On the 25th and 26th of November, we went to Amsterdam for the anarchist bookfair. It was the first time we took part in the event. We had a good time, went to nice talks, met new people, ate good vegan food, usual stuff in anarchist bookfairs.
There were many stands, and of course among all the publications and the anarchy for sale (t-shirts, scarps…) we found some that pissed us off.
One stand sold IRA shirts. IRA, or the anti-working class bastards as some anarchists call them. IRA, for which a social problem was a religious one. IRA, which was led by politicians and ministers. IRA which bombs often injure random individuals as in Manchester in 1996. IRA, which threatened punk-rock bands and venues cause they permitted kids from both sides to meet. IRA...
So we asked to the person selling these shirts what was the idea? And we were answered something like “Because I fight English colonialism”. Yep, us too. And it doesn’t mean you have to support everything that rejects it. “Well, I don’t really like the IRA”. So why the fuck do you sell these shirts? To which there was no response. Have a nice day.
The Active Distribution stand and another in Spanish sold books by Gilles Dauvé. The latter is an old ultra-leftist french. He was part of La Banquise, and before of La Vieille Taupe and La Guerre Sociale, a paper that turned negationist of the Shoah, and defended Faurisson (the main negationist in so-called france) as many ultra-leftists did in so-called france at that time. He never regretted, and even wrote a text decades after to say that they were right. His website is called DDT (the name of an insecticide...), for “doubting about everything”… Coming back, we learned that with his bourgeois friends he defended nuclear energy during the furious struggles against it in the 70s, that he defended pedophilia and wage salvery was way worse than just being raped (and guess who translated that crap ? Yep, Bonano). They also attacked La Librairie des Femmes, a feminist space. We told the stands who sold the bastard’s books about his negationism. But it doesn’t seem to bother them much… Oh and we precise that we ain’t anti-deutsch neither.
In 2023, in an anarchist bookfair, you can find nationalist and militarist propaganda (and we didn’t talk about PKK here), and books by a negationist. As long as your rebellion makes money, that’s fine.
Against the continuing appeal of nationalism, against all authority.
A few anarchists
IRA shirts? sure it didn't stand for something else like "International Revolutionary Anarchists" or something?
No, it was sure. It was written on the shirts (Irish Republican Army), and we talked about that with the person selling the stuff.
Bonanno translated a piece by Gilles Dauvé that defended pedophilia and claimed work is worse than being raped? Can I get more info on that? Like, what was the name of the piece?
Maybe it was "Alice in Monsterland"? I can't find anyone else claiming that was translated by Bonanno.
ty, appreciate the response
hiding a baseless smear in a seemingly innocuous report back. which makes one wonder if any part of it is true
okay yah i just made that bit up BUT THE REST OF IT IS TRUE
Hi,
About Bonnano, he translated and published with Anarchismo « Per un mondo senza morale », the translation of that absolutely disgusting text by Dauvé.
Oh, and to those who think that if we like to lose our time explaining that there were IRA shirts and the texts of an antisemitic bastard in Amsterdam, and that the people selling that crap didn't give a damn when asked about just to invent ourselves a life and telling lies, fine. Go to sleep, you're free and brave.
You've heard of AK Press, right? Well, they used to table with the Communist Manifesto and this went entirely unoppossed at "anarchist" bookfairs.
Like LBC tabling withA Theory of Bloom! Despicable.
What! AK Press sold the Communist Manifesto! Horrors!
You might be interested in my anarchist review of the CM.
An Anarchist Guide to The Communist Manifesto of Marx & Engels
Marx & Engels’ Communist Manifesto from the perspective of an anarchist. Most of its class analysis is still valuable, but anarchists reject most of its political and economic program.
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32578?search_text=Wayne
"You might be interested in my anarchist review of the CM."
Nope! ~anarchists
We need a central non-authority to determine and list what ideas and texts are or arent acceptable for anarchists to produce and trade in the form of commodities, at our regularly scheduled anarchist trade fairs. It’s the only anarchist way. Other books will be confiscated and burned and their purveyors will be maced, doxed and accused of everything we can think of. It’s just the invisible hand of the market!
"Nope!--anarchists"
It must be nice to be able to speak for all anarchists. Especially those who are satisfied with not learning anything new.
(For what it's worth, I agree with the critics of Dauve'.)
I can't find anything connecting Bonanno to "For a world without moral order" either. Can you just link it or something. Like how did you obtain the information at all.
ty, appreciate the response
More than "slightly" different, but point taken...
A friend of mine who knew Dauvé in the 1970s and clashed with him has the Bonnano translation (cause there is a life outside internet). Oh and I found it very quickly on the internet, even if I don't speak Italian. Also been translated in english...
Want some extract ?
". Against penis worship, against the penis' conquering imperialism, feminists have found nothing better than the fetishization of the vagina. Backed up with piles of literature and pathos, they have made it the seat of their difference, the dark fold wherein their very being is to be found. Rape then becomes the crime of crimes, an ontological assault. As if a penis penetrating a woman by violence were more disgusting than forcing a woman into wage slavery by economic pressure."
The pedophile crap isn't in this text but in others from La Banquise (from which For a world without moral orders was published).
Concerning AK Press, I didn't know that, but obviously there are some marxist crap in many stands (I always ask why but let's be honest, so many anarchists are deeply influenced by marxism - I'm don't think I am :) ).
At least, Dauve critiqued the neo-Marxist femininist's politicizing of the physiological process of reproduction and their inversion of organic reality. I can only assume he would question the moral stigmas flung at pedophilia on the same grounds as Bey did.
I'm getting tired of having to say that Dauvé is an antisemitic, an negationist and if you find nice stuff in the text mentioned above, well... If you find that being a worker is worse than getting raped, or at least that it doesn't really matter cause there are good stuff in the text...
For those who are happy to find marxist stuff in anarchist distros, well, I disagree one hundred percent. For me end and means can't be separated, that's why we were angered at seeing IRA shirts and books from a pro-rape, pro-pedophilia and antisemitic bastard.
But obviously, all that doesn't matter right ? You can tell any of these marvelous things, as long as in your texts there are some nice stuff, everything's fine. Or is it ?
The cheese cakes at the Brit Milah ceremony were delicious!
Oh no folks! WRONGTHINK! Time to gripe about it on Anews. Or maybe we can go tell our moms and they'll tell them to stop.
But seriously, aren't anarchist books all "anarchist" book fairs just conventions for patting yourself on the back and hocking books and shirts? I love reading probably more than the next guy, but you're never going to find the book that finally ends it. There is no arrangement of words that makes you free. Can we start living instead?
Uh wut?
Who hurt you?
So you waited until right after Bonanno’s death to bring this up, without sources, without giving any context, and no analysis.
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