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On the riots in the Netherlands, anarchist positions towards corona-riots, and giving ownership of social conflict to the far Right.
Several days ago, far Right groups in the NL organized anti-lockdown protests, as has happened in other countries. Some of these led to
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On the riots in the Netherlands, anarchist positions towards corona-riots, and giving ownership of social conflict to the far Right.
Several days ago, far Right groups in the NL organized anti-lockdown protests, as has happened in other countries. Some of these led to
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clashes and property destruction. As conflicts increased in subsequent days, racialized and migrant youth rioted and looted in several major cities. When I wrote a message of support for the latter, a number of people responded in protest, evidently seeing migrant youth as...
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either pawns of a xenophobic party or simply an irrelevant factor within a definitively right-wing phenomenon.
What is rarely mentioned is that racialized people in the NL, as elsewhere, have agency and have plenty of reasons to riot and loot.
Left-wing accounts, though,
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What is rarely mentioned is that racialized people in the NL, as elsewhere, have agency and have plenty of reasons to riot and loot.
Left-wing accounts, though,
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tend to portray them as pawns and scapegoats.
https://socialisme.nu/fascisten-organiseren-rellen-geven-migrantenjongeren-de-schuld/
I haven't seen them mention, for ex., the recent benefits scandal in which the Dutch govt and social services had been harassing and penalizing thousands of largely migrant or dual nationality families...
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https://socialisme.nu/fascisten-organiseren-rellen-geven-migrantenjongeren-de-schuld/
I haven't seen them mention, for ex., the recent benefits scandal in which the Dutch govt and social services had been harassing and penalizing thousands of largely migrant or dual nationality families...
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claiming benefits, certainly a major part of the racist context.
There is a historic problem with white radicals being fixated with countering the far Right rather than concerned with fighting alongside racialized people. In the former case, we get to be the heroes,
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There is a historic problem with white radicals being fixated with countering the far Right rather than concerned with fighting alongside racialized people. In the former case, we get to be the heroes,
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in the latter we have to leave our comfort zones.
There is a serious problem with a politics that translates to "stay home", that erases multiracial riots because earlier protests were called by the far Right, that doesn't take to the streets as far Right politicians call
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There is a serious problem with a politics that translates to "stay home", that erases multiracial riots because earlier protests were called by the far Right, that doesn't take to the streets as far Right politicians call
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for the army to be sent in against migrant rioters.
Our history shows us it is never a good idea to let the Right monopolize social conflict. Have we already forgotten Ukraine?
That brings us to the issue of corona riots.
It is a serious problem if the Right is the only force
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Our history shows us it is never a good idea to let the Right monopolize social conflict. Have we already forgotten Ukraine?
That brings us to the issue of corona riots.
It is a serious problem if the Right is the only force
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mobilizing against the govt handling of the pandemic. They will do so on the basis of harmful conspiracy theories. We must do so on the basis of mutual aid and a critique of the necropolitics of austerity, visibilizing that while the pandemic rages, people are still getting
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evicted, forced to work precarious and unsafe jobs, or simply left unemployed. If the Right starts mobilizing against lockdowns, we CANNOT surrender the field to them. We need to kick them off the streets and stand side by side with tbose whomaremfighting against precarity and
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racism, spreading our own critiques of how capitalism is leaving us to die or crafting lockdowns that are most onerous to poor and undocumented people.
Not long ago there was looting in Barcelona and other places that most anarchists did not support because earlier protests
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Not long ago there was looting in Barcelona and other places that most anarchists did not support because earlier protests
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had been called by the far Right.
We gained nothing by staying away.
We don't respond to the Right by ignoring them, but by deplatforming them & not allowing them to define the fault lines of social conflict.
Certainly not by leaving the most precarious alone to face repression.
We gained nothing by staying away.
We don't respond to the Right by ignoring them, but by deplatforming them & not allowing them to define the fault lines of social conflict.
Certainly not by leaving the most precarious alone to face repression.
