For this reading group we will discuss the text: Feminist pacifism or passive-ism by kurdish writer Dilar Dirik. You can find the text here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/feminist-pacifism-or-passive-ism/

In our (anarchist and feminist) circles, in environmental movements, in casual conversations with friends and comrades the question of ‘violence’ is often brought up. Yet we do not often specify what is meant when we say violence. As a result well meant attempts to care about safety end up serving to maintain bourgeois ideology and the state’s monopoly of violence. When we insist others to only use non-violent tactics in a violent world we are telling them they cannot defend themselves. Let’s take this night to critically reflect on the ‘ question of violence’ and it’s relationship to capitalism, class society, patriarchy and colonialism. Please read the text by Dilar Dirik before if you can and take a look at the further reading if you want. Also feel free to bring your own texts and ideas.

“One cannot help but think that militant women taking matters into their own hands impairs western feminists’ ability to speak on behalf of women in the Middle East, projected as helpless victims, may be one of the reasons for this hostility. Credit: YPJ Media Team”
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/feminist-pacifism-or-passive-ism/

“When some protesters destroy cars and burn shops, they symbolically attack private property that is the basis of capitalism. When they attack police officers, they symbolically reject and challenge repressive state forces - forces that primarily protect the capital.”
- Pamela Anderson
–> https://www.pamelaandersonfoundation.org/news/2018/12/4/yellow-vests-and-i

“ From the strategic and revolutionary point of view, the idea of a violent demonstration capable of winning and holding a military victory is unthinkable today. In so saying, we do not mean that we should refuse revolutionary violence. We only mean we must be clear so as to avoid sanctifying the machine gun on the one hand or becoming the policeman of the situation on the other.A purely verbal distinction between violence and nonviolence is a false one. A well-fed bourgeois can easily ‘theorise’ the most unchained violence against the boss class but only with difficulty will he put it into effect in conditions requiring total dedication to the revolutionary task. Most often his violence is purely verbal. In practice he prefers things to remain as they are because, among other things, that allows him to continue to exercise his fiery rhetoric. “

- Alfredo M. Bonanno
http://digitalelephant.blogspot.com/2010/08/revolution-violence-anti.html

further readings:
http://digitalelephant.blogspot.com/2010/08/revolution-violence-anti.html
https://www.pamelaandersonfoundation.org/news/2018/12/4/yellow-vests-and-i
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/we-are-all-going-to-die
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence...