Over a year ago a handful of us disillusioned with the inward looking sectarianism of anarchist politics in London decided to start something new and launched a local anarchist group in the area we gravitated and lived, Whitechapel.
After handing out a thousand free sheets on Brick lane and the Anarchist Bookfair inviting people to attend, the founding meeting was held on the 23rd October 2008, with roughly forty people present. From this, a core of 15 people came together, from various anarchic, ex-Trot, unaligned and non-political backgrounds with ages ranging 14 to 57, and an interest to produce a local newspaper.
United in our belief for action as opposed to the endless hot air of most political meetings we had all experienced before, it was in the production of the WAG free sheet that pulled together our individual interests into a collective expression. Two thousand copies of WAG Issue 1 (Dec/Jan 09) were handed out in the local area, and we never looked back.
Producing a paper gave us a sense of momentum and focus, but also organising socials – from a regular Sunday cinema club, radical history pub crawls to open public meetings – pulled our propaganda together into tangible events offering clear openings for others to get involved.
Having raised our heads above the political parapet, things began to hot up from the kick off – aligning ourselves with the illegal market traders brought us into direct conflict with the inspectors, whose corrupt attitudes are systematic with gentrification, and the local constabulary who had been getting heavy-handed with animal rights activists against a yuppie fur shop. But it was our WAG Issue 2, ‘Bash-A-Banker’ (Feb/Mar 09) and our Emergency Edition ‘Storm The Banks’ (March 09) for the G20 that would capture the imagination of the time.
The intense media attention that focused on our group caught us all off guard, but with the aid of a well-managed blog and youtube channel, and a lot of late night graffiti, we somehow managed to play the media machine creating a spectre that haunted the liberal middle class imagination. Daily during the G20 the WAG name was mentioned in almost every newspaper with good and bad effect – highlights being a bankers forum cancelling a cycle through the City because we’re supposedly ‘prepared for serious mob violence’, lowlights being the esteem steeped on most anarchist groups who achieve a modicum of success, i.e. slagged off, vilified and attacked on the internet by anarcho-leftie-armchair revolutionaries.
The ‘Bizarre group of misfits’ moniker labelled by a fabricated Daily Mail infiltration story was to stick as it summed up perfectly our motley crew. Having been going for six months we decided now would be the perfect time to have our first ever proper WAG meeting. From this developed the AMG, Active Members Group, and Curry Monday, a regular weekly meeting in preparation for our Spitalfields Fair. With 5,000 copies of WAG Issue 4 (Jun/Jul 09) distributed, Sunday 26th July was to be the date for our traditional east end fair and with games, music, fancy dress and entertainment it proved to be a successful family day for the anarchists and locals of Whitechapel.
After a much needed August break the groups activity continued: supporting the Tower Hamlet College strikers, protesting against the DSEi arms fair, establishing the Radical London network, creating another media storm in a teacup at the Climate Camp, while finally hosting our own meeting at the Anarchist Bookfair 2009. The Whitechapel Anarchist Group, you either love them or hate them, but either way there’s no denying that they’ve been a busy bunch and will continue into the new year giving ‘our movement’ some much needed oomph, whether it wants it or not.
Greg Hall
