By Cake Boy

I know some of you see yourself as national anarchists, but I want to explain why I think national anarchism was a wrong turn.

First, the national anarchist theory is more or less the same as anarchism. They want voluntary communities/interactions, the same as Malatesta, Armand, and Tucker wrote about.

With the word nation, they mean a particular ethnic group. Like, the Sioux nation is a nation, the way Kurds are. They don’t mean nation-state with it. This isn’t very clear. It’s like saying: I’m a Christian, but I don’t mean the religion of Jesus Christ. Most people won’t understand what a ‘national anarchist’ wants. It sounds like: ‘statist anarchist’. Or ‘republican monarchist’. Or, ‘Satanist Christian’.

National anarchists are more or less the same as normal anarchists, but they emphasize ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’. This is a bit strange, because 99.999 percent of the classical anarchist philosophers didn’t think in terms of ‘race’,’ ethnicity’. You don’t hear Kropotkin about it, and you don’t hear Rothbard about it. It is outside of their world of thoughts and concepts. Rothbard says the market is a good idea, and Kropotkin says integral communism works well for people. Both theories, libertarianism and leftist anarchism, are made for all people. Black and white people. Men and women, gay and straight. When you bring up ‘race,’ you poison the well. You divide people, and this might lead to unnecessary problems.

What national anarchists say is that the state should not force us to live a multicultural life; we want to live with people of our own ethnicity. Anarchism has always allowed that anyway. But in the past, anarchists never thought about ‘race’, so it has never been brought to the table.

I heard a national anarchist say he likes a lot about fascism. This is very bizarre to hear, and to me, it seems as if this person is a bit confused. Fascism is the most statist system imaginable. First, he says anarchism is about voluntary relationships, then he says he likes fascism. Fascism is about force and involuntary relationships to the highest degree.

He then says, fascism is about tradition. This isn’t really the case. Fascism wanted to destroy the old order. In a way, it was very progressive. It wanted to destroy every kind of liberal or social democrat order, and replace it with a totalitarian state. When we look at tradition.  In this country, a lot of people live a traditional lifestyle, often these people are christian. Think of the current ‘tradwives’ who go for a traditional lifestyle. These people don’t have to become fascists to live like that.

Then the national anarchists have this white power symbol on their star. Most people who use this symbol, are the guys who beat up black people etc. Think of the russian nazi’s, who go out on the street, beating up people, while wearing this cross. And then you ask the national anarchists, Why do you use that symbol, and they are like, No, we don’t beat up people, we just want to live with white people, but we won’t hurt black people. Yes, but how could people know? Do they have to read your mind? Why don’t you think about how people read you?

If Southgate had gotten out of fascism and entered anarchism or libertarianism, he could have easily joined them. His anarchist ideas are more or less the same as theirs. The difference is that if he had come up with his racial ideas, the anarchists or libertarians wouldn’t be interested in them, and some of them would be offended.

Is national anarchism “anarchism”?Technically speaking, it is (voluntary order, without centralised power). But it’s an anarchism that alienates both insiders and outsiders of anarchism. The insiders will not be interested in it, and the outsiders might think that anarchism is about white crosses and skinheads, violence, etc.

I listened to an interview with Troy Southgate. In the interview, he says he joined the national/far-right party because of its economic ideas. This is a bit strange to me because the national/far right is mainly about ‘race’ and culture, etc. When you want to talk about economics, you could rather join a socialist or liberal movement. It’s as if you joined the Green Party, but not for their ecological ideas.

National anarchists say that everyone would create communities based on their ‘race’ if the state didn’t exist. This isn’t true. Most people don’t care about race. In this city, where i live, both the leftwing people, and the rightwing/capitalist people, don’t think in terms of race. They live with everyone. I don’t know why the national anarchists came up with this idea. They believe that everyone has the same racial ideas as they do, but this isn’t true at all. It seems that their whole theory is based on this misconception.

The left says that national anarchism was made to lead leftists into fascist domains. I don’t think this is the case. And if it were true, then it would be a bad strategy, since leftist people are by definition not interested in these ideas. Also, national anarchism is a different idea than facism/nazism. It’s not meant as just a stepping stone to get into fascism.

When we look at modern Rojava confederalism/anarchism, this project couldn’t happen if the Kurds hated the Arabs, and the Arabs hated the Assyrians, and the Assyrians hated the Christians, and the women hated the men, and the men hated the women. But this is what identitarian politics leads to. It scatters everything into small fragments, which can’t accomplish anything.

I heard a national anarchist say the following: Race is nation, and nation is race!

First of all, this is not true. Nation states have always allowed migrants within their borders. The country I come from has always had different cultural and ethnic groups within its borders. Catholics, Protestants, German migrants, French migrants, and people from other places came to work. Many Chinese people have recently come to the big cities to study things like technology. A nation state is not defined by race, but by its constitutions and laws. You can have any skin color if you follow the law.

Also, when were nation-states inspirational to anarchists?

Then there is the question of tradition. National anarchists reply with tradition when faced with the crisis of modernity. It is an understandable move, but I think it’s flawed. I don’t think you can just say, “Stop, let’s go back in time.” You have to move forward, somehow.

In the early 00’s, we had the goth subculture. Goths dressed in 19th-century clothing and practiced Wicca, etc. Their aesthetic was traditional. They flirted with romanticism. This was the way they reacted to modernism. But, at the core, a lot of these people still had liberal/modernist/secular views. It was not a resurrection of tradition. The national anarchist movement seems connected to the goth subculture, which is why I bring it up.

If an anarchist thinks tradition is good, how does he/she want to push it?

A fascist state could force people to live a traditional lifestyle, while an anarchist confederation of self-governing communities couldn’t. We also see in Rojava that there is no centralised body that forces people to be traditional or progressive. Rojava anarchism is a decentralised version of multicultural modernity. It’s not a traditionalist ethnostate.

Personally, I see positive sides in both tradition and (post)modernity. It is a complicated issue.

Tradition gave the people structure, safety, and meaning. But it also limited them.

Modernity/postmodernity gave people freedom. But it also led to insecurity, chaos, mental health problems, and insanity.

Maybe there needs to be a synthesis between tradition and modernity.

The last thing I want to say about it. Anarchism as a political movement/tradition is already pretty hard for people to understand. It’s already a niche theory. When you turn it into ‘national anarchism’ and decorate it with nazi symbols, than 99,9999999999 percent of people won’t get into it. I don’t get why you should do that. Do you people say you want anarchism to have a political/geopolitical meaning? Then don’t turn it into something like this.

National anarchism didn’t solve the crisis of modernity, but was an outgrowth of the crisis of modernity.

This is all meant to make you think about these issues and show why people disagree with you. The left says: national anarchism is just bullshit, and its fascism. I think you don’t get anything with that. It’s better to explain the problems with their views to these people.