Civil Society mobilises against WTO ministerial in Hong Kong

Another past mobilisation
Sydney November 2002
http://indymedia.org.nz/feature/index.php?limit_start=304

Con violencia lucharemos contra capitalismo

Sam,

Are you defending anarchists?

I have been to many demo's and have seen police commit shocking and illegal acts of brutality. I came inches away from a battering myself once. Yet I see no purpose in violence when in every case of violent protest the result is negative. You cannot tell me anarchists don't start trouble - I've seen it time and time again, with my own eyes.

It sucks. Just look at the way the media uses violence at demo's to crowd out the arguments. Aren't you sick of seeing this? Can't you see that anarchist's attempts to repeat Seattle have failed. New ideas are needed.

On the topic of anarchists - by there very nature anarchists seek to disrupt law and order.

Think about it.

Under 'anarchy' we would all have to fend for ourselves, which basically means survival of the strongest, which, ironically has similairities to fascism, no? Many political theorists say we are in a state of global anarchy where corporations and governments go around doing what they like! That the 'anarchy' movement attempts to oppose this is quite paradoxical no? A case of identity crisis I think! On both sides!!!

Violence at protests is no solution for the victims of the WTO. Its just another burden for real campaigners, real protestors.

hence - get a grip

;-)

Yes, I am defending anarchists.

You obviously have no idea what anarchism and an anarchist society is about and I suggest you do a bit of reading. Anarchism has nothing to do with "survuival of the strongest".

As for the capitalist media using violence at demos to crowd out arguments - sure it does. It also uses a lack of violence as an excuse to ignore the arguments ("There's no story"), or simply ignores them with no reason given. I'm not suggesting we need to use violence/confrontation to get media coverage - that's an idiotic tactic that I've seen fail many times. But to suggest that the capitalist media would report the arguments if there was no violence has no basis either.

Nor would I suggest anarchists never start trouble at demos. However, I've also seen Marxists, social democrats, and , far more frequently, the police, start trouble at demos, so why do you launch into the anarchists? Perhaps you aren't clear who anarchist are?

The media went into a frenzy of allegations against the anarchists at Genoa, but seemed unable to justify there claims as to who began the violence. The basis of the claims seemed to be that the people who fought the police must be anarchists, since anarchists fight the police. Great logic!

After the fact, the media reached a general consensus that it was the fault of the "Black Bloc", who hadn't even arrived in the town centre when the fighting began. If you examine the news reports, you'll notice this claim only surfaced sonmetime after the protests - the initial reports don't mention anarchists or the "black block", which suggests they recieved the information secondhand. Blaming anarchists is very politically convenient for the capitalists, social democrats, Marxists and others, that doesn't mean the allegations have substance.

Interesting debate.

I am really playing devils advocate here (hope you noticed) re:anarchism. The thing is that the name says a lot. I have done my reading on anarchism and I am currently working on a politics degree so I'm no noobie on this topic (although I don't presume to know everything hence this debate).

'From Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism, to Max Stirner's egoism, to Peter Kropotkin's anarchist communism the roots of anarchist thought were always varied, with many different views of what a society without government should be like.'

John made a list of 'probable' other activities of anarchists and it seems like a list of governing activities (legal, community care, conflict resolution)! This is why I think that the anarchist movement is suffering from identity crisis. The problem is that different people have different ideas of what anarchy is. The word suggests one thing and yet people do the opposite. The real problem comes when angry young people are attracted to the movement because the name and ideal suggests violence is ok, hence my point about survival of the strongest. I think to people like yourself Sam, a thinker, anarchy is a reasonable term. But to young hothead punks, its something completely different. Anarchist elders that ignore this fact and don't look after the newcomers have some resposibility for the bad press the whole anti-glob movement suffers. That is if they want to lay claim to anarchy as a legitimate movement.

What results is a mess, and defocusses our attempts at bringing justice. Naomi Klein and many other anti-globalisation authors repeatedly talk about how this lack of focus reduces all anti-globalization protest to weak and ineffective actions that in the most part strengthen the case for globalization thanks to the media. Anarchy manages to unite the world against it by being so paradoxically impossible. To rational academics and mainstream thinkers it seems to me to be more of a mental condition than a movement.

Sad as it sounds, the Marxist violence often gets better press and is considered more legitimate because its part of a popular ideology that over a billion people take part in (China, NV, Cuba) although really its Marxist/Leninist to be exact ;-). Because its got an ideological focus and so actually works in some cases (for worse in my opinion). Are anarchists as organised? It really does not seem so. It seems more like a 'cool' thing to be - once the hard graft of non-violent campaigning, suddenly those rock throwers who claim to be part of an 'anarchist' movement are nowhere to be seen!

I support all the things listed by Jon Anderson yet I see these as community not anarchism, why label it with such a loaded term?

The basic fact is that angry people, from whatever political background, will use these demo's to vent their frustration and anarchists have a part in this that works against the movement, media distortions counted for.

I guess what I am working towards is something much stronger, more cohesive, inclusive and powerful at bringing about justice within the globalization issue but it does not involve violence.

>>>The real problem comes when angry young people are attracted to the movement because the name and ideal suggests violence is ok<<<

yo grip! Young people are attracted to anarchism because it is a revolutionary philosophy that fights for freedom and equality! Some of us are 'young hothead punks', some of us are 'thinkers' and some might even be both!

And yes, we are revolutionaries - we want to abolish capitalism and the state - we want true liberation. surprise surprise, we are anarchists after all!

I was involved in big demos with black blocs, and i tell you that all those black bloc kids could have talked to you about why they were there. They could have talked about structural adjustment programs just like any academic in the International Relations Department at Auckland Uni could who hasn't been on a demo since the Vietnam War (oops, sorry for the generalisation).

Look at what's happening in Hong Kong now or what happened at so many demonstrations all over Asia and Latin America over the last 10 years or so. They have riots with the cops, throw molotovs, smash windows, burn down McDonald's stores - and they've possibly never read Proudhorn, Stirner or Kropotkin and might not call themselves anarchists. They are doing all these 'violent' acts because they are resisting the capitalist system, resisting neo-liberalism (WTO, World Bank, IMF, FTAs) and fighting their governments which take them to the slaughter house.

Who is the aggressor, the EZLN (Zapatistas) or the Mexican state? A South Korean farmers collective or the World Trade Organisation?

People are now getting together and fighting the capitalist system - unfortunately, capitalism won't fall by itslef (there's a good pamphlet with that titleby the way)!

Hi Grip,

I think you missed my point. The list I gave, which I KNOW anarchists were involved with in the G8 demonstrations in Scotland (and I believe in many other anti-globalisation protests) are not related to governance although some are related to dealing with the capitalist government ie legal, but they are necessary and/or desirable services at the time, voluntarily given and in (this is the important bit) an anarchistic way.

Where these services fail, they are judged on the basis of commitment to anarchist values like autonomy, mutual aid, decentralisation and so on.

And this is why it is important for anarchists to label this organising anarchism, because communities can be built in many ways which are undemocratic and negative because of the ideologies and intentions of those involved ie the neo-fascist community. Our answer to this problem is what we term anarchism. It is part of the old idea of building the new world in the shell of the old.

I agree that street actions should be engaged in a way that means we win. Useless actions, non-violent or otherwise, are still just that. I do not agree though that non-violent action is necessarily more difficult than property damage or directly opposing parts of the state with force. I recommend reading Ward Churchill's book if you haven't already on this topic 'Pacifism as Pathology'.

My theory is that developing as an anarchist is done through active experience rather than reading or talking (both also important activities). I believe that the existing anarchist communities that I know of, could do a better job of aiding that experience. However if you're not angry about the world right now and wanting to change it then I don't think you are really aware of the issues yet, or you are getting a little too dangerously comfortable.

Any attempt at mentoring, advice, and so on from more experienced anarchists has to recognise that working out your relationship to opposing capitalism and the state is a personal journey - and sometimes for better or worse people don't want to be mentored or guided.

I'm a bit rushed for time now, but I'd like to say that I don't know of anyone who only gets their information from Indymedia - that is entirely a straw man argument. And I would agree with you that he is a pretty silly straw man.

Also, if you look at the programme of events the anarchist-run 'Browning Institute' put on a function last night which had a panel of guests that ranged from the neo-liberal to the social democratic to anarchist. I see that effort as an attempt to refine our analysis locally - some acknowledgement that this does happen consistently within the anti-globalisation movement would be nice.

Of course there were no media there, but I guess that's what happens when you don't put your balaclavas on first.

Cheers

Grip:

" I have done my reading on anarchism and I am currently working on a politics degree so I'm no noobie on this topic (although I don't presume to know everything hence this debate)."

I hate to break it Grip, but pols is the most fucked up right wing subject available to study.

Usually pols departmetn paint themselves up to be free-thinking, and for peace etc in their undergrad handbooks and shit, but what they teach, the way politics is interpreted, is about 95% bullshit.

A lot of the poeple here, studying pols degrees or not, are quite informed and well read in a few differnet areas, so try not to be bringing too much of that 'i've got a pols degree' stuff.

I also htink you should do some serious reading if you think the restoration of capitlism in China is only just occuring now. or whether Vitenam, China, or Cuba are Marxist-Leninist. I'd challenge you to think about the role China is playing towards the class wars in India and Nepal, and about the fact that progressive peasant and worker uprisings are currtnely occuring in China against the government.

Also you claim to be searching for focus. I'd argue that the anti-globalisaiotn movement is actually inherently unfocussed because the WTO is only an aspect of capitalism and a real focus can only be found in turning people against capitalism-imperialism itself. For some academic reading on this question, which your lecturers probalby couldn't begin to understand becasue they break poltical science off from sociology, economics, philosophy etc, I recommend you check out

'Capitalism and Anti-Capitalism'

http://www.heartfield.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/interventions.pdf

by James Heartfield

http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/page-1110-smhp=1

http://www.heartfield.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

Cheers.

Yes , it may seem that 'they' think of everthing, they have the privalage of employment and wages in the persuit and research and implimentation of these endevours. Of course thats going to make their argument seem stronger.

While, protestors, civil society, people mobiliseing for more community central aims rather than global capitalist aims are, to generalise, unemployed(= under-resourced) but commited, employed or over employed(= more job than life).

For the capitalist- work 8 hours or whatever and then persue a personal quality of life, be this capitalist-buddist endevours or playstation.

For the rest- Work hard to make ends meet, raise families outside of work and still find time to build a grass roots organisation with minimal resources- and even less time.
Voluntary! Cooperatively! Community!

Its a classic David and Golith.
well educated against under-educated
Well resourced against under-resourced
Well fed against malnourished
the list goes on and on.

Yes, our movements can not afford the capital to buy PR contracts to turn the information on ourselves

Yes the protests are always portrayed as violent 'anarchists', this is the grist of corporate media that we lovingly fed.
No bruise equals no news
Just remember, the news is not reality TV, simply one perspective of said events.

This is the context we work in,
and we can either follow the myth of entering the system to change it within
or we can do it our selves
ie: indymedia , one of many examples

Yes, our movements may seem disorganised, in part this is a battle for diversity to survive.
Ask the indigenous of Hawaii how capitalisim has treated them.

Yes, rocks are thrown, but dont become fixated on this point. Many rock are thrown at police all over the planet and not from anarchist hands.

In the analysis, the path of least resistance is the easiest to follow.
'I have looked into the philosophies and I've spoted an easy way out'
Thats not an approach Ive heard mouthed by any anarchists, social and community rights workers, honest people making honest attempts, regardless of stature of academic education, to ensure that the things that affect their lives are their own actions and not those imposed from another order..
Ordinary, everyday, nextdoor neighbour people

Get a grip - as I thought I'd made clear - I wasn't calling you a hothead, I was saying your postings made you come across as one. You can judge this an ad hominum attack if you like, but as you said, you were "playing devil's advocate" (I think you mean you were being deliberatly scathing, which isn't the same thing, if so, that isn't a good way of creating a sensible debate), so i don't think you can complain that I described you as sounding like a hot head.

My arguments are not about semantics - I'm engaging with the things you clearly stated.

"You're accusing me of things I report from others." Well, what you said was "To rational academics and mainstream thinkers it seems to me to be more of a mental condition than a movement." I was presuming that the insertion of "to me" meant you were lining yourself up with 'rational academics'- it was a very unclear sentence. Perhaps you meant "it seems to me that rational academics and mainstream thinkers consider anarchism to be a mental condition." If so, why didn't you say that?

And actually, if some academics are writing anarchism off as "fringe lunatics", I think it demonstrates how narrow-minded, intolerant, uncritical and plain stupid a lot of academics can be. However, there are some anarchist academics who would think otherwise.

You are correct to say that China has achieved considerable poverty reduction, the state-organised capitalism it used ahs been very successful in certain terms. It's long-term success looks pretty questionable, particularly as the environmental damage created by unsustainable development wrecks people's lives. Floods are having a huge impact on the Chinese economy, central Beijing suffers sandstorms as a result of deforestation and soil degradation, there are riots over the health impacts of industrialisation. I wouldn't be making any bets on China's long-term prosperity.

Anarchy means 'without government', if you insist on claiming that anarchy means that "anything goes" you are missing the point of anarchism. You can either discuss anarchism as defined by anarchists - and I haven't met anyone, even a young punk, who thinks that your definition holds, or have a meaningless discussion based on what you like to think anarchism means. Obviously you can stick to it and have an argument with yourself about it if you wish, but it's a bit pointless.

Sam. Well, you seem very concerned about my sentence structure. I actually read over my posts and found a few other errors that you missed. ;-) The debate was about anarchism's flaws but you insist and picking apart my posts instead of taking the meaning, which you do seem to understand. It seems you cannot accept that my point is valid and so sidetrack the debate into the smaller issues like my sentence structure or word meaning. Shall I play your game?

'By the way, if your point is to stimulate deabate, I don't think you are doing this'

No Sam, I never said I was trying to stimulate deabate, I said debate. If you meant debate, why did you say this? Thats how weak your stance sounds when you engage in important debates with this kind of thing. I know my posts aren't perfect but I think I have made my point clear. You are, however, right to pull me up on this because making points clear is important. BUT, I think its sad that you use it as a stick to beat me and my stifle my point. It shows that you cannot deal with my view. I've already conceded my delivery isn't great and apologised in previous posts, is this not enough? You seem to be nit-picking to avoid my point which, by the way, was proven at the WTO yesterday. The riots had no influence on the debate, but the media carried it more than the issue inside, not good. Anarchists were reported to have been rioting at the event (Europeans apparently) but they were all arrested on the first day. The subsequent riots were small but yet again that was what the media carred. Anarchism failed to contribute positively and the WTO decided to help developing countries anyway. This impetus actually came more from Christains like Bono, Gordon Brown and the Pope. I think the WTO is doing more for people than anarchism is. It has taken some time for the West to get its act together, but complex situations like this do take time.

Its sad that many alternative thinkers/anti-globalists/independant reporters - you can't engage the big issues because they, more than academics, can't admit that many of their arguments have flaws. Academics can handle it and deliberately submit their views for critisism, its called peer review. Any serious person will probably agree that the quality of my writing here is less that perfect but that I have a solid argument about anarchism that you won't concede is valid, instead you focus on my definitions make my argument unworthy. I do not agree.

'Without government' and 'anything goes' is basically the same thing! No government means people can do what they want. Saying 'anything goes' is so close to without government that, again, you score an own goal by refuting this as the basis of your argument that I am not making a valid and worthy point.

Do yourself a favour. Look at this issue, as I said, it will make your argument stronger. If academics write off anarchism, ask yourself why. Ask yourself what is it about the anarchist movement that they have problems with. This way you can evolve anarchism. It will die unles you work on this. Its already happening as time and time again mainstream institutions prove they are more capable of dealing with problems of injustice than anarchists.

I think the reason anarchists mostly get written off is being demonstrated by your unwillingness to deal with the points raised here. Academics won't debate anarchists because anarchists can't seem to debate academics without getting overly emotional and descending into pointless attacks.
One famous anarchist academic Noam Chomsky has done well by being extremely well researched, talking in an academic language and remaining calm. This is sadly, not typical of anarchists. Its time for anarchist to get a grip.

I would be happy to continue debating sexism but perhaps you should start it in a different forum.

When I took you to task for your sentence structure, I was explaining why I didn't understand you, not just being picky. I genuinely thought you were saying something different to what it appears you meant. Don't you see the difference between that and something such as a spelling or typing error?

To say that 'without government' means the same as 'anything goes' suggests you either are unaware of, or just disregard, the considerable thinking and planning that anarchists have done to construct a vision of a world without government. If you just dismiss all this work, of course anarchism sounds idiotic and hopeless.

There is a value in academic work, but, frankly, I see no virtue in anarchists speaking in academic language. I don't think you've really made any argument as to why anarchists should work with academics. Some anarchists choose to do academic work, others don't. Why should this be a priority?

In my experience - fifteen years as an anarchist activist, mostly spent in Wellington, there's been almost no interest from academics in the anarchist movement. Why is this? If academics attempted to engage with us and understand what we are doing (which is, after all, their job) and had found it impossible, you might have a point. In fact, they don't seem to make this effort. Personally, I'm not losing a lot of sleep over this as I've plenty of other things to do. But, if, as you claim, academics regard anarchism as a "mental condition", what research is this based on? If they aren't making an effort to examine the anarchist movement, I don't see how they could come to this conclusion.

"The evidence academics base their opinions on is the quality of the publications of said ideology."

"Academics... buy into the mainstream media image of rioting hippies."

So what you are saying is that academics are lazy, aren't prepared to do field work and aren't critical thinkers. In other words, they don't do their job. Why is that the fault of anarchists?

Actually, I haven't noticed a lot of interest from academics in even reading anarchist journals, let alone seriously studying the movement.

Jon and Sam,
Thanks for engaging the debate - I want to be proved wrong. However what I am forcing you to deal with is hard objective reality. Imaging you're at a press conference and every global reporter is asking every hard question of anarchism. Can you handle the pressure? How well can you back your arguments in light of competeting ideologies (which are very very well supported and popular even if they can't provide global justice)?

Jon, let me be clear of what you mean by political scientists. Political scientists like Hobbes, Locke, Mills, Smith, Ricardo, Marx, etc.. contribute massively to our daily reality! Do you mean contemporary scientists? Often they aren't paid as much attention because so many are with still obsessed with Smith/Ricardo/Locke/Marx. This is competition of ideology that you're up against and although Chomsky makes some real headway for anarchists, he doesn't get popular backing which he needs for his ideas to translate into actual legislation. I have recently been looking at Asian political ideologies and have found that they rival Smith. In fact, some like Jeffery Sachs, believe that Asia holds the key to the future of the whole planet and having studied it I'd say that he may well be right (although he himself has been less than successful he is still no.1 poverty academic at the UN!). When you put anarchism up against emerging Asian techniques, boy, you're gonna have a hard time getting noticed. They are super smart (way ahead of the West in my opinion) and can prove it.

Are academics being lazy? Well some probably are yes and some read into anarchist ideas and just don't say it because within their world to admit to be swayed by those opinions is carreer suicide (we don't live in a perfect world but it can change!!!). Most of them are hard-asses and require solid proof which means nobel prizes and regular published material that gets peer reviewed and accepted.

In light of this cold hard reality, its not enough, in my opinion, to legitimately claim that anarchism, over other ideas, is best suited to deal with global social injustice and build a better world. What would happen if neo-liberal Adam Smith-ites went around throwing stones at polices at demo's? It wouldn't look good for anyone trying to persuade mainstream public that this is best ideology to follow - the out-of-controlness would scare people away, which is what 'some' anarchists do.

Sadly, cohesion is often one of the most important elements for a political movement. In the UK and probably here too, Conservatives absolutely hate each other. But they don't riot, they stick together and fight their internal battles slowly over time, and so they win popular support because they show they can handle the pressure of crisis. Its not about being the best, its about fucking it up the least!

When anarchists riot they reverse years of work by academic anarchists and the well thought out material you mentioned Jon. Its a part of the movement that has to change before any progress is made.

I have found that planning for the hardest route, the long haul, the toughest test of my ideology, has been the best way to improve its substance and evolve it to one day being worthy of recognition. It will be a lifetimes work thats for sure, no quick revolutions here!