The Wolseley Anarchists

Recent graffiti is laughable, not revolutionary

Aranda Adams

They are making informed, self-reflexive and dedicated anarchists around the city slap their head every time they pass through Wolseley. 

You may have seen their messages on the side of dumpsters, buildings or even the odd sidewalk. You may have seen them… wait, those are actually the only places that you may have seen them. 

They’re haphazardly spray painting the anarchist symbol around and usually even taking the time to write a cheap slogan.

But only the bravest take the time to add a slogan with the anarchist symbol.

I am talking about a group that I refer to as the “Wolseley Anarchists.” This group – or perhaps one especially “rebellious” individual – of self-proclaimed anarchists are taking it to the streets… when nobody is looking, in case they get told on.

They’re probably teenagers, although it would be pretty sweet if they are actually a bunch of old lawyers getting rowdy.

But that’s part of their mystery, their allure. The common passerby doesn’t even know their age.

However, we can only assume that they’re young and listen to a lot of Rage Against the Machine in their parents’ basements.

Yep, the Wolseley Anarchists are out and about and sending anti-authority messages to Winnipeggers, such as:

1) Hate cops.
2) Don’t trust the government.
3) Some other statement that is smudgy and almost finished being removed by property owners.

Did you just throw up in your mouth?

That’ll happen as you walk through Wolseley and read such inane sloganeering – that is, if you even bother; with pathetic graffiti like this, the Wolseley Anarchists seem incapable of any type of self-reflexive thought. 

They select surface concepts from a broad and profound political philosophy like anarchism and then bastardize the hell out of it.

Hating cops and the government makes for a nice sound bite, but it has little to do specifically with anarchism as a political concept.

By reducing themselves and their message to mildly anarchist platitudes, they are able to muster the arrogance to spray paint hilariously weak statements on public and private property (they seem not to make a distinction, which is perhaps the only insight they possess).

Hopefully, whoever is leaving these messages at least gets a fuzzy feeling when they spray paint – that’s what rebellion seems to entail these days in Winnipeg.

It’s just another example of people fulfilling a personal emptiness through seemingly rebellious acts without consideration of whether what they are expressing is relevant or not.

They won’t reform on this – if they did they would no longer exist. 

But maybe this group or individual will start listening to Dave Matthews Band, read John Locke and become the Wolseley Liberals instead. 

They’ll start spray painting cliché liberal slogans that the media and the state spew out every day, such as “Regulation before revolution!,” “Green capitalism!” and “Tax cuts create jobs!”

Matt Austman shakes his head at you, Wolseley Anarchists.

Published in Volume 65, Number 22 of The Uniter (March 10, 2011)

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