Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology - Revolution Through Non-confrontation

Revolution Through Non-confrontation

One of the most striking suggestions in the pamphlet challenges the traditional anarchist notion of aggressive confrontation with the state. Graeber did postgraduate work with tribal cultures in Madagascar, including one with the Tsimihety in the northwest of the country. The Tsimihety, rejecting all governmental authority and organizing their society along very egalitarian lines, were able to continue their autonomy and culture for decades on end, up to today, not by confronting the government, but by retreating. Graeber writes,

"To this day they have maintained a reputation as masters of evasion: under the French, administrators would complain that they could send delegations to arrange for labor to build a road near a Tsimihety village, negotiate the terms with apparently cooperative elders, and return with the equipment a week later only to discover the village entirely abandoned—every single inhabitant had moved in with some relative in another part of the country." (p. 55)