MANIFESTO
INTRO: PURPOSE
Attempts at reenvisioning our future as a place of solidarity, mutual aid, equity and degrowth require questioning existing power structures. Addressing social inequities is at the very heart of criticising authoritian structures and without it, we can never enable egalitarian and equitable relationships that are key to any anarchist vision.
In Zagreb we as anarchists see the need to explictly approach one of these systems of inequity and domination: the patriarchy. As an established system of domination, it continues to contribute to the marginalisation, exploitation and violent repercussions against us who do not obey the strictly defined, submissive roles surrounding the figure of the dominant cis-male. Even in our anarchist collectives and communities, these power strukctures are reproduced and too often go unchallenged and unquestioned. This enables violence and further subjugation/marginalisation/domination and poses a direct obstacle to our visions.
WHO ARE WE?
We are an autonomous, self organized group of queer anarcho feminists that want to create a safe space for adressing the problems of opression and fight against all forms of discrimination based on gender and sexuality.
We are anarchists because we are against any kind of domination and exploitation and we want to create a free society in which such domination and explotiation will be abolished.
Our group was formed as a response to the present state of patriarchal society and tolerance to physical and sexual violence to women and queer persons in our society. This is also visible in our circles and there is a need to raise awareness and condemn this kind of behaviour starting from our spaces and groups and spread our principles in wider society.
We are based in Zagreb but we come from different parts of the world, “countries” and cultures. Also, we have different experiencies and ways to be involved in activism and we want to share different ways to fight against the patriarchal system and talk about methods that could be different depending on our previous experience and background, to get more cultural diverse knowledge about how to act, or what strategies we can use.
GOALS/AIMS
Specifically addressing anarcha-queer-feminist topics within and outside of anarchist organisations in Zagreb, including examining existing structures and projects claiming to be anarchist from an anarcha-queer-feminist angle, and so identify places where development of inclusivity is still needed
Building a support network and places to share experiences with patriarchial violence so that these can be properly adressed, called out and places free – as far as possible – from such violence can be created
Educating – through our own organizing, by embodiying the values and world we want to create and through more direct knowledge sharing efforts we aim to encourage a cognitive shift in how we perceive the world and dismantle all forms of domination – the state, gender, hetero- and cis-sexism, marriage and the nuclear family and so on
WHO DO WE WELCOME TO JOIN OUR STRUGGLE?
We support trans and cis women, trans men, genderqueer, two-spirit and non-binary people, intersex people, queer people, people of all races and ethnicities, people on the move, sex workers, undocumented and criminalised people, people with different physical abilities, neurodivergent persons, people of all beliefs (as long as they don’t clash with our values), and many more who are marginalised and oppressed by the current system. Those of you who share our values, listed below, please reach out and let’s turn our fury into a constructive aim to change this doom and gloom world in which we live!
Ultimately we wish for cis-men to fight alongside us, seeing as we all suffer under the patriarchy. However, the same patriarchial domination schemes are bound to be repeated; even in anarchist circles we see how male voices are heard and received more and how they often take the leading role. Confirming this, some of the reactions to the forming of this group reflect the common misunderstanding that excluding the dominant group from marginalised self-organisation is somehow “discrimination” (as if you would invite the bosses to the initial stages of workers unionising). But many of the aforementioned behavioural patterns are best eliminated by simply not allowing cis-men into the group, at least while we are gathering our bearings and establishing a healthy group dynamic.
That said, we do offer help to anyone and everyone that comes in peace and solidarity.
This paragraph, along with the rest of the manifesto, was written at the very beginning of our coming together. Now, a year into our organizing, we have decided to reevaluate again and have determined this decision has expired. While this has been a continued conversation throughout the year, alongside discussing our rejection of identity politics, we are aware we made it consciously, mostly out of pragmatic reasons – it was simply easier than having to engage in transformative processes when the group is still young and on bambi legs. We have collaborated with cis-men in actions and our educational efforts, but have kept the core organizing closed to them. We now feel more confident in our non-hierarchical, caring structure and think we are ready to deal with any machism and patriarchal behaviours that might come our way and are excited to open up the space for participation by cis-men. We do however ask that everybody – but especially cis men – focus on acting without dominating spaces, listening and reflecting their behaviours – so we ask for the discrete presence of cis male comrades who want to learn.
OUR VALUES
– anti-authoritarianism – we consciously strive to call out both formal and informal forms of centralised power
– care – we notice patterns of the patriarchal neoliberal economy – such as competition and aggressive communication and behaviour – being perpetuated in social relations within and outside our groups. Instead, we want active care and camaraderie as the basis of our social relations and communities
– eco-feminism – recognizing that the patriarchal culture and capitalist economy subjugate and exploit women and other marginalized groups much in the same way as they do with nature is critical in connecting (and better understanding) these struggles, making us more aware of repeating patterns of domination and more thorough and tactical in dismantling these systems of opression (which makes us stronger and more aware of problems in our society)
– anti-speciesism – we vouch to respect and care for all living beings, regardless of their proximity to the human condition
– anti-colonialism and anti-racism – bearing in mind our privilege, we are actively trying to unlearn colonial and white supremacist biases and fight cultural domination. we see specific forms of racism and xenophobia occuring in our regional context (anti-roma sentiments, violence against refugees..) which we vouch to help dismantle, and in turn aid the free movement of people
– anti-nationalism and anti-fascism – recognizing the violent history (and present) of the Balkan region and still unreconciled ethnic tensions, we believe that explicitly fighting against nationalist movements is central in building a better community
– anti-capitalism – instead of allowing patriarchial neoliberal capitalism to undermine the entirety of our social relations and watch how commodification of all aspects of life takes place (this includes homonormative consumerism and pink capitalism!!), we are actively working on the basis of mutual aid, solidarity economy, sharing practices and ‘everyone according to their ability, everyone according to their needs’. we can’t have constant economic growth, but we can have more of what really matters.
– intersectionalism – all forms of marginalization and violence – racism, sexism, heteronormativity, amatonormativity, transphobia and transmisogyny, ableism, sizeism, nationalism, classism – work in sync to keep up the opressive structures of domination; we cannot ignore any of these if we want to achieve equity and peace
– anti-assimilationism – we refuse to have our identities and expressions subdued and molded in order to be more palatable and ‘better tolerated’ within the current society and strive to create spaces of plurality where we operate, work, look and feel in divergent ways
– bodily autonomy – we refuse to have our experiences and decisions regarding our bodies goverened and strictly controlled by the state and instead opt to fight to have a bigger agency in regards to reproductive and sexual health, gender affirming care, mental healthcare and more
– anarcha-queer-feminism
HOW DO WE OPERATE?
– prefiguration – we believe the way to create a new world is to take steps to create it and live the life we want to live. we want our actions and way of organising to reflect the future society we would like to live in
– local response – we share our concerns in the groups and circles where we are active to raise awareness about problematic situations and persons and create a safer space for the affected persons, we organize within the local context to address and aid in specific needs of our communities and create bonds with other groups that share our values and work towards the same goals but that may fight on different fronts
– anti-authoritarian, holistic approach to living and organising – we want to work on strengthening our bodily, mental, emotional, interpersonal and other instincts and to engage both practically and theoretically
– a horizontal, non-hierarchical organizing structure operating in a participative way, on a consensus basis – any ideas or concerns you might have are welcome!
Through our growth, we plan to organize different workshops and campaigns; you’ll be more than welcome to use every one of those, or just one – whatever you need.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH?
vrrrane@riseup.net <3