2010 is a year of anniversaries. It is 170 years since Proudhon proclaimed himself an anarchist and that “property is theft!” It is twenty years since the poll-tax riot. It is 40 years since Black Flag first came out.
2010 is a year of anniversaries. It is 170 years since Proudhon proclaimed himself an anarchist and that “property is theft!” It is twenty years since the poll-tax riot. It is 40 years since Black Flag first came out.
Originally associated with the Anarchist Black Cross, Black Flag has been an independent magazine for some decades. It was born of a time of intense class struggle and its founders, Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, aimed to give revolutionary anarchists a forum. That is still its aim and it is still, we think, Britain’s leading anarchist magazine.
We hope to present a lively journal which will interest those seeking to discover more about anarchist ideas and activity but also has something for long-standing activists. Our aim is to produce a mix of analysis of current events, theoretical contributions, articles on key moments of our history and reviews. We hope to produce a magazine for current activists as well as link to the voices from our past (our “revolutionary reprint” feature which has, so far, included Errico Malatesta, Murray Bookchin, Emma Goldman, Ethel MacDonald, Emma Goldman and John Most).
Issue 231 is currently on-sale now (available from Freedom and many other radical bookshops as well as on-line at www.akuk.com). As well as an interview with Stuart Christie, we have a mix of articles and reviews on subjects and books of interest to all radicals. It discusses electorial abstentionism, libertarian approaches to health, includes tributes to both Colin Ward and Howard Zinn and celebrates the 1990 anti-poll-tax riot. We also mark the 100th anniversary of Kropotkin’s entry on anarchism for the Encyclopaedia Britannica with a discussion of this classic introduction and summary of our ideas and movement. And lots more.
Issue 232 is being prepared now and we are seeking help from those who wish Black Flag to continue. We aim to be a non-sectarian forum for discussion and analysis for all revolutionary libertarians, although with a firm focus on revolutionary anarchism (communist-anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.). We also aim to increase our frequency and distribution.
However, we still need help to produce Black Flag. We are a small collective and we are always looking for comrades to write, edit and otherwise get involved. We have formed links with the Anarchist Federation (which contributes articles to their own dedicated pages) and aim to extend that to other organisations. We need people to write, take bundles to sell, to proof-read, maintain our webpage and a host of other tasks which are required to make a magazine not only survive but to grow.
We are aiming to become quarterly but that goal depends on our readers actively participating rather than passively consuming a product. If you are a class struggle anarchist, like Black Flag and wish it to not only continue but flourish into the regular and frequent magazine of our movement needs, please get in touch.
Black Flag, BM Hurricane, London,WC1N 3XX
blackflagmag[at]yahoo.co.uk