Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair 2023
From Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair, Canada
A place to share ideas, futures, struggles, art & writing; a space to meet new friends; an opportunity to build community and comraderie; free to attend as always.
From Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair, Canada
A place to share ideas, futures, struggles, art & writing; a space to meet new friends; an opportunity to build community and comraderie; free to attend as always.
from North-Shore.Info
I was pretty upset so I made a bunch of posters and put them up around my neighbourhood in East Hamilton. Would they have been better if I’d taken more time? For sure. Should I have put “Covid is real” or something on them so it’s more clear I’m not an anti-masker or denialist? Probably. But I would say it’s more important to act, to make visible some opposition to these authoritarian measures, so that we don’t all feel scared and alone.
From North Shore Counter-info, Hamilton ON
As the deep yellow moon rose we moved deeper into the swamp, past the sweet smells of lilacs and greens and rich earth. Lulled by the moonlight and our headlamps reflecting on the pale survey stakes against the surrounding darkness that marked out Enbridge’s proposed new gas pipeline in Flamborough. One by one we pulled nearly 10 kilometres of stakes, tossing them to the side to be reclaimed by the bush.
From North Shore
Response from The Tower to the “Pride in Hamilton” Report
The independent report into policing around the Pride Hamilton 2019 festival was released Monday. Entitled “Pride in Hamilton” and carried out by lawyer Scott Bergman, it comes almost a year after the far-right attack on Pride and in the middle of a wave of demonstrations against police across the continent. It’s common following situations of particularly awful police behaviour for there to be a push for an independent review, and this report is a great example of why any hopes placed in them are so often in vain. Its primary goal is to have the Hamilton police get better at community policing, meaning controlling from within, and counterinsurgency, meaning pacifying social movements. They don’t come right out and say this though, so our hope here is to tease out those threads.
Last Friday, April 10, the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project (BAPSOP) published a report that some prisoners had been attacked by guards after refusing a lockdown, and today two actions occurred to support the prisoners and call for their immediate release. During the day, there was a public call for a car demo, then at night, an invite-only action to go set off lights and fireworks.
This kind of solidarity mobilizing happens not infrequently around here, but this time felt a bit different because of the virus and the repressive social context around it. As an anarchist who participated in both actions, I wanted to share a few reflections on this campaign and on doing demos in the covid era, as a letter to others who are also asking what’s possible in these strange times.
From North Shore Counter-Info, Hamilton, Ontario (From The Tower’s Facebook)
In the few days since the counter-demo against the Bernier event at Mohawk College, there has been an intense backlash against antifascists. In particular, we see as particularly vile the targeting of an organizer based in Toronto named Alaa, who immigrated to Canada from Syria. We are enraged to see him subjected to racist insults and threats targeting both himself and his family. This backlash has latched on to a video of an elderly person having an uncomfortable few minutes and being slightly delayed. This person experienced no harm, she’s fine, and afterwards went to a bunch of media outlets where she made comments about how her interest in Bernier stems from concerns about the Middle East, specifically Syrians, and how they have different values from ours.
On the evening of Prisoners Justice Day, August 10th 2019, a small group of prison hating folks gathered in Hamilton, Ontario at Beasley park for a noise demo. HPS (Hamilton Police Sevices) observed the rally with excessive numbers including bike cops, a cop van, a supervisor suv and two cruisers. As our numbers grew we gathered to listen to a small introduction by the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project explaining how PJD started and why it continues. The BPSP is a newly developed organization that seeks to thin the prison walls by building connections and magnifying the voices of those inside, while simultaneously working to smash those walls altogether by asking bigger questions about what a world without prisons would look like and figuring out how to get there.
From From Embers
An interview with a recently-released Hamilton anarchist on the events surrounding Hamilton Pride, anarchist prisoner support, jail, queer community, being a hashtag and feeling popular.
From The Hamilton Spectator, July 26, 2019
Even before Pride violence, police program was a lightning rod of controversy. It was a normal Saturday morning rush at Grandad's doughnut shop in Hamilton's North End. Normal except for the three uniformed police officers chatting with customers inside.
And the eight or so anarchists handing out free coffee and a "different view of police" outside the popular spot at the foot of James Street North near the bay front.
Anarchist comrade Cedar Hopperton has been released after spending nearly a month in jail for allegedly violating their parole conditions after giving a speech arguing that police should not be part of the queer community and applauding those at Pride who stood up to the police and fascists.
Were happy to bring you three segments in this weeks show. The first is Sean Swain, who hasn’t been heard on the airwaves for a few weeks. [2min 56sec]
It’s been a very intense and revealing week since Hamilton Pride. We helped our friends heal, debriefed our strategies, and circulated as much information about the people who attacked us as we could. The videos and statements have gone viral, the outrage is visceral. Homophobic white nationalists attacked Pride, they were confronted by a huge group of queers, the police did nothing and then took credit for stopping the attack, the mayor backed the police despite hundreds of witnesses, and the homophobes walk free.
Perhaps the easiest question ever asked: “Would you like your coffee with or without cops?”
“Coffee with a Cop,” a public relations event by Hamilton Police, found itself competing for attention with “Coffee without Cops.”
The plucky group of anarchists set up outside the entrance to Cafe Oranje in downtown Hamilton, handing out free coffee and snacks to passersby, along with information about the HPS’ abuses of civilians.