A-Infos (en) Article from the FAI (Iberian) Tierra y Libertad, #182 - Some considerations on politics (ca)

[Worker <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>]

 ________________________________________________
      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
    News about and of interest to anarchists
 http://ainfos.ca/ http://ainfos.ca/index24.html
 ________________________________________________

Often the word politics causes repudiation in the anarchist world, as it is
supposed that anarchism is a-politicism. Maybe it is necessary to explain
in what sense one uses the expressions politics and a-politicism. Clearly,
if politics stands for the conquest of State power, the anarchism
repudiates it. As an ideology that aims towards the complete liberty of the
individual and the elimination of whatever authority, the conquest of the
State is a goal that is clearly out of the anarchist proposals. But to
repudiate the State as domination instrument doesn’t
mean that anarchism repudiates power. Although it may
seem odd the anarchism has its concepts on power and government. For us
both items must be organised under an horizontal perspective. The government
must be totally democratic, and because of this, the power must rest within where it
originates: in the people and nowhere else than the people. One discards the
possibility of permanent intermediates in an anarchist society (that is,
parliamentarians). But the destruction of the capitalist system
cannot be produced overnight. This means, in a few hours one cannot
pass from the most horrendous system to the best of all the worlds.

Because of this, we adopt the Errico Malatesta approach:  for him the
social transformation must be gradual, creating sufficient organisms with
capacity to deconstruct in an effective and efficient way the ancient
institutions. This has no relation with the transitional state of the
proletariat dictatureship that the marxists advocate, as the anarchist
organisation is clearly a descentralized one and aiming at the destruction
of the State. While Marxism-leninism enhances the state institution,
anarchism debase it and make it disappear. Here stands the great difference
between authoritarian socialism and anti-authoritarian socialism. Its clear
that all those processes belong to a certain domain, politics.  So, we
anarchists, are political and we act in the politics e we are not afraid of
declaring this. Clearly we criticize politics but as a professional
institution. Here we diverge totally from Marx and Lenin who saw the
political parties as professional revolutionary institutions. For the
anarchists the revolution shouldn’t be led by professionals, but by the
people himself. The management as well, shouldn’t  be performed  by people
alien to the concerns of the people, because it would create an elitism
that conflicts with the political essence of anarchism. Anarchism is
organisation, and this is something that should be clearly understood. We
do not choose the random and that the things come as they may. This is not
anarchism, it is chaos and de-organisation. On the opposite, anarchism
follows a more efficient discipline that is the commitment from each
individual as a fundamental factor for the good living in society. The
imposition is negative. So the anarchist organisation is the most effective
and the one that has yields the best results in politics. Anarchism
is politics because it embodies a clear and bright option for
the new order in front of all other political currents. If some
choose a federal republic and others a state society with a nationalizing
carácter, we choose instead a society devoid of any authority principle and
organized from roots to the top through the free federation of individuals.
In the same way as the politics divides itself in branches and sectors, the
anarchism undertakes also tose debate and decision areas,
but making all the population take part in what is agreed. Some consider
that anarchism is not viable because everyone would have be in permanent
assembly, and they lie deliberately. Because the needs in my neighbourhoods
can only be known by my neighbours and me, and we can manage it in an
assembleist mode dividing each function. And in the general subjects like
education or healthcare there are common criteria that all the population
shares, so that through those we can work together. The
anarchist system is simple and rational, not as the capitalist and liberal
one, where the management decisions are imposed upon without consulting
tose who have to live with it. Politics is not meaning parliamentarism and
State, as economy doesn’t mean capitalism. We anarchists have our own
political and economy proposals, directed towards the true people’s power
and to socialism. For sure, the anarchism is a way of living and behaviour
but this has to do with the internal part of the ideology. As a movement it
is a political movement that fights for clear cut goals. Here in the Iberia
Peninsula our organisations fight for these aims. The CNT is a unions
confederation, but the FAI is a political organisation that struggles for
the above mentioned principles. This doesn’t mean that FAI should present
itself to any power instance. Rather the opposite, and the ones who think
in this way is not in the right place and must have misunderstood
anarchism. FAI must fight with it’s principles and tactics for the finality
it aims at, and this is out of question. This is why we repudiate any
reformist model in anarchism, like the libertarian municipalism and
currents that deform the essence and history of the anarchist movement like
the insurrecionalism. (on this subject concerning ideological deformation
it’s worth reading the polemics between Malatesta and Merlino recently
published in Malatesta’s book “Writings”).  Both are deviations from the
theory that we must fight against inside the movement. Some of these
positions repudiate the idea of work itself. Work is the only wealth that
exists and the anarchist ideology approves work as a necessary and
unavoidable element. What is to be eliminated is the wage-work, which
sustains the exploitation of man by man.
And finally would like to add another point, in which our politics differs
from theirs. One aspect that our politics has and which the others lack is
ethics. Without it, hardly can we progress in safety. Even if we have our
differences among each other, which exists in every organisation, we always
strive for consensus and we know how to work in perfect unity in the
difficult moments, because our affinity helps us to do this. In face of
complicated circumstances we always have an efficient outcome. It has been
shown in our position concerning war and in other instances. True and
sincere politics
is ethics and this only exists in anarchism. After all, we shouldn’t be
afraid to declare that our ideology is a political current, and if we act
accordingly, we have a neat advantage in a world so short of altruistic
ideals.
Julián Vadillo


*******
                       ********
       ****** The A-Infos News Service ******
      News about and of interest to anarchists
                       ******
  INFO: http://ainfos.ca/org http://ainfos.ca/org/faq.html
  HELP: a-infos-org@ainfos.ca
  SUBSCRIPTION: send mail to lists@ainfos.ca with command in
  body of mail "subscribe (or unsubscribe) listname your@address".

  Full list of list options at http://www.ainfos.ca/options.html