Introduction

Mindful of a context dominated by representative democracy, its relationship with the global supremacy of corporations and the unsustainable nature of life under these circumstances, this essay will explore ideas, theories and practices of self-governance that have underpinned the study of the module Autonomous Futures. Inspired by the shared histories and experiences and informed by the lectures and discussions that have taken place under the auspices of the module, this essay will attempt to critique the idea of non-hierarchical organisation, that is ‘Doing It Without Leaders’ as studied in the module. Many anti-globalisation and local activist initiatives in the global north and south have and are experimenting on this concept. A surge in number of autonomous movements has been taking place in recent years and so has the practise of non-hierarchical forms of organising and consensus decision making in challenging, in most cases convincingly, our politically dominated contemporary world as they fight social injustices of the world (Pickerill and Chatterton, 2006 and Starharwk, 2002) most of which have their source in the structural nature of the world (Park. P, Brydon-Miller. M, and Hall. D, etal 1993). The influence of these movements has increased, despite the oppression, in toppling dictatorships, changing the course of civil society and altering the priorities of global institutions (Katsiaficas, 2006)

In broad terms, this essay is broadly a critical evaluation of the Module, Autonomous Futures’ idea of ‘autonomy’ in its own right before considering it in relation to the concept of ‘doing it without leaders’. In doing so the critique will be cognisant of the fact that autonomy is a heavily contested term, which is claimed by those on the left and on the right alike (Friedman 2003) as Wolff (1998) learnt, albeit with disbelief, when he received unexpected congratulatory letters for his book, ‘In Defence of Anarchism’ from right wing libertarians in the United States of America in the 1970s. Thus, before hand this essay will provide a brief meaning of the concept ‘autonomy’. In-depth meanings, which maybe be indicative of the origins of ‘Autonomous Futures’, have already been provided by a number of geographers and thus a repetition will be avoided (see Pickerill and Chatterton, 2006 and Friedman 2003). Bearing the above in mind this essay defines and uses the term in relation to collective relationships and not the individual ones, that is, in the sense of a union of interest. This in fact is solidarity.

It is imperative to mention beforehand that the module, which this paper will critic, itself is based on the concept ‘autonomous futures’, which is mainly generated from a related concept of ‘autonomous geographies’ (see Pickerill and Chatterton, 2006). In their article Pickerill and Chatterton, argue that the term, ‘autonomous geographies’ was coined as an alternative response to a multiplicity of crises. Furthermore, they caution that although ‘autonomous geographies’ was a response, it would not provide the grand answer or solution to the crises it responded to. Autonomous geographies are therefore seen as providing ‘urgency, hope and inspiration’ and as a call to action which is not absolute and exclusive of all other approaches to the crises but inclusive. Arguably, these ideas become enshrined in the module in question and are the ‘cornerstone’ philosophies that inform its approaches and actions. Bearing this in mind, it is important, in order to give a complete overview of the module to start off by breaking the concept of ‘Autonomous Futures’ into its components before going on to give an account of its relationship with non-hierarchical approaches to life (doing it without leaders, which this essay will use interchangeable with the absence of hierarchy).

Secondly, a case studies of the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD) in Argentina that organised resistance to dictatorship and its capitalist friends. The movement’s organisation of protests will be detailed and discussed. The acclaimed success of movement is credited to the methods of organising that were used (Starhawk, 2002). Argentina is one of the many recent examples where the ideas of ‘doing it without leaders’ or ‘non-hierarchical organisation’ and consensus decision making upset the organised structure of oppression as represented in the form of police and soldiers. The case study will thus explain the reasons for the success and provide an insight into how this success was created. The very easy success was created by a simple negation of the social relations amongst activists and groups, which were moulded in an autonomist fashion referred to as ‘movements of movements’ (Hardt. M, and Negri. A, 2004). Although one of the most frequently met reasons for the dismissal of leaderless organisation as a social theory is the argument that while one can imagine it existing in a small, isolated, primitive community it cannot possibly be conceived in the context of large, complex, industrial societies, the case study will show how the concept outwitted the complex, industrialised and well trained police force. (Starhawk, 2002)

A second case study, to be discussed will be the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU). Yet again a detailed discussion of the manner in which it organised resistance throughout the late 1990s and into the early 2000s will be made. But this will be done to provide the author with a reflective chance to critic his own contribution and that of others in the Union. This case study will show how the solidarity of a loosely connected network of students and workers produced results and shocked the Zimbabwe regime and how the creation of a formal structure and the sacrifice of autonomy made that encounter of solidarity problematic and almost stalled the process of change.

“the ZCTU (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) considered that we could toyi-toyi [dance] and mobilise . . . but there was no reciprocal respect that students were equals” (Hopewell Gumbo 2003 in Zeilig. L and Ansel. N, 2008: 45)

This case study will primarily be used to underline the weakness and strengths of leaderless organisation.

Finally, this paper will look at the weakness of leaderless organisation in relation to the concept of autonomous futures. Chatterton and Hodkinson (2006) stress that there are often challenges, tensions and contradictions in the existence of movements that experiment on the ‘values of anti-authority, horizontality and solidarity’. Such problems are associated with autonomous movements often becoming enclosures of homogenous groups, and Adamonsky (2006) cautions that, if not careful autonomous ideas may lead autonomous groups into reducing themselves to mere identity groups that have no influence at all. He also argues that the ideals of autonomy, should be in keeping with the reality of a liberalism that is now resident in the bio-politics and hardly inseparable from the society itself. Individuals are now more responsible for the reproduction of capitalism and structure by their mere practise of relation. Thus the concept of autonomy must reflect this fact and be responsive to the people’s fears as they are unable to see the difference between themselves and the system that autonomists may want to destroy and reconstruct. On the other hand Freeman (1972) identified the challenge of horizontality as that of running a constant danger of turning into a concept of the survival of the fittest.

Defining Autonomous and Futures

Although the terms ‘autonomy’ is largely a term of philosophic art, it embraces an array of notions familiar to ordinary people, notions such as being “true to myself, ” doing it “my way, ” standing up for “what I believe, ” thinking “for myself, ” and, in gender-egalitarian reformulation, being one's “own person”. Although these general notions are not systemic, they espouse the fact that autonomy is vital and momentous for many people (Frankfurt, 1971). It in this regard engenders the concept of people creating the change themselves, for themselves, not through others and not just for others but with others. Clearly then it encompasses, do-it-yourself, solidarity, doing it without leaders and other related concepts. Thus, Friedman (2003) argues that autonomy can be a particularly inspirational ideal for those who, in the course of living their lives, must cope with the all-too-familiar human wrongs of abuse, exploitation, domination, and oppression. Therefore, it is a concept of creation, creating both virtual and physical spaces for living free lives within the oppressive contemporary world.

One of the central issues of autonomy is the rejection of power, structure and authority. Autonomists believe that there is no one truth and that there is no one more-correct method of resistance. The strategies of and the practise of autonomy are therefore embedded with and depend on, in the practise of solidarity, people defining change and doing change themselves. Although the rejection of power, structure and authority, may mistakenly seem to cause confusion, the related ideas of solidarity, self-management and doing-it-yourself provide the necessary coherence and ensure the achievement of a good result, as the case study will show later in this essay. The autonomous approach is also strengthened by the fact that it provides an alternative to both authoritarian socialism and pseudo-democratic capitalism. The concept of autonomy in this sense also encourages diversity and continuing difference, while emphasising the fact that individuals and groups must take responsibility for their actions and that any decision (law) must be made by those that are affected by them. (see Katsiaficas, 2006 and The Trapese Collective, 2007)
The term ‘future’ is very familiar in everyday language as meaning ‘a time yet to come’ but used in everyday language it denotes ‘a better tomorrow’ for most people, unless someone qualifies a different notion like, dark-future, bleak future or dull future. However, in the module it seems to account for the fact that the module was not based on a theory or philosophy, which merely gave us an accurate picture of the problems of the world at present, which itself, would have been supplementary to life. It was based on a philosophy that challenged the form and structure of our thinking and encouraged action towards a desired world. That is giving us a chance to live the dream while looking at the options and tactics of ‘doing’ the change. In essence, an Autonomous Future has been a platform for providing a narrative of where we are and where we ought to be or where we could be.

Conceptualising ‘Doing it without leaders’

In ‘folk’ language one of a leader’s characteristic is that they should be the kind of person who is able to get people to do things they would otherwise not do. This, generalisation is itself pregnant with meaning and shows that leaders are primarily dominating and controlling in their nature and that if they do not do that, they are not regarded as leaders. The practise of social relations as embodied in hierarchy and its leadership is thus regarded as given by nature. However, it is not the historical circumstance in which we now live, nor the laws of nature (for economic laws are an arbitrary human creation), nor lack of sociological imagination that limits the effort of creating a non-hierarchical utopia, it is the reluctance to abandon our culturally learned and deeply cherished joy of forcing other human beings to accept pretended superiority (Maturana, 1974). The importance of leadership in fact is that it sustains control and allows a selected few dominance over the lives of the rest and the majority, who are lead, have no control and cannot decide the type of society they want to live in.

The Trapese Collective (2007) thus argues that the concept of leadership takes away the people’s control of their lives. They further contend that it is because people are readily willing to give away their power that others are always ready to take it and use it. Thus the idea of people getting to take charge of their lives, doing what they have to do and how they want to do it is seen as central to giving people control and the meaning of their lives. This ideal is seen as important as it recognises that every individual person is different and has different aspirations and fears. Thus if people take control of their lives, then the question of diversity are addressed positively, as people pursue their best interests within well understood and responsive and different structures.

The practise of leaderless organisation is seen thus seen as possible under conditions of self -governance, decentralisation of decision making processes, the practise of unanimous decision making, and solidarity (The Trapese Collective, 2007). These concepts are very powerful in their own right however collectively their basic tenets are the rejection essentialism, celebration of difference, rejection of metanarratives, insistence that the world is not something separated from people but that we socially construct it every day, the rejection of any claims of truth or value. (Dempsey. J and Rowe. J. K, 2004) Put in simple language this means that we make the world we live in, that decisions are made by those affected by them that services are provided by those who consume them, that even conflicts are dealt with in a collaborative and inclusive manner and putting trust in the people to manage their own affairs.

The tensions and challenges of leaderlessness

However in practice there are challenges to the notions presented here so far. Although such challenges are not central to this paper it will be essential to mention them. The notion of leaderless organisation, is sometimes misconstrued to mean the absence of any form of organisation and that it is often confuses with structures of power. Mutarana (1974) views these as different in that the organization of a system defines it as a unity for any space, while its structure constitutes it as a concrete entity in the space of its components.

With the above  background then it becomes possible that the structure of the world can be changed without necessarily changing its organisation so as to allow the people of the world, who have become unwittingly part of the body politic that reinforces the capitalist world not to be fearful of change. (Adamovsky, 2006). Thus Adamovsky argues that any movement that does not create a non-hierarchical organisation to protect the principles of plurality and foster participation soon becomes ripe for those willing to subvert spaces in which power is ‘out there’ and waiting to be imposed or captured (Foucault, 1980). Adamovsky further contends that doing-it-without-leaders in fact needs organisation more than does structuralism.

Another most common challenge to doing-it-without-leaders is that the concept is not possible. Yet recent history and throughout human history people have been organised in these ways very often, for example, in Argentina, December 2001 autonomous formations led to social transformation while organised as they did in many other places including Seattle in 1999 (Gordon. N, and Chatterton. P, 2004; The Trapese Collective, 2007 and Katsiaficas. G, 2006). In the case of Argentina traditional hierarchies, thus leaders were abolished. In Seattle the organised and well managed police were outdone by leaderless movements. Regardless of these success stories Adamovsky warns that the reason why the victories of the movements seem to be fewer than those of capitalism despite autonomous initiatives occupied a better grounds on morality is because the strategy has failed to show how its successes can reflect on the social change and be able to close the vacuum that world be left by capitalism in the event of its ouster.

Case Studies 1: Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD)

The case study demonstrates how organising structurally and based on leadership presents movements with limits as to what they are allowed by the system to do. It then shows how a change towards leaderless non-hierarchical organisations saved the MTD from collapse. MTD started off as a hierarchically organised organisation and a change of strategy changed its fortunes.

The start of the MTD, in 1997, was a reaction to the suffering brought on the unemployed people by the structures of the ruling political party in Argentina. In the distribution of benefits members of the Juan Peron (JP) exploited the power that lay unexploited within the distribution process. They started to charge people in order to give them their unemployment benefit. This forced the people in the local area to organise and struggle against unemployment. Just like most organisations, in this political dominated world the MTD formed itself in line with the normal practises. They operated a vertical structure in which there was a Secretary General. The MSD was housed by the local church at the time. It was to later depend on the unemployed benefits after the church had evicted them for doing carrying out road blockades in solidarity with another network.

However, a few experiences led to changes in strategy and approach as well. One of the first few lessons that the MTD experienced was that when the authorities became unhappy with what they were doing the local Priest was transferred. The second one was the experience of being violently removed from a church they had occupied after they had been asked to leave it and the third one was the threat to withdraw benefits by government once what they we doing was not good for the politicians. It is clear that any structure that was hierarchically above the MTD used whatever power it had to control and manipulate the activities within the MTD.

In 1998 the MTD noticed that its hierarchical organisation limited their influence and more often than not, threatened the organisation’s existence. By 2001 the MTD abandoned structure and embraced the ideas of autonomy, horizontality and direct democracy. The MTD also decided that they would terminate their dependence on benefits by using their unemployment benefits to embark on income generating activities. By 2004 the MTD was running a number of bakeries and community gardens which produced healthy food for the community. These initiatives removed the dependence of the MTD on any external individual or organisations for its own existence and for the existence of its members. It also gave the neighbourhoods control over the type of food they ate, as food was eventually produced locally by community gardens.

On the other hand MTD abolished the post of Secretary General and the movement was allowed to have many autonomous areas of existence. The movement also existed in 8 geographic areas which are autonomous and had their own organisation. Each of these had assemblies in which the activities of the movement are discussed. The movement is organised on the bases of identified areas, these include health, administration, press, relations with other organisations and finance. By organising its own income generating activities the MTD was able to create jobs for its own members and free itself and its members from dependence on the capitalist system for jobs. Thus most of the work that the movement did was geared towards disconnecting the members’ lives from the indignity of having to depend on the formal economy for jobs and existence. The movement worked on making sure that there is always work for everyone and making sure that those the work that was being done by local people was work that was relevant to the needs of the local communities.

The MTD thus organised itself within the concept of autonomous futures. Decisions in the movement were organised on the bases of consensus and the participation of members was encouraged. Members had to attend assembly meetings every week and anyone who did not attend to the group’s activities for three days would need to reapply in order to become a member of the movement again. Participation in direct actions such as demonstrations was mandatory for all its members. Thus members of the group accepted that their collective interests were best addressed by these collective actions. As part of the culture of working together the MTD had its members sharing responsibility in areas such caring for each others’ kids, making bread and they also ate together.

In organising its demonstrations the movement also encouraged all its members to participate. The absence of a particular structure within the organisation is very important in the MTD because it confused the police who are used to structural organisations and yet allowed groups of people to participate in demonstrations by making the contributions that they are best good at. The structural forces of oppression are thus unable to stop the movement, which in essence cannot be found in one particular place and as embodied in one particular individual. Already, these methods of organisations have provided an effective way of organising direct actions such as were the experiences of the autonomous movements in Seattle 1999. Organising autonomously made the organisation invisible oppressive capitalist world yet its actions were devastating to the status quo.

As has been noticed above one will notice that the MTD benefited from organising itself in line with the autonomous and leaderless approach. Some on the major benefits were that, its organisation encouraged people to participate; work was done for everyone and between everyone. The members do not have to lose their freedom and their dignity to make a living. The movement allows its members to construct, to create, to promise and respect every day.

Case study 2: The Zimbabwe National Students’ Union (ZINASU)

ZINASU’s experiences are in sharp to those of MTD showing an organisation that was organised autonomous, notwithstanding that autonomy levels always differ, and how it lost ability and influence over the system once it ‘professionalised’ that it structuralised. It is apparent that it rhetoric flourished but its influence on the system reduced drastically. Zinasu was formed in 1986 at the height of Zimbabwe’s relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The majority of the people involved in its formation were students who had just returned from exchanges with Cuba. However on returning they were commitment to challenging the government’s claim of being leftist.

‘An anti-corruption demonstration took place in September 1988 at the UZ ... Students issued an anti-corruption document’ detailing 10 cases of corruption within government circles.’ Zeileg. L 2008: 218)

In 1988 students started challenging the government and claimed their autonomy from the structures of power ever since then. They organised Zinasu in the form of a loose coalition of University Students’ Union. They organised themselves under the slogan ‘Struggle is Our Birthright!” and ‘An Injury to One is an Injury to All’. Member unions were obliged to join any demonstrations that were called by other union. Solidarity was at the centre of the union and each union would send a representative to the National meetings which took place once every month. The local Student Representative Council would send in a representative of their choice to every meeting and funding for the activities was contributed by the member unions. At this stage Zinasu was decidedly autonomous and it only elected people who were to represent their positions to government and yet these people could be recalled anytime.

In 1998 Zinasu successfully encouraged the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union to form political opposition and also joined the resultant political party.

‘There was a deliberate effort on the part of students to forge an alliance with the workers’ movement. So in my own humble judgements I’d say that the MDC was born out of the political efforts of the students at that time. I remember students encouraging ZCTU to take political action against the Government.’ (Jethro Mpofu in Zeileg. L ,2008)

After this period Zinasu lost its autonomy as donor funding became easily available, taking away control from local unions. By 2004 Zinasu started employing a fulltime chief executive and many other people. As a result of loss of its member’s full participation Zinasu lost its ability to make change and its influence within the new political party the MDC, reducing it into a ‘professional’ organisation that has no influence on the society. As the former student unionist lamented;

‘All those former Students Union leaders who were then in ZINASU went over the country with ZCTU leaders setting up structures, and when the MDC did not have youth wings it was the students who became MDC Youth Wings. The first toyi-toying to be made, it was the students who toyi-toyied and raised the banners, it was the students who went into the high density suburbs to help setting up the structures. In my view it is almost impossible for any history of the MDC to forget the inputs made by the students’ (Tinashe Chimedza, in Zeileg. L, 2008)

In a nutshell Zinasu lost its members because they lost autonomy and they embraced a grand idea which was in sharp contrast with the ideas of autonomy that had been defended for a long time. The formation of the MDC was therefore not the problem but it was the subordination of Zinasu and its affiliates to this process that the students must lament.

Conclusion

This paper has argued and shown that the ideas of ‘Doing-it-Without-Leaders’ has been tried and tested by a number of organisations and movements. It has become clear that instead of being a highly impossible theory, people who have organised themselves in this manner have been very successful in their endeavours. This essay also shows that although there are challenges to the ideas of autonomy, it does open up possibilities and ensures success as people exercise their free will to make change. It opens up spaces that are often closed by leaders. It opens up possibilities that are often unimaginable (Douthwaite, 1996).
On the other hand it has been argued that there is no one solution to the problems of the world and that autonomy itself is not the grand solution to all the problems of the world but that it has an important role in terms of allowing people to find common spaces for action. It creates bases for challenging dominant views of the world and thus allows the ‘other’ to be part of the whole.








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