TSOTM Sep 2023: Rocker

Our T-Shirt of the Month for September 2023, made of 100% organic cotton by a worker-owned co-operative, and supporting grassroots labour unions in South Asia. This month we celebrate the life of the German anarcho-syndicalist, writer and publicist Rudolf Rocker, who died in the USA in September 1958 at the age of 85.
A native of Mainz, Germany, Rudolf Rocker became a bookbinder after school and wandered around Europe as a craftsman's apprentice. In 1891 he first came into contact with anarchist views, which made a strong impression on him. From 1893 to early 1895 he was a political refugee in Paris and then went to London. Here began what was probably the most unusual period of his life. A non-Jew, Rocker lived among the poor Jewish residents of Whitechapel in London's East End. He learned their Yiddish language, and, as editor of various Yiddish-language labour newspapers, gained strong influence in the anarcho-syndicalist Jewish trade unions in England. After the outbreak of World War I, Rocker was interned. He returned to Germany in 1919, where he co-founded the Free Workers Union of Germany (FAU), and was elected secretary of the International Workingmen's Association in Berlin in late 1922, an organisation representing more than a million workers worldwide at the time. After the Nazis seized power, Rocker escaped to the USA, where he lived until his death in 1958. Throughout his life, Rocker was warning against totalitarian tendencies, nationalism and the idea that a fixed end goal can be achieved with anarchism or other socially progressive movements. Here’s a quote that touches upon the latter:
“Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal.”
Design by Semi Legal Art is to celebrate Rudolf Rocker's life-long commitment to anarchism and libertarian ideas. The slogan "Born a Rocker - Dia a Rocker" is to emphasise this commitment and pay tribute to the fact that Rudolf Rocker is continuing to ‘rock’ many peoples' minds and hearts around the world! Are you a Rocker, too?

• 100% organic cotton, single jersey, 160 g/m², 0% elastane in fabric
  
• High-quality water-based print: environmentally and skin-friendly ink certified under the Global Organic Textile Standard
  Unisex fit sizes: S - M - L - XL - 2XL – 3XL - 4XL - 5XL
• Made with dignity by the worker-owned Humana Nova cooperative
• Supports grassroots labour unions in South Asia through ExChains
  
• Learn more about our 'T-Shirt of the Month' collaboration with dna merch here
  
• Printed individually just for you, with no overproduction or waste
• Global shipping, from France
  

Please make sure to carefully choose your size by checking the size chart below.

Width: Measured 2cm (1in) beneath the sleeves across the shirt
Length: Measured from the highest point of the shoulder to the bottom end of the shirt

When will I receive my t-shirt?

Printing of each T-Shirt of the Month will take approximately one week after being ordered. The shirts will then be shipped from France, and delivery should take up to one week for Europe, and up to 2 weeks for the rest of the world.
In the unlikely event that shirts from Humana Nova are out of stock, design will instead be printed on an organic t-shirt from fairwear foundation leader Stanley & Stella instead.