Review of ‘Open Road’ – Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review (1977)

From ‘Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review ‘, No.2, 1977, Over-The-Water, Sanday, Orkney

From Vancouver comes the first issue of a new libertarian paper The Open Road, which is “designed to reflect the spectrum of international anarchist and anti-authoritarian Left activities and to provide reports and analysis of popular struggles and social problems.” It is not the organ of a political organization, but is produced collectively by anarchists and libertarian leftists of differing viewpoints, who feel their “primary loyalty must be to the social forms created by the revolutionary process itself, not to the political forms created by radicals.”

Some of the articles in the magazine, (which has a Rolling Stone type format) are drawn from first-hand accounts based on the personal experiences and interests of the members of the editorial collective, much of the material on national and international developments is based on the printed publications of a number of different organisations.

The layout is good and compliments the high standard of the articles, which in turn are well illustrated. (The illustrations include two drawings by Flavio Costantini, one of which The Death of Pinelli, first appeared as the cover picture of Black Flag, the other is a poster-size colour picture of Sabate). There is an extensive interview with black militant Martin Sostre, in which he relates his personal experiences while in jail on framed-up charges, and his plans now that he has been released following world-wide pressure. One of the other articles is also an interview with members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, who describe the way their political views have shifted and evolved over the last couple of years. Other articles cover the resistance to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, Greenpeace, the nature and activities of the American Indian Movement since Wounded Knee and more.

A couple of the articles in The Open Road are on music, the first on American feminist folk singer Holly Near, the second an obituary of the late Phil Ochs (whose best known composition is probably ‘There But For Fortune’ made famous by Joan Baez). There are also several good book reviews, of which the one on a new book about Spanish anarchist Durruti really stands out.

A short review of the paper doesn’t really allow sufficient space to do justice to the care, attention and planning that has gone into the production of The Open Road especially as many of the articles merit individual reviews of their own. It’s all summed up neatly in Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of the Open Road‘ (part of which is reprinted in the first issue), “My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion.”

Zapatista

Subscription Address: The Open Road, Box 6135, Station G, Vancouver, B.C. Canada. (single issue 40p) Vol. 1 No. 1 is now out of print.

From Europe

Excerpts from ‘Open Road’, Issue Two, Spring 1977, Vancouver, BC

Dear Betty Noir & The Open Road Collective,

First of all congratulations for having produced a really excellent magazine — one of the best we have seen in a long long time and our very best wishes for the future. Perhaps we could come to some arrangement with you selling Black Flag over there and us selling Open Road here in Britain?

By the way. I’d appreciate it if you could send me another two copies of Open Road — one for Flavio Costantini who will be delighted at the write-up and the Sabate poster, and the other for Antonio Tellez, the author of Sabate.

That’s all for the moment, but receive our warmest fraternal greetings and very best wishes for the next issue and many many more.

Fraternally,

Stuart Christie

for Cienfuegos Press/Black Flag

P.S. Albert Meltzer will probably be writing to you as well.

“Over The Water”,

Sanday, Orkney, Scotland

Dear Comrades,

What a fantastic production you’ve made of The Open Road. The only trouble is that you’ve probably discouraged everyone from ever producing an anarchist paper again after seeing how high a standard has been set. I really do congratulate you and hope you keep it up — though I don’t see how!

The article by Martin Sostre was first rate, and absolutely right on target. I had not realised in view of so many attacks on him, how very much of an anarchist he is and how clear a thinker.

“Still crazy after all these years” — but the first forty years in the anarchist movement were the most difficult, from now on it’s plain sailing…

Regards,

Albert Meltzer

Tottenham, London, Eng.

Dear Comrades,

Greetings! What this unique first issue proves is the extent of progress which our ideas have so effectively inspired searching minds to realize what the present chaotic and meaningless life is, and what it really could become instead.

From some of the articles in the Black Flag, as the ones on the SLA and on Chile, you can easily surmise how deeply your splendid beginning has most happily affected me, and will, likewise, affect everyone who labors in the furtherance of our ideas.

I close with love of comradeship everyone who must have labored so hard in order to produce the most out-of- the-ordinary first issue that had, to my knowledge, ever appeared in the annals of the anarchist movement — in the English language.

Fraternally,

Marcus Graham

Dear Comrades,

I have been able to get a copy of the first issue of Open Road by a comrade of L’Antistato and I find it very stimulating and interesting. I have also translated into Italian the interview with Martin Sostre for the revue Anarchismo. I receive more than forty anarchist and libertarian papers from the four continents, but I think the Open Road is one of the few trying to develop the revolutionary action and not only to talk about… talking.

Fraternally,

Franco Lombardi

Forli, Italy