ANTI-MILITARISM AND SOCIAL INSURRECTION
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� Of course, as an anarchist, I am opposed to
all of the state�s wars. If, historically, particular anarchists have supported
certain wars (Kropotkin�s support of the Allies in World War 1, for example), this
has shown a lack of coherence in their analysis and a willingness to allow
political and strategic thinking to take precedence over a principled attempt
to create the life and world one wants here and now. Wars of the state can
never increase freedom since freedom does not simply consist in a quantitative
lessening of domination and exploitation (what Kropotkin perceived as the
outcome of the defeat of imperialist Germany), but in a qualitative
transformation of existence that destroys them, and state wars simply change
the power relationships between those who dominate.
�� So the anarchist opposition to state wars
is, in fact, opposition to the types of social relationships that make such war
possible. In other wards, it is opposition to militarism in its totality. And
militarism is not just war as such. It is a social hierarchy of order givers
and order takers. It is obedience, domination and submission. It is the
capacity to perceive other human beings as abstractions, mere numbers, death
counts. It is, at the same time, the domination of strategic considerations and
efficiency for its own sake over life and the willingness to sacrifice oneself
for a �Great Cause� that one has been taught to believe in.
�� Considered in this way, anti-militarism
carries within it, not just the opposition to the state�s wars, but also a
conception of how we wish to carry out our revolutionary struggle against the
state and capital. We are not pacifists. A qualitative transformation of life
and relationships capable of destroying the institutions of domination and
exploitation will involve a violent upheaval of conditions, a rupture with the
present�that is to say a social insurrection. And here and now as well, as we
confront these institutions in our lives, destructive attack is a legitimate
and necessary response. But to militarize this struggle, to transform it
essentially into a question of strategies and tactics, of opposing forces and
numbers, is to begin to create within our struggle that which we are trying to
destroy. The essence of militarization is, in fact, the essence of the society
of the market and the state: quantification, the measuring of all things. The
anarchist ideal of the freedom of every individual to fully realize herself in
free association with those of his choosing without interference from ruling
social institutions or lack of access to all that is necessary to achieve this
aim is, in fact, the very opposite of such a measured existence.
�� Armed struggle is likely to be part of any
social insurrection, but this does not require the creation of a military
force. Such a formation could even be considered as a sign that the far more
significant movement of social subversion is weakening, that the transformation
of social relationships has begun to stagnate. From an anarchist perspective,
the specialization inherent in the formation of a revolutionary army has to be
considered as a contradiction to anarchist principles. If, in the midst of
social insurrection, the insurgent people as a whole arm themselves with all
they need for their struggle, this would undermine the tendency toward
militarization. When we remember that the primary aim is social subversion, the
transformation of social relationships, that this is the real strength of the
movement because it is in the process of this practice of subversion that we
discover our indomitable singularity and that arms are simply a tool among many
that we use in this project, then the importance of rejecting militarization
should become quite clear. There is no joy in militarism. Armed joy is found in
the collective project of individual self-realization finding its means to
destroy all domination with every tool it hand, transforming life arm in hand.
�� Neither
pacifism, nor militarism, but social insurrection.
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