A common experience for people, particularly young people who come to anarchism in the English speaking world is one of isolation. In my own case I came to anarchism through reading 'Homage to Catalonia' and then the very few anarchist books I could obtain in my city. These were nearly all liberal academic histories or reprints of texts from the 19th century so for quite a while I was unaware that the anarchist movement still existed. It took me a year to find other individual anarchists and another year to discover there was actually a small anarchist group in my city. It was another year before I took part in the formation of an organisation but even then we were very inexperienced. We ended up fusing with a much older anarchist group and it was only then that we reached the ability to undertake effective activity. I've written this text (with the help of others) in a way that I think would have enable me and our inital small group to become effective much, much faster.
Internal organisation
External activity
Summit protests and
networks
The major advantage of the network form of organisation is that it
allowed the rapid development and growth of a movement of tens of
thousands from a tiny base without significant resources But no
single form of organisation, unless it is one that involves the
majority of workers, will ever be able to take it on in a straight
fight
Media Mayhem - Anarchists and
the Mass Media
This article examines the mainstream media and looks at the various
factors which ensure that it effectively works as a propaganda tool
for the powerful. It looks at ways in which anarchists can deal with
this situation, by creating our own media, but also by challenging
the hostility that they habitually encounter from the mainstream. It
is mostly based on the experience of the 2004 Mayday protests in
Dublin.
Playing the Media Game
Perhaps the two biggest problems in dealing with the media are firstly that the media can, through the questions they ask and the pressures they bring, begin to set the political agenda of the group. Secondly servicing the media machine can take up all a group's time and energy (to the detriment of the other activity).
One thing anyone can do is use our PDF library to print out and distribute anarchist material locally. It's a great way to start to promote anarchism where you live or inform people of what anarchists think and do today.
This is very much a 'work in progress'. I'd appreciate feedback on it or you can leave you comments on this dedicated bulletin board (you can also read what others have thought).
Useful links
Useful articles on anarchist organisation on other sites