Wellington Zinefest x Freedom Shop

Radical Zine Series

The Freedom Shop and Wellington Zinefest work with local creatives to redesign classic zines from The Freedom Shop collection.

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Radical Zine Series is a kaupapa which invites local creatives to redesign classic radical zines from the Freedom Shop collection.

The project aims to both provide paid work for artists and make the important ideas contained within the zines more accessible through design.

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All of the zines produced in this series are available for free download.

Volume Two​ Zines

The zines below were made possible thanks to funding from Creative New Zealand.

The Terror of the Dawn Raids

Written by Melani Anae

Redesigned by Darcy Woods

First published in E-Tangata

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This text is an edited extract from Anae's book "The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers". Anae looks at the political and social climate that gave rise to the raids — and the circumstances that led to both the police tactics against Pacific Islanders and the activism of the Polynesian Panthers.

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Eternal War on the Hitler Youth

The Edelweiss Pirates 1938 - 1945

Redesigned by Zoe Hannay

Original text available here

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An account of a youth resistance movement against Hitler Youth initiatives. In the late 1930s, young people formed their own groups in which they could more freely express their own interests and ideas. One of these groups was the Edelweiss Pirates.

Members of the group, both boys and girls, would gather from time to time for weekend camping trips. They would pitch tents in the forest, sing, talk, and fight Hitler Youth patrols. The group’s slogan was “Eternal War on the Hitler Youth.”

Burning Women

Written by Lady Stardust

Redesigned by Cosmo Bones

Original text available here

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"Understanding the witch trials is a vital part of understanding the rise of capitalism, the family, women's roles and our relation to our bodies. Their deep importance and impact is too often neglected in even radical histories.

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This brief overview looks at the economic, social and ideological reasons for, and the effects of, the massacre of women that took during the rise of capitalism."

Dare to be a Daniel!

Written by Wilf McCartney

Redesigned by Hannah Salmon

Original text available here.

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Wilf McCartney in his late sixties was a regular speaker at anarchist meetings and a member of the Syndicalist Propaganda League but did not join the Anarchist Federation (as reconstructed in 1940). He took the view, held by many, that what was needed was workers as a whole to organise, not the anarchists as such.

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In Dare to be a Daniel, he gives a vivid description of the conditions in the kitchens of London's West End restaurants (some of which haven't altered much) and the way a revolutionary syndicalist union was built in 1910, to be smashed by the 1914-1918 war.

Volume One​ Zines

The zines for volume one were created using funding by generous sponsors to a Boosted Campaign.

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The Problem with White Saviours

Written by Simone Kaho

Redesigned by Kata Brown

First published in E-Tangata

Simone Kaho is a New Zealand writer of Tongan descent. She was born in Auckland and received an MA in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Her writing has appeared in various publications including JAAM, Turbine, E Tangata and The Dominion Post.

In 2016, Simone Kaho was invited to join a New Zealand charity mission sailing to Tonga to provide medical aid and training in far-flung villages. She leapt at the chance to reconnect with her late father’s homeland, and to do good. But the experience has led her to reflect on the politics of “helping” — and to question the motives of some of those in the business of doing good.

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Are We All New Zealanders Now?

Written by Dr Ani Mikaere

Redesigned by Izzy Joy

Ani Mikaere (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou) is a barrister and solicitor and teaches Māori law and philosophy at Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa. Ani has published widely on the impact of colonisation on Māori and Māori legal practices, biculturalism, Māori self-determination and the Treaty of Waitangi.

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“Racial conflict was one of the formative experiences of New Zealand society. Pākehā New Zealanders are the products of an invading culture. As individuals we can be magnanimous or guilt-stricken, according to our inclination. But as a society we have this amazing capacity for self-deception. For more than a century we smugly believed that this country was a model of racial harmony, that we were one people. Māori radicalism has put an end to that particular delusion, and we are now in the process of putting down new layers of hypocrisy.”

The Tyranny of the Clock

Written by George Woodcock

Redesigned by George Naylor

George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic. The Tyranny of the Clock was first published in 1944. It describes how the introduction of clocks and recorded, measurable time during the industrial revolution created new forms of social discipline and distress amongst everyday citizens, particularly those of the working class.

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Woodcock argues that the widespread use of clocks transformed previously-unmarked time into measured hours, minutes and seconds - which in turn hold market value. Woodcock’s writing has remained deeply relevant to our contemporary world, where the expansion of mobile media like laptops and smartphones have led to leisure time being less clearly demarcated and increasingly commodified.

Photos from the launch of Volume Two, taken by Kristine Garay.