BERLIN - THE ANARCHY ORGANIZATION

I keep dreaming about the day when Finn, the next-generation socialist among my grandchildren, is going to climb up on my lap and ask me, "Why doesn't anarchy work?" With a generous, omniscient gesture I’ll re-adjust the glasses on the bridge of my nose and clip him round the ear before mercilessly popping his cute, little red bubble...

I actually have this fantasy on a regular basis, basically every time one of the punks squatting in this house on my street calls me "cunt" because I ask him to stop mistreating his dog, or when one of them asks me for a little donation for their "Volxküche" (German socialist cooking collective). With 34 Antifa-divisions, plus multiple socialist, communist, feminist and other groups, Berlin definitely lives up to its capital status in terms of kooky left wing organizations. More so than in any other German city there’s left-wing extremist activities happening nonfuckingstop and you find punks, squats, and the scarlet letter of anarchy allover the place. (Our office in Berlin has a literal gallery of "As" on adjacent buildings' walls.)

Recently I stumbled on the Agenda to “Akongress”--an anarchist’s congress that looked forward to gathering around 500 anarchists in Berlin last weekend. This story claimed the anarchists are encouraging violence and wouldn’t exactly mind setting cars on fire, so the dean of the Technological University decided to ban the congress on university property. So the anarchists had to switch to a bunch of scattered locations, starting off with the first meeting point in Kreuzberg at New Yorck in order to go through with their agenda.

In their jazzy little pamphlet they don’t just talk about organized anarchy. No, they step it up and also introduce concepts such as “structures born from anarchy,” “models of a federation," and "unions.” They have organizer groups, info points, awareness groups and "people you trust," which are the ones you should call up in case you get arrested or witness others being arrested.

Just in case you got lost now, the congress is organized in a "methodically anarchistic" way. Racism and sexism is strictly condemned and should be directly addressed if witnessed. At least this should be fairly easy considering, they divide people into convenient little plena. There's a women’s plenum, a men’s plenum, a children’s plenum, a queer people’s plenum and even one for transgender people.

To gather ammunition for the disillusionment of my future grandchild I called up this guy Christopher before all their meetings, who turned out to be the person who purchased the Sim-Card for the “congress phone” and who seems to be so excited about someone calling him, that he didn’t even bother asking why the hell I wanted to know all these things from him.

Vice: Hi, I have a couple of questions regarding the Akongress.
  Christoph: Sure, what do you want to know? 

OK, so you guys are anarchists, right? You don’t believe in rules and stuff, but then your pamphlet is like one big collection of agenda items and timetables. What’s up with that?
Imagine people would arrive at the main train station and then no one knows where to go to, how to get there and what’s going on. You have to organize anarchy too.

Mmh, I imagined the anarchy-thing to be more exciting and revolutionary somehow. And one thing is still confusing me. On the one hand you’re all fighting racism and sexism and then you divide people into these different plena. What’s that crap all about?
Well, we had a major discussion about this, but something we experienced at the “Libertarian Days” in 1993 made us decide on this division.

The Libertarian Days in 1993? What happened back then? Did someone wear the wrong shoes?
Some drunken guys assaulted a girl and that triggered some people beating the crap out

of each other. That sounds terrible...and a lot more like my idea of anarchy.
Women don’t like having guys watching them and they should have a space they can retreat to, especially for sleeping.

Trust is good, but nothing beats control, even with you anarchist guys, huh?
Everything that happens in society can happen at an anarchist meeting as well.

Ah, so society’s got all of you under control.

BARBARA DABROWSKA

Comments

I need to move to Berlin.

[Josh]

God I love Berlin. Awesome techno scene, thriving protest culture, slap bang in the middle of the europe, fucking cool.

The interviewer should probably have researched anarchism a bit more...I mean anarchism doesn't have to be 'revolutionary', it can be evolutionary, as boring as that sounds heh.

[Stasi Slut]

Antifa? HA HA HA

[Durruti]

You should call that anarchist congress info-phone again and ask from that guy that how did the polyamory/sex related workshops end up. Rumours say that it literally fucked up the revolution in bad way...

[Anon the Autonome]

You don't know what anarchism is... you confusing punk rock nihilism or "anarchy" with authentic working class anarchism.

Thank your fellow anarchist for the 40 hour work week, no child labor, and birth control.

Berlin is an amazing international city, everyone should consider moving there. "... poor but sexy."

[kate]

This is literally the most shallow explanation of the depth and passion that I take anarchy to be. A disgrace.