Come on, be realistic…by Person Unknown

Anarchy, anarchist, anarchism. A trio of words that throw up a series of disquieting images in the reader’s head: overturned and burnt out cars; pavements littered with broken glass; running mobs hurling Molotovs through McDonalds’ windows. For aficionado’s of this site it could be visions of a circled A on the back of a leather jacketed mohawk dragging his dog along on a string, maybe Jenny Runacre and Toyah cavorting in a post apocalyptic UK wasteland a la Jarman’s Jubilee. There may be an outside chance it’s the David Cameron connotation with regards to teenage hoodies, seek therapy if it is though.

The State and the mainstream media would like you to retain those images and will go out of its way to promote and reinforce them through any means at its disposal. They need to portray anarchy as chaotic, dangerous and evil to justify their authority and our obedience to them. Even my dictionary defines anarchy as complete disorder and an anarchist as one who seeks to advance such a condition by terrorism.  

In all seriousness it’s none of the above at all. Anarchy, quite simply, means no government. There are no exceptions here; even the most libertarian socialist state is an anathema to an anarchist. It’s not just the people in power that we oppose but the very concept of power itself.

From the moment we are born we are subject to authority and what a benevolent authority it is. It educates us, patches and repairs our bodies when we break and protects us from crime. Anarchists see through this benevolence as merely the States’ own interest, an educated (to a predetermined level), healthy worker is necessary for the States’ own economic interests. This benevolence is dictated by economics and the State will draw in its kindness when it suits, witness the condition of the UK schools and NHS today. As for the protection of the individual from crime, well maybe we anarchists should bite our lips and acknowledge that prisons are full to capa    city.

There are several competing theories within anarchism on how a new society should be organised. There is not enough space to both list and to go into them here and, personally I think, there is the odd one or two that falls into the sectarian trap that the revolutionary socialists flounder about in.  However, in the main, they all agree that this society must come about without the use of force and that collective actions and decisions be taken by the whole of the society in question and not some sham democracy with its hidden agendas.  Anarchists believe that with no authority, everyone will experience real freedom (a little bit more than the freedom to shop). The freedom of a society that will not wage war with other people. The freedom that sees the welfare of the human being put above any other consideration. The freedom that allows every man, woman and child to realise their full potential and to create what they can create for the joie de vivre and not for financial gain.

Is any of this really relevant to today or is it just some badly thought out utopian daydream ? Here we are in the twenty-first century, still fighting some war, somewhere, for some reason. Regions and villages in the southern hemisphere starve whilst we throw away a third of our food produce. Rivers rise or ebb away to nothing by our hand. People are pilloried (and worse) for their colour or sexual orientation. Greed and exploitation are given a nice swoosh logo which blinds us to the veritable slave sweatshop labour that produces our ‘lifestyle’ choices. Indigenous peoples turned off the land that they have lived and worked on for hundreds of years so a hotel and casino complex can be built.  Maybe you want to sleepwalk through a supermarket and surveillance society? Maybe the fact that you can now store more than a thousand of your favourite songs in a casing the size of a matchbox is testament of mankind’s advancement. Or is there an alternative?

I, like my fellow anarchists, believe that there’s something so much better out there for us and all we have to do is reach out and grab it. An anarchist society surfaced in 1930’s Spain and it took a mass murder to stop it. It can be done and we need nothing more than people to do it. Out in the UK now on every Stop The War / Environmental march anarchists gather. Most cities have a grouping, log on to Indymedia for a local contact. Books on the subject are many, from the po faced dry tomes, the unreadable Guy Debord and the Anarchist Analysis of Football. A good start is the pamphlet Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Anarchism, I make no apologies for lifting half a dozen lines from it for this article.  You can attempt to plough through dusty, boring tracts if you want, but anarchism is not Marxism and though it may sound glib, action first, theory second is a slightly more exciting prospect.

This being a punk rock site I won’t try to denigrate the role of music too much because even the late, great Emma Goldman conceded that: “if I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution”. However, it, like all the other forms of artistic expression is secondary to the actual primary act of agitating, educating and organising for revolutionary social change. No matter how much anarchist rhetoric you can find in the lyrics and the revolutionary posturing of punk (or grunge or folk music for that matter), it has not made itself known as a force in the class struggle and, sadly but pragmatically, it never will.  Feel free to bounce off the wall to your Crass and Conflict records but don’t for one moment think that’s enough. It’s collective action in the local community and workplace where the real battles will be fought, not on a stage littered with guitars, amps and drums.You’re more than welcome to sing There’s No Power Without Control in my ear as we build the barricade together though.

…demand the impossible

person unknown

September 2007