May Day.

     May Day, a day when the ordinary people should be on the green, in the park, on the streets, celebrating their solidarity, struggles, victories and meeting up with old friends, making new friends, and building on that solidarity between the ordinary people of this world for future battles to create that better world for all. A time to recall those past champions of working class struggles and discussing how we can take their dream forward.

      Of course the pandemic has put a hold on those celebrations in the open air, but we can still let our voices be heard through what ever method that is available to us, we are the creators, the builders, in this world, we can use our imagination to keep those May Day ideas and that solidarity and community spirit alive. There will be virtual groupings, individual renderings, but whatever, join in, or do your own thing to remember why we celebrate  May Day, our day, a day to show we are all one people and one day we will take this world and shape it for benefit of all our people. 

A May Day greeting from Kate Sharpley Library:

Welcome! First off, some listening:     The Final Straw Radio Podcast have put up a long conversation with Barry Pateman in which they ‘talk about anarchist history, community, repression, defeat, insularity, popular front with authoritarian Marxists, class analysis and how to beat back capitalism.’       If you’ve heard Barry talk before, you’ll know he’s not one to dish out easy answers. This is no exception, and he demands that we respect the lives of past anarchists, and never reduce them to ‘pawns to support our arguments now.’ (38 min. mark) There’s a fair bit on how important (and how challenging) it is to record the lives of the unknown militants. These are the ones who made up the movement: without writing anything, sometimes never reading any of the ‘essential anarchist texts’. There’s plenty, too, on the need (and challenge of how) to talk to non-anarchists. Interesting stuff, and well put together.      You can listen at https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2020/04/26/barrypateman2020/

Happy Mayday!

      You can get the full text of our "Mayday and Anarchism" pamphlet here https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/59zwk6
(Just find the 'view PDF' button at the end)
      We've put up a report about Alexandria's mayday in 1921: "May Day in the Land of the Pharaohs" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/sqvcj3
      "The 1918 flu pandemic in the CNT media" by Miguel G is here https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/k6dm37
      and finally, for some true unknown militants, we have a translation of Imanol's article on "Women's participation in the Allied escape lines" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/18948f. That's Ana María Martínez Sagi – anarchist, poet, sports star, journalist, lesbian and member of the resistance in France – at the top of the email.

Take care of yourselves, from all at the KSL

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Our Only Help Will Be Self Help.

      Anybody who lives in the world of the ordinary people is well aware that we are going through very difficult times. Poverty is rife among our communities, and it is no accident, it is the result of ideology, an ideology that sees big business as the most important entity on the planet. All legislation is shaped to help big business, and that is always at the expense of the individual. So appealing to that machinery to help sort your problems will reap little if any gains. The world is now corporate orientated, the people are to be used to feed that entity. In the grand corporate plan of things, the people are on a downward spiral, as the drive for ever increasing profits, which fuels this greed driven juggernaut, is the root of their ideology.

     As the poverty grows and the powers that be, move ever further away from the people, we have to realise that we are on our own, no body is coming to help us. We have to develop self defence systems within our own communities, in co-operation with other communities. we have to devise strategies to empower our communities and the individuals within those communities, we have to grasp solidarity as one of our weapons, the only help we can expect is self-help.

     So it is congratulations to the people of Castlemilk, one of Glasgow's large housing estates where, like the rest of them, poverty is endemic. Community spirit and solidarity within the community is growing, community events are on the increase, thanks to the drive and initiative of individuals within the community. Let's see if this attitude and spirit can become infectious, and spread like an epidemic across our city, and other cities.  

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