The first task of any small political group is to understand the situation in which they
seek to operate. Understanding the economic, political and social situation in a given
society shows a political group the way forward; it allows us to identify what
opportunities exist, what challenges we are likely to encounter, and what our capacity is
likely to be in responding to these. ---- The first task of any small political group is
to understand the situation in which they seek to operate. Understanding the economic,
political and social situation in a given society shows a political group the way forward;
it allows us to identify what opportunities exist, what challenges we are likely to
encounter, and what our capacity is likely to be in responding to these.
In issue one of Sedition[1], Jeremy[2] of the Jura collective presented an extremely
optimistic picture of the current situation in Australia. In ?Organising in Australia?,
Jeremy correctly identified that the Australian context presents significant challenges
for revolutionary anarchists; we face a ?political culture steeped in passivity and
representative disempowerment?. Persistent corporate propaganda informs us that ?life in
Australia is as good as it gets ? or will be as long as we keep shopping?. The ongoing
farce of reformism offers no realistic hope for achieving the radical change our society
needs, and it is deluded to think ?that the entire population will wake up one day,
realise they?re insurrectionists and spontaneously and instantly create the anarchist
society?. Any realistic assessment of what will be needed to achieve libertarian socialism
directs us towards the task of organising, ?we need to build a sustained revolutionary
movement?. Jeremy?s initial argument for organised anarchism is absolutely correct, but
his assessment of the organising situation in Australia is utterly wrong. Jeremy writes:
?There is widespread discontent and resistance among millions of people in Australia. They
talk to each other and build networks and take a variety of political actions.?
The available evidence on the organising situation in Australia suggests the opposite. In
June The Australian breathlessly reported that strike days in Australia had reached a
seven year high of 257 600[3], but when you step outside the ideological bubble of the
Murdoch media talk of renewed industrial militancy seems farfetched. In 1996, Australia
recorded 928 500 strike days, in 1986 it was 1 390 000, in 1976 it was 3 799 400[4]. In
1987 there were 223 strike days per thousand workers, in 2008 it was 21, and in 2007 at
the height of work choices, it fell to an all-time low of five[5].
The decline in strike activity is mirrored by the decline in union membership:
From August 1992 to August 2011, the proportion of those who were trade union members in
their main job has fallen from 43% to 18% for employees who were males and 35% to 18% for
females. ? ABS[6]
Australia?s working class remains in the trough of a thirty year low in resistance, as
measured through strike activity and union membership. These measures are particularly
relevant as Jeremy argues for anarchist engagement with those unions pursuing the
?organiser? model. The discontent that does exist in Australia is expressed either as
total apathy, or as discontent with the present head of government. Compulsory voting is
still working for the Australian state. Voter turn-out in federal elections remains at or
around 94%[7], and the informal vote in federal elections hovers at around 4%[8].
There is no evidence of millions of discontent Australians engaging network building or
political action in statistics on civic participation. At the 2006 census [9]:
19% of adults reported that they had actively participated in civic and political groups
in the previous 12 months. This level of involvement varied with age, peaking at around
24% for people aged 45-64 years. The civic or political groups that people were most
likely to be active in were trade union, professional and technical associations (7%),
environmental or animal welfare groups (5%), followed by body corporate or tenants'
associations (4%). Only 1% reported active participation in a political party ? ABS, [10]
All of this paints a grim picture for anarchists seeking to build a revolutionary movement
in the current Australian context. There are however, limited opportunities for advancing
anarchism in this context.
The Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement of 2011 resonated with a small subsection of
Australian society. For a short time ?Occupy? camps in major Australian cities provided an
opportunity to advance anarchist ideas to those small groups of people who were inspired
to emulate the actions of the Occupy Movement in the United States. Indigenous discontent
with the Northern Territory intervention continues, and the spread of welfare quarantining
to the rest of Australia will affect Australians in major population centres for the first
time.
The fortieth anniversary of the Tent Embassy in Canberra became the launching point for a
renewed Embassy campaign by indigenous activists. The indigenous sovereignty movement
argues that land rights are a poor substitute for indigenous sovereignty, a sovereignty
that was never ceded. Limited space may exist for anarchists to make the links between
land rights, reconciliation and capitalism. Land rights are about integrating indigenous
communities more fully into Australian capitalism, co-opting indigenous resistance, and
further opening indigenous controlled lands up for exploitation. Anarchists may feel
uneasy about the statist sounding language of sovereignty, but we are surely for
indigenous self-determination, and there is no self-determination under capitalism. In
order to advance such a dialogue, Anarchists will need to actively engage in solidarity
with the indigenous sovereignty movement, including the defence of the tent embassies that
have been established in cities around Australia[11].
A minority of Australians continue to be disgusted with the treatment of refugees, and
resistance inside the system of immigration detention centres continues. Anarchists in
Australia are engaged in the campaign for refugee rights and against mandatory detention,
but more could be made of the space this campaign presents were anarchists more
consistently organised. Trotskyist groups use Refugee Action Collectives like Lenin
branded soap boxes, yet the nature of this issue lends itself to an anarchist critique.
Anarchists should not be shy in arguing against borders as a general principle. The Cross
Border Collective in Sydney is producing some interesting work along these lines [12].
Australians continue to express concern about the state of the environment, and climate
change in particular. Outside the union movement, environmental politics are one of the
largest areas of civic participation in Australia:
Over 5 million people (34%) aged 15 years and over took some form of environmental action
in 2007-08. People most commonly signed a petition (17%) or donated money to help protect
the environment (14%), while attending a demonstration for an environmental cause was
relatively rare (2%). Some people expressed their concern about the environment through a
letter, email or by talking to responsible authorities (10%), or by volunteering, or
becoming involved in environmentally related concerns (9%). [13]
As frustration with the mainstream political process? capacity to address environmental
issues increases, the space opens for anarchists to advance make the case that capitalism
is responsible for ecological catastrophe, and that the capitalist state is incapable of
an adequate response. Within the environmental movement there is a two-fold task for
anarchists, to argue for real mass organisation (and not GetUp style tokenism), and to
argue for tactics that actually confront polluters, the state and capitalism.
The election of conservative governments at the state level in the most populous
Australian states has led to a renewed attack on public sector and construction workers.
The trade union movement has been militant in its response now that their supposed allies
in the Labor party are in opposition. Whilst supporting the campaigns of teachers, nurses
and construction workers, Anarchists within these sectors must be ready to argue for more
militant tactics. We need to be ready to make the case that industrial ?umpires? should be
ignored, that early compromise by union bureaucracy must be guarded against, and that
continued disruptive industrial action delivers the goods. Again, these tasks would be
easier if anarchists were a more organised tendency.
The storm clouds of global financial crisis continue to grow on the horizon, whilst
Australia has thus far been isolated, the situation continues to cause a sense of unease.
Were a deepening of the global crisis to significantly affect Australia, the situation for
Australian workers could change rapidly, and resistance could develop or falter in any
number of ways.
It is likely that next year Australia will have a conservative government, intent on
pushing politically motivated austerity, attacking the union movement, and pushing a
conservative social agenda. The task before us will be to argue for resistance. In his
article in Sedition, Jeremy argues that ?if we actually want to make change, we need to do
the hard work of building accessible, long-term formal organisations, linked to larger
networks?. In that, I whole heartedly agree.
Notes
[1] February 2012, pp. 2 - 4. Sedition is a new joint publication of Anarchist groups in
Australia.
[2] Disappointingly, each article in Issue 1 of Sedition is attributed to a pseudonym or
to a first name only. A rather unnecessary step for a movement that is not underground.
[3] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indust...59288
[4] ILO, http://laborsta.ilo.org/, 9C Days not worked, by economic activity
[5] ILO, http://laborsta.ilo.org/, 9D Rates of days not worked, by economic activity
[6] ABS, ?Decline in Trade Union Membership? http://j.mp/NKZJLt
[7] ABS, ?Democracy, Governance and Citizenship: Voter Turnout?, http://j.mp/LkQFsK
[8] ABS, ?Democracy, Governance and Citizenship: Informal Votes?, http://j.mp/OIvp1j
[9] It will be interesting to see the most recent census results, taken in the post GFC
world. The 2006 results are probably still a reasonable reflection of civic participation
in Australia, anecdotally there does not appear to have been a sudden shift.
[10] ABS, ?Democracy, Governance and Citizenship: Civic Participation?, http://j.mp/LrKms5
[11] Check out http://www.treatyrepublic.net
[12] ?We Don?t Cross Borders; Borders Cross Us?, http://crossbordersydney.tumblr.com/
[13] ABS, ?Democracy, Governance and Citizenship: Environmental Citizenship?
http://j.mp/NyC02K
*thiw article firstly published in "Black Light" a magazine of Melbourne Anarchist Club
(MAC) Relevant link:
http://anarchy.org.au/anarchist-texts/black_light_1/
a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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