By Farhana Khatri

Anti-globalization activism in Calgary received a major boost from the organizing that took place to protest the June 2002 G8 summit in Kananaskis, a mountain resort 100 kilometres west of the city. As in the demonstrations that have taken place post-Seattle, the Calgary anti-globalization activism scene had a strong anti-capitalist anarchist presence, and this influence led to the formation of several grassroots activist groups. After the G8 protests, these groups became involved in organizing demonstrations against the war in Iraq and in more specifically anarchist events, such as the Reclaim the Streets March in June 2003 and the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair in October of the same year. Although it has been encouraging to see how much the activist community has grown in Calgary in the past few years, many issues related to race and gender remain to be addressed.

That race and gender are critical issues for the anti-capitalist anarchist movement is very clear to me as a womun of colour working within this movement. During the organizing for the anti-G8 protests, I and the few other people of colour present often felt that our voices were not being heard in the “spokes council” meetings of affinity and activist groups. Although we formed our own people of colour caucus, this had, at best, only a marginal effect on the larger movement’s awareness of issues of race.

During the protests themselves, I observed a number of incidents in convergence spaces and during the “snake marches” that disrupted traffic, where womyn of colour were silenced. In one typical case, a suggestion made by a womun of colour for a specific action was totally ignored, but the same suggestion made by a white male was enthusiastically adopted. In another case, a womun of colour was actually told by a white male that the group needed to listen to him rather than to her because what he had to say was a lot more important. During an organizing meeting for the Reclaim the Streets event, held at the bar where one of the activists worked, two womyn of colour were singled out by staff in an ugly confrontation and asked to produce IDs. Most problematic here was that only one other activist acknowledged what was happening and left the meeting in solidarity with these womyn.

Moreover, as evident at other gatherings, such as the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair, the anarchist scene is dominated by a white, middle-class, male, individualist subculture oriented around punk rock music, the politics of being “cool,” and the glorification of living in squats.” This subculture — particularly the last aspect excludes most womyn of colour, whose families tend to be relatively recent immigrants from the global South where “squatting” is not a choice.

Focusing on issues of race and gender within the anti-globalization movement is critical because, as J. Sakai has argued, the anti-globalization movement is not only supported by the left and centre but also by certain right-wing and even neo-Nazi groups. This right-wing element, which has been present since the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, blames neoliberal globalization for selling out “their” jobs to the Global South, to take advantage of the lower wages there, and for the mass migration of peoples from the South to the North in search of better living conditions. Taken to the extreme by fascist tendencies, this insular nationalism tends to scapegoat immigrant people of colour. Moreover, the patriarchal cultural norms associated with this emergent fascism tends to significantly intensify womyn’s domination.

Within the anti-capitalist and, more specifically, the anarchist anti-capitalist movement against neoliberalism, people of colour and their anti-racist allies are attempting to address these conservative tendencies within the anti-globalization movement. For example, Colours of Resistance is a grassroots network that is “committed to helping build an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, multiracial, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, anti-authoritarian movement against global capitalism . . . [and] to integrating an anti-oppression framework and analysis into all of [its] work.” Towards these goals, Colours of Resistance has set up a website and an e-mail discussion list. It also publishes a zine and occasional articles and organizes workshops, community-based events, and local meetings. Another largely web-based network is the Anarchist People of Color listserv that “is intended as a place for anarchist and anti-authoritarian people of color, who might often feel isolated and without support, to come and speak their minds and hearts.” Discussions on this listserv focus on organizing and personal experiences, methods being used to build those new ideas, how we relate our ideas to our communities, how to reach out creatively to people, how anarchism and various beliefs relate to our public and private lives and more.”

Although I have found the Anarchist People of Color listserv very helpful in providing support around issues of racism in the anti-globalization movement, awareness of gender issues is more limited. One of the network’s explicit goals is that “our sisters are especially encouraged to dialogue. A lot of net discussion tends to exclude women, and we’ll do our best to be open.” Yet, a short while ago transphobic comments were made on the listserv by a male to a trans person of colour. Almost all the people who came to the defence of the trans person were womyn. While the transphobic male was removed from the listserv, this was mainly due to the solidarity shown by womyn.

The issues of race and gender cannot be separated from issues related to corporate globalization. Anti-racist feminism needs to be a part of the anti-capitalist anarchist struggle. The best way of dealing with all these issue is by developing an anti-oppression anarcha-feminist stance.

Farhana Khatri is finishing her BA in Womyn’s Studies and Sociology. She is an anarchafeminist who has been involved in the activist community in Calgary for the past four years.

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