đŸ Archived View for library.inu.red âș file âș aragorn-a-non-european-anarchism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 06:19:45. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âĄïž Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: A Non-European Anarchism Author: Aragorn! Date: 2007 Language: en Topics: anarchy, critique, imperialism, race, racism Source: Retrieved on January 11, 2011 from http://web.archive.org/web/20080503193224/illvox.org/2007/06/23/a-non-european-anarchism/
The story of the people who have not written the history books, who have
not built empires, and who have not aspired to lord over others is our
history. To some extent, the nature of these times is that for this tale
to be told, each of us have to make a commitment to it, to both write,
speak and learn about the crevices and shadows in which the âwinnersâ
did not invade, and in which we live. This story of survival, of just
getting by, is the story of the life of the vast (as in over 90%)
majority of the people throughout time, throughout modern civilization.
Survival is the only possibility when participation means what it does
today.
While this text cites Europe as the ultimate expression of the successes
that reflect our loss, it is not solely Europeâs legacy. Similar (if not
as grand) tales of invasion, colonization, and genocide can be told of
other cultures. The difference is that they are not the inheritors of
the world system today. Europe is.
Militarism, Capitalism, Statecraft and their consequences in Racism,
Genocide, and Total War can all be placed on Europeâs doorstop. This
doesnât mean that there are not Europeans who resist this tradition,
this practice, but if the world has a problem, or a set of problems, it
can be traced to origins. It is not enough to eke out examples of these
problems in other places as an escape from the consequences of origin.
In an alternate universe it is possible that we could be railing against
the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire.
There is a need at this time to declare an anti-authoritarian tendency
that both respects its origins and fights against them. An anti-statist,
anti-economic position that prioritizes cultural values over scientific
determinism and the maintenance of empire. A position that values
diversity over any unitary answer to political and social life. It is
the time to connect the realities of our colonial history, land
relations, and politics to the conclusions of both its rebels and our
elders. From the Irish to the Makah, the Kurds to the Mbuti, the urban
African-American to the settled Rom a story can be told outside of
Western Civilization. A non-European Anarchism is the politic of that
story set within the context of a resistance to it.
When I speak of Europeans or mental Europeans Iâm not allowing for false
distinctions. Iâm not saying that on the one hand there are the
byproducts of a few thousand years of genocidal, reactionary European
intellectual development which is bad, and on the other hand there is
some new revolutionary development which is good. Iâm referring here to
the so-called theories of Marxism and anarchism and âleftismâ in
general. I donât believe their theories can be separated from the rest
of the European intellectual tradition. Itâs really just the same old
song... â Russel Means, The Same Old Song
Europe is an unusual continent for a variety of reasons. Not the least
of which is that there are as many people living outside of the
continent as live within its boundaries. History, at least as taught in
North America, is mostly interested in the consequences and developments
that have occurred on the continent over the past two millennia. This
history, if compared to the history of every other continent combined,
would still loom as entirely dominant in the minds and culture of the US
and Canada. It is safe to call the mainstream of North American culture
European. You can consider the largest landmass of Oceania as European
also, which demonstrates that it is a distinctive trend of Europe to
export itself throughout the globe.
This expansionist phenomenon has a historical context that is worth
examining. Europe is not where the rise of Civilization occurred. It
appears to have begun in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers, Mesopotamia. Dozens, if not hundreds, of societies thrived in
this valley over 3000 years. The best known of these societies are the
Sumerian, Babylonian, Hittite and Phoenician societies. They are best
know for the technics they provided future societies which include
mythology (Sumeria), the Code of Hammurabi (Babylon), iron (Hittites),
and the alphabet (Phoenicians). Around the same time a vast and vibrant
society arose around the river Nile, called Egypt. This African society
existed for several thousand years in one form or another, and presaged
modern government. These two regions along with China comprise the vast
majority of our understanding of ancient society.
The formation of mass society on the European continent is clearer and
more recent. The arc of the Greek Empire (1200 â 300 BCE) includes the
formation of just about all the intellectual trajectories pursued over
the past three millennia including Art, Science, Politics (especially
the form of Democracy and the Republic), and Philosophy. This leads us
to Rome, the most demonstrable foundation of modern Europe.
We shall continue to focus on Romeâs contributions to the civilization
we currently live in. Notable in modern life is the Roman development of
urban infrastructure and the resulting expectations that the citizenry
of empire have had to it. The delivery of potable water, sewage, well
maintained roads, and the construction of large buildings have all
become expectations of civilized, urban life. The organization of a
disciplined and standing army that waged total war has defined every
empire and quasi-empire since.
The Fall of Rome could have possibly lead to a hidden revolutionary time
on the European continent. The period formerly referred to as the Dark
Ages was notable for not suffering under the yoke of Empire and for not
having a great deal of history written about it. The histories that we
do have access to tell of a set of cultures that closely resembled the
North American mound-builders. What is easily known is that Feudalism,
and eventually Monarchies began to consolidate the land and cultures of
Europe. The form of this consolidation can be seen today in the
formation of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
The Rise of Christianity sparked much of this creation of the State, but
more pointedly was responsible for, in the name of the Crusades,
eliminating the bulk of the hundreds of cultures that existed up to that
point on the continent.
This is actually where Rome, in hindsight, could be called progressive
in comparison. If a defeated society paid their tax, they could largely
practice their own cultural beliefs. This changed with the formation of
the Christian state.
After the Middle Ages and the rise of Christianity comes the Reformation
and then Humanism. These changes to the simplicity of the one Church,
one state model of Europe hearken to the techniques used now to modify
conservative and socially backward elements in the modern ideological
matrix. The Reformation allowed, eventually, Christianity to be defined
far more broadly than just allegiance to a specific institution, but to
a set of organizations and interpretations of spirituality. This allowed
for a specifically European (and not local) cultural expression that
crossed national borders, and carried currency well into the modern era.
Humanism is, simply put, the priority of human concerns over any other.
Humanism led to the specific formation of the individual as social
character, the entire arena of social sciences, and to a great degree to
the formation of the creation of modern science as a conquest of nature.
The primary technology that Europe has excelled at, beyond all others,
is warfare. This is not to argue that armed conflict did not exist
beyond the continent, but the form it has taken in Europe has been
qualitatively different. It is only in Europe, with the rise of the
practice and theory of âtotal warâ that much of European expansionist
history can be understood. It is only through understanding the cultural
tradition of total war that one can understand the horrors of the
twentieth century in Europe and abroad.
While The Art of War and A Book of Five Rings concern the techniques of
the battlefield, they did not relate war to a particularly functionalist
worldview. War was not an application of imperialist power as much as
the practice of a certain class of citizenry amongst themselves.
Military strategy was as connected to the spiritual understanding of
being a warrior as it was to placing men in power.
The 18^(th) century transformed staid codification of military
principles into a scientific practice that remains today. As opposed to
the general outlines of relationships between military and civic leaders
given in the ancient texts, modern military strategists, especially
Clausewitz, were specific. Total war is military conflict in which the
contenders are willing to make any sacrifice in lives and other
resources to obtain a complete victory. Limited war is similar to total
war, but does attend to political, social and economic concerns. The
formation of the differentiation between total and limited war gave
texture to the behavior of the Europeans that colonized the New World,
Africa, and institutionalized the Crusades.
The question is worth revisiting, what is Europe? Europe is the history
of hundreds of cultures being crushed. Europe is a disparate set of
people who both infringe on othersâ sovereignty throughout the world and
continue to be beset upon (NATO, Slovakia, Serbia, EU). Europe is the
benefactor of a set of ideasâeconomic, military, religious and
secularâthat have dominated the entire planet.
If Europe is everywhere, on every newscast, every billboard, every
thoroughfare, then what is not-Europe? On one level not-Europe are all
the people in the process of being Europeanized, all the people being
introduced to modern conveniences, like microwave ovens, coca-cola, and
cruise missiles. Many of these people look forward to the change in
their traditional, conservative society. Many resist, understanding the
consequences that Western values, power, and money will bring to them.
On another level not-Europe is the vital cultural tapestry of the Fourth
world. Indigenous people exist throughout the globe, and resisting or
not they comprise sets of perspectives and histories that are
distinctive and unique. They compromise much of the most resistant
aspects to the global order. Not because they are not poor, but because
they understand the poverty of another cultures.
Finally not-Europe could be the silent benefactors and victims of modern
society. It is a foregone conclusion that modern society is comprised of
a vast majority of people who cannot exert political power, are not
wealthy, and may wish to resist the way things are. With its combination
of engaging topical propaganda, cursory and self-serving historical
education, and general economic satisfaction it becomes easy to lose
track of these people. They do exist and their very anonymity is the
political engine behind every popular and reactionary movement over the
past 200 years.
While the semantics of anarchy (that is, âwithout rulerâ) could
illuminate future discussion, any type of analysis of the potential of
anarchism has to grapple with the ideology that it is. This ideology is:
power. Understanding the repercussions of the use of language, the
history (broadly defined) and the culture of the anarchist tradition
will help us understand the qualities that anarchism has that are worth
reclaiming.
The clearest origin of anarchism in the western tradition lies in
ancient Greece and the argument of Zeno (the Stoic) for a society ruled
by the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual. While not
specifically an anarchist position, Zeno serves as a practical
counter-point to the ideal nation of Platoâs Republic; the foundation
for the nation-building that has occurred since. In the modern,
post-Enlightenment era the first treatise in defense of anarchism came
from William Godwin (1793).[1] He argued that government is unnecessary
and harmful to the conduct of human affairs. He also believed that
society could be transformed into a world of justice and equality
through education and propaganda, and not through specific political
struggle. His influence of anarchism as a school of thought (and not
just a movement for social change) cannot be overstated. The four
fathers of European anarchism lived in the second half of the 19^(th)
century and included Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre Proudhon
and Max Stirner. They stand as the central figures in modern anarchist
activism, anarcho-communism, mutualism, and individualism respectively.
In the twentieth century such figures as Emma Goldman, known for her
advocacy of contraception and free love; Sacco and Vanzetti, known as
anarchist martyrs killed by the state; and Nestor Makhno, who fought
against the Bolsheviks and White armies in the Russian Revolution,
inform a conception of anarchism as martyrdom and activism.
The preceding paragraph is an attempt to scurry past the mythology of
the anarchist. Not because of any rejection of these mythologies, as
they are some of the most human stories that can be told in the face of
their opposition, but because understanding that there are deeper
stories of actual human struggle and inspiration is what an observation
of individual anarchists should provide us. It is not as a result of
glamorous rebels that the anarchist tradition breathes life into human
experience today. Their stories exemplify the tradition without
obscuring each of our parts in it.
While the origins of Anarchism seem most interested in the science of
statecraft, anarchism has since evolved into a criticism of technology,
religion, capitalism, and the state. This evolution happened because the
principles that would lead one to conclude that the state was oppressive
naturally led to the conclusion that those same systems also exist in
other arenas of the human experience. What are these principles?
Vaneigem has described them so.[2]
âAlthough each of us starts along the path as a whole, living being,
intending to return just as we were when we left off, we became
completely lost in a maze of wasted time, so that what returns is only a
corpse of our being, mummified in its memories. The striving of humanity
after survival is a saga of childhood bartered away for decrepitude.â
Vaneigemâs choice of metaphors and the principle of a âfirst manâ runs
through most libertarian literature. Bakunin in God and the State[3]
exemplifies the principle of contrariness.
âThe abolition of the Church and the State must be the first and
indispensable condition of the true liberation of society; only after
this can society be organized in another manner, but not from the top
downwards and according to some ideal plan, dreamed up by a few sages
and scholars, and certainly not by decrees issued by some dictatorial
power or even by a national assembly elected by universal suffrage. As I
have already shown, such a system would lead inevitably to the creation
of a new state, and consequently to the formation of a governmental
aristocracy, that is to say a whole class of individuals having nothing
in common with the mass of the people, which would immediately begin to
exploit and subdue that people in the name of the commonwealth or in
order to save the State.â
Finally, the principle of cooperation (over competition) as articulated
by Pyotr Kropotkin.[4]
âMutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle...as a
factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance,
inasmuch as it favors the development of such habits and characters as
insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together
with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the
individual, with the least waste of energy.â
While not authoritative, most modern incarnations of Anarchism derive
from and include these principles. The application and depth has
changed, but the idea that people were once free, can be again, and can
do it ethically is a useful definition of anarchist intention.
In practice this labor of social transformation is connected to
political activism. Often this happens within larger historical
movements, frequently as the action of determined individuals to
transform reality, and most often as the rejection of alienated people
refusing to participate in the social and political apparatus.
There have been a variety of movements that have had an articulated
anarchistic quality. The Free Spirit movement of the 13^(th) and 14^(th)
century (scattered throughout the European Continent), inspired a female
member to say âI have created all things. I created more than God. It is
my hand that supports Heaven and Earth. Without me nothing exists.â The
Diggers of the 17^(th) century England attempted to use public lands for
living on, and were subsequently burned out of their homes. The Paris
Commune liberated the city for 73 days before the army retook the city
and slaughtered the Communards. Anarchistic soviets provided a backbone
to the Russian Revolution before they were co-opted by the Bolsheviks in
the name of the people. The Industrial Workers of the World, in the
United States, were a labor union that attempted to unite the workers
into âOne Big Unionâ against capitalism as a whole and had some
successes in early twentieth century America before many of their
leaders were jailed or shipped to the Soviet Union. The âpropagandists
by the deedâ successfully murdered leaders of France (Carnot, 1894),
Austria (Elisabeth, 1898) and the United States (McKinley, 1901).
Millions of people collectivized their land and workplaces in the
Spanish Civil War (1936 â 1937) only to be defeated by their own
compromises and the fascists (but especially the fascists). Finally, in
our parade of anarchistic moments, are the events of May â68 in France
where a coalition of students and workers brought the French nation to
its knees for nearly a month.
With the grand historical stage in place, the actual history of
practiced anarchy has happened on a much smaller scale. Whether it has
been within the left counter-cultural space (living arrangements, small
cooperatives), the self-help movement (alcoholics anonymous, etc.), or
youth counter-culture, the principles of living ethically, without
hierarchies (and the people who love them), in cooperation with other
people, and in opposition to authority is a major part of our human
experience.
It is not enough to take everything that has been stated so far about
anarchism and Europe and therefore call our work done. Simply put, a
non-European anarchism is not on the radar of most people. Most âpeople
of colorâ, even within the anti-authoritarian sphere, take more of their
political center of gravity from the rights movements over the past
decades than from their own cultural practice or from a synthesis of
what could to be.
There are things that we can distill from what we have covered. Europe
is a location, a symbol, an oppressor, a history and way to understand
our current condition. It is a center of gravity which people involved
with social change find very hard to escape. There are aspects of the
traditional Anarchist canon that are worth holding on to.
The formation of a non-European anarchism is untenable. The term
bespeaks a general movement when the goal is an infinite series of
disparate movements. A non-European anarchism is the thumbnail sketch of
what could be an African anarchism, a Maquiladora anarchism, a Plains
Indian anarchism, an inner-city breed anarchism, et al.
A category should exist for every self-determined group of people to
form their own interpretation of a non-European anarchism. The principle
is that if European anarchism could be shifted onto the shoulders of the
people living outside the burden of the European system than it could be
borne far more easily. It could be carried more âanarchisticallyâ than
when safe-guarded by the current group of cosmopolitan materialists.
What, then, are the aspects of anarchism that are worth claiming, what
are the principles of a non-European anarchism, what would the practice
of a non-European anarchism look like and what would a non-European
anarchist take on modern problems look like? Evaluating anarchism within
the context of its history as a political movement, its current
presentation as a social and political movement and what it has to offer
to a non-European perspective has its complications. Respecting the
tradition is not enough for many of its followers, they also require
adherence to their particular definition. If you do not subscribe to the
syndicalist approach to the question of unions or the communist approach
to the question of economy or the individualist approach to the question
of organization and personal freedom you are sure to hear of it. These
issues have importance in this world, between the adherents to one
tendency or another, but are not particularly interesting for those of
us outside this canon.
With all respect due to its history, and a clear sight with regard to my
own biases regarding modern anarchism, the aspects of anarchism that are
relevant to a non-European anarchism are its perspectives regarding
decentralization, mutual aid, power, cultural bias, single solutions to
political questions, and rejection of authority.
A non-European anarchism would most likely concern itself with different
sets of priorities than modern anarchism does. It would look to its
traditions to resolve âorganizationalâ questions. It would approach
strategic questions regarding social change alongside questions of
cultural heritage and traditional outlooks. Concerns of recruitment,
propaganda, and motivation would look very different to a non-European
anarchism.
To speak to one possible example... A woodland native anarchism could
evade the life-ways of the city dweller, opting instead for very few
fixed locations over the course of a year and a generally seasonal
lifestyle. Organization could look like a series of consensus
decision-making groups concerned with differing elements of daily life.
Politics would be concerned with questions of food acquisition,
engagement with outsiders, travel, and conflict negotiation. This could
only be possible in another world.
What could a non-European anarchism look like in this world? How could
the fracturing of an already minuscule political tendency along cultural
lines improve it? A primary concern to most people who criticize the
Euro-centric aspects of anarchism is its tendency not to highly place
the priorities of their cultural group. They are right, of course, but
structurally there is very little (if not nothing) that modern
anarchists can do about it. The resignation of anarchists to rely on
what are fundamentally liberal notions of representation speaks for
itself. Not only is it not particularly successful at attracting people
from other cultures, it embeds resentment at the authoritarian,
arbitrary, and âpolitically correctâ assertion of equality based on
demographics. If the form of social organization were along cultural
lines these problems would not exist. The problems would be different,
but would not default to solutions that contain defeat. Larger social
organization, as in between disperse groups, can begin to be
conceptualized along a multitude of traditions and not just the European
one. Struggle against the current political forms would reflect a far
more complex level of participation that we could only hope would have
more interesting results.
[1] Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, by
William Godwin.
[2] The Movement of the Free Spirit, by Raoul Vaneigem.
[3] God and the State, by Mikhail Bakunin.
[4] Mutual Aid, by Pyotr Kropotkin.