Comments Off on L’Insoumise bookstore, DIRA library and Les Révoltes ask for help from the anarchist community
Nov292024
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
A fundraising campaign was launched during the 20th anniversary of the L’Insoumise bookstore. Activists involved in the three floors of 2033-2035 boul. Saint-Laurent, which the anarchist bought in 1983, want to ensure the continuity of Montreal’s oldest anarchist space. An appeal, published on the diffusionlibertaire.org website, explains the renovations the building needs. AEELI, which manages the building, cannot afford the cost of the work, estimated at over $200,000.
“To ensure that the 2033-2035 Saint-Laurent Boulevard remains a permanent, welcoming and central hub for Montreal’s anarchist community, it is now necessary to carry out crucial work to preserve and enhance it. The current building requires major repairs, and a lot of love. The facade, storefront, rear wall of the building, windows on the second and third floors, and the bookstore’s bathroom all need significant repairs.”
Those who can help this place, which has been home to anarchists for generations, should do so.
As of 11/22/2024(MM/DD/YYYY), no-one working on this project, nor the project itself has ever received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has been contacted by law enforcement, contacted by any government entity, has been served a subpoena for a Grand Jury related to this project, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know.
This project has come to a close.
The noblogs team Autistici/Inventati decided to shut down this blog shortly following the republication of the Heritage Foundation dox from againstbeltwayfascism.noblogs.org and after the dox of the Elbit Systems of America. This blog hosted a great deal of antagonistic content over the years, and we are thankful to the Autistici/Inventati team for allowing a majority of the content to remain up for so long. They undoubtedly tolerated a great deal of resistance – we trust that their decision to shut down the blog did not come lightly.
This site served as a nexus for anonymous publication, a space for engaging in dialogue with other rebels, and a place to spread complicity and proliferate autonomous activitiy.
Please keep those who are languishing in jails for accusations related to this movement in your hearts- better yet, send them letters.
Continue fighting for the end of RICO charges.
Never forget Tortuguita, a hero whose bravery cannot be understated.
Continue fighting for a world without markets, hierarchy, and fascism.
For a time, the struggle in the atlanta forest was one of the powerful torches that carried the flames of antagonstic anarchist destruction. We hold our actions in this struggle proudly, and hope you do as well.
We will never forget the weelaunee forest, we will never forgive those that perpetrated its destruction.
Comments Off on About Violence: A Communiqué on the Block NATO Demonstration*
Nov252024
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
*This release is based on the journal Block NATO, organised by CLAC and D4P, but it is independent. We will explain here the reasoning behind our actions of the evening of Friday, November 22nd, because we know why we do these things and we believe very strongly in what we do.
Let’s put things first in context : Friday marked the start of NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Montreal. NATO represents the military apparatus of the global north, it’s the biggest military alliance in history. While our governments are already making the life of the excluded and exploited a death circus, NATO pressures Canada to invest 50% more of its GDP into the military. That represents 55 billion dollars. NATO is a major decision-making body that embodies militarist and imperialist interests. It’s also an accomplice in the genocide happening in Palestine.
NATO includes the richest countries in the world, namely Canada, Germany, the United States, France, Italy and the UK, but it also conspires with non-member allies such as Japan and the Zionist entity (Israel). It protects the capitalist interests of the global north, with the United States as a semi-formal secretary. NATO organises the threat and capacity to act in devastating ways to counter any initiative of liberation of the global south. Its interests are imperialist: the States formed and governed by capital aspire to extend their power by exploiting external territories where they steal resources, destroy nature and enslave people through political, economic and/or military domination. It normalises the horror of its crimes against humanity by camouflaging them as humanitarian missions and by splitting the political costs between different countries, maintaining their democratic bases in ignorance or illusion.
The military interventions supported by NATO protect governments aligned with American interests and crush any alternative, keeping the global south under capitalist constraints. NATO’s alliance with the zionist entity is ideologically coherent, as a colonial enterprise, but Israel also provides technologies of control and weapons that NATO states use throughout the world, in their imperialist missions and on their own populations.
And oh by the way, no we don’t support Russia or prefer it to NATO, people typically think NATO is about defending against Russia, but we don’t even care, every fucking colonizer of this world has to be taken down, we hate this capitalist system and its extensions from the bottom of our heart.
The problem we’re fighting here isn’t specifically NATO’s assembly, nor the actions of the CDPQ (which requires every public employee to fund the Palestinian genocide), but they are symptoms of that problem. What the problem really is, is the dominant system which causes all these horrors : capitalism. There is no more time for calm and asking nicely. Resistance is legitimate, the State and the police can no longer have a monopoly on violence – if it’s the only language they’ll hear. We want the illusion to stop and we want to draw light, in the streets and in the media, to the horrors deployed right under our noses. We attack capital, materialised most densely downtown, to oppose symbolically and materially the most odious crimes committed for capitalism:
The windows of the Palais des Congrès, where the NATO summit is happening
A car set on fire
Riot police covered in paint
Businesses’ windows smashed
Our acts are charged with rage born from the horrors we witness and denounce here, but also from our own grief: between climate collapse and housing crisis, inflation and shit jobs, health and education systems in ruins, xenophobia, transphobia, covid and depression, profiling and repression, the rise of fascism, etc. All of which answer to the same system. We have had enough and we are horrified, so we gather and we show our refusal. Our actions have had a symbolic and material impact: they have imposed costs financially, have disrupted and disturbed, have propagated our ideals and made visible this very legitimate and necessary struggle.
Before anything was even attacked, the police charged, pepper-sprayed and hit us. In our fight, we have seen the complicit posture of our governments : police violence is an obvious manifestation of it. To repress our actions, the police, the state’s guard dogs, have used weapons and tactics developed by the zionist entity and other NATO investments. The police have again and always defended the interests of the rich and the State: pepper-spraying, beating, breaking ribs, gassing, poisoning. It tries to choke hopes of freedom for human lives and nature, currently massacred, but we are still standing. We denounce the arrests and many injuries (cracked skull, broken arm, projectiles in the eyes, etc.), but we are still standing. The Fall was warm and winter will burn hotter, because the struggle is all we have left, because we need to do everything we can, because we love our revolutions deeply, because we love our comrades and what we know we can do together.
The media will focus on our violence, they will manipulate our messages, our messages confronting the atrocities perpetrated by Israel and NATO – responsible for millions of deaths. So it is crucial to say again that it is the brutality of the oppressive structures governing us that we fight, that the worst violence is the State’s and that that violence is a direct consequence of capitalism.
In summer 2022, 2000 copies of this book were printed in French and 2000 in German. The french version is now sold out, and the Publisher «Éditions du Commun» had now reissued the book.
The book was written with the intention of serving as a tool of self-defense against the manipulative interrogation strategies employed by the police. As stated in the introduction, “It addresses readers in various countries in which legislation may differ“. And indeed, we soon received feedback that the content conveyed by the book is equally applicable to countries such as Turkey, Morocco, Serbia, Italy, Denmark, and many more. And soon a number of supportive people were offering to translate the book into other languages. This is what happened with the English version, and we’d like to take this opportunity to warmly thank our translator and proofreader for their fine work.
As a consequence of imperialism and colonization, English is spoken today in contexts as diverse as Kenya, Australia and, of course UK and the USA. So many different places from which you may be reading these words, and where the contexts of repression are very different. Most of what is conveyed in the book applies to all these contexts, but, in case of doubts, it makes sense to keep an eye out for certain elements that differ and check them with your local legal team.
Our network lacks relays in the English-speaking world, so let us take this opportunity to pass on the message that we are looking for a publishing house or a collective that would be interested in printing and distributing the book in its geographical regions.
With these words, we wish you a pleasant reading.
Project-evasions – network of anarchist friendships
“If you are at a table with a Nazi, and ten other people are hanging out with him, you have a table of Nazis”
This dictum may sound like a joke, but the idea it expresses is nonetheless poignant, accurate, and relevant. We are firmly convinced that the contagion effect of complacency in the face of the most reactionary, racist, and hateful far-right currents can only pollute any environment where they are tolerated.
That’s why, a few weeks ago, we launched a campaign to denounce and have cancelled the presence of several NSBM (neo-Nazi) bands booked to play the 2024 edition of the Messe des Morts black metal festival, organised by the Sepulchral Productions label and its main manager, Martin Marcotte.[i]The campaign will culminate in a demonstration on November 29 at 6:00 p.m., in front of the Théâtre Paradoxe, 5959 boulevard Monk, in Montreal.
Since the publication of our dossier on these bands on October 27, we’ve received an outpouring of outraged comments from black metal fans who, following a well-known script, accuse us of demonizing or seeking to “cancel” the entire milieu. For the most part, what these reactions have in common is a complete disregard for essential issue at hand and the use of all sorts of fallacious arguments to defend tooth and nail the countercultural milieu in question.
To be perfectly clear, we aren’t criticizing this milieu for being fundamentally neo-Nazi—we don’t, and we never have, regardless of our critics claims. What we do criticize is the fact that the black metal scene is too tolerant of the neo-Nazi elements that persist within it, as shown by the presence of at least four bands with greater or lesser links to NSBM in the 2024 line-up, including the headliner, the Swedish band Marduk, which cultivates a profound ambiguity in this respect.
The purpose of this post is to respond to our critics and to once again invite all black metal fans to take measures to clean up their scene once and for all.
We’re not talking about the 1930s, or the 1980s, but November 2024, in Québec, Canada, and the US. It would be facile in the extreme to pretend that fascist movements don’t present a real threat today. For at least a decade, the populist right has been on the rise in many parts of the world, and in its wake, the far right has been rearing its ugly head, with a constant parade of fascists and far-right supremacists of all stripes.
This is the alarming context of our campaign to denounce the Messe des Morts.
It’s an established fact that neo-Nazi NSBM current has always had a parasitical relationship with black metal. It’s not always openly displayed in this milieu, but it persistently permeates it, and, above all, it is widely tolerated. Elements of the black metal scene that explicitly condemn and reject the neo-Nazi movement (such as the Black and Anarchist Black Metal movement) are the exception.
The most common approach to denouncing this reality is the one we’ve seen over the past few weeks: a superficial reaction characterized by categorical denial and inordinate defense of the black metal milieu. As the type of music they love forms a central part of their identity, fans “take it personally”: they’re black metal fans, and they’re not personally Nazis, ergo, black metal can’t be Nazi. What we’re talking about, however, is not the adherence of this or that fan of the genre to the principles of National Socialism but the complacency toward the NSBM subgenre that runs through the milieu.
We routinely encounter the same basic handful of arguments, which together form a sort of circular reasoning:
It’s just not true!
NSBM as such, or its alleged influence within the black metal milieu, is some kind of myth perpetuated by “communists” and other “bad people.” This is the easiest position to refute. NSBM is unquestionably one of the constitutive currents of black metal, and has been since the very beginning of the genre.
NSBM does exist (somewhere else. . .), but here it’s a negligible phenomenon, or at least it’s non-existent at Messe des Morts, which is above suspicion.
According to this line of argument, NSBM is a hyper-marginal phenomenon, best ignored altogether. As always in such cases, we strongly contest this ostrich approach. The NSBM current may be in the minority in its explicit expression, but its implicit “cultural” presence in the milieu is chronic and its influence widespread. The presence at the festival of three or four groups with notoriously suspect associations and/or dubious obsessions with Nazism—not unlike the inclusion of Graveland in 2016—testifies to the fact that links with NSBM, and cryptofascism in the case of Marduk, are never far away at the Messe des Morts. We also know that Martin Marcotte, the main person behind Sepulchral Productions and the promoter of the Messe des Morts, distributed NSBM material in the 2000s, as well as organizing shows with neo-Nazi groups. To the best of our knowledge, Marcotte and Sepulchral Productions have never issued a retraction, publicly denounced the neo-Nazi current in black metal, or taken an official anti-racist stance, which would, at the very least, have the effect of redressing the current ambiguity. Vague claims that the event is “apolitical” just don’t cut it.
It’strue that there are more or less Nazi elements in the milieu, but “you don’t understand,” that’s part of the genre’s codes; it’s a culture of transgression, and, for the most part, it’s “not political.”
The NSBM elements in the scene should, thus, be seen as entirely folkloric and strictly meant for “shock value.” This is an absurd position. Any event or environment where Nazi elements are tolerated is by definition political. To paraphrase the African-American activist Angela Davis, in a milieu notoriously teeming with neo-Nazis, it’s not enough not to be a Nazi; you have to be actively anti-Nazi. Otherwise, there will be no reason not to always suspect the milieu of complacency and complicity. The cultural manifestation defense does not hold water: culture and politics are, in fact, inseparable and often consubstantial.[ii] Any claim to apolitical status on the part of cultural or countercultural movements must, therefore, be taken with a grain of salt.
It’s true that there are Nazis, but that’s “no big deal”; it’s “their right.”
Do we really need to explain what a pile of shit this argument is? Fascism, and a fortiori Nazism, are not ideas like any other. They are hateful ideologies that have a concrete effect on the lives of the targeted people and groups and when they succeed have absolutely catastrophic consequences. History leaves no room for question. It’s perhaps not surprising that a musical genre that cultivates a fascination with the morbid should revel in both the occult and the “evil” aspects of Nazism, but, in this case, there’s a fine line between morbid fascination and complacency. And it’s precisely this complacency that we reproach the black metal milieu for.
It’s “just music”; I listen to NSBM, but that’s just a matter of taste and a question of individual freedom; it doesn’t mean I’m a Nazi.
We seriously doubt that. You need to take a good long look at yourself if you like music that promotes genocidal thinking and glorifies the actions of the Nazis. In any case, you shouldn’t be surprised that anti-fascists consider you to be part of the problem. Freedom of expression is not and must never become a smokescreen for the promotion and trivialization of hateful ideas. This, of course, is what the new far-right populists are trying to do at the moment,[iii] using this defense, combined with misinformation and confusionism, to promote the worst reactionary reflexes in the mainstream, which, obviously, favors their political advance. We shouldn’t fall for it.
Anyway, anti-fascists are far worse (and far more violent); you say you’re anti-fascists, but you’re the real fascists!
Some commentators have used personal anecdotes of altercations to try to demonstrate that anti-fascists are, on the whole, eminently violent beings who seek only to intimidate and repress anyone who doesn’t think like them. It’s a well-known ploy. It’s easy and convenient to decontextualize isolated incidents to deflect the conversation and avoid addressing the problem. It’s no secret that anti-fascists seek to “cancel” Nazis. It’s even part of their job description. In this instance, what we have asked of the management of the Théâtre Paradoxe, and indirectly of the promoter of the Messe des Morts, is to remove from the bill the three groups examined in our article (plus the one identified by Pivot in an article addressing this polemic). We’re not necessarily seeking to have the entire festival cancelled (although, at this stage, the problem seems to be ubiquitous), but primarily to encourage self-examination within the black metal community. We remain committed to this goal.
Clearly, given the reaction to our campaign denouncing the Messe des Morts, bad faith is as much a part of this subculture as confusion and complacency. All too often, its followers go to considerable lengths to ignore, or at least deny, the problematic nature of the elements reported.
To return to the quote that opened this piece: if you’re at a party where a neo-Nazi advertises his presence, and everyone tolerates him being there, puts up with his antics, and does nothing to actively exclude him, you’re, in fact, at a Nazi party. This is all the more true if the bands hired to entertain the party have had Nazi members, have played with Nazis, have bought Nazi propaganda articles from Nazi websites, and specialize in songs glorifying Nazi exploits. And if the party organizer himself has already distributed music by Nazi artists. . . Are you starting to see the pattern here?
There is a way out. It would be entirely possible for these groups, events, promoters, and even the fans of the genre who all get lumped together to take a clear and unambiguous stand against any hateful ideology, including racism and antisemitism, sexism and homophobia, and in particular fascism and Nazism. Such a public stance would remove any ambiguity. There would, of course, be consequences to such a statement of principles—the genre’s NSBM adherents would no doubt feel betrayed—but that is the price to be paid to clean up a countercultural milieu that would be better off not permanently dragging around this ball and chain.
It can be done, and it has been done. In the 1980s and 1990s, the neo-Nazis tried to leech onto the punk and skin counterculture, and the community mobilized to completely and permanently exclude them. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but, even today, these elements are systematically ostracized, and the boneheads still have to hide and play circle jerk.
This is an invitation to take a stand and clean up the scene once and for all. To do so, you have to take off the blinders and face the problem head-on.
[ii] It’s becoming increasingly clear that political transformations proceed from cultural transformations, and that the political developments we’re seeing today—the rise of the right and the far right—are the result of patient manipulation of mass cultural codes by skilled ideological actors over the last several decades.
[iii] Among the weapons used by these ideologues (think Trumpism and Elon Musk) are disinformation and confusionism, the method of deliberately blurring the meaning of words and political concepts to confuse and undermine people’s sense of reality, thereby encouraging them to buy into various conspiracy fantasies and the false solutions promised by demagogues. Another of their favorite weapons is “gaslighting,” a form of mental manipulation that involves misrepresenting or distorting information in such a way as to make people doubt their perception of reality. One of the main challenges facing us in the post-truth era is precisely to combat the perverse effects of these stratagems on the political sphere and on society in general.
[I am writing as an insurrectionary anarchist in the u$a and speaking to that context]
Unity Of Fields is a counter-info project that emerged in August of 2024. They describe their project as “a militant propaganda front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism.” It used to be Palestine Action US and has since changed its orientation. It has a website and some social media accounts, some of which have are banned at the time of this writing, they seem to be most popular on Telegram. Although it links to mostly anarchist sources for technical knowledge, Unity Of Fields does not seem to be an anarchist project and their political reading and media suggestions are all over the map. They suggest classic decolonial texts by Fanon and Cesaire, Black liberation writings from the BLA and BPP, texts from various Palestinian resistance factions, as well as authoritarian communists like Lenin and Mao among others.
Mostly their website is a clearing house for news, action analysis, and communiques. Many of the communiques posted are original submissions though they also repost from other counter-info projects and from social media. They also post some of their own original writings to their website. The fact that they post sketchy criminal stuff and link to technical advice on how to better carry out insurrectionary forms of struggle is probably a large part of why they are discussed in anarchist circles at all.
What does the emergence of a project like Unity Of Fields mean for us as anarchists? For one thing Unity Of Fields expands some spaces we occupy as anarchists — the combative struggle space and the digital counter-info space. We are clearly not the only ones re-coloring walls, opening windows, and carrying out our little sabotages and then writing about it, though at least for now others seem to look to our collective knowledge and experience for technical guidance. We are sharing a struggle space, one which is not limited to riotous moments and combative demonstrations, with other rebels who have made themselves visible to us. We are being included (at least some of the time) in a dialogue with other rebels through the sharing of our words and news of our actions, and anarchists have shared writings from Unity Of Fields on our own websites.
Local struggles against zionism, imperialism, and colonialism are visibly taking on more destructive, decentralized, anonymous, and autonomous approaches, a long-term dream of insurrectionary anarchists, yet new questions arise for us. How do we want to contend with other rebels with whom we have ideological differences and tactical similarities? How do we avoid getting lost in the vanguardist, unifying, nationalist tendencies that often accompany revolutionary leftist approaches to combative struggle? Are we interested in conspiring with these others outside the spontaneity of spiky demonstrations, occupations (and potentially riots), and if so how?
As anarchists we both seek to expand and connect anarchic forms of struggle yet also hold a healthy skepticism of unity with people who don’t hold anti-authoritarian views of freedom. Our history includes many betrayals by the left and progressives, from peace policing at demonstrations to executions and imprisonment from newly established revolutionary governments. The question of who to coalesce with and why is not an easy one, and one that is best addressed on a case by case basis. The appearance of Unity Of Fields potentially facilitates the dialogues and understanding that can help us better decide if and how we want to team up. As anarchists can often find ourselves isolated from others who we may have some political parallels with, the opening up of a “militant propaganda front” is a bridge to dialogue and learn across. This is not a call to join forces with anyone on the basis of being anti-zionist or anti-amerikkkan, it’s simply a reminder to always be analyzing the changing terrain around us and to think critically as we carry forward our struggles.
“Towards The Last Intifada” and “Towards Another Uprising” seem to be the beginnings of a dialogue among anarchists that address some of these questions. I look forward to more.
Many if not most of the actions posted to Unity Of Fields are accompanied by some visual media, usually photos, sometimes videos. I want rebels to consider some pitfalls of spectacularizing our struggles. Every photo or video is another crumb for the state to eat up as part of their investigations. Digital media can offer up metadata about where and when and what kind of device it was recorded on if not properly removed. Footage that shows rebels gives the state valuable information, such as number of participants, approximate time of day, whether any passersby were present, as well as biometric data even when a person is masked. Height, skin tone, gait, approximate weight, and other information can be determined from even grainy footage.
Additionally there are the downsides of understanding our struggles in a quantitative way. This approach may blunt the qualitative changes that participating in struggle can bring us individually and collectively. Of course propaganda is useful, the seductive appeal of revolt is made easier with imagery, and these things must be weighted out, no struggle will be pure. I want to remind us that though this is the path that is being worn into the ground, it is not the only one, and should we choose it let us choose it intentionally.
This text is addressed to the international anarchist movement, which we’ll define as the sum of individuals fighting for anarchist ideas around the world. This movement is in conflict with its natural enemies — the State, fascist groups, and so on — and must protect itself if it is to survive in this conflict. In this text, we make three proposals for the international anarchist movement to consider in the coming years in order to allow anarchists to continue attacking while limiting their chances of getting caught.
1. Share knowledge internationally
Our enemies organize internationally through cooperation between police and intelligence agencies and new developments in science and technology — the increasing precision of DNA forensics and the proliferation of drones being just two examples. This means that a repressive technique used in one country may soon appear in another where it is not yet being used. It also means that an effective countermeasure used by anarchists in one country may be effective in another. We should therefore share knowledge of repressive techniques and countermeasures on an international level.
Ideally, any experience of repression or experimentation with countermeasures that might be of interest to other anarchists should be written up, translated into several languages, and made public. When anarchists are arrested and brought to trial, we can often obtain court documents that reveal how they were caught: we should exploit this and publish analyses of such documents, bearing in mind that information obtained in this way may be partial or distorted. We should experiment with new countermeasures and write and publish reports on these experiments (except in cases where the State might adapt and weaken the countermeasure by reading the report). We should try to collect information at the source: read police training manuals, steal police files, analyze data leaks from police servers.
A specific feature of the international anarchist movement is its decentralization. We see this not as a weakness but as a strength: in addition to preventing the hierarchies inherent in centralized organizations, it makes it harder for our enemies to target us because they cannot topple the whole movement by disrupting one part of it. However, this decentralization also makes it harder for us to share knowledge across borders. To overcome this, we see two options: developing informal bonds with other anarchists by meeting at international book fairs and other events, and using the Internet. We propose using the No Trace Project as an international platform to share the knowledge that is suited for sharing on the Internet, not as a replacement for informal bonds but as a useful supplement to spread information beyond existing informal networks.
2. Establish a security baseline
Anarchists who carry out direct actions should analyze the risks associated with their actions and take appropriate precautions: dress anonymously, be mindful of video surveillance and DNA traces, and so on. However, this is not enough. If only those who carry out actions take precautions, it is easier for our enemies to target these individuals. This is, firstly, because they stand out: if only a handful of comrades always leave their phones at home, for example, this could be an obvious starting point for an investigation with no other specific leads. And secondly, because our enemies can get information about them through their friends who do not carry out actions: if someone doesn’t use social media but is mentioned on their friends’ social media, for example, an investigation could query their friends’ social media to get information about them. We should therefore establish a security baseline that everyone in anarchist networks agrees to follow, including those who have never carried out direct actions and have no intention of doing so.
We can’t say what this baseline should be, as it will depend on each local context, but we can give some ideas. As a bare minimum, everyone should help hide information from our enemies by not speculating about who is involved in an action, not bragging about one’s own participation in an action, not talking to the police, and encrypting any computer or phone used for conversations with other anarchists using a strong password. Discuss sensitive matters exclusively outdoors and without electronic devices, and don’t make it obvious to your social environment who you are having sensitive conversations with (e.g. don’t ask someone to “go for a walk” in front of people who aren’t involved in the project being discussed). In addition, we think everyone should stop using social media (and definitely stop posting photos of other anarchists, even with their consent, because this helps the State map anarchist networks) and leave their phones at home at all times (not just during actions). Carrying your phone with you has security implications for everyone you interact with.
It can be difficult to convince people to follow such a security baseline, especially if they think they have no personal interest in following it. If someone is reluctant, we should remind them that it’s not just their security that’s at stake, but also the security of other anarchists around them who may be carrying out or planning to carry out direct actions. Everyone who wants actions to happen has an interest in making anarchist networks as difficult as possible for the authorities to repress.
3. Explore new horizons
Our enemies evolve over time as they refine their strategies and techniques. We should prepare not for the battles that already took place, but for those yet to come. We should therefore go beyond our current security practices, anticipate the evolution of our enemies, and develop new countermeasures.
Here are three issues we think the international anarchist movement should explore in the coming years.
Drones
Aerial surveillance is rapidly becoming cheaper and more efficient. How should we react to the presence of police drones at riots, anarchist events, and so on? How can we detect or take down drones? Should we prepare for the risk of drones being used for routine aerial patrols, and if so, how?
Facial recognition technologies
In 2023, a journalist tracked down German left-wing militant Daniela Klette, who had been in clandestinity for decades, by using facial recognition technology to match a decades-old photo of her with a recent photo from Facebook taken during a dance class. What can we do against this threat? How can we prepare for the increasing integration of facial recognition technology into public video surveillance systems?
Lack of insight into police activity
Until a few years ago, radio scanners were used by anarchists to monitor police frequencies, for example to learn about nearby police activity while carrying out a direct action. In most contexts, this is now impossible because police communications are encrypted. Can we develop new techniques to functionally replace radio scanners or, more generally, to gain insight into police activity in a given area?
About the authors
We’re the No Trace Project. For the past three years, we’ve been building tools to help anarchists understand the capabilities of their enemies, undermine surveillance efforts, and ultimately act without getting caught. We plan to continue in the years to come. We welcome feedback. You can visit our website at notrace.how, and contact us at notrace@autistici.org.
This text is available as a zine (in Letter and A4 dimensions).
Let’s prepare ourselves, and may luck be on our side.
So the fascists won in the united states, in france, in italy… and they’re banging at our door. What do we do now? Well, we do what we’ve always been doing: We organize!
Build an immigrant support network
Lots of people will be forced to flee the states. The threat of “denaturalization” (a fancy word for deporting anyone non-white) means that a lot of racialized people might be forced to leave the united states in a hurry. A lot of LGBTQ+ people, and especially trans folks, will be looking for shelter very soon, due to transphobic and queerphobic laws.
Americans are currently looking to build an underground railroad to help bring people to safe places. We should therefore make sure that there are actually safe places for them here. As long as canada marks the united states as a safe country, a lot of these people might end up here without a legal status. The drawback of a more social state like ours is that we rely on that state for a lot of our services. Therefore, infrastructure for people without a legal status here in Tio’tia:ke is rather limited.
The Immigrant Workers Center (iwc-cti.ca) works with people with precarious status and will need support. Solidarity accross borders (solidarityacrossborders.org) is also building support for people with precarious status and will also need help.
Assist your local antifascists
We’re not exactly in a safe place either here. Fascism is also on the rise here. The legault government is inching everyday to full-blown fascism, and the federal conservatives might be elected on a very far-right mandate. And that’s without taking into account the actual nazis and their apologists. Contact your local antisfacsist crew (in Tio’tia:ke see montreal-antifasciste.info) to see how you can help, or create your own crew! At the very least, take down any sign of fascist presence. Don’t let them take any hold in your neighborhood!
We’ve also seen a recrudesence of punk and metal shows, despite the recent closure of friendly scenes. These shows have been mostly apolitical, and if we’re not careful, they can be taken over by fascist crowds. Hosting friendly merch tables can help remind people of what is at stake, and the importance of kicking out fascists and nazis from our shows.
Build alternatives to lost services
One of the main issue in the united states, and possibly soon in canada, is access to abortion services, and gender-affirming hormones. But there was a time when we could take care of most of these services ourselves. The older trans generation might remember a time when trans people would meet at people’s home to learn how to cook their own estrogen and testosterone. The american Four Thieves Vinegar Collective (fourthievesvinegar.org) provides this service by teaching people some basic pharmaceutical skills.
Another solution could be to build a health clinic cooperative. The Clinique Communautaire Pointe-Saint-Charles (ccpsc.qc.ca) is an example, and have been providing health services to the Pointe for decades now. While these cooperatives are theoretically bound by the laws of the land, it could be a lot easier to do some additional services on the side than at an hospital or state-owned clinic. This might be crucial for people without status, for instance.
Prepare for climate catastrophes
At this stage, climate catastrophes are to be expected. The current “leaders” of the world have made their policy to ignore the climate crisis. We cannot expect any action to address it in the forseeable future. Protective measures will probably protect richer neirghborhoods, to the expense of others. We’ve already seen sea walls being built to protect white-owned houses, and consequently pushing the water surges into racialized neighborhoods.
We got hit hard this summer in Laval, but it was nothing compared to what we’ve seen in Asheville (north carolina) and Valencia (spain). The Firestorm Books collective in Asheville provides some information of what they did after the catastrophe. There are also a number of anarchist mobile intervention units ready to intervene following a tornado storm or a hurricane. They are often quicker to respond than state resources, especially less affluent areas.
While we’re not currently in a tornado or hurricane-prone area, this might change soon. We could use such resources.
Learn to disobey
While it can be tempting for some to perform a highly visible action, this is not something that most people can do. That doesn’t mean that you can do nothing! Every little can help : Forget to ask for identification before giving a service. Mark a lifesaving medication as lost, and give it to people without status. Loose the police’s request for information, or return it with the wrong information, to the wrong address. Confer with colleagues to refuse to apply racist, sexist policies.
The legault government recently pass the racist bill 96, which forces government employees to speak french to the people who come for services. What we’ve seen in practice is that almost every worker disobey that law, despite having received a stern directive to apply it. Most government employees will speak to you with the language you prefer, despite the law forbidding them to.
This refusal to obey is significant. This is what we need in a fascist state. Well, we won’t cry if certain (or all!) embassies were to burn down during the night, but this is not something most people are willing to do. Learning to disobey, this is something we all can do, and should learn to do.
Conclusion
This aim of this little article is just to give you some hints on what you can do. There are many other things we will need! The key is to be curious, observant, and imaginative. Look around you, talk to your comrades, and see what people are missing, determine what needs to be done. The old approaches got us into this mess: maybe it is time to find new ones.
One thing is certain: they want to drag us all into the night. The least we can do is to be kicking and screaming!
Earlier this week a group of people sabotaged Gastops’ factory in Ottawa, the only place in the world where engine sensors are produced for Lockheed’s F-35 combat jets — including the ones dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Gaza. We cut the wiring inside all of the heat pumps on the Gastops roof, locked them out with official Ministry of Health and Safety lock-out tags, shut off the gas, broke the handles for their systems, and cut the lines to their backup communication system on the way out.
The following letter and photos were left on site:
It’s worth noting that we disabled their heat pumps as it begins to get cold here in Ottawa and as displaced people in Gaza and Lebanon plead with us to help them secure shelter, blankets, clothing, as they freeze in displacement camps. Earlier this month an Ottawa neighbour lost her uncle while he returned to his home in Gaza attempting to bring back blankets for the children so they would not freeze to death. He was murdered by air strike while doing so, likely by an F-35 that Gastops supplies parts to.
People growing tired of politicians continuing to support the slaughter of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon will continue to escalate actions seeking peace and an end to these war crimes.
As of August 2024, construction work has started on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline. The project is owned by Western LNG and the Nisgaa Nation, the latter which has allowed for construction to start on their land first, the rural Nass river valley that sits adjacent to the Pacific ocean. State and industry are committed to developing an “energy corridor” through the remote region. The nearly completed and fiercely contested Coastal Gas Link pipeline was the first pipeline in the southern energy corridor, and PRGT is the first pipeline projected for the northern energy corridor. The line is set to end at Ksi Lisims LNG terminal (Nisgaa owned as well) where liquid and natural gas would be stored and prepared for export to international markets by tankers. LNG is being sold as a green alternative for those looking to shift away from coal. But the green transition is a lie. We know that energy, and its current reorganization, is inseparable from domination, capitalist exploitation and the extractivist logic that devastates the land. We propose attack.
Social tension is rising against PRGT. Multiple sites of resistance have been brewing across North-Central BC. In 2016, during the first attempts at construction, the Madii Lii camp was set up to blockade access to the pipeline right of way in the Suskwa valley in Gitxan territory. The camp remains to this day. Northwest of there, another Gitxsan blockade has been set up on the Cranberry Connector, the northern of the two roads into the Nass valley. Gitxsan people have a long history of defending their land, notably some anti-logging struggles in the 80-90’s, and expressing their solidarity with their Wet’swuwet’en neighbors by blockading railways. We stand in solidarity with native resistance, which will likely snowball into more blockades in key areas of the project. Conjointly, as anarchists we have our own projects of destruction. Autonomous attacks allow us to expand the methods of struggle, to engage in conflict at our own pace, how and where we sit fit, and to not compromise our visions and values. We propose an offensive struggle of diffuse blows carried out by affinity groups in dispersed formation, as others have said, to act without forming compact columns, without building permanent indefensible encampments. Instead, we seek to extend diffuse hostilities over a large terrain.
An autonomous struggle against the PRGT pipeline project begins by looking at the tool and capacities we currently have, identifying what we need to learn and acting from that without delay. The project spans thousands of kilometers, the offices, homes and interests of the companies behind it are spread throughout Canada and beyond. An expansive practice of attack can identify and target these diverse sites. Below are lists of companies involved in the project as well as links to a map of the project’s right of way. More work should be done to identify additional companies involved and the findings should be shared via counter info sites.
Companies involved in PRGT project
Ledcor – Is a construction company operating primarily in Canada and United States. Ledcor operates in a wide range of industries, including the construction of buildings and civil infrastructure, technical services such as communication networks, forestry, mining, property development and management, transportation, marine operations, and several energy projects, including oil, gas, and Liquefied Natural Gas. Ledcor is leading the current phase of infrastructure upgrades necessary to begin pipeline construction. Ledcor is currently upgrading or maintaining roads, bridges, man camp sites etc.
Bechtel– Is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company. Bechtel is managing the construction of the PRGT pipeline.
McElhanney – provides surveying, engineering, GIS & remote sensing, community & transportation planning, landscape architecture, environmental services, and more. McElhanney has been and continues to be responsible for surveying and monitoring of environment for the PRGT project. They have over 30+ locations across Western Canada. A McElhanney office near the PRGT project was the target of an anonymous arson in late September: https://bccounterinfo.org/2024/10/12/arson-attack-in-terrace-bc/
