A leaflet produced by CIRA-Nippon, an anarchist group in Japan, outlining their history and intentions at the start of the 1970s. It also introduces their publication Libero International.
September, 1974.
Dear Friends,
It is about three years ago that we first knew about C.I.R.A. in Lausanne through OZEKI Hiroshi. The idea of C.I.R.A. took hold of us, and then our efforts to have a "C.I.R.A." in Japan began.
As you will see in the following short report, "C.I.R.A-Nippon" is just in its infancy. It will take much trouble to prow up and to go on somehow or other.
We will open the library of C.I.R.A.-Nippon to the public, especially to those who work or study for anti-authoritarianism, anti-statism, libertarianism and anarchism. We want to make it a library which can help those movement. For this purpose, there are left many works. And one of them is to get the informations of movements and groups of all over the world, which have the same purposes as we and those whom we want to serve, that is, which aim the libertarian world.
We hope you are interested in C.I.R.A.-Nippon add help us. In fact, we have unfortunately only narrow channels of the informations of foreign movements and they are not sufficiently spreaded.
Please write us the letters. And please send us your periodicals, bulletins and pamphlets. All those periodicals and pamphlets you kindly send to C.I.R.A.-Nippon shall be put to good use. They shall be opened to public. Any useful informations of yours shall be translated or summarized and put in "Libero Monthly".
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We have set up the section for international correspondence. This section shall treat practical affairs with foreign friends.' It is settled for a while in Kobe for our practical reason. At the same time we decide to publish "Libero International" as its organ. Through this we will send you the informations in Japan.
Again, we sincerely hope that you are interested in C.I.R.A.-Nippon and help it. First of all, please tell us about you; what you aim, what you are doing now, how your bulletins are, what kind of pamphlets etc. We thank you for say information of yours.
And we will give you any information you want as far as possible.
It is the solidarity with the friends all over the world that we want.
C. I.R. A. -Nippon (SfIC)
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CIRA-Nippon
CIRA-Nippon was established about three years ago in answer to an appeal done in October, 1970. Since then, its construction has been continued with the co-operation and supports of many comrades.
Our Purposes .....
The purposes of CIRA-Nippon are
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For these purposes, we began to work in 1971, and the stack room was built in the summer of the same year. Since then our main works have been collecting them in order.
Present Position .....
Now CIRA-Nippon has a stack room about 30m2 large in Fuji-no-miya, 2000 books, many pamphlets, reviews and leaflets. The books and pamphlets are going to be arranged.
In last December, we got a detached house used as work-shop, reading-room and lodging, which makes our working very smooth. But unfortunately, we can not open our library to the public yet.
We also had two seminars in July, last year and in this July-August. Since September 1973, we have published the correspondence paper "Libero Monthly" and we also publish a review "Anarchism" (first two issues were published under the title "Libero") every two months (Now four issues published).
Management ...
More than ten volunteers, whose leader is Mr. RYOH Buichiroh, the caretaker of the stack room, take charge of a portion of the management. The works and management are supported by the volunteers' autonomous activities. Once a month the regular meeting is held by the volunteers concerned.
For the widespread and continuing development answering the purposes of CIRA-Nippon, advices and suggestions are given by Mr. OHSAWA Masamichi, Mr. HASEGAWA Susumu, Mr. MUKAI Kou as our advisers.
Problems in Future .....
The most important problem of CIRA-Nippon in its forth year is completing arrangements to open it to the public. The second problem is to get other new land and house, partly because it is expected that in near future we shall get more books than the present stack room can receive and partly because the present physical condition is not sufficient to open CIRA-Nippon to the public.
Including these two problems in future, we should:
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The second problem will be achieved through some steps. The first stop is to begin copy services of literatures, for which we have bought an electronic duplicator. For the time it can not but be put place to use books and literatures under some restriction.
The Problems in Near Future .....
Now we have shown you the progress till now and the problems in future very shortly. We will next report the works of CIRA-Nippon in the fourth year, that are what we are going to do. Those we report you in the following are confirmed in the two regular meetings which were held in last December and January.
Our basic works are:
- Arrangement of books, literatures etc.
- Making out the book catalogue.
- Setting up a section for international correspondences in order to
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- collect the informations about foreign anarchist and libertarian groups and their activities.
- send the appeals end correspondence
- exchange the materials.
''Libero Monthly" and "Anarchism"
"Libero Monthly" has begun to be published as the correspondence paper of CIRA-Nippon. But now we have the new editorial department in Kyoto and has been published as an independent information paper since No. 14. Now 20 issues have been published. First two issues of "Anarchism" were published with the same name as "Libero Monthly". Since No. 3 the title has been changed to "Anarchism", which is published every two months and has a summary of two pages in Esperanto. Now four issues were published.
-- Some Notices on This Leaflet ~
Please send all your letters, pamphlets and periodicals etc. you kindly send to CIRA-Nippon to the Section for International Correspondence (SfIC) in Kobe.
CIRA-Nippon is an independent library corresponding to CIRA in Lausanne. It to settled in Fuji-no-miya but SfIC in Kobe for our practical reason. The address of SfIC is in page 2.
- This leaflet shall be published every four months. For a while most of its articles will be translations of those published in Japanese.
- It is English, French, German that we understand rather easily. We also read Spanish and Esperanto.
But we are willing to receive your pamphlets and periodicals written in any language. - we will try to answer your questions and requests, and when they are too big for us to answer, We'll try to give you some information.
THE AGREEMENT
(Purposes)
CIRA-Nippon aims collecting the literatures, documents, materials, periodicals, bulletins and so on published in both past and present on the ideas and movements of anti-authoritarianism, anti-statism and libertarianism, putting them in order, preserving them and opening them to the public.
(organization)
CIRA-Nippon is made up of members who agree to its purposes and its activity and who pay their membership fee (more than 2000 yen per year).
(Working Body and Management)
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July 1st, 1974 CIRA-Nippon
Postscript
"Libero International", our little organ, is going to start now. It will not, perhaps, have the force of taking such a light flight as Jonathan Livingstone, that famous seagull. But soon, it will, we hope, have such force strong enough to connect us with our foreign friends all over the world. We hope sincerely that, through this leaflet, we can get good solidarity with you.
(R.L.)
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