[Peace-discuss] Fw: European Anarchist Has to Cancel Trip to the U.S.

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From: <moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG>
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Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 8:20 PM
Subject: European Anarchist Has to Cancel Trip to the U.S.


> European Anarchist Has to Cancel Trip to the U.S.
>
> By Matthew Rothschild
> The Progressive
> February 19, 2010
>
> http://progressive.org/mc021910.html
>
> 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 [it was] 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."
>
> Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive
> magazine.
>
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