Anarchy is more than throwing bombs (continued)

MIKE ARAUJO met me one afternoon at the Cable Car Cinema. He’d just finished a shift at Trinity Rep and looked the part of a Wobbly, wearing black overalls and a knit cap with a small brim. An autodidact, Araujo dropped out of high school; his interest in anarchism grew out of the progressive politics both in his home and the neighborhood in which he grew up. " ‘Free Huey’ stickers were on every fridge," he says of the time he spent as a boy in a close-knit family in the Bronx’s Co-op City in the 1970s.

Most of the anarchists in Rhode Island seem to come from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds, but Araujo is proudly working class. Of Cape Verdean and Irish descent, he is the son of George Araujo, a Fox Point lightweight boxing contender in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These days, he lives with his wife on the West Side; his mother lives in the same building (his father died in 1997), and his sister two blocks away.

As a 15-year-old, Araujo says, a Providence police officer accused him of picking flowers from a downtown planter and then beat him, charging him with resisting arrest when he denied doing it. His complaint to the police department went nowhere, cementing Araujo’s sense that the state can act with impunity, more or less, toward its citizens. His race and class consciousness, which he says are bound with his beliefs in anarchist ideals, were further stirred by seeing how his father, for many years a janitor at Brown University, was assigned dirty and dangerous work while white colleagues got easier shifts. When it comes to his job at Trinity, "I love building shit," Araujo says, but ultimately he advocates breaking down the compartmentalization of contemporary work. He sees salvation in organizing along class lines, with immigrant communities and African-Americans as keys in opposing the current order.

Although David Grenier and Chris Bull might not be as classically militant as Araujo — nor are they products of the working class — they do share some of Araujo’s ideas about labor. Grenier ("Writer. Bowler. Revolutionary." according to his blog, www.david grenier.com), grew up in Attleboro and spent much of his twenties pursuing a degree in anthropology and bouncing around from Salem, Massachusetts, to Ireland, Tucson, Pittsburgh, and Seattle before coming to Providence in 2002. A football fan and onetime Rush devotee, Grenier is married and lives in the Washington Park section of Providence.

Grenier argues that the employer-employee relationship is essentially exploitative, and he has no desire to be on either side: "Saying, ‘Well, if it was me, I’d be a nice boss,’ misses the point entirely." When Grenier returned to Providence, he went into the photography business with a longtime friend, but only on the condition that it be a cooperative. Their business does principally wedding photography, a seemingly unlikely enterprise, although Grenier stresses, "I’m not anti-consumerist."

Chris Bull has a similar take on employment — he prefers to do it himself. Bull’s business, Circle A Cycles, produces hand-made frames in a Carpenter Street mill building on Providence’s West Side, and he sells them to hardcore biking enthusiasts and people in the anarchist community. Bull, 35, is from Carlisle, Massachusetts, a leafy suburb northwest of Boston. He would like Circle A to become a cooperative, but because of the learning curve involved, currently operates it as a sole proprietorship with several interns. Prior to coming to Providence four years ago, Bull lived in Worcester for eight years where he worked for a bike frame maker. Bull and his partner, SueEllen Kroll, recently bought a house in South Providence. Going into business for himself and living nearby has allowed him to bike nearly everywhere, something he believes is positive environmentally, but also vital to community involvement.

One issue that divides anarchists is voting. Some anarchists oppose the US political system, believing it features representatives who have little or no connection to the citizenry, except during infrequent elections, and who are beholden to contributors and powerful interests. This school of thought sees voting as an endorsement of the status quo. As Araujo says, "You’re abdicating your independent power by voting."

Grenier takes a more pragmatic approach. "I vote, because not voting isn’t going to stop the system from existing," he says. Last year, Grenier was even moved at the behest of friends in Pittsburgh to campaign on behalf of the Democrats in Pennsylvania.

Bull says he, too, will vote, particularly at the local level, but maintains, "The most important thing about voting — or not — is not to mistake it for meaningful political action." The debate, in fact, may be a false one, says Bull: "We all need to be more politically engaged and active; voting, or not voting, can be one part of that, but there needs to be a lot more."

Similarly, Alexander Zimmerman says he is galled when the "minions of ‘democracy’ pushers" cite the patriotic duty of voting. "It’s this holier than thou because I voted attitude that makes me fume," he says. "They could have done nothing helpful for their neighborhood, workplace, or environment for years and suddenly they reek of righteousness because they handed over their power to a representative."

Anarchists view the reelection of George W. Bush, a depressing thing for liberals, quite differently. To start with, anarchists look upon the Bush Republicans as a particularly noxious version of the strong state, but not fundamentally different from the Democrats. Some anarchists think the Republicans’ militarism, crackdown on civil liberties, and naked favoring of corporate interests will call into question the entire basis of the state, offering ample organizing opportunities to radical critics. Zimmerman and some others fear, however, that opposition to Bush and company won’t go nearly far enough, ultimately resulting just in a superficial switch in leadership.

As people and anarchists we all look forward and work toward an end to the tyranny of politicians, the everyday fascism of bosses, the irrational hierarchies of class, race and gender and the coercion of prisons, hell and poverty.

— Love and Resistance collective, Providence, 2001.