Welcome! Newsletter number 54.
I‘m on a roll. The newsletter came with a new review last month (about soccer), and it comes with a new review this month! The release reviewed is not brand-new but still highly relevant: Half-Earth Socialism. (The title might be intriguing enough to check out the review if you don’t know the book – mind you, you might want to check out the review even if you do know the book, and see if you agree or disagree.)
I also wrote a review in German for analyse & kritik about two books on militant antifascism in Spain: Grupos autonomos and Antifascistas (both books are German translations from Spanish).
I was on a podcast about football, focusing on soccer during the prime time of the workers’ sport movement in the 1920 and 30s; the discussion was largely based on Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety. The podcast in question is The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History, run by fellow Austrian Philipp Gollner. I was on it once before, talking about Soccer vs. the State.
Speaking of Soccer vs. the State, the Italian edition has been announced. Sweet.
The Stockholm social center Solidaria is currently hosting a reading circle about Rån för revolutionen, the Swedish edition of Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers. Also sweet.
On the DIY Solidarity web page, we have now listed the 2025 recipients of the funds we are able to distribute (under, well, “Projects Funded in 2025”) – check it out, many great projects! One of them, Satan Not Hatin’, I interviewed for DIY Conspiracy, which also ran an interview with another recipient, the Beirut-based punk collective Dajjeh.
Speaking of DIY Conspiracy: The article “Outplaying the Jocks: Punks and Sports” was translated into French for a sports issue of the Crash Test zine. Fabuleux!
We stick to sports: I volunteered last month at Stockholm’s Avicii Arena (Globen) during the ice hockey world championships. The “team leaders” I was working under all came from a security firm. As you might be able to imagine that didn’t go so well. And I won’t even speak on the working conditions of the volunteers, who help save people who already have way too much money a fortune. Welcome to authoritarian capitalism! But the hockey was great, with Austria securing a historic quarter final berth with a staggering 6-1 win over Latvia. (Okay, the rest of the tournament didn’t go so well. In the quarterfinals, Austria lost – badly – to Switzerland, and the wrongest of all teams took home the title.)
In my role as general secretary of the SAC, I was asked by the lefty weekly Flamman to provide my five cents to the controversial decision by one of our locals, Uppsala LS, to challenge the Swedish criminalization of buying sexual services. Uppsala LS argues that this makes union organizing for sex workers near impossible. Many others in the SAC either stand behind the Swedish law, or they consider this a political debate that should not enter the union. What can I say? Life is complicated.
I also did something I usually never ever do. I agreed to be a peer reviewer for a piece on “Global Justice and Climate Jurisprudence” for a special issue of the Journal of Developing Societies. Why? Because the special issue is dedicated to Pat Lauderdale, a longtime professor of Justice Studies at Arizona State University, who passed away in late 2023. Pat was a hugely influential figure in my life. He brought me to the US as a student in the early 1990s, shared his wisdom about world-systems theory, supported my interest in indigenous politics, and always had an open ear for whatever I felt I needed to discuss. I’m glad I was able to contribute to an issue honoring his work in the most modest of ways.
I revived Alpine Anarchist Productions (AAP) for the briefest of moments to launch the pamphlet Varieties of Jewish Anarchism: A Brief Introduction by Anthony T. Fiscella. (You’ll find a ready-to-print zine layout here.) I did this because Anthony’s pamphlet Varieties of Islamic Anarchism: A Brief Introduction, which AAP launched seven years ago, was one of the most popular pamphlets we ever helped distribute. So it was cool to help give this related publication a boost.
Since this newsletter already is of record-breaking length, let me add a little tale from real-life anarchism: Sometime last year, I was asked by a group of folks organizing “Days of Anarchy” in a German town whether I’d be able to come do an event. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. (It’s far to travel anywhere from Stockholm really.) So, they asked me whether I could write something in response to their (very long) call to the event, as they would publish it in a zine. I said that I was very busy and that, if at all, I could only write something short. “No problem!” they said. So, in the midst of union work, publishing obligations, and family life, I carved out a few hours to read their call properly and pen a 300-word message of encouragement, good wishes, and thoughts on anarchist organizing. I asked them to send me the zine when it was done. … The event passed, no zine. When I reminded them, I received a PDF without further comments; my text was not included. When I pointed this out, they said, “Oh, we got more longer texts than expected, so we didn’t need the short one.” The moral of the story (which, sadly, is but one of many of its kind)? If we, as a movement, cannot live up to the most basic levels of respect for each other’s time and effort and communicate accordingly, I’m not sure about the microcosms of a better tomorrow we want to build.
More next month. Stay safe!