A-Infos (en) US, California: Open Letter to Bound Together Books from BASTARD

We are writing to you as the Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And 
Research & Development. We hold an anarchist theory conference (The 
BASTARD conference) on the day after the anarchist book fair. Many of us 
also participate in a public anarchist study group every week at the 
Long Haul in Berkeley. All of us have been, at one time or another, 
customers, friends, or collective members of Bound Together Books. We 
are also members of the larger anarchist community in the Bay Area that 
includes you.
We were surprised to hear about your decision to change the book fair 
into a two-day event, since scheduling two sizable anarchist events at 
the same time seems inadvisable at best and destructive at worst. The 
fact that this decision was made without any conversation or input from 
other groups that are affected by it or from any organizers of other 
two-day book fairs, is evidence of a lack of concern for a larger 
anarchist cohesion or eco-system.
We believe that in the midst of all the work we do that can pull us in 
different directions, there is a real need for us to sit down every once 
in a while to talk to each other, and to challenge our assumptions and 
preconceptions. In the interest of these conversations, every year we 
publicly announce our conference, soliciting workshop proposals from the 
larger anarchist scene, both in the Bay Area and regionally. The vast 
majority of workshop proposals are accepted.

This coming year will be our seventh annual conference.

Your desire to expand the book fair is understandable as an economic 
tactic. We understand that adding a day and having different vendors for 
the second day might increase the number of people who attend. But there 
is a deeper question involved: Do we want to uncritically embrace the 
development of anarchist shop keepers at the expense of other aspects of 
anarchist activity?

Moreover, you did not communicate the idea of the book fair as a two-day 
event before you rented the hall and decided that you were going to do 
it. The minimum expression of solidarity and consideration would have 
included informing people of the reasons and conversations surrounding 
this decision, and perhaps asking for written suggestions either on what 
to do, or on how to do it in the best possible way. We all want to see 
the anarchist book fair be a successful, sustainable effort. This 
unilateral process that has shut people out is not a positive step in 
that direction.
Of course we have a few options in response to your change (moving the 
conference closer to the book fair, having it on another day, 
approaching you to combine efforts on the second day), and have 
considered each of them carefully, but none are feasible. While there 
are a variety of reasons why these options wouldn’t work, certainly one 
of those reasons is Bound Together’s apparent lack of interest in 
working with anyone else around this issue.

Furthermore, the form that you sent out to tablers make two demands that 
unquestionably do not reflect anarchist solidarity or even principles. 
One, you insist that all tablers pay for two days. Two, you require all 
vendors to table for both days (and make them sign a form agreeing to 
both demands), which explicitly contradicts the argument that you have 
too many vendors for a one-day fair and so are forced to go to two days, 
or that you are trying to broaden the scope of the vendors to appeal to 
more people.

This affects us most directly in two ways: One, many members of the 
BASTARD organizing group are also vendors at the book fair. Two, vendors 
are frequently among the presenters at our conference. This makes sense, 
since people who are committed to anarchist projects are often committed 
to both literary projects and to discussing ideas.

What we request:

One, you publicly explain your rationale for expanding the book fair to 
two days. Your recent announcement that there is “so much to do and see” 
is not a valid reason. .

Two, you explain why you made this decision without transparency, 
specifically not communicating to other groups that put on events over 
the weekend.

Three, you make it clear, and public, that vendors can table for one day 
only without any negative consequences and at the $50 price.

Organizing diverse anarchist events is a service to ourselves and our 
beliefs. In this way, both the book fair and the annual anarchist theory 
conference are services to the community. In the words of a BT 
collective member:

"I am glad to see that the Book Fair has spun off so many other events. 
That was our hope from the get-go. It started as a one day affair. Then 
came the cafe the night before. Then came the BASTARD Conference. Now 
there's a week plus of events. A month would be nice, but remember, the 
real goal is a year. There's precious d*mn little that goes on all year. 
Long Haul and Bound Together come to mind. There are a few others, but 
not nearly enough. We need to build the infrastructure of an enduring 
culture a lot more than we need more holidays. That's my opinion. Take 
it or leave it."
- Nessie 
(http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/03/01/18055051.php?show_comments=1)
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