UCLA

UCLA Anarchy Club Organizes “Two Weeks of Unrest”

By Liana Nitka and Bella Brannon

On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, a student group calling itself the “Anarchist Breakfast Club,” a name that tries for whimsy but lands somewhere between smug and sinister, distributed pamphlets across UCLA’s campus announcing two weeks of “unrest,” beginning tomorrow.

One pamphlet, found in Kerckhoff Hall and titled “You’re Already an Anarchist,” bears the red triangle insignia of Hamas: the terrorist organization responsible for the largest mass murder of Jews.

Let’s pause here. On the day Jews worldwide remember the six million, these students chose to glorify a group whose founding charter calls for the annihilation of Jews around the world. Their Instagram account further makes it clear they have no interest in honoring the Holocaust, except as a rhetorical tool to further their cause. It includes a grotesquely offensive inversion: Trump’s Fascist Regime Would Make Hitler Proud.

The rest of the pamphlet reads like a cross between a freshman’s first brush with Edward Said’s Orientalism and something scrawled in Sharpie on the wall of a 7-Eleven bathroom. One image, for instance, features a man in a ski mask and Hamas headband, captioned: “I’m a university student.” Another gem from their pamphlet reads, “The point to be made is that we don’t need hierarchy, as hierarchy is the opium of the movement.” (A clear nod to Karl Marx’s famous line about religion being “the opiate of the masses.”)

They claim to be anarchists. Yet they have a name, a logo, a pamphlet, a meeting schedule, and an active social media presence. Their idea of anarchy comes with an RSVP.

Among their scheduled events are two “town hall discussions” on the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”, April 25 and April 29, both on Royce Quad at noon. For a group supposedly opposed to all systems, they sure enjoy running them.

Their demands, predictably, call for the dismantling of the university: “We want a free university run and held in common by the students, workers, and professors themselves. We want the abolition of the regents, the administration, and UCPD.” One wonders: who will hire professors, evaluate curriculum, or clean the bathrooms?

The pamphlet defines anarchy as “the idea that no one knows what’s best for you better than you do.” Yet their rhetoric is drenched in moral absolutism, dictating a singular path to truth, justice, and social salvation.

A second pamphlet, distributed in Kerckhoff, picks up where the first left off, calling for two weeks of loosely defined “unrest” in honor of an omnicause: the anniversary of UCLA’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Immigrants’ Rights, and May Day. Their Instagram alternates between sanctifying terrorist organizations and promoting things like listening to music without headphones as a revolutionary act. In other words, for these next two weeks, we can expect either bad performance art or homegrown extremism.

In the email listed on their pamphlet, [email protected], they nod to Joseph Stalin, a figure who eradicated political opponents and sought the extermination of entire ethnic groups, such as the Kalmyks and the Crimean Tatars. Stalin’s actions are widely regarded by historians as genocidal; yet, the club claims to operate under the banner of opposing genocide. The idea that Stalin would support their queer-friendly, decentralized movement is laughable. He would have crushed it with glee.

The pamphlet continues with the solemn declaration, “we the people within the machine have a responsibility to join the fight,” and urges students to “live on our knees or die on our feet.” As if skipping class and holding signs on the quad is a matter of mortal courage.

The message, despite being a casserole of slogans and mixed metaphors, is as naive as it is simplistic: if you oppose oppression anywhere, you must support anarchy everywhere. And if you hesitate, you’re part of “the machine.”