A quote from the video: https://fabulistmagazine.com/so-you-think-youre-an-anarchist-review/

When we go beyond our shrunken status as mere workers, our ability to create an abundant, shared life opens up; when we define ourselves as workers, we have already in some meaningful way lost the battle to the logic of capital. Defining ourselves as workers is to accept a definition imposed by capital that reduces us from our full humanity to an alienated seller of our creative possibilities.

Yep. I have a 1050 myself. Can’t really play anything 3D.

I just went over to NVK. I shouldn’t really waste my time playing the graphic intensive games anyway. The indies are better.

I tried dkms but it took so long to install I gave up.

Fuck it. I’m done with you. You don’t seem to listen.

Actually, No. Here is the AFAQ chapter on nationalism: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionD.html#secd6, and it is the perfect example of what I’m talking about.

This means that anarchists distinguish between nationality (that is, cultural affinity) and nationalism (confined to the state and government itself). This allows us to define what we support and oppose – nationalism, at root, is destructive and reactionary, whereas cultural difference and affinity is a source of community, social diversity and vitality.

My use of the flags is to showcase the nationalities that partake in this event, as they are in the geographic area. Not the nationalism of the state which has usurped these symbols.

And trust me I am an anarchist. First and foremost. Anarchism is the surrounding idea of the centre of my being, which is one word: “Kind”. I doubt there is anything that can overpower it. It’s fuelled by the kind of faith that others reserve only for god.

To me it’s not emphasising national identity. It’s signifying a culture. A culture that has been heavily oppressed and is currently starting to slowly languish as the bigger and more predominant culture slowly smothers it. I’ve seen this happen in my own mind as my internal monologue switched languages after watching a lot of english TV and Youtube.

It’s a shame that a language that is very different in it’s construction is starting to slowly be drowned out just because the internet has made english the language everyone speaks. I have no love for the state or the national identity the flag represents. That’s why I put a circled A on/next to it. To signify that I reject the state and the nationalism while accepting the culture behind that state.

The problem with nationalism, why it is nationalism, is the idea that only a certain group of people are deserving or valid in a culture. That speaking a different language or having different parents made you somehow different or superior or more deserving. It’s a method of othering. This is the core idea behind nationalism and it’s the one I (and every anarchist) reject. Everyone who wants to, is an estonian, no matter where they come from, it’s a culture, not a nationality¹. There is nothing inferior about being part of a different culture, but that different culture does exist and it needs to have a name and symbolica to survive.

¹: Do I need to say “for me” or “in my opinion”. I’ve gotten a lot of people treating me like an idiot because I leave it out from statements like these, but I just assume that’s implied. I’m saying it… and it’s blatantly false as a fact… of course it’s my opinion.

We have flags for every branch of anarchism for this reason. They all have slightly different ways of doing things. Slightly different cultures and customs. While I could try and come up with a flag design that works for this culture while not referencing the only other flag that the culture uses just because a state snatched it up first, using the already established visual shorthand for the culture is easier. And it’s also stealing one of the primary symbols the state uses to legitimise itself, the idea that it speaks for the entire culture. It does not. There are also anarchists who are part of this culture, and reject your nation.

And in the end. I don’t even care that much about this (yes this is how much effort I but into things I have minor care for). If everyone on this com said that this is a stupid idea I’d probably change my mind, but as it stands you’re the only one who has said anything about this. I wouldn’t use the flag in any other situation. I like the standard Circled A on black background for most things, but in situations where I need to reference the region of land between the Baltic sea and Peipsi I will use the blue-black-white flag with A Circled A on top and call it estonia, it’s the easiest solution.

Good shout! Making the A black really made the circular one pop. I think it even made the tri-angle work, although that may have just been from having removed the background.

Why do you say that? I could speculate but I’d rather not waste time answering questions no-one has and guess what you meant by this.

No I wouldn’t make one with the USA flag, because USA isn’t a culture. It’s a state. A State baked in colonialism and slavery. The USA flag didn’t exist before the state needed one. The design of the flag itself is based on the political reality. If I were to design anarchist iconography for north america I would use the first peoples’ flags as a template, or mangle the stars and stripes so much that it becomes unrecognisable.

The baltic flags aren’t like that. (Or at least the estonian one can’t really speak for the other two.) They are also symbols for the people. Used to identify a culture even when the state didn’t exist. A flag that’s designed by a bunch of university students that then became used by a country that was just finding it’s identity emerging from an oppressive overlord. At it’s heart these flags were used as symbols of resistance and identity to fight against a foreign regime. Why not take it one step further and use these symbols to fight against the idea of statehood itself? As a message that we decide what our symbols are and if we want to we can take yours.

The biggest difference is that these flags don’t just represent a colony. They represent a unique set of people that have their own language. The fundamental element of culture and until we create visual indicators for these languages that are separate from the states the flags are the best we have.

And as you ended you’re comment with a tangential question here’s mine: What do I use instead? What visual shorthand can I use to denote that this concerns the baltic region? That there are people who speak Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian here?

It is branding. Anarchist movements need branding just like any movement. It’s how messages spread and people join. The circled A, 1312, The Black Cat; All of these are part of the anarchism brand.

A brand isn’t inherently commercial. It’s only when you start selling it, and selling anarchism isn’t inherently bad as well people need money to survive and if you can make it while also spreading an ideology why shouldn’t you.

The problems start when you start using authority to sell things, thus acting completely opposite to the message you are spreading, as long as you make the branding/products yourself it’s still anarchy.

The one where the lines go past the circle is the one I call Punk Circled-A. The one I use is more restrained, making it appear more professional and approachable (in my opinion, obviously). But I did do one with the punk-A: . This one is drawn so it’s a lot more free-form.

/sidenote: When I say drawn I mean as opposed to designed like the ones in the main post. They are all made in inkscape, but for me drawing is imperfect, while designing tries to maintain as much precision as possible, eg proper ratios, straight lines and equal spaces. While drawing is embracing the imprecision of a human hand.

It’s interesting for sure, but the A is very glaring. Making the border around the A bigger certainly improves it but then it starts covering up quite a lot of the flags. It also feels quite generic, I know the other ones are generic as well but this one just feels like “Take the flags and put an A over it.” done.

Like this:

I feel like that would make the A too colourful. The circled A is a single symbol. making the A have other meanings conflicts with the simplistic focus of it.

The flags are more meant to signify culture than nations/states. For me the flags have a cultural relation that’s far more powerful than the states. The flags were used by the people as a signifier of culture before the states took them and turned them into their own symbolica. Even in anarchism culture will persist and having symbols for these cultures is important.

Or to put it simply: “The state stole the flag from the people and now we will steal it back by using it to fight against it”.

I think this is always a problem when trying to make widely understandable visuals. Because everyone knows how to make quickly understandable visuals they become overused. When trying to make something unique you end up with something that’s confusing or overly complex. The ACABB poster is a prime example of something that tries to be unique but ends up so noisy that you can’t really understand what’s going on: https://acabb.noblogs.org/files/2025/08/acabb-poster-v1.pdf especially if it’s in black and white.

I could use the borders but that feels conflicting the anarchist “no borders” ethos. The only reason I used flags is to signify the cultures and peoples of the region, not the states. Although I guess you won’t really think about that.

The problem is that I need a visual indicator for the Baltic region that isn’t based on the states, but rather the people.

The problem with citing dictionary is because they are based on current status quo. When I used it as a reference I got “Let’s not let liberals define the words we use” and I agree with that. We need an anarchist dictionary that’s wildly used to solve these problem. Every anarchist has their own path, and they have different words. We should try and consolidate as much as possible to a dictionary.

This was told to me by an anarchist who is in this com. They seem knowledgeable about anarchism so I don’t think this is ignorance. Rather a genuine disagreement on what leadership is or its role in anarchism.

They also said this:

When anarchists talk about “leaderless” organisation, they don’t just contradict the real-world experience of the working class - they literally contradict the very historical reality of anarchist organisation throughout the ages… which has never, EVER been “leaderless.”

This contradiction is a very, very serious one - and pretending that it doesn’t exist hurts anarchist narratives.