INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-JORDAN:
MORE FROM ANARCHISTS IN JORDAN:
The following is really quite heartening. Molly has reported on the development of an anarchist movement in the country of Jordan before, and the following article from the Anarkismo website gives an update on their development. There are undoubtedly many reasons behind the fact that anarchism is now growing in many countries of the world in which it hasn't had an historical presense before. One can only hope that this growth continues as it both adds effect to the movement and enriches it as well with new perspectives. It's also interesting to note how the broad left, unconnected to Leninist parties, comes more and moree to accept anarchist ideas about organization (and probably goals as well) even if they don't accept the "official" tag of "anarchist".
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Update on anarchism in Jordan :
by Jordanian Anarchists
by Jordanian Anarchists
Update on anarchism in Jordan
We have joined a larger group of leftists in a movement called "the social left" which includes some Marxists, anarchists, post-left activists and others. The movement gave us a great offer: legal protection (in Jordan, 3 years in prison for non-authorized movements), and a seat in the highest committee.
The social left movement have definitely raised the bar in Jordan and it is gaining more momentum, the numbers are still vague. Somewhere between the 1000-2500. Anarchists are only 16 but we play important role inside the movement. When old traditional Marxists criticize the movement they sometimes say: "It is an anarchic movement!!"
For the first time in the history of Jordan a leftist movement is willing to adopt a non-hierarchal structure. We Anarchists have proposed a paper and it was accepted by the youth and students sector inside the social left moment. For the past 2 months the youth and students sector has been working by the structure suggested by the anarchists and if it kept doing well, we will propose it to the whole movement. By establishing our non-hierarchical way in organization through our sector in the movement is leading others to start understanding anarchist thoughts through practical examples.
We are also experimenting every day through organization and figuring out more old mistakes and innovation is apparent in every meeting we hold.
Two comrades were arrested then freed by pressure from the movement. 3 Marxist comrades spend in prison 6 days before being freed also by pressure from the social left.
We formed a b
and that sings in our events. We distributed thousands of fliers by hand in the streets of poor neighborhoods and refugee camps. We appeared on al-Jazeera. al-Jazeera talked about one of our activities for half an hour which was a general strike in Jordan. There are 2 pages about us in an important magazine in Jordan. The leader of the writers' union and the second most important novelist in the history of Jordan dedicated his weekly article in the most popular newspaper to talk about Jordanian anarchists.
and that sings in our events. We distributed thousands of fliers by hand in the streets of poor neighborhoods and refugee camps. We appeared on al-Jazeera. al-Jazeera talked about one of our activities for half an hour which was a general strike in Jordan. There are 2 pages about us in an important magazine in Jordan. The leader of the writers' union and the second most important novelist in the history of Jordan dedicated his weekly article in the most popular newspaper to talk about Jordanian anarchists. More and more Graffiti.
We have been visited by anarchists from Australia and Austria!
We helped organizing a ceremony of music and poetry to celebrate Jordanian prisoners being freed from Israeli prisons and the visit of a communist Lebanese "Anwar Yaseen" who was imprisoned for 13 years because of killing Israeli soldiers during his participants in the armed resistance in south of Lebanon.
There is a union for the "daily workers" (13,000 workers who work as full time but treated as part-time workers) struggle for better conditions health care and minimum wage. We joined a number of their protests. Until they announced a hunger strike that finally lead to their triumph.
There is a huge festival in Jordan called "Jordan festival". It cost the government $30 million. Firstly the festival is organized by a French guy who is the same person who organized Israel's 60th anniversary!!! Secondly, there are more than 20,000 kids in Jordan who suffer from poor nutrition because of poverty. Thirdly, this festival canceled the Jerash festival which had theatre and poetry and contemporary dance on the other hand this one only contains pop singers... so, we started a campaign and there was a protest that we took part in along with the anti-Zionism committee and a PFLP-related party in Jordan.
The first picture is of a protest [see our site].
Other pictures were taken when we joined a strike in solidarity with 200 workers who will lose their jobs because of the new Canadian company which bought a public mining company that was owned by the government.
Those are two of our blogs
This is the social left official website - Arabic only
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MOLLY NOTE:
I believe that the Jordanian comrades are talking about the acquisition of the 'Arab Potash Company' by the Canadian 'Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan' when they speak about the layoffs in the mining sector in their country. I hope to get more information about this.
1 comment:
This is very good news indeed. Anarchism needs to spread to the Arab/Muslim world. I understand we already have comrades in Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran. There are also the Workers Communist Parties of Iraq and Iran which seem to be a some kind of contemporary development of council communism - minus the curse of that milieu - sectarianism.
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