A-Infos (en) UK, AFED, Organise - The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on - About beefs, ego-trips and cancellations in the libertarian movement (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Since I recognised myself an anarchist, I have always been an "idealist" 
for taking it to the Messianic, a "believer" of The Idea. I was 
fascinated (and continue to be fascinated) by all the stories and 
experiences that Anarchism has brought, fought for and defended in the 
name of a conviction that a more dignified Humanity is possible. I 
always liked texts with a speech that appealed to "preach the spark of 
consciousness that transforms the instinct of mutual help into the 
architecture of a society without masters, where bread and freedom are 
universal and inalienable rights" or which spoke of the "end of the 
exploitation of Man over Man" and the "emancipation of the people by 
their own people". I believe that, from this interpretation, my logical 
development was that ego and personalism cannot take place in a 
universal project.

Perhaps that is why I was so confused seeing certain dynamics within the 
libertarian movement. I'm not talking about real political differences, 
which are necessary. I speak of eternal beefs, ego wars, adjustments of 
accounts disguised as principles, social capital accumulated by pointing 
out the rest and personal conflicts artificially elevated to a political 
question. I have always seen anarchist struggle as incompatible with the 
ego. Not because we have no pride, wounds or desire for recognition. We 
have them. Everyone. But a militant ethics should serve to put that in 
its place. If we fight for something that surpasses us, the collective 
project cannot be hijacked by anyone's narcissism.

Not for nothing I have chosen this title: "Os cães ladram e a caravana 
passa" (I understand that in the Spanish State it is used). The 
expression comes from an old Arabic saying: "The dogs bark, but the 
caravan goes on". That is, there are provocations and non-constructive 
criticisms that cannot prevent progress. There will always be noise. 
There will always be those who criticise, intoxicate or need other 
people's projects to fail to confirm their own superiority or maintain 
their comfort. You have to listen to the criticism when they are right 
and take on mistakes when they are ours, but we cannot turn every noise 
into a fear that will paralyse us.

Rafael Viana da Silva points out in his text Anarquismo contra o 
Anarquismo - Menos complacência, mais autocrítica[lit. Anarchism against 
or Anarchism - Less complacency, more self-criticism]a widespread 
confusion in the libertarian movement that has done us much harm: taking 
anarchist freedom as "doing whatever he wants" and individual autonomy 
as ethical relativism. A freedom without collective responsibility does 
not produce libertarian militancy: it produces whim, informality, 
personalism, and a bourgeois caricature of the anarchist as someone 
incapable of upholding agreements. Anarchist ethics is not demonstrated 
in everyday coherence but in fulfilling what one assumes, not 
disappearing when it comes to sustaining a task, not turning every 
criticism into a personal attack, not using the assembly as the ego 
scenario, not confusing charisma with legitimacy.

And here appears one of our great problems within the movement-the lack 
of self-criticism (of course with its due exceptions) and the 
reproduction of a self-consumption movement. We are the first to detect 
and point out conflicts of others, but we have a hard time looking at 
our own. We know how to make devastating statements against other 
organisations, but many times we do not know how to say "here we fail, 
here we were unjust, here we act out of pride, here we confuse a 
personal wound with a political position."

A libertarian (and also revolutionary) movement without self-criticism 
rots from within. It can have impeccable discourse and a combative and 
appealing aesthetic, but if it is not able to review its practices, 
recognise mistakes and transform its dynamics, it ends up doing more 
branding than politics.

We have also confused too many times horizontality with a lack of 
responsibility. As if organising, evaluating, asking for explanations, 
fulfilling tasks or sustaining agreements were authoritarian practices. 
They are not! Why would it be authoritarian for an organisation to 
remind you of what you collectively agreed to? Collective responsibility 
is not a blind punishment or obedience. It is understanding that the 
common exists only if someone sustains it. That an assembly does nothing 
for itself. That an organisation has no arms or heads separated from its 
militants. That each person is responsible for their own organisation 
and for fighting for things they disagree with. If no one assumes his 
share, The Idea becomes a liturgy: many words, little strength. It makes 
me think if the criticism that is most made within anarchism, is that 
theory there is much, but little practice, maybe our problem is not so 
much a problem of excess theory but of internal and external malpractice...

On the other hand, in certain spaces a culture of fear of being wrong, 
fear of speaking, fear of not using the perfect word has been created, 
fear that a disagreement will be read as violence, fear that a 
clumsiness will become public condemnation. And when a political culture 
produces more fear than courage, more calculus than honesty and more 
complacency than critical, we have a problem where the centre is in a 
punitivism disguised as radicalism. And beware, I'm not saying this to 
deny the actual damage. There are aggressions, abuses, violence and 
miserable behaviours within our spaces and against which we have to act 
relentlessly. There are serious things that require protection, limits 
and consequences, but it is one thing to face the damage and another to 
reproduce, in small, the prison and punitivist logic that we say to 
combat: good and bad, saints and monsters, expulsion as the only answer, 
reputation as a court, rumour as proof and lynching as pedagogy.

In the text How We Handle Harm of the Punch Up Collective, a small 
anarchist collective from Ottawa, Ontario, focused on building resilient 
radical movements, insist on something fundamental: not every conflict 
is abuse, not all disagreement is violence and not all discomfort is 
harm. If everything is named equally, we stop understanding what 
happens. And if we don't understand what's going on, we can't intervene 
well. If assuming a mistake means automatic social death, no one will 
truly take responsibility. People will learn to hide, justify 
themselves, lie, or perform regret. A serious militant culture has to 
make responsibility possible without turning it into a punitive spectacle.

It must also be said that many problems between organisations are not 
political, even if they are presented as politicians. They're personal. 
Poorly managed wounds, affective breaks, envy, competences by symbolic 
capital, old snouts, informal leaderships, insecurities, resentments. 
Then all that dresses up, ethics, strategy and principles, but the poor 
reality is that it's an ego problem. And let it be clear: mixing the 
personal and the political like that is a mistake. Of course, the 
personal has political dimensions but it is another thing to turn my 
personal discomforts into a universal political criterion and condition 
the rhythm of my organisation to move to the rhythm of my wounds.

And I also want to make it clear: using bourgeois or liberal 
institutions to resolve conflicts between comrades should make us 
reflect on the state of our movement. Not because it is necessary to 
demand heroics from anyone, or to start from moralistic positions in 
serious situations. If our only response to each conflict is to delegate 
it to the state, its courts or its police, something is failing in our 
collective capacity to build a revolutionary alternative.

From my perspective, politics should be seen as a field of dispute and 
we have to be prepared for any dispute, receive, give, fall and stand up 
with our heads raised. We have ethical codes, but the others do not and 
we can not forget that, so we must be intelligent, humble and coherent 
but you also have to be daring, disruptive and know how to hit hard at 
the time of the dispute. Bakunin said, "Destructive passion is also a 
creative passion." It is about understanding that every revolutionary 
construction demands to break with the old forms that bind us like 
ego-trips, personal beefs, fear, complacency, the ghetto and the 
inertias that reproduce the same thing we say we fight. Because if the 
libertarian movement continues to be caught up in self-destructive and 
sectarian dynamics, we will not only not leave the ghetto as we will 
continue to drag anarchism towards marginality. And then we are 
surprised and upset that from the outside they call us children, useful 
or utopian idiots. But what do we expect, if we spend more energy on 
internal shit than on thinking about how and that we can contribute to 
those we say defend and fight for?

Enough of pretending purity and we will build a militant ethics capable 
of assuming error without sinking into it. Know how to apologise when it 
touches. Know how to recognise reason when someone else has it. Knowing 
how to face consequences. Know how to look at a conflict without turning 
it into a show. Know how to speak clearly without destroying. Know how 
to criticise without humiliating. Know how to take care of without 
covering up. Know how to fight without losing your soul.

In the face of rumour, clarity.
In front of the beef, politics.
In front of the ego-trip, collective projects.
In the face of fear, responsibility.
In the face of punitivism, reparation and limits.
Faced with complacency, criticism and self-criticism.

The anarchism that interests me is a demanding practice of freedom, 
responsibility and organization and not a philosophy with moral 
superiority enclosed in its ghetto without transformative capacity. 
Because in the end the problem is that we want to destroy the state, 
capital and all forms of domination but we are not even able to destroy 
our miserable dynamics.

A movement that does not know how to look in the mirror is doomed to 
defeat. And I'm tired of holding defeats decorated with good slogans. I 
want an anarchist practice that is on the front line of social struggles 
and that dares to grow, to correct itself, to ask for account, to assume 
mistakes but also rebellious, bold and without ever losing the 
tenderness of the soul before the harshness of the world.

Don Diego de la Vega, Liza militant.
Translated by Organise.

Originally posted in Spanish here: 
regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/06/14/os-caes-ladram-e-a-caravana-passa/

References

Ad Nauseam: Apuntes contra el gueto político. Reedición del Manifiesto 
Ad Nauseam. 2026.
Rafael Viana da Silva: Anarquismo contra o Anarquismo: Menos 
complacência, mais autocrítica
Punch Up * Kick Down Distro: How We Handle Harm
Dicionário da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa: «Os cães ladram e a 
caravana passa»
Mikhail Bakunin: The Reaction in Germany

https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2026/07/05/the-dogs-bark-but-the-caravan-goes-on-about-beefs-ego-trips-and-cancellations-in-the-libertarian-movement/
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