Around 300 people attended the conference from all across the country to discuss the anarchist movement and take a self-critical look at our own marginalisation. What happened was a collective re-awakening and sense of purpose. There seemed to be a recognition that anarchist ideas can become a popular and vibrant force in society and if we are to move forward we need to change and develop ourselves, our attitudes and our way of doing things.
300 people attend the final plenary of the conference
Two days being in the same room with the same 12 people seemed slightly daunting, however what I discovered was the exceptional, intelligent and sound people that are involved in anarchist politics in the UK. No eccentrics, egotists or nutters which has perhaps unfairly been the view of anarchist gatherings - though lately the anarchist movement has generally tended to develop an increasingly mature outlook.
There will be a final conference report produced over the summer. If you were at the conference and you want to expand on some of the discussions, or comment on what you got out if then please send the conference group an email at
info@conference09.org.uk.
I understand a fuller call out for submissions will be circulated in the next week of so.
There will be a final conference report produced over the summer. If you were at the conference and you want to expand on some of the discussions, or comment on what you got out if then please send the conference group an email at
info@conference09.org.uk. I understand a fuller call out for submissions will be circulated in the next week of so.
e-mail:
Comments
Hide the following 47 comments
Egotistical eccentric nutter
08.06.2009 13:20
I wished they had it may have saved me from dying of boredom after hours and hours of prentious dribble and dross.
esme
?
08.06.2009 13:49
My impression of the group that I was in was of nice, sound, committed and passionate people.
I would rephase it to "helpful to the working classes that the undesirable did not turn up". Though what you define as undesirable is up for question.
Alessio
sane people only, no emotions please
08.06.2009 15:14
like-minded people came together and agreed upon things. how very nice.
nutter
Nice one
08.06.2009 15:57
@non
Would I do it again?
08.06.2009 16:17
What you didn,t notice the middle classes turn up? I spent the best part of the day dealing with their guilt and impressive educations. The people were nicccce. Perhaps we could have a nice revolution led by nice people. Sound asleep was the nearest I experienced sound. Committed to what exactly? I didn’t leave there with one iota of what it was committed to. Another nice conference next year perhaps? Perhaps we could ask the New World Order to be nice to people. Personally I like a bit of passion but didn’t find any at the conference, in fact the only thing that rocked my boat was the meal at the book shop. That was good.
I went there, I tried, I'm entitled to my opinion but the Anarchist conference is not for me.
esme
The same message as Nu labour?
08.06.2009 16:36
Hopefully the anarchist thought-police were on hand to mete out ASBOs and violence to anyone who seemed a little different.
Its a fantastic thing that the anarchist movement is now peopled only with those who have been protected from the worst excesses of capitalist social reproduction.
Jaqui Smith
esme
08.06.2009 16:41
Well done to the conference organisers, I thought it was great.
"Middle Class"
Hmm
08.06.2009 17:16
disillusioned
wheres me trust fund...
08.06.2009 18:27
It did have problems (the massive middle class contingent who didn't seem to really understand what it was like to be opressed by capitalism), but if more of us get involved then hopefully that can be changed?
Tabitha (or Tarquin?)
more
08.06.2009 19:39
Who's up for storming a buddhists retreat like the anarcha-feminist group with a wake up video?! :-0)
S
why the negativity?
08.06.2009 19:40
This anti-'middle class' stuff is also bullshit, do you know everyone's background or are you just being judgemental?
Next you'll be saying conference halls are bourgeouise. Now THAT is Trotskyist.
common sense
mr middle class
08.06.2009 19:51
The only thing I got from the conference was a naughty badge for not being a sad and oppressed woman. Not into being a victim...I like being a woman and I like my men to be men. This caused a lot of anxiety in my group and ended with me being severly chastised for saying that suicide rates suggested that men were more likely to suffer oppression and isolation than women.
Anyways my point being this. The conference was called, I had high hopes I would meet with some intelligent proactive people who understood the urgency of constructing survival tatics in our communities. Imploding political systems, a capatilist system in freefall an advancing NWO. There is no time to be academic or rise the same old arguments re class, race, gender...what we need is housing, food, housing, support net works and resistance to oppresive governments. There is so much that we could do. Together we could collapse a bank in a week. We could close the BBC once and for all all by peacefull means. We could take control of our lifes and responsibility for our own happiness. For me this is anarchism.
Sure there may be a few rucks along the way. I can ruck if need be but it would be hard for the police army to taser thousands of people for not payng their credit cards. I'm fasinated as to why peolp just wont do the obvious.
As for not likeing the middle classes nah I like anyone who buys me a bottle of RUM.
esme
errm
08.06.2009 20:09
no we can't, we are 300 people in a university building in east london. We have no power, no movement, no capibilties thats why we organised the conference to get people together so we could become stronger. Its a process, it will take time, it may never happen but you do not offer alternatives with empty suggestions.
a
"being an anarchist"
08.06.2009 20:22
It could, and should, have been a conference for the anarchist movement - ie those actively involved in anarchist groups, or those actively involved in anarchist politics, instead we got a huge amount of people claiming not really to be anarchists, not activiely involved in anarchist politics/groups or fearful of describing themselves as anarchists!
Only an anarchist conference could invite people who don't subscribe to the notion of anarchism to build a movement they have no real stake in!
Of course it was an event-style conference which meant it a few good and dedicated comrades set a date and invited people to attend, which as i said gave rise to the uneven and at times contradictorary set of views. It was difficult in my group: one comrade said he didn't want to build an anarchist movement, other comrades were there because they were just curious, others were involved in activities that had no relation to anarchist groups, ideas or activities.
As a mass event it worked perfectly. But as a percursor to seriously addressing the issue of why we haven't got an anarchist movement it almost answered itself.
PS i was in a 'good' group, as a method of 'pub talk' it was wonderfully refreshing to talk candidly about your politics, when it came to what we actually do with those politics there was an awkward, stony and embarrassing lack of energy or insight.
effortless and indented
more Prole than thou
08.06.2009 21:38
Indeed one of the largest problems I found with the event was the prevalence of a "more prole than thou" attitude. Anarchism has inherited a confrontational class war heritage whose legacy we would do well to learn from. However, overt anti-intelectualism and anti-middle class sentiments aren't helpfull. Without idea's and an up to date analysis of reality, not a rehash of tired ideology, we can't move forward, whilst those who seem intent on criticising "middle class" people fail to recognise the reality of life under capital today, with all the stratifications it produces. Surely we should be trying to abolish class rather than revel in the limitations it places on our lives?
I agree with Alessio, that it was nice to spend two days with a group of people able to discuss anarchist politics without the, usually, ubiqitous ranters who appear to accept anarchism as some form of cult.
congratulations to the organisers and I hope something like this happens again. Without these arguments happening we wont be able to move forward.
Ben
Ben
no deviation for anarchists!
08.06.2009 22:02
eccentric anarchist
dear eccentric anarchist
08.06.2009 22:21
Be as eccentric as you want, be the most eccentric anarchist the world as ever seen. But don't pretend your eccentricity somehow makes you political. Somehow makes your views relevant, wanted or necessary.
Don't pretend that your eccentricity means we have to listen to you have to say or care.
Don't pretend your eccentricity somehow elevates you above us mere ordinary people.
Don't pretend your eccentricity means anarchism is the politics for you.
It isn't. It really isn't.
Ordinary Boy
"anti-middle class sentiments aren't helpfull"
08.06.2009 22:36
When will you fucking middle-class tourists fuck off and whine somewhere else?
We're all prolier than thou Ben!
wayne rooney an angel to the cause, orwell an evil bastard....
08.06.2009 23:12
''There are the “worker-minded” people, who consider having callous hands as being divinely imbued with all merits and all virtues; they protest if you dare talking about people and mankind, failing to swear on the sacred name of proletariat.''
then he reminds us-
''If the bourgeoisie produces the likes of Giolitti and Graziani and all the long succession of mankind’s torturers, from the great conquerors to the avid and bloodsucking petty bosses, it also produces the likes of Cafiero, Reclus and Kropotkine, and the many people that in any epoch sacrificed their class privileges to an ideal. If the proletariat gave and gives so many heroes and martyrs of the cause of human redemption, it also gives off the white guards, the slaughterers, the traitors of their own brothers, without which the bourgeois tyranny could not last a single day.''
nuff fukin said.
if you judge someone by what vagina they happend to fall out of and there upbrinign they didnt choose not by merit of what they are doing as a conscious adult then you are no anarchist. you are closer to a fascist who judges by someones birth. if you take your fukin dumb position to an end, then anarchism loses loads of its great writers like PRINCE kropotkin and also tons of people involved in the movement. i suppose according to you twats girls aloud are your comrades but bakunin is a posh wanker who deserved to be killed by a holy prole. yea thats right some footballer who grew up on an estate ands now on billions living in a mansion and a selfish luxury lifestyle without a care for anyone else is a comrade but a hard working teacher with anarchist views/someone like chris knight who happend to be born in certain circumstances/have a caertain upbrining is a demon and class traitor who must be slaughtered? fuck. off.
as anarchists we shouldnt give a fuck where people come from or their upbringin. obv most will be from poorer working class ones. but if some are from middle or even upper... then brilliant, we can learn from each others experiences and move forward together. its not where you come from that counts. its what you beleive and what your doin now. period.
anyway do you want to be rid of the class system or do you want to fetishise and writhe in it to somehow boost your ego? make your fukin mind up. i want to end it and if the queen renounces her position and joins me in this aim i would welcome her with open arms.
stuff like this makes it clear why the anarchist movement is failing. people are too childish to even see beyond someones accent or education or family. what's next, an anarchist dress code? an anarchist haircut? a list of ten postcodes you have to have been born in? no blacks no irish no dogs? you people piss me off.
non-judgemental-anarchist-tired-of-workerfetish
elitist anarchists
08.06.2009 23:38
I agree with this and believe it is a blight on the entire anarchist movement and indeed the left in general. There is too much in-fighting - which incidentally forms a hierarchy of leftist groups of which anarchists believe they are the 'best' - and not enough action. The core ideas of the anarchist movement are solid but until this hangup on working class'ness' is put to one side there will be no real 'movement'. The inherent freedoms associated with anarchism should span existing class barriers and brake them down.
The worst thing that is coming out of this inverted snobbery (which I myself am guilty of to some extent) is the view that it presents to the active student movements that are beginning to form all over the country. Why should they be forced to question exactly how 'prole' they are or be excluded just because their student status evokes a quintessentially 'middle class' stereotype? Surely the anarchist movement should focus more on the rejection of hierarchical structures instead of getting caught up with this apparent exclusivity?
Peoples ideas and more importantly their actions say more than any notion of social class.
Bill
Prolier than yow
09.06.2009 07:45
It still does amaze me how many so-called "prolier than thou" comrades are in fact from upper-middle class backgrounds! The worst environment we can create in our movement is for people to apologies for their background or worst still, pretend they are something they are not.
Anyway, IMC comments are not the movement -- those that did come to the conference might have a much better impression of where the movement thinks and where it wants to go.
Alessio
Famous last words
09.06.2009 08:22
‘no we can't, we are 300 people in a university building in east London’.
Just to say I did not mean the attendees of the conference could achieve this. They would be hard pushed to organize a bowl of salad. Can you imagine if a maggot was found on a leave? Oh No there’s a maggot. What do we do? Do we remove it by force or do we let it crawl away in its own time? If it crawls away do we aim to return it to its original community? How do we return it? Let’s call a meeting. Meeting called days later decision made. Maggot found dead.
However if people could just step outside of their fear zone and conditioning bringing about radical changes in society are not complicated or confrontational. Whets so hard about not using the banks? Not paying a T.V license? Turn off the TV. Don’t buy newspapers. Grow your own food? Help your neighbor.
We each and every one of us is responsible for how fcuked this world is. There is not time to wait until the next conference the chaos is amongst us now. Anarchy will never be the result of a conference it will come through hunger and fear.
Some one close to me works for a recruitment agency. A mediocre job was advertised and received 80 applicants in 30 minutes.
My partner’s family lived in a remote rural village for hundreds of years. There was no warning of what was to come. They literally woke up one morning to find their village invaded and in the midst of a war zone. They are now living in different countries and will never live together again.
Never take it for granted that you can wait until the next meeting! TUNG
esme
We Are Not Your Movement
09.06.2009 09:48
And although there wasn't the conflict and ruptures and schisms between those vying for the concentrated soul of the true anarchism definition [unlike here!] which may be considered a success in itself, neither was their any sense of a movement coming together.
Which goes back to what the conference was for. If it was for:
1. lots of numbers means we can call ourselves a movement
2. genuine anarchists living in isolated parts of the uk in critically small numbers can feel a real part of a bigger whole
then it more than succeeded.
If on the other hand the anarchist conference was for anarchists groups and those active in anarchist politics (ie being an anarchist) to come together meet and find methods of working together, developing political strategies around the very real issues we are all facing, and actualise an anarchist movement, not based on numbers attended, but on how anarchists work together in the promotion of anarchist ideas in a real world environment then we still need to look at ourselves critically.
To those complaining here about minor details and personal injustices, perhaps consider we are not your movement. Your movement maybe somewhere else with other people doing other things. This conference should have been by and for anarchists; only then would we have recognised our strengths and weaknesses as a movement and been able to actually do something, collectively, about it.
Perhaps that conference is yet to come.
effortless and indented
*
09.06.2009 13:41
What a load of shit. Way to castigate.
"we", seperatist bullshit - this is a movement of the people who make itup - who are you to tell people who is and isn't welcome?
George Bush
Post Plenary Meetings
09.06.2009 14:06
Somebody
non-judgemental-anarchist-tired-of-workerfetish
09.06.2009 16:23
Lover
We Are Still Not Your Movement
10.06.2009 09:41
Anarchism is not a personal lifestyle choice. Anarchism is not an all inclusive self-help group for those who don't feel comfrotable anywhere else, anarchism is not an environment where personal behaviour is somehow liberated from social consequences. It is a political tendency borne out of real social struggles that (should) resonate within society in general.
If we do not welcome sexist, racist, homophobic and fascist behaviour why must we accept the disruptive behaviour of "eccentrics, egotists or nutters"?
The seperation should be clear:
- Those who actively contribute to the development and promotion of anarchists ideas and actvities in the real world
- Those who are feeling a bit 'anarchisty' today.
effortless and indented
congrats
10.06.2009 15:55
But big shame to hear all this bollocks about 'middle class tourists', 'i'm more working class than your dog lead' rubbish. Remids me of the most irritating NUS types, telling me how bloody working class their family is - as an excuse for supporting Blair!!!! If that's working class then it can fuck off (of course I know it's not, but you get my drift about this kind of claim)
Makes me glad to be out of the UK - classism is still alive and well in the degenerated parliamentary democracy.
PS. a conference is for talking, and discussing. Allowing everyone to have a say if possible. So if you want to smash up a bank rather than discuss strategy, or don't want to listen and only want to have others hear the sound of your own voice and the story of your own oppressed life (as if we are not all oppressed in big ways by capitalism and statism - and don't go telling me you're hard-up: think of people in Palestine or any other genocidal place like the Tamil areas on the Island of Sri Lanka), then don't be dissapointed if the conference isn't to your liking.
PPS. well done to the organisers - let's hope the movement does build.
Krop
Cry me a fucking river!
11.06.2009 09:23
And just how many Trustafarians infesting the Anarchist movement sacrifice their class privileges?! They want one foot in the movement and the other in Mummy & Daddy's bank account. This isn't about 'workerism', it's simply ridicious to view a movement which is so totally dominated by the sons and daughters of the middle-class as revolutionary. It is the dominance of the middle-class that has kept the Anarchist movement in this country liberal for so long (this can be seen in action on this thread.) The middle-class behave as 'managers' just like their Mummys & Daddys, with whom they have far more in common than they have with the vast majority of ordinary people (the working-class.) Only in the Anarchist movement would we have to listen to the self-pitying whining of spolit little shits who think they have some sort of cross to bear because their parents are well off, and because they have degrees and money in the bank. When push comes to shove we'll see which side of the barricades they're on.
Class War
An idea to circulate
11.06.2009 12:40
MI5 Officer
Classism?!
11.06.2009 16:00
Class discrimination is a daily reality, the rich shit on the poor. It seems the middle class just want to keep a monopoly on it. I'll take middle-class revolutionaries seriously when they do in their rich parents and donate their inheritence to the movement. Most of them will be here 5 minutes, then they'll fuck off to run Daddy's business for him.
Class Warrior
Circulating a long time already
11.06.2009 16:03
MI5 Officer
Way to go
11.06.2009 16:25
If everyone went round hating everyone else for this reason we'd have mass genocide taking place. That's probably what 'class-warrior' has in mind?
MI5 Officer
We have nothing to lose but our trustfunds, inherited wealth, and cosy careers
11.06.2009 17:32
Working-class people in this country still die at least 10 years younger than their middle-class counterparts, thousands of working-class kids still go to bed hungry. By trying to denigrate and belittle that, you have just given a perfect example of why middle-class activists are a joke. Mass genocide has been practiced by the rich against the poor for centuries. Fuck off out of our movement you spoilt arrogant scum. The sooner the better.
Lord Snooty
The class war is alive and well
11.06.2009 20:11
Middle-class activists just don't get it
its not about class, its about egoism, resentment and elitism
11.06.2009 20:11
really working class
Yes
11.06.2009 20:36
Are we going to purge everybody who doesn't speak like a geezer, in case they're 'middle class'? What about people who were middle class but fall into working class?
With these attitudes we'll forever be shouting on the sidelines rather than taking control.
Lover
no report needed
11.06.2009 20:53
I've been unemployed for 2 years since school (actively searching for non-temporary work - impossible), worked as a temporary worker for close to 4 years, been arrested about 5 times, got a criminal record, no savings, no car... rely on my bike to get around. But I'm not moaning about it cos' I'm perfectly happy not being tied into the capitalist baggage that most people aspire to. Stuff that maybe some of the people on here actually envy. Sure, almost everyone one I meet now is better off than me, has a house (and mortgage)...those doing technical or manual jobs (would that qualify as working class?) I know can go on holiday to Thailand and other places like that... I don't know anyone from rich families actually. Some peoples' parents were comfortably off (eg. they had a car, a mortgage, and a home), but many more came from council houses and the like. Some dropped out of school, some went to uni, but the majority of people I know didn't.
But so what? At least I'm sane, got my body, got a family, have friends all over the place, have kept out of prison so far -touch wood, and can usually ignore the ignorant rantings of capitalist media like the BBC and the like. Yet even here, on Indymedia, I sometimes am reminded of the bollocks peddled by certain people. I know that sounds hard, but its true to some extent: for the very same reasons the BNP get voted in blaming immigrants, you go round blaming middle class people. Its the same kind of resentment.
This should be about capitalism, destroying the state, creating an equitable, decentralised libertarian society, but you people have simply lost the plot. The UK is a pretty sick creature to be honest - and it shows not only in the right of the political spectrum but on the left. If posts on this page are anything to go by then Thatcher really has won: there really is no such thing as society in the UK now.... its about the individual, their grievances, and those they blame - to the extent that people can't co-operate on even the smallest political projects due this egocentric resentment.
The person quoting Malatesta above should be listened to much more. Much more than quoting random - and highly unsurprising - reports about inequality that we already know about.
Real Working Class
"Resentment"??!!
11.06.2009 21:41
Whose that, fucking John Prescott?! Or is it a duck-house building Tory MP?
UATW
"Resentment"!!!! 2
11.06.2009 21:45
And now fucking Norman Tebbit is wading in.
(Don't forget to tug your forelock mug!)
UATW
well done on the diversion
12.06.2009 10:18
impressed at your efficiency
bored.
12.06.2009 14:15
he makes it clear that you cant choose your parents and he'd accept prince charles if he renoucned his position and joined the movement commitin and believin in the ideals.
he says clearly- ''your fukin background doesn't matter at all''
your accent, color, sex, background, doesnt matter for shit as long as you genuinely believe and commit to the movement. obviously if your some drop out style hippy middle class whos just lookin for a laugh or somethin then your not welcome. but if you 100% commit and believe then more the merrier right? i know a wob in uk who had a very wealthy upbrinin. he doesnt live off his family or support their lifestyles. he realises and does the fukin job now and makes no bones about it. top guy.this kinda comment war is a farce lets wrap it up here by the hot headed pricks watching the ian bone video and shutting the fuck up.
its not your background tis what you do that counts. most anarchists are and will always be working class. afew other ppl from other backgrounds realise the truth and join. get over it. do i prefer chomsky or the police officers from working class backgrounds (not always but alot of times) who beat up and arrest people for fighting against injustice and kick people out who cant pay rent and harrass homless people and murder passers by at protests??? is the cop who punched me at g20 my ''comrade'' whereas chomsky is a ''tyrant''.?? let me fukin think. you see difference?? one chooses to support oppression. one tries to fight it in their own way, in this case spreading amazing research and literature. their background is irrelevant. one chooses to oppress who happens to be working class background (mostly for cops anyway) the other chooses to go against the grain who happens to be from a wealthier background. and what? why can ppl in uk not see this distinction?? american comrades are bewildered and amused by our bickering. it's HUMILIATING.
still as one poster said near the start thankfully IMC comments are not 100% the movement. otherwise we'd be totally fucked.
''the class war is alive and well'' er. obviously. it's about taking sides. people here are suggesting you are born into sides, which yes is true, but is only true to a certain extent. the fact is some who are born poorer choose side of the oppressors such as slave like cops willing to kill their fellow man on command (have we not seen this enough??) and even afew selfish politicians and careerists who don their working class credentials/roots with pride while actually being entirely self serving. (glad to see NUS being mentioned. check out the head. isnt he just the ultimate comrade.) there are also ppl from poor background, albeit a small amount in high up banking and business jobs. on the other side of coin similarly a small number from wealthier backgrounds choose the correct side in the class war and commit to it. if it were as simple as bein born into the side then we could have a full scale physical fight now and be done with it and of course we'd fukin win cos there are so many more of us. but fact is if that fight broke out tomorrow guess what? the cops, for example would come down AGAINST the working class even though alot of them come from that background.so yes you are born into a side of the class war in simplistic terms. but then remember choices are still made in which people switch sides. while i find his works abit boring, i still come down in favour of chomsky over a guy i met who grew up on an estate who's now VERY high up in banking. i come down in favour or any person in this movement whatever background over cops from whatever background who arrest or even kill us for fighting back or even merely walking home as seen recently.
considering_moving_abroad
well done again
12.06.2009 14:34
its also about their consciousness of how that could affect others than come into contact with them, and how it might affect what they perceive to be most politically urgent at any given moment.
very very few are permanently and always in a position of privilege in every social interraction throughout their lives. our social status can change as we age, change external gender presentation, come "out", have kids or don't, experience health issues, etc. it also changes from one social situation to the next. for example, i'm a white female of middle-class background living on a low income. if i walk into the pub round the corner which is mostly frequented by black working men on low incomes, who will be in the position of priviledge in that space? if i go to the pub three blocks away its full of upper middle class white men is it different there? what about when i'm in the laundrette with the low-income single mums of all races? or at the anarchist meeting?
x
x
not background but behaviour
zapatistas are like. sooo middle class.
12.06.2009 15:28
people on here act like all people from working class backgrounds agree with anarchist politics. frankly some don't. you can;t say ''oh they havnt seen the light, they're being lead astray/confused by the ruling class'' etc. don't be so patronising to assume you are a intellectual god and other working class people are too thick to 'see the light.' i know plenty from working class backgrounds who have views ranging from socialist to even tory. yea. tory (he's a guy who 'made it' and believes in the individual striving out to ''succeed'' ie get rich). don't say they haven't been offered an alternative. these people are aware of other opinions out there but they choose their own. how do these 'class warriors' above account for these people? surely by your standards of background automatically deciding if your a friend or foe these people would be friends and comrades. clearly they have opposite views to you though. how do you get your small brain round that one. haha i genuinely want to hear a response.
what are people's thoughts on the gender discussion within the movement? i haven't checked out the new group yet. i hope they're not germaine greer style ;)
your name
'nutter' you're a fuckwit.
12.06.2009 23:02
''no-one expressed real class anger or displayed evidence of mental health issues''
what the fuck. i come from a fairly middle class background. one of my sisters, and my uncle, and my nan (and my father most probably to follow very soon) all suffer from SEVERE devastating mental health issues. how dare you infer only those from certain backgrounds suffer from such things you gutless scum don't talk about that which you don't understand.
Rweh
i did not do that
13.06.2009 12:25
i suggest you re-read the exact words i used.
nutter
sorry
13.06.2009 14:11
By the way, out of interest if you're saying no-one expressed these things at the conference does that include you? and if so why complain that nobody expressed anger etc if you didn't either? i wasn't at the thing but just curious as to the remark
cheers
Rweh