A Critique of Anarchist NGO Culture
11th April 2025:
From 2008 until 2016 I was heavily involved in an anarchist scene that included an anarchist NGO. I was involved in an affinity group for many years, and was involved in multiple direct actions. I also volunteered at the NGO for 6-9 months in 2015 when I was also experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness. Back then, due to my own multiple lines of oppression, I was not able to speak out about the abuse and oppression that I experienced from this scene. Over the years I have been on a profound healing and transformational journey however, and have increasingly been able to find my voice, recognise the abuse and oppression that I have experienced, and to speak out about it and seek to have it addressed.
The UK radical environmental scene has long been critiqued for being dominated by those who promote consensus as a full democratic model of organising when in fact it is generally used as a facade behind which exists the same old status quo - an authoritarian elite who dominate all decisions. These critiques have been around for decades, and so in many ways what I have to say is really only my personal experience of longstanding critiques of the UK radical environmental scene.
Class Superiority
I worked at the anrchist NGO as a volunteer in 2015 and I was also involved with an Earth First! affinity group from the wider social milieu. I was brought up on a working class estate and for years the use of the word ‘chavs’ to denigrate the working class was not uncommon, and derogatory jokes and comments made about them. As an outsider on the fringes of the scene and looking for friendship and acceptance I did ignore it, though I never joined in. I didn’t speak out as I did not want to be stonewalled and also because I did not have the confidence to at the time, nor the ability, to express why these attitudes and jokes were abusive and prejudicial. I simply did not have the words to speak out.
I eventually made complaints at the use of this word and the fact that it points to severely prejudicial and hateful attitudes to the working class, and was told that the word would no longer be used. In fact all that happened was that, as I feared, I was simply stonewalled and pushed out of the social scene altogether, and became the subject of abuse and denigration myself, social exclusion and abuse which has continued to this very day. I was very saddened at the fact that to the present day no attempt has been made to address the fundamentally abusive attitudes to the working class. Instead the explicitly offensive words that were formerly used were screened out (perhaps only when I or other working class were present) and an appearance created of a class free space, when in actual fact the same prejudices remain and nothing has been done about it.
I mean, can you imagine being among a group of people within an anarchist social circle when they start using offensive slang words for jews and taking the piss and denigrating them, or referring to those from the Indian subcontinent as 'paki's' and doing the same, or using offensive words for Afrikans and denigrating them? Responding by asking people not to use those offensive words is not in any way shape or form an appropriate response, becase that does not address the underlying attitudes and corresponding oppressive behaviours. The prejudicial attitudes and behaviours are left unchallenged and everything is considered fine as long as the offensive words are not used.
Whilst this anarchist NGO culture bills itself on being all about social justice and democratisation within social movements, it never addresses the working class or gives them or their cause any voice at all. Never, not once in its 20 years of existence. It is an NGO that is part and parcel of working class oppression, and whilst, from time to time, people like myself, have worked or volunteered there, they have done so with the unspoken expectation (that is what a bad culture creates – a whole set of unspoken and often unconscious expectations) that they accept the status quo politics and do not address anything working class at all. While I worked there I constantly addressed working class concerns, and even presented an innovative program to reach out to the working class and address systemic issues of injustice through the use of reconciliatory programs based around consensus dialogues. I also identified funders and wrote funding bids. All of those proposals and work were completely stonewalled without any reason given, and certainly without any consensus being reached or dialogue happening, and I was told that there was ‘no interest’. As a result I left, totally disenfranchised, but unable to speak out or find anyone who would listen.
Closet Racism
In addition to the exclusion of the working class in the process of ‘social ‘justice’ and ‘democratisation’ no attempt is or has ever been made to establish any kind of dialogue – necessary in any consensus process working for social justice – between ethnic minorities and the white majority.
Closet racism, like class prejudice, is insidious, it does not express itself explicitly, but insidiously. It can be identified in the things that are not said, the outrage that is not expressed, the solidarity that is not given, the support and work that is not done, the whole matter of ethnicity and racism being quietly ignored and swept under the carpet.
The widespread phenomenon of closet racism has perhaps been most recently highlighted in the Black Lives Matter campaign. In this campaign the whole point of the slogan was to point out that to the bulk of white American society the brutal policing of black communities and the racially motivated killings that the police continue to inflict on the Afrikan diaspora are matters that are mostly ignored. Yet when the same kind of events happen to white people outrage is expressed and an outpouring of sentiment is witnessed. The net conclusion to make from this is that black lives do not matter to most white Americans because they are racist, and hold racially prejudicial views on the Afrikan disapora in America, views so severe that the continued murder of black people by the police is not considered worthy of attention and draws no outrage or outpouring of sentiment. It is as though the racially motivated killings find within the hearts of white America unspoken support and validation. That is, white America remains complicit in the racially motivated murders even though no explicitly racist attitudes are expressed outwardly. The racism is kept in the closet, so to speak, but can nonetheless still be seen by the lack of any appropriate response to racially motivated killings or the many everyday racially motivated prejudices that non-white people experience.
In my own case, as someone who is half Indian with a Muslim father, my own experiences of racism growing up, which are brutal and extensive, are totally ignored by the culture at this NGO and treated as though they are irrelevant. No outward expressions given, no sympathy expressed, no support given, no attempt to bring about reconciliation. Not once, not ever. The wars and atrocities inflicted on Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Middle east, are also similarly ignored. From these simple facts it is clear that racially motivated prejudices exist at this organisation and its wider milieu.
There is a huge amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in the city where this NGO is located. I have approached this matter before, and no interest has been given. Anarchist NGOs could and should take a strong lead on building links with the community and sharing consensus practices and solidarity, but because of unconscious prejudices nothing has been done. All of these ideas fall on deaf ears and are completely ignored. You have at this NGO a culture that effectively stifles any and all attempts to do genuine work on the issue of race relations and community reconciliation, and to provide support to those experiencing racism. These are the real issues of social justice and these are the real voices that we need to empower to achieve real democratisation.
Sexism
There is within the wider anarchist culture sexism, sexism that is directed at people who are biologically male and who identify as men. I have been on the receiving end of this brutality many, many times, and continue to be on the receiving end of it. Although dominated by a radical feminist politics, one that may be loosely classified as ‘third wave’, no attempt has ever been made to address the gender divide or to bring about reconciliation.
The following two examples illustrate my concerns.
I once brought a friend to an anarchist event that was being facilitated by staff. She had never been to an anarchist event before so I wanted to bring her and get her opinion on what she thought of it. So at the end of the event, I asked my friend what she thought of it. She expressed absolute horror at the way the men in the room were totally stigmatised by the facilitators and those in the group, and treated as though everything they did was an act of ‘domination’ and ‘misogyny’. When the men spoke many of the others present would make jokes about them, whisper to each other, wink and make faces at each other to ridicule and put down these men as dominators and people who abuse women. It was appalling, and I had witnessed it many times, but many in this culture have so much prejudice towards men that my voice is simply ignored and I am treated as though I am a misogynist simply for pointing out the naked injustice being committed. So I was glad at the instant reaction from my friend, who was not part of this culture, after the event. I had not mentioned it to her before or said anything, and brought her along simple to get her unbiased opinion.
The other example relates to my own sexual abuse as a child. I grew up in a culture where I was exposed to violence and sexual abuse by adult women, up until the age of 10, and which has profoundly affected my life, leaving it severely blighted. I have suffered severely from this compounded trauma, and continue to. None of the staff ever expressed any sympathy or solidarity with me on this issue, something that to this day really hurts. Perhaps the worst incident came when feminists from the wider milieu ridiculed the childhood abuse I experienced. Yes, that really happened, and many, many people witnessed it, and to this day not a single person has ever expressed any condemnation for what these feminists said and did to me. That speaks of a culture of widespread sexism that is very hard for me to come to terms with, but it exists, and that is and always has been the case. By being bystanders who make no comment and turn a blind eye in the ridiculing and oppression of men who have experienced severe sexual abuse, this anarchist milieu effectively condones and turns a blind eye to the sexual abuse of boys and is complicit in creating a culture in which such abuse continiues to proliferate.
Authoritarianism & Exclusion
It has long been known and commented on that structureless spaces without explicit hierarchies, such as consensus decision making spaces, are spaces that are dominated by hidden elites (see e.g. the feminist classic The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman, published 50 years ago). Consensus decision making is, in my view, generally dominated by a few individuals and is not consensual at all. These individuals are socially dominant and are the ones that make the decisions by the use of passive-aggression to control the actions of others and what can and can’t be said. People are not able to stand up to these socially dominant dinosaurs who wield fierce and controlling passive-aggressive energies that cause strong states of anxiety, threat and menace, and that means no 'consensus' can be reached without their permission. They constantly exert their control and no decision can be made without first considering how they will react, and this is how their control is exerted.
The actuality of being anarchist means standing up to authoritarians and people who dominate others, and this is where you grow as an anarchist and where your anarchy gets real. Unless that is done you will only misinform others about the value of consensus in achieving egalitarian and libertarian anarchist cultures, because to achieve such cultures you have to be able to stand up to thugs and authoritarians who seek to control and dominate others, and if you can’t do that then you cannot hope to achieve any kind of consensus in the community, as the community will always be frightened of going against the wishes of the authoritarian thugs who actually make all the decisions.
I once saw a bit of graffiti in an alley in a rough area in a foreign country. It read: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE MAFIA, AND WE WILL KILL ANY MOTHERFUCKER WHO SAYS OTHERWISE. Authoritarianism thrives by remaining hidden, as any criminal organisation well knows, and I think consensus narratives remain complicit in hiding the real authoritarian power within the wider anarchist milieu that actually makes all the decisions and dominates the scene, but which is hidden behind the structureless spaces that consensus decision making creates. We need anarchist NGOs that stand up to this, and that teach others how to stand up to it and how to identify it, and how to deal with the passive-aggressive forms of domination and control that lie behind it. You cannot, after all, achieve consensus without confronting authoritarianism, and that requires a radically different set of tools to achieve than the typical consensus narratives wielded by contemporary anarchist NGOs provide.