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Title: Cosa Nostra Author: APS Date: June 2nd, 2020 Language: en Topics: recruitment, affinity groups, affinity, Bandilang Itim, Philippines Source: Retrieved on 2020-06-05 from https://libcom.org/blog/cosa-nostra-sponsorships-affinity-based-vetting-recruiting-02062020 Notes: A guide on recruitment and vetting for your own affinity groups.
I’m writing this as a quick guide to screening people one might invite
to the anarchist collective, since we seem to have an issue at the
present where some reactionary elements have entered nominally Anarchist
spaces. Not to mention the threat of entryism by those in the
Maoist-aligned National Democratic movement. The information here is a
synthesis of conversations I’ve had with other organizers, written
records of existing anarchist organizations and as well as my own
experiences having to organize spaces for planning and action, however
small they may be.
I’ve been told once by some autonomist organizers based in the US that
as long as you have a neighbor, you have another possible comrade. They
were talking in the context of organizing a rent strike, of course, but
I think it could be generalized further. All of us over the course of
our lives have met and formed various relationships with different types
of people. And with social media allowing us to record our thoughts on
certain issues, gauging people’s general political tendencies is easier
than ever.
Maybe it’s just my poor memory, but I prefer having an actual list of
people to watch out for. A local file on my computer rather than one on
google docs or some other online platform, it has too much sensitive
info to keep on the cloud safely. Some might prefer to write it down and
bypass electronics completely, and more power to them. I just happen to
be in front of a terminal most of my waking hours.
Going back, this is important because this provides you with a map of
people within your life that could potentially help you with the things
you might want to organize in the future.
Things to take note of:
All the above could be kept on some type of record like I mentioned
above, or if you are truly paranoid, all in your head.
Remember that a conversation is a give and take. Make sure that whenever
they make a response that seems counter to yours, that you acknowledge
why that would seem reasonable in their circumstances. This would mean
having a lot of patience and understanding. This is also a good reason
why we should start with people within our social circles, our friends,
family, workmates, etc. Because we could at least have some level of
respect, understanding and affection for them. Pretty difficult to keep
your patience up for people you honestly don’t care about. I know that
we as radicals should care about all people, though some of my Egoist
comrades might disagree with that, we have to admit that human
compassion and patience is a limited resource. Best we use it on people
we actually care about.
After acknowledging, that’s when you then respond with your own answer.
As much as you can, avoid technical or academic jargon especially if the
person you’re talking to doesn’t have a background in radical politics.
Learn how to gauge the conversation and change the topic if need be when
the discussion gets heated.
“Key Issues” will of course vary between collective to collective, but
here’s an example of one for a general anarchist collective:
tape, etc)
artificial scarcity)
resources)
Like what was mentioned earlier, one has to ask about these issues in a
conversational manner. Maybe show them a news article related to what
you are trying to ask about and start the conversation there.
But make sure to make it as conversational as possible. No one likes
being asked these questions out of the blue. And talk about specific
issues instead of wide-reaching abstract social ills. Make sure to let
the person talk more, with you just asking to clarify what their points
are and why they believe the way they do. A rough estimate is at least
80%/20% in the other person’s favor.
Also, even though we’re trying to make this conversational, it’s still
important to keep some basic interview pointers in mind:
on-topic. Circle back to the original topic if needed.
ideas, and ask follow-up questions that can help clarify their position
and why they have that position. Nuance is key.
the person you’re talking to, and rephrase questions as needed. Better
to fumble and get the right question out, than to speak straight and ask
unclear questions.
questions you ask your Prospect are those that they are in a position to
have an opinion about.
We want to keep our collectives and organizations inclusive, that’s a
given, however there are simply those who will do all that they can to
see us fail. This is not to say they are horrible people outright, but
some of them certainly are, but that it is in their material interests
that we do not succeed.
People with those interests, and thus cannot be admitted into the
collective, include but are not limited to:
by the State or by a corporate entity.
(adapted from the IWW’s Bylaws, Membership section)
Similar to the section on probing for key issues, one also has to
ascertain all of this by conversation. However, it’s also a good thing
that you could also do some research of your own based on their social
media posts and, if you’re able to pull it off, talking to their
friends-of-friends. The goal is to find out whether or not they are
involved with those groups mentioned above or if they are related to
them in any way. If the latter is true, we also need to figure out if
their relation to possible counterrevolutionary forces will put the
collective in danger, or at the very least, hinder its operations.
Remember the 80%/20% rule, and let them talk more than you. Take note of
important parts of their responses. At the end of the day, do not forget
to update your map or dossier on them.
Say you’re making headway with your potential prospect, when you’re
ready, begin floating the idea of getting more people involved, and how
more could get done with more hands and minds put to any task you all
might want to do as a response to what you’ve been talking about.
Depending on their response, you could immediately skip to the next
section and discuss your invite with the rest of your collective. If
they respond negatively, it may be time to seriously reconsider going
through with this, as even individualists understand the value of the
occasional collective action when it suits their own purposes.
Just a quick reminder here to be careful about mistaking social anxiety
with being unwilling to join a collective effort. One has to proceed
with caution and avoid rushing to have them join the collective as being
forced to participate may do them more harm than good. Perhaps
introducing them to your comrades one at a time at different separate
occasions may work better as opposed to meeting them all at once.
Like most things, run your prospective member by your comrades first.
Describe them, the results of your vetting process with them and their
political leanings and prior associates if you know of any or were able
to uncover during the process. Describe whether or not they tend towards
acting on their own or their willingness to work with the rest of the
group. Present what skills or accomplishments this person has and how
they might contribute to the collective.
Once everyone is comfortable with your potential invite, it’s time to
actually invite your prospect.
Here is where you make your prospect aware that you are part of an
initiative that they may be interested in, based on your prior
conversations about current events, or issues. Just give them enough
details to be interested, and answer any questions that come up. Be
careful at this stage, this might make or break your particular
prospect’s chance of getting introduced.
And as a matter of security, do not mention anything about any of your
organization’s underground activity. Your prospect has not made any
commitments to you or the collective, and cannot be expected to keep a
secret yet.
If your collective has a group-chat or other similar form of
communication, this is when you add them into the conversation. This is
where your other comrades need to contribute by welcoming them warmly
and answering questions, keeping the conversation going, and keeping the
tone casual. At this phase, the invite is basically on probation and the
full members of the collective need to monitor the newbie. This is of
course the main responsibility of the invite’s sponsor, but the other
members of the collective might have some prior experiences and insight
that could help weed out undesirable elements.
As ominous as that last sentence was, everyone must remain cool and
casual. Their spaces, virtual or physical, must always remain forums of
open, but principled, discussion.
Groups involved in underground work might be well served with the invite
being introduced to a single comrade at a time for security reasons, and
so that the others can gauge for themselves if they’ll be comfortable
with working with the newbie.
Prior to any recruitment drive, write down the different tasks one might
have to do while being a member of your collective. Once you all have
agreed on a general list of activities, discuss and rank them according
to the amount of effort and commitment each activity requires in order
to be done properly. This forms a “ladder of tasks” that you could use
to judge how willing a certain prospect is and nudge them towards
greater and greater tasks, making them more invested in the collective’s
success.
This is a practical application of the Especifist concept of “Concentric
Rings of Participation” where the more committed you are and more tasks
you perform for the collective, the more opportunities you’ll have to
vote on decisions. This is because of how, following the principles of
self-management, only those who participate in an action, or will be
affected by its outcome somehow, will have a say in how it is performed.
Now, it bears repeating that because we are anarchists, and this author
endorsing Especifist forms of organizing, that being a committed member
of the collective and thus being in its inner circle of members, doesn’t
give one authority over those in outer circles. If a certain action
involves both fresh recruits and seasoned militants, each individual
comrade only has one vote each.
This comes into play early in the process of inducting your Invite into
the collective. Make sure you are realistic about the collective’s
purpose, goals and current capabilities.
On the other hand, one must also be transparent to the rest of the
collective about the Invite’s tendencies, attitude and disposition. This
is in order for the rest of your comrades to at least be somewhat ready
to meet with the newbie.
In circumstance where the Invite may be displaying undesirable behavior
or an issue emerges between the Invite and some other member of the
Collective, it is your responsibility as their Sponsor to mediate. Many
other works on conflict mediation has already been written, and this is
not the best space to talk about it. Just a quick note that in the event
of an issue forming between you and your Invite, the collective will
have to assign you two a mediator and try to resolve things from there.
Once the newbie goes from being an Invite to a full member of the
Collective, conflict mediation can then be done by any other member of
the collective, unless both parties are alright with the newbie’s
Sponsor mediating for them.
Similar to what was stated in Intensify, as Sponsor, you should help get
your Invite more involved in the Collective. In order to do that, you
would need to help them develop their capacity to perform the tasks
involved. Of course, your comrades can also help in certain aspects of
the struggle based on their expertise, but it is your responsibility as
Sponsor to ensure the Invite gets that training in one form or another.
It might be best if your collective creates a reading list based on your
organization’s tendency and introduce your invite to certain
introductory pieces of literature in order to get them started. If
you’ve worked in a Call Center before, maybe help train your invite in
public speaking and overcoming objections. And if they ask about
something that you don’t know much about, either look it up for them or
put them in touch with someone who does.
And if possible, also expand and enable their material capacity to
pursue the class struggle. Lend or donate old pieces of equipment you
don’t use anymore when they need it, help them get to functions and
picket lines when they’re short on cash, carry some extra meds for them
in case they run out of them on the road or during a demonstration. All
of these things count just as much, if not more than, their own mental
and moral capabilities.
As our material conditions change and history progresses, this text
cannot possibly be taken as spoken gospel, and I ask each and every one
of you who thinks that any of the ideas and processes described here to
be useful, to adapt them to your specific situation. In summary, what I
was trying to say in so many words above is to:
counter to our own.
they can, to introduce them in the way best suited to both your
collective’s and your Invite’s needs
Once again, I wish you all to remain safe and to never give up the
fight.