imminent rebellion #9 is fresh off the printer! (In fact we’re still high off the ink) Weighing in at a staggering 108 pages, imminent rebellion is making a come back after 3 years of hibernation as an irregular anarchist journal from deep in the South Pacific.

Included in this issue are personal commentaries from some of those arrested as part of the October 15 ‘terrorist’ raids, an overview of the police’s Operation 8, a consideration of police treatment of activists over the last few years, critiques of NGOism, activism and identity politics, and more.

Read online or buy direct from our website: http://www.rebelpress.org.nz

Rebel Press
info@rebelpress.org.nz
PO Box 9263, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand

To the editor,

There’s been a lot of vitriol in response to the ANZAC day protests around the country, some exclaiming how little we value our “hard won freedom”, others appalled that we would dare burn New Zealand flags, and still others hesitantly supportive but disgusted at our protest on the day itself. I was one of the protesters and this is my short defence.

I am strongly opposed to the military operations in Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. All three have been justified based on humanitarian grounds of one sort or another, but it seems far more likely that, like most wars, these are pursued out of economic interests: oil, gold mining and oil, respectively, while New Zealand plays the lackey to the US and Australia.

New Zealand’s history of militarism, despite widespread attempts at revisionism, is equally disgusting: from the Imperial land seizures and assertion of sovereignty over Maori, to the Empire building of the Boer war, the defence of our biggest export market in WWI, the wars against the non-threat of the “communist virus” and the recent participation in the ‘war on terror’.

Meanwhile, every year we commemorate ANZAC day, exclaiming “lest we forget” and “never again”, words in many instances spoken by leaders of that murderous institution that is the military. And while these words of peace are spoken, the military is paraded around and applauded, guns are fired, and its current operations are celebrated. The whole event reeks of hypocrisy and doublespeak.

I will continue to protest the New Zealand military, being — as with all militaries — for the sole purpose of fighting war in the interests of the powerful. And I will continue to protest ANZAC day so long as the military attends as a guest of honour.

Produced by Smush and Slm of Aotearoa Indymedia.
Download the movie: video.indymedia.org/en/2007/04/837.shtml

Update:
Low quality version now on google video: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3455398513596277970&hl=en-CA
Low quality version on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CvNHlanW98

I suppose today’s morning action could be considered generally successful: the issue of the New Zealand military’s role in Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste has finally been raised, and even Phil Goff was forced to acknowledge (and rebuke) the protests from as far away as Afghanistan while visiting the professional thugs there (aka the military). As well, of course, a number of people have reacted very angrily to the burning of the New Zealand flags (which I must admit was quite satisfying) and the protest in general.

The ANZAC day dawn ceremony here was quite sickening: the previous Secretary of Defence talked about peace and such with no apparent irony given his previous role as head of a professional killing machine. After two of our crew were arrested for the political protest, he then — also seemingly without noticing the contradictions — waxed lyrically about the freedoms won through war. Then to top it off, references to our Lord Jesus Christ were aplenty, I had to stand amongst a crowd singing the National Anthem to avoid being grabbed by the cops, and people actually clapped as the members of the current army/navy/airforce marched by.

I’ve covered my objections to ANZAC Day already. I only want to add that the level of nationalism and patriotism present was far worse than I had expected, and the demographics of those present – young, families, clean, white and middle class – coupled with the huge growth in numbers from last year alone makes the ANZAC day trends all the more worrying.

I also have to wonder about what I would call the “fascist personality” that was present in a number of middle aged men present, who gleefully assisted police in pinning down fellow protesters or, in one case, pinning one guy to an iron fence. After one of the cops hit the guy who was arrested in the face, one of these fascist personality types, with the intonation of a school kid sucking up to a teacher, explained to all and sundry that nothing had happened. It’s this personality that reminds me of the Brown Shirts of Germany.

The response to the protest has been quite rambling and incoherent. I can only laugh when people claim that we don’t appreciate the “hard won freedoms” that these soldiers killed for in WWI. Do they even know why WWI started? Do they know that it was little more than empire building? Do they know that NZ entered the war with the main aim of simply securing the NZ State’s primary export market at the time, Britain?

(John Minto wrote a good column in The Press regarding ANZAC day and New Zealand’s highly militaristic past, despite national myths otherwise: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4035148a16155.html)

In any case, this is just the start of the NZTroopsOutNow.org campaign (visit the website – I’ve almost finished it!).

It seems that in the week after we started putting ourselves within Solid Energy’s blasting zone on Mt. Augustus that the mining company freaked and halted blasting. In the week after that they got the Department of Conservation to ban us from their adjacent land. And when that didn’t work, it seems that Solid Energy has done some sort of risk assessment and this week decided that we’re probably far enough away to not be in danger, or else they’re using smaller and more carefully placed shots.

In any case, they’re blasting again and the ball’s back in our court. Despite our presence up there the last week, they have happily blasted while security guards watched on and warned us with megaphones from afar.

I still think the action is a good combination of being direct action (well, at least initially) and being relatively participatory. But contrary to what I said in my last post on this topic, it’s certainly not open to mass participation: for the simple reason that the 1,000m climb is a mission and there’s virtually nowhere to camp in the dense rainforest scrub.

The choice for us now is either to disband with the action, or step it up and make it effective once again.

(…and to get camo gear that isn’t novelty-clown-sized.)

In Related News:

This afternoon, both Chris Carter and DoC were targeted in a Wellington protest, and Solid Energy CEO Don Elder had his talk disrupted in Auckland by people running around the building in which he was talking by yelling and letting off sirens… looked like a lot of fun.

This time it’s the Howard demo that happened tonight in Wellington, which saw three of my friends get arrested, and quite a few others hurt. I didn’t think the demo was a very good idea: I said to the organisers that I believed it was a continuation of the ’scattergun tactics’ that have characterised anarchist organising for the last 10 years (at least), and just as importantly the protest could only ever be a glorified ‘bearing witness to power’.

Scattergun tactics: It seems most anarchists and radical-ish activists spend almost their entire time organising protests against whatever pops up within their reach: whether it be new government policies, visiting PMs, or the latest war. Obviously these need to be opposed, but the form this has taken over the last 10 years is a small group of people jumping from one site of opposition to another, always in opposition to something, never ever having time to to build, to construct alternatives or to organise something that might actually get bigger. Instead, it’s just continual opposition to whatever shit gets thrown at us or others. And yet another disconnected and ad-hoc protest just falls in line with this trend. This is not a strategy to win.

Bearing witness to power: And what did we even expect from this Howard demo? To yell at him loud enough that he would change his mind? That, even if we had been successful, expect a disruption of his dinner plans to change the policies of the Australian State? Obviously not. It was to ’show our opposition’, to have it on record that we oppose his policies.

One also has to wonder about the psychology of such situations: does the presence of such numbers of police make us feel as though we’re important? a threat? Does getting us arrested make us feel like we’ve sacrificed something for the cause?

It’s also terribly liberal in many ways. As if opposing a person makes any difference when he’s merely an actor within a social system that is propped up by relations in everyday life, not those at the top. It’s quite ironic how much attention anarchists give those in power — far more than the average joe.

We need to be far more strategic, systematic and, above all, constructive, because changing a social system isn’t going to happen from instances of spectacular opposition (just as it isn’t going to happen from political revolutions), but from thoroughgoing social revolution.

Anyway, the filth can go fuck themselves. Bad tactics aside they have no right to fucking exist.

Yes, I’m in a grump.

While at the conference I was pulled aside by two organisers to have “a talk” about my comments about the Unite and Wananga deal which, as far as I was concerned, merely amounted to a restating of our positions. One tried to explain to me the “tension” between the effectiveness of the union and democracy… I didn’t even try to explain the difference between union democracy and self-management.

While they acknowledged that what I wrote was correct (and tried to get my sources too), they made it clear that it had been particularly damaging. It turns out that my comments somehow managed to come within reach of the Te Wananga Crown observer who promptly cancelled a number of Unite classes mainly in Palmerston North and Wellington. No doubt this is only a temporary respite, but in any case it does absolutely nothing to actually resolve the real issues of democracy within Unite or transparency, among many others (such as Matt McCarten’s empire building).

After our “talk”, the two organisers then offered me a job as an organiser for a week, which I politely refused. Can you say co-option?

Industrial Unionism (available for download) is a pamphlet with two local articles on the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) in New Zealand. The History of the the I.W.W. in New Zealand, written by Peter Steiner, details the activities of the I.W.W. around the turn of the 20th Century, the prominence of the union during the famous 1913 Waihi miners strike, and their decline as a result of the ensuing repression during the Great Strike of 1913. The article also includes information about recent attempts to set up the I.W.W. in Dunedin.

Aim, Form, and Tactics of a Workers’ Union on I.W.W. Lines, by Frank Hanlon, was written in 1913 and has been retrieved from the archives of the Turnbull Library. Despite its age, it clearly sets out the principles of industrial unionism in an easy to read manner, and makes the distinction between industrial unionism and trade unionism altogether clear.

As was reported in a New Zealand Herald article on the 4th December 2006, Unite and Te Wananga o Aotearoa (free tertiary education provider) have come to an agreement which

…brings wananga tutors and union organisers into the heart of Queen St to teach literacy, computing and business skills to some of the country’s lowest-paid workers — cleaners, call centre workers, fast-food attendants and waiting staff.

That great bit of reporting by the NZ Herald leaves a lot to be desired.

Firstly, the Unite has agreed to recruit workers and its own members to a variety of Wananga courses. For every new student signed up, the Wananga gets an increase in its funding from the Government. Of course, these courses are free whether you are a member of Unite or not, but the benefit for Unite is that for every student they recruit for the Wananga they get a rather healthy commission, rumoured to be several hundred dollars. Compare this to the Union fees a full time minimum-wage Unite member would pay — just below $200 a year — and you can see the appeal.

As the NZ Herald article made clear, however, Unite is also being given a new building to house its offices, the old ASB Building which is now renamed Unite House.

The deal is clearly lucrative for both organisations: effectively the Wananga is commissioning Unite to gain access to workplaces to recruit students and gain increased funding, while Unite is gaining offices in a half-a-million-dollar building and getting paid rather well on top of this. It is unsurprising to learn, then, that Unite Secretary Matt McCarten is also the trade union representative on the board of Te Wananga o Aotearoa.

While the motivation for both organisations is clearly financial, Matt McCarten has publicly stated the reasoning behind the moves to be based around concern for workers. Workers are being paid poor wages not because the problem lies entirely with employers, he claims, but because workers are not skilled enough or confident enough to be worthy of decent pay. Thus, through cooperation with the Wananga, he is helping them towards better and brighter futures.

Not one to remain idle, however, Unite recently announced 45 short-term paid recruiting positions across New Zealand presumably charged with recruiting for both Unite and Te Wananga. The positions are quickly being dolled out to unscrupulous activists already known to Unite, and it seems most of the positions in Christchurch have already gone to members of the “pro-Mao Marxist-Leninist” group Workers Party.

Most of these details are still not public, and I doubt most of Unite members are aware of the potential cash-cows they are. McCarten’s productivist justifications aside, this deal is clearly financially motivated and in the interests of both the Unite bureaucracy and the Wananga leadership. But what about the workers’ interests?

Since Chavez was re-elected once again for another 6 year term this last week, he has announced that he intends to nationalise the telecommunications industry, the electrical companies, abolish the commercial code which regulates economic transactions and end the independence of Venezuela’s central bank. This last change apparently requires Chavez to apply for increased executive powers to the National Assembly which he controls anyway.

But this “revolution” is nothing more than an alternative capitalist arrangement. The strengthening of state power, the nationalisation of industries and the boosting of welfare infrastructure (schools, health, unemployment support, etc.) represents little more than welfare capitalism. Or as the Venezualan anarchist organisation the Comisión de Relaciones Anarquistas (CRA) put it:

…no doubt the Chavez regime tries to impose state control mechanisms everywhere, but being such a corrupt and inept government, blinded by thinking that is building solid popular support turning part of the poorest people into clients dependent on the state’s dole, it’s going to cost them plenty to make any advances in that contradictory chimera that it calls “XXI Century Socialism”, which is nothing but an underdeveloped capitalism of the XIX Century. *

Poverty will likely be reduced, and a basic quality of life will increase, but the day to day reality for most people will be completely unchanged: they will still be subject to wage slavery, subject to the dictates of bosses or government bureaucracies, still faced with the eternal threat of poverty, harassed by the forces of the State, and rendered just as impotent as ever as to the creation of their own lives and the direction of their communities.

The classic anarchist opposition to a “workers’ state” was summed up well by the CNT just prior to the Spanish Revolution: “dictatorship of the proletariat is dictatorship without the proletariat and against them” (from the Confederal Conception of Libertarian Communism). The anarchist revolutionary aims of decentralisation, self-management, free association and the genuine socialisation of property are not only quite different to any notion of a workers state, but are actively opposed.

Of course, as with any class society the separation between rich and poor remains intact and the property of the national bourgeoisie in Venezuela is not threatened:

…property rights and the structure of the economy remain intact, largely because the government does not want to impede its revenue, prompting relief from the elite and grumbles from the radical left who want greater redistribution of resources. *

And with Venezuela’s nationalisation the national bourgeoisie have in fact become richer, quite content with Chavez’s changes. From an on-the-ground report:

The fruits were on display at a Caracas expo of luxury vehicles and speedboats. Staff at six stands interviewed by the Guardian all said business had never been so good.
“It’s ironic, this revolution. The rich are even richer now,” said Rene Diaz, who was selling Humvee-type 4×4s which cost up to $150,000. *

The main anarchist group in Venezuela, the CRA, continue to oppose both the faux-socialism of Chavez as well as the right through projects such as their national paper, El Libetario.

They see themselves as participants in a tri-polar struggle of their own, and have long positioned themselves in opposition to both the Chavez regime and to the US-backed opposition, borrowing the phrase popularized in Argentina in recent years: Que se vayan todos!, which translates roughly as Get rid of all of them! *

However, despite feeling that the anarchist movement there is undergoing a resurgence not felt in decades they still only occupy a marginal position and are absent from many key sectors of social struggle.