The fantasy-story of right-wing anarchy is creating misinformation, someone thinks that something like “anarcho-capitalism” is real philosophy, instead of the linguistic distortion of fascist-capitalism that it is.
Should people even specify that they are left-wing anarchists now? Do we really want to put a stop to this propagandistic joke? Anarchy will always be the extreme left into the political pendulum.
And I will tell you more: anarchism is by its nature also pacifism, as it aims to prevent any form of uncontrolled power on others. This is to silence even centrists: another fake group, people who think that it’s not “extremist” in its own abstinence, in delegating violence.
I do think it is often possible to force despots to resign through nonviolent conflict. Their power ultimately stems from obedience of others—if that obedience is removed they are just as powerless as any of us.
So the question is: can that obedience be undermined through nonviolent resistance? I think the answer is often yes, and we have seen such things before in history.
On the other hand, even many pacifists acknowledge the righteousness of self defense. So if nonviolent efforts fail and the tyrant comes for you and yours and you have to fight back I won’t fault anyone for this. On the other hand, you can’t and shouldn’t want to engage overwhelming military force on its own terms. That’s not a fight we can ever win head on.
Their power comes from us, and it is possible to force them to resign without violence.
Yes, i think so. But this heavily depends on if the people can even organize or not. In the french revolution the people revolted due to mass poverty. We don’t have that now, tyrants have gotten smarter. They know if they condition us to the horrible lives we live then increase our wealth ever so slightly it’ll discourage revolution, because who’d revolt against their benefactors?
You must understand, i do not come from the west where, despite all its faults you can at least criticize it. I live in Saudi Arabia; all forms of protest are dealt with brutally and swiftly, and criticizing the ruling family can get you executed or jailed for decades.
It’s practically suicide to try to revolt in any way. You’d need the mass approval of the people while doing it in private. The military is a joke but the real scare is the SANG, the national guard. The sauds are paranoid of a coup or revolution, so they fund the national guard way more than the military. When i read animal farm, i was spooked by the similarities between the Sauds and Napoleon.
We have tried to overthrown our oppressive governments before but…
That must be very difficult. I can’t imagine living in such a way as I’ve been an outspoken critic of my government from a young age.
I’ve read that sometimes organizing in such places can be focused on building power that is independent of the state, even if that power has a conciliatory stance towards the regime initially. However, that independent power can be used in a critical moment when the regime’s power weakens. I am not familiar with Saudi society—is there hope for such a strategy?
Another strategy is tiny acts of resistance that are too small to detect or punish but that introduce friction into the workings of society. The impact is small but again, it may help tip the scales towards liberation. And it has the advantage of being safe enough for anyone to engage in and being actionable for an individual—meaning no one can report you.
Finally I am curious if you have advice for how people in the West can help advance a liberatory cause in your country. Obviously our military and financial support is a huge malignant force in your society, so seeking to remove this support might help. Do you agree with that assessment?
The sauds have an incredibly high approval rate without much disagreement (my father’s colleague dared to criticize the monarchy and “disappeared”, turns out he was taken to riyadh and executed). The closest thing to an independent state is: https://the-naas.com/en (an exiled political party) and it is a droplet of ink compared to the Sauds.
This is also a good thing, but it’s hard to pull off. A huge amount of infrastucture workers are actually slaves imported from India/Pakistan and other parts of Asia, and they wouldn’t dare to mess things up.
Absolutely, protest. Protest against ties with Saudi and encourage sanctioning us. It’ll affect us and you, but the weaker the sauds get, the stronger the people. (it’ll encrease unrest, too) And criticize the monarchy as much as you can, in the face of saudis or non-saudis.
This is especially important in the US, most of the SANGs weaponry is imported from the US, so without it, it will be severely weakened, leaving them vunerable to a revolution.
I should clarify that the organizing I’m discussing does not need to be openly political. Religious institutions, civic organizations, charities, etc. anything that is not directly subservient to the state can be turned against it when the time comes. Especially if the purpose of the organization attracts people who might be naturally skeptical of the ruling powers.
While I obviously support the things you describe here, Joe Biden’s weak response to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder made me realize that the royal family actually has a very strong bargaining position with the US due to their influence on OPEC. Americans are addicted to oil and, as we saw in the last election, very willing to punish leaders who aren’t able or willing to secure their cheap access to it. I am not sure this problem can be solved without first breaking this addiction. I also think the oil economy is one that very much favors autocracy, so destroying global demand for oil could have very positive effects even beyond the influence over US policy.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I hope you have an eye to your own safety as you participate in these conversations but I assume you know better than I do what is safe and what isn’t.
Yeah, he said we’d be a “pariah state”, where’s that promise joe? you almost made me excited.
The move to electric power and EVs make me very hopeful, but we in the kingdom are actually trying to decrease reliance on oil… hopefully it fails.
You are actually right on this, i know a thing or two about this type of stuff. You should see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse#Democracy_and_human_rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrostate