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Title: O Anarchy!!! Author: Maurice Imbard Date: November 1928 Language: en Topics: anarchy, introductory, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: Retrieved on 2020-06-11 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/working-translations/maurice-imbard-o-anarchy-1928/ Notes: L’en dehors No. 146 (mid-November, 1928): 7. Working translation by Shawn P. Wilbur.
Ah! that word anarchy appeared to me for a long time, in the days of my
youth, as a sort of myth.
The change that has occurred in my mindset has not changed my opinion on
the grandeur of the word and the beauty of the thing. My aim is still
and always to work, to struggle, to hasten the coming of the anarchist
life—a life without authority, without obligation, without brutality; a
gentle, tolerant, normal, natural life, where people will learn to
understand one another.
In these moments, I seem to see new men silhouetted on a cheerful stage,
where everything is love, where everything is beauty, goodness and
truth. Evolution pursues its course, and the humanity of tomorrow will
surely not resemble that of yesterday, nor even that of today. Many will
be conscious of their value, as negligible as it might be; yes, many
will be conscious of their individuality. Their words and deeds will be
free, the reticence and the posing of the present will have disappeared.
The atmosphere will be purer.
Someone says to me: It is just a remnant of dream. To see my
contemporaries, alas, there is cause for despair, but pessimism does no
good; it saps all energy, all initiative…
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! And we dream constantly of what will be tomorrow.
Why? We will spread our sails according to the wind. Yes, let us break
down this last remnant of mystical sentiment, which makes many among us
scorn the present, resign themselves to their fate, never acting and
waiting for some Messiah — however revolutionary — to build a society, a
better life in the future.
Since we are irreligious, let us begin, from this moment, to listen to
one another, to seek affinities in order to accomplish whatever work,
whatever task nous concerns us, one and all. Certainly, we know that
tomorrow will come. But to wait for tomorrow is a loss of time and it
could be that tonight, even we will be no more.
Anarchy is no longer, for me, the myth of my youth. It is a state of
life that manifests itself in the present and seeks to fulfill itself
without prejudice, without mysticism.