Reviews and Comments

I got this book a bit early for preparing an interview for the radio show, but since it hasn't been released (brag brag) I won't include any spoilers. Basically, if you haven't heard the KBOO podcast hosted by Erin Yanke, Mic Crenshaw & Celina Flores, do it! If you've heard the podcast, check out the book and you'll find even more interviews (in addition to many from the book) with antiracist activists from Portland from the mid 80's to late 90's. Plus a ton of photos, posters and flyers, news clippings and more. There is so much here and I've no doubt it's just scratching the surface. This is a great read for anyone interested in radical or regional history, doing anti-racist activism, who is interested in multi-generational and coalitional organizing, or into subcultural punk and skinhead resistance.

Starting earlier, though really sparked by the murder by beating of Ethiopian immigrant and educator Mulugeta Seraw as he tries to stop a fight between his friends and nazi "bonehead" skinheads from East Side White Pride in 1988, the book follows lesbian activists, gay Act Up organizers, punks and skins, seasoned leftist activists, feminists and other concerned community members as they attempt to face down, map and out-organize not only violent street fighters but also holocaust deniers, rural white nationalist militia, and right wing Christian organizing by Oregon Citizens Alliance in and around Portland before the turn of the millenium.

Massive respect from here for the activists and community members whose stories are told here, as well as the producers of the podcast and this volume for their amazing work crafting such a moving patchwork quilt of experience.

This book has been on my list for a long time, so I'm excited to be participating in a small reading group about it. People have been gifting me Kropotkin books for a few years now which have sat side by side on a shelf at home, untouched. My first anarchist reading (that I can recall) was a zine of "The Place of Anarchism in Socailistic Evolution" by Kropotkin that I picked up as a teenager from Bound Together books on Haight St. in San Francisco. I LIKED the idea of anarchism but it's taken a long time for me to sit down and delve in the ideas of others, so I likely skimmed it and lent it to someone without expectation it would come back. With my recent efforts to dig a little deeper into ideas (I'm missing the years-gone book club friends had here that lasted about 10 years), spurred by having this microblog and some initiative, I'm hoping to hit up some more classics. My anarchism has never been based on theory but seeking out practice. Maybe it's a nice time to try to bring praxis back into my life. I'll say, having gotten 50 pages into this, I enjoyed Charles Weigel's introduction, the thoughtful engagement with the tendencies and movements Petey K engaged, an assessment of his writing style and engagement in propaganda. I wasn't impressed with AnCom Santa's short introduction, but maybe his writing will take a little warming up to. Ooooh, I think I have next year's halloween costume figured out...

This book was very informative. As I said in an earlier post, it starts off defining it's purpose as being for a better understanding from the position of US Foreign Policy development and it is quite unsympathetic to Ocalan and the PKK. The book ends without critical engagement in the US "War On Terror" rolling through Iraq at this time, which is gross. Taken with the prior note as a grain of salt, I think the book is a worthwhile read, sources it's interviews mostly from public statements, articles, memoirs and direct interviews with former PKK members and Turkish leftists. Again, the fact that it's not sourced from Turkish government or other state sources is a point in it's favor. In this book you get a critical overview of the development of Kurdish resistance, with a focus on the PKK, against the modern Turkish state up to about 2006: the stages of the party's development; the stages of guerrilla development and engagement; the party's congresses; the governments and other rebel groups it allied or fought with over a quarter of a century. The insights into purges and executions in the party, the autocratic decision-making and the repeated charge of blame-shifting by the party chief, Apo, are quite interesting. As an anarchist, I've always been uncomfortable, from my distanced view, with the adoration and idolism for Ocalan but have to admit that I haven't been there and don't have the experience of involvement in the movement. The political connections between groups and states in the region to leverage arms, training space, positions from which to attack Turkey or with whom the PKK conflicted was quite interesting. Because this was published a few years before the start of the uprisings that would lead to the Syrian Revolution and civil war (as well as the inauguration of the Rojava Revolution), there is little coverage of Syrian Kurds, only notes about the relationship between the PKK & Hafez Al-Assad (Ocalan spent much of the 16 years he lived outside of Turkey in one of two compounds in Syria with state knowledge) and puts some pieces into the puzzle for me of the foundations of the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria. Similarly, there's interesting background into conflicts between the Barzani / KDP-dominated Peshmerga of KRG and how the KDP has related in the past to Iran & Turkey. Anyway, there's a lot here. It's a recommended read.

I was looking for some background to help me understand Rojava. This book is well written and appears well sourced, though the author definitely has a pro-US position (as stated clearly in the introduction). Most of the body of the book is pulled from former-PKK members, some estranged, some not, most living in exile from Turkey, as well as interviews from Apo on how to party formed and grew until the books publication in 2007 (after the rise of the AKP, Apo's incarceration with the help of the US, and before the Rojava revolution). The author does not appear sympathetic to the PKK or the Kurdish liberation struggle, but at least isn't a simp for Turkey? Aliza Marcus, the author, was actually arrested and forced out of Turkey as a journalist for publishing about Kurdish life (where recognition that there is such a thing as a Kurd, or Kurdish language still brings repression). Though, to my understanding the author The read is easy, though there is a lot to keep straight about alliances and groups (thankfully there is a small list of Turkish and Kurdish acronyms at the start). I hope to follow this up with "This fire never dies – one year with the PKK" by Frederike Geerdink, published in 2018, based on the interview she conducted with Popular Front podcast. Also, more writings from Rojava. I'm a bit greedy.