Shackdwellers on 'Right to the City'

Trailer for the forthcoming film, "Dear Mandela"

Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers' movement, was featured here shortly after being brutally attacked by the ANC government this past September. They released a statement earlier this month,The Third Force is Gathering its Strength, which is very much worth reading if you are interested in catching up on where they are at today. They also participated in Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement at the end of last month, which I'll have an article out for in the next issue of Desinformémonos. In the meantime here is a powerful collective statement they've just released today...


The High Cost of the Right to the City
Notes from a meeting of Abahlali baseMjondolo in preparation for the World Urban Forum (WUF): “The Right to the City”
March 2010

It is our usual practice when we send delegates to other people's meetings that we get together as a movement and discuss our collective view so that our delegates can take a mandate that is based on our 'home-made' politics. In this case there will be chances for our comrades to connect with other movements from around the world as well, so it is all the more important to be clear on our own home-cooked politics of Abahlalism – our 'living politics'.

Our movement's 'living politics' is the politics of the daily life and thinking of shackdwellers in South Africa who fight for truth and for justice. It is quite simply living out in the real world the practical meaning of the basic idea that 'everybody counts'. In our discussion we think through the connections between our 'living politics' and the theme of the WUF: 'the Right to the City'. If 'everyone counts', then surely there should be a right to the city! In fact, that theme sounds very much like a slogan of people's struggles for justice in cities around the world - but we know that the slogans of people's struggles often get taken and tamed by the powerful and rich; and we know that when that happens, the real politics at the heart of the struggles is usually lost. Some of the ways that the militant slogan of the 'right to the city' can get taken and tamed are when:

• it can be reduced to a 'technical' issue of working out how the state system can 'deliver' services and amenities to the people;
• it can be turned into a legalistic issue of 'human rights' fought over in the courts of law between lawyers;
• it presents the only possible solutions in terms of 'participation' in 'good governance' as defined by the power-players in the system of the state and the political parties.

In our own struggles as Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) we have taken up all of these avenues and issues to fight for justice for shack-dwellers – but our living politics and our total struggle does not start and end in these limited definitions and confined spaces.

In the systems of the government and the political parties it happens again and again that the things the people have fought hard for are taken by those who claim to be leaders and given back to the people as 'delivery'. The people have their muscles and their thinking – but they do not have control over the money and resources like government and parties have. The politicians, and especially the local councillors, use this power and then claim that they were the ones who worked so hard to achieve these things! The systems of municipalities and councillors are against our living politics. They are an oppressive burden on us, keeping us down. No-matter how we try to deal with them, they know they have certain kinds of power and resources to take our issues and 'deliver' to the communities. When they do this, they even make us look like we who struggle are actually working for the Councillors! We know that the Councillors in the local governments and municipalities come from the political parties. That means that they will always try to do their homework and find out what the people at the grassroots are struggling for because they will want to come with a strong agenda for the Party to look like they are the ones who can 'deliver' what the people want. As deployees of the political parties, they are intent on crushing us politically and taking our issues over to their agenda. This is a huge challenge, and we must and we will fight harder against it because we know that Municipalities are a problem – and that the solution is in the struggles of the people, with their muscles and their thinking.

It is a kind of theft – to take away the valuable things of the people and to put them to work in a system that is against the people but in favour of the powerful and the rich. Not only the municipalities and the politicians but also many of the NGOs and 'civil society' structures and activists are guilty of playing a part in this ongoing theft against the people. It can make you feel like your struggle was useless. You fight for justice – for equality and for the world to be shared - and you end up with the promise of ‘service delivery’.

Against this theft and oppression, it is important that our struggle remains always our own and that we hold on to our autonomy. When we look at the official letters from the WUF we see that the government of Brazil and its President Lula is also inviting and hosting us – this is a surprise for us as a movement. We know that some of the movements there get funding from the government. For us, this should be debated and it makes us wonder what is the motive for having this event in Brazil. The poor people’s movements in Brazil are very strong in rural areas and in the cities. They occupy land and city buildings to appropriate housing and shelter for the poor. But then some of them also get funding from the government! Is the agenda behind this WUF to push the idea that government and the social movements can or must work together? For us as Abahlali, although we are not aiming to overthrow our government, it is very clear that we have different ideas from the government. Our government gives us a very hard time and we are in conflict with them. So is there really such a big difference between our government in South Africa and the government of Brazil? What we do know is that almost all politicians claim to speak for the poor, claim to be concerned about the poor. So invitations like these are really because they like our tears. When they can show our tears to the world, they can carry on with their plans and carry on saying that the tears of the poor justify their plans. We don't trust that government of Brazil, nor our government in South Africa, nor any other government. We remember that Presidents Lula and Zuma met each other and agreed that their plans were just the same. Anyway, going to the WUF is more important as a chance to meet and talk with other movements of poor people from cities around the world and to strengthen each other's struggles.

The Department of Human Settlements from our government will also be at the WUF and presenting some papers - but we will be there too and we will tell a different story. The Department will pick and choose what they present about the situation of land and housing in our cities. They will display to the world the good things they can show to create the impression that South Africa is a great place to live. Our task is to tell the truth against this lie.

Truthfully speaking, is there any 'right to the city'? Is the life we are living really giving us a 'right to the city'? If there is a real 'right to the city', why are were facing evictions on such a massive scale?; why must we beg to the courts for our rights?; why are our rights to organise, speak and march so violently repressed?

No, if there is a 'right to the city', it is a very difficult right to actually get. And it is we, the poor who struggle for it, who are paying the price for this right – and it is a very high price to pay to access any meaningful and broader idea of our right to the city. Just look at the cost of the attacks on our movement in Kennedy Road last year. The price is still being paid by people who have been made homeless refugees in their own country, and by the comrades still being held in prison without trial since those attacks. The world must see and hear from us what the price of the fight for a real right to the city is. The world must know that those who voice out the truth are attacked, silenced, slandered, threatened and imprisoned. The world must know that there is no real difference between the apartheid government and this one we have now.

Mega-events to entertain the elites like the FIFA World Cup also show clearly that for the poor, there are no real rights to the city. To put on their games in the way the rich want them, means that poor people have to be swept away, and poor traders forced off the pavement - all this simply to make sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We see the same things when we look at the growing number of golf-courses and golf-estates that are mushrooming. Poor people are squashed together in crowded settlements or are without housing, and some are forced out of their places to make way for these elite play areas. In the world as it is now, what counts is not that everyone is a person – what counts is whether you have money. In our cities, the powerful and rich elites chase their dream of a 'world class city', and in their 'world class city' what counts is money. For the right to the city to be real what will have to count will be people and not money.

If the right to the city has such a high price, is there any hope then? Yes – in the movements of the poor that are organising; in the work of our delegation that will go to Brazil; in all of our work to really transform the world as it is. Even through the work of our shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, we have won important victories – like defeating the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court. But since that victory, the attacks against us have shown that we have to carry on, we have to organise and build the movement even more, and we have to work twice as hard as ever before. There is really no such thing as a 'right' that can be given to you by a government or NGO. As the poor we have to organise ourselves to increase our power and to decrease the power of the rich and the politicians. The only way to succeed in making the right to the city a living reality for everyone instead of a slogan which repressive governments can hide behind is to democratise our cities from below.

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East Harlem and Atenco

Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Press Conference at the Allied Media Conference with Atenco's People's Front in Defense of the Land over the Internet

What Does it Mean to be Compañeros?

An Other Mexico, and World, is Under Construction between San Salvador Atenco and East Harlem
By RJ Maccani
Originally appeared on The Narco News Bulletin (February 26, 2010)
en español aqui

“Who can imprison the fury of a volcano, the silence of centuries that explodes in rage and pain?” – Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, Mexican political prisoner sentenced to 112 years

For Mexico, 2010 commemorates 200 years since the War of Independence and 100 since the Mexican Revolution. But as Fernando Amezcua puts it, “Little or nothing remains to celebrate.” Amezcua was one of the 44,000 members of the Mexican Electric Workers Union (SME in its Spanish initials) who were put out of work when the current president, Felipe Calderón, issued an executive order in October that shut down the government-owned electric company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, and sought to break one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most combative unions. Amezcua continues on as SME’s “Secretary of the Exterior” and I met him just two weeks ago while studying on the Yucatán Peninsula with the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism. As he puts it in SME’s “Plan of the Insurgents”:

The Independence from Spain that two centuries ago cost so much of the first Mexicans’ blood (as always, above all that of the most dispossessed, of the indigenous, campesinos, craftsmen); the resistance against the US and French interventions, the nationalizations of the 20th Century such as petroleum and electricity, have been converted into a new large-scale national dependency on foreign powers, the sacking of our natural resources, and exploitation at the service of the big transnational corporations and international banks.

With this we are reminded that, since the founding of the country, a war has raged over two very different visions of Mexico. And in this symbolic year there is a gaping wound from this war that will be sewn shut, or torn ever wider. This wound is known as the case of Atenco.

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It

Less than eight years ago the people of San Salvador Atenco and other rural municipalities on the outskirts of Mexico City defeated the most important project of then-President Vicente Fox’s administration, the construction of the International Airport of Mexico City. It was an epic, ten-month battle between communal farmers “in defense of [their] mother earth” and a government intent on carrying out the development plans of national and international businessmen. It took on an even greater importance as the country was just coming out of over 70 years of one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the new government, headed by the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), was seeking to dispossess the campesinos even while it established this image of Mexico as an emerging liberal democracy.

The battle’s conclusion set a precedent for every other struggle in the country. In a public letter from Atenco’s People’s Front in Defense of the Land (the Frente) to the Zapatistas, they recounted, “It was then that we understood our role in history, we understood that things are not this way because someone decides, but that we too can decide what to do when faced with a decision from the powerful. When we prevailed in July and August of 2002 we confirmed what we already knew: “The government can be beaten.”

And just like their close allies, the Zapatistas, had done throughout Chiapas, they declared Atenco to be an autonomous municipality. Having kicked out their corrupt mayor as well as the police through the course of their struggle, they discovered that by making decisions in public assembly and organizing their own, community-based responses to violence in the town they achieved a level of democracy and safety well beyond what took place under the political parties.

Indeed, the struggle of Atenco was deeply inspired by the Ya Basta (“Enough Already”) of the Zapatistas of Chiapas who on January 1st, 1994 rose up in arms to win a free and democratic government for Mexico and realize the demands of the Mexican Revolution: work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. They did not achieve these objectives in that uprising, but the Zapatistas did succeed in inspiring millions throughout Mexico and the world. Thanks to their years of preparation, and the mobilization of their newfound supporters, the Zapatistas survived the government’s counterattack in those first days of 1994. In the years since then, they have peacefully constructed their own resolution to those revolutionary demands. In the over 1,100 Zapatista communities, which are grouped into 29 autonomous municipalities and five regions known as “caracoles,” over 200,000 of Mexico’s most downtrodden are leading the construction of their own political and judicial structures and educational, health, communication and economic development programs, and they are doing so while being subjected to low-intensity warfare, being surrounded by 50 to 60 thousand troops—roughly one third to one fourth of the Mexican military.

And so when the Zapatistas released their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle in 2005, and began making preparations to defy arrest warrants and death threats in order to leave their autonomous territories and join with “the humble and simple people who struggle” in Mexico and throughout the world, the people of Atenco were already with them. That August and September, Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, one of the great strategists and organizers of the battles of Atenco, and other members of the Frente attended in Chiapas to form the national initiative of the Sixth Declaration known as the “Other Campaign.”

Within this new struggle, the Zapatistas made it clear that they did not intend to lead, but rather to serve as facilitators of its creation and defenders of its core principals. Each adherent, be they a large organization or a single individual, was encouraged to define and defend their own place in the Other Campaign; To become like an embroidery, as Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos put it, “where each color and each shape has its place; there is no homogeneity, nor is there hegemony.”

As the first phase of their participation in building the Other Campaign, the Zapatistas sent Subcomandante Marcos on what they planned would be a six-month listening tour throughout all of Mexico. His tour began on January 1st, 2006, and was to coincide with the final six months of Mexico’s presidential election cycle and be followed, after the elections, by a delegation of indigenous Zapatista comandantes who would make longer visits to each part of the country beginning in September of that year.

An Injury to One is An Injury to All

From the beginning, adherents to the Other Campaign knew there would be repression. They were, after all, seeking to build a national force organized against the entirety of Mexico’s political class, including the self-described “center-left” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who was favored to win in the July elections. Motivation for this grew both from the many experiences of corruption and betrayal at the hands of the PRD, as well as AMLO’s stated commitment to continue the neoliberal economic policies of his would-be predecessors.

By mid-February of 2006, over 1,000 political organizations of the left, indigenous groups and organizations, social, non-governmental and artistic organizations and collectives had publicly joined the Other Campaign. It was also at this time that human rights groups were already denouncing a nation-wide rise in actions of intimidation and political persecution against its members. Nevertheless by the time Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos, in his civilian role as “Delegate Zero,” rolled into Mexico City, he was greatly emboldened by what he’d experienced in his tour of Mexico’s southern states.

Speaking in front of the US Embassy to over 40,000 people during May Day celebrations, Marcos declared that the civil and peaceful uprising that the Other Campaign was building was going to “overthrow the bad governments… expel from our land the rich, who have turned not just people into merchandise but also our land, our water, our forests, our biodiversity, our history and our culture.” Members of Atenco’s Frente were serving as Marcos’ security detail during this historic visit to Mexico City. Just two days after this speech, they would also be the target of the Mexican government’s most brutal attack against civilians in recent memory.

On May 3rd, 2006, flower vendors from Texcoco, were attacked by police who sought to prevent them from setting up their stalls outside a local market, on a building site that was to become a new Wal- Mart shopping mall. The People’s Front in Defense of the Land, from Atenco, mobilized to support their compañeros from Texcoco. Following this initial conflict, 3,000 municipal, state and federal police, each under the control of one of the three major political parties (the PRD, PRI and PAN, respectively) violently raided the municipality of Atenco. It was an attack by the political class against the Other Campaign and a brutal act of revenge by the outgoing president against the town that had stood in the way of his great international airport project. Over two hundred people were imprisoned, most of whom were subjected to cruel tortures including the rape of 26 women. Mexico’s commercial media seized on the few images of protestor violence to justify and encourage the repression. The police killed a young boy, Javier Cortés Santiago, and a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Alexis Benhumea Hernández.

Citing the Other Campaign’s commitment that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos suspended his tour of the country to help mobilize the rest of the national and international network in support of Atenco. By the end of the month, adherents from all 31 States and Mexico City, as well as Mexicans “on the other side” (of the border) had organized and demonstrated multiple times in solidarity with Atenco. Furthermore, at least 124 actions in 52 cities in 24 countries around the world had also taken place.

A Common Enemy

One such organization that began mobilizing then was Movement for Justice in El Barrio (Movimiento). Movimiento is an organization of immigrants, the majority of whom are Mexican, and low-income people of color, in New York City’s East Harlem. I caught up with Movimiento’s spokesperson, Oscar Dominguez, recently to discuss their relationship with the Frente and Atenco over the past almost four years. Like most members of Movimiento, Dominguez had just gotten off of a twelve-hour shift working in Manhattan’s service industry when we met. He began by identifying their common struggle and common enemy:

We, from New York, had begun organizing ourselves for a dignified life and so that we would not be displaced from our homes, and saw that our problems were caused by the capitalists, the rich, the bad governments. And then we saw them [Atenco], and their struggle to stay on their land, the place where they live and their culture, what they are as communities. Thus we saw that in different places, different countries, our struggle is to live a dignified life. And for them the capitalists wish to kick them off of their land… Us here in New York, them in San Salvador Atenco, we are waging separate struggles but against the same thing. The problems that we have are caused by the same people, by capitalism.

Dominguez recounted how they first organized a protest in front of the Mexican consulate in NYC immediately following the attacks of May 2006 to demand that the Mexican government respect Atenco and to put them on alert that people here were watching what was happening. Movimiento also realized that the mass media from Mexico was being reproduced in their local media. The message their neighbors were getting was that “Atenco was a small group of troublemakers who were trying to impede the progress of the country because the airport was for the economic development of the whole country, not only the community, and this small group, with machetes in hand were impeding all of this.” The machetes, of course, are the Frente’s symbol of their struggle, their work in the fields, and their history. To combat the media disinformation, Movimiento created street theater, complete with props such as wooden prisons, which they took out to 116th between Lexington and Third Avenues in East Harlem.

Rough Road

And in this way, they began a compañerismo with Atenco’s struggle to free its prisoners that has endured a rough road in the intervening years. Shortly after the attack on Atenco in May 2006 came the June uprising in Oaxaca and the electoral fraud of the July elections. Some groups previously within the Other Campaign left around this time, as they believed its moment had past and that they would find more meaningful struggle in the Mexico City government-sponsored protests of the elections.

By the end of that tumultuous year, the six month commune in Oaxaca would be put down with even more force than the repression against Atenco, and the Other Campaign would find itself not as an independent force to the left of a “center-left” government led by the PRD and AMLO, but instead a highly visible target of the fraudulently-elected candidate of the PAN party, Felipe Calderón. And beyond that, the political class as a whole had shown that mutual corruption could translate into a closing of ranks, if only to stay propped up: The PAN provided support to the embattled PRI regime in Oaxaca in exchange for support in sustaining the presidential election fraud, and the PRD walked away with its own fraudulently won governorship in Chiapas.

Around this time, Atenco’s political prisoners had been whittled down to 31, although this included three of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land’s leaders, Ignacio del Valle, Héctor Galindo and Felipe Álvarez, who were being held in a maximum security prison. And those staffing the encampment outside of Molino de las Flores prison, where the majority of the prisoners were being held, were down to five people.

While attending the School of Authentic Journalism last month, I also had the opportunity to interview Fernando León. León is a student at UNAM who has been directly involved in the case of Atenco since 2006. He recounted the governmental context of those difficult early days:

The legitimacy of Calderón from the very beginning was so limited. He supposedly won the elections with less than 1 percent more votes than AMLO. Calderón’s legitimacy was destroyed. What was the way to counteract this illegitimacy? The supposed fight against narcotraffickers and the war on drugs. From here the figure of Calderón has been one of military authority in the streets fighting the supposed evil of Mexico.

And Calderón wasn’t without help in his efforts to militarize the country. Shortly after he assumed office, the US government cooked up what it would eventually dub the Mérida Initiative, a drug war support package a la Plan Colombia. And in the intervening years, with millions of US tax dollars in tow, extrajudicial executions and human rights abuse have skyrocketed, while drug seizures have fallen and the drug war has grown from a regional into a national problem.

From early on it became clear that the true target of Calderón’s war was not drugs, or narcotrafficking, but Mexico’s social movements, and the poor and working classes in general. Although fourteen other Zapatistas, all indigenous commanders, were able to leave Chiapas in March of 2007 to visit the northern states of Mexico, they were met with increasing harassment, and by September of that year, the Zapatistas announced that they would be ceasing these tours and visits of the Other Campaign due to the increasing repression against their communities in Chiapas. But even as much of the public momentum of the Other Campaign has faded, the work that began in that space continues.

In Spite of the Difficulties

Along with numerous national and international initiatives in Mexico, groups such as Movement for Justice in El Barrio have also found ways to advance their struggles “on the other side.” At the beginning of 2007 they successfully kicked out the largest landlord in East Harlem, Steven Kessner, whom the Village Voice had dubbed one of the city’s “10 worst landlords.” A year after this victory, Movimiento began building their own “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio” to challenge the London-based firm Dawnay, Day Group that had just taken Kessner’s place. They were able to build a multi-national network of allies and supporters that supported them in eventually seeing the fall of Dawnay, Day in East Harlem in October of last year.

In spite of all the difficulties, in many ways the People’s Front in Defense of the Land of Atenco has only continued to build in strength. Narco News’ Kristin Bricker and a journalist from Radio Chapingo in Texcoco met with Maria del Carmen Perez Elizalde of the Frente near the end of last year to discuss the case of Atenco today. Just twelve prisoners remain in jail, although the prison sentences they have been given are almost unimaginable in Mexico:

To Felipe [Álvarez] and Héctor [Galindo] they have given a sentence of 67 years in prison and to Ignacio del Valle they have given a sentence of 112 years, more than a century. And to the other [9] compañeros, 35 years. How is it possible that they have given more than a century? So much time in prison, right? When according to the government it is fighting against the narcotraffickers and they are only giving them 3 years, 5 years, 6 years and these are sentences that they never complete.

Just this past December the Frente and their supporters completed their 12 prisoners/12 States tour in which they “involved over 130 organizations of Mexican civil society in over 100 political actions, marches and meetings.” The tour culminated in a massive concert in Atenco wherein they announced that the next phase of the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco “consists in removing our prisoners from jail once and for all.”

And the Frente and Movimiento have remained compañeros throughout these years. Just over a year ago, while delegates from Movimiento were attending the First World Festival of Dignified Rage in Mexico, members of the Frente invited them to visit Atenco. It was there that Movimiento was able to screen its video message to Atenco, which featured many of its members who could not make the journey. The Frente responded to Movimiento with a video message of its own. This creative way of crossing the border to speak with each other “face-to-face” has been essential not only to their growing relationship, but to the overall dynamic of their struggles. As Dominguez of Movimiento puts it:

In May of 2006, it was Vicente Fox who was in government but now it is Felipe Calderón and he continues with the same policy. So we took over the Mexican consulate here to demand the freedom of the prisoners of San Salvador Atenco. In the video message of San Salvador Atenco to us, they told us that it gave them more energy to know that us in New York were watching what is happening with them and that we are helping them in our form, our style, at our pace. It gave us certainty that our struggles in different places have encountered each other. It is how we continue struggling, with more energy and we are confident that in time we will succeed in defeating the enemy that we have in common, which is capitalism and the bad governments. That capitalism is not only in Mexico, not only in New York, it is in all parts of the world and that the bad governments are servants of capitalism.

As for President Calderón? Fernando León, organizer in the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco, points out that:

The costs of this [drug] war, and what this war has produced, has become so real for the people who are in these situations that [Calderón’s] legitimacy is again being interrogated. The popular cry today is for the military to return to their barracks and that the supposed strategy of Calderón against narcotraffickers is erroneous. Even people within his own party and cabinet say that this strategy is wrong. And so it has had a very big political cost for Calderón. If in the first year or two of his presidency he was situated as a strong figure of authority, this popularity is every day declining more. The military soldiers in the streets provoke the human rights violations. The military only sees an enemy as an enemy to be killed. They are trained in this way and you cannot just tell them to not commit human rights violations because this is their agenda. And this has, in one way or another, fallen into the lap of Felipe Calderón.

The War of Visions Rages On, Compañeros

Legitimate or not, Calderón is not for the moment the most central governmental actor in the case of Atenco’s 12 prisoners. The Supreme Court of Mexico is currently considering the justice of their imprisonment. For this pending decision, León has two predictions:

One is that they are allowed to leave this year thanks to an opinion of the Supreme Court. And the other has to do with the fact that the situation of the airport remains open. That the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) is buying land and the airport project was never dead. This would be the other possibility, that the prisoners are kept inside so that the People’s Front in Defense of the Land remains focused on them and they don’t have all the power necessary to focus on the airport project. Also, we are in the year 2010, which is so symbolic. And some believe nothing will happen, and others want it to not just be symbolic, and the federal government is preoccupied with this and if the prisoners are released the Front can rededicate itself to the struggle they have always been bringing. These are the two possibilities: that they leave, as they should have never been prisoners in the first place, and the other that the revenge of the federal government continues, and the abuses continue.

The war of visions for Mexico rages on. Soon enough it will be time for the Supreme Court to decide for one or the other. Perhaps after last year’s opinion to free those convicted of the 1997 paramilitary murder of 45 unarmed indigenous parishioners in the village of Acteal, Chiapas, the Court will want to add some “balance” to its ledger and close the case of Atenco with freedom for the prisoners. Or perhaps it will tear the wound, and the gap between these two Mexicos, ever larger by closing the legal route for their release.

No matter the outcome, it seems clear that the Frente has its eyes on the horizon, and the calendar. As Frente member Maria Perez Elizalde told Bricker, “What is needed now is for Mexico to wake up in time and this is the principle struggle of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land. Beyond the freedom of the prisoners, beyond the defense the land, a very concrete struggle of the People’s Front is to wake up our brothers and sisters to what is going on. So that we don’t exchange our freedom or land for a few pesos. For a few pesos that you have today but tomorrow are already gone.”

Movimiento and the Frente still continue to find new ways to be compañeros. The most recent was “a simultaneous press conference in Detroit we did through the Internet with the compas of Atenco,” which Dominguez described to me, “so that they could speak for themselves to the media-makers of the left who were gathered at the Allied Media Conference. It was an honor for us that they joined us in this press conference because their struggle is enormous compared to ours. It gave us confidence to create bridges of communication between different struggles in different countries. It was very moving for the members of Movimiento.”

This Sunday Movimiento will extend these “bridges of communication” even further when they host their Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement. They will be joined by other organizations fighting gentrification throughout New York City and the region and by many more. Haitian organizers who have just returned from their shaken homeland will share their experiences. The members of the Frente will be present again, as they were in Detroit, through a live video conference. This time they will also joined in this way by Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shack Dwellers Movement. The nine political prisoners of Atenco who are being held in Molino de Flores prison in Texcoco have sent along a written message for the gathering. And surely the other three, Nacho, Hector and Felipe, leaders of the Frente held in the maximum security prison “El Altiplano,” will be present in the thoughts of many in attendance.

So, will Mexico be a country of compañeros, or Calderóns? An armored, open-pit mine and playground for the rich? Or a place where, as the Zapatistas say, everything is for everyone and many worlds fit? After all these years, the question has not yet been definitively answered; in 2010 these two Mexicos are in conflict, from East Harlem to Chiapas.

And how will we respond, dear readers? Will we be compañeros?


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2010 Olympic Resistance

photo from the first Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America

We ratify our rejection of holding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on sacred land that was stolen from the native nations of the Turtle Nation with the goal of constructing ski slopes in Vancouver, Canada. -from The Vicam Declaration, issued at the close of the first Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, which was convened by Mexico's Indigenous National Congress, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and the Kumiai nation and held in Sonora, Mexico from October 11-14, 2007

Based on this call, the Olympic Resistance Network's organizing as natives and non-natives alike is largely being done under the slogan of "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land." Something to keep in mind as you hear and see more of the Olympics in the weeks ahead. Here's more info from the Network:

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place in Vancouver & Whistler, on unceded Indigenous land, from February 12-28 2010. Far from being simply about sport, the history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, and repression. As Olympic promoters and sponsors seek to present their sanitized corporate brand image to the world, the real impacts of the Games are apparent to everyone:

• Expansion of sport tourism on Indigenous lands
• Increasing homelessness across the province and especially in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
• Misdirected public spending and debt totaling $6 billion while funding for the arts, educations, and health care are suffering cutbacks
• Corporate bailouts and profits for companies with some of the worst social and environmental records
• Threats to basic civil liberties and free speech
• Union-busting and vulnerable working conditions for migrant labour
• Unprecedented destruction of the environment
• Unparalleled $1 billion police and security spending that is turning our city into a militarized zone.
  

Watch: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics

We are calling on all anti-capitalist, Indigenous, housing rights, labor, migrant justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty, civil libertarian, and anti-colonial activists to come together to confront this two-week circus and the oppression it represents. We are organizing towards a global anti-capitalist and anti-colonial convergence against the 2010 Olympic Games.

Anti-Olympic actions have already followed the Olympic Torch in cities as diverse as Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Roseau River Anishnabe First Nation, Six Nations, Onedia First Nations, Guelph, Toronto, London, Barrie, Kitchener, Stratford, Sept-Iles, Montreal, Kanahwake First Nations, Quebec City, Victoria, Comox Valley, Halifax, Ottawa, Kingston, and St. John's.

Even more protests and actions have taken place since the torch entered BC on Jan 21. There will be an Indigenous Peoples' Assembly from February 5th through 8th by the Neskonlith on their un-surrendered Secwepemc Nation terriory, and this wave of resistance will culminate in an Anti-Olympic Convergence from Feb 10-15 organized by the Olympic Resistance Network in Vancouver.

Read More!

Invite to 3rd NYC Anti-Displacement Encuentro

Movement for Justice in El Barrio

An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices that, before the deafness of power, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as different in the tonalities and levels of voices forming it. A network of voices that resist the war that power wages on them. – Words of the Zapatistas at the “First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.”

An invitation to: Members and families of organizations, community members, and people of good conscience, who are fighting against displacement in their communities across NYC.

From: Movement for Justice in El Barrio

Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement

An Encuentro is a space for people to come together, it is a gathering. An Encuentro is not a meeting, a panel or a conference, it is a way of sharing developed by the Zapatistas as another form of doing politics: from below and to the left. It is a place where we can all speak, we will all listen, and we can all learn. It is a place where we can share the many different struggles that make us one.

EL BARRIO, NYC
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 4:00 PM

The rebels search each other out. They walk towards one another, breaking down fences, they find each other. — First Intercontinental Encuentro

The rebels have met. In our first and second Encuentros, rebels who are fighting for dignity and against displacement came together to voice their presence, their rage, their struggle and their dreams. We broke down the fences that power constructs to divide us, we listened to one another’s voices, and we learned from one another. Now the moment is different.

Around the city, the country, and the globe, capitalism is heaving and shaking. We see it showing thin cracks in its concrete walls. We see its self-destruction as it razes its smaller empires. We see it exploit the cynical opportunities it envisions in terrible natural and human disasters. We see its agents rush to the battlefield to crack down on communities rising up to build something different.We walk along a trembling fault line of resistance and oppression and construct a path towards a future with dignity. With the knowledge of other compañeros and compañeras in this struggle we have walked forward stronger and now we must find ways to support each other.

Here in East Harlem, the giant has fallen. Dawnay, Day Group bought up an empire of 47 buildings in El Barrio with the intention of displacing our community members from our homes and raising rents by ten-fold. They failed in their mission in the face of years of fierce organized resistance from the tenants of Dawnay, Day that form part of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. They fell victim to their own greed. Now they face foreclosure. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is building an alternative in the ruins.

Across Harlem, the three council members that represent East, Central and West Harlem, millionaire Melissa Mark-Viverito, Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson have time and again joined billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, as he holds on tightly to the reins of power, in planning, promoting, and approving plans that displace our communities.

As we struggle here, we do not forget our sisters and brothers resisting in the far corners of the world. Nor do we forget where we come from and that many of us have already experienced displacement from our homelands. We join the humble and simple people across the world in their resistance as we stand up and join the fight against a global capitalist system that has pushed us to this dignified rage.

In this Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement we will hear directly from movements fighting against displacement from across the world:

• We will share a special video message from the South African Shack Dwellers to the Third NYC Encuentro. The South African Shack Dwellers Movement is fighting against displacement under the banner of “Land & Housing in the City.” They are standing tall and fighting back against forced removal and continued state repression.

• We will facilitate direct live participation from San Salvador Atenco, Mexico by the Peoples Front in Defense of the Land who will share about their organized creative resistance to protect their land and their culture and to free their political prisoners.

• In Haiti, a natural disaster unfolds and amplifies into a man-made disaster from the roots of neoliberal capitalism and from new visions to regenerate its exploitation. We will hear from organized Haitians who have been fighting against displacement for years and will be returning to NYC from Haiti to report directly on the most recent devastation.

Local politicians use their power, influence and money to try to buy-off resistance and pacify dissent. There are those that choose to accept the money of the powerful and ride on the currents of their power. In this Encuentro, we seek to speak directly to those who have chosen to fight against displacement and for dignity from the ground up and who will not be swayed by the seduction of the powerful and their riches.

Power seeks to divide and marginalize us as people of color, as women, as transgender, gay and lesbian, as youth, as the elderly, as workers, as immigrants, as tenants. We must resist division. We must seek to come together.

In this Third Encuentro, we will premiere a documentary of our 2nd NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement in which 38 groups came together to share their struggles.

Groups fighting against displacement across New York will share our struggles and use this gathering to find ways to mutually support each other. We will share whatever form of expression we choose, whether it be verbally, through song, poetry or rhyme, through a video, through artwork or however people can best express their struggle.

Please RSVP by Monday, February 15th!!
P.S. Children are especially invited to come break open the “Neoliberal” Piñata!

We will provide dinner, childcare and Spanish/English translation.
Please RSVP by February 15th with the number of adults and children that will be attending, their names and an address at which you would like to receive your tickets.

Once you have RSVP’d you will receive your tickets and more details on the Encuentro.

For more info or to RSVP please contact us at (212) 561-0555 or movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com

Who we are:

We are Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We are a group of humble and simple people who fight for justice and for humanity. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is fighting against gentrification in El Barrio, a process that is better understood by we who are affected by it as the displacement of families from their homes for being of low income, immigrants and people of color.

We are part of the Zapatista initiated transnational movement called “The Other Campaign.” For Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the struggle for justice means fighting for the liberation of women, immigrants, lesbians, people of color, gays and the transgender community. We all share a common enemy and its called neoliberalism. Neoliberalism wishes to divide us and keep us from combining our forces. We will defeat this by continuing to unite all of our communities until we achieve true liberation for all.

Read More!

Free Jamal Juma'

Video from The Alternative Information Center

UPDATE Jan 13: Jamal Juma' has been released! The impressive support of international civil society has moved governments and used the media to an extent that made his imprisonment too uncomfortable. Now let's ensure that the campaign for the freedom of all anti-wall activists and Palestinian political prisoners continues to grow. We have to combine our energies to ensure that the root cause – the Wall – will be torn down and the occupation will be brought to an end.

...to the Zapatistas it looks like there's a professional army murdering a defenseless population. Who from below and to the left can remain silent? -Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos speaking about Gaza on January 4th, 2009 in Mexico at the World Festival of Dignified Rage

On December 15th, 2009, Jamal Juma’ became the highest profile arrestee in an intensifying campaign to squelch powerful grassroots mobilization against the Israeli Apartheid Wall and settlements. Juma' has been in prison since then, without charges, and will be making his next appearance in court on Tuesday. Please take action now to free him and others, such as Mohammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahma, who have been imprisoned in this latest wave of repression.

With these arrests, Israel aims to weaken Palestinian civil society and its influence on political decision making at the national and international level. This process clearly criminalizes the work of Palestinian human rights defenders and Palestinian civil disobedience. But we can seize the initiative, redirect the force of this attack and continue to isolate Israeli apartheid. We must remember that our strategic action is working. The most recent evidence for this comes from the warrants issued in London that are currently keeping Israeli officials, including former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, out of the UK for fear of being arrested for their participation in last year's atrocities in Gaza.

Stop the Wall is asking us to coordinate our actions with them to free Jamal Juma' and all the anti-Wall prisoners. Full details of how to be in touch with them and take action can be found here. They are calling on us to:

• Organize petitions, demonstrations and letter writing and phone calling campaigns with friends, family and fellow members of organizations directed to our representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah as well as our nearest Israeli consulate.
  
• Join their photo initiative
  
• Bring this to the attention of local and national media outlets
  
• Follow the online and social networking groups they've created to coordinate this struggle

Readers here at zapagringo.com will find much inspiration in Jamal Juma''s work. He has a powerful vision of collective struggle and liberation...

Juma' speaking in November 2006 on behalf of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign:

We know that the Mexican Intifada continues and spreads to other states of the nation... The experience of these 60 years of resistance enable us to recognize our brothers in the Mexican indigenous communities who have resisted genocide for over 500 years. We salute the resistance of the people of Oaxaca against a corrupt puppet government and see in it a new point of reference for the struggle against imperialism.

In 2007, Juma' penned a piece for Left Turn Magazine illustrating how the movement they are building in Palestine is part of a much broader struggle:

But something is moving at an unexpected pace. People all over the world are starting to get an understanding of what is really happening in Palestine. Neither a “conflict” nor a “clash of civilizations”, it is about brutal apartheid and expulsion. This understanding is the fundamental basis on which the Palestinian United Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is built ... After 60 years of global support to our extinction, it is time to turn the tide ... Hundreds of organizations and initiatives are spreading among solidarity groups, churches, trade unions and political parties. This new global movement needs a strong foundation to be able to stand the attacks it has to face, but above all, in order to keep true to the principles of liberation, justice, and equality. We need to reach out to and join our efforts with all who are struggling against racism, war and global capital. The African Americans, indigenous peoples, immigrants, workers and farmers movements stand against the same oppressive and lethal mechanisms of power.

And just this past summer, Juma' helped host the first Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine. Jamal Juma' is a tireless fighter for freedom, justice and democracy, and it falls on all of us now to fight for him, and his fellow prisoners, and in doing so, to redirect the momentum of this attack back against those who stand in the way of liberation.

Read More!

Internat'l Seminar of Reflection and Analysis

Watch live streaming video of the 4-day event at seminariodereflexionanalisis

As we close out the Zeroes, I share with you a live video feed of "The International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis" taking place this December 30th through January 2nd in San Cristóbal del Las Casas, Chiapas at CIDECI-Unitierra (a sort of zapatista university).

This Seminar commemorates the publication of a book documenting "The First International Colloquium in Memory of Andrés Aubry... Planet Earth: Antisystemic Movements...." The Colloquium, held just over two years ago, featured interventions by a wide array of people including representatives from Vía Campesina and Brazil's MST, as well as Naomi Klein, Sylvia Marcos, Immanuel Wallerstein and a series by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.

HAPPY NEW YEARS, COMPAS!
ON TO 2010!

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Columbus Go Home!

HILARIOUS (and, unfortunately, NECESSARY)... Much love to this guy for bringing some historical memory to an anti-immigrant rally!

I found this video at The Unapologetic Mexican and am excited to be joining Nezua for a week-and-a-half of hard labor at the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism. Check out the other 30 students, and almost 50 faculty, and please kick in some cash to build this people-power institution. We will be working hard not only to build skills and learn together, but also to deliver original reporting AND share the curriculum on-line through viral video. So make that tax-deductible donation at The Fund for Authentic Journalism and let's make history together!

Speaking of people power, check out the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign's US Housing and Human Rights Tour (full schedule). The AEC has joined with Abahlali baseMjondolo (see this blog's recent report) and others to form the Poor People's Alliance in South Africa. In their own words:

As coordinators of the anti-eviction campaign, we are not leaders in the traditional authoritarian sense. Instead, we are like a set of cutlery. We are the tools that are there to be used by poor communities fighting against the cruel and oppressive conditions of South African society. Power to the poor people!

If you are in NYC, I know that the AEC event at the Brecht Forum, "The Post Apartheid Moment: An Evening of Solidarity with the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign," will be the place to be on Thursday night - hope to see you there!


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MJB Victory Against Dawnay, Day Group

Here is the press release from Movement for Justice in El Barrio announcing final confirmation that Dawnay, Day Group is leaving East Harlem as well as the victory they've just won against them in court. Below that is an article en español from yesterday's El Diario...

For Immediate Release
Contact Juan Haro, (212) 561-0555

Most Powerful Landlord in East Harlem, Multi-National Dawnay, Day Group, Comes Crashing Down

October 14, 2009—In a battle of David and Goliath proportions, tenants and members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio fought back against the attempts of the multi-billion dollar London-based corporation Dawnay, Day Group to push low-income families from their homes.

Thousands of East Harlem tenants have just been notified that the 47 buildings they reside in have been seized, due to Dawnay, Day’s failure to pay its massive outstanding debts, and are now under receivership, completing the demise of this multi-national company, a powerful threat to the community of El Barrio.

The multinational corporation that had scooped up 47 buildings in East Harlem, controlling one of the largest private property collections in Manhattan and by far the largest in East Harlem, is going down. Worldwide, Dawnay, Day has fallen victim to its own greed and is selling off its properties to cover its debt.

The East Harlem community has outlasted the giant through a multi-pronged strategy of resistance. This news comes close on the heels of a ground breaking legal victory in a case filed by Movement for Justice in El Barrio concerning thousands of dollars in false charges that were tormenting low-income tenants. Through this case, Movement for Justice in El Barrio partnered with Manhattan Legal Services and NEDAP to employ the innovative use of consumer protection laws for the first time in the housing arena with great success. Members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio just signed a settlement that will benefit thousands of tenants by putting an end to the practice of charging tenants thousands of dollars in false and illegal charges, instituting a new 3% cap on late fees for all tenants, and the plaintiffs receiving monetary damages, among other victories.

When Dawnay, Day became the most powerful landlord in East Harlem with their immense purchase, they announced in an interview with the Times of London their plan to take advantage of lax tenant protection laws in NYC to raise rents by "tenfold", a massive rent hike that would only be possible by evicting the current low-income and immigrant families from their homes. Again, they made their intentions explicit when they launched their “Buy-back Program” and began pushing tenants to abandon their apartments for a lump sum of $10,000. They coupled what amounts to measly and misleading offers in today’s NYC rental market with severe harassment in the form of dangerous negligence to the physical conditions of the buildings and apartments and illegal efforts to collect fictitious debts. Movement for Justice in El Barrio fought back against their efforts by:

- Filing a groundbreaking legal suit and recently winning a major victory that challenged Dawnay, Day Group, for charging thousands of dollars in false fees to its tenants.

- Launching the “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio” and traveling to London to organize action to take them on at their headquarters.

- Fighting back building by building to demand decent living conditions and halt illegal evictions and maintaining a sustained media campaign exposing Dawnay, Day’s harassment.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio will continue the struggle for dignity and against displacement with more strength and energy than ever before.

Dawnay Day tenants will be available to conduct media interviews.

To arrange interviews call Movement for Justice in El Barrio at 212-561-0555.

------------------

Casero negligente pierde viviendas
2009-10-19
El Diario NY

NUEVA YORK — Después de más de dos años de luchar contra el desalojo de sus viviendas contra la corporación londinense Dawnay, Day Group, dueña de 47 edificios en El Barrio los inquilinos recibieron recientemente una noticia que los alegró: por problemas financieros, este grupo dejó de pagar su hipoteca y los inmuebles han quedado bajo el control de la Corte Suprema de Nueva York.

Harvey Fishbein, designado por la Corte como Administrador legal de los edificios, informó a los inquilinos el 29 de septiembre pasado que Dawnay, Day Group no ha estado pagando su hipoteca, y los prestamistas—el Banco de Nueva York Mellon Trust y National Association— han comenzado un procedimiento legal para ejecutar la hipoteca. “He sido designado por la Corte no sólo para colectar el alquiler, sino también para ciertas responsabilidades de mantenimiento”, comunicó Fishbein.

De acuerdo con Juan Haro, del Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, la noticia fue recibida con alegría por los inquilinos de Dawnay, Day Group, porque desde que esta corporación tomó posesión de los inmuebles, “empezó un plan bien agresivo para desalojar a los inquilinos, cobrándoles cargos falsos”.

Esta lucha, según Haro, llegó a los inquilinos a unirse, protestar e incluso demandar al casero en corte.

La noticia de la salida de El Barrio de Dawnay, Day Group se produce pocos días después de que los inquilinos ganaran una demanda contra el grupo por miles de dólares en cargos falsos a los inquilinos. Fue presentada por el Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, en asociación con los Servicios Jurídicos de Manhattan, NEDAP, pero no bajo las leyes de Vivienda, sino bajo las leyes de Protección al Consumidor.

Los inquilinos denunciaron cargos en el alquiler por gastos en mantenimiento responsabilidad del casero. “Los inquilinos recibieron compensación monetaria al ganar la demanda y, entre otros beneficios, se estableció un tope de 3% de cargos por pagos atrasados en el alquiler”, dijo Haro.

Paula Serrano, quien reside con sus dos hijos pequeños en el 328 East de la calle 106, dijo que desde que Dawnay, Day Group tomó el edificio, empezó a recibir cargos falsos de $300 y $400 por supuestas reparaciones, y su balance llegó a $2,000. “Estoy muy contenta de que se haya ido Dawnay, Day Group, porque el plan de ellos era sacarnos de aquí”, dijo.

Los inquilinos esperan que los nuevos dueños se ajusten a la ley.

Llamadas a Dawnay, Day Group no fueron contestadas al cierre.

Read More!

Homeland Hip Hop II

We're breaking down borders from Native California to Detroit,
from Iraq to Brooklyn... to Palestine.

If you are in or around NYC -or at least will be next week!- make sure to come out on Wednesday (October 21st) and Thursday (October 22nd) for two powerful events --> see full details below... but first, a Multiple Choice Question:

The first ever Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine is back and gearing up to:

a) produce a documentary about the delegation

b) release a hip hop track that was recorded during the music workshops in Palestine

c) publish the next issue of SNAG Magazine in Arabic, English, and Spanish... with the writing and photos from the indigenous and Palestinian youth this summer

d) create a section on thinkpalestineact.org focused completely on education and organizing tools for folks working on Boycott Divest Sanctions (BDS) campaigns within indigenous communities in North America.

e) develop and organize multimedia delegation reportbacks in the different communities, schools, and organizations that the delegates come from.

What's the answer? These kids are on the grind -> it's ALL OF THE ABOVE! Now here are those two events (in reverse chronological order):

#1) HOMELAND HIP HOP II
if you made it to the first concert than you already know... and if you didn't, than make sure to get yourself to the sequel!

Thursday, Oct 22
doors at 8pm, show at 9pm
advance tickets $12, $15 at the door
@ Public Assembly (70 N. 6th St, Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

Featuring....

Invincible --> Detroit's finest... if you need convincing, check out those hot music videos at the Emergence Travel Agency.

Audiopharmacy - This is the band of one of the indigenous delegates to Palestine, Ras K'dee of SNAG Magazine.

The Narcicyst - PLEASE tell me you've seen the P.H.A.T.W.A. music video already.

PEP Youth Performers - These Brooklyn kids go hard for Palestine... it'll warm your heart :-)

Hosted by Remi Kanazi
...and DJ Oja on the 1's & 2's

Purchase tickets: publicassemblynyc.com

Proceeds from this show will go to support the hip hop group DAM in Palestine, the Palestine Education Project's work with youth in Brooklyn, and our indigenous partners throughout the U.S.

#2 Indigenous Delegation to Palestine: NYC Reportback

Wed, Oct 21

6:30pm- Reception with light food & drink
7:00pm- Reportback- live music, photos, and stories shared by Ras K'dee,
SNAG Magazine delegate visiting from San Francisco

@ the American Indian Community House (AICH)
11 Broadway in the Financial District (Take the 4,5 trains to Bowling Green). AICH is on the 2nd Floor.

Read More!

From El Barrio to Durban

Eyewitness video from the recent attacks on the Kennedy Road Settlement and Abahlali baseMjondolo

UPDATE October 13 '09: Here's Picture the Homeless' reportback from Friday's consulate protest here in NYC.

UPDATE October 8 '09: Protest at the South African Consulate in NYC this Friday (tomorrow) from Noon to 1:30p at 333 E 38th St btwn 1st & 2nd Aves --> organized by Picture the Homeless, the Poverty Initiative, and Domestic Workers United.

UPDATE October 6 '09: Press Statement by the Kennedy Road Development Committee, Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Poor People’s Alliance

Before we get to Movement for Justice in El Barrio's message to Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) in Durban, please take these actions in support of their South African shack dwellers' movement at this critical moment:

1) Circulate eyewitness video coverage of the attack on the shack dwellers, which can be found at http://www.abahlali.org
2) Sign the petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/274924944
3) Alert any press connections and send them to http://www.abahlali.org
4) Send emergency resources (even as little as $10):

Tax-exempt donations can be made by check. Please make checks payable to "South Africa Development Fund" which has promised to forward 100% to AbM and mark them for Abahlali baseMjondolo and mail to:

South Africa Development Fund
555 Amory Street
Boston, MA 02130

OR

transfer directly to Abahlali baseMjondolo Bank account with the following details:

Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement
Bank: First National Bank
Acc no: 62218884577
Branch: Umgeni Junction
Branch Code: 00200913
Swift Code: firnzajj759

Please mark payments for Abahlali baseMjondolo.

Thank you! Now here's the word from Movimiento...


Statement of Support to the Shack Dwellers Movement of South Africa
From Movement for Justice in El Barrio in New York City

To our sisters and brothers in Abahlali baseMjondolo [AbM] (Shack Dwellers Movement), the Kennedy Road Settlement in Durban, South Africa:

Greetings in solidarity on behalf of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We want you to know that we, the simple and humble people of East Harlem, New York, are filled with rage for everything that is happening to you, our sisters and brothers, in your country of South Africa. It pains us to hear that 3 members of your community have been pronounced dead and there may be more, many are missing, and even more are seriously injured. This repression that began on the evening of Saturday September 26th, and has yet to cease, in the form of invasion and violent raids in your community are a blatant attack on democracy and the movement for the power of poor people.

It is obvious that not only are the local police behind what is happening in the Kennedy Road shack settlement, but local politicians, that are members of the state party, the ANC, as well. We know that when the Sydenham police were called, they did not respond, and that police dressed in plain clothes that were present during the attacks did nothing to stop the destruction. In addition, we know that of the arrests that have been made so far, none of the people who are part of the militia that launched this completely unprovoked attack on Saturday evening have been arrested, and that most of the Kennedy Road Democratic Committee (KRDC) is behind bars at the Sydenham Police station (including those that were not even present during the attacks because they were attending a public event nearby!).

It is obvious that the police knew about these attacks and that they support this militia that clearly wants to destroy everything the Kennedy Road shack settlement has created and stands for. And, of course, the police can do this because they know they can get away with it as they have the support of powerful local politicians who want to destroy the Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers Movement) and KRDC because they are in the way of their political and economic control.

As we stated to you when you visited us, we stand with you sisters and brothers because we too are fighting the same system that uses vicious and aggressive strategies of displacement to remove us from our homes, only we are in different places. But no matter, we know that in all parts of the world the capitalist system and its political class from above impose these practices against the simple & humble people.

Which is why we are sharing these words from across the oceans and continents to let you know, from here in East Harlem, New York, that we are going to support you and we will do everything necessary so that this ends in favor of the South African community, so that one day in the future we all will be able to achieve our liberation.

Sisters and brothers you are not alone, we are with you and unite in one cry of dignified rebellion and rage.

Long live the dignified struggle of the Abahlali baseMjondolo!

Sincerely,
Movement for Justice in El Barrio


Introduction to Abahlali baseMjondolo:

The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers Movement) began in Durban, South Africa, in early 2005. Although it is overwhelmingly located in and around the large port city of Durban it is, in terms of the numbers of people mobilized, the largest organization of the militant poor in post-apartheid South Africa. Its originary event was a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road settlement in protest at the sale, to a local industrialist, of a piece of nearby land long promised by the local municipal councilor to shack dwellers for housing.

The movement that began with the Kennedy Road blockade grew quickly and now includes tens of thousands of people from more than 30 settlements. In the last year and a half the movement has suffered more than a hundred arrests, regular police assault and ongoing death threats and other forms of intimidation from local party goons. It has developed a sustained voice for shack dwellers in subaltern and elite publics and occupied and marched on the offices of local councilors, police stations, municipal offices, newspaper offices and the City Hall in actions that have put thousands of people on the streets. The movement also organized a highly contentious but very successful boycott of the March 2006 local government elections under the slogan ‘No Land, No House, No Vote’. Amongst other victories the Abahlali have democratized the governance of many settlements, stopped evictions in a number of settlements, won access to schools, stopped the industrial development of the land promised to Kennedy Road, forced numerous government officials, offices and projects to ‘come down to the people’ and mounted vigorous challenges to the uncritical assumption of a right to lead the local struggles of the poor in the name of a privileged access to the 'global' (i.e. Northern donors, academics and NGOs) that remains typical of most of the NGO based left.

The movement’s key demand is for ‘Land & Housing in the City’ but it has also successfully politicized and fought for an end to forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy.

The AbM office is in a community center on Kennedy Road, located in the Kennedy Road informal settlement, and is also home of the AbM meeting hall and a childcare center. The office is the location of most AbM General Meetings as well as the meeting place for the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC). The KRDC is just one of many autonomous political organizations that function within each settlement; these organizations, often called Development Committees, constitute AbM.

Background information on the attack

1. On Saturday night members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee were subject to a surprise attack by a group of about 40 armed men chanting anti Mpondo slogans. The police failed to intervene. People were killed. Later on that night all key AbM leaders were subject to attack. Everyone's houses (and businesses in two cases where people had shops) were destroyed. This mob (now known as 'the Zulu mob' in the settlement) has direct connections to the local ANC who had promised, two weeks ago, to turn the AbM office into an ANC office.

2. The police arrived in the morning and arrested 8 people all (as far as we know - we'll only be sure who has been arrested when they appear in court this morning) are members of the KRDC – the same people who were attacked. Among the arrested are people who were performing a dance at a public event elsewhere in the city on Saturday night. Attacks and threats continued unimpeded in the presence of the police. Calls for help were ignored.

3. Thousands have fled the settlement and some individuals, all key AbM activists, are in hiding as they have been told that they will be killed. Some Xhosa and Pondo people organized themselves against 'the Zulu mob' - this was independent of AbM or the KRDC, which are multi-ethnic organizations. There may well have been counter violence from this quarter. If so it may well be accurate to characterize it as defensive.

4. On Monday morning a huge police presence descended on the settlement as the local ANC councilor and the provincial MEC for Safety and Security arrived (proving that it is easy to get the police there when the state wants them there). They spoke in the hall and offered a clear endorsement of the fact that AbM has been driven out of the settlement. Some of their statements have been recorded. They began, bizarrely, to claim that the KRDC had launched the attacks - this is a total fabrication that they will not be able to sustain, as there were many witnesses on the scene - including some who are independent of local politics. They have also denied the ethnic character of the first attack.

5. After the politicians left so did the police. The settlement was left in the hands of groups of armed men - many not know to the residents. They trashed the AbM office and banned, on the pain of death, all AbM activists and supporters as well as media from entering the settlement.

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Study Groups Roundtable

Issue #8 of Upping the Anti

Our NYC-based study group, Another Politics is Possible, participated in a virtual roundtable discussion with three other US-based radical/revolutionary study groups at the beginning of this year. The results were published in Issue #8 of Upping the Anti. Also participating in the roundtable are the LA Crew, The New York Study Group, and the (Bay Area-based) Activist Study Circles. Posting this piece now feels timely as some organizers of the latter two groups will be launching a new website, "Organizing Upgrade," tomorrow.

Thank yous are due to Dan Berger and Chris Dixon for pulling this roundtable together and to Upping the Anti for allowing us to publish it for the first time online here at zapagringo. And by the way, that fine Canadian "journal of theory and action" has been doing some crucial work in supporting the development of fresh, radical political thought here on Turtle Island for over four years now (Enter the Intergalactic was featured back in Issue #3!) and deserves our support.

Navigating the Crisis: A Study Groups Roundtable
by Dan Berger and Chris Dixon

Our moment is marked by both crisis and possibility. Economies are plunging worldwide, and ecosystems are in undeniable danger. State repression is expanding, and the US, Canada, and Israel continue to wage wars of occupation. In this context, the recent US presidential election tapped into a reservoir of popular energy for change. However, mass movements in North America continue to be relatively demobilized. The left itself is in crisis and lacks clearly defined visions and strategies. Although progressive sympathies now run high, progressive options – let alone radical ones – are few.

Radicals thus face urgent questions: How do we understand the current conditions and develop a revolutionary politics appropriate to them? How do we foster mass movements that can exceed “politics as usual” and burst into new fields of action? How do we create strategies that can activate popular sentiments? And how do we build organizations capable of advancing movements and consolidating gains?

One way that activists and organizers wrestle with these issues is through study groups – intentional spaces for critical and collective reflection. Study groups are a hallmark of the left. Previous periods of crisis, like the 1930s and 1970s, compelled radicals to jointly investigate theoretical and practical models of revolutionary struggle. Often, these investigations led to new organizations or campaigns. Similarly, the current crises have generated several formations that intentionally use study to advance political priorities and explore organizational forms. The following roundtable brings together four such groups in the United States:

Another Politics is Possible (APP) is a group of organizers and activists in New York City. Their core values include collective leadership, democratic self-determination, challenging all systems of oppression, and centering the experiences of people most targeted by these intersecting systems.

The Activist Study Circles (ASC) is a multi-tendency socialist study group in the Bay Area. It brings together Marxists, anarchists, and revolutionary nationalists committed to a racial, economic, social, and gender justice anti-imperialist politics and to building power in oppressed and working class communities.

LA Crew (LAC) is a collective that was brought together by a shared commitment to learn lessons from all of the rich traditions of liberatory resistance, and to engage others with their analysis and principles. The LAC studies, analyzes, experiments, and creates community through collectively agreed upon political work and shared principles.

The New York Study Group (NYSG) is a network of activists and organizers, mostly people of color, based in diverse communities and organizations in New York City. Since 2005, NYSG has been studying left organizational forms – mainly revolutionary parties and united fronts – and strategy.

These groups represent different, if overlapping, political strands. The tensions between their approaches, in turn, point to key unresolved questions concerning leadership, organization, and politics. Regarding leadership: Are leaders elected, established, or developed? Is leadership about exercising authority, manifesting group decisions, or about developing collective power? Regarding organization: Should we be oriented toward a revolutionary party or set of parties, or should we discard the party model altogether? Can the party model co-exist with other models of revolutionary organization? Is a revolutionary organization committed to seizing power, redefining it, or something else entirely? And regarding politics: Are there important issues that we neglect by attempting to bridge multiple left tendencies, or do our political differences obscure common ground? These questions are not resolved here. Responses to these questions, meanwhile, expose differences not just of definition but of emphasis. Each group believes in building revolutionary organization(s), developing inter-left unity, and popularizing radical politics, yet they prioritize them differently.

The groups participating in this roundtable attempt to engage the perennial question – what is to be done? – by drawing upon an eclectic set of politics. The commitment to such politics varies: the NYSG draws explicitly from Marxist-Leninist history, APP looks to anti-authoritarian social movements like the Zapatistas, and the ASC and the LAC each work in their own way to bridge the divide. Despite these differences, all four draw from a range of tendencies on the revolutionary left, recognizing that whatever we build must both learn from and be different than what has come before. They suggest that, in responding to today’s conditions, we must try to avoid the mistakes that revolutionaries of all stripes – Marxist and anarchist, revolutionary nationalist and identity-based – made in the past.

At their best, these study groups offer lodestars – orienting concepts rooted in practices – that we can use as we grapple with the pressing questions of our time. This roundtable thus sets a foundation for the kind of non-sectarian and principled debate we so urgently need.

Tell us about the origins of your study group.

APP: Another Politics is Possible first came together at the end of 2006 as a New York City-based study group of 15 organizers, activists, educators, dreamers, and revolutionaries committed to a collective process of self-education and political articulation.

We came together because of a shared practice. Many of us were already working in organizing projects and collectives to implement some aspects of the core principles that brought us together as APP. We were doing work on gendered violence, education, queer and youth organizing, childcare and community building primarily as members of immigrant and women of color organizations.

One of our primary intentions was to articulate a practice – a way of doing politics – that values collective leadership, seeks democratic self-determination for all people, and centers the experiences of people most targeted by the intersecting systems of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy and their multiple permutations.

Building on this commitment, we align ourselves with those who argue that engaging state power is not enough. Drawing from the lived experience of decolonized states and from women of color feminist critique, we’ve seen that it’s not just a question of who holds power but also what form that power takes. We’ve learned from history that when seizing state power is the primary strategy, it often ends by confirming Audre Lorde’s sage wisdom that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” We must work to reclaim, reimagine, and rebuild our own home. Creating liberatory forms of social organization beyond the state is a necessity. Attempts to model the society we envision transform our cultures and relationships, and create a guide for our politics and organizing. This prefigurative sensibility, popular in many of today’s movements, has deep historical roots worldwide. These include forms of resistance that are often overlooked by traditional left analysis and range from communities of care to the transformative role of culture and spirituality in larger scale organized movements.

Some of the political questions we believe are fundamental to exploring different possibilities for revolutionary organization are: How do we both transform our interpersonal relationships and build broader cultures of liberation? What does collective leadership and democratic self-determination look like? How do we make sense of the many strategies to engage with the state as we seek liberation? How do we understand the process and significance of rebuilding community? How do we really build a movement that addresses the intersectionality of oppressions?

ASC: In the late 1990s, many longtime Bay Area organizing efforts were coming to fruition. They brought a broad range of people together around radical left politics and practice. September 11 changed the context of our struggle. Over the next few years, many of us brought our organizations and communities into the streets as part of the anti-war movement. During that period, leaders from different parts of the Bay Area left began conversations on building a broader socialist unity drawing from multiple traditions. This included communists developing new approaches to democratic organizing, grassroots power, and strategy, and anarchists developing new approaches to leadership, revolutionary politics, and anti-authoritarian organizing. In late 2003, a group of 30 of us from 20 organizations came together to think about what the Bay Area movement lacked and what we thought was needed. Out of that discussion a committee formed to plan a project called Movement Generation that brought together leaders in community-based organizations from different political traditions (Marxist, revolutionary nationalist, feminist, and anarchist) to engage in a nine-month study to develop strategy and guide our struggles. Through this process evolved a multi-trend movement building approach.

From this experience, a group of us decided in 2005 that we needed a study group to foster relationships and political unity in order to build left organization. Our planning committee met for about two years. We developed trust between us and trust in our ability to play a meaningful role in building a dynamic left. We then invited more than 100 people to participate and 80 of these went on to form the ASC program. We meet once a month in large groups, and then once a month in smaller groups to delve deeper into subject matter. We have continued as a group of about 40. The study group began as, and continues to be, majority people of color, majority women, and a large percentage queer. To help create an intergenerational movement, we invited some older-generation comrades to participate. Most of us are in our late twenties to early 40s, with the majority in our 30s. We are multi-trend socialists (anarchists, Marxists, feminists, revolutionary nationalists, etc.) with demonstrated unity on key issues like anti-racism/anti-imperialism, the need for grassroots peoples’ organizations to build powerful democratic movements, the need for a synthesis of left politics, and a desire to develop new politics and forms of organization.

LAC: Those of us who first began studying together had come to the conclusion that no single political trend had found the answer to creating the change we are fighting for. We concluded that every trend had lessons for us, both in their victories and in their failures. We came together to look at these trends and to determine what principles and strategies felt useful for leftists today.

The question of leadership has been central to our growth. Drawing from anarchist and horizontalist models, we hold each other accountable to the principle of non-hierarchy by “throwing power back.” When we “throw power back,” we commit to being “leaders” that inspire others to see themselves as agents capable of making social change, and to see their most important role as developing others to participate in making that change. We believe that everyone has the ability to learn from history and to participate in creating collective visions for the future.

Like Ella Baker said, “strong people don’t need strong leaders.” We see our group as a location to build strong people so they can in turn develop others to do the same. People have different levels of experience when it comes to reading, engaging with political ideas, and organizing. Because we want to create a space that’s not dominated by the most “experienced” people, we aim for an equitable distribution and rotation of tasks and responsibilities. We encourage each other to take on roles that challenge us to grow in areas where we don't have much experience, and have a buddy system for supporting each other’s development outside of meetings. We consciously challenge all the societal messages that tell us that “someone else is the leader.”

NYSG: After a March 2006 discussion at the Brecht Forum on the need for a left party, five young activists and organizers from New York City came together to initiate a study group around the question of left organization. That first year of study brought together about 20 or 30 folks from diverse sectors of the social justice movement. Most of us were people of color in our 30s, politically active for more than a decade in a range of community-based organizations, and not ideologically fixed – some influenced by Marxism, some by anarchism, many agnostic or still figuring it out.

We started by studying the theories of the “united front” and the “revolutionary party,” and by looking at the history of struggles in South Africa and the United States, and at new organizational models in Mexico and Brazil. During this first round, we found that we had some significant differences about the “revolutionary party” model. These tended to arise between autonomists, who wanted to discuss alternative organizational forms, and people from a range of ideological positions (Marxist, revolutionary nationalist, and “agnostic”) who believed that revolutionary parties were necessary.

The participants who were compelled by the idea of a revolutionary party decided to initiate a second round of study. About 30 people came together to explore different historical models of revolutionary parties, learn from their contributions, and engage with their historical errors without abandoning them. This round of study was guided by two questions. First, what is our vision for a left organization/party that will help build a successful liberation movement in the United States? Second, how do we most effectively advance movement-building and left-building: by joining an existing left organization, initiating a new one, or something else?

At the end of this round of study, no individual from our study group chose to join an existing socialist organization, and no one argued for starting a new party. However, we all agreed that it was important to continue working with existing left organizations and invest in transitional projects that would lay a stronger groundwork for the re-emergence of a more relevant left organization in New York City.

In framing the objectives of our study, we skipped over a crucial step. We found that we couldn’t figure out what kind of left organization we needed or how we might build one without a clear assessment of our political conditions and a strategic vision for the development of a successful revolutionary movement. We realized that we needed to re-open our study process and engage questions of strategy. That is the focus of our studies and dialogues over the next year.


What texts and movements have been instrumental to your study group?

APP: When we came together, we sought to locate our group in a historical and theoretical trajectory. Given what was happening in the world, we also sought to articulate what form our politics would take at a mass level.

Some of the texts we’ve read have focused on movements like the Adivasi of India, the Unemployed Workers Movement in Argentina, the Movimento Sem Terra in Brazil, the Zapatistas in Mexico, and the Black Freedom Movement in the United States. The critique of the not-for-profit industrial complex promoted by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence provided an important lens through which to think about the weakened state of social justice movements in the US.

We have prioritized politics that are prefigurative, horizontal, autonomous, and based on the development of new social relations. Each of the movements we studied has also addressed the non-material dimensions of oppression, which include the ways it impacts our individual and collective emotional lives and the damage we inflict on each other and on ourselves. Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, and Audre Lorde have reflected extensively upon the ways that the oppressor’s tactics permeate our interpersonal relationships and psyches. They have thus served as important examples of the need to integrate healing and self-care within a collective framework into our broader movement work.

ASC: Initially, the planning committee studied Martha Harnecker’s essay “Forging a Union of the Party Left and the Social Left.” Harnecker convincingly describes the need for anti-capitalists from the Party Left and social movements to come together and develop a new socialist politics together. For us, the Party Left includes traditional Left Party organizations as well as cadre organizations of various political stripes, like the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Most of us come from the grassroots organizations, campaigns, and struggles of the social movement left.

We developed our study by voting on various case studies and themes. As a multi-trend group, it was important to us to select a set of case studies and readings that would help us to learn what we could take from each tradition. We began with an examination of the current moment. Studying the state of US imperialism, we took stock of our role as first-world leftists and discussed our visions of socialist politics for this century. From that grounding, we began looking at case studies of revolutionary organizations in various historic periods. We studied Guinea-Bissuea’s national liberation struggle, which was very important to revolutionaries of previous generations but not so well known to radicals of our generation. We studied the Zapatistas’ historical development and their contributions to current movements. This launched a larger discussion about Zapatismo and its applicability to the US. We explored the complex organizing strategies of the Communist Party in the US South during the Great Depression and the roles of the left in united fronts.

Our final case study focused on STORM in the Bay Area and the national Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation. This allowed us to look at organizations from the 1990s in which some of us had been involved and brought us to a rich discussion on the role of contemporary third-world Marxist and anti-authoritarian/anarchist organizations. Through all of these studies, we’ve tried to highlight both the successes and shortcomings of social movements in order to draw lessons for today.

LAC: We want to understand the whole diverse history of revolutionary movements – not just to develop our own theoretical foundation but to understand what other folks are drawing from and to develop our own critiques of different political trends. As the history of the 20th century shows, we don’t think that any one trend “got it right.” Nevertheless, many have something to contribute to a revolutionary politics for the 21st century. In our study, we try to grapple with the tension between useful insights, and limitations, obstacles, and contradictions. Within that framework, we study texts from the classical marxist tradition (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Gramsci, etc.), third world marxism and revolutionary nationalism, Maoism, and the New Communist Movement, anarchist and autonomista movements, US people of color liberation movements, feminist and queer liberation movements, the Earth liberation movement, and others.

We also try to look at everything through the lens of what we call “unbreakapartability.” Because oppressions are intersectional and affect all of us in complex and overlapping ways, the many forms of struggle for human liberation cannot be broken apart. An unbreakapartable approach aims to reveal that, as whole people, our struggles must reflect our whole selves. As well, unbreakapartability calls on us to learn from the vision and organizational forms of multiple struggles so we can build a truly integrated liberation movement.

NYSG: We studied the “classics” of Marxist thinking on the revolutionary party and united front (Lenin’s What is to be Done?, Gramsci’s political writings, and Mao’s speeches on the United Front), looking to draw out the often-ignored dynamism and democratic thinking underlying these texts. We felt that Lenin and Gramsci demonstrated the important role of parties, the need to root those parties in popular struggles, and the possibility for a deeply democratic orientation.

Among the contemporary analytical pieces that we read, Harnecker’s “Forging a Union of the Party Left and the Social Left” stands out. Harnecker distinguishes between the “party left,” who are organized into explicitly socialist left organizations and parties, and the “social left” (which we have re-termed the “social movement left”), who are rooted in mass movements rather than socialist parties or organizations. She points out that both “lefts” have their own assets and challenges. She argues that we will only be able to build an effective left rooted in powerful social movements if we forge a “union” of these two “lefts.” This approach helped us to identify the central role of building vibrant social movements that can help to reinvigorate the “party left” in the United States.

In our studies, reading history was just as important as theory. We found the history of the U.S. Communist Party in the 1930s to be particularly helpful. The mass scale and revolutionary orientation of the CPUSA during that period inspired us to think bigger. We saw that revolutionaries need to be deeply rooted in mass struggle and guided by a clear strategy. We learned that revolutionary parties played an instrumental role in almost every serious revolutionary movement over the past century and that many of those parties made serious anti-democratic errors. We saw that revolutionaries needed to be deeply rooted in working class communities of color but that we also needed to build functional unity with broader social forces in order to contend for real power. Finally, we learned that cross-class and multi-racial alliances encounter serious pitfalls.


Has your group worked together politically beyond study? How has your study process affected your political practice?

APP: In the summer of 2007, we organized a delegation called “Another Politics is Possible: Living the Vision from Below and to the Left” to travel from NYC to Atlanta to attend the first US Social Forum (USSF). This delegation was the first time we worked together on a larger scale. We sought to embody the politics we had been articulating together through the journey itself. Instead of choosing a few individuals to travel by plane and renting hotel rooms for them alone, we raised funds so that more than 70 women of color, mothers, children, youth, and childcare volunteers could attend the USSF. Ground transportation enabled more participants to attend, particularly immigrants and families with children.

We also used the USSF to collaborate with groups from around the country that had been exploring similar politics. Together, we created a 25-session track of workshops addressing topics like collective and non-hierarchical approaches to organizing, addressing violence against women of color through transformative justice, alternatives to institutional schooling, solidarity work, and community-generated visions and practices of autonomy. Several of the people we worked with on this track were beginning to form or were already participating in local study groups. Since the USSF, APP has teamed up with these study groups to engage in continued collaboration and dialogue.

ASC: Although we have moved away from the goal of forming an organization, we remain focused on building relationships and shared understandings to build the left. We put organization building on the back burner because of the need to bring together a large group of people engaged in many different areas of work. While we have unity on the political principles of the group, the level of experience working together varies widely.

We want to create space for discussions about larger questions of strategy and left organization. For example, many of us believe in the need to both build new forms of liberatory power and win existing power. However, what that means for organizational strategy is a question we want to explore. We are looking at various organizational forms because we believe there is much to be learned from both the Zapatista fight against neo-liberalism and the Communist Party campaigns during the Great Depression.

The ASC is not currently designed to take collective action. However, as individuals involved in other struggles, we have come together though long-term alliances, new campaigns, electoral work, fundraisers and cultural events, and new friendships. We hope the ASC will continue to foster a healthy left culture and allow us to find creative and meaningful ways to share common vision, analysis, and strategy so that we can move more effectively together.

LAC: After studying together for a few years, we formed a new collective, instead of joining an existing one. This was because we didn’t see an organization that was drawing on multiple movements and deeply incorporating lessons from different trends. Our priority is building grassroots movements that can give masses of people the skills and vision required to transform the world. It is critical for us to find others who are committed to long-term movement building so that we can deepen our consciousness together. We believe in doing this within collective organization, where we can practice accountability and cross-sector coordination. Ultimately, this coordination should happen nationally and internationally as we have begun to see with the emergence of collectives that demonstrate how “another politics is possible” in the 21st century.

Within the LA Crew, we organize in education, healthcare, immigration, and the garment industry. We discuss our individual work collectively and look for opportunities to work across sectors. We are guided by six core principles: unbreakapartability, non-hierarchy, self-determination, experimentation, acknowledgement of our whole humanity – what we call “mind/body/spirit” – and dual power. This last concept flows from the history of popular movements creating alternative institutions that pose a revolutionary challenge to the system and lay the groundwork for a new society.

Our commitment to these principles shapes what we study and what we study shapes our practice. Our interest in dual power led us to study the Zapatista movement, which sparked questions about state power and the limits and benefits of dual power institutions. This impacted our thinking on the healthcare sector. Is it better to create small, model institutions or make demands on the state to provide universal access? How do we encourage people to think about the healthcare system they want while also taking advantage of opportunities to make system-wide changes?

NYSG: At the end of our second round of study, we were invited to help plan the Revolutionary Work in Our Times Summer School. Co-sponsored by Solidarity, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, the LA Crew, and the NYSG, this four-day gathering brought together almost 200 revolutionaries and radicals from across the U.S. (along with small delegations from Puerto Rico and Canada) in August 2008.

Helping plan the summer school reflected our conclusion that we need to overcome the history of sectarianism on the left and build unity among those committed to radical transformation of society. Based on the assessment that the “social movement left” has an important role to play in building a stronger left, we worked hard to recruit our comrades from social movement organizations to be participants and presenters. We hope the relationships people built through the school will provide a groundwork for developing the broad-based, movement-rooted, and ideologically diverse left organization we need today.


How has your group changed based on the challenges you've encountered while studying together?

APP: The successes, challenges, and limitations of our delegation to the USSF have greatly informed our second cycle of study and the ways we organize ourselves today. The experience of large-scale participatory democracy allowed us to engage our principles in practice. Our commitment to praxis left us with a series of new questions. Central themes that emerged included coordination, leadership, structure, organization, and transformative community building.

At the level of coordination, we’ve found it necessary to clarify that non-hierarchical-organizing doesn’t mean a free-for-all or a disavowal of power dynamics. On the contrary, horizontal organizing requires intentional structure and coordination to directly address the different experiences and knowledge that people bring with them. While many of us have addressed these issues in our own collectives, we realized the need to develop a tighter and more transparent structure for APP.

Coming together for our initial round of study, many of us shared critiques concerning the patriarchal nature of the “charismatic” and individualized styles of leadership that have dominated many traditional forms of left organizing. As we grew, the need for a pro-active definition of leadership became increasingly clear. One of our current goals is to articulate an alternative leadership that emphasizes deep listening, actively nurturing a culture of participation in which everyone feels that their voice is valuable, and being cognizant of how power dynamics impact participation and emotional well-being.

ASC: It’s difficult to create a space where our different socialisms can grow like flowers instead of like weeds choking the life out of each other. However, through the years of practice in our various organizations, through Movement Generation, and now through the ASC, we are developing left culture and practice that draws from our different strengths. As the ASC, we changed our goals on organization building as many of us had little experience collaborating with one another. We quickly learned that there was much to be done in terms of building our theoretical foundation and our capacity for political study. Despite these challenges, our primary goals of relationship building and bringing together larger segments of the left continued.

We struggle to simultaneously comprehend what we are studying and to draw meaningful lessons. While trying to see shortcomings in past experiences, it’s important that we understand the conditions that impacted the decisions made in order to avoid sloppy and simplistic conclusions. We need to develop methods to understand our own conditions and possibilities. We need to remain humble and grounded when learning from the past and assessing political work today.

At times, people have critiqued the material we’ve read as being from one tradition or another. This has led the planning committee to ongoing solicitation of input from the membership. We’ve also struggled to maintain momentum and participation. In particular, while the ASC remained majority people of color, most of the people dropping off were people of color. Many have said that it was due to time pressures with their other work. We were also told that more follow up and reminder calls would help. The challenge remains creating participatory democratic processes when so many have so little time to participate. The planning committee of five recently expanded to eleven. We did this to build more leadership and increase participation, as we work to find a good balance between the planning committee moving the group forward and the larger group providing direction and focus.

How we work together is a critical part of the learning process. It’s where we can experiment with the kinds of leadership and organization we need.

LAC: One challenge we’ve faced is getting people to feel comfortable reading and understanding difficult, primary source material – reading Lenin as opposed to reading a book about Lenin. People are sometimes challenged by the language and the references to people, groups, and events they don’t know about. We also face the challenge of making such study accessible to non-English speakers, people with children, and people not accustomed to study and reading as a form of learning.

We’ve tried addressing these challenges by reading “easier,” newer things first, by creating activities that encourage drawing as a way of exploring ideas, and by using visuals for the material we cover. We also check in with people one-on-one as they are reading, before the group actually meets, to offer support and an opportunity to ask questions. Within the study group sessions, we use smaller break out groups to give people a chance to ask questions and “warm up” before large group discussion.

We’ve also found it important to incorporate our principle of mind/body/spirit into the study group process. This has meant giving people an opportunity to hear each other’s stories, and creating a space where feelings have as much value as intellect. This seems to allow people to feel more comfortable. They take more risks in the statements they make and the questions they ask.

NYSG: We’ve struggled with the fact that our participants come with very different degrees of theoretical and historical knowledge. This is somewhat, though not absolutely, related to differences in educational background and pre-existing familiarity with explicitly left theory. It was difficult to find methods that would ensure that people were clear on the fundamentals and also challenge everyone to go deeper. We’ve worked hard to make our group accessible by combining training on fundamentals with critical engagement using both popular education and presentation-discussion formats. We’ve also invited people from different socialist organizations to help us unpack certain histories and theories. We’ve encouraged all participants to help plan at least one session, and have shared childcare costs.

Our study group has struggled with the tension between our ambition to build a stronger left and the fact that the many demands we face keep our level of capacity low. We also struggle to ensure that our study remains connected with the organizing work of our members. To deal with these tensions, we are currently working to develop a new structure that will alternate between smaller study groups (or “grupitos”) based in our members’ mass work and large group studies.


In light of the deepening economic crisis and the election of Barack Obama, how is your study group thinking about the organizational and strategic demands of the current moment?

APP: In other regions of the world, we are able to identify truly transformative movements coordinated across issues, sectors, and communities. In Latin America, we take inspiration from the Zapatista-initiated Other Campaign, the powerful movements transforming Bolivia with and beyond the Morales government, and the Landless Workers’ Movement of Brazil as it moves toward creating alliances with urban movements in response to the neoliberal policies of the Lula administration.

As of yet, there is no radical movement with such broad and deep roots here in the US that is either positing or building viable alternatives in the face of a worsening world-economic crisis. This is what we want to create. Today, there are more possibilities for democracy, justice, economic equality, and ecological sustainability than ever before. The deepening economic crisis has led to a generalized understanding that we need a new system. The Obama administration’s response to some early mobilizations against the crisis suggests that more concessions can be won. The risk of cooptation, on the other hand, is much higher now than it was under the previous administration. The problems we face are global, however, and it is at this scale that we must ultimately be able to coordinate ourselves, both to fight back and to create new social relations.

ASC: We need a new kind of politics. This involves learning from the past but also looking at the moment in which we live. Socialisms of various sorts are in power again in Latin America. Anarchism and horizontalism is alive and well from occupied factories in Argentina to collectivized workplaces to Zapatista struggles. It’s important to take direction from many quarters – from Freedom Road Socialist Organization, to community-based organizing in the Right to the City Alliance, to the Zapatistas – and try to draw together important lessons and insights that are relevant to our struggles.

Through our experience, we’ve come to face the question of how can we build a left that deserves to lead – a left that provides space for people to grow, study, heal, and get trained to build healthy self-governing communities that can transform society. This is happening throughout the country in thousands of organizations and projects. However, there is a tremendous need to create formal spaces to push to the next level. Many of us lack tools to make sense of the world around us. Many of us lack historical knowledge of our movements. We are struggling to move beyond comfortable left positions and place our revolutionary goals in the conditions we face. Our goal is not to be a marginal radical pole but to radically transform society.

As we begin our second round of study, we are focusing on national politics and strategy in this period of economic crisis and an Obama presidency. We are focusing on struggles for health care, immigrant rights, ecological sustainability, peace, and economic justice with the following questions: What is our vision and what are our transitional demands toward socialism? What should we be fighting for in this period? And what should left strategy be to both win immediate demands and build the power of working class and oppressed peoples? We are excited to step up to the challenges and opportunities before us, and the ASC is one space to help us do that.

LAC: We need to be flexible and encourage organizing and experimentation in many different spaces. The work we do today is like planting chamise, a brush plant native to California. When exposed to open flame, the chamise releases combustible gasses that accelerate the spread of wildfires. We can’t predict exactly when and where these fires will start, but history shows us that people do rise up. Whether these uprisings can become movements powerful enough to transform society has a lot to do with the ideas that have been put out there and the organizing that has been done ahead of time.

The widespread energy created by Obama’s election has ignited hope and inspired many people to believe in the possibility for change. We see this as an opportunity to encourage folks to engage in collective action to achieve broader changes instead of waiting for it to come from ‘above’. The radical left’s weak response to the economic crisis also teaches us that we need to break with old paradigms and experiment with new strategies for change.

Although we don’t think it’s particularly useful at this stage to develop a rigid view of which communities or sectors will be “in the lead” of future movements, our principles do guide how we prioritize where to work. Specifically, we try to make connections between different struggles. In our education organizing, we push for a vision in which the experiences and demands of teachers, students, and parents are seen as unbreakapartable. As we prepare for this year’s May 1st actions, we are emphasizing cross-sector demands that point toward a broad popular response to the economic crisis. This means moving beyond a narrow focus on immigrant rights to include demands for housing, healthcare, education, access to food, and dismantling the security state.

NYSG: We find hope in several developments on the social movement left. In the last couple of years, social movements have consolidated into national formations such as Grassroots Global Justice, the Right to the City Alliance, and the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance, and – in a different vein – the US Social Forum. But while the social movement left is the site of some of the most dynamic struggles, it remains limited by its relatively small scale and lack of strategic vision. We are also limited by the weakness of the explicitly socialist left and the disunity between left organizations. We find hope, however, in the unity built through the Revolutionary Work in Our Times Summer School.

We need strong revolutionary organizations that can bring together the social movement left with the membership of already existing left organizations. In order to lay the groundwork for that level of revolutionary organization, we identified four priorities: First, community-based organizing work in oppressed communities is the most important work that revolutionaries can be doing today. More revolutionaries need to be engaged in the work to build the power of oppressed people. Second, we have to promote the broadest possible development of revolutionary leadership rooted in oppressed communities, particularly in working class communities of color. Third, we need to continuously develop and refine a systematic understanding of the world we live in and what it will take to bring about the revolutionary transformation of society. We need spaces to develop and debate revolutionary theory and strategy, and forums to coordinate their implementation. Fourth, the constitution of a revolutionary left organization for the 21st century depends on the unification of the emergent left forces from social movements with socialist organizations (which need to build a higher level of inter-group unity in order to overcome past divisions).

We recently launched a new phase of study focused on developing left strategies to address the challenges and opportunities of the economic crisis and the “Obama era.” This new focus has produced an overwhelming response and brought together more than 150 activists and organizers from around the city. We are combining both historical reflections on the high tide of resistance in New York during the Great Depression and assessments of our current conditions. This is a unique historical moment, and we hope these strategic dialogues will help us to develop the clarity we need to step up to the historic plate. We believe that if we can get more coordinated and strategic, our movements will look radically different ten years from now.

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