The Freedom Shop Aotearoa

The Freedom Shop and Book Haven invite you to the launch of Splendid Bush by Clare Havell-Shufflebotham. Splendid Bush is a queer reckoning with love, its warpath, motherhood and ghosts (of capital, of violence, of sweet lemon trees). Part protection spell, part map of self-dissolution, this collection is an ode to hookgrass and an offering of dirt. The works are at times ruthless, at times tender nano-essays on the rebound, queer haunting, the parties you should have left, and all that you want to stay. This is not a break up album, although the greatest hits do make an appearance. Rather, it takes the wounds that motherhood lays bare, and produces queer nature magic as antidote and as mirror. Written in the crucible that is suburbia with young children, Splendid Bush questions the spaces between ourselves and ‘nature’, macho colonial bodies, violent bodies of the state, and our own. Above all, it is about the power of Bush. Havell-Shufflebotham arrived home to Aotearoa not long bef

It's here! Plan B for 2023 is out. It's the fifth year of the planner and as always, it is loaded with events and dates of those often ignored, overlooked, deliberately forgotten histories from Aotearoa. It is a planner featuring countercultural and radical histories.  As you plot and plan your way through 2023, you can be reminded of what has come before. This time around, Plan B was made in association with Zinefest and features stunning artwork from Daily Secretion commemorating events from the planner.  By popular demand the 2023 edition is spiral bound, black and white, and has one week to a spread with monthly highlights and monthly art. Copies are for sale at the Freedom Shop for $17 each or online from  Book Haven  

Join us for a discussion evening with Giacomo Lichtner , Associate Professor of History at Vic Uni. The slogans at the protest at Parliament earlier this year were sometimes frightening. On the one hand a public vaccination campaign was compared to the holocaust, on the other hand Jacinda was labelled ‘a Jew’, resulting in demands for public lynchings. It seems the imagery of Europe’s fascism of the 20th century is fair game for anyone to use. Exactly one hundred years after the Italian establishment allowed Mussolini to become Prime Minister we want to discuss why so few people seem to be worried about the rise of far-right groups. Giacomo Lichtner will give an introduction on the subject, followed by discussion. See Giacomo´s previous article on this subject. Tuesday 1 November, 6:30pm  at Book Haven 160 Riddiford Street Newtown

And of course the Freedom Shop will be there! Wellington Zinefest is happening Saturday, 15 Oct and Sunday 16 Oct, 12-4pm (accessibility hour from 11 to 12).   139 Vivian Street School Of Design Innovation Te Herenga Waka Victoria University Wellington Zinefest is hosting two days of markets to celebrate the thriving self-publishing and zine scene here in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Same set up as usual: We'll have sixty unique stalls each day, loaded with self-made comics and zines. Accessibility Hour From 11am to 12pm each day we'll run 'accessibility hour'. This is a chance for any visitors who, for whatever reason, can't attend when Zinefest is crowded. We'll have no music and try to maintain a low-stimulation environment. See https://www.wellingtonzinefest.com/zinefestweekend

A discussion about what is really needed to avoid climate disaster Currently no political organisation is even advocating for the kind of change required to avoid the effects of catastrophic climate change. Some say that the solutions being put forward by the current government are worse than doing nothing. Yet we all know that drastic change is required. Let's talk about how we can get there. Tuesday, 11 October  2022, 6:30pm at the Freedom Shop, 160 Riddiford St, Newtown For further reading see this interview with Mike Joy . This is the first in a series of talks and discussions we have lined up. Coming up are a talk about the rise of fascism (one hundred years after Mussolini became Prime Minister) and a talk about investigative journalism. Stay tuned.

Shock, horror. People are refusing to vote. With only ten days left for voting, not even 5% of Wellingtonians have voted in the local body elections, Radio NZ reports.   How can that be? asks the inquisitive reporter and seeks answers from an academic instead of looking at the voting papers themselves, because that is what they learnt to do at journalism school. And the academic from AUT comes up with some excuses – the Queen’s death has confused people to a degree that they forget what a Mayor is and the long weekend has disrupted people’s routine. Local body politicians continue the series: people forget to empty their letter boxes or there aren’t enough post boxes to put the completed voting papers in. Or it is the fault of the people who do vote. That particular argument goes something like this: the voters are mostly older people who are homeowners, therefore candidates pitch their campaign at older homeowners, therefore young people feel there is nothing for them, therefore they

Gorodey was a member of the Red Scarves movement, a founding member of both PALIKA, the Party of Kanak Liberation which became one of the groups which formed the FLNKS coalition, and the feminist Groupe de Femmes Kanak Exploitées en Lutte (Group of Kanak and Exploited Women in Struggle). She was imprisoned three times between 1974 and 1977 for her political activities.   She was the first Kanak woman to gain a university degree, a teacher, writer and politician. She wrote collections of poems and short stories and the first published Kanak novel L'Épave (translated as The Wreck). As a teacher, she encouraged the use of her own language, Païci, and later became  a leading figure in the Ecoles Populaires Kanak (Kanak Popular Schools) movement, set up in opposition to French state schools Kanak  to teach Kanak children about their history, culture and languages. After the Noumea accord, she worked as an elected member of the New Caledonian congress. "My country is Kanaky" -

International Prisoners' Justice Day on 10 August is a reminder that we must end the violence of human caging and fight against the world that allows it to exist. When you look at who's in prison in countries around the world, it is so obvious that prisons have been and are tools of colonising empires and capitalism. Prisons are blatant examples of the criminalisation of the indigenous, of the poor, of people identified as 'other' and different by states the world over. In this country the reality of our history of colonisation is laid bare: Māori are vastly over-represented in prison statistics. It is in prisons that the racist and class nature of capitalism is clearly exposed. The fight to end prisons is a fight for a just world. At the Freedom Shop we have some books and zines about prison, including: Hell Is A Very Small Place: Voices From Solitary Confinement by Jean Casella Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes by Ann Hansen Hauling Up the Morn

Come along for a film screening and discussion about 'No Fire Zone' and - The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka Newtown Hall, 71 Daniel Street, Newtown FRIDAY, 29 JULY 2022 FROM 18:30-21:30 The film details the final days of Eelam War IV in 2009 and its aftermath. It helps explain why Eelam Tamils continue to flee the country. The documentary depicts the Government of Sri Lanka's assault on the territory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north of the island. The war followed the end of the Sri Lankan Peace Process which began formally in 2002. A central player in the film is recently deposed Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the then Defence Secretary. The story is told by the people who lived through the war and through dramatic and disturbing video evidence. Following the screening researcher Umesh Perinpanayagam will provide critical comment on the film: does the film hide the British/US role in the killings? what is the relevance of the events depicted i

It's happened - we've moved. We're now next door at the front of Book Haven , a second-hand book shop that shares the alley way with the Opportunity for Animals . It's exciting stuff for both the OpShop and us: the OpShop gets more space and are able to expand and we get to be open seven days a week from now on! So please do come and check the new space out, and when you're visiting us also drop in and see what Opportunity for Animals are doing with their reclaimed space at the back.  And once more, thank you so much to all the people at Opportunity for Animals for the support you have given us over the years whilst we have lived in a corner of your Newtown shop. It was great, we may not have been able to survive without your support. Thank you.  

The Freedom Shop will soon be moving to a new location - next door! From mid May you will be able to find us inside Book Haven at 160 Riddiford St, Newtown, literally next door to Opportunity for Animals where we have been for the last 10 years. Until then the shop will be closed while we sort out the move. These will be exciting new times for the collective and the best thing is that we will be able to be open 7 days a week! There will be an official opening (COVID permitting), so keep an eye out for further announcements.  We would like to thank Opportunity for Animals for the incredible support they have given us over the years - we would not be around without you! See you all soon!

Below is the Freedom Shop's position on the 'anti-mandate' protests. It’s easy to write off the ‘anti-mandate’ protests in Wellington and other towns. Given New Zealand has had few deaths and a smaller economic impact than most countries, the mandates may be one of the more justifiable of the many restrictions on freedom that the government has come up with and the politically clueless, erratic nature of the protest makes it easy to sneer at. However, judgement shouldn’t be made on the basis of the way the protest is being conducted – that’s a red herring. Sure, there seem to be a high proportion of nutters, and lots of counter-productive behaviour, but the real reason for opposing the protest is the awful politics. In terms of policy, the protests are a mess, not only are a hodge-podge of issues being raised, but no alternatives are being offered and a wide range of conspiracy theories are being promoted. Marty Verry, chief executive of timber and tourism company Red Stag,

If you are wanting something to read but can't make it to the shop, you can view our current stock on LibraryThing and download a copy of our catalogue here . Then send us an email saying what you want and we can let you know how much it will cost with postage. Both the books on LibraryThing and in the catalogue are listed in alphabetical order. Of course, you can also order zines, tee-shirts and badges - and we still have a handful of Pan B diaries for 2022.

No one knows what 2022 will bring, but for us it starts off with some new books from our comrades at AK Press. Here are some of the titles: Patriarchy of the wage . Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism by Silvia Federici         Border and Rule . Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia                    From Urbanization to Cities . The Politics of Democratic Municipalism by Murray Bookchin Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon. This classic handbook of revolutionary practice and social reorganization A Life for Anarchy - A Stuart Christie Reader, edited by the Kate Sharpley Library

If you've read aargh issue 13, you would have seen our interview with members of the Choclo collective, a group of Latin American political artists in Te Whanganui-A-Tara. Some of them have started a new project called Here & Out . It features the art of internationally renowned female street artists Gina Kiel, Xoë Hall, Miriama Grace-Smith, Janine Williams, Fluro (from New Zealand), Caratoes (Belgium/Hong Kong), Paula Tikay (Chile), Meki (Perú) and Gleo (Colombia) and will be part of Cuba Dupa 2022 - so keep an eye out!