If you call yourself an anarchist, you have to expect to be misunderstood. Most people know little about us and misinformation and stereotypes abound. This can become a serious problem when politicians use us for their own ends. An example are statements by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far right minister in the government of Israel who has stated that protesters against a series of proposed reforms are anarchists. An anarchist milieu does exist in Israel and presumably some of the protesters are anarchists, but the vast majority are not.
Another example is a statement by Donald Trump on his Truth Social (sic) site where he accuses New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg of “doing the work of Anarchists and the Devil” by bringing an indictment against him. This is weird even in a context of Trump’s often unhinged diatribes. Bragg is part of a state structure that anarchists oppose. Also, Trump is not known to be particularly religious. Evoking the devil can be seen as a message to the evangelical milieu, an important constituency that has strongly supported him. In the 2022 midterm elections many of the candidates Trump had supported lost and he angered evangelicals by blaming it on the abortion issue. There are signs that the evangelicals are shopping around for other candidates and he needs to shore up their support.
But a further strange aspect concerns the title of a book published two decades ago by Montreal poet and musician Norman Nawrocki. The book recounts a European tour by his band and its title is The Anarchist and the Devil do Cabaret.
If Nawrocki is the anarchist in the title, where does the devil fit in? Well, here it is a question of Nawrocki’s Polish uncle Harry. Throughout the book are a number of letters from Harry to Nawrocki’s father. Having become a panhandler with an alcohol problem, Harry has purchased a devil marionette with which he converses while he drinks. Although Harry appears to be fictional, Nawrocki tells me that relatives in Eastern Europe did send letters to his father in Canada.
In the final chapter, Nawrocki has taken a train to the Czech Republic. He has purchased a devil marionette to which he recounts the tour in a town square. Unlike his account of the rest of the tour, this appears to be fictional…I think.
Not being an expert on the nuances of devilology, I will only comment that Nawrocki’s devil seems playful, while Trump’s devil is presumably angry and vengeful like himself.
