The Anarchist Manifesto

It is perhaps a bit disappointing that an anarchist is so easily mistaken for an arsonist, as if there is nothing more to the concept of Anarchy than the razing down of buildings to the ground. Anarchy can be defined succintly in one sentence as : The creed that the most fundamental and non-negotiable right in all dimensions of our existence, interpersonal, social, religious, cultural, economic, and political, is the Right to Opt-Out or the Right of Exit.

An anarchist position need not deny that we have densely contextualised relationships with human beings around us, nor that these relationships themselves are to a significant extent moulded and influenced by the social norms and the moral assumptions prevailing in our home culture. What, however, it will strongly affirm is that all individuals, even when they draw their moral and spiritual sustenance from within such rich enframing backgrounds, retain at all times the inalienable Right of Exit, to Walk Out, to say No, in short, to Opt-Out.

Is this a classical 'Western' form of absolutist 'Individualism'? Perhaps, yes. But an anarchist will also claim that whatever be the historical judgement over the origin of this creed, anarchy as understood in this post has the power to speak and struggle with all those who have been sidelined and marginalised in the so-called familial and communitarian cultures of the 'East'. All human beings must move away from associations, institutions, and systems which deny them this right of Exit; and to the extent that they are capable of achieving this withdrawal, they are all united in an anonymous brother/sisterhood of anarchists in a freely chosen exile.

Parents who compel their daughters into an arranged marriage, intellectuals who pretend that school education is not a form of violence, a form of Islam which brands apostasy as a criminal offence, a version of Hinduism which still holds on to casteist traditions, and a development of Marxism which forbids free speech and free association --- these are just some of the great time-honoured institutions which fall foul of the Anarchist Manifesto.

One way of summarising the reflections here would be this : There is such a thing called teenage Angst; an anarchist stance will submit that for the sake of this Angst, human beings should never, ever grow out of their teens.