it
, - I . . 0 4 . . In l'readomPi-ass anarchist IN ANGEL ALLEY op 84b1 HIGH sr. fortnightly '”vza'a%;53 FREEDO CO A LONDON E.l MID U X outh oast anarchis s c/o Resources Centre, North Road, Brighton E.Sussex A UP NT lack Jake — ABERDEEN libertarians group, contact c/o 115 Westgate Rd. N/cle NE1 4AG c/o 163 King Stl-eet, Aberdeen NUTTTNGHAM c7o Mushroom, TU Heath R YTH: David 'Fle'tc er_, cote St . (tel. 582506) or 15 Scotholme 59 Cambrian Street 'Aber stw th. Av. I'-Iyson Green (tel. 708 302) BIR MINGHAM anarchist§7anarcha fem - OLDHAM : Nigel Broadbent, I3 West- inists meet Sundays. Contact Alison at minster Road, Failsworth, Manchester Peace Centre, 18 Moore St.,Ring'way oxronn anarchist group c/o Danny LONDON Workers Group meet very Tuesday 8pm at Metropolitan pub, 95 Birmin ham 4 (tel. 021 643 0996) Simpson, Exeter College. Anarchist 3' BRETSL CTTY: 4 British Road, Workers Group ditto. Anarcho-Femin- Farringdon Rd. , EC1 (Farringdonwiie) Bristol BS3 3BW ists c/o Teresa Thornhill, 34 Divinity All welcome BRISTOL Students: Libertarian Society, Road. Solidarity c/o 34 Cowley Road Students Union, Queen's Rd. Bristol 8 PORTSMOUTH? Caroline Cahm, 25 CAMBRIDGE Anarchists, Box A, Albany Road, Southsea Hants. or WP’in aw>~sCHI‘e'Y1 PAPER A . U. 41 Fitzro Street Cambrid e READING anarchists cjo Ms. Shevek, CA NTER BURY Alternative Research Clubs Office, Student Union, White- Anyone within reach of Dundee who'd ate“ ,-pa)’ Q Group. Wally Barnes, Eliot College, kni' hts Read‘in Berks. like a GER BIL please get into touch Universi of Kent Canterbur . SHSFFIE LD a narchists: c7o A Have - with Doug Whitton, Logos Bookshop, $2is»-e CARDIFF writE cjo One-o-Eight lock Square, Sheffield S10 2FQ. 251 Hawkhill Dundee. \ 9,- Bookshop 108 S alisbur Road SHE FFIE LD Libertarian Society: P. O. Has anyone a spare copy of the ‘Not- W9; aw! ,5‘ CfiL"f"E NHAM anarchists see street- Box 168 Sheffield S11 8SE tingham‘ issue of Anarchy (ist series) Lin‘.-»_,#’7e' sellers 11 am -1, 30 Saturday mlrnings SWA NSSA: Don W. illiams, 24 Derlwyn, No. 38). Ross, '8Elm Avenue, 39°.‘ COVE NTR Y:" John England, Sfildents Dunvant Swansea Notirin ham Union, Univ. of Warwick, Coventry SWINDON area. Contact Mike, Ground- Lady requires furnfihed room in Ley- ' M109 A ' DERBY: Confict Anarew Huckerfi, swell Farm Upper Stratton Swindon. ton, Leytonstone, Walthamstow or 49 Westleigh Ave. ,Derby SE3 3BY WESTON- SUfiR-WRE, Martyn Wanstead. Box C, c/o FREEDOM ta’ ad“ Q0 M. w 1 South-east London. VegTe_tarian anarch‘- tel. 368678 Redman, Flat 5, 23 M_i_lt_01_i_l3£)ad_,_, ___ W)‘ § fig ' ' TNGL N§Ti'be“rt'aiT'tu'~eT Martyif _ \ ist wants to establish group and organ- .-~>. Everett, 11 Gibson Gardens, ize accommodation with others. .~. ’e3,a> Saffron Walden, Essex national P. Stone c/o FREEDOM EDINBURGH anarchists meet 8 pm on Anyone in Wandsworth7 Battersea7Clap Monday at First of May Bookshop, 45 NORTH WEST Anarchist Federation ham interested in forming anarchist Niddr St. Edinburgh c/o Grass Roots, 109 Oxford Road, group contact D. Elder, 28 Swanage EETER anarchist colle ctlve c7o Manchester M1 7DU. Groups are: Road, Wandsworth, SW18 X M 7/0/(I/77/0‘? aaaee Community Assn. , Devonshire House, Burnley anarchist group, 5 Hollin Hill, Anarchists? li|Ei'érEri'ans in Bushey?‘ /M Stocker Road Exeter. Burnley, Iancs. Watford area who would like to make contact 81 perhaps group please get in GESGOW anarchist group: John Lancaster anarchist group, 41 Main ' A P ' is'faghib'that theyor religiouswould formallyguardianestablishThis per-a Cooper, 34 Raithburn Avenue, Road, Galgate, Lancaster. touch with Roger Little, 23 Lambert son, obviously Khomeini to start with wou- Castlemilk, Glasgow G45 Manchester anarchist Group) Court Bushey Grove Road, Bushey l\/'cGonnagall. Anyone who has a copy /{A//P5 0’ ld have absolute power to appoint or dis- GREEWTCH 8: Bexley. Any trade uni- It is now the month of Moharram, the Shia of ‘More Poetic Gems’ and/or 'Last miss minor irrelevancies such as the onists interested in forming syndicalist §)’8d&.%”a‘§8tt¥$8té‘i£§ Kata) > M‘ moslem month of mourning, the Ell'lI1‘lV€I‘S3.I‘Y president. Combined with a few other sw- group contact John Ryan, 47 Binsey Contacts in other are as, and newslet- Poetic Gems‘ for sale please offer to It's been a while since I wrote on Iran ter published. F.E.D. , Box B, c/o Freedom. of the people of Iran going onto the streets eeping powers this would be a state of Walk London SE2 9TU in FREEDOM. That was in the middle of in hundreds of thousands, to protest again- affairs to worry anybody. HASTTNGS anarchist group c7o Solstice MIDLANDS Federation: groups include WANTED the revolution. Much has happened since st the brutal regime that had repressed There is a variety of secularist, mai- 127 Bohemia Rd., St. Leonards on Sea Birmingham, Coventry, Derby, News Views Articles Photos Typists then.The western press has seen fit to them for decades.Since then, that regime nly middle class groups.These are beco Sussex. Tel. 0424 429537 Leamington/Warwick, Leicester, Not- for the Jan. 80 edition of ANARCHIST report some of it. It's a pity that they did has £a11en,A new authoritarianism uneas- ming incresingly irre levant.Even the sec- H"'“"""_ULLlibe_—_“~_—__rtarianee1leeTive‘: ‘i-Yetei it " tingham, Sheffield. STUDENT. write c/o Freedom not find this interest before,when there ily tries to establish itself. This weekend ular members of the government are be- Jordan, 70 Perth St. Hull. were 100, 000 political prisoners and a NORTH EAST Anarchist Federation: there will be voting in a referendum on ing pushed out. Bani-Sadr,who was effec- EEAMINGTON E Warwi'ck c7o 42 Ba-th regime kept in place by torture, repress- Secretariat: HLC, 16 Park Grove, Hull the new constitution, that will give massive tively Prime Minister after Bazargan was St Leamington Spa. ion,American_planes and British tanks. powers to ‘gods representative on earth’ removed, has got the chop for being too fiEDS - new address awaited THAMES VA LLEY anarchist federation Literature Would it be too cynical to ask if this sud Yes, another one.However, this is not yet concilitary.His replacement is nothing LEICESTER anarchist group: Lyn - contact Oxford or Reading groups den attention is due to the new insecurity firmly established, so it engineers a back- but-a mouthpiece for Khomeini.The Fed- Hurst, 41 Briarfield Drive (tel. 0533 ‘Anarchist Student‘ Oct. 79 available of the oil suppliesllts also a pity that the DIRECT ACTION Movement, 28 Luck- drop that holds to ransom one of the _most ayin (Marxist guerilla group) are "main 21250 (day) 0533 414060 (night). Book- now. 25 copies for £1 p &p A included media coverage is becoming increasingly powerful states on earth. There is still taining a low profile" since their headqu- shop: Blackthorn, 76 Highcross St. , now Drive, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts. or single copy 5p plus SAE. From racist. Before I continue let me assure Groups in various places including hope in Iran. The outcome is poised arters were sacked but they are still a (tel. 0533 21896). Libertarian Educa- Polytechnic of N. London -Anarchist you that Iranisas a group are not peculia- SHAHIN significant force, several thousand strong tion 6 Beaconsfield Rd. tel. 0533 552085 London, Manchester and Leeds. S2_Q.,_Pr_ince_ of Wales Rd. London NW5 rly fanatical.Even Khomeini, narrow, bi- and well armed. The Mojahedin (Islamic _*-i — ' " " ' ." 'SOLIDARITY' libertarian communist Pagan ‘Christmas' Cards. Have u-‘aru-1' goted and, yes,fanatical, as he is,is no Marxists) are still dithering around try- Anarchy Collective, 37a Grosvenor Av. , organisation (publ. 'Solidh'ity for So- tional carols restored to their pre- more "mad" than any other demented, au- atlve on earth, the Imam Khomeini.A sig- ing to decide on which side of their ideol- (tel. 359 4794 before 7 pm) cial Revolution') c/o 123 Lathom Road christian words. Ten different cards flloritariafl Politician. nificant electoral advantage, I'm sure you ogy to come down. While all these formal Freedom Collective, 84B Whitechapel London E6. Groups 8: members in many for ‘El. 50. From Norman Iles, 381 We11, whet has happened? Immense tur- will agree. Taleghani, the so-called "red groups get on with their political games, High St, El (tel. 247 9249) towns. Marine Road Morecambe Lancs. moi1.Ever since Bakhtiar's government ayatollah", in fact a vague liberal, stood the dominant force is still the simmering Hackney anarchists: Dave, tel 249 7042 ‘Errowed Time’ will be monthly wall collapsed,in the face of massive demon- up for a while, the suddenly reversed his power of the people.Each bloc wants to Kingston anarchists, 13 Denmark Rd. , ANARCHIST COMMUNIST Association newspaper suitable for notice boards, strations and strikes, dozens of political position, shut up and died. The Muslim organisation of class struggle anarch- channel this.At the moment Khomeini's Kingston-upon-Thames(tel. 549 2564) shop windows or fly posting. Among groups have emerged.Dominant are the Peoples Republican Party has a fair am- prestige keeps him way in front. However, London Workers'- Group, Box W, 182 ists (publ. ‘Bread and Roses’) Box 2, themes in successive issues will be various Islamic groups.In the referendum ount of suppol-|;_11;s front persom shariat... 136 Kingsland High St. , London E8. as time goes by it is becoming increasin; Upper St. N.1 (tel.249 7042) direct action, nuclear power, state re- in March 98% of the votes cast. were for Madari is technically superior to Khomei- gly obvious that the revolution is not del- Love V. Power, Box 779, Peace News pression, prisons, education, housing, the establishment of an "islamic republic". ni in Islamic jurispudence, though his stay ivering the expected material benefits.' London office, 5 Caledonian Rd. N. 1 work, 8 sexual politics. If you would like Quite what this was to be was not revealed in Tehran and consequent compromise Hence the manipulated diversions. West London anarchists, 7 Pennard Rd to help with the preparation or ditribu- but it was carried through on the wave of with the shah‘s regime means that he has There's an encouraging note. There is W. 12. SUBSCRIBE ! please write to: Borrowed Time, -Box A, the revolution. It was sold as the only alt- stayed in second place politically. How- now an anarchist group in Tehran. There MA LVERN 8: Worcester area Jock Grapevine Bookshop, 41 Fitzroy Street, ernative to the monarchy.Since then there ever,after months of deference, he has has been a few issues oi a newspaper ‘ Cambridge Spence, Birchwood Hall, Storridge, 1 £6-0o /./w./\u1>. have been a number of splits in the mos- now dared to hint at abstention in the cur- "Nafarnam" (No Authority) and a couple %1verl1.. Worcs. ‘Posusl-IED 57' Fflesbem Hl€S$. que.Still way in front is the Islamic Rep- rent referendum on the proposed constit of pamphlets. N _ R - see Federation Pizza-rep B7 hmrit. ‘wk. , MAR-fi=~TE. ublican Party, headed by god's represent- ution. The problem with these proposals 2 ZFREEDQM 3 3
While all this goes on in the cities the ink has disappeared. But all this is only a the outcome will ibe.At the moment the re- outer regions have their own politics. On- shift of emphasis. Under their flash west- gime is basking in being able to defy the ly half of the total population (of 36 -million) ern images Irani menwere always ultra worlds greatest power. They can't back is what the west would call “persian" sexist.Alcohol was always regarded as an down now. They need this anti -western feel- (Farsi speakers)The rest belong to sever aberration. I'm not saying that I don't re- ing to divert attention from the faults at al ethnic groups and they are taking the gret the lost personal freedom. Just that home. The USA cannot return the ex-shah, chance to assert their independence. There most of it was an illusion to start with. No for prestige reasons and for fear of what is almost a civil war in the north west. The doubt if the islamists succed in establish would emerge at a t:rial. Similarly they can , 1 1 JUST thought and we gave as good as we got. I kept majority there is Turkish speaking and ing total control, then things will get much not allow the embassy staff to be 't:ried'. 0 I'd write to inform ‘the shouting "I have a right to speak!“ and 8 DESPITE the has always resented Tehran.In the past w0rse,After all 'islam' means ‘submission Pushed too far they could retaliate milit- _ O effeoiiveness of Labour movement‘ about the fllll and games a few "This is how the Labour Party treats and Trade Union stewards in acting as there have been many insurrections and So9 various forces still have some pres- arily. It would obviously be useless to try of us had on the TUC CUTS march on workers! " One woman LP member a couple of autonomous republics have ' ence. Other than Islam, theres westernism, to lift the hostages out of Tehran,and any a controlling force against the workers 28 November. tried to protect me, saying "This is a who turned up on the November 28 anti- been set up. In both cases these were bac liberalism, marxism, regionalism. And other sort of raid risks involving -USSR The Oxford Anarchists planted their workers‘ party - let him speak". But ked by Russia until it became politically underneath it all,downright bloody minded and would certainly cut off the oil. There cuts demo, the police were used_in five banner at the back but to one side of the all the others just stood on their chairs , arrests. _ more expepient to pull out and leave the discontent. Hence the present red herring is always their macho pride to consider.I march, which was queueing up in Hyde and gawped. Then some police arrived people to the reprisals. Things haven't of the farce at the USA embassy. Farce suppose that they must be hoping for an Myself and a friend of mine were walk- Park, and they were joined by 20-30 and so most of us left together. Two or ing down Vauxhall Bridge Road when the gone that far yet, but there is widespread it is, though with potentially vicious con- international blockade.Having seen the other comrades, including myself. After three of us tried to stick it out longer discontent and there should be strong ab- sequences. Bread and circuses.What can I response to the supposed blockade of the white tape that directed the march was 1— milling about, we decided to go straight but were gradually slung out. My head broken. Next thing a policeman had stentiop, in the referendum. say’,-‘As an anarchist I disapprove of the former Rhodesia, some cynicism (realism) to the front of the march which had just was smashed onto a stone pillar before Even more militant are the Kurds.They taking of hostages and judicial demands is justified. ' I was ejected. dragged me out of the crowd calling me started - and this we did, leaving the U a ‘communist cunt‘, and threatening to have reached the stage of open revolt. They for the ex-sha_h to ‘tried’. On the other To sum up. Since the revolution began rest of the thousands to wait for three are epreed eoroee the borders of Ire", Ire-ol hand the USA is a fair target (theres been the mosque has maintained its dominant I spoke briefly to a newspaper report- put his fist in my mouth. My friend and hours for their orders. a few others milled around asking what ~ Turkey and USSR . They have fought a guer great emphasis that it is the USA, not_the_ role.However this is nowhere near as We slipped into the front, 20 yards er, and we all managed to reassemble; illa war for months now. The repression American people that is being attacked. monolithic or as established as is some- no arrests!( Best punch-up in years and I was charged with but the police didn't behind Tony Bemi and other self-confe ss- answer. They dragged me off and arrest- has been heavy, ment? eevtives have been Small consolation for the hostages). They times thought. In order to maintain this ed MPs, just as it passed the Hilton no-one nicked!) We were all elated and shot- Thereare a number of political org- put the shah back in power in 1953 and position significant economic and political angry and went off to rejoin the march ed my friend. In the coach they said Hotel (which any self- re specting worker they'd send us for trial at Barnet magis- anisetiene trying to reeeh e Settlement, manipulated the country for decades.Helms, progress and redistribution would be nec- would smash up if they could). All the near the back saying "Labour Party beats but it is difficult to see what will stick, the ambassador,used to be director of the essary. I think that this is unlikelyto be up hecklers, la la la la la la la! " trates‘ court (wliere the Southall show way we chanted, clapped and shouted trials take place). I said "You've got short of autonomy or military conquest. CIA.Documentary evidence of the use of delivered, hence the embassy show. Tile ‘Smash the State!‘ ‘Autonomy!’ We then decided to call it a day, got In a similar position are the Baluchis,_in the embassY for sPYlI1g' has been releasedg ' underlying forces of militancy (both eco- onto the tube without paying, and tried to them in your pocket haven't you“ and ‘Anarchy!’ ‘General Strike!‘ ‘Break Out they laughed in agreement. the south east, spread across into Pakistan Sure, some of it is exagerated and what do nomic and regional) will not be appeased. of the Union Prison! ' ‘Class War!‘ etc find a TV to see reports. True to form, and Afghanistan. Up untill now they have you expect an embassy to be doing? Bot Wh That is the acheive ment of the Revolution. the media (including papers) gave almost I am a hospital worker and I'm charg- etc and had quite a laugh. A few Labour ed with criminal damage and obstruction. not been as‘ militant as the Kurds but it en the USA was the chief patron of the re- These forces are now operati ng openly. Party stewards looked really pissed off. as much coverage to the ‘anarchist looks as if their referendum turn out will gime that has been Qppregging you for years The Irani people will go through their rel- punch-up‘ as to the march itself. But of We appear along with a Kent miner, ', Meanwhile 40, 000 working class people a telephonist and another bloke on 18 be minimal. In the south are people of and then it provides sanctuary for the sym igious purgatory. But now they know what behind us were being (likewise) shepherd- course no explanation of why, and the Arab descent. They have beeen carrying bol of that oppression (have you noticed how they, can , themselves acheive.And they visciousness of the stewards. December at Bow Street Magistrates - ed by police and stewards along a pre- Court, but it will probably be adjourned. out a campaign of sabotage against oil contradictory the medical reports have will not be endlessly submissive. planned, roped off route - no buses de- installations.There are _also a number_ of been) then 1- t is hard}Y surP1‘i_5ing that there layed, no spontaneity, no demonstration, Let's face it, normal demos only One thing is worth noting: neither the tribes still semi -nomadic, despite an ex- is some ,,.e,eniment,_I donq; know what no potential, no effect. We had plans. demonstrate our weakne ss and passivity police nor the stewards wanted anything tensive settlement campaign bg the last and willingne ss to be led like lambs to other than an orderly demonstration so When we got to ‘dispersal point‘ (as the slaughter by unions and parties. as to combine passivity in the workplace regime.They have a long record of opp- the police van ordered) we stuck together osition to the state.It is unlikelythat any They imprison our opposition to the rul- with passivity in the streets. When I and all went to the official Labour Party ing cl5.'s'sT."S'ii'Fely thousands, if not mill- shouted for help to the demo, no-one of these groupings can bequletly fitted in rally. (By the time we got there there to a ‘new‘ Iran.Apart from anything else, ions of working people feel the same way other than my friends and anarchists were 4000 stalwarts already at the front - especially youngsters and those who moved. At the moment both Labour and they are religious misfits, being mos_tly_ (rent-a-mob) and loads of stewards, and Sunni mosle ms as opposed to the majority fitaeaew are facing confrontation in hospitals, State forces have complete control over we took over three rows or so in the Shias. _ shipyards, steelworks and car plants as the worke rs. S , centre. Heffer was ranting over the mic- ft I-1 In—Qq*1,;__l < Ah, yes,we come round to it.Islam.At well as all services. We have to get rophone about ‘returning a Labour gov- across to these people with our ideas Anyone on the demo who saw the incident the moment it's the all purpose rallYlog »47'/L/on//5 of our comrade‘s arrest and could testify ernment pledged to socialist policies‘ cry.What better way to neutralise opt-lo‘ and our practice. Direct action,,_'nidiist- 1 H etc, and we jeered and heckled, feeling rial or oTi"tli"é*=§treets, against the finan- on his behalf, please contact FREEDOM. nents than to label them 'ungod}Y -The ~’-'-l’——:-"@"-—— 1*’ --1"—_ it ’7Tr_nn—n-—p——i.n;1i\g1i strong and lively. Then Callaghan came ciers 8.‘.‘ld the forces or'5'r'Zi'e'-E" is the standard charge in the "revolutionly to sit on the platform, so we booed and courts is ‘corrupt on earth'.ThatS Worth only relevant response to the brutal a firing squad. The upsurge in religious chanted ‘out, out, out‘, which was taken attack we are facing (the world over). 3 Meanwhile back up by the whole audience for two minutes. feeling is amazing.At least outwardly- Punch ups on demos against left or I in County Hall around Middle class people who a couple of years However, they adored leftie MP Frank state policies is just one of the many 30 school kids, members of NUSS, had occ- ago were ultra chic, westernised are now Allaun, who insulted our intelligence with ways to re-assert our self-respect and upied the foyer of the building and were devout mosle ms. Counties which previous- crap about ‘peace’ - to which we shouted confidence; But we have to strengthen causing offlcials there deserved headaches ly scorned Iranis as heretic Shia, now hail ‘Abolish the Army! ‘ We kept up a cons- our revolutionary groups locally and in As members of the London College of them as glittering examples.Islam is on , tant barrage of mostly relevant criticism - various fields of struggle (anti-nuclear Printing we were there handing in another the rise in many parts of the world. I'm about their hypocrisy, their cuts, and etc). Also we must create consistent ‘to be ignored‘ petition. But it was our pr- not really knowlegeable enough to comment general anti-government stiiff. agitational. presence in all industries, esence there that prevented various mem- on this in detail.However, it seems that, Then I started shouting "Why can't we neighbourhoods and who raver people bers of County Hall staff from assaulting in so far as it is true, and not merely the hear a worker. speak? Let a worker are angry and with coherent analysis, the 12-17 year old kids, as some of them journalistic fashion of the day, it repres- 1 fill friends of FREEDOM speak!“ and after a couple of minutes of strategy and al.terna'.t.'iiFt=:_.*§.'" attempted to do.After the police were cal- ents a third world resentment seeking an f are invited to i .‘\‘“"““'* '?°!"..“.F,,,'iin= this I got up and demanded to speak. led in the schoolkids left -peacefully enough ideology.As such it should be more worr- ‘Y attend at the Bookshop at The audience was fed up with us lot, and Anyway, tailendingv the Left is gua.ra:i- if somewhat vociferously. Once outside, t. _,_..j4r-,1; the Stewards baked menacing, but 1 teed. to render us at best a colourful ying to Marxists than to capitalists. The Stuck to my guns, "1 have a right to appendage to be stabbed in the bank, at. however, the police, no doubt frust:rated by old imperial powers have had their day and ; Speak; H After 3 great deal of stick, the worst a zion-existent movement. the orderliness of .the march, over -reacted were already being squeezed out. The lib- 1000 or go pegple quietened down and In any future -demonstratiions we go on, to the kids‘ taunts and dragged away a 15 eratory‘ slogan used to be marxism. That Jh7z2.tMz-re‘/A/mv.’ E yégar old black girl and a 16 year old black even the platform was silent and it looked 1et'e meet "P end eta?‘ mobile, eplit into was OK as long as it was an untried alter *, u when the. Collective1 . ,1.will present .the f as though I was going to get a chance. emerge, demee-‘1 the right to epee-‘I at y. native, 0 ti I H_ oorfeet ldeo oglca me °" 3 Vanety ° Just as 1 was about to go on about Seiz_ meetings, overturn platforms and encour- They were taken to Kennington police A11YWeY, W1}?-t hes been the IFS‘: eghg j 1IoD1oe- _ b t ing the workplaces etc, a steward hurled age the break-up of authority relations station. Later they refused to tell us any- thing about why they had been arrested, _ _ _ »eeH,,m,and 9, d 0 1 e gued_ F te in- of the true expression of people's ang- ~ asked us if we'ld like to join them and far “"3095: There is 3 negeggrgtizlggjn 3'1 attitude of Mutual Am and contnbute utespw: :3 3 rlliralssnpuiich up) gtlew in the streets , ' ml refused to let us make a complaint against fi:£g’tTgl:Q€fla;Z:ta;%1Z:oor Alcoholic d,._ to the supplies A ards. Ten-15 rows of chairs went flying D. (London) the police, let alone Couty Hall staff. All good clean fun? , Steve - , 1 ‘fr
4 FREEDOM - FREEDOM 5
Now, as Townsend says, "conceptions of inequality at work are ill developed", A and most British anarchists, it must be . admitted, have been as aloof in their analysis of these topics as Rees Mogg, The Times editor. l 7.97%!!! /J/Jflfi/71.’ 6’ /7/.417%’/mm/0 If tra'EIF'uiiionists are entering a period THE pretentiously named Anti Nuclear Suddenly the anarchists find themselves A newer group, the Ecology and Anar- of conflict and crisis than some attempt Campaign was launched on 24 November relegated to one of those groups “who chism Collective, have made similar should be made to present an anarchist at the Polytechnic of Central London. are not ready". True, anarchists have points. In a recent statement it calls for analysis and interpretation of events. Its aim is to be for the anti nuclear not always been so united in opposition improvements in coordination and quality 0/ 46' Syndicalism in its special national form opposition what the Anti Nazi League to the so-called "peaceful u'ses of nuclear of discussion among the autonomous - /W is central to the traditions of the British has been for anti-fascism and what the energy", and even today the self- styled groups, but is more bellicose than Lon- labour movement. CND used to be for nuclear disarmament. armchair terrorists of Xtrai (or at least don Greenpeace in straightly charging IN COMPARING the cases of Mr Robin- Robert Taylor, writing in The Observ: However, to date, the card carrying Under its umbrella huddle uneasily such their Mad Scientist) can Elieve that with ANC with having been set up "to elimin- son and Mr Blunt The 'l_I‘_hne§_1931181‘ er,(25 November 1979), suggests that syndicalists and their sects such as disparate groupings as the Conservation anarchists in control nuclear power ate by persuasion, ‘representation’ and writer (22. ii. we) Tést week argued that "British Leyland may reflect the shape the Direct Action Movement (DAlVl) and Society, Ecology Party and Socialist would be OK. But the fact is that anarch- manipulation, the independence and mil- "The communists in the trade unions of things to come . . . an aggressive em- the SWF, have been about as practical Workers Party - not to mention a few ists have been, if one will pardon the itancy of the anti-nuclear movement". have . . . done far more to destroy the ployer, offensive, fighting for survival, as chocklate fireguards on the British anti-corporativist Tories. expression, in the vanguard of the anti- Because of what they see as its ‘repress- prospect of our maintaining a free and facing a defensive shop steward move- trade imion and industrial scene. Its mo-st well known supporter, Arthur nuke movement - even if the media have ive function‘ they call for opposition to prosperous society than all the Camb- ment, apprehensive about its ability to To remedy this situation a group of Scargill of the Yorkshire miners, was continually made out that their involve- ANC, though do not specify what form ridge traitors put together". speak for the confused and divided shop- shopfloor syndicalists have got together que stioned about the attitude of anti- ment (as inthe ‘Brokdorf action, where such opposition should take. In a month in wlich one free trade floor". -" ' to try to produce a regular industrial nuclear groups dissenting from ANC. they were said to be sporting the "rain- The Ecology and Anarchism Collective unionist, Anatoly Pozdnakov, was Sent Chocklate Fireguar_d_s_ Clearly if our feature for FREEDOM. "Unfortunately" he said "there are bow colours of the Baade r-Meinhof gang"I) argues that "it's not a question of who's to a mental hospital in Moscow and an- Tn'i'Ti'tedTFe‘e_d'oms are threatened, then B. B. groups who are not ready at this time was naught else but an attempt to subvert on which committee, or whether the and who are not prepared to agree that well-menaing liberals to their own colour ANC has formal membership or respects other, Vladimir Klebanov, a Ukramlim it will be the Robinsons of this world. * Peter Townsend, Inequality at the coalminer and founder of the ‘free trade who resist. Robinson the shop steward, we should have one single anti-nuclear ful ends. ' our autonomy, or what sort of image it workplace: how white collar always union‘, was reported to being heldin not Robinson the card carrying Comm- lobby. I think this is very distressing. sells, or whatever. It's a question of a psychiatric prison hospital in Ukraine, wins. New Society 18 October 1979. I hope that in further discussions we An anarchist group with a long history understanding the FUNCTION of ANC - unist. of direct action against nuclear power is it is as well to be mindful of the menac- can convince them of the validity of our to try to take over and control the anti- ing consequences of Communism, and case. Complaints about 'over-centralis- London Greenpeace Group, who have nuclear movement and divert it away ation' just don't stand up to examination. written a "contribution to the debate on from effective resistance and into safe suspicious of Communists. But The the ANC within the anti-nuclear move- Times Moscow corresp0ndent's report If any group feels it is in danger of protect/pressure politics". being swallowed up, it can withdraw". ment". One of LGG's main reservations Yet, one could be forgiven for wonder- 51TTb'_November included a telling is that - contrary to Scargill's denial - comment from the unofficial trade union- Arthur Scargill was being careful with ing what the fuss is about. If, as the his Time Out interviewer. (He added ANC is a centralised body and that the re Collective claim, "springing from the ists (almost all who are unemployed fl€A’.<’flA/6'1 _ - . r that although his earlier remark about is a "logical incompatibility of centralis- grass roots is an expanding network of after conflicts at work) who say "the "On the vexed question of politics it has and about that of another Irish group, Prisoners Aid, which reached a cres- the ‘brown bread and sandals brigade‘ ation with opposition to nuclear power". thousands of individuals, groups and official unions work as an arm of man: become apparent that I am an anarchist. Such centralisation, and the hierarchical agement in Soviet factories and do no. cendo when Worsley asked a second had not been meant offensively, their alliances of all sorts, directly controlled I believe that no-one has the right to image - one he has himself perpetuated structure that must inevitably go with it, by those involved", why should EC be protect the workers‘ interests". impose their views on anyone else - and Rising Free worker, Fabian Thompsett: - was still unfortunate). But when New are "one of the important reasons" why such a threat‘? If ANC is going to respect that includes judges. I look forward to "Are these prisoners people who murd- The British l_.eyland management Scientist's editorial called ANC ‘Thu? LGG "opposes nuclear power. the autonomy of other groups, and if a society where judges have to look for er? . . Are they people who maim, argue-that Robmson and the other stew- most significant political event since the London Greenpeace also fears that these groups are as tough as their lang- other jobs". Ronan Bennett. shoot in the back - that sort of thing?" ards ". . . are paid, like all of us in BL, m'— 151$-1:13;: general election" it was not so diplomat- ANC will create the idea among new- uage, how will it recuperate them? #108!-iiivwi-1801 _1—I_-3 inn:-Q 47 '-l - vmbiiij-ijiijii By his very questions he was trying to to work in the best interests of the ic. Friends of the Earth were castigated comers that their duty is to support The Collective says the function of Cgmpany , . , " B0th the Soviet View and THE ‘Persons Unknown‘ trial is almost drag Fabian, and thus by implication what others do, rather than do themselves. Vince, into the maelstron of Irish polit- for not joining ANC. “In withholding its ANC must be understood. But has it Sir Michael Edwardes (the BL chairman) over. At time of writing the defence sub- support" wrote NS, "Friends of the Even if the ANC attracts more people been? Apart from the fact that, with its seem to embrace a similar autocratic mission is coming to an end, after which ics. than the libertarian movement could, But it was for Ronan that Worsley was Earth puts itself in the company of a ill- assorted supporters, ANC stands no style . it is expected that the judge will take at "it‘s clearly better to have another conserving the full blast of his vicious- minority of limatic anarchists and sect- chance whatever of being the monolithic least five days to sum up - an extraord- arians . . . “ Well! - 1000 nuclear activists than another block its organisers might like, where Robinson and the Leyland stewards, inary length of time. By 15 December ness. Ronan opened his ca.se, describing as much as Klebanov and his unofficial The resentment of those who eat brown 10, 000 anti-nuclear"sTipporters of a is the evidence that ANC was set up ' we might have a verdict. his childhood and adolescence in Belfast, small 'active' elite". ‘They 1-star to a trade unionists, see the role of the V the Catholic, civil rights history of his bread and wear sandals is not hard to deliberately to undermine "a growing, In the meantime mention must be appreciate. It's a bit much to have occ- comment of Peace Ne'ws that "CND . . . autonomous and angry movement such unions as being to present an alte rna..1ve made of the appearances in the witness family, the way in which his politics to centralised management. had developed from a traditional Irish upied the wastes of Torness, clung to rode on the backs of an already active as ours"? Because it makes no claim to but first of Vince Stevenson, then of cranes over the Sharpness docks, picket- movement, diverted energy towards be anti-State, is it therefore the State's Of course the re is much in the prop- Ronan Bennett. republicanism into anarchism. As soon as he had finished, Worseley gathered ed windswept street corners and harbour ‘more effective‘ campaigning, and so avenging angel? " osals of the left trade unionists which Clearly the Worsley/King-Hamilton split the movement". CND did, however, The truth is probably more prosaic anarchists should oppose. The idea of up his black skirts and charged. quaysides against uranium, sallied forth ..team were trying to arouse a few slumb- in tiny peagreen boats against nuclear work with the Direct Action Committee, than a conspiracy. More likely is it that state aid and nationalisation to prop ering jurors when they took a sudden Every conceivable aspect of the case was thrown at him which could just as L diunping, debated from dusk to dawn who organised the first Aldermaston ‘ a combination of different and more up or take over declining companies aggressive interest in a defence witness march, though ANC has not made so innocent factors prompted Scargill's could never be to our taste. well have been thrown at others, and around the camp fires of the Torness for Vince. H Alliance, to have done all this and much much as a mention of the Torness All- proposition of the campaign at the Energy _ But RobinsonI for all his Communist often more suitably. The result was The incident took place during cross- more without a miner or an NS hack in iance. (And nor should it be forgotten 2000 conference. Among other things thert commitments, represents the shop stew- examination of Stephanie Dickinson. several days of meticulous, repetitious, gruelling, grinding interrogation, des- sight, only to be told by them that your that in the event, CND's thousands of has been the near catastrophe of the near ards movement, and the shop stewards A worker at Rising Free bookshop in meltdown on Three Mile Island, combin- " movement both protects and advances igned to destroy. But Ronan stood his diet and clothing are inadequate and that, local groups did much to introduce people Islington, Stephanie testified that during moreover, you are both mad and sectar- into radical politics). ed with much publicity around the likely our industrial freedoms. an East End supermarket robbery, in ground. Worsley began by trying to accuse _ ian. US moratorium on new nuclear power Now it may well be that in their jobs which he was alleged to have been in- stations. “°'*"' i many workers feel powerless (except in volved, Vince was in fact at a meeting Ronan of helping Dafydd Ladd, his alleg- ed fellow conspirator, to jump bail. |.'_§' .5-,1?‘- - I f of the bookshop collective. .- '-1.: r ' bargaining for pay) but many worke rs -H ~-I - ' .'- . -. "'_._ I‘ J1 . '4'-_j -" , -I-—II4If,-— '".S'=F' "1 - . - .. "I am suggesting" said this repulsive -‘I.;;_-‘... -=-—-._.. :1-E. She said, "I remember it well. There ._._ '‘-L.'- .--J-__‘ "-3;. ' 1' -I’ do have a measure of job control and .=-nqp.'q_|'|,',‘_"".(-I-:"*'"V-:l|. u f‘ -' -'1' '-5l ---‘--Q_ ill 1 :—f_’_: i man, "that the disappearance of Ladd clT'_-n.'''- alwrfiyigtfm 1::-_,--._ 1-‘'--_..-'._.: was a discussion on allowing the provis- ‘-s ' '-.-.—\..I-‘_‘§, e-4-'-_-*1; .-<-1.-.-,-pa..._ - ‘L II "-@u¢os ""~""'...¢ -Ilfl-r these controls are often best expressed _._yn .,___,_;:u| 1I-I‘-G- ....-.--‘=-=-7. ' .-_ J_L-Eq- 1',-I‘.' ..1» ‘"''--..A .___-'5'"-4"-LE.-; 4 -._Q-. -.:-.=-w'=e,-_-- ' :‘*_E~l"'i._'.“‘§‘ ~.-1:- - : . was a put-up job. It was planned so that | .- . ails. ional Sinn Fein to use a box number at " . through the shop stewards organisation '#' 4 _H._- ¢' 2-. you could say what you liked behind his i . -—~ the shop. It was the time of letter bombs ‘\.n.|—--__Ii_.- and to a lesser extent the trade unions. : 'it‘ , i; Also, in this country the trade union-S and attacks on left bookshops and I was back without the jury convicting him". The next day Worsley was obliged to are not yet either an arm of the state worried about security". .mI_1' , '--‘J ~__ confess that he had "gone over the top". . or of management. t V Although it was explained that a large Ifl---mu’ Indeed, what Sir Michael Edwardes number of political groups used Rising But this did not'd'é'flect his determinat- and some of the CB1 militants seem to Free as a box number neither prosecutor ion to make Ronan into the arch-villain be after is to crush rather than incorpor- nor judge would let the matter rest at of the piece. ate the unions. Subservience on the that. There followed a barrage of quest- A more detailed report will be given shopfloor rather than consensus. ions about the Sinn Fein box-number, in our next instalment.
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5 FREEDOM 1 I 1-21-FREEDOM 7 AZ/72'!/it:/rd /W755
////5%_¥ fii/Z17/41many members the union chooses to iiun/into build the Labour Party's IT'S amazing what short memories affiliate which is not necessarily the new headquarters. people have, especially Labour politic- same as the number of members who All this money comes from a common ians. It wasn't so long ago that Jim actually pay the political levy. For source - the political levy which many /' Callaghan and his motley crew were example, 97 per cent of TGWU members 7/1-'MUCH cove rage was given to the recent terrestrial viewpoint, to be little differ- Giscud and Thootcher dynasties, and trade unionists pay without realising. attempting to keep our wage rises below pay the levy - that is, 2 013, 000 out d As anarchists we should go further in discovery of Ooth - a planet which the ence "between the farmers and the farmed. threatend to cut them up for some import- that magical .5 per cent and were prep- 2, 073, 000; yet only 1, 162, 000 are affil- our moral stand against voting for Labour conventional wisdom supposed had comm- The latter are also double-tailed, with ant ceremony called ‘Sunday Diimer‘. ared to jump on anyone who disagreed. iated. In total about 7, 915, 000 trade (or anyone else) and hit the Labour scabs ittéfi suicide by supernova 600 years similar features, except that they seem Laughable as this; may seem, the fact Unfortunately for them it was they who unionists pay the levy, that is about 80 where it hurts - in their pockets. The ago. more stupid. Which, of course, the-y is that "the general environmental crisis, got jumped on by the lorry drivers and per cent. 2 Labour Party is going through a cash Since the discovery argument has may well be. w of which the lamb wars were but a symp- the public service workers. Now, like However, only 6, 061, 000 of these are crisis, according to Norman Atkinson, raged in specialist circles over the orig- According to the NG-QS.-"EB the01‘Y, tom, got worse and worse. ‘Despite the some‘ Jekyll and Hyde the Labour Party affiliated to Labour, but even so, with Labour's treasurer. "The party is fast ins of the ‘ashen light‘ which can often which is gaining rapidly over others, intensive farming of sub- species, mass- has put on its left face and sheds croco- the individual membership fee going up overspending its income - disastrously be seen on Ooth with the aid of a Calli- there were at some time on Ooth various ive fB.l'l'l'i116‘B had struck the planet, and dile tears over the effects of Thatcher's from 32p. to £1.25 next year, this means so“ (Guardian, 4. 10. 79). 4 fragic telescope. This controversy re- sizes of exotic
Anarchist SUPPLEMENT 1 December / 79 Vol40 N0 22 BaansI Fnam anon. KLLEY we//07
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BOOKSHOP NOTES Rriodica of titles from our main book- list (October 1978)-still available on receipt of a 9"x 6" SAE (0. 13%p)-that have since gone out of print. So-the following titles are now totall unavailable, we can notsupply them until/unless a new edition appears-at whifi_ RCHISTH Eifne it will be noted in our fortnightly list in FREEDOM Elton E. Smith:William Godwin Peter Kropotkin:The Great French Revolution Gerrard Winstanley:The Law of Freedom and other writings CENTAUR is a self-help c0mm'.1nity project set up in 1971 by C Domenico Tarizzo:L'A narchia people who were dissatisfied with all aspects of conventional RAF;Backg-round and Information and alternative community work. We are determined to _o_u__f5_PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE Albert Camus:Neither Victims nor Executioners 'ie'main independent and to serve and respond to the needs of Charles Fourier:Harmonian Man a community in whatever directions they flow. Our previous The poverty of opportunity, the under-employment and B. Traven:The Death Ship open-door community centre and our new base is set in the under- stimulation of talents, the resulting sense of frustration, Peter Kropotkin:Ethics A Caledonian Road area of North London. Our specific intention alienation and isolation of which we and our kids are victims " " :A narchism (from Encyclopaedia Britannica) is to bring our community together. We work with all kinds of _i_s_ political. The majority of kids who go to youth clubs are Errico Malatesta:Anarchy people - all ages, all colours: the area's young people form the problem kids and/or the 1mder- achievers. The ‘stable’ Proudhon:The General Idea of Revolution in the 19 th Century the large st social group of the centre and will run it as much grammar school sixth form-ershave supposedly already found Gerrard Winstanley:The Complete Works (ed, Sabue) as possible themselves. They treated the previous centre as themselves, their place and position and their type of friends Eleanor Flexnor ;Mary Wollstonecraft their real h0me - no-one ordered them about. They were in life so that the majority don't feel the need to go to youth Giovanni Baldelli:Social Anarchism their own sovereign and so was Centaur. The authorities would clubs. The kids we are dealing with are at the very bottom of Gonzales Prida:Anarchy conventionally define our work, pigeon-hole and demarcate it the shit-heap of our meritocracy. Many of them are vandals, Benjamin R. Tucker:Instead of a Book - as working in the spheres of free education, community delinquents, drug addicts and truants. It is the vicious Oscar Wilde:'I‘he Soul of Man Under Socialism 8: other writings education, community arts, recreation, counselling, help and pressure of modern life which has caused them to be alienated. (The Soul of Man is still available on its own) youth work. They try and insist on this demarcation as a Just like the ‘rogue chickens’, who refuse to lay eggs under Ronald Sampson:The Anarchist Basis of Pacifism condition of funding. Our whole emphasis is a natural > battery farm conditions, these kids are refusing to cooperate John Hyatt;Pacifis m, A Selected Bibliography spontaneity, totally contrary to this linear thinking. with the ridiculous and absurd education system, and quite Nicholas Walter :A bout Anatchism rightly so. Pa Chin:The Family At Centaur we tried, and will try, to provide four basic u-._ Montenar 81 Alfonso:Zapata, His Life Was La Revolucion qualities for the kids to explore: Open Road:A nar chist Trade Unions in Spain Today A Sacco and Vanzetti:The 50th. anniversary edition of "Freedom' 1. Freedom to act_w_it_h the guidance of their own authority Walters et al:Punishment After all, many of us are used to having important decisions Charles Rycroft:Reich made for us. We try and encourage the kids to run things as Leila Berg:Risinghill much as possible, and in our future plans for development, White Lion St. Free School:How' To Set Up a Free School the emphasis is on self-management by the kids instead of Colin Ward :Utopia growing into one of the professional charities which provide Clem Gosman:People Together employment for the alternative professionals. Bob Dickins:The Parts Are All Around " " :Synthesis Is The Only Possibility 2. Courage and ability to face the consequences of their Charles Reich:The Greening of America °__.“m“_°.I1°.E.'§ Roger Lewis;Out1aws of America Since the redundancy of the church in social affairs (brought Slansill 8: Marrowitz:BA MN about by lack of confidence in so called Christian behaviour), Paul Goodman:The Black Flag o_|: Anarchy schools and parents have failed to provide coherent and Nicolai Cherneshevsky;What Is To Be Done relevant moral values for their children. Which is why B. Traven:The Bridge in the Jungle Martin Spence:National Liberation and State Power 3. We seek to provide the kids with a common wisdom to re-educate themselves, re-discoveA_r___tlle joys of learning and develop their ovum moral l'ang__i_1_a_g_e.
4. We would dearly love to provide them with the strength to challenge the hypocrisy of the establishment in a practical, constructive ..-..______"rad Hmnane way . Our new premises are two former supermarket shops, with large basements; they will also be the base for several income producing schemes which, we hope, can i.n time provide work for some of the kids. These include a record exchange shop, community cafe, practising rooms, selling bric-a- brac and a teenager work agency. Although we'd have a couple of pool tables, we haven't and won't try to have the usual physical traditional youth club activities, but you can't describe logist- ically what we would do instead without a long string of abstract words. W 10 Review Review University, that denizen of this meritocracy, and the con- us - these persons who deliberately use the kindness, generos- can AN INDEPENDENT PROJECTWREALLY, EXIST AND ity or strengths of others in a ‘spoilt cuckoo‘ syndrome to Centaur can try and give the means for expression to flow LL WED T:sunv E “"*’*'i"““t*"“ ""*' clusion of a 16-year intensive education process, takes a large and explode into numerous directions from common needs and 1'1‘-7'1?-—'-‘ ' _L Ii-G rj-7"}-1-— —. ; 1-it; part of the blame for causing this malady. There, these aspir- lean on without bothering to try to solve their own problems mtereet alremy there. As the kids are into music, natural Our aim at Centaur is simply to help people with real com- ing human beings and adults have the stuffing - a pristine sense by themselves. Surely that must be discouraged? extensions are practising rooms, a rock band, a steel band, passionwithout having to ‘come to terms‘ with the authorities of creative individualism, ingenuity and spark - finally knocked and compromise our aims and ideology. This is almost imposs- a musicians‘ co-op, a record label . . . In fact, freedom from out of them, and instead they are equipped with projected 4. wnzrr IS THE ANSWER? the poverty of opportunity with which most people living in ible with the bureaucracy of making loads of detailed applicat- secondhand views of the working class, th_e_working people, our area have been faced with. Centaur isn't just for kids, ions each year for money. (Our success so far from this is the the community, the political solution, and can rhetorise and The strength of any project is its people: the team running but for all people feeling that way. Pensioners and the hand- security of an independent 10-year lease on our centre and 'w?ite it up in essays in a language quoting Pelican course it will be as strong as its lowest denominator - its weakest, icapped have also particularly featured in Centaur's work. £9000 of grants to date). There is the pressure and temptation books. The meritocracy has delivered yet more over-educated most uncertain member. When the project is under external The emphasis is everybody coming together in a spirit of involved in just trying to 'keep going', and making sure that under- achievers off its production lines. This identikit of the pressure and attack (as will be inevitable if it is an alternative) direct mutual self-help in the direct opposite of a hostile you aren't trading away any of the principle of your sovereignty new professional, the new ‘alternative manager‘, is now ready any chink will widen into a self-destructive rifFthat will tear. enviromnent: a warm, colourful, frie_1"I'¢TI§I_5n_El' personalised or birthright when you accept money. Money is like plutonium: to carry on administering our society, as his parents had done. the project apart. you handle it only with great care. Most money has strings, home-from-home of their own. With the atmosphere of an old Throughout this century - the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - there's The only solution, to ensure individualism, is to have very and the old age "Whoever pays the piper calls the tune" ha.s always been the young radical Guardian readership: an intell- strong people - and enough of them - as your foundation, raw local - but without meeding the beer to make the brewers never held more true. Also through the shortage of cash, your ectual liberal leftist tendency who tfieorised and dabbled about rich. Dormant or subdued aspirations which have hitherto been work and its standards are prone to more economics and self- committed to guard and protect the project and its foundations. suppressed are given a chance to reach fruition._ changing society. They will unknowingly and inherently sell They must be like the three musketeers - must be and act as exploitation and working/pushing yourself beyond the limit in their souls and become managers, as they are well able to We'd try and publish a grassroots magazine from the place, order to make up. one. The empathy and same, common, deep interest, commit- written by the kids and other users of the centre. And fihn- talk the same language to traditional professionals and officers ment and motivation must already be there, as that commit- The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, the saying in the establishment. They end up handling the people they're making - making together cinema verite and Super 8 and 16mm goes. Thus many well-intentioned people running 'alternative' ment and perseverance will be sorely tried in the struggle of dramas expressing the kids’ own attitude to life and their there to represent. In effect they are the alternative establish- their work to come. They should be able to work by empathy; projects are so keen to keep their projects going that they lose ment. enviromnent and the Fourth World, in particular with those of sight of their original goal and intentions and they find them- you have to when you're under fire. It must be there, as in immigrant descent. Ours is an inner city area of massive re- selves bending over backwards to convince the authorities that These two sides of professionalism in this mutually benefiting all other relationships, in the beginning or not at all. You development, and there's a large Cypriot and black population. they are not a threat to those authorities; that they cease, in harmony consolidate and settle their control over the poor can't and shouldn't rely on calling meetings to coerce people We'd use video for fihning political and social education effect, to be any meaningful challenge or 'alternative'. unwitting people they're supposed to be representing under round. debates on club evenings to make them more interesting and Although Centaur's approach-to its work has given its work- the whole cloak of 'democracy'. This provides a superb justif- In real community work you are, in effect, commando exciting, and giving individuals a natural, not an actor's con- ers a real sense of immediate returns and purpose for their ication to carry on operating and furthering their self- interest. guerrillas, operating beyond the front lines without sufficient fidence and dispel the diffidence based upon fear of being put efforts, like any true alternative in a mixed economy (Q. the All they have to do is to occasionally issue annual reports or back-up or resources. You have to be self- sufficient and on the intellectual spotlight or speaking out in public (meetings) Meriden cooperative), its work has been hampered and vulner- hold AG'Ms and stage public meetings to keep the public self- stimulating. For the project and you the rewards are It's quite a real challenge. All of this can only come about able to all the external forces of that economy's system. During 'informed'. What a franchise! "'- total: liberty or death. The reward for your work is freedom, by getting the right people together to come and assist the two our eight years of existence we have had a running battle with These people bring all these trappings and innuendoes to seeing a community really come alive and flex itself in every very beleaguered full-timers working at present on subsistence the authorities - not only with their bureaucracy but, two years any project and spell its living death. direction. Where, or how else can a real anarchist live and level. We can help with accommodation and the re might be ago, a sordid fight and sit-in over our previous premises with Centaur is not a democracy but a crusade against hypocrit- implement his or her beliefs in the society s/he is living in, some part-time sessions available. At present we're cam- the local Council who have continued since then to be manifestly ical, democratic values. It is also determined to bring free- and have some effect on thecommunity in which s/he's paigning to get the necessary capital (at the moment we have obstructive . dom to every individual in the true sense by activating their living? £5, 000) to prime the pump for next year and get our new Most alte rnative projects try and play a double act: keep a potential through direct action. Individuality has been suffocat- Centaur is not for the paper, closet anarchists who aim- centre off the ground and working. At present, with limited straight front for the authorities and do what they like in their ed by consensus for too long: Centaur believes that it's poss- lessly do a job during the day for money, so that they can resources, we're trying to finish the renovation work there. own back garden. In our case our true colours have been seen ible to bring back that elusive, creative spark of being alive, air their anarchism in the evenings. It is for those who have It's very much a case of more hands make light work. A by the authorities: this became apparent. to them once they saw in terms which all of us understand. There will be little room made a positive choice that their ideals are a lot more than project's greatest strength and asset is its manpower: if it we meant independence - i.e. responding to the people in the for polemics, therapy or parasitism. The emphasis is on has enough of them, of the right calibre, any moimtain can commzmity, not conforming to the Council's rules. making waves, not an introspective analysis of how one is that‘ Marg Mcneil & Auriol Ashby be moved. Radicals talk about taking action. Revolutionaries go ahead blown about by them. Empty, intellectual argmnent is fine for Contact The hard experience of Centaur over the years has begged recreation but useless when things have to be done. Therapy several important questions . . . and do it. If a project is really an alternative one, it will The Centaur Project, 313/315 Caledonian Road, London .1. automatically challenge the authorities. It is the duty and job may be the trendy, catch-word answer for dealing with social IDR. Telephone (UT) 609-3328, or if no reply there, try its of all community activists to challenge that status quo. If casualties but it only succeeds in treating the symptoms, not workers at home on (01) 837- 5408 they are really doing their job, the response of the authorities the disease or cause. We know that parasites exist all around will aTi't5matically be to put I'Ol1Ild all the rumours to discredit 1- <;9M_IJ_IT._Y W.0sK v-.s11.Rs_e.9§_as§.i2 them both on the official and alternative grapevines to isolate (or cENTA1{_a_;is_11i_v. c_i:_N'raAi.isM)_ and make people wary of having contact with them. The prof- One of the most disgusting tricks any such independent essional com nimity workers will be self-policing anyway: project must learn is the ability to grovel for money by kow- they're so keen to be protectionist about their profession that The Turks arrive, as Marg and Vicky enmge in their towing to Council officialdom. This means that the project they won't have wanted much contact anyway, and it would be daily exercise, the cat does his, and the whole of the bad for their career if their superiors saw them openly abetting ‘very’ cheap 9 tons of cauliflower mouldar to must have a respectable, hierarchical structure if it is to get classical sounds. “Most Educational!" thinks Centaur anywhere. In other words, the State says, we applaud this you. In effect, as in Russia today, fear of catching the plague member Hassan who drew these scen. organisation's attempt to help the underdog but, if it wants effectively dictates the social quarantine of the disturbed mis- money, it must prove itself worthy of State aid by showing that creant/disturbing dissident. it is 'organised' with a committee structure and willing to be "’ \\ s<-‘ /* totally subservient. Meanwhile public money is being squan- 3. HOW TO AVOID ALTERNATIVE PROFESSIONALISM - dered, as the administration necessary to enforce these stand- .1;-—-x - Q _ ards of efficiency proliferate and more and more qualifications LE.1:..1'§_<’i.I'1.!’§l1*1 J£%.?>_'i‘iEf.'S.'I$'J'I€lIiE'£'§1<‘2TIl'Zl6.BH.R.E.N._K_ ' .1- are introduced to screen and grade those ever increasing Immediately your project has money you have a honeypot to - ,__.; -~\ I. . l - - ' ‘ which myriads of young alternative professionals swarm and J1): ""' 5; C ii‘ nmnbers of dilettantes who profess to have a social COIISCIQII ce. .4,|'-wt, / -‘______. u -.-- "'"_- - f“‘7‘:,“,(,|'r'- K I I If home into like a plague of locusts and put any project severely Those who are genuinely concerned with radical change through it 94‘:--"d ,{ i '\ I’ I \ "" /' L (t="‘°’ ,5».i I‘ at risk: most turn out to be ‘professional schizophrenics‘; 1 - r action are effectively gagged and pushed aside by the new I stampede of semi-professional careerists looking for a cushy indeed many bohemian and leftish aspirations and dress, but, i I T r " \ li ' 5'85 '7'“ i , ' /Q f\.i"*"'“ ‘2 '"* when it comes to the crunch, they revert to their bourgeois niunber in social work, who are Clammering to be graded acc- 4 - r’ ' 1; 1' . origins. For who would risk their qualification, professional _ pa ipgoifififii‘ - i‘ J Vijmflu 67"?) § -rfiI‘3c"‘ ording to their non-existent, paper qualifications. _ ~ W 5' status and pursue-it security which took them several years to Isn't it about time something like Centaur challenged these ..‘Qmm i H\. 1|‘ ‘J-_ _ ll obtain for being blacklisted and thrown on to the dole heap? . ‘ & I.‘ I-I'll"‘q O "‘J ' J f r I‘ ridiculous parameters? gifiubi‘ l‘ r 41: ""_'- -’~---=---"--- _. 2 ‘LQU "1 / do m \ \~-/j/ \ A’ ::-AF~ Show me a ‘fully qualified‘ social worker, comrnunity work- (That's what happened to the Tyndale teachers). The contrad- t2" ..H L‘|"\. ' I __ . | 5' / ‘Mr J itl‘ If ' , II I 1..I . Pug,'. n?.__;:,°G l_ er, youth worker or probation officer and, nine times out of iction is that the kids we are working with are the very victims 9°C:-. i-.";¢Ys, _' c 1 F c"'e,,:-'“' l , . {ff 9‘ . ‘- ‘ --- -.. I,-7 ‘=5. of the qualifications system, yet the youthworke rs (aid their '7 1;-1"‘ as ‘ 1, - . . - l ten, I'll show you a comfortable, ineffectual bureaucrat hiding aif'?"."'.-I 5?‘ I I \ _'H-P ‘ r /.-?"->_’?._'.=l¢‘ - . behind a certificate of proficiency but doing sweet f. a. for imions) who too have made the grade and become qualified, "“"‘~ -an-_~- " aob I » """""""""' % Q "ll i 4° " "T J,‘ U want to keep their profession exclusive, and use qualifications, 1 A the common good. If public expenditure must be cut then it ' ‘ _.- ,_ -I-\¢< t D i - W-%€‘i-‘:5 --* _{'..___3_;_ '\ " ‘ . _ »*‘\"" J“; must start by removing all the over- paid ove r-qualified admin- and the training for them as the process to screen and grade istration who are purely concerned with self- justification. hopeful fresh applicants. An alternative professional (eg. a radical lawyer) is a walking contradiction. An alternative professional is an impossibility.
4 I L _ tr
12 Review 13
Here was the dream world wherein we could rape and pillage Ire land, 3- 13111118 fl_1at W95 fearfd ind fg“§:;'w€§:eInk::;Y1 gist on the Main, die in the Flanders mud, shoot our way to glory I pert eempeny W1th_t1}e t:1<‘=?h§ ° mg-the mummer on the bare on the steps of st Pat's, crawl through the Teutonic shadows Pieeeter fer the ple! 1_$ it? "151inne absent playwrighvs or drift in full evening dress among the silken drapes and b0a1‘d_$ 15 1’1_1Y comm‘-mlca 10;‘ W1 Id hold the S ctator is willing women and all for the price of 9 pence which was one que-_9t1118‘ mmd- In the efldi W0“ we iw noblléethe principle hour's pay in some ghastly 8 till 5. 30 factory should you hark P9-Ymg to See 9- Pant°m1me_n° H? r h€s as with Piscator in back to the old nostalgia of the Hayward ‘Thirties’. A truly and t_he-99 great °Ve1‘P°‘W91:m€ S age saith their Shakespearian worthwhile exhibition with so rnuzh talent in the making of Berlin 01' Brooks or Han m Lon on W1 second rate dreams but the Hollywood factories churned out circuses or. the WP b111m_3 of the 3_i'1e€'t ictttgatoiiflhfieifigfizon much pleasure for the masses, and my place was amorig able h01-11‘ K111 the 01_11Y U11118 t_ha_t W1 al_";="_l;m0n worihy of your them, for me to stand in judgement wine glass in hand on the voice of the P19~YW1“18ht- Bflt 115 13 ailufdx 1 k comnarisons then failures of the late night TV film. In the dark womb oi the ettentwn, eemredeei end Y°“_W°Au,S°i-"9 14 to-19 19 historical '30s cinema we hid for a brief three hours from awful reality. ‘ 1001f “P011 P13931101‘ S 1922 De$P1t° 1 _ : _St Part ‘S Congress But collaboration is the order of the day and the Archiv der review mounted for the German Co.nm .mi Y Akadgmie der Kuenste in Berlin through its tag team partner with Joan Littlewood‘s “Oh oh ohfiwnag 3. loveligravéadrit. for the Goethe Institute in the Royal Borough of Kensington have - P1-eeeter pleyed It fer bltter teere en een P Y roach to in conjunction with the Riverside Studios mounted the ERWIN bitter laughter. The same theme and the .S31£Il11~8 zppeets dictates JACOB Mendleson is dead and in a world too much amused with Vulgarity and bad taste in the commercial arts and in aesth- a PISCATOR exhibition and the East German script of MAYA- the Sta-81118 but the P01113931 machme gun m e Showbiz death my brief recorded fact could be of little import. etics and the visual arts a banality and a second rateness that KOVSKY in the old theatre in London's Aldgate. the meed ef the ePe.ete*1°-1‘- He prowled around within the darkness of his overcrowded cali now only survive as muse-um pieces. Mayakovsky was a poet of the revolution as long as the 1 junk shop squatting at the decaying tag end of the Berwick Unofficially all this rubbish is offered as nostalgia and I scarlet flame burned but when the bureaucrats blew out the Market and the material artifacts of iuiremembered lives do not doubt that any society no matter how stupid, vulgar or dying names of idealism for the boredom of the status quo W 7 spilled out and onto the State's pavement and I after a few evil will produce ancients who will look back with pleasure on Mayakovsky, in 1930, killed himself. Schuetz will not be , £ M vain efforts to buy a single picture frame of some one else‘s how well they did out of their own particular social ce ss pit coming to London's Half Moon theatre for the production of I past failure for instant immortality to imprison my own diff- but a society based on human misery that failed to raise itself his play and the East German authorities do not intend to ~ i , . , _ ident genius shrugged a lordly shoulder but in my holy pil- above its own slime should not be remembered with affection. mount the play, no matter who pays, in East Berlin so And of the Royal Academy s moinster migéity blZO:n'lé1‘ the fact grimages from Ward's Irish pub, through the backstreet stews These were no Athenians, no Renaissance men and women, somewhere in this there must be a moral for poets revolution- IMPRESSIONISM exhlbltmn Wha can one ay Y of Soho to leer at the friendly prostitutes in their ground floor theie was no Lorenzo de‘ Medici to hire a Michelangelo but ary or Poetry Workshop. that it is always a pleasure to view the work of any artists. offices and tip toeing lightly above the decaying vegetation of American criminal ponces and murderers as the folk heroes But it is down to the sweet flowing Thames for the ‘political L I accept that I am naive, simplistic and honestly affirm that the Berwick marker would peer into the darkness of Jacob and First World War profiteers ordering the worst at the theatre‘ of Erwin Piscator. Again a magnificent exhibition ‘ I still believe in the physical manifestation of Father Christ- Mendle son-‘s homage to human failure for he was of the Soho highest price. A.J. P. Taylor lays out the great social indict- as one wandered among the wine and the cheese dip to touch mas each snowless December, but I caimot accept the opinion world with its villaims and its vice, its corrupt Lawmen and ment in a 151 line introduction to the 320 page catalogue but the hem of history by asking and listening to Erwin Piscator‘s of one national art expert that there are ‘_‘over four hundred its Cox's apples and its multi national newspapers. from then on it is all systems go for those happy time years widow. Piscator was born in 1893, fought in France from masterpieces in this R. A . exhibition“. Eighty per cent of And Jacob Mendleson left £147, 503 - £19, 390 to the State, when grandmummy lived off her profit making shares in the 1915 on-and in 1918 was on the Soldiers‘ Council with George the paintings in this Cross-Currents in European Painting £1, 000 for Jewish Incurables in London and £100, 000 to the privately owned railways, granddaddy scabbed for free by Grosz, Heartfie ld, Herzfelde, Schlicter and others, particip- Post-Impre ssionism are dealers‘ jtuik. Isolate any one of Arts bureaucracy and one can only cry why why why Mr driving a bus during the 1926 General Strike and a servant ated in the Berlin Dada movement and from 1919 through these paintings and they will have a value as a minor historical Mendleson did you in your death choose to reward the State girl could be imported from Wales for a handful of coins in 1920 with the founding of the Das Tribunal and Das Proletar-- document but in the mass they deaden the mind and destroy and the kultural bureaucrats when you should have sold me a weekly payment alid would eat the family food leavings. I ische Theater motuited great political declamations within his the few good paintings by association. It is inevitable that cheap frame, bought the good, the bad or the indifferent 'work sound bitter because I am bitter for the memory of the iron O. In 1938 it was New York and Tennessee Williams. within your lifetime, comrade, there will be a great re-eval- of living artists or better by far squandered the world ‘s millions of lives that we re wasted for a minority‘s private Miller, Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis and others with the uation of painting reputation made during the last 100 years wealth in your keeping by leaning on your neighbourhood friendly greed. Of my simplicity I asked "someone who appeared to “you're a tree go stand in a park but watch out for Arthur's for the Seurats, the Matisses, the Gauguins and the Van Gohs bar buying free drinks for the undeserving poor. A bus ride be in authority“ why the re was no painting by Picasso or Dali dog“ style of acting and then in 19 66, death. It was the Walter and all those stuiflower, chair and postmaster prints are away for the rich who can afford the fare is the Hayward Art but was told that “they were not British“ but Epstein is rep- Mitty dream life of every suburban revolutionary sweating beginning to pall and bore by over exposure and when that Gallery, a huge concrete crate based and built on a rejected resented by his marvellous sculpture ‘Genesis’ and ‘Night’ out his/her A levels. Piscator, as with others, channelled happens then one begins to question the value or the validity of design for a World War 3 gun emplacement and there within and remember this, comrade, it was Epsteili‘s work that was the creative revolutionary idealism of others into what I would the work in question as a timeless work of art or as no more wall upon wall is the current exhibition ‘THIRTIES British laughed out of court in those ‘glorious’ '30s and it was the hold was a good and noble cause and like Picasso's ‘Guernica‘ than a fashionable period piece. But I walk among the knee art and design before the war‘. I can think of nothing to d rightwiiig critics who daubed his Rima sculpture that still or the black and scarlet flags of the demonstrations it gave bending fraternity wine glass in hand seeking and finding commend the inter war years. Millions of men, women and holcb its place in Hyde Park. Seek it out for yourselves com- those whose contribution could only be their hearts and minds pleasure in the lovely smile of Griselda Ham.I.lton- Baillie and children doomed to a lifetime of accepted miemployment, rades. But how can you have the 1930s without Picasso's a knowledge that they were part of the unending struggle that through the great halls of the State Galleries among the starvation and semi- starvation the order of the day. Nazi ‘Guernica‘, painted in 1937, that became a banner for the must always be fought. He re they are within the Riverside drinking chattering throng I choose to believe that I see the and fascist political parties gaining power all over Europe. embattled men and women of the left or Da_li's 1936 surrealist Studios, the brilliant stage sets of anage when political ghost of the 93 year old Jacob Mendleson, the dead present painting ‘Premonition of Civil War‘. But murder was the order of the hour and revolution was not an mocking the dead past. though Picasso is represented by omiss- academic debating point but, as in the tragedy of Northern ARTHUR MOYSE ion "‘in the manner of Chinese wallpaper to serve as a surround to Picasso's pain- 9, ting ‘E nfant au Pigeon‘ when we are only shown the painted wallpaper they are not \ hi Y»- represented because they are not British but correct me if I state that Epstein held an American passport and I may be wrong but Hitler and Goering who get a third ;_ Z%¢'fi/swim/£4///e////5/W size page photograph on page 1‘? did not The Disease of Government H.S. Ferns £6. 50 Temple Smith ._____.._..__.... _..._.-=-_-2 ’ . _ , . . tlI El": hold British passports or qualify for cou- ‘cast iron statement to which he neither sees nor men ons ncil flats in the LCC area, 1933. But then THE only function of this review, I suppose, is to warn any alter native view. against investing £6. 50 in its 148 pages of big print and even perhaps I do protest too much but let the “It is almost an iron law of nature that governments are stunted children, the verminous slums, bigger white spaces. After all it has a nice sounding title, and if you mis-read the cover notes it looks quite promising. poor producers of goods and services, and _workers poor and the Hunger Marchers, the Means Test governors. Specialisation of activity . . . is the most powerful and the wages doled out in farthings ans- “Professor Ferns sees government not as the doctor. reason why. the community cannot get rid of goyernment and wer for me. The "Thirties' exhibition was It i s the disease . . . He makes radical suggestions! . . . Above all this book is a plea that we should look at the real likewise why it must have a government . . . this is a fact of produced in collaboration with the Vict- nature from which we cannot escape“. _ oria and Albert Museum and to make up effects of acting on the dogmas of the last half century . . . " Meanwhile back in chapter 4 he begins his oampaisnfer for it the V 81 A have mounted a magnifi- Not to mention the fact that H.S. Ferns is an illustrious professor of political science at Birmingham llniversity. saving the human race by resurrecting the ghost of laissez- -_-—- 77 cent exhibition of the “Art of HollYWood" faire capitalism, defines freedom as having the choice of who in collaboration with Thames Television Hisopening chapters on what he calls ‘the disease of gov- ernme nt' attempts to define their origins and evolution, but your master is or being allowed to choose who your slaves who provided the wine and the beer. It is are, and starts to sound like the demented Victorian time- surely one of the most exciting exhibitions in fact give no irlfor mation that anyone at all interested in the subject would not already be aware of. Nor is it well argued ‘ traveller he probably is. His a_rgun;1ents_after all lead him that the V &A has put its collective name to conclude that his ideal system of economic organisation to, for here are the drawings and the stage enoughto be convincing to anyone except the already con- verted. So he fills them up instead with nice sounding phrases, was most nearly met by the USA and GB between 1840-1914, I sets of that world of film fantasy that ma- going on to claim that: "II de the Thirties bearable for so many mil- pretty analogies and trite one liners. Each one a complete 1+1 lions. I,
"Gogol was in no sense a cultivated man of letters. He ake as other revolutionaries do. They seek change, salvation, appeared on the literacy scene like an utterly unexpected and There was a degree of social peace and solidarity which what you will, by blaming and thence removing other people. contradicts the mass generalisation about class antagonism rude guest after whose departure life at home could never and revolution ary struggle . . . It is state intervention in the Hence the euphoria: hence the commotion, hence the slaughter again be the same. It does not matter that the rude guest's economics of these communities and the growth of myths about and finally the tyranny". performance was not quite understood for what it was, that a abstract social justice that have produced and are producing His filial conclusions and unconvincing solutions are a critic like Belinsky, for instance, could cite his performance class struggle, and not the system based on free exchanges". slightly re-vamped form of 19th century laissez-faire capital- as an overiding example of the writer's assumption of He goes on to misrepresent the history of the British army ism. His promised ‘radical suggestions‘ include: not allow- responsibility to society, of his civic consciousness and ing govermnents the right to control credit and currency. fidelity to thefactually real. What was then chiefly WWW in yet another of his watertight, no-questions-asked statements of'factk This will be done by giving us all the constitutional right to overlooked in Gogol was the fantastic gratuity of his humour ". . . a century of alleged corruption and purchase in the hold assets in any currency we like. Whoopee! We'll all be and his transcendence of the limited social motive through British Army saw Trafalgar and Waterloo . . . against the able to draw the dole in Swiss francs. The gove rmnent will the unearthly and we ll-nigh metaphysical pathos of a supreme meritocratic system which saw Gallipoli and the Somme“. also not be allowed to contract a debt in excess of ten times creation like "The Overcoat". For in truth, Bashmachkin, the ave rage annual govermnent revenue! Makes you wonder I only mention this to show how badly researched alid thought the little copying clerk who is the hero of this story, attains AW///7 out his argtunents are. At this point one can't really take the what they're doing now. These and one or two other waffled a statite far greater than that of any mere victim of an and pointless constitutional amendments will be forced upon George Woodcock was founder editor of NE ( ce Jimmy author seriously anymore which is just as well as he gets unjust social system. He is a timeless apparition of humanity Goldsmith) in the forties when he was also an edi%¥ of FREE - worse. our poor little unsuspecting government by a series of ref- in extremis, of man homeless not only in his society, but in erenda, which,would you believe it, is where the monarchy ' DOM, later writing important biographies of Godwin, Proud- You're going to be told that Argentina is a free capitalist the universe. There is one story in American literatlwe, hon, Read, Kropotkin as well as the Pelican Anarchism which society, that gove rmnent has turned into an agency, not of get in: Melville ‘s "Bartleby the Scrivener" which has a spiritual ". . . in this way (referenda) the monarch will know more has done sterling service. (The latter of these five books is peace but of anarchy. And finally in one of the few paragraphs affinity with "The Overcoat". But it is no more than still available.) He has now had published a volume of poems he generously donates to other theories about government and precisely than is possible at present what kind of society she affinity - Melville's story, for all its profound overtones, governs and what are the rules of the political process it is The Kestrel, published by Ceolfrith Press in Sunderland. The its alternatives comes his crowning achievement as a pro- lacks the inner coherence, the reasonance, and marvellous poems of this little volume span the years 1935-1978, so as fessional imbecile : her duty to monitor. No longer will the monarch be obliged stylization of Gogol‘s masterpiece." to approve of every act of her ministers and parliament but Woodcock was born in 1912 this volume could also be entitled "The anarchists . . . have no case. Their indictment of This was Philip Batu, longtime editor of "Partisan Review“ "Growing" - but perhaps, ‘onwards’ rather than ‘up’. Like the government deserves attention; their prescription none. For will have some very general rules approved by her people by talking at a public meeting at Columbia University in 1952 which she will be able, as the filial expression of public other volumes reviewed here, it is beautifully produced; and this reason‘; (wait for it!) "They refuse to accept the natural comme moratlng the One Hundredth anniversary of Gogol‘s wide ranging in subject nether. A snatch from the title poem: inescapable fact that men and women must work in order to authority, to scrutinise the activites and decisions of the death. Its recollection is prompted by the re-appearance of a live, and that under this stern necessity they are always vul- politicians. She will then be a real sovereign and not at beautifully produced edition of "The Overcoat" from Kestrel, bird of the middle sky nerable to the inevitability of robbery or government or present a means of clothing with the prestige of her name and Journeyman Press, translated by David Magarshack with . I hesitate to address you. both . . . the solution is to use govermnent to abolish robbery“. dignity the decisions of politicians the cumulative conseq- illustrations by John Edward Craig. Originally published by The English poets turned you This last statement is interesting as earlier on he puts uences of which are too often disastrous or revolutionary or Merlin Press in 1956 - this reprint is most welcome. into a cliche. Hopkins using you out a nice line on government having evolved from robbery. both". ' Michael Horovitz is in the very forefront of the" poets with intellectual splendour, But as he was saying:- And so it ends, one of the most ill- researched, simplistic, currently working in this country. His magazine, “New Day Lewis misusing you L "The anarchist conceives of gove rnment as the consequence badly-argued books it has ever been my displeasure to read. Departures" which alas appears all-too-rarely, is a with polite dullness. - of someone else's evil. The anarchists make the same mist- S TEVE S ORBA veritable encyclopaedia of all that is best on the literacy Woodock's anarchism is more exnlicit in other poems in the scene. He has previously published a number of books and collection, such as ‘The Agitator‘, one of the earlier poems: pamphlets of poetry, mostly under the imprints of various small and smallish presses, of which "The Wolverhampton The Little Hills that lay along his path Wanderer" (Latimer Press) was outstanding. Now, Allison Shed their long shadows as the evening fell. and Busby , one of our "larger" presses, has issued Behind their wall, west by the setting sun, ‘HGrowl' Up: Selected Poems and Pictures 1951-79" , as The paper gunmen waited for their kill. Michael was born in T935, it can H5 seen Eat some of the Lastly, No Illusions, a collection of poems by Anthony work is very early indeed. It is all pleasantly intersperced McVeigh, again interspersed with illustrations, one assumes with drawings by the author, and collages photographed from by the author. Seventeen poems inspired by such as Brecht many sources, forming together a kind of literary and and Breton, some of the poems are implicit statements of pictorial autobiography. rebellion rather than the more explicit stance of others, and /an////4/rr//1//aw The overall impression - as with "New Departures" is of a are the stronger for that, it's difficult to extract a short iso- book ordered in an anarchic kind of way, with a definately lated stanza - one of the shorter poems: Time to gp_. Brian Behan; Martin Brian and O'Keeffe, £4.95 tells lies to spare people's feelings. He loves his wife and rebel splrit behind it, also, as with "New Demrtures", The Thought i * * # children, and pities himself. The relationship is not ideal. crammed to overflowing with wit and vision. His remorse is genuine. Some of the poems have a positively Stoppardian feel, and The New Day is dawning it's whispered in the alley: OLDER readers will recognise the name of Brian Behan. He spent his youth in oppressive all-male establishments: delight in words :- Society will crumble from within its thick barricades About 1960, when fortunes were being made by investment a school run by malevolent Christian Brothers, _a reform Walls will collapse and slaves will be free in building, there were famous strikes to improve the lo’: of school, the army. Then he entered the adult society he thought Song of the Egoist It's been a long time since the summer of love building workers. Brian Behan, an anarcho- syndicalist normal, a world where the worth of a man is measured by his I evour but the children have never lost sight of the ultimate goal bricklayer, was chairman of the strike committee at one of capacity for hard physical labour, where men divide their What is before me the cause only corroded - it's living and pure, the more famous sites. After the strikes were over he wrote time between work. and the pub, where women are left to look I sometimes ache for the new day is dawning some hilarious articles in The Spectator, about how his site after the home s, the children, the men, and all the responsib- What is beyond me - the new day is dawning had attracted militants from all QVFFTIE country and days had ilities. Tho - it might be said Society will cru mble from within. been lost to disputes about the minutiae of Marxist theory, ‘ Now O'Brien is devoid of work. We are not told why in Since nothing is before me and about the worker who shovelled sand and cement down detail, but it involves violence with a policeman and a term .in I have - nothing Nicolai Gogol: The Overcoat. Journeyman Press, £1.20 (15p lavatory pans, not for grievances or political views, but prison. He has time to think, and for the first time in his life Yet - since nothing is beyond me, peet) - _ simply to exercise the power he had of stopping drains. he feels the need to decide for himself. But he still needs his I want for nothing Michael Horovitz: Growing Up : Selected Poems and Pictures Brian's first novel is ve ry funny in places and compulsi-vely home, where as a matter of habit and common sense his wife So, if I look back . 1951-1979. Allison 8: Busby, £2. 50 (25p post) readable all the way through. A man who was reading it over makes all the decisions. This conflict is his trouble. The at what I wanted, George Woodcock: The Kestrel and other poems of past and my shoulder, on a bus, asked me the name of the book so he tantrums, the secretiveness, the self pity are those of an I can be well satisfied present 1935-1978. Ceolfrith Press, 1'7 Grange Terrace, could buy a copy. adolescent, torn between the need for security and the need with what I have got. Stockton Road, Sunderland, Tyne 8: Wear SR2 70F, £1. 50 (25p post) O'Brien, the central character, is as unlovely a character for independence. This is the story of a robust Irish brick- I as anyone could hope to avoid, murderously violent, a liar, layer, struggling in middle age to grow up. --Others are more mersonal and introspective: Anthony McVeigh: No Illusions. Ia Guerre Company, 43 Piggish male chauvinism as the product of disguised . Stewart Ave., Blantyre, Glasgow. No price given. ' a whiner, a bully and a fool. In chapter four, coming home For Chagall and my bride from indecently assaulting the salesgirl in a sex shop and matriarchy where the women stay in control by preventing the All these titles are available to order from Freedom Book- maturation of men, is convincingly argued in this witty work When our two bodies Sl'l0p. _ _ J. H 0 failing to seduce a woman he meets in a pub, he finds his wife, are lain to rest a mature student, reading a book. "After a hard day's work", of fiction. As a factual notion it is probably untrue, but at least it is an interesting half truth, to set against the half Our spirits fly straight he says, "the least I expect is to have a poxy dinner waiting". up to the sky Such characters often appear as villains. But this story is truths of lumpenfeminism. Even in fiction, however, keep me clear of O'Brien. He We gave to the world .50//V; flax’-Yfiwy told largely as O'Brien himself sees it. In his own eyes he is one another ‘s best a peaceable man, too often provoked beyond endurance. He may grow up, but he will still be appalling. F/Fe-PM/7fimb’//W DONALD ROOUM gow e w n forces the candles to pray. //EP5 FKQZO/'7 .