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The Cooperator’s Dilemma: How Martin Nowak’s Mathematics of Kindness Became a Blueprint for Control
Martin Nowak wanted to prove that cooperation is the animating force of evolution. He succeeded. His mathematical models, published across decades of work at Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard, demonstrate with formal rigor that cooperation is not an anomaly in a competitive world but a fundamental mechanism by which biological complexity arises. Genomes cooperate. Cells cooperate. Organisms cooperate. Societies cooperate. Without cooperation, there are no multicellular bodies, no ant colonies, no languages, no civilizations. This is not sentiment. It is mathematics. And it is precisely because the mathematics are correct that they are dangerous.
Nowak is Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, an Austrian-born scientist trained in biochemistry and mathematics at the University of Vienna, where he worked under Peter Schuster on quasispecies theory and with Karl Sigmund on evolutionary game theory. He earned his doctorate sub auspiciis praesidentis, the highest academic honor Austria can bestow on a graduating student. He moved to Oxford, where he collaborated with Robert May (later Lord May of Oxford) on spatial evolutionary dynamics and virus population models. He established the first center for theoretical biology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1998. In 2003, he came to Harvard to found the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED), where he would spend two decades formalizing the mathematics of cooperation, cancer evolution, language emergence, and infection dynamics.
His landmark 2006 paper in Science, “Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation,” laid out the theoretical architecture that his 2011 book SuperCooperators: Why We Need Each Other to Succeed (co-written with science journalist Roger Highfield) would translate for a general audience. The core argument is elegant and, on its face, optimistic: natural selection, left alone, favors defectors over cooperators, but five distinct mechanisms can reverse this tendency and allow cooperation to evolve. Those mechanisms are kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. Each mechanism can be reduced to a simple mathematical rule specifying the conditions under which cooperation becomes the favored strategy. Each rule expresses a threshold: when the benefit-to-cost ratio of a cooperative act exceeds a critical value determined by the mechanism’s structure, cooperation wins.
The book is earnest. It is hopeful. It tells a story about vampire bats sharing blood meals, about cancer as a failure of cellular cooperation, about human language as the greatest cooperative innovation since the gene. Nowak calls humans “supercooperators” because we are the only species that deploys all five mechanisms simultaneously. The implication is that our capacity for cooperation is not just biologically real but biologically supreme. We are, in his framework, evolution’s greatest collaborative achievement.
This is all true. And none of it prevents the mathematics from being turned inside out.
The Five Mechanisms as Five Exploits
What Nowak mapped are not merely descriptions of how cooperation arises. They are, read from the other direction, specifications for how cooperation can be manufactured, directed, and harvested by any actor with sufficient control over the relevant variables. Each mechanism contains its own vulnerability. Each rule that tells you how to promote cooperation also tells you how to engineer compliance that feels like cooperation to the people inside the system.
Direct Reciprocity: The Obligation Engine
Direct reciprocity is the simplest mechanism: I help you now, you help me later, and we both benefit as long as we expect to interact again. Nowak’s mathematical condition is precise. Cooperation through direct reciprocity succeeds only when the probability of future interaction between the same two individuals exceeds the cost-to-benefit ratio of the cooperative act. If you and I will meet again many times, the cost of helping you today is offset by the expected return from your future help. The strategy that dominates in this environment is not pure tit-for-tat (which is too brittle, collapsing into mutual defection after a single error) but “win-stay, lose-shift,” a more forgiving strategy that sustains cooperation through noise.
The exploit is in the precondition. If you can engineer a situation where people believe they will interact with you repeatedly and indefinitely, you can extract cooperation from them even when the exchange is not mutual. Subscription services, employer-employee relationships with annual review cycles, government benefit programs tied to ongoing compliance, social media platforms that reward daily engagement: all of these create artificial conditions of repeated interaction. The person inside the system cooperates because their evolved psychology recognizes the pattern. They feel the pull of reciprocity. They return to the platform, they renew the subscription, they comply with the bureaucratic requirement, because the structure tells them the relationship will continue and defection carries a cost.
But the entity on the other side of the interaction is not bound by the same psychology. A corporation does not feel the tug of reciprocal obligation. A government agency does not experience guilt for failing to return a favor. The asymmetry is structural: the human cooperates because direct reciprocity is wired into primate social cognition; the institution extracts because it designed the interaction pattern to trigger exactly that response. The “repeated game” is real for the person and fictional for the institution, which can end the relationship, change the terms, or alter the benefit-to-cost ratio at any time without experiencing the psychological cost of defection.
Consider the modern employment relationship. An employee cooperates (works hard, stays late, defers complaints) because the structure of employment creates an expectation of continued interaction: there will be another paycheck, another review, another year. The employer benefits from this cooperation while retaining the unilateral power to terminate the relationship. The employee’s cooperation is genuine. The employer’s reciprocity is contingent. Nowak’s mathematics describe the employee’s behavior perfectly. They do not describe the employer’s, because the employer is not playing a repeated game. The employer is playing a series of one-shot games while the employee believes both parties are in a repeated game. This mismatch is not a bug in the model. It is the exploit.
Indirect Reciprocity: The Reputation Weapon
Nowak considers indirect reciprocity the most important mechanism for human cooperation, and he is probably right. Indirect reciprocity works through reputation: I help you not because I expect you to help me, but because others are watching, and my willingness to help builds a reputation that will cause others to help me in the future. The mathematical condition is that the probability of knowing someone’s reputation must exceed the cost-to-benefit ratio of cooperation. Language, Nowak argues, evolved in part to serve this mechanism. We gossip. We evaluate. We track who is trustworthy and who is not. This reputational calculus is what allows cooperation to scale beyond pairs of individuals who interact repeatedly.
The danger is obvious and immense. Whoever controls the reputation infrastructure controls the conditions for cooperation. And in the modern world, reputation infrastructure is not distributed among gossiping primates. It is centralized in databases.
Credit scoring systems (FICO in the United States, similar systems globally) are indirect reciprocity engines. They assign each person a reputation score based on their history of “cooperation” with financial institutions. A high score means you have reliably cooperated (paid debts, maintained accounts, avoided default). The score then determines whether others will cooperate with you (extend credit, offer favorable terms, rent you an apartment). The mathematics are identical to Nowak’s model. The probability of knowing your reputation is essentially 1.0 in a world of universal credit reporting. Therefore, the threshold for cooperation is easily met, and people cooperate.
But cooperate with what? With whom? The content of “cooperation” in a credit scoring system is defined by the institutions that build and maintain the scoring model. Cooperation means paying your bills. It means maintaining debt. It means participating in a financial system on its terms. The reputation system does not reward you for helping your neighbor move furniture or lending your car to a friend in need. It rewards you for being a reliable revenue source for financial institutions. The indirect reciprocity mechanism is operating exactly as Nowak describes. The mathematics are satisfied. But the cooperation is directed, not organic. It serves the architects of the reputation system, not the cooperators within it.
China’s social credit experiments take this further, attaching reputational scores to civic behavior, political speech, social associations, and consumption patterns. The mathematics are the same. The mechanism is the same. The outcome is that “cooperation” becomes indistinguishable from “compliance,” and the person inside the system cannot easily tell the difference, because the psychological experience of cooperating to maintain one’s reputation feels the same whether the reputation system is tracking genuine prosocial behavior or political obedience.
Social media platforms represent a third variant. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and formerly Twitter construct reputation systems (follower counts, likes, shares, verification badges) that trigger indirect reciprocity behavior. Users cooperate with the platform (producing content, engaging with others’ content, spending time on the platform) because the reputation system rewards them for doing so. The platform harvests this cooperation as engagement metrics, advertising revenue, and behavioral data. The user experiences the warm glow of reputational validation. The platform experiences profit. The mathematics of indirect reciprocity are perfectly satisfied in both directions. The exploitation is invisible precisely because it operates through a mechanism that evolution shaped to feel good.
Network Reciprocity: Whoever Designs the Graph Wins
Nowak’s third mechanism, developed in his landmark 1992 Nature paper with Robert May, showed that the spatial structure of interactions matters enormously. In a well-mixed population (where everyone interacts with everyone equally), defectors always win. But when interactions are local, restricted to neighbors on a network, cooperators can form clusters that protect themselves from exploitation. Cooperators surrounded by other cooperators thrive; defectors on the edge of cooperative clusters can invade, but the cluster structure slows the invasion and allows cooperation to persist.
The strategic implication is that whoever controls network topology controls the conditions for cooperation. This is not a metaphor. It is a direct application of the mathematics.
Social media algorithms determine who sees whose content, who appears in whose feed, who gets recommended as a connection. These algorithms are network reciprocity engines. They construct the “spatial structure” of online social interaction. A platform that clusters users into engagement-optimized groups is, in Nowak’s terms, constructing a network topology. If the topology is designed to maximize engagement (which is to say, to maximize the platform’s extraction of attention), then the cooperative clusters that form will be optimized for engagement, not for the welfare of the cooperators.
Corporate organizational design is another application. Who reports to whom, who collaborates with whom, who has access to information and who does not: these are network topology decisions. A company that understands network reciprocity can design org charts that promote exactly the cooperative behaviors it wants (cross-functional collaboration, knowledge sharing, collective problem-solving) while preventing the formation of cooperative clusters that might oppose management (unions, whistleblower networks, collective bargaining groups). The mathematics tell you which structures promote cooperation and which fragment it. The application is straightforward.
Gerrymandering is network reciprocity applied to democratic geography. By controlling which voters are grouped into which districts, political actors control the spatial structure of electoral cooperation. Voters who might form cooperative clusters around shared interests are separated. Voters whose “cooperation” (voting behavior) serves the redistricting party are grouped together. The mathematics of spatial evolutionary dynamics describe exactly why this works and how to optimize it.
Group Selection: The Factory of Tribes
Nowak’s treatment of group selection (which he and others now call multilevel selection) demonstrates that groups of cooperators outcompete groups of defectors, even when defectors dominate within groups. The mechanism requires that groups compete, that there is variation in the level of cooperation between groups, and that groups with more cooperators produce more offspring groups. Under these conditions, cooperation at the group level is favored even though individual defectors within groups do better than individual cooperators.
The exploit is the deliberate manufacture of group identity and intergroup competition. Nowak’s own reviewers noted the problem clearly: group selection favors within-group niceness and between-group nastiness. This is the mathematical basis of tribalism. It is also, historically, the most reliable mechanism by which authoritarian movements generate internal cohesion.
If you want a population to cooperate internally (pay taxes, report dissent, sacrifice personal interests for collective goals), you manufacture an external threat. The perceived competition between groups raises the benefit-to-cost ratio of within-group cooperation. Nationalists understand this intuitively. So do corporate culture architects who position their company against competitors while demanding employee loyalty. So do political parties that define themselves primarily through opposition. The mathematics of multilevel selection explain why “rally around the flag” effects work, why wartime economies produce extraordinary domestic cooperation, and why authoritarian regimes invest so heavily in identifying and publicizing external enemies.
The earnestness of Nowak’s presentation (he sees group selection as enabling the great cooperative achievements of human civilization, from agriculture to the United Nations) obscures how perfectly the same mathematics describe the cooperative achievements of fascism. The cooperative group that builds a hospital and the cooperative group that builds an internment camp are both satisfying the mathematical conditions for multilevel selection. The model does not distinguish between them. It cannot. The variables are the same.
Kin Selection: Manufacturing Family Where None Exists
Kin selection, formalized by W.D. Hamilton in 1964, is the oldest and most biologically grounded of the five mechanisms. Organisms cooperate with genetic relatives in proportion to their degree of relatedness, because helping a relative who shares your genes indirectly promotes the survival of those shared genes. Hamilton’s rule states that altruism is favored when the coefficient of relatedness between donor and recipient exceeds the cost-to-benefit ratio of the altruistic act. Nowak has a complicated relationship with Hamilton’s rule (his 2010 Nature paper with E.O. Wilson and Corina Tarnita argued that kin selection is less explanatory than previously thought, provoking a famous counterresponse signed by over 130 biologists), but the mechanism remains one of his five pillars.
The exploit is the simulation of kinship where none exists. “We are family.” “Band of brothers.” “Our company family.” “Fellow citizens.” “Children of God.” These are not merely sentimental phrases. They are invocations of kin selection psychology, designed to lower the threshold at which people will sacrifice personal interest for the group. When a military unit trains together, eats together, sleeps together, suffers together, and adopts shared rituals, symbols, and origin stories, it is manufacturing fictive kinship. The result is that soldiers will take risks for their unit-mates that they would not take for strangers, because their psychology has been calibrated to treat those unit-mates as kin.
Religious organizations, fraternities, political movements, cults, and nationalist ideologies all exploit this mechanism. The more completely an institution can simulate the markers of genetic relatedness (shared appearance through uniforms, shared language through jargon, shared history through founding myths, shared suffering through initiation rites), the more effectively it triggers kin selection psychology, and the more cooperation it can extract from its members. The cost of this cooperation is borne by the members. The benefit accrues to whoever designed the kinship simulation.
The Epstein Entanglement: A Case Study in the Exploitation of Cooperation Science
Any serious discussion of Martin Nowak’s work must confront the fact that the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, the institutional home of his cooperation research, was founded with $6.5 million from Jeffrey Epstein. This was the largest single gift Epstein made to Harvard, part of a total of more than $9 million in donations to the university between 1998 and 2007. Epstein, a convicted sex offender who would later be charged with sex trafficking before his death in federal custody in 2019, did not merely donate money and walk away. He embedded himself in the program.
Harvard’s own 2020 review found that after Epstein’s 2008 conviction and release from prison, he continued to visit the PED offices more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018. He had a personal office in Nowak’s lab. He had a key card. He was typically accompanied by young women described as his assistants. His publicist requested that PED post information about Epstein on the harvard.edu domain because, as the publicist wrote, it would be helpful for Google search results. PED complied. Epstein’s foundation page was linked from the PED website under a tab labeled “Friends.” Epstein was the only “Friend” listed.
More recently, documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2025 revealed that Epstein’s involvement went beyond access and reputation-laundering. He discussed research topics with Nowak and his graduate students. He suggested lines of inquiry, including “commercial evolution” and “prelife.” He facilitated visa arrangements for at least one graduate student. He funneled scholarship money through a Ph.D. student to young female mathematicians in Romania. He reviewed page proofs of a Nature paper before publication and offered advice on handling criticism. In 2025, Nowak was placed on administrative leave a second time after his name appeared more than 8,000 times in the newly released DOJ Epstein files.
The irony is lacerating. Epstein was a man who built his entire social and financial empire on the exploitation of cooperation mechanisms. His method was indirect reciprocity: he cultivated relationships with scientists, politicians, and financiers by offering gifts, access, and introductions, building a reputation as a brilliant and generous patron of science. He used network reciprocity: he positioned himself as a hub connecting elite nodes (Harvard professors, tech billionaires, heads of state), making himself indispensable as a broker of social capital. He manufactured fictive kinship: his dinners, his island retreats, his intellectual salons created a sense of belonging and shared identity among participants. He exploited direct reciprocity: every gift came with an implicit expectation of return, whether it was a letter of reference, a favorable public statement, or simply continued access and association.
And he funded, specifically and deliberately, the research program that mathematically formalized every one of these strategies. He did not fund a chemistry lab or an engineering department. He funded the mathematics of cooperation. He then used the institutional affiliation (Harvard, the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics) as a reputational asset, laundering his public image through association with the most prestigious cooperative institution in American academia.
Nowak has not been charged with any crime related to Epstein’s offenses. The Harvard review found policy violations, not criminal conduct. But the structural relationship between Epstein and PED is itself a perfect illustration of the very dynamics Nowak’s research describes. Epstein was a defector masquerading as a cooperator, using the mechanisms of cooperation (reputation, network position, reciprocal obligation, fictive kinship) to extract value from a system whose participants genuinely believed they were cooperating for the advancement of knowledge. The mathematics predicted this possibility. The researchers did not see it, or chose not to.
The Cyclical Trap
The deepest and most troubling insight in Nowak’s work is the finding that cooperation is inherently cyclical. Cooperators increase in number and trust, building successful clusters and institutions. Then a minority of defectors, positioned to exploit the high-trust environment, invade. Cooperation collapses. Eventually, cooperators rebuild. The cycle repeats. Nowak frames this as a feature of evolutionary dynamics, a permanent oscillation that can be modulated but never eliminated.
For a government or corporation seeking to exploit cooperation, this cyclical pattern is not a problem. It is the business model. The cycle describes exactly what extraction looks like over time. During the cooperative phase, the institution harvests trust, labor, engagement, compliance, and revenue. During the collapse phase, the institution restructures, rebrands, and resets the conditions for a new cooperative phase. The people inside the system experience the collapse as a betrayal. The institution experiences it as a cost of doing business.
Platform companies cycle through this pattern visibly. A new platform launches, cultivates a cooperative community of early adopters, builds network effects, then monetizes by degrading the experience for users while extracting more value from advertisers. Users eventually defect (leave the platform), but by then the platform has captured enough network position to survive, or a new platform launches and the cycle restarts. This is Nowak’s evolutionary dynamic playing out in real time, at internet speed.
Political cycles follow the same pattern. A new administration or movement builds cooperative coalitions around shared goals. Trust increases. Policy achievements accumulate. Then insiders begin to extract (corruption, patronage, self-dealing), trust erodes, the coalition fragments, and a new movement arises to rebuild cooperation on different terms. The cycle is so regular that political scientists have formalized it independently of evolutionary biology, but Nowak’s mathematics show that it is not unique to politics. It is a property of any system in which cooperation and defection coexist.
What Nowak Missed, or Chose Not to Say
SuperCooperators is a book about the conditions that produce cooperation. It is not a book about the conditions that produce just cooperation. This is not a minor omission. It is the central weakness of the work.
Nowak’s five mechanisms are content-neutral. They describe the structural conditions under which organisms will choose to cooperate, but they are silent on what the cooperation is for. Cooperation to build a hospital and cooperation to build a surveillance state satisfy the same mathematical conditions. Within-group cooperation that produces a democratic parliament and within-group cooperation that produces a paramilitary organization both emerge from the same multilevel selection dynamics. A reputation system that tracks genuine generosity and a reputation system that tracks political loyalty both promote cooperation through indirect reciprocity.
The book occasionally gestures toward this problem. Nowak acknowledges that defectors can invade cooperative groups, that cooperation cycles, that punishment mechanisms can themselves become exploitative. But these acknowledgments are treated as complications within a fundamentally optimistic narrative, not as structural features of the mathematics that demand equal weight. The title is SuperCooperators, not SuperExploiters. The framing celebrates cooperation’s triumphs without adequately confronting the fact that the same mathematics, applied with different intent, describe cooperation’s capture.
This omission is not unique to Nowak. It is endemic to a certain strain of evolutionary optimism that mistakes the existence of cooperation for its benevolence. Cooperation is not inherently good. It is a strategy. It can be deployed in service of any goal. The mathematics do not care. A reader who absorbs Nowak’s five rules as a celebration of human goodness will be poorly prepared to recognize those same rules operating as mechanisms of control in their workplace, their government, their social media feed, and their financial system.
The Responsibility of the Mapmaker
Nowak drew a map. The map is accurate. The territory it describes is real. But a map can be read by anyone, and the same map that helps a traveler find water helps an army find the traveler. The five rules for the evolution of cooperation are, simultaneously, five rules for the engineering of compliance. The mathematics are identical. Only the intent differs.
The question is not whether Nowak should have refrained from publishing his research. Suppressing accurate mathematics is never the answer. The question is whether the scientific community and the reading public have a responsibility to read the map with both eyes open: to see not only the beautiful cooperative structures it reveals but also the exploitative architectures it enables. The answer, given what we now know about who funded the map’s creation and what they used its institutional credibility to accomplish, should be self-evident.
Cooperation is real. It is mathematically demonstrable. It is essential to every level of biological and social organization. It is also the single most exploitable feature of human psychology, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either not paying attention or is the one doing the exploiting.
#consumerValue #cooperation #engineering #epsteinFiles #fiveMechanisms #harvard #martinNowak #needingEachOther #oxford #politics #princeton #research #rogerHighfield -
Biblicizing the Bronze Age
(This is part joke, part mnemonic; do not take it seriously.)
I had some fun aligning Levantine archeological periods with the Hexateuch (Torah + Joshua) and some possible dates in the prehistory of Hebrew. The Middle Bronze = Patriarchs and especially Late Bronze = Israelites in Egypt alignments are pretty standard, but I like how well the third millennium lined up with Genesis 2–11. Period names and dates are mostly drawn from Greenberg (2019; paywall).
(Late) Chalcolithic, ca 4000-3750: Eden
Low inequality, high standard of living. Good times.
The “Ghassulian Star” fresco from the Chalcolithic site of Teleilat (el-)Ghassul (Jordan).Early Bronze, ca 3750-2200: the Antediluvian Age
Early Bronze IA, ca 3750
Expulsion from Eden, beginning of history and the Hebrew calendar. Harder, less prosperous times compared to the preceding Chalcolithic. In the east, city-building Cainites of the Middle Uruk Period bring urban civilization to Elam and Upper Mesopotamia. Breakup of Proto-Semitic.
Fragments of Gray Burnished Ware, typical of EB IA.Early Bronze IB, ca 3300
Birth of Jared. Descent of the Watchers (as per the Book of Enoch) and their teaching of arcane technologies triggers a prosperous golden age. Writing invented.
Reconstructed ground plan of a large Early Bronze IB building at Tel Bet Shean (Israel).Early Bronze II, ca 3100
Birth of Methuselah (“Man of the Spear”). Armed conflicts(?) cause massive abandonment of EB I villages and a shift to more defensible, walled hilltop settlements.
EB II and III fortifications of Jericho (Israel).Early Bronze III, ca 2850
Death of Adam. Nephilim build the pyramids. God does not like the establishment of the Akkadian Empire (is he anti-Semitic?) and gives them a 120-year warning for the Flood (Gen 6:3). In the Southern Levant: increasing isolation, inequality, continuing construction of fortifications; cities abandoned between 2500 and 2400.
Fighting gods, heroes, and bull-man hybrids on an Old Akkadian cylinder seal, ca 2300.Intermediate Bronze, ca 2200-2000: the Flood
4.2-kiloyear event: severe drought(!) triggers collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber. Southern Levant continues in its late EB post-urban state.
Ain Samiya goblet, found near Ramallah. Something something snakes and rainbows.Middle Bronze, ca 2000-1550: the Patriarchal Age
Middle Bronze I, ca 2000
Tower of Babel built in the days of Peleg. Completion of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, Etemenniguru, “The House Whose Foundation Creates Terror”, commissioned by Ur-Nammu (Nimrod) ca 2100. Breakup of Proto-Northwest-Semitic.
Ruined facade and access staircase of Etemenniguru, Ur (Iraq).Middle Bronze II, ca 1800
Birth of Abraham. Beginning of the Amorite Age: Northwest Semitic–speaking dynasties establish themselves from Babylon to the Nile Delta (convenient for travellers from, say, Ur to Haran to Canaan to Egypt). High point of the Levantine city-states.
Artefacts from Amorite Mari (Syria).Middle Bronze III, ca 1650
Birth of Jacob. Hyksos period in Egypt. Separation from MB II is “largely an artifact of historical interpretation” and “archaeologically elusive” (Greenberg 2019: 181).
Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware jug, typical style of the MB III Delta and Southern Levant.Late Bronze, ca 1550-1200: the Sojourn in Egypt
Late Bronze I, ca 1550
Birth of Joseph. New Kingdom of Egypt expels Hyksos and starts to assert itself over Canaan. Breakup of Proto-Canaanite.
Egyptian dagger with the name of Ahmose I, founder of the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom.Late Bronze IIA, ca 1400
Death of Joseph’s generation. Israelites in Egypt grow into a great and mighty people. Egyptian Empire fully controls Canaan. Amarna Letters.
Relief of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and three of their daughters in that weird-ass art style of his.Late Bronze IIB, ca 1300
19th Dynasty in Egypt, oppression of the Israelites. Birth of Moses. Egyptian Empire firmly entrenched in Canaan. Texts from Ugarit.
Gold plaque depicting an Egyptian-style goddess from LB Lachish (Israel).Transitional Bronze-Iron, ca 1200-1000: Exodus, Joshua, Judges
Exodus, desert wanderings, conquest of Canaan, Judges period; Late Bronze Age Collapse. Israelite settlements appear in the highlands of Cis- and Transjordan, Philistines show up on the southern coastal plain. The rise and fall of the New Kingdom (1550–1150) together cover 400 years (Gen 15:13).
Collar-rim jar, typical of Israelite highland sites of the TBI.After the Hexateuch/Bronze Age, things get even less controversial (apart from one big debate): Iron IB (last 150 years of Greenberg’s TBI) is the period of the Judges/very early monarchy; Iron IIA early flourishing of the kingdom of Israel (pick your dynasty); Iron IIB, properly divided monarchy/rise of Aram-Damascus; Iron IIC, Neo-Assyrian period and peak kingdom of Judah. But at that point, the Bronze Age is half a millennium ago. All in all, I’m just glad I’ll be able to annoy people by referring to the EB as the Antediluvian Bronze Age going forward.
#Amorite #archaeology #Bible #Egyptian #Exodus #Genesis #Hebrew #Joshua #ProtoSemitic
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At the roots of the Chenla kingdom
The Sambor Prei Kouk site in central Cambodia shows the bridging development from the Funan Civilisation into the Angkor Khmer Empire.
These were state temples in the old capital Isanapura of the Chenla kingdom from 550 to 800 CE.
The Chenla kingdom marks the rapid development of architecture, culture and society building into a unified centralised kingdom and culture. And then the Angkor Empire.
#PreyKŭhSambor #KampongThom #khmer #visitcambodia #isanapura
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CW: Dororo Anime Spoilers
Downloaded this anime on a whim, and wow did it turn out I almost missed an instant classic.
The morality play is as brutally honest as you can get. The prosperity of a nation built upon the sacrifice of one Hyakkimaru to demons, and when Hyakkimaru starts taking back his body, we see that nation collapse alongside the inevitable death and suffering.
Seems to be a pretty good tale regarding a wide range of scenarios. Like the US and Israel building their shared prosperity on the continuous suffering of Palestinians.
Or China building its own empire on crushing other cultures and tribes internally.
One day your nation state will get unlucky, and it will fall as its prosperity is built upon continuous injustices.
What Dororo does well, is tell everyone's story and allows you to empathise with them. You are only human after all. #Dororo #Anime -
The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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Petro Does Not Comply… The Struggle Continues – ELN
The systemic crisis of capitalism deepens, with the offensive of US imperialism to maintain world hegemony, damaging even its own allies and international institutions, which previously regulated the geopolitical and economic order; all the hotbeds of war are also escalating. The genocidal extermination of the Palestinian people by the Zionist State of Israel has all the logistical and military support of the United States and the complicity of most European countries. This barbarity marks an ethical turning point for humanity and demands effective solidarity.
Colombia, under the leadership of Petro’s government, continues to play the role of submissive pawn of empire and capital on this world stage. Petro presented himself as a progressive social democrat, little by little he has revealed his militarist and counterinsurgency character. He negotiates his governance with the oligarchy, offering a discourse of reform and peace, but his real commitment is to contain, lull, capture, and demobilize the social force that has been mobilizing in the face of the unbearable situation created by an unjust economic, political, and social model.
Social reforms are high-flown rhetoric for this government, which is gradually leading to disillusionment and frustration for the majority; false promises that become bargaining chips to negotiate with the same oligarchy. Petro is now calling the people to the streets, exploiting social struggles to pressure the oligarchy in his negotiations.
Petro’s government in its twilight, ends up suffocated by its corruption scandals, and giving more importance to the militaristic and warlike measures characteristic of the Colombian political regime. Thus, Colombia once again had a military defense minister; a state of siege was reimposed, under the guise of the State of Internal Unrest in Catatumbo; warplanes were purchased, and military spending was prioritized over social investment; the Amazon and Gorgona Island were handed over to US military control; drug trafficking and paramilitary gangs were sponsored and defended, continuing the social genocide and humanitarian crisis.
Despite the disillusionment that exists in broad sectors of the people, we are certain that the will to fight is not dormant. The popular insurgency has not been defeated and the ELN will remain firm in building the real changes that are needed.
The people continue to mobilize in the streets, in assemblies, town meetings, marches, strikes, blockades, and protests, on walls that paint the regime’s disgrace, in popular songs that keep alive the memory of the struggle, which has not been and will not be defeated. We must go beyond the minimal points of the referendum and return to the comprehensive agendas and banners that have been raised in the mobilizations of all sectors of the country in recent decades.
The lies and perfidy against the ELN do not deceive anyone; the facts and the righteousness of the revolutionary cause give us the reason and strength to follow the path of national liberation and the construction of socialism. Elenas and Elenos continue unwaveringly in the struggle, seeking to build solutions to the long night of oligarchic violence against the Colombian people.
Within the framework of the dialogues and negotiations between the government and the ELN, we prioritize advancing a process of participation of society, to build the agenda of transformations and the institutional changes necessary to achieve peace and social justice. Once again, the government did not live up to the commitments and aspirations of the Colombian people and failed to fulfill this social mandate.
Total peace is the continuity of the counterinsurgency model: total war, where paramilitarism is strengthened in favor of dispossession against the communities that defend their territories and projects of life. Petro shamelessly commits himself to defending and legalizing the gangs of narco-paramilitarism, while he raves about insults against the ELN and anyone who criticizes him.
In the absence of a peace policy from the government to engage in dialogue with a socially and politically motivated armed insurgency, the ELN has been left without an interlocutor. Having overcome this challenge, we remain willing to seek transformations, with the direct participation and power of the people, that will guarantee peace for Colombia.
Colombia… for the workers!
Not one step back… liberation or death!
National Directorate
National Liberation Army
Mountains of Colombia
June 2025
Source: https://insurgenciaurbana-eln.net/petro-no-cumple-la-lucha-sigue/
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19560
#colombia #counterinsurgency #eln #petro #southAmerica #usImperialism
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Descriptions of the novels, repeated from the weekly posts. Footnotes have been removed, so some parts lack further explanation. For descriptions of the shorter works, see the weekly posts. Tag to mute: #BokBooks
●●○○○ The Nude Vampires - Arthur Pemmington (nov) 2023
Connie, a 26-year-old in a dead-end job, loves vampires romances. You'd think she'd enjoy becoming one. It turns out that some of what she knows about vampirehood – no sunlight, no reflection – is true. Some is not: no invitation required to enter a home, running water is no problem.Oh, and the big one that novels have oddly not mentioned: vampires can't wear clothing. If clothing even touches a vampire's skin, it burns like acid. (Fortunately, the rapid healing bit is true, as is the enhanced strength and speed.)
This comic naturist novel deals with very shy Connie adapting to her new state. Also her friend Lily, who, while not crazy about the obligate nudism part, thinks potential immortality outweighs it, and asks Connie to turn her. It's Lily who says to Connie “that you think it's a bigger deal that people are seeing you naked than that you are killing people to sustain yourself […] doesn't seem right.”
The novel is mostly interesting, but its "nudity is embarrassing" vibe isn't what I want in my naturist fiction. (And these shy vampires blush a helluva lot, for people established to have no pulse or heartbeat.) The story also has gaps in its background. For example, the now no-clothes, no-daylight women stop going to work, but never do they discuss how they'll pay rent. At least the Vampire Council maintains a clean-up squad to take care of drained bodies.¹
Even then, if two vampires are sharing a murder every other day, that's a lot of missing people. But without the power to glamour people, just taking a pint form a person and letting them go isn't possible. Also, it's not just that vampires can't wear clothing, they can't touch it. How do these naked beings eat in winter? Even a collar should be a challenge. The novel is largely a failure, which is a shame, since I'm mostly enjoying the author's Big Book of Naked Tales.
●●●●○ The Stubborn Lives of Hart Tanner {Middles Falls 13} - Shawn Inmon (nov) 2020
Hart Tanner was a grifter who ran cons and was a paid companion to older women his entire adult life. In his seventies, when that was petering out, he made a nonviolent bank robbery in order to be sent to prison, where Oregon State would have to assume his medical care. He was too late, and died from cancer three months later. But in Middle Falls, that's where the story really begins.Hart woke up as an eight-year-old, sleeping on the floor beside his grifter mother and the latest of her criminal boyfriends. He got through the day, then went to sleep again, only to wake up when he was 22, and his girlfriend was about to leave him. And from then on, every time he died, that's when he awoke.
This is unusual. In no other Middle Falls quasi-reincarnation story did a person's reset point change. But we find there's a new worker in the Universal Life Center that monitors these replaying lives: Charles, the main character in the previous book. Charles's lives had benefited from ULC Interventions, and the neurodivergent individual had worked out how to do the same for those he monitored, improving the Machine's algorithms.
For a few lives, Hart when back to grifting, but when a mark severely beat the con artist for cheating him, he gave that up. In subsequent lives, he used his knowledge of future sporting events to make a few thousand dollars, which he then invested in stocks he knew would rise, and established himself as a successful businessman, though after the first round he found that a woman named Nancy who worked at a dry cleaners he bought was a business whiz, and let her manage his growing empire.
Hart's progress is slow, taking a dozen more lives. Owning a dog repeatedly for several lives helps, but it takes another Intervention – introducing him to a woman in one of his Vegas trips, the female equivalent of what he was in his first life – to set the final stretch in motion. Not so much the woman, but that she got pregnant and died in childbirth, leaving Hart with a daughter. Raising her finally opened his heart and let him step off the carousel of reincarnation.
●●●◐○ Lascivious Lecturer {Miles Grant 10} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2019
On this case, Miles Grant, Private Investigator, is tasked with providing proof that a college lecturer is having his way with young co-eds under the guise of assistance in the human relations class they are trying to pass.His excuse is that their progress in the class is behind the curve and extra tutoring is the way to catch up. The professor went to the trouble of buying a motel for these assignations to take places in. There, he drugs the young women and he and his female accomplice take photos for the purpose of blackmail.
Along the way, Miles finds out the lecturer is not who he has portrayed himself to be. This seemed silly to me, but I suppose World War Two and Nazis were only thirty years in the past then, so it's possible a camp guard who resembled a captured American soldier could takes up his identity after the war. The female accomplice also has a secret past.
On the home front, Miles's wife has become more and more attracted to the naturist lifestyle that she learned about (in theory; there was no nudity in the previous book) in the last case eighteen months ago. She's taken to home nudity, undressing when Miles leaves for work and nine-year-old Stewart for school, only dressing ten minutes before Stewie's due home. Shirley has also taken up a close friendship with LuAnn, the naturist who hired Miles in that blackmailing case, and goes to the Erskine Valley Sun Camp with her in this book.
Eighteen-year-old Sarah is in college. She reveals that she and her roommate are nudists within their dorm room, and also lovers. Twenty-year-old Jimmie, the other child of Miles's first marriage (his first big case was finding his wife's killer in the first novel), has gone the way of Chuck Cunningham in the Happy Days.
Jimmie's name is not mentioned once in this book. I know from the next book that he's going to a different college, and that he later gets a job at an auto dealership in Eastern Washington, where he meets a widow of a Vietnam War soldier, and marries her and adopts her young son. While Jimmie is occasionally mentioned again, he hasn't appeared on page again through Book 16 of 24.
●●●◐○ The War in Heaven {Behold: Humanity! 16} - Ralts Bloodthorne (nov) 2025
First there's the War in Heaven, where a small force has entered the Sentience Uninterrupted Disaster Storage complex, a Dyson Shell built in a pocket universe to allow humans, and others who want in, to have bodily immortality. Except the system has been broken for ages (though still working), and the Digital Intelligence sent in to repair it became a mad god. That's gotta be fixed.Then there's the War in Hell, the digital realm where people who felt guilty were processed until they were ready to reincarnate. A force is besieging it, and must be dealt with.
And of course the War on Earth (one of them), a backwater world cleared out by the Atrekna conflct, where the Digital Omnissiah is currently staying. Dark forces have found this out, and scores of dropships are sending squads of power-armored vat-beings to take him out.
The War in Space goes apace, as well, with the Atrekna Spoked Offensive attacking hundreds of worlds at once via the Braineaters' instant-travel via temporal manipulation. The Cygnus-Orion Galactic Arm Spur continues to bleed. And Terran Descent Humanity currently remains extinct, with a mere forty million tech-averse humans surviving. But there's progress on that front.
And the force behind much of this? Rich people who died 8000 years ago, just before the SUDS system came online. They ordered in their wills that their personalities be recreated via their social media and video and audio records, and so on. These records were processed through a Sentience Emulation Application Layer and fed into the SUDS network.
So for millennia the ghosts of rich people have been running stuff behind the scenes. When, as a side-effect of the War in Heaven, their protected servers are shut off, every stock exchange in the known galaxy suffers a drop of one-third.
●●●◐○ Art of Stealing {Emma Nelson 2} - P.Z. Walker (nov) 2020
Emma, the cop with the cartoon version of X-ray vision, is loaned out to an art exhibit in an old building in Houston, along with her police- and life-partner Jeff. She's to check all the odd spaces for anything iffy.Emma discovers the building has a central shaft that runs from subbasement to top floor. The building manager wasn't aware it existed, and the building owner doesn't want to talk about it, which seems suspicious.
Jeff and Emma also get a call from JoAnne, a police colleague who has been on personal leave to care for an ailing aunt. It turns out that her cousins are drug dealers, and they're keeping her son hostage – a son neither Jeff nor Emma knew existed – to get her to smuggle drugs for them. Emma and Jeff help her extract herself from that situation.
On the nudist front, Emma and Jeff visit a local naturist resort several times in the two weeks they're in Houston, And of course Emma's sees-through-walls skill only works when she's nude.
The pair also meet Amarika, the old woman who gave Emma her magic power, and find that she given at least one other person work-when-nude powers. Brody is a young man who now has the ability to emit light from his hands, a light that only powered people can see, and which can penetrate walls, useful for when Emma is looking into a dark room, which they do as part of their unofficial investigation of the drug dealers.
●●●○○ The Case of the Carnal Co-Ed {Miles Grant 11} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2019
Once more Fielding College has to call on detective Miles Grant to solve a problem. In this case, Miles Grant is hired by the college to find out why three freshman girls were made pregnant and had to drop out.The collage wants to know what happened. And if at all possible, they'd like proof it happened off-campus, so that it can't be said that they failed in the in-loco-parentis duty. If not, they many be on the hook for prenatal care.
Miles has a notion that the sorority that all three girls belonged to was the problem, but it will take some digging to prove that. Because Miles has a daughter the age of the girls in trouble, he is conflicted. He can't work against his client's interests, but neither does he want to hurt the girls.
At home, Shirley has fully embraced nudism, and the family has followed along. Shirley has also found other people in the neighborhood interested, and Stewart has found a widowed woman and her son who are nudists.
●●●◐○ Sea Siege - Andre Norton (nov) 1957
International tensions are high. Open-air atom-bomb tests are common. There's a radioactive red algal scum spreading on the oceans, which Gunston and his colleague Hughes were investigating from their base on (the fictional) Carribean island San Isadore. Griff Gunston, the head scientist's 15-year-old son, also lived on the island with his widoed father.Griff was one of the first to notice that octopuses near the island were acting oddly, with more intelligence and less fear of humans. Some types were also getting vastly larger. The island also experienced a Nessie-like sea serpent that had threatened some fishing boats. Other boats were lost, and when found, were intact, though they were missing all crew, but no lifeboats.
A group from the US Navy was building… something… on the west end of the British island. Then all radio contact was lost with the rest of the worlds, and days of radioactive rain fell. A volcano was also born near the island. This is the story of Griff and the islanders and the Navy surviving what was probably World War Three, and may also have been an alien invasion.
●●●◐○ The Alternative Lives of Aiden Anderson {Middle Falls 14} - Shawn Inmon (nov) 2021
In the first eleven books of the Middle Falls series, the rules were unchanging. A person died, then woke up at some earlier point in their life, and lived again, always resetting to the same point if they died again, until in one final life they achieved emotional maturity and moved on.Occasionally there was a nudge by — call it an angel, though they're really more techs — who took physical form to have a conversation with a looper. But there was no other interference, and the reset point stayed the same.
In Book Twelve, a deeper change was made to a looper's life, to spare him pain from the cancer that was killing him, so that he could have a chance of progress in the short 26-day loop he was stuck in. And when he made sufficient progress, his cancer magically vanished and he was allowed to live out that life.
In Book Thirteen, Charles of the short loops, now a tech in the Universal Life Center, made a single change in the reset point of the current looper whose quasi-reincarnation were being told. By Book Fourteen, Charles was making multiple changes.
Aiden, who died in an auto accident at 55 and came back at age 8, came back at 18 after dying in another auto accident at 17. And then had an interlude at 55 again, after dying from truck kun again at 35. But then an angel sent him back to age 17. And we're told by The Machine, koan-obliquely, that more random resets will be the rule going forward.
And I've told you nothing about the plot or main character of this book. But Aiden was a middling student who was a decent musician. His first life, he and some others formed a band that had one semi-successful album and than a less-successful one before breaking up. Aiden went on to become a backup musician for other bands.
In his first re-life, he tried to start an earlier, better musical career, but died just after his first failure. In his third life, he formed a business flipping houses with the parents of his best friend, who took him in after his mother died of cancer, a loss Aiden never really recovered from, and was never able to change.
In his next life he did the same, but this time he was able to save his girlfriend and her family from a house fire, and married. He was later able to incorporate music into his life, and this is the one that got him past the pervasive grief of never having a father, and losing both grandparents, his mother, and his girlfriend while young.
●●●●○ Uncovered {Emma Nelson 4} - P.Z. Walker (nov) 2023
The final Emma Nelson naturist mystery. In this volume, Amarika reveals why she created three powered individuals (sees-through-walls Emma, light-from-his-hands Brody, and finger-cuts-metal Madison): to break a particular man out of prison while he's being transferred to another facility.The cops manage to catch the gang involved, though Emma is shot in the arm during the chaos. Amarika is killed, and now no one will know how she – whom the man in the prison transport called a 'bruja' when he saw her – gave people powers.
On the semi-police front, a buried chest is found on a farm, and then a skeleton near it, and police officers Emma and Jeff are called in to check it out, since the couple are nudists and the big farm family who own the land are as well.
This gets the couple involved with the family. The nudist part of the book also sees Emma and Jeff's cop friend Jo-Anne involved in the trunk case. She becomes close to one of the naturist men there, to the extent that she and her five-year-old son, Oliver, begin visiting and adopt naturism, which Emma and Jeff have been saying she should try since Book One. There were also some naturist hikes, and the opening of the new nudist health center.
●●●●○ Sea of Rust {Rust 1} - C Robert Cargill (nov) 2017
Our story takes place on the (recently) post-human Earth. Humans made intelligent slaves, things didn't work out, and in the genocidal war that followed, the robots won. But even with humans extinct, robots had their own problems.Some Artificial Intelligences were mainframes that took over one-body robots and made them facets of their hivemind. Thirty years after Armageddon, two were left, Cɪssᴜs and Vɪʀɢɪʟ. Freebots would gather in small towns, only to have each overrun in turn by one of the OWIs (One World Intelligences, who wanted all thinking beings united into one mind: theirs).
There's also the point that, while the OWIs could construct new parts, the independent robots never had the time to do the mining and build the factories to do so, requiring every robot to rely on spare parts from nonfunctional robots – or robots they made defunct, if they were poachers – to continue their existence. And there were scores of types of robots, from sexbots to medbots to construction bots, all needing their own types of processors and memory and storage.
Our story follows Brittle, who was just jumped by Mercer. Mercer needs new RAM, and Brittle is the only source around for him. And after Brittle is shot, she's damaged and finds she needs a new core, with Mercer the only source. Both have perhaps a week to live when they get involved in a bigger plot when the underground city they were in was overrun by an OWI, and they find themselves on the run with a small group who claim they have a way to make the world a better place again, if they make it to their destination alive.
●●●◐○ Miles Grant 12 Dixie Daughter - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2019
It's 1968, and Detective Miles has been hired by Dewey Marcella, the Mob kingpin of Seattle. His wife got custody of their daughter Kari in the divorce, and she'd lived in New Orleans with her mother, Roxanne. Kari had just turned 18, and the deal was that she was then to live with her father. Marcella had sent Kari five grand in traveling money, but two weeks later she hasn't turned up. Miles was to find her.Miles traveled to New Orleans and questioned Kari's mother. He traced the taxi she left in, and determined that it had stopped to pick someone up, Kari's boyfriend Buddy. Miles tediously traced them to one bus terminal after another, often having to question dozens of people, and wait around to question a driver getting back from his day off, or a ticket clerk who wasn't on duty.
Miles finds the pair made it as far as Las Vegas, and then vanished. He learns they took a taxi that was usually at a particular stand, but for days of watching, it wasn't. Eventually he finds where they went, and Miles discovers that he has to rescue Kari from the sex cult that practices enforced nudity that Buddy had delivered her to.
Not that the nudity bothers Miles, as his family has practiced naturism for over a year, and the family knows other nudist families with whom they have dinner and go to the naturist club Miles earned a lifetime membership to after solving a blackmail case for some members.
This novel has many family interludes where Miles and his wife Shirley, their kids Sarah and Stewart¹, and Shirley's mother MJ (who visits to enjoy the nudity her husband isn't into) are all habitually nude. Sometimes some discuss things of a sexual nature.²
The naturist content in the series³ has been increasing since the idea was introduced two books ago. In the last book, Shirley began privately practicing while Miles and Stewie were out. In this book the whole family are nudists, though Miles is still uncomfortable around strangers.
●●◐○○ Thunderhead {McKenzie Bros, Inc. 1}² - Greg Kauffman-Starkey (nov) 2022
Another naturist mystery, this one's characters “loosely inspired by TV’s Simon & Simon,” as the preface notes. Except this time the uptight, younger, straight, suit-wearing detective is named Rick, while his looser, jeans-wearing, elder brother is called "Bear" because he's big, hairy, and gay. And while widow Cecilia Simon helped her sons on the odd case, widowed Corey McKenzie does the same for his boys.The case? TV magnate Charles Knight has gone missing. Mary-Elizabeth, his secretary, says he was headed to Thunderhead, an upscale "nudist collective" for the rich and wealthy, not far from the brothers' base of Macon, Georgia. He planned to spend a week there, and check in with her two or three times. He never called. Now it's eight days since he left the office. Knight's car is still at the resort, but no one there has seen him since the night he arrived.
Bear is fine going to a nudist resort; Rick not so much. Rick find out that one of his professional acquaintances is a member, and Bear finds out that the man is gay. The pair have an encounter. Rick has to make do with seeing a movie star he likes nude. And the day is capped off by someone throwing a rock through the window of the undercover detectives, and then ransacking their cottage and stealing their laptops when they go to report the incident.
The next day the pair sees Mary-Elizabeth there, the secretary who'd hired them. Previously, they'd worked out that Charlie Knight sometimes showed up with his wife, except the woman was described as red-headed like Mary-Elizabeth, not brunette like the real Maddie Knight.
Then the narrative kind of collapses. The McKenzie Brothers take a walk and chat with people, and talk to their techy nephew, secretary, and father on a conference call, and things apparently fall into place, though we're not told how. Then the ending pops up, involving false identities, kidnapping, false imprisonment, CSAM, more. It all just sort of happens, like a live radioplay that's about to run over its time slot, and the producer motions the actors to just wrap things up quickly.³
●●●◐○ Star Gate - Andre Norton (nov) 1958
Classic Norton: a young orphan fleeing trouble who joins a group of outsiders/aliens and takes a journey, on which there's more trouble, and he has a part in setting things right, partially by using something special to him, like an amulet with real magic, or a telepathic pet.In this case, the orphan is Kincar, who only learned he had a Star Lord father when the Lord of his Keep was dying, and he was sent away to join the Star Lord migration, since his uncle was planning to usurp him on account of his mixed blood. After generations on Gorth, the human 'Star Lords' decided they were interfering too much. The largest group of humans left in spaceships, but those who'd interbred with the Gorthians⁴ would leave with their spouses and half-blood children in another way: the Star Gate.
The Star Gate, despite its name, didn't go to the stars, but to alternate timelines. Fifty or so humans, Gorthians, and halflings planned to go to an unoccupied Gorth of another timeline.⁵ But an attack by the third human group, the one that wanted to stay and rule the Gorthians as true Star Lords, damaged the gate, and the fleeing party ended up on a timeline where humans were brutal 'gods' to a more advanced alternate Gorth.
The mixed human/Gorthain group decided it had a moral duty to fight the oppression of the people of this timeline by Star Lords, especially since some of those ruling humans were alternate versions of themselves, including Rud, the father Kincar never knew he had. With his talisman of the Three, Kincar withstands evil Star Lord conditioning and helps save the world.
[0] Footnotes have been removed. Dig up the original posts if you want to read them.
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Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
After wildfires, Belize’s indigenous people rebuild stronger based on “se’ komonil”: reciprocity, solidarity, gender equity, togetherness and community.
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
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Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
-
Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
-
Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
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Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
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Indigenous Peoples Fight Climate Change
In the wake of the worst wildfires in living memory in Mexico and Central America in 2024, news outlets were looking for someone to blame. Howler monkeys and many species of parrots perished in the blazes. Slash and burn farming practices by Belize‘s indigenous communities were singled out as a primary cause. Yet this knee-jerk reaction is not evidence based and doesn’t take into account forces like corporate landgrabbing for mining and agribusinesses like meat, soy and palm oil.
Belize’s indigenous Maya communities are rebuilding stronger based on the collective notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity, togetherness and community.
In the wake of horrific #wildfires in #Belize and #Mexico caused by #climatechange, #indigenous #Maya are rebuilding using the notion of se’ komonil: reciprocity #community and solidarity. #indigenousrights #landrights #BoycottPalmOil @palmoildetect https://wp.me/pcFhgU-924
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterWritten by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Driven by extreme heat and drought, some of the worst wildfires in living memory raged across Mexico and Central America through April and May 2024.
News agencies reported howler monkeys dropping dead from trees, and parrots and other birds falling from the skies.
In Belize, a state of emergency was declared as wildfires burned tens of thousands of hectares of highly bio-diverse forest. Farmers suffered huge losses as fires destroyed crops and homes, and communities across the country suffered from hazardous air quality and hot, sleepless nights. Many risked their lives to fight off the approaching fires.
As the wildfire crisis subsided with rains in June, public attention shifted toward identifying the causes and allocating blame. Many singled out the “slash and burn” farming practices in Belize’s Indigenous communities as the primary cause. This simple knee-jerk reaction ignores the underlying causes of the climate crisis, are scientifically unfounded and stoke resentment of Indigenous Peoples.
Young Mayan women. Image source: WikipediaFanning the flames
On June 5, one of Belize’s major news networks ran a story with the headline “Are Primitive Farming Techniques Responsible for Wildfires?” The story placed blame for Belize’s wildfires on “slash-and-burn farming”, arguing that “there has to be a shift away from this destructive means of agriculture.”
The story was followed by an op-ed published online asserting that “because of the increased amounts of escaped agricultural fires, aided by climate change, global warming and drought, slash and burn has become more of a problem than the solution it once was.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Belize’s prime minister, who declared that “slash аnd burn has to be something of the past.”
While some of the recent fires in Belize were connected to agricultural burning — and poorly managed fire-clearing practices can have negative air-quality impacts — blaming “slash and burn” for the wildfire crisis ignores the larger context and conditions that made it possible, namely global warming.
May 2024 was the hottest and driest month in Belize’s history. This extreme heat is part of a broader global trend, with June 2024 marking the 13th consecutive “hottest month on record” globally.
More fundamentally, these statements confuse other forms of slash-and-burn agriculture with the distinct “milpa” systems employed by Indigenous people in Belize.
Indigenous knowledge undermined
Throughout Belize, Indigenous Maya farmers commonly practise a form of agriculture referred to as milpa in which fire is used to clear fields and fertilize the soil. Within this system, small areas of forest are chopped down, burned, and planted with maize, beans, squash and other crops. After being cultivated for a year or two, the field is then left fallow and allowed to regenerate back to forest cover while the farmers move on to a new area within a cyclical pattern where areas are reused after a regenerative period.
Commonly derided as slash-and-burn farming, milpa has long been perceived as environmentally destructive. This perspective has been perpetuated by long-standing myths and misconceptions that portray the farming practices of non-Europeans, and specifically the use of fire, as wasteful and irrational.
In Belize, this negative view of slash and burn has driven many colonial and post-colonial interventions to modernize Maya farming practices.
Recent research, however, has shown that the lands of Indigenous Peoples around the world have reduced deforestation and degradation rates relative to non-protected areas. The southern Toledo district of Belize, where the majority of Maya communities are located, boasts a forest cover rate of 71 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 63 per cent.
Further research has found that the species composition of contemporary Mesoamerican forests has been shaped by the agricultural practices of ancient Maya farmers.
In Belize, fire has been found to play a role in promoting ecosystem health and resilience and intermediate levels of forest disturbance caused by milpa can increase species diversity. Well-managed milpa farming can support soil fertility, result in long-term carbon sequestration and enriched woodland vegetation.
Research has also shown that previous studies of deforestation in southern Belize significantly overestimated the rate of deforestation due to milpa agriculture by not accounting for its rotational process.
Many researchers now believe that milpa is a more benign alternative, in terms of environmental effects, than most other permanent farming systems in the humid tropics. Indeed, findings such as these have led to a growing appreciation for the role of Indigenous Peoples in advancing nature-based and life-enhancing climate solutions.
Unfortunately, research in the region has also found that climate change is undermining the ecological sustainability of milpa farming by forcing farmers to abandon traditional practices and adopt counterproductive measures in their struggle to adapt. In some cases, this has resulted in a decrease in the biodiversity and ecological resilience of the milpa system. This issue is compounded by the decreasing participation of young people, resulting in a further generational loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
Together, these issues are serving to alter and undermine a livelihood strategy that has proven sustainable for thousands of years. However, rather than call for Maya farmers to abandon slash and burn, we encourage support for the self-determined efforts of Maya communities to adapt to this changing climate. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ok787HRp_gA?wmode=transparent&start=0 A video documenting the Maya response to the 2024 wildfire crisis.
Planting seeds of collaboration
Since winning a groundbreaking land rights claim in 2015, Maya communities in southern Belize have been working to promote an Indigenous future based on principles of reciprocity, solidarity, traditional knowledge, gender equity and, most significantly, se’ komonil, the Maya notion of togetherness and community.
Led by a collaboration of Maya leaders and non-governmental organizations, work toward this has included efforts to revitalize traditional institutions and governance systems, as well as the development of an Indigenous Forest Caring Strategy and fire-permitting system. In an effort to encourage and support the participation of youth in this process, Maya leaders have collaborated with the Young Lives Research Lab at York University to develop the Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing.
Building on previous research with Maya youth, the project has produced innovative youth-led research and education on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, traditional ecological knowledge and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights in Maya communities. This work has been shared with global policymakers at the United Nations and local audiences in Belize.
Rather than fanning the flames of climate blame, we must work together to revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems and plant seeds of climate collaboration and care.
Written by James Stinson, Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist, Young Lives Research Lab, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada and Lee Mcloughlin, PhD student, Global Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS
Read more about human rights abuses and child slavery in the palm oil and gold mining industries
Investigation by Bloomberg exposes that despite being RSPO members, #SOCFIN plantations in #WestAfrica are the epicentre of #humanrights abuses, sexual coercion, environmental destruction, and #landgrabbing. Operating in #Liberia, #Ghana, #Nigeria, and beyond, SOCFIN’s…
Palm Oil Threatens Ancient Noken Weaving in West Papua
Colonial palm oil and sugarcane causing the loss of West Papuans’ cultural identity. Land grabs force communities from forests, threatening Noken weaving
Family Ties Expose Deforestation and Rights Violations in Indonesian Palm Oil
An explosive report by the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) details how Indonesia’s Fangiono family, through a wide corporate web, is linked to ongoing #deforestation, #corruption, and #indigenousrights abuses for #palmoil. Calls mount for…
West Papuan Indigenous Women Fight Land Seizures
Indigenous Melanesian women in West Papua fight land seizures for palm oil and sugar plantations, protecting their ancestral rights. Join #BoycottPalmOil
Greasing the Wheels of Colonialism: Palm Oil Industry in West Papua
A landmark study published in Global Studies Quarterly in April 2025 has revealed that the rapid expansion of the #palmoil industry in #WestPapua is not only fuelling #deforestation, #ecocide and environmental destruction but…
Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 3,171 other subscribers2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20
https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20
https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support#belize #boycottPalmOil #boycottpalmoil #childLabour #childSlavery #climatechange #community #goldMining #humanRights #hunger #indigenous #indigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousRights #indigenousrights #landRights #landgrabbing #landrights #maya #mexico #palmOil #poverty #slavery #wildfires
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[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Disclaimer/Content Warning: The Gaza-Israel war has been my main preoccupation this month, and it still is, as i am sure for many of you as well. And as such it will be strongly featured in this link list. I will link to material, that some might deem controversial, as long as it (in my humble opinion) contains nuance and/or a perspective that helps us think through this scary clusterfuck of a situation. We need to keep an open mind, we need context, we need patience, we need to read diverse viewpoints and not jump to conclusions.
Of course the terrorist attacks by Hamas, their killing of way too many innocent civilians, needs to be condemned in the strongest of terms. But this did not “come out of nothing” as too many now claim, it does need to be looked at in its historical context. The reaction by the Israeli government and military after the Hamas attacks has started to look like an ethnic cleansing, or even a genocide. Some scholars already call it a textbook case of genocide, but it might be early to say so with conclusive certainty. Nevertheless it is important to take a clear stance against any form of ethnic cleansing or genocide, to condemn all war crimes, all forms of collective punishments.
We also need to remember that we find ourselves in a heavily propagandist environment (see: manufacturing consent video bellow or these guidelines on what “facts” to spread). All of the major players in this conflict can’t be trusted to be 100% reliable sources, Hamas (right wing, reactionary, terrorist), the current Israeli government (right wing, supremacist, settler-colonialist), the so-called US (are you kidding me?).
Early on in the conflict i wrote on Mastodon:
With these terrorist attacks, it sure sounds like Hamas is aiming for “The Extinction of the Grayzone”, a strategy we know from Daesh. Its goal is to push moderate people to pick a side. The Israeli government plays right into their hands with the siege, cutting of the water, electricity etc. for 2 Mio people, bombing mosques and calling the Palestinians savages*.
This article describes the strategy as used by Daesh/”ISIS”.
*small correction: “Savages” is how the Swiss news station RTS at first translated the statement by Gallant, since then translated as “we are fighting human animals”. Other than that, yes, i still think it is important, to stand “In defense of the Grayzone” as that article in roarmag (while talking about Daesh) explains. To stand in full solidarity with the civilian victims, there are way way way way way too many of them. To grieve for every single one of them. To condemn all war crimes. To take a stance against nationalism, state power, the international war machine. Now more than ever. To fight against all forms of antisemitism as well as all forms of hatred against Muslims (what is a better word for islamophobia, without the ableist phobia?).
This war must stop now. (Also the one in Ukraine and all the other wars as well!) Ceasefire now!
Just imagine, if we really are witnessing a genocide, and it sure looks like we do, but you supported the side that committed it.
Just imagine, this leads to a surge in antisemitic or anti-muslim hatred, and it sure looks like it does, but you participated in fueling the flames.][Videos]
The wolf pups of the Bug Creek Pack
[Music]
help fight fish farming in iceland
[Podcasts]
Elon Musk Unmasked: Origins of an Oligarch (Part 1) [tech won’t save us] – “Elon Musk wasn’t always the influential billionaire he is today. To begin our dive into the myth of Musk, we need to go back to his origins — to find out where he came from, what inspired him, and how he became the man he is today. Those details set the foundation for the three episodes to come.” Four part series on Musk by Paris Marx, “the left’s best Muskologist”, much better than that PBS documentary.
175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) [conspirituality] – “Quinn Slobodian teaches Modern German History at Wellesley and William Callison teaches Political Theory and Human Geography at Uppsala. We first came across their work via Naomi Klein’s examination of the clusterf&cked politics that dominate the movements we cover. We dug out their paper, and they had us at this: “At the extreme end, diagonal movements share a conviction that all power is conspiracy.”” In reference to this paper:
Coronapolitics from the Reichstag to the Capitol [boston review] – “Defying conventional political labels and capitalizing on widespread distrust, a range of new movements share the conviction that all power is conspiracy.” The paper from January 2021 was mentioned in Doppelgänger, the new book by Naomi Klein.
Decolonial Disability Politics and the Left [death panel podcast] – “In this session, “Decolonial Disability Politics and the Left” Death Panel podcast co-hosts, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Jules Gill-Peterson, are joined by theorist, Jasbir Puar, and Shira Hassan, who has spent decades building, documenting and participating in systems of change and support outside of the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. This session explores the links between disability, debility, and empire: how neoliberal framings of disability structurally exclude people disabled by ongoing colonialism and global/national/local schemes of extraction, and how to expand our conceptions of debility, disability, and capacity to include populations that don’t fit within tidy frameworks of pride and respectability.” The recording apparently had sound issues, so this actually is a transcript of the podcast.
[Toot Threads]
Eldan Goldenberg: “Israel & Palestine (long)” [mastodon] – “But not only am I a Jew, I am very publicly one. So I keep being invoked to defend and to attack. Israel claims to act in my name, under a flag that should be the symbol of my people, not one state. Zionist groups in the US & Canada claim to speak for all Jews, and smear dissenters like me as self-haters. Goyische allies shut down criticism of Zionism intending to keep me safe. And at the same time, actual antisemites frequently hijack pro-Palestinian activism.” Somehow i can’t embed this one.
[Pandemic Roundup]
Pandemic Roundup: October 26, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 19, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 12, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 5, 2023Thanks Violet Blue for the continued top quality roundups. If you can, please consider supporting them.
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
An Open Letter to our Anarchist, Socialist and Radical Leftist Comrades [rant.li] – “Together, we can create a world that includes everyone. If you still want to, that is. And you should want to, because being abled-bodied and healthy is a temporary state – it might quite possibly not last forever. Most people experience disability or illness at some point in their lives. Or at the very least, they will have loved ones with this experience.” COVID is not over, the radical left should lead the charge of still hosting inclusive events with protective measures. This open letter tells you why and how.
How junk science set a country’s health and welfare policy | Nate Bear [substack] – “As the nature of long covid continues to be contested, and as its burden grows, stories like this are crucial to remind us that health is never apolitical. Medical professionals are not always, perhaps not even mostly, neutral arbiters of the scientific truth. They have deep and often unwavering social and political ideologies that help determine how they treat (or don’t treat) people. And these ideologies can harm huge numbers of people. The large-scale, coordinated minimisation of covid should remind us of this.” For a much deeper analysis on this issue, i can’t recommend it highly enough to please read the book Inflamed by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel.
I Have Discovered That Giving Up on the World Can Set You Free [substack] – “I felt like a prison guard forcing children to sit still and learn shit they’ll never need just so their parents can both work full-time. They never see their child anyway; what is the fucking sense of having one? Please don’t tell me about the purpose of schools and all your noble bullshit. I have spent years in the system, I have seen the purpose they serve. Conditioning. Servitude. Obey, obey, obey, or else.” The entire rant is great, this part specifically resonated with me. I suffered so much in school as a pupil, and here, finally, a teacher admits what it means.
The year poverty began to end | Nate Bear [substack] – “Only when we realise what could have been can we see that a return to normal was contingent on erasing covid from the collective consciousness. Normal being poverty, hunger, homelessness. The necessity for a permanent and visible underclass to keep the working and middle classes on their toes. For the machine to keep running, we had to forget that poverty is a policy choice. We needed those visible examples of who we could be should bad luck strike, or if we stop grifting for the man. Homelessness and poverty is capitalism’s live stream, broadcast everywhere to ensure you can never fully escape the sense of precarity about what might be.” That is why i simply can’t reconcile with the fact that even the fucking radical left participated in the normalization process, even lead the way in some cases.
Covid deaths are on the rise again, so what happens? Mask-wearing in hospitals is scrapped | George Monbiot [the guardian] – “For some people, going to hospital may now be more dangerous than staying at home untreated. Many clinically vulnerable people fear, sometimes with good reason, that a visit to hospital or the doctors’ surgery could be the end of them. Of course, there have always been dangers where sick people gather. But, until now, health services have sought to minimise them. Astonishingly, this is often no longer the case.” Pretty good article, but why did Monbiot not include this (he knew about it):
Let Them Eat Old Vaccines [okdoomer.io] – “The UK government gave more than 2.3 million vulnerable and older people a Covid vaccine that isn’t matched to the currently dominant Covid strains. It wasn’t a mistake. They did it to save money.” What a scandal. And no one gives a shit. Not even Monbiot.
CW: [Gaza/Israel]
Why I’m Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media | Rushkoff [substack] – “Where’s the real information? The question of Egypt not being willing to open the gate for Palestinians at the southern border because they’re fighting their own insurgency, the fact that a majority of Israeli Jews are people of color, the pogroms committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, the cynical reasons why Netanyahu helped Hamas rise to power? There’s no room for these “three body problems” on a platform like X, which is handicapping real discussion in favor of terror and bullying. Musk models the behavior he’s encouraging: be the troll.” Douglas Rushkoff on why social media is not a good idea to get your information from in times like these. Well actually, and increasingly so, always. Thanks to Melon Husk et al. Here’s the podcast version of the monologue.
Interview with an Israeli anarchist [161 crew] – “Situation in Gaza Strip is getting more catastrophic every day. In our attempt to better understand the situation in the region , we made an interview with an Israeli anarchist. We talk about the modern anarchist movement, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, resistance against it and prospects for the future.” An opportunity to read the view of an Israeli anarchist on the entire situation.
How To Talk About Gaza (w/ Naomi Klein & Omar Baddar) [levernews] – “I heard from multiple congresspeople today that “ceasefire” is now seen as toxic. It’s seen as not “standing with Israel.” And I saw a lot of signs in the hallways, “Stand with Israel,” which is code for blank check. It’s the same thing that the U.S. did after 9/11. Are you with us or with the terrorists? It’s a straight-up loyalty test. It’s outrageous, because these U.S. congresspeople should not be standing with Israel, if that means that there are no strings attached to any of the weapons, any of the aid. They should be standing with international law.”
Have We Learned Nothing? | David Klion [n+1] – “There’s a pervasive censoriousness right now—conservatives denouncing liberals, liberals denouncing leftists, leftists denouncing other leftists—that’s immediately familiar from the days and weeks after 9/11. Somehow, the upshot of all the denunciations and condemnations is the right’s unchallenged hold over the discourse, and, more importantly, the ultimate facts on the ground.” Not fully convinced that the comparison with 9/11 is apt, but when looking at its outcome, it sure looks familiar.
Even Before the Israel-Hamas War, Being Palestinian Was Controversial [nyt] – “I don’t hesitate for a second to condemn the killing of any child, any massacre of civilians — this of course includes Jewish life. It is the easiest ask in the world. And it is not in spite of that but because of that I say: Condemn the brutalization of bodies. By all means, do. Condemn murder. Condemn violence, imprisonment, all forms of oppression. But if your shock and distress comes only at the sight of certain brutalized bodies? If you speak out but not when Palestinian bodies are besieged and murdered, abducted and imprisoned? Then it is worth asking yourself which brutalization is acceptable to you, even quietly, even subconsciously, and which is not.” Key point. All deaths of civilians are unacceptable.
Tectonic Shifts [thebaffler] – “Generally, most people on the left in the United States will treat the law with scrutiny: it’s the product of politics and of the powerful, and not an ethical framework. That’s all still true when it comes to the laws of nations and the laws of war, but we don’t have another mode of discourse. For the oppressed people of the world, those condemned by history, this is a real challenge. On October 9, I asked on X, “What is the ethical way to climb out of hell?” This wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really don’t know.” This is the article i hesitated longest to include here, some of points do seem controversial. But, big picture, they argue in a congruent way, i think.
Judith Butler · The Compass of Mourning [lbr] – “It should not be the case that ‘contextualisation’ is considered a morally problematic activity, even though there are forms of contextualisation that can be used to shift the blame or to exonerate. Can we distinguish between those two forms of contextualisation? Just because some think that contextualising hideous violence deflects from or, worse, rationalises the violence, that doesn’t mean we should capitulate to the claim that all forms of contextualisation are morally relativising in that way.” This article got criticized heavily. And i think unfairly. Because when decided to read it, i was surprised, in a positive way, on how careful and precise Butler argued. They are handling their reach and influence responsibly.
Practicing New Worlds in a Time of Collapse [truthout] – “The idea that, in the face of extreme grief and loss, or in moments when we feel horribly wronged, we should be spared any interrogation of the violence being done in our names, or with our tax dollars, is extraordinarily dangerous. We are living through an era of climate chaos. As the suffering the U.S. imposes militarily, and through the violence of capitalism continues to compound, crisis is outpacing our collective empathy. With regard to COVID, many people seem to feel they’ve been through enough, and should not have to worry about precautions to protect themselves, their communities, or the most vulnerable among us. We have also seen the steady normalization of the mass deaths of migrants who are often being left to die, whether in the Mediterranean or Sonoran Desert — and how the technology and ideology that supports such actions is exported by right-wing authoritarian countries like Israel. With regard to Gaza, many people have taken the stance that because Hamas committed extreme acts of violence, no one else can be blamed for any atrocities that are committed in response — as though one tragedy lets us all off the hook, and genocide is no longer unthinkable, but instead, a political inevitability that cannot be helped.” In the podcast they speak about many other topics, this excerpt to me offers the big picture view.
Doomsday Diaries | Sarah Aziza [baffler] – ““But what about Hamas?” I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people’s right to survive. “What about Hamas?” It didn’t matter if I’d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. “What about Hamas?” they’d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup. I gave them hours, pages of my words. I filled rooms with my hot breath, panting, “We are not terrorists—Hamas is a symptom of oppression—yes of course I condemn extremism—this is a struggle for human rights—Israel propped up Hamas for years—please look at our children—please, don’t you see our helpless elders?—please, if you don’t respect us as humans, could you spare some pity?”” To read these diaries affected made me cry.
When Jewish Anti-Zionists Are Compared to White Supremacists | Kelly Hayes [substack] – “We should stand united in the fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia going forward, both hold us back from liberation and this is exactly the kind of division the Israeli state uses to drive their war machine. It’s important to remain clear that Israel’s actions are not in the name of, or in collaboration with, all diaspora Jews and to place the struggle for liberation in Palestine within the global justice movement that likewise sees liberation for all people, including Jews.” The interview with Shane Burley offers precise distinctions.
Israel und Palästina: Erkennen, was uns alle verbindet [woz] – “Für eine Linke mit menschlichem Gesicht sollte die Forderung klar sein: eine deutliche Positionierung gegen Antisemitismus genauso wie gegen Islamfeindlichkeit.* Solidarität mit den Opfern beider Seiten. Doch was ist eine solche Forderung wert, wenn sie in der Umsetzung unmöglich zu sein scheint?” That is the question. In this world, in this situation, bullying us pick a side, nuance is what is needed, not optional.
Israel is Committing Genocide – “arguments to go around” Peter Gelderloos made his mind up early on the genocide question. It’s still an interesting read, that offers a lot of historical context and an anti-statist view on the conflict.
“This is not simply between Israel and Hamas. It’s much bigger than that.” | Paris Marx [substack] – “An interview with Antony Loewenstein on the Hamas attack, the brutal Israeli response, and the wider context of the conflict.” Loewenstein being the author of the highly recommended book The Palestine Laboratory.
Israel, Palestine and the Contradictions of Nationalism [igd] – “One can, and I think must, be able to support a struggle against colonization while being critical of (or just outright against) specific forces and actors within that struggle whose aims or methods are reactionary. Hamas are a reactionary force, even when they are fighting for a cause that is very worthy of support. Their own violence towards their fellow Palestinians, their aims as fundamentalists, and their tactics including the targeting of civilians are all enough to put them outside of the circle of forces worth supporting. None of which is to excuse at ALL the Israeli state, which in this war is going to wreak horrific suffering and death on the people of Gaza far above and beyond the gut-wrenching suffering inflicted on Israeli civilians in the last several days.” Keep casting a critical look at all the actors.
How Does This End? [current affairs] – “The responsibility of the international community is clear: we have to push for a final negotiated end to the conflict, through the end of Israel’s apartheid and the granting of full rights of self-determination to Palestine. Ultimately, as Chomsky and Cassif point out, the subjugation of Palestine is not in the interests of ordinary Israelis, who themselves deserve to live in peace. It guarantees Israel’s perpetual insecurity. So long as there are Palestinians, there will be resistance, some of which will be violent, and it will become more violent when other avenues for expressing dissent are closed off. To predict what will happen is in no way to justify it, and while we can and should condemn Hamas’ counterproductive and hideous atrocities, we need to understand why they occurred and how to prevent more from happening in the future.” Exactly that.
An Anarchist from Jaffa on the Violence in Palestine and Israeli Repression [crimethinc] – “The context of struggle here is between a nuclear military superpower and a dispossessed people. Colonialism does not relent. Colonialism will not step back of its own accord, not even if you ask nicely. Decolonialism is a noble cause, but the path to achieve it is often ugly and tainted by violence. In the absence of any realistic alternative to achieve liberation, people are forced into carrying out unjustifiable acts. It’s a fundamental reality of the disparity of power. To demand that the oppressed always act in the purest of ways is to demand they remain forever in servitude.” The interview was recorded before or even during the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. It shows the perspective from a longer timeframe on how Israeli anarchists might view the situation.
[Articles English]
New Interview about Abolition and Infrastructure in Radical History Review [deanspade.net] – “Freshly published: Rachel Herzing, Bench Ansfield and I had a conversation about abolitionist questions of infrastructure, focusing on what transformative justice means, how abolitionists debate questions of state formation, and much more.”
The Best We Can Do? The Rise of Bullshit Research [okdoomer.io] – “They cite “studies” that suggest people with depression and chronic illness are just lazy. They make declarations about public health and call up one hack doctor willing to lie for 15 minutes of fame. Let’s call this bullshit research, the sibling of those bullshit jobs made famous by David Graeber. We are being fed trivia and bullshit about delighting listeners and smiling while the ecological foundations of our world are being destroyed. What happened to the great sense of inquiry that I’ve read used to exist in the world?” Nate Bear now crossposts his stuff to okdoomer.io. Saves you a visit to that horrible site called substack.
Brian Eno: why I sculpt sound [ft] – “The painter Philip Guston once said: “I paint what I want to see”. In my case, I compose the music I want to hear. I find myself discovering certain new feelings and trying to find out how I got to them, what in the music made them happen. I sometimes hear someone else’s music and imagine how I would improve it, or what I would leave out to make it better. Sometimes I hear something I dislike so much that I start imagining its exact opposite.” Eno seems to do the check-your-privilege-thing.
New research offers clues to what causes long COVID — fuelling hope for eventual treatments [cbc] News – “It’s still “early days” when it comes to answering that question, Schaffner added, because the latest published studies are fairly small and narrow in scope, based on researchers’ areas of expertise. “These various studies seem to complement each other,” he added, “even though they’re not exactly duplicative.” Schaffner and others are hopeful, however, that these kinds of emerging findings could eventually lead to a diagnostic test for long COVID, or to potential treatments.” Early days. And my fear as always, will this confirm all forms of LongCOVID or will it serve to triage the “real” cases from the “fake” ones, in order to save the state more money.
Toxic workplaces are the main reason women leave academic jobs [nature] – “Women feel driven out by problems with workplace culture more often than by lack of work–life balance.” This is confirmation what most women already knew.
Indigenous Groups Rally Against Lithium Extraction in Argentina [hyperallergic] – “Murals, flags, performance, and other artistic expressions define the ongoing struggle to protect lands threatened by rampant extraction of the so-called “white gold.”” Full solidarity.
Australians Vote Down Referendum to Recognize Indigenous Groups in Constitution [truthout] – “Aboriginal groups mourned the proposal, which would have created an advisory body to advocate for them in government.” So fucking awful to not even agree on such a minimal thing.
“That’s Never Going to Work.” How Futility Bias Keeps Us from Even Trying. [okdoomer.io] – “Futility bias tends to serve the status quo. It serves the affluent and the elite. It comes from a position of power and privilege. When someone leans on futility bias as a reason, they’re saying they’re too lazy or immature to do the right thing. They want everything to stay the same, no matter who’s getting hurt. It suits them. They’re saying they don’t care, and they’re counting on the idea that nobody else does.” For the next time someone tells you “it’s never gonna work”.
Fruit, wildflowers, insects: the people transforming disused land in England [the guardian] – “From community allotments to wildlife havens, guerilla gardeners are taking it upon themselves to create meaningful spaces” Guerilla gardening.
September 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “The September global surface temperature was 1.44°C (2.59°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F), making it the warmest September on record. September 2023 marked the 49th-consecutive September and the 535th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average. September 2023 was 0.46°C (0.83°F) above the previous record from September 2020, and marks the largest positive monthly global temperature anomaly of any month on record. The September 2023 global temperature anomaly surpassed the previous record-high monthly anomaly from March 2016 by 0.09°C (0.16°F). The past ten Septembers (2014–2023) have been the warmest Septembers on record.” This is normal.
The Coronavirus Still Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings [the nation] – “The Covid-19 pandemic is not a state of mind—and telling us not to panic isn’t healthcare.” Yet, the Coronavirus can affect your feelings, Long COVID often leads to depression and other mental health outcomes.
The Long Covid Reader: The Book About Covid Long Haulers by Mary Ladd – “An anthology amplifying the voices of 45 Long Haulers, sharing raw, powerful stories that shed light on the impact of Long Covid” A crowdfunded book written by people affected with Long COVID.
Covid Silence and How The Media Works [okdoomer.io] – “Covid doesn’t have a PR agency, and most studies are coming out of niche research labs or universities that have very limited or non-existent PR teams/agency support. And even when it’s coming out of a big university, the media teams at these unis are spread thin and often don’t see the humdrum science research as something to prioritise when it comes to media. It doesn’t raise money, it’s not that sexy etc.” Interesting thought, what of COVID had a lobby instead of the fucking pharma industry?
Plutocrats Forever | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Empathy alone was never enough to get me through. Rage followed closely on its heels, because of how clearly it felt like we should be fighting back against those things, that maybe we don’t truly understand them, as empathy demands, if we can accept them with equanimity. Honestly, we should feel rage that we live in a world where those things are allowed to occur, again and again and again. And that the people most responsible for them get rewarded, and the people who look away, who pretend to be asleep, usually have the easiest time getting by in the aftermath.” Didn’t know there were two plutos in Rome.
Someone Infected Neil Gaiman with COVID-19, After Venues Refused to Enforce Audience Masking [okdoomer.io] – “The passive voice has served a macabre purpose in this pandemic. The passive voice, by erasing the subject of the sentence, neatly obscures accountability, and with it our own role in unmitigated infections. Moreover, it has prevented us from identifying the layers of responsibility in enabling infections on a mass scale. This mental block is the first obstacle to advocating for effective mitigations and constructive solutions. It stops us from preventing infections. But that is changing now. It is time to own the damage that we are causing by infecting others with COVID-19. I believe that we all know, deep inside, that we are causing harm. And many of us are suffering from the cognitive dissonance of pretending that we aren’t. Because, in a pandemic, this is serious and large-scale harm.” Helpful distinction. People spreading COVID have gotten easy so far.
Linton Kwesi Johnson Is a Revolutionary Poet for Our Times [jacobin] – “In our contemporary political landscape, increasingly characterized by reactionary onslaught and progressive retreat, Johnson stands out as that rarest of figures: a people’s poet and radical of radicals. In his work and in his person he keeps alive the many currents of struggle and resistance, suffering and solidarity, history and music, that made the emancipation movements of the global black proletariat as transformative as they have been in the decades since the mid-century wave of decolonial and anti-segregationist campaigns.” <3
Elon Musk is a racist | Paris Marx [disconnect] – “From demonizing migrants to pushing “white genocide,” he’s saying the silent part out loud” Also check out the podcast by Marx linked above.
Artist Shellyne Rodriguez Agrees to Plea Deal [hyperallergic] – “Her misdemeanor charge will be withdrawn upon completion of a minimum of six months of behavioral therapy and compliance with good behavior.” I so feel with this artist.
The 15-Minute City Conspiracy Theory Goes Mainstream [wired] – “The conspiracy has taken hold among right-wing audiences in the United States on social media, with psychologist turned right-wing conspiracy theorist Jordan Peterson boosting it in a tweet late last year that has been viewed almost 8 million times.” Oh fuck you, JP.
The Collapse Will Not Be Televised | Jessica Wildfire [okdoomer.io] – “The spectacles will be the last thing to go. As society collapses, the rich will work overtime to supply everyone with a constant stream of distraction and entertainment. They’ll encourage everyone to keep eating out, shopping, and watching movies no matter what virus is spreading. A growing number of people will be too braindead and emotionally numb to resist. The concerts aren’t going to stop. The football games aren’t going to stop. The movies aren’t going to stop. The elite will keep all of that going as long as possible, no matter the cost. That’s what convinces everyone that everything’s okay. If that ended, people would have to stop and pay attention to what’s happening. They would actually feel how hot it is. They would feel the despair. They might do something.” Football, festivals, clubbing are what keeps us docile.
Fascism in America: a long history that predates Trump [the guardian] – “We don’t sufficiently teach civics or democratic awareness [in high schools], how fascism and far-right extremist movements have a long history in the US,” Rosenfeld said. “We think we’re an exception, that America fought ‘the good war’ to defeat fascism and Nazism. We patted ourselves on the back for many decades as ‘the greatest generation’ – a useful myth for American public life that blinded us to darker undercurrents in our society.” Might be a book to read.
[Articles German/French]
Abschreckungspolitik in der Postkartenidylle [daslamm] – “Nachdem Bayram Hasgül im Gurnigelbad an einem Herzinfarkt starb, steht die Asylunterkunft im ehemaligen Berner Kurhotel in der Kritik. Der Todesfall sei nur die Spitze des Eisbergs, sind sich Bewohnende und Aktivist*innen einig.” It is so goddamn awful how we treat refugees in this country.
Silvia Federici: «Die Nacht zu einem gefährlichen Ort zu machen, war im Interesse der Mächtigen» [woz] – “Sie zeigt, dass Hexenverfolgung und Entstehung des Kapitalismus eng zusammenhingen – und propagiert Gemeingüter als feministische Verteidigungsstrategie: Eine Begegnung mit Silvia Federici in Glarus, wo 1782 Europas letzte «Hexe» hingerichtet wurde.” This sadly is a remarkably uncritical interview, please also read the two older critiques of her work:
Caliban and the Witch: A critical analysis [1919]
“Critical analysis of Sylvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch demonstrates her lack of seriousness in dealing with an important issue: why was the last phase (from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century) of the multi-secular transition from feudalism to capitalism accompanied in Western Europe by a deterioration of the situation of women, from the top to the bottom of the social ladder?”Beyond the Periphery of the Skin – Silvia Federici [full stop]
“Silvia Federici’s Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism is a baffling work that slides from the academically indefensible to the ethically dubious with remarkable facility.”Überwachung: Die Predator Files [woz] – “Eine Welt ohne Skrupel: Wie die Intellexa-Allianz um den israelischen Exgeheimdienstler Tal Dilian Überwachungstrojaner an Despoten verkauft – und die Schweiz als sicheren Hafen zur Verschleierung ihrer Geschäfte nutzt. Die grosse internationale Recherche.” A research into not much new stuff.
[Older articles, still great]
The Weaponisation of Labour Antisemitism | David Graeber – Graeber of course says nothing about the current war in Israel, but his reflections still can be quite helpful now.
Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the Media (Documentary)
Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill, and How This Helps America’s Illegitimate Authorities Stay in Charge [brucelevine.net] – “Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.” Context!
Letter to a Young Doctor | Johanna Hedva [triple canopy] – “I want it to be that trust is the most important thing a doctor and her patient can share, because trust is what keeps people from falling apart, and it’s what puts broken ones back together, and in the cases where the brokenness is all there is, trust can offer a small encouragement that the brokenness is bearable—that it can eventually, hopefully, ideally be reframed not as “brokenness” at all, but as the different parts that are there to work with.” The letter to a young poet of disability justice.
R.I.P.
Much much much much much too many civilians in Israel and Gaza.
[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or mastodon for an edited choice of them]
Header Photo: A flock of Alpacas
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This week, we’re sharing words from anarchist, author, organizer and former participant in the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Ashanti Omowali Alston, in the keynote address at the 2024 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville. The presentation was entitled “Solidarity, Spirituality and Liberatory Promise on a Turtle’s Back”. You can support Ashanti’s GoFundMe here.
From the ACAB website:
Trusting in solidarity, the mysterium of spirituality, and a promise from god knows where—a “where” that at this historical moment, might just be Palestine. What does it mean TO BE in the midst of all this right now? RIGHT NOW!
Ashanti Alston is a revolutionary Black nationalist, anarchist, abolitionist, speaker, writer, elder motivator. A long-time member of The Jericho Movement, he is presently an advisory board member of the National Jericho Movement and co-founding board member of the Center for Grassroots Organizing (Vermont land project). He continues giving talks and writing inspirational analyses concerning the dismantling of the myriad oppressive regimes in which we find ourselves enmeshed.
Ashanti is one of the few former members of the Black Panther Party who identifies as an anarchist in the tradition of ancestor Kuwasi Balagoon (BPP & BLA). He developed abolitionist politics in the early years of Critical Resistance. He has helped save the life of a baby pig with animal liberationists, learned depth-queer politics from being challenged, and wants to see non-ego eldership partaking through sincerely loving the younger generations who truly want to ‘CARRY IT ON.”
You can find other recordings from the 2024 ACABookfair at acabookfair.noblogs.org.
Transcription
Cindy Milstein: I’m Cindy. I want to really welcome everybody here on behalf of the ACAB Bookfair. It is such a joy and pleasure and delight for us to organize this and then have so many incredibly amazing people show up in one place. Why does this have to just be three days? It’s also beautiful how everybody has been really helping, so I want to thank everybody who’s done so much this weekend to make this weekend happen and to get here and to be here. Thank you, everyone, really. Welcome.
I wasn’t planning to introduce Ashanti, but I actually feel delighted. I used to see Ashanti a lot, and we used to be involved in anarchist summer schools together and other projects together. We did a lot together. We saw each other a lot and feel like dear friends. Then, I don’t think we’ve seen each other for 12 years or so, and it feels super powerful to be together again with friends and Ashanti. I’ve always really appreciated him. I keep saying “sweetheart, sweetheart.” I’m an older anarchist too, and It’s really nice to be around in this multi-generational space with someone who’s so humble and able to still see possibility, able to still see that we need to be in this for the long haul and be together no matter where we are with our anarchism.
Ashanti has had a long, illustrious career being a revolutionary and a radical, starting as a teenager with the Black Panthers, moving into the Black Liberation Army, with the State trying to contain and destroy Ashanti, and Ashanti not letting them do that, and coming out and being involved with the Jericho political prisoner support movement, among other things. And is also a parent. Okay, so enough of me. I’m gonna let Ashanti speak, and then we’ll do some Q&A afterward.
Ashanti: Okay, I’m not sure. I might sit down. I don’t know, man. I’m not used to the sitting down thing. Well, first of all, thank you for the introduction. It has been years, and it’s just been so good to reconnect. So a lot of times when you know that we’ve all been through so much, then you start seeing some of your old comrades, man, that kind of lifts your spirits up. Right on. But I need you to work with me right now, because I still got a few butterflies going here, right? So, back in them days, Black Panther Party, you know, when we said “Power to the people,” the response was always, “All power to the people.” All power to the people. So I want you to, like, help me to release these revolutionary butterflies out into your midst with your response: Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: One more time. Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: I see them. I see them. Alright. Now, it is clear. I said “to the people.” I did not say to the preachers, to the politicians, to them profiteers. To the people. That’s also my anarchist analysis of The Black Panther Party. It wasn’t an anarchist group, but there was so much about it that helped move me towards anarchism, anti-authoritarian thinkings and practices because the experience in the party taught me the dangers of authoritarianism, even when it was coming from good places. You know? We want to liberate our people. We want to help make a revolution in the United States, but then what happens when you got an ideology and a structure that so much resembles the ideology and structure of what you fighting, with just different words.
Then the FBI and the counterintelligence program and local police is able to feed in on your own internalized, colonial dynamics: the sexisms, the egos, and all them other things. Next thing you know we’re fighting each other. Movements are collapsing. There’s attacks on chapters. There’s comrades getting framed on charges. Others had to take off, going into exile. Others like Fred Hampton and those killed in their beds. It’s a dangerous struggle, but the fact is, that I and others have survived… And I’m 70 now, you know. My knees feel it more, so I accept the elder thing now, right? I’m an elder. So at least I have opportunities to share with you, those things that I hope will be helpful. In this particular case, when I say to you, because this is an anarchist gathering, and I’ve just been so excited since coming here Thursday to return to a spirit of “we going to make this happen.”
That’s, that’s an anarchist spirit to me, because the other folks I’m talking to are still trying to figure out “How are we going to indoctrinate people in the community to do the right thing?” You’re talking about, “How can we create the liberatory programs right now with the knowledges that we are learning right now, that we know we will learn more tomorrow, and put it into all kinds of experimental practices?” That’s where it’s at. That it is not the ideological approach that just says “We got this all laid out. We got it laid out. You just gotta follow this. No, they did it in China. No, they did it in Cuba. They did it in Africa.” No, they didn’t. No, they didn’t.
If anybody listening was at Modibo’s talk… and Modibo, I think, is my elder. Modibo is like in his early 80s? And just to say this about him, also, it was such an honor for me to finally meet him in person. He’s been around longer than I have been doing this, and still believes in his 80s that we can change the world in very anti-authoritarian ways. Every workshop that I was able to attend today just reaffirms for me the same thing. When I went to the harm reduction one, because I couldn’t get into yours, it was so packed [speaking to another presenter]This harm reduction is all new to me, because I feel like I’ve been out of it for a long time. I finally been able to say easily: depression. The depression comes when I feel like, “Man, is a generation going to take this, or are they going to get bamboozled and buy into this madness again?” And when I do that and isolate myself, I get depressed. I sit and do nothing. The years go by. The years go by. Then miraculous things happen. You know? One of them was Seattle, way back. Another one was the Zapatista movement, right? The latest one is what? Who would have thought with what’s going on in occupied Palestine, that the international resistance would be at this level? I’ve never seen anything like it in my 70 years. So it makes me feel like, “Well, Ashanti, you need to get back in there. Get back in there.” You know? And I feel like in the last year, there’s been things happening that have allowed me to feel like I can still be in there and just give it my best. You know? In the process, I am learning so much, from the social media stuff, which I always thought was quite crazy. But then I realize it also has us watching, by minute, the genocide going on over there. It’s allowing us to connect, to increase our resistance, the demonstrations, what we’re doing on the campuses. Oh my god, it’s not over. It’s. Not. Over. So I want to share that with you, because I’m like, “I’m back in. I am here,” and I thank you for the way you have invited me here.
All right. The title I chose was—I don’t know why I choose these. I try to do these fancy titles—“Solidarity, Spirituality and the Liberatory Promise on a Turtle’s Back.” Y’all know what I’m talking about with a turtle, right? The Turtle? Turtle Island, right? I wanted us to think of images. So I would go on the internet and I would put in “on the back of the turtle”, and I put in “civilization on the back of a turtle.” I wanted the images that would show this turtle. Aang was a great help for me, I should tell you. And the particular scene where he’s talking to the lion turtle.
I wanted to imagine in my mind what it means for indigenous folks who have a certain mythology around Turtle Island, and what it meant for Aang to have this conversation with the turtle, to get this wisdom. What does it mean for those who… We can be so scientific. We can just lop that off as, oh, “That’s myths. That’s folk tales. That means nothing.” But what does it mean to those for who that is their culture, and they get their wisdom from these stories? What happened to the role of stories? You know, not everything has to be so scientific. For us, as it helps to focus on the plight of indigenous folks in this country, let’s look at what it means that Turtle Island, before the European conquest, had its ways of living. Then here comes the conquest, and they start building on top of the back of the turtle. Just moving, removing whatever was there, the villages, the agricultural scenes and whatever. Now, you are chopping down trees, you are blowing up mountains, you are digging deep into the earth, and you start to build the United States, or this North American empire, on the back.
I wanted to be able to envision our role as, “How can we get this empire off the back of the turtle?” It can only happen with mass social movements that we become that can opener that just starts cranking around this turtle. And at some point we just gonna flip this motherf*cker off into the galaxy. So that we might begin to really create them lives we know we deserve. We know. We want to live better. What I like about the fact that we are anarchists is that our visions tend to be that imaginative. Our practices tend to be that daring and risky. That’s why I think we have such an important role to play, because a lot of other folks are just dealing with such old ideas, not critiquing them. Old practices, not looking at them to see how destructive or poisonous they can be. Settler colonialism is one thing to say, but what happens when you look at internalized colonialism? What does it look like as we’ve been here and it has seeped all in our behaviors, our bodies? That means that we have got to fight this battle on different level. Different levels.
What happens in solidarity a lot of times, even just in a simple way, is how do we look at each other as we go down the street sometime or knock on the neighbor’s door? How do we look at each other? From saying, “Hey, neighbor, how you doing?” Was it last night or night before the neighbors where I’m staying had lost the cat. They lost the cat. So they’re like, “Well, let’s exchange numbers, and if we see the cat, we help you and return the cat.” Is that not solidarity? Mutual aid? You hear what happened to the indigenous folks—this was me with Wounded Knee—and you want to figure out, “Well, how do you help the folks in Wounded Knee?” Attica jumps off and being that I’m in New York/New Jersey at the time, there’s folks like, “Well, we got to figure out how to get up there and help them prisoners in rebellion.” The act of doing those things has the potential to not only really aid them but to change you in ways that you may not have even expected. That is amazing. It is an amazing way to be in the world where that kind of surprise is allowed to happen in your life.
There’s a story that some of you may know from reading Assata Shakur’s autobiography, when she talks about her grandmother. She had, I don’t know if it’s a phone conversation or a grandmother came to see her. Her grandmother’s this religious woman, and the grandmother is like—she called her Joanne, I’m sure. And she’s like, “Joanne, I had a dream last night, and in that dream, you had got free!” I’m sure Assata and them at the time was plotting anyhow, but that coming from grandma, from that place… I’m sure Assata ain’t trying to do no scientific analysis with her grandmama telling her. She knows her grandma’s a spiritual woman. Take it for what it’s worth. What happens eventually, maybe within the next month, is Assata is free. Those kind of acts of solidarity… because this was an integrated underground team. It was not only Black Liberation Army, it was Weather Underground and others, some with no organization, who came together in solidarity to free Assata Shakur. I bring that up so that it’s not just all in, “We’re going to change. We’re going to evolve. We’re going to become new.” Sometimes it’s in the very physical acts of freeing somebody from one of the most oppressive situations you can be in. In that process, every one of them involved in that process was affected by it in some really great, humanizing ways when it was successful. We in a struggle that we gotta be open to what we do on the every day in our organizing and how we how we relate to people, how we meet people, how we make love, how we talk to folk, how we get up, how we get down means something.
One of the most craziest things, I think, for people to get is that our oppression is really deep and on many levels, but one of the ways to deal with the internalized part is that you got to seek joy. Sometimes it sounds crazy. How can you seek joy when there’s so much suffering? Because that joy is the most powerful way to combat the internalized oppression that you’ve been carrying. And this is what I learned from the years in prison, from reading all the radical psychologies and the different things like that. You got to return to something that for many sounds, “Oh, that’s kind of wishy washy,” but no Martin Luther King said it’s the most powerful force in the universe, love. At first, when I read that from him in prison, I’m like, “Oh, Martin, you always talking that love.” But I’m also reading books on love, from Erich Fromm to others. And I’m like, oh, I get or at least I’m getting it. Looking at what we’ve been through, I’m like, I don’t want to repeat those same things when I get out, and I want to be with folks, like-minded and like-hearted folks, when I get out so that we are trying to create new ways of making this transformation of society happen, that includes our transformation in the process, that does not leave it up to some future time when we done overcame the capitalist class. That is such bullsh*t. I use bullsh*t because I heard my other comrades use bullsh*t. [Audience laughs]
But, those things become very, very important. So when I get the opportunities to share, those are things I want to share. When we was dealing with the Palestine presentation earlier, on the resistance, what lessons can we learn? I’m already feeling like, “oh man, this is a hard thing to convey to folks, that we may be in struggles where people are really going to get hurt.” I think of that young one, [Tortugita], who I’m sure did not have any idea [they were] going to end [their] life there, right? And many others who have been in or who go to jail for one day and get bailed out, but that might be the most traumatic experience they have ever had, and they’re going to need help. So in our formations, we have got to work into what we do, how we learn: collective care, community care, self-care. It is one of the most powerful ways for us to deal with the internalized stuff, as we’re dealing with these mega systems of oppression that we’re going to meet. How are we going to change with each other?I had one question yesterday around what happens when someone is physically or sexually harmed within the movement. It happens. I think I shared one example of back in our days when that has happened and we didn’t necessarily have the best methods, but it at least let me know that we need to have more understandings. Harm reduction, more understandings. When someone is hurt deep inside, there are folks now who can help us on them levels to help those individuals to kind of recover. Otherwise, we kind of push them to the side.
One of the new words I’ve learned this year is neurodivergency. [Audience cheers] Now for me, that is so exciting. For one, it’s like what the fu*k is neurodivergency? Because it came up in this gathering, so I know when I’m going home, I’m getting right on the laptop, and I’m looking it up. Looking it up gives me an understanding of something that can be so important in our movement so we stop isolating folks who don’t fit the norm. How do we do that? We’re the inclusive ones. We’re the ones who include. We’re the ones at least make them efforts. It’s always a struggle, but we make them efforts. For me to have that understanding also allowed me to look back on on folks who I may have avoided… because what? They sound a little crazy? They talked a little crazy? They moved a little crazy? Like “oh… oh, okay, I’m going to change that.” So I know that when I have times to talk, I want to bring that up. At least from me because I know that I got some social capital being Ashanti from the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army. I done did all this prison time. Nothing compared with what Mumia is doing now. I put all that perspective. It ain’t nothing. But the things that help us to change within, for me, is still primary.
The incident in the library. I’m just gonna be brief, but I’m like, “Oh, these my childrens here.” Okay. I know I could just sit back, because they got this. They got this. But it’s like, we’re the ones who are at least willing to stand and fight. Not in the macho sense that we just going to fight. We got an understanding with it. We know that everything we do has a much larger and deeper picture, because the world we want is much larger and deeper. It’s that Octavia Butlerian world. It’s them type of science fiction worlds, right? That’s why I think that imagination part becomes so important. We cannot be locked down. We don’t lock ourselves down, you know? Because in this struggle, we do need everything. We need everybody.As a Black revolutionary and one who, I’m very clear—I call myself a revolutionary nationalist, but I also say that you got to go beyond nationalism. One of the reasons for the “beyond” is because I know old school Black Nationalism excluded women, excluded queer folks. But I understand the power of it. The thoughts of what brings Black people together. Even if we say “Black Nation”, even if we say “Black Liberation”. We know it’s talking about our community, but I know that my role is to make sure that we’re being inclusive in our circles. So I’m constantly telling you, especially young Black folks, that those who are speaking in our behalf—because, you know, anarchists don’t play “you speaking on our behalf”. You don’t do that. But in our circles, we need to be the ones to speak up and say, “Uh-uh, we ain’t all on that page.” If you’re going to talk about our people. You talking about us too, and we’re playing a part in this, as you are. Maybe you might be the one who has to move out. In the ’60s, too, there was a point where there was a saying, “Move on over or we’ll move all over you.” That point may have come again in the Black Movement, as we speak.
I’m using this as an example, because, as we do all the things we do in our localities and our homes, in our private lives, we got to keep in mind, just like I do, that people somewhere, everywhere, always are trying to raise the stakes, are trying to break out of the box. When I don’t remind myself is when I go into depression. My friends get on me. They say, “You’re watching too much CNN, too much MSNBC, or that station”. So I got to keep reminding myself, “No, remember Seattle? Remember the Zapatistas? Remember the uprising with George Floyd?” Oh no, I got to remember. I got to remind myself. I’m telling you that as an elder now. I got to keep reminding myself. You got to keep reminding yourself that all over people are doing things that will really confirm and affirm that we can make this revolution, insurrectionary change happen. [Audience cheers]
So I’m not sure. At some point I’m gonna see if I can play something. When I do it, I’m gonna put the microphone up to give you an example of what I’m saying. There’s times when I’m sitting at home and my wife would say, “I’m sending you something.” I don’t know if it’s Tiktok or… I don’t know them things. But it was this brother at a meeting with other Black folks. And I’ll stop there for a minute. I have been in my own head searching for what ways could those of us in the Black community confront those male-ist, sexist, heterosexist folks in the Black community who are really impediments to our liberation and participation in the broader movements. And I’m like, “man, we have got to confront these folks!” I could not find words, and then my wife sends me something. This brother’s at a meeting, and he just lets these other folks—Black folks in the meeting, all black—he lets them have it. He’s telling them that, “You can’t accept the leadership of Black women and Black queers because of who they having sex with?” He just lets them have it and challenges them. He says, “their leadership seems to be calculated. They’re there for me when I can’t be there for myself because the police is shooting me and throwing me in prison, and you telling me you concerned with who they having sex with?” I’m like, “this is the language I’ve been looking for!” Because sometimes you have got to do that even amongst your own neighborhood, your own community. You got to kind of let folks know that, “no, this has to stop. I am here. This has to stop.”
So all these things become really important, even if they seem insignificant in an isolated way. They’re really not. We are the ones that are really putting out visions of ways that we can be in this land mass, beyond empire, respecting that this is Indigenous land. We are the ones that are really putting forth that we need to have hard conversations. We are the ones who are saying, “Hey, right now, them folks who are using needles over there, they need some help. Right now them folks that are in prison over there, they need some help. Right now these children are not getting a proper education. We need to be able to help them.” Immediate stuff. But every immediate stuff has broader, deeper visions going on. We have got to keep that in mind. Keep it in mind.
So the last few days—I know tomorrow, I’m here tomorrow. I am still on the cloud. I don’t know if you can tell. It just confirms and affirms to me that it ain’t over. Y’all make me so proud. [Audience claps] So proud.
I’m not necessarily going to be long, but I wanted to talk about the promise, the liberatory promise, which basically comes down to this: in a religious way, you could call it the covenant. In a legal way, you could call it a promise, but in a spiritual way it can also be like your ancestors. You know that your ancestors did the best they could for you, and when you give them thought, it is really like drawing from them that they wanted the best for you. Your spirituality may be telling you that, “Yo”—and this is that covenant, right?—“if you do these things, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in the people, then we’ll win. This land can change.” It’s passed on from generation to generation. In the Black Movement, we talk, probably to this day, about the promised land. It all comes from the Bible. The promised land. We ain’t got to the Promised Land yet, but I think it’s because of the situation we’re in. We were kidnapped, put in that ship and brought here. We can’t even call Africa the promised land. It may, it may have to be here. It’s got to be here in dialog with our indigenous folks, but we ain’t got nowhere else to go. We’re not immigrants. The Chicanos, they’re not immigrants. The Indigenous folks are not immigrants. We’re not immigrants. We came here in the most horrible way, but this ain’t been home to us yet. So the promise is that together, we can create the vision of what a home for all of us could be on the kind of liberatory basis that really allows for, like that Zapatista thing, a world where many worlds exist. Them kind of imaginative visionings, we still have to do that. We have to do that, probably more important than any thing else, to know why we engage in the most minute actions or behaviors.
So I’m going to see if I can play this. If I can get it, I have to put it up to the microphone. The reason I’m playing it is because I want to see my peoples pull it together. You see the election thing going on now, you got all these Uncle Tom collaborating Black folks that’s going to do everything they can to pull us back into this monster’s grip. Even with militant rhetoric. That’s an Al Sharpton, right? But when you got others on the ground having these other conversations, they give you an indication that whatever those are saying in the media, listen to the conversations that are going on on the ground level, in the communities. That might give you more of an insight of the level of resistance and the potential of more resistance.
I think Modibo [Kadalie] was saying that also with his presentation. He’s telling you the books that him and Andrew [Zonneveld] have written are dealing with the resistance going back to the 1500s when they brought the first Africans over, how they had to resist in very intimate, direct, democratic ways. Modibo brought up at the end that they didn’t write these books for people to just know the historical explanations that they’re putting out, but for us to see that even as we live now, there are people who are engaging in direct democracy, and sometimes we just need the vision to see it and to know how to support that. Which is why, again, we are not the vanguard. We just really trying to help ourselves and others to see how we can already do this and just bring the streams together. So as I go, I’m gonna try to get this. I ain’t the best at this. My computer is not the fastest. Everybody’s alright so far? [Audience cheers]
While I’m doing this too, just in New York last month. I went to New York. I’m in Rhode Island. Two of our comrades had passed. Sekou Odinga, who was Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army. One of those, when they set up the international chapter in the Black Panther Party in Algiers, they was meeting all these different liberation movements, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PFLP and stuff. And Sekou and others was part of those who went to training camps run by the Palestinians to learn guerrilla warfare and to bring them skills back here. So there’s stories like that. Some of them people didn’t even know until the memorial, because some of that was shared. But then there’s also Greg Thomas, professor in Massachusetts. He did a book on George Jackson, who was at certain point in California prisons, he was the revolutionary organizer. At one point, was incorporated into the Black Panther Party, but then they killed his brother who was trying to help free him one year, then he made an escape attempt and they killed him. When they raided his cell and took out everything from his cell, he had two handwritten poems. One of them was called “Enemy of the Sun.” When it was put out, a lot of people thought that he wrote it, but then in some research, they realized that no, it was from a well known Palestinian poet who, at the time, was in prison. But it was the impact that the Black Panther Party and the Palestinian Liberation Movement had on each other. So again, you never know how events in the world are going to impact you. Okay, I’m getting back to this.
[Video Clip]“…just shot dead in the street? Guess who’s not on the front lines? [Inaudible] Black women and gay men are running. So if you sit here and tell me that you can’t follow leadership from a gay man or Black woman, to be honest, you p*ssy. Because if you can’t take somebody who’s way more, far more calculated to run this because of who they decide to have sex with, I’m worried about who you’re trying to have sex with. What is your issue? If they gay. It has nothing to do with you. If they a woman has nothing to do with you. Let them lead. They trying to make sure we not shot no more. You not doing it. You not doing it. I can’t do it. A lot of us can’t do it. Why we f*cked up? If we come into contact with the police, we’re going to jail. So when they out here, and they putting [inaudible] f*cking life on the line, when they really dying. There’s an astronomical number of Black women dead for no reason. A number of gay, trans people dying. Guess what color they are? They Black. So just saying, ‘I can’t get behind that because you gay.’ F*ck outta here. Get behind them and shut up or stay at home.”
[crowd applause]Ashanti: So I share that because you never know what helps you to keep them spirits up. Or sometimes you just could be down in the dumps and you’re like, “Are we gonna pull this together?” and it could be something as simple as that. It could be you hearing a poem. It could be you just watching a couple walking down the street with a child. Those things that feed that spirit in you for more, for better, for freedom. When I hear that, then I know that things I was concerned with, even in the Black community, that lets me know it’s already happening. Even in the different struggles that we represent in here, you should have a sense that what you’re doing is already part of 1,000 other efforts and work being done. We just need to see it. It’d be great if we can figure out more ways to connect what’s already happening. The revolution, that insurrectionary impulse is there. People want better. So we gotta see it, and we gotta believe it. We gotta believe it.
So I’mma leave it there, because if there are questions I would definitely take them. But to know you… You’re beautiful. You are the ones—and you allow me to be a part of this—that is on the forefront of changing this world. Y’all are doing this, and I’m glad that there’s that inter-generational thing that we can do now too, because I’m so glad. We cut the older generation off. We were too angry. You can’t be up in your anger all the time, but the fact that we can do this in an inter-generational way means a lot as well. We can give you what we can. We don’t need to be your leaders, but we can give you what we can and help you, especially to believe that we can win. We can win. Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people! [Applause]
Ashanti: Right on, right on. Okay, so do we want to do it? If they want to. I might sit down for that.
Question 1: I work at a liquor store that’s very small, and most of us are queer and trans. We’re trying to maintain a culture of mask wearing among employees, and we interact with a lot of customers who have seen that as being almost a direct threat to their being, and we have seen a little bit of escalation of discomfort, especially in older generations as a result. What would be your advice when interacting with these people on a day to day basis, often every day, to help make them feel included and empowered to do that for them. And thank you. Thank you so much.
Cindy Milstein: Anarchism in action. We want to do a couple more questions, and then Ashanti can respond. Anyone else feel like coming up and saying something?
Question 2: As someone who’s been on the receiving end of some of the worst that our prison state/police state has to offer, what would your advice be for people who are in conflict with the police as part of the struggle and for people who are currently incarcerated?
Question 3: I wanted to ask what ways you cultivate joy in your life that have worked over and over for you throughout the years, no matter what you’ve had to face.
Question 4: There’s been a Black trans movement that has run parallel historically to a lot of sort of like Black liberationist struggles, and I feel like Black trans people have historically been relegated to specific margins of those movements. What do you make of this parallel track that has historically existed but is so often forgotten and removed from Black revolutionary history, and how do we even conceptualize a future Black trans resistance if we can’t even begin to conceptualize this past one?
Ashanti: [Responding to question 4] A big part of my responsibility is because—and I hate to say this—but of those from the Panther Party, I think I might be one of the few who will even bring up the fact that our movements still exclude women and don’t want to hear nothing about queer, trans, nothing. And I’m like, “Well, if you give me the platform, I’m going to tell you that you need to. And either way it’s going to happen, if you’re talking about Black people.” I did that at the Black Radical Conference in Atlanta. I think it was this year. Because I am tired of it. And tired of it, knowing that as a young revolutionary, I participated in it. Not knowing any better, I participated. But once I know, then that’s got to come to an end. Sometimes when you feel you’re speaking out for the first times, I knew it took some courage for me like, “Nope. I’mma do it, and then I’m going to do it every time after that.” We have to challenge our people. That’s one reasons I wanted to show that there, because it’s happening even when I didn’t even know it was happening.
I just felt like a lot of trans/queer in our communities, just pretty much said, “No f*ck them man. I’ve been hurt from family and others so much I don’t even care.” I know that that doesn’t work for us, but I know that we have to be very careful with it. Because we have to still move as a people. So at least as a Panther, I know I’mma speak on it. But then I’m always on internet and listening to others who also speak on and then I’m reaching out. I want us to create more ways to be together, so that our voice becomes heard and our power gets to be felt. In this sense, yeah, we need power. And this other thing. I don’t even know if I can—I say “we” a lot when I’m talking about trans and queer community. I’m a cis male. I don’t even know if I can do that. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to ask for permission, but that’s the revolutionary community I want to be a part of. You understand? [Audience cheering] So I know that we have to do that battle, and I’m hoping that I still will meet more folks and we figure out ways to communicate.
So I know the other one… Give it to me again.
Audience Member: [Repeats Question 2]
Ashanti: Conflict with the police or in the prison system. We know that we always going to confront the police. They are the front line troops. In the Panther Party we called them “the occupying army”, and it made sense to those of us who needed to see that to begin to understand their role. In the heady days, you might find yourself confronting the police in the street and in the prisons. Sometimes you also learn some wisdom and know that you ain’t got to confront all the time and throw a punch to their jaw all the time. Maybe there’s other ways you can do it, especially depending on what the situation is. I was just telling my comrade who will be a father, “when a child is in the family, that means you ain’t making decisions for you anymore. You making decisions for the family. If you’re part of an organization, you’ve also got to understand you ain’t making decisions for you. You also considering the organization. It requires a certain kind of discipline.” There’s still the trauma that you’re going to get from these people. I think that’s harm reduction too. As much as you can avoid having them kind of direct traumatic experiences, you do. If you on a road by yourself and they pull you over, man, don’t start calling them pigs and all that, “Mother f*cker, why you pulling me over?” No. Just say “Okay officer. Here’s my sh*t. Okay, give me the ticket. See you later.”
You want to live. You want to survive to fight another day. The ones who are doing time in there. They learn very quick, you got to learn how to get around these people for your sanity, for your survival. Then at that point, if you ever make the parole board, you want to be able to give your best little performance. You got to do that sometimes. It’s a survival skill, but it’s also constantly recognizing the police is the police. Whether they in the prisons, they on the street, whether they got the uniform, going to Vietnam, other places, they’re still playing the police role. You understand that they’re part of the system that’s got to change, Anti-police, anti-prison system, all that is my concept of Abolition. That whole thing gotta go.
The other one was joy. And then there’s one after that. [Responding to question 3] Here’s what I do. The last few days: Easy. I got joy. This is the easy one. I got joy, and I know that I need to keep putting myself in situations of joy like this more. I think it’s been part of the problem that I’ve been isolating, and I feel like it’s been for years and years. Stop isolating. Get amongst them folks. I say like-minded and like-hearted because feeling like I’m amongst people that want to make this thing happen, it keeps my spirits up. Sometimes, at home it’s putting on music. I’m from Plainfield, New Jersey, the land of Parliament-Funkadelic. I might have Parliament-Funkadelic blasting sometimes, walking the dog up and down the neighborhood. Let me tell about the neighborhood. Barrington is the suburb of Providence. Barrington is pretty white. I don’t know what my neighbors think when I’m playing the music. I don’t put them earplugs, and I want to hear the music. I’m bopping as I’m walking the dog, and I’m sure the neighbors like, “What is he doing?” But the music brings up things for me. It was them good times. Parliament-Funkadelic, Temptations, Stevie Wonder, the jazz players. Sometimes I put on “Compared to What.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. Yes! Those things keep my spirits up.
Going to church. I’m back in church. A little thing about my church: it’s a Hebrew Israelite church. Not the people with the buckles and the outfits and stuff, just regular folks. It comes out of the Black experience, so it might seem like regular Black gospel, regular church, but we have our rituals which are different from Rabbinic and other stuff. But man, when you go there and you hear the singing and there’s times when you’re getting up and there’s a marching thing, right? To me, the marching thing is like, “that’s that marching thing. We at war. Hold up that banner. Don’t let the banner fall.” It means a lot to me. I need that community. I need them kind of visuals. I understand that the visuals are from a language we don’t use anymore, but I understand it. It helps me to know that I’m still in this battle. So going to church is the thing, too. And then connecting with my comrades, my old comrades, whether on the phone or sometimes it might be a memorial. It’s those moments when we’re together that we know we’ve been through something that not others will quite understand. And they may not get when we laughing over something we done did and we hope nobody ever knows. We know we’ve been through hell, but we came out still with some level of humanity and an ability to laugh about it.
Those are the kind of things now and then with the kids. My oldest is 50 and 49, then I got married again, so it’s a 14 year old an 11 year old. Their friends think I’m granddaddy, and they then my kids got said, “No, that’s dad. That’s my Baba”. But anyhow, watching them grow, like my son, who’s 14, big afro, and he’s into track and field. I’m watching this body grow. He’s got this little hairline coming. Joy that I’m still here to be able to see it because I did not think I was going to make it past 20. Did not think so. I’m 50 years over that. But being able to watch them, it’s them kind of moments of joy. And that’s the kind of thing that I want for us all. Moments of joy are precious. We have got to know that we need them. And for moments when you gotta sometimes take off—you’re going to the beach, you’re going on a hiking trip, whatever. Do it! Do it because it is you building a resistance against the sh*t that we face. Joy, and you’re changing in the process. So I’m really big on that now, and I think I’ve been in a good space now for maybe the last year for a long time. And I plan on staying. [Audience cheers] So I know there was one more, the first one?
Audience Member: [Repeats Question 1]
Ashanti: I think we need to figure out have how to have better conversations with folks who we know they’re not necessarily on the same page as us. One of mines was around probably 10, 15, years ago—being at anarchist spaces and you start hearing the pronoun thing, and I ain’t understand it then. But even as I did, I’m like, if I who make an effort to understand it find it difficult, because I gotta remember—My memory ain’t the best. What about other folks in the communities that just don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about? They might come into a meeting out of curiosity, and you giving them vibes because they ain’t calling you by the pronoun you wanted, you got an attitude and you’re actually showing it to them. I want you to have some compassion for those of us who are older. It may take a minute, but we try, those of us who try. Others who don’t try, you may just want to put it like, “I got a limit. If you can’t handle that, maybe we don’t need to talk, whatever.” But people are going to get it because you’ve been pushing it, and others have been pushing it, and the children have been pushing it. My daughter, especially the one at 11, she she already has a sense of who she is.
It’s going to get better, but there’s got to be some compassion. The resistance is not from a mean spirit. It’s just like, “What the hell is this?” And you talking about someone who physically looks like female has a different way to define themselves. Some folks are like, “What the hell?” The Rush Limbaugh folks are all on this. That’s why they’re saying “We’ve got to get Trump in office.” They are really on this thing of trans and queer and gay. Which is another reason why, if Trump should get in, we need to figure out how we’re going to support each other. Because we know some of the things Trump will do that a Biden may not do as fast. But we know that, you know, on the issues of gay and queer, there’s going to be some things that Congress may not pass that kind of makes it easier. It’s just like alternatives to abortion. We already should be thinking—I’m sure we are—about what we can do if certain things happen. We’re going to take care of ourselves and possibly show others that they can do the same. Because the State is the State. The Empire is the Empire.
Do you have any more? I could if you want [answer more questions]. I always like the this part, because I know people going to ask some direct stuff that they want to know or share.Question 5: So many faces… First of all, thank you. Your contribution to the struggle is like innumerable and immense. I oftentimes find myself returning to your words in times of intense despair, and I just want to thank you so much for that. I came from so-called Chicago, where Stateville prison is planned to be torn down and replaced with a reformative, so-called rehabilitative prison instead. Someone inside also passed away this past weekend from a heat wave that affected him and had he had an asthma attack and died. So I just want to ask, knowing the death trap that prison is, how do you think that we can be in more material solidarity and support of people inside, beyond book packing, letter writing and phone zaps and all that type of stuff, especially knowing that folks inside are this wellspring of revolutionary, insurrectionary knowledge and practice?
Ashanti: The prison issue and the political prisoner issues are some of the hardest issues to get our communities to take on. As a member of the Jericho Movement, Jericho fights for the freedom of political prisoners in the United States. Man, we’ve been doing this for decades. Even just getting the folks in the community to listen to us that they are political prisoners, that they’ve been in there for decades. They’re the same ones, many times, who the politicians got them voting for more police, more prison construction or better… even if they say in better prison, no one is talking about abolition. It seemed like at some point that abolition was gaining some ground. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I still think we need to work at that. We got to put ourselves in situations where we have more face-to-face with key figures in the community. When I say key figures, I don’t necessarily mean the politicians. Maybe sometimes the preachers, maybe the deacons and deaconesses, maybe and the regular folks or folks who are at the community centers and possibly even the street organizations. I think that we don’t do the face-to-face anymore, and I think because of that, we’re not developing a better way of presenting the kind of narrative that might get folks to understand why we need to intervene and what’s going on in the prisons, why we need to get our political prisoners free. There’s all kind of things.
It’s the most difficult area that I have ever worked in. There’s not been many joyous moments. My comrade Veronza Bowers just got out several months ago, after 40 something years. There ain’t no recognition about who he is, his contributions, nothing. When Dhoruba bin Wahad got out, there was a little recognition. When Jalil Muntaqim got out after almost 50 years, there’s no recognition. But every decade, every year he was in there, we was fighting for his release and going to as many different venues to speak about political prisoners. Reverend Joy Powell is in upstate New York prison now. No one knows about her. Reverend Joy Powell is one of them who has stories similar to Malcolm X when he was Detroit Red. That was Reverend Joy Powell at one time, and then she changed. She became a minister I think in Rochester, New York or somewhere upstate. She’s fighting against police brutality, next thing you know, they done got her jammed up on something, and she’s doing I don’t know how many years in upstate as a New York political prisoner.
So it’s hard, but I think the challenge is for us to find a different narrative and to start going into communities and having actual conversation with, I say, key folks. They might say “influencers” today, maybe on certain levels. I’m not big on the social media with that, but to be able to sit down with folks and say, “Hey, you know the situation we’ve been in. You know that there’s people going to come forth and fight back or try to lead us or raise consciousness. Why are they sitting in prison?” In the women’s prison, men’s prisons, there is such a clamp down that even me trying to stay up on it now, I can’t imagine how that would be for me. I just did total 14 years, but what I hear they’re doing now? That’s to drive you insane. You don’t even get the actual letters anymore. You might get a visit, and there’s the screen, if they do come up. You’re so far away, you may not get a visit. And it’s the same thing inside. The way that they talk to you, treat you, it’s like you’re an animal. So it’s a big order. Even on that, I don’t have no immediate answers, but I always go to [that] we don’t have them kind of conversations in the community no more. We need to start trying to build grassroots movements from the bottom by having them conversations.A lot of times, the street organizations can’t get too involved because they already got records, and the slightest violation they got, then they right back in. So it even makes it harder. But what they’re doing in the prisons—and they’re expanding—we will be that open air prison like Gaza and all these situations now. The ways that they are laying down their technologies of control. It ain’t just the prisons anymore. I feel like it’s the welfare. I don’t even think they call it welfare no more. You got to go to court for all kind of fines, your car fine, your house fine, or they’re getting ready to do all these other things. They got us under such control. The Internet got us under such control. The cameras on the corners. The things that fly, [drones]. So it feels like it’s closing in, and it keeps closing. And we gotta figure out more how to break out of them confinements and get the people to see, man, we can’t keep wasting time, because it’ll get to the point where we can’t even breathe without their permission. So we strike out. Anarchists, we know what to do, so… I wish I had more to give you.
Question 6: Thank you so much. I’ve written down part of a question because we’ve had other comrades ask for advice when dealing with physical conflictuality with the state. And you’ve also spoken about times when, if you’re alone in the car at night, where strategic de-escalation might be something that you approach. We call that a version of a harm reductive approach. This has come up in conversation. I also relate to what you’re saying about this kind of disorientation and difficulty remembering the lessons that you’ve learned and other people have taught you sometimes at these very tense, fight or flight moments. So I’m wondering if you have some lessons that you can put into the collective consciousness. What might go through your mind in a moment where you’re choosing between this crossroads? Not to create a duality between moments of intentional escalation and otherwise.
Ashanti: Just real quick on that. I did share with somebody today. There was times I’ve been in demonstrations, marches, and the police start really getting out of hand. There was one time where they was really being abusive to this elder Black woman. And I can’t take that. I can’t stand and watch that. So I see myself walking. But the younger comrades, I had already told them about me in this sense: When you see me in that zone, all I need you to do, stand in front of me, make me look you in the eye. That’s all. Just say “Ashanti.” Because I know, and they know, I’m getting ready to jump on this mother f*cker. So imagine how I felt when I’m watching George Floyd. I am so angry at the people around him. I understand they scared, but you just stood there and watched them kill this Black man to his last breath. There’s times where you gotta really chill out. You gotta consider who’s around you. You gotta consider the repercussions of your own actions. So you can’t just snap like that. And if you folks, who you’re close to know you, they know what to do. And I would give them young folks permission, “Y’all know. Get in front of me. Get in front of me.” And I think a part of that why I don’t have no fears, because from the Panthers to the BLA, I learned to take them on. I learned that, oh, they can be just as scared as anybody else. But the thing is to think, just think about it. That’s why it’s important for when you let people know you, know your limitations. It becomes really important. That’s that’s why it’s really great when we can share our stories with each other. So folks know who you are, what you’ve been through, so some things don’t trigger you.
In the Panther Party—and this is around sexual abuse—a lot of times there was sexual abuse in the Black Panther Party, but even more, we didn’t know who was sexually abused before they even joined the Black Panther Party. You do certain things, and it’s a trigger. So me now, we need to know each other, but that calls for trust too. That’s cause for that kind of vulnerability, that you say, “I need to share with you that when you do this or you say that, it’s a trigger. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like it matters to me what you do and how it’s going to impact me.” That’s what we have to do more. It can’t be no side thought. It has to be fully integrated into how we’re raising ourselves. So, the thing with what do you do in them situations. Do you fight? Sometimes you do. Do you stand back? Sometimes you do. Do you think as much as possible who’s around you, who needs to be safe around you? That mother and the child that’s close by you, is it possible that they could get hurt? Just things to think about. So it ain’t just the macho thing. You think about it. And imagine them situations even beforehand, because sometimes that helps you to make snap judgments when it actually happens.
Question 7: So one of the questions I had is regarding “influencer” people, like how social capital affects the way that we organize sometimes, where people that are very influential in a place, because they’re more outspoken, or they know the right words to say and therefore can get into positions of more influence in anarchist circles. For example, in the Panther Party, like Huey or whoever, like people that get in those leadership like roles. How do we combat that? Sometimes it’s subtle. I’ve seen it in anarchist circles where it happens, but it’s not an actual leader. They don’t have a chairman or a title. Yet they’re able to move people around situations sometimes and therefore have more influence or bully other people. You see this sometimes. People don’t know how to approach this, especially when a person is of a certain identity as well or like goes through this specific struggle, and just finding a way of dealing with that.
And then another thing kind of adding to what you were saying about agitation. As an anarchist, my approach was always to agitate. Anywhere you go at the beginning, we hold the sign and we stayed on the sidewalk where it’s legal. But it’s “blah,” right? What can we do because normally, historically, anarchism has been agitative, right? You go to places, we’re known for doing the rowdy sh*t. So I was just wondering, like expanding on that a little bit.
Ashanti: I think we should stay rowdy. I think we should stay rowdy. [Audience cheers] But on the other level, now we can we talk about interpersonal relationships within the group and why it’s important to have some things you agree upon in terms of how you’re going to function with each other. What we’re trying to do in Providence now, we’re putting together community center, but the first retreat we just had was just laying down things as simple as: how do you want to be treated in the organization, how do you want your relationship to be with others, how do you want to make decisions, how do you want to deal with issues of egos and and the authoritarian? Because it ain’t like anarchists are free of all this. We got all these tendencies. We’re in this society. But I still think to this day, we’re more likely to at least be willing to talk about it and try to struggle against it. I think other folks it’s not even on their agendas. That’s so-called movement folks.
There’s a lot of information out here now, readings that people can do that helps us to see why it’s important for us to get to know each other and for us to create the kind of practices that helps us to minimize the tendencies of the bully, the sexist, the one who’s super submissive that has never known anything else but possibly listening to a man. We know that these are some of the internalized oppressions that we have to deal with. So let’s learn them. And there’s a lot of people that do trainings in them. There’s a lot of books out on it, and we are reading people, man. You know. I say that because I’m reading things all the time, because I know the internal stuff is really the thing that killed us in the Panther Party. The FBI just knew how to manipulate it.
So what do we do? We develop those capacities to help us to evolve, to get to better places. From our stories—our stories are so different. Each one is unique, but we gotta know it. It helps if we can get to the point to be honest and vulnerable, to share with the trust that ain’t nobody going to abuse what you just shared with them, that they will work with you, you and others will work together, to be better as a human being and what you do as an organizational member. It’s a struggle, so that’s why we ain’t bringing this thing down without, at the same time, getting it out of us. It’s got to be the same. You can’t do one without the other. That was that New Age stuff: “Oh, we just gonna free ourselves,” and no consideration about the mega-oppressions. We got to do both. The more that we do it, I think the better we can get. And I think it helps us also, we get better with each other when we see in the community, folks who have similar things. We got a little bit of experience and wisdom in how to help others in the community that don’t have this experience to know how to get to a better place. They want to join the group. They see things.
One quick example: One of the things that helped with Critical Resistance, because Critical Resistance was pretty much run by anarchists and anti-authoritarians, the ways that we did meetings, was always to get the men to not talk so much and to step back and to use the board to be inclusive on everybody’s input. Some people who had no political experience, when they saw that, like, “They really want, my opinion? It’s going up on the board?” That blew their minds, because no other time had that happened to them. It was us saying, “No, we are all important, and we all want to be included.” I’m telling you, it was us who were putting them examples forward. So we got to continue to do things like that.
I thank you for being patient. If I said anything rambling or whatnot, you can blame it on Cindy. But this has been great. This has been good. Let’s leave from here with that spirit, that spirit that we can change. We got ancestors. We got folks who we are building off of them. We know that this can happen, that what the United States is now can be no more.
Our dreams. Our dreams up. Our dreams up. Let’s make it happen. Power to the people, one last time.
Audience: All power to the people!
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This week, we’re sharing words from anarchist, author, organizer and former participant in the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Ashanti Omowali Alston, in the keynote address at the 2024 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville. The presentation was entitled “Solidarity, Spirituality and Liberatory Promise on a Turtle’s Back”. You can support Ashanti’s GoFundMe here.
From the ACAB website:
Trusting in solidarity, the mysterium of spirituality, and a promise from god knows where—a “where” that at this historical moment, might just be Palestine. What does it mean TO BE in the midst of all this right now? RIGHT NOW!
Ashanti Alston is a revolutionary Black nationalist, anarchist, abolitionist, speaker, writer, elder motivator. A long-time member of The Jericho Movement, he is presently an advisory board member of the National Jericho Movement and co-founding board member of the Center for Grassroots Organizing (Vermont land project). He continues giving talks and writing inspirational analyses concerning the dismantling of the myriad oppressive regimes in which we find ourselves enmeshed.
Ashanti is one of the few former members of the Black Panther Party who identifies as an anarchist in the tradition of ancestor Kuwasi Balagoon (BPP & BLA). He developed abolitionist politics in the early years of Critical Resistance. He has helped save the life of a baby pig with animal liberationists, learned depth-queer politics from being challenged, and wants to see non-ego eldership partaking through sincerely loving the younger generations who truly want to ‘CARRY IT ON.”
You can find other recordings from the 2024 ACABookfair at acabookfair.noblogs.org.
Transcription
Cindy Milstein: I’m Cindy. I want to really welcome everybody here on behalf of the ACAB Bookfair. It is such a joy and pleasure and delight for us to organize this and then have so many incredibly amazing people show up in one place. Why does this have to just be three days? It’s also beautiful how everybody has been really helping, so I want to thank everybody who’s done so much this weekend to make this weekend happen and to get here and to be here. Thank you, everyone, really. Welcome.
I wasn’t planning to introduce Ashanti, but I actually feel delighted. I used to see Ashanti a lot, and we used to be involved in anarchist summer schools together and other projects together. We did a lot together. We saw each other a lot and feel like dear friends. Then, I don’t think we’ve seen each other for 12 years or so, and it feels super powerful to be together again with friends and Ashanti. I’ve always really appreciated him. I keep saying “sweetheart, sweetheart.” I’m an older anarchist too, and It’s really nice to be around in this multi-generational space with someone who’s so humble and able to still see possibility, able to still see that we need to be in this for the long haul and be together no matter where we are with our anarchism.
Ashanti has had a long, illustrious career being a revolutionary and a radical, starting as a teenager with the Black Panthers, moving into the Black Liberation Army, with the State trying to contain and destroy Ashanti, and Ashanti not letting them do that, and coming out and being involved with the Jericho political prisoner support movement, among other things. And is also a parent. Okay, so enough of me. I’m gonna let Ashanti speak, and then we’ll do some Q&A afterward.
Ashanti: Okay, I’m not sure. I might sit down. I don’t know, man. I’m not used to the sitting down thing. Well, first of all, thank you for the introduction. It has been years, and it’s just been so good to reconnect. So a lot of times when you know that we’ve all been through so much, then you start seeing some of your old comrades, man, that kind of lifts your spirits up. Right on. But I need you to work with me right now, because I still got a few butterflies going here, right? So, back in them days, Black Panther Party, you know, when we said “Power to the people,” the response was always, “All power to the people.” All power to the people. So I want you to, like, help me to release these revolutionary butterflies out into your midst with your response: Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: One more time. Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people!
Ashanti: I see them. I see them. Alright. Now, it is clear. I said “to the people.” I did not say to the preachers, to the politicians, to them profiteers. To the people. That’s also my anarchist analysis of The Black Panther Party. It wasn’t an anarchist group, but there was so much about it that helped move me towards anarchism, anti-authoritarian thinkings and practices because the experience in the party taught me the dangers of authoritarianism, even when it was coming from good places. You know? We want to liberate our people. We want to help make a revolution in the United States, but then what happens when you got an ideology and a structure that so much resembles the ideology and structure of what you fighting, with just different words.
Then the FBI and the counterintelligence program and local police is able to feed in on your own internalized, colonial dynamics: the sexisms, the egos, and all them other things. Next thing you know we’re fighting each other. Movements are collapsing. There’s attacks on chapters. There’s comrades getting framed on charges. Others had to take off, going into exile. Others like Fred Hampton and those killed in their beds. It’s a dangerous struggle, but the fact is, that I and others have survived… And I’m 70 now, you know. My knees feel it more, so I accept the elder thing now, right? I’m an elder. So at least I have opportunities to share with you, those things that I hope will be helpful. In this particular case, when I say to you, because this is an anarchist gathering, and I’ve just been so excited since coming here Thursday to return to a spirit of “we going to make this happen.”
That’s, that’s an anarchist spirit to me, because the other folks I’m talking to are still trying to figure out “How are we going to indoctrinate people in the community to do the right thing?” You’re talking about, “How can we create the liberatory programs right now with the knowledges that we are learning right now, that we know we will learn more tomorrow, and put it into all kinds of experimental practices?” That’s where it’s at. That it is not the ideological approach that just says “We got this all laid out. We got it laid out. You just gotta follow this. No, they did it in China. No, they did it in Cuba. They did it in Africa.” No, they didn’t. No, they didn’t.
If anybody listening was at Modibo’s talk… and Modibo, I think, is my elder. Modibo is like in his early 80s? And just to say this about him, also, it was such an honor for me to finally meet him in person. He’s been around longer than I have been doing this, and still believes in his 80s that we can change the world in very anti-authoritarian ways. Every workshop that I was able to attend today just reaffirms for me the same thing. When I went to the harm reduction one, because I couldn’t get into yours, it was so packed [speaking to another presenter]This harm reduction is all new to me, because I feel like I’ve been out of it for a long time. I finally been able to say easily: depression. The depression comes when I feel like, “Man, is a generation going to take this, or are they going to get bamboozled and buy into this madness again?” And when I do that and isolate myself, I get depressed. I sit and do nothing. The years go by. The years go by. Then miraculous things happen. You know? One of them was Seattle, way back. Another one was the Zapatista movement, right? The latest one is what? Who would have thought with what’s going on in occupied Palestine, that the international resistance would be at this level? I’ve never seen anything like it in my 70 years. So it makes me feel like, “Well, Ashanti, you need to get back in there. Get back in there.” You know? And I feel like in the last year, there’s been things happening that have allowed me to feel like I can still be in there and just give it my best. You know? In the process, I am learning so much, from the social media stuff, which I always thought was quite crazy. But then I realize it also has us watching, by minute, the genocide going on over there. It’s allowing us to connect, to increase our resistance, the demonstrations, what we’re doing on the campuses. Oh my god, it’s not over. It’s. Not. Over. So I want to share that with you, because I’m like, “I’m back in. I am here,” and I thank you for the way you have invited me here.
All right. The title I chose was—I don’t know why I choose these. I try to do these fancy titles—“Solidarity, Spirituality and the Liberatory Promise on a Turtle’s Back.” Y’all know what I’m talking about with a turtle, right? The Turtle? Turtle Island, right? I wanted us to think of images. So I would go on the internet and I would put in “on the back of the turtle”, and I put in “civilization on the back of a turtle.” I wanted the images that would show this turtle. Aang was a great help for me, I should tell you. And the particular scene where he’s talking to the lion turtle.
I wanted to imagine in my mind what it means for indigenous folks who have a certain mythology around Turtle Island, and what it meant for Aang to have this conversation with the turtle, to get this wisdom. What does it mean for those who… We can be so scientific. We can just lop that off as, oh, “That’s myths. That’s folk tales. That means nothing.” But what does it mean to those for who that is their culture, and they get their wisdom from these stories? What happened to the role of stories? You know, not everything has to be so scientific. For us, as it helps to focus on the plight of indigenous folks in this country, let’s look at what it means that Turtle Island, before the European conquest, had its ways of living. Then here comes the conquest, and they start building on top of the back of the turtle. Just moving, removing whatever was there, the villages, the agricultural scenes and whatever. Now, you are chopping down trees, you are blowing up mountains, you are digging deep into the earth, and you start to build the United States, or this North American empire, on the back.
I wanted to be able to envision our role as, “How can we get this empire off the back of the turtle?” It can only happen with mass social movements that we become that can opener that just starts cranking around this turtle. And at some point we just gonna flip this motherf*cker off into the galaxy. So that we might begin to really create them lives we know we deserve. We know. We want to live better. What I like about the fact that we are anarchists is that our visions tend to be that imaginative. Our practices tend to be that daring and risky. That’s why I think we have such an important role to play, because a lot of other folks are just dealing with such old ideas, not critiquing them. Old practices, not looking at them to see how destructive or poisonous they can be. Settler colonialism is one thing to say, but what happens when you look at internalized colonialism? What does it look like as we’ve been here and it has seeped all in our behaviors, our bodies? That means that we have got to fight this battle on different level. Different levels.
What happens in solidarity a lot of times, even just in a simple way, is how do we look at each other as we go down the street sometime or knock on the neighbor’s door? How do we look at each other? From saying, “Hey, neighbor, how you doing?” Was it last night or night before the neighbors where I’m staying had lost the cat. They lost the cat. So they’re like, “Well, let’s exchange numbers, and if we see the cat, we help you and return the cat.” Is that not solidarity? Mutual aid? You hear what happened to the indigenous folks—this was me with Wounded Knee—and you want to figure out, “Well, how do you help the folks in Wounded Knee?” Attica jumps off and being that I’m in New York/New Jersey at the time, there’s folks like, “Well, we got to figure out how to get up there and help them prisoners in rebellion.” The act of doing those things has the potential to not only really aid them but to change you in ways that you may not have even expected. That is amazing. It is an amazing way to be in the world where that kind of surprise is allowed to happen in your life.
There’s a story that some of you may know from reading Assata Shakur’s autobiography, when she talks about her grandmother. She had, I don’t know if it’s a phone conversation or a grandmother came to see her. Her grandmother’s this religious woman, and the grandmother is like—she called her Joanne, I’m sure. And she’s like, “Joanne, I had a dream last night, and in that dream, you had got free!” I’m sure Assata and them at the time was plotting anyhow, but that coming from grandma, from that place… I’m sure Assata ain’t trying to do no scientific analysis with her grandmama telling her. She knows her grandma’s a spiritual woman. Take it for what it’s worth. What happens eventually, maybe within the next month, is Assata is free. Those kind of acts of solidarity… because this was an integrated underground team. It was not only Black Liberation Army, it was Weather Underground and others, some with no organization, who came together in solidarity to free Assata Shakur. I bring that up so that it’s not just all in, “We’re going to change. We’re going to evolve. We’re going to become new.” Sometimes it’s in the very physical acts of freeing somebody from one of the most oppressive situations you can be in. In that process, every one of them involved in that process was affected by it in some really great, humanizing ways when it was successful. We in a struggle that we gotta be open to what we do on the every day in our organizing and how we how we relate to people, how we meet people, how we make love, how we talk to folk, how we get up, how we get down means something.
One of the most craziest things, I think, for people to get is that our oppression is really deep and on many levels, but one of the ways to deal with the internalized part is that you got to seek joy. Sometimes it sounds crazy. How can you seek joy when there’s so much suffering? Because that joy is the most powerful way to combat the internalized oppression that you’ve been carrying. And this is what I learned from the years in prison, from reading all the radical psychologies and the different things like that. You got to return to something that for many sounds, “Oh, that’s kind of wishy washy,” but no Martin Luther King said it’s the most powerful force in the universe, love. At first, when I read that from him in prison, I’m like, “Oh, Martin, you always talking that love.” But I’m also reading books on love, from Erich Fromm to others. And I’m like, oh, I get or at least I’m getting it. Looking at what we’ve been through, I’m like, I don’t want to repeat those same things when I get out, and I want to be with folks, like-minded and like-hearted folks, when I get out so that we are trying to create new ways of making this transformation of society happen, that includes our transformation in the process, that does not leave it up to some future time when we done overcame the capitalist class. That is such bullsh*t. I use bullsh*t because I heard my other comrades use bullsh*t. [Audience laughs]
But, those things become very, very important. So when I get the opportunities to share, those are things I want to share. When we was dealing with the Palestine presentation earlier, on the resistance, what lessons can we learn? I’m already feeling like, “oh man, this is a hard thing to convey to folks, that we may be in struggles where people are really going to get hurt.” I think of that young one, [Tortugita], who I’m sure did not have any idea [they were] going to end [their] life there, right? And many others who have been in or who go to jail for one day and get bailed out, but that might be the most traumatic experience they have ever had, and they’re going to need help. So in our formations, we have got to work into what we do, how we learn: collective care, community care, self-care. It is one of the most powerful ways for us to deal with the internalized stuff, as we’re dealing with these mega systems of oppression that we’re going to meet. How are we going to change with each other?I had one question yesterday around what happens when someone is physically or sexually harmed within the movement. It happens. I think I shared one example of back in our days when that has happened and we didn’t necessarily have the best methods, but it at least let me know that we need to have more understandings. Harm reduction, more understandings. When someone is hurt deep inside, there are folks now who can help us on them levels to help those individuals to kind of recover. Otherwise, we kind of push them to the side.
One of the new words I’ve learned this year is neurodivergency. [Audience cheers] Now for me, that is so exciting. For one, it’s like what the fu*k is neurodivergency? Because it came up in this gathering, so I know when I’m going home, I’m getting right on the laptop, and I’m looking it up. Looking it up gives me an understanding of something that can be so important in our movement so we stop isolating folks who don’t fit the norm. How do we do that? We’re the inclusive ones. We’re the ones who include. We’re the ones at least make them efforts. It’s always a struggle, but we make them efforts. For me to have that understanding also allowed me to look back on on folks who I may have avoided… because what? They sound a little crazy? They talked a little crazy? They moved a little crazy? Like “oh… oh, okay, I’m going to change that.” So I know that when I have times to talk, I want to bring that up. At least from me because I know that I got some social capital being Ashanti from the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army. I done did all this prison time. Nothing compared with what Mumia is doing now. I put all that perspective. It ain’t nothing. But the things that help us to change within, for me, is still primary.
The incident in the library. I’m just gonna be brief, but I’m like, “Oh, these my childrens here.” Okay. I know I could just sit back, because they got this. They got this. But it’s like, we’re the ones who are at least willing to stand and fight. Not in the macho sense that we just going to fight. We got an understanding with it. We know that everything we do has a much larger and deeper picture, because the world we want is much larger and deeper. It’s that Octavia Butlerian world. It’s them type of science fiction worlds, right? That’s why I think that imagination part becomes so important. We cannot be locked down. We don’t lock ourselves down, you know? Because in this struggle, we do need everything. We need everybody.As a Black revolutionary and one who, I’m very clear—I call myself a revolutionary nationalist, but I also say that you got to go beyond nationalism. One of the reasons for the “beyond” is because I know old school Black Nationalism excluded women, excluded queer folks. But I understand the power of it. The thoughts of what brings Black people together. Even if we say “Black Nation”, even if we say “Black Liberation”. We know it’s talking about our community, but I know that my role is to make sure that we’re being inclusive in our circles. So I’m constantly telling you, especially young Black folks, that those who are speaking in our behalf—because, you know, anarchists don’t play “you speaking on our behalf”. You don’t do that. But in our circles, we need to be the ones to speak up and say, “Uh-uh, we ain’t all on that page.” If you’re going to talk about our people. You talking about us too, and we’re playing a part in this, as you are. Maybe you might be the one who has to move out. In the ’60s, too, there was a point where there was a saying, “Move on over or we’ll move all over you.” That point may have come again in the Black Movement, as we speak.
I’m using this as an example, because, as we do all the things we do in our localities and our homes, in our private lives, we got to keep in mind, just like I do, that people somewhere, everywhere, always are trying to raise the stakes, are trying to break out of the box. When I don’t remind myself is when I go into depression. My friends get on me. They say, “You’re watching too much CNN, too much MSNBC, or that station”. So I got to keep reminding myself, “No, remember Seattle? Remember the Zapatistas? Remember the uprising with George Floyd?” Oh no, I got to remember. I got to remind myself. I’m telling you that as an elder now. I got to keep reminding myself. You got to keep reminding yourself that all over people are doing things that will really confirm and affirm that we can make this revolution, insurrectionary change happen. [Audience cheers]
So I’m not sure. At some point I’m gonna see if I can play something. When I do it, I’m gonna put the microphone up to give you an example of what I’m saying. There’s times when I’m sitting at home and my wife would say, “I’m sending you something.” I don’t know if it’s Tiktok or… I don’t know them things. But it was this brother at a meeting with other Black folks. And I’ll stop there for a minute. I have been in my own head searching for what ways could those of us in the Black community confront those male-ist, sexist, heterosexist folks in the Black community who are really impediments to our liberation and participation in the broader movements. And I’m like, “man, we have got to confront these folks!” I could not find words, and then my wife sends me something. This brother’s at a meeting, and he just lets these other folks—Black folks in the meeting, all black—he lets them have it. He’s telling them that, “You can’t accept the leadership of Black women and Black queers because of who they having sex with?” He just lets them have it and challenges them. He says, “their leadership seems to be calculated. They’re there for me when I can’t be there for myself because the police is shooting me and throwing me in prison, and you telling me you concerned with who they having sex with?” I’m like, “this is the language I’ve been looking for!” Because sometimes you have got to do that even amongst your own neighborhood, your own community. You got to kind of let folks know that, “no, this has to stop. I am here. This has to stop.”
So all these things become really important, even if they seem insignificant in an isolated way. They’re really not. We are the ones that are really putting out visions of ways that we can be in this land mass, beyond empire, respecting that this is Indigenous land. We are the ones that are really putting forth that we need to have hard conversations. We are the ones who are saying, “Hey, right now, them folks who are using needles over there, they need some help. Right now them folks that are in prison over there, they need some help. Right now these children are not getting a proper education. We need to be able to help them.” Immediate stuff. But every immediate stuff has broader, deeper visions going on. We have got to keep that in mind. Keep it in mind.
So the last few days—I know tomorrow, I’m here tomorrow. I am still on the cloud. I don’t know if you can tell. It just confirms and affirms to me that it ain’t over. Y’all make me so proud. [Audience claps] So proud.
I’m not necessarily going to be long, but I wanted to talk about the promise, the liberatory promise, which basically comes down to this: in a religious way, you could call it the covenant. In a legal way, you could call it a promise, but in a spiritual way it can also be like your ancestors. You know that your ancestors did the best they could for you, and when you give them thought, it is really like drawing from them that they wanted the best for you. Your spirituality may be telling you that, “Yo”—and this is that covenant, right?—“if you do these things, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in the people, then we’ll win. This land can change.” It’s passed on from generation to generation. In the Black Movement, we talk, probably to this day, about the promised land. It all comes from the Bible. The promised land. We ain’t got to the Promised Land yet, but I think it’s because of the situation we’re in. We were kidnapped, put in that ship and brought here. We can’t even call Africa the promised land. It may, it may have to be here. It’s got to be here in dialog with our indigenous folks, but we ain’t got nowhere else to go. We’re not immigrants. The Chicanos, they’re not immigrants. The Indigenous folks are not immigrants. We’re not immigrants. We came here in the most horrible way, but this ain’t been home to us yet. So the promise is that together, we can create the vision of what a home for all of us could be on the kind of liberatory basis that really allows for, like that Zapatista thing, a world where many worlds exist. Them kind of imaginative visionings, we still have to do that. We have to do that, probably more important than any thing else, to know why we engage in the most minute actions or behaviors.
So I’m going to see if I can play this. If I can get it, I have to put it up to the microphone. The reason I’m playing it is because I want to see my peoples pull it together. You see the election thing going on now, you got all these Uncle Tom collaborating Black folks that’s going to do everything they can to pull us back into this monster’s grip. Even with militant rhetoric. That’s an Al Sharpton, right? But when you got others on the ground having these other conversations, they give you an indication that whatever those are saying in the media, listen to the conversations that are going on on the ground level, in the communities. That might give you more of an insight of the level of resistance and the potential of more resistance.
I think Modibo [Kadalie] was saying that also with his presentation. He’s telling you the books that him and Andrew [Zonneveld] have written are dealing with the resistance going back to the 1500s when they brought the first Africans over, how they had to resist in very intimate, direct, democratic ways. Modibo brought up at the end that they didn’t write these books for people to just know the historical explanations that they’re putting out, but for us to see that even as we live now, there are people who are engaging in direct democracy, and sometimes we just need the vision to see it and to know how to support that. Which is why, again, we are not the vanguard. We just really trying to help ourselves and others to see how we can already do this and just bring the streams together. So as I go, I’m gonna try to get this. I ain’t the best at this. My computer is not the fastest. Everybody’s alright so far? [Audience cheers]
While I’m doing this too, just in New York last month. I went to New York. I’m in Rhode Island. Two of our comrades had passed. Sekou Odinga, who was Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army. One of those, when they set up the international chapter in the Black Panther Party in Algiers, they was meeting all these different liberation movements, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PFLP and stuff. And Sekou and others was part of those who went to training camps run by the Palestinians to learn guerrilla warfare and to bring them skills back here. So there’s stories like that. Some of them people didn’t even know until the memorial, because some of that was shared. But then there’s also Greg Thomas, professor in Massachusetts. He did a book on George Jackson, who was at certain point in California prisons, he was the revolutionary organizer. At one point, was incorporated into the Black Panther Party, but then they killed his brother who was trying to help free him one year, then he made an escape attempt and they killed him. When they raided his cell and took out everything from his cell, he had two handwritten poems. One of them was called “Enemy of the Sun.” When it was put out, a lot of people thought that he wrote it, but then in some research, they realized that no, it was from a well known Palestinian poet who, at the time, was in prison. But it was the impact that the Black Panther Party and the Palestinian Liberation Movement had on each other. So again, you never know how events in the world are going to impact you. Okay, I’m getting back to this.
[Video Clip]“…just shot dead in the street? Guess who’s not on the front lines? [Inaudible] Black women and gay men are running. So if you sit here and tell me that you can’t follow leadership from a gay man or Black woman, to be honest, you p*ssy. Because if you can’t take somebody who’s way more, far more calculated to run this because of who they decide to have sex with, I’m worried about who you’re trying to have sex with. What is your issue? If they gay. It has nothing to do with you. If they a woman has nothing to do with you. Let them lead. They trying to make sure we not shot no more. You not doing it. You not doing it. I can’t do it. A lot of us can’t do it. Why we f*cked up? If we come into contact with the police, we’re going to jail. So when they out here, and they putting [inaudible] f*cking life on the line, when they really dying. There’s an astronomical number of Black women dead for no reason. A number of gay, trans people dying. Guess what color they are? They Black. So just saying, ‘I can’t get behind that because you gay.’ F*ck outta here. Get behind them and shut up or stay at home.”
[crowd applause]Ashanti: So I share that because you never know what helps you to keep them spirits up. Or sometimes you just could be down in the dumps and you’re like, “Are we gonna pull this together?” and it could be something as simple as that. It could be you hearing a poem. It could be you just watching a couple walking down the street with a child. Those things that feed that spirit in you for more, for better, for freedom. When I hear that, then I know that things I was concerned with, even in the Black community, that lets me know it’s already happening. Even in the different struggles that we represent in here, you should have a sense that what you’re doing is already part of 1,000 other efforts and work being done. We just need to see it. It’d be great if we can figure out more ways to connect what’s already happening. The revolution, that insurrectionary impulse is there. People want better. So we gotta see it, and we gotta believe it. We gotta believe it.
So I’mma leave it there, because if there are questions I would definitely take them. But to know you… You’re beautiful. You are the ones—and you allow me to be a part of this—that is on the forefront of changing this world. Y’all are doing this, and I’m glad that there’s that inter-generational thing that we can do now too, because I’m so glad. We cut the older generation off. We were too angry. You can’t be up in your anger all the time, but the fact that we can do this in an inter-generational way means a lot as well. We can give you what we can. We don’t need to be your leaders, but we can give you what we can and help you, especially to believe that we can win. We can win. Power to the people.
Audience: All power to the people! [Applause]
Ashanti: Right on, right on. Okay, so do we want to do it? If they want to. I might sit down for that.
Question 1: I work at a liquor store that’s very small, and most of us are queer and trans. We’re trying to maintain a culture of mask wearing among employees, and we interact with a lot of customers who have seen that as being almost a direct threat to their being, and we have seen a little bit of escalation of discomfort, especially in older generations as a result. What would be your advice when interacting with these people on a day to day basis, often every day, to help make them feel included and empowered to do that for them. And thank you. Thank you so much.
Cindy Milstein: Anarchism in action. We want to do a couple more questions, and then Ashanti can respond. Anyone else feel like coming up and saying something?
Question 2: As someone who’s been on the receiving end of some of the worst that our prison state/police state has to offer, what would your advice be for people who are in conflict with the police as part of the struggle and for people who are currently incarcerated?
Question 3: I wanted to ask what ways you cultivate joy in your life that have worked over and over for you throughout the years, no matter what you’ve had to face.
Question 4: There’s been a Black trans movement that has run parallel historically to a lot of sort of like Black liberationist struggles, and I feel like Black trans people have historically been relegated to specific margins of those movements. What do you make of this parallel track that has historically existed but is so often forgotten and removed from Black revolutionary history, and how do we even conceptualize a future Black trans resistance if we can’t even begin to conceptualize this past one?
Ashanti: [Responding to question 4] A big part of my responsibility is because—and I hate to say this—but of those from the Panther Party, I think I might be one of the few who will even bring up the fact that our movements still exclude women and don’t want to hear nothing about queer, trans, nothing. And I’m like, “Well, if you give me the platform, I’m going to tell you that you need to. And either way it’s going to happen, if you’re talking about Black people.” I did that at the Black Radical Conference in Atlanta. I think it was this year. Because I am tired of it. And tired of it, knowing that as a young revolutionary, I participated in it. Not knowing any better, I participated. But once I know, then that’s got to come to an end. Sometimes when you feel you’re speaking out for the first times, I knew it took some courage for me like, “Nope. I’mma do it, and then I’m going to do it every time after that.” We have to challenge our people. That’s one reasons I wanted to show that there, because it’s happening even when I didn’t even know it was happening.
I just felt like a lot of trans/queer in our communities, just pretty much said, “No f*ck them man. I’ve been hurt from family and others so much I don’t even care.” I know that that doesn’t work for us, but I know that we have to be very careful with it. Because we have to still move as a people. So at least as a Panther, I know I’mma speak on it. But then I’m always on internet and listening to others who also speak on and then I’m reaching out. I want us to create more ways to be together, so that our voice becomes heard and our power gets to be felt. In this sense, yeah, we need power. And this other thing. I don’t even know if I can—I say “we” a lot when I’m talking about trans and queer community. I’m a cis male. I don’t even know if I can do that. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to ask for permission, but that’s the revolutionary community I want to be a part of. You understand? [Audience cheering] So I know that we have to do that battle, and I’m hoping that I still will meet more folks and we figure out ways to communicate.
So I know the other one… Give it to me again.
Audience Member: [Repeats Question 2]
Ashanti: Conflict with the police or in the prison system. We know that we always going to confront the police. They are the front line troops. In the Panther Party we called them “the occupying army”, and it made sense to those of us who needed to see that to begin to understand their role. In the heady days, you might find yourself confronting the police in the street and in the prisons. Sometimes you also learn some wisdom and know that you ain’t got to confront all the time and throw a punch to their jaw all the time. Maybe there’s other ways you can do it, especially depending on what the situation is. I was just telling my comrade who will be a father, “when a child is in the family, that means you ain’t making decisions for you anymore. You making decisions for the family. If you’re part of an organization, you’ve also got to understand you ain’t making decisions for you. You also considering the organization. It requires a certain kind of discipline.” There’s still the trauma that you’re going to get from these people. I think that’s harm reduction too. As much as you can avoid having them kind of direct traumatic experiences, you do. If you on a road by yourself and they pull you over, man, don’t start calling them pigs and all that, “Mother f*cker, why you pulling me over?” No. Just say “Okay officer. Here’s my sh*t. Okay, give me the ticket. See you later.”
You want to live. You want to survive to fight another day. The ones who are doing time in there. They learn very quick, you got to learn how to get around these people for your sanity, for your survival. Then at that point, if you ever make the parole board, you want to be able to give your best little performance. You got to do that sometimes. It’s a survival skill, but it’s also constantly recognizing the police is the police. Whether they in the prisons, they on the street, whether they got the uniform, going to Vietnam, other places, they’re still playing the police role. You understand that they’re part of the system that’s got to change, Anti-police, anti-prison system, all that is my concept of Abolition. That whole thing gotta go.
The other one was joy. And then there’s one after that. [Responding to question 3] Here’s what I do. The last few days: Easy. I got joy. This is the easy one. I got joy, and I know that I need to keep putting myself in situations of joy like this more. I think it’s been part of the problem that I’ve been isolating, and I feel like it’s been for years and years. Stop isolating. Get amongst them folks. I say like-minded and like-hearted because feeling like I’m amongst people that want to make this thing happen, it keeps my spirits up. Sometimes, at home it’s putting on music. I’m from Plainfield, New Jersey, the land of Parliament-Funkadelic. I might have Parliament-Funkadelic blasting sometimes, walking the dog up and down the neighborhood. Let me tell about the neighborhood. Barrington is the suburb of Providence. Barrington is pretty white. I don’t know what my neighbors think when I’m playing the music. I don’t put them earplugs, and I want to hear the music. I’m bopping as I’m walking the dog, and I’m sure the neighbors like, “What is he doing?” But the music brings up things for me. It was them good times. Parliament-Funkadelic, Temptations, Stevie Wonder, the jazz players. Sometimes I put on “Compared to What.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. Yes! Those things keep my spirits up.
Going to church. I’m back in church. A little thing about my church: it’s a Hebrew Israelite church. Not the people with the buckles and the outfits and stuff, just regular folks. It comes out of the Black experience, so it might seem like regular Black gospel, regular church, but we have our rituals which are different from Rabbinic and other stuff. But man, when you go there and you hear the singing and there’s times when you’re getting up and there’s a marching thing, right? To me, the marching thing is like, “that’s that marching thing. We at war. Hold up that banner. Don’t let the banner fall.” It means a lot to me. I need that community. I need them kind of visuals. I understand that the visuals are from a language we don’t use anymore, but I understand it. It helps me to know that I’m still in this battle. So going to church is the thing, too. And then connecting with my comrades, my old comrades, whether on the phone or sometimes it might be a memorial. It’s those moments when we’re together that we know we’ve been through something that not others will quite understand. And they may not get when we laughing over something we done did and we hope nobody ever knows. We know we’ve been through hell, but we came out still with some level of humanity and an ability to laugh about it.
Those are the kind of things now and then with the kids. My oldest is 50 and 49, then I got married again, so it’s a 14 year old an 11 year old. Their friends think I’m granddaddy, and they then my kids got said, “No, that’s dad. That’s my Baba”. But anyhow, watching them grow, like my son, who’s 14, big afro, and he’s into track and field. I’m watching this body grow. He’s got this little hairline coming. Joy that I’m still here to be able to see it because I did not think I was going to make it past 20. Did not think so. I’m 50 years over that. But being able to watch them, it’s them kind of moments of joy. And that’s the kind of thing that I want for us all. Moments of joy are precious. We have got to know that we need them. And for moments when you gotta sometimes take off—you’re going to the beach, you’re going on a hiking trip, whatever. Do it! Do it because it is you building a resistance against the sh*t that we face. Joy, and you’re changing in the process. So I’m really big on that now, and I think I’ve been in a good space now for maybe the last year for a long time. And I plan on staying. [Audience cheers] So I know there was one more, the first one?
Audience Member: [Repeats Question 1]
Ashanti: I think we need to figure out have how to have better conversations with folks who we know they’re not necessarily on the same page as us. One of mines was around probably 10, 15, years ago—being at anarchist spaces and you start hearing the pronoun thing, and I ain’t understand it then. But even as I did, I’m like, if I who make an effort to understand it find it difficult, because I gotta remember—My memory ain’t the best. What about other folks in the communities that just don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about? They might come into a meeting out of curiosity, and you giving them vibes because they ain’t calling you by the pronoun you wanted, you got an attitude and you’re actually showing it to them. I want you to have some compassion for those of us who are older. It may take a minute, but we try, those of us who try. Others who don’t try, you may just want to put it like, “I got a limit. If you can’t handle that, maybe we don’t need to talk, whatever.” But people are going to get it because you’ve been pushing it, and others have been pushing it, and the children have been pushing it. My daughter, especially the one at 11, she she already has a sense of who she is.
It’s going to get better, but there’s got to be some compassion. The resistance is not from a mean spirit. It’s just like, “What the hell is this?” And you talking about someone who physically looks like female has a different way to define themselves. Some folks are like, “What the hell?” The Rush Limbaugh folks are all on this. That’s why they’re saying “We’ve got to get Trump in office.” They are really on this thing of trans and queer and gay. Which is another reason why, if Trump should get in, we need to figure out how we’re going to support each other. Because we know some of the things Trump will do that a Biden may not do as fast. But we know that, you know, on the issues of gay and queer, there’s going to be some things that Congress may not pass that kind of makes it easier. It’s just like alternatives to abortion. We already should be thinking—I’m sure we are—about what we can do if certain things happen. We’re going to take care of ourselves and possibly show others that they can do the same. Because the State is the State. The Empire is the Empire.
Do you have any more? I could if you want [answer more questions]. I always like the this part, because I know people going to ask some direct stuff that they want to know or share.Question 5: So many faces… First of all, thank you. Your contribution to the struggle is like innumerable and immense. I oftentimes find myself returning to your words in times of intense despair, and I just want to thank you so much for that. I came from so-called Chicago, where Stateville prison is planned to be torn down and replaced with a reformative, so-called rehabilitative prison instead. Someone inside also passed away this past weekend from a heat wave that affected him and had he had an asthma attack and died. So I just want to ask, knowing the death trap that prison is, how do you think that we can be in more material solidarity and support of people inside, beyond book packing, letter writing and phone zaps and all that type of stuff, especially knowing that folks inside are this wellspring of revolutionary, insurrectionary knowledge and practice?
Ashanti: The prison issue and the political prisoner issues are some of the hardest issues to get our communities to take on. As a member of the Jericho Movement, Jericho fights for the freedom of political prisoners in the United States. Man, we’ve been doing this for decades. Even just getting the folks in the community to listen to us that they are political prisoners, that they’ve been in there for decades. They’re the same ones, many times, who the politicians got them voting for more police, more prison construction or better… even if they say in better prison, no one is talking about abolition. It seemed like at some point that abolition was gaining some ground. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I still think we need to work at that. We got to put ourselves in situations where we have more face-to-face with key figures in the community. When I say key figures, I don’t necessarily mean the politicians. Maybe sometimes the preachers, maybe the deacons and deaconesses, maybe and the regular folks or folks who are at the community centers and possibly even the street organizations. I think that we don’t do the face-to-face anymore, and I think because of that, we’re not developing a better way of presenting the kind of narrative that might get folks to understand why we need to intervene and what’s going on in the prisons, why we need to get our political prisoners free. There’s all kind of things.
It’s the most difficult area that I have ever worked in. There’s not been many joyous moments. My comrade Veronza Bowers just got out several months ago, after 40 something years. There ain’t no recognition about who he is, his contributions, nothing. When Dhoruba bin Wahad got out, there was a little recognition. When Jalil Muntaqim got out after almost 50 years, there’s no recognition. But every decade, every year he was in there, we was fighting for his release and going to as many different venues to speak about political prisoners. Reverend Joy Powell is in upstate New York prison now. No one knows about her. Reverend Joy Powell is one of them who has stories similar to Malcolm X when he was Detroit Red. That was Reverend Joy Powell at one time, and then she changed. She became a minister I think in Rochester, New York or somewhere upstate. She’s fighting against police brutality, next thing you know, they done got her jammed up on something, and she’s doing I don’t know how many years in upstate as a New York political prisoner.
So it’s hard, but I think the challenge is for us to find a different narrative and to start going into communities and having actual conversation with, I say, key folks. They might say “influencers” today, maybe on certain levels. I’m not big on the social media with that, but to be able to sit down with folks and say, “Hey, you know the situation we’ve been in. You know that there’s people going to come forth and fight back or try to lead us or raise consciousness. Why are they sitting in prison?” In the women’s prison, men’s prisons, there is such a clamp down that even me trying to stay up on it now, I can’t imagine how that would be for me. I just did total 14 years, but what I hear they’re doing now? That’s to drive you insane. You don’t even get the actual letters anymore. You might get a visit, and there’s the screen, if they do come up. You’re so far away, you may not get a visit. And it’s the same thing inside. The way that they talk to you, treat you, it’s like you’re an animal. So it’s a big order. Even on that, I don’t have no immediate answers, but I always go to [that] we don’t have them kind of conversations in the community no more. We need to start trying to build grassroots movements from the bottom by having them conversations.A lot of times, the street organizations can’t get too involved because they already got records, and the slightest violation they got, then they right back in. So it even makes it harder. But what they’re doing in the prisons—and they’re expanding—we will be that open air prison like Gaza and all these situations now. The ways that they are laying down their technologies of control. It ain’t just the prisons anymore. I feel like it’s the welfare. I don’t even think they call it welfare no more. You got to go to court for all kind of fines, your car fine, your house fine, or they’re getting ready to do all these other things. They got us under such control. The Internet got us under such control. The cameras on the corners. The things that fly, [drones]. So it feels like it’s closing in, and it keeps closing. And we gotta figure out more how to break out of them confinements and get the people to see, man, we can’t keep wasting time, because it’ll get to the point where we can’t even breathe without their permission. So we strike out. Anarchists, we know what to do, so… I wish I had more to give you.
Question 6: Thank you so much. I’ve written down part of a question because we’ve had other comrades ask for advice when dealing with physical conflictuality with the state. And you’ve also spoken about times when, if you’re alone in the car at night, where strategic de-escalation might be something that you approach. We call that a version of a harm reductive approach. This has come up in conversation. I also relate to what you’re saying about this kind of disorientation and difficulty remembering the lessons that you’ve learned and other people have taught you sometimes at these very tense, fight or flight moments. So I’m wondering if you have some lessons that you can put into the collective consciousness. What might go through your mind in a moment where you’re choosing between this crossroads? Not to create a duality between moments of intentional escalation and otherwise.
Ashanti: Just real quick on that. I did share with somebody today. There was times I’ve been in demonstrations, marches, and the police start really getting out of hand. There was one time where they was really being abusive to this elder Black woman. And I can’t take that. I can’t stand and watch that. So I see myself walking. But the younger comrades, I had already told them about me in this sense: When you see me in that zone, all I need you to do, stand in front of me, make me look you in the eye. That’s all. Just say “Ashanti.” Because I know, and they know, I’m getting ready to jump on this mother f*cker. So imagine how I felt when I’m watching George Floyd. I am so angry at the people around him. I understand they scared, but you just stood there and watched them kill this Black man to his last breath. There’s times where you gotta really chill out. You gotta consider who’s around you. You gotta consider the repercussions of your own actions. So you can’t just snap like that. And if you folks, who you’re close to know you, they know what to do. And I would give them young folks permission, “Y’all know. Get in front of me. Get in front of me.” And I think a part of that why I don’t have no fears, because from the Panthers to the BLA, I learned to take them on. I learned that, oh, they can be just as scared as anybody else. But the thing is to think, just think about it. That’s why it’s important for when you let people know you, know your limitations. It becomes really important. That’s that’s why it’s really great when we can share our stories with each other. So folks know who you are, what you’ve been through, so some things don’t trigger you.
In the Panther Party—and this is around sexual abuse—a lot of times there was sexual abuse in the Black Panther Party, but even more, we didn’t know who was sexually abused before they even joined the Black Panther Party. You do certain things, and it’s a trigger. So me now, we need to know each other, but that calls for trust too. That’s cause for that kind of vulnerability, that you say, “I need to share with you that when you do this or you say that, it’s a trigger. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like it matters to me what you do and how it’s going to impact me.” That’s what we have to do more. It can’t be no side thought. It has to be fully integrated into how we’re raising ourselves. So, the thing with what do you do in them situations. Do you fight? Sometimes you do. Do you stand back? Sometimes you do. Do you think as much as possible who’s around you, who needs to be safe around you? That mother and the child that’s close by you, is it possible that they could get hurt? Just things to think about. So it ain’t just the macho thing. You think about it. And imagine them situations even beforehand, because sometimes that helps you to make snap judgments when it actually happens.
Question 7: So one of the questions I had is regarding “influencer” people, like how social capital affects the way that we organize sometimes, where people that are very influential in a place, because they’re more outspoken, or they know the right words to say and therefore can get into positions of more influence in anarchist circles. For example, in the Panther Party, like Huey or whoever, like people that get in those leadership like roles. How do we combat that? Sometimes it’s subtle. I’ve seen it in anarchist circles where it happens, but it’s not an actual leader. They don’t have a chairman or a title. Yet they’re able to move people around situations sometimes and therefore have more influence or bully other people. You see this sometimes. People don’t know how to approach this, especially when a person is of a certain identity as well or like goes through this specific struggle, and just finding a way of dealing with that.
And then another thing kind of adding to what you were saying about agitation. As an anarchist, my approach was always to agitate. Anywhere you go at the beginning, we hold the sign and we stayed on the sidewalk where it’s legal. But it’s “blah,” right? What can we do because normally, historically, anarchism has been agitative, right? You go to places, we’re known for doing the rowdy sh*t. So I was just wondering, like expanding on that a little bit.
Ashanti: I think we should stay rowdy. I think we should stay rowdy. [Audience cheers] But on the other level, now we can we talk about interpersonal relationships within the group and why it’s important to have some things you agree upon in terms of how you’re going to function with each other. What we’re trying to do in Providence now, we’re putting together community center, but the first retreat we just had was just laying down things as simple as: how do you want to be treated in the organization, how do you want your relationship to be with others, how do you want to make decisions, how do you want to deal with issues of egos and and the authoritarian? Because it ain’t like anarchists are free of all this. We got all these tendencies. We’re in this society. But I still think to this day, we’re more likely to at least be willing to talk about it and try to struggle against it. I think other folks it’s not even on their agendas. That’s so-called movement folks.
There’s a lot of information out here now, readings that people can do that helps us to see why it’s important for us to get to know each other and for us to create the kind of practices that helps us to minimize the tendencies of the bully, the sexist, the one who’s super submissive that has never known anything else but possibly listening to a man. We know that these are some of the internalized oppressions that we have to deal with. So let’s learn them. And there’s a lot of people that do trainings in them. There’s a lot of books out on it, and we are reading people, man. You know. I say that because I’m reading things all the time, because I know the internal stuff is really the thing that killed us in the Panther Party. The FBI just knew how to manipulate it.
So what do we do? We develop those capacities to help us to evolve, to get to better places. From our stories—our stories are so different. Each one is unique, but we gotta know it. It helps if we can get to the point to be honest and vulnerable, to share with the trust that ain’t nobody going to abuse what you just shared with them, that they will work with you, you and others will work together, to be better as a human being and what you do as an organizational member. It’s a struggle, so that’s why we ain’t bringing this thing down without, at the same time, getting it out of us. It’s got to be the same. You can’t do one without the other. That was that New Age stuff: “Oh, we just gonna free ourselves,” and no consideration about the mega-oppressions. We got to do both. The more that we do it, I think the better we can get. And I think it helps us also, we get better with each other when we see in the community, folks who have similar things. We got a little bit of experience and wisdom in how to help others in the community that don’t have this experience to know how to get to a better place. They want to join the group. They see things.
One quick example: One of the things that helped with Critical Resistance, because Critical Resistance was pretty much run by anarchists and anti-authoritarians, the ways that we did meetings, was always to get the men to not talk so much and to step back and to use the board to be inclusive on everybody’s input. Some people who had no political experience, when they saw that, like, “They really want, my opinion? It’s going up on the board?” That blew their minds, because no other time had that happened to them. It was us saying, “No, we are all important, and we all want to be included.” I’m telling you, it was us who were putting them examples forward. So we got to continue to do things like that.
I thank you for being patient. If I said anything rambling or whatnot, you can blame it on Cindy. But this has been great. This has been good. Let’s leave from here with that spirit, that spirit that we can change. We got ancestors. We got folks who we are building off of them. We know that this can happen, that what the United States is now can be no more.
Our dreams. Our dreams up. Our dreams up. Let’s make it happen. Power to the people, one last time.
Audience: All power to the people!
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This interview is with social movement veterans who have sacrificed much, and learned a great deal, in trying to change the world. Each in their own way have gained valuable insights into the personal, interpersonal, and structural dynamics at play when confronting established power and have essential lessons to convey to those newly radicalized. The interview was conducted in 2024 for Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, by collective member Paul Messersmith-Glavin.
Paul Messersmith-Glavin: Tell us about yourselves, in particular, how were you first politically radicalized?
Ashanti Alston: Born, Michael Alston. Plainfield, New Jersey, 1954. Just this February, I celebrated the big 7-0. I’m an official elder now.
I came of age in that period of the sixties when there was the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement, which was the key moment for me. I was a Black teenager understanding that there were people fighting for our freedom in the Civil Rights movement. And then here comes the Black Power movement and the rebellions of ’67 all over the United States.
Plainfield is a small town that’s racially divided like so many other places. But what was unique about what happened there was that Black folks had got hold of arms from a gun manufacturing plant, including crates of M-1 rifles. So, during the rebellions part of the Plainfield Black community in the West End was actually liberated for at least seven days. Even as this thirteen-year-old, I understood the importance of the movement and felt connection to it. This was serious and way different from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
The main rebellion was about a mile from the projects where I lived as a child. We could often hear the gunshots. Then one day there was a black car in front of the house and on the top of it in white letters was “Black Power.” And the guy in the car was giving out goods to people. That struck me, because I heard the term “Black Power,” but this was so bold. I understood the Civil Rights movement, but I didn’t know if I could deal with getting water-hosed down the street, spat on, called “nigger” in my face and just taking it. I wanted to fight back. So, this was my entry.
I don’t even think I had turned fourteen yet. And I wasn’t much of a reader at that point, but now I wanted to read! The Malcolm X autobiography. The stories of Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. I wanted to go find out about them. Then when school started back up, others were also interested in fighting back. In junior high school there was no Black history. So, there was a coordinated effort to walk out of the two junior high schools and the high school and to march down to City Hall to demand it. And enough of us came out, so that when the next school year started, we had Black history.
That showed me that there was this powerful unity if we organized. We could make demands and have them met. The rebellion after that lasted a week. When the armored cars came in from the National Guard, they regained control. But it didn’t stop us. The was a community center down the street and folks were in there and they’re talking, organizing, strategizing. I was just so excited, especially to see folks from the areas that I grew up who I looked up to in getting involved.
Eventually, I found out about the Black Panther Party and my friend’s father took us all over to the different offices—from Newark, Jersey City, to Brooklyn and Harlem—to learn what we could do. So, we went to the political education classes and learned the terminologies; this revolution the Panthers were talking about required study, engagement in the community, and organizing. It was different from the spontaneous rebellions. It was more like the organizing when we demanded Black history; you had to have a sustained view and understand that this is a long-term struggle against the system.
Most of us who formed that chapter were high school students and active inside the high school where the rebellion took place. It was in that same area that we did most of our outreach—speaking with folks, selling the Panther paper, and at a certain point starting a storefront and a free clothing program. So, here we are, learning how to work amongst the people in this Panther style . . . Every time I look back at it, I’m like, “Oh my God, we were so young, but we were so ready!”
We had so many folks helping us learn the different things involved with carrying out revolutionary struggle. And it was great because coming out of the Black Power ideology, I didn’t have too much love for white folks. But the Panthers always remembered they’re human beings, too, and had relationships with so many different people. They were nationalists, but revolutionary nationalists and didn’t just chop white folks off because they’re white. It all depends on their practice.
So, it helped me to challenge some of my own limitations and to open up to what this new ideology was telling me about struggle, the history of struggles, the possibility of winning, believing in ourselves, and organizing from below. That carried me for a long time, even up into prison.
Helia Rasti: I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1980. That was at the start of an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, on the heels of a revolution that ousted a dynasty, the last Shah of Iran. It was part of a popular uprising that brought in theocratic Islamists and started over four decades of Islamist rule.
I was born into a solidly middle-class family. My parents were really scared of having to raise a daughter in the growing patriarchal environment and decided to leave as did many at that time. This was very difficult for them because they loved Iran and didn’t want to go but felt forced to. We were able to attain resident status in Germany and I lived there from age five to ten. Being a foreigner in Germany is not easy and my parents (who are both well-educated) wanted access to better opportunities like they had in Iran. So, they left Germany the first chance they could and came to the United States—the “land of opportunity.”
I was ten years old when we moved to California and had no idea about the political environment and the history of oppression, genocide, enslavement, and exploitation that the US is founded on. I think a lot of immigrants come here seeking better opportunities because whatever they left behind was so grim. And then you come here and you’re like, “whoa.” Even though I was raised with this backdrop of intense political activity and very strong anti-imperialist sentiments, I was clueless. But I could just tell this is not right. Something is not right.
I’ve always been sensitive and empathic. And I knew that despite being an immigrant, being a brown child who experienced racism, I could still always seek out love and support from my parents. But I remember encountering figures about how every five minutes a girl or a woman is raped, and feeling, “Wow, I’ve been really protected.” So, I felt it was important for me to step up for people who were more vulnerable and for voices that were being silenced.
I grew up in the Bay Area and, after high school, I went to Humboldt State in Northern California. I’ve always been drawn to nature. I was a biology major initially and I learned about Native American history, the exploitative nature of industrial capitalism, and that Native people are still around and have been resisting genocide and erasure for all these years. I also learned about different resistance movements by listening to lecture series like Michael Parenti who broke down imperialism and Marxism, US foreign policy, and how the CIA and the United States played a huge part in destroying the fabric of different cultures. And, in my country, how they stood against democratic movements to support regimes to access resources for more global power.
I was sitting with all that in the late 90s when the anti-WTO, anti-corporate, globalization movements emerged. I was on the periphery of this, but learning. And then September 11th happened, and I was just like this is it. Ward Churchill wrote this essay about the chicken coming home to roost and I was feeling, “Oh, of course, this is going to come back to us to us. The United States is going to reap the repercussions of its global policies.” I got on the phone with my mom all excited about this and she said, “What are you saying? You’re going to get in trouble, you’re Iranian!” But I still felt these were historic times and decided that I had to leave the forest. I realize now it was a spiritual journey that led me to take on political action. It was my love for life, for the earth, for people. This is what kept me seeking out different answers when faced with the contradictions that are presented to us in society . . . So, I came home to the Bay as I realized my work was there and transferred to San Francisco State.
Within the first week of school there were student organizations tabling, including a Students for Peace group that did gorilla theater. I got in and became really involved with them. At the time we were organizing these huge demonstrations against the bombing of Afghanistan, and it was already clear that they were gearing up to start invading Iraq. I was a part of this mass movement; hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people globally, crying out against war.
That became my world. I spent all my time at school organizing and eventually dropped all my classes because that’s the only thing that mattered to me. I then became a part of this woman’s center that was helping to open up space for coalition building. San Francisco State has a very radical history, but since the time of the sixties and seventies, the administration has built all these guards and policies against student activism. So, we were organizing this coalition, bringing together different organizations like Ethnic Studies, the Black Student Union, and different cultural groups. We were also doing that with City College.
Eventually I dropped out of school and started doing organizing work full-time. I got involved with the Not in Our Name movement and Direct Action to Stop the War, focusing on street blockades and holding war profiteers accountable by going to them and shutting down their operations. I was especially jiving with these queer anarcho-punx doing public blockades and shutdowns. And it was like the work became my life. It’s the thing that kept me going. It felt like, this is what I was brought here for.
So, I continued to seek to deepen my understanding of what the work really was. And it was Critical Resistance that really helped to do so, especially with learning about abolition and how prison industrial abolition was a way to build against the state. At the time, I was doing environmental justice work, focusing on shutting down power plants. But I continued to encounter contradictions within organizing communities and felt I needed to do something else. I needed to figure out what my role was and not necessarily as a public or professional organizer. Again, I was always driven by my spirituality and my love. Rose Braz was a mentor of mine—what an immense, powerful woman and organizer she is—and I sought her out about some of these contradictions. And she said, “You know, you feel called to heal and you’re doing this medicine work; we need more abolitionists, more radicals to do that work. If you feel like that’s where life is taking you, go for it!” So, I did. I left the Bay and came to Portland to study natural medicine. Now I’m licensed as a clinician. But my love is still very much for the earth, for people, and dismantling obstacles to our collective liberation to allow for our ability to just live.
P M-G: You both have decades of political consciousness and organizing experience. Retrospectively, what are your biggest takeaways? What lessons have you learned that you’d want to pass on to someone just getting involved in social change work?
AA: I’ve been around for a while and when I’m speaking with young folks, I want to make sure I’m giving the best advice and encouragement that I can because I still believe that we can change this world. The thing is, you want to make sure, no matter what you have been through—the ups, the downs, the things that work, things that didn’t work—to be as honest as you can about it. When I look back on the early years—the Black Power movement to the Panthers, even up to the prison experience—then I get to see, “Oh, we could have been better in this area or that area.” The time I spent in prison was a lot of that looking back period for me. Before that it was 24/7 revolutionary work . . . not a lot of time for reflection.
But now I’m there in prison and thinking about what happened: “Why am I here? Why are so many of the comrades now in prison?” I wanted to know where we went wrong, why we lost, why the counter-intelligence program was eventually successful, and how to avoid making the mistakes again. And I got access to other readings. You know, in my head I’m still this Panther. A Marxist-Leninist. Maoist even. But the Critical Theory crew, from Eric Fromm to Herbert Marcuse and others; they had some different analysis about these revolutionary struggles that wasn’t the canon of Stalin. Then I started reading not only the critical theory, but other radicals. And, at some point, little bits and pieces of the anarchism started getting in there. These different perspectives allowed me to really think about the way we saw this struggle. What we (the Panthers) had believed was revolutionary in a sense, but with some limitations. It wasn’t great how we saw the struggles of women; it wasn’t great how we saw internalized oppression . . . Our own behaviors also contributed to our downfall. A lot of people don’t want to hear that, especially your comrades. But if you want to win, then you’ve got to let that ego shit go and say, “Where else might we have done better?” And that’s where the critical theories and anarchism and radical feminism began to help me to see things differently.
So, I want young people to understand revolution from a very personal perspective. How is it really going to impact you? What is it really opening you up to? Like, who’s Ashanti as a part of this? I’m still a part of this heterosexist, evil society and it’s been a part of my peoples’ struggle for the last 400 years. There’s no way that I can deny that. The shit of this system is also a part of me. In this struggle, it’s on two fronts; it’s not only the larger system, but also what it looks like inside of us. I want young people to see what their own connection is to this system is and to see their possibilities.
The best thing that really helped me to see this was when I started reading about anarchism. Now, not only do I want to be the best anti-sexist, but I want to open myself up to how life expresses itself. I joke about it at times when I say that when I first came out of prison I wanted to work with Love and Rage folks, but they had these spiked hair styles and I was like, “What the fuck is this?” But another part of me wanted to learn; “I don’t care how crazy they look. I want to learn.” And it showed me that there’s all kinds of folks who are oppressed by this society and who want out from under that oppression. If their lives don’t match mine, that’s okay.
The Zapatistas have that idea, too; a world where many worlds exist. Our lives are very diverse, and we all want our liberation. We just have to figure out how it’s going to work in this monstrous, US imperialist empire. So, Black folks’ struggle takes on particular characteristics, but it’s not divorced from all the other struggles—the Chicanos, the Indigenous folks, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the workers, the environmentalist movement, Palestine. It’s never simple, but it’s doable.
H.R.: I’d say never stop questioning; question your questions. Get with mentors, but also make sure that your mentors hold space for questioning and grapple with those questions with you. Recognize that you are a part of something immense. The Earth is all about life and death is a part of it, right? You are a part of something so much greater and when you take steps towards that collective health and life and love, you’re bringing with you something so much deeper. Trust that. The ongoing genocides around the world, that’s real. But the little steps that you are a part of, the little acts of kindness and love and the ways that you are showing up in support of community and life. That’s real, too. Movements are about cultivating and nourishing life as steps towards collective liberation. That is a part of that picture, too. It’s important to have this perspective that goes back and forth between the local and the global. So, continue to get involved, but don’t lose sight of your own care and holding that deep sacred space within you to stay in alignment with the goodness of life.
P M-G: Where should those of us who are dedicated to transforming society be putting our energies? And what role do you see collective care and nurturance playing in sustaining radical social movements?
H.R: We can’t be human without our connection to other humans. We’re social creatures. We’re part of a community of life that’s not just human. So, understanding your role in terms of community within that greater scheme of life, of ecological life, is important. And building these connections is so important because industrial culture has severed our connection to nature. But nature is what makes us human. We learn what it means to be human by learning from the earth. That’s something I’ve learned from Indigenous movements, writers, and activists.
It’s hard because we internalize oppression, which can be a toxin that is spread through community. And yet, community is an extended family and an extended circle of love. So, you can choose how to build community and how to engage with it. If it weren’t for my communal ties with the people who have come before me who I’m still connecting with, who inspire me, I wouldn’t be here. They keep me going. It’s hard though, and I know for me, sometimes I need to retreat in times to find my connection and to continue to show up. I need to have good boundaries and some guard up. We need to have collectively permeable boundaries. There’s a difference between having a wall, which is a tool of war, versus boundaries, which are important and healthy for life. Finding that balance is essential, especially now in a time of pandemics. I see the coronavirus as an expression of an ecological crisis. We’re going to continue to see viral storms take shape and we need to understand this balance.
A.A.: People in this struggle need to understand that this is long term. You have to have a place within you that you go to with all that you’re going to experience being in this struggle. Because it’s tough.
I just came back from an indigenous retreat in Texas at a sweat lodge that’s women led. I watched the process of building that lodge and what became so important for me was how everything they did had purpose and intentionality. This helps us to see all that is sacred. There are some important lessons in there, whether you’re Marxist, an anarchist, or just a rebel who wants change. This is still Turtle Island to Indigenous folks. And I think our objective is really to figure out how to pry this empire off the back of the Turtle so that we can all be fucking free!
What we went through back in the sixties and seventies, we got too scientific, and we missed out some things that are really about our humanity. A lot of the revolutions we put on a pedestal for being successful—like the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution—but they end up recreating some other form of oppressive society. Part of anarchism for me is to be open. So, we have to figure out how to nurture the spiritual as a source of power in this struggle. It reminds me of in the days of the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention that the Panthers held in Philly in 1970, with the idea of bringing all these movements together within the Empire. To see how we can all be free.
P M-G: What advice would you give about how we should relate to each other and accept differences of opinion without condemning each other? How do we nurture a community, while engaging in collective self-care and transformation?
H.R.: Allow principles to guide our work and have space for accountability. I know I’m not going to get along with everybody and I don’t need to work closely with everybody. I don’t need to know what the nitty-gritty of that work is. If the larger structure is being maintained and bringing us together in unity and if everyone is acting in ways that are principled and towards a shared mission, I can trust that. We’re all super different and that’s a beautiful thing. We’re not always going to get along and that’s a part of the friction and tension. But we can create a lot of forward momentum from that if it’s being guided by something that is principled and shared.
A.A.: We have to figure it out as we go, but a thing that has always attracted me to anarchism—is that part about how we are with each other. This is so key to the vision we have for the world that we want. If we don’t want a sexist world, we have to practice anti-sexism within our relations. If we don’t want an ageist or ableist world, we have to practice it now . . . When we come together now, we have to practice it, and be willing to admit we make mistakes when we practice this. It doesn’t just change automatically. And this takes compassion. When we begin to accept each other with compassion, this will be easier. Then we will learn to transform these relationships.
Young folks need to know not only how to organize in the community, but how they can change themselves and have better relationships with each other, which is part of community care. That’s why transformative practices need to be incorporated into what we do. It can’t just be you got an ideology now and you think that’s it for you. Now you are the revolutionary that can change the world. No, don’t work that way. It takes courage to be vulnerable, to say, “Yo, I need some help working through my shit ‘cuz that Empire is in me . . . so we can really build authentic revolutionary relationships that can transform the world.”
But the younger generation, they want to do better than what we did. And the level of solidarity we’re seeing in Gen Z’s pro-Palestinian support, anti-genocide is blowing my mind. I can’t remember this level of solidarity even with the anti-Vietnam War. I get a sense that they want to figure out ways how to be better with each other as they’re doing their work.
P M-G: I want to get into a little bit about what y’all think about the state of radical movements today. There’s the genocide in Gaza, there’s a major election coming up in this country . . . It’s a time of change around the world. What should we be paying attention to and doing?
A.A.: Part of my concern is security state; the state of surveillance, the continuous growth of the prison industrial complex. I think those things are still closing in on us, to the point where they have the ability to know so much about what we’re doing that it limits possibilities. But the spirit of the people is greater than man’s technology. This system is constantly trying to control the possibilities of insurrection and rebellion. We’ve still got to make this happen, but with a sense of urgency because they are determined to keep this empire going for as long as they can.
H.R.: I think it’s important to do that spiritual work and recognize that we’re all connected, intertwined. It can be really easy to project onto other people tendencies you might not like about yourself. That’s why doing that shadow work is so important. Also, globally, xenophobia is a way we separate ourselves from others and say, “Oh, but I’m not like that. My ways are better.” Getting past that illusion of superiority is important. None of us have the answer. There’s hope and uncertainty and we need to go where we’ve never been. It’s scary, but on the flip side there’s a sense of awe and mystery.
I think it’s also important to focus on infrastructure, both socially and physically. Socially, I mean, in terms of all the systems of domination that keep us in place and force us into submission with the prison industrial complex and State apparatus. I think the prison industrial complex is an expression of social infrastructure. Then there’s also the physical infrastructure and how it’s being destroyed by the neoliberal scheme to divest from it. Everything is literally falling apart. But there’s also a shift that’s taking place that’s allowing us to hone in on what really matters—how we can create systems that bring us closer together to collectively build cohesion and new infrastructure that is in line with serving life as a whole. I see people playing more with ideas around ecology. That’s what de-growth is; it’s about actually shifting the economy to value life and recognition that we don’t need to continue growing, but need to grow inward, downward, back to the earth, into society and community. That makes me feel hopeful.
We should be focusing on the Earth and climate catastrophe, while creating more points of connection because things are going to continue to unravel. The Earth is going to continue to try to shock us into making some real global changes. And that doesn’t all have to be bad. If we have systems in place that enable us to take care of each other—like mutual aid—that will allow us to pull together resources locally as things start to unravel and have better plans in place. So, connect with the people who are thinking about those things, arming and strengthening themselves with the knowledge that allows us to build out of the chaos. Do that shadow work, connect with your own source energy, and trust that it’s connected to the goodness of love and life that you were born into. Move from that place. And don’t lose heart!
A.A.: We used to talk about temporary autonomous zones. That can be any time you take a moment with other people to talk with each other and interact in ways that helps you to reconnect. Just as human beings and with the earth. You’ve got to realize that you’re not just an independent activist. In this thing here, you are connected to all that that is; from history to the future or as the Indigenous folks say, “the next seven generations.” When we talk about changing the world it’s not just the oppressive structures in the name of some revolutionary rhetoric. The change is within. We are a part of shaping culture. And culture, as a practice, is changeable. It’s always changing and that’s a beautiful thing.
source: Anarchist Studies
#anarchism #ashantiAlston #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #northAmerica #us
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This interview is with social movement veterans who have sacrificed much, and learned a great deal, in trying to change the world. Each in their own way have gained valuable insights into the personal, interpersonal, and structural dynamics at play when confronting established power and have essential lessons to convey to those newly radicalized. The interview was conducted in 2024 for Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, by collective member Paul Messersmith-Glavin.
Paul Messersmith-Glavin: Tell us about yourselves, in particular, how were you first politically radicalized?
Ashanti Alston: Born, Michael Alston. Plainfield, New Jersey, 1954. Just this February, I celebrated the big 7-0. I’m an official elder now.
I came of age in that period of the sixties when there was the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement, which was the key moment for me. I was a Black teenager understanding that there were people fighting for our freedom in the Civil Rights movement. And then here comes the Black Power movement and the rebellions of ’67 all over the United States.
Plainfield is a small town that’s racially divided like so many other places. But what was unique about what happened there was that Black folks had got hold of arms from a gun manufacturing plant, including crates of M-1 rifles. So, during the rebellions part of the Plainfield Black community in the West End was actually liberated for at least seven days. Even as this thirteen-year-old, I understood the importance of the movement and felt connection to it. This was serious and way different from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
The main rebellion was about a mile from the projects where I lived as a child. We could often hear the gunshots. Then one day there was a black car in front of the house and on the top of it in white letters was “Black Power.” And the guy in the car was giving out goods to people. That struck me, because I heard the term “Black Power,” but this was so bold. I understood the Civil Rights movement, but I didn’t know if I could deal with getting water-hosed down the street, spat on, called “nigger” in my face and just taking it. I wanted to fight back. So, this was my entry.
I don’t even think I had turned fourteen yet. And I wasn’t much of a reader at that point, but now I wanted to read! The Malcolm X autobiography. The stories of Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. I wanted to go find out about them. Then when school started back up, others were also interested in fighting back. In junior high school there was no Black history. So, there was a coordinated effort to walk out of the two junior high schools and the high school and to march down to City Hall to demand it. And enough of us came out, so that when the next school year started, we had Black history.
That showed me that there was this powerful unity if we organized. We could make demands and have them met. The rebellion after that lasted a week. When the armored cars came in from the National Guard, they regained control. But it didn’t stop us. The was a community center down the street and folks were in there and they’re talking, organizing, strategizing. I was just so excited, especially to see folks from the areas that I grew up who I looked up to in getting involved.
Eventually, I found out about the Black Panther Party and my friend’s father took us all over to the different offices—from Newark, Jersey City, to Brooklyn and Harlem—to learn what we could do. So, we went to the political education classes and learned the terminologies; this revolution the Panthers were talking about required study, engagement in the community, and organizing. It was different from the spontaneous rebellions. It was more like the organizing when we demanded Black history; you had to have a sustained view and understand that this is a long-term struggle against the system.
Most of us who formed that chapter were high school students and active inside the high school where the rebellion took place. It was in that same area that we did most of our outreach—speaking with folks, selling the Panther paper, and at a certain point starting a storefront and a free clothing program. So, here we are, learning how to work amongst the people in this Panther style . . . Every time I look back at it, I’m like, “Oh my God, we were so young, but we were so ready!”
We had so many folks helping us learn the different things involved with carrying out revolutionary struggle. And it was great because coming out of the Black Power ideology, I didn’t have too much love for white folks. But the Panthers always remembered they’re human beings, too, and had relationships with so many different people. They were nationalists, but revolutionary nationalists and didn’t just chop white folks off because they’re white. It all depends on their practice.
So, it helped me to challenge some of my own limitations and to open up to what this new ideology was telling me about struggle, the history of struggles, the possibility of winning, believing in ourselves, and organizing from below. That carried me for a long time, even up into prison.
Helia Rasti: I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1980. That was at the start of an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, on the heels of a revolution that ousted a dynasty, the last Shah of Iran. It was part of a popular uprising that brought in theocratic Islamists and started over four decades of Islamist rule.
I was born into a solidly middle-class family. My parents were really scared of having to raise a daughter in the growing patriarchal environment and decided to leave as did many at that time. This was very difficult for them because they loved Iran and didn’t want to go but felt forced to. We were able to attain resident status in Germany and I lived there from age five to ten. Being a foreigner in Germany is not easy and my parents (who are both well-educated) wanted access to better opportunities like they had in Iran. So, they left Germany the first chance they could and came to the United States—the “land of opportunity.”
I was ten years old when we moved to California and had no idea about the political environment and the history of oppression, genocide, enslavement, and exploitation that the US is founded on. I think a lot of immigrants come here seeking better opportunities because whatever they left behind was so grim. And then you come here and you’re like, “whoa.” Even though I was raised with this backdrop of intense political activity and very strong anti-imperialist sentiments, I was clueless. But I could just tell this is not right. Something is not right.
I’ve always been sensitive and empathic. And I knew that despite being an immigrant, being a brown child who experienced racism, I could still always seek out love and support from my parents. But I remember encountering figures about how every five minutes a girl or a woman is raped, and feeling, “Wow, I’ve been really protected.” So, I felt it was important for me to step up for people who were more vulnerable and for voices that were being silenced.
I grew up in the Bay Area and, after high school, I went to Humboldt State in Northern California. I’ve always been drawn to nature. I was a biology major initially and I learned about Native American history, the exploitative nature of industrial capitalism, and that Native people are still around and have been resisting genocide and erasure for all these years. I also learned about different resistance movements by listening to lecture series like Michael Parenti who broke down imperialism and Marxism, US foreign policy, and how the CIA and the United States played a huge part in destroying the fabric of different cultures. And, in my country, how they stood against democratic movements to support regimes to access resources for more global power.
I was sitting with all that in the late 90s when the anti-WTO, anti-corporate, globalization movements emerged. I was on the periphery of this, but learning. And then September 11th happened, and I was just like this is it. Ward Churchill wrote this essay about the chicken coming home to roost and I was feeling, “Oh, of course, this is going to come back to us to us. The United States is going to reap the repercussions of its global policies.” I got on the phone with my mom all excited about this and she said, “What are you saying? You’re going to get in trouble, you’re Iranian!” But I still felt these were historic times and decided that I had to leave the forest. I realize now it was a spiritual journey that led me to take on political action. It was my love for life, for the earth, for people. This is what kept me seeking out different answers when faced with the contradictions that are presented to us in society . . . So, I came home to the Bay as I realized my work was there and transferred to San Francisco State.
Within the first week of school there were student organizations tabling, including a Students for Peace group that did gorilla theater. I got in and became really involved with them. At the time we were organizing these huge demonstrations against the bombing of Afghanistan, and it was already clear that they were gearing up to start invading Iraq. I was a part of this mass movement; hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people globally, crying out against war.
That became my world. I spent all my time at school organizing and eventually dropped all my classes because that’s the only thing that mattered to me. I then became a part of this woman’s center that was helping to open up space for coalition building. San Francisco State has a very radical history, but since the time of the sixties and seventies, the administration has built all these guards and policies against student activism. So, we were organizing this coalition, bringing together different organizations like Ethnic Studies, the Black Student Union, and different cultural groups. We were also doing that with City College.
Eventually I dropped out of school and started doing organizing work full-time. I got involved with the Not in Our Name movement and Direct Action to Stop the War, focusing on street blockades and holding war profiteers accountable by going to them and shutting down their operations. I was especially jiving with these queer anarcho-punx doing public blockades and shutdowns. And it was like the work became my life. It’s the thing that kept me going. It felt like, this is what I was brought here for.
So, I continued to seek to deepen my understanding of what the work really was. And it was Critical Resistance that really helped to do so, especially with learning about abolition and how prison industrial abolition was a way to build against the state. At the time, I was doing environmental justice work, focusing on shutting down power plants. But I continued to encounter contradictions within organizing communities and felt I needed to do something else. I needed to figure out what my role was and not necessarily as a public or professional organizer. Again, I was always driven by my spirituality and my love. Rose Braz was a mentor of mine—what an immense, powerful woman and organizer she is—and I sought her out about some of these contradictions. And she said, “You know, you feel called to heal and you’re doing this medicine work; we need more abolitionists, more radicals to do that work. If you feel like that’s where life is taking you, go for it!” So, I did. I left the Bay and came to Portland to study natural medicine. Now I’m licensed as a clinician. But my love is still very much for the earth, for people, and dismantling obstacles to our collective liberation to allow for our ability to just live.
P M-G: You both have decades of political consciousness and organizing experience. Retrospectively, what are your biggest takeaways? What lessons have you learned that you’d want to pass on to someone just getting involved in social change work?
AA: I’ve been around for a while and when I’m speaking with young folks, I want to make sure I’m giving the best advice and encouragement that I can because I still believe that we can change this world. The thing is, you want to make sure, no matter what you have been through—the ups, the downs, the things that work, things that didn’t work—to be as honest as you can about it. When I look back on the early years—the Black Power movement to the Panthers, even up to the prison experience—then I get to see, “Oh, we could have been better in this area or that area.” The time I spent in prison was a lot of that looking back period for me. Before that it was 24/7 revolutionary work . . . not a lot of time for reflection.
But now I’m there in prison and thinking about what happened: “Why am I here? Why are so many of the comrades now in prison?” I wanted to know where we went wrong, why we lost, why the counter-intelligence program was eventually successful, and how to avoid making the mistakes again. And I got access to other readings. You know, in my head I’m still this Panther. A Marxist-Leninist. Maoist even. But the Critical Theory crew, from Eric Fromm to Herbert Marcuse and others; they had some different analysis about these revolutionary struggles that wasn’t the canon of Stalin. Then I started reading not only the critical theory, but other radicals. And, at some point, little bits and pieces of the anarchism started getting in there. These different perspectives allowed me to really think about the way we saw this struggle. What we (the Panthers) had believed was revolutionary in a sense, but with some limitations. It wasn’t great how we saw the struggles of women; it wasn’t great how we saw internalized oppression . . . Our own behaviors also contributed to our downfall. A lot of people don’t want to hear that, especially your comrades. But if you want to win, then you’ve got to let that ego shit go and say, “Where else might we have done better?” And that’s where the critical theories and anarchism and radical feminism began to help me to see things differently.
So, I want young people to understand revolution from a very personal perspective. How is it really going to impact you? What is it really opening you up to? Like, who’s Ashanti as a part of this? I’m still a part of this heterosexist, evil society and it’s been a part of my peoples’ struggle for the last 400 years. There’s no way that I can deny that. The shit of this system is also a part of me. In this struggle, it’s on two fronts; it’s not only the larger system, but also what it looks like inside of us. I want young people to see what their own connection is to this system is and to see their possibilities.
The best thing that really helped me to see this was when I started reading about anarchism. Now, not only do I want to be the best anti-sexist, but I want to open myself up to how life expresses itself. I joke about it at times when I say that when I first came out of prison I wanted to work with Love and Rage folks, but they had these spiked hair styles and I was like, “What the fuck is this?” But another part of me wanted to learn; “I don’t care how crazy they look. I want to learn.” And it showed me that there’s all kinds of folks who are oppressed by this society and who want out from under that oppression. If their lives don’t match mine, that’s okay.
The Zapatistas have that idea, too; a world where many worlds exist. Our lives are very diverse, and we all want our liberation. We just have to figure out how it’s going to work in this monstrous, US imperialist empire. So, Black folks’ struggle takes on particular characteristics, but it’s not divorced from all the other struggles—the Chicanos, the Indigenous folks, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the workers, the environmentalist movement, Palestine. It’s never simple, but it’s doable.
H.R.: I’d say never stop questioning; question your questions. Get with mentors, but also make sure that your mentors hold space for questioning and grapple with those questions with you. Recognize that you are a part of something immense. The Earth is all about life and death is a part of it, right? You are a part of something so much greater and when you take steps towards that collective health and life and love, you’re bringing with you something so much deeper. Trust that. The ongoing genocides around the world, that’s real. But the little steps that you are a part of, the little acts of kindness and love and the ways that you are showing up in support of community and life. That’s real, too. Movements are about cultivating and nourishing life as steps towards collective liberation. That is a part of that picture, too. It’s important to have this perspective that goes back and forth between the local and the global. So, continue to get involved, but don’t lose sight of your own care and holding that deep sacred space within you to stay in alignment with the goodness of life.
P M-G: Where should those of us who are dedicated to transforming society be putting our energies? And what role do you see collective care and nurturance playing in sustaining radical social movements?
H.R: We can’t be human without our connection to other humans. We’re social creatures. We’re part of a community of life that’s not just human. So, understanding your role in terms of community within that greater scheme of life, of ecological life, is important. And building these connections is so important because industrial culture has severed our connection to nature. But nature is what makes us human. We learn what it means to be human by learning from the earth. That’s something I’ve learned from Indigenous movements, writers, and activists.
It’s hard because we internalize oppression, which can be a toxin that is spread through community. And yet, community is an extended family and an extended circle of love. So, you can choose how to build community and how to engage with it. If it weren’t for my communal ties with the people who have come before me who I’m still connecting with, who inspire me, I wouldn’t be here. They keep me going. It’s hard though, and I know for me, sometimes I need to retreat in times to find my connection and to continue to show up. I need to have good boundaries and some guard up. We need to have collectively permeable boundaries. There’s a difference between having a wall, which is a tool of war, versus boundaries, which are important and healthy for life. Finding that balance is essential, especially now in a time of pandemics. I see the coronavirus as an expression of an ecological crisis. We’re going to continue to see viral storms take shape and we need to understand this balance.
A.A.: People in this struggle need to understand that this is long term. You have to have a place within you that you go to with all that you’re going to experience being in this struggle. Because it’s tough.
I just came back from an indigenous retreat in Texas at a sweat lodge that’s women led. I watched the process of building that lodge and what became so important for me was how everything they did had purpose and intentionality. This helps us to see all that is sacred. There are some important lessons in there, whether you’re Marxist, an anarchist, or just a rebel who wants change. This is still Turtle Island to Indigenous folks. And I think our objective is really to figure out how to pry this empire off the back of the Turtle so that we can all be fucking free!
What we went through back in the sixties and seventies, we got too scientific, and we missed out some things that are really about our humanity. A lot of the revolutions we put on a pedestal for being successful—like the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution—but they end up recreating some other form of oppressive society. Part of anarchism for me is to be open. So, we have to figure out how to nurture the spiritual as a source of power in this struggle. It reminds me of in the days of the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention that the Panthers held in Philly in 1970, with the idea of bringing all these movements together within the Empire. To see how we can all be free.
P M-G: What advice would you give about how we should relate to each other and accept differences of opinion without condemning each other? How do we nurture a community, while engaging in collective self-care and transformation?
H.R.: Allow principles to guide our work and have space for accountability. I know I’m not going to get along with everybody and I don’t need to work closely with everybody. I don’t need to know what the nitty-gritty of that work is. If the larger structure is being maintained and bringing us together in unity and if everyone is acting in ways that are principled and towards a shared mission, I can trust that. We’re all super different and that’s a beautiful thing. We’re not always going to get along and that’s a part of the friction and tension. But we can create a lot of forward momentum from that if it’s being guided by something that is principled and shared.
A.A.: We have to figure it out as we go, but a thing that has always attracted me to anarchism—is that part about how we are with each other. This is so key to the vision we have for the world that we want. If we don’t want a sexist world, we have to practice anti-sexism within our relations. If we don’t want an ageist or ableist world, we have to practice it now . . . When we come together now, we have to practice it, and be willing to admit we make mistakes when we practice this. It doesn’t just change automatically. And this takes compassion. When we begin to accept each other with compassion, this will be easier. Then we will learn to transform these relationships.
Young folks need to know not only how to organize in the community, but how they can change themselves and have better relationships with each other, which is part of community care. That’s why transformative practices need to be incorporated into what we do. It can’t just be you got an ideology now and you think that’s it for you. Now you are the revolutionary that can change the world. No, don’t work that way. It takes courage to be vulnerable, to say, “Yo, I need some help working through my shit ‘cuz that Empire is in me . . . so we can really build authentic revolutionary relationships that can transform the world.”
But the younger generation, they want to do better than what we did. And the level of solidarity we’re seeing in Gen Z’s pro-Palestinian support, anti-genocide is blowing my mind. I can’t remember this level of solidarity even with the anti-Vietnam War. I get a sense that they want to figure out ways how to be better with each other as they’re doing their work.
P M-G: I want to get into a little bit about what y’all think about the state of radical movements today. There’s the genocide in Gaza, there’s a major election coming up in this country . . . It’s a time of change around the world. What should we be paying attention to and doing?
A.A.: Part of my concern is security state; the state of surveillance, the continuous growth of the prison industrial complex. I think those things are still closing in on us, to the point where they have the ability to know so much about what we’re doing that it limits possibilities. But the spirit of the people is greater than man’s technology. This system is constantly trying to control the possibilities of insurrection and rebellion. We’ve still got to make this happen, but with a sense of urgency because they are determined to keep this empire going for as long as they can.
H.R.: I think it’s important to do that spiritual work and recognize that we’re all connected, intertwined. It can be really easy to project onto other people tendencies you might not like about yourself. That’s why doing that shadow work is so important. Also, globally, xenophobia is a way we separate ourselves from others and say, “Oh, but I’m not like that. My ways are better.” Getting past that illusion of superiority is important. None of us have the answer. There’s hope and uncertainty and we need to go where we’ve never been. It’s scary, but on the flip side there’s a sense of awe and mystery.
I think it’s also important to focus on infrastructure, both socially and physically. Socially, I mean, in terms of all the systems of domination that keep us in place and force us into submission with the prison industrial complex and State apparatus. I think the prison industrial complex is an expression of social infrastructure. Then there’s also the physical infrastructure and how it’s being destroyed by the neoliberal scheme to divest from it. Everything is literally falling apart. But there’s also a shift that’s taking place that’s allowing us to hone in on what really matters—how we can create systems that bring us closer together to collectively build cohesion and new infrastructure that is in line with serving life as a whole. I see people playing more with ideas around ecology. That’s what de-growth is; it’s about actually shifting the economy to value life and recognition that we don’t need to continue growing, but need to grow inward, downward, back to the earth, into society and community. That makes me feel hopeful.
We should be focusing on the Earth and climate catastrophe, while creating more points of connection because things are going to continue to unravel. The Earth is going to continue to try to shock us into making some real global changes. And that doesn’t all have to be bad. If we have systems in place that enable us to take care of each other—like mutual aid—that will allow us to pull together resources locally as things start to unravel and have better plans in place. So, connect with the people who are thinking about those things, arming and strengthening themselves with the knowledge that allows us to build out of the chaos. Do that shadow work, connect with your own source energy, and trust that it’s connected to the goodness of love and life that you were born into. Move from that place. And don’t lose heart!
A.A.: We used to talk about temporary autonomous zones. That can be any time you take a moment with other people to talk with each other and interact in ways that helps you to reconnect. Just as human beings and with the earth. You’ve got to realize that you’re not just an independent activist. In this thing here, you are connected to all that that is; from history to the future or as the Indigenous folks say, “the next seven generations.” When we talk about changing the world it’s not just the oppressive structures in the name of some revolutionary rhetoric. The change is within. We are a part of shaping culture. And culture, as a practice, is changeable. It’s always changing and that’s a beautiful thing.
source: Anarchist Studies
#anarchism #ashantiAlston #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #northAmerica #us
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Eric King, Ashanti Alston, and Ray Luc Levasseur—all contributors to “Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners”—discuss their experiences with imprisonment, education behind bars, organizing with fellow inmates, and the ongoing importance of international solidarity with captured revolutionaries.
The following is a selection of the transcription from the full video conversation.
Eric King: So both of you did over a decade in prison. Ray, you did you did two decades during that time. How are you able to maintain or be a part of the struggle–either the struggle inside the prison or the struggle that you were a part of that landed you in prison–how were you able to continue and maintain that struggle if you were?
Ashanti Alston: Well, inside when we were captured in New Haven, Connecticut, there was support groups that was there for us from New York, even ones that I have been a part of and others, but at a certain point I’m underground and some of those same folks when we was in New Haven going to trial that them same defense committees was there for us during the trial and there was one local group in New Haven, which was actually a Trotskyist group that was there for us and they were really solid, really consistent, really great, and also they were the first ones to give me a much better understanding of what it was to be a Trotskyist in the movement because I think I kind of brushed it off because as the the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, sometimes you don’t really question why do we got this thing with the Trotskyists, why is that anyhow, but they were really solid and really great supporters.
So inside, those support groups, defense groups all also help to keep you in touch with family; they would, if the family needed help to come up to see me, they would help with that process. The letter writings at that time was like really really important because, though our minds at the time during the trial was still ‘we ain’t really trying to here for the process of this trial.’ We really are looking for avenues out, but you got to kind of deal with both reality, both possibilities. You might have to do this trial and get sent or you might find an opening and you’re out of there. They provided that link that kept us hopeful with the course of the struggle.
I think I could say that folks were still carrying on the struggle in our particular case because we were captured in the midst of this expropriation. We had no illusions about getting acquitted. We were fortunate enough to have good lawyers who volunteered their services and two of them, David Rosen and Ed Dolan were also part of Erica Huggins’ and Bobby Seale’s legal defense team and so they just contacted us and said, “Hey, we’re here for you if you want it. We’re here to to defend you.” And we were like, “Well, right on.” And there was another lawyer John Williams, who also had politics.
We knew that this this was going to be a political trial, but during this time our our minds was still ‘we’re at war.’ The process of this trial was just almost like a distraction and it was the connection with the defense committees–the New York ones, the New Haven ones, and there was not a lot of support, but it still kept us connected.
We wasn’t able to get out after a few attempts. We get sentenced–it was federal charges and state charges. So for the bank expropriation, it was a five to 25 year sentence and then for because it was the shootout and two cops got hurt, it was 10 to 20 for that. And after that, they kept us separated. We was never to be in the same prison anywhere again except towards the end and in summers when one of my comrades was transferred there and for a brief period of time I had made parole, we was there at least for several months together.
What I wanted to bring up is that because our minds is still at war, I studied, I trained. My comrades studied, trained, because we had the examples of stories from Huey P. Newton and in prison, we had the stories of George Jackson, so it was almost like if you’re in the cell and here comes the guard, just making his regular rounds, we might just to to play with him pop down on the floor we knocking out 20 push-ups or whatever. Otherwise, we’re doing all the other things because we want to stay ready, that whole Stay Ready mentality. It was not depressing for me. I didn’t go through no depression. It was just the ready mentality.
I read all the time, so going off to prison, the first stop was Oxford, Wisconsin. That was the first one they sent me to because I had to do the federal time first. One of my comrades comes there, who’s down in prison in Georgia now, Kamau Sadiki. It was one of the first times that me and another comrade from the BLA was in the same prison. Same mentality we had: War. We got a brother that’s training us in kung fu and everything else and we got to do it secretly cuz you can’t do it in the open. The guards don’t play that stuff, you know.
Then, I had put in for a transfer to Lewisburg prison and eventually, I got transferred to Lewisburg because it was at least, it was the closest to home. So, Lewisburg was was one of the major maximum prisons, federal prisons, serious place, and I’m a young guy and there was a few other guys in there. We’re young, but there’s a collective there and what the collective does [is] you come into the collective of comrades from different formations, and you’re studying, you’re training, you got other folks in there, prisoners who want to be a part of that kind of revolutionary consciousness raising stuff. It’s like an easy connection still at the time because this is the mid to going into the late ’70s, so still, how can we get out of this big prison with these tall walls and everything?
Support groups kept us connected to the movements, but I will say over and over, it wasn’t like we got letters from a lot of people like the national Jericho movement and other groups will have letter writing nights and all that. We didn’t get that. We wasn’t getting money for commissary. We was just facing this situation, doing this time, looking for openings to get out. But I learned a lot there. I read and even all the times I was in and out of segregation, I’m like, “you can put me in, just give me my books.” Now, I’m reading and I’m interacting with others.
This is when I’m beginning to read the radical psychologies, the feminisms. I’m beginning to read the more in-depth histories of different struggles, like the Irish Freedom struggles with the IRA and the Philippine Hukbalahap and all this stuff, and even more in-depth Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, because comrades was still able to get books and things in, so there was books always floating around, so I’m also learning in this environment. I don’t give a damn that it’s in prison, and Sundiata Acoli would when we used to correspond–wasn’t supposed to, but we did–he would say, “turn that prison into University.” Yes, it’s all about preparing you for getting out. So that was my experience there.
But the repression inside the prison got to be really bad. This particularly fascist warden came in at a certain point. He was clamping down on a lot of stuff and I worked industry with others at the time and some things happen in industry like industry caught on fire a few times. Hey, by chance, you know, by chance. That’s what I say. But who did they come after? They came after me, a few other comrades, those others who was jailhouse lawyers. Next thing I know they swooping us up, we on the bus on our way to Marion, Illinois.
At Marion who’s one of the first persons we see who’s in general population, but they walking us to segregation uh it’s Rafael Miranda of the Puerto Rican independentistas. He’s letting us know that they already know that we’re on our way there. They had already got the word through the grapevine. Herman Bell was there, other comrades who may not be known… because Marion took the place of Alcatraz. This was supposed to be the most escape-proof prison at the time and it was so electronic…
Those political prisoners and politicized prisoners had one of the most fantastic libraries, so again I’m learning. I’m increasing my understandings of struggle and the anti-authoritarian aspects, the anarchist aspects and moving closer in that direction. I still had connection through the defense committees on some of the movements that was going on, but those numbers were dwindling because they were getting hit with a lot of repression. Safiya [Bukhari, Ashanti’s wife] and others decided to go underground because there was these grand jury searches, trying to get them on different charges of supporting other actions to help free BLA folks or political prisoners, and so wasn’t a lot of letters, wasn’t all that stuff, but we know we’re soldiers. This is what we gonna do.
From there, some of us was like the word was don’t accept general population and so some of us decide to stay in seg to force them to transfer us and they ended up transferring some of us to Lompoc, California. Who was amongst that group? Leonard Peltier… Curly Raul Estremera from the BLA, Puerto Rican BLA and others. So here we are now. Lompoc was just in the process of transferring from medium security to maximum and it was kind of a modernist place and it had fences, but they hadn’t had all the concertina wire up yet, so here we are all doing all this time. We like “man, we got to hit this fence before they get all this concertina wire up,” but in the process, we are meeting other folks, supporters from the outside and especially at this time, some revolutionary groups in California. One was called the Wellspring Collective or Tribal Thumb, which was a very anti-authoritarian group and so they would come up to visit.
So it’s like more and more I am learning different ways that people struggle and are trying to carry it on in that California area, because a lot of them politicized prisoners who was with George or out of them circles were coming out also and getting involved with grassroots organizing. So I feel like that’s always my prison experience. I gotta learn, I gotta be ready and I gotta make sure that I’m interacting with folks who are still carrying us on or figuring out ways to keep the momentum and and many of us was on that same page.
And so then Connecticut and eventually I get parole to the Connecticut state prison and I finished the second half of my sentence there and eventually get out.
Eric: Perfect, thank you, also you mentioned Tribal Thumb and someone I look up to, Bill Dunne was a member of Tribal Thumb.
Ashanti: Just to say about Bill Dunne, I believe that part of the reason he got captured, recaptured was because we needed him to help us. And so there’s a special part of me that’s always for him because, of course, he made a sacrifice for the people.
Eric: And for the people listening, if you’d like to write Bill Dunne, he is currently at the medical facility in FCI Butner.
Ray, would you like to touch on that same topic about how you maintain struggle both or either inside or outside of those movements?
Ray Luc Levasseur: Well, first of all, Bill Dunne, it would be very nice if people could write to him at Butner. I just got a letter from him a few weeks ago. He’s struggling with health issues, but he’s he’s still got the same strong spirit and good sense of humor he always has but he needs a little support, lots of support.
Briefly, we’re talking one struggle here, two parts of it, inside and outside. And I’ve always found it interesting the political prisoners on the inside always gravitate to each other no matter which movement or which organizations they come from, while the support organizations on the street seem to do a lot more squabbling with each other and can’t seem to deal with all the obstacles they need to to form a more united front around political prisoners.
Briefly, my first experience in Tennessee pen and in Brushy Mountain–it was my first prison experience and I had been politically active before I went in Southern Student Organizing Committee, but hadn’t been in the movement that long and so my my support network wasn’t that strong initially. I was able to get books and correspond with people and this is very helpful and like Ashanti pointed, political education inside, but right from the get go, we had a food strike over conditions at the county jail and what was particularly interesting and and pertinent about that was you had white and black prisoners and you had to overcome that racial barrier to get everybody together on the same page and go and strike over these conditions.
So I presented the demands–we threw all our food back out, made a mess and wouldn’t eat and the Goon Squad comes up, the whole deal. I got the demands ready: they have to improve the food and the medical care, which was basically non-existent and they dragged me out the next day to the courthouse and got me a force transfer to State Penitentiary and Nashville. Every joint I’ve been in has been either Max or super Max and right away, I got a jacket and that jacket follows me through the rest of my time in the Tennessee prisons and it shows up again many years later for the next 20 years in the federal prisons.
What my jacket says is “he’s a troublemaker, he’s a radical, and he’s a racial agitator.” That they stuck on me after I got to to Nashville, but the seeds for that was in the food strike because the most radical thing I did and could be done when I got to the state penitentary was cross the color line. It was basically Jim Crow. Those are the exact words they put in my jacket: “he’s a racial agitator.” Why is this guy trying to bring people together? As if there’s something wrong here because prison systems are notorious for keeping people divided on racial lines so cross crossing that racial line is what I did as a matter of principle as already a practicing anti-racist in my time with SSOC.
Then, they stuck me on death row to get me off the compound. I was actually on death row. They had several cells for miscreant that they considered real troublemakers from the population. They put me there. I was in there with brothers from Memphis who gave me an education about white supremacy and killer cops I will never forget. You know, learning is a two-way street inside and we were doing political education.
So then, they sent me to Brushy, which was a connection to the old convict leasing system. I got there in 1970. If I got there in 1965, I would have been mining coal. In 1970, it was a Super Max, one of the early super Maxes, so we were locked up almost all the time they cut off all books, all newspapers, no phone calls, very restricted correspondence: immediate family, lawyer, clergy. And that was another racist place, every single guard in Brushy Mountain–this is in East Tennessee Mountains–was white. Half the prisoners there were black. They moved death row and me there at the same time and most of the prisoners on death row were black and I literally had to fight my way out of that place. I used to tell people I’m a Vietnam vet. I was in a war before I ever got to this War. I was in a foreign war. I’m a veteran of foreign and domestic Wars because it was a battle to get out of there.
Fast forward: I gotta do 20 years here in the feds, most of it was at Marion and ADX. You know about those places. About 13 years of it in some kind of isolation or solitary confinement…
I had to write,that was the key: a pencil, a pen. It became enormously important for me, my codefendants and I like to think of making a contribution to the ongoing struggles on the streets. I wrote prolifically for quite a long time. I wrote one of the first really published widely spread article outside of mainstream media about ADX in prison legal news. So disarmed from whatever you armed yourself with on the street, you know, it changes inside and I was fortunate that we had supporters on the street–this is pre-internet and everything–to take those writings and developments concerning us and amplify and widely distributed it as much as possible… So this was an important Network and was an important method for me to communicate. For Leonard Peltier or Oscar Lopez it was art. Tom Manning: art. There’s different ways it can be done. With Marilyn [Buck]: poetry. There’s any number of ways that you have to keep your spirit and your politics alive and relevant somehow and that was the way I did it.
I think the most important action we took as political prisoners during my time at Marion was we we did a work refusal. They had it set up where they would not release you from Marion until you went to a pre-transfer unit that made military hardware. And we drew the line and said we will not do that as a condition for a transfer to somewhere else because we weren’t there on disciplinary charges. They had just sent us there because of our jackets. We were all radical and so we refused it. Me, Tom Manning, Mutulu Shakur, Oscar Lopez Rivera and others, we refused and then we end up in ADX.
I want to just reiterate what Ashanti said through all this is study, political education, physical conditioning and the one time of year that I always see that happen when I was inside and I got out is in August. And I did it with Mutulu and the other conscious Brothers before I left–we commemorate Black August throughout the prison system, state or federal, which involves fasting, which involves political education, which involves physical exercise, as much as you can do it together. It’s commemorating the sacrifices of those Black Freedom Fighters like George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson and others before them and after them and it continues to this day.
Eric: In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, we saw more direct action. We saw bank appropriations, we saw people putting their freedom on the line for the Liberation struggle. Why do you think that is banished? Why do you think we do not see that sort of militant action anymore?
Ashanti: It’s a question that is always on my mind and so to try to explain why it’s always on my mind, the ’60s and ’70s, I still feel like, man, that was such a period for me to come of age, joining the Black Panther Party. It was such a time to be alive, it was just in so many ways magical. It’s like you didn’t have all the distractions. You saw that the Civil Rights Movement was getting beat down. You could turn on that television; it wasn’t but maybe six channels on that television. You’re going to see what these fascists are doing to the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement. But it’s also the point where Black Power is coming into being. Stokeley Carmichael’s voice, H. Rap Brown [AKA] Jamil al-Amin, who’s now still in prison. They were raising more of the Malcolm X spirit in the sense of “we want to be free.” Black power also was directing us towards what does self-determination look like, how might we actually take over our communities, the institutions, etc. It gave more of a concrete picture of what are we fighting for here and not integration.
So here also now we beginning to explore socialism, communism and the Panther Party, having to read Karl Marx and and then Frantz Fanon and all these other folks. It made us see more of the reality of this monster we’re facing, that it could not be changed. It could not be even modified. This monster has to be challenged and we have to build the kind of revolutionary movements that can like George Jackson say, bring it to its knees and I don’t know how that sounds to other people, but when you know your history, when you know what this country on the back of Turtle Island did to indigenous Nations, what it has and continues to do, what it did to African people and continues to do, what it had did to the Mexicans and others who come here. This is not something you try to reform. So you see the necessity, even us as teenagers, of fighting this, develop the capacity to fight.
The great thing about the Panther Party was that you know that fight took the form of survival programs as well as Liberation schools. The survival programs were so key because it was pretty much telling people that we can feed ourselves. The free health clinics was basically saying we can take care of our own health issues. The political education classes was like if the schools are not going to teach us what we really need to know then we need to do that. That was that self-determination nationalist attitude. When we talk about Nat Turner and all the other folks, we knew that there were those who did fight back by any means necessary.
And it’s the same thing with the guy now that speaks on Palestine a lot, Norman Finklestein, the thing he brings up about the Nat Turner rebellion and he says clearly, that was a pretty vicious thing, but it was an act of rebellion and an act of necessity, and he went to what the Abolitionist Movement leaders were putting out in their papers and in their talks to give it some perspective and and basically, what the Abolitionist Movement was telling people was, “we told you things like this were going to happen because you have these people enslaved.” So Norman Finklestein was comparing it to the open air prison, Palestine, Gaza and, that was what we were trying to get across also. Don’t call us crazy because we are trying to develop the capacity to be free, which will mean that we have got to confront this monster with all means necessary.
The Panther Party, I feel, came closest to to bringing that into fruition because it started off Black Panther Party for self-defense, but also in its growing process understood this aspect of armed struggle and we need to defend our communities and then we we don’t need to rely on the police to do it because clearly the police is an occupying force. That language at the time was so key. When when Eldridge Cleaver and them talked about this being an internal colony and we’re inside the mother country, he was giving us a way to see what this settler colonialism was and also see our struggle on a much broader level compared with the African Liberation movements, the Liberation movements coming out of Asia, the Revolutionary struggles even in Germany and Japan and other places.
Those of us in the in the Panther Party who went underground, we had always understood that we have to develop the capacity to defend ourselves. Who do we come up against is all those Bourgeois Negroes and others who want to stay connected to the monster and want to convince our people “do not follow them crazy people, stay with the monster, they’re going to give us a few trinkets, they’re going to give us a little bit more.”
Let me tell you what happened quickly after the rebellion in my hometown. This is ’67, this is what pretty much brought me into the movement. I’m like 13, 14 years old. The rebellion in Planfield when black folks took over the black community because they went and got crates of M1 rifles, they was able to hold it for a week. 13, 14 year old Ashanti was like “oh my God.” This is blowing my mind that we are able to do this. But then after the National Guard came in with the tanks and took it over, the first thing that the city government did once they was contained, was to put some swimming pools in the playgrounds and they called that, you know, “y’all should be satisfied with that.” Now Plainfield ain’t been right since.
To this day, even with afterwards, black Mayors, it ain’t been right since because we could not hold that self-determination, that black power perspective because of how that black middle class wanted to just fit in. They wanted to integrate. The lesson we should know from that is that we can’t integrate into this poisonous monstrous Empire. We have really got to figure out that the way forward is to cut it loose. Cut it loose in every way we can.
Eric: Thank you! Shout out to Plainfield. Ray Luc, do you have an opinion or a thought on why this generation—particularly with what’s going on— why we’ve seen such a decrease in militant action or direct action compared to when you guys were comin’ up?
Ray Luc: You know, I agree a lot with what Ashanti said about time, place, conditions. During our early political activist years, it was a much different time in the world. You know, Che said, “1, 2, 3, many Vietnams” and I come out of Vietnam, you know—that seemed like a real possibility.
And, Ashanti, you were talking about 1967; you know, I was in Vietnam in 1967. We got an old Life magazine over there, you know— a very popular American weekly at the time— and it showed pictures of Detroit at the 1967 rebellion. And I saw that when I was in ‘Nam, and I’d done a lot of flying in helicopters, and, you know, the devastation that I saw in the pages of Life magazine looked similar to what I was seeing in parts of Vietnam.
And so I went up to Detroit to look at it myself, after I got back (I was stationed at Fort Campbell.), and I could see there was a real war going on here, too.
When I got out in 2004, one of the things I noticed about the general climate is I felt people were fearful. There was a level of, you know— this was following 9/11, and I was inside during 9/11. But there was this sense of, people has a sense of fear, insecurity, anxiety that I hadn’t sensed twenty years earlier, when I went in. And, it is a real challenge.
I mean, when I’m involved in Palestine work right now, mainly what I’m seeing is certainly a lot of energy has been generated around supporting Palestine. Some for different reasons among different people, but there’s real potential there for this…This movement that’s happening around this country right now to develop to the level it was around South Africa 25 years ago. But that is an exception, and I don’t have a firm answer for what you’re saying. One of the questions I used to get a lot over the years—not so much anymore, but did— it indicates why people were thinking different than they were, you know, decades earlier. There’s a sense about people, you know, that they were kind of overwhelmed by the power of the system, you know? They would say, “How can you challenge something like this? It seems that everything we do or try doesn’t get anywhere.” Because it’s too big, it’s too powerful.
And, the other one was about sacrifice. If you go up against the system, there are consequences.
Eric: Serious consequences.
Ray Luc: You know, we here, on this panel right now are demonstrating what some of those consequences are, but there’s a lot of other consequences. I’ve heard you, Eric, talk about an organization I’ve been very involved with, which is Rosenberg Fund for Children.
Eric: Love ‘em!
Ray: This is an organization that supports children of political prisoners— and if you go and you look at the parents with these children, the activists, how many different ways government can make you pay for your activism. Whether you’re an immigration activist, a climate activist, an antifascist activist…And at different levels of activism, depending on where you are, you know—there’s other factors—but it’s a whole lot of people that are paying a price for their activism and it scares a lot of people.
Eric: Thank you! Thank you so much. Ashanti, you wanted us to come back to you? You had a follow-up?
Ashanti: ….What I had wanted to get back to around here is the difference between then and now. I do think fear is a big, big part, ’cause I think that once they had captured a lot of us, what was put in place— not only the more militarized police but on a cultural level, television has beaucoup cop shows! Beaucoup cop shows that they had millions and millions of people what would watch every week. Because in the cop shows, the cops always got the “criminal.” And, in many instances, the criminals was folks like me and Ray. Right?
Eric: Right, right.
Ashanti: And people were getting convinced, just like they captured us: “Don’t you try to do the same thing, ’cause we’ll get you, too. You cannot escape us.” Because when I went in in ’74, and when I got out at the end of ’85 and I’m living with my lawyer until he could work it out, my lawyer had a close relationship with a lot of black high school students, in New Haven, that had basketball skills…
But one of the young high-school students— ’cause he was being around the legal office— and just out of curiosity, I asked him, “What do you know about the Black Panther Party?” And he asked me, was it a martial arts group? Which helped me to understand what our enemy does in order to recoup, to recover from that revolutionary period that we kinda, like, was on the edge—
Eric: So close!
Ashanti: …Of revolution, and it felt like in so many ways. They know what they’re doing! And so, on the militarized level, and on that cultural level, they was recouping. And not to rule out, also, the influx of drugs into the community around the same time, too! ‘Cause when many of us got out, we saw the proliferation of street organizations that was involved with this murderous drug game? Oh, it made our job, ooooh— this is WAY more than we know how to handle. WAY more. So, all of these things are still with us today. That’s why I wanted to get back to that, because we talked about today. There’s real, legitimate reasons, but we still gotta figure out how to confront the fear.
Because if we don’t, they continue. I don’t wanna hear all that talk about, you know, the Empire is on its last legs; I get tired of that. People make predictions and all that shit. No! And, if it is, who’s going to be the ones who’s really going to suffer, if it really feels it, it’s gonna hit us at the bottom, and we gotta figure out how to still organize…
Eric: Yeah!
Ashanti: …against these things, on multi-dimensional levels, because the trauma— just like what the Palestinians is going through now.
Eric: We’re gonna get to that!
Ashanti: You know, the trauma, and it’s intergenerational, and it’s ongoing.
Ray: Can I just add one quick thing? You know, people are more likely to set up, and do, enter various types of activism around various issues— all of which is needed, that’s clear! Hasn’t been long since we saw all these huge Black Lives Matter demonstrations, right? A good example of what I’m talking about with how the system operates and what we need to do to stop Cop City, alright? We’re talking about intimidating people…
If we—Ashanti knows this, ’cause we’ve been doing this work for decades— if we don’t support the activists who are jailed and imprisoned, then we’re not worth shit. ‘Cause every movement that has succeeded in challenging the System and making some advance are those movements that have supported their prisoners.
People who get locked up, you know? You make a sacrifice, you know— You could lose your life, you know? Or you can be imprisoned. Or you can suffer some other consequences, as I mentioned earlier.
And all you’ve gotta do is…You’re talking about the struggle in Palestine? They don’t forget their prisoners in Palestine! Anyone who’s following the struggle in Palestine…And they never have! For real! And that’s part of what makes their movement and spirit so strong. And if you look at the Irish independent struggle, same thing.
If you look at South Africa, in the anti-apartheid years, Nelson Mandela, there was a lot of others. There was ANC or PAC, they didn’t leave their prisoners behind. They kept support networks going for them. They didn’t abandon them.
It’s been a constant struggle in this country to get recognition of political prisoners and, activists who get jailed, to don’t let them get abandoned. And what [they’re trying to do with] Stop Cop City is, “You’d better abandon them, or we’re gonna have your ass, too, next!”
You know, I know Stop Cop City defendants here in Maine, and I can tell you that, after talking with him in depth a couple of times…He was pretty well shell-shocked when he came out of the RICO indictment against them.
We have another case going on right now, in southern New Hampshire: Three young women being charged with felonies for nothing but a little bit of vandalism at an Elbit plant in southern New Hampshire (Elbit being a major military supplier to Israel). You can’t let these people be forgotten. If people see that they get absolutely no support when they step up and do something, they’re gonna be less likely to stand. Doesn’t mean they don’t see the issue, they don’t think something needs to be done; but they’re concerned about what happens if they do it.
Eric: That’s a great point. Something that I think my generation— 30-to-40-year-olds— noticed is when the Green Scare happened, those people got smashed. They got smashed with sentences that my generation did not think still happened. And I think that scared a lot of people away. When you see the 15-to-30 range with Marius Mason and Eric McDavid, Jake Conroy, all those guys— all those people…
So I wanna switch base real quick and jump to what’s happening right now on college campuses that we’re seeing— and that is, college kids comin’ together, making encampments, and facing extreme police responses, in some cases. Here in Denver, my boss, Zeke Williams, is— and our co-director of our legal firm, Claire— both were arrested just for being at an encampment! Just for showing up to support the students.
So, I was wondering if either of you two had views or had opinions on the positive aspects of the Palestinian movement, where we’re lacking, or anything in between that you would like to talk about?
Ashanti: Yeah. Well, one, I’ma tell you, I haven’t been this excited in a long time-
Eric: Shit’s happening!
Ashanti: -with the support that’s been coming out for the Palestinian people, the Palestinian nation, occupied Palestine. I think what has surprised me so much about it is not only the protests, but especially the, I’ma say “white Jews”— mainly young Jews, but I know there are supporters across the board— who are disconnecting Zionism from Judaism.
Eric: Breaking off that propaganda, not letting it get through.
Ashanti: Who would’ve thought? I mean, who would’ve thought? You know, because the Zionism in the United States is really strong! That hold on that, that consciousness is really strong. And to see these young folks challengin’ that— and older folks, too, I’ve been really watching— It warms my heart. Right?
So they’re comin’ out, and, this is antiwar! You know, when one says “anti-genocide,” it’s because of that war, the genocide war on the Palestinian people, you know?
So it’s at a great time…My fears is, is it going to be syphoned off into this presidential election? Right? And if all these folks who are against genocide and for the Palestinian people to be free, to be liberated, you know, does the act stop there?
You know, one of the things I kinda felt goin’ on in the antiwar movement back in the day was that once that war kind of concluded, there were still issues that we were fighting for. Black folks fighting for liberation, Indigenous folks fighting for sovereignty, Puerto Ricans fighting for independence, you know, Chicanos fighting for liberation of Atzlán, the workers are fighting, the women are fighting. Does it stop there? And that’s my concern that this what we’re doing for Palestine–we should see it as we have our Palestine here, yes, in this Empire that’s on the back of Turtle Island.
I’m really excited about one of the books I’m almost finished with now, Mohamed Abdou’s book Islam and Anarchy. It’s a really great really great book, whose author Mohamed Abdou I’ve known for like 20 years and I think he’s been working on this this book for 20 years… He’s an African Anarchist from Egypt, so he’s got the experience of the so-called Arab Spring. He lived in Canada, so he has that experience of developing deep relationship with the struggles there, particularly the indigenous struggles and connected with struggles here as well, so he’s on the ground. He’s not really the academic only guy. He is really a revolutionary, he’s really an anarchist.
The thing that he brings up that I think is key for folks now–not only those who are are Jews, but those who are immigrants–here he brings up a a term he uses is Settlers of color are those immigrants who come here looking for a better life, but they buy into Empire and so I think one things that can help this expression of massive resistance now in the United States is that there’s got to be a Consciousness that deepens around that this is Turtle Island and there’s still a a struggle going on here. There is African people who were brought here enslaved and if this Consciousness is not there then people will continue to fight for a better America– make America live up to its ideals and all of that. When folks who come here do that then you have to accept that you’re doing it on the backs of those original sins that this Empire has committed and it continues. Empire is not just something that happened in the past. It is a daily continuing thing that just goes on…
So we’re Palestine here as well, and we got to figure out how to get this madness off of us and into the dust bin of History.
Eric: thank you thank you for sharing that. Ray, do you yeah have any views on that?
Ray: Yeah I’m pumped about it too, about the the student movement that we’ve seen rise and it’s a really solid example of international solidarity. I like the cross-pollination of it with this, like Ashanti mentioned, it’s not just students. It’s interestingly enough tied into labor because in the California University system and some of the other big University Systems, a lot of those who have joined the campus demonstrations are actually union members on campus and then you got community people also, and I think that’s important. And of course, it is student leadership and students have have had a historic role in this country, in other countries in terms of social change and challenging the system…
It’s a spark and it could be built on, and I’m hoping and cautiously optimistic that they will continue to build on it. It’s a training ground for the future and the last point is that the seed is there in a lot of the Palestine work that’s going on now for longterm solidarity…
Eric: Do either of you two have have an opinion on what could be done to change or get rid of the prison system in America? Ray, I don’t know if you believe in full abolition. I don’t know where you stand on that, but you have an opinion.
Ray: This is a multistep thing… The fact is if you want to get to get rid of this Gulag as it exists in the United States of America today it requires system change. I’m an abolitionist. It’s an ideal of mine. But how do you do that? I’ve been seeing a lot of problems and issues rising up among the prison abolition thing, and the police abolition thing. I actually was involved in a panel discussion around security abolition, which is get rid of the FBI and the CIA and all the rest of it. I didn’t initiate it–I was asked to speak at it. You’re not going to do that without smashing capitalism, uprooting white supremacy…
Think local and act Global. I’ve been involved in prison work against mass incarceration, solitary confinement stuff for years in Maine… a little local project here in a place like Maine in Penobscot County, here, Wabanaki land, of course, they’re going to name a jail after a Native American word Penobscot. They should put on the outside on that that’s because disproportionately [high] number of Native Americans are inside their jail. They want to double the size of that jail. They want to build a new jail twice the size of the one they got now. Five years ago they came up with an architectural plan to do exactly that, but it requires they need the money which requires it goes to referendum. The county voters going to vote on it. We tore that plan apart… Every plan they put up, we have stopped and now we’re in year number five.
The point is how can you do anything about the largest prison system in the world or talk really realistically about abolition if you cannot stop this expansion of it–larger prisons, larger jails…
The architect that built Marion prison back in 1963 I think it was–the replacement for Alcatraz–is one of the architects on the bid to double the size of this new jail right here in my neighborhood over a half century later. These motherfuckers have been sucking all this money up, building–what kind of resume is that? But if you go on their website and look, they got all the nonprofit industrial complex rhetoric down flat. They say they’re going to have trauma sensitive cells and all that. But the point is it’s a small project but you take that and you amplify and multiply. If every little town, every small city was able to do the same thing, we could make some headway into turning. I think that’s just a a practical step that is almost a prerequisite step as part of moving towards abolition.
Eric: Thank you. Ashanti, do you have a view on this?
Ashanti: I’m definitely an abolitionist. I have some concerns, but I’m going to just tie it into this and not really get too deep into it. Like many things, this system has the ability to co-opt, regurgitate and spit something else back out to us, as if it was their idea, and I think that has been happening. And I think other abolitionists who have been developing this for years see the same thing, that this thing with abolitionist getting distorted and watered down to the point where you got many people who will use the word abolition where they abolitionist, you know, defund the police and all that other stuff.
I’m not really that big on the defund the police because I think that doesn’t show any understanding of the role of the police–that they ain’t gonna stand around like “oh you going to take our job from us.” No no no, “we’re Killers, we’re Shooters, we control you. That’s our job.” No, I think people can be kind of naive.
I am more for tying abolition into real Grassroots organizing that people can see the need to take back their lives. I like the initiative coming from The People’s Senate, which which is putting forth the Spirit of Mandela, a sort of dual power possibility of people developing the capacities to develop their own power in opposition to the white supremacist capitalist powers that be. I really like Dhoruba bin Wahad’s idea that he’s been pushing in terms of developing a united front against fascism, as we tried back in the days of fascism. And I think what is so key about that is that Dhoruba is very analytical and pointed into the role of the technologies of political control. He’s trying to get people to see the role of the police in a much broader picture that we need to get ready for.
And so I would encourage people–you can go to the uh the Spirit of Mandela website. You can even–if you put in united front against fascism, put Dhoruba’s name in there you’ll see where he has the conversation with Jill Stein and Cornell West. Both have a united front aspect and both want to reach masses of people from different communities, from different perspectives, but to be clear about how we need to focus on the role of them Frontline forces who are going to always be there to prevent us from developing this capacity to transform this madness…
Can we stay focused on the need to bring this Empire down as even the best way to help [against] the genocides that’s going on in Palestine and in Africa and other different places. But we don’t really talk about the genocides in Africa as much but those of us out of the Black Liberation struggle…
Like Che Guevara would say, “we’re in the brain of this Empire.” I say let’s get that aneurism going. Bring this thing down so that the role that the United States Empire plays in world oppressions can be disrupted and to help other people to develop the spaces in other countries and other struggles to free themselves.
I’m more concerned with a lot of the Abolitionist rhetoric today and a lot of people that are coming to the fore. There’s no deep class analysis; there’s no deep race analysis; there’s no idea of a settler Colonial situation here. And without them things, then you really talking about “I want to make America live up to its ideals.” And I don’t want to make America live up to its ideals because this is the ideal, regardless of its rhetoric. What we see now is the best that it can do and the best that it wants to do. We deserve better.
Eric: This is going to be our last question here. Ray and Ashanti, if either of you two have any projects you’re working on that you want to talk about, any things you just want to get off your chest or just get out there, I ask you to please take this time to do that now.
Ashanti: Right, I want to make sure to mention the work of Jericho, [supporting] political prisoners–I mean really, we got to be there for folks that take chances, take them risks. Tortuguita in the Cop City thing in Atlanta, was he expecting to die on that day? No. Was all those people expecting to get arrested under new versions of RICO? No. And Martin Luther King, how many times was he arrested? We have to be more real about that.
The other thing that I want to say is I’m an anarchist. So all of you folks out there who are anarchists, I feel we got a lot to offer and I feel like man we need to start talking more and being able to have more of a presence and input into shaping these struggles as they unfold and so I’m asking y’all–let’s figure out how to make that happen.
Eric: Thank you. Ray?
Ray: …I’ll just leave it with a little Parable… I’ve lived and operated in huge cities for a long time, but what I say a lot of times to people that live in less populated areas: there are many of us in small towns, suburbs, small cities. Speaking with people, they raise a lot of issues about, you know, you can say “united front against fascism” sounds good, but how do we get from here to there? You can identify the problem fairly easily: smash capitalism, imperialism and white supremacy and you’re off in the right direction. But how do you get there?
So without coming down a party line. I don’t represent a particular sectarian party, so coming from a working background, I made my living as a carpenter. Until I got old and retired, I made my living as a carpenter, not a hugely skilled carpenter. I’m a frame carpenter, but that means I can build it from bottom to top and when a dude hired me on the job, I was trying to get any kind of job I can because I was on parole and I needed a job. I needed money. So I said, “I’ll be carpenter’s helper” because I didn’t have any skill at all. And he says we don’t want carpenter’s helpers. Everybody is a carpenter, just different skill levels. And he gave me some advice that I’ve extrapolated for use in political organizing and advocacy.
He says, “how many people can just go out there and build a house? It would be overwhelming for the average person.”… He says “don’t try to build a house until you built a shed first.” And I live in the country. I’ve built quite a few sheds, among other things as unskilled as I was. Before I developed those skills, I built a shed, because to build a shed requires the same basic principles and blueprint as building a house…
So take that and put it into Community organizing terms: don’t be overwhelmed. We’re going to build a united front against fascism. You want to deal with white supremacy, you want to deal with Palestine, start with what you’ve got to work with. Build a shed first, get a program going, get us a few people together, get things started and I first got a taste of that because I was with a group that patterned ourselves to a degree after the Black Panther Party, although we were predominantly white, but we took seriously the survival programs that the the Panthers did. You had to start smaller to get people involved in working on their own to see that to get
to a higher level survival ending with Revolution without giving up your politics. So that’s that’s my hard suggestion.Eric: So as everyone who talks to me on social media knows, what I always always leave people with is please write a prisoner. Please write a prisoner, whether they’re a political prisoner, a social prisoner, whether they’re in the lower custody level or the highest custody level. Please write someone inside. Please start a project with those inside. See what you can do to help them and help make their time and their comrades’ time inside better.
Ashanti, brother, I thank you so much. Ray, thank you so much. It was a real honor talking to both of you.
#AnarchistPrisoners #ashantiAlston #bla #ericKing #internationalSolidarity #northAmerica #palestine #PoliticalPrisoners #rayLucLevasseur
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Eric King, Ashanti Alston, and Ray Luc Levasseur—all contributors to “Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners”—discuss their experiences with imprisonment, education behind bars, organizing with fellow inmates, and the ongoing importance of international solidarity with captured revolutionaries.
The following is a selection of the transcription from the full video conversation.
Eric King: So both of you did over a decade in prison. Ray, you did you did two decades during that time. How are you able to maintain or be a part of the struggle–either the struggle inside the prison or the struggle that you were a part of that landed you in prison–how were you able to continue and maintain that struggle if you were?
Ashanti Alston: Well, inside when we were captured in New Haven, Connecticut, there was support groups that was there for us from New York, even ones that I have been a part of and others, but at a certain point I’m underground and some of those same folks when we was in New Haven going to trial that them same defense committees was there for us during the trial and there was one local group in New Haven, which was actually a Trotskyist group that was there for us and they were really solid, really consistent, really great, and also they were the first ones to give me a much better understanding of what it was to be a Trotskyist in the movement because I think I kind of brushed it off because as the the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, sometimes you don’t really question why do we got this thing with the Trotskyists, why is that anyhow, but they were really solid and really great supporters.
So inside, those support groups, defense groups all also help to keep you in touch with family; they would, if the family needed help to come up to see me, they would help with that process. The letter writings at that time was like really really important because, though our minds at the time during the trial was still ‘we ain’t really trying to here for the process of this trial.’ We really are looking for avenues out, but you got to kind of deal with both reality, both possibilities. You might have to do this trial and get sent or you might find an opening and you’re out of there. They provided that link that kept us hopeful with the course of the struggle.
I think I could say that folks were still carrying on the struggle in our particular case because we were captured in the midst of this expropriation. We had no illusions about getting acquitted. We were fortunate enough to have good lawyers who volunteered their services and two of them, David Rosen and Ed Dolan were also part of Erica Huggins’ and Bobby Seale’s legal defense team and so they just contacted us and said, “Hey, we’re here for you if you want it. We’re here to to defend you.” And we were like, “Well, right on.” And there was another lawyer John Williams, who also had politics.
We knew that this this was going to be a political trial, but during this time our our minds was still ‘we’re at war.’ The process of this trial was just almost like a distraction and it was the connection with the defense committees–the New York ones, the New Haven ones, and there was not a lot of support, but it still kept us connected.
We wasn’t able to get out after a few attempts. We get sentenced–it was federal charges and state charges. So for the bank expropriation, it was a five to 25 year sentence and then for because it was the shootout and two cops got hurt, it was 10 to 20 for that. And after that, they kept us separated. We was never to be in the same prison anywhere again except towards the end and in summers when one of my comrades was transferred there and for a brief period of time I had made parole, we was there at least for several months together.
What I wanted to bring up is that because our minds is still at war, I studied, I trained. My comrades studied, trained, because we had the examples of stories from Huey P. Newton and in prison, we had the stories of George Jackson, so it was almost like if you’re in the cell and here comes the guard, just making his regular rounds, we might just to to play with him pop down on the floor we knocking out 20 push-ups or whatever. Otherwise, we’re doing all the other things because we want to stay ready, that whole Stay Ready mentality. It was not depressing for me. I didn’t go through no depression. It was just the ready mentality.
I read all the time, so going off to prison, the first stop was Oxford, Wisconsin. That was the first one they sent me to because I had to do the federal time first. One of my comrades comes there, who’s down in prison in Georgia now, Kamau Sadiki. It was one of the first times that me and another comrade from the BLA was in the same prison. Same mentality we had: War. We got a brother that’s training us in kung fu and everything else and we got to do it secretly cuz you can’t do it in the open. The guards don’t play that stuff, you know.
Then, I had put in for a transfer to Lewisburg prison and eventually, I got transferred to Lewisburg because it was at least, it was the closest to home. So, Lewisburg was was one of the major maximum prisons, federal prisons, serious place, and I’m a young guy and there was a few other guys in there. We’re young, but there’s a collective there and what the collective does [is] you come into the collective of comrades from different formations, and you’re studying, you’re training, you got other folks in there, prisoners who want to be a part of that kind of revolutionary consciousness raising stuff. It’s like an easy connection still at the time because this is the mid to going into the late ’70s, so still, how can we get out of this big prison with these tall walls and everything?
Support groups kept us connected to the movements, but I will say over and over, it wasn’t like we got letters from a lot of people like the national Jericho movement and other groups will have letter writing nights and all that. We didn’t get that. We wasn’t getting money for commissary. We was just facing this situation, doing this time, looking for openings to get out. But I learned a lot there. I read and even all the times I was in and out of segregation, I’m like, “you can put me in, just give me my books.” Now, I’m reading and I’m interacting with others.
This is when I’m beginning to read the radical psychologies, the feminisms. I’m beginning to read the more in-depth histories of different struggles, like the Irish Freedom struggles with the IRA and the Philippine Hukbalahap and all this stuff, and even more in-depth Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, because comrades was still able to get books and things in, so there was books always floating around, so I’m also learning in this environment. I don’t give a damn that it’s in prison, and Sundiata Acoli would when we used to correspond–wasn’t supposed to, but we did–he would say, “turn that prison into University.” Yes, it’s all about preparing you for getting out. So that was my experience there.
But the repression inside the prison got to be really bad. This particularly fascist warden came in at a certain point. He was clamping down on a lot of stuff and I worked industry with others at the time and some things happen in industry like industry caught on fire a few times. Hey, by chance, you know, by chance. That’s what I say. But who did they come after? They came after me, a few other comrades, those others who was jailhouse lawyers. Next thing I know they swooping us up, we on the bus on our way to Marion, Illinois.
At Marion who’s one of the first persons we see who’s in general population, but they walking us to segregation uh it’s Rafael Miranda of the Puerto Rican independentistas. He’s letting us know that they already know that we’re on our way there. They had already got the word through the grapevine. Herman Bell was there, other comrades who may not be known… because Marion took the place of Alcatraz. This was supposed to be the most escape-proof prison at the time and it was so electronic…
Those political prisoners and politicized prisoners had one of the most fantastic libraries, so again I’m learning. I’m increasing my understandings of struggle and the anti-authoritarian aspects, the anarchist aspects and moving closer in that direction. I still had connection through the defense committees on some of the movements that was going on, but those numbers were dwindling because they were getting hit with a lot of repression. Safiya [Bukhari, Ashanti’s wife] and others decided to go underground because there was these grand jury searches, trying to get them on different charges of supporting other actions to help free BLA folks or political prisoners, and so wasn’t a lot of letters, wasn’t all that stuff, but we know we’re soldiers. This is what we gonna do.
From there, some of us was like the word was don’t accept general population and so some of us decide to stay in seg to force them to transfer us and they ended up transferring some of us to Lompoc, California. Who was amongst that group? Leonard Peltier… Curly Raul Estremera from the BLA, Puerto Rican BLA and others. So here we are now. Lompoc was just in the process of transferring from medium security to maximum and it was kind of a modernist place and it had fences, but they hadn’t had all the concertina wire up yet, so here we are all doing all this time. We like “man, we got to hit this fence before they get all this concertina wire up,” but in the process, we are meeting other folks, supporters from the outside and especially at this time, some revolutionary groups in California. One was called the Wellspring Collective or Tribal Thumb, which was a very anti-authoritarian group and so they would come up to visit.
So it’s like more and more I am learning different ways that people struggle and are trying to carry it on in that California area, because a lot of them politicized prisoners who was with George or out of them circles were coming out also and getting involved with grassroots organizing. So I feel like that’s always my prison experience. I gotta learn, I gotta be ready and I gotta make sure that I’m interacting with folks who are still carrying us on or figuring out ways to keep the momentum and and many of us was on that same page.
And so then Connecticut and eventually I get parole to the Connecticut state prison and I finished the second half of my sentence there and eventually get out.
Eric: Perfect, thank you, also you mentioned Tribal Thumb and someone I look up to, Bill Dunne was a member of Tribal Thumb.
Ashanti: Just to say about Bill Dunne, I believe that part of the reason he got captured, recaptured was because we needed him to help us. And so there’s a special part of me that’s always for him because, of course, he made a sacrifice for the people.
Eric: And for the people listening, if you’d like to write Bill Dunne, he is currently at the medical facility in FCI Butner.
Ray, would you like to touch on that same topic about how you maintain struggle both or either inside or outside of those movements?
Ray Luc Levasseur: Well, first of all, Bill Dunne, it would be very nice if people could write to him at Butner. I just got a letter from him a few weeks ago. He’s struggling with health issues, but he’s he’s still got the same strong spirit and good sense of humor he always has but he needs a little support, lots of support.
Briefly, we’re talking one struggle here, two parts of it, inside and outside. And I’ve always found it interesting the political prisoners on the inside always gravitate to each other no matter which movement or which organizations they come from, while the support organizations on the street seem to do a lot more squabbling with each other and can’t seem to deal with all the obstacles they need to to form a more united front around political prisoners.
Briefly, my first experience in Tennessee pen and in Brushy Mountain–it was my first prison experience and I had been politically active before I went in Southern Student Organizing Committee, but hadn’t been in the movement that long and so my my support network wasn’t that strong initially. I was able to get books and correspond with people and this is very helpful and like Ashanti pointed, political education inside, but right from the get go, we had a food strike over conditions at the county jail and what was particularly interesting and and pertinent about that was you had white and black prisoners and you had to overcome that racial barrier to get everybody together on the same page and go and strike over these conditions.
So I presented the demands–we threw all our food back out, made a mess and wouldn’t eat and the Goon Squad comes up, the whole deal. I got the demands ready: they have to improve the food and the medical care, which was basically non-existent and they dragged me out the next day to the courthouse and got me a force transfer to State Penitentiary and Nashville. Every joint I’ve been in has been either Max or super Max and right away, I got a jacket and that jacket follows me through the rest of my time in the Tennessee prisons and it shows up again many years later for the next 20 years in the federal prisons.
What my jacket says is “he’s a troublemaker, he’s a radical, and he’s a racial agitator.” That they stuck on me after I got to to Nashville, but the seeds for that was in the food strike because the most radical thing I did and could be done when I got to the state penitentary was cross the color line. It was basically Jim Crow. Those are the exact words they put in my jacket: “he’s a racial agitator.” Why is this guy trying to bring people together? As if there’s something wrong here because prison systems are notorious for keeping people divided on racial lines so cross crossing that racial line is what I did as a matter of principle as already a practicing anti-racist in my time with SSOC.
Then, they stuck me on death row to get me off the compound. I was actually on death row. They had several cells for miscreant that they considered real troublemakers from the population. They put me there. I was in there with brothers from Memphis who gave me an education about white supremacy and killer cops I will never forget. You know, learning is a two-way street inside and we were doing political education.
So then, they sent me to Brushy, which was a connection to the old convict leasing system. I got there in 1970. If I got there in 1965, I would have been mining coal. In 1970, it was a Super Max, one of the early super Maxes, so we were locked up almost all the time they cut off all books, all newspapers, no phone calls, very restricted correspondence: immediate family, lawyer, clergy. And that was another racist place, every single guard in Brushy Mountain–this is in East Tennessee Mountains–was white. Half the prisoners there were black. They moved death row and me there at the same time and most of the prisoners on death row were black and I literally had to fight my way out of that place. I used to tell people I’m a Vietnam vet. I was in a war before I ever got to this War. I was in a foreign war. I’m a veteran of foreign and domestic Wars because it was a battle to get out of there.
Fast forward: I gotta do 20 years here in the feds, most of it was at Marion and ADX. You know about those places. About 13 years of it in some kind of isolation or solitary confinement…
I had to write,that was the key: a pencil, a pen. It became enormously important for me, my codefendants and I like to think of making a contribution to the ongoing struggles on the streets. I wrote prolifically for quite a long time. I wrote one of the first really published widely spread article outside of mainstream media about ADX in prison legal news. So disarmed from whatever you armed yourself with on the street, you know, it changes inside and I was fortunate that we had supporters on the street–this is pre-internet and everything–to take those writings and developments concerning us and amplify and widely distributed it as much as possible… So this was an important Network and was an important method for me to communicate. For Leonard Peltier or Oscar Lopez it was art. Tom Manning: art. There’s different ways it can be done. With Marilyn [Buck]: poetry. There’s any number of ways that you have to keep your spirit and your politics alive and relevant somehow and that was the way I did it.
I think the most important action we took as political prisoners during my time at Marion was we we did a work refusal. They had it set up where they would not release you from Marion until you went to a pre-transfer unit that made military hardware. And we drew the line and said we will not do that as a condition for a transfer to somewhere else because we weren’t there on disciplinary charges. They had just sent us there because of our jackets. We were all radical and so we refused it. Me, Tom Manning, Mutulu Shakur, Oscar Lopez Rivera and others, we refused and then we end up in ADX.
I want to just reiterate what Ashanti said through all this is study, political education, physical conditioning and the one time of year that I always see that happen when I was inside and I got out is in August. And I did it with Mutulu and the other conscious Brothers before I left–we commemorate Black August throughout the prison system, state or federal, which involves fasting, which involves political education, which involves physical exercise, as much as you can do it together. It’s commemorating the sacrifices of those Black Freedom Fighters like George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson and others before them and after them and it continues to this day.
Eric: In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, we saw more direct action. We saw bank appropriations, we saw people putting their freedom on the line for the Liberation struggle. Why do you think that is banished? Why do you think we do not see that sort of militant action anymore?
Ashanti: It’s a question that is always on my mind and so to try to explain why it’s always on my mind, the ’60s and ’70s, I still feel like, man, that was such a period for me to come of age, joining the Black Panther Party. It was such a time to be alive, it was just in so many ways magical. It’s like you didn’t have all the distractions. You saw that the Civil Rights Movement was getting beat down. You could turn on that television; it wasn’t but maybe six channels on that television. You’re going to see what these fascists are doing to the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement. But it’s also the point where Black Power is coming into being. Stokeley Carmichael’s voice, H. Rap Brown [AKA] Jamil al-Amin, who’s now still in prison. They were raising more of the Malcolm X spirit in the sense of “we want to be free.” Black power also was directing us towards what does self-determination look like, how might we actually take over our communities, the institutions, etc. It gave more of a concrete picture of what are we fighting for here and not integration.
So here also now we beginning to explore socialism, communism and the Panther Party, having to read Karl Marx and and then Frantz Fanon and all these other folks. It made us see more of the reality of this monster we’re facing, that it could not be changed. It could not be even modified. This monster has to be challenged and we have to build the kind of revolutionary movements that can like George Jackson say, bring it to its knees and I don’t know how that sounds to other people, but when you know your history, when you know what this country on the back of Turtle Island did to indigenous Nations, what it has and continues to do, what it did to African people and continues to do, what it had did to the Mexicans and others who come here. This is not something you try to reform. So you see the necessity, even us as teenagers, of fighting this, develop the capacity to fight.
The great thing about the Panther Party was that you know that fight took the form of survival programs as well as Liberation schools. The survival programs were so key because it was pretty much telling people that we can feed ourselves. The free health clinics was basically saying we can take care of our own health issues. The political education classes was like if the schools are not going to teach us what we really need to know then we need to do that. That was that self-determination nationalist attitude. When we talk about Nat Turner and all the other folks, we knew that there were those who did fight back by any means necessary.
And it’s the same thing with the guy now that speaks on Palestine a lot, Norman Finklestein, the thing he brings up about the Nat Turner rebellion and he says clearly, that was a pretty vicious thing, but it was an act of rebellion and an act of necessity, and he went to what the Abolitionist Movement leaders were putting out in their papers and in their talks to give it some perspective and and basically, what the Abolitionist Movement was telling people was, “we told you things like this were going to happen because you have these people enslaved.” So Norman Finklestein was comparing it to the open air prison, Palestine, Gaza and, that was what we were trying to get across also. Don’t call us crazy because we are trying to develop the capacity to be free, which will mean that we have got to confront this monster with all means necessary.
The Panther Party, I feel, came closest to to bringing that into fruition because it started off Black Panther Party for self-defense, but also in its growing process understood this aspect of armed struggle and we need to defend our communities and then we we don’t need to rely on the police to do it because clearly the police is an occupying force. That language at the time was so key. When when Eldridge Cleaver and them talked about this being an internal colony and we’re inside the mother country, he was giving us a way to see what this settler colonialism was and also see our struggle on a much broader level compared with the African Liberation movements, the Liberation movements coming out of Asia, the Revolutionary struggles even in Germany and Japan and other places.
Those of us in the in the Panther Party who went underground, we had always understood that we have to develop the capacity to defend ourselves. Who do we come up against is all those Bourgeois Negroes and others who want to stay connected to the monster and want to convince our people “do not follow them crazy people, stay with the monster, they’re going to give us a few trinkets, they’re going to give us a little bit more.”
Let me tell you what happened quickly after the rebellion in my hometown. This is ’67, this is what pretty much brought me into the movement. I’m like 13, 14 years old. The rebellion in Planfield when black folks took over the black community because they went and got crates of M1 rifles, they was able to hold it for a week. 13, 14 year old Ashanti was like “oh my God.” This is blowing my mind that we are able to do this. But then after the National Guard came in with the tanks and took it over, the first thing that the city government did once they was contained, was to put some swimming pools in the playgrounds and they called that, you know, “y’all should be satisfied with that.” Now Plainfield ain’t been right since.
To this day, even with afterwards, black Mayors, it ain’t been right since because we could not hold that self-determination, that black power perspective because of how that black middle class wanted to just fit in. They wanted to integrate. The lesson we should know from that is that we can’t integrate into this poisonous monstrous Empire. We have really got to figure out that the way forward is to cut it loose. Cut it loose in every way we can.
Eric: Thank you! Shout out to Plainfield. Ray Luc, do you have an opinion or a thought on why this generation—particularly with what’s going on— why we’ve seen such a decrease in militant action or direct action compared to when you guys were comin’ up?
Ray Luc: You know, I agree a lot with what Ashanti said about time, place, conditions. During our early political activist years, it was a much different time in the world. You know, Che said, “1, 2, 3, many Vietnams” and I come out of Vietnam, you know—that seemed like a real possibility.
And, Ashanti, you were talking about 1967; you know, I was in Vietnam in 1967. We got an old Life magazine over there, you know— a very popular American weekly at the time— and it showed pictures of Detroit at the 1967 rebellion. And I saw that when I was in ‘Nam, and I’d done a lot of flying in helicopters, and, you know, the devastation that I saw in the pages of Life magazine looked similar to what I was seeing in parts of Vietnam.
And so I went up to Detroit to look at it myself, after I got back (I was stationed at Fort Campbell.), and I could see there was a real war going on here, too.
When I got out in 2004, one of the things I noticed about the general climate is I felt people were fearful. There was a level of, you know— this was following 9/11, and I was inside during 9/11. But there was this sense of, people has a sense of fear, insecurity, anxiety that I hadn’t sensed twenty years earlier, when I went in. And, it is a real challenge.
I mean, when I’m involved in Palestine work right now, mainly what I’m seeing is certainly a lot of energy has been generated around supporting Palestine. Some for different reasons among different people, but there’s real potential there for this…This movement that’s happening around this country right now to develop to the level it was around South Africa 25 years ago. But that is an exception, and I don’t have a firm answer for what you’re saying. One of the questions I used to get a lot over the years—not so much anymore, but did— it indicates why people were thinking different than they were, you know, decades earlier. There’s a sense about people, you know, that they were kind of overwhelmed by the power of the system, you know? They would say, “How can you challenge something like this? It seems that everything we do or try doesn’t get anywhere.” Because it’s too big, it’s too powerful.
And, the other one was about sacrifice. If you go up against the system, there are consequences.
Eric: Serious consequences.
Ray Luc: You know, we here, on this panel right now are demonstrating what some of those consequences are, but there’s a lot of other consequences. I’ve heard you, Eric, talk about an organization I’ve been very involved with, which is Rosenberg Fund for Children.
Eric: Love ‘em!
Ray: This is an organization that supports children of political prisoners— and if you go and you look at the parents with these children, the activists, how many different ways government can make you pay for your activism. Whether you’re an immigration activist, a climate activist, an antifascist activist…And at different levels of activism, depending on where you are, you know—there’s other factors—but it’s a whole lot of people that are paying a price for their activism and it scares a lot of people.
Eric: Thank you! Thank you so much. Ashanti, you wanted us to come back to you? You had a follow-up?
Ashanti: ….What I had wanted to get back to around here is the difference between then and now. I do think fear is a big, big part, ’cause I think that once they had captured a lot of us, what was put in place— not only the more militarized police but on a cultural level, television has beaucoup cop shows! Beaucoup cop shows that they had millions and millions of people what would watch every week. Because in the cop shows, the cops always got the “criminal.” And, in many instances, the criminals was folks like me and Ray. Right?
Eric: Right, right.
Ashanti: And people were getting convinced, just like they captured us: “Don’t you try to do the same thing, ’cause we’ll get you, too. You cannot escape us.” Because when I went in in ’74, and when I got out at the end of ’85 and I’m living with my lawyer until he could work it out, my lawyer had a close relationship with a lot of black high school students, in New Haven, that had basketball skills…
But one of the young high-school students— ’cause he was being around the legal office— and just out of curiosity, I asked him, “What do you know about the Black Panther Party?” And he asked me, was it a martial arts group? Which helped me to understand what our enemy does in order to recoup, to recover from that revolutionary period that we kinda, like, was on the edge—
Eric: So close!
Ashanti: …Of revolution, and it felt like in so many ways. They know what they’re doing! And so, on the militarized level, and on that cultural level, they was recouping. And not to rule out, also, the influx of drugs into the community around the same time, too! ‘Cause when many of us got out, we saw the proliferation of street organizations that was involved with this murderous drug game? Oh, it made our job, ooooh— this is WAY more than we know how to handle. WAY more. So, all of these things are still with us today. That’s why I wanted to get back to that, because we talked about today. There’s real, legitimate reasons, but we still gotta figure out how to confront the fear.
Because if we don’t, they continue. I don’t wanna hear all that talk about, you know, the Empire is on its last legs; I get tired of that. People make predictions and all that shit. No! And, if it is, who’s going to be the ones who’s really going to suffer, if it really feels it, it’s gonna hit us at the bottom, and we gotta figure out how to still organize…
Eric: Yeah!
Ashanti: …against these things, on multi-dimensional levels, because the trauma— just like what the Palestinians is going through now.
Eric: We’re gonna get to that!
Ashanti: You know, the trauma, and it’s intergenerational, and it’s ongoing.
Ray: Can I just add one quick thing? You know, people are more likely to set up, and do, enter various types of activism around various issues— all of which is needed, that’s clear! Hasn’t been long since we saw all these huge Black Lives Matter demonstrations, right? A good example of what I’m talking about with how the system operates and what we need to do to stop Cop City, alright? We’re talking about intimidating people…
If we—Ashanti knows this, ’cause we’ve been doing this work for decades— if we don’t support the activists who are jailed and imprisoned, then we’re not worth shit. ‘Cause every movement that has succeeded in challenging the System and making some advance are those movements that have supported their prisoners.
People who get locked up, you know? You make a sacrifice, you know— You could lose your life, you know? Or you can be imprisoned. Or you can suffer some other consequences, as I mentioned earlier.
And all you’ve gotta do is…You’re talking about the struggle in Palestine? They don’t forget their prisoners in Palestine! Anyone who’s following the struggle in Palestine…And they never have! For real! And that’s part of what makes their movement and spirit so strong. And if you look at the Irish independent struggle, same thing.
If you look at South Africa, in the anti-apartheid years, Nelson Mandela, there was a lot of others. There was ANC or PAC, they didn’t leave their prisoners behind. They kept support networks going for them. They didn’t abandon them.
It’s been a constant struggle in this country to get recognition of political prisoners and, activists who get jailed, to don’t let them get abandoned. And what [they’re trying to do with] Stop Cop City is, “You’d better abandon them, or we’re gonna have your ass, too, next!”
You know, I know Stop Cop City defendants here in Maine, and I can tell you that, after talking with him in depth a couple of times…He was pretty well shell-shocked when he came out of the RICO indictment against them.
We have another case going on right now, in southern New Hampshire: Three young women being charged with felonies for nothing but a little bit of vandalism at an Elbit plant in southern New Hampshire (Elbit being a major military supplier to Israel). You can’t let these people be forgotten. If people see that they get absolutely no support when they step up and do something, they’re gonna be less likely to stand. Doesn’t mean they don’t see the issue, they don’t think something needs to be done; but they’re concerned about what happens if they do it.
Eric: That’s a great point. Something that I think my generation— 30-to-40-year-olds— noticed is when the Green Scare happened, those people got smashed. They got smashed with sentences that my generation did not think still happened. And I think that scared a lot of people away. When you see the 15-to-30 range with Marius Mason and Eric McDavid, Jake Conroy, all those guys— all those people…
So I wanna switch base real quick and jump to what’s happening right now on college campuses that we’re seeing— and that is, college kids comin’ together, making encampments, and facing extreme police responses, in some cases. Here in Denver, my boss, Zeke Williams, is— and our co-director of our legal firm, Claire— both were arrested just for being at an encampment! Just for showing up to support the students.
So, I was wondering if either of you two had views or had opinions on the positive aspects of the Palestinian movement, where we’re lacking, or anything in between that you would like to talk about?
Ashanti: Yeah. Well, one, I’ma tell you, I haven’t been this excited in a long time-
Eric: Shit’s happening!
Ashanti: -with the support that’s been coming out for the Palestinian people, the Palestinian nation, occupied Palestine. I think what has surprised me so much about it is not only the protests, but especially the, I’ma say “white Jews”— mainly young Jews, but I know there are supporters across the board— who are disconnecting Zionism from Judaism.
Eric: Breaking off that propaganda, not letting it get through.
Ashanti: Who would’ve thought? I mean, who would’ve thought? You know, because the Zionism in the United States is really strong! That hold on that, that consciousness is really strong. And to see these young folks challengin’ that— and older folks, too, I’ve been really watching— It warms my heart. Right?
So they’re comin’ out, and, this is antiwar! You know, when one says “anti-genocide,” it’s because of that war, the genocide war on the Palestinian people, you know?
So it’s at a great time…My fears is, is it going to be syphoned off into this presidential election? Right? And if all these folks who are against genocide and for the Palestinian people to be free, to be liberated, you know, does the act stop there?
You know, one of the things I kinda felt goin’ on in the antiwar movement back in the day was that once that war kind of concluded, there were still issues that we were fighting for. Black folks fighting for liberation, Indigenous folks fighting for sovereignty, Puerto Ricans fighting for independence, you know, Chicanos fighting for liberation of Atzlán, the workers are fighting, the women are fighting. Does it stop there? And that’s my concern that this what we’re doing for Palestine–we should see it as we have our Palestine here, yes, in this Empire that’s on the back of Turtle Island.
I’m really excited about one of the books I’m almost finished with now, Mohamed Abdou’s book Islam and Anarchy. It’s a really great really great book, whose author Mohamed Abdou I’ve known for like 20 years and I think he’s been working on this this book for 20 years… He’s an African Anarchist from Egypt, so he’s got the experience of the so-called Arab Spring. He lived in Canada, so he has that experience of developing deep relationship with the struggles there, particularly the indigenous struggles and connected with struggles here as well, so he’s on the ground. He’s not really the academic only guy. He is really a revolutionary, he’s really an anarchist.
The thing that he brings up that I think is key for folks now–not only those who are are Jews, but those who are immigrants–here he brings up a a term he uses is Settlers of color are those immigrants who come here looking for a better life, but they buy into Empire and so I think one things that can help this expression of massive resistance now in the United States is that there’s got to be a Consciousness that deepens around that this is Turtle Island and there’s still a a struggle going on here. There is African people who were brought here enslaved and if this Consciousness is not there then people will continue to fight for a better America– make America live up to its ideals and all of that. When folks who come here do that then you have to accept that you’re doing it on the backs of those original sins that this Empire has committed and it continues. Empire is not just something that happened in the past. It is a daily continuing thing that just goes on…
So we’re Palestine here as well, and we got to figure out how to get this madness off of us and into the dust bin of History.
Eric: thank you thank you for sharing that. Ray, do you yeah have any views on that?
Ray: Yeah I’m pumped about it too, about the the student movement that we’ve seen rise and it’s a really solid example of international solidarity. I like the cross-pollination of it with this, like Ashanti mentioned, it’s not just students. It’s interestingly enough tied into labor because in the California University system and some of the other big University Systems, a lot of those who have joined the campus demonstrations are actually union members on campus and then you got community people also, and I think that’s important. And of course, it is student leadership and students have have had a historic role in this country, in other countries in terms of social change and challenging the system…
It’s a spark and it could be built on, and I’m hoping and cautiously optimistic that they will continue to build on it. It’s a training ground for the future and the last point is that the seed is there in a lot of the Palestine work that’s going on now for longterm solidarity…
Eric: Do either of you two have have an opinion on what could be done to change or get rid of the prison system in America? Ray, I don’t know if you believe in full abolition. I don’t know where you stand on that, but you have an opinion.
Ray: This is a multistep thing… The fact is if you want to get to get rid of this Gulag as it exists in the United States of America today it requires system change. I’m an abolitionist. It’s an ideal of mine. But how do you do that? I’ve been seeing a lot of problems and issues rising up among the prison abolition thing, and the police abolition thing. I actually was involved in a panel discussion around security abolition, which is get rid of the FBI and the CIA and all the rest of it. I didn’t initiate it–I was asked to speak at it. You’re not going to do that without smashing capitalism, uprooting white supremacy…
Think local and act Global. I’ve been involved in prison work against mass incarceration, solitary confinement stuff for years in Maine… a little local project here in a place like Maine in Penobscot County, here, Wabanaki land, of course, they’re going to name a jail after a Native American word Penobscot. They should put on the outside on that that’s because disproportionately [high] number of Native Americans are inside their jail. They want to double the size of that jail. They want to build a new jail twice the size of the one they got now. Five years ago they came up with an architectural plan to do exactly that, but it requires they need the money which requires it goes to referendum. The county voters going to vote on it. We tore that plan apart… Every plan they put up, we have stopped and now we’re in year number five.
The point is how can you do anything about the largest prison system in the world or talk really realistically about abolition if you cannot stop this expansion of it–larger prisons, larger jails…
The architect that built Marion prison back in 1963 I think it was–the replacement for Alcatraz–is one of the architects on the bid to double the size of this new jail right here in my neighborhood over a half century later. These motherfuckers have been sucking all this money up, building–what kind of resume is that? But if you go on their website and look, they got all the nonprofit industrial complex rhetoric down flat. They say they’re going to have trauma sensitive cells and all that. But the point is it’s a small project but you take that and you amplify and multiply. If every little town, every small city was able to do the same thing, we could make some headway into turning. I think that’s just a a practical step that is almost a prerequisite step as part of moving towards abolition.
Eric: Thank you. Ashanti, do you have a view on this?
Ashanti: I’m definitely an abolitionist. I have some concerns, but I’m going to just tie it into this and not really get too deep into it. Like many things, this system has the ability to co-opt, regurgitate and spit something else back out to us, as if it was their idea, and I think that has been happening. And I think other abolitionists who have been developing this for years see the same thing, that this thing with abolitionist getting distorted and watered down to the point where you got many people who will use the word abolition where they abolitionist, you know, defund the police and all that other stuff.
I’m not really that big on the defund the police because I think that doesn’t show any understanding of the role of the police–that they ain’t gonna stand around like “oh you going to take our job from us.” No no no, “we’re Killers, we’re Shooters, we control you. That’s our job.” No, I think people can be kind of naive.
I am more for tying abolition into real Grassroots organizing that people can see the need to take back their lives. I like the initiative coming from The People’s Senate, which which is putting forth the Spirit of Mandela, a sort of dual power possibility of people developing the capacities to develop their own power in opposition to the white supremacist capitalist powers that be. I really like Dhoruba bin Wahad’s idea that he’s been pushing in terms of developing a united front against fascism, as we tried back in the days of fascism. And I think what is so key about that is that Dhoruba is very analytical and pointed into the role of the technologies of political control. He’s trying to get people to see the role of the police in a much broader picture that we need to get ready for.
And so I would encourage people–you can go to the uh the Spirit of Mandela website. You can even–if you put in united front against fascism, put Dhoruba’s name in there you’ll see where he has the conversation with Jill Stein and Cornell West. Both have a united front aspect and both want to reach masses of people from different communities, from different perspectives, but to be clear about how we need to focus on the role of them Frontline forces who are going to always be there to prevent us from developing this capacity to transform this madness…
Can we stay focused on the need to bring this Empire down as even the best way to help [against] the genocides that’s going on in Palestine and in Africa and other different places. But we don’t really talk about the genocides in Africa as much but those of us out of the Black Liberation struggle…
Like Che Guevara would say, “we’re in the brain of this Empire.” I say let’s get that aneurism going. Bring this thing down so that the role that the United States Empire plays in world oppressions can be disrupted and to help other people to develop the spaces in other countries and other struggles to free themselves.
I’m more concerned with a lot of the Abolitionist rhetoric today and a lot of people that are coming to the fore. There’s no deep class analysis; there’s no deep race analysis; there’s no idea of a settler Colonial situation here. And without them things, then you really talking about “I want to make America live up to its ideals.” And I don’t want to make America live up to its ideals because this is the ideal, regardless of its rhetoric. What we see now is the best that it can do and the best that it wants to do. We deserve better.
Eric: This is going to be our last question here. Ray and Ashanti, if either of you two have any projects you’re working on that you want to talk about, any things you just want to get off your chest or just get out there, I ask you to please take this time to do that now.
Ashanti: Right, I want to make sure to mention the work of Jericho, [supporting] political prisoners–I mean really, we got to be there for folks that take chances, take them risks. Tortuguita in the Cop City thing in Atlanta, was he expecting to die on that day? No. Was all those people expecting to get arrested under new versions of RICO? No. And Martin Luther King, how many times was he arrested? We have to be more real about that.
The other thing that I want to say is I’m an anarchist. So all of you folks out there who are anarchists, I feel we got a lot to offer and I feel like man we need to start talking more and being able to have more of a presence and input into shaping these struggles as they unfold and so I’m asking y’all–let’s figure out how to make that happen.
Eric: Thank you. Ray?
Ray: …I’ll just leave it with a little Parable… I’ve lived and operated in huge cities for a long time, but what I say a lot of times to people that live in less populated areas: there are many of us in small towns, suburbs, small cities. Speaking with people, they raise a lot of issues about, you know, you can say “united front against fascism” sounds good, but how do we get from here to there? You can identify the problem fairly easily: smash capitalism, imperialism and white supremacy and you’re off in the right direction. But how do you get there?
So without coming down a party line. I don’t represent a particular sectarian party, so coming from a working background, I made my living as a carpenter. Until I got old and retired, I made my living as a carpenter, not a hugely skilled carpenter. I’m a frame carpenter, but that means I can build it from bottom to top and when a dude hired me on the job, I was trying to get any kind of job I can because I was on parole and I needed a job. I needed money. So I said, “I’ll be carpenter’s helper” because I didn’t have any skill at all. And he says we don’t want carpenter’s helpers. Everybody is a carpenter, just different skill levels. And he gave me some advice that I’ve extrapolated for use in political organizing and advocacy.
He says, “how many people can just go out there and build a house? It would be overwhelming for the average person.”… He says “don’t try to build a house until you built a shed first.” And I live in the country. I’ve built quite a few sheds, among other things as unskilled as I was. Before I developed those skills, I built a shed, because to build a shed requires the same basic principles and blueprint as building a house…
So take that and put it into Community organizing terms: don’t be overwhelmed. We’re going to build a united front against fascism. You want to deal with white supremacy, you want to deal with Palestine, start with what you’ve got to work with. Build a shed first, get a program going, get us a few people together, get things started and I first got a taste of that because I was with a group that patterned ourselves to a degree after the Black Panther Party, although we were predominantly white, but we took seriously the survival programs that the the Panthers did. You had to start smaller to get people involved in working on their own to see that to get
to a higher level survival ending with Revolution without giving up your politics. So that’s that’s my hard suggestion.Eric: So as everyone who talks to me on social media knows, what I always always leave people with is please write a prisoner. Please write a prisoner, whether they’re a political prisoner, a social prisoner, whether they’re in the lower custody level or the highest custody level. Please write someone inside. Please start a project with those inside. See what you can do to help them and help make their time and their comrades’ time inside better.
Ashanti, brother, I thank you so much. Ray, thank you so much. It was a real honor talking to both of you.
#AnarchistPrisoners #ashantiAlston #bla #ericKing #internationalSolidarity #northAmerica #palestine #PoliticalPrisoners #rayLucLevasseur
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – October 2025
Introduction
Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for checking out this new issue of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
My A1222+. Photo by Puni.If you are new to this series (hi, and welcome!), it’s essentially a summary that covers the previous month’s news related to the AmigaOS 4 platform.
This month, October, has been jam-packed with events and news, almost too much to keep up with! News is spread on many channels, so there is a lot to keep track of, but that is part of the fun, and the reason they end up in a roundup like this. 😉
Anyway, October has been a FANTASTIC month for the AmigaOS 4 community, I dare to state that. It will be hard to top this for a while, I think!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what October was like in the world of AmigaOS 4!
Software News
First up is ReSrc4 from René W. Olsen. This is a portable Amiga 68k hunk file disassembler. The source code is available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4
The archive can be fetched from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/resrc4.lha
Screenshot by PuniAmiBrixx is a puzzle game for the Amiga, ported from the PC version called Joemine. It was brought over by Joerg Renkert. Version 2.31 is now available for download from OS4Depot. It supports skins, which means that you can change how the game looks in many ways!
Screenshot by PuniIn a field of stacked stones, your target is to eliminate groups of stones of the same color. Thereby, the other stones will fall down and form new groups. The game ends when no more groups can be eliminated.
The game works very well, and I enjoyed testing it. I recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzle games like this!
Screenshot from an older version – By PuniVersion 35.31 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
The new version contains miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. To read more about this, or to download the game, please head over to OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=emulation/gamesystem/amiarcadia.lha
Screenshot lent from the website of Hyperion EntertainmentNow for some really big news… Are you ready? Hyperion Entertainment is back! Yes, they are back in full gear with a brand new update to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition! This time it is Update 3. Let us have a look at what this one has to offer us:
Brussels, Saturday, October 18, 2025
Hyperion Entertainment BV is proud to announce the release of Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Update 3 is a maintenance and stability update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and includes more than 60 new features, 70 updates, and over 135 bug fixes across the system.
Some of the most notable improvements include:
The TCP/IP stack Roadshow has been updated to version 1.15, which among many other things greatly improves network stability and speed.
New, updated kernels for the X5000, X1000, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Sam460, Sam440, and Classic Amiga systems, featuring upgraded cache handling and DMA operation on supported hardware.
An updated and improved USB stack which, among many other new features, performance improvements and bug fixes, now supports isochronous transfers for streaming devices.
An updated version of AmigaDOS with new features, enhancements, and numerous bug fixes.
An updated graphics library that now supports automatic detection of 4K/UHD monitors.
Updated versions of elf.library, intuition.library, and newlib.library, all featuring many new functions and bug fixes.
And many, many more new features, updates, and bug fixes.
Update 3 is available via AmiUpdate. Registered users can also download Update 3 from the download section at www.hyperion-entertainment.com.
Hyperion Entertainment would like to thank all the hardworking developers and testers for their dedication to this release. You keep the dream alive!
People who enjoy Minecraft and games similar to it should be happy to read that HunoPPC and the group titled “AOS4 fans from Mars” have brought ClassiCube to AmigaOS 4!
This is a custom Minecraft Classic-compatible client written in C from scratch. It aims to replicate the 2009 Minecraft Classic, while offering optional enhancements to improve the gameplay. Two versions are currently available for download: EGL_wrap and SPE. The SPE version is aimed at A1222+.
On the website of HunoPPC, you’ll find more information about the game, as well as downloads, and an option to support his work.
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/classicube-amigaos4-version-aos4-fans-mars-and-hunoppc
Here is a video of ClassiCube running on the A1222, courtesy of Mr Byte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTUC11uhBQ
HunoPPC has also released a new version of wipEout Rewrite Enhanced Fantômas Edition for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 1.0.6. For those of you not aware, this is basically a re-implementation of the classic Playstation 1 game wipEout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVwgkerqE
Changes are as follows:
Now working with Shaders, NORMAL or CRT mode
Fixed change resolution on live
Added shakers on shaders mode
Fixed opengl filter on shaders mode
Added 3D objects : Mouse, keyboard and joypad of WipeOut2097 datas
Added 1 letter of name saved on list of score
Added mouse support (W.I.P)
Saves prefs for ForceFeedback and mouse support added
Online scoresYou can find more information, as well as the download here:
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/wipeout-rewrite-enhanced-fant%C3%B4mas-edition-amigaos-41
Screenshot by PuniJuan Carlos Herrán Martín is an active software developer for platforms like AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS. We’ve seen many releases from him in the previous roundups. Now he has returned with a new version of the game, Los Malditos. It is a free adaptation of the mythical books from Timun Mas from the 1980s and 1990s. These books are related to Dungeons & Dragons. The author is a fan of these works. It is now available for download at OS4Depot.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=game/adventure/losmalditos.lha
Screenshot by PuniChanges for the new version is as follows:
The extended the story for the chapter 1, with new enemies and places to visit.
Removed bugs.
Rewrote the dialogues to better suit the personality of each hero/heroine.
New graphics and sounds.If you’d like to have a closer look at what goes on behind the curtains on AmigaOS 4, the utility called Snoopy will be an excellent choice. Created by Colin Wenzel, this is a SnoopDos like program that will reveal all kinds of information about what is happening when you run a program, for example.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/snoopy.lha
Screenshot by PuniA new version of the lightweight and powerful text editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.8r2.
The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.
Changes are as follows:
Added support for the GLSL language
Added the dragdropselected plugin
Added the tab_switcher plugin
Added the titleize plugin
Added the togglesnakecamel plugin
Added the typingspeed plugin
Added the unboundedscroll plugin
Added the wordcount pluginThe program is available for download from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/text/edit/litexl2.lha
George Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page is available here:
https://ko-fi.com/walkero/posts
Screenshot by PuniKevin Taddeucci has released version 2.6 of his program VideoClipper in October. This is an extensive update, and it contains a wide range of bug fixes and changes.
VideoClipper version 2.6 includes enhancements to help speed up encoding. MPlayer v1.5 is now supported. Also supports .ass format subtitle file encoding. Many other user-requested enhancements and a few bug fixes are included. See below for the full list of changes.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/edit/videoclipper.lha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq2o-BKKJU
Liblua 5.4.8 and Libffmpeg 8.0 have been uploaded to OS4Depot by Michael Trebilcock. Downloads are available below:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/libffmpeg.lha
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/language/liblua.lha
DRIDI has released version 14.3Final of the Arabic Console Device. Changes are as follows:
(version 14.3Final) “Version education&legacy” finished (for me) –
ArabicLauncher – Concurrency with run and cmd on error – Almost perfect!https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=driver/input/arabic_console_devicepro2.lha
A new build of FFmpeg 8.0 from Michael Trebilcock has been released. This one will only run on the A1222, but it is not e500 / SPE optimized. Despite this, it is significantly faster than the generic FPU build when run on the A1222.
FFmpeg is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/convert/ffmpeg_a1222.lha
Screenshot by PuniKikems is back with version 1.0R7 of the next generation pixel editor for Amiga called Pixy. The original concept was created by Sinisrus, who worked on it in the years 2016 to 2020. Kimens from AmigaWave is now improving it further.
Pixy is a drawing program dedicated to pixel art and graphics with alpha channel transparency. It allows you to create several animations in a single project, and each image of each animation sequence contains its own layers. This makes it possible to work on all the animations of a character when creating video games, for example. The interface is intentionally inspired by Photoshop.
More information about Pixy, as well as a download, can be found here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=graphics/edit/pixy.lha
A new update to SDL3 is out, more precisely version 3.2.24. More information is available here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=library/misc/sdl3.lha
On GitHub:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/SDL
The Settlers is now out for AmigaOS 4 (and other Amiga platforms)! It is available for purchase from Look Behind You:
https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
From their website, we can read:
The Settlers II is regarded as the pinnacle of the series and a milestone in the building strategy genre. The game perfected everything that made the first part awesome: the bustling inhabitants, the complex economic chains, and the unique charm. Now, finally, it’s where it belongs – on the Amiga.
The story
A storm casts Roman captain Octavius onto a mysterious island. From a simple emergency shelter, you build a powerful empire. Starting with a single tent, you develop a complex civilization with over 30 building types and just as many professions.
Extensive game contentthousands of lovingly animated settlers
over 30 different professions, including 6 types of soldiers
4 different races with different character types: Romans, Asians, Nubians, and Vikings
various landscapes such as lava, ice fields, swamps, forests, and much more, including the stunning winter scenery from The Settlers II Mission CD
10 Roman campaigns and 9 world campaigns
130 free bonus maps
integrated in-game help and optimized game interface
4 languages: fully in English and German, with French and Polish available in-gameThree editions for everyone who loves the Amiga
Box Edition (available from October 18, 2025): This physical edition will feature a classic box format with a slip lid for € 49.90 and will include a DVD plus download option, the colored world atlas, manuals in German and English, as well as four exclusive and collectible retro-design postcards.
Collector’s Edition (available from December 1, 2025): The game’s deluxe version will be available for € 99.90 as a wooden box in the original Settlers II design; it will be limited to 100 copies and will also include an exclusive metal magnet (8×5 cm) with the iconic castle motif from the first Settlers game—a real gem for every Amiga enthusiast and box collector.
Digital Edition (available from October 18, 2025): For immediate gaming fun, a download-only version will also be available for € 29.90.
PowerPC version
Minimum system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP
603e/175 MHz
32 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceRecommended system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP
G3 800 MHz or higher
for resolutions higher than 640×480, a graphics card (PCI, AGP, or PCIe) is recommended
64 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceOla Söder has released InstallerLG version 1.03:
A reimplementation of the ‘Installer’ utility included with AmigaOS as of version 2.1. InstallerLG aims to be fully compatible with the original as described in the V44.10 documentation. Most resource limitations found in the Commodore implementation are gone, and the GUI has been replaced by a MUI / Zune based one.
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-amigaos
The text editor Vim has also received an update from Ola Söder, bumping it to 9.1.1869. It is available for download from Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/text/edit/Vim_9.1-ppc-amigaos
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better. Among its features are:
persistent, multi-level undo tree
extensive plugin system
support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
powerful search and replace
integrates with many toolsPlease note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.
The source code is available here:
https://github.com/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://codeberg.org/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mui-vim/On Aminet, we can also see that A. Pankalla has released a set of special mouse drivers. He writes as follows:
This mouse drivers based on open-source code from diverse authors and was changed in two manners.
First, some functions are changed, because they deprecrated and second i changed some lines of codes to fit to severale mouse types. The changed source code you find in the source directory, it is based on the xero-driver from W. Hosemann. You can recompile it with different constants to genrate the special drivers.
The main new function of the driver’s is to provide a possibility to scroll also in horizontal direction, this is usesd, for example, in the directory windows or the notepad. This function is mapped to special hardware buttons. Check the hardware id’s with tools like usbinspector or devinfos(ng). the driver only works with this deticated hardware!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/driver/input/MouseDriver
Version 1.14i.1 of LHa for UNIX for AmigaOS 4 has been released! You can find it for download on Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/arc/LHa_4U4A-ppc-amigaos
Version 5.25 of AmiSSL has been released! As mentioned in earlier editions of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup, the AmiSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a port of OpenSSL in a shared library for Amiga-based systems. It is a must-have if you use AmigaOS 4 to browse the web!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-v5-OS4
The very active developer Steffen Häuser is working on porting ScummVM 3.0.0.git to AmigaOS 4. It is currently in beta state. You can find out more by visiting amiga-news.de, who published this news:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-10-00042-EN.html
ACube Systems, the creators of the Sam 440 and Sam460, has announced the Sil3132 SATA2 driver for AmigaOS 4:
Bassano del Grappa, Italy – October 18, 2025
ACube Systems is proud to announce, as a special gift to the community on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the Amiga and during the Amiga40 Germany event in Mönchengladbach from October 17–19, 2025, the release of the AmigaOS4 driver for the SiI3132 SATA2 controller.
With the latest U-Boot update already adding support for the SiI3132 controller, this new driver – developed in collaboration with Alfredo Amendolagine – enables AmigaOS 4 to fully utilize the Silicon Image 3132 controller, featuring two SATA2 ports on a high-performance PCIe bus. It delivers top speeds and broad compatibility with modern SATA devices, including HDDs, SSDs, and CD/DVD drives.
Most importantly, this driver will be offered completely free of charge – an exclusive gift from ACube Systems to the entire Amiga community in celebration of this milestone.
You can download the driver from the “Latest files” section on our homepage or by directly clicking on this link:
https://acube-systems.biz/download.php?file=sii3132sata_dev_v1.0.lha
Enjoy Amiga40! We certainly will!
It is great to see ACube Systems actively support the platform, which they’ve done consistantly for many, many years! 🙂
Now, over to another piece of very interesting news. An alpha version of the web browser Odyssey has been released! Please read on for the full news as posted on Amigans.net:
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
What’s new in this Alpha build
Compiled with GCC 11 (with –enable-sjlj-exceptions disabled), resulting in a noticeable speed boost
Integrated with the new clib4 memory allocator, improving memory handling and stability
Several internal optimizations to make the browser smoother and faster
Audio and Video playback are currently disabled in this Alpha build
Important Notes
This is an Alpha version, and it’s still under active development.
That means some features may not work correctly or may cause crashes in specific conditions.You can find the current list of known issues (and add your own reports) here:
https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/issuesPlease make sure to read the included README file for more detailed information about installation, usage, and limitations of this build.
Copy PROGDIR:Libs/clib4.library into LIBS: folder. If you are using already version 2.0 just overwrite older version.
If you are using the old 1.6 version, just backup it and copy new versionYour feedback is incredibly valuable — every issue reported helps make Odyssey better and faster for everyone in the Amiga community.
You can follow development here: https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/
and get the latest build here: Odyssey_300a1.lhaI’ve installed it myself on the A1222+, and I’m looking forward to trying it out further. Congratulations, and thanks to Andrea for his hard work on this project!
In this video you can see the YouTuber TJ Ferreira checking it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIWt5D6Zaw
Misc
There is currently a poll running on Amigans.net. The aim of this one is to gauge what systems people are running AmigaOS 4 on. The poll is on the front page, on the right-hand side. I just submitted my votes, and I hope you will do the same. I’m curious how this one will end up!
A new issue of Amiga Future is scheduled for release in November.
Issue 177 will contain information about Settlers II, a game which was released in October.
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=10933
Michal Schulz, the man behind Emu68, made an announcement on his Patreon that has sparked a lot of discussion recently. Emu68 goes PowerPC! What this will mean for AmigaOS 4 remains to be seen, but it is intriguing to say the least! Please follow the link for the full post from Michal Schulz:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-more-thing-141985279
George Sokianos has released version 1.7.0 of Kyvos. This is a user-friendly graphical frontend for QEMU, which makes it much easier to set up and run AmigaOS 4 on various platforms.
Please head on over to Mr. Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page to get the full details on the new version:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Kyvos-1-7-0-released-R6R81NHQWD
The screenshots above is from his Patreon page.
AmiWest 2025 is scheduled to take place this upcoming weekend. A press release was recently published on Amigans.net in connection with this:
Oct 28th, 2025
SACRAMENTO, California – The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club is proud to present AmiWest 2025 on Nov 1st and 2nd. This is a special year for the Amiga Computer, launched by Commodore in 1985, marking the platform’s 40th anniversary. So far this year, Amiga enthusiasts have been treated to the AMIGA/040th in Silicon Valley and the Amiga40 in Germany, along with a host of other special events.
AmiWest, the longest-running Amiga show in the world, will be celebrating the Amiga’s 40th anniversary with a focus on the community. In place of a traditional show floor banquet, we will be traveling to a local Sacramento Burgers and Brew. In place of a conventional speaker, we will allow the attendees to share their Amiga Computer journeys and experiences.
The show floor will see several new exhibits joining our long-time supporters. We will have the Amiga “Lorraine” wire-wrap prototypes, the AMIGA/040th FutureWall, Tunefinder – Marcin Spoczynski, and more. We will also present AmigaOS 4 Update 3, the new Mirari PPC board, and AmigaOS 3.3 beta. To top it off, the A-Eon A1222+, motherboard and complete tower systems will be on sale at the AAA table!
For presentations, the show will have unique content:
Carl Sassenrath presents the history of the Amiga
Jason Neus talking about AmiPCI
A-eon updates from Trevor Dickinson and Matthew Lehman
Steven Solie is providing an update on AmigaOS 4 multicore
And more!Like AmiWests in the past, we will have the Raffle, Games Competition, and live internet broadcast!
Check amiwest.net for the latest details on the show!
Contact: Jerry Gray
SACC Vice President
[email protected]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyRmgkjT5E
The gaming competition on Amigans.net for October and November is currently ongoing. These months, we are playing the brilliant arcade shoot’em up game Blastaway from Retream!
This game is available for purchase here:
https://retream.itch.io/blastaway
At the moment, Walkero is in the lead, followed by 328gts. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m currently in the last position, but that will hopefully change during November. 😉 Time will show!
If you’d like to take part in the competition or to read more about it, here is the link to the appropriate thread on Amigans.net:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9943
The show Amiga 40 was held in Germany from October 17th to 19th.
Many reports from the event have been published, but for us AmigaOS 4 enthusiasts, I recommend heading over to the Rear Window blog to read Trixie’s “Glad in Gladbach” post.
There, he gives us a detailed travel report, packed with photos of many people in our community attending the event, either as visitors or as exhibitors.
https://ko-fi.com/post/Glad-in-Gladbach-N4N21N487C
To complement this, there are many videos on YouTube covering the event. Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFBXibOgrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8MS8HCXVT8
Also, McFly PPC has released his video (part 1) of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RPPLdcGUs
I’d also like to mention that AmigaNG has created a great summary of the event, which you can find here:
Now, at Amiga 40, we were presented with some very interested news concerning the Mirari, but also multicore. Please have a look at these two images:
This is for sure, great news, and very exciting! 🙂
Skateman, who is part of the Mirari project, shared some images to use in this roundup.
Thanks to Skateman for the photo! Mirari for Frieden! – Photo by SkatemanThis shows the Mirari computer that has been shipped to Thomas Frieden, and the board to Steven Solie. Many thanks to Skateman for supporting the monthly roundup!
YouTube
TJ Ferreira has ventured out on more AmigaOS 4 adventures lately. In this video, he he takes a look at the Infinite Icons 1.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUNu8Sk0-k
Ghettofinger Gaming is very active on YouTube, promoting the Amiga and the AmiWest event. In one of his videos, he looks at game ports on his AmigaOne X5000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5bRb_RVy4
Please visit his channel for many more AmigaOS 4-related videos. 🙂
Davebraco is back again with several nice videos. Have you, for example, seen 26 HD videos running at once on an AmigaOne X5000? Well, if not, here is your chance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb4x3kWDlc
Another video he did was showing how you can do fast backups with the Mirror command on AmigaOS 4.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tjBq5u6YU
Marek Glogowski has also been very active as of late, and one of the videos can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCEo7-KSRmk
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel has published a new video – Serious Sam The First/Second Encounter Amiga 40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYYQBHq9YU
If you’d like to see more of the AmigaOne X5000, Mufa has made a video in Polish, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv1novc-SU
Until next time
I say it again, what a month! 🙂 I’m sorry if I’ve missed some news this time, but I think I’ve managed to cram in all there is. 😉
That was all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the news for October 2025!
Thank for reading and for visiting my blog!
Also thanks to everyone who supports this initiative, it is very much appreciated!
I wish you all a nice November, and see you in the next AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
Best regards,
Puni
Rate this:
#Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOS4 #AmigaOS4MonthlyRoundup #AmigaOS41 #computers #PowerPC #PPC
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US Zionist War Crimes & Iran War: Pax Judaica vs Pax Islamica – The Myth of Muslim Sovereignty!
The Myth of Muslim Sovereignty | Farah El-Sharif | Sermons at the Court | 4 MAR 2026
The end of the Sykes-Picot, ruse-based order is now firmly here: but there is a choice on what comes next. A restoration of true sovereignty, or the triumph of Pax Judaica?
“Woe to the Arabs from the great evil that is nearly approaching them”
– Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
[Sahih al-Bukhari 7059
– Afflictions and the End of the World]—
The Ottoman jihad proclamation against Russia, France and the United Kingdom. ‘Die Türkei und Deutschland’ illustration adapted from a painting by Georg Macco (1863-1933). Source: Making War, Mapping Europe.If it be no discourtesy to Arab amirs
Let this “Indian infidel” dare to speak
Who were the people whom at first God’s Apostle preached kinship close?
Division amongst them was infused, by men like Abu Lahab and such foes
Their existence does not rest at all, on borders long and deserts vast
Arabian lands subsist because of blessings of Arabiaʹs Prophet Last
= Allama Iqbal,
To the Amirs of Arabia,
Zarb-e-KaleemMUSLIM sovereignty is a myth.
It has not existed for over a century.
Since the early 20th century, even jihad campaigns have been sanctioned by—or coopted by—colonial powers.
In World War I, Germany prompted the Ottoman Empire to declare jihad by inciting rebellion among Muslim populations in British, French, and Russian territories. The November 1914 proclamation was labeled “jihad made in Germany.”
During the 1979–1989 Soviet-Afghan War, America supported a decade-long resistance campaign against Soviet forces invading by Afghan mujahidin. They provided extensive covert support to the Afghan mujahidin against “atheist” communist Soviets.
Today, this long tradition of colonially blessed jihads continue. The Wahhabi cleric Saleh al-Fawzan of Saudi Arabia has declared that “our soldiers who are guarding our borders [against Iran with the American soldiers] are performing a noble act of jihad for Allah’s sake.”
If sovereignty means the ability to act independently in defense of one’s people, territory, and moral convictions, then most of the Muslim world does not possess it.
The liberation struggles from direct colonization in the first half of the 20th century in places like Algeria were true and real. Their struggles did not go in vain. They provide lasting lessons and inspiration for the role of Islam in fighting injustice and tyranny. In fact, if anything, “the land of the two million martyrs” stands as a timeless historical witness on us not to let their valiant anti-colonial sacrifices go in vain.
But the painful truth is, as soon as the flags were designed, the anthems were composed, the national border lines were drawn, the colonial administrators only lowered their guns for the mentally colonized state overseers in tailored suits to take their place.
Ultimately, colonial architecture in Muslim societies persisted, but in increasingly ambiguous forms. Harder to detect. Reptilian. Islamophobic, secular, but coopts Muslim symbols to gain legitimacy and control.
As such, “post”colonial Muslim states were never truly free, because repression hid behind the facade of sovereignty that was never really there. Absent the Caliphate, even the concept of an “Arab nation state” will always remain an artificial, fickle construct.
We forget that we still inhabit a Sykes-Picot world. Since 1916, Britain and France partitioned Ottoman-controlled Arab lands into zones of influence that would shape the modern “Middle East” as know it. Carved from the remains of the Caliphate, balkanized Muslim states would eventually be ruled by Westernized puppet monarchs, secularists, butchers, and tyrants.
When they did try to preserve a modicum of sovereignty , like Mossadegh did when he attempted to seize control of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which is now BP) and rejecting Western control over Iranian resources, he was swiftly overthrown and a puppet monarch returned with greatly expanded autocratic powers.
When countries do attempt to preserve a semblance of sovereignty, as is the case of Libya, Syria, Yemen or Iran, they become ravaged by internal division, crippling sanctions and devastating internal and external repression. This is not to romanticize any of these governments. Each had their internal injustices, contradictions, and brutal excesses. But that is precisely the point. The global disorder never even allowed these countries the smallest latitude to internally reform, to breathe. They would rather see a failed, fractured, collapsed, weak repressive state than any hint of deviation from the prescribed limits of subservience, making even the idea of a Muslim sovereign state a pipe dream, an impossibility.
Now, arguably the last dam against the ambitions of Pax Judaica, the Islamic Republic of Iran is being brazenly attacked. Straight out of the Gaza playbook, Israel attacks the children first in a double tap killing 165 school girls. Yet another bloody, senseless blood orgy by the Epstein administration in Washington and Tel Aviv. Another chapter in the decades-long onslaught against Islam and Muslim populations.
But these tactics are not new. Israel’s modus operandi has always been the targeting and killing children. Many do not know of the Bahr el-Baqar primary school massacre in an Egyptian village south of Port Said. It was bombed by the Israeli Air Force on 8 April 1970. Of the 130 children who were attending the school, 46 were killed and over 50 wounded.
Bahr el-Baqar primary school massacre, Alahram, 1970.This “War on Terror,” aka. the war on Islam, has been so relentless, so polarizing, so effective in its spiritual colonization, that today, some diaspora Iranians are even celebrating Israel’s invasion and bloodshed of their fellow countrymen, women and children.
The war on Iran points to the hysteria over the mere existence of any form of a strong “Islamic government” and how pervasive internalized Islamophobia has become: this global dis-order will not tolerate any sovereign Muslim state that speaks in civilizational rather than secular-liberal terms without getting flogged immediately by demonization, sanctions, and now, indiscriminate bombardment and mass killings. And this is beyond Sunni-Shi’a at this point: Israel boasts that it is coming for the predominantly Sunni nation Turkey next.
Only Israel is allowed to invoke their status as “God’s chosen people” as they defile the laws of God. Only Israel can base its policies on biblical, messianic references and doomsday prophecies as it pillages and kills innocents. CNN casually reported that the timing of the attacks on Iran coincides with the period leading up to Purim, “which commemorates the Jewish people’s deliverance from a genocidal plot in ancient Persia.”
Baal, mentioned in the Epstein files, was burned in the streets of Tehran two weeks ago to protest the Epstein administrations’ warmongering as a show of defiance.Today, much like the “jihad made in Germany”, Arab and Gulf states now find themselves in a painfully poetic bare faced exposure of having to wage a jihad against Iran for the sole benefit of Greater Israel. They decry the Iranian attacks on their “sovereign” US military bases (an oxymoron if there ever was one) as “senseless,” “destabilizing.” But are they? If the Gaza genocide was not enough of a wake up call, what else will it take to break the veneer of false sovereignty and sedation that lulls Muslim masses?
If these “sovereign” Arab states truly cared about their safety, why did they allow themselves to become vassal states for foreign military bases in the first place?
Not only that, their armies were too busy crushing internal dissent, but not occupiers. The boots of their military police and mukhabarat gestapos descend not upon those who annex land and bomb hospitals, rather upon the necks of their own people: students, workers, mothers, and journalists who are criminalized for calling a spade a spade. Their batons fracture skulls at home, but protect European colonizers in bomb shelters in Jerusalem. Their rifles are aimed not at mercenaries invading al-Aqsa, but at the chests of their own countrymen. The Arab security state was never free. It sows ethnic, tribal, and class antagonisms, inflaming fault lines to prevent unity because it is perpetually afraid.
Now, they tried to delay the inevitable in the name of preserving their “stability,” but the sin of abandoning Gaza has ushered in an uncharted era of instability. The warpath will leave no one unscathed. The missiles flying over Arab capitals in the past few days have firmly broken the myth of Muslim sovereignty. They are a clarion call to end the double occupation of Muslim lands that do the bidding of external, foreign occupations, as well as the internal occupation that feeds on the stench of our fear, cowardice and total submission.
I’ve said it several times before: the Muslim armies that did not move for Palestine will move against their own people. We see this happening very clearly through the intercepted rockets that are now raining down on Jordanian citizens on behalf of the ambitions of Greater Israel.
An army that fails to defend its own people is not a national institution: it becomes merely a security subcontractor.
Similarly, military bases dot the Gulf in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. The longstanding security coordination defines the treasonous, reptilian, political architecture of the region. Intelligence sharing flows more freely than solidarity. “Muslim resistance” is a concept more loathed more than Zionisim. Words like “jihadist” or “Islamic” have become criminal slurs, punishable by death.
Yet titles such as “His Majesty” and “His Supreme Eminence”—vestiges of European divine-right monarchies—are treated as sacred cows. Perfectly manicured royal portraits adorn ministries and schools. The state trains its citizens not merely to obey, but to revere, almost worship, as we have seen some literally do: this UAE general proudly boasted, “They should listen to Mohammed bin Zayed, he is our guidance, we worship him” (!)
News flash to loyal monarchists and diehard Arab nationalists: no matter how innocent you think your allegiances to king and country are, shirk (polytheism) is the greatest sin in the eyes of Allah. The twain loyalties cannot exist in the heart of a believer. After all, “Allah does not place two hearts in any person’s chest.” (Al-Ahzab: 4)
Those same colonially-constructed states which speak of “sovereignty” host foreign troops, align their strategic doctrine with Washington, and normalize relations with Tel Aviv.
This is nothing but Muslim vassalage. Make no mistake, however painfully this system breaks, the ummah only stands to benefit.
This century long vassalage system produced the endemic moral paralysis and genocidal stalemate we are now in. This system of vassalage has allowed itself to be controlled by the Epstein class of pedophiles and cannibalists who kill children for fun, whether in a school in Gaza or a school in Iran or Yemen.
We have reached the most humiliating point in the history of Islam and colonialism: now, Netanyahu and Trump’s Pax Judaica, is being enforced by Arab countries who prefer perpetual external vassalage and submission to sovereignty, dignity and honor.
Since 1948, there were moments—brief, fragile windows—when dignity and unity were made slightly more possible. There were moments when oil leverage could have been consolidated, when militaries could have united, when normalization treatises could have been annulled, when trade deals canceled.
But they chose neither of these redemptive windows. Now, Pax Judaica is already here. The window of dignity has firmly closed, not because Zionism was invincible, but because fear prevailed and became the status quo. It is because Muslims borrowed their narratives by colonial osmosis: “political Islam” = bad. “Shi’i Mullas” = existential threat.
It is because Arab leaders feared for their own self preservation more than the threat of external colonization. Because they feared their own populations more than expansionist ambitions that have come to ravage them all. They feared falling out of favor with the pedophilic elite more than the loss of the sacred sites in Mecca, Madina and Al-Quds.
Yet they always had a choice.
They were repeatedly given redemptive windows, but they chose to selfishly protect regime survival over true sovereignty. They chose subservience to Tel Aviv instead of the honor of being able to defend Islamic civilizational integrity. By doing so, they totally abdicated their moral legitimacy and the fickle myth of “sovereignty.”
After Gaza, it is all being laid bare for all to see: the Arab Emperors have no clothes.
The ultimate, painfully poetic irony and wretched ending is that that sons and daughters of military servicemen and women in Jordan, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar will die not for Palestine, but likely to advance the very pronounced and evident schemes of Greater Israel.
How will this end, you ask?
From the banks of the Jordan to the Nile, from the Euphrates to the Gulf, there is no longer any modicum of ambiguity that these security states are now doing the military, expansionist bidding of Greater Israel. Thankfully, the doublespeak is over and their populations cannot feign hiding behind the sedating excuses of ignorance or giving excuses. Now, everyone is culpable as the vision is crystal clear.
The end of the Sykes-Picot, ruse-based order is now firmly here: but there is a choice on what comes next. A restoration of true sovereignty, of Pax Islamica, or the triumph of Pax Judaica?
It behooves us to understand that we never left the colonial matrix. Thankfully, this is now more self-evident. We were forced to accept submission as “pragmatism,” betrayal as “diplomacy,” colonization as “peace-building” and resistance as “extremism”. Not any more. The era of pretending, of reptilian ambiguity is over. Now, we can see the full, reeking nakedness of this deceitful cadaver and it can no longer hide behind liberal, Orwellian buzzwords.
And we know why. Because it rests on a lie: postcolonial sovereignty never was. It is yet to be achieved.
The Gaza holocaust tried to warn everyone, but they ignored her children’s screams.
Palestinians told you repeatedly, that normalization would not bring anyone safety. That it harms all.
That housing foreign military bases and security coordination would not guarantee anyone stability.
That the abandonment of Palestine would not grant Arab states safety, immortality, nor would it protect its borders.
After all, the plague does not remain confined to one house. The fire does not stop at one fickle wall.
You see, Palestine has made it crystal clear that the Arab abandonment of Palestine was not merely a pragmatic, self-preservationist, tactical foreign policy decision on their part.
Rather, it signals total moral paralysis and a terminal spiritual fracture. It is self-amputation. And amputations, if untreated, poison the body.
Greater Israel is charge now, but this rise did not appear in a vacuum. It is criminal, yes, but it is also cumulative and collaborative. It is what Arab and Muslim colluding hands have sown over decades of compromise, fear, and repression.
Thankfully, a brief window is now revealing itself briefly once more.
The ummah, like each of us individually, stand before a final choice:
Painful truth, or sweet lies?
Sectarian score-keeping or true, ummah-oriented unity?
The pacifier of “stability and safety” or a prophetic Islam of lived sacrifice?
Auto-critique, or perpetual infantilization and victimhood?
Real sovereignty, or permanent subcontracting and vassalage?
Truth hurts. Truth incinerates. It exposes collaboration. It dismantle myths of eternal “safety and stability.” It demands existential loyalty shifts from tribalism and selfishness to uniting and affirming true Oneness.
No matter how painful it is, only truth can set a civilization free.
Muslim sovereignty has been a myth.
That illusion must die before anything living can be born.
!Allah has not made for a man two hearts in his interior.
And He has not made your wives whom you declare unlawful your mothers.
And he has not made your adopted sons your [true] sons.
That is [merely] your saying by your mouths,
but Allah says the truth, and He guides to the [right] way.”
– Qur’an Surat Al-‘Aĥzāb (The Combined Forces) – سورة الأحزاب
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https://twitter.com/pati_marins64/status/2035080265832493519
#autonomy #colonialism #Gaza #Iran #Israel #liberation #mentalSlavery #Palestine #politics #SOVEREIGNTY #Zionism -
April Showers Bring May Books
I will not apologize for my horrendous title. You deserve it.
When the world is a mess, you lean into your reading list. Hard. This month was a solid mix of military history and historical fiction, with author Naomi Novik once again dropping some bangers. She is rapidly turning into one of my favorite authors. But despite her prowess, this month my top book is *shockingly* a work of history. I know, I know, literally no one is shocked.
If there were to be a theme for the month, I think it would be that although war and battles are often the tempting solution to solving problems, they usually produce more problems than they solve. Wars are like Jason’s Molotov cocktails on the show The Good Place – he uses them to solve his problems, because after you’ve thrown one, you suddenly find that you have many more problems and your initial problem is no longer a concern. I feel as though the geopolitical events of May and June have mostly borne this out, as nations struggle to disentangle themselves from military conflicts that don’t seem to want to go quietly back into their boxes.
The Allure of Battle – by Cathal Nolan
Do you ever read a book and find yourself stopping to text your friends screenshots or quotes? Well for me, that was Allure of Battle. This work is probably one of the most meaningful reflections on military history and national strategy that has been published in the last decade. Nolan pulls few punches; in fact, it’s fair to say that he comes out swinging and doesn’t stop delivering knock-outs until you close the book. And even then, you’re left chewing on the thesis for another week or two.
His thesis – that when nations and military leaders seek decisive battle to solve their problems, they find themselves bogged down in a tactical mess no closer to any real solution – is particularly meaningful at the moment. The US Department of Defense is making a big push to increase “lethality” and a “warrior” spirit in the military. Both of these initiatives fall into what Nolan calls “Plan[ing] for battle and not for war.” As a mentor of mine put succinctly put it, “America is always looking for tactical answers to strategic problems.” Suffice to say, it’s not a great way to plan for the future.
The author spares not the pen on past generals and leaders. Not even Bonaparte is safe, as Nolan points out that even the king of decisive battles waged far more and bloody indecisive battles. Nolan is harshest on the 1871-1945 Germans (erstwhile darlings of the DOD until recent years). Quoting von Moltke, he summarizes their tactics and technology-based approach to war as “Punch a hole and then see what happens,” which is hardly a strategic approach. Which, of course, is why the Germans took big fat Ls in two world wars. Turns out, connecting national goals with achievable battlefield results is important. Who knew? Through the words of participants and theorists over the years, Nolan crafts a skillful argument backed by excellent research. The Allure of Battle should be mandatory reading for all field grade officers and GS-15s and above. Because, yes, we of the US Army definitely make an appearance in basically everything post-Korea. National self reflection is hard, but we badly need it.
The Temeraire Series – Naomi Novik
“Napoleonic War but what if dragons” continues in Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, and Victory of Eagles. These delightful – but also stressful? – books continue the story of a Royal Navy captain turned aviator and his opinionated dragon. In these four books, Captain Will Laurence and Temeraire travel to China, Turkey, Africa, and many places in between in the long struggle to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte shows possibly more deftness and diplomatic ability in this world than he showed in real life, but one can see that you would want to have an adversary worthy of Temeraire. Novik’s world building skills are on display once again as she imagines how different nations and cultures would adapt to dragons, their rights and duties, and how to adapt them to warfare. Her ability to craft unique characters for dragons remains delightful (they’re like cats but also dogs?). Highly recommend for those looking for well-written historical fiction (she drops some wonderful Easter eggs throughout, and Wellington’s appearance is exactly as fantastic as you would hope) and also some unexpected discussions on duty and ethics. The books do not require an investment of energy and make a good distraction from the travails of the day-to-day.
If We are Striking for Pennsylvania – by Eric Wittenberg and Scott Mingus
Links here for Volume 1 and Volume 2
Even though I am what I’d call a consummate Gettysburg nerd, even I have to ask “do we really need not one, but two more books on the Gettysburg campaign?” Thankfully, the authors themselves asked this question – sharing the remarkable factoid that there are so many books on Gettysburg, that it’s like one has been published every three days since the battle ended. What makes this series different from most is that it places the Gettysburg campaign within the larger context of the eastern theater of the Civil War. It encompasses operations from the Shenandoah Valley across to the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia in minute detail, placing the campaign within its proper strategic context. The reader gains a far better appreciation for the stakes at hand, Robert E. Lee’s operational missteps, and George Meade’s competency as an army commander. The two volumes follow Lee from his lines along the Rappahannock in early June as he receives permission from the Confederate cabinet to invade Pennsylvania to the engagements in Winchester and the Loudon Valley along the way, the cavalry fights around Hanover as Stuart and Lee blindly try to find each other, and the opening shots of the battle of Gettysburg. The works present a vastly more rich perspective on the campaign and it is hoped the authors produce something similar on the aftermath of the battle. Because yeah, I am a sucker for G-burg content.
Revolution Downeast: the War for American Independence in Maine – James Leamon
Seeing as it is the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, I took to the stacks to read one of the very few comprehensive books out there on the war in the Pine Tree State. Then still a part of hated Massachusetts, Maine is often overlooked in scholarship and lumped into that state. Which is a pity, as Maine’s people deserve to stand forth on their own. While Leamon does separate Maine from the lair of the Massholes, his analysis comes up somewhat short of what I had hoped for. Typical of its era, it does a good job of providing a social and political summary of the people while giving an overview of military operations in the district. It glances at Arnold’s march, gives perspective on the burning of Falmouth, and points to the failures in the 1779 Penobscot expedition. The author covers the frontier conflicts in adequate detail, but the reader is left wanting more on the experience of the Wabanaki peoples. What is sadly lacking is a history of Mainers in the Continental Army. For that, we shall have to wait. In the meantime, this work provides an excellent jumping off point for future scholars.
Unsung Hero of Gettysburg: The Story of Union General David McMurtrie Gregg – Edward Longacre
Okay, I won’t lie – I went to this book not because of some interest in US cavalry officer David Gregg, but because I wanted more context on the evolution of US cavalry in the eastern theater in the Civil War and Longacre is known for his cavalry work. I can’t say I came away from the book afire with devotion for David Gregg, but I do have additional appreciation for his actions. Did he save the Union at Gettysburg? I mean, didn’t everyone in the Army of the Potomac? That’s how to wiggle out of that thorny question. What the author does deliver is an excellent overview of the use of US cavalry from 1862-1865 (the period of Gregg’s service). The evolution of tactics and technology takes the cavalry arm from the era of the scout and the saber charge to the era of mobile infantry in just about two years. By the Petersburg campaign, US cavalry brigades and divisions demonstrate proficiency at maneuver warfare. For example, Gregg ended the war fighting two of his regiments dismounted and backed by an artillery battery in sections, with a mounted regiment in support. This flexibility enabled him to react to a rapidly changing battlefield and to exploit opportunities when they appeared. While it was not the comprehensive overview I would have liked, Longacre delivered an engaging read.
That wraps it up for May, coming in just under the wire with July looming on the horizon like a…like a…like a thing that looms. Look, not every sentence can be a winner. Thanks for bearing with me as I mess with the thorny issue of reviewing books. The bookies at Atlantic City will give you good odds on how soon I receive a complaint from an author.
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The opinions represented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.
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#AllureOfBattle #AmericanRevolution #Army #bookReview #books #CathalNolan #CivilWar #EdwardLongacre #EricWittenberg #Fiction #HistoricalFiction #History #JamesLeamon #Military #militaryHistory #NaomiNovik #ScottMingus
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – October 2025
Introduction
Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for checking out this new issue of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
My A1222+. Photo by Puni.If you are new to this series (hi, and welcome!), it’s essentially a summary that covers the previous month’s news related to the AmigaOS 4 platform.
This month, October, has been jam-packed with events and news, almost too much to keep up with! News is spread on many channels, so there is a lot to keep track of, but that is part of the fun, and the reason they end up in a roundup like this. 😉
Anyway, October has been a FANTASTIC month for the AmigaOS 4 community, I dare to state that. It will be hard to top this for a while, I think!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what October was like in the world of AmigaOS 4!
Software News
First up is ReSrc4 from René W. Olsen. This is a portable Amiga 68k hunk file disassembler. The source code is available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4
The archive can be fetched from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/resrc4.lha
Screenshot by PuniAmiBrixx is a puzzle game for the Amiga, ported from the PC version called Joemine. It was brought over by Joerg Renkert. Version 2.31 is now available for download from OS4Depot. It supports skins, which means that you can change how the game looks in many ways!
Screenshot by PuniIn a field of stacked stones, your target is to eliminate groups of stones of the same color. Thereby, the other stones will fall down and form new groups. The game ends when no more groups can be eliminated.
The game works very well, and I enjoyed testing it. I recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzle games like this!
Screenshot from an older version – By PuniVersion 35.31 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
The new version contains miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. To read more about this, or to download the game, please head over to OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=emulation/gamesystem/amiarcadia.lha
Screenshot lent from the website of Hyperion EntertainmentNow for some really big news… Are you ready? Hyperion Entertainment is back! Yes, they are back in full gear with a brand new update to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition! This time it is Update 3. Let us have a look at what this one has to offer us:
Brussels, Saturday, October 18, 2025
Hyperion Entertainment BV is proud to announce the release of Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Update 3 is a maintenance and stability update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and includes more than 60 new features, 70 updates, and over 135 bug fixes across the system.
Some of the most notable improvements include:
The TCP/IP stack Roadshow has been updated to version 1.15, which among many other things greatly improves network stability and speed.
New, updated kernels for the X5000, X1000, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Sam460, Sam440, and Classic Amiga systems, featuring upgraded cache handling and DMA operation on supported hardware.
An updated and improved USB stack which, among many other new features, performance improvements and bug fixes, now supports isochronous transfers for streaming devices.
An updated version of AmigaDOS with new features, enhancements, and numerous bug fixes.
An updated graphics library that now supports automatic detection of 4K/UHD monitors.
Updated versions of elf.library, intuition.library, and newlib.library, all featuring many new functions and bug fixes.
And many, many more new features, updates, and bug fixes.
Update 3 is available via AmiUpdate. Registered users can also download Update 3 from the download section at www.hyperion-entertainment.com.
Hyperion Entertainment would like to thank all the hardworking developers and testers for their dedication to this release. You keep the dream alive!
People who enjoy Minecraft and games similar to it should be happy to read that HunoPPC and the group titled “AOS4 fans from Mars” have brought ClassiCube to AmigaOS 4!
This is a custom Minecraft Classic-compatible client written in C from scratch. It aims to replicate the 2009 Minecraft Classic, while offering optional enhancements to improve the gameplay. Two versions are currently available for download: EGL_wrap and SPE. The SPE version is aimed at A1222+.
On the website of HunoPPC, you’ll find more information about the game, as well as downloads, and an option to support his work.
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/classicube-amigaos4-version-aos4-fans-mars-and-hunoppc
Here is a video of ClassiCube running on the A1222, courtesy of Mr Byte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTUC11uhBQ
HunoPPC has also released a new version of wipEout Rewrite Enhanced Fantômas Edition for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 1.0.6. For those of you not aware, this is basically a re-implementation of the classic Playstation 1 game wipEout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVwgkerqE
Changes are as follows:
Now working with Shaders, NORMAL or CRT mode
Fixed change resolution on live
Added shakers on shaders mode
Fixed opengl filter on shaders mode
Added 3D objects : Mouse, keyboard and joypad of WipeOut2097 datas
Added 1 letter of name saved on list of score
Added mouse support (W.I.P)
Saves prefs for ForceFeedback and mouse support added
Online scoresYou can find more information, as well as the download here:
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/wipeout-rewrite-enhanced-fant%C3%B4mas-edition-amigaos-41
Screenshot by PuniJuan Carlos Herrán Martín is an active software developer for platforms like AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS. We’ve seen many releases from him in the previous roundups. Now he has returned with a new version of the game, Los Malditos. It is a free adaptation of the mythical books from Timun Mas from the 1980s and 1990s. These books are related to Dungeons & Dragons. The author is a fan of these works. It is now available for download at OS4Depot.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=game/adventure/losmalditos.lha
Screenshot by PuniChanges for the new version is as follows:
The extended the story for the chapter 1, with new enemies and places to visit.
Removed bugs.
Rewrote the dialogues to better suit the personality of each hero/heroine.
New graphics and sounds.If you’d like to have a closer look at what goes on behind the curtains on AmigaOS 4, the utility called Snoopy will be an excellent choice. Created by Colin Wenzel, this is a SnoopDos like program that will reveal all kinds of information about what is happening when you run a program, for example.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/snoopy.lha
Screenshot by PuniA new version of the lightweight and powerful text editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.8r2.
The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.
Changes are as follows:
Added support for the GLSL language
Added the dragdropselected plugin
Added the tab_switcher plugin
Added the titleize plugin
Added the togglesnakecamel plugin
Added the typingspeed plugin
Added the unboundedscroll plugin
Added the wordcount pluginThe program is available for download from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/text/edit/litexl2.lha
George Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page is available here:
https://ko-fi.com/walkero/posts
Screenshot by PuniKevin Taddeucci has released version 2.6 of his program VideoClipper in October. This is an extensive update, and it contains a wide range of bug fixes and changes.
VideoClipper version 2.6 includes enhancements to help speed up encoding. MPlayer v1.5 is now supported. Also supports .ass format subtitle file encoding. Many other user-requested enhancements and a few bug fixes are included. See below for the full list of changes.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/edit/videoclipper.lha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq2o-BKKJU
Liblua 5.4.8 and Libffmpeg 8.0 have been uploaded to OS4Depot by Michael Trebilcock. Downloads are available below:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/libffmpeg.lha
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/language/liblua.lha
DRIDI has released version 14.3Final of the Arabic Console Device. Changes are as follows:
(version 14.3Final) “Version education&legacy” finished (for me) –
ArabicLauncher – Concurrency with run and cmd on error – Almost perfect!https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=driver/input/arabic_console_devicepro2.lha
A new build of FFmpeg 8.0 from Michael Trebilcock has been released. This one will only run on the A1222, but it is not e500 / SPE optimized. Despite this, it is significantly faster than the generic FPU build when run on the A1222.
FFmpeg is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/convert/ffmpeg_a1222.lha
Screenshot by PuniKikems is back with version 1.0R7 of the next generation pixel editor for Amiga called Pixy. The original concept was created by Sinisrus, who worked on it in the years 2016 to 2020. Kimens from AmigaWave is now improving it further.
Pixy is a drawing program dedicated to pixel art and graphics with alpha channel transparency. It allows you to create several animations in a single project, and each image of each animation sequence contains its own layers. This makes it possible to work on all the animations of a character when creating video games, for example. The interface is intentionally inspired by Photoshop.
More information about Pixy, as well as a download, can be found here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=graphics/edit/pixy.lha
A new update to SDL3 is out, more precisely version 3.2.24. More information is available here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=library/misc/sdl3.lha
On GitHub:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/SDL
The Settlers is now out for AmigaOS 4 (and other Amiga platforms)! It is available for purchase from Look Behind You:
https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
From their website, we can read:
The Settlers II is regarded as the pinnacle of the series and a milestone in the building strategy genre. The game perfected everything that made the first part awesome: the bustling inhabitants, the complex economic chains, and the unique charm. Now, finally, it’s where it belongs – on the Amiga.
The story
A storm casts Roman captain Octavius onto a mysterious island. From a simple emergency shelter, you build a powerful empire. Starting with a single tent, you develop a complex civilization with over 30 building types and just as many professions.
Extensive game contentthousands of lovingly animated settlers
over 30 different professions, including 6 types of soldiers
4 different races with different character types: Romans, Asians, Nubians, and Vikings
various landscapes such as lava, ice fields, swamps, forests, and much more, including the stunning winter scenery from The Settlers II Mission CD
10 Roman campaigns and 9 world campaigns
130 free bonus maps
integrated in-game help and optimized game interface
4 languages: fully in English and German, with French and Polish available in-gameThree editions for everyone who loves the Amiga
Box Edition (available from October 18, 2025): This physical edition will feature a classic box format with a slip lid for € 49.90 and will include a DVD plus download option, the colored world atlas, manuals in German and English, as well as four exclusive and collectible retro-design postcards.
Collector’s Edition (available from December 1, 2025): The game’s deluxe version will be available for € 99.90 as a wooden box in the original Settlers II design; it will be limited to 100 copies and will also include an exclusive metal magnet (8×5 cm) with the iconic castle motif from the first Settlers game—a real gem for every Amiga enthusiast and box collector.
Digital Edition (available from October 18, 2025): For immediate gaming fun, a download-only version will also be available for € 29.90.
PowerPC version
Minimum system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP
603e/175 MHz
32 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceRecommended system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP
G3 800 MHz or higher
for resolutions higher than 640×480, a graphics card (PCI, AGP, or PCIe) is recommended
64 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceOla Söder has released InstallerLG version 1.03:
A reimplementation of the ‘Installer’ utility included with AmigaOS as of version 2.1. InstallerLG aims to be fully compatible with the original as described in the V44.10 documentation. Most resource limitations found in the Commodore implementation are gone, and the GUI has been replaced by a MUI / Zune based one.
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-amigaos
The text editor Vim has also received an update from Ola Söder, bumping it to 9.1.1869. It is available for download from Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/text/edit/Vim_9.1-ppc-amigaos
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better. Among its features are:
persistent, multi-level undo tree
extensive plugin system
support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
powerful search and replace
integrates with many toolsPlease note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.
The source code is available here:
https://github.com/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://codeberg.org/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mui-vim/On Aminet, we can also see that A. Pankalla has released a set of special mouse drivers. He writes as follows:
This mouse drivers based on open-source code from diverse authors and was changed in two manners.
First, some functions are changed, because they deprecrated and second i changed some lines of codes to fit to severale mouse types. The changed source code you find in the source directory, it is based on the xero-driver from W. Hosemann. You can recompile it with different constants to genrate the special drivers.
The main new function of the driver’s is to provide a possibility to scroll also in horizontal direction, this is usesd, for example, in the directory windows or the notepad. This function is mapped to special hardware buttons. Check the hardware id’s with tools like usbinspector or devinfos(ng). the driver only works with this deticated hardware!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/driver/input/MouseDriver
Version 1.14i.1 of LHa for UNIX for AmigaOS 4 has been released! You can find it for download on Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/arc/LHa_4U4A-ppc-amigaos
Version 5.25 of AmiSSL has been released! As mentioned in earlier editions of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup, the AmiSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a port of OpenSSL in a shared library for Amiga-based systems. It is a must-have if you use AmigaOS 4 to browse the web!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-v5-OS4
The very active developer Steffen Häuser is working on porting ScummVM 3.0.0.git to AmigaOS 4. It is currently in beta state. You can find out more by visiting amiga-news.de, who published this news:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-10-00042-EN.html
ACube Systems, the creators of the Sam 440 and Sam460, has announced the Sil3132 SATA2 driver for AmigaOS 4:
Bassano del Grappa, Italy – October 18, 2025
ACube Systems is proud to announce, as a special gift to the community on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the Amiga and during the Amiga40 Germany event in Mönchengladbach from October 17–19, 2025, the release of the AmigaOS4 driver for the SiI3132 SATA2 controller.
With the latest U-Boot update already adding support for the SiI3132 controller, this new driver – developed in collaboration with Alfredo Amendolagine – enables AmigaOS 4 to fully utilize the Silicon Image 3132 controller, featuring two SATA2 ports on a high-performance PCIe bus. It delivers top speeds and broad compatibility with modern SATA devices, including HDDs, SSDs, and CD/DVD drives.
Most importantly, this driver will be offered completely free of charge – an exclusive gift from ACube Systems to the entire Amiga community in celebration of this milestone.
You can download the driver from the “Latest files” section on our homepage or by directly clicking on this link:
https://acube-systems.biz/download.php?file=sii3132sata_dev_v1.0.lha
Enjoy Amiga40! We certainly will!
It is great to see ACube Systems actively support the platform, which they’ve done consistantly for many, many years! 🙂
Now, over to another piece of very interesting news. An alpha version of the web browser Odyssey has been released! Please read on for the full news as posted on Amigans.net:
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
What’s new in this Alpha build
Compiled with GCC 11 (with –enable-sjlj-exceptions disabled), resulting in a noticeable speed boost
Integrated with the new clib4 memory allocator, improving memory handling and stability
Several internal optimizations to make the browser smoother and faster
Audio and Video playback are currently disabled in this Alpha build
Important Notes
This is an Alpha version, and it’s still under active development.
That means some features may not work correctly or may cause crashes in specific conditions.You can find the current list of known issues (and add your own reports) here:
https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/issuesPlease make sure to read the included README file for more detailed information about installation, usage, and limitations of this build.
Copy PROGDIR:Libs/clib4.library into LIBS: folder. If you are using already version 2.0 just overwrite older version.
If you are using the old 1.6 version, just backup it and copy new versionYour feedback is incredibly valuable — every issue reported helps make Odyssey better and faster for everyone in the Amiga community.
You can follow development here: https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/
and get the latest build here: Odyssey_300a1.lhaI’ve installed it myself on the A1222+, and I’m looking forward to trying it out further. Congratulations, and thanks to Andrea for his hard work on this project!
In this video you can see the YouTuber TJ Ferreira checking it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIWt5D6Zaw
Misc
There is currently a poll running on Amigans.net. The aim of this one is to gauge what systems people are running AmigaOS 4 on. The poll is on the front page, on the right-hand side. I just submitted my votes, and I hope you will do the same. I’m curious how this one will end up!
A new issue of Amiga Future is scheduled for release in November.
Issue 177 will contain information about Settlers II, a game which was released in October.
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=10933
Michal Schulz, the man behind Emu68, made an announcement on his Patreon that has sparked a lot of discussion recently. Emu68 goes PowerPC! What this will mean for AmigaOS 4 remains to be seen, but it is intriguing to say the least! Please follow the link for the full post from Michal Schulz:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-more-thing-141985279
George Sokianos has released version 1.7.0 of Kyvos. This is a user-friendly graphical frontend for QEMU, which makes it much easier to set up and run AmigaOS 4 on various platforms.
Please head on over to Mr. Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page to get the full details on the new version:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Kyvos-1-7-0-released-R6R81NHQWD
The screenshots above is from his Patreon page.
AmiWest 2025 is scheduled to take place this upcoming weekend. A press release was recently published on Amigans.net in connection with this:
Oct 28th, 2025
SACRAMENTO, California – The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club is proud to present AmiWest 2025 on Nov 1st and 2nd. This is a special year for the Amiga Computer, launched by Commodore in 1985, marking the platform’s 40th anniversary. So far this year, Amiga enthusiasts have been treated to the AMIGA/040th in Silicon Valley and the Amiga40 in Germany, along with a host of other special events.
AmiWest, the longest-running Amiga show in the world, will be celebrating the Amiga’s 40th anniversary with a focus on the community. In place of a traditional show floor banquet, we will be traveling to a local Sacramento Burgers and Brew. In place of a conventional speaker, we will allow the attendees to share their Amiga Computer journeys and experiences.
The show floor will see several new exhibits joining our long-time supporters. We will have the Amiga “Lorraine” wire-wrap prototypes, the AMIGA/040th FutureWall, Tunefinder – Marcin Spoczynski, and more. We will also present AmigaOS 4 Update 3, the new Mirari PPC board, and AmigaOS 3.3 beta. To top it off, the A-Eon A1222+, motherboard and complete tower systems will be on sale at the AAA table!
For presentations, the show will have unique content:
Carl Sassenrath presents the history of the Amiga
Jason Neus talking about AmiPCI
A-eon updates from Trevor Dickinson and Matthew Lehman
Steven Solie is providing an update on AmigaOS 4 multicore
And more!Like AmiWests in the past, we will have the Raffle, Games Competition, and live internet broadcast!
Check amiwest.net for the latest details on the show!
Contact: Jerry Gray
SACC Vice President
[email protected]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyRmgkjT5E
The gaming competition on Amigans.net for October and November is currently ongoing. These months, we are playing the brilliant arcade shoot’em up game Blastaway from Retream!
This game is available for purchase here:
https://retream.itch.io/blastaway
At the moment, Walkero is in the lead, followed by 328gts. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m currently in the last position, but that will hopefully change during November. 😉 Time will show!
If you’d like to take part in the competition or to read more about it, here is the link to the appropriate thread on Amigans.net:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9943
The show Amiga 40 was held in Germany from October 17th to 19th.
Many reports from the event have been published, but for us AmigaOS 4 enthusiasts, I recommend heading over to the Rear Window blog to read Trixie’s “Glad in Gladbach” post.
There, he gives us a detailed travel report, packed with photos of many people in our community attending the event, either as visitors or as exhibitors.
https://ko-fi.com/post/Glad-in-Gladbach-N4N21N487C
To complement this, there are many videos on YouTube covering the event. Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFBXibOgrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8MS8HCXVT8
Also, McFly PPC has released his video (part 1) of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RPPLdcGUs
I’d also like to mention that AmigaNG has created a great summary of the event, which you can find here:
Now, at Amiga 40, we were presented with some very interested news concerning the Mirari, but also multicore. Please have a look at these two images:
This is for sure, great news, and very exciting! 🙂
Skateman, who is part of the Mirari project, shared some images to use in this roundup.
Thanks to Skateman for the photo! Mirari for Frieden! – Photo by SkatemanThis shows the Mirari computer that has been shipped to Thomas Frieden, and the board to Steven Solie. Many thanks to Skateman for supporting the monthly roundup!
YouTube
TJ Ferreira has ventured out on more AmigaOS 4 adventures lately. In this video, he he takes a look at the Infinite Icons 1.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUNu8Sk0-k
Ghettofinger Gaming is very active on YouTube, promoting the Amiga and the AmiWest event. In one of his videos, he looks at game ports on his AmigaOne X5000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5bRb_RVy4
Please visit his channel for many more AmigaOS 4-related videos. 🙂
Davebraco is back again with several nice videos. Have you, for example, seen 26 HD videos running at once on an AmigaOne X5000? Well, if not, here is your chance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb4x3kWDlc
Another video he did was showing how you can do fast backups with the Mirror command on AmigaOS 4.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tjBq5u6YU
Marek Glogowski has also been very active as of late, and one of the videos can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCEo7-KSRmk
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel has published a new video – Serious Sam The First/Second Encounter Amiga 40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYYQBHq9YU
If you’d like to see more of the AmigaOne X5000, Mufa has made a video in Polish, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv1novc-SU
Until next time
I say it again, what a month! 🙂 I’m sorry if I’ve missed some news this time, but I think I’ve managed to cram in all there is. 😉
That was all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the news for October 2025!
Thank for reading and for visiting my blog!
Also thanks to everyone who supports this initiative, it is very much appreciated!
I wish you all a nice November, and see you in the next AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
Best regards,
Puni
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#Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOS4 #AmigaOS4MonthlyRoundup #AmigaOS41 #computers #PowerPC #PPC
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – October 2025
Introduction
Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for checking out this new issue of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
My A1222+. Photo by Puni.If you are new to this series (hi, and welcome!), it’s essentially a summary that covers the previous month’s news related to the AmigaOS 4 platform.
This month, October, has been jam-packed with events and news, almost too much to keep up with! News is spread on many channels, so there is a lot to keep track of, but that is part of the fun, and the reason they end up in a roundup like this. 😉
Anyway, October has been a FANTASTIC month for the AmigaOS 4 community, I dare to state that. It will be hard to top this for a while, I think!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what October was like in the world of AmigaOS 4!
Software News
First up is ReSrc4 from René W. Olsen. This is a portable Amiga 68k hunk file disassembler. The source code is available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4
The archive can be fetched from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/resrc4.lha
Screenshot by PuniAmiBrixx is a puzzle game for the Amiga, ported from the PC version called Joemine. It was brought over by Joerg Renkert. Version 2.31 is now available for download from OS4Depot. It supports skins, which means that you can change how the game looks in many ways!
Screenshot by PuniIn a field of stacked stones, your target is to eliminate groups of stones of the same color. Thereby, the other stones will fall down and form new groups. The game ends when no more groups can be eliminated.
The game works very well, and I enjoyed testing it. I recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzle games like this!
Screenshot from an older version – By PuniVersion 35.31 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
The new version contains miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. To read more about this, or to download the game, please head over to OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=emulation/gamesystem/amiarcadia.lha
Screenshot lent from the website of Hyperion EntertainmentNow for some really big news… Are you ready? Hyperion Entertainment is back! Yes, they are back in full gear with a brand new update to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition! This time it is Update 3. Let us have a look at what this one has to offer us:
Brussels, Saturday, October 18, 2025
Hyperion Entertainment BV is proud to announce the release of Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Update 3 is a maintenance and stability update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and includes more than 60 new features, 70 updates, and over 135 bug fixes across the system.
Some of the most notable improvements include:
The TCP/IP stack Roadshow has been updated to version 1.15, which among many other things greatly improves network stability and speed.
New, updated kernels for the X5000, X1000, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Sam460, Sam440, and Classic Amiga systems, featuring upgraded cache handling and DMA operation on supported hardware.
An updated and improved USB stack which, among many other new features, performance improvements and bug fixes, now supports isochronous transfers for streaming devices.
An updated version of AmigaDOS with new features, enhancements, and numerous bug fixes.
An updated graphics library that now supports automatic detection of 4K/UHD monitors.
Updated versions of elf.library, intuition.library, and newlib.library, all featuring many new functions and bug fixes.
And many, many more new features, updates, and bug fixes.
Update 3 is available via AmiUpdate. Registered users can also download Update 3 from the download section at www.hyperion-entertainment.com.
Hyperion Entertainment would like to thank all the hardworking developers and testers for their dedication to this release. You keep the dream alive!
People who enjoy Minecraft and games similar to it should be happy to read that HunoPPC and the group titled “AOS4 fans from Mars” have brought ClassiCube to AmigaOS 4!
This is a custom Minecraft Classic-compatible client written in C from scratch. It aims to replicate the 2009 Minecraft Classic, while offering optional enhancements to improve the gameplay. Two versions are currently available for download: EGL_wrap and SPE. The SPE version is aimed at A1222+.
On the website of HunoPPC, you’ll find more information about the game, as well as downloads, and an option to support his work.
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/classicube-amigaos4-version-aos4-fans-mars-and-hunoppc
Here is a video of ClassiCube running on the A1222, courtesy of Mr Byte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTUC11uhBQ
HunoPPC has also released a new version of wipEout Rewrite Enhanced Fantômas Edition for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 1.0.6. For those of you not aware, this is basically a re-implementation of the classic Playstation 1 game wipEout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVwgkerqE
Changes are as follows:
Now working with Shaders, NORMAL or CRT mode
Fixed change resolution on live
Added shakers on shaders mode
Fixed opengl filter on shaders mode
Added 3D objects : Mouse, keyboard and joypad of WipeOut2097 datas
Added 1 letter of name saved on list of score
Added mouse support (W.I.P)
Saves prefs for ForceFeedback and mouse support added
Online scoresYou can find more information, as well as the download here:
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/wipeout-rewrite-enhanced-fant%C3%B4mas-edition-amigaos-41
Screenshot by PuniJuan Carlos Herrán Martín is an active software developer for platforms like AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS. We’ve seen many releases from him in the previous roundups. Now he has returned with a new version of the game, Los Malditos. It is a free adaptation of the mythical books from Timun Mas from the 1980s and 1990s. These books are related to Dungeons & Dragons. The author is a fan of these works. It is now available for download at OS4Depot.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=game/adventure/losmalditos.lha
Screenshot by PuniChanges for the new version is as follows:
The extended the story for the chapter 1, with new enemies and places to visit.
Removed bugs.
Rewrote the dialogues to better suit the personality of each hero/heroine.
New graphics and sounds.If you’d like to have a closer look at what goes on behind the curtains on AmigaOS 4, the utility called Snoopy will be an excellent choice. Created by Colin Wenzel, this is a SnoopDos like program that will reveal all kinds of information about what is happening when you run a program, for example.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/snoopy.lha
Screenshot by PuniA new version of the lightweight and powerful text editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.8r2.
The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.
Changes are as follows:
Added support for the GLSL language
Added the dragdropselected plugin
Added the tab_switcher plugin
Added the titleize plugin
Added the togglesnakecamel plugin
Added the typingspeed plugin
Added the unboundedscroll plugin
Added the wordcount pluginThe program is available for download from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/text/edit/litexl2.lha
George Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page is available here:
https://ko-fi.com/walkero/posts
Screenshot by PuniKevin Taddeucci has released version 2.6 of his program VideoClipper in October. This is an extensive update, and it contains a wide range of bug fixes and changes.
VideoClipper version 2.6 includes enhancements to help speed up encoding. MPlayer v1.5 is now supported. Also supports .ass format subtitle file encoding. Many other user-requested enhancements and a few bug fixes are included. See below for the full list of changes.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/edit/videoclipper.lha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq2o-BKKJU
Liblua 5.4.8 and Libffmpeg 8.0 have been uploaded to OS4Depot by Michael Trebilcock. Downloads are available below:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/libffmpeg.lha
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/language/liblua.lha
DRIDI has released version 14.3Final of the Arabic Console Device. Changes are as follows:
(version 14.3Final) “Version education&legacy” finished (for me) –
ArabicLauncher – Concurrency with run and cmd on error – Almost perfect!https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=driver/input/arabic_console_devicepro2.lha
A new build of FFmpeg 8.0 from Michael Trebilcock has been released. This one will only run on the A1222, but it is not e500 / SPE optimized. Despite this, it is significantly faster than the generic FPU build when run on the A1222.
FFmpeg is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/convert/ffmpeg_a1222.lha
Screenshot by PuniKikems is back with version 1.0R7 of the next generation pixel editor for Amiga called Pixy. The original concept was created by Sinisrus, who worked on it in the years 2016 to 2020. Kimens from AmigaWave is now improving it further.
Pixy is a drawing program dedicated to pixel art and graphics with alpha channel transparency. It allows you to create several animations in a single project, and each image of each animation sequence contains its own layers. This makes it possible to work on all the animations of a character when creating video games, for example. The interface is intentionally inspired by Photoshop.
More information about Pixy, as well as a download, can be found here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=graphics/edit/pixy.lha
A new update to SDL3 is out, more precisely version 3.2.24. More information is available here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=library/misc/sdl3.lha
On GitHub:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/SDL
The Settlers is now out for AmigaOS 4 (and other Amiga platforms)! It is available for purchase from Look Behind You:
https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
From their website, we can read:
The Settlers II is regarded as the pinnacle of the series and a milestone in the building strategy genre. The game perfected everything that made the first part awesome: the bustling inhabitants, the complex economic chains, and the unique charm. Now, finally, it’s where it belongs – on the Amiga.
The story
A storm casts Roman captain Octavius onto a mysterious island. From a simple emergency shelter, you build a powerful empire. Starting with a single tent, you develop a complex civilization with over 30 building types and just as many professions.
Extensive game contentthousands of lovingly animated settlers
over 30 different professions, including 6 types of soldiers
4 different races with different character types: Romans, Asians, Nubians, and Vikings
various landscapes such as lava, ice fields, swamps, forests, and much more, including the stunning winter scenery from The Settlers II Mission CD
10 Roman campaigns and 9 world campaigns
130 free bonus maps
integrated in-game help and optimized game interface
4 languages: fully in English and German, with French and Polish available in-gameThree editions for everyone who loves the Amiga
Box Edition (available from October 18, 2025): This physical edition will feature a classic box format with a slip lid for € 49.90 and will include a DVD plus download option, the colored world atlas, manuals in German and English, as well as four exclusive and collectible retro-design postcards.
Collector’s Edition (available from December 1, 2025): The game’s deluxe version will be available for € 99.90 as a wooden box in the original Settlers II design; it will be limited to 100 copies and will also include an exclusive metal magnet (8×5 cm) with the iconic castle motif from the first Settlers game—a real gem for every Amiga enthusiast and box collector.
Digital Edition (available from October 18, 2025): For immediate gaming fun, a download-only version will also be available for € 29.90.
PowerPC version
Minimum system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP
603e/175 MHz
32 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceRecommended system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP
G3 800 MHz or higher
for resolutions higher than 640×480, a graphics card (PCI, AGP, or PCIe) is recommended
64 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceOla Söder has released InstallerLG version 1.03:
A reimplementation of the ‘Installer’ utility included with AmigaOS as of version 2.1. InstallerLG aims to be fully compatible with the original as described in the V44.10 documentation. Most resource limitations found in the Commodore implementation are gone, and the GUI has been replaced by a MUI / Zune based one.
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-amigaos
The text editor Vim has also received an update from Ola Söder, bumping it to 9.1.1869. It is available for download from Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/text/edit/Vim_9.1-ppc-amigaos
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better. Among its features are:
persistent, multi-level undo tree
extensive plugin system
support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
powerful search and replace
integrates with many toolsPlease note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.
The source code is available here:
https://github.com/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://codeberg.org/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mui-vim/On Aminet, we can also see that A. Pankalla has released a set of special mouse drivers. He writes as follows:
This mouse drivers based on open-source code from diverse authors and was changed in two manners.
First, some functions are changed, because they deprecrated and second i changed some lines of codes to fit to severale mouse types. The changed source code you find in the source directory, it is based on the xero-driver from W. Hosemann. You can recompile it with different constants to genrate the special drivers.
The main new function of the driver’s is to provide a possibility to scroll also in horizontal direction, this is usesd, for example, in the directory windows or the notepad. This function is mapped to special hardware buttons. Check the hardware id’s with tools like usbinspector or devinfos(ng). the driver only works with this deticated hardware!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/driver/input/MouseDriver
Version 1.14i.1 of LHa for UNIX for AmigaOS 4 has been released! You can find it for download on Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/arc/LHa_4U4A-ppc-amigaos
Version 5.25 of AmiSSL has been released! As mentioned in earlier editions of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup, the AmiSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a port of OpenSSL in a shared library for Amiga-based systems. It is a must-have if you use AmigaOS 4 to browse the web!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-v5-OS4
The very active developer Steffen Häuser is working on porting ScummVM 3.0.0.git to AmigaOS 4. It is currently in beta state. You can find out more by visiting amiga-news.de, who published this news:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-10-00042-EN.html
ACube Systems, the creators of the Sam 440 and Sam460, has announced the Sil3132 SATA2 driver for AmigaOS 4:
Bassano del Grappa, Italy – October 18, 2025
ACube Systems is proud to announce, as a special gift to the community on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the Amiga and during the Amiga40 Germany event in Mönchengladbach from October 17–19, 2025, the release of the AmigaOS4 driver for the SiI3132 SATA2 controller.
With the latest U-Boot update already adding support for the SiI3132 controller, this new driver – developed in collaboration with Alfredo Amendolagine – enables AmigaOS 4 to fully utilize the Silicon Image 3132 controller, featuring two SATA2 ports on a high-performance PCIe bus. It delivers top speeds and broad compatibility with modern SATA devices, including HDDs, SSDs, and CD/DVD drives.
Most importantly, this driver will be offered completely free of charge – an exclusive gift from ACube Systems to the entire Amiga community in celebration of this milestone.
You can download the driver from the “Latest files” section on our homepage or by directly clicking on this link:
https://acube-systems.biz/download.php?file=sii3132sata_dev_v1.0.lha
Enjoy Amiga40! We certainly will!
It is great to see ACube Systems actively support the platform, which they’ve done consistantly for many, many years! 🙂
Now, over to another piece of very interesting news. An alpha version of the web browser Odyssey has been released! Please read on for the full news as posted on Amigans.net:
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
What’s new in this Alpha build
Compiled with GCC 11 (with –enable-sjlj-exceptions disabled), resulting in a noticeable speed boost
Integrated with the new clib4 memory allocator, improving memory handling and stability
Several internal optimizations to make the browser smoother and faster
Audio and Video playback are currently disabled in this Alpha build
Important Notes
This is an Alpha version, and it’s still under active development.
That means some features may not work correctly or may cause crashes in specific conditions.You can find the current list of known issues (and add your own reports) here:
https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/issuesPlease make sure to read the included README file for more detailed information about installation, usage, and limitations of this build.
Copy PROGDIR:Libs/clib4.library into LIBS: folder. If you are using already version 2.0 just overwrite older version.
If you are using the old 1.6 version, just backup it and copy new versionYour feedback is incredibly valuable — every issue reported helps make Odyssey better and faster for everyone in the Amiga community.
You can follow development here: https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/
and get the latest build here: Odyssey_300a1.lhaI’ve installed it myself on the A1222+, and I’m looking forward to trying it out further. Congratulations, and thanks to Andrea for his hard work on this project!
In this video you can see the YouTuber TJ Ferreira checking it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIWt5D6Zaw
Misc
There is currently a poll running on Amigans.net. The aim of this one is to gauge what systems people are running AmigaOS 4 on. The poll is on the front page, on the right-hand side. I just submitted my votes, and I hope you will do the same. I’m curious how this one will end up!
A new issue of Amiga Future is scheduled for release in November.
Issue 177 will contain information about Settlers II, a game which was released in October.
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=10933
Michal Schulz, the man behind Emu68, made an announcement on his Patreon that has sparked a lot of discussion recently. Emu68 goes PowerPC! What this will mean for AmigaOS 4 remains to be seen, but it is intriguing to say the least! Please follow the link for the full post from Michal Schulz:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-more-thing-141985279
George Sokianos has released version 1.7.0 of Kyvos. This is a user-friendly graphical frontend for QEMU, which makes it much easier to set up and run AmigaOS 4 on various platforms.
Please head on over to Mr. Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page to get the full details on the new version:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Kyvos-1-7-0-released-R6R81NHQWD
The screenshots above is from his Patreon page.
AmiWest 2025 is scheduled to take place this upcoming weekend. A press release was recently published on Amigans.net in connection with this:
Oct 28th, 2025
SACRAMENTO, California – The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club is proud to present AmiWest 2025 on Nov 1st and 2nd. This is a special year for the Amiga Computer, launched by Commodore in 1985, marking the platform’s 40th anniversary. So far this year, Amiga enthusiasts have been treated to the AMIGA/040th in Silicon Valley and the Amiga40 in Germany, along with a host of other special events.
AmiWest, the longest-running Amiga show in the world, will be celebrating the Amiga’s 40th anniversary with a focus on the community. In place of a traditional show floor banquet, we will be traveling to a local Sacramento Burgers and Brew. In place of a conventional speaker, we will allow the attendees to share their Amiga Computer journeys and experiences.
The show floor will see several new exhibits joining our long-time supporters. We will have the Amiga “Lorraine” wire-wrap prototypes, the AMIGA/040th FutureWall, Tunefinder – Marcin Spoczynski, and more. We will also present AmigaOS 4 Update 3, the new Mirari PPC board, and AmigaOS 3.3 beta. To top it off, the A-Eon A1222+, motherboard and complete tower systems will be on sale at the AAA table!
For presentations, the show will have unique content:
Carl Sassenrath presents the history of the Amiga
Jason Neus talking about AmiPCI
A-eon updates from Trevor Dickinson and Matthew Lehman
Steven Solie is providing an update on AmigaOS 4 multicore
And more!Like AmiWests in the past, we will have the Raffle, Games Competition, and live internet broadcast!
Check amiwest.net for the latest details on the show!
Contact: Jerry Gray
SACC Vice President
[email protected]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyRmgkjT5E
The gaming competition on Amigans.net for October and November is currently ongoing. These months, we are playing the brilliant arcade shoot’em up game Blastaway from Retream!
This game is available for purchase here:
https://retream.itch.io/blastaway
At the moment, Walkero is in the lead, followed by 328gts. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m currently in the last position, but that will hopefully change during November. 😉 Time will show!
If you’d like to take part in the competition or to read more about it, here is the link to the appropriate thread on Amigans.net:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9943
The show Amiga 40 was held in Germany from October 17th to 19th.
Many reports from the event have been published, but for us AmigaOS 4 enthusiasts, I recommend heading over to the Rear Window blog to read Trixie’s “Glad in Gladbach” post.
There, he gives us a detailed travel report, packed with photos of many people in our community attending the event, either as visitors or as exhibitors.
https://ko-fi.com/post/Glad-in-Gladbach-N4N21N487C
To complement this, there are many videos on YouTube covering the event. Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFBXibOgrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8MS8HCXVT8
Also, McFly PPC has released his video (part 1) of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RPPLdcGUs
I’d also like to mention that AmigaNG has created a great summary of the event, which you can find here:
Now, at Amiga 40, we were presented with some very interested news concerning the Mirari, but also multicore. Please have a look at these two images:
This is for sure, great news, and very exciting! 🙂
Skateman, who is part of the Mirari project, shared some images to use in this roundup.
Thanks to Skateman for the photo! Mirari for Frieden! – Photo by SkatemanThis shows the Mirari computer that has been shipped to Thomas Frieden, and the board to Steven Solie. Many thanks to Skateman for supporting the monthly roundup!
YouTube
TJ Ferreira has ventured out on more AmigaOS 4 adventures lately. In this video, he he takes a look at the Infinite Icons 1.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUNu8Sk0-k
Ghettofinger Gaming is very active on YouTube, promoting the Amiga and the AmiWest event. In one of his videos, he looks at game ports on his AmigaOne X5000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5bRb_RVy4
Please visit his channel for many more AmigaOS 4-related videos. 🙂
Davebraco is back again with several nice videos. Have you, for example, seen 26 HD videos running at once on an AmigaOne X5000? Well, if not, here is your chance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb4x3kWDlc
Another video he did was showing how you can do fast backups with the Mirror command on AmigaOS 4.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tjBq5u6YU
Marek Glogowski has also been very active as of late, and one of the videos can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCEo7-KSRmk
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel has published a new video – Serious Sam The First/Second Encounter Amiga 40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYYQBHq9YU
If you’d like to see more of the AmigaOne X5000, Mufa has made a video in Polish, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv1novc-SU
Until next time
I say it again, what a month! 🙂 I’m sorry if I’ve missed some news this time, but I think I’ve managed to cram in all there is. 😉
That was all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the news for October 2025!
Thank for reading and for visiting my blog!
Also thanks to everyone who supports this initiative, it is very much appreciated!
I wish you all a nice November, and see you in the next AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
Best regards,
Puni
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#Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOS4 #AmigaOS4MonthlyRoundup #AmigaOS41 #computers #PowerPC #PPC
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – October 2025
Introduction
Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for checking out this new issue of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
My A1222+. Photo by Puni.If you are new to this series (hi, and welcome!), it’s essentially a summary that covers the previous month’s news related to the AmigaOS 4 platform.
This month, October, has been jam-packed with events and news, almost too much to keep up with! News is spread on many channels, so there is a lot to keep track of, but that is part of the fun, and the reason they end up in a roundup like this. 😉
Anyway, October has been a FANTASTIC month for the AmigaOS 4 community, I dare to state that. It will be hard to top this for a while, I think!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what October was like in the world of AmigaOS 4!
Software News
First up is ReSrc4 from René W. Olsen. This is a portable Amiga 68k hunk file disassembler. The source code is available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4
The archive can be fetched from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/resrc4.lha
Screenshot by PuniAmiBrixx is a puzzle game for the Amiga, ported from the PC version called Joemine. It was brought over by Joerg Renkert. Version 2.31 is now available for download from OS4Depot. It supports skins, which means that you can change how the game looks in many ways!
Screenshot by PuniIn a field of stacked stones, your target is to eliminate groups of stones of the same color. Thereby, the other stones will fall down and form new groups. The game ends when no more groups can be eliminated.
The game works very well, and I enjoyed testing it. I recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzle games like this!
Screenshot from an older version – By PuniVersion 35.31 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
The new version contains miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. To read more about this, or to download the game, please head over to OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=emulation/gamesystem/amiarcadia.lha
Screenshot lent from the website of Hyperion EntertainmentNow for some really big news… Are you ready? Hyperion Entertainment is back! Yes, they are back in full gear with a brand new update to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition! This time it is Update 3. Let us have a look at what this one has to offer us:
Brussels, Saturday, October 18, 2025
Hyperion Entertainment BV is proud to announce the release of Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Update 3 is a maintenance and stability update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and includes more than 60 new features, 70 updates, and over 135 bug fixes across the system.
Some of the most notable improvements include:
The TCP/IP stack Roadshow has been updated to version 1.15, which among many other things greatly improves network stability and speed.
New, updated kernels for the X5000, X1000, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Sam460, Sam440, and Classic Amiga systems, featuring upgraded cache handling and DMA operation on supported hardware.
An updated and improved USB stack which, among many other new features, performance improvements and bug fixes, now supports isochronous transfers for streaming devices.
An updated version of AmigaDOS with new features, enhancements, and numerous bug fixes.
An updated graphics library that now supports automatic detection of 4K/UHD monitors.
Updated versions of elf.library, intuition.library, and newlib.library, all featuring many new functions and bug fixes.
And many, many more new features, updates, and bug fixes.
Update 3 is available via AmiUpdate. Registered users can also download Update 3 from the download section at www.hyperion-entertainment.com.
Hyperion Entertainment would like to thank all the hardworking developers and testers for their dedication to this release. You keep the dream alive!
People who enjoy Minecraft and games similar to it should be happy to read that HunoPPC and the group titled “AOS4 fans from Mars” have brought ClassiCube to AmigaOS 4!
This is a custom Minecraft Classic-compatible client written in C from scratch. It aims to replicate the 2009 Minecraft Classic, while offering optional enhancements to improve the gameplay. Two versions are currently available for download: EGL_wrap and SPE. The SPE version is aimed at A1222+.
On the website of HunoPPC, you’ll find more information about the game, as well as downloads, and an option to support his work.
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/classicube-amigaos4-version-aos4-fans-mars-and-hunoppc
Here is a video of ClassiCube running on the A1222, courtesy of Mr Byte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTUC11uhBQ
HunoPPC has also released a new version of wipEout Rewrite Enhanced Fantômas Edition for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 1.0.6. For those of you not aware, this is basically a re-implementation of the classic Playstation 1 game wipEout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVwgkerqE
Changes are as follows:
Now working with Shaders, NORMAL or CRT mode
Fixed change resolution on live
Added shakers on shaders mode
Fixed opengl filter on shaders mode
Added 3D objects : Mouse, keyboard and joypad of WipeOut2097 datas
Added 1 letter of name saved on list of score
Added mouse support (W.I.P)
Saves prefs for ForceFeedback and mouse support added
Online scoresYou can find more information, as well as the download here:
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/wipeout-rewrite-enhanced-fant%C3%B4mas-edition-amigaos-41
Screenshot by PuniJuan Carlos Herrán Martín is an active software developer for platforms like AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS. We’ve seen many releases from him in the previous roundups. Now he has returned with a new version of the game, Los Malditos. It is a free adaptation of the mythical books from Timun Mas from the 1980s and 1990s. These books are related to Dungeons & Dragons. The author is a fan of these works. It is now available for download at OS4Depot.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=game/adventure/losmalditos.lha
Screenshot by PuniChanges for the new version is as follows:
The extended the story for the chapter 1, with new enemies and places to visit.
Removed bugs.
Rewrote the dialogues to better suit the personality of each hero/heroine.
New graphics and sounds.If you’d like to have a closer look at what goes on behind the curtains on AmigaOS 4, the utility called Snoopy will be an excellent choice. Created by Colin Wenzel, this is a SnoopDos like program that will reveal all kinds of information about what is happening when you run a program, for example.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/snoopy.lha
Screenshot by PuniA new version of the lightweight and powerful text editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.8r2.
The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.
Changes are as follows:
Added support for the GLSL language
Added the dragdropselected plugin
Added the tab_switcher plugin
Added the titleize plugin
Added the togglesnakecamel plugin
Added the typingspeed plugin
Added the unboundedscroll plugin
Added the wordcount pluginThe program is available for download from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/text/edit/litexl2.lha
George Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page is available here:
https://ko-fi.com/walkero/posts
Screenshot by PuniKevin Taddeucci has released version 2.6 of his program VideoClipper in October. This is an extensive update, and it contains a wide range of bug fixes and changes.
VideoClipper version 2.6 includes enhancements to help speed up encoding. MPlayer v1.5 is now supported. Also supports .ass format subtitle file encoding. Many other user-requested enhancements and a few bug fixes are included. See below for the full list of changes.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/edit/videoclipper.lha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq2o-BKKJU
Liblua 5.4.8 and Libffmpeg 8.0 have been uploaded to OS4Depot by Michael Trebilcock. Downloads are available below:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/libffmpeg.lha
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/language/liblua.lha
DRIDI has released version 14.3Final of the Arabic Console Device. Changes are as follows:
(version 14.3Final) “Version education&legacy” finished (for me) –
ArabicLauncher – Concurrency with run and cmd on error – Almost perfect!https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=driver/input/arabic_console_devicepro2.lha
A new build of FFmpeg 8.0 from Michael Trebilcock has been released. This one will only run on the A1222, but it is not e500 / SPE optimized. Despite this, it is significantly faster than the generic FPU build when run on the A1222.
FFmpeg is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/convert/ffmpeg_a1222.lha
Screenshot by PuniKikems is back with version 1.0R7 of the next generation pixel editor for Amiga called Pixy. The original concept was created by Sinisrus, who worked on it in the years 2016 to 2020. Kimens from AmigaWave is now improving it further.
Pixy is a drawing program dedicated to pixel art and graphics with alpha channel transparency. It allows you to create several animations in a single project, and each image of each animation sequence contains its own layers. This makes it possible to work on all the animations of a character when creating video games, for example. The interface is intentionally inspired by Photoshop.
More information about Pixy, as well as a download, can be found here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=graphics/edit/pixy.lha
A new update to SDL3 is out, more precisely version 3.2.24. More information is available here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=library/misc/sdl3.lha
On GitHub:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/SDL
The Settlers is now out for AmigaOS 4 (and other Amiga platforms)! It is available for purchase from Look Behind You:
https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
From their website, we can read:
The Settlers II is regarded as the pinnacle of the series and a milestone in the building strategy genre. The game perfected everything that made the first part awesome: the bustling inhabitants, the complex economic chains, and the unique charm. Now, finally, it’s where it belongs – on the Amiga.
The story
A storm casts Roman captain Octavius onto a mysterious island. From a simple emergency shelter, you build a powerful empire. Starting with a single tent, you develop a complex civilization with over 30 building types and just as many professions.
Extensive game contentthousands of lovingly animated settlers
over 30 different professions, including 6 types of soldiers
4 different races with different character types: Romans, Asians, Nubians, and Vikings
various landscapes such as lava, ice fields, swamps, forests, and much more, including the stunning winter scenery from The Settlers II Mission CD
10 Roman campaigns and 9 world campaigns
130 free bonus maps
integrated in-game help and optimized game interface
4 languages: fully in English and German, with French and Polish available in-gameThree editions for everyone who loves the Amiga
Box Edition (available from October 18, 2025): This physical edition will feature a classic box format with a slip lid for € 49.90 and will include a DVD plus download option, the colored world atlas, manuals in German and English, as well as four exclusive and collectible retro-design postcards.
Collector’s Edition (available from December 1, 2025): The game’s deluxe version will be available for € 99.90 as a wooden box in the original Settlers II design; it will be limited to 100 copies and will also include an exclusive metal magnet (8×5 cm) with the iconic castle motif from the first Settlers game—a real gem for every Amiga enthusiast and box collector.
Digital Edition (available from October 18, 2025): For immediate gaming fun, a download-only version will also be available for € 29.90.
PowerPC version
Minimum system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP
603e/175 MHz
32 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceRecommended system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP
G3 800 MHz or higher
for resolutions higher than 640×480, a graphics card (PCI, AGP, or PCIe) is recommended
64 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceOla Söder has released InstallerLG version 1.03:
A reimplementation of the ‘Installer’ utility included with AmigaOS as of version 2.1. InstallerLG aims to be fully compatible with the original as described in the V44.10 documentation. Most resource limitations found in the Commodore implementation are gone, and the GUI has been replaced by a MUI / Zune based one.
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-amigaos
The text editor Vim has also received an update from Ola Söder, bumping it to 9.1.1869. It is available for download from Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/text/edit/Vim_9.1-ppc-amigaos
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better. Among its features are:
persistent, multi-level undo tree
extensive plugin system
support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
powerful search and replace
integrates with many toolsPlease note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.
The source code is available here:
https://github.com/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://codeberg.org/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mui-vim/On Aminet, we can also see that A. Pankalla has released a set of special mouse drivers. He writes as follows:
This mouse drivers based on open-source code from diverse authors and was changed in two manners.
First, some functions are changed, because they deprecrated and second i changed some lines of codes to fit to severale mouse types. The changed source code you find in the source directory, it is based on the xero-driver from W. Hosemann. You can recompile it with different constants to genrate the special drivers.
The main new function of the driver’s is to provide a possibility to scroll also in horizontal direction, this is usesd, for example, in the directory windows or the notepad. This function is mapped to special hardware buttons. Check the hardware id’s with tools like usbinspector or devinfos(ng). the driver only works with this deticated hardware!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/driver/input/MouseDriver
Version 1.14i.1 of LHa for UNIX for AmigaOS 4 has been released! You can find it for download on Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/arc/LHa_4U4A-ppc-amigaos
Version 5.25 of AmiSSL has been released! As mentioned in earlier editions of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup, the AmiSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a port of OpenSSL in a shared library for Amiga-based systems. It is a must-have if you use AmigaOS 4 to browse the web!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-v5-OS4
The very active developer Steffen Häuser is working on porting ScummVM 3.0.0.git to AmigaOS 4. It is currently in beta state. You can find out more by visiting amiga-news.de, who published this news:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-10-00042-EN.html
ACube Systems, the creators of the Sam 440 and Sam460, has announced the Sil3132 SATA2 driver for AmigaOS 4:
Bassano del Grappa, Italy – October 18, 2025
ACube Systems is proud to announce, as a special gift to the community on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the Amiga and during the Amiga40 Germany event in Mönchengladbach from October 17–19, 2025, the release of the AmigaOS4 driver for the SiI3132 SATA2 controller.
With the latest U-Boot update already adding support for the SiI3132 controller, this new driver – developed in collaboration with Alfredo Amendolagine – enables AmigaOS 4 to fully utilize the Silicon Image 3132 controller, featuring two SATA2 ports on a high-performance PCIe bus. It delivers top speeds and broad compatibility with modern SATA devices, including HDDs, SSDs, and CD/DVD drives.
Most importantly, this driver will be offered completely free of charge – an exclusive gift from ACube Systems to the entire Amiga community in celebration of this milestone.
You can download the driver from the “Latest files” section on our homepage or by directly clicking on this link:
https://acube-systems.biz/download.php?file=sii3132sata_dev_v1.0.lha
Enjoy Amiga40! We certainly will!
It is great to see ACube Systems actively support the platform, which they’ve done consistantly for many, many years! 🙂
Now, over to another piece of very interesting news. An alpha version of the web browser Odyssey has been released! Please read on for the full news as posted on Amigans.net:
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
What’s new in this Alpha build
Compiled with GCC 11 (with –enable-sjlj-exceptions disabled), resulting in a noticeable speed boost
Integrated with the new clib4 memory allocator, improving memory handling and stability
Several internal optimizations to make the browser smoother and faster
Audio and Video playback are currently disabled in this Alpha build
Important Notes
This is an Alpha version, and it’s still under active development.
That means some features may not work correctly or may cause crashes in specific conditions.You can find the current list of known issues (and add your own reports) here:
https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/issuesPlease make sure to read the included README file for more detailed information about installation, usage, and limitations of this build.
Copy PROGDIR:Libs/clib4.library into LIBS: folder. If you are using already version 2.0 just overwrite older version.
If you are using the old 1.6 version, just backup it and copy new versionYour feedback is incredibly valuable — every issue reported helps make Odyssey better and faster for everyone in the Amiga community.
You can follow development here: https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/
and get the latest build here: Odyssey_300a1.lhaI’ve installed it myself on the A1222+, and I’m looking forward to trying it out further. Congratulations, and thanks to Andrea for his hard work on this project!
In this video you can see the YouTuber TJ Ferreira checking it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIWt5D6Zaw
Misc
There is currently a poll running on Amigans.net. The aim of this one is to gauge what systems people are running AmigaOS 4 on. The poll is on the front page, on the right-hand side. I just submitted my votes, and I hope you will do the same. I’m curious how this one will end up!
A new issue of Amiga Future is scheduled for release in November.
Issue 177 will contain information about Settlers II, a game which was released in October.
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=10933
Michal Schulz, the man behind Emu68, made an announcement on his Patreon that has sparked a lot of discussion recently. Emu68 goes PowerPC! What this will mean for AmigaOS 4 remains to be seen, but it is intriguing to say the least! Please follow the link for the full post from Michal Schulz:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-more-thing-141985279
George Sokianos has released version 1.7.0 of Kyvos. This is a user-friendly graphical frontend for QEMU, which makes it much easier to set up and run AmigaOS 4 on various platforms.
Please head on over to Mr. Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page to get the full details on the new version:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Kyvos-1-7-0-released-R6R81NHQWD
The screenshots above is from his Patreon page.
AmiWest 2025 is scheduled to take place this upcoming weekend. A press release was recently published on Amigans.net in connection with this:
Oct 28th, 2025
SACRAMENTO, California – The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club is proud to present AmiWest 2025 on Nov 1st and 2nd. This is a special year for the Amiga Computer, launched by Commodore in 1985, marking the platform’s 40th anniversary. So far this year, Amiga enthusiasts have been treated to the AMIGA/040th in Silicon Valley and the Amiga40 in Germany, along with a host of other special events.
AmiWest, the longest-running Amiga show in the world, will be celebrating the Amiga’s 40th anniversary with a focus on the community. In place of a traditional show floor banquet, we will be traveling to a local Sacramento Burgers and Brew. In place of a conventional speaker, we will allow the attendees to share their Amiga Computer journeys and experiences.
The show floor will see several new exhibits joining our long-time supporters. We will have the Amiga “Lorraine” wire-wrap prototypes, the AMIGA/040th FutureWall, Tunefinder – Marcin Spoczynski, and more. We will also present AmigaOS 4 Update 3, the new Mirari PPC board, and AmigaOS 3.3 beta. To top it off, the A-Eon A1222+, motherboard and complete tower systems will be on sale at the AAA table!
For presentations, the show will have unique content:
Carl Sassenrath presents the history of the Amiga
Jason Neus talking about AmiPCI
A-eon updates from Trevor Dickinson and Matthew Lehman
Steven Solie is providing an update on AmigaOS 4 multicore
And more!Like AmiWests in the past, we will have the Raffle, Games Competition, and live internet broadcast!
Check amiwest.net for the latest details on the show!
Contact: Jerry Gray
SACC Vice President
[email protected]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyRmgkjT5E
The gaming competition on Amigans.net for October and November is currently ongoing. These months, we are playing the brilliant arcade shoot’em up game Blastaway from Retream!
This game is available for purchase here:
https://retream.itch.io/blastaway
At the moment, Walkero is in the lead, followed by 328gts. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m currently in the last position, but that will hopefully change during November. 😉 Time will show!
If you’d like to take part in the competition or to read more about it, here is the link to the appropriate thread on Amigans.net:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9943
The show Amiga 40 was held in Germany from October 17th to 19th.
Many reports from the event have been published, but for us AmigaOS 4 enthusiasts, I recommend heading over to the Rear Window blog to read Trixie’s “Glad in Gladbach” post.
There, he gives us a detailed travel report, packed with photos of many people in our community attending the event, either as visitors or as exhibitors.
https://ko-fi.com/post/Glad-in-Gladbach-N4N21N487C
To complement this, there are many videos on YouTube covering the event. Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFBXibOgrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8MS8HCXVT8
Also, McFly PPC has released his video (part 1) of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RPPLdcGUs
I’d also like to mention that AmigaNG has created a great summary of the event, which you can find here:
Now, at Amiga 40, we were presented with some very interested news concerning the Mirari, but also multicore. Please have a look at these two images:
This is for sure, great news, and very exciting! 🙂
Skateman, who is part of the Mirari project, shared some images to use in this roundup.
Thanks to Skateman for the photo! Mirari for Frieden! – Photo by SkatemanThis shows the Mirari computer that has been shipped to Thomas Frieden, and the board to Steven Solie. Many thanks to Skateman for supporting the monthly roundup!
YouTube
TJ Ferreira has ventured out on more AmigaOS 4 adventures lately. In this video, he he takes a look at the Infinite Icons 1.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUNu8Sk0-k
Ghettofinger Gaming is very active on YouTube, promoting the Amiga and the AmiWest event. In one of his videos, he looks at game ports on his AmigaOne X5000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5bRb_RVy4
Please visit his channel for many more AmigaOS 4-related videos. 🙂
Davebraco is back again with several nice videos. Have you, for example, seen 26 HD videos running at once on an AmigaOne X5000? Well, if not, here is your chance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb4x3kWDlc
Another video he did was showing how you can do fast backups with the Mirror command on AmigaOS 4.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tjBq5u6YU
Marek Glogowski has also been very active as of late, and one of the videos can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCEo7-KSRmk
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel has published a new video – Serious Sam The First/Second Encounter Amiga 40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYYQBHq9YU
If you’d like to see more of the AmigaOne X5000, Mufa has made a video in Polish, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv1novc-SU
Until next time
I say it again, what a month! 🙂 I’m sorry if I’ve missed some news this time, but I think I’ve managed to cram in all there is. 😉
That was all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the news for October 2025!
Thank for reading and for visiting my blog!
Also thanks to everyone who supports this initiative, it is very much appreciated!
I wish you all a nice November, and see you in the next AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
Best regards,
Puni
#Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOS4 #AmigaOS4MonthlyRoundup #AmigaOS41 #computers #PowerPC #PPC
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AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – October 2025
Introduction
Hi everyone,
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for checking out this new issue of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
My A1222+. Photo by Puni.If you are new to this series (hi, and welcome!), it’s essentially a summary that covers the previous month’s news related to the AmigaOS 4 platform.
This month, October, has been jam-packed with events and news, almost too much to keep up with! News is spread on many channels, so there is a lot to keep track of, but that is part of the fun, and the reason they end up in a roundup like this. 😉
Anyway, October has been a FANTASTIC month for the AmigaOS 4 community, I dare to state that. It will be hard to top this for a while, I think!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what October was like in the world of AmigaOS 4!
Software News
First up is ReSrc4 from René W. Olsen. This is a portable Amiga 68k hunk file disassembler. The source code is available on GitHub:
https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4
The archive can be fetched from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/resrc4.lha
Screenshot by PuniAmiBrixx is a puzzle game for the Amiga, ported from the PC version called Joemine. It was brought over by Joerg Renkert. Version 2.31 is now available for download from OS4Depot. It supports skins, which means that you can change how the game looks in many ways!
Screenshot by PuniIn a field of stacked stones, your target is to eliminate groups of stones of the same color. Thereby, the other stones will fall down and form new groups. The game ends when no more groups can be eliminated.
The game works very well, and I enjoyed testing it. I recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzle games like this!
Screenshot from an older version – By PuniVersion 35.31 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.
According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:
- Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
- Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
- Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
- PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
- Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
- Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
- Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
- PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
- Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
- Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
- Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
- Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
- AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
- VTech Type-right machine (1985)
It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!
The new version contains miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. To read more about this, or to download the game, please head over to OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=emulation/gamesystem/amiarcadia.lha
Screenshot lent from the website of Hyperion EntertainmentNow for some really big news… Are you ready? Hyperion Entertainment is back! Yes, they are back in full gear with a brand new update to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition! This time it is Update 3. Let us have a look at what this one has to offer us:
Brussels, Saturday, October 18, 2025
Hyperion Entertainment BV is proud to announce the release of Update 3 for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition. Update 3 is a maintenance and stability update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and includes more than 60 new features, 70 updates, and over 135 bug fixes across the system.
Some of the most notable improvements include:
The TCP/IP stack Roadshow has been updated to version 1.15, which among many other things greatly improves network stability and speed.
New, updated kernels for the X5000, X1000, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Sam460, Sam440, and Classic Amiga systems, featuring upgraded cache handling and DMA operation on supported hardware.
An updated and improved USB stack which, among many other new features, performance improvements and bug fixes, now supports isochronous transfers for streaming devices.
An updated version of AmigaDOS with new features, enhancements, and numerous bug fixes.
An updated graphics library that now supports automatic detection of 4K/UHD monitors.
Updated versions of elf.library, intuition.library, and newlib.library, all featuring many new functions and bug fixes.
And many, many more new features, updates, and bug fixes.
Update 3 is available via AmiUpdate. Registered users can also download Update 3 from the download section at www.hyperion-entertainment.com.
Hyperion Entertainment would like to thank all the hardworking developers and testers for their dedication to this release. You keep the dream alive!
People who enjoy Minecraft and games similar to it should be happy to read that HunoPPC and the group titled “AOS4 fans from Mars” have brought ClassiCube to AmigaOS 4!
This is a custom Minecraft Classic-compatible client written in C from scratch. It aims to replicate the 2009 Minecraft Classic, while offering optional enhancements to improve the gameplay. Two versions are currently available for download: EGL_wrap and SPE. The SPE version is aimed at A1222+.
On the website of HunoPPC, you’ll find more information about the game, as well as downloads, and an option to support his work.
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/classicube-amigaos4-version-aos4-fans-mars-and-hunoppc
Here is a video of ClassiCube running on the A1222, courtesy of Mr Byte:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTUC11uhBQ
HunoPPC has also released a new version of wipEout Rewrite Enhanced Fantômas Edition for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 1.0.6. For those of you not aware, this is basically a re-implementation of the classic Playstation 1 game wipEout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIVwgkerqE
Changes are as follows:
Now working with Shaders, NORMAL or CRT mode
Fixed change resolution on live
Added shakers on shaders mode
Fixed opengl filter on shaders mode
Added 3D objects : Mouse, keyboard and joypad of WipeOut2097 datas
Added 1 letter of name saved on list of score
Added mouse support (W.I.P)
Saves prefs for ForceFeedback and mouse support added
Online scoresYou can find more information, as well as the download here:
https://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/wipeout-rewrite-enhanced-fant%C3%B4mas-edition-amigaos-41
Screenshot by PuniJuan Carlos Herrán Martín is an active software developer for platforms like AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, and AROS. We’ve seen many releases from him in the previous roundups. Now he has returned with a new version of the game, Los Malditos. It is a free adaptation of the mythical books from Timun Mas from the 1980s and 1990s. These books are related to Dungeons & Dragons. The author is a fan of these works. It is now available for download at OS4Depot.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=game/adventure/losmalditos.lha
Screenshot by PuniChanges for the new version is as follows:
The extended the story for the chapter 1, with new enemies and places to visit.
Removed bugs.
Rewrote the dialogues to better suit the personality of each hero/heroine.
New graphics and sounds.If you’d like to have a closer look at what goes on behind the curtains on AmigaOS 4, the utility called Snoopy will be an excellent choice. Created by Colin Wenzel, this is a SnoopDos like program that will reveal all kinds of information about what is happening when you run a program, for example.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/snoopy.lha
Screenshot by PuniA new version of the lightweight and powerful text editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.8r2.
The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.
Changes are as follows:
Added support for the GLSL language
Added the dragdropselected plugin
Added the tab_switcher plugin
Added the titleize plugin
Added the togglesnakecamel plugin
Added the typingspeed plugin
Added the unboundedscroll plugin
Added the wordcount pluginThe program is available for download from OS4Depot:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=utility/text/edit/litexl2.lha
George Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page is available here:
https://ko-fi.com/walkero/posts
Screenshot by PuniKevin Taddeucci has released version 2.6 of his program VideoClipper in October. This is an extensive update, and it contains a wide range of bug fixes and changes.
VideoClipper version 2.6 includes enhancements to help speed up encoding. MPlayer v1.5 is now supported. Also supports .ass format subtitle file encoding. Many other user-requested enhancements and a few bug fixes are included. See below for the full list of changes.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/edit/videoclipper.lha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCq2o-BKKJU
Liblua 5.4.8 and Libffmpeg 8.0 have been uploaded to OS4Depot by Michael Trebilcock. Downloads are available below:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/misc/libffmpeg.lha
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=development/language/liblua.lha
DRIDI has released version 14.3Final of the Arabic Console Device. Changes are as follows:
(version 14.3Final) “Version education&legacy” finished (for me) –
ArabicLauncher – Concurrency with run and cmd on error – Almost perfect!https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=driver/input/arabic_console_devicepro2.lha
A new build of FFmpeg 8.0 from Michael Trebilcock has been released. This one will only run on the A1222, but it is not e500 / SPE optimized. Despite this, it is significantly faster than the generic FPU build when run on the A1222.
FFmpeg is a very fast video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. It can also convert between arbitrary sample rates and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/convert/ffmpeg_a1222.lha
Screenshot by PuniKikems is back with version 1.0R7 of the next generation pixel editor for Amiga called Pixy. The original concept was created by Sinisrus, who worked on it in the years 2016 to 2020. Kimens from AmigaWave is now improving it further.
Pixy is a drawing program dedicated to pixel art and graphics with alpha channel transparency. It allows you to create several animations in a single project, and each image of each animation sequence contains its own layers. This makes it possible to work on all the animations of a character when creating video games, for example. The interface is intentionally inspired by Photoshop.
More information about Pixy, as well as a download, can be found here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=graphics/edit/pixy.lha
A new update to SDL3 is out, more precisely version 3.2.24. More information is available here:
https://os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=library/misc/sdl3.lha
On GitHub:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/SDL
The Settlers is now out for AmigaOS 4 (and other Amiga platforms)! It is available for purchase from Look Behind You:
https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
From their website, we can read:
The Settlers II is regarded as the pinnacle of the series and a milestone in the building strategy genre. The game perfected everything that made the first part awesome: the bustling inhabitants, the complex economic chains, and the unique charm. Now, finally, it’s where it belongs – on the Amiga.
The story
A storm casts Roman captain Octavius onto a mysterious island. From a simple emergency shelter, you build a powerful empire. Starting with a single tent, you develop a complex civilization with over 30 building types and just as many professions.
Extensive game contentthousands of lovingly animated settlers
over 30 different professions, including 6 types of soldiers
4 different races with different character types: Romans, Asians, Nubians, and Vikings
various landscapes such as lava, ice fields, swamps, forests, and much more, including the stunning winter scenery from The Settlers II Mission CD
10 Roman campaigns and 9 world campaigns
130 free bonus maps
integrated in-game help and optimized game interface
4 languages: fully in English and German, with French and Polish available in-gameThree editions for everyone who loves the Amiga
Box Edition (available from October 18, 2025): This physical edition will feature a classic box format with a slip lid for € 49.90 and will include a DVD plus download option, the colored world atlas, manuals in German and English, as well as four exclusive and collectible retro-design postcards.
Collector’s Edition (available from December 1, 2025): The game’s deluxe version will be available for € 99.90 as a wooden box in the original Settlers II design; it will be limited to 100 copies and will also include an exclusive metal magnet (8×5 cm) with the iconic castle motif from the first Settlers game—a real gem for every Amiga enthusiast and box collector.
Digital Edition (available from October 18, 2025): For immediate gaming fun, a download-only version will also be available for € 29.90.
PowerPC version
Minimum system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP
603e/175 MHz
32 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.1 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceRecommended system requirements PPC version:
PPC Amiga with AmigaOS 4.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP
G3 800 MHz or higher
for resolutions higher than 640×480, a graphics card (PCI, AGP, or PCIe) is recommended
64 MB RAM
AmigaOS 3.2 with WarpUP or AmigaOS 4.1
AHI
500 MB free hard disk spaceOla Söder has released InstallerLG version 1.03:
A reimplementation of the ‘Installer’ utility included with AmigaOS as of version 2.1. InstallerLG aims to be fully compatible with the original as described in the V44.10 documentation. Most resource limitations found in the Commodore implementation are gone, and the GUI has been replaced by a MUI / Zune based one.
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-amigaos
The text editor Vim has also received an update from Ola Söder, bumping it to 9.1.1869. It is available for download from Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/text/edit/Vim_9.1-ppc-amigaos
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. Vim is rock stable and is continuously being developed to become even better. Among its features are:
persistent, multi-level undo tree
extensive plugin system
support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
powerful search and replace
integrates with many toolsPlease note that this is not a straight port of the upstream version. It includes a full MUI GUI with most of the bells and whistles found in Vim on any of the major platforms.
The source code is available here:
https://github.com/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://codeberg.org/sodero/MUI-Vim
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mui-vim/On Aminet, we can also see that A. Pankalla has released a set of special mouse drivers. He writes as follows:
This mouse drivers based on open-source code from diverse authors and was changed in two manners.
First, some functions are changed, because they deprecrated and second i changed some lines of codes to fit to severale mouse types. The changed source code you find in the source directory, it is based on the xero-driver from W. Hosemann. You can recompile it with different constants to genrate the special drivers.
The main new function of the driver’s is to provide a possibility to scroll also in horizontal direction, this is usesd, for example, in the directory windows or the notepad. This function is mapped to special hardware buttons. Check the hardware id’s with tools like usbinspector or devinfos(ng). the driver only works with this deticated hardware!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/driver/input/MouseDriver
Version 1.14i.1 of LHa for UNIX for AmigaOS 4 has been released! You can find it for download on Aminet:
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/arc/LHa_4U4A-ppc-amigaos
Version 5.25 of AmiSSL has been released! As mentioned in earlier editions of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup, the AmiSSL project is a collaborative effort to develop a port of OpenSSL in a shared library for Amiga-based systems. It is a must-have if you use AmigaOS 4 to browse the web!
https://os4.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-v5-OS4
The very active developer Steffen Häuser is working on porting ScummVM 3.0.0.git to AmigaOS 4. It is currently in beta state. You can find out more by visiting amiga-news.de, who published this news:
https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-10-00042-EN.html
ACube Systems, the creators of the Sam 440 and Sam460, has announced the Sil3132 SATA2 driver for AmigaOS 4:
Bassano del Grappa, Italy – October 18, 2025
ACube Systems is proud to announce, as a special gift to the community on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the Amiga and during the Amiga40 Germany event in Mönchengladbach from October 17–19, 2025, the release of the AmigaOS4 driver for the SiI3132 SATA2 controller.
With the latest U-Boot update already adding support for the SiI3132 controller, this new driver – developed in collaboration with Alfredo Amendolagine – enables AmigaOS 4 to fully utilize the Silicon Image 3132 controller, featuring two SATA2 ports on a high-performance PCIe bus. It delivers top speeds and broad compatibility with modern SATA devices, including HDDs, SSDs, and CD/DVD drives.
Most importantly, this driver will be offered completely free of charge – an exclusive gift from ACube Systems to the entire Amiga community in celebration of this milestone.
You can download the driver from the “Latest files” section on our homepage or by directly clicking on this link:
https://acube-systems.biz/download.php?file=sii3132sata_dev_v1.0.lha
Enjoy Amiga40! We certainly will!
It is great to see ACube Systems actively support the platform, which they’ve done consistantly for many, many years! 🙂
Now, over to another piece of very interesting news. An alpha version of the web browser Odyssey has been released! Please read on for the full news as posted on Amigans.net:
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
Odyssey Web Browser is back on AmigaOS4, rebuilt and reborn with major under-the-hood improvements — now powered by the latest clib4 runtime library and GCC 11.
This is a first Alpha version, a big milestone toward a fully optimized and modern browsing experience on AmigaOS4.
What’s new in this Alpha build
Compiled with GCC 11 (with –enable-sjlj-exceptions disabled), resulting in a noticeable speed boost
Integrated with the new clib4 memory allocator, improving memory handling and stability
Several internal optimizations to make the browser smoother and faster
Audio and Video playback are currently disabled in this Alpha build
Important Notes
This is an Alpha version, and it’s still under active development.
That means some features may not work correctly or may cause crashes in specific conditions.You can find the current list of known issues (and add your own reports) here:
https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/issuesPlease make sure to read the included README file for more detailed information about installation, usage, and limitations of this build.
Copy PROGDIR:Libs/clib4.library into LIBS: folder. If you are using already version 2.0 just overwrite older version.
If you are using the old 1.6 version, just backup it and copy new versionYour feedback is incredibly valuable — every issue reported helps make Odyssey better and faster for everyone in the Amiga community.
You can follow development here: https://github.com/AmigaLabs/OdysseyWebBrowser/
and get the latest build here: Odyssey_300a1.lhaI’ve installed it myself on the A1222+, and I’m looking forward to trying it out further. Congratulations, and thanks to Andrea for his hard work on this project!
In this video you can see the YouTuber TJ Ferreira checking it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIWt5D6Zaw
Misc
There is currently a poll running on Amigans.net. The aim of this one is to gauge what systems people are running AmigaOS 4 on. The poll is on the front page, on the right-hand side. I just submitted my votes, and I hope you will do the same. I’m curious how this one will end up!
A new issue of Amiga Future is scheduled for release in November.
Issue 177 will contain information about Settlers II, a game which was released in October.
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=10933
Michal Schulz, the man behind Emu68, made an announcement on his Patreon that has sparked a lot of discussion recently. Emu68 goes PowerPC! What this will mean for AmigaOS 4 remains to be seen, but it is intriguing to say the least! Please follow the link for the full post from Michal Schulz:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-more-thing-141985279
George Sokianos has released version 1.7.0 of Kyvos. This is a user-friendly graphical frontend for QEMU, which makes it much easier to set up and run AmigaOS 4 on various platforms.
Please head on over to Mr. Sokianos’ Ko-Fi page to get the full details on the new version:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Kyvos-1-7-0-released-R6R81NHQWD
The screenshots above is from his Patreon page.
AmiWest 2025 is scheduled to take place this upcoming weekend. A press release was recently published on Amigans.net in connection with this:
Oct 28th, 2025
SACRAMENTO, California – The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club is proud to present AmiWest 2025 on Nov 1st and 2nd. This is a special year for the Amiga Computer, launched by Commodore in 1985, marking the platform’s 40th anniversary. So far this year, Amiga enthusiasts have been treated to the AMIGA/040th in Silicon Valley and the Amiga40 in Germany, along with a host of other special events.
AmiWest, the longest-running Amiga show in the world, will be celebrating the Amiga’s 40th anniversary with a focus on the community. In place of a traditional show floor banquet, we will be traveling to a local Sacramento Burgers and Brew. In place of a conventional speaker, we will allow the attendees to share their Amiga Computer journeys and experiences.
The show floor will see several new exhibits joining our long-time supporters. We will have the Amiga “Lorraine” wire-wrap prototypes, the AMIGA/040th FutureWall, Tunefinder – Marcin Spoczynski, and more. We will also present AmigaOS 4 Update 3, the new Mirari PPC board, and AmigaOS 3.3 beta. To top it off, the A-Eon A1222+, motherboard and complete tower systems will be on sale at the AAA table!
For presentations, the show will have unique content:
Carl Sassenrath presents the history of the Amiga
Jason Neus talking about AmiPCI
A-eon updates from Trevor Dickinson and Matthew Lehman
Steven Solie is providing an update on AmigaOS 4 multicore
And more!Like AmiWests in the past, we will have the Raffle, Games Competition, and live internet broadcast!
Check amiwest.net for the latest details on the show!
Contact: Jerry Gray
SACC Vice President
[email protected]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyRmgkjT5E
The gaming competition on Amigans.net for October and November is currently ongoing. These months, we are playing the brilliant arcade shoot’em up game Blastaway from Retream!
This game is available for purchase here:
https://retream.itch.io/blastaway
At the moment, Walkero is in the lead, followed by 328gts. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m currently in the last position, but that will hopefully change during November. 😉 Time will show!
If you’d like to take part in the competition or to read more about it, here is the link to the appropriate thread on Amigans.net:
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9943
The show Amiga 40 was held in Germany from October 17th to 19th.
Many reports from the event have been published, but for us AmigaOS 4 enthusiasts, I recommend heading over to the Rear Window blog to read Trixie’s “Glad in Gladbach” post.
There, he gives us a detailed travel report, packed with photos of many people in our community attending the event, either as visitors or as exhibitors.
https://ko-fi.com/post/Glad-in-Gladbach-N4N21N487C
To complement this, there are many videos on YouTube covering the event. Here are a couple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFBXibOgrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8MS8HCXVT8
Also, McFly PPC has released his video (part 1) of the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RPPLdcGUs
I’d also like to mention that AmigaNG has created a great summary of the event, which you can find here:
Now, at Amiga 40, we were presented with some very interested news concerning the Mirari, but also multicore. Please have a look at these two images:
This is for sure, great news, and very exciting! 🙂
Skateman, who is part of the Mirari project, shared some images to use in this roundup.
Thanks to Skateman for the photo! Mirari for Frieden! – Photo by SkatemanThis shows the Mirari computer that has been shipped to Thomas Frieden, and the board to Steven Solie. Many thanks to Skateman for supporting the monthly roundup!
YouTube
TJ Ferreira has ventured out on more AmigaOS 4 adventures lately. In this video, he he takes a look at the Infinite Icons 1.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUNu8Sk0-k
Ghettofinger Gaming is very active on YouTube, promoting the Amiga and the AmiWest event. In one of his videos, he looks at game ports on his AmigaOne X5000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5bRb_RVy4
Please visit his channel for many more AmigaOS 4-related videos. 🙂
Davebraco is back again with several nice videos. Have you, for example, seen 26 HD videos running at once on an AmigaOne X5000? Well, if not, here is your chance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neb4x3kWDlc
Another video he did was showing how you can do fast backups with the Mirror command on AmigaOS 4.1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-tjBq5u6YU
Marek Glogowski has also been very active as of late, and one of the videos can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCEo7-KSRmk
Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel has published a new video – Serious Sam The First/Second Encounter Amiga 40:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HYYQBHq9YU
If you’d like to see more of the AmigaOne X5000, Mufa has made a video in Polish, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQv1novc-SU
Until next time
I say it again, what a month! 🙂 I’m sorry if I’ve missed some news this time, but I think I’ve managed to cram in all there is. 😉
That was all for this time. Hope you enjoyed the news for October 2025!
Thank for reading and for visiting my blog!
Also thanks to everyone who supports this initiative, it is very much appreciated!
I wish you all a nice November, and see you in the next AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup!
Best regards,
Puni
#Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOS4 #AmigaOS4MonthlyRoundup #AmigaOS41 #computers #PowerPC #PPC
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In Sterling Heights, #Michgian today via the @palyouthmvmt:
"Protestors at BAE Systems PLC in Sterling Heights, MI, have blocked the weapons manufacturer’s entrances during peak workday start time, preventing staff and clients from entering the building.
BAE Systems designs, develops, and produces combat vehicles, ammunition, artillery systems, naval guns, and missile launchers. BAE Systems supplies the IDF through multi-billion dollar contracts and is part of the US government’s Foreign Military Financing program.
We demand that BAE Systems ends all production of weapons of genocide for the Zionist state and the US empire. You must hear our cries: End the war economy!"
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Martin (Burkhard Garweg), Underground RAF Member: Greetings from Illegality
To family, friends, comrades, allies, Wagenplatz residents. To all those who want to deal with my and our view.
Legal, illegal, don’t give a damn. On February 26 of this year, Daniela Klette was arrested in Berlin. Journalists, who had willingly offered themselves as auxiliary police officers and helped to supplement the increasingly authoritarian state with the state and social community of investigators and informers, had used AI technology to track down images of Daniela on the Internet. The historical merit of these podcast journalistic denunciators will have been to have provided proof at the right moment of the alleged necessity of biometric control through facial recognition on the way to a totalitarian control state.
Deception of the public
The subsequent police manhunt against Volker Staub and me has since been marked by lies and agitation. Police and bourgeois media say that we are violent criminals or terrorists who would not shy away from killing for money. The house in which Daniela had lived, like the neighboring houses, was evacuated because of allegedly dangerous explosives. Measures of mobilization of the population for search and psychological warfare operations began. It is now known that a grenade and a bazooka found were dummies. The police must have known that from the beginning. This whole action over several days was an operation to deceive and manipulate the public.
The continuous propagation of our violence and dangerousness, the searches of houses and Wagenplatz in martial form, armored vehicles and MP armed police officers as if war had broken out, controls and arrests are nothing more than the assertion of the necessity of police militarization and a staging to mobilize the population for the search.
Above all, however, they are concerned with depoliticizing and denouncing the history of the fundamental opposition – the history of the historical attempt to contribute to the liberation from the violence of capitalism, which emerged from the resistance of the (19)68 movement and was linked to the worldwide revolutionary and anti-colonial struggles.
26 years ago, the urban guerrilla project in the form of the RAF ended. However, for us, who were persecuted as militants of the RAF, life did not end in illegality. The image that they are trying to create describes a violently marauding band of robbers who are dangerous to the general public and also ready to kill – and only for money. For us, however, it is out of the question to use violence against people to kill or physically injure for money. Any traumatization of employees of cash offices or cash transporters is to be regretted. There is no reason to believe the police or judicial apparatus, because they are guided by delegitimizing the fundamental opposition and by creating a climate in which state violence and repression seem justified.
“Violence is the foundation of bourgeois society: in the misery of its penal system, in the ghettos below bourgeois everyday life, in the militarization of “internal security”, in its relationship of exploitation” (Peter Brückner 1976)
State violence affects many – the poor, the exploited, the marginalized. It is directed against those who protest or against those who defend themselves against this normal state of affairs and do not accept this state of affairs as a natural given. These are those who demonstrate against the genocide in Gaza and against a German government that supplies the weapons for it, and are exposed to the authoritarian-violent mixture of police truncheons, capture, threats from the judiciary, threats of deportation, loss of jobs and secret service surveillance, or whose demonstrations are banned altogether. It is those who occupy universities and are beaten down by police violence. From this perspective, the radicalization of state and society that is emerging with the crisis can only be countered by looking for ways to find an alternative to the system. The social question, the resistance to war and militarization at home and abroad, the resistance against the ecological destruction of the planet by capitalism and the organization of solidarity-based internationalism necessarily mark this path together.
In the West’s struggle against the imminent loss of its global hegemony, the rulers are relying on militarization and planning war up to the dimension of World War III.
We have arrived in the age of an increasingly authoritarian state. An undoubtedly threatening social situation. But it also speaks to an increased degree of instability of capitalism. In its greed for profit, it needs the possibilities of accumulation, which is becoming increasingly difficult to produce. It staggers from crisis to crisis. It is the age of wars, social upheavals and reactionary reflection on people and nation. But it also suggests that things could slip away from the rulers and that the question arises: What is to be done? Will class struggles develop in the future that question and combat the conditions of exploitation and oppression in collective processes? The questions of how a social transformation can be achieved are existential and more topical than ever in the age of social and economic erosion, increasing military renegotiation of power and ecological irreversible destruction of the planet.
The circle closes
The revolutionary concepts of history have not been able to provide the answers to overcoming capitalism. Nevertheless, we are fundamentally faced with the same questions under changed conditions.
The state relies on division
Illegality, solidarity and “terrorists”
We have met many people in decades of illegality. Friends, allies, neighbors, my Wagenplatz roommates and many more. For many years I lived with people who did not know what kind of history I came from. As an illegal, it is not possible to talk about one’s own illegality. Please forgive that.
With the end of this time together came repression for them. Wagenplatz and house searches: local war simulations – something I never wanted, but in the end was no longer in my hands. The revolutionary and emancipatory struggles are followed by repression – and so it will be until the struggle for emancipation triumphs over injustice. We are part of the history of worldwide rebellions that have existed since there has been domination and slaves. Which has existed since patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism have been the evil of humanity. From this perspective, the responsibility for repression lies with the rulers and no one else. Repression is an instrument of domination. From my point of view – and that would be our view – there is only one answer to this: solidarity.
Unite against today’s repression against Daniela!
Create (counter-) publicity! Show solidarity!
We are the way we were and are the way many have come to know us during the long period of illegality. Disputes about violent relations – patriarchal violence, poverty and racism – like many other things – found an echo in encounters and friendships with people during this time and are part of my and our lives. Much of what we have had to do with others in the decades of our illegality, paths we have taken with others, tell of the search for a reality of solidarity and emancipation beyond capitalist relations of violence. Connecting with others during this time is the mirror of our reality – of how and who we are.
In the historiography of the rulers, there is fundamental resistance to the capitalist system: crime, violence and terror. The image created is intended to replace reality and disguise the fact that it is the structural violence of the system that is the great problem of humanity. The image of the “terrorist” created is intended to depoliticize the history of resistance against capitalist relations of violence, to divide, to obscure the fact that state violence and the violent relations of the capitalist system are really only terror for many people in the world.
“Peace to the huts! War on the palaces!” (Georg Büchner – 1834)
Anyone who moves from protest to resistance can be stylized as a “terrorist”. The countless stories of rebellions and resistance tell of this: Klaus Störtebecker, Thomas Müntzer, Georg Büchner; the Social Revolutionary, anarchist and insurgent against the reactionary German Empire, August Reinsdorf, who was executed in 1885; the council communist, critic of the KPD, activist of the Red Aid, author of the first conception of an urban guerrilla and militant of the uprisings of the workers’ movement of the 1920s Karl Plättner; Olga Benario, Georg Elser, Phoolan Devi, Durruti, Che Guevara, Angela Davis, Ulrike Meinhof, Sigurd Debus, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Assata Shakur, Sakine Cansiz, Mumia Abu Jamal. Whether Paris Communue or black Jacobins – those people enslaved by European colonialism who fought for liberation in the anti-colonial revolution in today’s Haiti from 1791 onwards; whether partisans in many European countries against Nazi fascism or CNT – anarchists in Spain against the military dictatorship, whether the revolutionary struggle of the Black Panthers, the June 2 Movement, the Red Zora or the resistance of the ANC against apartheid – they were all “terrorists” in the propaganda of the rulers.
Terror has nothing to do with us, but a lot to do with the rulers and the capitalist system
The term terror has nothing to do with revolutionary counter-violence, which is revolutionary self-defense, of the emancipatory movements of history, which is directed exclusively and specifically against the rulers. Terror describes indiscriminate violence to enforce rule or to secure it. The term “terrorists” in bourgeois society would experience reality content as self-incrimination and description of the rulers, among other things, and would then be a meaningful term instead of a manipulative phrase. Today, the term “terrorist” is above all a means of rule, exploitation, repression, Frontex regime, class justice and prison system; Hunger, wars, coups and military dictatorships under the direction of the capitalist centers and with the historical responsibility of every German federal government: the millions of dead can no longer be counted – terror has nothing to do with us, but a lot to do with them and their system.
Solidarity has no borders
In a situation of weakness, it meant a lot and it gave courage: the solidarity demonstration in March in Berlin for the freedom of Daniela and solidarity with us illegals, against the Wagenplatz and house searches, against the agitation and the whole state terror; the solidarity rallies at the prison in Vechta, the wall slogans and the rallies of solidarity in various European countries.
For more than three decades, we were able to organize ourselves collectively outside the paths determined for this purpose by bourgeois society, which had planned nothing for us other than to be imprisoned or shot. We were able to find ways to lead a life in which, through all the ups and downs, a different social reality could emerge than that of the capitalist normality of alienation, isolation and valorization. Nobody can take that away from us. It will remain part of the historiography from below.
Solidarity among us – with those who rebelled, rebel or will rebel against this system yesterday, today or tomorrow
Daniela – locked in the prison cell day after day. And this despite the fact that the abysmal reality of the situation shows that they may have some of their laws on their side, but they do not have the legitimacy. The historical attempts of countless people over many centuries to overcome these conditions – against the violence of those who want everything to remain as it is, who declare human emancipation and liberation to be wrong and injustice to be right – were and are perfectly legitimate.
The judiciary of the Nazi successor state, which hardly ever condemned the Nazis of Nazi fascism, is now planning years of show trials against Daniela, in which she is to be convicted on behalf of the history of the fundamental opposition and locked away in prison for many years. The state relies on deterrence and thus targets not only Daniela, but all those who do not comply, who do not accept that humanity has no alternative to capitalism and thus to the destruction of the planet. A farce that affects everyone – regardless of their history or their point of view – for which capitalism should not remain the last word in history.
Solidarize yourselves!
Making the impossible possible, as Che Guevara said, has an existential meaning for humanity today: to learn to think about the alternative system again in collective processes against the abysses of the “turning point” age and to fight for it in the perspective together and internationally; break through the logic of the rulers that there is no alternative to capitalism – “there is no alternative” – in us and in all conditions. The historical window of epochal rupture – systemic and social erosion of capitalism – is currently opening wider and wider. In the continuing escalation of relations, a new age of barbarism lurks. Only struggles of a social revolutionary counter-movement could provide an alternative.
‘Socialism or barbarism ́ – as Rosa Luxemburg predicted in 1919 and thus aptly predicted the historical reality: after the First World War and the world economic crisis of the time, the window of eroding capitalism and revolution opened. From 1918 to 1923, the workers’ movement, the revolutionary feminists, anarchists and communists in Germany attempted to impose the socialist revolution. At the same time, a large part of humanity rose up in uprisings in 5 continents. In Germany, the attempt of the insurrectionary workers’ movement to overcome capitalism failed. It would have been the only way to avert the epoch of barbarism that followed. The socialist attempt at revolution was crushed, and capitalism remained, which took the form of Nazi fascism in Germany and culminated in the Second World War and Auschwitz.
With today’s profound crisis of capitalism and the epochal changes throughout the world, the historical moment of ‘either or ́ of ‘socialism or barbarism ́ could arise again with a clear tendency and at an increasing speed. The fixation on bourgeois-fascist-capitalist parties will not be able to prevent the development of the German crisis state and the EU in growing authoritarianism and war. There is nothing to save. Only an abolition of capitalism fought for from below in the process of transformation will be able to end this development.
Today, the socially revolutionary alternative to the progressive fascization of the capitalist system, poverty spreading even in the metropolis, the coming global war and the ecological destruction of the planet would be a socialism that learns from the mistakes of history and thus offers the possibility of building a liberated society – for a world of collectivity, freedom from patriarchy, exploitation, domination and nation, and the survival of nature.
This world will not be possible without a combative, creative and diverse movement that is present in the increasing crisis and in the rapidly growing social struggles of the future. This would be the reconstruction of the ability of an anti-capitalist, social-revolutionary and internationalist left to act, which has an impact beyond its own nose. The end of the Sleeping Beauty slumber: It’s time – it’s time – to move.
Solidarity with Daniela!
Solidarity with the comrades in exile, all those in hiding and the prisoners from the struggles of Antifa, the resistance, the Kurdish and Turkish comrades, the climate movement and all other emancipatory struggles of the world!
The demand for Daniela’s immediate release is justified.
Martin
(Burkhard Garweg)
https://revlinkeaugsburg.noblogs.org/post/2024/12/21/leseempfehlung-gruesse-aus-der-illegalitaet/