December 2022

Last month, I claimed that I was on a roll with the monthly reviews. This month, I’m doubling down! For the first time, two new reviews come with the monthly newsletter. One, “A Fat Guy in Shorts”, looks at the book The Roaring Red Front: The World’s Top Left-Wing Football Clubs, the other, “Pan-Africanism and Marxism”, at a new selection of essays by Walter Rodney.

November started with the Nordic Labour Film Festival in Malmö, where we (the International Committee of the SAC, my union) organized a meeting of the Migranti network. We had guests from Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, and it was all good fun, despite the dire conditions we were addressing. The panel discussion we arranged can be viewed on the film festival’s Facebook page.

Later in November, I traveled to Oberwiesenthal and Oberhof, the two major wintersport centers of eastern Germany, to write about their role in the GDR and how they transitioned into a reunified Germany and its sports structures and politics. It was very, very interesting. The articles appeared in junge Welt (Oberwiesenthal/Oberhof).

I also wrote about the men’s soccer world cup in Qatar for junge Welt, although I didn’t really want to. The editors convinced me, and I don’t regret it. I also wrote an article about how the soccer world cup was messing with the scheduling of winter sports events. Other November contributions to the junge Welt sports pages concerned the start of the bandy season in Sweden and the miraculous run by everyone’s favorite soccer team, Degerfors IF, to secure another year in Sweden’s top league (hooray!).

Two articles of mine were published that I wrote for an upcoming book about the history of the radical record, book, and merchandise distributor Fire and Flames. Since it is unclear when the book will come out, “Stop Mucking About: Catechisms, Straight Edge, and Why It’s Not as Bad as It Sounds” found a home at DIY Conspiracy, and “Sports Activism: The Next Episode” at Counterpunch.

The Galician translation of Soccer vs. the State has been released and launched in front of – who else? – the antifascist Deportivo de La Coruña supporters.

I chatted about sports and politics with the makers of the Little | Bigger | Anarchism podcast, and (in German) about anarchism and piracy with the folks of Übertage.

Last but not least, I came across several things this month that are well worth checking out: Klaus Viehmann has clarified a few bits in the development of radical theory in Germany in the past thirty years; Torkil Lauesen has discussed the German translation of his book The Global Perspective on the program 99:1; the Overall Brigade has released new Joe Hill songs in German translation; there’s a Netflix movie, A Man of Action, based on the anarchist and pro-counterfeiter Lucio Urtubia‘s life (I haven’t seen it yet, but the trailer doesn’t look too bad). You should also check out the Crushing Colonialism project, and if you have money to spare you could support the fundraiser to secure cancer treatment for the incarcerated revolutionary Kevin “Rashid” Johnson.

More next month. Stay safe!