Anomie: Anarchy in the 21st Century

The Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent, socialist republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It saw itself as the army of the all-island Irish Republic and as the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3scz1KD9eE&t=1s

The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: پارتی کرێکارانی کوردستان / Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Since 1984, the PKK has utilized asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK once sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its aims shifted toward autonomy and increased rights for Kurds within Turkey.

Formed in 1970, the Red Brigades sought to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The organization attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent acts of sabotage, bank robberies, the kneecapping of certain industrialists, factory owners, bankers, and politicians deemed to be exploitative; and the kidnappings and/or murders of industrialists, prominent capitalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and other perceived “enemies” of the working-class revolution. Nearly fifty people were killed in its attacks between 1974 and 1988.  Models for the BR included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the World War II Italian partisan movement, which was itself a mostly leftist, anti-fascist revolutionary movement that the BR saw itself as a continuation of, an example of a youthful anti-fascist minority using violent means for just ends. The group was also influenced by volumes on the Tupamaros published by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades". In the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turned pentito and assisted the authorities in capturing the other members. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBruqMpk5-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTmFgGOlqTM&ab_channel=Reddebrek

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Spanish: Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas (Mexican Spanish pronunciation: [sapaˈtistas]), is a libertarian socialist political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Since 1994, the group has been nominally at war with the Mexican state (although it may be described at this point as a frozen conflict). In recent years, the EZLN has focused on a strategy of civil resistance. The Zapatistas' main body is made up of mostly rural indigenous people, but it includes some supporters in urban areas and internationally. The EZLN's main spokesperson is Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, previously known as Subcomandante Marcos (a.k.a. Compañero Galeano and Delegate Zero in relation to "the Other Campaign").  The group takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, the agrarian revolutionary and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and sees itself as his ideological heir. Nearly all EZLN villages contain murals with images of Zapata, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and Subcomandante Marcos.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. Its aim was to secure an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east in response to the state policies of successive Sri Lankan governments that were widely considered to be discriminatory towards the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, as well as the oppressive actions—including anti-Tamil pogroms in 1956 and 1958—carried out by the majority Sinhalese. Initially starting out as a guerrilla force, the LTTE increasingly came to resemble that of a conventional fighting force with a well-developed military wing that included a navy, an airborne unit, an intelligence wing, and a specialised suicide attack unit. In particular, India's relationship with the LTTE was complex, as it went from initially supporting the organisation to engaging it in direct combat through the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), owing to changes in the former's foreign policy during the phase of the conflict. The LTTE gained global notoriety for using women and children in combat and carrying out a number of high-profile assassinations, including former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. Over the course of the conflict, the LTTE frequently exchanged control of territory in the north-east with the Sri Lankan military, with the two sides engaging in intense military confrontations. It was involved in four unsuccessful rounds of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government and at its peak in 2000, the LTTE was in control of 76% of the landmass in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran headed the organisation from its inception until his death in 2009. Between 1983 and 2009, more than 80,000 were killed in the civil war, of which many were Sri Lankan Tamils. 800,000 Sri Lankan Tamils also left Sri Lanka for various destinations, including Europe, North America, and Asia.

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major cities and international chapters in Britain and Algeria. Upon its inception the Black Panther Party's core practice was its open carry armed citizens' patrols ("copwatching") to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city. From 1969 onwards, a variety of community social programs became a core activity. The Party instituted the Free Breakfast for Children Programs to address food injustice, and community health clinics for education and treatment of diseases including sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and later HIV/AIDS. It advocated for class struggle, with the party representing the proletarian vanguard. Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police. Newton declared: "Malcolm, implacable to the ultimate degree, held out to the Black masses ... liberation from the chains of the oppressor and the treacherous embrace of the endorsed [Black] spokesmen. Only with the gun were the black masses denied this victory. But they learned from Malcolm that with the gun, they can recapture their dreams and bring them into reality."

In our first episode of Season 3 we begin our investigation of the role of armed groups in the furthering or failure of revolutionary politics with a look at the Islamic Resistance Movement aka. Hamas.  The IRM is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election and became the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip following the 2007 Battle of Gaza. It also holds a majority in the parliament of the Palestinian National Authority. Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. New Zealand and Paraguay have designated only its military wing as a terrorist organization. It is not considered a terrorist organization by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria and Turkey. In December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly rejected a U.S. resolution condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal are based in Qatar. In this discussion we look objectively at how Hamas was founded, its tactics, its long term strategy and most importantly whether the former has prevented it from achieving its goals of Palestinian liberation. 

Long time no listen! Welcome back fellow anarchists and people looking for something boring to listen to help them overcome their insomnia. After a year of Covid, babies, and unemployment the anomie podcast is back for season 3. This season will be different to those that came before it as it will have an overarching theme and narrative that will link each of the 7 episodes. We will be attempting to discuss the role of armed revolutionary groups in the furthering or failure of radical politics during the 20th and 21st centuries. We will investigate groups like Hamas, the Black Panthers, the PKK, the Tamil Tigers, the IRA and the Italian Red Brigades in the hopes of discovering whether armed revolution is ever warranted and if so when and how? So, join us on 10th April on whatever podcast platform you are currently listening to for our first episode on the Palestinian group Hamas. In the words of the immortal Emma Goldman: “People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”

In the final episode of season two we discuss the origins of the modern phenomenon of toxic fandom amongst supporters of Pop Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies and TV Shows. Is this simply an over exuberance for the narrative arc of Luke Skywalker or a sign of a deeply chaotic world that is funnelling people into a fantasy echo chamber where they can hide from the horrors of an increasingly oligarchic tyranny. Please find below the links we used to research this topic: https://youtu.be/VaLrpU5yilA https://youtu.be/T3FEsFaRPAQ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/377.full https://youtu.be/onxeBOnjWnU

In the second part of our two-parter on science and technology we focus on the importance of science fiction in presenting an image of the future for society to either look forward to or fear. Science fiction once gave society hope that we were on the verge of a great leap forward in both science and human nature but in 2021 little of this optimism now remains in works like Altered Carbon and Blade Runner 2049. What has changed?