zaginflatch #11

what's new within zap

As you could assume from the introduction, we'repretty down in numbers. This could change quickly, but right now there are only 3 actually active members of ZAP. We can get some support whenever there's something going on, but that doesn't really count. This even isn't to much of a problem for us, only it brigs out the question if there is a point in calling ourselves a movement.
Right now we have only a few projects going on. Besides producing written material and translating, our proppably most important project is the reopening of our infoshop. This used to be a great place to cultivate ideas and energy and also introduce new people to radical ideas. It's been over a year since we had to close down our old place, and it's definitevly time to start again. We're allways looking for new material for our infoshop and library, so if you are in a position to include us on your mailing list, please do that. Also, if you have some material you don't really need anymore, feel free to send it in. There's allways a need for new information.
Another long term project is to publish a book on history of anarchism. It's been more than 13 years since last book on anarchism was published here, so we want to do that. Right now we're still collecting funds to be able to press it, and we expect that it should be out sometime next year.
Besides that, there's nothing new with us.

** short news from Yugoslavia **

- An open forum called "Anarchism and the State" was held on 15th May in Belgrade. Guest speakers were Laslo Sekelj and Trivo Indjic two most well known "academic anarchists" in pre war Yugoslavia. The event was organized through a club of students of philosophy with a support of few individuals. The attendance was poor though (20-).
- Two new groups arose in Yugoslavia. Krtica from Smederevo (you can proppably contact them through Torpedo ------- add!!!!) and Crni Kriz from Belgrade (Pandza Bojan; Partizanska 19\20; 11090 Beograd; Yugoslavia). We still have to see which will be their fields of interests, although Crni Kriz allready started doing some antimilitarist stuff.
- Torpedo translated another pamphlet. Rudolf Roker: Methods of Anarchosyndicalism, and it's extracts form the author's wider work - Anarchosyndicalism.
- Some small groups have made a couple of postering actions in Kraljevo and Sombor. The posters were of different context, from antimilitarist through antisexist to anti police violence. All together around 300 posters were pasted in both cities.
- A new issue of Prigovor - antimilitarist newspaper - was published. Again, it's a very nice effort by Belgrade's NGO Vomen in Black. The paper is free and given away all over Yugoslavia, in 4000 copies.

ARKzin goes underground!

Arkzin vas established as a zine of antiwar campaign back in 1991. With time, it grew into a solid bimonthly with a press run of 8000 and countrywide distribution. As one of the rare (if not the only one) newspapers which openly opposed the war, militant nationalism and narrow minded pollitical oportunism, Arkzin was often under attack. Verbally, phisically, in writting, finantially and even through law suits.
Arkzin stands for human rights, ecology, alternative culture, multiculturality, and much more. They even sometimes bring topics connected with anarchism, such as an interwiev with N.Chomsky or Tribute to Duruti.
After almost 7 years of resistance, facing huge finantial problems, and distribution problems they were forced to take drastic steps. From late July, Arkzin became a monthly zine (no more payed work) with a considerably smaller press run (2000) and limited distribution. From one point of wiev, that's bad since this kind of journalism will be less available to an average Croatian. They had to take a round rute to their readers, which means less exposure. Also, the circulation drop is drastic. From the other point of wiev, it's excellent to see that they'll continue fighting no matter how big are the problems they face, and also that most of the stuff agreed to keep on working for free. It's a great opportunity for them to consolidate their forces, and also find a solid and supportive body of people who will continue to read them. This measure (them moving underground) has both positive and negative sides. It's hard to predict which will prevail.
Unfortunately, it's to be expected that we'll write more about Arkzin in future editions of Zaginflatch, because we're still waiting for the development of a law suit in which the state accused Arkzin's chief editor Vesna Jankovic for making untrue statements about the president, which is a criminal act in Croatia. Vesna could end up in prison for up to one year! Zap has allready participated in events protesting against this barbaric act of state, and we'll surely do more. Arkzin can be reached at: ARKZIN_ZG@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.apc.org

McDonald's rejected in Bosnia

After almost one year of negotiation, the government of Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina declared that they'll not allow McDonald's to open their restaurants on their territory. Bosnian government has put certain condition in front of McRepresentatives, asking them to invest more in the local production, while McD insisted in importing almost all repromaterial. At the end no agreement was made. Bosnians have also declared how McDonald's would endanger a huge privat sector of traditional small food shops selling Burek and Cevapcici.
It'd be naive to think how Bosnian government decided to put an end to western imperialism. After all that was just neggotiations between a multinational company and a government. But, they did chooze local and traditional instead of western culture, and McDonalds is the most widespread symbol of it. So far, Bosnia is the only Eastern European country which has refused them. Let's be happy while it lasts.

Normalization

Tuff. However, it's slowly progressing, and what gives us a lot of hope is that some people managed to actually return to their homes. Some of them still blindly follow government meassures and wait to be sent back, but there have been cases of sponanious returns. Some people just said to themselves: O.K. I trust my neighbours enough to get back, and returned withouth asking for permitions, invitations or organized tours. Those people actually realized that there's no point in waiting while states build peace. They have to build the peace themselves, and it's happening.
This ussually brings trouble. Although there have been cases of cohabitation in many areas, some cases of violence and breakings of human rights appeared and that frightens many more people who could follow these steps of peace building. We still have a long way to go, but we're walking.
In Bosnia, the way is even harder and certainly longer. Also, most people are hardly moving anywhere.

Meeting in Zagreb

From 11.4. to 13.4. there was a meeting of some anarchists from Slovenia and Croatia in Zagreb. It was organised by ZAP, and has happened in the Antiwar Campaign Croatia's office. We have sent invitations at 35 addresses, which means that there were far many people invited indirectly. The turnout was not bad, so we had participants from Pula, Ljubljana, Idrija, Solkan, Po\ega, Donji Miholjac, Split, St. Vincent, Bizeljsko and Zagreb. There were around 40 of us hanging around ARK's office those days, but a considerably smaller number of people actually participated in the discussions.
As one of the goals of the meeting, we have set better cooperation between individuals. Therefore, folloving topics were some of the propposed for discussion:
- setting up of a reggular anarchist magazine with vider distribution, and which would be a certain forum for all of us. Possibilities of creating a stronger network, presence in the public, information flow, opening of infoshops.
- relations with present Yugoslavia during the war, possibilities of coordinated actions, organisation of an ex-yu anarchist meeting.

Some topics were discussed, some weren't, and our goal also wasn't acchieved. This meeting didn't plant grounds for better (organised) cooperation between individuals; in any form. It just showed that at present there's no energy for such an attempt. We just had to realize that our future work will have to remain similar as it was in the past, meaning through personal contacts. Nevertheless, those 3 days weren't a complete waste. They showed us present situation in our local anarchist movement. Also, they've brought together some people who didn't know each other from before which will hopefully lead to new joint efforts. You could look at the recently held meeting in Hungary as at one of those efforts (for more info see elsewhere in this issue of Zaginflatch).
Also, we agreed to make another issue of Over the Walls of Nationalism and War newsletter. A newsletter of ex-Yu anarchists with articles from both Croatia and Yugoslavia. This (second) issue is almost finished and it should be out early this Autumn.
Finaly, another new idea arose. It's supposed to be an action against borders and growing tensions on the Slovenian and Croat border. The idea was to make a more-less spontanious meeting atbothshores of the river Sutla which divides those two countries, but it's jet to be seen if and who will have enough energy to put it into reality; i.e. how much time will it take us this time.
At the end we could just say "stay in touch", and for the rest we'll just have to see.

EX-YU ANARCHIST MEETING.
TISZAFURED, HUNGARY FROM 21.8. TO 24.8.

Hm. We did it. We finally managed to meet. The idea of this meeting arose years ago, while the war was still raging. The need for it was (and still is) obvious. The only way how we could show to each other that we oppose to what has happened in ex-Yugoslavia.
There were some nice attempts of cooperation during the years, some concrete doings grew out of them, but also some conflicts have appeared. That was another reason to meet. There were plenty of potential motives. Unfortunately not that many people felt like that, but more about that later.

So, it was ZAP who has proposed for this meeting, and B.A.T. (Budapesti Autonomi Tarsulas) who have helped us a great deal to put the idea into reality. Our part was to think of a concept, and spread the word, while B.A.T. was in charge of finding a nice place to camp and of dealing with concrete problems such as how to get there.

How it should have been

Since there was not to much time to make the concept itself, we decided just to propose for the meeting, and offer the participants a chance to create the agenda themselves. We asked everybody to suggest what do they want to do at the meeting and to prepare themselves in that context. We did that because we didn't want to monopolize the whole thing and chooze the discusions by ourselves, as we had some bad experiences with that in the past. This kind of organizing seemed the closest to direct democraty we could get.
Spreading of information was done through 3 local contacts, in Slovenia, Croatia and Yugoslavia.
We also created a form, and asked everybody who's gonna come to fill it up in advance and send to local contacts. That wasn't obligatory, but we hoped to get a clue of who's comming and what they want to do.
The camping place choozen by B.A.T. was on the river Tisa. The egact spot was a secret, but we were all supposed to meet at two meeting points at certain times and proceede together.
All this information was provided in a written form, at quite many addresses. Our estimation was that there were sent between 300 and 500 invitations.

The Reality

Our Slovenian contact didn't get any confirmations, and nobody from Slovenia came to the meeting. We, in Zagreb also didn't receive any written confirmations but got at least 10 verbal ones. 4 persons from Croatia came to the meeting, but we know that more left the country in order to get there. At least two got lost in Hungary since they came to late to the meeting points, and for the rest we don't know jet.
In Yugoslavia approximately 10 persons confirmed their arrival. Some in writting, some verbally. At the end 5 of them came, although one day later since they also missed the meeting points.
At the end, there were 9 of us from ex-Yugoslavia, 2 comrades from the Polish Anarchist Federation, and 4 members of B.A.T.
What was the reason for such a poor turn out, we don't know. Some people said that it was to far for them, others that they're not interested in that meeting (!), some people didn't have the money to travel and some just didn't show up. On the other hand, for last two months we were receiving nothing, but positive responces regarding the meeting, and it seemed that a lot of people will show up.It will remain mistery why it turned out to be just the opposite.

The camping place was nice. A small island on Tisa, near Tisafured. It was almost ideal, only if there weren't so many moskitos. Also, the rest of organisation done by B.A.T. was quite o.k.. Everything was thought of nicely. The only problem was the mess with meeting places and times since some people didn't make it on time. Sure, they were given a phone number they could call and get more details, but this person didn't speak any foreign language, and that was a bit problematic. All in all, nobody should have any remarks on that part of organization since it was done the best it could have been done.

The meeting itself

In such a small group there was no need for an actual agenda. There were no conditions for any workshops with concrete results such as written material or paintings or flags or whatever, so we just decided to talk a lot. And we did. For the whole time, we just went on talking about so many different things, mainly sharing information and experiences. Sometimes all together, and sometimes in small groups of two or three. Spontaniously. The only conceptual discussion (or more like a presentation) was when B.A.T. and F.A. presented theirwork. That was nice, and interesting.
We all exchanged a lot of material, and at the end hugged and kissed and went sepparate ways.

Conclusion

Although the meeting wasn't what we expected it to be, it was somehow a very positive experience. This was the first meeting of a kind, and therefore important just because of that. People who came will hopefully now have the energy to work more to make this meetings more regularly which should also result with some concrete results. At least, that's what we're hoping for.
We'we made new friends. Now, some people we cooperated with in the past also have faces and voices. They'renot just letters on paper or screen anymore. It all got more personal.
For any other conclusions you should have been there yourselves.
This is just a short report anyway.

To get in touch:

ZAP - ARK
GAJEVA 55
10 000 ZAGREB
CROATIA
e-mail: ZAP_ZG@ZAMIR-ZG.ZTN.APC.ORG