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Who Firebombed London's Oldest Anarchist Bookshop?

Mon, 02/04/2013 - 10:06 -- Anonymous (not verified)

From Vice

Staff at Freedom Press, London’s oldest anarchist publisher and bookshop, woke last Friday to the news that someone had tried to burn their shop down in the early hours of the morning.

Founded in 1886, Freedom has been at the heart of radical East London for over a century, featuring on walking tours and seemingly, from my time spent in the shop, serving as the first stop-off point for every European crusty looking for a squat to stay in or a protest to rage at.

The shop sits just off Whitechapel High Street, down Angel Alley—wedged between an art gallery and a KFC. If you need to pick up something by Bakunin, Chomsky or the utterly bonkers John Zerzan then this is where you go, past the linoprint heads of Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin and close the door after you because it’s always cold in there.

At around 5 AM Friday morning an arsonist entered Angel Alley, smashed a window, poured accelerant into the shop and sent the books, pamphlets, and irreplaceable archives of Freedom newspaper up in flames.

That night I went inside the building with one of the shop’s most dedicated activists, Andy. It smelled awful, there was soot across the roof and charred books sat in piles. There was no structural damage to the building but Freedom has no insurance and were already mired in the financial shit. Looking at the horrific mess, I thought the shop would have to close for months, but this morning they’re back open for business.

Before you joke about anarchists owning a building, or organising a cleanup, read up on the rich history of working class self-organisation the movement draws on. At its height in 1930s Spain, anarchists ran collectivized hospitals and operated Spain’s most popular daily newspaper.

Freedom volunteer Rob Ray explained how he felt when he heard about the attempt to burn the building down: “It's a really weird set of feelings—sick to the stomach hoping no one had been hurt, relief that the place was empty of people that night—it's often not—and that the fire didn't go any further than it did. Then sickness again, when you realise how bad the damage is."

“My first political education came through the pages of Mutual Aid, Anarchy in Action and Freedom newspaper, those piles of ash and soot-stained jumbles of letters represent the opening of new worlds to me. Almost every book that didn't burn got covered in a layer of hot ash. Sorting through them yesterday it was a wrench every time one had to be thrown on the 'no' pile.”

The building is not just home to a bookshop; upstairs, London Coalition Against Poverty, the Advisory Service for Squatters, Solidarity Federation and Corporate Watch all share offices. There’s even a functioning toilet.

Obviously high on the agenda for the anarchists is figuring out who wants to firebomb them. Combat 18 carried out a similar attack on the shop 20 years ago. At the time, in March '93, C18 were the violent wing of the (already quite violent) BNP, formed to defend the fascists from Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a group who were beating the far-right out of their strongholds across London.

The consensus now is that the arsonists are almost definitely from the far right, either looking for a soft target or hoping to settle old scores. Nearby Brick Lane was dominated by neo-Nazis in the late 70s and 80s, with regular BNP and National Front paper sales. AFA took the fight to the streets in the early 90s, taking back Islington before moving east across London. The BNP were forced to fight to defend their pitch, and lost.

Lying among the charred books strewn across the floor were a number of copies of Beating The Fascists, a history of AFA recently published by Freedom Press. The book is an uncomfortably violent read, detailing how half-bricks were used to convince young BNP members to pack it in.

The last time I stopped by the shop they had just been posted a copy of an ultra-nationalist magazine reviewing the book. Its admission of the ruthless tactics used to defeat the right had clearly touched some nerves. Embarrassed has-beens from Combat 18 could have come back to settle old scores, just last week they hosted a secret gig in London.

Speaking to anarchists in a nearby pub, many feared the arsonists could be linked to the fantasist group England’s Golden Dawn, a new far-right splinter group making big noises on Facebook, made up of the usual EDL rejects. No groups have acknowledged the attack took place, although one Casuals United organizer did post to her Facebook about the attack, stating “what goes around comes around."

Less likely possibilities include some of the more fringe wings of the anarchist movement. One post on Indymedia tried to claim Freedom were “cop collaborators” as a justification for the attack. The collective have made efforts in recent years to sideline anti-social elements within the anarchist scene.

Insurrectionary anarchists have been waging a war of words online, and even setting things on fire in Bristol, but Freedom was where I first bought Alfredo Bonanno’s insurrectionist bible From Riot to Insurrection, it seems unlikely even the most disgruntled radicals would shit on their own doorstep like this.

Speaking to Andy at the shop, he insists that it must have been the far right and says there could have been any number of motivations. The CCTV at the entrance to the alley may reveal more, although understandably the anarchists don’t have much faith in the police to solve this case.

Hanging around in the dark alley beside the shop on Friday night, a well-dressed elderly man comes to inspect the damage, telling me he draws cartoons for Freedom newspaper. Minutes later, a local woman comes to ask how she could help. Shopkeepers come out to sympathize with Andy and the art gallery next door assures me that the anarchists make brilliant neighbors.

The next day almost 100 people cram into the tiny lane to clean books, scrub walls, and get the shop back in shape. Melted clocks and charred books, initially upsetting sights for supporters, are now being sold off as souvenirs. People across the world have offered their support and promised donations as solidarity messages pour in. The arsonists not only failed to destroy the shop—they have made it more popular than ever.

The shop is now taking donations of books and money, or you can pop down to browse the remaining stock.

(link to article contains pictures and videos)

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Comments

Submitted by David T (not verified) on

Does Freedom really stock John Zerzan books. That's pretty cool if they do.

Submitted by Not Derrick Jensen (not verified) on

Hah! Our first DGR strike. Take that, bitches!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Lierre and Derrick will be "celebrating" in the master's chambers for a month to come.

I was just thinking about DGR today actually. I never get sick of telling off Lierre Kieth in my head.

Submitted by glasgow nutta (not verified) on

I have just popped down to browse the remaining stock and I will tell you it is quite a sight loads of good ones, some marked down to 50p or less! kebab shop right round the corner, two thumbs up! glad they didn't burn that down as well haaha

Submitted by An Anarchist (not verified) on

Millionaire Noam Chomsky

The article refers to John Zerzan as utterly bonkers but says nothing about Chomsky. Here we are with people dying of starvation and the Millionaire Noam Chomsky gets off without a smart-ass comment.

Zerzan is consistently anti-state and anti-capitalism and Chomsky is consistently pro-State and pro-democratic capitalism. Bakunin was utterly bonkers anti-jewish.

I don't even agree with Zerzan's anarcho-primitivism but he is actually an Anarchist.

Submitted by Numb Chumpsky (not verified) on

Yep. Library anarchists like Chomsky should be ridiculued. Specially since he was annihilated by islamo-maoist sympathizer Michel Foucault in a debate.

Submitted by Sam E. (not verified) on

Eh. Yeah. Chomsky is pretty ridiculous as an anarchist figure, but I sort of wish we had more library anarchists. Even if they suck at getting shit done, they sort of normalize the idea of an anarchist as an average person. Old man Chomsky is almost definitely winning over more minds than more radical modern figures.

I think. That could all be bullshit.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Yeah, Chomsky's not the most radical writer out there, but he's a good gateway drug from liberalism into anarchism. There's much better people to hate on. Like Zerzan, who's not a gateway to anything except useless misanthropic primmo bullshit. Although some of the stuff he wrote in the 70s was decent.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Nope, sorry. Zerzan doesn't tell people to vote for Barack Obama.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Well, said. On top of that, Zerzan doesn't advocate voting for anybody. He's an Anarchist.

Chomsky promotes a regional voting revolutionary plan: vote 3rd party in Massachusetts and vote Democrat in swing states. Chomsky is a progressive green party/democrat.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Do you really think it's important to "win over hearts an minds," ESPECIALLY when it's not actually towards anarchy?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I would argue that Michel Foucault is more important to anarchists today than Numb Chomsky is.

Submitted by Anti-Capitalist (not verified) on

pretty much. I need to add more words due to spam blocker.

Is Chomsky really a millionaire ?

I know was making more than a $100,000 a year when he was tenured ivy league professor for 40 or 50 years. His books sell like hotcakes to liberal activists. He gets invited to speak to green party and ultra progressive groups all across the country where he fills his pockets with more green.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

He describes his views "with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism".

Numb Chumpsky, "man of the people", who is among the top 2 percent in the United States in net wealth, moved his family out of Cambridge, Massachusetts--hardly a working-class district to begin with--to the even more affluent wooded suburb of Lexington, where he was even less likely to mingle with blue-collar types. Moreover, he made the move around the time forced busing was being imposed on the Boston area; Lexington was exempt from the court order. Today, America's leading socialist owns a home worth over $850,000 and a vacation home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, valued in excess of $1.2 million. Chomsky's home on the Cape is smack in the middle of a state park, which prevents any condos from going up nearby and obstructing his view. And don't look for oppressed minorities in either neighborhood. This self-described admirer of the Black Panthers, who says intellectuals must combat "all forms of racism" and complains that America "excludes" blacks from large parts of the country, owns a home in a town with a black population of 1.1 percent.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

*loooooooong whistle*

*silence*

*tongue click*

Submitted by SamFantoSamotnaf on

Quote: "One post on Indymedia tried to claim Freedom were “cop collaborators” as a justification for the attack. " This was written by πυρ , who, in this, and another, UK Indymedia post pretends to support my text on Aufhebengate (http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=9) . He/she sounds like s/he could be someone trying to undermine what I wrote by being idiotic in all his/her posts supporting the text. Either s/he's a libcom/Aufheben supporter or a naive moron who thinks firebombing this largely uninteresting bookshop has something radical about it or it's part of some new (for the UK) state development to manipulate people with lies, rather like the COINTELPRO operations in the USA.

Submitted by Red Bayonet (not verified) on

Since Zerzan and other primitivists believe that technology is "original sin", wouldn't that make them more like fundamentalist Christians?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Red Bayonet, you stupid fuck

You believe that capitalism is an "original sin" doesn't that you make you a Wahhabist Fundamentalist Theocratic Monarchical Christian ?

Why are you so opposed to capitalism you reactionary ? Anyone opposed to anything makes them a Fundamentalist !!! You sound like daedlanth !

You seem like you're anti-anarchist already based on your past posts:

http://anarchistnews.org/comment/4032#comment-4032

Submitted by Red Bayonet (not verified) on

What police department do you work for? Primitivism is not the same thing as anarchism. Primitivism comes from the noblesse sauvage nonsense spouted by 18th century bourgeois 'philosophes'. To oppose primitivism is not remotely 'un-anarchistic'.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Actually, Zerzan doesn't believe that. I think he argues that ritual, and symbolism is what gave rise to the division of labor, domestication, technology, agriculture, etc. Maybe if you read him, you could come up with a better critique. All non-anti-civ criticisms of Zerzan suck... really bad.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

How does anti-capitalism make one a Christian at the same time. Enlighten me :)

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