<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">dear friends and comrades, </div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">sorry for the last minute forwarding... lots of organizings on different levels...</div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">..<br></div><div dir="ltr"><div>please, if you are interested in following these conversations (they will be happening every Sunday with different invited guests) , feel free to subscribe the mailing list writing to : </div><div><div><<a href="mailto:assembling@16beavergroup.org" target="_blank">assembling@16beavergroup.org</a>></div><div>or to </div><div><<a href="mailto:mai@16beavergroup.org" target="_blank">mai@16beavergroup.org</a>><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- <br></div><br><br>Dear Friends, Comrades,<br>
<br>
We started this process of assembling together virtually nearly 2 years <br>
ago. We never could have imagined then, that this process could become <br>
such a rich communal infrastructure for sharing our urgent questions and <br>
tending to them together. Thanks to each of you for nourishing and <br>
creating this space of trust and generosity.<br>
<br>
It is in this spirit that we would like to invite you this Sunday March <br>
6, 12pm for the second act of War By Other Names.<br>
<br>
Together with Olga Kopenkina and Dmitry Vilensky, we have imagined this <br>
summit-in-acts as an attempt to create a space to think together and <br>
consider potential actions responding to the Russian military invasion <br>
of Ukraine.<br>
<br>
This week is Dmitry's turn to introduce the day. Rather than write a <br>
text, he thought to share a question and potential heading to begin our <br>
conversation:<br>
<br>
Learning to Resist in Times of Wars<br>
<br>
Irina Zherebkina from Kharkiv, Yevgenia Belorusets and Mikola Rydny from <br>
Kyiv are among those invited who have said they would like to join.<br>
<br>
Below you will find login details and the short introduction for Sunday <br>
and the summit.<br>
<br>
<br>
_____________________________________<br>
SUNDAY'S SUMMIT<br>
<br>
Please Note: Start time is 12pm<br>
Unique Login and Password<br>
<br>
Sunday March 6th, 2022<br>
12:00 PM (EST)<br>
<br>
<a href="https://zoom.us/join" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://zoom.us/join</a><br>
<br>
Meeting ID: 934 0924 8883<br>
Passcode: Exter<br>
<br>
<br>
__________________________________<br>
INVITATION<br>
<br>
This Sunday, March 6th, we would like to invite you to the second <br>
encounter and share with you Dmitry Vilensky's question:<br>
<br>
Learning to resist in times of wars<br>
<br>
<br>
__________________________________<br>
INTRODUCTION TO WAR BY OTHER NAMES<br>
<br>
Since 2020, we have been testing assembling drawing on friendships old <br>
and new from all the various parts of our shared planet, considering the <br>
current conjuncture. We felt then, in the urgencies of 'lockdown' and <br>
imposed 'social distancing' to find new ways of recomposing the <br>
cartographies of struggle in the face of what could only be another <br>
crisis through which states and capital would opportunistically <br>
manipulate toward their advantage.<br>
<br>
Our thesis has been confirmed time and again as states, especially those <br>
bearing the imprint of supremacist mandates, imperial or colonial <br>
histories, have used in the most wretched manner the pandemic and its <br>
conditions of distraction to further their capacities to exert and <br>
extend their will to govern and control.<br>
<br>
A global war has been pronounced against a virus. And in the middle of <br>
that war many other wars have and are taking place. Wars against <br>
indigenous communities, migrant peoples, displaced, houseless peoples, <br>
wars of dispossession, wars of occupation, of omission, sometimes as if <br>
by accident, organized neglect, in the name of safety, security, law, of <br>
restoring territorial integrity or restoring old empires.<br>
<br>
But these wars are like palimpsests, taking the same writ, the same <br>
sheets of proclamation and rewriting over them new conditions, new <br>
rules, new impositions, and new justifications. Amidst the seas of war <br>
are floating peoples, communities, multitudes who struggle to find a <br>
side, a way, a path toward autonomy, subsistence, if not bare survival.<br>
<br>
The current invasion by Russia of Ukraine is a moment of intensification <br>
in an ongoing war, which inherits the legacies of a cold war and the hot <br>
wars which preceded it, always risking to spill into surrounding <br>
territories and justifying new forms of weaponry for forced forms of <br>
pacification. These wars certainly have their locality and specificity <br>
but they cannot be read outside also the larger forces at play.<br>
<br>
But understanding these forces also does not necessarily arrive to <br>
understanding how they implicate each of us wherever we are. As we have <br>
asked implicity or explicity in our many assemblies, the Conference of <br>
Butterflies, a Conference in Shards, as well as our vigil, Fukushima at <br>
10, how to reimagine solidarity today?<br>
<br>
Over the course of these following weeks, we will try to enter <br>
collectively a process of thinking together the various forces at play, <br>
the questions this invasion by Russia raises, the various modes of <br>
discourse and practice it may call into being in order to struggle <br>
against the supremacist, imperial, colonial, fascist, racist, <br>
patriarchal, capitalist forces which continue to invent and direct new <br>
causes of war and war by other names.<br>
<br>
__________________________________<br>
NOTE ON ORGANIZATION<br>
<br>
As a form of organizing this summit, we will try to share responsibility <br>
with friends. We began this process leading to this first encounter with <br>
a letter from Dmitry Vilensky of Chto Delat on February 6th asking how <br>
we may organize something together in response to a potentially <br>
devastating war.<br>
<br>
Given Belarus's implication in this, we asked our friend Olga Kopenkina <br>
to join us in situating occasions and inviting friends from Ukraine, <br>
Belarus, and beyond to think and share questions.<br>
<br>
Whatever we have planned or written has seemed to be inadequate by the <br>
day as the situation has deteriorated from a potential war or attack to <br>
a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.<br>
<br>
At the level of organization, we would like each encounter to have its <br>
own approach to thinking and finding a way to discuss what is taking <br>
place in a manner that can go beyond news and toward nourishing our ways <br>
to conjoin struggles wherever we are situated.<br>
<br>
__________________________________<br>
<br>
Please note, for those who have expressed interest in these weeks to join our assemblings, we have made a list to send to you each week the details for joining.<br>
<br>
If for any reason you prefer to not receive these updates, we have made it easier.<br>
<br>
You can simply write an email to:<br>
<a href="mailto:assembling-leave@16beavergroup.org" target="_blank">assembling-leave@16beavergroup.org</a><br>
</div></div></div></div>
</div></div>