Tag: anarchism

A Power Play

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There is one thing I enjoyed about not keeping an eye of the rolling news stories and it was that I got less caught up in the party political soap opera of Parliament. We live in a sensationalised world, not just the constant need to excite through 24/7 news channels but through the algorithms on social media that feed us constant anguish and thrills. They know what makes us tick and they’ve tapped into it. It’s so easy when writing this blog just to go onto a news website or see what Facebook has to say, and find enough material in one article on politicians and face masks for example to write something suitably scathing about dithering so called leaders bumbling their way to an end result we don’t notice because we couldn’t actually understand what they were saying. You see I’ve just done it there. It’s just too easy. They’re not inept, they’re incredibly good at what they’re doing, but it’s also obvious and therefore a treasure trove of things to write about.

At what point though do we stop listening and just get on with life. I’ve touched on all this before of course, it’s impossible not to bring up certain themes over again when writing every day. But when do we ignore the theatre of democracy, accept the demos are impotent and watch the shit show go on regardless. I feel powerless, these last five years politically have been incredibly trying and demoralising. Scotland voted no to independence from Britain, England voted yes to independence from the EU and England voted no to the first leader in generations who actually seemed to want to make positive changes to society for people. Instead we overwhelmingly got Boris. As you can see I think we are being dragged down by the English but I’m also wary of putting a single egg in a nationalist basket even if it is one promising liberation over subjugation. Politics has moved to the right and while there are signs of it’s coming back to, well, the centre-right, I am not filed with confidence.

Which means I am at the point of being defeated. Or maybe I already have, maybe that happened ten years ago when I naively thought myself an environmental activists and nothing changed. Of course I’m not defeated, I wouldn’t be writing this if I was, but this is no rallying call. I’m not all of a sudden going to build some ramparts and run up them. It is an acknowledgement though that there are people out there, people much smarter and with far more determination than me fighting for and enacting change. There’s a reason we don’t have a twelve hour work day and it’s not because of keyboard warriors like me. But then again everyone at all levels is important, even those blindly repeating lies and rhetoric in the cesspit at the bottom. If I believe in a holistic approach to the health of our bodies, why not believe it for the health of our societies. We are not just a series of strata within a hierarchy of power, that is not a healthy society. That is power, that is personal self-interest and that is exactly what we are hooked on with party politics. How can society nurture it’s people when it’s leader’s focus is ultimately themselves. While it is time to take the power back, it’s probably more the time to readdress our understanding and relationship with power generally. It is just a word and a concept after all, it’s down to us what we make of it.

BR#9 – Accidental Death Of An Anarchist

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Another new playwright has crossed my path. Dario Fo wrote Accidental Death Of An Anarchist in response to the 1969 death of an anarchist in police custody Milan. He had been accused of the bombing of the Agricultural Bank which had resulted in the deaths of sixteen people. While in custody he, according to the official account at the time, committed suicide by jumping out of the window on the fourth floor of the police headquarters. Ten years later three fascists were convicted of the crime, some of whom were agents of the secret police, and in court proceedings it was determined that the major actors behind the bombing had been senior ministers and Generals who were condemned before being acquitted. The state once more protected it’s own while allowing those at the bottom who actually committed the act itself to go down for it. The play was written prior to this final outcome and was partly in response to a dearth of reporting from both sides of the political spectrum, the right-wing for obvious reasons and the Communists because they’re little more than power hungry political stooges themselves.

The play is set one week after the event and Fo uses the character titled Maniac to highlight the ridiculous nature of the police account of events, their incompetence and as a vehicle to get his political message across. I’m sure there’s a name for this type of character in a play but I forget what I learnt in school. While serious and dry approaches to storytelling always have their place, there is a particular way satire manages to express an idea and create an understanding in the audience. It is more accessible, despite it being on a serious topic comedy allows people to take it in without feeling they need to immediately react in a serious manner. Fo does this expertly and through his use of the Maniac manages to create a situation in which the police expose their own corruption and the left wing reporter her own hypocrisy.

To quote the Maniac in one of his more lucid moments;

“Why not ask yourself, Miss Feletti, what sort of democracy requires the services of dogs such as these? I’ll tell you. Bourgeois democracy which wears a thin skin of human rights to keep out the cold, but when things hot up, when the rotten plots of the ruling class fail to silence ours demands, when they have put the population on the dole queue and squeezed the other half dry with wage cuts to keep themselves in profit, when they have run out of promises, and you reformists have failed to keep the masses in order for them; well then they shed their skins and dump you, as they did in Chile*, and set their wildest dogs loose on us all”

*While events in Chile happened after the original was written, the text I read from was translated and adapted in the 1980s hence the reference.

Let’s Dance

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Today got a little tetchy then. It seems like the far-right turned out to defend memorials, fight and prove something. I thought it might kick off this weekend, admittedly it’s still only Saturday so plenty of time, but I never thought right wing knuckle draggers would be the ones to do it. I’m quite pleased they did actually because it only makes them look bad and strengthens the moral arguments of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as other anti-racist groups. These people have gone out onto the street to defend memorials, got drunk and kicked off. I don’t know if they planned on kicking off in advance, there is talk of it being discussed on message boards, or if the alcohol took over. I have to be careful here though because there have been times I’ve defended violence from anti racists and anti fascists, and while I see a difference it’s possible that difference only exists in my mind because of the prism I like to view the world through. I’m sure there will be elements of the media who will try to portray it as such but is it the same.

I have mentioned that you risk losing the moral high ground when you commit violence in certain situations. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think anarchists throwing petrol bombs at riot police is morally wrong but certainly it can be spun that way by the media and lead the average person to see it as wrong. Yet I don’t condone these thugs behaving as they did today. I guess we need to try and understand why they were really there and what their aim was. I know why anarchists do it but I’m not quite sure why groups like Britain First and The English Defence League do, or why they really do. They suggest they are defending British or English culture but in reality I don’t know what that means beyond white protestants, which is not the entirety of British culture. If the anarchists intention is ultimately to liberate people these people are about subjugating them. How can you argue that with any moral validity. There were apparently a few Nazi salutes done when defending the Churchill statue which suggests they miss the point and have no actual idea who Churchill was and why he is revered. Football firms apparently came together and clashed with police which would suggest the intention was violence. I just don’t get what they were trying to achieve and I’m trying not to be a patronising arsehole who thinks he’s better than others but I suspect I’m also overthinking their thinking.

There has been a lot said about these protests being born in the perfect moment as everyone looks for something to do after being confined for so long. I don’t doubt there is sincerity behind these anti-racist protests but it’s possible there is such interest and energy because of what has happened over these last three months. Why would it not be exactly the same with the far-right. They feel they have an excuse to be outraged and they’re being outraged in the only way they know how. Perhaps that is why they behaved as they did, they don’t know any other way. If violence has solved everything before why would you try a different approach. But maybe I’m overthinking all of this, maybe I’m giving them too much credit.

Perhaps they’re just angry, ignorant and bored, add alcohol to the mix and it’s the perfect storm. But that could be underestimating them and that’s very risky. So no answers then. Not unless I’m willing to suggest they have an argument based on anything credible. If an idea is so flawed it’s impossible to debate constructively with; then it’s not an argument and their actions are not based upon anything defensible. They become the indefensible. Well it was hardly going to turn out any other way here let’s be honest.

BR#6 – Red Rosa

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Dr Rosa Luxemburg, what a woman. She would have definitely put me in my place. I mentioned about a week ago about revolutionary left wing men in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century all looking like intellectual accountants, well this was her time, and these were her men. Rosa Luxemburg was of Jewish Polish decent but it was in Germany and the Revolutionary Socialist movement of the time in which she is most remembered. This was a remarkable time for change while also being a frustratingly impotent one too. It’s littered with the ‘what if’ moments that seem to be a constant in social movements, and which ultimately suggests they failed in their objective of removing the bourgeoisie from power and liberating the workers in the process. It is also important though to remember we’re not working fourteen hour days, for what it’s worth we have a vote and although it’s not perfect we do seem to have gained a certain degree of liberty and protection under the law. On the other hand that liberty and that protection can be taken away from us at any time, as the late great George Carlin said;

“Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges“

But enough of that this is about Rosa Luxemburg and the graphic novel on her life I have just finished called Red Rosa. She was a fighter, and she had a profound understanding on the nature of capitalism, imperialism and power. She was a revolutionary but had she lived long enough would likely have been horrified by what unfolded in Russia in the name of communism and the people. She also challenged the ideas of Marx which was for many a major taboo, although others saw her as adding to and evolving his ideas. She spent virtually the entirety of the First World War in prison because of her anti-imperial beliefs and was murdered shortly afterwards as the new faux-socialist SPD Party, of whom she had once been a leading member, cemented it’s position in the new republic by removing those who challenged it’s power and tried to bring about any real change.

The graphic novel itself is aesthetically impressive, the images expressive and the ideas put forth insightful. This is not just a picture book but one telling the life of someone justifiably revered. Her beliefs and ideals are explained in an easily understandable way, as is a general explanation of anti-capitalism and social movements generally as well as in relation to modern times. I imagine it would probably be a great book for a teenage girl as it has the potential to be incredibly inspiring. As I don’t know any I’ll put it in my book stack and give it away when the moment comes. The graphic novel is an incredibly enjoyable format and this a powerful and important story to tell. Neither are let down here.

To The Ramparts Lads

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This virus has seemingly thrown everything that we know in a blender and regurgitated nothing but confusion. People have seen what was once sure to them destroyed, panicked and hidden away in fortress’ made of toilet roll. I just read that as a result of an expected lack of applicants universities will be sharing out places equally amongst themselves for next year. Obviously the best will still get the best and so on but importantly none will be left behind and risk closure. This reminded me of a theme that seems to be spreading about how in times of crisis our nation states and governments who once firmly espoused and embraced free market capitalist economics are finding themselves surviving this pandemic not through the free market but through embracing more socialist methodologies. This first arose with governments protecting the wages of people forced to down tools with the help of this mythological eighty percent everyone is talking about but has never seen. The usual ignorant trope about who is going to pay for all the generosity is in normal circumstances bullshit but unfortunately here it becomes relevant; if nobody is working at all eventually the money and produce will run dry. I don’t class this generosity as socialism though, it may be a social support to the people but could equally be seen as a short term injection into the economy so as to protect it in it’s current form.

Regardless clearly free market economics doesn’t work when the perfect circumstances for it are not in place. The moment this happens people start to rely on the state and the state starts to tighten regulations and legislations. If the free market we are led to believe as the only possible existence clearly only works in certain exact circumstances, and even then clearly not for everybody and at the expense of many, then perhaps we’re currently living in the wrong circumstances. Perhaps we should be looking at a more robust economic system that can withstand crisis and not rely on – cough cough – handouts. Some would argue that another system would not work in these societies we’ve created but if we’ve created these societies we can create others. These may support other economic models and not free market economics. Free market capitalism would not be viable just as more equal economic models apparently aren’t now. It all depends upon the prism you view it through and the foundations you rely upon. All that is clear though is that the very economic model that usually vilifies handouts requires them when the perfect conditions for it’s existence are not met. Perhaps it’s time to stop relying on something so flimsy for something so important. If a new society needs to be created, well then, a new society it is.

Change

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This time next week I’ll most likely be standing in a polling booth. We have our general election next Thursday and it is not too unacceptable to be liberal with the superlatives when describing how massive it is and how it has the potential to shape the future in so many different ways. It is probably also an opportune moment to mention I’ll be putting my theoretical belief in anarchism aside, theoretical because I don’t do enough in life to allow it to become practical, and participate in what is probably a momentary denial of the pointlessness of this whole charade.

This election is massive because we are are standing at a t-junction. Neo-liberalism has done it’s proponents well these last forty years as big business and the wealthy have cemented their authority and wealth but theres not much left to ring out of everyone else who has been left behind. We are faced with the choice between turning right at the junction and electing the Conservatives who wish remove us from the European Union, an organisation I’m not necessarily fond of as it represents the tyranny of centrism, but moves us closer to being a tax haven bent over a table with an American dick up our arse. Turning left and following Labour as together we take a step back to a time before a neoliberal agenda sold everything but which probably should be left in the annuls of a grey and failing 1970s. It does however represent an inclusive compassionate agenda which does actually seem to give a shit about the people of the country and not just as tools to retain power and maybe I am being unfair with the 1970s comment as I agree with many of the policies but perhaps it’s time to look forward, readdress our relationship to capital and left wing notions of full employment and actually revolutionise how we live our lives and exist of a daily basis. We need something radical now more than ever. Something is very wrong, we can all see and feel it and it’s one of the reasons people are going and doing extremes like voting for populists and Brexit. People are rightly pissed off and it’s just unfortunate they don’t realise all they’re doing is voting for the wolf that has already bitten off their legs while convincing them it must have been that racist anti-racist sheep who couldn’t possibly be trusted with his own wool and refuses to give up the self-determining shears as he eyes up your starved withering free arm. The choice of continuing the nightmare that has happened or the fear of one that may happen.

That is why this is such a massive election. Much can and will change because centrism doesn’t work, it just makes everything pretty and people have had enough. However, is that enough and are people really ready and willing for the change in themselves that will be required for anything worthwhile to genuinely actualise. It is unfortunate that people have seemingly lost their sense of direction at this most crucial of moments. It is also debatable whether they ever had it in the first place.