Anarchism is not Pacifist

This originally appeared in the Letters section of issue #43 of Anarchy: a Journal of Desire Armed

I greatly appreciated the piece by "The Nechayevist Front" in the last issue of AJODA; it was one of the few intelligent reactions to the the FC question that I've seen.

It is understandable that many people in the anarchist millieu would question the Unabomber's method of action and choice of tactics, all the more so because the great majority seem opposed to violence, or at least if not totally opposed to violence, then opposed to anything but collectively engaged violence such as mass insurrection; the individual's decision to engage in such acts without the expressed permission of an organized body is a horror to many. Even the individual's choice of words may be called into question as the anarchist is trapped by the bourgeois media's games of attributing a single idealogy to the anarchist movement; there are individuals and organizations that then try to redifine the ideology in their own image, convinced that that if there are no monolithic positions, then the movemnet itself is impotent. So it is all the more reprehensible that so many have responded to FC by attempting to define anarchism as a pacifist movement; I don't recall ever getting any questionaire on my point of view on the subject. It's rather authoritarian to negate other views. And what message does this negation send?

Without denying people the right to their opinions, at this point an honest examination of the tactics of fawning to conservatives is long overdue. (By conservatives I mean all people who would conserve a system of wage labor, political representation, policing and other anti-immediatist forces.) So many (of these liberal) anarchists don't want to alienate the media (one of the most alienating and most disgusting of all institutions of power) because they seem to believe that if they could just get their message of peace and utopia out to the masses, people would understand the high moral desirablity of anarchism and only at that point, when people can consciously consent to making changes in society, can we embark on mass social change without violence and bloodshed. As a person who formerly held these opinions, I can understand where this point of view is coming from and the need to seperate oneself, morally, from the agents of terror and policing who rule the earth. The imperative to act morally, however, has always been a part of the arsenal of the ruling classes (who generally define morality to begin with). Better to get rid of them by taking the necessary action than to live with them forever. Furthermore, in many people the decision to act morally, or, in this situation, to publicly espouse some morality, has more to do with a need to be recognized by others as a paragon of virtue than to affect any real change via examples of human behaviour. This strategy of appealing to conservative elements of society cannot be very effective in the future for the following reasons:

1). technology has the capability to affect human behaviour and alter the way we socialize with remarkable speed; the technological program can outpace and will always be two steps ahead of the anarchist moral program;

2). such moralistic issues such as equality can be easily recuperated by the ruling classes whose ability to muster public support is far greater than ours because they are intentionally deceptive;

3). people can be morally oposed to a regime but feel powerless to overthrow it, which gives any given regime a free hand to implement unpopular policies which effectively negate the desires of the people;

4). the fact that anarchists don't make rebellions more often actually works to their disadvantage; when people have to look back into history to see the last rebellions, it makes anarchism look like a thing of the past. Despite what the pacifists feel, many people respect action more than perfectionism. By appealing to the more conservative elements, they may be discouraging some of the more radical ones.

Another thing that the moralists seem to ignore is that mass segments of society are dying to see some action, some real radical change. Go stand on a street in many NY neighborhoods with a sign that says "Kill the police" and you'll get a much warmer response than standing there with a sign that says "No more killing - form a commune." These liberal anarchists, who are mostly educated white folk, would think that the second sign represents a far more productive alternative for people and it's just that the people don't understand it yet because they haven't been educated with the proper ideas. But perhaps it is the overeducated of these types that alienate them from the overwhelming misery of most people on the earth. Life can be full of interesting potential for the anarcho-liberal; what a nasty interruption a social revolution would be. Many people, however, are more convinced that they could do with some revolution right now and are not that concerned with anarcho-details like who is going to clean the toilets; these people are far more ready to rock and roll than the average anarchist and for obvious reasons. They have no interest in the system at all; the anarcho-liberal is more at home in it and can be more effective at coping with its standards.

I thereby agree wholeheartedly with the opinions expressed in the aforementioned tract, with one small exception. While I agree that the problems of modern society are too big to be assigned to one living symbol, this is a more effective way for one living individual to attack the minions of authority than say, blowing up the pentagon, which would undoubtably require Herculean effort of an organized and would be a thousand times more likely to lead to capture. Attacks on the right individuals can be highly resonant; such acts can create terror in the ranks of authority. It is important to frighten people, if only to make them understand that they cannot act with impunity.

The problem with terror campaigns, as anybody can understand, is the high probability that they can cause a public reaction, that, out of fear, people would rally to defend people and institutions that they normally could care less about or even dislike. On the other hand, each successful act of resistance (be it terrorist campaign or pacifist protest) sends the message out to others that they can take action. My bet is that there are thousands ready to pick up the a gun, a monkey wrench or a wooden shoe; they may just be waiting for others to start up the action. (Anybody who has ever been in a semi-riot has probably seen crowds of people waiting eagerly to shoplift- waiting for the first person to smash a store window.) The anarcho-evolutionists might argue that periods of social unrest simply lead to ones of reaction, but remember how much fun we all have recalling the unrest.

Fuck capitalism, fuck civilization!

An unrepentant revolutionist, -- Laure Akai, Moscow, Russia