WPIRG’s Worrying Anarchist Underbelly
TL;DR: WPIRG claims to act in public interest, in reality promotes anarchist ideas and collaborates with subversive anarchist groups using student funds.
DISCLAIMER: The point of this post is to expose WPIRG’s affiliation with radical left-wing groups and ideas, not to necessarily argue against these ideas in principle. The cause for concern is that such a radical ideology is assumed to be in the “Public Interest” of the student population of a university in a democratic state. All emphasis mine.
1 What does WPIRG really stand for?
According to their mission statement (http://goo.gl/rxIqJC), WPIRG’s mission is “take action on environmental and social justice issues while: … Encouraging diversity and social equality for all people by opposing all forms of oppression such as those based on gender, “race”, class, sexual orientation, age, cultural heritage/ethnicity, religion, gender orientation, ability and physical appearance”. Indeed, applications for funding have to take the principles of social justice and anti-oppression into account, and all volunteers go through ‘anti-oppression training’ (http://goo.gl/umgrRI, “Volunteers are responsible for upholding WPIRG’s anti-oppression and consensus decision-making principles and practice.”).
As it turns out, WPIRG has a very particular definition of oppression and social justice which, rather than being the one commonly understood and used, is deeply rooted in anarchist and Marxist theory. In WPIRG’s 2015 School of Public Interest (http://archive.is/MdsdY), a workshop called “Anti-Oppression 101” was held by two WPIRG staff members, with the description containing the following phrase: “We also live within systems of structural oppression such as white supremacy, patriarchy, the State and capitalism”.
2 WPIRG’s Library of Anarcho-Communist Propaganda
This support of anarchism can also be seen in WPIRG’s library, which has a section devoted to “anti-capitalist thought” (http://archive.is/s3wxQ). Most of these are about left-anarchism, but some are particularly interesting: “God and the State” — the atheistic manifesto of Mikhail Bakunin, the anti-Semitic founding father of social anarchism; Russian Anarchist-Communist Peter Kropotkin’s famous book “The Conquest of Bread”; a biography of Ukrainian Anarchist Maria Nikiforova who fought for the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine; “Wobblies and Zapatistas” — a book in support of the Zapatistas, an insurgent anarchist terrorist group occupying parts of southern Mexico, as well as other Marxist-anarchist groups. A quick look at WPIRG’s library reveals their blatant political bias in their selection of books (even if they may not entirely agree with any one book), but surely that’s the end of their sympathies?
3 WPIRG’s Sponsoring of Anarchist-Themed Events
WPIRG has consistently held and sponsored events with strong radical anarchist leanings. Below are just two of the most recent examples, from WPIRG’s School of Public Interest:
3.1 (En)gendering Resistance (2013)
According to WPIRG’s website (https://archive.is/xbH1O), “Examining the social, political and economic realities of gender, as well as the liberatory possibilities of militant resistance to gender based oppression, WPIRG’s 2013 School of Public Interest will focus on the theme of (en)gendering resistance”. This radical feminist conference “does not seek the inclusion of marginalized identities within the dominant order, but rather, strives to unapologetically challenge the dominant order itself” (read: kick off an anarchist revolution), and asks “How can we develop a movement for gender justice that is necessarily anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and critical of state institutions?”
Its workshops (http://archive.is/aBpM6) included the following:
“Against the Butchest Insurrection: The Gendering of Queer and Anarchist Militancy and the Politics of Sissyhood”:
Inspired by critiques of pacifism, assimilation, and the state, trans and queer radicals have valorized physical confrontation and self-defense, property destruction, and riots as particularly queer tactics. Texts such as “Queer Ultraviolence” and “Towards the Queerest Insurrection” articulated a distinctly queer trajectory of insurrectionary anarchist praxis, focusing on the redemptive power of violence against state, capital, rapists, and queer-bashers…
Ultimately, we will explore what the figure of the “sissy”… can teach us about forging a politics of fierce resistance that truly refuses the allure of both hetero- and homo-masculine militancy.
“Fiercely Femme: Finding my Femme-Footing in Militant Anarchist Communities”:
Working with the elements, song, light and reflection, this space is meant to be a place to look at the unique challenges and opportunities of femme organizing strategies in militant anarchist communities.
“Towards A Technique of Collective Responsibility for Interpersonal Violence”:
This session will begin from the proposition that rape culture is a symptom of a collective trauma caused by our experience of power under capitalism, but that this symptom takes different forms as conditioned by the structural position of the person manifesting them…
This recognition that rape culture is a suite of the symptoms of a collective trauma is informed by existing anarchist theory.
In all, the workshops page had 30 instances of the string “anarch”. Apart from paying for the events, WPIRG provided bus tickets, food, American Sign Language translation, and childcare for free to all attendees (using our student funds).
3.2 Breaking Bars, Building Bridges (2012)
The 2012 event organised by the School of Public Interest (https://archive.is/p8CCY) seems to be at first innocent enough, but according to the now-offline webpage for the event (http://archive.is/cSo0s), “The conference will focus on challenging criminalization, supporting prisoners and building alternatives, while providing a radical education venue for in-depth conversation on prison justice and abolition, opportunities for networking and strategizing”, and the links listed in the “Readings & Texts” section seem to be mostly about the abolition of prisons in general. Once again, free food, ASL translation, and childcare were provided.
4 WPIRG’s Partnerships with and Funding of Anarchist Groups
Much more interesting, however, are the lists of Participating Organisations (http://archive.is/aVyMH) and links to “Allies and Resources” (http://archive.is/v5v4V). Among the participating organisations are “End the Prison Industrial Complex” (http://archive.is/G5ORt) and “RedBird Prison Abolition” (http://archive.is/skjq2), both of which are groups whose goal is to abolish all prisons. Listed under “Tabling” were the anarchist groups “Iconoclast Zine” (http://archive.is/N5nj7), “Common Cause KW” (http://archive.is/YBhQl), “Guelph Anarchist Black Cross” (http://archive.is/PXgGr), and “Toronto Anarchist Black Cross” (http://archive.is/S5fIw, also listed under “Allies”).
This was not the first or only time WPIRG has dealt with subversive and anarchist organisations such as these. In 2013, WPIRG operated a table at the Kitchener-Waterloo Anarchist Bookfair (http://archive.is/yBHqr), and in 2011 supported an event on prisoner solidarity with the Guelph Anarchist Black Cross (http://archive.is/idQjH). WPIRG makes note of this collaboration (and others) in its 2012–2013 (http://goo.gl/0hMQkY) and 2013–2014 (http://goo.gl/OGnKrj) Annual Reports under the Partnerships & Funding sections (note that the Guelph Anarchist Black Cross is listed as “Guelph ABC”).
By far the most interesting of these is WPIRG’s collaboration with Common Cause, an anarchist group which publishes the Linchpin magazine. WPIRG and Common Cause jointly hosted an anarchist talk called “CLASS WAR ON THE WORKFLOOR” in 2011 (http://archive.is/x8I5m), the speaker being an anarchist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World union. Some sort of collaboration between Common Cause and WPIRG has existed from 2012 until 2014 at least (as evidenced by WPIRG’s documents). Furthermore, Alex Diceanu, WPIRG’s Coordinator of Projects and Organizational Development, and one of two full-time staff, was in 2010 (and may still be) a member of Common Cause (http://archive.is/5AQiZ).
5 Conclusion
After a bit of research, it has become clear that WPIRG does not act in the public interest of Waterloo’s student body, nor in the interests of the community at large, but instead uses its generous funding (provided by a levy from a state-controlled university, hilariously enough) to promote blatantly divisive and radical ideas. We have seen that WPIRG uses language such as “social justice” and “anti-oppression” to describe specifically Marxist and Anarchist utopian ideals rather than what most of us define these terms to be. WPIRG not only espouses radical anarcho-communist ideas and screens employees and volunteers for their ideological support, but also organises events which blatantly propagandise anarchist ideology and has regular dealings with other anarchist groups in the area. Thus, for all intents and purposes, WPIRG, far from the champion of students’ rights it claims to be, is actually an anarchist organisation which levies a fee on all undergraduate students.
It’s not fair for students to automatically pay dues to a political organisation which reflects the views of only a tiny minority at best. It’s time to make the WPIRG fee Opt-In.
