[IPSM] @ SUNDAY: Day of Workshops on Anarchism (anarcho-surrealism; the anarchist press; remembering Guerin; anarchism and Iroquois culture; anarchists against Charest; self-determination versus thenation-state; solidarity across borders; and more!!! MONTREAL)

[Jaggi Singh]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 07:36:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Montreal Anarchist Bookfair <anarchistbookfair at taktic.org>


[The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair will be followed on Sunday, May 16, at
the same location, by:]

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE!:
A Day of Anarchist Workshops,
Panels and Presentations
SUNDAY, May 16, 2004
10:30am (sharp) to 5pm
2515, rue Delisle
(near metro Lionel-Groulx)
MONTREAL, QUEBEC
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

--> The Day of Workshops takes place at the CEDA (2515 Deslisle, near
metro Lionel-Groulx) from 10:30am (sharp!) to 5pm.

--> There will be three workshop slots: 10:30am-12:30pm; 1-3pm and 3-5pm,
with a short break for lunch (on-site) from 12:30pm-1pm.

--> There will be five simultaneous workshops during each slot (for a
total of 15 workshops during the day).

--> Only the workshops on the main floor (in the auditorium and room 119)
are accessible to wheelchairs. The other workshops are in room 202, 302
and 305.

--> Workshops will be presented in either French (fr.), English (eng.) or
bilingual (bil.). Whisper translation is available into English and French
for all workshops.

--> Free childcare available on-site (in room 125). Bring your kids!!!

--> All workshops are free! Your donations are appreciated to help us meet
expenses.


10:30am-12:30pm -- Main Auditorium -- bilingual
Panel: Solidarity Across Borders: Autonomous Organizing against Canadian
Apartheid

This workshop will focus on the current struggles of immigrant and refugee
communities for their basic justice and dignity as part of a broader
campaign for regularization and open borders. The Solidarity Across
Borders network brings together representatives from various immigrant and
refugee communities who have self-organized against government
bureaucracies and security agencies, fighting deportations and detentions.
This workshop will focus on both the immediate campaigns of refugee rights
organizations, and the autonomous nature of their organizing and
resistance.

This workshop will be introduced and facilitated by members of the No One
is Illegal Campaign, with presentations from organizers involved with the
Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees, the Action
Committee of Non-Status Algerians and the Action Committee of Pakistani
Refugees, as well as individual refugee activists.


10:30am-12:30pm -- Room #119 -- in French
Affinity Groups: A Method of Anarchist Action
presented by Francis Depuis-Deri

Affinity groups are numerous today, especially in the anarchist wing of
the alter-globalization movement. During the "Battle of Seattle"  in 1999,
for example, it was through the use of affinity groups that the
demonstrators suceeded in blocking access to the WTO meeting for hours and
resist police violence. What is less known, however, is that the idea of
affinity groups appeared within the Spanish anarchist movement of the 19th
century.
	This workshop will be an opportunity to: 1) present the
historicial origins of this method of anarchist action; 2) to outline how
the method of action functions (consensus decision-making, etc); 3)
discuss its political potential today; 4) idenitify the weaknesses
associated with this mode of action.

Francis Depuis-Deri is the author of the book "Les Black Blocs" and a
contributor to "Le Couac"; he has been active with COBP, the CLAC, and is
a researcher in political "science" at MIT.


10:30am-12:30pm -- Room #202 -- in English
Anarcho-Surrealism in Canada
presented by Ron Sakolsky

From the anti-civilization orientation of the Surrealist Map of the World
in 1929 which pictures all of Canada except Haida Gwaii absorbed by
Labrador; to Breton’s visit to Quebec in 1944 while in North American
exile and his broadcast on Radio-Canada in 1953 acknowledging surrealism’s
anarchist affinity vis a vis the Montreal-based Autonomists of Refus
Global; to the evocative splendor of Leonara Carrington’s wilderness
Canadian wolf in her surrealist novel, "The Hearing Trumpet"; to West
Coast BC surrealists of the Melmoth Surrealist Group beginning in the
Seventies on through the more recent activity of the "Minus Tides" group
on Denman Island: the affinity between the surrealist quest for the
"realization of poetry in everyday life" and Canadian anarchism is
undeniable. This workshop will simply convey this "hidden history" in the
form of a short talk and then open it up for questions, comments, and
group discussion. The workshop will aim to create a shared learning
environment which will generate stories, ideas, clues and directions for
future surrealist research vis a vis Montreal in particular and Canada in
general.

Ron Sakolsky is the editor of "Surrealist Subversions" (Autonomedia,
2002). Other books he has edited include: "Seizing The Airwaves" (with
Stephen Dunifer, AK, 1998), "Sounding Off!: Music as
Subversion/Resistance/Revolution" (with Fred Ho, Autonomedia, 1995) and
"Gone To Croatan: Origins of Drop-Out Culture in North America" (with
James Koehnline, Autonomedia, 1993). His most recent essay, "Surrealist
Desire, Anarchy and the Poetry of Revolt," appeared in the Fall-Winter
2003-04 issue of "Anarchy Magazine".


10:30am-12:30pm -- Room #302 -- in French
Daniel Guerin: A Century of Struggle
presented by Mathieu Houle-Courcelles

The year 2004 marks the one-hundreth anniversary of the birth of the
anarcho-communist activist Daniel Guerin. The theoretical heritage he has
left us is rich in lessons and reflections. From his first work against
fascism to his attempt at a rapprochment between Marxism and anarchism,
including his involvement in struggles for (homo)sexual liberation, Guerin
has always gone beyond the beaten path. This workshop proposes an overview
of some of these themes that were close to Guerin, while trying to find
some answers to the questions of today’s anarchists.

Mathieu Houle-Courcelles is a member of the La Nuit anarchist collective
(NEFAC). He is involved in the housing rights movement as well as the
collective of the Page Noire infoshop in Quebec City.


10:30am-12:30pm -- Room #305 -- in English
Anarchism and Traditional Iroquois Culture
presented by Clifton Arihwakehte

This workshop will overview the underpinnings of the exploitation of
indigenous communities, including the colonial basis of the band council
system, and the contemporary conflicts on Mohawk territories. From that
historical basis, the workshop will explore the anarchist parallels with
traditional forms of Iroquois government.

Clifton Arihwakehte is a member of the Kanesatake Mohawk Community, and
the initiator of the Iroquois Anarchist Alliance.


1-3pm -- Main Auditorium -- in English
Bringing Down the Prison Industrial Complex
presented by Womyn4Justice

Womyn4justice is a group of ex-prisoners who support women inside and
outside the prison walls. We work to abolish prisons, and the root causes
of crime, that is poverty, racism and abuse. Our workshop will give people
a better understanding of the Canadian prison industrial complex as well
as suggesting ways activists can keep prison conditions from deteriorating
without losing sight of our revolutionary goals. We will show a short 30
minute film, provide an information table, and a number of women
ex-prisoners will speak about their experiences, and what Womyn4justice is
doing. Prison conditions affect everyone, because if you're an anarchist,
chances are you'll be living there yourself sometime soon.

Womyn4justice (Kingston, Ontario) is a group of women ex-prisoners who
support women both inside and outside prison. We believe that in order to
abolish prisons we must eliminate the root causes of crime: poverty,
racism and abuse. We organize public awareness events such as film nights,
workshops and direct action as well as working on a long-term project to
start a transition house that will be managed by ex-prisoners where women
being released from prison can work and live.


1pm-3pm -- Room #119 -- in French
The Anarchist Press in Quebec (1976-2001)
presented by Marc-Andre Cyr

This workshop addresses one unavoidable yet misunderstood part of the
revolutionary history of Quebec: the anarchist press. Almost nothing has
been written on the subject. However, between 1976 and 2001, anarchists
have been very active in the production of journals.  They have published
mainly six: La Nuit (1976-1988), Le Q-Lotté (1976-1983), Rebelles
(1989-2001), Hors d'Ordre (1992-1996) Hé...Basta! (1994-1998) and
Démanarchie (1994-1997). We will first provide a general portrait of the
ideology of these publications. We will see that they are ideologically
very different (libertarian socialist, anarcho-punk, anarcho-ecologist,
postmodernist ...) but that they also promote a discourse with a certain
unity. We will observe also the different positions that anarchists took
vis-a-vis the various issues of the period. We will talk, therefore, about
very diverse subjects: the Gulf War, unions, the Quebec national question,
the women's liberation movement, capitalist globalization.
	To this point, no one has traced the history of these journals.
This workshop humbly attempts to fill this gap a little.

Marc-Andre Cyr is an anarchist activist for the rights of Basque political
refugees. He is writing a thesis in history at UQAM touching on the
subject of this workshop.


1-3pm -- Room #202 -- in English
(Anti)Capitalist Globalization
presented by Cindy Milstein

This talk will frame a conversation around some of the key phenomena of
globalization, paying particular attention to the systemic "revolutions"
underway in the economic, political, and cultural realms. The aim is to
better understand the qualitative changes to capitalism in what's been
called the age of information, and how such transformations might inform
our anti-capitalist struggles. Capitalism today is the source of an
unprecedented global unity that thrives on an equally unprecedented
diversity. This paradoxical situation becomes more complex when we
consider the tangible possibilities created by (or rather, in spite of)
the increasing commodification of life: cooperation, flexibility,
multiculturalism, and so on. Given this, how do we show that capitalist
globalization necessarily comes at the expense of the bulk of humanity and
the natural world? How do we begin to find our "way out" – much less
construct egalitarian forms of social organization – when we are more than
ever products of a capitalist society? Yet even as "free trade" extends
material suffering and deepens alienation around the world, it also
supplies the tools to dismantle capitalist social relations, and to craft
a grassroots globalization of freedom, solidarity, and plenty for all
instead.

Cindy Milstein is an Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, an
Institute for Social Ecology faculty member, co-organizer of the Renewing
the Anarchist Tradition conference, and a member of the Free Society
Collective in Vermont. Besides writing for alternative periodicals, her
work will appear in three forthcoming anthologies on the global
anti-capitalist movement.


1-3pm -- Room #302 -- in French
Anarchy in Practice: Confronting Borders, States and Apartheid
presented by Jaggi Singh

Using international migration as a starting point, this workshop will
provide a framework for understanding emerging and current movements for
refugee rights, from an anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and anti-racist
perspective. This presentation, will argue that from the frontlines of the
struggle against Fortress North America and Fortress Europe --
sanctuaries, detention centers, modern underground railways, ally work
with self-organized refugee groups, etc. -- clear ideas emerge of how
anarchy and anarchism, as organizing practice and ideological theory, have
relevance today. This is a critique of anarchism, and a validation of
anarchism, at the same time. The core argument -- that anarchism is only
meaningful within the lived struggle by communities and individuals --
will be examined with reference to the self-determination struggles of
migrants.

Jaggi Singh is a member of the Anarchist Bookfair Collective, the
Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) and the No One Is Illegal campaign in
Montreal. He is actively involved in refugee support work.


1-3pm -- Room #305 -- in English
Anarchists Radicalizing Their Workplace
presented by the Pissed Off Projectionists and the Vermont Workers' Center

In the early part of the last century, most anarchists were involved in
their own work place. But in the last couple of decades anarchists tend to
not get involved in their own workplace and keep their politics for
themselves. This workshop will give some contemporary examples of how
anarchists can get involved in their workplace and radicalize it. From
autonomous direct action to forming a union, including challenging union
bureaucracy and fighting bosses intimidation, this workshop will look at
concrete means of actions against day to day wage slavery.

Presented by members of NEFAC involved in the Pissed Off Projectionists
(Sommerville-MA) and the Vermont Workers' Center.


3-5pm -- Main Auditorium -- in French
Panel: Anarchists in the Social Movements Against Charest

The panelists will make two-part presentations. First, they will address
their involvement in the social movements that are currently mobilizing
against the Liberal government of Quebec, and then, they will make a short
description of the specific activities of their anarchist groups in the
struggle against the Charest steamroller.
	The participants in the panel will be invited to participate in a
debate/discussion on the intersections between their specific work as
anarchists and the radicalization of mass social movements.
	With: a member of the La Nuit anarchist collective (NEFAC-Quebec
City), a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, local 1108; a
member of Libertad, a student group at Cegep-Vieux Montreal; a member of
the La Commune anarchist group (NEFAC-Montreal), childcare worker at les
Centres de la Petite-Enfance.

This panel is presented by La Commune collective (NEFAC-Montreal)


3-5pm -- Room #119 -- in French
Paranoia 101
presented by the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP)

What are the manipulation tactics used during secret police operations? To
what point can the cops go during infilitration in Canada? These and other
subjects will be discussed during "Paranoia 101". Undercovers are not
welcome!

Since 1995, COBP has organized demonstrations and workshops on our
fundamental rights, and have actively denounced all sorts of police
abuses.


3-5pm -- Room #202 -- in English
Anarchist Workers' Cooperatives And Revolutionary Propaganda
Presented by Ramsey Kanaan

A brief introduction to some of the history and practice of AK Press as a
model of a modern functioning anarchist workers’ cooperative, with its
experience in the publishing and distribution of Agit-Prop. This two-theme
workshop would then break down into a question and answer period to
develop more discussion and dialogue around these themes. This might be
valuable to those interested in, or already running other worker-managed
cooperatives, especially bookstores, infoshops or distribution outfits. It
would similarly be valuable for people interested in the production and
distribution of revolutionary propaganda, books, pamphlets, cds, dvds,
t-shirts, etc.

Ramsey Kanaan is a founder of the anarchist publisher and distributor AK
Press, and has worked as a (paid) collective member at AK Press in Oakland
since moving to America in 1994. He's a founder, and veteran of 9 San
Francisco Bay Area Anarchist bookfairs, and is a ten year collective
member of the all-volunteer San Francisco anarchist bookstore Bound
Together.


3-5pm -- Room #302 -- in French
Self-determination versus the Nation-state
presented by the Latin America Committee of the CLAC

Domination is not only economic and political, it is also cultural and
social. Nationalism and the state are instruments of this imperialist
domination. Nationalism denies cultural diversity and imposes, thru the
nation-state, relations of power and a monolithic culture of the dominant
majority. The state imposes borders and aims to homogenize all within its
scope. Nationalism and the state are racist because they affirm the
superiority of one « nation » over others. Others have no other choice but
to assimilate or disappear. The state is also the privileged power of the
bourgeoisie, which assures the control of people thru the idea of unity
and national solidarity.
	If we recognize the oppression of peoples, we must also recognize
one of its fundamental causes: the state. Often, national liberation
struggles only substitute one oppressor for another. However, there exist
concrete examples of liberation against states. Communities struggle daily
for self-determination as a means of achieving self-management and
collective autonomy, while taking into account culture and diversity. In
this workshop, we will address historical and contemporary examples from
indigenous peoples, Latin America, Spain and Eastern Europe, that do not
necessarily demand anarchism, but show us the practice of its principles.

The Latin America Committee of the CLAC is a group that works towards
building a network of direct solidarity between resistance communities and
social movements in the Americas. We aim to raise awareness locally about
the different struggles in the global South to solidify our resistance.


3-5pm -- Room #305 -- in English
Anarchist People of Colour Discussion and Strategy
Workshop (for people of colour only)

This past October 2003, the first-ever North American Anarchist People of
Colour (APOC) conference was held in Detroit. The conference -- which
attracted hundreds of participants from all over North America --
contributed crucially to the definition of anarchist politics and practice
as self-determined by people of colour. This space will be an opportunity
for people of colour open to anarchist ideas at the Montreal Bookfair to
continue the discussion. The workshop time will be divided into two main
areas: 1) reports about organizing efforts from people of colour attending
the bookfair from various regions, including a brief report about the APOC
conference in Detroit; 2) a discussion period structured around the
following questions: How should we organize to build an APOC movement?
What are your critiques, experiences, suggestions and proposals. This
workshop is open to anyone who identifies as indigenous or a person of
colour who is open to anarchist ideas.

Facilitated by members of Montreal's ad-hoc APOC group, which includes
participants in the APOC Conference in Detroit, and Montreal-based people
of colour organizers and activists involved in various local organizations
and struggles.


TO GET IN TOUCH
e-mail: anarchistbookfair at taktic.org
telephone: 514-859-9090
web: http://anarchistbookfair.taktic.org
post: Montreal Anarchist Bookfair
2033, boulevard St-Laurent
Montreal, Quebec
H2X 2T3 CANADUH
Nous parlons francais.
Se habla espanol.