FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 8, 2011
Contact: Ian Chinich, ichinich@gmail.com and Elisa Gill, elisamgill@gmail.com
November 12th and 13th, 2011
10am-6pm
Simmons College Paresky Center, 3rd floor, 300 the Fenway
Boston Anarchist Bookfair to Bring Together Activists, Community Members, and Academics for a Weekend of Learning, Strategy, and More.
Boston, MA—Since Occupy Boston took over Dewey Square last month in a protest against an economic structure that favors the one percent over the majority, Boston anarchists have repeatedly become the scapegoat for all actions that upset Boston’s authorities.
After police arrested 142 Occupy Boston protesters on Columbus Day in an early morning face-off downtown, Police Commissioner Edward Davis said that “a new group, the anarchists, wanted to take control,” and blamed their influence on the movement for the acts of civil disobedience and arrests. Mayor Menino also warned of anarchist agitators, saying they would “cause trouble” and take over the movement. Why the anarchists?
The sudden attention towards anarchists in Boston and across the country comes at a convenient time. Over the weekend of November 12th-13th, Simmons College will host Boston’s first Anarchist Bookfair in five years. The fair will showcase literature from dozens of radical publishers from around the region and the country and include strategy sessions, speaker panels, a radical film festival and, of course, books galore. Saturday’s festivities will feature a panel discussion between activists from Occupy movements around the country at “#Occupy Everything: Occupy Wallstreet, Boston, and Beyond” and a screening of 2011 Sundance Film Festival award winner If a Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front.
With speakers ranging from Tamer Mehanna, (the brother of local target of FBI repression Tarek Mehanna) to Klare Allen (a leader in the fight against the Boston University NEIDL Biolab), the goal of the weekend is to connect activists, academics, and the curious in a show of organization, direct democracy, anti-authoritarianism, autonomy and solidarity.
The Boston Anarchist Bookfair anticipates that hundreds of activists, organizers, students and professors from Boston, the Northeast and Canada will come together this weekend to discuss and learn from each other in a time in which the ideas, methods, and tactics of anarchism are more important than ever.
The full schedule of events, films and speakers and a list of attending publishers and organizations can be found at bostonanarchistbookfair.org.
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