From: "Hasan Lascelle" <hasan-l-AT-re-creation.ndirect.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Anarchy Magazine and Violence
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 00:36:45 +0100



-----Original Message-----
From: Jamal Hannah x342446 <jah-AT-parsons.iww.org>
To: anarchy-list-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<anarchy-list-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: 24 April 1999 23:24
Subject: Anarchy Magazine and Violence


>I just saw the new issue of Anarchy magazine.  I am very concerned
that
>the magazine takes a pro-violence stance... or at least, the stance
that
>violence of no tactical significance.. even violence that would have
>harmful consequences for the anarchist movement, has some value or
virtue.
>
>There was an interview with a guy from "Green Anarchist" in the UK
who
>said that the anarchists who didnt support the Unabomber were
"Scum"...

This isn't the first time that "Green Anarchist" has taken a curious
line. I seem to recall that one or two of its founders eventually
split off and joined some neo-nazi group that spouted a heap of
garbage about the relationship between race and land. I haven't read
the magazine recently. I stopped when I realised that they were
essentially pushing the vision of a mythical  pre-industrial rural
idyll, that by my calculations would require that 2/3 of the worlds
population conveniently disappear (into gas chambers perhaps?).

>[snip]
>It also amazes me how people from anarchy magazine who defend the
violence
>of the Unabomber seem to expect someone else to commit violent acts,
but
>they do not seem to want to take responsibility for them themselves

Sounds like the traditional role of the agent provocateur. It suits
capital to encourage the romanticising of violence in the name of
anarchy. Unfortunately there are always a few immature dick-heads who
fall for it hook, line, and sinker

>[snip]
>If innocent anarchists start getting locked up or assasinated, I can
see
>where some kind of violent actions might be justified.. that is, if
the
>very fundimental freedoms and rights of people were being violeated,
then
>the state would be seen as less legitimate in the eyes of the
public.. but
>this is not the case right now, and I think violence would be a grave
>mistake for anarchists to support.
>
> - Jamal

It really isn't a question of whether anarchists "support violence",
but under what circumstances and to what ends they might be inclined
to use force. For anarchists the ends do not justify the means.
Instead the means inform and condition the nature of the ends. The
unabomber is no more an anarchist than those little nazi shits who
shot all those schoolkids. There is nothing anarchist about random
violence. We don't liberate people by terrorising them. That is what
governments or would-be governments do. However, there are certainly
circumstances under which I would endorse the use of force. Capitalism
is not going to give up all its looted goodies without a fight.

Personally I find violence diststeful (which may be just a fancy way
of saying I want to live a long time), and I hope when the time comes
that there is as little of it as possible; but I am still more than
prepared to employ force to defend myself and my comrades, or to
achieve some specific revolutionary end, that cannot be achieved in
any other way.


In Solidarity

Hasan