Moving on from tribalism

This piece is a bit of a rant because there are a few things I want to get off my chest before moving on. It's also a follow on from these two recent posts: Thoughts on not spreading fear or getting sucked into other people's agendas and: We don't need 'leaders', 'voices' or false idols for our revolution.

Trust me, I really do want to move on, not just from the weirdness of the last four years with the Covid 'crisis' and it's aftermath, but also from the identity politics weirdness that came before that and is still with us, getting weirder and more toxic by the day. However, I don't want to dwell on my exit from the anarchist movement - I've written more words about that than I care to remember! Most of that is water under the bridge now. There are new trends and developments I need to have a rant about...

The word 'tribalism' features in the title of this piece for a very good reason... Namely that the way I'm feeling about things at the moment, I don't want to belong to any tribe. Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I took part in a number of the anti-lockdown / anti-vaccine mandate protests in 2021 going into the early part of 2022. When I've written about these protests, I've gone to great pains to explain that from my perspective, they weren't an on the streets expression of a unified movement. They were more a coming together of different currents of dissent.

Currents of dissent that didn't always agree with each other and sometimes would hold conflicting views to each other. This is something I tried to patiently explain to my now former anarchist comrades but, they weren't having it. For their own reasons, they wanted to stick to the narrative that we were all alt right conspiracy loons. I gave up trying to get through to them as there's only so much banging my head against a brick wall I'm prepared to take...

Okay, on some of the protests I went on, the alt right were sniffing around the margins in a bid to exploit people's fears about what was being done to them. This is what happens when the left and the anarchist movement create a massive political vacuum by dismissing the fears people had about the impact of the lockdowns and subsequently, the impact of a hastily developed, experimental 'vaccine'. And, as we all know, there were chancers jumping onto the bandwaggon to further their own political ambitions. David Kurten with Heritage and the now notorious Laurence Fox with Reclaim are two that spring to mind off the top of my head. Then there's Russell Brand who I've briefly mentioned in a previous dispatch: While everyone's attention was elsewhere...

As a brief aside, there's a reason why I've hardly said anything about the drama over Laurence Fox. It's because I don't watch GB News. I don't watch the legacy media news on television or listen to it on the radio either. I can't comment on what I haven't experienced, or even endured! Not only that, commenting on the ongoing shitshow with the likes of Fox and Brand would be getting sucked into someone else's agenda and that's something I strive to avoid.

Looking back on the protests I attended, given the dodgy chancers who latched on to them, do I regret going on them? The answer to that is no I don't. They were something that I wanted to experience at first hand rather than rely on the account of someone with an axe to grind. Given how I was negatively impacted by the lockdowns and all the other shite we were being subjected to, did I feel that I'd found my 'tribe' when I rocked up on the first protest? No I didn't, but I wasn't looking for a tribe, I was looking for an understanding of a newly emerging social phenomena.

One of the vehicles I used to achieve that was handing out copies of The Stirrer paper specifically produced for these protests. I had some pretty interesting conversations when I was handing out copies of The Stirrer paper. These were the kind of conversations that because of previous perceptions of political fault lines, I would not have contemplated having. In some ways, they were like the conversations I had when I stood as a candidate for the Independent Working Class Association in the local elections and I was knocking on people's doors asking them to vote for me! While I didn't find my tribe on these protests, they had points to make that in my view, definitely needed to be made.

From 2020 onwards, I did pick up some new and interesting contacts on social media and we had each other's backs during the worst of the lockdowns. Not a tribe though... With the way social media has gone, unsurprisingly most of those contacts have been 'lost'. I also became involved with the Nevermore project which has attracted a fair degree of flak. Nevermore actually comprises a fairly disparate range of writers whose views don't always chime with each other and are sometimes in disagreement with each other. That's definitely not tribal. It is a healthy space where ideas can be tested out. Let's face it, none of us are always right and there are times when we get it wrong. Having a space where you can make mistakes, discuss and learn from them is what we need in these weird, disconcerting times.

We are in what can best be termed as 'interesting times'. Ones where rigid, dogmatic thinking simply isn't going to hack it. Ones where tribalism isn't going to hack it. Ones where a vanguardism which dismisses ordinary people as sheeplike 'normies' really isn't going to hack it!

We're in the kind of times where shifting, temporary alliances underpinned by a respect for individual autonomy are better suited to what we have to face. What's needed is open mindedness and being able to cut each other a bit of slack. None of us know the full truth of what's happening and why. We're all struggling to reach some kind of understanding of what's going on, and also, how to deal with and overcome it. For some of us, that means a journey that is going to have some kind of spiritual dimension to it.

What really gets me about some elements of the resistance to the great reset, transhumsnism and identity politics is their tendency towards a toxic tribalism. A tribalism that dismisses anyone with doubts, reservations and questions A tribalism that as I've written previously, has a fatal weakness for self proclaimed 'leaders', 'voices' and false idols. They also seem to have a weakness for doom laden prophecies about the future if we don't unite under their banner. In many ways, they're a toxic mirror image of the left they claim to despise. As for their unthinking defence of the likes of Fox and Brand, do me a f**king favour! If people are genuine about setting off in a different direction, blind hero worship and tribal defending of chancers and charlatans ain't the way to go.

What is the way to go? There isn't any one way to go in the face of the great reset. I've been round the block enough times as an activist to know that having just one way to go in the face of adversity simply ends up replicating and mirroring the toxic shite we want rid of. That's why I'm really wary of those charismatic, egotistical individuals calling for 'revolution'. Whose revolution and to what end are the questions that need to be asked. Whatever it is, I want no part of it..

As I've written before, real, meaningful change can only come from the grassroots: Keeping it local and under our control. That's change where decisions are made at the neighbourhood level and things build from there. It's where the complexity and uniqueness of each and every one of us is recognised and no one is forced into the straitjacket of one and only one route to change. If we want a world that's better than the one we have, there is no place for tribalism, dogma and coercion.

Like all of these attempts to understand where the f**k we are and to assess how we can change things, this one is not much more than a stab in the dark. It's part of an ongoing process of thinking things through, realising that I've not always got it right, and being willing to learn from mistakes. I'm not the same person as I was a couple of years ago. Heck, enough has happened this year in that I'm not the same person I was six months ago!

Right, this is I hope the final word I have to say on movements, currents of dissent, self proclaimed 'leaders' and 'voices', chancers and charlatans and last but not least, demoralising doom mongers. As mentioned at the start of this piece, I really do want to move on. There will be a break of some days while I take a step back and think about new, and hopefully more positive, directions this blog can go in. All I can say is that it's a journey through 'interesting' times and I hope we make it through to the other side...