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Title: Anarchy Author: David Andrew Andrade Date: February, 1889 Language: en Topics: Melbourne Anarchist Club, introductory Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/anarchist-beginnings/david-andrade-anarchy-1889/
Anarchy! There is no word which conjures up such feelings of terror to
so many who hear it; nor is there one which so raises the hopes of those
who ever see so little to hope for. It makes their eyes glisten, their
blood course a little faster than usual, and they once more clutch at
that almost forlorn hope of a “good time coming.”
Never in modern times has an idea, of such revolutionary nature and such
weighty import, so seized upon the mind of man, as that which the great
French philosopher first promulgated less than a half century ago. Never
have humanity’s oppressors been so bewildered as to the course to adopt
to shut out this light which has so suddenly burst on the mental vision
of the world’s proletariat. Armies cannot rout its adherents; spies
cannot distort its open secrets; exile cannot banish the hopes it
brings; courts and tribunals, laws and special commissions, cannot
combine to check its enormously extending popularity; and even the
hanging of its adherents cannot silence their sympathizers, but only
adds to their numbers and stimulates their courage.
And what is Anarchy?
Professional liars of every station, and fools of every bias, have been
telling the people that Anarchy is destruction, rapine, and murder, and
that the Anarchist is the most dangerous foe to all that is good in
civilisation. But even these perjurers are losing their influence as
instructors of the people, and the multitude are beginning to enquire of
the ideas of the Anarchists from the Anarchists themselves.
Anarchy is nothing more nor less than human liberty. It is that
principle in humanity for which man has been striving, but has seldom
perceived. We Anarchists contend that life without liberty is slavery,
and that slavery is wrong and must be banished from the earth. Why
should man seek to govern his fellow? Why seek to restrict his liberty
and make him hate his brief existence? Why add to the inequalities of
nature, the harsher inequalities which spring from man made law? We say,
and say again, that “the government of man by man is oppression.” We
appeal to history, to science, to reason, to every-day experience, for
testimony in support of our position; and everywhere we are successful.
Do our opponents do likewise? Do they appeal to fact, to reason, to
argument, to show that we are wrong? No! they denounce us unheard, and
cry as of yore, “Crucify him!” They appeal to the bullying State -that
low disgraceful institution, which never reasons with its victims, but
silences and then destroys them-and ask that we be suppressed.
Ye who ask for our suppression, learn what it is ye vainly hope to
suppress.
To be an Anarchist is to believe that no man has a right to govern
another, that is, to arbitrarily restrict his liberty; that the robbery
of another is wrong, no matter what the pretext or the method may be;
that discord, warfare, and strife of every kind are not essential to
human intercourse; that the world is wide and fruitful enough for us to
live together harmoniously, and that we should do so did we but cease to
aggress upon each other, and we accordingly affirm that every individual
must be sovereign over his own personality; that he shall have equal
opportunity with every other man to work out his own salvation without
begging for existence at the feet of privilege; that he shall enjoy that
which his labor brings him; and that recognizing there is room in the
world for all, he shall be free to voluntarily perform those actions
which are most conducive to his comfort, and to live on terms of equity,
peace, and fraternity with his fellow-men. In short the Anarchist does
not wail for ever, “Is life worth living?” but sets about o make it
worth living.
No man can suppress Anarchism. They may kill off its adherents one after
another but only to find their places filled with others, who have
reached the same mental elevation. All the studies of the greatest
thinkers are strongly marked with the Anarchistic tendency. No one can
study the writings of the most advanced sociological writers without
coming to the general conclusion that the only social solution is the
freedom of every individual.