s
p ece #1
not for sale
pieces#1 cover designed by hardal ankara, 2020 contact parcalarzin@riseup.net @parcalarzin
to queer feminist, anarchist, vegan babes...
content acknowledgements & preface............................5 experiences of (unsafe) organizing practices..........6 a rebellious cry.....................................10 should vegans stand in solidarity instead of fighting each other?..........................................11 a tiny manifesto.....................................13 playlist: pieces#1...................................15 pom pom squad........................................16 would you like to???.................................19 activist attempts....................................21
acknowledgements thank you v nyldyke, for nsp r ng me w th your amaz ng fem n st grunge z ne. thank you artur for your draw ng on the page 12. thank you yasem n, artur and beng su, my sweetest comrades. we are gather ng our power together to cope w th the d sconnectedness everyday. thanks to queer fem n st and an mal l berat on movements for help ng me remember that an alternat ve world s always poss ble.
preface i've been quite alone for a year. there are reasons to it. i do not want to be alone anymore. that is why i am making this zine. the content of this issue that i began preparing three and a half month ago, changed throughout the process as my feelings, thoughts and interests changed. in this very first issue, i want to share with you some experiences of unsafe organizing practices which caused me to become distance to activism; music that empowers me; and activist attemps of mine while i am still healing.
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experiences of (unsafe) organizing practices in 2018, i hurriedly got involved with vegan activism. all i wanted was to take action for animal liberation. i'd had recently seen bold native (2010), so all the cages on earth needed to be broken... immediately! for a year, i preferred to reserve almost all of my time and energy for our ensemble. i started taking initiative for the "works" that needed to be done. does someone need to take notes during the meeting? i can do that! do we need to announce our events? i will try to contact each and every person. are we going to hand out leaflets? i am coming. oh, you want me to write it as well? okay, sure. this list is not even exhaustive. the emphasis here is not that i am such a great, selfless activist. i do not claim to have organized each event on my own in ankara, for a year. i am trying to say that i took responsibility without paying any regards for my self needs and wants and with no energy and time left for my self care. i basically ignored my own needs and wants. this caused an awful burnout and worsened my anxiety 'disorder' which was not doing me any favor, anyways. when i finally saw the damage on me, i slowly began to flee from communal activities, hoping no one would notice. thanks to this fleeing, i noticed that i was exposed to pretty unsafe dynamics and i probably exposed other people to them myself. and about what i could understand from this unsafe organising culture is what i want to mention.
note: i am aware i am neither the first nor the last person on earth to be exposed to unsafe organizing dynamics. this matter has been voiced by other people and in other times and places. i am just want to tell my own story.
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before anything else, there was not an environment safe enough for me to say "no". when asked to take initiative and do something, i said "yes" without even thinking about it. because i was assigned female even before birth and socialised according to gender norms; i have a hard time saying "no" (when there is a need to take responsibility about anything, the responsibility generally rests on people assigned female at birth. and if they say "no", all hell breaks loose). however, the idea of "being useful" only if we are constantly active also have a huge impact on not being able to say "no". nobody told me that my existence was only valued as much as what i could provide but i felt so many times that my existence inside my community became meaningful if i was "useful". it seemed that i gained the admiration and “friendship� of activists at the calibre of my responsibilities. i was being exposed to insistence under the name of encouragement and exposing this onto other people myself as well. in theory; we organized, made decisions and took action in an anti-hierarchical manner yet our practices did not match our theory. there were some people whose idea were more important and determinative. this hierarchy took form according to effort and experience. the more we try to do something for the ensemble and/or the more experience we had, the more recognition we had on the process of decision-making. accordingly, when we criticized any practice; an alternative solution and realizing it was expected of us. in a word, the critique we made was losing relevance if we did not take initiative in the solution.
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for example, during the events or protests of the vegan ensemble i was in, i pointed out a couple of times that it was wrong that we were not asking for people’s permission about the images we collected. the replies were more or less the same. the fella who was capturing the images were working so hard and they could not “be careful” about consent all the time. moreover, i was asked if i could take care of taking photos and videos after i criticized this. thus, if i did not take initiative and put effort into the matter, my words did not matter. “the amount of your effort shapes the importance of your voice.” hierarchical relations and practices like this tells us that our existence is as worthy as our functionality. relationships that people in the ensemble built, sometimes paved the way to unsafe dynamics. i had to accomplish some tasks just for the “sake of our friendship”. during the organisation of a huge event such as country-wide vegan camping, let's imagine a scenario in which activists are not in agreement yet about a certain topic. our friends could expect us to back their idea because they thought that being friends meant that we owed it to them. moreover, if we did not back their ideas they could expose us to emotional violence by telling us that we left them alone. some of our friends wanted me to back them up in an argument only because we were friends. there was a division between “us" and "them”. we could argue but “others” could not know this. there is something else i noticed that also exists in other liberation movements. friendships inside an ensemble may shape the movement of the information. the info may not be shared equally among participants.
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in this text, i wanted to talk about the common unsafe practices that hierarchical structures lead to. i could not include everything, yet i tried to open up about the parts that hurt me the most. I think that especially inside vegan activist spaces, these matters are left out. when i tried to encourage arguing these matters, it did not gain recognition at all. this had huge negative effects on my psychological health and my feeling alone. as someone who was exposed to reactions such as “oh, i am not scared of that person at all. are you, x?� after i openly mentioned that i was scared of some activists, i want to mention that these insensitive reactions are the reason i walked away from the ensemble. until the hierarchical and authoritarian connections questioned and transformed, violence will carry on in communities. none of us is perfect but questioning transforming the unsafe dynamics that we build is responsibility of all of us. first, we need to agree that hierarchy is a problem. need to realize how and where it manifests, and get together but not in the way that enables us to strength against each other. we should only use our to create the world that we all dream together.
are our and the
then, we stronger use our strength
p.s : i want to apologize for the times that i was not aware of these unsafe dynamics; therefore for taking part in the creation of those unsafe dynamics and hurting anyone, anyhow. -hardal
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a rebellious cry on authoritarian and hierarchical organizing culture does one ever get motivated by threat? do you toot your bugle relying on your rank? does this authority of yours exist thanks to your huge self-righteousness?
originally written in turkish by yasemin & translated into english quite badly by hardal
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should vegans stand in solidarity instead of fighting each other? lately, we witness or/and are exposed to acts of violence within vegan movement in turkey. alongside anti-feminist, sexist, lgbti+phobic, racist etc. speech and behaviors, we encounter vegans thinking that their consisting oppressive behaviors will suddenly be forgiven now that there are other perpetrators exposed. whenever someone within the movement criticise anything; there appears some activists saying that anti-oppressive vegans play "the best vegan" game or they slow down the movement with their “unnecessary discussions”. it is thought that just because vegans are low in number, they need to stick together for the sake of non-human animals no matter what, unquestionably. “instead of fighting each other, vegan should stand in solidarity!” is probably a familiar expression for most of us. it is obvious that the focus of animal rights & liberation movement is nonhuman animals. we are on the same page, here. however, it doesn’t mean that we should ignore the discrimination and violence happening in our communities. it doesn’t mean that those activists exposed to these violence should walk alongside their perpetrator. we should keep criticizing and transforming unsafe dynamics existing within our communities as long as we have the energy. that doesn’t mean attacking people. that is not an attempt to slow down the movement and/or off put individuals from veganism or vegan movement. on the contrary, it is an attempt to keep our communities safe and the movement radical as it is. what slows down the movement or off puts activists from doing activism is that they are exposed to anti-feminist, sexist, lgbti+phobic, racist, etc speech and behavior, consistently. protecting individuals and organizations, who keeps producing discriminative and violent speech and acts, when they are being criticized does not only provide for these unsafe behaviors to keep going. it directly encourages those discriminative and violent acts. misogynists, sexists, harassers, oppressive people will know that they can exist in activist circles mind at peace. after all, anti-oppressive vegans will be told by their comrades to tolerate perpetrators and stand in solidarity for the sake of non-humans. however, this cannot go on. we need total liberation movement. september, 2019 i wrote this after reading, is "infighting" destroying the movement? by antispeciecist action. most probably, the last two paragraphs are their words. well said, ASA.
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illustration: artur
a tiny manifesto i've always though that i had to be rational. my biggest fear was to be seen by others as ridiculous, irrational and thus wrong. i am still afraid of expressing my feelings. most of the time, i am not even aware of them. i think that how i feel is not significant. in a world filled with violence, oppression and discrimination; i become easily disconnected from my feelings, thoughts and memories. speciesist, patriarchal, cissexist, lgbti+phobic, racist, capitalist machine keeps telling us to ignore our (especially negative) feelings. because listening to our own voices will not serve the purpose of those who benefit from this system. for this very reason, i want to get reacquianted with my feelings. i am so pissed off and sad because of authority, hierarchy, speciesism, patriarchy, cissexism, lgbti+phobia, racism, capitalism that i want to scream.
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disconnectedness is political. so is finding tools to connect pieces together and to facilitate self-expression.
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pieces#1 this playlist consists of songs that empowers me. i hope it empowers you, too. 1. petrol girls, survivor 2. L7, fuel my fire 3. big joanie, token 4. g.l.o.s.s, outcast stomp 5. g.l.o.s.s, lined lips and spied bats 6. secondhand underpants, the anthem 7. bikini kill, rebel girl 8. courtney barnett, nameless faceless 9. dream nails, cookies 4 u 10. dream nails, diy 11. she/her/hers, family 12. vagabon, every woman 13. angel olsen, tonight
https://spoti.fi/2PgJPiv
http://bit.ly/2HxYbGE
pom pom squad quiet grrrl punk maria alĂŠ figeman mia berrin alex mercuri
shelby keller
cispatriarchal narrative is disrupted by queer femme music!
mia describes pom pom squad, being better than your cheerleader team back in high school, as "quiet grrrl punk".
mia: vox, rhythm guitar alex: lead guitar shelby: drums mari: bass
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mia & shelby destructs heteronormativity and my heart melts...
discography
E.P's
i met hate it here on december 29 while i was traveling to eskişehir by train. mia wrote this e.p when she withdrew to her teenage room after a big quarrel with her parents. she says, she returns to her 17-year-old self whenever she visits her home. i, too, feel that i am 17 again whenever i visit eskişehir. it is like i will take the tram to my high school and hang out with my friends all day long... 4 giant years i spent in ankara, away from my family, are suddenly wiped out and i am a teenager again. teenage feelings of 2015 get me down! so, the song "hate it here" in this e.p struck me in a different way.
-hardal hate it here (2018) "i wrote this e.p during an admittedly very dark time in my life, but it was around this time that I met two of my bandmates, shelby and maria who imbued these songs with so much love and joy in our earliest practices together that it began to spill over into my life. during the process of arranging and learning to play these songs live with two people who have become my best friends and my family turned the process into something magical, important. the experience of trauma is so isolating, but the three of us to be able to unite and work through our pain together was (is) incomparable to anything I have ever experienced in my short time living and making music. ow is about the long process of learning to externalize internal pain, to validate yourself in your grief instead of push it further down, and, eventually, to own that your perceived “best” version of yourself might not always be your most potent." -mia
ow (2019)
singles
heavy heavy (2019)
honeysuckle (2019)
cherry blossom (2019)
cellophane (2020)
red with love (2020)
if you want to have a listening party, contact me! 17
"am i ever gonna be okay?
like o t d e llow * am i a y?" a d e n o myself
*pom pom squad, hate it here
19 would you like to take part in a queer feminist vegan band? i've always wanted to be in a band since i discovered riot grrl and queercore bands back in the last year of high school. if you feel same about music and justice; please contact me! maybe we will start a band?!
i play a few chords on my guitar and have some lyrics written by me. (i do not promise much...)
inspirations of mine: courtney barnett/secondhand underpants/hole/ babes in toyland/pom pom squad
p
n o r e b unk bi
an undefinable music project candidate for nomination
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üzgün değilim buradayız sensörlü kapı beni görmüyo
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a c t v s t a t t empts
on february 22, i facilitated a workshop called 'queer feminist perspectives on language' [orginal title: 'dile queer feminist bakÄąĹ&#x;(lar)'] on the 4th women's summit in bilkent university. the workshop did not turn out as i planned it yet it was the first event, after a very long break from everything, that i took action and got to interact with people! big thanks to bilkent women studies club and especially bengisu and yasemin for proposing me to do this workshop in the summit as well as developing extremely safe relationships with me. both to meet new people from my department and to make my university life attractive for me; i made a call for "feminist pedagogy meeting". no one showed up. i guess i was not able to announce it properly. i did not know what to do because i was so sad. so, i put some queer stickers around my department. (yasemin gifted me those stickers <3) i really even if i am not sticker says: i am queer loved this form of activism dating anyone??? where i do not need to socialize.
queer feminism rules okay
sticker says: my boobs, my rules
why sabotage yourself while you could sabotage the cistem
april 2020, ankara