underclass

babylon and that muslim underclass

Tha kweer niggas that know refuge in the crevices of the third world/swimming around tha murky banks of britan

those living and breathing in peripheries of tha belly

tha estates that be

concentration camp/holy ground/slave revolt ground zero all in one

every school in the ends a pipeline 2 prison

tha ppl called terrorist or criminal

we be fourth world – tryna end tha first world

trapped inside internal colonies

while our motherlands celebrate independence(?) days

postcolonial peoples who reject white saviours

the only gods we know are our hands

solidarity is awkward but tha yutes know it best

we be tha ones that makes devils scatta be it 2011 or 2024

tha real anti-fascists – tha trotskyists could neva

we be fourth world – tryna end tha first world

the only one we know

poet of da soil is a Black queer muslim poet and abolitionist, you can read more of their writings at substack.com/@poetwav

Ektin Ekdo – Do we want to protect each other, or just ourselves?

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 28/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

Do we want to protect each other, or just ourselves?

The question comes as a comrade writes:

There has never been an anti-colonial movement in Britain from colonised people.

Uprisings, sure. Fleeting moments with little support to be found from The Movement .

“No Justice, No Peace” heard on the same streets where those in power continue to deal out injustice, in peace

Keep your head down, stay out of trouble and you’ll do well.

A lonely fascist surrounded by 200 anti-fascists, says someone unaffected by the uniformed fascists between the anti-fascists & the ‘lonely’ fascist.

“There’s security here and I don’t even know who they are!” proudly exclaimed by a community ‘anti-fascist’ organiser.

A protest steward faces a crowd of de-arresters, tells them solemnly tells them that the police won’t take anyone away

A van drives off with a minor in-tow

Instead of seeding you’ve been ceding and now there’s no land left to grow

or go to

“I abhor all violence” said only in reaction to retaliation and uprisings from below

“This will only make us look bad” say those who have more than enough power to change what looks bad

Who is us, anyway?

People who love britain, but abhor fascism? A vile contradiction at best.

Discomfort grows, alongside avoidance.

Conflict continues regardless.

In a world full of still violences, willingness and determination to distance yourself from violence won’t save you, but it’s easy and comforting to be a pacifist when violence is distant.

Community is as necessary as it is messy. Civility it is not. Militancy it contains.

There are communities beyond what is state-sanctioned or acceptable.

Will we stand on what we mean, or will we muddy things for personal gain, comfort?

If you let your enemies/adversaries or even the people you are trying to move decide or guide your tactics, then who is winning?

“What and who are you trying to save?”

If you are speaking for yourself, speak for yourself

Do not speak to condemn me for things you are unwilling to do

Do we want to protect each other, or just ourselves (and britishness, inexplicably)?

Sunwo – Against Black Britishness

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 20/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

For a country partly responsible for spreading ideas like nationalism across the globe, Britishness is not just a badge—it is a mechanism of control. To be “black” in Britain, then, should be a negation of coloniality. Yet, the lack of continuity in the decolonial struggle within the heart of the colonial core has created a form of cultural amnesia. Our people’s came here seeking liberation from the chains of colonialism, dreaming of a better life. But in doing so, they were forced into a new form of intercolonialism. Now, we wrestle with the impossible task of fitting into a culture that negates our very existence and liberation.

What does it mean to be captured, to be colonised inside the heart of the empire?

Black people in Britain experience systemic oppression at every level. We are the least employed, the least paid, and we hold the least significant positions of power. The rare exceptions, the tokens, have climbed up by bootlicking their way in to the system. We are disproportionately incarcerated, and when sentenced, we face harsher punishments for the same crimes committed by our white counterparts. The system is designed to push us into poverty and then criminalises us for it.

The healthcare system, too, reflects this systemic neglect. We experience the worst health outcomes and receive the poorest treatments. Our communities are ravaged by a combination of structural inequality and outright hostility. And yet, many of us cling to the dream of “success” within this system—a dream that ultimately requires us to work for the very state that oppresses us. Success in this system, for Black people, can only mean subjugation.

The Lessons of Windrush

The history of Black people on this island is a history of exploitation. Our relationship with the British state is defined by labour: we were brought here to serve the dying empire. The Windrush generation should serve as a lesson in how we are used. They came to rebuild Britain after the war, only to face hostility, deportation, and betrayal.

Today, we see the same pattern in the legally sanctioned immigration of African health and care workers. They are brought here under unequal terms, with limited rights to stay and build a life. Their purpose is clear: to prop up a crumbling system. This unequal exchange, this intercolonial migration, reflects the ongoing exploitation of Black labor to delay the collapse of British society.

Against Britishness

Black people must reject Britishness as a core identity. It should exist only as a condition for administrative purposes—a recognition of the reality we must navigate. But we cannot allow it to define us. To accept Black Britishness is to fall into the same traps as Black Americans, who have been isolated by nationalism. American Blackness, forged in the crucible of reactionary patriotism, has become complicit in imperialism. This “imperial Blackness” serves the empire rather than resisting it.

Instead, we must imagine and fight for an anarchic, liberatory Blackness. This is a Blackness that transcends borders, a Blackness that resists the conditions of oppression affecting Black people worldwide. It must be rooted in solidarity with the diaspora—connecting not just African descendants but all Black people subjected to colonial violence, from the Caribbean to the Pacific.

Toward a Liberatory Future

To build this liberatory Blackness, we must focus on radical cultural and political practices that reject assimilation into colonial systems. This means organising through autonomous horizontal formations that coordinate locally and internationally, sharing radical histories, ideas, and strategies. It means rejecting nationalism and imperialism in all forms.

Our struggle must be insurrectionary and disruptive. We must engage in direct action, mutual aid, and self-organisation. Only through resisting are we going to overcome the forces that seek to isolate and oppress us.

Anti-colonial struggle must be fought within the colonial core itself. The crimes of this country—the systemic exploitation, the racism, the xenophobia—can only be addressed through the collapse of the empire that created them. We cannot reform an empire; we must dismantle it.

For Black people in Britain, liberation cannot come through Britishness. It can only come through the rejection of empire, the rejection of borders, and the creation of a radical, borderless solidarity.

p.n. – AN ARTIST LOADS THE GUN

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

1.

To the White Creative Residency Facilitators and Slightly Less White Residency Cohort at 56A Infoshop, Understand that this letter is not a pleading missive intended to change your hearts and minds but is a form that lets me use the accusatory ‘you.’

Those of you who make claims upon radical pedagogy and anarchism, openness and discomfort, care and complaint: why do you normalise colonialism by prioritising the comfort of israelis?

Why did you feel the need to collectively waft soothing noises at one person who cried over a ‘Globalise the Intifada’ zine and was frightened by the phrase ‘From the river to the sea’? When this person complained it was easier to say they were argentinian rather than israeli in certain spaces, I heard someone say ‘I bet!’ in reassuring tones. I wonder what possessed them. Why did you take pains to reassuringly say that israelis are welcome in that space and that “we” were behind them 100%? Why did you appear so very sure that everyone in the room thought with one mind, one heart?

Distantly through my rage I heard someone say that she ‘did not have black and white thoughts on what was unfolding’, with a little hiatus near the end of that sentence, and I wonder: what values and relations did you think that space was capable of supporting? One that refuses to name genocide and whiteness, it seems. It is therefore unsurprising that people were willing to make expressions of anti-colonial resistance into a problem, rather than be accountable to the Palestinian struggle.

We were all in that same room at that moment, which I acknowledge was abrupt. I understand responding under pressure is difficult. However, you cannot simply explain this fulsome affirmation from the whole group as merely an imperfect stress response, a poorly thought-out and emotional moment in group dynamics. I believe what I witnessed was a severing of politics from care where the group defaulted to comforting someone who should have been further challenged. Perhaps you refused to create this challenge because you think of yourselves as nice people: I have no such delusions about myself.

I needed to leave the room in order to interrupt this moment. I just said, ‘I’m out.’ I got up and walked away.

With comical timing, one of the white facilitators called out to my retreating back– ‘I think we can still hold space for this!’

For what? For whom? A white colonist throwing a tantrum is by definition refusing to hold space for anything else.

The only space I am holding is for Palestine and all colonised peoples of the world, and I find in June Jordan’s words a ballast:

YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I COMMIT

TO FRICTION AND THE UNDERTAKING

OF THE PEARL

– Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.

I am curious about whether you think the cause of Palestine, and by extension the struggle of all colonised peoples across the world, is merely your little branding exercise. Do you understand the necessity of actively refusing cultural or material complicity in zionism and any other form of racism? Anyone may wear a cute little Palestine badge and go on an A-to-B march while avoiding any critical self-reflection about how to relate to the colonised world and its peoples, I suppose for fear of “black-and-white thoughts” that may result in the political discernment required to see zionism for what it is and reject it instantly.

This was a situation that required a refusal of the nonviolent communication we had just been practising. Those rules don’t apply in this situation as all forms of white supremacy must be run out of our spaces, not coddled and validated. Refusing to understand that white supremacy currently takes the form of a multicultural project which is sustained through the active invitation of racialised and ethnicised people is what underlies this normalisation of zionism in social spaces.

We must contextualise israeli identity as we do british, american, australian, and other colonial identity categories. If we see zionism as colonialism and adherence to colonialism as a form of whiteness (no matter the identity of the speaker), then this allows us to see the shocking amount of racism permeating our spaces. The tools, tactics, and emotions are familiar to many of us: upon encountering anything critical of the colonial project with which these people still deeply identify, they cry white tears, centre themselves, act like the victim, whine about being unfairly judged, and insist they have reason to fear for their safety while everyone else in the room sits in quiet sympathy. This normalises colonialism by reproducing the idea that “both sides” just need to come together and talk because everyone’s feelings are equally valid, or whatever vapid bullshit liberals throw out like a cosy blanket over their desire for order and quiet.

In the case of liberal zionists, their vision of “peace” is merely a more capacious settler colony, a continued apartheid (“two-state solution”) that gives up the majority of historic Palestine to israel, a generosity that allows Palestinians–disarmed, docile, grateful–to live in bantustans. Too many people only object to zionism in its specifically Kahanist form, an overt and gleeful desire to exterminate Palestinian existence through blunt violence. Liberal zionists who are “anti-occupation” / “pro-peace” / [dove emoji] but who mainly mobilise through photo-op demos and saturating the discourse with their complaints about how they feel unfairly targeted for criticism, who analyse everything through internal israeli politics, who fear anything but the most placatory and normalising gestures from Palestinians and their supporters, are very much zionists. They’re just being wet about it.

But look at the kind of moment saying something wet engenders: a collective betrayal of anti-colonial values in response to one person crying. You were quickly disarmed by the liberal zionist weapon of choice: the tearful declaration that they are being attacked–that actually, this moment is all about them and their feelings!

Though I am an anxious person who often freezes up, I knew where my comrades were: outside of this room full of people who think Palestinian life is worth less than a moment of their discomfort.

I give you my absence and ask what you think could take its place.

2.

‘Art-making: not as a leisure activity, solely or simply an expression of self, but as the most important medium that we have to communicate. Art-making which hides the seeds of how to be a human stitch in the tapestry again, passed for safe-keeping in the hands of our indigenous. Art-making as a means to mobilize the weapon. If armed struggle is the first action of finding a world beyond colonization, beyond what we can see, culture loads the gun. The role of the artist is to load the gun.’

– Ismatu Gwendolyn, ‘The Role of the Artist is to Load the Gun’

ismatu.substack.com/p/the-role-of-the-artist-is-to-load (shared via Isabella K.)

You, the residency cohort, will be sharing your work in the middle of December 2024. You, who welcome the coloniser; you, with no black and white feelings; you, who sit quietly and nod your head.

I wonder what kind of art you thought was possible under such conditions. How can you make art which engages with ownership, property, and social relations of the local area when you have decided that colonial comfort, with its funhouse mirror distortions, is more appealing? I bet you can’t even see your own faces, blurred and reflected; I bet you insist that it’s different–it’s different!–because you don’t want to think on your own complicity. How can you speak of magic, play, and care when it’s obvious your imaginations are blank due to your predictable willingness to placate racist fragility? What is anarchist about any of this? You are in lockstep with the state as you jingle across the floor with your jester’s hat.

‘So watch your treasures closely. Because we refuse your culture. No sonnets but shouts of “SHAME!” at you from across the street. No stinging critique, but the sting of the Wasp’s Nest. No lionising the powerful, but rather the roar of the Lion’s Den. And when you are dead, no portraits await you, only us performing Piss Aktion on your grave.’

– Ravachol Mutt, ‘Destruction is the only cultural expression left’ newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/destruction-is-the-only-cultural-expression-left

This is a peer critique. The disruption that Ravachol Mutt calls for is sorely needed in grassroots cultural spaces: these, too, can be hegemonic. They’re smaller, less bureaucratic, the stakes are lower–and that is exactly why it’s more disappointing when people refuse to take risks and cling to what the ruling class wants us to consider normal. Yes, wipe away the coloniser’s tears and reassure them! You’ve just repackaged the same old respectability and whiteness.

I believe we should communicate more violently against colonisation. The failure to do so means our social spaces become like any other: centres for reproducing bourgeois colonial cultural norms. The white anarchist, then, merely becomes a whimsical academic or single-issue reactionary, each in their own way nostalgic for something more interesting than our current modernity, which is harsh, extractive, grey, corporate. It seems their vision of a changed world is a liberal capitalist garden city in western europe, but with improved art schools. How our current modernity and all its objects and relations are nourished through centuries of stolen colonial resources and labour–that is to say, of finely ground human and non-human lives–is not something which figures in their analysis. If we really come down to it, white anarchists are mostly fine with this fundamental structure of their world; they just wish it was all a bit nicer for them (or at least less embarrassing).

So it is no surprise that when the colonised subject revolts, certain white anarchists respond with horror, sympathy, comfort-seeking. Decolonial insurgency is not a viable political consciousness for them. If people they see as fellow whites take up armed resistance, it is only their right: racial solidarity is naturalised. For anyone else, it’s barbaric. The West and the rest has never been so clear.

Wherever you are, and by whatever means necessary, may a thousand intifadas bloom!

3.

to m.,

thank you dear comrade–if u had not left that zine at the infoshop back then, i would not have known i needed to walk out of it the following month.

in steadfast solidarity with all colonised peoples of the world,

Zhachev – Please Stop Demonizing Militancy

Posted on 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine, Issue 1

“The rifle has revealed itself, but the lion has not.”

— “Tallat el Baroudeh”, Palestinian folk song

The phenomenon of militancy is shrouded in controversy and misconception. Upon closer examination, the context in which militancy generates and emerges reveals a complex web of factors that contribute to its presence. The erosion of traditional ways of life, the global imposition of Western cultural values, broad economic disparity, social marginalization, and disruption of social norms can and often do all play a role in shaping the dynamics that sustain militancy. Engaging in armed struggle, militants are not only fulfilling social obligations to protect their people and preserve their culture, but they are also self-asserting a reconstituted subjectivity, a militant individuality, actualizing their unlimited potential as creative individuals, becoming unmoored from the mires of resentment, through action.

The militant individual is often one who has experienced either a strict limitation or a total denial of their individual subjectivity. This suspension can stem from a variety of sources, including: traumatic experiences, societal expectations, cultural norms, political regimes, and many more. In some cases, the sense of self of the militant is forged in opposition to historical realities and other definitive constraints, some or all of which may be imposed upon them non-consensually. This leads to deep-seated resentment and desire for resistance. The experience of external restraint can also be internalized, with individuals being socialized to conform to certain societal norms and expectations. The pressure to adhere to these norms can be overwhelming, leading to feelings of suffocation, and a desperation for change. The desire of the militant for self-affirmation, self-expression—for autopoiesis—becomes a means of reclamation, a means of asserting their desires, existence, and individuality.

In some cases, the experience of limitation can be particularly acute, like in situations where certain groups or communities are extremely marginalized and repressed. The sense of self of militant individuals might also be shaped by things like the struggle for simple recognition, or a chance at prosperity, as they seek to challenge the dominant culture and societal structures that attempt to silence and erase their voices.

The desire of the militant individual for autopoiesis and free expression is often driven by an intense sense of urgency, as they recognize that time is never in their favor in life, and that any opportunity to assert individuality is likely to be fleeting. This sense of urgency can manifest in a variety of ways, from spontaneous outbursts, to acts of civil disobedience, and even to more focused and deadly forms of violence.

Ultimately, the desire of the individual for self-expression and autopoiesis is an all-too-human desire, one that cannot ever be completely silenced or suppressed, and by extension the same can be said about militancy. It is at the barest a cry for recognition, a demand for dignity, a command to be heard and seen as an individual with potentiality and subjectivity, no matter how different or unique.

The desire of the individual for autopoiesis and self-expression, especially through armed conflict, is not only part of the personal journey and development of the militant individual, but a fundamental requirement for the survival and cohesion of the larger group. In many traditional and tribal communities, armed struggle and conflict are seen as a necessary means of maintaining and ensuring the well-being of all individual members of the community. Armed struggle serves as a way to resolve disputes, redistribute resources, and reconstitute social bonds. In many societies (especially those originating prior to the era of modern, mechanized, total war), warfare is not simply a brutal and destructive act, but rather a crucial mechanism for maintaining social harmony and equilibrium. It allows for the release of tensions and pent-up energies, and provides opportunities for individuals to distinguish themselves through bravery, skill, speed, and cunning, with those who demonstrate exceptional prowess in battle earning the favor and admiration of other individuals within their community. At times, armed struggle also serves as a way to define (or usurp) social roles and hierarchies within certain communities, by community members. Armed struggle is a means of creating shared experiences and memories which often end up binding communities together and sometimes even defining communities and their trajectories. The collective trauma and suffering inflicted during conflict can create a sense of solidarity and mutual understanding among individual members of a community, as they come together to mourn their loses and rebuild their lives. In this way, armed struggle can also be a catalyst for social cohesion, rather than only a destructive force and cycle of retribution that simply tears communities apart.

The militant individual is not merely an aberrant or deviant figure, not a “villain”, but rather an unextinguishable component of the human social fabric. The desire for autonomy and self-expression is not a personal whim, nor a simple act of spite, but instead, sometimes a necessary condition for the survival and flourishing of a people.

Zhachev

Zhachev is a 35 year-old Palestinian born in exile in the southeastern United States. He currently lives and writes from the southern Blue Ridge Mountains. substack.com/@zhachev

Harrow Antifascists – Report back from Harrow 07.08.24

Posted on 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This article was features in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

Around 400 anti racists came out last night in North Harrow while the fascist rioters failed to show up at their announced location. If they had shown up they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Around 100 people joined a protest with speeches and chants called by the local TUC, PSC & Counterfire. On the other side of the junction around 300 people lined every shop in the high street as part of a community defence group put together at 2 days notice. All of the local man dem came out and stood alongside the shopkeepers. There was a very strong turnout from the local Tamil community as well as brothers from Mahfil Ali Mosque and many Hindus and Sikhs coming out in unity and the community defence stayed out long after the protest finished. Many of us planned to travel to Brentford or Hounslow if fash didn’t turn up, but they failed to show up there as well! There was a huge sense of joy among everyone there that our community had come out in such numbers and represented, and that the racist riots we’ve seen across the country weren’t happening on our patch.

The protest was mostly white and the Community defence was mostly Black and Asian but the whole community was united. Only a handful of people linked to the activist scene travelled from other parts of london to support and their support was very much appreciated. This is because most people from the scene were in areas closer to them like Finchley, Walthamstow, Stokey and Croydon, and people up for travelling north west mostly decided to go to Brentford instead where numbers were more needed. Elsewhere in Harrow over 100 brothers stood guard around Harrow Central Mosque late into the night and the fascists came nowhere near.

Unable to have a mob riot the local fash have resorted to tactics they’re describing as “guerrilla warfare”. Reports have been coming in the past few days of a liquid being thown on a hijabi women by a white man which may have been acid, cars of white people driving round shouting racist abuse and death threats at POC, bottles thrown over the fence of a school holding a summer camp and a white van driving around Wembley with a man throwing acid at Muslim women, white men in balaclavas being arrested by police in Harrow on their way to riot and an Indian student fatally stabbed in a possible racist attack. The school has been contacted and confirmed there was an incident, other reports such as fighting in Wealdstone are unconfirmed and can fly around at these times but we know what is taking place.

Aside from a handful of potential spotters and livestreamers too frightened to film, a Hindutva fascist and confused desi Tommy Robinson supporter called Tirbhuwan Chauhan showed up, and a lone polish fascist started shouting racist abuse in the middle of the crowed and stamped on the foot of a man with his leg in a cast before the fascist was rescued by police. But instead of arresting him the police guarded him in numbers before bundling him away into a getaway car. Another car drove past and a racist punched a protester out the car window before speeding off but the police did nothing about this. Instead the police decided to focus on trying to enforce the section 60 they’d put in place and harass anti racists into removing their face coverings. The police couldn’t get their heads around the fact that the section of society they’re so used to criminalising and stereotyping were the ones who were out to protect our community and prevent a riot. However people looked out for each other and refused to remove our face coverings and despite threats, the police failed to arrest any anti-racists or enforce the section 60.

Violent riots nationwide, co ordinated racist attacks by lone individuals and small groups and arson attacks on homes aimed at massacring or expelling ethnic and religious minority groups is the definition of a pogrom. The anger of the racists has been stirred up by the lies of the media, influencers and politicians from New Labour, the tories and the far right, looking to scapegoat and distract from the oppression of the entire working class by our ruling elite. If Keir Starmer now goes ahead with his planned sweep of mass immigration raids then he will be rewarding the racist rioters, showing them their actions lead to results, and ordering the mechanisms of the state to take part in the pogrom and expulsion of the most oppressed and targeted section of our society. For now our mass community resistance nationwide may have halted the riots but we may need to utilise our networks and come out with the same strength to stop the colonial racist state from launching deportations and carrying on the pogrom of the racist rioters.

This was written by a member of Harrow Antifascists, a community based anti fascist network which helped organise the local defence group who came out on in anticipation for attacks by fascists. This was first published on the Inquilab blog.

Simoun Magsalin – Notes towards a Decolonial Anarchism for those Neither Indigenous nor Settler

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This essay was featured in issue 1 of Muntjac Magazine

In the archipelago so-called as the “Philippines,” the anarchism of the older milieu characterize their anarchism in terms of indigeneity and decoloniality. This milieu, represented by their foremost theorist Bas Umali, appropriate indigeneity and combine it with primitivism and deep ecology. As Umali says,

> Decolonial processes do not tell you to adopt indigenous culture, but they do not stop you from doing so either. The most essential in this process is awareness. If someone takes action it should be their decision. (*Pangayaw and Decolonizing Resistance*, 2020)

As such, this milieu believes that they are entitled to Indigenous culture by virtue of having descended from indigenous ancestors. This is not without controversy. A comrade of mine criticizes this line of thinking saying that this appropriation of indigeneity is unjust, especially given that Umali’s book profited off Indigenous culture without bringing it back to Indigenous communities. In this I agree, but what was more thought-provoking was how they initially characterized Bas Umali as a settler.

Now wait a minute, Bas Umali, like myself and many others, are Manileño, that is, we live in Metro Manila. The Philippines *does* have settler colonies in many places in Mindanao and the Cordilleras, but Manila *itself* has no Indigenous people on its land. Or perhaps to say it in another way, the indigenous peoples of what would become Manila were systematically colonized and have become alienated from their relationship to the land. Indigeneity is first and foremost a social relationship to land and colonization. Indigenous peoples continue to exist in the Philippines, and they exist in relation to colonization by Filipinos. But what are most Filipinos if we’re neither Indigenous nor settler? Clumsy importation of American terminology cannot do for our purposes.

Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit: Who in the Philippines are Indigenous and who are settlers? Perhaps more than fourteen million Indigenous peoples live in the Philippines subdivided into more than a hundred languages. Many of these Indigenous peoples live on their ancestral domains, have a connection to their land, and are actively still threatened by continuing colonization that threatens their lives, cultures, and lands. Many of these Indigenous peoples live alongside Filipino (Christian) settlers from elsewhere in the country. These settlers may perhaps be Ilocanos and Tagalogs gentrifying Baguio and its environs, or perhaps Ilonggo or Visayan settlers in Mindanao. These settlers are unambiguously settler-colonial, their settlement as a project of state-building to settle “Christian” Filipinos across unruly and untamed frontiers by the Spanish, American, and later post-colonial state apparatuses. Settler colonialism also played a part in defeating the first communist insurgency: rebels were offered free land to settle in Mindanao where they became the shock troops for genocide and state-building, especially against Moro (Muslim) and Lumad (neither Christian nor Muslim) peoples and tribes.

With those who have clear positions social relations of Indigeneity and settler colonialism, identifying settlers and Indigenous communities are somewhat clear. But what about me and many other Filipinos whose ancestors *were* indigenous but have become Christianized and colonized?

I posit that most of us so-called Filipinos are post-colonized subjects, specifically *post-colonized creoles*. We bear the trauma of colonization in our collective memory and even in our mixed blood. We are not wholesale colonizers like White people, but we are not Indigenous either. Although this does not mean that post-colonized creoles do not have the capacity to *become* settlers—we absolutely can when we enter in a colonizing social relation with Indigenous peoples such as being settlers in Indigenous land like with Christian settlers in Mindanao or in the Cordilleras. But the point is that we are also not colonized to the same extent as Indigenous communities. In places such as Metro Manila where there are no Indigenous communities, however, we cannot characterize ourselves as settlers without being in relation to Indigenous communities.

As post-colonized creoles, we cannot posit Indigenous anarchisms. By extension, Bas Umali cannot posit an Indigenous anarchism by virtue of a colonized ancestry. While his concept of *pangayaw* is rooted in Indigeneity, my comrade noted Bas Umali is still divorced from an Indigenous context and takes *pangayaw* from Indigenous cultures without giving back to Indigenous communities. (This, however, does not invalidate the value that Indigenous anarchists such as those in the Indigenous Anarchist Federation (IAF-FAI) find in Umali’s work.)

So then, what does it mean to be a post-colonized subject? What does it mean to be creole? What does anarchy look like in a post-colonial/creole context? What are the prospects of decolonization for the post-colonized creole? More than just a critique of Bas Umali’s appropriated indigeneity, these questions have serious implications for anarchism in the post-colonized and underdeveloped world, particularly for the so-called Philippines and Southeast Asia.

When in contact with Indigenous communities, creoles become settler colonists. In this sense, the ideas of decolonization as land-back is quite applicable. Decolonization in this regard is the creole respect of Indigenous lands, the cessation of colonial logic on Indigenous peoples and their lands, and recognizing Indigenous stewardship.

But outside these settler-colonial zones, what is creole decolonization? Historically speaking, creole decolonization was the transfer of sovereignty from a colonial overlord to a creole state. In the Philippines, this creole decolonization manifested when the United States of America formally gave the Philippines its autonomy and later independence. As anarchists and abolitionists, however, we recognize that the new creole state continued to reproduce many colonial institutions and features: the centralized state apparatus, the police, the prisons, the settler-colonies, the plantation logic.

Before colonization the state and its appendages simply did not exist. Creole decolonization was merely the replacement of a colonizer head with a creole head, all institutions of colonization still in place.

The project of decolonization is woefully incomplete as long as the state apparatus, creole settler-colonialism, and other colonizing patterns continues to exist. The archipelago so-called as the Philippines is not “decolonized” by virtue of having Filipinos in charge of the state— especially if we see colonization as an explicit process of state-building. In this sense, decolonization for the creoles of Metro Manila is the *undoing* of the state, *undoing* of wage-labor, the *undoing* of the police and prisons. Colonization imposed these things upon us, so decolonization means the doing away of these things. This does not mean that decolonization is the return to an Eden before colonization, which is impossible. We can never go back. Rather, decolonization is the recognition that the structures instituted by colonization are not permanent or inevitable features of society and thus struggle for a way out.

The national democrats and other leftists in the country still misunderstand what decolonization is—the undoing of what colonization did to us. They still want “national democracy,” therefore a state, police, prisons, wage-labor, all things instituted by colonization. They argue for “national liberation” of a Maoist type where the imperialists and their compradors are kicked out and a national-democratic state oversees national industrialization, with nationalized industry, wage-labor, police, prisons… Decolonization is not this or that group in charge of the state and capital.

But neither is decolonization for post-colonial creoles the appropriation of Indigeneity. Of course we need to reinstate our relationship and connection to the land and bring land-back for those who are Indigenous. Nor is decolonization *merely* our current society but without the state, wage-labor, police, prisons, et cetera, but keeping in place the anti-ecological political-economic extractivist apparatus and ways of living.

Nor is decolonization a vulgar romantic primitivism or localism. As creoles, our blood not only contains the marking of trauma, but also of cosmopolitanism. We have roots from China, America, Ilocos, Cagayan, Cebu, Zamboanga, and Manila. Decolonization in the context of this cosmopolitanism would also mean the reaffirmation of *interconnection*, especially as a hybridity liberated from the insular enclosure of borders and the nation-state system.

It is here that we can then sketch what a decolonial anarchism is for post-colonial creoles: not just the land-bank for Indigenous communities, but also liberation from the structures and institutions that colonialism has put in place and all that entails. Specifically for the Philippines and Southeast Asia, decolonial anarchism means restoring the cosmopolitanism of the sea-routes and opening the national enclosures.

Importantly, we do decolonial anarchy *as creoles* and *as post-colonized subjects*, not appropriative of Indigeneity. Our creolized cultures may have the traumatic scars of colonialism and Christianization, but it is not something *merely* the product of colonial state-building. It is also reflective of a cosmopolitan past as the gateway to China and the Americas and a resiliency of spirit that persists despite the weight of Empire upon it.

Anarchism and anarchy may have its roots in the European and Atlantic proletarian milieu, but it has walked around the world even before Lenin did. Creoles like José Rizal, Isabelo de los Reyes and Lope Santos engaged with and took bits and pieces from anarchism to inform their militancy against colonial authorities. Like how creolized colonial populations would indigenize Christianity, anarchism was similarly indigenized and creolized. Rizal would take point from the Proudhonist tradition, de los Reyes and Santos would take point from Malatesta (and Marx). Decolonial anarchism in the Philippines would mean continuing the indigenization and creolization of anarchism.

Furthermore, creolized colonial populations would practice marronage to leave the colony to create rebel peripheries free from the state. One such act of rebel marronage with the Dagohoy rebellion founded creole communities in the boondocks of Bohol that lived free from the Spanish colonial state for 75 years. Even the Maoists continue this tradition of marronage with their own rebel peripheries, though they are not without problems as they want “national democracy” with their own state.

However, sketching this decolonial anarchy on our own creole post-coloniality is not the same thing as Maoism’s and national democracy’s nationalism and desire for a national state. While we cannot, of course, dismiss nationalism out of hand, given nationalist decolonial struggles for common and communal dignity, we cannot also dismiss how leftists use it to justify right-opportunism with the ranks of the ruling class on the basis of nationalism against imperialism. This is how national democracy acted as the left wing of the Rodrigo Duterte’s fascism. Decolonial anarchism can and should be specific to context, but it must not be dazed by parochial illusions.

Decolonization for those neither Indigenous and settler in the Philippines, then, is an anarchy that is specific to our nature. It is one that is cognizant of our history and post-coloniality, one that moves beyond the nation-state system and restores the cosmopolitanism and hybridity and overcomes the parochialism of the nation. Decolonial anarchism is one indigenized and creolized to fit the specific circumstance and context of the people. Decolonial anarchy is one that works hand-in-hand for land-back for those with homelands and ancestral domains, and one that restores our relationship with the land without succumbing to appropriation.

But decolonial anarchism and anarchy is still a project in flux, not just in the Philippines, but across Southeast Asia and the global south. These notes are only one part in the continuing conversation on its indigenization and creolization.

Marion Koshy – Eulogy For Houston SRA

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

For the first time in a long time, I opened my organizing e-mail. I expected an invitation to a membership orientation for another organization, however, I received an unexpected message informing me about the shutdown of the Houston Chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association (“SRA”). A mix of emotions swept over me, but i felt some sort of sorrow. It wasn’t wholly unexpected, the chapter had been bleeding in terms of activity for over a year, and for months now, less than a handful of people attended the weekly meetings. The Chapter Central Committee had put forth a “death date” that already passed months ago, and I suspected the only reason why it came now was that everyone remotely involved in organizing in the Houston SRA finally decided to pull the trigger through a haze of burn out.

It might be a faux pas as an anarchist, specifically one that disavows left unity and is somewhat of a sectarian, to mourn the passing of a chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association. However, it was precisely because of my experience in the Houston Socialist Rifle Association that shaped me into becoming the anarchist I am today. I first hand experienced the failings of left unity, and the drawbacks of a bureaucratic socialist organization through the Houston SRA. Beyond that, I had a long history with the Socialist Rifle Association in general.

As a brown person in America, I always knew that my existence was under threat. Especially as someone who was born after 9/11, I was intimately familiar that because of my brownness, I was seen as a “terrorist”. I was one of the few South Asian students in my school, and I frequently faced verbal abuse and marginalization because I vaguely looked “middle eastern”. In fact, a common “joke” in my middle school was that I was “most likely to become a terrorist”, and this perception was not helped by my inept social skills which was significantly exacerbated by my Autism and ADHD.

This fear continued to grow when Donald Trump got elected on a platform of xenophobia. The mask fully slipped off, and it was clear that to some, in order to “Make America Great Again”, it meant “Make America White Again”. I was 14 years old at the time, and incredibly disillusioned at the time, I decided that liberalism was no longer viable politics for me. A system that fundamentally allowed open white supremacy in mainstream politics despite decades of so-called “progress” was not a system I could be invested in. I turned towards left-wing politics. I searched on the internet for spaces that embodied this new world view of mine, and I came across a few subreddits (I know, I was a redditor.), including the Socialist Rifle Association. I specifically re-call thinking to myself, “Well, if there’s a conservative organization called the ‘National Rifle Association’, there ought to be a Socialist Rifle Association.” To my surprise and excitement, I found the Socialist Rifle Association.

I followed the subreddit since then, but it was not the catalyst of my political development. That came from other conversations with likeminded people on other areas of the internet, but I still held the desire to learn self-defense from a left wing perspective. I saw posts praising community defense organizations like “Redneck Revolt”, and the thought of leftists actually fighting back against an emboldened and militarized right appealed to me immensely. I joined a Socialist Rifle Association Discord and mostly lurked there. I gleaned some perspectives on firearms and community defense from a leftist perspective, and I was happy to be in a space where self-defense against white supremacy was especially advocated.

I joined the actual Socialist Rifle Association a few years later, as soon as I turned 18. In the aftermath of the George Floyd Uprising, it felt important to be part of a space that actively taught marginalized people to defend themselves from oppression. It was almost the biggest space and most accessible space for that information. After a brief discord video interview, I joined the Houston Chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association.

Life got in the way, especially as I was starting college. I never became active until a particularly traumatic breakup, and I decided the best use of my free time was to be spent organizing. I took stock of all the leftist organizations I joined at the time, and I decided to throw myself into the Houston Chapter of the SRA.

A core memory of mine was driving nearly an hour to a gun range for a range day with some of my high school friends who were also like minded. We were some sort of affinity group and we were especially radicalized. We were all very excited, but also very scared. We were black and brown teenagers, and the day before we all went to Academy to get some ammo for the expropriated .38 Special Revolver that a friend took from his far right god father.

We were quite late to the range day, and no one was there to introduce themselves to us. The range day organizers left us to our own devices, a bunch of young black and brown teenagers, with a .38 special in a plastic bag to figure out membership. By the time we got to the range, almost everyone left. But one of the range day organizers let us shoot the last of his 9mm out of his CZ Pistol. It was my first time shooting. The gravity of the situation set in as I loaded the magazine, my hands trembling and my palms were especially clammy as I wrapped my hand around the grip. The comrade who owned the pistol casually showed me how to properly hold it, and how to properly stand. My finger pulled the metallic trigger, and a ferocious bang escaped, and I flinched greatly due to the loud sound.

There was something to be said about political power flowing out of the barrel of a gun. As the slide reset and the casing fell on the wooden range bench, I felt power coursing through my veins. I fashioned myself as a “serious revolutionary” at the time, and to me, firing that CZ was the first step to living out my beliefs. In between January 6th, the George Floyd Uprising, the Pandemic, and other developments, me and my friends felt like we were preparing to fight on the barricades. After I shot the CZ my friends took turns, flinching like I had. We also loaded the .38 special and one by one, shot the revolver. A successful range day by our metrics.

After that range day, I started regularly attending the chapter meetings. Desparate to throw myself into work, I started off as a notetaker. I apparently impressed the Chapter Central Committee with my usage of the basic Google Docs minutes sheet template, and I got ingrained into the culture of the local chapter.

I also helped set up their mutual aid distribution project. It was primarily going out to encampments and handing out supplies. We were rather inexperienced so we ended up having to carry large boxes while hopping fences, over gates, and handing out water and other supplies. We even handed out canned goods too, which reflecting back on, was well-intentioned but rather silly.

I interviewed people for the membership welfare committee, an internal body within the organization responsible for mediating disputes and ensuring that instances of racism, transphobia, and sexism didn’t occur. Despite this, there were a few occassions were such instances happened, which led to a few blowups within the org. An organization that primarily organized around firearm training unfortunately attracts leftists who never learned to shed their machismo. I remember a few confrontations in the organization over this. This experience taught me to look out for such tendencies in organizing spaces.

The stark differences in ideology within the Houston Chapter stood out as well. Everyone from anarchists, social democrats, to hardcore stalinists existed within the chapter and it was the source of a lot of contention in the organization. People often debated both in the voice chat and in the channels, and it caused further strife. Fully committed to left unity, I never participated in these discussions despite calling myself an anarchist, and I tried to be amicable with all sides.

After this, I was voted in as part of the Chapter Central Committee as Secretary. I helped organize their biweekly meetings, and started hosting range days. Despite being a full time college student, I committed to hosting biweekly range days, which helped hone my marksmanship, and I’m especially infinitely grateful for the comrades in the organization who showed me how to shoot, how to clean my guns, and overall be competent in the usage of firearms.

On a similar note, my membership in the Houston SRA helped create many long term relationships. While unfortunately, I have either lost contact, or fell out with some people, I’ve created a few long lasting relationships that exist to this day. Without the Houston SRA, I don’t think I would have been as a prolific organizer that I am today.

On a bigger note, it can be argued that the Houston SRA shares a big responsibility in the formation of SCAO. I, and a few of the members took over the Houston SRA’s unhoused distribution program, and formed Houseless Distro, creating SCAO. The lessons I learned from SRA have definitely transferred over to SCAO. To some extent, SCAO does owe part of its birth to the Houston SRA.

While I spend a lot of this eulogy talking about core memories and positive aspects of the Houston SRA, I think it’s important to note its failings. The constant infighting that happened in the Houston SRA was a product of the SRA’s inherent big tent organizational style. While other organizations such as DSA still continue to move forward in spite of its big tent model, I think that the SRA, through the nature of being an organization that organizes around firearms and self-defense, attracts dogmatic people. Furthermore, there were constant issues of machismo, and the usual instances of sexual assault and abuse, that were particularly more dangerous in the context of a firearms based organization.

The Houston SRA started dying shortly after some of its most committed members decided that the SRA was too bureaucratic, or not ideological enough for their goals. This resulted in several splits that the chapter never recovered from. While there were a few mutual aid events, or socials, or even range days, they started becoming few and far between. Personally, my observation of the conflict within the Houston SRA helped me move past big-tent politics. I also was frustrated by the constant scandals coming out of various chapters, and I decided to focus my efforts on SCAO instead.

I know a few comrades that decided to stay and try to weather the storm. Their commitment to the organization even years after peak activity in the chapter is admirable. I am especially sympathetic because they put so much time and effort to keep the chapter going. However, I think in some ways, maybe firearms advocacy on the left has evolved since then. Maybe the Socialist Rifle Association model of organizing isn’t as viable or popular as it used to be.

An unfortunate by-product of the SRA, not just the organization but its culture cultivated of a sort of left wing gun culture that in some ways, mirrors the right. Fetishization of weapons as a commodity rather than a tool, worshipping the aesthetics of COMBLOC nations, and the idea that community defense only extends to the individual act of buying a gun are issues that I saw repeatedly in not just the Houston Chapter of the SRA, or even the Socialist Rifle Association, but across left wing spaces that advocated for armed self defense.

Furthermore, organizing in Houston is perilous. “Houston” as a region extends more than 50 miles, and having a consistent organization that has reoccuring activities is a challenge. Organizations and local formations come and go, their days are like grass and they bloom like the flowers of the field. I think it might be a bit naive to think that the Houston Chapter would go on for especially a long time.

However, I echo the sentiment in the message sent out to all members of the Houston Chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association. The closure of the chapter is not a loss. It has lead to the formation of multiple local organizations, and it has taught many marginalized people how to shoot, and how to defend themselves. That is a feat that is worth noting regardless. While my heart aches at the closing of this chapter, it serves a lesson that organizations aren’t permanent, and that closure does not mean defeat. We can learn from the failures of the Houston Chapter of Socialist Rifle Association, and come up with questions on how we can do better by ourselves and marginalized people.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win.

All Power to the People.

Micelio – Untitled

Posted on 14/12/2024 - 14/12/2024 by muntjac

This peice was featured in Muntjac Magazine Issue 1

To the rhythm of the spontaneous glissando of the clarinet in the Gershwinian rhapsody, buildings appear on the horizon of what one soon

imagines can be no other thing but Manhattan. An anonymous worker enters the scene alongside the characteristic muted trumpet, and the workday begins. His first action is, naturally, to check his watch: permanence and internalisation of time, reminding him of its scarcity and disturbing the everyday routine from the first minute of the day, slicing time itself and transforming it into something that, like any other commodity, is consumed.

A newspaper flying through the streets reads “jobs scarce,” while a white-collar worker in a diner can’t pay his bill. A zoo of people moves through the monster-city to a rhythm set by clocks and metallic instruments. A century after its debut, the Rhapsody in Blue has evolved along with its audience. From its first listeners in the now-defunct Aeolian Hall to the first frames of Woody Allen’s Manhattan, and into various generations through Disney, in a short film that, while celebrating the history of one of the most iconic cities for bourgeois societies, highlights the working class as the economic and driving force of change, contrasting their role in the production of wealth, both material and cultural, with that of the bourgeoisie.

This constant bombardment of images and slogans is no coincidence. The media through which the bourgeoisie disseminates an ideology that generates a sense of defeat and powerlessness in the face of economic forces have accompanied state apparatuses since the origins of bourgeois societies, disabling worker agency by shaping individual perception into one that feels powerless in the face of the labour market’s blows, halting the formation of groups that could confront the mechanisms by which the gap between social classes widens.

In Latin America, processes of late industrialization at the beginning of the 20th century were surrounded by the creation of an institutional framework centred on labour exploitation. In several Latin American countries, large extraction companies were established in regions favourable to mining activities. Management began to instil an industrial capitalist ethic of time and work, and one of their main strategies was to promote the traditional family structure. Under an extractivist and patriarchal logic, neighbourhoods, schools, roads, and recreation spaces were created so that new generations could serve the extractivist capitalism that mostly benefited the U.S. It was in these working-class

communities that struggles to balance working conditions within production centres arose, and a marked tendency to defend the right to unionise spread throughout the 20th century, same which has declined with the neoliberal turn and is now in crisis in many countries. History gives us an example from 1974: the Cinsa-Cifunsa strike in Saltillo, capital of Coahuila, on the Mexico-U.S. border. The company employed 10,000 workers, representing 10% of Saltillo’s population at the time and, as often happens in Mexico, had a protectionist union aligned with the government under the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM), which helped simulate any contractual regulation and protect its own interests. Led by 23-year-old Salvador Alcaráz, factory workers rejected the collective labour agreement with the CTM and called for a strike, demanding a 35% wage increase. Initially, they achieved victory, that in the medium term, due to pressures from the government, in collusion with business owners, the church, and the media, got undermined. After the movement was dismantled, Saltillo became a city where it is common practice for foreign automotive companies to invest and abuse the economic and political power granted by the Mexican government and phoney unions.

From a classical Marxism perspective, unions are seen as having political potential capable of undoing the progress made by employers and providing a platform that, in seeking the association of the working class, offers means to fight for the suppression of competition in the market, driven by commodified labour sold to corporations. After all, wage labour rests on the competition workers have among themselves within the market, and the pattern of industrial progress paradoxically creates conditions for workers to unite in groups that advocate for shared goals. The optimism with which unionism has been viewed is, however, nuanced within the same Marxist tradition: the nature of wage labour generates struggles that seek to improve the sale of their commodity (their labour power) without having revolutionary power to combat capital. The spontaneity that union movements may or may not claim is subordinated to bourgeois ideology and is therefore criticised for deepening workers’ ideological enslavement by the bourgeoisie.

It is important to nuance the different theoretical readings of the importance of union movements as engines of radical change with the field experience in multiple locations. There is no simpler way to explain the formation and importance of unions than by understanding the need workers have to organise and defend their rights, to push for their own interests, which are opposed to those of factory managers. No bureaucracy, reformism, or state coercion has removed the right to unionise. The fact that unions nest in production points gives them a fundamental tool in their battles against capitalism. While not all demands can be won within the jurisdiction erected by bourgeois society, even the most bureaucratic union can create cracks that shake employers, generating circumstances that clash with the imperatives of a capitalist state. In unionism lies a communal union in spirit, unable to be fully integrated into the society of which it is a part.

Setting aside any theoretical debate about the effectiveness of unionism as a revolutionary force, the reality is that class domination in modern societies can be (and is) challenged by collective experiences in the struggle to defend our rights. In this context, the axis of action in the workplace is revealed as a vehicle through which collective power can not only change the material conditions of those who offer their labour power but also revive the collective imagination around better possible worlds, introduce new myths that allow us to move toward them from multiple fronts, and defeat current narratives of progress that plunge people into a defeatist nihilism, obscuring the structural causes of social, economic, and environmental collapse.

In Colombia, for example, working women organised to expose the false “labour peace” and perpetuation of gender roles. In February 1920, four hundred women and one hundred men from Colombia’s largest textile factory, the Medellín Textile Company (Compañía de Tejidos de Medellín), went on strike. After twenty-four days of striking, the demonstrators won recognition of their demands: a 40% wage increase, the reduction of the workday to nine hours and fifty minutes, the regulation of the fine system, and better hygiene conditions. They also succeeded in firing supervisors accused of rape and administrators hostile to the workers. In Mexico, during the 70s, a group of Maoist workers within the Volkswagen (VW) factory in Puebla managed to break away from a corrupt industrial union tied to the CTM. They formed an independent, democratic union, with regular elections and collective bargaining that improved their working conditions.

In September 2024, this very same union achieved a 10.59% wage increase. In the same month, VW announced the closure of its factories in German territory due to internal costs, putting more than 300,000 workers’ jobs at risk and shifting labour costs to cheaper markets, showing the neocolonial nature of modern industry.

Among unionist movements, there are various currents that today seek to rebuild the class consciousness that neoliberalism has eroded. For different collectives, the urgency of reclaiming the historical causes of the workers’ struggle has become clear: reduction of working hours, dignified working conditions, collectivization of labour, redistribution of profits, etc. In the search for new horizons of struggle, it is necessary to rescue the historical vehicles of resistance while undermining the mechanisms that have allowed the bourgeois state to reinforce a production system that not only exploits workers but also spreads a subjectivity that seeks to render us inoperative in the face of systemic injustices.

Not all struggles against labour precarization on the periphery arise from coordinated union movements: we know that the state and employers have co-opted many unions, that the union figure, in its current form, is a conduit for workers’ demands but also a brake on their resistance. We also know that thousands of workers fight from their daily routine, individually or collectively, and that on the margins of unionism, they explore, weave, and form various strategies to build movements that allow them to reclaim their workplaces. Increasingly, cross-border solidarity networks are emerging as vital forms of resistance and support for clandestine struggles and direct action. We call on every worker to not let go, to not lose the dream of creating independent unions that break free from corporate powers.

The spirit of communal union knows no borders, and through solidarity we will be able to resist the storms to come, and find platforms to reimagine ourselves.

Micelio are a small collective collaborating with independent industrial unions in northern Mexico.

You can follow them on twitter @MicelioRojo & on Instagram @micelio_rojo