Humble pie: witty satire or farcical buffoonery

Think of an anarchist and the mind immediately conjures up images of the politically strategic Che Guevara merged with the illogical and unplanned idiocy of Vyvyan from The Young Ones. I think you’ll agree, this is hardly the most impressive of the political animals.

Up until the current Coalition Government, there were relatively few self-declared anarchists appearing in the print and broadcast media. There have always been Government dissenters in the digital sphere, but largely there they have been contained. It is important to note that anarchists are a constant in any democracy – a by-product of the societal championing of ‘freedom to speak’. Indeed this is hardly a new concept as there are reports of anarchists going back thousands of years; examples spring from Taoism and the Greek philosopher Zeno. Logic and reason dictate that they must exist. No single person can agree with all policies that those ruling impose, so in an arguably free society degrees of resistance must occur.

It was therefore only a matter of time that on a noticeably national scale the anarchist movement grasped its opportunity for mass re-birth. The anti-cuts marches over the last few months provided a perfect opportunity for groups like the ‘Black Bloc’ to subvert the largely peaceful demonstrations and negatively attack our governors.

But yesterday when Jonnie Marbles (aka Jonathan May-Bowles) bravely/stupidly [delete as applicable] played true to his self-declared anarchic roots and subverted a Parliamentary inquisition of the Murdoch dynasty; he was not acting in the interests of anarchism. He was acting in the interests of comedy. This distinction is an important one to explore.

Anarchism is a fervent desire to subvert the state and governmental process. In that sense, Marbles succeeded. He interrupted democratically enshrined proceedings and caused the tone of the entire event to be diminished, thus subverting the severity and moving the spotlight away from the legal enquiry. This is certainly ‘anarchy’.

But, like terrorism, the fundamental power of anarchism lies not in the actions of the activist but in the subsequent response that it generates. It is largely accepted that generating ‘terror’ is the aim of ‘terrorism’ and so a nation which embraces the fear of related activities is what success is judged against. Terrorists want their targets to be afraid, to have their routine interrupted and to have their campaign mantra repeated, reinforced and worried about over and over again by their audience.

It is the same basic principle with anarchism. But yesterday’s activities backfired inexorably. Muttering ‘you naughty little billionaire’ and attempting and failing to hit Murdoch Snr. with a shaving foam pie generated lots of commendations, but as reported in the mass media this morning, it was of little consequence to the proceedings which resumed 15 minutes later. If anything the comments from the MPs immediately following the incident humourised the attempt and served to reinforce the already doddery and frail appearance of Mr Murdoch. This irritatingly has started to generate mass sympathy for him in the press.

The foam pie is not symbolic. Unlike the protestors against BP who used oil; shaving foam has no immediate connection to News International. It is, historically, a prop used by clowns. From which a logical deduction makes Mr Marbles a clown, and Murdoch a hapless audience member.

What happened during the Committee meeting yesterday was not anarchism, it was farce. It was not an attempt at political satire; legally speaking it was attempted assault and constitutes Contempt of Parliament.

If the recent convictions of Charlie Gilmour and Edward Wollard are anything to go by, when Mr Marbles goes before the magistrates on Friday he will be the one eating humble pie, not billionaire Murdoch.

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