The triumphant commingling of music, sweat and debate on a demonstration brimming with the radical left is the most invigorating experience you can have. Collectively, you feel as if you are the messengers of change fighting the sensation of futility gnawing at every tentative hope. Demonstrations are largely good natured, but recently, anarchists hungry to sear their names into history have blundered into Tory traps with fits of misdirected rage.
As fun as demonstrations are, they rarely achieve their stated goals. The anti-Iraq War and anti-tuition fees marches showed that when government wants to do something, they do it. Besides, marches are only ever rewarded with condescending coverage. The media sneers at what they portray as noble idiots exercising their vocal chords for a few hours before obediently going home before curfew. When clashes erupt, the beast mutates accordingly. Broadcasters shove two hundred cameras in the face of a man who looks like he hasn’t showered for ten years and anoint him the deluded rabble’s figurehead. Evidently, the only way to attract the camera is to be anarchic, otherwise you won’t be taken seriously.
UK Uncut’s occupation of Fortnum & Mason in 2011 was entirely justified, for example. In a peaceful act of civil disobedience, the group occupied the department store and exposed their tax efficient arrangements. While some members were acquitted of trespassing, others were charged with a public order offence in a gross miscarriage of justice. Despite capitalism sustaining nothing more than a gentle tickle that day, UK Uncut’s sterling activism proved that, if carried out on an industrial scale, it could hold governments to ransom.
Whereas co-ordinated civil disobedience can convey intelligent anger, scattergun anarchy alienates those who could be sympathetic to radical leftists’ aims. As we saw in September, the siege of Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch achieved nothing. Alleged intellectuals incensed by a new crop of aggressively bearded hermit crabs who’d ‘ruined’ the area clearly thought a whole grain holocaust would abolish the class system. Crow’s beards, dungarees and irony a good combination does not make, but I fear that proprietor of irritatingly obscure cereal is not the source of social cleansing in London. Panto radicals savaged their community and applauded themselves thereafter for attacking a small business and terrifying those well-known power brokers, east-end residents. Political activism became a theatrical performance as they tried to persuade a sickened country that they were virtuous.
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[contentcards url=”https://culturedvultures.com/uk-anti-government-playlist/” target=”_blank”]Sanctimonious vandalism comes in many forms. At the Conservative Party conference this October, similarly odious ‘leftists’ spat at attending journalists and activists. What wasn’t reported by a media bemused by righteous anger was that police were observing protestors with guns from surrounding rooftops, complete with live ammunition, instead of binoculars. Chillingly, the Met were on standby to use lethal force, yet it went unreported. Nonetheless, harassing attendees was an act of self-harm that gave Tory commentators the opportunity to depict anarchists as animalistic.
Anger at this hideous government’s policies is legitimate, but is often poorly aimed. In both incidents, the targets were poorly chosen and the tactics were crude. Anarchists looked like they were trying to race to the top of the righteousness hierarchy by diving to the lowest moral depths. Some looked like they weren’t interested in politics at all, but were instead energised by the rumour of confrontation and unanimous antipathy for a common enemy. They gifted state media and ghoulish editors permission to caricature everybody who protested peacefully next to the conference as spoilt hypocrites. The Tory press will always hate the radical left, but the anger expressed by anarchists about privatisation and a lack of affordable housing is shared by people who aren’t anarchists but could be enticed to join a radical grassroots movement. Spitting at journalists and scaring children veils the causes behind frustration and drives away support. Defacing war memorials, another stain on the left’s record, is not only shameful but an insult to those who fought against fascism. These calculated acts of madness defamed the left’s image.
Undoubtedly, there are politically astute and hard-working anarchists who want social justice. Spitting at journalists and disembowelling small businesses only obscures the good work the radical left does on a daily basis and assists our enemies. There is a smart way to hate the Tories and shake the fractured pillars of capitalism, but self-congratulatory carnivals of thuggery are not the way to build a wide grassroots movement.
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