The Metropolitan Police have released an injunction to other police forces in the UK, together with businesses and other organisations, encouraging members of the public to ‚contact your local police force‘ and report on local anarchists. Predictably, anarchists nation-wide are angry at this advice which we believe to be a step towards criminalizing our beliefs.
In a step that is reminiscent of the McCarthy era (which saw the imprisonment and harassment of thousands of American citizens) this is an unsurprising attempt by the State to clamp down on dissent in the nation. In the post second world war era socialism posed a significant threat to Western democracies with huge gains made by the socialist movement both in parliamentary space (such as in Britain under Clement Atlee) and extra-parliamentary space (such as in Cuba under Castro).
[It is worse. Much, much worse than that.]
This set off alarm bells in the halls of governments across the West who used both legal and illegal means to quell the rising of the poor across the world. The United States infamously went to war in Vietnam to stop the legitimate aims of the Vietnamese people whilst the USSR took up arms against the forces of socialism in Czechoslovakia. Socialists across the world were in retreat whereas a hundred years before they felt as though the ’spectre‘ of their ideas was necessarily going to win.
The assault on socialism by the governments of the West was long lasting and relentless. By the 1980s it had resulted in the de-legitimization of socialism across the world. Through the force of violence and of ideas Western governments had changed the political landscape. By the turn of the century no Western government was led by a socialist party or grouping and the ideas of socialism had become a source not of inspiration or hope but of ridicule. Dominant logic had been one of neo-liberalism; of shrinking government for the benefit of the few and not the many. Opposition to such an idea became mainstream political suicide. Political parties, once the vanguard of the working class, rushed to remove commitments to socialism from their respective constitutions whilst all the while trade unions, once the representatives of the working class, fell into line behind these parties.
Many ideas have suffered crushing blows due to the actions of the State. Black nationalism, an attempt to assert control of primarily black land by black people, resulted not in victory but rather in the imprisonment and/ or death of the leaders of this movement. Other movements, such as those calling for emancipation from slavery or male domination, took centuries to defeat the arguments of governments world wide.
All of life is political and the State dominates daily life by its permeation of society. Reducing participants in society to spectators is the State’s greatest strength and this has been displayed well in the assault on ideas. While a British socialist was a participant in daily life in the 1940s they have come nothing more than passive spectators today.
This has silenced many individuals worldwide.
What of the contributions of anarchists to society? Modern ideas of freedom and emancipation stem from the Enlightenment era of which anarchists were active participants in. The ideas of Rousseau and William Godwin are linked through their view of the centrality of freedom. From there the original workers‘ movement began through the work of socialists and anarchists in the International Workingmen’s Association. It is with thanks to the arguments of anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre Proudhon that institutions of the eight-hour day, or the right to take industrial action, are in place. Many anarchists championed the fight against Fascism in the 20th Century and many paid for this with their lives. In Spain, Ericco Malatesta died in order to keep fascism at bay whilst the ideas of Rudolf Rocker and Emma Goldman inspired thousands. The work of these anti-fascists was in homage to anarchists, such as Nestor Makhno, who fought with the USSR to defeat authoritarianism. As the British Empire collapsed Mahatma Ghandi’s pacifism was inspired by the writings of Henry-David Thoreau who was a champion of civil disobedience. Thoreau’s ideas were continued into the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament by a young Alex Comfort who united anarchist and pacifist theory in an unparalleled manner. Great books by Albert Camus and wonderful poems by Allen Ginsburg were sparked by their allegiance to anarchist ideas. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and the explosion of desire were led by anarchists across the Western world; such desires have been embodied by later generations with the creation of punk rock, the institution of squatting and the support of co-operative organisations. Today anarchists have led the assualt against capitalism globalism through the popular protests against the World Bank, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund as well as generating exciting ideas in feminist and ecological theory.
When anarchists have worked alone they have often achieved the goals in whole. The Zapatista movement has created their own free spaces where the dreams of anarchists are lived, and fought for, on a daily basis. When anarchists have worked in co-operation with other groups there has been compromise and measured successes.
The Metropolitan Police are correct. Anarchism is ‚a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.‘ Anarchism has also formed the basis of many great ideas and movements of today. It stands against oppression and authority in all forms; be it against children, women, nature or workers.
For anarchists it is an insult that the State is criminalizing us but it is no surprise. In the past many were angered by the criminalization of ideas and the proponents of these. Many rallied behind freedom fighters such as Sylvia Pankhurst, Huey Newton and Andreas Baader regardless of their own personal convictions.
Believers in the plurality of ideas should stand against the criminalization of any idea.
And for the anarchists? Well, many are probably comforted by the words of executed August Spies:
“the day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!“
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