Anarchist football soccer manual

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Kropotkin, published by Shrinking Publications and Distribution. Poland Capitalism and Class Struggle, I. Social Control presents Remarks on the Dole by Rt. The motive was thinly veiled snobbery: British football officials saw their teams above all other football-playing nations. When club football became popular in the late 19 th century, however, women soon formed their own teams.

This allowed football to develop its staunchly male character, also on the terraces. The only notable football nation that kept a longer ban was Paraguay, where women were prohibited from organized football until Soccer had reached South America almost as early as Continental Europe.

Argentina had its own Football Association by , Chile two years later, and Uruguay by The sociocultural development of football in South America was similar to the one in Europe. The first clubs were mostly founded by expatriates, but the sport was fast embraced by the working classes. In the early 20 th century, there were probably more clubs founded by workers themselves than in Europe. However, as Maurice Biriotti del Burgo explains, those in power soon tried to take control:.

At times this took the form of patronage, with an established club funding an affiliated local team. In these early relationships formed between the elite and the masses in football, can be seen the origins of one of the most compelling arguments in the analysis of football in Latin America: that football serves as an opiate of the masses, an instrument of mass control, a social adhesive binding the most volatile and precarious of ethnic and political mixes.

May God punish England! Not for nationalistic reasons, but because the English people invented football! Football is a counterrevolutionary phenomenon. Proletarians between the age of eighteen and twenty-five, i. No matter how much effort you put into advertising political meetings, no one attends. Meanwhile, thousands, even tens of thousands, of proletarians gather around big city football fields every Sunday.

As if the answer to the social question, as if life and happiness depended on whether it flies to the left or to the right. It is like a disease, like a fever. The situation is bizarre.

Would it not be a natural and pleasant change if Sunday were used for training their neglected brain muscles? But no—they want to do anything but think! The one who laughs behind the scenes is the capitalist. He knows that he will only be in danger once the workers start to ponder. This is why he keeps them from pondering by all means possible.

The bourgeois press, usually eager to save space, fills page after page with football news. In the illustrated supplement, the whole team can even find their picture! However, many socialists soon realized that football was becoming an integral part of working-class culture and they reacted. In the s, a number of socialist football clubs were founded. The idea was to place the game in a sound ideological environment, but also to use it to strengthen socialist and collective values.

These developments were particularly strong in Argentina. In the first two decades of the century—in the course of not even a generation—football, like the children of European immigrants, became part of daily life in Argentina. In each neighborhood, one or two clubs were founded. The anarchists and socialists were alarmed. Instead of attending political meetings and gatherings, the workers went to dance tango on Saturday and to watch football on Sunday.

There was also El Porvenir, indicating the utopian vision of its founders. Given the enthusiasm of the people, the old ideologues had to revise their perspective: they now welcomed football as a communitarian game that helped unite people—but they were still opposed to football as a spectacle that mesmerized the masses.

Football kept on growing. Stands were erected around the fields to provide more space for spectators. The organization of the game became increasingly complicated. Political and economic interests played a big part, the competition increased, referees were suspected of accepting bribes—football was no longer a mere game, it had become a business. Players who had always been amateurs were suddenly lured to clubs for money, the best of them ending up at the clubs that were financially strongest.

These were not the only borders created by football—there were more. In , the great era of Boca Juniors began. The club won its first title and had fans that constituted a twelfth player. Its humble founders crossed many barren fields until they made their home behind a coal bunker on the island of Demarchi.

When they were kicked out, they found a temporary refuge in the Wilde neighborhood. Eventually, they moved back to Boca, and in they ended up at Brandsen y Del Crucero, where La Bombonera , their stadium, was built and where they remain to this day.

The names of some of the players in the blue-and-golden shirts have become legendary: Tesorieri, Calomino, Canaveri, and Garassino, who played all eleven positions. Spectators no longer came to just watch their teams—they came to watch their idols. Calomino was always oblivious to the stands. He stood on the field, waited for the ball, and then made defenders dizzy with his incredible dribbles. He was a circus artist, an aerial acrobat, a juggler. In , the big question was which goalkeeper would represent Argentina at the South American Championship, held in Buenos Aires.

The choice was Tesorieri, and he justified his selection in an impressive manner: he did not concede a single goal! The final was the one that had to be expected: Argentina vs. The crowd of 25, was ecstatic; they had come to celebrate football as the festival of the people. There were no fences and it was easy to invade the pitch after the final whistle. So there they went with the triumphant gladiator they were ready to baptize Cesar. Their logo is a little globe—it is the globe of Jorge Newbery, the famous pilot, who never came back from his last journey.

Maybe the founders lacked knowledge in spelling, but not in football. In and in , they were champions of the Association League. Later, Stabile would be one of the first to practice what had become a new profession: that of the football manager.

This was in When they returned to America, the Argentineans challenged them and beat them 2—1 with Onzari scoring directly from a corner kick. Only a few months earlier, the International Football Association Board had decided at a meeting in England that direct goals from corner kicks would count.

In , another club rose to fame. It came from Avellaneda and was called Independiente. The libertarian name implied rebellion. Their name and the red color of their shirts made them dangerous in the eyes of the authorities. The club was founded at a coffee table in the city center but soon moved to an affordable location in Avellaneda, very close to Racing Club.

This is when the rivalry with Racing and the identification with the proletarian neighborhood began. In , Independiente realized the dream of all football players and supporters: they became unbeaten champions.

Not a single game was lost, and the memory of the first official game they played in , a 1—22 defeat against Atlanta, was finally erased.

Gaucho singers even composed a song for the champions:. But the Diablos Rojos did not forget Boca. They played nineteen games, won fifteen, and lost only three. Even though the best of Argentinean football was traveling to Europe, the local fans had no reason to complain—especially not those of Racing, nicknamed La Academia , which had a pair of strikers delighting the crowds with both finesse and efficiency: Natalio Perinetti and Pedro Ochoa.

The doors stood wide open for the Olympics in Amsterdam in The Argentineans felt strong and had lost their inferiority complexes towards the Uruguayans. When the team returned from Lima by train, the masses gathered at the station in the Retiro district of the capital. Soon, new saints came marching in. Their colors were red and blue and their name was San Lorenzo de Almagro.

It should be added, though, that some less pious fans insist to this day that the name is a reference to the Battle of San Lorenzo, an important event in the Argentine War of Independence. It had been founded by aristocrats, fine gentlemen who wanted to practice manly sports. The gentlemen began to play football with the English sailors in the nearby port. But as the years went by, the high society players were replaced by workers, and the students in the stands mixed with migrants from the surrounding countryside.

The champion team included two players who were off to a magnificent career: the defender Evaristo Delovo and the striker Francisco Varallo. Football and cinema became the preferred forms of entertainment in Buenos Aires. Cinemas opened in every neighborhood, while the football clubs were looking for better grounds. The rich clubs grew increasingly unhappy with wooden stands and wanted to build with solid cement.

In , Independiente inaugurated the first proper stadium in the country; it could hold up to , people. But Argentineans did not only go to the cinema and to the stadium in the s. In , like all over the world, thousands gathered on the streets to protest the assassination of the workers Sacco and Vanzetti, condemned to the electric chair by the North American justice system.

Osvaldo Bayer is an Argentinean historian, writer, and activist. The German-speaking world saw an interesting development in football in the s and early s, when workers-only clubs were founded. This was a unique endeavor in football history. The Nazis also eradicated the strong Jewish influence on European soccer. Walther Bensemann was not only involved in the foundation of Eintracht Frankfurt and Karlsruher SC but also founded Kicker , the most popular German soccer journal to date.

In Austria and Hungary, the Jewish influence on soccer was particularly strong. Hakoah was also the first team to beat an English side in England when they routed West Ham United 5—1 in In , Hakoah embarked on a very successful tour of the United States, playing in front of record-breaking crowds. Against common perception, soccer was a fairly well-established sport in the United States at the time.

Prominent schools like Harvard and Princeton had started to organize intramural football competitions in the s. The Oneida club, formed in Boston in , became the first soccer club outside of England. Yale and Princeton followed suit, and in , Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, from which American football gradually emerged as a distinct game. The fact that the U. The game reached the Midwest in the s and the West Coast by the end of the century.

In , immigrants from Britain formed the American Football Association, the United States and Canada played their first international in 1—0 Canada , and in , a demonstration soccer tournament was played at the Olympics in St. The Challenge Cup, today known as the U. The significance of the United States for the development of soccer is not least confirmed by U. By the s, several leagues had been formed across the continent. Of particular interest from a left-wing perspective was the involvement of Nicolaas Steelink in the California Soccer League.

Steelink, a Dutch immigrant and successful youth player in the Netherlands, became an IWW activist in the United States and was imprisoned for two years in the early s. After his release, he was an influential figure in U. Soccer Hall of Fame. Steelink was born Oct. He came to the United States from his native Holland in and settled in Seattle. In , he moved to Los Angeles and, concerned about the poor working conditions that prevailed at the time, joined the Industrial Workers of the World.

Because of his political views and intense involvement in the IWW, he was arrested for syndicalism—an effort to put trade unions in control of production and distribution at manufacturing plants. At age 30, he was sentenced to two years in San Quentin Prison in California.

As he became older, Mr. Steelink became less active politically and more active physically in his first love, soccer, according to Leslie Forster, a chemistry professor at the University of Arizona and a friend of Mr.

When he was young, Mr. After moving to California he organized the California Soccer League in , an organization composed of hundreds of teams and thousands of members today. Steelink was inducted into the U.

Steelink retired from his profession of accounting in and moved to Tucson in Steelink also liked to exercise his mind. He spent some of his spare time translating literary works from his native Dutch to English.

He was the only person to do a complete translation of the published works of Dutch philosopher Eduard Douwes Dekker, which he donated to the University of Arizona Library in He is survived by his son, Cornelius, a chemistry professor at UA, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

The s are considered the Golden Era of North American soccer. The American Soccer League, founded in , was financially strong and attracted a number of European players. In , the U.

However, the tournament marked the end of U. Hit hard by the depression of the s, the game was soon surpassed in popularity by both baseball and American football. Fierce battles between competing soccer associations and failed attempts at various professional leagues contributed to further demise. The stunning 1—0 victory over England at the World Cup in Brazil was an exceptional event during a decades-long drought.

This at least kept it alive on the college level. Hitler outlawed all socialist and Jewish clubs. However, football soon recovered and regained popularity around the world.

It has always been the most influential association within FIFA and has turned into a powerful organization in its own right. Football had reached most Asian countries through European colonizers and traders. In many parts of the continent, the game developed into the most popular team sport, although in certain regions there has been stiff competition by cricket South Asia and baseball East Asia.

Today, several professional leagues have been established, most notably in Japan and in China. Overall, however, the European leagues, in particular the English Premier League remain far more popular. The Japanese J. League was originally modeled after professional sports leagues in the United States and controlled by big business, although some structural changes have been made in recent years.

Nonetheless, it still attracts many European and Latin American star players beyond their peak who end their careers there with generous salaries. The Chinese Super League, founded in , has been marred by scandals, financial difficulties, and allegations of match-fixing, but is still expanding. The earliest teams in the Middle East were founded by European expatriates, but clubs were soon organized by nationals.

The Gulf States spend a lot of money on their national sides and Saudi Arabia emerged as a strong international contender in the s. Hapoel teams have traditional connections to the trade union movement and the Labor Party—the most prominent today is Hapoel Tel Aviv. Maccabi teams used to represent the mainstream Zionist movement—Maccabi Haifa is one of the best-known.

It has sometimes been hailed as the first pan-African organization, although such claims seem disputable: there were only four founding members Ethiopia, the Sudan, Egypt, and South Africa , the Pan-African Congress by W. Du Bois was already organized in , and Marcus Garvey founded several organizations with a pan-African outlook. Some of the earliest clubs founded on the continent by Africans, like the Egyptian side Al-Ahly in , played an important role for African pride and self-esteem.

A particular situation emerged in South Africa, where soccer became the most popular sport for the Black community, while Whites preferred cricket and rugby. Most of the leading teams in South Africa today, like the Orlando Pirates or the Kaizer Chiefs, have their roots in the townships of a segregated country.

Given the lack of money and infrastructure for local leagues, African soccer has become closely tied to the European game. Ever since regulations on foreign players on European club teams were abandoned in the mids, there has been an exodus of African football talent to Europe.

Mind you, this economic inequity is not only apparent in the case of African teams. The transfer of African players to Europe has become a lucrative business, haunted by exploitation and fraud. The many football agents are divided into sincere folks and crooks.

Thousands of African football hopefuls are left penniless in Africa or stranded in Europe every year. The boys turned out to be members of an amateur football club from Abidjan in Ivory Coast. They had been promised contracts with European football clubs and had therefore agreed to travel with the club president and a manager to Europe via Mali. The parents of the boys had each paid about euro to the player agent for the journey.

Once in Sikasso, they joined a smaller group of boys already held in the villa. The press briefing of IOM concerning this story further revealed that the boys were smuggled into Mali in late December and experienced rough living conditions. They were all aged between 16 and 18 years and coming from Yopougon, a municipality in the outskirts of Abidjan.

Organizations have sprung up to try to counteract the exploitation of African players by agents and clubs. Given the global economic imbalance, the desire of Africans to play in Europe is more than understandable. At the same time, it contributes to the structural problems that many African football nations have to struggle with, namely a lack of resources and of local infrastructure. With players dispersed far and wide, with poor local facilities, and with frequent changes of managing staff, it is hard to plan far ahead.

You are a sociologist and you have spent a lot of time in Africa. What motivated you to write a book about Africa and football? Thirteen years ago I traveled to Africa for the first time. Since then, I have visited over twenty African countries. During my travels, I encountered football in all sorts of contexts. Football is a subject that allows you to connect with Africans very quickly, especially men, but also women.

Despite the different experiences and possibilities, especially financially, we can discuss football as equals. It is also a subject that touches on many issues that take the conversation way beyond football itself. When I moved to West Africa in to work there for two years, I began collecting information on African football more systematically. It became increasingly clear to me that football was a very useful vehicle to study and to present African societies.

I first turned the material I gathered into a course at the University of Zurich. I thought it was a good introduction to Africa for students who did not know much about the continent.

Later, I decided to write a book. In general, the political aspects of football in Africa are much more obvious than, say, in Switzerland. To begin with, this is certainly connected to the personal character of political power in vast parts of Africa, meaning that power is tied to particular individuals rather than to particular posts or functions. Instrumentalizing football and football players belongs to these strategies.

Important games are attended by huge delegations of politicians, trophies are presented by state presidents, and successful national teams are brought home by charter planes, are personally received by the president, and generously rewarded with gifts.

All these are examples for symbolic politics in which ritual is more important than content. Politicians also tend to disregard divisions of powers.

They put pressure on national football associations and national team managers. Whether FIFA likes it or not: the national football associations in Africa are hardly independent from the state. Political power struggles are also the cause for the frequent changes of national team managers. New managers are often hired shortly before big tournaments with the demand to deliver good results—not in the future, but right now! Under such circumstances, long-term development becomes very difficult.

In authoritarian states, the political influence is particularly pronounced: the authoritarian governments attempt to steer the activities of civil society by controlling the media, trade unions, and other organizations.

Authoritarian rulers often attempt to control and to instrumentalize football, for example by presenting the success of a team as their personal success. Many people are quite aware of this. However, football stadiums can also be sites for expressing dissatisfaction with authoritarian regimes.

A defeat in football can also become a defeat for an authoritarian ruler. The football stadiums of Africa—like those of other continents—are locations of power as much as locations of opposition or counterpower.

Football is a medium to execute power and to resist power. Furthermore, while the population was distracted by the football tournament, the Angolan parliament abolished popular vote for the presidency, effectively paving the way for Santos to remain in power until —by then, he will have ruled Angola for forty-three years. I would say that hardly any individuals or parties in sub-Saharan Africa could even be placed on the political left-right continuum.

Is there even a noteworthy organized left in Africa? Parties represent regions or individuals rather than clear political programs. This is also true for clubs that derived from workplace teams, from railway workers, from civil servants, from customs officers, or from security forces like the army or the police.

There were socialist African states in which football played an important role. At the time, important football games were prioritized over all else, players were appointed to specific teams, and contacts abroad were prohibited. Schools and factories were closed to enable people to go support certain teams. In both countries, people still recall the football successes of the s. Right-wing and left-wing dictatorships instrumentalized football in similar ways.

They were sponsored by football-passionate men, successful women entrepreneurs, and the wives of known politicians. In the beginning, the national football associations did not show much assistance. Unsurprisingly, though, much less money is involved in these transfers than in those of male players. On a global scale, Nigeria reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup in and of the Olympic Games in At the same time there are—just like in Europe—few female managers.

Women in football are confronted with many stereotypes. They always have to work twice as hard as the men, and their achievements are often belittled. In the administrative bodies, women are highly underrepresented too. Liberia even makes a bigger exception: for some time, the most important posts in football were held by women when Jamesetta Howard was the Minister of Sports and Izetta Wesley the President of the Football Association. In other African countries, we find few women in leading positions.

FIFA also sets a negative example: no women hold important positions there either. Critics often point out that African states almost exclusively sponsor men in sports generally.

In various countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, netball is a very popular sport among women, but receives little official support. Of course this is a phenomenon not exclusive to Africa. A topic that, in recent years, has been raised repeatedly in connection with football in Africa are the bad conditions under which many African footballers play in Europe, and the sometimes deceitful methods with which they are recruited.

I find the comparison to the slave trade rather problematic. There are no Africans leading groups of young footballers at gunpoint to ports where representatives of Manchester United and Chelsea haggle over the best deals.

The migration itself can take on different forms. Some players come to Europe on their own, sometimes illegally, using money that their family raised for them to make the journey.

These players use regular migration routes. Others are brought to Europe—and, increasingly, to Asia—by both European and African agents for test matches, sometimes under false promises. Quite often a lot of money is involved. Some agents are former players, some are managers, and some are mere businessmen. Only very few of those who play in test matches end up with contracts. Players who do not succeed are often abandoned by their agents and left to fend for themselves.

Many of them do not dare to return home as losers, and stay illegally. There are probably several thousand failed football migrants in Europe. Those who do find clubs often become dependent on them and accept very poor salaries in lower leagues. There are reports from many European countries that indicate that African players are underpaid. Many of these players are very young—and the average age continues to drop.

Overall, there is an increasing number of African players on European teams, especially in France, Belgium, Portugal, and Germany. They play both in professional and amateur leagues. In particular, those who play for little pay in amateur leagues are dependent on their clubs. They have hardly any social security. At the same time, their salary is usually still above what they could earn in their home countries.

There are few alternatives for them in Africa. Common forms of social mobility, defined by education and integration in the economic system, have long stopped working in Africa due to economic and political crises. Formal education is by no means a guarantee for social success—yet it has become mandatory to even have a chance.

These differ largely: some are very serious and have had great success; some are treacherous and only pull money out of the pockets of desperate people. Since the end of the s, football academies in Africa have literally exploded.

They are usually founded by current or former African players, by European or African clubs, or by European or African businessmen. For European clubs, they allow a cheaper and more goal-oriented education of promising African talents. The children who are recruited become younger and younger. In most African countries, there is no organized youth football for players of different age and skill groups.

Most football associations focus almost exclusively on the national team and leave the development of young players to private initiatives and businesses like the academies. The poor infrastructure and the insufficient organization of African football are further factors that push players abroad. The political and economic difficulties add to this.

Migration is therefore something that many African players aspire to, even when they are fully aware of the implied difficulties. I think that curbing football migration is neither realistic nor desirable for the players. It is also problematic to impose restrictions on agents because they usually find ways to bypass them and African agents would suffer first. What seems crucial is to take the wider picture into account: the exploitation and the dependency of African players often relates to immigration laws, especially when residency permits are tied to work contracts.

This is where things have to change. It would also be an important move to establish football academies that provide decent general education as well. But even that would remain on the level of fighting symptoms. Any long-term solution can only come from improving the living conditions in Africa and from making African leagues more attractive to local players. Do you think that football can have a positive influence on the social development of African countries?

I am very skeptical when it comes to presenting football per se as some kind of a social savior. Football can unite and it can divide; it can create and it can destroy. Its role depends on the interests and values of those who use it. Of course it is also true that changes on a micro-level often clash with structural problems like weak institutions, corruption, and nepotism.

Football will continue to arouse passions in Africa, among players and spectators alike. Football can empower and help overcome challenges, but it can also be a means of escape that leaves social problems unaddressed. Again, football can be a means of domination and a means of resistance.

Given the small size of most Caribbean island nations, the international success of their football teams is limited. Both Australia and New Zealand have had national football associations since the late 19 th century. However, as in the United States, other sports came to define national identity, in this case rugby and cricket. At times, this has led to hostile confrontations between supporters. On January 1, , Australia left the Oceania Football Confederation to join the Asian Football Confederation, hoping for more regular high-level competition.

For most, soccer is not the first ball game that comes to mind when thinking of Australia. Cricket and rugby seem to occupy the hearts and minds.

Can you tell us a little about the status of soccer down under? First, there is much conjecture in Australia about what to name the sport: football or soccer. Football, or footy, is appropriated by Rugby League, Union and Australian Rules football, thus confusing the issue.

However, I will refer to the round-ball game as football. After all, it is the sport in which you use your foot the most, no? Certainly in Australia, football does not share the status of sports such as cricket, Rugby League and Australian Rules Football. I see this as a very troubling trend. Yet, the story and traditional status of football as a minnow in Australia is intricately entwined with ethnic diversity and the consequences of migration.

Consequently, football was seen as the sport of the non-Anglo migrant class and duly disrespected, mocked and vilified by the wider Anglo-community and racist capitalist media.

While remnants of this still continue, after WWII football witnessed an explosion of non-Anglo players, clubs and supporters as the Australian State gradually began to relax its White Australia Immigration Policy allowing Southern and Eastern Europeans to migrate from their war-ravaged homelands.

They brought their beloved sport with them, building clubs and community centres around football and their shared cultural backgrounds.

More recent migration from Southeast Asia and the Middle East continued this trend. Often oppressed by a discriminatory society that demanded English-speaking workers and as such paid pittance to those that had not yet learnt the dominant tongue, these alienated working-class migrants sought relief from a racist capitalist society through football.

In addition, these new communities became acutely aware of racist attitudes towards the Indigenous population. Charlie Perkins, former Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the second Indigenous Australian to graduate from University, insisted that the Greek and Croatian soccer clubs in Adelaide were the first Australians to recognise him as a person to be treated equally.

In fairness, diasporic nationalism and its ugly manifestation of ethnic rivalry played into the hands of the Anglo-dominated media. Crowd violence between Greek and Macedonian teams and Serbian and Croatian, to name but a few, stoked the fire of intolerance towards these new migrants. Whilst these events could be counted on two hands, mainstream capitalist media ate it all up. With little to no television coverage of matches, the only highlights we saw were those of tensions between crowds.

With this background, I suggest that the current commercialisation of the game and the attempts to de-ethnicize the game are a blessing and a curse.

With the advent of a new highly professional league replacing the old national league, for both men and womyn, nationalist-driven crowd violence has ceased and this can only be a great thing.

Crowd numbers have risen on the whole and media exposure is increasing which encourages more individuals to take up the sport or sport in general , thus contributing to the physical and mental health of society. As with everywhere though, there is a stark gendered distinction between salaries for professionals.

Notwithstanding, at least there is a senior league to which womyn can aspire to play in, as well as some media coverage. Yet concurrently, corporate interests have bleached the game of its ethnic history, instead regionally delineating between teams. While any reduction in racially motivated violence is to be applauded, at the same time the migrant history—their struggles in the face of abject racism spurned by a complicit state—are forgotten. In a way this reverse multiculturalism is a troubling trend.

It seems a history of racism is whitewashed. For migrants, children of migrants and grandchildren of migrants, ethnicity is not so easily dismissed. When the Italian national team is victorious internationally for example, the Italian diasporas hit the streets of Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide celebrating the successes. The same can be said of the Greek, Croatian, and Serbian diasporas to name but a few.

Perhaps controversially, I would suggest this is what makes the sport attractive to some activists. Without wishing to generalise too much, based on my own observations I see the same supporters equally as excited when Australia are successful.

This may seem to be imbued with notions of national pride and identity, but at the same time, it is a wavering and transient national pride shared between locations, suggesting an erosion of sharp nationalist distinctions. Another attraction for some activists to football in Australia is that unlike the more aggressive and physically violent sports of rugby and Australian Rules Football, football tends to be less about brute physical force, instead encouraging a more enjoyable and less violent experience.

Kita tak dapat memahami anarki melalui televisi, koran, majalah atau berbagai media mainstream lainnya. Tapi seiring berkembangnya teknologi, kita dapat dengan mudah memahami anarki lewat internet dan gadget. Terdapat ratusan situs dalam dan luar yang dikelola secara kolektif oleh para anarkis, salah satunya adalah anarkis. Para anarkis di Bandung yang melakukan protes pada 1 Mei lalu, protes yang diwarnai berbagai kerusuhan itu dilakukan bukan hanya untuk memperingati MayDay sebagai hari libur.

Protes tersebut juga tidak hanya melibatkan para buruh dan mahasiswa, pelajar sekolah menengah hingga suporter sepak bola juga bergabung dalam barisan hitam dengan semangat yang sama. Selain itu, sekarang juga semakin banyak cetakan-cetakan buku karya para pemikir anarkis yang di ubah ke dalam bentuk e-book atau kita yang dapat membacanya langsung secara online dalam situs tersebut. Kita dapat menemukannya dalam theanarchistlibrary. Kali ini aku hanya akan menjelaskan anarki dan sepak bola secara sederhana, mungkin sedikit singkat.

Karena selebihnya, cobalah percaya kepada diri masing-masing untuk mencari tahu lebih jauh sendiri. Anarki Adalah Kekerasan? Seringkali kita mendapati kebusukan makna anarki yang terus di budayakan oleh negara, media dan masyarakat kita ini, sebagian besar dari kita masih percaya kepada anggapan kuno yang menempatkan kekerasan sebagai tindakan anarkis.

Maksudku, serius? Tak henti aku tertawa di buatnya. Kekeliruan yang selama ini mereka percaya tentang istilah anarkis adalah apa yang di inginkan negara, negara yang selalu ingin membodohi. Sederhananya, agar di pusat dan daerah tak ada demonstrasi, maka pada setiap aksi massa yang khususnya berbuntut ketegangan antara aparat dan para demonstran — yang kemudian ketegangan tersebut berbuntut pengrusakan barang maupun kekerasan terhadap aparat — akhirnya peristiwa kerusuhan tersebut akan mudah diberi label anarkis, meski aksi massa yang berakhir dengan kerusuhan itu dilakukan dengan cara-cara reformis yang sama sekali tidak ada kaitannya dengan anarkis.

Anggapan yang keliru mengenai istilah anarkis ini juga mengakar dalam sepak bola. Tidak, aku sedang tidak bicara mengenai ST. Pauli atau pun Kronstadt FC, melainkan sepak bola Indonesia. Selain mencakup ribuan buku dan artikel hasil karya para pemikir anarkis di era terdahulu seperti Kropotkin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Berkman hingga Goldman — ada yang menarik yang dapat kita jumpai di CIRA , yaitu sebuah pamflet Anarchist Football Soccer Manual yang diinisiasi oleh Gabriel Kuhn yang merupakan mantan pemain sepak bola asal Austria.

Kuhn juga pernah menulis sebuah buku yang ia beri judul Soccer vs. Piala Dunia adalah awal yang baik bagi kemunculan pamflet AFM.