Editorials
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EditorialThe Same That Burn Crosses
Abolition as Class Struggle
In Canada, the struggle for working-class unity to build some form of revolutionary socialism and the struggle for an anti-racist and anti-colonial movement for abolition are one and the same. If the abolition of prisons and police also means the abolition of capitalism, how do revolutionaries make abolition part and parcel of the working-class struggle, rather than an issue-based struggle or a struggle based on identity? While activists have been working with labour organizations, this tension between working-class struggle and abolition came to a head this year during the Ottawa take-over by anti-vaccine truckers.
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EditorialMutual Aid Then and Now:
Survival and the Power of the People
Leaving 2020. A new year. A step into a new decade. And now more than ever, we see activists and revolutionaries look at the past year to contemplate struggle and history. Many of these activists and revolutionaries experienced 2020 as a clusterfuck of dystopian scenarios coming true, while also experiencing the largest mass movements ever seen. We were cheering on the founding of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, while at the same time screaming at anti-mask demonstrators marching in our communities. All the while, we were doom scrolling, sharing memes and communist TikTok videos. Without fail, the progression of this year has catapulted political discourse into a new era, one ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout.
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EditorialRevolution Postponed
100 Years after the Winnipeg General Strike
Following a spate of funding cuts to health and education programs by Ontario’s Ford government in early 2019, a series of collective actions were proposed for May 1st, International Workers’ Day. Hamilton filmmaker Dakota Lanktree and Toronto organizer Florence O’Connell organized the events and invoked the language of the “general strike” in their promotion and discussion of the planned actions1: their intent was “…to grind this province to a halt to make these ill-informed cuts stop.”2
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EditorialYou Gotta Have Faith
Resolving the Unholy Alliance Between the Left and Religion
On February 4, 2017, a national day of action was called across Canada. Entitled Against Islamophobia and White Supremacy, the action was originally called after the election of Donald Trump to address growing racism and Islamophobia in Canada. However, days before the rally, Alexandre Bissonnette walked into La Grande Mosquée of Québec City, shot and killed six men, and injured 19 others. The February 4th day of action organized in Toronto soon became a rally and memorial to emphasize how the rise of racism and Islamophobia was a matter of life and death for many people, especially Muslims. The memorial saw close to 1,000 attendees with speakers from the Toronto contingents of Black Lives Matter, No One Is Illegal, Jews for a Just Peace, and a number of religious leaders. For some of us in attendance, a strange moment occurred. A speaker took the stage and asked for all people of Muslim faith to come forward in order to perform a funeral rite. As the Muslim attendees gathered to the front, another instruction was given: “Please, could all sisters be at the back and all brothers to the front?”
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Editorial
Building Everyday Anti-Fascism
Ibrahima Barry. Azzeddine Soufiane. Khaled Belkacemi. Mamadou Tanou Barry. Abdelkrim Hassane. Boubaker Thabti. On January 29, 2017, these six men were murdered while praying at Québec City’s Islamic Cultural Centre, and five others were seriously injured. While the horror of that night became hea…
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Editorial
Who Cares?
The Politics of Care in Radical Organizing
In many of today’s social movements, a common framework is taken up with regard to “self care.” In many ways, it seems as though self care is commonly understood as taking some form of “time-out” from the stresses of daily life within capitalism and organizing, especially from spaces that…
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Editorial
What Are We Waiting For? Rethinking Internationalism and Localism
The one-year anniversary of Ali Mustafa’s death passed on March 15, 2015. The one-year mark allowed many in the community and around the world to reflect on his art, his words, and his insistence to be in spaces of open conflict. As a new art exhibit opened in Toronto showcasing never before seen…
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Editorial
Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of your Fist: In Memory of Ali Mustafa
I know you are still standing in Tahrir, where I saw you last. Tahrir was your address. - Rachel Gee On Sunday, March 29, 2014, Syrian regime forces dropped a barrel bomb in Hadariyeh, a rebel-held civilian area of Aleppo in Northern Syria. As rescue crews, firefighters, and journalists rushed to th…
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Editorial
Notes on Spontaneity and Organization
On March 18, 1848 silent processions marched through Berlin – a city of 450,000 that was over 85 percent working class – collecting their dead and gathering crowds. For the first time in days, the city was quiet as the sun set. There were no gunshots, no barricades, no army, no police; just the…
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Editorial
The Courtroom and the Street
Notes on Activist Encounters With the Law
Stepping out of a Toronto courthouse last April, Montreal-based activist Jaggi Singh addressed the media about his decision to plead guilty to “counselling to commit mischief” during Toronto’s anti-G20 protests in June 2010. Nearly a year after being arrested and eventually charged with public…
