As I said in my last blog post, after I sent an email to the Cranks mailing list we discussed the politics of Cranks in one of our bi-weekly meetings. I haven't been able to post these thoughts up sooner because I have been offline for a month building a roundhouse with Tony Wrench in South West Wales. More on that later, but for now..
Before I write up my thoughts from the meeting, I wanted to say that I could have presented and prepared my arguments a bit better on the day. I'm not always as clear when speaking publicly as I am when writing something down. What kind of mood I'm in or how confident I am feeling, as well as how prepared I am, often seems to affect how well I speak in public. I've learnt in the past that it helps writing things down before I say them aloud, especially if the issue is complicated. Before going I should have brainstormed and written down exactly what I wanted to say at the meeting. This blog post is an attempt to do this after the meeting!
It really matters how you come across, as well as your ability to speak, when trying to convince other people (especially groups of people) about your point of view in meetings. As I've learnt from studying participatory budgeting and deliberative democracy, the best speakers can dominate discussion and, in the end, get their way. This has been true for all of the history of democracy.
Please also note that this is my interpretation of the meeting. This is not the official minuted version. I have tried to be as accurate and fair as possible but be aware that I may have left things out or mispresented some people.
I must also make it clear that I do not consider myself to be an anarchist however many of my ideas are influenced by anarchism. For example, I always find it inspiring to read about how parts of Spain were organised under anarchist principles during the Spanish revolution or civil war.
Orwell talks about this in his book Homage to Catalonia, when he traded his press pass for a uniform and fought against Franco's Fascists in the war (during 1936 and 1937) alongside Anarchists and the P.O.U.M. (the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista, or in English, the Workers Party of Marxist Unification - an anti-Stalinist and pro-Trotsky Communist party). Another great book on this subject is The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 by Sam Dolgoff, which goes into much more detail about how anarchist principles were put into practise in Spain.
Finally, I use anarchism as the main example of a political ideology influencing Cranks in this piece, but there are many other ideologies that could potentially be said to influence Cranks such as: Participatory Economics, Eco-socialism, Guild socialism, Libertarian socialism, Co-operativism, Freeganism, Mutualism, Syndicalism, Autonomism, Environmentalism, anti-consumerism, communitarianism, Volunteerism and, in the words of one person in the meeting, maybe even Buddhism.
Thoughts from meeting
Anyway, after a long discussion, the group decided that it was better for Cranks to not be more explicit about its politics, and to take it on a case by case basis on deciding how we deal with specific funding organisations or how we interact with local government. People seemed to broadly agree with what I said in the email I sent:
"Or...is it not appropriate for Cranks to be overtly anti/alter-capitalist and/or position ourselves within a broader political programme? Is it better to allow people with different politics to congregate around something that we all find worthwhile, that is compatible with everyone's politics? Maybe Cranks works well because we don't get bogged down in arguments about political thinkers or workers control! Do we need ultimate aims for Cranks, a final outcome that Cranks can help bring about, or is it sufficient to have operating principles and open discussion?"
It was decided that anything that is contentious can be brought to the group meeting, which meets every 2 weeks, and can be discussed and decided upon there.
On Cranks' political ideology, I asked, much like in the email, why we have a anti-capitalist donations policy and an anarchist logo on the website if we are not more explicit about those things.
Overall people wanted to make sure that Cranks was accessible to everyone and didn't alienate people from using it because of overbearing politics. The Cowley Club was given as an example of an organisation which can be alienating and inaccessible to some people because of this.
However, people in the meeting were happy to keep the posters and logos up in the workshop and on the website because it gives an air or "feeling" of left-wing anti-capitalist politics but doesn't try and shove it down peoples' throats. In the words of one person, "it is left for people who use Cranks to put it all together," instead of us being more explicit about it.
I asked why we couldn't at least state, for example on flyers, that we are influenced by anarchism and other political ideologies.
A few people argued that Cranks was anarchist in nature, but we don't have to explicitly state it. Workers' control and alternative value systems to money (e.g. our donation and volunteering policy) were given as examples of how we are practising anarchist ideas. People who use Cranks can see - and maybe be inspired by - how we operate in practise, rather than being told what ideogies the ideas come from.
Others said that they didn't want Cranks to be associated with a fixed ideogy, especially because people come to - and volunteer in - Cranks for a whole host of different reasons, from a whole host of different ideologies. Some within Cranks are also suspicious of associating themselves with any particular ism and want to maintain a fluid personal ideology.
In the end, it was decided to leave the anarchist logo on the website and the posters in the workshop but not be any more explicit about these ideas. While I really understand the points made above, it does annoy me a bit because it means that we've left things a bit vague and opaque.
We have the paraphenalia and symbols of certain political ideologies on our website and in the workshop but don't want to make them more explicit.
I think it would be better to be clear one way or another, both for myself, the volunteers at Cranks and the people who use Cranks. Either we are influenced by anarchism and we have an anarchist logo online, or we're not and we don't have an anarchist logo online. If we agreed in the meeting that people come from different ideolgies, I could ask why do we still have it up there at all?
(Source: Cranks website)
So what do I think should happen?
Some community groups and co-operatives put their principles and influences online for all to read. It helps makes it clear to the volunteers/workers and the people who use them to understand what they are taking part in. It also gives pointers to ideas that people can investigate further if they want to.
For example, Kebele community co-operative, which has a bike workshop, have their principles online
Brixton Cycles, a workers' co-operative I studied for one my papers, has on their website a history section.
Tower Hamlets Wheelers has their constitution online.
Oxford Cycle Workshop has their membership policy online.
Ideally, I think Cranks should have its history, principles, constitution and membership policy online, with a print out of them in the workshop.
We already have flyers briefly explaining what Cranks is about which I often give out to people. However, it would great if I could point to the website or a print out for more explanation of our history, principles, membership policy and constitution.
If people do not want Cranks to be too wedded to any ideology in the principles, maybe we could have leaflets explaining our relation to certain ideologies, such as "Is Cranks anarchist?" and "Co-operativism for cyclists?"
Now, let me make it clear that I don't think we should tell everyone who comes into the workshop about the political influences or the history of Cranks. However, if people are interested, which they have been in the past, I would like to be able to point them to where they can find out more.
Why do I think it is so important to make it clear?
Writing so much about this subject I have to ask myself why I care so much about it.
I think that it is important to be explicit about where we are coming from so that we can communicate these ideas to other people. Many people do not understand ideologies such as Anarchism. As the film Anarchy in America shows (see it free online or download it), there are many misconceptions peddled about anarchism by politicians, the media and citizens. The video shows how some people think of Anarchism as "a dominance of one view over everyone else." Another person says that "extremism is the midwife of Anarchy." Others think of Anarchism as "chaos." This is completely wrong as the documentary goes on to show.
It is important to explain to people that anarchism means, amongst other things, more control over your own life as well as normal people working together on a more egalitarian, non-hierarchical and democratic basis.
People who least know about these ideas, are in my opinion, the people who most need to know about them. As pointed out above Cranks puts into practise many Anarchist ideas but we do not explicitly explain them. Many people who come to Cranks do not know about any of these ideas. I think it would be great if we could play a little part in explicitly introducing some of these ideas to the people who use Cranks. Writing them down would help, as Steven Lukes would say, make the invisible visible. It would also help people who want to set up similar bike workshops in other parts of the country because they could look at, and potentially use, the documents which guide us.
Writing the principles of Cranks would also hopefully bring the volunteers together in Cranks as we dicuss and decide on our shared principles.
So what am I going to do about it?
I will try and push these ideas a little more in the future, but if the other people in Cranks don't agree with me, I will respect the group's decision. I will also try and be careful not to alienate the other people in Cranks with endless talk of politics, especially because some of them are much more interested in fixing bikes than debating the politics of the place. I do not want to create a 'make or break' situation by forcing people to choose to either adopt anarchist principles or drop the whole thing. This doesn't mean that I should just 'play it safe,' but that I realise that if we choose to adopt 'official' anarchist principles then some people may decide to leave and if we choose to lose all connotations with Anarchism then other people may leave. This is further complicated by our current lack of volunteers.
As I have written before, I have a tendency to try and politicise everything and sometimes just need to relax about certain things. However, if I do send an email version of this blog to the Cranks mailing list it will be a much shorter and more direct version. This blog is not just written for the people of Cranks but also for myself and needs to be adapted if I want to send it out.
Ideally I would like the opportunity to help people understand anarchism as well as everything else that I've written above. However, if we at Cranks can't agree on this, then if somebody asks about the ideology behind Cranks then I will tell them the reasons behind my decision for volunnteering and that each person may have a different reason for being there. Such can be the nature of anarchy!
Posted in Anarchism | Capitalism | Citizenship | Co-operatives | Correspondence | Cycling | Day to Day Life | Democracy | Environment | Money | Politics | Power | Work ed's blog | 92 reads
Submitted by ed on Sun, 2008-06-22 12:34.
