Anarchist Gatherings and Global Justice

Anarchist Gatherings and Global Justice

From PM Press by Gabriel Kuhn, July 24, 2023

Yesterday, on July 23, one of the biggest anarchist gatherings of the 21st century ended in St. Imier, Switzerland. It was held (with a one-year delay due to Covid) at the 150th anniversary of Mikhail Bakunin and comrades founding a “Black International” there after they had been expelled from the First International.

The 2023 St. Imier gathering was an impressive meeting with anarchists from all over the world. Well, all over the world? Global injustice is reflected in anarchist gatherings as well. They usually happen in the Global North, and the economic hurdles for the participation of comrades from the Global South remain high. At least they can be rectified to a certain degree by concerted fundraising efforts (of which there should be many more!), but the boundaries of red tape are very hard to tear down, as long as the state and its armed minions have the upper hand.

Despite having been invited to an artist residency program by French comrades, Cris, a long-time organizer in Manila, Philippines, was denied a visa to visit Europe. Effectively, this meant that he couldn’t attend the gathering in St. Imier either, where he had planned to do presentations about the situation in the Philippines and connect with anarchist friends and activists.

In a welcome gesture of support, the organizers of the gathering allotted a slot for film screenings from the actions that Cris is involved in in the Philippines. One of them documents a Food Not Bombs event directed at the “War against Drugs” that made former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte world-famous for all the wrong reasons. Cris has been involved in many such actions over the years.

Cris also runs the Etniko Bandido infoshop in the city of Pasig, a part of Metropolitan Manila. The infoshop has a Patreon page with more information and options to directly support the activities of our Philippine comrades. With regard to St. Imier, our friends from the Black Mosquito distro in Germany stepped up, producing solidarity shirts that were sold at a couple of places at the gathering, including the PM Press stall – which also sold out of the book Pangayaw and Decolonzing Resistance: Anarchism in the Philippines, authored by Bas Umali, a close collaborator of Cris’s for many years.

Support on an individual level is great, but, in the long run, the “worldwide anarchist community” needs to tackle the issue of how global injustice is reflected in its own ranks collectively, and bring more justice to its own events. It’s not an easy thing to do, as there are many obstacles, but we have to start with serious discussion, otherwise the margins for improvement remain very limited. The global border regimes are tightening rather than opening.

Cris himself has put it very modestly in personal correspondence: “I’m hoping that the international anarchist community will see that for non-European people, especially from the Global South, it will always be hard to participate in international gatherings. They will continue to experience rejection entering Europe. I hope that someday we can make a counter-measure on how to address these kinds of difficulties.” Word.

If you’ve read this and have a minute, reach out to Cris at etnikobandido[at]riseup.net. That’s how the discussion starts.

There are 9 Comments

The issues raised are important. Perhaps in the future there could be gatherings on a regional or continental basis. One in North America, one in Europe, South America, Central America, South Pacific, Africa, etc. These could all be affiliate gatherings that collectively are part of the same event, with some presentations being livestreamed, and others presented live locally.

That would be really nice. It might help push some of the discourse offline and into real life, even if they are to be fraught with unpleasant company for some. There's consistent bookfairs/regional gatherings throughout Europe and the Americas (with occasional ones - past 10 years or so - in places like Israel, South Africa, Australia/New Zealand, & East Asia), so it does make sense for there to be larger continental gatherings if local anarchists have the excitement/infrastructure to host, as the ones in St. imier and Ljubljana did. As far as thinking about worldwide gatherings, Switzerland obviously isn't ideal (high prices & visa travel barriers). Places with low/no visa thresholds that have sizeable anarchist populations and lower prices: Ecuador, Turkey, Indonesia, or possibly Bolivia and Mexico? Obviously nothing will be decided or launched from this comment thread, but its an interesting to brainstorm.

"Switzerland obviously isn't ideal (high prices & visa travel barriers)." o_0 High prices aren't relevant when you anarchy, unless you're stuck within these ridiculous hyper-legalist morals. And if you come from any neighboring country there's just no visa controls/requirements. Swiss like Germany is tough on visa overstayers, but you can just stay discreet then leave to France asap if that's your situation.

Yes, if you are already in the EU, Switzerland is easy to enter, but the point the main article is making is that it can be difficult to enter from places like the Philippines. And to suggest that Switzerland is only expensive if you are doing anarchy wrong is just silly. Switzerland is just expensive. Do you expect someone from half the world away to know how to scam their way to get everything for free? And if they cannot pull that off, their participation in the gathering isn't important?

Yes, a cup of coffee and tobacco I think are expensive in Switzerland. What else? Just get your tobacco in France for cheap and DIY your coffee, for fuck's sake. Oh, alright... inner-city bus/tram tickets are kjnda pricey, and there's a lot of controls with steep fines. On the other hand train is still easy to fare-dodge, especially for non-nationals.

There's some criticism to raise, tho, on the issue of how the country's squat movement has seen better days...

So I spent several weeks in Switzerland quite a few times and never had to pay for anything. Thanks to... yes, anarchy.

But there could be better places for this type of gathering, like in the lesser-fascistic spots of East Europe, i.e. Serbia, Bulgaria or North Macedonia, and they're also many times cheaper than West Euro over-civilized hellholes; yet sadly the organizers irrationally wanted to stick to this dumb "150 years ago" nostalgia....

So here's an idea to consider if any future Euro organizers are reading this.

I love to fly in jet aeroplanes to far off, wealthy lands to discuss radical things. The moist orgies alone are worth the travel cost.

Why are the moist orgies always happening after the lame party that comes the lame lectures by academic lamers? I hate those sleep deprivation contests... what is your issue with sleeping?

Fuck Cris and Etniko Bandido. They are transphobes and abuse apologists. They and their precious Local Autonomous Network are all manarchists.

LOL!!! You should take up writing parodies of leftist that use terms like manarchists. You included some of the other greatest hits of some leftists use by accusing people of being transphobes and abuse apologists without a sliver of proof. I see a great future for you.

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