Food Not Bombs - Looking for the Order in Anarchy

Thomas A. Jeremiah

05-08-2007

ANTH 315 M-W-F @12:30

Professor Julia Yezbick

Food Not Bombs:

Looking For the Order in Anarchy

As a student of anthropology I am naturally fascinated by the order of groups and societies. In the spring semester of 2007 I was charged with the responsibility to create an ethnography over the course of the semester. The end goal of my studies at Virginia Commonwealth University is to attempt to facilitate international aid organizations in their interactions with native populations. Between the assignment I was to complete, and the goals of my education, I came to the decision to center my ethnography on one volunteer group's methods and motivations. After an awkward rebuff from the charitable group Meals on Wheels I turned my attention to the group known as Food not Bombs. My assertion from the beginning of this project was that there are characteristics among Food not Bombs participants, that are common to all, and their motivations are shaped by those commonalities. I also supposed that through a study of this group, with a subsequent ethnography, I could help Food not Bombs asses the effectiveness of its recruiting strategies, repeat participation among its volunteers, and the organization's capacity to feed the hungry in their community.

But who is Food not Bombs? "Food Not Bombs is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements and is gaining momentum throughout the world. There are hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty. Food Not Bombs is not a charity. This energetic grassroots movement is active throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Food Not Bombs is organizing for peace and an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For over 25 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.

The first group was formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and makes fresh hot vegetarian meals that are served in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Each independent group also serves free vegetarian meals at protests and other events. The San Francisco chapter has been arrested over 1,000 times in government's effort to silence its protest against the city's anti- homeless policies. Amnesty International states it will adopt those Food Not Bombs volunteers that are convicted as "Prisoners of Conscience" and will work for their unconditional release. Even though we are dedicated to nonviolence Food Not Bombs activists in the United States have been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges but there has never been a conviction." (http://www.foodnotbombs.net/story.html)

I would like the reader to note that this particular description of Food not Bombs never uses the word anarchy as a descriptive, but rather refers to Food not Bombs as having "no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process". I submit that the word anarchy has become a loaded word, and Dr. Herbert Read would agree, for he says, "The word anarchy unsettles most people in the Western world; it suggests disorder, violence, uncertainty. It may be a tactical mistake to try and restate the eternal truth under a name which is ambiguous-for what is 'without ruler', the literal meaning of the root word is not necessarily 'without order', the meaning often loosely ascribed to it." (Read ix, 35) The truth of the matter is that Food not Bombs is an anarchic group. In all of my interactions with the group, only once was violence associated with the group itself, rather the group tended to associate violence with the governments of the world. I would have to suspend my previously formed, personal bias, toward this form of social regulation to keep myself open to the purpose and effectiveness of this activist group.

Richmond's chapter of Food not Bombs meets in a neighborhood known as "the Fan". The Fan is a Victorian construct which radiates from a city park, known as Monroe Park, roughly in the shape of, you guessed it, a fan. And it is in this park that Food not Bombs serves their Sunday meal to any that are hungry. Much of the housing nearest the park, and also V.C.U., is the costliest, but as one moves west to the outer edges of the Fan the housing becomes more and more affordable. It is in one of these more affordable residences in which Food not Bombs meets on Sundays to prepare the weekly meal. It was a cold rainy Sunday in February that I made my first visit to Food not Bombs to begin my longitudinal research through participant observation.

The group's website had noted that those that wished to volunteer their help should arrive at noon. Walking up to the address mentioned on the local group's website I saw a black Food not Bombs flag with the international anarchy symbol flying over the doorway. The building was typical for the neighborhood, a two story, white painted brick Victorian row house. I arrived at 12:30 in the hopes that I would be able to hide amongst the numbers of possibly new joiners, but it was not to be, I was the first to arrive. I knocked on the door and a young man with a camouflage jacket, pants cut off below the knee, with a pair of black sweatpants beneath, answered the door. I asked was I in the right place to help prepare food for the Sunday Meal. The young man, Jessie, said I was. I didn't know it yet, but Jessie was anomalous, he is the only one that I ever heard bring up the need for violence because civil disobedience was no longer effective. That first interaction with the group was also the only time in the coming months that I saw Jessie come to the weekly gatherings.

Inside I was introduced to a gaunt young man, of average height, a slightly swarthy complexion, and a thin shaggy beard, dressed in a black cap and hoodie, named Pablo. He apologized that things were off to a slow start. My plan to blend into the crowd had failed, I felt as though I had been the catalyst to kick off the preparations for the day. As I looked