2011-01-29 Presentation at WCCC Panel on criminalization of dissent

From straightjacket

Contents 1 Draft 1 1.1 G20, Austerity & Health: Health for All event 1.2 What does this kind of response tell us? 1.3 How can we respond? 2 References & Notes 2.1 Event announcement

Draft 1

Conspiracy, Conspire: make secret plans jointly to commit a harmful act; working together to bring about a particular result, typically to someone’s detriment. ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French conspirer, from Latin conspirare agree, plot, from con- together with spirare breathe. (OED)

i.e. To breathe together

G20, Austerity & Health: Health for All event

[2 min: 250 words] G20, Austerity & Health: Health for All event and police presence

Hello. My name is Azad Mashari and I work with Health for All. I would like to acknowledge that we are in the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit. Before I begin I want to thank the organizers of this event and Jaroslava for sharing her story and experience with us.

If there is anyway for us to actually move forward not just in time but in power and heal our injured planet and its endangered inhabitants it's by sharing our experiences and our questions.

Health for All is a multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals, students, activists and allies.

Our work is founded on the premise that health is a fundamental human right and a matter of social justice.

The cultivation & nurturing of health goes beyond access to services and requires full economic, social, environmental, and political rights for all people.

We call for access to health services without fear of debt, denial of service, detention, or deportation.

We call for universal health coverage and universal status regularization for all people in Canada, solely on the basis of their being human.

We work in solidarity with individuals and communities to mobilize towards full access to healthcare, and to raise awareness among communities and health professionals on the links between global migration, social justice and health.

On September 29th Health for All held a panel on this campus titled Cutting Deeper: The Age of Austerity and Implications for Health. The panel discussion explored the connection between the trends in the prevailing global economic and political regime, including the work of the G8 & G20, and the changes that we were seeing and anticipating in the daily lives and the health of communities here in Toronto and around the world.

You don't need to look far these days to see how these trends are materializing in this city.

• [Slide] Metro headlines from 2011-01-27 (one about increasing police budget, one about cutting the immigrant support programs). Of note the guns and gangs unit which is getting the funding increase is the unit that was involved in several of the G20 arrests, including that of Alex Hundert.

What does this kind of response tell us?

[4 min: 500 words] What does this mean? What does this teach us about the situation around us? about the intertwined systems that we are participating in and grappling with?

"... in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people." -Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former U.S. National Security Advisor

1. The system is big, resource rich, complicated and and has always been willing to use brute force to protect its interests. The pool of people subjected to that force grows as the system gets bigger, more technology sophisticated, more hungry and as it senses greater threat. It has now has come to include even male, upper-middle class caucasian activists and the occasional chartered accountant (who are quite a ways down on a menu). It is now larger and more complicated than ever before and it feels threatened. Big and Scared. Whether you think that's a good or bad combination depends a lot on where you are standing both physically and conceptually.
2. Its very size, complexity and sense of threat give it specific vulnerabilities like those exploited by Wikileaks. Leaks, the argument goes, force the system to increase its internal security. This makes internal communication between its parts slower and more costly. It makes it more likely that the head doesn't know what the tail is doing. It reduces the system's ability to act intelligently and efficiently in pursuing its interests.
3. Another vulnerability is the need for constant growth. Along with eating everything around it, it is also eating itself. One example of this is the corporatization and privatization of core military functions. I don't know about you but for a long time I pictured that the core strategic functions of the system like weapon's purchasing and intelligence gathering say, were made by a cadre of experienced, dedicated, disciplined and highly intelligent, perhaps balding and bespectacled white guys based on scientific information and objective data etc. There were occasional lapses and exceptions, leaks, scandals and so forth but that the system at least had the sense to protect its own inner core from being chewed out by lobbyists and PR consultants. It looks more and more like this is not entirely the case.
   • Have a look at what weapons sales conventions are like. There are videos on-line. They are like any other major sales convention. Tipsy people in power suits, mostly guys, walking around tanks and missile demo models with semi nude blond women on and around them.
   • What happens when military technology is corporatized? Same as anywhere else. Technology proliferates for profit not effectiveness. This is a major plague on our health care systems, and the military is not immune. To test strategies the military runs "war games", live simulations involving real equipment and soldiers with generals taking opposite sides. Before the Iraq war they ran the largest one ever which made some headlines. The retired General who was commanding the Iraqi side in the game, using Iraqi capabilities was able to stay ahead of the US side simply by using low-tech measures like motorcycle couriers instead of electronics to transmit information. He did so well that the game administrators had to intervene and script the ending. [1][2]
4. The War Game and Wikileaks provide two examples of successful confrontation of a larger force by a far smaller force. What they have in common is that the people involved had detailed, practical technical knowledge about some sub-system to the point that they were able to identify subtle weaknesses and exploit them. We need to find these kinds of cracks in the armor and we need to combine that detailed local knowledge with more rigorous theory.

How can we respond?

[6 min: 750 words]

"we are not big but at least we're small" -Stewart Mclean

I should note at this point, that I am speaking primarily as myself from here on not on behalf of Health for All as a whole.

How do you deal with something that is bigger and meaner and has more resources?

I have been questioning the merits of street protests as a strategy and here are a few thoughts that I want to share with you. Regardless of the phrasing, these are all open questions. I want to stress that these are questions of future strategy that I want to raise. They are in no way meant as a criticism of any individual or specific groups. As a group Health for All endorsed and participated in the G20 protests. That experience and others have raised questions for me that I think are shared by others and I think they need to discussed broadly.

How do I think about and understand "the power of people"? What metaphors, what images are in my head? Are there better, more useful ones?

How can we organize our energies to maximize our collective creativity, intelligence and effect?

1. One image is of a big school of little fish suddenly gathering in the shape of a really giant fish and then chasing the big mean fish away. Most of you know that fish picture I am sure. For those of you who don't I have made a version here. The large masses becoming so large that they overpower the state police and army by the shear force of numbers. Like the Zapatistas, Tiananmen square or Tunesia just this past month.
2. How useful is the school of fish model in our context? On the surface the images from those mass uprisings can look somewhat similar to what was happening here during for example G20 or FTAA in Quebec City. But I think there are key strategic differences that we need to talk about. Given the time limitations I would like to discuss one: the issue of visibility and media.
3. By public visibility I am not talking about individual or group secrecy, resisting infiltrators and the like. I am talking about the strategy of trying to attract mass public attention
4. As far as I can tell movements that have actually succeeded in creating healing sanctuary spaces for a time, have relied heavily on an element of surprise.
5. I picture a little guy with a couple of helpers confronting a sleeping dragon. In general they keep quite, sneak up, and steal whatever it is they are after, or find a good vulnerable spot to jab their sword in. If the dragon is sufficiently big and sufficiently mean the little guy or his usually more capable sidekicks generally don't start by making their presence known, waving banners in front of the dragon's face and chanting loudly, unless they have something else cooked up behind the scenes and are trying to create a diversion. It seems prudent in this situation to think long and hard about how and when you attract attention to yourself and your organization. If you do it too early, before your buddies have snapped on the chains around its wrists, or gotten the fire extinguisher or water buckets ready, you and your friends can end up with a few burns or worse and achieve very little else. You might make the dragon panic a bit. It might sleep a little less easily for the following week. Might change the lock on the cave door, might, to mix fairy tales a bit here, move Rapunzell to a higher tower and shave her head etc.
6. Watching the images from Tunesia, or Chiapas or Tehran in 1978 or 2009 its very easy to forget that small, subtle, careful action has been going on in these places for decades, most of which we'll probably never know about, most of which probably didn't know about rest of it.
7. The actual preparations, the behind the scenes work and gathering of force, in all these cases was far more extensive than was visible until the force had reached a critical mass. The force could reach that critical mass because the system had relatively little chance to take it apart bit by bit. It tried of course and many were jailed and killed but in general deliberate public visibility, was secondary and visibility was usually a surprise.
8. Here on the other hand public demonstrations often exceed our invisible power. They are planned far in advance, become the major focus of activity and consume significant resources. There is also no surprise, giving ample time for the system to prepare and plan which it does very well given its disproportionate resources, lack of scruples and control of the media. I am not saying that there aren't a lot of individuals and groups out there doing the painstaking slow work building communities and networks. I am saying that frequently, but by no means always, we seem to pay a disproportionate price in terms of our resources for visible symbolic action. Often it even has the effect of counteracting some of the slow gradual community building that has taken place by costing us access to spaces which we had worked long and hard to enter. Why?
9. To be stable the system has grown to channel dissent and dissipate its energies as much as possible. "Opiates of the masses". One of these is the PR game. If a tree falls in the forest and no-one puts it on facebook does it actually matter? did it even really happen?
10. I think to a large extent we collectively buy into the assumption that unless it's loud or televised or tweeted it's not a revolution. The PR game seems like like much of academia: a bubble where energies and frustrations can be dissipated without seriously endangering the infrastructure. There are opportunities for political change, there is SOME power there and depending on what you are trying to achieve that might be enough. Deep positive structural change however is unlikely to come from there. Ever since people started living in cities, ever since there were rooms and back-rooms to be in, that's were most decisions affecting our daily lives have been made. And I am not just talking about the "back-rooms of power" but our own living rooms and community meeting spaces where we come together, create connections, share resources, create physical sanctuary spaces that provide concrete support to people and communities. Anything that's out of the "media spotlight".
11. If we behave in ways that are too predictable then it seems to me that we end up paying an exorbitant price for what we achieve. For every highly experienced organizer that we lose into a prison there are additional countless hours of work and energy put in by support committees, and fundraising etc. Is there really no better way for us to use those resources? Your answer may well be NO, but I think we need to ask the question.

References & Notes

1. Zbigniew Brzezinski (2008) The Global Political Awakening. The New York Times: December 16, 2008.
2. Zbigniew Brzezinski (2009) Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President. International Affairs 85:1.
3. Justin Podur (2010) Contested spaces worth defending
4. Andrew Gavin Marshall (2011) Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution? North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1
5. Italo Calvino (1978) Invisible Cities.
6. Julian Borger (2009)'Millennium Challenge' war game general doubts US military capability. The Guardian - London 2009-6-2
7. Sean D. Naylor (2002) War games rigged? General says Millennium Challenge 02 ‘was almost entirely scripted’ Army Times 2002-08-16
8. Julian Assange (2006) State and Terrorist Conspiracies.
9. Julian Assange (2006) Conspiracy as Governance.

Event announcement

Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu

From: WCCC [Toronto] <wccc_98@hotmail.com> Subject: Speaking at WCCC panel - this weekend Received: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 8:56 PM

Hi there everyone,

Much love to all of you for coming out to speak at our event this weekend. The event itself is mainly focused on how indigenous solidarity/rights/sovereignty is being criminalized by the G20 crack down of organizers that have specifically sought out to defend those rights along with their indigenous sisters and brothers. We just wanted to give you guys the heads up on what the program is looking like at this point.

We will begin with an indigenous opening which will last some 20 minutes, with a short 8 minute video clip, then go straight into the panel. Each of you will have 10 to 15 minutes MAX to speak, at which point the moderator will cut you off after 15 minutes in order to be fair with everyone. Since this event is focused on the criminalization of dissent pre-and post G20 summit, the dicussion should focus on your own personal testimony of this repression (for those that lived it first hand), as well as any political anaysis of the current situation, as well as steps to take in the future. We're asking that people please moderate their language as it is a child friendly event (sorry!). As well, you all should note there may be some press (close, well known sources) present at the event. However, if anyone feels uncomfortable being recorded in any sort of way, please let us know, as we will ensure that no recording of the sort goes on. That being said, we the WCCC will also be recording this event to keep for our records as well as post it on Youtube at a later date. If you would not like to be recorded for this, please do let us know. We understand that the event will touch upon delicate subject matter and DO NOT want to comprise the security of any of our speakers, which is of paramount importance to us.

A reminder that the event is this Saturday, January 29th at 7:30pm. We will also be having a free meal (traditional "chilean" vegan squash and bean soup and bread) at 6:30pm, as we know people will be hungry coming in from the Hamilton Day of Action. Please spread the word about the event amongst your lists! Below is an updated callout with all the speakers and list of endorsers. Thanks again for all the support!

In solidarity,

S. Sanchez * :)

MARRICHIWEU!! Denouncing a G20 Police State Conspiracy

Organized by: The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto]

Co-Sponsored by: The Community Solidarity Network

JOIN US FOR A NIGHT OF INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY, PANEL DISCUSSION, MUSIC & VIDEO WITH G20 ARRESTTEES

On September 29th, 2010 Mapuche indigenous rights activist Jaroslava Avila was arrested on University of Toronto campus with three charges of “Conspiracy to Commit an Indictable Offense” for her alleged participation and organization of G20 Toronto protests and mobilizations of this past June.

On December 20th, 2010, her charges were fully DROPPED by the Crown attorney alleging “no reasonable grounds” for conviction after three months of undergoing gruelling judicial conditions, including house arrest and no public demonstration.

This marks a Victory for the WCCC as an indigenous Mapuche organization against the judicial setups mounted by the G20 Police State, demonstrating the continued criminalization of the struggle of indigenous peoples in denouncing the plunder and displacement of our lands.

However the struggle continues as 18 other co-accused for Conspiracy remain under these harsh conditions as well as remaining G20 arrestees, all of whom have in one way or another expressed their solidarity with indigenous rights.

With this Victory, we publically express our solidarity with those who have been systematically targeted and imprisoned due to the ongoing harassment and criminalization of dissent within mobilized communities by police and authorities.

We will continue to struggle for our intrinsic rights as Mapuche indigenous peoples, for our land, for our people, for our right to exist and for the reconstruction of our nation. MARRICHIWEU!! [Ten Times We Shall Overcome!!]

SATURDAY JANUARY 29TH 2011 @ 7:30PM

BIRGE CARNEGIE READING ROOM

95 CHARLES ST. WEST (@ MUSUEM STATION – U of T Campus)

FREE MEAL @ 6:30PM (*Donations Appreciated*)(Vegan Squash, bean and noodle soup with bread)

PANEL DISCUSSION

Keynote Speaker: JAROSLAVA AVILA, Mapuche solidarity activist with the Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto], University of Toronto Student – Political Science Specialist

• Testimony on recently Dropped G20 Conspiracy charges and the criminalization of indigenous rights

Guest Speakers:

• MISSY “OJISTAR:IO” ELLIOTT
  • Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and founder of Y.O.U. (Young Onkwehonwe United)
• DAVIN CHARNEY
  • Attorney (representing Jaroslava Avila) & founder of the Centre for Police Accountability
• JULIAN ICHIM
  • Organizer with S.O.S. (Sense of Security) & the SPOT Youth Collective (Kitchener ON)
• TESTAMENT
  • Artist with radical Southern Ontario hip-hop group “TEST YOUR LOGIK”
• DANIEL VANDERVOOT
  • External Commissioner of the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (GSU)
• AZAD MASHARI
  • Organizer with Health for All
• DAN KELLAR
  • Organizer with AW@L (Formally Anti-War @ Laurier)

Musical Performances by:

• TEST YOUR LOGIK

& Much More....

For More Info: www.nobicentenaryonmapucheterritory.wordpress.com www.g20.torontomobilize.org See the event on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=157166661001697

Endorsed by: Health 4 All, Graduates Students Union (GSU at U of T) - Social Justice and Equity Commission, National Congress of Latin American and Caribbean Women in Canada - Latin@s, Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LASCN), Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Barrio Nuevo, AW@L