Two Anarchists..

One often comes across the notion that Anarchism is explicitly against nationalism, that Anarchism would do away with human races through a reformation of socio-economic hierarchies, because as social constructs, they would cease to exist with the society that constructed them. In general, the idea that Anarchists are diametrically opposed to all and any nationalism is a common one.

That is why I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a couple of quotes from two Anarchist thinkers: Mikhail Bakunin and Noam Chomsky, and see how they compare to the aforementioned popular notions surrounding the relation between Anarchism and Nationalism.

Chomsky:

“See, capitalism is not fundamentally racist — it can exploit racism for its purposes, but racism isn’t built into it. Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangeable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist — just because it’s anti-human. And race is in fact a human characteristic — there’s no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic. So therefore identifications based on race interfere with the basic ideal that people should be available just as consumers and producers, interchangeable cogs who will purchase all the junk that’s produced — that’s their ultimate function, and any other properties they might have are kind of irrelevant, and usually a nuisance.”

I think this quote must be confusing for your average anarchist, who treats races as physically unreal, biologically non-existent, socially engineered constructs. Yet, here we have a leading present-day anarchist thinker and a champion of the left in general, admitting, very matter-of-factly, to the existence of races. Not only that, he points out that race isn’t actually a capitalist creation – but rather a nuisance and a hinder to its machinery! Conversely, this would mean that the kind of one-world, one-race anti-racism adhered to by most anarchists is in fact furthering globalist capitalist objectives! It is quite ironic to see the most ‘rebellious’ political current out there beating the drum of the establishment in their anti-racism hysteria.

Of course, Chomsky is only being consistent with the Anarchist tradition. One of the fathers of Anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin also had some interesting things to say concerning us nationalists:

Nationality is not a universal human principle but an historical, local fact…Every nation, even a small one, has its own character, its own particular way of life and manner of speaking, feeling, thinking, and behaving. These distinctive features are the essence of nationality, the product of a nation’s entire history and conditions of existence. Every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself. So-called national rights consist precisely of this.

Of course, Bakunin had a past in nationalist circles, he toyed with Pan-Slavism as well as supported Siberian separatism. Also, Bakunin has been accused of anti-Semitism, which was common at the time in anti-capitalist movements and socialist circles in general. This is of course something the left conveniently forgets. Bakunin had the following to say about the Jews:

…one exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also across all divergences of political opinion … [Jews have] that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character

Bakunin claimed that Marxist Communism and Finance Capitalism together worked to further the intersets of Jews, a claim that is still popular among certain far-right movements.

National Anarchism has been called a “Trojan Horse for White Nationalism” within the Anarchist movement, but reading Bakunin and Chomsky, I think its not much of a stretch to simply call it an alternative interpretation with a different focus from the rest of the anarchisms. The list of Anarchist and Socialist thinkers who have contributed to National Anarchism and other Nationalist currents are numerous. The reason the modern left wants to deny their shared aspects concerning inspiration and doctrine is that they are too busy holding up a demonized image of the “far-right” as the absolute enemy. I think it shows some lack of prioritization when most of their energy goes in to battling marginal political currents, that are critical of the establishment instead of the real threats that both the far-right and the far-left share, such as the relentless advance of globalization, the ever more centralized and undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU, the Americanization of the world, and the list goes on.

Food for thought:

Big business as a supporter of anti-racism – Noam Chomsky

“Anarchist Notions of Patriotism and Nationalism”

Entwined Freedoms – Synthesis

And here, for a more dogmatically correct anarchist point of view, that sees nationalism and a sense of ethnic identity as something comparable to dementia:

Nationalism or Freedom – Anarcho-Syndicalist Review