Yorkshire Anarchist Federation

The next communist discussion meeting will be held at 7:00pm, Wednesday 17th March in the Rutland Arms, Sheffield. The topic of the discussion is “Gender Inequality within Society and Our Movement”. Below is a reading list to give you a general introduction to the topic, but by all means look for further information to enrich the discussion.

Hope to see you there!

Reading list:

Mujeres Libres: The Anarchist Women’s Movement during the Spanish Civil War - Aileen O’Carroll

Anarchism and Sex - Organise! #59

“Searching out Difference”, Sexuality and Gender  - Organise! #72

Politicizing Gender: Moving Towards Revolutionary Gender Politics - Carolyn

Anarcha-Feminism: Thinking about anarchism - Workers Solidarity #79

The English Defence League (EDL) have made plans to march through Sheffield on 30th May. They have already held a series of actions elsewhere in the country, such as in Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds, apparently demonstrating against ‘extremist Islam’. Sheffield has a strong working class history thanks to it’s industrial past, but our class has also come into conflict with nationalists and fascists in the past, from the British National Party (BNP) refusing to support the miners’ strike, and actively fighting against it by working with mine owners to break strikes and bankrupt the National Union of Mineworkers through court processes, to the local anarchist and socialist skinhead crew that chased the Nazi skinhead crew out of town.

We know what the EDL are attempting to do; shift focus away from our real enemies, the politicians, bankers and bosses, and place the blame for our economic and political strife on workers with a different skin colour who face the same crap from their bosses as we do. In Luton, the EDL beat up a man simply for being Asian when they were left to march through the town unopposed. In Leeds, EDL supporters broke off from the main protest to go and intimidate the local gay district. In Stoke they threatened Asian businesses and the workers there. It is evident that these people don’t actually want to challenge Islam as a religion, but use it, like the BNP do, as an excuse to target Asian and immigrant workers, splitting our class on abstract lines and diverting the attention from the people who are really harming us, the EDL are doing the job of the politicians in Westminster.

Oppose the EDL on 30th May! More info on their march will be posted.

On the 5th of Feb, Leeds AF held a demonstration alongside West Yorkshire Solidarity Federation and Leeds Class War in front of the office of the German Honorary Consul in Leeds to protest the ban of the FAU-B, the Berlin section of the Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (Free Workers Union, or FAU). A letter protesting the persecution of the FAU was handed to the consul, and leaflets were distributed to workers and passers-by explaining the dispute and expressing our solidarity with our comrades in Germany.

The persecution of the FAU is a result of their success in organising workers at the Babylon cinema in Berlin. Management and local government, including Die Links (The Left party), worked together to undermine attempts by the workers to organise independently of the established unions, resulting in a union contract offering inferior conditions being signed by Ver.di - a union with almost no representation at the cinema and brought in over the heads of the workers. On top of this, a German court has ruled that the FAU is not allowed to represent workers or even call itself a union. As well as being the first case of the German state banning a union since 1933, the ruling sets a precendent for future cases and means that no new unions may be set up in Germany, granting a legal monopoly to the existing unions. The management is currently demanding that the FAU be fined up to 250,000 Euros and its members imprisoned in an effort to crush the cinema workers attempt to deal with poor conditions and low pay.

This assault on workers’ rights in Germany is not purely the concern of the German working class. The events at the Babylon cinema is part of the ongoing attack against working conditions and social provisions across Europe and throughout the world. The erosion of workers’ rights in one country make it easier to strip workers of their rights elsewhere. By supporting the rights of workers anywhere, we support the rights of workers everywhere.

More information on the dispute and updates on the ongoing situation can be found on the FAU website: http://www.fau.org/verbot/en

The next communist forum hosted by the Commune and Anarchist Federation in Sheffield will be a discussion on the rise of the far right in Britain today, the character of fascism, and how we should organise against this threat.

The meeting takes place from 7pm on  Tuesday 16th February at The Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to express your interest or ask for more info – see below for some background reading for the meeting.

(As you can tell from the long list of pieces, this is not compulsory reading for the discussion, just a list of articles that may be of interest!…)

Fascism/anti-fascism, by Gilles Dauvé

Anti-fascism in the 21st century – from Shift magazine

The European elections, the left and anti-fascism, by David Broder

The rising threat of the BNP: the underlying causes, its present nature and prospects, by Dan Jakopovich

British nationalism and the rise of fascism, by Chris Ford

Get this racist Jack Straw off the BBC, by The Commune

Fascism and democracy – two cheeks on the same arse - by Anarchist Federation

Bash the fash – by Anarchist Federation

Giving up No Platform?, a speech to the 2009 Anarchist Bookfair

Bash the fash, anti-fascist recollections 1984-1993 - by K. Bullstreet

Below is a recording of a meeting held on 19th January 2010 in Sheffield titled, “What would our alternative society look like?”

Audio stream

The meeting was hosted by the Commune and the Anarchist Federation.

Recommended reading for the meeting included:

William Morris - News From Nowhere

Bertell Ollman – Marx’s Vision of communism – Critique 8

Cornelius Castoriadis – The content of socialism

Sorry that the levels are low, if you turn up your amp it should be OK.

The next meeting of this discussion group will be on the far right and anti-fascism, from 7pm on Tuesday 16th February at The Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS.

Thanks to Chris from Sheffield Indymedia for arranging the recording.