Communist
25th February 2010, 03:00
.European Anarchist Has to Cancel Trip to the U.S. (http://progressive.org/mc021910.html)
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive
February 2010
The anarchist author Gabriel Kuhn was planning on
visiting the United States in early March and staying
until May. He had speaking engagements set up at
several colleges, bookstores, and coffeehouses. But
he's no longer coming.
Kuhn, who was born in Austria and lives in Sweden,
wrote a prize-winning book on contemporary anarchism in
the United States. And he's the author of two new books
published by PM Press out of Oakland. One is called
"Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age
Piracy," and the other is "Sober Living for the
Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical
Politics."
He applied through Homeland Security's Electronic
System for Travel Authorization, which has been in
place for a little more than a year. This system is for
people who are traveling to the United States from
countries where the U.S. used to say you didn't need a
visa to come to America.
For a list of those countries, click here:
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1212501117599.shtm
Now you need to have either a visa or approval from the
Electronic System for Travel Authorization.
So Kuhn, who has come to the United States several
times before, logged onto the Homeland Security website
and tried to get the travel authorization.
"I considered the process a mere formality," he wrote
in his own account of what happened:
http://www.pmpress.org/content/index.php?topic=bl_kuhn
"When the words `Travel Not Authorized' appeared on my
computer screen, I instantly thought a
mistake. Certainly I must have missed a letter or digit
in my application form. I checked the records. I hadn't
missed anything. Nonetheless, I applied again. It took
only a few hours to receive another rejection."
Joanne Ferreira, a press officer at U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, said she couldn't comment on Kuhn's
specific case, but she said people are rejected for a
variety of reasons.
"It could be criminal activity, or an immigration
violation, or anything in his past," she said. She
added that people denied travel authorization could
then apply for a visa.
Kuhn, who believes he's landed on the No Fly List,
understood he had that option but concluded it was
unlikely he would be granted a visa, and if he did get
it, he was worried he'd be turned away once he got
here.
"Under these circumstances, it became impossible for me
to continue planning my tour (which was to start in a
month), and I had to cancel."
Kuhn, who got a PhD in philosophy from the University
of Innsbruck, tells me there is a lot of "official
hype" about freedom of speech in America, but it's not
a reality here. Nor is the freedom to listen.
"This is what authorities try to undermine by keeping
folks with `suspicious' views from visiting the
country," he tells me. "This is nothing new. If we use
anarchist history as an example, xenophobia and
political oppression have always gone hand in hand. The
first strong wave of anarchism in the U.S. between 1870
and 1920 was largely ascribed to immigrant groups
(mainly Germans, Italians, and Russians). The
`anarchist exclusion ban' was passed by Congress in
1903, and the mass deportation of anarchists without
citizenship in 1919 pretty much marked a final blow to
the movement."
Ramsey Kanaan, co-founder and publisher of PM Press,
says the rejection of Kuhn's travel authorization
application "seems to represent a turn towards
targeting radicals who have hitherto not fit the `war
on terror' profile." He points out that even the Bush
Administration, though not without questioning, allowed
Kuhn in. "Why is it, under an Obama regime struggling
to contain massive economic crisis, that this is no
longer the case?"
Several people who set up U.S. venues for Kuhn are
furious that he had to cancel.
Lynn Owens is an assistant professor of sociology at
Middlebury.
"I was very angry to hear of Gabriel's exclusion from
the U.S. and the subsequent canceling of his tour,"
Owens tells me. "I had worked with him to arrange for
him to give a talk at my school, excited to be able to
squeeze a small amount of funds to bring in a speaker
to campus who was outside the normal range of who
normally comes, to expose the students (as well as,
hopefully, members of the broader community) to new and
less common political ideas and experiences. I am mad
not only because we lost a great speaker; I am mad
because we are losing the ability to move and act
freely in this world, all under the guise of making us
`safer.' As someone who studies the role of travel,
movement, and border crossings in the construction of
social movements and political activism, I can tell you
that programs like the unaccountable `No Fly List' will
have a serious effect on the possibilities for
political action, both across and within borders. This
is simply one more step in trying to not only
delegitimate opposition, but also to make it
increasingly difficult to build and maintain
connections between activists."
Immanuel Ness is a professor of political science at
Brooklyn College, CUNY.
"Gabriel Kuhn is a highly recognized international
scholar on anarchism who has a large following among
students and faculty, perhaps the reason why the
government is preventing his book tour," Ness says.
"The U.S. no-fly ban comes at a time when anarchist and
socialist ideas are more compelling among college
students than ever. We live in Orwellian times."
Jesse Cohn, an associate professor of English at Purdue
North Central, was setting up Kuhn's Indiana itinerary.
He's worked with Kuhn on translating some of the
writings of anarchist Gustav Landauer.
"The way I first got to know Gabriel," says Cohn, "was
through our collaboration on a translation of
Landauer's eloquent denunciation, in the wake of
McKinley's assassination, of `the notion that one can
reach the ideal of non-violence by violent means': `All
violence is either despotism or authority.' Raise your
hand if you think this is an idea Americans need to be
protected from! My response, apart from continuing to
voice my opposition to such idiotic restrictions of the
freedom to travel, will be to do what I can to make
sure that Gabriel's books are read and shared and
discussed, that the ideas travel freely where he
cannot."
Evan Scott, a member of the worker-owned Firestorm Café
and Books in Asheville, North Carolina, echoes those
sentiments.
"Our staff and community were disappointed and outraged
to learn that Kuhn would not be able to travel in the
United States, where his work is freely read and
appreciated," Scott says. "A year into the Obama
presidency, this was a stark reminder that the federal
government continues to exploit the fear of terrorism
to restrict domestic political dissent."
For his part, Kuhn says a lot of European dissidents
don't want to even try to visit the United States
because it's such a hassle.
"Especially since the mandatory fingerprinting and iris
scan was introduced a few years back, many refuse to
travel on principle," he says. "There already exists a
pretty strong `vulgar anti-Americanism' among many
left-leaning or radical folks, intellectuals included.
I call it `vulgar' because it's based on stereotypes
about the U.S. being nothing but a mixture of
Hollywood, McDonalds, and Christian fundamentalism.
Folks like me, who have spent a lot of time in the
country and know that this is not true, have been
trying long to correct these stereotypes."
But given his latest experience, and that of others, he
says, "It gets harder and harder to change people's
opinions."
_________________________________________
[I]Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive
magazine.
_____________________________________________
By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive
February 2010
The anarchist author Gabriel Kuhn was planning on
visiting the United States in early March and staying
until May. He had speaking engagements set up at
several colleges, bookstores, and coffeehouses. But
he's no longer coming.
Kuhn, who was born in Austria and lives in Sweden,
wrote a prize-winning book on contemporary anarchism in
the United States. And he's the author of two new books
published by PM Press out of Oakland. One is called
"Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age
Piracy," and the other is "Sober Living for the
Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical
Politics."
He applied through Homeland Security's Electronic
System for Travel Authorization, which has been in
place for a little more than a year. This system is for
people who are traveling to the United States from
countries where the U.S. used to say you didn't need a
visa to come to America.
For a list of those countries, click here:
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1212501117599.shtm
Now you need to have either a visa or approval from the
Electronic System for Travel Authorization.
So Kuhn, who has come to the United States several
times before, logged onto the Homeland Security website
and tried to get the travel authorization.
"I considered the process a mere formality," he wrote
in his own account of what happened:
http://www.pmpress.org/content/index.php?topic=bl_kuhn
"When the words `Travel Not Authorized' appeared on my
computer screen, I instantly thought a
mistake. Certainly I must have missed a letter or digit
in my application form. I checked the records. I hadn't
missed anything. Nonetheless, I applied again. It took
only a few hours to receive another rejection."
Joanne Ferreira, a press officer at U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, said she couldn't comment on Kuhn's
specific case, but she said people are rejected for a
variety of reasons.
"It could be criminal activity, or an immigration
violation, or anything in his past," she said. She
added that people denied travel authorization could
then apply for a visa.
Kuhn, who believes he's landed on the No Fly List,
understood he had that option but concluded it was
unlikely he would be granted a visa, and if he did get
it, he was worried he'd be turned away once he got
here.
"Under these circumstances, it became impossible for me
to continue planning my tour (which was to start in a
month), and I had to cancel."
Kuhn, who got a PhD in philosophy from the University
of Innsbruck, tells me there is a lot of "official
hype" about freedom of speech in America, but it's not
a reality here. Nor is the freedom to listen.
"This is what authorities try to undermine by keeping
folks with `suspicious' views from visiting the
country," he tells me. "This is nothing new. If we use
anarchist history as an example, xenophobia and
political oppression have always gone hand in hand. The
first strong wave of anarchism in the U.S. between 1870
and 1920 was largely ascribed to immigrant groups
(mainly Germans, Italians, and Russians). The
`anarchist exclusion ban' was passed by Congress in
1903, and the mass deportation of anarchists without
citizenship in 1919 pretty much marked a final blow to
the movement."
Ramsey Kanaan, co-founder and publisher of PM Press,
says the rejection of Kuhn's travel authorization
application "seems to represent a turn towards
targeting radicals who have hitherto not fit the `war
on terror' profile." He points out that even the Bush
Administration, though not without questioning, allowed
Kuhn in. "Why is it, under an Obama regime struggling
to contain massive economic crisis, that this is no
longer the case?"
Several people who set up U.S. venues for Kuhn are
furious that he had to cancel.
Lynn Owens is an assistant professor of sociology at
Middlebury.
"I was very angry to hear of Gabriel's exclusion from
the U.S. and the subsequent canceling of his tour,"
Owens tells me. "I had worked with him to arrange for
him to give a talk at my school, excited to be able to
squeeze a small amount of funds to bring in a speaker
to campus who was outside the normal range of who
normally comes, to expose the students (as well as,
hopefully, members of the broader community) to new and
less common political ideas and experiences. I am mad
not only because we lost a great speaker; I am mad
because we are losing the ability to move and act
freely in this world, all under the guise of making us
`safer.' As someone who studies the role of travel,
movement, and border crossings in the construction of
social movements and political activism, I can tell you
that programs like the unaccountable `No Fly List' will
have a serious effect on the possibilities for
political action, both across and within borders. This
is simply one more step in trying to not only
delegitimate opposition, but also to make it
increasingly difficult to build and maintain
connections between activists."
Immanuel Ness is a professor of political science at
Brooklyn College, CUNY.
"Gabriel Kuhn is a highly recognized international
scholar on anarchism who has a large following among
students and faculty, perhaps the reason why the
government is preventing his book tour," Ness says.
"The U.S. no-fly ban comes at a time when anarchist and
socialist ideas are more compelling among college
students than ever. We live in Orwellian times."
Jesse Cohn, an associate professor of English at Purdue
North Central, was setting up Kuhn's Indiana itinerary.
He's worked with Kuhn on translating some of the
writings of anarchist Gustav Landauer.
"The way I first got to know Gabriel," says Cohn, "was
through our collaboration on a translation of
Landauer's eloquent denunciation, in the wake of
McKinley's assassination, of `the notion that one can
reach the ideal of non-violence by violent means': `All
violence is either despotism or authority.' Raise your
hand if you think this is an idea Americans need to be
protected from! My response, apart from continuing to
voice my opposition to such idiotic restrictions of the
freedom to travel, will be to do what I can to make
sure that Gabriel's books are read and shared and
discussed, that the ideas travel freely where he
cannot."
Evan Scott, a member of the worker-owned Firestorm Café
and Books in Asheville, North Carolina, echoes those
sentiments.
"Our staff and community were disappointed and outraged
to learn that Kuhn would not be able to travel in the
United States, where his work is freely read and
appreciated," Scott says. "A year into the Obama
presidency, this was a stark reminder that the federal
government continues to exploit the fear of terrorism
to restrict domestic political dissent."
For his part, Kuhn says a lot of European dissidents
don't want to even try to visit the United States
because it's such a hassle.
"Especially since the mandatory fingerprinting and iris
scan was introduced a few years back, many refuse to
travel on principle," he says. "There already exists a
pretty strong `vulgar anti-Americanism' among many
left-leaning or radical folks, intellectuals included.
I call it `vulgar' because it's based on stereotypes
about the U.S. being nothing but a mixture of
Hollywood, McDonalds, and Christian fundamentalism.
Folks like me, who have spent a lot of time in the
country and know that this is not true, have been
trying long to correct these stereotypes."
But given his latest experience, and that of others, he
says, "It gets harder and harder to change people's
opinions."
_________________________________________
[I]Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive
magazine.
_____________________________________________