Mystery and Hierarchy: On the character of anarchism

From Autonomies

In every city in the world, no matter how small, there is at least one person who calls themselves an anarchist. This solitary and unusual presence must conceal a meaning that transcends the order of politics, just as the triumphant dispersal of seeds is not limited to a mere struggle for the survival of a botanical lineage. Perhaps the “psychic” evolution of political species corresponds to the wisdom of seminal sprinkling in nature.

Against the Behemoth

From Autonomies

The scandal that is Donald Trump’s administration – from the gutting and/or paralysing of federal government agencies, justified in the name of eliminating and controlling government waste of public monies due to indulgent, corrupt government workers and government policies, to budget plans for rampant privatisation and parallel tax benefits for the private companies that will substitute for government agencies, to an ideological war against the already modest US “welfare state”, to mass racist deportations, to a foreign policy driven by a logic of “strong men” competing for spheres of influence irrespective of the resulting human sacrifices – is shocking only to liberal sensibilities enamoured of the rule of law.

Anarchism for termites: A manifesto

From Autonomies
For Bruno Latour (1947-2022)

When we began to write this “Manifesto”, it was to compliment an earlier exercise in manifesto writing – A moss-like anarchist manifesto – and to continue the sceptical exercise of distilling images and concepts from parallel reflections that have served as inspiration for our own, in this case, Bruno Latour’s essay, After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis.

Of war and revolution: Ukraine

And without wishing to linger further on the Marxist debate around war and revolution, anarchists were historically confronted by the very same dilemma. For some, anti-militarism was a categorical imperative – as it remains now – while for others, wars of resistance against domination were an obligation. And if the “theory” seemed to be clear in its opposition, anarchist practice always revealed a more complex political reality. In the three “great revolutions” of European anarchism – the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Revolution –, anarchists never acted alone. They were always part of broader fronts of actors who did not share the anarchist vision, but which by itself did not prevent them from engaging militarily. But then this was the failure of the anarchists, some contend; a judgement whose soundness rests only on the clarity of ideology and hindsight.

Post-foundational anarchism

From autonomies.org by Tomás Ibáñez

From the date of his first publication, in 1962, to the present, Tomáz Ibáñez has engaged with anarchism with a depth, sensitivity and generosity matched by few of his contemporaries. To walk through this work is to discover a complex path, like the weave of a rope. But like a rope, held together by a seemingly small set of intuitions or ideas, or perhaps even a method, that Ibáñez continually returns to, not repetitively, but as with an expanding musical refrain, turning ever again on itself, simultaneously changing and clarifying its first steps and the next.

Chiara Bottici: Anarchafeminism

via autonomies

[T]here is hardly any publication in the field today that does not engage with the concept of intersectionality — whether to promote it, to criticize it, or simply to position oneself with regards to it. Yet, strikingly enough, in all the literature engaging with intersectionality, there is barely any mention of the feminist tradition of the past that has been claiming exactly the same point for a very long time: anarchist feminism, or as I prefer to call it “anarchAfeminism.” The latter term has been introduced by social movements trying to feminize the concept, and thereby give visibility to a specifically feminist strand within the anarchist theory and practice. This anarchafeminist tradition, which has largely been neglected both in the academia and in public debate more in general, has a particular vital contribution to offer today.

10 years of neighbourhood anarchism: The FAGC

From autonomies.org

We translated and published our first post dedicated to the Federación Anarquista Gran Canaria in May of 2013. We have since tried modestly and from a distance to follow the remarkable activity of those who have made the Federación and its anarchism a living reality, and this in ways that are today uncommon.

The Legacy of Peter Kropotkin

via Autonomies

These words are part of Peter Kropotkin’s heritage. But he himself went through a sad episode: he became intoxicated by the nationalism of French and English culture, supposedly progressive and favourable to the next revolution in the Latin and Slavic countries, which weakened his analytical capacity.With incredible courage, in very fragile health, after forty years in exile, Kropotkin decided to return to Russia, already liberated from Tsarism in 1917, to end his life there. It was then that Lenin wanted to meet and manipulate Kropotkin. Or was it his attempt to do the opposite? We will see this strange situation on another occasion.

Ruymán Rodríguez and the Federación Anarquista de Gran Canaria: An Interview

From autonomies.org translation by Julius Gavroche

An interview for the spanish newspaper, El Salto diario (05/10/2021) …

The Canarian anarchist activist Ruymán Rodríguez visits the Valencian Community, invited by the Mostra del Llibre Anarquista d’Alacant, to share the work carried out by the Sindicato de Inquilinas and the Federación Anarquista de Gran Canaria.

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