Quotes from the article:
I lauded the anarchists for their absence from the struggle against gentrification and landlords, even as I heard about the squat evictions and the solidarity attacks that followed, even as I walked through the neighborhoods where a creative and hostile graffiti culture kept the developers at bay. I made tired jokes about vegan burritos, even as the food distribution centers and groups multiplied across the city without needing the direction of any central committee.
I used to treat organizing like a try-hard student treats a group project. Other radicals’ ideas, activity and efforts were only Good if they were useful to whatever campaign I was working on. My friends helped out here and there, but they lacked commitment to the organization and would fail to return to meetings after completing the project they helped with.
I'm glad this person reflected on this and understood why their perceptions were wrong because this is why we don't like organising with people/groups like this. If you don't understand us? If you don't take time to understand us? You're not going to get why we help when we do and why we drop when we're done; it's not a lack of commitment on our part, since it's a lack of recognition on yours.
By the time I had finally burned out of my organization and started hanging with my friends again, I had become so accustomed to organizational processes that it took me years to repair my relationships enough to begin to see and understand how anarchists organized. At first, the informality felt like a mess; I couldn’t keep track of who was doing what unless I was directly involved and needed to know. And that was difficult to adjust to, especially when I could see projects everywhere but still didn’t really know who might help me find a way in.
This is a difficulty for anarchists, too. If we move, we're looking for our new connections. It's why we often jump into established groups to see what they're up to and how we can help.
But it also shapes your attempts to integrate into community and how you view community. It's not just a bunch of people to preach at; it's people to get to know, to work with, and figure out how you can mutually build.
*> When I was a Leftist organizer, the movement that I imagined myself to
be building was always something exterior to my life — something that took place outside of myself, my friends and their projects, the spaces that we inhabit. But “the” movement isn’t elsewhere.*
This is something we want people to realise. If the movement is 'outside' of you, then are you really doing anything or building something worth having? Just because something doesn't impact you directly (e.g., a form of bigotry) doesn't mean that it's outside you because, even if we're individualised? We're a collective.
Anarchy, on the other hand, is a flawed and centerless constellation of relationships, which is to say anarchy is built on affinity, trust, and reciprocal knowledge. Pittsburgh anarchist scenes are just as fragmented as the Left. It is true that “we” do struggle to sustain coordination and momentum, beyond the intermediate term. Like every movement, anarchy waxes and wanes. I couldn’t care less. Any communist or anarchist who believes that revolt in the united settler-states actually depends on the strength of “the Left” is deluding themself. Revolt happens with or without us. So rather than waste my time obsessing over the strength of some organization or ideology’s influence in a given region, I’d rather learn more projectual approaches that might contribute to conflictuality. I know some of you reading this are studying this framework as well, and I look forward to discovering your projects, wherever they may incite or strike.
It’s about navigating social life & conflict with the intent to find accomplices through what we do, rather than what we say.
This world is ending. No global revolution is coming to save us. What worlds emerge is dependent on the particular trajectories the collapse will traverse in each region. Empire will survive in the places where workers still prioritize the needs of the techno-industrial economy – be it capitalist or communist – over the needs of the world they inhabit.
