Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts

Monday 28 June 2021

Me-Too

             The rise of feminism in Greece is seen by the power mongers of their established patriarch society as a serious threat to their macho-man society. Feminism undermines their ingrained vision of man the superior and woman the submissive, it shakes the foundation of their grip on power. Hence the brutal attack on any hint that woman should have the same rights and privileges as men. The Greek state, even by its standards, is brandishing the big stick with ever greater viciousness and vindictiveness against any sign of opposition to its macho delusions. A simple slogan can land you in the high court and facing a long gaol sentence as well as astronomical costs, anything to try and stamp out the rise of women seeking respect, justice and equality. Our solidarity sees no borders.
The following from Enough is Enough:
          Athens. In the night of the 8th to the 9th of June five people got arrested for collaging "El violador eres tù“ on the National Theatre of Athens. This action was taken to shoot light on the case of Lignadis, former director of the theatre, who is right now being prosecuted for raping four minors. This case is extremely political considering that Lignadis is protected by the fascist government of Greece and has personal relations to the prime-minister of Greece. 
Originally published by Athens Indymedia.

          This way of collaging started in France over the last year under the name „les colleuses“ and is now being used internationally to call out patriarchal oppressions. As the general climate of state repression in Athens is getting harsher and the struggle against patriarchal issues is getting tenser since the me-too movement started to arise in Greece in the beginning of the year, we see now how the repression is more actively targeting feminist actions, even the most minor ones.
         The 5 comrades are now being prosecuted for this action and risk up to two years of prison. They already have to pay 1200€ for lawyer and court expenses since they are being prosecuted in a higher criminal court rather than a regular one. The charges brought against them are completely disproportional to their action as you can see in the picture.

STATE, JUDGES, POLICE = PATRIARCHAL ACCOMPLICES

HANDS OFF FEMINIST FIGHTERS  
 
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk     

Friday 26 June 2020

Stateless World.


       Is there any aspects of this economic system that we live under, we can say benefits the ordinary people's freedoms and desires, or that sees to the basic needs of all our people? Obviously not when its foundations are built on privilege linked to wealth and inheritance, power welded to wealth, structures based on patriarchy, and wealth created by the exploitation of those ordinary people, all held together by the state's repressive machine in conjunction with its loaded judicial system. To such a system, anger and rebellion should be the natural response flowing from the ordinary people, but it needs to be built on organisation and solidarity followed through with direct action. Dialogue with such a system has long since been proved to be futile. The streets and workplaces are where we will create that better world for all. 
Death to the State – Death to the Patriarchy


      On the morning of June 12, 2020, the ROS [Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale / Special Operations Group] staged yet another anti-anarchist repressive operation, this time signed by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office. Two comrades end up under house arrest and five others are imprisoned on Italian, French and Spanish territory.
       Among the accusations, as is now the practice, that of subversive association for the purposes of terrorism and incitement to commit criminal acts. Once again, the aim is to attack those who claim solidarity as an offensive practice and actively support their anarchist comrades facing the repression. As in Bologna last month, with Operation Ritrovo, the methods are repeated: cops in balaclavas, in some cases with guns, doors broken open, telephones requisitioned, searches and seizures of computers and printed material.
         The state through these muscular demonstrations tries to frighten us and make us feel isolated, in line with this patriarchal society that would have us docile, locked in our predefined gender roles. It does not surprise us when, as in this case, the media emphasize the presence of women in the investigations, showing astonishment in not finding ourselves relegated to the second row. We reject this logic that is imbued with paternalism, we do not seek protection but complicity in attacking. Attempts to avoid the use of violence as a response to what oppresses us have always been and always will be rebelled against.
        We do not want to have a place in this patriarchal society, which maintains and also reproduces itself through the distribution of power, in the gender socialized as feminine, we only want to dance on its rubble.
       We are not interested in legal technicalities and dichotomous concepts of guilt and innocence. As feminists and anarchists we can only claim solidarity with those who attack the patriarchal system and all the ways it expresses itself.
        We turn fear into anger and anger into strength. And this makes us dangerous.

Death to the state
Death to the patriarchy
For Anarchy
Complicity and solidarity with the arrested from Operation Bialystok
FREEDOM FOR ALL
Some feminist anarchists
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Saturday 18 April 2020

Feminism in Poland.

         Feminism may be a widely discussed and an accept view point in this country and some others, but there are countries where it has never gone mainstream. Anarchist Radio Berlin was present at the recent and very first Feminist Congress in Poland. This is a short interview in English with one of the oraganisers.



Feminist Congress in Poland

        At the beginning of February 2020, the Anarchist Radio Berlin had the opportunity of participating at the first Feminist Congress in Poland. In Wroclaw we did a small interview with one of the organizers of the congress about the organizing effort and feminism in Poland.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 22 July 2019

How Dare You Try To Live Outside Our System!!

       Greece, Argentina, Germany, Russia, France, no matter where, when people start to set up a life style contrary the laid down norms of our State/corporate/consumerism society, they are met with the full frontal force of the authoritarian state's enforcers. The intimidation is to create subservience in the population, it is saying, "How dare you try to live outside our system, get on with your work, your shopping and screen watching, leave us to handle everything else". Of course people are not like that, they prefer freedom, freedom to choose their own way of life, freedom to shape their society and communities they way they want, not follow the dictates of an authoritarian exploitative economic system.
This from Enough is Enough: 

Saturday 20.07.2019 Friedrichshainer Nordkiez:      
      This morning, the cops of the LKA 5.21 unit under the command of Kranich raided Liebig34. Unusual was the Saturday, unusual the mix of units from different departments. New were a few civil cop faces, not new: the repression.

Originally published by Indymedia DE.

      The reason for this raid was probably stones thrown from the house during the last few weeks. After the cops collected stones from the Dorfplatz around 2:30 this morning, they obtained a court order and search warrant to search part of our house and returned around 6:30 a.m.. They came through the backyard and the front door, sawed the doors and barris, picked them up and thus forcibly gained access to our project. A lawyer was quickly on the scene and was able to observe and testify. Altogether the cops were about three hours in the house, having searched officially and intensively three connected rooms and the attic. They also snooped around in unlocked private rooms, tore posters from the walls, knocked over furniture, cut internet cables and destroyed windows. During the search, they extensively documented the interior and structure of our house. In the officially searched part of the house they collected plenty of DNA and fingerprints from everyday objects. They also confiscated some items from these rooms, such as cigarette butts, stones, deposit bottles, internet switches, wall paint and clothes. They did not seek contact with the people in the house and did not record any personal data.
      Meanwhile and immediately afterwards there were soli actions: the cops were shot from the roof of Liebig14 with fireworks, a cop car covered with stones and paint, barris burned in Rigaerstrasse. People came to support and are still supporting now, helping us to repair our doors together.
This morning joins into the sharpening situation here in the neighbourhood: our anger becomes bigger and the harassment and repression increases. Together we have survived the morning well, but the extensive DNA recording concerns us. It suggests an intention to normalize DNA recording and shows that the cops want to fill their databases. Collecting random samples such as those from cigarettte butts, cups, empty bottles and window frames, shows that even the most basic forms of daily alternative life are criminalised preventively and placed under general suspicion. So it is now enough to drink a cup of coffee in a queer-feminist house project and end up in a DNA database for life, without even a concrete accusation of a so-called crime.
      Our answer: Form gangs and get your crew! Only together are we strong!
        Become active and do not wait for a dayX. In the case of Liebig34 , we welcome both centralised and decentralised actions of all kinds. Over the past few months, they have put a mischievous smile on our faces. We are seeing an increase in radical and militant practices that implicitly and explicitly refer to feminist issues. We want more of it!
Probs to the action of a FLINT* action group against the ASW last week.
For current information on Liebig34 check: twitter @Liebig34Liebig and http://liebig34.blogsport.de/
Dates:

Today, Saturday 20.07., 9 pm,Dorfplatz

Tomorrow, Sunday 21.07., 6 pm,manifestation at Dorfplatz in front of our house
Come over! If you have discarded long internet cables, please bring them with you, the pigs have cut our cables, but we won’t be cut off!

Who’s Kiez? Our Kiez!
Love, Your 34 collective
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Monday 20 May 2019

ACE In May, Edinburgh.

        When in Edinburgh, visit ACE, (autonomous.org.uk ) there is sure to be something of interest going on, that's ACE for you. Here are some events during the merry month of May to get you chatting and acting.
Some Upcoming Events in Edinburgh

Information from the Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh
ACE Public Opening Times:
Every Tuesday 12:00 – 15:00
The last Thursday of each Month 18:00 – 20:00
The first Saturday of each month 13:00 – 16:00

Monday, 20 May 2019
Sisters Uncut Edinburgh - Open Meeting

       Sisters Uncut is holding a open planning meeting where we will be discussing upcoming actions and events and deciding where we want to take the group next. Come along and organise with us!
     Sisters Uncut is an intersectional, feminist group taking direct action to defend domestic and sexual violence services. We're organising information evenings, actions and reaching out to local communities.
       Meetings are open to all women (trans, intersex and cis) and all nonbinary, agender and gender variant people. All skills and experience levels very welcome - help us fight the violence of austerity.
18:30 - 20:30 at Autonomous Centre Edinburgh.
Link to facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/615424472272172/

Wednesday, 22 May 2019

Common Ground - Homeless-led Action & Advocacy

What rights do you have if you are homeless? Terrible conditions in the B&B – what can I do? Feeling isolated and don't know where to turn for support? Been there and done it, and want to help others who are experiencing homelessness?

speaking about and sharing your experiences
learning about homelessness rights and entitlements
challenging stigma and labelling
supporting each other and information-sharing
taking action together for positive change
Wednesdays from 14:00 – 16:30 at Autonomous Centre Edinburgh.
Sisters Uncut Edinburgh - Lessons from Scotland

     Sisters Uncut have organised a demostration outside the Scottish Parliament to coincide with MSP Joan McAlpine hosting transphobic blogger Meghan Murphy.
Gathering from 5pm with speakers starting from 5:15.
Link to facebook event page:
https://en-gb.facebook.com/events/2379727025638311/

      The event page includes detail of the Parliament protest code of conduct and Sisters Uncut's safer spaces policy.
Friday 24 May 2019

Edinburgh Youth Climate Strike
11am at the Meadows, marching to the Scottish Parliament
https://www.facebook.com/syclimatestrike/
Part of the global youth strike for climate, strikes Britain and world-wide
Advice for adult supporters
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZiKSZP1CoYaTcBqPanEADDsZvxD_h7T/view

Weekly Strikes - every Friday
Contact: sandy@sycs.org.uk, dylan@sycs.org.uk or neelu@sycs.org.uk

Time: 11:00 - 13:00 Location: Outside Scottish Parliament, Horse Wynd, Edinburgh EH99 1SP

Sunday, 26 May 2019
Intro to Climate Colonialism

         From displacement to genocide, land clearances to build plantations and extract fossil fuels and other materials (and therefore slavery), from social Darwinism to mass disparity in resources in adapting to climate change. The origins of climate change are rooted in the origins of colonialism, and the impact of climate change plays out in the same way.
Workshop at St. Margaret's House
14:00 - 17:00
Tickets are pay what you can afford.
Link to facebook event page:
https://en-gb.facebook.com/events/2208778575872641/

Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Common Ground - Homeless-led Action & Advocacy

What rights do you have if you are homeless? Terrible conditions in the B&B – what can I do? Feeling isolated and don't know where to turn for support? Been there and done it, and want to help others who are experiencing homelessness?

Speaking about and sharing your experiences.                           Learning about homelessness rights and entitlements.           Challenging stigma and labelling.                                             Supporting each other and information-sharing.                             Taking action together for positive change.

Wednesdays from 14:00 – 16:30 at Autonomous Centre Edinburgh.

Thursday, 30 May 2019

ECAP Advocacy Stall
Solidarity with claimants.

       ECAP organises to combat poverty on the principle of solidarity and self-activity in communities and workplaces, actively rejecting influence by any political parties.
       We work and fight alongside individuals facing poverty related problems and oppressive behaviour from the authorities. We also conduct wider campaigns on specific issues using the same principles of solidarity and self-activity.
High Riggs Jobcentre 10:00 - 11:30

Friday, 31 May 2019
      Nae Pasaran: Solidarity Benefit Gig for ACE and Edinburgh Antifa
Benefit for the Autonomous Centre Edinburgh & Edinburgh Antifa at the Argyle and Cellar Bar.
Doors at 7:30pm.
£6 waged, £4 unwaged, donation/ free if skint.

Featuring:
The Irresistible Urges
Loud South Ladies
Moving Statues
Euan Johnson
Link to facebook event page:
https://en-gb.facebook.com/events/498684344000198/
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Wednesday 27 March 2019

Feminism, To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Question!

 
         I'm sure, that within the anarchist groupings this article will annoy some, irritate more, and raise others to fury. I'm also sure that there will be others in the anarchist groupings who will agree wholeheartedly with Anna. All the more reason to share it and and see what transpires.
From 325:

Words from anarchist comrade Anna Beniamino
Anna, Women’s prison of Rebibbia
Degenerations – Between pride and gender victimhood
(An article Degenerazioni Tra orgoglio e vittimismo di genere
Published in issue 3 of the anarchist paper Vetriolo)
       I am anarchist, I am not feminist because I see feminism as a sectorial and victimist withdrawal, I have never made any gender discrimination although I don’t use gender-friendly linguistic conventions, on the contrary I often use dirty politically incorrect language. I think that the annulment of gender privilege and similar oppression is already contained in the search for anarchy, that is to say in the practice of antiauthoritarian relations, and should be cultivated there. Ah, I forgot, I loathe consciousness-raising in public meetings and I also consider assemblies to be blunt instruments. I understand and also have the will to meet. But I see how all too often the assembly degenerates into sterile self-representation.
        You see nowadays you risk having to start off with such a preamble in order to enter the thicket of clichés on gender and feminism, disentangling yourself in the intricate incapacity to relate to the anarchist galaxy, with a range of behaviours going from hyper-emotiveness to the bureaucratic calculation of what stand (and degree of negotiable compromise) to take in a struggle. I don’t think that authoritarian and sexist behaviour can be fought by trying to spread new linguistic conventions or by cooking up shreds of mainstream indignant rhetoric (among which #nonunadimeno [enough is enough], the feminicide count on TV, pride, red shoes and rainbow ribbons) in an alternative sauce.
          Rather these should be recognized as signs of yet another operation of the deconstruction of real meaning and recuperation in act. Convinced that one is opposing them, in actual fact one is adapting to the very behavioural and normative codes conceded by dominion as ways of releasing tension.
It’s nothing new that economic and political power is tending to swallow up and redigest everything, faster and faster; consider for example the pearls of anti-sexist, antiracist or whatever it might be neo-conservatism and conformism that are being dispensed by the media every day.
          I believe that the first misunderstanding is the inability to put certain kinds of behaviour into context, within what should be a wider critique of relations and communication and interaction between individuals in the antiauthoritarian sense, reducing them to the level of questions of gender.
Gender categorization, in LGBTI (XYZ…) style, should be left to those who need to feel themselves a protected category, in pigeonholes more suited to a Linnaean categorization of individuals than free bodies and minds. Instead, we find such pigeonholes in antiauthoritarian milieus, which should already have internalized their refusal.
         By the way I’m far from believing that so-called liberated spaces really are such, in fact they often become parking lots for various forms of malaise and instead of enhancing the quality of life and relationships they risk lowering it even more. For example it’s not possible to see every inability to interact in a meeting as sexism, authoritarian imposition or gender violence: I read in a pamphlet [1] that was around last year stigmatizing the latent violence in relations between comrades ‘the oldest exercises power over the youngest, those with more experience impose themselves on those who have less, whoever is stronger on the not so strong, mirroring the relations of the existent we say we want subvert.’
      This is supposed to be a critique of authoritarian attitudes in antiauthoritarian milieus and it would be valid, were it not that it banalises and flattens everything: there is a fundamental difference between imposition of strength and the expression of experience. The inability to express oneself or to act is neither authoritarian nor antiauthoritarian, and can only be solved individually… otherwise we come to the idiocy of praising inability and inaction.
The concept of emotive violence or the violation of emotional integrity is even more ephemeral, because it promotes this analytical junk amongst antiauthoritarian individuals who should have far sharper critical weapons and practical capacity of intervention. As well as emptying of meaning the inflicted and brutal violence it is being compared to.
        How can we claim to engage in an unrelenting struggle against authority and dissertate on revolutionary and liberatory violence if we cannot even react individually to some ‘undesired comment in the street’ (by taking it for what it is, and dealing with it accordingly with the person who spat it out) or keep up an animated discussion during a meeting without having recourse to the shield of violated sensitivity? Why do we find ourselves reading the disarming and obvious idiocy that advises making love with a woman in order to avoid an unwanted abortion? [2] Why codify, even in the field of gender, only for “female gangs”, like conquest, self-defence from aggression and harassment? Isn’t this a problem common to all genders among liberated beings?
      Why should we revisit the most outworn products in the wardrobe of 1970s feminism, such as separatist meetings… maybe calling them workshops (a really ugly term that combines work and shop, borrowed from business conventions and unworthy of free discussions)?
       I read the spectre of the same reductive and banalising mechanism in another recent publication, the Italian edition of the Rote Zora claims [3], i.e. the intention to sensitize only a female audience about a group of women who carried out armed struggle in the 1980s and 90s in Germany, insisting on the choice of gender, of very great interest on some feminist topics, as a privileged discriminating factor for taking them out of oblivion… given that one doesn’t want it ‘to belong to official history. It is written by men’ [4]… What?!? Is it not that official historiography tends to not talk about them because they were angry, not angry feminists? Just as it doesn’t deal with – or distorts – the history, actions and writings of so many other angry men and women? The partial vision is not that of Rote Zora who experimented their own path of individual and collective struggle and liberation in the context of wider anti-imperialist and anti-capitalistic action, but of those who try to make a flag out of it in order to give more credibility and specific weight to their own theorizing, to then reduce themselves to looking for ‘paths of self-defence’.
      Why entrench oneself in a ‘feminist and lesbian’ discourse [5]? Why yet another protective cage, rather than develop the beauty and infinity of more advanced ideas of the critique of domination (not only gender), put forward and tested?
        ‘Sisterhood’ has always seemed to me to be a form of allusive alienation of transversal political alliances between oppressed and oppressors, between ‘inter-classist’ as it has become fashionable to say again… adverse parties. I also happened to see a booklet [6] recently containing an Italian feminist’s interviews of some female veterans of the Spanish revolution in 1936, aimed at finding a questionable ‘sisterhood’ between women anarchists engaged on the frontline (and in the background with Mujeres Libres), the POUM and Stalinist women.
       It was quite significant that almost centenarian anarchist revolutionary women were far more lucid and open in their critique about the limitations of feminism than their interviewer imbued with 1970s’ clichés was: in the extreme calm of a life lived to the full, they were able to explain simply the equal relations between male and female comrades, and how they managed to ridicule and neutralize the machismos that emerged among the most retrograde and stupid of their comrades. In short the practices and theoretical contribution of these women are far more advanced along the path of liberation of the individual and the negation of authoritarian dynamics than those of feminists who glean from their experiences, defending simulacra of struggle instead of the struggle itself. The need for auto-da-fé, the ‘deconstruction of one’s male privileges’, the search for separate places for discussions, self-awareness and self-analysis in public seem a little too much like signs of these times of over-exposition and woolly thinking, parading ‘struggles’ by category and interior struggles, to end up not struggling at all.
Anna,
Women’s prison of Rebibbia
October 2018
[1] Violenza di genere in ambienti antiautoritari ed in spazi liberati [Gender violence in antiauthoritarian milieus and in liberated spaces], Italian edition translated from Spanish in 2017
[2] Critica all’aborto [Critique of abortion], Jauria – Trans-feminist publication for animal liberation, issue 1, Summer/Autumn 2015
[3] Rote Zora – guerriglia urbana femminista [Rote Zora – Feminist urban guerrilla], Autoproduzione Femminista, 2018
[4] From the introduction to the same book
[5] Which the Rote Zora women themselves didn’t think relevant. From a 1984 interview with Rote Zora: ‘Some of us have children, many others don’t. Some are lesbian, others love men’, page 51, ibidem
[6] Donne contro [Women against], Isabella Lorusso, ed. CSA editrice, 2013
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sunday 10 June 2018

Sexism In Anarchist Circles!


         Yes, sexism does exists in anarchist circles, and should be constantly challenged, it is encouraging to see it challenged in such an open and powerful manner. This from Mpalothia:


Mexico: 
Communique from the Informal Insurrectionist Anarcha-Feminist Coven.
       Public response to a misdiagnosis that circulates on the internet. To the anarchists of Mexico and the world, to all the witches fighting in the universe.
 «My Mother, go to your room and take care of your work, the loom and the spinning wheel (…) The word must be a thing of men, of all, and above all of me, of whom is the power of this palace».Telemachus, The Odyssey

---------Thus, the Bolshevik libertarians try and prevent our participation in the anarchic war and ask us to return to the school, to the metate, to the molcajete, to caring for our daughters and darning socks. Like Telemachus to Penelopes, they send us to the knitting room. Once again, the cry of patriarchal power disguises itself as ‘libertarian’ and condemns us to shut us up and keep us from ‘the things of men’.
       Before continuing we want to clarify that we are not Rodriguistas, and not because we don’t share the theory of compañero Rodriguez but because we are not Bakunistas, nor are we Malatestas, we are not Magonistas, nor are we Goldmanistas. We follow ideas not people.
       We are anarchists and we believe that there is only one way to confront power and authority, and that is the anarchic insurrection, that is why we conceive anarchic organization in an informal way through collective affinities and permanent conflict against the patriarchal civilization as a whole. That is why we reject the misogynist authoritarianism of the these Bolshevik libertarians, and why we do it publicly. To fight against sexism and misogyny is to fight against gender, and to fight to destroy gender is to also fight to destroy the whole patriarchal civilization.
        We do not represent all the insurrectionist anarchist comrades, we only represent a collective of affinity based in the central region of Mexico. We recognize the struggle of all the other anarcha-feminist insurrectionist compañeras, from those who individually confront the patriarchal civilization, to the compañeras who do it in anonymous collectives and those who have decided to group themselves under new acronyms and claim their actions.
Our fight is the same.
Neither God, nor State, nor Master!
Against the patriarchal civilization!
For the control of our bodies and our lives!
For the destruction of gender!
For the anarchic insurrectional tension!
For Anarchy!
Informal Insurrectionist Anarcha-Feminist Coven
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Thursday 24 August 2017

Twisted Values And False Histories.

       Listening and reading about the débâcle of removing confederate statues in America, I'm surprised that such a campaign has not been raging through our own society here in the UK.  In this upside down society of twisted values and false histories, it is safe to say, that most of the immortalised great and good, of our country, have blood on their hands, the captains of industry, the leaders of military, the builders of empire, all glorified, all soaked in guilt, all standing knee deep in the misery and blood of others. Industries that destroyed lives, enforced poverty, and polluted our planet, military leaders who saw the breaking of bodies, as a way of gaining power for their masters, All depended on useing people mercilessly to achieve their own personal ambitions. We are suppose to look up to them and feel proud, how insane is that.
        Back to America, its slave era and that brutal link to one of America's great and good, a Dr. James Marion Sims. 
This from Anarcha Library:

 Dr. James Marion Sims.
A Note to the Editor
         As a medical student I am often exposed to a short history of the discovery and or circumstances related to the construction of a tool or drug before or during a scientific lecture. I almost always hear the professor exclaim that Greece was the birthplace of modern medicine and that we should thank this person or that person for contributing to American medicine. Needless to say the countless contributions of many other nations and people are almost always missed.
       I have spoken with other medical students for whom this is also a problem. The reading material for most medical schools is standardized and I am sure that each student can see that the medical contributions that make it into most medical textbooks are almost always devoid of contributions from minorities or people who would not be considered white.
       Very recently I was particularly affected by this inequality as I listened to a lecture on the female exam. I felt like a large part of the history was overlooked when the lecturer commented that she would not discuss the controversial history of the speculum except to say that Dr. [James Madison] Sims created a very useful tool that allows physicians to examine the walls of the vagina and the uterus.
       I was very curious about the history that she was eager to omit. After reading several accounts of his various cruelties and the way they where distorted to make Dr. Sims out to be a hero I was compelled to memorialize the enslaved women in the same way that he is memorialized.
       Anarcha was not able to tell her own story it is probable that she was unable to read or write. I am sure that her story would be more horrible than the fictional account that I have written but with the bits and pieces that I have placed together I am sure that what she endure in the name of the advancement of medicine could have read like the following submission.—Alexandria C. Lynch, MS III
ANARCHA'S STORY.
By Alexandria C. Lynch, MS III


       A pregnant woman stands in the blazing sun with her arms arched to her back. Tired from an 18-hour workday, picking cotton, looking after Master's children, or cooking in the big house. These days are particularly hard for her, as it is hard for all women who must work until the moment they are to give birth.
        Yes, she is worn tired and she can feel the aches grappling her bones. She is also filled with a glorious anticipation, any day now her sweet beautiful baby will be born. As an enslaved woman, life is difficult to say the least but there are still beautiful moments that this woman cannot be denied. Even though enslaved she can bring life into the world as naturally as any other woman.
        She returns to her cabin, covering herself as best she can with a tattered cloth or blankets. She has a conversation surrounding her thoughts and concerns about the arrival of her child with her fellow captive comrades. All of the women on the plantation are anxiously awaiting the birth of this new hope and the father is also anxious. Both parents have mixed concerns about bringing a child into a life of slavery but there is nothing that can derail what will soon happen.
        Later on that night she feels the pain of labor contractions. She is hoping to give birth quickly because she knows that the birth of her child will not be an acceptable reason to miss work the following day. She waits a few hours and awakens the other women in the room with a scream. They rush to her aid and prop her up on the bits and pieces of tattered blankets. They make her as comfortable as possible. The night passes straight away and she is still in labor. The headman must now be informed that she will not be in the field today. She cannot stand and she cannot work. The day passes and still no baby is born. She is tired and in pain. Three days will pass and she still will not see her child.
        After three days her condition is past serious and the fact that she is unable to perform her duties as an enslaved woman starts to weigh heavy in the Master's thoughts. In an effort to protect his human investment he summons a physician to aid in the delivery.
        By this point she is beyond fatigued and lying flaccid on the floor. He enters the room and uses a tool to excavate the baby that was stubbornly lodged in the woman’s vagina. He has had very little experience using his makeshift forceps. Several days after the birth of her child she is unable to control her bodily functions. Her Master finds her condition repugnant and sends her to the same physician to see if there is anything that he can do to repair his damaged property.
      
        Look behind the façade, seek the true history, see the cruelty and the misery they perpetrated, all in the name of fame, wealth and power.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 11 July 2016

A Call To Rape!!!!


         What would you do if you entered a fast food chain and it was decorated with the following slogans?

A CALL TO RAPE:
“LOVE IS A SPORT, ESPECIALLY WHEN ONE OF THE TWO DOESN’T WANT IT”
MACHISM :
“THERE ARE 3 CATEGORIES OF WOMEN: WHORES, SLUTS AND PAINS IN THE ASS”.
Whores sleep with everyone, sluts sleep with everyone except with you, the pains in the ass only sleep with you. “
“I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE GAYS! “
       That couldn't happen in this day and age, I hear you say. Sorry you're wrong, commercialism will pander to any depth of depravity to make a buck. Obviously, in the circumstances, you would ask for it to be redecorated, politely of course. Apparently there is such a chain in France, Le Bagelstein, and when four students complained to the manager, he called the police and the students were arrested. What a perverse society we live in, when objecting to a call for rape gets you arrested.
This from Act For Freedom Now:
         On the night of Saturday, June 18, the Bagelstein of Old Lille was suddenly redecorated with multicoloured paint and its lock was sabotaged echoing the Rennes demo and the Nantes action that took place the same day.
IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE IMPRISONED OF BAGELSTEIN IN RENNES
         In Rennes May 26, 4 people get jail after an altercation with the manager of the fast-food “le Bagelstein”. Following accusations by feminists of the “deco” of the fast food chain with serious sexist and homophobic propos affixed to the walls and restaurant accessories, four students come to see this “decoration” for themselves, that goes as far as to call to rape. After some of the students’ remarks, the manager insults them and threatens them right till the arrival of the BAC. The four young people are embarked unceremoniously, direction custody, court, prison.
        The judge sentenced them to months in prison for the “violence in numbers during demonstration” (? !! ??? !!) because of their involvement in the protests against the labour law. The trial does not even talk about the reason for their presence at the scene (to denounce the sexist and homophobic communication of “bagelstein”). Once again, the court of Rennes has instructed a political trial, aiming to make these four students pay for the “malaise”, the “blues”, the “fatigue” of traders from the city centre because of the mobilization against “Job Law!” which has gone on for three months.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


  

Saturday 28 May 2016

Busy Edinburgh.

A busy schedule at the ACE centre in Edinburgh, something for everybody.

SOME UPCOMING EVENTS AT ACE AND BEYOND

* Sun 29th May - 2pm @ ace - All the world needs a jolt - chapter 1 from Silvia Federici Caliban and the Witch - Edinburgh Revolutionary Feminism Reading Group https://www.facebook.com/events/1399937203647363/
*Sunday 29th May- Migrant Pride by Spanish Workers in Edinburgh. 6pm @ the Mound
*Sunday 29th May- 3rd Nuit Debout Edinburgh - Poterrow tunnel (between the Old College of the University of edinburgh and Bristo Square)
* Mon 30th May- Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty meeting @ACE 7pm. (ECAP meetings last monday each month)
* Thursday 2nd June – Demo at Scottish Parliament, Holyrood EH99 1SP against new Immigration Act - 11.30am Organised by Migrants Solidarity Network https://www.facebook.com/events/1748745975360690/
* Thursday 2nd June- ACE Working Group Meeting 7:30pm. Everyone welcome! (ACE meetings now the first thursday each month)
* Friday 3rd June 7pm at Quaker meeting house, Victoria Terrace (off George IV Bridge). Housing is a Human Right: the dignified fight for homes and autonomy in Mexico City and beyond - public meeting with Enrique Reynoso, of the Popular Organisation of the Independent Left “Francisco Villa”. Organised by Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity
* Saturday 4th June - Capitalism and Mental Health. Edinburgh Anarchist Federation. 2pm @ ACE.https://www.facebook.com/events/596112043881821/
* Sat 4th and Sun 5th June – ACE + friends stalls at Meadows Festival – volunteers welcome to help staff stalls
* Mon 6th June- Rent Rebels Film screening 18.00 University of Edinburgh - Elliot Room, Minto House 20-22 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JZ
* Wed 8th June – Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity organising meeting 6.30pm @ACE
* Thursday 9th June - Tony Cox Solidarity: Advocacy is not a crime –10am onwards. Dundee Sheriff Court, 6 West Bell Street, DD1 9AD Called by Scottish Unemployed Workers' Network, with Action Against Austerity, ECAP and others https://www.facebook.com/events/1018949701522891/
Transport from Edinburgh, contact ecap@lists.riseup.net
* Friday 10th June- Migrant Solidarity Network monthly meeting 6pm @ACE
* Sat 11th June - ACE + friends stalls at Leith Festival Gala, Leith Links – volunteers welcome to help staff stalls
* Monday 13th June- Edinburgh IWW Meeting 7pm @ACE
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Object.

The latest from Circled A Radio, this episode is on feminism.
         On this show Yodet Gherez interviews a representative of The feminist organisation Object, Beattie Baraki! Object formed in 2004 and united London-based feminist groups in campaigns, and gained over 15 hundred members. The organisation is an award-winning human rights organization specifically set up to challenge the sexual objectification of women in the media and popular culture, the main-streaming of the sex industries, and all forms of commercial sexual exploitation by combining high-end lobbying and grass-roots activism.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Saturday 23 January 2016

Being And Being Bought.


Latest episode from Circled A Radio, certainly worth a listen.
        On this show is Swedish journalist, writer and activist, Kajsa Ekis Ekman. She is the author of several works about the financial crisis, women's rights and Marxism including 'Being and Being Bought - Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self'. She writes for the major newspaper in Sweden called "Today's News" and is a columnist at the leftwing daily ETC and is a member of the editing collective of the anarchist magazine 'Brand' in English translates as 'Fire' (published since 1898). 
       She is public speaker and was one of the key note speakers at the 2014 'Festival of dangerous ideas' and has delivered a Ted talk on capitalism. She has founded the networks, Feminists Against Surrogacy and the climate action group, Klimax.

Listen Now;

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

Saturday 10 October 2015

See The Other As Self.

 
       In this society, there are so many campaigns on so many issues, from freedom of movement, freedom of speech, feminism, human rights, freedom from religious extremism, animal rights, the right to privacy, and so it goes on. All of this highlights the fact the we are living in a flawed system, a system where each individual has to fight for the right just to exist without coercion, intimidation or fear. At the heart of this flawed society is the failure to see the other as a unique human being with the same rights as ourselves. If we put that part right, the rest should follow.
      This latest broadcast from Circled A Radio, is an interview with Maryam Namazie. Maryam Namazie has spoken and written numerous articles on Women’s Rights issues, free expression, Islamism, and Secularism. Maryam is an inveterate commentator and broadcaster on Rights, Cultural Relativism, Religion, Political Islam and many other related topics. She’s a speaker at the Feminism in London Conference on the subject ‘Religious Fundamentalism and the British State’

Listen to the interview HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

Saturday 3 October 2015

Finn MacKay, Explains Feminism. .

        Finn MacKay explains feminism and the need for it in our society, we obviously have a long way to go to reach that desirable state of gender equality.
        Finn Mackay is an Author, Academic and Feminist activist. She founded The London Feminist Network. Revived the London Reclaim the Night march, And a former organiser of the Feminism in London Conference. She was nominated as a world-changing woman in a 2006 Guardian poll. After working in youth work and education, Finn devised policy on domestic violence prevention before returning to academia and completing her PhD on the British Women's Liberation Movement. She is currently a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She speaks and writes regularly on Feminist issues, particularly male violence against women.
 
       This episode of Circled A Radio interviews Finn MacKay on feminism.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Saturday 7 February 2015

An Experiment In Living.


     Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is always eager to go into the brutal and gory details of ISIS's actions, and how the US lead bombing raids are all that is happening in that region. However in the region of Rojava, there is something else happening, something that our Western masters are not keen on you hearing about. an area struggling to create a new type of society, free from the shackles of the state and free from an institutional police force and prisons. This is an area of approximately 4.6 million people and they are radically changing the nature of society, a massive experiment in living, and our babbling brook of bullshit, can't bring themselves to tell us about it, the blood curling details of war, as far as they are concerned, makes better news. Under no circumstance would they inform us that there is a region where the people are trying to take control of their own lives, it might catch on.
      In the cantons of Rojava, there is a small central government with an absolute minimum of 40% female delegates, but most of the day-to-day work of running society happens at a local level, street by street and village by village. Democratic Confederalism's chief architect, Abdullah Ocalan, says that “Ecology and feminism are central pillars” of the system he has spearheaded, something that you would have to go very far to the margins to hear from Western politicians. In Rojava, men who beat their wives face total ostracism from the community, making their lives in a highly social, connected society virtually impossible. Instead of a police force and jails, 'peace committees' in each municipality work to defuse the cycles of inter-family revenge killings by consensual agreements between both sides – and it works.
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk