20/04/2023
https://www.huckmag.com/article/why-young-people-in-the-uk-are-returning-to-anarchism
We were in Huck for leading the youth astray:
In London, I meet up with George and Oriana, who are part of Dog Section Press – a not-for-profit publisher who put out countless books and who run a quarterly newspaper called DOPE. With a readership of around 30,000 (for context, that’s more than The Spectator) mainly in London, Bristol and Manchester, DOPE is given to street vendors for free to sell for £3 a copy, which has earned it a nickname of the “anarchist Big Issue.” This raises £360,000 annually for the vendors, many of whom are vulnerable, homeless or living below the poverty line.
“We have a section that talks about work, a section that talks about liberation, and a section that talks about prison. The rest of the articles are all sorts of things,” Oriana, who designs the magazines, explains as we sit upstairs in Whitechapel’s long-standing anarchist bookshop Freedom. Oriana often works with established artists such as Sheffield artist Phlegm, who specialises in huge, surrealist street murals of Bosch-esque creatures and impossible machinery. “Beautiful things are not just for rich people,” she adds. “They’re for everyone.”
“We try to include timeless ideas,” George adds. “Sadly, so many of the things that were being fought 100 years ago are still completely relevant now. Property, housing, prison, work, all of these anti-capitalist struggles are still completely relevant. The problems with police, landlords, of ownership in general, all these big ideas are timeless.”
Shout out to the comrades Dawn Ray'd No Sweat Freedom Press Cowley Club
Amid brazen abuses of state power and growing inequality, anarchist principles have been creeping back into the mainstream. Jak Hutchcraft talks to some of people the leading the charge.
