Like other people, anarchists love to take sides. Whatever the issue (or non-issue) is, we can be counted on to express our opinions, to open our big mouths and spout some rhetoric—trite or funny, searing or banal, a century old or made up on the spot. One of the sides we frequently take publicly is against other anarchists. All anarchists agree that there are limits to anarchist practice—we just don’t agree on what those limits are or should be. Often it seems as thought the only thing two anarchists with different opinions can agree on is that a third one with different opinions isn’t an anarchist at all.

Many anarchists who don’t like other anarchists (and their projects) use the curse word sectarian as an emotionally satisfying and sophisticated-sounding way to condemn them. Used this way, sectarian is a short-cut term that almost always means an anarchist who doesn’t agree with me. But the term does have an actual meaning, and can be used properly and accurately rather than as a quick dismissal.

When anarchists disagree with each other, there are (other than ignoring it) two main ways to proceed:

The partisan way

A partisan espouses and promotes a particular perspective. This means taking sides—advocating analyses, goals, and strategies as part of a critique of the status quo. Comparing one’s own perspectives to others’ is understood to be part of a wider critical engagement. A partisan believes that excluding others from being considered anarchists is not usually consistent with that engagement, and that a continuing (critical) relationship with other anarchists makes for a stronger, more relevant (anti-)political tendency. An anarchist partisan examines and exposes the contradictions and tensions between theory and practice (her own as well as those of others), perhaps invoking a provisional excommunication on anarchists who engage in clearly contradictory practice (voting being a continually exasperating example). Partisans try to convince others, and can be convinced by them; a partisan knows that her perspective can change.

The sectarian way

A sectarian takes a limited (and limiting) view of what can legitimately be labeled Anarchist, and excludes other anarchists from being so considered based on these self-referential boundaries. Doctrinal differences are outlined (and perhaps inflated) in order to create and/or maintain what amounts to an Anarchist Orthodoxy (true/correct belief). A sectarian has little or no interest in basing exclusions on contradictory practice—the theoretical or ideological parameters of anarchist analyses are what matter. The result is that certain ideas and subjects are off-limits, and the presence or absence of certain code-words and/or jargon is sufficient evidence of heresy. If an analysis doesn’t conform to the positions of one’s favorite anarchist theorists, then that analysis must be incorrect, and the person holding such a perspective needs to be banished from the club. The sectarian thrives on the ability and the need to exclude/expel. Rather than the courage of conviction, the sectarian has the smugness of certainty. Sectarians only change their minds when they change sects.

It is easy to label a particular anarchist sectarian when she argues strongly for a particular position; while all sectarians are partisan, not all partisans are sectarian.

When AK Press refuses to distribute Green Anarchy they are being partisan, but they are also being sectarian. What makes this a sectarian decision is the larger context of AK producing and distributing explicitly non-anarchist (and in some cases anti-anarchist) titles and paraphernalia. AK is taking a side of course, which is their prerogative, but what might be the motivation for excluding one explicitly anarchist project, while tirelessly supporting non-anarchists (Alexander Cockburn, for example)? The logical conclusion is that the kind of anarchy GA promotes is unacceptable to the folks at AK. So too with AK’s recent decision to ban Anarchy; their citation of Bob Black’s letter in #65 is merely the convenient excuse. As they say, they’ve “had many political disagreements with its contents over the years.” Implicit is their cumulative annoyance with us, which, in the absence of any other information from them, we must assume is because those of us involved in this journal are different kinds of anarchists.

We at Anarchy publish all the letters we get, regardless of their source; we do not edit them. We often engage with the substance of the complaints and criticisms of the letter-writers in the letters section, especially if the criticisms are sincere. In that context we are able to clarify and expand on our opinions and analyses, and discussions can be on-going, since people are encouraged to continue them. We do not exclude or censor ideas that may not be popular in the anarchist/radical mainstream. In that, Anarchy is a partisan, and not sectarian, project.

Sectarianism, based on whichever criteria the sectarians choose, is clearly detrimental to the growth of the influence of anarchist ideas and practices, and creates unnecessary animosities between and among various anarchists. Animosity should exist because of actual substance and apparent contradictions in practice rather than subjective (and often personal) rivalries between the ideas of various individuals and factions. If what we’re after is a larger, more inclusive, and diverse anarchist presence, then wouldn’t it be better to be clear and explicit about our disagreements—debating them honestly and with integrity—rather than just condemning and excluding anarchists with different opinions? And if we are able to debate with clarity and good faith, we may discover that we don’t hold such irreconcilably different perspectives after all.