In recent months, I have observed that the water in the small Czech anarchist
pond has become slightly agitated because of the war in Ukraine. At the sametime, one of the voices, without any attempt to analyze the difference incontexts and experiences, calls for a return to the world of thought of theanarchist movement a hundred or more years ago. And so I ask if such an approachhas anything to do with anarchism, as I understand it, and at the same time I amgrateful for the publishing activities of the Neklid publishing house, whichbrings somewhat more modern perspectives on anarchism. Views with which I may notnecessarily agree in everything, but I feel in them a free-spirited element ofquestioning, questioning, listening, expanding the political imagination, as wellas objective deliberation, striving for honest analysis and expressing newhypotheses, which are fuel for discussion that can move us forward further on thepath to individual and collective emancipation and in the fight for a freer,fairer and more sustainable world.Restlessness after the books of Cindy Milstein and James C. Scott comes with UriGordon's (very sensitively translated) work Anarchy Here and Now. Although it isbased on a dissertation that the author was preparing at Oxford University, it iscertainly not written in any incomprehensible "academic" language and is notdetached from the real world at all. On the contrary. The book is very pleasantand easy to read, although at times it forces you to pause and reflect on yourown experiences and observations. I find this possibility of transferring thediscussed into one's own practice and vice versa particularly beneficial. It willsound strange, but a book originally published in 2007 may seem outdated in someways. The author anticipated this effect: "After its publication, each bookbegins to lag behind the living movement it discusses." And of course it is up tothe living movement to develop individual chapters and write new ones.However, it responds to the observation from the beginning of this review verytopically. "Anarchist ideas are on the one hand serious and elaborate, on theother hand changeable and constantly evolving. The content of central anarchistideas changes with each new generation and can only be understood by taking intoaccount the background of the movements and cultures in which and by which it isexpressed." He quotes Graeber as saying that the role of anarchist theorists isto offer ideas "not as prescriptions , but as contributions and possibilities".Anarchist theory formation is "a dialogue in which the ideas and practices ofreal people are discussed directly with them. It is only through thisconnectedness that theory can remain authentic and self-critical and speakconfidently.'Gordon is not a classical academic, he has devoted more time to activism than tostudy, including summit tourism, which has been a concomitant of the rapidlygrowing alter-globalization movement. He examines anarchism as he could haveobserved it at the time - the development of anarchist collectives, their actionsand ideas. It is based primarily on practice to contribute to anarchist theory.This is another very refreshing dimension of his work.Such a starting point also determines the direction he takes in his work. It doesnot deal with almost traditional anarchist organizations, but with what is alivein the broadly conceived anti-authoritarian movement, even without calling itselfanarchist. And that's the label Gordon is trying to rehabilitate. He graspsanarchism from various perspectives-as a social movement, a complicated politicalculture, or a set of ideas-and turns to its three attributes: the rejection ofall forms of dominance, an ethos of direct action, and diversity.In separate chapters, he then addresses several dilemmas and controversies thatare more or less reflected in the movement, without necessarily trying to finddefinitive answers. On the one hand, it is about the internal hierarchy and powerin anarchist networks and the question of responsibility within them. I recommendthis chapter to all collectives for discussion. Another range of questionsconnects the concept of political violence within anarchist theory and practice.He independently deals with the debate surrounding technology and itsrelationship to hierarchy and decentralization. And finally, he comes to theterritory of Palestine/Israel, shows the forms of anarchist resistance toapartheid in Israel, warns against paternalism and moves on to the question oflocal identity and belonging in anarchist theory, which is answered by an articleon bioregionalism. When reading this chapter, one cannot help but think of thecurrent Westplaining, as a paternalistic and detached from reality manifestationof a part of the Western anarchist movement, in connection with the Russianinvasion of Ukraine."Anarchist ideas are constantly being reframed and recoded in response to worldevents, political alliances, and trends in direct action culture."Thanks (not only) to Gordon, we feel that anarchism is not anarchonism, but aconstantly living movement with dilemmas and problems to which it tries to findanswers on a theoretical and practical level.https://www.afed.cz/text/7681/anarchie-tady-a-ted_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten