We need a mass movement not a black bloc
By Mick Sweetman
As I sat in an activist meeting at a union's downtown Toronto office on Saturday afternoon, discussing such exciting things as what type of brochure we should produce for the upcoming International Women's Day, a text message flashed onto my cell phone from the Vancouver Media Co-op.
“BREAKING VMC VIDEO: Anarchists Smash Windows @ the Bay”
I sighed, shook my head, and blurted out a single word in frustration, “Idiots.”
Why was I so frustrated by this almost predictable news from across the country? It's because I've seen it before and knew exactly what the backlash against not only the anti-Olympic protests but also against anarchism itself would be.
The reaction in the media was swift. An article on the CBC website lead with the headline “Anti-Olympics rioters smash Vancouver store windows” and the Vancouver Police were ready to take the platform they had been given.
"The demonstration involving a number of anarchists, some of whom dress all in black and employ a tactic called Black Bloc. This included a loosely organized group of thugs from Central Canada known to attach themselves to any cause, travel to any event that attracts media coverage and promote anarchy wherever they go," said a statement by police.
This coverage lead to over 2500 comments on the CBC website. To say the vast majority were not sympathetic would be an understatement. Here's a short sample of some of them;
FieldMedic wrote:
Just...wow. Yesterday's protests were at least non-violent. Can't say I agree with them denying the torch relay from reaching veterans and eager onlookers but at least they were civil.
Whole other ball game today. Rioting, destruction of public property, intimidating pedestrians, throwing things at police officers. Disgusting.
Not sure what's sadder. The realization that people are desperate enough to resort to these measures or the idea that they are stupid enough to think this will get gain them anything but anger and contempt from the public at large.
granvilledeer wrote:
I was there on Friday's protest, it was peaceful and all the leaders cared for everyone's safety and was respectable to the elders and aboriginal protesters. But this is ridiculous. This makes the peaceful protesters on Fridays look really bad. Not all protesters are violent. Shame on you!
nuke the whales wrote:
As an everyday working person who respects the rights of others, I have absolutely no fear if I see the police in my neighbourhood. But I am very fearful if I see a bunch of anarchists walking down the street.
Northern_supporter wrote:
The anarchists are terrorists. They have little or no interest in the reasons for their "protest", it's simply an excuse to trash the city, intimidate people and be, well, anarchists.
It made me angry to see the literally years of hard work that organizers had put into opposing the capitalist and colonial Olympic Games shatter in the eyes of the public with the first broken window. It made me angry that anarchism was once again portrayed as mindless criminality. It made me angry that people who call themselves anarchists are doing the very things that keep anarchism a fringe movement instead of the mass workers movement that it has been historically.
As an anarchist-communist I want a revolution, a completely new society that abolishes capitalism and the state to the dustbin of history. I want to replace it with a classless society run directly by people from their local, federated, system of workplace and neighbourhood assemblies.
The first thing we need to recognize is that a revolutionary movement must be a mass movement. You can't make a revolution with hundreds or thousands of people. At the very least we're looking at needing millions of people actively participating at the workplace and community level and the support of millions more to have a serious chance of making a revolution in Canada. For that revolution to be able to defend and extend itself we'll need literally billions of people fighting the capitalist class and their states internationally.
Given the small size and fractured nature of the anarchist movement, or even if we include all of the people who broadly consider themselves “left-wing”, this seems like a huge and almost impossible goal. I won't mince words—it is!
But even in Canada, a country with much more of a colonial history than a revolutionary one, we do occasionally get glimpses of potentially revolutionary movements. The 1972 General Strike in Quebec and the 1996 “Days of Action” rotating city-wide general strikes in Ontario were two of the more recent historical examples
However, just because the task before us of building a revolutionary mass movement is daunting is no excuse for trying to substitute small numbers of people in a black bloc for that mass movement and declaring, “Whoever you are, one day you will join us.” as the anonymous authors of the only statement claiming to come out of the black bloc in Vancouver did. The problem with that statement is the mass movements don't have to join the anarchists, the anarchists have to join the mass movements.
We have to join the community and labour organizations of our class openly as anarchists. We also have to form specifically anarchist organizations to help co-ordinate our work inside those mass movements as anarchists and to conduct political education and anarchist publishing. Quite simply, we have to prove ourselves, and our politics, to the people that would make that revolutionary mass movement a reality.
We must have the courage to take off the masks, to use our names, to explain and argue for our positions, to make democratic decisions and then implement those decisions even if we are in the minority opinion. Our co-workers and neighbours aren't going to join any movement that doesn't trust them enough to step out of the shadows of anonymity and struggle shoulder-to-shoulder with them as equals.
When we're organizing for the G20 mobilizations in Toronto this summer we should be participating in The People's Summit, the Community Mobilization Network and in the Labour-organized march. We can be open and visible as anarchists in those movements, waving our red and black flags proudly, without the spectacle of a black bloc breaking windows and isolating us from the very mass movements that will make or break anarchism as a revolutionary movement.
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I really have mixed feeling
I really have mixed feeling about that one Mick. On the one hand, I agree with your core argument as illustrated in the title of your post. On the other, I am not sure how usefull it is to publicaly trash the «comrades».
Is it really harmfull? I'm not sure it really affect us. It's not affecting me at least. It as just a blimp on the telly. I'm not even sure it does not have at least a little bit of a positive side effect, showing there is still some angry people and some resistance of sort.
Also, we need a mass movement. I agree. I also agree that it's not working class who failed us but the other way around. We need to join the mass movement, not the contrary. Agreed.
But.
But we dont need any kind of mass movement. We need a militant mass movement. How conter productive it is to trash some militant tactic now? Why do we need to joind the corus of the liberals? I mean, next thing you know we are the one who are gonna be under the spot light when the struggle excalate. Dont fool yourself. The same people who oppose window smashing today will oppose militant strike tomorow.
Oh... And it still leave a bad taste in my mind to publicaly trash «comrades» when they are in trouble. Even if I disagree and even if I dont feel they are trully my comrades.
==
http://voixdefaits.blogspot.com
dissapointed
Thanks Mick for writing this. Hopefully it gets out there. It is important that we show a different kind of anarchism. In my experience the tide of opinion is turning at least among social movement activists where organized anarchists have a presence, though events like this do set us back.
interesting discussion is happening...
at rabble.ca on saturday, broadcast live:
http://rabble.ca/whatsup/panel-discussion-diversity-tactics-diversity-opinions
>> note: it's rabble's editor 'questioning' diversity of tactics while an Olympics Convergence organizer is speaking to it's benefits
a couple thoughts on your blog:
- while we may not have a huge number of people thinking they're 'left-wing', from what i have read it seems that the majority of people do in fact have 'left-wing' values on many significant issues ... which is not portrayed in the media
- while you may be right that 'in the eyes of the public' the work of the Olympics convergence organizers was shattered, i think it's important to note that the organizers had adopted a basis of unity to allow such action to take place, to include all forms of resistance as valid in countering the olympics
- i often find that many/majority of comments on mainstream online news sites are often very reactionary and dismissive of progressive views ... maybe we should take note in the comments of how they're framed - someone not having a problem with police, calling themselves 'nuke the whales, etc etc ... just think back 10 years and how the protests in seattle were reported in the media, basically 'anarchists breaking things and bringing anarchy to seattle' aka 'thugs', and yet would you argue that what happened in seattle was completely compromised by that? i'm sure there were many people with the same reactions back then, but at the same time it got a whole lot of people involved/inspired
- what is anarchism anyways? or anarchists? :)
... the mainstream media will take a picture of the communist party taking part in a demo like this and call them anarchists ... the mainstream media and culture will always be giving distorted images of what anarchism is, so we're always going to have an uphill battle to get people to think differently about what anarchy/ism/ists are ... and of course there's the ever-forthcoming comment about how 'organized anarchism' is an oxymoron :)
Another good article
A fellow social anarchist "close to the action" has written another thoughful critique to the above actions. Read it here:
Tactical Considerations
http://resistrantrelax.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/tactical-considerations/
it's propaganda by the deed
it's propaganda by the deed lite
but there ain't no wick to ignite
good critique
"Idiot"
is an ableist word. Up until the 1970s it was a commonly used as a medical/diagnostic label for adults with IQs in the range from 0 to 25-30 (seems to vary depending on source). It is pretty questionable to be blurted out, even in frustration, but it definitely does not belong on linchpin. I'm assuming here that our "co-workers and neighbours" also includes people with disabilities, right? It seems to be me that we should be aware of the ways we alienate the people we hope to work with in social movements, as well as appropriately critiquing the actions of our embarrassing anarchist cousins.
Hum...
How far do we go with PC'ism? So we should not use "idiot". I was told recently that I should not be using "barbarian" eigther (I was playing with the quote "socialism or barbarism"). This is going too far.
My (french*) dictionary tells me the word "idiot" exist since 1180. The "medical" use (wich I was unaware of) dates from 1765. It's no longueur in use, while the general meaning as a derogative adjective (dating from 1660) is still in use.
Would you object to the use of "stupid"?
*dont have an english dictionary close by but I suspect the same would apply in english.
==
http://voixdefaits.blogspot.com
I'm not really sure what the
I'm not really sure what the dictionary has to add to this, but thanks. I read a lot about disability, particularly looking out for stuff written by anarchists and other people whose politics I broadly agree with, as well as other simply awesome and insightful folks. The message on this topic I get from the disability activists I read is fairly unanimous: don't use ableist words, and that includes words that "everyone" thinks is OK to use/ridiculously PC not to use, like lame, idiot, crazy, etc. So, I'm going to try to go with that.
My suggestion was that others in the organization might also like to try to go with that, at least in public posts, if we hope to build social movements (the broad topic of this post) that are inclusive of people with disabilities. If we don't want to build social movements that are inclusive of people with disabilities (or, more bizarrely, we do, but want to tell them they're wrong about language while we do it), then I guess there's no problem.
Mick, sorry for derailing your post.
Cross posting for something
Cross posting for something I wrote on facebook where this debate is also happening with minor edits so the context makes sense:
And let's not kid ourselves. This kind of evidently empty and counterproductive "politics" is a serious problem for those of us who openly identify and argue for an anarchist politics inside our movements. It is in my experience the single biggest reason why good anti-authoritarian anti-capitalist organizers remain skeptical of anarchism despite essentially being anarchists. It is hard to practice solidarity with these folks when I have to begin every conversation about anarchism by distancing myself from them. Of course they are not the only ones or the primary reason why anarchism has a bad rep. But they keep on feeding this stuff without a care in the world for anyone else, which you can see from their communique where they write "whoever you are, one day you will join us."
And while I agree that part of the problem is the failure of mainstream left [failure to engage in an alternative radical politics] I don't think it is fair to put any responsibility on that radical left [in the sense that we have not done our job in providing a better radical alternative to the black bloc as practiced in Vancouver] that is practicing a radical politics in movements by doing the daily grind of organizing using methods that link this daily defensive work and small victories to radical change while (at least some of us) trying to build militant organizations to increase our capacity to do this work. We can hardly blame OCAP, radical trade unionists, the comrades in the worker centres and community groups for the fact that radical movements have not taken off in the North as they have elsewhere. It's not for a lack of trying. And I can think of a lot of other reasons why radical politics are not blooming in North America but the efforts of radical organizers is not one of them.
Besides, it is precisely this kind of radical politics that has led to the growth of anarchism elsewhere in places like Ireland, France, Oaxaca, several South American countries and elsewhere. The alternative is not abstract. It is there for anyone humble enough to take a look. I use the word humble because in my experience there is a tendency among people defending the use of the black bloc tactic as was done in Vancouver to show the worst kind of youthful arrogance (see above quote). And, again it is here too, like in most of the anti-Olympics organizing in BC, like the torch blockade in the Commerical Drive neighbourhood of Vancouver. No, I think the blame lies predominantly with the people who participated in the black bloc. If you can't see effective radical politics when it is all around you (and when you're even engaged with it) then something is wrong with your politics. Or perhaps it might be better to say that when you see good radical politics and still choose to fetishize a tactic "because this is what you do at a major protest", then again, something has gone wrong.
You might see [Mick's article] as shot-taking and opportunistic. But when something like this happens I think as mass anarchists we need to respond and show that another anarchist politics exists. We can't let anarchism take a beating and stand by. And I know that the people that we're in contact with regularly and that we've established some trust and relationship with want to know where we stand. If for no other reason so that they know we haven't been bullshitting them all this time when we've said, anarchism is not that, it is this.
If alienating the "fringe of the fringe" is the cost of making headway with others on the left and with our neighbours and fellow workers, then I'm not too worried about it. What have we got to lose really? Though I do sincerely hope we can find another way.
On that last point about "finding another way" I'm frankly not optimistic because often people in North America take criticism of tactics or politics as criticism of themselves as individuals. There is also a tendency to think of yourself as "more radical than thou" and think of everybody else as having their minds "colonized" as the person quoted above showed so well. Basically, the level of debate sucks and this is a major obstacle.
one thing...
... that came up at the rabble.ca televised debate was that Harsha, a convergence organizer who was defending the diversity of tactics, talked about how the black bloc was present not only at the window smashing but also in the organizing of the convergence, at the fri protests, at the sun rally, at the tent city, etc ... the point she was making is that these people (if we can group them all into a single 'they') are actually involved in this radical organizing that we are trying to distinguish from their other tactics ... so it's not as simple as to say, we believe in this, they believe in that, cause it seems they believe in both and are practising the type of effort that is being advocated here, and Harsha also commented that they are part of the movement, not a separate entity (as the police would have them be, central-canadian thugs who show up just to wreck shit)
yes and no
I agree with that description Greg but I still think the tactic was poorly chosen. That was my point above about being involved in solid radical politics and still fetishizing the black bloc tactic, using it just because this is what we do at protests.
Of course the police and media will distort things but there may be a kernel of truth in the whole "out of town activists" thing. It would certainly not be the first time that activists traveled across the country to engage in a tactic with very little thought given to strategy or the local context (see the Halifax demo a few years ago where similar issues where raised).
article gets some attention
here is an article that takes aim at what Mick has expressed here:
http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10758
And another one, by Alex
And another one, by Alex from AW@L, in Kitchener (A very good article, I might add - aside from its unfair characterization of social anarchism).
http://alexhundert.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/a-response-to-judy-rebick/
Alex from AW@L's article is
Alex from AW@L's article is on point. It is clear that he is speaking from direct hand experience and not from a union meeting in Toronto. Mick's analysis goes as far as what the corporate media has put forward and the angry reaction of conservatives on news sites.
I have not participated in Common Cause since my move to Toronto for several reasons relating to the bureaucracy of the organization and a realization that I do not agree with its politics. I have participated in a variety of events which would not be looked on with approval from the two most active critics and policy developers in the organization and it has been eye opening. I have seen a lot of different groups come together in a respectful and effective manner while Common Cause only orates from a distance.
Mick's article, and the support from active members, seals the deal for me. I do not wish to be a member of any organization that does not endorse a diversity of tactics. I find that the style of the organization is difficult for me to work within. I would prefer to wear my "insurrectionist hat" when the g20 comes around.
Thank you all for your time and respect,
we will doubtless see each other again soon.
Will
p.s.
your math question captcha is ableist.