[LAF] Fuck For Forest at A-Kongress

Wed Jul 1 07:22:21 UTC 2009

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Joy Wood wrote:
> "Maybe the people screaming to us and threatening us because
>> we were naked or part of a non-profit erotic website should think
>> about what the word sexism means; Suppressing someone because of their
>> sexuality or sexual orientation. And this was now happening to us"
> Quote from [male] FFF member
>  
> Er no, actually, sexism is *not* suppressing someone because of their
> sexuality or sexual orientation (that's homophobia, etc, etc), sexism is
> treating someone in a certain way as if they were a member of a  "class"
> because of their assigned gender.  Under patriarchy this might mean, as
> a couple of examples
>  
> 1.  not allowing girls or women into lucrative professions and/or
> keeping them in unpaid or underpaid occupations, and 
>  
> 2.  conscripting men and boys but not women or girls as soldiers,
> training them to kill, and sending them to war to kill and be killed.
>  
> It doesn't seem likely that FFF were objected to because of their
> nakedness but it does seem from the report by Gabriel Kuhn, and by the
> report of the comrade who first alerted Volodya, that some member/s of
> FFF acted agressively and made sexist and homophobic remarks.  Before
> going into denial and accusing others of not only lying, but lying
> deliberately and maliciously moreover, to try to discredit FFF, an
> attempt could have been made to consider whether the behaviour of [a]
> certain member/s of FFF might have contributed/ignited the trouble by
> their insulting (not sexy*, but sexist) offensive (not 'publicy sexual'
> but plain boorish) behaviour.
>  
> Joy
>  
> *I agree some people confuse sex and sexism, FFF's statement shows signs
> of this.

FFF are not anarchist nor are they feminists, therefore when they have said that
sexism means repressing somebody for their sexuality i took it to mean the same
thing as when people say "disallowing me to speak my native language is racism",
it's technically wrong (this would be nationalism or anglo-centrism, but not
racism), but you can understand what the person is trying to say, they mean
"discrimination" and just use the term for specific discrimination in the
all-encompassing way.

Now you are saying "It doesn't seem likely..." but if you read the websites
which blame FFF member(s) for everything which has happened, and when you talk
to people who were there (i do not have permission to reproduce the internet
communication which took place between me and some participants of A-Kongress)
you get the following:
1. FFF members showed up to a workshop on 'sex' and stripped down.
2. Commotion began after somebody demanded that they either put their clothes on
or will be forced to leave.
3. FFF members were accused of making homophobic and sexist statements (nobody
has heard any such statements)
4. FFF members refused to leave and started to encourage others to join them
(and some people wanted to do just that).
5. No discussion was set up by organisers, who have simply stopped the talk.

on the next day

1. FFF members showed up again, unclothed.
2. Organisers of A-Kongress have cancelled everything which was planned,
apologising only for allowing FFF to enter in the first place.

As i have said, if somebody can demand that another person dresses in the
specific way (or at all) or leaves it should be more than ok to demand that it
is that person who leaves and stops disrupting the meeting. Previously i might
have considered the feelings of somebody who feels uncomfortable with the nude
expression, and in the similar situation would try to stay out of the debate;
however, after knowing what has happened at A-Kongress i believe that the best
course of action is to tell the "hurt" party to fuck off, before the commotion
starts, as that is exactly the goal of that person (as accusations can be easily
made after there is a lot of noise).

Now, this does not mean that i am 100% sure that not a single FFF member said
something which may be considered sexist or homophobic by an anarchist, in fact
it is quite likely (FFF are not anarchists, they found themselves in a
threatening situation, if we assume that they wanted to verbally insult somebody
and knowing that the strongest insults in our language are based on one form of
discrimination or another, it's possible that those insults were used). However,
i am 100% positive that FFF were being forced to put the clothes on when they
did not feel like doing that (note that not even the most fundamentalist
feminists dispute that). So faced with the situation of two wrongs the first of
which has definitely occurred and the second of unknown status, the first of
which has preceded the second (if that second has happened), with the party
accused of the first refusing to acknowledge the wrong of the action, but the
party accused of the second stating that they are in principle opposed to the
act... I ask what am i to say? Should i defend the person who demands the right
to strip others of their freedom to strip? Or should i instead stand on the side
of those who have been wronged by somebody who claims the same label as me
("anarchist")? To me the answer is clear.

                 - Volodya

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