Premises in
Sousse, Tunisia (2023) In the 19th century, the development of
capitalism saw the formation of several opposing political ideologies and movements, including
anarchism. Anarchists advocate for the struggle against all forms of domination perceived as unjust, among which is economic domination, with the development of capitalism. They are particularly opposed to the
State, viewed as the institution enabling the endorsement of many of these dominations through its police, army, and propaganda. Anarchists initially reused symbols from the republican and socialist traditions, such as the
red flag, but separated themselves from these starting in the early 1880s, notably with the
demonstration of 9 March 1883, where
Louise Michel flew the
black flag and made it a
central and traditional symbol of the movement. The black flag was then derived in different forms, for example in the flag of the
CNT, which is red and black, giving a
red and black flag for
anarcho-syndicalism. However, while these symbols exist, none are easy to display or propagate, and unlike the
Marxists, who had the
hammer and sickle, anarchists were then devoid of a symbol quick to draw that would unite them all in the same gesture and the same sign. In the 1960s, a vast movement of protest was felt among the youth against the aging institutions and values of
Gaullist France and, more broadly, the Western world. , Turkey (2013) , Brazil (2015) He became involved in anarchist initiatives in both Spain and France, and in 1964, with the Libertarian Youth group of Paris, he published an issue of the
Bulletin des Jeunesses Libertaires in April 1964. Ibáñez wrote the following explanatory text in the same issue to describe the invention of the symbol and the reasons why their group undertook this initiative: Anarchism was increasingly seen as a movement of aging militants losing dynamism—the circle-A is one of the points that allowed for significant generational renewal between the last decades of that century and the first of the 21st century, seeing the movement reborn and reconstituted as a major force of the far-left. Another element allowing for a renewal of militants was the
black bloc strategy. == Meanings and variations of the symbol ==