Wine, Readings n' Conversation with author Ramor Ryan

galway | anti-capitalism | event notice Monday November 20, 2006 17:14 by Ecosoc

Proceeds to the Rossport Solidarity Camp & Zapatista project

On Tuesday November 21st, Ecosoc in association with the Galway Zapatista Project will host an evening of wine, readings and conversation with Ramor Ryan, author of, Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile. The event will take place in the cosy surroundings of BK’s Wine Bar (formerly Bicquets), Spanish Parade, Galway on Tuesday 21st November at 9 pm. Wine will be flowing freely on the night with all donations going towards the Rossport Solidarity Camp & an Irish linked Zapatista project. All most welcome to attend.

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Described by activist publishing house AK Press as reading like “Che's Motorcycle Diaries infused with Hunter S. Thompson's wit and flair for the impossible”, Ryan’s journals chronicle the dynamic richness and diversity of what might be called the movements of anti-power of the globalization era.

As a 1980s generation Dublin anarchist, Ryan’s journey alongside the movement of movements’ rise charts the metamorphosis of counter-hegemonic struggles over nearly two decades: from dreary 1989 Dublin, following the scent of opposition and stumbling into a baptism of fire at the UDA Milltown cemetery attack in Belfast, to encounters with squatters in Berlin, Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, and Kurdish rebels in the badlands of the Turkish state – to name but a few of Ryan’s acquaintances.

The ‘buzz’ that Ryan’s book has generated, on both sides of the Atlantic, might have something to do with its key positioning at the intersection of grassroots social movement action on the one hand, and lines of thinking and feeling trying to make sense of the movements’ past, present and future on the other. The contours of Ryan’s “clandestine” personal narrative parallel the impulses towards autonomy, evasion and refusal identified by some commentators as lying at the heart of today’s oppositional movements from below – impulses connected to the move away from old-style revolutionaries’ fixation with seizing power and with statist strategies:

"Fleeing Berlin on the late night train to Paris—and me a fugitive with a fake ticket—is perhaps, I reflect, the most appropriate way to leave the subterranean life in Berlin and renew once more as I would, in Chiapas, Mexico. If clandestinity is about moving furtively in the shadows while keeping one step ahead of the forces of repression, law, and order, then in Berlin I learned how it is a fleeting tactic to strike like lightning and retreat safely—the surreptitious exit from the control zone. As a long-term strategy, clandestinity is about protecting ourselves, our rebel spaces and allowing the seed to germinate underground. This is a lesson learned with powerful consequences in Chiapas."—from the book

"I'm convinced that all we need is about a hundred more Ramors and the revolution would commence tomorrow."—David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

"From Belfast to the Bronx and Chiapas to Kurdistan, Ramor Ryan has shown a lifelong commitment to social justice, a questioning mind and an ability to incorporate historical currents into his work."-Mick McCaughan, Latin American Correspondent to the Irish Times

"A rousing, insightful, humorous tapestry of cultural resistance, Clandestines impels us to fear inaction, not failure, for mistakes are made to be learned from, and our lives are our own."—San Francisco Bay Guardian

"At once celebratory and self-critical, Clandestines offers a geography lesson of the shadows, where borders are disregarded, revolution is in the air, and adventure is always just around the corner."—Jennifer Whitney, co-author of We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism

Related Link: http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/clandestines