The New Antimilitarism: Our AMC Reportback

Hey community,

It’s been a few weeks since you helped us get folks out to Detroit for the Allied Media Conference to attend our workshop Liberate the Skies: The New Antimilitarism – thanks for helping us get folks there! The first of its kind at the AMC, the workshop was an intentional space for us to speak candidly with one another across movements, reviewing examples of disapora and homeland-led antiwar organizing, and illuminating the ways militarism shows up in all of our struggles.

Together, we began generating ways all of us, new and old to to this work, could truly show up, disrupt, and build with those at the frontlines of violence.

Since then, SCOTUS decided to uphold the Muslim travel and refugee ban, indefinitely keeping some of us away from our loved ones abroad, reminding us that families continue to be detained and separated everywhere every day. At yesterday’s NATO summit, Western superpowers reaffirmed their commitment to militarism, with British Prime Minister Theresa May siding with President Trump’s Twitter tirade on NATO countries having to pay their “fair share” for “defense,” a commitment of at least 2% of each NATO country’s GDP straight to militarism by 2024 and preferably, “immediately.” The ruling class warmongers want to double-down, calling for 4%.

Ready or not, this is the moment our ancestors prepared us for. The kind of change we’re demanding isn’t the kind those in power are willing to give. And with endless wars here and abroad, we continue targeting the roots of militarism and call for all institutions to invest in the leadership, labor, power, and creativity of frontline communities on the ground and in diaspora, actively decolonizing our own movement spaces as we reshape the world around us.

Here are just a few homeland and diaspora-led groups we wanted to lift up.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently is a campaign launched by a group of non-violent activists in Raqqa to expose the atrocities of Assad and ISIS.

Abounaddara was founded in Damascus, Syria as a collective of self-taught and volunteer filmmakers creating emergency media.

#SupportYemen is a Yemeni youth-led media collective utilizing film to amplify the stories of those on the ground.

The Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists is a network opposed to all regional imperialist powers and their wars.

Our meeting at the AMC is just the beginning. Stay tuned as the work unfolds.

With light,