faith, difference, and memory
Apr. 3rd, 2005 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby"The long memory is the most radical idea in America." -- Utah Phillips
As promised, my impressions of Ultra-Red: Articles of Incorporation.
I'm ashamed to say that I knew nothing about Ultra-Red going into the conference. That's not entirely surprising, since the work they do (what would you call it...political sound installations?) is not really my scene. They've been around for ten years and I'd never heard of them, or of Art Metropol, where the conference took place.
And while I am an artist of sorts (I draw no distinction, ideologically, between graphic design and fine art), I don't really identify as an artist. Or as an artist-activist, even though much of my work is political. I did study art history (I was even going to do my Master's in it before I decided that I was more at home in publishing than in academentia), but I don't speak contemporary/conceptual artspeak. None of that really mattered, though, because ultimately, the conference was about reflection on modes of activism and organization, with the fact that most participants were artists of some sort put on the back-burner.
And hoo-boy, do we as activists need to talk about organizing more. Damn. As I've alluded to in previous entries, I've been involved in a spot of sectarianism as of late, and been witness to what happens when a good organization with (mostly) good people, all of whom share similar political ideals, falls victim to bad organizational methods. The conference was about that sort of thing as much as it was about the issues themselves.
S. tells a good story about her time in the village of Az Zawiya, Palestine, where the Wall is under construction. The villagers planned a non-violent action against the Wall -- present at their organization meeting were a number of Israeli peace activists, internationals, members of Fateh, members of PFLP-esque groups, and members of Hamas. These are not people who normally have a lot in common. But it seems that when the situation is dire enough, even major differences can be overcome. Contrast that to here, where the slightest disagreement tends to lead to bitter arguments that detract from any significant sort of activism (at best) and deep rifts and purges that last for decades (at worst). We have a luxury here to talk about how and why we organize, just as we have the luxury of not being political. But with that does come the need for moments of indulgence (in this case, with free food!) to talk about not only what we do, but how we do it.
Articles of Incorporation involved a very odd selection of people. Besides the Ultra-Red representatives (Dont, from ACT-UP and Leonardo, who works with Latin American refugees in LA), there were prison activists, refugee rights groups, artist cooperatives, unions, housing groups, and community-based groups. It was structured around the themes of faith, difference, and memory, with panelists responding to various questions that got sent around over e-mail. The first panelist was so abstract that I had no idea what he was talking about -- he was followed by a woman from No One Is Illegal, who jarred us all with the story of a non-status woman beaten black-and-blue by her partner, and how instead of charging the man, the cops informed Immigration Canada and had her sent to a maximum-security prison (and probably eventually deported). The whole conference was like that -- a mix of fluff and talking about our feelings and hard, tough doses of reality.
I've been having a minor crisis of faith when it comes to my ability to be an activist in the First World, particularly in the last few months. The conference helped -- not by answering the questions, but by clarifying them. So here are some things that came up that resonated with me. Your homework? Talk about them in the comments. (Or rant about them in your own journals and comment with a link.)
Or post a picture of a kitten or something. D. says my LJ has been boring lately, so your alternative assignment is to amuse the boy.
Questions, questions, questions...
1. How we deal with personal problems in our organizations and collectives.
Scenario: A man allegedly sexually assaults a woman within the context of an activist group. What are the responsibilities of other group members? How should he be dealt with? How should activist justice differ from the "justice" of the legal system?
2. Michael Morris, a member of an artist collective in Vancouver, said, "The artist is the curator of the imagination." Is there a role within political art for the "artist as unique and beautiful snowflake?" or is the entire conception of individual genius and inspiration a fallacy? How does collective and cultural memory affect the artist's work?
3. What's the difference between an (ideological) activist and a (community) organizer? How does being political out of necessity (self-organized communities of marginalized people) differ from coming from a position of privilege where one chooses to be political?
4. Why do you do what you do -- what in your personal history made you a "radical"?
5. Discuss: There is no "after the Revolution." What if this is the Revolution?
As you can tell, I'm still processing a lot of what I heard and discussed. Hours and hours of hashing things out and sitting on uncomfortable chairs whilst rather hungover and tired does not make for coherent writing. My apologies.
As promised, my impressions of Ultra-Red: Articles of Incorporation.
I'm ashamed to say that I knew nothing about Ultra-Red going into the conference. That's not entirely surprising, since the work they do (what would you call it...political sound installations?) is not really my scene. They've been around for ten years and I'd never heard of them, or of Art Metropol, where the conference took place.
And while I am an artist of sorts (I draw no distinction, ideologically, between graphic design and fine art), I don't really identify as an artist. Or as an artist-activist, even though much of my work is political. I did study art history (I was even going to do my Master's in it before I decided that I was more at home in publishing than in academentia), but I don't speak contemporary/conceptual artspeak. None of that really mattered, though, because ultimately, the conference was about reflection on modes of activism and organization, with the fact that most participants were artists of some sort put on the back-burner.
And hoo-boy, do we as activists need to talk about organizing more. Damn. As I've alluded to in previous entries, I've been involved in a spot of sectarianism as of late, and been witness to what happens when a good organization with (mostly) good people, all of whom share similar political ideals, falls victim to bad organizational methods. The conference was about that sort of thing as much as it was about the issues themselves.
S. tells a good story about her time in the village of Az Zawiya, Palestine, where the Wall is under construction. The villagers planned a non-violent action against the Wall -- present at their organization meeting were a number of Israeli peace activists, internationals, members of Fateh, members of PFLP-esque groups, and members of Hamas. These are not people who normally have a lot in common. But it seems that when the situation is dire enough, even major differences can be overcome. Contrast that to here, where the slightest disagreement tends to lead to bitter arguments that detract from any significant sort of activism (at best) and deep rifts and purges that last for decades (at worst). We have a luxury here to talk about how and why we organize, just as we have the luxury of not being political. But with that does come the need for moments of indulgence (in this case, with free food!) to talk about not only what we do, but how we do it.
Articles of Incorporation involved a very odd selection of people. Besides the Ultra-Red representatives (Dont, from ACT-UP and Leonardo, who works with Latin American refugees in LA), there were prison activists, refugee rights groups, artist cooperatives, unions, housing groups, and community-based groups. It was structured around the themes of faith, difference, and memory, with panelists responding to various questions that got sent around over e-mail. The first panelist was so abstract that I had no idea what he was talking about -- he was followed by a woman from No One Is Illegal, who jarred us all with the story of a non-status woman beaten black-and-blue by her partner, and how instead of charging the man, the cops informed Immigration Canada and had her sent to a maximum-security prison (and probably eventually deported). The whole conference was like that -- a mix of fluff and talking about our feelings and hard, tough doses of reality.
I've been having a minor crisis of faith when it comes to my ability to be an activist in the First World, particularly in the last few months. The conference helped -- not by answering the questions, but by clarifying them. So here are some things that came up that resonated with me. Your homework? Talk about them in the comments. (Or rant about them in your own journals and comment with a link.)
Or post a picture of a kitten or something. D. says my LJ has been boring lately, so your alternative assignment is to amuse the boy.
Questions, questions, questions...
1. How we deal with personal problems in our organizations and collectives.
Scenario: A man allegedly sexually assaults a woman within the context of an activist group. What are the responsibilities of other group members? How should he be dealt with? How should activist justice differ from the "justice" of the legal system?
2. Michael Morris, a member of an artist collective in Vancouver, said, "The artist is the curator of the imagination." Is there a role within political art for the "artist as unique and beautiful snowflake?" or is the entire conception of individual genius and inspiration a fallacy? How does collective and cultural memory affect the artist's work?
3. What's the difference between an (ideological) activist and a (community) organizer? How does being political out of necessity (self-organized communities of marginalized people) differ from coming from a position of privilege where one chooses to be political?
4. Why do you do what you do -- what in your personal history made you a "radical"?
5. Discuss: There is no "after the Revolution." What if this is the Revolution?
As you can tell, I'm still processing a lot of what I heard and discussed. Hours and hours of hashing things out and sitting on uncomfortable chairs whilst rather hungover and tired does not make for coherent writing. My apologies.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 12:41 am (UTC)But my own experience in the matter is that activist justice always boils down to a mark of Cain: and endless blackballing throughout many networked communities of activists. Nobody is ever free of it - not the accused, not the victim, not the communities in which those people move. Activist justice ends up being poisonous for activist communities just insofar as those communities are keen to reject the legal system: without enshrined rights of due process for the accused, without a moment of confrontation in which a case must be proved, without access to juridical authority that maintains a real stretch of distance between itself and the community of activists, justice is never served, nothing is ever settled, nobody ever gets over anything, and the community destroys itself. I know all those things have been deconstructed, or whatever the term of art is these days - objectivity, rights, canons of due process, and the rest of it, but there are good reasons why a thousand-year common law tradition enshrined them as basic human needs. Or look at the Jewish prohibition on loshon h'ara.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:05 am (UTC)right on.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:07 am (UTC)There's an additional problem in the specific situation I mentioned; even if the accused is excluded from every activist group, assuming he is a predator, exclusion won't stop him. The only recourse is that his next (non-activist) victim wouldn't have reservations about calling the cops.
That's not very anarchist of me to say, I suppose. But until I start seeing sentencing circles, mediation, and transparent confrontation happening on the Left and actually working, I'm going to keep criticizing our incompetence at handling these types of things.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 12:51 am (UTC)Scenario: A man allegedly sexually assaults a woman within the context of an activist group. What are the responsibilities of other group members? How should he be dealt with? How should activist justice differ from the "justice" of the legal system?
I remember this happening in SPHR York and from what I was told, it was dealt with horribly...but that is hearsay...in my own organization, that person (the assaulter) would be gotten rid of quickly...way out of the line in my opinion.
3. What's the difference between an (ideological) activist and a (community) organizer? How does being political out of necessity (self-organized communities of marginalized people) differ from coming from a position of privilege where one chooses to be political?
I don't know how to answer this question because I think I'm stuck soemwhere in between...I think the type of activisim differs depending on where you live and your status (I would never think about getting too politically involved in the Arab world- my focus is more in the development arena).
4. Why do you do what you do -- what in your personal history made you a "radical"?
I've always been active in highschool; living in Jordan made me frustrated because I was surrounded by upper-middle class kids like myself who took things for granted...so I made friends with the freakos who were all different and liked to stir shit up...we striked three times in our last year and a half- all started by us. So it was the situation and the frustrations...when I came to Canada it took me a while to get back into the groove, but the war in Iraq definately helped.
5. Discuss: There is no "after the Revolution." What if this is the Revolution?
I don't know...I don't like thinking in terms of "revolution"; I prefer "transformation"...it's happening slowly I say, even in the WB and IMF for instance (forget the Wolfowitz debacle, and the WB has been moving towards a better framework with their focus on "social" rather than "economic" with their adoption of the CDF).
I'm high now, sorry if I'm rambling :P
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:14 am (UTC)The "after the Revolution" thing is somewhat sarcastic -- we started using the phrase after too many arguments with the IS. It got to the point where we'd run into them at demos and be all, "look over there! The masses are rising!"
I'm tipsy, apologies if I'm not making sense. You're making sense, I think.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:03 am (UTC)Scenario: A man allegedly sexually assaults a woman within the context of an activist group. What are the responsibilities of other group members? How should he be dealt with? How should activist justice differ from the "justice" of the legal system?
There was a good zine made about this once... I might still have it somewhere. It was a bit fucked up in some parts, but basically, the gist of the zine was "don't ostracize: the perpetrator will just move on elsewhere, and the scenario will repeat itseelf." So then you have to engage the perpetrator as a community. It's hard as hell because a lot of the "community" won't want to deal with the perpetrator anymore. The victim, out of shame, might not want to bring this in the open.
However, I don't think that the community should feel too overconfident in its ability to deal with this. One of the problems though is that very few people have experience deal with this kind of stuff, and outside help would have to be brought in, which can cost a lot.
In many cases, especially in light of lack of cooperation from the perpetrator, I think that the legal system should be brought in. That can be used as a powerful incentive to get the person involved... But bleh. Most activist groups are not prepared/organized enough to engage in law enforcement/justice delivery. That works better in small communities, as shown by what aboriginal people sometimes do these days, whatever it's called.
2. Michael Morris, a member of an artist collective in Vancouver, said, "The artist is the curator of the imagination." Is there a role within political art for the "artist as unique and beautiful snowflake?" or is the entire conception of individual genius and inspiration a fallacy? How does collective and cultural memory affect the artist's work?
Ehhh, I don't like this question at all, but we've discussed this in TVAC, Jonathan Culp in particular has written a few articles about this. JC was annoyed at how video activist filmmaking was seen to be 'the movement's bitch', if you want, that there was very little space for actual art there. TVAC tried to make its "Tear Gas Holiday" video as a collective overseeing everything, and it was a nightmare. Like someone in Vancouver told me, when I was involved in the April Fools parade there, "there's no such thing as democratic art". People into "Community Art" would disagree, but I think that "political art" should have little as possible to do with "political activists", if you want, that have "the message" in mind more than any kind of art. A painting of a person bleeding, killed by a soldier is not art, it's propaganda. So the artist has to be able to detach his or herself from the very obvious messages to pass, and work a bit more malleably with the material than from the political perspective.
3. What's the difference between an (ideological) activist and a (community) organizer? How does being political out of necessity (self-organized communities of marginalized people) differ from coming from a position of privilege where one chooses to be political?
I don't have much experience there, other than reading Saul Alinsky, to speak about this.
4. Why do you do what you do -- what in your personal history made you a "radical"?
I don't know if I count as a radical (anymore), but I think it came from a feeling of powerlessness, and the idea of "if you can't join them, beat them" than I mentioned in another comment recently. My anarchism was a nihilistic reaction to society, and now I feel a lot more like engaging society, which pretty much means that anarchism is irrelevant.
5. Discuss: There is no "after the Revolution." What if this is the Revolution?
Oh god. Anyone who thinks that Fukuyama was bonkers when calling "the end of history" should know that anyone else calling for the end of history, i.e. "after the revolution", is bonkers as well. Because that is what this concept really represents.
The fight keeps going on, the waves of history will keep on battering us until there is no more water.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:17 am (UTC)Oooh, if you have it, can you loan it to me? As I mentioned above, there's at least one incident of this sort that's happening now.
With regards to 2., I/we weren't speaking necessarily of the production of art by collectives (works for Beehive, but not so much for most of us), but the influence of collective memory and tradition on the artist.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:28 am (UTC)Maybe you can ask my partner at some point in the future, she doesn't indulge in such things as LJ. =)
As for the zine I mentioned, I haven't tracked it down, but now I remember that it was a letter-sized thing printed on newsprint produced by a PIRG. I think I didn't distro it because it's one of those "free" things, and I don't deal with "free" zines.
But anyway, it's dating back to a couple years, maybe even more.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:32 am (UTC)Hence the "custodian of the imagination" quote. And I shall, as that's her area of expertise far more than it is mine.
Old zines are even better -- another thing we talked about was the lack of continuity. It was more in the context of ACT-UP, where shorter lifespans and sudden deaths led to a huge knowledge gap between waves of activists, but it happens everywhere. This is not the first time the situation has come up, and people keep making the same mistakes.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:51 am (UTC)HOWEVER, some PIRGs, like YorkPIRG* for example, keep libraries of old stuff, so one could trek up there and look for past PIRG publications.
* Hey, here's something funny about OPIRG at York: The PNP daemons had managed to raise enough signatures to pass a referendum asking the York student body to remove OPIRG's levy funding. Following that, the PNP slate was defeated, and this spring there were new elections again (the new Unity slate wanting to re-established the March electoral schedule that PNP had screwed up). I was surprised to find no referendum question asking to cancel OPIRG's funding. So I went to OPIRG to ask them what happened. It appears that the question PNP had put forward mentioned "OPIRG", which is how the provincial body identifies itself, and how the group at York generally identifies itself. HOWEVER, it appears that its official incorporation is under "YORK Public Interest Research Group", i.e. YPIRG, not OPIRG. And it's on this technical ground that the question was tossed out. HAR! HAR! HAR!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:09 am (UTC)I think that people are more adaptive and participitory in history for anyone to declare an "end of history". An "end of history" thesis, IMHO, is basically a cop-out on geand-scale, basically you're suggesting to the human race to throw up its hands and say "this is it, there's nothing really more we can do after this point,".
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:23 am (UTC)I always find it funny when Debord is sold so much along anarchists. When I read Debord and Spectacle, I was like: Okay, we live in the SoS. And it can't be destroyed. So what's left to do? Let's embrace it.
Competitive democratic politics have flourished so much because they have recognized that people are not fully rational, that some people will always disagree with the larger group, and that the only solution is to toss those people aside.
Proportional Representation system have fine-tuned this system: instead of tossing minority positions aside, we'll separate everyone into small interest groups that end up having to do something together to figure out a common position. You could call it a participatory process, or a way for the institutional left to co-opt its fringe...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:24 am (UTC)What the hell is this? I don't see any revolution.
When there's no more wage-labor and no more state, then we can talk abot what's after the revolution.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:39 am (UTC)1. How we deal with personal problems in our organizations and collectives. Scenario: A man allegedly sexually assaults a woman within the context of an activist group. What are the responsibilities of other group members? How should he be dealt with? How should activist justice differ from the "justice" of the legal system?
You thrash him real well. Kill him if you can get away with it. And yeah, I am serious. I don't know how activist justice differs from state-justice because I have no idea what justice is. I should read my Plato or something, huh?
is the entire conception of individual genius and inspiration a fallacy?
Well, yeah, I think so. There's nothing we do that's not influenced by others and by society. No one is an island, after all.
As for art, I generally have no time for anything other than music and literature. Because music and literature are the only forms of art I really like, I think I tend to say that those two can be developed to whatever end the artist desires, while painting and drawing and so on should only serve as means to craft propaganda.
#3. I don't know. I'm a wage-worker and I hate it -- and it means I do engage in class struggle, along with every other worker -- but it's really not necessary for my survival that I take up politics. I don't know. It's a hard question.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:50 am (UTC)Here's a real kitten.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:55 am (UTC)That said, I did get this one from a kitten photo baron who takes pictures of cat-"kittens" and sells them for use in magazines and the like.
Vae Victis, Part 2
Date: 2005-04-04 04:05 am (UTC)Re: Vae Victis, Part 2
Date: 2005-04-04 02:37 pm (UTC)Re: Vae Victis, Part 2
Date: 2005-04-05 03:40 am (UTC)Re: Vae Victis, Part 2
Date: 2005-04-05 04:37 am (UTC)kitten flame-war!
Date: 2005-04-04 04:38 pm (UTC)Re: kitten flame-war!
Date: 2005-04-05 03:41 am (UTC)Re: kitten flame-war!
Date: 2005-04-05 03:43 am (UTC)That should work now.
Re: kitten flame-war!
Date: 2005-04-05 03:53 am (UTC)He doesn't wanna go with me to school in my backpack or overall pocket :(
Re: kitten flame-war!
Date: 2005-04-05 04:55 am (UTC)Group dynamics
Date: 2005-04-04 05:24 pm (UTC)You thrash him real well. Kill him if you can get away with it. And yeah, I am serious.
OK—assuming that you are serious, and I'm not suffering from a busted sarcas-o-meter:
Note the word "allegedly." Now, I know that we're supposed to take allegations of sexual assault very seriously. Nobody should have to work closely with someone who may have committed violence towards them. But I do think that "allegedly" changes some things.
(O.k., I'm probably going to get my head ripped off here. Disclaimer: I'm not a social activist.)
I'm informed that social activists of an anarchist stripe are reluctant to avail themselves of the mechanisms that society has in place for confronting assault. This reluctance, while understandable, given situations in which one or more of the parties may be of marginal legal status, does complicate things.
See, in general, I do believe that if someone's alleging that another person assaulted them, then that person should probably be pressing charges against the alleged assaulter. And possibly getting a restraining order.
In other groups, if someone is known to have committed assault (like say, someone witnessed it), the assault is reported, often the alleged victim seeks a restraining order, the person is warned off the community until the courts have done their thing, and we all deal. Sometimes people leave. Sometimes the wrong people leave.
That said, I understand that there are situations in which the alleged victim may be unable to take advantage of official channels. If someone is alleged to have committed assault, and the victim doesn't press charges, for whatever reason, I submit that the group meets and tries to decide how continue to fulfill its mandate, while being fair to both parties. An unsupported allegation is, I'm afraid, just that—unsupported. The assault may have occurred, but the claim may also be bogus. And as damaging as it can be to a victim not to be believed, it can be equally damaging to an innocent person to be judged and punished for something they never did.
In one of my communities, a member who had done something that wasn't quite assault, but was certainly walking the thin line agreed not to participate in any group events for a full year, and not to attend any functions in which any of the people involved were participating. This guy had transgressed. After the year was through, he re-entered the community, and you can believe people have watched closely.
He regained the trust of the community by faithfully keeping to this agreement. When anyone else involved in the incident showed up at an (unofficial) event, he made his exit, quickly, without approaching or making any contact with any of the other parties.It wasn't a fun year for him, or for anyone. But he did keep to the letter and the spirit of the agreement, and thereby regained some trust within the community.
In another of my communities, we're working on a formal code of conduct for members, including a mechanism for expelling members who transgress to the detrement of the community. The entire group will have to vote on the Code, which spells out the organization's objectives, the code's purpose, the penalties for certain types of behaviour, and the appeals process.
Are social activists and anarchists allergic to Codes of Conduct?
And again, my experiences are taken from arts and music communities, rather than social-activist ones. So you can take them with as big a grain of salt as you wish. I do think that sometimes it can help to use experience gained in other communities when confronting problems in our own.
Re: Group dynamics
Date: 2005-04-04 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:15 pm (UTC)1) I think if it's something really serious like sexual assault, there's really no choice but to call in the police. I don't particularly like that option, but if you try to deal with it privately, your response will either be inadequate (because you can't, say, lock people up) or excessive (vigilante justice) or unfair (lack of due process) or some combination. That doesn't mean going to the police is all you can do; you should certainly provide every possible support to the victim, and, as appropriate, to the alleged perpetrator as well.
If it's something less serious (but still serious), say bullying/harrassment, then I think an activist group could and should have systems in place to try to deal with it, much as a reasonably enlightened employer/voluntary organisation might. Have a few named people, rotated regularly, to deal with such cases, make sure you get both sides of the story, aim for mediation and reconciliation where possible, but where necessary apply sanctions such as warnings or ultimately expulsion from the group. You don't need to then spread it around the entire activist movement, but if anyone actually asks, you say. This needn't imply any sort of hierarchy - as I say, you rotate the people who do this, and you can have the possibility of appeals to the whole group. But this sort of thing can happen so often, and can so easily blow a group apart, that it seems to me that actually having a system for dealing with it is a good idea.
2) Pass.
3) Hmm, clearly very different, most obviously in terms of being able to step out of it or not (you can't take a break from being oppressed), and in terms of the source of your understanding and analysis. (Theory or praxis). Though there are obviously overlaps. But what aspect of the difference are you looking for? What implications are you looking for, for either group?
4) Family. I grew up in an activist family. My mother was an anarchist. So was - is - my stepfather. And my father. (Though for my dad, actually getting involved in anarchist groups was way too organised and authoritarian. My dad and stepdad were great at reflecting their personal animosity in the political sphere. Bourgeouis Parasite! Stalinist!) So, always been an activist. I was arguing about anarchism in the school playground when I was six. I was taking round petitions for primary school students rights when I was 8 or 9. I had two articles published in an anarachist newspaper by the time I was ten. There's been times when I've been more active or less, and obviously lots of other influences on the direction of my activism since then (esp. Christianity), but it's always been there.
5) Another interesting one, but I really ought to do some work, so I'll leave it for now!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 01:43 pm (UTC)Basically, with 3), there's a difference in responsibility and accountability. One woman (who was incredibly cool) was talking about Darfur and how there's been very little organizing surrounding what's going on there. She's North African (from Tanzania), and she said that part of the reason is that the majority of that community in Toronto is dirt poor and many are of questionable legal status. They simply can't organize outside of the community because of legal ramifications, and even the mainstream activist community doesn't seem to care. She made another interesting comment, too, that if she were to talk about Darfur it would be ignored, but a white person would somehow have credibility (at least in the eyes of the media).
So I brought up one thing that's been bothering me, and that's the responsibility I feel to speak out (primarily on Palestine) because I know I'll be listened to more, even if I know less, than someone who's not white and Canadian. I try to subvert the privilege I have at the same time as I'm inadvertently reinforcing it.
And I'm babbling again, because I'm exhausted, but those were the sorts of conversations that were coming up.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 03:07 pm (UTC)It can reinforce privilege, but the other side of that is it can make people face up to their racist attitudes - I read something recently, can't remember where, about a group of dissident Israeli students, and how they'd started getting together and campaigning in significant numbers after an Israeli was shot by the IDF on an anti-Wall protest; and that made a lot of students sit up, but then they started asking themselves, "why did it take an Israeli getting shot to make us take notice?"
It does bother me the way the left has totally ignored Darfur. And I can't help worrying that one of the main reasons we have is that the US has made such a big issue of it. Which is - well I can see the reasoning, but it doesn't make it a good thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 09:51 pm (UTC)In hindsight, I don't think the decision that most people on the left made to not go because it was organized by a right-wing group wasn't the best one. At least, we should have been organizing something of our own, but not without talking to people in the Sudanese community here and finding out what they want. Of course, that would involve some people leaving their comfy armchairs and ivory towers, but it'd do them some good, I think.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 04:49 am (UTC)the revolution will have to wait!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 01:45 pm (UTC)