#state repression

I, and many other anarchists, believe that if you are involved in organizing and protesting, that you have a responsibility to your community to refuse to testify as a witness for a grand jury. this almost always means jail time for contempt of court (for up to 18 months max) as a result, which is definitely a large sacrifice, but is something i believe is so fucking important when it comes to keeping our communities safe. this also means that our communities need to be prepared to offer robust support to our comrades who are sacrificing so much to keep our communities safe. we need to never abandon people to fight state repression alone.

i think that it is really important for people to start thinking through what their response would be to getting subpoenaed for a grand jury way before you get in a position where you're taking action or participating in communities where this might be a concern. and if you start learning about grand jury resistance and realize that that the logistics of resistance feel impossible for you to actually be able to do, i don't think that's something that you need to feel shame about. but i do think that then means you need structure your organizing and protesting life in such a way where you are not involved in communities that are taking felony-level risks. i cannot emphasize enough how unacceptable it is to become an informant for the state, and even if you tell yourself you're not going to give away any implicating or private information, any information you give to prosecutors helps them map networks and build cases. i really do think that we all have a moral obligation to keep each other safe, and when people participate in state repression and testify in grand juries, they are throwing their comrades under the bus to save themselves at the expense of their comrades freedom.

i'll link some resources to learn more and share a quote from Katie Yow, a grand jury resistor in 2017.

"The state demeans everything that we hold dear when they threaten us in this way. The most free and wild thing we have in this world is our love for each other, and we know that our health, our safety, and our liberation can only exist in a world without their cops, their courts, and their cages. Our strength lies in knowing that we can provide that for each other, and that nothing they offer or threaten is worth betraying our commitment to our communities.

“As state repression escalates, I know that all of us are struggling with the trauma and the grief that comes from the forces we fight against, and the vulnerability that we feel to the state in its despicable efforts to attack us. What I also know, what I believe with all my heart and everything I have, is that we have the strength we need to take care of each other and to fight back until we win.”- Katie Yow

Resources:

Grand Jury Resistance Project

This tension points toward one of the most fiercely debated ideological rifts within modern political thought and a painful contradiction: the conflict between anti-imperialism (respecting a nation's right to self-determination free from Western interference) and universal human rights (the belief that certain rights, including LGBT protections, belong to all people regardless of borders).

When certain factions of the political left prioritize national sovereignty over the immediate plight of local LGBT minorities, it is rarely because they believe those individuals "do not matter." Instead, it is usually the result of a specific, structural view of global power.

To understand why this blind spot exists, it helps to look at the competing frameworks at play.

Within geopolitical analysis, there is a tendency toward what critics call "campism", a worldview that divides the geopolitics into two rigid camps: the Western imperialist core (the US and its allies) and the anti-imperialist periphery (any nation resisting Western hegemony).

Under a strict campist framework, the primary evil in the world is identified as Western imperialism.

Consequently, any state that actively opposes or resists Western dominance is viewed as a necessary bulwark, or at least a nation whose sovereignty must be defended at all costs.

When domestic atrocities or human rights abuses, such as the brutal repression of LGBT people in Iran, Russia, or various African nations, are brought up, campist logic often minimizes them. They are viewed as "secondary contradictions" that can be dealt with after the global threat of imperialism is defeated.

Another reason some on the left hesitate to champion LGBT rights in sovereign, non-Western nations is the historical awareness of how human rights have been weaponized to justify military intervention, economic sanctions, or regime change.

This is often referred to as pinkwashing or homonationalism, when a Western power highlights its own progressive record on LGBT rights to contrast itself with a "barbaric" or "backward" foreign regime, thereby manufacturing public consent for aggressive foreign policy.

Activists worry that by loudly condemning the horrific treatment of LGBT people in a country like Uganda or Iran, they are inadvertently feeding the propaganda machine of Western warhawks who want to sanction, bomb, or destabilize those nations. To avoid fueling the flames of intervention, some choose silence or pivot entirely to defending the nation's autonomy.

There is a strong current of thought on the left that emphasizes cultural autonomy and cautions against imposing Western frameworks onto the Global South.

Some theorists argue that the modern, Western concept of "LGBT identity" (tied to specific political rights, pride movements, and consumer identities) does not neatly map onto how gender and sexuality have historically functioned in other cultures.

There is also a pragmatic fear of a Western backlash. When Western governments condition foreign aid on the adoption of LGBT rights, it predictably backfires spectacularly. Local leaders can easily point to the pressure and say, "See? Homosexuality is a decadent Western import being forced on our righteous culture."

This can make life infinitely more dangerous for local queer populations.

This silence has not gone unchallenged, however. A massive, growing contingent of progressive thinkers, internationalists, and local activists within these repressed nations heavily criticize this blind spot. They label it a form of "left-wing Orientalism" or reverse chauvinism.

Critics argue that treating entire nations as monoliths completely erases the actual people living inside them. A nation's "cultural autonomy" should not mean the autocrat in power has a blank check to torture his own citizens.

Local LGBT activists in places like Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa frequently express immense frustration with Western leftists who defend the regimes oppressing them. For these local communities, state violence is not an abstract academic debate about "sovereignty" but a matter of daily survival.

They argue that true solidarity must be people-to-people, not state-to-state.

1/30/2002

The state put a man to death yesterday.

He spent his last few hours writing.

Odd, yesterday was independent thinker’s day.

The state loathes Poetry-party-ponder.

It kills it where ever and when ever it can. It’s goal is well behaved sterility and conformity."

End of entry