Anarchism attempts to create a society of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid, and free from the greed devouring drive for profit. Most people would agree that it is a desirable aim, the difference of opinion is usually in how do we get there. Do we get there with or without violence? Can violence ever be justified in an attempt to create a better world? I don’t believe there is an absolute law on the matter, circumstances and those involved must be the final arbitrator. My own personal opinion seems best expressed by Martin Luther King in the following quotation. ---”As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked - and rightly so - what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.”
Today, as at the time of Martin Luther King, we see the corrupt governments of America and Britain and a rat bag of others throwing indescribable massive violence at innocent peoples of other lands in an attempt to solve their own problems while condemning all other violence that may arise as a result of their actions. Where should the ordinary people of the world stand on this? Since it is always the ordinary people that suffer in such action, it is obvious if we wish to be free from this violence we must unite and put an end to the power of the state, talking to the state apparatus has never stopped the state’s violence, we must create a society where it is the people that are involved, that make the decisions, not the war-lords nor the corporate greed machine.
I believe that anarchism is the ultimate social system for humanity. It is based on the individual’s rights, it is free from coercion, it aims for sustainability, and is based on those basic but fundamental principles of , free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. To some it is an impossible dream but in reality it is possible if the will of the people so desire. We are governed by consent, we can withdraw that consent and create our own new world free from war, poverty and exploitation.
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