I’m a young anarchist thinking about moving to a different country (in my case UK or Ireland). I’m wondering what the best way to begin would be.
I imagine that having some contacts in the country would be a good place to start, but how to get them? Maybe you could share some tips?
For starters, don’t tell them you’re an anarchist.
where are you moving from? (Ireland will be easier for a European.)
in any case, as an immigrant you will have an almost insupportable amount of relations with the state that’s controlling the territory. Having some contacts doesn’t mean much unless you’re married to these contacts or unless they’re family. Your intimacy, private life will be transformed to data, to documents, mountains of documents.
The most important thing for the “host” state is money, money and money ( if you write that you’re an anarchist, i assume you aren’t “rich” (greed and anarchy come rarely together). The only thing that matters is if you’ll bring money or not. There’s no “best way to move to a different country” unless you’re rich and even that may be difficult if you’re coming from a country whose citizens are unwelcome.
good luck to you
ps: don’t tell the immigration officers that you’re an anarchist 🙃
I am an EU citizen so Ireland will probably be easier but I’m wondering by how much. I’m much more drawn to the UK as I am more connected to It’s culture.
My biggest concern is finding new connections. I struggle with it here as well and I don’t think moving to another country will just magically make that go away. Although I do feel more confident in English than in my native language.
this is from a month ago ☞ https://guardian.ng/news/world/eu-takes-uk-to-european-court-over-citizens-rights-post-brexit/
The EU on Monday said it was taking Britain to the European Court of Justice for infringing rules on the free movement of the bloc’s citizens and their family members after Brexit.
The European Commission said it believed that “there were several shortcomings” in Britain’s implementation of treaties at the end of 2020.
“The European Commission decided to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union… for failure to comply with EU law on free movement of EU citizens and their family members at the end of 2020,” the commission said in a statement.
i remember reading many witness accounts of postBrexit difficulties.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64663795
for finding new connections, team sports, volunteering &c may help. Go for the activities that people can’t do alone.
The disadvantage of Ireland seems to be incredibly high rent for housing, but on the positive side if you need to share a single room apartment with 5 people it is easy to get connections 🫠 Maybe look for some squatted building?
Maybe enroll in a University there?
I moved from Australia to London. Overall I would say I had a bad time. But I learned a lot about myself.
Visa - I was fortunate to have a parent who was born in England. Nevertheless to take advantage of this fact I had to secure the paperwork to prove their citizenship, and also as part of my application I had to travel to the closest capital city and make my application in person at the UK consulate General. I had to bring bank statements proving I had a certain amount of money in my account and had to surrender my Australian passport to be sent overseas for processing in addition to paying the application fees. With no guarantee of success.
Travel - I had to decide whether to sell off all my possessions or put them in storage and pay the fees. Ended up going 50/50 and giving away a lot of things to friends and family. Travelled to the UK with luggage just slightly over the weight limit which meant some additional fees but that was okay.
Money - So I had to prove I had a certain amount of savings for my application. Now I had to figure out how to access that money in the UK without losing it all to international fees. A lot of banks need a written reference and proof of a permanent address before you can open an account. You need an account before you can get paid and you need to be paid before you can pay rent. This is tricky to organise. Luckily there are companies you can pay to set this up for you. You may need to pay quite a bit of international transfer fees to get started. Do it that way to avoid the stress and run around. Then use a service like Transfer wise to move money back and forth between you UK and overseas accounts as the fees are much lower.
Tax - You will still need to pay income tax in your home country even though you’re paying tax in the UK. This caught me out and I ended up owing a lot.
Rent - Housing and rent is a huge issue in the UK. Share housing is the norm even for high middle class earners. Punk houses do exist in some places but you need local connections to make them happen.
Connections - Making personal connections is very difficult especially when you’re busy sorting out everything else. Going to a few meetings, finding groups near where you live is a way to start but be ready to not understand a lot of the local issues or dynamics.
I mean the first step would be to find a job there and a place to live.
2 of the most common ways is business visa, a company sponsors you or partner visa, an individual sponsors you with the intention of continuing the relationship.
If you have ancestry it can also help. I know that I can get a UK citizenship by decent as one of my parents was born in the UK.
I suppose if you have some bureaucratic ties with an EU country, Ireland would be easier to go to. Or if you want easy access to other european countries in the long term. To my knowledge finding a place to stay there is very hard as well as expensive, especially in Dublin. I don’t really know how the squatting scene is but I guess you would need to know at least one local for this sort of info. Few years back, you find a job online (with a short contract usually), and accommodation would be provided, I don’t mean free. Currently, I’m not sure.
If you wanted anarchy wouldn’t a place potentially on the verge of a second civil war be exactly where you wanted to be? That’s gonna be the time you could be the best anarchist of all. When everyone else is busy shooting each other.
First of all: Are you assuming I’m in America? If you are then you’re wrong. And moving to somewhere currently going through mass deportations is just taking a huge unnecessary risk.
Secondly: while an unstable political situation could be a good motivator to get people organizing collectively, It’s also equally likely that an authoritarian state emerges that will suppress any attempt to reduce peoples dependency to the state. While it would be exciting I don’t think I’m personally up for it.
I think that it is safer to begin collectivisation somewhere that’s more politically stable to grow a big enough following that when hostilities start you could hold your own. Unless some place already has a lot of anarchic/syndicalist thought then It’s going to be hard to start it with everyone at each-others throats.
And it’s also possible I’ve misunderstood you’re comment and you’re using anarchy as a synonym for chaos. In which case I just want to point out that my use is different. When I say anarchy I mean a power structure based on mutual aid and strong interpersonal relations without any leaders or hierarchy.
