by Chris Draper
THERE’s
a lot of fake “Anarchy” about these days. Authoritarians
wrapped in the black flag proclaim the pseudo-science of Marx whilst
practicing the politics of Trotsky and Lenin. Their
“class-struggle” rhetoric replaces the rejection of authority
that properly defines Anarchism.
Kapital'
Idea Vicar!
THE
rot first set-in at 'Freedom', the movement’s
erstwhile newspaper, with the bizarre appointment of a Marxist editor
who found Jesus and was reborn as a Vicar.
Closing the paper
down in 2014 with the triumphant declaration, 'Kropotkin Might
Have Started it but We Fucking Finished It!' the ersatz
'anarchists' refused to vacate the building and now run the
premises as rentiers issuing occasional press statements like their 6
March 2018 celebration of the violent suppression of free-speech.
'Freedom’s'
response to my reasoned critique betrays an utter absence of
anarchist values. In place of a thoughtful, cogent,
closely-argued libertarian response all Northern Voices
received from 'Zofia Brom' of 'Freedom' was a
random string of abusive invective;
-
‘I couldn’t care less what you think’…
-
‘can not (sic) be arsed to read Northern Voices’
-
‘nobody cares what your shitty blog has to say’………etc.
Essential
Anarchism
Regrettably
this behaviour is all too common. Free-speech, truth and reason are
essential ingredients of anarchism. Other varieties of
socialism accept 'means-to-an-end' politics;
Marxism-Leninism-Trotskyism demands party-discipline, subservience
and uniformity whilst Labourism eschews principles in pursuit of
popularity.
For
Anarchism 'the personal is political', to build an anarchist
society you need citizens with a libertarian psychology. Communists
might imagine they can smash capitalism and mechanically rearrange
the pieces to re-engineer citizens in a chillingly instrumental
fashion but anarchism’s bottom-up approach demands patience and
humanity.
Old-school
anarchists Colin Ward and Gustav Landauer remind us:
'The
state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution but is
a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of
human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by
behaving differently.'
Ignoring,
insulting, censoring, no-platforming and even physically assaulting
critics reinforces the sort of authoritarian relationships anarchists
oppose and ultimately strengthens the state. Rather than
expound on the sociopathy of ersatz anarchists I prefer to articulate
a positive alternative.
Everyday
Anarchy
1.
Say what you honestly think, not what some theory says you ought
to think. If the evidence of your eyes contradicts your theory
(and I include anarchist theory under this), ditch the theory, don’t
go blind.
2.
Don’t join organisations whose ideals you don’t share simply
because they are bigger than you. Campaign openly and honestly
whenever you can and if you can’t form your own organisations and
have to join someone else’s (eg a union at work), don’t try to
take it over unless the majority agree with you and you want to help.
Argue for your ideas instead.
3.
Never ask for something you don’t really want in order to take
'workers' through the experience. Campaign for things which are worth
winning (and preferably which may be won soon).
4.
If you are in an organisation, don’t be scared to disagree with
each other in public and to accept varieties of opinions. You don’t
have to split every time you disagree over what’s happening in
Nicaragua.
5.
Respect the rights of minorities. Listen to what others have to
say and try to avoid imposing the majority will on them until there’s
no alternative.
6.
Participate in campaigns and actions when you want to, not when
others make you feel guilty. This will lower your political activity
in the short term but enable you to be active for much longer and be
more effective (you will sound like you mean what you say not like
you would rather be at home).
7.
Accept that no one organisation has a monopoly of the truth. Just
because other people belong to other organisations doesn’t make
everything they say wrong.
8.
Trust people who are putting forward sensible ideas now (they are
the only leaders we need). Never trust anyone calling themselves a
leader and thus assuming the right to have all their ideas treated as
if they were all good ones.
Christopher
Draper (March 2018)
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