[This article has been migrated and was originally written in December 2020]

When I write group, this can be read interchangeably with network/federation etc

Writing this, I’m at a point where although in my opinion, we’re coming off of the largest popularity boost for radical Anti-fascist and Anarchist politics in the last couple of years, for various reasons, the Anarchist and specifically Anti-Fascist groups seem to have no more and if anything significantly less confidence in themselves as groups than a year before. I want to talk about this and why in several instances I’ve been weirdly optimistic when the majority of people around me have lost all confidence in the group we’re working in.

Shitty Times

The easiest response is that these are just shitty times. The pandemic has called into question a massive amount of organising tactics and traditional responses to problems, as well as creating a whole host of new problems. Jitsi calls drain a lot of people more than meetings in real life (often because of the lack of pints and general friendly discussion afterwards) and lead to conflicts relating to misunderstandings at a massive rate compared to when meetings took place in real life.

As well as this, many people were extremely burnt out by the series of intense protests that took place in the summer. Whether this was just because of how relentless and often they took place or the Police response, it left a lot of people struggling to keep going.

There is also a whole host of internal left issues which tend to loom over people and will do for some time. Historically there have been massive failings in accountability and these failings will take huge amounts of energy and drive out of people who are normally some of the best organisers.

All of these things aside. I think a dynamic is often underplayed and should be discussed.

Individual Success/Collective Failure.

ISCF to me is how we get ten extremely effective organisers who make up a group called X all collectively agreeing that the group is failing. It doesn’t make sense. If each group is a sum or greater than the sum of its parts and the parts are good, why do we all agree the group is bad?

My general theory is that a lot of the time this comes as aa failure of accountability in both positive and negative actions. In many groups, especially Anarchist ones who treat groups as fairly fluid formations of people with no value except the people involved, there is a tendency to want to avoid:

A) Actions in which the entire group takes place — namely for security reasons but also because almost no action requires this. (especially in a pandemic)

B) Attributing actions to the group instead of the people or subgroups within them — this often feels a little too much like talking about a Party and elevating the group above its organisers.

These are both often good things, however what it tends to lead to is that when a solid action takes place, it means that the group that links the people within it doesn’t receive any praise internally for what it’s done.

Then we come onto negative actions. Anarchists tend to be fairly “nice-nice”, Anarchists also tend to be pretty terrible at accountability. These often overlap and what this can lead to is a lack of accountability towards individuals and a search to blame something that doesn’t have a face and won’t get upset with you.

An action fucks up or doesn’t happen — people are very unlikely to dismiss this as “our friend and comrade “5” fucked up” and in many occasions “5” will avoid taking the blame and/or any accountability because this is what poor accountability culture leads to. This means, conveniently, the group is blamed instead of the individual and, assuming there are no or few successes to give to the group, makes this group negative and a poor group overall in many people’s eyes.

This continues for some time and effectively due to this poor accountability, even a group with many more successes than failures will be viewed negatively and less organisers will commit time to the group and it will become worse, often in a spiral until it folds. We individualise our successes and collectivise our failures.

What this tends to lead to is a collapse in confidence and the idea that a new group/structure etc is needed when in reality, the same problems will be present whether the same people call themselves a federation, network, group or confederation or even a brand new name altogether. What is needed is a realisation in the confidence of the group that there is a potential for success that is already there and just needs to be remembered and actioned. As well as this, actual strong accountability for everyone, not just in serious issues like abuse where there are often failings but also every day actions.

I don’t want to pretend that groups can’t be toxic. There are definitely some groups who are rotten to the core and the group itself carries through horrific dynamics and cultures. These groups should dissolve, the important thing to recognise however, is that if this group dissolves and reforms under a new name or operates as a front group, things won’t change the in 6 months time the new group will be blamed as the source of issues and the cycle will continue.

When a group is struggling or feeling as if there are issues, they should sit down and decide whether the group is worth saving, and if it is worth saving (and most groups are) they should sit down and do the hard fucking work of improving themselves and actually taking actions which will have a positive impact instead of wallowing in their own failures.