London Anarchist Bookfair 2023/24

[cesare]

Sounds like in effect the equivalent of the disruption done by the SpyCops in previous decades.

Are you suggesting that H S is responsible for all.this ? Bit confused.

 

[kenny g]

Are you suggesting that H S is responsible for all.this ? Bit confused.

Nope. My point would be that it is interesting that a potential unified @ event in London has yet again been disrupted by a very small number. In this decade it doesn't need a man with a van, a winning grin, a beer tab and a willingness to sell their soul, you just need a munchkin with a Twitter account.

 

[cesare]

Nope. My point would be that it is interesting that a potential unified @ event in London has yet again been disrupted by a very small number. In 2n't need man with a van, a winning grin, a beer tab and a willingness to sell their soul, you just need a munchkin with a Twitter account.

Oh for sure. Fall out threatening tens . Which year would you point to re unified btw?

 

[kenny g]

Oh for sure. Fall out threatening tens . Which year would you point to re unified btw?

2023 unified in the sense that everyone significant was initially being allowed to attend

 

[cesare]

2023 unified in the sense that everyone significant was allowed to attend

It's working out pretty similar to 2022 atm

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Same issue. Unfortunately the trans/CG debate is the perfect vehicle for political wreckers to board. Anyone can now be condemned as a Nazi for saying the wrong thing at any point in time and not many will challenge it for fear of ending up in the out group. Vampire’s castle indeed.

 

[Dystopiary]

Same issue. Unfortunately the trans/CG debate is the perfect vehicle for political wreckers to board. Anyone can now be condemned as a Nazi for saying the wrong thing at any point in time and not many will challenge it for fear of ending up in the out group. Vampire’s castle indeed.

There are also "gender critical" types who insert these issues into anything - and yes when it's completely unnecessary - given the chance and it's not surprising that people feel threatened by that when it affects them. It's pretty poisonous.

 

[smokedout]

To the first yes, and it's the same with alcohol, but that's very different to what I see now with some of what's going on with the way some people behave, compounded by social media and other factors. A pissed person in a meeting disrupts that meeting, and can be thrown out. Someone playing shit out on Twitter can disrupt whole movements and groups, and cannot be thrown out. It's not just a question of, 'Oh this has always happened, it's just a bit different'.

No, it's not a surprise, and I'm not blaming them for being unwell or traumatised, but IME there's a bunch of people that aren't drawn to it as a vehicle for social change (or if they are it's in theory only rather than being engaged as such) but are drawn to it as mostly a subcultural space where they feel welcome. And on some level that's great, but that isn't what revolutionary politics is primarily about and we/movement/groups have shown we can't manage it, and so I think it's partly contributed to the destruction of anarchism as any kind of serious potential social force in the short to medium term.

It's partly the tensions that's always existed within anarchism around personal/political etc. but it's also reflecting the mess that much of society is also in with various collapses and breakdowns in all sorts of social and political areas, just in a particular political scene that is much more vulnerable to this stuff than other similar areas are.

E2A: I wasn't dismissing it as identity politics, I was saying that scene has brought a bunch of people into anarchism with some of them having those behaviours. I think poor behaviour has always existed in the anarchist movement (of course) but the way it manifests itself now (around issues of identity and also predominantly online) is very different and has much wider consequences.

I agree with a lot of that but I think what we're struggling with is online/social media culture and the changes that has brought - which includes how identity politics has manifested in that environment - but also about how conflict and disgreement manifests more generally.

In real life spaces people were accountable simply by the fact they were there and everyone knew who they were. And the fact they were there generally meant they at least had some stake in or commitment to what was going on. That's no longer the case at all. As well as deliberate malevolent actors, now anyone can just spout off, they might not even really care that much about the issue at hand, they just enjoy a bit of a barney to pass the time on social media.

I think age is an under-discussed a factor as well. Young radicals can be quite annoying, I'm sure I was, but there was a recognition of that and a bit of leeway given by the older generation. Now everything happens on equal terms, which isn't entirely negative, but that person accusing ACG of supporting genocide could be some angry 16 year old whose comments wouldn't have merited more than an eye roll and a bless if they'd said it in a face to face meeting and yet here it's being presented as representative of something important.

 

[TopCat]

Just why would you Tweet some shit that like the kids on Twitter is both untrue and also could get taken out of context to cause problems?

There's plenty of good political criticisms to be made of this stuff (and various positions on the war) but saying things like that is just really problematic behaviour. There's clearly no such pre-requisite for getting a stall at the bookfair is there?

I don’t tweet

 

[danny la rouge]

Now everything happens on equal terms, which isn't entirely negative, but that person accusing ACG of supporting genocide could be some angry 16 year old whose comments wouldn't have merited more than an eye roll and a bless if they'd said it in a face to face meeting and yet here it's being presented as representative of something important.

And the AFed Bristol account?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

There are also "gender critical" types who insert these issues into anything - and yes when it's completely unnecessary - given the chance and it's not surprising that people feel threatened by that when it affects them. It's pretty poisonous.

I’m not talking about ‘anything’ though. I’m talking about class politics being usurped and ruined by this divisive shit.

 

[smokedout]

And the AFed Bristol account?

I'm not saying it's all that, just a factor to be considered in a broader analysis of the problems we're facing.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm not saying it's all that, just a factor to be considered in a broader analysis of the problems we're facing.

Aye, and I can see that.

 

[PTK]

I agree with a lot of that but I think what we're struggling with is online/social media culture and the changes that has brought - which includes how identity politics has manifested in that environment - but also about how conflict and disgreement manifests more generally.

In real life spaces people were accountable simply by the fact they were there and everyone knew who they were. And the fact they were there generally meant they at least had some stake in or commitment to what was going on. That's no longer the case at all. As well as deliberate malevolent actors, now anyone can just spout off, they might not even really care that much about the issue at hand, they just enjoy a bit of a barney to pass the time on social media.

I think age is an under-discussed a factor as well. Young radicals can be quite annoying, I'm sure I was, but there was a recognition of that and a bit of leeway given by the older generation. Now everything happens on equal terms, which isn't entirely negative, but that person accusing ACG of supporting genocide could be some angry 16 year old whose comments wouldn't have merited more than an eye roll and a bless if they'd said it in a face to face meeting and yet here it's being presented as representative of something important.

Good points.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Now everything happens on equal terms, which isn't entirely negative, but that person accusing ACG of supporting genocide could be some angry 16 year old whose comments wouldn't have merited more than an eye roll and a bless if they'd said it in a face to face meeting and yet here it's being presented as representative of something important.

Well either it’s an agreed upon AFed position, or they might want to look at who is entrusted to run front of house.

 

[smokedout]

Also... great then where is this discussion about how to manage it? Because I've not seen any attempts to try in the last years, nor even any desire to. The few times I've seen it attempted in the past with individuals it's been a spectacular failure, the idea we could deal with a current of destructive and dysfunctional behaviour that's broader and tied to people's political outlook and also mostly online is a dream if you ask me.

There's more discussion than I ever remember about things like conflict resolution, transformative justice and accountability within the movement. I agree those debates and processes haven't yet brought about a huge amount of success but the discussions are taking place - and this stuff is really hard, solutions aren't going to appear overnight.

I guess I'm just very wary of a kid's today type analysis. There are problems now, and there were problems then, and some of the problems now might be a consequence of the problems then. As an example we're all looking back and cringing on the Russell Brand threads. The movement was not without those attitudes and certainly in the broader more subcultural scenes that anarchist politics was enmeshed with sexual assaults were swept under the carpet, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia were commonplace, predatory behaviour was overlooked, there was little thought given to the dynamics of race in a movement that was overwhelmingly white. And whilst none of these things are fixed, it's worth considering how much of the rise in identity politics came about as a reaction to some of those problems.

 

[LDC]

I don’t tweet

No sorry that was my mistake, I just meant write on here.

 

[LDC]

There's more discussion than I ever remember about things like conflict resolution, transformative justice and accountability within the movement. I agree those debates and processes haven't yet brought about a huge amount of success but the discussions are taking place - and this stuff is really hard, solutions aren't going to appear overnight.

I guess I'm just very wary of a kid's today type analysis. There are problems now, and there were problems then, and some of the problems now might be a consequence of the problems then. As an example we're all looking back and cringing on the Russell Brand threads. The movement was not without those attitudes and certainly in the broader more subcultural scenes that anarchist politics was enmeshed with sexual assaults were swept under the carpet, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia were commonplace, predatory behaviour was overlooked, there was little thought given to the dynamics of race in a movement that was overwhelmingly white. And whilst none of these things are fixed, it's worth considering how much of the rise in identity politics came about as a reaction to some of those problems.

Yeah, mostly agree with everything you say smokedout, although clearly you're nicer and more forgiving than I am about some of the dynamics! With the conflict resolution/etc. stuff, I have yet to see any of that really be taken seriously, I have doubts about how useful it is as a focus in our current political situation, and I worry that some of that is also symbolic of a shift in focus to internal 'scene' issues rather than outward looking confrontational politics, something I think is partly causing all this drama as people try to maintain some kind of 'safe and pure' sub-cultural space for themselves.

Yes to the reasons for the rise of identity politics as partly a failure of more 'traditional left wing politics', and I am wary of it becoming used (as it is on here sometimes I think) in the same way that years ago some uber-prole anarchists used to use 'middle class' to dismiss anything political they didn't like and/or couldn't explain with their fixed and ideological political positions.

You mentioned age earlier, but something else connected is the experience people have had (or not) of actual struggle, confrontation and working collectively. For most people in the '80s, '90s and '00s politics was a round of meetings, working on leaflets or other printed publication, stalls, giving out info and chatting to people, going to demos, confrontations with the police or far right or hunters, living on protest sites, etc. (And I'm deliberately talking about the anarchist/activist political scene I know rather than wider politics like strikes etc. as this is more connected to that.) So people would have build some shared experiences as a strong bond; helped one another out in difficult circumstances, been arrested together, waited outside police station for comrades, fought side-by-side, etc. etc.

There are now plenty of people about in the political scene (or the edges of it) that might have been about for 10 years plus with none of that shared collective experience of struggle, and whose political activity has been individualised, mostly online, and even more isolated in small political scenes than it was for earlier generations. That combined with other factors mentioned (plus the increase across society in poor mental health and anxiety) exacerbates these problematic dynamics we're talking about here.

We're also discussing a very (and increasingly) small scene, one that I think is largely irrelevant (at best) politically, and people I know outside it look at it with dropped jaws at some of the behaviour and activity of the people within it, so while we spend time discussing it it's also good to not get too dragged in and absorbed in the ultimately dead-end drama.

 

[TopCat]

No sorry that was my mistake, I just meant write on here.

I wrote two things. One was remarking on the organisers reasons for refusing a stall to the ACG, the second extrapolating from the reasons. I can’t see the problem.

Anyway, apols for the drunken late night bit of menace in the post.

 

[LDC]

I wrote two things. One was remarking on the organisers reasons for refusing a stall to the ACG, the second extrapolating from the reasons. I can’t see the problem.

Anyway, apols for the drunken late night bit of menace in the post.

No worries, I can cope with some online threats, I'd buy you a drink in real life.

 

[TopCat]

Anyhow, these arguments erupting into violence or threats of violence started way before the rise of identity politics.

I first attended the bookfair in 1985. The scuffles were over animal rights and vegan issues. I was threatened for eating a doner kebab and then briefly attacked for flicking bit of doner in the direction of the huge pots of vegan slop being cooked.

The year after, Pete Mastin got out of prison just before and then attacked a fellow CW member on the stage. I set my gf (who was well hard) on him and she stopped it quickly.

So scuffles and threats have been intrinsic almost to the bookfair. It did seem though back in the day that there was more tolerance than today regarding different opinions. For example we had Green Anarchist in there. Probably worse than them but I never noticed.

 

[TopCat]

No worries, I can cope with some online threats, I'd buy you a drink in real life.

See you on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it. Lots of comrades there who I won’t see otherwise (unless a heavy strike starts or a big fight with the police happens).

 

[LDC]

See you on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it. Lots of comrades there who I won’t see otherwise (unless a heavy strike starts or a big fight with the police happens).

With the Ukraine support stuff I do think there's something going on with the emphasis that identity politics has on 'oppression' rather than 'exploitation' as a political cornerstone, and the same goes for some bits of the anarchist movement as well. The politics around 'exploitation' tends to lead one into a more class based perspective, the focus on 'oppression' a much more individualist position on people being 'bad' to one another which in turn leads to things like support for people suffering these 'bad' things, more uncritical support for national liberation struggles for example. (I do obviously think it's possible to have a more nuanced/balanced position than this too...).

Anyway, too early for anything too thought through...

E2A: militant liberalism, they was the words I was looking for.

 

[Elohim]

Same issue. Unfortunately the trans/CG debate is the perfect vehicle for political wreckers to board. Anyone can now be condemned as a Nazi for saying the wrong thing at any point in time and not many will challenge it for fear of ending up in the out group. Vampire’s castle indeed.

This is what happens when the word NAZI is banded around at anyone . What do we then call the real nazis?

 

[Pickman's model]

This is what happens when the word NAZI is banded around at anyone . What do we then call the real nazis?

Fascist scum perhaps

 

[PTK]

I first attended the bookfair in 1985. The scuffles were over animal rights and vegan issues. I was threatened for eating a doner kebab and then briefly attacked for flicking bit of doner in the direction of the huge pots of vegan slop being cooked.

The year after, Pete Mastin got out of prison just before and then attacked a fellow CW member on the stage. I set my gf (who was well hard) on him and she stopped it quickly.

So scuffles and threats have been intrinsic almost to the bookfair. It did seem though back in the day that there was more tolerance than today regarding different opinions. For example we had Green Anarchist in there. Probably worse than them but I never noticed.

You give the impression that neither you nor some of the attendees at the Anarchist Bookfair are serious people. I don't fell inclined to attend an event at which it is apparently normal for people to behave in a loutish way.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

"Come for the books, stay for the louts." was actually on the poster back in the Conway Hall days.

 

[JimW]

Lout and Proud, the Bookfair Years.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Louts and Clouts.

 

[Serge Forward]

Why should louts get all the attention? What about us hoolies and yobbos?

ETA: I was normally very well behaved at the olden days bookfairs.