Grand Rapids Anarchists

Last week, Dave Agema—a member of the Michigan House of Representatives from Grandville—introduced legislation that would expand the authority of police officers to question individuals about their legal status and documentation. The legislation is partially based on controversial anti-immigration laws adopted in Arizona and is part of a call for an “illegal immigration offensive” by Agema.

Agema claims that the legislation contains safeguards to prevent “racial profiling” but the law is racist at its core. It’s unlikely that so-called safeguards such as requiring police to seek proof of citizenship only as part of “lawful” police duties would do anything to curtail the profiling that is likely to accompany this legislation. The text in the legislation about defending officers from lawsuits more-or-less implies that the police will have the institutional backing to do whatever they want.

In an article on the legislation, Agema said that a person’s inability to speak English could be enough to trigger a citizenship check:

“It says if a cop catches you doing a felony and you have no ID and he suspects you are an illegal, he can check. He might suspect because of no ID, or because the person can’t speak English.”

In announcing the legislation, Agema cited numbers from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR is considered a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center and has deep ties to the white supremacist movement.

In fact, FAIR’s ties to organized racism are almost as lengthy as Representative Dave Agema’s history of racist legislation. In the past he has targeted Native Americans (suggesting that Michigan renege on their treaty commitments), Iraqis (urging the U.S. military to shoot first and ask questions later), Muslims (he claims to know that there are “sleeper cells” of terrorists in the Muslim community in Dearborn), and undocumented immigrants. Agema has also attacked LGBT folks. (here’s a good overview of all the awful legislation Agema has supported over the years)

Agema Tries to Hide His Racism

Agema has tried to hide the racism implicit in his attacks on undocumented immigrants and typically makes the argument in economic terms. The press release accompanying the legislation claims that:

“Michigan needs to have every opportunity to get on its feet economically… The millions of dollars spent on people who are in this state illegally isn’t sustainable.”

However, just a few days before Agema’s press release a study was released saying that Arizona-style immigration laws would actually hurt Michigan’s economy. For example:

• Michigan stands to lose over $3.8 billion in economic activity, $1.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 20,000 jobs with the removal of all unauthorized workers from the labor force.
• Unauthorized immigrants are subject to sales and property taxes and many pay into the Social Security system, but may not be able to collect the benefits.

Opportunities for Anarchist Organizing

We’ve obviously got no love for Agema (and we’re pretty sure his family isn’t native)—or any other politician for that matter—but his attacks on immigrants could potentially offer an opportunity for organizing and increasing our ties with the immigrant community. This has been the case in Arizona where anarchists have actively involved themselves in the fight against SB 1070. There has been a range of organizing in response to the bill, some of which has been pretty exciting with connections being made to indigenous resistance and the history of colonization and white supremacy in the United States.

For now, all the organizing we could find around Agema’s attacks is an online petition urging him to abandon the legislation.

We’re excited to announce that the Finding Our Roots Anarchist Conference will once again be taking place this summer in Chicago. The conference—which has been ongoing since 2007 (with a break last) year—is designed to “meet the need for anarchist networking in the midwest/midsouth/no coast.” Without any comparable events last year (the only exception could possible be the anarchist convergence at the U.S. Social Forum), we’re glad to see Finding Our Roots taking place again.

This year’s theme will be “solidarity:”

The concept of solidarity has long been evoked as a way of uniting many different people around a variety of social struggles. But how does this concept inform our theory and praxis as anarchists today?

As anarchists, who are we in solidarity with — and why? Is solidarity based around social identities helpful, harmful, or irrelevant to anarchist struggles? Are anarchists part of a broader Left, and if so, should anarchists maintain solidarity with other leftists? Does solidarity imply community and/or accountability? In what ways has the historical use of “solidarity” around social struggles affected the ways in which we use the term today? How has “solidarity” been recuperated for reformist or reactionary ends?

How do we maintain solidarity with the struggles of others without speaking for them or acting in their name? What kinds of anarchist projects, actions, etc. show the ways in which solidarity can be used for anti-capitalist ends? How do the concepts of solidarity and autonomy relate to each other? How do we maintain solidarity with the struggles of others without acting on their behalf? Is the concept of the ally valid in social struggles, and how does it relate to the concept of solidarity? Does solidarity mean attack? Does it mean alternative structures of survival? Can it exist as mere spoken affirmation or does it imply action? Is solidarity about friendship or a strictly political arrangement? Is solidarity even a useful concept for explaining how we relate to one another in the process of revolt?

The conference organizers are currently accepting proposals for workshops in response to these questions about solidarity.

AK's Nosotros Social Center

In recent years, lots of anarchists in the United States—ourselves included—have drawn inspiration from anarchists in Greece. From the intense riots to the squatted social centers and university occupations, anarchism in Greece is a multi-faceted movement with many different tendencies. Moreover, unlike in the United States, anarchists are an actual social force and their activities have bearing on what happens in the country.

Earlier this month the anarchist newspaper The Defenstrator out of Philadelphia published an interesting interview with three members of the Anti-Authoritarian Movement (Alpha Kappa/AK). AK’s politics certainly aren’t shared by all Greek anarchists, but the interview offers some valuable insights. Much of the conversation is focused on lessons that folks in the United States can learn from Greece (for example about the importance of social centers) and what Greek anarchists can gain from comrades in the United States.

Responding to what Greek anarchists do for people in the United States, one member replied:

“We only do bad things for anarchists elsewhere. People in the United States are starting to believe that fighting is more important than ideas and organizing. Fighting is important, but really the ideas are more important. To have the streets is important, but to do that you must glue the streets with posters, to give the people your papers, and to explain to them what you believe. The last step is fighting the cops. You need all of that—the ideas, the effort, the organizing—to win the streets, not just the stones. It’s psychologically easy to fight the cops. You just throw stones, then run away. It’s easy to be a macho guy, but you can beat the baby, or you can teach it.”

As always, it helps to put any discussion of Greek anarchism into a wider political context. Two of our favorite sources are the book We Are An Image From The Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008 which provides a lot of good background information about what is going on in Greece and the zine Koukoulofori that looks at lessons folks in the U.S. can draw from Greece.

Interestingly, there was also a more mainstream article called “Remnants of a Greek past, image from the future” published recently that gives a good overview of the Greek anarchist movement. While it isn’t sympathetic to anarchism, it is interesting in that it understands the power that anarchism has in Greece.