Freedom, or an anarchist newspaper - opinions and discussion

I was going to say something here but I think I'll leave it for the SF conference when we discuss DA & Catalyst.

I like Freedom. if i was back in Britain I´d offer to help with it...

I think its important that it retains its distance from the Feds. For two reasons.

1/ Most anarchists and fellow travellers are not in any of the Feds and are not likely to be anytime soon. So its good that there is a broader voice to reflect that.

2/ The Feds would be better off concentrating on improving their own main publication, that enables them to focus on their unique take on stuff.

Of course this doesn´t exclude the Feds supporting Freedom through distro etc.

Throwing in my tuppence worth as an AFer, I am pleased to say my local social centre stocks a variety anarchist papers and I get to read Freedom and DA in addition to Organise!, plus I put copies of Black Flag in there after the last bookfair. Before then I was a subscriber to Freedom, DA and BF. I am amazed that people are commenting on stuff they haven't even read recently.

I am fully in favour of diversity in the anarchist press as you tend to get different angles on the same issue. Loss of radical bookshops has been a blow to most printed publications but more non-fed people could support these papers by subscribing - we are all incredibly cheap

If that happened there would perhaps be a broader input as well as a greater readership.

So g'on, take out that sub today...

I think a revolutionary paper needs to think about how it contributes to the revolutionary movement today and how that ties up with our end goal, i.e. a revolution.

Within the WSM we talk quite a good deal about how Workers Solidarity and Red and Black Revolution do that. These discussion have lead to us changing direction with the paper and mag. quite significantly in recent years, (WS has gone to being a freesheet and Red and Black is now shorter and significantly cheaper). These changes reflect our thoughts on:

1. Who are we writing for? Who do we want to read this?

2. Why are we writing for them?

3. What do we need to say to them?

4. How do we get these publications to them?

There are significant differences in who we are targeting with the paper and mag. In fact our targets have changed in recent years.

WS was aimed at people interested in left wing ideas when we were smaller and we used to sell it for 50p. (THis was before I got involved). Today we distribute 7000 of every coly the vast majority going into the doors of our neighbours or into neighbourhoods where we are trying to build up a presence.

Red and Black was aimed primarily at disinfranchised leninists in the 90s and increasingly aimed at the international anarchist/libertarian movement. Now we are aiming our mag at primarily irish libertarians, less so the int'l movement and we don't bother with anti-leninist / beyond-leninism articles anymore.

All of this is tied up with how we see the role of our org. within the revolutionary movement. Our role changes with our strength, the changing composition of the left and the changing levels of working class militancy.

This all sounds very grand, but it isn't. All I'm saying is that we think quite hard about what why we are producing our paper and why we are producing our mag. and what we are doing with them.

I think the problem with Freedom is that it is consciously just a paper. If you compare it with libcom perhaps the differences are clearer.

Libcom clearly sees it self as a means to an end. It sees itself as a tool to ensure the regroupment of class struggle anarchism in britain primarily but also increasingly outside of britain. Hence the not-to-uncommon jokes about libcom seeing it self as the precurser to the great british libertarian communist federation. The content of libcom reflects the collective's aims at both drawing people to class struggle anarchism and regrouping the existing class struggle anarchists, making them work together and discuss together.

Freedom doesn't seem to have the same clarity of purpose. Freedom doesn't seem to see it self as a tool to uniting the british anarcho movement nor does it seem to see it self as a tool for dispersing anarchist ideas to non-anarchos. It seems to see itself as 'the paper of british anarchism', it tries to straddle both being a tool of out reach, a tool for discussion, a tool for regroupment, a tool for the dispersal of info and a competitor with the mainstream media.

I think it needs to aim lower. It needs to decide what it is, why it exists, what it can do in the short term, why it should do it and then do it. And when it achieves it's short term aims, the editors should feel themselves in a situation to cease publication of re-assess it's role within the revolutionary movement.

Just to clarify. I think Freedom is great and has really really improved in recent years. I really like the layout and I think the content is by enlarge good and interesting. I just get the impression it's kind of directionless. Which is a completely comradely observation. It's not a dig. As I said I think the paper's great. Friendly words and all that you know.

do freedom peeps want this moved to the freedom forum?

Meh, could do if you like, but organise is probly just as valid.

I think the argument that Freedom tries to cover too many bases is probably a valid one, but only because of restrictions of space. Problem, as catch pointed out earlier, is that the direction is pretty much determined by the readership we currently have, who want, as you point out, a massive range of coverage.

There's a problem with comparing Libcom, who have a platform which has no preconceptions and expectations, and a team of a good dozen behind it, plus support from Feds, or WS and Freedom

The paper hasn't currently (I'll be working on what seems to be a couple of interesting offers next week when I'm not on deadline) got the numbers, the finances or the time to do what you're suggesting, which is shrug off a good 50 years of built-up commitments and go hammer and tongs after an entirely unknown market, while basically telling our old one to go with it in the interests of the movement or fuck off. We aren't hitched to a Fed, so can't garuntee support in the event that we lose our primary readership.

Personally I would like to do what you're suggesting, in the event that we get the kind of finances or personnel (eg. a marketing and outreach guru), and streamline our output (or at least incorporate it properly into a larger paper which can cope properly, and not an eight-page one which can't). But it'll have to wait until we either sort ourselves financially, or build up enough support, via other means.

Knightrose says:

'we have suggested the feds co-operate more closely in the past and have been knocked back by Solfed. Likewise the discussion on the AF Forum on the idea of merging the two would make instructive reading, I think. imho Solfed are convinced they can successfully go it alone. I think they are wrong. I suspect that the future doesn't lie with any of the feds, but that soemthing new will come along and supercede us all.'

I haven't been following this thread closely but this sounds familiar! Saii is right to suggest that groups, affiliated or otherwise have to put effort into activities & journals like Freedom with out expecting a direct payoff like visiting a takeaway. But I think Knightrose is spot-on when he says: 'I suspect that the future doesn't lie with any of the feds, but that something new will come along and supercede us all.'

When a serious social conflict kicks-off the usual suspects are often taken by surprise & left behind when things develop. That happened in February 1917 in Russia, and as we know one group caught-up with the revolution movement in October of that year; it seemed to happen in France in May 1968, when the standard political groups (even the mainstream anarchists) appeared to have been wrongfooted by events. The CNT in Barcelona on 18th, July 1936 was clearly more prepared, because they had been planning something throughout the 1930s & some had even practiced a campaign of 'revolutionary gymnastics'. And yet, even the leaders of the CNT and FAI made some serious slip-ups in the early stages it now seems in retrospect.

What Knightrose says means, if he is right and I believe he is, that any organisation to advance any radical social movement in English society will need to be flexible to move creatively into a fluid situation. It seems to me that none of the affiliated organisations will have the creative gumption to make the necessary adjustments to support serious social change when and if it comes. Naturally I don't just have the anarchist organisations in mind when I say this. The English left genenerally is inadequate, as it hovers between looniness & the half-baked variety.