Should we publish in minority languages, of which nearly all of the speakers can speak the dominant language?

No, I just think that if propaganda is to be successful it needs to speak to people in a way that is familiar and comfortable for them. We've had long discussions on this website about the kind of language we should put in our leaflets etc, people are pretty much agreed that it shouldn't sound like it's written by some postmodernist () university academic because this will put people off, but that it shouldn't be too 'dumbed down' as this is patronising. If the area where you live is one where a living minority language like Welsh or Kurdish is spoken then the language issue becomes part of this same debate, IMO.

I'm not the least bit interested in fighting cultural assimilation (or in third positionist fascism, thanks for that) and I don't give a shit if any language 'dies out' but I am interested in communicating our ideas to people effectively. I've been to places in Wales that are not backward, closed-minded little villages but where people going about their everyday lives speak to each other in Welsh. It seems a bit strange, contrived and 'more anti-nationalist than thou' to argue that we should address them in English when their first language is clearly Welsh, and I think it would seem strange to them too.

Would you argue that an anarchist in Quebec should publish only in English despite the fact that everyone speaks French as their first language? Or that anarchists in Switzerland should publish only in German regardless of what part of Switzerland they are in? What's the difference?

When I hear people going on (and on, and on, and on) about community organising, my thoughts often turn in the same direction as revol's.

There is a danger in invoking "community," in harking back to a "golden age" of working class community. The same golden age as when lodging houses had signs in the windows saying, "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish."

Yeah I agree revol I'm not talking about northern ireland where everyone speaks english as a first language but some people are learning irish purely for nationalistic reasons. I'm talking about 'real' languages that some people still genuinely speak, for example welsh. Like i said, it just seems polite to speak to someone in their first language - why does everyone think that it is so nationalist

Have you read Jean-Luc Nancy's The inoperative community, revol? I think you'd like it.....

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/N/nancy_inoperative.html

in the news today

not sure how relevant it is but i found it "interesting" (if a little oblique):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1746267,00.html

Misanthropist! Stop generalising from your experience of Northern Ireland to other communities. And it doesn't surprise me to find you quoting Nazis.

It was Hermann Goering, yer closet nazi bleeder

Thats dangerously close to Godwin's Law.

you lose

edit: link not working

To paraphrase Maggie Thatcher, there is no 'community'.

At least, there is nothing that makes any sense in an anarcho-comunist context. That's because any notion of community is part and parcel of one facet or 'sub-culture' of capitalist society. So, part of our job as libertarians is the creation of a working class 'community of resistance'. This is all about helping to bring together any forms of resistance that are happening within the class, building solidarity between them and the creation of something new and vibrant. The creation of a 'culture of resistance' is directly related to this, whether it be via song, literature, social events, anarcho-holidays, art, Libcom, or whatever.

Course, it's all a bit of a big job creating this community/culture of resistance. I think I'll just go down the pub.

Magnifico,

I don’t have much to argue with with your points. They seem quite reasonable to me. I am not suggesting that people only publish in German in Switzerland, or don’t publish in French in Quebec. What I am doing is suggesting that we be aware of how publishing in these languages is a political decision, not just a practical one like how much a leaflet costs to print. I am suggesting that it is something that maybe we should think about. I think I have explained why I believe that we shouldn’t publish in Turkish in that it will not give us access to more people, and could link us to Kurdish nationalism. I made the first post after a discussion we had in a bar about languages for publication. I have since talked about it with Kurds (but not Kurdish speakers) who agree with me.

At the moment there is massive unrest in the South East. 15 people have been killed on demonstrations in the last week. I think that it would be very worthwhile (although probably very dangerous) to put out a leaflet in Kurdish criticizing both the state, and the Kurdish nationalists. That said we are in Ankara, and the distance between Ankara, and Diyarbakır, or Batman is similar to the distance between London, and Milan.

Serge,

I realise what situation the AF put those things up in, and I also realize that it wasn’t a political decision. I said so in an earlier post. I can’t be bothered to look back, and find it as this thread is so long, but it is there somewhere. Maybe it should have been though.

As for the council workers strike, I didn’t say that it was the most significant strike. I don’t think it was, but that it was the biggest strike, 1,000,000 workers, in that period. Of course the winter of discontent, and the miners strike for example were much more significant.

You say it was in the last issue of ‘Resistance’. I have just looked at it, and there was half a column on page two. Maybe it was important enough to do a leaflet for, and to distribute it as widely as possible on picket lines. I also noticed there was a small bit about Mehmet Tarhan. What I would say about it is that it was mainly reporting news, and seemed to lack political perspective. Contrast it with the ICC’s leaflet http://en.internationalism.org/node/1735 , and however much you disagree with their politics, it does have a political perspective.

By the way, I don’t mind you giving away all of these virtual cigars, but remember that next time I am in the U.K., which probably won’t be for a year or two (you have time to save up for a quality one), you promised me a real one.

In solidarity,

Devrim

With yours truly and what, or who?

a Welsh black mountain sheep? or one of those nice greek ones?

Jack, tell me when you`re running your next philiosophy course will you?

Sorry, sheep cost extra.