What's In A Name? (AntiClockWise #1)

Many active radicals have used false names, especially when the police are merely taking names and addresses, but also for court appearances – so that the person does not have the ‘crime’ or whatever attached to their real identity. A false address is preferably needed and someone to confirm the false identity when required (and to forget it afterwards!). This really ought to be planned well. The reason for all this is that our name is the key to our identity … and our identity is the key to the state keeping tabs on what we are up to.

This problem of names is not new, nor is the concept of multiples names i.e. we all assume the same false name so that activities can be carried out without numbers of blame being clear, in the same way as demonstrators such as the BZs in Amsterdam wear identical clothes and masks to cause massive confusion for the cops.

In the film Spartacus the Romans knew of the character by his name, but were thrown into disarray by everyone claiming “I’m Spartacus”. There are many examples of this or of one false name being used for many different purposes (as long as an arrest does not occur, after which the name should be dropped of course) e.g. several generations of anarchists in very different circumstances used a particular name (not mentioned here as it is still being utilised) for an astonishing variety of purposes (heaven help anyone who really had that name!).

The following is taken from Smile:

MULTIPLE NAMES

Multiple names are tags which the avant garde of the ‘70s and ‘80s have proposed for serial use. These have taken a number of forms, but are most commonly ‘invented personal names’ which, their proponents claim, anyone can take on as a context or identity. The idea is usually to create a collective body of artistic works using the invented identity.

The first of these collective identities, ‘Klaos Oldanburg’, was propagated by the British mail artist Stefan Kukowski and Adam Czarowski in the mid-seventies. A few years later the American mail artist David Zack proposed Monty Cantsin as the name of the ‘first open pop star’, a name anybody could use. Factional differences between those using the Monty Cantsin tag resulted in rival contexts of ‘No Cantsin’ and ‘Karen Eliot’, both of which emerged in the mid ‘80s. A number of individuals and groups have independently originated similar concepts e.g. a group centred around Sam Durrant in Boston proposed Bob Jones as a multiple identity in the mid ‘80s.

There have also been multiple names for magazines (e.g. Smile, originating in England in 1984) and pop groups (e.g. White Colours, first proposed in England during the early ‘80s).

Multiple names are connected to radical theories of play. The idea is to create an ‘open situation’ for which no-one in particular is responsible. Some proponents of the concept also claim that it is a way to “practically examine, and break down, western philosophic notions of identity, individuality, originality, value and truth”.

On 23^rd October 1988 The Observer carried a story about an elusive Scarlet Pimpernel student in the Burma riots who was known as Min Ko Naing (“The Conqueror of Kings”) and managed to elude the army for months. To confuse the intelligence services, 19 other students adopted the same name, so reported sightings came simultaneously in different parts of Burma.