I had a great evening recently at a workshop on “Queer Politics – Mainstream or Revolutionary?” held at Seomra Spraoi in Dublin. It was bizarrely nostalgic for me – although trying to explain that to the young people there was a bit odd, because of course for them, it is all wonderfully exciting and sparkly new and brave and passionate. Please don’t get old, dear reader.

Thirty years ago, as a teenager, apart from sex, politics was my main distraction as I was busy flunking my Leaving. I was hanging around squats and the Dandelion market, going to anti-nuclear protests at Carnsore Point, getting involved with Rock Against Racism, representing Dublin at the Gay Youth Movement conferences in London, hearing Petra Kelly of the German greens speak, going on TV and talking about being queer, getting argued about, and generally enjoying myself hugely.
Meeting places then tended, universally, to be makeshift, ramshackle, with dodgy wiring and cracked plasterboard. There was always some part of the building too dangerous to enter, and it was all usually held together with plastic sheeting, sellotape, and an extravagant use of brightly coloured emulsion paint. Jars left out for donations for tea and coffee, chipped mugs with tannin stains, veggie food being cooked on ancient cookers in battered pots, served on non-matching plates. Walls covered in posters: campaigns, benefits, marches, petitions. Extravagant haircuts and rollies.
So, on visiting Seomra Spraoi for the first time, I felt at home. I knew in particular that I was back in familiar territory when, on the wall of the back yard, the anarchist symbol was casually sprayed there. Except I can’t help but think that it has, like everything else, become a brand, a symbol for selling trendy t-shirts made in sweatshops in India or China.
Nevertheless, those who are responsible for introducing good ideas to the collective are not responsible for the crimes that are done in their name. Think Jesus, Karl Marx, Maeve Binchy.
The Communist Party in 1950s South Africa, as Doris Lessing discusses in The Golden Notebook, was the only possible milieu for her, and any other thinking person, because it was the only grouping that took it for granted that racism was monstrous.
Her analysis of how she became disillusioned by the party is still relevant today, because there is a cycle to the manifestation of every progressive idea. We don’t have to go as dark as Orwell’s Animal Farm to know that pure ideas get polluted and distorted by human nature. However, if an idea is good, it remains good – it is simply a question of implementation, of finding the right way to convince people of its worth.
Anarchist communism was attractive to, of all people, Oscar Wilde, writing in The Soul Of Man Under Socialism in 1891, because its first principle is that poverty is obscene. In his ideal world, he wrote, “There will be no people living in fetid dens and fetid rags, and bringing up unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of impossible and absolutely repulsive surroundings.” It’s worth reading the whole essay here: http://url.ie/1pyi
Revolutionary left-wing politics of the green or red variety always interests me, because those who are imbued with Utopian zeal are, invariably, truth-bearers, who often get ignored and ostracised decades before their ideas become acceptable, or even discussable. It takes a particular kind of drive and vision to keep going against that sort of inertia, challenging the status quo. It also has to be acknowledged that for many people who get involved in politics, they do it to improve their circumstances, and often, once their needs have been met, they settle back into complacency about society’s structures and stop agitating for change. But those who see capitalism as the problem tend to be quite tireless, bless them.
It is a fascinating time at the moment to be anti-capitalist, seeing as the main pillar of capitalism, banking, has devoured itself due to greed and incompetence. It is hard to argue with the prescience of Marx, writing in 1867: “Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism”.
The workshop hosted by Queer Spraoi left me bubbling with ideas and possibilities, not only because it’s ages since I was around such hardcore lefties, but also because I realise the only thing that used to stop me from engaging with the politics of radical social change in the past was because I was, to all appearances, a nice middle-class boy who went to a posh school, and posters calling for a “Class War!” tended to put me off. But being reminded there of Wilde and his politics has been exciting. Queers cross class barriers, which is why we’re so annoying. And a bit fabulous. I leave you with the bit on the seomraspraoi.org website about Queer Spraoi:
In an era where we’re led to believe that queerness is a commercialised ‘lifestyle choice’ to be bought and sold, we want to establish a radical community that celebrates our diversity, our differences and brings us together. To have fun, learn from each other, and have hot makeouts behind our grandparents’ tool sheds while wearing multicoloured Tutus and acting improperly towards the family silverware.