The mainstream media told you all about the threat of anarchism. But a much greater threat - the threat of archism - is still largely unknown. Yet archists have infiltrated the highest echelons of virtually all large-scale organisations from private corporations to state institutions. Archists may be teaching your children the three R’s: repression, racism and right-wing ideology! Learn how to counter the archist threat before it is too late!

The powers that be have no time to trouble themselves with the recently released voluminous report on civil rights violations at the 1997 APEC protests in Vancouver. Canadian authorities from the RCMP to CSIS to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien himself are far too busy dealing with something they refer to as the "anarchist threat".

While at the G8 meetings in Genoa Italy, Chrétien, in the stumbling verbal shorthand that is his trademark, equated anarchists with violence, "These are the anarchists. I’m telling you, violence I reject." The message is clear: anarchists, all anarchists, from Noam Chomsky to the black bloc, are violent criminals. If this violent criminal element could be removed, the legitimate business of international summits would be able to proceed civilly and peacefully.

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service is working around the clock to identify and neutralise the anarchist threat. CSIS issued a confidential report before the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City describing the "anarchist elements" that were "actively organising to protest the summit."

Don’t people of all ideologies have a RIGHT to express their opinions through political protest? No, anarchists are a special breed. We require state-of-the-art crowd control technologies to keep the anarchist threat in check. If anarchists or known anarchist groups are involved in protest organising, this in itself must justify even the harshest of security measures (for public safety of course).

Why else would government lawyer Simon Fothergill have pursued the following line of questioning with protestor Garth Mullins during the APEC inquiry?

Fothergill: Am I right in thinking that you’re also a member of the International Socialists?

Mullins: I have been, am not currently.

Fothergill: I see. Would it be accurate to describe the International Socialists as an anarchist group?

Mullins: No.

Fothergill: All right. Have you been involved in anarchist activism?

If one were to reproduce Fothergill’s inquisition replacing the word "anarchist" with "communist" it would be hard to tell the difference between his cross-examination of Mullins and one of the McArthyist witch hunts of the 1950s. An even more uncanny experience of historical déjà vu can be had by comparing the APEC inquiry transcripts with those of the Sacco and Vanzetti show trial of the 1920s (the state of Massachusetts executed the two Italian immigrants essentially because they were anarchists).

Perhaps there is a threat greater than anarchism that is motivating the partisans of law and order to pursue their prey with such zeal. It is a threat that I call "archism". Archism is the polar opposite of anarchsim.

Anarchism and Archism

Literally translated from its Greek origin, anarchy means "without government". An-without plus archy-government gives us anarchy-without government. Anarchists hold that it is both possible and desirable for societies to organise themselves without state power. They also generally reject the legal institution of private property maintained by the state. Anarchists therefor reject government tout court, preferring federations of small-scale direct democracies called "collectives" or "affinity groups".

"Archy" comes from the same Greek origin of "anarchy" and simply means government. Archists hold that any threat to the state or the state institutions of the military, the courts, private property, and so on, is by definition undesirable. Jean Chrétien expressed archist ideology in a nutshell while in Genoa: "It is not a certain amount of anarchists who will prevent democratic leaders to do their job." Anyone who stops the wheels of government and business from turning at their normal speed, anyone who stops authorities from "doing their job" (through civil disobedience or other means), must be dealt with by the coercive arm of the state.

Unlike the anarchist threat, the archist threat is an extremely violent clear and present danger. Archists are responsible for countless murders, from the shooting of Carlo Giuliani in Genoa to the genocide of aboriginal peoples all across the globe, to the murder of the Jews in the German Nazi state, to the murder of Palestinians in the Israeli Zionist state. Archists have infiltrated the highest echelons of virtually all large-scale organisations from private corporations to state institutions. Archists may be teaching your children the three R’s: repression, racism and right-wing ideology!

How can you fight the archist menace? Simply stand with your sisters and brothers and defend their right to protest. Stand up against the political and economic injustices of capitalist globalization. Don’t be afraid when authorities call you an anarchist. Anyone who is not an archist will have to bear this label just as all non-archists became "communists" during the McArthyist era.

David Bernans is a researcher for the Concordia Student Union and an activist in the anti-globalization movement. His book, CON U INC: PRIVATIZATION, MARKETIZATION and GLOBALIZATION AT CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY (AND BEYOND) will be released in September 2001. He is not an anarchist (but don't tell CSIS).