»Self managed academy for anarchist editors«

(answered by Clony and Veronika)

April 2006

Where did you get the idea to start publishing a courier/journal like Abolishing the Borders From Below, which would cover anarchist activities around eastern Europe? How old is that idea, i.e. when did you publish the first issue? What were the reasons to start doing a journal like ABB?

The idea behind AbolishingBB was to establish some communications and exchange between anarchists active in eastern europe and the rest of the world. Being founded from some migrants anarchist from eastern europe living in Berlin, it came out from the need of the people to spread some infos about the happenings over there, since they had noticed a big lack of informations about the strugges conducted there: basically, people around where really interested or involved with solidarity work towards "exotic" and faraway countries as south american or africa, but not showing much interest towards their closer ex soviet republic neighbours. We tried to supply this hole, offering with AbolishingBB space to the different anarchist groups/individual active over there, to present themselves and their struggles to the rest of the world. AbolishingBB is meant as a discussion forum among those groups, with the aim of info exchanging and as well networking among the different projects/people.
On the very beginning, it was more a newsletter, where people would just publish the reports of their actions, suddenly, after five years, being founded in autumn 2001, it reached 60 pages and offers as well some more theoretical analysis, beside the usual reports. We do discuss the topic, as editorial collective, which we would like to approach on the upcoming issue, and than send the proposal to the correspondents around, might be the prison society or the discussion about the relationship between lefty groups and anarchist in eastern europe.

Is ABB meant for anarchist readers only, or is it read by »common people«, too?

The original aim behind the publication of the courier, had been to try to share infos and building some solidarity bridges between eastern Europe and the rest of the world. Of course, the first destinatary of the journal had been/are other anarchist, wheter groups or individuals, but it doesn t mean that we want to exclude anyone from reading AbolishingBB! For sure, being a journal which is distributed mainly from hand to hand anarchist distros, it is already quite clear which kind of people will pick up the journal, since the so called "common" people most of the time don t attend same parties, bookstore etc. Nevertheless, we would be quite glad if through this publication new people would get in touch with anarchist theory and action, not only other anarchists but new people willing to discover new ideas and get involved with anarchism. Though, we cannot tell much about this process, since we don’t have any concrete infos whether some non-anarchist people ask for it or not, beside some professor from Hamburg which is apparently a big fan of us...for sure, this is an interesting question we should maybe ask back to our distros.

By your opinion, which is the best way to present the anarchist idea to the »common people« and to destroy the false myths about it, since the mainstream media shows anarchists as a troble-makers, who destroy everything on their way?

Mmm, we do not think that we have a clear recipe towards this! Actually, we never thought to the journal as a way to present anarchism in some "decent, readable" way for the readers, in the sense to dismantle some imaginary which the "common" people (but as well a lot of others, might be left radicals or also anarchists) got from the media: we never aimed to "clean" ours and other anarchist image responding against the media bombing. What do we do, is giving a space to the different groups/individual to present their activities and to show with this, as well, how do those look like: it might be some support for some worker´s strike, organizing a food not bombs action, organizing lectures as well as liberating animals from vivisections laboratories or attacking and sabotaging private property. We do not offer, nor want, to give any line towards these directions, because people should simply read the newspaper and than, like always, get their own brain connected critically with reality, trying to liberate their mind from the dictatorship of the media/state propaganda. While reading through AbolishingBB, you would find that anarchists are both able of creating radical alternatives to the actual state of things while being "troublemakers" at the same time, the both things are strictly connected towards a revolutionary perspective.

How many people are in the ABB collective? Are you active in any other ways besides publishing this journal?

The number of people involved within our activities goes these days from 10 until 13 people, it really depends, since some people can have more time than some others, a lot of us are also travelling much (being most of us migrant anarchists), and everybody is also involved in other different anarchist projects. For sure, the publishing of the journal is probably the main activity of the group, in the sense as well that is the project where everybody of us get involved with. But, beside this, we are as well doing some other things: most of all, we try to organise solidarity action and soli-parties for some anarchist projects in eastern Europe, trying to support them here, might be organising an action in front of some embassy after some squat eviction in Poland, or a soli-party to raise money for some project over there; as well, some of us are taking actively part in the preparation campaign towards the upcoming G8 meeting in Russia this year.

Looking to the past, did you have any problems when trying to put out the first issue. And, if you did, how did you solve them? Back then, did you have any experience in publishing (anarchist) literature at all? I mean, before ABB, were you publishing any zines, etc.? Do you have any advice to the young and not-so-experienced zine-makers?

Of course there were some complications from the very beginning, technical as well as editorial. Most of the people starting this project have never published any press before (at least not on the regular basis) so it was from beginning »self managed academy for anarchist editors« for most of us. We have learned not only how to make layout or print the journal, but as well how to share the work during whole editorial process, and at the same time to keep the anarchist principles alive. As far as we can remember, only one from the founders of ABB was publishing libertarian publications before, but as well never internationally and on such scale.

One of the obvious problems was to reach and keep on the regural circulation of journal. When we said, we try to make it bi-monthly it was just 12-pages-long leaflet, and when the magazine became to grow (in all possible directions, from amount of pages in journal till amount of correspondents and distributors) the never ending process of changes begun: changes towards expectations, towards structure of work and level of dedication. Some people decided to go on through this process, others resigned, many new joined in different phases. In meanwhile we have changed the structure of work already quite a few times according to new circumstances, and we will do it probably few times more in the future.

And this is maybe one of the advices we could share with other anarchist publishers: in contrary to what right- and leftwing enemies of anarchists are spreading around, anarchists are able to conduct successfull, longterm and progressively developing projects and structures – we just need to be consious that all problems which we need to face are constant part of this development and these are exactly the moments where we grow the most: through facing and solving these problems! So dont panic when problems appear, just face them collectively, give yourself enough time, reflect, check different perspectives ... and think possitively: your little project may inspire many other people, which will than inspire the others with their little projects, and this can be a chain of inspiration which you started and which is more powerful as your perception aloweds you to imagine. As one of the best friends and supporters of ABB-collective always says: »contemporary anarchism needs anarchists which think and act positivety« whatever it would mean....

What about correspondents? How did you manage to get so many people sending you articles about their activities, columns, etc.? Did you write to them and ask them if they would be interested in participating in this project or did they send you their articles by themselves?

This was a long process. On our first call for participation on ABB just few comrades responsed, and even their wrote that they are sceptical about our idea as similar ideas have already been discussed many times but they were never really established (already after 2 years these few comrades admit that they would make great mistake if they would ignore our offert for that reason). Than there was week-by-week, month-by-month restless process of establishing of more contacts, untill the moment when project reached its own dynamic and anarchists from eastern europe begun to concidered ABB as serious and important thing to cooperate with. At the same time it has to be mentioned that all these years we were directly taking part in activites and struggles around EE, so exactly there »on the barricades« and during the »hot meetings« we made the most worth contacts which are giving fruits not only in terms of ABB but as well in many other anarchist borderless initiatives around EE.

In meanwhile there must be about 30-35 east european anarchists which send their materials to ABB. The first one declared to us his readyness for coopration during the »Gathering of Anarchist and Libertarian Groups and Individuals« in Wroclaw (Poland) in September 2001, and the newest one asked to join ABB as a correspondent during the »International Anarchist Bookfair« in Zagreb (Croatia) in April 2006.

Linking to the previous question; do you have correspondents from all of the east European countries? From which countries would you like to have (more) correspondents, too?

At the moment, we do have correspondents from most of the eastern European countries. Of course, in some of those we do have not hat many people, being the movement small, or simply we do have a lack of contacts. For sure, we wish that more people would write us in order to submit new articles and reports for the publication, since the more people are writing. the more different anarchist position can find a place in the newspaper. We do not have any correspondent in Estland, for example, or in the entire Caucasian region: the problem there is, that there is a lack of radical movements/people, which they could analyse and write from an anarchist perspective about the events. At the moment, we always tried to cover this lack from ourselves, reporting from the recent insurrections which took place in Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan, to name two. Of course, we wish that some anarchist seeds will spread also there and than soon some engaged people will get in touch with us!

A lot of people verbally attack zine-makers that they are imposing censorship when they don't want to publish something they don't like or it isn't in context with the idea behind the zine. So, do you publish everything you receive? Why (not)? If not, would you call it censorship? Again, why (not)?

At first, we need to say that this project has a clear focus: anarchist struggles within Eastern Europe. That means, that we didn’t, neither shall, publish stuff which is not related to this topic. It means, considering the structure of the journal that we are willing just to publish the stuff written from eastern European anarchist about their own struggle, plus, from time to time, we, as editorial collective, also do write some articles.
That had been the decision which had been taken since the very beginning within the collective, and through the years had been even more cemented from the fact that this is still the only publication around with this focus, beside “Laika”, a publication from Leipzig, Germany, which also has an Eastern Europe focus. Also, we do not make any review of music or either other anarchist journals from the rest of the world, out the same reasons mentioned above, and you also have to consider how limited is the space in the journal, 60 pages at the moment, and normally we are forced to exclude some articles because of this: so people around shouldn’t feel "offended" when they send us stuff and it is not getting published, it is our policy for everybody! Another point is the censorship question: we, as editorial collective, are all anarchist but we all do have a different background and anarchist analysis, we are not an homogenous block, let´s say. Secondly, our role is not to "censor" articles coming to us, since we do just offer this space to the groups directly to express themselves; this means, that we do not want to state any line, but leaving space to the different anarchist analysis to have a place here. As collective, as we write on the intro of the journal, we do not share the opinions contained here 100%, but, out of different reasons, we find all of them worth to be published. Of course, the journal has its focus on anarchist struggles written from an anarchist point of view, which it means, that some things are anyway already clear: communists and other authoritarian propaganda are here not welcome! Than, for sure, we do not accept articles having a sexist, or racist or whatever this kind of approach: when we do receive some kind of problematic article, we do write a short intro to the text explaining why do we publish it even though as editorial collective we do have problem with it. Until now, we never had extreme problems, say receiving extremely "bad" articles, thankfully! We wouldn’t call it censorship, because otherwise you could be forced to publish any bullshit, even Nazi shit or whatever: behind any zine, journal or whatever of this kind of projects, there are some clear aims on its beginning, which are clear for everybody who want to write for them. According to those lines, you give some indications on how your publication is "working", as we do with ours. If people are writing stuff not related to the focus we chose, that is not our problem! As well, being an anarchist journal, we do refuse sexism, racism etc., so people shouldn’t expect to see this kind of things published here.
Another thing we do is also publishing sometime some reports which are not coming from anarchist but from other spectrum, always writing a short intro to them, and that it is when we think that the news is worth to have a place here and about the event we didn’t t receive any submission from our correspondents: lately, it happened, for example, concerning the Gay Pride in Estland, where we do not have any autonomous fonts yet.

As any zine-makers and publishers do, I read you too have financial problems. But, so far you have published ABB undisturbed, so how do you manage to cover all the printing and postage costs? With benefit gigs and donations?

If on the outside it looked pretty undisturbed, that is not the actual reality nightmare! Of course, we are a self organised and self financed project, which involves, like most of the projects of this kind, being in a permanent lack of money and unsureness about the future.. Of course, if the distros would pay back in time their debts, there wouldn’t t be any problem: but, of course, this doesn’t t happen out of different reasons, being them as well small anarchist distro with already their own financial problems, for example. So we do organise some soli-party in order to raise money for the journal, in the past there have been a regular Sunday benefit breakfast in the Köpi, an automous anarchist center here in Berlin, we do still make pizza a lot of time etc. Also, a lot of time we do receive money from some benefit happenings organised around the world from other anarchist projects in order to finance us. Another thing to name is that, already 2 times, some british anarchist projects financed completely 2 issue of AbolishingBB, without their help we wouldn’t been
able to publish them. As well, we are just back from a week long info-tour through few German towns, where, beside organising some talks, we were also able to collect some money for the project. Besides all, what helps to keep the costs down, is the fact that we print the journal by ourselves in a left radical printer here in Berlin.

Since ABB covers the anarchist activities around the eastern Europe, I would like to ask you, if you know or if you heard of any similar journals, magazines etc., which cover the (anarchist) activities in Asia (China, Japan,...) or/and the rest of the so-called third world? I consider this question as an important one, since not much (if any at all) Europeans and Americans know much about the anarchist activities in the before mentioned countires...

We do not know any similar projects for the above mentioned countries, although would be for sure really interesting. What we do know, is that in the last 2 month a new project had been started in Usa from some anarchist a who have AbolishingBB as one source of inspiration: they are trying to do our same work for the central and south American regions, although explicitly saying that they will be selective in the choice of the articles that will be published. Of course, we are more than glad that some other seeds are spreading towards this direction and we wish them good luck! Here you can check their website: www.antipolitics.net/incendio Also, at the moment in Italy some anarchist are translating most of the publication into italian, being even barbarian english a problem for the people over there, and a similar project is meant to be start soon in Croatia as well.

OK, that'll be all. Do you have anything to add? Would you like to ask me any question? If not, thank you very very much for your time and answers to these silly questions. And keep on with the good work!

Yes, we would to add that we managed to establish a free subscription for prisoners since a couple of months, helped from anarchist black cross groups which are around, willing to smash also the prisons walls (and, of course, of all the others segregation institutions) which this society "offers" to us. So, prisoners who would like to give a read to AbolishingBB, can get in touch either with the local ABC groups or directly with us, at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Besides this, we want to wish you good luck with your zine and thanks a lot for giving us some space in it!