IWCA
Sep 8 2005 21:06
Ok, but who the hell are they?
I asked this on another post, but thought I might make it its own topic. I understand where they're coming from on the surface, but something smells funny to me, a bit like www.spiked-online.com which are the old Living Marxism folks (rather nastily sectarian Trots) combined with some right-wing libertarians.
On the other hand, if you can't talk about crime, community safety, drug dealers, etc., you pretty much aren't worth shit here either.
The thread on chavs/spides/neds, etc. was really interesting and sounded a lot like stuff going on here, except that guns are much more frequent, making some kinds of community action especially dangerous. Here in Baltimore, some of the drug dealers actually sent out a video tape to people tesifying against them in court threatening their lives and more than a few families have been murdered or their houses burnt down. then again, we are slowly cruising towards one murder a day for 2005...
Plus, none of the networks that exist in the U.K., Ireland, etc really exist here. Its all fucking churches, which are mostly all in bed with the cops.
Plus, i end up siding with the kids against the community associations a lot of the time, at least when i lived in Chicago, because it was all white people, going after all black kids, with the cops in tow and doing shit like trying to get the basketball hoops taken down in the park and setting up their little public meeting to harass the kids, but not doing shit to the actual dealers and gang bangers.
that said, 8, 9 and 10 year olds here are really freakin scary sometimes and I worry about my 8 year old. Most of the parents I know who don't want their kids running the streets never let them out of the house. the other kids (as young as 4 and in pretty big groups) are running around outside at midnight with no supervision. These aren't even the teenagers, who seem to less interested in random chaos.
Course, since I haven't lived around a mostly white community in a long time, i can't say what that's like anymore. Out in Dundalk, a white, working class area here, there's a mix of what would be chavs/neds/whatever with neo-Nazi kids, and they pretty much hate each other.
well, that's a ramble.
Chris
Sep 8 2005 21:23
#2
Here's my quick post from the other thread:
Started by red action - www.redaction.org
Self-proclaimed ex-Leninists, very very serious, used to be involved in Anti-Fascist Action, had links with Irish Republicanism + the IRA, a couple of RA members were involved with bomb attacks, the Harrods bomb being one. Very good criticisms of trots (and many anarchists) and multiculturalism. A bit Openly Classist when it comes to class, on a personal level at least.
Someone here wrote a critique of them a while back too:
http://www.libcom.org/newswire/stories.php?story=04/08/05/0754748
Sep 8 2005 21:26
#3
Hi
I’m sure an IWCA type can do a better job of this than me, but in case you guys are getting impatient, I’ll post up a link to Red Action’s old website…
These folks split from the SWP in the late eighties, I think, disillusioned with the SWPs middle class bias and failure to take a decisive stance on the IRA. They set up the IWCA initiative as a sort of populist campaign.
I love the IWCA. They get an LR thumbs up. If I have a criticism, I think the way they tend to dilute their quite technically adept revolutionary socialism may be self-defeating in the long run, but we shall see.
Cheers
LR
Sep 8 2005 21:28
#4
Quote:
Ok, but who the hell are they?
Words right out of my mouth. I was pally with two of their activists, and I asked them exactly that question - and they didn't know (strictly: answered with some general non-aligned-friends-of-the-working-class bullshit that left me none the wiser). It wasn't that they (the activists) were being coy, they genuninely knew no more than I - which is nothing - of the IWCAs true motivation. In particular, no idea of how the IWCA differed from Militant/SSP or the SWP.
So who are the IWCA? I have no idea - but as far as I can see they are doing good work, worthy of anarchism, and so all encouragement to them to get on with it. Their Oxford Councillor appears especially good. Forcing the police to do a proper job (which is what he seems to concentrate on) is, ironically, an excellent tactic for anarchists to adopt.
Sep 8 2005 21:32
#5
except it's short term gains quickly melt away, as you overlook the central role of the police.
Sep 8 2005 21:34
#6
Hi
Their central role? My servants.
Love
Chris
Sep 8 2005 21:37
#7
as defenders of the status quo, strike breakers etc etc.
Sep 8 2005 22:42
#8
Not forgetting: wife beaters. 
Sep 9 2005 10:12
#9
Hi
Quote:
as defenders of the status quo, strike breakers etc etc.
Naughty servants must be punished. They need a firm hand applied. The police are highly stratified and modular and so each one requires properly tailored performance management administered on an individual basis.
We cast ourselves as the victims of police oppression when it would be better for us to recast them as doughnut munching retards who should buck up their ideas and get with the programme, or we’ll stop paying their wages.
Love
Chris
Sep 9 2005 13:48
#10
Here's my reply to John's post on the other thread:
***
John -- that's a bit of a misrepresentation, isn't it? To link the IWCA so solidly to a load of Red Action, republican, baggage? The IWCA strategy was the result of a general debate within anti-fascist action through the later 1990s. Muach of the IWCA approach is based on documents circulated on the RA website, but to see RA as 'starting' the IWCA, or running it, would be inaccurate.
From my experience, the majority of IWCA activists on a day to day level seem to be people who've come to politics through a direct confilct with the authorites over specific issues -- drug dealing, safety, housing, etc.
To most of them, the history of varous left groups is pretty irrelevant.
***
And that would probably explain the lack of knowledge on the part of people that AFraser has talked to. There isn't some secret transitional programme, what the IWCA wants to do is what it is doing now.
On the topic of the police, this one is a bit of a red herring. Stuart Craft, one of three cllrs in East Ox, does not spend most time trying to get the police to do their job, he spends a lot of time trying to improve conditions for the people who live in Blackbird leys -- by whatever means neccessary -- and with an underlying move otwards encouraging working class self activity. The pickets that were organised against anti-social behaviour, and the anti-drug dealer patrols that have happened more recently, are not ploys to get the police to come over all nice, but rather they are genuine parts of a move to to make the police/council irrelevant.
Of course, one effect they have is of making the police/council take the issue seriously -- and attempt to take it out of the hands of working class people, back into Labour's favoured paternal relationship model. No Labour candidate used to recognise the drug problem in Balckbird until the IWCA started doing something, now you'd think they were always on the case.
Sep 9 2005 14:06
#11
Hi
I had quite a lot of differences with Red Action politically, even more so now than when they were around as it happens. Nevertheless, I think Red Action were pretty good and their influence reflects positively on the IWCA.
Love
Chris
Sep 9 2005 14:54
#12
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
On the topic of the police, this one is a bit of a red herring. Stuart Craft, one of three cllrs in East Ox, does not spend most time trying to get the police to do their job, he spends a lot of time trying to improve conditions for the people who live in Blackbird leys -- by whatever means neccessary -- and with an underlying move otwards encouraging working class self activity. The pickets that were organised against anti-social behaviour, and the anti-drug dealer patrols that have happened more recently, are not ploys to get the police to come over all nice, but rather they are genuine parts of a move to to make the police/council irrelevant.
Of course, one effect they have is of making the police/council take the issue seriously -- and attempt to take it out of the hands of working class people, back into Labour's favoured paternal relationship model. No Labour candidate used to recognise the drug problem in Balckbird until the IWCA started doing something, now you'd think they were always on the case.
Right, but those politics imply very definite ideas, some specific critique of this society, of how capital operates, of trade unions, etc. So are we looking at a group that does some good stuff, but whose actual political positions that define what they do and how they are structured is kept in the hands and heads of a few people?
That isn't too different from, say, the much excoriated PGA.
Not that the group should be a theory-generating workshop, but they get their bearings on where to go from somewhere and have some analysis, and to not make that explicit seems a bit dodgy. Couldn't you just say, "hey, here's where the people who started this come from theoretically, why we decided to do this, why we didn;t want to create another sectarian talk shop, etc. we don't ask that everyone share our ideas, but if you agree with what we're doing, that is wirth a hundred theoretical discussions. But if you have a disagreement with something we are doing, and you think it has to do with what we think and our ideas, then here's the forum we've created for having the discussion. Just come to it with a concrete proposal or a basis for developing a different concrete activity somewhere n the process."
Otherwise, the separation of mental and manual labor is still there and while people learn to take control over some aspects of their lives, theystill leave too much of thinking up to the implicit PolitBureau.
This doesn't mean classes or some other indoctrination tool, but the creation of spaces out in the open for discussion, for people who may want to go there, witout that impeding those who don't want to go there. It seems ot me that at some point that will come back to bite them, especially in the face of a serious political event or crisis.
chris
Sep 9 2005 15:03
#13
redtwister wrote:
Not that the group should be a theory-generating workshop, but they get their bearings on where to go from somewhere and have some analysis, and to not make that explicit seems a bit dodgy.
on the other end of the spectrum we have anarchist movement which is in a state of analysis paralysis arguing on minute details of post revolutionary society or "The Plan" to bring about revolution that they have absolutely no relevance among workers or upward trajectory in influence. When an anarchist group reaches its critical mass of members, usually about couple dozen, there is a split over some minute detail with no relevance to working class lives 
Just ask on this forum how many refuse to join any of the national arachist groups - and you will find out it is usually some bullshit reason like post-revolutionary societys monetary policy or something like that, lol!
I am of course not being totally fair here, but you get the point 
So touch of something like IWCA's no bullshit attitude would do good for anarchist groups here...
Sep 9 2005 15:15
#14
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
John -- that's a bit of a misrepresentation, isn't it? To link the IWCA so solidly to a load of Red Action, republican, baggage? The IWCA strategy was the result of a general debate within anti-fascist action through the later 1990s. Muach of the IWCA approach is based on documents circulated on the RA website, but to see RA as 'starting' the IWCA, or running it, would be inaccurate.From my experience, the majority of IWCA activists on a day to day level seem to be people who've come to politics through a direct confilct with the authorites over specific issues -- drug dealing, safety, housing, etc.
Is that true?
Hmmm but even if it is (and that wasn't the case at all in the Hackney IWCA as far as I can tell), who is pulling the strings? Is it now the Red Action people?
Come on you can't deny Red Action didn't start it - they were the ones who dissolved AFA!
Sep 9 2005 15:31
#15
John. wrote:
Is that true?
Hmmm but even if it is (and that wasn't the case at all in the Hackney IWCA as far as I can tell), who is pulling the strings? Is it now the Red Action people?
Come on you can't deny Red Action didn't start it - they were the ones who dissolved AFA!
i'd go with what laz said to be fair... the people who pull the strings in the iwca are the members - some of whom are members of red action
simple as...
Sep 9 2005 15:34
#16
kalabine wrote:
i'd go with what laz said to be fair... the people who pull the strings in the iwca are the members - some of whom are members of red actionsimple as...
Ok that's cool. Not wanting to be sceptical though (cos i hope they are directly democratic), who runs the website + central email account?
Sep 9 2005 15:51
#17
I'm with John. on this one!
Sep 9 2005 15:57
#18
JDMF wrote:
redtwister wrote:
Not that the group should be a theory-generating workshop, but they get their bearings on where to go from somewhere and have some analysis, and to not make that explicit seems a bit dodgy.
on the other end of the spectrum we have anarchist movement which is in a state of analysis paralysis arguing on minute details of post revolutionary society or "The Plan" to bring about revolution that they have absolutely no relevance among workers or upward trajectory in influence. When an anarchist group reaches its critical mass of members, usually about couple dozen, there is a split over some minute detail with no relevance to working class lives
I am of course not being totally fair here, but you get the point
So touch of something like IWCA's no bullshit attitude would do good for anarchist groups here...
Hey, I agree. The fundamental basis of agreement and participation ought to be agreement on a particular activity, not on a specific political point (unless its something fundamental, like racism or sexism or the way the groups treat members, that wil fundamentally impact action.) What people do is more important than what they think about it, though I don't think you can separate the two into some neat boxes.
anyway...
chris
Sep 9 2005 18:53
#19
redtwister wrote:
Right, but those politics imply very definite ideas, some specific critique of this society, of how capital operates, of trade unions, etc. So are we looking at a group that does some good stuff, but whose actual political positions that define what they do and how they are structured is kept in the hands and heads of a few people?
No, what the IWCA stands for is in its manifesto, outlined somewhere at www.iwca.info. Beyond the clearly stated aims -- of political activity based in the immediate interests of working class people -- there's really not a lot. The amoung of work that goes into day to da activity is pretty back-breaking, and if there's some machiavelian political programme behind it all I've yet to find it.
Pro-working class activity. It's not rocket science. Most of the people who support the IWCA already know that the police don't give a fuck, and that the main political partis can't change anything. Like I said, the bulk of IWCA activists, IME, have been drawn to it through seeing concrete changes being made.
This might have been different in Hackney, of course, with its huge proportion of political activists and tradition of all varieties of leftism. From what I could see of Hackney Independent, however, they seemed to have the same pragmatic pro-working class apporach, however, that doesn't really call for in depth seminars to help us understand why we're trying to get better housing, etc.
Anarchist approach to the IWCA -- "Yes, this is all very well in practise, but does it work in theory?
It's quite possible that there are issues about that are going to come up -- the main one I worry about is the way any elected councillor becomes a separate 'representative' who gets things done for people. However, I'd rather get stuff done and deal with these problems than work out a perfect libertarian, foolproof organisation, and then sit there wondering why no one wants to jion it...
Sep 9 2005 21:26
#20
Geez, good thing I'm a communist.
But really, my point is rather more simple, and maybe it is just more clear in England, but pro-working class can mean a lot of things. Who the hell doesn't claim to be pro-working class? Fascists, Labor, the Democrats, the Social Democrats, the communist Party, the Trots, etc. all claim it.
IWCA says it, and then they have this middling odd stuff on race that seems a lot like the sort of stuff that treats race as something that happens to "those people", but we can all hunker down on clear class lines together and sort it out. That's the short form of what gave me a bit of the willies with their stuff, but i haven't gone back to give them a clear read through.
Chris
Sep 10 2005 12:20
#21
Hi
Quote:
on the other end of the spectrum we have anarchist movement which is in a state of analysis paralysis arguing on minute details of post revolutionary society or "The Plan" to bring about revolution that they have absolutely no relevance among workers or upward trajectory in influence…some bullshit reason like post-revolutionary societys monetary policy or something like that, lol!
I would be surprised and disappointed if the IWCA’s inner sanctum didn’t have a well rehearsed position on the state, money and markets. And credit to them for it too. We would be doing well if we could develop a coherent program to set out on our stall. We stand to learn some useful lessons from the IWCA initiative, there is an opportunity to advance the politics of everyone concerned.
But I don’t want to contend with the general spirit of your point. It’s easier (and I suspect more effective) to create organisational coherence around a programme rather than a set of principles.
Regards
LR
Sep 10 2005 16:55
#22
redtwister wrote:
Who the hell doesn't claim to be pro-working class? Fascists, Labor, the Democrats, the Social Democrats, the communist Party, the Trots, etc. all claim it.
In the UK, apart from some small trot groups like the Socialist party, and equally small anarcho groups, no one mentions class as part of politics any more. The IWCA's manifesto is based on meeting the immediate needs of working class people, with the aim of totally changing society in the interests of the working class. There's some fairly detailed stuff about what immediate changes the IWCA sees as important -- e.g. in housing, acess to services, crime, etc. but the rest is delibertaely left blank, as it will be determined bu what comes out of the immediate work. Contrary to Lazy Riser, I'd be extremely surprised if there was some IWCA 'inner sanctum' that has developed policies on various other matters. For sure there's a fair few of us who've been through various political milleaux and have various critiques that inform our work, but this includes people from the Marxist left, the anarcho scene and even ex-members of the lib Dems. In general, I am comfortable that there is no secret clique of people who are preparing to use the community work as a basis to enact other pre-determened policies on social change.
redtwister wrote:
IWCA says it, and then they have this middling odd stuff on race that seems a lot like the sort of stuff that treats race as something that happens to "those people", but we can all hunker down on clear class lines together and sort it out. That's the short form of what gave me a bit of the willies with their stuff, but i haven't gone back to give them a clear read through.
One of the things that the IWCA is here to do is to provide a social answer to what have been seen as 'racial' issues. For too often the authorities have tried to use racially-targeted funding to try to solve issues that are, at base, class ones. This approach opens the door to people who want to do white-race based politics, of course. Hence the IWCA's tendency to try to use class-based, rather than race-based language. This isn't to say that the group doesn't work on problems of racism and discrimination -- the members who were involved in AFA spend most of their youth physically fighting racists! And, from what I've seen, IWCA groups tend to be better balanced, in terms of members from all sections of 'the community', than most other activist groups. Let's also remember that the UK is much less of a colour-segregated country than the US, and there's less sens of 'those people over there' in the first place.
Sep 10 2005 17:03
#23
Yeah redtwister agree with Lazlo on terms of race.
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
Contrary to Lazy Riser, I'd be extremely surprised if there was some IWCA 'inner sanctum' that has developed policies on various other matters.
Oh come on, not even slagging them off but that's blatantly not true.
Do you think Red Action still exist?
Are a large proportion (all?) of RA now in the IWCA?
If the answer to both of these is "yes" then there is a "clique" with "pre-determened policies". Not saying this is a bad thing, on the contrary I think it's totally necessary on some level.
Sep 10 2005 18:59
#24
Hi
Careful John., we're agreeing again.
In solidarity
Chris
Sep 10 2005 20:17
#25
John. wrote:
Do you think Red Action still exist?
No
John. wrote:
Are a large proportion (all?) of RA now in the IWCA?
See answer to earlier question.
Sep 11 2005 02:08
#26
Sep 11 2005 14:27
#27
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
John. wrote:
Do you think Red Action still exist?No
Really? The website's still soliciting memberships:
http://redaction.org/misc/join.html
And the network is still there surely, with its 10 year plans and so on for the IWCA. Or is it now the 10 years is up they're done?
Sep 11 2005 17:17
#28
Hi
Heaven forbid the IWCA from having a far reaching agenda of social transformation. Lenin himself pointed out that the working class themselves could develop no more than a trade union consciousness.
Love
LR
(Is this a bit bitchy? Sorry)
Sep 12 2005 15:05
#29
Lazy Riser wrote:
HiHeaven forbid the IWCA from having a far reaching agenda of social transformation. Lenin himself pointed out that the working class themselves could develop no more than a trade union consciousness.
Love
LR
(Is this a bit bitchy? Sorry)
Yeah, but Lenin (quoting kautsky) was wrong, a point he himself partially recognized after 1905, even if the Bolsheviks never internalized it.
Hmmm...., I don't mind there being more, but shouldn't IWCA members actually know, definitively, if there is or isn't more? At least that much.
And you didn't quite address my point re: the foundation of their class politics. For example, their point on trade unions is clear, but founded on what? After all, in the workplace one of the first questions that comes up in the US if you want to resist collectively or even pose th question of doing so, is, "Shouldn't we join a union?" Unless IWCA does not get involved in workplace stuff or has not had the opportunity?
And I understand the point on race and class, but here that would largely come off as simply ignoring the pink elephant in the room because class doesn't happen here in the abscence of race (cf New Orleans.) Didn't seem that way in Brixton in the early eighties either or for the Muslim populations now.
If nothing else, being black in the US means your chance of being poorer, more poorly housed, more in danger, more a target of the state, less educated, etc. all increases. The simple fact here is that the state and the media don't target you because you are white (unless you are going into a black neighborhood, in which case you are assumed to be buying drugs), but being black (or Mexican or Native American or Middle Eastern or South Asian in differeing degrees and ways) makes you a target de facto. This has a profound impact in a situation like New orleans, in responses, in degrees of sympathy to taking what is needed (looters vs. foragers), etc.
As you say, that may be less of an issue in England and the IWCA may indeed have a greater cross-racial appeal. If so, I am wondering how, and even if, such a things translates here.
chris
Sep 12 2005 17:11
#30
Quote:
If nothing else, being black in the US means your chance of being poorer, more poorly housed, more in danger, more a target of the state, less educated, etc. all increases.
In the UK, in terms of education, one or two immigrant communities do better than white students (Indian), some do much much worse (Bangladeshi) with lots of variation between nationalities even within the same broad ethnic groups.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/educational_achievement.stm
The big difference with race between the US and UK is that nearly all ethnic minorities here are fairly recent immigrant communities - within the last century in most cases. That's very different to the history of race and immigration in the US.
It's also worth pointing out that there's much less residential segregation in the UK. A "black area" in London will likely have significant minorities of West African, Black British, Carribbean, Turkish, South Asian, Eastern European, White-British and East Asian people all living in close proximity.
When I lived in Boston, and took some credits at Roxbury Community College - I'd get within three T stations from Roxbury and I'd be the only non-African American person on the train, and none of the permanent students at that college (that I saw) were white. In London, I used to live in an area where white people were a minority, maybe similar economically to Roxbury, but the range of people living there was much wider. You also see plenty of mixed-race couples in the UK, something I rarely saw in the US.
Not to say there's no racism in the UK, there's a fair bit, but it's less of an issue (although religion may become more of one).
thats interesting to hear chris, though probably that personal account of your post would have fitted more neatly in the scallies thread
But you are right, any self respecting working class political group can't ignore anti-social crime, and us anarchists have been way too soft, or just plainly ignoring the onslaught of anti-social crime in our communities. Don't know why this is (well i do have my theories...), and frankly it is not that important. What is important is that we start making some serious positions on these issues and some concrete suggestions of libertarian community based anti-crime action!
What i mean is not the typical "there will be no crime after revolution" irrelevant fantasyland stuff, but concrete step by step suggestions and discussions/experience sharing between comrades so we can start making some real impact in our communities around these issues.
This discussion could start from as little as class wars exellent stickers (Heroin destroying our communities, and this is a working class area, no muggings no robbing, dont steal from your own) to organising ideas of anti-crime community groups.
Anyways, i can rant about this for ages, lol!
To answed your original guestion, i dont have a fucking clue who IWCA are, but they do make some really good points on their site.