Great Lakes anarchist/regional ARA gathering; August 19-20th

From Infoshop OpenWiki

2006 Great Lakes Anarchist Gathering; report back

BG ARA/ Black Swamp Anarchists of BG

The 2006 Great Lakes Anarchist Gathering took place this year mostly on the campus of BGSU in Bowling Green, Ohio. Anarchists, ARA groups, Food not bombs chapters, and simply curious people attended the gathering from mostly different cities throughout Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Over 30 people attended the gathering. Despite having some problems in the week prior to the gathering it was pulled off well.

The Gathering was initially to be held inside the UCF in Bowling Green, which also houses the local infoshop. To make a long story short as to why the gathering did not take place at the UCF, was that there was an unfortunate misunderstanding between us and the president of its board. We were able to move our activities elsewhere but it was a serious inconvenience. In the end, hopefully the dialogue that this situation creates will result in a stronger relationship between BG anarchists and the UCF, so something like this won’t happen again.

Friday night several of us sat out in front of the UCF to talk to people coming in for the gathering, and telling them how to get around and where to meet up. At around 10pm about 14 people met in local coffee house to talk, get to know each other, figure out where people were staying the night, and to plan some sort of game. The group split into two, to take people back to where they would stay that night. The groups then regrouped for two games of capture the flag, on the roof of the campus library. The games were fun, and everyone who participated had an enjoyable time. After everyone was good and sweaty we split up to find some sleep before the next day.

Saturday morning started out with everyone sitting around getting to know each other a little bit, and talking about their personal experiences that led them to anarchism. After which a discussion on networking led to the sharing of contact information as well as the creation of a new website for anarchists in the Midwest to communicate. The day went along well, and more people showed up throughout the day, with workshops including; zines & self publishing, roadblock I69 presentation, women’s health, fun with butplugs, and one on autonomous Marxism and anarchism. The autonomous Marxism and anarchism workshop ran late, along with many others, and was shortly interrupted by the presence of a reporter. The reporter was allowed to stay for the workshop, but was not allowed to take photographs etc. The Free diner that was supposed to be served shortly after the last workshop ran late as well, because many people stayed afterwards to talk to the reporter. Eventually a meal was served and a planned concert took place inside the women’s center on campus. By the end of the night everyone was pretty tired, but most people stayed awake doing other things for the next several hours.

On Sunday morning roadblock had wanted to do a skill share at 9am, but unfortunately not many could wake up in time, and they ended up leaving for the next destination on their tour before the rest of the workshops started. Things ran a little late on Sunday too, but all of the workshops were excellent. Some of the ones on Sunday included; deschooling, leftism and the post left, industrial agriculture, megafarms, and community resistance, hand to hand combat, Palestine, Lebanon, and US/Isreali policy in the middle east, DIY screen printing, and finally a late discussion on tactics, strategies, and anarchist community in the Midwest.

It was my feeling that this gathering went really well despite some difficulties. People at the gathering were able to get to know each other a little bit and build the ground work for future interaction. Some common problems were highlighted which I think was important.

• Flight from the Midwest; aka the brain drain. Militant (or otherwise) successful anarchist activity comes out of anarchists that have been neighbors, family, child/young adulthood friends since forever, and have grown up taking risks together and fundamentally trust each other. Anarchists here tend to follow that very (white)American tendency to seek greener pastures, even if none truly exist, instead of rooting themselves in a place, a community of people that can learn to trust each other over time. Trust comes through experience, many good experiences with others leads one to trust, while bad experiences leads to mistrust and ill will. How can we expect to be effective at what we do if we have never even seen the face of, or talked to, or acted before with the person standing next to you at a march or action? Trust will only come with the experience that time and commitment to each other, in this place, can offer. Once we learn to trust each other, once we know each other we will be dangerous.

• Networks and various organizations have been attempted in the Midwest in the past, in most cases falling apart after a couple years. How is it that anarchists can best support each other and work cooperatively over the expanse that is the Midwest? The simplest and best way that anarchists can support other anarchists from different cities is to be an active committed anarchist in your local area. With the website that was created we hope that it can facilitate communication between our localities in order to give us a sense of what is going on. The reality is that we all just can’t travel to and fro every week, month, etc. we just can’t meet up, face to face, that often or always make it out to each others demos, meetings, gatherings, etc. Sometimes, however, we will be able to meet face to face and these interactions will build up trust, friendship, and a wide community over time. Usually after such interaction we lose touch, but hopefully with the establishment of the mailing list and the website: Midwest.azone.org, we will be able to build off of each interaction, instead of letting it fall to oblivion.

The future of the Midwest is uncertain, but that’s not such a bad thing. Let’s plant some anarchy seeds and stick around to watch and help them grow!