Contenu du sommaire : Actualité de l'anarchisme

Colin Ward, Anarchism in the Twenty-first Century The anarchist tradition favors reflection even though historical experience has not tended to verify ideological expectations. It is clear that the overwhelming irresponsible power of market forces during the last decades of the twentieth century will penalize the first decades of the twenty-first century. Present conditions will push human beings towards a desperate effort to obtain recognition of their dignity as human beings. It is for this reason alone that anarchism will emerge in the twenty-first century in the midst of many local struggles of the oppressed and disfavored.

Pierre Ansart, Proudhon throughout History Proudhon remains a strangely irritating author, as if his work is still present and threatening. Before the collapse of the communist regimes, the various resurgences of proudhonism seemed to be nostalgia as much as intellectual and political rediscoveries, while official communist ideology interpreted the phenomenon more darkly. At the present time, research is being carried out which explores Proudhon's idea that the free play of economic forces and social contradictions is not a viable long-term response and is only satisfying to the governing and possessing classes.

René Berthier, The State, Law and Legitimacy A revolutionary critique of social exploitation cannot be limited to a simple description of the mechanisms, of capitalist society and the function of the state. It also cannot be limited to moral condamnation or to a call to revolt against an intolerable situation. More than ever, it is clear that the vast majority of people continue to tolerate an unacceptable situation because they do not see any alternative to it. A revolutionary project can only be credible if it represents a legitimacy greater than does the dominant class. Although anarchism is rarely considered a theory and practice tending towards the creation of a new legal system, this aspiration is nevertheless central in the writings of its greatest theorists and its prominant activists.

René Lourau, Libertarian Education The historical experience of libertarian education is impressively rich. From the innovations of Paul Robin and the group called "École Libertaire" and the League for Libertarian Education which emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, to the influence of Francisco Ferrer at the beginning of the twentieth, attempts to create a truly progressive and libertarian education have flourished. Resistance to libertarian education does not only focus upon the contradications of this education, but is perhaps most fundamentally a response to the desire for social change.

Larry Portis, Consensual Sociology and Terrorism : From Propaganda by the Deed to the Unabomber The strange collusion between terror and official sociology represents aspects of a capitalist society in the process of integration by the marginalization of its "extremes". Between terror and sociology, and between sociology and public opinion, the mass media play an essential role. At the present time, when consensual ideology seems to threaten the very idea of an alternative to industrial-capitalist society, the Unabomber's manifesto tend to show that consensual sociology can contribute to sociopolitical violence.

Nicole Beaurain, Christiane Passevant, From the Mujeres libres to the Anarchafeminists Like other political groups and tendencies, anarchism has experienced a contradiction between theory and practice even as it demands freedom and equality for all, including between the sexes. The women's liberation movement has played an essential role in social revolution in the twentieth century, as the experiences of the Mujeres libres in the Spanish Revolution of 1936 and the emergence of anarchafeminism in the United States has shown In France in recent years, anarchafeminism has developed, although with a certain amount of difficulty.

Thierry Caire, Survey of Member Activism in the French Anarchist Federation Investigation of the kind and degree of activism within the French Anarchist Federation has been carried out using questionaires and interviews. The notion of "political involvement" has been analyzed as a prelude to empirical study in the interest of determining the nature of political participation and commitment and the complex of attitudes which form the outlook of the different categories comprising the membership of the organization.

Sylvain Boulouque, Colonial Uprisings and the Anarchists : From the War in Indochina to the Algerian War Nationalism and colonialism have always inspired heated debate within the anarchist movement. An historical evaluation of anarchist attitudes relative to colonial uprisings indicates how the anarchist movement has reacted when confronted with events which do not enter comfortably within its traditional analytical framework. The anarchists have tended to issue warnings about the lack of internal democracy in anticolonial movements and how external forces can transform newly created states into totalitarian systems.

Jean-Jacques Gandini, The Chinese Anarchists The success of anarchism in China at the beginning of the twentieth century was assured by a combination of its roots in the Taoist tradition and its openness to Western modernity. Chinese anarchism gained popularity thanks to its critique of the family, its promotion of social struggles, its conception of the relationship between work and study and its internationalism, before receding before the rising star of bolskevik communism and its success in Russia. At the end of the 1920s, Chinese anarchism was squeezed between communism and resurgent nationalism and, consequently, politically marginalized. The fortunes of the writer Pa Kin are emblematic of this development. However, anarchism in China did not disappear. It has reemerged periodically to contest the increasingly feeble communist "order".

Ronald Creagh, Deference : Postmodernity and Anarchist Dissidence The anarchist critique is not primarily aimed at people or organizations, but rather at the social structure, the system and the elitist mentality and hierarchical relationships that it reenforces. This critique aims to, on the contrary, reenforce different loyalties, other life styles and other types of behavior. The anarchists are not opposed to the state because it is not perfect or because it is controlled by a particular social class, but because the structural conditions necessary for its existence are unacceptable. To accept the idea that the state is inevitable is to accept the idea that the people are to be inevitably alienated from the decision making process. This is an epistemological bias that raises ethical questions, misperceives the phenomenon of postmodernity and falsifies understanding of decision making.

Murray Bookchin, Towards a Libertarian Rationality A distinction between the authoritarian and the libertarian modalities of reason is as decisive for thought and its history as it is for technology. A symbiotic and libertarian rationality constitutes a pervasive presence, a sensibility and a mental state and not a simple train of logic. It is on an existential level that the ambivalences of liberty must be resolved by engaging social principles, institutional imperatives and a moral consensus that contributes to the harmonization of liberty and social reality.

Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Liberalism : Conversation with Noam Chomsky At the present time, all emancipatory movement are presented with a double dilemma : on the one hand egalitarism is associated with authoritarian socialism and, on the other hand, "liberalism " is associated with capitalist systems which mask another kind of totalitarism. It must be kept in mind that the "liberal" ideas of the eighteenth century have been transformed to the point where they have lost their original meanings. The real problem is the state. But the trend towards privatization makes it impossible to oppose the state without making concessions to it, even if in the long run political centralization must be eliminated, dissolved in favor of local control, federalism and free associations.