It's common practice for the media and political pundits to "blame" anarchists for any violence that happens at demonstrations. Seldom a reference to why there is such underlying anger and rage in this society and a total ignorance of what anarchism is and stands for, its ideology, its aims and dreams.
Although the extracts below are references about America, they equally apply in all states. The open sustained brutality and repression by the state apparatus against anarchists in Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia and Italy, to name a few, is testament to this violence against and hatred of anarchists by the establishment. The establishment in no way will allow the freedom and justice that anarchism has to offer.
The following extracts are from an article by Kim Kelly:
Stop blaming everything bad on anarchists
A demonstrator wearing black and holding a black flag stands facing a
police cordon at an anarchist protest in front of the Polish Parliament
during a demonstration demanding that the poorest be included in the
government's assistance program during the coronavirus pandemic. (Janek
Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)
As protests continue to sweep the nation, a narrative has emerged blaming alleged “anarchists” for stirring the pot. They are, the story goes, materializing out of nowhere to sow chaos, put marginalized people at risk and generally make more peaceful protesters look bad. On June 1, President Trump retweeted a video implying that a man who later explained that he was helping other protesters buy medical supplies was instead paying them to incite violence. In his tweet, Trump added, “Anarchists, we see you!” After surveying damage to city property, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price declared, “It’s not protest, it’s anarchy.” The next day, Post opinions contributor Helaine Olen wrote that Trump is “the real anarchist.” Her only basis for making this claim appeared to be the common use of “anarchy” as a flawed synonym for “chaos.”
This reflexive tic to associate anarchism with thoughtless discord betrays a profound ignorance of leftist ideology. The problem is that no one seems to understand what anarchism is or what its adherents are seeking to accomplish — and that lack of understanding is going to end up endangering a lot of people. We’re rapidly approaching a point in which dissent is further criminalized, the justified rage and pain fueling these protests is further delegitimized, and anyone who engages in any form of protest outside the preapproved liberal template becomes a target for surveillance, or worse. On June 3, with zero evidence backing its claim, the White House Twitter account trumpeted: “Antifa and professional anarchists are invading our communities, staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence. These are acts of domestic terror.” At least one of the supposed weapons caches appears to have been part of a security barricade in front of a Jewish community center.-------
And ------
And:---------So what is anarchism? As I’ve explained before, it is a radical, revolutionary leftist political ideology that advocates for the abolition of government and all other unequal systems of power in favor of a society organized around direct democracy and voluntary association. Though it encompasses many schools of thought, most anarchists are committed to a basic set of beliefs. Key anarchist principles include mutual aid (a reciprocal approach to community care in which people share resources), direct action (the use of political protest to achieve a goal) and horizontalism (a non-hierarchical organizational system in which decisions are made by consensus). Anarchists advocate for abolishing institutions such as prisons, police and the military, which they hold to be inherently oppressive. Anarchists are by definition anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and directly opposed to all other forms of bigotry and oppression. They are anti-fascist (though not all anti-fascists are anarchists!), which opens up another potential avenue for repression now that the president has fixated on antifascists, or “antifa,” and law enforcement has continued to surveil and target leftist activists.
In practice, to be an anarchist is to dream of a kinder, more equitable society, and to do one’s best to get us closer to making that dream a reality. For every minute of protest footage showing anarchists out in the streets, there are untold hours spent attending endless meetings (anarchists love meetings), cooking and delivering food and supplies to those who need it, researching far-right groups, planning demonstrations, providing child care and other support to comrades, and taking part in other communally minded projects. It may sound hokey, but anarchism is about love as much as it is rage; there is a certain utopian romance to it.-----
Read the full article HERE:-------All of this obfuscation and misinformation is a shame, because anarchism has many lessons to offer about caring for our communities and all of those in need. The concepts that make up its core have become increasingly popular, even as anarchism itself has been dismissed as a mere thirst for destruction. As long-running anarchist collective Crimethinc wrote in their anthology “Expect Resistance: A Field Manual,” “No one is more qualified than you are to decide how you live; no one should be able to vote on what you do with your time and your potential unless you invite them to.”
As others survey the smoldering ruins of the American Dream and beg politicians to take mercy on the most vulnerable, it’s worth reminding people that life doesn’t have to be this way. The government has shown that it won’t save us. We know that the rich won’t save us. But if we embrace the true spirit of anarchy, maybe, just maybe, we can save ourselves.
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