To quote someone who sums up the intellectual times in which we live, Sarah Palin: “now is not the time to experiment with socialism” This, during the worse crisis since the 1930s! Anarchists would say that is precisely the time – but only as long as we are talking about libertarian socialism!
In terms of the development of a libertarian movement in Ireland the march on the EU summit at Farmleigh will probably be seen as a turning point. For the first time the movement mobilized large number of people from outside its own ranks, in a demonstration that was in direct defiance of the Irish governments attempt to ban such demonstrations.
Pic: The front of the march on Farmleigh on the Navan road. From uk.indymedia.org, photographer not credited there. I’d no camera with me so all these photos come from indymedia, photographer is credited with the name used to post them to indymedia
It was expected that this (May 6th 2002) would be the largest Dublin Reclaim the Streets to date due to the massive level of publicity for it. The city centre had been covered in posters, stickers and graffiti from three weeks before advertising the event plus. Posters had also been put up in Cork and flyers distributed in Belfast. What was not so expected was that by the end of the day 24 people would have been arrested and over a dozen hospitalised by a police riot on Dame street. Pic:Gardai face crowd at RTS
An interview carried out August 2009 on the legalised squat / collective housing project Kopi with Shane about anarchism and political activity in Berlin.
Interview with anarchist squatter in Berlin – Kopi 2009 by Andrew Flood on Mixcloud
An interview with Andrew Flood about the impressions of the North American anarchist movement he formed during his 2007/2008 44 city tour of the US and Canada. The interviews ends with questions about the comparison of the movement in Ireland with that in Britian and the promotion of anarchism via the internet. This was submitted and published in Black Flag.
If we do not wish to see society divided into order-givers and order-takers we should not take part in choosing the order-givers. Our goal is efficient grassroots democracy, which will be co-ordinated nationally and internationally. We hold that everyone affected by a decision should be able to have a direct say in making that decision.
Anarchists see the state as a mechanism by which a minority imposes its will on the majority of the population. To maintain its hold of power the state forms whatever armed forces and judicial apparatus are deemed necessary to keep the level of dissent manageable. This is different from how most Marxists define the state, concentrating on the mechanism by which the state stays in power (bodies of armed men) rather then the function of the state. It is the characteristic of minority rule which defines the state for anarchists
In the highly unequal society produced by 30 years of Thatcherism, earning over £50,000 does not make you “middle-class” or a “middle-income” family. It puts you squarely in the top 5% of the population in terms of income. Yes, really, according to the Daily Mail the bottom-end of the top 5% is the middle!
This article from 1995 was written as the internet started to go ‘mainstream’ and looks at the anarchist resources that already existed at that point in time online including the first WSM site online.
An examination of the first attempts to censor anarchists online from 1995. The current structure of the internet makes effectively censoring it a very difficult prospect. And the crude attempts to set activists up for persecution has already met a heated response as thousands have e-mailed protest letters to some of the publications involved. A key factor in keeping the information freely flowing will be how far workers using and maintaining the net go along with or oppose this censorship.