Re: AUT: Anarchism and Autonomism

[blissett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fabian Tompsett)]

Harald wrote

>"Leutha Blissett", despite me being a person with a smug complacency
>who has not developed my politics and know as little about anarchism
>as I do about marxism, with no awarenes of the the nexus of social
>relations which surrounds me, and further more an anti-semite and
>white supremacist (you forgot the male-chauvinist and petty bourgeois
>part), who imagine myself as part of a moral elite which has raised
>itself above the mass through an ill conceived notion of personal
>enlightenment, etc, etc ... I might very well find it of value to
>hear your thoughts about for instance the "events" in Seattle, -
>the quite obvious limits of such "events," as well as their possible
>potentialities.

I think your irony is misplaced. Would that the reactionary qualities of
Proudhon could be laughed of by your mock-solidarity with him.

As for Seattle, I am still trying to piece together an accurate picture if
what happened. However some sketchy remarks:

The remarks about "anarchist agent-provocateurs" seem to have no basis in
reality and indeed seem to be the standard smears which certain lefttists
make whenever push comes to shove. There has be no real evidence. (The same
sort of thing happened after the Poll Tax riot in London.

As for the day as a whole clearly there was a broad range of people with
different motives. For instance on TV I saw one big notice saying "American
Jobs for American Workers" which I imagine originated with a union (it
would be good to have confirmation upon this.)

However what ever brought people to Seattle, a great many people went away
transformed by the event, and it has had an impact politically in raising
the issue of precisely what is the WTO, what does it do and why do these
people oppose it so. Obviously the story doesn't just revolve around one
day, but more importantly how political struggles are going to evolve out
of it, and this is why we need this discussion.

Clearly there will be tensions in this as people come with very different views.
I am also posting the view of Fabel van de illegal to broaden out this
discussion.

A bit of street action can break the crust of bourgeois regularity, but in
the end a social movement is not governed by its means of struggle but by
its goals and the problems which stimulate these goals.

>If you ever decide to write a real critique of anarchism,
>something that would require a bit more knowledge than I suspect
>you have about this historical phenomenom, I would appreciate it.

I have some longer texts produced as part of the Luther Blissett multiple
Name Project which i would be happy to send you. Whether the knowledge is
up to the mark I'll leave you to judge. Let me simply remark that when an
@narchist accused the Association of Autonomous Astronauts of riping of a
series of @narchist themes during our Ten Days That Shook the Universe it
was necessary to point out that:

a) The Ten days theme did not originate with the Anarchist festival in
London in the early nineties but with John Reed's book
b) likewise the slogan "By Any Means Necessary" did not originate with the
@narchists but with Malcolm X
c) the situationists were not @narchists.

Now I appreciate that not all anarchists are @narchists, but to the extent
that they feel the need to defend @narchism they become caught up in it.
This process really took off in the late seventies with the advent of "punk
rock" and such notorios pop anthems as 'Anarchy in the UK'. I was involved
with an anarchist group at the time, and I can well remember that when a
friend bought this particular commodity I was invied round to listen to it
and ponder its recuperative role. It was not long before I realised that
that there was little point in defending anarchism but attacking @narchism
as this would be simply to remain caught in hall of mirrors. It thus became
apparent that it was more important to describe the struggles I saw myself
involved in as part of a broader struggle for communism.

>In the meantime, I think there is much more to be gained by
>discussing our understanding of the realities we are a part of
>and strategies that might bring us beyond them. Should we
>happen to agree on critical points, you could call it marxism
>and I anarchism. That should make both of us happy.

I am not a marxist.

Ilan wrote:
>Hi people.
>I wonder if the highly esteemed and widely informed Leutha Blissett
>had ever read texts of the anarcho-communists and the Platformists
>trend within it.

Yes indeed so.

>Or, if Leutha Blissett really read the posts contributed to the aut-op-sy list
>by the anarchists subscribers.

Yes also

>It is very easy to use the confusion between the so called LifeStyle anarchists
>and the class war social anarchists... and between discrete trends within it.

But the critique of @narchism is a critique precisely of this confusion.
The concept of an "@narchist movement" is that both so called LifeStyle
anarchists
and the class war social anarchists are united in this so-called movement,
and that they should exhibit particular solidarity to each other under this
shared ideological umbrella over and above solidarity with other working
class people. Sometimes people even present their immediate goal as of
trying to persuade more and more people to become @narchists, rather than
using the benefit of their experience and theory to open up different ways
of thinking and acting which people can adopt without taking on such
sobriquets.

Is the basis of this critique so hard to understand without anarchists
leaping to the defense of @narchism? Or is the problem of dissolving of
identity as anarchist which I think must follow from dissolving that of
@narchist to difficult? Maybe I am wrong, but in that case how come so many
of these anarcho-communists aren't making similar critiques, but instead
tend to try and defend @narchism?

>I have tried real hard for the whole 1997 year to find significant differences
>between the anarcho-communism of the platformist trend and the
>Marxist-Autonomists
>opinion the Israeli organization Matspen held for 30 years and is held also
>by the esteemed Marxist autonomist comrades I met in the Encountro2 or read in
>aut-op-sy and other places.

Good!

Gerry wrote:

>Harry wrote:
>
>> I'd like to second Steve's comments about the recent/current debate over
>> anarchism and marxism. Deja vu. Deja vu. It's as old and as boring as a
>> debate between christianity and islam, or whatever.
>
>True enough, but I am struck by the apparent irony that despite the
>never-ending debate referred to above, there are many, many examples of
>(significant numbers of) Marxists and (significant numbers of) anarchists
>working together today (whether it be in the context of coalitions,
>affinity groups, or whatever) in different social movements. Perhaps a
>discussion of what makes possible this collaboration would be a more
>promising area for discussion.

I would agree with this. Some anarchist groups like the Scottish Anarchist
Network clearly stated that a person did not have to call oneself an
anarchist to be apart of it just agree with its basic statement. This is
healthy. It is currently unclear whether the Mayday conference in London
will be limited anarchists. The event is decribed as a festival of
"anarchist ideas and
action". As many of the ideas and actions they want to discuss often
actually originally emerged elsewhere, it is to be hope that the discussion
wont be restricted to how these ideas have been derived in anarchist
circles. The previous conferences at Bradford (1998) and Glasgow (1999)
defined themselves more broadly.

Perhaps an important point of departure is as Harry says

>working with whoever concrete political struggles demand that I work with.

We shall see . . .

Communist greetings

Leutha Blissett



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