Edinburgh Anarchists

It may be the state broadcaster and utterly supine in the face of power, but the BBC has some very useful stuff on it. Among my favourites is In Our Time on Radio 4, where they take a Big Idea, something you may have heard of but not understood, and get experts to answer the question: what’s that all about then?

This week it was The Siege of Münster, which features in Luther Blissett‘s astonishing anti-authoritarian retelling of the Reformation, Q. IOT, available to download (but not for long), has sections about the Peasants’ Revolt, the surprisingly advanced democratic form in Munster and the Anabaptists’ reading of the New Testament leading them to demand all property to be held in common. (Not something you hear from modern Biblical literalists.) At the time of the birth of the merchant / capitalist class, this is early anti-capitalism (communism) expressed in the only language then available to the peasantry, that of the Bible

I can’t recommend Q highly enough, it’s both eye-opening and a rollicking good thriller. In my ideal world, more people read this than the Da Vinci Code.

In one of those happy coincidences, I discovered on the same day I heard this programme, that Luther Blissett (now writing as Wu Ming) have a new novel out in English translation.  deals with the “discovery” of the New World and I’m hoping that it does for that period what Q did for the Reformation – reclaiming history from the bottom up, and giving us new myths to replace those of Empire and Christendom.

History may be written by the victors, but we can still read between the lines.

Our friends in Glasgow tell us that when they do their street stall (every Saturday, 12-3 on Buchanan St) their banner attracts a lot of attention and comment. Why? Because it has the word “organize” on it, passersby feel compelled to point out that they think “organized anarchists” is a contradiction in terms.

No it isn’t.

If you don’t have directly democratic, anti-hierarchical organisations then you make it easier for strong individuals to dominate any enterprise, meaning that you’re then relying on them to be saints to not take advantage of their position.

But given how widespread the misconception is, it was a nice surprise to hear a shout out for the power of anarchist methods of organizing on Radio 4 of all places. Poet Attila the Stockbroker was on the programme talking about the ability get >200 people working together without domination or hierarchy. Sweet stuff that might be available for a listen on the BBC website for the next week or so.