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revlyncox · 4 years

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Democracy Is Not a State

Delivered to the Washington Ethical Society on January 10, 2021, by Lyn Cox

Congressman John Lewis reminds us what is possible when we join together, combining our collective action and sense of purpose to keep our country grounded in our best and highest ideals. His final instructions to us were to “walk with the wind,” to stay together and respond to the movement of our time in the spirit of peace and with the power of love.

That is what is happening in Georgia. This past week, we learned that Georgia will have two new Senators. The Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black Senator from the state, of which about a third of the population is Black. The congregation Rev. Warnock leads, Ebenezer Baptist Church, is the former pulpit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also a congregation that Rep. Lewis attended. Jon Ossoff will be the first Jewish Senator from Georgia. Ossoff interned for Rep. John Lewis as a young man, after having written him a fan letter when Ossoff was 16 years old. Relationships built over years make a difference.

Regardless of political party, we can agree that democracy depends on the ability of citizens to exercise their right to vote. True democracy rests on free and fair elections, in which obstacles to the right to vote are not placed unfairly and disproportionately in front of voters from marginalized communities. The runoff election in Georgia was historic, not only because of the outcome, but because of the momentous turnout. Overcoming voter suppression was a major task, and one that grassroots organizations in Georgia have been working on for years. Multiracial democracy is a threat to white supremacy, and white supremacy has been trying to prevent the full flowering of multiracial democracy from the beginning.

Yet there is progress. Between 2018 and the November election, 800,000 new people registered to vote in Georgia. Registering and mobilizing new voters is the big story of this election, and that was achieved one conversation at a time, one knocked-on door at a time, one phone call at a time, one relationship at a time. Stacey Abrams is a strategic genius and a focused advocate, having started the New Georgia Project seven years ago and Fair Fight two years ago.

Abrams will be the first to tell you that a wide variety of leaders and grassroots organizations share the credit for voter turnout in this election. For instance, LaTosha Brown has been fighting voter suppression since 1998, and her Black Voters Matter project helped mobilize voters across the South. In a series of tweets on Friday, Abrams named 30 different grassroots organizations that coordinated their efforts to help Georgians exercise their right to vote, noting that the runoff election was a demonstration of “decades of strategy, grit, + building.”

Between Rep. Lewis’ reminder about clasping hands and moving together, and the turnout in Georgia’s runoff election, our takeaway should not be limited to admiration for the most visible leaders, candidates, and public officials. We can and should admire their good character traits and their dedication to service. We can and should thank the movement leaders who made this possible, especially Black women. But we should not elevate these officials and movement leaders to the point where we regard them as something other than human, an example too rarified for us to follow.

The lesson here is that organizing is happening all around us. Coordinated solidarity to enact structural change for liberation is part of how we help bring the full promise of multiracial democracy into being. There may well be someone like Stacey Abrams in the movements you are part of at your workplace or in your neighborhood. Let’s listen. There are definitely organizations in our own communities being led by the people who are most impacted by marginalization. We can follow the example that has been set out for us by supporting power-building and relationship-building that is already happening locally. Grassroots organizing takes a long time. It requires a lot of one-on-one conversations, very little in the way of immediate results, and broad participation. That path is available to any of us, nobody has to be a superstar to participate in repairing the soul of our nation.

We contrast the progress in building multiracial democracy in Georgia with the violent attempt to destroy multiracial democracy that happened on January 6. Because this Platform is being recorded for posterity, I feel that I have to be very clear about the events of this week; please take care of yourself if a reminder of these events is overwhelming for you. On Wednesday, at the urging of their demagogue, white supremacist insurrectionists invaded the Capitol building, threatened the safety of elected leaders and staff, looted the building, and left chaos in their wake for others to clean up, primarily janitors and facilities staff who are People of Color. They were not merely rascals ignoring the rules of orderly protest, they were an armed mob seeking to disrupt the practice of democracy. Computers were stolen, putting our national security at risk. Five people died, including an officer from the Capitol Police.

In our community, I know we are holding intense emotions about this incident. I am particularly mindful of the impact that this has on those who work for the Federal government, for whom the area around the Capitol is an everyday environment, a place full of memories and colleagues. My heart also goes out to those who live near the Capitol, who had to deal with armed white supremacists wandering the neighborhood unimpeded. To anyone who has ever been treated roughly by the Capitol Police for non-violently exercising their first amendment rights, the lack of resistance to the mob may not have been surprising, but it was yet another insult, a reminder that the level of force with which police respond to protestors is a choice. For People of Color, Queer people, Muslim people, Jewish people, immigrants, or anyone who holds an identity targeted for violence by these insurrectionists, Wednesday’s events were a chilling show of power that was precisely intended to make us feel afraid for existing as our whole selves. We cannot let that fear stop us from living fully, nor prevent us from persevering in the work of liberation.

On Wednesday night, I invited the WES community to gather by Zoom to process the day’s events, to overcome the numbness of trauma by feeling our feelings, and to lift up our shared values in a way that only a community like ours can do. It was short notice, and I apologize if you didn’t hear about it in time. Please reach out if you would like to talk to me or to a member of the Pastoral Care Associates about how you are feeling. More than twenty of you were able to attend. Just from that sample, I know that there are feelings of rage, worry, disgust, helplessness, disappointment, and confusion. There are also feelings of readiness, of curiosity about what to do next, relief about the Georgia election, and even optimism that there are long-deferred actions for repair that can take place with the new Congress. Emotions are what they are, and they will be affected by your previous experiences with oppression, trauma, and violence. Feel your feelings. Please know you don’t have to be in those feelings alone.

The violence on January 6 was designed to reinforce white supremacy. It was a reaction to the expansion of multiracial democracy, fed by the shock of racist white people that the votes of people who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color were allowed to have an impact. White people have been told since the moment Europeans arrived on this continent that the land and its abundance and the benefits of government are for ourselves, that white people own this country, and that this is unassailable no matter what happens to the bodies, voices, and lives of those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This worldview is gravely harmful and wrong.

The incredulity with which the insurrectionists faced the results of the 2020 election, urged on by politicians who capitalize on their racism, is rooted in the belief that only white votes are legitimate. Their invasion of the People’s House was meant to mark their territory, to show that their ownership remains primary, and that they can and will use violence to maintain that ownership. White supremacist violence as an attempt to derail multiracial democracy is not new, and it has worked before. We all have choices ahead of us to reduce the chances that this tactic will continue to work.

One avenue is to confront and dismantle white supremacy in all of the ways it shows up around us. For those who have been the targets of racism their whole lives, simply living and thriving is an act of resistance. For those of us who were socialized as white, the construction of a wall of ignorance around the machinations of white supremacy is part of how the system operates. For those of us who were raised with barriers to perceiving racism, let’s not wait another moment before removing those barriers and taking action to uproot racism.

We saw again this week how deadly white supremacy can be. It shows up in the minds and hearts of well-meaning people and in the institutional practices of well-meaning communities. It shows up in the decisions of governments from the level of homeowners associations to the U.S. Congress. It shows up in art and music and literature. We don’t have to look far to find a place to begin uprooting racism. For all of us, the outpouring of voter empowerment in Georgia reminds us that there is room for everyone in expanding multiracial democracy.

Another thing we can do is to insist that the threat of violent white supremacy is real, and that we should take it seriously. Perhaps that seems obvious after this week, but we’re already seeing efforts to humanize, sanitize, and excuse the perpetrators of destruction. News articles about insurrectionists who died emphasize their good qualities or accomplishments instead of their criminal records; an obvious departure from the media treatment of racial justice activists and those who have been murdered by police. Jokes about the perpetrators seem to imply that they are too stupid to be held responsible. Calls to understand their pain and excuse their racism rely on stereotypes that are demonstrably untrue. Exhortations to “move on” without practicing accountability reinforce the idea that harm caused by white people should be consequence-free. White supremacy is and always has been a threat to our national security and our national wellbeing, and the sooner we recognize and address that, the better.

Failing to take white supremacy seriously contributed to our vulnerability to Wednesday’s events. Racist militia groups have been allowed to grow and thrive for years when anti-racist groups have been infiltrated, sabotaged, and undermined with outrageous punishments and mysterious deaths. After the Charlottesville event where Heather Heyer was murdered, nothing happened to reduce the potential for future right-wing violence. The Capitol Police knew that the crowds planned for Wednesday were likely to be dangerous. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said:

We all were aware of the danger. Ten days ago, Maxine Waters had raised the issue of our security on a caucus call to the Speaker and asked what the plans would be. And 48 hours before, we had gotten instructions from Capitol police about all the threats: that we had to be on high alert, that we had to get to the Capitol by 9 a.m. before the protesters, that we couldn’t plan on going out, that we should have overnight bags. It was very clear, and everyone understood what the threats were.

Rep. Jayapal points out the discrepancy between what the Members of Congress were told about impending events and how the Capitol Police were prepared on the outside of the building. Whether failing to have adequate staff or backup or hard barriers was a result of underestimating the threat or of deliberate collusion or both, the lack of preparedness is a product of white supremacy.

When we recognize the enormity of the problem, we are led to work on systemic solutions. That means examining laws and policies, and the uneven application of those laws and policies. At a Symposium yesterday, award-winning peacemaker and spiritual care activist Najeeba Syeed spoke about the “myth of interpersonal peacemaking,” and how it can be a distraction and derailment of the systemic justice-making that provides the foundation for authentic, lasting peace. Trying to understand and relate to Nazis does not yield systemic change. Attempting to de-radicalize loved ones is another project, not the same thing as building multiracial democracy or expanding liberation. Professor Syeed reminded us that “Peace is not the absence of violence … Peace is the absence of injustice.”

In a week with so many low points, even as we notice the high points, it is understandable to feel disoriented. I have said before that hope is doing the next right thing, working toward a better world even when the outcome is not assured or even clear. Yet if your sense of reality was turned upside down this week, or you were overwhelmed with an experience or a reminder of trauma, maybe the next right thing is especially elusive right now. In that case, the next right thing is to take care of yourself. Drink water. Eat nourishing food. Maybe go outside at some point during the day. Talk to people who care about you. The movement will still be there when you have regained a sense of the ground underneath you. You are a precious being of worth.

Another next right thing is to check up on each other. Remember your federal employee friends. Follow up on a Caring News email. If you’re reaching out to someone who might be having a hard time, you might ask, “Is it OK if I ask how you are?” Let’s try not to make people feel obligated to re-live negative experiences if they aren’t ready. Just being present is often helpful. Even if we can’t fix anything, we can give people the option not to be alone in their grief.

If you have a little more energy and want to channel your feelings into positive actions, consider something that will have a material impact on your local community. R was telling me about Mutual Aid in Washington, DC, especially in Ward 5. For information about Mutual Aid throughout the District, check the website for Bread for the City or find them on Facebook. I also checked in with D, who is involved with Silver Spring/Takoma Park Mutual Aid. You can find them on their Wordpress site or on Facebook. If you’re involved in Mutual Aid, feel free to mention it during Community Sharing or post in the Facebook group later.

R tells me: “Mutual Aid is a non-hierarchical way for neighbors to help neighbors. Anyone can ask for any kind of assistance, and anyone can offer to help. Some roles require some training and learning codes of ethics/responsible service. It's not a particularly ‘formal’ or ‘organized’ thing - it's all hands on deck, and everyone is just doing their best.” R went on to say that there are short-term and long term roles, and those who are able can donate any time.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with dismantling white supremacy, building relationships with your neighbors both is and is not about a larger goal. Building relationships with neighbors is a primary good; it’s something that is valuable and satisfying to do for its own sake. Similarly, offering care when you can and giving people a chance to practice care when you need it are both good, full stop. Neighbors helping neighbors is a form of resistance to oppressive structures.

In addition, neighbors who have strong bonds with each other are in a better position to advocate for their communities. If you and your neighbors are working to overcome environmental racism where you live, or redirect funding to basic human services, or update policies in the local school that have a negative impact on students of color, you will have a head start if you already know each other. This could be its whole own Platform, so I’ll pause there and just say that strong, connected, diverse local communities can be a manifestation of multiracial democracy and a home base for even more positive change.

Forming authentic relationships with our neighbors, community organizing, building power, paying attention to local issues, caring for ourselves and each other: these are some of the tools with which we will resist white supremacy and build multiracial democracy. This way is slow, and it is often hard, and it works. Growing multiracial democracy is a constant practice; Rep. Lewis reminded us that “democracy is not a state.”

When white supremacy attempts to use violence to enforce a warped and harmful vision of who we should be and how we should be together, one of our avenues for resistance is renewing our commitments to communities living into a vision of wholeness. That can mean your local mutual aid society, it can mean a project like the Food Justice Initiative, it can mean a coalition like the Washington Interfaith Network or the Congregation Action Network, it can mean a voting rights organization like Fair Fight, it can mean a community like WES. A better world is possible. There are pockets of it already living and moving among us and around us and within us. Clasping hands (figuratively, for now), traveling together with the winds of our time, let us gather our collective strength to stay grounded in a vision of the world that is possible.

May it be so.

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rfschatten · 4 years

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Election 2020: America’s Civil War v2.0

“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” ~ George Orwell

Wake up and smell the coffee, America!

The United States, for better or worse, for the first time in its history elected an honest to goodness criminal; a renowned grifter, a world-renowned embezzler, a sleazy money launderer, and a tax fraud …who disguised as a stable genius has never succeeded in a single business he’s ever attempted.

Casinos are legally structured so the “House” never loses! But ask Atlantic City, and their experience with the Trumpster. How smart is the Stable Genius? How many Casinos have ever gone bankrupt?

It’s no longer a secret this exalted “Billionaire” is really a penniless fraud …a fraud who owes banks around the world more than a Billion Dollars, and at least, $400,000 to mysterious certain individuals.

Truth hurts when dealing with irreproachable people of more character and virtues than he’s ever had …Donald Trump can’t handle the Truth!

Aristotle said; “Without virtue, man is most unholy and savage, and worst in regard to sex and eating”.

Aristotle never had the pleasure to meet this little man, but describes him literally to a T!

But, why does his following care even knowing what he says are all lies? He’s everything his righteous Christian bible quoting base grew up learning not to be! The sins, the immorality…so unchristian!

There’s a certain sector of this nation that will reject the truth, by any means …and at all cost.

200 years of institutionalized racism, cultural inbreeding, systemic ignorance, and continually poor education.

Enter the orange Svengali, it’s his Haven …being around people who don’t care whether he lies to them or if he cheats on all his wives, whether he takes all their tax dollar & sticks it in his pocket, or betrays his country for money in favor of other Foreign Powers!

His ability to mesmerize & exploit the most exploitable is all he has left …and it’s a mutual “quid pro quo” society.

Their aim …with the help of the most powerful man in the country and the most ignorantly dangerous human being in the World …to promote White Supremacy and lift it up to rule the Nation, while psychologically and educationally bringing everyone down to their level. Build a society based on their own visions & all their ignorance, and make the US the world’s pinnacle of idiocy.

Never question the supreme leader…diminish their followers’ range of thought. Whatever you see is not what you’re seeing, whatever you hear is not what you’re hearing, and whatever you’re reading is not what you’re really reading …that’s life under totalitarian rule.

Shades of “1984”? and its Totalitarian Society …36 years later?!?!

When the President of the United States really says; “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening” …what’s next? War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength?

Another shade of 1984 is discouraging all Freethinking. Oh! Freethinking/Critical Thinking! ….something that the Texas GOP passionately rejects and opposes the idea in all Texas Public Schools. I kid you not!

Donald Trump’s lifelong family love for right-wing movements, Fascism and White Supremacy …all his very fine people he constantly boasts about! And now, the opportunity of his lifetime; to exploit all his own bigotry & racism without getting in trouble. Besides all his criminal activities …it’s given him an aura of invincibility …a dictator who can get away with murder, which has been his childhood dream!

He’s the self-proclaimed “Tough Guy” who whines when Leslie Stahl asks him tough questions …” why do I get the tough questions”? How tough is he towards the ‘real’ tough guys? Case closed.

This man has no plans whatsoever of giving up his Power …his plans started 4 years ago, and American Supremacy will violently back him up whether they win or whether they lose!

From The Donald’s use of pure Fascist Propaganda, The Big Lie, Subliminal Messaging, Gaslighting, Doublespeak, the White House’s official Daily Misinformation, Blatantly lying their asses off 24/7…it’s all part of the Totalitarian for Dummies handbook.

When Trump tells a certain chapter of his violent armed cultists …even if he claims he doesn’t know them; “stand back & stand by”…he knows very well what he’s doing!

Uncle Crazy is not really that crazy! He’s just a creepy dirty old crazy uncle…just ask his niece, Mary.

The 2020 Election is like nothing ever seen or experienced before. The Economy is usually the selling point in all elections…how it affects your wallet. War is another factor that can shift elections one way or the other. But this year it’s a little different, an X-factor is hanging around like toe-nail fungus for all the Republicans that sold their souls to Trump …a Global Pandemic Infection that’s now reaching 9 million Americans and will have killed over 230, 000 men, women, and children by Nov. 3rd.

Besides, there’re massive protests all around the country demonstrating for the end of institutionalized racism…all those years of Racial Injustice and especially nationwide Police Brutality have reached a boiling point …and instead of getting better, is getting worse as police shootings of the Black community keeps increasing throughout the country, daily!

More blacks are dying in the streets of America through police brutality than ever before …..and on Live TV! This, besides the Pandemic, are among so many other things that is truly ripping this nation apart!

How to start a Race War and blame the other side for starting it…better yet, blame other factions and allow them to destroy each other. A Fascist principle? It’s all about Chaos and how much will it take, to take down a Country…lock, stock, and barrel.

Will Durant once said; “Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with Chaos”…we certainly ‘are’ in Chaotic Times!

“Law and Order” sold well for Dick Nixon …but it’s not selling as well this time around. The general public is too well aware of what’s happening, and why it’s happening …they’re sick of listening to a man who will reach 25,000 lies by Nov. 3rd. What’s happening is that this country is sick & tired of listening 4 years of constant transparent horseshit.

People prefer being and staying healthy, and prefer taking care of their children than having them get infected or die! The need to work to financially survive is real, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do …if you get sick, how are you going to go to work? If you die, what happens with your family?

But most of all …People of all ages, all colors, all genders, all faiths, are coming together as one nation. Maybe this killer Virus is actually finally waking the moral conscience of this country?

The Law and Order hero keeps projecting about cleaning the streets of crime. The Black-clad Thugs Trump talks so much about? You can’t miss them…they’re a conglomeration of Ice Agents, off-duty Prison Guards, Border Patrol Agents, and Blackwater Mercenaries. No one with name tags or IDs but nice shiny black helmets & full armored uniforms! Abducting Protestors and driving them away? They’re the most brutal, vicious racists and supremacists goons Bill Barr could find. In Dictatorships, they call them “Death Squads”!

This is the man who cried; Take your guns and liberate Michigan!

Think about it! You have the President of the United States calling for the insurrection of the Government of a State in the Union!

Now, all you hear is Insurrection & Martial Law…if he doesn’t win? Telling his crew of every low life white supremacists to be armed and ready …cause Biden is going to get rid of Law Enforcement, open the Borders and allow all Mexican criminals to come and loot, burn, and rape your women!

To keep power, Dictators cheat their asses off by suppressing the vote, any way possible…now the Post Office and all the dirty deals with his new Donor Postmaster General pal.

That looks like it won’t work, so now Trump is insinuating that if he doesn’t win on Nov. 3rd is because the Democrats cheated and rigged it, naturally. Using his stacked Supreme Court to reverse his election defeat and declare him King for Life!

At noon on Jan. 20th, 2020 Donald Trump will refuse to get out of the White House and hide in his Bunker! At which time, little men in white coats will enter with US Marshals and have him evicted … and sent directly to Happy Acres, where he can battle all the Napoleon pretenders to see who’s the best leader.

This election is twofold. It’s about recovering and taking back a Nation from the shackles of 4 years of Chaos & Destruction, and it’s about regaining our Respect, Morality, and especially America’s Decency over the Disrespect, the Immoral Degeneracy, and the Indecency of the past 4 years!

When the President keeps insisting on opening up schools, sadly, it’s so he can get the parents back to work to pick up the economy …just more money for him to steal from the taxpayers. The Kids? The Donald has no compassion or remorse, he couldn’t care less how many children get infected or die …he just doesn’t give a damn!

He hates Children and Dogs…always had! He considers himself above them …even as a kid, he hated and bullied other kids. Never trust a man who hates Dogs!

It’s the pompous “exclusivity” of a spoiled brat born with a silver spoon up his big fat derrière.

This is all the continuing legacy of American Hypocrisy and Social Class standing…so many, have been so proud for so long with the conception of “American Exceptionalism”. Just think, what the word exceptionalism means. It derives from the word “Except” which means to “Exclude”! It should’ve been called American White Exceptionalism.

This is why the 2020 elections is the most important in US History, where Democracy & the US Constitution hangs on the line…threats of a Civil War if Trump loses, threats of intimidation & armed violence, even during election day (aka voter suppression) …and a Bill Barr lead Justice Dept, more interested in officially defending Trump in a rape & defamation civil lawsuit than protecting the American Voter!

There’s a reason why all around the world We, the People are still known …and even more in today’s Trumpian age, as “The Ugly American”.

Never before has America had such a distinct clear choice for President …it all comes down to Decency or Indecency, Morality or Immorality, Compassion or Indifference, but mostly it’s about uniting a nation or tearing it apart!

Voter suppression is the first way of suppressing a society! …there’s no second chance! Like never before, on Nov. 3rd Election Day … America, Choose Wisely!!!

#2020 Elections #donald trump #joe biden #COVID-19 #racial injustice #racial inequality #White Supremacy #Fascism #pandemic

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leftpress · 8 years

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Anarchy Works - Introduction

By Peter Gelderloos

The Introduction of the book Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos

Anarchy Would Never Work

Anarchism is the boldest of revolutionary social movements to emerge from the struggle against capitalism — it aims for a world free from all forms of domination and exploitation. But at its heart is a simple and convincing proposition: people know how to live their own lives and organize themselves better than any expert could. Others cynically claim that people do not know what is in their best interests, that they need a government to protect them, that the ascension of some political party could somehow secure the interests of all members of society. Anarchists counter that decision-making should not be centralized in the hands of any government, but instead power should be decentralized: that is to say, each person should be the center of society, and all should be free to build the networks and associations they need to meet their needs in common with others.

The education we receive in state-run schools teaches us to doubt our ability to organize ourselves. This leads many to conclude anarchy is impractical and utopian: it would never work. On the contrary, anarchist practice already has a long record, and has often worked quite well. The official history books tell a selective story, glossing over the fact that all the components of an anarchist society have existed at various times, and innumerable stateless societies have thrived for millennia.

How would an anarchist society compare to statist and capitalist societies? It is apparent that hierarchical societies work well according to certain criteria. They tend to be extremely effective at conquering their neighbors and securing vast fortunes for their rulers. On the other hand, as climate change, food and water shortages, market instability, and other global crises intensify, hierarchical models are not proving to be particularly sustainable. The histories in this book show that an anarchist society can do much better at enabling all its members to meet their needs and desires.

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The many stories, past and present, that demonstrate how anarchy works have been suppressed and distorted because of the revolutionary conclusions we might draw from them. We can live in a society with no bosses, masters, politicians, or bureaucrats; a society with no judges, no police, and no criminals, no rich or poor; a society free of sexism, homophobia, and transphobia; a society in which the wounds from centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and genocide are finally allowed to heal. The only things stopping us are the prisons, programming, and paychecks of the powerful, as well as our own lack of faith in ourselves.

Of course, anarchists do not have to be practical to a fault. If we ever win the freedom to run our own lives, we’ll probably come up with entirely new approaches to organization that improve on these tried and true forms. So let these stories be a starting point, and a challenge.

What exactly is anarchism?

Volumes have been written in answer to this question, and millions of people have dedicated their lives to creating, expanding, defining, and fighting for anarchy. There are countless paths to anarchism and countless beginnings: workers in 19th century Europe fighting against capitalism and believing in themselves instead of the ideologies of authoritarian political parties; indigenous peoples fighting colonization and reclaiming their traditional, horizontal cultures; high school students waking up to the depth of their alienation and unhappiness; mystics from China one thousand years ago or from Europe five hundred years ago, Daoists or Anabaptists, fighting against government and organized religion; women rebelling against the authoritarianism and sexism of the Left. There is no Central Committee giving out membership cards, and no standard doctrine. Anarchy means different things to different people. However, here are some basic principles most anarchists agree on.

Autonomy and Horizontality: All people deserve the freedom to define and organize themselves on their own terms. Decision-making structures should be horizontal rather than vertical, so no one dominates anyone else; they should foster power to act freely rather than power over others. Anarchism opposes all coercive hierarchies, including capitalism, the state, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

Mutual Aid: People should help one another voluntarily; bonds of solidarity and generosity form a stronger social glue than the fear inspired by laws, borders, prisons, and armies. Mutual aid is neither a form of charity nor of zero-sum exchange; both giver and receiver are equal and interchangeable. Since neither holds power over the other, they increase their collective power by creating opportunities to work together.

Voluntary Association: People should be free to cooperate with whomever they want, however they see fit; likewise, they should be free to refuse any relationship or arrangement they do not judge to be in their interest. Everyone should be able to move freely, both physically and socially. Anarchists oppose borders of all kinds and involuntary categorization by citizenship, gender, or race.

Direct Action: It is more empowering and effective to accomplish goals directly than to rely on authorities or representatives. Free people do not request the changes they want to see in the world; they make those changes.

Revolution: Today’s entrenched systems of repression cannot be reformed away. Those who hold power in a hierarchical system are the ones who institute reforms, and they generally do so in ways that preserve or even amplify their power. Systems like capitalism and white supremacy are forms of warfare waged by elites; anarchist revolution means fighting to overthrow these elites in order to create a free society.

Self-Liberation: “The liberation of the workers is the duty of the workers themselves,” as the old slogan goes. This applies to other groups as well: people must be at the forefront of their own liberation. Freedom cannot be given; it must be taken.

A note on inspiration

Pluralism and freedom are not compatible with orthodox ideologies. The historical examples of anarchy do not have to be explicitly anarchist. Most of the societies and organizations that have successfully lived free of government have not called themselves “anarchist”; that term originated in Europe in the 19th century, and anarchism as a self-conscious social movement is not nearly as universal as the desire for freedom.

It is presumptuous to assign the label “anarchist” to people who have not chosen it; instead, we can use a range of other terms to describe examples of anarchy in practice. “Anarchy” is a social situation free of government and coercive hierarchies held together by self-organized horizontal relationships; “anarchists” are people who identify themselves with the social movement or philosophy of anarchism. Anti-authoritarians are people who expressly want to live in a society without coercive hierarchies, but do not, to the best of our knowledge, identify as anarchists — either because the term was not available to them or because they do not see the specifically anarchist movement as relevant to their world. After all, the anarchist movement as such emerged from Europe and it inherited a worldview in accordance with this background; meanwhile there are many other struggles against authority that spring from different worldviews and have no need to call themselves “anarchist.” A society that exists without a state, but does not identify itself as anarchist, is “stateless”; if that society is not stateless by chance, but consciously works to prevent the emergence of hierarchies and identifies with its egalitarian characteristics, one might describe it as “anarchistic.”[1]

The examples in this book have been selected from a wide range of times and places — about ninety altogether. Thirty are explicitly anarchist; the rest are all stateless, autonomous, or consciously anti-authoritarian. More than half of the examples are from present-day Western society, a third are drawn from stateless societies that provide a view of the breadth of human possibility outside of Western civilization, and the remaining few are classical historical examples. Some of these, such as the Spanish Civil War, are cited multiple times because they are well documented and offer a wealth of information. The number of examples included makes it impossible to explore each one in the detail it deserves. Ideally the reader will be inspired to pursue these questions herself, distilling further practical lessons from the attempts of those who came before.

It will become apparent throughout this book that anarchy exists in conflict with the state and capitalism. Many of the examples given here were ultimately crushed by police or conquering armies, and it is in large part due to this systematic repression of alternatives that there have not been more examples of anarchy working. This bloody history implies that, to be thoroughgoing and successful, an anarchist revolution would have to be global. Capitalism is a global system, constantly expanding and colonizing every autonomous society it encounters. In the long run, no one community or country can remain anarchist while the rest of the world is capitalist. An anti-capitalist revolution must destroy capitalism totally, or else be destroyed. This does not mean that anarchism must be a single global system. Many different forms of anarchist society could coexist, and these in turn could coexist with societies that were not anarchist, so long as the latter were not confrontationally authoritarian or oppressive. The following pages will show the great diversity of forms anarchy and autonomy can take.

The examples in this book show anarchy working for a period of time, or succeeding in a specific way. Until capitalism is abolished, all such examples will necessarily be partial. These examples are instructive in their weaknesses as well as their strengths. In addition to providing a picture of people creating communities and meeting their needs without bosses, they raise the question of what went wrong and how we could do better next time.

To this end, here are some recurring themes that may be beneficial to reflect on in the course of reading this book:

Isolation: Many anarchist projects work quite well, but only make an impact in the lives of a tiny number of people. What engenders this isolation? What tends to contribute to it, and what can offset it?

Alliances: In a number of examples, anarchists and other anti-authoritarians were betrayed by supposed allies who sabotaged the possibility of liberation in order to gain power for themselves. Why did anarchists choose these alliances, and what can we learn about what kind of alliances to make today?

Repression: Autonomous communities and revolutionary activities have been stopped cold by police repression or military invasion time after time. People are intimidated, arrested, tortured, and killed, and the survivors must go into hiding or drop out of the struggle; communities that had once provided support withdraw in order to protect themselves. What actions, strategies, and forms of organization best equip people to survive repression? How can those on the outside provide effective solidarity?

Collaboration: Some social movements or radical projects choose to participate in or accommodate themselves to aspects of the present system in order to overcome isolation, be accessible to a greater range of people, or avoid repression. What are the advantages and pitfalls of this approach? Are there ways to overcome isolation or avoid repression without it?

Temporary gain: Many of the examples in this book no longer exist. Of course, anarchists are not trying to create permanent institutions that take on lives of their own; specific organizations should come to an end when they are no longer helpful. Realizing that, how can we make the most of bubbles of autonomy while they last, and how can they continue to inform us after they have ceased to be? How can a series of temporary spaces and events be linked to create a continuity of struggle and community?

The tricky topic of representation

In as many cases as was possible, we sought direct feedback from people with personal experience in the struggles and communities described in this book. With some examples this was impossible, due to unnavigable chasms of distance or time. In these cases we had to rely exclusively on written representations, generally recorded by outside observers. But representation is not at all a neutral process, and outside observers project their own values and experiences onto what they are observing. Of course, representation is an inevitable activity in human discourse, and moreover outside observers can contribute new and useful perspectives.

However, our world is not that simple. As European civilization spread and dominated the rest of the planet, the observers it sent out were generally the surveyors, missionaries, writers, and scientists of the ruling order. On a world scale, this civilization is the only one with the right to interpret itself and all other cultures. Western systems of thought were forcibly spread around the world. Colonized societies were cut up and exploited as slave labor, economic resources, and ideological capital. Non-Western peoples were represented back to the West in ways that would confirm the Western worldview and sense of superiority, and justify the ongoing imperial project as necessary for the good of the peoples being forcibly civilized.

As anarchists trying to abolish the power structure responsible for colonialism and many other wrongs, we want to approach these other cultures in good faith, in order to learn from them, but if we’re not careful we could easily fall into the accustomed eurocentric pattern of manipulating and exploiting these other cultures for our own ideological capital. In cases where we could find no one from the community in question to review and criticize our own interpretations, we have tried to situate the storyteller in the telling, to subvert his or her objectivity and invisibility, to deliberately challenge the validity of our own information, and to propose representations that are flexible and humble. We don’t know exactly how to accomplish this balancing act, but our hope is to learn while trying.

Some indigenous people whom we consider comrades in the struggle against authority feel that white people have no right to represent indigenous cultures, and this position is especially justified given that for five hundred years, Euro/American representations of indigenous peoples have been self-serving, exploitative, and connected to ongoing processes of genocide and colonization. On the other hand, part of our goal in publishing this book has been to challenge the historical eurocentrism of the anarchist movement and encourage ourselves to be open to other cultures. We could not do this by only presenting stories of statelessness from our own culture. The author and most of the people working on this book in an editorial capacity are white, and it is no surprise that what we write reflects our backgrounds. In fact, the central question this book seeks to address, whether anarchy could work, seems itself to be eurocentric. Only a people who have obliterated the memory of their own stateless past could ask themselves whether they need the state. We recognize that not everyone shares this historical blindspot and that what we publish here may not be useful for people from other backgrounds. But we hope that by telling stories of the cultures and struggles of other societies, we can help correct the eurocentrism endemic to some of our communities and become better allies, and better listeners, whenever people from other cultures choose to tell us their own stories.

Someone who read over this text pointed out to us that reciprocity is a fundamental value of indigenous worldviews. The question he posed to us was, if anarchists who are mostly Euro/American are going to take lessons from indigenous or other communities, cultures, and nations, what will we offer in return? I hope that wherever possible, we offer solidarity — widening the struggle and supporting other peoples who struggle against authority without calling themselves anarchists. After all, if we are inspired by certain other societies, shouldn’t we do more to recognize and aid their ongoing struggles?

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples(London: Zed Books, 1999) offers an important perspective on some of these themes.

Related Stories on LeftPress:

► BOOK REVIEW: JOSEPH DAHER EXAMINES THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HEZBOLLAH

► REVIEW: THE IRON HEEL – JACK LONDON’S CLASSIC

► 13TH: THE RISE OF THE MASS INCARCERATION STATE

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jatamansi-arc · 8 years

Text

Shabbat Sh’mot 5777

20 January 2017 Rabbi Michael Adam Latz Shir Tikvah Congregation

Cry Unto Pharaoh!

ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף

A new pharaoh rose up over Egypt who knew not Joseph. Now, when we ended the book of Genesis last week, Joseph and Pharoah had a close relationship—you remember how cozy those two were, saving all the Egyptians and the Children of Jacob by planning ahead; well, the Jews thought they had it made in the Egyptian shade. Not so much. Over the years, this new pharaoh strategically and intentionally made life more and more difficult for the Israelites: taking away their rights, enslaving them, beating them, challenging their basic dignity.

וַיֵּאָ נְ ח֧ ּו בְ נֵֵּֽ י־יִ שְ רָ אֵּ ֵ֛ ל מִ ן־הָ עֲבֹ דָ ָ֖ ה ַוִי ְזָָ֑עקּו

The Israelites groaned under the bondage and cried out;

The new pharaoh was cruel and paranoid, indecent and violent. So we cried out to God—

We cried out to resist tyranny. Because we knew in our bones that slavery and human dignity are incompatible.

Raise your hand if you know the name of the person who delivers your mail? How about the name of the person who picks up the garbage or the recycling or the compost from your house or apartment or condo? This is how white supremacy works, how racism works—it seduces us with a fallacious notion of radical individualism that says we can and must do everything on our own. But in reality, it isolates us so that we don’t even know the names of the people who are intimately involved in our lives: people who pick up our trash, serve our food, draw our blood, clean our streets. It divides us. It dehumanizes us. You want to be a religious person? Learn people’s names. Listen to their stories. Share your own. Break down those invisible but potent barriers. Story telling is a radical act of resistance.

Tonight is a night for stories.

I want you to know the names of two women who remade the world—and without whom, we wouldn’t be here tonight: Shiphrah and Puah.

Shiphrah and Puah were the midwives who delivered the Hebrew babies. And when Pharaoh decreed that all the Israelite boys must be killed (he got paranoid the Israelites would form a mass army and rebel), they engaged in history’s first act of civil disobedience. They refused to do what the almighty Pharaoh demanded.

Pharaoh was furious! “Why are you disobeying me?”

Shiphrah and Puah answered him, “The Hebrew women are vigorous! Their labor is so short—they give birth before we arrive.”

C’mon folks. Shiphrah and Puah lied. They lied to save those babies. They refused to destroy innocent human life because of the ravings of a megalomaniac lunatic. According the Egyptian legal system, they broke the law! But God rewarded them and their households.

And we remember Shiphrah and Puah—and their epic moral courage—this night.

The Exodus story recalls our people’s liberation from slavery to freedom. It wasn’t an easy road to freedom. You might remember the story? Moses didn’t walk up to Pharaoh in his palace one day and say, “You know Sir, we’d like to talk. You see, while we really enjoy working seven days a week in the hot Egyptian sun and don’t really mind our task masters beating us or throwing our baby boys in the Nile, we’ve decided that this just isn’t the right match for us Israelites. Thank you for your time, but we’re going to depart to worship our God in freedom. How does next Tuesday at noon work for you?”

C’mon!

This liberation wasn’t easy! Pharaoh’s heart was stone. The Israelites spent 400 years being treated like garbage. Moses had a hard time speaking in public and the people had Egypt in their hearts. Few of them could imagine a different life—a world where they were free. In fact, the rabbinic commentators explain that the Israelites couldn’t even hear Moses at first—mi-kotzer ruach v’avodah kashah—they were being worked so hard they couldn’t even breathe, much less imagine freedom.

That’s precisely why there were 10 plagues before Pharaoh let the Israelites go free. Why? To remind us that freedom doesn’t happen over night.

You and I—we’ve got a lot in common now with Shiphrah and Puah: as of noon today we are called to engage in ancient acts of resistance. We’re gonna get uncomfortable. Are you ready to get uncomfortable? Are you ready to disrupt business as usual?

That’s hard for a lot of us. We like things orderly. We’re Minnesotans. We’re nice.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his famous letter from a Birmingham Jail, “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Today, in 2017, the same folks who are demanding a Muslim registry are likely some of the same folks calling in bomb threats to JCCs and bringing guns aplenty into mostly poor, mostly Black and Brown neighborhoods; they’re the same pharaohs who want to take social security away from old folks and health care away from the sick; and blame all our problems on Brown immigrants and Transpeople using public bathrooms as they engage in the cynical politics of division and distraction—all the while never doing a damn thing about Aleppo or the rising oceans or public education or building a bridge or creating a job for anyone not selling oil to Russia.

Those 10 plagues were as much to challenge the Egyptians and the Pharaoh as they were to show the Israelites that we had the power of endurance; the plagues helped the Israelites slaves build the requisite faith and the spiritual muscles to resist tyranny. We build faith step by step, story by story, person by person.

Those 10 plagues were the original politics of disruption; humanity’s boldest wake up call.

You beat these slaves? We’re gonna ruin your water!

You overwork these people? We’re gonna wreck your crops!

You won’t pay them? We’re gonna block your roads!

You won’t free them? We’re gonna turn off the lights!

You deny people their basic human dignity? We coming!

After 10 plagues, Pharaoh’s hardened heart finally shattered and our people marched to freedom!

Because enslaving people, discriminating against people, denying people their innate dignity is such a profound theological affront to God that business as usual just isn't possible. We must never forget where we've come from and who we are: We were slaves in the land of Egypt, you and I; those are the words we recite every Passover seder. This. Is. Personal. Human dignity is our ultimate theological concern. And when that means interrupting business as usual to break the chains of bondage, then it is both our religious inheritance and our moral obligation to rise up against the tyranny that prevents all people from being fully human.

In the next four years, I imagine there are pharaohs who will tell us— or tweet us—something that assaults the deepest promptings of our conscience. Will we stand in the moral breech like Shiphrah and Puah? In our hands will be the decision to join Pharaoh or to engage in moral resistance. Sometimes it will involve rallies and letter writing campaigns and testifying to legislative committees. At times, like Shiphrah and Puah we will be called to proclaim there is a higher, holier purpose and we must be emotionally, spiritually, and ethically prepared to do what is necessary to make manifest those ancient values. Values that cry out like the babies the midwives kept alive— because we know we cannot break that which is already broken—our task is alive with hope and compassion, promise, and redemption. This moment cries for our spiritual and moral resistance to normalizing hatred and violence against people who are different, who look different and pray differently—because we believe what we were taught when we first embraced Torah—that humanity was created in God’s image… That Love. Trumps. Hate.

The Exodus was a theological revolution. It is time for a new theological revolution, a new moral revival!

Every synagogue and mosque and church most now call ourselves to compassionate activism, to stand up for the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the Muslim, the Gays, the Trans, the person of color, the elderly, those with disabilities.

If our belief in God does not demand the mitzvot—the commandments—of love, compassion, generosity, and a robust commitment to healing our planet, if it is only focused inward, on the self, its simply narcissism.

The time has come for authentic people of faith to rise up and resist the blaspheming of our religious traditions: Jesus hung with the prostitutes in the hood, Moses crossed the border with a motley band for former slaves with no papers, and Muhammed proclaimed that our attachment to worldly possessions would destroy our ability to see God in the world.

It is time for a theological revolution in America:

A theological revolution where we wake up to the suffering around us and strive, together, to find ways to build a community and society with compassion as the cornerstone of our social policy and human dignity and mutual respect at the heart of our politics.

A theological revolution where people of faith proclaim that racism and sexism and the worship of guns are blasphemy and addressing mass violence and the need for decent public education and quality affordable health care and work that pays a sustainable and thriving wage are not merely rights in a civilized society; they are moral commitments we must make to one another and the next generation.

It is time for a theological revolution in America where we are willing to listen to people who disagree with us because we hold their humanity and our collective future in our hearts and because, to be a person of faith means that hope is a commitment we make to ourselves and to our children.

It is time for a theological revolution that brings to life the Golden rule—do nothing hateful to another human being precisely because we are our sister's and our brother's keepers.

And it is time for a theological revolution that says if and when we invoke the name of the Eternal we better be prepared to defend all of God's creatures and creation with every fiber of our bodies and souls—especially the ones who drive us bananas.

Today, we inaugurated a president who traffics in hatred and colludes with white supremacists. There are those who choose to cozy up to him and his administration, or worse: who suggest we wait and see. No! When you appoint a white supremacist as your chief adviser, when you nominate a man who does not believe in fairness to people of color as your attorney general, when you nominate a climate denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency, when you boast about grabbing women with impunity and you mock those with disabilities, when you threaten to register my Muslim sisters and brothers, when you threaten the health care of 18,000,000 of our fellow citizens, you have shown that you do not share the values of people of faith in this great nation. Our moral tasks are resistance, resilience, and repair.

We will not stand idly by while you make our neighbors and our planet bleed with the stench of xenophobia and racism and sexism. The prophet Elie Wiesel (z”l) taught that we might not be able to stop all injustice, but we’ll all be damned if we don’t try every chance we have.

Our moral task in the next four years is clear:

1. Resistance! Shiphrah and Puah paid attention to the challenges and the world around them. Disrupt and interrupt cruelty every time you witness it. Let no racist joke get finished, no sexist commentary to go unchallenged, no locker room talk be spoken in our presence, no rejection of people who look or pray or believe differently. This is what chutzpah looks like. It means defending what is right, speaking out, and resisting normalizing cruelty even when it doesn’t make you popular. Especially when it doesn’t make you popular.

2. Resilience. If you belong to Shir Tikvah or another spiritual community trying to live into our theological and moral commitments—awesome! If you are not yet a member, what are you waiting for? The only way we’re going to get through this moral swampland is by holding on and joining one another, fiercely. That means supporting the organizations who provide moral leadership in this time of moral crisis. We are powerful, together.

3. Repair. Show Up! Be present. Stretch Spiritually. We’re going to be asked to be present and it’s going to be hard. Its gonna be cold. (Its Minnesota folks; weather is always gonna happen). We’re gonna be tired. And still we need to show up. To rallies. To protests. To the halls of the State Capitol. To congress. To City Hall. As people of faith. Because we believe in human dignity and that our public leaders are servants of the public—not the other way around.

4. Finally, Keep Going. Eight years ago, then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke about a famous New Yorker, Harriet Tubman. Tubman, as you know, guided more than 300 slaves on the Underground Railroad, from the southern slave states to the free states in the north. “And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.”

We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

We who believe in love, compassion, and human dignity cannot rest.

We who believe that ours is a nation of immigrants cannot rest.

We who believe in the equality, justice, and care for our planet cannot rest.

We who believe that Shiphrah and Puah were right and just when they defied Pharaoh’s immoral decree cannot rest. Keep going!

#jewish things #ooc #sort of #this is my synagogue's standard fare #and people wonder why i'm like #'ahh yeah erik lehnsherr is so jewish let me tell you'#what would ever give me that fucking impression ever

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teachanarchy · 8 years

Link

Getting Started

Because these ideas are so ordinary, they can only be of use to people who are extraordinary. Fortunately, you fit the bill.

When you resolve to take your destiny into your own hands, it’s hard to know where to start. Ceding responsibility to others is easy: you vote for a political party, you donate to a nonprofit group, you pay taxes to a government, you enlist in an army, you enroll in a school, you work for a corporation, you convert to a religion. Practically our whole society is arranged that way. It can be daunting to come up with your own agenda, to start over with yourself as the agent of history.

But you’re not starting from scratch. You have talents, longings, and dreams that you have given up on pursuing because there seems to be no space for them in this world. The first step is to rediscover them. We aren’t just talking a negative struggle against external constraints, but the positive project of realizing our potential on our own terms. Anything you wish you could do—anything you think someone should do—begin it now.

Ready or not, you are already engaged in the struggles of our time. We were all born into them. It’s not a question of whether to fight, but how. Do we seek individual solutions or make common cause? Do we address one problem after another, or strike at their roots? Do we keep investing resources in the institutions that are failing us, or stake our lives on something else?

The ruling order may appear unshakable, but change is the only constant in this world. Windows of opportunity are going to open when things will be possible that seem impossible now. The best way to prepare for such moments is to already be in the habit of acting on your own terms, outside the logic of the prevailing regime. When you know your own strength, you may be able to open those windows yourself.

Get in position. Find people who bring out the best in you. Learn to take care of each other and act powerfully together. Share things. Discuss struggles elsewhere around the world; draw your own strategic conclusions to test when the opportunity arises. Build networks, resources, and skills that will be useful in those moments of possibility. Dedicate yourself to a long-term project that challenges some aspect of the power structure. Wherever you can, open up the fault lines between those who prefer the world the way it is and those who want something different. Don’t seek to concentrate power, but to diffuse it—a part of your potential is locked in everyone else, and you won’t be able to access it without them. The outcome of a revolution is not determined by revolutionaries, but by which side the people on the fence ultimately join.

Take heart. The hardest part of taking your destiny in your hands is the fear of the unknown. There are no guarantees, and the stakes are the things you prize most in all the world. This is why it’s a relief to consign yourself to others’ projects and values, giving up on your own in advance so you don’t risk failing yourself. Yet that means accepting the worst-case scenario as a foregone conclusion. If that’s the alternative, you might as well hazard the leap into the unknown. On the other side, you will find us—the companions you deserve.

“It starts when you care to act, when you do it again after they say no, when you say ‘we’ and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more.” –Marge Piercy

Further Resources

For regular reporting from an anarchist perspective, tune in to Submedia.TV or the Ex-Worker podcast.

To connect with real live anarchists, visit an infoshop or anarchist book fair. To invite a speaker to discuss anarchist ideas and strategy at your community center, university, or any other venue, contact us.

General Inquiry

An Anarchist FAQ—Meticulously documented answers to frequently asked questions about anarchism

The Anarchist Library—An archive of anarchist texts spanning the past two centuries

Anarchy Works—A compendium of historical examples answering frequently asked questions about how anarchists make decisions and solve social, economic, and strategic problems

Fighting for Our Lives—An anarchist primer

You can also read introductions to anarchism from contemporary authors like David Graeber and Bob Black, not to mention the classics by Errico Malatesta and Emma Goldman.

Critique

Borders

Capitalism

Care

Climate Change

Computing

Democracy

Gender

Insurrection

Intersectionality

Peace

Police

Prisons

Privilege

Rights

Solidarity

Suicide

Surveillance

Terrorism

Violence

White Supremacy

Work

Celebration

Autonomy

Insurrection

Joy

Life

Love

Momentum

Mutual Aid

Revolt

Transformation

Action

Affinity Groups

Black Blocs

Direct Action

Insurrection

Occupations

Prisoner Support

Really Really Free Markets

Security Culture

Solidarity Networks

You can learn about other tactics associated with anarchists in the books Recipes for Disaster and the Earth First! Direct Action Manual.

Frequently Asked Questions about Anarchism

What about human nature? Don’t we need laws and police and other authoritarian institutions to protect us from people with ill intent?

If human beings are not good enough to do without authority, why should they be trusted with it?

Or, if human nature is changeable, why should we seek to make people obedient rather than responsible, servile rather than independent, craven rather than courageous?

Or, if the idea is that some people will always need to be ruled, how can we be sure that it will be the right ones ruling, since the best people are the most hesitant to hold power and the worst people are the most eager for it?

The existence of government and other hierarchies does not protect us; it enables those of ill intent to do more damage than they could otherwise. The question itself is ahistorical: hierarchies were not invented by egalitarian societies seeking to protect themselves against evildoers. Rather, hierarchies are the result of evildoers seizing power and formalizing it. (Where did you think kings came from?) Any generalization we could make about “human nature” in the resulting conditions is sure to be skewed.

So what would you do about people who only care about themselves, who are willing to do anything to others for their own benefit?

What do we do with such people today? We offer them jobs as police, executives, politicians. We reward the bribable, the greedy, and the self-serving with positions of power and responsibility. Take away the rewards for such behavior, and the few who persist in it will pose considerably less harm.

If there were no government, what would you do if a gang were terrorizing your community?

Some people insist that they need a gang to be safe from gangs. That’s the logic of the protection racket. In fact, no one will be safe until we are able to defend ourselves against gangs without forming them ourselves. What we need instead are networks of mutual aid and self-defense that do not concentrate power, but disperse it.

But in spaces where government has broken down, like Somalia or Camden, New Jersey, we often see incredible violence.

The state is not the only hierarchical force. When it collapses, all the other hierarchies that developed under its protection erupt into conflict, along with all the hierarchical groups that developed in the conditions of competition and artificial scarcity that it imposed. Without the state, you can still have sexism, racial privilege, local warlords. And if there’s anything worse than being ruled by a single government, it’s when multiple authoritarian organizations are contending to dominate you.

Anarchists oppose all hierarchies, not just the state. Where statists seek to suppress conflict by imposing a monopoly on violence, anarchists seek to resolve conflict by undoing all monopolies in order that a horizontal balance of power can emerge. The problem in the world’s warzones is not too much anarchy, but too little.

What about the

tragedy of the commons

Supposedly, the tragedy of the commons is that when things are shared, selfish people destroy them or take them for themselves. That certainly describes the behavior of colonizers and corporations! The question for everyone else is not how to do away with commons, but how to defend them. Privatization does not protect against the tragedy of losing the things we share—it imposes it. The solution is not more individualization, but better collectivity.

Isn’t equality impossible, except equality before the law?

Abolishing hierarchy does not mean forcing uniformity on people. Only a truly invasive state could compel everyone to be perfectly equal, as in the story of Harrison Bergeron. Rather, the point is to do away with all the artificial mechanisms that impose power imbalances. If power were dispersed in many different forms, rather than concentrated in a few universal currencies, a single asymmetry in abilities would not give anyone a systematic advantage over anyone else.

As for equality before the law—so long as there are law books, courts, and police officers, there will be no equality. All these institutions create power imbalances: between the legislators and the governed, between the judges and the judged, between the enforcers and their victims. Giving some people power over other people is no way to make anyone equal. Only voluntary relations between free beings can produce anything like equality.

But if we overthrow the government without offering something to take its place, what’s to stop something really nasty from filling the power vacuum?

That’s the mantra of those who are working up the nerve to be really nasty themselves. The really ruthless usually tell you that they are there to protect you from other ruthless people; often, they are telling themselves the same thing.

If we were powerful enough to overthrow one government, we would be powerful enough to prevent the ascendance of another, provided we weren’t tricked into rallying around some new authority. What should take the place of the government is not another formalized power structure, but cooperative relationships that can meet our needs while keeping new would-be rulers at bay.

From the vantage point of the present, no one can imagine creating a stateless society, though many of the problems we face will not be solved any other way. In the meantime, we can at least open spaces and times and relations outside the control of the authorities.

A society without government might work on a small scale, but we live in a globalized world with a population of billions.

Let no one speak of a problem of scale without attempting to expand the autonomous spaces and struggles that exist today. We will find out what is possible in practice, not in idle speculation. There are horizontal networks, such as peer-to-peer sharing, that span the whole globe; if there are not more, it is because most of them have been deliberately stamped out. The problem of scale is not that anarchy is impossible outside small groups, but that we are taking on the most powerful regimes in the history of the solar system.

But why call yourself an anarchist? Doesn’t that just alienate people?

It is not enough just to say you are in favor of freedom. Even dictators say as much. The same goes for saying you are against the state; there are “libertarians” who claim they want to abolish government but preserve the economic inequalities it imposes. Using the same language as those who have a completely different agenda can reinforce the effectiveness of their rhetoric while obscuring what sets your ideas apart.

Words pose questions. We shouldn’t shrink from spelling out the questions we most want to ask. The word “anarchist” makes certain questions inescapable: What does it mean to live without rule? Which kinds of power are liberating, and which are oppressive? How do we take on the hierarchies of our day?

If we hesitate to use the word “anarchist,” the authorities will use it as an accusation to delegitimize anyone who makes headway against them, and we will have no answer except to distance ourselves from the very things we want. It is better to legitimize the concept in advance, so other people can understand what we want and what the stakes are. As anathema as it may be to some, there is no shortcut when it comes to challenging the values of a society.

At this point in history, anarchism is practically the only value system without a genocide on its record. As obedience and competition produce diminishing returns, many people are looking for another way to understand the world and express what they want. Indeed, as previously distinct power structures consolidate into a global web, resistance will have to be anarchist if it is to exist at all.

It’s all right to protest peacefully, as long as you don’t do anything violent.

From the perspective of a statist society, violence is simply illegal force. Inside this framework, most actions that perpetuate the prevailing hierarchies are not considered violent, while a wide range of actions that threaten those in power qualify as violence. This explains why it isn’t called violence when factories pump carcinogens into rivers or prisons incarcerate millions of people, while sabotaging a factory or resisting arrest are deemed violent. From this perspective, practically anything that endangers the ruling order is sure to be seen as violent.

If the real problem with violence is that it is destructive, then what about destructive acts that prevent greater destruction from taking place? Or, if the problem with violence is that it is not consensual, what about nonconsensual actions that prevent coercion from occurring? Defending oneself against tyrants necessarily means violating their wishes—we can’t wait for the entire human race to reach consensus before we are entitled to act. Rather than letting the laws determine what forms of action are legitimate, we have to make these decisions for ourselves, using whatever power is at our disposal to maximize the freedom and wellbeing of all who share this world.

It follows that the most important ethical and strategic question about any action is not whether it is violent, or legal, or coercive, but rather, how does it distribute power?

Do you really think you can make a difference?

We can’t know in advance what effect our actions will have. We can only find out by trying. That means we owe it to ourselves to hazard the experiment.

Perhaps it appears that everyone around you is satisfied with the status quo, or at least that they have decided it is not worth trying to change it. But when you act, even if you act alone, you change the context in which others make decisions. This is why individual actions can sometimes set off massive chain reactions.

It’s true that the revolutionaries of previous generations did not succeed in establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth, but imagine what kind of world we would live in if not for them. (Shoplifting doesn’t abolish property, either, but think how much poorer the poor of all times would have been if not for it.) Spaces of freedom aren’t just created by successful revolutions—they appear in every struggle against tyranny. Freedom is not something that waits beyond the horizon of the future; it is made up of all the moments throughout history when people have acted according to their consciences.

But isn’t this utopian? Isn’t it better to be practical?

We may never arrive at a condition of pure anarchy. But the real significance of any utopia is in the way it enables us to act in the present. Utopias take on flesh as the social currents they mobilize and steer. The purpose of a vision of the future is to anchor and orient you here and now. It is like a sextant you point towards the stars on the horizon in order to navigate by them. You may never leave the surface of the earth, but at least you know where you’re going.

As for what is practical, that depends on what you want. If you want the current order to persist forever, or at least until it renders the planet uninhabitable, you should meekly propose minor reforms that might stabilize it. If you want to see fundamental changes, the only practical approach is to be clear about what you want from the outset. Often, the only way to make even a small change is to begin by aiming at a big one.

#anarchism

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cornaviruscarwreck · 4 years

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Open Letter to White People

Open Letter to white people,

“White people show up and protest with automatic weapons and nothing happens. Black people protest (no guns) and they get tear gas. I wonder what the difference is?” -Devin on social media

White person response: “there is a difference between a peaceful protest and vandalism.”

So first, this white dude has no right to comment on the appropriate response when a member of BIPOC is killed AGAIN with seemingly no repercussions. The voices that matter right now are those in the BIPOC community. On social media I continuously see white people judging the protesters and saying how they ‘ought’ to act. I have no right to tell a BIPOC person what they should feel and how they should respond, I have no skin in the game so I cannot arbitrate how the game is played.

Second, it is astonishing to believe showing up at public buildings with assault rifles is less of a problem. The fact this guy is calling this a peaceful protest speaks to his utter conformity and blindness. The fact that reports right now of Minnesota protests claiming the protesters are the agitators are misleading if not overtly false. Things are happening behind the scenes you do not get to see, the police are often the agitators in more ways than one.

Third, I am done with the narrative that the only option is peaceful protest. When has that worked since civil rights movement? We live in a different world. As human beings we all have an obligation to think critically and do what is morally right. I am convinced maintaining this system is not the way.

Fourth, white privilege is clearly a thing. I recommend a book called: White Supremacy and Me by Layla F. Saad. Don’t let the title scare you, if you claim to be an informed white person who is not racist in any way, read this book and take that hypothesis for a test drive.

Fifth, this month has been tough, lets try to support our BIPOC friends. A few weeks ago it was Ahmaud and Sean Reed. Then it was George Floyd in Minnesota which is somewhat of a shock because well…Minnesota. Then there was the lady in NYC calling the police to make a false report about a black man. I thought NYC was progressively minded. It has been a tough month for BIPOC and it has all been happening during a pandemic where most of us as stuck at home and getting tired of watching uneducated conservatives waging a war on science putting those we love at risk. Compare the actions of the protesters with guns yelling at people, essentially putting their lives at risk by not wearing masks. Compare the response by police to those protesters to the protesters in Minnesotta. Lets add the war on class unraveling before our eyes as health is given a price tag and economic disparities are being exacerbated. Police brutality is not just an issue of color but one of class. Could the message be any clearer? This is injustice. This is not what a government is for, the government protects the health and safety of its citizens. Well our government has failed to do this, instead our government has launched a ship into space. I for one, no longer feel obligated to obey.

I want to support BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color). I feel it is my moral obligation to take action to stop these injustices from happening. I do not want to hear another black man say ‘I can’t breathe’ 5 years from now. It is my responsibility to critically think about my place in this system and the role I play. When injustice is happening and maintained by law and order, I have a duty to disregard that law and the order.

I remember Eric Garner, I remember so clearly the video where he said ‘I Can’t Breathe’. I remember the calls for reform and the promises from politicians. Since then I remember every BIPOC unjustly killed by police. Their legacy is a series of hashtags and little change. We shared #JusticeforAhmaud #JusticeforSeanReed just a few weeks ago. Nothing has changed since Eric Garner said I Can’t Breathe. So much so that another black man with the same words ended with the same fate. But we are told nonviolence is the only response. We are told that in a democracy there is recourse to change the law and we should spend our energy petitioning the legislature for change. Think about that for a minute. If you do not see the insanity of that line of reasoning, take another minute. How effective and responsive is our government? Will we stay seated and wait for congress or city officials to act? Sometimes violence is the only answer to systemic violence. Sometimes disobedience cannot remain civil.

There is a discussion going on on social media about the protestors response in Minnesotta. There are calls for non-violent civil disobedience. Protesting is fine, but not real movement. Standing on a street corner with a sign may make you will feel better but no change is happening. The politicians and the capitalists are not willing to change the status quo. The status quo right now entails every BIPOC child in America being told how to handle police interactions so they will not be another statistic. The status quo is every BIPOC in America fearing they may be the next hashtag. We have been conditioned to express our outrage without actually causing any change.

The 2nd amendment is there not so another white man can shoot up a Walmart or a movie theatre or a school. The 2nd amendment is not there to protect the right of hunters to have semi automatic weapons. The 2nd amendment is expressly there so that the people will have a way to fight the tyranny of the government if the need ever arrises. But the possibility that the people will ever truly rise up has been squashed by those with vested interests in the system. We do not need to use guns, but we do need to take a stand that goes beyond assuaging our own guilt for remaining complicit to injustice.

Martin Luther King Jr preached nonviolent civil disobedience, and that is why our government has made him the only black hero in history textbooks living in the last century. They want us to take the path of King. The establishment wants us to stand on street corners and remain silent. But those were different times and our goals are now different. We have accepted a semblance of equality through supposed parity. White children believe race is not a thing we deal with anymore. When Eric Garner was killed, I was one of those white children, early in college I had the naiveté to believe that we could change the system but obeying the system. I said that the politicians of yesterday have failed but the politicians of tomorrow will not. Well it is tomorrow, and they have failed us.

Today, I am a white women whose eyes have been opened to reality. We are not equal. I have never feared a cop would hurt me even though I have had many run ins with officers. I have never seen someone who looks like me being treated like an animal. I have never then watched those who murder receive no justice. I have never had to fear wearing a mask during Covid because I have been conditioned it is not safe for people like me on the streets with a face covering. I have never wondered if someone finds me threatening, if someone hates me because of my skin color. I have never been systemically told I am less worthy than others whose only special ability is being born in the right place at the right time to the right people.

There is no obligation to obey a government that does not protect its citizens. There is no authority implicitly granted to government because they are government. Even if such an authority existed, it would be revoked when government perpetuates injustice. We must decide if they are worthy to be our leaders. We must decide if it is morally right to remain quiet. We must decide where our limits lie, when will we rise up? In another 5 years after dozens more hashtags? If the government acts unjustly then the social contract is void. If the government does not fulfill their end of the bargain or they go beyond the scope of their powers, then we have no obligation to fulfill ours. If our government allows injustice to continue in our streets, they are not my government. If our government can not do the bare minimum it promises: to keep us safe and protect our health; then YOU have to decide if you will continue to consent. We are social creatures capable of rational thought so stop and really think about your moral duty.

All those in our jails and prisons suffer injustice. The drug laws of our country where created to criminalize minorities. The jails are overflowing with BIPOC. Our public hospitals have been allowed to close if they do not make a profit. Our health is not guaranteed, our freedom is only to consume, our justice system is the new Jim crow. What are we going to do? What are we waiting for?

Martin Luther King Jr preached nonviolent civil disobedience. Unfortunately, today our protests and outrage only comes in nonviolent obedience. We allow ourselves to believe we are making progress, that things are changing and soon we will really make a difference. King also preached that WE CANNOT WAIT. Don’t tell me its not the right time, don’t tell me standing for justice will destroy order. There are no words that I can provide that will speak to the heart of people more than the words of King. Lets remember what he said and stand struck that it still rings true today.

In Letter from Birmingham Jail: “I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Hong Kong is a more brutal place, their government more violent and authoritative. But we can still learn from them. Hong Kong had a staggering 45 percept of there population participate. The only successful movements are those in which a large percent of the population participates. This means if you do not stand up too, nothing will change.

Lets take the example of Hong Kong and:

Be strong like ice

Be fluid life water

Gather the dew

Scatter the mist

We cannot do the same thing we have been doing. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. We have gotten to the point where the liberal version of civil disobedience, of publicity, nonviolence, nonevasion of law enforcement, respectful protest has reached the limits of efficacy. We have to try something new, we have to be brave enough to step out of the box constructed by the powers that be and take a stand and make them listen. It is time for uncivil disobedience.

Crowd sourced, decentralized, highly mobile, shape shifting tactics.

We need those who are tech savy to provide open sourced technology.

We need gas masks at the front lines. We need to exercise our right to make our voices loud and clear. We need to tell them this can’t happen here. Don’t tell me wait another year.

One can oppose aggressive violence while still acknowledging that violence in self defense or responding to attack is justified. The capitalist elite believe they can silence us with distractions and the appearance of progress. That we will just move on to the next shiny thing and leave it at a #hashtag. I hear you when you say violence is not the answer. I am not saying violence is the answer, I am just saying violence is not not the answer.

We all need to take an inventory of the government and our relationship to obedience. We need to question political authority and determine if, as an individual, you feel it is ethical to obey and maintain the system. You do not change a dysfunction system by the parameters provided by that system.

From,

A White Lady

We are all human beings capable of rational thought. These are some papers written by people smarter than me who effectively opened my mind beyond the establishment way of thinking.

Some references for arguments that changed my opinion:

Huemer’s “The Duty to Disregard the Law”

Huemer’s “The Problem with Political Authority”

Davis’s “Are Prisons Obsolete?”

Reiman’s “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison”

#opinion #justiceforahmaud #justiceforseanreed #justiceforgeorgefloyd #minneapolis #minneapolis riots #omarjiminez #whitesupremacy

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wionews · 7 years

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'The colour of hatred'

In the beginning, there were cave fights: over food, shelter and objects. Then came civilisation, the "Age of Reason", the realisation that man was far superior to other living creatures in one unique way. He was endowed with the powerful tool of intellect, a brain more sophisticated than anything technology can ever beat.

Choices are yesterday’s news, polarisation is the hallmark of today’s world.

When man began to share spaces, towns and cities were born. When man began to argue, politics came into being and when prophets were born around the earth, mankind’s other peculiar endowment - religion was born. Crimes were committed, wars have shattered the world. But somehow and over at least this past century, milk went with water, wine with salt, as long as there was mutual respect, it was a matter of personal choice. That freedom of choice, it seems, is a thing of history today. Now, it’s black versus white, Islam versus Christianity versus Hinduism versus Judaism. It’s Democrat versus Republican, BJP versus Congress. But what’s different about today? That it’s either my way or the highway. You are either with us or against us. Choices are yesterday’s news, polarisation is the hallmark of today’s world. White versus black, Caucasian versus Asian. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King ominously described it as the "starless midnight of racism." Be it in the USA or Japan, in Europe or Africa, in India or China and for all the superior abilities man is endowed with, racial discrimination has run like a bad genetic strain through all societies in the world. America:

White supremacy has led to horrific crime in the history of North America, yet somewhere down the line, reasoning and rationale did gain the upper hand. Take one of the world’s most famous civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. His belief was Christianity, his tactics drawn from everywhere. King persisted with civil disobedience till African-Americans and other minorities were granted equal rights in the country. He overturned segregation laws in Georgia and helped organise protests both in Alabama and Washington, where he delivered his most famous speech of all.

Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience movements were successful because he combined his own value system with that of others who inspired him like Mahatma Gandhi.

"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream," the legendary rights activist declared. "It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal." Martin Luther King’s repeated civil disobedience movements were successful because he combined his own value system with that of others who inspired him like Mahatma Gandhi. The Mahatma had once remarked that South Africa, where he had lived in his earlier years, would be a "howling wilderness without the Africans". The Ku-Klux-Klan hasn’t gone away, neither have the Nazis in Europe. There were and are descendant groups of both around the world. Tough laws temper their outbursts, the hate they preach is mostly restricted to their paranoid but small folds.

But statistics show that white supremacy in the United States has been on the rise. And not coincidentally, since 2016, making it seem as though divisive statements by President Donald J. Trump, first on campaign trail acted as a reassurance. It began to seem as though under Trump, racists will be able to speak their minds freely and have nothing to fear. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Residents of a town in Alabama woke up to flyers in November 2016, the day after the United States elected their new president. "Join the only group that has ever stood for the white man", it read. "Black radicals have reverted back to savages", read another.

There have been more than 450 recorded incidents of unabashed racism directed against Jews, Chinese, Asians

On the same day, swastikas and pro-Nazi graffiti appeared in Philadelphia. Sprayed inside a boys’ bathroom in a Minnesota school were the following messages: Go back to Africa, whites only, White America and Trump train, "make America great again". Between November 2016 when the United States voted for a new president and August 2017, there have been more than 450 recorded incidents of unabashed racism directed against Jews, Chinese, Asians – in short, anyone who is not Caucasian.

It would be absurd to lay the resurgence of racism at President Trump’s doorstep alone. The US President’s argument that democracies must allow all including racists to be heard, is a valid point. It’s a successful tactic, the same employed by African-American jazz musician Daryl Davis to neutralise many white supremacists by engaging or befriending them. But here’s a thought could Trump’s incendiary talk have polarised American society by acting as a magnet to what already lay simmering beneath the genteel surface of the political correctness that has dominated public speech and opinion over the past several decades?

Wages for software engineers in America would be 10 per cent higher if H-1B visas were not implemented.

It seemed that way some weeks ago when white supremacists took to the streets in Charlottesville and violence erupted. Significantly, they felt no need to disguise themselves. The masks were off and so were the white hoods. Alec Kerrigan and “Reverend” James Logsdon were enthusiastic participants in Charlottesville. Both spoke to WION’s Andy Roesgen and unsurprisingly, hatred of immigrants from India seems to be the "new normal". "The problem with races such as Indians entering the country is that they don’t integrate at large", Kerrigan told WION. They build their own communities and don't trust their neighbours and they give less to charity. Wages for software engineers in America would be 10 per cent higher if H-1B visas (given to Indian software engineers) were not implemented. In other words, bringing in highly-skilled immigrants from other countries is bad for the highly-skilled natives. Racism watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center told WION that Reverend James Logsdon's "Creativity Movement" is neither holy nor creative. It’s nothing but a hate group. Here's what Logsdon told WION. "Indian immigration is not similar to any other racial group, not Mexicans or Arabic Muslims because Indians don't come here and commit crimes, they don't come here and rape or kill like you see with Mexicans and the worse elements. You have a lot of highly educated Indians in the medical field in America who do benefit our society. But you also have a lot of them who come with degrees that are falsified, education documents that are falsified, they get IT jobs and they're trained by other people who have been here longer to do the jobs properly, essentially getting into the country by lying and taking American jobs." But why was Logsdon in Charlottesville during the riots? After all, that demonstration had nothing to do with Indian software engineers and all to do with protecting America’s white architectural heritage, statues of erstwhile supremacists. "No, I personally don’t care about old statues," argued Logsdon. "But I understand what they were fighting for. Imagine for the sake of argument, that political correctness affected all of the people in India and affected the caste system. And they decided that the Hindu system was racist and oppressive and the people pushing political correctness decided that all the statues that honoured their gods and their system were to be forcibly torn down. How would Indians feel about that? This is the type of thing that's happening in America today. They're trying to destroy any semblance of our culture and our history. No matter how you feel about being good or bad, our history is our history. You should not tear those things down, just to make them feel better in their safe spaces."

The United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and France rapaciously exploited North Africa, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia including and especially India.

Europe: It’s the geographical venue of one of the worst genocides in the history of mankind, the Holocaust under Germany’s Nazis saw 6 million men, women and children murdered. They were not armed separatists, nor criminal mafia. Their biggest crime is that they were born Jewish, not within Europe’s Christian majority. Germany learned its lessons and remains deeply repentant. And yet, rightwing movements are on the rise. There were more than 900 terror attacks by Islamist terror groups in Europe between 2001 and 2017. But that’s not the only reason. There’s also a certain, God-given superiority that colonising forefathers from France, the UK and the Netherlands vested in themselves.

To racist British citizens, all South Asian migrants are "Pakis", to some xenophobic French, northern Africans are "dirty Arabs", to Dutch supremacists, foreign migrants are "scum". The United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and France rapaciously exploited North Africa, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia including and especially India. When nations grow more powerful than others off stolen wealth, their citizens feel endowed with divinity. But the recession, unemployment and fiery rhetoric from those who rule or aim to rule, are natural catalysts for polarisation.

There’s growing religious paranoia and inflammatory rhetoric mainly under Saudi Arabian influence. It has caused a backlash. Hindus are mobilising themselves.

Asia: But is racism restricted to countries where the majority population is white? Not at all. Let’s take a look at South East Asia. Indians have been in Malaysia since medieval times. People of Indian origin constitute 86 per cent of Malaysia’s total population of 31.19 million. Here, it’s brown versus brown. It’s been largely peaceful. And yet, growing radicalisation of the country’s Islamic majority through an alien brand of Wahabi Islam has resulted in growing polarisation. Temples built hundreds of years ago on private land have been demolished. There’s growing religious paranoia and inflammatory rhetoric mainly under Saudi Arabian influence. It has caused a backlash. Hindus are mobilising themselves. Sanjeev Ramakrishnan and his NGO Mywatch, fight against such discrimination. "There is very clear discrimination in education when the maximum number of seats are given to Malays and next to Chinese. Indians hardly get any seats. Major courses like medicine and law are not given to Indians. I ask why they don’t go on merit? I am a Malaysian and by race I am Indian. But if I bid for a government contract, I must have a Malay partner with a 51 per cent stake in the business. They should surely not award contracts based on race"

Ramakrishnan says this is true of every walk of life in Malaysia. People of different races live peacefully in Malaysia but the people who rule are us are trying to create a divide. Recently in a school, cups for drinking water were separated for Muslims and non-Muslims. We are fighting for the right to live as Malaysian. We are not refugees here, we are not immigrants here. My grandfather came from India but my father was born in Malaysia. So, I think I am rightfully Malaysian. A lot of Indian don’t have citizenship even if they are born here. But more Pakistani and Bangladeshi are now coming to Malaysia and are being given citizenship. Politicians in parliament have said, "if you don’t like Malaysia get out, go back to India."

Indians are more affluent today, travelling a lot more today, seeing a lot more of the world today. And yet, African students in India have borne the brunt of blatant racism, not in some remote village but right in the heart of India’s capital New Delhi.

We are obsessed with fair skin, a hangover of the British Raj when it all started. The belief that the white man, his white skin, must be superior in many ways. It’s strange because, in Hindu mythology, gods like Krishna and Shiva are painted blue. This blue is meant to indicate skin so black that it appears blue. To be dark-skinned in ancient India, was to be beautiful and god-like. But that’s far from the case in modern India. When it comes to brides and bridegrooms, fair skins come at a premium. That’s now begun to take on dismaying proportions. Indians are more affluent today, travelling a lot more today, seeing a lot more of the world today. And yet, African students in India have borne the brunt of blatant racism, not in some remote village but right in the heart of India’s capital New Delhi. Polarisation: A pandemic, a frightening phenomenon. Whether we blame it on President Donald Trump, or, on the rise of the rightwing in Europe; whether we blame it on Saudi Arabian influence in the far east, or, on growing affluence and arrogance in India, there is no doubt that communities and races are huddling together, displaying absolute intolerance for the mere existence of any other than their own kind. Racism is not the only manifestation. There’s that other powerful catalyst of hate i.e. Religion.

This is the first of WION's three-part series "Poles Apart".

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