Emma Goldman (Or ‘5 Books Of Anarcha-Feminism’)

EMMA GOLDMAN (OR ‘5 BOOKS OF ANARCHA-FEMINISM’)

There have always been (and will always be) little boys and little girls who question the workings of the world, raging against the sweet ration and battle against the injustice of bedtime. 

In 1869 a girl was born into the Russian Empire’s poverty.  Despite the threat of pogroms, school books burnt, brutality and beatings, Emma still spoke back.

Arriving in New York, Emma discovered the mechanisation of modern life in the American system, where the wage slavery of the day isn’t a parent’s helping hand, it’s a master’s balled fist.

Emma became an Anarchist, realising all men and women are property in the eyes of the capitalist state, patriotism assumes the world is divided by iron gates, religion trains slaves and marriage makes slaves.

Emma’s sentences were dipped deep in gasoline.  Hearing her speak of revolution was a revelation, if your ears were a nation your ear drum would be banging the beat for freedom.

She cooked her speeches and writing with the insight of Emerson, Ibsen and Wilde, and when she spoke it was with the celebration of being alive.  Emma spoke out.

Now, Emma was no proto-hippie, she was a celebrity of anarchy, the papers named her Red Emma: the most dangerous woman in America.  She was arrested for her part in an assassination attempt and argued the need for propaganda of the deed.  It is capitalism which forces men and women to be violent against authority’s lies, but terror must never be institutionalised.

Emma, speaking for free love, sex worker rights, better birth control and homosexual liberty at the turn of the century.  “Man can conquer nations, but his armies cannot conquer love” she wrote because love is a hope that topples the king from his throne.

Emma travelled to Soviet Russia and was disillusioned with the Bolshevik state responsible for the annihilation of the most fundamental values, human and revolutionary.  Others argued the end justifies the means, but in her eyes terror must never be insitutionalised.  

“If I cannot dance to it, it’s not my revolution” Her famous quote came from being told her frivolous dancing will only hurt the Cause.  If anyone tells you this, don’t pause, just keep dancing or singing or riding the fairground rides.

Every tiny act of expression in life forms a join-the-dots worldwide constellation of rebellion, linked like the arms that lock tight outside NATO summits.

So why remember Red Emma?  Like a Punk Rock Pussy Riot Party, let’s look beyond equal pay to a day when price tag society no longer makes us property, there is no binding packaging to love and no hierarchies to label us. The only competitive culture I want, is a dancing competition.

What else are we fighting for, if not the freedom to dance until the sun is dawning without the fear of landlord’s calling or the harsh grasp of work the next morning?