Some thoughts from Balkan Anarchist Bookfair

From Ecotopia Biketour
July 11, 2023

This topic has been on the tip of my tongue since I took part in the Winter Meeting in December for Ecotopia 2023. I remember we were all sitting three days in a row on chairs around a big table, trying to go through as many topics as possible before the weekend was over. Somehow it felt so strange to see that during these days Ecotopia had become practically immobile: the people I had been cycling along with in the summer are now all stuck in a big room on a cold gray German winter day.

Maybe it’s something personal, but I found it so incredibly difficult to just sit down, think and discuss. In one of the last days I ended up baking cinnamon rolls during the discussions because I just couldn’t stay still. I had also shared to the group that I was struggling with keeping my focus during the talks and suggested that maybe we should take in consideration introducing more fun and movement into our schedule.

The same theme came up to me again during our stay in Ljubljana and the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair. After spending just a few hours at BAB, I immediately started to feel overwhelmed and exhausted by the amount of information surrounding me. I couldn’t help but feel a bit disturbed by the fact that anarchy, on so many occasions, is incredibly intellectual and theoretical. Although I do understand that this is a bookfair event (where the main focus is an exchange of anarchist literature and ideas), I still had the impression that this is also an annual anarchist gathering where people from all over Europe are coming here to connect and to create networks. I do understand that we do need to organize discussions and actions around some very urgent topics and situations, however: could we be serious while also making sure that we connect first as human beings and secondly as anarchists? Could we make more space into our schedules for activities where we can bond and share more positive feeling within our closed circles but also within our extended communities? I always find it somewhat hard to comprehend how the far-right seems to be so united, while the left is losing momentum with every internal conflict.

As a matter of fact, I know I was not the only one at the bookfair who felt overwhelmed. Many people I was talking to expressed that they feel anxious and exhausted. Maybe an idea for the next time would be to create exercises that will help us all collectively and individually get rid of the tension in our body and minds and focus more on connecting with other fellow comrades.

In one of the evenings at the Vampire House (our host in Ljubljana) I shared these thoughts to some Ecotopian comrades. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was not the only one feeling in this way and the evening turned into a brain storming of ideas of games that we could introduce more often during the bike tour (and maybe other gatherings?)

Here are some of our ideas:

– fake historical tours in the cities we’re passing by

– wrestling show

– dancing and movement exercises

– drawing games

– talking with other body parts instead of our mouths

– no talent show

– hide and seek

– samurai

– having a conversation where we answer with a delay

– 2 random questions game

But by writing this post I don’t want to give the impression that I think Ecotopia is lacking fun. In fact, the whole tour offers plenty of contexts where participants can bond in many different ways: task sharing, cycling together, bathing in lakes and rivers, hang-outs after dinner, workshops, helping each other out, games etc. Just as an example, the highlights of my stay in the Vampire House were a 4 handed piano jam session, fruit seed spitting contest (who can spit cherry plum seeds the furthest), baking a spontaneous cake (where two participants went around asking our neighbors for baking powder) and hiking on top of the nearby hill to catch a view of the city.

Would love to hear others’ thoughts on this topic as well.

There are 13 Comments

As body and mind are still being separated, they keep begging for a reunion. That is the failure of postmodern philosophy, that extends to bookfairs. But this problem of postmodernity was *apparently* solved, lately in the US

The anarchist "should" imo be leaning toward the conquest of BOTH their own intellect and body as base condition for autonomy. Let's not be taken aback by the pedants and specialized pomo intelligentsia, brosis... you just gotta find your own route in the dark toward grasping theory, one that reclaims the discarded vitality and creativity of the self! The tendencies at dismissing action and even activity in favor of the realm of ideas - where talking is taken as a "doing something" - is equally as bad as the mentally-reductive drive for "action not words". Why can we not have the best of both worlds!? Why just sitting down on our asses discussing Graeber when we can dance or play or sing along? Such mentally-funneled intellectual "elite" can't be good news for a rebirth of anarchist philosophy. The territorializations enforced by academia must be dissolved. As D & G once said, MAKE TOTAL DESTROY! (no wait...)

Both tendencies are toxic for pulling and keeping is in that divide; individuals need the mastering and eventual reconciliation of body and mind (that are NOT separate, much less opposite instances) a becoming toward the Total Being, only opposite to the totalitarian, or Self-made Id-entity opposite to only the identitarian. One that does both dumpster poutine bike rides, bodyweight lifting and constant pondering on DASEIN as I do!

Keep on riding, regardless! Let's hang out at some point maybe.

Sorry, was too high on ego dopamine for finishing a sentence:

"lately in the US... with ANARCHIST FAIRS."

Just that Philly doesn't look like a very lovely place to make these?

Curious to why you don't think philly is a lovely place for an anarchy fair? It's a pretty lawless city with a choice selection of "no-go" zones (though some are being heavily gentrified)

- anon from philly

Why did Fauvenoir even bring up Philly? It has nothing to do with anything in the article or the omments. So confusing. Kensington would be dope for a lovely jawn

maybe that last "Anarchist Fair" happened in Philly?

perhaps I should know the place better. It just got known over normieland as the city of meth zombies, but sure, some stereotypes can be useful.

So you get your news from normieland and you think this makes you somehow qualified to give advice on a place you've likely never been and other advice for what anarchists "should" be doing? How millenial of you.

Also, it's mostly heroin and fentanyl, brah

but no.

"As body and mind are still being separated, they keep begging for a reunion. That is the failure of postmodern philosophy, that extends to bookfairs. But this problem of postmodernity was *apparently* solved, lately in the US "

Uh wut?

Let's see...

"1. As body and mind are still being separated, they keep begging for a reunion."

Ok. Body and mind are begging for a reunion because they are still being separated.

"2. That is the failure of postmodern philosophy, that extends to bookfairs."

The failure of postmodern philosophy which extends to bookfairs is that it is separating body and mind which is begging for a reunion.

"3. But this problem of postmodernity was *apparently* solved, lately in the US... with ANARCHIST FAIRS. "

Anarchist fairs, however, have solved this failure of postmodern philosophy that extends to [non-anarchist] bookfairs. (Sarcasm)

This thesis is galaxy brain level shit, Fauvenoir. All attempts at mapping this logic has resulted in erosion of mind. Consider your composition and argumentation structure before asserting so hard next time.

C-

No dumpster poutine for you!

I see so much RESSENTIMENT seething from our usual, aging crowd of East Bay bookfair nihilist intelligentsia in this comment. The beautiful egos of our individual butterflies should be allow fly away, free from the pompuous imbrigadements of your validation systems!

- Dean of the Chair of Anarchist Anthropology,
Highway 69 Underpass.

Balkan anarchist bookfair? Are they books about guns and ammo?

this piece annoyed me but i then got all the context i needed by going to the "ecotopia biketour" site and looking up what they are/do:

"Ecotopia Biketour is a self-organized, international community that has been organizing a yearly bicycle tour in different regions of Europe since 1990. During the tour we visit environmental and social projects and practice forms of activism and sustainable living."

if hippies don't like the balkans that's fine. stay home and campaign for Die Linke like all the other german anarchists

Do yous keep off the main roads with cars and stick to the quiet country roads where you can hear cars coming around bling corners. I don't listen to headphones myself so that I heighten my awareness of the scenery and hazards. How many fatalities has you community had since 1990, it would be zero I imagine, but there's always a drunk fascist on the road to tend to. Do you have a backup vehicle with food and tents? It's very anarcho-gypsy following the nomadic lifestyle!

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