A-Infos (en) Freedom 6324 Dec. 14, 2002 - What anarchism means to me

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Anarchism for me is the affirmation of all life, and this suggests
that we should enjoy life and help others - in the very widest
sense and in varying degrees - also to enjoy life. I am therefore
against anything that diminishes life on earth - war, violence,
exploitation, oppression, injustice and the degradation of the
natural world. Anarchism for me means learning from our
forebears, which does not entail the silly idea that by doing so we
are worshipping our ancestors. Like Ayi Kwei Armah, I think the
present is where we get lost "if we forget our past and have no
vision of the future".
To me, anarchism means everything from digging my allotment to
protesting against capitalism and war, and entails encouraging
and supporting all forms of social life that help the realisation of
those slogans of the French Revolution, liberty, equality and
fraternity (which, to me, are intrinsically linked). I thus support
all forms of anarchism, although personally I am a bit of a recluse
and have little in common with the mystics, egoists, nihilists,
terrorists - poetic or otherwise - and anarcho-capitalists.
Like the late Nicolas Walter, I do not see the main types of
anarchism as necessarily opposed, for (as he wrote in his book
About Anarchism) "in our private lives we are individualists,
doing our own things and choosing our own companions and
friends for personal reasons; in our social lives we are mutualists,
making free arrangements with each other and giving what we
have and getting what we need by equal exchanges with each
other; in our working lives we would mostly be collectivists,
joining colleagues in producing for the common good; in the
management of work we would mostly be syndicalists, joining our
colleagues in deciding how the job should be done;  in our
political lives we would mostly be communists, joining our
neighbours in deciding how the community should be run." But
this political philosophy needs to be combined with an ecological
sensibility.
Brian Morris

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