Erstellt am: 9. 3. 2011 - 12:26 Uhr
Today's Webtip: Emma Goldman
"If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!"
One of my favorite t-shirts featured this quote and attributed it to Emma Goldman. It turns out that the notorious anarchist, feminist, and all around interesting person never actually said that. But she did say something similar:
"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal."
Despite being an open advocate of womens sexual and reproductive freedom, her ideals actually brought her into conflict with her contemporaries. You can read a bit about that conflict here: jwa.org
And a bit more about her life here: www.graswurzel.net
You could also check out a documentary about her.
Emma Goldman, an Exceedingly Dangerous Woman