Oral Histories of Political Prisoners + The Role of Anarchist Radio
This week, we’re sharing 3 segments.
First up, Josh Davidson from the Certain Days: Freedom For Political Prisoners Calendar talks about the upcoming book that he co-edited with political prisoner Eric King from AK Press entitled RATTLING THE CAGES: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners, containing over 450 pages of first hand experiences of resisting from within the belly of the beast across generations and movements in Turtle Island. And you can find out more about the Running Down The Walls events at ABCF.Net/WarChest [00:01:22 – 00:28:15]
- Transcript
- PDF (Unimposed)
- Zine (Imposed PDF)
Then, we’re sharing Sean Swain’s segment on Goyaałé, aka Geronimo. [00:29:14 – 00:38:27]
Finally, we’ll be sharing a panel discussion by members of the A-Radio Network recorded on Saturday, July 22nd 2023 at the International Anarchist Gathering at St-Imier, Jura, Switzerland on the history and role of radio in anarchist and anti-authoritarian resistance, mostly in Europe. If you’re listening to the live radio edition, you’ll hear about 1/3 of that segment, but can hear the whole thing at our website, TheFinalStrawRadio.NoBlogs.Org or at A-Radio-Network.Org [00:38:27 – 01:36:45]
- A-Radio Panel Transcript
- A-Radio Panel PDF (Unimposed) – pending
- A-Radio Panel Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending
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Featured Tracks:
- Let The Music Play by Arpeggio from Disco Boogie Funk Italo Rare 1970 – 1980
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Rattling The Cages Transcription
TFSR: Josh, welcome back. Would you introduce yourself for the audience with your name, preferred pronouns, political identity, and any other projects that you want to mention?
Josh Davidson: Sure. Thanks so much for having me back, Bursts. It’s a pleasure to be back. My name is Josh, he/him pronouns. I’m an abolitionist and an anarchist. And I’m involved in a few different projects, one of which is the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar, which is a fundraiser for political prisoners that’s released every year. And also the children’s art project, which is with political prisoner Oso Blanco. We take indigenous artwork from people in prison and put it on greeting cards, and then sell those and raise money for the Zapatistas. Finally, I also worked in communications with the Zinn Education Project, which promotes the teaching of radical people’s history in classrooms and provides free lessons and resources for educators.
TFSR: Great. And you’re also the co-editor of a new book coming out from AK Press that’s in presale right now called Rattling the Cages, which you co-edited with Eric King.
JD: Thanks for throwing that in there.
TFSR: And that’s what we’re going to talk about first. Would you tell listeners a little bit about the book and who the intended audience is for it?
JD: Sure, absolutely. It’s called Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners, and that’s released by AK Press. And it’s something that political prisoner Eric King and I have been editing and working on for the last several years. I interviewed about 40 current or former political prisoners about their lives inside and what they learned and how they survived to maintain their politics. This book is the culmination of all of that. As far as the intended audience, it’s really geared towards two different audiences. One would be committed radicals, and maybe people who have done time who just want to learn this history and understand better the commitments that these people have taken. The second intended audience would be younger activists, people who aren’t aware of this history or are just getting involved in radical actions, or even, as we saw recently, the recent RICO defendants down in Atlanta and Cop City. I think that this could be an excellent resource for them for the potential time that they are facing.
TFSR: It’s interesting to hear the experiences of people who have done time and who have held to an ethical stance during it. But one of the things that made me want to ask that question was because the framing that a lot of people bring to their answers includes the “here’s kind of what to expect, here’s how to handle yourself.” Like an experiential guide or a handing down of direct practical wisdom. I mean, stories and experiences of historical events is great and personal, uplifting, or tragedy moments, but also this “Hey, so as committed radicals, this is a thing that could happen to you whether, because you decide to take an action that you’re very public about, or because you get railroaded with charges and the court system just shoves you in a cage.”
JD: Yeah. And that was very intentional. There were a lot of questions. We might get into this more later. But I wanted to mix the questions a little bit having to do with history and with our experiences, but also with what you said, with practical knowledge, with things that will help people in the future that may face similar obstacles.
TFSR: The book is definitely the epitome of an inside-outside collaboration. And on that note, I wonder if you could talk about your co-editor, for anyone who doesn’t know who Eric is, how he was inspired to start this project, and the process of working together while Eric’s been going through all this repression and attempted silencing by the state.
JD: Absolutely. Eric King is a political prisoner. He’s an anarchist, a vegan, and an anti-racist. He was imprisoned in 2014 following the politically motivated property destruction in Kansas City, Missouri, after the police murder of Michael Brown. He received 10 years in prison, and he’s due to be released in February 2024. So in about six months. But during his time in prison, it’s been the thing of activists’ nightmares. He’s been assaulted by guards and Nazis. He’s been kept in the worst possible conditions and solitary confinement for years and years. But he’s never lost hope, and we’ve been communicating for years and years now. He’s always been enamored by our elders from liberation movements that came before: from the American Indian Movement, from the Black Panther Party, from anti-racist whites who acted in solidarity with them. And we’ve always talked about the commitment that political prisoners from those movements have been able to exhibit. In the midst of mail bans, in the midsts of constant communication restrictions and pervasive repression, he’s maintained that interest and that commitment that he sees with former political prisoners, and he’s been interested in making sure that other people are aware of that, are aware of that commitment and the struggles that these people have gone through. That was really the early inspiration for this.
Another inspiration was that Eric and I have really built our relationship on reading books and discussing them, initially anyway. And one of those books was Say Nothing, which was about the IRA and The Troubles. And reading that book was the early impetus. It showed him the importance of oral histories and of capturing the experiences and struggles of people who’ve been through the worst. One thing I also wanted to mention, is an interesting tidbit related to this, during one of Eric’s Many mail bans when he wasn’t allowed to have any mail except for from his immediate family, he suggested that I write to Oso Blanco. This was probably six or seven years ago, and we have both always been interested in him. Oso Blanco is a very interesting political prisoner and an indigenous person. I started writing to Oso Blanco, and we started what I mentioned earlier, the children’s art project, to highlight the artwork of indigenous prisoners and to support the Zapatista movement down in Chiapas. So even in our not being able to communicate, Eric’s been able to help create different projects that have benefited different people.
TFSR: Yeah, that’s great. We’ve spoken about Oso Blanco on the show before, but would you remind folks a little bit about his case and his activity. He shows up in the book, obviously, as one of the interviewees.
JD: Oso Blanco has been in prison since 1999. He’s an indigenous activist, and he’s imprisoned for expropriating money and supplies for the Zapatistas, for robbing banks and giving those funds to the movement down in Southern Mexico. He’s been in prison for about 25 years now. And he’s still facing another 40 years in prison. So the struggle to get him out is very strong. But he’s an amazing person, an amazing writer, an amazing artist. He’s got two books out. Three if you include this one that he’s also included in. And you can find out more about him and his website freeosoblanco.org
TFSR: Can you talk a bit about where Eric’s case is at right now? You mentioned that he’s scheduled for release early next year, so six months more. But obviously, you’ve alluded to in past shows we’ve talked about, and we talked with Eric also about the case that he was facing around the assault on guard, and he was being shipped around from facility to facility. And last that I knew he was being held at the most secure nightmare prison in the United States, ADX Florence. Can you talk about his condition and where things are at, as far as you know, with his release and his conditions?
JD: Absolutely. Eric is still being held at the most restrictive prison in the country, Florence ADMAX. He’s scheduled to be released on February 23, 2024. We just found out this week that his bond pending appeal was denied by a judge, meaning that while Eric is eligible right now for home confinement, or for a halfway house, the judge is denying it, meaning they’re just trying to keep them in the strictest, most repressive confinement they can until the last possible chance that they can. Which if anything, is just vindictive and cruel, but that is par for the course during his decade in prison. He’s doing okay, he’s surviving. I know he’s watching a ton of Jeopardy. So when he gets out, he’ll be extremely knowledgeable. And he’s looking forward to promoting this book and to possibly having a related podcast and really just getting involved and doing all the things he wasn’t able to do for the last decade.
TFSR: Yeah, I can’t wait for him to get out and for that stress to be relieved off of him and his family. It’s incredible. Just with the inside-outside part of it, it’s awesome how much… It’s really easy for people to forget the agency that people who are behind bars have and the participation that they can and do engage with the movement. Going back to some of the historical anti-colonial movements, in Ireland, for instance, as an example, or Palestine, the continued relationship between people inside and outside is really gratifying and illuminating. And for me, it just goes against… So if the purpose of the state’s carceral project is to break up communities and separate people from their communities, break up movements and take that energy and soul away, by refusing that disconnect, by engaging people that are behind bars alongside people that are on the outside, and being there and present not only to support someone throughout the process but also to re-welcome them back and help them work through the traumas that the state imposed on them once their bid is done, is really the sign of a strong social movement. And I can’t imagine us winning any other way.
JD: Absolutely. Beautifully said. And I couldn’t agree more. I was just talking to some friends in Northern Ireland, some former political prisoners, and they’re very excited about this book. The same with some comrades in Palestine. It’s Eric’s hope, it’s our hope, that this book is just the beginning and that it opened doors for people that are repressed to share their stories and to raise their voices.
TFSR: Back to Rattling the Cages. Could you speak about the approach that y’all took with the political prisoners and former political prisoners and prisoners of war that you spoke with? Some people who went away because they were involved in a political movement, what we call political prisoners, or the terminology of social prisoners who became politicized while on the inside and also received repression for their organizing or speaking out activities. How did you decide who to reach out to? And what was your methodology in approaching the subject matter? What questions did you ask?
JD: Sure, great questions. So initially, the project started with Eric sending me about 30 questions that he thought would be good to ask people who were willing to contribute. I paired that down to about 24-25 questions. and I put it into three different categories: prison life, politics and prison dynamics, and looking forward. And each of the interviews is composed of those three sections. And then the interviews were done via Zoom, via letter, phone call, anyway that I could really get in touch with these particular people. There were follow-up questions, which I was able to ask in person, on phone calls, or Zoom calls, but for people in prison that entailed a lot of writing back and forth and clarifying certain things. There was a lot of back and forth to ensure that what people were saying was accurate and was what they meant, including any edits and things like that. As far as people to reach out to, I did cast the net pretty wide. Probably a little more than half of the people I reached out to responded. There were some key people that passed away during the time that this book was made that we were really hoping to capture their experiences and their voices, including Maroon Shoatz, Mutulu Shakur, Kathy Boudin, several others. We really cast the net as wide as possible. And we really got a really diverse group of people that were willing to participate, and I’m really proud of the list of contributors that we do have.
TFSR: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. You’ve got such a span of voices from different movements, different demographic experiences, from all across the continent, in different types of incarceration, too, from provincial or state levels to federal US or Canadian prisons to county jails, US military, and incarcerated at different times. And you can hear little bits and pieces of the experience from Jalil Muntaqim or James Kilgore, the experiences of over decades at various points being incarcerated, or being incarcerated at different ages coming into the prison systems and different prison systems, or different gender prisons. It paints a big picture… Or trans folks in prison. It creates a really interesting opportunity to survey how incarceration has changed or differs in these different contexts. I wonder if you had thoughts on that aspect in particular or if you’ve gotten feedback on that.
JD: Well, there hasn’t been much feedback yet. The book is still in pre-release. And there’s only been a handful of people who have read it. So I’m excited for more people to read it and to hear what they do think. You’re right, though, it’s a wide and diverse group of people that I was able to interview. Some of them went to prison in the early 1970s and weren’t released until the last five years or so. Some are still locked up today and were imprisoned in the early 70s. I spoke with others who were incarcerated more recently, one who spent a year on Rikers Island. Most of the people I interviewed were incarcerated or are incarcerated in the United States, but Ann Hansen is one that was imprisoned in Canada related to the Direct Action Movement. And the juxtaposition of these voices shows the breadth and depth of our carceral system and the people that it’s willing to go after. The book really is a timeline of state repression and abuse, but also of resistance and love and struggle. I’m really proud of the diversity included. But also, like I said, Eric sees this book as the beginning. So hopefully, we’re able to include more diverse and other voices in future versions of this book.
TFSR: Were there any responses that really surprised you? I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess, but there were stories about birds that showed up in at least Rebecca Rubin and Oso Blanco’s stories. That was really moving. Birds are one of these animals that’s able to get over the fences and show up outside of people’s windows or in the yard. And they also are so symbolic to people, whether spiritually or just in terms of something that’s able to get above and beyond. Birds are definitely a huge part of the imagery of surpassing the limits imposed by prisons in our artwork. So this direct opportunity to personally interface with nature, despite all the attempts of the guards and the razor wire and everything, and opportunities to show kindness. Those are two examples that just popped into my head. But I wonder if any other surprising stories came up, particularly if they were shared by people who were incarcerated in different situations because that shows a lot about the spirit of resistance and liberation that’s shared among the voices you provide in the book.
JD: Yeah, that’s really interesting. And if you’ll remember, during Eric’s assault trial with the BOP [Bureau of Prisons]. They claimed that a bird flew into his cell and flooded his cell and knocked over coffee and whatnot. But you’re right, the absence of wildlife and natural environments within the prison system, it’s intentional, and it’s part of the dehumanizing process of our carceral system. And when Rebecca Rubin and Oso Blanco speak of saving birds and protecting animals where they are when they’re held in prison, it’s not only really moving, but it’s symbolic of their resistance as political prisoners in the face of the state repression that they face in prison, that they’re willing to put themselves at risk to protect life, to protect animals, to protect the environment, in whatever way they can, which is in stark contrast to our carceral system. In terms of other surprising responses, I’ll say that many people I interviewed spoke of joy, spoke of the joy that they found as revolutionaries in continuing to resist the system, even while incarcerated. The carceral system dehumanizes people as much as it possibly can. And the people I interviewed found joy in building relationships and promoting revolutionary change and political education and just in every chance they got to be human with other people behind prison bars. And that really struck me as something important that I wasn’t necessarily expecting.
TFSR: So right now we’re in a period of presales for the book that’s going to benefit the ABC Federation War Chest. And I know we’ve talked about that project on the show before but if you could talk a little bit about ABC-F and the war chest, where the money goes…
JD: Rattling the Cages is a fundraiser for and a way to raise awareness of those in prison for politically motivated actions. As sch proceeds for any book sales are split between the ABC war chest and Eric. So the ABC war chest, that’s the Anarchist Black Cross war chest, has been around for several decades now. I believe it’s been active in the US since the mid-80s, probably, and they provide a monthly stipend to political prisoners that are currently serving time. They put money on their books so that they’re able to buy things from the commissary, help others around them, and not be in need. So any proceeds from the book will be split between that war chest and Eric so that he has, hopefully, some financial cushion when he is finally released from prison. But in addition to that, if you buy the book now as a pre-order, before September 18, at Burning Books or AK Press (and I’ll get those websites in momentarily), the book is not only 15% off but $5 from each book sold will be donated to Running Down the Walls, which is the Anarchist Black Cross annual 5k fundraiser happening this year on September 17 in places all across Turtle Island.
TFSR: Cool. For folks that are just hearing about the Running Down the Walls, can you talk a bit about those events? Who can participate and how one participates in it?
JD: Sure. The name is a bit ablest, you don’t actually have to be able to run, you can push down the walls, and you can do whatever you can, as long as you’re there. Last year, I was in Philly. And it was a really amazing event. There were hundreds of people, including former political prisoners. This year, I’ll be at the Seattle event. But there are events in New York City, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and LA… They’re all over the place. And there’s a website, ABCF.net, where you can find specific locations for Running Down the Walls. It’s a really amazing event. You’ll find different reading materials and different tabling organizations there. I can’t recommend it enough.
TFSR: And it seems from past events, there have been speakers from Jericho Movement and former political prisoners, and also folks from ABC and from other prisoners support and anti-repression groups that actually talk. So if you’re in one of those cities and you’re looking to get involved in anti-repression work or meet some movement elders, or both, this seems a really good opportunity for that.
JD: Absolutely. Last year Jihad Abdulmumit with the Jericho Movement gave a great speech at the Philly Running Down the Walls. This year, I know several members of the George Jackson Brigade are planning to be at the Seattle event. So yeah, hopefully, there’s a great turnout. And there will be Rattling the Cages postcards at most of those events.
TFSR: Nice. Because this is an interfacing event that we’re talking about, as well as a fundraiser, Running Down the Walls, would you care to mark any releases of incarcerated comrades or anyone moving on to their ancestors? You’ve named a few earlier, but it would be nice to make space if you want that.
JD: Absolutely. Thank you. Sadly, there have been many political prisoners, current or former, who have passed away just while Eric and I’ve been working on this book, which has been the last three or four years. They are Russell Maroon Shoatz, Bo Brown, Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Thomas “Blood” McCreary, Kathy Boudin, Albert Woodfox, Marshall “Eddie” Conway, and Dr. Mutulu Shakur. And they were all amazing people and amazing revolutionaries. The last two, Eddie Conway and Mutulu Shakur, were both from Baltimore, which is where I lived for a long time. And I got to know Eddie fairly well. They’re all really amazing people and they did amazing work during their lives. On a lighter note in terms of release, Ruchell “Cinque” Magee was finally released in the summer. He was imprisoned in 1963, which means he spent 60 years in prison. He was Angela Davis’ co-defendant following the failed Marin County Court kidnapping by Jonathan Jackson. And he’s been in prison for longer than many of us have been alive. So it’s amazing to finally see him walk out as a free person.
TFSR: For sure. At the top of the interview, you mentioned projects that you work with, and one of them was Certain Days :Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar. Would you mind talking about where that project is at in its yearly cycle and if there are still chances for people to kick in or preorder?
JD: The 2024 Certain Days calendar is in production. We are working on it. We are unfortunately a little bit slower, a little bit behind schedule, more so than in previous years. But we’ve got an amazing collection of contributors, both artists and writers. And we’re really looking forward to finalizing it and getting it out into the world as soon as possible. Hopefully, pre-orders will be up in the next week or so. So you can go to Burning Books and order the calendar and the book and get some free shipping. But like I said, we do have an amazing list of contributors and I’ll just name a few of them. We’ve got Leonard Peltier, Dr. Tolbert Small, Zane McNeill, Dominique Conway (who is Eddie Conway’s partner), Eric King, David Gilbert, Ed Mead, N.O. Bonzo, Josh McPhee, Jessica Sabogal. Xinachtli, Ricardo Levins Morales, and so many more. So we’re really looking forward to releasing this. And we hope that it sells well, as it has done in previous years. And for those who pay close attention, you may notice in the text boxes on each month’s page some quotes from the Rattling the Cages book.
TFSR: Nice cross-posting. Was there anything else that I didn’t ask about that you wanted to talk about?
JD: No, not really. Thank you for all the great questions. I do have a couple of websites that I can just shout out if people want to access them. SupportEricKing.org, CertainDays.org, BurningBooks.com, AK Press.org. And then for Running Down the Walls, it’s https://www.abcf.net/blog/running-down-the-walls-2023/.
TFSR: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Josh, I really appreciate the work that you’re involved in, as well as making this conversation happen.
JD: Absolutely. Thank you, Bursts. Thanks for continuing to do this.
TFSR: Yeah, my pleasure.
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Transcription
Host: Hello, dear listeners. We’re here in St-Imier, the big 2023 anarchist worldwide gathering. We say “hi” from the Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Radio Network. You can find us and our content at a-radio-network.org. So check out our amazing anarchist audio content that we all gather together all the time. We’ve come here together to meet privately and have some internal discussions and planning. But also we made some public events for everybody interested in joining and checking out what we do, and to maybe start collaborating with us. Since it’s 2023 today, it’s been a hundred years since the first radio show was aired. Please, comrade, can you give us some more information about the radio history in Europe?
Speaker 1: Well, I will try my very best, since what I have here is some handwritten notes that I took from a presentation by another comrade several months ago. I summed this up into a five-minute presentation that I’m going to give to you now.
I’m speaking from a Western European / German perspective because that’s where I’m from, and that’s the history I know most about. What we know is that in 1924, only one year after the first radio show was broadcast, the first Arbeiter Radio clubs started forming: groups of workers that were meeting to produce radio shows and also meeting to listen to radio shows together. Very quickly, it was discovered that the technology of the radio (having a transmitter and the receiver) is something you can easily build by yourself and use to not only reach the masses, but also to reach the secret little working-class group that you want to share your propaganda and experience with. Another interesting piece of history then arises during World War II.
From that time, for me, the first big symbol of an international radio network that is anti-authoritarian was when the anti-fascist comrades from Germany went to Spain, from where they transmitted the so-called Feindsender. That was an anti-fascist news show that was being spread through short waves, and it even reached Germany to counter the fascist propaganda. And they did this from the parts of Spain that were still fighting against the Franco regime.
I’m gonna make a jump in history towards the Autonomous Movement that began in the ‘70s here in Europe. And within the Autonomous Movement, there was a rediscovering of what a great tool for an anti-authoritarian struggle radio can be. So, we have data that shows that people from the movement between Hamburg, Zurich, and Italy were exchanging knowledge about how to build transmitters, how to make radios, and how to start pirate radios. From the late ‘70s until the mid-80s, there was a really big wave of autonomous radio stations, of pirate radio stations, all over Europe, especially Western Europe. But also Eastern Europe. There’s a small example that I forgot to tell you about earlier called The Black Channel (Der Schwarzer Kanal), from 1986. It was a collaborative radio show between Western and Eastern German anarchists. They used texts written in the GDR, in Eastern Berlin, and they brought them to West Berlin, and then they were sent over the wall from West Berlin as radio waves. Interestingly enough, the two governments collaborated in making repression against the radio together.
There are many smaller and bigger examples from squats, from occupations, from moments where people were transmitting live while being carried out of buildings, and so on. And out of this, basically, the Free Radio movement in the German-speaking part of Europe was formed. As a follow-up to all these pirate radios and up to today, there are still pirate radios. And in moments of protest, the radio still is a very interesting format, not only because you can transmit live out of a protest, but you can also use the radio as a protest tool itself by setting up stations where people can publicly listen to the radio, and they can phone in. And then the station transmits music and brings people together and speaks about what is happening at this very moment in another part of the city, as we have, for example, also seen in 2017 during the G20 protests in Hamburg. This is a very short sum-up of a general history of why radio is a very anarchic tool.
H: Thank you very much for this recap. We’ve been focusing on a German and European history of radio, on the possibility that it holds for our movements. Another comrade has also given an amazing overview about how in Latin America, radio has been used by the populations, from the working class, from people who are in revolt, to broadcast their struggles. Can you please tell us again, why radio is such an important tool in the history of your part of the world?
Speaker 2: Yes, communitarian radio is a very big tool in Latin America. And as the comrade says, it also began in Latin America a little later than in Europe, in the 1930s. It has been a very good tool for making popular education within the population. It had been used in different forms of organizational processes, in political processes. And it had been inspired in different parts of Latin America. I can, for example, tell about Paulo Freire, who is an pedagogical teacher from Brazil, who also has engaged in popular education, and radios were a good tool to promote that decolonial discourse. For example, in Bolivia, it has been used to organize a protest against mining. It had been used against the dictatorship of Somoza in Nicaragua. It had been used also in Salvador, Radio Venceremos was the most famous one. There was another radio participation that was used by the guerilla. Zapatistas have also used this tool with their Radio Insurgencia. There are a lot of examples of how this has been a very good tool to coordinate and to make easier… because Latin America’s also a very rural place. So, it’s also easier to communicate with each other, to find out what’s happening in their other territories, the local struggles.
I’m from Chile, so I also want to share my experience of the territory. It was already used under the dictatorship, where it was very hard to get knowledge about what was happening. So Radio Moscu was very important. But in the 2019 revolt, it was used again. It was very interesting because there were some days where there were a lot of boycotts against organized media. And on the internet, Instagram and Facebook pages were shut down. So, the radio suddenly became very big because you could take the voices from the street and put them on the airwaves. You could find out what was happening in different parts of the territory of Chile, but also in the local situation. For example, during protests, where the cops were and what was going on. Because Latin America, as you may know, has a lot of privatization of media.
So it is also a big fight because if you are not in the media, the only version of reality is going to be from the powerful people who, of course, didn’t want us to organize and know what was going on in the rest of the parts. In Latin America, it’s also a popular and collective experience to listen to the radio. Even if you don’t like the radio, you have to hear it when you use the buses, and you listen to it with the family. You listen to it a lot. We also think it can have a very revolutionary effect. It’s a big tool, as the comrade said, for hearing what the neighbors have to say.
H: Thank you very much for this overview. We just heard that, on the one side, we can make radio part of revolutionary struggles that we engage with. It’s a powerful tool for organizing and helping to bring to life and success massive strikes, massive protests and big revolts. But also, as you just mentioned, with the buses, it’s also about listening. So, we took a chance on reflecting on the way that we all do media because we are, most of us, anarchist radio-producing people. But we also try to find out how we actually personally engaged with alternative media and how we use the content that we draw from it to have some baseline for reflection on how to run our radio network. Who’s willing to say some words about the discussion, about personal engagement with alternative media?
Speaker 3: It’s an interesting question because we normally don’t think about that part of the equation. During our workshop, weasked how many people actually do listen to alternative media. Some people don’t actually listen to the radio, even though they make radio. But a lot of others listen to podcasts. In their own groups, they have signal or telegram channels to distribute ideas of what is a good information source, what podcast is nice or whatever, or what radio show you should listen to.
The second part of the question is what do you do with this content? And this was a more difficult question because it’s the question most people don’t really want to think about, or at least they tend not to think about it. But there were some interesting answers anyway because people said that first and foremost, they gain inspiration from the radio or podcasts. It’s inspiring to read and to listen to this information from alternative sources. It gives you ideas and motivation to do actions or replicate things that are happening elsewhere. It gives you a first basis for organizing yourself.
S1: Also in this round, some really nice things were said about how people genuinely engage with the media. One person said, for example, they try to read or listen to one thing a day, to stay in touch with alternative and self-organized media and information sources. Other people were like, “I read it every day because I see it as my privilege to share it with my other comrades, and use it again in my own work.” And one comrade said that when they think about how we engage with the content, it’s not so much only about the content, but the empowering practice of radio is also about the making of the radio itself. The whole technology around it, learning the technology together, and expanding their knowledge.
We also were sharing a lot about what our own concrete radio practice is. When we were talking about this question, we ended up talking about who in the group actually does what. It’s not possible to talk about how you personally engage with alternative media and how you use the content you draw from it without first getting an insight into the person’s practice so that you can understand also what they take from it and how they engage with it. So, this was also a big part of our talk, really getting to understand the practice that each person has. And we all have very different practices. Some people are part of a regular podcast or regular show. Others are just in a political group. And again, others have this mobile radio station where they go to protests and then broadcast somebody else’s livestream. So it was all very different. And that was also, for me, an important part of getting to understand the engagement.
H: Speaking of us producing radio shows, we sometimes try to have a specific effect with how we do it because we all made the decision to try and go for an anarchist approach to radio-making. So, we were wondering, what effect does our content actually have, or what is it supposed to have? What effect would we hope for our content to have? Please share some thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: Hello, fellow comrades. During our discussions in St-Imier, we talked with a few comrades, and some of the effects that we see our radio having is bringing alternative news to people, as well as giving a voice to groups who don’t usually have one. This may be people who are affected by climate catastrophes, for instance, the floods in Hamburg, or migrants in Chile or other places who don’t have a way to organize themselves. They can reach out to their local anarchist radio stations and have this information shared. As well as reflecting on what is being said in mass media, what is true and what is fake news, and how this affects our communities.
At the same time, one of the effects that we wish to have is for people to reconsider their convictions and maybe spread the word and make common actions. For instance, information about demonstrations, squat occupations, protests, and others. And to give one example, an effect that live reporting has in demonstrations is information sharing. For instance, people can find out the place that you should not be going, maybe, where the cops are amassing, where they are hitting people with water cannons, or things like that. So, staying informed and keeping our comrades safe. Also, one effect that sometimes is present is a negative one, meaning repression from cops, because it’s not just our comrades who listen to our radio. The cops listen, too, and sometimes they can confiscate the equipment or maybe even make arrests. Thus, we have to be careful about that. And maybe one of the more important effects that radio has, for instance, for the student radios. There are a lot of new people who get the chance to participate in the anarchist radios. They get the information, and then they take part. They learn new things, and they can help their communities.
H: Reaching out from that question… A pretty similar one that we also discussed was: “What role our anarchist media projects play in the revolutionary struggles that we share?” And we came up with many different ideas about that. A comrade from Brazil talked about how they try hard to talk from an anarchist perspective about all the things you encounter in everyday life, to just give a narrative about the world and about yourself and the struggles that you face day-to-day, how it plays into other forms of oppression, and what’s happening in the world, and set it into a specific frame that we use to understand the world as anarchists. We saw a big potential in us trying to connect struggles all over the world by sharing news from the different movements and just reporting about what’s going on elsewhere within our struggles, and to just come to a place of being informed and staying connected and try supporting us and be in solidarity all over the world. Some people invest a lot of time and energy in trying to engage in the public debate, just trying to give counter-information to what other mass media might say. And to just have more people know the truth or brought closer to our ideas, or to also promote more people to actually share their own thoughts by sharing our infrastructure.
Collectivizing the infrastructure that we try to collect and build up is also a big thing of what we can do for our movements: just providing mics, providing telephones, providing some knowledge about how to amplify one’s own struggle. Also maybe serving the communication logistics, as was mentioned many times before (like during revolts), or even sharing knowledge about how to organize. Like this educational part that you also mentioned in the talk about Chile and Latin America in the beginning, it was something that we love the idea of using ready to transport skills, just to do education and skill-sharing also with the means of audio projects. And that we can try to become part of strategic debates because the world is giving us more and more challenges every day. The world changes, the ways the world oppresses us changes, and we need to also adapt our strategies against that to be able to free ourselves from it. And the strategy debates need to happen somewhere, people talking to each other can be a big part of that. We also love the feminist approach that you can do radio within your community, for your community as a part of care. It’s part of care work. You can give appreciation to comrades, their struggle, their work, the risks that they face, the challenges they face, and the things that they’re dealing with. That’s a beautiful thing to do for each other.
In general, the most important thing that we do as anarchist media projects is amplifying the things that we need to see growing in the world to achieve the world that we actually want to live in so far for the role that we might be able to play when we play our part well. Of course, that’s not all easy. It doesn’t come from nothing. So we also talked about what are the biggest challenges ahead of us as anarchist media and beyond that.
S2: Yes, I can say that we have a lot of challenges. It’s not easy to be in a capitalist world. And therefore it’s very important to see our challenges as radio projects and podcasts [in Chile]. We started asking ourselves how to build a good objective as a media project because we have this discussion that in Latin America, we want to reach as many people as we can. We also have to use it an educational tool because in Latin America education is reserved for the people who have money, and access to information is not so easy. So that was our perspective, but there was also another comrade who wanted to make a radio for the anarchist audience in particular. So, the first challenge is to know what we want to do. We should start with a clear objective.
Another challenge that you also talked about before was what do we do when we have young people who are very interested in Instagram, TikTok, whatever: how do we go beyond these individual bubbles of what you want to see and what you don’t want to see. It’s a challenge because the radio is broad, in itself: You cannot say “I don’t want to listen to that song.” It’s part of the program! So it’s also an exercise of listening to a song you don’t like or a part that you think is boring. That is a challenge.
We don’t have an answer. But there were some proposals. One proposal was to make a radio outside with the neighbor, like an open radio. Another form was to make a creative program that you can enjoy that does not have to be like a lot of theoretical discussions. Maybe if you want that it’s okay, too, but it’s also nice to listen to the radio that makes you laugh sometimes.
And also, we talked about compromising and consistency. If we make a program and are not doing it regularly, like every Thursday at 2pm, you will listen to this radio program. If that regularity is confusing, you lose a lot of listeners. Another challenge was to coordinate with other anarchist comrades that make other media because sometimes we have the information, we just have to make their way through. There was also the patriarchalization of the radio. There was also discussion about personal safety because if you do radio, your voice is recognizable.
Speaker 5: Hello to everyone. We are from Radio Kurruf. On the topic of challenges, our radio is covering the Mapuche struggle in the center and south of Chile. We have networked with them, we produce content, but the challenge is to put the antennas in the lands because in Chile, and in Latin America in general, the communities of Mapuche and all the native people live mostly live rurally. The way to inform these people is via radio, FM or AM, because they don’t have internet where they live. In my opinion, our next goal is to be in the waves because most farmers and indigenous people only have radios for keeping informed. We are finished with the first steps of being on social media and a radio station webpage and stuff. And we are already connected with people all over the country. For example, our radio is a member of the [networks called] Red de Medios de los Pueblos and the Red de Medios del Wallmapu y Patagonia and the Medios Libros de America Latina. And this job is more technological, but it’s already finished. But the second thing, maybe the most important, is to get our info out to the countryside, outside of the cities. And this is our current goal. We are working together with other comrades from Argentina to make transmitters, and some comrades of our project are learning about how to make this stuff and putting them in the lands.
H: Thank you very much. That’s an important technical step to react to the challenges ahead of us and already a concrete concept for further developing our media approach. There’s also been another group that discussed more broadly about strategies or concrete concepts for further development. Do you want to share additional things that were on your mind?
Speaker 6: As the history shows, you can see that the strategies have already been invented. So there’s nothing new we can discover. The only difference is that now the media outside of our movement is very big, Twitter and YouTube, and everything around us. Through this process, we were still thinking that it’s very important to focus on live broadcasts, not live streaming protest that happens a lot, but how to make these moments when something happens and the radio is on and how to be present every day. Not every day, but when you do the shows regularly. It’s very hard to do the radio 24/7. We don’t want to do that. This was something that we all agreed on. The concrete concept of how to proceed was more on focusing on when the struggle is happening. And also on quiet moments when it’s not happening, how to still develop the education, and so on.
A lot was said before, but maybe I can share three stories. One is about migration [into Europe] in 2015. When it was happening, most of the media couldn’t reach the migrants. In Slovenia, they had to stay 200 meters away from migrant camps. The state manipulates the media, so you cannot get the real information. It was important to infiltrate and do the video in that sense. And also to make a report for the radio. How do we get in? We need to share the voices that are silenced. From this perspective, voices of anarchy could be the tool that this network, also the history, it could be a tool of governments, it could be a tool of activist movements, and information has always been important. So we know the strategies from history, but the more concrete thing is how to go into these zones. And these strategies are sometimes very hard. How do we get all the information from the police case against prisoners, or the court case? Because usually you get it when it’s complete. It’s very hard. We didn’t have answers.
This is a very hard topic, I would say. But historically, some tools were used. Infiltration for sure is one. How to get information that no one can get. One concrete step is bringing the radio to our communities. So that it’s not like we are far and calling in, but also to do it live from the places we live in or are active in, and maybe find voices which are not part of the radio, and to facilitate, to engage more people that they can come in and have the voice. Even if they make mistakes, as I make now, probably, it’s more about how to catch the moments. Also, how to construct media, it’s very important to rethink before we all do it. Because if you do our own media, the biggest problem is that you are repeating yourself. If you do the reflection of one year of radio shows, you can see the repetitions. Which is logical because life is repeating itself generally, but how to find the live-ness which changes. Because I think what is most effective is this, “What is life, actually?” When it’s a moment that happens when it awakens people to go on the street, to write things, and so on. Otherwise, the history can show us a lot. We all reflect. We were not so smart to do one strategy and think, “This one will be the best.” I think it’s not one strategu, but it’s many.
H: Thank you. As anarchist anti-authoritarian radio network people, we are facing all the challenges of trying to draw some conclusions from what we have been discussing here. And also, lessons from what we all learned from the amazing projects that other comrades do. Are there specific things that you would like to take into account and draw something further from for your engagement in the network or in your local radios?
S6: When we started this network, it was coming from the idea that we need it because reporting just from local struggles is very hard. So this network is very important. We are in this process as a movement, not just Bad News, but also the other radios are doing this. And it’s very important to develop this network which comes from the street, from our local communities, and to send it to Slovenia, to Ljubljana, let’s say, so that I hear what is happening in Chile from the streets, from the people who are living there, not from the journalist point of view, which is always a little bit anthropological or a little bit faked. So the approaches are already here. The tools are here, we know how to use them. And doing it more in the sense of networking, having more comrades, and so on.
S5: Yes, for example for us is very important to be connected with other comrades from Europe, from the USA because I told you before about our connection in Latin America, but we need to share what really happened in Wallmapu, in the Mapuche Zone, to the world. Maybe we’re a little lazy with the Bad News report, but we will retake the work this year. For example, these gatherings, the Ljubljana Bookfair and here in St-Imier is historical for us to share, to know other projects, make new comrades, new networks, and new connections. It’s important for us.
H: Just shortly because you mentioned Bad News before, that’s a monthly show that we all put together as an Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Radio Network, you can find it on our website a-radio-network.org. It’s published monthly, and it has English-speaking content from all over the world that we produce on our local radios. One thing that I have found really inspiring to be here, and I would love to also do it, but I don’t know if we’re skilled enough. I’ve been talking a lot with comrades from Radio Kurruf about how you already managed to become such an important service for the struggling comrades from the Mapuche community, that you’re actually an infrastructure that people are really happy to use and are really relying on, and it’s become an important tool for the movement itself to reach out for you and share stuff with you and be like “Hey, can you please share this?” And as you said, many messages reach you every day like, “Please, can you share? Because it is important to us that it’s shared.” And doing years of all this crazy work and effort that it takes to play such a vital role, so at the moment, people don’t think anymore about what could be possibly sent this month, but there is already a very alive and very strong, very resilient movement, which has found radio as a tool to amplify what’s going on and to feel safer and more able to survive under pressure that’s coming. That’s very beautiful. And you also mentioned that you’re doing a great job with reaching imprisoned comrades from the Mapuche struggle because the connection is already there. And then you just keep it going and keep it alive by trying to send voices from outside to the inside and voices from the inside to the outside.
And this is something I would love to have, if we were able to reproduce that one day, maybe in eight years. For example, I live in Germany, to have been building this connection in the struggle, and then just making radio a very organic part that fits very well into the resistance that is going on. I am amazed by what you’ve told me, and I hope we can try and become just as anarchist.
S1: What you say really strikes me. Are you really thinking about what you could broadcast every month? Do you think there are not enough things happening to broadcast about? Don’t comrades contact you and tell you things they’re doing? I have a show every week, and it’s always too full. And I have to postpone things to next week. So I was a bit shaken by it, like, “Come on, that can’t be true that you don’t have enough things to broadcast about the movement, isn’t it very lively.”
H: I don’t mean it quantity-wise, I mean it more in the sense of being strategically organized. And that’s going in the direction of a concrete struggle. Because the last time we actually sat down in our local radio group and were like “Okay, how can we, as a radio project, contribute to what is happening in the world?” was when the inflation was hitting very hard in the last months or even years now. We were like “Okay, so many more people are going to be suffering much more from poverty, and capitalism is gonna go one more time really crazy on everyone. And how can we try and be part of pushing strong working-class anarchist resistance into existing and being more lively?” And these are two different perspectives to take on specific struggles.
Of course, there’s so much going on. And it’s all the time something like “Oh, that’s so important,” or “that so crazy, that really needs to be spread more widely.” But we sometimes also still face the situation that we’re considering how we can be a part of the start of something which is going to be very powerful and able to actually collectively react to the collective challenges and the big issues that we have, which is slightly another level of like “Okay, so there is this initiative there. And this is a really important piece of repression over there that we want to support the affected people from,” or stuff like this. This is something which I’m really looking forward to. If we have the combined strength of a revolutionary movement and this little piece of the part that we can play in it, and a little piece of service that we can do as radio to just organically add more fire to it.
S3: As my comrade was saying, there’s indeed, of course, no lack of possible information and topics. And indeed, we are being contacted by projects that say, “Okay, in two months, we want to do that camp. Could you please advertise it, or maybe do an interview with us and stuff?” Of course, it happens regularly. But it’s still not like that, that things that happened in the movement and new projects, that it becomes a very logical step to simply say, “Okay, let’s talk to some anarchist radio project. Let’s put it out there.” No, it’s not yet there.
H: I have another question which interests me a lot. And I would love to know if you have already some ideas and experiences with that because we had it as a question in our discussion group about the role that we could play. We talked a lot about how we can be of service to our communities and our struggles, and how can we strengthen our movements. But we’re also thinking about the other side of the coin. How can we weaken our enemies? How can we make the systems where we are trying to fight weaker? How can we be annoying to these systems? How can we play a part in weakening the oppressive structures? Or how can we as radio activists piss off the people that are responsible for things that we hate? Do you have any experience with on how to weaken the opponent as radio people?
S6: I don’t know if I will answer that. Usually, they don’t listen to our radios. You said the police might listen, but I would say, they’re not disturbed. They just watch or listen. It’s hard to do spectacular radio if nothing is happening. Sometimes, we have a problem in our show and we do just music. We comment on music and produce some cultural thinking for people. It doesn’t happen often, maybe in these 10 years, five times that we did the music. We say who is the band, where they are from, and what they do. But this is just when it’s a crisis. For me, the best radio shows were when something was happening on the streets, or when something was happening in the community, which would disturb the municipality. It’s hard to do it on the radio. You could provoke it maybe in mainstream media, but you will probably not be there. But as with our radio, it’s hard to understand how to disturb the government or the people who are the politics or the capitalists or whatever. But also, when it’s a gap, it’s a gap. You don’t have anything to say, okay, we will find something new. Sometimes this happens, but sometimes overloading, producing, it’s also questionable, because you’re just speaking and speaking and speaking. But it depends also on how many connections you have. For our radio show, this network or external movements that are not part of our movement help us a lot.
S2: I don’t know if I see a big difference between building up our movement and destroying the enemy. Because I see myself primarily as an anarchist, and out of an anarchist position, I am an anti-fascist, for example. So I have my focus on building an anarchic world and through building it, of course, some things have to be destroyed or are destroyed, but that’s not where my focus is. Of course, I don’t want fascism to spread, but I feel that putting the focus on what we are building up is the most annoying thing. For me, the existence of me, a transmasculine radio maker who does a show at 7 a.m. when people go to work and talk about anarchism and sex and all the things that people pretend they don’t really want to listen to, but actually they do. That is for me already a big emancipatory point and also probably annoying enough to many people that they just turn off the radio.
H: One quick thing I just remembered about from our discussion group because you mentioned anti-fascism. One comrade said that they would call known fascists, or parents of fascists in the village and in the surrounding area, just being like “Yeah, we know about you. We don’t like what you do.” This vague feeling of fear, to be able to spread that into people that are really doing very harmful things. And being proud of trying to uphold a word that is really dangerous to most of us, that’s a good thing that we can do. Also, just to give this vague feeling of we’re watching you. I love that.
S3: Okay, I personally think that the most disruptive thing that anarchist radio does is disrupt the narrative, disrupt narratives of the state, disrupt narratives of capitalism, of patriarchy, by introducing other things. When there’s absolutely no information about the process in Rojava, then having an anarchist interview about this topic is a very important thing, because people will then have another point of view that disrupts the normality. And the other example would be really using radio as a live station tool on-site where you can engage with local populations. And this already might lead to some self-organization and some disruption of the normal way of dealings in the neighborhood. This is also a very disruptive way which, of course, at the same time is a very constructive thing. This duality of radio making that we all are aware of.
S5: In my point of view, the main contribution of our radio is sharing the real info about the Mapuche struggle because the mass media just produces a terrorist image about the Mapuche struggles and don’t report about the political prisoners, for example. The main tool of the Mapuche political prisoners is the hunger strike. These people make a lot: 3-4 every year. Very long hunger strikes, like 100 days without food. It is very tough, but the mass media doesn’t cover the hunger strikes, for example, or what actually happens when the police come to the communities to shoot the Mapuche children. It’s very hard. The mass media don’t cover it, but we try to be the voice of the communities. This is our main goal for making radio. We also make videos and write texts. All medias, all means necessary.
H: I think another important difference between mass media and our own DIY anarchist media is what you just said about what we cover, what we don’t cover, what is censored and what is not, what we try to bring to life. But also I feel oppressors have the general feeling that the majority of the society is on their side. For me, often, I feel like if I intervene in an oppressive situation, everyone’s surprised because people usually feel like “Okay, I’m allowed to be oppressive, because this is how the world works. And everyone’s going to be accepting that.” And that’s what I really love as the potential that we have, as anarchist media, that we can be this surprise to oppressive systems or people, that we’re not on their side. And especially, you said what you do on your show on Radio Kurruf to keep an appearance. I mean, I’m not saying we have to, but it’s one tool that we can choose, if we try and keep an appearance of how we talk and how we dress or whatever, as these classic journalism media people, then it can be really amazing to see how…
One example that I just thought about is we that had these wild strikes of migrant workers in Berlin in the last years, quite often. And I, for example, went there for our radio to talk to the workers that were on strike. But I also tried to talk to the manager who was on site. And I was saying, “Hi, I’m from a radio “– I didn’t say which one – “what’s going on here? Why are you here? Why don’t you give these people what they want?” And he really started to be like “Yeah, we’re in Germany, and law and order, and the company and the safety of producing, blah, blah, blah.” And then I was asking questions and telling him like, “Well, we think it’s wrong. And why don’t you give them just the wage that they deserve? Or why don’t you give them the gear that they need?” And he got super angry because he was really not expecting that someone would actually be on the workers’ side, coming from the outside of society, from this pseudo-journalist perspective. And that got me thinking that maybe you can actually have an effect when you disguise as this classic journalist person, but then are in strong solidarity with the disruptive elements of the current system. And I would like to carve out this path and find out more about the power that maybe we could use.
S1: What you just said also brings me back to what a comrade said earlier, namely the point of positionality. And this is the big strength. That’s why it’s an anarchist [and anti-authoritarian] radio network. So we also always talk from the subjective and very political point of view, and it transports into everything we say. In the way we do a show and an interview, not only into the content itself, which is also something that I’ve been thinking a lot about in these past days.
H: So we’re close to an end. Is there anything else that you think is very important to take away from this gathering that we’re having in St-Imier as anarchists and anti-authoritarian radio network? Is there something important to you that you want to share before we close this?
S4: Yes. We will make a presentation about our documentary (by Radio Kurruf) about the Chilean revolt in 2019. So see you on Saturday at 8pm in the cinema.
S3: Okay, it was really a great opportunity to meet new comrades, new projects. We met a lot. Actually, I was surprised by how many people were at the presentation, There were 70 people, and at least 55 were actually participating in some anarchist media projects. That was amazing. And I’m really curious to see how this goes forward.
H: One last shout-out. If you are listening to this and you’re doing an anarchist media, maybe especially anarchist audio-based media, feel free to contact us, and if you want to be part of our network, just say hi. You can find all the contact information, our email address and everything on our website a-radio-network.org. But we don’t have a specific email for the network, so feel free to contact any participating project or contact us via our Mastodon contact, which is aradionetwork@kollectiva.social