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What is anarchism?
Anarchism as a concept comes from the Greek words 'an arche' which mean
without government or without rulers. Anarchism is an ideology which
believes in the ability of members of a community to live in co-operation
without hierarchical rule, voluntarily without the control of the
machinery of bureaucracy.
Anarchism does not mean disorder or chaos, even though the
prevailing system has tried to label it as such. It means that people are
making the rules and changing them when needed by themselves. We are
talking about direct democracy, about being able to influence from the
individual level to the upper levels of society.
The prevailing system is based on the dominance of the state and on
violence, educational discipline and surveillance. The purpose of the
state is to protect the elite in power and their property.
An independent state has never ment freedom for people. When the
politicians talk about freedom, brotherhood or equality they are just
trying to justify the prevailing inequality.
The state is not an everlasting nor divine system. Its birth is
closely related to the birth of capitalism. The state is anyhow seeing
its own existence as a self-evident fact. That way it is trying to
silence all the alternative ideas.
Anarchism means the demolition of the prevailing, state centric
system. The anarchist alternative means a humane and community centric
way of life where the environment and people are what count - not only
tools in the capitalist mass production and wage slavery system or a part
of a humiliating machinery.
We will not stand being treated as machines! We are trying to destroy
the prevailing organisations, institutions and ways of thinking based on
exploitation, oppression and subjection. These are sexism, racism and
nationalism as well as wage labor and twisted parliamentarism as well as
the education system and the church.
What do you want from your life?
The theory of anarchism is not able to say what the anarchist society in
future will be like. Decisions made in advance tend to lead to a dead end
where social openness and change are impossible. In such a case pluralism
has already been suffocated and the first steps towards totalitarism has
been taken.
As anarchists we are not striving for a world where everything is
set in front of us and is perfectly in harmony, we are striving for a
meaningful life. What does meaningful life mean, then? At least it does
not mean submission to the despotism of politicians, employers,
capitalists or even one's spouse. A meaningful life is created by
ourselves. It cannot be based on exploitation of human beings or nature.
The decision making will be in your own hands. Delegates in
different decision making bodies of society will still be necessary but
the delegate selected by you and your community to represent you will not
have any decision making power her/himself. You have already made your
own decision, the delegate can only represent you and if he or she
exceeds his or her powers by acting against your will or the will of the
community, you/your community has any time the right to repel his power
to represent you.
The parliamentary 'democracy' is not working this way. Haven't we
learned anything from the broken promises given by the professional
politicians or the mistakes made by the delegates?
People should organise freely according to the principles of direct
democracy on every field of life: workplaces, schools, areas of
residence, different organization etc.
Finnish Anarchist Federation (SAL)
The prevailing system with its mechanisms of domination enables the
pauperization of many while few are getting richer and richer. It enables
structural violence creating artificial conflicts as well between people
as between people and nature.
We don't want violence into our home town. Instead we want to live
in a fair and lively town where equality and solidarity are not just
words; in a society where the laws are not passed and the orders are not
given arbitrately from above without any other possibility but to obey.
Autonomy in matters that concern one's own life is the fundamental
condition for meaningful life. That is the reason why we say NO to the
prevailing system. SAL is a network of different groups of people but
even though that we are working together with each other as a
group/network that does not make any person less important. Actually it
makes him/her stronger as an activist and - even more so - as an
idividual.
Anarchism is not a religion but as-fresh-as-possible and radical
social theory combined with uncompromising direct action... It is a
process of creating new and denying the hidebound prevalent.
SAL was founded in 1987 to work for free and equal society. We fight
against the state, capitalism, and other forms of oppression. We believe
that direct action and organising according to the principles of direct
democracy will lead us to an anarchist society. We are not trying to gain
power, we are trying to destroy it!