UK-wide Anarchist Movement Conference ideas day - January 17th - London

Reminder: UK-wide Anarchist Movement Conference ideas day - January 17th London

Please forward this open invite. It has been put together by comrades active in the anarchist movement in London over a number of years and is hoped to become an open and inclusive event. The conference proposal is a blank canvas, a chance to understand our own fragmentation and marginalisation as a movement and to develop solutions to it.

1.30pm - 6pm,
Saturday January 17th
Small Hall,
Conway Hall,
25 Red Lion
Square,
London WC1
(nearest tube: Holborn).

Bradford revisited......................

Imagine a blank sheet of paper and you’re considering ways of organising a political movement. One that seeks to challenge and destroy capitalist class society. What would that movement look like? Would it look anything like the one we have now, or would it, could it, look different?

Does what we do at the moment work, when we are marginal, fragmented, and almost invisible to the very people we seek to address?

Lets ask ourselves this question, “if our ideas are so brilliant, why are they so irrelevant to the daily lives of most working class people?”

Once before, in Bradford in 1997, we asked these questions, and more, and although ultimately nothing came of it (some will strongly disagree with this),
being as we are still more or less in the same position, some of us believe that we need to do it again. To go back to basics and question everything that we say and do. And hopefully we mean all of us – not just bits of our movement.

Can we generate the confidence that would change our ideas and the way we work with each other? Can we generate the confidence that would play
a small part in changing everything?

To this end we propose to organise a conference sometime in 2009, that will be organised in a creative manner, challenge assumptions, and any preconceived ideas we have about each other. We hope it will break down rigid and ossified ways of thinking and acting, to turn everything about our world upside down.

Some are suggesting this should be a London wide event. Some are suggesting it should be a national event. The verdict is still out on this; as well as where in the country it should be; how many days it should run over; and should it be an annual event. These and many more questions about the event are still undecided. This is why we want to have a large gathering of interested people to come and discuss what we should be organising. But, this initial meeting is to decide practical thing, and it is for people to take on helping organise the event – not just a talking shop. It is not the conference itself. That will be a bit down the line and needs a lot of though and organisation.

So, do you want to come and have a say about how the conference should be organised; for who; where; and what format?

It is long over due for the lot of us to get together and talk through our politics in a friendly atmosphere with no other pressing issues. This conference is for ALL aspects of our movement and beyond.

For further information or any questions email us at: conference@haringey.org.uk