Friday, June 22, 2007


OTTAWA/OUTAOAIS ANARCHIST ASSEMBLY:
The anarchists of the Ottawa-Outaoais area will be holding another of their assemblies this upcoming July 15th at 2:30pm at the Jack Purcill Community Centre, Room 202. For further information contact a_ottawa@mutualaid.org . The first part of this assembly will be a short presentation from people who took part in the 2002 'Take the Capital' demonstrations. Not a back patting session, this will attempt to analyse what worked and what didn't. This will be followed by presentations from groups currently active in the Ottawa/Outaouais area including:
-The IWW
-The Under Pressure Collective
-The Anarchist Discussion Group
-Critical Mass
-The Panhandlers' Union
-PGA Block Ottawa
-Exile Infoshop
To read more about this assembly go to http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos04334.html .
What does Molly think ? As an anarchist of almost 40 years duration Molly has seen a gradual extension of the anarchist ideal to more and more people. Some whose vision of "anarchism" (sic!) is the ability to imitate the 'Deadheads' via a travelling riot think that anarchism is in a "lull" recently. From the 'higher ground' Molly sees more and more anarchist initiatives springing up all the time and a great 'maturation' of the movement beyond juvenile street fighting. The Ottawa comrades have taken up an experiment in local coordination that has been pioneered before in Montreal, Philadelphia, Chicago and NYC as well as other localities. One never knows how it will go. It is, however, a necessary 'first step' when anarchism reaches a certain level of popularity in a given city ie when it goes beyond the level of a tiny in-group where everybody knows everybody else. This level has been reached in many places that have yet to try and integrate the various groups. Molly can only hope that the vision of the people involved is wide enough to see how a larger stage is necessary, one of regional federations (some of which are formed already) and also realistic enough to see the magnitude of the long road ahead rather than taking shelter in dreams of some imminent "revolution" that can only be seen with the blinkered vision of a incestuous cult.
One step at a time. Ottawa has definitely taken several steps along the road.

1 comment:

Larry Gambone said...

Well said!