After much delay, we are happy to announce issue 1 of our magazine is finally avalible!
Due to us being too broke to afford large format printing and there being so much text a singular zine would be too complex to bind we’ve done a pair of zines. The cover for the first is clippings from the 60s, 70s & 80s and the cover for the 2nd are from an uprising of South Asians against the police in Harehills, 2001.
Its avalible to download for free here muntjacmag.noblogs.org/mag/ and we them some for sale on our shop ko-fi.com/muntjacmag there are a few spots who’ve already asked to stock the magazine but if you want a bunch of copies please get in touch, we can’t produce huge quanities of the zine oursleves as we only have cheap non-commerical printers. So you’d like bulk copies (20+) get in touch and we’ll pass your message on to our distributor, Seditionist Distribution.
If you’d like to support us in the long run, consider subscribing;
There are three tiers, the first is just to send us a random amount of money (starting at £1) each month and in return you’ll have our eternal thanks. The second is you send us slightly more money (starting at £2.50) and in return you get each issue of the magazine as it comes out. The third is set at a slightly higher rate if you really adore us and have the cash to spend (starting at £8) then you’ll not only get the magazine but also any posters, flyers or other merch we make! [these rates are the same no matter what country you want things shipped to, with the UK subscribers subsidizing everyone else]
We will try our best to be as transparent as possible with the moneys we are gifted, a long term goal of ours is to eventually pay our authors, but that would require one hell of a lot of subscribers.
Wether or not we get paid, we will strive to keep this project going, even if we have to transfer ownership to another group of people.
Huge thanks to the writers who sent texts in but also to Clash! Collective, In The Belly and the many people who wouldn’t want us to put their names on a thank-you post for helping make this happen. We’ll be back in the spring! Keep in touch.
Muntjac Magazine.
A Quick Summary;
“On the forgotten so called race riot” – Sunwo speaks on the 1958 Nottingham pogroms and the resistance against it.
Micelio speaks on the union and the revolutionary potential that worker-led, independent communal unions hold
Marion Koshy writes about their entry and experience in the Houston Socialist Rifle Association, and what we collectively can learn from the SRA.
Simoun Magsalin charts a postcolonial anarchism that practices decoloniality without appropriating from indigenous peoples in the Philippines.
A Harrow Antifascist recounts Asian and Black community defence during the UK August race pogroms
Zhachev calls for a rejection of any attempt to demonise or ostracise militant radicals
p.n writes about their experience in a creative residency and the importance of artists being principled (and fiercely anti-zionist).
Ektin Ekdo asks an important question; are we fighting to be part of british society or to destroy it?
naga discusses the reactionary strains of politics that undergird community self-defence around the identities of East and South East Asians in Britain
Sunwo writes against black britishness as an identity, rather searching for a borderless revolutionary blackness.
poet of da soil writes a poem political manifesto on fourth worldism in britain.
We are sharing this post and appeal from our comrades at In The Belly [bellyzine.net] A revolutionary abolitionist publication by and for incarcerated people and their communities.
Comrade Pierre “Polo” Pinson was wrongly convicted and sentenced in 1999 to 50 to 150 years for an armed assault on a Pittsburg Police Station and unrelated robberies and is seeking to vacate his illegal sentence
we are mobilizing to raise $5,000 to help retrain Corrie Woods, Esq. on Polo’s behalf. We appreciatre your support in helping us bring him home.
A post by the Korean Anarchist Organisation 아나키스트 연대 on the shortlived martial law earlier this month and the collaboration between trade unions and liberal politicans which had a dampening effect on the general strike called in response to it.
The night of December 3rd was noisy. I thought that the invocation of martial law was a concept that only appeared in history books and had not been experienced since the 5th Republic. I thought that if the next martial law occurred, it would only occur when something very serious and urgent happened to the system.
But it seems that Mr. President wanted to commit suicide. The only troops mobilized were some defense force troops and a small number of airborne troops, and even that did not prevent the National Assembly from passing a resolution to lift martial law. Neither the representative of the ruling party nor the mayor of Seoul, who was from the ruling party, knew that martial law had been declared. The martial law troops had to return home lonely on police buses.
This could be seen as a great civic victory. But at the same time, it appears to be a defeat for the working class movement.
After martial law was declared, the very small number of mobilized martial law soldiers attempted to make emergency arrests, not Yang Kyung-soo, chairman of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, or the chairman of the Public Transport Workers’ Union, which is going on strike starting tomorrow. They tried to arrest Lee Jae-myeong, Han Dong-hoon, and Woo Won-sik. What does this mean? This may have been because, in the eyes of the President, the labor union would not pose any threat to the system nor would it cause any hindrance in any way. No matter how much a general strike is declared, there is no response on the ground, and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ general strike is It is being relegated to a weekend rally, and the workers who came out for the general strike are incited with slogans that are essentially the same as those of the Democratic Party, and in a way, it seems natural.
Let’s be a little ashamed of this. Let’s go back to the field and organize a new struggle again. Let’s organize the field and politicize the field. So that the workers’ struggle can really shake up the system, so that the coming martial law can be truly severe. So that they can be more afraid of our leadership rather than Lee Jae-myung and Han Dong-hoon.
Sidiq is an anarchist, illegalist and an individualist. On the 12th of July 2024, state authorities had arrested him for cannabis use and possession. He contributes to anarchist publishing and street libraries, involvement in soccer hooligan club, clashes in protests and a passion for writing poetry. Sidiq is looking at a possible 10 year prison term.
eye know that first posts on substacks and blogs and stuff are normally introductory small bites but imma just get straight into it. quick intro name’s poet of da soil. i’m a poet who explores the written word, sound and performance ritual in an attempt 2 load the gun (as ismatu gwendolyn writes about). using substack for my rambles, poems and lamentations about life.
so, autonomy?
in my own personal journey, i’ve come 2 a place where i’ve realised there is no separation between the political and the personal. that every way eye relate 2 others, every way others relate 2 me is built on the systems of domination that the world is also built on. anti-blackness, ableism, classism, (trans)misogynoir among others directly influence and dictate how we interact with one another, which is why eye now believe that autonomy – which the dictionary defines as “the right or condition of self-government,” or as my friend Elizabeth puts it “a refusal to be governed,” is the best way forward to lives that don’t feel like death.
what happens when we refuse to be governed, by a labour or tory party every 5 years, by the state itself, by an international system of capitalism built on the backs of black people for over 400 years(?)
now this can be hard 2 imagine, we’ve been taught that we need the state, with its monopoly over force and violence 2 rule over us or there will be anarchy. chaos.
but what’s chaos if not 1 in 5 people living in absolute poverty in this country, what’s chaos if not 2 million people using food banks in 2023 compared to 60,000 in 2010. what’s chaos if not the constant violence inflicted on black and brown peoples, be it from the police or immigration. the state relegates us (niggas) to economically neglected yet over-policed neighbourhoods, menial jobs and a constant state of barely treading water day by day, pay check to pay check. the time 4 change is now, the time 2 imagine more, of rejecting what they give us and creating our own ways of living.
Subcomandante Marcos, credit: Rage Against The Machine YouTube channel.
tha zapatistas(!)
now a whole lot of this seems lofty and abstract but there are countless examples of societies and communities that live and have lived outside the idea of the nation-state, that instead govern themselves and figure out how to exist collectively.
from pre-colonial societies of the Igbo 2 the autonomous region in Syria known as Rojava, people again and again have learned and struggled against oppression 2 live in non-state frameworks.
one of the most successful communities is that of the Zapatistas. indigenous peoples in Chiapas, Mexico rose up in 1994 in what is known as the Zapatistas revolution against the neoliberal policies of the Mexican government that sought to further marginalise indigenous communities and their ownership of the land they lived on.
30 years later, the Zapatistas have collectively organised 27 autonomous municipalities, collectively own and look after the land, built their own healthcare systems, primary and secondary schools and education programmes firmly rooted in their commitment to a struggle for a world where many worlds exist. the Zapatistas are a living, breathing example of autonomy, which they describe as creating new life.
nu life in babylon(?)
so now, what is there 2 be done(?) we are living in a world where multiple genocides are being perpetrated while we live in the belly of the beast that plays a pivotal part in orchestrating em (the West/imperial core).
black and brown communities here in Babylon are bearing the brunt of the violence that the ruling classes of Babylon inflict on its inhabitants, forming internal colonies that are super-exploited by the state.
this can be seen in the disparities faced by these internal colonies in terms of maternal mortality rates, police brutality, underemployment, displacement via gentrification among other things. life aint been good, and it aint gonna get better, unless we say enough is enough and struggle for something more than this. unless we struggle for autonomy.
if autonomy means 2 create nu life, what does that look like(?)
what does it mean 2 create nu life in a world predicated on death? how do we look despair, neglect and violence in tha face and constantly war against that(?)
by pooling our resources togetha, moving togetha, trusting each other and creating programmes and spaces where life can flow in ways tha world doesn’t want. we look 2 tha past and learn how 2 create –
housing co-ops that protect tha most marginalised among us, we reclaim spaces and zones that have been captured and simply left 2 rot by tha exploitative housing system.
we turn estate blocks into gardens of eden, with community gardens and food co-ops
liberation schools where neglected black kids come and learn english, maths, history, afrikan languages, and whatever they desire all rooted in the knowledge that we all learn from each other , in non-hierarchical modes of educating.
we engage in political education – turn back and remember our ancestors and their lessons, commune with those who fought for nu life be it in South Carolina or Azania (known as the settler state of South Africa)
we don’t forget our ppl stuck inside the prisons, instead we fight for them because 2 fight for them is 2 fight for us – we remember that the line between citizen and criminal is a blurred one when we all seen as nigg(a)er
we provide self-defence classes centred in knowing we live in societies that disable us daily and learn to move with our bodies not against them
we provide food and clothes and care and affection for and by everyone.
we take over wherever we want and we dance and dance and dance, we hold ourselves and our bodies in poetry and music and plays and art that reminds us black flesh is only as dead as we allow it 2 be.
if autonomy is 2 create nu life it is not resurrection, we don’t hope and long for better days where tha NHS works and tony blair is giving us new pathways while sending us 2 pen and warring 4 oil, we understand that voting doesn’t offer salvation only validation for a system that kills us
if autonomy is 2 create nu life it is not praying 4 rapture and looking 2 paradise or space for an escape out of the dunya
it is not wishing for blackface 2 be our butcher be it prime minister, president or king
it is not seeking internship or degree 2 be free because black excellence isn’t black liberation
it is dapping up a loved one and asking “how far”
not letting go when their head drops a lil as they sigh and say we’re trying
and telling them togetha life can be more than what we are given.
and with that, eye leave you with a poem. peace and one love.
we turn estate blocks into gardens of eden
there are gods who don’t want us 2 bite into fruit and discover our own divinity
yet we can’t rely on marathon prayers 2 fill our bellies
we sign ballot papers as liability waivers
so MPs get off scot free and drink free wine in their parliament bars
is this what we call democracy (?)
tell ourselves rainbow lies
like green and yellow might be better than red or blue
like tha colour wheel ain’t mouldy
how long will we wait in supermarket-hospital-jobcentre-immigration office-food bank-hostel-chicken shop queues
must be why so many black yutes look 2 internship for priority passes
they ain’t know rollercoaster runs on tha blood of their cousins
but its time 2 get off tha ride - don’t u hear em scream(?)
tha smog coats our lungs
netflix covers our eyes
and the latest diss track built on black womyn bruise blocks our ears
time 2 get off tha ride
rub your eyes
breathe in
breathe out
there is no time but now
cut apathy off and find a friend in your anger and despair
introduce yourself 2 hope
yeah the ends is being gentrified
but if our ancestors resisted colonial hands so can we
grab your ppldem, bun a zoot and read some fanon
grab a mask, some gloves and a shovel
babylon ain’t got no claim 2 tha land they mistreat
we are living dead so we rebel w nu life
we turn estate blocks into gardens of eden
Black people throughout the African diaspora have been resisting, rebelling, revolting, and rioting against the systemic anti-black oppression since the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Black anarchism represents a subset of this broader tradition of resistance that continues to carry on the fight for total liberation and honors the struggle of our ancestors.
“Black anarchy is chaos, because black life is chaos. Black life is surveilled, and its policed, and it’s destroyed prematurely. And yet, black anarchism is this praxis of understanding what it means to sustain that chaos. And it means mutual aid. and it means, trying to figure out what it means to make a word that is safe for black trans women. For black children. It means trying to figure out how we can think about justice outside of the carceral system, it means transformative justice, even when it doesn’t seem like an answer is ever achievable, and there is no answer.”
“Black anarchism rejects coercive authority and oppressive top-down hierarchies as they exist across the entire political spectrum. It doesn’t pretend that anyone who claims (or has claimed) to be a liberator, speaking on behalf of the masses, cannot commit atrocities. And it recognizes that acknowledging this, rather than denying it, is how stronger movements will grow. Black anarchism means moving away from and transcending all leftists inundated with oversimplified other/or sectarian binaries. We are struggling for something much greater.”
“Black feminist anarchism cannot be contained by inclusion into any organization. It has to be a modality, a manner of walking that threatens to undo the city, steal back the body, and break all the windows because that is where anarchy happens. Anarchism that is not Black feminist is not doing anarchic work.”
“Black anarchism means I don’t have to bow down or bend the knee to kings, queens, presidents, politicians, police officers, gods, or deities. I’m not intrested in being subservient, dominated, or controlled by so called masters, rulers, and authority figures. As a black anarchist, I’m more concerned with becoming a permanent inconvenience to those that pose the greatest threat to humanity, the earth, and all that inhabits it. My true goal and desire is to be autonomous, ungovernable, and unwavering in my pursuit to overthrow the state and all unjust hierarchies by any means necessary.”
“Black anarchism to me means taking matters into my own hands. Not only am I an anarchist, but I’m also an educator, and we all know that the US education system is bullshit. My grandfather worked with the panthers to help run the freedom schools in the Bay Area, and that’s what black anarchy looks like to me.”
“Black anarchism is a practice that compels me to apply autonomy everywhere in my life. As an artist, it challenges me to create music that is not bound by rules or a formula. As a writer, it requires me to constantly ask the other question, even if its’s uncomfortable. As a member of a collective, it implores me to use my gifts and skills in a way that not only can liberate me, but others as well. Black anarchism gives me no choice but to think beyond the confines of the colonizer’s boxes and define for myself not only who I am, but who I will be and who I must become in order to get free. Black anarchism has shown me that my resistance is a thing of beauty that refuses to be crushed by those that seek comfortability in conforming.”
“Black anarchism to me means trying to live as freely as possible in a world that was not intended for me to be free while fighting for collective liberation. It means roasting the pigs while using my comedy to constantly tell people we are not free. It means reminding everyone I know that we live in a racial hierarchy that is built on the oppression and exploitation of Black people. This also means that I’m not invited to a lot of parties because nobody wants someone yelling, ‘schools are prisons’ at their parties. But that’s okay. I don’t want to be at a party that pretends that we don’t live in hell, much like I don’t like to live in hell. I want to live in a world free of oppression. A world where we take care of each other and get high together (if we want). Black anarchism means creating fragments of that world today while actively fighting against a white supremacist state that is preventing the birth of that world.”
“Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote-begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.”
A £25,000 advertising campaign directed at recruiting young blacks into the Metropolitan police force yielded no new recruits. This information formed part of the evidence presented by community relations chief, Commander Marshall, to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Race Relations. It is not simply that young blacks are refusing to join the police force. Commander Marshall states that they are otherwise active::
“Recently, there has been a growth in the tendency for members of London’s West Indian communities to combine against police by interferring with police officers who are effecting the arrest of a black person. . . In the last 12 months, 40 such incidents have been recorded. Each carries a potential for large scale disorder.”’
Nowhere in the Commander’s evidence are we informed of the State’s policy in dealing with these conflicts. He simply describes them as doing nothing “‘to ease the mounting pressures with which operational officers are being burdened.”
The reality is different. Police officers, while through one side of their mouths preach ‘good community relations’, demand, through the other, their pound of flesh.
It was in the summer of 1970 that they introduced the charge of affray as a weapon of retribution and repression. The charge was first used against blacks in the notorious Mangrove 9 case. This is how they proceed. An incident takes place — a clash between police and young blacks — and several young blacks are arrested. Ordinary charges follow, for example, assault, threatening behaviour etc. Meanwhile, another process is set in motion. A senior police officer is placed in charge of the investigation.
He collects statements from police officers and from sympathetic civilian whites found in a door to door search near the scene of the incident. He knows what he is looking for and these statements are peppered with the right terminology. The case papers are then forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions and lands on the desk of a legally qualified civil servant working in that department. Reading through the evidence, the civil servant spots the right terminology and returns indictments of affray. This usually takes a period of five to six weeks after the original incident.
The defendants appear in court on the original charges and one fine morning are confronted with the charges of affray. Briefly, this charge is defined as ‘fighting to the terror of the Queen’s Subjects’, the latter being the terrified civilians who witnessed the incident behind their window curtains. Affray charges carry limitless terms of imprisonment. Side by side with the introduction of affray as a political charge, the black community evolved a counter strategy — militant and aggressive crossexamination of police officers in the courts, propaganda and mobilisation of the black community outside of the courts. In order to execute the former, the black community had to find or create lawyers.
White lawyers are notorious for defusing the reality of confrontation that pervades these trials. To carry on propaganda and mobilisation campaigns outside the courts we have had to surface our own publications, established journals being either notoriously pro-police or in the pursuit of ‘fairness to both sides’, whatever that means, they fail to grasp the reality of the black experience altogether. In recent cases of affray, as in the Cricklewood and Hornsey trials, a battery of black lawyers were in attendance. Today, both these lawyers and the publications which seek to represent black interests are under attack.
Listen to Commander Marshall in evidence to the Select Committee: “Nevertheless, continual editorial vilification of police and other social agencies, distorted accounts of court proceedings, and repetition and exaggeration of unsubstantiated and one sided complaints of police ‘brutality’, which forms the sterile basis of a number of ethnic newspapers and periodicals, have a cumulative effect on the state of police/black relationships. .
Not charges of affray, mind you.
Black lawyers have not escaped either. In the Hornsey Trial, eight young blacks were charged with affray following clashes with police in North London. The defence briefed 16 barristers, a lead barrister and a junior for each client. The trial judge, Judge Clarke QC, proceeded, before hearing evidence, to interrogate the black lawyers. Only two, he suggested, were qualified to act as leading counsel. Nowhere in the regulations is it stipulated that a barrister must be this or that before he is qualified to lead. Next, Clarke got out the Law List and questioned the barristers about their dates of call and the addresses of their chambers. It seems he was questioning whether they were barristers at all. This became clearer when he cross questioned barrister-at-law, Gary Webb, as to why his name was not on the list. No one could remember, in the history of the law courts, such a humiliating attack on counsel.
It would appear that the struggle for ‘good black/ police relations’ has become so crucial for the police that they and sections of the judiciary are prepared to attack all progressive black institutions to secure it.
“Anonymous Communiqué: These actions were carried out in Feburary for the call to action of a Black Liberation “month.” We wanted to commemorate an often forgotten warrior Ojore Lutalo for the actions he carried out in support of the Black Liberation Army. There were several banner drops and other actions around the D.C. Metro area to support Ojore Lutalo, Assata Shakur and the Black Liberation Army. To all radicals and revolutionaries of color the time for action is long overdue. There is no excuse. Take action now. It’s freedom or death. We’ve chosen freedom. What will you choose? – APOC”
Historically, it’s been hard to find any information of anarchism in central Africa. There was the short-lived Anarchist & Workers’ Solidarity Movement (AWSM) in Zambia led by Willstar Choongo. Zambia in the mid-nineties had a very small “left”, and Willstar came up through organising his fellow workers at the University of Zambia (UNZA). His group would later be kicked out of the University for advocating decentralisation and organising meetings outside of political parties. [1]
They planned to federate with the WSM (South Africa), who would later become the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation. However, his early death led to the collapse of the organisation. [2]
Debates on the Uganda Anarchist Democratic Forces (UADF)
In the early 2000s, there was an infamous debate on various anarchist blogs regarding emails from one Sub-delegate Joram claiming an attack on a police station to a group called the Uganda Anarchist Democratic Forces (UADF). One of the emails read:
“Anarchist rebels with balaclavas attacked a military police station and burnt it to the ground. Anarchist Democratic Forces (ADF) of Uganda have been fighting Yoweri Museveni’s military junta from the mountains of the moon in western Uganda for 3 years now.
OVER 30 suspected Anarchist Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels attacked Nkooko Police Post in Kibaale, killing two policemen and abducting another over the weekend. They also grabbed 20 guns and police uniforms. The heavily armed attackers traveling aboard a Tata lorry also set fire to the police post and burnt documents at Nkooko sub-county headquarters. Army spokesman Major Phinehas Katirima told The New Vision (regime’s official paper) that the incident took place Saturday morning.” [3]
Chekov Feeny’s Observations
However, Chekov Feeny, an Irish anarchist who travelled Uganda at the time, wrote:
“For starters, there does appear to be a rebel group called the ADF active in Western Uganda. Again, as reported, they do appear to be based in the Ruwenzori mountains (aka mountains of the moon). The report also seems accurate in quoting Kiboga as a target of ADF attacks. The government-owned New Vision paper of 28/8 carried an article entitled ‘Kiboga district registers visitors to stall ADF threat,’ which quotes Col. Wasser, first divisional commander of UPDF (Ugandan army) as saying: ‘Some of the captured ADF rebels have confessed that the group now operating in Kibaale, Mubende and Hoima districts had been dispatched to establish a camp in Kiboga district. Also, from my brief visit there, it would seem that the ADF are currently by far the most active rebel group in the country. The papers regularly include stories of their attacks.”
Feeny also raised questions:
Firstly, and crucially, the ADF is universally held to stand for “Allied Democratic Forces,” not “Anarchist Democratic Forces.” When the ADF spokesperson says: “Reactionary forces have used an allied democratic forces (ADF) to contra UADF from the masses,” does he mean that there are two groups both called ADF?
Thirdly, there is the question of methods. Even if the ADF say they are anarchists, their practice is fairly important. The Ugandan media (both government-owned and independent) reported that the ADF abducted 25 people from Nyakeseke village, near Hoima, on August 11th. According to the reports of an escapee, 10 of the captives were beheaded, and indeed 3 of the bodies were recovered on August 20th in Kyangwali forest, without heads.
It is possible that this story was concocted to disparage the rebels, although this seems unlikely since the two journalists who first reported the story were promptly arrested for publishing lies – Uganda does not like to publicise terrorist atrocities, especially after the Interahamwe killed 8 tourists in Bwindi forest last year and decimated the tourist industry. Also, I think it is worth mentioning that when we travelled to Fort Portal at the foothills of the Ruwenzori mountains, where the ADF are based, we found that youth in the area were afraid to travel the roads after dark, for fear of being abducted and pressed into the ADF. However, if there really are two ADFs, then these atrocities could be carried out by the ‘bad’ ADF. The 3 headless bodies recovered in Kyangwali forest were found about 1 kilometre from a UPDF army base.” [4]
The Fate of the UADF
The emails linked back to a website, www.ugandans.com, which unfortunately hasn’t been archived. Since the early 2000s, a blog has been active since the early 2000s with articles by one Joram Jojo, with a mix of local news, history, and an interesting series of anti-copyright events at a university. [5]
They’re still active today, posting about current events in Uganda and occasionally about anarchist politics. [6]
