This past weekend I attended the North American Anarchist Conference, held at Steelworkers Hall in Toronto. While not fully aligning myself as an Anarchist, I believe in many of their principles and willingly choose to live out many of their alternative economy and self-subsisting community principles on a day to day basis.
There was much talk about being arrested, being spurred on by anger and "fuck the state" mentality that came from Punk music and culture, and overall there was a spirit of anger and frustration and injustice that fuelled most people in the room that day, it seemed.
All the while, my best friend Mark and I sat in the crowd making stickers that said things like "talk about your feelings" (which i put on the back of a firetruck later) and "bring snacks", "take your tupperware" and "Romance yourself", which we then put up around the neighbourhood.
I realized in that moment that I was coming from a distinctly different perspective than many of my peers in the room that day. I was not living my anarchist principles in an attempt to smash the state or due to my hatred of law enforcement. This is, I know, in part because I have lived in a privileged position of never having negative confrontational situations with cops, but even so, I COULD decide to align myself with the anger of others who have, and find it does not lead to healthy perspectives overall.
Instead, I willingly choose to live my life out of a love and joy of community, REAL food, mental and emotional well being and honest and real enjoyment of the natural world. These things lead me to a life that is similar to those that align as anarchists, but without the anger.
For those who are fuelled by anger and outrage, this might seem like naivety, but to them I would say that anyone who has ever done beautiful, unprecedented, society-altering things in the world have always been thought to be naive, no? Despite the pain and the suffering and the injustice and the cops who live their lives also fuelled by anger, there must be those who love with reckless naive abandon and who force beauty into a world that is seeking to destroy it on all fronts.
Why not leave the hatred, the fear, the loathing that eats one from the inside out until you are just a shell of a person, for the cops and the border guards?
I know I am not the only one who feels this, but I wish more of us could live out of love, which sometimes facilitates anger, but more often dissolves it.
To hold one another's hands, we have to unclench our fists first.
In solidarity,
In solidarity,
Natalie
It might be helpful to dissolve the dichotomies involved. You have endless hands for fists and holding. What becomes dangerous in resisting anger is a Neo-Liberalism of isolated love. When the oil baron's pipelines are bombed he might think, "Can't we all just get along," as his heart beams for his direct family, community, or even country. We're all endlessly naive, but to embrace that with reckless abandon is to abandon critique and justice. How easily you would slip into love for hate, as a spoke on the Romantic sublime bike you ride. The frustration with certain (maybe all?) cops is that they have chosen to serve the interests of the law instead of the interests of love. Is this much different than working for an awful corporation? Fine lines everywhere. You can toss yourself into these lines, dancing through blind hate while still maintaining a critical eye on actions (your own and others). As awful as it sounds, we must always ask, "In solidarity with who?" Love for all who do not attempt to stifle love for all. Guidance for those who stifle unconsciously. Every moment is a chance to pass this test. When the blood boils it can power love.
ReplyDeleteDPC
It's efficient to use both anger and joy as tactics, and sometimes at the same time! They're both great motivational tools and when issues aren't as black and white as we want them to be, they can be the perfect one-two-punch. Simply, in my mind, it is only right that when an oppressor needs to be oppressed we use anger to end his madness but when the community around him needs to heal from his oppression, we use hug-love-joy! As much as I want it to be, activism is not that simple though. Sometimes the oppressor is the community so you must be careful and so I agree with you on some points!
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm saying that strategies should be contextual and require both critical thought and consent from the people you are working with and also the people of the community you are trying to affect. Collective anger can be a force, it can also be a farce. Collective love can result in STDs but it can also unbreak a broken heart!
The main-stream media has dichotomitized anger and love but we don’t have to ascribe to it’s evening-news-simplicity syndrome. Maybe it's naivety but I believe that we need to firebomb and at the same time firebomb with the warmth of our hearts. Nothing is as simple as Peter Mansbridge wants it to be and nothing that's worth it is easy.
And, no, to me it doesn't make sense to walk around angry all day and for the most part I share your frustration and get equally angered by the quick and easy decision to resort to anger. I think that being an anarchist is a sexy idea and, for the most part, there are lots of young-ones who just want to jump on the poly-amory, state-hating, non-batheing train. But, hey, at least they're not sedated with McDonalds in their bellies! We all use different coping mechanisms and it takes time, success and failure to find your niche tactic or philosophy.
Personally, I don’t ascribe to any because as I said above, it’s all contextual and it’s futile to be an ‘ism’. When you ascribe to something, you then find yourself spending endless hours defending yourself as that ‘ism’ and it quickly changes when the tide or market does!
Saying all that blah blah blah, I think, as activists, regardless of the dichotomies, tactics and philosophies, we simply need to create spaces for others to use and then see what happens. Sometimes it's just awesome to see a somewhat-organized conference with peeps kicking it together.
Thank you for creating a space for me to express my anger for those money-sucking, enviro-destroying, baby-eating capitalists and also to express my love for you, a lovely, thought-provoking, splendor of a woman! Love and super kisses.
Nice post.
ReplyDeleteI too think that anger and joy can both flow out of a reciprocal relationship with love. Sometimes love causes us to rejoice while other times it may result in anger. Likewise, both joy and anger can lead to a deeper love of others.
You're right to note, though, that it is love that will/has change/d the world.
Grace and peace.
JT.