Lisa Insansa – The Colour Of Anarchy Is Black: Anarchism and Black Liberation [2021]
Study Guide: This is a short introduction to anarchism, published in A6 zine format as part of UK publisher Fem Press’s Political Pamphlets series. https://femzine.bigcartel.com/product/political-pamphlets-1-2-3
Source: Printed zine.
Anarchism’s guise is one of self indulgence, meaningless chaos and destruction, usually fronted by a white face clothed in a punk-y aesthetic. It’s a political ideology that has been thrown out by the “respected” right and left, clumsily branded as self-indulgent and frivolous. This narrative against anarchism is born from the rotten fruits of capitalist realism, bolstered up by the beam of state realism, which aims at bleaching a free and democratic future.
Socialism is a broad term, one that is usually overtaken by Marxist and specifically Marxist-Lenninist principles: principles that push for a vanguard party, transitional state and rule of the majority against the minority (dictatorship of the working class). Even looking up at groups (and individuals within them) such as the Black Panther Party as a means to an end inhibits real autonomy, clouded by ideas of looking up to others to fulfil revolution. Anarchists argue that all of those structures perpetuate hierarchy and justify control as a necessary step in the struggle of autonomy. As Bakunin – a Russian anarchist prominent to its founding theory – put it: “Upon this contradiction our polemic has come to a halt [Marxists] insist that only dictatorship (of course their own) can create freedom for the people. We reply that all dictatorship has no objective other than self-perpetuation, and that slavery is all it can generate and instill in the people who suffer it. Freedom can be created only by freedom.”
Whilst anarchists and Marxists agree on the elimination of capitalism and the wage slavery it invokes, there are sharp differences in the vision to get to a free society. Anarchists want an immediate abolition of the state and the hierarchies entangled within it. As white Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau express in their theory of the social contract, the state’s legitimacy is justified as a means to protect people’s rights – arguably concerning property – in exchange for giving up certain power to the state. It is put forward that the people consent – whether consciously or tacitly – to relinquishing some of their freedoms for the overall good of their survival, and at the point that this contract is disturbed by the state, the people should resist.
For Black people, this idea of a social contract does not bide with our experiences, something highlighted in Jamaican philosopher Charles W Mills theory of the Racial Contract. Mills argues that racism is central to the social contract. Mills argues that racism is central to the social contract and that the creation of the modern state was based on the subjugation of racialised peoples. He writes that what was established was in reality: “a racial polity, a racial state, and racial juridical system, where the status of whites and non-whites is clearly demarcated, whether by law or custom.”
With severe exclusion from participating in the state, comes fierce resistance to its apparatus. Historically, we have seen Black people reacting to their repression through typically anarchist anarchist means. For example, when the Windrush generation came to the UK to help rebuild the country in its post-war era, Black people were often refused access to banks and other resources. We often hear about policies of redlining in the US and sanctimoniously flag it off as an American problem, but similar practices were happening in the uk. This led Black communities to set up their own systems of finance through a lens of mutual aid, whereby they would support each other collectively (co-operatives)
Mutual aid is one principle of anarchism which is common amongst the spectrum of anarchist thought. However, like any other political ideology, anarchism comes in many forms, such as anarcho-communism, insurrectionary anarchism and egoist anarchism, amongst others. Some more common characteristics that spread across different anarchist schools of thought include:
Autonomy: reflecting one’s ability to make their own decisions without coercion by high bodies/institutions.
Decentralisation: pointing to an anti-statist approach where power is spread out in horizontal (non-hierarchical) structures.
Direct Action: meaning being proactive in resisting and tearing down the capitalist state. This can be violent or non-violent, as long as it disrupts. Many anarchists believe that these acts will encourage others to realise their own power and capabilities to resist (also known as propaganda of the deed), whilst also highlighting the feeble nature of the state.
Accountability: whereby people engage in open critique of each other in order to expel the exploitation of individual freedoms.
These principles are not exclusively white, however anarchism as a theory was created by white thinkers and is now very much entangled with white people.
However, we must understand the impact and relevance of Black people within this history, whether named as anarchism or not.
This is similar to the argument brought up in Black Marxism, a book by Black radical thinker Cedric J Robinson, which tells the history of Black resistance to capitalism and how this history needs to be valued in contributing to the overall history of socialism.
This single story narrative of socialism, and here specifically anarchism, obscures Black resistance, as stated above through the example of the Windrush generations set-up of anarchist systems, doubled with the bleaching of histories by a domineering Marxist narrative. In the African independence movements of the mid-20th century, statist movements dictated the story. When in reality, there were people advocating for a more communal structure, something that prominent Black anarchist Ashanti Alston points to in his pivotal speech Black Anarchism. For example, within the Zambian struggle for independence in the early 1960s, Black socialist state forces came up against an anti-statist liberation movement who were massacred by the newly formed Zambian independence government. This is not to overlook the incredible work of African socialist leaders such as Thomas Sankara, Amilcar Cabral and Patrice Lumumba (all assassinated), but rather interrogates the problems with centralised power especially conserving that African states were created by white imperialists in the interest of capitalist “enterprise” a.k.a. exploitation.
In our critique of centralised power, we should also call into question the way we approach political action or “activism”, which is too plagued by hierarchy.
Throughout our life, we have been programmed into behaviours of reliance, moulding us into beings that are always looking up to someone to solve our problems. This debilitation is a direct product of the capitalist system which creates and perpetuates teacher–student/boss-worker/state-subject dynamics , geared into making us unable to fight against injustice. We must obliterate this saviour mentality and acknowledge the capability within ourselves. In a practical and relevant sense, we need to stop idolising speakers at protests or “revolutionary leaders” but instead realise that every single one of us is capable of being a powerful disruptor of this system. Down with the vanguard, up with the people.
As Black people, we must be the drivers of our liberation. This means acknowledging that the overbearingly white anarchist movement holds limitations in dealing with, and even seeing, the manifestations of white supremacy. Black people can often get held back in having to deal with the problems of already established liberation movements. Instead of putting in all of our energy to change this, we must recognise our power and work on achieving true liberation, joining with other people (affinity groups) who share the idea that obliterating capitalism entails the eradication of all oppressive structures, including white supremacy.
In organising for this future, we have to engage in direct disruptive action that takes power away from the state, such as the squatting movement, strike, boycotts – including tax boycotts – and re-education outside of the state. Exposing the vulnerabilities of this system will bring us closer to breaking it and allow others to realise their power to free themselves.
There will never be a utopia but we can have a future that runs in a more mutually beneficial way, a future that does not trod on the backs of others to achieve its goals and which will not stay stagnant, but will move as we make decisions to create a more fitting world for us.
As the Black surrealist movement believes: if we can dream about liberation, we can push for it.
Let’s be the maroons of today.