A-Infos (en) <alter-ee> Poland, 24th congress of FA in Lodz

["Zaczek" <hydrozag@poczta.onet.pl>]

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There was a very nice and fruitful 24th meeting of Polish Anarchist
Federation in Lodz.
There were the two guys from Lublin who attacked Romano Prodi with eggs,
they have formed a group and been admitted as FA-Lublin.
FA-RSA-Gdansk-Tricity has  advertised their "Aryan church of Polish
Brothers"
(The name is from an old sect - it has nothing to do with the later nazi
"Aryan" ideas
- it was heretics which found a tolerant place in Poland at a time when
religious
wars were raging in Western Europe. Poland stayed the most tolerant country
in Europe until the counter-reformation came and destroyed this good
tradition).
The church allows its members to legally refuse military service and
alternative
service, and makes it possible to have economic activity without paying
taxes. (It's
Polish law about churches. Jehova's Witnesses and other sects are also
exempt from
taxes and military service.)
The "Aryan Church" has no specific rituals or dogmas.
It can prove to be an effective tool for building alternative economy.
>From sad news, there was info that one activist from traders groups who
cooperated
with anarchists against supermarkets in Lodz was beaten by "unknown" people,
and
has died in hospital.

There was discussion about the "statement of principles", not finished yet.
Controversies
included formulation about abortion (The original was "we don't think
abortion
is a good solution but only the woman can decide about it" - some people
protested against
saying that abortion is not a good solution, and some people protested
against saying that
only the woman can decide about it. In the end we decided to put "the state
or religious institutions can't forbid abortion or force women to have
abortions" - we decided
that it's a private decision, and can't be interfered with. That's something
that everybody
aggreed on.) Other controversies included the economic relations, and
"compensation
funds" which would equalize chances between richer and poorer collectives to
avoid
economic power relations. There was a controversy between libertarians and
collectivists on this topic.
The section about trade and economy will be rewritten to include different
possibilities of
self-organisation.

On a more informal level, there was a discussion about alliance policies.
Two approaches
have been discussed, both have to coexist: campaign-based alliance, and
idea-based alliance:
in a campaign-based alliance, anyone who respects the goals of the campaign
will be tolerated.
In idea-based alliance concrete actions are not important, but ideological
details matter.
This second type of approach was usually criticized in the Polish movement,
which always put more emphasis on action, and not ideas. It's not good in
the sense that
both types of approaches should be balanced.

There was also a discussion about entering existing trade-unions vs.
creating new ones.
The first option makes more sense, because nobody in the FA has enough
determination to create and develop a trade union. Especially for people
from sections where there are
only a few people. The problem is to choose the right independent
trade-union that
everybody would join.
There's a number of them: Sierpien'80, Solidarity'80, WZZ (Free Trade
Unions). All
of them would probably not reject people based on their politics, even
anarchists, but there
is always a problem with their authoritarian leaders.

Zaczek



-- 
Konkursy w Onet.pl
Nagrody czekaja [ http://konkursy.onet.pl ]

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