Springtime for MaoSpringtime for Mao
Anarchists and Maoists, we don’t always play well together. So when I stumbled upon folks from one of their more well-known bookstores having a garage sale, I was expecting the worst. Not really wanting to part with hard-earned cash to a group of political sometimes-adversaries-sometimes-not-so-much, I nevertheless wandered in to take a peek.
There it was: the holy grail of used computers – and it was affordable. In order to do my bread-and-butter work, I need to have two computers (one for Mac, one for Windows) running at the same time – or at least, it’s the least painful solution to that particular problem. As such, I had been planning and re-planning how I was going to get a second box on the cheap for months. After my last ill-fated attempt, Craigslist was definitely not an option, nor was shelling out several hundred bucks for components. So in a blossoming gesture of springlike generosity, the universe was providing the answer once again – courtesy of a bunch of über-statists.
Thankfully, we all seemed to be in good spirits, so we got to talking. They offered me a newspaper, of course. I politely mentioned that we had differing political views, but took the paper anyway. (They were raising funds for their legal defense in a police brutality case, which no matter what you think of Maoists, is usually a good thing to throw down for.) We haggled a bit over price, but in a friendly way – success. I went to the ATM, got the money, came back. I paid for it, hoping not to get into an argument over the effectiveness of statism in people’s movements – and then I said:
“Keep up the struggle, ok?”
The woman taking the money looked down and replied flatly:
“Yeah.”
I appeared to have blurted out the wrong thing. The air grew thick – I thought to myself, Struggle is bad? I don’t get it. It seemed as if everybody who was mulling about – which in this case, appeared to be just them – stopped and stared.
Oh shit, here it comes, I thought – I’m officially non-PC. Gonna get dressed down, in three…two…
Then she looked up, and beamed.
“But you also gotta win!”
Winning? As in, succeeding? Hell yeah. We all laughed, the air cleared, a nice Maoist lady gave me a ride home with the box. We’re all happy.
Lessons to be learned? As an anarchist (or if you want to get specific: an anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, pro-self-determination, anti-capitalist, horizontalist feminist, prison abolitionist autonomist socialist; I hope this makes it clear why I just say “anarchist”,) I’m not really big up on the fight for an authoritarian “people’s state” – lots of bad history there, including some really bad results for anarchists such as myself. I also know that we’re in this shit together, and contrary to what some folks who live in areas with a heavy activist population seem to think, we don’t always get to choose our allies – not if, as she correctly pointed out, we want to win.
Therein lies the problem. I’m not that sure we anarchists, as a whole, know how to succeed at the moment, all assertions to the contrary.
Consider: from 1999 until 2003-4, anarchism was in the mainstream news, and for good reason. In a refreshing blossoming of resistance, there were massive anti-globalization protests in the US, at which anarchists were active, present and accounted for. We were on the public radar, and not always as “those angry white boys who smashed up Starbucks.” The New York Times ran a lengthy article on an anarchist collective house, focused in part on a woman in her 50s who left her corporate career to live there, and it wasn’t a highbrow version of a neo-liberal smack down. Anarcha-feminist and anarchist POC groups were springing up, and developing their own responses to the capitalist prison-industrial state. We were looking less like a scraggly bunch of unfocused malcontents and more like an autonomous decentralized movement.
Then Miami happened (where for those of you who don’t follow such things, we got our asses beat en masse by the popo), the public outcry to the war started to recede, and by 2006, the focus was all on the national elections. Our visible numbers dwindled down to the dozens, and when we were mentioned in the mainstream news (which as awful as the MSM is, is the only way that 99% of the US population knows we even exist), it was to cover some small grouping of afore-mentioned angry white boys, or the occasional piece on animal rights. Some of us ended up going to jail with decades-long sentences, especially among those who were convicted of militant direct action, which always takes its toll on militants and non-militants alike. Through no fault of our own, we started to lose focus, and honestly? Most of us haven’t regained it since. As a result, I wonder sometimes if many of us are in a sort of we-want-to-fail depressive malaise, because it does appear that way at times. Soldiering on with the same approach despite increasing relevance and effectiveness? That is a really good way to get stuck. (Look at how well its panned out for many sections of the anti-war movement, for example.) I mean, where’s our friendly neighborhood garage sale, with all smiles, good vibes, and as always, the have-you-read-our-newspaper pitch – but in a casual, not in-your-face sort of way? Nowhere to be found, at the moment.
There is a shit-ton that I could criticize about Maoism at this point, as well as “Marxist” cults of personality and so on, of course – but when I lived in Seattle years ago, I seem to recall our differences not mattering that much. We were a smallish community of activists, leftists, peaceniks and various and sundry radical flavors, tendencies and ideologies, and despite our small numbers, things always got done. We had no choice but to work together if we wanted to accomplish so much as jack, and I really don’t think we could have lived with ourselves if we had done otherwise. That is what I think of when I see sectarian squabbling among ever-shrinking groups of people on the left, not who dissed whom and whatnot. (Back in the day, we also managed to get a chuckle out of the more loopy sectarians, but always in a kindly-wise way.) I also wonder if leftist/statist groups wish we would just get our act together, differences to the contrary – which if true, just goes to show that sometimes your adversaries are your best teachers.
So here’s to small victories. After I was dropped off by the nice Maoist lady, I got a system without making M$ or Intel more rich – and they got money for their legal defense, which regardless of what you think of them, they do both need and deserve. The computer is humming along, I just upped my odds of finding work in a truly shitty economy, and they have a bit more cash towards making sure that yet another brother doesn’t end up in jail. I happen to think we need more of this kind of simple solidarity stuff, not less – differences be damned. It’s not enough to be right: as she said, we also need to win. I’m starting to think that should be our slogan as well, or at least, that we need to seriously consider a range of options and ways forward for all of us, because nobody else is going to do it for us. As the gamers say: “For The Win!” Or if you want to pull from the Spanish anarchists: “Viva Yo!”
Meanwhile, I’m gonna go configure my new computer. Thanks, Maoists! I hope your legal defense goes well, despite our obvious differences. The universe does move in mysterious ways…
