False modesty has prevented us from seeing how effective we’ve been, ego has prevented us from seeing how systematically we fumble revolutionary situations. It’s time to get real:
In the last 20 years, anarchists have played vital support roles or even created the force necessary to push anger or resistance past a tipping point and into uncontrollable rebellion time and again, in Egypt, Hong Kong, Catalunya, Greece, France, Sweden, the US, Mexico, Chile, Brazil...Time and again, we have also gotten left behind, failed to prepare for a predictable danger, or not known how to take the next steps.
Our successes show there is clearly something valid about our methods and critiques. Many of our failures come down to questions of Organization, Continuity, Community. We continue to fetishize organization, as though every problem were a nail, rather than treating it as a simple tool, each one with advantages and disadvantages. We fail to effectively identify why we tend to be a one-generation movement that has to reinvent the wheel and commit similar mistakes over and over again. And we are not effectively understanding the nature of our isolation in this society, an isolation that limits our capacity for action and leaves us vulnerable to repression.
About the Author
Peter Gelderloos is a writer and movement participant. He is the author of How Nonviolence Protects the State, Anarchy Works, Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation, and The Solutions Are Already Here. He has contributed chapters to anthologies Keywords for Radicals and Riots and Militant Occupations.