Everywhere in we hear the word anarchy. There
are anarchy-nets, anarchy-fileareas, anarchy-conferences, anarchy
-this and anarchy -thats. But what the hell IS anarchy really?
Does it mean to spread chaos, to bomb what you want, to harass
your neighbour? No this might be CHAOS, but not anarchy. Anarchy
simply means ‘a state with no gouvernment and no law’. This means
that chaotic states like a civil war might NEVER be considered as
anarchic, because there are in fact A LOT of little hierarchical
organized groups. No matter how many leaders there are, no matter
if everyone of them is in war with the others – this is chaos, but
NEVER anarchy. As long there is ANY leader it is not anarchy. What
consequencies does this have on anarchy? Well, it’s neither chaos
(because if everyone would do as he would like without taking care
for others, there soon would be some leaders) nor its war – you
cannot make a war without leaders, nor is it law-and-order. So
Anarchy CAN only be peaceful. Anarchy has no government and no
law, which does NOT mean that there must be chaos. In fact, in an
anarchy exists some ORDER. But this order is made by the people,
not by any government, and the people themselves can change this
order whenever they like. An anarchy is very flexible through
this. In an anarchy, decisions are made by people, but whoever can
not cope with those decisions has the right not to care for these.
Anarchy is the MOST difficult idea of social grouping. It needs
from everyone a very big self-responsibility, otherwise the
anarchy won’t work. You have to care very much for the others,
but you are not supposed to. You are free. This is very difficult.
But if you have a certain self-responsibility, you will do what is
needed, you will help others

Anarchy will work

Anarchy _ONLY_ can work if everyone in the anarchy is anarchist,
which means he has a certain interest in keeping the anarchy going
and a great responsibility and conscience. If everyone loves each
other, there is no problem, you’ve got the anarchy. I myself know
people, very good friends of mine, anarchists with whose one could
really build an anarchy. And in history, there is proof enough,
that anarchy has worked. Several small groups, isolated, on
islands, have developped anarchies. They have been destroyed
through other states, monarchies, the roman empire and so on. But
we can learn from them, that anarchies do function with little
groups up to some thousand people. By the way, a true democracy or
communism functions only with some thousand people too, otherwise
the money, lobbies and the like will change those systems. WE HERE
IN SWITZERLAND GOT _NO_ TRUE DEMOCRACY. This does not work with 6
Million people, just as an anarchy does presumably not with such a
lot of people.

Anarchy will not work

Yes, as long we do not love each other, as long as we are not all
anarchists, it will not work. This is too bad, but better than to
betray oneselves, as demoracies do. Anarchy will not work with
big amounts of people too, that would be illusionary.

Anarchy, why else?

I will not try to create an anarchy. I think I never will do that
nevertheless I am an anarchist. Why? I think anarchy is a goal
that is _SUCH_ high it can not be achieved. But what counts is the
trend, the development to the direction of an anarchy. I have
anarchy as a picture in my mind as a model how it should be. I try
to go in that direction – self-responsibility, as much personal
freedom which is possible, peace, love.

I think this is what counts.

Peter Keel,