For the record - Common Cause responds to recent hostile statements about the organization

This is our response to a recent online statement made by “Testament” in which he personally attacks two of our members as well as Common Cause as a whole. The statement was made in response to several articles written by Common Cause members in a personal capacity that were critical of either the black bloc tactic used in Vancouver or of the dismissal of these criticisms by some who chose to do so by dismissing Common Cause’s political philosophy as a whole.

The statement was set off by a regrettable use of the word 'idiots' to describe the black bloc window smashers in Vancouver, a term and personalization which was swiftly apologized for by the author. It is understandable that this kind of statement ignited some hostility in others who were involved with and or sympathetic to the actions in question.

“Testament"’s statement is troubling for a number of reasons that we feel need to be addressed. However, our ultimate intention here is to encourage all the parties involved to re-engage in respectful dialogue and to find ways to settle personal differences.

First, we regret that Testament chose to personally attack two of our members in ways that should be seen as unacceptable within our movements. This includes publishing online full names without permission (to his credit, he later apologized), calling them “traitors” and telling them “to keep their mouths shut” and quoting private conversations out of context and without permission, breaking the trust that Common Cause members had placed in him.

We understand that some of the comments quoted are disrespectful. As they were part of a private exchange, we do not feel that it is appropriate to address them in detail in public and so continue the violation of our member’s right to privacy. We will say however that, as they were made on our internal forum, we find the comments made regrettable because they take away from the positive atmosphere we try to maintain on our forums as well as taking away from the kind of discourse we would like to see established in the broader movement. We ask that others judge our relationship with other anarchist and activist groups based on our work with them over the past two and a half years, our public statements and publications and not based on private comments quoted out of context and in public without permission.

Second, although Common Cause has not made any official statements on events in Vancouver, we regret that Testament chose to attack Common Cause itself and all of our members calling us a “euro-centric, academic, male-dominated anarchist club.” Not only are his challenges toward the organization as a whole unfounded, but his comments dismiss, make invisible, and belittle members who are women and non-european people of colour. Like the rest of the North American anarchist movement we do indeed have to struggle both inside the organization and in society against racism, sexism, and the abuse of privilege. We recognize that both sexism and racism, among other forms of oppression, continue to be a problem within our movement and are working towards challenging, and rectifying this.

Third, Testament’s statement contains a number of distortions about his experience with Common Cause. Despite claiming to be an "ex-common cause organizer" Testament was in fact a regular member like everyone else in the organization. As such he was a member for a brief period of time (a few months) until he resigned due to political differences with the rest of the organization. He was not, as he claims, “kicked out” or “expelled.” We have never "kicked out" or "expelled" anyone from the organization. "Testament" and other members left when it became clear that they did not share our basic politics. Testament himself says as much when he writes "I no longer wanted to be a member of Common Cause and I distanced myself from it."

We think that Testament's claims about the politics and internal workings of Common Cause are based on a misunderstanding of platformism and organized anarchism. We make no apologies for wanting to build a theoretically coherent, directly democratic anarchist organization around a shared anarchist-communist politics. We did not, it is true, do the best job of making sure that Testament and others understood and shared our politics, and this led to an ideological gulf between some new members in London and the rest of the organization. However, we did send members to meet with London anarchists who were considering or in the process of joining Common Cause, to try and explain our positions better once it became apparent there was a problem. We followed up with a workshop on our politics and organizational principles.

If anyone would like to judge for themselves how Common Cause is organized, our constitution and basic policy are available at www.linchpin.ca. In particular we draw people's attention to Section 13 of our constitution which outlines how members are supposed to relate to other organizations, anarchist or otherwise.

Fourth, regarding the issue of Common Cause's participation in the anti-Olympics movement, as a platformist organization we did debate a proposal to become involved in anti-Olympics organizing. However, being based in Ontario and occupied with local organizing, we did not see it as a priority for us and democratically voted the proposal down. Even then, Common Cause branches did educational events and participated in local torch protests. For example, Common Cause Ottawa helped organized both a launch of the Dominion special issue on the Olympics as well as a protest, which included a banner drop, when the torch came through Ottawa and worked in collaboration with IPSMO (Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa) as well as Exile Infoshop. We published several articles in our press, on opposition to the Olympic torch relay, on police and capitalist cleansing of Vancouver, and on the repressive nature of police at protests in a historical context.

Finally, although Testament chose to direct his comments at Common Cause as a whole, Common Cause does not have a position on the black bloc in Vancouver or the black bloc tactic per se. Debate on these issues has gone on inside Common Cause as it has everywhere else. It is easy to find members who disagree with each other on our “Off the Cuff” blog section as well as our internal forums. Members who have expressed their opinions did so in a personal capacity and outside of our official publications (in the personal members 'blog' section of the website). When and if we do have an official position, it will come after going through our internal democratic process and it will be made clear that this is the position of the organization as a whole.

As we recognize that we could have better worked to resolve issues between our organization and Testament and other London anarchists with whom we do not share the same politics and understandings around organizing and strategy, Common Cause would like to extend an invitation to meet with Testament, any other former London members and Alex Hundert as soon as possible to resolve things using a manner of conflict resolution that is acceptable to all parties. In the meantime we ask and trust that an end be put to further personal attacks and misrepresentations of Common Cause. We understand that we, as an organization, have a collective responsibility to properly handle these situations, and hope that Testament and others will connect with us to initiate this process of resolution.

For the anarchist movement in Ontario and beyond,

Common Cause

commoncauseontario@gmail.com
P.O. Box 347, Station E
772 Dovercourt Rd.
Toronto, ON, Canada,
M6H 4E3