Aims and Objectives of the Anarchist Movement

APPENDIX - Black Rose Collective Documents

Preamble: The Basic Principles that Bring us Together

Anarchism, as derived from the classical Greek, strictly means without government, rulers, or imposed authority.

We extend this to all oppressors (For Example: church, state, boss, and so forth) and all forms of domination (For example: political, economic, religious, sexual, ageist, racial, educational, cultural, etc.).

To overcome these problems requires a revolutionary transformation of the society that we know.

As we understand it, an anarchist society is one in which each person takes responsibility for their own actions and how their actions affect the community. This requires that we learn alternatives to our customary reliance on government, bosses, churches, union officials, teachers, etc, and learn to think and act for ourselves, both as individuals and as members of a community. Voluntary cooperation and solidarity would replace competition as the functional basis of society. Skills and resources would be shared on the basis of needs not privileges.

We hope to build a free society based upon voluntary cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid. Such a society would be organised in a decentralised and non-hierarchical way; the social and physical structures in this society should be in harmony with the surrounding ecology and environment.

The means chosen to bring about this social transformation must be consistent with the ends sought. Accordingly, we have a specific commitment to developing and implementing techniques needed to achieve our aims, and constantly subjecting our techniques and aims to rigorous review.

Aims and Objectives

1. To disseminate anarchist and related literature as widely and as cheaply as possible.
   • Through maintaining, and encouraging the growth of, a stable shopfront location.
   • By setting up bookstalls at appropriate places, e.g. on campus, at the domain, rallies or conferences.
   • By involvement in relevant community activities as an anarchist bookshop, e.g. fairs, festivals, fetes and frolics.
   • By supplying books, information and encouragement to other groups or individuals wanting to set up anarchist bookstalls.
   • By supplying information, encouragement and other appropriate support to anarchist or related projects.
   • By providing an outlet for the literature of sympathetic groups.
   • To act as a local distributor of records of selected publishers.
2. To develop a model of collective anarchist organisation.
   • By developing and practising techniques and methods of personal growth and general cooperative and revolutionary practices, and passing on these skills to other groups and collectives where appropriate.
   • By consciously functioning in a non-discriminatory, non-hierarchical and caring way.
   • By encouraging interested people to become involved.
   • By participating in, and encouraging the growth of, appropriate regional and international networks.
   • By striving toward ecologically sound practices on our premises.
   • By expressing solidarity with appropriate campaigns.
3. To run an anti profit bookshop as a public example of anarchy in action.
   • By relying solely on voluntary labour.
   • By relying solely on donations to cover rent and maintenance of the premises.
   • By spending all takings from sales on the replacement of stock.
   • By operating with a minimal markup which generally allows us to sell well below the recommended retail price.

Membership of the Collective

Membership is open to anybody, who wants to help make anarchist literature available, providing certain basic requirements are met.

Basic Requirements

• Agreement with the aims and objectives of the collective.
• Acceptance by all the existing members of the collective.
• A commitment to working within collectively decided procedures.
• Participation in the job rotation scheme.
• A willingness to do regular shifts in the shop, suggested minimum of one per fortnight.
• Attendance at regular meetings of the collective, suggested minimum of one per fortnight.

Note 1: It is expected that members of the collective will attend all meetings and will do at least one regular weekly shift. The suggested minimums listed are the lowest level necessary for the survival of the "collective spirit" of the bookshop. They should not be read as the desired level of involvement.

Note 2: We expect all members to have enough social awareness to clean up after themselves and to do their fair share of general cleaning and maintenance work around the shop.

Consensus Decision Making

We see consensus as a practical approach to making decisions within our collective. When consensus is reached it means we have a result which all members agree is the best possible in view of the issues and circumstances involved.

For consensus to be reached it is necessary that all participants share some agreement as to underlying fundamental issues, and that they are able to communicate their ideas effectively to each other. In seeking consensus, each person needs to contribute their thoughts in a non-dogmatic and flexible manner so that these thoughts can be woven together to formulate an overall position which respects the essential elements of each person's thinking.

By contrast, if people take the approach that " this is what I think and I'm sticking to it because its MY idea", then agreement can only be reached through a process of compromise. Compromise differs from consensus because it involves sacrificing something you want in order to get an answer; it assumes that there is only one way to achieve what you really want and that you already know what it is. Any change thus feels like a loss. However, with consensus the group seeks to resolve disagreements by finding new solutions which participants understand as a new and better way of seeing the question at hand. For those taking part it means the answer changes because the question at hand becomes clearer. The process is thus felt as one of growth rather than one of whittling away.

When first approaching consensus a compromising attitude is helpful in unlearning the 'territorial' approach to ideas encouraged by society at large. Even after acquiring the skills needed to use consensus it may not always be possible to avoid dissent at all times. Therefore, we say that in some difficult situations it is possible for a person to agree to the group making a decision, but record their dissent from it. While this is a departure from consensus, it is not going as far as voting. Provided that this remains a last resort and is used infrequently, employing this method will not endanger the ongoing consensus of the group.