Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 113
After chiding him for grandiose phraseology, dead
giveaway of bourgeois thinking, Jerry narrated his own
background. He, like Leo, had emigrated from Ireland as
a child. Exemplifying Leo's aspirations, Jerry had not done
a lick of work in twenty-seven years. He attributed this
fact to a life-changing experience at Haymarket Square on
the day of the famous explosion, catalyzed as it was by a
struggle over work conditions. Since that day, Jerry said,
"I vowed to myself that I'd never help the capitalist system
with the slightest exertion of a single muscle." He lived off
charity, simultaneously despising other people for their
pity, and himself for taking it. But he embraced the indignity,
because for a true anarchist there could be "no pride
nor humility, no matter what happens."
Mukerji asked whether Jerry still believed in a better
future for humanity ifhe despised humankind. Jerry answered:
"I despise the common herd, but I cannot despise
the individual man. Whenever he stoops to pity I think of
the common herd, but whenever he flays me with his insolence
I think of the individual man." Mukerji was delighted,
but Jerry rebuffed him.
First, he did not think Mukerji would be able to face
jail and beatings, or handle the hard life of beggary, here
criminalized rather than venerated as in India. Second,
what did the traveler need anarchism for? "Why don't you
go back to India?" challenged Jerry. "Your ancestors found
the truths you are seeking thousands of years ago ; Buddha
was the greatest of all anarchists."
Mukerji asked if Jerry had ever visited his homeland.
"No:' Jerry admitted, "but one can fathom India. I can fe el