ZSVS dalībnieku intervija ar…
Frančeska Fiorentīni
(1) Kur jūs esat dzimis, kur jūs tagad dzīvojat, kāda ir bijusi jūsu galvenā izglītība, nodarbošanās, ģimenes dzīve utt.? Īsāk sakot, iepazīstieties ar sevi personīgi.
I was born in the Bay Area, and live now in Brooklyn, NY. I came to New York city to attend NYU in 2001, where I studied an individualized major entitled "Ideas for Action: Postcolonial Feminism." After graduating in May of 2005, I became the editor of the Nonviolent Activist, the magazine of the War Resisters League, an 82-year-old antiwar organization.
(2) What have been your main political involvements in the past? Are you involved with particular movements, projects, or organizations now? If so, which? What features would an International Political Organization have to embody to attract you? What features would repel you? In short, introduce yourself politically.
Having been radicalized after 9-11, I became a major organizer in the student antiwar movement at NYU and New York City, organizing and participating walk-outs, demonstrations, and direct actions at the United Nations, Hilary Clinton’s offices, and other public venues. NYU had one of the most vibrant student antiwar movements in the country, and in 2003 was voted by Mother Jones magazine as the third most active campus next to the University of Tehran and every California Community college combined. In preparation for the Republican National Convention’s descent onto NYC, I and other local NYC activists began organizing a weekend of strategic dialogue, the Life After Capitalism conference, to be held one week before the RNC. In order to create a space for discussion and relationship building in the midst of mobilization and action, the conference hoped to network the many activist coming into the city to share their perspectives, projects, and long-term vision. I am currently an editor with Left Turn magazine, a national movement-publication that is written for and by activists on the ground that works to link the global (Palestine, the middle east, and Latin America) with local struggles (prison work, anti-racism work, antiwar movement, etc.) We specifically focus on being a tool for movements–reflecting, supporting, and cross-pollinating their work through articles as well as events. Our most recent 5-year anniversary editorial better outlines our overall political project: http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=866&type=M
I have also been active with APOC (anarchist people of color) in NYC, that has been periodically meeting and working on organizing study groups, as well as Sisterfire NYC, the local chapter of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, that is trying to network the many women of color organizations in the city, and create some common work without creating MORE work for overstretched organizers. We are currently planning our second Encuentro for these organizations, to further the discussion on how we can collaborate and be mutually supportive.
I would be attracted to an international organization that did not primarily define participation by nations or national identity, but rather through communities of resistance and revolution. I would be attracted to an organization that is shaped and initiated primarily by people most adversely affected by global capitalism and empire, that centers an analysis of difference as a positive force, while also not using reductive categories of identity. I would be attracted to a horizontal organization, that promotes directly democratic decision-making, and self-determination for all involved. In many ways I see the Sixth Declaration of the Zapatistas, and the "Other Campaign" as an amazing example of what an international movement or organization could look like–a movement outside of electoral politics, that listens first and foremost, and while does not seek to impose a particular model or ideology, does assert uncontested truths about capitalism, neoliberalism, and oppression.
I would be repelled by an organization that modeled itself on or subtly accepted the abusive hierarchies of government, armies, and oppressive interpersonal relationships—and reduced the problems of the world to only one particular oppression or system. I would be repelled from an organization that saw revolution as something that was separable from every other part of life–that can be applied externally and scientifically, rather than be an organic process–from the bottom-up and from the inside out.
(3) Imagine you are giving a public talk The question and answer period arrives. Someone says, "I know you are against capitalism, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. I know you believe in participation, want solidarity, require sustainability, and seek justice. Me too. But in a real world society, what institutions do you seek so as to fulfill those aims? What are your structural goals?" How do you answer? In short, stretch a bit in the directions ZSVS seeks to emphasize.
I think the hardest part of this question is the larger coherent framework or "model" of a new society, within which all these self-sustaining institutions would fit. This is the part that I am not so sure of, and would find it hard to divorce myself from the dismal conditions for the birth of such a comprehensive structural model in the US. But another question is whether or not this overall comprehensive model is even desirable at this point, and if it makes sense to really hammer all of that out rather than make the road by walking.
Having said that, on the smaller-scale, in the past couple of years I have witnessed the rise of a few alternative institutions in communities–mostly structures that have been initiated by working-class women of color in people of color communities. Here in Brooklyn, in Bushwick, a group of women of color associated with the organization Sista II Sista began a childcare cooperative called Pachamama. This coop has been hugely inspiring not only in the way it has materially provided for working-class Black and Latina women with children, and its "division of labor" based on need and time and ability to pay, but also in the way it has re-envisioned childcare, and intergenerational movement-building. The coop has both enabled mothers to do the many other things they need to do to get through the week, but through given them a space of political discussion and growth—through looking at the way the coop is run, to how the coop understands safe collective and (in many ways what would be considered "radical") childcare, but also a space to talk about larger things like war and empire. (The Pachamama childcare coop is organizing an intergenerational kid-friendly antiwar contingent for the demo on April 29th) So not only are they creating a self-sustaining institution within the status quo, but they are creating future institutions through the alternative education and lessons and treatment of the kids.
In the real world, these are the institutions that are not being provided by the state, that are tiresome to rally and lobby for, but can be built on the faith and creativity and commitment of those involved. There are other examples–one of the things that Sistefire NYC, the local chapter of INCITE! Women of color against violence that I have been working with, hopes to do is create some kind of bartering network between the different women of color organizations in the city—asking what groups need and can offer, and then arranging some system of sharing those tools and not relying solely on grants or money. That raises another interesting point is the critique of the "non-profit industrial complex" (that INCITE! has helped to start and Left Turn magazine has continued) and the prospects for collective fundraising between groups, devising creative ways or systems to ween people off of grant money, and out of the often corporate and confining non-profit model. I am very much interested in continuing this conversation with folks at ZSVS.
(4) Ko jūs cerat iegūt no ZSVS personīgi sev un darbam? Kas mums visiem, jūsuprāt, visticamāk iznāks no ZSVS? Kā arī, kas, jūsuprāt, no tā iznāks savā visoptimistiskākajā brīdī? Īsāk sakot, ietekmējiet to, ko mēs visi plānojam un uzņemamies, un toni, ar kādu mēs to darām.
I guess for me, I’m not necessarily one who is eager to rush toward forming any organization or network, but feel like simply getting through listening and discussing everyone’s work, perspective, and vision, is achievement enough and incredibly satisfying. I think it would be important to have some, perhaps contested, ideas of the
*process* toward building an international organization, and what that would look like, but whether we have a platform (!) or not, it will be impossible to walk away from this event without having one’s work enriched and challenged.
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