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Anarchists not just for destruction anymore

Updated:Wed,Jul2512:00PMEDT

By Jeff Murray
The Pitt News
U. Pittsburgh

(U-WIRE) PITTSBURGH -- In light of the anti-globalization riots during this week's Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy, during which Carlo Giuliani, 23, was killed by a gunshot to the head, I feel obligated to defend my fellow anarchists. Mind you, I don't feel the need to defend the violence, which has been almost exclusively attributed to anarchist groups, but the validity of their arguments against corporate globalization.
Now, I'm not what you might imagine an anarchist to be. My body is noticeably lacking any tattoos, I lack body piercings (though I've had my ear pierced several times, I've never managed to prevent the hole from closing) and I don't wear black on a daily basis.
If this conflicts with the image that comes to mind of an anarchist, I am willing to bet that your perception of their political and economic views fall conveniently into the media-manufactured stereotypes as well.
Countless times last weekend I heard news commentators refer to anarchists as being anti-democratic, anti-capitalist and bent on instigating violence. Two out of the three are simply incorrect labels, and one is correct but misinterpreted.
Anarchists are anti-authoritarian, not anti-democratic. They know and fear that globalization is being spearheaded by anti-democratic organizations like the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
These international governing bodies are the anti-democratic forces in the globalization debate, not the anarchists. They have not a single popularly elected official within them, their meetings are not subject to media access and they are controlled mainly by top-level executives from international corporations who have the convenient responsibility of policing themselves.
Anarchists are anti-capitalist, but not in the same sense as the hard-line communists who frequented this and like protests in Seattle, Quebec and Prague, Czech Republic. While they share a commitment to end the exploitation of the proletariat with communists, they do not share a remotely similar view of how to remedy the situation.
Communists seek a centralized, authoritarian government to control the means of production, a plan that anarchists deride for being more oppressive than the current capitalistic alternative.
Anarchists are in fact the true libertarians in the tradition of the ideals -- if not the outcomes -- of the French and American Revolutions. As Max Stirner once said, "By abolishing all private property communism makes me even more dependent on others, on the generality or totality (of society), and, in spite of its attacks on the State, it intends to establish its own State ... a state of affairs which paralyzes my freedom to act and exerts sovereign authority over me."
Thus we learn that the anarchist is neither anti-capitalist in the conventional Cold War-era sense nor protectionist as President George W. Bush would have Americans believe.
One can hardly seek protectionist policies when one refuses to accept the sovereignty of the state in the first place.
Finally, anarchists are, generally speaking, pacifists. They have usually been the most vocal in the anti-war movements of the last 30 years. They believe in peaceful coexistence as both a means and an end. The non-linguistics works of Noam Chomsky, perhaps America's most prominent anarchist thinker (not a leader, as there is no anarchist leadership), have exposed America's support of oppressive authoritarian regimes in South and Central America and the subsequent use of the national media to "manufacture consent" for such activities.
Anarchists are also at the forefront of opposition to police brutality and the prison-industrial complex.
I cannot argue that some self-proclaimed anarchists have instigated violence during the last several major globalization protests. Just as the anarchists only make up a small fraction of the 100,000 protesters in Genoa, only a small fraction of anarchists, if they could even be called such, would condone violent action. Most attend these protests with the hope that they can spread their message via peaceful means.
The leaders of the G-8 are the real enemies of anarchists, not the underpaid and undertrained police forces who are assembled to keep even peaceful protesters (i.e. the people) from letting their elected officials know their opinion on globalization.

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