Good morrow, fellow angry mobsters. Today I have
two thingummibobs to share with you. Been a while, eh? Yeah, I’m
bad at this.
Thingum the first: Organise! magazine issue 92,
and Brexit.
Ok, one of those is actually exciting. Organise!
92 is rammed full of super interesting articles which you will find
enjoyable and stimulating. Go here & read it: [HERE!],
then come back & listen to me waffle.
Here’s the cover illustration, painted by
Muggins Truly earlier this year, with a little digital contrast
enhancement (cover image to the right) - “Anarchy and Brexit”
2019 Acrylic on black paper, 210 x 297mm
I had a fairly specific brief for this, which
helped as I found it verry difficult to be passionate about this
subject. I’ll go into that a little more below, but to be clear,
this illustration is of a red & black flag on a red/black star
flagpole, representing the triumph of working class solidarity
through anarchism over the division and disorder of the UK/EU schism.
Here’s the previous draft, which used a white background on the UK flag stripes. I thought this looked garish and, well, it sucked, so I started over. I much prefer muted colours, and these stripes detract from the important flag. I wasn’t dead happy with the way that turned out either, since it’s too buried to make out any black areas, and the red makes it look more like a cabbage leaf than a bold ensign of class war.
So yeah…
Brexit makes me blummin’ miserable. That’s
pretty normal, I hear. Disagreements cloud political spaces and take
up space that could otherwise be used to organise(!) proper
resistance to the bosses and their guards. Sure, there are some Lexit
arguments. I have no time to rehash any of those… cos the big
secret is, the EU doesn’t actually matter. Brexit is about
everything else surrounding the EU membership. Freedom of movement,
refugees, poverty, workers’ rights, these are all connected issues
that revolve around the Brexit divide, whether they’re a result of
EU membership or not.
I voted Remain, and if there’s another vote I’ll
do it again, because I owe it to my European friends and family not
to shaft them. ‘Leave’ means rejecting solidarity with many good,
committed people who keep our movement alive. Brexit is driven by
isolationism and xenophobia. I don’t want The Bastards to deport my
friends, and The Bastards are definitely in charge.
Fortress Europe is a horrific place for those
caught on the southern and eastern borders. Ignoring it and cutting
ourselves off will only make it worse. I know people who travel from
Britain to provide support as close as Calais and as far as Greece,
who do excellent work to help refugees fleeing wars that Britain is
responsible for. Restricting the people who travel to help will only
make the situation worse for the people who need help. More will die.
But… whatever happens, the cracks are deep. We
will all need to look out for each other more than ever, whatever
happens next. That’s what this picture is about. Nations and states
are power structures, which will force together and tear apart
communities as they see fit. That’s what happened here: they forced
communities apart. We need strong working class organisations,
capable of engaging, supporting and defending communities against
exactly the sort of division that is tearing us apart. That’s the
Red-&-Black flag of Anarchism, rejecting nations and states, for
working class solidarity.
Oh yeah, it’s all that idiot Dave’s fault. Dave who? Ohhh, the guy who ALLEGEDLY fucked a pig. Here’s that high-quality commemorative print again, which you can own in exchange for beans: “The Boar of the Bullingdons!” ■
Check out more art by Remember '68 and read their blog here.