Taking Notes: Old Age, Pandemic, and the Anarchist Movement

From Todo Por Hacer, English translation by Anarchist News

By Juan Cruz López

[T]he silence of the anarchist militancy [...] in the face of the murder of thousands of elderly men and women neglected in their residences, victims of the infamous sanitary protocols and the gerontocidal strategy adopted by the different administrations to resolve the situation of stressed health resources, speaks clearly of how ageism has permeated our belief system, showing the insufficiency of our social analysis and evidencing the narrowness, not only of our political autonomy, but of our ability to intervene in a situation of multifactorial crisis (something that, at the very least, should make us rethink the essentialist strategies that lead to the isolation of our movement and its members).

Where do old ranters go to rant?

From Freedom News UK

There are a few ageing anarchists who have just given up trying to engage politically and have just chosen to isolate at home and withdraw, feeling like they’re “no use” any more and their views are worthless to the younger lot. Not in a self pitying way, but there is a tendency amongst some junior anarchists that we older lot don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about cos we’re not out there breaking into squats or living the perfect vision of an activist lifestyle, but mainly cos we’re old.

TOTW: Well, I guess this is growing up

This week we’re taking a look at aging within anarchism.

How have your ideas of anarchism changed as you have aged? Have you experienced ageism as an anarchist? How do anarchists challenge the existent, without coming to hate the elderly that gave us this world, while also not belittling the younger ones as they are just coming up?

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