by anon, Gerald Horne
This zine tells the story of an autonomous act undertaken by a Blak anarchist in solidarity with Palestine, some repressive consequences for the actionist, and a subsequent solidarity event raising funds to support them.
part one: a tale of a severely injured window
(this went on the chuffed page)
In April of 2024 a student encampment opposed to the devastation occurring in Palestine was started by students at a so-called ‘Australian’ university. As part of this encampment, a rally was called to march to a facility present on campus which actively researches and produces weapons of war currently being used on people in Palestine (amongst many other despicable and useless technologies designed for domination culture to persist). This was not the first time a rally had been called to demonstrate at that location to yell chants at a building, a spontaneous, unplanned, undiscussed and direct act of property damage occurred. This was enacted by one of the rally attendees, an anarchist and someone dedicated to the idea that individuals and groups can (and should) have material impact on the world and that demonstrating this can be a powerful call to action for witnesses and sympathisers.
Whilst the rally stopped at the entrance of the facility guarded unceremoniously by two security personnel, to yell chants at a building, it was decided that any one of the many bollards present (linked by velvet rope, successfully keeping the protesters at bay) could easily be picked up and launched through the plate glass windows which made up of the floor to ceiling exterior of the facility. This is what occurred.
Unfortunately the organizers of the rally (Socialist Alternative, hand in hand with others) immediately distanced themselves from the autonomous act, continuing to seek legitimacy from the university by playing to their handbook as opposed to fighting to delegitimize the institution entirely. They did this by discouraging others from supporting or ensuring safety or getaway of the individual at the time, and later by posting a disgraceful communication condemning the act on social media. By cooperating with security and police in the following days, once again asserting their submission to the validity of the property of weapons manufacturers on the stolen lawns of campus, it was made known that if the actionist returned, snitches would out them to the state.
The university handed CCTV footage to the State. The State used AI to match tattoos and other signifiers to an accused name through their databases and put an arrest warrant out. Unfortunately this person had been arrested for the first time in that state just weeks prior whilst painting graffiti (also to raise awareness of the genocide occurring in Palestine), which is why these signifiers were present in the state’s database. 6 months later an interaction with police at a train station led to our assailant, an Aboriginal person, being arrested with the charge being Wilful Damage. Our assailant had previously been unaware a warrant had been issued.
Activist exceptionalism is a problem. There is nothing special or sacred about activism for which people experience financial liability (most often willfully submitting to arrest). It is the writer’s belief that, especially in so-called Australia, most people are not made destitute by fines whilst undertaking activism. In fact the glorification of self sacrifice and associated social capital which often accompanies mostly relatively privileged people’s decisions to submit to arrest in such ways, are seemingly the most significant metric to look at post arrest. That we don’t extend the same solidarity to all people trying to exist who experience criminalization and risk incarceration every day is a problem – all prisoners are political prisoners – activist specialization and self – importance is a problem.
However, for people to be willing to demonstrate financial solidarity with an individual who chose to take an unplanned action in the hope of inspiring further escalation, is a good thing. For people who take risks outside that which the hegemonic NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action) culture allows for to be supported after the fact, teaches us something – that not everyone is going to be a cop, and that in spite of many a leftist being willing to throw people under the bus, there are individuals out there who understand, support and encourage acts of destruction against entities we are supposedly opposed to, and who kill every day. Without particular caveats of acceptability if the tactics chosen are unplanned or directly confront normality’s hegemony.
Fines associated with the charges in question can reach up to $40 000 AUD plus reparations for damage incurred. It is doubtful such a fine would be issued. Anywhere from $2000 to $5000 AUD would significantly assist in this situation but it is an unknown and the plate glass window that was the victim in all of this would undoubtedly be worth thousands. [Update: the total fines and reparations ended up a few dollars away from $4000 AUD]. The accused does not plan to fight the charges, as this would be costly and be engaging in a moralistic spaff with the state which we should all forgo based on the state’s bad faith and general illegitimacy. Therefore no money will be directed toward legal fees, but rather for this individual’s debt to the state be minimized as much as possible, allowing them to continue with a basic standard of living and the ability to persist with a literature distribution project which they run via personal funds.
part two: Q/A with Historian Gerald Horne: On U.S. Imperialism, The White Pacific and Pan-Indigenous Solidarity
Transcript of talk given at solidarity fundraiser on 2 March 2025. Organised from Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land.
Mod: So I’d just like to start this off with acknowledging that some of us here are on Naarm, people’s land in ‘Australia’ was stolen through colonization, no treaties were ever signed between Aboriginal societies and the ‘Australian’ colonial state, we consider ‘Australia’ an ongoing colonial military occupation of Aboriginal lands and peoples and that these lands will be recovered by any means necessary. Obviously this is in tandem with the ongoing destruction of Palestine, we also hold that the Zionist entity is an illegal colonial occupation and we will continue to support by any means necessary the reclamation of Palestinian people’s land.
So today this is a fundraiser, we have a very special guest Gerald Horne who is here to talk about, among other things, his book The White Pacific which came out in 2007. But also general questions around settler colonialism and imperialism which we thought would be particularly relevant to the ‘Australian’ context considering that lots of the parallels between the kind of left class collaboration, we are faced with many similar things here as well. Just to talk about the fundraiser as well, this is a fundraiser for a Blak Anarchist Aboriginal actionist who took part in some solidarity actions for Palestine and is facing police fines as a result. So we have come here to support not only a comrade in paying off these fines as a lot of us are poor, but also the fact that we think that it is actually important to continue to have ongoing solidarity with direct action. So whether that’s organizations and networks like Palestine Action in the UK targeting Israeli military institutions or whether it’s forms of environmental direct action such as blockade ‘Australia’ here, we think direct action is an ongoing course of, yeah a legitimate course of action against ongoing forms of extraction ongoing forms of militarism and it’s very important for us to support our comrades against Rising incarceration and kind of police and state attention on kind of resistance work. So this is not only an informational educational session, but also I guess a kind of flare for solidarity for people and that we should all continue to support all forms of revolt against Colonial and Imperial institutions. If you are happy Gerald would you like to say anything or should we start?
GH: can we start with the first questions um start with the questions and I’ll fold in any the introductory remarks into my response.
MOD: Beautiful. So everyone, we’re going to go through some pre-agreed upon questions by the organizers and then we’re going to have like 10-20 minutes or so just of questions if you guys have anything. So we’ll start off with a general one which we thought was relevant for kind of, I guess organizing and political questions. How would you describe settler colonialism and why is it important that the left understands settler colonialism today?
GH: Well first of all thank you for inviting me, I’m highly appreciative. Settler colonialism is a colonialism of a special type. There are different kinds of colonialism just like there are different kinds of capitalism. For example, that is to say that the colonialism that had persisted in Nigeria on the western coast of Africa was different from the settler colonialism that reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 where the settlers arrive. Whereas in Nigeria the British basically had officials and soldiers there to keep the Africans in line and so they could better exploit the natural resources and the cheap labor of the Africans. If you look at the United States of America which can be analogized to an extent to Australia, you see the settlers arriving and seeking to liquidate the indigenous population and then bring on across the oceans other Europeans much more capacious, much broader in the United States I would argue than perhaps in any other a settler Colonial regime, and you have seen a similar process unfold Across The Tasman in New Zealand as you know more than most. Not to mention in Algeria, beginning in Circa 1830 by the French, not to mention other kinds of colonialism for example what Imperial Japan sought to do and what is now Northeast China in the 1930s and shortly before, although obviously it was aborted because of the events of World War II, and so settler colonialism in short and in sum, is colonialism of a special type. Colonialism of a particular particularly gruesome nature, a particularly Grizzly nature, a particularly bloody nature, which is something that I’m sure your audience in Melbourne is well acquainted with.
And, speaking of Melbourne, I was remiss in not noting in my introductory remarks that it particular it gives me particular pleasure to speak to folk in Melbourne because as you probably know, one of the heroes of the US left, the US leftwing movement, the labour movement, was Harry Bridges. Who was born in Melbourne and migrated to the United States where he helped to lead the general strike in San Francisco helped to organize West Coast Longshore, helped to organize workers in Hawaii – now similarly occupied by US Colonial and Military forces and led that particular Union for almost a half century before expiring and was well known for his pushing through, against often times adamant opposition from the bosses and even from some fellow Dockers, the desegregation of West Coast Longshore. A legacy that continues to persist to this very day. So one once again it’s always a pleasure to speak to folk in Melbourne given the heroic Legacy of one Harry Bridges.
MOD: Thank you for that. Following on from this – and this is actually very relevant here in terms of talking about desegregating Labor forces – what is the need to understand whiteness as a form of cross-class collaboration, specifically in these Colonial contexts?
GH: Well sadly and tragically it was the anglosphere that pioneered in developing this concept of whiteness. For example, as I tell the story in my book on the 16th century it stems from the fact that after his Catholic Majesty in Spain sponsored Christopher Columbus Circa 1492 and got a jump on his fellow Western European pirates in terms of exploiting the Americas, in particular that was followed in 1521 by the secession from the Catholic Church by Martin Luther which takes London by storm by the 1530s. London wants to get involved in the colonial feast but is outnumbered and in any case his Catholic Majesty made religion a major marker of society in Spanish Cuba. For example, you could be African and be a conquistador. You could be a conqueror. London with much more sparse numbers was the scrappy Underdog and improvisationally they move towards whiteness and white supremacy as a major marker of society and as their calling card and so we see that those with whom London had been warring on the shores of Europe, speaking internally of the Irish the Scots and the Welsh in the 16th century, as London began to send settlers across the Atlantic. Particularly to the territory they termed North Carolina and in the 1580s magically as these folks – who had been once warring, speaking of the English the Irish Scots the Welsh – as they cross the Atlantic, shopkeepers, working class elements, lumpen elements, all sponsored by the 1% in London, that is to say the elite in London with the goal of mutual enrichment by uprooting the Indigenous population, and with a little bit of luck and a lot of pluck being able to drag Africans Kicking and Screaming across the Atlantic to work for free.
It does not take a social scientists to analyse the words I’ve just uttered and see that this was a class collaborationist project from its Inception. That is to say, folks of different class backgrounds being rebranded as quote “white” unquote, as opposed to warring English versus Irish for example. And then ultimately that particular identity politics being expanded to include other ethnic groups who had been warring: British versus German; German versus Pole; Pole versus Russian; French Protestant versus French Catholic; Northern Italian versus Southern Italian; Serb versus Croat; Greece versus Bulgarian. All of a sudden, when they cross the Atlantic to North America they’re rebranded as white under the rubric of conducting this class collaborationist Enterprise. And one cannot begin to understand politics in the United States of America in particular – the heavyweight champion of settler colonialism – without understanding class collaboration. That’s one of the reasons why we have been disgraced by being administered by so many blooded incompetent leaders such as the Tangerine Tyrant, who is now occupying the White House as we speak.
Sadly and unfortunately for various reasons many of our friends on the Left have been reluctant to accept this concept of settler colonialism, have been reluctant to analyse class collaboration. As a matter of fact many in my community, the black community, they feel that a requirement for being part of the US left is that you make excuses for class collaboration for example and that you think of different rationales to justify class collaboration. I mean for example, in the United States right now the Tangerine Tyrant has launched a campaign against desegregation. Of course it’s carried forth under the rubric of “promoting diversity” for example, and other basically liberal concepts, but [targeting] desegregation is the ultimate aim. Some of our friends on the left say that these measures are designed to disrupt class struggle, when actually they’re designed to disrupt class collaboration. For example, I often times cite the example of the construction trades unions in New York City, which oftentimes had in their Charter so-called white only provisors and with these relatively well-paid construction trades Carpenters, hard carriers, electricians, brick layers for example. You could only join that Union if your father was part of the Union for example. And so they were basically a kind of Monopoly. A so-called white Monopoly. And so what you what you had were that Black Trade Unionists and Black Carpenters, electricians, at a certain point began conducting sort of aggressive diversity measures by disrupting building sites so they were not seeking to disrupt class struggle, they were just seeking to disrupt class collaboration. One of the reasons why the US left has not been more potent and Powerful has been precisely because of its difficulty in comprehending class collaboration.
And just to avert for a second, with regard to something you already know, which is that in “The Lucky Country” class collaboration has not been unknown. That is to say, this idea that those crossing the Pacific after London loses its battle with the settlers in the 1780s that a central mission of many of the settlers was of course uprooting the Indigenous population, taking their land and then importing more individuals and communities that could be defined as quote “white” unquote for their mutual enrichment. So it’s basically a class collaborationist Enterprise. Of course, by stressing this I would not want to denigrate the ability of some to overcome. I mentioned Harry bridges of Melbourne intentionally. Obviously he would be defined as quote “white” unquote, but obviously he was able to commit that kind of race suicide and embark on a lengthy battle on behalf of class struggle albeit across the Pacific in California.
MOD: Yeah I think lots of comrades here, particularly those from the Black People’s Union, have experienced familiar arguments and debates with the quote unquote white “Left” and unions here on the question of class struggle. So following on from this, in the White Pacific, specifically your 2007 book, you talk about South Sea Islanders and Aboriginal people from this continent being “under siege” drawing a direct analogy to the US Colonial Frontier. Can you tell us more about the role that the colonization of ‘Australia’ has played in expanding Imperialism and Capitalism in the Pacific.
GH: Well your territory now known as Queensland was essential to this process. In my book The White Pacific, I focus heavily upon the US Nationals who migrated across the Pacific to “The Lucky Country” post 1865. That is to say after the abolition of enslavement of Africans they had developed a rather perverse taste for exploitation of dark skinned labour. So what happens is that not only in Queensland, but in Fiji, they begin to ensnare people we would call Melanesians, people we would call Polynesians, and in in a real sense basically enslaving them. Now this is taking place as I point out in the book – and I’m actually writing another book as a follow on as we speak that will come out next year – it’s taking place in the context of the effort of the Hawaii Kingdom to Halt this kind of Labor exploitation by federating many of the small Islands of what is often times referred to as Micronesia. Up to including joining hands with those in what we would call Papua New Guinea.
The Hawaii Kingdom, although it’s not very well known was very sophisticated diplomatically. I would say that with regard to Indigenous people who are overwhelmed now under the US flag, that the Hawaii Kingdom had the most sophisticated diplomatic outreach, they had missions and legations all over the world in London and South Africa, United States. Of course they had comrades in Melbourne as well, who were working with the Hawaii Kingdom for its Troubles of seeking to block this kind of Labor exploitation. The Hawaii Kingdom, first of all, you have the so-called bayonet constitution of 1887. Whereby the King was forced to sign a document clipping his wings and once again turning over power to an elite – self-defined self-described white elite – in Hawaii and that raises the footnote that I trust and I hope that our friends and comrades and ‘Australia’ will investigate because one of the conclusions I’ve arrived at is that there hasn’t been sufficient interrogation of republicanism, as it has been applied throughout the centuries, certainly in the United States and many of the other countries that pioneered in republicanism or anti-monarchy.
They had shall we say great difficulty and incorporating those not defined as white and certainly that was the case in Hawaii because they overthrew the Kingdom on the premise that Republicanism was more progressive – a canard accepted by many of our friends on the left by the way – At the same time, once they seize power Circa 1887 with the bayonet Constitution and with the coup of 1893 one of the first things they did was to circumscribe the ability of Asians to vote because to this very day the plurality of the population in the archipelago of Hawaii of Japanese or of Japanese ancestry I should say, and of course those challenge the notion saying that the plurality is actually a Filipino ancestry. And these Republicans so call were seeking to circumscribe their right to vote and so in other words to make a long story short, the Hawaii kingdom is trying to block blackbirding – this notorious process of Labor exploitation involving the shameless exploitation of people we would refer to as Melanesian and Polynesian – and for its troubles it’s overthrown. A so-called white Republican Elite takes power, circumscribes the right of non-whites to vote, begins to persecute the Indigenous Hawaiian population turning Hawaii into a colony and then incorporating the United Hawaii into the United States by 1959 as the 50th and presumed final State. I say presumed because as you know the Tangerine Tyrant has talked about annexing Canada and don’t be surprised if Australia’s next by the way!
If there’s discussion about annexing ‘Australia’ – and just as a footnote – I you know with regard to ‘Australian’ history we know that it was tied to the crown in London for decades if not centuries and then post-World War II it ties itself to the apron strings of Uncle Sam and I’m wondering in light of these stories that appeared in the Press just of the last week about Chinese ships off the coast of Australia, if the Tangerine Tyrant seeks to Annex ‘Australia’ will that initiative be supported or be opposed now. In Canada it’s opposed at least thus far.
MOD: On this about Hawaii and also you’d be familiar with the movement towards AUKUS, the American, Australia, British military Alliance which there has been at least some attempts at movements against here, but it seems to be that’s the way the winds blowing. Thinking about Hawaii as well, so as you’ve talked about there’s been ongoing solidarity between Blak Aboriginal organizations in ‘Australia’ and the struggles against the Indonesian and French Colonial occupations in West Papua and Kanky, there’s also as far as I’m aware an Indigenous conference coming up in Hawaii soon which some Aboriginal Elders are actually going to go and attend. So in reference to what you were discussing in terms of you know in the 1880s led by Hawaii, there’s this idea of a trans-pacific confederation to offset the advances of Britain America and of German Imperialism in the Pacific and in tying that to today in terms of AUKUS and the expand attempt to kind of create this kind of military Nato like Alliance in the Pacific, in thinking about Blak Sovereignty movements in ‘Australia’ today, how important do you think the kind of National Liberation struggles in like Kanaky, West Papua and Hawaii are in reference to Transpacific kind of struggles – like joint Indigenous struggles.
GH: Well obviously they’re exceedingly important. And I’m very optimistic about this upcoming meeting in Hawaii because I’ve been following carefully the struggles of the Indigenous people Across the Tasman particularly, and the nation often times referred to as New Zealand. Part of the problem as we know is that many of these struggles have been atomized. That is to say since the attempts of the Hawaii Kingdom in the late 19th century to bring together these struggles under one umbrella, the struggles have been separated and have been diffused to an extent. It reminds me of the Caribbean for example, which is also comprised of many small Islands. But of late they’ve sought to come together under the rubric of the Caribbean Community. Now they are meeting with the African Union, the Continental organization headquartered in Ethiopia, in September of 2025. High on the agenda will be reparations for enslavement. Some of us are suggesting that also on the agenda should be coordination of a sanctions campaign against this US administration because of its abuse of Black people in North America and its attempt to intimidate South Africa and other African Nations as we speak.
I think it would be well if your comrades – Indigenous comrades and the South Seas could consider attending this meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Because, I dare say, that you not only have to consolidate the struggles in the South Seas in the South Pacific of these various Indigenous groupings, but also reaching out across the borders and across the oceans to those who are similarly situated. For example, the Black people of the Caribbean the Black people of North America and ultimately the Black people of Africa itself.
MOD: We’ve had some discussions as well and I know some comrades with the BPU that should be here today about the relevance of how we organize a kind of left Anti-Imperialism in relation to various National Liberation struggles in the South Pacific and how that can relate to offsetting the advances of AUKUS through building National alliances between Black and Indigenous peoples in in the South Pacific. So on that, this was a question from our BPU comrades, in your research more broadly, such as your book on the counter revolution of 1776, you’ve exposed how so-called “Democratic revolutions” often actually played out as counter-revolutions to protect white settler and capitalist interests against African and Indigenous and white working class unrest. How do you see this playing out in ‘Australia’ today where even so-called “Progressive movements” generally refuse to centre decolonization.
GH: Well I think what we have to realize is that this construction of whiteness and its underlying precept of class-collaboration has been very seductive. And it’s perhaps understandable. I mean often times, I wrote a book on Texas a few years ago the counter-revolution of 1836: Texas slavery and Jim Crow and the roots of U.S. Fascism, and as I talk about in that book, if you look at certain Indigenous peoples of North America like the Cherokee of the southeast quadrant of what is now the United States, they sought to assimilate. They enslaved Africans, they engaged in sedentary agriculture, they converted to Christianity Etc. But they still had to go and they were expelled from their land.
What’s interesting is that European migrants, fresh off the boat, often times moved into their Mansions! Because many of these people were quite affluent, they were slave owners! And so this was a very powerful benefit that you could come from Europe, relatively poor and move into a mansion. I mean we should not distract or detract from the idea that for some there was an American Dream! I mean can you imagine being poor in Europe and living in a mansion in North America! So it’s understandable to a certain degree why class collaboration exists and persist because for some it’s conveyed material benefits. The problem now for those who have benefited from class collaboration is that it’s unclear to me – to look at the heavyweight champion of class collaboration and white supremacy speaking of the United States – if given the change in correlation of forces generally, the rise of China, the rise of the BRICs Etc. if these attempts by the current US Administration will be able to deliver to the 77 million who voted for him. On the one hand that could lead to a diminishing of the pro-Trump block but on the other hand, given the lack of political education and ideological awareness in a country like this it could set the stage for new kind of U.S. fascism.
So, I dare say, that Australia, which often times touts itself as being a kind of cousin of the United States of America, after all the histories have been interlined to a certain degree as you probably know and as I indicated a moment or two ago, as London lost its colonies in North America it was looking for another dumping ground for prisoners in particular. So therefore they move across the Pacific Circa 1788 to what is now called Australia. So I trust and I hope that the folks in the quote “Lucky Country” unquote will learn the lessons, whatever lessons there are to learn about this difficult experience that we’re enduring here in North America as we speak.
MOD: I remember in the white Pacific you talk briefly about how the “White ‘Australia’ Policy” in which ‘Australia’ is seen as kind of bulwark against immigration, like its border systems and stuff are kind of like followed throughout Europe in places like Britain or America. They go “we want to have a kind of ‘Australian’ style border and immigration system” and obviously lots of this comes from the White ‘Australia’ Policy, basically a founding policy of the ‘Australian’ Union was the White ‘Australia’ Policy. But you talk about how a big influence on the creation of the white ‘Australia’ policy was ‘Australia’ essentially being able to learn from America in terms of the fallout from the Civil War, in that they didn’t want a potential racialized working class that could actually threaten them. So could you potentially speak about that in the relation White ‘Australia’ Policy and also focusing a bit on the whiteness and class collaboration that kind of emerges out of the ‘Australian’ context.
GH: Well as the book tries to suggest there is a connection between Blackbirding and the retreat of Blackbirding in ‘Australia’ and the creation of the White ‘Australia’ Policy. And so far as there were those in your country who felt that having these dark-skinned people on your land was not very good idea. And then of course they come together to have a consolidation of that particular project, one of the lessons that we should absorb is how this perniciousness is often times driven into retreat by external events. I mean for example, as you probably know in the aftermath of World War I Circa 1918-1919, Imperial Japan tried to have installed in the peace treaty and as a principle of international law, an anti-racism principle. But your prime minister in particular opposed this because they feared the impact it would have domestically. Of course your prime minister, I think his name was Billy Hughes, he was then backed by the US administration because the US Administration was then led by Woodrow Wilson, who, although he had been a governor of New Jersey was actually born in segregationist White Supremacist Virginia.
One of the lessons of the struggle against class collaboration and the struggle against white supremacy and whiteness itself has been the importance of these International movements and international Trends and international developments in supplying backup in supplying external shocks to the system of iniquity which is why the true class conscious comrades have to be internationalists. They should not be trapped by focusing wholly and exclusively on the domestic scene. Now of course you should be quite concerned with the domestic scene needless to say I think that’s obvious. But as this upcoming meeting in Hawaii suggests and as the meeting in Ethiopia suggests, ultimately the winning ticket for our team for our side is internationalism.
MOD: Yeah thank you for that. Couldn’t agree more. We’ve been having similar discussions on how we can build those kind of internationalisms here as well in terms of Blak Sovereignty Movements and Anti-Imperialism with Palestine and Kanaky and so forth. So we think we might go for questions now if you’re happy with that Gerald. So if people are okay maybe do a thing where if people can raise a hand and then I’ll choose someone to unmute if anybody has any questions and we’ll go for maybe like 15 minutes 15 20 minutes or so.
Question 1: First thanks for speaking today. How on Earth can we decolonize a settler colony when the overwhelming majority of people are settlers, has this ever been done before in history?
GH: Sure look at South Africa, for example. I mean of course in South Africa the overwhelming majority of the people were not settlers, the overwhelming majority were the exploited Africans and obviously you had defeats for settler colonialism in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Algeria 1962, Kenya 1963. If you accept the premise that settler colonialism cannot be defeated well I guess we should all go to the beach! We should leave this call and go to the beach and maybe get high! But I don’t subscribe to that idea. I mean obviously the struggle is going to be protracted and difficult. Even numerically it reminds me of Toussaint Louverture in the Haitian revolution 1791 to 1804, which of course was a turning point in world history, a successful Revolt of the unpaid sector of the working class. So you had all of these exploited Africans, hardly without weapons, they weren’t slaves working on sugar plantations, but they had leadership that was able to first of all take advantage of the contradictions between and amongst the European powers. That is to say allying with the British against the French, allying with the Spanish against the British Etc. and I think there’s a lesson to be learned there.
That is to say, that’s why I’ve spoken about internationalism! You just can’t be confined to the ‘Australian’ space! You have to internationalize the struggle and then begin to win over the real and imagined enemies of Canberra. The real and imagined enemies of the settler State! And the international environment right now in your neck of the woods is very conducive, given the hysteria about China; given the long-standing hysteria about Asia generally going back to World War II the runup to World War II. Going back that’s why brought up Versailles and the struggle against Japan and their attempt to have anti-racism be invoked as a principle of international law! So yes, the fact that a there’s a significant settler population is a formidable barrier. But it’s not impossible because I mean ‘Australia’ has a population of what 20 some million and China has a population of 1.4 billion! I mean these people are lucky they’ve survived this long!
Question 2. Thank you Gerald for sharing what you have so far. My question jumps a bit out of the ‘Australian’ context so my apologies to the crowd there today. I was wondering obviously, kind of in the news the last few days, the kind of trump Zelensky debacle has been pretty interesting to observe. And I was wondering if you had kind of any thoughts about how Ukraine’s been negotiated by as you say, the Tangerine Tyrant, and how its treatment by the US and by political Elites in the US is connected. If there’s connections to the production of whiteness that you talk about in in the white Pacific.
GH: Well I think that the Ukraine crisis reflects a split obviously in the US ruling class. The Biden Wing, they were on a fool’s errand. They were trying to confront Russia and China simultaneously. I think part of the reasons why the opposition, the Democratic party gets involved in so many debacles, be it Vietnam for example, be it the crisis in Afghanistan, after all that was accelerated under Democratic president the now sainted Jimmy Carter for example. Is that a base for the Democratic party is the Black community that has been forced to back off from internationalism, back off from foreign policy! That was the concession that was made in order to retreat from U.S. Apartheid. You retreat from U.S. Apartheid, but you have to throw the internationalists – led by the late great Paul Robson who visited your country some decades ago – and so the Black community has basically been mute with regard to foreign policy. But for the downside for the U.S. ruling class is that it leads to misestimations of the global correlation of forces by the opposition, such as this fool’s errand of trying to confront Russia and China simultaneously.
So the Trump team comes in they feel that they can cut a deal with Russia over Ukraine. Then of course ultimately this is being resisted, you saw the meeting in London today of Sir Keir Starmer – by the way, speaking of Sir Keir Starmer, that plays a role with regard to what I raised about Republicanism because he was asked explicitly at the White House about Trump attempts to annex Canada. Now King Charles III is technically the head of state in Canada and yet King Charles III is inviting the man who threatens his realm, speaking of Canada, for another state visit! I mean this is, I find it I find it incredible that it hasn’t been much more of an issue in Canada. But in any case, so Trump wants to focus like a laser beam on China and of course this is facilitated because China is an Asian country, there’s a long tradition of whiteness and white supremacy in the United States of America, it leads to Anti-Asian violence, it leads to Anti-Asian bigotry, and it probably will help to propel this whole war against China and raising up this Anti-Asian furore which is happening as we speak. So in other words the current moment cannot be separated from this long history of white supremacy. Cannot be separated from this long history of the construction of whiteness cannot be separated from the class collaboration that underpins and undergirds it. But the problem is that the United States is not necessarily advantaged during this new Cold War with China. Because China by some measures already has a larger economy than the United States of America. The People’s Bank of Beijing keeps the US government afloat by loaning the US government money, by buying U.S. paper treasury bills. So in other words China is helping to finance this US Government that’s seeking to destabilize China! That doesn’t make any sense! That’s unsustainable in the long run!
And so there’s a real crisis and as a matter of fact I’ve used this analogy, there was this famous Black basketball coach named Nolan Richardson, University of Arkansas Razorbacks. And he would put so much pressure on the opposing team that he says that the opposing team would have a collective nervous breakdown in the middle of the game! And I think that what’s happening right now in the United States! Is sort of a collective nervous breakdown. Not only United States, but also in the North Atlantic community. When JD Vance, the US vice president, gave that speech in Munich security conference a week or two ago, where he did not focus on Russia and China, he didn’t mention Ukraine, he started denouncing the internal politics of Germany his host saying that they’re not kind enough to the Nazi curious alternative for Germany party! So after he finished speaking the organizer of the conference comes to the podium and he burst out crying! He starts boohoo like a baby uncontrollably like he’s having a nervous breakdown! That and the Zelensky/Trump spat in the Oval Office, it was almost like another kind of example of a collective nervous breakdown. I thought they were going to start throwing blows at each other in the Oval Office before TV cameras of the world!
I think we’re going to have to expect more of this because I think that U.S. imperialism is in obvious decline. Not only is US imperialism a decline but this system of whiteness and white supremacy – a centuries long project – is being subjected to enormous pressure. But not only the rise of China, but the rise of the BRICS as well. So this is something new historically. It’s going to be very difficult for some people to absorb and to deal with. So what I just described at the Munich security conference in terms of folks crying uncontrollably, or what you saw in the Oval Office in terms of thinking that leaders are going to be fighting on camera, this is going to become the norm I’m afraid to say. Which, of course, opens up opportunities for our side. But obviously it’s quite dangerous at the same time.
Question 3. Hi. I spent a little bit of time in Kanaky in the recent past and I was listening the other day to an old [Blakfella] in Brisbane talking about what he’s calling the global racism force and I wondered about the expansion of whiteness. I know in the Kanaky situation Macron has basically run a coup on the democratically elected Kanaky government – the longest running government in Kanaky or in “New Caledonian” history – turned over on Christmas by settler loyalists who have paid some billions of Franks to withdraw their support for the government. It looks like the project in Kanaky is to move about 45,000 settlers and claim Noumea as a state and give the rest of the country, or allow the rest of the country to be divided up by the Kanaks. So I wonder what your view about the way there seems to be an attempt to expand the colonies. I get your point and I do agree that we’re at the end stage of something, but it’s an interesting play at this late stage to be trying to reestablish or trying to establish white settler outposts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean who expressly call themselves Zionists and say that we, the loyalist French, are oppressed by the Kanaks in the same way as the Palestinians oppress Israelis.
GH: Well first of all the expansion of whiteness is nothing new. At least from the US experience. Often times and I probably did it today, I speak of this construction of whiteness as an offshoot of Europeanism. I speak of the creation of the United States being a precursor to the European Union to an extent, in the sense that all of these Europeans of different ancestries group themselves under one umbrella, one rubric, not unlike the European Union headquartered in Brussels with two dozen plus member states, but actually as I pointed out in another context that given the religious roots of whiteness we should not be surprised by the fact that Lebanese Christians have been admitted into the hallowed Halls of whiteness. In the United States of America Egyptian Christians, Palestinian Christians for example, with all the Privileges attendant there too and likewise politically.
As you probably know a major strand of the settler population in what we call called “New Caledonia” stems from the defeat of the Paris commune Circa 1870-1871. One of their early attempts to establish a kind of anti-capitalism and of course they were all expelled, just like folks were expelled to what we call ‘Australia’ in 1788. They’re expelled and now of course their descendants as you put it are not necessarily carrying on the traditions of the Paris commune but carrying on the tradition of those who sought to crush the Paris commune! Which speaks once again to the seductiveness of class collaboration, the seductiveness of whiteness and white supremacy. But at the same time we have to be clear that these ongoing efforts such as what you describe in what we call “New Caledonia” in many ways they’re signs of weakness and not necessarily signs of strength. That is to say, scrambling to retain, if not accelerate, certain privileges at a time when the world is changing, when the rug globally is pulled out from under them, all that means is that victory is certain for our side. But it will not be simple nor easy.
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We are very grateful to Gerald Horne for donating his time and expertise. A recording of the talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34L2P6SK_Fw
part three: thanks
The significance of anonymous ongoing material and psychological support experienced via this fundraiser, its monetary results, its creative results and potentially even community building results speak volumes difficult to describe. As a lone actor, willing my fellow protestors, students, ‘comrades’ if you will, to escalate in a comparatively (remember we are talking about solidarity with Palestine) safe environment I was not only predictably appalled by the lack of enthusiasm, creativity, support or, god forbid, collective engagement with the target at hand but further hurt and shocked by the swiftness of the reproach offered by the organizations present.
These organizations are nothing but a wet rag. Consuming energy, space and opportunity for individual people and their friends to build a sense of ungovernability through action, these orgs tow the same old played out line; join the party, and, at some point in the future when we have the ‘masses’; revolution. They do this whilst shitting on other people willing to take risk and engaging a target now rather than demanding an institution cede to itself. Don’t join an organization, find your friends. ← To the creators of this zine, your consistency, generosity, creativity and efforts are templates for possibility, thank you.
Thank you to the folks that went to effort to put on this fundraiser. Thank you to anyone who donated any amount of money. Thank you to the professionals and academics who threw down big because they know they can and should. Thank you to Gerald Horne! Thank you to the friends that pitched in ‘too much’ and said “it’s all relative” when chastised about their generosity. Thank you to the artists that donated proceeds from their works. It is impossible to convey how much it means to have this material support flow in to help pay off fines that would otherwise have taken me years to deal with. It does pale in comparison to the sense of warmth the whole notion of the fundraiser has afforded me throughout this time. That people from all over the planet would pitch in for something like this should be a reminder to us all, that even when we are physically alone; we are not alone. There are people all over the planet willing ungovernability, destruction and fire upon the states and institutions that are continuing to profit from and support the white supremacist anti indigenous project that is the decimation of the Palestinian (and more broadly all brown, black and yellow) people. We must keep this reality in our hearts even or especially when things are at their bleakest.
The support I received financially is one thing. The experience of this feeling, that of not being alone, which is difficult to grasp at the best of times, is beyond simple words. I once came out of remand in prison and was put into a courtroom to see a single friendly face in the crowd, willing me on, with thumbs up and enthusiasm. This fundraiser reminds me of the feeling that gave me. The ability to make light of a scary, unjust and undesirable situation, the ability to look further forward toward other opportunities and not be mired in defeatism, the joyful recalcitrance with known and unknown accomplices and the uniquely human truth that we aren’t alone when we refuse the conditioning of the imperial core and it’s apparatus’ of destruction.
To anyone reading this. Fuck yeah, good on you. Let’s make trouble and support each other when we need it. Let’s do this without notions of our self importance, exceptionalism, expertise or gate keeping. Let’s encourage experimentation. Let’s eat food and be safe together and laugh about the fact that there is nothing to believe in except the eternal breadth of possibility in which we can be dangerous.
Oh, and let’s do everything we can to not get fucking caught!
Sample of t-shirts sold by autonomous queer anarchists to raise $$ for the fundraiser – more than $1000 raised!!!
