Transphobia at the London Anarchist Bookfair 2017

London Anarchist Bookfair is always a great event, I would encourage anyone to go! And the organisers do a fantastic job.

I must say though it's a shame the venue is the same as last time, because it is in the middle of nowhere. The one at St Martin's was a much better location.

Tottenham is not the middle of nowhere!
I put a list of pubs up last time, probably a bit out of date.

No, but it is a few miles from Shoreditch which amounts to the same thing for some comrades!

I like Tottenham, it's proper.

Just a question, but why is the "Communist Workers’ Organisation" having a meeting? They are not anarchists -- indeed, they seem to have a very low opinion of anarchism (as to be expected, as most Marxists do).

Indeed, are they not followers of Bordiga? You know, advocates of party dictatorship? They explicitly state they are against self-management on their webpage.

As far as I can see, they do not have anything in common with anarchism. Nor do they seem to be libertarian communists.

So why do they have a meeting and a stall?

No.

No.

Yes, because they are Communists.

Speaking as a lifelong anarchist, I'd be far more likely to give the CWO time of day than most of the shite that passes itself off as "anarchist".

exactly.

Anarcho sometimes it seems like you care more about political terminology than content.

One wonders what deep ideological bunker this observation comes from.

Occasionally, Marxist abbreviations do gain entry to book fairs. It isn't healthy from the punter's view. Gives the impression that they are friends of ours. People who will stick by us once the bright lights are turned on.

I dunno about ideological bunker but anyone who hasn't picked up on the prominance of radical liberalism, lifestylism and loads of assorted bohemians at events like the Boookfair is surely wearing ideological blinkers.

I haven't made this rant for a while so here goes - the communist tendencies within Marxism made a definitive break with the dominant social democratic tendencies in the 1920s. Sadly the communist tendencies within anarchism have never made such a break.

Hence boring ideologues like Anarcho and PeterTCA are happy to coexist with the most pissweak crap as long as it calls itself anarchist yet get the shits if a tiny left commie group goes to their bookfair.

Well the ICT/CWO and Anarcho both like Paul Mattick so they have that in common, and Anarcho so far hasn't listed Leftcom's in his Profile 'Dislikes' so we might bring him round to a more tolerant line eventually. Maybe ask Anarcho why he highlights the CWO for objection when there are numerous other Marxist influenced groups (in addition to booksellers selling much of the same material) that do, or have appeared at the bookfair over the years. The link is in the overlap between some anarchists and some Marxists who share a genuine anti-capitalist and communist objective. Of course we can argue (on libcom) about the particular selection of who is included or excluded by the bookfair organisers as we seem to every year!, but so far they have made a reasonable job of it in my opinion. I'm prepared to put up with some of the selected radical liberals and reformists amongst other 'oddballs' for the prize of some new information about the world and some stimulating conversations with my anarchist and communist comrades that I don't always get elsewhere.

For all his purism, Anarcho was happy to defend and praise Schmidt & VDW's Black Flame book, despite its unconvincing revisionism, poor history and attempts to claim marxists and nationalists as anarchists.

Eh Mike... I'm not that mithered about the alternatives, lifestylers and bohemians either and think the bookfair people do a fairly decent job of it. It bugs me though when ideologues whine about groups from a more Marxist tradition who have common ground with the libertarian camp (whether or not they happen ro use the word "libertarian") but keep schtum about some really dodgy outfits as long as it's got an "a" in a circle.

Jesus every year we have this crap.

Yes, It is a very simple premise of "are you non-hierarchically organised" which sometimes leads to liberals getting a stall where revolutionaries don't. Yes the Anarchist Bookfair people also sometimes add in groups which aren't really very anarchist. Yes it's not entirely consistent and that's annoying sometimes.

But not as annoying as listening to left communists whine every bloody August-October because they've been excluded from a popular event (you aren't anarchists, it's not the end of the world that you don't get a stall at an anarchist event — no-one's even said you can't just get someone else to flog your more relevant stuff on their table), or as annoying as listening to people moan about the bookfair sometimes letting in groups they don't like — as though one stall's going to matter in any conceivable way.

But Rob, some left communists are now regularly given stalls and meetings, and others are so consistently denied them that we have stopped whining about it (and stopped asking to be let in, for now at least). Hope the weather's clement for the time of year and doesn't rain on our outsider's stall.

This, too, has now become the SPGB approach, Alf, even though we are sometimes baffled by who are actually permitted to participate. And, likewise, we choose to set up a stall outside the venue.

And if it does rain, perhaps we can all muster under the same umbrella

Bastards comment sums it up.Anarchists of a class ie genuine Libertarian outlook need to split from the lifestyles and individualism that should have been jettisoned years ago.Id rather another group not calling itself Anarchist but represents a move in a similar direction was at the Bookfair than Green 'Anarchist' or similar groups.Class or nothing!

Bastarx. I concede the point. But i was looking at it from a punter's perspective rather than scoring internecine points.

Once upon a time, and based upon Anarcho-syndicalist principles, I was convener of a Trade Union branch involved in a series of protracted disputes.

Fighting, in the context of the day, I guess we often breached theoretical guidance. In a Trade Union world shaped by the Labour Party, the CP and the Trots, our group of Anarchists were certainly not welcomed. We were not noted for following protocol.

I stand to be corrected, but I learned that Anarchists have never
prospered where Marxist ideologies have been used as a system of governance.

Before I moved from Bradford I was a member of the famous 1in12 Club (2 years back 200 comrades attended the celebration of a late comrade's life). The club involved itself with just about everything: Certainly music and gigs, but also housing, book fairs, transport, banquets, meetings, printing, food production, etc.

It was notable that heavy theoretical tracts had little impact. People were just getting on with it. Perhaps is was an example of of what an Anarchist society, based upon Freedom and Mutual Aid, might look like.

From the ideological bunker, of course, the many of the varied inputs into Club life are to be dismissed as "Shite".

So there is a much fuller list of all the varied meetings up on the bookfair site now including several sponsored by the AF, SolFed, Critisticuffs as well as the one by the ICT/CWO all worth checking out even if there are too many to fit them all in.

at the NY anarchist bookfair they let free-market types in.

As the ICC are outside I always end up going and saying hello, which I might not do if I had to go and find them inside. Mind you I haven't been for four or five years so my opinion doesn't count for much.

But they only let the Trotskyist AWL have a stall at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair where they exhibited the ollowing anti-anarchist tract!!!:
http://www.workersliberty.org/working-class-politics-and-anarchism
Hopefully the organisers will have the sense not to let them have a stall at next year's Bookfair,, in addition with space being at a minimum

There is a full timetable of meetings up on the bookfair site now. Looks like several of my preferences are clashing with each other but then I never have time to fit them all in anyway.

Are people on here attending?

Aye. I'll be leading off the "is the working class movement dead" discussion.

I pretty much always seem to be out of the country when the anarchist bookfair comes around, unfortunately this year will be no exception.

Serge, fancy a Babycham at t'fair?

Aye, I'll have a shandy.