{"article":{"id":16316,"heading":"Another World is possible! A Black Flag May Day Special","author":"lingg","created":"2002-05-02 16:06:11","modified":"2005-08-15 00:57:51","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:57:51","article":"

Another World is possible!

Across the world, people are changing the world.

This spring, resistance is blossoming across the world.

March saw half a million protesting in Barcelona in the

latest in a long line of anti-capitalist demonstrations.

April saw twenty million workers on strike in Italy.

Protesting against proposed new labour laws, they brought

the country to a halt. Over two million people took to the

streets in demonstrations. In India, 10 million state

workers went on strike against proposed changes to labour

laws and privatisation. In London and across America,

hundreds of thousands expressed solidarity with the

Palestinians and their struggle against Israeli occupation.

Across France, over a hundred of thousand took to the

streets to stop fascism by the only means possible, direct

action.

The Birth of Our Power!

These strikes and protests are seeds from which a new world

can grow. In Argentina, this is already happening. Mass

demonstrations are demanding that all politicians are

kicked out. All across the country popular assemblies are

being organised in neighbourhoods and workplaces. Strikes

are turning into factory occupations. The community

assemblies, workplace assemblies and unemployed groups are

linking up and fighting together.

Anarchy in Action!

After every anti-capitalist protest, the politicians

and media ask, \"what do we want?\" What we want is being

created whenever people organise themselves and use direct

action to fight back against those who oppress and exploit

them. The only limit to oppression is the power with which

it is resisted. This resistance gives those involved a

sense of their own power, both as individuals and as a

class. By organising our own struggles, we get experience

of managing our own lives and see that politicians and

bosses are not needed. The embryo of a free society exists

in the free federation of the community and workplace

assemblies struggle creates. The struggle against

capitalism shows that another world is possible and how to

create it!

For anarchists the politics of living can end those of

surviving, hope can replace despair. Resist to exist! Plant

the seeds of liberty and help them grow!

***********************************************************

Make everyday May Day!

On May Day, International Workers Day, hundreds of

thousands of people are celebrating and resisting across

the world. We are remembering past and current struggles,

showing those in power that their subjects refuse to accept

their allotted place in the social hierarchy. We are

showing that not only is a new world possible, but that we

are already creating it in our struggles and festivals!

But demonstrations by themselves will not end

capitalism or its imposed, top-down, globalisation. Only

when the bulk of the population take direct action,

organise themselves and fight for their freedom will real

change occur.

The \"principles of anarchism\" are born from the class

struggle, when people fight for a better life. Argentina

shows the direction the anti-capitalist movement must take:

it must apply its principles of direct action, solidarity,

self-managed self-organisation within everyday life and

struggles. We need to build strong roots in our communities

and workplaces. Without this grassroots activity, the anti-

capitalist movement will wither, just as a flower cut off

from its roots.

The May Day protests are part of a wider movement, a

movement which shows another world is possible, a world

based on mutual aid, which celebrates individuality, which

rejects the idea that people are little cogs in a big

machine and the planet is just a resource to be sold off to

the highest bidder. This movement celebrates life and

diversity. It shows that a society based on liberty,

equality and solidarity is possible by applying them now.

It says that there is more to life than profit. It rejects

the Hobson's choice of selling your liberty to a boss or

rotting in unemployment. It says this world is not for sale

and neither am I. It knows what it wants and it knows how

to get it.

Together, we can create the new world that lives in our

hearts!

***********************************************************

Celebrate Liberty, not Tyranny!

The generosity of the Monarchy knows no bounds. Year in,

year out, they have relieved us of the terrible burden of

deciding whether to invest millions in health or education

thanks to the civil list. Now, as a reward for years of

giving one of the richest families in the world millions,

we finally get payback: two days holiday!

Talk about value for money! So use those days wisely,

because we have earned them. Do not squander those two days

of freedom from wage slavery by condoning past tyranny and

its legacy.

Tyranny? Yes, tyranny. Monarchy is just the old name

for dictatorship. Its history is the history of oppression,

exploitation, and rule by one person.

Unlike the serfs of the past, we can show our disgust

of the remains of absolutism and their insulting claims to

rule over us without having to worry about being hung,

drawn and quartered for treason. Let us do so. Let us

celebrate real history, the history of resistance,

rebellion and revolt from below!

Festivals of the Oppressed

The history we are feed in school and in the media is

history from above, the acts of the elite few who govern

and exploit the many. Why celebrate parasites who have

happily sent their subjects to die in wars to ensure their

rule? Why waste a holiday celebrating an institution which

is an insult to our intelligence and liberty?

On June 3rd, why not celebrate history from below, the

struggles of working class people like ourselves who fought

to change society for the better? Celebrate this, our

history, the history of liberty, the history of resistance!

1381 England: Sir Simon de Burley charges a man with

being a serf, in Gravesend; this touched off the Peasant

Revolt, led by Wat Tyler and John Ball the next day. Tyler

demands that all rank and status be abolished and social

equality established.

1647 England: The Parliamentarian Army kidnaps Charles

I. After beheading the King two years later, Cromwell turns

on the \"switzerising anarchists\" on his left, the

Levellers, stating their demand for radical democracy

\"tends to anarchy.\"

1793 -- France: Marat addresses the Jacobin club on the

insurrection of May 31st. Organised by directly democratic

neighbourhood assemblies (\"the sections\"), the people of

Paris rise in revolt. Marat states that the rising gave \"a

great impetus to the Revolution\" and that it aimed to

secure \"happiness and comfort\" for the working class, the

sans-culottes. The ensuring struggle between the sections

and the Jacobin government becomes the struggle for the

heart of the revolution, the struggle of the working class

against the rich.

1840 France: Jean-Louis Pindy born (1840-1917), Brest,

France. Member of the Internationale, communard, anarchist,

carpenter. On March 18th, 1871, the working class of Paris

rise and start a \"Communal Revolution.\" Seeking a free

society of free individuals, the Commune proclaims its

autonomy and starts to form co-operative workplaces. It

creates the \"permanent intervention of citizens in communal

affairs\" by the mandating and instant recall of delegates

and free federation from below.

1896 Spain: Isaac Puente born (1836-1936). Militant in

the anarchist CNT union, he was arrested in Zaragoza in

1933 together with the other members of the Revolutionary

Committee for organising a popular revolt. In 1936, the CNT

leads the resistance to the fascist coup of July 17th.

Defeating the military, millions start to create anarchism,

taking control of their own fates. Workers kick out their

bosses and organised libertarian collectives in industry

and agriculture. They organise democratic militias to

liberate those parts of Spain under Franco. The revolution

breaks down sexual and social barriers, introducing a

fraternal character to social relations. Betrayal by the

Communists, Republicans and the western democracies ensure

Franco's victory.

1900 US: International Ladies Garment Workers Union

(ILGWU) founded. In 1909, it organised a strike of 20,000

workers in New York. A mass meeting demanded that a general

strike be declared. Workers in more than three hundred

workplaces won their demands.

1906 Mexico: Workers in Cananea seize their town after

two days of rioting when a strike breaks out. The strike

stimulates nationwide labour protest and the alarmed

Mexican and US governments begin a concerted effort to

break the anarchist PLM and its revolutionary ideas before

it is too late.

1917 Russia: First All-Russia Congress of Workers and

Soldiers Soviets opens. This is a symbol of the revolution

from below sweeping Russia. Overthrowing the monarchy by

demonstrations and mass strikes in March, the Russian

workers form councils (\"soviets\"). These councils, like the

Paris Commune, are made up of mandated and instantly

recallable delegates who execute the decisions, so taking

the first steps towards anarchy. In the workplaces,

committees are formed and introduce workers' self-

management of production. Peasants seize the land. This

ferment from below continues until crushed by the

Bolsheviks, who, after seizing power in November, then

gerrymander and disband soviets and crush working class

protest to remain in power. This accumulates in the

Bolshevik crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion in March,

1921, in which sailors and workers had demanded free

elections and basic liberties for the masses.

1921 -- Russia: Workers rebelling against Bolshevik

tyranny in the Ukrainian town of Ekaterinoslavl. Labelled a

\"mini-Kronstadt,\" strikers raise similar demands as those

of the Kronstadt rebels. They also raise the demand for

\"free soviets,\" popularised by the anarchist insurgent

army, the Makhnovists.

1936 -- France:. Two million workers all across France

are occupying their workplaces, winning sigificant

concessions by their actions and showing the power of

direct action, solidarity and the working class.

1944 -- Italy: The first trade union in liberated Italy

created, the Confederazione General Italiana del Lavoro.

1968 -- France: Over 3,000 militants are assembled by

the \"Permanent Factory Mobilisation\" Action Committee in

Paris to support workers striking and occupying their

factories across the country. This is the legacy of the

near revolution of May, which saw hundreds of thousands

practising direct democracy and direct action all across

France.

These are just a few examples of history from below, the

history of struggle, the history of our class and its

power, the history of liberty. History is made by the

masses when they unite and fight for their liberty against

their rulers, whether political or economic.

So celebrate liberty, celebrate the power of working

class people to change the world, celebrate life! And, at

the same time, create new festivals of the oppressed to

finish the work created by rebels past! Their actions point

the way - direct action, solidarity, self-organisation from

the bottom up, self-management of both the struggle and the

new society. These are the principles of anarchism. Join

with us, we have a world to win!

***********************************************************

Mayday - A tradition of fighting back!

This rally celebrates solidarity with similar

demonstrations worldwide. Yet many of these are suppressed

by the violence of the State. There are some who support

the aims of Mayday who mistakenly confuse international

workers day - with a public relations gambit of Non-

Violence. An anarchist responds:

There is only one act worse than being the perpetrator

of violence - it is passively succumbing to it and thereby

rendering resistance ineffective. Paraphrasing Peter

Kropotkin a century ago this sums up an anarchist view on

violence.

People with revolutionary ideas do not wish violence to

be part of the equation. Violence is the preserve of the

State. The State has the legitimised use of violence, as

well as the force of Law to keep their subjects \"in order\".

It is organised to protect the power of the interests it

serves. Using or provoking violence is utilised by the

State -- with riot cops, undercover police, paramilitary

forces, and the regular army.

You only have to witness the calculated brutality of

the Israeli State at present to see the \"iron fist\"

unleashed outside the \"velvet glove\" of respectability.

Non-violent mass protest is a valid tactic which is the

appropriate means to face the power of oppressors on most

occasions. Yet it is a cardinal mistake to \"elevate\" a

tactic into an ideology, fetishising the sense of sacrifice

into potential defeatism.

It is incredibly brave to maintain non-violence in the

face of overwhelming odds, but the people who turn such

activity into an ideology - pacifists - remove the ability

of the oppressed to defend themselves.

It is no coincidence that religious justification for

pacifism is pervasive - Christian, Hindu or Buddhists.

Religion is organised mysticism which serves to reconcile

the oppressed to terrible fates. The reward is in the

afterlife rather than a commonwealth in the here and now.

Yet these same religions and others such as Islam, have

historically legitimised the use of military force by the

State.

Such defeatism removes options, when a valid response is

to defend the struggle you are engaged in with the most

appropriate response that is collectively decided upon. On

most occasions that will be to maintain non-violent

determined and brave resistance. But to rule out, or even

worse as some \"pacifists\" do - to sabotage and inform on

people prepared to physically resist, is to prepare for

defeat rather than organise to win.

The events of September 11th are invoked as

justification by our rulers: violence is their preserve and

it is the enemy that is \"fanatical.\" They have manipulated

the public perception of the atrocity to suit their own

agenda.

Yet indiscriminate loss of life, even if aimed at

symbolic targets, such as the World Trade Center, is not

going to advance liberation. Persecuted individuals

manipulated by would be States or jihads are indicative of

desperate measures in a world of the spectacle. It is not

going to foster class solidarity.

To summarise: neither terrorism or pacifism but a

flexible response which includes fighting back when the

need arises - what do you think?.

Jim McFarlane

***********************************************************

A lie - Nation

Back in the 19th century old Karl Marx identified

alienation as signifying the worker's relation to what he

produced. This sense of alienation dovetailed with the

uprooting of former rural labourers in the new urban slums,

to herald the beginnings of working class experience of

exploitation and powerlessness under capitalism.

Well over a century later, the community spirit which

tied people together, through adversity, has been steadily

eroded. In today's modern life, seeming material progress

stimulated by consumer credit & spiralling debt, has

narrowed the focus to the family & the individual.

Yet such individuals are not empowered, not citizens,

not in control of their work or environment. They are

bombarded with images and expectations which lead to a

confused consciousness of who they are. Instead of the old

deferred gratification in the early days of consumerism,

often accompanied - especially in Scotland - by the old

deference & 'tug of the forelock', the new individual is

self-seeking, cynical, hedonistic & no longer bound by

restraints of religion.

Also from the 19th century old Michael Bakunin stated it

was also creative to unleash destructive urges. But,

'freed' from former conventions, such destructive urges are

now part of the malaise of modern alienation. Generations

are encouraged to see others as 'fuddy duddies', 'muppets',

'neds' & so on. As technological sophistication compounds

such distancing within families and communities, rebellion

becomes expected as a rite of passage expressed through the

hedonism fashionable to the generation in question.

In many urban areas, spreading to former urban villages

where community ties used to stifle individualism, the

breakdown of social cohesion has led to a proliferation of

barbaric behaviour. This is expressed in destructive use of

drugs, muggings, anti-social vandalism & lack of respect

for anybody apart from immediate cronies.

Any revolutionary appeal has therefore to offer the hope

that a free society and the fight to achieve it will fill a

void in the personal & the social side of existence.

Invariably we will be cast as role models despite being

ourselves constantly subjected to such media and

advertising saturation.

It is too easy to 'sit on the sidelines' faced with such

social disintegration. Yet people who are substantially

alienated are not going to turn automatically to anarchist

perspectives. If you hate other people of your class you

despise yourself, you think you are above others & fall

into an elitist trap. You contribute to the pollution &

rubbish around you, you make elderly people feel insecure

and you spread bad habits amongst children.

So becoming an anarchist isn't just about appreciating

the power relation of capitalism, it is about projecting

anarchy as a change of moral outlook, an ethics for the

21st century. Otherwise dependence on the State &

authoritarian solutions will be encouraged, instead of a

full appreciation of the appeal & social responsibilities

of anarchism.

Your choice, follow trends & bad habits, or shake

them off & live as an anarchist!

Jim McFarlane

***********************************************************

Why Mayday?

May 1st is a special day for the labour movement. It is a

day of world-wide solidarity. A time to remember past

struggles and demonstrate our hope for a better future. A

day to remember that an injury to one is an injury to all.

Mayday originated with the execution of four anarchists in

Chicago in 1886 for organising workers in the fight for the

eight-hour day. May Day is a product of \"anarchy in

action\": of the struggle of working people organising

themselves and using direct action to change the world.

It began in the 1880s in the USA. In 1884, the

Federation of Organised Trades and Labor Unions of the

United States and Canada passed a resolution which asserted

that \"eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work from

and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labour

organisations throughout this district that they so direct

their laws as to conform to this resolution.\" A call for

strikes on May 1st, 1886 was made in support of this

demand.

In Chicago the anarchists were the main force in the

union movement. The anarchists thought that the eight hour

day could only be won through direct action and solidarity.

They considered that struggles for reforms, like the eight

hour day, were not enough in themselves. They viewed them

as only one battle in an ongoing class war that would only

end by social revolution and the creation of a free

society. It was with these ideas that they organised and

fought.

In Chicago alone, 400 000 workers went out and the

threat of strike action ensured that more than 45 000 were

granted a shorter working day without striking. On May 3,

1886, police fired into a crowd of pickets at the McCormick

Harvester Machine Company, killing at least one striker,

seriously wounding five or six others, and injuring an

undetermined number. Anarchists called for a mass meeting

the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality.

According to the Mayor, \"nothing had occurred yet, or

looked likely to occur to require interference.\" However,

as the meeting was breaking up a column of 180 police

arrived and ordered the meeting to end. At this moment a

bomb was thrown into the police ranks, who opened fire on

the crowd. How many civilians were wounded or killed by the

police was never exactly ascertained.

A reign of terror swept over Chicago. Meeting halls,

union offices, printing shops and private homes were raided

(usually without warrants). Such raids into working-class

areas allowed the police to round up all known anarchists

and other socialists. Many suspects were beaten up and some

bribed. \"Make the raids first and look up the law

afterwards\" was the public statement of the States Attorney

when a question was raised about search warrants.

Eight anarchists were put on trial for accessory to

murder. No pretence was made that any of the accused had

carried out or even planned the bomb. Instead the jury were

told \"Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial. These men have

been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted

because they were leaders. They are no more guilty than the

thousands who follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict

these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save

our institutions, our society.\" The jury was selected by a

special bailiff, nominated by the State's Attorney and was

composed of businessmen and the relative of one of the

killed cops. The defence was not allowed to present

evidence that the special bailiff had publicly claimed \"I

am managing this case and I know what I am about. These

fellows are going to be hanged as certain as death.\" Not

surprisingly, the accused were convicted. Seven were

sentenced to death, one to 15 years' imprisonment.

An international campaign resulted in two of the death

sentences being commuted to life, but the world wide

protest did not stop the US state. Of the remaining five,

one (Louis Lingg) cheated the executioner and killed

himself on the eve of the execution. The remaining four

(Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph

Fischer) were hanged on November 11th 1887. They are known

in Labour history as the Haymarket Martyrs. Between 150,000

and 500,000 lined the route taken by the funeral cortege

and between 10,000 to 25,000 were estimated to have watched

the burial.

In 1889, the American delegation attending the

International Socialist congress in Paris proposed that May

1st be adopted as a workers' holiday. This was to

commemorate working class struggle and the \"Martyrdom of

the Chicago Eight\". Since then Mayday has became a day for

international solidarity. In 1893, the new Governor of

Illinois made official what the working class in Chicago

and across the world knew all along and pardoned the

Martyrs because of their obvious innocence and because \"the

trail was not fair\".

The authorities had believed at the time of the trial

that such persecution would break the back of the labour

movement. They were wrong. In the words of August Spies

when he addressed the court after he had been sentenced to

die:

\"If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the

labour movement . . . the movement from which the

downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and

want, expect salvation - if this is your opinion, then hang

us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there,

behind you - and in front of you, and everywhere, flames

blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it

out.\"

At the time and in the years to come, this defiance of

the state and capitalism was to win thousands to anarchism.

Since the Haymarket event, anarchists have celebrated May

Day (on the 1st of May - the reformist unions and labour

parties moved its marches to the first Sunday of the

month). We do so to show our solidarity with other working

class people across the world, to celebrate past and

present struggles, to show our power and remind the ruling

class of their vulnerability.

Anarchists stay true to the origins of May Day and

celebrate its birth in the direct action of the oppressed.

Oppression and exploitation breed resistance and, for

anarchists, May Day is an international symbol of that

resistance and the power it generates, the power to change

the world.

***********************************************************

What the Chicago Anarchists wanted:

\"First -- Destruction of the existing class rule, by

all means, i.e. by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and

international action.

\"Second -- Establishment of a free society based upon

co-operative organisation of production.

\"Third -- Free exchange of equivalent products by and

between the productive organisations without commerce and

profit-mongery.

\"Fourth -- Organisation of education on a secular,

scientific and equal basis for both sexes.

\"Fifth -- Equal rights for all without distinction to

sex or race.

\"Sixth -- Regulation of all public affairs by free

contracts between autonomous (independent) communes and

associations, resting on a federalistic basis.\"

***********************************************************

New issue of Black Flag out now!

This issue contains anarchist analysis of the revolt in

Argentina, the anti-capitalist demos in Genoa, Brussels and

New York, national and international news, book reviews and

much, much more. Black Flag magazine is essential reading

for all anarchists and other anti-capitalists. Well worth





















































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