Although Anarchism as an idea is completly incompatible with any with any form of racism, the Anarchist movement has not been free of the racism inherent in the societies from which it has come, the most infamous being Bakunin’s pan-slavism and anti-German views. More than this Anarchism is largely the product of white Europeans who however committed to the concept of a global emancipation of all oppressed people, were and are limited by their own cultural background,and one of the consequences of this is that the movement has concentrated on class and the state as the prime factors in achieving freedom and equality while other forms of exploitation such as race, but also gender, sexual orientation ,disability, age etc are regarded as side issues which will either magically disapear on the abolition of capitalism or are subsumed as just another facet of the class struggle. Many if not most Anarchists are conscious of these failings in our movement and while a full social revolution can only come from the combined struggle and theory of all the oppressed, with the aim of furthering our own understanding, here are some notes from the Anarchist movement of today on why we oppose racism,what our analysis of racism is and how we can best fight it.

Why we oppose racism

The idea that people should be treared differently because of physical or genetic differences is so ethically revolting and frankly ludicrous that you might well think it is a waste of time to refute such blind prejudices with cojunt arguments. Nevertheless for the sake of clarity and to clear up a few difficulties here are some key points. Anarchist-Communism is a society of all rational beings, the fact there are no substantial differences between so called racial groups is a diversion, it would not matter to Anarchists if there were and the whole debate on racial science though doubtless interesting in terms of human biology is politically useless as an arguement for or against racism. The simplistic anti-racist view of those in power obscure the real reasons for opposing racism. If Jesse Owens had won nothing at the Berlin Olympics he would still have been as entitled to equal treatment with white people and Hitler’s National Socialism would still have been as evil and repugnant a doctrine.The problem with racists is not that they have small brains, as in a recent advertising campaign, but that they have wrong ideas. A second point to make is that cultural differences do not imply political differences. Anarchism reconises cultural differences between groups of people as between individuals . If my neighbour likes pop music and I Like classical it should have no bearing if we meet together as part of our local community to say decide on installing central heating in our block of flats. In a future Anarchist society groups the world over will have to co-operate on practical issues all the time, this will give them an opportunity to share their cultural backgrounds but not for one to impose it on another. The problem is not of differing cultures but of differing power.

Finally on this subject Anarchism is distinguished from liberal anti-racism in economics. We do not advocate individual or national inheritance of money or any form of property. There has been much arguement over the issue of compensating disadvantaged racial or national groups for exploitation of their ancestors, for example affirmitive action on employment in America or compensation to African countries for the effects of the slave trade. The Anarchist response is to demand an immediate redistribution of goods and services worldwide on the basis of need enacted by a global revolution, but this is not the same as giving people what they have a right to or giving back what they have been robbed or cheated out of. Even if it were possible to assess corectly all the injustices of the past, an incomprehensibly difficult task, we can do nothing to compensate the dead. More fundamentally we regard the world’s wealth as an accumulation of the work and ideas of the whole of the human race throughout history and as such it should be equally available to all according to their needs. As an example you could not read this article if paper had not been invented but no one can identify all the thousands involved in that process nor should that give, if it were possible, their descendants an exclusive right to the use of paper because it is the common inheritance of humanity. The mistake of undoing the evils of the past is in perpetuating its’ divisions while in reality only a few in privileged elites benefit.

Analysis of Racism

The problem for Anarchism is how opposing racism fits in with righting all forms of oppression and exploitation. Anarchism has traditionally seen class as the key element of analysis, not only because it was the key division in the establishment of capitalism in Europe but also because, unlike racial or gender divisions it is a totally social construct so that people can not only change class but that class itself can be abolished, whereas with race only the exploitative nature not the concept itself was to be changed. Equality between races, or any other physical distinction would therefore logically come with the abolition of class but this was not seen as being true the other way round so that there could be a society in which there is no discrimination on grounds of race but still be hierarchical and exploitative. While there is much truth in this it is a fact that the vast majority of struggle initiated in favour of the working class, such as social democracy eg- the Labour Party and Marxist-Leninism have proved capable of taking power on behalf of the working class without showing any sign of abolishing inequality and without conscious effort to that end it does not follow that an Anarchist revolution would eliminate existing racial prejudices .While the traditional Anarchist emphasis on small scale community decision making would have a very real danger of leaving global differences in wealth unchanged from that of capitalism.

The struggle against racism does not preclude a simultaneous equality in all other forms of social relations,in fact it logically requires it. Overcoming racism is not a separate issue or a first step in acheiving an Anarchist-Communist society but an integral part of the process. How large a part depends on how much states and bosses exploit people on racial lines and how well we can stop them subverting the struggle with liberal myths of “equality before the law” and token “sucess” stories of individuals making good under capitalism. As with any other form of oppression people of colour can only be secure in their freedom if everyone else is. This is where the struggle against racism may provide a keystone of libertarian theory for racism is little more than the inverse and evil side of social solidarity. Identifying this natural sense of solidarity with exclusion of others gives racism its strength but in fighting it we can aquire the tools of a truly co-operative social interaction.

How to Fight Racism