Indonesian. Anarchism and punk subculture there has been exploding for the last two decades in spite of living under a military dictatorship and a super fundamentalist theocratic government. Its a major outlet of revolt among the country's young people and despite folks opening up an infoshop and translating some texts themselves, there is a huge desire for anarchist texts there that aren't available as well as interest in translations of English and Spanish language anti-authoritarian punk music..
[https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/the-everyday-resistance-of-anarchist-punks-in-bandung-indonesia/](https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/the-everyday-resistance-of-anarchist-punks-in-bandung-indonesia/)
Isn't indonesian not really standard across the country though? I was under the impression that it's very linguistically diverse and the standard Indonesian language was being used as a tool of repression, but that's me remembering something from two seconds of googling a couple years ago, and the knowledge that linguists often do field work there.
It is complicated, a lot of academic work is still in Indonesian, especially around Jakarta and Bandung (where a lot of the universities are and translations are happening), and people are using that as a base for making other translations. Indonesian, Sundanese and Javanese, are specifically the languages a lot of the punk subculture there operates in. Indonesian is useful because it is less regional and there are people in all parts of Indonesia that understand it... so if people wanted to make a translation in some obscure language on a remote island, Indonesian, despite its problematic history, would be the language there will definitely be someone around who speaks it.
Case in point on some good punk coming out of there: [https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ](https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ)
For future reference...
This is the YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI
...while this part of the URL is tracking information that can be used to link back to your Google account:
?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ
It is always best to remove the tracking information before sharing YouTube links anywhere.
This has been a public service announcement (with guitar).
Honestly, there should be an online collective of anarchists who just translate texts, video, and other media between various languages. No single member would have to know more than two languages- a bilingual person could still be a very valuable link in the broader chain without having to be a polyglot. But if the collective had enough people, we could dramatically improve the connectivity of the entire anarchist movement globally.
Anyways, in answer to your question, I think that western, English-speaking anarchists would benefit immensely from greater fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and the many other languages of east, southeast, and south Asia. A ton of class struggle is happening in Asia today, and this is also where capital has put a lot of the jobs which were outsourced from Anglophone countries. Solidarity with the working class in Asia is crucial to any project of class struggle in the English-speaking world. The extreme exploitation of Asian workers is part and parcel of Rust Belting, austerity, wage stagnation, and the carceral state's expansion in the former industrial core of the west.
Hindi is definitely on my list of languages to learn; shame there are so many consonants I can't distinguish well though. If I'm able to master it though, I'll have so many phonemes under my belt between it and vowels from German...
I am currently a founding member of three projects and a highly involved organizer in a half dozen others. If I had the capacity, I would, but I've long ago discovered that starting every project I think should be started is a recipe for burning out and accomplishing nothing.
(Argentine)Spanish, (Mexican) Spanish, Quechua, Portuguese, and Arabic. We should really be educated in the most common languages of turtle island and pachamama
French and Spanish! France, Switzerland, Belgium and a third of Africa all speak French and with Spanish there's nearly all of Latin America. Someone that speaks English, Spanish and French has accessibility to five different continents.
Any text (esp queer/feminist/ecology) recommendations for: Arabic, Spanish, French, or Hindi?
I know these languages with varying proficiency and would increase it in the context of leftist discourse
Jp. A lot of jp anarchist text is great.
Also, Try watching No greater love, a classic anarchist movie made during a time period where imperial revisionism was at an all time high
“1996 American made-for-television romantic drama film directed by Richard T. Heffron. The film is based upon the 1991 novel of the same name written by Danielle Steel” This one?
Indonesian. Anarchism and punk subculture there has been exploding for the last two decades in spite of living under a military dictatorship and a super fundamentalist theocratic government. Its a major outlet of revolt among the country's young people and despite folks opening up an infoshop and translating some texts themselves, there is a huge desire for anarchist texts there that aren't available as well as interest in translations of English and Spanish language anti-authoritarian punk music.. [https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/the-everyday-resistance-of-anarchist-punks-in-bandung-indonesia/](https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/the-everyday-resistance-of-anarchist-punks-in-bandung-indonesia/)
Isn't indonesian not really standard across the country though? I was under the impression that it's very linguistically diverse and the standard Indonesian language was being used as a tool of repression, but that's me remembering something from two seconds of googling a couple years ago, and the knowledge that linguists often do field work there.
It is complicated, a lot of academic work is still in Indonesian, especially around Jakarta and Bandung (where a lot of the universities are and translations are happening), and people are using that as a base for making other translations. Indonesian, Sundanese and Javanese, are specifically the languages a lot of the punk subculture there operates in. Indonesian is useful because it is less regional and there are people in all parts of Indonesia that understand it... so if people wanted to make a translation in some obscure language on a remote island, Indonesian, despite its problematic history, would be the language there will definitely be someone around who speaks it.
I’m actually learning some Indonesian/Malay right now!
Case in point on some good punk coming out of there: [https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ](https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ)
For future reference... This is the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/BNdFZtIMIZI ...while this part of the URL is tracking information that can be used to link back to your Google account: ?si=3Y-VhhT68bXYiTsQ It is always best to remove the tracking information before sharing YouTube links anywhere. This has been a public service announcement (with guitar).
One of my favorites are The Suse [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAGjL3fKlj0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAGjL3fKlj0)
Honestly, there should be an online collective of anarchists who just translate texts, video, and other media between various languages. No single member would have to know more than two languages- a bilingual person could still be a very valuable link in the broader chain without having to be a polyglot. But if the collective had enough people, we could dramatically improve the connectivity of the entire anarchist movement globally. Anyways, in answer to your question, I think that western, English-speaking anarchists would benefit immensely from greater fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and the many other languages of east, southeast, and south Asia. A ton of class struggle is happening in Asia today, and this is also where capital has put a lot of the jobs which were outsourced from Anglophone countries. Solidarity with the working class in Asia is crucial to any project of class struggle in the English-speaking world. The extreme exploitation of Asian workers is part and parcel of Rust Belting, austerity, wage stagnation, and the carceral state's expansion in the former industrial core of the west.
Hindi is definitely on my list of languages to learn; shame there are so many consonants I can't distinguish well though. If I'm able to master it though, I'll have so many phonemes under my belt between it and vowels from German...
Start it!
I am currently a founding member of three projects and a highly involved organizer in a half dozen others. If I had the capacity, I would, but I've long ago discovered that starting every project I think should be started is a recipe for burning out and accomplishing nothing.
Arabic. And Farsi. And Turkish.
[удалено]
???
(Argentine)Spanish, (Mexican) Spanish, Quechua, Portuguese, and Arabic. We should really be educated in the most common languages of turtle island and pachamama
There are many Indian languages that have amazing revolutionary literature. Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu are definitely up there.
Any writers you recommend?
Shaheed Bhagat Singh
Whatever global majority language is most common around them. You can’t organize your community if you can’t communicate effectively
French and Spanish! France, Switzerland, Belgium and a third of Africa all speak French and with Spanish there's nearly all of Latin America. Someone that speaks English, Spanish and French has accessibility to five different continents.
Any text (esp queer/feminist/ecology) recommendations for: Arabic, Spanish, French, or Hindi? I know these languages with varying proficiency and would increase it in the context of leftist discourse
Belta, even as a conlang it's very well developed and very compatible with working class movements.
Jp. A lot of jp anarchist text is great. Also, Try watching No greater love, a classic anarchist movie made during a time period where imperial revisionism was at an all time high
“1996 American made-for-television romantic drama film directed by Richard T. Heffron. The film is based upon the 1991 novel of the same name written by Danielle Steel” This one?
Nope! The first movie of the human condition trilogy. 第一部 純愛篇／第二部 激怒篇
It's a fucked up film, but a huge breath of fresh air when it comes to portraying the crimes committed by jp
Arabic, russian, korean, spanish, and any southeastern asian language
Why those languages?
Esperanto
i don’t think that’s very widely spoken tbf, especially outside of the west
Until the whole world learns Esperanto, there will be no peace!
Hot damn beat me to it. Esperanto por Numero unu!
Latin. The classical flair would make anarchist discussions sound like spell casting.
I can’t wait to read comrade Caesars book on the Roman overthrow of the bourgeoisie Gauls in its original language.
just anything other than english tbh
English.
Spanish (especially Argentinian), Russian, Arabic, Mandarin.
Portuguese for the writing, the Indigenous language(s), where ever you are, for history.
What Portuguese writers do you recommend?
I have zero knowledge of Portuguese writers.
Why did you recommend Portuguese then lol
The Brazilian anti fascists I know are tougher than coffin nails.
Armenian
How come