There’s A Problem with Anarchist Media

> The naming of names

Yes, I found it difficult to follow the argument without the writer giving examples of who they're talking about. Why hold back?

i don't know for sure but shortly after reading the piece on anews i saw an announcement for a new ak book edited by Shane Burley called "No Pasarán!" 

it has contributions from a lot of "certain antifascist researchers" including Alexander Reid Ross. 

again, not sure if Nerd Teacher was referring to this, it does fit the bill.

I think that this whole "anti fascist" paradigm just allows people to bludgeon anarchists and our fellow travelers. See how its swirling waves have crammed everyone onto the DNC lifeboat, in North America. Then it is just a matter of pushing us off, "into the sea".

You don't need to be "antifascist" to attack fascism. In fact, you might just have to part ways with such a framework, in order to attack the real extant power structures which are drowning us. It is not just fascism which is of concern to people like us, unfortunately, and it is not going to be this vertically defined "antifascism" which buoys us to safety either. And I say this as someone who is clearly marked for death by the fascists of every era.

Anyway, this endless bickering of who is or isn't a fascist, is or isn't anarchist, is or isn't legitimate or whatever, is just focusing on status. I have no time for this, nor should any of you. It doesn't matter what status or label someone can or can't claim, because just because some is part of one of these groups or not, does not define how we should interact with them. Rather, it is what people do and embody, which is actually relevant, and that is an ever-changing thing. Jousting like this is just a feudal revival; leave such for the feud-alists.

That said, I think it is entirely evident which people and groups are levying the kind of divisive rhetoric which benefits feud-alism and, in the course of its consequences, the deep state which lines their pockets.

Control over the anarchist niche, is essential to it continuing to be niche overall. Meanwhile, the potential of our words and actions reverberates with the echoes felt in a culture that is daily becoming more caustic to exploiters and abusers of all kinds. The days of reckoning approach, sooner than we will expect it to. It is the consequence of our affinity that we do not even believe it possible. Such is the reason for the stoking of feuds in our spaces, by people with obvious connections to the fragile system of policing. To them: Beware our coming!

[This is a reply from Nerd Teacher that was shared with Rocinante over the Fediverse. The comment is being reposted here by Rocinante with permission from Nerd Teacher.]

[8 October 2022]

First, I'm just going to say that a lot of this is to maybe help explain and provide context. Perhaps it's still vague, but I have a lot of feelings about people requiring specifics, naming names, etc. I think that it doesn't necessarily help to reflect upon situations. For some people, it might help them better visualise it. I'm not one of those people.

I didn't want my original writing to act as an inherent call-out that could focus on one group. I wanted people to reflect upon the existence of those actions in their own spaces (and have also encountered those who also see this and have discussed their examples with me). I've also had people ask me which groups I think do things best, what I like about them, and what's wrong with specific outfits. As with anything, I'm just going to state that: I don't think everything is inherently bad. To perceive something as having a problem doesn't mean it's forever mired in that issue; it can change. There are often many solutions.

This is also why I don't feel the need to single out any one organisation. If it's happening a lot (and from my interactions, I think it's happening enough to at least be of note), it's simple enough to think about our own context.

I did genuinely appreciate the comment (even if there's a point where I say I don't understand the context—I try to presume best case scenarios, but sometimes I don't always read tone the way someone has intended). It was well-thought out and did prompt me to think about some of the things you mentioned. I only hope that I was able to better clarify where I'm coming from in some areas, in addition to what I wrote before. And if this is slightly meandering, I apologise.

But here's some more of my own context. I hope it makes sense and helps... And that, should you want to, we can keep going back and forth.

-n

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With regards to specifics, I feel like it would undermine this over time and place it within a position I didn't want for it to have. I notice that there are a lot of people who seek out information to use against places, to really frame them through lenses of good and bad. With few exceptions, I don't think anything fits so neatly into either category.

Nonetheless, I concede that providing specific examples could've helped people to envision most of what was meant. It probably would've pre-empted the question about "Are they unnamed because..."

And my answer to that is a resounding 'no'. It's not the power of the organisation that I find troublesome, though I do think they hold a lot of influence.

There are some of us who tend to write in generalities to avoid situations that we've already encountered before because we know they can happen. These can be situations where a Recognisably Named person has decided we're "trying to cancel them" if we engage them in the mildest of critique; they can be situations where we've already been targeted and had everything we've done combed through for anything at all. Because of this, we know that writing in generality can help us retain what voice we have remaining.

It's a mixture of factors, though I understand if it gives something an air of any single organisation being "too powerful." That's really not my intention.

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"Who are these anarchist media houses set to rule them all?"

It's not that I think there's any one place set to rule them all; it's that I think there are those that—either by accident/chance or intention—are looked up to as The Model.

And it's kind of true.

Living where I do (which is not in any of the Anglophone countries), I often meet a lot of people who want to replicate the systems they see within the Anglosphere regardless of how successful they were. This might colour a lot of my views, especially because I can see how some of these behaviours don't really support what's needed (not because I know better! but because I have some experience in seeing how some things can work culturally, while others tend not to because they're not culturally relevant).

Other times, it feels like information is lacking. For local issues, it feels like we all know what's happening elsewhere but are struggling to know what's happening outside our own doors. Are we working on the latter part? Yes. But it's slow-going, and it continuously has to work against issues and structures that permeate here *from* the Anglosphere.

Like where we organise. Facebook is "the social network" here (and the local mainstream news even calls it as such), but we're also an area that is especially prone to many of the issues on Facebook that people have read about. There are only 5m people here, and it's a small language group; it's easy to hit with misinfo, harassment, etc. and disrupt a lot of events. Our organising leaves a lot to be desired. (Side complaint: It also doesn't help that a lot of people *leave* and go to more "radical" cities. That's also an issue.)

People here tend to look outward, too. Not just for cues of actions for solidarity but who or what to include in our own actions, and it runs along lines of traditional issues that we haven't adequately dealt with. For example, in 2020, we held a solidarity protest for BLM (like many other cities); it was disappointing and infuriating because, while Black people are often victims of police brutality here, it was clear that all of the cues came from *outward* information. There was absolutely zero inclusion or mention of Roma people (who statistically suffer the most from police brutality and excessive militarisation... something which only increased in 2020 in response to COVID).

It was also a movement co-opted here for performance's sake. Literally. Performers literally jumped on stage (as soon as we got to the stage) and told the crowd that they should "talk to the police nearby" if they felt unsafe. To say it was obtuse would be polite. (That is, btw, one of the many examples I can draw from with regards to "internationalism" being superficial among movement spaces. This was not a purely anarchist problem, but it was most certainly a problem that resulted from local failures in anarchist organising. It was also a major gap in standing in solidarity with marginalised peoples.)

It's something else I see when people here talk about racism. There's an outward view. Not long ago, the vaguely "leftist" news outlet here (which annoyingly moved towards working *with the city government* but is also where "radical" "anarchists" publish works) had a whole issue about racism, focusing on the words of James Baldwin. Never once did they mention the Roma and their treatment where we live; all of their information came from the US, making zero parallels to anything happening here. It *felt* very US-centric.

While I think it's important and good for people to study his works (among others), I live in contexts that always look outward. They choose to obfuscate their problems behind those of the somewhere else instead of look them square in the eye. Even anarchists.

This is a constant and not just where I currently live. And while people here are responsible for their inaction, I think it's also part of a cycle; it's one part US hegemony mixed with another part nationalistic undertones, creating something truly abhorrent.

That's kind of the same feeling I also get from a lot of what's supported and recommended here in terms of anarchist publications and information. I know so much of what's happening in Western Europe and the Anglosphere with ease, but I almost never know what's happening outside my own door (and that's not even for lack of trying). It's so much easier to know what's going on in places far from me like LA or Bristol, but it's harder to consistently know what's up in places like Brno or Košice. And that's actually a major feeling I've encountered from others around me. (One that some of us are trying to figure out how to deal with.)

It's also one of the issues that I keep seeing (and friends elsewhere keep mentioning). We see it in *who* groups choose to read in book clubs, *who* they choose to invite for events, *what* tactics they cling to... It's really hard to escape that feeling.

(I know this part of my response is messy, but so are my thoughts at the moment. Let me know if I need to clarify or make it clear what the connection is.)

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I'm just going to state plainly that I've never bought into the "death of print." (I've worked in or with too many school libraries to hold that idea, and I also live somewhere that really likes physical things over digital ones.) I'm just not entirely understanding why that was brought up (other than to build historical context? I think?). Anarchist media, as all others have, has followed similar changes and moves between different types of media (or mixing them).

Genuinely, I think more of this can be done and there are so many channels where it could be better supported.

This isn't me taking umbridge with anything. Just me being confused about the way it's mentioned!

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Re: Not stepping out of comfort zone: "How true is this?"

I think it's worth recognising that some of us see it less than others. There are groups who make attempts to talk to people within the contexts: The Final Straw is one specific group putting out media that I would be happy to point at as actually engaging with a whole range of people, contexts, and situations. Freedom Press is another that genuinely makes attempts to talk to people outside of their area. I also think some of what the Czech AFed has published has been quite interesting, too! And there's a project in Poland whose name is escaping me at the moment that's been pretty intense in interacting with others, and that's awesome.

I also see a bit more exploration in shops *outside* the Anglosphere because they tend to have the space to do so more often. But it goes back to what I said previously: There's also a huge mixture of these shops mimicking and following those in the Anglosphere because that's widely available (and perceived as successful in reaching people—which has produced mixed results), some have also reached out to larger orgs elsewhere to help get some attention on things and received little response (some have since shuttered), and a lot of people around me see internationalism (when mentioned by Western Europeans and folks in the Anglosphere) as something that is mostly superficial.

But I think most people just choose to not take risks because... a lot of us are still in that paradigm around wasting resources. I say this because I've worked with a lot of groups who use this as their excuse to not do certain things but to continue doing projects that maintain the status quo (e.g., "we can use our space to do weekly language exchanges for migrants to help integrate them here and learn other languages" was an idea that I've floated to a number of groups who "have no resources" but somehow do if it means supporting liberal demonstrations and only if *citizens* ask).

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"anarchists being terrible to other anarchists"

This is a phrase that I have question because, honestly, there's a range. And I'm going to point out that I'm coming at this from the perspective of a nonbinary person who is usually perceived (and treated) as female and as someone who is a migrant. Because that colours a lot of my experiences, especially in a range of anarchist scenes.

And because I'm not in the mood to name names and give specifics (in this instance, it's my own choice), I will say that I have seen a number of people run out of anarchist organisations. Not just for "anarchists being terrible to other anarchists" but for people supporting bigots and abusers over their victims. (I implore people to spend some time reading anarcha-feminists because we've been talking about this for ages. Queer anarchists talk about this all the time. Racialised anarchists have discussed it at length.)

It shouldn't be a surprise that the structures on the outside are still at play inside, and I think this is largely because there is a number of people who will proudly proclaim to be anarchist but do little to investigate and come to terms with the hierarchies they grew up with (especially if they benefitted from them). This has been true for centuries (we even see this in the ways that the anarchists of the First International split with each other, if we need some historical backing—hell, we can look to a more modern example of the BRRN splitting in 2019). I have been run out of anarchist groups because they decided to support transphobic members; I have willingly left one behind when it refused to help support the needs of refugees because they "didn't have the resources" (but suddenly did for citizen members).

Anarchists aren't just terrible to each other for no reason, and that's kind of what I feel like that phrase indicates... That we're just awful to each other because we can be, and it's the nature of existence to be that way. I disagree (and I even treat the internet in the same way—I don't think we should expect people be nasty just because that's what has been encouraged). I think a large part of it is that many of us simply are not unlearning as much as we claim we are. (I don't claim to be perfect, either.)

So I think it's a bit unfair to say that anarchists won't do things just because other anarchists "are terrible" to them, and it also obscures the issues that keep happening and are so rarely dealt with. It also becomes an excuse people will hold to not change and to disengage with criticism (even that which is written in generalities), and I often see people who do have a lot of influence using it in this way.

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"Reading this is disturbing because in my own experience within the anarchist media, this internationalism and solidarity across the world with other anarchists has always been one of main aspects."

I kind of like that this is disturbing because I think maybe that means it kind of hit a note somewhere? Personally. But I think it's also important to point out about how internationalism is discussed and shown: I say it because I'm not in North America or the UK. I do not live in the Anglosphere. While I did grow up in the US, it's not my home (nor has it been for a very long time). I don't usually spend much of my offline time with people from the United States, and even my online time tends to be talking to people who aren't from the US. I say this to make it kind of clear what my environment looks like.

As a result, though, I tend to see a different side of things. And I get to be asked questions that have shifted and continue to alter my views on this, like "Why do organisations in the US demand so much attention but give so little back in return?" (whether they intend to or not) or "Why dies their media only focus on us when we're either doing something really right or really wrong?" (legitimate question, regardless of media) or "Is anyone actually curious about anything we're doing here?" (and I can't really answer that).

Whether or not the solidarity done *here* is done *well* (as discussed with the aforementioned mess of a BLM demonstration), there are people here who *do* genuinely want to stand in solidarity with people in the US and make attempts to do so. But, while they keep doing that because many people do want to do the right thing, they do see that the opposite is less often true (not that they expect it, they just *hope* to see that support when they're trying to ask for help).

This isn't an uncommon view outside of the US (or the rest of the Anglosphere... or Western Europe).

And I get it because even I kind of feel like a lot of our relationships are transactional rather than representing genuine solidarity. I also get it because the way they talk about how people in the US view them is the way that I, growing up, talked about people in NY and CA; they only seemed to care about the middle of the country when either something amazing was happening or something shitty was going on. (We still see this to an extent in the North/South divide on the way people in the North talk about people in the South. Admittedly, this is usually a much more liberal framing. But it's still pretty pervasive.)

It's also been alarming to watching some of the AFeds with major follower counts supporting overtly fascist rallies because they're "against the government" without even looking into them (events like the right-wing Canadian trucker thing, the protesting done by wealthy farmers in either or both the Netherlands or/and Italy, and the Czechia First Rally that was organised by literal fascists). Because we all keep keep seeing it, we tend to have questions (like... did anyone talk to people in those places to find out what was really happening before they spoke in support of them?).

It's also been a huge part of what's happened around Ukraine, too. This is also why I can say that I appreciate some of the reporting by Freedom Press (who gets translated interviews with UA anarchists). And I've also seen the Czech AFed trying to help balance some of the info (especially in response to the Italian one pushing for UA to negotiate for peace and to become pacificists? which sounded vaguely like they were stolen by tankies). But I don't know how much traction they're getting when I haven't really seen anything published including them, their interviews, or their responses... because they typically write and post in Czech.

And I hate to say it, but a lot of monolingual English-speakers generally will skip over anything that doesn't have *any* English at all. Even when the "translate" option is a click or two away.

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"Perhaps, part of the sentiment expressed here by the author is due to the fact of the globalization of commerce and how incredibly expensive it is to do international distroism to all the places one would love to share things."

Actually! I hadn't really thought of this, so I'm glad you brought it up because it really should've been something I thought more about.

I think my perspective is actually sort of the reverse: some of these things exist or people who are connected to them exist, so why keep getting the same few people to talk about places or events.

Like, I'm not saying we should silence people from talking about things. But I would like to see things that feel... less tokenistic. Across the board.

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"The year of their incredible popularity and moment has passed, but the book deals, mainstream media articles, and supportive social media posts from all over continue into the anarchist echo-chamber.

I think this careerism of some self-styled anarchist writers is one of the things that continually leaves a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to writing and publishing, especially with those close to the field of academics."

I think you're more optimistic than I am ("the moment has passed), but I effectively agree with this.

I also tend to notice this in the areas that I'm really interested in. I see the same few people editing anthologies about care work or anarcha-feminism (to the point where I've seen the *same person* but with a *different press house* doing yet another volume... and almost all their already published volumes have essays that are predominantly by most of the same people). I've definitely seen the same one person constantly writing about the same one moment in anarchist pedagogy (Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, as I think I mentioned in the piece, is one of the only historical examples ever published... and there's really one major author).

And I think when I was writing that particular post, I had just finished Anarchists Against the Wall. Which was interesting and presented something uncommon, but I also found it peculiar that there was a focus on the Israeli side of things when so much of it was about struggling for Palestine; it left me confused about where Palestine was in its own struggle. And it made me wonder why I keep running head first into one of the names associated with that book but not much else. And while that's one example, it's something that I see in other ways.

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After the point of the above quote, I must admit I'm not sure about the tone or direction of what you mean? As in, I'm not sure if I'm being called an ass (I don't think so? I hope not?). I genuinely don't follow what's being said and how it's meant to be understood.

My inclination is to think it's aimed at me, and it sounds incredibly presumptuous. However, I'd rather ask for clarification instead of assume the worst.

hi nerd teacher!
a. i'm interested in how some of the things you talk about are publishing problems, not anarchist problems. (how does one get people to pay attention to some no-name author when people have limited time and want to have some idea of whether someone is worth taking the time to read, for example?) This is made more complicated by anarchists who want to write anonymously or under pen names, but it's only a matter of degree, not of type.
b. along a similar line, you're taking an anti-organizational stance, at least imo, which also has little to do with anarchists and more to do with organizations (and i agree with you, fwtw, that one would hope that anarchists would be less likely to fall prey to this kind of thinking, or lack thereof).

there's lots more to say, but don't want to write a wall of text. thanks for writing this stuff and (re)starting this conversation.