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Future of the Movement: a Suggestion

KT | 04.11.2001 15:47

A look at where the anti-capitalist movement is heading and a suggestion that we THINK BIG by communicating our ideas to a wider number of people.

This is the text of a leaflet I handed out at the Anarchist Bookfair and talked about at the May Day meeting there. It’s basically a suggestion for something we could do to communicate the ideas of the anti-capitalist movement to the general population, and to improve our understanding of other people’s lives and views at the same time. I’m posting it here to see what people think. If anyone’s interested, I’m also going to put it forward as a suggestion for part of a week of May Day activities at the May Day organising meeting, which as far as I know will be on Sunday, 25th November (venue t.b.c.).

In the last few years we’ve seen the anti-capitalist movement in Europe and North America grow at an incredible rate. (Huge movements with similar aims have been around for much longer in other parts of the world, but that’s another story.) It seems to me that it’s taken existing activists by surprise. Suddenly there are tens of thousands of us running around the streets, amazed by the power our numbers have given us, yet at the same time hardly knowing what to do with it. Personally, as the time comes around to invent another May Day’s misrule, I feel a sense of frustration. Yes, these things are fun and empowering and can make good political points, but we could be doing so much more.

Clearly this is a movement whose time has come. We haven’t done anything particularly clever to draw this number of people towards us, though the Reclaim The Streets parties were certainly a fine idea and took hold accordingly. This is getting so big because the effects of neo-liberalism are so dramatic. Globalisation, privatisation, the breathtaking power of multinationals: at every turn, things we assumed to belong to us, the people, are being taken away, be it public transport, secure jobs or the genetic make-up of the world around us. That ever hungry monster, capitalism, is trying to feed in places we never imagined possible. It is a political shift which has surely not been matched since the Acts of Enclosure threw the populace off land which until then had always been common property.

These changes have the potential to be seen as deeply wrong by the majority of the population. They offend our ideas of ‘natural justice’ and they are having terrible effects on people’s lives, through lost and casualised jobs, environmental destruction, the ruin of public services and education, you name it. But as a movement we aren’t responding to this potential. Compared to movements in Latin America, for instance, we are still running around like children. We have an incredibly strong message: we need to communicate it. We need to tell people why we’re dressing up in padded white suits and breaking windows every May Day, because the mainstream media sure as hell aren’t going to.

I read recently that the Zapatistas once conducted what they called a ‘consulta’, in which thousands of them travelled all over Mexico in small groups explaining what the Zapatistas were fighting for and asking ordinary people what they thought of it. What I want to suggest is that we could do something similar: a kind of Discussion Day. Three times a year, for instance, we (i.e. anyone who sees themselves as part of the anti-capitalist movement, by which I mean genuine anti-authoritarians, not Trotskyists trying to build their party) could set up in little groups on street corners or outside supermarkets or anywhere we feel appropriate and tell people what it is we’re on about, discussing whatever is appropriate for the time and place. It would be about spreading information, not a party line. It would be a two-way process, learning what’s going on with other people as we talk to them. It would need organisation, but it needn’t be hierarchical or stifling. And we would need to inform ourselves, possibly meeting up at something like the excellent conference a couple of years ago, but that’s what any mature political movement does: it educates itself.

Given the information, I believe more and more people could share our ideas. Over time we could create a movement with the strength to achieve changes we can scarcely imagine now. We could forget the pointless debates the media try to impose on us about ‘violence’. (Violent protest has always existed, often for good reason, and probably always will.) This will be far more threatening to the powers that be: the spreading of illicit information, people communicating without state permission, a powerful anti-capitalist movement taking root among all those who have something to gain from it.

Part of the problem is that at the moment there is no real forum for such discussions, but, as I say, I’m going to suggest it as part of a range of pre-May Day activities at the organising meeting on 25th November. So if anyone likes the sound of it, maybe they could come along. Ultimately, I think that if this idea is right and if we have the movement to do it, it will happen. And if it spreads, like the RTS street parties did, maybe these Discussion Days could start to happen all over the world. Where will it end? We can only dream.

KT
- e-mail: hildegaard@clara.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

What abour the SWP?``

04.11.2001 18:33

Does the SWP have apart to play in all this?I"m new to all this and what I see is splinters.Whats the story?

nicos


Nail on the head

06.11.2001 15:50

Excellent suggestion.
I would like to say first that many readers will trash what I say because I am politically inactive. I have never been to a protest, I do not consider myself an anarchist. I, like many others who will read this, come from a privileged background. What you have said struck a chord with me because I am state reliant, I need medicine to stay alive. How could I survive in an anarchist state? Simple answer I couldn't.
However, with every day that passes I become increasingly disenchanted with the way the world is going, and often think about moving abroad, just to get away from it. I don't think I am alone in thinking this either.
I get frustrated sometimes reading these pages, reading about the viewpoints of fanatical anti-capitalists, who seem to want to exclude people from their viewpoints and arguments, rather than seek as you say to educate, listen and learn how to communicate with a wider populace. People who wear Nike trainers and Addidas shirts are not barbaric. The companies that force kids to make them and then create an environment where these items are sought after are barbaric.
I agree with you that the anti-capitalist movement has massive potential, and my view is that until the majority in the movement learn to communicate with the lager swilling football fan, and the shag-a-night peroxide blonde the movement will not grow. This is what those in power fear most, and that is why they encourage such behaviour.
I just hope that my suggestions will not be met with contempt because I am not a politically correct anti-capitalist.

Berty


to berty

06.11.2001 17:42

Berty, don't put yourself down, what you say is wise! We do need to reach out to new people. We can't afford for this movement to look only inward. We musn't tear ourselves apart in rows over ideology.

What I'd suggest is, find some action taking place near you, and get stuck in! You'll find that most activists are open-minded and welcoming, and far more concerned with organising than feuding.

activist