The Tribe: Are they Anarchists?

Have you ever wanted to run away? Where would you go?

In the world of the Asura Chronicles, people who no longer want to live under strict Ministry controls have escaped into the mountains and formed the mountain tribes.

Are they anarchists?

The word ‘anarchism’ comes from the ancient Greek anarchos, or "without rulers." The Oxford dictionary defines it as “the belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without force or compulsion”.

In a simple sense, the Tribe can be described as anarchists because they have rejected their society’s authority and created a new world without its government or structure. On a day-to-day basis, everyone lives their own lives and does whatever they want to. There are no rules written down, no laws, no government, no banks, no taxes.

Doesn’t that create chaos?

There are seven families in the Tribe, and each has a representative. They form a council that meet regularly to make sure no-one is harming anyone else, and to keep lines of communication open between them. They have no ruler but the oldest representative from the council leads the discussions. If a decision needs to be made that affects everyone in the community, every single person gets a vote. They do this by putting a dark or light stone into a bag and the majority wins.

Interestingly, this approach is a ‘pure’ democracy whereby everyone gets a voice in each decision. The most common form of democracy we see in our own world is ‘representative democracy’ in which people vote for someone else (e.g. politicians) to represent them and their choices.

So what’s the problem?

The Tribe has its share of problems. But that discussion is for another day!