An Anarchist Critique on the March 19th Hollywood Anti-War March

I’m writing this piece in part from the insight gained from the post-march anarchist meeting as well as in hopes that more people will start writing honest, reflective pieces after marches. As of now, most of the reporting that goes on after a march by the independent press is almost as shallow as corporate media’s portrayal of what transpires in the street: exaggerated protest numbers, flattering photos and superficial reviews of what happened, if even that. Like crudo’s recent piece entitled An Anarchist Critique of March 19th SF Actions, this is my attempt at a sincere and thoughtful article on what happened.


Before I get started though, let me also add that I am not from LA and just happened to be in the area when the march happened. I am active in my own area and in the broader anarchist movement, but my observations of the march comes from an outsider’s perspective. Also, the shortcomings I saw at this protest are all too familiar to my region, so please don’t interpret this as some holier-than-thou rant because I am a part of this movement or scene or whatever you want to call it.


When I arrived at the march I immediately saw the black flags, always an easy indicator of where the anarchists (or at least the intentionally visible ones) were. Some of the banners were your standard class war slogans but one was “The Ones Who Strike the Blows Won’t Remember, The Ones Who Bear the Scars Will Never Forget.” While the banner could have been done so people could read it more easily, it was refreshing to see a unique banner out there. Also, the group did start out marching together in a fairly well organized contingent. So, kudos for starting out visible, organized and with at least a dash of originality.


Unfortunately, from then on most everything else was lacking. There was very little literature available from the anarchists there. Also, I didn’t see anyone passing out literature to non-anarchist people before, during or after the march. Also, the only literature available was about specific groups, there was nothing there making anarchist thought relevant or connected to the occupation of iraq or war in general. Also, the chants that went on were weak and cliché. “What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Now!” If we’re going to criticize ANSWER for being boring and predictable we’re going to have to be better than that.


The approach that was taken by the block in general was confusing. Many people were masked up but the group though starting out tight quickly turned into a loose assemblage of people. No direct action took place and in the setting of a large, heavily policed ANSWER march I’m glad. Also, the group took a fairly antagonistic attitude towards the other marchers. Like I mentioned earlier, there was no active distribution of literature or attempts at engaging with other protesters. At one time a family with a peace banner was in front of the anarchist group and with a small boombox they were playing “Baby, I’m an Anarchist” people would up the volume for “and you’re a spineless liberal!!” and marched closely behind them until the family finally shuffled off to the side. Never did the anarchists join in with other chants though many were not in conflict with our beliefs or principles.


The whole march smacked of confusion and immaturity. In fact, the times I overheard the media interviewing anarchists I heard simplistic slogan-like responses that offered very little original thought or gave a better understanding of what anarchism truly means. When a reporter asked who all the black-clad masked people were a kid said “We’re the anarchists. We’re here to start a revolution.”
It’s hard to really assess the effectiveness of the anarchist presence in the march because I am not sure many people even came in with coherent ideas of what they wanted to accomplish (unless “starting a revolution” counts, in which case we failed miserably). Just going off of common anarchist goals I can say that nothing happened in the way of direct action, whether that be symbolic or tactical. If the intent was to spread the word about what anarchism is about and encourage people to find out more about the movement then we did almost everything the wrong way. Oftentimes anarchists attend ANSWER marches to spice it up, but besides a small drum and dance circle at the end there was hardly any creativity coming from the anti-authoritarian part of the crowd. We like to be critical of ANSWER or people that just attend marches and go home, but going off of the march in Hollywood I don’t see much more thought or energy going into marches from the anarchists.


I’m glad there was a post-march meeting because people brought up these issues so I knew I wasn’t the only one wondering what the hell was going on. Though some men reacted very defensively and even rudely when my partner (a woman) critiqued them (all men), many of the people and especially at the post-march meeting listened with interest. For those of you that were there this is all old news, but I hope that now that’s it is written down we can go back to it and remember what happened the last time we just showed up with black flags and our balaclavas. Also, I think it is important to let other anarchists around the state, country, world read honest accounts of anarchist activity. In crudo’s critique they end with 5 points, all of which I think very much apply to the Hollywood march and I’m sure many others so I encourage people to read them over. Instead of repeating it all, I’ll end this piece with some general tips for marches, many of which came out of the discussion that was held in LA afterwards.
-if you want to reach out to people, consider your appearance and the way you carry yourself, be friendly and outgoing to others (esp. if dressing “punk” or in a way that has socialized people to be scared or uneasy)
-black bloc is a generally old and outdated tactic
-have literature available and pass it out before, during and after a protest, make sure it’s relevant to the theme of the march
-have agreed upon signals and calls to keep formation, often called “cadence calls”
-talk about media issues with your affinity group or collective before hand. How will you react to the media? Will there be a media person designated? Will you talk to some media and not others? If so, how will you decided which ones are ok and which aren’t?
-if people are new to protests consider having a know your rights training and/or handling the media training beforehand
-be creative: interesting banners, chants (make chant sheets to pass out), costumes, performances, instruments, etc.
-be able to articulate your beliefs and why you are at the march to people that are unfamiliar to anarchism and radical politics
-realize that much of this requires pre-planning, set up meetings before a protest to make banners and plan whatever else will be going on