Brad Will

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Brad Will

Brad Will performing at the Dreamtime Village in the 1990s.
Birth name Bradley Roland Will
Born 1970
Birth place Evanston, Illinois
Died October 27, 2006
in Oaxaca, Mexico
Education B.A. in English, Allegheny College
Circumstances
Occupation Activist, journalist
Notable credit(s)

Bradley Roland Will (1970-2006) was a U.S. anarchist, documentary filmmaker and a journalist with Indymedia New York City. He was shot and killed on October 27, 2006 during the teachers' strike in the Mexican city of Oaxaca.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Brad Will (far right) at the Dreamtime Village.
Brad Will (far right) at the Dreamtime Village.

Will was born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised in the affluent community of Kenilworth, Illinois.[3] He attended New Trier High School, graduating in 1988. Although his grades hovered between B and C, strong performance at the entrance exams ensured Will a place at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.A. in English.[3] Beginning in the summer of 1991, he was a regular attendee at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, the summer writing program of Naropa University. There he was influenced by activist poets Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Amiri Baraka and Diane di Prima, among others, and was a teaching assistant to Peter Lamborn Wilson (a.k.a. Hakim Bey). In 1995, after spending time at Dreamtime Village in southwest Wisconsin, he moved to New York City, stayed in various squats on the Lower East Side and finally residing in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

[edit] Activism in the U.S.

At Naropa, Will participated in a satirical performance art piece designed to mock the Colorado religious right and protest a proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution (Amendment 2, which sought to limit gay rights in the state). Will, who was heterosexual, wedded a gay man in a ceremony conducted by Peter Lamborn Wilson, a Universal Life Church-ordained minister. The mock ceremony included a procession of their wedding party in drag, parading in front of a Promise Keepers event in Boulder.

While in New York City, Will became involved in the squatters movement of the Lower East Side and in what has become known as freeganism, an effort to live outside the mainstream economic grid by means that includes collecting and eating food discarded by stores and food manufacturers. Other than the occasional help of plane tickets from family and friends and other travel arrangements as trade, Will was practically able to live with no reliance on money. He also fought the removal of community gardens, including the Chico Mendez Mural Garden on the Lower East Side, named after Brazilian activist Chico Mendes. Will was an active participant in protests across the country, usually for various social justice and human rights causes, and was involved with environmental movements such as Earth First! and the Fall Creek Tree Village in the Willamette National Forest outside Eugene, Oregon.

Will depicted in Bound Together Bookstore's Remembering Anarchists of the Americas mural, San Francisco, CA
Will depicted in Bound Together Bookstore's Remembering Anarchists of the Americas mural, San Francisco, CA

Will gained some notoriety for his efforts to prevent New York City from demolishing a squat on Fifth Street in the Lower East Side. When construction crews arrived at the building to begin taking it down, he stood atop the roof waving his arms. His efforts stalled the demolition, but the city eventually leveled the building, which housed a café, a meeting place and a performance space. Will later talked about the building in a program produced by Paper Tiger Television called "ABC Survives, Fifth Street Buried Alive".

"We were making a home out of a crumbling building. The interior of the building needed help, and we brought that building back to life. It was standing strong. And the only reason it was standing was because people were living in it. If we had let it go the way the city wanted it to go — they tore out the stairwell, they punched holes in the roof. The water — the rain was rotting that building from the inside out. We replaced the joists. We rebuilt the floors. We sheet rocked the walls and made the building alive. What did they do? They killed it. That building is over a hundred years old. It was standing strong."[4]

Will was a proponent of anti-corporate media and he hosted his own program on Steal This Radio, a Lower East Side-based pirate radio station. Commenting on this form of broadcasting, Will said:

"I think for the FCC, micro media that is non-commercial, anti-profit, community-based, is poison to their program of supporting corporate control of the media. And what they are interested in is supporting the National Association of Broadcasting and their complete leveling of culture in the United States, their complete clear-cutting of American tastes and values and trying to propagate through Congress, through elected officials, through lobbyists, through huge amounts of money being thrown into the media spectrum, their ability to control what people think. And that’s really what’s at stake, is the free flow of ideas in people's minds that is so much controlled by the media as we know it and especially the mass media that has the public ear and that really dominates people's lives."[4]

After helping organizing Buy Nothing Day and a Reclaim the Streets protest in Times Square, Will traveled to Seattle for the historic 1999 WTO protests.

[edit] Activism elsewhere

In 2000, Will traveled to Prague, Czech Republic to protest the International Monetary Fund Summit in 2000 and participate in activities related to the Anti-globalization movement during that year. His activism brought him to Ecuador, Argentina and Chiapas, as well as to Brazil in support of that country's landless peasant movement. In between his trips abroad, Will returned to New York and remained involved in the local activist community. In August 2001, for example, he participated in a Dumpster Diving Forum held at the Wetlands Preserve at 161 Hudson Street, and joined participants for a roving exploration of usable food in Tribeca garbage accompanied by a TV crew from PBS's Life 360. Will entertained participants by singing songs about dumpster diving as the group walked along Canal Street. In recent years, Will had turned to making documentary films for the Indymedia network and other alternative media outlets. In between making films, Will worked occasionally as a stagehand and lighting technician. He remained an activist and a committed eco-anarchist, participating in events like the April 8, 2006 General Assembly of the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists.

In March 2006, he joined activists from the group A for Anarchy at a street theater and flyer distribution event at the premiere of the film V for Vendetta, which was adapted from a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd about an anarchist revolutionary. Anarchists felt the film watered down the anarchist politics of the graphic novel and wanted to ensure that moviegoers were introduced to anarchist ideas. Will videotaped a street theater performance by the group at the Time Warner Center (Time Warner subsidiaries published the V for Vendetta graphic novel and produced the film) and the office of DC Comics (publisher of the V for Vendetta graphic novel). Will's film included a verbal confrontation between the protesters and a group of anarcho-capitalist counterprotesters who referred to themselves as "D for Diplomacy." An edited version of Will's video was featured on the now defunct website A for Anarchy.

During the summer of 2006, Will continued videotaping demonstrations, including a June 15 protest at the Mexican Consulate in response to a violent police incursion into the teacher's plantón (encampment). On June 29, he videotaped and helped organize a protest against Victoria's Secret at the Manhattan Mall. The protest, organized by the Wetlands Activism Collective, was part of a national campaign in protest of the company's use of Canadian boreal forest and Southern US forest pulp in the printing of an estimated 395 million catalogs every year. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to an Earth First! Rendezvous and a CrimethInc. gathering. He also helped to raise money for his friend Daniel McGowan, who was accused of participating in a series of environmentally motivated acts of property destruction and faced life in prison. At the time of his death, he was working on a documentary about folk punk music and experimenting with a vegan raw food diet.

[edit] The shooting

Traveling under a tourist visa, Will had arrived in Oaxaca in early October 2006 in order to document and film the teachers' strike.[5] On October 27, he was videotaping near a barricade erected by pro-strike protesters when gunmen approached and opened fire. Will was shot twice and died while he was being carried away from the area. Along with Will, two protesters – Esteban Zurita López and teacher Emilio Alonso Fabián – were also killed. Several others were injured. Mexican daily newspaper El Universal published photos of the suspected gunmen, who are believed to be local officials. [6][7]

A Oaxaca news organization has claimed that Pedro Carmona, a local politician and member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, shot Brad Will.[8] [9] During a news conference on October 29, Oaxaca mayor Manuel Martínez said that four men, all local public officials, were being detained in connection with the shooting.[10]

[edit] Reaction and news coverage

In the initial reports regarding the shooting, Will's name was incorrectly reported as "Bradley Roland Wheyler" and "William Bradley Roland". [11][12]

News of the shooting traveled quickly and in response, several independent media groups, activists and other organizations issued statements condemning the incident. Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos issued this statement:

“ [Will] is like the people who came here with us on the bus, who are carrying the voices of the people from below so that they would be known... And this person was a compañero of The Other Campaign... We are issuing a call to all of The Other Campaign at the national level and to compañeros and compañeras in other countries to unite and to demand justice for this dead compañero. We are making this call especially to all of the alternative media, and free media here in Mexico and in all the world.[13] ”

An open letter written "to honor the memory" of Will and support "the Oaxacan people's efforts to establish a popular government that recognizes local traditions and values," was signed by numerous academics and activists, including Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Arundhati Roy, Starhawk and Howard Zinn.[14]

[edit] Federal Police mobilized

The day after the shooting, Mexican President Vicente Fox changed his previously non-intervention policy and ordered Federal Police to Oaxaca to reestablish government control of the city. The army was also mobilized to provide intelligence support to the police, but not to engage directly with protesters. APPO representatives declared their intention to resist the government's armed intervention in the crisis and by the beginning of November, violent clashes continued between protesters and police.[15] The government claimed that the Federal Police that entered Oaxaca were unarmed.

On October 28, Will's colleagues and strike supporters held an emergency rally at the Mexican consulate in New York. Speakers, including longtime New York activist Beka Economopoulos, condemned the Mexican government's response.

[BEKA ECONOMOPOULOS] Our friend Brad Will was murdered by government-backed paramilitary forces in Oaxaca, Mexico. Now Brad’s death is being used as a pretext by the government and the media to send in more of those same troops... [W]e demand... all guilty parties at all levels be identified and held accountable for the assassination of Brad Will and other civilian victims in Oaxaca.[citation needed]

[BRANDON JOURDON, NYC Indymedia] Brad Will went to Oaxaca, because he was a firm believer in direct democracy. He went there to document what was happening amongst people there, who are trying to create a system of direct democracy. He died doing what he loved.[citation needed]

[edit] Demonstrations at Mexican consulates

On October 30, more than 200 protesters convened outside the Mexican consulate in New York City to deplore the killing of Will and others and to demand an end to the violence. The protest was organized by the activist group Friends of Brad Will.[16] [17] Additional demonstrations occurred outside Mexican consulates worldwide and protesters briefly occupied the consulate in Raleigh, North Carolina.[18] Simultaneous protests were also held around the world.

On October 26, 2007, a home-made explosive artifact shattered the windows of the Mexican Consulate in New York City[19]. According to Mexican news media Reforma, Will's supporters may be connected to the incident[20].

[edit] Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists sent an open letter on October 30 to the Mexican attorney general calling on the federal government to launch an official investigation into Will's death. The statement also mentioned that David Vega Vera, special independent prosecutor, had begun gathering information and facts related to the case.[21]

[edit] Commemoration and memorial

Poster of Will at the 2006 New York City Halloween Parade
Poster of Will at the 2006 New York City Halloween Parade

On November 11 and 12, Friends of Brad Will organized a gathering in New York City to commemorate Will's life. The event included a memorial service at St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery attended by 250 people, as well as speeches and concerts.[22] Outside the church was an array of freegan food as well as a pile of Will's personal possessions, from which attendees were urged to take.[22] It was followed by a procession through the East Village described by The Village as "jubilant and rowdy", which culminated in marchers breaking into the former CHARAS/El Bohio - inside which they cavorted, scrawled graffiti, twirled a fire bolas and cycled - for about 20 minutes.[22]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • Memorial and Convergence more information from Lisa Jarnot on the Brad Will memorial at the Poetry Project, including a schedule of events.

[edit] Video

[edit] References

  1. ^ "NYC Indymedia volunteer Brad Will killed in an attack by paramilitaries in Oaxaca", Indymedia, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  2. ^ The Will Family. "Family's Response", Indymedia New York City, October 31, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-02. 
  3. ^ a b Sharlet, Jeff (2008-01-24). "Anarchist Superstar: The Revolutionary Who Filmed His Own Murder". Rolling Stone (1044). 
  4. ^ a b Brad Will In His Own Words (October 30, 2006).
  5. ^ "Mexico Police Occupy Oaxaca City Center, Aguilar Says (Update3)", Bloomberg.com, October 30, 2006. 
  6. ^ <"Police move into besieged Mexican city after 3 killed during protest", Mexico News, October 30, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-31. 
  7. ^ Giordano, Al. "NY Documentary Filmmaker and Indymedia Reporter, Assassinated by Pro-Government Gunshot in Oaxaca", Narco News, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  8. ^ "27 de octubre: ATAQUE A LA POBLACION OAXAQUEÑA: Minuto a minuto", vientos.info, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  9. ^ "NYC Indymedia Journalist Brad Will Shot Dead by Government Forces in Oaxaca", NYC Indymedia, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  10. ^ "CPJ calls for federal probe into killing of U.S. journalist in Mexico", Committee to Protect Journalists, October 30, 2006. 
  11. ^ "US cameraman killed and photographer wounded in Oaxaca police shooting", Reporters Without Borders, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-29. 
  12. ^ "William Bradley Roland, U.S. Journalist/Cameraman, Killed by Oaxaca Paramilitaries – Killer ID'd - Actions Being Planned in U.S.", The New York City Independent Media Center, October 28, 2006. 
  13. ^ Giordano, Al. "NY Documentary Filmmaker and Indymedia Reporter, Assassinated by Pro-Government Gunshot in Oaxaca", Narco News, October 28, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  14. ^ Letter In Support Of The People Of Oaxaca. Accessed 2006-11-03
  15. ^ Grillo, Ioan. "Thousands Demonstrate in Mexican City", The Associated Press, November 5, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-06. 
  16. ^ Brunswick, Deborah. "12 arrested outside Mexican Consulate", CNN.com, October 30, 2006. 
  17. ^ Ferguson, Sarah. "Activists Shut Down Mexican Consulate", Village Voice blog, October 30, 2006. 
  18. ^ Eisley, Matthew. Protesters of killing occupy consulate. The News & Observer.
  19. ^ Kelly: Consulate Blast Similar To '05 Explosion "Two explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate early Friday, blowing out several windows after detonating but causing no injuries, police said".
  20. ^ M.A.Kiavelo (suscription needed, in Spanish) "SE dice que una de las líneas de investigación sobre los estallidos es que pudo ser una protesta por la impunidad en la que ha quedado, a un año de ocurrido, el asesinato del periodista Brad Will en Oaxaca...", translation: "It is said that one of the lines of investigation regarding the detonations is that they might have been a protest for the impunity, after a year, in the murder of Journalist Brad Will"
  21. ^ Simon, Joel. "CPJ calls for federal probe into killing of U.S. journalist in Mexico", Committee to Protect Journalists, October 30, 2006. 
  22. ^ a b c Anderson, Lincoln. "Brad Will gets a loving, raucous, anarchist sendoff", The Villager, November 15 - 21, 2006.
Persondata
NAME Will, Bradly Roland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Will, Brad
SHORT DESCRIPTION American journalist, anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Evanston, Illinois, United States
DATE OF DEATH 27 October 2006
PLACE OF DEATH Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico