opening address to the "anarchist
odyssey" conference in christchurch,
october 2001
Capitalism is under challenge for the first time
in decades. From PNG [Papua New Guinea]
to Prague, Seattle to South Africa there is a
growing movement against the instruments of
capitalist globalisation - the World Economic
Forum, and the Bretton Woods Institutions
(the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank which Leigh Cookson will talk about
soon).
anarchism is order capitalism is
chaos
Capitalism is the system of private ownership
of the big things in life (or the means of
production as they're more often called). It's
taken us to a point where 3 people are
wealthier than the poorest 48 countries. Call
us crazy but we think a system where half the
world's population annual income is equal to
the wealth of world's 225 richest people is
unjust and will continue to sow bitterness,
hatred war and terrorism.
While mainstream media talk of 'anarchy'
erupting whenever warlords who are not 'our'
warlords go on a chaotic rampage we repeat
again and again anarchy is not chaos.
Anarchy is order, capitalism is chaos.
Anarchism is not about 'doing your own thing',
it's not solely concerned with individuality
although the creeping ideology of me-ism is
gaining ground in our consumer culture.
Anarchism is a movement, it is a praxis -
which means theory into action. Anarchism is
a strand of socialism with a history of over
150 years.
the struggle against forgetting
A lot of people say "why bother with history,
who cares what a bunch of dead white males
with long beards did". While it's true that
history, even radical history has been very
eurocentric and male oriented we need to
know our history - not His-story but Our-story.
Not of the kings and queens but of the People.
This knowledge is nourishing and sustaining.
You are not alone. Things are not as bad as
they may seem. Things that seem impossible
are achievable. You are not the spaceman on
the poster for this conference - alone,
isolated, on another planet. You are part of a
movement.
Milan Kundera said "the struggle of people
against power is the struggle of memory
against forgetting". Or as King Kapisi says
"Fix Amnesia".
We are asked to forget that the CIA put $6
billion dollars into training Muslim
fundamentalists in Afghanistan. We are asked
to forget that it was the Labour Party that
privatised Air New Zealand in the first place.
We are asked to forget the colonialism that
has built the wealth of Western nations. We
are asked to forget that the only terrorism this
country has seen was done by the French
State against Greenpeace. And we are asked
to forget the people's struggles that have
given us the hard won breathing space and
relative freedoms we enjoy today. And mostly
we obey by forgetting.
Our first step in organising against capitalism
in the 21st century is to reclaim the knowledge
that past generations possessed and
understand it ourselves. We should gain
courage in the fact that people have struggled
and won piece by piece.
o 600 years ago we were owned by lords
o 200 years ago the working class could not
vote
o just over 100 years ago women could not
vote
o in Australia just 30 years ago Aboriginal
people could not vote
o though economic apartheid still exists South
Africa threw off racial apartheid only 10 years
ago
o 5 years ago East Timorese independence
was considered a 'lost cause' and the Suharto
regime in Indonesia seemed immovable
o 4 years ago the IMF and World Bank could
meet in safety without turning the host city into
a police state
I tell you this not to glorify the vote as the
pinnacle of achievement but to realise that the
thirst for freedom is unstoppable and it will
always continue despite oppression. You may
think I'm being a bit dramatic talking of
oppression while in safe and relatively affluent
Aotearoa but notice that the ozone hole is the
most dangerous its ever been, we stand on
the brink of a possible world war, and as 1951
shows us democratic freedoms are paper thin
in times of crisis.
1951 for those too young to know was when it
was made illegal, right here in Aotearoa, to
talk in public in support of the wharfies union,
or to give food to a wharfie or their family or
even to discuss the law that made all these
things illegal. The wharfies crime was to
refuse to work more than 40 hours a week.
That's why we need to learn and understand
our history, our context. When we understand
our context we can start to clarify our vision
for the future, which is desperately needed
work. Anarchists like Bookchin and Michael
Albert are doing this with Social Ecology and
Participatory Economics. But vision cannot be
built without context.
join the greens? nope...
And to put things in context the anti-capitalist
globalisation movement did not begin in
Seattle and terrorism didn't start on
September 11 2001. I want to talk about three
September 11's that put anarchist politics into
a context. People often say, OK there's
problems with the system, why not correct
them by creating or joining a political party.
Many young people disillusioned with the
system are joining the Greens. And yet even
the Greens themselves will admit that while
they are not part of the government they can
make as many good sounding noises they
want but the minute they are in the
government it will be a different story as many
disappointed Alliance supporters have found
out.
I suggest looking at the German Greens who
started out fairly radical. Joschka Fischer was
an anarchist 20 years ago and is now the
Vice Chancellor and foreign minister of
Germany. The German Greens have gone
from espousing non-violence as a main
principle to cheerleading the US bombing of
Afghanistan. The US, Joschka Fischer
explains, is the only country with a big enough
stick to enforce peace in Europe. This is not
just a matter of the German Greens lacking
moral fortitude - it's a systematic problem that
faces all parties.
The NZ Labour Party started out calling for
public ownership of the means of production
and ended up overseeing the fastest and
most wide ranging privatisation in the world
(as Murray Horton will no doubt explain in
tomorrow's workshop on who owns New
Zealand). Labour are pushing for capitalist
globalisation by stealth through free trade
agreements like the Hong Kong Free Trade
Agreement as Bill Rosenberg will explain in
one of this afternoons workshops.
september 11 the first
But what if a party managed to stay true to its
radical roots? That's where the first
September 11 comes in. September 11 1973.
Has anyone read any books by Isabelle
Allende? Her uncle was Salvador Allende. In
Chile Salvador Allende's National Alliance was
a Marxist Party that had a programme of
redistribution of power and resources to the
poor. They were the first democratically
elected Marxist Party in the world. But
corporations didn't like that - in fact ITT put up
$1 million to help overthrow Salvador Allende.
The CIA didn't like it either. Henry Kissenger
and President Nixon told the CIA it would be
necessary to "make the Chilean economy
scream". Kissenger said "I don't see why we
need to stand around and watch a country go
communist because of the irresponsibility of
its own people".
And so, on September 11 1973 in a CIA
backed military coup the Salvador Allende
government was toppled, the parliament
bombed, thousands rounded up and taken to
football stadiums and shot and General
Pinochet came to power preaching the free
market policies of his advisor US economist
Milton Friedman, hero of Thatcher, Reagan
and NZ Labour Party Rogernomics.
Two years later the Whitlam govt. in Australia
was toppled by less dramatic but still devious
means. These days the power of global
capital is so great they probably won't have to
use such naked aggression to get rid of
people that threaten their power.
But the lesson of September 11 1973 is clear
- if a government could truly change things
they would be removed - by force if necessary
- so we see the real struggle is not to gain
power but redistribute it, decentralise it,
democratise it.
september 11 the second
Which leads to
the second
September 11,
S11 2000
where over
10,000
protesters successfully blockaded the Crown
Casino in Melbourne where the 1000 richest
corporations were meeting under the banner
of the World Economic Forum. Despite brutal
attacks by the police the blockade stayed solid
and non-violent which was a key to its
success.
There were two main organising blocks at S11
- the S11 Alliance and S11 AWOL (AWOL
standing for Autonomous Web of Liberation).
The S11 Alliance took it upon themselves to
be THE organisers of the blockade and
organised marshalls with the view that
decisions during the 3 days would be made by
majority vote at mass meetings. The two
largest marxist groups in Australia - the DSP
[Democratic Socialist Party, pro-Cuba
Leninists] and the ISO [International Socialist
Organisation, Trotskyists] were vying for
control of many of the positions within S11
Alliance.
S11 AWOL participants, on the other hand,
argued for protesters organising themselves
in a self managed blockade through affinity
groups facilitated by a spokescouncil to which
each affinity group would send a delegate.
The S11 AWOL groups organised most of the
medical and legal teams. Their organisational
methods reflected not only anarchist praxis,
and the so-called 'Seattle' approach but of
how the peace and environment movement in
Australia has evolved its direct action
strategies over the last 20 years.
Tensions between centralised vs
decentralised organising were minimised on
September 11 because of the success of the
blockade but grew that evening when on at
least one picket marshalls were telling people
to disband because other pickets were
leaving. It was clear though, through the
affinity networks, that this was not true. So a
feeling grew that marshalls were not to be
trusted and later when a marshall warned of
an impending attack by riot police they were
ignored and the picket unfortunately sustained
the highest number of injuries of any picket
over the period.
Some argue that anarchists insistence on the
right to autonomous action destroys unity and
ignores collective action. But let's look at the
reality of this - the anarchists
merely acknowledge the fact
that while our unity is a strength,
people will not do what
someone tells them to do if they
don't see a good reason to do
it.
Both the DSP and the ISO
wanted unity and democratic centralism but
they both wanted their democratic centralism,
to the point where on the victory march around
Melbourne whey were continually fighting over
the route of the rally and attempting to lead
protesters in different directions. We all
recognise the need for a strong movement
against the corporate capitalist beast and
recognise our need to work with others who
do not share in all our visions for the future
and our organisational methods. But this is
why the movement is decentralised, diverse
and flexible - organising in ways that are in
harmony with anarchist principles. And that's
why we are anarchists and not Trotskyists.
september 11 the third
Which leads to the third September 11, this
years terrorist attacks on the US where 5000
ordinary working people lost their lives. In the
wake of that event seemingly everything has
changed. So which way forward? The very
real gains of the anti-capitalist globalisation
movement are now in danger of being lost
along with our civil liberties. Lets not also lose
our nerve. Self censorship is an ugly thing to
see. We need to do a few things:
(1) We've got to see the context to this war -
500 years of colonialism
(2) We must condemn terrorism in all its
forms - you can't blow up a social relationship
and no amount of bombing will stop terrorism
or end exploitation.
(3) Link global justice with global peace - there
will be no peace while injustice grows and the
capitalist vision of free market madness will
only increase hunger and exploitation. The
demands of Dropping All Third World Debt
and Abolishing the IMF and World Bank
should be incorporated into any peace and
justice movement.
There is a plenary session tomorrow morning
to further discuss planning for actions against
the WTO and the war.
Finally we need to build the new world in the
shell of the old. In building this movement the
internet has been crucial and in itself is a
great metaphor. Created by the US military for
nuclear warfare it now is the very
decentralised and non-hierarchical network
that we are using to help connect the so called
first and third world struggles.
While mainstream media have either covered
this movement inaccurately or not at all an
international decentralised non-hierarchical
media network called IndyMedia has both
covered and participated in the movement and
spread to over 60 centres around the world.
What better way to challenge the media than
to become the media. In tomorrow's workshop
on community media you'll hear how this
network spans the globe using open source
free software developed collaboratively and
decentrally by anarchists.
- Grant F
