This Time It's Personal!

Love And Rage

- the structure of the editorial group

We are a few over-enthusiastic anarchists in Leeds, also engaged in a variety of different projects, local and national. We rope in the rest of the Leeds lot for help with folding the AU by hosting folding parties, and also bribe others near us to do the creative bits or computer bits that we lack the talent for. (this is beginning to sound like an acceptance speech....)We believe in the process of both revolution and publishing, not just the final result, and it was essential for us to work together in a way that was egalitarian, honest and liberating.

4/5 people making decisions together can and has been hellish at times. Originally we made every little decision all together and as we have different styles and different politics this proved wearing. We also developed niches which were too restrictive -if one of us was skilled at something then the others would leave them to it, just as in macrosociety! We worked hard at ways so that the more bossy of us stopped taking a supervisor type role, and the less assertive had as much control, making sure we dealt with power imbalances,which are, obviously, the antithesis of our politics One of the ways we did this was to divide up articles, to swap roles and tasks so we all HAD to stretch our skills. We also had loads and loads of meetings so we got a general overview and didn't panic about work someone else had taken on.

Task swapping and skill sharing may make the process longer and more painful as we got to grips with areas of expertise we're crap at. But what the year with the AU has been about is not just getting a newsletter out as quickly and easily as possible, but about creating the reality of non-hierarchical methods of organising, challenging the roles we take on in groups, making mistakes, getting better and STILL being friends at the end of it! .

The Role Of The EF!AU And Its Relation To The EF! Network

The EF!AU is not the only publication to come from the Earth First! network, however it is the only one which can be said to be the mouthpiece of EF! as much as of the collective producing it. The role of the AU is widely seen as being a networking tool for activists as well as being a point of contact and an introduction to the network for those wishing to get involved. When I became involved in EF! style direct action it was the AU from which I got the details of where and when action was happening, I'm sure this was the same for many of us.

The AU is ultimately under the control of its editorial collective. However, every EF! gathering sees a discussion on the role of the AU and we have acted on the recommendations and criticisms arising from these discussions almost without exception. We also held a 'AU goes to the network' weekend, when discussion was held and acted upon. The suggestion of one editor that the gathering should mandate the editorial collective and make decisions by which they would be bound, was decisively rejected. It is clear that the majority of people want the AU editorial collective to maintain its near total autonomy. There is some contradiction between the editors' role as autonomous collective, and their role as representatives of the network. -If the AU is the project of our collective then we are free to put our own spin on things and to exclude articles about actions/groups that we're not into. If however it is the project of the network then it is our duty to not do this. On balance we have tried to act as the latter, writing reports of any British, ecological direct action we are sent, which means that the content is decided by what happens, not what we like. Since the AU discussion weekend we have edited only for length, clarity and factual accuracy, upon the wishes of all those present.

'Ya Gotta Have Attitude'

Our opinion, attitude and general spin on events can come through in many ways in the action update. From the choice of action we put on the front page through to the quote we use under the header, our choice of features, the contacts list, the titles for stories and even the general layout.

It's hard for this not to happen, the people who have made up the editorial collective for the past year are all militant, opinionated radicals. We believe in militant tactics backed up by political theory(s), working to create a radical praxis appropriate for taking on and dismantling the 'horror' which passes for a sane system to live under and a fulfilling lifestyle to lead. Obviously we want other people to know this, we are not ashamed, but proud of our revolutionary beliefs and will happily argue the toss till the cows come home. However we are not, as some people seem to believe, some EF!, Leeds anarcho-vanguard. Our opinions within the AU collective are not homogenous. We are as varied in our beliefs, opinions and writing styles as we are in our choice of fonts.

By explaining where we're coming from, and acknowledging our biases, we hope that we can ensure that the action update is something that all strands of our wonderfully diverse movement can identify with and feel a part of. We are aware that as well as all the people who have told us they enjoyed the action update over the past year there are those that have felt distanced by the direction we have taken it. This is to some extent reflective of the state we're in as a movement as well.

The Action Update And You

Before we all knew each other, and living in different towns, whenever any of us did an action we would send a report in to the AU straightaway, as well as a few other publications. So we were quite shocked when we started editing it, to find that few other people actually do this. Even stranger that some groups manage to write press releases for the mainstream media but can't write articles for their own. If you do want the update to continue to represent the diverse voices of our network then you need to contribute to it, not just sit and wait to be asked.

The same goes for features. We expanded the AU to have three pages of features, because we felt there was a real need for a greater dissemination of information for action in our movement. But if you want to read about a greater range of stuff than whatever the current editorial collective's chosen specialist subject happens to be, then you need to start writing. Most things can be included, unless they are really objectionable, or are just opinionated rants with no real information value.

Distribution is another way you can help. For every ten people who randomly pick up a copy in a bookshop or at a gig, nine of them probably think it's weird. But maybe the tenth might just end up getting involved with a project - you never know! So if you get A U as a group, why not ask for more copies and make more effort to distribute them?

And finally - what better note to leave it on than the perennial appeal for cash. The AU won't ever fund itself by subscriptions alone, and the Newcastle collective can't end up fundraising which takes time and effort which would otherwise be spent on activism. Several groups pledged to make monthly donations at the EF! Summer Gathering, which would obviously be good, but the cash hasn't exactly come rolling in yet! So if you've just sued the police and feel guilty about frittering it away on beer and curry, or if your squat caf*© has accidentally made a profit, or if you have got into doing bank jobs to bankroll the movement then why not spare a thought for the poor AU and send a few quid in our direction?

Right, that's enough of this computer shit - we'll see you on the barricades!

The new address for the Earth First! Action Update is:
Earth First! Action Update, PO Box 1TA, Newcastle NE99 1TA. Telephone 0797 4791841.
e-mail actionupdate@gn.apc.org
Please update any contacts lists you have