Hakim Bey/Peter Lamborn Wilson & Pedophilia
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Leaving out the ugly part - Hakim Bey/Peter Lamborn Wilson
This article is an exposé of Hakim Bey, aka Peter Lamborn Wilson's
paedophilia. A fact which many commentators conveniently brush under
the carpet.
The Brooklyn Rail (July-August 2004) has just published an interview
of Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey), that gives the reader a
misleading and incomplete picture of the subject. The interview was
then forwarded to the Research on Anarchism list-serve. "Wilson
rightly became celebrated as a kind of urban prophet," the interviewer
writes, "It was an identity to add the others he bears seamlessly and
without contradiction: anarchist, poet, public intellectual,
psychedelic explorer, artist, social critic, Sufi mystic."
The interviewer's special phrasing, "seamlessly and without
contradiction," is where she begins, unintentionally, to mislead. I am
writing to describe another unusual way in which Mr. Wilson has
distinguished himself that may make a wrinkle or two in the average
person's opinion: he is a public paedophile intellectual of
international reputation, and one who mixes anarchist ideology into
his paedophile discourse. Even though we're talking about a writer
whose work has now been translated into French, Russian, German,
Dutch, and other languages, I should like to emphasise that there is
no reason why the interviewer should have already known this. The
Rail's pages, however, have presented him as entirely respectable
thinker, and I am writing to correct that mistake.
It was actually the very first thing I ever heard about the man: "Same
person as Hakim Bey. Goes for little Boys," was the matter-of-fact
comment from one of his New York City comrades, around 1991, when I
was still new to anarchism, and living in Philadelphia. At first there
was no special reason for me to make an issue of it. I have known
people who have mentioned sexual encounters they had with adults when
they were children, and which they considered to have been harmless.
I've simply pointed out that the burden of responsibility lies only
with the adult, and not with the child, and that was the end of it. I
have not once been considered a prude by anyone who knows me, nor
anything but blunt and heavy-handed when discussing in favour of one's
right to choose the sexual lifestyle. But choices made by consenting
adults is the realm of the discussion.
Peter Lamborn Wilson (who writes at least as often as Hakim Bey and
makes no secret of the pseudonym), uses anarchism in an ethically
warped, opportunistic way by pretending that adult-child sex is a
natural freedom. It isn't, and not only would almost any anarchist
disagree with him, but they'd also dispute a child-rapist's right to a
non-violent remedy in many cases. As a person who is and always is, in
both public and private life, as an anarchist, I feel the
responsibility to simply put my disagreement on record. I do so now
because the forwarding of the Rail interview creates an error of
omission on the r-a list.
There is a periodical, preserved at the University of Michigan's
famous Labadie Collection, that seems to make an unlikely fit with the
purpose of that special archive, which is to preserve anarchist
materials in particular, as well as those of other social movements,
including sexual freedom and gay liberation. It is the NAMBLA
Bulletin, which has been published monthly since 1983 by the North
American Man-Boy Love Association. "Man-boy Love" is a term used by
apologists of paedophilia. I hereafter use the term paedophilia where
such people would object to its use. But why was a paedophile magazine
acquired by an archive with such a charter? Most people would argue
that "Man-Boy Love" is not an issue relating to gay culture at all,
since paedophilia occurs no more or less frequently among gays than it
does with straights. Very few people of any politics consider adult-
child sex to be a legitimate lifestyle choice. But the former curator
who added NAMBLA Bulletin to the Labadie was actually keeping to the
central mission of the anarchist archive when he subscribed to the
journal.
Beginning with the July-August 1985 issue, the magazine carried a long
series of items by Hakim Bey, who was already a distinctly anarchist
writer. Most of them were discussions of the paedophile obsession with
a clear anarchist slant. Anarchist ideology was the mode of
justification, the method of persuading children to have sex and to
keep it secret. Take for example the following poem, "My Political
Beliefs," from NAMBLA Bulletin's June 1986 issue, page 14:
barelegged on his bicycle in the park he rides beneath
a children's fountain droplets catch his hair which
the afternoon makes somewhat bronze, beaded with molten dew
--the sunset over Jersey like an industrial krakatoa:
Newark Gold, Secaucus Red, East Orange.
The button on his blazer: Anarchist Bicyclists
he's in the bathtub, I see
him through a crack in the door playing with himself, he calls me in,
shows me
underwater push-ups and sit-ups, except for his gallic buttocks his
skin is gilt as the air over the Hudson. The touch of his wet, bath-
wrinkled fingers in my hand... but then...
one of his parents clumps down the hall... I suppose to make sure
neither of us is raping the other...
[chorus of groans] Ohhh! for a
Buster-Keaton-bomb all spherical & black as coaldust with sweet
sparkling with sweet sparkling fuse a mindbomb to
Drop on the Idea of the Family! O for a libertarian isle of runaways!
O goodnight
Moon, I am lost, actually lost without him
But I didn't want this to be
Just another poem about hopeless love. Pretend it's a manifesto
instead. Down with School! Boy Rule OK! In the land of dreams
No governance exists
But that of anarchs and kings, for dreamers have not yet learned to
vote or think past the unfurling of the moment. He touches my cheek,
runs delicate fingers through the hairs on my arm.
My liege shatters all Law for a triple kiss.
--Hakim Bey
Many of Hakim Bey's best-known anarchist pitches first saw print as
paedophile apologies. NAMBLA published his "Association for
Ontological Anarchism, communiqué #2" in July-Aug 1986, and a journal
called Gayme ran "A Temporary Autonomous Zone" and "Pirate Utopias" in
issues of 1993-95, along with his more obscure "Contemplation of the
Unbearded."
Bey's best-known book Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) describes
spiritual zones in which anything goes, where the oppressive rules of
the outside society need not interfere with what feels good to do. I
realise that many honest people have read TAZ without taking any
sleazy impression from it. I hope they'll forgive me for pointing out
that paedophiles say these same things to children. In his essay
"Obsessive Love" (Moorish Science Monitor, Vol. 7, #5, Summer 1995),
in which he pretends to be quite the classical scholar, he talks about
ancient religious views on romantic and obsessive love. "The Greco-
Egypto-Islamic ferment adds a pederastic [i.e. paedophile] element...
the ideal woman of romance is neither wife nor concubine but someone
in the forbidden category..." He uses the term "spiritual alchemy" for
witnessing the "Devine Beloved in certain beautiful boys," and remarks
that, "since all homosexuality is forbidden in Islamic law, a boy-
loving sufi has no 'safe' category for sensual realisation."
In fact, one of the commonest defence lawyerish lines about
paedophilia is how "the Greeks did it," or how incredibly well Michael
Jackson sings and dances; or how some long-dead and noteworthy author
was also was in the habit of boning the baby. These are feeble and
irrelevant ways to side-step the ethical issue. Knowledge is power,
and children know almost nothing. But just so we go through the
points, it was a minority of rich Athenian Greeks during the Classical
period, not all "the Greeks," who accepted paedophilia, while, by the
way, they were also proclaiming their misogyny in rhetorically
gorgeous ways. Athens was a slave-owning society in which democracy
was observed only between citizens not between everyone --and the use
of slaves as sexual chattel carried no age-restrictions. Furthermore,
in no way should artistic talent cause one to be forgiven a sexual
abuse or rape. In fact, when a paedophile is very witty and well-
spoken, this very same skill is used to attract young, gullible
targets. To argue for paedophilia is imbecile when it is sincere. It
is so logically pathetic, in fact, that one almost needs to be a child
to believe that it's sincere.
Pressing the anarcho-paedophile cause in another way, Wilson (Bey)
reviewed the reprint of the late 19th century German-based anarchist
John Henry Mackay's book Fenny Skaller and Other Poems, etc.. Bey's
essay was entitled " Man-Boy Love Novel Still Relevant 100 Years
On." (NAMBLA Bulletin April 1989). In "Obsessive Love," Bey again
invokes Mackay (1864-1933), whose paedophilia was never known to other
anarchist writers during his life: "I admit to a philosophical
preference for Mackay's position..." [which means the] " giving up of
all false chivalry and self-denying dandyism in favour of more 'pagan'
and convivial modes of love." He closes the essay with his clearest
anarcho-paedophile statement: "it has taken on a tantalising reality
and filtered into my life in certain Temporary Autonomous Zones an
impossible time and space and on this brief hint, all my theory is
based." What he means by this is that he really has sex with children,
rather than leaving the matter to fantasy, and that this is his
purpose when he preaches anarchism.
Hakim Bey is the pseudonym for 59-year old Peter Lamborn Wilson, who
has been based in New York City for most of his life, but is now
living upstate in New Paltz. The Brooklyn Rail's interviewer, has this
mistakenly reversed, giving Bey as the original name, Wilson as the
pseudonym. The guy was born a WASP, and perhaps became Sufi one day
while prowling the mountains of Asia. He has no occupation, and in
1994 told an interviewer (Voice Literary Supplement, New York, Feb.
1994) that he "thanks God that a trickle of family money keeps him
'independently poor.'"[1] The name Lamborn is rare in New York, and it
is where the Sugar industry magnate Ody Lamborn died in 1971. It's
been my impression that Hakim Bey's trust fund was originally earned
by tormented labourers on sugar plantations. Whether it's from sugar
or from something else, this brings us to Wilson's touching concern,
about what he called "a class war situation" in the Rail interview :
"Where's our support for the Mexican migrant agricultural workers?"
I have operated dangerous machinery in factories, carried lumber up
flights of stairs, and I have (like most anarchists) done other
boring, low-paid jobs to feed myself, starting around age thirteen.
Still, I have known several anarchists who come from wealthy families,
and I've thought well of them because they make the choice to use
their privilege (freedom allowed by their trust fund) in good faith;
perhaps to heal wounds made earlier by their own relatives. But Peter
Lamborn Wilson gives me an unquiet feeling when he pretends to
understand and hold concern in his heart for that other world, where
he's never paid a visit, and where people work because they must work.
It has the very phoney ring of someone pouring syrup into a liberal
ear.
His use of his word-skills, of course, has me feeling still worse. As
he conjoins his paedophile mission with anarchism, he knows very well
that anarchism is now very popular among the very young. This is not
"spiritual anarchism," as he entitled a public "Chaos Day" lecture in
December of 2002. It is paedophile opportunism. Another device he uses
a lot is exemplified in "Tectum Theatrum" (Fifth Estate, Summer 2003),
in which he uses Latin phrases over and over, never to say something
there's no English word for, but to impress the utterly naive reader.
Having read Classical languages in college, this is especially tedious
and transparent to me, but it certainly will have its desired effect
on adolescent readers.
While he has no occupation, Bey/Wilson has not been idle. In Fifth
Estate #363, just this past winter, he relates how, when he was in his
mid-twenties, he was wandering around Persia and South Asia, smoking
opium and "looking for traditional anarchism" in Sufism. Under his
pseudonym (Bey), he's found some paedophile culture over in that
region as well. His translation of Abu Nuwas' poetry, O Tribe That
Loves Boys was published in Amsterdam in 1993.
When he was about thirty, Bey founded the Semiotext(e)-Autonomedia
Publishing group in New York. It has since become one of the larger of
the US-based anarchist publishers, and Bey remains with the group,
which carries several of his titles. An early release was Loving Boys:
Semiotext(e) Special (1980), edited by Bey. Thus he's been on this
crusade, in print, for at least twenty-five years. For some time, he
had a program on WBAI Radio, entitled "The Moorish Orthodox Radio
Crusade."
In the letters column of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (#20/21,
Nov-Dec 1989, p. 42), a letter announced a new a zine for contributors
17 and under. Wild Children, as the zine was called, solicited
articles on "anarchy (of course!), sci-fi, sexuality & love, spiritual
paths (or lack thereof), and anything else kids would like to submit."
The letter gave Hakim Bey as the editor, at a Brooklyn PO Box. Lev
Chernyi, the editor of Anarchy[2] replied that "Wild Children sounds
like an interesting idea. I hope it works out. Any young readers
interested?" In 1998, a 64-page anthology of this zine was published,
switching over to the name Wilson as editor.[3] While the anthology is
not considered a paedophile text and is carried by some anarchist
bookstores without concern, it should be noted that its contents were
solicited by a public anarchist-paedophile apologist during the same
years (1993-1997) when he was contributing pieces of clearly anarchist-
paedophile intent to the magazine Gayme, which was a bit more strident
than other child-molester periodicals, and was once the target of a
public prosecutor in Massachussetts. Due to legal issues relating to
the its contents, in fact, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in
Toronto preserves the title but will not allow scanning or copying of
its pages. I have been unable to locate original copies of the zine
Wild Children, but in yet another NAMBLA publication, its Journal (#7;
1986), the age "ten-and-a-half" occurs as the age of a boy in a sketch
by Bey. In typical paedo-style, everything is pushed to where he can't
go farther without the expectation of some angry person attacking him.
But Bey takes things to the next step by using a name by which he
(Peter Wilson) is actually identified. He's safe in doing so because
of the extreme toleration of anarchists in general, and the
shallowness of many.
Paedophilia is not the only opinion for which Hakim Bey has irritated
other anarchists. One example is his views on abortion. In "Communique
#9" of the Association for Ontological Anarchy, Bey wrote: "According
to Chaos Theory, it does not follow that we are obliged to like or
approve of murder or abortion. Chaos would enjoy seeing every bastard
love-child carried to term & birthed; sperm & egg alone are merely
lovely secretions, but combined as DNA they become potential
consciousness, negentropy, joy... If 'meat is murder!' as the Vegans
like to claim, what pray tell is abortion?"
I will not offer any reason to be offended by the paedophile
literature or the misogynist position of Hakim Bey as quoted above.
The ethical idiocy of both are self-evident, and neither is part of
anything that should be considered an anarchist idea. I am not
surprised that these opinions exist, but I am most uncomfortable for
realising that there is a discreet haven for both within the anarchist
culture of the United States. It makes me wonder, in fact: why did the
world-wide Catholic Church sex abuse scandal go by a few years ago,
without any commentary from American anarchists? Is this another dirty
little anarchist secret?
As for what I mean by a "dirty little anarchist secret," here's
another example: when about 7,000 priests were killed, many Catholic
churches burned, and many saintly cadavers mockingly defiled at the
beginning of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, it was in pretty bad
taste, but there were very logical and fair reasons for people
(including a huge number of anarchists) to take their anti-clerical
rage into action. Many anarchists have denied that any of this
happened, saying that it was all just fascist propaganda, or that it's
been wildly exaggerated. Actually, there is plenty of hard evidence
that it did happen. Rather than a bizarre, revisionist denial, I would
rather hear us say that the current craze for anarchist soccer-teams
has its roots in Spain (Madrid, I believe), where teenagers played
football with the skull of a saint, out in the plaza in front of the
church named after him. Why don't we just talk about it? Why can't we
talk about a fairly well-known anarchist author as the paedophile
personality that he most certainly is? What's the point of calling
oneself "anarchist" if there's some area of discussion where it's too
disturbing to ever step?
More directly intriguing to me is why I have been shut out of letters
columns or declined for print in anarchist periodicals on about twenty
occasions (and again now, in the Brooklyn Rail) when I cite the
articles, name the issue, and express my disapproval for a man who
presents child molestation as a point of anarchistic freedom. The
reasons given by editors vary widely. Some reactions are hostile,
taken very personally. Other cases express appreciation and some
concern for the information. Certain editors have written so much
thick, loving praise for Bey, and printed so much of his work that
they find themselves cornered when the paedophilia item is raised.
They have no sympathy for child-molestation but they frantically
search for paths by which they can stay clear of its discussion,
perhaps fearing that somehow, the stink of it would cling to them and
their publication. They'll sometimes argue that it's unfair to link
the person with the person's writings. I point to these editors, as I
have here, that it's in the writings that all this is happening, with
the less bold examples sometimes drooling out in their own anarchist
pages.
In the present case, the writer who interviewed Lamborn Wilson
recently at his green wood-frame house in New Paltz was glad to have
been informed, and there was a short, respectful exchange between us.
But the editors of the Rail merely tossed off a form letter: "Thank
you for your input..." There was no evidence of any sort of concern,
nor admission that the interview made a completely skewed impression
of its subject, no hint that editors have an ethical responsibility
for what they put on their pages.
Worse still is for there to be no reply, not even a private note. I
was particularly disgusted by Andrei Codrescu, the (obviously
anarchist) National Public Radio commentator who gave "TAZ and the
Tazzerites" a glowing ten minutes of his voice on All Things
Considered in July of 2003. I very respectfully wrote him about these
concerns, then I confirmed that he'd received my letter, but I
received no reply at all. The obvious message is that it's beneath
Codrescu's consideration to acknowledge in a ten-second message - Yes
the paedo-stuff is a drag but I like his other writings, sorry but I
disagree or whatever he thinks. He means that Hakim Bey's 25 or more
years as a public intellectual of anarchist paedophilia is not any
problem for him when he tells seventy million people what cool stuff
the guy writes, without reference to the paedophile origin and
undercurrent of TAZ, the same item he recommended.
No one anywhere denies that Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey) is
paedophile, least of all the man himself. I state what I see on his
pages, I offer my opinions as opinions only, and I make no accusation
of criminal conduct. The citations are right there, for anyone to
check for accuracy. Endlessly, anarchists have privately agreed that I
am absolutely right, on-the-money correct, about this issue. The
number who have written that opinion down where anyone else can read
it is very close to zero. I am left with the impression that they are
not taking responsibility for what they know. This does not speak well
of the anarchists of the United States. I feel that with anarchism
becoming ever more popular, the greater portion of new anarchists are
just consumers of anarchist stuff. Since such people can't deal with a
new ethical problem, they probably would not know what to do with that
new, real revolutionary opportunity for which they pine so
passionately.
The fact that a widely celebrated, living anarchist writer has smeared
the anarchist tradition with a sugar-coated image of paedophilia is an
issue that will continue to be raised. I feel that this is fair and
relevant because I keep spotting distorted presentations of Hakim Bey
and his motives, as in this last issue of the Brooklyn Rail.
-------------------------
Robert P. Helms is an independent historian of anarchism, now writing
about the early movement at Philadelphia. He is editor and principle
author of Guinea Pig Zero: An Anthology of the Journal for Human
Research Subjects (1992). Formerly of Philadelphia, he now lives in a
suburb of Paris. He can be reached at gpzero(at)earthlink.net
-------------------------
Footnotes
Anyone who wants a copy of the Hakim Bey paedophile bibliography (a
work in progress) should just ask, and the author will email it to
you.
1. Erik Davis, interviewer,"The Wandering Sufi: Itroduction to the
Mystic with Peter Lamborn Wilson," Voice Literary Supplement, New
York, February 1994
2. The same editor sometimes uses the name Jason McQuinn.
3. Wild Children: A Zine For Kids. New York, Scb Publishers, 1998.
Peter Lamborn Wilson (Editor) and Dave Mandl (Editor).
Taken from The Research on Anarchism List (RA-L), which is an
international forum which was started on January 1, 1996, and is
devoted to book reviews, research and discussion of the theories,
histories and cultures of world anarchist movements and to other
topics related to anarchism.
----
http://libcom.org/library/paedophilia-and-american-anarchism-the-other-side-of-hakim-bey
Paedophilia and American anarchism - the other side of Hakim Bey
An article about the paedophilia of lifestylist, mystic, individualist
"anarchist" Hakim Bey, aka Peter Lamborn Wilson
Pedophilia and American Anarchism - The Other Side of Hakim Bey (with
bibliography & sample poem)
By Robert P. Helms
Sometimes, when I turn on a radio or open a magazine, I remark “these
are strange times for an anarchist.” Year after year in both
mainstream and alternative Media, millions of people all over the
world are led to believe that an internationally known, public
pedophile apologist is also a popular anarchist. This is a terrible
distortion. In fact, most anarchists do not understand his writings
because they do not know his motivations. I offer this essay so they
might be better informed.
There is an American anarchist named Peter Lamborn Wilson, who uses
the pseudonym Hakim Bey for some of his writings. He is best known as
the author of TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone. I have never
considered his work to be serious anarchist thought, but many others
take a different view, and his work is available in at least a dozen
languages. The issue I find worth discussing is that for over twenty
years, Wilson/Bey has used anarchist arguments to promote pedophilia
in his published work. This is no secret in North America, although
his anarchist career is not in jeopardy.
Born in 1945 at New York, Wilson became involved in a revival of
“Moorish Orthodoxy” at age twenty. He has a trust fund by way of his
affluent family, and traveled to the Middle East (especially Iran)
from around 1970 until 1978, and then from around 1980 through the
mid-1990’s, he wrote poetry, prose fiction, philosophy, and literary
criticism conjoining pedophile sexuality with anarchistic ideology and
with Islamic mysticism. His venues include the NAMBLA Bulletin (organ
of paedophile organisation the North American Man-Boy Love
Association), Gayme, and the Acolyte Reader. Books by Bey on this
thread have been published by Semiotext(e), Autonomedia, NAMBLA,
Entimos Press, and Coltsfoot Press.
Hakim Bey has been recommended in many American media outlets,
including “All Things Considered” in 2003, on National Public Radio.
On 28 October 2004, Europe’s ARTE television network, on the show
“Tracks,” broadcast an interview with Hakim Bey to tens of millions of
viewers in both French and German. When I learned of the TV interview,
I contacted ARTE and the small company that made the film. Both
companies carefully acknowledged their error and regret. They intended
no harm, but as a result of this sort of favorable exposure, Anarchist
Pedophilia becomes more popular, its star philosopher more famous.
Every December for at least ten years, New York’s Libertarian Book
Club has sponsored Peter Lamborn Wilson’s annual “Chaos Day Lecture.”
He now lives in New Paltz, New York, north of the city. I have met him
on a few occasions, and I even arranged a lecture by him when I was
new to anarchism, around 1992. In early November 2004 he led a
workshop at a conference on secession in Vermont, where leading
radicals of that state gave lectures against the Bush government.
Within the anarchist world, there has been a pedophile thread in
evidence for over a century. The journal Der Eigene published at
Berlin from 1896 until 1933, was pedophile and anarchist, with
contributions from Adolf Brand, Edwin Bab, Elisar von Kuppfer, and
John Henry Mackay under the pseudonym “Sagitta.” Mackay was a
respected anarchist writer, and some of his books (both pedophile and
not) are in print today in several languages. Outside of his own
circle, however, the anarchists of his time were unaware of his
“secret life.”
The anarchist-pedophile thread has never disappeared, but remained
discreet until the 1970’s, when pedophiles emerged alongside the
struggle homosexual rights, using friendly terms like “Pederasty” and
“Man-Boy Love” for their ideas. Almost all gay and lesbian groups
firmly disavow any connection between their activism and pedophile
tendencies. Pedophilia is a separate issue, and it occurs just as
frequently among heterosexuals as it does among homosexual people. As
far as the question itself is concerned, let’s walk through what is
obvious: knowledge is power, and children know almost nothing. People
who know so little cannot give meaningful consent and are extremely
vulnerable to exploitation. The use of anarchist philosophy to reverse
this is opportunistic.
However, the distinction is not so clear among anarchists (at least in
the United States), and Hakim Bey is very clearly a guru among those
who understand sex between adults and children as a legitimate
lifestyle choice, rather than as sexual abuse. When the editors of
anarchist magazines have been approached with articles about Bey’s
pedophile side, there has been an almost uniform resistance to any
discussion. This has been explained in different ways, including that
the issue was imaginary; that it would be too controversial and
disruptive; that it was no more than a personal attack, and therefore
without merit. The internet has been more open to the subject, but the
general response is consistent. Anarchists leap into a debate about
censorship when no censorship was suggested; they are generally unable
to discuss the ethical ramifications of Bey’s use of anarchism to
justify something that is exploitative and predatory; they often
already know that Bey is pedophile, never deny it; some readers
appreciate that the discussion of Bey’s pedophilia is exactly as
relevant to discussing his work as any other part of the subject. The
majority take the time to state their disapproval of pedophile sexual
abuse, but the point does not occur in their minds as automatically as
would the disapproval of other social problems, such as sexism or
racism. Sometimes the matter needs to be explained. This writer has
been in the awkward position of defending freedom of the Press, but
then being unable to discuss literature that’s already printed. There
seems to be a vaguely-defined code of silence, preserving the safe
space for pedophile culture while pretending that it’s not there,
mostly by means of the volunteer labor of anarchists.
The former curator of one anarchist archive acquired pedophile
periodicals, presumably because Hakim Bey was writing anarchist
literature in the pages of the magazines. The Labadie Collection at
University of Michigan has carried the NAMBLA Bulletin and a few
similar titles since the 1980’s. Anarchist bookstores in the US almost
always carry Hakim Bey titles, but not the ones which can be
understood only as pedophile material. One exception is Bound Together
Books (San Francisco), which carries the Prison Diaries of NAMBLA
Members and other NAMBLA literature. One member of the collective was
quoted as saying that “to force the issue would destroy the
bookstore.” I do not condemn the preservation of any literature, but I
do observe that the anarchist scene provides venue and distribution
for pedo-anarchist material and simultaneously refuses to examine the
phenomenon.
In this writer’s opinion, the pedophile writings of Hakim Bey indicate
a general deceit in his philosophy, and are evidence that his concept
of the Temporary Autonomous Zone is inspired by opportunism, not by
good will. He presents arguments for human freedom while actually
wishing to create situations where he is free to put his deranged
sexuality into practice. This is an abuse of anarchism, and new
readers of Hakim Bey should take the pedophilia into consideration
before being led “down the garden path.” Once the awkwardness has been
overcome and we look at pedophilia as an item for discussion, we will
make very short work of it. All attempts to justify the practice are
morally idiotic, and the TAZ is no more than a “Neverland” on the
anarchist landscape.
Noisy-le-Sec, France
January 18, 2005
Subject : Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson, a.k.a. "Hakim Bey" founder of Semiotext(e)
magazine (now known as Autonomedia). Student of Sufi philosophy
through Walid al-Taha a.k.a Warren Tartaglia. Studied heretical Islam
in Iran, North Africa in the late 1960's. Traveled in India and Asia.
[Disinfopedia]
Pseudonym: Hakim Bey (catalog of Library of Congress, Washington DC)
Founder of the "Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade" on WBAI (95.5 FM, NYC,
Pacifica Radio). [Disinfopedia]
In 1965 a “brilliant junky 350-pound jazz saxophonist poet” named
Walid al-Taha introduced him to the Moorish Orthodox Church, after
which he disappeared into far-flung wanderings across the Muslim world
soaking in all the classical texts and tattered heretics and local
scenes he could find. In Iran he applied for a two-week visa and
stayed for seven years, leaving when the Revolution came. He has
become something of a living myth, an Old Man on the Mountain for
numerous intellectual circles. Peter has written scores of books and
articles (sometimes going by Hakim Bey), hosted his own radio show,
“Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade,” and was a founding member of the Ibn
‘Arabi Society (he remains an honorary fellow). [Sakhra-l'Assal, 2002]
Bibliography
Books & Articles
Wilson, Peter Lamborn. Kings of Love: The Poetry and History of the
Nimatullahi Sufi Order of Iran (with Nasrollah Pourjavady), Tehran
1978.
_____, Angels, Thames & Hudson, London 1980.
_____, Weaver of Tales. Persian Picture Rugs (with Karl Schlamminger),
Callwey, Munich 1980.
_____, The Drunken Universe. An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry (with
Nasrollah Pourjavady), Phanes Press, Grand Rapids 1987.
_____, Scandal. Essays in Islamic Heresy, Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY
1988.
_____, Radio Sermonettes (with the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade
Collective), The Libertarian Book Club, New York 1992. Reprinted as
Immediatism, AK Press, Edinburgh/San Francisco 1994.
_____, Sacred Drift. Essays on the Margins of Islam, City Lights
Books, San Francisco 1993.
_____, Pirate Utopias. Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes,
Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY 1995.
_____, "Shower of Stars" Dream & Book: The Initiatic Dream in Sufism
and Taoism, Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY 1996.
_____, Escape From the 19th Century. Essays on Marx, Fourier, Proudhon
& Nietzsche, Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY 1998.
_____, Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma, City Lights
Books, San Francisco 1999.
_____, “Sakhra-l'Assal Interviews Peter Lamborn Wilson” [in Dutch] in
Buiten de Orde, Utrecht, vol. 13 # 1, March, 2002. (“Sakhra -l'Assal
is independently unemployed. As a member of the Amsterdam collective
for applied schizophrenics, ZZ Produkties, he was involved with
translations of work by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Hakim Bey, among
others. He spends his spare time drinking beer.”)
_____, (editor with Robert Anton Wilson) Semiotext(e) Science Fiction
Anthology (Semiotext(e) n.d.)
Bey, Hakim. TAZ, The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy,
Poetic Terrorism (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1991)
_____, (contributor) Poems of Love and Liberation (New York: NAMBLA,
1996)
Articles in the NAMBLA Bulletin
[NAMBLA Bulletin is published by the North American Man-Boy Love
Association. This is a partial list of Bey’s articles for the
magazine. Original copies were examined by me at the Special
Collections Department, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (United
States).]
Bey, Hakim. "Japanese Scarf" (poem, reprinted from Seditious
Delicious) NAMBLA Bulletin, Jul-Aug 1985
_____, "Poem" NAMBLA Bulletin, Jan-Feb 1986
_____, "Five Conceptual Art Projects" NAMBLA Bulletin, Apr. 1986
_____, "My Political Beliefs" NAMBLA Bulletin, June 1986.
_____, "Association for Ontological Anarchism, Communique #2." NAMBLA
Bulletin, Jul-Aug 1986
_____, "The Face of God" NAMBLA Bulletin, Dec. 1986
_____, "The Eroticism of Banal Architecture" NAMBLA Bulletin, Jan-Feb
1987
_____, "Chaos Theory and the Nuclear Family" NAMBLA Bulletin, Mar.
1987
_____, "China Sea Post-Card" NAMBLA Bulletin, Mar. 1987
_____, "Divine Folly Indulges Pagan Passion" NAMBLA Bulletin, Nov.
1987
Articles in Gayme
[This is a partial list of Bey’s articles for the magazine. Further
citations are difficult to gather due to legal issues relating to its
contents (Gayme was involved in obscenity lawsuits). The Canadian
Lesbian and Gay Archives at Toronto preserves the title but will not
allow scanning or copying of its pages.]
Bey, Hakim. "Contemplation of the unbearded." Gayme vol.1, no.1, 1993,
pp. 16-21.
_____, "Temporary Autonomous Zone." Gayme vol.2, no.1, 1994, pp. 26-28
_____, "Pirate Utopias." Gayme vol.2, no.2, 1995, pp. 20-23
_____, "What do we do now?" Gayme vol.3, no.1, 1996, pp. 8-11
_____, "The music of what happens." Gayme vol.3, no.2, 1997, pp. 6-9
Translations
Bey, Hakim. O Tribe That Loves Boys: The Poetry of Abu Nuwas
[translation and biographical essay by Hakim Bey] (Amsterdam: Entimos
Press, 1993)
Reviews:
Bey, Hakim, "Boy-Love Novel Still Relevant 100 Years On" [a review of
Fenny Skaller and Other Poems from the Books of the Nameless Love by
the German anarchist John Henry Mackay] NAMBLA Bulletin, Apr. 1989
_____, "Japanese Romance on The House of Kanze by Noboku Albery"
NAMBLA Bulletin, Apr.-May 1987
Editorship:
Bey, Hakim (editor) Loving Boys: Semiotext(e) Special. New York:
Semiotext(e), 1980
Press Exposure:
Program 33 (production group of Paris), program title : "Tracks,"
segment title : "Pirates," broadcast on ARTE TV network, October 28
and 30, 2004 ; [also transmitted in German?]
Bleyer, Jennifer, "An Anarchist in the Hudson Valley" The Brooklyn
Rail, July 2004
Knight, Michael Muhammad, “Green Tea With Imam of the Age” Muslim
Wakeup! January 2004 (“Michael Muhammad Knight is author of The
Taqwacores, a novel available through the punk label Alternative
Tentacles.”)
Codrescu, Andrei “Location and Activities of TAZ and
Tazzerites” (commentary) July 16, 2003, network ; National Public
Radio ; program : All Things Considered. [Codrescu is a very well-
known poet, definitely an anarchist, who teaches at Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. All Things Considered is the leading radio news show in the
United States, with many million s of daily listeners.]
Davis, Erik (interviewer),“The Wandering Sufi: Introduction to the
Mystic with Peter Lamborn Wilson,” Voice Literary Supplement, New
York, February 1994
Sample text
My Political Beliefs
by Hakim Bey
This appeared in NAMBLA Bulletin, June 1986, page 14 (published by the
North American Man-boy Love Association).
barelegged on his bicycle in the park he rides beneath
a children's fountain -droplets catch his hair which
the afternoon makes somewhat bronze, beaded with molten dew
--the sunset over Jersey like an industrial krakatoa:
Newark Gold, Secaucus Red, East Orange.
The button on his blazer: Anarchist Bicyclists
he's in the bathtub, I see
him through a crack in the door playing with himself, he calls me in,
shows me
underwater push-ups and sit-ups, except for his gallic buttocks his
skin is gilt as the air over the Hudson. The touch of his wet, bath-
wrinkled fingers in my hand... but then...
one of his parents clumps down the hall... I suppose to make sure
neither of us is raping the other...
[chorus of groans] Ohhh! for a
Buster-Keaton-bomb all spherical & black as coaldust with sweet
sparkling with sweet sparkling fuse -a mindbomb to
Drop on the Idea of the Family! O for a libertarian isle of runaways!
O goodnight
Moon, I am lost, actually lost without him
But I didn't want this to be
Just another poem about hopeless love. Pretend it's a manifesto
instead. Down with School! Boy Rule OK! In the land of dreams
No governance exists
But that of anarchs and kings, for dreamers have not yet learned to
vote or think past the unfurling of the moment. He touches my cheek,
runs delicate fingers through the hairs on my arm.
My liege shatters all Law for a triple kiss.
--Hakim Bey
WTF?
-thor