I seem to have picked up a racist “anarchist” reader from somewhere, so I want to make this explicit:
Nazis should fuck off and die. Racism and nationalism have nothing to do with anarchist political theory. We wish you ill. We are not on your side, you are not on our side.
I’ve long believed in a diversity of political viewpoints, and consider myself excited to include a wide variety of anarchist beliefs under the no-state spectrum. Hell, I’m even soft on anarcho-capitalists, because agorism is kind of interesting (not that I am anarcho-capitalist, mind you. I identify as anti-capitalist). But nationalist anarchism is not anarchism. It is repackaged fascism.
I want to talk about this because I believe that fascist leaders have adopted the sexy, sexy characteristics of anarchism in order to entice young, rebellious folks into being their footsoldiers, to delude them into thinking that the problems they face are racialized. Or to trick people into thinking that being proud of your culture means that you need to keep it “pure,” that the white race is somehow threatened by multiculturalism.
here are the facts:
- anarchism seeks to end the nation-state and destroy borders
- anarchism has always been, and will always be, multicultural. Although most of the “famed” anarchist thinkers in the western world were white, many of them were not considered white at the time, and anarchism has found its way onto every continent. In America, anarchist papers were printed in all sorts of languages.
- whiteness is a social construct: that is to say, it is as manufactured by our society as gender is. Yes, some people have different racial characteristics, but the definition of what makes one “white” or “black” is a matter of social opinion, an opinion that has long been shifting. By this understanding, anarchists do indeed intend to destroy whiteness. Or “whitey.” But we’re not talking about killing white people for being white.
- fascism is the polar opposite of anarchism. Fascism is totalitarian, and beats the race-war drum mostly so as to inspire morons into doing their bidding.
- fascists should fuck off and die
- the nazis rounded up the anarchists and other leftists pretty much first and foremost. National Socialism had every intention to exterminate us as well as everyone else.
- Hitler was a piece of shit and if you call yourself an anarchist and quote Hitler, you’re a moron
I listen to a lot of black metal. Poor black metal got a bad rap after a couple of wannabe nazi morons (who by and large aren’t taken seriously in the neo-fascist circles in Europe) started National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). Anyhow, Protector, from the amazing, non-political band Summoning has done a good job of pointing out why you can like your cultural background without being a nazi, in a political statement he released after some folks set fascist videos to Summoning songs on youtube. Some of my favorite parts:
I prefer to be proud about things i did or am responsible for, but I never ever could feel pride for things I could not even decide upon. I can be proud about my music for example, but never that I was born in Austria. I am of course happy to live in a country like Austria instead of a poor country, but I am definitely not proud about that. It seems for me that Nazis have nothing else to be proud of than the coincidence that they were born in their father-land. Even if you are proud of your country, that doesn’t naturally mean you’re a Nazi. But if national pride is your most important pride, and probably the only pride you have, then it starts getting a bit weird.
…
If you think you are an individualist or rebel because you like fascism then you are wrong. There is no space for individualism in fascist regimes. In fascism conformity and obedience are the most important value. This goes for Nazi Germany as well as the Stalin-Soviet Union. Fascism means extreme conformity and following orders and leaders. You have to be a working component in the huge fascist system – thinking for yourself will disturb this system.
Crazy Shit.
Hopefully this puts things straight for people.
ANARCHISTS FIGHT RACISM.
Period.
Thanks for the post magpie.
Good article, personally i hear so much black metal too, and people usually call mi anarchist… but i prefer to say i have mi own ideals. you can like your cultural background being your self and nothing more.
Great blog…. greetings from valencia, next to the mediterranean sea.
and excuse my poor english.
Well put.
NPFO
“fascists should fuck off and die”
*clap clap clap*
Anarchism is an ideology for children.
unzeitgeist – and the ideology preferred for grownups is to accept the authoritarian control of overlords.
because “grownups” realize some people are better at things, like leadership, than other things, like writing academic puffery. whether that leadership is authoritarian or not, and the consequences of that authoritarianism, is another matter. intelligent people don’t live in the oversimplified “us vs them” world of high school and hollywood, where you have the pure and good majority crowd versus the evil elitist snobs. people become dictators because that power is there for the taking, and that vacuum only exists in a society that has forgotten the necessity of an organic hierarchy which forms from within. without that, a civlization lives on the verge of impending anarchy, which leaves them ripe for exploitation. if anything anarchy should be regarded as a stage or gateway, a moment in the historical cycle which allows the remnants of a corroded civilization to plant the seeds for a new order. anarchy for the sake of anarchism is like death for the sake of dying.
I’m afraid you’ve fallen prey to one of the more common fallacies in how the world perceives anarchism. Anarchists actually advocate for a specific political system, that of anarchism. This is very much a different thing than the “anarchy” that the media speaks about, which is by and large warlordism. Anarchism advocates an intentional, horizontal system.
Also, it would honestly be laughable to call my writing “academic puffery.” Academics aren’t known for writing “facts” like “nazis should fuck off and die.” No offense to academics, mind you, but it’s kind of insulting to them to compare my writing to theirs.
>whiteness is a social construct: that is to say, it is as manufactured by our society as gender is.
Gender is a social construct? All this time I thought that my Y-chromosome and sexual hardware had something to do with it.
;)
Jim: Basically, the idea is that sex is the genetic thing, gender represents the social construct that accompanies it (for example, a male-bodied drag queen is expressing a different gender than, say, a male-bodied construction worker). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
Anarchism and nationalism have nothing to do with one another? Tell that to the Anarchist Panthers. While I agree with you in principle, nationalist anarchism does exist for some . . . some, that is, who insist that race is a social construct for everyone except themselves. So, even though you’re responding to a white nationalist writer here, a more balanced an nuanced analysis would have, should have, addressed the broad problem of nationalism in race-based anarchist movements. Race based politics are, alas, a symptom of our fallen world and they history of oppression, but they have no place in anarchist politics, regardless of the race of the nationalist proposing that his or her racial concerns should trump the basic individualism of anarchist socialism, unless the critique is of the inherent racism of all nationalism, black, white, brown, or what have you.