Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

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Call to Action: Open the Borders

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Apr 302018
 

From Solidarity Across Borders

In the past year, tens of thousands of people have entered Canada from the US on foot, seeking a safe haven. Every day more people are arriving. This phenomenon is often referred to Trump, but it must be understood in the global context: worldwide, more than 21 million people have been forced to leave their homes because of wars, political oppression, military violence, extractivism, climate change, etc. – conditions created by imperialist states like Canada and the United States. Although directly involved in the economic and social devastation in countries throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, the Canadian state presumes to limit who can enter and who can legally stay.Rejecting the racist and islamophobic mainstream narrative and media coverage around those migrating, Solidarity Across Borders calls for open borders, radical solidarity with and mutual aid among migrants, solidarity cities, an end to deportation, immigration detention and double punishment, and an inclusive and ongoing regularization process (Status For All, now!).

Global Apartheid

Borders play a crucial role in the capitalist system and its “migrant crisis”. Canada and the US are founded on the theft of Indigenous lands and the ongoing genocide and displacement of Indigenous peoples. These borders originally established by colonial wars, to benefit European colonizers, are also a means to control migration. They prevent people from leaving violence, poverty and exploitation, drive families from country to country, force them to board dangerous boats, and make long treks across deserts and snow. Borders push people into precarity without legal status, criminalizing them. Borders keep the global apartheid system in place.

No More Case by Case

Refugees coming from the US to Quebec and Canada have had no choice but to cross irregularly at Roxham Road and other ad hoc points of entry since the Safe Third Country Agreement came into effect in 2004. This agreement between Canada and the USA prevents migrants from making refugee claims at a regular Canadian border post if they come from the USA (and vice versa). This means migrants entering Canada from the US can only make a refugee claim if they first cross “irregularly.” This policy has already taken the lives of migrants – we honour the memory of Mavis Otuteye who died in June 2017 – and caused others to lose legal status or be deported.

Those who arrive in Canada are encouraged to put their efforts and hopes into their individual cases: trying to prove that they are “real refugees” or “good immigrants.” This lengthy bureaucratic fight is isolating and takes energy away from collective struggle. Moreover, in the past few years, on average, 40% of inland refugee claims were refused. There may be an even higher rate of refusal for people crossing irregularly because many have little support in making their claims and because some have been outside their country of citizenship for many years. Soon, many will be refused as refugees and face a choice: stay in Canada without papers or be deported to their country of citizenship. The Canadian refugee system will thus smoothly deal with “the problem” outside the media spotlight: judge people individually, and then, quietly, one by one, deport or criminalize many thousands.

Rejecting Racist Divisions

Mainstream discourse and media coverage feed divisions among social groups who should be allied against the unjust global distribution of wealth and power. At best presenting the issue as humanitarian rather than political, mainstream discourse hides the role that borders play in maintaining that unequal distribution. The way that Canada has contributed to pushing people out of their homes in the first place is never mentioned.

The far-right discourses of groups such as La Meute and Storm Alliance are emboldened by the normalization of Islamophobic and racist attitudes by mainstream media, politicians, and the state. By declaring that they are only against “illegal immigrants,” these far right groups attempt to convince others that migrants crossing irregularly are ‘criminals’. Playing into long-held racist/islamophobic European fears of black and brown men, far right groups across Europe, the US, Canada and Quebec spread confusion and fear about an “invasion” and “terrorists” and encourage the state to expand border enforcement and the policing of migrants.

In these ways, instead of the conflict being defined by a division between wealthy/powerful and poor/oppressed both inside and outside Quebec and Canada, it is defined by a division between people inside Quebec or Canada (fighting to keep social programmes (but only for “us”), upholders of ‘our’ values etc.) and people outside/newly arriving (portrayed as competitors for scarce resources, “queue-jumpers”, security-threats, etc.).

Call to Action!

WE SUPPORT THE FREEDOM OF ALL MIGRANTS TO STAY, TO MOVE, TO RETURN. SPECIFICALLY, WE SUPPORT MIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES WHETHER THEY CHOSE TO FIGHT TO STAY IN THE US OR TO CROSS ANY WAY THEY CAN INTO CANADA.

IN THE FACE OF THE CASE-BY-CASE APPROACH IMPOSED BY THE STATE, WE MUST TAKE COLLECTIVE ACTION AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER.

AS WE OPPOSE  ANTI-MIGRANT PROPAGANDA AND THESE FABRICATED DIVISIONS, WE MUST BUILD CONCRETE SOLIDARITY.

Actions We Can Take in Our Communities

Everywhere in Canada:

– Organize/join mobilizations demanding that Canada ditch its case-by-case approach and instead implement an immediate regularization programme for all border crossers AND all undocumented people already in Canada (in Montreal, stay in touch with Solidarity Across Borders);

– Challenge the government (with public campaigns, forums, in media, etc.) about its Safe Third Country policy.

– Service organizations: join your local sanctuary/solidarity city campaign to offer services to all regardless of status and to never allow CBSA access (in Montreal, sign on to Solidarity Across Borders Solidarity City statement here.

In border areas:

– get organized with your neighbours (on both sides of the border); put up signs showing that you support people crossing (“refugees welcome”, etc.); if you see people crossing, offer them support in the way they want it and DON’T! call the RCMP unless the people crossing ask you to do so;

– Explore areas along the border and help set up the infrastructure to support people to cross safely and freely.

In Québec

– Join the mobilization to oppose the racist, anti-immigrant rally called by extreme right groups on 19 May at Roxham Road (get in touch with your local anti-racist/anti-fascist groups or watch for details coming soon);

– Support mobilizations demanding that Quebec automatically issue a work permit for all who enter AND for all undocumented people already in Quebec (in Montreal, stay in touch with Immigrant Workers’ Centre);

– Join the activities against the G7 summit, including the Anti-Borders Contingent in the main march on 7 June (details of contingent will be posted on the Solidarity Across Borders facebook page and website);

– Join the Anti-Border Caravan being organized by Solidarity Across Borders from 29 June to 1 July (details will be posted on the Solidarity Across Borders facebook page and website).

In Montreal

– Offer time to groups giving frontline support to people coming across the border and make sure that those groups treat refugees arriving with human dignity and offer them the legal and daily support they need.

– support mobilizations creating a Solidarity City including campaigns around access to health care, housing, shelter, education, food (get in touch with Solidarity Across Borders); join efforts demanding that Mayor Plante come through on Coderre’s completely unfulfilled promise to make Montreal a sanctuary city by ending all SPVM/CBSA cooperation.

– Join / support mobilizing to bring undocumented community organizer and Montrealer Lucy Granados, deported on 13 April, back to Canada (details will be posted on the Solidarity Across Borders and Immigrant Workers Centre facebook pages and websites) and generally support the courageous Non Status Women’s Collective (fb: Collectif des femmes sans statuts / Non-Status Women’s Collective)

– Support mobilizing for and come out to the Open the Borders! Status for All! March on 16 June.

In general, we call for effective, non-hierarchical, and inclusive grassroots organizing, based on mutual aid and radical solidarity, using a diversity of tactics and direct action, to strengthen community resistance to border controls in our cities, fight deportations and detentions, defeat the fascist movement, and actively support anti-colonial struggles and indigenous sovereignty.

Montreal’s 13th Annual Anarchist Theatre Festival

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Apr 212018
 

 

From The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival

The thirteenth annual Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (MIATF) – the world’s biggest and only anarchist theatre festival – will present 20 artists (seven troupes) from the USA, France and Montreal for two nights of provocative, socially engaged, freedom-loving theatre, Tues May 22nd and Wed May 23rd, at La Sala Rossa, 4848 boul St-Laurent, 7:30pm.

Tickets $13 each night, or $20 for a two-night special, available at the door or online. No reserved seats.

Program highlights include the classic, Waiting for Godot, reinterpreted by two afro-American women; the story of a sheepherder inspired by the letters from three French political prisoners; outraged puppets from Montreal’s Hochelaga ‘hood portraying the results of gentrification for populations living on the margins, and the inspiring stories of six anarchist women who resist Fascism from Italy to Syria, from the 1920s to today.

Tuesday May 22nd:
• Pisser dans l’herbe…, Théâtre du Sable (France)
• Chansons anarchistes, Gwenael Kivijer (France)
• Trashlaga Puppet Crew, Trashlaga Puppet Crew (Mtl)
• No way! No way! (part I), Trees that Talk (Mtl)

Wednesday May 23rd:
• Didi and Gogo, MC Theatre Troupe (USA)
• Chansons anarchistes, Gwenael Kivijer (France)
• The Wah-Wah Pedal, Thought Experiment Productions (Mtl)
• Darwin avait raison, Dire, encore (Mtl)
• No way! No way! (part II), Trees that Talk (Mtl)

As it Stands Today: Cedar’s Arrest

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Apr 202018
 

From Hamilton Anarchist Support

Donate to the Hamilton Community Defence Fund here

This has been a big month for Hamilton. To contextualize Cedar’s arrest, we can start with the Anarchist Bookfair in early March, our first bookfair here in 7 years. The event was a smashing success, and brought together people from all over the continent to explore possibilities for radical change, to envision a world without enforced hierarchies and domination, to simply meet each other and learn from each other. The weekend was particularly marked by a small riot through one of Hamilton’s most affluent neighborhoods and down one of its most noxious commercial streets. The “Locke Street Riot” was a collective expression of rage, not only against the rapid gentrification of Hamilton, but against capitalism and the violent world of alienation it fosters. It led to a lot of productive conversations about the inevitability of discomfort in fighting for new worlds, and the importance of clarifying and articulating our politics. The riot also kicked up some toxic Hamilton sediment, including a mass spillage of sentimental tears for small businesses, shrieks of “terrorism” from city councillors, and anti-anarchist fervor from local alt-right trolls who saw this as an opportunity to step into the limelight.

In the weeks that followed many of these reactions were channeled into Hamilton’s only anarchist social space, The Tower, which became the defacto target before they even had a chance to come out in support of the riot. First its windows were smashed, then the door was kicked down and the library got trashed, then the locks got glued, and more recently we’ve seen an ongoing wave of amateur graffiti, including the word “gay” written in crumbling wheat paste on the new plexiglass windows. In late March, while supporters of the tower were busy cleaning up after the break-in, a coalition of white-nationalist, misogynistic, homophobic trolls organized a rally in support of the businesses on Locke Street. Their sad rally was confronted and largely foiled, but not before a few of them had a chance to mingle with Locke Street business owners and chit-chat over a lemon-pistachio donut. Information was leaked revealing that the Soldiers of Odin and The Proud Boys were hoping to head over to The Tower after the rally in order to confront the “120 lbs beta males” they hoped to find there. The first time they showed up they found 40 anarchists ready to defend the space. They screamed about their democratic rights and ended up utilizing a police escort to get to the other side of the street. A few hours later a smaller group of them showed up drunk looking for a fight, and despite noble efforts to deescalate we ended up sending them home that day with bloodied and broken noses.

Meanwhile, public pressure to find those responsible for the riotous action on Locke street built. The police had been unable to apprehend anyone on the night of the action, and had responded to public outcry with promises of justice and desperate pleas for public cooperation. Finally on April 6th, one month after the riot, the police put on a show for the bloodthirsty public. Warrants in hand, they smashed down the door of a collective house at dawn and lobbed a flash grenade into the living room. With assault rifles drawn they stormed through the house putting people in cuffs, and arrested Cedar (Peter) Hopperton charging them with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence (unlawful assembly while masked). The others were released and made to spend hours in the driveway while the cops turned the house inside out looking for anything that might help their investigation. They seized computers, phones, loose papers, zines and books, which will inevitably take years to recover from their greasy hands.

Cedar’s bail hearing, which itself only occurred five days after the arrest and after one particularly sneaky maneuver by the Crown to delay it, was a painstaking ordeal. Four hours of blathering drivel in which it became clear that not only Cedar, but all of anarchism was on trial. In the end Cedar was denied bail and sent back to the hellscape of Barton jail where hordes of abducted people wait in wretched conditions for trial. They will potentially remain in Barton for a year or more while the state drags its heels in making a case against them.

We in Hamilton have organized a solid support team to make sure that Cedar has reliable legal defense and as much advocacy and communication as possible. We want to continue the projects they hold dear, and support any forms of organizing they might pursue in jail. We’ve launched this blog as a space where we can provide updates on Cedar’s whereabouts, their legal situation, and how they’re doing. Should there be any more arrests in connection with the Locke Street riot this site will offer similar outlet for those support efforts. Prison isn’t the end of the road for anarchists, it’s merely one dimension of the world we stand against. We will do everything in our power to resist the isolation they attempt to impose on those they capture, and continue to fight together against the world of police, courts and prisons.

Stop Deportations

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Apr 172018
 

From subMedia

After the federal court refused to stop Lucy’s deportation on Thursday evening and in the face of continued silence from the Minister of Immigration Ahmed Hussen, one last effort was made to stop the deportation. Around 50 people arrived at the Laval Immigration Detention Centre shortly after 3am on Friday morning. Armed with banners, balloons, flowers, music, and love, they chained the gates and barred the exits, hoping to prevent Lucy’s deportation until Lucy’s immigration application was decided.

Disruption of a Meeting of En Marche Montréal in Solidarity with the ZAD

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Apr 132018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info. 

Band of buffoons, did you really think we would allow your little clique to hold its event, while you’re trying to destroy everything we have built?

Driven by the force of the intergalactic call for solidarity with the ZAD, we decided to intervene during a 5 à 7 of En Marche (yes, they come bother us all the way in Montreal) to remind the Macronists that the nauseating odor of the shit they spread will always come back to their nostrils.

Whereas all across France the Macron government pathetically tries to crush strikes and evict our friends on the ZAD and in the universities, it was the En Marche shitbags’ turn to be evicted.

While our festive arrival and playful chants seemed to cheer them up momentarily, their coldness took us by surprise when they received stink bombs, firecrackers and insults. We would have thought they would be more favorable to the use of violence seeing how their monarch is deploying his attack dogs against the movement.

Our lives are beautiful, and they are worth defending.

The resistance is on the march: because it’s our project!

[Crimethinc recently published an excellent historical overview of the struggle on the ZAD, including a critical look at events of the past few months that should be the subject of discussions within our struggles.]

Friday – Gathering in Solidarity with the ZAD

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Apr 122018
 

From the Comités de défense et de décolonisation des territoires (CDDT) [Facebook event]

[Crimethinc recently published an excellent historical overview of the struggle on the ZAD, including a critical look at events of the past few months that should be the subject of discussions within our struggles.]

In response to the call made by the zadists to mobilize where we are against the ongoing expulsions.

See you on Friday, April 13th at 7 pm, Mont-Royal metro station.

The ZAD is everywhere. The territories that we inhabit, love and live from are threatened by the movement of colonial modernity, by its logics of control and commodification that make life impossible. The creation of autonomous zones in response to the attempt by the state and companies to impose development projects is an answer that threatens the unity of sovereignty and shows how it is mythical. They also make it possible to rethink our ways of relating ourselves to the territories and to the different forms of life that inhabit them. The practice of blocking extractive projects, and the assertion of autonomy, in this context of indigenous resurgence, is bound to multiply. The calls will have to be heard.

What is ZAD?

For developers a ZAD is a Deferred Development Zone (Zone d’Aménagement différé); for us an Area to Defend (Zone à Défendre): a piece of countryside a few kilometers from Nantes (Bretagne) which should, for decision-makers, leave room for an international airport.

Their project is to build a “Grand Ouest” economic platform of international scale going from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, which would form only one big metropolis. The realization of this platform requires mastering both the sky, the sea, and the earth through the replacement of the current airport of Nantes with a new one in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, but also the enlargement of the port of Saint-Nazaire, the construction of new roads and highways …

Our desires, coming to live on the planned site of the airport, are multiple: to live on a territory in fight, which makes it possible to be close to people who oppose it for 40 years and to be able to act in time of works ; take advantage of abandoned spaces to learn to live together, to cultivate the land, to be more autonomous with respect to the capitalist system.

 

Free Lucy

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Apr 112018
 

From subMedia

At 6am on March 20th, CBSA entered the home of Lucy Francineth Granados, a member of the Non Status Women’s Collective and ATTAP (Temporary Workers Association), and violently arrested her, injuring her arm. Since her arrest she has been detained at the Laval Immigration Detention Centre pending deportation.

CONTEXT
After being threatened by the maras (criminal gangs), Lucy traveled alone through Mexico on the infamous La Bestia train to the US and later to Canada, her husband having been killed some years previously in an accident. Her refugee application was refused but she remained in Canada undocumented. She has lived in Montreal for 9 years and is active in community organizations such as the Non Status Women’s Collective and the Temporary Agency Workers Union (ATTAP). Lucy is the sole financial support for her three children. They live in Guatemala with their grandmother and depend entirely on the remittances sent by their mother for all their basic needs (food, shelter, school fees, etc.). If Lucy were deported, her children would immediately lose their sole source of financial support. Last summer she filed a humanitarian application for permanent residence in an attempt to regularize her status. In January, a CBSA officer informed her lawyer that Lucy’s file would not be studied unless she turned herself in to face deportation. However, Canadian immigration law says that the Minister must study all humanitarian applications inside Canada; the CBSA officer illegally misrepresented the situation. Neither Immigration nor CBSA have responded to her lawyer’s demand that the situation be clarified. According to Immigration Canada information, her file is being evaluated, and a response could normally be expected any time if she is allowed to remain in Canada. Unless Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale intervenes to suspend the deportation, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen expedites processing of her file, or the City of Montreal takes its responsibility seriously, Lucy could be deported before her file is determined.

— Organized by Solidarity Across Borders and the Immigrant Workers Centre

How to get involved?

Actions to support Lucy: http://www.solidarityacrossborders.

or…

Timeline: http://www.solidarityacrossborders.

or…

Let Lucy Stay Campaign page: https://bit.ly/2GrwsZk

Solidarity Across Borders solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com www.solidarityacrossborders.org

& Immigrant Workers Centre iwc-cti.org Tél. 514 342 2111

Another Day, Another Broken Door

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Apr 102018
 

From Northshore Counter-Info

Statement from The Tower, Hamilton’s anarchist social centre

Early Friday morning, Hamilton police raided a home associated with some of those involved with organizing The Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair. The door was kicked in, a flash grenade was thrown into the house, and a full swat team entered. With their assault rifles drawn, the swat team proceeded to pull everyone out of bed some of whom were naked, and with one exception, put everyone in handcuffs. Three people were detained and one person arrested. Cedar, a member of The Tower Collective and our cherished friend, was arrested, taken away, and currently remains in custody.

Those who weren’t arrested were forced to wait outside for close to five hours, while cops “searched” the home. Similar to the fascists who attacked The Tower last month, the police thoroughly trashed the space and even messed with the bookshelves. All three floors of the house were ripped apart and many things were damaged, including a collection of framed feminist postcards that were broken into several pieces and thrown into the bathroom toilet. Police are misogynist pigs, plain and simple, without exception. A long list of items were seized, including all electronics (phones, computers, cameras, external hard-drives etc.), books, posters, zines, and a pretty random assortment of documents (academic journal articles, translated texts from a book project, hand written notes, event programs, pamphlets etc.).

In terms of the arrest, Cedar is facing conspiracy charges in relation to the so-called “Locke St. Riot”. We have no desire to engage with the politics of innocence. The concept of innocence and its flipside criminality obscure more than illuminate – no one is innocent and the most “criminal” amongst us run the economy and government. Beyond that, these notions perpetuate the logic of a colonial legal system rooted in white supremacy. That said, it is worth noting that conspiracy charges are notoriously dubious and flimsy, and have a legacy of being used as a tool of political persecution. They are an act of desperation intended to cast a wide net and scare people. Such charges are *not* a matter of engaging in a particular activity, but rather a matter of possibly encouraging a particular activity.

The Tower is an openly anarchist project that from its inception has promoted ideals of mutual aid and solidarity, equality, and community autonomy, as well as direct action, class war, and fighting back. Our politics have always included *both* gardens and riots. We want to see people building beautiful alternatives of liberation, just as much as we want to see people attacking structures of domination. Nothing about this is going to change, and despite recent challenges, our project will continue to push these ideas. We still have no tears for Locke St. and we remain unapologetically supportive of the activities that took place last month. It’s actions like these that can impel conversations that no one wants to have (in this case, intensifying gentrification throughout the city), and we see this as positive.

As things continue to unfold, it is important for people to remember that it is never okay to cooperate with the police – do not talk to them and do not share any information (however big or small) with them. This isn’t a question of agreeing or disagreeing with particular tactics, but of refusing to take actions that help facilitate state violence and repression. Aside from discussions about Locke St., local media has been dominated by stories of police corruption, misconduct, brutality, and most recently murder. Less than a week ago, the Hamilton police shot and killed Quinn MacDougall, an unarmed nineteen-year-old who had called 911 in distress looking for help. Cops are not and will never be our allies. We gain safety and strength by sticking together and staying silent.

CANCELLED: Anarcho-syndicalism and Intersectionality Forum

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Apr 072018
 

From the Anarcho-syndicalist Collective for Education and Diffusion (ASCED)

Following a low number of confirmation on Facebook events, the event of April 28th is cancelled. We’ll organize events in the future.

Saturday April 28th
12h30 to 16h30
Anarchist Library DIRA, 2035, Saint-Laurent bld. Montreal.

Is it possible to focus on the struggles of the working class on an anarchist anti-oppressive basis today?

How can we integrate the emancipation of oppressed groups in the struggles of the popular movements and more particularly in the anarcho-syndicalist struggles / groups?

Can we develop a revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist perspective in specific struggles?

**********************************************

Schedule

12h30
Opening of the doors

13h00
What is anarcho-syndicalism? (English)
Traduction chuchotée sur place

Presentation will be a video-conference. More information to come. Followed by a discussion and a pause.

14h15
Introduction à l’intersectionnalité (French)
by Irina Badita et Nicolas Johan Leport Letexier
(Whispered translation available)

This workshop will be in the first place the occasion to define and put into context the concept of intersectionality from an historical perspective and following a global context. We’ll think collectively about different forms of oppressions and privileges among society and also about ways and future orientations for an inclusive and intersectional activism. On the other hand, we’ll ask ourselves how to fught multiple oppressions, or at least to alleviate the weight on shoulders of those that are notwithstanding victims of racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination.

Followed by a discussion and a pause.

15h30
Discussion  » Anarcho-syndicalism and Intersectionality »
Commentaries and reflexions, debates on the reading notebook texts.

Click here to consult the short texts.

16h30
End

17h00
Closing of the DIRA

Facebook Event

Stories of Struggle: Riots and Eagles – My World Opened

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Apr 032018
 

The story below is the first of the Stories of Struggle series from MTL Counter-info. This series will give voice to experiences of anarchist struggle in the territory dominated by the Canadian State. We believe that the practice of story-telling is important, as it gives life to our collective memory and allows us an opportunity to learn from past experiences.
While Riots and Eagles is a tale of riotous joy, celebration, and magic, we hope to also create space for accounts of small everyday victories and failures, as well as the depths of isolation and despair that mark anarchist struggles. We want to transmit stories that will be shared around a campfire. The moments that inspired us, that made us feel more alive than ever, that challenged us to our core. There are innumerable moments that shape our history. Let us carry them forward through our fractured generations.

No Gods! No Masters!

Whether this most fundamental of classical anarchist slogans is simply a hollow iteration of Western enlightenment philosophies and scientific progress, or is instead a cry directed towards the destruction of all that binds us, in life and death, to the world of exploitation and domination, is really a matter of interpretation.

I was raised with the former firmly rooted in my consciousness. All that might have been wondrous and with endless meaning was imprisoned in a linear progressive ideology in which “mankind” was to triumph. My Marxist father, with his historical determinist faith, did not give me the tools to smash both god and master at once. Instead of the Christian God, rooted in authoritarian tradition, that my anarchist ancestors declared war against, it was the state, science (controlled experimentation), and an alienating submissiveness to expertise that was to shackle my imagination and agency.

I began to break with all this many years ago. And it is with full recognition that I sound far too similar to all the other white-boys who have found themselves in some exotic religion or culture, when I say that my break came as a result of struggling in close proximity to Indigenous people.

One of the first and most profound experiences I can remember that cracked my mind ajar came at a march for missing and murdered Indigenous women. This is an annual event with a great deal of pain, grief and warmth involved. This time, thousands of people had crowded around an intersection with drummers and singers in the centre. The crowds vary in size from year to year, the drummers, singers, burning sage and abalone shells are consistent, and it is common to see eagles circling above. The moment is always powerful. On this particular occasion, while I began with the usual feeling of intimate connection through pain and grief to those around me, I noticed the eagles circling above. This time there were more than I could count, circling upwards and downwards, far above the intersection. So far, that some seemed to be disappearing and reappearing.

At this moment, I felt profoundly foolish in the most liberating way. Would I fall back on the scientific rationalist religion in which I had been raised? The same world-view which drives the horrors that people were gathered here against? How could I explain away the presence of these eagles and the way my eyes observed them? Why would I deny the profound spiritual meaning of what was in front of me? Is there somehow, something more anti-authoritarian and rebellious in reducing all meaning to a one dimensional reason, or in reducing all the world to dead things in a mathematical equation?

This experience was a long time coming, and in a moment I felt something had changed in me.

Some time later, I was with some friends in a downtown financial district of a major capitalist metropolis. We were there because a global financial and government meeting was going to take place in the next few days. The police state was gathering and preparing, and so were we. We wanted to acquaint ourselves with the surroundings and streets, and one of my friends, at the request of one of their Indigenous comrades, had asked that we spread around some tobacco for the spirits while we went on our way. We took care to do so as we moved through the concrete commodity cathedral. For me this felt right. Although I’m not Indigenous myself and I didn’t have the cultural context for the specific meaning of this offering, it stuck with me as the following days passed.

A few days later, I found myself standing in an intersection with the largest black bloc I had ever been a part of. The mood was understandably foreboding and intense, the police mobilization that stretched for miles around seemed insurmountable, and in spite of all this there was a hint of celebration in the air.

Suddenly, we were charging in one direction, a cop car was swarmed and smashed with a pig still inside. A bit further down the street, with that boost of confidence behind us, a rock garden was discovered. A corporate news van took a couple rocks, a line of riot cops were backed up against a building by a few more and the rest were saved for later.

Aside from what the bloc discovered along its way, it seemed we were woefully ill prepared to confront the cops head-on. We used the best weapon we had: mobility. Even considering the usual advantage this would have given us, it really felt like we were stronger than ourselves, like there was an invisible force that gave us greater powers of evasion and intimidation. I thought back to the tobacco. I thought of the spirits.

We continued along a jubilant path of destruction, eventually finding ourselves stopped in another intersection surrounded by giant financial temples and surrounding a burning, recently abandoned cop car. I remember feeling nervous as it seemed like we were hanging around far too long and it seemed like cops were moving to block off all our exists in the distance.

We started moving again, running in the direction that a slight breeze was blowing the thick black smoke from the fire behind us, turning the overcast midday nearly into night. I screamed to build my courage towards the line of riot cops who were blocking our path ahead, “You’re gonna fuckin’ die today, pigs!” As we got within twenty or thirty metres of them they appeared to back away in fright, and we took a sharp left turn up another busy commercial street.

As our merry way of revenge continued, more stores and banks than I could have possibly counted were smashed, small groups of cops were sent running in the distance, and one of the main police stations was attacked. It was impossible to believe we had been able to carry on the way that we had without significant intervention. Again, I couldn’t help but think back to the tobacco, and think of the spirits.

We eventually vanished like spirits ourselves after about ninety minutes of mayhem in all, to the point that it had almost gotten boring. This was profoundly inexplicable to many and yet many different explanations followed.

The various enthusiasts for state control, from right-wingers to liberals, to social democrats and some communists, preferred the explanation that the black bloc themselves were a secret covert government operation and/or that the cops had intentionally let them go around and do what they wanted in order to justify the brutal repression and mass arrests of everyone from pacifists to random people who came to enjoy the chaos.

Some more vocal anarchists and other radicals preferred the cops’ explanation that there was a lack of communication, and confusion stemming from a centralized command that couldn’t adequately respond to such a dynamic situation.

Privately I had my own explanation.

All explanations help to prop up the explainers’ worldview. I no longer feel a great need for a rigid scientific explanation of all events. We can all agree these situations defy common sense as we know it. Meaning is powerful and my life is far richer now that I am more open in my interpretations of the world.

It has been years since the events described above, and they were profound events in my life. They provide two examples of how spirituality can enrich one’s experiences. Significantly, they also show that spiritual power is neither to be reserved for peaceful moments of grief, nor is it strictly to be weaponized in a warrior culture. However, both these examples are mass events in which my intimate relations with those around me are still limited. I may or may not have shared these experiences with anyone that I know very well. What I think is missing in these examples is the importance of smaller events: interactions with a raven, butterfly, or extreme weather, giving thanks to the ecosystems around me, privately or in small groups. I believe both mass cathartic events and everyday quiet events are vital to an enriched spiritual life.

Since those moments, my spiritual path has looked a lot more personal and based around small, quieter events and rituals. The way I offer what I can to these interactions is informed by much of what I’ve seen from Indigenous comrades, and from bits and pieces I have picked up from European pre-Christian practices.

Of course I cannot say that I am now completed or on some kind of true path. Let’s be real, I come from a culture of near complete alienation. The fact that I, like so many of the gross hipsters and new-age hippies we see around, need to be “awakened” to other ways of thinking about ourselves and surroundings, is because of this. This being said, I believe a struggle on these lands is necessarily going to have to confront Western perspectives of separation from and dominance over “nature” (the fact that I can even write the word “nature” as a separation from my own life is a result of western thinking).

And of course I would never dare to claim a specific Indigenous spirituality. This would be as absurd as claiming an Indigenous identity for myself. These spiritual practices and world-views come from living cultures and communities that are fighting to re-establish themselves. They come from a concrete social context that I have not been socialized into, and am simply not a part of.

Strangely I feel even more clumsy when I reach for European pagan traditions. The way I see them practiced and the teachings I attempt to understand from them, clearly are from a social context that has not existed for over a thousand years. I am also suspicious that much of the available information that we use to educate ourselves on these cultures is heavily tainted by the Western, Christian, and patriarchal thinking of the missionaries who wrote down the oral teachings of these cultures before they vanished.

Neither have I ever been satisfied with or receptive to the Western astrology that attracts so many of my (often urban) alienated fellow travelers who are open to spirituality.

And so, ironically, I continue to walk this lonely and alienating path. I yearn for the intergenerational group context and ritual that would make for a more complete and fulfilling spiritual world. I look towards our indigenous comrades who use a framework that focuses on seven generations. I think of one of my favorite quotes in At Daggers Drawn, that so many of my comrades seem to be influenced by:

“Life cannot simply be something to cling to. This thought skims through everyone at least once. We have a possibility that makes us freer than the gods: we can quit. This is an idea to be savoured to the end. Nothing and no one is obliging us to live. Not even death. For that reason our life is a tabula rasa, a slate on which nothing has been written, so contains all the words possible. With such freedom, we cannot live as slaves. Slavery is for those who are condemned to live, those constrained to eternity, not for us. For us there is the unknown—the unknown of spheres to be ventured into, unexplored thoughts, guarantees that explode, strangers to whom to offer a gift of life. The unknown of a world where one might finally be able to give away one’s excess self love. Risk too. The risk of brutality and fear. The risk of finally staring mal de vivre in the face. All this is encountered by anyone who decides to put an end to the job of existing.”

…and I wonder if these are all so mutually exclusive. If my life is a blank slate, then I must be free to break with the alienation I am expected to reproduce. To destroy that which I hate, and create a world absolutely other. And it is here that I direct my thoughts.

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