Welcome! Newsletter number 47.
The month started with a trip to a congress in Hamburg, Re:fuse – Connecting Antiauthoritarian Struggles. I spoke about internationalism and was on a panel on anarchism and unionism. Other talks I attended discussed anarchist theory, the relationship between anarchists and “authoritarian leftists”, and how to leave the activist bubble. There were a lot of people at the congress, about 500, many of them young, which was encouraging. Despite the participants expressing different ambitions, it was quite bubbly, but that’s how it goes. I got to see many friends and comrades I hadn’t seen in years.
Back in Stockholm, I was on the popular Komintern podcast talking about my latest book, From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas: A Documentary History of the 2nd of June Movement. The interview kickstarted promotion for the book in Sweden, with presentations following in both Stockholm and Gothenburg in the spring. One former member of the group, Norbert “Knofo” Kröcher, was in Swedish exile for some years.
We had a prominent guest in Stockholm last month: Copenhagen’s Torkil Lauesen, once upon a time member of the Blekingegade Group (see Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers) and nowadays a prolific author. Torkil presented the Swedish translation of his book Riding the Wave: Sweden’s Integration into the Imperialist World System. The talk was organized by the International Committee of the SAC. 100 people showed up, which we were very happy with. The following day, there were several meetings with media outlets and activist groups. It was great to have Torkil in town, he and I have been collaborating for many years.
Some new translations of older texts of mine: the essay “Syndicalism for the Twenty-First Century” (with Torsten Bewernitz) was translated into German (followed by an interview in the same journal, Direkte Aktion); a conversation I had with Matthew Wilson for Anarchist Studies in 2023 was published in Spanish; and I finally got hold of a copy of the Dutch pamphlet edition of “Revolution Is More than a Word: 23 Theses on Anarchism”.
If you’re a crowdfunding fan, you could this month channel some money to the making of Wackeres Innsbruck, a documentary film about the turbulent history of my home town’s best-known soccer club. (In the 1980s, when it was called FC Tirol, I played in its youth teams.)
More next month. Stay safe!