
Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Scottish Anarchist. We hope you
will enjoy it.

Scottish Anarchist is the journal of the Scottish Federation of
Anarchists (the SFA). The SFA unites anarchists, libertarian
socialists and autonomous revolutionaries across this fair
nation. It does this for the express aim of increasing the
influence of anarchist ideas and ideals in the class struggle.

So what can the SFA do for you? Exactly what the name suggests.
We do not see ourselves as a new set of leaders. We do not want
you to follow us. We want you to think for yourself, feel for
yourself, act for yourself.

These ideas may come across as strange, even -unusual? Too long
have the twin evils of labourism and its "radical" wean
Bolshevism dominated working class political life. Both are
idealogies, seeking new sheep for old shepherds. Both want to be
-our leaders. Let us, however, fight them and their arrogance. Let us 
-arrange ourselvesDD. Some day our laughter with be stronger
than the voices they strangle today. We aim to make that day
arrive sooner, not later.

But this does not mean we do not want to win hearts and minds.
Far from it. We in the SFA want to encourage, support and 
the spirit of revolt, the class struggle. We want to be
free, but we can only be truly free in a free world. To get that
we need you! But the first step lies with you. Its YOUR life. 

Scottish anarchist and the SFA aim to help us to dream again, to
fight again, to hope again by providing forums through which we 
can discuss, talk, think and ACT. By organising and resisting we
can build the new world in the shell of the old. 

This magazine will, hopefully, aid this process. Scottish
Anarchist aims to bring a unique viewpoint to all issues; events
in the class war, like Timex or the struggle against the criminal
justice bill; current trends in capital, the state, technology,
politics; anarchist and working class history, both in Scotland
and elsewhere on the planet; to name just a few.

But why a unique viewpoint? Because it is revolutionary,
something rare in the state capitalist dominated left.

We aim to be an innovative and, more importantly, an interesting
read. Too long have socialist ideas been written in the lyrics of
the past. For some time stopped in 1917. But we do not aim to
force reality into or to place ourselves upon the procustian bed
of idealogy nor experience the dreams of those who do and watch
them turn into the nightmare of state capitalism. We must and
will sing anew and write the songs of the new world we carry in 
our hearts in a new language, the language of
-tomorrow. 

And this tomorrow? Anarchy, a free society of free and equal
individuals, who have liberated themselves from the authority and
existence of state, capital and church and who control their own
fates. Such is our aim, our vision. A vision that inspires our
actions today, for anarchism is not a thing of the future, but of
the present. It is not a matter of "demands", but of living.
Something we can forget while surviving under capitalism.

		enjoy

			Iain MacSaorsa

"Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice
Socialism without Freedom is slavery and brutality"

- Michael Bakunin

Needless to say, we will welcome articles, letters, graphics,
whatever, from any source. 

Send letters, articles to :-

Scottish Anarchist
c/o Glasgow Anarchist Group
PO Box 1008
Glasgow
G42 8AA

