Anarchism. It conjures up images of chaos, protest or reckless destruction. The word connotes the protests in Philadelphia just two summers ago, when activists overshadowed the Republican National Convention. Popularly, it translates to rebellion.
It's no surprise, given the coverage of events like the convention, that this image has been etched in our minds as the true nature of anarchism. Anarchism thrives in Philadelphia, but not in the sense you'd think. Believe it or not, anarchist protests and actions take months of planning and protest.
And they're not even what the movement is about.
In electric blue paint, "A-SPACE" announces itself over the doorway of an apartment building at 4722 Baltimore Avenue. At noon on a Tuesday, it's hard to tell that A-Space is the community center for radical anarchists in West Philly.
Inside, the A-Space is a room with mismatched chairs scattered around folding tables over a dull wooden floor. In the back, a counter floats before a kitchen area, where dishes pile high in a drainer by the sink. Colored Christmas lights hang from the ceiling, criss-crossed over a cluster of bare lightbulbs. The place has the feel of an apartment that's only half-moved in.
The A-Space is, in many ways, the center for anarchism in West Philadelphia, and even in the city as a whole. The definition of anarchism changes with each person you talk to, but there are overlaps. In general, anarchists believe that there is no place for government in a civil society, and their movement involves the gradual phasing out of government. The popular conception of anarchism holds that followers embrace chaos, disintegration and a complete disregard for any and all rules, but in Philadelphia, anarchism largely translates into turning away from mainstream hierarchies and substituting more community-based politics and lifestyles.
The anarchist ideology came into being around the same time as Marxism, and the anarchist movement thrived in Philadelphia from 1890 to 1919, mainly around the Old City area. Causes included labor activism, anti-clericalism, anti-imperialism, libertarian education, free love and birth control.
And the movement is still alive -- right in our own back yard. Around the blocks of 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue lives a community of anarchists and people with ideals parallel to anarchism, who work to change the system by living outside the system. Perhaps that's why we don't hear much about them. Yet they're there, striving to transform the world as we know it -- starting in West Philly.
Since the anarchist movement works towards disintegrating forms of government, and therefore established institutions, it's difficult to find established anarchist "institutions." The two most well-known anarchist-affiliated sites in Philadelphia are the A-Space and the Wooden Shoe Bookstore.
The A-Space was established in 1991. Although anarchist lifestyle and politics often go hand in hand, the growth in the anarchist population called for a more official space. Since anarchists often choose to remain on the fringes of society, they tend to stick together.
A few nights later, I'm at the A-Space for a "Catholic Worker Presentation." It's a fairly significant night, according to Bob Helms, a man who is dressed in all black and who looks to be in his forties.
"Tonight is a night of historical importance," he says authoritatively.
"The anarchists in West Philly are mainly secular and atheist -- we have never before shared our ideas with the Catholic Workers, who are more religiously affiliated anarchists," he explains hurriedly before disappearing into a back room.
There are several different branches of anarchism, including the Catholic workers, and the night reveals just how separate they can be. Eleven people -- male, female, 20 years old, 50 years old -- show up to the presentation. The chairs are arranged in a circle. Bob stands and introduces the three Catholic Workers, Liz, Shannon and Aaron, to the group, then takes a metal pitcher from the kitchen counter and hands it to the woman on his right.
"We pass the hat to pay the rent here," he says, "if you have any bills or change." The three Catholic Workers speak of their movement's history, their beliefs and their lifestyle, and respond to several questions from the group. The discussion ends within two hours, and warm promises of a renewed meeting are made on both sides. It's a moment of solidarity among the different branches of the same movement.
Other events on the A-Space calendar include meetings, benefit dinners, a talk by author Sasha Abramsky and an open mic poetry night. The anarchist movement is propelled through the transmission of information, the progress made at meetings and discussions, the building of a community and, of course, raising money to sustain it all.
A dinner scheduled earlier this month raised money for The Defenestrator, an anarchist newspaper distributed around Philly that cites news of potential local, national and international infringements on people's rights as individuals. Events like the open mic poetry night are mainly social.
A-Space plays a central, organizing and unifying role for anarchists; the Wooden Shoe is the next rung on the ladder for local anarchists. The Wooden Shoe, just off 5th and Lombard streets, is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization founded in 1975. The store is small, and crammed with books, pamphlets, newspapers, CDs and records. The tan walls are covered by posters and bumper stickers, ("Don't vote -- it only encourages them," "The Labor Movement: The folks who brought you the weekend").
The Wooden Shoe collective has 35 members: all volunteers who work to keep the Shoe open for business. The collective, where every member plays an equal role in running the business, meets once each month to make decisions about the store, which are reached only by consensus, rather than by vote. They rotate the facilitator, though "not as much as they should" admits Scott Lamson, a member of both the Wooden Shoe and A-Space. Not all of the members of the Wooden Shoe collective identify themselves as anarchists, but the store remains run under the anarchist system.
Scott himself has been active in the anarchist movement for about ten years and has worked at the Wooden Shoe for the past seven.
"When I was younger, the anarchist concept had a visceral appeal to me -- its immediate appeal was rejecting things constrictive or exploitative in my life. I was kind of aware of the anarchist movement as more organized and proactive -- I was seeing it on two different levels," he tells me over coffee at Java City, a block away from the Shoe. At the University of Minnesota, Scott's feelings on anarchist thought and action jelled. He joined an Anti-Racist Action Group (ARA) there, and helped chase out a Nazi group, the White Student Union. "The ARA appealed to me because I had no faith or trust in the institution; I saw how successful real grass roots organizations were -- that confirmed it for me."
Scott considers anarchism to be part of the process of exploring new alternatives: asking what the real problems are, and what solutions might be. The Wooden Shoe supports this idea of proactive education by selling books and materials that Scott hopes might make people think differently; its sections range from Anarchism, Activism, Group Process to Alternative Education, Animal Rights and Health.
"We don't want to enforce anarchist propaganda, but we hope that people will adopt a proactive mindset organically by being exposed to alternative ways of thinking," he says. The store has been making a profit as of late.
Scott asserts that his political beliefs have informed every aspect of his life. "I'm still a little cog for a machine I have no control over. Do I just go to work and not care about everyone else? That would be contradictory to my beliefs. I'm just trying to be a decent person."
He lives near the A-Space in West Philly, a neighborhood that houses a relatively strong anarchist community. Anarchists have been occupying that area since the 1960s. "Movement for a New Society," a group of politically conscious, anti-war activists moved into West Philly then and worked to maintain low-income housing for activists through cooperative living. The group eventually shut down, but one of its remnants was the Life Center Association Land Trust of seven buildings around the 47th and 48th blocks of Baltimore. The A-Space is in one of these.
Instead of paying rent to a landlord each month, the people living in these buildings pay money toward a common pool that's available for the upkeep of the houses. A representative from each building makes up the board, which meets once per month to discuss any needed repairs. At the board meetings, Scott represents the building that houses the A-Space.
"The idea is for each house to be cooperative on a number of levels -- people name their houses, they have a common kitchen area," he says.
Building a community with equal, active participants seems a major goal in the West Philly anarchist scene. It's difficult to do so as it becomes increasingly difficult for activists to live cheaply, with rents rising and Mexican restaurants replacing convenience stores. Creating a purely anarchist-structured community would be a significant success for these activists, but it also seems a distant notion; in establishing such an insular system, mainstream obstacles are hard to avoid.
Nicole Meyenberg moved to Philly three years ago and ended up in the West Philly neighborhood to live with friends there. She became a part of the A-Space collective after she had already begun dedicating much of her time to Books Through Bars (BTB), a program that sends books to prisoners.
One must attend three A-Space collective monthly meetings before he or she is considered a member of the collective. Members sponsor the presentations, discussions, dinners and meetings at the A-Space.
Nicole schedules events and devotes about 20 hours each week to BTB, located in the back room of the A-Space. The primary aim of BTB is to create "a radically different society in which prisons as we know them would not be necessary," Nicole says.
On a Tuesday night, members sit at folding tables, equipped with USPS envelopes, pens, tape-guns and scales. Punk rock spouts from a cassette by the kitchen sink, tape rips from the guns and packaged books thud in USPS crates and laundry baskets. The A-Space basement holds shelves and boxes of donated books that BTB uses to match the 700 or so requests they receive from prisoners each month.
All kinds of materials are in demand: African-American and Latino studies, dictionaries, basic educational materials, how-to art and vocational trade books.
"As a collective, we prioritize political and educational materials over genre fiction," Nicole says, adding that BTB focuses on "providing prisoners with tools that have been denied them -- to cultivate politicization."
Nicole is a graduate student at Temple, and she has just recently switched her major from Religion to Urban Education. She focuses on Community Partnerships and Prisoner Education.
Her own loose definition of anarchism is that it's "mostly about trying to create institutions and eventually a whole society not based on capitalism and hierarchy -- and working with people to secure those needs."
Like many anarchists, Nicole's lifestyle reflects her political beliefs. It's common for anarchists to live in communal atmospheres, with everyone being an equal partner, to minimize the role of larger institutions and hierarchy.
"All of my housemates and I own our house," she explains. "I try not to buy many things or consume very much -- I buy my groceries from the food co-op."
The co-op she speaks of is Mariposa, at 4726 Baltimore -- a non-profit with 300 members from the neighborhood. Membership costs $15 per year, and each member works two hours every four weeks stocking, cashiering, cleaning, bagging food and pricing inventory.
Rachel Markley, one of the four paid staffers at Mariposa, says that the West Philly anarchist scene comprises much, though not all, of the co-op's membership.
"Although Mariposa is not officially 'anarchist,' as far as anarchist structure goes, this is it," Rachel says.
Growth of institutions like Mariposa and the Wooden Shoe mark the swelling of Philadelphia's anarchist population, which, according to Nicole, received a boost during the GOP Convention in August 2000. The presence of thousands of Republicans and politicians in Philadephia was accompanied by the activism of thousands of protesters, who even managed to shut down Broad Street one day. Some identified themselves as anarchists.
Nicole did not participate, saying that protesting is not the type of activist work that's cut out for her. She wishes that programs like Books Through Bars got more media coverage than protests, but comments that the media really just made the city of Philadelphia look bad.The protests during the convention, however, were nationally televised, and anarchists have flocked to the area since then.
There has been higher attendance at A-Space events, and a new community space is already in the works. The new space will house Radio Volta, at 88.1 FM, a station born out of the Independent Media Center, an alternative media source that covers many national and international movements for social change. Radio Volta is volunteer-run and operated under an anarchist structure. It currently occupies a cramped space at the back of the Not Squat house at 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue.
Kilimanjaro is one of the station's DJs, and he works in two tiny adjoining rooms with two computers and a slew of records, tapes and CDs. The set list is not all music; some of the slots are spoken word, and some are speeches made at protests.
"A lot of the people who work here are activists in the community -- they definitely take what they get from outside. All you need is a handheld recorder," Kilimanjaro explains.
"The most important thing about Radio Volta is getting information out to the people," he says, referring to news and protests. Although Kilimanjaro is not an anarchist himself, he agrees with some anarchist principles -- one of which is having a voice.
"Radio is powerful. It gives ways for people to empower themselves by having their own voice," he asserts.
Kilimanjaro admits that "punk rock helped me see a lot of things, like being comfortable with myself and my identity. There's a lot of angst and rebellion in punk rock -- also nihilism and apathy. Both can be escapist in a lot of ways."
Punk rock does seem to introduce many to anarchist ideals. Nicole says she came into the anarchist scene through a punk influence, but she's gone to some shows lately and feels something like "I don't want to say 'disdain,' but I don't feel any real connection to the crowd there, except for similar accessories."
Scott also became interested in anarchism after his exposure to the music scene, but he does not believe that punk rock should be considered the reason for the recent boom in the anarchist population.
"Any social phenomenon happens because of wider influences -- not an internal thing," he contends, referring to the punk sub-culture of independently controlled music shows and record labels.
He suggests that anarchism is more influenced by such wider causes as the discrediting of state communism after the 1980s, and the more recent anti-globalization movement.
Bob Helms, another member of the A-Space collective, would agree; he also asserts that "the reason so many of these new folks come to Philly is that the group here has a reputation for doing a lot of serious work, and it has been continuously active for longer than any other city in North America."
For many, the idea of punk rock conjures up thoughts of violence, destruction, chaos -- something the media often links with anarchism in its coverage of political protests. However, such notions are actually quite distant from the anarchist movement's primary aim: a society that is organized without a government, a place where individuals can maintain true independence. Anarchists may have to defend themselves against punk rock's negative connotations for some time, since the two seem to be inextricably linked in the eyes of the mainstream despite the distinctions anarchists often make.
Last week I asked Scott what the words "wooden shoe" stand for. "Ah, good question," he says, his voice perking up.
It turns out that the word "sabotage" is derived from the French word for a wooden shoe: "sabot." In 1911, striking railroad workers in France destroyed the wooden "shoes" that held the railway ties in place as a form of rebellion. And in another anecdote, factory workers had thrown their wooden shoes into machinery as a form of rebellion. "Sabotage refers more to disruption than annihilation," Scott admits, but since the original focus of the Wooden Shoe collective was radical labor struggles, the name seemed to fit.
"A general anarchist philosophy is that if you have an issue that needs to be addressed, then get together with other people and deal, rather than getting with the government. Throwing shoes at machinery is a little drastic, but it carries the same general idea of refusing to deal with institutions"
