Anarchoblogs

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Wanted: Contributions for Embryozine #5‏
http://anarkisterna.com/blog/2010/03/04/wanted-contributions-for-embryozine-5/

Now it’s time to start working on the fifth Embryo zine! And we want you to contribute texts, illustrations or anything else you see fit. This time we start from a different point than we’ve done previously. Taking on Embryo #5 begins with three themes we want to explore. These are questions we’ve pondered for some time and which we believe to be rather vital to answer. We hope you feel the same way.

The first theme deals with how to manage being active in a scene that –for as long as we’ve been part of it – rather than a movement resembles a phase you go through (like adolescence). Some have become disillusioned or abject during their time in the extra-parliamentary Left – the revolution might not happen in our lifetime after all. On the other hand, many have learnt new skills and enhanced self-confidence here – the habit of leading meetings, planning and organizing actions, writing pamphlets, speaking in front of a lot of people and organizing workshops.

But if we don’t want to leave this phase, even though we might not be considered young adults anymore, having children and permanent jobs? How can we create a scene that enables you to remain active even when your life and circumstances change? And how do we take care of each other and create a sustainable activism? An activism based not on individual enthusiasts carrying through until they burn out just to be superseded by the next generation of enthusiasts? How have you dealt with it? What are your experiences? What has worked for you? Theme Two: Structures for movement

The second theme takes up the thread where the first one left off. How can our structures (collective spaces, archives, resources, experiences) help to create a continuous movement or a sustainable activism? What significance does an autonomous space as Utkanten have for activists in Malmö? What traces has the burnt down Cyclops left in Kulturkampanjen?

In Sweden, during the last ten years, Solidaritetsgrupper (anti repression groups) and Aktivist Trauma Support have lined up with the Anarchist Black Cross. What functions do these solidarity structures fill? Or for that matter, our other infrastructure – permanent people’s kitchens, joint farming projects, infoshops and distros?

Previous years’ internal discussions took place in forums that are not available for many of those who are active today. How can we create a continuous exchange of experience? People should not have to reinvent the wheel but rather fall back on the experiences others have collected before them, while at the same time no truths may be too sacred to be questioned and discussed.

The third theme, finally, focuses on our perspectives. Why do we do what we do? We are anarchists (or autonomous activists) and strive for an entirely different society that we often have a clearer notion of than we have of the way to get there. With Embryo # 5 we want to strike a blow for the need of long term activism.

We could easily spend all waking time on urgent responses or actions only centered on the here and now – but to actually begin advancing our positions in the conflicts at hand, something more is needed. We must ask ourselves where we want to get and how our actions today take us towards that aim.

Like Timbro (a Swedish neoliberal think tank) in the early 80s copied the language and ways of the left, we can take over a mode of operation from the established organizations and businesses:

We call for strategic thinking, evaluation and development of tactics. Your participation if you were not discouraged by the mass of text above, but rather inspired by the idea of contributing to #5, please contact us: You do not have to have a finished article – an opening idea is a good start. Similarly, if you have an article that you think does not bear all the way or that needs to be proof-read – send it to us, we’ll comment on it or suggest changes and send it back, you send it back again and so forth until everyone is content with it.

We are also happy for any photos, comics, or collages. All submitted material may not be included in the zine, though. The time frame is tight, we want the final versions of all contributions at the end of March, since our goal is to have Embryo #5 translated, designed and printed on time for the anarchist bookfair in Stockholm in June.

This zine will not be the end of these discussions, but it can be a part of an ongoing process, hopefully taking us further.

Love & struggle!/Embryo Collective

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Show moral courage

On the 12th October it has been ten years since the Syndicalist Björn Söderberg was attacked in his home and killed by Nazis in a suburb of Stockholm. We solemnize his memory with a dignified manifestation on Monday the 12th. For those of you who are in Stockholm that day, we gather on Medborgarplatsen at 6 pm and march to La Mano on Katarinavägen at 7 pm. There the manifestation will end at 8.30 pm.

The context in which the murder took place, was that Björn acted openly and consequently against racism and Nazism at his workplace. For a while after the murder, protests kept coming in to Stockholms LS, the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union. Tens of thousands gathered all over the country to express their disgust with the deed. Representatives of all the parties in the parliament participated in the manifestation on Medborgarplatsen.

Almost 70% of the Swedish population wanted Nazi organisations to be prohibited after the murder. But today, in our increasingly harsher class society, we witness a slowly growing support for a sneaking racism. The divisiveness of the solidarity between workers takes on such expressions.

At the same time the daily struggle against racism continues at schools and workplaces all around the country, a struggle seldom or never noticed by the media. Many people show their moral courage every day in an open stand against racism and fascism.

We will never back down - No Pasaran!/Stockholms LS, the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union SAC

Nazi activity then and now

The summer of 1999 saw Nazi violence culminating in Sweden — in May two police officers were executed when stopping a car after a bank robbery performed by Nazis, and in June a car bomb severely injured a journalist living under constant death threats for writing exposing articles on Nazi organisations. That summer Björn worked as a stockroom worker when he learned that Robert Vesterlund, a leading Nazi, had gained a commission of trust in the union Handels at his workplace. Björn was determined to act despite of his own worries of becoming a target. He approached the staff management, the union and the Syndicalist weekly Arbetaren. As a result, Handels relieved Robert Vesterlund of his commission of trust and, later on, the company fired him. A month later, two armed Nazis rang on his door bell and after a heated argument shot him dead.

One of the Nazis who participated in the killing of Björn Söderberg was Hampus Hellekant, notorious in surveying leftist activists, journalists and others that he perceived as his opponents. Since his release from prison he has changed his name and, according to himself also his politics. But, as the Research Group reveals in this weeks’ issue of Arbetaren, he has never stopped his activities, he has never stopped his monitoring.

The results of which, as we’ve seen, can be severe.

Last December a Syndicalist couple and their two year old daughter were the victims of a Nazi arson in a suburb of Stockholm. The family escaped the flames by climbing down the balcony to the floor underneath. Some months earlier Hampus Hellekant had published pictures and addresses of the couple on a Nazi web page, displaying them as antifascists.
The challenge we face

We are experiencing an increasing level of Nazi violence very similar to the situation of the nineties, we wrote in Refuse to let history repeat itself. The social setting of today, with a financial crisis, increased marginalization and bigger divides between classes and a growing sense of insecurity among people is also very similar to then. However, some things differ. Today the Nazi movement is stronger than it was in 1999. And the kind of united anti-racist response we saw after the murder of Björn Söderberg was lacking after the attempted murder last year.

The same-same-but-different-card is habitually played every time anti-racists protest against marching Nazis and should, once and for all, be unveiled as the false play it certainly is. If one claims that the twenty or so murders committed by Nazis since the 80’s in Sweden alone, as well as the severe hate crimes, arsons, bombings and assaults they have carried out, is equal to the rock-throwing and street fighting of anti-racists, one lacks a sense of proportions.

Looking back at the repressed anti-racist mobilization against the Nazi march in Salem, the establishment does lack a sense of proportions. The extra-parliamentary left stood alone and five hundred people were rounded up and taken into “preventive custody” as soon as they arrived at the train station. The rest of the demonstration were cattled ( I think this means "penned"-Molly ) and never allowed to leave the rallying point.

The challenge for antifascist activists, as stated in From Salem to Stolberg: Right-Wing Martyrs and Right-Wing Violence, lies in finding effective means of resistance. The Swedish example confirms the difficulty to establish the right balance between two necessities: broad public support against the activities of the extreme right on the one hand; and retaining a critical voice against structural discrimination and (party) political hypocrisy on the other.

One of the reasons why the Salem March can continue derives from an early split within its opponents. While mainstream leftists and liberals now hold an anti-racist rally in Stockholm, far from the actual march, militant antifascists attempt to confront the march directly. This renders the Stockholm rally merely symbolic, while politicians and police commanders can portray the confrontations in Salem as yet another case of “extremist clashes”.

So the challenge remains for each and everyone of us to unite and manifest:
- That we are always many more than the fascists are ever going to be!

- That we are stronger than they will ever be!

- That we will never forget Björn Söderberg!

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Yellow Army Faction invading press conference of Vattenfall:‏

Yellow Army Faction invading press conference of Vattenfall http://anarkisterna.com/blog/2009/04/30/yellow-army-faction-invading-press-conference-of-vattenfall/

Yesterday the Yellow Army Faction, GAF, invaded the press conference of Vattenfall after their annual general meeting. GAF issued this statement:

Today the Yellow Army Faction invaded the press conference of Vattenfall greenwashing Lars G Josefsson and Co, who were bullshitting the media at their annual general meeting, to raise awareness of how they are portraying themselves as holding the solution to the climate crisis, while in fact they are the problem. We refuse to stand silently by while they are pushing us further towards destruction.

Not for an instant do we believe that the same dirty company causing climate changes, or the political system backing it up, can solve the climate crisis. An industrialised capitalist economy cannot get by without fossil fuels. It is built on the access to cheap energy that is easily taken from the ground. All economic growth is directly linked to the growing consumption of oil and coal. Lars G Josefsson, vice of Vattenfall, clearly expresses this logic: “Developing renewable energy sources is expensive”, he says. “To afford doing so, Vattenfall has to invest largely into the profitable coal energy.” (It seems that this is some variant of the old' "I'll stop doing 'X', but I've got to keep doing it some more so I can afford to stop. This excuse is in wide circulation for a variety of behaviors-Molly)

To be able to continue with its lucrative coal energy, Vattenfall tries to hoax us by saying new technology will solve the problem. With the so called “Carbon Capture and Storage” technique coal carbon dioxide is to be captured and“decontaminated”.

But if one believes that new technology can solve the problem, one hasn’t understood what technology is. Technology is but a part of a whole society, in this case western industrial society, relying on cheap energy. A need for energy that won’t be satisfied before nature, humans and our life-supporting system has been exploited to the brink of extinction. Solving this problem is not included in the time frame that Vattenfall's quarterly economics allows.

The real solutions to the problems of energy and climate crises come from below. They are small scale, locally controlled and aimed at supplying our basic needs. To the people of Sweden! Vattenfall is owned by you. Lars G Josefsson is employed by you. It is time to revolt and take the power back!

The Yellow Army Faction consists of the 240 480 yellow plastic figurines that Vattenfall has created in their filthy “green washing” campaign. But we have fought loose and sworn to fight to the last figurine against Vattenfall and capitalism driving our Earth towards destruction!