We’re 25!

Twenty-five years ago, on May 1, 1995 members of the anarchist group Committee for the Establishment of Civilisation (CEC) started up Anarchist Books in the existing space of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), called the Freedom Shop in a tiny building at 272 Cuba St.
The Freedom Shop in 1995

A lot has changed since then – the building made way for the ill-named “bypass”, the Cuba St district was thoroughly gentrified, the Freedom Shop is now in Newtown and the future of printed material is uncertain.



But some things haven’t. Plans for yet more roads and more destruction of neighbourhoods that resulted in the bypass back then are still election issues today with catchy slogans like “4 lanes to the planes” - a reminder that building more roads inevitably creates demand for even more roads. And this year will see the referendum on cannabis law reform, the result of the campaign to “normalise” marijuana that created the original Freedom Shop.


25 years is definitely cause for celebration for an anarchist collective and we had been busy planning a big bash, a proper party with bands and everything. But then COVID-19 happened and life was put on hold. But we will make up for it once we can all be in the same space again. Because the physical space of a shop is one thing that still makes going to the Freedom Shop attractive over downloading a text from the web.

In the meantime, here is a brief history of the shop that we wrote for our 20th anniversary.

We’ll see you all on the barricades.

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