Anarchist Marches

Groups in federations like AF hold meetings and we have organised occasional demos e.g. One with Manchester No Border against attacks on Roma in Italy a while ago. But we don't tend to organise things where it's just an anarchist communist march. We do contribute to Maydays, bookfairs and other people demos where we have often marched as a anarchist or 'black' block. Some of what we have done most recently as AF is listed here:
http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/historical/135-the-anarchist-federation-annual-report-nov-2008-oct-2009.html
(This was published in Freedom recently but unfortunately a lot of activity was omitted because our article was too long - this is pretty well the full story for one year!).

I think people get to understand anarchism and anarchists by working with us, rather than just seeing us on a march where there is a barrier between the marchers and the observers. I think it's better to spend the effort organising meetings locally and participating in events by running stalls - gigs, summer festivals etc.

marching for the sake of marching is a waste of time and effort.

The Outlaw

Why don't we march for the sake of fucking marching?
I aint been in this game as long as some of you, but i think it'll be a pretty fucking effective way to express our politics to a broader audience, increase solidarity and comradrie.

Lol i like the way you include fucking in every post after being told by the Bourgeoisie to stop it. There usually should be a reason for a march. May day for example. Aslong as the march does not turn into some ninja riot i agree with them. Leafletting passers by etc, trying to involve passers by, instead of trying to intimidate them by smashing shit up.

To be honest, at this stage it's just not an option. There's like twelve people at my AF local; if we marched down the street it would look ridiculous. Given the size of the anarchist movement in the UK at the moment it makes vastly more sense to go along to demos which are about relevant things and be an anarchist presence there, rather than having exclusively anarchist marches.

The Outlaw

Why don't we march for the sake of fucking marching?
I aint been in this game as long as some of you, but i think it'll be a pretty fucking effective way to express our politics to a broader audience, increase solidarity and comradrie.

I don't know about yours, but my politics are about improving mine and other people's everyday lives.

Walking down a road doesn't have much to do with that. Although I walk down roads a lot of the time. I don't see anything political in it however, that's just how I get to places.

The constant swearing is getting a bit boring now. I swear a lot when I talk, but this isn't a casual conversation - you are actually having to physically type in each of those were words, so obviously making a lot of effort for it, it just comes off a bit odd.

The Outlaw

I think on the "bigger picture" marches would have a positive effect.

Why?

;-(

You know who else loved marching a lot? These guys:

And they sure had solidarity and comradely spirit didn't they!

i'm up for a fucking march

I think alot of people have the wrong idea about what marches and demonstrations are really about.

Marches are not actually a form of media. People sometimes talk about raising awareness and all that, but generally, they are terribly ineffective at doing this. What marches actually do is demonstrate (thus the word, demonstration) support for something - it's a show of political muscle, a demonstration of how much support you have. If you can get 1000 people together for a march on some issue, it generally won't communicate much about the issue to the general public (although it may, perhaps, get covered by some media, but rarely in a form that will do much to communicate to the public). What it does do, however, is say that there are a heck of alot of people in that city who are concerned about X, and they are fairly well-organized and motivated. People who have been too timid to speak out about X might feel less reluctant, the marchers will feel empowered, the issue might be taken a little more seriously and treated with more respect/concern, and so on.

Marching 10 people down a street is counterproductive. All it communicates is that - this group is poorly organized, and/or not many people are concerned about this issue. It's a very ineffective show of political muscle. Depending on scale of course - if you marched 10 people down a street in a village of 100 people, it would be a fairly effective demonstration.

oisleep

i'm up for a fucking march

fuckin' ay!

if you're fucking asking, i'm fucking marching

edgewaters

Marching 10 people down a street is counterproductive. All it communicates is that - this group is poorly organized, and/or not many people are concerned about this issue. It's a very ineffective show of political muscle. Depending on scale of course - if you marched 10 people down a street in a village of 100 people, it would be a fairly effective demonstration.

reminds me of a marxist student group in Marburg/Germany which for several years in the 1990ies "organized" a demonstration on the 21th February in commemoration of the publishing of the Communist Manifesto ... usually, they were around 8-12 participants ... one year, the number was far higher because it collided with one one of the main days of carnival :(

oisleep

if you're fucking asking, i'm fucking marching

Let's fucking do it, then!

:lol:

is that for real?

cant be surely. They look like they have taken fashion tips of you though steven. :)

I don't know, it wouldn't surprise me. A year or two ago there was some government summit in Washington, DC, the G8 maybe? anyway, crimethinc organises an anarchist march which goes through a nightlife area which they described as "yuppie", so the action consists of a black block of 200 people who then hospitalise a cafe worker when the only brick they throw hits her in the head.

Luckily, she was sympathetic to "the cause" despite the stupidity of the participants, and so didn't partake in media demonisation of the protesters.

Steven.

I don't know, it wouldn't surprise me. A year or two ago there was some government summit in Washington, DC, the G8 maybe? anyway, crimethinc organises an anarchist march which goes through a nightlife area which they described as "yuppie", so the action consists of a black block of 200 people who then hospitalise a cafe worker when the only brick they throw hits her in the head.

Luckily, she was sympathetic to "the cause" despite the stupidity of the participants, and so didn't partake in media demonisation of the protesters.

Fucking hell. I would denounce them if they done that to me (and tell them to pursue proper class struggle instead of lifestylist shit). What tossers. Are they the biggest anarchist group in the USA? p.s-sorry for swearing so much, outlaw bad influence or something.

unfortunately they are probably the most influential anarchist grouping in the English-speaking world. But there are other threads on them if we want to continue this discussion...

The original said "Resistance is the solution". But it was fucking close to the point intended al-fucking-ready