Kafka sales will be through the roof at the NYC Anarchist Book Fair

This isn't real is it?

Knowing what little I do of the NYC anarchist scene, the institution of "safer spaces," and how the whole arena of "accountability" works, I would say it is 100% real.

Knowing how stupid most American anarchists are, I would totally believe this is true!

Do let us know either way though!

Fucking hell!

So what are they going for, ostensible acquittal or indefinite postponement?

Sorry to make fun, still can't decide if this is ridiculous or insane.

why do people think its stupid? Not saying I agree or disagree agree with it but its good to be clear.

I think the Kafka reference pretty much sums it up.

The letter says nothing about what the allegations are, or who made them, or who made the decision to ask them not to come, or absolutely anything at all. So the subject has absolutely no way of challenging any of the claims supposedly made about them.

If someone has done something wrong, they should be given the opportunity to present their side of the story. Which of course they can't even do if they don't even know what it is they are meant to have done!

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I don't get why they can't just say the reason, especially if it was in private correspondence. That said, there's a not-insignificant number of people in and around the anarchist scene who like to rape people, sexually assault people, hold knives to peoples throats etc, and it's fair enough for organisers of events to tell such people to get to fuck. That would involve saying why someone was being barred though, as there's little indication here what it's about (one reference to survivors implies sexual assault).

I've no idea the politics behind this. Best case, the rather Kafkaesque formulation is an attempt to reserve judgement while simultaneously taking whatever happened seriously and avoiding making the survivor relive the whole thing with some psuedo trial. Worst case it's just a clique banning someone they don't like for unspecified reasons. Pretty much impossible to judge that from across the Atlantic tbh.

It's not in the spirit of "natural justice". At all.

Being asked to take a particular action based on an anonymous accusation of an un-named misdeed is open to all kinds of abuse.

It's also not clear what will happen if the accused does actually attend.

It does raise some interesting issues about whether anarchism can be its own subcultural "alternative society" though.

I've seen similar issues at London anarchist events in the 90s:

1) Some people wished to exclude a band from the "Anarchy In The UK" festival because a member of said band had allegedly raped/assaulted a woman whilst on tour in another country.

2) I recall that one (or possibly two) people approached the organisers of the Hackney Anarchy Week festival because threats of violence had been made against them by other anarchists and they felt uneasy about attending.

There are all sorts of grey areas about what event organisers could/should do in these situations:

a) State plainly that this is nothing to do with them? "the book fair is not the place to resolve conflict"
b) Weigh up the evidence from all parties and make a decision?
c) Convene some kind of anarcho-court and allow all parties to cross-examine each other in front of a jury?

Also, from the link in the OP:

This is the exact opposite of the presumption of innocence. Which is, uh, radical, I guess.

Sadly, a starting assumption that claims of sexual assault/rape aren't made up is a pretty radical position. And the language of English jurisprudence (natural justice etc) seems a bit misplaced, since nobody's being incarcerated, just asked not to attend an event.

N.b. that doesn't specify anything about sexually abusive behaviour, it might be that they criticised something they said which they didn't like!

Of course a starting assumption that claims of sexual assault are made up is bad, but that doesn't mean that all claims are true.

d) Both post their accounts on libcom and see which gets the most "up" versus "down" clicks?

Well yes, I think this is where the discussion gets interesting. Whilst the OP states that not attending the event is not an admission of guilt, it could certainly look like one:

"Oh well A was excluded from the bookfair for assaulting B, so I don't want anything to do with them".

Perhaps exclusion from one event can lead to other things? Based on one person's statement?

I think my point is that an anarchist subculture is not equipped to make a judgement on whether all accounts sexual assaults (or whatever) are true OR false.

(I'm not sure that formal political organisations are either, to muddy the waters, but I would expect them to be better at this sort of thing than a vague social group.)

Could be. It mentions not contacting any survivors though. I've got no idea of the context of this email. The recipient might know what it's about for all I know.

Who's saying they are?

is anyone doing this?

Well implicitly it would seem that there is a mechanism where the Bookfair organisers will make a judgement about exclusions from their event.

This mechanism seems to take the form of submissions from an accuser about the behaviour of the accused.

The bit that I quoted seems to suggest that the organisers will always prioritise the viewpoint and submission of the accuser. Indeed they aren't interested in hearing from the accused at all.

(This could lead to a situation where everyone in the NYC scene has accused everyone else and nobody is able to attend the Bookfair. Which perhaps would be a good thing.)

If it's one persons word against anothers, you either have to give the benefit of the doubt to the perpetrator or to the survivor. The latter seems preferable, since the absolute worst injustice that can result is an innocent person is asked privately not to attend an event (although if i understand correctly, they chose to make this public on a list, which was then posted here with names redacted).

I mean, even on purely statistical grounds, given as false reports are somewhere in the region of ~6% irrc, you'll be doing the right thing 94% of the time. And that's without getting into the good reasons for taking all allegations seriously, even if they turn out to be false sometimes.

None of that means you should withhold the actual reason from the person barred, or that there shouldn't be an opportunity to respond/provide additional info/an alibi etc. But i don't see the problem with a preference to support survivors in cases where such a decision is needed.

If it is one person's word against another you can also say that you are not equipped to make a judgement. This is what pretty much every other event organiser in the world does afaik.

I'm not sure where the ~6% stats come from, but I assume they are from the legal system. There is an added incentive in the alternative NYC Bookfair Model for the accuser, which is that they will be afforded anonymity and there will be no response from the accused.

That might mean that people are more likely to report assaults, which is good. But might it also lead to a greater level of false accusations? (And if there is no response from the accuser allowed, how would we know?).

Is it completely unthinkable that this system will be abused by people who have personal or political differences with others?

Joseph, this isn't about our comments on how police deal with sexual assault claims, this is about a bookfair.

That 6% you reference, I assume is in relation to sexual assault claims. However, I think if you look at allegations anarchists make at one another, far more than 6% of them are false, or at least grossly distorted.

If you say you have a principle of believing the accuser by default, and giving them anonymity, then that will encourage loads of false allegations.

You can do that, but given as the vast majority of sexual assaults take place in private between people who know one another, that's not a neutral position.

Not at all, in fact I said as much in my first post on this thread.

I haven't mentioned the police?

Fwiw, ~6% is from memory. It's certainly in that ballpark, and more or less in line with other offences.

Except they don't have 'a principle of believing the accuser by default'; they say in a case where they're asked to give the benefit of the doubt that they will do so to the survivor. Presumably that means in cases where it's one person's word against another, as a load of witnesses or a decent alibi removes the need for a 'benefit of the doubt' decision.

I'm not sure I share the premise that there's a load of anarchists queuing up to make false accusations. Sure, some people might make politically motivated claims, but they should be easy enough to refute by showing you were elsewhere etc. Or if you're really worried about false allegations, don't be alone with fantasist anarchists. Which is generally sound advice anyway!

I mean, if the knife-carrying posh cunt who likes to assault women* was planning on coming to a libcom drinks, we'd tell him to get to fuck. We wouldn't agonise about his rights.

* Who's remaining nameless at the request of the survivor, afaik

How is that anything like the email?

If you don't want someone at your event you tell them so, you say why, you don't send emails like this. The content of the email gives an insight into a collective mental process that is fundamentally at odds with even the most basic notions of justice and reason.

I think we can agree that it is not possible to adopt a neutral position in this situation.

Then again, you can make different assumptions for different purposes. For example, as far as providing support and services to survivors of abuse goes, obviously the assumption should be that they are telling the truth. As far as 'criminal justice' goes, the accused should be deemed innocent untill proven guilty. In cases where the interests of the involved parties clash (like they both want to attend an event, but the accused attending effectively means the accusor/survivor can't) I guess it's a lot more complicated. There's probably no good solution, but the best thing seems to me to be to try and reach an agreement between the two parties or, failing that, taking the case to the wider group, or some delegate of the group, for them to make a decision. That does require active involvement of both parties which may tend to be a problem for survivors though, but I can't think of a way round that.

that just doesn't work in cases of abuse, sexual assault etc, it biases things towards letting abusers carry on and excluding victims

Having just read the workshop schedule (http://www.anarchistbookfair.net/node/71) I think anyone trying to keep someone away from that bookfair is doing them a favour.

Saying that in situations where requires that you should give the benefit of the doubt to the survivor isn't defending the email. I mean, I think the email is mental and will serve to undermine any intended effect. I think it's fairly obvious - it's basically a given. However, that doesn't soil the point that in situations where you have to give the benefit of doubt to one party or the other, it's generally preferable to give it to the survivor.

Obviously this doesn't mean you have to believe every allegation ever no matter what. That would be ludicrous. But given we're not talking about criminal jurisprudence or incarceration, you're not going to give the accused their Magna Carta rights.

I was assuming that 6% figure was related to false allegations being made to police? Is that not the case?

in this instance there is not a possibility or even assess one person's word against another, or being able to refute an allegation by showing you were elsewhere, as they have not even been told what the allegation is or who it was by.

yeah, but we would also tell him why

As I've made clear above, I'm not defending the email which I've agreed is Kafkaesque. What I've defended is the idea of when benefit of the doubt is required giving it to the survivor. Bearing in mind as RedEd says, we're not talking about 'criminal justice' but whether to ask someone not to attend an event. The greatest injustice that can possibly happen is for an innocent person to be barred from a bookfair. That's 'not fair', and they should be told why and given a chance to present an alibi/mitigation, but tbh seems reasonable given what's at stake for the various parties.

And fwiw, the email does invite the recipient to contact them with questions. So if they've no idea what this is about, replying saying as much would be the obvious thing to do. If the response was similarly cryptic the Kafkaesque would be a fair description.