Every year, the pantomime surrounding the G8 Summit is broadcast across the world. This year, the 33rd Summit is no different. This meeting of the world's governors is a Mecca for Anti-Globalisation protectors, environmentalists and so-called "Anarchists".
In the case of the latter, groups of angry people dressed in black set out to spread chaos on the proceedings by whatever means available to them. They target police and other flammable objects in a spree of mindless violence. You might describe this state of affairs as havoc of maybe even Anarchy.
Here is where the problem of definition arises. The definition of an anarchist is someone who advocates the abolishion of structured government on the premise that, left to their own devices, the people can live in a functional society adhering to the morals and ethics that common sense dictates. The anarchists who perpetrate these violent acts have no such political agenda. They are anarchists in the sense that they enjoy a little ultra-violence.
This poses a problem for all of the genuine anarchists who simply believe that anarchism, as a political philosophy, is a good idea. It's bad enough that they have an idealistic view which may never see fruition, but now, they are doomed to be tarred with the same brush as these dissenters. It's an awful world we live in where anarchism is given a bad name.
