beautiful monsters

Blogapalooza Part 1

Giles wrote this piece, then he passed it on to Iona who wrote this piece, and she passed it on to me and I wrote the piece below, without having seen the original piece by Giles. Confused yet? Two more instalments of Blogapalooza coming later in the week.

I am not, nor have I ever been a communist

But I have been known to hand out pamphlets on May Day.

When I first moved to Wellington, I met a woman who claimed to be an anarchist. I thought she was incredibly spunky, and the way she put it, anarchism seemed pretty cool too. I decided to do some research, and (being the earnest little first year that I was) went off to the library and checked out some huge volumes on political theory.

Then, by chance, I stumbled across the Freedom Shop. It wasn’t open, but there was a flatmate wanted notice in the window. "Queer friendly, child friendly vegan wanted for anarchist flat in Newtown." Aha, I thought, living with them must be an easier way to learn about anarchism than reading thick heavy dusty books.

In retrospect, I can’t believe they let me move in. It must have been a bad time for finding a flatmate. I spent the first couple of weeks trying to work out who the queer one was. Then I spent the next couple of weeks trying to work out how many people actually lived in the flat.

Within days of moving in I was painting cardboard placards for May Day. I still wasn’t sure exactly what it was all about, so I went back to the freedom shop and scoured the pamphlets for potential slogans. I didn’t want to say anything silly or Wrong. The placards floated around for a couple of years. One said "Refuse, Rebel, Resist," or words to that effect. Another had a picture of a Ronald McDonald skull, saying "Hey kids, would you like lies with that?"

Mayday was great, I had heaps of fun. I helped make vegan burgers with Food Not Bombs, I got to wear silly clothes and shout a lot, and one year I got to climb up the bucket fountain, which was lovely and wet on a sunny day.

*

Then there was the time they had Punk Fest outside my bedroom the weekend before exams.

Well, actually Punk Fest was held in a hall across the road from our house, but most of the punks in the country (and some from other countries) were camped out in our backyard. They tramped backwards and forwards through our flat a lot.

The first night I tried to study with earplugs in. Strange guys kept wandering into my room. A couple of the bands played extra gigs in our living room. And I didn’t know what those Australian guys in the kitchen were doing with that white powder…

The second night I gave up. I pushed a chest of drawers against the door so no one could get into my room, climbed out the window, went across the road to the hall and got ridiculously drunk. Like, the mosh pit seemed a really good place to lie down. My flatmate had to carry me home and throw me through the window.

*

"One day it may be unnecessary to begin every piece of writing on the subject of anarchism by pointing out that anarchism is not about violence and chaos, but about organisation and cooperation."
- Sam Buchanan

I’ve heard different definitions of anarchism from different people, but most agree that it is about freedom from Authority. No states, no police, no monarchies, no authoritarian gods. Everyone should be involved in making decisions that they will be affected by. Anarchists are opposed to the use of force, coercion, authority and hierarchy, so it follows that an anarchist society would be free from sexism and heterosexism and racism and other isms.

*

If I label myself at all I call myself a queer-eco-anarcha-feminist-vegetarian-pacifist.

I’m sick of oppressive power politics. I’m sick of economic globalisation and sweatshops and nasty transnational corporations. I’m sick of environmental destruction. I’m sick of wars. The way I see it, the world is pretty messed up. Anarchy has got to be an improvement.

*

It didn’t always work out in our flat. There were times when the chores were not exactly communal, and when people made decisions without consulting others. But most of the time we treated each other with respect, shared responsibilities and discussed strategies for effective civil disobedience. I had fun there. And I learnt a helluva lot.

Posted by Fionnaigh at March 23, 2003 12:33 AM