Anarchism in Universities

At its most self-indulgent, academia views itself as the pursuit of knowledge. In practice, such pursuit is hedged in by official bureaucracies, networks of influence and patronage, neoliberal funding pressures, and the burdens of workload and performance pressure. But even knowledge has two sides. It can mean the extension of maps and grids which contain and control a space, the reinscription of the unknown into the field of the known. It can also mean a relationship with exteriority, a voyage into the unknown, the construction of new languages and ways of thinking. Deleuze and Guattari have christened the former as royal and the latter nomad thought, and trace their impacts in different contexts. Both exist within academia, but royal thought predominates. Activist thought is necessarily nomadic, expressing the exterior which royal thought subsumes or denies. Activist knowledge is constructed, by and large, outside universities, in the everyday life of activist movements and by activists who write down their thoughts and become the “theorists” of the movement (people like Starhawk, Alfredo Bonanno, Hakim Bey). But there is also nomadic thought within universities, and a surprising number of anarchist theorists – such as John Zerzan, John Moore, Colin Ward and Murray Bookchin – have emerged from the university system without losing their (perceived) relevance for (some) activists.

It is the relationship between interiority and exteriority which defines “anarchic” trends in academia. Whereas royal, “mainstream”, or “problem-solving” approaches seek to paper over the cracks of the system and solve its problems by putting difference and problems under the microscope, nomad, “critical” or “radical” theory reaches out into exteriority, becoming something which escapes, to a degree at least, the grasp of the imperative to encode on behalf of the system. Royal science reinteriorises the outside; academics continually speak only to themselves, and speak of an outside – their own and the state’s – in order to master it (witness the parochially academic attempts to reinterpret anti-capitalism as a liberal demand-politics, a new populism, a proto-Marxist movement). The royal academic seeks to contribute to the system’s policies and responses, to make it work better, or to contribute to an abstract Truth which is a name of the state. But the nomad knowledges constructed on the critical wing of academia can sometimes be appropriated to sustain or expand movements of resistance.

The paradox of academia is that while there are many nomad thoughts, many critical tendencies fleeing to various degrees the grip of systematised knowledge, there are precious few anarchists. Critical academic work has an extensive spread. Some of the tighter-organised disciplines (psychology and economics for instance) have pushed critical perspectives out almost entirely. (Critical economists and psychologists, usually identified with IPE and psychoanalysis respectively, can be found scattered through departments of politics, cultural studies, sociology and so on). More often, such perspectives are tolerated as alternatives, as a necessary part of a healthy intellectual exchange – and often as the disavowed lifeblood which secretly drives innovation in the entire discipline. So one has critical social policy studies, critical or human security, peace (as opposed to war) studies, critical geography, critical international relations and so on. Within each subject or “discipline”, it is usually easy for an anarchist to pick out the interesting approaches from the defence-mechanisms of the system, nearly always leading into the marginal and peripheral theories beyond the mainstream.

But even on the periphery there are problems. Isolation, and functional similarity, should cause critical academics to band together. But academia is also a half-feudal, half-bureaucratic craft-economy in which competition for similar posts pits dog against dog. School formation thus flourishes, in which the closest allies band together against their nearest rivals differentiated from them in a “narcissism of minor differences”, often constructed as patronage-networks of scholars whose reputation is built on their mutual citations. At worst, the result is akin to Trotskyite sectoids – each school defends its orthodoxy, and uses whatever influence it has (in article refereeing, appointments, distribution of references and badges of prestige) to exclude or marginalise dissent.

Though varying between disciplines, dominant trends in critical academia are people importing French theory (usually rather badly), often attached to a cult of democracy, and hence reformist; people on the left wing of mainstream approaches such as analytical philosophy; Marxists (and ex-Marxists) of various kinds; and empirical scholars using ethnography, action research and suchlike. Some critical academics are also involved in solidarity activism in their particular area, in trade-union work, or in mobilising activist academics, but a surprising number seem to be critical on paper only, and otherwise don’t lift a finger against the system, and many more are politically moderate, drawing from their theory a quasi-liberal outlook. Anarchists and quasi-anarchists tend to operate in one or another of these currents – hence there’s anarchistic quasi-Marxists using varieties of autonomism, there’s “philosophical anarchists” on the fringes of analytical theory, there’s Foucauldian, Lacanian and Deleuzian quasi-anarchists in poststructuralism (some of these terming themselves “postanarchists”).

Do academics bother to write about anarchism? A search of Zetoc, the academic search engine which archives journal articles from the 1990s and often earlier, reveals only eight articles on Max Stirner, seventeen on Situationism and 44 on Situationist (perhaps a dozen of which are about the SI as opposed to a separate trend in philosophy), and only one article on Hakim Bey. There are 144 hits for anarchism and 112 for anarchist, mostly on historical topics; “Luis Napoleon Morones and the Mexican Anarchist Movement, 1913-1920”, “Esperanto and Chinese anarchism in the 1920s and 1930s” and “An Overview of Individualist Anarchism, 1881-1908” being typical examples. There’s also a “Journal of Anarchist Studies” and an “Anarchist Studies Network”, both kept alive by a small number of anarchist scholars. History (whether social, political or “of ideas”) has always been especially receptive to the study of anarchism (with authors such as George Woodcock and Benedict Anderson keeping alive interest in historical anarchist movements), though this often leaves the misleading impression that anarchism died with Bakunin and is no longer relevant. Historian of ideas David Morland established the academic orthodoxy with his claim that anarchism relies on an essentialist, positive concept of human nature which allows it to deny the “need” for repressive control – a convenient repetition of the Hobbesian line and a misreading of the scholars Morland actually studied, let alone the broader field of anarchist theory. Two of the best-known recent works on “postanarchism” – Nicholas Thoburn’s “Deleuze, Marx and Politics” and Saul Newman’s “From Bakunin to Lacan” – both reinforce this view, and treat anarchism as both ending with Kropotkin and outmoded today.

This trend has been partly offset by the impact of the anti-capitalist movement. Even as a royal science, academia is enlivened and given energy by its “outside”; the anomaly, the emergence of unexpected or inexplicable events, is what provides the drive for change, the dynamic of “originality” and “novelty” which acts like a magnet on academics seeking publications, following fashions or hunting evidence for “schools” debates. In the streets, anti-capitalist activists created such a rupture, and the academic shockwaves reverberated through academia, creating a tide of new publications on global resistance, modules and even courses on activism, and an opening for radical academics to put forward alternative agendas. Much of this new work is recuperative, or else fails even at the most basic level to listen to what activists have to say. But new wave of anarchist-inclined theorists, such as Richard Day, Lewis Call, Simon Tormey, and Graeme Chesters, have come to prominence during this period, and “horizontal”, “chaotic”, or “post-representational” politics – the academic names for the approach taken by activists interested in affinity, direct action and opposition to hierarchy – has belatedly entered academic discourse (about thirty years after it first appeared among activists, but better late than never!)

So what is it like being an anarchist academic? Academia is one of the few places where a self-proclaimed anarchist is still just about employable. It still has some of the inner structure of a craft guild, and the energies of someone committed to social change can be “productive” of an output and originality which helps attain recognition for the quality and quantity of research. On the other hand, neoliberal pressures are increasing. It is difficult to avoid being turned into a mini-bureaucrat, or drawn into the construction and enforcement of technocracy. An academic who treats students as human beings instead of statistics or pests is sadly a rare thing. One needs confidence to develop and deploy alternative, student-centred teaching methods; it is easy to slip into the mode of authority-figure through the trap of “playing a role”. Self-defined activist research agendas lead to research which, while original, is sometimes not recognised by the mainstream. People often respond by chasing those fashions and funding opportunities which open a space for “misreading”, for creatively reinterpreting a dominant discourse to alternative ends (which is how we are left with such conceptual monstrosities as “non-majoritarian democracy” and “post-state citizenship”). There are pressures to compromise and conform to seem more acceptable to one’s “peers” (hence securing publications, jobs and funding). Dilemmas of how far to push things, pressures to fall into a camp or “school” for mutual protection (possibly diluting one’s politics as a result), pressures to prioritise the pressure of interiority, the constant exchanges between academics, over the force of exteriority which drives transformative engagement.

On top of all this, academic environments are becoming dangerously over-regulated. RFID-equipped student cards, card-access buildings and facilities, “gated” areas and buildings, CCTV cameras in “vulnerable” areas (even a few lecture halls), and the low-intensity goonery of a certain proportion of security staff are constant problems or threats. Tolerance is not what it once was; new “anti-terror” measures raise the spectre for each of us of being this generation’s Antonio Negri or anarchism’s Sami al-Arian. There have been witch-hunts in America lately against anarchist academics such as David Graeber and Ward Churchill; Italy still periodically locks up theorists; Germany bans “opponents of the constitution” from holding university posts. Being above-ground, with writings under one’s name in publications anyone with a library card can see, creates a degree of vulnerability about writing really radical things – perhaps one reason for the political moderation of most critical academics. In this regard, an openly anarchist academic is vulnerable in ways that someone immersed in the counterculture is not.

But with this come privileges – an income in excess over most activists, and indeed workers; the ability to attend events like the WSF, on university money, with time off work; to get paid for hanging round interesting mobilisations under the pretext of research; public credibility which can be used to attract media interest or present an alternative viewpoint; resources such as printing, photocopying and library access which can be appropriated for activist ends; the opportunity to influence the (mostly) young people coming through the education system; time and money to pursue reading and writing to a breadth and depth which would be hard to combine with an ordinary job or with life off the grid.

There are ways to make the most of being an anarchist academic, without being recuperated. A few of us manage to remain active, while also keeping up writing, teaching and publishing. But the pressures to conform are strong, and the need to “play the game” to remain tolerated creates constant strategic dilemmas. Universities are not really anarchist-friendly environments. But in a hostile world, they are among the few niches available, where some anarchists can find a not-very-comfortable home.

Anarchism and Eco Action

An Animal Rights Perspective

Matt Clowes (www.earthfirstmanifest.org)

The idea of living “an archos” or without rulers, goes back to pre- christian Greece, and remains an unrealised ideal for many who know that they do not require rulers in order to live in an ethical manner. What we now also know is that to be ethical is to be sustainable, and it was good to see that all food at the Climate Camp was Vegan. For it now appears that the policies of those rulers we wish to be without have taken us to the brink of destruction. That is why many who regard themselves as Anarchists are making common cause with others, who consider themselves Eco Activists, to implement Direct Actions designed to stop this headlong rush to disaster. It is my view that those involved in Animal Rights must also join this concerted effort to bring about change to ways of living that are both ethical and sustainable. That was the purpose of this article as originally written for the Animal Rights community. Some slight changes have been made to the article as it appears here in order to reflect my view that the true Anarchist chooses to free all Lives on this planet, both Human and non Human from the tyranny of our oppression.

There is an expression, though not one an Animal Rights activist would tend to use, that describes something so large as to evade notice as the “Elephant in the room.” However, we now know that there is an issue so large, so vital, that it might be better described as the very room itself. That issue is of course Climate Change. What started as the relatively innocuous sounding Global Warming, is well on the way to acquiring its more rightful status as likely Climate Catastrophe. Over the last few years this issue has gone from being the preserve of a few scientists and commentators, largely dismissed as cranks, to the front page of every newspaper and the top of most political agendas.

More importantly, this realisation has led to the flowering of a new Eco Action movement, committed to Direct Action in defence of the Earth, and against all those who put greed and material self gratification before the common interest and a sustainable future for all. This Summer (what there was of it!) saw the second annual Climate Camp take place at Heathrow airport, to protest at the exponential increase in aviation, one of the fastest growing causes of human induced Climate Change. It is absolutely vital that this non-hierarchical grassroots movement continues to grow and to succeed. For whilst they might pay lip service to the idea of change, the only real interest of politicians, and their masters in the network of international corporations that make up the global greed machine, is in continuing to grind the Earth into money for their personal benefit.

Over the last year I have made a point of becoming more involved in this movement. For we know that even if we in Animal Rights achieve our goal of eliminating the abuse and exploitation of all Animal Lives, the onset of Climate Catastrophe will render this utterly pointless. The potential consequences of such dramatic change to the weather systems of the Earth, beggar belief. Destruction and death on a quite unimaginable scale, up to and possibly including rendering the Planet incapable of sustaining life. In the face of this possibility it is incumbent on those of us in the Animal Rights movement to take this on board and adapt our strategies accordingly.

It is my belief that it is not possible to separate that which is truly sustainable from that which is properly ethical. As I like to put it, there can be no Life Rights without Earth Awareness. It is possible to argue, and most politicians would, that Climate Change can be tackled without recourse to fundamental change, both in the way in which we view ourselves, and our relationship to the Earth that is home to us all. However, it is the Earth which is the only properly holistic context in which we can come to informed decisions about the way in which we should live. Politicians would argue that we can continue to found ourselves, and our aspirations, on the politics of permanent economic growth. The lie must be put to the madness of this conceit. Money has never made good motivation, and the evidence of this is now made stark for all to see. We need a new ethic on which to base our idea of what it is we are, and we in the Animal Rights movement understand that ethic.

Throughout the Summer months, and to a lesser extent the rest of the year, there are an ever increasing number of green gatherings and festivals where people from all backgrounds come together to celebrate and discuss our relationship with the Earth. Some are more overtly political than others, and as Climate Change comes to dominate our thoughts, political activism is bound to seem more relevant than celebration. So what is it that links celebration with political activism, be it Eco Action or Animal Rights? What is it also that is the single most important change an individual can make to their lives in order to reduce their carbon footprint? It is to be Vegan, and it is this which is the indissoluble link between Animal Rights and Eco Action.

For those in the Animal Rights movement it is pretty much unthinkable to be deeply concerned with the equality of all Lives, and yet to kill and eat other animals. Granted, vegetarianism is often a stepping stone on the way to being Vegan, but Vegan is where most people end up as the only rational, reasonable and responsible choice. It is the only ethical way. For those in the Eco Action movement, to be Vegan is coming to be seen as the only sustainable way, given the effect it has on one’s carbon footprint. All food at this year’s Climate Camp was Vegan, as it is at most green or Eco gatherings. So it is that to be ethical is to be sustainable, and to be sustainable is to be ethical. As I presume that all of us who wish to see an ethical and sustainable future believe that it is better to be kind than to be cruel, we are, from our differing starting points, coming to the same conclusions and heading toward the same position. That position must be that it is wrong to exploit or abuse, seek to dominate or control, any Life, human or otherwise.

Although it would now seem that the many and disparate groups and individuals involved in Eco Action, Animal Rights or Anarchism are, in effect, fighting the same fight, that is not yet the way it appears to those we oppose. To them we either seem, or can be portrayed as, a collection of minor, single issue groups, easily dismissed as anything from cranks to crazed extremists. I know this to be a matter of much frustration and annoyance to the many good and decent people acting in defence of the Earth and all life. I would like to suggest that there is something that we can do about this, which will immeasurably increase our influence, without losing the intensity that a small but committed group can bring to a particular issue.

Why is it that the state so dislikes those groups and individuals who make up the Animal Rights movement, and is now showing the same reaction toward Climate Change campaigners? Why is it that the state brings so many resources to bear against us, and is even prepared to compromise its stated, if not realised, democratic ideals, in order to silence us? Could it just be that in their quieter moments, or at least somewhere in their being, that they fear us? Not because we pose a physical threat to them, (after all it is they who are the people of violence, not us, it is they who have the guns and the bombs, and who do not shirk from using them), but because they know that we are right! And in being right we threaten not just their power and wealth, but their very idea of who they are.

Without compromising the integrity of these groups, or of those who prefer to work as individuals, I do feel that we need to operate under a collective, recognisable banner. I say this whilst realising that it is already happening in all except name, and has been for some time. For instance, as someone who has centred themselves in the Animal Rights movement, I chose to work under the banner of Earth First!, a name more associated with Eco Action. Earth First! is an idea not an organisation. As such it is available to all of us working toward ethical and sustainable living in whatever field. Evidence of how the movement is operating under this banner can be seen from the self posting website Earth First! Action Reports. This website is ever more widely used by both Eco Action and Animal Rights groups to post details of Actions or for information purposes. I feel it would help to raise the profile and effectiveness of all that we do, to use the Earth First! name in conjunction with whatever other names we are already using. After all, what better expresses our ethos than to state that what we do, is not done for ourselves, but for the Earth and all Lives. However we choose to operate, as individuals we are all Earth Firsters!

As a visible and tangible demonstration of how Eco Action and Animal Rights are coming together as an Earth First! Movement, the following suggestion has been made. For organisational purposes, the Climate Camp, both in its planning and for the actual event, is made up of a number of neighbourhoods representing different regions. Animal Rights, however, in its various groups and individuals, is a nationwide movement. We feel, therefore that it would show our understanding of the vital importance of Eco Action, and our solidarity with those already involved, to have an Animal Rights neighbourhood at next year’s Climate Camp. Having met a number of people involved in the planning and implementation of this year’s Camp, I am hoping to put forward this suggestion as soon as appropriate, and to help with the necessary planning. In this way, it will become increasingly obvious to those in power who seek only to protect vested financial interest, no matter what the real cost, that they are facing serious opposition. Cogent, coherent and organised opposition working, by way of consensus based non hierarchical systems, toward properly ethical and truly sustainable solutions to the problems we face. We who have decided to care, who have chosen to change, will not sit idly back and watch the Earth and all life being ground into money. As a movement our numbers will grow, and so must the Actions that we take. The future depends on it.

Against state control

Reflections on anarchist involvement in the movement against ID

At the time I'm writing this, the corporate media is in full throttle with attempts to idolise the exiting Tony Blair. According to a piece propagandistically entitled ‘Poll shows he will leave with voters’ respect’: “Mr Blair will be remembered as a force for change in Britain… by 60% of all voters”(1). Those who have been fighting against the current government’s massive campaign to centralise power and bring down repression on those who challenge it would certainly agree that Blair’s government was a force for change. Whilst anarchists recognise that this is a project of the state, not linked to any particular politician or party, it should be recognised that the current Labour government under Blair has been particularly successful in overturning all kinds of relative freedoms. Because Blair is particularly skilled at statecraft he has been able to present the state’s agenda in a way that cashes in on prejudices and ignorance already present. The current government has capitalised on terrorist attacks, socially-excluded youth, and even identity theft to create a climate of fear, in which the government may do as it wishes with the excuse that it is ‘protecting’ the terrified masses. As anarchists have argued, the governments only vary in how successful they are in grabbing more power for themselves, and as long as there is a state we will have to defend our efforts towards a free society against it.

The inevitable result of many of the new government measures is an increase of state power in everyone’s day-to-day lives (see Box 1). This occurs through surveillance of our personal habits, from which websites you access to how much rubbish is put in your recently RFID-chipped bin. It means more effective repression of the socially-excluded, through monitoring with CCTV and electronic tagging, to the imposition of control orders (home detention without trial or need for evidence) on terrorist ‘suspects’. In collaboration with the media, the state paints a picture of a nation under siege from religious fanatics and anti-social youths, and presents the only solution as more crackdowns and state power. This is a very difficult situation to work in for those who want to build autonomous communities and wish to fight state power. In spite of these difficulties, there are many who continue to take action against state control (see Box 2).

Box 1: So what's new in the state’s arsenal?
To mention just some important measures(2):-

• The Identity Cards Act (2006) has become law
• Britain is the CCTV capital of the world with 4.2m cameras
• Anti-Social Behaviour Orders can be used to effectively criminalise any act deemed ‘anti-social’ on the basis of hearsay evidence
• The National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), a political police unit, has the mandate to deal with “any criminal or recognisably anti-social act…that has the purpose of disrupting lawful business or intimidation in order to achieve protest or campaign objectives”(3)
• The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA, 2005) makes unauthorised protest in central London illegal
• The NHS spine is set to become a central database of all patients’ medical records

Box 2: Anarchists against state control
Anarchists, unsurprisingly, have been at the forefront of many of the campaigns that have arisen to combat the ever more invasive powers of the state. This involvement has varied from the participation of anarchist individuals in broad-based civil liberties campaigns, the setting up of specifically anarchist organisations and networks, and exposure and analysis of the situation. Here are just a few significant examples of late:
The Defy-ID network was set up as an anarchist network to oppose ID cards
The involvement of anarchists in NETCU Watch, the website opposing the activities of NETCU, and in the ongoing Parliament Square protests that are aimed at defying SOCPA
The Freedom to Protest conference and mailing list were largely the brainchild of London anarchists
Analysis of the menace of CCTV in a recent Class War publication(4); analysis of RFID, fingerprinting and ID cards in Anarchist Federation publications(5)


Defy-ID

Anarchists were pretty quick off the mark in opposing the governments ID scheme. Soon after the government started talking about an 'entitlement' card, back in 2002, the Defy-ID network of groups opposing the scheme through direct action was formed(6). The reasons were obvious: what was being proposed was that the government be enabled to collect all sorts of personal data, including biometric information, on a central database, which would then be linked to a card that people would have to produce in order to gain access to any public service, e.g. health, benefits and legal employment. This would mean a massive acceleration of the state's invasion into everyday life. The network got together for it's first gathering in 2004, and many ideas for action against the scheme were formulated(7). However, the government had clearly learnt from the lesson of the poll tax not to bring in such unpopular measures in one fell swoop, and have been gradually but determinedly moving towards ID cards ever since their first announcements. As such, many groups in the Defy-ID network peaked too soon, and seem to have disappeared back into the woodwork. However, newer groups still have the energy for action and are keeping the network going. It is this current makeup of the network that I'll discuss in more detail.

What was clear at the recent (2006) gathering of the Defy-ID network was the lack of consensus on what the role of the network within the broader movement against ID cards should be. It was clear that although the majority of active groups seemed to be anarchist in their politics and organisation, there were those who were more closely aligned to the authoritarian left and right libertarian politics. This reopened several of the ongoing debates within the movement over how best to approach defeating ID cards and the NIR. Anarchists opposing ID cards will inevitably make very different arguments and take different forms of action to those with no critique of the state or capital. As such, we are bound to come into conflict with groups like Liberty and No2ID, who oppose the current ID scheme, but not the political system that has produced it. The strongest rejections of arguments such as “ID cards won't stop illegal immigration/benefit fraud/terrorism” have come from the Nottingham group, who produced a leaflet entitled 'Stop Using Their Logic!', urging campaigners not to “seek to refute the official claims without questioning the terms of the debate.”(8) The reasons that anarchists should show solidarity with immigrants and those scraping a living from benefits, and should oppose state fear-mongering about terrorism should be obvious. However, these reasons are often put to one side in single-issue campaigns such as No2ID in order to be “pragmatic” by appealing to a mythical “mainstream”(9). The position taken in 'Stop Using Their Logic!' has often been misinterpreted by other anti-ID cards campaigners as sectarianism (i.e. anti-No2ID), but really the leaflet was an attempt to critically appraise the direction of the anti-ID cards debate, which sometimes drifts dangerously close to statism. The division between those in favour of the arguments raised and those claiming they were sectarian was quite apparent at the gathering, although the majority seemed in favour of the approach championed by Nottingham.

A related issue is the scope of the network. Defy-ID sounds like a single-issue campaign, but it has often made sense to those working within the network to oppose other forms of social control from the same political standpoint. As such, the group in Nottingham have been engaged in campaigns against the encroachment of CCTV(10), police harassment(11) , workplace surveillance and fingerprinting in schools(12), as well as making sure the links between the surveillance of asylum seekers and that of the general public are made(13). This latter link has led to the formation of a No Borders group in the area, with very close links to Defy-ID. At the most recent gathering a really wide range of different areas of surveillance and control were discussed along with the ID scheme, so it is fair to say that the campaign is a broad one, stemming from an anti-authoritarian politics that rejects all social control. This is certainly one of the strengths of the network – a total and uncompromising rejection of the varied attempts at social control that the state attempts to foist on us.

In taking this line, the Nottingham group have frequently found ourselves coming into conflict with the local authorities. Because it is local authorities that will be ultimately responsible for implementing most of the repressive measures like installation of CCTV cameras and ensuring that service providers only allow those 'entitled' by their ID cards to access services, many anti-ID campaigners have suggested that they are a better target than the national government which seems intent on a programme of social control. There have certainly been some successful campaigns leading certain local councils to make strong statements of non-cooperation with the ID scheme(14). However, these strong statements may be useful in getting a few more votes for a particular political party or councillor, but may not translate into action when it comes to the crunch. Whilst the local council seem like an easier target than the national government anti-ID campaigners will have to hold them to their promises, and should decentralise their pressure even further, to service providers such as individual clinics and doctors.

There are some serious challenges ahead for Defy-ID. The war against social control seems to be an unwinnable one. The state and big business will never give up their attempts to increase the level of surveillance of citizens, consumers and workers. Even if we manage to win some major battles, such as stopping the current ID scheme in its tracks, there will always be future situations where attempts will be made to have another go at bringing it in. We are in for the long haul. There is also the serious problem of getting sufficient people to actively resist the introduction of new technologies of control. Anarchists have so far been unable to convince enough people to go beyond vocal protests against ID cards into actually taking action. Indeed, there has been a conspicuous absence of direct action against the about-to-be-opened interrogation centres for new passport applicants, or the companies hoping to make massive profits from the scheme, in spite of a very helpful search tool to find them(15). The government has been very sly in its introduction of the scheme, bringing it in incrementally rather than allowing the possibility of a mass protest on one day. This has led to an atmosphere of both complacency (it never seems to really be happening) and powerlessness (it seems inevitable) amongst the general public that has to be turned around by the example of an effective resistance.

These attitudes aren't just found amongst the general public. With the notable exception of those like the Anarchist Federation who have championed Defy-ID in recent years, the movement seems fairly non-committal in its approach to ID. Unless it's taking measures to protect themselves and their actions from state detection, most anarchists don't seem to be doing much about the creeping surveillance society. Those within Defy-ID groups need to make the case that resisting these developments is essential to ensuring that we can continue struggling against all of the other injustices that we care about.

There is much to be done. The pervasive culture of complacency over giving away personal details to powerful strangers in the corporate and state spheres must be overturned, and replaced with a culture that defends anonymity. We need to make people aware about the uses which the powerful have for knowledge about their identities and offer practical methods of defending those details. This doesn't mean instilling fear and paranoia – just a healthy distrust of those who claim to protect us. We need to learn from societies where stronger community and horizontal social relations have provided resistance against state intrusion. We recognise that genuine security comes from our interrelations with people who don't seek to dominate us, not agencies and organisations that do. As a network, Defy-ID needs to make links with those most under threat from increased information gathering: ethnic minorities, excluded youths, schoolchildren and parents, those on benefits, etc. Practical solidarity with these groups will be necessary in building a broad-based movement that can mount an effective challenge to social control. There are plenty of ideas for action within the network, and there have been since the beginning(16). All we need now is the ingenuity and the strength to carry them out.



1)Julian Glover, “Poll shows he will leave with voters' respect”, The Guardian, 10th May 2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2076201,00.html

2)More such measures are listed in Nottingham Defy-ID's Bulletin 4, Oct 2006, http://www.nottingham-defy-id.org.uk/download_files/notts_defy-id_bulletin4_oct06.pdf

3)NETCU, “What is 'domestic extremism'?”, About NETCU, http://www.netcu.org.uk/about/faqs.jsp#what%20is%20DE

4)Tommy Corrigan, “Surveillance in the city”, A Touch of Class, Sep 2006, http://www.londonclasswar.org/A_Touch_of_Class.pdf

5)Anarchist Federation, “National ID on the cards + spychips”, Organise, 64, Summer 2005, http://flag.blackened.net/af/org/issue64/idcards.html; “Police fingerprinting goes mobile”, Resistance, 90, Dec 2006/Jan 2007, http://flag.blackened.net/af/res/resist90.html; “Get 'em while they're young”, Resistance, 87, Sep 2006, http://flag.blackened.net/af/res/resist87.html

6)Anonymous, “Defy-ID”, Loombreaker, 33, Dec 2002, http://www.ainfos.ca/02/dec/ainfos00255.html

7)Defy-ID, Ideas for Action, 2004, http://www.defy-id.org.uk/ideas_for_action.htm

8)Nottingham Defy-ID, Stop using their logic!, 2006

9)No2ID organiser, personal communication

10)Nottingham Defy-ID, “Asbo TV”, Bulletin 5, Mar 2007; Sock Puppet, “Reclaim slab square”, 25th Mar 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/03/366081.html

11)Gulliver, “A true story of everyday life for Nottingham town folk”, 11th Mar 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/03/364864.html

12)Roger Geowell, “School biometrics in the city and Notts”, 21st Apr 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/05/371212.html

13)Nottingham Defy-ID, “Defy-ID and No Borders: Better together”, Feb 2006, http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com/2007/02/defy-id.html

14)Mid Befordshire Liberal Democrats, County Lib Dems win ID card vote, 11th May 2006, http://midbedslibdems.org.uk/news/000116.html; Cambridge Liberal Democrats, City Council says no to ID cards, 25th Feb 2005, http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/news/000063.html

15)A postcode searchable database of companies can be found at http://www.nottingham-defy-id.org.uk/company_search

16)Defy-ID, Ideas for Action, 2004, http://www.defy-id.org.uk/ideas_for_action.htm

Anarchafeminisms are everywhere

By Annarchist

Over the last ten years a dynamic range of thought, action, work and play has gone on combining anarchist and feminist practices in imaginative and inspirational ways. In addition, feminist and anarchist practices have merged with a range of other issues and movements, directly shaping radical politics.

The WTO, FTAA and G8 summit protests were all home to anarchafeminist contingents. Childcare crèches, communal cooking, consensus decision-making and well-being spaces are now commonplace at meetings, actions and events. Feminist politics are present in queer anarchist spaces, from workshops at annual Queeruptions to Queers Against Borders to weekly gigs and events. At the same time, issues of sexism, sexual violence and aggression have been confronted by many men within anarchist spaces and movements. Queer People of Colour and Women of Colour collectives continue to create autonomous projects, while generating analyses and actions that influence and shape meetings and movements. Feminist and anarchist dis/ability activists challenge dominant ways of thinking about ‘ability’ in their fight for accessible spaces both within radical political communities and against the State. Mental health, alternative medicine, herbal gynecology and menstrual politics form an integral part of movement communities, as skill-shares and support networks grow. While anarchist ecology movements engage alternative technological practices, from building wind turbines to guerrilla gardening, that incorporate ecofeminist thought.

Yet, while anarchafeminsms ‘may be everywhere,’ they are not usually talked about directly, or as a distinct politics. While some people reject political labels all together, it is far more common to hear someone call themselves an ‘anarchist’ or a ‘feminist’ than for someone to say they’re an ‘anarchafeminst’. This is often even the case for people who are committed to both anarchism and feminism. For various reasons, links between these two politics often remain what the Dark Star collective called “Quiet Rumours.”

There are a few groups around the UK that outrightly position themselves as anarchafeminist, such as Dublin-based the RAG (Revolutionary Anarchafeminist Group), the Brighton Women’s Health Collective (whose email list and website are still called anarchofeminist health) and WANC (Women’s Anarchist Nuisance Café) in London. Recent anarchafeminist perspectives can also be found in zines, journals and websites including Do or Die!, Green Anarchy, the F-word and Indymedia. However, as these groups and this writing—often by its nature--is ephemeral, localized and scattered around, it isn’t always easy to find.

A few years ago, Quite Rumours (AK Press 2002) re-released an excellent collection of early and second-wave anarchafeminist writing from Emma Goldman, Peggy Kronneger and Carol Ehrlich, along with a few recent texts from Alice Nutter of Class War and Mujeres Creando. Many of these texts, especially those by feminist writers from the 1970s, acknowledged the ways in which it can be difficult for both feminists and anarchists to see how their practices have been—and continue to be--shaped by each other.

Feminism can be particularly alienating to anarchists’ if they are unfamiliar with its radical roots and activist practices. This is largely because the feminisms we most often see have been coopted by capitalism and ridiculed by popular culture. Some anarchist practices and politics do share obvious connections to feminism. Most anarchists recognize gender, sexuality (and less often race, class and ability) as inherent concerns of feminist practice. But feminism is not just ‘about women’. Grassroots feminisms of the 1970s and 1980s brought creativity and collective decision-making to the fore, influencing current direct action and diversity of tactics approaches to anarchist activism. Ecofeminist thought and practice shapes current anarchist ideas about technology. Black and third world feminisms provide much of the backbone of anarchists’ solidarity work, no borders activism, prison support and campaigns against poverty. While queer feminisms, in addition to cultivating anarchists’ genderqueer and transpolitics, offer ways to re-imagine borders, identities, relationships and notions of family and home that are at the heart of anti-authoritarian practice.

Likewise, many feminists know very little about anarchist politics—even though they may engage in anarchist practices such as collective decision making and autonomous organizing. As Carol Ehrlich wrote back in 1977, most feminists are unfamiliar with anarchism as “anarchism has veered between bad press and none at all.” This remains true today. Yet just as feminism is linked to anarchism, anarchism has a lot in common with feminism. Both offer direct critiques of capitalism, state control, domination, property, authority and imperialism. In terms of practice, there are also a number of overlaps. Anarchists’ ecological practices, along with their focus on autonomy within community and their desire to cultivate nonhierarchical relationships, resonate with feminist politics.

Of course, the point of bringing together anarchisms and feminisms shouldn’t only be to celebrate their connections. Differences in anarchist and feminist practices and perspectives often led to debate. Contradictions, conflicts and tensions between them give rise to the ‘differences that matter,’ as well as to the dreams, ideals and visions that shape radical politics. As feminists and anarchists have long argued, both asking difficult questions and making political links lie at the heart of radical politics. It is only through confronting differences that conflict can become a productive site for transformation.

So if ‘anarchafeminisms are everywhere,’ or at least, ‘politics combining elements of anarchism and feminism are everywhere,’ it seems a good time to ask more questions about these connections, overlaps and conflicts. There are a lot of anarchafeministy folks out there saying—and doing-- inspirational and informative stuff. It is in the spirit of their work that I put together this directory and this call out for a new collection on anarchafeminsims.

Let’s amplify these whispered legacies, take the rumours out of the closet, and bring our current anarchist and feminist activisms into dialogue with each other.