There’s a tragi-comic moment in the Irish Easter rising in 1916 well described by Thomas Coffey in his book ‘Agony at Easter’. On the third day of the rising James Connolly is making his military dispositions in the Dublin Post Office when three Citizen Army Volunteers approach him and offer him their rifles. A perplexed Connolly asks their reasons. ‘The Easter holiday is over’ say the Volunteers ‘ we have to go back to work tomorrow’. Whether Connolly laughed or cried Coffey doesn’t say.
The Volunteers action strikes me as very similar to that of anarchists post G20 – back to life as normal – no inkling as to the possibilities to be seized. We won the war at G20 –but lost the peace. Unlike the poll tax riots when people had good reason to keep their heads down – Operation Carnaby – this time it was the cops who’s faces were beamed out from tv screens and newspapers caught doing acts of violence. The public mood turned decisively against the police. If ever there was a moment to ram home the political advantage of police bungling and cover up it was in the days after G20. But where were the anarchists? No initiative was taken, no urgent meetings held over the midnight oil to hammer out a strategy – just people going back to life as normal before G20. Only the much maligned Chris Knight attempted to seize the time – contacting the Tomlinson family, organising the memorial march the Saturday after and the leafleting of Millwall football club. And what did he get for his pains – a suggestion on a discussion list that he be excluded from anarchist circles! Predictably into this vacuum have stepped the SWP – setting up a front organisation and organising the anti-police violence demonstration on May 23rd. The anarchists whinge about the SWP but they are only able to fill the vacuum because we let them. And in the many voices to be heard in the media on police violence can we hear any anarchists trying to get their views across - no of course we fucking don’t comrades because we ‘don’t talk to the enemy’. So we leave the field to Chris Knight then we whinge even more ‘cos we don’t like what he says.
‘Events Dear Boy events’. We seem capable only of organising an event every decade then retreating with exhaustion. I sometimes seriously wonder if all anarchists are vitamin deficient. We are seriously the only people in the entire world capable of doing only one thing at a time. A juggler with one ball. It’s either a trip to the Visteon picket line OR a G20 meeting.
To respond to the post G20 situation we should have had emergency London anarchist meetings all fucking week – nutting out a strategy with the kind of high media visibility we had before G20. We should have been able to instantly respond to events and seize the initiative. I suggested this to one incredulous anarchist.’But I’ve got a job’ he replied’ as if ti was a cast iron reason for inaction. Try telling that to Comrade Connolly – oh shit – they did!
Taken from my next ‘What the Butler saw’ column in Freedom.
21 Comments
April 29, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I would describe myself as an anarchist, although I am young and the anarchist books I have bored me to tears.
I think the fact is, we need leaders, people that will organise and inspire. We act like headless chickens, sitting around, constantly self-criticising or having meetings. What we need is a strong campaign group with a few people who will dedicate their time to it, who will work full time like a job for the cause, and therefor build the beginnings of a movement. As much as a lot of anarchists have criticisms for the animal rights movement, and understandly some of their activities are questionable, we should be looking at that movement for what it is. A movement made up of predominantly working class people that fight tooth and nail for what they believe in, is international, have a tendency to break what they consider unjust laws, and have shown how to really rattle the state.
April 29, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I think the fact is, we need leaders, people that will organise and inspire.
You sure you’re an anarchist Harry? I get the feeling you’ve missed something crucial there you know.
Good post btw Ian.
April 29, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Shit. Guilty as charged. Suppose I’m not the only one feeling guilty.
April 29, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I understand what your saying Ian, but there were anarchists that did respond. On the thursday night (April 2nd) over 100 people gathered at LARC to talk about a response to the death of Mr Tomlinson. From that meeting witnesses came forward, gave video testimonies filmed by IMC people, contacted lawyers and journalists. This led to the bulk of information that the media picked up upon which then led to a much wider media attention on the events. The demo on Saturday April 4th was called from that meeting and a statement read out asking for the family of Mr Tomlinson to contact them and to ask for a second independent post mortem.
Its true that the media then seemed to take on the campaign and did the best job in spreading what happened.
I’m not saying that its enough or that more couldn’t be done but there is some credit due to those comrades that did spend time in all night meetings trying to get things organised and get the facts out – without them the story wouldn’t have broken in the way it did and at the time it did.
April 30, 2009 at 1:44 am
Yes, anarchist books are mostly a lot of communist shite. But, in my experience, anarchists are just communists who don’t want ‘Higher Ups’ telling them when they can/can’t drink Special Brew.
April 30, 2009 at 8:37 am
Ian the truth again, Chris Knight we could debate that one? but you are right, would you include yourself in this?
April 30, 2009 at 10:11 am
Most anarchists are years behind the awareness curve.
If ever there was a time when a lot of peoples everywhere should be standing up and doing whatever needs to be done the way it needs doing is now.
We have the skills and the tools to change the world, to make it a fairer cleaner greener sustainably peaceful place.
We must shed all old dogmas and traditions and adapt and evolve if we are serious about doing more than listen to old loud crap music and wasting our resources on special brew then pissing it down the pan.
If anarchists were serious about creating change it would happen.
April 30, 2009 at 11:05 am
you are completely right, but at the same time arent you an anarchist, arent you capable of calling meetings? What have you done ian bone? What are your excuses for inaction?
April 30, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Leave me and my special brew alone.
April 30, 2009 at 2:38 pm
“Special Vat….is where it’s at.” – Mikhail Bakunin.
April 30, 2009 at 3:56 pm
the only anarchists who criticise chris knight i’ve heard are not doing it out of what he says at all. They might claim that but really they simply have a unjustified problem with him cos of his class background. it’s pathetic. can all ‘anarchists’ who hate other people based on there background please fuck off to the marxist side of things or to the logical conclusion of birth based prejudice to fascism and the bnp. chris knight has been brewing revolution for years, trying to get a load of very apathetic students to challenge the world around them often to no avail but has continued bravely and even lost his job for the cause but still he pushes on. then some ‘prolier than thou’ twats who contribute nothing but bitching in the pub have a dig (never face to face of course) at chris and others that don’t fit their stereotype of what they call pure sacred working class. what a joke. and you wonder why the anarchist movement is so divided ian??
Malatesta all the way back in the day had a big problem with these hypocrites as he described- ”There are the “worker-minded” people, who consider having callous hands as being divinely imbued with all merits and all virtues; they protest if you dare talking about people and mankind, failing to swear on the sacred name of proletariat.”
And then he reminds us-
”If the bourgeoisie produces the likes of Giolitti and Graziani and all the long succession of mankind’s torturers, from the great conquerors to the avid and bloodsucking petty bosses, it also produces the likes of Cafiero, Reclus and Kropotkine, and the many people that in any epoch sacrificed their class privileges to an ideal. If the proletariat gave and gives so many heroes and martyrs of the cause of human redemption, it also gives off the white guards, the slaughterers, the traitors of their own brothers, without which the bourgeois tyranny could not last a single day.”
chris knight contributes more and is a braver and more enlightened man than most anarchists in london and england, particularly infinitely more intelligent and actively striving for an ideal more than these pseudo anarchist cunts who can’t construct an argument but must always fall back on ”im working class. so and so is just a middle class prick therefore i win and everything i say is correct and so and so has no right to be an anarchist” epic fail.
and i repeat. you wonder why the anarchist movement is so divided ian? and this namely class background is but one area. i could go on to talk about religion. so-called loving, open and non dogmatic non authoritarian anarchists suddenly become amateur dictators when the subject comes up. yet as with chris vs the ‘prole anarchist gods’ religious groups such as the catholic worker movement (who’s founding members set up the IWW as well) contribute MASSIVELY and yet are marginalised by certain ‘anarchists.’
You are incorrect in saying it is just laziness that is hampering this movement. I believe in fighting in many areas has a bigger effect in putting people off coming to demos or meetings and even in some cases putting them off the whole ideology. If anarchism in practice within active groups and a movement cannot even be attractive to self-described anarchists how the fuck are we going to appeal to everyone else???
April 30, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Try and keep up Ian. The final crisis of capitalism is over. It’s all swine flu now. But you actually make a good point, and not just about April 1st. As you well know, the history of revolt is also a history of people calling it a day and going home to bring the harvest in. We all tend to do that, less so when we are young perhaps. Wanting to call it a day and retreat to some security and certainty is a perennial problem.
April 30, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Is it the chorus in greek theatre who address the audience directly, offering opinions and updates of the ongoing saga, without actually being involved in the plot?
The tragedy in this case of course is both chris knight and the swp are the mighty forces of the left (and as far from the working class as you can arguably seek to be) publicly competing for the soul of ian tomlinson by claiming rights to the authentic voice of outrage at police behaviour.
Both are political parasites, although give him his due at least knight was involved in organising the event where tomlinson was killed.
There’s something really fucking grubby about us (‘the anarchists’) being encouraged to make political capital out of a situation not of our making- mimicking swp tactics in fact. There’s something even grubbier about that fact that every fucking year United Friends and Families organise a march to downing street and every fucking year not one opinionated anarchist is seen within a 100 miles of it. (One suspects because the flash of the media spotlight remains unavoidably absent).
If ian’s rant was simply a rejoinder to horrible anarchists saying horrible things about my mate chris knight, then fine, but how come ian and his acolytes have not themselves organised the very thing he is complaining the anarchists have failed to do?
Is it someone else’s job to do the organising ian? Some other anarchists?
But where were the anarchists? ian succinctly asks. Updating their blogs apparently.
April 30, 2009 at 8:54 pm
It’s been embarrassing how many the anarchists who were so much to be seen pushing a response to Ian Tomlinson’s death have scurried away afterwards.
I was at the meeting Alessio refers to. The bloody thing was riddled with trots, who lost the argument. There weren’t a great deal of anarchists there, frankly, and those of us who were had to push hard to try to ensure sense prevailed.
But where was the follow-up? There was a fucking open goal, all we had to do was fucking shoot. When proposals were made they were poo-poohed by people who should really know better, and the unseemly anarchist dither ended with the fucking swappies grabbing the ball.
While many of us have differences with Chris Knight, the fact remains that he’s been tirelessly working on this issue, with whoever will help him. It’s fucking shoddy that he’s been the subject of so much bile, when he did more in the run-up to the G20 than anyone else, and when he’s been so active since the G20 despite so many others pissing off to pastures new.
I’ve rarely been so fucked off with so much of the movement.
April 30, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Ian is right but so is Alessio – there were anarchists at the centre of putting the pressure on that broke the initial lies and started the momentum, using a variety of tactics, including citizen journalism. There need to be more.
April 30, 2009 at 9:50 pm
never face to face of course…actually i’d tell him to his face he’s a middle class wanker!
April 30, 2009 at 9:53 pm
[...] there are enough anarchists in London to make them appear a viable independent force (although a recent post by Ian Bone says otherwise). Out here in the sticks, it’s a little different. We don’t have the [...]
May 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm
congratulations donnymark then you’d reveal yourself as an ignorant twat to everyone around. whilst chris and other anarchists from all backgrounds get on with the job you spend your time not offering any constructive comments or actions and just act all loud on the internet haha you’re clearly the wanker
May 1, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Yes,anarchists started it,but they dropped the ball,and ran off to the sidelines where they feel safe.Everything you said is 100% spot on Ian….in fact, you don’t go far enough.Alessio,take your goggles off.Anarchists need a fuckin internal revolution before we ever effect an outside one.
You call on a street mobilisation,one of your own is iced by the cops-and you make a half hearted attempt at retribution and justice.Nothing short of pathetic.
May 1, 2009 at 9:13 pm
@East Ham Dave,
To echo a famous chant “who are you?”. FYI Ian Tomlinson was not an anarchist, but that changes nothing apart from the fact that it was/is EVERYONE duty to respond – what was your response dave? Glass houses….etc.
May 4, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Why not have one of these at your local cop shop
http://noborderswales.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/police-station.jpg