On Saturday, I had a going away party of sorts--I'm leaving the United States (finally) and moving abroad to do journalism fulltime. Upon returning home from my party, I had an e-mail waiting for me from a friend who didn't make it, but told me that someone she knew had been killed and and it seemed all the more important to her to wish me a safe farewell.

I didn't put two and two together until yesterday, when I realized that my friend was talking about the widely reported death of Bradley Roland Will, American anarchist, and indy journalist. Will was shot while documenting the standoff between popular resistance and the city, state, and federal governments in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Over at Infoshop News, someone offered these eulogizing words:

Brad was equally comfortable doing yoga in Central Park with his raw foodist friends, singing with eco-hippies and activists at an Earth First! campfire out in the wilderness, and moshing along to a punk rock show at one of New York's City's scummiest, formerly illegal venues: C-Squat. He was a performer who loved to be up front with an acoustic guitar or a fireball spewing from his mouth. Brad was an anarchist, through and through; he believed in making the world a just place without hierarchy and oppression. His death was as political as the life he lived.

When a small non-profit collective group I work with began looking for a storefront, after loosing our lease at another space, Brad offered to put a substantial amount of money towards the project. Nobody asked him or expected him to, nor did he have any interest in having a say in the project -- he was just a generous person who cared about change and wanted to see more community spaces in the city.

Brad's presence was a ubiquitous presence in the NYC activist community. He had a lot of energy and was a part of a lot of struggles. When a young anarchist protester named Carlo Giuliani was shot by police Brad was outside the Italian consulate singing at the top of his lungs, his voice raw and hurt.

I've seen the land beyond these borders where the corporations rule
And they spin their lies and they globalize and the working man's their tool
And the streams are so polluted that their banks are bleak and bare
And the babies all are born deformed and the smog is everywhere
And the workers' wages dropped thirty percent in just one year
Now the greedy bastards want to bring that situation here...

At NYC Indymedia, you can get some other reactions from those who knew him.

What was Will doing in Oaxaca, Mexico?

A little background is in order. For the past five months, the uprising in Oaxaca had only just made my radar screen. This summary from Al Jazeera.net helped me get up to speed in the past two days:

The protests began in May as a teacher's strike in this colonial southern Mexican city of roughly 275,000.

But the demonstrations spiralled as anarchists, students and Indian groups seized the central plaza and barricaded streets throughout the city to demand Ruiz's removal.

Police and state forces - often in plainclothes - have shot at protesters, setting off clashes in which at least eight people have died.

Protesters accused Ruiz of rigging his 2004 election and using thugs to kill or crush political opponents.

They say his resignation is not negotiable and they will not return home without it. The violence has driven tourists from one of Mexico's most popular destinations, forcing hotels and restaurants to close their doors.

The writer at Infoshop says this about the events that resulted in Will's death:

When the paramilitaries arrived at barricade three in Santa Lucia del Camino Brad was ready, camera in hand. When the paramilitaries began firing live ammunition at the protesters they were answered with rocks, slingshots and fireworks. Brad armed with only his camera stood with them, until after a short lull in the shooting, he was shot twice in the chest. He died on the way to the hospital. Esteban Zurita Lopez and a teacher Emilio Alonso Fabian were also shot and killed at the barricades Friday.

As has been widely reported, federal police moved in after this incident and seized Oaxaca back from the insurgency. However, who knows where this will go in the long run?

Some of Brad's last writing (dated 10/16/06) to the rest of the world about what he thought what was happening in Oaxaca is available at the same NYC Indy Media link. Perhaps apropos to share a portion of that now:

what can you say about this movement -- this revolutionary moment -- you know it is building, growing, shaping -- you can feel it -- trying desperately for a direct democracy -- in november appo will have a state wide conference for the formation of a state wide assemblea estatal del pueblo de oaxaca (aepo) -- now there are 11 of 33 states in mexico that have declared formation of assemblea populares like appo -- and on la otra lado in the usa a few -- the marines have returned to sea even though the federal police who ravaged atenco remain close by -- the new encampment in mexico has begun a hunger strike -- the senate can expell URO -- whats next nobodies sure -- it is a point of light pressed through glass -- ready to burn or show the way -- it is clear that this is more than a strike, more than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than a coalition of fragments -- it is a genuine peoples revolt -- and after decades of pri rule by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired -- they call him the tyrant -- they talk of destroying this authoritarianism -- you cannot mistake the whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets -- in every street corner deciding together to hold -- you see it their faces -- indigenous, women, children -- so brave -- watchful at night -- proud and resolute

went walking back from alejandros barricade with a group of supporters who came from an outlying district a half hour away -- went walking with angry folk on their way to the morgue -- went inside and saw him -- havent seen too many bodies in my life -- eats you up -- a stack of nameless corpes in the corner -- about the number who had died -- no refrigeration -- the smell -- they had to open his skull to pull the bullet out -- walked back with him and his people

and now alejandro waits in the zocalo -- like the others at their plantones -- hes waiting for an impasse, a change, an exit, a way forward, a way out, a solution -- waiting for the earth to shift and open -- waiting for november when he can sit with his loved ones on the day of the dead and share food and drink and a song -- waiting for the plaza to turn itself over to him and burst -- he will only wait until morning but tonight he is waiting for the governor and his lot to never come back -- one more death -- one more martyr in a dirty war -- one more time to cry and hurt -- one more time to know power and its ugly head -- one more bullet cracks the night -- one more night at the barricades -- some keep the fires -- others curl up and sleep -- but all of them are with him as he rests one last night at his watch

I'm not the same person as Bradley Roland Will, but I can understand the level of sincerity and commitment it takes for a man to leave his place of birth to document resistance--and perhaps to even join it--to the point of his own premature death. We are all now deprived of the chance to meet him, to have conversations about the things he cared about, to ask him why he was in Oaxaca, to argue and then agree, to agree and then argue. If we have a community, then each piece of it that is taken from us before we even get a chance to encounter it is a loss that weighs on the whole.

The eulogizer at Infoshop, however, has a more direct route of appreciation than I do. They conclude thusly:

"Don't just mourn, organize."