New Draft Proposal for an Anarchist Black Cross Network

Introduction

Former Black Panther, political prisoner and a longtime anarchist revolutionary named Lorenzo Komboa Ervin wrote "A Draft Proposal for an Anarchist Black Cross Network" in 1979. The ABC movement was one of those organizations instrumental in helping see Komboa free, and Komboa spoke passionately for the development of a united movement around issues of incarceration and prisoner support. In the 1990s, these ideas were a catalyst in helping many ABC groups find focus. His ideas, while written years ago, embody principles that define our movement:

The stated purpose of the Anarchist Black Cross Network is to actively assist prisoners in their fight to obtain their civil and human rights, and to aid them in their struggle against the State/Class penal and judicial system. The prison system is the armed fist of the State, and is a system for State slavery. It is not really for "criminals" or other "social deviants," and it does not exist for the "protection of society."

It is for State social control and political repression. Thus it must be opposed at every turn and ultimately destroyed altogether. The abolition of prisons, the system of Laws, and the Capitalist State is the ultimate objective of every true Anarchist, yet there seems to be no clear agreement by the Anarchist movement to put active effort to that anti-authoritarian desire. We must organize our resources to support all political/class war prisoners if we truly wish to be their allies, and we must give something more than lip service.

Organizing against the enemy legal and penal system is both offensive and defensive. It is carried on with individuals, groups and among the masses in the community. We must inform the people on a large scale of the atrocities and inhumanity of the prisons, the righteousness of our struggle, and the necessity of their full participation and support. We must organize our communities to attack the prison system as a moral and social abomination, and we must fight to free all political/class war prisoners.

Since Lorenzo Komboa Ervin wrote those words, he has stated in recent lectures support for uniting with all prisoners, understanding the profound gulfs of race and class as they relate to incarceration, and of anarchists taking a stronger role in putting prison abolition, incarceration and criminalization on the global agenda of resistance.

The network proposal is the result of several dialogues over the last six months. Among the questions that arose was perhaps the most critical one, "in considering criminal injustice, rates of incarceration, racial disparities, the spirit and nature in which laws are applied and, of course, our collective analysis as people concerned about increasing repression, class warfare of haves against have nots, and for a freer, more just society... what is political? And aren't we waging a common struggle, despite the 'single issue' work?"

What is political about the injustice system, how laws are applied, who goes to jail and how bias factors into that?

What is political about the factors that play into "crime" and how sanction is applied?

And are we, as revolutionaries, little more than collaborators in genocide if we do not stand up?

This understanding is not so much a critique of terms such as "political prisoner," but of analyzing the politics of prisons, social control, law, sexism, racism and power. For years, the ABC and anarchist movements have grasped how each of these issues profoundly affects the lives of people, and have acted in the interests of freedom by building resistance. This must continue.

From country to country and state to state, figures are staggering, but the facts remain the same: Third World/indigenous/people of color and the working class and poor are forced into existences in which communities are gentrified; in which they are targeted over race and class or worse if they are "illegal" immigrants or refugees; health care, child care, food and rents go out of reach in costs; and their "choices" are nothing more than setups to lock them away. Public policies target youth in systematic and institutional ways that hinder the realization of human rights. Racist and discriminatory institutions and organizations, such as the police, prisons, and border controls and police target people, particularly Third World/people of color and immigrants, via public policies. Revolutionaries who speak out and fight against the conditions of society are imprisoned or killed. And we are expected to stand by until they come for us, if they haven't done it already.

What follows is a new proposal for an Anarchist Black Cross Network. It reconsiders and adopts many of Komboa's old ideas, as well as makes practical suggestions for building an anarchist network of independent groups united in fighting incarceration, repression and injustice worldwide. Many of the European ABC comrades have already taken the initiative to start the building process of this network, so the idea is not new. This effort is merely to put an explanation to a tendency that is already developing and will continue to grow.

Purpose

The Anarchist Black Cross Network should be a decentralized and egalitarian network of organizations committed to the original ideals of the Anarchist Black Cross movement -- of seeing prisons and the poverty, racism and genocide that accompanies them to be symptoms of a social order whose last days are near. The proposed purposes of the ABC Network are:

• To unite the many autonomous prisoners, activists and organizations working for prisoner support, defense and freedom in a decentralized, anti-authoritarian fashion. There has been some fractionalization of the struggle, for various reasons, over the years. Certain groups defended certain prisoners, while paying lip service to others. Certain activists stayed focused in a particular issue, but didn't have the resources to get involved elsewhere. The purpose of the ABC Network should not be one of waging battles over differences, but of finding ways to unite us in a way that is still decentralized and anti-authoritarian. Whether you do work around earth liberation prisoners, "social prisoners," those recognized internationally as political prisoners, anti-colonial/independence prisoners, juvenile injustice, refugee/immigrant criminalization, the roots of prisons (i.e. poverty, capital, racism, et al.) should only be important to an ABC Network as far as how the unity of many groups that truly see 'an injury to one is an injury to all' can help your work. The job of a network, clearly, is not to change a group's current work, but to be a compliment to the work already being done.
• To serve as a clear and easy-to-use communications tool for activists, prisoners, organizations, families and supporters around issues related to the movement. If it is to be effective, the ABC Network must primarily serve as a communications and working base for prisoners, community people, activists, groups (i.e. autonomous ABC groups and anarchist, prisoner, liberation, freedom, justice, anti-colonial/independence and/or issue-oriented community groups, etc.) and others who engage in activities consistent with the basic spirit and vision of the ABC movement. So often, groups and organizers change, prisoners are transferred, new campaigns start and old campaigns end. This would be an effort to facilitate communication around varied issues -- from the latest transfers, to disbanded collectives to international support efforts and so on.
• To support, discuss, learn from and engage one another around the Defense and Freedom activities we engage in. As state repression increases, more and more activists are facing fines, prison time, detention without charge, etc. for speaking out. Refugees/immigrants are being criminalized over race and class. Prisoners who were incarcerated for explicitly political acts are being denied parole again and again. Prisoners who went to prison for "social crimes" are coming to consciousness about the true nature of incarceration. And prisons will continue to be built in the name of law and order. These are issues 'regular' people are aware of and which activists are often fighting around in a regional, sometimes isolated, way -- not necessarily by choice, but because all-around support needs to improve. As those familiar with anarchist prisoner Ali Khalid Abdullah's "Where Was the Support for Lorenzo Komboa Ervin and the Chattanooga 3?" will recall, one of our major issues is around unity. The ABC Network is aimed at getting prisoners, community people, activists, groups (i.e. autonomous ABC groups and anarchist, prisoner, liberation, freedom, justice, anti-colonial/independence and/or issue-oriented community groups, etc.) and others learning from each other, communicating and working together around the various campaigns, and finding ways of educating each other with our experiences in a clearer, yet anarchist, way.
• To connect with a movement that understands the "single issues" are part of a much larger movement for freedom, and to work actively to see that struggle grow globally and in all communities. On the surface, fighting for political/class war prisoners, supporting earth liberation prisoners, challenging juvenile injustice, political repression, dealing with criminalization of communities marginalized by the state (such as refugees/immigrants, the homeless and the working class/poor), the death penalty and race/gender disparities in incarceration seem like a mix of issues. In reality, most anarchists and others see these are part of a campaign by the state to attack communities and people. The ABC Network should be part of a movement that understands we all wage a common struggle.

Clearly, a network could take on more goals, but these are merely a start.

Goals

The ABC Network should serve to support collectives around the work they currently do rather than coordinate a set of tasks for collectives in which to participate. Tasks that most community people, activists, groups (i.e. autonomous ABC groups and anarchist, prisoner, liberation, freedom, justice, anti-colonial/independence and/or issue-oriented community groups, etc.) and others engage in already, and which affiliates of the ABC Network should serve to help with via strength in numbers include:

Defense and Freedom Work of the Network

Defense work involves meeting the needs of the prisoners: whether those needs stem from the daily oppression of the prisons, police, courts or the intense repression by State/Class authorities of prison organizers. Prison support by ABCs meets these needs in many ways:

1. Forming outside support groups on a local and national basis in order to ensure prisoners' defense and survival from enemy attack and from inhuman prison conditions.
2. Organizing defense committees on behalf of prisoners framed or railroaded through the Capitalist courts for their political and social beliefs or prison organizing.
3. Organizing support for activists jailed for their outside work and/or repression by authorities.
4. Securing Anarchist and other revolutionary materials for prisoners to read, and fight for their right to receive this literature if prison officials try to ban or prohibit such literature for any reason.
5. Organizing emergency response calls, letters, faxes and email to continually contact "corrections" and other authorities about the treatment of prisoners.
6. Organizing legal defense funds to raise funds for legal fees and to assist prisoners and outside activists and groups.
7. Organizing correspondence for people to write to prisoners and find out about prison conditions and to show their solidarity and human concern, and observers to go into the prisons, visit the prisoners, investigate their complaints, question the officials and monitor the prison for violation of prisoners' rights.

Freedom work means directly challenging the existence of prisons and this work also involves actively campaigning against prison conditions, and propagandizing the actual cases of political/class war prisoners (i.e. prisoners jailed for specific political reasons and those who have become politically aware of the reasons for their oppression while in prison, as well as victims of frame-ups) to the largest possible audience.

Some protest activities many prisoner support, anti-prison and ABC groups engage in today:

1. Linking up the struggles against criminalization and imprisonment with associated social ills: poverty, homelessness, hunger, gentrification, racism, racial/cultural profiling, anti-refugee/immigrant actions, privatization, globalization, the drug war and many other issues.
2. Exposing the fallacy of the Capitalist system of cops, laws and prisons being for the protection of society or as a social necessity.
3. Educating the community, prisoners and others about the class/racist nature of the prisons and the legal system and how to fight against it;
4. Holding protest rallies, marches and street demonstrations in support of prisoners' rights and against the repressive actions of State/Class authorities.
5. Writing press releases and holding news conferences for the Third World/people of color, alternative and radical news media (and sometimes the Capitalist news media) appearing on television and radio news and/or talk shows to discuss prisons.
6. Organizing and/or participating in coalitions with poor people's movements, prison support, Third World/people of color, Women's rights, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender, Church, Left-wing, and other diverse groups, so as to win them over and to integrate the prison struggle into the general movement for social change.
7. Assisting prisoners in getting parole, probation or a pardon by demanding their freedom when they become eligible for parole or are seeking executive clemency.
8. Working against the death penalty and exposing it as an instrument of racial genocide and class and political repression.
9. Demanding the freedom and amnesty of political/class war prisoners, and the abolition of prisons. Especially demand the immediate release of prisoners who have served unnecessarily lengthy sentences.
10. Demanding the immediate closing of all control/isolation/supermax units in prisons.

Any ABC Network that forms should encourage, but not mandate, a diversity of tactics as suggested here and more. The network's proposed communications purpose could certainly also be utilized to help build unity around regional cases and tactics (i.e. demonstrations at consulates, etc.).

Structure and principles

The ABC Network should foremost intended to accomplish the goals above among the many autonomous groups that are doing the grassroots, day-to-day work around campaigns, prisoners, criminalization and liberation. What unites us are the principles mentioned by Komboa -- of struggling to expose injustice, corruption and oppression; supporting prisoners who (consciously or unconsciously) are combatants against the state; providing advice and support to activists who put their bodies on the line in defense of freedom and revolution; and seeing our continued activism, campaigns, etc. in the larger picture of prison abolition and revolutionary change -- as well as our own experiences in creating conditions for change.

There should be no "party line" of the ABC Network. As anarchists, we believe in building a culture of resistance rather than legislating it. How you or your group conducts your effort must solely up to you, although you may want to link up to some activists and resources, work through ideas, learn together and help in others' campaigns. But regardless, how you organize your group must still up to your local conditions and membership.

The ABC Network should do its work in a broad, nonsectarian manner. You should not have to be explicitly named an ABC group to join. Conformity to certain naming, uniform moral/"security" codes, focus, etc., all correctly criticized in previous work, cannot be part of a successful initiative. This is a fundamental difference between the proposed Network and previous initiatives -- having the involvement, input, comments, criticisms and efforts of local organizers, prisoners and groups is a necessity and privilege for an ABC Network to take shape. It is not a necessity or privilege for a network to form and communicate with activists... loose, unannounced networks are already happening. This is merely an effort to make it stronger and unite many around the ideas we're already struggling toward.

Prisoners should be involved in discussions and with area collectives or those collectives supporting the particular prisoner. In many cases, collective-prisoner relations already are building, and everyone should seek to learn how those communications are coordinated and developed among groups. How prisoners feel about the development of the Network is critical to its success and they should be consulted about all of its facets.

Issues of racism and sexism are critical to deal with in the movement as a whole, and all groups should take genuine measures to involve women and Third World/indigenous/people of color in campaigns and, as often as possible, local groups -- not only by having their bodies around, but engaging minds and seriously taking those ideas/comments and criticisms to heart. Too often, male- and white-dominated groups have not made the efforts to broaden and involve other communities, or women's input has not been taken with the consideration and seriousness needed. Add to this the need to build stronger ties with women prisoners. This must be improved, and, ideally, an ABC Network can dialogue around strategies groups are utilizing to be more egalitarian in approach.

If we are to improve an ABC Network, hearing comments and criticisms should be a regular part of discussions. About every six months, affiliated groups with the ABC Network, activists, prisoners and others should be asked to give their comments, criticisms and suggestions for how to make the Network better, stronger and more helpful to each others' needs. While the purpose of this is not to develop "legislation," it is intended to get people regularly thinking about how we work together and how the Network stays relevant to our unity. However, please know that the floor should be always open to raise comments/ideas/critiques, etc. We must welcome these ideas, because discussion, debate and joint resolutions are how we become more effective.

Conclusion

In June 2001, Anarchist Black Cross groups from around Europe met in Ghent, Belgium. People from Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Luxemburg, UK, Holland, Germany and Belgium agreed that a network of autonomous groups would be formed to further the aims of the ABC. In their post-conference statement, attendees concluded:

"We believe in the abolition of the prison system, but not only that, but the destruction of capitalism and all kinds of authority. We believe the struggle against the (in)justice system, as it is against capitalism, is international. Therefore recent attempts by European governments ( e.g. Europol in Spain 2001) to criminalise the anarchist movement must be opposed by all revolutionaries. We respect the variety of ways people resist government violence and terrorism, and will support those incarcerated by the state. We strive to provide practical and material aid for class struggle prisoners and to encourage support for them."

The groundwork is already laid for an international ABC network to unite autonomous groups. In Europe, this network has already come into being. It is a network that respects the autonomy of each group to act within the different circumstances of their own local situations. It is a network urging support for political prisoners. And it is one that understands that support is only one part of our true struggle -- for freedom, revolutionary change and anarchy.

Over the last 15 years, the Anarchist Black Cross and anarchist prisoner support movements have inspired new awareness in repression, of the need to work with those criminalized by society in an effort to build a more liberated world, and to develop tactics and strategies addressing prisons, law and social problems. The ABC movement was building on these efforts long before these issues got attention from the mainstream media. Nevertheless, our struggle can continue to grow and see more victories.

Many of these ideas restate Lorenzo Ervin's original draft proposal, although many ideas presented therein are worth supporting, such as an ABC conference (to potentially unite the North American section of the network, since a European conference happened in 2001) or a newspaper that reaches out to people on incarceration. Uniting the many prisoner-written zines into a "news service" of information could also be helpful. In addition, working with various forces to create ABC-oriented radio/Internet programming could also come together. Uniting our organizing to develop theory and strategy around crime, class and liberation is another possibility.

Comments/Criticisms/Interest

If you have comments, (any kind of) criticisms and/or suggestions to improve this proposal or are interested in dialoguing locally and possibly building a group or affiliating your own group, get in contact with the initiating group (Antiprison, Austin ABC, Houston organizing group) via email at abc-net@anarchistblackcross.org or via post at P.O. Box 667233, Houston, Texas 77266-7233, USA.

All comments, criticisms and/or suggestions received by by January 31, 2002 will be compiled (we won't use your verbatim statements unless you ask) and an update to those interested. Get in touch.

New Draft Proposal issued on 5 November 2001.

Anniversary of the 1862 death sentence for 303 Santee Sioux for taking part in a Minnesota uprising. US President Abraham Lincoln commutes many sentences, but 38 chose to hang at Mankato, singing their death song on their scaffold.

Anniversary of the 1928 banana workers' strike in Colombia against the United Fruit Company, in which 1,000 workers were killed.

Anniversary of the 1916 Everett, Washington, Massacre, in which seven Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) labor activists are murdered by Everett's police as part of a campaign to suppress working class resistance.

Revolutionary love and solidarity!

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