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

Greece: So What About Vaccinations?

 Comments Off on Greece: So What About Vaccinations?
Aug 062021
 

From Athens Indymedia

While the Greek state – like many other European states – is ramping up the pressure on its population to get the Covid19 vaccination, many seem to have ceded to this imposition of “making the responsible choice”. Let it be clear that we think individuals can have legitimate reasons to get the vaccination. We do not hold a moralistic judgment on getting vaccinated or not. But we keep on being reluctant. We think that the whole discourse about taking responsibility actually aims to give greater powers to the state by creating a dual society with privileges for those who comply and sanctions for those who don’t want to or cannot comply. This means a reinforcement of control and inequalities.

Believe the leaders

We don’t think we have to dwell on this very long. We have been forced to wear masks while walking alone in a park. We have been fined for being on the street at night while the metros were overcrowded during the day. We have been insulted for sitting on the squares while the indoors work places were running at full capacity. And we have seen them cynically calculating the costs of providing extra hospital beds against shutting down parts of the economy. We have seen them opting to hire more cops while the health of people was at stake. We have seen them trying to smother any form of protest while ramming through more exploitative and oppressive policies. They have lost all credibility and they know it, the only thing they can still do is twisting our arms and blackmailing us.

Believe the data

We are told that the data are clear, that getting the vaccination is the safe(r) choice. But even if we might accept that the existing data on vaccinations is correct, there is a whole lot of data we don’t have (yet). The first thing that springs to attention is that all the available vaccinations are temporarily approved through an emergency process. None of the Covid19 vaccinations are fully approved and they cannot be because we don’t have any data on the long-term effects. We can make assumptions based on other similar vaccinations in the past (although the vaccines based on the new mRNA technology don’t have such a history), but there are no guarantees about the long-term. Everyone taking the vaccination should be fully aware of this. And already because of this fact alone any obligation or pressure to take the vaccination should be ethically wrong.

The data we do have about the vaccines are mainly from trials in labs and controlled settings. These tests have to be set up in highly controlled conditions (even if they’re tested on people living their daily life) to make any meaningful conclusion about cause and effect. Of course, real life does have many complications, interferences, unforeseen events etc. Thus these data can only predict the behavior of vaccinations in a very limited way. Indeed, we have seen the recommendations on who not to give certain vaccinations to and the lists of possible side-effects being updated while the vaccinations are being administered in the real world and unforeseen problems start to occur. On this scale side-effects that only have an effect on a tiny percentage of vaccinated people can mean in reality a collateral damage consisting of thousands of people. Even at the best of times, modern medicine has far from an impeccable track record when it comes to respecting life in all of its diversity, nuances, complexities and totality. Make no mistake, this is an ongoing experiment on a massive scale.

Believe science

We are told to have confidence in science. But even when we only look at the scientific recommendations during this year-and-a-half of Covid19 pandemic, that statement is naive or dishonest. At the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, the wearing of masks was strongly advised against. The theory then was that the virus spreads by contact and thus disinfecting was the right answer (and there was a shortage of masks so they were reserved for hospital staff). Months later this opinion changed and the consensus now is that the virus spreads through the air and not contact. Suddenly masks became the answer to everything. Nevertheless, we also keep on disinfecting everything (instead of ventilating – this is called the sanitary theater, where the impression of safety matters most). This is an example that demonstrates that science can get it wrong and that broader society can take even a longer time to realize it was wrong.

Another example from the pandemic about how we should not just trust science is the fuzz around the lab-leak theory. Early on in the pandemic an article cosigned by many scientific specialists on the matter, declared the hypothesis that the Covid19 virus could be coming from a laboratory as total nonsense. At the time this article became the basis for mainstream media, social media, politicians and specialists to label any mention of the lab-leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. It took a whole year, at a time when this virus was nevertheless on the front-pages every day, before some scientists and journalists looked more critically at this article to conclude that the main piece of evidence was irrelevant and that some of the authors had a direct interest in keeping up the good name of (the methods of) the laboratory that would be the first suspect in the lab-leak hypothesis. Now it’s widely accepted that a lab-leak is possible and merits to be investigated (to be clear neither the lab-leak hypothesis nor the zoonotic hypothesis have been proved or refuted, they both are probable to a more or lesser degree). This is an example that shows that the scientific method isn’t as robust and foolproof in reality as it claims to be. Consensus that shifts due to non-scientific arguments (political opportunism, financial interests, etc.), a small circle of highly specialized scientists that don’t want or don’t have the time to control each other, etc. The philosophy and sociology of science have already demonstrated the gap between the ideology of science and its reality since the 2nd half of the 20th century (see for example Paul Feyerabend and Pierre Thuillier). Still people seem to hold on to a very naive conception of what scientists do.

Believe in group immunity

We are told to mobilize to reach group immunity and “be free” again from the virus. For this the aim of vaccinating 70% of the population is put forward. But actually this number dates from before the appearance of variants (like the Delta one) that are more infectious and against which the vaccinations are less effective. Let’s also keep in mind that the vaccines are designed to limit the severeness of the sickness, and the reduction of infections is only a side-effect (and most non-mRNA vaccines seem to be not very good at it). Given these new variants, many experts believe now that actually 80 to 90% of the population should be vaccinated to reach group immunity. This number would mean that – if we still consider it unethical to massively give minors a new and not fully understood vaccination and that some people can medically not get vaccinated, the whole rest of the population would need to get vaccinated. Any public policy that needs 100% compliance to succeed is doomed to fail.

Another factor is that immunity decreases over time. There’s already talk of booster shots after a 6 month or 9 month period (Would that be one time, or should it be repeated every half year, or every year? At this moment we don’t know), making the opportunity for failure even bigger.

Moreover, since this is a worldwide pandemic of a very transmittable virus it seems very unrealistic that a country or region could reach group immunity on its own. Big parts of the world have hardly enough supplies or the infrastructure to vaccinate a small part of the population, let alone the big majority of it. They also mainly rely on vaccines that are less effective at stopping infections. The chances of eradicating this virus are nonexistent. At this point it has reached its endemic phase, meaning that Covid19 will start to behave like other corona varieties with their seasonal epidemics. Group immunity is the latest carrot that is being dangled in front of our eyes, it will sooner or later be replaced with yet another one to make us believe that we can achieve “freedom” if only we follow.

Be responsible

The issue of group immunity (or at least vaccinating as many people as possible) points towards the question of who gets the vaccines. In many regions people that do run a risk of severe sickness from Covid19, don’t have access to health care and want to get vaccinated, are not getting any vaccination. While in Europe people that don’t even have a big risk of developing mild symptoms and have an infinitely small risk of severe illness have millions of vaccinations reserved for them. The hoarding of vaccines will increase again with the need for boosters. The fact that the WHO doesn’t want to recommend boosters now seems primarily inspired by these kind of worries. The responsible choice or the reproduction of global inequalities?

The building of group immunity and the “war against the invisible enemy” rhetoric goes in practice together with a strict control of access to the territory and an intensified population management. It seems like we have come to a situation where the so-called progressive side of society is now in favor of controls on movement and closed borders (of course, they will hardly notice it themselves since they possess the right documents to move “freely”). The responsible choice or an intensification of surveillance and exclusion?

If we have learned anything from the past decades – 9/11 and the threat of terrorism, the financial crash and the threat of bankruptcy, austerity and the threat of social cannibalism, refugee boats and the threat of racist pogroms, climate change and the threat of ecological disasters etc. – is that a position that doesn’t radically opposes the power of the state (no matter who controls it), will eventually only reinforce it and thus open up the way for the next cycle of crises provoked by the state and capitalism and their management by the state and capitalism.

Anarchists
Athens, Mid-July 2021

PDF

From Embers: A Year At 1492 Land Back Lane

 Comments Off on From Embers: A Year At 1492 Land Back Lane
Jul 272021
 

From From Embers

This episode features an interview with Skyler Williams of 1492 Land Back Lane, a land reclamation on the edge of the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve near Caledonia, Ontario. This week marks the one year anniversary of the camp which was reclaimed last July in response to plans to develop a subdivision on Six Nations Territory. Skyler speaks about a year spent at the camp, the recent announcement that the McKenzie Meadows subdivision has been cancelled by the developer because of Six Nations resistance, and what’s next for folks at Land Back Lane.

Music in this show is all from artists who have performed at Land Back Lane: Six Nations singer-songwriters Derek Miller and Logan Staats, as well as Ottawa-based “powwow-step” group The Halluci Nation, formerly known as A Tribe Called Red.

Announcing the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center

 Comments Off on Announcing the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center
Jul 222021
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Announcing the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center, an online hub for building a culture of resistance against surveillance.

Around the world, anarchists and other rebels are subject to surveillance due to our activities. Surveillance can be carried out by state institutions or other actors – for example, private investigators, fascists, mercenaries, and law-abiding citizens. Surveillance can be intended to disrupt our activities, make arrests, secure convictions or worse.

As technologies develop, some surveillance techniques stay the same, while others change to incorporate these emergent technologies. While cops still follow us in the streets and keep records about us in their archives, nowadays cameras are everywhere, drones fly overhead, and DNA forensics are sending many comrades to jail.

We felt there was a lack of collective tools to tackle these issues, so we created a website, the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center (CSRC). Our aim is to gather various resources in one place in order to help anarchists and other rebels fight the surveillance that is carried out against us. We want to encourage international collaboration, and we accept submissions in all languages.

How does one avoid leaving fingerprints and other traces during an action? How can we use computers and phones more safely? What should you do if you suspect that someone is an informant? How might one deal with the psychological consequences of clandestinity? How might one destroy cameras in the street? Is this thing you found on your car a GPS tracker? We want to answer these questions and more.

Feel free to send us submissions, translations or comments. Visit the website at: https://csrc.link

Dark Nights

 Comments Off on Dark Nights
Jun 202021
 

From Dark Nights

“In the Dark Nights there is always the warmth of the fire!”

‘Dark Nights’ because we found each other during these dark times, we do not fear them, instead we as anarchists see the moment between sunset and dawn as the moment to attack, to strike the powerful in their hearts, to make fear change sides.

We are an anarchic counter-info project of incendiary critique and direct action. Against the State, capitalism and the techno-industrial system that is rearing its head more powerful than before. Our network holds onto the principles of DIY, that we don’t expect anyone to fight the social war for us. Neither do we form any sense of a traditional hierarchical or even any organisation to adhere to or issue membership for anything, we met and act together, beginning an informal network, that goes beyond a circle of friends or contacts. Our outlet is a destructive alternative to the spectacle and disinformation that is the mainstream media that are the weapons of the state and capitalist system we oppose. We publish direct action reports from revolutionary/insurrectional/anarchist groups, not in the interest of reproducing endless streams of empty words and theory but to support said groups and to spread the ‘propaganda by the deed’, to avoid the blatant attempts by the system to eliminate them and any memory of anarchist and revolutionary struggle.

Solidarity for us is not based on ideological dogma, what matters more to us is the direct attack upon what we perceive as the enemy. We DO NOT support the cops, they are not our friends, neither our protectors, they are our enemy as much as anyone who snitches, provides information on comrades, allies or co-defendants.

We support but are NOT connected to any direct action group that you see a report of from this project. We laugh at the label of ‘terrorists’, a word that is used to often denounce individuals and groups who attack capitalism, the state, for the earth, animal and human liberation. If anything is terrorism it is the death, destruction, torture and genocide that the state, capitalist, industrial-technological system inflicts, along with other fascist elements, upon the whole earth and its inhabitants for centuries. Dark Nights supports the polymorphous revolutionary struggle, against all forms of exploitation and authority.

Dark Nights DOES NOT follow the dictum of guilt or innocence, or the concept of ‘crime’ in terms of their support for prisoners. The only exception is when a prisoner clearly assumes responsibility for an action or attack. We support prisoners based more upon being charged and/or accused of anarchist, revolutionary, earth or animal liberation action, rather than false or true and accused of being part of some underground movement or activity.

We encourage any communication from like-minded individuals and groups who are similarly for direct action, insurrection, revolution and building an international informal network for counter-information. More than ever it is important to spread coordination on an international level against the accelerating advance of the technological-industrial-military complex, that is inflicting repression not only against those who fight but also those who support such actions. In the past, the state and the capitalists attacked papers, journals and publications produced by anarchists and revolutionaries. Just as then, as now in the present, they will fail, history has shown this.

A critical junction is before us, with the rise of smarter-than-human intelligence which will govern society and the state. From Artificial Intelligence to Facial Recognition, 3D Printing to Cashless Society, Biotechnology to Nanotechnology, Drones to Automated Vehicles, 4th to the 5th Industrial Revolution, Artificial Reproduction to Trans humanism, 5G to Internet of Things, Smart Phones to Smart Cities, Augmented Reality to Artificial Reality, even the Technological Singularity where we as humans are even threatened, along with the dying planet. By the time it is widely accepted that technology has entered every cell and atom, it will already be too late to resist.

Unless, we act now, map out the new and old elites, as the shift begins even off-world. The Black Flag of Anarchy must return and strike fear into the elites once again.

Send us information about prisoners, direct action communiques, solidarity events, new occupations, publications, proposals from around the world. use Tor Browser (IP Shielding) &; GPG (Encrypted email). Also, check out this guide to computer security and this text. Our public pgp key is here if you wish to contact us with encrypted email.

darknights(at)riseup.net

For the struggle against all forms of domination and the Technological Prison Society! For a new Black International!

– Dark Nights Collective

Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners, Free Them All!

 Comments Off on Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners, Free Them All!
Jun 192021
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

In the summer of 2020, three high schoolers – Bogdan Andreev, Denis Mikhaylenko, and Nikita Uvarov, all 14 years old – were arrested in the city of Kansk in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, within the claimed borders of the Russian state. The three boys are accused of forming a terrorist organization, and plotting, among other things, to construct a model of the Russian secret police (FSB) headquarters in the game MineCraft then blow it up. More credibly, they are accused of demonstrating solidarity with Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student in mathematics in Moscow and an anarchist, presently aged 28. Miftakhov was initially accused of constructing a smoke bomb that had been thrown into an office of the ruling political party over a year before. He has more recently been sentenced to six years in a “penal colony”. Andreev, Mikhaylenko, and Uvarov are all awaiting trial.

On June 13, we held up a banner that says “Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners, Free Them All” outside the Russian consulate in Montréal, located at 3655 avenue du Musée. We did this in part to mark the occasion of the day in solidarity with Marius Mason and all long-term anarchist prisoners on June 11, but also to signal our desire to keep in mind the situation in Russia, where even very young people face the risk of entering the prison system and, perhaps as a result, never leaving again.

Our thoughts go out to all our comrades inside, anarchist or not.

Fire to the prisons!

From MTL to Sask: Long Live Cory Cardinal!

 Comments Off on From MTL to Sask: Long Live Cory Cardinal!
Jun 162021
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

We were shocked and saddened to learn of Cory Cardinal’s death from a suspected overdose this week, so we headed out late on the night of June 12th to paint the walls of our neighbourhood in his memory.

Cory was a poet, writer, artist, and prison organizer from Sturgeon Lake First Nation. We came to know of him and his work during the Saskatchewan prison hunger strikes in the earlier days of the pandemic, when he acted as an organizer and did media work from inside while participating.

Cory understood and articulated the connections between the systems of prison and colonialism and he fought, inside and out, to bring them both down.

In Cory’s words:

“It is true we have been targeted as Aboriginal men by a racist system. Despite this epidemic of incarceration, our resilient community of modern Aboriginal warriors has survived by will and creative ambition to prevail over many an enemy of poverty, addiction, and racism to find community and belonging and acceptance in this mainstream model of humanity. It is not by our own standards, for we are an oppressed people.”

Our thoughts, solidarity, and love are with his family, friends, and comrades.

We’ll continue to direct our rage towards prisons, colonialism, and this world that criminalizes and kills people who use drugs.

Carry Naloxone!

#FreeThemAll
#SafeSupply

Long Live Cory!

– a couple white anarchists in Montréal

Noise, Flags, and Fists: Reflections on a Weekend in Downtown Montréal

 Comments Off on Noise, Flags, and Fists: Reflections on a Weekend in Downtown Montréal
May 222021
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Since May 6 of this year, apparently first with respect to the Sheikh Jarrah property dispute, there has been an intercommunal conflict between neighbours in ethnically mixed urban parts of occupied Palestine, from Jerusalem to Jaffa and beyond. Consequently, there has been an uneven exchange of bombs and rockets between the Israeli state and Hamas, the latter being the state authority in the small territory of Gaza. Where things will go in Palestine, I cannot say. I don’t pretend to have more than a Wikipedia-level understanding of the situation. I do not speak the relevant languages and am not trying to follow the news too closely anyway.

My reflections concern the situation in Montréal, home to sizeable populations of both Muslims and Jews, many of whom, respectively – and I understand that this is quite reductive – bolster the ranks of local social movements in support of both the Palestinian side and the Zionist/Israeli side of the conflict. This past weekend, a part of both movements took the streets of downtown Montréal in response to the most recent events overseas.

On Saturday, May 15, tens of thousands (at a minimum) of people came out in support of the Palestinian side; they demonstrated both at Westmount Square, an office tower complex that is home to the Israeli consulate, and in Dorchester Square, more or less in the central part of downtown. The entire zone in between those two locations was, for hours, convulsed with people waving the Palestinian flag, shouting slogans, and honking horns. It must have certainly been one of the largest demonstrations that has taken place in Montréal in the last year. There was little violence or vandalism, although a window was broken at Westmount Square and some people climbed scaffolding on a building adjoining Dorchester Square. All of this was preceded by a motorcade that started on the other side of town. Some anarchists and “radical leftists” without close family ties to any sort of Muslim community were present, but seemingly not many, in comparison to the rest of the crowd.

On Sunday, May 16, the pro-Israeli side had its own rally – that is, a static event – in Dorchester Square, which was opposed by a roughly equivalent number of people in a pro-Palestinian crowd that gathered initially in Place du Canada, directly to the south of Dorchester Square. From my own observations, I think it is fair to say that some people on the pro-Palestine side were deliberately provocative with respect to the pro-Israeli crowd, doing their best to get close to them and wave flags and stuff of that nature. The police attempted to keep both sides from coming into conflict with one another, but the logistics of their operation degraded over time, and there were several moments when members of both crowds were able to get close enough to each other to throw fists, try to steal each other’s flags, etc. Although the absolute number of people was much smaller than the day before, the area of downtown around Dorchester Square at least (and particularly on the nearby section of rue Sainte-Catherine, a major commercial artery that always has a lot of foot traffic) was gummed up with the movements of pro-Palestinian demonstrators trying to get to Dorchester Square or Place du Canada, then with members of the pro-Israeli crowd trying to leave the area, and certainly with police. Tear gas was deployed quite indiscriminately, affecting numerous bystanders and passers-by that had nothing to do with the unfolding skirmishes and attempts to fight each other. Pro-Palestinian groups remained in the vicinity for many hours after the pro-Israeli side had dispersed completely, defying the police, getting chased, and getting shot at with “less-than-lethal” munitions.

This weekend was preceded by numerous, significantly smaller pro-Palestine protests in the broad area of Montréal’s western downtown, which were less openly defiant of the police, but still loud and visible. It is my tentative prediction that more demonstrations will happen locally in the coming days. [Update: Between when I started writing this text, and when I submitted for publication on anarchist websites, another rally at the Israeli consulate came and went.]

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
Images resonate. Words inspire. People in the stadium love it when the audience roars in their favour. I think it might work the same way, at least a little bit, with struggle. But I don’t know for sure.

I do know that the violence that happened in Montréal on Saturday and Sunday – whether interpersonal or simply defenestrative, whether against the police or between partisans of competing nationalisms – did not materially help out anyone, from either national camp, in Palestine. It is perfectly unclear, to me, how many people in Palestine heard about what happened in Montréal at all. There have been demonstrations in cities all around the world, but I presume they are, in any case, paying more attention to local news.

Anarchists in Montréal have occasionally demonstrated at the consulate of a foreign government in Montréal. We have done other things too. The Russian consulate, specifically, was attacked at least twice in the last decade.

Most of the time, though, demonstrations of solidarity with people involved in some sort of overseas political issue has been by communities of people who have family in those places. They happen all the time, although few Montréalers will ever hear about them. They don’t tend to be very large, most of the time, and it is unlikely that they will be reported upon in the news. You have to be in the right place at the right time to see a banner, a sombre speech (perhaps in a language other than English or French), and usually about 60 people tops. Even when they are bigger, they rarely become riotous (and it is worth noting that, despite isolated moments of rowdy energy, the Saturday demonstration was overwhelmingly nonviolent).

The problem with campaigns of international solidarity is that, pretty frequently, they distract attention from projects that are more locally pertinent. I feel like I can get myself into trouble here, so let me be clear: I don’t think they are without value. But I do think, quite categorically, that it is generally disadvantageous when people know more about the latest events happening in a place far away than they do about the events that are happening in their own city. When they have a narratively simple understanding of events and the lead-up to those events in societies on the other side of the world, but they don’t understand, or at least fail to recognize, the tensions and dynamics that are manifest in their own social context.

International solidarity may sometimes be for the people far away, but it also needs to be for the people who are doing it. For anarchists, it is imperative that these campaigns of struggle feed into strategies that are about making anarchy – or other projects that align with what anarchists want – happen locally, whatever that might concretely mean.

MONTRÉAL RIOTS
The above header is a verb. Montréal riots, and does so with some regularity. In the present context, after more than a year of the pandemic and several months of curfew imposed by a government sitting in Québec City and elected by the suburbs, that current is bubbling up again. If it wasn’t this issue, it would be something else.

There are a lot of sweeping claims to make about demographics, which I’ll just get out of the way now. First of all, it is usually young men who riot, and while this need not be inevitable, it is what seems to happen, insofar as I have been able to infer the gender identities of people I’ve seen smashing windows, looting stores, throwing things at police, or trying to get closer to pro-Israelis rallies in the last year. Second of all, it seems that racialized people are as likely if not more likely than white people to riot.

Really, I am bringing up demography to dismiss it as a concern. If people riot, as they did on the evening of April 11 in the context of the curfew’s intensification, then certain progressive journalists and commentators will label the participants “white” as a matter of course – which is exactly what happened. And, for the people who have deemed anarchist scenes themselves to be hopelessly problematic, including those who remain adjacent to those scenes, they are going to see some big problems with any engagement I might offer – as well as any failure to engage on my part – with respect to the fact that, broadly speaking, the participants in a given riot might be markedly browner, poorer, or more marginalized than the people who populate anarchist scenes.

To the extent that this becomes a distraction from, or an argument against, contributing to a youth-led social rupture, I think it’s a serious problem.

In Montréal, everyone riots. Not everyone everyone, but a lot of people, across many demographics. And people here have been rioting for a very long time. This city has an esteemed history of fucking shit up that goes back deep into the early decades of the 19th century. This continues through all sorts of political cycles and social crises, at times when white people of various kinds comprised the near totality of Montréal’s urban population, and certainly a much greater proportion of the population than is the case today. This is something that every Montréaler who hates the police and loves the culture of the streets can and should take pride in. This is not to say that every riot has been pure or perfect, but that there is more to celebrate in all of these histories than there is to condemn. Riots, after all, work. To the extent that we enjoy living in welfare capitalism versus, like, whatever they have in Texas, it is in part thanks to riots, and I think a little more sustained rioting now could get us a lot more stuff further down the line.

Being who we are, we don’t necessarily need to form a “contingent” within someone else’s demo. With respect to the most confrontational and defiant elements in the pro-Palestine street movement right now, we are talking about crews that most of us don’t have connections with, that we may not know how to talk to, where a relationship of trust doesn’t yet exist between us, and which are in any case entirely capable of doing things on their own. Our goal, instead, should be to expand the scope of the disruption to downtown commerce and police logistics, at the same time but not in precisely the same place as other events. We should want to be our own pole, which can attract different participants than those who would already come out to pro-Palestine stuff, and which can also preoccupy the strategic imperative of the police, which is to be everywhere at once. The job of the police is always impossible, but by being present, we can make that impossibility show itself faster.

There were glimpses of a total breakdown of police logistics and police strategy on Sunday, in the context of operations to stop just two relatively small cohorts of people from fighting one another. Every little bit of extra chaos counts.

A SUGGESTION: À BAS LA FRANCE
Apart from Jews and Muslims, Montréal is also home to a sizeable population of French people – that is, not francophones, but people born and/or raised in France, or who at least have close family ties to people living in France. Many anarchists I have known who lived in Montréal were themselves French. Additionally, lots of other Montréal anarchists, who are not exactly “French” themselves, have spent a lot of time in France, have close friends there, opinions about political issues that are local to France, etc. Although France is far away, it is emotionally close to many of us (but certainly not all of us).

France has banned demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause, citing the disturbances that happened in 2014, during the last big crisis.

What is happening in France is worrying. Already in 2016, in response to the jihadists’ massacres the year before (Charlie Hebdo, Hypercasher, the Bataclan, the Stade de France), the French state embarked on a path that included the banning of demonstrations, emergency laws, and the expansion of police powers. In the last month, it was made illegal to film the police. Of course, in our territory, French models of governance are much-admired; policies devised there will get imported here. We can see this, too, in the orientation of the government in Québec City’s efforts to suppress all things labelled radical and all things labelled Islamic – two categories which, very often, get conflated.

Between trying to beat up nationalist clowns wearing Israeli flag capes, and kicking in the window at Westmount Square, I personally thought the latter was the more respectable action; I know that many of the clowns were spoiling for a fight, too, but I don’t love angry interpersonal violence. The French consulate is in a building facing avenue McGill College, a few short blocks away from Dorchester Square. Maybe it would make sense for anarchists, and all other opponents of colonialism and capitalism writ large, to call our own demonstration at that location if it ever looks like pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian crowds are about to throw down again downtown. Or hell, somewhere else? But everyone loves a theme!

Really, though: whatever excuse it takes to get us downtown so that we contribute to the disruption and create a larger space of destruction, possibility, and encounter of the kind that is only possible when there is a complete breakdown of the logistical machine that is the police.

THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT
Teenagers have analyses, but they might not be very good. Most of them don’t know what anarchism is, what nationalism is. They might know the words, but that doesn’t count for much. Most of them don’t have a clear or cogent idea about Jews or Palestinians or Zionists or terrorists or whatever. And it’s not like teenagers are necessarily doing the things they are doing entirely because of their political ideas, either.

All of this is true of most adults, too, but teenagers usually have better excuses for why they don’t know about any of these things than adults do, and it’s usually worth trying to explain these things to them, because they probably aren’t lost causes yet. But not by seeking them out to tell them these things. That’s never gonna work.

You cannot have conversations with people about ideas until it is clear that you even want to talk to each other. That is true for both parties. But it is impossible to know whether you want to talk to each other – really talk, with all the risk of misunderstanding and insult that exists in any conversation with stakes – until there is a good reason for you to talk.

If people see each other in the streets, consistently, they will probably start to talk at some point. Particularly if people in both groups seem to sort of be doing the same weird thing as one another, in a way that is complementary. Maybe cool things come out of that, or maybe they don’t. I feel like it would be a good thing, though, if some kid whose family talks a lot of shit about Jews was able to find out that there are Jews who are anarchists, who hate the police, who incidentally don’t much like Israel, who have style and/or know how to throw down.

The point is not to go into the streets to “make anarchists” but, instead, to make anarchy. Most anarchists, after all, eventually become social-democrats. Most of the people in any crowd of angry, activated youth are unlikely to find that anarchism, in whatever subcultural form it may take, is able to speak to them or their particular concerns. So be it. It’s after anarchy triumphs in some way, perhaps in part because the partisans of anarchy were in the streets as well, that some people will start to pay attention. Some people will like what they see, and may try to find us. It’s not worth thinking about much, though. All of that is outside of what we can plan for.

What we can do is recognize where new energy is, how and where why it is bubbling up, and we can also think about where we want to place ourselves in relation to it. What are we trying to do? How are we trying to help? What does it mean for us when police logistics are tied up downtown?

ANARCHY, NOT THE RIOT
If events must take the form of running battles with the police in the downtown core, then anarchists have something to contribute to that situation. But we can do other things, too. The point is not to fetishize the riot or the people who are doing the most to actualize the riot in the present moment. The point is that the path to where we are trying to go, where the police are gone, passes through rioting. C’est pas les pacifistes qui vont changer l’histoire.

The point is that we do things, that we don’t sit out insurrectional moments, and that we keep our principal focus on what is happening in our own region. The terrain is shifting, and it’s hard to keep track, but we need to do our best.

AGAINST THE CURFEW.
AGAINST THE BOMBING.
AGAINST EVICTIONS HERE AND EVERYWHERE.
FOR A WORLD WITHOUT POLICE.
LET BLACK FLAGS FLY HIGH.

Zine: Dark Nights #50

 Comments Off on Zine: Dark Nights #50
May 112021
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Black and white PDF for reading (not imposed)

International zine of social war continuing the conflict against the rising techno-prison world. Now expanded to 24 pages after the recent repression against our project by the Counter-Terrorist cops. One more blow in the face of their blatant attempt to silence us. Articles expanding on the critique against technology and Covid-19 repression, as well as Alfredo Cospito’s recent contribution about the “Proposal For a New Anarchist Manifesto” and an Introduction from Gustavo Rodriquez’s ‘Covid-19: Anarchy in the times of the pandemic.” Print it out, for your local squat, social centre, mate’s house or give it out at a demo, even leave it in a random place. Lets ignite the next wave of the Black International!

  1. Bristol: Burn Baby Burn!
  2. Communique from 325 Collective on the Repressive Attack upon International Counter-Information
  3. Greece: Attacks in Response to Dimitris Koufontinas’ Hunger Strike & Covid Repression
  4. Neurocapitalism: ‘Ghost In The Shell’ Comes One Step Closer
  5. Chile: Second Public Communiqué on the 32nd day of the Hunger Strike
  6. COVID-19: Anarchy in Times of Pandemic – Gustavo Rodriguez
  7. A Contribution About the “Proposal For a New Anarchist Manifesto” – Alfredo Cospito
  8. A letter from Danilo, accused of setting fire to a police van in Barcelona
  9. An Incomplete Chronology of Direct Actions from around Planet Earth
  10. After Lockdown, Let’s Look At The Situation We’re Finding Around Us
  11. Earth’s Lament – Everyday Revolution

Download, copy and distribute! DIY!

NOTHING IS OVER! THE CONFLICT CONTINUES!

Anti-Copyright Network

Communique from 325 Collective on the Repressive Attack upon International Counter-Information

 Comments Off on Communique from 325 Collective on the Repressive Attack upon International Counter-Information
May 112021
 

From the 325 Collective

On 29.03.21 the Dutch police raided the data center that holds the nostate.net server, seizing the server itself as the part of a criminal investigation into ‘terrorism’. Nostate.net is a collective that provided a platform for international movement websites from prisoner solidarity groups, multiple campaign collectives, anti-summit pages and international counter-information. Significant sites that used nostate.net as a platform that have been targeted by this repressive attack by the Dutch police are Anarchist Black Cross Berlin, Montreal Counter-Info, Northshore Counter-Info, Act For Freedom Now! (now re-activated on noblogs.org https://actforfree.noblogs.org/) and 325.

We as a collective are aware that this was not just an attack by the Dutch police, but was done in coordination with the Counter Terrorism Unit of the United Kingdom in connection with their recent repressive attacks upon the anarchist circles in this country. Not only have they been threatening ourselves, but recently threatened nostate.net unless they shut down our site. Along with this they demanded information be given to them of the identity of anyone involved in 325. The extent that the authorities will go to attack us and anyone they suspect of aiding us is of no surprise to us, the examples through history of state forces repressing anyone who dares to stand and fight them are numerous.

This repressive attack should be seen as an attack upon all counter-information, on anarchist circles internationally. Under the present ongoing environment of Covid-19 and the repressive actions of states around the world, it is no surprise to us that they co-operate together on an international level, the recent repression against anarchist comrade Gabriel Pomba da Silva, with co-operation between Spanish, Italian and Portuguese states, is a more than obvious recent example. Our minds also cast back to the repression of Indymedia in Germany and Greece, also not so long ago the imprisonment of comrades involved in Culmine, ParoleArmata and Croce Nera Anarchica in Italy. Through time the anarchist movement internationally has had its modes of communicating to the people attacked with countless anarchist publications having their premises raided, comrades arrested and even publications being censored such as in the not too distant past with Alfredo M Bonnano’s ‘Armed Joy‘ in Italy, also Conspiracy of Cells of Fire’s ‘The Sun Still Rises‘ in Greece.

It is also no coincidence that this repressive attack occurs now after our recent publication of ‘325 #12 – Against the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions‘. This publication that we feel hits to the core of what the states and capitalism are pushing forward, before and even more so now, under the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic is a direct threat to their plans of subjugation, of robotosizing and automizing everything. Their attack has momentarily affected our distribution of the publication both online and physically, but it has inevitably failed. The technocrats that want to shape our world into one heaving technological militarized prison society are being exposed, not only by ourselves but by the already growing attacks internationally upon their infrastructure. This is what they fear, that this can grow and this is why they have come after us. From what we know the police who are trying to hunt us down, they are relying upon tactics from their old book of tricks, attempting to get others to snitch and repressing counter-information. Ever since their ‘Operation Rhone’ aimed at attacking the anarchist circles in Bristol, they had only caught one person involved in an attack, but not anyone involved in the Informal Anarchist Federation or the other countless anarchist attacks. Clearly they have not repressed any fire of rebellion as the riot, attack on the police station and burning of cop cars last month shows.

It has been silent for too long on this island of conformity, while the world outside has started to burn again, from Greece to Chile to France to Germany to Belgium to the Netherlands to Italy to Spain to the USA to Indonesia to Hong Kong to China and Tunisia, the embers are still warm. More than ever there is an absolute need for co-ordination internationally between comrades, to attack directly this stinking corpse that attempts resurrect itself, to further imprison us. Counter-information is an integral part of this international co-ordination, to allow those who want to act for freedom in this world to see the signals of complicity in every language possible, to speak the one language of insurrection and anarchy. There must be a re-energisation of the international counter-information network, to once again become a threat internationally, after the repressive reaction that seeks to isolate anarchists from each other, not just around the world but even locally. We the 325 Collective continue to move upon this path we have already trodden, even now we continue with our publication projects including a new re-print of ‘325 #12‘, a new expanded issue of ‘Dark Nights‘ and further projects for the future internationally. They will not silence or stop us and we will have our revenge!

About the website, we do not know yet whether it will return, it is very clear to us that if it is resurrected as ‘325’ anywhere else online, that the authorities will immediately target it once again. This also means that we could put at risk any provider in the future, as well as put other counter-information and movement projects at risk of being shut down as happened with the recent repressive attack. Who knows where all this will take us? What we do know is that we are far from backing down, not one step back, in the face of the enemy. Maybe it might be best to revert to the traditional printed word, to see peoples faces again, to speak words, to conspire once again. We will not say never to the site returning, neither to it re-manifesting itself as a new project, only time will tell.

For now, our absolute solidarity with the comrades of nostate.net & Act For Freedom Now! Along with all the other counter-info projects affected.

NOTHING IS OVER, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!

325 Collective

Solidarity Statement Against the Attack and Repression of International Counter-information

 Comments Off on Solidarity Statement Against the Attack and Repression of International Counter-information
May 092021
 

From the Indonesian Black Cross (WA)

The same thing has also happened in Indonesia, the silencing and repressiveness of the counter-information media has been increasingly encouraged by the Indonesian Police, with initiatives such as the creation of a “cyber police” or social media police, with one of their aims being to isolate the spread of information not only from anarchist networks but also from other political dissidents and those who have the courage to criticize the state.

The Indonesian Police from 2014 to 2019 have disbursed funds of ± 900 billion rupiah, which are used as funds for buzzers to curb the spread and growth of counter-information media. In 2018 the Indonesian Police began to re-focus on the anarchist movement in Indonesia. Also, national police recently made a statement about banning media from covering police violence. However, we are sure that both individuals and groups who are focusing on counter-information and grassroots reports will continue to exist and grow. Given the severity of this situation in which all the tools of the State and Capitalism try to carry out silencing and repressiveness either online or physically, this is not the time to be silent and surrender ourselves to fear.

Amid the continuing increase in Covid-19 cases on an international scale, governments in various countries are using it to make policies that not only choke our economic capacity, but also our most basic freedoms.

We believe nothing is completely safe and free from risks, especially when running counter-information sites online. And this is actually the fundamental reason why we must respond to this increasingly suffocating situation.

We are calling for international solidarity (by whatever means possible) for nostate, 325, Anarchist Black Cross Berlin, Montreal Counter-Info, Northshore Counter-Info, Act For Freedom Now! and other counter info sites. Solidarity for every anarchist prisoner in all corners of the world (Toby Shone, Monica, Fransico etc), the anti-eviction movements in Bara-Baraya, Pancoran, Pakel, and all forms of struggle for liberation and independence.

It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime, what better place than here? What better time than now?” -RATM

Anarchist Black Cross (WA) – Indonesia (PALANG HITAM ANARKIS)