Nadene Goldfoot
What is anarchy? One definition is the absence of government. It is a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority. Yes, Portland, Oregon fits several times over to this category. We never want anarchy, and we never want a one man leader like an Emperor or Tzar with all the power. We want strong leadership with everyone doing their duty to run a smooth ship so we can have smooth sailing, a captain with a skilled crew.
It declared that the colonists were loyal to the King of England, that they were Christians who served God, that they would make fair and just laws, and that they would work together for the good of the Colony. (It had been many years since any of them had lived in England. They were English-speakers living in Holland, one reason why they were leaving. They couldn't speak Dutch and that's what their children were speaking. That and the opportunity to live in a new land and make their own laws was compulsive. In a way, they felt they were the new Israelites going to their Promised Land.
The men also chose John Carver, Deacon, credited with writing the Mayflower Compact and was its first signer, as Plymouth Colony’s first governor. The women and “strangers” were not allowed to vote. Many on the Mayflower living in Holland were under the leadership of Pastor John Robinson who stayed in Holland with his flock, but his son, Isaac, boarded the ship, ANN, or Lion 10 years later of a fleet of ships, and came over. They were Puritans. The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible. John Robinson, (born c. 1575, Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire, Eng. —died March 1, 1625, Leiden, Neth.), English Puritan minister called the pastor of the
Speaking of that, how many realize that the Mayflower of 1620's passengers were pretty special people who drew up their own rules of conduct before disembarking from the ship? It was called the Mayflower Compact. They were on an old-fashioned space ship on unchartered water instead of the outer space above us, and they weren't sure what would happen when they landed. So they left with rules. They didn't want to become anarchists.
The English who had left England for Holland found that had been a bad idea as well, and many were dare-devilish enough to board the Mayflower. The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley's followers were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from the Levellers, and later became known as Diggers because of their attempts to farm on common land, which was not owned by individual people but by the group.
Their original name came from their belief in economic equality based upon a specific passage in the Acts of the Apostles. The Diggers tried (by "levelling" land) to reform the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small, egalitarian rural communities. They were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around this time.
| Flag | Society | From | Until | Duration | Location | Ideology | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Paris Commune | 18 March 1871 | 28 May 1871 | 71 days | Paris, France | Revolutionary socialism | [23] |
The Paris Commune (French: Commune de Paris, was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871, the French National Guard had defended Paris, and working-class radicalism grew among its soldiers. Following the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870 (under French chief executive Adolphe Thiers from February 1871) and the complete defeat of the French Army by the Germans by March 1871, soldiers of the National Guard seized control of the city on March 18. They killed two French army generals and refused to accept the authority of the Third Republic, instead attempting to establish an independent government.
| Dignity Village | 2000 (December) | 21 years, 70 days | Portland, United States | Anarchism | [16][17][18 |
| Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone | 8 June 2020 | 1 July 2020 | 23 days | Seattle, United States | Occupy protest |
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), was an occupation protest and self-declared autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The zone, originally covering six city blocks and Cal Anderson Park, was established on June 8, 2020, by George Floyd protesters after the Seattle Police Department (SPD) left its East Precinct building. The zone was cleared of occupants by police on July 1. Its formation was preceded by a week of tense interactions between protesters and police in riot gear which began on June 1 and escalated on June 7 after a man drove his vehicle into the crowd and shot a protester near 11th Avenue and Pine Street. Tear gas, flashbangs and pepper spray were used by police in the densely populated residential neighborhood,
The zone was a self-organized space, without official leadership. Protesters united behind three main demands:
- Cut Seattle's $409-million police budget by 50 percent.
- Shift funding to community programs and services in historically black communities.
- Ensure that protesters would not be charged with crimes.
Participants created a block-long "Black Lives Matter" mural, provided free film screenings in the street, and performed live music. A "No Cop Co-op" was formed, with food, hand sanitizer and other supplies. Areas were set up for free speech and to facilitate discourse, and a community vegetable garden was constructed.
Then there is Molenbeek: An Immigrant Community that Tries to Shake Its Jihadi Reputation. This is a community in Belgium taken over by the Muslim immigrants so dangerous now that the police have refused to enter. This is the small western district of Brussels known as Molenbeek. Even before the Paris attacks, Molenbeek had been called a decrepit slum, a police no-go zone run by Sharia law, and a breeding ground for terrorism. But residents argue many of its labels are largely outdated and are contributing to the systemic marginalization that’s plagued the district for decades. Though it suffers from a high unemployment rate –- the youth jobless rate is nearly 50 percent -- and has been targeted by organized crime in the past, the area hardly fits the description of decrepit slum. Along with some half-finished buildings, Molenbeek is also home to stylish coffee shops, art galleries, dance studios, youth centers, a vibrant weekly market, halal butchers and dazzling architecture.
This sounds like the conditions in East Jerusalem where the population has been mainly Arab. Jerusalem had been divided into East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem due to the many people trying to be overseer when Jerusalem should have been Israel's capital from the beginning on May 14, 1948, their 2nd birth, since King Saul had been the 1st king from 1030 to 1020 BCE, 3,000 years ago. There was the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947 which provided for the creation of an independent area out of Jerusalem under UN administration. Jerusalem appears in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) appears 154 times. David Ben-Gurion presented his party's assertion that "Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel" in December 1949, and Jordan annexed East Jerusalem the following year. These decisions were confirmed respectively in the Israeli Knesset in January 1950 and the Jordanian Parliament in April 1950.
Arab outbreaks which soon reached the dimensions of regular warfare between the Haganah(Jewish freedom fighters) and the Arabs but an end to the internationalization scheme as the Arabs had multiplied their attacks on the Jews, going from bands that attacked to the Arab Legion of Transjordan. Jews had been schemed out of the original Jewish National Homeland promised by the League of Nations and then the UN of about 90% of the promised land. You'd think that Jerusalem, the capital of Israel for over 1,000 years as cited in the Bible, would not have been considered to be Palestinian Arab land of today, but that's how much thought the UN put into it; zilch. It's that or they were still in the punishing mode of Jews, a religious practice.
East Jerusalem: When occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem, with expanded borders, came under direct Israeli rule, an effective de facto annexation. Until then, Jordan ruled it. The 67 War was won by Israel, changing that. Israel actually won land that Abdullah, prince of Saudi Arabia grabbed instead and held, taking it from the original plans, or so the Jews believed. It was England who allowed this to happen. The 30 year mandate of the British was just that, British soldiers occupying The Promised Jewish Homeland, with guns. They acted just like the Romans. Why were the Arabs there? Not many had lived there when Mark Twain visited in 1867. Some had been trying to farm, but were happy to sell to these strange Jews who called the land "holy." Most entered the land following a migration of eastern European Jews who fled there from pogroms happening in eastern Europe like Russia and Poland. They came for jobs working for these new immigrants.
In July 1980, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law as part of the country's Basic Law, which declared Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel.
So unlike the other anarchist neighborhoods running themselves aside from the city or country they were a part of, Jerusalem went from a divided city to a unified city once again as it had been in ancient days under the same mayor as all the other complex population in Jerusalem.
The whole country remembers when Jerusalem was destroyed, burned, by the Romans in 70 CE when the 2nd Temple of Solomon was also burned and destroyed. Jews have mourned that terrible day ever since the event happened and remember every year with Tishah B’Av: The Day of Remembrance and Mourning. The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem deprived the Jewish people of a homeland for two thousand years. Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, many Jews question whether mourning the destruction of the Temple is appropriate. Others feel, however, that there is value in remembering events in Jewish history that were filled with suffering and oppression so that we will be sensitive to the plight of others.
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Resource;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_significance_of_Jerusalem#:~:text=Jerusalem%20appears%20in%20the%20Tanakh,of%20Israel)%20appears%20154%20times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/world/europe/molenbeek-attack-brussels-paris.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Robinson-English-minister
https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/puritanism#:~:text=The%20Puritans%20were%20members%20of,not%20rooted%20in%20the%20Bible.
https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/who-were-the-pilgrims/2019/november/the-mayflower-compact-the-first-governing-document-of-plymouth-colony/#:~:text=The%20Mayflower%20Compact%20-%20as%20it,governing%20document%20
