Tagged: Anarchism
November Events in Bristol
A selection of events involving us or our friends, and a couple we just think everyone should be at! From protests to pizza, come say hi and get involved.
Solidarity With Brazilian People
Bolsonaro has swept to power in Brazil and ushered in attacks on LGBTQ people, students, teachers and women. Stand with those confronting his fascist policies.
Friday Nov 9th 1.15pm – 3.15pm
Outside Senate House, Tyndall Avenue, BS8 1TH
Resist Surveillance!
Know your rights, resist state repression, fight back against control.
Friday Nov 9th
BASE, 14 Robertson Road, Easton BS5 6JY
Opening Bristol’s Borders
Fighting state control and standing in solidarity with Migrants!
Various Dates all November
Various Locations
(click for big)
Free Shop!
Bristol Housing Action Movement host a free shop, browse, chat, listen to music and take away some free stuff. Leave donations of clothes, toys, household stuff, or anything else someone might enjoy!
Saturday Nov 10th 1pm – 4pm
The Bear Pit
How Did World War 1 End?
Bristol Radical History & Remembering the Real WW1, looks at the truth behind often unanswered (and unasked) questions.
Saturday Nov 10th
1:30 pm to 4:30 pm
M Shed, BS1 4RN
Pizza and Anarchy!
BASE’s Sunday meal, with a chance to browse the radical library and info shop.
Sunday Nov 11th 6.30pm – 9pm
BASE 14 Robertson Road, Easton, BS5 6JY
Bristol Housing Action Fundraising Meal & Film Showing
BHAM are are a collective of squatters and homeless people fighting for housing and support in Bristol. Come get a vegan Lasagna & Dessert for £4.50, and watch ‘Dispossession, the great social housing swindle’.
Wednesday Nov 14th 6.30pm – 9.30pm
BASE 14 Robertson Road, Easton BS4 5JY
March For Mental Health
Student organised event to protest the lack of mental health support at Bristol university, and the uni’s refusal to deal with issues that contribute such as high rents.
Wednesday Nov 21st 1.15pm – 3.15pm
Senate House, Tyndall Avenue, BS8 1TH
Trans Pride South West
Now in it’s third year, Trans Pride’s aim is ‘celebrating diversity of Transgender, Non-Binary, Intersex & Gender Variant individuals. Actively encouraging awareness, openness & interaction.’
Wednesday Nov 21st – Sunday Nov 25tg
Various locations
Bristol Bus Protest
Bristol’s busses are a mess, and First are still laughing all the way to the bank. Let’s demand some change.
Saturday Nov 24th 12Midday
College Green
Reclaim the Night
Annual feminist march and rally reclaiming the night for those of us who are told the night belongs only to men. (all genders welcome)
Friday Nov 30th 6.30pm
Queen Square
A previous year’s Reclaim the Night
Capitalism: A Survival Guide
Even the most passionate of revolutionaries is forced to admit that, for the moment, capitalism rules the world. While we fight tooth and nail for a truly free society, we’ve still got to survive this one in the mean time. After all, we can’t kill capitalism if it kills us first!
To this end we are hosting a series of workshops that aim to arm us all with the skills and knowledge we need to not only ‘scrape by’ but begin to organise, thrive and fight back. Each one will focus on a different aspect of capitalist society, from dealing with debt or fighting through the bureaucracy of disability benefits to being your own media and discovering if there really is such a thing as a free lunch.
The survival guide workshops will take the place of our usual monthly discussion nights Continue reading
Anarchy in Bath this Weekend
Bath Anarchists at a Bedroom Tax demo outside the Guildhall, March 2013
Calling anyone in Bath who is an Anarchist, thinks they might be, or is just Anarcho-Curious. Join the Anarchist Federation and friends on Saturday the 8th of April re-ignite anarchism in Bath! We’ll be having a freeshop in the centre, followed by a meeting to share schemes and ideas (Facebook event).
Bath, perhaps surprisingly for such an outwardly gentile city, has a solid history of anarchist organisation going at least back to 1925, Continue reading
Some Very Busy Anarchists : Upcoming Events in Bristol
There is loads going on in Bristol over the next couple of months of interest to anarchists and other radicals. So much infact that we were having trouble keeping track of it all, especially with the sad end of Bristol Indymedia.
Anti Workfare action, quiz nights, a season of WWI events from Bristol Radical History, Reclaim the Night, discussions from Men Against Patriarchy and the Dangerous Thoughts Collective, a talk from author Peter Gelderloos, Kebele cafes, Solidarity Network meetings and a weekend away in London for the Bookfair and Anarcha Feminist Conference.
It was getting so much that we’ve decided to create and update an online calendar to keep track of it all. Head on over to our new events tab to look through it, or subscribe via ICal or XML.
Get in touch if you would like an event added, we hope this can become a comprehensive list of protests, actions, talks, discussions and other anarchist evens. See you on the streets, in this cafes, at the bookshops…
Bristol Anarchist Bookfair just around the corner!
The 6th annual Bristol Anarchist Bookfair will take place on Saturday 26th April at the Trinity Centre from 11:00AM. Bristol Anarchist Federation will once again have a presence at this year’s bookfair.
As well as our usual stall, where we will have copies of the latest issue of Organise! along with a selection of our pamphlets and other propaganda (hopefully including the new edition of Role of the Revolutionary Organisation hot off the press!), we will be involved in two workshops throughout the day.
The first workshop starting at 12:30PM in the Bookfair Assembly Room on the first floor is called: “Is Bart Simpson an Anarchist?” and hopes to answer some important questions raised by this year’s poster design:
We felt some of Bart Simpson’s calculations on this year’s bookfair poster were at best debatable and at worst problematic. Does Work minus Bosses, or Money minus Bankers really equal anarchy? What do we mean by the term “Work” anyway? And can money really have a role in an Anarchist society?
We’ll also be taking part in the “Solidarity in Bristol” workshop directly after that at 2:00PM with Bristol Solidarity Network, Acorn Bristol, IWW, Bristol SolFed, and Bristol Refugee Rights:
Solidarity is a central idea which we organise round but how does it work in practice – especially across social and political differences? People actively showing solidarity with workers, migrants, claimants, and local and international struggles discuss what has been productive and challenging in their solidarity work.
Members of Bristol Anarchist Federation will be stationed at our stall throughout the day so if you have any questions or just want a chat come and say Hello!
Don’t forget the Bookfair Afterparty this year taking place at The Red Lion in St. George. Confirmed acts so far include Hazel Winter, Public Order Act, MC Amalgam, QELD and Ash Victim. The festivities start at 8:00PM and all proceeds go towards the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair Collective to help them do the same thing again next year!
We hope to see you all there!
A Response to Bristol Post and the Police’s Anarchist Witch Hunt
When members of the “Angry Foxes Cell” burnt down the almost complete Police Firearms Training Centre in Portishead near Bristol, it took a lot of people by surprise, ourselves included. This week the Bristol Post published an article on a report by Avon & Somerset Police with the Stalinesque title “Our Five Year Ambition”. The Posts front page ran the Headline “Targeting the Enemy Within.” This was followed up by a comment from the editor singling out anarchists and drumming up public support for their increased oppression.
Continue reading
Anarchism and the Black Revolution
On Wednesday the 16th of October, Bristol will be hosting JoNina Abron-Ervin and Lorenzo Ervin as they give talks on their involvement in the US Black Power Movement and struggles that continue to this day.
JoNina is the author of Driven by the Movement: Activists of the Black Power Era and will speak about her interviews with some 20 Black Power Activists aswell as her own activity in the Black Panthers, where she became editor of the Black Panther Newspaper. She will detail the experiences of those organising from the grassroots, and participants in radical organisations including the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
Lorezo was sentenced to life imprisonment after he allegedly attempted to murder a Ku Klux Klan leader before hijacking a plane to Cuba. Whilst in Prison he was supported by the Anarchist Black Cross and wrote Anarchism and the Black Revolution. He has continued to struggle against the Prison Industrial Complex and other forms of state sanctioned racism after an international campaign led to his release after 15 years inside.
Both are currently involved in the Black Autonomy Federation, and anti fascist organising. Learn how they and other protesters in Memphis faced down the Ku Klux Klan and 500 riot police earlier this year, and the strategies and tactics people across America are using to confront fascism and state repression and build autonomous, anti-authoritarian networks.
When: 7pm Wednesday October 16th,
Where: Malcolm X Centre, City Road/Ashley Road
Cost: Free/Donation
Publicity: We are currently printing and distributing flyers/posters, if you would like any to put up get in touch.
Facebook: Event for the talk.
The Bristol leg of the tour, which also includes a talk by JoNina hosted by the UWE Feminist Society on Thursday the 17th, and hopefully a further talk by Lorenzo, is Supported by the Malcolm X Centre, Bristol Anarchist Federation, Bristol Radical History Group and the Solidarity Federation.
If you can’t make it to Bristol there are also talks taking place in Cardiff, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bradford, Cambridge, Kent Uni, Nottingham, Glasgow and at the London Anarchist Bookfair.
“Creating A New World In The Shell Of The Old” – Report Back from Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair 2013
The 4th annual Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair took place last Saturday 11th May at the Showroom Workstation. A member of Bristol AFed went to the Bookfair as part of the Kebele Social Centre/Infoshop Collective. This is their personal account of the day:
After a slow start to the day – waking up at 4am and being stuck on the side of the motorway until 9am – we finally arrived at the Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair at around midday. We set up our stall next to Bristol Against Arms Trade (BAAT) and were happy to find ourselves nestled between comrades from Collective Action and The Commune with The Cowley Club Social Centre (from Brighton) and Sheffield IWW opposite us.
Once we’d finished setting up I took some time to look around the other stalls. There were at least 28 stalls at this year’s Anarchist Bookfair. Despite this the Bookfair gave off the impression of a bustling and active movement with lots of people walking between stalls and talking to eachother. This really felt like a local Bookfair and I loved it.
Why Socialists Should Care About Anarchism
A really interesting read via ‘Spread the Infestation’ : why socialists should care about anarchism.
There is also for balance, a ‘why anarchists should care about bolshevism’ article on the same blog. Although as part of the class struggle anarchist current (which has always been the most prominent, especially outside of america), we would refute some of the points it makes. Anarchists do have a revolutionary strategy, and do believe some ideas are better than others. Continue reading
Lessons From the Egyptian Insurrection: Communization, Strategy, and Solidarity
Interesting analysis of recent events in Egypt;
Provinces along the Suez Canal. Alexandria, Port Said, Suez, Ismaili, and Cairo have seen extensive clashes and the defiance of all curfews, with Port Said effectively seceding and military leaders warning of a state collapse. Within this fold, an explicitly revolutionary force has announced itself, calling itself Black Blocairo, Black Block Egypt, or simply the Black Bloc, pointing beyond the use of the black mask and violence as a tactic and towards a more organized and explicitly insurrectional position in North Africa.
Bristol Anarchist Federation 