From Disobedience to Mutual Aid

• In Event: Anarchism: Collective Life at a Distance from the State

Abstract

Protests are restricted or criminalized in the UK (see Crime, Policing, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022-soon to become an Act). By drawing on the work of Stuart Hall and his Collaborators in Policing the Crisis (1978) I argue that protest and consequently their criminalization fabricates a sense of consent and reveals a crisis in the hegemony of the ruling class (which is not homogeneous). In the late 1970s the protests, unveiled the class and racial inequalities in the UK as well as the myth of a universal ideology. The current criminalization of protest comes again at a period of economic instability, and potentially criminalizes the activities of certain groups, including Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Sisters Uncut, and Insulate Britain. I suggest that most of these protests contest the logic of Empire that is still operational in the everyday and political running of the UK. This paper calls on the ideas of Peter Kropotkin to consider the logic and the practices of protest and dissent from a perspective that aims to build new worlds without resorting to the State as a vehicle of transformation. Kropotkin's work on mutual aid or mutual support, which have been present during the Covid19 pandemic and throughout history, suggest political and ethical practices of organizing ourselves at a distance from the State. Mutual aid points out that is possible to have a cultivate a radical and collective subjectivity within collective life.

Author

• Elena Loizidou, Birkbeck University of London