Anarchist bookfairs are now an important part of the anarchist movement worldwide, providing a space for groups and individuals to interact with one another, share ideas and strategies and build a sense of unity. Part of the inspiration for our event came from the Wildcat Anarchist Bookfair in Sydney, which is now an ongoing event. The idea was proposed originally by Black Current Anarchist Distro and was organised in just five months to coincide with May Day and the Labour Day long weekend. During this period and with the participation of members of the Magan’djin Solidarity Fund and Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, we were able to construct an event that everyone walked away from feeling inspired and motivated by.
The bookfair itself was a lively affair, with the Anti-Poverty Network, Black Current Anarchist Distro, Industrial Workers of the World, Anarchist Communist Federation, SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, Pusher Distro, Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, Gutterslug Zine, Andy Paine, Magan’djin Solidarity Fund, Grassroots Action Network and Meanjin-Myanmar Solidarity holding stalls. Special mentions are Jura Books and Radical Graffiti, who drove all the way from Sydney to participate, and members of the Burmese community, who distributed meals at the event. The Burmese community in Magan’djin is active in supporting armed struggle against the military dictatorship in Myanmar, and we were excited to have them in attendance.
We were fortunate to have a large gazebo available and were able to put on several talks throughout the day, which turned out to be cool and sunny. A big thank you must be made to Andy from House Conspiracy, who volunteered his invaluable sound engineering skills for the entire event. The first talk by Elina was titled ‘a (women’s) history of Anarchist Brisbane’. This was an important discussion of the activities and legacy of the anarchist movement throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, exploring its impact on the formation of entities such as 4ZZZ 102.1fm and the Greens, while remaining harshly critical of the sexism that permeated the politics of that era. Included with this article is a discussion of the talk contributed by Black Current. This was a highly engaging history, and we realised immediately that we had not budgeted enough time for audience discussion – a mistake that we don’t intend to make at the next event.
Following this, we were fortunate enough to be joined by Jock Palfreeman. Jock became a household name in both Australia and Bulgaria following his arrest and imprisonment for intervening against a racist assault while visiting Sofia in 2007. While in prison, he helped to form the Bulgarian Prisoner’s Association, and it was with this experience that his talk was largely concerned. The value of this talk lay in Jock’s ability to explain the intricacies of organising in such a hostile environment, making friendships and building alliances while being routinely subject to state violence and navigating a legal system determined to keep him locked away as long as possible. Despite such a grim topic, Jock’s talk was engaging, funny and heartwarming, in the words of Mick Mada, a member of SHARP. Because of Jock’s high profile among fascists, SHARP volunteered to do the important job of handling any right-wing disruptions on the day, which happily turned out to be unnecessary.
The Anarchist Communist Federation joined us for the next talk. ACF is a new entity in the Australian anarchist movement, having been established on May 1 as a merger of Anarchist Communists Meanjin, Geelong Anarchist Communists and the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group. Their speaker spoke passionately on the need for an anarchist labour union strategy, situating the ACF’s politics firmly within the especifist tradition. This is a view gaining wide traction in Australia, and at the Labour Day march the next day, it was great to see so many anarchists marching with their trade unions.
After a brief break, we were able to bring in Cris from Etniko Bandido in the Philippines. Cris showed a brief film about the Anti-Authoritarian Camp that took place in February last year in Norzagaray, Bulacan. An important aspect of this camp was its focus on family and community, providing a space for comrades with children to get together and discuss parenting in activist contexts. A comrade who lives locally and recently had a child of her own was able to supplement this with her own experiences of having attended the camp and becoming a mother. This provoked a fascinating discussion among people in attendance on parenting, and the fears many have that building their own families may come at the expense of their work in the movement. While topics such as prisoner solidarity, antifascism and labour organising are crucial to anarchism, the feeling taken away from this discussion was that children and our relationship with them are often neglected topics. Afterwards, Jock and I discussed how the event could have been more accommodating of families, something that the organisers intend to consider moving forward.
Finally, Benjamin Smith from the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation talked on the subject of ‘anarcho-syndicalism, minimal reciprocity and anarchist revolution’. Ben’s aim in this discussion was to link wider social theory with anarchist praxis. He spoke about minimal reciprocity as a tool for organising, essentially establishing a basic level of contribution that members of a group can engage in while avoiding many of the issues that frequently affect groups, such as over-engagement, resentment and burnout. He also spoke about the ASF’s own activities, using them as an example of how success in industrial action can be built on the back of a relatively small group of people as long as they remain consistent and tactical when confronting bosses. Despite the light starting to fade at this point, the audience found his discussion engaging, and Ben’s point that anarchists are neglecting social theories that could be incorporated into our organisational approaches was well made.
Outside of the talks, we also had a more hands-on graffiti workshop led by Gutterslug zine. This attracted quite a lot of youth participation, with Em showing different spray-paint and stencilling techniques. The focus of the workshop was to provide space for folks to explore aerosol skills and gain confidence in expressing themselves through art. Having committed much of her life to peer support within her lower socio-economic communities, Em’s workshop highlighted the importance of people having the practical tool of art to harness autonomy, empowerment and visual solidarity. Participants left the workshop with their creations and DIY designed self-cut stencils to keep.
There were several takeaways from this event, the major ones being that we needed to have had the space organised sooner and given people more time to discuss the ideas being expressed in the talks. Overall however, everybody we spoke with felt that it was a great success, not just among individuals and groups, but intergenerationally and internationally as well. Soon after the bookfair, the organising group met to consider the lessons learned and we all agreed that there is plenty of room to organise future bookfairs in Magan’djin!
A (woman’s) history of Anarchist Brisbane presented by Elina
-Black Current
Elina has been collecting oral histories and researching documents written by members of the Left from the late 60’s to early 90’s. For this talk she used interviews with anarchists from the 70’s and 80’s along with leaflets written by members of the Brisbane Self Management Group[1971—77]. The talk contains many quotes from anarchists involved in these events as well as photos taken at the time.
Extracts of leaflets were quoted showing the stance of the SMG on various issues. For example, the group was opposed to the “popular front” policies used by the Marxist Left at the time in relation to the Vietnam War and other social movements. Individual members took part in demonstrations relating to these issues but the SMG did not participate as a group. This was largely because of the absence of an open platform at rallies so that a libertarian perspective on events could not be aired..
However, inside the group women were demanding a voice. They felt that how they presented their views was criticized as “too emotional” and that they were seen as the problem. Some men in the group supported their stand but others chose to leave and start a new group, the Libertarian Socialist Organization.
The feminist movement had been looking at ways to make meetings truly inclusive. Anarchist feminist women in Brisbane from the early 80’s began experimenting with using facilitation and different ways to reach agreement. These ideas were widespread at the time and found expression at large women’s camps at Pine Gap and other military bases. Here the anarchist belief in direct action came up against women who saw any slight damage or direct action as “violence”. Meanwhile facilitation was used even in quite large public meetings such as community opposition to Expo 88. Anarchist demands for an open platform bore fruit –by the mid 90’s this was common practice in Brisbane.
Elina sees this process of working for greater inclusion as a hidden history of this period.
Links
Anti-Authoritarian Camp in Bulacan:
https://youtu.be/CgHVawyEGJ8
IWW report on the bookfair:
https://seqldiww.org/kurilpa-anarchist-bookfair/