Man is only truly free among equally free men.
Michael Bakunin
From the way people carry on with their everyday lives you’d think the word isn’t heading towards complete disaster. It’s nearly as if climate change, economic meltdown, environmental catastrophe and all the immense suffering to come is never going to happen. Those thoughts about immanent disaster are kept safely at the back of people’s heads, although sometimes fleeting glimpses of them break out in the form of art. This can be seen in the abundance of films with apocalyptic themes (28 Days Later, Children of Men, Cloverfield, I am legend, etc), which reflect the underlying fears of our times. It’s an entertaining theme with flashy explosions and adrenalin but the fact that such issues aren’t taken seriously is evidence enough of the backwardness of capitalism. Most people recognise the down side of capitalism when it’s pointed out- it’s so obvious that it’s impossible to dispute but with this recognition comes a feeling of helplessness. A recent conversation with my friend MacAodha (to give him his Gaelic name) conveys this typical sentiment. It went something like this:
Me: Fuck capitalism: it needs to be destroyed.
MacAodha: Aye, that’s all fine and dandy Fionn, but what’s the alternative?
Me: Anarchy or Libertarian Socialsim. You know I’m an anarchist don’t you.
MacAodha: Anarchy!?! Ah come on! You have to have some rules otherwise there’s just chaos- you can’t have everyone going about willy nilly.
Me: Anarchy doesn’t mean chaos; it means ’without authority’.
MacAodha: But you need some sort of organisation going on or everything would just fall apart.
Me: You’re right but that doesn’t have to happen in an unfair way through force in the form of government and laws. It’s not beyond the bounds of reality that society could be organised on the basis of voluntary cooperation, compassion and solidarity.
MacAodha: Ah, I don’t know now. That all sounds very pie in the sky to me.
’Pie in the sky’ it may be but if you take into consideration what has been achieved by determined groups of people in the face of adversary over the past couple of centuries, freedom begins to look a lot more possible. I say ’freedom’ because that’s exactly what we haven’t got under our current system- the western world is ironically known as ’the free world’ but we’re a long way from being free. The fact that a ’western world’ separate from the rest of the world even exists is testament to humanity’s lack of freedom. The ’western world’ is just another name for rich countries that have benefited from colonialism, exploitation and slavery at the expense of poor countries. The same principle applies for the separation of people into ’upper’ and ’lower’ classes; the upper class benefits from the exploitation and perceived inferiority of the lower class leaving everyone impoverished. In a free world, the majority of people wouldn’t have a disadvantage when it comes to basic well being.
Throughout history, there have been many movements against such disadvantage but none was more inspirational or achieved as much as the anarchists during the Spanish revolution during the 1930s. They showed that it is possible to have a more equal society where everyone was mobilised to work together for the general good. Factories were taken over by the people and the land was collectivised resulting in more efficient work despite the population of Republican Spain being at war with the fascist forces of Franco. In ’Homage to Catalonia’, George Orwell described Barcelona in 1937 as being the only place he had been where, "the working class were in the saddle". In that book he gives a first hand account of the sabotage of the revolution by the communists which were backed by Stalin who cared more about destroying the hard won achievements of the people than he did about fighting Hitler’s ally in Spain. The same goes for the ’leaders of the western world’ at the time who would rather stay neutral than support the side fighting fascism. In the end, the communist attack on the anarchists resulted in a break of solidarity and defeat at the hands of Franco who remained dictator of Spain until 1973. The moral of the story: freedom is possible but those who advocate it will be attacked on many fronts. If Stalin hadn’t stuck his dirty, big authoritarian tentacle into Spain and Hitler hadn’t supported Franco, the revolution would have continued to progress. But that’s history.
I’m not saying that the anarchism in Spain at that time was perfect or getting to that stage now would be easy but it might be worth elevating our aspirations so that we’re at least on the same track as those who had the nerve to believe in something decent. Deep down, everyone holds these ’radical’ aspirations but when it comes to acting on them, understandably people prefer to turn away from the harsh truth- its easier to just accept the way things are as long as it’s not too unbearable. That’s why anarchy hardly ever gets a shout in. The conventional view of anarchy can only be broken through education and awakening.
When I think of how I used to view anarchism, it’s not so different to how I used to view sex. When I was young and first started hearing about how babies come about, I was disgusted at what a couple had to go through to procreate. For years before puberty, when I obtained an erection, apart from not knowing why it happened, it was nothing more than an uncomfortable inconvenience and the thought of having to squeeze it into a tight space filled me with horror. "I’m not looking forward to having to go through that", I would say to my friend as he explained the process of intercourse and we’d swiftly move onto less shocking topics of conversation. But over time, sexual indifference gave way to curiosity and curiosity soon gave way to desire. It wasn’t long before girls became an obsession and the idea of sex, which had once made me squirm, became pure bliss. Now, like most men, I can hardly go three seconds without thinking about it. Obviously this is a normal transition from childhood to adulthood but a similar transition took place with my ideas of anarchy. A revolution can only come through the development of knowledge and attitudes towards the world. That way, people would learn to demand the impossible.
Until we face the fact that government doesn’t work and start to think about the alternative world we want to live in and the way it should be organised, the future will continue to look very scary indeed. On those terms, such talk begins to seem a lot less idealistic and becomes more realistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment