(Text of a speech given at an anti-election public meeting held in Walthamstow just before the 2001 election.)
While anarchists reject electioneering and voting, it does not mean that we are politically apathetic. Indeed, part of the reason why anarchists reject voting is because we think that voting is not part of the solution, it's part of the problem. This is because it endorses an unjust and unfree political system and makes us look to others to fight our battles for us. It blocks constructive self-activity and direct action. It stops the building of alternatives in our communities and workplaces. Voting breeds apathy and apathy is our worst enemy.
In place of voting anarchists use direct action. This method of bringing about social change follows from our view of where power actually lies. So let's think for a while about this issue of where power lies in our society.
What power does the government have to force people to obey their laws? Well, while there are not that many of us in defiance of them they can retain control through the police, the courts and even the army. But what happens when masses of people disregard and break the law?
To take a couple of recent examples:-
In just a few days postal workers brought the countries delivery system to a standstill by going on (a totally illegal) strike. We're talking thousands of people breaking the law on mass and the government doing very little about it. Funny that! Is it possible that the solidarity and militancy that the posties showed scared the government in to inaction? Maybe Blair and co realised that trying to use the law against these workers would be more trouble than it's worth?
Also, when young Asians in Oldham decided that they would no longer tolerate the National Front or the police, they managed to clear the streets of both - and that was only 500 people - a tiny fraction of the population. Does anyone doubt that if as many people on half the estates in Britain were as rebellious that the authorities wouldn't be able to physically control us?
Again, what power does the government have to stop literally millions of mainly young working class people taking illegal recreational drugs every weekend?
Likewise, think back to the poll tax rebellion. What power did the government have to act against the millions who broke the law by not paying?
Can any government carry out any undertaking without the help and consent of the general population, the mass of the people? Can any government exist if the people are actively opposed to it?
The power of even the strongest governments rests entirely in the people, in their willing support and obedience. The government in itself has very little power at all. The moment the people refuse to bow to its authority, the government ceases to exist.
The power of the politicians who make the laws and of the police who enforce them is largely a myth designed to fool us in to accepting the status quo as unchangeable, so as to keep us in our place. The electoral process helps prop up this myth. We need to convince people that the power is in our hands already and that we can have as much freedom as we are willing to reach out and grasp. When large numbers of working class people choose to defy the law - and so the government - its supposed power disintegrates before our eyes.
So it is this analysis of where power lies that leads us anarchists to look to methods unique in the political sphere. Let me now say a little more about the anarchist alternative.
Direct action is any form of action that people decide upon and organise themselves. It is based on their own collective strength and does not involve intermediaries to act for them. Direct action can be used for two reasons.
The first is that by using direct action we can force politicians to respect the wishes of the people. For example, if a government or boss tries to limit free speech, then anarchists would try to encourage a free speech fight to break the laws in question until such time as they were revoked. If a government or landlord refuses to limit rent increases or improve safety requirements for accommodation, anarchists would organise squats and rent strikes. In the case of environmental destruction, anarchists would support and encourage attempts at halting the damage by mass trespassing on sites, blocking the routes of developments (such as the M11 link road a stone's throw from here) and so on. If a boss refuses to introduce an 8 hour day, then workers should go on strike or go slow or just stop working after 8 hours. Unlike laws, the boss cannot ignore direct action (e.g. law - minimum wage - pizza hut; direct action - railway station).
Similarly, strikes combined with social protest would be effective means of stopping authoritarian laws being passed. And of course collective non-payment of taxes would ensure the end of unpopular government decisions. Again the example of the poll tax rebellion in the UK in the late 1980s shows the power of such direct action. The government could happily handle hours of speeches by opposition politicians but they could not ignore social protest (and we must add that the Labour Party which claimed to oppose the tax happily let the councils controlled by them introduce the tax and arrest non-payers).
In this way, by encouraging social protest, any government would think twice before pursuing authoritarian, destructive and unpopular policies. In the final analysis, governments can and will ignore the talk of opposition politicians, but they cannot ignore social direct action for very long.
The second reason we anarchists believe in direct action goes way beyond wanting to influence the behaviour of politicians and bosses who we don't see as particularly relevant anyway. It is rooted in our desire to rid the world of these parasites altogether!
To do this necessitates a social revolution that must involve the participation of the mass of people who are to share in the fruits of the freedom it brings. How are we to get to this situation, where millions of people the world over fight to overthrow their oppressors if all we do is encourage people to go cap in hand to politicians for a few more grains of liberty as social reformers and parliamentarians would have us do.
So we anarchists argue for direct action because each time people use it they are building the confidence, class conciousness, trust in others and practical skills which are necessary for the revolutionary struggle. We in the Anarchist Federation hope to play our part in building a Culture of Resistance amongst working class people. By this we mean the development of both social spaces and general attitudes of anti-capitalist combativity. Expressions of this are already present all around us, for example the already huge but gladly ever increasing hatred of the police, the increase in wildcat as opposed to union controlled strikes, the anti-capitalist demonstrations from the City of London, to Seattle, to Prague, to Quebec and beyond.
And on the subject of anti-capitalism, while these large and vibrant demonstrations against the big nobs meeting up to refine the rules of global capitalism are essential (as well as good fun), we need a movement that runs deeper and is more relevant to people's everyday experiences than this. It is great that the world's 'democratic' leaders can only meet up when protected from demonstrators by armoured vehicles and rows and rows of riot police. It shows them up for what they are. However, the message is only being transmitted through the media that they control. We need to create our own media with our own agenda and distribute it as widely as possible where we live and work. This is what we in the AF are doing with our publications.
In our communities we need anarchist groups, that is groups of militants which act autonomously while being federated to a wider organisation, that spread ideas of working class self organisation and revolution, while at the same time participating in struggles alongside others as equals.
And what about at work? The recent postal workers strike, which I mentioned earlier showed up yet again the disgraceful, reactionary role of the trade unions. The strike started and spread independently of the Communication Workers Union and any self proclaimed radical political party. (The strike was self organised, wildcat, illegal and generally speaking a shining example of direct action. Although our posties aren't anarchists in name, they seem to be in nature.)
The CWU on the other hand didn't even try to sound like they were on the strikers' side. Instead they were racing with Royal Mail's management to be the first to let everyone know that they regretted the strike and wanted to see everyone back at work. Their whole attitude was that the strike had happened because something had gone wrong in the company's operations. Nothing about anything being wrong with the current economic and political system. Nothing about how through striking working class people are acting in one of the few humane ways it is possible to act under capitalism, lifting themselves from the life consuming everyday grind and actually feel something real, something meaningful and true.
Maybe the energy and enthusiasm of the strikers would not have been diverted so easily, if at all, if there had been a network of revolutionaries in the workers ranks. Such a network would fight against the calming influence of the unions and for the continuation and widening of the strike by appealing directly to other workers. In our workplaces, as the screw is tightened more and more on us, and the unions do less and less for us, there has never been a greater need for groupings of rebels who co-ordinate with others in the same industry or region, outside of the defunct and decaying institutions of the past.
In exactly one week's time we have two choices. We can either continue with (or try to re-invent) the old politics of the past, the irrelevant party games in Westminster which never have and never will mean anything to me. Or, we can take a bold step, we can look for a new approach where we all work together as equals, with political purpose and direction, based on lessons from struggles in the past and hopes and dreams of freedom in the future. If you choose the second option then sooner or later I'm sure our paths will cross, because anarchy is the only other way.
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