I’ve been active in various local libertarian, class struggle and community groups and campaigns in Haringey, North London for about 20 years. This is my personal recollection and summary... it is just one view.
250,000 people live in Haringey, North London - the generally middle-class western side (Crouch End, Hornsey, Muswell Hill) and the generally working-class eastern side (Tottenham), with a very mixed centre (Wood Green) dominated by the commercial High Rd and its ‘Shopping City’. In the predominately working-class areas there’s a very high percentage of people from minority ethnic groups, mainly african and carribean, and greek, turkish and kurdish.
100 years ago Tottenham’s population mushroomed as new rail lines were built and industry expanded. Most factories (except maybe clothing) have closed down and employment is now mainly service and shop work, with the Council being the largest employer.
I haven’t heard about local anarchist activity before the 70s, although there was: the so-called ‘Tottenham Anarchist Outrage’ in 1911 when apparently 2 russian anarchists killed a copper chasing them after a robbery; Albert Meltzer, the founder of Black Flag grew up in Tottenham (where he went to the same synagogue as my dad); and there was an anarchist bookshop, Libertaria Books, in the area in the early 70s.
In the late 70s and early 80s local anti-nuclear power campaigners were very active, and there was a strong Haringey Women’s Centre. The local labour movement was also strong, but dominated by the Communist Party. When I moved to Tottenham I was initially active in the Haringey and Islington Claimants Union - a libertarian group who’d been highly involved with claimants struggles since the late 1960s. A few of us set up the Tottenham Claimants Union (TCU) in 1983, at first meeting in someone’s home, then in a newly-set up council-funded Unemployed Workers Centre dominated by the Communist Party.
The TCU flourished, concentrating on empowering claimants to fight for their needs, exposing fraud squads, and making good links with local labour movement activists, the pensioners’ action group and short-life housing co-ops. Women at the centre set up Haringey Unwaged Women’s Group. Our high point was calling a 200-strong occupation of the Civic Centre to demand emergency payments during a DSS strike. We were also very active in the Federation of Claimants Unions and helped organise a few of their annual camps.
Some Haringey activists got heavily involved in the Stop ‘The City’ mass protests/carnivals in 1983-4. We decided to form the Haringey Community Action (HCA) anarchist collective, to support and encourage autonomous, radical local campaigns and groups - it also set up a pro-squatting group Homes For All. Some of us started an anarchist paper, The Free Tottenham Times.
During the 1983-4 miners’ strike both HCA and TCU got involved in support, with TCU members putting strikers up in their homes. In 1985, TCU’s active support for the Wapping printworkers was the last straw for the local Communist Party who decided to try to suppress our ideas, example and influence, producing a hilarious local scandal sheet attacking us. All to no avail - the CP itself collapsed soon after following the overthrow/demise of the Soviet and eastern european Communist regimes. The Socialist Workers Party are now by far the most dominant Left party in Haringey.
In 1985, following some years of black people’s self-organisation and anger at injustice, there was the local Broadwater Farm anti-police uprising - the resulting defence campaign has since inspired a number of other local campaigns against police brutality and racism. There were also battles that year between police and anti-fascists when anti-fascists attacked a National Front meeting in Tottenham.
HCA ground to a halt in the late 80s, but libertarian activists in the west and central parts of the borough were involved in renewed anti-nuclear campaigning and strike support. TCU and the Unwaged Women’s Group decided we’d had enough of the way the Unemployed Workers Centre was run, and set up our own Unwaged Centre (which we kept open daily for over 5 years).
Then came the poll tax - a huge turning point. Through our contacts with Claimants Unions in Scotland (where the tax was first brought in) we in TCU thought it could be beaten. In 1988 Tottenham Against the Poll Tax (TAPT) was set up - one of the first such groups in England - and soon after, libertarian activists elsewhere in the borough were the key to the setting up of Hornsey & Wood Green APT, followed by Green Lanes APT. These three groups were the basis of a Haringey-wide mass non-payment campaign (HAPTU) involving the distribution of hundreds of thousands of leaflets, 500 street reps and up to 20 independent neighbourhood groups. As a strong and active organisation we helped set up London-wide and national anti-poll tax networks and federations, including the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign after the poll tax riot.
As the campaign drew to a close in the early 90s, all 3 main groups decided to build on what was achieved and to transform themselves into local general solidarity organisations. After a year or two, the three groups merged into Haringey Solidarity Group which continues today.
HSG has been involved in a wide range of issues, campaigns and initiatives - including support for community struggles, anti-police brutality groups (in particular the Delroy Lindo campaign), strikes (including support for a bitter local strike by turkish factory workers), unwaged claimants issues (including Job Seekers Allowance and housing benefits), and opposing privatisation or anti-social regeneration and development projects. All the while we have run a small office, done monthly info/minutes mailouts to about 140 local people, held discussions and produced a number of leaflets and for many years a free local door-to-door newssheet. HSG has always tried to encourage other people around London to form community-based local solidarity organisations, taking an active part in helping organise national networks and events, doing an annual mailout to other groups - and helping produce The Agitator directory of anti-authoritarian groups countrywide (now up on our website). Numbers have fluctuated, with up to 20-30 people regularly attending meetings a few years back. There’s currently about 8-15 people actively involved. I myself have recently got stuck in again after being slightly side-tracked for about 6 years by the McLibel case. I helped produce a new set of HSG stickers, and I have argued at great length for activists to set up neighbourhood based residents’ groups throughout the borough, such as the one going so well on my estate.
The group’s politics has been flexible and there is often debate and sometimes controversy - but in general we have promoted libertarian/anarchist ideas, activities and collective forms of decision-making, and grass roots working-class solidarity and struggles. Apart from some turkish comrades, there have been very few black and ethnic minority people in the group. Men are always well in the majority at meetings, and women in the group have set up their own HSG Women’s Group. There are few parents involved. These are major challenges to us if we want to involve more people, have real influence, and overcome marginalisation.
Other recent dilemmas have included: agonising over the excellent 1998 Reclaim The Streets mass party which took over Tottenham High Rd but with unfortunately no prior involvement with local activists or residents; how community and class issues intermix; whether to set up our own local workers network, ...and continually asking why aren’t we achieving so much more when there’s so much fucking potential out there?! Many of these questions affect any and every anarchist group. If we are going to become a popular mass anti-authoritarian movement then we need to see similar locally-based solidarity groups everywhere, sharing ideas and experiences and thereby developing successful strategies for long term community resistance and real alternatives. I want to see an independent residents’ group in every street, a solidarity group in every workplace, and an anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist organisation in every borough and town.
Dave Morris
Note: This was written in 2001 - as of December 2006 Haringey Solidarity Group has continued to meet monthly, to produce regular newsletters, to support residents associations, to support 'single issue' campaigns (eg HSG has been instrumental in the launch of the ongoing 'Haringey Against ID Cards' ) and support workplace disputes. HSG is currently helping develop a nationwide 'Community Action' network of grass roots anti-authoritarian activists, and helping people throughout London to set up groups similar to HSG in all London boroughs.
Contact: HSG, PO Box 2474, N8 hsg@haringey.org.uk We have produced pamphlets on the local anti-poll tax campaign, and on a local support campaign for a strike. Stickers and various leaflets are available.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
History at the Anarchist Bookfair Saturday 24 October
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Radical History Network of North East London will have a stall at the bookfair. Please come and meet us if you are interested in what we do.
There are several meetings on history taking place at the book fair of which, perhaps,the most important will be various different local radical history groups coming together and discussing their activities. (pic above shows the cartoon used on Radical History Network's cover for the pamphlet on the NHS published in 2008)
TALKING HISTORY AND MAKING HISTORY - Room EB2 12.00 till 12.50
Celebrating and learning from radical history, linking in to our present and future experience. Is history irrelevant? IS studying the past just avoiding the present? Or can struggles, movements and personalities from 'history' inspire us and offer lessons, ideas and links that persist through time. A chance for people involved in anarchist or radical history projects, and anyone else interested, to swap and share their ideas, experiences and motives of using the past to reinvigorate and inform the present and transform the future.
Gustav Landauer, Erich Muhsam and the German Revolution of 1918-1919 - Room EB4 17.00 till 18.00
Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) and Erich Mühsam (1878-1934) arguably remain Germany's most influential anarchists. Both were key figures in the Bavarian Council Republic of 1919, the most ambitious attempt by left-wing radicals to create an egalitarian and socialist society on the ashes of the German Empire. English language material, in particular primary texts by Landauer, Mühsam, and fellow radicals of the era, are scarce. PM Press has now announced a series of publications providing sources that have long remained unavailable. An extensive Gustav Landauer reader will be published in March 2010. An Erich Mühsam reader and a reader on radical currents during the German Revolution will follow in subsequent years. Gabriel Kuhn will give an introduction to Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam, discuss German anarchism, and outline the PM Press projects.
Morris Beckman on the fight against fascism after the Second World War - Skeel Lecture Theatre 12.00 - 12.00
Talk about the 43 Group who physically force the fascists of the streets in the 1940s, with a film showing about the group. And also a discussion on the fight against the menace of fascism today.
Peter the Painter and the Siege of Sidney Street - Lecture Room 1 16.00 - 17.00
Who were Peter the Painter and the Latvian socilaists who were involved in the siege
Philosophy and Revolution - organised by Hobgoblin - Room EB2 14.00 till 15.00
Throughout modern history, philosophy has stimulated and influenced revolutionary movements, while revolutions – their achievements, limitations and failures – have posed new problems for philosophy. Our age has been shaped by revolutions that have remained limited or even transformed into opposite. Can dialectical philosophy help us advance towards real human liberation? Join us for a discussion of these issues.
For the full programme at the bookfair go to the Anarchist Bookfair Website
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Janine Booth speaks on her book Guilty and Proud of it: The Labour rebel councillors of Poplar, East London, 1921
Wednesday 21 October at 8 pm
Meetings for the autumn will be at a new venue; the North London Community House, 22 Moorefield Road, N17. [The old Post Office building] This is just around the corner from Bruce Grove British Rail Station, where Bruce Grove meets the High Road in Tottenham.]
In the aftermath of the First World War, 30 Labour councillors went to prison rather than accepting inequitable taxes. With unemployment rising in 1921 in East London, Poplar Borough Council could not help provide relief drawing only on the limited wealth of one poor London borough.
Poplar councillors, including future Labour leader George Lansbury, demanded that rates from richer areas should help. Rich Kensington had a hugely greater rateable value and far fewer jobless people: it could afford to pay more. So Poplar refused to pay over rates to the London County Council, and thus began the Poplar Revolt.
Drawing on archive research and on newspaper reports, this book tells the story of the support mobilised by Poplar Council. The story begins when newly-enfranchised working-class voters elected Labour to run the Council in 1919. For the next two years, it improved life for Poplar residents,coming into ever-increasing conflict with the central authorities and the local government funding system. The crisis came in 1921, when Poplar Council refused to levy a portion of its rates.
Poplar's fight took its Councillors to prison in September 1921. After six weeks, the courts released them from prison and the government changed the law to redistribute funding from richer to poorer boroughs: they had won! Over the following years, they continued to battle, but lost momentum. The book ends with a survey of outcomes and considers how this story has meaning today.
We end with a quote: "In the 1920s, Poplar's Councillors and Guardians chose to fight. Had they chosen differently, we would not even remember them."
The speaker is an active member of the RMT [Rail Maritime & Transport Union]. The book is 216 pp, [ISBN 978 0 85036 694 5] , and is published by Merlin Press, price £12-95.
[See following post for Alan Woodward's review of the book.]
Claimants and unemployed issues and struggles in the 1970s and 1980s (especially in Tottenham in the 1980s) - what can we learn from them?
In 2006, the government is continuing its ever-increasing attacks against the hard-won benefits of all kinds of claimants (pensions, invalidity benefits, unemployment benefits etc), and stepping up its pressure on claimants to take any job at any price in order to drive down wages. What can we learn from the widespread struggles by unwaged people in the not-so-distant past, and what can be done today to stand up for everyone's right to a decent income?
The 1920s-30s
There had been a big movement of the unemployed in the 1930s, focusing on demanding work or basic payments. There were marches, lobbying, stunts and sometimes direct action protests - like storming into expensive hotels demanding food. There was a Tottenham branch of the National Unemployed Workers Movement which had a meeting room on Tottenham High Rd by High Cross. A couple of local factories were occupied by protestors to demand jobs and prevent overtime working.
The 1960s - a new wave
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a new unwaged and unemployed movement sprung up throughout the UK demanding the right to adequate benefits for all adults. People formed local Claimants Unions, and the CUs formed the very active Federation of Claimants Unions - at one point there were over 100 active local CUs. This movement was one of the new wave of radical,self-organised and often overlapping movements and struggles which came out of the ‘60s, including struggles for women’s liberation, black liberation, wildcat strikers and ‘rank and file’ industrial organisation, gay liberation, grass roots community action including independent radical newspapers and bookshops, squatting and international solidarity. These
movements tended to be characterized by collective working, solidarity, class-consciousness and anti-sexism, a tendency to direct action and radical protest whilst promoting a culture of ‘we demand our rights’.
The Federation
From about 1970 to 1990 the Federation of CUs held annual conferences and also camps, rotated each year around the UK. It had an influential and popular programme of ‘claimants helping each other to claim what we can from the welfare state, especially the Social Security office’, whilst demanding ‘a basic income for all’, and coupled with a longer term explicit libertarian / socialist / anarchist vision of ‘power to the people’. It was a ‘right to live’ movement rather than ‘right to work’ movement. It was building a well-respected and to some extent an effective claimants’ movement of grass roots day-to-day mutual aid, and of militant ideas and
protest aiming to defend and improve the lives of millions of people in previously marginalised sections of society. However, its local impact around the UK was patchy, very much depending on whether local CUs could get established…
Tottenham
In 1981 I got involved in Haringey & Islington CU which met at the Crouch Hill Recreation Centre. This was one of the longest established CUs, active since 1970. Around 1982 Tottenham Claimants Union was formed (or indeed re-formed as there had briefly been a TCU 10 years earlier based in Broad Lane) - meeting in a house in Radley Rd, N17 and mostly helping each other with our claims and housing etc. When we heard the Trades Council was setting up a Council-funded Unemployed Workers Centre we started meeting there in what was little more than the broom cupboard. For about 5 years we met there, soon to be on almost a daily basis.
The Centre
Part of a national network of TUC centres in the 1980s, it was very much intended to be part of the TUC/Council approach to ‘the unemployed’ as individuals needing advice by professionals, plus recruiting people into campaigns run by trade unions and left-wing parties against unemployment or for benefits. It was initially run by the Trades Council (effectively the Communist Party). However, the unwaged regular users soon expected a great deal more, and began using the place as a public base to reach out to local claimants, to support each other, to demand our own collective voice in the borough, and to develop our own independent ideas and activities. We
gradually built up a very high level of mutual aid, friendship and solidarity.
The following are some of the activities and achievements:
- supporting each other and other claimants with claims at the DSS. And also over other basic needs like housing - for a couple of years there were Homes For All meetings supporting short-life use or squatting of empty homes
- campaigning against DSS claimant harassment squads - this definitely had an effect
- campaigning fairly successfully for free or 'concessionary' services and facilities for all unwaged
- organising social events (including a 4-day free food kitchen at xmas)and helping organise the annual FCU camping holidays (15 of us from Haringey went one year)....
- supporting independent unwaged groups using the Centre (eg Unwaged Women’s Group, creative writing group, a poetry group, drama group), and also a local pensioners’ action group - occupying the Civic Centre to demand emergency payments when the DSS was closed for 2 weeks by industrial action - 200 claimants took part but were
ejected by police
- joining DSS and Jobcentre workers on their picket lines (there were regular disputes there), and at one time joining Coombes Croft library workers successful occupation to prevent closure
- supporting the miners strike (1984/5) including attending Haringey Support Group meetings at the centre, putting up visiting strikers in our homes, visiting mining villages and going on demonstrations
- supporting Wapping printworkers in their 1986/7 dispute, including going on pickets and supporting strikers producing their own ‘Picket’ bulletin.
Communist Party
We began to insist the Centre be run by the unwaged/unemployed. The Trades Council / Communist Party were dead against this and pulled out all the stops to ensure it didn’t happen. When the TCU agreed to let Wapping printworkers use the TCU address as a contact for their independent ‘Picket’ bulletin, the Communist Party (which dominated the official Union machinery trying to keep control of the very militant Wapping dispute) lost the plot and launched a local campaign against the TCU trying to prevent local trades unionists and pensioner activists working with us.
Our own base
Eventually we decided to set up our own Haringey Unwaged Centre in a shop front at 72 West Green Rd. The Unemployed Workers Centre became an advice centre where people had to have an appointment to go in - it eventually closed a year later. [In fact the local Communist Party branch seemed to collapse around this time or just later]. Although we had no funding we managed to run our own ‘drop-in’ centre, open daily (and sometimes evenings) for about 4 years, holding a range of events and activities
similar to before, but maybe less strong. For 7 or 8 years TCU had also played an active role in linking up with unwaged organisations around London and the country. But times were changing, and government efforts to suppress ‘rights culture’ and opposition movements were beginning to have an effect throughout society - ‘unemployment’ and claimants’ issues were being depoliticised.
Poll Tax
From 1988-1991 the Unwaged Centre was instrumental in helping to build the largest community-based civil disobedience movement in Haringey’s history - the anti-poll tax movement. [For more info, see the HSG local history pamphlet on the subject]. Tottenham Against the Poll Tax was based at the Centre which was the hub for distribution of tens of thousands of leaflets, and all manner of continuous activities and protests for 2-3 years - and eventually victorious!
The end, or moving on?
In 1991 the 3 main anti-poll tax groups agreed to set up local Solidarity Groups (which eventually became Haringey Solidarity Group). The Centre became less and less used, and we eventually donated it to the mainly turkish International Transport & General Workers Union activists for their own use. During the 1990s, the government adopted increasingly oppressive 'right to work' measures and propaganda, and the claimants’ movement largely lost its way and dwindled - although a ‘Groundswell’ activist network was set up in the late-1990s to oppose job seekers allowance rules and incapacity benefit cuts.
In 2006 in the UK there are still some claimants' groups, an active pensioners' movement, disability campaigns, and various other campaigns around related issues. Should efforts be made to build on the successes of the past? Or are there better ways these days for unwaged people to stand up for their interests? Can the tactics used in the past be employed today in other movements?
Dave Morris
The 1920s-30s
There had been a big movement of the unemployed in the 1930s, focusing on demanding work or basic payments. There were marches, lobbying, stunts and sometimes direct action protests - like storming into expensive hotels demanding food. There was a Tottenham branch of the National Unemployed Workers Movement which had a meeting room on Tottenham High Rd by High Cross. A couple of local factories were occupied by protestors to demand jobs and prevent overtime working.
The 1960s - a new wave
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a new unwaged and unemployed movement sprung up throughout the UK demanding the right to adequate benefits for all adults. People formed local Claimants Unions, and the CUs formed the very active Federation of Claimants Unions - at one point there were over 100 active local CUs. This movement was one of the new wave of radical,self-organised and often overlapping movements and struggles which came out of the ‘60s, including struggles for women’s liberation, black liberation, wildcat strikers and ‘rank and file’ industrial organisation, gay liberation, grass roots community action including independent radical newspapers and bookshops, squatting and international solidarity. These
movements tended to be characterized by collective working, solidarity, class-consciousness and anti-sexism, a tendency to direct action and radical protest whilst promoting a culture of ‘we demand our rights’.
The Federation
From about 1970 to 1990 the Federation of CUs held annual conferences and also camps, rotated each year around the UK. It had an influential and popular programme of ‘claimants helping each other to claim what we can from the welfare state, especially the Social Security office’, whilst demanding ‘a basic income for all’, and coupled with a longer term explicit libertarian / socialist / anarchist vision of ‘power to the people’. It was a ‘right to live’ movement rather than ‘right to work’ movement. It was building a well-respected and to some extent an effective claimants’ movement of grass roots day-to-day mutual aid, and of militant ideas and
protest aiming to defend and improve the lives of millions of people in previously marginalised sections of society. However, its local impact around the UK was patchy, very much depending on whether local CUs could get established…
Tottenham
In 1981 I got involved in Haringey & Islington CU which met at the Crouch Hill Recreation Centre. This was one of the longest established CUs, active since 1970. Around 1982 Tottenham Claimants Union was formed (or indeed re-formed as there had briefly been a TCU 10 years earlier based in Broad Lane) - meeting in a house in Radley Rd, N17 and mostly helping each other with our claims and housing etc. When we heard the Trades Council was setting up a Council-funded Unemployed Workers Centre we started meeting there in what was little more than the broom cupboard. For about 5 years we met there, soon to be on almost a daily basis.
The Centre
Part of a national network of TUC centres in the 1980s, it was very much intended to be part of the TUC/Council approach to ‘the unemployed’ as individuals needing advice by professionals, plus recruiting people into campaigns run by trade unions and left-wing parties against unemployment or for benefits. It was initially run by the Trades Council (effectively the Communist Party). However, the unwaged regular users soon expected a great deal more, and began using the place as a public base to reach out to local claimants, to support each other, to demand our own collective voice in the borough, and to develop our own independent ideas and activities. We
gradually built up a very high level of mutual aid, friendship and solidarity.
The following are some of the activities and achievements:
- supporting each other and other claimants with claims at the DSS. And also over other basic needs like housing - for a couple of years there were Homes For All meetings supporting short-life use or squatting of empty homes
- campaigning against DSS claimant harassment squads - this definitely had an effect
- campaigning fairly successfully for free or 'concessionary' services and facilities for all unwaged
- organising social events (including a 4-day free food kitchen at xmas)and helping organise the annual FCU camping holidays (15 of us from Haringey went one year)....
- supporting independent unwaged groups using the Centre (eg Unwaged Women’s Group, creative writing group, a poetry group, drama group), and also a local pensioners’ action group - occupying the Civic Centre to demand emergency payments when the DSS was closed for 2 weeks by industrial action - 200 claimants took part but were
ejected by police
- joining DSS and Jobcentre workers on their picket lines (there were regular disputes there), and at one time joining Coombes Croft library workers successful occupation to prevent closure
- supporting the miners strike (1984/5) including attending Haringey Support Group meetings at the centre, putting up visiting strikers in our homes, visiting mining villages and going on demonstrations
- supporting Wapping printworkers in their 1986/7 dispute, including going on pickets and supporting strikers producing their own ‘Picket’ bulletin.
Communist Party
We began to insist the Centre be run by the unwaged/unemployed. The Trades Council / Communist Party were dead against this and pulled out all the stops to ensure it didn’t happen. When the TCU agreed to let Wapping printworkers use the TCU address as a contact for their independent ‘Picket’ bulletin, the Communist Party (which dominated the official Union machinery trying to keep control of the very militant Wapping dispute) lost the plot and launched a local campaign against the TCU trying to prevent local trades unionists and pensioner activists working with us.
Our own base
Eventually we decided to set up our own Haringey Unwaged Centre in a shop front at 72 West Green Rd. The Unemployed Workers Centre became an advice centre where people had to have an appointment to go in - it eventually closed a year later. [In fact the local Communist Party branch seemed to collapse around this time or just later]. Although we had no funding we managed to run our own ‘drop-in’ centre, open daily (and sometimes evenings) for about 4 years, holding a range of events and activities
similar to before, but maybe less strong. For 7 or 8 years TCU had also played an active role in linking up with unwaged organisations around London and the country. But times were changing, and government efforts to suppress ‘rights culture’ and opposition movements were beginning to have an effect throughout society - ‘unemployment’ and claimants’ issues were being depoliticised.
Poll Tax
From 1988-1991 the Unwaged Centre was instrumental in helping to build the largest community-based civil disobedience movement in Haringey’s history - the anti-poll tax movement. [For more info, see the HSG local history pamphlet on the subject]. Tottenham Against the Poll Tax was based at the Centre which was the hub for distribution of tens of thousands of leaflets, and all manner of continuous activities and protests for 2-3 years - and eventually victorious!
The end, or moving on?
In 1991 the 3 main anti-poll tax groups agreed to set up local Solidarity Groups (which eventually became Haringey Solidarity Group). The Centre became less and less used, and we eventually donated it to the mainly turkish International Transport & General Workers Union activists for their own use. During the 1990s, the government adopted increasingly oppressive 'right to work' measures and propaganda, and the claimants’ movement largely lost its way and dwindled - although a ‘Groundswell’ activist network was set up in the late-1990s to oppose job seekers allowance rules and incapacity benefit cuts.
In 2006 in the UK there are still some claimants' groups, an active pensioners' movement, disability campaigns, and various other campaigns around related issues. Should efforts be made to build on the successes of the past? Or are there better ways these days for unwaged people to stand up for their interests? Can the tactics used in the past be employed today in other movements?
Dave Morris
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Some thoughts on the history, strength, influence and potential of the Anarchist movement [1970-2005]
Anarchist ideas are the only effective and coherent ideas which point the way to ending oppression and injustice, and to creating a free society for the benefit of everyone. Yet despite the lessons of history and the cynicism of those trying to control and manipulate society for their own ends, people continue to flood into shitty political parties, polling booths, religious sects, drugs and escapism, the lottery etc etc.
This is a paradox that we seem to be able to do little about, at least in the short term, whatever we do - so let's not give ourselves a hard time... We can only do our best and hope that our time will come, and soon - before the whole fucking planet goes to pot.
So, what are the strengths and weaknesses of anarchist activities in recent times?
The anarchist movement includes formal and specific anarchist organisations, the diverse activities of dozens of local groups, and broader anarchist-influenced groups, networks and movements. Key questions we all have to face include:
· what can we do on a daily basis where we live and work
· how can we contribute effectively within various movements and struggles?
· how can anarchist ideas grow beyond ideological or cultural ghettos into having the influence and effect on our society they deserve?
There is, or should be, continuous interaction and overlap between the specific anarchist organisations/activity and the much larger, wider struggles and movements - with each influencing the other. Just as anarchists work for such movements to move in an anarchist/self-organisation/class-conscious/wider-issues/militant/direct-action direction, so we need to work to enable all anarchist groups to transform themselves into being much more accessible and relevant to the wider tens of thousands of dissidents and activists who can't relate to / avoid / are unaware / or are unimpressed with specific anarchist organisations - or who just get swept up into political parties or single-issue reformism as an end in itself, or just the only show in town.
There's been a very rich history of significant anarchist activity in recent decades. The following is a crude list of some of the most significant anarchist-influenced activities (which many anarchists and local anarchist groups supported or took part in). Some of the activities and movements, at least in part, consciously adopted many anarchist ideas - and in turn also helped influence and strengthen the anarchist movement.
Some current and recent Anarchist organisation and activity (in no particular order):
- the wide range of activities of local anarchist groups - including involvement in campaigns, local newsletters (eg. Hastings Poison Pen came out weekly for 5 years in the 1970s, the excellent papers produced in Bristol over decades etc etc), regular leafletting, interaction with grass-roots community groups and workplace struggles etc...
- local anarchist/radical bookshops and social centres
- 'national' anarchist organisations and papers
- the annual Anarchist Bookfairs (including regional ones)
- SchNews, Peace News, CounterInformation and other radical papers around which wider networks developed
Some anarchist-influenced 'grass-roots' struggles and movements (in no particular order):
- radical environmental movement, including 1970s anti-nuclear energy movement, Earth First!, anti-road-building struggles
- anti-militarist movements and campaigns (especially the anti-cruise blockades and camps in the early 1980s), including the influence of Peace News
- Reclaim The Streets...and anti-capitalist mobilisations (and the early 1980s Stop 'The City' actions)... Maydays... Critical Mass cyclerides
- squatting
- punk movement, and then the free raves/parties movement
- anti-fascist activities
- anti-corporation campaigns (eg. anti-McDonald's/McLibel)
- civil rights / defence campaigns
- freedom to protest struggles... the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group
- women's liberation movement
- Claimants Union movement (‘60s - 90s)... unwaged and unemployed groups (80s - early 90s)
- animal liberation movement
- local community action (libertarian-influenced grass roots groups and campaigns)
- workplace self-organisation of various kinds (eg rank and file building worker, couriers union etc)... community solidarity groups during strikes etc... Miners Strike and Dockers support work... Picket bulletin (Wapping)... the London Workers Group (1975 - 83), IWW
- coherent libertarian/radical cultural and lifestyle projects and movement (music, theatre, etc)
- conscious co-operative movement (mainly in housing, cafes) ...the Radical Routes network
- the Free Schools in the 1960s... libertarian education initiatives and children-centred activities since then... WEA and U3A?
- consciously alternative/radical media projects (eg radical
documentary groups), the indymedia network
- anti-poll tax movement
- right to roam, and 'land is ours' movements
- LETS schemes
- rural libertarian intiatives, including mutual aid.... back-to-the-land /
self-sufficiency / grow and make-your-own networks
- international solidarity campaigns, and 'no borders' groups
- prisoner support groups
- disability civil rights movements
- free self-organised and /or green festivals
- new traveller movements
Of course, each of these movements may have different, even contradictory tendencies and limitations, but they also have strengths and a great deal of potential. Most importantly, millions of people have taken part in such activities and we need to analyse and learn from their experiences to see how the anarchist movement can become the 'idea and movement of choice' for everyone who wants to oppose any aspect of our oppressive global system or create a better society. In my opinion the priority should be to build up strong community-based pro-working class local anti-authoritarian organisations in every town and borough, as well as help create strong grass-roots community groups in every neighbourhood.
At the end of the day, society seems to be dominated by its own internal forces. Sheer will power and doing the right thing often can only make small ripples in a massive pond. But forces shift, major movements can emerge, and real change can happen fast. Then revolution and social transformation become possible. But anarchist ideas will need to be prevalent to ensure a genuinely free and sensible society is created. Let’s all celebrate our activities and efforts, and our history, and continue to do our best.
Dave Morris
- involved with Haringey Solidarity Group
This is a paradox that we seem to be able to do little about, at least in the short term, whatever we do - so let's not give ourselves a hard time... We can only do our best and hope that our time will come, and soon - before the whole fucking planet goes to pot.
So, what are the strengths and weaknesses of anarchist activities in recent times?
The anarchist movement includes formal and specific anarchist organisations, the diverse activities of dozens of local groups, and broader anarchist-influenced groups, networks and movements. Key questions we all have to face include:
· what can we do on a daily basis where we live and work
· how can we contribute effectively within various movements and struggles?
· how can anarchist ideas grow beyond ideological or cultural ghettos into having the influence and effect on our society they deserve?
There is, or should be, continuous interaction and overlap between the specific anarchist organisations/activity and the much larger, wider struggles and movements - with each influencing the other. Just as anarchists work for such movements to move in an anarchist/self-organisation/class-conscious/wider-issues/militant/direct-action direction, so we need to work to enable all anarchist groups to transform themselves into being much more accessible and relevant to the wider tens of thousands of dissidents and activists who can't relate to / avoid / are unaware / or are unimpressed with specific anarchist organisations - or who just get swept up into political parties or single-issue reformism as an end in itself, or just the only show in town.
There's been a very rich history of significant anarchist activity in recent decades. The following is a crude list of some of the most significant anarchist-influenced activities (which many anarchists and local anarchist groups supported or took part in). Some of the activities and movements, at least in part, consciously adopted many anarchist ideas - and in turn also helped influence and strengthen the anarchist movement.
Some current and recent Anarchist organisation and activity (in no particular order):
- the wide range of activities of local anarchist groups - including involvement in campaigns, local newsletters (eg. Hastings Poison Pen came out weekly for 5 years in the 1970s, the excellent papers produced in Bristol over decades etc etc), regular leafletting, interaction with grass-roots community groups and workplace struggles etc...
- local anarchist/radical bookshops and social centres
- 'national' anarchist organisations and papers
- the annual Anarchist Bookfairs (including regional ones)
- SchNews, Peace News, CounterInformation and other radical papers around which wider networks developed
Some anarchist-influenced 'grass-roots' struggles and movements (in no particular order):
- radical environmental movement, including 1970s anti-nuclear energy movement, Earth First!, anti-road-building struggles
- anti-militarist movements and campaigns (especially the anti-cruise blockades and camps in the early 1980s), including the influence of Peace News
- Reclaim The Streets...and anti-capitalist mobilisations (and the early 1980s Stop 'The City' actions)... Maydays... Critical Mass cyclerides
- squatting
- punk movement, and then the free raves/parties movement
- anti-fascist activities
- anti-corporation campaigns (eg. anti-McDonald's/McLibel)
- civil rights / defence campaigns
- freedom to protest struggles... the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group
- women's liberation movement
- Claimants Union movement (‘60s - 90s)... unwaged and unemployed groups (80s - early 90s)
- animal liberation movement
- local community action (libertarian-influenced grass roots groups and campaigns)
- workplace self-organisation of various kinds (eg rank and file building worker, couriers union etc)... community solidarity groups during strikes etc... Miners Strike and Dockers support work... Picket bulletin (Wapping)... the London Workers Group (1975 - 83), IWW
- coherent libertarian/radical cultural and lifestyle projects and movement (music, theatre, etc)
- conscious co-operative movement (mainly in housing, cafes) ...the Radical Routes network
- the Free Schools in the 1960s... libertarian education initiatives and children-centred activities since then... WEA and U3A?
- consciously alternative/radical media projects (eg radical
documentary groups), the indymedia network
- anti-poll tax movement
- right to roam, and 'land is ours' movements
- LETS schemes
- rural libertarian intiatives, including mutual aid.... back-to-the-land /
self-sufficiency / grow and make-your-own networks
- international solidarity campaigns, and 'no borders' groups
- prisoner support groups
- disability civil rights movements
- free self-organised and /or green festivals
- new traveller movements
Of course, each of these movements may have different, even contradictory tendencies and limitations, but they also have strengths and a great deal of potential. Most importantly, millions of people have taken part in such activities and we need to analyse and learn from their experiences to see how the anarchist movement can become the 'idea and movement of choice' for everyone who wants to oppose any aspect of our oppressive global system or create a better society. In my opinion the priority should be to build up strong community-based pro-working class local anti-authoritarian organisations in every town and borough, as well as help create strong grass-roots community groups in every neighbourhood.
At the end of the day, society seems to be dominated by its own internal forces. Sheer will power and doing the right thing often can only make small ripples in a massive pond. But forces shift, major movements can emerge, and real change can happen fast. Then revolution and social transformation become possible. But anarchist ideas will need to be prevalent to ensure a genuinely free and sensible society is created. Let’s all celebrate our activities and efforts, and our history, and continue to do our best.
Dave Morris
- involved with Haringey Solidarity Group
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