Sima Lee on Resistance, Repression, Hip Hop, and Creating New Worlds

Sima Lee on Resistance, Repression, Hip Hop, and Creating New Worlds

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This week we are super pleased to present an interview done with Sima Lee, who is a queer Afro-Indigenous hip hop artist and community organizer of long standing, about a recent raid that occurred at Maroon House in DC this March. We speak about Maroon House, its story and what it is in the process of becoming, the ask for support in helping this movement build and heal from the brutal police repression, her newest album Trap Liberation Army, and many more topics.

Sima Lee has given some interviews recently about her political trajectory, her life, and relationship to anarchism in detail. Rather than having a repeat of those words, we are going to link her past interviews below!

Link to Bandcamp where there was an ask for monetary donation to help support the Maroon Movement and the Food, Clothing & Resistance Collective.

Ways to get and stay connected:

Further interviews:

Independent artists and labels:

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Music for this episode:

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Transcription

TFSR: Sima Lee, thank you so much for coming on to The Final Straw Radio Show. It’s a huge honor to get to talk to you. Would you just introduce yourself for listeners? Name, pronouns, anything you want listeners to keep in mind as they like hear your words?

Sima Lee: Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. I’ve definitely checked out some of the other podcasts in the past and really enjoy them. It feels good to be up here to be able to talk about what’s going on.

I’m Sima Lee the RBG. I am a hip hop artist, radical hip hop artist, organizer, revolutionary, I founded Maroon Movement, Maroon House and Food Clothing Resistance Collective, which has been operating since 2015. We are mutual aid, direct action, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anarchist, autonomous maroon squad, basically just trying to show how we can cooperatively, collectively, communally have dual power as we build up to take down this empire.

Whether that’s us helping to feed the community, helping to give out free clothing and other items, or making radical music, or creating a space for people to be able to come together to organize, to have culture, to talk about alternative medicine and alternative herbs and other things of that nature. That’s the work that I’ve been deeply embedded in. In addition to helping to do anti-gentrification work, just building up in these urban centers as we try to take down the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex. It’s a full time job just trying to not be oppressed. To put it frank, that is what I do. I try full time to not be oppressed. I appreciate to be able to be on the program.

TFSR: Yeah, thank you so much. I really resonate with that as well. As the world is moving more and more and more towards… it’s always been chronically unstable for folks who are more marginalized by systems of power, but becoming more unstable as far as our climate goes, as far as our systems of infrastructure go. So I really appreciate projects like Maroon House, and the Maroon Collective for just taking power and taking care of themselves in the face of a lot of instability.

You’ve given a lot of really amazing interviews in the past, as far as your personal history and political development goes. You’ve talked about Maroon House a lot, but I’d love to hear a little bit about how that project got started and about the meaning behind the maroon part of Maroon House.

SL: Well, what came first in the process, to give a sped up version, I’m originally from Norfolk, Virginia. That is pretty much surrounded by the military industrial complex. The largest naval installation in the world is Norfolk, Virginia, and Hampton Roads area in general. So, from an early age, this is what I saw. I saw the military industrial complex, for what it’s worth. In addition to that, I saw everyone else suffering from low wages and oppression.

Virginia is where a large amount of liberated people who were once enslaved escaped into the swamps, and in particular the Great Dismal Swamp, and connected with other people who escaped harsh conditions. Sometimes they were deserters from war, sometimes it was other indigenous groups that were native to the land. They would build, what we would call today, dual power within those swamps, creating a community of resistance. So when other people would escape, they had an oasis, a place to go. They made their own rules and regulations and created their own law of the land, outside of the rule of the day, which still was legalized slavery.

So, much of how I developed my thought came from being from that area of Virginia, and the history from 1619 until, and the history of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser and other others who basically took it upon themselves to try and liberate themselves, and in conjunction with others and strong abolitionist movements that were built and upheld in Virginia. I took the concept of people working together and coming together. Of course, maroons are not just in Virginia. Maroons were everywhere Europeans dropped African bodies. There were maroons in Haiti, and maroons in Jamaica, and you have the Qilombo’s in Brazil and you have the Garifuna in Honduras. There’s just about everywhere that you go in Latin America and the Caribbean and other places that Africans created independent resistance and community.

When I came to Washington, DC, I attended quite a lot of other people’s events showing solidarity, just trying to learn the history and processes of what was going on locally. But I felt that there needed to be a place where people could come together from other organizations, from within the community, to be able to have a place to build and create and express themselves and have culture. Similar to many other spaces that have been like that in the past. It’s not a model that we invented. This is usually something that many people do in order to survive. Basically, a space where survival programs can be done, is what I felt that we should have.

So, after the Peace House split from the particular house that we were living in (which is another longtime mutual aid, direct action, anti-capitalist group) we continued, or I continued, in that same space in Washington, DC and named it the Maroon House. So Maroon House was intentionally Black, intentionally queer, and intentionally radical and all encompassing of what was going on at the time in Washington, DC. Which meant also cannabis advocacy and education. This will lead directly to why we got raided.

I don’t know if that’s the lead in questioning, but this is just giving a background of how we started and previewing to how the space ended, because we did have all these different radical elements within it, as well as entertainment, and as well as (as I said) cannabis education and advocacy after the passing of Initiative 71 that legalized cannabis in Washington DC.

Maroon House basically operated in the middle of a neighborhood and connected everyone. So that we could open up community gardens and have free stores and free schools. It was just a beautiful flourishing village. I wanted something that I didn’t see in other spaces. I think it’s very important for us as organizers to do that, because quite often we read books, and we see what others do. Outside of our imaginations, we blindly tried to imitate that, instead of creating new models that fit our reality. So I felt that it was important, whether it was successful or whether it failed, that it was important to hold down a space and operate it on our own terms, something that we felt reflected us.

The movement aspect of it, where we’re at transcends from a Maroon House to a movement is trying to get others to duplicate it and replicate that. To have their own houses and centers and co-ops and collectives and communes and farms, to be able to, again, have dual power and be free within this very, very oppressive system that is just pushing us all down. These are traditional, indigenous ways of resistance as well as anarchist. I can’t just say it’s all just anarchists models that I’m using. But it is a combination of a bit of both.

That’s how maroon House came about. It was very much needed. It was very successful. We got to a year before we were raided. It was actually not long after our one year anniversary that we were raided by the Metropolitan Police Department on the context of a neighbor’s complaint. Well, we knew that wasn’t true, because one of the things that we did not want to do was gentrify an already gentrified, Washington DC. So, we made sure that the core of what we were doing is building up the community. When I say building up the community, I mean the community within the community, meaning connecting everyone because there are always separate communities within community, but to have a hub where everyone could come together and we could talk to people about what’s going on within the neighborhood, within the larger Washington DC area… that’s what was important to me. There was no way we were going to set up there and just have events without having connections to our neighbors.

So, our neighbors would come to our free stores and the People’s Pantry. Our neighbors would come when we would have events. Our neighbors would even come when we would have classes or concerts or cannabis education events. It was a broad spectrum of people that would come through, because we made sure that everyone felt comfortable as long as you weren’t oppressive to others. We knew that the neighbors had not called because we actually knew our neighbors.

It was basically just intimidation. The actual sergeant who came in and this was a violent raid, mind you, they had AR-16’s and red beams on us. This was a violent raid. This was meant to terrorize the community and us. To set an example. But the police officers told us that they knew of our work, they were aware of our work, they respected our work, and then offered as they’re taking people out in cuffs (at the same time that they’re doing that) offered to donate to us for our free clothing giveaway. They actually did. The very next day, they dropped clothing off. As insult to injury, after they’ve terrorized our home and brought dogs and pointed guns at us. They offered us some of the clothing that they had and donated it.

What was important to me is that they told us that they knew the work that we were doing. Which means that they had been watching us. I don’t know how long they had been watching us, but they they definitely had. That is something that happened in March of this year. And as a consequence of it, we had to revamp the type of events that we had, because we knew that they were looking at events, anything of a cannabis nature, in particular.

TFSR: Yeah, that is a lot. I’m so sorry that y’all were forced to endure something so heinous. And to add insult to injury, the cops being like, ‘Yeah, we’ll donate to your thing.” I shouldn’t be surprised at the ridiculous, inhuman nature that cops move through the world in.

But I really connected to what you were saying about the flexibility of the organizing model that Maroon House had, where you said “that people read about stuff in books and they try to copy it verbatim or word for word.” I think that that kind of tends to perpetrate a lot of the problematic patterns that people have visa vie settler colonialism, or toxic whiteness, or what have you. They’re like, “Oh, we’ll just go back to the land and buy some land that we have no relationship to and that we have no idea who whose land it is actually.” So I really connected with that.

SL: It was very important that our space, even though it was ran by Black queer women and femmes, it was very important that it was brown and indigenous centered in addition to that, and it very much was. So the Black and Brown unity aspect was something that was always in effect, as well as bringing in white leftists. We felt that our job, to be quite frank, was to make sure white leftist left feeling a little less toxic, a little less settler-ish, a little less centered. Because you cannot be the center of an imperialist movement when your ancestors were the imperialist. When your current family members are the imperialist, there’s something has to give, when we are on stolen indigenous land and indigenous people are not at the forefront of what we’re doing. Or they are but you’re not listening to them.

So part of what we had to do within that Maroon House was to treat every white leftist who came into that space and white anti-racist as the potential next Marilyn Buck or John Brown. That’s how I looked at it. So when you leave, if you did not feel that way when you came in, I want you to feel that way when you when you go out. If you came here as an ally, I want you to leave as an accomplice.

The space was so important. It wasn’t just because of mutual aid, it was because of the living teaching. I am an early childhood educator, and I give lectures, and I teach adults as well but it’s the living model that people need to see. It’s the communication that they don’t always get. That was very much important about this space. So, I talk about that space a lot, because I want to see others, again, recreate spaces like this and for people to help do the work of building it up. It was extremely difficult to do that work, to open your doors and select strangers and is a lot. There are different models to do it. That was just the way that we chose to do it to open up our home, but there are different ways to do it. But because we lived there and we worked there and we taught there and we played there, when the police came they disrupted all of that.

So, right now there is is no Maroon House DC. It’s not because we were not able to sustain the events that we had that kept the space up. We had to revamp them, but we continued to have events, we continued to have people coming, because I refused to let them destroy what we’re doing. This is the anniversary, not long ago, of the killing of Fred Hampton and that was the raid that happened. We know how they raided the Los Angeles Panthers with the first use of SWAT. We know how they raided the Philadelphia Panthers. Infamous pictures were taking up them in their underwear to humiliate them. They do things of this nature to shake you and break you.

Because things had changed a bit within the demographics of the people who were in the collective, with some members having already left, new people being added who we really probably hadn’t vetted the best, and things that pretty much seemed like sabotage from within now not just coming from the state. So you have sabotage from within, from newer people, newer faces that we don’t really know as much. I made the tactical decision to retreat. So that I would not end up the next freedom fighter who has been murdered in their sleep by the police, or sabotaged from within by new members that we hadn’t vetted or hadn’t had a chance to vet as much. So now we’re in Baltimore, we’re no longer in Washington, DC, but the work continues. We do want to get another Maroon House. That is the goal.

TFSR: Absolutely. That’s amazing. That’s that’s really making me think of an interview that we did a couple of months ago with a rad space in LA called La Concha. They were having a lot of trouble being infiltrated by like authoritarian Maoist, state-communists, basically. They were talking about that as being something that they were really keeping eyes on infiltration from the State as well as infiltration from other ‘leftist groups.’ I feel like anti-authoritarian leftist resistance and energy is building on Turtle Island. And so resistance to that from bad actors is also building.

But I’d love to hear how people are holding up who were working in Maroon House? How are people doing and how can listeners help support y’all? How can listeners send you love if they are inclined to do so?

SL: Well, I’ll be honest, because I think about, again, in history we’ve learned from people who have gone through things and we look at it and try to relate to it. I think about how, so often a lot of the revolutionaries that we’ve studied, especially those from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, they would go through these horrible things of State repression or infiltration, or even sometimes… and I have to be careful when I say infiltration because I invited people to live within the perimeters of this space because they fit the model of what we were doing. But it’s not always some strange person walking in. It could be people that you know who end up doing a 180 of whatever they were doing when they originally met you, or said the right things to get into the door, and then change what they were doing afterwards. Or there is sabotage by way of not helping, not assisting. There is sabotage by the way of doing things to suck the morale out. There is sabotage by ways of leaving doors unlocked when you’re in the middle of military situations, or leaving windows open. Things that are odd. You find something might be in your food that originally wasn’t in your food or in your drink. There are different ways to sabotage that may or may not even be connected to the State.

For me, I don’t know if those things happen from the State 100%, or if it was just personal or other things. But all of these things are important when you’re thinking about having open memberships into into your space.

So for us, it has been rally our comrades get support to be able to get out of the space, which we totally absolutely did with a lot of people across the country supporting us so that we could get to another space in Baltimore. Originally our first space was in Baltimore and so we were returning back to Baltimore. Our first Maroon House was actually in West Baltimore. Right now what we’re doing is healing because, we feel that we got to just keep going and we don’t have time to heal from the everyday trauma. It is important to heal your body and your mind after you’ve been through something violent and we deserve that. I say we, meaning revolutionaries, we tend to think, “Oh shake it off, my ancestors had so much worse,” but we’ve got to take care of ourselves or we’re not going to be here, as the indigenous folks say (as myself, Afro indigenous) for the seventh generation. We’re not going to be here to leave a legacy for them if we burn out.

So what we’re doing now, first off trying to heal. We’ve just now talking about what we went through. This happened in March and it was so traumatic, we didn’t want to talk about it, because we had no idea if there was another raid coming. Was there more sabotage coming? We are also learning to trust again. I’m learning to be able to let my guard down a bit and still attend other events and speak with comrades and meet with them, even though one would be extremely paranoid after all the things that happened. I am extremely cautious right now.

But that’s what’s going on right now. We’re healing, revamping, rebuilding, and refocusing. We’re doing different things, basically, to be able to come up with a new space. However that that plays itself out, we’re trying to connect with more people on social media. We may set up a blog and start doing some art connected projects, some zines, just to be able to put out more information to tell our story. People can follow us on social media. Food Clothing Resistance Collective is on Facebook and it’s on Twitter and all the major social media sites. Maroon movement is also and myself, Sima Lee.

Some of our main core comrades are no longer within the vicinity of the space, but we still keep in good contact with each other. They’re treading on with what they’re doing as individuals. We’re looking right now for the first time to actually expand and recruit because we always kept it within the house, the members, because it was a little easier for me to feel that we could make sure that we knew everybody. That didn’t necessarily work, but at least for the first year it did. So right now we are actively looking for the first time to expand and recruit outside of the house. I’ll be working on that, probably for the next couple of months, what I want that to look like as far as the process, and what we want it to look like as far as the process of how we go about doing that and how we go about letting people know. But right now we’re just trying to add more people on social media and get people to reach out to us there and then we can connect in person.

TFSR: That’s awesome. And thank you so much for giving voice to something, this very complex and difficult to articulate phenomenon in leftist circles of sabotage by way of not helping out or sabotage by way of doing odd stuff. I feel like that’s not something that we have so much on our radars. So thank you for speaking on that, because I feel like it’s not spoken of enough.

SL: It should have been talked about really, really, really a lot after Occupy. We dropped the ball and went right into more pushing. We did not unpackage all of the things that we saw that was very weird, very sporadic, random types of acts that just didn’t make any rational sense towards the movement and we didn’t unpack that. I’m saying that as anarchists, we really should have talked about that and what it looks like to vet comrades and to find out more about each other. Still not wanting to invade on people and not to be authoritarian, but this is important. We’re doing radical work in major urban cities or in rural areas where definitely everybody knows everybody, and who are these people coming into this situation and we really need to be more careful. I know we get into this theory a lot, but the praxis is so important when you get into acting out what you’ve learned. You’ve got to be cautious with security. Our security culture is lacking across the board, not just anarchists. My revolutionary socialist comrades as well, our security culture really needs to be tightened up with everything that we know from COINTELPRO. We should know better by now.

TFSR: Absolutely. That resonates with me really hard. You mentioned COINTELPRO and learning about our own revolutionary history is the first step to understanding what kind of threats we face from the State and learning how to walk a line between not trying to be… Paranoia is a healthy thing sometimes, like there’s healthy paranoia, because sometimes there’s really bad actors out there. But there’s a sort of overblown paranoia that tends to be exclusive or exclusionary, or paranoia for paranoid sake, and learning to walk the line of being safe and getting yours and your comrades backs…

SL: There’s a thin line between healthy skepticism and then these rogue maoist units that are beating up comrades. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about when I say that we need to have a better security culture, in fact, those things raise red flags of provocateurism. It’s just a part of study, and it’s just a part of growth. This is what you have to deal with, when you’re organizing. We’re in the heart of the empire, what makes us think we’re not going to be scrutinized and watched every step of the way? What makes us think that they’re not watching our social medias? I just gave mine out @SimaLeeRGB on Twitter and on IG. Sima Lee on Facebook.
I know that they’re already watching those things, so even when we put out public information, watch what we put out. How much do we want to give face to face? How much do we want to give electronically? These are all things that we should constantly be thinking about, because they’re constantly after us. Whether we know it or not, they are. They’re not gonna make an announcement. They didn’t announce that they were coming to our house. They just came and then they went away. Incidentally, all charges were dropped from that raid. I didn’t say that part. So, no one has been charged. There are no charges. No one’s in jail. It was just a complete disruption. Just a violent act just for the sake of doing it.

TFSR: I’m glad no charges, but obviously, there’s enduring trauma as there would be naturally if you have that kind of shit happen in your house.

So, you are a musician and you are a hip hop artist of some long standing. There was a call for people to download your most recent album Trap Liberation Army and there was a call for donations via that platform. I’d love to hear about that album, your process in creating it and some themes that it focuses on.

SL: Trap Liberation Army is an homage to Black Liberation Army, which was an underground fighting unit that splintered off, some from the Black Panther Party, but there are members who are also members of Republican New Africa and other Black liberation units, who felt that the above ground fight could desperately use arm resistant units in the underground. They worked in conjunction with brown liberation movements and white liberation movements. I mentioned Marilyn Buck, and David Gilbert, and so many others, Laura Whitehorn, so many others were a part of actions taken with the Black Liberation Army.

I thought of the proliferation of trap music, that’s the sound of the time. So, I thought I could combine the two concepts. “Why don’t we have a trap Liberation Army?” That’s more of a modern type of a twist on the same thing. Trap being the hood, the ghetto, and in particular, drugs. As far as peoples using drugs to make an income in an oppressive, imperialist setting. The colonized people might have to take measures to make money by any means necessary. With Trap Liberation Army, it’s about “how about we don’t do that? How about we look for alternatives, by any means necessary not just for income, but for liberation.”

It’s just a twist on it. There are good and bad things within the hood. I’m from the hood. I’m from the trap. I’m from the concept of not necessarily drug dealing, but it was surrounding me it was completely engulfed in the community that I was in, it was in the middle of the crack era. I always wanted to be liberated from that paradigm of suffering and pain. This is not to shame people who use drugs by any stretch of the imagination, but there was much suffering and pain and it led to the mass incarceration of my people. We’re still dealing with it right now.

So, Trap Liberation Army is a project that talks about the community, talks about the hood, talks about liberation and what it looks like, gives homage to those who fought in the past, because Black Liberation Army definitely used to fight against the surge of drugs that was coming into the Black community. My elders were a part of some of those units that taught me as a youth when I was in the community of the Umma movement which was connected to political prisoner Jamil Abdullah al-Amin.

So it’s just a way of me like mixing the old with the new, and pro-cannabis, pro-sarcasm, but very anti-imperial. Something you can nod your head to, because sometimes anti-imperial music is kind of boring. I mean, it is. It can be. To make it more interesting to give it a little bit of funk, to reflect the background that I come from. I call myself a trap or ghetto intellectual, because I don’t run away from my poor background. I think we tend to look at poverty as something that reflects us as opposed to something that is done to us. So I’m celebrating the beauty and the ugliness that comes within the trap, and the ability to liberate ourselves and look for a better future. I guess a lot of people call that Afrofuturism. But that is what the album is about.

Through Bandcamp, we’ve been able to get a lot of new followers and people who want to support the project. Also Bandcamp will recommend other music to you. So it’s a way that you can find out “If I like this particular song, can you recommend me something else?” So it’s a way, I hope that they found new artists after they listen to my music that are similar to the vein of what they’re doing. But I feel like we need freedom music right now, we need a revolutionary background to what we’re doing. While we’re tagging and feeding people and doing everything that we’re doing. So, I’m looking forward to introducing my music to some more new people, but also creating hopefully some new music and 2020 to put out there. So people like Franklin Lopez can stop asking me where my next album is out. [laughs]

But I’m really proud of the fact that he’s digging my music and also that it was featured in the documentary on Sub.Media in the documentary “And You Don’t Stop” for Trouble. I got to get introduced to some comrades that I’ve liked their music for a while and I didn’t really know them, but I got to talk to them and stuff after that, like Lee Reed and Sole. So that was pretty cool. Music is a cultural weapon and I’ve been involved in hip hop for a very, very long time. It’s always been my favorite expression. So just using it like Dead Prez, Public Enemy, X Clan, other groups that inspired me to help and boost the morale of the people.

TFSR: Absolutely. I loved that episode of Trouble that focused on hip hop. It was so awesome and La Marea and I’m forgetting who else was in there.

SL: Mic Crenshaw…

TFSR: Are you listening to anything right now that is giving you strength or other artists that you want to plug?

SL: I always say the same thing: I want to plug independent artistry and labels and collectives that I know of, that I’ve been a part of, because they are the ones that inspire me. Three different entities, collectives, independent labels that I’m connected to are Soul Trust Records out of Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is who I released Trap Liberation Army out from. These are comrades that I’ve known for a very long time. They’re my friends, really good friends, but we decided to have a space for independent artistry together. We put out some really good work so Soul Trust Records is just one big mass of incredible artists that people should check out.

Beat Conductors is a local collective in DC, Maryland, Virginia area that has a lot of Beat contests as far as like producer displays and battles. I mean, some really incredible instrumentals are played at these events. A lot of artists from across the country are gathering, it’s a competition but it’s more a building up of a family of musicians and artists, traveling together and explaining and working together, how we create in our creative processes, tutorials and classes. It’s been pretty cool working with them as well.

Then also Guerrilla Republik, which is a clothing label as well as a massive collective of artists that the brother Rob and Iz have been doing this for quite some time now. The people have really resonated. It’s been really heavily focused on Black and brown resistance and inspired by the Haitian Revolution. That body of revolutionary clothing and revolutionary art and music combining has been a beautiful thing. The artists that people might most associate with Guerrilla Republik would be Immortal Technique. But there are many, many, many talented artists that are affiliated with Guerrilla Republik, and I’ve had a pleasure to work with some of the comrades in Washington DC. I would tell people, if you’re looking for radical music to inspire you to definitely check out Soul Trust, Guerrilla Republik, and Beat Conductors.

TFSR: Thank you for that. One of the last questions that I had scripted out is about any words that you had on like your relationship to queerness and the relationship that queerness has to Maroon Collective, and to the Food Clothing and Resistance Collective? You as somebody who’s moved through and navigated and worked in a lot of political and social spaces, what things have come up for you visa vie queerness? And how have things changed over the years that you can locate? If that makes any sense?

SL: Change has been dramatic from losing spaces. The culture of queer visibility is a bit different now. Queer people are taking it upon themselves, I mean, as they always have, to be able to represent themselves, but it’s connecting in a different way. Where I see, on the one hand, there is more of a social acceptance via visibility, it doesn’t necessarily reflect all the time within movement circles and what leadership looks like. But people are loud and out there and they’re doing it. I’m very proud of the development of the queer folks that are out there and really getting it. Queer, trans non binary, gender non conforming, such as myself, we’re really taking it upon ourselves to attack the hetero patriarchy that has been the foal of so many movements.

Something that really pushes people away is a lack of feeling like they can be themselves in far too many leftist circles. There is homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. The importance of me being myself, and being comfortable… I decided a long time ago, either I was going to just be myself or I was going to play a role to fit in, and the choice I made very early on was to just be myself. So, I’ve never had to deal with a lot of resistance to me, as far as anyone saying anything to me in a hurtful manner.

I know I’ve been excluded from certain things, though, because of my my sexual orientation, and probably even more so my gender nonconformity as a masculine woman. But I really don’t give a damn because they couldn’t have been my comrades if you’re going to make such superficial choices, not to judge me by… I’m not going to say morality… principles, and ideological realness, because a lot of us say that we have ideological followings, but we don’t act through with them. So my integrity, wouldn’t allow a lot of people to come up to me and say certain things and oppress me. But I know that I’ve been left out of certain things because of my queerness.

We’ve had incidents within white queer spaces where we did not feel comfortable as Black and brown queer bodies. I see how my trans sisters are treated, and I see how my trans brothers are quite often just ignored and forgotten. Across the board, I see how people are taking it upon themselves to create their own Houses, their own scenes, their own films, their own music, and this body of resistance is coming out from queer people. That is a continuation of what we’ve been doing for over 40 years. It’s passing from one generation to the other to keep it going.

It’s not easy in Pan African circles, to be openly queer. It’s not easy. I’ve navigated through Pan African socialist circles, Islamic circles, revolutionary socialist circles, and again, quite often queer people, trans people are not centered in the circles. So, I’ve always felt that I would be that lance that was strike in the middle of that, and you’re gonna have to deal with me, and you’re gonna have to deal with my comrades, and you’re gonna deal with us, not as us feeling like we’re waiting for your acceptance, but you’re just gonna have to get with our program.

That’s how I’ve always felt about it. I’m not begging for acceptance, I’m taking my stake in this world that is all interconnected. In that aspect, my visibility is my weapon. I want you to see this masculine body, who’s not toxic, and who’s not following by the gender norms that you profess so well every day and the hetero patriarchy were my visibility, the visibility of my comrades and a collective that was ran by Black queer women and femmes was very important. It is very important. So I will continue to do this work even though I know that I’m probably not wanted in certain spaces. I’m not going to ask.

I’m not going to ask, “Can I be liberated? Can I be free? Can I be treated like anyone else?” I’m going to take it. So that’s always been how I viewed it. I have been a victim of hate crimes. I’ve been assaulted. I’ve been brutalized. I’ve had a lot of things happen to me as far as sexual and physical and mental violence. I am a survivor. I would tell any other queer youth that are out there and who are organizers to make sure that you build an intentional family to protect you, and to buffer you, and to laugh and to cry with because it’s very, very important. We’re trying to make worlds within worlds within worlds. It’s okay to create that. It looks like nothing that has been done before. It’s alright. It’s okay. It’s okay to create something new, and to be relentless with that.

We met a lot of queer people that came to the space and I didn’t realize until after we were packing up just how many different people that we touched with this work. So, I’m so eager to get another space so that queer people can feel that way in Baltimore as well with a particular spot. Not saying that there aren’t spots already, but to add to it. Because Baltimore is an incredible resistance town, and I just want to add to it with another space and reach out to the queer, Black and brown people here and trans Black and brown people here and gender non conforming non-binary comrades.

We’re on the verge of changing the reality. No more, would you see our faces on the front of newspapers as some things to be objectified and laughed at. You will respect us and that’s just what it is. So that’s how I take my day to day life as a queer activist. Not an activist, really just I’m queer and you’re going to deal with me and you’re going to respect me. This is how it is and we have a right to live and exist. It’s not very easy, always, especially if you’re visible. But is this is the work that must be done so that we can be free, because nothing’s given to you, you kind of have to take it.

TFSR: Yeah, thank you so much for that. I really resonate with that as somebody who’s subjectivity is a mixed race trans man who either gets as near as I can figure coded as either white or Arab depending on who is doing the coding and what kind of situation is going on. So, I very much resonate with the taking space, carving out safe space. And also, I have seen queer spaces become a bit less toxic, a bit less white, a bit more taking queerness as history as something that was very much like spurred on given energy by and created by Black and brown queer people, as you know, and is something that has been tried to be co-opted into like HRC, gay rich white kind of circles. But we have a long way to go still.

SL: A lot of the reason that that gets co-opted is because of the economic situation that queer and trans bodies are put into, because of the oppression that we face. So oftentimes, we feel like we’re unemployable. Or we’re easily fireable outside of the nonprofit industrial complex. So, here comes the nonprofit industrial complex. Some of our greatest queer and trans minds right now are working at jobs at nonprofits and they hate them. But they have to eat, and sex work is criminalized, and and you can’t do this and you can’t do that. So it’s so many things that that you can’t do, you can’t have events and have a space in the middle of Washington, DC and just be self sustainable, apparently. So people end up in non-profit industrial complex and their ideas are stolen. They’re not respected, and they’re still underpaid. Still whiteness is centered at the end of the day. It’s still white supremacy. It’s still a platform for the othering of people while they’re using these people. They will bring in, it’s almost as if they have a checklist, “Okay, I need one queer Black woman, I need to trans man…”

Trans people are speaking up for themselves and people are starting to really, really, really, really resonate with what’s going on. So let’s get a bunch of trans people in and you don’t respect those trans people that you’ve got to come in. You’re not paying them what they’re due. You’re taking their ideas and you’re literally using queer and trans bodies. It’s a big problem. But I don’t know how we get around around that other than creating grassroots orgs of our own, and not giving all our great ideas to these nonprofits? Maybe? I don’t know.

But that’s a serious thing. I feel sorry for my comrades, I see you out there. I know you’re drained. I know you don’t want to be in these spaces. It could even be just a different type of nonprofit that isn’t queer, but you feel drained and you feel used, and you feel marginalized, with people that saying they’re doing social justice work. I know, that hurts. I hope that you can liberate yourself from that, because it’s not a good feeling.

TFSR: Yeah, it is not a good feeling. I think creating projects like La Concha, like Maroon House, like Maroon Collective, is a really viable step in the direction of real queer liberation from white supremacy. Real liberation period from white supremacy, because white supremacy gave us all of this shit that we’re dealing with.

SL: …and capitalism, and so it all has to be toppled. So while I’m educating the hetero patriarchy, I’m educating white queer and trans folks, as well. Because you’re not separate from that. You might not be embraced fully as you might want to be. Sometimes I think people just want to be embraced more by the Empire, like when we were fighting to have trans or queer people be in the military, that’s not an advancement for queer and trans bodies, to be in the military. But I understand why some people do it, because this is the only way that they can get medical and other things.

We’re often put into these situations, because again, we’re not free and we’re not liberated. While we’re organizing and losing spaces, more spaces are popping up. So we’re just gonna have to keep pushing for our independence and autonomy and to to be heard and to lead even as we’re talking about horizontal leadership or temporarily. It’s still important to have Black, brown, indigenous queer trans two spirit bodies in these spaces. And I don’t see that from a lot of white leftist groups. So people are organizing their own and a lot of the new groups that I see popping up are led by queer and trans people. I just say, “What’s up? Keep doing it. Power to the people.”

TFSR:  Well, if you if you ever come through Asheville, it’s been noted before, both on air and off air that pretty much literally all of the anarchists here are queer or trans. Like it’s notable when you find a cis-het person who’s an anarchist, we’re like, “Oh, it’s the unicorn!!”

SL: That interesting, but that’s what I’m saying. Create your own reality. We can flip the reality around and that is wonderful. Now I need to go to Asheville.

TFSR: Yeah, come through, come through. Yeah, we’ll show you a good time. We have all the vegan barbecue you could ever eat… or any kind of barbecue, whatever, people should eat what they want.
Sima Lee, those are all the questions that I had scripted out, but is there anything that’s on your mind that you want to give voice to or any words that you’d leave listeners with as a parting words?

SL: Feed the people. Go out and feed people, go out and give people clothing, sabotage capitalism, like sabotage it. You see it cracking, you see it breaking, you see it lashing out across Latin America and the Caribbean, and here, and Asia, and the Middle East people are lashing out because capitalism is no good and we see it. Whether it’s Chile, or Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Paris, people are resisting. It’s time for Turtle Island, so called North Amerikkka to start sabotaging the wheels of the empire. Because other people need for us, within the belly of this beast to do that.

We need it for ourselves, first and foremost. I’m living in Baltimore, Maryland, which is segregated. It is very much segregated. It has a higher population of men in jail, Black men in jail in Maryland, more than in Mississippi. Again, I’m gonna say it again, it’s segregated. We’re living in segregated cities. We’re living in a place where food stamps are being cut from the masses. We’re living in a place where corporations we’ve known since children are closing. We’re living in a time where what it looks like to make money is changing. Hasten what work looks like, redefine what work is, redefine bartering, redefine what family looks like. We’re redefining everything, gender, everything. Redefine it, evaluate it. It’s good to learn from the past, but also learn from the mistakes.

I’m just anxious to see what 2020 looks like as we go into these ridiculous elections and all of this stuff that’s going on. Whether they impeach Trump or not, as long as we have imperialist capitalism ruling over us, it doesn’t matter what the figurehead is. So, I just want to see my comrades across the country, across the globe, to hasten the fall of imperialist capitalism, of racism, of sexism, of ableism, all of the things that have been impeding us and holding us back. Get your trans power, get your queer power, your Black, your brown, your indigenous power, and even Fred Hampton said, “you poor white people get your power too.” It cannot be on the back of your comrades and on the platform of white supremacy, we need you to be your European descended selves. Whiteness has to go, as far as a category of social political oppression.

So we would like to see the abolition of whiteness, and bring back the greenness of our land, and the blues of our water and our skies, and deal with this ecology that is just crying out for humans to just chill. This is where we are, we have so much work to do. I don’t know how to give any one thing other than to say, “Push it all.” If you think you’re pushing too much. I tell you, you’re not pushing enough. Push, push. Let’s see the end of this oppression and let’s create a new reality.

TFSR: I love that. I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much for your words and your energy and your heart and your mind. Like it’s been a beautiful experience for me getting to talk to you. And I hope that we get to like build and fight and work together in future.

SL: Absolutely. I plan on going as much as possible up and down the east coast, down south, and I’ve been invited a couple of times out west so maybe I might finally get to Cali and Seattle and Portland and other spots. I know the comrades are always doing their thing. I’m looking forward to meeting anybody and everybody who’s down to really push anti-capitalism as far as we can, in these colonized territories.

Colonization and Revolt: E. Ornelas on the Radical Potentials of LeGuin’s “The Word for World is Forest”

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This week we are pleased to present a paper given at the 2019 north american anarchist studies network that took place this year in Atlanta Georgia by e ornelas who presents a thoroughly de-colonial reading of Ursula K. LeGuin’s novel The Word for World is Forest. The paper is entitled “If You Wait, It Is We That Will be Burned: Exploring Violence and Resistance in Ursula LeGuins The Word for World is Forest”. You can find the full text of this book up at the anarchist library. This book of LeGuin’s was written in the early 1970s and was first published as part of the anthology “Again, Dangerous Visions” and subsequently published as a separate novella as part of LeGuin’s Hainish Cycle, to be read in a loose trilogy with her other novels “The Dispossessed” and “Left Hand of Darkness”. As e ornelas states in their paper, this novella is not among LeGuin’s most popular but carries very strong anti-colonial and anti-militaristic overtones which was in part a reaction to the invasion of Vietnam by US imperialist forces, also called the Resistance War Against America, which occurred from 1955-1975 and whose traumas and repercussions can be felt and seen to this day.

This book was striking to me in the sense that it presents a world view that starkly challenges that of colonial “westernized” minds through themes of an intense sensitivity to and interconnectedness with the environment and of the relationships with language, dreaming, and culture. What was great to me about this aspect to the story is that it shows very plainly the extent to which colonizers find “illegibility” on the part of Indigenous people to be deeply threatening, but can also be a pivotal place of strength with potentials all their own, and we can see this aspect in real life all around us as well.

While I have my own problems with the book, and would love to hear listeners responses to it if they have them, it also gives me a sense of a thru line between past struggle and analysis all the way to now, an intergenerationality that we are sometimes lacking in as anarchists.

I’d like to read a short quote from the introduction to the book by LeGuin, and this gives a little bit of a sense of why she wrote it and what was happening for her at the time:

“All through the sixties, in my home city in the States, I had been helping organize and participating in nonviolent demonstrations, first against atomic bomb testing, then against the pursuance of the war in Viet Nam. I don’t know how many times I walked down Alder Street in the rain, feeling useless, foolish, and obstinate, along with ten or twenty or a hundred other foolish and obstinate souls. There was always somebody taking pictures of us—not the press—odd-looking people with cheap cameras: John Birchers? FBI? CIA? Crackpots? No telling. I used to grin at them, or stick out my tongue. One of my fiercer friends brought a camera once and took pictures of the picture-takers. Anyhow, there was a peace movement, and I was in it, and so had a channel of action and expression for my ethical and political opinions totally separate from my writing.

In England that year, a guest and a foreigner, I had no such outlet. And 1968 was a bitter year for those who opposed the war. The lies and hypocrisies redoubled: so did the killing. Moreover, it was becoming clear that the ethic which approved the defoliation of forests and grainlands and the murder of noncombatants in the name of ‘peace’ was only a corollary of the ethic which permits the despoliation of natural resources for private profit or the GNP, and the murder of the creatures of the Earth in the name of ‘man.’ The victory of the ethic of exploitation, in all societies, seemed as inevitable as it was disastrous.

It was from such pressures, internalized, that this story resulted: forced out, in a sense, against my conscious resistance. I have said elsewhere that I never wrote a story more easily, fluently, surely— and with less pleasure.”

After this talk, we are gonna play some music commemorating the the 20th anniversary of the WTO Protests in Seattle, which occurred from November 30 – December 1st 1999.

Both of these tracks were found on a 2003 compilation for attendees of the WTO protests in Cancun, Mexico. If you’re interested in learning more about the protests, check out writings up at crimethInc.com, there’s a video up there called “Breaking The Spell” with tons of original footage. It’s way more legit than the bs, liberal, star-studded movie called “The Battle Of Seattle.”

The two songs are:

“Eugene The Anarchist” by Desert Rat, a socialist songwriter, parodying the menacing media coverage of insurrectional anarchists from Eugene and other places in the pacific northwest in the run up to and following the 1999 WTO protests. Ooooh, property destruction…

“PSA #12” by The Infernal Noise Brigade. This doomy marching band was known to show at large demonstrations and percussively stoke the fires of revolt with their horns, drums and dark xylophones.

So there has recently been attempts by ICE and DHS to investigate radical groups in Asheville. This scrutiny is coming amid an escalating pattern of ICE and DHS presence and terrorism all across North Carolina, some of which we have covered on this show before and has been all over other media as well. Since its inception in 2002, ICE has continued a trend of targeted and racist oppression, and as it stands it is the largest investigative branch of DHS. This past month saw opposition to ICE in Raleigh where ICE Director Albence was being hosted along with Acting Homeland Secretary Wolf in a press conference given by the Republican Speaker. The group Never Again, which is a Jewish group formed to counter ICE violence with a specific aim to oppose the systematic dehumanization which is the cornerstone of how ICE operates, is holding a month of actions all around the country this December. More about that at neveragainaction.com.

And Asheville is no different, we have seen an increase in ICE and DHS all over this town. Here is a statement on behalf of the newly formed group Asheville Anti-Repression which was developed to deal with this situation:

“Asheville Anti Racism was recently alerted to the existence of an investigation being conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security on November 4, 2019. Riseup.net received a subpoena requesting any and all records/information related to names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, MAC addresses, payment information for the following email: ashevilleantiracism@riseup.net

Riseup responded to the request on October 21, 2019 indicating that they do not keep records of the information that was requested and that they planned on notifying the account by email after one week of the existence of the subpoena.

ICE is a threat to our communities, regardless of whether you are a citizen or not. We maintain the position that ICE should be abolished and will continue to push back against this investigation. There are no individuals named in this subpoena and we do not know the reason for this request. With the knowledge of the existence of the investigation we bring you a reminder to not talk to agents of law enforcement.

Please take care in the ways that you discuss this investigation as to not endanger yourselves or others: Speculation, gossip, and rumors can only harm yourself and you communities. We do want people to not feel afraid to continue to work together, to act, and to stand up for their ideals for a world without borders. Please take time to make sure you have access to an attorney, and to refresh yourselves on your legal rights, security culture and technological security practices.

If you need access to more resources to a lawyer or if you are approached by an agent, please send an email to AshevilleAntiRepression@riseup.net

Reminder that we are not lawyers, and cannot offer any legal advice. Additionally, please do not disclose sensitive information in an email to us. We will connect you with an attorney so you can confidentially discuss the details of your situation.”

Project FANG on Combating Isolation + the Politics of Crypto-Anarchy

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This week we bring you two different segments. First, Cypress spoke with Jenny from Project Fang, a project that financially supports visits to earth and animal liberation prisoners. Since 2016, Project Fang has worked to combat the isolation of incarceration these prisoners feel by providing a fund for financial assistance for visits. The prisoners and their loved ones can apply to the fund to help pay for prison visits, which is one of the most important ways of supporting prisoners. Project Fang is currently in the middle of a fundraising push as they look to double their annual budget to continue their work.

Much has been said about the vital importance that visits from friends, family, and loved ones can have for folks forced to undergo incarceration at the hands of the state. Jenny goes into detail about the work she and the project do to help turn isolation around, and about how this work fits into a broader whole of creating sustainable communities of rebellion.

Folks can support their campaign through December 4th at fundrazr.com/project_fang. Head to the Project Fang Twitter or to the New York City Anarchist Black Cross website at nycabc.wordpress.com/fang/ to learn more.

All funds go directly to supporting visits for incarcerated animal and ecological defenders who have committed to not cooperating with the state.

Project Fang Twitter: https://twitter.com/project_fang

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Our second segment is a talk by Tyler on the techno politics of Crypto-Anarchy. This talk was recorded at the 2019 North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Music for this episode:

Written in Red –  Words by Voltarine DeCleyre — Unwoman

Margaret Killjoy on Creating Culture, Anarchism, and her New EP

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This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Margaret Killjoy to talk about her new EP called Every Breath Our Last out this October from her one woman project Nomadic War Machine. Margaret is a writer, musician, and anarchist based in Western North Carolina. We got to talk about a lot of things in this episode, including her new EP, what went into making it, Nomadic War Machine as a project in general, and her new anarchist fiction podcast called We Will Remember Freedom.

This was a great conversation to have for me, and is a little bit of a different approach than what we usually do in that the conversation unfolded organically with little in the way of pre set prompts. I hope you will get a sense of sitting down at a kitchen table with two people who have known each other for some while, talking about stuff they would kind of normally talk about anyway, except it’s being recorded. I am also clearly not a music journalist, and that comes out, especially because I neglect to ask her about the political or social themes of her new EP. Give it a listen tho on any streaming platform!

Click on her Patreon to support Margaret in her endeavors and to read more of her fiction.

This episode of the Solecast includes her reading a short story called The Northern Host (“nazis don’t go to Valhallah”), and an interview on TFS where we talk about her then new book The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.

Support Project FANG:

From their fundrazr page:

“The climate crisis, and ongoing destruction of landscapes and wildlife, are provoking a deepening sense of urgency in an increasing number of people. It can be a serious struggle to care for a world that is being plundered for profit, but there are more and more people turning their grief into resistance in defense of nature and other animals. From water protectors to pipeline protestors, and wildlife and caged animal defenders – good people who care for our world are standing up for all of us. Unfortunately taking such a stand can result in arrest, court, jail, and prison time.

Background:

In 2016, project FANG was established by the NYC ABC as a much-needed attempt to fill a gap in the ongoing support work for the growing number of eco and animal rights prisoners in the United States. The focus of project FANG funding is to help pay for prison visitation costs for friends and family of these prisoners.

Why are visits so important?

Visits from friends, family, and loved ones are repeatedly identified by prisoners as one of the most important life lines that exist for them. Without visits, the crushing isolation of life inside a prison becomes unbearable. However, visits can often be prohibitively expensive. Travel costs might include not only an expensive plane ticket, but also lodging, a rental car, and meals. These quickly add up to hundreds of dollars.

How you can help:

Currently, project FANG has committed funding of $5,000 per year, but due to the increase in eco and animal rights prisoners, and requests for visitation funding, we need to increase our available funds. With your support we are aiming to double the fund’s annual budget for 2019 and 2020 by raising $10,000. Can you help us reach our $10,000 goal?”

To help support, please visit their fundrazr page! Stay tuned to TFS for a possible interview with these folks in future, or visit our archives for a past interview with a founder of this project.

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Music for this episode:

Perdidos – FRÍO y VACÍO (musical loop by william)

We Feel No Shame – Nomadic War Machine

Guest Interview: Eli Meyerhoff on his book ‘Beyond Education’, Battling Recuperation, and Operating on the Margins

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This week we are presenting a special guest interview, done by Scott who is an anarchist academic and regular listener, with Eli Meyerhoff about his book “Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World”. In this book, Meyerhoff “traces how key elements of education emerged from histories of struggles in opposition to alternative modes of study bound up with different modes of world-making. Taking inspiration from Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and Indigenous resurgence projects, he charts a new course for movements within, against, and beyond the university as we know it.” and this quote is from the University of Minnesota webpage, who also published his book.

I found this interview really thought provoking and well crafted, it brought up a lot of issues I hadn’t really thought of in such terms, specifically about the historical and colonial construction of what we think of today as education. In this interview, Scott and Eli talk about his book, the vast terrain that the book covers, experiences in academia when one is operating as politically radical, and some alternatives to education that we can see and experience in the world around us.

Eli Meyerhoff can be found at elimeyerhoff.com, the Abolition University at abolition.university, and the Abolition Journal at abolitionjournal.org for more info on the conference happening in may 2020.

To read the intro to Beyond Education for free, head on over to this UM link.

If you are a listener and want to submit an interview for broadcast, just get in touch with us by emailing thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and we can walk you thru the process!

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Music for this episode by:

LSD – School’s For Fools

Suburban Studs – I Hate School

“We are prepared, motherf**kers!”: Greek anarchists on New Democracy regime

“We are prepared, motherf**kers!”: Greek anarchists on New Democracy regime

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This week, we’re sharing a conversation that I had with comrades from Radiozones Of Subversive Expression, an anti-authoritarian pirate radio station based in Athens, Greece. Mike, Sprout and Omar, three anarchists working with ROSE share their perspectives on the change in government in Greece, corruption in the New Democracy party that just came back into power, it’s attacks on immigrants and the anarchist stronghold neighborhood of Exarchia, the status of the social movements of the left and more. You can listen to their streaming radio station with ALL sorts of programming, from live reports from street actions, to comedy shows to music, all up at radio98fm.org. Check our past interview with folks from ROSE. ROSE is, notably, another member of the A-Radio Network to which we belong, which produces the monthly English-language anarchist news show, B(A)D News: Angry Voices From Around The World.

Other informative interviews conducted by fellow members of the Channel Zero Network on this topic include recent episodes by IGDcast and The Ex-Worker.

Announcement

Comrade Malik Phone Zap

But first, Comrade Malik Washington could use some help. He’s a politicized anarchist prisoner affiliated with the New Afrikan Black Panther Party who’s been serving time in Texas and been vocal about the mistreatment of himself and other prisoners. Despite his activism on the inside, Malik was recently paroled into Federal custody from Texas state control, and is being held currently at USP Beaumont. It was common knowledge among prisoners that he was in danger at Beaumont because of his activism, and Malik was attacked and is now in solitary. There is a phone zap ongoing to pressure administration to release him from solitary and move him to a federal prison in California, where he can be paroled after his brief stint in the DOJ’s gulags, and Comrade Malik can start working more actively with the SF Bay View National Black Newspaper where he has a spot upon his release. To learn more about his case and details on calling Warden Larry Schultz at USP Beaumont up at comrademalik.com.

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Playlist

 

The State of Resistance and the Struggle for Dignity in Chile: An interview with a Chilean anarchist about the current protests there

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This week William had the chance to interview someone, a 20 year old anarchist from the territory of so called Chile, about the uprisings which have been occurring there. The protests began on Monday October 14th in Chile’s capital, Santiago, as a coordinated fare evasion campaign by high school students which led to spontaneous takeovers of the city’s main train stations and open confrontations with the Chilean Police. While the reason for these protests was a fare hike for public transportation by the government and the transit companies, this was only the tipping point in a much larger and diffuse situation of economic pracarity. We will post a great info graphic on social media about all that is tied up in this situation, but in short education and healthcare are private and so are very expensive, jobs pay very little (400 US dollars a month on average), and it is the only country in the world where water is privatized. According to Food and Water Watch, having a privatized water system increases the yearly cost of water by 59%, or over twice the amount as public water. Many of the systems that people are forced to live under, such as the current mechanisms of the State of Emergency and the pension system, were created under the Pinochet dictatorship and have not been updated to reflect the so called “democratic” rule.

 

Our guest outlines these situations, and also speaks about the violence that protestors are facing from the police and from the state. They also speak on the relationship of this current violence to the violences that Indigenous Mapuche people have been facing from the Chilean state all along.

According to the Wikipedia article on the 2019 Chilean Protests, as of yesterday October 26th “19 people have died, nearly 2,500 have been injured, and 2,840 have been arrested. Human rights organisations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters, including torture.” Our guest outlines the peaceful nature at the outset of these protests, which were quickly escalated by hyper repressive tactics on the part of the police, and says that these actions are making it clear that the “democracy” – which was fought for by the generations above them – is a fake system.

To keep updated on this situation, and away from the tvs like our guest suggested, you can follow Radio Kurruf, an anarchist radio station in Chile, and read their analysis on the current wave of repression here. https://radiokurruf.org/2019/10/26/state-of-rebellion-in-chile/

You can also visit our blog at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org for a partial list of links and accounts to follow, including some on the ground reporting by crimethInc.

@RadioVillaFrancia

Here is the transcript of a brief exchange between TFS and other comrades in Rojava (podcast only):

Solidarity with Rojava

Here is an announcement on behalf of the IDOC Watch:

IDOC (Indiana Dept of Correction) Watch is an organization in Indiana, composed of people directly affected by the prison system and prison abolitionists, that is organizing to expose and stop the widespread abuses in the Indiana prison system, with the long-term objective of dismantling the prison system. (check out IDOC Watch at idocwatch.org)

This event will be a panel discussion on the base-building IDOC Watch is doing in prisons and communities affected by incarceration, prisoner struggles and counter-insurgency in Indiana, and the effects of the prison-industrial complex on individuals, families, and communities.

Featuring:

Zolo Agona Azania, former Black Liberation Army activist and long-term New Afrikan political prisoner from Gary, IN, who beat two death sentences after being falsely accused and convicted of murdering a Gary police officer during a bank robbery. Zolo was released from prison in 2017, after serving over 35 years. He is currently working to establish re-entry housing for people being released from prison in Gary, through the Gary Alliance for the Empowerment of the Formerly Incarcerated.

S.T. : A mother and grandmother from Gary who organizes with IDOC Watch and currently has a son incarcerated at Indiana State Prison, a maximum-security facility in Michigan City, IN.

An organizer with FOCUS Initiatives LTD, an abolitionist re-entry project in Indianapolis, IN: focusreentry.com.

Location
1845 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60208
217 Fisk Hall

Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM CDT

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Music for this episode in order:

Llueve – La Trova Pank

Somos Peligrosos – Los Crudos

From Southern Appalachia to Northeast Syria: Anarchist Combat Medics in Rojava Speak + Solidarity with SC Prisoners

Solidarity with SC Prisoners!

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This is a show with two parts, firstly I got to sit down with two members of Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross about the ongoing and increasingly dire situation in South Carolina prions. I won’t take up too much space here with an intro because we have a pretty packed show, but they outline some upcoming actions coordinated at the behest of people incarcerated in SC, a phone zap scheduled for tomorrow (Monday the 21st), and about organizing as anarchists doing prisoner support/solidarity.

Phone Zap information:

“What you can do:

-On Monday (October 21): Call Head of SCDC Bryan Stirling at 803-896-8555 to tell him about this multi-city, international action. Let Stirling know that his department is now not only a national embarrassment, but an international one as well!

-All week, October 21-28: Follow and spread the hashtag #SunlightIsAHumanRight

-Ongoing: Document what you and your loved ones are experiencing; evidence and testimony will help us prepare a formal complaint”

Get in touch with BRABC at blueridgeabc@riseup.net

Blue Ridge ABC

c/o Firestorm Books and Coffee

610 Haywood Road

Asheville, NC 28806

Anarchist Combat Medics in Rojava Speak

Secondly, Bursts got a chance to connect to a couple of anarchist comrades working as combat medics engaged with the SDF in Rojava. In this episode, they speak briefly about the work they’re doing, their experiences in the recent Turkish invasion into Syria. Here are a few news sites you can keep up with on what’s been going on, also check out the recent interview on fellow Channel Zero Network affiliates, ItsGoingDown.org with CJ, a Syrian anarchist in Qamishlo, as well as the recent series by crimethInc, also of Channel Zero Network, on background of the Rojava revolution and anarchist approaches to it.

Teem Propaganda Workshop

Teem seeks to educate students in digital design skills, image preparation, printmaking techniques, dissemination methods and visual strategy to sharpen our movements’ ability to communicate, disrupt and intervene in spectacle society.

For four days, students will be hands on learning screen-printing, risograph, offset lithography, publication layout, design for print as well as partaking in conversations and lectures to connect practical with theoretical knowledge. We will exercise, eat, and take care of the space together while producing material. Participants will leave the program with not just the printing and design skills to produce effective propaganda, but also a know-how about starting (and continuing) an autonomous printshop.

To register email teemworkshop@protonmail.com

More information on this event can be found at https://teem.noblogs.org/

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Music for this episode found on a Solidarity with Rojava playlist, musical loop by William.

 

Rojava, War, Imperialism, and Defense: An interview with Gönül Düzer

An interview with Gönül Düzer about standing up for Rojava in the face of Turkish invasion

YPG/YPJ logo from the cover of "A Small Key Opens A Large Door" book
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For this special podcast episode I spoke with Gönül Düzer, who is a labor activist, math teacher, and a board member of the Kurdish Cultural Center in Chicago. Gönül was willing to take the time to speak on the current Turkish invasion of Northeast Syria, some history that would be useful to keep in mind when considering current events in this region, the complex tensions of being an anti imperialist and calling for US support, and about the Global Day of Action on this Saturday October 12th against this current invasion into NE Syria which has been brought about by actions by the US and many many more topics.. She also talks about Rojava, the role that this region plays in the area, and some ideas about how to get involved against the current invasion.

The audio quality for this podcast special is a bit low, so I recommend listening in a quiet place with headphones if you can manage that.

We will be airing a version of this episode on Sunday, the day after the Global Day of Action, so you won’t hear from us that day via this platform, but we will be back in your podcast feed next Sunday with more content.

A content warning for this episode, Gönül describes some brutal actions on the part of Daesh or ISIS, including rape and sexual assault. The descriptions are not graphic but may be difficult to engage with.

You can go to the Rojava Information Center at rojavainformationcenter.com, @RojavaIC on Twitter, for on the ground updates about this situation.

You can also visit the link for a way to support the Rojava Medical Emergency Fund. Since the majority of medical NGOs have pulled out of the region, it has become necessary to pull together whatever medical needs fighters may have from a rapidly diminishing resource pool. This fund is for on the ground medical supplies and secure communication equipment for those people defending NE Syria.

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For a radio version of this episode, airing on 10/13/2019, you can visit our Collection on archive.org. This episode contains more music, including a song written in support of Tekoşîna Anarşîst (Anarchist Struggle), an anarchist group fighting in Rojava, plus some audio submitted by a listener of a pro Rojava, anti-imperialist rally held in Chicago on the Global Day of Action on 10/12.

Please help spread this information! One thing that people in Syria are asking for is informational, educational efforts on the part of allies abroad.

Biji Rojava!

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Music for this episode:

Bella Ciao – Kurdish version by Chia Madani

Kendal Maniš-Marşi – Rojava (Destane Kobane)

Goth, Punk, “Selling Out”, and Being #DarkAndFlirty; an Interview with Secret Shame

Secret Shame on Secret Shames

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This week William had the chance to speak with 3 members of the Asheville based goth/darkwave/post punk band Secret Shame about their politics, their music, what ails and what’s good about Asheville in general, the tensions of living under capitalism, the recent attention this group has been getting, and many more topics.

You can learn more about them by following @secretshameband on Instagram, and hear more of their music at secretshame.bandcamp.com

Before the interview tho, here is an announcement on behalf of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief:

When catastrophe strikes, those most impacted and their neighbors are the real first responders. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a growing movement that amplifies the efforts of frontline communities and scrappy yet strategic grassroots projects.

After last year’s nation-wide training tour spanned over 50 communities in 25 states, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief will continue its Building the Movement for Mutual Aid series in the Northeast this October!

Friends in New England, please check out events in Albany, NY, Portland, ME, Montpelier, VT, Worcester, MA, and New York City. The two-part training includes storytelling as well as a fun, fast-paced, and participatory workshop. Facilitators will describe lessons learned through diverse experiences of d.i.y. crisis response and the power of Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness. They’ll guide conversations that give participants opportunities to share their knowledge and build camaraderie with others in the community.

MADRelief trainings are free to all! Sliding-scale donations for t-shirts, zines, books, and posters help the team cover food and fuel and keep their powerful message on the move!

For more details, visit MutualAidDisasterRelief.org/events or follow @madr_tour on Instagram.

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Music for this show by:

Araabmuzik – American Greed

Secret Shame – Who Died in Our Backyard?

Secret Shame – Calm

Nomadic War Machine – The Fields Lay Fallow

A weekly Anarchist Radio Show & Podcast