BORN OF STRUGGLE, LIVING IN HOPE - THE ANARCHO-PUNK LIVES OF THE CENTRO IBERICO 1971 - 1983 -
NICK SOULSBY
Born Of Struggle, Living In Hope by Nick Soulsby is the story of the Centro Iberico, the abandoned, near-derelict school on Harrow Road, in London, that between 1971 and 1983 was squatted and turned into a community hub not only for experimental and alternative music but for experimental and alternative living. 'Centro Iberico' was the name given at first to a Spanish support group for exiled anarchists and refugees from the Spanish Civil War, headed by one-time Franco prisoner, Miguel Garcia. As an organisation, Centro Iberico had been based in various venues throughout London before finally coming to rest at the abandoned school on Harrow Road where the name of the group was then applied to the actual location.
Over the years and particularly since its closure, the Centro Iberico has attained a near-mythic status among punk professors and anarcho-punk rock psychogeographers as the truth about the place became lost in the mists of time. Was this not the place that anarcho-punk operations moved to after the disaster of the Crass/Poison Girls sponsored Autonomy Centre in Wapping Wharf? Was this not the place (or one of them?) where anarcho-punk consolidated? Was this not the place that spawned world-class record producer William Orbit? Yes, yes and yes again although when it comes to history being in the making, nothing is neither simple or black-and-white.
The subject of the Crass/Poison Girls sponsored Autonomy Centre and its link to the Centro Iberico is an interesting one. Money raised from the sales of the Bloody Revolutions/Persons Unknown record had been ploughed into renting a warehouse in East London, and it was there that the old-school anarchists such as the Black Flag collective first came into actual contact with the younger anarcho-punk scene whereupon it was found they had very little in common. The problem was, however, that the Black Flag crew had very few means of raising money to pay the rent on the warehouse so to the rescue came the punks and the concerts they would put on.
Unfortunately, the warehouse didn't have a music license let alone a license to sell alcohol and when the landlord caught wind of the concerts being held there, he immediately put a halt to them, in doing so subsequently putting a halt too on the only viable way to pay the rent. Within a month, the Autonomy Centre was dead.
Buoyed up by the relative success of the concerts, however, the punks relocated to the Centro Iberico where the relationships with the Spanish anarchist squatters already living there was markedly better than that with the British anarchist old-guard of Wapping.
Why was this? Why did the Autonomy Centre fail whilst the Centro Iberico flourished? According to Tony Drayton of Kill Your Pet Puppy zine, one of the reasons was the location of the Autonomy Centre, it being so isolated in a part of London that no-one had any reason to go to apart from when a punk rock concert was being held there. Another reason was an animosity between the Black Flag anarchists and the punk upstarts, with Albert Meltzer in his autobiography accusing the punks of vandalising, destroying and graffitiing everything in sight. According again to Tony Drayton, however, the Centre was so bereft of any sort of facility that there simply wasn't anything to vandalise.
Not that the Centro Iberico was anything to write home about in terms of comfort but the fact that a whole bunch of Spanish anarchists were living there and were able to keep an eye on things probably made a difference. That and having no rent to pay, of course.
For the best part of 1982 the Centro Iberico played host to a series of concerts and events featuring what was then the cream of the anarcho-punk crop and it's this period of the venue's existence that has left the biggest mark. Even more important than this, however, from the Spanish Civil War veterans to the uncompromising politics of the anarcho punks is a lineage that is indelible.
It is this lineage and this history that Nick Soulsby has recorded and without any doubt it's a story of interest, taking in the aforementioned Spanish Civil War veterans, Black Flag, the Angry Brigade, the Persons Unknown trial, punks, squatters and a host of movers and shakers who worked not for profit but for an anarcho, anarchic vision.
For sure, it's a very London-centric story but at the same time it's also representative of a thousand other similar stories and roads travelled throughout history that have been forgotten because no-one thought it necessary to remember.
'I was possessed by a determined desire to tell Centro Iberico's story before finite lifespans, limited documentation and broken links silenced all memory of it,' Soulsby writes in the preface. And was it worth it? Well, yes, yes and yes again. Born Of Struggle, Living In Hope is a book of value.
John Serpico
