We are all anarchists now, Siva Vaidhyanathan

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0100

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is offering a nice deal to anti–Republican protesters who pledge not to break things during the Republican National Convention this week. Polite protesters will receive discounts at such Manhattan hotspots as the Pokemon Center and Applebees Restaurants if they display cute buttons declaring them “peaceful political activists”.

Such perks might not be as exclusive as the mayor hopes. During his announcement earlier this month, Bloomberg admitted that “unfortunately, we can’t stop an anarchist from getting a button.”

The mayor seems caught in the same unfortunate binary as many commentators on recent political uprisings. They assume that anarchists are violent by definition. They carry a cartoon image of anarchism, reinforced by more than a century of propaganda and misrepresentation of this complex political philosophy. And they fail to recognise that anarchism is now a part of millions of people’s attitudes and orientations, even if we rarely call it what it is.

Last week the New York Daily News screamed “Anarchists Hot for Mayhem” from its front page. Several stories predicted the violence that anarchist groups seemed destined to unleash on this city. Under the headline “Kelly: Anarchists Must be Axed,” the tabloid explained that the police commissioner, Ray Kelly, had urged mainstream activists to tell “the extremists to stay away.” The Daily News substituted “anarchists” for “extremists” in its headline.

This demonisation of anarchists by stereotype is understandable. The Republican party has pledged to label the thousands of protesters as tools of the Democratics and thus evidence of its disrespect for the White House and all things right and proper. So the Democrats are more than willing to let mainstream critics – Mayor Bloomberg included – blame the anarchists for whatever messiness ensues.

For reports, analysis and argument about the Republican convention in New York and the wider issues of the United States’s momentous election, see openDemocracy’s “Election 2004” debate

Well, it’s time Americans got to know the anarchists in their midst. They might be surprised at their influence and diversity. I’m not an anarchist. I’m just a good mainstream American liberal. But I have been studying anarchism for some time. So please allow me to describe it.

Anarchism is radical democracy. It eschews authority and dominance. It demands a commitment to fight coercion in all its forms. Yet anarchists (with some exceptions) generally oppose violence, vandalism, and political disengagement. Anarchist organisations (not an oxymoron) govern through conversation and consensus.

The American experience with anarchism has been tainted by images of violence and coloured by anti–Semitism and nativism: the 1877 Haymarket Square riots in Chicago; the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley in Buffalo at the hands of a deranged American of Polish descent; and the Red Scare and Palmer Raids that followed the first world war.

The European experience is richer and more nuanced. It involves the failed revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution before the Bolsheviks triumphed, and the influential sindicatos movement in Spain before the rise of fascism. Anarchism, as a result of such failures at the hands of enemies both left and right, has been considered a mere footnote to modern political history.

But anarchism in recent years showed itself as a powerful force in the 1994 Zapatista uprisings in Mexico and the massive protests that shut down the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle. In both cases, it was state officials who overreacted with brutality and violence, yet the anarchists who got blamed. Still, many movements took inspiration from the Zapatistas and let Seattle raise their expectations.

Although it’s been with us in some form since the cynics of Greek antiquity, anarchy matters now more than ever. As anarchism has faded as a well–defined political movement, its tactics have grown in relevance. Anarchism is now practical. It is a bag of tools.

What are the wellsprings of the next politics? Siva Vaidhyanathan’s regular “Remote Control” column on openDemocracy examines how new media and political activism are spotlighting the US election of 2004

As I explain in my new book, The Anarchist in the Library, phenomena as diverse as Falun Gong, anti–corporate protesters, radical ecologists, and free software advocates have adopted anarchistic organisational methods and have governed themselves through communication and consensus.

In fact, we can credit the rise of distributed, unregulated, instant electronic communication (email, text messaging, peer–to–peer file sharing, mobile phones, blogs) with the recent rise of anarchistic practice. The internet shares with anarchism some important traits and values: spontaneity, flexibility, autonomy, and an invitation to hedonism.

Those who immerse themselves in these technologies share what I call the “anarchistic imagination”. They are capable of contemplating new models of human interaction of scales that just yesterday seemed beyond reason. They ask themselves “why can’t we share music with friends in Lagos and Lahore?” or “why can’t we take on a brutal authoritarian government?”

Anarchism as a totalising political vision is no closer to reality (nor any more attractive) than it ever has been. No one is predicting (and few are asking for) states to crumble. But in small ways, every day, people around the world are experiencing radical democracy through powerful connectivity. And they like it.

In Manhattan this week, when the Republican convention is in town, some Black Bloc militants might smash a few windows or provoke a fight with police. And Black Hat hackers have pledged to disrupt Republican websites. But in both cases, these foolish extremists will fail to represent the quieter, more thoughtful anarchists and hackers who value liberty above all else, and decry destruction and coercion in all forms.

The real danger is not to the windows of Manhattan or the fluid execution of the Republican convention. The problem is that ugly displays of passion and anger, even when justified by larger crimes, can only serve to undermine the political message that must get through to mainstream America: the Republicans are unreasonable and dangerous. The Democrats are not. Anarchists, violent and otherwise, are not so interested in stressing this distinction, and that in a way is – and always has been – their failure.

Where do Chinese dissidents, Iranian professors, and Somali journalists write to Americans from similarly diverse walks of life – and receive a public reply? See openDemocracy’s “ Letters to Americans” series, which continues until the election

So anarchists are not as dangerous as the police and newspapers would have you believe. And they are not as effective as they dream they are or hope to be. But they do matter.

Don’t be surprised if a few anarchists actually display that discount button the mayor is offering (as a joke if nothing else). After all, the folks at the next table at Applebees might be anarchists. In little ways, more and more, we are all anarchists now.

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We are all anarchists now, Siva Vaidhyanathan