In September 2012, shortly after the end of the largest unlimited general student strike in the history of Quebec, several class-struggle anarchist organisations in Canada along with a few local chapters of the IWW put together a cross-country tour to bring the history and experiences of the Quebec student movement to students and activists outside the province. Stopping in over a dozen cities from Toronto, Ontario to Victoria, BC, the tour brought a participant in the 2012 student strike to audiences in colleges and universities as well as union halls and various cooperatives. The article that follows is based on this conference. Special thanks to Jonathan from Zabalaza for editing help!

In June 2009, one of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s most renowned accusers, Judge Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia, visited South Africa on a speaking tour. Dean of the Law School at the Universidad Central de Chile in Santiago, and also a lecturer in human rights at the School of Journalism at the Universidad de la República, Guzmán was originally a Pinochet supporter, but turned against him after being selected by judicial lottery in 1998 to hear the 186 criminal charges against the man who, until his death in 2006, cast such long shadows over Chilean political life.

For those Chileans who took to the streets of their poblaciones in the early 1970s and mid-1980s to demand the release from Robben Island of Nelson Mandela and for an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa, the rightward shift of the African National Congress (ANC) with its embrace of anti-working-class neoliberalism is likely to be confusing. How did the world’s most celebrated new democracy come to be marred by ongoing violent protests by the poor against “their” government, faced down by police as bloody-minded as before, by continued housing evictions and mass forced removals so evocative of the depths of apartheid (1)? This analysis shall attempt to explain the trajectory of South African “democracy” and the failure of the “South African Revolution” by comparison to the Chilean experience of the popular overwhelming of Pinochetist reaction – in which the Left found itself fundamentally defeated, even as it attained its cherished victory.

Ao contrário das tentativas de mudança que se dão por dentro do Estado, há aquelas alternativas que se dão fora do âmbito do Estado. É inevitável falarmos em disputa de poder, mas entendendo poder como espaço político, e não como o poder do Estado e como a dominação. Poder não necessariamente implica em dominação. Por isso, é claro que os movimentos sociais, apesar de se constituírem, geralmente, fora do Estado, disputam espaço político com o Estado e os representantes da democracia representativa. Os movimentos que têm ou tiveram na História o objetivo de proporcionar uma mudança do status-quo, e dar a ele um sentido mais libertário, certamente disputavam espaço político com a reação e com o Estado. Na grande maioria das vezes, reivindicavam algo, de maneira organizada, o que lhes fazia constituir um movimento.

A América Latina tem uma grande tradição de movimentos sociais e, para essa discussão, acredito ser relevante recorrer a duas delas, ambas do México no contexto da Revolução Mexicana do início do século XX, e que continuam a ter protagonismo na América Latina até os nossos dias: o magonismo e o zapatismo.

[English]

A 60 minute recording of a talk and discussion on the Chinese revolution and the Chinese anarchist movement. It's available here as google video, mp4 and mp3 formats, the first two are preferred as the viewer will then be able to see the images referenced during the talk.

Presentamos a continuación un boletín de análisis histórico y político respecto al proceso de la Unidad Popular y todo el proceso de autogestión de clase que se da, en los hechos, por fuera de la institucionalidad burguesa que el reformismo no cuestionaba.

Estas conclusiones colectivas, aunque suscintas, reflejan el grado de maduración de la organización respecto a los tiempos que nos toca vivir. Es así como consideramos que la línea pivotal de construcción pasa hoy en día por la generación de un Movimiento Clasista y Libertario capaz de referenciarse en los sectores combativos de los trabajadores y el pueblo. Para el FeL, la politización del espacio estudiantil trae consigo la inclusión de un subjetividad libertaria capaz de tendenciar sus dinámicas de lucha y movilización hacia una perspectiva anárquica.

Invitamos a los compañeros a discutir este documento y hacer suyo los puntos de acuerdo que tengan con él.