Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Place, Culture, Politics and the Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work
Since the Zapatista uprising began on January 1, 1994, (the first day that NAFTA went into effect) the Mexican military and paramilitaries have waged a counter insurgency war against Zapatista and sympathizer communities. Eleven years after the uprising, human rights abuses are rampant.
But Mexico’s indigenous communities are developing new forms of resistance. Women are playing leading roles on all fronts in the struggle to build alternatives. Fair Trade Cooperatives allow women to play a central role in the control and development of local economies.
6:00 – 7:30 pm: WORKSHOP 7:30 pm: VIDEO SCREENING
Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15 No One Turned Away
Brecht Forum: 451 West Street, New York, NY 10014 - (212) 242-4201 an anarchist therapy
a documentary by Nick Cooper
watch the trailer
With difficulty walking, and half-blinded from torture by the Brazilian military dictatorship, 79 year-old Roberto Freire continues to develop somatherapy, completing his life's work. Incorporating the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, the politics of anarchism, and the culture of capoeira angola, Soma is used by therapists organized in anarchist collectives to fight the psychological effects of authoritarianism.
Nick Cooper travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to find the exercises, principles, voices, and movement of
somatherapy.
More reading: Slingshot Article ! Soma book PDF
Nazis Vs. Zapatistas: The Struggle Against Cooptation Nick Cooper
taoism ------ diogenes the cynic ---- zapatista women ------ anti-fascism
Lao-Tsu, the author of the Tao Te Ching and Subcomandante Marcos, of the Zapatistas both talk about the power of water -- seemingly weaker, but ultimately stronger than the more familiar power of swords. To struggle against oppression in ways that don't create other oppressions, we will explore the anti-fascist non-hierarchical currents in history, philosophy, psychology, criticism, and organizing tactics.
Working with Indymedia, Food Not Bombs and other non-hierarchical groups, Nick Cooper became interested in horizontal structures for change, traveling to Brazil in 2003 and 2005 to study Soma Therapy, and to Chiapas, Mexico in 2004 to study Zapatismo. Also, wanting to study fascist and pre-fascist organizing directly, Nick has been attending conferences, meetings, presentations and fund-raisers of the far right, including: The Ku Klux Klan, Focus on the Family / Lovewonout, Republican Party of Texas, Lyndon LaRouche, The Minutemen, and Tom DeLay. The workshop examines philosophies, structures and psychology, comparing authoritarian models to those that are consensual, communitarian or autonomous. Informed by Zapatista principles, Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism, and Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, the workshop develops a skill set for identifying, challenging and defeating the authoritarian tool of cooptation.
The workshop provides an alternative to the history we have learned since childhood, of
conquerors, governments and great thinkers like Plato with "Philosopher King" pathologies. We will discuss the story of those who withdrew from hierarchies, those who questioned assumptions and those who struggled and died in resistance of the abuses of power. But even more importantly, we will discuss a history not solely populated by individual heroes, but also by ideas, psychologies and groups.
70 years ago, authoritarianism's traditions and psychologies culminated in a pure form in
Nazi Germany. Now, in the most powerful country in the world, it becomes essential to ask
what has been learned about the nature of power, and how to avoid its pitfalls in forming
an opposition to it.
Nick has conducted this workshop in Venezuela at the World Social Forum, in Washington DC at the National Conference of Organized Resistance, at Houston High Schools (Bellaire, Lamar, KIPP), in São Paulo Brazil with the Ativismo ABC Collective (read an interview), in Bryan TX at the Revolution, in Houston with The Politically Active Students Organization, and the Art Car Klub, in Fayetteville at the Five Squirrels, in New Orleans at the Iron Rail bookstore, and in NYC with the Icarus Project
download a flyer: color, b&w
email: nick--at--nickcooper.com (replace the --at-- with an @)
