anarcha adventures

So I am dreaming a little bit of a little bit of freedom. I’m thinking of seceding to start a radical tech collective - some kind of glue between activists and computers, an administrator of computers, linux boxes, paper, printers and websites. 

I wonder if it could work?

If so, on what basis? Could I charge a subscription for resources? And how much is too much? When does it stop being a collective and start being a business?

Though I would love to make money, I’ve no desire to make it off my comrades / friends / acquaintences … I’d rather ask for a handout than scam a profit.

I’d love to set up a radical office space here in Sydney.

Basically, I was being slack. I took the site offline to change hosts to the community-minded http://axxs.org , and just didn’t manage to get the job done. So, I thought, “why wait any longer?” The site is now online for your anarchista pleasures…do with it what you will! At some time, I’ll have to actually complete that maintenance, but for now, revolutionary grrrls, anarchafem is up!

Its another Hallmark Holiday, but I’m finding today that I’ve cause for pause. Today, I reflect on the love and solidarity in my life - my few and close friends and family, my trusted comrades both far and near.

Yeah - there is something to celebrate this year!

Also, I used some tacky xmas cards to send secret valentines to my flatmates. Its simple to convert them to valentines cards: simply use a texta to cross out "Merry Christmas" and write in "Happy Valentines!"

So this year, I’m sending my love out there to all my lovely comrades. Love love love youse all!

Part of my anxiety re: Jura is that I am afraid of failing to be the right woman involved in the project. Perhaps a better woman could have got along with everyone and not started any fights? Perhaps the right woman could bring other women into the project more successfully than I can? Maybe a more patient woman could interact more humbly than I can?

But y’know what? That kind of thinking is fucked up. I am who I am - and I need to be dealt with on that basis. My issues aren’t because I have a mistaken appriasal of the project and how I can contribute (or how it should reward me). It isn’t that I am making trouble for the heck of it. It isn’t because I am too bold or have political differences with the rest of the collective.

Oh no. Its not. I know it is not.

I had a dream last night that S* was clearing out his stuff from the Jura shop desk

It was a hollow victory in my dream.

I felt that S* retreated from my genuine interest, not from a ‘fight’. But that my interest was perceived by others as a challenge. My intention wasn’t at any time to drive him away, but only to become interested.

In my dream, I was glad and sad. Mostly sad because I didn’t mean to make someone leave, just wanted to destroy their authority over me!

But is that naïve?

I went to the meeting, and it was OK. There were some visitors, and that broke some tension. I really delayed about whether or not to go, and I felt just awful turning up. I was upfront with people who asked how I was going - and I spose some of them thought it was some kind of threat "I’m not good, I’m considering whether I should leave the collective".  Maybe it was a threat, who bloody knows! I can only say I didn’t mean it like that.

So the question remains - do I keep working there, or can I move on? 

I feel really bad about going to Jura tonight for the meeting. I had talked to my flatmate roaringwomyn about a mediation we had between S* and I last week. I had felt like it was an opporunity to vent and little more. I got called out for having "incorrect perceptions" of S’s sexism and ageism against me… and general undermining of my activities (and not similar actions of others).

The mediation beat around the bush for hours before it got to the issue of why S and I don’t get on. I got called out by a younger collective member for venting my frustration at S over the last month because he is an "easy target" because he is older, been in the collective longer and appears as a figure of authority. Anyway, I was talking to roaringwomyn, and she made some good points about how this all manifested… She pointed out that its a misnomer to call a discussion of my problems with S a "mediation" because that personalises what is happening, it denies that other women in my position (notably, Pirate) had exactly the same issues with S and were treated in exactly the same way by S.

Having a mediation just clears the board of all the other women he’s alienated, and makes it a problem between Anna and S, or rather, it makes it Ann’s problem with S. The other collective members are all men, and don’t get the same level of hassling. I also wasn’t happy with how things turned out. Basically, S didn’t have to admit mistreating me (even though I fully admitted being narky over the last month). He just had to nod slightly when J asked him not to be patronising. The blokes were trying to convince me that "it was a victory". Really. Roaringwomyn said something great about that: "its your feelings, they can’t tell you that you ‘won’ when you don’t feel that way". Tonight there is a collective meeting, and I don’t feel like going. This is for several reasons. Mostly because I feel unsupported in what I put into the Jura project. It just doesn’t feel reciprocal. Really. I know that the outside world won’t give things to us, but I don’t feel like the collective gives back either. Its cold.

 
I also don’t want to go because there is a new woman getting interested, and its clear that S has a big interest in her (she is lovely and beautiful). But it arouses my jealousy - because there will be a favourite female to disprove everything I’ve gone through, because any new potentially interested person is worth more than me to the collective (we all have to be on best behaviour, and that means not talking about feeling shortchanged). And her being there just eclipses me. Not that I have anything against this particular person (I don’t, she’s great), but I have a problem with the politics of treating all women as politically interchangeable. Next time I complain, it’ll be "oh well, she doesn’t have a problem". I know that because I saw it happen to Pirate. I was the new cunt that invalidated Pirate’s struggle - whether I wanted to be or not. Just because my issues were different to hers. Just because it took them years to wear through me.