Response of the Anarchist Distributors' Coalition to the Collective of Alternative Bookshop of Montreal

SUMMARY: The conflict in the AEELI did not develop from the start of this organization, but since the forming of a faction in 1988. This minority faction concentrated power in its hands so that the majority could not participate. Why does Alternative identify what we propose with a particular group of our coalition; why La Sociale more than the others? There is no boss within our coalition: we work together as equal groups. Alternative’s discourse on the “autonomy

Response of the Anarchist Distributors' Coalition to the Collective of Alternative Bookshop of Montreal

(Complete text)

Friday, January 23, 2004.

MONTREAL—Following our joint declaration of the anarchist distributors of Montreal (October 30, 2003), in which we denounced the categorical refusal by Alternative Bookshop of our initiatives to resolve the current crisis, the collective of this bookshop made one of its rare public statements to give its point of view on the situation. With a view to contributing to the debate and to clarify certain details that we consider important, we wish to go over a few points that they raise.

FALSIFIED REGULATIONS
Before we begin to criticize the text they wrote in reply to ours, we point out from the start that we have made some outrageous discoveries concerning the bylaws (rules) as they were presented to us by our opponents during the last assembly (the one on August 5th, which 80 people attended). Let us recall that certain amendments to the bylaws prevented us, according to the current administrators' claims, from becoming full members. These regulations were never adopted in accordance with the proper procedures of the AEELI. This deception was revealed to us by consulting the old meeting minutes. No trace of the existence of these regulations were found, yet we examined all the documents that might have referred to them. We therefore conclude that a clique wasted our time and manipulated us with procedural red tape that turned out to be a fraud.

A TONED-DOWN FRENCH VERSION
Let us return to our observations on the text by Alternative collective. To start with, we note that there are significant differences between the English and French versions of their reply. [the following sentence applies to the original French version of this response] Inside the quotations that we have taken from their text we have added here (in brackets) the words and sentences that are different in the English version.

THE CONFLICT BEGAN WELL AFTER THE ORIGINS
They write that: "The AEELI (Association d'Espece d'Espace Libre et Imaginaire) the collective that owns and maintains the building) has been badly split for ideological reasons since its origin." The founding of the AEELI in 1982 precedes by six years the entry of certain members of the Café Commune. It was these people who formed the faction that currently controls the board. The founding members – to every one's satisfaction – avoided having problems with the anarchist community. They had no grievances with the bookshop or with each other, until at least 1989. So the conflict doesn’t go back to the origins. Having said this, we conclude that certain individuals have a considerable interest in putting forward falsehoods that simplify things and prevent a clear understanding of the basis of the present conflict. Let us also point out that the AEELI has not been a “collective