Anarchist Free University

Fall Term 2004

THE ANARCHIST EIGHTIES

Course Facilitator: Alan O'Connor Wednesday 6-8 p.m.

This course explores grass-roots activism in the 1980s. It was a conservative decade in much of the world with Reagan in power in the USA and Thatcher in Britain. But the decade started with a huge grassroots movement against nuclear weapons and ended with the direct action tactics of ACT-UP in the USA. In between was a vibrant decade of radical collectives and alternative culture.

During the course we began to realize that much of our material was from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. That makes a less zippy course title but is probably more accurate historically. The only direct action movement we studied from the late 1980s is ACT UP which began in New York City in March 1987. Much of what we read about in the 1970s seems to be a continuation of the radicalism of the 1960s. There were important changes such as the widespread adoption of anarchist organizing practices: avoidance of named leaders, rotating positions of power, consensus decision-making, and a general attempt at re-thinking radicalism. Much of the energy seems to be lost by about 1985. Some projects continued the spirit of the anarchist eighties, especially Anti Racist Action, Food Not Bombs, direct action to end the aids crisis, Lesbian Avengers and Queer Nation. But much of this seems like a new generation.

Many socialists regard the 1980s as a 'lost decade'. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was destroyed by covert action (terrorism) sponsored by the US government. Large strikes by workers were worn down with the assistance of the state. But from an anarchist point of view it was a vibrant decade with huge decentralized mass movements, often inspired by the spirit of 1968. Many of these movements used direct action. At the start of the decade there was a huge movement against nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Towards the end of the 1980s it was the turn for ACT-UP to demand action on the AIDS crisis. The 1980s was also the classic decade of underground hardcore music in the USA (some of it politically inspired) and anarcho-punk, especially in Britain. Far from a lost decade, the 1980s saw radical thinking about sexuality, a vibrant squatters movement, support for political prisoners including Mumia in the USA and large amount of collectively run alternative media. It was an important decade, a kind of relay between the radicalism of 1968 and the 'anti-globalization' movement of the late 1990s.

The aim of the course is to build a collective website about 'the Anarchist Eighties'.

Books on the 1980s in Europe and North America

ADILKNO (1994) Cracking the Movement: Squatting Beyond the Media, translated by Laura Martz, New York Autonomedia.

Andersen, Mark and Mark Jenkins (2001) Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. New York: Soft Skull Press.

Allan Antliff (2004) Only A Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Butler, C. T. Lawrence and Keith Mc Henry (1992) Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community, Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.

Crimp, Douglas and Adam Rolston (1990) AIDS demo graphics, Seattle: Bay Press.

Downing, John (1984) Radical Media: The Political Experience of Alternative Media, Boston: South End Press.

Epstein, Barbara (1991) Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s, Berkeley, University of California Press.

Katsiaficas, George (1997) The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life, New Jersey: Humanities Press.

Sprouse, Martin (ed.) (1990) Threat by Example, San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press.

Starhawk (1987) Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery, New York: Harper Collins.

Vance, Carole S. (ed.) (1984) Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Boston: Routledge and K. Paul.

Each week there is about 20 pages of reading from these sources

WEEK 1 (20 Sept) Introductions, writing history, introduction to TWiki software.

• Crass, The Feeding of the 5000 (1978)
• Discharge, Hear Nothing (1982)

WEEK 2 (27 Sept) The anti-nuclear movement in the USA and Europe

• Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution (1991)
• George Katsiaficas, The Subversion of Politics (1997)
• Starhawk, Truth or Dare (1987)

WEEK 3 (4 Oct) Anarcho-punk in Britain and hardcore in the USA

• George Mc Kay, 'Crass 621984 ANOKU2', in his Senseless Acts of Beauty (1996)
• Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins, Dance of Days (2001)
• Steven Blush, American Hardcore (2001)
• Lance Hahn, articles on anarcho-punk in Maximumrocknroll

WEEK 4 (11 Oct) The squatters movement in Europe

• Jane Kramer 'Maxwell' in her The Politics of Memory (1996).
• George Katsiaficas, The Subversion of Politics (1997)
• ADILKNO Cracking the Movement (1994)

WEEK 5 (18 Oct) The Vancouver Five

• Ann Hansen, Direct Action

READING BREAK - NO CLASS 27 OCT

WEEK 6 (1 Nov) Central America and the revolution in Nicaragua

• Henri Weber, Nicaragua: The Sandinist Revolution (1981)

WEEK 7 (8 Nov) MOVE and support for Mumia

• Pamphlet

WEEK 8 (15 Nov) The ecology movement

• Earth First! (Feral Press, 1997)

WEEK 9 (22 Nov) ACT-UP and Lesbian Avengers

• Cindy Patton, Sex and Germs: The Politics of AIDS (1985)
• Douglas Crimp, AIDS-Demo-Graphics (1990)
• Sarah Schulman, 'Lesbian Avengers' in her, My American History.

WEEK 10 (29 Nov) Free radio and the radical press

• John Downing, Radical Media (1984) First Edition.
• Tetsuo Kogawa, "Free Radio in Japan" in Douglas Kahn (ed.) Cultures in Contention (1985)
• Allan Antliff (ed.) Only a Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004) section on anarchist press in Canada

www.AnarchistU.org