Sebastian “Bas” Moreel (1930-2026)

[Bas Moreel spent many a long hour at the CIRA cataloguing, indexing, organizing, rearranging …. On his many trips, he collected publications on the CIRA’s behalf, gathering addresses, taking photos, sending long letters. A Dutch comrade pays tribute to him below.]

Bas Moreel passed away at the age of 95, on 1 January 2026. I met him in the mid-1970s when he was spreading anarchist ideas. He used to write and translate anarchist texts, often offering them for sale in the form of pamphlets using various channels. He orchestrated their distribution with his wife. He was, dare I say so, ‘sowing the seeds’ of anarchy. Such work enabled him to build up an international network of small publishers and (leftwing) bookstores, his purpose being to suggest, issue and market anarchist texts. Small wonder that he was co-founder of the international libertarian bookstore Het Fort van Sjakoo in Amsterdam. 

Bas was also a great one for travelling and a polyglot. He roamed vast areas of the globe maintaining his network and, wherever he ended up, he used to try to master the local language as best he could. Over a period of several years, we wound up as co-editors of the Dutch anarchist quarterly De AS (which was wound up in 2020). I remember him resigning his position as editor on the basis that, by his reckoning, anarchism had turned into a Church. In his view, too many dogmas had insinuated themselves into it. However, that did not trigger any falling-out between us and we were able to come to a common view of everything. Two points will illustrate our mutual understanding.

Some years back, I was giving a talk during a weekend organized by CIRA Limoges. I was due to speak on the development of anarchism in the Netherlands. That lecture was a follow-up to publication of my book in French as L’anarchisme au pays des provos (Lyon, ACL, 2015). Towards the end of my talk, I mentioned that, according to the Dutch Provos  (1965-1967), Dutch anarchism had not experienced a refresh. Bas Moreel who happened to be in the audience, then rose to his feet: “But you yourself broke fresh ground by adding in the subject of Anarchism and Law”. There was no denying it. At the same time, it was plain that Bas was also trying to say that I had ridden roughshod over a dogma, according to which anarchism has nothing to do with law …

And here is another example of our further exchanges with Bas. At one point, Bas suggested to me in an email that I should look into the Italian anarchist Nico Berti. My answer to that was that I did not read Italian, to which his response was: “I’m going to translate a few of his texts.”

Meanwhile, I did indeed develop an interest in Nico Berti in the light of our exchange and I published an initial article on the subject entitled: “Hier is geen anarchie te koop” (Anarchy Not For Sale Around Here). And then I wrote a second piece “Anarchisme en het kruispunt van de geschiedenis” (Anarchism at the Crossroads of History). Into it I incorporated not just some of Berti’s thinking but I also mentioned, in one paragraph, that Bas Moreel had, after his fashion, contributed to it.

In life one occasionally comes across people we miss forever. Bas was one of those. Thank you, Bas!

Thom Holterman
libertaireorde.wordpress.com

From Bulletin du CIRA, No 82, Spring 2026. 
[Thom Holterman is co-author of Law and Anarchism (Montreal, 1984)]

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.