Newsletter number 5.
I’m early this time. I won’t be around the computer on the weekend of May 1, so I had to choose between posting early and posting late. Given that choice, I will always choose early.
This month’s review, titled “Native Liberation and a World Without Borders”, is about the book Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation. Spoiler alert: I thought it was great!
With regard to the indigenous people of northern Europe, I wrote two articles in German about current developments in Sápmi, one for the daily junge Welt, one for the monthly analyse & kritik.
In junge Welt, I mostly write about sports. Tragically, the winter sports season is over, but, I managed an article about left-wing organizing in combat sports, and an interview with martial artist and writer Sam Yang, who also runs the Southpaw podcast. I’ve uploaded the original English version of the interview to this site.
The big topic in the world of sports this month was the announcement, and record-time collapse, of the European Super League in football. I wrote an opinion piece on this for Forum, where it is available in several languages.
For kritisch-lesen.de, I reviewed Yugoslavian dissident Miladin Životić‘s book Proletarischer Humanismus, which has been reprinted by Syndikat-A.
Friends from the Stockholm Anarchist Association have uploaded a short audio interview with me in Swedish about Bas Umali‘s book Pangayaw and Decolonizing Resistance: Anarchism in the Philippines, which I’ve edited.
Friends from Raddox have published a new video, this time about the street vendors’ union Sindicato de Manterxs in Barcelona. I’ve helped with the German subtitles. I highly recommend watching it! (Not because of the subtitles. The video is available in English, Spanish, and Russian as well.)
Barcelona’s street vendors are almost exclusively migrants. In recent weeks, my union work with the SAC has mainly related to migrant laborers, too. We are part of an attempt to coordinate initiatives of migrant workers organizing across Europe. At the meetings we’ve had so far, they were unions such as the Autonomous Workers Confederation of Bulgaria and the Workers’ Initiative (IP) of Poland represented as well as initiatives like Amazon Workers International and chefduzen.de. In Sweden, SAC member Pelle Sunvisson has ended a stint of working under a different identity among undocumented construction workers, intending to write a novel based on his experiences. A novel about his experiences as a berry picker in the far north of Sweden will appear with the Swedish publisher Verbal soon.
Finally, a reminder: on May 8, I will be joined by longtime activist Niillas Somby for an online presentation of Liberating Sápmi: Indigenous Resistance in Europe’s Far North, hosted by Asheville’s Firestorm Books. Listening to Niillas is always a pleasure.
June (and my birthday) approaching. Stay safe!