We need to organise


We are writing as two people who have just returned from the congress of the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA, of which the Anarchist Federation is the British section) in Besancon, France. Present were delegates and guests from groups from all over Europe, as well as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay.

It was an inspiring event, not just to hear from the struggles of comrades all over the world, but to see large scale, directly democratic, anarchist decision-making in practice.

Local groups and then national federations had discussed the agenda and sent mandated delegates to the congress, where people from different countries discussed the points and came to mutually agreeable conclusions. Congress proposals were made by small working groups with multiple translators, and then reported back to the full assembly, where the consensus of all the federations was sought.

The scope of the decisions was very large, and yet the anarchist process meant that all individuals could have a big input and all could be happy with the outcome. For us it was the biggest example we have seen of libertarian organisation in practice, and has confirmed to us that this is the best way for us to work, and ideally the way in which a free society should function: a global federation of freely-associating, autonomous groups and individuals.

It has also confirmed to us the need for us to really get organised. We want and need a better world, and we know in our hearts that one is possible. We feel the crushing alienation on the streets and in the trains: millions of pairs of eyes desperately avoiding contact; in our homes as we cut ourselves or destroy our minds with drink or drugs; at work as we stare at the clock wishing our lives away, saving pointlessly for a pittance as our debts escalate...

And we know it could all change, if only we realised our own power. Isolated we cannot do that. In one of our working-group meetings, we discovered that both the Spanish and French federations had a small number of different contacts in Morocco, each of whom were desperate to meet with other anarchists. Better communication and co-ordination is essential if we are serious about changing the whole social order.

And how, without international co-operation, do we help spread anarchist ideas in countries like Morocco where there has never been an anarchist movement? We need to get to a position where we can provide real help to comrades living in these countries: outreach materials, books, money, and hopefully one day arms. We, who have never believed in borders, shouldn’t allow them to constrain our activity.

Being part of a federation doesn’t mean losing autonomy or being controlled by a central council, it means that we can connect the struggles that our rulers have atomised into coherent and organised opposition. We can learn from the mistakes made by other comrades, provide more effective solidarity to each other, and share ideas, tactics and knowledge.

Our struggle is a global as Capital, and we must develop effective organisational forms to express this. The federation is the anarchist solution to complex social organisation. It is the method by which we can maintain our individual and collective autonomy, but organise effectively over large distances and numbers of people. Discussion and debate is face to face, between mandated delegates, but decisions are taken at the local level by the federated groups themselves. This is not a call for everyone to join the IAF, since there is also the anarcho-syndicalist International the IWA (British section SolFed) and the syndicalist IWW, which we also stand in complete solidarity with. But this is a call for people to work together better, and not be instinctively afraid of the “O” word (“organisation”, if you haven’t guessed). Action without theory is directionless. It will take all of us to transform society in the way we desire, and we must develop our theoretical framework and tactics together, in an inclusive and accountable way.
It just seems so much more sensible for us to join our efforts together – why should so many groups struggle with basics such as writing and printing an anti-war leaflet when we could all pool our efforts and save so much time and money?

And should we all struggle to keep all our publications going, like Resistance, Freedom, Class War, Catalyst... when maybe together we would find it easy? Using the example of websites just look at enrager.net. It’s a collaborative effort between people in different groups and is far more useful than any one organisation’s site.

There are thousands of anarchists in Britain (just look at the Bookfair, or the subscription numbers to the anarchist press), but isolated we achieve nothing. Our potential is squandered as we all fragment and accomplish fractions of what we could achieve working together. Unless we get our shit together of course the Trots will attract new people wanting to change the world, because everyone knows they can’t do it alone. Isolated in small collectives it is easy to burn out just from doing organisational basics like updating a website or putting together a newsletter. In federations, we can divide tasks out to democratically-accountable working groups, and stop the perpetual cycle of activist burn-out which sees older militants disappear while younger ones re-invent the wheel and repeat the errors of the past...

We have in our number such incredibly skilled people; organisers, workplace militants, theorists, historians, graphic designers, public speakers, web designers, street fighters, linguists etc. Yet how many groups use these skills effectively? Imagine what we could achieve if these people could work together on the project we all hold in common: making the anarchism a social force capable of transforming society.

Thanks to the activities of groups like Earth First! and RTS, interest in anarchism has never been higher in recent history. But what will happen to this interest if all people see is a tiny collective in isolation (most likely bitching about other collectives), rather than a small group but one which is linked to a wider nationally and internationally organised network, which shares information on its struggles, meets face-to-face and works on a common plan to transform our lives and our relationships with one another.


We have a world of co-operation to win, and nothing to lose but solitude...


For libertarian communism,

John (Freedom Group/enrager.net) and Mark (Anarchist Federation/enrager.net), in personal capacities.

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 http://enrager.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1674