Les May
THE current issue of Anarchist Voices was published last Summer,
and the review below was published on the 16th, September 2015.
In the light of recent violent events at Freedom Press we believe it is
worth re-reading. Particularly in view of the light Harriet Ward sheds
on the views of Colin Ward's idea of what it means to be an anarchist.
IN his forward to the 1993 reprint of George Sturt's The Wheelright's Shop E.P.
Thompson wrote that the theme of his final contribution to the Socialist
League's journal Commonweal in 1889 was unlikely to commend itself to 'the
excitable anarchists who were then taking over the Socialist League'. THE current issue of Anarchist Voices was published last Summer,
and the review below was published on the 16th, September 2015.
In the light of recent violent events at Freedom Press we believe it is
worth re-reading. Particularly in view of the light Harriet Ward sheds
on the views of Colin Ward's idea of what it means to be an anarchist.
At different times Sturt referred to himself as a
'Revolutionary Socialist', an 'Anarchist' and a 'Communist'. He earned his
living as the owner of a wheelrights workshop employing eight skilled tradesmen
and apprentices. Such is the gulf between political dreams and the daily
reality of earning a living.
Few of the essays in the Summer/Autumn 2015 Anarchist Voices
are likely to commend themselves to the more 'excitable' brand of anarchist.
With a sub-title of 'A Journal of Evolutionary Anarchism' this is hardly a
surprise.
Most of the eight essays are by people who knew Colin Ward
or have written about his ideas, so together they form a memoir of Ward who
died at the age of 85 in 2010.
Harriet, Colin's wife, paints a picture of someone
completely lacking in affectation and whose chosen occupation meant he had to
work very hard to make a living. No
wonder her piece is titled 'Colin Ward: A Resourceful Man'. As their visit to
Orkney was some forty years ago I'll forgive her saying that the Neolithic settlement
at Skara Brae was Pictish.
A long article by David Goodway discusses some of the
sources which influenced Ward's thinking and includes extracts from some of
them and from Ward's own writings. One of these dealing with the rejection of
'perfectionism, utopian fantasy, conspiratorial romanticism and revolutionary
optimism' demonstrates why Ward's ideas will find a such a warm home amongst
less excitable anarchists.
Jonathan Simcock's editorial notes that many people would
consider anarchist ideas 'extreme, foolish, impractical and ill thought out'.
So how do you get people to listen? Christopher Draper essay offers one
possible solution to this problem and starts from a recognition that most
people are not interested in politics and are likely to be put off by an 'in
your face' approach.
'The Mud Girls' is a fascinating essay by Larry Gambone
about a group of Canadian women who
construct buildings and walls from 'cob', an old but entirely practical
technique of mixing subsoil, straw or other fibrous organic material and water,
which is then laid in courses on a high foundation wall. Fascinating it may be
but it also points to some of the limitations of Ward's ideas as I shall argue
later.
At this point I had better come clean and explain that I get
a mention in one of the pieces because the author used an example from my own
experience to draw attention to questions about some of Ward's assumptions.
Entitled 'Dig where we stand' the essay by Brian Bamford is a critique rather
than outright criticism of Ward's ideas though it does take a swipe at
'excitable' anarchists!
His examples include a ban on growing raspberries on
allotments or 'the billy goat problem' and are unexciting, even mundane. He
doesn't use buzz words like collective
or empowerment, but the questions he raises are nonetheless very pertinent to
the question of how Ward's ideas work in practice.
By this time I was starting to mildly sympathise with the
'excitable' anarchists and their complaint of Ward's ideas 'reeking of
allotments' especially when I spotted the illustrations for the late Rory
Bowskill's article 'All in the mind'. As in 'Dig where we stand' this includes
a deceptively simple question 'Can you imagine and describe what you would like
to see replace the nation state?'.
And that is the problem. Having read these essays I could
not discern the 'shape', or what birdwatchers would call the 'jizz', of the
Wardian world. I can picture a world full of argumentative syndicalists and a
brutish individualist world, but a comprehensive understanding of the Wardian
world eludes me. Is it really just about
allotments and womens' collectives? Are we back in the world of George Sturt's
wheelwrights shop?
How do Ward's ideas scale? What would a Wardian NHS be like
(please don't refer me to 'The Peckham Experiment'), a Wardian railway system
or a Wardian response to global warming?
I look forward to reviewing a collection of essays
attempting to answer questions like these. If you cannot imagine it you cannot
live it.
__________________________
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