Five summers ago on June 15th 2019, a group of homophobic “street preachers” and their white nationalist allies attempted to enter and disrupt the annual Hamilton Pride celebrations at Gage Park.

Based on experience the previous year at Hamilton Pride and elsewhere in southern Ontario, anarchists and radical queers were expecting this and had organized to counter them. Wearing pink t-shirts over their faces and carrying a 30’ wide 9’ tall black banner nicknamed the Black Hole, the Pride Defenders confronted the bigots and formed a wall between them and the Pride festival.

The situation in the park quickly escalated into an all-out brawl, with several Pride Defenders sustaining serious injuries. Despite the chaotic scene, the banner held and the haters accepted a police escort out of the park.

Much of the fight was captured on right-wing livestreams and it created an immediate political scandal. The Pride Committee blamed the police for failing to intervene and the Police Board announced an independent investigation. For their part, the Hamilton Police attempted to frame the anarchists as outside agitators, attempting to link the (relatively popular) Pride Defence to the (very publicly unpopular) Locke Street affair from the previous year, where anarchists had smashed windows of gentrifying businesses along Locke Street.

Anarchists who were still on conditions related to that earlier demonstration were targeted and arrested in the days following. Our guest today, Cedar, had her parole pulled ostensibly for participating in the fight – when it became clear that she wasn’t even at Gage Park that day, the narrative changed to one of “incitement.”

The police strategy to regain control backfired and the repression kicked off a month-long campaign to #FreeCedar and drop the charges against all Pride Defenders. The city was covered in graffiti and posters and there were several rowdy anti-police demonstrations, along with solidarity actions around the world. For in-depth analysis and coverage during this time, see our show notes for links to various statements and reports on North Shore as well as our two previous episodes on the topic.

Today we’re sharing an interview with Cedar for the five year anniversary of the brawl and its aftermath. We discuss some of the ways anarchists in Hamilton have tried intervening in Pride over the years, the independent report and police recuperation, the problem with hate crime legislation, the worrying increase in anti-queer and anti-trans attacks from the post-Convoy far right in Canada, a predicted wave of reaction following the next federal election, and what we can do now to start preparing and practicing community defence.

With music from Deep Sixed

An interview with Ben Morea, recorded after an art show and talk he gave in Kingston, Ontario entitled "Revolutionary Animism – The Unified Field: Art, Politics and Spirituality."

Ben Morea is best known as a key figure in the Black Mask group, The Family (popularly known as Up Against The Wall Motherf**ker), and the Armed Love commune movement.

In this interview Ben recounts stories from his life, reflects on some of the challenges facing anarchists and revolutionaries of yesterday and today, and shares some thoughts on animism, indigenous ways of life, conflict, art, and more.

The No State Solution: A Dialogue with Palestinian sociologist Mohammed Bamyeh and Israeli political scientist Uri Gordon How can anarchist perspectives contribute to Palestinian liberation? Professor Mohammed Bamyeh, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, is author of Anarchy as Order: The History and Future of Civic Humanity (2009) Dr. Uri Gordon, author of Anarchy Alive!: Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory (2007), is an Independent scholar now based in the UK. This event took place on the unceded Territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt in Victoria, BC Canada, and in the U.K. via Zoom on January 28, 2024. Sponsored by Camas Books & Infoshop, Anarchist Archive at UVic, Sunset Labs, Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island (ANVI)

An interview with Jordan House and Asaf Rashid, authors of the book Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour. 

We discuss the background of the book, some historical and legal precedents, the pros and cons of right-based approaches, the core strategic arguments for a prisoners union, and an exciting new initiative by prisoners in Laval, QC to form a union.

If you're around Montreal, check out their upcoming book launch at Concordia University on Friday, November 24th.

With music from David Parker & Stefan Christoff.

On this special edition of From Embers, we’re sharing a reading of Under New Management: Resistance to Prisons in Ontario & Quebec. Originally published in 2018 on It's Going Down under the title Our Neighbors to the North, this article discusses the establishment of the Canadian prison system and highlights some examples of prisoner resistance in Ontario and Quebec over the decades, with an emphasis on the widespread unrest throughout the 1970s.

This AudioZine was first broadcast by CFRC Prison Radio in Kingston and has been edited and republished with permission. 

With music from Young Spirit, Christian Collins, Beatrice Deer and Cee Reality.

Our fediverse correspondent Lenny returns to discuss the FBI seizure of the servers of Kolektiva.social, the largest anarchist instance on Mastodon. We also talk about the continuing discrediting of big tech companies such as Twitter, Meta and Reddit, and what that might mean for people working to build an open-source, decentralized alternative to corporate social media platforms.

LINKS

Kolektiva.social Security Alert (Statement on seizure)

From Embers - Social Networks, Online Life and The Fediverse

From Embers - New Communication Infrastructure For Anarchists

F-91W Distro - Mastodon OPSEC guide

F-91W Distro - An anarchist introduction to federated social media

CrimethInc - Doxxing Prevention and Aftercare Guide

Anti-Hate.ca Story on Poast Leak

Reddit alternatives Lemmy & Kbin

With music from Deep Sixed

Talking with Louve Rose from P!nk Bloc Montreal about Quebec’s transphobic far right, drag defence, and building a revolutionary anti-capitalist queer organization for both community self-defence and to intervene against gay assimilationism.

Links

P!nk Bloc MTL – Instagram, Facebook, Linktree

August 12 Rad Pride (Facebook Event)

Montreal Antifasciste

MAF reportback from April 12 drag defence

From Embers - Anti-Fascism in Quebec

Revolutionary Trans Politics and the Three Way Fight

Submedia: Pride and Prejudice

Music

The Muslims - Fuck the Cistem

Interview with an anti-fascist observer about insights gained from the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings, a public inquiry into the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act to repress the so-called Freedom Convoy in February 2022.

We discuss why governments invoke emergencies, OPP's Project Hendon, how the Convoy was funded, the relationship between convoy organizers and police, comparisons with #ShutDownCanada, liberal conspiracy theories, the scale of economic disruption during the Convoy, and more.

Links

Public Order Emergency Commission

Our previous episodes on Yellow Vests Canada and the Freedom Convoy 

Ill Winds From Ottawa - Crimethinc report on the Freedom Convoy

Anarchist report from Ottawa during the Convoy

Music: Lee Reed

Note: Due to a technical glitch, this episode was removed, edited and re-published after it's initial release on January 11, 2023.

Interview with the author of the PET Guide, a zine discussing secure digital communication tools from an anarchist perspective. We discuss Signal and its critics, and some new tools being released that incorporate peer-to-peer communication, end-to-end encryption and the Tor network.

Further reading:

How the U.S. Military buys location data from ordinary apps

The challenge of cracking Iran's internet blockade

Catholic bishop / Grindr / App data scandal

Signal

Interview with new Signal president Meredith Whittaker

Signal Warning? Why Moxie's Departure Is Not The End Of Signal

Signal Fails

PET apps

Briar Project

Cwtch

A conversation with two anarchists following a workshop they gave at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair entitled 10 years since the strike: the place of nationalism within militant struggle. We discuss the history of Quebec nationalism and its influence in anarchist and radical milieus, responsibilities of settlers in anti-colonial struggle and in relating to land, possibilities and uncertain futures opened up by anarchism as a guiding practice, and more.

Further reading:

« Sauvage », « esclave » et « Nègres blancs d’Amérique » : hypothèses sur le complexe onto-politique québécois

Keshena Robinson - Québec Redux: Settler Coloniality and Reactionary "Decolonialism"

Robin Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - Rehearsals for Living

William C. Anderson - The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition

Tuck and Yang - Decolonization is Not a Metaphor

Sever - Land and Freedom

Music in this episode:

Cris Derksen - Our Home on Native Land, Fires

Kae Tempest - Tunnel Vision

Escaping Tomorrow's Cages is a six-part essay being published throughout the month of May that lays out the coming wave of provincial jail expansions in Ontario and propose a strategy for how they might be opposed. We spoke with 3 anarchists involved with the project.