Discussion night at Kebele - Anarchy, 'crime' and 'deviance'

bristol | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Monday February 13, 2012 18:09 by Kebele events kebelesocialcentre at riseup dot net

Discussion night: “How deviant dare you get?” – some anarchist ideas on dealing with ‘crime’ and antisocial behaviour.

Friday 24th February. 7.30pm - 9.30pm.

As anarchists, we say that “Society should do away with the police and the law; perhaps we are perfectly satisfied to contemplate our own feeling that we can do without them; or perhaps we just enjoy a sense of revolutionary rectitude and superiority by deriding them. But it is our fellow citizens that we have to convince if we are really concerned with gaining acceptance for the anarchist point of view.” (Colin Ward, “Anarchy in Action”)

How, as anarchists, would we define antisocial behaviour?

How do we uphold social responsibility without establishing new hierarchies?

How do we implement and encourage natural justice and who gets to decide?

Do we even want to see a society free of “deviance” from the “norm”?

Can we have faith in humans to be a different kind of people?

A discussion night based on chapter 13 of Colin Ward’s “Anarchy in Action”, available at Kebele library and infoshop. Copies of the chapter are also available on the free info rack at Kebele. Please try to read this short chapter before the discussion night, but if you don’t manage to read it come anyway.