Civilising

The boy lay next to the pool, scooping
"What are you doing?" I asked
"Saving the animals," he replied
"If I don't help them they'll get sucked into the machine"

The flies flapped helplessly
trying to swim against the force
that was pulling them towards Death

Then out came the boy's mother

"Move away from the pool," she said
"But I'm helping the fly," the boy replied

"You don't have to help the insects," she said

The boy listened

What the f**k is anarchism?

Roger Benham dispels one of the most common myths about anarchism. Namely, the myth that without the state, people will go crazy and eat each other’s children, amongst other things. Enjoy.

“To me, anarchism means the absence of a coercive authority and people acting in the absence of that authority. So what we’re seeing now played out in the wake of Superstorm Sandy we’ve seen before in the wake of other disasters:

When there is the absence of a coercive authority or something/someone telling them what to do, people automatically tend to act in co-operative ways to help their community. We’ve noticed this before with disasters. They really do seem to bring out the best in people. The best in people, to me, is anarchism, and that’s what we mean when we talk about anarchism - the idea that when there’s not a cop or a priest there to tell you what to do you are going to act in ways that are beneficial not just to yourself and not just to your immediate family but also to your community.

In the immediate wake of a disaster all human beings tend to exhibit anarchist principles. When there isn’t a disaster around there are some of us who want to advocate for that kind of organisation all the time in that belief that as humans we can organise ourselves without a coercive force and on principles of mutual aid.  But the institutions of our society are obviously completely opposed to that. The prison industrial complex, capitalism, the state. These institutions have top-down organisations and hierarchies that are very slow to react to new realities on the ground. One of the best things about anarchism is that we are decentralised when we’re doing anarchist practice. We’re trying to be responsive to ourselves and to our communities and this enables us to be more nimble than the state and corporate responses. Another very important thing is that it enables us to go into communities that are directly affected immediately and not be afraid of them. That’s also something that the state depends upon - the fear that if the state didn’t exist then all of us as humans would be at each other’s throats. So you’ll constantly see this narrative deployed in the wake of a disaster:

“There’s no police! There’s no food! There’s no public utilities! People are out there pillaging and looting and raping!”

Time after time after time we find out that this is not the case, that these stories are false. These stories make it so that the state wants to reconstitute itself through its most basic function, which is that of a monopoly on violence and this is what happened in Haiti after the earthquake. In Port Au Prince, the US military took over the airport there and actually stopped aid shipments for two solid days so that they could get elements of the 82^nd airborne on the ground with all of their security assets.

I responded to the disaster in Haiti with some other anarchists and anti-authoritarians. We were going into areas of Port Au Prince that we were told “You cannot go in there with anything less than a battalion-strength security force”.  It was ridiculous. There were all these stories of people looting and burning and roadblocks with bandits. When we got there, that wasn’t the case. It was neighbourhoods of people in dire situations and they were helping one another. It was found out that the crime rate in Port Au Prince actually went down after the earthquake. We see this over and over again. The same thing happened in New Orleans in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. All of those stories the police and the press were spreading about rapes and pillaging. That wasn’t happening. The violence that happened was perpetuated mainly by the police and by private security forces, who had this idea that people were going crazy and assaulting each other because they didn’t have a coercive presence there. As anarchists, we don’t believe that the coercive presence of the state is what prevents people from being at one another’s throats. So this enables us to go into disaster areas immediately after they’re affected.  Because we’re not waiting around to make sure that we’re safe or that we’re secure. I saw this in New York. An aid organisation in New York was very concerned that we were going into darkened public housing in New York City to check people’s needs. They said “You need a police escort to do that”. Even when the power is on you need a police escort to go into those buildings. Organisations like the American Red Cross… my understanding is that they are not allowed to deploy their resources into evacuation zones. They have this obsession with security. We don’t have that as anarchists. The people that we are going to treat are our comrades and our neighbours and our friends and our fellow human beings. We don’t see them as possible threats. We also are self-directed and very invested in the idea of small autonomous groups that are able to see a need and respond to it. We don’t have to go back to some chain of command and fill out paperwork.

“Hey, there’s a problem here. Let’s go ahead and respond to it directly”.

There are five or six of us together who can work together and we don’t have to check it out with some kind of hierarchy."

Roger Benham, Mutual Aid Street Medics Collective

This quote comes from a fantastic edition of Stimulator's "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine"   -     http://submedia.tv/stimulator/2012/11/15/anarchy-in-the-usa/

The Walls Still Stand by Wolfi Landstreicher

I came across this great poem in Green Anarchy Magazine. I couldn't find a decent copy on the internet so decided to post it to my blog. Enjoy!

 

Sometimes it seems we could not be

stopped; we were crazy feral children,

our eyes ablaze with polymorphous lust.

Our intensity demanded eternity, an

unending flow.

... There was no turning back. Reeling,

dizzy with joy on the edge of a cliff, our

lives so full of now, there was no

tomorrow.

We flew burning through the night

finding toys with which to create the
wonders of our lives.

Bricolage symphonies, cacophonies,

insanities.

Our madness was intentional, a

godless rite to break down the walls

and dams.

The moments of our lives seemed like

forevers so full of this life they had

become.
We lost ourselves in flows of desire, in

wandering currents of sensation

stronger than the channels that would

keep them in constraints.

Our hearts pounded, we were wild-eyed

with our energy, flaming tornadoes

dancing zig-zag through heaving

landscapes...

Smashing the walls...

Smashing the walls...
Smashing... smashing... smashing the

walls...

But the walls still stand and I am tired...

Set me aflame once more.

My Dream

I’m sitting in lotus

A waterfall thunders behind me

Fish swim peacefully in the crystal clear water

I’m unclothed with long hair and a beard

My body is firm, clean and strong

My skin glows with a healthy tan

My mind is still and I am completely in the present

I have let go of my past and my future

I am truly happy and enlightened

I no longer need words to express my love for everything and everyone

It is an energy that permeates the air

Around me the jungle is filled with the sounds of wild nature

Birds sing and leaves rustle peacefully

A snake slithers by

I am unperturbed

I am at peace with my mortality and unthreatened by anything around me

Nature provides me with all the medicine I will ever need

After a while I rise from my position and return to camp

Children are playing

Adults are going about their daily business

There is much laughter and conversation

Money does not exist

It was always an illusion that is now all but forgotten

Without money, all relationships are voluntary

So much fakeness has been cleansed from our spirits

We joke about the concept of work

We wonder how people were ever tricked into it

I join a few men and women who are preparing for a hunt

It is a sacred practice, an honoured ritual

We walk down a jungle path

Monkeys watch us cautiously from the trees as we pass

We move through the remnants of a city

The buildings and streets have been reclaimed by wilderness

Vines creep up the buildings and grass grows from cracks in the tar

Antelope run across the roads

There is a thick cloud of mist around the dilapidated buildings

Some abandoned cars litter the streets

They’re of no use to anyone anymore

We pass through the city

We walk a few more kilometres before coming to a clearing

A few metres away lies a crystal clear pond

A warthog is drinking quietly

I kneel down and pull the string of my bow

The hog is aware of my presence

But he knows that his time has come

I thank him for his sacrifice and let the arrow fly

I whisper a blessing for the pig as I kneel over him and slit his throat

Yes, a degree of violence is necessary in the life cycle

But long term suffering and torture are not

I thank him for giving his life force so that my life can continue

Everything is a cycle of give and take

When I die, my body shall feed the soil

Any carnivore that comes by may feed upon my carcass

The air is so clean

It is purer than a civilised man could fathom

I am invigorated with every breath

My lungs thank Mother Nature for her blessing with each inhalation

With each exhalation memories of civilisation are released and forgotten

On the way back to camp I kneel by a stream and sip life-giving water

The other villagers welcome us upon our return

Other men and women have been out gathering wild fruits

There is no agriculture here

There are no pesticides

We take only what nature provides for us and we thank her for her generosity

I am greeted by a beautiful woman

I have loved her for some time now

I do not know for how many months or years we have been in love

Time is no longer recorded or symbolised

It was only ever useful to help our bosses control us

Now we live in the moment

There are no laws

Sometimes conflict is solved with violence

It is the same with all animals

But there is no punishment for uncivilised behaviour

We acknowledge ourselves as wild beings

My soul mate and I wander to a hilltop

We hold hands and behold the awesome view

My soul is free

Peace, love, respect, anarchy, liberation, revolution

I am not sorry for what I have done. All is fair in love and war.

I do not belong to any organisation that has hierarchy. I am not aware of any media person who is not compromised. Having said this, Kristen van Schie wrote a pretty good article about my situation for The Star in Joburg. I hope she maintains her journalistic integrity in this corrupt world. Graeme Hosken is one of the reasons why I lost faith in the media. I went to him with my experience of police corruption and intimidation. He did not report the truth. He tried to sell papers. When I e-mailed the Pretoria News about this injustice, I was ignored.

I don't believe anything that I read.

Thank you all for the love and support. I wouldn't be able to carry on if it weren't for all of you amazing people.

I have no spokesperson. My spokespeople are the friends I have made in my 23 years as a creature on this planet.

Peace, love, respect, anarchy, liberation, revolution, Deep Green Resistance

The Role of Sport in Modern South Africa

Since I’ve realised that I’m an anarchist, I’ve become less of a fan of professional sport.

However, I don’t deny the fact that sport can be used as a tool for good.

Let’s take the ’95 rugby world cup in South Africa as an example

I wonder how much of the inter-racial love back then was sincere love for our brothers and sisters of other races.

A part of me suspects that some of it was just another example of group hysteria.

But that’s another argument for another day.

I was only six years old when the Springboks won that World Cup but I still remember the day like it was yesterday.

Even at that young age, I was already full of idealism. As I tweeted a few days ago, I think “World in Union” by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and PJ Powers will give me goose bumps until the day I die.

My parents organised for a group of friends to come and watch the final against the All Blacks at our house in Gholfsig, Middelburg.

As I recall, my friends and I didn’t watch much of the game. We were too busy playing rugby.

Despite this, I could swear I had a sense of the significance of the moment. I also felt an immense sense of pride about the fact that I’m South African.

I was one of the lucky white South African kids. My Mom was a Christian and my parents had both lived in conservative Middelburg for a number of years. However, despite these setbacks, they did not poison me with race-based hate. For this, I am eternally grateful to them.

Like many kids, I worshipped sport at that young age. I had massive posters of Chester Williams and Jonty Rhodes above my bed. They truly were my heroes. When I was fortunate enough to meet Jonty as a laaitie, I was too flabbergasted to even speak.

I’ll never forget how great he was to me.

But sport has changed since those days. It’s becoming more and more about the money. People’s involvement for the pure love of the game is dwindling.

Think about this: the Springboks of a few decades ago were paid with a steak and a beer after the game. From what I’ve been told, many of them still had day jobs.

Furthermore, I think in the current state of modern alienation/postmodernism or whatever you want to call it, some people use sport as a distraction from real issues.

I have great pity for the man who spends the entire day at work and then spends his “free time” watching men run around a field on TV.

I would much rather he:

a)    Took the bull by the horns and went and ran around a field with his real friends

OR

b)    Questioned the fact that his life had been sucked away by “civilisation” and the quest for more paper (money).

Having said this, there are still things we can learn from professional sport. I realised this once again when I watched Floyd Mayweather fight Victor Ortiz just over a week ago.

As you may know, I was a boxing fanatic when I was in high school (1)

However, once I realised what a joke civilisation is I stopped watching sport. (2)

Despite this fact, I have always admired Floyd as an insanely talented and underrated fighter. I reckon he’s more gifted than Ali was. Yes, I did just say that. I wish Mayweather would use his talent for a decent cause though.

I think one of the reasons why Mayweather is underrated by some media is because he’s a bit of an arsehole. Mainstream media will probably never idolise people whom they perceive to be arseholes.

I saw a video of him burning money at a club a couple of hours before the fight. Call me a bleeding heart, but burning money while kids starve is a dick move.

It was after seeing Floyd’s idiocy that I began gunning for Ortiz.

I realised later, however, that a lot of this pre-match hype is staged. Promoters and fighters know that we, the public, tend to be attracted to controversy. Therefore, they create a lot of tension between the fighters prior to the bout.

So in the one corner we had Mayweather - an arrogant and selfish money-worshipper who didn’t give a fuck about anyone’s feelings.

In the other corner we had Ortiz - a tough-as-nails Mexican-American who had been abandoned by his parents but somehow still can see goodness in the world.

I should mention that Mayweather’s life has been no picnic either. But Mayweather wasn’t focused on the past.

He wanted to make paper and pursue the mythical “American Dream”. Idiot.

So by the time the fight started I was highly excited.

I wanted to support Mayweather because I know how great he is. On the other hand, I wanted to see Ortiz give the arrogant arsehole a pounding.

The promoters certainly did a good job of stealing my interest.

The fight began and I was impressed.

Mayweather was a pleasure to watch, although not quite as slick as usual. Perhaps his slower-than-usual reaction time had something to do with ring rust.

Ortiz fights with intensity. He certainly wasn’t going to let Floyd walk all over him.

Floyd sometimes uses dirty tactics to his advantage. For this reason, the naïve middle class members of society will probably always dislike him.

Some of the pre-fight footage showed Ortiz’ camp watching tapes of Mayweather's previous fights. Ortiz’ trainers picked up on the fact that Mayweather sometimes uses his elbows when his opponent is close to him.

Ortiz trainers noticed this dirtiness.

Presumably, Ortiz prepared for the possibility that Floyd would use dirty tactics.

Here’s comes the interesting part…

At some point during the fourth round Mayweather did use his elbow to whack Ortiz in the face.

Ortiz reacted by intentionally head-butting Mayweather in the mouth.

Ortiz denied the butt was intentional after the fight, but I think we all know that’s bullshit.

Having said this, I understand why he felt the need to head-butt Mayweather.

Ortiz isn’t stupid.

He knew he would have to neutralise Mayweather’s dirty tactics somehow. He couldn’t rely on the umpire to do this because Floyd is street smart enough to be dirty in a subtle way.

Because Ortiz has had a tough life, he knows that he can’t rely on “authorities” to do things for him.

No offense to my race, but a middle class liberal white guy would have probably gone crying to the referee if Floyd had used his elbow.

This is what anarchism is all about. We realise that crying to “authorities” sometimes doesn’t help. The authorities are there to protect their jobs and their own interests. They aren’t necessarily there because they give a shit about your wellbeing. Just ask any South African who’s ever been intimidated or ignored by police.

Ask Andries Tatane. No, wait. Andries Tatane was murdered by police. Many police (unfortunately) exist to protect the state, not you. (2)

On a much smaller scale, I have even been a victim of police intimidation and apathy on many occasions.  (4)

It’s unfortunate that liberals/pacifists have such a hard time wrapping their heads around this fact. There’s a simple reason for this: A lot of us don’t truly know what it means to be oppressed.

I love the irony in pacifism.

As Derrick Jensen says, “You haven’t lived until you’ve been chased down the street by a bunch of pacifists”.

Anyway, Judge Joe Cortez immediately stopped the action after Ortiz had head-butted Mayweather. Ortiz immediately apologised and hugged Mayweather.

Mayweather was pissed off, understandably, but appeared to kind of accept Ortiz’ apology.

After Cortez had deducted a point for the butt, the action got underway again.

But Ortiz wanted to apologise again.

Mayweather “accepted” the apology and hugged Ortiz back. As soon as they parted, Mayweather smacked Ortiz with a left and a right. And that was “all she wrote”. (3)

The look of shock and horror on Joe Cortez’ face on the replay is hilarious.

Yup, neither Cortez nor Ortiz was smart enough to see Floyd’s punch coming.

However, anyone who knows anything about boxing knows that the sacred rule is: “protect yourself at all times”.

It was incredibly naïve of Ortiz to think that Floyd actually gave a shit about his apology.

Yes, there are cases where you can display love and sportsmanship in the ring, but this wasn’t one of them.

My life has been a breeze compared to that of Ortiz and even I would never have been stupid enough to let my guard down in the ring with someone like Floyd.

What can we learn from this?

Quite a lot, actually. But here are the obvious lessons:

1)    Always keep your guard up.

2)    Do not believe everything people say or do.

I really admire Ortiz for being such a good guy despite everything he’s been through. His good nature is an example to all of us. It’s really cool that someone with his background can still believe in human goodness.

However, Mayweather did Ortiz a favour by knocking him out. Ortiz is still young with a good career ahead of him.

From this fight I’m sure Ortiz has learnt to never let his guard down when he’s up against someone as powerful as Floyd.

We, as anarchists, should also learn this lesson.

And that’s all she wrote.

Sources

(1)  The Joys of Being a Multilingual Whitey in South Africa, Mark Esterhuysen markesterhuysen.blogspot.com

(2)  “Deep Green Resistance” from a South African perspective, Mark Esterhuysen, markesterhuysen.blogspot.com

(3)  This is how Floyd described the knockout while reviewing the tape. You might want to watch this interview on YouTube. It’s hilariously cool.

(4)  I’m planning a blog post on my experiences of police intimidation and apathy. Please stay tuned.