Canadian Anarchism

I'd be interested for you to ellaborate what you mean by "way over the top influenced by feminism." What do you think feminism means? How is there too much of it?

Other than that, yeah Canadian anarchism is in a bit of a hole. Here in Ottawa there are a couple of neat projects that I know of like the city's panhandlers organising themselves as an IWW shop. There is an anti-poverty group called the Under Pressure Collective ( http://www.upcollective.org/index.php ) who look similar to the OCF page linked in your profile. There are some casework organisations around immigrtion/terrorism stuff. There are also many anarchists toiling away inside existing structures like unions and communtiy organisations.

None of this amounts to a movement, though. Like when the new governemnt got sworn in and there was so much talk about how the elections system was broken, how everyone knew the incoming government is going to be shite, where was the anarchist response? If we had our shit together we had a prime opprotunity to make our case.

Of course the real appeal of any anarchist movement has always been its application to everyday life: anarchist organisations are more effective than other sorts. I want anarcho-syndicalist economics because federations produce and distribute resources better than business or governments. I want housing to be controlled by people who live in it because landlords are economically discouraged from maintaining their properties at anything toher than the bare minimum. I want organisations I am a member of to be democratic so that I can fully participate, so that every member feels they have ownership over the group and puts in lots of energy.

Not that I'm advocating "bringing them down from the inside" with unfixable organisations like the state or business, but I think there is a definate case to be made for joining existing grassroots community organisations (even in a seemingly spritless city like Ottawa they abound) and working to anarchise them. People who aren't comitted anarchists will often default to authoritarian means of organising because it's how they've always done things, everything from antiwar groups to food-buying co-ops. They are ideal venues to bring a pro-democratic, feminist, anti-racist etc analysis into things. See AnarchoAl's post, Us - 1, Glasgow Housing Association - 0( http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8232&sid=4d119aa416f72fa3cf553539fafb9520 ) about what's happening in my other home, Glasgow. There are lots of cool organisations who don't think of themselves as "anarchist" but that I think would be recruitable to the idea if it ws a useful tool for them.

I think a very small minority of people will be convinced by intellectual, theoretical arguments, though. When I was a social democrat I argued about anarchism with AnarchoAl for about 6 months and then I finally went to an anarchist meeting and it did more to convince me. The possibilities of a world run by respect and concensual decision-making unfolded before me and I have hardly looked back since.

I think one thing that really gets me down, especially in Ottawa, si isolation. I don't know what anarchists are doing in the rest of the city (our tiny movement having at elast one split that I am aware of), let alone elsewhere in Ontario or in other timezones. Even within the IWW (which I am a member of) there seems to be very little cohesion, especially compared to my experiences in the British Isles ROC, which has a newsletter and an annual meeting, the latter obviously facilitated by the tiny size of the UK comapred to Canada.

I find it a bit ridiculous that given Canada is supposed to be at the front of the world in communications, if you leave out the corporate media, who aren't much help to any grassroots movement, we have virtually no communications infastructure. A hundred years ago, with more expensive printing and slower transporation, anarchists managed hundreds of newspapers in North America, in dozens of languages. Now what have we? We all work alone at the same problems, unable as far as I'm aware to share solutions, tactics or solidarity.

Sorry that was long and disjointed. I hope it makes sense. Here is a more coherent peice I wrote on the subejct of anarchist recruitment: http://joy.nocog.org/wordpress/?p=29

A social forum would be interesting. Certainly a very expensive endevour given the size of the country. One of the organisations I had contact with in the UK would all pay equally for each other's transportation costs, so even if you lived in the city an event was in you still pitched in to help others. This organisation was fairly tightknit however, I don't know if the system would work with a bunch of strangers?

Also, I don't think a big talk-shop would be a worthwhile endevour compared to a sutained communications medium, like a thoughtful, regular communications forum thgat was interesting enough to be read and contributed to by people currently active in grassroots struggle, not just a few who sit around and write all day. There is another thread, which I haven't read yet, about the IW, which is a really good newspaper I think. Something like that focussed on grassroots Canadian anarchism would be pretty useful, if it took off.

I have not yet come accross any lesbian seperatists in the anarchist movement, although I assume there could be vast regional discrepencies and I only know about Ottawa. What problems have you had with this group? In your original post you mentioned just "feminism" but as I'm sure you are aware lesbian seperatism is held by a minority of feminists.

I think it is totally reasonable to demand respectful language within a group. I'd like to hear an example of when use of oppressive language was integral to communication. Of course every one comes out of an oppressive reality and education. A big part of feminist thought is focussed on identifying sexist modes of thought and action that are part of us all. Identifying these is not meant as an attack, it is a challenge for everyone to try to grow out of destructive conditioning. It is also an admission of respect towards the person who was offensive; a belief that they can overcome a lifetime of conditioning and that it is a meetable and worthwhile challenge.

The fights against sexism and racism should both be integral to the anarchist movement. Otherwise we are only paying lip-service to egalitarianism and democracy, if in practise many are made to feel excluded.

Critisisms of white/middle-class bias have been taken seriously in a large part of the feminist liberation movement. A lot of the most recent grassroots feminist activity I have heard about in North America has foccused on ending white-supremacy as well as patriarchy. One of my favourite authors is bell hooks ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Hooks ) don't know if you've ever heard of her.

I am personally new to the fight against white-supremacy (I think that is what you mean by "post colonial"?) but I came accros the idea from feminist literature. I read refrences to to, heard anarchos mention it in passing but only feminism did I find explanations byond incredibly simplistic.

What is a post-feminist anyways?

Is a feminist who doesn't give a shit and gets annoyed at people standing up for themselves really a feminist of ANY sort?

Aside from the semi-effectual influence these modes of thought have had on all Canadian culture I don't think these are very dominant themes in anarchist thought, since as far as I understand they are all authoritarian strategies. Of course no-one is ever perfectly consistent with themselves so it is possible your experience is different.

The great thing about feminism is that it's always growing and welcomes new ideas. If you think you have a better way of enacting feminist politics in life, you should do them instead of citing us (feminists) as a problem with the anarchist movement.

The F Word ( http://www.thefword.org.uk/ ) is a really good UK feminist website, not particularly anarchist but if you are interseted in thoguhtful feminism give it a read.

ANyways to bring it back to the orginal topic, I maintain that feminism is a powerful and neccissary force within the anarchist movement, not a hinderance.