Weil ich davon ausgehe, dass die meisten Lesenden die Doku „Kein Gott, kein Herr! Eine kleine Geschichte der Anarchie“ bereits gesehen haben, hat die Verlinkung eher dokumentarischen Charakter. Tancrède Ramonet produzierte 2013 den Film, welcher dann 2017 glaube ich auch bei Arte in Deutschland lief. D.h. nicht die gesamt vierteilige Reihe, sondern lediglich die ersten beiden Teilen mit den Titeln „Lust an der Zerstörung (1840–1914)“ und „Erinnerung der Besiegten (1911–1945)“. Die beiden letzte Teile wurden dann trotz des Erfolgs der ersten nicht weiter finanziert, ohne, dass es dafür eine Begründung der öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender gegeben hätte. Allerdings kam mittlerweile über eine Crowdfunding-Kampange die Gelder zusammen.
Eine englische Beschreibung (unter den Video) gibt den Ausblick auf das baldige Erscheinen der Geschichte des Anarchismus, wie sie das Team vom Ramonet zeichnet. Darin wird eine Linie von einer Wiederentdeckung des Anarchismus 1967 bis hin zum Fall der Berliner Mauer, der Anti-Globalisierungsbewegung, Occupy und den Platzbesetzungsbewegungen 2013 gezogen.
Interssant an der historischen Doku ist vor allem ihre Seriosität. Die interviewten Historiker*innen stellen die anarchistische Geschichte vielseitig und fundiert dar und belegen damit nicht zu Letzt auch ihren politischen und theoretischen Gehalt. Wer bereit ist, hinter die Vorurteile zu schauen, wird ein sicht weit öffnenden Feld erblicken. Wie Filme zu umfassenden Themen an sich haben, wird darin allerdings auch eine Auswahl von Figuren und Ereignissen getroffen. Neben der inhaltlichen Dimension ist die Doku zudem mit spannender Musik unterlegt und wird mit ihr stilistisch versucht, die Stimmungen der jeweiligen Kapitel einzufangen.
Episode 3: Flowers and Cobblestones (1945–1969)
At the end of the 2nd World War, anarchism was a seriously diminished force, but a few prominent personalities like Bertrand Russell or Albert Camus continued to defend and promote its ideals.
Then, little by little, at the heart of the Cold War, many socialists and communists joined up as they became disillusioned with the realities of Soviet socialism, following the Prague Spring. With the example of Murray Bookchin, at the end of the 1950s, more and more revolutionaries turned to anarchism and brought a new resonance with them.
Thanks to them, new organisations, both formal and informal, emerged –like the Diggers in San Francisco; new symbols were created such as the circled A, devised in 1964 by the Young Libertarians in Paris; new mass movements were formed that tried to change the world, questioning both Stalinism and capitalism.
From 1967 and throughout 1968, we can clearly see that the supposedly moribund anarchism was alive again and centre stage. It inspired the ‘Summer of Love’ in the United States, it permeated the Provos movement in Amsterdam, and, in France in May 1968, stimulated action in the great student protests and workers strikes, and also in Italy, Germany and as far as Mexico.
Inspired by this symbolic triumph, for the first time in decades, anarchists gathered together and organised themselves, holding a new international Congress in Carrara, hoping to take advantage of the situation.
However, what was supposed to be a new high point in the history of anarchism, one that would cement its return to centre stage, ended up a scene of vain argumentation. Divided, the anarchists were condemned to miss a vital opportunity to play a leading role in the revolutionary impulses fermenting at the end of the 60s.
Episode 4: The Networks of Anger (1965-2011)
As in the times of propaganda by action, anarchism was again seized by its old demons in the beginning of the 70s. Inspired by the strategy instigated by the Tupamaros in Uruguay, for a time it was tempted to resort to armed violence, spreading a new form of armed struggle to the major western conurbations: the Urban Guerrilla phenomenon.
Groups sprung up everywhere and took action: the Angry Brigades in the UK, the June 2nd Movement in West Germany, Action Directe in France, the Weather Underground in the US, all names that struck fear around the world. And, with them, the name of anarchism became yet again a synonym for disorder and chaos.
It was even more fearsome because at the same time, the highly visible punk movement conquered the international scene, contesting music industry practices and, more generally, the established order itself, like a true cultural guerrilla movement. While punk contributed in popularising the slogans, symbols and even the libertarian practices to a new generation, it also felt the force of the repressive backlash to the revolutionary movement at the beginning of the 80s.
Later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of capitalism, the anarchists had no choice but to adopt anonymity and mask their identity.
Anarchism and its revolutionary spirit inspired these new resistance tendencies, such as the EZLN and Subcomandante Marcos in Mexico, the high profile Black Bloc sabotage of the G7 in Seattle in 1999, or the Indignados (Outraged) movements that spread from Madrid to New York, Tel-Aviv and Buenos Aires.
Also, in the insurgent neighbourhoods of Athens on to the autonomous Rojava region and the ZAD at Notre Dame des Landes, anarchism was at the heart of major social movements, personifying the contemporary critique of capitalism and, therefore becoming the one true enemy of the establishment powers.