In Quebec, and more generally in North America, anarchism and organization have not been coupled well. Indeed, the last serious attempt to build a political anarchist group in North America date’s back to the adventure of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation [1].
However, there have been, and there still are, organized anarchists around the world. Generations of activists worked hard on the question of organization, and, for those of us who don’t want to reinvent the wheel, it is useful to look at their analysis and proposals. Even if we find good things in ‘classical’ anarchists like Errico Malatesta and Michael Bakunin, we at NEFAC are mainly influenced by a tradition called, for lack of a better w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Since the Summit of the Americas, a large movement of solidarity with all the political prisoners arrested around these protests has developed. People from all over the world have taken to the streets in solidarity. Organizations of all types, and individuals from across the US and Canada, have sent money toward the nonsectarian CASA defense fund. This movement didn’t appear out of nowhere. The fact that people and organizations are willing to be in solidarity with black bloc militants and peaceful demonstrators alike is clearly a result of the emergence of a new respect for a diversity of tactics.
Taking the Lead of Solidarity
The aftermath of the Summit could have been like other mass demonstrations. In fact, in the morning of A... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Activists in Quebec City lead a powerful, creative, and fun grassroots campaign against the Summit of the Americas, the FTAA, and the hated security fence, proving that there’s no need for radicals to be boring, marginalized and isolated. Much has been written about the positive response of the local population to demonstrators — black bloc militants and peaceniks alike — it is my opinion that this yearlong grassroots campaign had a lot to do with it.
Autumn 2000: When Anti-Globalization Comes Home
The media started to seriously talk about the Summit of the Americas during the spring and summer of 2000. It was just after Seattle and Quebec City’s own little Seattle — the Youth Summit in February 2000, a dem... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In the beginning, I was happy to see the Bring On The Ruckus (BTR) position paper, as it seemed to be a solid proposal and there are many political similarities I personally share with them. However, in the course of a debate that a few NEFAC members had with them on a list aimed to build a North American Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (NARAF), I realized that we disagree on a number of key points (plus, their approach seems to be one of “all or nothing” so it’s hard to debate with them).
So, I have several problems with the Ruckus proposal and I think there are several important differences between NEFAC and the BTR project.
THERE IS A THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE ON THE LEVEL OF ORGANIZATION
The Ruckus C... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Let’s face it — revolution and serious social change can only occur with massive popular participation. We can spend our time organizing the organized, individuals who already have a political mindset, or we can widen our scope. According to the mainstream media, anarchists are just a bunch of violence-loving hooligans who roll into town for the big protest and vanish afterwards, making no lasting social change. And we all know “activists” who are just that — going to protests like they were concerts.
So where do we go from here? In the meantime, more and more fall into poverty both here and abroad, and corporations continue to grab power with the willing accomplice of governments who are moving further from t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The late 1990s was a depressing time for anarchists in North America. Long time activists were leaving a declining movement en masse, while projects were disbanding or taking a hiatus. Anarchists of the 1990s had struggled hard to develop a working praxis, while simultaneously trying to predict what “the next big thing” would be in terms of social struggle. Some talked of ecology, while others built up infoshops and other counter-institutions. Many focused on radical/anarchist single-issue activism (ARA, Earth First, Food Not Bombs, Copwatch, ABC, etc.) and many more attempted to popularize anarchist ideas within various counter-cultures. However, an important minority attempted to build explicitly anarchist organizations and ne... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Nicolas Phebus
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