Ai Ferri Corti - At Daggers Drawn

Political zines are an interesting beast.

There are a lot of them, just go to your local anarchist bookfair and you’ll see loads, but if you go to a zine fair there are considerably fewer (maybe none at all!). I’m not saying that zinesters that go to zine fairs don’t have politics, or that their zines do not involve and discuss politics, just that, in my experience, there are considerably fewer overtly political zines at these events.

Why is this? Do the people producing and distributing these zines think that they will not find an audience at these events? Perhaps; There is frequently a dismissive opinion used in regards to people with radical politics. But I would think that going to these events and talking about your politics with different types of people would be more beneficial to your movement than going to political events and preaching to the converted.

But I digress.

I think one of the reasons political zines are less commonly seen at zine events is that they are hard reads. You might pick up a zine just because it has a cool cover, but you’re unlikely to delve into page after page of small type written in a fairly dry (if well translated) style.

If you’re reading this zine you probably already have many sympathies with the creators. This is not to paint all political zines with the same brush (I mean, people have to learn about politics somewhere), but that this particular zine is written in an academic manner and uses many terms and references that would be lost on someone unfamiliar with the ideas of anarchism. Or rather, if you’re able to understand a zine like this you probably agree with most of what it says (or are busy writing a term paper on the fallacies of anarchic political thought).

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any good ideas in here (I especially liked “The most useful thing one can do with arms is to rend them useless as quickly as possible.”), and some of what was discussed made me think (how can you convince someone of alternatives to capitalism when they have no reference point for a world without money), just that it seems to use a utopian style of overthrowing the current society and doesn’t really have any real, concrete ideas (which admittedly is noted in the translator’s introduction).

Of course, if this had a perfect guide to convincing the general population of your ideals and overthrowing the current social structure then, well, it'd have already happened and we'd be living in a radically different world.

If you’re heavily involved and interested in reading about different forms and theories of anarchism, I’d say this is worth reading. But if you’re new to the idea in general I’d advise you find something more introductory to read first.

The G20 Saga or How I Learned to Love the Club

By JS

The G20 protests in Toronto in 2010 were pretty horrible. The police abused their power (surprise, surprise) to assault, arrest, inconvenience, and infringe upon the rights of protesters and random people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It led to the largest mass arrests in Canadian history.

This zine doesn't really go into much detail about the events, the protests, the terrible conditions detainees were kept in, or anything else. It assumes you know what the G20 is, what the protests were about, and a number of other things.

But I found it worth reading because it gave me an idea that I'd never thought of before. It claims that the police abandoned police cars at strategic places because they knew they'd get vandalized/burnt. This had a three-fold effect. It concentrated the protesters efforts on something that didn't do anything, it captured the media's attention (and influenced how they reported the events), and then when the media did cover these things in a negative way it turns the viewer away from the causes the protesters supported.

Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory, but it sounds entirely plausible to me.

Out of the City and Into the Trees Issue #2: The Battle of Dalkeith Country Park

scaletreesdistro.subrella.net

I think the environment is awesome! I think that (sub)urban sprawl is terrible! I think that there are many things our society does that could be done better and without hurting the earth and the people that live there. We could focus less on cars and more on bicycles and alternative forms of transportation, focus on using what we have instead of buying new things, and focus more on people instead of profit.

I think that these things are important and that we have to fight for these things if and when it comes to that. And so I have some amount of respect for people that go and lock themselves into trees and and other places to prevent nature being destroyed.

However I am frequently left very confused by some of the people who are incredibly moved by the beauty and importance of nature, are involved in movements like this, and express dislike of modern society and a desire to go back to something more "primitive".

(Now please note, this isn't all necessarily aimed at this zine and its creators specifically, some of these complaints are more general.)

So how is flying a large group of protesters/activists to Iceland good for the environment? Perhaps if you spent the time, effort, and money trying to educate people wherever you are and creating a community that cares about where they live you will have more effect than going to another country and chanting.

And how can you justify owning cars and iPads and things like that when you express your rejection of modern society and technology? I love society and civilization and technology and would be incredibly sad if I had to live a hunter gatherer/farming existence due to the lack of opportunities to learn and the lack of art to see. And yet I don't have a car, I don't have an iPad, and somehow manage to get by fine on a technology I've found or been given. I guess I choose a "consume less" lifestyle, but find certain eco-primitivists to be pretty hypocritical. (Of course other people probably find me hypocritical too.)

This zine has some interesting stuff, but at the same time I find the writer's viewpoint to be somewhat naive. If you're really into this sort of stuff and are interested in reading more about it, I'll recommend that you check out the highly enjoyable Holidarity, a minicomic about environmental protest camps in the UK.

Of Martial Traditions & The Art of Rebellion

By Seaweed

Sometimes I find writing this blog really strange. I mean, the concept of zines is so vague that I really can review anything I want as long as its printed on paper. (Or even if it's not!) Since I review everything that I've received this leads to me reviewing comics where Godzilla and other monsters review movies one day, and an anarchist treatise on the importance of learning martial skills the next.

The whole idea of using physical force to achieve your ideals is something I struggle with. I feel that the things happening in the Middle East are pretty important and exciting, but there are many different things you have to consider before you start a revolution in your own country. This zine actually takes a pretty pragmatic take on the whole thing, and there are two quotes I thought were important enough to write down.

The first is "all rebels who want to overthrow the present social order[...]need to ask themselves what success means for them" and the second is "[...]it makes absolutely no sense for a minority of revolutionaries in North America to contemplate attemtemping an outright military contest against the police and army. The states [sic] combat power is simply overwhelming.".

These two pieces of information answer some of the questions I had about the idea behind this zine. The author may want societal collapse and a new system in place, but they know that there is no way for that to happen now (and if the economy hasn't collapsed after everything that happened in the last few years I don't know if it ever will), and so they advise people to take the long view. That is you must stay in one place, gain local support, create communities, and eventually you may be able to create real change in the way that people live. It's kind of depressing, but it also makes a lot of sense.

However, there are lots of other ideas in here, and at times the author seems to be arguing themselves in circles. I mean, how do you create "an anti-authoritarian culture that values martial skills" yet doesn't have warrior aristocracies? The only way to prevent a warrior aristocracy seems to be to train everyone in the community in weapon skills, which leads to the fact that you are taking away the ability for people to _not_ do something if they don't want to.

One thing the author references are tactical works, such as The Art of War, and how it is important to know about these even if you don't plan on using them. Seaweed explains that this is because those you are confronting on issues will be aware of them (think about how many business people read those books).

There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas in here, and there are also a lot of things that I don't really agree with. I'm not really down with using physical violence to achieve my goals, but at which point does violence become justified? The zine asks these questions, though doesn't give me a satisfactory answer.

The zine is well written (unlike this review!) in a somewhat academic style, and if you are capable of dealing with that and are interested in the idea of rebellion and revolutionary change it's probably worth reading this and discussing it with others.

Mainshill - Stories from the Woods

(Apologies for the crap picture, I am currently without scanner.)

By loads of people
mainshillzine@riseup.net
www.coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk

I’m back! I returned to the grey skies, cold nights, and wet days of England yesterday. I also arrived back to a pile of mail and a number of requests from people who wanted to trade zines with me (do you want to? Let me know!), so it’s time to get reviewing!

This is perhaps a good place to restart as it is a zine that is, at times, about being cold and wet in England. It is about a protest site set up in Mainshill Wood in Scotland in response to developers wanting to cut down the forest and then dig a big coal mine. My first thought upon reading this was “Really? A coal mine? People are still building those in first world countries?” I was kind of shocked, because for some odd reason I had optimistically (and foolishly) thought that people didn’t do stuff like that anymore. Sigh.

The zine takes a pretty neat way of talking about the months long camp and actions that happened, giving a page or two to lots of different people that participated in one way or another and allowing them to talk about what they want. This means that you get lots and lots of different view points and information about the protest.

There are drawings, maps (yay!), comics, timelines, stories, advice for running your own protests, faqs (how do you capitalize that word? Hell, how am I supposed to spell ‘capitalize’?) that explain what a bender is and how you stay dry while living in a tree house, songs, pictures of dinosaurs and horrible tentacled monsters, recipes, definitions (“Primativist, n. People who live in trees, reading Derek Jenson by the light of their iPhones (just kidding!)”), and lots of other stuff.

This zine is really packed full of things, and it’s a good and interesting read. Taken individually each piece doesn’t actually tell you very much about the camp as a whole, but the combination really gives you a view into the camp: how it was run, what it was like to live there, what the people who lived there were like, and how they dealt with the seemingly inevitable police visits. Sure there was stuff I wanted to know more about (tunnels! I want more information about the tunnels, and maybe general tree house construction techniques), but at the end I felt I had a pretty good grasp of what went on during the months that the camp was in existence.

I really wondered what it would be like to live at a camp like this for an extended period of time. Would I have the commitment to deal with living in a place like this? Could I interact with many other people I didn’t know every day? Would I be able to lock myself onto a tree for hours so that the authorities had to climb up and get me down safely? I’m still interested in visiting one of these camps, but I haven’t managed to yet. I guess I’m kind of afraid of going by myself.

I’m not sure if this zine leaves me optimistic that there are people out there who are willing to fight for the environment and a better society, or that (in this instance) they failed. I’ll have to think about it.

Freedom of the Press in Black and White

By Tobocman

Considering how often I've seen "Free Mumia" graffiti it's kind of strange that I had almost no idea who he was before I read this. Was I never curious? Did I never come across something discussing it? I guess not.

This is a (biased) account of Mumia Abu-Jamal live. It covers his early days as a young black man in America, his connections to the Black Panthers, his time as a journalist, the murder case he was involved with, and some of his time spent in prison afterwards.

If you read this account you will no doubt think that Mumia was set up, or wrongfully tried, or at least that the death penalty shouldn't exist. But that's what the comic is trying to convince you so of course you would think that. Is it true? I really cannot say, it seems as though something fishy was going on with the whole proceedings, but what exactly I don't know. I also feel that some seemingly important information I saw on the wikipedia page about the whole incident isn't included here. (Also, MOVE seems like some sort of cult.)

But enough about that, how good is the art? I think it looks pretty good. The artist has chosen to use a blocky style that at times looks like woodprints. It works well with the type of story being told (political propaganda) and the huuuuge amounts of text that are jammed into almost every panel.

Speaking of which, there are a few places where the text is a bit confusing and I read things out of order, but for the most part I knew when to read each piece of writing.

If you already know about Mumia this won't give you any information, but if you're as clueless as I was then it's a good starting point. Though as with all political propaganda it's probably worth reading some other sources too.

Revolutionary Women Stencil Book

By Tui
www.cherrybombcomics.co.nz

The cover (and woah, that is a terrible photograph up there, sorry!) and title of this zine are a little misrepresentational: there are lots of stencils in here, but there are also bios on twelve different women revolutionaries that are pretty interesting.

Who's included? Harriet Tubman, Emma Goldman, Lucia Sanchez Saornil (pictured below), Angela Davis, Leila Khaled, Comandante Ramona, Phoolan Devi, and more. The zine apologizes for having a Euro-American bias, but only five of the women included are white, which seems like a much better ratio than you'd usually find, and probably indicates who you can actually find information about in English.

While I don't agree with all of the politics and beliefs held by all of these women, I think it would be hard for someone to list twelve different people who's politics they do agree with entirely. I also found the zine interesting in that it raised the question of "what is revolutionary?" in my mind and made me think and reconsider what the word means to me and to others.

The zine says that a lot of the research was done by "cutting and pasting stuff off the internet", and I'm not exactly sure what that means. If it means that the text was taken without permission and not credited than I'm not really down with that (I'd be pretty pissed if someone took some of my writing and reprinted it without giving me credit).

The stencils themselves look good and there were a couple of them that I would totally be up for using if I was into stenciling (someday...) both because of their design and because of the ideas that the women represented.

My copy had a few of the pages out of order, but it was easy enough to figure out which bio went with which stencil.

And now a terrible photo of one of the stencils.