Reviewed by Juliana Fredman
Summer 2006 Edition
Left turn _________________________
Clandestines is a collection of short stories operating as a psychogeography of social and revolutionary movements from the late 1980’s on, mapped by a radicalized Irish anti-authoritarian. Moving from the Old to the New World the stories track the convulsions of the global system and its revolutionary undercurrents through the experience of our erstwhile story-teller. His astute observations embellish reporting, advocacy and tall tales of unpredictable characters and communities to construct an optimistic, if quixotic take on these end times. At its heart it is a testament to hope for the world vibrantly illustrated by handrawn maps and black and white photographs.
The first section of the book details radical movements in Europe. The initial stories take place in the squatted communities of Berlin during the twilight of the Cold war. It is full of vivid descriptions of anarchists hopping eastward over the Berlin wall to escape the western riot police “welcomed by East German border guards with tea and biscuits” when not battling the bullen on Mayday. Back in the squat 20 hour sessions of ideological gymnastics necessary to organize anything will get a belly laugh from anyone familiar with consensus decision making. Many of the stories are hilarious and more useful for it. A young voice, enraptured with enticements of life and hopeless love among the barricades evokes a lost space that became more about lifestyle than in-depth political struggle. Still, because we are watching through the eyes of a teenage rebel engrossed in the business of actually creating another world this eulogy to the heroic phase of the Autonomes and the European squat scene registers powerfully just how much the terrain of youth culture and street politics has shifted since the end of the cold war.
At a rainbow gathering in Croatia we travel with an older, worldlier protagonist, looking for a bit of R&R after the G8 mobilization in Genoa. He balks at the apolitical nature of the participants, plotting his smart comeback if, “another naked yuppie computer programmer from Munich calls me ‘brother’” and lamenting the evolving plans of the tribe to impose their next gathering on the “unsuspecting” residents of the Brazilian Amazon. The story grapples with how lifestyle too often replaces politics and creates reactionary simulacrum of radical space. We have seen the `counterculture’ of the 1960’s repeatedly conflated by the mainstream media and baby boomer pundits with the real social and political movements of that era. There is a cautionary note here surrounded by a story of boredom and nudity in the wilderness, “one more push, idealists, if you want to be revolutionaries.”
Indeed, this thread runs throughout the collection. There is a common understanding by the narrator of his own romantic proclivities, which simultaneously inspire and hamper him. Working on a banana boat criss-crossing between Europe and Central America, he imparts enthusiastic histories of the reign of pirates in early capitalism. However his Filipino and Chinese workmates are often underwhelmed by his musings on Atlantic proletarian life.
“There is no mystery to the sea, it is simply the ocean and we are a metal box floating on top of it. And it is dangerous, stupid even. We are all fools, and we do it only because we have to”
It is in the New World, the final section that the movement, embodied in this experience by the Zapatista’s radical autonomous organization reaches a zenith and where our interlocutor has lived for the last decade. These narratives engage with issues that preoccupy activists globally. At the Third Encuentro in Brazil the confrontation between proponents of horizontal organizing and participatory democracy and those who would have reform within existing hierarchies, is animated for the reader. However, some of the best stories in this section are told during seemingly interminable, bumpy trips through Central America. Tales From a Vanquished Pier is a fantastic yarn that slides easily into hilarious absurdity. The Chicken Bus Diaries offers a sober view of changes wrought in the years between the twilight of Sandinismo, when our pirate was a bright eyed young solidarity activist, and the new millennium, by which time the neoliberal counterrevolution had taken its pound of flesh and created a pressing need for new tactics.
Western activism has spawned numerous academics, a cadre of journalists and a million filmmakers, yet we are sparse in the tradition of storytellers, bards. There is not a contemporary literary tradition among those engaged in struggle, as there is in the global south. Clandestines perches between these. In the more edifying passages the desires of the participant narrator to instruct can undermine the integrity of the stories. But most of the time we have a very funny map of a committed life and a guide for whom writing is “a joy, not a chore.”
Review - Wooden Shoe.
"In the great tradition of Irish Sory-tellers, Ryan brings a whole new idea to International Solidarity..."
Book: Clandestines: the Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile by Ramor Ryan
Review by: James Generic Posted: 8.24.2006
At first I thought it was going to be an over-romantic story of this guy travelling around the world in order to avoid himself, in the way that a lot of Crimethinc type of stuff reads. I'm really not into that kind of stuff. However, he really surprised me, and I'm ashamed I thought that of him in the first place in association with Crimethinc, because this guy is a real character, a great writer, and no one can call him fake for leaving out the messy details. In fact, read about his review of the two different "Days of War and Nights of Love" (one by Crimethinc, and one by Eduardo Galeano) online.
In the great tradition of Irish story-tellers, Ryan recalls experiences from the squats of West Berlin, the war zone of Kurdistan, the revolution and post-revolution repression in Nicauragua, his youth in Ireland watching the British army attack a Republican demonstration, and much more. He is an exile from his native land, moving from situations of struggle across the planet with a keen analysis of each. Ryan left Ireland in the 1980s for Nicaragua to help defend the Revolution there, and ended up seeing the Sandinistas crumble under the might of the US-funded Contras, alienating Indigenous peoples struggling for autonomy in the process. He remarks that a generation of international solidarity activists in the 1980s got their start in Nicaragua; much like many saw the same in Chiapas in the 1990s.
If you've never heard of Ramor Ryan, look him up. I would love to meet him, because this guy has such a wealth of information and has seen so much without thinking he is better than anyone else for having done so. He brings a personal touch to bloody places stormed by revolution, repression, and fights for a better world. By the end of it, I thought to myself that he had really lived his life thus far to the fullest, and brought a whole new meaning to what I thought of as an "international solidarity" activist. Much of what he writes is exciting in that revolutionary situations are very much within reach, but at the same time depressing when he discusses the aftermath in the case of defeat (like in Kurdistan or in Nicaragua).
If you want to find an inspirational person, you have to meet Ramor Ryan by reading his Clandestines.
On the road with an Irish pirate
international | anarchist movement | review Saturday December 09, 2006 18:19 by Ciaran Murray
Clandestines, The Diary of an Irish Pirate Exile by Ramor Ryan AK Press €13.45 / £9.00
While it can be hard to come across political documents that inspire, entertain and amuse, Ramor Ryan‘s Clandestines succeeds in doing just that. Some may know Ryan from his articles in “We Are Everywhere” and “Confronting Capitalism” but Clandestines is his first published book. It is, for the main part, a travel diary and a readable mixture of personal memoir and political essay written over his many years as an anarchist activist. The book covers his journeys to a broad gamut of societies in struggle, from Berlin to Northern Ireland, Nicaragua to Turkey and many places in between.
The book is full of true, fantastic and at times audacious tales seen through the eyes of an Irish anarchist who is experiencing an irreversibly changing world first hand. The world Ramor traverses sees the collapse of “communism” in Eastern Europe, a growing sense of revolution in South America and the birth of a modern anti-globalisation movement. While at all times political yet personal, Ramor frequently forays into his relationships with activists, friends and strangers he picks up along the way, each who provide the reader with their personal affections and experiences.
What follows is something that reads like a modern hybrid of Behan’s Borstal Boy and the Canterbury Tales, with Ramor compiling the characters’ stories as he goes along, and using them to meaningful, insightful, and, at times, touching effect.
While the book could have fallen into an unintelligible journal of wholly separated and abstract events, Ryan brings events and people together and finds a common theme, of the shaping of these characters from the historic and social pressures of a rapidly changing world.
From the Kurdish guerrillas, to the Sandinistas, to the female bartender he meets in Cuba, Ramor documents people and communities coming to terms with a new, neo-liberal, world order. In Berlin, he experiences the life of a radical squatter and the regular running battles with local police associated with it. In Northern Ireland, he encounters the massacre of mourners at a republican funeral, and a community drawn together to cope with a violent and sectarian society.
In Turkey, he finds the volunteers of the PKK in training, young men and women willing to give up their lives for their idea of a Marxist revolution, and a feeling that if the world wasn’t ready for revolution they, at least, were. In South America he watched the Sandanistas take power in Nicaragua, while the FMLN were on the brink of overthrowing the government in El Salvador and the radical movements in Guatemala and Honduras gained ground.
Whether read as a travelogue, political document or collection of nostalgic memoirs, “Clandestines,” is a book that anyone with an interest in late 20th Century politics will understand, and enjoy.
Horde Story
I never came down
Dublin 1988
The old Foggy Dew was stuffed as usual, and it was hard to get served coz the two old-lad barmen were wrecked, too drunk to pump. A couple of the punters - punks with lurid red mohawks - leaned over the taps and served themselves, an act that took some nerve because the old lads were drunk but not stupid, and prone to outbursts of ultra violence.
Discussion around our table turned to the recent Golden Horde gig at the Baggot Inn where Simon, with characteristic unruliness, had lept in to the heaving mosh pit fists-flying to sort out some perceived wrongdoing. The Red Action lads were having none of it, and Simon disappeared under a barrage of punches. Des downed his guitar and dived into the melee to dig Simon back out. A typical Horde gig - never a dull moment.
Since we were all merrily squashed on top of one another into one of the Foggy Dew's smelly coves - friends and strangers alike - our neighbour joined in the conversation uninvited.
"Mongolians?" she asked.
"Mongolians?"
Yeah, Mongolians, Kazakhstan, the Golden Horde. Thirteenth century?"
"Eh, No, rock n roll band, Dubliners, 1988."
Turns out this knowledgeable girl had just returned from the disintegrating USSR – hence her exotic frame of reference. She must have been gone a long time coz she had never heard of the non-Mongolian Golden Horde.
"You gotta go see them," I said, "they are fucking magic."
"Grand," she said, "where they playing?"
Every Golden Horde fan knows where the next gig is going to be.
"Actually they are playing Kenmare tomorrow night, some festival..."
" Kerry? Great, lets go!"
Yeah, hey hey lets go. Very Horde. I liked this plucky sprite fresh from the USSR. She said her name was Aurnia and hailed from Dolphin's Barn . We supped up our pints of Guinness and left in search of adventure at closing time. But there was nowhere to go after closing time in Dublin that era. We tried the late night winery Blazes but it was full. Doesn't matter, we need to get up early for the hitch to Kerry tomorrow. Getting into the swing of things, I pulled out a can of spray paint and write Love the Horde in gold on a wall in Thomas Street. Then we retire to her little bedsit above a butchers in the Coombe.
Hitching to Kerry is always a long trawl - worse when you're hung over and it's started to rain interminably. At a deserted crossroads somewhere around Waterford we almost give up and go back to Dublin. "We'll never get there. Its taking all day". Indeed it was, and cars were few and far between on this forlorn road in the middle of nowhere.
"Look," said Aurnia, ever the pragmatist. "You hide in the bushes, and a car will stop for me, a girl alone, then you can jump out and join me in the car, right?"
Right, great plan. Although not every car would stop for this punky girl with her bleached blond hair, stripey jumper and doc martins. She smiled prettily, and sure enough, a Hyatt van pulled over. Success! The side door was swung open and Aurnia beckoned me from the bushes. I jumped out and ran to the van, following her into the back.
Inside of the back of the dark windowless van, we were received by half a dozen lads brandishing a variety of hammers, pick handles and machetes. One particularly unpleasant looking character smiled at us with missing teeth and an axe in his hands.
"How'yas lads!" said Aurnia cheerfully.
Turns out they were a gang on their way to the next village for a scrap with the locals there.
"Will you join us?" they guffawed menacingly. I was hoping that that invitation meant that we wouldn't become their aperitif before their gristly main event. Fortunately Aurnia's fearless charm assuaged the boys more atavistic tendencies and we emerged from that bloodcurdling Hyatt van at the next crossroads shook up but unscathed.
Somewhat remarkably we finally got to Kenmare late that night still in high spirits. Our enthusiasm untempered by the arduous 10 hours on the road, we rushed over to the hotel where the gig was going on. It would all be worthwhile, once we were jumping around in the mosh pit while Rorschach blasted.
But the doors were closed. 'Full' announced a sign on the glass entrance door.
"Fuck it, fuck it."
As luck would have it, that very moment we spotted Des walking by the door guitar in hand, on his way to stage. We pounded the glass and screamed his name. A flicker of recognition crossed his face – I had been to about 50 Horde gigs for fuck sake, so well it should. The door opened, we explained our plight - how our spontaneous joy at the thought of seeing the Horde in Kerry had catapulted us onto the road and brought us here after an epic trawl and could he please get us in...
Des obliged with ubiquitous plumass and we found ourselves at stage front as Simon grabbed the stage mic and began with his usual drawl - "We're the Golden Horde and we come from Dublin. Are you ready to rock and roll?.." and a guitar mish-mash plunged us into the opening song Paula and complete bedlam at the stage front.
As Golden Horde gigs went, it rocked. Although I missed the usual sea of familiar faces in the mosh pit of the Horde Dublin contingent, the Kerry locals clearly knew how to have a good time and everyone went bonkers, jumping about. In the spirit of unbounded bon homie, anyone who fell onto the floor was dragged back up by legions of comradely arms. Unlike some of the more notoriously macho mosh pits, the Horde pit was girl friendly and here in Kerry, the girls and boys swung around in each others arms, crushed together, delirious, ecstatic and enchanted. Waves of frenetic guitar-fueled psychosis washed over us, and time stood still as the mosh pit became the whole of the universe. " Are you enjoying yourselves?" screamed Simon in his Joey Ramone drawl, more like a command than a question. "We're gonna play a song for you and its called...Everything Under the Sun," and like a ballistic missile off went the band and its alter-ego the mosh pit once more...
As the night stretched out and the Horde thumped out one of their notoriously long sets, it was clear the management wanted everyone to go home, and not smash up their premises in some crazed Horde inspired delirium. The band went out with a bang, playing 100 Boys and Sammy flung his guitar away like some rapturous lovesick lenashee.
A strange silence enveloped us. We stood there blinking and disbelieving that it could possibly be all over, a mob of sweat-dripping and delighted zealots wishing that the music and the mosh pit would go on forever and life could always be so.
Aurnia and I decided to go backstage to thank Des for getting us in, but the dressing room was manic and we couldn't get near him. it was like a little bit of CBGB's in the heroic years had descended upon this tiny little Kerry town - An Neidín in Irish.
"We should at least buy him a pint," said Aurnia, but of course between us we didn't have enough for a pint at hotel prices.
The night was cool and it had begun to rain gently. Past midnight, the little town square was in rabid uproar, with throngs of drunks heaving around and a bunch of lads whacking each other other with 6-foot long poles. In our spur of the moment dash for the road leaving Dublin that morning we had typically forgotten some essentials – like money for a hostel, or at least a sleeping bag. Never mind, high on life after the glorious Horde gig, nothing affected us and sure enough – as things always go in situations like this - everything worked out splendidly.
As we stood on the side of the road wondering where we would kip down, a tourist bus pulled up in front of us and the tourists descended, heading on-masse into their posh hotel. We mingled with the group and once inside the hotel lobby, slipped up the stairs unnoticed. On the second floor we found ourselves a deserted and warm television room, like a stowaway's paradise. Lights out, Aurnia and I - thrilled with ourselves - rolled about on the lush carpet in romantic abandon , and despite the furnace of passion, there was a tactic understanding between us that everything was connected and part of the great mysterious magic that was the Golden Horde. Love the Horde!
The sun shone the next day and we stood quite glorious on the side of the road confident that we would have a fine journey back to Dublin. "Let's ask the Horde for a lift," suggested Aurnia, but I was against the idea. Once after a Horde gig in some dingy and scary Loyalist bar in Belfast me and Angus asked the Horde for a lift home in their bus. Des - the nice one - said yes (of course), while Simon - the nasty one - said no. " We don't want no young punks puking up all over our tour bus" he snarled. But Des's kindness won out in the end and feeling honoured we climbed aboard the sacred inner sanctum of the Golden Horde. Sure enough Angus puked up all over the back seat of the bus, and Simon growled at us and then Des, somewhat righteously.
Aurnia, newly initiated into the mystical, incandescent church of the Golden Horde, was really getting in to it.
"Wheres the next gig?"
Rotterdam, I said.
"Lets go!" she enthused. "And from there we can head across Europe towards the Urals, like Golden Hordish viziers of old, in search of our Mongolian Xanadu!"
Aurnia was swinging dangerously out of control. I recognized this condition - the imperceivable but devastating Golden Horde incubus penetrating ones' inner being, introducing lascivious wantonness into the psyche like a hypnotic analgesic opiate. And once inducted, the world would never be the same again.
I tell you this : a whole sub-generation of Irish kids never came down. '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
