These are two audio interviews with US anarchist Ashanti Alston who the WSM have brought to Ireland to speak at the Anarchist bookfair. Ashanti describes himself as a former member of the Black Panther Party and a former soldier in the Black Liberation Army, in connection with which he served 14 years in prison in the US. Today he is an active US anarchist who speaks at events all over North America, giving him a valuable persepective on the state of the movement today.
Former Black Panther Ashanti Alston in conversation with Andrew Flood in Ireland by Workers Solidarity on Mixcloud
In the late summer of 1996 I was one of the two Irish delegates to the 3,000 strong international meeting held in the rebel areas of Chiapas Mexico. The experience of getting to the meeting through miles of jungle and military checkpoints was an experience in itself but the meetings themselves were an extraordinary thing to find oneself at. For me it was a transformative experience both personally and politically, one of those points at which ‘two roads diverge in a wood’.