

Anarchy in the U.K., Friday, 20th October to Sunday 29th October 1994.

Introduction

Saturday was the annual anarchist bookfair in Conway Hall, a meeting place
for all sorts of radical groups in central London.  This was my first
visit, but I'm told it was much busier than last year - there was hardly
room for all the stalls in the hall and corridors, and the place was heaving 
with people, at least a thousand, I would say, must have visited it during the 
course of the day - there were several hundred there at any one time and
it remained busy until near the closing time of 8 p.m.

Exhibitors included Freedom, Class War, DS4, Anarchy Distributions,
A K Press, Kate Sharpley Library, Extreme Books, Drunken Boat, Perennial
Books (last 3 from U.S.), Solidarity Federation (ex-Direct Action Movement),
Counter Information and Scottish Anarchists, Anarchist Black Cross,
Phoenix Press, Pirate Press (Sheffield), IWW, Libertarian Education,
Green Anarchist, Bad Attitude (anarchafeminist), Open Eye, Yellowgate Greenham
Camp Women, London Psychogeographical Association and more. 

On Sunday an attempted levitation of parliament occurred outside the
hideous building itself.  Again, an impressive number of people for
an anarchist demonstration (500?) right in front of the seat of power.
It was claimed that the buildings wobbled; some blamed the failure to
levitate on the bad karma of the police, but the truth of the matter is
that holding the levitation on a Sunday - when the building is empty -
is doomed to failure; it needs the help of all the hot air and windbags 
inside.  Some flags were burnt but to be honest, not much happened - and
what could, really?

Monday we held workshops on computer networking and held discussions
with publishers and other BBSes (the latter on Tuesday), and narrowly
missed appearing on the film of the festival.  

On Tuesday I went to an exhibition of Clifford Harper's art and
Crass artwork - brilliant; also an exhibition of Spanish anarchism
from the death of Franco to the present day, a most impressive
collection of 25 panels first put together for the anarchist exposicion
in Barcelona last September (apparently 100 panels originally).
I purchased a number of pamphlets and other things, but of significance
only the proceedings of the 1994 Barcelona anarchist exposicion (500
pages).  

Was it a success?  There were anarchists from all over: Ireland,
Scotland, England, Greece, a lot of Spaniards, the U.S., Holland,
France, Sweden, and so on.  It was great for Spunk Press, and
I was able to meet a lot of people with whom I'd previously correspondend
by email.  I'll address issues of organisation separately, but it was
a tremendous buzz to be in London with so many anarchists - I just kept
bumping into them on the streets.  Some organisations (Class War, London
Psychogeographical Association, Neoist Alliance, etc.) boycotted it, because
of its (to my mind) necessarily broad nature, and the controversial
character of its prime instigator, Ian Bone (founder of Class War).
The opportunity to create contacts and exchange ideas I think justifies
such a large meeting of anarchists, though good organisation is essential.

Organisation

There was a truly impressive program of events, and good groundwork and
preparation, but a lack of coordination and communication.  There were
no clear places to go for information; many events were late or did not
take place; there was a daily bulletin, but no obvious place to get it.
Caveat: my movements were restricted, so I may just have not got
to know stuff, but the program could have been more explicit about
how to find about changes.

Having said that, it was a daunting number of events to put on, and
credit should go to the organisers.  The events took place in dozens
of places around London, adding to the difficulty.  I saw some very 
harrassed people working very hard indeed to get things going (as usual, 
many people didn't get involved).  Particularly impressive was the success in
getting accomodation for a large number; I personally visited the
squat of an empty legal aid centre with space for sixty people.
The daily bulletin is a great idea, too.

Interestingly, it is the anarchosyndicalists such as the SAC from
Sweden or the Spanish who expect a higher standard of organisation
- I think they are using to deal with much larger numbers of people.

Those present with email access (any more of you out there, do the same!!)
have agreed to post our reports so that as full a picture of the conference
/festival emerges.  Spunk Press will maintain an "events" directory
with an "Anarchy_UK" subdirectory, in which all reports will be placed
(other similar gatherings can do the same).  

Musicwise, there was piles of anarchopunk, but as a jazz playing friend
pointed out, no 'free/contemporary' jazz, surely the most anarchic
music on the planet, every exponent of which must qualify as an anarchist.
Nice to involve this community too, which is well represented in London.

Hopefully many things can be learnt and applied to the next such gathering.

Languages

One problem with the festival is that the working language was exclusively
English.  An international anarchist conference attracts a lot of non
English speakers, particularly from the Spanish speaking world, historically
and probably currently the largest anarchist population in existence, which
does not usually speak English.

Failure to address this makes the festival almost useless for a number of people
who have made long and expensive journeys, reinforces the Anglocentrism
of these gatherings, alienates non English speakers, and does not allow the 
free exchange of ideas between otherwise separated anarchist movements, a 
prime aim of these gatherings.

There were several practical problems.

1.  Organisational problems and communication problems due to the lack
of a common language considerably delayed the exhibition of Spanish
anarchism 1974-94.  I had to employ my bad Spanish and considerable
amount of time and energy - during the time we were supposed to be
running workshops ourselves - to ensure that it was set up.  Otherwise,
an exhibition that had been brought from Barcelona to London would
not have occurred, which is unpardonable.

2. The workshop we ran on BBSes and networking was attended by at least
8 spaniards, and not many more english speakers.  The Spaniards, with
a single exception, were unable to contribute, and half of them left.
I spoke to the others later, but by then it was too late.  At least
some kind of interpreting would have improved it - perhaps two
groups discussing the issues in English and Spanish, with someone
summarising in both every now and then.

3. The lack of written materials in Spanish was very frustrating
for the Spaniards.  For instance, there were direct actions against
local projects, but nothing in Spanish to advise on rights when
arrested.

Until such a time as we all speak a modified anarchoesperanto in which
there are no words for 'ruler', 'boss' and 'police, some kind of translation
needs to take place.

Ideally, there will be simultaneous translation of all languages represented,
but this is impossibly expensive.   A start would be to define the working
languages of the festival.  It's pretty obvious that English and Spanish
are the choice, plus the language of the location.  The latter is more 
comprehensible than English to Romance speakers such as Italian and French.
Anyway, one could argue about the choice ad infinitum.

Having chosen the working languages, the idea would be simultaneous translation.In addition, all working material needs to be available.  This is still
too expensive.  It should be possible to at least do the following

- involve comrades who speak more than one language in

a.  translating material 
b.  interpreting at workshops

For instance, there are plenty of Spanish anarchists resident in London.
If they were involved from the beginning of organisation of the festival,
some of the problems could have been addressed.

Ian Heavens, Spunk Press Scotland

