A-Infos (en) US, The First Ever Meeting of the East Coast Red & Anarchist Action Network (ECC-RAAN)

ECC-RAAN ---- We are excited by the resurgence of the RAAN-hub and expect the network to 
grow in influence in direct proportion to the amount of energy each unique individual 
brings to the project. However, we feel the need to define ourselves as a distinct network 
with its own context and its own interpretation of the RAAN founding documents; our 
locationality provides us with the ability to highlight and elaborate some of the lesser 
defined notions which were originally brought to the fore by the main RAAN organizing 
efforts. ---- More than a dozen people attended the first ever meeting of the East Coast 
Red & Anarchist Action Network. The following document (please supplement this document 
with Defining the Red & Anarchsit Action Network) was drawn up by participants and used as 
a basis on which to build further discussion.

--begin document--

Defining the East Coast Red & Anarchist (Action) Network (ECC-RA(A)N)



The following words are an exercise in futility. Since its inception the Red & Anarchist 
Action Network (RAAN) has suffered from the larger anarcho-cultural need to define and 
categorize its own existence into various fractions of an unappreciated whole: to condense 
the experiences of countless participants into a hastily-written summary. In short, to 
define and self-define according to the pre-existing formula of ostensibly insurrectionary 
activity (in both "organizational" and "anti-organizational" forms). This page seeks to 
counter these distortions by presenting different viewpoints as to the essential nature of 
the East Coast Red & Anarchist (Action) Network (ECC-RA(A)), perhaps at the risk of being 
confusing in the sense of not offering a single pre-defined box in which to fit the network.

We are excited by the resurgence of the RAAN-hub and expect the network to grow in 
influence in direct proportion to the amount of energy each unique individual brings to 
the project. However, we feel the need to define ourselves as a distinct network with its 
own context and its own interpretation of the RAAN founding documents; our locationality 
provides us with the ability to highlight and elaborate some of the lesser defined notions 
which were originally brought to the fore by the main RAAN organizing efforts. Our context 
is the following: something is brewing in the east coast. As countless anti-authoritarian 
groups split ways we are faced with a growing population of hopeless comrades, but we do 
not see this as an indication of defeat: it is an indication of potential. Battle lines 
are slowly being drawn and we are coming to recognize that our enemies are in the most 
unlikely of places. Comrades are finally beginning to distinguish themselves from the 
wider authoritarian milieu, older anarchists are growing up and finding friends in other 
places , and lower-class and homeless anti-authoritarians are being excluded from the 
larger middle-class scenes. We place an emphasis on good theory but feel the need to act 
in order to take advantage of the current situation: we have written "action" under 
erasure in the title of our network because we believe that it is impossible to dissociate 
it from the implications of thought and, as a young network, we are in the process of 
thought. We have universally agreed that the important questions for us are among the 
following:

1) What is the problem of the anti-authoritarian milieu in eastern canada?

2) What is the relationship of the ECC-RAAN to the larger RAAN network?

3) How can we overcome the problems of meetings?

4) What is our relationship with the rest of the Left?

5) How can we maintain an anti-authoritarian base network?

We have only begun to discuss these questions. Beneath each question we have found only 
more questions. However, we have all converged on the basis of our understanding that 
there is a crisis of anti-authoritarianism in the east-coast; we have identified the 
following problems which we hope to further articulate in the future.:

1) Centrally Planned Committees; we have identified at least three "linchpins" for the 
radical milieu in eastern canada. That is, radical culture appears to conglomerate around 
these three central nodes. We believe that these distinctive activist organizations act as 
hegemonic blocs and operate with more power than they deserve. We believe them to be a 
hindrance to anti-authoritarian organizing and we would like to explore tactics for 
overcoming this problem.

2) Scenesterism; Scenes are a hotspot for gossip, the construction of trends, and the 
building of social capital. Scene culture in Halifax and Fredericton, in particular, 
drains our radical potential. We must find ways to erase the scene or to have it play a 
much less significant part in our everyday lives.

3) Mutual Aid/Diversity of Tactics; There is a strong misunderstanding as to what mutual 
aid means in the east coast. Activists/Scenesters have used doublespeak to convert the 
meaning of these concepts into an embrace of purely authoritarian projects with 
nonreciprocating support. At the same time anti-authoritarians are not being offered any 
hospitality because of petty ideological differences. We will either retain and defend 
these two notions or build something new and more nuanced in its place.

4) Isolationism; potential comrades are being excluded from scenes, cliques, and 
middle-class activist projects. These folks have always been willing to join our struggle 
and yet we have overlooked them, and we will continue to overlook them. We will find new 
ways to network with the most isolated comrades in eastern canada.

This list is only a brainstorm. We hope to encourage action but also good theory and we 
hope that our social form will manifest itself as a "reflective anti-authoritarian 
network" (or, "an organized contradiction"), that is, as a network that 
anti-authoritarians can see themselves within. We hope to combat all forms of 
sectarianism, activism, scenesterism, *as well as* the external policing of our desires by 
any number of political and social institutions. We will support all comrades in struggle.
  ------------------
Copied from infoshop.org
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* An antiauthoritarian anticapitalist initiative network
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