Decolonizing, Destroying Borders and Attacking Infrastructure What side are you on?

I have been very encouraged by the level of analysis and evaluation that has come out of the DO@ organizing this winter. It's great to see people excited about ideas, about exposing those ideas to the real world, and then coming back and grappling with their implications. This is the kind of movement we need: a thinking movement that acts and evaluates itself.

It's also a sign of a democratic movement (in the most positive sense of the word), in that it means we are exchanging ideas and debating direction and ideas in a cooperative and constructive fashion. This kind of interplay of ideas is vital to a living movement, and it's important, in particular, to building the anarchist movement which must, necessarily, be critical and creative and open to debate by all participants.

This, I think, puts in stark contrast the way that anarchists approach movements versus others. Compared to how so many other actors in movements, particularly liberals, that I have engaged with over the years comport themselves, anarchists really struggle with ideas, unafraid to go places that others don't dare to investigate. This is important and something not to let slip away from us. I think it's something that makes anarchy attractive to non-anarchists. The liberals are not going to delve in depth into the roots of ideas.

So, it's great to see another addition to the discussion around DO@ and the projects were all engaged in, this time coming from PCWC's comrades to the South, Survival Solidarity. I have re-posted the first part of their essay and I highly encourage people to follow the link at the bottom to read the rest. Another solid contribution to the discussion. In particular, I'd like to say that I really like the fanatical title of the piece. Drawing lines is important. Props!

Read on!

Decolonizing, Destroying Borders and Attacking Infrastructure What side are you on?

By: Survival Solidarity

A question that all past revolutionaries have had to ask themselves at critical moments in humyn history: Which side are we on? —Down with Borders, Up With Spring!—Panagioti.

On January 16, Diné, O'odham and Autonomous/Anti-authoritarian (DO@) people answered a call-out from the O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective and Phoenix Class War Council to form the DO@ Block. The bloc, consisting of anarchists and Indigenous people, converged on occupied Akimel O'odham Pi-Posh land (Phoenix) to take part in what was a larger march against Maricopa County, AZ, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio is well known for his racist border politics and strict prison regulations. However this time people were confronting his repression on those that take situations into their own hands and defiantly cross the border without the permission of others.

No deportations, relocation's or foreclosures.

The Bloc's adorning of masks and hoodies was not the only point of contrast between them and other march participants. The DO@ bloc represented the distaste in many people's mouths from endless banal discussions and approaches to the border. It brought the unwillingness to ignore the nightmare of capitalism that socially reinforces the walls that divide us. The DO@ block consisted of those that chose to no longer acquiesce to the displacement of people due to capitalism, colonization and invasive infrastructure projects.

Read the rest at the Survival Solidarity blog.