Finding Our Roots-2009

By A. Joseph Iwasa

This year I attended the third annual Anarchist Finding Our Roots Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Saturday, at Roosevelt University I attended two different workshops.  The first was "Let's Organize the Hood:  Organizing in Poor Communities of Color and Among Impoverished Populations" with ex-Black Panther Party cadre Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, author of "Anarchism and the Black Revolution."  The talk was remarkable, though I left when it got to questions and answers.  I've done community organizing in the past, but now I'm primarily involved in agricultural work.  He's a prolific writer on grass roots organizing, and I would highly recommend that those interested look into his work.

Later I attended two, one hour and fifteen minute sessions on collective living spaces, which had been attended by about forty people, half of which were also living in collective houses around town.  The Lower Case Collective, Weiser House, the Cunt Collective, Grandpa Whipple, the St, Francis Catholic Worker House, Throop Junction, Mt. Happy and a number of other various collective houses were represented. 

There were many new community members, and people interested in the topic who put forward a number of questions that were replied to with a wide range of responses from people's experiences with current and older community living situations.

Sunday I attended a workshop on the Zapatistas and public space. Unfortunately everyone there seemed to have only read about them, as opposed to working with them like many of my comrades have, but it was still a lively and worth while discussion.  It was presented by the author of "Unbounded Publics:  Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory," Richard Gilman-Opalsky.

At lunch the people of color caucused, and about a dozen of us made plans to meet back up later for networking.

My workshop, "A Return to the Land" was attended by about 30 people. Only six of us had experience living off the land, so it was a great chance to talk extensively with people who are interested in the topic, though not active with it. Avram and Ben who I've worked with a a job skills and readiness program, for homeless and low-income people in organic farming and gardening, Growing Home, were both there, some sort of primitivist who got pissed and left because we were talking about farming, a person with experience with World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), someone with Camphill experience, and Andrew from Jesus People USA talked about working on a Mennonite farm, and staying with some Amish folks.

We went fifteen minutes over, though retained most of the crowd for the whole workshop. The discussion was wide ranging from local food systems, to third world struggles for land, with just about everything in between. Upper Midwest Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training (CRAFT), the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) farm communes, the Catholic Worker Movement farms, Camphills-biodynamics, and small family farms in the first world, and Campesina a Campesina, the Landless Workers Movement, Cuba, Russia, China, Zimbabwe, the Zapatistas and the Sandanistas in the the third world were all discussed.

For more information please check out www.findingourroots.org and www.illvox.org.

Finding Our Roots is a yearly conference held in Chicago to to discuss anarchist theory and action. The first FOR conference was held April 27-29, 2007, and focused on theory. The next FOR conference is planned for April 18-20, 2008, with the theme of "Anarchist Organizing in the Midwest." ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Location
Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave (Michigan and Congress)

Schedule
Friday April 18th:

5pm - 12am: Registration and Social at New World Resource Center 1300 N. Western

Workshop Schedule

Saturday

8:30 AM Breakfast

9:30 AM  Anarchist Revolutionary Strategy

                 Know Your Rights

                 Magonism, Zapatismo, and Solidarity with ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Mexico

                 Beyond the Boardroom

10:45 AM Break

11:00 AM Tamms Supermax Prison

                 Law and Organizing

                 Collective Organizing

                 Power and Oppression

12:15 PM Lunch

1:30 PM  Building a Popular Anarchism

                Bash Back!

                Animal Defense League

2:45 PM Break

3:00 RNC Welcoming Committee

                Networking Chicago Social Movements with AREA Chicago

                Organizing for Environmental Justice and Public Transit

4:15 PM Break

4:30 Anarchist Organizing Plenary

6:00 Close

7:00 PM  BLACK FLAG, BLACK TIE

7pm-12:30am: Black Flag Black Tie event @ Q Studios, 2328 N. Milwaukee, 3rd Floor

Sunday

10:00 AM Radical Health Care

                 Mutual Aid in Action

11:15 AM Break

11:30 AM Anarchist Leadership

           Precarity in the Midwest

12:45 PM Lunch

1:45 PM Art as Activism-1967 to Today

                Anarchist Anti-War Organizing

3:00 PM Break

3:15 PM Forming a Chicago Anarcho-Communist Collective

                Growing the Revolution:  Organizing a Collective Community

4:30 PM  Break

4:45 "Looking Back, Organizing Forward: Plenary

6:00 PM Close

CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS.

2^nd Annual FINDING OUR ROOTS: Anarchist Organizing in the ..:

Midwest

We are seeking workshop proposals for the second annual Finding Our Roots conference, to be held in Chicago April 18-20, 2008. This year's conference topic is "Anarchist Organizing in the Midwest."

Workshops should address any aspect of the ways in which anarchists do, can, or should organize in our region. Central questions to consider when formulating workshop ideas:

-         How do we organize ourselves as anarchists?

-         How can we organize across diverse communities and political tendencies?

-         What does it mean to organize locally – as communities, as cities, as a region?

We strongly encourage proposals covering intersections between anarchism and other communities of resistance. Potential topics include Queer resistance, anti-racist organizing, labor/workplace organizing, organizing by and with communities of Color, neighborhood organizing, gender equality, transportation rights, environmental justice, health care, housing and household-based organizing, anti-military/anti-recruitment campaigns, prison abolition and prisoner support, anti-hunger/food redistribution campaigns, organizing against sexual violence, media activism, student organizing, and any other area in which Midwest anarchists are organizing.

Proposals should be NO MORE THAN ONE PAGE and should include:

-         Workshop title

-         Your name and contact info (and those of workshop presenter(s) if this isn't you – though please make sure you have confirmed with all presenters BEFORE you volunteer them)

-         Specific area(s) of organizing/activism covered (see above list)

-         Detailed workshop description, including an explanation of how your workshop fits into the topic of Anarchist Organizing in the Midwest

-         Questions to be posed/answered in the workshop

-         Main workshop goals

-         Workshop format (Will it be an open discussion? Panel/roundtable? Lecture followed by Q&A? **If wkshp will involve a presentation followed by discussion/Q&A, please consider how much time you will devote to each.)

-         Any special materials or equipment (ie, audiovisual) you will need

-         BRIEF reading list [optional]

Workshops are one hour and fifteen minutes (75 minutes) long. Workshops will be scheduled in 90-minute blocks, which INCLUDES a 10-15 minute break between workshops. We ask that presenters be diligent about staying within this time frame. If you feel you need more time for your workshop, please explain why, and we will consider allotting a longer slot.

Submit proposals to: chicagoanarchisttheory@riseup.net

Proposal deadline: March 1, 2008

Series of events:
*Labor and Neighborhoods: Organizing in Theory and Practice in Rogers
Park, Chicago*

2nd Thursday of each month (and more)
Come at 7:30 for a dinner luck (bring food to share), at 8pm for the event
At the Mess Hall <http://messhall.org/> (6932 N. Glenwood; 'Morse' stop
on the Red Line; 773-465-4033)

*6th session, Dec. 13 - The Past & Future of Militant Anti-Capitalist
Street Protest in North America
*
Anti-capitalist sentiment erupted in 1999 with the disruption of the
World Trade Organization in Seattle. However, the massive movement
against globalization following and inspired by these protests has
largely declined.

With emphasis on the recent outbursts against globalization from 1999 to
2003 and anti-war activity from 2003 to the present, the presenter will
critique the "summit hopping" model of the anti-globalizaiton period,
but also discuss how the past can inform the future of anti-capitalist
organizing. Eyeing the expected mass demonstrations against the
Republican National Convention in September 2008, we hope to discuss the
how possiblities contained in these demonstrations can be used to build
a radical movement against capitalism and state.

Recommended reading: How to Fight a War: A letter to young & aging
radicals <http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20071026132337858>