Saartje

Saartje liked to play the music of the Dutch band De Kift in her caravan for me. "It's great!", she said. She really liked that poetry in Dutch put on music. Soon after that, Saartje moved to another city. She was young and active in the libertarian left of 'our' city for many years. She had lived for a long time in the Antwerp neigbourhood of the alternative youth center Scheld'apen, in a caravan standing on squatted terrains.
One day, she told me Hugo Schiltz was mad at her. Schiltz was one of those well-known politicians in the region, and a member of the Ultraright as a youngster in the forties, he has always been a supporter of Flemish nationalism too. Schiltz was a lawyer and tried to get her sentenced for a thing that happened at the squatted terrain, a crime she had not commited. She was convicted and had to pay a lot of money.
And then Saartje died last year. De Kift played in Antwerp at the day of her funeral. Just like yesterday : it was a really good concert at Scheld'apen. After they had performed, I talked to the singer. "You're too old for Scheld'apen", I said... and we both laughed. Hugo Schiltz has died too.

Manuel Castells and neo-anarchism

Manuel Castells (picture) has had a significant impact on sociology, urban studies, communication, and many other fields. He is best known in Spain and Latin America, where he regularly contributes columns to daily newspapers. What follows is a long comment on an essay that he published in Catalonia’s La Vanguardia on May 21, 2005. If you want to read the entire text, you can find the translation in English of it here.



I have some problems with this text. Castells says that anarchism “seems to enjoy excellent health in the social movements that sprout everywhere from the depths of the resistance to our increasingly destructive global social order.” I would not agree with this, social movements are not sprouting everywhere and anarchism isn't enjoying excellent health.
“It is enough to follow the debates in the movement against capitalist globalization, online or otherwise, to note the prevalence of anarchist principles such as self-organization and the rejection of the state in any form”. Maybe so, but a lack of organization (often an anarchist principle) in this movement is also very present.
“Likewise, the autonomist perspective, which is so closely linked to anarchism, has a very strong presence on the theoretical and political terrains.” That's not true, autonomism isn't that much theoretical or political, it can also just be sometimes about fighting in the streets or throwing bricks at people. Ofcourse, I'm not saying that Negri and Hardt do that. But France’s May ‘68 revolt, I guess these writers have been much inspired by that event, was also about these violent things happening in the streets of Paris.
“Anarchism’s great difficulty has always been reconciling personal and local autonomy with the complexities of daily life and production in an industrialized world on an interdependent planet. And here technology turns out to be anarchism’s ally more so than Marxism’s.”
I'm much more interested in a social revolution than in personal or local autonomy actually. People have to work together, communes too. I don't know why Castells is so positive about autonomy, people often need support from others. I prefer the things Murray Bookchin has written about autonomy at the end of his life, he wasn't that positive about autonomy either, it's just too much individualistic. And to think of technology as an ally of anarchists? Many anarchists don't like the fact that technology is so important these days, some of them have even opposed technology.
“And instead of the nation-state controlling territory, we have city-states managing the interchange between territories.” That cities have become statified is largely the result of nation-states controlling territory. And with a striving for utopia one not always dreams, Castells is wrong about that too, it can be realistic to strive for utopias. Then Castells wants us to believe that anarchists don't believe in God and that socialism is settling into retirement.
“With ideology one struggles. Anarchism is an ideology. And neo-anarchism is an instrument of struggle that appears commensurate with the needs of the twenty-first century social revolt.”
I think anarchism was a lot more suitable for struggle in the 19th century. Authentic anarchism is not an ideology, it's several ideologies in one package. Some of its most known proponents, have not cried out “no God, no master!”. The christian-anarchist Tolstoyans have never done that for example. And authentic socialism that is “settling into retirement”? It's regaining its strength in Europe and Latin America, it's not much libertarian either.

The undemocratic thoughts of Wolfi Landstreicher

Wolfi Landstreicher is the name of a contemporary activist. He has edited the anarchist publication Willful Disobedience, which was published from 1996 until 2005, and currently publishes a variety of anarchist texts and booklets through his project, Venomous Butterfly Publications. "Landstreicher" is the German word for vagabond, tramp.



Landstreicher is an insurrectionist, he thinks an individual should rise up in open revolt against her or his condition (individual insurrection) and wants “a destructive, subversive rupture on the large scale with the current social order”, indeed, the rising of “the exploited and excluded classes against their condition (social insurrection). “ Now, I never believed much in the importance of destruction, I nowadays think it is really important to revolt in a constructive way, by advocating true democracy, educating people and myself, working together with others.
This is why I really dislike individualist anarchism. While Landstreicher thinks that daily acts of sabotage, theft, subversion and revolt of exploited people are interesting, I think such acts are often badly informed, and can also just be personalistic revolts or deeds of despair. While Wolfi Landstreicher sees no dichotomy between individualism and libertarian communism, I do. And I also see individual revolts as something really differing from class struggle. Individual revolt often is unorganized behaviour. But class struggle can only be successful when it's organized well. While Landstreicher thinks of freedom as something that is opposed to democracy, I and other communalists see democracy as a necessary condition for freedom. Democracy should be deepened and established in confederations of communes. Democracy should therefor become authentic, not often be faked or “representative”.
“At present, capitalism and the socio-political system that best corresponds with it—democracy—dominate the planet”, writes Landstreicher in one of his pamphlets. But capitalism is not at all democratic, in fact it is close to the totalitarian. The anarchist perspective of Landstreicher is egoist and communist at the same time, which is very eclectic. I believe in ecological industrialism, he opposes industrialism. I think institutions of property, commodity exchange and work can sometimes lead to some liberation, he wants to destroy them. No, I am not an ecological anarchist.

Anarchoprimitivism and corporate media

Brian Oliver Sheppard (2003):

With the rise of the anti-corporate globalization movement in recent years, the primitivist problem has assumed a new urgency. Whereas in the past primitive thinkers were consigned to the margins of the movement by virtue of the absurdity of their ideas, a recent absence of lively, mass class struggle activism has allowed primitive thinkers to exert greater influence. The onus is on traditional anarchists to take the movement back, and force primitive thinkers to their previous place on the sidelines.

Not to be discounted, either, is the influence of the corporate media, which has taken primitivism and situated it front and center, presenting it to the public as the lifeblood of a 21st-century anarchist resurgence. Primitivism, the corporate media tells us, is the "new" anarchism - and young adults, hungry for any ideas that point to a way out of the capitalist ghetto, sometimes believe it, and sign up. The popularity of the anti-corporate globalization movement holds much promise for anarchism; the media's attempts to associate it with primitive ideas, however, does not.

Time magazine, for example, ran two articles in 2001 on John Zerzan and the cult-like following he has attracted in his home town of Eugene, Oregon (among other places). And a few years prior, Time bestowed the title "king of the anarchists" upon primitivist/Unabomber Ted Kaczynski in one of the more than 30 articles they devoted to him. The December 13, 1999, issue of Newsweek featured a picture of anarcho-syndicalist Noam Chomsky with images of Zerzan and convicted murderer Kaczynski beside him; the publication associated all three as leading lights of modem anarchist thought. NPR, 60 Minutes, and other news outlets have given air time to the absurd proclamations of John Zerzan even as the unofficial media ban of Noam Chomsky and other more capable analysts continues. Again, as Fabbri, noted: "[A]nd so anarchism comes to be known precisely for the illogical character and ridiculousness which ignorance and bourgeois calumny have attributed to anarchist doctrines."

The effect of the media's focus on anarchism's most embarrassing side has been advantageous for elites; by focusing laser like on the looniest elements of anarchism, the entire movement can be marginalized and discredited. This follows a historical pattern in which anarchist activists are ignored by the establishment until one does something so antisocial or outlandish that elites can score cheap points by reporting it. If the public sees only the primitivist wing of anarchism, it will be unlikely to support anything associated with anarchism. Understandably, few people want to support something that is hostile to the life-saving medical care, information technology, and electronic entertainment they enjoy.

The media's gravitation towards primitivism has pressured other parts of the anarchist movement to accept it as well. The University of Michigan's Joseph A. Labadie collection, commonly regarded as an "archive of record" for the anarchist movement, recently decided to admit the papers of unabomber Theodore Kaczynski into its vaults. This includes interviews where Kaczynski reports on attempts to have a dialogue with terrorist Timothy McVeigh, dragging again the shadiest figures of modem politics into anarchist history. The shelving of Kaczynski's murderous Unabomber Manifesto alongside classics by Emma Goldman and others is presumably something the anarchist community will have to live with. The acquisition is of further irony, given that the figure for which the University of Michigan's archive is named, labor activist Joseph Labadie, favored public control over industrial society, not a Kaczynski-style mail bombing of it. As well, Kaczynski admirer John Zerzan works with a self-styled "Green Anarchy" collective in Oregon. When Z Magazine editor Michael Albert approached John Zerzan to debate primitivism, Zerzan ultimately sniffed, "As an anarchist, I'm not interested."

Murray Bookchin in Dutch

Sociale ecologie en politiek (boek)

Many texts of Murray Bookchin in Dutch on anarchisme.nl


Overview (but not fully):

1964

“Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” under the pseudonym Lewis Herber
translated into Dutch as “Ekologie en revolutionair denken”

1965

Crisis in Our Cities (book), under the pseudonym Lewis Herber (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall)
translated into Dutch as Stikkende Steden

1967

“Post-Scarcity Anarchism,” written Oct. 1967-Dec. 1968
translated into Dutch as “Anarchisme in het tijdperk na de schaarste,” in Ekologie en anarchisme (1977), online.

1973

“Toward an Ecological Society,” lecture to Future World Lecture Series, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Feb. 19, 1973
translated into Dutch as “Naar een ekologiese maatschappij,” in Ekologie en anarchisme (1977)

1974

“Radical Agriculture,” written Sept. 20, 1974
translated into Dutch and online here

1975

“Energy, Ecotechnocracy, and Ecology,” Liberation (Feb. 1975)
translated into Dutch as “Energie, ‘ekotechnologie,’ en ekologie,” in Ekologie en anarchisme (1977)

1979

“Self-Management and the New Technology,” address to international conference on self-management, Venice, Italy, Sept. 28-29, 1979
translated into Dutch as “Zelfbestuur en de Nieuwe Technologie” (Bas Moreel, NL-Wageningen, Feb. 1980), brochure and online here

1984

“Theses on Libertarian Municipalism,” written Sept. 9, 1984
translated into Dutch as Stellingen over libertair municipalisme,” in Eerste Jaarboek Anarchisme, ed. Wim de Lobel and Hans Ramaer (Moerkapelle: De AS, 1994), pp. 135-50 and online here

Interview by Peter Einarsson, Stockholm, Oct. 22, 1984
translated into Dutch as “Murray Bookchin: Het anarchisme was als het breken van een schaal,” De Vrije (n.d.)

1987

“Social Ecology versus ‘Deep Ecology’: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement,” written Jun. 1987
translated into Dutch as “Social Ecology versus ‘Deep Ecology’: Een uitdaging voor de ecologische beweging,” Perspectief (Apr.-Jun. 1989), pp. 11-42

1989

Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future (Montreal: Black Rose Books)
excerpts translated into Dutch as “Over Vrijheidsidealen,” by Marius de Geus, in De AS: Anarchistisch Tijdschrift [Rotterdam] 94 (Apr.-Jun. 1991), pp. 20-22 and online here

“Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced Capitalism,” Green Perspectives, no. 18 (Nov. 1989) (a revised version of “Society, Politics, and the State”)
translated into Dutch as “Radicale politiek in een tijdperk van voortdurend kapitalisme,” by Simon Radius, in De AS: Anarchistisch Tijdschrift [Rotterdam] 91 (Jul.-Sept. 1990), online.

1990

“The Meaning of Confederalism,” written Nov. 3, 1990
translated into Dutch as “De betekenis van het Confederalisme,” in De AS: Anarchistisch Tijdschrift [Rotterdam] 93 (Jan.-Mar. 1991), online.

1991

“The Left That Was: A Personal Reflection,” written Apr. 3, 1991
portions translated into Dutch by Rafa Grinfeld (2007), online at http://libertair.blogspot.com

“Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview,” introduction to Readings in Libertarian Municipalism (Burlington, Vt.: Social Ecology Project, 1991), written Apr. 3, 1991
translated into Dutch as “Libertair Municipalisme: Een Overzicht,” by Ferd. v.d. Bruggen, in De AS, no. 107 (Summer 1994), pp. 18-25, online.

1994

“History, Civilization, and Progress: Outline for a Criticism of Modern Relativism,” written Feb. 15, 1994
published in Green Perspectives, no. 29 (Mar. 1994)
online at http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/hiscivpro.html
translated into Dutch as “Geschiedenis, beschaving en vooruitgang: Een kritiek op het moderne relativisme,” by Bas Moreel, in Tweede Jaarboek Anarchisme/De AS no. 112 (1995), pp. 62-73 and online here

1996

“Interview with Murray Bookchin,” by Janet Biehl, Nov. 12, 1996
translated into Dutch by Ronald de Vries, online

1997

“The Unity of Ideals and Practice,” written Mar. 26, 1997
portions translated into Dutch as “De Eenheid van Idealen en Praktijk,” in De Raaf: Anarchistisch Tijdschrift, no. 106 (Apr.-Jun. 1997), pp. 9-10; no. 107 (Nov.-Dec. 1997), pp. 22-23

1999

Anarchism, Marxism, and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998, completed in 1998; published by San Francisco and Edinburgh: A.K. Press
portions translated into Dutch as “Een beweging opbouwen”, translated by Bookshop Rosa and edited by Rafa Grinfeld (2007), online

2000

“Malé není vzdy krásné: Rozhovor s Murray Bookchinem,” interview by David Vanek, Aug. 2000
translated into Dutch as “Het sociale vraagstuk van de ecologie. Interview met Murray Bookchin”, translated by Filip Vanden Berghe, in De Nar. Anarchistisch actieblad. no. 172. Aug. 2002, pp 18-22, online

2004

“The Twilight Comes Early,” written Nov. 2004
translated into Dutch by Rafa Grinfeld (2006) as “De deemstering komt vroeg”, online


2005

"The Third Revolution" (Volume 4). Partly translated into Dutch by Johny Lenaerts, online

The Left that Was : A Personal Reflection

Some of you might wonder what has happened to the translation (I was working on it) of the text The Left that Was : A Personal Reflection by Murray Bookchin. I have now translated another part of the text. I'm going to stop for the moment with translating it. I had hoped it was not much work to improve the original translation that appeared in the Vlaams Marxistisch Tijdschrift (Flemish Marxist Periodical) many years ago, but I was wrong. Up until now, it hasn't helped at all, the original translation (it's full of mistakes and things that are quite unclear). Now, people who want to help me with translating or distributing texts of social ecology can ofcourse contact me at tomsk_be@yahoo.com. At my blog in Dutch, I will continue now with publishing some interesting text parts that have already been translated in Dutch and that deal with the issue of nationalism and nation-states.

Old Joy

The story of two old friends, who reunite for a weekend camping trip in Oregon's Cascade Mountains. It hasn't been shown in the cinema yet in Belgium, but it is shown this month at Cinema Nova in Brussels and it's also on DVD. I haven't seen it yet, but it looks like a nice movie.

Erik De Bruyn and the Left in Antwerp

The party of the Social-democrats in Antwerp city is the electorally most succesful party in this megalopolis, a quite new situation because the Far Right party has been getting more votes here for a very long time before that occured.
It's strange that it obtains so many votes here in Antwerp (and delivers the mayor), because it's really badly organized. At the most recent general members meeting, there were about 200 people present, which is not much because the party has 4500 members in the biggest city of Belgium.
The most militant members in this party are the Marxists, who are trying to take over the party and want everybody to believe that this is possible. They mobilize a lot these days to try and make that happen. At this "general members meeting", a lot of left-leaning people showed up to support the candidacy of the Marxist Erik De Bruyn for the presidency in the party of the Social-democrats.
He got a majority of the votes, so he can participate in the elections for the presidency now. De Bruyn doesn't have a chance in winning these elections for the presidency, but wants everybody to believe that he has. For this he advocates "economic democracy" and "party democracy", but the Social-democratic parties of Belgium (one for each region) are two of the most bureaucratic parties around here. In Belgium they are only getting many votes in the big cities. They have been attracting a lot of currupt politicians, and have fully supported the capitalist economy of Belgium. The marxists in the party often like Leo Trotski and Hugo Chavez a lot, two politicians who have not been good at all in advocating direct democracy.
The bolsjevists Lenin and Trotski have been two of the most influential men within the Left of Antwerp city. The libertarian Left has always been very marginal and little organized here. It's about a few small groups gathering sometimes or some people being active in "social movements", the libertarian Left is not even a movement in Antwerp. In fact, members of the libertarian Left here often move to other cities or travel a lot.

The MOVE stigmata

In 1980 a judge sentenced nine people (the Move 9) in the USA to 30-100 years in prison, after a deadening confrontation with the police had occured. In 1978, a gunfight between MOVE and Philadelphia police had left one police officer dead and nine of the MOVE members later imprisoned for murder. Almost seven years later, a police effort to serve warrants on several other MOVE members resulted in more shooting and a raging house fire that incinerated an entire city block, leaving 11 MOVE members dead, including MOVE founder John Africa, and 250 people homeless. The police had bombed “MOVE's communal residence”. Six adults and five children in the MOVE house were killed.


MOVE is very committed to trying to get the Move 9, that have been in prison for a very long time now, liberated. It also tries to get Mumia Abu-Jamal (picture) out of prison, he has been the most known follower of John Africa. Mumia Abu-Jamal is a journalist from Philadelphia who has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983 for allegedly shooting a Philadelphia police officer.


MOVE is also, in its own words, “a deeply religious organization”. The people in it see their message as very threatening to “those in power” and, according to the group, this is why the very powerful come down so hard on them. “JOHN AFRICA taught us that Life is the priority. Nothing is more important or as important as Life, the force that keeps us alive. All life comes from one source, from God, MOM NATURE, MOMA.“
It is disturbing to see how MOVE is mystical and idolizes its founder, many people see the group as a cult and therefor it receives little support. “JOHN AFRICA live very simply; JOHN AFRICA don't wear no jewelry at all because He don't believe in exploiting MOM-NATURE in any way”. What is also disturbing about the MOVE group, is that it is biocentric. “JOHN AFRICA teach MOVE people to believe in and love life, to understand the absolute necessity of life and protect all life equally, meaning all living beings (people, animals, water, soil, air), because all life come from one source and is necessary, so all living beings are equally important. JOHN AFRICA teach us the principle of equality, the principle of life and there's nothing crazy about that.” All of this makes it more hard to support those MOVE members that are in prison, because it leads to ideological confusion.

Naomi Klein on China

Naomi Klein in an interview published this week :

You have major new investments in the countryside, you have a commitment to waive school fees for the first nine years for rural children, because there were 87,000 protests in China last year -- an unbelievable statistic -- so clearly someone's not happy with how things are going in China.

At the same time we're starting to see the extraordinary ways in which China is becoming a laboratory for new technologies to put people under a level of surveillance that would have been impossible under Mao. There was just an article in the New York Times about how Shenzhen -- the port city where the export processing zone model was born -- is now this testing ground for biometric identification cards that have everything from your landlord's phone number to your reproductive history to your credit history to your police record. They are leading the way in terms of networking CCTV cameras -- there are 200,000 of them in one city -- and all the police are equipped with GPS. I mean, it is totally sci-fi what is going on there.