Welcome! Newsletter number 36.
The blog is completing its third year. Did I miss a monthly newsletter? No. Am I surprised? No. Nerd is nerd. And I still enjoy to do the summaries. Self-important? Maybe. But a good way of keeping track of my own work and get motivated to do some more.
Speaking of which: For the first time since accepting the position as general secretary of the SAC in June, I took a few days off union work completely toward the end of the year and went on a writing binge. I suppose it served a personal purpose. (A little worrying how nice it felt not to do any union work at all, but I’ll leave that aside for now.)
Most of the results, you’ll see in upcoming newsletters, as I only just sent in the work, but an immediate outcome is a review triple, which marks a record! It’s Pluto Press thrice, but they had an exciting fall catalog – I could look at books on anarcho-indigenism, green colonialism, and revolutionary movements in Africa. Great selection! (The triple will allow me, with good conscience, to skip a review or two in the coming months, which seems inevitable considering that union work will be back. Yes, my friends, there’s a lot to do!)
There was yet another review written earlier in the month, in another language and for another outlet. For anarchismus.de, I reviewed Ich vermisse euch wie Sau, a moving publication about a German comrade’s journey into exile with a tragic ending. Big props to the folks who put this together!
Then, there’s a publication in Swedish – the translation of an article originally written in English for Counterpunch. It’s about antiimperialism, and the Swedish title chosen by the editors was rather “surprising” (the contents aren’t quite what it suggests), but I suppose there’s a humorous touch.
Finally, there’s union-related writing. I wrote two articles in German about the Tesla strike in Sweden, one for ak, one for express. The one I wrote in English for the AngryWorkers blog has become available in French. Other than that, there is a column in the latest issue of Syndikalisten, the SAC’s members’ journal, but it’s very internal and I can’t find it online, so you’ll have to live without it (a very easy thing to do).
Fundraisers: the squat/social center Rozbrat in Poznán, a mainstay of social movements in the country as well as the labor union IP, is collecting money in relation to the project expanding and becoming more self-sufficient. If there are any Christmas funds left, they could go there.
I hope for everyone to have a great new year, although it’s tough in times like these.
More next month. Stay safe!