:xi-lib-tears:
BE's take is pretty bad too, but the overcorrection is just funny.
The KPAM was literally the largest ever Anarchist polity by an order of magnitude, and got on super-well with Mao despite theoretical differences.
Yep. Definitely a bad take. Y'all ever heard of a Zapatistas?
As far as I know, the Zapatistas don't identify as anarchists, Marxists, or whatever? They do their own thing, wich is cool.
They're an indigenous movement first and foremost, any resemblance to anarchist or communist movements past or present is simply the result of convergent evolution.
Compare and contrast to Bolivia's MAS, which started as an indigenous rights movements and became democratic socialist over time.
They don't identify as anarchists but they organize themselves in anarchic ways and mostly associate with anarchists.
But even if they weren't, the third world is full of anarchist movements, Latin-America, Southeast Asia has lots of them.
Which is exactly the 'racist, orientalist' take of the post. It situates the 500 year long struggle of Chiapas as derivative of a comparatively minor fin de siecle western ideology.
Many of the ideas of anarchism are more discovered than created. The way I see it, they are doing anarchist stuff, saying that doesn't mean you are making the claim they based everything on some Western philosophy, it's just using the english language word for what they are doing.
Calling it imperial gaze only makes sense if you make the assumption that the people calling the Zapatistas anarchists aren't also anticolonialist. It's not "feeling good about yourself", it's talking about them in the language you understand.
I am once again asking anarchists to stop claiming the Zapatistas as anarchists, in spite of their long held explicit wishes. This shit is so gross, they have said over and over again that they are not anarchists, but nope just deny their self-image and indigenous movement in order to feel good about yourself. It is peak imperial gaze, and it is getting real freaking old fast
I do not mean to imply that they identify as such or are, in fact anarchists, but that like in much the same way that calculus has been discovered over time and even in parallel, these things are like universal constants. For the purposes of arguing against as dipshit a take as bad empanada had, anarchism and zapatismo are close enough to debunk the idea that those sorts of ideas and ideologies are irrelevant and nonexistent outside of the imperial core.
Except you prove BE right by using the example of......people of color who are explicitly NOT anarchists. If you keep going to an example outside the imperial core, whose open message to you is "stop calling us anarchists, you are being chauvinistic" you _really are not helping your case that your ideology isn't Eurocentric.
I would say a worse take than his would be doing something that an indigenous movement that has actually gotten shit done has informed people repeatedly not to do. The Zapatistas are not in fact, a prop for
the purposes of arguing against as dipshit a take
and the fact that you used them, exactly in the context BE was mocking anarchists online for, and that the Zapatistas have called anarchists out for; is exactly why people have that take. If you don't want people making that dipshit take, steer clear of chauvinistic claims about indigenous movements for the sake of winning an argument.
Can you see how your reasoning/motive is exactly why groups like the EZLN are so annoyed with that shit? Saying "I only did it in order to do the thing they hate people doing" doesn't make it ok. If a group wants to consider itself a "universal constant" fine, but when they don't, then respect that and don't decide it for them explicitly for the purpose of arguing. Respecting that should really go above and beyond any rhetorical benefit or victory
The romanticization of the spanish civil war and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
There's a Shoshone tiktoker I follow who calls himself an Indigenous Socialist. He realized that in his culture, the people upset that "traditional" values are being lost were, in fact, nostalgic for the remnants of a more egalitarian culture.
Anarchist here. As a famous philosopher once said, we're in fuckin 1320 motherfucker. Trying to explain anarchism to the average person is like trying to explain representative democracy to a medieval serf. Even if they understand, seeing a path towards achieving it is a process. So if you want to take inspiration from existing movements who you think live up to your values, then take the time to actually study some of their literature and practices. That's fine. But if they don't identify with the western canon of anarchism, don't call them anarchists. It's not complicated.
The process of decolonizing anarchist movements is important, but if you're not indigenous and are not working with anyone who is indigenous, chances are you aren't working towards that goal even if you wanted to be. This isn't some team sport aesthetic where you can put them in your corner just to feel like a revolutionary. This is, in fact, behavior that anarchists tend to criticize western ML's for. Frankly, as much as I think it's more common in terminally online ML circles, I think this particular brand of sectarianism is more based in western nihilism and inaction than in anything else. And it is indeed sectarianism.
Yeah, people making the world better is exciting. Having a semblance of hope in hellworld is exciting. Just don't carried away to the point where you're alienating the people doing the work.
BE is currently trying to dox someone and accuse them of pedophilia with a shopped tweet. Is he always like this on twitter?
Sadly, I think so. He makes good Youtube content, and is good on like Latam stuff, but also a massive asshole on twitter.
Yeah, I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of his youtube content (even as an ancom), but it’s hard to look back on it fondly now, knowing how toxic he is on twitter. Dude’s coming off like he’s legitimately unwell at this point.
IDK if it's just twitter brain rot, but yeah, he seems to come off as having a personality disorder at times. But also I've stopped following him on twitter at this point, so I guess I shouldn't really comment.
