File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0010, message 265


Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 11:36:36 -0400
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: [i-news] From Seattle to Prague and Beyond!


The following is the lead editorial from the new issue of Anarchy: a
journal of desire armed.

>From Seattle to Prague and Beyond!

    The events of the last year have changed the face of the
contemporary political spectrum. For the first time since early in
the last century anarchists are beginning to be heard and taken
seriously by large numbers of people around the world. Of course,
most mainstream media attention is still devoted to denouncing,
dismissing or belittling anarchist ideas and actions. This is only
to be expected when huge corporations control the vast majority of
communications over entire continents. What is really new is that
anarchist resistance has grown and become so vocal that it can no
longer be ignored as it has been since the '60s. (And even in the
turbulence of the late 1960s, although anarchists got some
attention—especially within the anti-war movement, anarchists were
so few in number and often so inarticulate that they had a minimal
impact on events.)
    With the growth and rising militance of the global anti-
globalization movement in Seattle, Davos, Washington D.C., Melbourne,
and now Prague, it has become clear that there is an increasingly
significant number of anarchists involved in all of the most
crucial areas of this resistance. Libertarian forms of organization
have achieved widespread acceptance within this resistance.
Anarchist goals—the destruction of neoliberal institutions, along
with the destruction of capitalism and the state—are becoming
increasingly visible and gaining adherents. And a clear majority
of the most militant participants around the world appear to be
anarchists.
    Yet it is precisely at this time that many leftists have begun
calling for the abandonment, or at least a significant slowdown,
of the now frequent, international mass-mobilizations confronting
neoliberal institutions around the world. The major arguments for
slowing down or abandoning this, so far, very fruitful strategy
are several. They include criticisms that (1) mobilizing masses of
people so frequently in different locations is elitist, can't be
sustained and will lead to burn-out; that (2) mobilizing for mass
confrontations with neoliberal institutions means neglecting local
and regional organizing at home; that (3) as these confrontations
with global capitalist institutions continue the level of repression
will escalate to the point where the costs of resistance
outweigh the benefits; and that (4) radical goals of abolishing
capitalism and the state outright are being lost amid the many
more limited calls for "fair trade" within capitalism and defenses
of national sovereignty against globalist capitalism.
    As with any statements about huge, complex social movements there
will usually be some grain of truth within any criticisms that
might be made. However, the overriding agenda hidden behind these
current criticisms would appear to quite possibly be an increasing
fear that the traditional ideologies, organizational forms and
leaderships of the left are being left behind. In effect, the
anti-globalization movement is being not so subtly asked to
subordinate itself to those who want to channel the movement in
their own preferred directions. Thus the spontaneity of—and
libertarian organizational forms taken by—anti-globalization
resistance are not just a threat to, but a negation of, the
leadership hierarchies of traditional leftist organizations. The
free-for-all contest of diverse groups working, more or less,
together against globalist neo-liberalism—without the burden of
any hegemonic theoretical or ideological goals—eschews the
heretofore almost inescapable least-common-denominator orientation
of mobilizations of mass resistance (in North America, especially).
While the diverse tactics of confrontation—from nonviolent
resistance to creative symbolic actions to active and
directly physical attacks—resist any easy, premature interpretation
of the resistance, leaving it open to many levels of participation.
    So, it might be true that (1) mobilizing masses of people so
frequently in different locations could be elitist, unsustainable,
and likely to lead to burn-out of activists if the same small
group of people were required to organize and turn out for each
event. However, one of the biggest strengths of anti-globalization
resistance has been the incorporation of ever more new participants
from around the world. The fact that the largest mobilizations
have been organized in different places each time has meant
that local radicals in each region have had the valuable opportunity
to participate intimately in their planning, organizing and
realization, while any radicals unable or uninterested in travel
ling to the primary sites of confrontation have had multiple
opportunities to either participate in or organize a multitude of
satellite protests around the globe.
    It might be true that (2) mobilizing for mass confrontations with
neoliberal institutions could mean neglecting local and regional
organizing at home if the mobilizations were the only activities
in which participants engaged. However, a closer look at the
actual activities of participating radicals would reveal that many
are already heavily involved in local interventions on their home
turf. And many of the rest wouldn't be interested in traditional
leftist organizing even if they didn't participate in anti-
globalization events. The biggest problem for the critics here
seems to be that those radicals who are involved in local
interventions aren't doing the type of traditional leftist organizing
the critics prefer.
    It also might be true that (3) as these confrontations with
global capitalist institutions continue the level of repression
will escalate. This should be expected. Whenever the business-as-
usual of capital and state are genuinely threatened we should
expect attacks on radicals to escalate. However, this is primarily
an argument for constantly inventing new and more creative forms,
methods and means of targeting those we are confronting, not of
abandoning confrontation merely to avoid repression.
    And, finally, it appears patently untrue that (4) radical goals
of abolishing capitalism and the state outright are being lost
amid the more limited calls for "fair trade" within capitalism and
defenses of national sovereignty against globalist capitalism. In
fact, many more people have now actually heard these radical
demands raised, than would have ever noticed them hidden in the
programs and theoretical publications of formal leftist organizations—
whose actual practices have generally been at odds with
these goals anyway.
    A year ago it was Seattle! Yesterday it was Prague! Tomorrow, the
resistance to capital and state is coming to a city near you!
                                                   -Jason McQuinn

   

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