Reflections

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The Watermelon Scare: Attacks on Palestine Solidarity Are Aimed At Silencing the Anti-War Movement

Originally published on It’s Going Down.

By Scott Campbell

On October 15th, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was labeled a “terrorist entity” by Canada and subjected to sanctions by the United States. These designations follow a previous ban in Germany and the labeling of Samidoun as a “terrorist organization” by Israel. The U.S. claims Samidoun is a “sham fundraiser whose efforts have supported terrorism” by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian political party also labeled as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the U.S. For its part, Samidoun states it “does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union.”

Two days later, Republican Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General requesting he “immediately open a domestic terrorism investigation” into the popular pro-Palestine website and social media account, Unity of Fields, known for posting anonymous reports of direct actions. In a statement, the group said it is “an anti-imperialist propaganda front…we don’t do actions, we only report on them and receive anonymous submissions.”

As the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) recently noted, Rubio also pushed the Attorney General to charge four activists in Florida who were arrested for writing pro-choice graffiti following the fall of Roe v Wade for “terrorism.” One activist was sentenced to a year in prison by the Middle District of Florida, the same court that recently awarded only 8 months to a man convicted of literally firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Likewise, while Rubio is trying to claim that an Instagram account is terrorism, he has of course stayed quiet while his own party works overtime to spread rampant misinformation in the wake of two devastating hurricanes hitting his state and about the upcoming election – to say nothing of members of his own party regularly attending neo-Nazi gatherings and increasing aligning with white nationalists.

One may disagree with Samidoun and Unity of Fields on their specific political positions, but the entire movement against the ongoing war and genocide in Gaza should be concerned with the state’s move to target them. In no way can Samidoun be understood as a “sham charity” or “terrorist entity,” nor a media project like Unity of Fields as responsible for “domestic terrorism.” Even if one were to accept the legitimacy of power to deploy a subjective term such as “terrorism,” in reality, the extent of Samidoun’s work is posting statements, organizing public educational and political events, and pushing online action campaigns, while Unity of Fields maintains a counter-info website and social media accounts.

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One year on…

From “I’m Still Alive,” by Maisara Baroud, 2023-24.

At the time of this writing, since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed 42,612 people in Gaza, including 16,765 children. 97,166 people have been wounded. Academic estimates place the actual death toll to be as high as 335,000, out of a population of 2.3 million. In the West Bank, 742 people have been killed. As Israel escalates its rampage against Lebanon, more than 2,000 have been killed there. Numbers such as these do not even come close to capturing the depth of the genocidal horror that has been unleashed against the Palestinian people by Israel, aided and abetted and armed by the United States. We can compile numbers, share anecdotes, link to videos, repost poetry, and more, but no frame is large enough to hold the scope of the devastation. It is incomprehensible.

To mark, remember, resist one year of genocide, I had originally planned to write a lengthy post contextualizing Palestinians as agents of their own history as well as survivors of histories imposed upon them. I wanted to problematize narratives, challenge conceptions, propose nuance, and foment action. Alas, exigencies beyond my control have led me to abandon such a plan. I can leave only a title: Every prison riots. Every colony rebels.

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Panel at the 8th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network

If you can’t sleep, or live in a different time zone, you can get a dose of anarchy with our online panel “Conflict and affinity at the borders of anarchism” as part of the 8th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network, tomorrow, Monday, September 2, at 5:30am PDT.

Register for free here.

I’ll be presenting alongside comrades Ryan Knight and Imuris Valle. My talk is entitled “Toward the destruction of the Human.” Below is the abstract. Hope to see you there!

In recent decades, Black feminist and Afropessimist thinkers have problematized the notion of the “Human,” arguing that this construct of modernity is rooted in and necessitates an ontological and epistemological anti-Blackness. As an intellectual and socio-political movement, anarchism has come far in its analysis of race as a hierarchical social construct. Nonetheless, an unresolved tension within anarchism remains its origins in modernity and thus raises the question of how does a movement navigate and understand race if said origins are premised in anti-Blackness? This paper will offer a problematization of the Human drawing on theories of power, administrative violence, Black feminism, and Afropessimism. It will then propose that calls for the destruction of the Human and lines of flight from the Human inherently present a challenge to anarchist thought by forcing anarchism to reckon with its roots and its understanding of race from a perspective that, will be argued, is more radical than anarchism itself.

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Heat

The phone warns that the air is toxic and the sun too sunny. Smog to the left of me, forest fires to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle of modernity. Drink water. But the tiny omnipresent poison pellets are giving the kids cancer. I know this and drink it anyway. The A/C daily fights a losing battle. Utility bill as climate tax. Breaking records is banal. In the Caribbean, islands are eviscerated. In Saudi Arabia, hundreds drop dead. It’s a Tuesday. Meanwhile, the argument continues over who gets to captain the Titanic. One is committing genocide, the other wants to commit genocide. Get out the vote. Get out of my vote. Our dreams don’t fit in your ballot boxes. I sit between my parents and my son and think about how the aperture of perspective shifts as the wheel of time spins. Or how we navigate future pasts, tending to generational wounds. There was no cook at Denny’s, so we went to another one. How strange to be in two different locations but the same place. Quantum level capitalism. The left tried to sell me a paper. I tried to give it a zine. Turns out no one reads anymore, unless it’s on Instagram. X (née Twitter) is having a fire sale on fascism. The soul is broken when the path to freedom is premised on the suffering of the Other. God is dead, their corpse caresses our conscience. Alas, it’s muted by anhedonia. There’s no dopamine left for the divine. We are walking tragedies not of our own choosing. I try not to feel guilt and shame, and fail more often than not. It all just seems too big. I know it’s by design, but sometimes the design works. The ingenuity of an unwalled prison is that wherever you go, there you are. Seems the only choice left is to rebel. It’s already so damn hot.

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In Memory of Clarissa Rogers

I’m heartbroken to learn of the passing of Clarissa Rogers and of her struggle the past couple of years.

Many lifetimes ago, I lived in Philly as a clueless baby anarchist. That was where I met Clarissa. She was an exuberant, bighearted, loving, passionate person. She took me under her wing and guided me through the scene and its politics, helping me get involved in various organizing projects, or just enjoying a great meal together or an inevitable episode of The Simpsons.

I remember hanging out on the porch of Not Squat, discussing workplace organizing or reviewing something I wrote or getting gently but firmly critiqued on my hierarchical worldview and beliefs. I remember the reading groups at the A-Space. I remember her relentless commitment to abolition and supporting political prisoners. But more than anything, I remember her as a dear friend who through her words and deeds modeled anarchism and invited me into it and helped me grow.

Unfortunately, we lost touch over the years, but she will always have a place in my heart. She deserves so much more than a blog post, but that is what I can offer here. Long live Wacky Adventures! Long live Clarissa! Rest in power, friend. Thank you for everything.

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The Campus Movement and Academic Self-Management

Originally published on It’s Going Down.

As Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian people and Palestine itself continues past the 200-day mark, students around the so-called United States have risen up and are carrying out occupations and erecting encampments on their campuses. These acts are extremely inspiring, militant, and hopeful – calling to mind the campus occupations from the early aughts, the student mobilizing against the war on Vietnam in the 1960s and protests against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. Breathless blather from politicians and the media have turned what are actions against genocide into a “controversy” that deftly manages to ignore the political content of what is currently unfolding across the country. As Samuel P. Catlin notes in his exceptional essay, “The Campus Does Not Exist”:

Campus panic is a sustained note in the American public conversation; from Vietnam to Gaza, it has never let up. Reliably, every few months something happens “on campus” that the media inflates to the status of a national emergency: a speaker is invited, a speaker is disinvited, a speaker is not disinvited, a professor teaches, a student complains, a protest takes place. The media offers these incidents as scandals so fascinating and disturbing that they eclipse even a genocide.

At the front of any conversation regarding what is happening on college campuses must be an acknowledgement of what the action is in response to: an ongoing, U.S.-facilitated genocide. It seems both absurd and necessary to note that what matters above all is the genocide. Students (and some faculty and staff) are taking tangible, direct action to pressure institutions complicit in the genocide into divesting and disassociating from that most atrocious of acts. That opposition to genocide has been successfully constructed as “controversial” in this country merely demonstrates the insipid nature of what passes for public discourse and the paucity of thought contained within it.

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Empathy amid extermination

In Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, the numbers are appalling: almost 31,000 dead, including 12,300 children; more than 72,000 wounded; more than 8,000 missing under the rubble. Eight-five percent of the population of 2.3 million internally displaced. Nearly half of Gaza’s homes destroyed or damaged. Dozens of hospitals and hundreds of schools and religious sites attacked. Children starved to death. Thousands made orphans. The list of atrocities, cruelties, and indignities goes on and on.

It feels like too much because it is too much. Even one death, one injury is too much. It has been too much for more than 75 years. Israel’s eliminationist campaign against the Palestinian people, aided and abetted by the United States and others, is intolerable and reprehensible. It is a preannounced genocide and an intentionally imposed famine, broadcast in real time. We are all spectators to the apocalypse; it is no longer possible to say that we didn’t know. What does it mean to consume the wholesale destruction of a people and their land?

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The Blue Agave Revolution – Book Release from Oso Blanco

I’m honored to be participating in this upcoming event, speaking on Magonismo in the context of the Mexican Revolution and its legacy. See the full post on Philly ABC’s site for info on how to attend in person or remotely. Hope to see you there!

Join us at 3:30pm ET on Sunday, January 28th at Iffy Books for the premier release of freshly published The Blue Agave Revolution: Poetry of the Blind Rebel. Collaboratively written by indigenous anarchist political prisoner Oso Blanco and Michael Novick, The Blue Agave Revolution is a joint work of speculative/magical realist fiction containing tales of the Mexican Revolution, analyses of contemporary Indigenous struggle, engagement with the work of other political prisoners including Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Jessica Reznicek, art, poetry, and meditations about what struggles for freedom may look like in the future.

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Notes on the EZLN’s Latest Announcement from Chiapas

Originally posted on It’s Going Down.

It’s Going Down contributor Scott Campbell reflects on a recent announcement from the EZLN in Chiapas, Mexico.

Several people have asked my thoughts on the recent announcement by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) that the Zapatista autonomous municipalities (MAREZ) and Good Government Juntas (JBG) have been “disappeared” or dissolved. I’m firmly of the opinion that it doesn’t matter what I think, and what I have to say would just be speculation, but I figured I’d have a go at it. There are numerous, complex factors to take into consideration when trying to understand this decision and the motivations behind it.

The primary one is that, as the EZLN has finally recognized in this statement, Chiapas is in crisis. There are wars playing out between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel along the mountains and borderlands of Chiapas. There are other paramilitary groups active in the interior of Chiapas. While the EZLN has not acknowledged it, all these armed groups have impacted Zapatista support territories, creating internally displaced Zapatistas, along with other civilians.

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Afro-Pessimism and Palestinian Liberation

5/18/25 Update: Rather than these rambling thoughts, I encourage interested readers to check out my lengthier essay examining this topic.

As part of a reading group, for our last meeting I selected the following texts: “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” by Hortense Spillers; “Afro-Pessimism: The Unclear Word,” by Jared Sexton; and, “The Social Life of Social Death: On Afro-Pessimism and Black Optimism,” also by Jared Sexton. As part of our meetings, those who choose the readings for the week have to do a written response as to how the readings incorporate into their research interests in general. In discussion with the reading group crew, I’ve decided to publish my response publicly in an effort to move our endeavor forward. If you’re interested in joining our group, reach out to me. The only requirements being that you’re bilingual (Spanish/English) and that you’re down to burn this all to the ground.

As I grapple with the three texts we read for this week, I cannot but help view them – as I am currently viewing everything – through the lens of Palestine. Therefore, I’m interested in doing what Frank Wilderson firmly disavows: a comparative reading of Palestine through the lens of Afro-Pessimism. I believe that doing so can offer insights on the current situation in Palestine and also on the arguments put forward by Spillers and Sexton. I want to acknowledge that to do so does great injustice to both narratives and subjects. Despite appreciable claims of Black-Palestinian solidarity, they cannot be conflated along the lines of historical experience nor ontological construction. At least not linearly nor literally. I believe metaphorically, however, there are openings or sites for exploration that I wish to delve into here.

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