MANIPULATIVE LANGUAGE AND THE
GROWING REPRESSION OF ANARCHISTS
To think that the situation of Free and Critter and that of Rob
Thaxton are isolated incidents is to miss a significant development in
the response of the state in this country to even a distant threat of
revolt. With the retreat of marxism into academia and largely
irrelevant theorizing, anarchism has come to represent the most
significant conscious revolutionary movement. Furthermore, many
anarchists are not afraid to call for the destruction of the entire social
order. The state inevitable responds to such movements of revolt
with repression. The present repression is developing in an
interesting way worthy of examining.
In previous issues of Willful Disobedience I have printed articles
about the Marini trial in Italy. The prosecutor in this case, Marini,
attempted to criminalize 53 anarchists-and with them all anarchists
who refused to be well-behaved lap dogs-by claiming they were
part of a non-existent armed organization. A similar construction is
being developed here, but in a way that is more appropriate to the
United States.
In the previous issue of this paper, I wrote about the Oregon
Department of Corrections choosing to put anarchists on their last of
gangs, thus criminalizing anarchists as gang members, implying a
formalized organization with malicious intent. Within the prison
system this allows prison officials greater control over
communications to prisoners so labeled. Such prisoners can also
have their visits restricted and any act of violence on their part
becomes a gang-related incident, allowing for increased penalties.
But this labeling is not just applied in prisons. In Eugene, Oregon
recently, police began to stop known anarchist, as well as any young
person wearing all black and looking too punk, in order to do "gang
profiles". This is not merely harassment. Several states are
introducing measures to make penalties for so-called "gang-related"
illegal activities substantially harsher. Thus, in California, a violation
that would normally be treated as a misdemeanor becomes a felony
if it is "gang-related". Thus, the labeling of anarchists as a gang
serves a very practical purpose to the repressive apparatus of the
state-they can get us out of the way for longer periods of time.
But it has not only been the police and prison institutions that have
been manipulating language to criminalize anarchists. That other
institution of democratic social control-the media-has done more
than its share of building this image. Thus, a reporter who did great
damage to the ELF an ALF a couple years ago by referring to them
as eco-terrorist groups recently printed an article referring to a land
project in which a few and a few people who do not consider
themselves so are experimenting with different methods of organic
gardening and cob-house building as an anarchist camp-terminology
which, particularly in the northwest of the United States has sinister
connotations of secret militia training.
The intent of such a choice of words becomes clearer when it is
expanded upon in the Los Angeles press and in statements by the
police and the mayor of L.A. about the coincidence of an anarchist
conference with the democratic national convention. Here one hears
of anarchist encampments where military style training is supposedly
taking place somewhere in Oregon. One hears of a national
anarchist organization based in Oregon. Of course no such things
exist. While anarchist disagree vehemently about the relative
usefulness of formal organizations, those organizations that do exist,
which call themselves anarchist are generally of a syndicalist of
federative nature and have no interest in armed camps.
Insurrectional anarchists reject all formal organization as well as
military formations that separate the revolutionary from the exploited
people as a whole. As anarchists, we have no interest in leading the
revolution, and so would not create armed groups separate from the
struggle as a whole or any sort of formal organization. We are,
ourselves, exploited individuals refusing and rising up against our
exploitation. But it is in the interest of the state and capital to isolate
us, to paint us as terrorists, armed monsters invading the terrain of
other people's lives, a danger not only to the well-being of the ruling
class but of everyone. Such isolation gives them the space to repress
our revolt physically as well as on the terrain of words.
To further confuse matters, the press in Eugene and here in L.A. has
tried to pass anarchists off as a hate-group. It is here that power's
manipulation of language becomes most clear. Years ago, bigotry
was recognized as an ideological perspective with institutional effects
that permeated the whole of society; hatred on the other hand was
an emotion which could be legitimate under certain circumstances,
though it was certainly always ugly when wed to bigotry. Several
years ago-thanks to the media and leftist groups-bigotry and hatred
began to be confused. Terms like "hate group", "hate crime" and
"hate-free zone" became common. The institutional aspects of
bigotry got lost in the emotional aspects and the struggles against it
lost their revolutionary potential as activists begged the state to "stem
the tide of hate." But even with the rise of this confusionism, very
few people would consider a support group for rape victims in
which those involved expressed their hatred for the rapists and
called for action against them a hate group. People are responsible
for their actions, and hatred is still recognized as a legitimate
emotional response to someone who fucks you over. In this light,
hatred for the authorities and their willing lackeys is a legitimate
emotional expression since they not only fuck over people, but
create institutions for the purpose of maintaining this exploitation and
domination which leaves most people in misery.
But once again this word manipulation, serves the state in its need to
repress revolt. To compare anarchists to hate groups isolates them
from a great deal of the exploited. It, furthermore, opens the door to
more intensive criminalization of anarchists as the left demands
legislation against "hate crimes" and harsher penalties for crimes
determined to be such.
As anarchists we have already made ourselves illegal-against law.
But in order to maintain control, the state has to make rules that
sometimes even hamper its own activities. For this reason, it needs
to find ways, using its own laws and its own media, to manipulate
language in such a way as to legitimate its repressive activity. In the
face of this present repressive construction, we cannot afford to
back down or moderate our views and actions. Rather, we must
break out of our ghetto, build projects of attack with others of the
exploited and clarify who we are in action with others against this
order.