Me Me Meme

Interviewed by Pacian.

1. If someone asked you to provide a concise explanation of anarchism and its relevance, what would you say?

Errrrmmmm.... Concise you say?

Anarchism is a broad church and I certainly wouldn't claim to speak on behalf of the movement as a whole. For me though, it's about rejecting all forms of oppression whenever and wherever they appear: capitalism; fascism; fundamentalism; racism; patriarchy;heterosexism; ableism; environmental destruction; even speciesism. As such it is the ultimate revolutionary aspiration, a call for the complete reorganisation (or, perhaps, disorganisation) of society.

Crucially, however, anarchism, for me, isn't just utopian dreaming; about imagining what some far-off future society might look like "after the revolution". It's about getting out there and building that society in the here and now by fighting oppresive structures by any means necessary.

As I suggested, concision is a problem. The Situationists had the right idea, however: "Be realistic, demand the impossible!"

2. If you could only take one form of protest with you to the desert island, what would it be?

This is a difficult one. I'm big on the idea of "diversity of tactics," so I'm less than comfortable abandoning any potential forms of protest without a pretty good reason. Initially I was going to go with something exciting like a riot, but it occurs to me that there aren't likely to be many coppers on a desert island which will probably take the edge of the experience. Internecine rioting is likely to be considerably less satisfying.

I suppose then I should go with something practical like a protest camp. Food, shelter, solar showers, compost toilets, every mod-con for the discerning desert island inhabitant. Either that or a mass rally, because that'll mean there are plenty of people to talk to, although there will also be more mouths to eat. Perhaps we could dine on the socialist paper sellers?

3. Your spaceship is running out of oxygen! So that there's more to go around, which contemporary public figure do you push out of the airlock first? (They are all on board, having a microgravity cocktail party.)

I've spent sometime ruminating on this one and come to the conclusion that if all the public figures who deserve to be dumped in deep space are onboard my starfaring vessel and I can only throw one person out, than it's going to have to be me. How else can I deal with sharing oxygen withthe likes of Tony Blair, George Bush, Mahmoud Ahmajenidad, Osama Bin Laden, Islam Karimov and Cliff Richard?

4. One day you go to put something in the bin, and find that someone has thrown away a movie studio and a multi-million dollar movie budget. There is no name-tag on it or anything, and if the owner wanted it, they wouldn't have put it in the bin, so... What film do you make?

I should probably say I'd make an intelligent art-house work exploring political intrigue, character development and sexual repression. In reality, I'd probably find it very difficult to resist the urge to make a big-budget action film, dripping with explosives, shoout-outs, high-octane car chases, crazy stunts and scantily-clad women.

I know, I'm part of the problem.

5. Pop quiz, hotshot! A man wearing a balaclava is holding a gun to your head. "What is your favourite cartoon, animation or puppet show?" he asks you. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?

Shit myself?

(It's probably Family Guy, in case you were wondering.)

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