revolutionary

Revolutionary Women: A Book of Stencils

barbara — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

I'm all for learning more—and for disseminating information to a wide audience—about women who have played significant roles in history. All too often, women who have contributed to movements for change have been given all too little (or no) attention or credit.

I agree that we need to have a more complete picture of the female revolutionaries who risked and sometimes gave their lives for a cause. Many of the women in this book are conspicuously missing from history textbooks, as are their images: for this reason Queen of the Neighbourhood added stencils to each of the thirty women profiled in this short book. As one of the editors notes, we have seen so many images of Che Guevara that it has almost “become kitsch from overuse,” but where are the women?

That said, the celebration of some of the women profiled in this book gave me pause—namely, because I am a pacifist who believes that violence begets violence. While I love the DIY element of Revolutionary Women, I would have a serious problem if my little sister copied some of the stencils that the editors offer to “commemorate these women and their actions.” Why should we commemorate someone who hijacked a plane (Leila Khaled), for instance? It's insulting to include her alongside a modern-day heroine such as Malalai Joya, Afghanistan's youngest member of parliament, who has risked her life for daring to demand rights for women in her nation.

That said, I was thrilled to see some lesser-known activists honored here, notably Silvia Rivera, an American transgender activist who died in 2002 and even led meetings from her hospital bed; Olive Morris, a Black women's movement activist from the U.K. who died of cancer at age twenty-seven; and Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist who assists movements all over the globe.

Despite my disagreement that violent actions should be commemorated, I'd include this as a must-read for informational and historical purposes.

Written by: M.L. Madison, March 18th 2011

We Are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Edited by A.G. Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, Void Network

AK Press

Consider what it might feel like if July 4th in the United States were celebrated not with fireworks and barbecue but with demonstrations and occupations to achieve a further social revolution. That's what November 17th is in Greece since a student revolt on that date in 1973 triggered the end of the dictatorship. In fact, because of the role of the students in achieving this, a law was passed by the socialist government in 1981 to establish academic asylum. Although the law has since been weakened, police are restricted from entering university campuses.

I learned these facts from reading We Are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008, a collage of interviews, oral history, chronologies, personal essays, manifestos, and political essays, edited by A.G. Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, and Void Network. The format is similar to that used in the INCITE! collective's The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, which tells its story in a range of contradictory voices. In both books, the format results in repetition and a difficult-to-track sequence of events, but allows DIY interpretation and wide range of views, some of them way, way beyond the political discourse permitted in the United States, even in so-called progressive media.

Here is as good a point as any to complain about how the physical book under review—a wide ten inches on a six-inch spine—was difficult to read in bed. Perhaps this is in keeping with the direct action message of We Are an Image from the Future: get up and out and do something.

For those undeterred by these difficulties, there are rewards. The editors argue that their book is not a history, but is as close to a true account as can be achieved for the unexpected and multifaceted events sparked by the police murder of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6, 2008 in the Exarchia section of Athens—a neighborhood known for countercultural and anarchist activity. A witness entertaining a guest in his apartment above the square (who calls the Athenian equivalent of 9/11), activists who admit to being frightened by the violence of the ensuing riots, radicals who experience the realization that a revolutionary moment can occur in unpredictable ways that don't match a theoretical scheme, and a veteran of the overthrow of the dictatorship who chastises contemporary revolutionaries for smashing shops all have their say.

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore—or even in New York. Greece, which experienced occupation during World War II but actually liberated itself and endured a civil war in living memory, has some far-from-tame political confrontations. In the United States, we are more likely to criticize Washington and Jefferson as hypocritical slaveholders than recapitulate their revolution with a little political rumble of our own.

We Are an Image from the Future provides an honest and unforeclosed discussion of political violence. There is room for differentiation among property destruction, self-defense, expropriation, and deliberate attacks on the authority of the state, without distinctions being lost in the mire of the ever-expanding catch-all of "domestic terrorism." After all, Washington and his comrades were insurrectionists to the British.

Written by: Frances Chapman, August 8th 2010

When Marina Abramović Dies

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By James Westcott

MIT Press

As someone with only one semester of art history under my belt, I find myself both interested and intimidated by the politics and practice of performance art. After reading this exhaustive biography of performing art legend Marina Abramović (who just wrapped up a stunning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), my intimidation has been replaced by a strong desire to see Abramović’s work.

When reading about an iconic figure such as Abramović, the private aspects of her otherwise very public life are the most interesting artifacts to glean. Through complete cooperation from Abramović and many of her friends and family members, James Westcott produces a marvelously comprehensive history of the artist's childhood in Yugoslavia and the beginning of the career that would revolutionize the use of the body as an artistic vehicle in the 1970s. The downside of writing about such an icon is that, while there is no shortage of fascinating material, one must organize it in such a way as to not overwhelm the reader. Westcott does just that, dividing Abramović’s life into three distinct parts: her early years, her work with fellow performance artist and former romantic partner Ulay, and her recent foray into solo performances.

For readers familiar with Abramović’s body of work, the book will most likely open your eyes to some of her earliest projects, and will offer interesting insight into her more famous pieces. One such example is her 1975 performance of Rhythm 0, where she laid out seventy-two items for museum patrons to use on her however they wished. These items included a loaded gun, which a man put in her hand and pointed at her neck. The author seamlessly weaves together interviews, archival photo footage, and factual information to make Abramović’s life as vibrant on the page as it is in reality.

Above all, Westcott proves to be an incredibly detailed biographer. Near the end of the book, readers understand where some of this attention to detail stems from; he recently served as a transcriptionist for some of Abramović’s marathon performances, writing hundreds of pages at her insistence to describe her hours of sitting or standing during certain pieces. The result of Westcott’s well-researched writing style and Abramović’s openness and commitment to storytelling and making art, When Marina Abramović Dies becomes an enthralling look at the world of performance art, a strong-willed and endlessly creative woman, and what happens when those two things collide for over forty years.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, July 31st 2010

Bina Das: A Memoir

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Bina Das, Dhira Dhar

Zubaan

“History is always in the making, and our struggle for a truly free country will not be over easily,” says Bina Das towards the conclusion of her memoir, brilliantly translated by Dhira Dhar, who was close to this firebrand revolutionary of Bengal. In its pages, Bina Das: A Memoir holds history in flashback. The glorious and gradual unfolding of an Indian nationalist who is counted amongst the heroes of the history of the country’s struggle for independence (like Pritilata Waddedar, Surya Sen, Shivaram Hari Rajguru, and innumerable others) in the few pages of her memoir is nothing short of poignant.

The curtain rises on the eve of August 15, 1947, the day of India’s independence. A nation standing at the crossroads of destiny may have caused countless minds like Das’s to be filled with a sense of despair and doubt, coupled with the misery of Partition, yet she asserts that this freedom was finally the real one and “flashed like lightning through our thrilled souls.” She reminisces her life at the backdrop of this day when she expected her country to march ahead in full glory. And thereafter, the entire story of her life unfurls before the reader in dramatic flashbacks, moments of captured memory framed in the ensuing pages.

Das narrates her family background, her life as a student, and the wondrous transition phase of her life when she graduated from a non-violent freedom fighter into that of an armed revolutionary. She talks of her participation in the last lap of the freedom movement, her subsequent nine-year imprisonment, her release on the eve of independence, and her return to politics from a long prison life. Each of these events has been described in poetic subtlety.

Like children of her generation, her education began at home under the careful guidance of her parents. Often Das’s father, the erudite Brahmo scholar Beni Madhab Das, who played a pivotal role in shaping the thoughts of the young Subhas Chandra Bose, would sit with Bina and her siblings and read plays like Bhishma, Shahjahan and others by D.L. Roy. This, Das claims, was her first introduction to the heroic and tragic in drama, bound to have left indelible imprints in her mind.

Das belonged to a family and a generation that was making the platform for the freedom movement. Her mother, Sarala Devi, was exceptionally enthusiastic about all kinds of social work. Sister Kalyani (Kalyani Bhattacharjee) was also a leading social activist and revolutionary. Das acknowledges that the most precious thing she received from her father was the wealth of freedom he gave her. Understandably this was instrumental in building the consciousness necessary for the struggle for freedom in her later years.

A ceaseless, tireless worker, Das concludes that her only prayer shall be to remain active in the cause of suffering humanity and not lose herself in the “idle morass of inactivity.” This perhaps aptly sums up towering figures like Das and those of her bygone generation.

Memoirs are almost always untranslatable, and Dhar has done a grand job of translating this one with impeccable skill. It is a must read, especially for those who wish to recapitulate the lives and times of revolutionaries like Bina Das.

Written by: Jhuma Sen, April 25th 2010

Arm the Spirit: A Woman’s Journey Underground and Back

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:18:00 +0000

By Diana Block

AK Press

Upon finishing the initial chapters of the memoir Arm the Spirit, I was caught off guard by how different the experiences of Diana Block were from my own. Written from her memories of participating in revolutionary movements and subsequently shifting to life underground, Block’s stories did not reflect the political landscape that I am familiar with today. Her descriptions of fleeing the FBI and assuming new identities like changes in clothing brought to mind Giaconda Belli’s writings about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua more so than contemporary American feminist writers. But as I dove farther into the book, Block slowly bridged the gap between her political experiences and my understanding of political activism.

Throughout the course of the book Block artfully maps out the shifting political landscape over the course of several decades, infusing political theory with her lived experience as a mother, wife, activist and woman. Her narrative is saturated with historical information, and her memories forced me to come to terms with the fact that perhaps I am not living in what I would like to imagine as the “land of the free.”

Beginning with her initial experiences with radical organizing as a young woman fresh out of college, and expanding slowly into her participation in the Weather Underground, Block allows the reader a window into the revolutionary struggles that are mythologized today. Block weaves in her experience as woman, including her critiques and personal experiences, in a way that makes the political real; this blurring between the personal and the political is precisely what makes Block’s memoir so powerful.

Throughout most of the book Block recalls her experiences living underground with several other political allies, a move she made after discovering a bug placed in her vehicle by the FBI. Her association with anti-colonial revolutionary groups made her a target and, as a result, her life and the life of her baby son were irrevocably changed. Hyper-aware of how vulnerable their visibility was, Block and her partner (who was also living underground) were required to play heteronormative house in order to ensure their invisibility, an emotionally burdensome task that Block conveys through poetry interspersed in her narrative. Despite the difficulties that Block faced in life underground, her descriptions of the political prisoners suffering painful interrogations and long sentences with no access to family or loved ones, remind us of what she escaped through living underground. In fact, perhaps the initial shock I experienced when reading Arm the Spirit was not because Block’s narrative did not resonate with my life, but because it was difficult to accept that I was living in the same country that Block described. The thought of living in a nation that not only internally incarcerates people (men of color disproportionately so) at a ghastly rate, but one that is actively engaged in a war that serves neo-colonial purposes is a paralyzing realization.

Arm the Spirit serves to remind us of the political realities that we are faced with and of the dangers of apathy. Block’s narrative paints a picture of a world filled with suffering, but conversely one in which people are motivated to change the course of things. This narrative presents us with an empowering vision of the past that can hopefully resonate with the political and the personal landscape today.

Written by: Lizzy Shramko, July 14th 2009