10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Tech Security 101
This workshop will look at the ways communications and digital technologies open us up to state surveillance and repression, and what we can do to mitigate these threats.
We will cover some practical tech security basics, including data encryption, protecting your identity online, and keeping your phone turned off and at home. We’ll also use threat modelling to break down specific risks posed by different types of technology, and practical, actionable responses.
Finally, we’ll discuss aspects of tech security culture, like the value in creating shared community practices around tech security, and engaging critically with technology and its role in domination.
Hostages of the Gun: Militancy vs Militarism
This quote by Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz, written shortly before Omar was kidnapped and killed by the Assad regime, shows a nuanced attitude towards the need for armed self-defence in the midst of a very violent conflict. When struggles escalate, how do we ensure that autonomy and mutual aid remain the drivers of conflict, and not armed groups that often position themselves as “the resistance?”
In this moment where militarized struggle by specific armed groups is being so heavily glorified, it seems more important than ever to distinguish between militancy and militarization. Which is to say, between the tactics and escalation that emerge from a self-organized oppressed class and those imposed by small groups that specialize in organized violence.
This workshop will draw on anarchist perspectives on the Syrian revolution and the Italian autonomous movement to offer some starting points for how to deal with the inevitability of violence without succumbing to the leadership of authoritarian armed groups.
12:30 – 2:00 pm
The Rise of Cybernetic Capitalism
Capitalism is a constantly evolving system. For fifty years, we have lived under its neoliberal form – an international economic and political regime dominated by banking cartels and other vehicles of finance capital. But today, as the world lurches towards a new era of trade protectionism, economic crisis and renewed global war, the neoliberal order finds itself in decline. Some say it’s already over. Which leads to an obvious question: what comes next?
This workshop will look at one possible future: a cybernetic capitalism dominated by the tech and artificial intelligence industries. A socioeconomic system built on a foundation of ubiquitous surveillance, constantly mining humanity for behavioural data to fuel the predictive algorithms and generative AI that would automate many of the traditional functions of the economy and state security apparatus. The structural transformations and technological innovations required to bring about this vision are already well underway.
Drawing on current power struggles, trends and projections, the workshop will discuss the hidden battle taking place over the future of capitalism, identify some of its current front lines, and speculate on what its impact on our collective future could look like in the years to come.
BIPOC Anarchist Connections
This is an informal meet up for Black, Indigenous and POC anarchists (and the anarchist-adjacent). It’s a time set aside to get to know each other and form relationships. We’ll have some icrebreaker games and hopefully some discussion about the multitude of anarchisms possible outside of a eurocentric framework. Also there will be snacks.
2:15 – 3:45 pm
1492 & the Significance of Islam & Anarchism to Turtle Island & Palestine
Discourses around Muslims and Islam all too often lapses into a false dichotomy of Orientalist and fundamentalist tropes. A popular reimagining of Islam is urgently needed. Yet it is a perhaps unexpected political philosophical tradition that has the most to offer in this pursuit: anarchism.
Islam and Anarchism simultaneously disrupts two commonly held beliefs – that Islam is necessarily authoritarian and capitalist; and that anarchism is necessarily anti-religious and anti-spiritual. Deeply rooted in key Islamic concepts and textual sources, and drawing on radical Indigenous, Islamic anarchistic and social movement discourses, I propose ‘Anarcha-Islam’.
Constructing a decolonial, non-authoritarian and non-capitalist Islamic anarchism relative to 1492, Islam and Anarchism philosophically and theologically challenges the classist, sexist, racist, ageist, queerphobic and ableist inequalities in both post- and neo-colonial societies like Egypt, and settler-colonial societies such as Israel, Canada and the USA.
Anarchy 101: What the Heck is Anarchism Anyway?
Join us for this workshop where we’ll discuss a little bit of the ideas, history & principles behind anarchism as a movement. Whether you’re anarchurious or have been in the strug’ for years — all are welcome. Facilitated by a raving anarchist nerd, it will have a particular emphasis on what distinguishes anarchism from other revolutionary & reformist political traditions. Topics may include: why politicians are bad, why cops are also bad, and why figuring out our own stuff together is really good!
4:15 – 5:45 pm
Revolution & Movement Memory
Healthy revolutionary movements require strong roots in the communities that sustain them. They draw their vitality from a living history of collective struggle, stretching across generations.
Without this dense network of social relationships, a movements’ radical history is vulnerable to capture by the state. To pacification, erasure, and recuperation. By killing, imprisoning or otherwise isolating revolutionaries, the state can re-frame even the most radical and inspiring struggles as progressive, non-violent calls for reform.
Capitalism and settler-colonialism actively disrupt the formation of strong communities. The result is a collective sense of alienation and social amnesia that makes it difficult for movements to pass along the lessons from past struggles.
This panel will discuss this problem, and how it has played out in different movements across so-called North America.
Tenant Union Organizer Training
The workshop has a strong focus on practical skills you can immediately use to start organizing your neighbours and other tenants in your city. This workshop will be covering all the important aspects of Tenant Organizing. You will learn how to prepare for a campaign, chart your building, understand power analysis, build community, have effective conversations with your neighbours, build power within your building, and much more. Working together with your neighbours, you will be capable of forcing the landlord to fix building issues (Heating, Cockroaches, Water, Maintenance), prevent evictions, and freeze or even lower rent. Start taking control of your home by joining this workshop