Ravi climbed the ladder precariously while balancing the bucket of wheat paste with one hand. When he got up to the billboard on top of the building he felt the cold breeze flowing from the landside towards the ocean.
It was a good spot. One of the comrades recommended the building some days ago and the little affinity group got to work constructing a large poster for the job.
“Careful with the artwork guys,” One comrade said out loud.
“Shhhh Bob, tone it down,” Another comrade shushed Bob while another whispered that Bob shouldn’t be using gendered language.
“Ok that’s enough. Let’s just get this poster up quickly,” Ravi said.
Anarchy comes from the Greek word Anarchos meaning ‘no rulers’ but Ravi controlled the group with an iron fist. Sometimes a little authority is needed to further the revolution.
The group had been covering the city with street art even before the mass protests. Back then it was just Ravi, Bob and Goldie going around putting stickers with little political messages in public places. They started putting up posters and spraying graffiti when the people came to the streets and the circle grew. Now entire walls, bus stops and electric boxes are plastered with messages like “No gods, no masters”, “Quit your job”, “The Government is not your friend” and a plethora of corporate logos that have been hijacked to highlight the evils of capitalism.
A younger comrade, the most nibble one in the group, climbed the ladder on the side of the billboard and gave a little salute. Ravi passed the seven foot poster to him.
Bob and Goldie got busy putting the roller brush together. Ravi motioned the others to keep a lookout.
It had taken weeks of teaching to get the group of eight together. Although this is a small number, for anarchists, it is the direct action that counts. It took eight anarchists in Chicago’s Haymarket to give the working people of the world their eight-hour work day, and Ravi had high hopes for this group too.
At the protests site Ravi was asked. “Who will rule? If there is no government, there will be chaos”.
“But there is chaos even when governments are present. Name me one anarchist that had started a war?” he shot back.
The principal is mutual aid. A society based on non-exploitive interaction. There is also a need for solidarity with all other social movements. “Property is theft,” Ravi quoted the father of anarchism – Pierre Jospeh Proudon. “If I have no ownership of my property, then I’ll just let people come and sleep in my bed and use my toothbrush Ravi,” a critique heckled. Ravi just laughed. “If you don’t pay your rates, the government can just possess your property, so do you really own anything?” The critics went quiet.
Read the Conquest of Bread by Pytor Kropotkin, Ravi told his students while rattling off a dozen other thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, Leo Tolstoy, Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin.
The critics would come back. “Ok big shot, tell me have stateless societies been successful in history?” They have and they had been brutally put down by the powers that be. The Paris Commune, Catalonia in the 1930s, the Ukrainian Free Zone and there are quasi-communities that had lived for centuries in harmony like monastics and aboriginal people. “There are free people around the world who had banded together to form egalitarian societies and some indigenous people have formed confederacies like the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico”.
The critics never came back. But one friend asked: “How long will it take to build this society bro? Like can we expect people to come together in mutual coexistence? Face it; even families are torn apart, not to mention how much bickering happens between peers”.
He was so right, that Ravi thought back to a few hours prior. It was hard to get these people aboard for this piece of direct action. How will he convince the entire population to break this system? Society is so fickle, it’s three meals away from total chaos.
Thousand other things raced in his mind and Ravi kicked the bucket: The bucket full of wheat paste fell to the street below and everybody gasped.
But a voice came from above, it was Bob.
“I think it looks good guys”.
He was grinning and pointing at the poster that said: “Free your minds”.
