Transphobia at the London Anarchist Bookfair 2017

Oh, I just thought I'd throw this in: Chomsky on religion. My father made me watch and read Chomsky when I was quite young, which was my induction both into anarchism and atheism - I think my father probably got interested in him because of his consistent stance that the US shouldn't have been funding the murder of liberation theologians, since my father was studying theology and then Christian ethics (while waiting tables, which is what he's done for a living for 30 years or so).

And the answer to that isn't a debate between Dawkins-esque and Galloway-eque positions but excluding both.

What's a Dawkins-esque position on religion?

Edit: The Shinto/Buddhist tradition thing was pretty cool btw, thanks for posting.

Mike Harmon. Okay, thanks for explaining that. It's appreciated. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

gamerunknown

What's a Dawkins-esque position on religion?

'atheism' as a tiny figleaf for racism and islamophobia, pretty much.

gamerunknown

Edit: The Shinto/Buddhist tradition thing was pretty cool btw, thanks for posting.

No worries. The 1918 rice riots, post-WWI production control movements, and Sanrizuka/anti-Narita movements are way more interesting though :P

Mike Harman

'atheism' as a tiny figleaf for racism and islamophobia, pretty much.

I don't deny that many approach atheism in this manner, but I don't think Dawkins does himself, nor do I think it's on the agenda of the new atheists other than Sam Harris. One of Chomsky's criteria for being taken seriously as a campaigner is to challenge power you're able to have an influence on, it's why he addresses the US government rather than the North Korean one, which he has said is the most repressive on earth.

Dawkins spends a considerable portion of his time arguing with government initiatives such as mandatory collective worship in public schools (School Standards and Framework Act of 1998), funding for faith schools or adding creationism to school curricula in England and the US. If he wanted to cash in on demagoguery, he could quite easily reserve criticism of these things, especially the complaints about the "racist and sexist" God of the old testament. He's stated he was inspired by Haldane in the past (Stalinist), wrote in an introduction to the Selfish Gene that he was a social democrat who disapproved of union excesses and is complaining about Brexit on his twitter feed (I don't follow him, just checked if he's gotten worse recently). He's very distant from anarchism, but removed from bitter reaction for the most part. The worst I've seen is when he complains about the failures of Islamic culture in medicine, engineering and so forth - it's completely inept: advanced in these fields happen in spite of the dominant religion of their practitioners. Only advocates of "Clash of Civilisations" want to attribute success or failure to the weltanschauung as it were. Especially as many countries with Muslim majorities have been devastated and occupied by NATO forces or historically by Britain.

Bookfair:
Libcom admins, this is a sewer. You are so transparent with your competitive OUTRAGE, so obviously trying to point the finger before it gets pointed at you. You may be trying to impress new people here. You don’t even seem to understand what it is you’re talking about. Steven, you particularly disgust me and I can’t believe you are a unison rep.

Please, Steven, Mike, other guys, Fleur, stop using the word TERF. Somebody posted something much earlier about TERF being a self description. So it once was, years ago. Are you aware of how it's used now? Please go look at the TERF is a Slur site or go spend a little time at Anarchist Memes on Facebook or others like it and see how TERF is used: the comparison with nazis, the death threats, the sheer misogyny. Women you may know are getting death threats. They are by now means targetted at who you may think are 'actual' TERFS who deserve it. Stop it. Think.

The actions and politics of some trans exclusionary feminists are dangerous for trans people. Agreed. Some have also got death threats or faced doxxing and intimidation. Agreed. The leafletting of the bookfair was vile. Hey, some of us have been against transphobic feminism for decades. But not everybody who criticises some trans activism and ideology or even has questions about aspects of new legislation can be treated as more or less a fascist. Yes, Mike, it's worth quibbling over the word fascist.

If you agree that words can lead to violence or are actually violence, why are you ignoring the threats and atmosphere of intimidation? Think.

Also, having read HS's statement, you scrutinise the views but have nothing to say in any sort of concern at what she experienced at the bookfair and several people who have posted about what happened being violent or disturbing, the threats and chants, are either disbelieved, ignored or ridiculed. In the real world, there are plenty of us who can dislike the direction HS is going politically (even if we have some understanding of what in the political culture is sending people in that direction - this cannot be discussed on this thread where OUTRAGE is valued over thinking) but also deplore the mobbing she experienced and state that publicly.

Please stop referring to people as TERFS. I would have liked to talk about religion and atheism and racism and the bookfair, but really I wish this whole thread did not exist. It should not.

Oh, someone posted this elsewhere, issues with the Los Angeles Bookfair - apologies if this is the wrong thread to discuss it.

Apparently the two major disagreements were about having a mostly white event in a primarily black area and excluding primitivists, more or less. However, the comments section says that it was "Hebrew Israelites" who shut them down (see here).

How on earth would that be dealt with in London? I know the context is quite different, but what would the response be to an authoritarian black religious group? I personally have no clue, I'd probably just leave.

Zia

Bookfair:
Please, Steven, Mike, other guys, Fleur, stop using the word TERF. Somebody posted something much earlier about TERF being a self description. So it once was, years ago. Are you aware of how it's used now? Please go look at the TERF is a Slur site or go spend a little time at Anarchist Memes on Facebook or others like it and see how TERF is used: the comparison with nazis, the death threats, the sheer misogyny. Women you may know are getting death threats. They are by now means targetted at who you may think are 'actual' TERFS who deserve it. Stop it. Think.

That was me, and what your saying is just sour grapes from a group that lost control of its narrative.

Literally every single word can be used as a slur. The word Feminism is so often equated with Fascism its spawned the neologism Feminazi, should we all stop using that too? And what about the awful associations Communism, Socialism and Anarchism have, they're all used as insults quite commonly. Gay is also still used pretty often to mean bad or lame, should we start resurrecting the Homophile movement?

Also if its a slur why do people still use it as a self descriptor and badge of pride? Is there an attempt to reclaim the term going on? Or has their been a split?

FFS even the racists prefer to be called Race realists and White Nationalists, and Identitarians, nowadays.

And homophobia is apparently a made up term to slander believers in traditional relationships.

If TERFs don't like being called TERFs anymore (even though quite a few still do) they have two choices.

1: Become better at peddling their propaganda so they become more accepted.
2: Stop pushing for the exclusion of Trans people.

So far they appear to be wedded to option one. Fortunately it isn't going very well for them, hence the continued sour grapes.

@gamerunkown I'd probably go for a new thread on the LA bookfair.

Zia

Please, Steven, Mike, other guys, Fleur, stop using the word TERF.
...

The actions and politics of some trans exclusionary feminists are dangerous for trans people.

The acronym is a slur but 'trans exclusionary feminist', albeit missing the 'radical' in your post is fine? It's like objecting to Tankie but being ok with 'person who celebrates Russian tanks being sent in to Budapest'.

It can be misapplied, would be a stretch to call David Davies a TERF, even though he's happy to work with them and they!re happy to work with him, but it's the radical and feminist bit that's absent there.

I've also seen stuff online where people got called TERFs after making very confused comments about trans issues, in those cases it can be hard to tell if people are hedging a deep seated transphobia or genuinely confused/ignorant. Probably not a nice experience, nor is seeing transphobic comments.

Zia

The leafletting of the bookfair was vile.

Do you think it should have been prevented? If so presumably in a way that didn't involve a couple of dozen people shouting at Helen Steel, which I agree would have been better. How could that have been done? Telling people they need to debate the leafletters isn't it so there must be another option that's neither of those. I saw at least one or two trans folks rather than staying for the confrontation just left the bookfair very angry and upset, that's not acceptable either and it still counts as being excluded.

deleted

Mike Harman

Do you think it should have been prevented? If so presumably in a way that didn't involve a couple of dozen people shouting at Helen Steel, which I agree would have been better. How could that have been done? Telling people they need to debate the leafletters isn't it so there must be another option that's neither of those. I saw at least one or two trans folks rather than staying for the confrontation just left the bookfair very angry and upset, that's not acceptable either and it still counts as being excluded.

Really important here to reiterate again and again - HS explicitly and deliberately chose to involve herself in this. The person who was confronted was someone who was literally given out hate literature. HS then defended this person and then (according HS' supporters) went after someone she recognised from Speakers Corner.

TERFs are desperate to control the narrative here, absolutely vital this doesn't happen. They want the incident to be known as a "mob" who targeted and bullied a lone woman for thought crime. It's bullshit. If you actively choose to intervene, defend and side with a hate group while they're literally in the middle of a targeted political action, then you're not an innocent bullied victim. You're the aggressor.

edit - to be clear this isn't aimed at Mike, more a follow on this his comments.

TBH, my OUTRAGE comes from bigots leafleting their vile propaganda at an anarchist bookfair, with the support of the bookfair organizers and and anarchists defending them for doing so. People defending their freedom of hate speech at the bookfair, what's not to find outrageous?

I will call TERFs TERFs as long as they are people who identify themselves as being feminists of radical inclinations who exclude trans people from their politics and their spaces. Tbh, I always felt that TERF is a a bit of an insult to actually radical feminists, which they clearly aren't. Actual radical feminists don't pick on oppressed minorities.

It's not the word which is a problem, it's the ideology behind it. If everyone abandoned the word today, say in favour of Gender Critical, it wouldn't be long before they start whining that GenderCrit is a slur, in the usual manner which frames them as victims, as opposed to the marginalized group they pick on.

gamerunknown

Mike Harman

'atheism' as a tiny figleaf for racism and islamophobia, pretty much.

I don't deny that many approach atheism in this manner, but I don't think Dawkins does himself, nor do I think it's on the agenda of the new atheists other than Sam Harris.

Dawkins [...] The worst I've seen is when he complains about the failures of Islamic culture in medicine, engineering and so forth - it's completely inept: advanced in these fields happen in spite of the dominant religion of their practitioners. Only advocates of "Clash of Civilisations" want to attribute success or failure to the weltanschauung as it were. Especially as many countries with Muslim majorities have been devastated and occupied by NATO forces or historically by Britain.

If he's advocating 'clash of civilisations' how is that not using atheism in this manner?

This idea that 'TERF is a slur' needs to be crushed into oblivion. TERF's are borrowing a strategy of the far-right (which makes them far-right).

'I began encountering the “TERF is a slur” slogan in 2013, around a year after the political Right experienced a measure of success with its 2012 “homophobe is a slur” campaign.

The case was made that when discussing anti-queer hate in the news and anti-bullying efforts in schools, the term “homophobia” should not be used to describe the very specific type of anti-queer hate and oppression faced by LGBTQIA people because the term was an offensive slur.

By the end of 2012, the Associate Press banned the term “homophobe” from its news coverage and right-wing religious groups were working to ban the term in anti-bullying school materials because, they claimed, “homophobe” was a “made-up” term that promotes “hate and contempt for Christians.”

If we are unable to use “homophobe” to describe people who are “homophobic,” in what ways does this limit the queer community’s ability to accurately describe our sociopolitical situation?

Without terms like “homophobe” and “homophobia,” the queer community’s ability to communicate and reference a specific anti-gay culture is hobbled, caged inside of rhetorical parameters defined by those who work to empower anti-gay culture. After “homophobe” and “homophobia” were deemed by a heteronormative culture to be too toxic to use, the queer community’s languaging of the hate it faced each day disappeared from most mainstream media use.

Sometime in 2013, sex essentialists who self-identify as “radical feminists” began pushing the slogans, “TERF is a slur” and “Cis is a slur” on social media and blog posts.'

http://transadvocate.com/are-misogynist-homophobe-terf-slurs_n_20729.htm

TERF's are borrowing a strategy of the far-right (which makes them far-right).

No it doesn't. I don't agree with this victimhood thing of saying Terf is a slur, but equally it does no-one any favours, least of all the trans community, if we start bollocking on about Terfs being aligned with the far-right.

They have a specific bigoted view about trans people, they aren't looking to repatriate minorities and reform society on a hardline nationalist basis, and throwing inaccurate terminology around for effect does little more than muddy the waters and bolster their claim that the people they're arguing with are unreasoned.

Mike Harman

If he's advocating 'clash of civilisations' how is that not using atheism in this manner?

Sorry, yeah, I didn't think that one through. Most of the time I don't find anything particularly objectionable, occasionally he demonstrates a real absence of consideration. I guess it depends on whether you think his mask is slipping when he makes comments like that or if it's just a deviation. I'm inclined to believe he really does dislike the forms of discrimination he decries, since he could have chosen to be silent on it.

I'd forgotten about those comments until it came up though, not really worth putting any effort into staging a defence of him.

Fall Back

Mike Harman

Do you think it should have been prevented? If so presumably in a way that didn't involve a couple of dozen people shouting at Helen Steel, which I agree would have been better. How could that have been done? Telling people they need to debate the leafletters isn't it so there must be another option that's neither of those. I saw at least one or two trans folks rather than staying for the confrontation just left the bookfair very angry and upset, that's not acceptable either and it still counts as being excluded.

Really important here to reiterate again and again - HS explicitly and deliberately chose to involve herself in this. The person who was confronted was someone who was literally given out hate literature. HS then defended this person and then (according HS' supporters) went after someone she recognised from Speakers Corner.

[/i]

Agree 100%.

That last sentence is extremely disturbing. I would not feel safe in that situation if someone supposed to be an ally actually defends the people who later called the police to intervene and on top of that, identified you to anyone within earshot as being at Hyde Park.

(There's another angle to this that I can't disclose on an open forum.)

I didn’t actually say TERF is a slur. As you can see if you read my posts I am aware of the bigotry on that side.
I suggested looking at the website with that name.

https://terfisaslur.com/

Or look at other anarchist sites to see the threats being made. None of you has had anything to say about this.
How far would you go, Mike? Are there any limits you’d want to put on this discourse?

Zia, you're an apologist for a hate group. Begone.

deleted

deleted

Zia

I didn’t actually say TERF is a slur. As you can see if you read my posts I am aware of the bigotry on that side.
I suggested looking at the website with that name.

https://terfisaslur.com/

Or look at other anarchist sites to see the threats being made. None of you has had anything to say about this.
How far would you go, Mike? Are there any limits you’d want to put on this discourse?

i'm just going to assume that website is terf propaganda with out looking for now, cause it looks like it will be, and you won't say what it is

It's pretty much entirely just a gallery of screenshots of hotheads being angry-shouty on Twitter. Which I'd agree is unpleasant, but is also something that happens all the bloody time because people of all political stripes can't seem to help but act like mouthy tossers on Twitter. It'd not be too hard to find similar levels of bile directed at trans people.

-

Given this thread has turned towards the topic of challenging religious ideology (or more specifically Islamic ideology) I'd like to offer a quick few thoughts if I may.

I am from a social background and a neighbourhood where perceived Islamic values are important to many people. I also rejected religion in my late teens. Importantly, my rejection did not manifest in a climate of new atheism. In fact, if I had doubts about religion in today's climate, I suspect I would have remained a Muslim - this for me is the crux of the matter. People like Sam Harris and even Majjid Nawaz serve two functions (1) concretise beliefs that young people were beginning to reject and becoming increasingly fragile and (2) silence dissenting 'ex-Muslims' (a term many left-leaning former Muslims now reject, in fear of associating with these clowns). In addition, many of the (online) communities where ex-Muslims were beginning to make sense of their identities have been overrun by what we would now regard as the alt-right.

Our priority should be and what I always understood to be is to help people form their own thoughts and draw their own informed conclusions. Whether this is by way of demystification or releasing the boot from someone's neck - the situation and context dictate the strategy. Muslim communities are under siege - helping to lift this siege is not only more effective, it is also an exercise in good praxis. Whether this leads to a wholesale rejection of religion or not is frankly none of our business; I know many self-identified Muslims with better politics than a lot of non-religious self-identified anarchists.

So let's ask: do Muslims need paternal white anarchists offering their rote proclamations or are Muslim people perfectly capable of having these debates if free from duress and bullying? There is a degree of Orientalism on the left (and wider society) that would lead me to believe that many people regard the latter impossible and perhaps it is these attitudes we should be challenging. Or you know, continue shooting fish in a fucking barrel and watch how none of us gets anywhere.

So, Helen Steel is gonna share a platform with other TERF's in Cambridge.
A terf is a terf is a terf.
Not our comrade.

Great post QQ.

QQ

In addition, many of the (online) communities where ex-Muslims were beginning to make sense of their identities have been overrun by what we would now regard as the alt-right.

Do you have any thoughts on how this could be, or could have been, avoided? There’s a recent thread started by the admins on the CEMB forum that relates to this but I’m not sure how far it’s putting forward any real solution.

Yes really good post from QQ.

This is the Cambridge event Helen Steel is booked for, looks like yet another step taken:

https://twitter.com/ mayday4women/status/926833475071692800

The Gender Recognition Act is an archetypical piece of what is now called “neoliberal” legislation. It reduces the roll of the state in the name of freedom, with the intention of reducing state health provision and expenditure. In the past similar initiatives were call Thatcherite, or rightwing libertarian.

Trans people may see it as in their interests for now, but it will mark a reduction in access to psychological counselling and to gender reassignment surgery. This is aimed at reducing the tax burden.

Libcom uncritically supports the Gender Recognition Act and prohibits discussion on it. The so-called “Libertarian Communists (sic)” align with the right wing libertarianism of the Tory government. This support goes along with support for violence against women, support for religion and all manner of post-structuralist and identity politics.

There is nothing remotely classist in any of these positions. When it’s revealed Helen Steel is a union rep, far from this giving pause to the rabid anti-feminist witch hunt, a Libcom regular announces that he will seek to get her removed from her job. This is called blacklisting.

The forum is dramatically poorer than the library. It can only be a matter of time before the admins start deleting material from the library as they already delete posts from this thread. The most telling deletion is of a post that called their behaviour “Stalinist”.

With its support for violent suppression of discussion and support the government and various reactionary movements, Libcom is not communist and is not even libertarian.

QQ

Muslim communities are under siege

You'll find that a section of Muslims are supportive of, or engaged with, the state's "counter-extremism" policies (such as PREVENT); whether teachers, religious leaders, local elites, ..., whatever - these people engage with and support the state's policies. So I don't recognise any religious communities (which is an interclassist notion), whose members share the same set of interests.

QQ

helping to lift this siege is not only more effective

The "siege"1 will be lifted when the working-class comes together as a class and abolishes the state/capital.

QQ

So let's ask: do Muslims need paternal white anarchists offering their rote proclamations or are Muslim people perfectly capable of having these debates if free from duress and bullying?

I'm not particularly concerned about the what individual Muslims or "white anarchists" proclaim. What matters to me is that the communist movement doesn't abandon its materialist, freethinking roots, its principled hostility to the religious, or mystical.

QQ

There is a degree of Orientalism on the left (and wider society) that would lead me to believe that many people regard the latter impossible and perhaps it is these attitudes we should be challenging. Or you know, continue shooting fish in a fucking barrel and watch how none of us gets anywhere.

Among the Left (broadly conceived), there's also an good deal of orientalism in reverse, often motivated by a well-intended, leftist political commitment to anti-racism or anti-Islamophobia - that religion, as one of the key elements of the everyday lives of colonised peoples that survived the cultural destruction of the colonial period, is a 'natural ideology' of non-white peoples, integral to their being in way not found among white Europeans, etc.

• 1to be clear, there are sieges in Syria and Iraq, not Britain

Mike Harman

For the record, I've got no time for Tolstoy/Dorothy Day etc. and think [religion] anarchism is a dead-end.

Hi Mike Harman.
I just wondered what you meant when you write this?
Maybe my question could now be considered off topic as this thread has moved on so much. But for some reason your phrase stuck in my my mind.
Can you tell me a bit more about what you mean? (not about Tolstoy please).

rat

Mike Harman

For the record, I've got no time for Tolstoy/Dorothy Day etc. and think [religion] anarchism is a dead-end.

Hi Mike Harman.
I just wondered what you meant when you write this?

The banner and reaction to it that prompted the conversation says 'religion is stupid' - as QQ says this is 'rote' in the sense there's nothing specifically anarchist or communist about atheism - plenty of atheist right-libertarians for example.

There is a strong anti-clerical tradition historically which is great - opposed to organised religion as a feudal/capitalist institution and major ideological underpinning of class society. Some people involved in anti-clerical movements were however religious themselves or at least had not abandoned various cultural practices, so anti-clerical has not been a one-to-one correlation with atheist.

In the same way there's a useful distinction between atheism (as a philosophical framework) and anti-clericalism (as a class movement), there is also difference between someone personally navigating their own religious background in relation to communist politics (as QQ just described), and an explicit attempt at some kind of religious socialism or anarchism.

It's this latter which I'd consider a dead end - i.e. the difference between someone being a christian anarchist and a Christian Anarchist. The latter is an attempt to reconcile the two philosophically/theologically into a coherent ideology which seems incompatible with secularism (broadening definition of secularism to include anti-state politics) let alone atheism.

Rob Ray

It's pretty much entirely just a gallery of screenshots of hotheads being angry-shouty on Twitter. Which I'd agree is unpleasant, but is also something that happens all the bloody time because people of all political stripes can't seem to help but act like mouthy tossers on Twitter. It'd not be too hard to find similar levels of bile directed at trans people.

oh right i'm actually fairly sure ive seen that before, if we're doing selecting incriminating quotes off the internet then here is my evidence that Pokémon is a murder cult https://www.facebook.com/RevNews/videos/951437478343148/

and then theres stuff like how people with wind people up then when they get angry denounce them or how people use violent language as emphasise like with swearing

I'm just going to say that the TERF vs Trans activist drama is what makes this years book fair such a fucking success. Such events serve no other purpose than to provide "anarchy' it's tit popping out super bowl moment, which is the only thing that makes them at all notable to begin with. This is what makes the book fairs in London,the Bay and NYC (and with this years prize going to LA and , seattle) so notable on a national and international level. Not because they succeeded in their "intended"purpose but because they consistently provide us with such twitter worthy gossip.

It's the spectacle of our own depraved dysfunctionality. The primary reason why these events have the relevancy they do.

It's one spectacle too much for me nowadays.
I certainly won't be going again.

Who says there'll be another?

Such events serve no other purpose than to provide "anarchy' it's tit popping out super bowl moment

Not to derail but I really despise this sort of wannabe edgelord shit. Yeah mate, you're soo cool for pointing out the anarchist movement's small and ineffective, never seen that before. If only more people would run down good comrades' efforts for the sake of puffing up their own sense of armchair superiority, it's constructive as fuck. Fap fap fap.

I totally agree with kicking out anarchists supporting ITS. Just heard about them following the LA bookfair and they come across as straight sociopaths. Support for them should be a litmus test for primitivists and their associates.

Mike Harman

Also trying to prevent trans women from competing as women in sporting events.

That's a bit of an odd thing to complain about, isn't it? I mean, what is the basis for segregating sports by sex at all? Surely its got to do with physical dimorphism rather than anything to do with how people identify (i.e. the "male-bodied", for want of a better term, being on average stronger than the "female-bodied", and therefore it being unfair for them to compete in the same event, since the "female-bodied" would hardly ever win anything).

I could see an argument for desegregating sports altogether, but I can't see a case for acting like on-average physical inequalities between cis-men and cis-women matter in sports, but on-average physical inequality between trans-women and cis-women don't.

Serge Forward

Fallback, will you knock the straw man shit on the head please? When did I ever say "just ignore them". I've said on numerous occasions that Helen should be challenged over such views. But acting like a gang of stroppy divs is not the best way to do it. In fact, if anything, it's more likely to more deeply entrench any terf-like views she may hold. Meaningful action comrades... and that wasn't it.

More than that, stuff like this actively puts off newcomers and those curious about anarchism. It makes the anarchist movement look like a bunch of violent thugs who can't organise a bookfair without getting into a brawl. It might play well within our little political clique. It's certainly a good way to make sure it remains a clique.

Trans women and sports.
https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/no-unfair-advantage-trans-athletes/

From the article:

The common trope for trans women is that we’re all tall, narrow-hipped, small-breasted, and masculine-appearing. This simply isn’t true. I happen to be tall (6’1”), but wide-hipped. I also have trans friends who are 5’4” and 130 pounds.

Fine, but doesn't the same thing apply to cis-men? So isn't that an argument for complete desegregation?

Moreover, what opponents to trans women’s inclusion in female athletics often gloss over is the drastic effect that a standard regimen of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) has on the athletic performance of trans women.

I wasn't aware of this. Thank you for correcting my ignorance.

Generally I don't give a gnat's knacker about competitive/professional sports but afaik the argument against desegregation right now comes down to money. Women's sports gets far less funding, sponsorship etc. What I've heard argued, specifically in relation to women playing in the NHL, which has had (I believe) a few women players, is that the "mens" teams will cream off the very best women players, leaving the "women's" teams with less talent >less funding > less encouragement for women & girls to get involved. And given the levels of toxic masculinity which exists in sport, not a fair few women prefer not to play with men.

TBH though, sports are near the bottom of the list of things I care about.

Mark.

Do you have any thoughts on how this could be, or could have been, avoided? There’s a recent thread started by the admins on the CEMB forum that relates to this but I’m not sure how far it’s putting forward any real solution.

I haven't spent any meaningful length of time (or at all) within this subculture to offer anything meaningful. From what I've observed, however, it seemed like moderators had a fairly laissez-faire attitude when it came to free speech. Understandable given how former Muslims in non-western states perhaps had reason to express their unfiltered anger. However, it became apparent that many users were masquerading as ex-Muslim when content became explicitly racist and encouraged military intervention. The last I checked (and this was a while ago), these places were swamped with fash propaganda. Things may or may not have changed.

I haven't thought much about it but I think western media covering class struggle within the Arab world would have a tremendously positive effect on young Muslims here.
Craftwork

You'll find that a section of Muslims are supportive of, or engaged with, the state's "counter-extremism" policies (such as PREVENT); whether teachers, religious leaders, local elites, ..., whatever - these people engage with and support the state's policies. So I don't recognise any religious communities (which is an interclassist notion), whose members share the same set of interests.

I am aware. So what?
Craftwork

The "siege" will be lifted when the working-class comes together as a class and abolishes the state/capital.

Tell that to the class reductionists.
Craftwork

I'm not particularly concerned about the what individual Muslims or "white anarchists" proclaim. What matters to me is that the communist movement doesn't abandon its materialist, freethinking roots, its principled hostility to the religious, or mystical.

Like Uncle Joe’s “principled hostility to the religious”? It is counterproductive to attack the fragile and constantly evolving mores of less than 5% of the population, given that it is state ideology that reigns supreme. A commitment to this, given our historic and geographic situation, would be a religious one and a gross misreading of the situation we're in imo.
Craftwork

Among the Left (broadly conceived), there's also an good deal of orientalism in reverse, often motivated by a well-intended, leftist political commitment to anti-racism or anti-Islamophobia - that religion, as one of the key elements of the everyday lives of colonised peoples that survived the cultural destruction of the colonial period, is a 'natural ideology' of non-white peoples, integral to their being in way not found among white Europeans, etc.

I am familiar with this opportunism but nobody here (I hope) is suggesting that.

The Green Party TERF, Olivia Palmer, just put a statement out. It's all crap of course, but she lets it slip that there were 3 of them, wearing hoodies, and they slipped back in after being chucked out to put stickers in the gender neutral toilet - a clear hate crime.

Rob Ray

oranj

TERF's are borrowing a strategy of the far-right (which makes them far-right).

No it doesn't. I don't agree with this victimhood thing of saying Terf is a slur, but equally it does no-one any favours, least of all the trans community, if we start bollocking on about Terfs being aligned with the far-right.

They have a specific bigoted view about trans people, they aren't looking to repatriate minorities and reform society on a hardline nationalist basis

So while I agree it's not useful to say 'TERFs are far right', your definition of far-right there also more or less excludes Francoist fascism in Spain. It was a broad coalition of mainly Carlists and Falangists and others, united by anti-communism and mostly catholic, but also managed to keep Moroccan military units loyal for both for the civil war and afterwards. Nationalist definitely, but more about killing anarchists and communists than repatriating minorities.

On the other hand the post '45 Labour Party was repatriating Chinese seaman from Liverpool, increasing repression in Kenya, later in '68 preventing Kenyan Asians with British passports traveling to the UK as refugees etc. It's not really useful talking about the Labour Party as far right either, yet they were repatriating minorities and carrying out colonialist policies (and Blue Labour, figures like Frank Field, Stephen Kinnock and Rachel Reeves are definitely 'aligned with the far-right' on immigration to the point of appropriating Vichy slogans almost verbatim).

Where this is relevant is we're increasingly seeing an alignment of various bigoted political persuasions that are prepared to work together to organise against shared targets. QQ has talked about far-right recruitment of ex-muslims. The US alt-right as well as confederates and nazis also includes anarcho-capitalists (2011's NAP is 2017's helicopter rides), MRAs, PUAs, alongside the more usual nazis, neo-confederates and ultra-conservative christians. Most of these have a shared project of attacking 'Social Justice Warriors' (can include anyone from communists to liberals) and rather than relying on a coherent unifying ideology instead you just get strategic allegiances - against women, immigrants, trans people etc.

On the group that leafletted the bookfair, they're apparently happy to get support from David Davies MP. Does that mean all the people in mayday4women and other TERFs who talk to David Davies want compulsory dental checks for child refugees to prove they're not adults? Obviously it doesn't, but nevertheless they're happily chatting away on twitter about how bad Hyde Park was. Similar has been seen in the US where the bathroom bills have been supported both by conservative Christians and TERFs. Davies is a Tory rather than a member of the BNP, but the strength of the far right is less in actual numbers or electoral strength but the extent to which its talking points and viewpoints have found support from people much closer to the centre. What's a good way to describe having a joint political interest and sometimes working together to further it that's not 'alignment'? Sounds snarky saying it like that, but really I don't know what to call all this.

autogestión

Moreover, what opponents to trans women’s inclusion in female athletics often gloss over is the drastic effect that a standard regimen of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) has on the athletic performance of trans women.

I wasn't aware of this. Thank you for correcting my ignorance.

So this is where a seemingly common sense statement from TERFs based on everyone's understanding of Year 8 biology turns out to be complete shite after just a bit of investigation.

There's also been recent news stories about hyperandrogenic athletes having much higher levels of testosterone and gaining competitive advantage from that, to the point they may be forced to medicate to suppress levels to be able to compete, or compete in the mens' category if performance is high enough - this despite being 'assigned female at birth' etc.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/11/intersex-athletes-learn-will-forced-take-drugs-suppress-testosterone/ / http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/40491036 / http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/29446276

I'm also in the category of not giving a shit about sport, however this is a case where it's economically in the interests of cis women with low testosterone levels to exclude trans women, hyperandrogenic and intersex women from the category of 'woman' in order to win events. Those women then excluded won't necessarily be competing against men at the same level (i.e. if their testosterone levels are at the lowest for men, and testosterone matters for men too, then they'd be at a disadvantage).

That's about as far as my knowledge goes on this, but the fact that what used to be called hermaphroditism is now understood to be multiple different medical conditions (some of which happen to make you good at sport) really undermines the strict binaries that people are trying to impose all over the place too.

Anyone paying close attention to these people for the last 30 years will find they make tactical alliances with the right where it suits their mutual interests - which is targeting trans women. Maria Mac sold her story to the Daily Mail, Miranda Yardley is in the commons sharing a platform with David Davies MP about the GRA, Julian Vigo wanted to give Milo a platform for LGBT history month, and so on.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/02/08/radical-feminists-team-up-with-right-wing-evangelicals-to-oppose-trans-rights-protections/

You're entirely correct Mike, I didn't do a fully-fleshed out exposition on the broad concept of "far-right" in my two-sentence rebuttal and didn't say (because I thought it would be blatantly fucking obvious) that groups which are not far-right also sometimes act in unpleasantly nationalist ways. I'm now leaving this thread, because I've had enough.

Well there was a serious point in my comment which you could have responded to, but if you want to take it personally go ahead. The less serious point I was making is encapsulated by these two sentences:

Rob Ray

throwing inaccurate terminology around for effect does little more than muddy the waters

Rob Ray

You're entirely correct Mike, I didn't do a fully-fleshed out exposition on the broad concept of "far-right" in my two-sentence rebuttal.

QQ

Like Uncle Joe’s “principled hostility to the religious”?

He didn't have one, it was convenient with him to ally with the Orthodox church and he's still venerated in icons there. My parents sublet to a Ukrainian orthodox man my father worked with and he had icons of Saints, Lenin and Stalin.

QQ

I haven't spent any meaningful length of time (or at all) within this subculture to offer anything meaningful. From what I've observed, however, it seemed like moderators had a fairly laissez-faire attitude when it came to free speech. Understandable given how former Muslims in non-western states perhaps had reason to express their unfiltered anger. However, it became apparent that many users were masquerading as ex-Muslim when content became explicitly racist and encouraged military intervention. The last I checked (and this was a while ago), these places were swamped with fash propaganda. Things may or may not have changed.

I only really follow the CEMB forum, which has its own problems but is probably better than some of the rest. It was set up with a big commitment to free speech, and I think there are actually good practical reasons for them to allow ex-Muslims, Muslims, or anyone wavering, to express their ideas with very few restrictions, even if some of those ideas can be alarming (one that comes to mind is a defence of slavery by a Salafi visiting the boards). This does open the door to the non-Muslim right though.

Mike Harman

QQ has talked about far-right recruitment of ex-muslims.

I’m not sure recruitment is the issue, though it may occasionally happen. It’s more that ex-Muslim sites seem to attract consistent interest from the far-right creating an influence in the background that’s hard to avoid. The association of a lot of new atheism with the right fits in with this. It isn’t that people are stupid and I expect most ex-Muslims are perfectly capable of shrugging this off and filtering it out, but it still isn’t great that the influence is there. This is partly why I’m uneasy with arguments that anarchists/communists should play down their secularism and atheism. I think it risks secularism ending up being associated with the right and defence of religion with the left. This may not seem very important to activists living in a secularised world, but there are other people, here and elsewhere, who really aren’t living in that secularised world and face all kinds of problems related to religion.

Mark.

Mike Harman

QQ has talked about far-right recruitment of ex-muslims.

I’m not sure recruitment is the issue, though it may occasionally happen. It’s more that ex-Muslim sites seem to attract consistent interest from the far-right creating an influence in the background that’s hard to avoid.

[/quote]

I might have added that on from the back of my head. I had in mind people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali - used to work with Geert Wilders and shares platforms with Sam Harris, has called for banning Muslim schools and said the arguments don't apply to Christian or Jewish schools, supported the Trump travel ban (except for the incompetent execution of it). I don't know enough about her to say far-right or not, but those associations and positions at least show a trajectory towards 'aligned with' and it obviously makes sense for well resourced Islamophobes to give ex-muslims that support their positions as much of a platform as possible.

I think Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a bit of a special case. She’s very much from an elite background; daughter of a leading Somali politician, political science student at Leiden, MP in the Dutch Parliament, now working for a right wing US think tank. Despite the move from teenage Islamist to apostate and estrangement from family and community there’s a consistency there and I suspect she’s never really wavered from an elite world view. Ideologically she’s very much a neo-liberal, whether or not that qualifies her to be considered as part of the far-right.

That said I’m sure there are career opportunities for ex-muslims considering taking the same path and there are probably examples that haven’t occurred to me.

gamerunknown

He didn't have one, it was convenient with him to ally with the Orthodox church and he's still venerated in icons there. My parents sublet to a Ukrainian orthodox man my father worked with and he had icons of Saints, Lenin and Stalin.

Kind of my point. Yet he still found it useful to shut down mosques, execute Muslim Bolsheviks, expel Muslims to Central Asia and institute programs like Hujum (which is worth revisiting, as I can see many parallels with today).
Mike Harman

QQ has talked about far-right recruitment of ex-muslims.

For clarity sake, they may be trying to recruit, but I think it's designed to put off decent people questioning religion and looking for answers. Many of the ex-Muslims I knew of were more inclined toward kind of classical liberal to left libertarian politics although could just be confirmation bias.
Mark.

I only really follow the CEMB forum, which has its own problems but is probably better than some of the rest. It was set up with a big commitment to free speech, and I think there are actually good practical reasons for them to allow ex-Muslims, Muslims, or anyone wavering, to express their ideas with very few restrictions, even if some of those ideas can be alarming (one that comes to mind is a defence of slavery by a Salafi visiting the boards). This does open the door to the non-Muslim right though.

The kind of things I was seeing ranged from hysterical support for Israeli occupation of Palestine to really vulgar and nasty racism against Arabs. Just find it hard to believe that fascists within a genuine ex-Muslim milieu would be so heavily represented.

QQ

Many of the ex-Muslims I knew of were more inclined toward kind of classical liberal to left libertarian politics although could just be confirmation bias.

That fits with my impression.
QQ

Just find it hard to believe that fascists within a genuine ex-Muslim milieu would be so heavily represented.

It’s always had plenty of people posting who aren’t from any kind of Muslim background (and aren’t pretending to be). The support for Israel was odd but seemed to be mainly from liberals.

Just thought it was worth correcting a few lies from this weird person with an obsession with defending transphobes it seems:
wimpled off

Libcom uncritically supports the Gender Recognition Act

This is a lie, we have no position on it. However as an anarchist, personally I think the state has no right to go around inspecting people's genitalia and determining people's gender or sex.

And prohibits discussion on it.

This is also a blatant lie.

The so-called “Libertarian Communists (sic)” align with the right wing libertarianism of the Tory government.

this is also a lie. Conversely, the transphobes were the ones supporting David Davis.

This support goes along with support for violence against women, support for religion and all manner of post-structuralist and identity politics.

those first two points are bullshit. Post-structuralism, I don't know what that is. Identity politics is normally just a derisive term for opposing discrimination (like racism, sexism, transphobia etc), so on that count you probably have us, as we are opposed to all kinds of discrimination.

There is nothing remotely classist in any of these positions.

you what? You haven't even said what any of our actual positions are, so this comment is bullshit as well.

When it’s revealed Helen Steel is a union rep

It wasn't "revealed", Helen Steel is a well-known Unison activist who runs for election to national positions.

far from this giving pause to the rabid anti-feminist witch hunt

It looks like you've betrayed your own position here. If you are conflating opposing transphobia with being anti-feminist, then it means by de facto you a TERF (or "trans-exclusionary feminist" if you are one of the pricks who thinks TERF is a slur but "trans-exclusionary feminist" is fine. And if you are a transphobe, then you can fuck off from this website alongside the other bigots we have banned.

a Libcom regular announces that he will seek to get her removed from her job.

Again you're lying. If you're referring to me, what I said was that if she is promoting transphobic propaganda, then that is a breach of the union rules, as union rules prohibit any kind of discrimination.

As well as lying, it looks like you don't even have the most rudimentary understanding of workplace organising. Helen's job is not as a union rep. She is a council worker, who volunteers as a union rep for Unison. Even if I said that I would "seek to get her removed" as a union rep, which I didn't as that's a lie you have made up, that wouldn't have anything to do with her losing her job.

This is called blacklisting.

No it's not: you're an idiot and a liar.

The forum is dramatically poorer than the library. It can only be a matter of time before the admins start deleting material from the library as they already delete posts from this thread. The most telling deletion is of a post that called their behaviour “Stalinist”.

we deleted transphobic comments from this thread. And we do delete content from our library, for example when it turned out that one of the Ruptura Collective was a rapist we deleted their blog and all of their posts.

With its support for violent suppression of discussion and support the government and various reactionary movements, Libcom is not communist and is not even libertarian.

yeah good one.

Reminder that the leaflets being distributed called for trans women to be held in mens' prisons in case they're abusers while ignoring all the non-hypothetical cases like this:

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/transgender-woman-says-she-was-jailed-men-assaulted-n818281?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

I don't know how anyone can seriously suggest that the points in that leaflet are things that should be "up for discussion." I can't even. It's not even nit picking over some finer points of ideology, it transcends political differences, it's just human decency ffs.

Well no Bookfair next year and, at a guess, ever again. Can't say I'm surprised...

Re-posting two statements from the Anarchist Bookfair Collective, they're word documents linked from the front page of http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/. edit - not an endorsement of the contents at all see posts below

Anarchist Bookfair Collective

There have been a number of demands that the London Anarchist Bookfair Collective put out a statement on the events at this year’s Bookfair. Since we started drafting one there have inevitably been a range of statements, open letters etc. Elsewhere we will set out where we think this leaves the Bookfair collective, the Bookfair and the wider movement. Here we will try and set out some sort of position on the events of the day. It’s probably useful to keep the two separate.
Before we start, we want people to remember there were a huge number of positive things about the day; it felt more diverse, there were a lot of people who had not been before, there were some excellent outward looking meetings, the Swiss comrades raised more than £700 for G20 defendants, the Rebel Riot tour went down a storm and they’ve secured help and funding to set up a social centre in Myanmar, a comrade who came over from Hong Kong is going back to set up a bookfair there, as is another from Bulgaria we hope, and there were some great books too! What people are expecting us to make a statement about are two incidents and some leaflets. Like many, many other groups we don’t all think the same but have tried to come to some consensus. From the demands being “made” of us we know we won’t satisfy everybody. In fact we may alienate a range of people, and we may have people who presently are trying not to take sides disagreeing with us as well. All we can say to everyone is these are our thoughts.

There were some leaflets being handed out against the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act

We are all unhappy about the contents of the leaflets we have seen. One is clearly meant only to provoke, the other fails to even acknowledge the real fears and discrimination that many trans people face in everyday life and, by failing to do so, itself becomes provocative and therefore offensive. We had not seen the leaflets before the problems started and most of us did not get to see the contents until the end of the day. As anarchists we feel “banning” and “no platforming” are actions that should only be used as extreme solutions and, while the leaflet did cause offense and hurt, we will only remove literature or people from the Bookfair in extreme circumstances and not just because we disagree with it or them, even if they do cause offence.

As the Bookfair collective we have been working most of our lives to oppose oppression and we see worrying tendencies on both sides of this debate to ban, oppress and win the argument by force. We know people who feel strongly about this; who feel deeply hurt; and who feel angry. We see the contradictions, we see the splitting of our movement, and we see and feel the pain caused. Unfortunately we don’t have the answers but we are prepared to be part of any group that wants to look for a less oppressive way to deal with this debate within our movement.

We are also aware that views and attitudes vary widely. People who disagree strongly with the leaflets’ contents do not all think it’s useful to call the people distributing them fascists, or that anyone failing to condemn them should be attacked. People in our movement have a range of different views about gender, women’s spaces and so on. People who step in to stop a woman being mobbed don’t necessarily share her views or even claim understanding of all the issues. No one voice speaks for everyone on either side.

The jumping to confrontation, the retreat into “No debate” only hardens positions, poisons political and personal relationships and makes the possibility of any sort of resolution less possible. We don’t see any winners emerging out of this toxicity.

The fracas

Let’s get one thing straight. We did not step in to support people promoting transphobic hate speech. We saw two women (who had been handing out leaflets) being attacked by a group of people and separated them from the group. A member of the collective was hit by the people handing out the leaflets while trying to move them away from the stalls and lifts. The two women left the venue. The woman who was later mobbed by up to about 30 people did not hand out the leaflets or have anything to do with their production or distribution – she simply said that they had the right to distribute them. For expressing this view, she was mobbed by a crowd of people some of whom, had we not stepped in, appeared bent on physically attacking her. We and other stall holders stepped in to prevent this from happening. If any individual within our movement is threatened with physical assault at the Bookfair we always try to do what we can to protect that person, and have done so (sadly too often) at previous Bookfairs over a number of different strongly felt issues, regardless of whether we personally share their views.

We have been accused of “protecting a fascist” and of being transphobic ourselves. All of us in the collective have physically confronted fascists on the streets, at meetings and in print, and we are baffled and upset by these accusations. Accusing a person of being a fascist because you don’t like their views is dishonest and dangerous. We are not going to apologise for protecting someone being mobbed by a group of up to about 30 people, and, along with others, preventing an ugly situation from deteriorating further.

Obviously a lot of people are going to disagree with this, but anyone who seriously thinks that up to about 30 people shouting and threatening one woman, and in the process intimidating disabled comrades and children, was a “beautiful moment of direct action” should consider taking a look at themselves and their politics.

Finally to those who decided to smash and set off the fire alarm, and to anyone who thought it was clever - have you thought about the effect it had on the creche and older kids space, the numerous meetings taking place at the time, or relations with the venue? A number of children having to be led out of the older kids space were crying and talking about Grenfell. They thought it was a real fire and were really scared. This action definitely didn’t make it a safe space for them.

The end

We are unsure how this debate within our movement (and beyond) will work itself out, as there is a wide range of strongly held views. What we are sure of is that next year there are people who would want us to ban those sharing the views of the leafleteers or those who stickered the loos, others who would want us to ban people who were in the group of up to about 30 or those who set off the fire alarm. We are not prepared to ban any of these people, and, while people think the way to resolve their differences is to disrupt and shut down meetings, like the Syria meeting last year, or the whole Bookfair this year, by shouting at and fighting each other, we haven’t the appetite or the energy to organise next year’s Bookfair.
More positively and perhaps unsurprisingly we have had contacts from a range of people who do see the need for debate and discussion on the issues and the events. We don’t think our collective is the right facilitator but are prepared to work with anyone who, like us, would like to look at ways we work these (strongly felt) disagreements within our movement out face to face. If we don’t, the only winners will be capitalism and the state.
(Please note: While others may want to continue this discussion online. We won’t be making any further comments.)

Anarchist Bookfair Collective

A few days ago, someone sent us the following open letter - https://londonbookfairopenletter.wordpress.com/. Initially we didn’t want to write a point by point response but feel it is necessary to reply to the accusations and the demands made of us.

For the record: the current Bookfair Collective will not be organising a Bookfair in 2018. Organising an annual event attended by over 2000 people is a huge amount of work - finding and negotiating with venue providers, organising the equipment needed, booking stalls and meetings, printing and distributing leaflets and programmes, as well as finding overseas speakers and the money to pay for them. Pretty much every year we receive some accusation of heinous behaviour and demands that we implement a list of externally formulated policies. We could look at this one and dismiss it as more of the same; ignore it, say the groups are not representative, if we leave it people will lose interest, etc. But at the same time we are aware that many groups who have been pressed to sign up for it have not and we do need to set out a response as much to them as to the signatories and others who have read it.

What hurts us most is we know a lot of you. A number of the signatories to the open letter are groups we know and have worked with over the years; sometimes many, many years. Yet not one of you has tried to contact us as individuals or as the Bookfair collective to ask our views before you signed the open letter, even though some people appear not to have read all of it before signing. We thought of many of you as friends. We were obviously wrong. We guess it’s easy to sign a statement. It’s a lot harder to actually talk to people and try to work things out. We are also tired of being told what to do. We are told to ban people. We are told have this or that policy. We are told this or that group can/can’t have stalls. We are told we shouldn’t have a certain venue. We are constantly told we get it wrong. However, no one has offered to join the Collective and help us make the Bookfair better or offered to take it on.

We find it sad that so many individuals and groups jumped in to sign an open letter that accused of us allowing events that “terrorised” trans people and did not grant “the bare minimum conditions for trans and gender-variant comrades to take part in the event”. We wonder if everyone signing the open letter really thinks that trans and gender-variant comrades felt intimidated coming to the Bookfair? From what we saw and have heard, many members of the trans community were quite happy to be there. Indeed some disagree with the open letter and have expressed unhappiness about the behaviour of the group of up to about 30 people who chose to demand their view set the agenda.

We have in the past been called fascists by many individuals, sometimes for as little as asking for a donation towards the event; more often for asking people not to bring in dogs (for the safety of children) or not to use cameras. We also got called fascists on Saturday by a number of people. It seriously concerns us how easy this terminology is thrown about in the anarchist milieu. Survivors of the Spanish Civil war, survivors of the death camps, political activists in Pinochet’s Chile, activists in parts of the world today and many others who have been at the blunt end of actual fascism are done a disservice by this indiscriminate use of the word. We feel that the Bookfair is not the place for tactics used on demos against fascist groups and cops. Some of us are traumatised enough by activism and look forward to enjoying an event where we can see friends and exchange ideas without the pressure of these actions.

We agree 100% with the part of the open letter that says “Calling out harmful behaviour is about holding each other to the commitment that we can do and be better.” However, we find it sits uncomfortably with a large group of people threatening one person and find it difficult to believe some of those who signed this statement don’t either.

Three years ago a group of people came to tell us they were about to kick out an undercover cop. The person accused was visibly shaken and scared as the group was about to physically eject them till someone realised they had “the wrong person”. People are unhappy that the Bookfair collective doesn’t have a safer spaces policy. But we have always questioned who these policies are for? Is it OK for a space to be safe for one group but not for others who have different views? AFem 2014 was an attempt to make an event similar to the Bookfair without cis-men and with a safer spaces policy. Having seen the result, does anyone wonder why the organisers of that event (many more than we are) didn’t feel they had the energy to do another one?

The statement claims “organisers have stepped in to defend and support those who use oppressive, violent and dehumanising language to perpetuate racist, colonial and patriarchal systems of oppression”. Do all of you feel comfortable signing these accusations against us, presented without examples or proof? Many of you have worked with us for years and happily speak to us about stall and meeting bookings year after year. Isn’t it disingenuous to come to an event or book a stall or meeting, and, in many cases, be very friendly with us when you know us to be racist, colonialist and patriarchal? Did you not think of challenging us over the years about this?

This brings us onto the demands. Despite your claim that you have “been progressively alienated over the years by the culture of the Bookfair”, not one of you has ever come and offered to either get involved or to take the event on. In 2013 or 2014 demands were made of us to implement a safer spaces policy and to ban certain individuals. These “demands” were sent to us just over a week before the Bookfair. We refused, as, given the timeframe, we had no time to discuss the lengthy demands and their serious implications. After the Bookfair we contacted the groups who had made these demands to discuss how we could work together and we set up a meeting, but were met with silence.

You ask that the date of the Bookfair doesn’t clash with the UFFC demo. Where possible we have always tried to avoid a clash. There have been years where we can’t get the venue any other weekend (a couple of times when we were at Queen Mary’s). We got kicked out of Queen Mary’s and Central St Martin’s because of the behaviour of some people. Shit happens – we move on. We put tweets out asking for people to help us find a new venue. A few friends suggested places but all were unsuitable for either access or space reasons.

The secondary school in Tottenham was ideal for everything we needed. However, the only Saturday the school could offer us clashed with the UFFC demo. We were not happy about this, but had to weigh it up against access requirements, space requirements, financial requirements and venues actually wanting the event in the first place. We have probably visited over 100 venues over the last 10 years to try to find suitable spaces. Maybe those making demands like this should be prepared to take some responsibility for finding a suitable venue? Otherwise one can only assume their brand of anarchism is getting others to do things so there is always someone else to blame.

By the way, we maintain a dialogue with UFFC. We put their demo on the Bookfair leaflet (of which we produce and distribute 20,000) and programme. We also promote their demo on social media and are happy for people to go to the demo rather than the Bookfair. Ironically on years the Bookfair hasn’t clashed with the UFFC demo, and most of us have gone, the numbers on the demo don’t increase, which says loads to us about “our” movement.

You state we should have “A clear statement outlining the politics the LABF is committed to, what kinds of behaviour and views are unacceptable and unwelcome at the Bookfair”. Have you looked at our website? There is a statement there. We suspect some of you signed the open letter without checking the website. We suspect others mean “we don’t like your statement”. If that’s the case, then be honest and say what you mean. Again, we feel not so much upset as frustrated about this.

Regarding points 4, 5 and 6: It really saddens us that comrades can sign up to these points without talking to us or thinking through and substantiating what they have signed up to. We will take them separately below.

Regarding “a commitment to incorporating anti-racist and decolonial struggle into the Bookfair”. Every year we actively approach groups and individuals to try and make the event more diverse. We pay fares and, when we can, put on nationwide tours for speakers. Have you forgotten Lorenzo and JoNina, the ex-Panthers? Have you forgotten Lindela from Abahlali baseMjondolo? Have you already forgotten Rebel Riot this year? This year we also tried really hard to get comrades from Kurdistan, Turkey, Tunisia, Venezuela (and in the past Gaza), to attend. Many of the non-white speakers at the Bookfair have been invited by the collective. Every year we also try to get local non-white groups to speak. Most don’t want to because the event, in common with the movement as a whole, is so “white”. Do you really think the Bookfair Collective alone is responsible for the current lack of diversity across the whole movement?

You say we should make space for workshops and meetings for people of colour or queer and trans (point 5) and people with disabilities (point 6). How are we not providing space? Anyone can contact us to suggest or book a meeting. Anyone can book a stall. We actively encouraged a trans rights group who had tried to book a stall last year, but contacted us too late, to book early this year, but they opted to do something else on the day. It’s interesting that because there wasn’t a meeting with “trans” or “queer” in the title some of you seem to think there were no trans speakers, implying that the only thing people of trans experience can talk about is their gender.
Regards the demands around accessibility in the open letter, again we ask how you can sign this statement without talking to us or looking at what’s been achieved over the years. We work with DPAC, we have signers on hand (3 this year) at the Bookfair to interpret for people at meetings and round stalls if needed. We have touch typists on hand for those who are hard of hearing. We spend ages finding venues that are accessible and we mean the whole venue. Yes, there are problems. Venues often don’t “get it” so we fight them on this. We had started to get there with the new venue. We had eight keys cut for the lifts, of which two were on the DPAC stall.

We ask people who want to attend meetings or films to let us know in advance so we can get meeting notes and further info in advance to make the meeting as accessible as possible (this is all on our social media and website). This year we offered to pay for cabs to and from the venue for anyone with mobility difficulties. We specifically have a Bookfair access stall, staffed by trained people (some of whom have disabilities themselves) to support this work. Are you claiming that all your venues, offices and events are as accessible?

Several of us were incredulous when we saw point 7. We find it hypocritical that some of those signing the open letter (and we accept it’s only one or two) have not only taken photos at a previous Bookfair but circulated them publicly. There were people in the “melee” on Saturday taking photos of the person being attacked as well as of us trying to defuse the situation and comments shouted at us included “your face will be all over social media by tomorrow”.

We think it’s time for everyone to take a moment to reflect on the event and the state of the anarchist movement in general, to think how we can move forward in a more positive way. However, we have decided not to organise another Bookfair in 2018. This is because we can’t agree to implement the list of demands in the open letter and don’t expect many of the groups and individuals who signed it, or made their own statements, to accept our response. We are sad to disappoint all those who, like us, value the Bookfair and the contribution it has made to the movement. We are sad that incidents that it may have been possible to resolve have been widened out and entrenched. Our decision reflects an increasingly toxic atmosphere, which we do not want to concede to or facilitate. We also have very serious concerns about organising a Bookfair knowing that we, those who wished to attend and the venue would face attempts at harassment and disruption.

To reiterate: We will not be organising the Bookfair in 2018. For all those who think we did such a terrible job, who feel we didn’t get it right for people of colour, trans people, disabled people and probably others as well, show us how to do it properly. The Bookfair in 2018 is yours. We won’t come along and make trouble; we won’t denounce you on social media; we won’t criticise from the sidelines. But we are really interested to see how you solve all the problems you raise in your statement and implement your list of demands.

Last but not least, thank you to all those who have sent messages of support and those of you who have at least called / emailed to question us about the events and our thoughts even if you don’t agree with us.
(Please note: While others may want to continue this discussion online. We won’t be making any further comments.)

Like Darren says, there will not be one next year. Statement from the Bookfair collective here, and a response to the open letter: http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/

While personally I have a lot of respect for some of the Bookfair collective, unfortunately in their statement on the events they do not in my view properly condemn transphobia, nor do they put any responsibility on Helen at all for what occurred, despite the fact she was defending hate speech, and despite the fact she is an active transphobe herself.

They also effectively defend the right of people to actively organise and promote transphobia in the Bookfair, which I simply do not believe they would allow for people distributing racist, sexist or homophobic propaganda.

My hope would be that they change their views on this. Perhaps it seems that their long friendship with Helen, and her long record of otherwise exemplary activism, and perhaps lack of personal/political relationships and empathy with/understanding of trans people has led them to think that transphobia is not "as bad" as racism or homophobia.

This being the case, I think it is right that they are not going to organise the Bookfair next year - or again TBH until they re-evaluate their views on trans people.

In terms of their response to the open letter, I think much of the response is fair enough. As I mentioned above some of the criticism/demands was completely overblown and criticised them for things outside their remit or control.

So basically I hope that other people, including those who criticised the Bookfair collective, will get together and organise a similar event next year, at which all types of discriminatory and anti-working class behaviour is prohibited (of course enforcing such prohibition is a separate issue, but making a commitment to exclude it is the first step). And I would also hope that the current Bookfair collective would help anyone who does step up to do so, by sharing contacts, experience and media infrastructure like the Bookfair website, Twitter and FB page.

Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable.

libcom didn't sign any of the open letters but we did discuss doing so, and e-mailed the bookfair collective telling them this, with some specific questions about their views.

This paragraph from the bookfair collective statement, and some other sections like it suggests they think the mayday4women group's views and activities before, during and after the bookfair are an acceptable range within what should be tolerated at anarchist events even if they think the leaflets themselves are 'offensive'.

Anarchist Bookfair Collective

We are unsure how this debate within our movement (and beyond) will work itself out, as there is a wide range of strongly held views. What we are sure of is that next year there are people who would want us to ban those sharing the views of the leafleteers or those who stickered the loos, others who would want us to ban people who were in the group of up to about 30 or those who set off the fire alarm. ... We are not prepared to ban any of these people
...
we are prepared to be part of any group that wants to look for a less oppressive way to deal with this debate within our movement.

I looked up some old threads on here from about 2007-8-ish around trans issues and found tonnes of transphobic shit, especially put forwarded by revol68 (who's since been banned some time ago after multiple short term bans, but it took several years for that to happen), but also people accepting some of his points and/or defending his right to put things forward.

We had very lax moderation rules on this site for a number of years, and it led to an incredibly toxic atmosphere for a long time. A lot of this was because we didn't make a sufficient distinction between political disagreements, rudeness/swearing, and bigotry - and when people complained about this (usually informally rather than via an open letter or anything), we mostly dismissed it as criticism of strongly held political views and/or rudeness. Eventually enough people had a go at us, we developed a better understanding of these dynamics and some of the issues involved, and we started tightening things up.

This doesn't mean we've fixed those issues. Some of the people who left the site for good reasons haven't returned, the posts of some bannees are still in old threads that people can come across randomly and assume is acceptable on the site now, our current moderation is under-resourced which makes it inconsistent. Also we still properly fuck up sometimes.

Reading these statements, I can see some defensive arguments I might have made a few years ago 'Look, we're trying to do all these things, people should be able to discuss things and work it out' and it completely misses the point that people were using the bookfair to distribute essentially hate literature.

The statement, (which I skim-read looking for mention of the TERF and didn't find it so won't bother reading again), is an exercise in deflection. It's not about the open letter being less than fucking perfect. It's about their actions on the day. That tweet is still up there for all to see. The LABF will defend a TERF and fall on their fucking sword doing so. And there's the other issue of them booking a venue where a labour dispute was taking place, effectively scabbing.

The LABF has fallen short of what is expected from an *anarchist* organisation. I'm sure liberals are fine with shit like this. But we aren't liberals. Hope more enlightened people can take this forward.

Oranj: "Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable"

I think you mean: Some people decide to withdraw their voluntary labour, and actively call for the continuing of the project by its critics.

There you go, fixed it for you.

Oranj

And there's the other issue of them booking a venue where a labour dispute was taking place, effectively scabbing.

I've only skim read your post, but this is the first I have heard of this dispute? What are the details?

satawal

Oranj: "Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable"

I think you mean: Some people decide to withdraw their voluntary labour, and actively call for the continuing of the project by its critics.

There you go, fixed it for you.

Deflecting criticism back at the critics isn't being accountable, its evasion. Their statement effectively read as a 'We're right and we'd do it again'. Their position of neutrality between oppressed and oppressor has fuck all to do with anarchism, neither has free speech for hate groups.

Fozzie

Oranj

And there's the other issue of them booking a venue where a labour dispute was taking place, effectively scabbing.

I've only skim read your post, but this is the first I have heard of this dispute? What are the details?

T.Chances is the venue. Workers were made to work 13 hour shifts, not getting paid, and community orgs getting pushed out of the venue.

Oranj

Fozzie

Oranj

And there's the other issue of them booking a venue where a labour dispute was taking place, effectively scabbing.

I've only skim read your post, but this is the first I have heard of this dispute? What are the details?

T.Chances is the venue. Workers were made to work 13 hour shifts, not getting paid, and community orgs getting pushed out of the venue.

So not the actual venue of the Bookfair then.

I've not been able to find anything online about the T Chances dispute - is there anything I have missed?

Fozzie

Oranj

Fozzie

Oranj

And there's the other issue of them booking a venue where a labour dispute was taking place, effectively scabbing.

I've only skim read your post, but this is the first I have heard of this dispute? What are the details?

T.Chances is the venue. Workers were made to work 13 hour shifts, not getting paid, and community orgs getting pushed out of the venue.

So not the actual venue of the Bookfair then.

I've not been able to find anything online about the T Chances dispute - is there anything I have missed?

No, the after parties (two of them) weren't at the bookfair.

I didn't learn this online, but from a comrade at the pub opposite.

The only good thing that can be said about the LABF statement, as far as I'm concerned, is that it means that the AFed proposal of a 'rival bookfair' will no longer be in direct competition with a better known bookfair. By refusing to take any responsibility at all, the LABF collective have at least opened the field.

Apart from everything Mike Harman and Oranj have pointed out above, what gets me about the LABF collective statements is that they outright acknowledge that these issues have been raised in one way or another many times over the past few years. They complain that no one has ever joined them to improve the organisation of the bookfair, but on the other hand, I can't remember ever seeing an invitation being circulated by the collective to join in and find ways to deal with all the issues that have been raised. In that context, saying 'well, no one's ever stepped up' sounds like a dodge. It looks even dodgier given that the substantive response to the issues with the anti-trans hate literature suggests that they wouldn't want to change anything even if people did somehow join in the organising.

I really hope that we take advantage of the opportunity here to get together and demonstrate that it is indeed possible to organise an anarchist bookfair in London that has all of the positive aspects of the event as we've known it, whilst actually drawing lessons from all the issues that have arisen in previous years, with an inclusive approach to organising that actively draws people in rather than merely resorting to 'you didn't join in and eventually gave up after we dismissed you' as an excuse for not taking justifiable criticism on board.

As for the T.Chances dispute, I'm pretty sure I've seen photos of the leaflet the workers were handing out there on Twitter, so I imagine it would be possible to track those down there.

Presumably the comrade in the pub opposite had also raised this with the Bookfair collective prior to to the event?

Fozzie

Presumably the comrade in the pub opposite had also raised this with the Bookfair collective prior to to the event?

One would assume anarchists would check in with workers at a venue beforehand before booking it, for any such disputes. That's what we do in the IWW...

Oranj

One would assume anarchists would check in with workers at a venue beforehand before booking it, for any such disputes. That's what we do in the IWW...

And given that these workers were printing flyers, one imagines that they would have sought to raise the issue themselves. It seems hard to believe that whoever booked the venue for the bookfair would have been unaware of the dispute.

Sounds like an added smear for good measure.... an' they're scabs as well!!!11! You really think the bookfair collective met and decided to do some scabbing on the side?

Deary me.

Once again I’ve only skimmed Oranj’s posts above, but I haven’t seen any evidence of the Bookfair collective being scabs or even knowing about the dispute that was brought up by the comrade in the pub across the road whilst the Bookfair was happening.

Serge Forward

Sounds like an added smear for good measure.... an' they're scabs as well!!!11! You really think the bookfair collective met and decided to do some scabbing on the side?

Deary me.

The fact remains that there was a dispute at the venue and no-one seems to have listened to the workers. But never mind all that, anarchism is about partying right?

[I didn't even mention that David Rovics, one of the 'stars' booked, is friends with Gilad Atzmon, who is a holocaust denier. Oh, slipped up there.]

I couldn't find any leaflets for the T. Chances dispute on twitter, although may not have figured out the right search terms.

There's enough concrete things to deal with on this thread, so if someone has documentation of a dispute at the after-party venue please post it, otherwise I don't think it's going to help with the discussion here at all. If this was widely known I'd have expected to see it in the open letter.

Oranj

[I didn't even mention that David Rovics, one of the 'stars' booked, is friends with Gilad Atzmon, who is a holocaust denier. Oh, slipped up there.]

Another smear! Guilt by association (once removed) this time. Damn them bookfair people for booking someone who is friends with a Holocaust denier. Shame on them for not knowing more about the friends of people booked to perform at the social. Are you for real, you chump?

Oranj

I didn't even mention that David Rovics, one of the 'stars' booked, is friends with Gilad Atzmon, who is a holocaust denier. Oh, slipped up there.]

Rovics actually published a defence of Atzmon's racist tract 'The Wandering Who' in response to the Palestinian call for the solidarity movement to stop damaging the Palestinian struggle by associating with racists and fascists like Atzmon. The statement can be found on Rovics' website under the title 'Disavowing Disavowal'. The issue has been raised with Rovics in the interim to see if Atzmon's fascist sympathies, which he isn't even hiding at this point, had led him to reconsider his support, and Rovics just utterly dismissed it.

Mike Harman

I couldn't find any leaflets for the T. Chances dispute on twitter, although may not have figured out the right search terms.

I've been looking for it as well, and I'm not finding it either, which is quite frustrating, since I held a copy of it in my hand and didn't think to get a quick picture of it for just this sort of occasion. The search terms turn up so many irrelevant results that it's buried.

Serge Forward

Damn them bookfair people for booking someone who is friends with a Holocaust denier. Shame on them for not knowing more about the friends of people booked to perform at the social.

He's not just friends with him, as Antifa Armadillo pointed out he's published a defense of Atzmon's book, it's easy to find.

The bookfair collective might well not have known about the association, I hadn't heard of Rovics until he was brought up here (although presumably someone heard of him enough to book him).

However an easy thing to do when something like this is brought to your attention is to say 'sorry, we fucked up, we won't book him again' - or if you knew about all this and think it's fine, then defend the decision and take the flak for it.

Serge you have a lot of opinions about people's opinions on the bookfair, but none on the statement it seems. Your last post on here was 'we'll just have to agree to disagree' which was frankly a shit response to my comment, and you're not even sticking to that.

Mike Harman

The bookfair collective might well not have known about the association, I hadn't heard of Rovics until he was brought up here (although presumably someone heard of him enough to book him).

Rovics is pretty well known, and actually - unfortunately given the fact that he turns out to be a dodgy bastard - quite a good songwriter. That's probably part of why it's been so hard to raise the issue around his defence of Atzmon's racism, because a lot of people simply don't want to hear about it. In that sense, I wouldn't be surprised if the organisers hadn't been aware of it.

I've been banging on about Rovics since 2014. No-one wants to know. Muso's get a pass.
He still keeps getting booked all over the place - by anarchists, some of whom I know and know full well his association with Atzmon.

I found a photo of the T-Chances flyer here: https://ibb.co/kpoyOG

Mike Harman

Serge Forward

Damn them bookfair people for booking someone who is friends with a Holocaust denier. Shame on them for not knowing more about the friends of people booked to perform at the social.

He's not just friends with him, as Antifa Armadillo pointed out he's published a defense of Atzmon's book, it's easy to find.

The bookfair collective might well not have known about the association, I hadn't heard of Rovics until he was brought up here (although presumably someone heard of him enough to book him).

However an easy thing to do when something like this is brought to your attention is to say 'sorry, we fucked up, we won't book him again' - or if you knew about all this and think it's fine, then defend the decision and take the flak for it.

Serge you have a lot of opinions about people's opinions on the bookfair, but none on the statement it seems. Your last post on here was 'we'll just have to agree to disagree' which was frankly a shit response to my comment, and you're not even sticking to that.

Mike Harmon, if the allegation that Rovics associates with an anti semiite like Atzmon, then he is a cunt. However, to then suggest that the bookfair people are somehow tarnished by Rovics' associations is also a cunt's trick.

I've already made my view of this clear on several occasions. I think the most measured response to this was that by the AF trans action faction https://afed.org.uk/afed-trans-action-faction-statement-in-response-to-events-at-london-anarchist-bookfair-2017/ - though I disagree somewhat with the second paragraph in that statement.

Mike Harmon, sadly your politics have deteriorated and my respect for you as a poster on here is rapidly evaporating.

'unaccountable management clique'..sounds familiar

Antifa Armadillo

Mike Harman

I couldn't find any leaflets for the T. Chances dispute on twitter, although may not have figured out the right search terms.

I've been looking for it as well, and I'm not finding it either, which is quite frustrating, since I held a copy of it in my hand and didn't think to get a quick picture of it for just this sort of occasion. The search terms turn up so many irrelevant results that it's buried.

Down with the bookfair people for not finding it either. Jesus, read back over your and oranj's posts for one minute.

Serge Forward

Mike Harmon, if the allegation that Rovics associates with an anti semiite like Atzmon, then he is a cunt. However, to then suggest that the bookfair people are somehow tarnished by Rovics' associations is also a cunt's trick.

Surely they bear some responsibility for deciding to book someone who has published a full-throated defence of a racist tract written by a notorious holocaust denier and fascist sympathiser, and has not seen fit to reconsider that in light of Atzmon's decision no longer to even pretend that there's any daylight between himself and fash. People have been raising this issue for some time. To my mind, the question is whether the organisers were actually aware of it.

Serge Forward

Down with the bookfair people for not finding it either. Jesus, read back over your and oranj's posts for one minute.

The flyer was being handed out at T-Chances by T-Chances employees, and I've since found a photo of it and posted the link. In case you haven't seen it, it's here: https://ibb.co/kpoyOG

I find it pretty hard to believe that workers who went to the trouble of designing, writing, and printing this flyer to make the public aware of their dispute wouldn't have made the bookfair organisers aware of the situation when they decided to book the venue. Nonetheless, no statement the organisers have made about the various issues has mentioned it at all.

Serge

Mike Harmon, if the allegation that Rovics associates with an anti semiite like Atzmon, then he is a cunt. However, to then suggest that the bookfair people are somehow tarnished by Rovics' associations is also a cunt's trick.

Let's look at what was actually said:

oranj

I didn't even mention that David Rovics, one of the 'stars' booked, is friends with Gilad Atzmon, who is a holocaust denier. Oh, slipped up there.]

Are you saying it's not a slip up to book Rovics?

AK Press published a book by Michael Schmidt, who turned out to be a fucking racist. That was a slip up too, they've not been particularly tarnished by it though because they tried to handle it once they found out (if anything they caught flak for releasing an alarmist statement about it).

We decided to keep a PDF of the book on the site after we found out, with a massive disclaimer on it (something that's still subject to change, but other pages in the first page of google results are an invitation to purchase it with no disclaimer, so while they're still up we decided this was the least worst option).

We've taken a fair bit of flak for having the PDF up even with a disclaimer, but I don't call the people doing that cunts because I can see the perspective (in fact agree with it apart from the above context) of not wanting it available anywhere at all.

Serge Forward

Mike Harmon, sadly your politics have deteriorated and my respect for you as a poster on here is rapidly evaporating.

The feeling is mutual.

Mike Harman

AK Press published a book by Michael Schmidt, who turned out to be a fucking racist. That was a slip up too.

The Schmidt situation is a good example of how some seriously dodgy politics can make it under leftists' radar if they're phrased in the right terminology. The relevance to this situation with the TERFs should be readily apparent.

MH

We decided to keep a PDF of the book on the site after we found out, with a massive disclaimer on it (something that's still subject to change, but other pages in the first page of google results are an invitation to purchase it with no disclaimer, so while they're still up we decided this was the least worst option).

Can we also expect from the admins "a massive disclaimer" on the extensive Aufheben content on libcom in the light of it being proven - http://libcom.org/forums/feedback-content/why-article-has-been-removed-07102011?page=13#comment-597829 - that some at least of it is the product of someone who works with cops to develop repressive policing tactics - and that the Aufheben collective has never criticised this member's role but on the contrary defended it?

Don't hold your breath.

Red Marriott

Can we also expect from the admins "a massive disclaimer" on the extensive Aufheben content

Do you mean other than the two open letters from TPTG (one of which has a go at us for having a go at their first open letter) and the article by Wildcat which all show up on the Aufheben tag listing ? The second open letter from TPTG is at the top of that listing (just fixed a duplicate tag on one of them). The last comments from us in the Aufheben thread still reflect the status quo otherwise, it might change when we're all online again.

Red Marriott

- and that the Aufheben collective has never criticised this member's role but on the contrary defended it?

Have you been in touch with them enquiring about the new press releases/statements? Given they contradict some parts of Aufheben's previous statement that might be worth doing (or it might not). Or you could just keep bringing it up on this thread of course.

In contrast, we don't have any articles about the Michael Schmidt case in the library at all - I think there should be some, but no-one's added any. That makes the disclaimer a bit thin (even though it's prominent), and the thread is a bit too dense to expect people to go through.

We also don't have any disclaimers on the McLibel documentary article on the site yet, nor any statements about it.

Googled the title of the leaflet "Hands off T-Chances" and was able to find some more info. It's not only an industrial dispute, in addition the owners have been evicting community groups and people think the management are planning to turn the venue over to property developers.

https://www.facebook.com/save399.org/

Full text of the leaflet including their request of anyone who books an event there: http://save399.org/images/the-problem-with-tchances-oct17.pdf

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUdRUI4Bals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMOwlL33LxY

So it looks like the sort of place that would normally be great for the bookfair to book, they're not calling for a total boycott in that leaflet but that people only book events there with conditions attached.

MH

Do you mean other than the two open letters from TPTG (one of which has a go at us for having a go at their first open letter) and the article by Wildcat which all show up on the Aufheben tag listing ?

No, I mean - as I said - a disclaimer "from the admins" in light of your changed opinions which wouldn't be at all obvious from those docs.

The last comments from us in the Aufheben thread still reflect the status quo otherwise, it might change ... Or you could just keep bringing it up on this thread of course.

I realise it’s a sore point for you but you’ve ranged over diverse topics from Shinto Buddhism to Class War and more on this thread and demanded others deal with inconsistency and contradiction in their behaviour and criticised statements of others for their limits/failings. Yet I mention something relevant but diverging from the desired dictated narrative and I get the snarky admin response. I wonder what you’re trying to prove with the new MH posting persona – more over-compensating for past errors? Well some of those errors remain outstanding & unresolved and it’s like trying to get blood from a stone. I guess you’ve only had 6 years to assess & deal with the Dr J issue and there’s less kudos on the scene in being seen to be tough or decisive on that. If you’re criticising the contradictions or hypocrisies of others you’d do well to sort out your own. Otherwise it continues to look like pals of admins get the hypocritical protected kid glove treatment.

Mike Harman

Googled the title of the leaflet "Hands off T-Chances" and was able to find some more info. It's not only an industrial dispute, in addition the owners have been evicting community groups and people think the management are planning to turn the venue over to property developers.

Thanks for finding this. So the whole thing is online, and yet Google searches for 't-chances labour dispute' and various permutations turn up nothing relevant. Bloody hell.

Red Marriott

Otherwise it continues to look like pals of admins get the hypocritical protected kid glove treatment.

I don't know anyone in either Aufheben or the bookfair collective, but I think we collectively have more (or at least equivalent, which wouldn't be very much) links with the bookfair collective. From your response it looks like you haven't contacted Aufheben. If you've written off any chance of a decent response from them it'd be fine to say so, I have too at this point.

Steven.

On the matter of the book fair collective, just for information the libcom group are drafting an email to send to them to give them a chance to address and correct their behaviour. If they decline then we may cosign the above Edinburgh AF statement.

Rather than signing the open letters, we e-mailed them to give them a chance to respond. You could probably call that 'hypocritical protected kid gloves' too if you wanted. At least one person reached out to us to sign one of the statements but we said no for now (and it's moot if the event isn't happening next year).

Red Marriott

I guess you’ve only had 6 years to assess & deal with the Dr J issue and there’s less kudos on the scene in being seen to be tough or decisive on that.

What is the reason you think there is 'less kudos on the scene' between the two cases?

In one, someone does dodgy academic research on riots and shops it around to police and councils (something they denied six years ago, which we wrongly took their word for until that press release/research was surfaced by you) while writing for Aufheben pseudonymously. I haven't read Aufheben recently but also never noticed any reformist policing line in their publication nor has one been pointed out.

On the other hand, the group handing out leaflets at the bookfair are openly campaigning for trans women to be kept in mens' prisons (and etc.) at an anarchist event, actively giving information about anarchists to the police, and selling their photos to the Daily Mail (well documented by their own statements online).

Even if you think these are equally bad (or one is worse), they're different problems to deal with. If we did things for 'kudos on the scene' we'd make a lot of different decisions to the ones we do.

Helen Steel's record of activism is now being used to promote this transphobic event in Cambridge which she'll be speaking at btw: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-womans-place-is-on-the-platform-tickets-39588207394

Antifa Armadillo

Thanks for finding this. So the whole thing is online, and yet Google searches for 't-chances labour dispute' and various permutations turn up nothing relevant. Bloody hell.

Didn't look through everything yet, but what I did read so far doesn't mention an industrial dispute as such - it mostly blames one manager and the trustees for evicting community groups / declining bookings from locals.

It's really shit generally that the first time we've heard about this is two weeks after the event, don't think that particular responsibility falls on the bookfair collective though (although explicitly asking venues about disputes is a good idea).

No apologies for not taking part in this thread after posting my eyewitness account of the events at the Bookfair.

Instead I've been involved in some other responses to the events. More usefully I think.

There are so many posts above I could argue with but it seems futile, frankly. It's a shame, because Libcom has alot of good content, but politically it seems the admins have disappeared up their own arse so far their tongues are lapping themselves.

So many points I could argue with - facilitating the arson wanking of oranj and their clearly deranged friends. Lumping together atheism and racism. the wholesale slagging of the bookfair collective for not being enough of a central committee. Blurring over so many complex inter-relations of power with oppression top trumps. Justifying the violent mobbing of a woman because she doesn't fall into line with your newthink. Labelling the collective scabs?!?! - for the after-party at T-chances, NOT booked by the bookfair (arranged by others). Can't see the point, really.

I know that there are people on both sides of the dispute that showed one of its eruptions at the bookfair who are feeling traumatised and devastated at this time. I see chances for honest and useful discussion on this being diminished, and this thread is contributing to that. However, there are lots of people out there trying to overcome the divide with honest and brave approaches. Kudos to them. And it does have to be tried. But theoretical wanking won't be part of that.

Good luck with the anarchist movement and re-invented bookfair - run by Afed and the muppets who wrote that open letter? That'll be fucking hilarious.

To the admins - please delete my account. I have had enough of this place.

past tense

So many points I could argue with - facilitating the arson wanking of oranj and their clearly deranged friends. Lumping together atheism and racism. the wholesale slagging of the bookfair collective for not being enough of a central committee. Blurring over so many complex inter-relations of power with oppression top trumps. Justifying the violent mobbing of a woman because she doesn't fall into line with your newthink. Labelling the collective scabs?!?! - for the after-party at T-chances, NOT booked by the bookfair (arranged by others). Can't see the point, really.

You let your mask slip there buddy.

Yeah I'm very disappointed by that response from Past Tense.

For the record, I was about to comment to say that whoever brought up the new and completely spurious allegation of the Bookfair collective being "scabs" (oranj I believe), that is completely out of order and clearly bullshit.

To my knowledge, the Bookfair collective don't even organise the after party themselves.

To me, the issues around transphobia are significant enough that people don't have to invent new and completely bogus charges (like "scabbing" and "colonialism"). And that doing so hardens positions on both sides, and also undermines people with serious concerns, in this case about transphobia.

So for example here Past Tense has conflated the libcom group with some people posting on our site. This is comparable with how people treat the Bookfair collective, which is why naturally I think libcom group empathises with them: because we are often held responsible for behaviour we abhor on our site, but it is not possible for us to control the behaviour of everyone on our site. As it is not possible for the Bookfair collective to control everyone at their event.

That said, in many cases criticism by us of users has been completely justified. For example we were criticised a while ago for transphobia, and initially to my recollection we defended ourselves. But then after reviewing, as Mike has mentioned we saw a load of transphobic comments in the forums which had been there for years which some of us missed and others misguidedly defended in a free speech-esque type scenario similar to the Bookfair collective.

So we realised we had messed up, we rectified the problem and apologised, and then criticism of us stopped.

Partly this is why rather than cosigning a public denunciation of the collective, we contacted them privately to try to resolve things. Although it is an unfortunate to see their statement say that people denounced them publicly but didn't contact them privately to try to resolve things. Now that is true of those who signed the open letter, but those of us who didn't and instead contact them directly have not received a response, other than the public statement.

Now we are going to write back to the Bookfair collective to see if we can engage in constructive discussion, and I would like to do that with Past Tense as well.

Although I find it deeply concerning that Past Tense appears to refer to the basic belief that trans people should be treated as they would like to be treated – and just in line with basic human decency – is Orwellian "newthink".

I think sometimes people can get caught up in hysteria about "political correctness" and whatever, but this is not just about political correctness for the sake of it or what have you. Discrimination against trans people is a public health disaster: 40% of all trans people have attempted suicide. Trans people who feel supported by people around them are over 80% less likely to try to kill themselves. This is not some attempt to be more right-on-than-thou on the internet, it is about making our movement a welcoming place for all working class people, and not trying to help drive our own comrades to end their own lives.

There are other anarchist book-fairs in the provinces.

Now it's up to them to stand up to be counted.

The first task is arranging free accommodaton for those who travel up to attend them and the accompanying meetings

Looking at some of the comments on Facebook from people defending the Bookfair, they are so terrible that I hope they would make some of the defenders consider who they are siding with:

'Trans women' are men. Men who attacked Maria Mac and Helen Steel. Solidarity with the bookfair!! Maybe Radfems can help with the next one? xx

Thank you for disapproving the assaults at the last bookfair. Men (and I don't give a shit what they identify themselves with) attacking women, using their higher physical strength to 'win the argument', is not radical politics. It's the politics of cowards.I am not a feminist: I am only allergic to bullies of any form and shape.

Hardly surprising that Terfs would try to make political capital out of this.

Steven.

Looking at some of the comments on Facebook from people defending the Bookfair, they are so terrible that I hope they would make some of the defenders consider who they are siding with:

Guilt by association is pretty shitty whichever way you swing it.

There are shitty ways of dealing with shitty behaviour. They all seem to be coming out now.

Those leaflets were pretty shitty.

A group of 30 people mobbing a lone person afterwards was pretty shitty.

The open letter afterwards was pretty shitty too.

And so was a lot of stuff afterwards.

Oh well...

darren p

Steven.

Looking at some of the comments on Facebook from people defending the Bookfair, they are so terrible that I hope they would make some of the defenders consider who they are siding with:

Guilt by association is pretty shitty whichever way you swing it.

Yes it is, which is why people slagging off libcom for stuff we didn't say was pretty shitty. A difference is that we argued against other anti-transphobic Bookfair critics against their points which we thought were unfair (like the nonsense allegation of scabbing, the blame for things the collective have no role in, like booking meetings, the baseless complaint about the date clash with the UFFC demo etc). But nowhere can I see the collective or pro-collective people telling these bigots jumping on the bandwagon to get fucked.

More generally I did not pull out those comments to say the Bookfair collective were responsible for them. I said that my genuine hope was that seeing hateful bigots line up to support them would make them question their actions and act differently in future (as we eventually did after we were criticised on this same issue).

Steven.

But nowhere can I see the collective or pro-collective people telling these bigots jumping on the bandwagon to get fucked.

Would have thought the collective were laying low, due to demoralisation or frustration as far as I can make out. But I don't know, I don't know them..

Yes those bandwagon jumpers are shitty too.

admin: comments split to start new thread here – https://libcom.org/forums/theory/gender-recognition-act-11112017

Defenders of the mystery bookfair organisers might want to take a look at the thread Steven mentioned. These are the sort of people HS associates with. She's attending their event in Cambs coming up. And they defend that?

https://medium.com/@hulksmashfascism/terf-war-why-us-cis-people-need-to-grow-up-28d488e91a81

Oranj

Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable.

They didn't shut it down. If you want to organise it, you are free to.

As a matter of interest, these events getting some wider interest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15312821

autogestión

Oranj

Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable.

They didn't shut it down. If you want to organise it, you are free to.

They took their ball away. They'd rather do that than distance themselves from a TERF.

I think this is a positive outcome. Can't have liberals running an anarchist bookfair. :)

autogestión

As a matter of interest, these events getting some wider interest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15312821

Sectarian gripes from a fucking Leninist - lol. Really hot take there. He hasn't been to a bookfair since 2001, part of his avoiding any contact with working class resistance no doubt.

Oranj

autogestión

Oranj

Bookfair evades accountability to the very end. They'd rather shut it down than be accountable.

They didn't shut it down. If you want to organise it, you are free to.

They took their ball away. They'd rather do that than distance themselves from a TERF.

I think this is a positive outcome. Can't have liberals running an anarchist bookfair. :)

They gave their ball to you. Let's hope you make good use of it.

Oranj

autogestión

As a matter of interest, these events getting some wider interest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/15312821

Sectarian gripes from a fucking Leninist - lol. Really hot take there. He hasn't been to a bookfair since 2001, part of his avoiding any contact with working class resistance no doubt.

Insults aside, Richard Seymour is an intelligent, independently-minded and insightful commentator on many issues. You don't have to agree wholesale with his politics to acknowledge that.

deleted

Good luck with the anarchist movement and re-invented bookfair - run by Afed and the muppets who wrote that open letter?

Just a heads up, but AFed haven't officially taken this responsibility on. Individuals within it are definitely interested in ensuring a London anarchist bookfair in 2018, particularly one without transphobia. It's a massively demanding task for those who haven't done it before, but on a smaller scale, Bristol managed it when the standard organisers took a year off apparently.

The only issue is that paying for accommodation just isn't feasible. The AF has the funds to do it for members on occasion and I personally would like to hear from anarchists from former colonies, often organising in far more repressive circumstances. But we have to balance that with how best to get to communist anarchism where we are - I've personally gotten involved in the AWW West London organising campaign since I live in West London. Putting more money into leaflets and placards there may get us that little bit closer to working-class self-organisation than what's effectively a national anarchist convention. I can't really tell though.

Mike Harman

I don't know anyone in .. Aufheben

But, significantly, other admins do.

From your response it looks like you haven't contacted Aufheben. If you've written off any chance of a decent response from them it'd be fine to say so, I have too at this point.

The Aufheben collective is imo sufficiently discredited by their earlier responses to be seen as a pointless irrelevant contact. If Dr J hasn’t directed the collective to more recent discussions (in which he commented) on here about this you’d wonder why.

You make a comparison of “the two cases” and appear to reduce the problematic of the Dr J case to merely one instance; “In one, someone does dodgy academic research on riots and shops it around to police and councils”. After 6 years you still miss the real point and try to minimise the problem in the way you summarise for comparison. Trying to reduce the problem – without taking into account the longer history - to this one recent instance of Dr J publicly admitting his collaboration with police is entirely misleading. For those who always saw a problem the documentary evidence was plentiful that for 30+ yrs he and his closest colleagues have been helping develop policing strategy & tactics. Eg, they advocated tactics to identify and isolate ‘troublemakers’ at protests and how to prevent riots spreading. There is no dislocation between his recent sloppy admittance of what he previously denied, it’s all part of a continuum of what much of their 30+ yr research has been about, what it has been explicitly orientated towards and designed for. Dr J’s recent slip is not the proof the critics were always looking for – it’s merely the evidence that even the deniers can’t deny. Those who’ve had their opinions changed by it are just those who ran out of excuses.

What is the reason you think there is 'less kudos on the scene' between the two cases?

Eg, the responses on this thread and libcom and elsewhere generally over 6 yrs.

In one, someone does dodgy academic research on riots and shops it around to police and councils (something they denied six years ago, which we wrongly took their word for until that press release/research was surfaced by you) while writing for Aufheben pseudonymously.

Here you appear to accept that 6 yrs ago you were lied to, thus apparently accepting the long continuum running thru their research project while still implying for comparison it was just recent “dodgy academic research”. I wouldn’t bother to definitively claim which case is worse, but yeh, 30+ yrs of aiding repressive policing by a ‘communist’ is definitely in the running. If you’re so worried about how some campaign leaflets might influence the treatment of trans people in jail maybe you should worry a bit more about how Dr J’s research might help put them there.

I haven't read Aufheben recently but also never noticed any reformist policing line in their publication nor has one been pointed out.

In the Open Letters, which you’ve apparently read, it was rightly noted that the ‘extra credibility’ beyond that normally given by protesters to academics was explicitly cited by Dr J & co as evidence of the ‘unique value’ of their research. A cred increased by his Aufheben activity and a presence in activism. Dr J’s involvement in some protest events produced both academic research useful to cops and also Aufheben articles.

There seems a contradiction between claiming, for comparison, the recent Dr J exposure as a stand-alone instance and admitting that it relates to earlier denials. To try to reduce and isolate the problem with Dr J’s role to just the recent revealing slip of the tongue is to try to perpetuate the same old excuses and miss the point.

Jesus wept it really makes me wonder if you guys actualy ever get anything done if you spend 470 messages and 3 weeks arguing over..whatever, I fully expect to see this still going on well after the next book fair. While youve been arguing about this shite weve been out supporting workers on strike and planning new campaigns.If you spent this much time and effort doing something practical might be a better plan.

Fair point. Scandal at the bookfair... this thread will run and run. Compare with how many pages on, for example, the "paradise papers"... Oh wait, there's no fucking thread! Still, it's nice to know what us "scenies" really like to spend our time on. Also, see the post immediately before yours. The Dr J scandal about a cop collaborator and buddy of some at Libcom Towers has been running for fucking years... though strangely, most Libcom admins can't bear to talk about that and still can't bear to see the cunt's name mentioned on here without slapping on their very own D-notice :o

Watch this: Helen Steel, Michael Schmidt, Dr John Drury. Now see how long before the last name magically disappears. Of course the admins will say, Helen Steel and Michael Schmidt were already publicly associated with anarchism/communism whereas Dr John Drury isn't, which makes it doxxing. Right... but generally, people in the "movement" who have turned out to be coppers or their narks have been publicly pointed out in order to protect others in said "movement" and let them know they associate with such fucking maggots at their peril. Not so Dr John Drury, who has his own libcom guardian angels. Compare also, Toby Kendall had no such guardian angels but his name still stands 9 years on. Funny that's not doxxing.

1. It actually takes fuck all time out of anybody's life to make a few comments on an Internet forum. Right now I'm typing this while waiting for my coffee to brew. Doing more than one thing at a time is possible. It doesn't stop anybody from doing anything else, including supporting strikes.

2. Trans people are workers too. Supporting them is supporting workers struggles. If you don't think they're worth a few minutes of (somebody else's) time spread over a few weeks, well your mask is slipping a bit.

3. Paradise Papers. I'm shocked. Shocked and amazed I am* clutching my pearls.* I would never guess that the filthy rich avoid taxes. I'm gobsmacked that this information has come to light (again and for the umpteenth time) and astonished at the lack of coverage and discussion, except in every media outlet because there's so much we can do about tax avoidance by millionaires, unlike eg transphobia in anarchist spaces.

4. Last I looked this thread was about transphobia at the LABF. Feel free to start other discussions or put them in the other existing threads already started.

Who has said anything about not supporting trans workers (excluding a couple of TERFs earlier, now banned)? You're missing the point somewhat.

McGoofle seems to be under the impression that you can't walk and chew gum at the same time

deleted

McGoofle seems to be under the impression that you can't walk and chew gum at the same time

To judge him by his own logic - maybe he can't, it might've taken him all day to get that post together. Or maybe he looks for any excuse to brag about what a selfless super-activist he is. (I had to take my gum out to type this.)

Mcgoofle

Jesus wept it really makes me wonder if you guys actualy ever get anything done if you spend 470 messages and 3 weeks arguing over..whatever, I fully expect to see this still going on well after the next book fair. While youve been arguing about this shite weve been out supporting workers on strike and planning new campaigns.If you spent this much time and effort doing something practical might be a better plan.

((470/3))/7) =22.3 less than one an hour and this thread doesn't have 470 posts yet

Rather intriguing statement from 325 mag/website:
‘The loneliness of the crowd’ – Another reflection on the events at this year’s London Anarchist Bookfair (UK)
https://325.nostate.net/2017/11/13/the-loneliness-of-the-crowd-another-reflection-on-the-events-at-this-years-london-anarchist-bookfair-uk/

Anarchists are no strangers to conflict or violence. Yet we feel that the way the conflict unfolded at this year’s London Anarchist Bookfair was deeply disturbing and should have nothing to do with anarchism. The organising collective have, as a result of events on the day and subsequent reactions, issued a statement announcing that they will not be doing a Bookfair again next year. What we would like to talk about here though is the worrying climate in which the events took place, and the dangers of dogmas in the anarchist milieu.

The events at the Bookfair

Some individuals attending the Bookfair, one of whom was a Green Party politician, distributed provocative leaflets on the perceived ramifications of changes to the Gender Recognition Act. They were confronted by a group and expelled.

But it didn’t just end there. Having defended those who had distributed the leaflets, Helen Steel (‘HS’), a long-standing agitator and comrade to many, became the group’s next target. HS is known for having fought the infamous ‘McLibel’ trial for over a decade, and was subjected to intrusive state surveillance by an undercover police officer who deceived her into a two-year relationship. HS had not given out the leaflets (contrary to rumour), but had expressed support for those who had, and maintains some positions held by ‘TERFs’ (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). The crowd demanded she leave.

For an hour and a half, HS and a few of her defenders were completely encircled by an aggressive, chanting crowd who attempted to publicly shame and physically expel her from the Bookfair. So fraught was the atmosphere that it was impossible to actually reach HS during this time to hear what she had to say. In the end, someone set off the fire alarm in what we assume was part of the effort to eject her, resulting in the evacuation of half the Bookfair, including the crowd and its target. The fire alarm emptied the workshops, causing major disruption to sessions that some speakers had travelled long distances to attend. It also likely jeopardised the use of the venue in the future, should other people seek to take on the running of the event, and finding a cheap venue willing to host a motley rabble of anarchists has never been an easy task.

The chatter in the days that followed was characterised by a venomous hatred for “the Terfs”, and a disgust levelled at the volunteer organisers of the Bookfair worthy of the Daily Mail comments section. Quick to set the narrative, these commentators re-wrote the afternoon’s events by creating a simple story of trans attendee victims and Terf/Bookfair perpetrators. They deliberately omitted to mention the harassment and public shaming an individual simply because they’d dared deviate from the party line; the line being that there is to be no doubt and certainly no criticism of any of the dominant narratives around identity politics. From the cesspool that is Twitter, identity politicians – 95% of whom clearly had not been at the Bookfair – also emerged Sunday morning to join in the chorus of condemnation against their perennial villains, the Anarchists and the Terfs.

Why we’re angry

We are not in any way surprised that liberal activists would seize on the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon, slag off anarchists, signal virtue with their impeccable ‘Ally’ credentials, and try to sabotage a major anarchist event for good. Neither are we surprised that people we disagree with or whose views are offensive would turn up at the Bookfair; some such groups in fact, sometimes have tables and workshop slots and their own supporters. We also recognise why trans people and other anarchists present would be pissed off with the leaflets, which the authors and distributors must have known were offensive and would provoke a reaction.

What we’re angry at is our fellow anarchists, who we hold to higher standards, and it’s on this that we want to concentrate. We’re disappointed at the abandonment yet again of anarchist principles of independent and critical thought in favour of groupthink. We’re angry at the willingness to sacrifice plurality of ideas for policing and self-censorship. And we’re saddened at the failure to balance our antagonism with a corresponding care and comradeship, so that bullying and public humiliation reigns unchecked. Finally, we’re pissed off that anarchists feel it’s so much more important to target another anarchist with unpopular views, than to attack institutional structures of our oppression.

After the 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair, attendees directed their antagonism towards a state target, with a protest at Eurostar for its role in the border politics in Calais and the imprisonment of migrants who had walked through the Channel Tunnel.

The dogma of the herd

Now, we have nothing against mobs in themselves – on the contrary, the mob has the potential to storm Bastilles and ignite revolutions – a reminder that makes the events at the Bookfair all the more depressing. Yet when we have moments of collective power, in the mob, in the riot, it is perhaps more important than ever to remain free-thinking and true to our personal principles and our ethics. As anarchists, we generally advocate the idea that the absence of the police and state does not bring us down to a Hobbesian ‘state of nature’, because we’re capable of thinking for ourselves and acting according to our convictions. That did not come through at all at the Bookfair. A moment of power was abused, by many so-called anarchists, safely in the knowledge that critics would be hounded and fellow anarchists would not call the cops.

One of the most disturbing aspects of all this was the way in which people allowed rumour to spread. The T-Word, once uttered, seemed to diffuse any flicker of concern from onlookers, all independent thought going out the window. “Apparently she was giving out Terf leaflets”, said a few. As mentioned, this transpired to be false information, and when those spreading the rumours were asked whether they had seen the texts for themselves, none of them had actually done so. When challenged, one person brushed it off by saying there was no smoke without fire, as if people were incapable of making mistakes. This sentiment also reveals ignorance of the long history of state agents using divide and rule tactics against dissidents – from COINTELPRO, to Stasi ops – and the fact that HS has herself been a target for state deception and manipulation.

This herd-like behaviour inevitably spilled over to that vacuous fishbowl that is Twitter, where people bully and harass others into accepting their ideas. This is obviously completely at odds with anarchist thought and is more reminiscent of the Trots or a cult. However a single tweet from the Anarchist Bookfair account condemning the bullying, and comments by anyone who expressed support for it or questioned the official narrative, elicited barrages of messages in response from bullies demanding they accept their dictum.

Implicit in some of the rhetoric on the day and after is the dogma that one must get 100% behind an individual or group if they are from an oppressed class. The implication is that we must unquestioningly support a dominant narrative from these groups, despite the fact that liberals comprise the majority of ‘activists’ and shout the loudest on the rights of marginalised groups — and we are anarchists. So no matter whether they spout liberal, Stalinist or otherwise dodgy views, they demand that you shut off all questioning and independent thought and give unequivocal support – that, in short, you stop being an anarchist.

The exercise of power is everywhere. Without a doubt, some groups in society are overwhelmingly targetted, disbelieved, imprisoned and otherwise oppressed and we should therefore work on creating especially welcoming spaces for these people, and make an effort to hear and believe them. But power also resides in those oppressed classes if you put them on a pedestal. Refugees and migrants, trans people, queers, working class people, and people of colour have the capacity for crap politics just like anyone else, and it does no-one any favours to place people beyond reproach purely because they are associated with a particular category or group. To uncritically support the group who mobbed HS is to align with those who openly used misogynist language and aggression against an individual they vastly outnumbered. We are not happy with the leaflets that were handed out, but that does not mean we cannot be equally uncomfortable with the response. To talk about the violence inherent in the language of leaflets then to ignore how that same process is being replicated in the way the word ‘Terf’ is being used is hypocritical.

An open letter was subsequently published with a list of demands directed at and to be met by the Bookfair organisers. This includes what is essentially a common political position that they expect to be enforced, begging the question of who will be the police of the Bookfair. This is patently ridiculous, not least given the many divisions within anarchist thought. The demands for a common position, policing, and self-censorship are clearly not anarchist, and neither is the expectation that ‘the organisers’ be held responsible for failing to resolve the dispute. Tellingly, the majority of the signatories at the time of writing are not anarchist groups, and some are random individuals who judging by their (anti)social media accounts have complete disdain for anarchists, which makes one wonder what they were doing at the Bookfair at all and why they feel entitled to make demands of anarchists who put considerable time and labour for free into making it happen.

Ethics in the mob

For us, identifying as anarchists means always striving to be open-minded and think for ourselves, and to be as critical of norms in movements, subcultures, or scenes as in mainstream society. An anarchist approach to conflict, as we see it, is to treat people wherever possible as individuals, not just a component of a class. Neither a member of the ‘Terfs’ to simply be attacked, nor a member of the trans rights group to be unquestioningly supported. There are very few cases where we use a label as shorthand to identify immediate threats, such as in a crowd situation. Only ‘fascist’ and ‘cop’ come to mind, despite our list of enemies being significantly longer. The reason for using these labels sparingly is because these terms are rightly taken very seriously, allowing us to make split second decisions to protect one another. The consequences of such terms being used against individuals are also very serious, usually resulting in a mobbing or beating and ostracism. The label ‘Terf’ is increasingly being used in a similar way, to discourage doubt and critical thought, and rouse a hostile response.

For these reasons, it is vital we differentiate between anarchists we may feel hold unpopular, dodgy or even heinous views, and actual fascists. Despite being called one, HS is clearly not a fascist. Fascists would have us all killed on the spot. There is no discussion with a fascist trying to spread their authoritarian ideas, for they themselves would tolerate no debate. This is the premise of a ‘no-platform’ approach. Yet HS didn’t claim a platform either, having neither attempted to run a stall nor deliver a workshop on the matter.

If two individuals have a disagreement which results in a fight, then so be it. At an anarchist bookfair, you only need to take your pick of contentious issues and disagreements, though surely this would be the ideal place to actually discuss these issues thoughtfully. It is not that we are opposed to antagonism, it’s that we feel it’s important to pick our tactics and our targets well, and to treat other anarchists – few in number and with many shared experiences, ideas and enemies – with some degree of care and respect. This does not mean we all have to love each other and get along, but that we need to be very careful of the consequences of our actions on individuals who may have to contend with the many hazards of being a thorn in the side of state and capital – from burnout, trauma and state surveillance; to internal conflicts and who knows what personal life struggles. We also have to be cautious of the implications of neglecting this culture of care and respect on the anarchist milieu as a whole. Do we really want the vitrolioc, polemic feuds on social media to set the tone for real-life conflicts in anarchist spaces? If two groups cannot share spaces, then they must go their own separate ways, and maybe those who can need to get better at discussing these difficult issues in person.

Failing to stop the spread of rumour, not questioning or speaking out against herd behaviour, and bullying individuals in the ‘scene’ who express marginal views is the path towards authoritarianism. In this case, our destination seems to be an environment in which those who hold unpopular views must hide them and feign adherence to the dominant position, or be forced out of our tiny and diminishing networks.

We would hope that enough of us have the passion and commitment to anarchist ideas of freedom and plurality of thought to prevent that from happening. If we don’t want to travel down the road of authoritarianism, we must always remember to think for ourselves and question our place in the crowd.

– Some anarchists

That's poor. They recognise that collective action can be taken without it being authoritarian for combating racism, but transphobia we have to calmly sit around and debate in a liberal manner? Nationalist anarchists wouldn't want us all killed, they may just want to deport black workers. Should we calmly debate race realism with them?

As for whether we should approach things in an individual manner rather than as a class other than for cops and fascists... What about for bosses and landlords? That's the crux of the anarchist tradition I'm a part of anyway. Individually someone experiencing a withheld deposit or wage theft is not strong enough to combat it, acting with others who could experience the same they are.

The thing that stuck out for me in the 325.no-state statement is the repeated use of 'unpopular views' because I keep seeing that all over the place used as a dogwhistle for 'allowing bigotry everywhere and anywhere'. It immediately reminded me of Brendan O'Neill, quick google search brought up at least three articles on Spiked using the exact formulation.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/we-must-have-the-freedom-to-hate/17996#.Wgw_7BN-pPM
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/2031#.Wgw_7BN-pPM
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-new-bigots/17590#.Wgw_8hN-pPM

You can see it in this anti-LGBT petition here ('unpopular political or religious views'): http://metro.co.uk/2017/08/22/parents-compare-flying-lgbt-flag-to-confederate-flag-in-petition-to-tear-it-down-6871498/ And this editorial: https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/free-speech-must-apply-to-all-even-those-we-find-offensive-a3609641.html

You wouldn't describe electoralism at the anarchist bookfair as 'unpopular views' because it's popular enough outside anarchist bookfairs. You wouldn't describe anarchism or communism as unpopular at the bookfair, because that's what it's about. So it's not simply describing views that are unpopular, it's a dogwhistle for reintroducing mainstream bigotry (with support from publications ranging from the Mail to the New Statesman) into places it's (somewhat) been excluded from. This is the same inversion of power/victimhood narrative that's been successful over and over again.

The 'cops and fascists' paragraph is also interesting considering their website calls libcom 'snitches, police collaborators' and claims we work directly with Clifford Stott - and does so in the subheading to articles that don't claim that (like the Wildcat Germany one on Aufheben).

I didn’t think that having nice, cozy discussions with bigots was part of the anarchist tradition. I think that’s part of the liberal tradition and some people are a bit confused.

Fwiw, I have admired Helen Steele, going back to the McLibel days and she has suffering egregiously at the hands of the state. So I’m very disappointed that someone whose own bodily integrity has been violated by the state supports the state interference in other people’s bodies, which is what the opponents of the GRA are doing. It’s a goddamned weird state of affairs to have anarchists supporting the state regulation of gender and genitalia.

Don’t elevate people to hero status, they are only human. Sometimes they are just plain wrong.

The ''325' text maybe open to a liberal interpretation but we should still be able to distinguish a broad defence of the bookfair organisers (who are no more perfect than the rest of us) and the value of the LABF's over recent years from an actual defence of organised TERF propaganda. There is a risk of this discussion becoming so polarised around the specifics of the events at the last bookfair as to prevent any more nuanced critical discussion of identity politics from a libertarian communist point of view.

Fleur

I didn’t think that having nice, cozy discussions with bigots was part of the anarchist tradition.

Perhaps not. But then is group mobbing of lone people at bookfairs either?

deleted

darren p

Fleur

I didn’t think that having nice, cozy discussions with bigots was part of the anarchist tradition.

Perhaps not. But then is group mobbing of lone people at bookfairs either?

people have for years tried to get the book fair collective to organise a proper way to deal with bigots abusive individuals etc but they always refused saying that people attending the book fair can deal with it on an adhoc basis, then denounced anyone who actually attempted to do that. the book fair collective actively rejected any solution to the problem.

It’s almost as if decades of people trying to have nice, civilized discussion with transphobes hasn’t actually worked and that eventually if someone does something which was designed to provoke, people will eventually bite back.

When cis people say that “some aspects of trans activism needs to be discussed” what they usually mean is exerting a certain militancy and not passively allow people to peddle the sort of lies and bullshit that was on that leaflet. The sad thing is that the terfs provoked a response (maybe on purpose) and now they’ve now slipped into their usual victimhood position.

I remember during the 80s there were large segments of LGBT activists who strongly opposed the tactics of groups such as ActUp, in response to the AIDS crisis. Nice polite discourse is effective at times but when people are dying don’t expect everyone to settle for a chat over a cup of tea.

Fleur

I didn’t think that having nice, cozy discussions with bigots was part of the anarchist tradition. I think that’s part of the liberal tradition and some people are a bit confused.

I mean the people who know Helen Steel and have been trying to talk to her about this, I think that's good and they should keep doing it. On a one-to-one basis people can be talked around sometimes (or at least pulled back from certain activity/positions).

This is quite different to expecting everyone else to have public, civil, discussions with transphobes - whether on the internet, or panel discussions or whatever. The two get conflated a lot and it's not the same thing at all.

SpikeyMike

There is a risk of this discussion becoming so polarised around the specifics of the events at the last bookfair as to prevent any more nuanced critical discussion of identity politics from a libertarian communist point of view.

So for non-specifics, I think it comes down to if an event wants to be as accessible as possible, then it should aim for 1. actual physical accessibility 2. not allowing bigotry to be promoted 3. anti-harassment stuff on top of #2.

These are conditions that if not met, a sizeable number of people won't attend events - based on their previous experiences of attending events and having a shitty time due to lack of commitment to those things. Doesn't mean things go great if that stuff is in place but implies at least an attempt.

If people are asking for those things as a condition of attendance, and this is getting refused, it's going to end up polarised - since then people are seen to be prioritising the rights of people to be bigoted (or harassers) to attend over their targets. Obviously some people who are targets of bigotry or harassment may attend despite all this, but they're likely to be people more up for confrontation when they encounter stuff.

If you're not an active bigot and also not a target, then it's a lot easier to be neutral, but that can lead to a default position of the status quo which unfortunately is not neutral in reality and alienates a lot of people.

Back to the bookfair itself:

The Empty Cages statement had only two demands - 1. accountability for the bookfair collective (not stated what this means, but probably an apology) 2. Committment to making all future events safe for trans attendees.

The closest I can find in the Bookfair statement to answering the second demand, is this paragraph:

Bookfair statement

We are all unhappy about the contents of the leaflets we have seen. One is clearly meant only to provoke, the other fails to even acknowledge the real fears and discrimination that many trans people face in everyday life and, by failing to do so, itself becomes provocative and therefore offensive. We had not seen the leaflets before the problems started and most of us did not get to see the contents until the end of the day. As anarchists we feel “banning” and “no platforming” are actions that should only be used as extreme solutions and, while the leaflet did cause offense and hurt, we will only remove literature or people from the Bookfair in extreme circumstances and not just because we disagree with it or them, even if they do cause offence.

So this is pretty explicitly saying they wouldn't pre-emptively ban the same leaflet from next year's bookfair (if it was happening). This leaves people with three options 1. Don't attend 2. Attend and just ignore the open, provocative bigotry by people organising to do so 3. Attend and try to force people out themselves again. The option of attending and not having transphobic literature distributed by Green Party members not being available.

Would also add, this isn't about 'identity politics' in the sense of lobbying MPs to vote yes to the Gender Recognition Act, it's about how people can expect to be treated within anarchist organisations/at events, what the minimum basis of political association should be, stuff like that.

Statement on the London Bookfair, and an appeal, from Brighton ABC, the UK's longest running & most consistently active prisoner solidarity group.

Statement by Brighton Anarchist Black Cross in Support of the London Anarchist Bookfair Collective Response to the 'Open Letter' (from Brighton ABC fb page on 16 November) :

Despite the threat of the loss of an event that has provided the single greatest opportunity for our fundraising activities for our prisoner support work over the past two decades, Brighton Anarchist Black Cross fully supports the stance of the London Anarchist Bookfair Collective in the face of a torrent of unfair and largely misplaced criticism. If people have chosen to continue to passively 'consume' the Bookfair each year whilst failing to actively engage in the creation of this event, then they have only themselves to blame when their snipping from the sidelines about their poor 'consumer experience' results in the Bookfair Collective calling it a day.

This is going to directly impact on our prisoner support work. We are a very small group, which nevertheless often provides quite significant material aid for comrades behind the bars. The fact that there is not going to be an Anarchist Bookfair next year in London is going to very severely impact our abilities to offer further support to anarchist and other political prisoners (including trans prisoners) and hinder our work on other anti-prison projects, such as printing literature, etc. We hope that the signatories of the open letter are fully aware of the real consequences their actions are already having on groups like ours.

NB: If you can support Brighton ABC's work there's donation options including paypal on their website – or even better give them a hand! http://brightonabc.org.uk/

Alternatively why not buy yourself some of their merchandise (& support them at the same time), including the excellent 2018 Bottled Wasp Diary, with a focus on Workplace Struggles – see here https://brightonabc.bandcamp.com/merch/bottled-wasp-pocket-diary-2018-workplaces-struggles
Thanks!

Wow, what a shitty statement. I mean, it sucks that this will impact their work, but come on: reducing what happened to a "consumer experience" is pretty low.

Wow, what a shitty statement. I mean, it sucks that this will impact their work, but come on: reducing what happened to a "consumer experience" is pretty low.

They aren't reducing it. They are accusing others of reducing it.

Brighton ABC 'waaa waaa this effects our work' is single issue politics personified.

Believe it or not, some prisoners are trans women who the fucking bigots at the bookfair want to endanger by putting them in among the male prisoner population.

Glad the other ABC's around the country know how to join the dots here.

Serge Backward is just here to troll, as if some invisible hand is preventing them making a thread about the fucking Paradise papers. :D

Oranj wrote:

Brighton ABC 'waaa waaa this effects our work' is single issue politics personified.

Brighton ABC have long supported political & social prisoners in the UK and internationally, whatever their sex or gender identity. They've also long campaigned against prison slavery (forced unpaid work) and the prison-industrial-complex (PIC) generally. Hardly 'single issue politics personified' is it!

Oranj wrote:

Glad the other ABC's around the country know how to join the dots here.

There is only one other functioning ABC group at present - Bristol ABC - who as far as i can see have not issued a statement in relation to the London Bookfair. They weren't there as a group this year either.
London ABC went into hibernation in September 2017 (see their website).
The London-based Bent Bars Project does exist to support LGBTQ prisoners, and as far as i know has done some excellent work.
The excellent Empty Cages Collective focus on prison abolition, against prison expansion & the PIC. They dont have a particular focus on prisoner support. However at least one of their founders is an ex-prisoner and continues to do some exemplary prisoner support & solidarity work.
Smash IPP focus on the terrible IPP legacy and support specific prisoners kept in prison as a result of it. Online they seem to mainly use Facebook, which i dont have an account for.
The much respected Haven Books for Prisoners was originally set up to supply books to political prisoners in the UK, but subsequently widened their remit to provide books for any prisoner, of any gender identity, requesting them (where they can actually get books in, educational or otherwise).
There are also several projects that focus specifically on AR prisoners, some of whom are trans (including i think the last remaining AR prisoner in the UK). Whilst Anti-Fascist groups also provide support for their own comrades in prison when necessary.

As for trans prisoners, as far as i know all prisoner support groups support trans prisoners going to a prison that matches their chosen gender identity. Sadly that does not keep them free from oppression on the basis of their gender. But then again all prisoners are oppressed in whatever prison & whatever their gender identity. Much better surely to focus on prisoner solidarity and the abolition of prisons generally, and not fighting amongst ourselves over which prison to send comrades too.

NB: if anyone does know of any other functioning ABC group in the UK please let us know!

Well those comment pieces/statements on the London Bookfair keep rolling out, although with some glaring ommissions - AFed & SolFed nationally, Freedom collective amongst others?

Anyways here's Dave Douglass writing in Northern Voices on 17 November. He's a former striker in 1984/5 miners strike & NUM activist. He's also spoken at a variety of Bookfair's including London several times. He's toyed with anarcho-syndicalism, and flirted with Class War in the distant past, these days he's more of a historian (i think). He may come over as a bit rough & ready for Libcom towers, but that shouldnt reduce the validity of his viewpoint. So grit your teeth and read on:

SORRY END TO A GREAT INSTITUTION
by Dave Douglass (South Shields}
THE annual Anarchist Bookfare in London was for many many years the highlight of the Anarchist and radical Marxist calendar. It brought together the most splendid , vivid fascinating and eccentric, profound and trivial, exciting and profane, hilarious and spiritual assortments of people. They came in thousands, they bathed in the rainbow variety of factions, tendencies, visions and issues. Workshops and presentations, entertainment and discussion filled the entire day as the crowds crammed past stalls laden with literature and art, T-shirts and stickers, posters and badges, cards and calendars, a myriad of interesting and unique stuff you would never find anywhere else under one roof. The Vegan food commune outside the venues hawked the most interesting of pastries and butties, tatties and cakes, rich wonderful chocolate cakes and angel cakes which tested the will power of the most dedicated of health freaks. In my own judgement the Anarchist bookfare almost vied with the Durham Miners Gala (almost) in terms of ‘not to be missed’ events. Ancient aud Anarchists rubbed shoulders with the Mohican punks of yesterd-a-year, born again hippies, young activist, and what a Glasgow paper talking of the anti polaris demonstrators of the 60’s called ‘ beardies, weirdies and lang lagged beasties’

Read the full piece here - http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/sorry-end-to-great-institution.html

Northern Voices has a couple other bits on the Bookfair - here and here - note the second (Letter in Weekly Worker) contains certain factual errors, the most obvious being that the writer says Helen Steel is a member of the London Bookfair Collective. This is not true, and never has been, as far as i know.

I'll break my silence on here briefly to note that Northern Voices are habitual doxxers and liars, and their admin tried quite hard to get someone from Freedom arrested after he himself had assaulted our members. I'm mildly surprised Dave Douglass would want much to do with them tbh.

As for "glaring omissions" if groups do or don't want to make statements that's up to them, tbh this smacks of stirring a bit.

Aye, that Brian Bamford is a cunt who should be fucking shunned because of the balls he wrote after my old comrade, Bob Miller, died and because of the Freedom episode. Meanwhile, Dave Douglas's article occasionally hits the spot but has also got tons of holes in it and is just wrong.

MH

NB: if anyone does know of any other functioning ABC group in the UK please let us know!

While not ABC, there are a handful of groups doing immigration detention/deportation support.

SOAS detainee support: https://soasdetaineesupport.wordpress.com/

Detained voices: https://detainedvoices.com/

Unity Centre Glasgow: http://unitycentreglasgow.org/

Freedom Press statement (better late than never)

https://freedomnews.org.uk/freedom-collective-statement-on-the-london-anarchist-bookfair/

Oranj

Freedom Press statement (better late than never)

https://freedomnews.org.uk/freedom-collective-statement-on-the-london-anarchist-bookfair/

I was about to post that link as well, but there is no need to be a dick. While I welcome the statement, there is no obligation on anyone to put out a statement. For some people statements are more important than actions, and it's important not to perpetuate this idea.

I would suggest to the Freedom crew that they add a link to this helpful text to their links section: https://libcom.org/library/trans-101-wobblies

No obligation on anarchists to condemn transphobia? That's an cisnormative take, which I shall duly ignore.

Partially quoting myself here:

Well those comment pieces/statements on the London Bookfair keep rolling out, although with some glaring ommissions - AFed & SolFed nationally, Freedom collective amongst others?

Rob Ray (of the Freedom Collective) states:

As for "glaring omissions" if groups do or don't want to make statements that's up to them, tbh this smacks of stirring a bit.

Really, me 'stirring a bit'? Have you looked back at this thread? It's not me shouting and screaming, swearing & using violent language, nor tossing around rumours, myths & half-truths.
A weird accusation to make from someone whose own Freedom Collective issues their own statement some 3 hours later - Freedom statement. Of course it's only at the very end that we discover that the Freedom Collective statement is signed by 'Freedom Collective (majority view)' so we can only guess as to whether Rob Ray agrees with it or not? Or indeed why nobody else has banged it up on this thread before now?

Personally I've now offered up 4 links to 4 very different statements, in an attempt to indicate the very broad range of opinions across the wider movement on both the events at the London Bookfair and the reasons for them. This thread has generally not reflected this breadth of opinion, which makes for a very blinkered discussion. Anyone offering an alternative viewpoint on the thread seems to be censored, banned or immediately trashed in comments by a collection of admins backed up by their online comrades...which sadly leaves the discussion very one-sided and unlikely to bridge the differences that exist. It also means very few people will actually dare come on here now, further diminishing the usefulness of the discussion.

I'm surprised by the lack of statements/positions from the 2 national organisations (AFed & SolFed), and from Freedom (now rectified). Individual local groups or similar from both AFed & SolFed have issued statements, and individuals have also made comments (not necessarily on this thread or indeed publicly at all), but the lack of an agreed position from the 2 national orgs is surprising given this is probably the greatest schism I've witnessed across the anarchist movement in over 30 years. It could be its taking them time to get together on a national level, but then again we do know AFed had a national meeting on the 29 October in London, which resulted in the AFED TRANS ACTION FACTION (their caps not mine) statement...but no statement on behalf of AFed nationally, nor indeed from London AFed. Maybe they're waiting for their 2 longest standing members to return from abroad? Or maybe they just cant reach a consensus - in which case why not say so? It's not a crime not reaching a consensus, many groups who were not bounced into signing the original Open Letter on the Tuesday after the Bookfair, have been unable to reach consensus - and have stopped discussing it. Or perhaps more importantly, are finding the time to discuss it in a mature nuanced fashion and refusing to be bounced into this or that pre-defined political position.

As for Freedom, it's taken them 3 weeks, several tense meetings and email exchanges, to come up with only a 'majority view'. What, one wonders, is the minority view? And how much of a minority is it? Maybe Rob Ray's series of 4 tweets shortly after 3am on 29 October didnt help? Here's the last of the 4 tweets:

Freedom Press‏ @Freedom_Paper

Not gonna take this down but should say the collective hasn't discussed (still waking up tbh) so not a formal position (RR).
3:35 AM - 29 Oct 2017

Perhaps Freedom's national status as a newspaper, publishing house, and anarchist centre requires them to be a bit more open, accountable & transparent about what on earth is going on there?

As it is Freedom's statement misses a trick, and makes no attempt to bridge the schism. They rightly note the terrible discrimination & abuse faced by trans people, especially trans women, and offer up some useful resources & possible activities to counter this. But they make no attempt to reach out to all women, that is cis-women and trans women, in the face of a global femicide (see here and here and here). Maybe the #metoo movement and the storm of MSM interest in high-profile instances of systemic misogyny has passed them by, but by failing to acknowledge the abuse & discrimination against all those who identify as women, they are merely widening the schism, not reducing it. If you are going to oppose patriarchy, you need to side with & act in solidarity with all its victims, not just a specific group.

Personally i'm holding onto this quote, from an article by Michelle O'Brien, written in 2003 in the US, for a little bit of hope. It comes from the second section under 'Gender skirmishes':

When we are rooted in our fear, it is easy to find enemies, to find anger, to find fights with those people close at our sides. Our fear fuels our desperate, defensive need to hold onto particular ways of being that are legitimately ours. It is easy to believe that others are inauthentic and should be denied access to what little we have, when we are scared we have almost nothing at all. Evaluating who should have access and who shouldn’t relies on developing elaborate systems of ranking, judging and dismissing people based on degrees of oppression, privilege and suffering. Our right to liberation is not based on our degrees of suffering. Our fear fuels a politics of competition and scarcity, a dead end of judging and attacking each other.
Something else is profoundly needed.

Full article - http://anarchalibrary.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/trans-liberation-and-feminism-self.html

Edit - apols for cross-posting the Freedom statement, 2 others banged it up whilst i was writing this.

Edit: Actually fuck it, I don't have to be justify my voting decisions to anyone but the Freedom Collective.

MH

I'm surprised by the lack of statements/positions from the 2 national organisations (AFed & SolFed), and from Freedom (now rectified). Individual local groups or similar from both AFed & SolFed have issued statements, and individuals have also made comments (not necessarily on this thread or indeed publicly at all), but the lack of an agreed position from the 2 national orgs is surprising given this is probably the greatest schism I've witnessed across the anarchist movement in over 30 years. It could be its taking them time to get together on a national level, but then again we do know AFed had a national meeting on the 29 October in London, which resulted in the AFED TRANS ACTION FACTION (their caps not mine) statement...but no statement on behalf of AFed nationally, nor indeed from London AFed.

for some reason nothing about the bookfair incident was submitted to the IB 3 weeks before hand and and so the delegates have no mandated position on any statement about what happen

Oranj

No obligation on anarchists to condemn transphobia? That's an cisnormative take, which I shall duly ignore.

Someone on Freedom's twitter posted this just after the bookfair (short thread) which condemned the leaflets being handed out and criticised the framing of the initial bookfair collective tweet:
https://twitter.com/Freedom_Paper/status/924578246942973952

libcom admins haven't issued our own collective statement on this either or signed any of the statements yet, some of us have individually posted on this thread through and we RTed some of the statements other groups have done.

Moderating this thread (let alone posting on it) has taken much more time than writing let alone signing a statement would have. We could have let the thread run and drafted a statement in that time, but the thread would have been more of a trainwreck and at least two people banned might not have been. This is a concrete case where addressing transphobia directly (on this site) was more important to us than drafting a statement, we might have prioritised that more if we'd had a stall or sponsored the bookfair this year though (as we did a few years ago).

MH

Anyone offering an alternative viewpoint on the thread seems to be censored, banned or immediately trashed in comments by a collection of admins backed up by their online comrades...which sadly leaves the discussion very one-sided and unlikely to bridge the differences that exist. It also means very few people will actually dare come on here now, further diminishing the usefulness of the discussion.

Two people were banned for actual transphobic comments, apart from that you seem to be complaining about people disagreeing on the internet.

When you say 'bridge the differences' do you want to bridge the differences between trans anarchists and Green Party parliamentary candidates who brag about their group reporting trans anarchists to the police? If not, exactly what differences, and between which people?

MH

It's not a crime not reaching a consensus, many groups who were not bounced into signing the original Open Letter on the Tuesday after the Bookfair

We got an invite to sign the open letter, we discussed it briefly with the person who invited us to sign and discussed it internally. The short version is we didn't have sufficient background on previous bookfair incidents to be able to sign the statement and know exactly what we were signing up to, so we didn't. Then the bookfair collective announced they wouldn't organise 2018 and signing either of the statements with specific demands seemed moot at that point.

Absolutely no one, not a single person as far as I know, has asked us to sign anything else or complained that we didn't. There wasn't any pressure to sign at all, just a heads up, so 'bounced' is a funny choice of words.

MH

As it is Freedom's statement misses a trick, and makes no attempt to bridge the schism. They rightly note the terrible discrimination & abuse faced by trans people, especially trans women, and offer up some useful resources & possible activities to counter this. But they make no attempt to reach out to all women, that is cis-women and trans women, in the face of a global femicide (see here and here and here). Maybe the #metoo movement and the storm of MSM interest in high-profile instances of systemic misogyny has passed them by, but by failing to acknowledge the abuse & discrimination against all those who identify as women, they are merely widening the schism, not reducing it. If you are going to oppose patriarchy, you need to side with & act in solidarity with all its victims, not just a specific group.

Nice whataboutism right there. You're rather daft (or it is telling of what you believe) if you think that a statement in support of trans people somehow means that "instances of misogyny has passed them by".

I can do the same to your statement; you didn't mention systemic racism or homophobia, hence you are merely widening the schism, not reducing it since you clearly are completely ignoring how misogyny is also articulated through a person's skin colour and sexual preference.

Oranj

No obligation on anarchists to condemn transphobia? That's an cisnormative take, which I shall duly ignore.

I don't really know if you are getting it from seeing your number of down votes, but by your petty, pointscoring and unhelpful behaviour on here you're actually making all of us who condemned the transphobia, and criticised the response of the Bookfair collective look bad by association.

So you can take your bullshit strawmen somewhere else.

What??? So that Oranj isn't a "TERF provocateur" then???? Coulda fooled me :D

deleted

Thanks comrade_emma, I did not know. I've now edited my post.

It's not a crime not reaching a consensus, many groups who were not bounced into signing the original Open Letter on the Tuesday after the Bookfair, have been unable to reach consensus - and have stopped discussing it.

To be honest, there's also not really any internal procedure as to what to do if there's no consensus on a particular issue (other than a faction forming). There's a procedure for releasing emergency statements which don't have consensus on them too, but that's not really applicable.

I'm not sure how much of the internal mechanisms of AF I should discuss (to the extent they actually mirror activity), but there is a work in progress statement on transphobia that the AF as a whole is producing.

This incident has now made it into the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/26/transgender-anarchist-book-fair-transphobia-row

Just a note that following the discussion about T. Chances on here, I got in touch with them and wrote this up. https://libcom.org/news/battle-t-chances-05122017

Short version:

- there is no call for a boycott or strike by workers at least not yet. They do have some requests of groups that book the venue of things they should say to management etc.
- the situation is fucked - a property developer has been added to the board of directors of the charity that runs the venue, and it's being prepared for sale
- on top of that, a far-right youtuber (has holocaust denialists on their show) records their show at the venue and is also a director of the charity now.
- several community groups that were using the venue have been evicted, more eviction notices being served

So there's no suggestion that the after-party organisers did anything wrong booking it, but generally that campaign could really use some more support/publicity (and since I said that earlier in the thread, tried to make a start by writing it up).

Thanks for the update Mike. So that is basically more evidence that some people were just opportunistically trying to attack the Bookfair collective about baseless things. Which unfortunately served to further divide people and undermine legitimate criticism of their poor handling of transphobia at the event.

Personally I am pretty upset with the Bookfair collective, as in their statement they complain that the groups who signed the open letter criticising them did not contact them to try to discuss the issue. Now the libcom group and myself individually did contact the Bookfair collective to try to discuss this matter seriously, in a comradely fashion and try to have constructive dialogue (I have known some of the collective for about 15 years, and libcom group has had meetings and stalls at the Bookfair, and given them a few hundred pounds over the past few years). However collective only sent a holding reply, did not reply to us until they put out the public statement criticising people for not contacting them, and saying they would refuse to contact further. We have reached out to them again but have received no response.

So unfortunately the Bookfair collective have actually legitimised the people and groups who signed the open letter, because clearly if those groups and individuals had contacted the collective privately, as we did, they would have been ignored as we have been.

On a related note, saw this video from shortly before the Bookfair from the channel of a veteran London anarchist many of us will know about transphobia which I think is helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATglmLQHF_k&t=9s

Martin's You Tube blog piece is very good - straight forward and to the point even if it rightly still leaves open a whole area of possible critical discussion around 'identity' and versions of 'identity politics', but I wish people including libcom admins would give criticism of the London bookfair collective a rest as it achieves nothing now.

Spikymike

Martin's You Tube blog piece is very good - straight forward and to the point

I agree, and really I think the issue is that simple.

I wish people including libcom admins would give criticism of the London bookfair collective a rest as it achieves nothing now.

in terms of this, actually I started my post with a defence of the Bookfair collective. In terms of my latter comments, as you would expect I disagree, because I think this issue is still very much unresolved and my hope is still to have a decent productive discussion with the Bookfair collective, however it has been nearly 3 weeks since my last email and I haven't heard back. I think unless this issue is resolved there will never be another "Bookfair collective" bookfair, so I would like to have constructive discussion on the issue.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how (if?) this played out within the Green Party?

Yeah I have wondered that myself

For all it's problems over the years I think the loss of future large-scale and open public London Anarchist book fairs is a serious and sad loss to open discussion of radical and even sometimes! pro-revolutionary politics in the UK. If people might have thought this years London Radical book fair could stand in as a short term replacement without facing similar problems then it seems they were wrong.

Other than the twats who tried to do handing out leaflets again (and were quite well handled from what I saw, despite their bullshitting afterwards) the Radical one went quite well actually.

Just a quick note. There are similair divisions over the GRA and how to relate to Trans peoples civil rights playing out in the Green Party. No mass (well joint) resignations yet, but unsurprisingly it is pretty poisonous.

Some people in our milieu are still plugging away trying to get their heads round the toxic nature of current arguments around feminism and trans issues and at least approaching it with some recognition that they don't have all the answers and are not prepared to be diverted from their basic class struggle activism in the meantime as here:
https://onuncertainground.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/how-the-heck-did-we-end-up-here/

@SpikeyMike did you read the whole statement, this paragraph (amongst others) is not encouraging:

On Uncertain Ground

There has been some speculation on what’s driving certain aspects of trans activism. We offer a couple of examples which illustrate the direction some commentators are going with this. Firstly there’s this: The Open Society Foundations & the transgender movement. Also there’s this: Considering the rapid rise of trans ideology in academia, we should follow the money. At this point in time while we’re still trying to our heads round the concepts associated with gender identity, we’re not entirely sure we want to go down this route – however, at some point in the future, we may take a look at the issues raised in these pieces.

Links to: https://4thwavenow.com/2018/05/25/the-open-society-foundations-the-transgender-movement/

Which has this lovely paragraph:

This blogpost focuses on the Open Society Foundations (OSF), funded by Soros. This is not easy to discuss because he is vilified by right-wingers, whose criticism sometimes degenerates into anti-semitism (Williamson 2018). Therefore those of us who are liberal or progressive tend to react instinctively by dismissing any scrutiny of Soros out of hand. This is unjustified, as I will show by providing some facts about how OSF has funded the transgender movement.

Fucking lol. We’re onto the Soros conspiracy theories now are we? Why not go the whole hog like Helen Steel and accuse the transgenders of being in the pay of MI5 and (((bankers)))

Sadie

Fucking lol. We’re onto the Soros conspiracy theories now are we? Why not go the whole hog like Helen Steel and accuse the transgenders of being in the pay of MI5 and (((bankers)))

You mean they’re not? Holy shit! Next you’ll be telling me they’re regular people just trying to get on with their lives! You won’t my pull the wool over my eyes though!

Noah Fence

Sadie

Fucking lol. We’re onto the Soros conspiracy theories now are we? Why not go the whole hog like Helen Steel and accuse the transgenders of being in the pay of MI5 and (((bankers)))

You mean they’re not? Holy shit! Next you’ll be telling me they’re regular people just trying to get on with their lives! You won’t my pull the wool over my eyes though!

I mean I’m an agent of the Knights Templar on a mission to do something involving a Holy Grail full of pickles qnd Oestradiol Valerate but I’m not really supposed to talk about it.

i love it when the anarchy men discuss my rights

Also from that 'on uncommon ground' post:

It’s the mental gymnastics demanded by ‘trans women are women’ that has been giving us a headache ever since we first heard the phrase in the aftermath of the London Anarchist Bookfair. If we question the gender roles that are imposed upon us, then obviously we also question the notion that women and men have innate differences in their psychological make up. That means rejecting the binary notions of gender demanded of us by patriarchy.

Like, it appears to them to be mental gymnastics. They are confused. Confused is fine. Not getting it is fine. Having questions is fine. There's a lot of stuff around what gender is, a lot of it is contextual (are we talking individual, society, gender roles, the interplay of those, etc). I totally get that. I get confused sometimes. It's just when I do, I either go away and quietly read/watch/listen/think about a subject, or ask those who seem more clued up than me (especially those with lived experiences, if they're up for that). Beyond that, I might just trust the judgement of the vast majority of my comrades with said lived experience.

If I'm confused about how to approach the issue of trans gender people from an anarchist perspective, I would, for example go: hmm maybe if 90%+ of trans gender anarchists I know support the same rough view, that's probably the right one. So I should support them in whatever that direction of action is, or at worst sit down, shut up and stay out of it while I learn more.

What I don't do, is go, "This confuses me. Therefore it might be wrong. Therefore I will loudly proclaim that you all MIGHT be wrong, I shall write out my important thoughts about you maybe being wrong. Also because this shouldn't be the case (trusting in the consensus of anarchist comrades for the most part), I will talk about how you must all be either: Soros Funded, Confused by Liberalism, or Unreasonably Angry at people who I will take at their word are 'feminists with valid questions who have done no wrong'. I still don't know WHY all these trans anarchists, and many many of their cis anarchist comrades are attacking these (according to their own accounts) lovely feminists. I for some reason am not at all questioning the 'lovely feminists' bit, even though many of those coming into conflict with anarchists and trans people are green party, labour, or even people who assoicate with religious fundementalists, tories, right wing press and far right fan bois. This isn't the bit that needs questioning though, it is those darn confusing trans women".

Because that would be ludicrous.

It's depressing, cuz that blog (I met one of the authors last month), has been putting various statements up and down, and trying to work things out, been deleting old posts, or reposting them which all suggests... yeah, they are genuinely confused. Doesn't excuse linking to Soros conspiracy BS, and taking TERFs at their word whilst challenging trans people and anarchists at theirs.

You mean libcom posters don't write up stuff here that is confused and sometimes plain wrong!
I give credit for a level of honesty and transparency to the 'onuncommonground' posters even though I don't share all their views or level of confusion on this or some other issues. They do at least move outside of the anarchist political bubble. They probably won't thank me for posting the link to their blog but remember to treat them with some respect for all their efforts and not just any problems that they have the honesty to express on this issue.

They’re spreading conspiracy theories about us being pawns of a sinister (totally coincidentally Jewish) billionaire because we want to use the bog without getting pestered Mike. I think we're allowed a bit of snark.

Like why is it that every rich liberal who slings a bit of money at Mermaids or something is proof that trans people are part of some grand bourgeois conspiracy but nobody ever talks about how Rupert Murdoch’s papers are awful keen on introducing this ridiculous culture wars bullshit about trans people to UK political discourse?

Spikymike

You mean libcom posters don't write up stuff here that is confused and sometimes plain wrong!
I give credit for a level of honesty and transparency to the 'onuncommonground' posters even though I don't share all their views or level of confusion on this or some other issues. They do at least move outside of the anarchist political bubble. They probably won't thank me for posting the link to their blog but remember to treat them with some respect for all their efforts and not just any problems that they have the honesty to express on this issue.

at best they are using a liberal "both sides" framework, at worst they are in content identical to a altright gamer bro who still thinks attack helicopter meme is funny, but with a better ability to write

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