Islamists and Anarchists

[Civlord]

The European powers at those times were certainly going to make war sooner or later. Before Gavril Princip, there were tensions about the Serbian question in 1912 and about Morocco in 1908. Germany wanted more territory, more specifically the rich iron mines located in Champagne, inside the french border. There were only waiting for a reason, even a minor reason, to declare war, take Champagne, enter Paris and become the supreme European power. If it wasn't for Franz Ferdinand assassination, then they would declare war later.

What really caused the German defeat was a tactical detail. In 1914, when the German troops entered the Marne, the german commander Von Moltke assigned two divisons to the Eastern front because the russians have already invaded Eastern Prussia with a large army. That really didn't have any considerable effect, because when they came Hindenburg already defeated them at Tannenberg, eliminating the Russian threat. But in Paris, the lack of two divisions sealed the destiny of the war, because the french and the british counter-attacked and the number of german troops wasn't enough to destroy them and proceed to Paris. They had to retreat to the Aisne river, where they started building fortifications. Later, the superiority of the British navy lead to the blockade of the german harbors, severely damaging the german economic capacity. In 1916 and 1918 there was lack of food and other raw materials for all the Central powers, and that's why the allies won the war.

 

[frekk]

A single terrorist assassinated one Austrian guy almost a century ago, and set in motion a chain of events that culminated in WW2 and the complete transformation of the world order. We live in the world created by that terrorist. Whatever you want to call them, small groups of very violent angry people who dont wear uniforms can have a potentially greater impact on the course of human history than the leaders of great nations that command vast armies and almost limitless resources.

WW1 was an inevitability. The assassination merely provided a reason for it to occur.

 

[Birdjaguar]

2 of Hitlers main 'policies' that he used to win public support in the early 1930's was to overturn the treaty of versailles and to amke germany a great, respected country again. Its hard to see how he would have been noticed if it wasnt for WW1. Most early nazi's were war veterans and right wing kaiser supporters.

Bird, if WW1 hadnt happened, there would have been no post war Germany, no Weimar Republic, no Nazi Party, and nobody today would ever have heard of a guy named Adolph Hitler.

With that kind of logic we can probably blame Bismarck for WW 2 or even Napoleon. History unfolds through events that may or may not be connected. We create the chains of connectivity that we see fit whether they are true or not. I like the argument that the "big boys" have responsibility for choosing how their country behaves. Hitler needed WW 2 to achieve his goal of a German Europe. WW 1 was a convenient platform on which to build his position and sell it to the German people.

 

[frekk]

No-one knew it would end up a war engulfing the whole continant.

There were quite a few warning about exactly that, actually (although most did not believe it).

 

[The Last Conformist]

You know this term 'anarchist' is really dated. It refers back to a time where monarchies were struggling to justify their existance. Afterall, in those days, there was no other valid form of government imaginable. Dare to do anything violent against the monarchy that might encourage some of other form of government? ANARCHIST!

It's an old label. These days it's better to say terrorist, or perhaps even insurgent.

This is the most preposterous thing I've heard today. Congratulations.

i) The anarchists were by no means solely opposed to monarchical forms of government. Read the article and you'll learn about their attacks against the republican governments of America and France.

ii) The only reason the term is "dated" is that the movement is long gone. (Yes, there are people who call themselves "anarchists" still today, but they aren't known for blowing people up, and generally don't matter.)

iii) An anarchist was not necessarily a terrorist, and a terrorist is not necessarily an anarchist.

In short, you're not making an ounce of sense.

 

[Civlord]

This is the most preposterous thing I've heard today. Congratulations.

i) The anarchists were by no means solely opposed to monarchical forms of government. Read the article and you'll learn about their attacks against the republican governments of America and France.

ii) The only reason the term is "dated" is that the movement is long gone. (Yes, there are people who call themselves "anarchists" still today, but they aren't known for blowing people up, and generally don't matter.)

iii) An anarchist was not necessarily a terrorist, and a terrorist is not necessarily an anarchist.

In short, you're not making an ounce of sense.

Really, when did happen the last terrorist act made by an anarchist? In the 1930's? I remember reading that FDR was almost shot by an italian man who denominated himself an anarchist.

 

[Ayatollah So]

He doesn't say so explicitly, but I think the writer would agree with me that for the sort of people who become terrorists (and for that matter street fighters* at similar troublemakers), the particular ideology they use as justification is fairly ephemeral. It's sometimes said bin Ladin is a terrorist because he takes the fierier parts of the Qu'ran literally. I'd rather think he takes those parts literally because it gives him an excuse to blow people up.

Ahh... your words are like a cool breeze on a hot muggy day. I have been sorely vexed by American so-called journalists and so-called analysts saying exactly such things as that bin Ladin is a terrorist because of his reading of the Qu'ran. Someone please bring these "analysts" a clue! Terrorists lie, cheat, steal, and murder, but few people seem to grasp that they may also be lying to themselves, especially when they interpret their holy texts.

The idiocy gets really deep (and stinky) when the question becomes "what are the terrorists' aims and strategies?" Try this hypothesis: Their aims are to blow people up whom they hate, and the rest is rationalization. Not that rationalizations are totally irrelevant - people cook them up because they feel a need to, and the need isn't satisfied unless the rationalizations are believed, and so they do influence behavior to some extent. But taking the rationalizations at face value is a deep and dangerous mistake.

TLC, please record your words, amplify them 10 million times, and replay them directly into the ears of George Bush's top advisers and American TV anchors. Thank you in advance.

 

[Tacit_Exit]

And why do they hate?

 

[The Last Conformist]

And why do they hate?

Would I knew.

 

[elfangor801]

From some of the examples given in the article, anarchists seem like what they are today: Losers down on their luck who decide to pick a cause and go with it to feel better. Except from the looks of it, the ones from 1890 had the guts to go do something for their cause. The article draws a parallel between the tactics but not really the ideology. Islamists are fighting for a cause, even if it's flawed....

 

[The Last Conformist]

People like Bakunin, Kropotkin, or Proudhon were hardly "losers down their luck" before turning to anarchism.

 

[frekk]

From some of the examples given in the article, anarchists seem like what they are today: Losers down on their luck who decide to pick a cause and go with it to feel better. Except from the looks of it, the ones from 1890 had the guts to go do something for their cause. The article draws a parallel between the tactics but not really the ideology. Islamists are fighting for a cause, even if it's flawed....

Ehhh ... what about the ones in the Spanish Civil War in the Thirties, fighting Franco ... ran their own autonomous regions, fielded armies ... are you saying they had no cause?

They were as close to being the "good guys" as you could get in that fight ... the whole bomb-wielding anarchist maniac thing is a ridiculous stereotype, there were what, a dozen of those in all of history - but tens of thousands of freedom fighters in Spain, who enjoyed pretty good relations with the West - heck, Orwell joined the POUM and fought in Spain on the anarchist side. What did he have to say about it? "I realized I had been in contact with something strange and valuable, where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where comrade stood for comradeship and one had breathed the air of equality."

 

[elfangor801]

Ehhh ... what about the ones in the Spanish Civil War in the Thirties, fighting Franco ... ran their own autonomous regions, fielded armies ... are you saying they had no cause?

I think that goes more under the "revolutionary" umbrella.

 

[frekk]

I think that goes more under the "revolutionary" umbrella.

Well, I think revolution is a cause. But point is, it is ridiculous to say "anarchists seem like what they are today: Losers down on their luck who decide to pick a cause and go with it to feel better."

That's a real insult to some of the first defenders of freedom against the rise of fascism in Europe during the thirties, and betrays a stunning ignorance of the movement. Even comparing anarchists of that time with anarchists of today is pretty insulting, imho, let alone comparing them with the likes of Al-Qaeda.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The comparison, tho, isn't with 1930s Spanish anarchists.

Why am I getting the impression half or more of respondents didn't read the article?

 

[Pyrite]

I would have to say that both the anarchist and the present day islamist were necesarry to the governments of both the past and present and if they didn't excist it would be necesarry to invent them.

 

[frekk]

The comparison, tho, isn't with 1930s Spanish anarchists.

Why am I getting the impression half or more of respondents didn't read the article?

I read it. The article fails to distinguish that the so-called "wave of anarchist violence" is a misleading and false characterization. Nationalists of various stripes were responsible for far more of the attacks than anarchists - of the few attacks that actually were committed by anarchists, they were almost invariably motivated by nationalist causes. It was truly a wave of nationalist violence, and the perpetrators' political views ran the entire spectrum, from conservative capitalist to socialist to anarchist. You may as well classify it as a wave of Christian violence, or socialist violence, or capitalist violence, or a number of other things, as to characterize it as a wave of anarchist violence.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is a classic example. The perpetrator, Princip, did not act alone nor was he an anarchist at all (although one of the other conspirators, Cabrinovich, was a typesetter who had once worked at a print shop specializing in anarchist texts). He was acting as a member of an underground Serbian nationalist group called the Black Hand, which was primarily comprised of Serbian military personnel - not anarchists.

Assassination of Francis Ferdinand

The Black Hand

The point of bringing up the Spanish Civil War, was that it was the only true 'wave of anarchist violence' and I don't think that anyone who knows about those events think that Orwell ought to have been locked up for participating in it, or that it was even morally dubious in the least. This whole business of Islamist = anarchist = maniac is ridiculous bunk, just an attempt to recycle false propaganda of a previous era.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Did you miss this part of the article?

The anarchist terrorists of 1880-1910 were replaced by other terrorists—Fenians, Serb nationalists (one killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and thus sparked the first world war), Bolsheviks, Dashnaks (revolutionary Armenians), Poles, Macedonians, Hindu nationalists (among them the killers of Mahatma Gandhi), fascists, Zionists, Maoists, Guevarists, Black Panthers, Red Brigades, Red Army Fractions, Palestinians and even al-Qaeda's jihadists. Few of these shared the anarchists' explicit aims; all borrowed at least some of their tactics and ideas.

It's hard taking your mismissal of the article seriously when the one concrete example you give is based on a blatant mischaracterization .

 

[sennomulo]

The vast majority of modern anarchists don't advocate "terrorism" or anything of the sort. For the most part, we believe violence is unjustified except as a means of self-defense (but of course, as anarchists do not demand uniformity of opinion, there are those who disagree). Although over a century ago there were some anarchists who did resort to what was known as "propaganda by the deed", assassinating state leaders and such, this was quickly seen as ineffective since it tarnished anarchists' reputation more than anything else, and of course was powerless as a tactic against state bureaucracy. By the beginning of the 20th century it had been abandoned by the movement, and certainly isn't promoted by any of the major modern anarchist organizations, or any significant faction within the current anarchist movement, which is mostly committed to spreading ideas and working within the labor movement for change. Check out You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship: The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism for an anarchist's explanation of how violence and terrorism could never achieve the libertarian socialist society we aim to achieve. We seek to destroy the stereotype that we are bomb-throwers out to cause chaos and disorder. We want a society based on free association, direct democracy and socialism, and killing innocent people can never bring that about.