WEBVTT - Anarchism in Uruguay feat. Andrew, Pt. 1 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:07.200 Cozon Media, Hello and welcome to it could happen here. 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:13.960 It's time to finally continue our journey through Latin American anarchism. Now, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.680 so far we've covered almost every country in Latin America 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:23.919 at this point, including Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Central America. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:29.000 The country is the former Grand Colombia, like Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.120 and also Cuba and. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:32.440 A few other islands in the Caribbean. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.400 And now before we get to the really big history 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.400 that I've kind of been saved as the finale, that 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.000 is anarchism in Mexico, we're going to be talking about 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.559 the anarchist movement in Uruguay. 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.320 So my name is Andrew Sage. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.239 You can find on YouTube as Andrewism and you can 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.840 also find the bulk of the research for today's episode 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.640 in an Hill Capialities, aptly titled Anarchism in Latin America. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:06.440 I'm joined today by James me again and it's been 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:06.840 a while. 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:07.920 Yeah, it has been a while. 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.399 Nice to be back, great to be back in conversation. 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.480 Yeah, So before we could really get into the history 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.600 of anarchism and Uruguay, I probably should give some context 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:23.919 as to how Uruguay became Uruguay, and well, my source 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.880 for this history is primarily the Encyclopedia Britannica. 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.440 So, before the whole scoot of. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.399 European clonalism, what is now known as Uruguay supports it 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.000 a population of about five thousand to ten thousand people, 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.560 which were organized in semi nomadic groups. You had the Taroua, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:49.600 the China, and the Guarani Indians primarily. So the first 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:54.640 European visits took place first in fifteen sixteen, and they 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.640 weren't particularly successful or of interest. Spain was looking for 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.920 gold and looking for silver. That was their incentive for 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.800 colonization at the time, and they didn't see any of that, 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.240 so they didn't have much motivation to stick around. It 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.280 was until the sixteen twenties, over a century later, that 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:16.280 Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries set up religious settlements, but unfortunately, 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.079 by then, Uruguay's native population had already begun to collapse. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:25.160 Thousands of people were succumbing to European diseases, so they 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.480 had no immunity to a couple of centuries later, in 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:33.520 eighteen hundred, Uruguay continued along with a very small population. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.720 At this point it was about thirty thousand people in total, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.760 and a third of their population lived in the capital 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:41.919 city of Montevideo. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:44.640 Another thirty of their population. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.919 Were African slaves who worked on ranchers and meat processing 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.040 plants and as domestic servants. Meanwhile, the elite, whether they 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.040 be wealthy traders, bankers, or landowners, mostly traced their routes 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.520 to Catalonia, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands other parts 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.160 of Spain. We get into eighteen ten, when a lot 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.200 of the Latin American countries had been fighting for their independence. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.959 Buenos Aires Argentina was among them. But while Argentino was 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.239 fighting for its independence, Montevideo was a Royalist stronghold backed 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.560 by the Spanish military and naval forces. On the country side, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.040 it was a different story though Uruguay's greatest independence zero 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.480 kind of came out of that space. His name was 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:35.480 Jose Grevasio Artigaz, and he originally led a Spanish cavalry unit, 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.120 but eventually turned against the crown in eighteen eleven and 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.200 rallied an army of rural fighters, freed African slaves and 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.880 anti royalist leaders from Montevideo. So with the back in 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.440 from Bernos Airis. His forces were able to score key 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:55.480 victories and eventually oust the Spanish, but Artigas had much 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.640 bigger ambitions. He wanted a confederation of provinces to resisted 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.400 the domin Buenos Aires. In fact, he wanted Montevideo to 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.480 become the center of a rival confederation, as prior to 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:12.120 Argentina becoming Argentina, it was sort of a loose confederation 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:18.479 centered in Buenos Aires. Artigas's ideas also included things like 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.440 redistributing the land to freed slaves and Poiuguayans, which made 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.360 him obviously very popular among the poor and very much 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.640 a threat to the elite. Eventually, he was forced into 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:34.800 exile because he made some enemies that basically sat on 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:39.640 their hands as the Portuguese Brazilian forces invaded and took 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:44.360 over the region. Despite his exile, though the fight really 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.479 wasn't over, you know. After the occupation, which was often 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:53.159 called Brazilianization, it was resisted very heavily by locals and exiles, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.840 and of course Argentina, which had become some lot of 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.240 a rival power to Brazil in the region. Brazil's influence 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:07.120 in Uruguay as a threat so eventually one of Artigas's 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.920 exile officers, a guy named Juan Antonio Lavayer, would lead 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:16.280 a force that would cross the river and reclaim Uruguay. 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:18.920 The fight would end in a steel meat and then 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.640 British deplomat to step in, because of course the British 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.200 had their own interests in the region. But eventually, in 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.200 eighteen twenty eight, a treaty was signed officially creates in 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.600 Uruguay as an independent Nasia, a buffer state between Argentina 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:38.040 and Brazil. In eighteen thirty, Uruguay's first constitution was ratified, 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.479 and at the time the country had a population of 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.480 just seventy four thousand people. 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.160 All that war kind of left the country in ruins. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.840 A lot of the once wealthy colonial families were devastated, 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.520 the cattle numbers had plummeted, and the threat of both 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.920 Argentina and Brazil still persisted despite the treaty at being signed. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.520 So then the nation ended up being split into two 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:07.599 rival factions. You had the faction that was led by 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.960 Uruguay's first president and then you had the faction that 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.080 was led by Uruguay's second president, and they became face 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.880 rivals that ignited a civil war known as the Gera 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:20.159 Grande or Great War. 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:22.000 I'd to make a long story short. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:28.320 The first President's supporters became known as the Colorado Party 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.839 and they controlled Montevideo, and the second president's supporters became 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.400 known as the White Party or the Blanco Party, and 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.120 they dominated the countryside. And so they were fight from 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.880 time to time, each side being backed by different parties. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.120 The Blancos were backed by Argentina, the Colorados were backed 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.679 by France and England and then eventually Brazil, and after 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.760 about a decade of war, there was still no clear 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.320 victory as to who you know, came out of it 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.960 as a success in state. The interior of the country 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:05.800 was devastated, government was bankrupt, its very existence as an 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:10.680 independent nation came into doubt, and the divisions between the 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:16.640 people who backed either party became more stark than ever. Eventually, 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.239 the Colorados were able to force Blancos out of power 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.000 thanks to their back in by Brazil, and that move 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.600 ended up alarming Paraguay, who was also a fred in 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.520 Brazil's influence. So Paraguay ended up launching what became known 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.400 as the War of the Triple Alliance, which is something 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.840 I covered in the episode of Paraguay and anarchism. Eventually, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.240 after getting out of the civil wars and all these 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.840 disputes and foreign powers medal inst affairs, we have the 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:50.120 situation Huruguay found itself in in the nineteenth century, a 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:55.720 situation that waves of immigrants and also anarchism would find 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:09.520 themselves in. So Capelletti identifies a few of the early 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.600 forces that shaped you requ radicalism before anarchism and cynicalism. 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.760 The first factor shape in the radical landscape in Uruguay's 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:22.800 eighteenth century was utopian socialism. It came to Uruguay with 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.440 Eugenio Tandinet in eighteen forty four, and he was a 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.760 French utopian socialist and follower of Charles Freer, who's one 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:35.319 of the founders of utopian socialism. That whole milieu advocated 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.960 for reconstruction of society based on communal associations of producers 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:45.240 known as falangis. And then with their influence afterwards came 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.120 the next force of influence the Italian migrants who had 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:54.280 fought in the Civil War. These were republicans who eventually 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.840 became socialists. And in the next influence was the mutualist 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.920 movement that was inspired put On in the eighteen seventies, 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.320 first the rising in Uruguay among artisans and workers and 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.880 establishing mutual aid societies to meet people's needs. A friend 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.280 of Pedros of Prodona himself, a guy named Jose Ernesto Gilbert, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.160 had actually moved to Montevideo for a bit after being 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.160 exiled from France. And I don't think he did anything 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:27.439 too actively political. He did pursue botanic studies in Uruguay, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.400 and I believe there was some kind of creature. 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.920 Named after him. So let's cool, you know, so fun fact. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.200 Finally, as we kind of exit the nineteenth century, you had, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.079 of course the rise of unions and internationalist organizations in 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.040 the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties. You had fights for workers' rights, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.000 You had the struggle for an international socialism. And you 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:54.040 have what Capital identifies as a Uruguayan section of the 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:59.120 Association International de Trabajadores which was established in eighteen seventy two, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.800 and engage in a public action in eighteen seventy five 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:08.000 that had some two thousand attendees. They established something of 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.440 a manifesto where one lion had asked who better and 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.600 of greater faith than ourselves can destroy the criminal exploitation 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.000 to which we are condemned as a whole. The manifesto 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.680 basically asked workers to unite, and this was in a 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.720 time where anarchism was finally starting to pick up in 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:27.240 the region. 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.280 Another group formed in eighteen seventy six. 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:35.600 This was the Ferracion Regional de la Republca Oriental del Uruguay, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.520 later called the ferracanal Uruguaya or f O r U, 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:47.520 and they published peoples like Social, La Luca Obrera, La Fravadores, 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.640 Liman Spasion, and Siddy Dad. And it was a very 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.199 small but virgin in movement, but they didn't take very 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:00.640 long to start making some moves as cap Latino in 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.800 they celebrated the anniversary of the Paris Commune in March 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:08.600 eighteenth and collected forty pesos on behalf of libertarian prisoners 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.240 in Lyon. They also collected money to support their papers 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.360 and to support papers and efforts elsewhere, like in France. 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.440 What's interesting about the Uruguayan anarchists is that they were 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:24.480 among the most internationalists that I have found so far. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.880 You know, like other parts of Latin America, they did 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.560 have a large immigrant population yeah, but because I suppose 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.840 the size of Uruguay compared to those other countries, the 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.440 immigrant population was probably larger proportional to their neighbors. So 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.599 they ended up having a much greater connection to movements 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.320 and you know, things that happened in other parts of 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.000 the world, including their home countries. 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.040 Yeah, that makes it was sir. I'm trying to remember 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.720 exactly when this began, but like there was a movement 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.680 among anarchists I guess in the early more in the 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.400 early twentieth century to like learn esperanto as part of 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:01.319 their internationalism. 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.080 Yes, that's actually a history that I would love to 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:05.400 cover in an episode. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.520 I will connect you to somebody who wrote books about 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:09.480 it with pleasure. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.120 Really yeah, yeah, it'll be fantastic. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.720 My first book was about the anti Fascist Olympics and 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:20.880 the last surviving Popular Olympian, the Guardo Vivancos, died in 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.920 twenty twenty two in Canada and an old people's home. 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.880 I've been trying to visit him, but because of the 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.440 COVID restrictions for in the old people's home, I wasn't 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.559 able to. But he he had served as a Esperanto 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.920 translator at the Popular Olympics, and like lived out his 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.280 whole life with this dream of like if we can, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.199 if we can break down the linguistic barriers between workers, 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.760 and we can we can get together and change things. 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.240 Wow, that is fascinating. You know what's interesting about the 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.920 whole Esperanto connection to anarchism is that long before I 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:59.440 really got into anarchism or even learned about anarchism, I 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.280 actually try to learn Esperanto. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.120 Let's here you go. It worked. Did they see that 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.520 this is what they wanted? You saw the barriers fall 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.800 down once you there, once you began speaking esperandi. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:11.040 I didn't get very far. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.920 I think it was around the time when like dueling 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:18.720 I first introduced it into their like courses, Okay, and 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:20.760 I saw it and I like did like a brief 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.440 reading on it, and I was like, oh, this looks interesting, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:24.920 and so I tried to pick it up and I 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:26.240 studied it for a little while, but. 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:27.880 I didn't get particularly far. 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.520 Yeah, but now we're looking in the connection between Esperanto 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.480 and a Nikus, I'm just like, wow, you know, the 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.320 seeds were already there in a sense, yeah. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were ready for it. That was 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.720 a dream of the of the nineteen twenties and thirties. 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:43.559 I'm glad that you're living in for sure. 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.640 And actually we're about to enter, well at least the 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:52.079 twentieth century in our little historical review here, and it's 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.160 almost really started to finally pick up steam by this point, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.880 becoming very commonly known across Iraquai. In fact, by nine 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.720 team eleven, according to Capitaletes research of the official stats, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.640 there were one hundred and seventeen thousand industrial workers in 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:14.320 Uruguay and of those, ninety thousand were affiliated with the FRU. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.040 So what's seventy six percent of those industrial workers were 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:25.120 affiliated with an explicitly anarchist organization that included port workers, 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:30.360 construction workers, metal workers, horse drivers, railway workers, and a 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.280 lot more. And to be honest with you, I'm not 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:37.040 entirely sure what kept them from taking Boulder action compared 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.440 to some of their neighbors, considering their proportion the numbers 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.360 they had, But unfortunately didn't take very long for the 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:50.960 movement to be divided, particularly after the Russian Revolution. There was, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.040 of course, the influence of Bolshevik ideas that had split 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.840 the movement somewhat, bringing workers onto the Bolshvikkers and then 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:03.280 of course you had sponsorship. It was within the USSR's 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:09.360 interest to support USSR aligned movements worldwide, and so a 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.560 lot of libertarian groups around the world went into decline 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:17.720 in that time, including in Uruguay some of the unions 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.640 and up faltering under the pressure of both the state 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.680 and of course the new draw that was the Marxist 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:31.120 Leninist groups. But of course the libertarians never really gave up, as. 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.720 They don't tend to historically speak it. 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.200 So the unions and groups continued acting, continued producing papers. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.840 In fact, there was a major siurge and unionization in 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.400 the nineteen forties, according to Paul Sharki's The Ferracrio and 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:49.480 Anarchista i Uruguaya, especially among the textile workers, real women talkers, 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:54.000 construction workers and meatbackers. And then outside of the union 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.920 and people pushing scene, you're at Uruguayan writers that continue 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.560 to shape the cultural scene with anarchist ideas. Florencio Sanchez, 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.800 for example, was a playwright in the Riore La Plata 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.840 region whose experience in nationalist militias led him to align 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.280 himself with anarchist circles. He worked as a journalist while 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.160 actively participating in anarchist organizations and publications, including La Protesta 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.600 in buros Airis. His plays tackled social issues such as 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.400 class struggle, intergenerational conflicts, and the hardships of the working class. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:27.640 Then you also had. 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:32.240 Other Urquian literary figures influenced by anarchism and contributing to 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:38.400 the libertarian literary movement, including poet Julio hirera Iseg, novelist 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:44.119 Torrecio Kiroga, and Bohemian writer Roberto de las Carreras. And interestingly, 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.040 there was another notable figure in anarchism connected to perhaps 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.640 the most or one of the most notable figures in anarchism, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.760 and that was the friend and biographer of Erko Mala 0:16:54.760 --> 0:17:01.400 Testa himself, Luigi Fabri. Fabri founded the journal Study Sociali, 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.960 which was one of the strongest libertarian publications in Uruguay 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.360 and Latin America, and after he died, his daughter, Lucy 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.320 Fabrie continued his work and edited the journal until nineteen 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.919 forty six. Lucy Fabrie was also one of the founders 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.960 of the FAU and she also published quite a few 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.159 books in her time, many of which have yet to 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.280 be translated into English. I wish I could you know, 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:27.040 check them out. 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.360 Yeah, Paul Sharky, you just mentioned he's the guy. He's 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.879 translated like a library of anarchist text. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:35.560 Yeah. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.320 Yeah, I think translators they don't get as much praise 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.959 as they should. You know, they're really an underrated contribution 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.560 to the movement and to the propagation of the movement 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:46.680 in new spaces. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.680 Yeah. Absolutely. I translated some text for a zine last year, 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.440 and it is a lot of work. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:53.120 Yep. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.640 Oh, yeah, massive respect to people who do that. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:00.880 Unfortunately, translation is not as simple as just word for word, 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:03.320 you know. You really do have to get the spirit 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.359 of the text out of it somehow, sometimes with different 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:07.760 phrasing and that kind of thing. 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:09.280 Yeah, exactly, it's difficult. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.560 Google can't do that for you, yep. 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.280 I mean I appreciate its having the ability to like 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.600 go on a website and like have Google translates translate 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.160 the web page quickly for me, But that has very 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.840 clear and obvious weaknesses, you know, when you go through 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.000 it in terms of actually translating the information. Yeah, it's 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.120 good for like getting like a vague gist, right, but 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.760 professional translators aren't going away anytime soon. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.199 No, No, it's a great thing to do if you 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.400 if you have a couple of languages, like to make 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.160 the world visible from someone else's perspective. It's such a 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.840 such a wonderful thing to be able to try and 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.040 share that. It's really special. 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.000 Yeah, particularly for the last less well known or less 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.879 popular languages. Yeah, you know, although you'll be surprised, some 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.159 of the most popular languages, most widely spoken languages in 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.480 the world, are still lacking some key translations of some 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.159 very key literature. You know, you'd be surprised, Like the 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.600 kinds of text that we take for granted, the theory 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:10.399 and stuff we take. 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.719 For granted, that's just not available and visivily, sir. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.399 You know, there's probably a lot of gems out there 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:20.080 that I've yet to hit. 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.280 The English language definitely. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.640 Yeah, yeah, like just because especially if it's a big language, 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.800 like a language is something like Arabic of Spanish, Mandarin 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.720 where so many people speak it already, like there's less 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.440 need to translate it because like it's it's getting out there. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.359 I suppose that pizza isn't quite the same like urgency 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.400 to translate it, but the ideas get out through sort 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.040 of powerphrase, I suppose because enough people can readly in 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.760 the ritual language and then paraphrase it in other languages. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.639 Yeah, as long as the idea gets there, you know, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.200 the exact words may not necessarily be important. 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.040 Yeah, there's some beauty, and like the piece I translated 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.240 was pretty sure. But it's the Belgian anarchists who fought 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.080 in the Spanish Civil War and then went into exile 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.439 in South America. But the way he writes about the 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.000 revolutionary moment is one of the most perfect and beautiful 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.320 encapsulations I've ever read, So like, it was nice to 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:13.000 be able to share that. 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:14.720 You should send that to me. What is it called. 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.160 It's called rejecting or refuting the legend by a guy 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.400 called Louis Merci A Vega was the name he went by. 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.840 Sometimes he also called himself Charles Riddle. That neither of 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:26.520 those were his real names, but there's the names he 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.639 lived most of his life under. I've been reading a 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.320 lot of translations, if to Ruti column memoirs. Another wonderful 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.400 one is called Sons of the Night, which is by 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.720 an Italian anarchist who fought in Spain and they lived 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:38.480 the rest of his life in France. And then it's 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.879 a beautiful book because he was a groundskeeper at the 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.639 Libertarian Club in Marseille, and the young people of the 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.480 Libertarian Club were so influenced by his life and his 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.840 experiences and the way he talked about the world that 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.240 after his passing they translated his diary and then wrote 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.440 this huge historical sort of The footnotes are four times 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.960 long as a book because the footnote explain that the 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.120 things that he's talking about and who the characters are, 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.800 and it's it's a really kind of beautiful text. And 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.800 it has the authors called themselves the she Monologues like 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.600 that the followers of Antoine she Minez, So it's kind 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.040 of anonymously offered. And I thin it's a really special 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:16.960 like literary project. 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.800 Wow, that's something that always moves me, you know, when 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.040 somebody is able to have such an impact on the 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.199 lives of others that even in their absence, people you know, 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:30.600 continue their life's work. 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.600 Yeah. Yeah, it's a really special thing. I'll send you 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.440 a link to it when we've them, but I've diverted 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:37.480 us a long way from Uraguai. 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.600 I'm sorry. Oh, that's fine, that's fine. 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.440 I think for this episode, there's just one other interesting 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.160 moment in Uruguay's anarchists history that I want to cover, 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.879 and I'll leave it at that before the next episode. 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.520 But going down this rabbit hole was actually really interesting 0:21:53.560 --> 0:22:07.200 for me. So there was an experiment in the fifties 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.919 in Uruguay called the Communidad del Sur, which was an 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.879 anarchist's intentional community experiment, and capolet He talks about it 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.679 briefly as an effort by folks to live and work 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.320 and eat and rare children together away from the injustices 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.679 of capitalism on the state. Now, anarchism is not about 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:33.160 establishing intentional communities, but many anarchists have found great reprieve 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.920 and great joy in establishing those communities, in finding love 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:42.560 and care and connection in those spaces. So these people 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:47.199 spent about twenty years living together, making decisions together, sharing finances, 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:51.320 and sharing education. But the Uruguayan military dictatorship stepped in 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.439 and put an end to the project in nineteen seventy six. 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.359 They spent that time afterwards living in exile. First they 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.719 settled in and then they ended up in Spain, and 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.520 then after that they found themselves in Sweden, of all places, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.920 where they continued their communal life and engaged in international 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:15.160 political education, so that's all I ended up learning about 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.120 them at first, But I wanted to dig a little 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:19.159 deeper and find out what happened to them after that, 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:25.800 and I wasn't finding that information in English language sources, 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:30.240 so I ended up, unfortunately having to lean upon Google 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:35.560 Translate for the Swedish and Spanish wikipedias, but those pages 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:40.080 went into a little bit more depth, and so I 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:43.359 was able to find out that this group ended up 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:47.239 taking part in the occupation of the Mulvaden neighborhood in 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.280 the late seventies, and they also translated Latin American anarchist 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.919 texts into Swedish and vice versa. And then when the 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.520 dictatorship in Uruguay ended, they returned to Uruguay with the 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:00.879 money they raised with the hell of this Swedish comrades, 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:03.639 and initially a few stayed in Stockholm, so there was 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:05.919 a split effort between Uruguay and Sweden for a bit, 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:08.359 but the ones in Sweden were able to send money 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:11.560 and equipment home and so eventually they were all able 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:14.919 to focus in Uruguay and set up a printery and 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:19.000 established a farm in the countryside outside Montevideo on land 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:22.159 purchased with money collected in Sweden, where they focused on 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:26.760 collective farm and organic agriculture. I mean, apparently there's still 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:30.600 active today. I found what seems to be their website, 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:32.320