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Title: Striving for Anarchism Author: Rafael Barrett Date: 1910 Language: en Topics: Paraguay, Latin America Source: From Robert Graham (Ed.), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas; Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939).
Editor’s Note: Rafael Barrett (1876–1910) was born in Spain and studied
in Paris before emigrating to Latin America in 1904. He eventually
settled in Paraguay, where he fought in the revolt against the Colorado
Party. He briefly served as a secretmy for the railway but resigned
rather than exploit the workers. He became a popular journalist who
supported the anarchist cause. Jailed and then deportedfrom Paraguay, he
spent his lastfew years in Uruguay before succumbing to ill health. The
first piece to follow is from his article, “My Anarchism,” originally
published in the March 1909 edition of the Paraguayan anarchist paper,
RebeliĂłn. The second piece is an excerpt from his book, Moralidades
actuales (Montevideo: Bertani, 1910), entitled “Striving.” A good
selection of his writings is included in El Anarquismo en America
Latina, (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1990). The translations are by
Paul Sharkey.
THE IGNORANT CONSIDER THAT ANARCHY is disorder, and that in the absence
of government society will always revert to chaos. They cannot conceive
of order other than as something imposed from without by force of arms.
Anarchism, as I understand it, boils down to political free enquiry.
We need to rid ourselves of respect for the law. The law is not
accountable. It is an obstacle to all real progress. It is a notion that
we have to abolish. The laws and constitutions that govern peoples by
force are a sham. They are not the products of men’s research and common
advancement. They are the creatures of a barbarous minority that resorts
to brute force in order to indulge its ava rice and cruelty....
Nine tenths of the world’s population, thanks to written laws, know the
degradation of poverty. It does not require much knowledge of sociology,
when one thinks of the wonderful talent for assimilation and creativity
displayed by the children of the “lower” orders, to appreciate the
monstrous lunacy of that extravagant waste of human energy. The law
rides roughshod over the mother’s womb!
We fit the law the way a Chinese woman’s foot fits its binding, or the
way the baobab tree fits the Japanese vase. Voluntarily stunted!
Are we afraid ofthe “chaos” that might follow should we remove the
restraints, if we should shatter the vase and plant ourselves on solid
ground and face into the vastness? What does it matter what forms the
future will take? Reality will unveil them. We are sure that they are
going to be fine and noble like the tree sprouting freely.
Let our ideal be as lofty as may be. Let us not be “practical.” Let’s
not try to “improve” the law and substitute one set of restraints for
another. The more unattainable the ideal appears, the better. The sailor
plots his course by the stars. So let our focus be on the longer term.
In that way we can identifY the shorter term. And speed our success.
Life is a weapon. Where should it strike, against which obstacle should
our muscle-power be deployed, how shall we crown our desires? Is it the
better choice to burn ourselves out all in one go and die the ardent
death of a bullet shattering against the wall, or grow old on the
never-ending road and outlive hope? The powers that fate has momentarily
let fall into our hands are stormy forces indeed. For him who has a
weather eye open and his ear cocked, who has risen once above the flesh,
reality is anguish. Groans of agony and cries of victory call out to us
in the night. Our passions, like a pack of straining hounds, scent
danger and glory. We sense that we are masters of the impossible and our
greedy spirit is torn asunder.
To step on to the virgin beach, to rouse the slumbering wonder, to feel
the breath of the unknown, the quivering of a new form: these I crave.
Better to distort than to repeat. Better to destroy than to imitate. Let
the monsters come, just as long as they be young. Evil is what we are
leaving behind in our wake. Beauty is the mystery being given birth. And
this sublime fact, the advent ofthat which never was be fore, must
strike to the very depths of our being. Gods for a minute, what matter
to us are the sufferings of the fray, what matter the dark outcome as
long as we can throw back at Nature: You did not create me in vain!
Man needs to take a look at himself and say: I am an instrument. Let us
banish from our souls the familiar feeling of silent labour and give our
admiration to the beauty ofthe world. We are but a means, but the end is
great. We are the stray sparks from a prodigious conflagration. The
majesty of the Universe shines above us and makes our humble exertions
sacred. Little though we may be, we shall be all, provided we give
ourselves completely. We have stepped out of the shadows in order to
warm ourselves at the fire; we were born to spread our substance around
and ennoble things. Our mission is to broadcast our body parts and our
intellect; to open up our insides until our genius and our blood spill
on to the earth. We exist only insofar as we give; for us to deny
ourselves is to fade away in ignominy. We are a promise; the vehicle of
unfathomable intentions. We live for our fruits; the only crime is
sterility.
Our exertions link up with the countless pxertions of space and time and
blend with the efforts of the universe. Our cry echoes through the
infinite vastness. When we move, we make the stars tremble. Not an atom,
not a single idea is lost in eternity. We are the siblings ofthe stones
in our huts, of the sensitive trees and the speeding insects. We are
siblings even of the imbeciles and criminals, failed experiments, the
bankrupted children of our common mother. We are the siblings even of
the fatalism that kills us. By fighting and winning we do our bit for
the grand endeavour, and we do our bit when we are defeated too. Pain
and annihilation have their uses too. From behind the endless, savage
warfare comes the song of a vast harmony. Slowly our nerves strain,
binding us to the unknown. Slowly our reason spreads its laws into
unknown territory. Slowly science marshals phenomena into a higher
unity, the inkling of which is essentially religious, because it is not
religion that science destroys but religions. Queer notions cross our
minds. A muddled and grandiose dream settles over humanity. The horizon
is dense with shadows and in our hearts dawn smiles.
We do not yet understand. We are merely afforded the right to love.
Driven on by supreme determinations welling up within us, we tumble into
the bottomless enigma. We heed the wordless voice rising in our
consciousness and tentatively we toil and fight. Our heroism consists of
our ignorance. We are on the move, we know not where and we will not be
stopped. The tragic encouragement of the irreparable caresses our
sweating breasts.