London Anarchist bookfair 2020

Sounds like a fair summary of what a plan C member had to say about the name.
Corbyn wasn’t anywhere near as significant when they formed.

 

London... Anarchist...

 

Great pub that used to be my local

 

In short, the previous bookfair collective refused to add transphobes to the list of people not welcome after the 2017 Bookfair where transphobes shared out transphobic leaflets.
They decided not to run a bookfair anymore after this for a variety of reasons and invited others to take up the challenge.

We've taken up the challenge.
Some people are upset because we've added transphobes to the list of people not welcome.

Thats a policy every other Anarchist bookfair has btw.

 

I don't think it's the list as much as it's the definition that is getting used.

And portraying it as just about people being 'upset' is bollocks. Some people think it's politically a dodgy direction to be going down. After the 2017 Bookfair there were all sorts of people making demands that X and Y were banned for all sorts of reasons.

And the previous Bookfair collective took a pragmatic decision not to enforce bans on people as it was impossible to police, partly as every year they got a quite number of requests for certain people to be banned and dealing with that would have been massively time consuming, disruptive, and not actually their responsibility.

Are you changing this and having a list of banned people? If so what's the criteria for someone being added?

 

oh this will end well

 

Having not been there, I’m going assume part of the disagreement is going to be over definitions of transphobia. That’s something which has rumbled on here on these boards in recent times. Having stated my position, I have no interest in rejoining that particular fray.

The wider subject of identity politics is something we’ve also tussled with over the years. There’s a thread in our philosophy forum that I started, and which has had new posts in recent days. It’s an area I don’t think consensus can be reached. I think people are using similar terms to mean different things.

I’ve got some recent related reading to get through that a comrade kindly sent me, which I hope to get around to when real life allows. But while I can see the importance of these topics, I don’t know how much energy I want to spend further debating them.

For what it’s worth, this post from a long running thread I’ve now ducked out of is a précis of where I am on the trans debate: https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/we-need-to-talk-terf-bigots.359235/page-70#post-15614485

And here’s the ID Pol thread:

Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.

I’m guessing the version I’m told about what went on with the London bookfair will depend on who is telling me.

 

..also worth remembering that the MayDay Women lot did get booted out in 2017 - the old collective found them unwelcome too.
Its a nettle that needs grasping and these cloth-eared nightmare people who care only about themselves and give zero shits what events they destroy in the process need telling they're not welcome in black and white, as asking nicely doesnt work.
As to writing a definition of transphobia that everyone is happy with, its not going to happen, and waiting for it to come along means waiting for kingdom come. Though Id like to be proved wrong. If someone thinks they can write it they should suggest it in a spirit of mutual aid. Id genuinely love to see it.

This is a scab thats not going to heal properly and its so easy to pick and get it bleeding again.

 

I thought they got ejected by a bunch of people who weren’t the then collective - I’d go so far as to say by people who weren’t anything to do with that collective.

The trouble continued / escalated when a close friend of several in that collective sought to defend the mayday women; And because she was their friend, & has been an anarchist activist (unlike the pair from mayday), ejecting her was not straightforward and it escalated more and dragged on and on.

Yup, I agree with that.

 

It's also worth remembering that a fair few of the people turning up and complaining about all sorts of things at the Bookfair are also not anarchists.

There were a load of complaints about all sorts of issues to do with the Bookfair, the Active 'Religion is Stupid' banner for example, as well as there always being a whole load of demands that certain individuals are banned for various things they've done/accused of having done.

What's going to be the policy for this for the 2020 Bookfair? Is everyone welcome until they do something unwelcome at the Bookfair itself, or can people be banned for something they've done previously, or even for support of something that's been done?

 

The vetting panel will allow people in one by one after establishing their identity, politics and motive for attending the event

 

That's the thing isn't it, who gets to decide and on what grounds?

Is one accusation or letter demanding someone (or a group) is banned for something they've once done or said or written? Or a demand that someone that supported them gets banned too? And it's why the previous Bookfair took the pragmatic decision not to ban people or groups.

And why has this been a workable policy for so many years until it comes to the trans stuff?

 

Should be up to lib-dem and labour voting non-anarchists on here really.

 

denunciations should be sent to the vetting panel (formally the committee of bookfair safety) by the end of august 2020, to allow time for these to be read and investigated.

 

I'll be denouncing and banning myself comrades.

 

self-denunciations must be witnessed by two other comrades of good standing (rule 89, paragraph d., subsection iv)

 

Just spend all day in the nearest pub instead. It’s out of their jurisdiction.

 

under the previous regime that was indeed true. however, the 2020 collective are organising patrols to ensure the security of the bookfair, and they may demand to see people's vetting documents.

 

I'm trans and so's my wife.

 

You're banned for asking awkward questions

 

no one gets banned for asking awkward questions. that would never do.

he's banned for flouting the correct procedure, which is to complete an enquiry form following which the appropriate sub-committee will provide a response within 28 working days.

 

I thought it started getting absurd when people went after the organisers for not dealing "effectively" with the catholic worker person supporting Assange. Credit the audience with some common sense!!

 

I obviously don't know how qoutes work lol

 

Who gets to decide who is fascist?

Most of the time it's pretty clear and we trust our comrades when they say "that guy with the KICK EM OUT" T-shirt is a bit fashy.
Same thing with Transphobes.

There isn't any need for pettyfoggling and red tape. I'm not getting dragged into some nuance contextless debate about whose a big ol transphobe and who isn't. If you think you might hate trans people don't come, if you hang out with WP and hold "trans women destroy lesbianism" banners don't come... if you don't really understand what non binary is or can't get used to pronouns, don't fret, come, meeting people, educate yourself, be a better comrade.

Seems folk would rather make up bullshit out the new collective being IDPol or Liberal pen pushers than fellow Anarchists holding an event with a policy that works literally everywhere else.

 

The equating of those with transphobic views with fascists is stupid and disingenuous.

The whole reason why this issue has become so toxic within the left is because some of those that hold views you consider transphobic are/were comrades. People have not stood on picket lines with fascists, they've not been in organisations with fascists, they've not fought local campaigns with fascists. Yet I know some of the people who I have fought and organised alongside and who I consider comrades would be/have been labelled as transphobic. Now that does not mean they get a free pass for any view but it does mean that the relationship to them is very different to that with fascists.

 

Exactly has just been said, and I appreciate you're trying to make this a simple issue, but it isn't.

 

At the Manchester Bookfair where some people were removed for giving out leaflets (after they'd given them out and were sitting down chatting with no plans to do anything else) it was disputed that they should be ejected by a number of people, with a fair few more that were worried about getting involved.

When questioned as to why people were being kicked out they were told 'for giving out transphobic literature'. People doing the ejecting then admitted they hadn't read them, but they knew they were transphobic as the people had given similar out before. When told that four of the group had never given out anything at Bookfairs before, they said that they were being thrown out for giving out leaflets with someone that was known to have given out transphobic leaflets before at another Bookfair.

Is that your workable policy?

And your point isn't even true, if it's so workable and commonly agreed why then was there such a fight about people being thrown out at the 2017 Bookfair in London?

 

I thought the idea of the book fair was to promote anarchism. That means winning people over to your arguments. Banning people for holding the wrong views seems counter productive.