April Monday Mayhem at the Flying Squirrel! (The Red Army Faction--a radical history)
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The Red Army Faction--a radical history
April 7, 2014
7PM - 9PM
Flying Squirrel Community Space
285 Clarissa St.
Donations welcome!
On the first Monday of every month, the Flying Squirrel hosts special programming that forgoes the technical and logistical concerns of running an open-use community space in order to take a closer look at the impact of our actions on the community and our potential as a catalyst for change.
Come hear J. Smith, co-editor of the Red Army Faction Documentary Histories volumes 1 and 2 (Projectiles for the People and Dancing with Imperialism), talking about Europe’s most famous and controversial urban guerilla organization from the 1970s and 80s, West Germany’s Red Army Faction.
We will be talking about the RAF from its prehistory in the firebombing of two department stores in Frankfurt in 1968, its inception breaking member Andreas Baader out of prison in 1970, the May 1972 Offensive, subsequent attempts to free prisoners, its reorientation in the 1980s with the rise and fall of the Front concept, and more. The history of the 2nd of June Movement and the Revolutionary Cells, which also waged armed struggle in the FRG at this time, will also be addressed.
Topics discussed will include:
* the similarities and differences between the West German armed experience and similar phenomenon in Europe and North America
* the rise and fall of a certain kind of “anti-imperialism”, and its ramifications in terms of the RAF’s practice
* the ways in which the RAF’s line evolved over time, from solidarity with the struggle in Vietnam to an orientation around freeing political prisoners, to opposition to NATO’s war plans under Reagan and Thatcher, and beyond
* the group’s relationship to the prison struggle and the movement against solitary confinement
* the primarily political character of urban guerilla organizations
* the consequences of these facts in terms of strategy and survival, and why all of this matters today.
Attention will be paid to the political nature of the guerilla struggle, its evolving context, and what challenges and opportunities this presented to those determined to fight imperialism with pen and paper, and guns and bombs too.
