Den 19 september är det val i Sverige och vi bjuder in till årets festligaste valvaka på Kafé 44. Vi kommer bjuda på livemusik, DJ Kreti & Pleti, quiz, utlottning av finfina priser och naturligtvis följer vi under kvällen valresultaten på storbildsskärm.

…Kommer SD in i riksdagen? Sitter borgarna kvar vid makten? Tillsammans får vi svaren och firar vid bättre nyheter och dränker våra sorger i goda drinkar vid sämre nyheter.

Köp ditt kuvert på bokhandeln INFo på Kafé 44. Priset är på 150 kr och inkluderar middag samt fördrink. Åldersgränsen är på 18 år. Föranmäl dig till valvaka2010 [att] gmail.com.

Alla intäkter går till fångkamp och Nätverket Ingen Människa är Illegal.

Oavsett vem som vinner valet vinner vi på den här kvällen. Välkommen!

– Vi har extremt stora utmaningar framför oss, avslutar meteorologen Pär Holmgren artikeln.

Den varmaste sommaren sedan 1800-talet och orosmolnen hopar sig med varje nyhetssändning. Det får mig att fundera på hur olika vi agerar när vi ställs inför dessa utmaningar. En del handlar närproducerat, åker kollektivt, väljer vindkraft och drar ner på konsumtionen och köttätandet, andra inte. Men utmaningarna är större än så och ligger bortom den enskildes påverkan.

Intressantare blir det då att vända uppmärksamheten mot den politiska arenan. För bortom valfläsk (Kärnkraft – för klimatets skull) och retorik (Sverige är ett föregångsland i klimatfrågan) finns en överraskande och oroväckande inriktning – klimatförändringarna behandlas inte som ett hot det gäller att avvärja utan som fullbordade fakta, bara att gilla läget.

Bortom retoriken – postapokalypsen

EU, USA, försvarsalliansen NATO liksom den privata säkerhetsindustrin har sedan länge insett vilket hot klimatförändringarna utgör och lagt ner omfattande resurser på att bedöma riskscenarion och hitta effektiva strategier att bemöta dem med. Och hotbilderna står framförallt fattiga människor i Syd för. Analytikerna förutsäger hungerkravaller och sociala konflikter till följd av minskande skördar, samt växande terrorism och omfattande migrationsströmmar i klimatkrisens spår. Framtida säkerhets- och försvarsarbete går ut på att kontrollera massorna av hungriga och desperata människor, säkra de ändliga råvaroresurserna åt världsmarknaden och hindra klimatflyktingarna från att ta sig till den rika världen.

EU:s Byrå för gemensam operativ förvaltning av de yttre gränserna, Frontex, utgör EU:s gränsstyrka som patrullerar Medelhavet på jakt efter “illegala flyktingar”. Frontex, vars operativa verksamhet startades hösten 2005, kritiseras bland annat av det Europeiska flyktingrådet ECRE för att vare sig respektera asylrätten eller de mänskliga rättigheterna. I Stockholmsprogrammet – det senaste av EU:s femårsprogram för inrikes- och rättsliga frågor – beskrivs Frontex som central för att bemöta migrationsströmmarna.

Stockholmsprogrammet handlar vidare om utökad samverkan mellan polismyndigheter och rättsväsenden. Databaser och register ska bli mer tillgängliga för alla medlemsländer och övervakningen utvecklas. En av dessa databaser, Eurodac, lagrar fingeravtryck av alla personer som är över 14 år och söker asyl i EU; ett effektivt sätt att hindra den som en gång fått avslag på sin asylansökan från att ansöka på nytt i ett annat land inom unionen.

Forskare från bland annat Leeds Metropolitan University och universitetet i Wollongong har rapporterat om ett växande intresse från militär- och säkerhetsindustri för olika typer av teknologi för gränskontroll. Med hjälp av mikrovågsprojektiler som får den träffades blod att koka, elchocksminor som tillfälligt förlamar den som utlöser dem, och förprogrammerade, beväpnade robotar, kan individer och grupper som spåras i gränsområden oskadliggöras utan att någon människa i nutid behöver fatta beslutet att krama avtryckaren.

Det är cyniskt men knappast förvånande att säkerhetsexperterna fokuserar på hur man kan mota undan flyktingarna, istället för att göra något åt de bakomliggande orsakerna som tvingar dem på flykt. För vill man komma åt orsakerna snarare än symtomen så är det den fossila industrin och hela det kapitalistiska systemet som hamnar i fokus. Det säger sig självt att varken politiker eller industri vill göra något åt den ekonomi som göder dem. Tvärtom, produktionen måste fortsätta och i och med klimathotet har en ny och ytterst lukrativ marknad öppnat sig åt säkerhetsbranschen.

Därför antog EU Stockholmsprogrammet som reglerar den gemensamma säkerhets- och migrationspolitiken, därför förfinas datakontrollen av migranter och potentiella orosmoment, därför samkörs databaserna medlemsländerna emellan, därför byggs fler murar utanför EU, därför förses gränsstyrkan Frontex i internationella vatten med alltfler befogenheter och ökade resurser samtidigt som nya automatiserade gränsbevakningssystem utvecklas. Därutöver stiftas det avtal med så kallade säkra tredjeländer som inrättar flyktingförvar för att fånga upp flyktingströmmarna innan de når EU.

Det är en dystopisk framtid de förbereder sig på, men vi är inte riktigt där än. Än finns det tid, även om den är knapp. För det här är inte den enda möjliga framtiden, det råkar bara vara den som överensstämmer bäst med deras världsbild: Business as usual.

Men en annan framtid är möjlig

Inom den framväxande klimatrörelsen måste vi, tillsammans med internationella nätverk som No Border och Climate Justice Action, arbeta för att diskussionen om utsläppsnivåer och temperaturhöjningar inte ska skymma solidariteten. Fattiga människor tvingas på flykt undan konsekvenserna av klimatförändringar, förändringar som de inte rår för. Klimatrörelsen måste därför kämpa för klimaträttvisa, för fri rörlighet för alla människor och för att den industrialiserade världen tar sitt ansvar gentemot fattiga människor i Syd.

Och här, i ett välmående land i väst, utom räckhåll för de mer direkta katastrofala konsekvenserna av ett förändrat klimat, måste vi lägga grunden för en antifascistisk praktik som kan svara mot deras dystopi. Det vill säga vi behöver jobba på att skapa starka sammanhang där vi lever och verkar, såna sammanhang som kan motstå den uppdelning i “vi som hör hit” och “de som försöker ta sig hit” som smyger sig in med främlingsrädsla och rasism till följd. Ökar säkerhetstänket – övervakningen, kontrollen och repressionen – måste vi kämpa för ett öppet och solidariskt samhälle och samtidigt vara en så pass självklar och integrerad del i våra lokalsamhällen att de inte kan isolera oss som enstaka extremister.

Med andra ord: mot deras cyniska Mad Max-scenario måste vi sätta en framtid värd att leva. Då kompletteras det individuella valet med ett kollektivt och politiskt agerande – det är, tror jag, en passande respons på de utmaningar vi står inför.

In Russia, Article 11 of Federal Law 172-FZ forbids the destruction and development of public forests for road building when alternative routes exist. In this case, several do, but in November 2009 Russian Prime Minister Putin made a ruling that transferred the Khimki forest from protected land status to lands zoned “for transport and infrastructure”. This ruling makes it possible and profitable for the French company with the road building contract to put the road through Khimki Forest so that it can also cut down and sell its valuable timber.

26 road construction projects are proposed for public conservation lands in Russia today. Organizers against the projects claim that construction of these roads are being allowed to proceed by corrupt politicians for the benefit of their for-profit construction company partners which stand to make enormous sums of money. Transparency International-Russia recently conducted an analysis of the Khimki project that provides documented evidence of corruption.

The bulldozing and cutting of trees has just begun in Khimki Forest despite a lack of cutting permits and no solid financial backing.

Under pressure from citizens and organizations the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have announced they are reconsidering their plans to provide funding for the motorway through Khimki. However, the banks have not yet officially refused to fund the construction of this road through the cherished woodland. Now is a very important time to send a message to the banks. Without funding the road cannot be built, and the bank is under enormous scrutiny due to international headlines decrying the treatment of the activists and the dubious nature of the project.

«Forest Chopped Down, Khimki Smashed Up»

A report from a local newspaper, «Kommersant»

Yesterday [July 28, 2010] more than 500 anarchists and activists from the Antifa movement smashed up the town hall building of the town of Khimki as a sign of protest against the chopping down of the Khimki forest. People in masks broke windows with stones, wrote «save the Russian forest» graffiti on the walls, and threw smoke bombs at the building. The police were unable to detain a single participant in the action. Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko declared that this was «the first I have heard» about the pogrom in his own town hall.

The anarchists and Antifa started to prepare for the action two days ago. A flyer announcing a concert on Trubnaya Square to defend the Khimki forest appeared on their sites. At 6.30 pm around 400 people arrived at Trubnaya Square, according to the estimate of Kommersant’s correspondent.

«I hope no one has come here for the music,» a short young man in a mask who had climbed up into an elevated position yelled. «While we are here there is some sort of hell going on in Khimki — the fascists are chopping down the forest, and they are being led by a bishop (people in masks attacked the defenders of Khimki forest, Kommersant reported on July 24, and many had tattoos of Nazi symbols; Aleksandr Semchenko, head of the Teplotechnik company, which is doing the chopping, is a priest from the Evangelical Baptist Christian church — Kommersant). So, we are going there!»

Those who had gathered moved in the direction of Petrovsko-Razumovskoe. They were joined by around a hundred anarchists and, getting on a commuter train, they all went to Khimki. On the way they discussed a possible encounter with participants in a rally in support of the construction of the high-speed Moscow-St Petersburg motorway. It was held yesterday afternoon by approximately 40 people, some in Young Guard of United Russia T-shirts.

«What are the opponents made up of?» a young man with a baseball bat asked his friend.
«Approximately 50 fascists and United Russia — the whole town,» he answered.
«Then we will cope,» the «bat» responded.

In Khimki they formed a column on the platform. It set out with the banner «we will clear the forest of fascist occupation, 1941—2010.» The procession reached the town hall building in about five minutes, chanting «we will protect the Russian forest!» and «Dismiss Strelchenko (Vladimir Strelchenko, head of the Khimki administration — Kommersant)!» Protective ice hockey masks appeared on many, and also masks depicting the heroes of horror movies.

Seeing the crowd, the security guards fled their post at the entrance to the building. An Antifa activist signalled the presence of the indignant crowd by hitting the door several times with an axe. Stones were thrown at the windows and air pistols were fired. Some panes were smashed in the first minute. To constant chanting the crowd covered all the walls in graffiti with the inscription «Khimki forest.» Over 50 people got their hands on coloured smoke bombs and set them alight. The smoke was so thick that the building was concealed from the eyes. Shocked locals who were walking their dogs by the town hall filmed the incident on their cellphones.

After five minutes the crowd lined up again and went back to the station. A police car tried to stop it, but bottles and stones were thrown at it. «That is for Beketov (Mikhail Beketov, chief editor of the Khiminskaya Pravda opposition newspaper, who was badly beaten up by unknown people and became disabled — Kommersant),» one of the masked anarchists repeated, bending to pick up a new stone. Another two police Uaz vehicles were waiting for the crowd at the train station, but they also had things thrown at them, and the vehicles went away. Reinforced police details only appeared at the station 10 minutes after the participants in the protest action had left. They got to the Petrovsko-Razumovskoye station without incident and went off in different directions.

«The police officers who arrived on the spot only saw the last people running for the train and did not manage to react at all,» Kommersant was told by Yevgeny Gildeyev, head of the Moscow Region Internal Affairs Directorate’s Information and Public Relations Directorate, told Kommersant.

According to his account, 90 young people in black bandanas arrived from Moscow on a commuter train at around 8.15 pm and headed for the town hall building. «Everything took them around three to four minutes. The action was probably thought through in advance to the second,» he summed up. According to him, the Khimki police immediately passed on all the information to the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate. However, at the time this issue was going to press not a single person had been detained.

Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko pretended throughout yesterday evening that nothing extraordinary was happening in the town. «They attacked and set fire to the building of my administration? That is the first I have heard! That did not happen,» he told Kommersant. «There was an attack on the Gorshin picture gallery,» Mr Strelchenko said after some reflection. «There are some works of art displayed there — I do not know what value they have. Goodbye!» During the next conversation, during which Kommersant’s correspondent asked how the participants in the action had got to the gallery, which is located on the third floor of the administration building, Mr Strelchenko for some reason said: «You have got the wrong number.» He did not pick up the receiver after that.

«Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is following the development of the situation concerning the chopping down of the Khimki forest and is receiving all information linked to this conflict,» Dmitry Peskov, the prime minister’s press secretary, told the Kommersant FM radio station yesterday.

/Aleksander Chernykh, Andrey Kozenko, Ivan Buranov, and Sergey Mashkin

Why we need solidarity with Russian environmentalists and antifascists

From Social Forum Journey

More than hundreds activists have gathered at Eda climate camp North of Stockholm 2-8 of August organized by Friends of the Earth Sweden and educational organizations. Here we were reached by the news from Moscow. Right wing extremists have been used to attack environmental activists protecting the Khimki forest and protesting against a high way project. The police who came late to the site reacted by arresting the environmental actvists. Two environmental and anti-fascist protesters are now also facing severe charges for continued protests. Thus we issued a solidarity statement, see below. There are many ways to make international protests both against the repression and against the European investment Bank and EBRD who are possible funders of the toll high way project.

Transportation and urban planning is at the core of the climate issue. Emissions from ever increasing road transport is frequently addressed as the main problem for solving climate change in industrialized countries and targets set for diminishing the climate effects of transportation is as frequently among the biggest failures in climate politics. The present development model built on increasing social injustice domestically and internationally needs ever increasing transportation and urban planning segregating people to maintain its dominance and continue exploiting nature and human beings. Thus it is no coincidence that some of the severe environmental conflicts concerns road traffic and urban planning.

Furthermore we see a growing convergence of different movements in a time of stronger repression. This calls for solidarity between different movements and internationally. The growing repression we face have resulted in a volatile situation for protesters and big fluctuations in the ability to mobilize. Popular movements needs not only mass support in their own countries but also that simultaneous struggles goes on in other countries as well as at times international solidarity. This has been especially hard in Central and Eastern Europe where people in common have lost much of their faith in collective protests. Movements work under extreme conditions with lack of visible popular support confronted by severe repression and violence from civilian supporters of a strong national state or corporations. Thus one activist was killed in an environmental camp against a uranium processing plant in Siberia by right wing extremists attacking the small camp beating most of the people in the camp in 2007. The authorities responded by accusing the camp organizers for provoking the attack.

The situation in Moscow is similar. Very few dare to take up a fight and when they do so they get easily beaten or murdered. At the European Social Forum 2010 Rule of Law Institute from Russia organized a seminar on right wing extremism in Russia showing how more than a hundred persons get killed each year due to the right wing violence. When the former leader of the Rule of Law institute, the social democratic lawyer Stanislaw Markelov who often defended antifascist anarchists came out from a press conference on the crimes made by Russian military in Chechnya he was together with Anastasia Baburova gunned down on the footsteps of the building in the middle of Moscow.

One year later a mass manifestation in their memory of the two murdered activists was organized on January 19. It was the biggest demonstration in Moscow for four years with one thousand people attending from many different strands in the movements in Russia with the police harassing the demonstrators and anarchist antifascist as a strong component. In many political struggles in Russia as the environmental or violence against migrants or people from the periphery of the Russian federation antifascists are the main organizers of solidarity and the strand of the movement that do not give up neither in front of right wing extremism or repression. This is of utmost importance in times of lack of visible mass support. The unifying event on January 19 made it possible to gain strength and renew efforts to confront strong economic interest as in the case of the Khimki Forest. Earlier the exploiters closely linked to the local Khimki government had succeeded in stifling the movement by violent attacks on one of its voices, the journalist Mikhail Beketov. The attempted murder in 2008 did not succeed and there are no official results of the investigation but many Khimki residents believe that the local authorities were involved in the attack.

A strong force behind the exploitation is the Transport Ministry and the “non-commercial organisation”, Avtodor which combines the functions of a government agency and a business. The project is planned as the first large-scale public-private partnership with the involvement of western investors – the EBRD and European Investment Bank. The intermediary link will be the North-West Investment Company, backed by the French firms Vinci and Eurovia, who have extensive experience of attracting European investments. But the environmental laws were in the way.

Protesters tried to stop the illegal cutting of the forest for the road project but were confronted by a combination of forces. One was the police who helped the illegal exploiters in spite of a court ruling in favor of the protesters. Another was the general lack of trust in protesting collectively in Russia which makes the number of protesters small in spite of a very broad support ranging from liberal party leaders, the alternative globalization movement going to European Social Forums, a famous rock stars to Anarchist and traditional environmentalists and local citizens previously not engaged in conflicts. Finally when the protests continued right wing extremist were called in to beat up the protesters followed by the police arresting the protectors of the environment.

In response to the repression of the movement some 90 or 300 activists anonymously attacked the municipal headquarter smearing it with stones and graffiti. None was arrested at the occasion but afterwards Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov got arrested. As both are publically known spokespersons for the Anti-fascists they are easy to find for the police who needed result in their reaction to the direct action against the symbols of power in Khimki. There is serious questioning against the claims made by the police as there are no proofs of their presence and that it is hard to see a reason the very few persons known by the public and the police should have participated in the action. In the general “anti-extremism” change of laws the action against the municipal building is claimed to be very serious and can result in 7 years of imprisonment.

The following violent arrest of the leader Yevgenia Chirikova of the Khimki protest movement on August 4 shows clearly that the authorities are lying and playing a political theatre orchestrated by other interests than protecting law and order. She has been contacted by the police at several occasions and appeared at voluntarily police stations as a witness in the case of the murder of lawyer Stanislaw Markelov and the assault against the journalist Mikhail Beketov. Now she was arrested in speculative and brutal manner by the special police force OMON used against riots and terrorists directly after a press conference against the arrests of Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov. A spokesman for the Moscow Region Directorate of Internal Affairs (i.e., the police for the region around Moscow, not the city itself) later claimed that Chirikova was detained because she had failed to respond to a summons in connection with the investigation of the attack (allegedly by anarchists and antifascists) on the Khimki administration building. But Chirikova was never given a summons and thus not given the possibility to voluntarily come to the police station as the system chose to organize a political theatre instead based on false claims of the refusal of Chirikova to appear voluntarily. She commented afterwards that her arrest resembled a “demonstrative action” directed against environmentalists.

Was it at stake is not only the Khimk forest and profit interest high up in the local and national government linked to abuse of the police to protect those interests. It is also the question of the legitimacy of the present development model in Russia which is much based on the same kind of close linkage between private exploitation interests and the government keeping people in common passive with the help of mass media and a combination of police and right wing extremist violence. As this authoritarian system lacks a belief in its capacity to get spontaneous support for their exploitation they see any kind of protest also when it only concerns a local matter as a threat to the whole system. This makes it utterly dangerous for those that are organizing protests.

What is at stake is the future of the whole international/translocal climate justice and other system critical movements. We are not stronger than our weakest links. Furthermore the growing repression we see in Russia is also taking place everywhere. With authorities that are given ever increasing juridical means to stop any kind of protest as being caused by “extremism” leaving all traditional juridical ideas of individual responsibility and evidence behind. The Khimki protests against exploitation is a case were especially the accusations against Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov are crucial to challenge by combining environmentalist and social justice concerns in a joint struggle against repression.

What is remarkable is that those promoting the toll high way through the Khimk forest refuses any compromise with the wide spread environmental opinion against the exploitation in spite of that they are in a politically fairly vulnerable position. 2/3 of the investments is planned to come from Western funding through EBRD and the European Investment Bank, both known to keep an eye on the environmental impact at least when the negative effects are too obvious and concentrated. They also do not like to be connected to projects that becomes too controversial including violent repression. In spite of this political vulnerability those in power have chosen to continue escalating the pressure against the protesters in an attempt to split the opposition hoping for creating an image of violent aggressive activists working against society and peaceful but harmless opinion makers. Thus the exploiters are challenging the whole European environmental opinion trying to establish a de facto acceptance of European Bank support of any environmentally destructive project regardless how easy a better alternative could be chosen which should save the forest but not the highest level of profit. If the exploiters win and are able to get the financial European support they need it would be a historical defeat for the European environmental opinion.

The Russian opposition has chosen to show its strength by sticking together. The protest leader Chirikova who by all means can be described as a main stream environmentalist with modest and well informed arguments was among the speakers at the press conference to defend the arrested anti fascists Solopov and Gaskarov. It is hard to believe that the spectacular arrest by special riot and anti-terrorist police force of her directly after this press conference is anything else than an attempt to put a violence stamp on the whole environmental protest and create fear. But those in power failed to split the Russian movement. The 19 of January committee which is the result of the unification of forces during the comemoration of the murder of Markelov and Baburova calls for solidarity. It is now up to international movements to show that the provocation against the European environmental opinion in completely disregarding the local opinion against building of the toll high way through the Khimk forest and still believing in financial support from Europe is met by a strong no. It is even more up to the whole global environmental justice and all popular movements to show that the attempts at using right wing extremism combined with repression against a movement is not accepted in Moscow or anywhere else.

The growing repression we have seen at the Climate summit in Copenhagen, against the landless movement MST in Brazil, against migrants and protesters of all kinds not only in impoverished countries but also the rich and industrialized must be confronted by common efforts. The authorities start to leave all earlier notions of freedom of expression and individual evidence for committing a crime behind. The heavy possible and necessary involvement of EU funding in the project through EBRD and the European Investment Bank makes it also possible to mobilize substantial protests against the project. We have to join hands across borders and movements to build solidarity.

/Tord Björk

Protest against the arrests of Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov

We are protesting against the arrests of environmental activists in connection with protests against highway construction around Moscow at Khimki forest. We look with concern on how both the right wing extremist violence and state repression is used against the protests. Everyone’s health and the right to a living nature for future generations are at stake in environmental conflicts. The authorities ignoring the right-wing violence and repression against the protests are unacceptable.

/Participants at the Climate camp in Eda organized by Friends of the Earth Sweden and educational organizations

När irakiern Abdulhameed Hameed Al-Obaidi sökte asyl i Sverige kallades han till samtal med SÄPO. De ville att han skulle spionera på exilirakier i Sverige. Han vägrade och några dagar senare avslogs hans asylansökan. När Hameed överklagade beslutet gjordes den nya prövningen utan vare sig hans vetskap eller deltagande. Migrationsdomstolen tog beslutet i en rättssal i Hameeds frånvaro och meddelade honom inte heller att hans ansökan avslagits. Först flera månader senare, när tiden för att överklaga beslutet gått ut, fick han beskedet. Strax därefter greps han på ett brutalt sätt av fyra poliser och sattes i häkte med motiveringen att det fanns risk för att han skulle avvika. Men detta förnekas av Per-Erik Bjurholm på Migrationsverket i Boden, han hade inte gett någon order om häktning. Polisen har tidigare uttalat att de aldrig agerar utan mandat från Migrationsverket i sådana ärenden, men i Hameeds fall skedde det uppenbarligen ändå.

Senare skickades Hameed till förvaret i Gävle. Under hans tid där inträffade ett självmordsförsök, vilket omnämndes i tidningen Arbetarbladet. Hameed citerades och riktade hård kritik mot förvaret. Dagen därefter förflyttades han till Kronobergshäktet, någon motivering har inte gått att få. Nu har han förflyttats till flyktingförvaret i Flen. Han har fått faxa in en ansökan till Europadomstolen med hänvisning till regel 39 (hot om tortyr) och hans ombud har lämnat in en ny ansökan.

Hameed har starka asylskäl och kommer från Bagdad, just den delen av Irak som UNHCR skarpt kritiserat Sverige för att man utvisar flyktingar till. Men utvisningsbeslutet kvarstår.

Nätverket Ingen människa är illegal ställer sig starkt emot att utvisningen genomförs och kräver att SÄPO:s inblandning i beslutet reds ut. Att få asyl undan förföljelse är en rättighet och ska inte påverkas av hur villig man är att spionera på sina landsmän.

/Nätverket Ingen människa är illegal

Medier som tidigare uppmärksammat Hameed Al-Obaidis situation:
Norrländska Socialdemokraten: De visar sitt stöd för asylsökande Hameed
Arbetaren: Vägrade spionera för Säpo – nu utvisas han från Sverige
Norrbottens-Kuriren: Framtiden är oviss
Nyheter P4 Norrbotten: Följer inte flyktingkonventionen
Arbetaren Debatt: ”Utvisningsbeslutet måste hävas”

Från Konfliktportalen.se: Anders_S skriver Folkpartiet blir mer och mer vrickat, Kaj Raving skriver RUT, skola och vårdnadsbidrag

För mer vänsterbloggar besök www.konfliktportalen.se.

We’re exited to present some soundbites from the Stockholm Anarchist Bookfair held on June 5th, taken from the panels on What Is Anarchism? Is Anarchism Relevant Today? and Why Do Anarchists Have a Bookfair? The Meaning of Anarchist Publishing and from the network meeting Anarchism in the Baltic Region: Building Alliances.

The songs played are: Murder The Government – NOFX, Anarchy In The UK – JF Sebastian, Days Of Fire – Nitin Sawhney featuring Natty, I Still Belive In Anarchy – The Exploited, Var blev ni av? – Monica Zetterlund (”Where Did They Go?” by Sklerov & Lloyd).

If you like what you hear and want to listen to more of the panel discussions, you find three of them in full here: Building Alliances, The Meaning of Anarchist Publishing, Is Anarchism Relevant Today?.

The first panel at the bookfair, Can Anarchists Help in the Economic Crisis?, we didn’t manage to record – apologizes for that. And we missed the first minutes or so of the network meeting.

If you want to give feedback on the show, feel free to post a comment and if you want to contribute a piece (a commentary, an essay, an interview, a report or something entirely different) for our next show, e-mail it to radio [at] anarkisterna.com. If it’s a longer contribution, send it to us via sprend.com.

Enjoy the show!

Love & Struggle
/your Svartradio Crew

The corporate media scratched its collective head, essentially asking ‘Why protest when the guy was convicted?”

The protesters knew, however, that the court system bent heaven and earth to return the lightest verdict possible; involuntary manslaughter’ and that Mehserle faces a possible sentence of probation to a maximum of 4 years in prison.

They knew that Mehserle got a non black jury, hundreds of miles from Oakland. They knew that each of those hundreds could’ve been Oscar Grant, unarmed, shot to death on tape and the same thing would’ve happened.

Of course, the corporate media doesn’t get it.

Consider this: If Oscar Grant were the aggressor, and charged with killing Mehserle; would he have been able to leave the state (Mehserle fled to Nevada days after shooting Grant)? Would he have been able to transfer his trial hundreds of miles away? Would he have been able to select an all-black jury -- or one from which all whites were purged?

Would he have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter -- in the face of videotaped evidence?

Everyone who considers these questions honestly knows the answers. What does that say about the system? What does this say about the courts? What does this say about our supposedly ‘colorblind’ present?

It says, quite loudly, that there’s one law for some; another law for others. It says that life in dark flesh is not equal to life in white flesh- and those hundreds in Oakland’s streets knew this in their blood.

/Mumia Abu-Jamal

Från Konfliktportalen.se: Anders_S skriver S:t Petersburgsvenskarna – Nobel, Odhner med flera, loaderrorready skriver Veckans Varning, Vida Latina skriver Aborter i farozonen, dagspendlaren skriver Planka.nu-rap, luklof skriver Heby kan få Upptåg

För mer vänsterbloggar besök www.konfliktportalen.se.

Min mor är en av de personer som drabbats av nedskärningarna inom försäkringskassan. Hon är sjuk och kan inte arbeta vilket försäkringskassan tillsammans med min mor och hennes läkare är överens om. Dock tvingas hon gå på a-kassa då hon inte kvalificerar för att få sjukpension pga av de nya reglerna som borgarna har infört. Istället blir hon slussad till arbetsförnedringen där hon ska försöka få ett jobb som inte finns. Vilket alla inblandade institutioner och byråkratiska organisationer som tagit sig an hennes fall är överens om. Hur ska jag inför min mor kunna argumentera för att hon inte ska gå och rösta? Då hon antar att de rödgröna skulle kunna rädda hennes redan utsatta situation genom att återigen ändra reglerna i sjukförsäkringssystemet. För min mammas skull kan jag tänka mig att rösta för att hon inte ska hamna på gatan utan bostad osv. Även om jag principiellt inte stöder det parlamentariska systemet. Jag tänker att det är lite som att det som är dåligt inte ska bli sämre och allt fler människor hamna utanför och klassklyftorna öka. Samtidigt finns det de som organiserar sig för att förändra sin situation istället för att förlita sig på systemet. Nätverket Resurs anordnar sittstrejker utanför försäkringskassan för att belysa sin utsatta situation och försöker kämpa för förändring genom självorganisering.

Det finns en hel uppsjö med vinklingar på frågan,ska jag rösta så att Sverigedemokraterna inte kommer in i riksdagen, ska jag ta en blomma och ta blad för blad och säga för mig själv rösta rösta inte, låta slumpen avgöra eller ska jag göra ett aktivt val?

undrar en rådvill anarkist
/my Robe

Finally, Gustav Landauer in English! Well perhaps it says something about me but I harangued Kuhn for an interview, about Landauer specifically. It’s not that I’m not interested in proto-queer disabled pirates or anti-machismo sober revolutionaries, it’s just that Landauer’s big influence on many of my German friends has made me aware that his ideas are sorely missing from English speaking discourses.

So there we sat, around a large sticky table in Stockholm’s activist hangout number one – Kafé 44 – talking about a man who died ninety years ago; whose thoughts about socialism as anarchism, escaping the state, the Zapatistas (of 1914!), anti-semitism, oil corporations, mysticism and spirituality, and of course revolution itself, seem as remarkable today as they ever were.

Dov Neumann: Firstly, I’d like to say thank you very much for meeting me Gabriel.

Gabriel Kuhn: My pleasure.

DN: In front of me is a copy of what you’ve obviously been working on for several years now, Gustav Landauer: Revolution and Other Writings – a rather mammoth translation project if you don’t mind me saying so. To English speakers you’ve made available for the first time a serious body of the writings of probably the most important German Anarchist of the twentieth century. Essays, articles, pamphlets, personal letters, even a postcard.

GK: His politically focused texts anyway. I had to focus on his political writings because he also wrote a lot on the arts, literature and philosophy. His lectures on Shakespeare fill two volumes, for example, which isn’t exactly in the scope of this book.

DN: But Landauer died, or rather was killed, in 1919. Why revive him today?

GK: I think there are two aspects for me. Firstly, I think that if you translate a text – whether it’s 50, 100, 200 years old – if you consider an author important in anarchism, a social movement, philosophical school or whatever: it’s a valuable research tool in itself.

However, I would say that what’s special about Landauer is that he really presented a definition of anarchism and socialism – he used the terms interchangeably – that is, I dare say, pretty unique.

He began his theoretical development with a broadly ‘class-struggle anarchist’ approach to politics, but ended up developing something of a spiritual understanding of socialism. It strongly focused on people finding something within themselves that cultivated inner change, from which values like mutual aid and solidarity would come naturally; rather than through a rational code where you might think, ‘Well it’s better for others therefore it’s better for me.’

DN: He was quite opposed to that kind of rationalism, wasn’t he?

GK: Absolutely. He believed that on that basis you couldn’t develop socialism because people wouldn’t really feel connected to one another. To do so you’d have to, and this is where it becomes complicated because it’s mystical, discover the inner essence of humanity that lies within each individual. You have to turn inwards first and discover this inner essence, and then you will perceive humankind in a different sense and approach people differently.

DN: Difference is a key word for Landauer. For example he vehemently opposes Esperanto for trying to unite humanity with one language. He makes an almost Tower of Babelesque critique.

GK: That’s a good example of Landauer’s opposition to rationalist measures of bringing people together. I guess Esperanto was to him a cold, mechanical idea of providing some kind of common structure of finding one another. Rather, people best do so through cherishing their own cultural traditions, expressions and language.

The idea of a homogenous socialist utopia was not something that appealed to him. If you’re not able to embrace all cultural forms that human kind has produced: you cannot embrace all of human kind, you cannot establish socialism. His idea of difference goes beyond a mere concept of tolerance. Socialism has to ‘grow’, that’s a word that appears often in his writings, it has to grow from the diversity of human beings and cultures that make up humanity.

DN: Perhaps that relates to his agrarianism, his belief in the revolutionary potential of agricultural settlements – what we would now call communes. I laughed when I read in your introduction how he visited one of these pioneering settlements, the Neue Gemeinschaft, but left ‘Disillusioned with the escapism they mistook for social transformation’, as you wrote. My own experience precisely!

GK: His settlement idea is superficially one of a commune movement: you move to the country, set up your commune, hope that more and more people will do the same. That is part of Landauer’s idea, but that alone would not suffice. Your commune could never be an isolated island. It has to be connected to its context and it has to have an impact on society overall.

DN: Does this slow settlement idea make Landauer something of an ‘evolutionary’ anarchist?

GK: Some people have argued that rapid social transformations are contrary to his beliefs, and therefore he’s been criticised for joining the 1918 Bavarian Revolution. I see that as rather short sighted. Landauer did believe that in certain times revolution could be part of a movement to create a better world. He just never thought that socialism could be achieved by changing the structure of government or establishing workers councils. He saw it as an important step but not the one thing that would establish socialism.

Eventually, for Landauer, the state would disappear because it would no longer be necessary. He famously defines it as a ‘social relationship’ between people. You abolish it by developing different relationships and not by changing the political system or the economic structure.

DN: In a way that’s quite a Post-Structuralist way of understanding power.

GK: I think so. For example Foucault’s theory of power stresses that aspect, that a lot of our power structures are reproduced in personal relationships, not just in government institutions. So I think that is one aspect in which Landauer’s theories fit in with more contemporary theory. Another is with the idea of ‘counter-power’, where you try to build a parallel underground society and use that to escape and diminish the power of the state. I think a lot of contemporaries would find something interesting in Landauer’s writings which goes beyond merely satisfying a historical interest.

DN: Landauer had a Jewish background. Did that affect his ideas?

GK: His thoughts on Judaism emerged only later in his life. Like many secular Jewish intellectuals at the time he almost made a point of not addressing that part of his identity. The spiritual aspects of his central political text Revolution focus on Middle Age Christian mystics, not Jewish mysticism. Judaism comes in his later essays, where he confronts the anti-semitism inherent in the Beilis Trial, and seemingly discovers Jewish mysticism for the first time, with the help of his close friend, the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber.

DN: Did he join in with Buber’s enthusiasm for some form of Jewish state?

GK: Landauer just started joining the discussion on Zionism a few months before he died. He was invited to a couple of conferences that dealt with Zionism and settlement projects in Palestine but he couldn’t attend because of the events in Munich, in which he was killed.

DN: He was invited by Nachum Goldman, founder and president of the the World Jewish Congress, right?

GK: Exactly. All we have there are a couple of letters between Landauer and Goldman where Landauer expresses, if you will, – hesitant – interest. It’s really hard to tell whether Landauer would have actively supported settlements in Palestine. Nevertheless, a lot of people in the early kibbutz movement were directly inspired by his idea of developing socialism through a network of agricultural settlements.

It’s hard to believe Landauer would have supported Jewish statehood. Perhaps he would have shared his friend Margarete Susman’s anti-statist interpretation of Zionism; Zionism as part of an international socialist movement. Even before the events of 1948 she declared explicitly that the Zionist movement must not turn into a nationalistic, nation-state-building movement: that would kill the whole idea.

DN: It has been argued that Landauer named his Sozialistische Bund organisation (Socialist Association) that way because of the link between the German word ‘Bund’ and the Hebrew word ‘bris’ (covenant). Would he perhaps have favoured the other significant Hebrew related Bund at the time – the Yidisher Arbeiter Bund (Yiddish Workers Association) – over the Zionist cause? Their values seem closer to his . . .

GK: I’m not aware of any direct links to the Yidisher Arbeiter Bund. That said, if he had lived longer, he would probably have seen the return of Rudolf Rocker [important German anarcho-syndicalist; leading light in London's Yiddish-anarchist movement, despite not being Jewish] to Germany, and it would have been interesting to see what their contact would have been.

In a sense, much of the Yidisher Arbeiter Bund‘s ideas would fit with Landauer’s beliefs. You have this universal, socialist-anarchist ideal, but if your cultural background is Jewish, or you come from a Yiddish speaking background, you want to pursue that as well, because that’s what allows you to formulate and express your ideas best.

DN: One of your next projects, I gather, is something of an accompaniment to your Landauer book. You’re translating a major body of writings from a German anarchist who is even less known outside Germany than Landauer: his friend Erich Mühsam.

GK: Yes. They were the two most important German anarchists of the century. Mühsam was influenced by Landauer’s spiritual socialism and they collaborated quite a lot in writing and action. Both had similar backgrounds – Jewish, middle class – Mühsam was ten years younger though and throughout his entire life saw Landauer as a kind of mentor-teacher. The main difference between the two was that Mühsam was closer to class-struggle anarchism, considering the proletariat a revolutionary subject. Landauer was more skeptical. . .

DN: Landauer called the proletariat ‘Significant but overrated’!

GK: Exactly. The other major difference was that Mühsam, while being very close to the ideas of proletarian council communism, was also a prototypical bohemian. Free love, artist-colonies and so on were important things for him. And that was a conflict between him and Landauer. Landauer considered the family the smallest unit of a socialist society, where you craft the solidarity and mutual aid. He had a well known love affair with a Swiss syndicalist called Margarethe Faas-Hardegger which ended when Margarethe wrote an article which criticised the nuclear family unit and argued for communal child rearing. He also didn’t feel comfortable discussing rights for homosexuals, which Mühsam was very involved in. So there was a conflict there, but they were good friends and shared a lot of ideas. Mühsam would eventually be one of the first prominent victims of the early Nazi concentration camps.

/Dov Neumann

We live in a political and economic system based on constant violence; exploitation of workers, destruction of the environment, war, racist police killings, hunger and homelessness in an environment of plenty, denial of land and self-government to indigenous peoples, plundering of the resources of the Third World and the arming of repressive regimes. This weekend, this quiet violence continued within the G8 and G20 summits. G20 leaders agreed to halve national deficits by 2013; the expected cuts to educational, social services and healthcare programmes will no doubt continue to be carried out on the backs of workers and poor people.

On the streets of Toronto, the police reminded us of the state’s willingness to use blatant violence. Protesters sitting in the streets this morning at a jail solidarity rally were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads and rubber bullets by the Police. Others were boxed in by riot cops and arrested, while being told they had to leave. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night.

As of today, well over 600 people have been arrested. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have been strip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support, including one deaf man who was denied an ASL interpreter. People arrested have included both corporate and independent journalists as well as approximately 200 people, many local residents, who were surrounded by police and held in the pouring rain over four hours. This is how the state responds to anyone who shows dissent.

Common Cause stands in solidarity with everyone who was arrested or assaulted by the police. As anarchist communists, we oppose all state violence. While the violence on the street may dissipate after this weekend, the police will not be going away; they will be remaining in Toronto, or returning to Hamilton, Montreal, Vancouver, or Calgary.

We will continue to resist austerity measures and other policies that exploit and oppress us in our daily lives. Although the street violence today was directed at us in Toronto, the violence of the state continues around the world. The violence of the capitalist state will not stop with the end of the G20 summit; neither will our resistance. We are with those arrested in Toronto, with those who protested, and with those around the world who will continue to fight for our collective liberation.

Free the Toronto 600!
Build the General Strike!

/Common Cause

Oh, and read this article from the Associated Press: Police say anarchists unleashed mayhem at summits. It’s at the same time unsurprisingly sensationalist journalism and an accurate description of black bloc tactics. Enjoy.

Äntligen har Berns slutat förhandlingsvägra. Förhandling sker den 1 juli. Vi hoppas att Berns har ett genuint intresse av att lösa tvisten och att städarna och ledningen kan komma överens. Med tanke på hur lång tid det tagit att överhuvudtaget få till stånd en förhandling får vi dock förbereda oss på fortsatt solidaritetskamp.

Om striden fortsätter måste syndikatet trappa upp. 3/7 kommer därför folk från LS och SUF-klubbar runtom I landet. Vi möts antingen i protest mot behandlingen av städarna, utanför Berns, eller också lämnar vi Berzelii park och beger oss till SAC:s sekretariat för att fira att parterna enats.

Vi har ingenting att förlora på att fortsätta uppmärksamma problemet med att anlitande företag använder kriminella bemanningsföretag för att hålla sig med en superflexibel och billig arbetsstyrka. Berns exempel är mycket tydligt.

Vi behöver modernisera arbetsrätten för att stoppa ett förhållande där anlitande företag tjänar på att se mellan fingrarna på kriminella villkor hos underleverantörerna. Vi behöver en lagändring såsom de som skett i Norge och Tyskland för att skydda arbetstagare, ofta nyinvandrade med och utan papper, från att exploateras via städ- och disk-tjänster I den smutsiga hotell och restaurangbranschen.

Skatteverket ser exceptionellt mycket svarta pengar I omlopp i bland annat inhyrning av städtjänster. Svarta löner drar också till sig organiserad brottslighet.

Den internationella striden börjar arta sig -- på den årliga konferensen av NSSN, ett nätverk för fackliga gräsrötter i Storbrittanien, handlade en punkt om stödet till Bernsarbetarna i deras strid mot London Regional som äger Berns. På blockaden den 11 juni deltog representanter från syndikalistiska CGT, en av spaniens största fackföreningar, och IWW I England.