Revoltutions of our Time is written by The Peoples Want, a global network of grassroots collectives, organizations, and activists working to build a new form of international solidarity “from below,” prioritizing popular movements over state interests. The network started in 2019 from gatherings initiated by The Syrian Canteen, a mutual aid space and kitchen in Paris run by Syrian political exiles. It grew out of international events supporting uprisings in Lebanon, Iraq, Chile, Algeria, Iran, and other regions. By 2022, after several international gatherings, participants formalized an autonomous network structure to connect global struggles. The group published Revolutions of Our Times: An Internationalist Manifesto, detailing their perspective on 21st-century revolutionary internationalism.

Void Network supports The Peoples Want from the summer of 2026 and after the contacts established during the book presentation’s tour Gen Z Makes History in Asia.

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One sunny day in the suburbs of Paris, back in 2019, people from all round the world came together to attend the first ever “The Peoples Want” gathering. Paris is a colonial metropolis, but it is also a crossroads, a place where for many centuries exiles have gathered. The name we gave of our meeting was intended as a tribute to a cry that shook the world for more than a decade: “The People Want the Downfall of the Regime.” By swapping “Peoples” for People, we were expressing an aspiration.

A few years earlier, this rallying cry was brought to Paris in the luggage of Syrian revolutionaries. An encounter with local dissidents gave birth to a cooperative called “The Syrian Canteen.” It was intended as a warm place in which to recoup strength and courage, where people could break out of their isolation, where the most intense debates revolved around food and revolution; and where, gradually, a community of exiles and friends from several countries was able to coalesce.

It was out of this community that ‘The Peoples Want’ arose, as a series of transnational gatherings year after year attended by revolutionaries from all over the world. We shared our experiences and discussed what we were trying to build and fight for in our territories and neighborhoods. We took time to get to know each other over large banquets and parties, heard inspiring speeches and participated in discussions that were sometimes difficult. Above all, we allowed ourselves to imagine that the future held possibilities beyond the repressive blanket of lead that had descended.

The last of these meetings set us on a new course. Revolutionaries from forty countries attended, and thousands of people came to meet them. Many expressed the desire to build something more sustainable, to go further. This energy proved that there was work to be done, that we were just at the beginning. So, the canteen remained a canteen, and the network began to draw its own constellation.

The process of writing this text began in the summer of 2023. It consisted in nine people from different parts of the world—Lebanon, France, Syria, Tunisia, Chile, Kurdistan, and Iran—coming together to establish a first draft. Nine contributors who, each in their own way, had taken part in the uprisings of our time. Different versions of this text were then offered for discussion from Santiago to Beirut, from Lyon to Buenos Aires, from the Massif Central to the Galloway Hills via the Beqaa Valley. Along the way, it was debated, reworked, fleshed out, and in places changed entirely. From places of exile, from sites of struggle, North, South, East and West, our words have been enriched by contributions from participants in the revolutions in Egypt, Sudan, and Iraq, the peasant revolts in India, the feminist wave in Latin America, the movement for George Floyd in the United States, the uprising in Sri Lanka, the Palestinian and Ukrainian resistance, and many others.

Putting ideological considerations aside, foregoing dominant discourses and TV studio geopolitics, we traveled to engage with bodies in struggle, then pooled our experiences. From these many encounters, and the illumination they produced, we tried to grasp what was at stake, and make the most of many uncertainties and apparent contradictions, to analyze forces at play and understand our most immediate challenges. We then set ourselves a series of short, medium, and long-term objectives. The intensification of open warfare—in Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine, and Lebanon, to mention only the most recent—and the reinforcement of the bloc logic this implies, seemed a major obstacle. How could we not appear out of step, when drawing up plans for a new internationalism, at a time when bombs are going off everywhere?

Recognizing ourselves

“Nos costó tanto encontrarnos, no nos soltemos”ⁱ

It was so hard to find each other, let’s never again be apart

The memories of our era are filled with images of its ongoing collapse; forests in flames, seas turned into graveyards, epidemics, famines, and murderous invasions …

But we could choose to remember something else. We could remember the power of the uprisings that shook the countryside and cities of the world, sparing no continent, no geography. Time and again, in the midst of this suffocating atmosphere of the end of civilization, people had risen against fatalism. Governments, regimes, and a few heads fell. People returned to knock on history’s door.

Hundreds of police stations set on fire by protesters in Iran. A thousand public buildings attacked by rebels from working-class neighborhoods in France. Giant barricades on Maïdan in Kyiv, banks stormed by insurgents in Lebanon. Everywhere, violent insurrection offered a response to the violence of humiliation.

Those who lived through the ransacking of triumphal arches, the invasion of presidential swimming pools, or participated in furious dances echoing across borders, remember the rage. The rage, but also beauty liberated in defiance of sadness. We remember the warmth of a library built under siege, late-night conversations in improvised street kitchens, splendid walls adorned with slogans, words of wit and messages of love, those tens of thousands of voices singing in unison that nothing would ever be the same again.

Let them repaint the walls and re-make their statues. They can send us into exile. They can lock us up and slaughter our people. A flame burns deep in our hearts through the hardest, coldest, most sinister moments.

In revolt, we have regained our dignity. From continent to continent, from our exile, in our travels and in our struggles, we have found each other. In the clash of street battles, gestures seen and then replicated in different countries, words echoed across languages, we have recognized each other. We understood that we belong to a single transnational struggle and that we stand against an internationally organized elite. We know that if we remain isolated, we will achieve nothing.

The bitterness of our defeats, and our refusal to accept them as final, has engendered the desire to get to know each other. We have begun to weave a network of planetary connections, from front lines to popular assemblies, from feminist strikes to resistance committees, from occupied traffic circles to occupied forests, and have discovered a common sensibility.

If the avant-gardes claimed to be marching one step ahead of the masses, we know that we are marching one step behind the popular uprisings of recent years. We have grown in their wake; they were our best school. Now we want to weave the fabric of a generational experience. By generation, we mean that which connects all those, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion or language, who have recognized the emergence of a new revolutionary cycle and felt a tremor in the depths of their hearts and bodies.

None of the ideologies, none of the political roadmaps we have inherited is capable of grasping the tumult of our times. We have not sought to create new ones. But we do have a notion of the method that will enable us to find paths together: it’s called internationalism.

The revolutionary task has in part become a task of translation. Sharing and translating our different perceptions of reality, and circulating them, are the first steps in this method. This text is designed to highlight salient points of our first cross-analyses. It attempts to organize them in a way that may be useful to anyone wishing to take an active part in what happens next.

Palestine (2000, 2005, 2020), Argentina (2001), Kabylia (2001), Georgia (2003, 2024), Lebanon (2005, 2019), France (2005, 2018, 2023), Iceland (2008), Iran (2009, 2017, 2019, 2022), Kyrgyzstan (2010), Thailand (2013, 2020), Brazil (2013) South Korea (2016), UK (2011), USA (2011, 2014, 2015, 2020), Syria (2011), Morocco (2011), Libya (2011), Tunisia (2011), Spain (2011), Greece (2008, 2011), Egypt (2011), Sri Lanka (2022), Yemen (2011), Bahrain (2011), Quebec (2012), Turkey (2013), Ukraine (2004, 2014), Burkina Faso (2014), Bakur-Kurdistan (2015), Nicaragua (2018), Iraq (2019), Catalonia (2019), Ecuador (2019), Belarus (2006, 2021), Kyrgyzstan (2005, 2010, 2020), Turkey (2013), Chile (2019), India (2019), Hong Kong (2014, 2018), Haiti (2019), Algeria (2019), Sudan (2013; 2018; 2019), Colombia (2021), Burma (2021), Kazakhstan (2022), Peru (2009, 2022), Senegal (2022-2023), Bangladesh (2024) …

This is not just an incomplete and unfinished list of the revolts of our time. Behind every place, behind every date, lie hundreds of thousands of faces, dreams, and lives. The following lines are a tribute to the insurgents who took part in these events; a tribute to those we have found, those we have yet to meet and those we will never see again. To those who fell because they loved life. It is for our own sakes, but also for theirs, that we have decided to take to the road again; inspired by their presence and their energy. These words are dedicated to them.

Birth of our power

/ The margins attack the center / From the margins to the people / The fall of the regime / The plan we missed /

A fifteenth-century Arab thinker, watching his civilization crumble from bathing in superfluous luxury, worriedly predicted: the margins will put an end to Empire. What better image of this threat from the margins than Delhi in 2020, encircled by millions of peasants who had been long ignored. Peasants who, after the biggest strike in human history—a strike of 250 million people—set up peasant councils, the Mahapanchayat, all over the country, saying: The Mahapanchayat are the new parliaments of the people, and the untouchables will be at their center.

The margins attack the center

As the uprisings of our time have shown, there is no global revolutionary subject. Black people in the United States, women and sexual and gender dissidents in Latin America, Baluchis or Kurds in Iran, Indigenous peoples in Ecuador or Peru, youth from the working-class districts of Santiago and Tripoli. The revolt was led, above all, by those on the margins.

To be on the margins is to be part of the whole, but outside it. The margins include those who are carefully kept on the sidelines, not too far away to keep the machine running, but not too close to disturb; both outside and at the service of the centers. The centers are where power lies; state or capital city, multinational corporation, colonial settlers, bosses, patriarchs.

A revolt is limited when those who trigger it fail to rally other types of anger. Facing the centers, the great architects of our separation, the challenge of our uprisings was to ensure our encounter. Encounters between different segments of the margins, but also encounters between those on the margins and dissidents from the centers; those who defy the powers from which they benefit, such as the inhabitants of colonial metropolises who support liberation struggles in the colonies.

Where a segment of the margins, such as peasants in India, Indigenous people in Ecuador, high school students in Chile, or Black people in the United States, was joined by a large part of the population, uprisings have managed to achieve victories. Although these were often partial and provisional: the withdrawal of reforms in India and Ecuador, the opening of the constituent process in Chile, and the pseudo-overhaul of several local police forces in the United States.

In an uprising, encounters between fighters from the margins and dissidents from the centers gives rise to breaches that contain trenchant possibilities, where ambiguities and contradictions coexist. In the United States, the uprising triggered by the assassination of George Floyd was joined by white demonstrators in large numbers. After the first days of insurrection, these demonstrators tried to form a security cordon between the police and Black insurgents in order to ‘protect’ them. Without even realizing, they were helping to neutralize anger and redraw racial boundaries that the insurrectionary movement had momentarily made less rigid. Nothing is a given in the encounter between dissidents from the centers and fighters from the margins—or between different sections of the margins themselves—but the moments of uprising were unique opportunities to shift the boundaries beyond compartmentalized milieus.

Where such encounters did not take place, the revolts multiplied in successive waves, but at a certain stage dispersed, fragmented, or were repressed. This was the case in Iran, where it was mainly the declassed middle classes who revolted in 2009, and working class men in 2017 and 2019. It wasn’t until 2022 that the regime faltered, when all components of society rose up behind women. In France, white dissidents of the centers didn’t join the youth of working class neighborhoods in 2005 or 2023, and the middle classes or unionized workers took little part in the Yellow Vest uprising of 2018. Without these encounters, regimes hold, governments buy time.

From the margins to the people

In the heart of Paris, during the insurrectionary evening of 1 December 2018, after breaking down the doors of the former Paris stock exchange, a Black teenager, standing alongside a white protester in a yellow vest and an activist of Moroccan origin, enthusiastically blurts out, “It’s us the people … Wallah (I swear on Allah), it’s us the people!”

The revolt dismantles the separations produced by the centers; reconstituting the people. In Sudan, it was through meeting in the revolutionary processions of 2019 and at the sit-in in al-Qiyada Square that people from all parts of the country found themselves sharing their experience of the injustices that affected them all, although in different ways. It was in revolt that they first encountered each other, chanting together: “Unity is the people’s choice!”

The uprising shatters the people which was constructed and rigidified by national novels, fascist ideologies and dogmatic activists. Through their calls for unity, the margins of the uprising have often reinvented the people, in line with their own realities. That explains why, in France, a predominantly white movement like the Yellow Vests was so strong among colonized populations in Guadeloupe or Reunion; why a Black woman, the son of a Portuguese immigrant, and a young Romani could be found among the movement’s main leaders; why a small business owner and a working class woman could hold a barricade together. In Sri Lanka, the 2022 uprising brought together, not without friction, Buddhist monks, queer people, Sinhalese and Tamils, revealing the people for what they are: plural and in the making.

Weaving together the different fragments of the margins is done through speech as well as gestures. Syrian Arab revolutionaries understood this well when they used the Kurdish word “azadi” (freedom) as a call to Kurds; the Turkmen of Iran when they sang “Kurdistan the eyes and light of Iran” to bring together historically antagonistic minorities; the use of the Mapuche flag in the 2019 demonstrations in Chile, and the Kabyle one in Algeria during the Hirak. In the heat of uprising, these gestures were all attempts to extend the people.

Yet, no segment of the margins is capable of unifying the diversity of people indefinitely. Unity is enabled by the sharing of experiences from the margins—insurrectionary practices, resistance in the face of repression, and the organization of immediate survival—more than by visions of change or ideological convictions. While regimes were relentless in their efforts to divide the movement by all possible means, pre-existing divisions also returned at the first opportunity, undermining the unity born of revolt. This leaves us with a major question: how can we maintain our unity beyond the peak of an uprising?

A people is always several things at once. It can be deceived, oppressed, participate in its own defeat or that of others. It can be divided with each fragment fighting each other. But a people can also, on rare occasions, rally around a collective will to free itself from the political class that governs it. It’s only through coming together, even if ephemerally, despite obstacles and contradictions, that the various segments of the margins, together with dissidents of the centers, have created a people with a new meaning. A people with revolutionary potential.

The fall of the regime

In Egypt, Tunisia and Ukraine, regimes fell. In Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Iraq, governments were overthrown. Yet even when movements seemed momentarily victorious, nowhere did the uprisings succeed in preventing a return to the established order or the arrival of the worst. Insurgents everywhere were painfully reminded that replacing a government or a constitution is not synonymous with threatening the powerful. The uprisings failed to reach the core of regimes.

An uprising is the eruption of the real movement, the self-assertion of those who have been pushed out of their humanity, dispossessed of their own strength. In this way, it signals both to the centers and to the margins themselves that the status quo can no longer continue. It fractures the legitimacy of established powers. The question remains, what to do with this fracture?

In 2022, Sri Lanka found itself on the verge of tipping over. Government buildings were occupied, the president had fled the country, and the army and police didn’t dare intervene. In a way, revolutionaries had won the first round. But not knowing what to do with the ministries, they returned them. As elsewhere, revolutionaries were beaten by the shock of their own victory.

In many uprisings, in the face of our paralysis, politicians and technocrats of all stripes did not miss the opportunity offered by our weakness. The Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt, the military chiefs in Libya and Algeria, the “official” opposition of the Syrian National Council: the crowd of opportunists didn’t wait for us to finish mourning our dead or nursing our wounded. While our barricades were still in place, they went to negotiate a “political outcome,” synonymous with the end of the revolt.

How can we forget Boric, subsequently elected President of Chile, rushing into the halls of Congress in 2019, while the crowd was still confronting the police in the streets, to sign a biased agreement for a constitutional process to contain the revolt alongside the ruling political parties? As is so often the case, the institutional game intervened to restore order and prevent the country from plunging into the unknown. “If Piñera falls, we all fall,” said a leftwing Chilean senator with lucidity. Politicians and bourgeois of both right and left always prefer to accept cosmetic change and a few concessions to ward off the advent of a revolution that would really threaten their power and wealth. To prevent a profound revolution.

During the Maïdan uprising in Kyiv in 2014, the ministry doors slammed shut once the regime was deposed by the street. Opposition parties were quick to propose a “transitional government,” which they paraded on the central grandstand of the occupied square asserting their legitimacy. The insurgents were not fooled, but after three months of insurrection they were exhausted, so the subterfuge came to pass. Insurgents thought they could keep a close eye on the new government and even proposed “people’s” deputies. They pressured the new government by occupying a number of ministries to bring about institutional change and threatened to launch another Maïdan. But above all, it was a signal for everyone to go home.

In Sri Lanka, Chile, and Ukraine, for the uprising to have gone further it would have been necessary to face the uncertainty of knowing how the country was going to feed itself, where to get fuel or medicine, or how to defend themselves against foreign military aggression. To know how to survive and live, rebels would have had to answer questions of scale that, for the moment, are beyond their grasp: what to do with state institutions, international organizations, the army, or foreign debt? How could they overcome obstacles without creating new dependencies? History has taught us that compromises often lead to concessions, i.e. variations of the same, rather than alternatives. So how do we keep fighting without falling into the abyss?

To do so, we need more than just material assurances. Throwing yourself into the unknown is an act of faith. It’s done when there appears to be no choice. Or out of conviction; when you believe in something so deeply that it seems worth the risk. But what exactly do we believe in? What is our response to uncertainty? The days when socialism was on the table for every uprising are over. Without a map or compass, rebels have thrown themselves into the arms of those who had a plan: the reactionaries, the liberals, or the military. And those of us who ignited the revolt were left to contemplate, comment, and criticize—at least those of us who were still free, or alive.

The plan we missed

The irony is that perhaps the plan was there all along, right before our eyes.

Much has been said about the horizontal, decentralized nature of our revolts. About the extent to which the big traditional organizations were absent, or incapable of monopolizing the “leadership” of the emerging movements. Leftists around the world appeared overwhelmed by the intensity and inventiveness of this wave of uprisings.

As a result, each uprising, each struggle, saw the emergence—independently of the directives of this or that leader, party, or organization—of new forms of popular organization adapted to the needs of each revolt. Occupations of squares, buildings, or universities in Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong; local councils in Syria and resistance committees in Sudan; territorial assemblies in Chile and Colombia; feminist assemblies around the world; roundabouts taken over by Yellow Vests in France.

In each of these experiences, insurgents found themselves organizing the offensive as well as the day-to-day life of the uprising. Assemblies were held to discuss strategy and prepare for highway blockades, demonstrations, and assaults on centers of power. We tried to organize security and self-defense, geolocated repressive forces, prepared legal defenses, and took care of the wounded. We built camps and shacks, fed crowds through ollas communes (popular kitchens), and occupied and cultivated vegetable gardens. Everywhere, we tried to ensure the proliferation of our forces and our possibilities for action.

In Syria, revolutionaries went even further. In territories from which the regime was ousted, insurgents managed to run entire towns, hospitals, mills, power stations, and distribute food by themselves for several years. The hundreds of local councils in the liberated territories were testimony to the fact that Syria’s future lay neither in the hands of the National Council (opposition in exile), nor in those of armed groups. Yet revolutionaries didn’t dare claim that it was they themselves who might actually be building an alternative to the regime. It was the demonstration in deed that, even under bombs and siege, cut off from the world and facing ruthless repression, people were capable of governing themselves.

In an uprising, we’ll always face forces who won’t hesitate to take over the palaces. And their priority will always be to defeat nascent forms of popular organization. Not being recognized as serious or legitimate by national and international forces, rebels were sidelined. Faced with these threats, we generally failed to influence the outcome of revolts. We were either unable or unwilling to take charge of the aftermath of the uprising. We failed to establish ourselves as a power.

In Sudan too, during the last decade of struggle (2013-2023), resistance committees were set up in cities and neighborhoods. They organized both mobilizations and popular mutual aid. Year after year, revolt after revolt, they’ve grown in strength and experience. Following the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir, some opposition organizations decided to participate in the civilian-military Transitional Council. The resistance committees largely opposed this decision in order to remain faithful to the revolution’s demand to remove all powers linked to the military. As a result, they themselves embodied popular legitimacy. Freed from opposition organizations and strengthened by this legitimacy, the hundreds of committees drafted and then voted on a proposal for the country’s future: the Charter for the Establishment of People’s Authority. Only in Sudan did the movement’s grassroots committees dare to claim revolutionary power. Elsewhere, one of the great errors was to have reduced the emerging popular powers to the means of the revolution, rather than a unique combination of its means and ends. As a prefiguration of a possible revolutionary future.

These experiments offer a wealth of lessons for revolutionaries; they join and update a long history of popular power. It’s a history that no textbook mentions: that of the Comandos Comunales and Cordones Industriales in Chile (1970-73), the Quilombos of Brazil (1550-2024), the sans-culottes sections of the French Revolution (1789-93), the Caracoles of Chiapas and the Workers’ Councils of Russia and Bavaria (1905, 1918-1919), the communes of Paris (1871), Morelos (1913) and Kronstadt (1921). And many others.

We interpret what we’ve lived through as an ongoing era of insurrection. What some quickly dismissed as defeat, we see as the birth of a worldwide movement of revolt for dignity. We look our failures straight in the eye, and prepare ourselves for victories to come. Our starting point is all those places to which popular power has returned, sometimes ephemerally, sometimes more tenaciously, to give us back our strength.

Finding the emergency brake

/ Behind every fascism lies a failed revolution / The age of exhaustion / A State of Emergency in every state / Finding the horizon /

The beginning of this decade underlines a simple, but painful truth: as revolution progresses, so counter-revolution grows harsh.

Recent uprisings have shown that all regimes, whatever their nature, are radically out of step with popular aspirations. Unable to rekindle faith in their moribund projects, the first response of those in power was terror. The uprisings left martyrs, prisoners, and exiles in their wake. The militarization of territories and the criminalization of struggles intensifies, while enforced disappearance and torture multiplies. To add to the national horror, Russian, Iranian, French, and American generals flocked to the bedsides of threatened regimes. Tear gas, bombs, and ‘French policing expertise’ were offered to Ben Ali, German policemen and Israeli cybersecurity systems to Chile, Iranian militias and Russian bombs to the aid of Bashar al-Assad. The crushing of our uprisings was not just national, it was international.

After the uprisings, what survives gains strength and even organizes itself, and is more often than not some form of reaction. Everywhere, the ruling classes fiercely defend their interests, whatever the cost. Across the globe, the only organized forces that seem to outlive the uprisings are conservative at best, fascist at worst. The last decade’s uprisings have been brought to a halt by a large-scale and multifaceted response: a violent counter-revolution.

Behind every fascism lies a failed revolution

Counter-revolution is not just a global counter-insurgency operation. Nor is it simply a restoration, a return to the old regime, or the re-establishment of a social order battered by conflict and revolt. It actively builds a new order to suit its own needs. It shapes mentalities, cultural behaviors, tastes, habits, and customs. But there’s more: counter-revolution uses the same presuppositions and tendencies as those on which the revolution is based; it occupies the terrain of its adversary and gives other answers to the same questions. It reinterprets the revolution in its own way.

As revolutionaries are crushed, dispersed, and isolated, the heads of the hydra we thought we’d cut off slowly grow back. Whether through the decolonial costumes worn by Putin or Xi Jinping, the “anti-establishment” rebellions of Trump, Milei, or Bolsonaro, or the “free world’s” war for “democracy,” elites everywhere try to harness aspirations of the uprisings to prevent their return. In Argentina, the “afuera!” (Out!) of Milei echoes the “que se vayan todos!” (Out with them all!) of the rebels at the turn of the century. The best way to crush the desire for freedom is to present oneself as a liberator.

In 2024, Donald Trump participates in rallies featuring slogans such as “be ungovernable” and “mass deportation now.” If fascists are our sworn enemies, it’s not just because their project is the opposite of ours. They’re our sworn enemies because they defend their project in revolutionary disguise, feeding off the impulses and aspirations of popular revolt while being the last resort of the centers. Putin, Meloni, Le Pen, like so many others, take advantage of the frustration and humiliation of the working class, undermined by the latest changes in capital, to consolidate their anti-establishment stance, so as to better defend the system. They claim to want to change everything so that nothing changes. Today, reactionaries are becoming more radical, while progressives flounder in moderation.

It’s no coincidence that fascists have so much hatred for the feminist and queer movements. Fascism sees them as an adversary capable of creating a desire for liberation which could potentially threaten the established order. Feminists in the South have convinced millions to join their movements, thanks to their radical claim to empowerment and a will to change everything by transgressing the rules of gender, class, geography, and age. The same is true of the queer movement, one of the few that continues to dare to dream. By shattering the binary logic at the basis of all power, they turn the imaginary into a weapon, and desire into a force. By putting the body at the heart of transformation, the queer revolution is one of the few movements to stand in the way of the fascists’ vision and embody possible futures. But, like so many other movements before them, they are being courted by the progressive factions of Empire, who are trying to defuse them and transform them into a harmless cultural accessory.

How can we believe that the bulldozing supremacisms of Trump, Modi, or Netanyahu could be beaten by a well-sourced argument, an IPCC report, the fact-checking of the New York Times or a vote at the UN? Every time it ventures onto this terrain, progressivism is a little more mocked, a little more discredited, and therefore counter-productive. The resignation of social democrats who claim it’s impossible to change anything, even after winning elections, prepares the path for subversion by fascist forces who only have to stoop to harvest the legitimate anger and lost souls of the uprisings. From Washington to Brasilia, so far, there has been nothing more than parodies of insurrection. The next time it could be much more serious.

The worldwide resurgence of xenophobic nationalism and the systematic attacks on women’s rights and sexual and gender dissidence are the result of a well-planned global offensive; that of a neo-fascist international. The increasingly tense and grimacing faces of power may differ in appearance, yet they all belong to the same beast. For beyond their apparent conflicts and enmities, these forces share a common goal: to maintain the power of the centers, no matter the cost. To achieve this, no massacre will be too costly. On the contrary, war has always been the method of choice to keep revolution at bay.

The age of exhaustion

Everywhere, we have fallen into a state of emergency. Of all the regimes whose demise we could wish for, it is one of the most tenacious and multiform. It is indelibly inscribed even in our ways of organization and methods of struggle.

There are the immediate emergencies that spur us to action, because it’s no longer possible to endure things as they are. Not having enough to eat, risking death or rape on every street corner, finding nowhere to shelter oneself and one’s children for the night, risking humiliation with every new administrative procedure, being beaten up at every identity check, fearing that there won’t be enough water to grow crops, that the earth will turn to sand …

The precarity of life plunges us into a grueling daily routine, filled with imperatives that we can’t even begin to resolve, and then another pressing situation arises. These emergencies, which unite us in our lived realities and monopolize our time and energy, are either faced alone or within our networks of relations, which are also exhausted. These daily pressures force us into unsustainable rhythms to keep struggles alive, to protect ourselves or avoid being crushed, demanding ever more energy simply to exist.

On the government side, as a cynical response to the emergencies just mentioned, there are those emergencies which, each in their own way, aim to remind us how helpless we are without the state’s protection: “economic crisis,” “natural” disasters, “foreign agents,” “external threats,” “migration crisis,” and so on. The “State of Emergency” is utilized by all regimes, from the most democratic to the most despotic, as a measure of exception to the state of “peace.”

The “emergency law” (Qanun al-Tawari’) governed the daily life of Syrians for over forty years before the revolution. Officially put in place to counter the military threat of Israel, it has always been used to repress any internal dissent. A few months after the start of the uprising, it was transformed into the “Counter-terrorism Law” but was still used to target any opposition. In Chile, the State of Emergency allowed President Piñera to (re)deploy the military against people in revolt. Over the last two decades, the use of the State of Emergency—as a legal justification for the absence of the rule of law—has spread everywhere, ostensibly in response to terrorist attacks as well as viruses, urban riots, and natural disasters.

A State of Emergency in every state

If politics is the continuation of war by other means, then governing and waging war are two sides of the same coin. The nation-state, with its particular way of structuring power, population management, and territorial control, has conquered almost the entire globe, through wars of colonization. However, the way in which power is exercised and populations controlled is not the same from one state to another, or from one region of the world to another.

The operation of the state apparatus is different for a former colonial power, well-established on the wealth it extorted from the rest of the world, than for a recently decolonized state under the influence of greater powers seeking to gain control over its resources. The degree of violence inflicted by the state on its own population is determined by the material means (colonial rent, oil rent, financial windfalls of various kinds) that the national elites have at their disposal to buy social peace before resorting to brute force.

Socialism, the welfare state, and social democracy, where they exist, have all been attempts to link the question of the state and that of popular sovereignty in a different way. In addition to its monopoly on “legitimate violence” and territorial defense, the State is also entrusted with the welfare of citizens, redistributing a part of the wealth, and providing services to the population. Each of these attempts, whether the outcome of revolutionary uprisings or reformist efforts, resulted in broadening popular support for the stability of the state.

But the time for social utopias is well and truly over. Hardly anyone is trying to sell us a rosy future. Dystopias have replaced utopias everywhere. There’s the conspiratorial threat of the “Great Replacement” espoused by white racists; the society of control under the subordination of authoritarian artificial intelligences; the imminent collapse of living conditions on Earth. When the traditional parties of the left attempt to re-enchant us with dusted-off political programs and new promises of change, it is now only due to the cyclical urgency of preventing the far right gaining power.

The “War on Terror” launched by the United States ushered in the twenty-first century. The pretext of the diffuse, omnipresent, and ever-imminent threat of terrorism has justified every war, every control measure, and every measure of exception at home and abroad. Mexico’s “war on drugs,” Russia’s “denazification of Ukraine,” Israel’s “eradication of Hamas,” Syria’s “annihilation of the Zionist-Wahabi conspiracy,” Turkey’s “crushing of Kurdish terrorism,” Mali’s “ending Tuareg secessionism,” Chile’s “dismantling of Mapuche terrorism,” and so many others … These are just some of the ways in which threats—some real, some fabricated—are used to divert societal tensions towards the fight against a common “enemy,” the ultimate guarantor of national unity. A domestic protest that is a little too strong will quickly slip into the rank of “enemy from within” if it is not satisfied with the negotiating framework it’s granted. The state is always portrayed as a “besieged castle,” under threat from hostile forces within or on its doorstep. It is legitimized by the very thing that threatens it.

The emergency defines our relationship to the world and ushers in differing degrees of authoritarian methods to deal with disasters. In turn summoned by political forces, trade unions and associations, then by governments that sometimes take them on board without responding to them, emergency has become the universal motif of politics. The only way to govern, or do activist work (where possible), is in the name of emergency. This imperative masks difference, conflict, and inequality: we are all concerned, in the same boat, equally victims, equally responsible, equally mobilizable.

Responding to a “social emergency,” calling for a “state of ecological emergency,” running from one cause to another, from a fight against an ecocide project to mobilization against a state reform, from a humanitarian crisis to an anti-fascist campaign. Each of these struggles, however important, sucks up all our available energy, and, lacking an overall strategy, we run around like headless chickens.

Finding the horizon

The militarization of cities, swift border closures, the explosion of police controls, electronic surveillance, and restrictions on movement, house arrests, and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate that authoritarian measures are perfectly feasible on a large scale and over a long period of time. All that is needed to reactivate them when necessary is a well-crafted argument or crisis.

For a number of years now, things that haven’t previously been in the media spotlight have been making headlines on 24-hour news channels: the sterilization of the oceans, the Australian or Amazon forests in the grip of flames, hurricanes and devastating floods. The mismatch between the positions and actions of governments and the proven gravity of the situation is clear to everyone. “Eco-anxiety” has become the disease of an epoch for those privileged enough not to have more pressing reasons to worry. It’s another contributing factor to the general paralysis. When we hear about wars, famines, humanitarian disasters, or mega-fires all day long, we’re left in a daze. It’s understandable, in order to survive, to ignore this information and carry on with life. As we are reminded of our own powerlessness, we are once again condemned to rely on an improbable leap of faith from the planet’s leaders, or at least try to pressure them.

The very real ecological emergency is undoubtedly a powerful mobilizing force when concrete targets are identified and action strategies drawn up. The call to respond to the climate emergency is partly used by people fighting to defend their territories, by political organizations and environmental movements, to gain attention and increase their forces, to legitimize more radical forms of mobilization, and create unprecedented popular convergences. But as these emergencies become more widely recognized and threaten the interests of the ruling classes, leverage may well change hands. Ecology, for example, has already permeated rightwing and liberal political discourse, and the moment is fast approaching when talk of ecological collapse will justify a new authoritarian turn, Chinese-Communist-Party style.

The youth of the centers are mesmerized by the prospect of their own tragic future, while those on the margins dream of plausible futures, with their back to the wall of an untenable present. The result is a repeatedly renewed disconnect between respective situations. In the time we have left, it is up to us to come up with a fresh response.

We must re-establish our own timeframe. We must make space to think together and apply the emergency brake. Whether we are living in a society already collapsing under the impact of war, natural disaster, or economic meltdown; or whether we belong to the heart of a Western fortress, stifled and haunted by the prospect of its forthcoming collapse, the only way forward is to elaborate a common plan, effective in each of our situations. And to ask:

What is the nature of this emergency? What leverage does it allow? What energy does it provide, what energy does it drain? What is to be gained in the race to define the root cause and nature of the emergency? What excessive means may it one day cause our opponents to use?

“Emergency,” as a mandate to act, is a maneuver to win people over, and make them submit to an agenda—andthere can be little doubt as to who will have the means to win in the end. As far as popular movements are concerned, urgency is always a prelude to scattering and exhaustion. We need to focus, measure our actions, and strike where striking can make a difference. Whatever the imperatives, whatever the pressure that can seem to paralyze us, the challenge is to act by focusing our energy and avoiding exhaustion. Organizing in the face of a counterrevolutionary offensive on this scale means rediscovering a horizon and building for the long term: establishing connections and marshaling strength to avoid defeat in the insurrectionary explosions to come.

Turning exile into a position of attack

/ Deadly paths / Arrival in the host country / Increasing circulations /

Every attempt at revolution, every insurrection, leaves in its wake a new generation of exiled revolutionaries. In Cairo, Baghdad, Santiago, and elsewhere, uprisings have left people unable to return to their former lives, not only because of the existential upheaval experienced, but also because of the cost of struggle. Losing an uprising is never without consequences. In addition to defeat, rebels pay the price through trauma, prison, mutilation, or death. Others experience the heartbreak of having to abandon their land and their loved ones. Our decade of uprisings has thrown a whole generation of Syrians, Sudanese, Iranians, Haitians, and Hong Kongers into exile, joining the Kurds, Palestinians, and Tamils of previous generations.

Exile is not just the result of political repression. An exile is also a person forced to abandon their homeland in order to survive, because home has become too dangerous, life has become unbearably expensive, and the land less nourishing. Wanting a future for one’s children, needing to live one’s convictions or one’s sexuality elsewhere, are all causes of exile. For people on the margins, especially in the Global South, countless threats make staying at home too great a risk. Yet, the “migration crisis” has only just begun. Global warming will lead to massive displacement in the decades to come, as resources become increasingly scarce and large parts of the globe become uninhabitable. Paradoxically, the proliferation of borders and classifications on arrival only reinforce the desire to leave, rather than discouraging it.

Faced with domination, exploitation and humiliation, we have three options: survive, flee, or revolt. Whether in Senegal, Haiti, or Lebanon, popular anger is multiplying at the same rate as departures. The clear-cut distinctions between “economic” migrants, “political” exiles, and soon-to-be “climate” refugees make sense only to governments.

Revolt and exile are different responses to problems that have the same root: the exponential deterioration of living conditions and the proliferation of repressive regimes. Since the beginning of this century, people all over the world have been rising against those responsible for their material and emotional misery. Global and local elites, whether authoritarian or liberal, are obsessed with maintaining their power and wealth, always obtained through the endless exploitation of resources and the bodies of those living on the margins. Is it any wonder then that these populations try to reach the centers—to reclaim what has been plundered?

Deadly paths

When we decide, or are forced, to leave our homelands, a new struggle begins. The roads of exile become more hostile by the day. The sea cemeteries of the Mediterranean or the English Channel, the death roads linking Latin America to the United States, the harsh desert of the Sahara that many African migrants cross only to risk enslavement in Libya. Exile is deadly, and like uprisings, it constitutes an act of refusal. You revolt or you leave, and sometimes you revolt and then you leave because you can’t or won’t put up with what you are put through. We flee because, despite the risks, sometimes flight is the safest option.

Governments continue to do everything they can to prevent “undesirable” migration: reinforcing security and military powers; increasing restrictions on freedom of movement, building walls and impenetrable borders, criminalizing solidarity with people on the move. Fortress Europe has established a specialized agency, Frontex, to keep those of us who have taken to the sea out of Schengen waters. States are quick to cooperate on these issues. Through lucrative agreements, Europe and the United States are trying to outsource border controls to Turkey, African countries, or Mexico so governments there may be seen to be “turning off the tap” of migration.

100 million Euros promised to Tunisia, in a state of economic collapse, by the European Union to “prevent illegal migration.” First results: Black people violently expelled from Tunisian territory to wander and die in a no-man’s land in the middle of the desert. President Kais Saied has even borrowed the “Great Replacement” theory from the European far right. This conspiracy theory postulates that white, “native” European civilization is being demographically and culturally replaced by the massive arrival of non-white migrants, particularly Muslims. Saied’s version turns this fable against Black migrants, who are accused of changing the demographic and cultural make-up of Tunisia. Through constant repetition, this discourse has become entrenched in a society with its own history of racism. We’ve seen mobs attacking Black people and demanding their expulsion.

In Sudan, the European Union has directly financed General Hemedti’s Janjaweed Rapid Support Forces to “curb immigration.” This paramilitary force, which was involved in the repression of the revolution and then went to war against the Sudanese Armed Forces, had previously carried out ethnic cleansing operations in Darfur thanks to this funding. Since 2018, repression and the war have displaced more than 10 million people inside and outside the country.

To maintain a semblance of alignment with their humanist principles, European democracies externalize, meaning make invisible, some of the violence they are prepared to wreak against us. Violence is exercised internally and without restraint in urban ghettos on the fringes of metropolises. It is financed externally in the form of bloody repression abroad. The British government attempted to introduce a policy of deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda, in order to “deter unauthorized migration” by creating a “hostile environment” on British soil. Europe could not have been “enlightened” without being colonial.

Faced with this institutionalized xenophobic offensive, we must scale up our actions at borders to offer safe passage. In Europe, an autonomous maritime coordination system has been set up to organize solidarity in the Mediterranean: rescue boats at sea, telephone helplines, negotiations with the authorities, and public mobilization … Where such networks exist, we need to increase their capacity. Where they do not, we need to establish them. One of our main challenges is to ensure that comrades no longer die on the road to exile by providing efficient logistical support along major routes. We pay tribute to all those who have died on the road, to escape persecution, or simply in search for a dignified life.

But solidarity with those in exile is not enough. Freedom of movement is not limited to safe-passage or “legalizing” migration. Freedom of movement is meaningless if it does not imply the possibility of staying at home or returning. Hence the need to fight for a dignified life everywhere, instead of letting certain states claim to embody the good life while destroying the conditions that make it possible elsewhere.

Arrival in the host country

The ordeal does not stop at the end of the road. As soon as we arrive in the “host country,” we are confronted with the need to become “legal.” A series of bureaucratic procedures are responsible for determining whether a person had enough reason to leave their country of origin, enough money, or a certain level of education or “talent,” to be allowed to stay on the territory. Then begins a long process of classification and interrogation, an administrative limbo suffused with daily humiliation. Some eventually pass the test, others are rejected and deported as “illegals.” The administrative battle is compounded by the material question: again, a struggle for decent living conditions, the need to find a roof over your head and a source of income, while learning a new language, new cultural norms, and new ways of doing things.

Those fleeing political persecution will not necessarily find security in exile. If they are not criminalized again for political activities, like Kurdish or Uyghur activists in Turkey, they may be threatened abroad, or even murdered, as was Rouhollah Zam, an Iranian activist living in exile in France, who was kidnapped in Iraq and then executed in Iran. The Chinese authorities have even set up clandestine police stations in Europe and the United States to exert their control over Chinese people abroad. In Britain, anti-Chinese Communist Party activism on campuses is muzzled by the threat of reduced investment in universities run like businesses.

In addition to government and police repression, many of us face an increasingly hostile local population in our places of exile. Elections everywhere are held against a backdrop of xenophobic media coverage, where racism and Islamophobia feature with increasing prominence. “Moderate” forces are beginning to speak the same language of reactionary politics in the hope of not losing ground. Depicting foreigners as a threat, as one of the main reasons for the deterioration in living conditions, is designed to channel citizen anger and anguish. Designating scapegoats is a very convenient strategy for those in power. It justifies growing inequalities, boosting the profits of the richest while absolving them of responsibility for the impoverishment of everyone else. In a sign of the times, in mid-summer 2024, coordinated white racist riots rocked towns and cities across England. Rioters targeted non-white people, Muslim places of worship, and hotels housing asylum-seekers when a news story was successfully exploited by far-right networks. Only poor immigrants are called “aliens.”

Xenophobia can also be more subtle. Racial discrimination is not just a flaw in state institutions, it affects everyone. Though we may receive compassion or sympathy in exile, we are generally denied a political role, as we were in the country we have had to leave. There is no shortage of curious people in the West who find our culture, our music, our food, our language “delicious” and “utterly fascinating,” but who couldn’t care less about our opinions on the way the world works. An exile is a humanitarian and depoliticized figure who arouses the charity and good conscience of leftwing citizens, and a folkloric object on which to project fantasies of elsewhere. “Multiculturalism,” lauded in the age of globalization, is the analgesic for the destruction of cultures and worlds.

Anti-racist circles and movements of solidarity with exiles are not exempt from these phenomena. Our analyses and involvement in movements in our countries of origin arouse little interest. For the most part we remain outsiders. The persistent ignorance of certain “comrades” we meet in exile, of the situations of struggle outside their national and psychic borders, is a form of paternalism that reduces us to the role of victims: the “economic crisis” in Sri Lanka, the “civil war” in Syria or Sudan, or the Taliban in Afghanistan. This denial of our subjectivity and agency, combined with difficult material conditions, is a major obstacle to genuine political friendships. It creates a heap of missed opportunities that prolongs the ordeal of revolutionaries in exile and deprives local communities of the lessons, experience, and know-how that could only strengthen local militant activism.

In Greece, despite the economic crisis, the outpouring of solidarity with refugees led to a general mobilization of anarchists and revolutionaries. Squats, based on the principles of mutual aid, were opened in the cities to provide safe living spaces. They offered better living conditions and greater autonomy than government camps. Collective kitchens were established, and practical support given to help meet basic needs (clothing, language courses, and access to job opportunities) as well as access to physical, mental, and reproductive health care. Exiles and their supporters worked together to ensure self-defense against attacks by fascists and the state. Within a few years though, exhaustion set in, with a lack of horizon and sometimes common goals, and due to the gentrification policies of some neighborhoods, the movement lost its momentum.

Our primary task is to create and connect places of refuge to ensure the humanitarian minimum. We also need to consolidate lasting structures to generate new energy, heal trauma, reduce loneliness, and ensure subsistence. To do all this, we first need to meet each other.

Increasing circulations

Internationalism, like revolutionary theory, has always been closely linked to exile and diasporas. Throughout history, many revolutionaries have, at one time or another in their life, had to abandon their country of origin. They have been deported; they have had to migrate; they have been forced into exile; they have wanted to join a guerrilla movement. They have encountered new realities, familiarized themselves with different contexts, and shared analyses of the events that shook the countries they left behind. Far from being a mere coincidence, the transnational mobility of these figures was fundamental to nourishing practice and disseminating thought.

Internationalism is a journey, not only of people, but also of ideas and practices. Thinking about exile is a response to the challenge of constructing common perceptions despite a diversity of local contexts and the specific difficulties inherent to different situations. Exile can be experienced as an extension of revolt, a bridge linking it to the rest of the world. This could prove a means of compensating for the profound lack of understanding that many of today’s revolts have faced, due to the lack of relations between revolutionaries from different parts of the world.

Despite the daily struggle for regularization and dignified living conditions, despite the priority we logically give to solidarity with the struggle in our home countries, we need to link up with local and diasporic liberation forces wherever we arrive. In Berlin, a whole generation of exiles and their allies are organizing joint demonstrations for the liberation of Palestine, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, and Sudan. It is from this united front between foreigners that exiled people feel powerful, no longer isolated, each in his or her own ‘minority’ and ‘marginal’ struggle.

Participating in (or initiating) local mobilizations as exiles, and forging alliances with the forces at work, could well prove to be the best way to take up the offensive with new levers, more allies, and new horizons. The links between revolutionaries from different geographies, which are easier to forge in exile, help to increase material and political support for our comrades and loved ones still on the front lines or under the bombs.

Building a force capable of coordinating and supporting revolutionary efforts wherever they arise will involve a struggle to bring together a generation of defeated and exiled people scattered across the globe. It must respond to defeat, exhaustion, and dispossession, materially and emotionally. But it must also offer a more powerful remedy: the preparation of a response.

Internationalism from below

/ The problem of ‘solidarity’ / Mutual aid / Extending the minga worldwide / Down with realpolitik, for a revolutionary tenderness /

Although everything has been done to belittle the power of people in revolt, its impact has proved contagious. No amount of attempting to disrupt communication between different struggles has succeeded, no amount of trying to blur their meaning. Hope, courage, and insurrection have crossed bodies, territories, and all borders. The death of a Tunisian street vendor in December 2010 triggered one of the biggest revolutionary waves in history. When Lebanese people chanted Kilon yani Kilon (Every single one of them means every single one of them) ⁱⁱ , this was a belated reference to an Argentinian slogan at the start of the century—Que Se Vayan Todos(Out with Them All) ⁱⁱⁱ—and also to Tunisians’ chanting Dégage (Out of Here).^iv Feminists the world over chanted Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Women, Life, Freedom).^v

Protesters in Brussels and Lausanne took to the streets after the murder of Nahel by French police. Colombian front lines borrowed their shields and their chants from the front lines of Chile. By challenging the mirage of nation-states, twenty-first century rebels realized they were fighting a common enemy. Same cops ahead, same banks behind, same bastards on top.

Feeling is not enough. It does not make for a front. Rebellious Egyptians proved unable to send cordons of “ultras” to support the uprising in Libya. Communalists the world over failed to give support to local councils in Syria. The Zapatistas lacked the means to send experienced cadres to front lines in Chile and Colombia. Anonymous hackers alone have been plugging the gaps, attacking digital strongholds around the world in support of rebels.

The absence of support from revolutionary forces led Syrian rebels to accept arms and funding from Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The Palestinian resistance is forced to take money from Iran and Qatar. The Kurds of the PYD are dependent on the Syrian regime and have sought help both from its Russian ally and the United States in order to survive. Revolts in West Africa are relying on support from Russia and China to oust France. Popular resistance in Ukraine has had to place its survival in the hands of the West.

Dependence on superpowers is a question of survival for many revolutionaries, so how can we condemn them? It’s unreasonable to expect people to continue living under repression, capitulate, or wait passively as the bombs fall. A lack of international support condemns revolutionaries to isolation or the hijacking of popular demands by foreign powers more concerned with their own interests than those they claim to help. Syrian revolutionaries, abandoned by the whole world, asked: “Governments have betrayed us. Where are the peoples?”

The problem of ‘solidarity’

In Iraq, after the US invasion had destroyed local seed banks, international organizations flooded the country with genetically modified seeds distributed to farmers free of charge. In order to use them, farmers had to purchase fertilizers and chemical pesticides from foreign companies, which meant that many fell into debt and were forced to abandon their land. This is how humanitarian aid prolonged colonial domination and led one of the cradles of agriculture to ruin.

Over the last few decades, “international aid” has come to replace internationalism, deemed too partisan and so sacrificed on the altar of “development.” This approach has long been criticized for the hierarchical dependence it creates in Southern countries on Northern NGOs. Although humanitarian aid may save lives, it rarely tackles root causes. Band-aids don’t stop the bleeding. Even where international aid terms itself “solidarity” and attempts to provide concrete solutions, the effects are often perverse.

In Palestine, the mass arrival of NGOs, foundations, and other international organizations followed the Oslo Agreement. Popular self-organization that had grown out of the intifadas were diluted in “civil society,” where resistance efforts were formalized, encouraged to become “projects” with logos, statements of intent, and budgets. By making funding conditional on “apolitical” actions, grassroots initiatives are disfigured and popular resistance is weakened. In any case, the Israeli occupying authorities exercise absolute control over any form of civil grouping in the West Bank and Jerusalem. So it’s hardly surprising that Hamas, a reactionary organization, concentrates all hopes for national liberation. These essentially top-down solidarities make aid conditional on rules and times that are disconnected from territorial struggles, as are the allegiances, codes, language, and bureaucracy they require.

To gain exterior support, a cause must be made acceptable, even attractive. Dependence on external funders subordinates a cause to the support it’s likely to receive. Such a cause is often molded to obtain the greatest possible return and guarantee competitiveness on the solidarity market. Solidarity of this kind alters the spirit of a struggle and submits margins to centers, be they Western, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, or in the Gulf. Syrian revolutionary brigades had to either cut off their beards to obtain Western support, or grow them to get money from Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

Even when “international solidarity” organizations and collectives leave a great deal of autonomy to those in struggle and trust people on the ground, they often generate one-way relationships. In order to compensate for structural inequalities and relationships of domination which they produce, common political and ethical lines, as well as strategic practice, need to be defined by the people concerned—those on the receiving end of solidarity and those handing it out. The aim is to create conditions conducive to mutual support, based on equal relationships that acknowledge reciprocity between struggles and territories.

Mutual aid

Mutual support begins with recognizing our need to work together. This is bound to be a gradual process. Making relationships truly reciprocal takes time. So does building bonds of trust. Both involve knowing how to be there for each other. Both demand erasing the distinction between word and deed. Rather than doing good deeds, the idea is taking other people’s struggle into account as being a part of our own, and vice versa. In a world where competition reigns supreme, even between struggles, this is the reversal of a paradigm.

Mutual aid has no center because it operates in multiple directions, and acknowledges power relations. When the first workers’ solidarity funds in the nineteenth century sent money to support a strike, they insisted that these were loans rather than donations. The idea was not to expect interest or even actual repayment. It rather asserted that help was not given out of kindness or charity, but was a gesture that called forth others in return, at other times, or in other forms. It’s clear that it’s easier to send financial support from the Global North to the South than vice versa. But this is not the only form that mutual aid can take.

The first form of mutual aid is material. It takes us back to the minga (coming together for the common good). In Abya Yala (a name that Indigenous ethnic communities in North and South America to refer to the landmasses generally known as the Americas/America), this principle is embodied in different ways by pooling the tasks, resources, and goods needed for collective work: helping to move a house, cultivating a field, constructing a building. It’s when people, neighbors, and communities work together, but also take advantage of the moment to enjoy the conviviality of being together and building strong communal bonds. The uprisings and their aftermath have made visible the need for material aid, from medicines to seeds, involving a long chain of people and places. To do this, allies are needed who can open paths and cross borders. Solidarity convoys to collectives in Greece after 2008 and popular mutual aid initiatives to Ukraine since 2022 both constitute examples to be generalized, built on, and shared. There’s considerable scope for progress in this area.

Such schemes need money. How can financial support, both popular and effective, be achieved? Or to put it another way: is it possible to finance a revolution without the help of the powerful? Many diasporas, whether Kurdish, Palestinian, or Burmese, whether very recently or a long time ago, have helped struggles in their native countries survive. The Burmese resistance, for instance, popularized “revolutionary crowd-funding,” raising hundreds of millions of dollars to finance resistance groups. Aggregating micro-contributions on a massive scale and setting up transnational mutual funds, can both limit our dependence on the goodwill of patrons, governments and NGOs.

Beyond the directly material question, mutual aid can take the form of amplifying the voices of individuals and groups grappling with the reality of the revolutionary terrain. The task of an international aid network is to help them break through the media net and the background noise of the reactionary communication channels. No revolution should ever again feel orphaned or betrayed by global indifference. This presupposes being able to communicate with people on the ground at crucial moments. It means obtaining information and translating it to suit other contexts. It involves coordinating support actions and establishing long-term communication channels to share our analyses.

It’s vitally important to create a common history, weaving together all our accumulated experiences. This implies making the history of previous struggles and experiences known. Running an anti-fascist campaign, writing a feminist constitution, developing farming techniques, defeating an army of trolls, defending ourselves against the police, setting up funding networks, and answering daily needs within a liberated area are skills and knowledge that can be shared. Conservative and counter-revolutionary forces are doing everything they can to portray our uprisings as disasters, our rebels as terrorists, and our achievements as failures. The battle of narratives and images is more important than ever, both in the immediacy of the struggle and to nourish a memory of the future, as Chilean comrades say.

Mutual support may be embodied in action. It can mean blockading an arms factory to reduce bombings elsewhere, or disrupting a multinational corporation in one place to undermine extraction across the globe. It can also mean influencing what is known as “public opinion” where people live, work, and spend their leisure time in order to build support for those on front lines. Mutual aid is the driving force behind internationalism. By acquiring an international profile, local struggles develop a capacity for global action and create global alliances against borderless networks of power and money. We will not lack common enemies.

Extending the minga worldwide

People will ask “But there are already so many things to fight for and against here … why add international struggles to the list? We need to avoid dispersion and exhaustion.” The priority and urgency of local situations is always more pressing. It might even seem illusory to claim to be changing the situation elsewhere when we are struggling to do so where we are. Internationalism sometimes seems like a romantic dream, beautiful but basically naïve, like a relic from the past, a dusty box full of memories and postcards: Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, Spain …

But building internationalism has never been a luxury, it’s a survival strategy. Those who have made it a pillar of their struggle (the Zapatistas, Kurds, Palestinians) are almost the only revolutionary movements to have survived long-term to the present day, despite relentless attacks from all sides. For these movements, internationalism has compensated for the imbalance of power between the grassroots and the military forces they face, has shifted the terrain of hostilities to the diplomatic level, and created worldwide solidarity networks. In their time, the historic victories against colonialism in Ireland, Vietnam, and Algeria were won by insurgents on their own soil, but also through winning the hearts of the people in the center of empires, until the people of those countries themselves demanded an end to war and occupation. Fighting from the belly of the beast is always necessary to broaden the front and arena of confrontation and support those on the ground. But we need to listen to their demands, rather than centering ourselves and giving precedence to our own political positions or applying our own analytical framework to the situation.

While we draw on historical precedent, we’re not nostalgic for some “golden age” of internationalism. In the twentieth century, internationalism was largely aligned with the interests of nation-states, and it fractured as a result. Instead of combating nationalism, it sometimes reinforced it. Attachment to land and culture as terrains of struggle has its place, but we should be wary of its instrumentalization by state apparatuses that serve national ruling classes. Internationalism begins at home, in our everyday territories. Places where populations are diverse, mixed, heterogeneous and, strictly speaking, inter-national are fertile ground for it. These include the world’s metropolises, border areas, and the major agricultural production zones that rely on immigrant labor. Internationalism means establishing multiple links between struggling peripheries, between different corners of the world, to reduce the attractiveness of regional and global centers of power.

Our territories are interwoven with transnational production logics. The power of a local political proposal today lies in its ability to see itself as part of a global network of resistance and uprisings. Without this, it runs the risk of being reduced to an “alternative” experiment, whether that is cultural, economic, or social, ignoring the links that tie it to the rest of the world. Conversely, unless firmly established at local level, internationalism can be no more than a nostalgic song, or a nice meeting place for a cosmopolitan activist elite. The challenge we face is to extend the minga worldwide, between territories of struggle, between popular powers. This is what we mean by internationalism from below.

Looking at what’s happening elsewhere is a breath of fresh air, giving us strength and courage when “home” becomes dark and unbearable. Somewhere on Earth, there are always people who are organizing, who don’t give up. Since 2011, while people have shown an awareness of other people’s struggles and borrowed from them, intensifying exchanges, there is still no sign of a transnational revolutionary force capable of connecting resistance movements and revolutions without taking control of demands and aspirations. There is no time to lose in building such a force if we want to make a decisive impact.

Down with realpolitik, for a revolutionary tenderness

It won’t always be easy to find common lines of defense and attack, even if we share the same desires and hopes. There are a multitude of obstacles ahead. We don’t speak the same language; we live far apart; understanding local complexities takes time. Added to these practical difficulties is the posturing of those who actively oppose our struggles out of ‘pragmatism’ or out of counter-revolutionary nonsense. Such are overarching, geopolitical approaches, reminiscent of a bad remake of the Cold War, minus the socialism. From this perspective, in the final analysis, world events are only ever determined by a clash of blocs. States are the only agents capable of affecting change. Anything that goes beyond the realm of realpolitik, and is therefore potentially revolutionary, is doomed to failure.

This binary logic has led a section of the “anti-imperialist” left to support, implicitly or explicitly, the Iranian, Russian, Chinese, and Syrian regimes as “bulwarks” against imperialism, Zionism, colonialism, and western-capitalist hegemony. According to this point of view, the Syrian and Iranian revolutions are seen as “liberal” or “pro-Western” and easily “manipulated.” They were dismissed as plots hatched by foreign countries, obviously Western, to compromise the “national sovereignty” of the regimes in place. In this narrative, the people, their forms of organization, their autonomous actions, the plurality of their voices, their internal social or class struggles—like the massacres committed against them by these regimes and their allies—count for nothing.

These self-proclaimed “anti-imperialists” can seem so far out of step with real movements that when uprisings occur, they rush to apply their abstract interpretations, and deprive those most affected of their ability to make themselves heard. In their eyes, the popular resistance in Ukraine, the feminists in Iran, and the revolutionaries in Syria are either “agents of imperialism” or incapable of understanding their own situations. From their supposedly “critical distance” these ideologues, usually based in the West, believe they know better than people on the ground what needs to be done. When those in revolt put forward analyses and demands that don’t fit with their dogma, resistance fighters in Ukraine are slandered as “Nazis,” the rebels in Syria are called “jihadists,”,the feminists in Iran “traitors.” This is what these “anti-imperialists” are doing, acting as proxies for the murderous regimes they support and defend.

Seeing Western countries as the only imperialist powers, and the United States as the source of all evil, a characteristic bias of these “campist” positions, leads them to relativize the crimes of the Syrian, Russian, Chinese, or Iranian regimes. The maintenance of these regimes, or even their rise to prominence, would be opportune, according to this logic, to balance the world order and counter Western hegemony. Imperial powers such as China and Russia, which rhetorically support the cause of Palestine, are seen as allies, or the lesser evil vis-à-vis the hypocrisy of Western countries, all aligned behind the Israeli occupation. But more “opportune” or “lesser evil” for whom? Why should we tolerate the genocide of Uyghurs in China in order to put an end to the genocide in Gaza? Why should we denounce the Israeli occupation of Palestine on one hand, and turn a blind eye to the counter-insurgency war in Chechnya, Russia’s invasion of Georgia or Ukraine, and vice versa?

In 2019, Iraqi rebels, who have some experience of imperialism, made clear in mass demonstrations that they wanted “neither the USA nor Iran” in their country. There are subtle categories and more or less complex theoretical labels to describe the different types of imperialism that exist today; but “sub-imperialism” is the same old shit we’ve always known.

“Campist” positions only create barriers and divisions between struggles. They prevent necessary alliances between people on the margins. Instead of emphasizing what unites us, these “pragmatists” tell us that, to be effective, we should consider that the enemies of our enemies are our friends. Solidarity is therefore based less on what is happening on the ground than on the positions taken by the United States. If the United States opportunistically supports a cause, such as the rebellion in Hong Kong, then the people of Hong Kong are undeserving of support, no matter how much China wants to extend its authoritarian grip there. This is a “Kissinger” and not a “Che Guevara” approach. It is ethically deplorable and strategically counter-productive, we need a revolutionary tenderness capable of listening; wanting to understand; navigating contradictions in order to stand alongside those in struggle. We are placing our bets on those who want to change the rules of the game, rather than on those who want to win the game as it is.

Contrary to what an authoritarian and statist left would have us believe, linking struggles increases our power. Building collective strength is exactly what the feminist movements in the southern part of Abya Yala managed to achieve in recent years. By taking into account multiple forms of violence—against sexual dissidents, Afro-descendants, women, Indigenous people, migrants, children, the elderly, whether at work, in the street, at home, or by the police—and including all those impacted in the feminist general strikes, rather than seeing them as rivals, they succeeded in weaving together a huge popular movement. United but not uniform. Massive but radical.

Those who are too impatient, or have no horizon of their own, prefer to take refuge in the shadow of the powerful rather than share the fate of those who run the risk of being defeated. We must fight against our own weakness, and in particular against the belief that we can do nothing without participating in the games played by the powerful. Admittedly, we feel that we are few and that we are lacking in resources. But recognizing this and using it as a starting point to build our strength is certainly more realistic than taking shortcuts, clinging to second best, and thus reproducing the conditions of our powerlessness.

Only the people can save the people. We need to give substance to this slogan by starting to build, in the four corners of the globe, a transnational force capable of effectively countering the cold monsters that are devouring our present and future. Building a real force for intervention and mutual aid will take time and require resources that we need to patiently prepare, but it’s the only way forward. No real victory is possible in just one part of the world. Empire has established itself everywhere, so it’s only by confronting it everywhere, simultaneously, that we may one day share in its downfall.

The Fall of Empire

/ What we mean by The West / Empire will outlive the West / “Each generation must, in relative obscurity, face up to its mission: fulfill it or betray it” / Stopping this world /

Across the planet, despite the walls and fences placed in their way, despite the many strategies of assimilation and annihilation, people are reclaiming territories, resources, cultures, and heritages. They’re fighting for everything they’ve been robbed of by centuries of colonial plunder and imperial pretensions. Such is the case of the Palestinian resistance, which has held out against Israeli colonization and Western imperialism for over seventy years; or the Kurdish movement, which has been fighting for over a century against four nation states that deny its right to autonomy. In Abya Yala, Indigenous and Afro-descendant revolts have not ceased since 1492 and continue to inspire the continents’ struggles. From Wounded Knee to Oka, from Standing Rock to the uprising that followed the death of George Floyd, people are rising against a system of domination based on white supremacy and the exploitation of our bodies and territories. Time and again, revolts against racist police crime flare in Europe, while Kanaky continues is anti-colonial struggle against France, and in West Africa French postcolonial authority continues to be dismantled.

But international waters are murky and disputed and are difficult for insurgents to navigate. Until now, the centers have kept a firm grip on the horizon, confining each struggle, each uprising, to its particular context. Dominant figures in the centers cannot believe that anyone would want anything other than to join the center. The center is the best of all possible worlds. The rest of us can only run to catch up, collapse, get up again, and hope one day to make it. The only world we have in common is the world as defined by the victors of “globalization.” But when revolutionary irruption does occur, it gives rise to a different “world in common” that emerges from the ruins, cracks, and margins. This is the common world we need to name, born of revolt and free of the specifics of its various contexts.

What we mean by The West

The incredible claim of the West to define a ‘universal’ horizon for humanity has caused and justified millions of deaths, genocides, epistemicides, not to mention the enslavement and displacement of millions of people. What a macabre, and effective, intellectual swindle! The founding myth of the “free subject” forged and propagated by the “Enlightenment” was born in the context of a revolutionary struggle against tyranny. It has been transformed into an alibi for limitless expropriation under a new economic order, in lieu of the good word of God. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed with great fanfare the same year that the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) sent hundreds of thousands into exile.

Liberal ‘universalism’ is the apolitical rival of internationalism. It preaches that human rights are inalienable, and denies them to most. It teaches that states belong to an ‘international community’ where good relations between nations are harmonized. Yet, this is no more than a playground where hierarchies are masked and vassalages disguised. Words are bandied about, action and good resolutions are mimed, as if to conceal what everyone knows deep down: that the survival of the fittest still governs the human world.

The ‘international community’ is a private club of nation-states, in which hegemons agree on criteria for membership, while justifying perpetual dominion over those who don’t fit the bill. The latter are not exactly ‘excluded’: they are afforded a sort of partial membership. Some are more equal than others. And it’s the same with these entities’ populations: some are deemed human, some are human shields, some are human animals, and some just collateral damage. The United States invaded Afghanistan and also Iraq. It bombed many parts of the Middle East, at a cost of more than a million lives, in the name of “protecting democracy” and the “universal ideal of human rights.” Even as we write these lines, an Israeli colonial state is knowingly committing genocide in Palestine with the blessing of the West, and occupation troops sometimes fly the LGBTQI flag.

Yet Empire’s cynical use of the garb of ‘human rights’ to establish itself as a universal judge of peace has not prevented ‘human rights’ also being claimed as a discourse of resistance and a basis of support for popular struggles throughout the world. There is therefore a contradictory dual use of international law; by the centers and by the margins. Indigenous or colonized peoples regularly use the ‘right to self-determination’ as leverage in their struggle against their national governments and occupying forces. Human rights and their symbolic weight on the international stage regularly serve as a reference point for resistance to oppression on the ground, as a denunciation of State terrorism. But the lightning rod of international law offers little protection if it does not serve the interests of dominant powers. They will always prefer to turn a blind eye when the price is not worth it. So it was with the red lines of the ‘free world’ on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against its own population. The people of Ghouta were expendable.

NATO’s “humanitarian” or “responsibility to protect” intervention, that took place in Libya during the 2011 uprising, is one of the key events in this latest revolutionary sequence that nobody is talking about anymore. The end of a local order through the intervention of advocates of a “global order” interrupted the revolutionary process and created new dependencies. The Anglo-French intervention, while likely to have prevented a bloody Syrian-style scenario, has enabled the establishment of a semblance of governments that are not born of revolutionary spaces, yet possess a right to sign agreements on behalf of people who asked for nothing of the kind. The Libyan revolution has thus been lost in internal power struggles between factions, none of which seem capable of embodying the will of the people. But the “essentials” have been safeguarded: the coastguards are paid by the European Union to stem the tide of migrants. From Syria to Ukraine, the spontaneous reaction of some revolutionaries and their supporters has been to regret the non-intervention of the “international community.” Yet, when intervention did occur, it was simply another way of extinguishing or neutralizing the revolutionary “threat”.

In Sudan, resistance committees displayed a healthy mistrust towards any foreign intervention in the revolutionary process. This did not prevent the military and militias from winning out. Foreign interference found another path, siding with the competing factions of the former regime, some supported by the United Arab Emirates, others by Egypt, drowning the popular revolution in a military war. The consequence has been massive displacement and appalling famine. The Sudanese revolution’s tenacious non-alignment has earned it a number of determined enemies within and beyond its borders. Enemies prepared to “burn down the country” rather than risk revolutionary success.

No power whatsoever has ever really come to the aid of insurgent people. A few years ago, at an evening in support of the Syrian revolution somewhere in France, a member of the public asked “but what can we do to help?” One of the activists present, a survivor of the siege of Homs, replied: “send us anti-tank missiles!” Apart from the fact that the audience were not in a position to respond to such a request, it seemed to place any solidarity action with Syrian revolutionaries in the shadow of States. Was there no other way to help the revolution other than by calling on Western governments to intervene militarily against the regime, or deliver heavy weapons?

For us, this is not a moral question, even if for many dissidents in the centers it would be inconceivable to demonstrate to demand military intervention by NATO. Having access to weapons is a matter of survival for many insurgents, which even the most pacifist among us cannot fail to recognize. That comrades on the front lines of the Ukrainian, Libyan, or Palestinian resistance have called for military or tactical intervention by third powers to counter the ferocious repression unleashed against them is understandable. There’s a whole debate to be had within revolutionary movements on the question of military intervention, the forms it can take, and its impact on the outcome of events; from no-fly zones to boots on the ground; from opening up new fronts to technical assistance and the provision of military equipment. We cannot move forward without a serious assessment of the balance of power on the ground. Nor may we revert to impotent purism in the hope of avoiding contradictions. But to be dependent on the military capabilities of certain states or armed factions and see this as the only practical way of contributing to the struggle is a sign of our resignation; an abandonment of the very possibility of revolution.

Empire will outlive the West

The world we live in is full of differences, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that are distinct but compatible, forming an overall picture of where we live. Differences are not just about distance. They are not the result of backwardness: they cannot be overcome by “progress.” In an era of monolithic beliefs, differences are denied, or crushed, to suit a global system for managing resources, exchanges, and identities. A skillful interweaving of distinct but complementary systems of domination has turned us into subjects of an Empire that is constantly being modulated and extended. Changes in alliances, in the balance of power, and of capital cities are on the surface. Although there were pre-capitalist empires which predated the nation-state and were non-Western, the expansion of capitalism unified Empire into a single whole. Thus, Empire survived the official end of European colonial empires, became secularized, and succeeded in spreading a belief that no alternative is possible.

Empire is not merely the name of the world system in which we live, with its international institutions, global markets, unified language, and ideological framework, from which no corner of the world is excluded. It’s also a particular way of perceiving the world as a vast board game where different allied or rival powers compete for wealth and spheres of influence. Empire is where States negotiate the most profitable division of labor and the ‘rules of engagement’ that allow each player to hold its own in the game of mass murder in which they are engaged. Beyond the capitalist system, Empire refers to all the formal and informal institutions, codes, customs, and rules that govern the centers’ predation on the rest of the world. From Mexico City to Dubai, from Tokyo to Cape Town, from Beijing to Frankfurt, people in the centers of power talk, eat, dress, make agreements, and con each other in much the same way. Empire always finds its local relays. It adapts to all cultures, all religions, all styles of exercising power. It remains indifferent to intention, culture, and behavior, as long as its spokespeople continue to play the game.

The recent strengthening of bloc logic is less a struggle between different kinds of imperialism, and rather a struggle for imperial hegemony within the same world-system. While the West may appear to be making a comeback these days, with its show of unity to cover up genocide in the name of “Israel’s right to defend itself,” this comeback does little to conceal a slow decline amply illustrated in the proletarianization of societies, galloping inflation, the rise of fascism, calamitous military interventions, the disorderly withdrawal of occupying troops, and the steady loss of commercial and diplomatic influence. On a different note, the apparent consensus in support of the Ukrainian resistance suggests a certain feverishness, with military aid provided in dribs and drabs that has never been equal to Russian aggression. The “decline of the West” would be good news if it meant the decline of Empire. But it’s only its face that is changing. The conquering smiles on the faces of the BRICs leaders, who everywhere flaunt their opportunistic alliance, makes clear that they are ready to take their place at the same game. As long as Empire exists, the struggle against it continues, always renewing its form and statements, which it will again try to swallow to get back on its feet.

“Each generation must, in relative obscurity, face up to its mission: fulfill it or betray it.”

In the last century, an entire generation across the globe rose up and exposed itself to bullets, deportation, and torture, to drive European powers out of colonized territories. The revolutionary offensive of the colonized was a response to the domination exercised by white powers for more than a century. And, in the crucible of these struggles, in the maquis and prisons of the West, in the first liberated territories, the political consciences of those who would plan the future were forged. The forms and concepts available in this already globalized world were those of Western history: the nation-state, progress, planning, regional development, national identities, representative democracy, nationalism, socialism … Ousting colonialists was not enough: the same captivatingly modern master’s tools were used to construct the post-colonial states, and they produced the same contradictions.

The promise opened up by the end of colonial empires, in the wake of national revolutions, gave way to a colossal hangover. Flags, anthems, and currencies have changed. Domination continued in other forms. The national bourgeoisies and political elites that emerged from the independence movements often succumbed to authoritarianism. After sacrificing the most militant among them, the new political classes in the countries of the South took their share of the fruits of post-colonial exploitation. In Arab countries, for example, twenty-first century uprisings shook the foundations of regimes that had remained unchanged or almost unchanged since the early days of colonization, most of which had become police states. Frozen in the historical postures of decolonization and front-line resistance to Western imperialism, the parties in power seemed able to stifle popular aspirations for change for all eternity. But the return of the people has reshuffled the deck. As the Algerian Hirak demonstrators proclaimed: the 2019 uprising attempted to finish the job of the unfinished revolution of 1962.

While a demand for democracy lies at the heart of many recent uprisings, it’s hard to find a place where democracy is fully embodied. The “democratic ideal,” as it’s still presented in the West, can no longer conceal what a sham it is. One only needs to look at a few images from the American election in the spring of 2024 to be convinced—in one of the “greatest democracies in the world.” Before Kamala Harris entered the race after the Democratic candidate’s near-cerebral death, two white, rich, Christian men in their seventies were clinging to power, vying with each other in tackling their respective symptoms of senility, instead of having political debates about the future of the world—a world which the United States has largely dominated and shaped for more than seventy years. The “democratic” deadlock which this image signifies bears similarity to the fifth presidential candidacy of a mummified Bouteflika—the final candidacy which sparked off the 2019 revolt in Algeria.

Democracy is not a Western invention extending from the assemblies of Athens to the French Republic, and now being exported to Afghanistan and Iraq with bombs. From the Haudenesaunee Confederacy in North America to the Haitian Revolution, via the fugitive territories of ‘Zomia’ in South-East Asia, throughout history countless peoples have developed egalitarian deliberative practices to organize communal life. Indeed, the hijacking of the concept of democracy by the West has made it repellent in some parts of the world. So how can we avoid abandoning the idea of power to the people? How can we combat the sham of liberal democracies without playing into the hands of authoritarian regimes?

Stopping this world

The face of Empire is changing, the face of war is changing, and so our strategies and our objectives cannot remain the same. In addition to suffering under authoritarian or oligarchic regimes, we have to deal directly or indirectly with the consequences of competing imperialist offensives that can destroy the already precarious living conditions in our territories overnight. Hunger riots are a daily occurrence across the globe. Rival powers are taking turns to use ‘food as a weapon’ in a world where societies’ ability to be self-sufficient has been methodically destroyed and where the vagaries of the climate are making harvests more uncertain than ever. In 2024 Vladimir Putin has put the whole of the Mediterranean in his power by monopolizing wheat production on Ukraine’s fertile plains, upon which most Mediterranean countries are dependent. Food sovereignty has thus become a central issue in any politics of emancipation, transforming ways of struggle on every continent. No revolutionary perspective today can ignore how to reappropriate the means to meet our basic needs.

In this new phase of open armed conflict, aggressive power strategies, and nationalist revival, we are faced with the contradiction between our desire for a cooperative world in which people can organize for subsistence, and the reality of permanent threats posed by inter-imperialist conflicts. Wouldn’t a ‘liberated’ area, or state, which voluntarily abandoned policies of accumulation and monopolization immediately be swallowed up by rival powers?

In many parts of the world, behind the façade of order imposed by the sovereign state, community or religious militias, mafias, territorial gangs, and transnational corporations exist, to whom the repression of our movements and control of our communities are delegated. So, invoking the end of the state as the only horizon for revolution is not enough. The idea seems completely alien to those of us who, living under failed states, are left at the mercy of gang leaders and war lords, with no recourse in the face of poverty, disease, famine, or natural disasters. Destroying or fragmenting the states that crush people will not be enough, nor will simply replacing those who embody them. It’s only by coming together collectively and taking control of our basic needs for safety, health, access to housing and food that we will be able to claim our independence from Empire beyond the moment of insurrection.

The world unified by Empire, whatever language it speaks, whatever god it prays to, whatever currency it uses—Dollar, Euro, Yuan or any other—is not compatible with any other. Its only outcome will be the extermination of life on Earth. All it knows is hegemony, the world as one; counted, mapped, developed, and made uninhabitable by a macabre rush towards the end. If nothing is done, our end will come before theirs. There is no going back, just as there is no maintaining the status quo. There is only a forward march, sometimes resolute, sometimes hazardous, only knowing where we’ve come from. We must break out of our national prism and think of a policy which is internationalist from the outset—reconstructing a world made up of a multitude of worlds. Worlds that are compatible and in the process of becoming so, and that are themselves riven by struggles and contradictions. There’s a need to build a common plan between these worlds. A plan that will enable us to circumvent Empire, hasten its fall, and imagine the aftermath.

Revolution?

/ Sooner or later, it will fall / Rupture by insistence / The organizational dilemma / Choose boldness, measure risk / Defending the revolution / The evidence of popular power /

In 2011, what commentators called the “Arab Spring,” insurgents called “thawra” (revolution). Revolution in Burkina Faso (2014), the “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine (2014), a “spring revolution” in Myanmar (2021), the “revolution of our time” in Hong Kong (2019), Jina’s revolution in Iran (2022). “Revolution! Revolution! Revolution!” chanted the crowd in yellow vests on the Champs Elysée (2019) reminding the rich of Paris of a refrain that weighs like a threat they thought they’d gotten rid of for good.

A few years after its sensational comeback, the fact that so few are asking the revolutionary question is testimony to the strength of the counter-revolution underway. The fact that so many people have recognized themselves as revolutionaries is not a sign of misplaced enthusiasm or youthful reverie. We must never underestimate what the real movement is announcing, to do so risks being swept away by the torrents of history.

Revolution is not an event to be studied, a theory to be developed, a cold body to be dissected. It’s a question asked of ourselves, the “we” that shapes this text. And contrary to what ideologues, intellectuals, and prophets have always asserted, the answer is never absolute or eternal; it can only be momentary, provisional, situational. A glimmer of truth. We have sought to gather the scattered fragments, assemble and interrogate them to see what they might tell us about the future.

Sooner or later, it will fall

Storming palaces and parliaments came back into fashion with the uprisings of 2011. For many participants, the revolution meant the fall of the regime. But hopes raised by the fall of governments in Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Ukraine were short-lived. Authoritarian or liberal takeovers, foreign intervention, economic crisis, civil war … Removing tyrants is not synonymous with the victory of revolution.

Conversely, the failure to topple regimes in Syria or Iran has not meant the absence of revolutionary achievement. The rejection of the compulsory hijab (veil) and control over ‘morality’ imposed by the Islamic Republic was a radical fracture. Likewise, Syrians’ ability to organize themselves to administer territories liberated from the State collectively, represented an irreversible break with Assad’s totalitarianism. This explains why, thirteen years on, despite brutal counter-insurgency, the revolution’s flag continues to fly high in the provinces of northern Syria that remain beyond regime control, as in the rebellious province of Sweida, in the south of the country. In both Syria and Iran, the revolution has proved an existential turning point and the regime’s hold on bodies and minds has been partially broken. Sooner or later, they will fall.

No single event can put an end to all forms of domination. For a long time, the Grand Soir was the image par excellence of revolution. But repeated failure to bring about profound and lasting change by “seizing central power,” and the eternal appeals of traditional organizations to wait until “the conditions are right,” have led many to abandon the ideal of the fall of the regime as a strategic horizon and look for other prospects for liberation. For many, since the end of the last century, revolution is a process that begins without waiting. A determined but gradual march towards profound transformation embodied in a constellation of events, acts, interventions, ideas, feelings and everyday practices. El tiempo de la revolución es ahora (the time for revolution is now) say feminists in Argentina. Revolution is conceived as being no longer distant, but a way of life and a struggle in the here and now.

The challenge is to dismantle the structures that oppress us. The major strategic imperative is to stop sacrificing the means—or the struggle of some—in the name of an end which is always postponed. This conception of politics as transformation, rather than the conquest of power, relocates revolutionary politics in praxis and in the intimate, previously lacking in the work of so many organizations and activists. It’s about building a radically new life, a new relationship to one’s community, to desire, to money, to care, and even to one’s struggle.

Viewing revolution as a process is not inconsistent with the conviction that the moment of insurrection is central to it. Whatever the outcome, an uprising is always a decisive event. Even in defeat, it leaves irrefutable and embodied experiences. Countless seeds grow in its wake. If, on the other hand, revolution does succeed in toppling a regime, then something promising and perilous is born.

Rupture by insistence

To conceive of revolution without rupture, remaining oblivious to unexpected opportunities, would risk allowing our actions to exist independently of the world around us. For many revolutionaries, revolution as a gradual process means building material and political autonomy, through collective or territorial forms of self-sufficiency. This quest to break away from dependence on the centers has spread to the forests, mountains, and cities of the world. The construction of autonomy has given rise to spaces that are firmly rooted in the world, and which run counter to the infernal march imposed by Empire. Autonomy can take many forms. It can be rooted in a thousand-year-old history, or be entirely new. It can be embodied in a local assembly, an agricultural cooperative, a community canteen, a neighborhood union, a transnational queer solidarity network, or a media collective.

Yet, the construction of autonomy, which is costly in terms of time and energy, can easily become avoidance if it ignores real historical changes and is not challenged by them. Ideologically ‘pure’ insurrections can never exist. Moments of popular revolt are unique opportunities to multiply forces tenfold and scale up experiments. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming an isolated, “alternative” niche, easily subsumed into capitalism or by the State. Remaining barricaded behind certainties and our own everyday experience condemns us to perpetual failure. The risk of conceiving autonomy as an unchanging form, punctuated by more or less agitation, locks us into cultural trench warfare, which we can only lose because of our adversaries’ colossal resources. We cannot live as we want without dismantling apparatuses of power that regulate social life and control where we live. But we cannot dismantle apparatuses of power alone.

Uprisings break through isolation. They allow for giant leaps forward. They make for unprecedented coalitions and constitute a moment of mass offensive, without which there can be no tipping points or irreversible change. Whether we are members of an agricultural cooperative or a media collective, an affinity group or mass organization, being alert to the possibility of the real movement erupting enables us to deploy forces effectively in the brief moments of opportunity that may present themselves.

Process and event. Perhaps this is the thoroughgoing revolution; the intersection of two ways of seeing and experiencing revolution. On the one hand, the present, patient, ongoing construction of our autonomy, the meticulous preparation for our encounter, the strengthening of our forces. On the other, the eruptive and explosive nature of the uprising, with its exceptional concentration of energies, its unequaled deployment of popular power, its creativity. Thoroughgoing revolutions are made possible by sequences of uprisings that meet and exceed their limits, in search of that rupture through insistence, as a Chilean comrade said.

We never start from scratch. Every insurrection, every experiment in popular power, every assault on Empire is part of a deeper movement, behind us and ahead of us at the same time, below the surface and looming over the horizon. A tidal wave starts out as an imperceptible current in the middle of the ocean. And it becomes one again after crashing against the shore. We need to learn to act as an undercurrent as much as a tsunami. Perhaps this is the full meaning of the mantra of Hong Kong’s revolution: Be water my friend.

The organizational dilemma

The popular mobilizations of our time have often been heterogeneous and diffuse. They’ve rarely been led by traditional organizations, nor defined by pre-existing political ideologies. The more or less spontaneous and horizontal self-organization, impressive though it was in the early days, was insufficient. The decentralized nature of our movements was both their strength and their weakness. The lack of any consistent organizational capacity or medium- to long-term strategic vision, combined with the difficulty of maintaining street tactics, meant that we were caught between repression and co-optation. In some cases, we lacked organizations to take up the revolutionary cause.

In Ecuador during the 2019 revolt, major Indigenous organizations and trade unions were able to mobilize millions of people from across the country and bring them to the capital to reinforce the ranks of insurgents. Due to their strength of appeal, logistical resources, and coordination skills, the movement was able to confront the authorities on several fronts and finally obtain the withdrawal of the contested government measures. This impressive capacity for mobilization reminds us of the potential strength of organizations, but we must also be mindful of their dangers.

Many have become disillusioned with historic organizations of the left because of their bureaucratic tendencies, their attempts to co-opt the movement, or their desire to direct it. Organizational intervention always carries the risk of limiting the spread of the uprising and curbing the radical nature of its demands, its creativity, and sometimes even its nascent popular institutions. Whether it comes from the far right, religious fundamentalists, or certain organized fringes on the left, there will always be groups seeking to push their own agenda during uprisings. Without organizational and strategic consistency, it’s difficult to prevent these factions from seizing power, and we are left at the mercy of their strategies.

An organization is both a concentration of energy and resources; and a network of connections capable of constituting a collective force. In certain contexts, organizations may be necessary, not only to prevent hijacking by reactionary or liberal forces, but also to help a movement achieve its aims. But how can the power of organizations within an uprising be circumscribed? How can we guard against the centralizing effects that organizations inevitably produce? How can we build the strength of the movement as a whole and not just the strength of the organization? A genuinely revolutionary organization is at one with the movement, striving to nourish the strength of the emerging popular powers, keeping the flame of revolt alive at the risk of extinguishing itself. And it can only do this by avoiding imposing its own agenda, its own dogma, its own way of doing or saying things.

In many uprisings, behind the apparent spontaneity of forms of self-organization, we may detect connections built between groups that existed prior to the moment of insurrection: local communities, political affiliations, religious or traditional institutions, professional or sporting societies which together form a substratum that enables something other than chaos to be. But how can we, mid-turbulence, formulate a coherent strategy to coordinate a revolution? During the Sudanese revolution, the hybridization between the organizational experiences of the student movement, former Communist Party activists, and the forces born of the popular revolt allowed resistance committees to come into being. The most promising experiences have been those in which there has been an encounter between partisan forms, constructed over many years, and new forms born of the event. Encounters only happen when both parties are transformed. A willingness to change is essential for any revolutionary force. Make plans: but draw them in pencil.

Choose boldness, measure risk

No single force can be expected to establish a plan for all. Thinking of ourselves as part of a movement that transcends us, rather than as an organization or chapel to be defended at all costs, means behaving and thinking in a complementary, rather than competitive manner. Maximizing the power of a common movement means finding the best combination of tactics to suit the respective situations of each component part. The Kurdish movement combines armed struggle with the election of mayors and deputies to the Turkish assembly. Burma’s pacifist resistance movement for democracy has transformed into an armed struggle with the support of a diaspora that raises funds through queer events and online video games. Lebanese revolutionaries have built self-managed cooperatives as well as trying to reclaim professional organizations.

Avoid fetishizing one mode of action over another and try out new hybridizations. Going against tactical and ideological rigidities opens up new ways of articulating strategies for transformation. No one can say a priori what a revolutionary act should be. A movement gains in strength if it listens to, explores, and connects the different spheres of struggle that challenge the status quo. It must avoid militant dogmatism and aesthetic posturing, without ever neglecting ethical development.

Ethical questions are not incidental to revolutionary strategy, they are at its heart. Working out how to do things together is essential. So is measuring the risks we’re willing to take for ourselves and for others. Keep in touch with what mattered at the start. Always remember what sets us apart from counter-revolutionary forces. Such principles enable us to thread our way through the storm of an uprising. As our Argentinian comrades used to say, if we do not want to reproduce the kind of power we’re fighting against, we must not confront it or regard it as a rival. As a result of the mirror effect, through facing and looking at each other, we always end up mimicking our opponents. When revolutionary forces hope to beat the centers at their own game, they become a deformed and misguided reflection of them.

The path of strategic articulation also involves learning from experience. In recent years, we have again seen how movements that focus on the institutional route, in a quest for concrete change at the expense of building political and material autonomy, are regularly co-opted. And those that assume they can pursue both insurrectionary and institutional avenues in parallel find themselves exhausted. In Argentina, feminists broke down the paralyzing dichotomy between reform and revolution by seeing potential victories in the implementation of direct institutional reforms, such as the legalization of abortion. But beset by fascist forces, after several defeats on the institutional terrain and unproductive alliances with a powerless and discredited progressivism, the movement found itself unable to preserve internal strength. The means for political autonomy was lost. There was no fallback strategy when the institutional route failed.

Both Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain seem to have reached the same impasse when they focused on institutional spaces of power: what followed was a disconnection with the popular mobilization, compromise with neoliberal policies, generalized disappointment, and a feeling of betrayal. But remaining outside institutions is neither an objective nor a question of principle. A reform, an election, and perhaps even a presidential candidacy can in certain situations serve the revolutionary cause. We must ensure that such moments serve to strengthen the revolutionary movement and its autonomy and are not merely a chance to launch the political career of inevitable opportunists. When it comes to tactics and devising strategies, inventiveness is what breaks new ground.

Defending the revolution

When the centers loose political ground, weapons intervene. This grim fact condemns most revolutions to war. Resorting to armed struggle is rarely a strategic choice. It’s the level of State violence that determines if and when revolutionaries are forced to pick up arms. Pacifism cannot defend itself against a State, or groups within it, that are prepared to exterminate an entire population to quell a revolt. But the arrival of arms in a revolutionary movement is always a threat to its survival because when they enter the scene, the whole movement is impacted. Many revolutionaries have said how militarization severed them from active participation in the insurrection, when “being a revolutionary” became synonymous with “carrying a gun.” Women and gender dissidents in particular often find themselves marginalized by the militarization of an insurrection. The use of armed violence irreversibly marks the course of a movement and serves to legitimize ever more violent repression by the State against the population as a whole. Our primary concern should be that the taking up of weapons does not radically change a movement’s objectives, composition, and political texture. When taking up arms is inevitable, efforts need to be made to prevent the armed struggle from becoming the sole horizon of the uprising. Survival on the military terrain cannot be the sole lever.

When a State’s armed forces defect, as in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, something decisive is in play. Defectors often bring their weapons with them, but rarely enough to counter a state’s arsenal. Access to weapons and the financial resources to buy them becomes the alpha and omega of revolutionary struggle, often justifying alliances which, however judicious they may seem at the time, prove dangerous, even fatal, before long.

Unfortunately, the military balance of power often determines scope for revolution. The profoundly asymmetrical nature of confrontation with the State apparatus and superpowers places revolutionaries at a significant disadvantage. Syria and Sudan, two of the most promising and thoroughgoing revolutions of our time, have had painful experiences of this. Towns and villages were reduced to rubble and drowned in blood; millions were displaced from their homes. The trauma will take generations to heal.

Victory for a resistance or revolutionary movement often comes down not to having as many weapons as possible but rather to preventing adversaries from using theirs. The question of defending the revolution is as much a military question as a political one. Whenever possible, the challenge may be to attempt, while there is still time, to deactivate the military apparatus as effectively as possible. Blockade barracks, imprison generals, disarm institutions. But even if successful, what then? What can be done when an outside intervention or an attempt at domestic containment tries to regain control by force? And even if that doesn’t happen, what about the militias and armed gangs who, as in Haiti and Ecuador, try to take advantage of the situation? When weapons intervene, a popular uprising can easily turn into a cacophony of competing authoritarianisms, delivering people into the hands of warlords.

The relationship between the local and the transnational, and the nature of the links built between peoples, revolutionary forces, and popular organizations across the globe, are crucial to preventing revolts from becoming isolated. International support is a major asset on the revolutionaries’ side, which can exert significant pressure depending on the situation. At best it can prevent bloodshed, and at least buy time to organize self-defense. This is one of the horizons of revolutionary internationalism.

The evidence of popular power

“Why build a ‘counter-power’? We are the people. We should have power!” This reflection, formulated by a Yellow Vest protester at an assembly in France, is perhaps the best expression of the aspiration for popular power that we’ve heard. The revolution we seek is neither the refusal of power, nor its negation. That would mean perpetually leaving power in the hands of our adversaries. We cannot be content to always be a dam, a brake, an opposition, even permanent, to the domination of the centers. Popular power is, on the contrary, the active search and living construction of a collective way of forging a new legitimacy, of exercising a different kind of power.

Recent revolts everywhere have sought to increase popular power, or at least to prevent the confiscation of power by a few. Some, in Syria, Hong Kong, Ukraine, or Algeria, thought they were achieving this by demanding a democratic state; or by demanding the abolition or defunding of the police in the United States; or a permanent Citizens Initiative Referendum in France; by ousting the French neo-colonialists and their accomplices in West Africa; by establishing confederalism in Kurdistan or changing the constitution in Chile. The insurgents wanted more power, but that didn’t always mean they wanted to govern.

Others, like some of us, thought that extending the power of the people meant above all building popular power in the heart and in the wake of revolt. Beginning to build from below, from what had already begun to mutate, the principles of self-government that could serve as the architecture for the aftermath of the uprising. Building autonomous power without leaving it to a few vanguards, leaders, officers, or new governments. Removing central power and building popular power.

After the fall of the regime, the resistance committees of the Sudanese revolution, faced with the contradictions and paralysis of the first transitional government, drew up a proposal for the future of the country, so as not to leave the field to the old guard politicians. The Charter for the Establishment of the People’s Authority outlines a new form of governance. It proposes the establishment of a localized, bottom-up system of power in which the civil and popular forms of organization that emerged from the revolution retain a say in the legislative process and the balance of power. It also demands the fair distribution of the country’s wealth and an end to plunder by foreign powers, whoever they may be. With this proposal, Sudanese were trying to defend the revolution without resort to arms. Although the Sudanese revolution seems to have been cornered in a bloody impasse, it certainly has not said its last word. As a Sudanese comrade once said: revolution has become a religion in Sudan.

In Mexico, the struggle for the autonomy of popular powers and the defense of the revolution have never ceased since the first decade of revolts in 1910 which led to the establishment of the Mexican state. For over a hundred years, despite the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s decades long capture of power, the attempts at liberal counter-revolution supported by the United States, and the betrayals of the social-democratic left, a patient strategic wisdom has been woven in every territory, from remote Indigenous communities to the working-class districts of the big cities. Grassroots movements of slum dwellers or rural teachers’ unions, Indigenous councils, community police forces, neighborhood councils, and autonomous health facilities have flourished in a country that is known to be “one of the most violent in the world.” Nowhere else has community power been taken so far. While these experiments are still threatened by many reactionary forces and face the authorities’ corruption, they have demonstrated their ability to take root and resist for decades.

People power is the opposite of powerlessness. It means taking the time to climb the rungs of the ladder, one by one, and not relying on those who want to capture our votes. People Power. These two words in their naked simplicity. Power as the ability to act, to decide, to implement. Popular as diverse, as direct, as transversal, as here, as everywhere, and as now. Popular power as a guarantee against any further electoral betrayal, as an offensive against the status quo, as the only antidote to fascism.

* * *

If revolution is a question, then we can neither win or lose. Only battles can be won or lost. Always partial, sometimes decisive, never definitive. Revolution is the inextinguishable yearning for dignity, and the constant search, for several millennia now, for how to embody it on this Earth.

How can nascent popular powers be protected from the risk of civil war? Is there an alternative to taking up arms, or is it an inevitable horizon of revolution? Is the establishment of a revolutionary power on a “national” scale, in place of the one we are fighting, an indispensable stage in making change irreversible? Or, on the contrary, should we consolidate popular power everywhere to prevent it being brought to heel by the new state apparatus, however revolutionary? We do not have the answers to these questions, which so many revolutionaries have already asked. The search for a theory that would provide the secret formula for victory is a dead end. There is only experimentation, placing bets and more or less fertile strategic compositions. Some will base their answers on the strength of revolutionary organizations, others on emerging forms of territorial power, still others on the unifying power of religions and ideologies. Others will base their responses on a clever mix of all of these.

The path of revolution is not a straight line. It will be like a streak of stars, a series of conflagrations lighting up the night, each one pointing the way more clearly than the last, until we finally pass the point of no return.

Starting over

“And at dawn, armed with ardent patience, we will enter the splendid cities”

Over the last five years, following a number of gatherings, we’ve begun to weave a network that transcends borders, rooted in myriad spaces and territories intent on governing themselves. This is a network comprising individuals and collectives inspired by the cycle of popular uprisings that have taken place in the years since 2011, seeing in these a source of energy and a signal of major upheavals to come.

We’ve opened up a space where the revolutionaries of Khartoum’s resistance committees can exchange ideas and analysis with feminists and members of territorial assemblies in Santiago; where the determined youth of Sri Lanka’s GotaGoGama villages mingle with participants in the ecological struggles of France and the United States. Where grassroots movements from Mexico City’s working class neighborhoods talk to members of local councils from insurgent Syria, and Lebanese and Iraqi farmers connect with Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala. Barely a month after the uprising in Iran in 2022, Iranian exiles were able to debate with activists from grassroots movements in West Africa what the fall of the regime meant and the meaning of the word “revolution.”

From there, we set about laying the foundations for a new kind of transnational force. A force that could draw on the pooling of our experiences and analyses and give itself the means to ensure that they are followed up by action. A force capable of concretely supporting present and future movements and uprisings.

I. Creating a transnational space for liaison

Our first task is to ensure that we are able to meet; to increase the number of connections between the various centers of the emerging revolutionary movement throughout the world. To create the material and logistical conditions for a planetary debate in which approaches to revolution are renewed. We want to create a space that will enable us to go beyond existing connections and enable the birth of a shared strategy. It is important that this new space should last, and be geographically diverse, in order that as many people as possible should recognize something of theirs in it, and something relevant to their experience and to their hopes.

II. Pooling and multiplying our resources

There can be no revolutionary force without material power. Making our perspectives clear and explicit, broadening and multiplying movement between our territories, offers us the possibility of finding material and financial resources, but also allies and tools which, once pooled, will increase our capacity to act.

We want to establish a network of material mutual aid as soon as possible, so that we can quickly offer support during wars, climatic disasters, or revolutions, and at the same time build the long-term infrastructures that will enable our struggles to become self-sustaining in the long term. The balance of these two timeframes is needed if our movements are to survive, maintain their independence, and grow in strength.

The resources available to us on our own small scale may rightly seem infinitesimal given the scale of the task. But we have all experienced circumstances where not only did everything seem possible, but everything happened, with each gesture leading to dozens of others along the way. Revolutionary mutual aid, like courage, can make itself contagious when the time comes.

III. Mapping a planet of friendly places

To meet and organize, we need places. Discreet but accessible places of welcome to which anyone forced to flee their country of origin can turn. We need places of refuge, retreat, care, and protection, places where we can find a little respite and “recharge our batteries.” Also, places dedicated to livelihood issues and training, but also places to dance, make music, share films, create together, and eat well. Many of these places already exist, but they are waiting to be placed on a common map. Connecting these places will be like a process of planetary neighborhooding, of mujawara as our Lebanese comrades say. It will materialize our common oath from one neighborhood to the next, from one village to the next, from one farm to the next.

Of course, we don’t all have the same level of mobility. Building safe and dignified routes of exile, by imagining multiple interconnected territories and stages to facilitate escape and movement, is a major challenge. Finding channels and tricks to enable us to bypass physical and administrative barriers and occasionally gather en masse in organized convoys. Let these routes also be stages for return journeys, coming and going, as state borders crack under the persistent action of our flows.

IV. Producing a transnational revolutionary culture

To disseminate our analyses, to compare them, to allow the experiences of our comrades from different parts of the world be heard everywhere, so that together we can develop a political education worthy of our times. In the medium term, to put in place the means for a major cultural offensive in each of our countries to encourage the return of a non-aligned popular internationalism. Working on building synergies between different types of political, territorial, and community organizations, independent media, communication channels, and cultural venues.

The task before us is to restore legitimacy to the revolutionary perspective by preventing our struggles from facing isolation. Relating histories and experiences that our adversaries want to keep apart. Connecting different fronts within an international revolutionary movement, both such as already exist and as are yet to be built. We can see the stars separated in the sky, or we can see them as constellations.

Between the improbable and the possible

Every dream, every hope for a different life hangs in a fragile equilibrium and oscillates between the shadow of doubt and the glow of certainty. We stand at a crossroads where aspirations for change confront realities of a collapsing world. We can continue to watch as the Empire drags us into the abyss, affecting not to know; we can surrender to general panic or lie prostrate, awaiting the end; or we can meticulously organize an exit plan, betting we can extract a plausible future from an improbable present. We need to find a revolutionary horizon, not just in order to survive, but to live a life worth living.

Now is the time to build structures that can withstand the storms of tomorrow. Now is the time to extend and consolidate our connections. Our respective circumstances will continue to deteriorate, but tipping points of all kinds will create opportunities for change that we can turn to our advantage, provided we are ready. Every step we take, every obstacle we overcome, brings us a little closer to significant victories—victories that can offer some comfort to the souls of those we have lost in battle, who are waiting to rest in peace.

To structure this new force that we are calling for, to give shape to its action, there is still much to be done. Success will depend on responses to the proposal we are making in this text … on the number and determination of those willing to work with us.

We are aware of the magnitude of the task. We are learning from the failures of our elders. We know the many threats we face. The odds are not in our favor. Perhaps we will not turn the tide, become that tsunami.

But as a Catalan friend once said: there are times when not to take risks is a risk not worth taking.

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Notes:

i It was so hard to find each other, let’s never again be apart

ii Every Single One Means Every Single One

iii Out with Them All

iv Out of Here

v Women, Life, Freedom

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The post Revolutions of our Times- An Internationalist Manifesto by The Peoples Want appeared first on Void Network.

Is Existentialism closer to Anarchism than Marxism?

written by William L. Remley

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Every philosopher must run the gauntlet of time. Philosophical ideas fall in and out of favor, but the acid test is whether we continue to debate a philosopher’s ideas long after they have left the scene. The anniversary of Jean-Paul Sartre’s birthday in 2019, almost forty years since his death, was an appropriate moment to look back on the legacy of a philosopher whose work helped to define an era, and whose ideas continue to resonate with the political climate today.

Professor Richard Falk places Sartre alongside Noam Chomsky and Edward Said as one of the few individuals worthy of the title ‘public intellectual’. Yet towards the end of his life, even as Sartre moved further in the direction of political engagement, he lamented that his politics were not radical enough; perhaps that is why Sartre’s political philosophy is so highly disputed.

Since the publication of Critique of Dialectical Reason in 1960, scholars have largely interpreted Sartre’s political philosophy as ‘existential Marxism’: a critical appropriation of Marxism. Sartre encouraged this reception by often professing his affinity with Marxism, even stating that existentialism was parasitic to Marxism, a point he later retracted. But commentators who emphasize the influence of Marx overlook the signs of Sartre’s skepticism. Far from being a supporter of the French Communist Party, he rejected outright the dogmatic Marxism of dialectical materialism underpinning its ideology.

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“If one reads my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist.”

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While Marx’s influence is overemphasized, the role of anarchism deserves far more airtime than it currently gets. Sartre said it himself: “if one reads my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist”. Not only do Sartre’s anarchist undertakings underscore his political positions, from his earliest writings all the way through to the post-war period, they also provide a far more radical foundation for his ideas.

The clearest anarchist element in Sartre’s political thought is the pursuit of a society free from authoritarianism. In the early 1950s, Sartre began sketching out his vision for an ideal society, brought about by the overthrow of existing systems of oppression through revolutionary activity. In the Critique, Sartre argues that the authority-oppression paradigm is made possible by institutionalization, where groups become conditioned to eschew individual freedom, adopting serialities and their concomitant social impotence. Individual freedom is immobilized by this process but not vanquished; the potential to reform as a group-in-fusion and direct their praxis towards an ideal survives.

Sartre’s anarchist contemporaries condemned institutions which were based on coercion and authoritarianism. The state and centralized authority received the brunt of their scrutiny, with many believing that the state was illegitimate, had no right to exist, and its abolishment would eliminate many social evils. The same concerns can be seen today in the activities of the Occupy Movement, the Invisible Committee, and the Tarnac 9, all of which have come to be known as Insurrectionary Anarchism. Sartre’s account of group formation demonstrates that not only did he share such concerns about coercion and authority, he argued forcefully against the oppression of institutionalized authority long before contemporary anarchists took up the cause. Sartre’s revolutionary solution likewise entailed the eradication of the existing order.

Yet it is the degree of coercion that interested Sartre most. The philosopher’s critique of the state was that it attempted to convert human beings into automata, extending the machine metaphor to associate institutionalized bureaucracy with nefarious analytic reason. In his view, the practico-inert surrounds and conditions human existence through its seen and unseen apparatuses, representing a servitude to mechanical forces designed to quash individual freedom.

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“I have always been in agreement with anarchists, who are the only ones to have conceived of a whole man to develop through social action and whose chief characteristic is freedom”.

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In place of a state, anarchism advocates peaceful coexistence based on social freedom and our capacity for mutual aid, cooperation, respect, and communal relations. Sartre agreed, arguing that only individuals are sovereign, but that humans are united to each other and the world around them through their interactions, particularly in the workspace. According to Sartre, work is an essential attitude of human reality, founded on a need to collaborate with others based on an agreed mutual dependence. As he pointed out, “I have always been in agreement with anarchists, who are the only ones to have conceived of a whole man to develop through social action and whose chief characteristic is freedom”. While the individual is paramount, dependency prompts the being-outside-ourselves which is essential to Sartre’s concept of selfhood.

Sartre conceived the relation between humans and elements in the social sphere as ‘interest’. Interest is a univocal relation of interiority that provides the connection for humans to their environment. In contrast, subjectivity is derided as an abstraction: a verdict compelling everyone to willingly carry out the commands pronounced by society. For Sartre, interest is not our subjective, interior decisions concerning our existence; rather, it is the discovery of our being-outside-ourselves. There are no innate ideas or fixed essences, no ‘wheels in the head’ that direct our actions, as Max Stirner suggested. Instead, we are at all times situationally determined by others.

The final element of anarchist thought which I argue is echoed in Sartre’s political philosophy is the immediate and practical proposal for change: a socio-political theory that embraces, among other things, a notion of praxis. Indications of this praxis are embraced by anarchists today, including the decentralization of political and economic authority, worker self-management, and freedom of expression. There are several themes which reappear consistently throughout Sartre’s work, and the theory of praxis has to count among the most prevalent.

One of the foundational aspects of the Critique is Sartre’s desire to expose the profound dialectical relationship that unites praxis to the outside world. And on reviewing Sartre’s earlier work, we see that the intent of revolution is not only to alter the world, but to re-create our collective situation. In order to accomplish this task, praxis becomes essential, since praxis not only constitutes individual authenticity, it also eradicates the impotency of the practico-inert.

But what does Sartre mean by praxis? While the concept is somewhat nebulous, it should be understood as the historical whole determining our power at any given moment as it conditions our attitude toward an entire plethora of dichotomies, such as the possible and impossible. This occurs because praxis prescribes the limits of our actions as well as our possibilities for a future. For Sartre, the collectivity is faced with a choice to submit to the course of the world or contribute to the shaping of it. The force separating these paths is action. Action forces the individual to contextualize the event within a future possessed by everyone.

Having explored all of these shared traits, one thing is certain; Sartre’s political philosophy extends far beyond Marxism. Intrinsically linked to anarchist thought, Sartre believes that only bureaucratization, decentralization, and democratization, where the dominant forces renounce their grip on the social structure, can overcome the hegemonic, hierarchical, and oppressive nature of contemporary society.

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SOURCE: https://iai.tv/articles/sartres-anarchist-philosophy-auid-1242

The post Sartre’s Anarchist Philosophy appeared first on Void Network.

Nicolas Richen et Lola
Co-editor : Georgios Vontitsos

1. FEELING AND UNDERSTANDING SOCIO-SPATIAL VIOLENCE

A free, open space, green and conducive to self-management activities. An everyday space that also crystallizes fears, whether they are proven or not. A space to breathe, sometimes to hide and rest. A green lung in a suffocating, ultra-concrete, congested, noisy city. This is often how Athenians describe Pedion tou Areos (Πεδίον του Άρεως), the largest park in the city center, administered by the Attica region. This park we walk through on a daily basis and it is in this context that our reflection* began. In June 2022, the contemporary art exhibition Plasmata arrived in Pedion tou Areos. Once again, its organizer, the Onassis Foundation, occupied and nibbled away at the land, making informal uses and activities increasingly difficult. On the occasion of the summer 2021, it already organized, in the same park, the exhibition You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens. Again, in the park, screens several meters high and wide were overwhelming us, soundtracks saturated the soundscape, employees (surely precarious workers) located at each installation ensured a security presence.

We had the feeling that a major change was taking place in the park: a feeling of uneasiness, symbolic violence and dissonance was settling in. This feeling is the starting point of this article. It is a reflection of inherently racist policies, but also of a spatial struggle and thus, inevitably, of an increasingly violent social class war in the center of Athens. We then wanted to understand the mechanisms of power in the park to grasp a more global phenomenon devouring the city: philanthro-capitalism. Little by little, we realized that Pedion tou Areos was in fact one more free and green space to be standardized by the Municipality of Athens, the Region of Attica and a whole series of private actors, as are the hills of Filopappou and Strefi, the square of Exarcheia or the parks of Akadimia Platonos, Kiprou kai Patission or Drakopoulou, to name but a few. We are talking about green spaces here, not in the way that the cultural elite that makes up the Onassis Foundation gives it – a santardized « environment », to be optimized, to be made « attractive ». No, we want to refer rather to the ecology of the classes galériennes [Slang word for a person (or in our case a class) in precariousness, economic poverty, who carries a social stigma but has a muddling through system]. This ongoing process is a struggle between two practices of the world: one informal and self-organized (from below) facing another (from above), institutional and monopolizing the common for private and commercial interests. It is a place struggle as described by M. Lussault, a social and spatial struggle. The more we investigated, the more we discovered the extent of this process of spatial dispossession in Athens and the way in which the local ruling class works in concert with central actors in Greece: those of unbridled philanthro-capitalism – in particular of the Onassis and Stavros Niarchos foundations. Soon, we have seen the emergence of a sprawling and accelerating phenomenon in the city, as evidenced by the multiplication of Onassis Foundation activities in many Athenian neighborhoods. We will discuss the case of the latter foundation in Pedion tou Areos to illustrate a process which, as we shall see, echoes a mode of government known for a long time in Greece under the name of evergetism.

For all that, our article defends the idea that it is possible and desirable to overcome this hold on our common spaces, our lives and our ways of making society. The phenomenon we are going to describe and analyze also meets resistance (physical, collective and memorial) against what deteriorates the park and through the affirmation of what we call the infra-city – by taking inspiration from James C. Scott’s infra-politics. The latter reminds us the notion underground: it is the city that we do not see when we look at it from above, like an architectural model or through a safe and commercial vision. It is the city that we live, when we are in the street, that we understand the codes of the débrouille [muddling through], the magouille [scheming], the survival, the informal and the self-organization.

* Our approach is resolutely critical and lies at the crossroads of social sciences, journalism and political analysis. Our critique is aimed in particular at the institutions in place, the ruling class and not at the workers or artists belonging to the working classes. It is about targeting the state and the capitalist system (in particular its philanthropic inclination) which displace whole sections of populations considered « undesirable » from the central districts of Athens and make public spaces (or formerly common spaces) hostile for these same people. The writing of this article is also motivated by our own radical militant experiences in France and Greece in squats, in self-managed kitchens, in mutual aid networks with exiles or the Yellow Vests movement. Many thanks to our readers.

2. A COUNTER-HISTORY OF THE PARK FROM BELOW

In order to go beyond our own feelings, we have conducted direct observations and informal discussions with people who have been coming to the park regularly for several years, or even several decades for some of them. We will also rely on interviews conducted with 3 people with diverse trajectories. First, with Thodoris, 66 years old, a lifelong resident of Exarcheia. He has been involved for a long time in different struggles of the neighborhood as well as in a committee for the defense of the park Εμείς στο Πεδίον του Άρεως (We in Pedion tou Areos). Then we met Kostas. He grew up far from the park, in the neighborhood of Nea Smyrni, but from the early 2000s he frequented Pedion tou Areos, and then moved to an apartment nearby in 2020. Finally, we met Mega, who arrived in 2019 in Athens as an Iranian Kurdish refugee. He lives in the surrounding area of the park that he discovered through the squatting networks. It was in Pedion tou Areos that he was able to give the first martial arts classes of his club open to all and free.

For Pedion tou Areos as for the other parks of Athens, it is the story of a place for the placeless

Even if these three people are attached to the park in different ways, they all describe it as a green and free space. In this dense and concrete city, having access to space, freshness and a more breathable air is a necessity but also a rarity. That’s why Pedion tou Areos is essential for galley dwellers, beyond their differences of path. It is a space free of constructions. This absence of buildings, Thodoris reminds us of its vital importance when in 1981 and 1999 earthquakes hit Athens: « People took refuge there and even went to sleep there for 2 days. In those moments of distress, the park was a very important place of sociability and mutual aid. » It is also a free space, which leaves room for imagination and popular resourcefulness. For Pedion tou Areos, as for the other parks in Athens, it is the story of a place for the placeless: for people surviving on the streets, for whom free access to water, toilets, and an unsupervised space is rare; for those crammed into unlivable apartments, for whom the park is an extension of home to celebrate a birthday, invite friends for a café, share a game of backgammon, or to be alone. It is also a place for activist collectives who don’t have a space; a place for DIY culture, for unregistered and self-organized concerts and festivals. Or a space for sports classes as Mega tells us: « The park is a huge place that allows us to do a lot of things, it’s very green so there’s always fresh air. It’s a really unique park in the center of Athens; it’s also a safe place for women, families. That’s why we chose this place for our training. » It is through these other eyes that it was possible to understand that this park can be, on the one hand, a space of relaxation and freedom and on the other, a space of fears, of permanent vigilance, of survival, of coping, where one fights even to find sleep.

In the 90s, as Kostas tells us, « It was not a very important park, […] it was more for the locals, it was nice for the people of Exarchia to walk their dogs and go for a bike ride. » The park was then also popular with skateboarders like Billy Gee, who testifies to Inside Story. As a kid, he started going to the park in 1995 with some friends: « We used to hang out by the Athena statue, where a lot of skateboarders used to gather at the time. It was a great feeling, a small universe with many worlds. Russian and Albanian immigrants would gather in front of the statue of Constantinos, while punks would join us in front of the statue of Athina. » For Billy, Pedion tou Areos became a second home until 2008 and the redevelopment works. This attachment to the park is accompanied by a responsibility for its maintenance, while the staff of the Municipality of Athens and the Region of Attica is reduced between the 80s and 2004: « With 60 skateboarders, we spent all our free time there. We loved and suffered (for/in) the park. Every week we would buy bleach and take the hose from the kiosks to clean this space because leaves and berries would accumulate. We would take money out of our pockets to buy cement and « patch » the puddles, glue the bits of marble that were coming off the slabs. From time to time, we would trim the plants around the statue.« 

According to Thodoris, the process of privatization of the park advances slowly since the 90s, period of the works of extension of the sports association Panellinios Gymnastikos sillogos. This association is present in a part of the park since the years 1980. In 1997, its president changes. From now on, it is led by Minos Kyriakou, the founder of the private television group Antenna. Under his presidency, in 1998, the association expands to 1500m² and 3 floors. These works violate the conditions of the public authorities regarding the « non-constructible » status in the park. It seems anecdotal but it is the beginning of a struggle because Thodoris tells us that this year, « a committee of inhabitants was formed to denounce this construction because nobody reacted« . This is also one of the first and many examples Thodoris gives us to talk about diaploki (διαπλοκή). This term refers to an intertwining of the relationships and interests of the ruling classes (media, political, industrial) that organize together to obtain benefits, contracts and services within the legal or non-legal framework.

A decade later, between 2000-2003, Pedion tou Areos is part of the « urban renewal program » elaborated by the Ministry of Environment and Public Works for the 2004 Olympic Games, with the approval of the Prefecture of Athens-Piraeus. Thodoris, tells us that in the early 2000s, « the park was open, there were no fences, it was only delimited by bushes. » The first works included the installation of barriers, the cutting of trees, the division of the park into 4 parts and the reduction of the number of entrances from 16 to 4: « There were demonstrations with not only the inhabitants of the surrounding districts but also of the whole city. It was mostly people from anti-authoritarian and left-wing backgrounds. They had already put up barriers but some of them were knocked down. » Thodoris recalls a « massive » movement, « There were 500 people watching and 500 knocking down the barriers. » If the initial project and the drastic reduction of entries did not see the light of day, the barriers nevertheless ended up imposing themselves and, with them, a control of the opening hours of the park. This change already marks a turning point for the people living in the park, who are now either locked in at night or forced to move to an adjoining street every evening and morning.

In the same vein, between 2008 and 2010 the park is the subject of a renovation plan financed by European funds and Greek public funds to the tune of 10 million euros. The contractor finally went bankrupt and only 70% of the work was completed. For Kostas, this is the beginning of a sanitization of the park: « After the renovation in 2010, it was no longer an open space, but it was not a private space either. So you could say that this process goes back 12 years and slowly makes the park less and less accessible.« 

En 2013, sous le mandat municipal de Georgios Kaminis et de Nikos Dendias, le ministre de la « Protection civile » de l’époque, plusieurs « opérations skoupa » – littéralement opérations « coup de balais », qui se réfèrent à l’expulsion, à l’enfermement et au harcèlement policier des personnes soupçonnées « sans-papiers » – ont eu lieu dans le centre d’Athènes. Thodoris se souvient « qu’ils prônaient une « Athènes propre » et le problème a été déplacé à Pedion tou Areos, parce que là-bas ils n’étaient pas visibles. On parle à peu près de 200-250 personnes toxicos. Elles étaient cachées. Les personnes allaient autant pour acheter que consommer là-bas. Ces personnes n’étaient pas particulièrement dangereuses mais dans les médias, c’est devenu une histoire énorme comme quoi à Pedion tou Areos, « il y aurait des seringues qui vont te tomber dessus ». Les gens ne mettaient plus un pied dans le parc alors que ces personnes en addiction elles occupaient 1/8ème du parc. Donc certaines personnes, peu nombreuses, continuaient à y aller mais d’autres sont parties. »  

In 2013, during the municipal mandate of Georgios Kaminis and Nikos Dendias, the minister of « Civil Protection » at the time, several « skoupa operations » – literally « sweep operations », which refer to the deportation, confinement and police harassment of suspected « undocumented » people – took place in central Athens. Thodoris remembers « that they were advocating a ‘clean Athens’ and the problem was moved to Pedion tou Areos, because there they were not visible. We are talking about 200-250 drug addicts. They were hidden. People went there to buy as well as to consume. These people were not particularly dangerous, but in the media it became a huge story that in Pedion tou Areos, « there would be needles that would fall on you ». People didn’t put a foot in the park, while these people in addiction occupied 1/8th of the park. So some people, not many, were still going but some people left. » 

During the summer of 2015, exiled people arrive in Athens from the Aegean islands. Without emergency housing solutions, public squares like Viktoria and the park of Pedion tou Areos give way to spontaneous encampments. Both Thodoris and Kostas have been involved in the solidarity networks that have developed there. They speak of a « positive » event despite the precariousness of the situation: the awareness and the mobilization of the inhabitants of the neighborhood in the struggle for the exiles. Kostas tells us that « it was no longer a park, it was rather an emergency space. There were camps everywhere. But it was a necessary thing to do. You can’t tell people, ‘okay, here’s the grass, you can’t put your tent up,’ no. Everybody was trying to have a place to themselves, privacy. I don’t think many people criticized that. I told you, Pedion has had a mixed history, so even before that, not many people were using Pedion. » He details, « At first people were skeptical, but we saw that everyone was trying to do something: libraries tried to teach kids, give them toys, there were some doctors, lawyers and a legal team. There was a great response from the community and generally from people in anti-establishment spaces, so to speak. There was a lot of police presence. I remember there were some fascist attacks in the neighborhood. But a lot of people came (to support us) too. » Moreover, Thodoris remembers the mobilization of the supporters of the local club Panathinaikos, when the word got around that fascists were going to attack the people present in the park. The fans organized a kind of « security service » for several days. For Kostas, this awareness and the constitution of new solidarity networks was also because for once these marginalized, invisibilized and constantly sidelined people found themselves in a space located in the center of Athens, so « many local people who were not aware of the situation of the exiles started to get involved. Before, there was denial: ‘Oh, it’s far from us. It’s on the islands’. And then it happened in Athens. I think a lot of people got involved in the right way. […] A lot of people went to the refugees at that time to help them, to give them food, etc. In general, there was solidarity from people in the neighborhood« . A few weeks later, in August 2015, the people (about 300) were evicted from the park and transferred either to the Eleonas camp (built in 2 weeks, initially for 700 people, on the outskirts) or to Viktoria Square for those who did not want to go to Eleonas.

To complete this story from below, it is necessary to remember the importance of the Indie Free Festival, a self-managed and non-market festival organized by the anarchist cultural group Void Network (Keno Diktio). It celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021 and has been organized in Pedion Areos from 1991, attracting thousands of people every year. Never declared to the authorities, this event aimed to create « Utopian Ephemeral Zones of Autonomy« . In June 2018, it was first banned by Attica Governor Rena Dourou (Syriza), Prosecutor Elias Zagoraiou and the police – it was still held a few months later. No self-organized festival of this magnitude has taken place in the park since the confinements of 2020-2021 and the deployment in the park of philanthro-capitalism with the arrival of Onassis.

Protomayias is a place where people hang out, gather or throw parties, like techno parties and DIY hip-hop festivals.– Kostas

Along with the increased control we were told, self-organized gatherings and parties continue to take place in the park. And in this regard, we have to talk about Protomayias Square (May Day Square), where events of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) historically take place. Located in the middle of the park, next to a military building, Protomayias is central to talk about the informal life in the center of Athens, a life decried by some residents as illustrated by the speech of the page Pedion tou Areos to Parko Mas. As if this space were an extension of a home (non-existent or not always comfortable), retired people bring tables and chairs to play backgammon. Young people from Pakistan play cricket, others participate in a political discussion, an anti-fascist soccer tournament, or a self-managed bazaar. Protomayias Square is also frequented by Do It Yourself (DIY) concert goers like Kostas. He has witnessed the increase in attendance and self-organized activities since the confinements (2020-2021): « Protomayias has become a much more important gathering place than it was in the past. For a long time, it’s been a place where people hang out, congregate, or throw parties, like techno parties and DIY hip-hop festivals. » Due to the repression of squats in universities and the « skoupa operations » that have increased in recent years with the New Democracy government, it is understandable why this square has become an alternative to organize, from below, free and solidarity activities. « During the confinement, it was a place where many people came. Instead of being locked up in their homes, having no place to go, people tried to socialize a little more than what was allowed because they needed it. It was a way of saying, « We’re getting out of our house. Pedion was a place where people could find this peace, this serenity« , concludes Kostas. But the confinements are also synonymous of an increase of police controls (2020-2021) in the park and on the 1st May Square.

Finally, this story seen from the bottom of Pedion tou Areos is the story of all those shattered and salvaged lives of marginalized people (people with disabilities, addictions, immigrants, racialized people, LGBTQIA+, poor people, squatters, bodies considered « abnormal » or « surplus »), especially since it is an urban space without cameras, where it is possible not to be seen. When the authorities did not have a plan for the « valorization of the territory » for the park, these people were moved here, to hide them, to make them invisible to the eyes of tourists, of the rich. Some people find partners with whom to have sexual relations and affection, and others live from this sex work. Still others come to sell or buy drugs. Despite waves of evictions of these « undesirables » in recent years, there is ample evidence that in 2022, young women (often with young children) and men continue to survive in and around the park. The fires of the summer of 2021 reminded us of this. The park was on fire alert, so the authorities « cleared » it and closed it. It was at that moment that an outside look at the park could realize how many young men were living in it, because there were a few dozen of them staying during the day in the window recesses of the surrounding buildings, maybe waiting to be able to return in the evening.

Pedion tou Areos is a strong social space in the sense that the people who use it attribute different functions and memories to it. This counter-history of the park illustrates the fact that if this space has not been maintained by the local authorities for years, Athenians by birth or adoption, and inhabitants of the surrounding neighborhoods in particular, have used it in many ways according to their own needs. These tinkerers of informality and their practices are not to be idealized as they are also marked by relations of domination, but we wish to distinguish them from practices of power from above.

This history from below that we wanted to trace in part allows us to grasp the extent of the changes in the park in only a few years. Pedion tou Areos has become a tool of an urban strategy of control and police harassment of the « undesirables »: to displace and invisibilize them rather than to radically address social inequalities. This is in line with the policy of the mayor of Athens, Bakoyannis, to make the city even more « attractive » to investors (Greek or foreign) and tourists. In this political project, the Region of Attica and the city hall of Athens have found in the Onassis foundation a strong ally. 

3. THE ONASSIS FOUNDATION, A SMOKESCREEN. STORYTELLING AND REALITY

The Onassis Foundation was created in 1974 by a shipping giant, Aristotle Onassis. It was built around his myth: a self-made man who made a fortune in the world and remained devoted to his country. Thus, the foundation would be a tribute to his deceased son as well as a « trickle down » of his fortune to the Greek people. The foundation is in fact divided into two sectors: the Business Foundation and the Public Benefit Foundation, which operates with 40% of the annual profits of the former.

Let’s focus on the first sector. The Onassis Group owns several « limited companies ». According to its official website, the Olympic Shipping and Management S.A. (formerly Olympic Maritime) is the company that, in a way, oversees all the others (Springfield Shipping Co. Panama S.A; Olympic Vision Maritime Inc; Olympic Agencies LTD; Olympic Shipping and Management Singapore S.A PTE. LTD.). This group of companies makes profits in the transport of oil (21 tankers), dry goods (10 bulk carriers) and offers services for ship chartering and accounting. Onassis is therefore first and foremost one of the world’s largest carriers of oil and other derived products. The group is also active in the global transport of gas, for example, through the shares of Olympic LNG investments LTD in the company Gaslog. This company (and its many subsidiaries), although it prefers to put forward in Piraeus (Greece), is mainly attached to Bermuda and the Marshall Islands. It is also within the framework of Gaslog that Onassis and the Livanos Group have partnered with BlackRock’s Global Energy & Power Infrastructure arm.

Beyond the energy sector, the Onassis group has expanded its field of conquest. Already in 2009, A. S. Papadimitriou, the president of the foundation, announced that « one third of the assets are invested in ships, one third in real estate and one third in a financial portfolio« . Indeed, the Onassis Group includes in its ranks the company Ariona Hellas, a company that builds, buys and rents real estate in the Attica region. There is also Asofin Management AG, which specializes in « the management and financing of related companies through the granting of loans, guarantees and the like. The company may acquire, hold, manage, pledge and sell real estate, intangible assets and other rights, as well as carry out all activities considered to be in the interest of the company.« 

As for the Public Benefit Foundation, one cannot understand it without knowing its companies and noticing this two-headed body. In fact, if we take a closer look at the members of the foundation’s board of directors, we can see the intermingling, or diaploki (διαπλοκή) (see opa. cit.), between the foundation that presents itself as « benevolent » and the group’s multinational companies, destroyers of the environment and the lives of workers. In the beginning, Aristotle Onassis composed the foundation’s board of directors with the closest « collaborators » of his shipping company. Today, the Board of Directors is still a fine symbol of the Greek interiors and ruling classes. For example, the chairman of the board since 2005, lawyer Antonis S. Papadimitriou, is the son of the former legal advisor of A. Onassis. Or Panayotis Touliatos, also a member of the Board of Directors, was a former private secretary of Aristotle Onassis, before becoming director of Olympic Maritime S.A. and then of Olympic Shipping and Management S.A. The quick organization chart of the Board of Directors that we have made from the Onassis website shows us that we cannot question this foundation and its activities without talking about the cultural and financial elites that make up one and the same world. We are talking about members who have mostly studied in the United States, in England or in France in fields of training that include law (especially business law), economics, finance, maritime commerce, navy, physics and chemistry, philosophy (including for the benefit of finance and « credit risk management »), scenography or literature. Many of these members are also present on the boards of other foundations, banks, companies and business federations. At the same time, they may be part of the academic world, in Greece or abroad, or even be a consul. Some members even proudly display in their presentations their links with the British and Monaco royalty, or with the religious order.

This foundation, which claims to be dearly attached to the locality, has placed its headquarters in Liechtenstein (Vaduz), its « cultural heart » in New York and a new cultural center, the Ola House in Los Angeles. If we focus on Onassis’ actions in Athens, there is the Onassis Library, where the archives of the poet Cavafis, purchased by the foundation, are located. There is also a heart surgery hospital financed by the foundation, as well as modern Greek teaching positions in various universities, scholarships, Greek schools, education programs for people with autism and disabilities. The foundation thus infiltrates public areas plagued by austerity policies and/or high unemployment. This is the case of the arts in Greece, where Onassis seems to want to be a key player. In 2010, Athens has a new building marked Onassis: ONASSIS STEGI. This huge 18,000 square meter building (the size of a city block) on Syngrou Avenue is used for theater, music, dance and exhibitions. On the roof there is a gourmet restaurant to set the mood. This cultural center, a showcase for Onassis in Athens, claims to challenge « the boundaries between art and science, gender and technology« .  The director of programming for the foundation’s cultural hub is Afroditi Panagiotakou, who married the president of the Onassis foundation a few years later, in 2014. A. Panagiotakou decides on the events organized at Stegi and more broadly in Athens, such as the Plasmata exhibition. Not surprisingly, she traced her higher education path in Greece and then in London.

The foundation also extends its influence into the intangible territory of social sciences. It finances, for example, the Athens Social Atlas project of the National Center for Social Research (EKKE), whose object is the critical social mapping of the city of Athens. From this proximity with the social sciences, it makes of it a base of legitimacy and a proof of « critical » spirit for these events as Plasmata.

4. EXHIBITIONS REGARDING PHILANTHRO-CAPITALISM AND URBAN PRIVATIZATION

After outlining the features of the public foundation and Onassis’ Stegi, we will focus on the foundation’s presence in the park where it finances and organizes so-called « cultural » and « free » events. Since 2018, Pedion tou Areos has become the playground of Onassis. To begin in 2018, Park Fables, the fifth edition of the Fast forward Festival (funded by Onassis), took the Park as its object. Through debates at the Stegi or guided tours, a radio station, a brass band and other activities within the park, the stated goal was conceptual, to say the least: to create « an ephemeral field of fictional links between the real and the imaginary, generating encounters between history and memory, between people, desires and experiences, between different situations and identities shaped in Pedion tou Areos« . Translation: by investing the history of the park’s memories, the foundation set the pace, and at the same time, builds its own place in the city as the new manager of the park. This storytelling of the foundation is based on the will to « activate » a park that represents a « fertile ground ». Already at that time, their ideological aims were taking shape: to become no more and no less than the main actor and « benefactor » of an « equitable and participatory public sphere« . But behind this speach, the action of Onassis transpires the class violence. The poster of the festival illustrates this by using the image of Mavroula, a stray dog companion of Maria, herself homeless for 40 years and whose face is well known in the park. This is a way to transform the daily reality of misery lives into entertaining tales.

Onassis’ first exhibition entirely at Pedion tou Areos dates back to 2021, with You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens. This one is supported by the region of Attica and co-financed by the EU program « Europe Creative ». This event marks a further step in the appropriation of the park. For a month, we saw the installation of large HD screens, 3D sculptures located in the vegetation of the park and accompanied by sound clips reproducing the roar of lions or rhinoceros and this at each movement detected. The purpose of this exhibition? Officially, to talk about artificial intelligence through the prism of « control », « democracy » and always « public space ». With You and AI, Onassis defends HIS vision of the park: « But above all, Pedion tou Areos Park constitutes the heart of a new Athens – a multicultural Athens brimming with diverse communities – but also a place where public space is being discovered anew, where young people are being brought together with older citizens, and where the digital encounters the physical, public meets private, and artificial intelligence connects with each of us. » This wonderful world, without antagonisms, where public-private partnerships flourish. Through You and AI speech, the Onassis team seizes on the Queer movement and drag show techniques. It takes up the words of critical social sciences, radical circles and oppressed communities: « How are gender, race, body, disability, class stereotypes intensified through machine decision-making, leading to a standardized, homogeneous and monocultural view of the world?« 

In 2021, the presence of Onassis takes on another dimension in the park and this is always with the support of the Region of Attica. The exhibition Plasmata: Bodies, Dreams and Data (plasmata means creatures) lasts this time almost 2 months and occupies the entire visual space, sound and territory (from the ground to the sky). Euronews headlines about « the largest outdoor digital art exhibition in Europe ». 25 huge screens or structures all over the park. Some project a movie, others stay on all day. The humanoid installation called « Happiness » talks to us and mimes taking drugs. LED screens reproduce the body movements of passers-by, while another represents a large life-size tree with a sound that vibrates the ground for several meters around. From small structures to the mega-structure of 22 meters, « Red Planet ». The latter, together with a set of blue projectors, can be seen for part of the night from the heights of Athens. The foundation also extends into what it calls « parts of the park that are not, for the most part, known to the general public. » The Onassis team goes further and tells us what is and is not the park. The foundation even makes its inhabitants, or rather its « creatures », speak: « Pedion tou Areos remains political, collective, inexhaustible. Its Plasmata [creatures] invite you to discover it. »  The aim of this exhibition is to explore the body « individual or collective, human or non-human, or – ultimately – planetary in a ‘post-technological‘ society through great existential questions like ‘Do you know who you are? Can you dream? Can you breathe?‘ ». But it’s all entertainment: « Plasmata promises to entertain us but also to give us pause for thought in the Athenian summertime.« 

Philanthro-capitalism is the capitalist class forging in people’s minds the possibility of reconciling the act of «taking», exploiting, privatizing and «giving»

These three exhibitions have the pretty face of progressivism and concern for the public good. They almost make us forget that every structure, every employee, every event in Onassis depends (on money and decisions) on an extractivist empire based on the transport of polluting energies. And behind this empire is an elite or even an oligarchy of Greek shipping companies that reproduces itself in a closed circle. We can take the example of the three great families Livanos, Niarchos and Onassis whose respective companies compete on certain markets, and yet, they do more than collaborate since they have all married each other.

So, how to interpret this apparent contradiction between the foundation’s speech and the very DNA of the Onassis company? Between a seemingly critical discourse on dominations and a capitalist family empire? All three exhibitions can be analyzed through the prism of philanthro-capitalism. This term refers to a strategy of governance between the state and the market. This one is not new, but for sociologists Linsey McGoey, Darren Thiel, and Robin West (2018), « what is really new is the fact that the ideas behind philanthro-capitalism have become so influential, when previously much of the public in Europe and North America despised and deemed similar ideas from theories of economic liberalism ridiculous, and saw them as a form of ideological makeup used to reinforce the unjust power of plutocratic elites.« 

Philanthro-capitalism is the capitalist class that forges in people’s minds the possibility of reconciling the act of « taking », exploiting, privatizing and « giving ». Thus, this social class that plunders the greatest number would not be the one that creates social inequalities but rather the one that will fight against this naturalized evil. Capitalism would have in its essence « human kindness » and the care of the other. Reversal of responsibilities, roles and reality. This social class, which thrives on social inequalities, will therefore take on the role of savior for the « public » good. This belief has as a consequence to distort the reading of the reality and especially the identification of the relation of exploitation. It also produces a state of heteronomy, of dependence of most of us on the goodwill of the dominant. Philanthro-capitalism largely echoes what is commonly called evergetism in Greece, in the sense of patronage or « public charity ».

4.1 The figure of evergetism, a political tradition in our times

Behind « evergetes » and « evergetism » there is a long history that reminds us that these mechanisms of power and mode of government do not date back to the « crisis » of 2008 or even to our century, as the article by Anastassios Anastassiadis (2011) on which we rely points out. These terms were conceptualized in the XIXᵉ century in Greece, to speak of both the modern realities of the time and to study those of antiquity (thus encompassing practices that were nevertheless very different according to the times and within a vast Mediterranean environment).

It was around the 19th century that the ancestor of the practices of the Onassis foundation appeared, the figure of the national evergete. This « new » evergetism takes shape in a context of transformation of the Ottoman Empire and takes place in a vast network of developing world trade. During this period in the late eighteenthᵉ century, increasing numbers of Rums (Orthodox Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire) emigrated to enter the business world and, when they made their fortunes, sent gifts back to their home regions. With the independence of Greece in 1821, donations also flowed to Athens as the national capital and « a symbol in the eyes of contemporaries of the renewed link between the ‘reborn’ Greek nation and its illustrious past. » Thereafter, trade intensified and the system of interest-bearing loans developed. The Orthodox Church, a key player in this commercial network but one that condemned thieves and profiteers, then changed its discourse to one of acceptance and even justification of this interest system. By modifying its framework for defining sin, it legitimized the idea that « the accumulation of capital became acceptable, insofar as it was accompanied by redistribution through wills » i.e., donations for hospitals, orphanages, hospices, etc. During the 19th century, according to A. Anastassiadis, the Orthodox Church « even erected it [evergetism] as a model of Christian action and tradition. » This « manifestation of an orthodox ethic of entry into Mediterranean capitalism » also marks the turning point where evergetism becomes a strategic tool for the reproduction of the bourgeois class. The academic, literary, commercial and banking elites, some of whom were part of the Greek diaspora, then seized upon this ethic of « compensation to society ». These charitable practices become, according to Anastassiadis, « technologies of government » because they serve as a mode of maintaining social peace in this context of opening up to world trade, amplification of social inequalities and concentration of profits. Also in the 19th century, evergetism becomes an element of nationalist discourse by serving as « proof » of the historical continuity of a so-called « Greek Nation, » its unity and, by extension, as a cover for the growing wealth inequalities within it: « Politicians, journalists and intellectuals proudly repeated, as if trying to exorcise a fast-approaching specter, that the social question did not exist in Greece: as long as there were national evergetes, there was no class struggle.« 

Subsequently, the 20th century and the beginnings of the welfare state cause the collapse, on the one hand, of the importance of the nation-state in everyday social relations and, on the other, of the national hero figure of the evergetes. However, since the crisis of 2008 we see a resurgence of the figure of the national evertget in Greece and Europe, as we would like to illustrate with the example of the Onassis Foundation.

According to McGoey et al, nowadays, evergetes or « philanthro-capitalists derive part of their power and charisma from strategic ignorance of the close links between the state and the market, understood here as a form of social blindness« . A second force, according to Mc Goey et al, is that the philanthro-capitalist presents himself as « a benevolent figure with a kindly smile whose appeal rests on the power of an ‘ideology of harmony’ that purports to reconcile the act of giving and the act of taking. It is as a seducer, and not as a villain, that [he] presents himself […], with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, to argue that it is possible to do good while making a profit« .

This beautiful face of philanthropy is also a way for these new actors of globalization to absorb the social movements they face in the 90s and up to today. A new reconfiguration of capitalism at this time is thus achieved through its alleged « moralization » and through a strategy of invisibilizing antagonisms (especially class antagonisms). This last aspect allows us to insist also on the territorial but also symbolic dimension of the monopolization of our places and our struggles by philantro-capitalism.

4.2 Territorial conquest, urban capitalism, symbolic dispossession: « The foundation creates a new world « 

Bourgeois vision of culture: washing in process!

Onassis’s cultural programming and discourses are inspired by emancipatory struggles, whether for exiled people, gender minorities, queer communities, etc. FOR, not BY. Autonomous queer, trans, and/or artist collectives or spaces point to this cynicism behind the « progressive showcase » and the violent consequences that come from it:

« The title of the exhibition ‘Plasmata‘ appropriates queer slang, whilst doing nothing to support local and trans artists and our intersecting communities. During the exhibition, local policing has intensified. Middle-class audiences reaching the park can enjoy a queer extravaganza, while people on the ground are under continuous surveillance; and amongst them homeless people, queer people of colour and sex workers. […]Onassis’ ‘Plasmata‘ appropriates and fetishises the park’s subcultural history, including refugees and migrants, gay men engaging in cruising, drug users and homeless people seeking a refuge in a city increasingly hostile to their presence. After this intervention, in the name of queer art, the park will never be the same. » (event organized in Athens by ΛΑΛΑ, Sub Rosa Space and Fac_research, September 2022)

Under the guise of defending gender fluidity and queer movements, this discourse is used to erase another « binarity » that of social classes and political struggles. For the theater collective FYTA, this can be called pink-washing: « With identity politics, if you take away all the political critique that talks about class issues, labor rights, racism, and only keep identity, you keep the glitter and you throw away the living experience of the subjects down the drain. » 

« Harmony, co-existence, multiculturalism, mutual understanding, synergy, collaboration, active citizen », the lexical field of the foundation erases all the conflicts and violence present in the social reality. The last term « active citizen » particularly obscures any dimension of struggle, contestation, domination or power. We speak about active, productive and not militant. Moreover, it implies that there are « inactive » people, whom the foundation will soon « shatter » as we can read on the site. Onassis thus assumes the role of neutral arbitrator in public affairs. This injunction to consensus and to live together in fantasy is a sign of a phenomenon that goes beyond Onassis: managerial thinking. Thus, every discussion, debate, round-table discussion, and so-called committed, anti-establishment or radical message becomes an Onassis-stamped product on the bourgeois art market. Indeed, as Seumboy defends on his Instagram, « the bourgeois gaze is part of a culture as adaptive as capitalism itself. » In other words, this gaze on art feeds on elements of popular daily lives. It extracts them, transforms them into materials corresponding to its codes then uses them against these same popular daily lives with cultural paternalism or by expelling them gradually from their districts. This is what we can call washing, a strategy of marketing for profit and of social credit repurchase for a central actor of capitalism in Greece.    

Cult of personality, savior’s clothes and expansionism in the city

Another characteristic feature of this philanthro-capitalist foundation is the cult of personality that surrounds the wealthy figure of Aristotle Onassis. One need only browse the foundation’s website to see this. We find the storytelling about a patriotic benefactor who would have made himself, as the president of the foundation tells us: « He was a visionary entrepreneur, but also a man of culture and knowledge. A citizen of the world and Greek at heart. It is for all these reasons that he is still remembered with warmth and love today, 45 years after his death. Not only in Greece, but in the whole world, Aristotle Onassis is a role model. This « role model » was a billionaire who frequented the political and cultural elite of the 1960s and invited them to his yacht, which was often docked on his private island, Skorpios. Author of a biography on Maria Callas, Lyndsy Spence, had access to correspondence between the singer and Aristotle Onassis. In the Guardian, she says that « there is disturbing information from the diary of one of her great friends detailing how Onassis drugged her, especially for sexual reasons. Today, we would call this date rape.« 

We need to smash this myth in order to understand the connection between the Onassis empire and the Foundation’s work nowadays. For we must not believe that the presence of Onassis is limited to Pedion tou Areos. The foundation is making its mark in many areas of Athens: Longinou Park; the fountain structure and a mural in Omonia; the 4 sports fields in Moschato, murals on Alexandras Avenue, Mavili Square and Avdi Square. The neighborhood of Neos Kosmos, where the Onassis Stegi cultural center is located, seems to be the main playground of the foundation – « the Stegi neighborhood » as the foundation itself says in a poster promoting the « Block Party » event. It also plays with the name Neos Kosmos, the new world, in which it places itself as a missionary that « stimulates the relationships that residents and visitors have with their environment and their sense of place. » Onassis is talking about HIS park and HIS (new) world. And the foundation warns us « this is just the start of a new start« . This is clearly an expansionist ambition. Onassis plans to expand in the city, as Afroditi Panagiotakou, cultural director at the Onassis Foundation, tells the Financial Times: « Next year, a new Onassis cultural space will open, designed by Yinka Ilori, to bring together fashion and crafts, biotechnology and design. It will be a place for the things that make everyday life more human: food, drink, music, art. Athens will be more interesting than ever. »  

In this way, an entity like Onassis places itself as the savior of our common spaces and becomes an increasingly central player in society. Where the foundation speaks of « creative, ecological, free, public » intervention, we see it shaping the city in its own image with a homogeneous and sanitized style. This territorial conquest is not simply the work of Onassis, but rather a collaboration with the Municipality of Athens and the Attica Region. Indeed, part of Onassis’ renovations and installations of sports facilities in Athens’ parks are done within the framework of municipal programs or even joint programs between Onassis and the Municipality of Athens like OnAthens. The vision of art carried by Onassis where « the local becomes global and the global becomes local » fits very well with the projects of the Mayor of Athens. This style of art in which the world’s elites, moving from capital to capital, feel good, feel at home. Exactly in line with the municipal policy of Kostas Bakoyannis, for whom Athens must become an attractive city for tourists, investors and the famous « digital nomads« . In this idea, the city hall regularly feeds its mass tourism promotion campaign « This is Athens ». The municipality is also launching, in 2020, the Adopt your City program, called « social solidarity ». This program nicely proposes to open up markets to the private sector in the management of city services. This concerns the upgrading of urban facilities, the creation of new infrastructures or the maintenance and modernization of existing infrastructures such as schools; the cleaning, renewal and « enhancement » of parks, the improvement of lighting, including for religious holidays such as Christmas; the maintenance and « sustainable » management of public spaces throughout the city by proposing, for example, that each citizen take care of a tree. Under the guise of « democracy », it is in fact multinationals and large companies (Coca-Cola, Karcher, Fix Hellas, etc.) that take part.

Thus, the city hall, on the one hand, sets up partnerships with companies like Karcher for the cleaning of « blots, slogans, graffiti, illegal posters, stickers » understood as « visual pollution » of the public space and, on the other hand, it makes repaint these same walls by foundations like Onassis. And it is within the framework of this program that Onassis renovates the park of Longinou contributing, at the same time, to enhance the image of Bakoyannis for the next elections. Onassis and the leaders of the municipality of Athens defend a certain vision of the city and especially have the necessary means to make it happen. This urban planning implies the disappearance of popular practices and imaginaries. We can therefore speak of a spatial and social war in Athens in which Onassis takes part.

« We save quality time and valuable free space that we so desperately need. Operating with quality and safety. The Municipality of Athens and @onassis.stegi have completely renovated the Longinou Grove and Balanou pedestrian street. New playground, renovated basketball court, 2,500 additional plants and modern equipment. Every day in Athens, in every neighborhood. » Instagram Kostas Bakoyannis

The convenient myth of «an empty and degraded space»      

How does this space war begin? In our case, and as in any process specific to urban capitalism, it begins with the argument of a so-called « empty, neglected and degraded » space. This myth of a social space that dies when the state and local authorities have withdrawn, amounts to saying, from above, that without the institutionalization, the sanitization, the standardization of space then the place has no existence. Moreover, the collective FYTA mocks this in a satirical video of the exhibition Plasmata by embodying an Onassis foundation addressing us in these terms: « We have moved from chaos to order. After all, what was Pedion tou Areos before this? A chaotic wasteland, a place characterized by difficulty where communication failed. And what is it now? A center of life. »  

By erasing the informal history of the park, creating a « need » for rescue and placing the public authorities as helpless victims, the Region of Attica and the Municipality of Athens are mounting from scratch the « vital » recourse to private companies and foundations. This is a textbook case of the legitimization of a public-private partnership that is in the genes of philanthro-capitalism. It is a transfer of responsibility from the public service to the profit sector. Onassis obviously fits into this case through its « cultural » events and renovation projects. The latest one is for the park of Pedion tou Areos. The work is to be done as a « donation » of the foundation to the Region of Attica for an amount of 373,241.59 euros excluding VAT and through its construction company ARIONA HELLAS S.A. The renovation work that will be carried out in the park by Onassis is praised by the association Sillogou Athina (Συλλόγου Αθηνά), which mocks the fear of privatization.        

Security capitalism

The presence of the foundation should also be understood as a tool of security policies. In 2016, the deputy governor of the Region of Attica, Ermina Kyprianidou, was already suggesting that more people should be attracted to Pedion tou Areos in order to evict « undesirable » populations (poor, exiled or protesting): « The issue will not be solved by putting tanks in the park. With the help of continuous policing and events that will attract people to the park, we can bring it back to life and reduce the ‘gray areas’, » she said. « The problem starts when there is no one in the park. As more people visit, the problem will decrease. » In the years since, those words have turned into actions as more and more institutional events have taken up more and more space in the park. The exhibitions You and AI and Plasmata or the grand reopening of the high-end restaurant Green Park – and all the media hype that punctuated these events – have participated in the normalization of a security presence (police but also and especially private security) in Pedion tou Areos. The association Syllogos Athina Pedion tou Areos defends this vision of the park. It has publicly praised the resumption of the rounds of the company Falcon Security in May 2022, while on its side the Onassis foundation set up rounds by electric bicycle. Thus, the Plasmata exhibition also becomes synonymous with surveillance.

It is not so much a question of acting on the causes of social inequalities, but rather of identifying groups allegedly « at risk » and reinforcing their control through police and surveillance devices

We can speak here of a security ideology regularly mobilized by the ruling class for electoral purposes. It is based on a pejorative representation of the city, systematically associated with crime, incivility, insecurity and the fantasized image of a « migratory wave. Such representations testify to the penetration of a racist and xenophobic imaginary in certain discourses on the city; to a tendency to ethnicize and pathologize « social risk ». Mayor Bakoyannis does not hide from this. On the one hand, he points the finger at those who, according to him, « degrade » the city: people who tag the walls of Athens or squat in empty buildings. On the other hand, he communicates abundantly on his political action in favor of a « clean Athens » and publishes numerous photos of employees sanitizing the walls, as on February 25, 2020 on his Instagram page: « This is a deliberate choice to end the footprint of misery in public spaces. This time a great effort was made to clean the long fence of 400 meters Pedion tou Areos in Alexandras. It took 260 kg of special and ecological material to remove the graffiti and ensure that the stone is not damaged. Let’s restore aesthetics and cleanliness to the city, pollution is not art. » 

This security ideology is also an industry that relies on the image of a « postcard city », perfectly safe, « streamlined », conducive to financial flows and capital accumulation. This industry generates growing profits and feeds on several fears: that of the « foreigner », the « immigrant », the « young suburbanite », the « working classes, dangerous classes » or the « dangerous militant ». This rhetoric shapes the figures of the « enemy within » and « enemy without », whose designation leads to a definition of social inequalities that is itself security-oriented. For Philippe Mary, the dominant discourse on urban riots, the informal economy, sexual delinquency, terrorism, etc., leads to a new model of « risk management. Thus, it is not so much a question of acting on the causes of social inequalities, but rather of identifying so-called « at-risk » groups and reinforcing their control through police and surveillance measures. With the increased presence of private security, one can imagine that those who survive in the park now know that they are being watched, even in the thickets when expensive exhibition facilities are installed. Whether the surveillance is private or police, it has the effect of expelling those groups or individuals considered « undesirable » and the opportunities to organize the park from below.

5. CONCLUSION – IN THE FACE OF WASHING, WE CAN ONLY RELY ON OUR RELATIONSHIPS OF SOLIDARITY

« The purpose of the existence of art is not to be beautiful. This is mainly done by decoration and artists who serve companies and kings. The purpose of art is to open up new ways for us to think and feel about the horrible world we live in. The purpose of Art is to intervene, to protest, to be unexpected, to make noise, to reflect, to surprise, to sabotage, to conspire with the voiceless. Sometimes very threatening and cacophonous modes of expression are necessary. A howl is neither melodic nor pleasant, but dissonant and threatening. Sometimes Art is a howl and that is why it has the power to save our lives. » Tasos Sagris, Void Network, August 1, 2022

We have lived for several months for one and several years for the other near the park Pedion tou Areos. As elsewhere in the Greek capital, we are witnesses of state violence and the damage of urban capitalism: generalized surveillance and repression, mass tourism, exclusion of the « undesirable » (often exiled) working classes, or the commodification and privatization of the territory. Through this article, we wanted to recall a part of the memory of the struggles and the informal history of Pedion tou Areos: it is a powerful weapon because we face a dominant word that saturates the media, political and sometimes even academic space. Our reflection represents only a starting point of a larger research work. This text wished to thwart social-washing, a political marketing technique based on the recovery of subversive discourses, emptied of their meaning and used as a showcase by the ruling class organized in diaploki. This social-washing includes many variants of green, solidarity, feminism or pink-washing. This « art of whitewashing » is intimately linked to philanthro-capitalism, which has been a political weapon to perpetuate systems of domination for several centuries. This phenomenon of expropriation of our practices is at the same time a symbolic, class and spatial war that requires a better knowledge of our enemies behind the myth that surrounds them. As Mc Goey and al argue, « the growing cultural reverence for philanthrocapitalism has helped renew public confidence in discourses of ‘sweet commerce’ (Hirshman, 1982) and capitalist growth.« 

Finally, what we observe in Pedion tou Areos is all the more concerning in light of the state repression against those who struggle to maintain free and common spaces throughout Athens. This repression is felt on university campuses which were also often, before 2019 and the wave of repression of squats and radical movements, common spaces in the strongest sense of the word – with many self-managed activities. These free, squatted, self-managed, sometimes non-market spaces allow in part to thwart certain relations of power and domination. Cooking, eating, celebrating, taking care of oneself, sharing knowledge, it is to make politics in everyday life and to express all our potential of solidarity and mutual help. These are spaces of emancipation to defend and values and practices to spread everywhere that participate in the political affirmation of another possible society. And contest the hegemony of the dominant forms of life and ways of living imposed by the State or urban capitalism.

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SOURCE: https://nicolasrichen.wordpress.com/2022/11/24/ang-part-1/

The post Onassis in Pedion Areos Park/ Philanthro-capitalism occupies Athens appeared first on Void Network.

I want to begin with a shout-out to what happened here last night, and to the working class of the city of Seattle, to the rebels of the city of Seattle: I really liked what I saw, that’s why I’m here, you know, to feel that vibe. I would also like to send my solidarity to comrades in Greece. It was they who allowed me to experience insurrection for the first time in 2008. The lessons I’ve learned and the experiences I had there have been so valuable this time around, even though we are in a much different social context. Moreover, a comrade was recently killed at the hands of the police there. To the fallen comrade, Vasillis Maggos, I want to say: rest in power.

My title demands a little bit of explanation. It is a reference to Chernyshevsky [1] , and to the novel he wrote from inside a Czarist prison. Lenin borrowed the title for his 1902 pamphlet, What Is to Be Done? [2] , which provides answers to what he calls “the burning questions of our movement”: what does it mean to constitute a vanguard party? how do we spread consciousness from this vanguard party to the working class? how do we move beyond strikes to a full-on revolutionary political struggle?, etc. Later, in 2001, a text entitled “How It Is to Be Done” appeared in the journal of the French collective Tiqqun. [3] Rather than stating what our goals or objectives should be, Tiqqun sought to shift our focus to the means and the techniques of struggle. Instead of thinking about ends, they thought about the means that we should employ.

My aim here is far less ambitious. As for the grammatical construction, “might should”, from the southern dialect—I tried to Blackify the title a little bit. But it’s also serious, because these are in fact tentative theses and proposals: I’m perfectly okay with being completely wrong about every single thing I put forward today, just so long as it creates a further deeper discussion on strategy. What I really want to do is open up this discussion, and I want to leave it, for people to engage with it as they want to, and to push it further. At the same time, I want the dialogue to be honest. There’s a kind of prevailing posture of cynicism, nihilism, and democratic moralism that holds back insurrection. And I think now is the time: we are experiencing an uprising on a scale that many of us have never lived through. Even if we compare present events to Greece, this thing has gone much further. There are far more martyrs in this struggle than there ever were in the Greek uprising. The time has arrived for strategic thought and reflection.

It’s of course weird to find myself saying this in America, the most counter-revolutionary place on the globe. But we must reorient ourselves, and take these questions seriously. The stakes have been raised to the next level, they’re extremely high now. It’s time for us to think seriously about them.

1. A militant nationwide uprising did in fact occur. The progressive wing of the counter-insurgency seeks the denial and disarticulation of this event.

The obvious is not always so obvious.

We all saw it. We all saw what happened after the murder of George Floyd. What occurred was an extremely violent and destructive rebellion. It was a phenomenon the likes of which we have not seen in America in 40 or 50 years. Very few of us have experienced anything of this magnitude: a precinct was immediately torched in Minneapolis, after which entire cities went up in flames—New York, Atlanta, Oakland, Seattle. Comparisons were quickly made with the riots after Martin Luther King’s assassination. However, I think that we’ve gone further in this case, that 2020 went harder than 1968, and we’re not even done yet.

Despite all of this, the reformers have had the audacity to claim that all of this never actually happened. They are trying to make the burning cop cars disappear, to extinguish from memory the police stations on fire, as if it didn’t happen. Again and again, I hear the same script: someone comes on the news, a political activist gives a talk, and we hear them say something like, “the protests were peaceful and non-violent, they stayed within the bounds of law and order.” No: cops being shot at in St. Louis is not within the bounds of law and order. They’re doing their best to make the event disappear. One has to to wonder what planet they are on that a torched police station appears within the bounds of civility.

This delusion is something that we need to think about. Ultimately, it’s more than a delusion. It unites veritably all the progressive liberals who chatter on about what’s been going on over the past summer. From the Biden democrats to virtually all of the mainstream media not affiliated with Fox News, to the Black Lives Matter people, the agenda pushed by all these groups is the claim that the insurrection did not take place. I even read a recent study by some sort of consulting firm that sought to prove through quantitative means that there was a very civil nature to the protests. [4]

The fact is, whatever data or graphs they draw up, nothing will erase the fact that police cars were on fire in dozens of American cities. So why do liberals feel the need to jump through such incredible hoops in order to erase this insurrection or this uprising? Why is it that the most violent wings of law and order—e.g., Attorney General William Barr—are today the only audible voices willing to acknowledge that the uprising occurred? We need to think this through.

What is at issue is more than just a momentary lapse of sanity: it is a strategy of denial, a counter-insurgent strategy of reform par excellence.

Unconsciously, liberals do recognize that an insurrection occurred. They can’t ignore the shattered glass that occurred in the streets of Seattle yesterday. But what they want is to downplay the significance of these events that mean so much to us, and that we are continually trying to push forward. They want to reassert and reaffirm them, but in a different direction. Ultimately, what they want is to block the possibilities that the revolt has opened up, to dissuade us from going further in this uprising. As with all democratic liberal reformists, what they’re trying to do is exploit the outburst in order to make it so that things change, but only just a little—which is to say, not at all.

There’s a moral component to this as well, a deep ethical problem. This wing of the counter insurgency is just one more way that those in line with the system have found to manage and to exploit Black death. It must be recalled (and I will return to this below) that there are scores of young Black children who lost their lives in the uprising, and that activists, ‘woke’ journalists, progressive politicians of all stripes, and even so-called BLM activists are profiting off their death. This is a continuous narrative in American society, and it will not stop now unless we do something about it.

By denying the event, they seek to obscure the revolutionary truth that was ushered in through the streets. They want to extinguish the present that we brought about. They want to sap our energy while they propose superficial palliative adjustments to preserve the system. The history of America is the history of attempts to reform race relations. If they haven’t gotten it right by now, they never will.

Whatever they do, whatever slight changes they make, there will always remain an insatiable drive to brutalize and kill Black people. Anyone who profits off this change is complicit in that murder. If you block the revolutionary trajectory of the rebellion, you have blood on your hands. Anyone who remains complicit with the system is the enemy, tout court.

By contrast, the Right has adopted the opposite approach to the event. Besides us revolutionaries, they are the only voices today that acknowledge that the rebellion occurred. There’s an illuminating honesty to what William Barr says. Think of it this way: before he can forcefully smash and eventually suppress an insurrection, he must first acknowledge that one did, in fact, occur. In this way, there’s an honesty to Trump’s words. Trump and his entire Fox News crowd, all those who are calling for law and order, have no choice but to acknowledge the existence of the uprising, precisely because they want to crush it. Just today, Trump declared on the news that he intends to send federal stormtroopers not only to Portland but to New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. [5] To justify such a choice, he must acknowledge that the uprising did in fact happen. These are the two sides into which our opponents may be divided, the Janus face of the State we confront today.

What is more, the rebellion shows the liberals what it means to defund the police halfway, instead of abolishing and outright destroying them. If anyone thinks it suffices to undertake a series of small measures and quick fixes, or that they can re[form] and preserve the police as a force while simply shrinking it—well, the result is what is happening right now in Portland. Let that be an example to liberals. On the other hand, those who recognize that a change really did occur, and who now seek to stomp it out are typically more aligned with fascist trajectories and politics, since they are typically the same people who feel the need to dream up and defend a sort of immutable, eternal, and transcendental idea of law, order, and white supremacy. Whatever deviates from the ideal, this fascist side of order will seek to annihilate. For this reason, it is compelled to refuse those same reforms that the liberals attempt to push through. For instance, this is why Trump is so upset about changing the names of military bases. The issue itself doesn’t actually matter, but the sort of power he represents cannot stand such changes, and seeks instead to crush and flatten the event itself in its tracks.

There’s only one way to deal with this fascist wing of the state: they operate with violence, and we return with violence that’s more powerful. However, as concerns the other, more reformist side that aims to deny the event in order to incorporate it into their own objectives, we need to be a little bit sharper in how we handle them. We need to be deceptive, like Machiavelli’s fox. Honesty isn’t their mode of operating. They have always sought to deny what lies right before our eyes. Deception and subversion is how we are going to have to play them: we need to deceive them twice over.

When it comes to these two sides of state, I do not wish to claim that either one is any more nefarious than the other, but simply that these are the two sides that we have to contend with, and ultimately to defeat.

2. While spearheaded by a Black avant-garde, this largely multi-ethnic rebellion managed to spontaneously overcome codified racial divisions. The containment of the revolt aims at reinstating these rigid lines of separation and policing their boundaries.

To begin with, it must be said that former African slaves and their ancestors have been the avant-garde of everything in this country. There’s no culture in America, in this American wasteland, without us. There’s no classical music; there’s jazz, and that was invented by us. And besides that, America has nothing to offer the world and it never has.

However, I used the term avant-garde in a more specific sense. There were no leaders. We were not leaders of the revolt. We were the avant-garde who spearheaded it, we set it off, we initiated it. What ensued was a wildly multi-ethnic uprising, and the reformists will do everything in their power to make it so that this truth is erased. If you were out on the streets, you know you saw people of all different kinds. Different bodies, different shapes, different genders, manifested themselves in the streets together.

There’s a lot of talk about how to end racism, especially within corporate and academic circles. We saw how to end racism in the streets the first weeks after George Floyd was murdered.

It was only after the uprising began to slow down and exhaust itself that the gravediggers and vampires of the revolution began to reinstate racial lines and impose a new order on the uprising. The most subtle version of this comes from the activists themselves. Our worst enemies are always closest to us. You’ve all been in these marches, these ridiculous marches, where it’s, “white people to the front, black people to the center”—this is just another way of reimposing these lines in a more sophisticated way. What we should be aiming for is what we saw in the first days, when these very boundaries began to dissolve.

The most devastating example of how the racial lines and boundaries are reimposed comes from the example of Rayshard Brooks’ long-time partner, Natalie White, who offers the most blatant example of this racial policing seen so far. White was called out by so-called “woke” Twitter activists for her involvement in the protests in Atlanta over her dead partner. Eventually, they implicated her in the burning of the Wendy’s where Rayshard was killed. It is up to us to never reinforce these sort of bourgeois constructs of guilt or innocence. Whether she had a hand in the destruction or not, I don’t judge her either way. That is not up to us, we stand in solidarity no matter what. But I do hold accountable, I do place blame on the wanna be do-gooders, these “woke” Twitter activists who implicated her in what occurred. I lay the blame solely on those activists, and Rayshard Brooks lays the blame on them from the grave.

Order neatly defines collections of people — these are the prerogatives of prison guards, of the police. We should remember the example of John Brown, who was often criticized by his so-called allies and friends for relating to Black people in a way that they deemed unacceptable. If you saw the way John Brown related to Black people in his time, you might think he was being criticized for relating to Black people as human beings. Every time we cross over those racial boundaries and meet each other as human beings, this is when we will be criticized, especially by the most advanced parts of the counter-insurgency. John Brown was heavily criticized for his advocacy of militant tactics, and Frederick Douglass was among his most vocal critics of his advocacy for insurrection. Douglass would come around later, but history would prove Brown right: the only way to abolish slavery is through violent insurrection. History has now redeemed him to some extent. But what I want us to think about is this: if John Brown was alive today, what would he be like? How would he behave? John Brown would be in jail alongside Natalie White for crossing over those boundaries.

3. By avoiding the morbid libidinal core of white supremacy, identity politics, intersectionality, and social privilege discourse comprise the most sophisticated sector of this police apparatus.

We’ve all come in contact with it at some point, particularly if we have been involved in politics for some time. We all know that identity politics, this talk about “white privilege” and what people call “intersectionality”—all it does is reinforce the racial lines that we’re trying to overcome. If it ever had any use or goal, the uprising has superseded it at this point. Let me work through these ideas one by one.

Privilege: I think we all know, or we can all admit, or we should admit, that privilege has become a purely psychological concept. There’s a long history to the notion of white privilege. It dates back to W.E.B. Du Bois, to Theodore Allen, to Noel Ignatiev, to Harry Haywood. For each of these authors, what was in question was a theoretical construct whose aim was to incite white workers to strike alongside Black workers. Somehow in the twists and turns that are American politics, the notion became psychological, a way to make white people feel good about their guilt. If you look at, for instance, Peggy McIntosh’s definitive text on white privilege, she talks about the privilege of being able to chew with your mouth closed. I don’t give a fuck about chewing with my mouth closed. [6]

As for intersectionality: I did a talk at Red May so I won’t go into this too deeply here, but as John Clegg and I tried to show, the presuppositions that intersectionality holds are becoming empirically false. [7] What the data is beginning to show is that, for instance, there are more Black women prison guards than there are those going into prison. This doesn’t discredit the struggle and plight of Black women, but as a construct, intersectionality is showing its limits. In fact, there are more white women being incarcerated today than Black women, oddly enough. As for Black men, we all know they just sit in jail and stay in jail.

Whatever intersectionality once wanted to do is no longer feasible or viable as a guide for us. In my talk with Red May, I suggest that we get back to the roots of Black feminism. We need categories that understand the Black feminist struggle beyond the oppression that the system inflicts upon them. I cited Toni Cade Bambara’s book called The Black Woman (1970), in her excellent preface, she refuses to define what a “Black woman” is. She does not say that a Black woman is the intersection of two oppressions; she does not say that Black women are in the margins of two different systems of hierarchy. What she argues, rather, is that Black women are an open possibility to be further understood through their revolutionary activity. In place of intersectionality as a discourse of systemic oppression, what we need to do is to bring back the idea of Black feminism as a discourse of struggle.

Finally, by opening up this definition of what Black women are and who they are, what Toni Cade Bambara was saying that Black women cannot be tied down by any static identity imposed upon them. Of course they are something more. And if we look at the history of Black folks in this country, we’re always something more than what has been hoisted upon us.

Identity politics, intersectionality, and social privilege discourse: all are modalities of the police.

What’s more, and above all, is that each of these discourses ignore the morbid and terrifying libidinal politics that undergirds race in this country. It took someone as courageous as James Baldwin to say this, and everyone is still afraid to repeat it. If you read his phenomenal short story, “Going to Meet the Man,” [8] you can see the dynamics of racism in this country acutely. To briefly summarize the story: it starts in the bedroom of a white heterosexual couple. The white man is struggling with impotence. How does he get over his impotence? He remembers back to a time as a child where he was brought to a lynching. At that lynching the corpse was not only mutilated, it was sexually mutilated, and he was given the genitalia. Once he remembers being handed the genitalia, he is able to become erect.

This is deep stuff. No one likes talking about it. But this is the core of racism that we need to reach. What’s more, I think no one wants to touch this part of the race problem because we are all implicated in it. It is obvious that white liberals get off on videos of Black murder. It is even more obvious that there are Black liberals who are more than happy to sell these videos of Black death for their own careerist goals. So long as we fail to take into account these libidinal drives within racism, we will not be able to explain how and why Ahmaud Arbery was killed. It had nothing to do with the police. It had to do with what is driving American society as such.

4. The insurgency cannot be confined within any well-circumscribed sociological category. By necessarily exceeding all classification, it is an excluded remnant detaching itself from all that binds together the American wasteland. Consequently, this combatant formation can only be defined in terms of its movement and its development, as that which emerged during the first weeks of the revolt and which will dissolve itself upon the full completion of the revolutionary project.

As I said earlier, every conceivable kind of person participated in the revolt. This can be confirmed by anyone who participated in the revolt itself. There is no category that can sum up all of who was there. The best we can say is that what we saw was the inclusively-excluded, or the part of America that has no part in it, and that wants nothing to do with this place. Such a formation can only be grasped by how it is moving, outside and against the current state of things, that can only be traced by way of its trajectory: against the state and capital, against American society. What is now up to us is to deepen and strengthen this spontaneous organization, so that we come up with something together that is even more terrible, even more powerful, than what we saw last night. Something that splits American society in half.

5. The so-called the Black leadership, therefore, cannot and does not exist. It is a chimera to be found exclusively in the white liberal imagination.

You hear it everywhere. I’ve heard it from every city, every friend who texted me. If I called a friend and said, “Hey, what happened in NOLA?”, or “What happened in Chicago?” If there were riots, if people got busy, there was no mention of a Black leadership. If things stopped, if things were stultified, all we heard about was a Black leadership.

The thing is, I have never in my life actually seen a Black leader. Why? Because they don’t exist. If there are Black leaders, they’re dead like Martin and Malcolm. If you’re worth your salt, you will be killed. If there are Black leaders, they are in jail with Mumia and with Sundiata. If there are Black leaders, they are on the run with Assata.

There is only one category of people who speak of Black leaders, and we know them as white liberals. The Black leadership is nothing other than a figment and hallucination that exists solely in the imagination of the white liberal’s mind. The odd thing about it is that somehow white liberals have more contact with Black leaders than I have ever come across in my entire life. It is as if a channel extends from the Black leadership directly into their head.

There have been reasons proposed as to why the classical formation of Black leadership no longer exists. One argument, which can be derived from many of the new sociological studies (there was a big report about this in the New York Times as well), asserts that to develop a firm hegemonic leadership of the sort we saw in the past typically requires a substantial middle class. But if you look at the data from the past 40 years, the Black middle class has been under constant threat. Hopefully it stays like that, honestly. But it is very hard to define what exactly the Black middle class is. If you do say there is this well-defined group, and if you’re able to circumscribe this well-defined group, they typically exist within the white community. Just to speak a little bit more personally from my experience in New York, I am hard pressed to think of ever meeting a Black middle-class person growing up, or of ever even hearing their rhetoric and their nonsense. But it’s not really a thing anymore.

Why does the white liberal need to hallucinate and invent a Black leadership for him or herself? Ultimately, it is because whitey loves property. Property enjoys a special prestige in American life, it has a special kind of sanctity. We always get these calls for the Black leadership from white liberals whenever the windows start to crack. There is a very important reason that property has this particular kind of sanctity in America, as many historians are starting to confirm and argue. [9] For most of its history, the most important property in America was human property, shackled and chained. We need to weaponize this argument, and say that whenever property is protected, it is protected for white supremacist ends. If property is truly the pursuit of happiness, in that trifecta of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the existence of that happiness and property is premised upon the negation of Black life and the negation of Black liberty. So the protection of property is something that we need to attack explicitly.

6. The current crisis derives from a contradiction that proceeds from the two Janus-faced sides of post-Cold War American governance: an inconsistency between the demands of the sovereign imperial State and globalized biopolitical security. As a result, the metropolitan center has begun to experience the sort of chaos and the instability that it has classically sewn within the colonial periphery.

This dynamic captures the situation that we are living in today, and which we have been experiencing acutely over the past few months.

On the one side, we have state sovereignty, the classical notion of the state. Following Schmitt, but most importantly following Agamben, the paradoxical foundation of the state proves to be important to the way it operates. In order to define the state, the state must employ extra-legal and extra-juridical measures in order to found itself. Every time the state founds itself, it must go outside the law that it seeks to create. What has occurred classically, and we have a lot of historical examples of this in America, is that whenever there’s a crisis, the state imposes some sort of state of exception in order to create the order that it needs to reassert itself.

As we saw, for example, in the American Civil War, in the two Red Scares, and most recently in the War on Terror, the executive branch of the government has continually mobilized itself beyond its formal legal parameters and confines.

We see this today especially with Trump. Trump is using and abusing his executive powers, but it is better to say that he is using them in the way that they were set out to be used. What was originally the province of the legislative branch has now been taken over by Trump himself.

This component of the U.S. asserting itself has also shown itself in its foreign wars. We need to keep in mind, and I will come back to this, that—and for some reason this fact has been downplayed in the past 20 or 30 years—America is the one imperial power in the globe, and it serves itself aggressively around the world. After the collapse of the [Soviet Union] and the Cold War, we have seen the United States become the police officer, or the storm trooper, of the entire Earth. This is one side of governance.

It is important to contrast this with another form of governance, which is typically called biopolitical discipline, or biopolitical security. The latter differs from the enforcement of the law carried out by the classic state. Rather, it names the management of lives. If the state kills, biopolitics is concerned with the protection of those lives—for its own ends, of course.

The most recent regime of biopolitical control is what is known as “security”. What “security” does is it allows an event to happen, so as to then manage that event. These events are varied. They can be something like pandemics, like the COVID-19 pandemic we’re going through today; these could be famines, or disasters like Katrina; and they could also be insurrections like the one we are hopefully fomenting right now. What the state does in these instances is to make a statistical calculation and try to find acceptable terms within which it can allow events such as pandemics to occur, while keeping them within neatly circumscribed boundaries.

In addition to the paradox of the state that we see in the state of exception, there is also a strange biopolitical paradox of preparedness that we are experiencing right now. The paradox typically goes like this: after a disasters—say, a pandemic or a famine—there is a drive within the security apparatus to begin preparing for the next disaster to come. After SARS in the 2000s, there was a big push to be prepared for the next coming pandemic. This over-preparedness then is put on the back burner when it comes to light that the next disease is not going to appear when we expect it to appear. The famed medical anthropologist Andrew Lakoff drew attention to this paradox, which we have seen again recently. There has been preparedness for pandemics, but the preparedness was then put on the back burner, so that when the COVID-19 pandemic came we were still not ready for it. We are dealing at once with two different types of paradox here: one that must venture outside of itself in order to found itself, and the other a cycle of preparedness that consistently generates unpreparedness.

There is the legal side and the statistical side of the state, the nation state in its classic form and this more global operation of security. I would like to argue that these two directives are colliding with each other and forming some sort of crisis.

Legal means to an ends have been in a constant state of crisis: Trump just can’t do anything right. Whatever he does seems to backfire, and it does not seem to always be the worst thing. Trump and his own deluded mind has become an agent of anarchy. [10] Now of course he doesn’t think he is–it is up to us, when this chaos reigns, to utilize this for our own ends. What I’m saying is that we need to inhabit this chaos that the state is inflicting upon itself.

Unlike liberals and reformists, we are not here to reaffirm and reassert law and order. We are not here to transform America into one big safe space. We are here to make the chaos and the disorder more terrible than it has ever been.

We must do what revolutionaries have always done: we must make the contradiction intolerable.

7. As the rebel-slaves did with the periodic outbreaks of yellow fever in Haiti, there is a hidden partisan knowledge to be uncovered surrounding the novel coronavirus pandemic that also can be exploited and weaponized against established power.

In the Imaginary Party’s best book, entitled To Our Friends [11] , the authors mention a pamphlet issued by the CDC in 2012 on the subject of disaster preparedness. [12] It is a part American Tiqqunists tend not to mention. In order to make disaster preparedness pertinent and hip to the youngsters, the CDC invokes the example of preparing for a zombie apocalypse. Their basic argument was that if people can prepare for a zombie apocalypse, they will be able to prepare for a natural disaster such as a flood, a storm, a pandemic, or even an insurrection.

The Invisible Committee argue in their book that this fear of zombies has a long and racialized history, linked in no uncertain terms to the fear of the Black proletariat. And the other side of this fear that doesn’t want to be mentioned, that refuses to be mentioned or is repressed, resides in the paranoia of the white middle class over its own worthlessness.

If we look back over the history of zombies, the figure of the zombie appeared within the voodoo utilized during the Haitian Revolution. There was a person by the name of Jean Zombi who ended up taking the name because he participated in the massacre of slave owners. What I think is particularly instructive for our purposes today is that the Haitian insurgents were perfectly aware that they could use the yellow fever pandemic against their former masters and against the army, whether this be Napoleon’s army, or the party of order more generally. The insurgents waited until the yellow fever outbreak took hold. They knew that their former slave masters’ army would be devoured by the pandemic, and they also knew that they had built up an immunity to that pandemic. So they waited until the army had been decimated by yellow fever, and then they launched their guerilla attacks.

What I am arguing for here is something very similar. We all know that Black people and brown people were disproportionately affected by the COVID pandemic. This is a medical problem. But it is much more than a mere medical-scientific problem, it is a political problem. We must reject the sort of sanitized liberal politics of safety that is afraid of the pandemic, that is largely a sanitary discourse around masks, distancing, etc. I know this is a political issue now. But, on the flip side, I’m not defending right-wing conspiracy theorist ideas that the pandemic does not exist, or that it is just a flu, etc.. What I’m proposing here is that we develop a kind of partisan knowledge—our own knowledge about the pandemic—to exploit the pandemic for our own good, and to use the knowledge of the pandemic as a weapon against our enemies.

8. The insurrection will involve precise coordination from within the constellation of riots: the paradoxical organization of disorder beyond any measure of control. Accordingly, the problem of insurrection has equal parts social and technical dimensions.

What I am advocating is a paradoxical ordering of disorder, an Organized Konfusion (for those who remember the rap group). To do this, we must read up on tactics: we must look into what exactly was smashed; what exactly was looted; and how and why the occupations were effective or ineffective. We need to think strategically about the chaos that we inflict in the streets.

What is more, we also need to anticipate new forms of tactics, struggles and strategies that will emerge, so as to intensify these struggles and tactics. We can anticipate that occupations and rent strikes are going to occur in the near future due to the looming threat of eviction that is occurring in all of our heavily gentrified cities. But I think we need to go beyond these defensive struggles and to be more creative and to initiate tactics that go on the offensive. In fact, what I am advocating here is employing the whole arsenal of proletarian strategies and tactics–from riots, to strikes, to blockades.

But we need to be creative in our tactics and strategies. As we have seen in the recent Twitter hacks, these are just as important. What’s important is that we be creative in how we deploy these strategies and tactics.

What is the modern equivalent of the telephone exchange in Barcelona that was so savagely fought over during the May Days in 1937? What is the modern equivalent of the St. Petersburg rail line that the insurgent workers fought so hard over in revolutionary Russia? We have a unique problem, in that we live in a huge country. We need to figure out creative ways to break this distance and utilize it for our own ends, i.e., as pure means.

9. Materialize the ever-present specter of a second, more balkanized, civil war by fragmenting the fragments of a crumbling empire.

At least since Trump was elected and took office, the archetype of civil war has been looming over this country. There are historical reasons for this. Since American Civil War was for some the most traumatic experience this country has ever collectively undergone, and for others the most liberating, it stands as a figure that is continually recalled within the collective imaginary. But, I think there are also structural reasons. The fundamental operation of the state works by warding off the ubiquitous threat of civil war. The State as such can be thought of as that which blocks and inhibits civil war. What is unique about this country is our singular emancipatory tradition, which is itself bound up with our understanding of civil war.

I would otherwise here cite Kenneth Rexroth’s excellent autobiography, where he explains that the radical abolitionists who took part in the Civil War gave birth to children who became the first era of the American socialist, anarchist, and communist labor movement. [13] But I think the best example comes from Du Bois’s classic book, Black Reconstruction. [14] It was the proletarian general strike of the ex-slaves that truly put the final nail in the coffin of slavery. It is precisely this lineage of an emancipatory, liberatory, but nonetheless violent, civil war that needs to be updated for its second coming. Another important precedent is Harry Haywood’s “Black-Belt” thesis. As a member of the central committee of the Communist Party USA, Haywood argued that revolution in the United States of America would involve an independent Black state in the South. I think this is no longer feasible, but I think what he was grasping at, and was trying to deal with, was the problem of revolution in a country that is simply massive.

The revolution here presents a problem of sheer scale for us. This is, I think, why Haywood argued for the breaking apart of America. We have no historical precedent for a revolution in such a large, industrialized, and modern state, so we have a unique problem to grapple with.

I do not know exactly what this looks like. What is certain is that this country is already beginning to break and fracture, and it is up to us to break and fracture it further, into so many pieces that it can never be put back together again.

Revolution, here more than anywhere else, will involve the messy task of division. Here too, we have a unique problem, for we must avoid the rather aggressive, ugly, and dangerous nationalism that occurred in other cases of civil war that we have seen over the past forty years. I am not advocating another series of Yugoslav wars, nor am I advocating what has occurred in Syria. Nonetheless, we must harness civil war as an emancipatory liberatory power. The fundamental goal is to break apart America into a constellation of federated communes.

10. The fulfillment of the revolutionary project is ultimately an inescapable ethical obligation that each of us have to the dead and the exploited.

At the risk of sounding naive, I sincerely believe that the riots that we have all witnessed, and hopefully participated in, this summer have opened the window to insurrection and even a full-blown revolution. It is possible that I may be miscalculating the potentialities that have emerged. Still, it is entirely impossible for anyone to have participated in the current uprising without having the fundamental core of their being unalterably changed. As for myself, and I know for many of you, we feel the revolution deeply within our souls, and it changes our very outlook, the approach to how we live our lives. All the pervasive cynicism, all the rational self-interest, all the nihilism, all that is constitutive of the typical American citizen is slowly being worn away by the insurrection and the uprising.

What this shows us is that the revolution is truly beyond us, truly beyond each and every one of us here. It surpasses all the boundaries thrown up by American individualism. It forces us to finally look beyond ourselves and recognize that America has wreaked havoc as an imperial power around the globe for a century.

And the fight is not only for the living, but also for the dead. We owe the revolution to the millions of slaves who never knew a second of freedom. What the long list of martyrs who have fallen during this uprising deserve from us is nothing other than the completion of the revolution.

Pasolini wrote an essay about a trip to America. What really took him was one of the phrases that no one says anymore but was a big part of the Civil Rights movement: “we need to throw our entire bodies into the struggle.” [15]

The dead of the struggle scream out for vengeance, and we must avenge their deaths. As Benjamin famously put it, “not even the dead will be safe from the enemy if he is victorious”. [16] Tonight is the night to begin to settle accounts once and for all, to end their victorious reign upon the globe, and to allow the dead to finally rest.

• 1 https://archive.org/details/cu31924096961036
• 2 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/
• 3 https://voidnetwork.gr/2012/07/18/how-is-it-to-be-done-by-tiqqun/
• 4 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/10/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-police-protests-widespread-peaceful/5325737002/ & https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/knowledge/society/Protests-in-the-wake-of-George-Floyd-killing-touch-all-50-states
• 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_deployment_of_federal_forces_in_the_United_States
• 6 https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf
• 7 https://youtu.be/MHMeYtYHiKM
• 8 https://www.cristorey.net/uploaded/Academics/2019-2020/Summer_Reading/James_Baldwin_Going_To_Meet_the_Man.pdf
• 9 https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-capitalism & https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/enterprise-and-society/article/slavery/EAF172288A7718B082A074603D149A48
• 10 See, Marten Bjork, “Phase two – the reproduction of this life.” https://www.tillfallighet.org/tillfallighetsskrivande/phase-two-the-reproduction-of-this-life
• 11 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-committe-to-our-friends
• 12 https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm
• 13 http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/autobio/index.htm
• 14 http://www.webdubois.org/wdb-BlackReconst.html
• 15 Pasolini, In Danger: A Pasolini Anthology.
• 16 https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html

The post How It Might Should Be Done – Idris Robinson appeared first on Void Network.

ΜΕΤΑΦΡΑΣΗ: Τάσος Σαγρής / Κενό Δίκτυο

Αυτό το κείμενο αποτελεί μια θεωρητική εξερεύνηση των δομικών χαρακτηριστικών του ευρύτερου πεδίου που περιβάλλει τις κοινωνικές αντιστάσεις και μέσα στις οποίες αυτές καλούνται να λειτουργήσουν και να αναπτυχθούν. Αυτές οι θέσεις μελετούν τους μηχανισμούς των κοινωνικών αντιστάσεων και σκοπεύουν να ερμηνεύσουν την υποχώρηση της πολιτικής στράτευσης στην εποχή μας. 

Τα ερωτήματα τίθενται μέσα από αυτά τα βασικά σημεία:

• Γιατί οι αριθμοί όσων συμμετέχουν στα κοινωνικά κινήματα διαρκώς μειώνονται και γενικά παραμένουν συνεχώς χαμηλοί;
• Γιατί τόσοι πολλοί άνθρωποι από όσους συμμετέχουν καταλήγουν στην εξάντληση, τα ψυχικά τραύματα και την απελπισία;  
• Γιατί οι παρούσες πρακτικές αγώνα δεν καταφέρνουν να μειώσουν την δύναμη του κράτους και του κεφαλαίου;

Ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι της αδυναμίας των κοινωνικών αντιστάσεων προκύπτει από την αδυναμία μας να απαντήσουμε σε αυτά τα 3 ερωτήματα.

Μια διαδήλωση μερικών εκατοντάδων από εμάς είναι εύκολο να περικυκλωθεί και να κατασταλεί με μαζικές συλλήψεις. Σταδιακά, το κράτος και το κεφάλαιο γίνονται εντελώς ανεξέλεγκτα χωρίς τον φόβο απέναντι στην διαμαρτυρία, την λαϊκή άμεση δράση  και την αδιαμεσολάβητη, αυθόρμητη, κοινωνική οργή. Εκτός όλων των άλλων, σε αυτή την περίπτωση εντείνεται ανεμπόδιστα η καταστολή, καθιστώντας πολύ πιο δύσκολη κάθε μελλοντική δράση. Για αυτό τον λόγο είναι απαραίτητο να αναλύσουμε θεωρητικά την παρούσα κατάσταση και να αναπτύξουμε νέες προσεγγίσεις ικανές να μας βοηθήσουν να ενεργοποιήσουμε ξανά τις δυνάμεις μας.

ΟΚΤΩ ΘΕΣΕΙΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΑ ΣΥΓΚΥΡΙΑ.

1.  Ο ΑΠΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΩΤΙΚΟΣ ΑΓΩΝΑΣ ΚΑΘΟΡΙΖΕΤΑΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΝ ΑΓΩΝΑ ΑΝΑΜΕΣΑ ΣΤΙΣ ΔΥΝΑΜΕΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΔΡΑΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΙΣ ΔΥΝΑΜΕΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΔΡΑΝΕΙΑΣ.

Το κυρίαρχο σύστημα βασίζεται στην καταπίεση και την αλλοτρίωση. Αυτό έχει ξεκάθαρα αναδειχθεί από τον οικολόγο αναρχικό Savage ο οποίος υποστηρίζει ότι η ανθρώπινη ζωή ξεκινά με την αφθονία (αυτό που ο ανθρωπολόγος Marshal Sallins ονομάζει «πρωτόγονη ευημερία») και περιοδικά επιστρέφει ξανά στην αφθονία αφού κάθε σύστημα παραγωγής υπερβαίνει κάποια στιγμή το προκαθορισμένο όριο παραγόμενου προϊόντος. Όμως, το κυρίαρχο σύστημα – μπορούμε να το ονομάσουμε «καπιταλισμό», «τεχνοκρατία», «βιομηχανική κοινωνία», «Αυτοκρατορία»- απαιτεί από τους ανθρώπους να παραμένουν διαρκώς σε μια τεχνητή κατάσταση έλλειψης. Χωρίς αυτή την συνθήκη συνεχούς έλλειψης οι άνθρωποι δεν γίνεται να εξαναγκαστούν να δουλέψουν, να συμβιβαστούν, να προσαρμοστούν, να υπακούσουν στις εντολές των κυρίαρχων και να συμμορφωθούν με τους κανόνες του συστήματος. Αυτό σημαίνει πως κάθε σύστημα για να συνεχίσει να υπάρχει πρέπει, ανά τακτά διαστήματα, να δημιουργεί αυτή την τεχνητή συνθήκη έλλειψης. Ένας τρόπος για να γίνεται αυτό είναι μέσω της θεαματικής κατανάλωσης των πλουτοπαραγωγικών πηγών- αυτός άλλωστε είναι ο λόγος για τον οποίο κτίστηκαν οι πυραμίδες. Άλλοι τρόποι περιλαμβάνουν τους πολέμους, την μαζική ανεργία, τον καταναλωτισμό που εστιάζει μανιωδώς σε ακόρεστες απαιτήσεις, και ούτω καθεξής.

Το καθοριστικό στοιχείο εδώ είναι ότι, το σύστημα είναι υποχρεωμένο να μας κρατά σε συνθήκες έλλειψης – και αυτό για να επιτευχθεί απαιτείται να μας κρατά και στον αντίστοιχο τρόπο αντίληψης των πραγμάτων. Στις καπιταλιστικές θεωρίες, μια κατάσταση έλλειψης θεωρείται πάντοτε ως δεδομένη (ως «οριακές συνθήκες εκμετάλλευσης», ή ως «αντικρουόμενα δομικά συμφέροντα», «η ζωή σαν μια κούρσα θανάτου», οι θεωρίες περί της «απάνθρωπης και ζωώδους ανθρώπινης φύσης» κ.λ.π.)

Όλα αυτά φυσικά, σε μεγάλο βαθμό, αποκρύπτουν τον τεχνητό τρόπο με τον οποίο παράγεται και αναπαράγεται κοινωνικά, η συνθήκη της έλλειψης. Αυτή σε πρώτο βαθμό κατασκευάζεται ως ένας υπαρξιακός προσανατολισμός και έπειτα ξεδιπλώνεται μπροστά μας σαν μια υλική πραγματικότητα. Πολλές διαφορετικές εκφράσεις της ριζοσπαστικής και επιθυμητικής πολιτικής μιλάνε για την ανάγκη επιστροφής σε μια «δρώσα δύναμη».

Ο Μαρξ γράφει για την «ολοκλήρωση της ανθρώπινης προσωπικότητας που διαφεντεύεται μόνο από την άμεση απόλαυση και τις προσωπικές ανάγκες» (Marx, 269) Οι Καταστασιακοί μιλούσαν για την αφθονία και την έλλειψη ως «τον αγώνα της Ζωής ενάντια στην επιβίωση». Ο καπιταλισμός της δεκαετίας του ’60 σου προσέφερε όλα όσα χρειαζόσουν για να «επιβιώσεις» αλλά καμιά ευκαιρία για να «ζήσεις». Ήταν ένα σύστημα επιβίωσης που μπορούσε να αναπαράγεται με το επαναληπτικό και εξαναγκαστικό τάισμα των ανθρώπων σε βαθμό αηδίας. (Vaneigem, 98) Οι αυτόνομοι μιλούσαν για την κοινωνική ρύθμιση και απορύθμιση. Σε κάθε πιθανή εποχή, η δημιουργική, ενεργή δύναμη των καταπιεσμένων (την οποία ταυτίζουν με αυτό που ο Μάρξ ονομάζει «εργασία») αναζητά τους τρόπους να συντεθεί και να αυτορυθμιστεί για να δημιουργήσει. Ο καπιταλισμός πρέπει να επιτελεί μια διαρκή λειτουργία απορύθμισης, μπλοκαρίσματος και διάλυσης των συνδέσεων που αναδεικνύονται έτσι ώστε να διατηρεί ανέπαφες τις δομές εκμετάλλευσης. Η κολεκτίβα Midnight Notes μιλά για την διαρκή επανεμφάνιση των «κοινών», ως πεδίων συλλογικής έκφρασης και τις «περιφράξεις» αυτών των πεδίων από τον καπιταλισμό με σκοπό αυτός τελικά να αποτελεί την μοναδική συνδετική δύναμη ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους.

Οι πριμιτιβιστές μιλούν για την συνεχή σύγκρουση ανάμεσα στο «άγριο» – ως την βαθύτερη δύναμη του ανθρώπου αλλά και  των οικοσυστημάτων- και τις καταπιεστικές δυνάμεις του πολιτισμού που δρουν για να την περιορίζουν, να την φυλακίζουν και να την ελέγξουν.

Ο Κropotkin υποστήριζε ότι η «κοινωνική αρχή» της εθελούσιας, οριζόντιας ικανοποίησης των αναγκών είναι διαρκώς σε αντιπαλότητα με την «πολιτική αρχή» που διασπά τις οριζόντιες επαφές για να επιβάλλει κάθετες διασυνδέσεις. Ο Hakim Bey υποστηρίζει ότι μια αναδυόμενη σαμανιστική δύναμη αμεσότητας και συγχώνευσης με το σύμπαν συνεχώς αγωνίζεται ενάντια στους περιορισμούς που τίθενται από κάθε ιεραρχικό σύστημα.             Ο Alfredo Bonanno αντιπαραθέτει την «ευτυχισμένη εξέγερση» με τον νεκρικό κομφορμισμό. Ο Feral Faun μιλά για την επιστροφή σε μια παιδιάστικη ευτυχία της αμεσότητας στην ζωή. Όλες αυτές οι τοποθετήσεις αντικατοπτρίζουν μια κοινή αντίληψη: ο ριζοσπαστικός αγώνας και η αυτονομία βασίζονται σε μια ενεργή- δράττουσα δύναμη.

Η ιδέα αυτής της ενεργούς-δράττουσας δύναμης πρέπει να επεξηγηθεί. Μπορούμε να στοχαστούμε την συγκίνηση, την επιθυμία και την δύναμη σαν ένα ενιαίο πεδίο. Οι συγκινήσεις (τα συναισθήματα, οι σωματικές διαθέσεις, οι τρόποι συναναστροφής) απορρέουν κατά βάση από τις επιθυμίες και εκδηλώνονται στο κοινωνικό πεδίο ως δυνάμεις. Για αυτό τον λόγο υπάρχουν ενεργητικές και αντιδραστικές επιθυμίες, δυνάμεις της δράσης και δυνάμεις που επιβάλουν την αδράνεια. Το ζωοποιό καύσιμο του ακτιβισμού προέρχεται από ενεργείς συγκινήσεις ενός θετικού και καταφατικού είδους.

Κατά την διάρκεια περιόδων μαζικών κινημάτων και επιδραστικών άμεσων δράσεων οι άνθρωποι έχουν μια αίσθηση ενδυνάμωσης, νιώθουν την δυνατότητα να εκφράσουν τους εαυτούς τους, μια αίσθηση αυθεντικότητας και αποσυμπίεσης που υπερβαίνει την καταπίεση και την αλλοτρίωση.

Για παράδειγμα, ο Juris προτείνει ότι οι κοινωνικοί δεσμοί που προκύπτουν από τις «καλές» και τις «κακές» στιγμές του αγώνα είναι ένας από τους λόγους που διεθνείς μέρες δράσης και διαδηλώσεις, όπως αυτές της Πράγας (ενάντια στην παγκοσμιοποίηση του κεφαλαίου), είχαν τέτοια επίδραση σε αυτούς που συμμετείχαν. Τα άτομα από τα οποία μετέπειτα πήρε συνεντεύξεις αναφερόντουσαν σε αυτές ως μια εμπειρία που τους άλλαξε την ζωή. Σε άλλη περίπτωση αν εστιάσουμε σε περιγραφές ακτιβιστών που πήραν μέρος σε άμεσες δράσεις, μπορούμε να  αναφέρουμε τα σχόλια της Pauline Bradley- η οποία σημειώνει πως ο ακτιβισμός είναι «καλύτερος από τα χάπια Prozak» για να αντιμετωπίσεις την κατάθλιψη και τα ψυχολογικά προβλήματα. Αφηγείται την συμμετοχή της σε ένα κοινωνικό κίνημα (τον αγώνα των λιμενεργατών στο Λίβερπουλ) ως συναισθηματικά καθοριστικό, μια κατάσταση που της επέτρεψε να υπερβεί το «να νιώθει συνέχεια χάλια». Αυτή η ακτιβιστική εμπειρία επέδρασε πολύ θετικά εκεί που απέτυχαν όλες οι ψυχιατρικές κλινικές, τα φάρμακα και οι γνωματεύσεις των ψυχολόγων (Bradley).

Θα μπορούσαμε επίσης να βασιστούμε στις εξιστορήσεις όσων συμμετείχαν στην κοινωνική εξέγερση της Αργεντινής το 2001- η αίσθηση του φόβου και της απομόνωσης ξαφνικά μετατρέπεται σε θάρρος. Ανάλογες ανεκδοτολογικές μαρτυρίες έχουν προσφέρει πολλές παρόμοιες αφηγήσεις μαχητικών εμπειριών μέσα στα χρόνια.                         

Αυτές είναι τυπικές εμπειρίες συμμετοχής σε όλα τα είδη αυτόνομης διαμαρτυρίας της εποχής μας (συγκρουσιακής, ειρηνικής ή καρναβαλικής φύσης), όπως επίσης και σε εφήμερους αυτόνομους χώρους όπως καταλήψεις, στέκια, ελεύθερα κοινωνικά κέντρα, αυτοοργανωμένα ελεύθερα φεστιβάλ και παράνομα rave parties. Στην καλύτερη, αυτό που αποδεικνύεται από τις αφηγήσεις είναι ένα οριακό συναίσθημα ευτυχίας παρόμοιο με το απόλυτο «φτιάξιμο». Αυτό ακριβώς είναι το συναίσθημα που διατηρεί την συμμετοχή και την δραστηριοποίηση σε έναν αγώνα, ένα χώρο ή μια διαδικασία. Για κάποιους σαν τον Hakim Bey, αυτό είναι το νόημα της ζωής.

Παρ’όλα αυτά τέτοιες αφηγήσεις γίνονται όλο και πιο σπάνιες τα τελευταία χρόνια. Το συμπέρασμα είναι ότι αναμφισβήτητα το σύστημα βελτίωσε κατά πολύ τις ικανότητες του να εξαφανίζει τον θόρυβο των διαδηλώσεων και να απονεκρώνει την ευρύτερη κοινωνική τους επίδραση.  Αυτό αντικατοπτρίζεται στην αυξανόμενη δύναμη των συναισθημάτων αδράνειας που παίρνουν την θέση της ενεργοποίησης και της δράσης.     

Τα αρνητικά, καταπιεστικά αισθήματα που μπλοκάρουν τις συναισθηματικές ροές, τα συναισθήματα αδράνειας και ανεπάρκειας, είναι απαραίτητα για να κάνουν τους ανθρώπους κυβερνήσιμους και ελεγχόμενους. Υποβοηθούν και στηρίζουν τον καπιταλισμό δημιουργώντας ανθρώπους που παρέχουν ομογενοποιημένη και μετρήσιμη εργασία.

Από την άλλη υποβοηθούν και στηρίζουν το κράτος δημιουργώντας κυβερνημένους ανθρώπους που η συμπεριφορά τους και οι δράσεις τους είναι προβλέψιμες.

Μπορούμε να στοχαστούμε τη δύναμη της αδράνειας με όρους αντίστοιχους με την Μαρξιστική «αλλοτρίωση», την Καταστασιακή «νέκρα» ή την ψυχαναλυτική καταπίεση σε στυλ «ο μπάτσος που κρύβεται μέσα στο κεφάλι σου». Για να έχει επίδραση το γενικό αίσθημα αδράνειας απαιτείται η εφαρμογή σωματικής, συναισθηματικής και σεξουαλικής καταστολής.  Η θεωρία του Βίλχεμ Ράϊχ για το συγκινησιακό μπλοκάρισμα που παράγει ένα χαρακτήρα-τύπου «πανοπλία» είναι κλασσικό παράδειγμα αυτής της θέσης. Οι διαδικασίες αλλοτρίωσης, συνθήκες όπου άλλο κάνουμε και άλλο θα θέλαμε να κάνουμε στην ζωή μας, μετατρέπουν τις ενεργείς δυνάμεις μας σε δυνάμεις αδράνειας, μπλοκάροντας, συγχύζοντας και διοχετεύοντας αλλού αυτή την ενέργεια, συνήθως βάζοντας διάφορους διαχωρισμούς στην θέση της, διαχωρισμούς μεταξύ διαφορετικών πλευρών του εαυτού μας, ανάμεσα σε εμάς και τους άλλους, ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους και τα οικοσυστήματα, ανάμεσα στις επιθυμίες μας και τι μπορούμε να κάνουμε τελικά με αυτές.

Σε κάθε σύστημα επιβολής, οι ενεργείς, δημιουργικές δυνάμεις είναι παγιδευμένες με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε να αποφευχθεί η πιθανότητα να ανθίσει η επίδραση τους, να ριζώσουν, να καρπίσουν και να σχηματίσουν περαιτέρω συνδέσεις με άλλες αντίστοιχες ενεργείς δυνατότητες. Οι επιδράσεις της αντίδρασης και της αδράνειας στρέφουν ενάντια μας τις ενεργητικές παρορμήσεις μας, δημιουργώντας μπλοκαρίσματα και αντικρουόμενα, αυτοκαταστροφικά συναισθήματα, αποκρύπτοντας συγκεκριμένες δυνατότητες και προοπτικές οι οποίες θάβονται βαθιά μέσα μας, στην εσώτερη εξορία.

Εάν η συγκίνηση είναι αδρανής είναι επίσης και αντιδραστική, αποδυναμωτική, γυρνά εναντίον μας, χάνουμε κάθε δυνατότητα να αναζητήσουμε με ενεργό τρόπο την μεταμόρφωση αυτού του κόσμου. Ένα αδρανές υποκείμενο, όσο και αν το επιθυμεί, είναι αδύνατον να εξασκήσει την αυτονομία του ακόμα και αν υπάρχουν οι κατάλληλες συνθήκες. Αυτή είναι η πραγματική ρίζα των προβλημάτων που προκύπτουν διαρκώς στα πλαίσια των κινημάτων και των ακτιβιστικών ομάδων, όπως, οι άτυπες ιεραρχίες, τα πισώπλατα μαχαιρώματα, οι αντισυντροφικές, τοξικές, πατριαρχικές, κυριαρχικές και σεξιστικές συμπεριφορές, καταστάσεις που υποσκάπτουν, υπονομεύουν και φθείρουν τελικά τους οριζόντιους, αυτοοργανωμένους χώρους ακόμα και όταν φαινομενικά δεν υπάρχει κάποιο δομικό εμπόδιο στην κατεύθυνση μας προς την αναρχία.

Οι κοινωνικές αντιστάσεις που βασίζονται στην «πολιτική της επιθυμίας» – ή πιο απλά στην χειραφέτηση, την απελευθέρωση, την αυτό-έκφραση και την εστίαση στις επιθυμίες και τις ανάγκες μας- προσπαθούν να επαναφέρουν την ενεργή, δρώσα δύναμη στο προσκήνιο.  Αυτό απαιτεί να ξεδιαλύνουμε και να λύσουμε τους κόμπους που κρύβουμε μέσα μας, να δραπετεύσουμε από τις παγίδες της αδράνειας σε κάθε εποχή.

Μια επιδραστική στρατηγική ή τακτική στην εποχή μας, θα πρέπει να καταφέρει να ξελύσει αυτούς τους κόμπους σε τέτοιο βαθμό ώστε να επιτύχει την ενεργοποίηση των συναισθημάτων και την ροή των δρώντων συγκινήσεων, να τις βοηθήσει να κυλήσουν ξανά.  Με αυτό τον τρόπο θα καταφέρει δηλαδή σε μεγάλο βαθμό να επιτύχει τους τρείς βασικούς στόχους της σχιζοανάλυσης όπως προτείνονται από τους Delueze και Guatari (307-22): να σπάσουμε τις κυρίαρχες εδαφικοποιήσεις και τις ανάλογες κυρίαρχες συγκινησιακές δομές και τρόπους διασύνδεσης, να βρούμε τις εσώτερες ροές και τα ανάλογα γίγνεσθαι που εκκινούν τις επιθυμίες του κάθε ανθρώπου και να επανασυνδέσουμε αυτές τις ροές με το εξωτερικό μας περιβάλλον δημιουργώντας νέες κοινωνικές διασυνδέσεις.

2. Η  ΚΑΘΕ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΗ ΦΑΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΚΥΡΙΑΡΧΟΥ ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΟΣ ΔΙΑΘΕΤΕΙ ΤΟΥΣ ΔΙΚΟΥΣ ΤΗΣ ΤΡΟΠΟΥΣ ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΚΑΘΗΛΩΝΕΙ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΔΡΑΝΕΙΑ.

Το κυρίαρχο σύστημα εκδηλώνει τέτοιο βαθμό ανθεκτικότητας επειδή είναι ικανό να επιβάλλει σε όλες τις πλευρές της κοινωνικής σφαίρας, την πρωτοκαθεδρία της αδράνειας και της υπακοής σε βάρος της ενεργητικής ανθρώπινης δύναμης. Η κάθε φάση του καπιταλισμού (όπως κατά πάσα πιθανότητα και των παλιότερων καταπιεστικών συστημάτων) διαθέτει μια συγκεκριμένη μορφή αδρανοποίησης γύρω από την οποία συγκροτείται. Κάθε μια από αυτές τις δυνάμεις διαδίδεται και διατηρείται από ένα σύνολο κοινωνικών συμβάσεων και μηχανισμών οι οποίοι συντηρούν μια εσωτερική, ψυχολογική καταπίεση. Η επικράτηση μιας συγκεκριμένης αίσθησης, μιας μορφής αδρανοποιητικών δυνάμεων γίνεται εφικτή μόνο για όσο χρόνο δεν έχουν σχηματιστεί στρατηγικές αντίστασης ικανές να διασπάσουν αυτές τις δυνάμεις και τις κοινωνικές διεργασίες μέσα από τις οποίες παράγονται.

Για αυτό τον λόγο ο καπιταλισμός διέρχεται διαρκώς καταστάσεις «κρίσης» και ανασχηματίζεται γύρω από νέες κυρίαρχες συνθήκες επιβολής. Ένα χαρακτηριστικό κάθε τέτοιου μηχανισμού είναι πως κάθε φορά εκδηλώνεται ως ένα «κοινό μυστικό», κάτι που ο καθένας γνωρίζει αλλά κανένας μας δεν το «παραδέχεται», κανένας μας δεν συζητά για αυτό. Αυτός ο όρος χρησιμοποιήθηκε από τους Καταστασιακούς όταν αναφέρθηκαν στην «ανία», έναν όρο ανάλογο με αυτό που ο Paulo Freire ονομάζει «κουλτούρα της σιωπής» και η Gayatri Spivak «καθιερωμένη άγνοια». Για όσο διάστημα η κυρίαρχη αίσθηση αδράνειας και ανεπάρκειας παραμένει ως κοινό μυστικό, αυτή συνεχίζει να επιδρά και είναι αδύνατο να εκδηλωθούν στρατηγικές που να δρουν εναντίον της.

Κάθε «κοινό μυστικό» είναι προσωποποιημένο. Αυτό σημαίνει πως το πρόβλημα εσωτερικεύεται σε ένα προσωπικό και ψυχολογικό επίπεδο,  εκλαμβάνεται από τα υποκείμενα αποκλειστικά σε αυτό το επίπεδο και όλα τα κοινωνικά αίτια του προβλήματος αποκρύπτονται. Για παράδειγμα, η κλασσική «συζυγική δυσφορία» των γυναικών στην δεκαετία του ’50, παρότι ήταν γνωστό φαινόμενο και συζητιόταν στα γυναικεία περιοδικά, οι γιατροί θεωρητικολογούσαν σχετικά με αυτήν ως ένα αποκλειστικά ατομικό πρόβλημα, ένα είδος «ανικανότητας». Με τον ίδιο τρόπο η φρίκη της φτώχειας ήταν ορατή τον 19^ο αιώνα αλλά μόνο σαν ένα οικονομικό δεδομένο.         

Στην πραγματικότητα, κάθε φάση του καπιταλισμού κατηγορεί τα ίδια τα θύματα του συστήματος για την δυστυχία που κάθε φορά τους προκαλεί. Με αυτό τον τρόπο ένα ριζικό χαρακτηριστικό της ίδιας της λειτουργίας του συστήματος απεικονίζεται ως κάτι «συγκυριακό», «τυχαίο», «εξειδικευμένο» και πολύ προσωπικό. Αυτό το διαρκές κατηγορητήριο και η απόδοση ατομικής ευθύνης συνδέεται με αυτό που ο David Graeber και η κολεκτίβα Escalate έχουν ορίσει πρόσφατα ως «μόνιμο χρέος». Για όσο καιρό οι άνθρωποι κατηγορούν τους εαυτούς τους και νιώθουν ανεπαρκείς και ανίκανοι, γίνονται εύκολα διαχειρίσιμοι και το σύστημα άνετα μας συμπεριφέρεται σαν πάντα εκ των πραγμάτων όλοι να του χρωστάμε κάτι. Για να διατηρούνται αυτές οι συνθήκες εξατομίκευσης του προβλήματος, οι άνθρωποι πρέπει να μένουν «κοινωνικά απομονωμένοι». Όλα τα «κοινά μυστικά» αποκρύπτονται μέσω διαφόρων δογμάτων που αρνούνται την ύπαρξη τους και από μια σειρά περισπασμών που διαχειρίζονται τις συνέπειες τους.

Στην μοντέρνα εποχή η πρώτη κυρίαρχη δύναμη επιβολής της αδράνειας και της υπακοής ήταν η φτώχεια και η εξαθλίωση που αυτή προκαλεί. Κατά την διάρκεια του 19^ου αιώνα η κυρίαρχη αφήγηση ήταν ότι ο καπιταλισμός οδηγεί στον ευρύτερο πλουτισμό του κοινωνικού συνόλου. Το «κοινό μυστικό» ήταν η φτώχεια και η εξαθλίωση της εργατικής τάξης. Το έργο των επαναστατών σοσιαλιστών και των αναρχικών αυτής της εποχής ήταν η αποκάλυψη αυτής της εξαθλίωσης.  Το πρώτο κύμα των μοντέρνων κοινωνικών κινημάτων του 19^ου αιώνα μπορεί να περιγραφεί σε μεγάλο βαθμό ως μηχανισμός για να πολεμάς ενάντια στην φτώχεια και τα βάσανα της δυστυχίας που αυτή προκαλεί. Τακτικές όπως η απεργία, οι αγώνες για καλύτερες αμοιβές, οι πολιτικές οργανώσεις, τα εγχειρήματα αλληλοβοήθειας, οι συνεταιρισμοί, τα απεργιακά ταμεία και ούτω καθεξής, ήταν αποτελεσματικές πρακτικές στον αγώνα ενάντια στην φτώχεια, καταφέρνοντας να εγγυηθούν ένα ελάχιστο κοινωνικό κεκτημένο, ένα κατώτατο εισόδημα. Κάποιες από αυτές τις στρατηγικές συνεχίζουν να είναι ακόμα αποτελεσματικές, όπως αποδεικνύει η επανεμφάνιση της αλληλέγγυας οικονομίας και πρωτοβουλίες όπως οι συλλογικές κουζίνες, τα συνεργατικά εγχειρήματα και οι τράπεζες σπόρων.

Όταν η φτώχεια έπαψε να είναι αποτελεσματική ως μηχανισμός ελέγχου των κοινωνιών ο καπιταλισμός στράφηκε στην ανία, την ατέρμονη πλήξη. Στις δεκαετίες του ’50 και του ’60 η κυρίαρχη δημόσια αφήγηση ήταν ότι το επίπεδο διαβίωσης ανεβαίνει ραγδαία. Αυτό συμπεριλάμβανε Φορντιστικά μέτρα ενάντια στην εξαθλίωση όπως ο βασικός μισθός, ο καταναλωτισμός και η πρόσβαση στην υγεία και την εκπαίδευση. Όλοι στις πλούσιες χώρες ήταν ευτυχισμένοι και όλες οι φτωχές χώρες ήταν καθοδόν για την ανάπτυξη. Το κοινό μυστικό ήταν ότι όλοι ζούσαν μια αβάσταχτη πλήξη. Αυτό ήταν το αποτέλεσμα του Φορντισμού που επικράτησε μέχρι την δεκαετία του ’80- ένα σύστημα εργασίας πλήρους απασχόλησης εφ’όρου ζωής, με εγγυημένες δημόσιες παροχές, μαζική κουλτούρα, εκβιομηχανισμένο καταναλωτισμό και την αφομοίωση του εργατικού κινήματος, καθώς η εργασία πλέον διασπάται σε διαχωρισμένα, ατομικά, επαναλαμβανόμενα καθήκοντα. Αυτή η αναδιοργάνωση της εργασίας πέραν των μεθόδων της χειρωνακτικής, συνεργατικής δραστηριότητας, η οργάνωση που εσκεμμένα σχεδιάζεται σε μικρά ξεχωριστά τμήματα από απλά επαναλαμβανόμενα ατομικά καθήκοντα είχε κεντρική σημασία στον τρόπο με τον οποίο έζησε τελικά η «γενιά της πλήξης».

Εξασφαλισμένη εργασία και κοινωνικές παροχές περιόρισαν σε μεγάλο βαθμό τα άγχη και τα βάσανα της φτώχειας αλλά οι δουλειές ήταν φρικτά μονότονες. Πολλοί άνθρωποι έμειναν να αναρωτιούνται: «Αυτό είναι τελικά το νόημα της ζωής;»

Φυσικά, δεν είχαν όλοι οι εργάτες σταθερές δουλειές ή ασφάλεια στην εποχή του Φορντισμού. Όμως αυτό ήταν το βασικό εργασιακό μοντέλο γύρω από το όποιο έπαιρνε μορφή  το ευρύτερο σύστημα, η κυρίαρχη συνθήκη. Ο P.M. προτείνει ότι στην πραγματικότητα υπήρχαν τρεις μορφές κοινωνικού συμβολαίου σε αυτή την φάση, με το συμβόλαιο «τύπου- εργάτης Β’» δηλαδή «πλήξη που ανταλλάσσεται με ασφάλεια», να είναι η πιο υποδειγματική συνθήκη την εποχή της Φορντιστικής ανίας. Σήμερα το κοινωνικό συμβόλαιο «τύπου εργάτης Β’» έχει εξαφανιστεί δημιουργώντας μια νέα συγκυρία, ένα χάσμα ανάμεσα στον «εργάτη τύπου Α’» και τον «εργάτη τύπου Γ’»- αυτούς δηλαδή που συμμετέχουν πλήρως στις απολαύσεις και τα προνόμια της καταναλωτικής κοινωνίας και την μεγάλη μάζα από αυτοδύναμους αλλά ανασφαλείς και περιθωριοποιημένους ανθρώπους.

Όταν χρησιμοποιούμε τον όρο «κυρίαρχη συνθήκη» δεν το κάνουμε για να πούμε πως αυτή είναι ο μόνος εν λειτουργία μηχανισμός της αντίδρασης. Η παρούσα κυρίαρχη συνθήκη ώθησης των ανθρώπων στην αδράνεια και την υπακοή συνυπάρχει, με ένα δυναμικό τρόπο, με όλες τις προϋπάρχουσες. Μερικές φορές μια νέα συνθήκη «αντικαθιστά» μια παλιότερη- για παράδειγμα, ένας καταρτισμένος και εργασιακά ευέλικτος σχεδιαστής ιστοσελίδων στην εποχή μας νιώθει κυρίως άγχος και όχι πλήξη. Άλλες φορές η νέα μορφή επιβολής αδράνειας και υπακοής στηρίζει την προϋπάρχουσα κυρίαρχη συνθήκη, υποσκάπτοντας την εμφάνιση πιθανών αντιστάσεων- για παράδειγμα μια τηλεφωνήτρια σε ένα call-center μιας εταιρίας βαριέται φρικτά και πληρώνεται μισθό φτώχειας αλλά το άγχος είναι αυτό που την κρατά φυλακισμένη στην κατάσταση της, εμποδίζοντας την να χρησιμοποιήσει τις παλιές μεθόδους αγώνα όπως το να οργανωθεί σε σωματείο, να κάνει σαμποτάζ ή να τα παρατήσει όλα και να φύγει.

3. ΟΙ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΕΣ ΜΟΡΦΕΣ ΑΝΤΙΣΤΑΣΗΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΗΘΗΚΑΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΔΕΚΑΕΤΙΑ ΤΟΥ ‘60 ΣΑΝ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΑΣΗ ΣΤΟ ΒΑΣΙΚΟ ΜΗΧΑΝΙΣΜΟ ΕΠΙΒΟΛΗΣ ΠΟΥ ΗΤΑΝ Η «ΠΛΗΞΗ»

Εάν και εφόσον το κάθε κυρίαρχο σύστημα έχει έναν βασικό μηχανισμό επιβολής της αδράνειας και της υπακοής τότε κάθε πεδίο δράσης και αντίστασης χρειάζεται μια στρατηγική για να υπερνικήσει και να διαλύσει αυτό τον μηχανισμό.

Αν το πρώτο κύμα των κοινωνικών κινημάτων εκδηλώθηκε ενάντια στην φτώχεια και την εξαθλίωση, το δεύτερο κύμα των δεκαετιών ’60-’70 (ή πιο αντιπροσωπευτικά με έναρξη την δεκαετία του ’60 και με ισχύ έως το ’90 και σε κάποιο βαθμό σχεδόν μέχρι τις μέρες μας) εφάρμοσε πρακτικές για την καταπολέμηση της πλήξης, εναντιώθηκε σε μια ζωή βασισμένη στην ασφάλεια της ανιαρής επανάληψης. Αυτό είναι το κύμα μέσα στο οποίο σχηματίστηκαν τα δικά μας κινήματα και το οποίο συνεχίζει να χαρακτηρίζει τις περισσότερες από τις θεωρίες και τις δράσεις μας. Κατά κύριο λόγο οι τακτικές αντίστασης αυτής της εποχής είναι σχεδιασμένες ώστε να διαφεύγεις από μια ζωή εγκλωβισμένη στον φαύλο κύκλο «σχολείο-δουλειά-κατανάλωση-θάνατος». Οι Καταστασιακοί ήταν πρωτοπόροι για μια ολόκληρη σειρά από τακτικές ενάντια στην γενικευμένη πλήξη, όπως η «μεταστροφή» και η «οικιοποίηση– derive”. Τα κινήματα της Αυτονομίας αποκάλυψαν την πλήξη προβάλλοντας μορφές άρνησης της εργασίας και καθημερινής αντίστασης στους χώρους δουλειάς (σαμποτάζ και «δούλευε χωρίς να βιάζεσαι») αλλά και ενάντια σε αυτούς (slacking- «ζήσε χωρίς να νοιάζεσαι», drop out- «παράτησε τα όλα και φύγε»). Αυτές οι μορφές διαμαρτυρίας ήταν συνδεδεμένες με τις ευρύτερες κοινωνικές απόπειρες διαφυγής από την βαρετή εργασία και τους πληκτικούς, επιβεβλημένους κοινωνικούς ρόλους μέσω της αντικουλτούρας και των εναλλακτικών τρόπων ζωής.

Από την μεριά του φεμινιστικού κινήματος, το βιβλίο της Betty Friedman “Feminine Mystique” έπαιξε σημαντικό ρόλο ώστε να καταδειχθεί η δομική φύση της δυσαρέσκειας. Κατά βάση, η «συλλογική δυσφορία» στην οποία αναφέρετε είχε αναλυθεί κατά την διάρκεια της δεκαετίας του ’50 απλά ως «κατάθλιψη», «αγωνία» και αίσθηση αχρηστίας. Ήταν μόνο από την δεκαετία του ΄60 και έπειτα που αναδείχθηκαν τα συστημικά χαρακτηριστικά αυτού του προβλήματος. Λίγο αργότερα, μέσω διαφόρων θεωρητικών έργων,  όπως για παράδειγμα το βιβλίο «Ο Μύθος του Κολπικού Οργασμού» και πολλών ακτιβιστικών δράσεων όπως η δημόσια συγκέντρωση υπέρ των αμβλώσεων στο Redstockings, αναδείχθηκαν και συνειδητοποιήθηκαν πολύ βαθύτερα ζητήματα ψυχολογικού μπλοκαρίσματος και ευρύτερης δυσαρέσκειας. Αντίστοιχες τάσεις μπορεί να δει κανείς στο «Θέατρο των Καταπιεσμένων», την κριτική που ασκήθηκε στις παιδαγωγικές μεθόδους και τις περισσότερες από τις βασικές πρακτικές οριζόντιας δράσης και αυτοοργάνωσης στην εποχή μας  (καρνιβαλλικής, συγκρουσιακής ή ειρηνιστικής μορφής) καθώς επίσης και σε κινήματα που εκδηλώνονται ακόμα και μέχρι τα τέλη της δεκαετίας του ’90 όπως το κίνημα των ελεύθερων φεστιβάλ και των παράνομων ρέηβ πάρτυ, το Reclaim the Streets, την κουλτούρα DIY και τους hackers, εμπνευσμένους από την ικανότητα μας να βλέπουμε πως λειτουργούν τα πράγματα κάτω από την επιφάνεια. Τέτοιες προσεγγίσεις ενεργοποιούν κινηματικές δυνάμεις που βασίζονται στις δικές τους κοινωνικές ροές κι σχηματίζουν νέα πεδία επαφών και διασυνδέσεων.

Μπορούμε να παρατηρήσουμε την κριτική της γενικευμένης πλήξης να ενυπάρχει σαν υπόγειο θεωρητικό ρεύμα ήδη από την δεκαετία του ’20 και καθ’ όλη την εποχή του Φορντισμού, στα έργα στοχαστών όπως ο Adorno, ο Marcuse, ο Benjamin και ο Kracauer. Παρ’ όλα αυτά, από μεριάς των κινημάτων η βασική έμφαση, τότε, συνέχιζε να δίνεται στον αγώνα ενάντια στην φτώχεια και την εξαθλίωση. Ήταν πλέον στην δεκαετία του ’60 που έγινε κατανοητή η αναποτελεσματικότητα του παλιού θεωρητικού σχήματος.                       

Οι Καταστασιακοί διακήρυξαν ότι: « Δεν θέλουμε ένα κόσμο όπου η σιγουριά πως δεν θα πεθάνουμε από την πείνα εξαγοράζεται με την αποδοχή πως θα πεθάνουμε από την πλήξη» (Vaneigem, 6) . Την ίδια στιγμή η Friedan έγραφε ότι, η «συζυγική δυσφορία» δεν μπορεί να γίνει κατανοητή με απαρχαιωμένους όρους όπως «ανικανότητα», «επιδημία», «φτώχεια», «ασθένεια», «ψυχρότητα». Οι γυναίκες που υποφέρουν από αυτό το νέο πρόβλημα «διακατέχονται από μια πείνα που δεν μπορεί να την χορτάσει καμιά τροφή» (37). Σε αυτήν αλλά και σε άλλες περιπτώσεις η μετατόπιση από τον αγώνα ενάντια στην φτώχεια στην κατανόηση των μηχανισμών της πλήξης ήταν καθοριστική για την εμφάνιση ενός νέου κύματος εξεγέρσεων. Στο Παρίσι του ’68 στους τοίχους γράφονταν συνθήματα όπως: «Μην δουλεύετε ποτέ! Μην διακινδυνεύετε να πεθάνετε από πλήξη!»

Είμαστε το τέλος αυτού του κύματος. Με τον ίδιο τρόπο που οι τακτικές του πρώτου κύματος λειτουργούν ακόμα στην εποχή μας όταν έχουμε να παλέψουμε ενάντια στην φτώχεια και την μιζέρια έτσι και οι πρακτικές του δεύτερου κύματος λειτουργούν όταν παλεύουμε ενάντια στην γενικευμένη πλήξη. Το ζήτημα είναι ότι όλο και λιγότερο συναντάμε την πλήξη σαν τον βασικό εχθρό μας, τα προβλήματα μας έχουν αλλάξει. Συμπερασματικά μπορούμε να πούμε ότι ίσως αυτός είναι και ο λόγος που η στρατευμένη αντίσταση μοιάζει να συναντά τόσα αδιέξοδα στην εποχή μας.

4. Ο    ΚΑΠΙΤΑΛΙΣΜΟΣ ΣΕ ΜΕΓΑΛΟ ΒΑΘΜΟ ΕΧΕΙ ΑΦΟΜΟΙΩΣΕΙ ΤΟΝ ΑΓΩΝΑ ΕΝΑΝΤΙΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΛΗΞΗ.

Η λέξη «αδιέξοδο» δίνει μια περιορισμένη διάσταση σε ένα πολύ ευρύτερο πρόβλημα. Οι ενεργείς δυνάμεις έχουν για άλλη μια φορά μπλοκαριστεί, αυτή την φορά εντός του νέο-φιλελευθερισμού. Αυτό προέκυψε επειδή ένα μέρος των αγώνων ενάντια στην πλήξη αφομοιώθηκαν και το σύστημα επιδιορθώθηκε. Ο καπιταλισμός επεκτάθηκε με αποτελεσματικό τρόπο σε πεδία πέρα από την εργασία, δημιουργώντας αυτό που οι αυτόνομοι ονομάζουν «κοινωνικό εργοστάσιο» – ένα πεδίο όπου ολόκληρη η κοινωνία οργανώνεται σαν χώρος εργασίας. Η συνθήκη διαρκούς επισφάλειας χρησιμοποιήθηκε για να στείλει τους ανθρώπους πίσω στην δουλειά, εντός ενός διαρκώς επεκτεινόμενου πεδίου εργασίας το οποίο τώρα περιλαμβάνει όλο το κοινωνικό εργοστάσιο.

Μπορούμε να απαριθμήσουμε πολλές ανάλογες περιπτώσεις. Οι εταιρίες προσάρμοσαν σε μεγάλο βαθμό τον τρόπο management στο οριζόντιο μοντέλο οργάνωσης των ένοπλων Μαοϊκών ομάδων. Η καταναλωτική κοινωνία προσφέρει πλέον μεγαλύτερη και πολυδιάστατη γκάμα εξειδικευμένων προϊόντων και συνεχών περισπασμών που δεν καθορίζονται πια από ομοιόμορφες μαζικές επιλογές, όπως παλιότερα- δεν χρειάζεται πλέον να είμαστε όλοι ίδιοι για να είμαστε όλοι πελάτες. Επίσης, νέα προϊόντα όπως τα βιντεοπαιχνίδια και τα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης συμπεριλαμβάνουν υψηλά επίπεδα ενεργούς ατομικής συμμετοχής και αποκοινωνικοποιημένων απολαύσεων.

Το θέαμα έγινε ικανότερο από ποτέ στο να παρέχει δυνατές, γνήσιες συγκινήσεις μέσα από αυτό που ο Brecht ονόμαζε «συγκινησιακό όργιο». Οι εμπειρίες στους εργασιακούς χώρους διαφοροποιήθηκαν επιτυγχάνοντας μια ποικιλομορφία που βασίζεται σε μικρο-εναλλαγές και καινοτόμους τρόπους διαχείρισης όπως επίσης και μέσω του πολλαπλασιασμού καταστάσεων υπο-απασχόλησης και αυτο-απασχόλησης για όσους ζουν στο καπιταλιστικό περιθώριο.  Ο καπιταλισμός ενθάρρυνε την ανάπτυξη ειδών ατομικής ταυτότητας που διαμεσολαβούνται από τα media- την αυτοπαρουσίαση στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, τον έκδηλο καταναλωτισμό και την δια-βίου μάθηση, καταστάσεις που απαιτούν μια εμμονική συνθήκη συνεχούς φροντίδας του εαυτού και συντήρησης.

Διάφορες μορφές αντίστασης από το ’60 έως το ’90 επανεμφανίστηκαν ή αναβίωσαν σε μια πιο περιορισμένη μορφή από την στιγμή που τα αυθεντικά κινήματα είχαν απαλειφθεί- όπως για παράδειγμα τα nightclub και τα ακριβά εισιτήρια στις συναυλίες και τα μουσικά φεστιβάλ αντικατέστησαν τα παράνομα rave και τα ελεύθερα φεστιβάλ του κινήματος της αντικουλτούρας.

5. Η ΒΑΣΙΚΗ ΣΥΝΘΗΚΗ ΕΠΙΒΟΛΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΔΡΑΝΕΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΥΠΑΚΟΗΣ ΣΤΟΝ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΟ ΚΑΠΙΤΑΛΙΣΜΟ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΤΟ «ΑΓΧΟΣ».

Εάν τον 19^ο αιώνα το κοινό μυστικό ήταν η εξαθλίωση και η φτώχεια και την εποχή του Φορντισμού ήταν πως όλοι βαριόντουσαν μέχρι θανάτου, σήμερα, το κοινό μυστικό είναι πως όλοι είμαστε υπέρ-αγχωμένοι και στρεσαρισμένοι, όλοι νιώθουμε μια διαρκή πίεση και ανησυχία. Το άγχος είναι η νέα κυρίαρχη καπιταλιστική δύναμη και η βασική συνθήκη που συγκροτεί και συγκρατεί την εποχή μας.

Το άγχος ήταν πάντα δομικό υλικό της αντιδραστικής δύναμης του καπιταλισμού. Για παράδειγμα ο Βιλχεμ Ραϊχ έλεγε πολλά χρόνια πριν ότι οι ανταγωνιστικές καταστάσεις προκαλούν άγχος και ανησυχία, πράγμα που οδηγεί σε περιχαράκωση τον εαυτό μας και την μετατροπή του χαρακτήρα μας σε μια εγωιστική πανοπλία η οποία σαν επακόλουθο προξενεί απομόνωση και πολιτική παράλυση (Reich, 48, 347- δες επίσης το έργο του Maurice Brinton). Παρ’ όλα αυτά, στην εποχή μας μοιάζει σαν το άγχος να έχει «διαδοθεί» πέραν της περιορισμένης και συνηθισμένης σεξουαλικής δυσλειτουργίας σε βαθμό που η επίδραση του να έχει πλέον επεκταθεί σε όλο το κοινωνικό πεδίο. Κάθε μορφή εντατικής προσπάθειας, αυτοέκφρασης, συναισθηματικού δεσμού, απόλαυσης, αμεσότητας και επαφής με τον άλλον είναι τώρα αλυσοδεμένη από το άγχος. Έχει γίνει ο βασικός μηχανισμός της υποταγής.

Οι Los Ricos και McMarvill, με πολύ έξυπνο τρόπο, αναφέρονται στην «παγκοσμιότητα» του άγχους στον σύγχρονο καπιταλισμό, ως κάτι από το οποίο είναι πολύ δύσκολο να δραπετεύσεις ακόμα και αν (εν αντιθέσει με την εποχή της πλήξης) παρατήσεις τα πάντα. Όσοι είναι συμμέτοχοι του συστήματος φοβούνται πως θα χάσουν το επίπεδο διαβίωσης τους, οι περιθωριοποιημένοι φοβούνται τον κοινωνικό αποκλεισμό και την έλλειψη των αναγκαίων μέσων αυτοσυντήρησης ενώ οι αποκλεισμένοι και οι αυτόνομοι φοβούνται την κρατική βία και την καταστολή. Η κυρίαρχη μορφή αντίδρασης εμπερικλείει τα πάντα, δεν μπορείς να δραπετεύσεις από αυτή ούτε με ηρωική έξοδο, ούτε με τον συμβιβασμό, ούτε με την οικονομική επιτυχία. Η διαβρωτική επίδραση και το αναπόφευκτο του άγχους δημιουργεί μια γενική αίσθηση αδυναμίας- κατά πολύ δυσανάλογη προς την πραγματική δύναμη των ανθρώπων. Σε μερικές περιπτώσεις όμως, οι εντατικοποιημένες μορφές παραγωγής κάνουν το σύστημα πιο ευπαθές από ποτέ στις προϋπάρχουσες τακτικές αγώνα όπως ο αποκλεισμός, οι απεργίες και το σαμποτάζ. Εξεγέρσεις όπως αυτή στην Αγγλία το 2011 καταδεικνύουν πόσο λεπτή έχει γίνει η ισορροπία του κοινωνικού ελέγχου.

Μια βασική κοινωνική λειτουργία που επιβάλλει το άγχος είναι η επιτήρηση. Είναι πολύ εύκολο να σκεφτούμε τους εξωτερικούς τρόπους επιτήρησης που χρησιμοποιούνται κυρίως για την παρέμβαση στην αυτόνομη δράση- κάμερες στους δρόμους και συστήματα παρακολούθησης, αστυνομικές ομάδες με συστήματα καταγραφής και κάμερες, το δίκτυο NSA στο ίντερνετ, κοριοί και παρακολούθηση των κινητών τηλεφώνων. Όλα αυτά αποτελούν σημαντικές πλευρές της γενικής εικόνας, η ίδια όμως η επιτήρηση είναι πολύ πιο διεισδυτική. Πρέπει να αναλογιστούμε τους μηχανισμούς διαχείρισης της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας μέσα στις οποίες εργαζόμενοι, μαθητές, χρήστες υπηρεσιών, επιδοτούμενοι, φυλακισμένοι και φοιτητές είναι διαρκώς υπό εξέταση, αξιολόγηση, ταξινόμηση και βαθμολόγηση που βασίζεται σε μικρές ρυθμίσεις της συμπεριφοράς (ή της επιτέλεσης). Πρέπει να αναλογιστούμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η νεοφιλελεύθερη ιδέα της «αριστείας» και της «επιτυχίας» ενσταλάζει αυτούς τους μηχανισμούς μέσα στον καθένα μας προωθώντας μια κατάσταση διαρκούς αυτό-επιτήρησης. Όλα αυτά τα είδη καταμέτρησης είναι πλέον πολύ διαδεδομένα στον δημόσιο και ιδιωτικό τομέα εργασίας, επιβάλλοντας στόχους ικανοποιητικής και έξοχης απόδοσης που κάνουν τους ανθρώπους να τρέχουν εντατικά, ασταμάτητα, σε άχαρες και μονότονες δουλειές σαν να είναι σε μαγγανοπήγαδο.

Είμαστε υποχρεωμένοι επίσης, να σκεφτούμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους οι άνθρωποι εσκεμμένα και φαινομενικά οικειοθελώς επιλέγουν να εκθέτουν τους εαυτούς τους στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης ή τον ακραιφνή καταναλωτισμό. Πρέπει να δούμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους επιλέγουμε τις θέσεις μας και τις απόψεις μας μέσα από το παρεχόμενο πεδίο απόψεων του γενικευμένου θεάματος, ενώ την ίδια στιγμή, θεωρούμε ως δεδομένες τις ανάλογες κινήσεις από τους υπόλοιπους ανθρώπους. Μέσα από ποιους μηχανισμούς τελικά επιλέγουμε μορφές επιτέλεσης και συμμετοχής σε πεδία που υπόκεινται σε διαρκή επιτήρηση.

Πρέπει να αναλογιστούμε αυτό που ο Virilio ονομάζει: «τηλεπαρουσία», μια χρόνια, διαρκή, άμεση, αλλά τεχνολογικά διαμεσολαβημένη σύνδεση διαφορετικών περιοχών του πλανήτη (τουλάχιστον του Βορρά) που οδηγεί σε ένα είδος άμεσης, γενικευμένης, ευπαθούς αλλά συνεχούς «έκθεσης» του εαυτού μας στο επίμονο βλέμμα των άλλων. Πρέπει να αναλογιστούμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η τηλεόραση, τα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης και ο καταναλωτισμός διαμορφώνουν τον τρόπο με τον οποίο βλέπουμε ο ένας τον άλλον, όπως και σε ποιο βαθμό οι προσποιητές συμπεριφορές των οποίων γινόμαστε μάρτυρες στα reality show, συμπεριφορές που- αν και δεν είναι ποτέ «πραγματικές» αφού οι κάμερες είναι πάντα παρούσες- γίνονται σε αυξανόμενο βαθμό η «αλήθεια» του συνόλου της κοινωνικής ζωής.   Όπως υποστηρίζει ο Baudrilliard, ο καταναλωτισμός είναι στην πραγματικότητα μια επιβεβλημένη συμπεριφορά η οποία απαιτεί την καταπίεση των πραγματικών επιθυμιών έτσι ώστε να εμφανίζεσαι διαρκώς χαρούμενος και επιτυχημένος σύμφωνα με αποκλειστικά καπιταλιστικά κριτήρια. 

Η πίστωση, τα δάνεια και ο ρόλος που παίζουν οι επιταγές και οι πιστωτικές κάρτες είναι άλλο ένα σημαντικό κομμάτι αυτού του συστήματος. Η πίστωση χρησιμοποιήθηκε σαν γεφύρωμα του χάσματος ανάμεσα στους χαμηλούς μισθούς και την υψηλή ανάγκη για κατανάλωση στην Αμερική και την Βρετανία ήδη από την δεκαετία του ’80 παρέχοντας έναν επισφαλή τρόπο διαβίωσης βασισμένο στην συμμόρφωση και την υποταγή στα ανάλογα κριτήρια της πιστοληπτικής ικανότητας. (Gill) Από την άλλη μεριά η γραφειοκρατική οργάνωση του δημόσιου χώρου οδηγεί σε διαρκείς παρεμβάσεις της καταστολής και επιφέρει την εγκληματοποίηση κάθε είδους διαμαρτυρίας, αλληλοβοήθειας και αυτό-οργανωμένης δραστηριότητας, όπως πολιτικές διαδηλώσεις, ελεύθερα φεστιβάλ, καρναβαλικές εκδηλώσεις δρόμου, κοινωνικά κέντρα, συνελεύσεις γειτονιάς, συλλογικές κουζίνες, κοινωνικά ιατρεία, ποδηλατοπορείες κ.α. Αυτό γίνεται με «επιχειρήματα» όπως την επικινδυνότητα,  ζητήματα ασφάλειας, διατάραξης κοινής ησυχίας, ποιότητας ζωής ή φαινόμενα αντι-κοινωνικής συμπεριφοράς.

Βαθύτερα κρυμμένη στην γενική κατάσταση άγχους είναι η διαταγή για επικοινωνία. Οι άνθρωποι είναι εξαναγκασμένοι να επικοινωνούν μεταξύ τους σύμφωνα με τους όρους της κυριαρχίας. (Lazzarato. 135) Όποιος και όποια αρνείται να επικοινωνήσει με αυτούς τους όρους απειλείται με αποκλεισμό. Από την στιγμή που ο καθένας μας είναι άμεσα αντικαταστάσιμος, το σύστημα απειλεί να «αποσυνδέσει» με την βία οποιονδήποτε ανά πάσα στιγμή, ενώ όλες οι εναλλακτικές λύσεις έχουν εκ των προτέρων απαγορευθεί, κατασταλεί ή αφομοιωθεί.  Η βίαιη αποσύνδεση του ενός από τον άλλον συνεπάγεται μια παράλογη και γελοία συνθήκη έλλειψης άλλων επιλογών επικοινωνίας εκτός από την αποκοινωνικοποιημένη συμμετοχή στο ιντερνετ ή τον ακοινώνητο αποκλεισμό στο περιθώριο.

Αυτή η απειλή γίνεται φανερή στις λεπτομέρειες των σύγχρονων πειθαρχικών μεθόδων – από τις απαγορεύσεις και τα μπλοκαρίσματα στο ίντερνετ, μέχρι τις απολύσεις και τις καταργήσεις των κοινωνικών παροχών, με αποκορύφωμα φυσικά, τις δρακόντειες κατασταλτικές πρακτικές του φυσικού εγκλεισμού και της απομόνωσης σε φυλακές υψίστου ασφαλείας. Τέτοια καθεστώτα αποτελούν το σημείο-μηδέν του ελέγχου μέσω του άγχους: η κατάρρευση κάθε ισότιμης συνθήκης κοινότητας και η επιβολή μιας διαρκούς κατάστασης κινδύνου με σκοπό να παραχθεί η συντριβή της προσωπικότητας.             

Η  απαγόρευση του να λες αυτό που σκέφτεσαι έχει αντικατασταθεί από την διαταγή του να είσαι συνεχώς επικοινωνιακός. Και όμως αυτός δεν είναι παρά ένας πλάγιος τρόπος για να αναπαράγονται οι ίδιοι περιορισμοί. Η παρακολούθηση και οι διακρίσεις που δημιουργούν διαχωρισμούς και κατατμήσεις ανάμεσα στους εργαζόμενους εμποδίζουν το μοίρασμα της γνώσης. Αυτό ακριβώς συμβαίνει και σε άλλα πεδία. Για παράδειγμα, ο έλεγχος στις φυλακές σήμερα επιτυγχάνεται μέσω μιας μεθόδου ανταποδοτικών προνομίων που οδηγεί στην εμπέδωση του ψυχολογικού ελέγχου και συνοδεύεται από μια εντατική, συνεχή παρακολούθηση και επιτήρηση του χώρου. (Barnsley)

Αυτή η υπόθεση μιας κυρίαρχης συνθήκης μόνιμου άγχους που επιβάλει την γενικευμένη κοινωνική υπακοή και αδράνεια συμπίπτει σε μεγάλο βαθμό με τις θεωρίες της «επισφάλειας», δηλαδή τον όρο που χρησιμοποιούν  οι Αυτόνομοι για να μιλάνε για το ίδιο πράγμα. Σύμφωνα με τους αυτόνομους συγγραφείς, η επισφάλεια είναι ένας τύπος ανασφάλειας όπου όλοι οι άνθρωποι αντιμετωπίζονται σαν αντικαταστάσιμοι με σκοπό να τους επιβληθούν νόρμες, συνήθειες και συμβάσεις, τρόποι συμβιβασμού και συμμόρφωσης. (Loney, Mitropoulos, Rauning) Στην επισφάλεια το άγχος είναι ένας «τρόπος κυριαρχίας» για να υποτάσσονται οι εργαζόμενοι (Bourdie, 85) Η επισφάλεια διαφέρει από την εξαθλιωμένη φτώχεια στο βαθμό που οι ανάγκες της ζωής δεν είναι απλά απούσες. Είναι προσφερόμενες, αλλά ελεγχόμενα κατακρατημένες με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε να επιβάλλουν στους ανθρώπους την συμμόρφωση και τον συμβιβασμό ώστε να έχουν πρόσβαση σε αυτές. Η επισφάλεια είναι μια συνθήκη εργασίας και διαβίωσης που παράγει άγχος και άλλες παρενέργειες που σχετίζονται με αυτό. Μελέτες που έχουν γίνει σε επισφαλείς εργαζόμενους υποστηρίζουν ότι αυτοί εκδηλώνουν απώλεια της ξεκάθαρης αίσθησης του χρόνου και του διαχωρισμού ανάμεσα στις ώρες της δουλειάς και την υπόλοιπη ζωή τους λόγω των έντονων σκαμπανεβασμάτων των ωρών και των ημερών εργασίας. Αυτό οδηγεί σε μια γενικευμένη απελπισία. (Berardi, 30) O Bifo Berardi αναλύει την επισφάλεια ως μια διαρκή σωματική υπερδιέγερση χωρίς πιθανότητες ανακούφισης (90-1), μια οπτική αξιοσημείωτα παρόμοια με προϋπάρχουσες θεωρίες του Βιλχεμ Ραϊχ για το άγχος. Σημειώνει επίσης ότι οι άνθρωποι είναι σε μια διαρκή υπερδιέγερση και ερεθισμό ενώ συγχρόνως διακατέχονται από μια συνεχή αίσθηση ελλειματικής προσοχής και συγκέντρωσης, γεγονός που παράγεται από την υπερ-έκθεση  σε πληροφορίες. Μια διέγερση που εκδηλώνεται ανάλογα με τις ικανότητες που έχει ο καθένας για να διαχειριστεί όλες αυτές τις πληροφορίες.

Ο Bifo Berardi μιλά για ένα είδος «παγκόσμιου πανικού» που αναδύεται από διάφορα είδη άγχους. (43) Εδώ μπορούμε να παραθέσουμε μια σειρά από παραδείγματα. Ένας αυξανόμενος αριθμός νέων ανθρώπων ζει με τους γονείς του. Ένα αξιοσημείωτο κομμάτι του πληθυσμού (περισσότερο από το 10% στην Μ. Βρετανία) παίρνει αντικαταθλιπτικά. Η υπογεννητικότητα αυξάνεται στον Βορρά και σε πολλές πόλεις του υπόλοιπου κόσμου, καθώς η ανασφάλεια κάνει τους ανθρώπους να αποφεύγουν την δέσμευση και την δημιουργία οικογένειας. Στην Ιαπωνία, εκατομμύρια νέων δεν φεύγουν ποτέ από την οικογενειακή στέγη (οι λεγόμενοι hikikomori ) ενώ άλλοι κυριολεκτικά πεθαίνουν στην δουλειά σε μια κατάσταση που παίρνει μορφή μαζικής επιδημίας. Μελέτες αποκαλύπτουν ότι ο μισός πληθυσμός στην Μ. Βρετανία βιώνει έντονη ανασφάλεια σε σχέση με το εισόδημα του.

Οικονομικά, εκφάνσεις του συστήματος που παράγει το άγχος περιλαμβάνουν μορφές όπως την «ορθολογική παραγωγή» (lean production) [σ.μ. Η «ορθολογική» παραγωγή ευαγγελίζεται πως είναι μια προσέγγιση management που επικεντρώνεται με κάθε τρόπο στην μείωση του κόστους παραγωγής και την αύξηση του κέρδους, προσπαθώντας ταυτόχρονα να διατηρήσει τα επίπεδα ποιότητας. Αυτή η προσέγγιση μπορεί να εφαρμοστεί σε όλες τις πτυχές μιας επιχείρησης – από το σχεδιασμό, την παραγωγή έως τη διανομή. Αποσκοπεί στη μείωση του κόστους, καθιστώντας την επιχείρηση πιο αποτελεσματική και ανταποκρινόμενη στις ανάγκες της αγοράς.] Η «ορθολογική παραγωγή», ο οικονομισμός και η επακόλουθη υποδούλωση μέσω του χρέους, οι ακραιφνείς ταχύτητες της επικοινωνίας και των οικονομικών ροών, όπως επίσης και η παγκοσμιοποίηση της παραγωγής είναι το έδαφος πάνω στο οποίο παράγεται το παγκόσμιο άγχος.  Η έρευνα του Kaliniko στα κέντρα παροχής υπηρεσιών αποκαλύπτει: ο καθένας επιβλέπει τον εαυτό του, προσπαθεί να διατηρηθεί μέσα στους παραγωγικούς στόχους που έχει θέσει η διεύθυνση και υπόκειται διαρκώς σε επανεξέταση και άρα πιθανόν σε αποτυχία. Αυτή παίρνει την μορφή αδυναμίας επίτευξης των απαιτήσεων, σε σχέση, για παράδειγμα, με τον αναγκαίο αριθμό τηλεφωνημάτων που υποχρεούσαι να έχεις κάνει σε μια βάρδια μιας εταιρίας τηλεπωλήσεων, ενώ διαρκώς ελέγχεσαι από το σύστημα ηλεκτρονικών υπολογιστών που επιβάλλουν το ρυθμό εργασίας.

Από την άλλη η αίσθηση αποτυχίας επιβάλλεται σε όλους από την στιγμή που το σύστημα αρνείται στην μεγάλη μάζα των εργαζομένων την πρόσβαση σε σταθερή δουλειά, αφού οι περισσότεροι είναι συχνά υποχρεωμένοι να εργάζονται έως έξι ή και περισσότερους μήνες μέχρι να επιτύχουν τελικά μια πρόσληψη. Παρόμοιες πρακτικές εισάγονται και στους κρατικούς θεσμούς και τις δημόσιες υπηρεσίες μέσω της «Νέας Δημόσιας Διαχείρισης». Με μηχανισμούς όπως την συγχώνευση υπηρεσιών, τους εποχιακούς εργάτες ή τους συμβασιούχους, μεγάλες μερίδες των εργαζομένων υπόκεινται σε όλο και πιο δυσμενείς συνθήκες εργασίας. Με την χρήση του image management (τον διαρκή έλεγχο και την αξιολόγηση της συμπεριφοράς, της εμφάνισης και του χαρακτήρα που εκδηλώνει ο εργαζόμενος στις ώρες εργασίας) το χάσμα ανάμεσα στους επίσημους κανόνες και το τί πραγματικά επιβάλλει η διεύθυνση στους εργαζόμενους είναι πιο θολό παρά ποτέ, ενώ το ευρύτερο πολιτικό κλίμα μετά την 11^η Σεπτέμβρη διαχέει στο σύνολο της παγκόσμιας πολιτικής σφαίρας μια κατάσταση άγχους, ανησυχίας και γενικής επαγρύπνησης.

Αυτή η συζήτηση φυσικά σε κάποιο βαθμό δεν σχετίζεται απόλυτα με την κατάσταση που βιώνει ο παγκόσμιος Νότος. Η ιδιάζουσα κατάσταση που επιβάλλεται στον Νότο είναι μια επίστρωση σύγχρονων μορφών καπιταλιστικής κοινωνικής οργάνωσης που έρχονται να εγκατασταθούν πάνω σε παλιότερες μορφές καπιταλισμού ή σε προ-καπιταλιστικά συστήματα και όχι να τα αντικαταστήσουν εξολοκλήρου. Για αυτό τον λόγο αγώνες γύρω από τον άξονα της φτώχειας και της πλήξης είναι πιο επιδραστικές στον Νότο.

Από την άλλη ο Νότος έχει βιώσει μια πολύ ιδιαίτερη ποικιλία επισφάλειας που διαφέρει κατά πολύ από παλιότερες περιόδους: η εξαναγκαστική αποσύνδεση τεράστιων πληθυσμών της Γης από τον παγκόσμιο καπιταλισμό (ειδικά στην Αφρική) έχει ως συνέπεια την μαζική ανάπτυξη άτυπων μορφών κοινωνικής οργάνωσης και οργάνωσης της οικονομίας που έχουν πλέον υπερκεράσει, κατά πολύ, κάθε μορφή κρατικής οργάνωσης.    Ο άτυπος ή συνεργατικός τομέας παρέχει ένα γόνιμο πεδίο για την ανάπτυξη αυτόνομων αγώνων και αυτό-οργανωμένης πολιτικής δράσης, όπως γίνεται φανερό μέσα από τους αγώνες πόλεων όπως το El Alto- μια αυτοργανωμένη πόλη με κεντρική σημασία για τα κοινωνικά κινήματα της Βολιβίας-, την εξέγερση των Ζαπατίστας- που οδήγησε στην αυτονόμηση των ιθαγενών  πληθυσμών της Τσιάπας στο Μεξικό- ή κινήματα όπως το Abalhali baseMjondolo (ένα αυτόνομο κίνημα άτυπων συνεργατικών καταυλισμών κατοικίας στην Νότια Αφρική).

Ωστόσο, αυτός ο τομέας αποτελεί μια μορφή συλλογικοποιημένης επισφάλειας καθώς υπόκειται περιοδικά στην καταστολή του κράτους, όταν μπουλντόζες γκρεμίζουν φτωχές γειτονιές και παραγκουπόλεις, η αστυνομία καταδιώκει μικροπωλητές στους δρόμους των μεγαλουπόλεων ή επιτίθεται μαζικά σε παράνομες δραστηριότητες. Με ένα αποκαλυπτικό τρόπο, ήταν η αυτοπυρπόληση ενός παράνομου μικροπωλητή λουλουδιών που όντας εκτεθειμένος σε μια τέτοια μορφή καταστολής επέλεξε να βάλει τέλος στην ζωή του με αυτό τον δραματικό τρόπο και έδωσε το έναυσμα σε μια τεράστια κοινωνική εξέγερση που ξεκίνησε από το Sidi Bouzid στην Τυνησία και απλώθηκε σε όλο τον Αραβικό κόσμο, δημιουργώντας την Αραβική Άνοιξη. Ταραχές για αντίστοιχους λόγους γίνονται όλο και πιο συχνά στην Κίνα. Είναι όμως, κοινό χαρακτηριστικό του άτυπου ή συνεργατικού τομέα, να κυριαρχείται, συχνά, από ιεραρχικές συμμορίες και μαφίες ή από οργανωμένα δίκτυα εξουσιαστικών κομμάτων- όπως για παράδειγμα η Μουσουλμανική Αδελφότητα στην Αίγυπτο.

6. ΤΟ ΑΓΧΟΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΚΟΙΝΟ ΜΥΣΤΙΚΟ

Η  αγωνία, η έντονη ανησυχία και το άγχος που μας διακατέχει όλους είναι κοινό μυστικό. Σπάνια όλα αυτά συζητιούνται σαν αποτέλεσμα του τρόπου λειτουργίας του συστήματος, ειδικά στα καθεστωτικά Μέσα Μαζικής Ενημέρωσης. Πράγματι, σε μεγάλο βαθμό το άγχος είναι αόρατο. Όταν και όπου συζητηθεί αυτό περιγράφεται σαν ένα προσωπικό, ψυχολογικό πρόβλημα για το οποίο συνήθως κατηγορούμε τον λάθος τρόπο σκέψης ή την δυσπροσαρμοστικότητα. Για παράδειγμα, η κοινωνιολόγος Elisabeth Katsching-Fausch μελετώντας τους επισφαλείς εργαζόμενους ανακάλυψε ότι οι περισσότεροι από αυτούς είναι δυστυχισμένοι- αλλά έπρεπε να υπερβούν ένα κοινωνικό ταμπού για να το παραδεχθούν. Αν και οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι διακατέχονται από μια γενική αίσθηση ανησυχίας και δυσφορίας, είναι πολύ δύσκολο για αυτούς να εξακριβώσουν τα αίτια αυτής της κατάστασης.

Τόσο τα επίσημα συστήματα ελέγχου, όπως η ψυχοθεραπεία και οι σύγχρονες μέθοδοι management και ελέγχου της συμπεριφοράς στους χώρους εργασίας, όσο και οι ανεπίσημοι μηχανισμοί ελέγχου όπως τα κυρίαρχα κοινωνικά πρότυπα που προβάλλονται από τα καθεστωτικά media, κάνουν πολύ δύσκολη την αναγνώριση του προβλήματος του άγχους ως κοινωνικό ζήτημα και όχι ως προσωπική αποτυχία. Η κυρίαρχη δημόσια αφήγηση προτείνει πως χρειαζόμαστε περισσότερο άγχος για να παραμείνουμε ασφαλείς    (μέσω της κανονιστικής επιταγής για μια διαρκή κατάσταση έκτακτης ανάγκης) και για να παραμείνουμε ανταγωνιστικοί (μέσω των σύγχρονων μεθόδων ελέγχου της εργασιακής επιτέλεσης).           

Κάθε νέο ξέσπασμα «ηθικού πανικού», κάθε ανακοίνωση νέων «σκληρών μέτρων» και κάθε γύρος ψήφισης νέων καταπιεστικών νόμων έρχεται να προστεθεί στο ραγδαία συσσωρευμένο βάρος του άγχους και της πίεσης που νιώθουμε από την πληθώρα κανονισμών και εξαναγκασμών. Η ουσιαστική ανθρώπινη ανασφάλεια χρησιμοποιείται για να επιβληθεί και να παγιωθεί η παντοκρατορία της απαίτησης για ασφάλεια με τους όρους της εξουσίας. Αυτός είναι ένας ανελέητος φαύλος κύκλος, μιας και αυτή ακριβώς η γενικευμένη ανάγκη για ασφάλεια με απαγορευτικούς και εξουσιαστικούς όρους, αυξάνει κατακόρυφα τους ίδιους τους λόγους που προκαλούν το άγχος- καθώς μας επιβάλει να ζούμε σε συνθήκες διαρκούς παρακολούθησης και εντατικής χρήσης απαγορεύσεων και κανονισμών ασφάλειας σε όλα τα πεδία της κοινωνικής ζωής. Στην πραγματικότητα η ασφάλεια της Μητέρας Πατρίδας χρησιμοποιείται σαν υποκατάστατο της ανάγκης για ασφάλεια του εαυτού μας.

Όπως και άλλες, έτσι και αυτή η κατάσταση βασίζεται σε παλιότερες συνθήκες: η χρήση της ιδέας του εθνικού μεγαλείου υποκαθιστά και αναπληρώνει την φτώχεια, ο παγκόσμιος πόλεμος διαχειρίζεται την δυσανεξία που προκύπτει από την πλήξη. Με τον ίδιο τρόπο το άγχος διοχετεύεται από τις ανώτερες προς τις κατώτερες βαθμίδες. Οι άνθρωποι χάνουν τον έλεγχο της ζωής τους. Συχνά αυτό οδηγεί σε μια αγωνιώδη προσπάθεια να ξαναποκτήσεις τον έλεγχο  μέσω μιας εμμονικής μικρο-διαχείρησης οποιουδήποτε πράγματος «μπορείς» τελικά να ελέγξεις.  Τεχνικές γονικής φροντίδας για παράδειγμα, διαφημίζουν τρόπους να μειωθεί το άγχος των γονιών με την εμμονική εφαρμογή συγκεκριμένων μεθόδων που πρέπει να ακολουθούμε κατά γράμμα σε κάθε λεπτομέρεια.

Σε ένα ευρύτερο, κοινωνικό πεδίο οι υπολανθάνουσες, αφανείς συνθήκες άγχους και ανησυχίας που προκύπτουν από την επισφάλεια γιγαντώνουν, από μεριάς της εξουσίας, τον εμμονικό σχεδιασμό κανονισμών κοινωνικού ελέγχου.

O Arjun Appadurai εκφράζει την θεωρητική άποψη ότι, τέτοιου είδους αφανείς, υπολανθάνουσες συνθήκες άγχους επιρρίπτονται όλο και περισσότερο σε διάφορες μειοψηφίες δημιουργώντας ένα είδος παγκόσμιου αποδιοπομπαίου τράγου, μια κατάσταση που προκύπτει από την γενική αίσθηση οικονομικής αβεβαιότητας και κοινωνικής ανασφάλειας.

Το άγχος προσωποποιείται με πολλούς τρόπους. Οι δοξασίες της Νέας Δεξιάς κατηγορούν τους ίδιους τους φτωχούς για την φτώχεια τους. Οι σύγχρονες ψυχολογικές θεωρίες αντιμετωπίζουν το άγχος ως νευρολογική ανισσοροπία ή ως ένα δυσλειτουργικό είδος σκέψης και θεώρησης των πραγμάτων. Εκατοντάδες είδη διευθυντικών κανόνων- από την διαχείριση του χρόνου και του θυμού, έως την γονική φροντίδα, την εργασιακή αυτοπροβολή, τον αυτοέλεγχο κ.λ.π., προσφέρουν στα αγχωμένα υποκείμενα μια ψευδαίσθηση ελέγχου που ανταλλάσσεται με τον διαρκώς αυξανόμενο συμβιβασμό και την υποταγή στο καπιταλιστικό μοντέλο υποκειμενικότητας. Για αυτό, κατά κύριο λόγο, σύγχρονες δοξασίες κοινωνικής διαπόμπευσης και εγκληματοποίησης αντιμετωπίζουν την επισφάλεια σαν ζήτημα προσωπικής παρέκκλισης, ανευθυνότητας ή παθολογικού αυτό-αποκλεισμού.  Πολλές από αυτές τις δοξασίες επιδιώκουν την διατήρηση του Φορντισμού (εθνικισμός και κοινωνική ομογενοποίηση) σε μια εποχή όμως που δεν υπάρχουν πλέον οι ανάλογες κοινωνικές δομές (εθνική οικονομία, δουλειά για όλους, κράτος πρόνοιας).

Δοξασίες που βασίζονται στην ατομική ευθύνη έχουν κεντρική σημασία για αυτές τις μορφές συντήρησης, μιας και μας επιβάλλουν ως αυτονόητο το γεγονός πως όλοι σε προσωπικό επίπεδο είμαστε ευπαθείς και άρα αντικαταστάσιμοι. Επιπροσθέτως, υπάρχει η βιομηχανία της εγωπάθειας, τεχνικές  αυτοεκτίμησης, η μαζική παραγωγή κειμένων, βίντεο και σεμιναρίων που διδάσκουν στους ανθρώπους τρόπους να είναι επιτυχημένοι μέσω της «θετικής» σκέψης- σαν τα αίτια του άγχους μας και της σύγχυσης να είναι απλές ψευδαισθήσεις.

Όλα αυτά είναι ενδεικτικά παραδείγματα της γενικότερης τάσης να «ιδιωτικοποιήσουμε» τα προβλήματα μας, τόσο αυτά που σχετίζονται με την εργασία όσο και αυτά που σχετίζονται με την ψυχολογία μας. Όπως έχουμε ήδη υποστηρίξει, οι άνθρωποι πρέπει να είναι κοινωνικά αποξενωμένοι για να λειτουργήσει ένα κοινό μυστικό. Αυτό ισχύει και για την παρούσα κατάσταση όπου οι μορφές «αυθεντικής» επικοινωνίας ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους γίνονται όλο και πιο σπάνιες. Η επικοινωνία είναι πιο διεισδυτική από ποτέ (η κοινή ιδέα της «άυλης εργασίας», η απαίτηση για επικοινωνία, η εκτίναξη της χρήσης των μέσων κοινωνικής δικτύωσης) ενώ συγχρόνως η επικοινωνία συμβαίνει μόνο μέσω διόδων αποκλειστικά διαμεσολαβημένων από το σύστημα. Για αυτό τον λόγο, με διάφορους τρόπους οι άνθρωποι «αποτρέπονται» από την ουσιαστική επικοινωνία μεταξύ τους, ενώ την ίδια στιγμή το σύστημα απαιτεί οι πάντες να είναι συνδεδεμένοι και επικοινωνιακοί.

Οι άνθρωποι αναγκάζονται να συμβιβαστούν στην απαίτηση του συστήματος να επικοινωνούν παρά να εκφράζουν τις σκέψεις τους, ενώ καθημερινά εξαναγκάζονται να αυτολογοκρίνονται ώστε να συμμετάσχουν σε ελεγχόμενους κοινωνικούς χώρους και διαμεσολαβημένους τρόπους επικοινωνίας.

Αντίστοιχα, η επιτηδευμένη,  προσποιητά ευγενική συμπεριφορά στην εργασία δεν ανακουφίζει το άγχος αλλά απλά περισπά και εξαπατά τους πελάτες. Ερευνητές έχουν αποκαλύψει ότι οι κανόνες που επιβάλλουν στους εργαζόμενους να προσποιούνται πως είναι διαρκώς χαρούμενοι προκαλούν σε μεγάλο βαθμό σοβαρά προβλήματα υγείας. Είναι γνωστή η θέση του Hakim Bey, ο οποίος υποστηρίζει ότι το να συναντιόμαστε ομαδικά με ανθρώπους που δεν είναι η οικογένεια μας, οι συνάδελφοι μας ή μια καταναλωτική ομάδα μας δίνει τη ευκαιρία να βιώσουμε μια ουσιαστική κατάσταση αμεσότητας. Πολλοί ριζοσπάστες έχουν ακόμα τέτοιες επαφές, πόσοι όμως άνθρωποι έχουν ακόμα τέτοιες σχέσεις; Σε ακόμα μεγαλύτερο βαθμό, πόσοι άνθρωποι έχουν τέτοιες εμπειρίες άμεσης επαφής ακόμα και με τους συναδέλφους τους ή τα μέλη της οικογένειας τους χωρίς την παρέμβαση τεχνικών διαχείρισης της εργασιακής ή οικογενειακής συμπεριφοράς;

Η εργασιακή ρουτίνα, ο καταναλωτισμός και η κοινωνική αναπαραγωγή κατατρώγουν όλο και περισσότερο τον χρόνο και την ενέργεια που διαθέτουμε. Όσο υπάρχει ένα κοινό μυστικό που δεν ομολογείται και δεν το επικοινωνούμε ο ένας με τον άλλον, τίποτα δεν έχει σημασία, ακόμα και αν νομίζουμε πως επικοινωνούμε. Η πραγματική επαφή ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους δεν θα είναι εφικτή όσο δεν μπορούμε να βρούμε τρόπους για να εκφράσουμε αυτό το μυστικό που κρύβει ο καθένας μέσα του και τον βασανίζει. Υπό αυτή την λογική, οι άνθρωποι σήμερα είναι στην πραγματικότητα, ποιο μόνοι τους παρά ποτέ. Είναι πολύ δύσκολο για τους περισσότερους ανθρώπους (ακόμα και για πολλούς ριζοσπάστες)  να ομολογήσουν αυτό που πραγματικά βιώνουν και όσα αισθάνονται. Τα πάντα πρέπει να καταμετρηθούν και να αξιολογηθούν, να διαμεσολαβηθούν, να προβληθούν στην τηλεόραση ή το ίντερνετ, ενώ από την άλλη για τους ακτιβιστές, πρέπει κάθε τι να είναι «πολιτικό» για να αναγνωριστεί ως πραγματικότητα. Το κοινό μυστικό δεν καλύπτει αυτά τα κριτήρια, για αυτό και παραμένει αόρατο.

7. ΟΙ ΣΥΝΗΘΙΣΜΕΝΕΣ ΜΑΣ ΠΡΑΚΤΙΚΕΣ ΔΕΝ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΟΥΝ. ΧΡΕΙΑΖΟΜΑΣΤΕ ΝΕΕΣ ΤΑΚΤΙΚΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΘΕΩΡΙΕΣ ΓΙΑ ΝΑ ΠΟΛΕΜΗΣΟΥΜΕ ΤΟ ΑΓΧΟΣ. 

Υποστηρίξαμε ήδη ότι το σύστημα έχει βελτιώσει κατά πολύ τις ικανότητες του να διαλύει την επίδραση των κοινωνικών αντιστάσεων. Θα ήταν ίσως χρήσιμο εδώ να εστιάσουμε σε δύο αλληλένδετες νέες εξελίξεις του συστήματος: την πρόληψη και την μεθοδευμένη τιμωρητική πολιτική απέναντι στα κινήματα. 

Οι προληπτικές τακτικές είναι αυτές που επιτρέπουν στο σύστημα να σταματά τις διαμαρτυρίες πριν αυτές ακόμα ξεσπάσουν ή πριν καταφέρουν να επιτύχουν οτιδήποτε. Η περικύκλωση των διαδηλωτών από την αστυνομία, οι μαζικές συλλήψεις, οι εξακριβώσεις στοιχείων και οι προληπτικές προσαγωγές είναι παραδείγματα τέτοιου είδους τακτικών. Από την άλλη, η μεθοδευμένη τιμωρητική πολιτική συνεπάγεται να κρατάς τους ανθρώπους διαρκώς εκτεθειμένους σε μια κατάσταση φόβου,  πόνου, αδυναμίας και ευπάθειας μέσω της καταστρατήγησης των νόμιμων διαδικασιών, μεθόδους όπως το φόρτωμα με υπερβολικές κατηγορίες πριν την δίκη και η μακρά προφυλάκιση που διαλύει την ζωή τους και τις δραστηριότητες τους, η απαγόρευση εξόδου από την χώρα και οι διεθνείς λίστες παρακολούθησης εξακριβωμένων αντιφρονούντων, βίαιες εκκενώσεις κτηρίων και έρευνες στα σπίτια, δημοσίευση φωτογραφιών συλληφθέντων στον καθεστωτικό τύπο, λαβές και χειροπέδες, ή απλώς η διαβεβαίωση πως κάποιος βρίσκεται υπό διαρκή παρακολούθηση, συλλήψεις – μερικές φορές και ανθρώπων πέραν κάθε υποψίας-  βασισμένες αποκλειστικά σε υποψίες ή «ανώνυμες» καταγγελίες κ.α.              

Από την στιγμή που ενσταλάζεται στις συνειδήσεις ο φόβος της κρατικής παρέμβασης, από εκεί και πέρα ισχυροποιείται διαρκώς με δίκτυα καμερών παρακολούθησης, τα μπλόκα ελέγχου, τους αστυνομικούς φρουρούς, τις απειλητικές ανακοινώσεις και προειδοποιήσεις που διαχέονται από μεγάφωνα και ταμπέλες στον δημόσιο χώρο και λειτουργούν σαν στρατηγικά τοποθετημένοι μηχανισμοί υπενθύμισης τραυματικών εμπειριών και προξένησης άγχους. Πολλές ανέκδοτες αφηγήσεις διηγούνται ιστορίες τρόμου για την επίδραση αυτών των τακτικών. Άνθρωποι που τα νεύρα τους έγιναν σμπαράλια περιμένοντας για χρόνια  προφυλακισμένοι για δίκες στις οποίες τελικά αθωώθηκαν, άνθρωποι που αυτοκτόνησαν έχοντας μείνει για μήνες χωρίς επαφή με τους φίλους ή την οικογένεια τους, άλλοι που   φοβούνται να βγουν από την φυλακή μετά από εμπειρίες κακοποίησης και βασανισμών. Όπως όταν το κράτος παλιότερα εκτελούσε και «εξαφάνιζε» ανθρώπους, τα αποτελέσματα είναι και τώρα τα ίδια, συνήθως όλες αυτές οι καταστάσεις μένουν με έναν ελεγχόμενο τρόπο εντελώς αφανείς.

Αν και τα πολιτικοποιημένα και οργανωμένα άτομα συνήθως συνεχίζουν τον αγώνα, οι άνθρωποι που έχουν τέτοιες εμπειρίες την πρώτη φορά που κατεβαίνουν στον δρόμο είναι πιο πιθανό να υποταχθούν και να αποσυρθούν από τους κοινωνικούς αγώνες. Αυτές οι τακτικές του κράτους είναι μέρος ενός γενικού μηχανισμού παραγωγής άγχους σαν μέθοδο εγκαθίδρυσης του κοινωνικού ελέγχου. Επιπροσθέτως, πολλοί ριζοσπάστες συχνά είναι σε πολύ δυσχερή θέση εργασιακής επισφάλειας ή αποκλεισμένοι από κοινωνικές παροχές. Ακόμα και οι πιο συνειδητοποιημένοι και στρατευμένοι από εμάς αποτυγχάνουμε να δραπετεύσουμε από τους γενικευμένους μηχανισμούς επιβολής του άγχους.

Εάν το πρώτο κύμα κοινωνικών εξεγέρσεων μας προσέφερε τρόπους για να πολεμάμε την φτώχεια και το δεύτερο τρόπους για να δραπετεύουμε από την κανονικότητα και την πλήξη, αυτό που χρειαζόμαστε τώρα είναι μηχανισμούς για να πολεμήσουμε το άγχος- και είναι σίγουρο πως τέτοιους μηχανισμούς δεν έχουμε ακόμα.

Εάν κοιτάξουμε τον κόσμο μέσα από το πρίσμα του άγχους, σίγουρα, δεν έχουμε καταφέρει να συντελέσουμε αυτό που οι Καταστασιακοί ονομάζουν «αντιστροφή προοπτικής», δεν μπορούμε δηλαδή να αντικρύσουμε τον κόσμο από την θέση της ουσιαστικής επιθυμίας μας και όχι με τα μάτια της εξουσίας. Αυτό επιβεβαιώνει την υπόθεση ότι οι κύριες μορφές αντίστασης της εποχής μας προέρχονται από τους παλιότερους αγώνες ενάντια στην πλήξη και για αυτό δεν λειτουργούν πλέον με την ίδια επιτυχία. Το άγχος έχει πλέον αντικαταστήσει την πλήξη ως κύρια μορφή ελέγχου. Για να χρησιμοποιήσουμε ένα ακραίο παράδειγμα, μια τακτική των Καταστασιακών πρότεινε να αλλάξουμε θέση στα έπιπλα του σπιτιού μας ώστε να μετατρέψουμε σε ασυνήθιστο ό,τι μοιάζει φυσιολογικό ή συνηθισμένο και να αποκτήσουμε νέες οπτικές των πραγμάτων. (Vienne) Σαν τακτική ενάντια στην πλήξη η πρόταση αυτή είναι θαυμάσια- κάνει έναν ρουτινιάρικο και συνηθισμένο χώρο ξανά συναρπαστικό και σου προσφέρει την ευκαιρία να δεις τα πράγματα με άλλη ματιά. Όμως, από την μεριά μιας συνθήκης άγχους, μια τέτοια πρόταση απλά προσθέτει περισσότερη πίεση, εντείνει το πρόβλημα κάνοντας τα πάντα πιο δύσκολα, αφού με αυτό τον τρόπο είναι αδύνατο να λειτουργήσει κάποιος τόσο γρήγορα όσο απαιτούν οι συνθήκες της εποχής μας. Στο σύνολο τους οι υπάρχουσες μορφές κοινωνικών αντιστάσεων δεν μπορούν να καταπολεμήσουν το άγχος ενώ πολύ συχνά περιλαμβάνουν εθελούσια έκθεση σε καταστάσεις πολύ υψηλής πίεσης και μεγάλου άγχους, πρακτικές που πολλές φορές αποτελούν την κύρια βάση για τον σχηματισμό και την δράση τέτοιων ριζοσπαστικών ομάδων.

Η απουσία έτοιμων λύσεων εντείνει το πρόβλημα και το να αποφύγουμε την αβεβαιότητα γίνεται αδύνατο. Για αυτό τον λόγο είναι σε μεγάλο βαθμό κλειστές οι γέφυρες επικοινωνίας ανάμεσα μας και δεν υπάρχουν ανοιχτά περάσματα από την κυρίαρχη λογική και το mainstream στους χώρους και τις διαδικασίες των κοινωνικών αντιστάσεων. Οι άνθρωποι προσκολλούνται στις αυταπάτες και τις ψευδείς βεβαιότητες της εξουσίας και του καθωσπρεπισμού. Οι περισσότεροι υπόκεινται σε τέτοιες μορφές απομόνωσης και διαχωρισμού που τους είναι αδύνατο να μοιραστούν τις εμπειρίες τους.

Όσοι από εμάς συμμετέχουμε στα κοινωνικά κινήματα είμαστε τουλάχιστον ένα βήμα πιο πέρα από αυτή την κατάσταση μιας και οι περισσότεροι έχουμε ομάδες συνάφειας, παρέες, συντρόφους, φίλους και κοινωνικούς χώρους συνεύρεσης και συζήτησης. Είμαστε επίσης πιο αφυπνισμένοι στα δομικά χαρακτηριστικά των μηχανισμών ελέγχου. Πολλοί άνθρωποι είναι δεσμευμένοι από τις ατομικιστικές ψευδο-λύσεις που τους προσφέρει το σύστημα, δελεάζονται από έναν ελάχιστα βελτιωμένο τρόπο διαβίωσης που καταλήγει να είναι η μοναδική φιλοδοξία τους, η μόνη επιδίωξη της ζωής τους. Πολλοί άνθρωποι που μεγάλωσαν στην εποχή κυριαρχίας του νέο-φιλελευθερισμού είναι αδύνατο να συνειδητοποιήσουν ότι η διαρκής παρακολούθηση και αξιολόγηση της εργασιακής επιτέλεσης είναι κάθε τι άλλο παρά φυσιολογικές καταστάσεις.

Οι εξεγερσιακοί αναρχικοί υπερβαίνουν το άγχος μετατρέποντας τις αρνητικές συνθήκες σε οργή, χρησιμοποιώντας την οργή τους σαν δύναμη για να περάσουν στην επίθεση. Με διάφορους τρόπους η επίθεση προσφέρει μια εναλλακτική στο άγχος. Παρόλα αυτά για τους περισσότερους ανθρώπους είναι δύσκολο να κάνουν το βήμα από το άγχος στην οργή. Πολλές φορές, ειδικά λόγω τραυματικών εμπειριών, είναι πιο εύκολο να πάρει κάποιος την αντίθετη κατεύθυνση- δηλαδή από την οργή προς το άγχος.   

Πολύ συχνά οι εξεγερσιακοί έχουν την τάση να αγνοούν συνειδητά την ύπαρξη ψυχολογικών αναστολών στην συγκρουσιακή δράση. Η απάντηση τείνει να είναι «Μην το σκέφτεσαι, απλά κάντο!». Το άγχος όμως είναι μια υλική, πραγματική δύναμη- δεν είναι ένα πλάσμα της φαντασίας μας που μας τρομάζει χωρίς λόγο. Για να λέμε την αλήθεια, τα αίτια του άγχους, πολύ συχνά, είναι βαθιά ριζωμένα σε τρομακτικά δημιουργήματα της φαντασίας μας, όμως το να μην φοβάσαι τα φαντάσματα σπάνια είναι τόσο απλό όσο το να απορρίψεις την ύπαρξη τους. Πίσω από την ψευδαισθησιακή δύναμη των δημιουργημάτων της φαντασίας μας υποβόσκει ένα σύνολο από βιο-ενεργητικά μπλοκαρίσματα και αναστολές, πράγμα που σε μεγάλο βαθμό είναι αποτέλεσμα της ανασταλτικής επίδρασης του συστήματος. Το να λες σε κάποιον «απλά κάντο» είναι σαν να λες σε κάποιον με σπασμένο πόδι «απλά περπάτα». Εάν δεν μπορούμε με κάποιον τρόπο να περάσουμε από το σημείο που οι άνθρωποι έχουν παραλύσει από το άγχος, στο σημείο που «απλά το κάνουν»- τότε αυτή η στρατηγική είναι καταδικασμένη να αποτύχει.

Η κατάσταση μοιάζει απελπιστική και αναπόφευκτη- αλλά δεν είναι. Φαίνεται έτσι εξαιτίας των επιδράσεων της επισφάλειας- το συνεχές και υπερβολικό στρες, το στένεμα του χρόνου και τη συστολή του σε ένα διαρκές παρόν, τις ευπάθειες του απομονωμένου, διαχωρισμένου και διαμεσολαβημένου ατόμου, την κυριαρχία του συστήματος σε κάθε πλευρά της καθημερινής ζωής. Δομικά το σύστημα έχει τρωτά σημεία. Το γεγονός ότι βασίζεται στο άγχος είναι μια μέθοδος απελπισίας αφού είναι αδύνατο να βασιστεί σε άλλες ισχυρότερες δυνάμεις καθυπόταξης και αδυνατεί να πείσει οποιονδήποτε ότι μετά από την σκληρή δουλειά μας περιμένει η ευτυχία. Η απόπειρα του συστήματος να συνεχίσει να λειτουργεί κάνοντας τους ανθρώπους να νιώθουν ανίσχυροι το αφήνει απροστάτευτο απέναντι στις απροσδόκητες ρήξεις, τα ξαφνικά ξεσπάσματα των εξεγέρσεων όπου μεγάλες μάζες ανθρώπων ξαφνικά συνειδητοποιούν την πραγματική τους δύναμη. Υπό αυτή την λογική, το ερώτημα είναι: πως φτάνουμε όλοι μαζί στο σημείο που δεν νιώθουμε πλέον ανίσχυροι;

8. ΧΡΕΙΑΖΟΜΑΣΤΕ ΕΝΑ ΝΕΟ ΕΙΔΟΣ ΑΦΥΠΝΙΣΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΣΥΝΕΙΔΗΣΕΩΝ ΠΟΥ ΘΑ ΣΥΜΠΕΡΙΛΑΜΒΑΝΕΙ ΤΙΣ ΕΠΙΣΦΑΛΕΙΣ ΕΜΠΕΙΡΙΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΙΣ ΑΝΑΣΦΑΛΕΙΕΣ ΟΛΩΝ ΜΑΣ.

Για να δώσουμε νέες απαντήσεις στο άγχος μας πρέπει να καταστρώσουμε σχέδια. Πρέπει να χτίσουμε από την αρχή ένα νέο σύνολο από γνώσεις και θεωρίες. Με αυτό τον σκοπό πρέπει να αναπτύξουμε προσεγγίσεις που να εστιάζουν στην αφύπνιση των συνειδήσεων, την στρατευμένη έρευνα, μια παιδαγωγική που αναπτύσσει την κριτική σκέψη ή μάλλον ένα συνδυασμό όλων αυτών των πραγμάτων.  Χρειαζόμαστε πρακτικές διαλόγου που να δημιουργούν συσχετίσεις ανάμεσα στις πολλαπλές εμπειρίες που βιώνουμε στην εποχή μας και τις θεωρίες που μπορούν να μεταμορφώσουν και να απελευθερώσουν αυτό τον κόσμο. Πρέπει να ξεκινάμε τέτοιες διαδικασίες μαζί με τους αποκλεισμένους και τους καταπιεσμένους που βρίσκονται γύρω μας- αλλά σίγουρα πρέπει να παίρνουμε και σαν έναυσμα αυτό που βιώνουμε και γνωρίζουμε οι ίδιοι για τους εαυτούς μας.

Για να αποκτήσουμε μια τέτοια οπτική του παρόντος χρειαζόμαστε κάτι άλλο από την συνηθισμένη μέθοδο οργάνωσης εκδηλώσεων, εργαστηρίων κι ομάδων όπου μοιραζόμαστε τις ικανότητες μας. Αυτές οι εκδηλώσεις είναι ιδανικές για να καταπολεμούν την πλήξη και την αποβλάκωση που επιβάλλει η μαζική κουλτούρα και η κρατική εκπαίδευση, παράγοντες ανασταλτικοί προς την γνώση, που μπορούν όμως να αντιμετωπιστούν με τις συναντήσεις και τις εκδηλώσεις μας. Αυτές οι δημόσιες συναντήσεις είναι ιδανικές για να μεταφέρουμε μια γνώση ή μια ικανότητα ο ένας στον άλλον. Παρ’ όλα αυτά δεν είναι αυτός ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να φτάσουμε σε μια ξεκάθαρη, γειωμένη αντίληψη της νέας κατάστασης που χαρακτηρίζει την εποχή μας. Στα εργαστήρια αυτό-μόρφωσης, τις ομάδες και τις εκδηλώσεις εστιάζουμε τις περισσότερες φορές σε ένα εξωτερικό ζήτημα που ήδη έχει κατανοηθεί σαν σημαντικό και οι διοργανωτές δρουν έστω και παροδικά σαν να γνωρίζουν κάτι. Επίσης αυτές οι εκδηλώσεις είναι συνήθως «μια και έξω», καθώς σκοπός τους είναι να μεταβιβάσουν γρήγορα και άμεσα μια γνώση ή μια ικανότητα παρά να δημιουργήσουν ουσιαστικές σχέσεις ανάμεσα στους συμμετέχοντες.

Εξερευνώντας πιθανότητες για ένα τέτοιο είδος πρακτικής, το Ινστιτούτο μελέτησε προηγούμενες παρόμοιες περιπτώσεις. Μέσα από μια μελέτη περιγραφών του κινήματος για την αφύπνιση της φεμινιστικής συνείδησης στις δεκαετίες του ’60 και του ’70 έχουμε περιληπτικά σημειώσει τα συμπεράσματα που ακολουθούν:

1. Πρέπει να παράγουμε νέα γειωμένη θεωρία που να βασίζεται στις δικές μας εμπειρίες. Χρειάζεται να συνδεθούμε άμεσα με τις εμπειρίες του «σήμερα», παρά να αναπαράγουμε θεωρίες από παλιότερες εποχές. Για να γίνει αυτό, σε μεγάλο βαθμό έχουμε να ξεκαθαρίσουμε πολλά πράγματα με τους εαυτούς μας αφού η αντίληψη μας είναι μπλοκαρισμένη ή περιορισμένη από τις κυρίαρχες αφηγήσεις και θεωρήσεις. Πρέπει να εστιάσουμε στις προσωπικές μας εμπειρίες και ειδικά σε όσες συνδέονται με το άγχος, αυτό που αποσαφηνίσαμε ως «κοινό μυστικό». Αυτές οι εμπειρίες χρειάζονται να εκφρασθούν, να εξιστορηθούν και να κοινοποιηθούν, να γίνουν κοινό κτήμα όλων μας πρώτα μέσα σε ομάδες και έπειτα δημόσια με διάφορες περιγραφές.
2. Να αναγνωρίσουμε τα βιώματα μας και την συστημική φύση των εμπειριών μας. Η αξιοποίηση της βιωματικής εμπειρίας μπορεί να παίξει πολύ σημαντικό ρόλο. Πρέπει να παραδεχθούμε στους εαυτούς μας ότι ο πόνος μας είναι πραγματικός, όσα βλέπουμε, ακούμε και καταλαβαίνουμε είναι πραγματικά και όλα αυτά που αντιμετωπίζουμε καθημερινά δεν είναι αποκλειστικά «προσωπικά» μας προβλήματα. Μερικές φορές για να γίνει αυτό απαιτείται να ανασύρουμε βιώματα, συναισθήματα και εμπειρίες που έχουμε παραμερίσει ή καταπνίξει βαθιά μέσα μας. Μερικές φορές αυτό συνεπάγεται να παλέψουμε ενάντια στην προσωπική μας ταύτιση με όλα όσα μας πληγώνουν, δηλαδή να σπάσουμε την προσωποποίηση των προβλημάτων μας.
3. Να μεταμορφώσουμε τα συναισθήματα. Οι άνθρωποι βρίσκονται σε κατάσταση παράλυσης βιώνοντας συναισθήματα που δεν μπορούν να τα εκφράσουν ή να τα μοιραστούν με τους γύρω τους και βασανίζονται από μια γενική αίσθηση που τους κάνει να νιώθουν τις περισσότερες ώρες της μέρας χάλια. Αυτά τα συναισθήματα δυσανεξίας, άγχους και φόβου πρέπει να μεταμορφωθούν σε συναίσθηση της αδικίας, ένα είδος θυμού πολύ λιγότερο μνησίκακο και περισσότερο εστιασμένο, μια κίνηση προς την αυτοέκφραση, μια ενεργοποίηση της αντίστασης. Η μεταμόρφωση της κρυμμένης δυσαρέσκειας σε μια εστιασμένη προοπτική είναι σε μεγάλο βαθμό μια συναισθηματική διαδικασία η οποία καταλήγει να γίνει τελικά εκείνο το «κλικ» μέσα σου που αλλάζει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιμετωπίζεις τις καταστάσεις και τον εαυτό σου μέσα σε αυτές.
4. Να δημιουργήσουμε απόψεις, να πούμε αυτό που θέλουμε. Η κουλτούρα της αποσιώπησης που περιβάλλει το «κοινό μυστικό», πρέπει να ανατραπεί.  Πολλά από όσα θεωρούνται φυσιολογικά πρέπει να πάψουν να είναι δεδομένα και για να γίνει αυτό πρέπει να πολεμήσουμε ενάντια σε αυτές τις αντιλήψεις, να αντιμετωπίσουμε τον μπάτσο που κρύβουμε μέσα στο κεφάλι μας. Η εξάσκηση της ομιλίας και της έκφρασης, το να βρούμε δηλαδή την δικιά μας φωνή, δίνει την δυνατότητα να αναφερόμαστε στην αλήθεια μας και την πραγματικότητα μας με έναν δικό μας τρόπο και όχι με τους όρους του συστήματος. Με αυτό τον τρόπο καταφέρνουμε την αναστροφή της προοπτικής- να βλέπουμε δηλαδή τον κόσμο με τα δικά μας μάτια, μέσα από την προοπτική της δικιάς μας επιθυμίας και όχι του συστήματος. Ένας πολύ χρήσιμος τρόπος για να αποκτήσουμε ξανά την δικιά μας φωνή είναι να περιπλέξουμε τις ιστορίες και τις εμπειρίες μας με τις ιστορίες και τα διαφορετικά βιώματα των άλλων. Η διαδικασία αυτή είναι έκφραση και είναι και συνάρθρωση.
5. Να κατασκευάσουμε μη-αλλοτριωμένους χώρους. Ο κοινωνικός διαχωρισμός μπορεί να εκλείψει με την ύπαρξη τέτοιων χώρων. Οι χώροι αυτοί μπορούν να προσφέρουν μια κριτική, αναστοχαστική απόσταση από την καθημερινή συνηθισμένη ζωή μας και ένα είδος συναισθηματικής ασφάλειας, ένα δίκτυο ασφάλειας για να αποπειραθούμε να αλλάξουμε σε κάτι άλλο και να απαλλαγούμε από τους φόβους μας. Αυτό δεν μπορεί να είναι απλά μια μέθοδος αυτό-βοήθειας που διαιωνίζει τις συνηθισμένες μας δραστηριότητες αλλά αντιθέτως ένα χώρος για να αναδημιουργήσουμε την ριζοσπαστική προοπτική.
6. Να αναλύσουμε και να θεωρητικολογήσουμε πάνω σε καταγραφές που προέρχονται από κοινές μας εμπειρίες. Το ζήτημα δεν είναι απλά να αφηγηθούμε τις εμπειρίες μας, αλλά μέσα από την ανάλυση και την κατανόηση αυτών των εμπειριών, να βρούμε τους ανάλογους τρόπους ώστε να τις μεταμορφώσουμε και  να τις αναδομήσουμε. Οι συμμετέχοντες αλλάζουν τον κυρίαρχο τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιλαμβάνονται τις εμπειρίες τους όταν αυτές χαρτογραφούνται μαζί με άλλα, διαφορετικά δεδομένα. Αυτό συμβαίνει όταν συνδέουμε τα συνηθισμένα εμπειρικά σχήματα με την απελευθερωτική- χειραφετητική θεώρηση των πραγμάτων και έτσι βλέπουμε τα ατομικά μας προβλήματα και τις μικρές και μεγάλες αδικίες που βιώνουμε καθημερινά ως ένα σύμπτωμα πολύ ευρύτερων δομικών προβλημάτων του συστήματος. Αυτό οδηγεί σε μια νέα αντίληψη, ένα λεξιλόγιο από επαναλαμβανόμενα μοτίβα, έναν νέο αντι-θεσμικό πολιτικό ορίζοντα.

Με αυτούς τους τρόπους μπορούμε να παράγουμε νέα, γειωμένη θεωρία χωρίς να χρειάζεται να βασιστούμε σε διανοούμενους της πρωτοπορίας για να ενοποιήσουν τις καταστάσεις που βιώνουμε και να μας τις εξηγήσουν με αφηρημένες έννοιες. Ανάμεσα στους ριζοσπάστες αυτή η προσέγγιση θα βοηθήσει να ανανεώσουμε τις πρακτικές μας και να τις επανατοποθετήσουμε στην υπάρχουσα δύσκολη συγκυρία. Στα πλαίσια της ευρύτερης κοινωνίας ο στόχος μας είναι να παράγουμε αυτό το «κλικ» – την στιγμή δηλαδή όπου τα δομικά αίτια των προβλημάτων μας ξαφνικά «βγάζουν νόημα» σε σχέση με τις προσωπικές μας εμπειρίες. Αυτό το «κλικ» είναι που συγκεντρώνει και μεταμορφώνει τον θυμό μας από κάτι που μας κρατά αδρανείς σε κάτι που μας κάνει ενεργούς και δρώντες. Η εμβάθυνση και η περαιτέρω κατανόηση των προβλημάτων και των δομικών χαρακτηριστικών τους μπορεί από την μια να ανακουφίσει την ψυχολογική πίεση που νιώθουμε και να μας δώσει την δυνατότητα να αντιδρούμε με οργή στις καταστάσεις αντί με άγχος, φόβο και κατάθλιψη. Είναι πιθανό ακόμα και να έλκουμε κόσμο σε τέτοιες ομάδες προωθώντας ένα είδος αυτό-θεραπείας και αλληλοβοήθειας- ακόμα και αν απορρίπτουμε την κατεύθυνση του συμβιβασμού και της προσαρμογής που παράγουν αντίστοιχες φιλελεύθερες θεραπευτικές πρακτικές με μόνο σκοπό το χτίσιμο μιας εξαγοράσιμης αυτό-εκτίμησης.

Η κατάληξη αυτού που προτείνουμε είναι η δημιουργία μιας ομάδας συνάφειας η οποία όμως είναι εστιασμένη περισσότερο στην αλλαγή θέασης των πραγμάτων και την ανάλυση παρά στην δράση- αν και πρέπει να αναγνωρίσουμε πως η νέα αντίληψη που θα αναδειχθεί πρέπει να πραγματωθεί σε κάποιου είδους δράσης γιατί αλλιώς θα αποκρυσταλλωθεί σε ένα είδος απογοητευτικής ενδοσκόπησης.

Η στρατηγική που προτείνουμε μπορεί να βοηθήσει τις πρακτικές μας με πολλούς τρόπους. Πρώτον, τέτοιου είδους ομάδες μπορούν να δημιουργήσουν δεξαμενές εν δυνάμει συνεργών. Δεύτερον, μπορούν να ετοιμάσουν ανθρώπους για μελλοντικές εξεγερσιακές στιγμές. Τρίτον, δημιουργούν την δυνατότητα μεταστροφής της «κοινής γνώμης» προς κατευθύνσεις που επιτρέπουν την ανάληψη δράσης. Οι ομάδες αυτές επίσης λειτουργούν σαν συστήματα που υποβοηθούν το σύνολο της ζωής μας, σαν χώροι όπου ξεφεύγουμε από τον βυθό του ατομικισμού μας και επιστρέφουμε στο υπαρκτό, κοινό μας παρόν. Προσφέρουν επίσης μια ικανότητα κατανόησης και έκφρασης των ριζοσπαστικών κινηματικών θεωρήσεων που απουσιάζει από τους περισσότερους ανθρώπους σήμερα.

Μια άλλη θεωρία σχετικά με το άγχος που απορρέει από την ψυχανάλυση του Φρόιντ και του Λακάν, υποστηρίζει ότι οι άνθρωποι γίνονται αγχώδεις όταν στερούνται το Συμβολικό και το Υπερεγώ. Στην πραγματική της μορφή αυτή η θεωρία είναι συντηρητική και εξουσιαστική αφού υποστηρίζει ότι οι άνθρωποι γίνονται αγχώδεις όταν δεν έχουν κάποιο αφεντικό πάνω από το κεφάλι τους. Αυτό φυσικά στην εποχή μας δεν βγάζει και πολύ νόημα, γιατί η εξουσία ενδυναμώνεται από την ίδια την επισφάλεια που μας επιβάλλει. Παρόλα αυτά, σε κάποιο βαθμό, μπορούμε να βρούμε εκλάμψεις αλήθειας σε αυτή την θεώρηση. Το άγχος γίνεται πιο έντονο από το γεγονός ότι ποτέ δεν μας γίνεται ξεκάθαρο τί ζητά η αγορά από εμάς. Η απαίτηση για συμβιβασμό και προσαρμοστικότητα συνδέεται με ένα ασαφές σύνολο κριτηρίων που δεν μπορεί να καθοριστεί εκ των προτέρων. Ακόμα και οι πιο συμβιβασμένοι κομφορμιστές είναι άμεσα αντικαταστάσιμοι στην εποχή μας, καθώς η παλιά θεσούλα σου στην δουλειά εξαφανίζεται μέσα σε μια μέρα όταν νέες τεχνολογίες και μηχανισμοί διαχείρισης του εργατικού δυναμικού εμφανίζονται καθημερινά.

Το σύστημα μοιάζει να μην έχει καμία άλλη αναφορά παρά μόνο τον εαυτό του. Έχει μετατραπεί σε μια ταυτολογία- παραγωγή προς όφελος της παραγωγής. Με αυτό τον τρόπο αναπαράγει τον εαυτό του με μοναδικό σκοπό να συνεχίσει να αναπτύσσεται, έχοντας όλο και λιγότερες αναφορές στις πραγματικές ανάγκες μας, παράγοντας όλο και λιγότερο χρήσιμα προϊόντα και καλύπτοντας όλο και λιγότερες από τις ουσιαστικές επιθυμίες μας.

Μια γενικευμένη αδυναμία του να καταλάβουμε τί μας συμβαίνει και τί μας περιμένει είναι που πυροδοτεί το άγχος μέσα σε όλους μας. Μια από τις λειτουργίες της μικρής ομάδας συνεύρεσης, συζήτησης και συνειδητοποίησης των πραγμάτων είναι ακριβώς ότι μπορεί να μας δώσει την ευκαιρία να μοιραστούμε τα συμπεράσματα των βαθύτερων σκέψεων και της προσωπικής μας ενδοσκόπησης, να ερμηνεύσουμε μαζί την κατάσταση που βρεθήκαμε να ζούμε. Υπό κάποια λογική αυτός είναι ο τρόπος να παρέχουμε ένα μη-ιεραρχικό Συμβολικό πεδίο παρόμοιο με αυτό των ιθαγενικών πληθυσμών και της οικονομίας του δώρου. Ο τρόπος για να γίνει όμως κάτι τέτοιο, δυστυχώς, δεν μπορεί να προκαθοριστεί.

Ένα μεγάλο πρόβλημα είναι πως πολύ δύσκολα μπορεί να διατηρηθεί ένας ρυθμός συχνών συναντήσεων και ομαδικής δέσμευσης σε ένα πιεστικό περιβάλλον άστατων και εντατικών ωραρίων. Ακόμα και η ίδια η απόφαση να διαθέσεις ένα μέρος του χρόνου σου για μια τέτοια ομάδα, στην εποχή μας απαιτεί μια δραστική αποπροσκόλληση από τους γρήγορους ρυθμούς της ζωής μας. Η διαδικασίες μιας τέτοιας ομάδας έχουν πιο αργό βηματισμό και ανθρώπινα μέτρα και σταθμά, πράγματα που δεν είναι πολιτισμικά αποδεκτά στην εποχή μας. Παρόλα αυτά, το γεγονός ότι τέτοιες ομάδες μπορούν να προσφέρουν μια ανάπαυλα από τον αγώνα της καθημερινής επιβίωσης και ίσως έναν πιο χαλαρό και ευχάριστο τρόπο συναναστροφής που ανακουφίζει την ένταση και τα πιεστικά συναισθήματα, μπορεί να κάνει αυτές τις συναντήσεις πιο θελκτικές.  Οι συμμετέχοντες πρέπει να μάθουν να μιλάνε με τρόπο που θα εκφράζει την αλήθεια τους, εν αντιθέσει με τους προσποιητούς νεοφιλελεύθερους τρόπους επικοινωνίας που προκύπτουν από τον εξαναγκασμό να μοιραζόμαστε μπανάλ πληροφορίες και τοξικά σχόλια μεταξύ μας.

Ένα άλλο πρόβλημα είναι η πολυπλοκότητα των βιωμάτων μας. Η οργανωμένη παραγωγή ατομικών εμπειριών μέσα από δομημένες συνθήκες είναι πιο διαμεσολαβημένη παρά ποτέ. Ο καπιταλιστικός κώδικας παραγωγής σημασιών δημιουργεί άπειρες, επίπλαστες μικροδιαφορές μεταξύ μας. Αυτός είναι ο βασικός λόγος που έχει τόσο μεγάλη σημασία να συζητάμε και να αναλύουμε τον κόσμο σε ομαδικές συναντήσεις και όχι αποκομμένοι από τους άλλους, ο καθένας μόνος του.

Στο σύνολο της μια τέτοια διαδικασία πρέπει να μπορεί να προτείνει νέες θεωρήσεις για τα πραγματικά αίτια του άγχους που έχει κατακλίσει όλους μας. Οι προτάσεις και οι θεωρήσεις που θα προκύψουν μπορούν να αποτελέσουν μια βάση για νέες μορφές αγώνα, και στο βαθμό που μπορούν να αντιμετωπίσουν την παρούσα καταπιεστική συνθήκη, να αναζωογονήσουν την ενεργή συμμετοχή και δράση όλων μας. Είναι πιθανό μέσα από τους νέους μηχανισμούς καταπολέμησης του άγχους να αναπτυχθούν και ανάλογες νέες τακτικές αγώνα ή ίσως να μας βοηθήσουν να εξελίξουμε τις υπάρχουσες τακτικές με τρόπους ώστε να γίνουν πιο επιδραστικές. Όποιο από τα δύο και αν συμβεί, ο στόχος μας πρέπει να είναι να σπάσουμε την αδράνεια και την υποταγή στην οποία έχουμε εγκλωβιστεί.                               

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The post Γιατί είμαστε όλοι τόσο αγχωμένοι- υπάκουοι και αδρανείς; appeared first on Void Network.

During a particularly polarising election campaign in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, waded into the fray to stir things up even further. From a public podium, he accused the state government – which was led by an opposition party – of pandering to the Muslim community by spending more on Muslim graveyards (kabristans) than on Hindu cremation grounds (shamshans). With his customary braying sneer, in which every taunt and barb rises to a high note mid-sentence before it falls away in a menacing echo, he stirred up the crowd. “If a kabristan is built in a village, a shamshan should also be constructed there,” he said.

“Shamshan! Shamshan!” the mesmerised, adoring crowd echoed back.

Perhaps he is happy now that the haunting image of the flames rising from the mass funerals in India’s cremation grounds is making the front page of international newspapers. And that all the kabristans and shamshans in his country are working properly, in direct proportion to the populations they cater for, and far beyond their capacities.

“Can India, population 1.3 billion, be isolated?” the Washington Post asked rhetorically in a recent editorial about India’s unfolding catastrophe and the difficulty of containing new, fast-spreading Covid variants within national borders. “Not easily,” it replied. It’s unlikely this question was posed in quite the same way when the coronavirus was raging through the UK and Europe just a few months ago. But we in India have little right to take offence, given our prime minister’s words at the World Economic Forum in January this year.

Modi spoke at a time when people in Europe and the US were suffering through the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. He had not one word of sympathy to offer, only a long, gloating boast about India’s infrastructure and Covid-preparedness. I downloaded the speech because I fear that when history is rewritten by the Modi regime, as it soon will be, it might disappear, or become hard to find. Here are some priceless snippets:

“Friends, I have brought the message of confidence, positivity and hope from 1.3 billion Indians amid these times of apprehension … It was predicted that India would be the most affected country from corona all over the world. It was said that there would be a tsunami of corona infections in India, somebody said 700-800 million Indians would get infected while others said 2 million Indians would die.”

“Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.”

Modi the magician takes a bow for saving humanity by containing the coronavirus effectively. Now that it turns out that he has not contained it, can we complain about being viewed as though we are radioactive? That other countries’ borders are being closed to us and flights are being cancelled? That we’re being sealed in with our virus and our prime minister, along with all the sickness, the anti-science, the hatred and the idiocy that he, his party and its brand of politics represent?

When the first wave of Covid came to India and then subsided last year, the government and its supportive commentariat were triumphant. “India isn’t having a picnic,” tweeted Shekhar Gupta, the editor-in-chief of the online news site the Print. “But our drains aren’t choked with bodies, hospitals aren’t out of beds, nor crematoriums & graveyards out of wood or space. Too good to be true? Bring data if you disagree. Unless you think you’re god.” Leave aside the callous, disrespectful imagery – did we need a god to tell us that most pandemics have a second wave?

This one was predicted, although its virulence has taken even scientists and virologists by surprise. So where is the Covid-specific infrastructure and the “people’s movement” against the virus that Modi boasted about in his speech? Hospital beds are unavailable. Doctors and medical staff are at breaking point. Friends call with stories about wards with no staff and more dead patients than live ones. People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood. The forest department has had to give special permission for the felling of city trees. Desperate people are using whatever kindling they can find. Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds. It’s as if there’s an invisible UFO parked in our skies, sucking the air out of our lungs. An air raid of a kind we’ve never known.

Oxygen is the new currency on India’s morbid new stock exchange. Senior politicians, journalists, lawyers – India’s elite – are on Twitter pleading for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. The hidden market for cylinders is booming. Oxygen saturation machines and drugs are hard to come by.

There are markets for other things, too. At the bottom end of the free market, a bribe to sneak a last look at your loved one, bagged and stacked in a hospital mortuary. A surcharge for a priest who agrees to say the final prayers. Online medical consultancies in which desperate families are fleeced by ruthless doctors. At the top end, you might need to sell your land and home and use up every last rupee for treatment at a private hospital. Just the deposit alone, before they even agree to admit you, could set your family back a couple of generations.

None of this conveys the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and, above all, the indignity that people are being subjected to. What happened to my young friend T is just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of similar stories in Delhi alone. T, who is in his 20s, lives in his parents’ tiny flat in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of Delhi. All three of them tested positive for Covid. His mother was critically ill. Since it was in the early days, he was lucky enough to find a hospital bed for her. His father, diagnosed with severe bipolar depression, turned violent and began to harm himself. He stopped sleeping. He soiled himself. His psychiatrist was online trying to help, although she also broke down from time to time because her husband had just died from Covid. She said T’s father needed hospitalisation, but since he was Covid positive there was no chance of that. So T stayed awake, night after night, holding his father down, sponging him, cleaning him up. Each time I spoke to him I felt my own breath falter. Finally, the message came: “Father’s dead.” He did not die of Covid, but of a massive spike in blood pressure induced by a psychiatric meltdown induced by utter helplessness.

What to do with the body? I desperately called everybody I knew. Among those who responded was Anirban Bhattacharya, who works with the well-known social activist Harsh Mander. Bhattacharya is about to stand trial on a charge of sedition for a protest he helped organise on his university campus in 2016. Mander, who has not fully recovered from a savage case of Covid last year, is being threatened with arrest and the closure of the orphanages he runs after he mobilised people against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed in December 2020, both of which blatantly discriminate against Muslims. Mander and Bhattacharya are among the many citizens who, in the absence of all forms of governance, have set up helplines and emergency responses, and are running themselves ragged organising ambulances and coordinating funerals and the transport of dead bodies. It’s not safe for these volunteers to do what they’re doing. In this wave of the pandemic, it’s the young who are falling, who are filling the intensive care units. When young people die, the older among us lose a little of our will to live.

T’s father was cremated. T and his mother are recovering.

Things will settle down eventually. Of course, they will. But we don’t know who among us will survive to see that day. The rich will breathe easier. The poor will not. For now, among the sick and dying, there is a vestige of democracy. The rich have been felled, too. Hospitals are begging for oxygen. Some have started bring-your-own-oxygen schemes. The oxygen crisis has led to intense, unseemly battles between states, with political parties trying to deflect blame from themselves.

On the night of 22 April, 25 critically ill coronavirus patients on high-flow oxygen died in one of Delhi’s biggest private hospitals, Sir Ganga Ram. The hospital issued several desperate SOS messages for the replenishment of its oxygen supply. A day later, the chair of the hospital board rushed to clarify matters: “We cannot say that they have died due to lack of oxygen support.” On 24 April, 20 more patients died when oxygen supplies were depleted in another big Delhi hospital, Jaipur Golden. That same day, in the Delhi high court, Tushar Mehta, India’s solicitor general, speaking for the government of India, said: “Let’s try and not be a cry baby … so far we have ensured that no one in the country was left without oxygen.”

Ajay Mohan Bisht, the saffron-robed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who goes by the name Yogi Adityanath, has declared that there is no shortage of oxygen in any hospital in his state and that rumourmongers will be arrested without bail under the National Security Act and have their property seized.

Yogi Adityanath doesn’t play around. Siddique Kappan, a Muslim journalist from Kerala, jailed for months in Uttar Pradesh when he and two others travelled there to report on the gang-rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Hathras district, is critically ill and has tested positive for Covid. His wife, in a desperate petition to the chief justice of the supreme court of India, says her husband is lying chained “like an animal” to a hospital bed in the Medical College hospital in Mathura. (The supreme court has now ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to move him to a hospital in Delhi.) So, if you live in Uttar Pradesh, the message seems to be, please do yourself a favour and die without complaining.

The threat to those who complain is not restricted to Uttar Pradesh. A spokesperson for the fascist Hindu nationalist organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – of which Modi and several of his ministers are members, and which runs its own armed militia – has warned that “anti-India forces” would use the crisis to fuel “negativity” and “mistrust” and asked the media to help foster a “positive atmosphere”. Twitter has helped them out by deactivating accounts critical of the government.

Where shall we look for solace? For science? Shall we cling to numbers? How many dead? How many recovered? How many infected? When will the peak come? On 27 April, the report was 323,144 new cases, 2,771 deaths. The precision is somewhat reassuring. Except – how do we know? Tests are hard to come by, even in Delhi. The number of Covid-protocol funerals from graveyards and crematoriums in small towns and cities suggest a death toll up to 30 times higher than the official count. Doctors who are working outside the metropolitan areas can tell you how it is.

If Delhi is breaking down, what should we imagine is happening in villages in Bihar, in Uttar Pradesh, in Madhya Pradesh? Where tens of millions of workers from the cities, carrying the virus with them, are fleeing home to their families, traumatised by their memory of Modi’s national lockdown in 2020. It was the strictest lockdown in the world, announced with only four hours’ notice. It left migrant workers stranded in cities with no work, no money to pay their rent, no food and no transport. Many had to walk hundreds of miles to their homes in far-flung villages. Hundreds died on the way.

This time around, although there is no national lockdown, the workers have left while transport is still available, while trains and buses are still running. They’ve left because they know that even though they make up the engine of the economy in this huge country, when a crisis comes, in the eyes of this administration, they simply don’t exist. This year’s exodus has resulted in a different kind of chaos: there are no quarantine centres for them to stay in before they enter their village homes. There’s not even the meagre pretence of trying to protect the countryside from the city virus.

These are villages where people die of easily treatable diseases like diarrhoea and tuberculosis. How are they to cope with Covid? Are Covid tests available to them? Are there hospitals? Is there oxygen? More than that, is there love? Forget love, is there even concern? There isn’t. Because there is only a heart-shaped hole filled with cold indifference where India’s public heart should be.

Early this morning, on 28 April, news came that our friend Prabhubhai has died. Before he died, he showed classic Covid symptoms. But his death will not register in the official Covid count because he died at home without a test or treatment. Prabhubhai was a stalwart of the anti-dam movement in the Narmada valley. I stayed several times at his home in Kevadia, where decades ago the first group of indigenous tribespeople were thrown off their lands to make room for the dam-builders and officers’ colony. Displaced families like Prabhubhai’s still remain on the edges of that colony, impoverished and unsettled, transgressors on land that was once theirs.

There is no hospital in Kevadia. There’s only the Statue of Unity, built in the likeness of the freedom fighter and first deputy prime minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who the dam is named after. At 182 metres high, it’s the tallest statue in the world and cost US$422m. High-speed elevators inside take tourists up to view the Narmada dam from the level of Sardar Patel’s chest. Of course, you cannot see the river valley civilisation that lies destroyed, submerged in the depths of the vast reservoir, or hear the stories of the people who waged one of the most beautiful, profound struggles the world has ever known – not just against that one dam, but against the accepted ideas of what constitutes civilisation, happiness and progress. The statue was Modi’s pet project. He inaugurated it in October 2018.

The friend who messaged about Prabhubhai had spent years as an anti-dam activist in the Narmada valley. She wrote: “My hands shiver as I write this. Covid situation in and around Kevadia Colony grim.”

The precise numbers that make up India’s Covid graph are like the wall that was built in Ahmedabad to hide the slums Donald Trump would drive past on his way to the “Namaste Trump” event that Modi hosted for him in February 2020. Grim as those numbers are, they give you a picture of the India-that-matters, but certainly not the India that is. In the India that is, people are expected to vote as Hindus, but die as disposables.

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Try not to pay attention to the fact that the possibility of a dire shortage of oxygen had been flagged as far back as April 2020, and then again in November by a committee set up by the government itself. Try not to wonder why even Delhi’s biggest hospitals don’t have their own oxygen-generating plants. Try not to wonder why the PM Cares Fund – the opaque organisation that has recently replaced the more public Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, and which uses public money and government infrastructure but functions like a private trust with zero public accountability – has suddenly moved in to address the oxygen crisis. Will Modi own shares in our air-supply now?

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Understand that there were and are so many far more pressing issues for the Modi government to attend to. Destroying the last vestiges of democracy, persecuting non-Hindu minorities and consolidating the foundations of the Hindu Nation makes for a relentless schedule. There are massive prison complexes, for example, that must be urgently constructed in Assam for the 2 million people who have lived there for generations and have suddenly been stripped of their citizenship. (On this matter, our independent supreme court came down hard on the side of the government and leniently on the side of the vandals.)

There are hundreds of students and activists and young Muslim citizens to be tried and imprisoned as the primary accused in the anti-Muslim pogrom that took place against their own community in north-east Delhi last March. If you are Muslim in India, it’s a crime to be murdered. Your folks will pay for it. There was the inauguration of the new Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which is being built in place of the mosque that was hammered to dust by Hindu vandals watched over by senior BJP politicians. (On this matter, our independent supreme court came down hard on the side of the government and the vandals.) There were the controversial new Farm Bills to be passed, corporatising agriculture. There were hundreds of thousands of farmers to be beaten and teargassed when they came out on to the streets to protest.

Then there’s the multi-multi-multimillion-dollar plan for a grand new replacement for the fading grandeur of New Delhi’s imperial centre to be urgently attended to. After all, how can the government of the new Hindu India be housed in old buildings? While Delhi is locked down, ravaged by the pandemic, construction work on the “Central Vista” project, declared as an essential service, has begun. Workers are being transported in. Maybe they can alter the plans to add a crematorium.

There was also the Kumbh Mela to be organised, so that millions of Hindu pilgrims could crowd together in a small town to bathe in the Ganges and spread the virus even-handedly as they returned to their homes across the country, blessed and purified. This Kumbh rocks on, although Modi has gently suggested that it might be an idea for the holy dip to become “symbolic” – whatever that means. (Unlike what happened with those who attended a conference for the Islamic organisation Tablighi Jamaat last year, the media has not run a campaign against them calling them “corona jihadis” or accusing them of committing crimes against humanity.) There were also those few thousand Rohingya refugees who had to be urgently deported back to the genocidal regime in Myanmar from where they had fled – in the middle of a coup. (Once again, when our independent supreme court was petitioned on this matter, it concurred with the government’s view.)

So, as you can tell, it’s been busy, busy, busy.

Over and above all this urgent activity, there is an election to be won in the state of West Bengal. This required our home minister, Modi’s man Amit Shah, to more or less abandon his cabinet duties and focus all his attention on Bengal for months, to disseminate his party’s murderous propaganda, to pit human against human in every little town and village. Geographically, West Bengal is a small state. The election could have taken place in a single day, and has done so in the past. But since it is new territory for the BJP, the party needed time to move its cadres, many of who are not from Bengal, from constituency to constituency to oversee the voting. The election schedule was divided into eight phases, spread out over a month, the last on 29 April. As the count of corona infections ticked up, the other political parties pleaded with the election commission to rethink the election schedule. The commission refused and came down hard on the side of the BJP, and the campaign continued. Who hasn’t seen the videos of the BJP’s star campaigner, the prime minister himself, triumphant and maskless, speaking to the maskless crowds, thanking people for coming out in unprecedented numbers? That was on 17 April, when the official number of daily infections was already rocketing upward of 200,000.

Now, as voting closes, Bengal is poised to become the new corona cauldron, with a new triple mutant strain known as – guess what – the “Bengal strain”. Newspapers report that every second person tested in the state capital, Kolkata, is Covid positive. The BJP has declared that if it wins Bengal, it will ensure people get free vaccines. And if it doesn’t?

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Anyway, what about the vaccines? Surely they’ll save us? Isn’t India a vaccine powerhouse? In fact, the Indian government is entirely dependent on two manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. Both are being allowed to roll out two of the most expensive vaccines in the world, to the poorest people in the world. This week they announced that they will sell to private hospitals at a slightly elevated price, and to state governments at a somewhat lower price. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the vaccine companies are likely to make obscene profits.

Under Modi, India’s economy has been hollowed out, and hundreds of millions of people who were already living precarious lives have been pushed into abject poverty. A huge number now depend for survival on paltry earnings from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which was instituted in 2005 when the Congress party was in power. It is impossible to expect that families on the verge of starvation will pay most of a month’s income to have themselves vaccinated. In the UK, vaccines are free and a fundamental right. Those trying to get vaccinated out of turn can be prosecuted. In India, the main underlying impetus of the vaccination campaign seems to be corporate profit.

As this epic catastrophe plays out on our Modi-aligned Indian television channels, you’ll notice how they all speak in one tutored voice. The “system” has collapsed, they say, again and again. The virus has overwhelmed India’s health care “system”.

The system has not collapsed. The “system” barely existed. The government – this one, as well as the Congress government that preceded it – deliberately dismantled what little medical infrastructure there was. This is what happens when a pandemic hits a country with an almost nonexistent public healthcare system. India spends about 1.25% of its gross domestic product on health, far lower than most countries in the world, even the poorest ones. Even that figure is thought to be inflated, because things that are important but do not strictly qualify as healthcare have been slipped into it. So the real figure is estimated to be more like 0.34%. The tragedy is that in this devastatingly poor country, as a 2016 Lancet study shows, 78% of the healthcare in urban areas and 71% in rural areas is now handled by the private sector. The resources that remain in the public sector are systematically siphoned into the private sector by a nexus of corrupt administrators and medical practitioners, corrupt referrals and insurance rackets.

Healthcare is a fundamental right. The private sector will not cater to starving, sick, dying people who don’t have money. This massive privatisation of India’s healthcare is a crime.

The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity. Virologists predict that the number of cases in India will grow exponentially to more than 500,000 a day. They predict the death of many hundreds of thousands in the coming months, perhaps more. My friends and I have agreed to call each other every day just to mark ourselves present, like roll call in our school classrooms. We speak to those we love in tears, and with trepidation, not knowing if we will ever see each other again. We write, we work, not knowing if we will live to finish what we started. Not knowing what horror and humiliation awaits us. The indignity of it all. That is what breaks us.

The hashtag #ModiMustResign is trending on social media. Some of the memes and illustrations show Modi with a heap of skulls peeping out from behind the curtain of his beard. Modi the Messiah speaking at a public rally of corpses. Modi and Amit Shah as vultures, scanning the horizon for corpses to harvest votes from. But that is only one part of the story. The other part is that the man with no feelings, the man with empty eyes and a mirthless smile, can, like so many tyrants in the past, arouse passionate feelings in others. His pathology is infectious. And that is what sets him apart. In north India, which is home to his largest voting base, and which, by dint of sheer numbers, tends to decide the political fate of the country, the pain he inflicts seems to turn into a peculiar pleasure.

Fredrick Douglass said it right: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” How we in India pride ourselves on our capacity to endure. How beautifully we have trained ourselves to meditate, to turn inward, to exorcise our fury as well as justify our inability to be egalitarian. How meekly we embrace our humiliation.

When he made his political debut as Gujarat’s new chief minister in 2001, Modi ensured his place in posterity after what has come to be known as the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Over a period of a few days, Hindu vigilante mobs, watched over and sometimes actively assisted by the Gujarat police, murdered, raped and burned alive thousands of Muslims as “revenge” for a gruesome arson attack on a train in which more than 50 Hindu pilgrims had been burned alive. Once the violence subsided, Modi, who had until then only been appointed as chief minister by his party, called for early elections. The campaign in which he was portrayed as Hindu Hriday Samrat (“The Emperor of Hindu Hearts”) won him a landslide victory. Modi hasn’t lost an election since.

Several of the killers in the Gujrat pogrom were subsequently captured on camera by the journalist Ashish Khetan, boasting of how they hacked people to death, slashed pregnant women’s stomachs open and smashed infants’ heads against rocks. They said they could only have done what they did because Modi was their chief minister. Those tapes were broadcast on national TV. While Modi remained in the seat of power, Khetan, whose tapes were submitted to the courts and forensically examined, appeared as a witness on several occasions. Over time, some of the killers were arrested and imprisoned, but many were let off. In his recent book, Undercover: My Journey Into the Darkness of Hindutva, Khetan describes in detail how, during Modi’s tenure as chief minister, the Gujarat police, judges, lawyers, prosecutors and inquiry committees all colluded to tamper with evidence, intimidate witnesses and transfer judges.

Despite knowing all this, many of India’s so-called public intellectuals, the CEOs of its major corporations and the media houses they own, worked hard to pave the way for Modi to become the prime minister. They humiliated and shouted down those of us who persisted in our criticism. “Move on”, was their mantra. Even today, they mitigate their harsh words for Modi with praise for his oratory skills and his “hard work”. Their denunciation and bullying contempt for politicians in opposition parties is far more strident. They reserve their special scorn for Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, the only politician who has consistently warned of the coming Covid crisis and repeatedly asked the government to prepare itself as best it could. To assist the ruling party in its campaign to destroy all opposition parties amounts to colluding with the destruction of democracy.

So here we are now, in the hell of their collective making, with every independent institution essential to the functioning of a democracy compromised and hollowed out, and a virus that is out of control.

The crisis-generating machine that we call our government is incapable of leading us out of this disaster. Not least because one man makes all the decisions in this government, and that man is dangerous – and not very bright. This virus is an international problem. To deal with it, decision-making, at least on the control and administration of the pandemic, will need to pass into the hands of some sort of non-partisan body consisting of members of the ruling party, members of the opposition, and health and public policy experts.

As for Modi, is resigning from your crimes a feasible proposition? Perhaps he could just take a break from them – a break from all his hard work. There’s that $564m Boeing 777, Air India One, customised for VVIP travel – for him, actually – that’s been sitting idle on the runway for a while now. He and his men could just leave. The rest of us will do all we can to clean up their mess.

No, India cannot be isolated. We need help.

_______

Arundhati Roy

source: https://www.theguardian.com/

The post Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe: ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’ appeared first on Void Network.

Mοιάζει με φυσικό νόμο. Όσο η καθεστηκυία τάξη απαξιώνεται, τόσο οπλίζει την αστυνομία. Όσο οι θεσμοί συρρικνώνονται, τόσο βάζουν φύλακες. Όσο μειώνεται ο σεβασμός τον οποίο εμπνέουν οι αρχές, τόσο προσπαθούν να μας τον επιβάλλουν με τη βία. Είναι φαύλος κύκλος, γιατί η βία δεν είναι καθόλου σεβαστή. Κι έτσι η αύξηση της αχαλίνωτης βίας συνεπάγεται την όλο και λιγότερη αποτελεσματικότητά της. Η διατήρηση της τάξης είναι το κύριο μέλημα μιας ήδη χρεοκοπημένης τάξης. Αρκεί να μπει κανείς στο Ταμείο Πρόνοιας για να διαπιστώσει τι είναι αυτό που δεν πάει άλλο.Όταν μία τόσο ακίνδυνη υπηρεσία θεωρεί ότι, για να προστατευθεί από τους πολίτες, πρέπει να περιστοιχιστεί από τόσους φύλακες, τεχνάσματα και απειλές, ώστε τελικά να μοιάζει με καφκαϊκό πύργο, σημαίνει ότι ο ορθολογισμός έχει αγγίξει τα όριά του. Όταν η τάξη και η ασφάλεια στις διαδηλώσεις επιβάλλονται μόνο με χειροβομβίδες διασποράς και κλοιούς, και όταν οι διαδηλωτές τρέχουν πανικόβλητοι να γλιτώσουν τα πράσινα λέιζερ των LBD 40 της αντι- εγκληματικής που τους βάζει στο στόχαστρο, σημαίνει ότι «η κοινωνία» βρίσκεται σε τελικό στάδιο. Όταν η ηρεμία στα υποβαθμισμένα προάστια κερδίζεται με την αγορά αυτόματων όπλων για τα ΜΑΤ, σημαίνει ότι μια κάποια αντίληψη για τον κόσμο έχει ξεθωριάσει. Για ένα «δημοκρατικό» καθεστώς δεν είναι καλό σημάδι να συνηθίζει να πυροβολεί τους πολίτες του. Αφού εδώ και καιρό, σε όλους τους τομείς, η πολιτική έχει περιοριστεί σε μια απέραντη αστυνομική επιχείρηση, η οποία εκτυλίσσεται ημέρα με την ημέρα, αναπόφευκτα η αστυνομία έχει γίνει πολιτικό ζήτημα.

Ας πάμε όμως μερικούς μήνες πίσω. Μετά την εφαρμογή της κατάστασης έκτακτης ανάγκης, μετά το νομοσχέδιο για την απώλεια της γαλλικής υπηκοότητας, μετά τον νόμο περί Καταθέσεως Πληροφοριών, μετά τον νόμο Μακρόν, μετά τη δολοφονία του Ρεμί Φρες, μετά το ταμείο Credit d’Impot pour la Competitivite et I’Emploi (Μείωσης Φόρου για τον Ανταγωνισμό και την Εργασία) και τα εκατομμύρια που χαρίζει στους εργοδότες, ο Εργασιακός νόμος καταρράκωσε εντελώς το ηθικό του «λαού της Αριστεράς», ο οποίος βρισκόταν ήδη στο χείλος του γκρεμού. Αυτό που η εξουσία δεν μπορούσε να καταλάβει είναι ότι η πλήρης απώλεια ελπίδας δημιουργεί τις προϋποθέσεις για μία γνήσια εξέγερση — εκείνη δηλαδή την εξέγερση που δεν ψάχνει στήριγμα σε όσα απορρίπτει αλλά πυροδοτείται από τον ίδιο της τον εαυτό. Αυτό που αποκρυστάλλωσε η πάλη κατά του Εργασιακού νόμου δεν ήταν η μερική απόρριψη μιας καταστροφικής μεταρρύθμισης, αλλά η μαζική απαξίωση του κυβερνητικού μηχανισμού, συμπεριλαμβανομένων και των συνδικάτων.

Δεν είναι τυχαίο ότι στις διαμαρτυρίες κατά της ανάληψης της εξουσίας από τον Τραμπ στην Ουάσιγκτον εμφανίστηκε το πανό της γαλλικής άνοιξης «Να γίνουμε ακυβέρνητοι», το οποίο μεταφράστηκε «Become ungovernable». Αφού σε τελική ανάλυση ο ρόλος της αστυνομίας, εντός του κυβερνητικού μηχανισμού, είναι να διασφαλίζει την ατομική υποταγή και να μετατρέπει τον κόσμο σε πληθυσμό, σε μάζα απολιτικοποιημένη, ανίσχυρη και άρα κυβερνήσιμη, λογικό ήταν η πάλη, η οποία εξέφραζε την άρνηση του να είμαστε κυβερνήσιμοι, να στοχεύσει εξαρχής την αστυνομία και να υιοθετήσει ως δημοφιλέστερο σύνθημα το «Όλοι μισούν την αστυνομία». Το κοπάδι, ξεφεύγοντας από τον βοσκό, δεν θα μπορούσε να βγάλει μεγαλύτερη κραυγή ενότητας. Το μη αναμενόμενο ήταν ότι το σύνθημα, το οποίο πρωτοεμφανίστηκε στις διαδηλώσεις που ξέσπασαν μετά τη δολοφονία του Ρεμί Φρες στη Σιβέν, διένυσε τόσο δρόμο και έφτασε μέχρι το Μπομπινύ όπου, μετά τον βιασμό το Τεό από το γκλομπ ενός αστυνομικού, «νεαροί» το έφτυσαν κατάμουτρα στα ένστολα κτήνη που τους στραβοκοίταγαν πάνω από μια σιδερένια γέφυρα. Το σύνθημα «Όλοι μισούν την αστυνομία» μιλάει για κάτι παραπάνω από την απλή έχθρα προς την αστυνομία.

Στις αρχές του 17ου αιώνα, για τους πρώτους θεωρητικούς της κρατικής κυριαρχίας, η αστυνομία ήταν η συγκρότηση του Κράτους, η ίδια του η μορφή. Την εποχή εκείνη, δεν ήταν ακόμα όργανο στα χέρια του Κράτους, και η Αστυνομική διεύθυνση του Παρισιού δεν είχε καν ιδρυθεί. Κατά τη διάρκεια του 17°’·’και του 18ου αιώνα, η έννοια της «αστυνομίας» ήταν ακόμα πολύ ευρεία: ήταν «ό,τι μπορεί να στολίσει, να δώσει μορφή και λάμψη στην πόλη» (Τυρκέ ντε Μαγιέρν), ήταν «το σύνολο των μέσων που υπηρετούν τη λάμψη ολόκληρου του Κράτους και την ευτυχία των πολιτών στο σύνολό τους» (Χόχενταλ). Ο ρόλος της, έλεγαν, ήταν να «οδηγήσει τον άνθρωπο στην τελειότερη ευδαιμονία που θα μπορούσε να γευθεί στη ζωή ετούτη» (Ντελαμάρ).

Η αστυνομία ήταν υπεύθυνη για την καθαριότητα των δρόμων και την τροφοδοσία των αγορών, για τη δημόσια φωτοδότηση και τη φυλάκιση των αλητών, για την τιμή των δημητριακών και τον καθαρισμό των καναλιών, για την υγιεινή των δημόσιων χώρων και την σύλληψη των ληστών. Ο Φουσέ και ο Βιντόκ δεν της είχαν ακόμα δώσει το σύγχρονο πρόσωπό της. Για να κατανοήσουμε την καθαρά πολιτική διάσταση του ζητήματος της αστυνομίας, πρέπει να δούμε το ταχυδακτυλουργικό κόλπο ανάμεσα στην αστυνομία ως μέσο και την αστυνομία ως σκοπό. Από τη μια είναι η ιδεατή, νόμιμη, φανταστική τάξη του κόσμου —η αστυνομία ως σκοπός— και από την άλλη είναι η πραγματικότητα της τάξης ή μάλλον της αταξίας αυτής. Ο ρόλος της αστυνομίας ως μέσο είναι να λειτουργεί ώστε, εξωτερικά, η αποζητούμενη τάξη να μοιάζει να ισχύει. Η αστυνομία διατηρεί την τάξη με τα όπλα της αταξίας και επιβάλλεται στο ορατό με την αδιόρατη δράση της. Οι καθημερινές της ενέργειες —απάγει, χτυπά, κατασκοπεύει, κλέβει, επιβάλλει, εξαπατά, ψεύδεται, σκοτώνει, οπλοφορεί— καλύπτει όλο το φάσμα της παρανομίας. Άρα, στο βάθος, και η ίδια της η ύπαρξη παραμένει ανομολόγητη.

Επειδή αποτελεί την απόδειξη ότι το πραγματικό δεν είναι το νόμιμο, ότι δεν κυριαρχεί η τάξη, ότι η κοινωνία δεν στέκεται εφόσον δεν στέκεται από μόνη της, η ύπαρξη της αστυνομί­ας απωθείται σε μια άκρη του κόσμου που η σκέψη δεν αγγίζει. Για το κατεστημένο είναι σαν την κηλίδα καταμεσής στο πρόσωπο. Είναι η πραγμάτωση και η μονιμότητα της κατάστασης έκτακτης ανάγκης — κάτι δηλαδή το οποίο κάθε εξουσία θα ήθελε να καταφέρει να κρύψει, αλλά συστηματικά αναγκάζεται να επιδείξει προκειμένου να επιβάλλει τον φόβο.

Εάν η κατάσταση έκτακτης ανάγκης είναι η στιγμιαία άρση του νόμου, που στόχο της έχει να αποκαταστήσει, με τα κατ’ εξοχήν αυθαίρετα και δολοφονικά μέτρα, τις προϋποθέσεις για την κυριαρχία του νόμου, τότε η αστυνομία είναι το απομεινάρι της κατάστασης έκτακτης ανάγκης όταν οι προϋποθέσεις αυτές έχουν πλέον αποκατασταθεί. Στην καθημερινή της λειτουργία, η αστυνομία είναι εκείνο το οποίο παραμένει από την κατάσταση έκτακτης ανάγκης και σε κανονικές συνθήκες. Εξ ου και ο απόκρυφος τρόπος λειτουργίας της. Πάντοτε κρυμμένος, ο αστυνομικός ουρλιάζει στον προσαγόμενο που προβάλλει αντίσταση: «Ο νόμος είμαι εγώ!». Κρυμμένος, ο ματατζής ειρωνεύεται τον σύντροφο που χωρίς λόγο συλλαμβάνει σε μια διαδήλωση: «Ό ,τι θέλω κάνω. Ωραία ε; Σήμερα είναι και για μένα αναρχία!».

Για την πολιτική οικονομία αλλά και για την πληροφορική, η αστυνομία είναι ένα επονείδιστο και ασύλληπτο απομεινάρι, ένα memento mori που τους υπενθυμίζει ότι η τάξη, την οποία θέλουν να την παρουσιάζουν ως φυσική, μόνο φυσική δεν είναι ούτε και θα γίνει ποτέ. Η αστυνομία προστατεύει επομένως μία τάξη φαινομενική, που στο βάθος της δεν είναι παρά αταξία. Είναι η αλήθεια ενός κόσμου βουτηγμένου μες το ψέμα, και άρα προέκταση του ψέματος. Είναι η απόδειξη ότι η τάξη είναι τεχνητή, και αργά ή γρήγορα θα καταστραφεί. Είναι τύχη να ζει κανείς την εποχή που η λειτουργία της αστυνομίας ως αναίσχυντο και αδιάφανο εργαλείο βγαίνει στο φως.

Το ότι οπλισμένοι και κουκουλοφόροι αστυνομικοί σε ασύντακτη φάλαγγα, όπως το περασμένο φθινόπωρο, κατευθύνονται με το πάσο τους προς το Μέγαρο των Ηλυσίων, φωνάζοντας «διεφθαρμένα συνδικάτα» και «οι μασόνοι στη φυλακή», χωρίς κανείς να τολμήσει να μιλήσει για πραξικοπηματική ενέργεια. Το ότι ο εκλεγμένος Αμερικανός πρόεδρος βρίσκεται απέναντι σ’ ένα μεγάλο τμήμα της «κοινότητας πληροφοριών» το οποίο, αφού αναγκάσει σε παραίτηση τον σύμβουλο εθνικής ασφαλείας, στόχο του έχει την πτώση της κυβέρνησης. Το ότι η θανατική ποινή, ενώ έχει καταργηθεί δια νόμου, είναι προφανώς ακόμα σε ισχύ όταν η αστυνομία δρα ενάντια στην «τρομοκρατία». Το ότι, για τις πλέον καταδικαστέες ατασθαλίες της, η αστυνομία έχει σχεδόν κερδίσει την απόλυτη δικαστική ατιμωρησία. Το ότι κάποια σώματα στο εσωτερικό της αστυνομίας, όλο και πιο ανοιχτά, διακηρύσσουν ότι υποστηρίζουν το Εθνικό Μέτωπο. Το ότι, από τα γεγονότα της 18Γ·; Μαΐου του 2016, δεν θυμόμαστε ότι κάποια συνδικάτα αστυνομικών ιδιοποιήθηκαν την Πλατεία της Δημοκρατίας, όπου μέχρι τότε συγκεντρώνονταν οι Όρθιες Νύχτες, για να τα πιουν παρέα με τον Ζιμπέρ Κολλάρ, τον Ερίκ Κιοττί και τη Μαριόν Μαρεσάλ-Λεπέν, αλλά ότι ένα περιπολικό κάηκε δίπλα στο κανάλι Σαιν Μαρτέν. Ορίστε λοιπόν πώς σκιαγραφείται η μεγάλη εκτροπή. Αυτήν σκόπευε να κρύψει το επικοινωνιακό σόου που στήθηκε γύρω από το καμένο αυτοκίνητο. Έπρεπε επίσης να αποφευχθεί να ξεκαρδιστεί ολόκληρη η χώρα, όταν όλη αυτή η επίδειξη ισχύος της αστυνομίας γελοιοποιήθηκε από την ανάρτηση της πινακίδας «ψητό γουρούνι, σερβιρισθείτε ελεύθερα» μπροστά στο φλεγόμενο περιπολικό. Έπρεπε λοιπόν ο υπουργός Εσωτερικών να βιαστεί να εξαγγείλει διώξεις για «απόπειρα ανθρωποκτονίας». Έδιωχνε έτσι το λαϊκό αίσθημα του ακαταμάχητα κωμικού μέσω του φόβου, του κρίσιμου και της εκδικητικότητας. Οι παρεμβάσεις της αστυνομίας είναι επίσης παρεμβάσεις στα αισθήματα. Μια τέτοιου είδους παρέμβαση επιχειρείται κι από τη δικαιοσύνη, που έκτοτε ασχολείται μανιωδώς με τις ακροάσεις των προσαγομένων της επίθεσης στο Κε Βαλμύ. Μετά τον βιασμό του Τεό, ένας αστυνομικός δήλωσε χαλαρά στην εφημερίδα Le Parisien: «Είμαστε συμμορία. Ό ,τι και να γίνει, είμαστε αλληλέγγυοι».

Το σύνθημα «Όλοι μισούν την αστυνομία» δεν εκφράζει μία διαπίστωση, η οποία θα ήταν εσφαλμένη, αλλά ένα συναίσθημα, το οποίο είναι ζωτικό. Το «ρήγμα που μεγαλώνει χρόνο με τον χρόνο» δεν είναι «ανάμεσα στην αστυνομία και τον πληθυσμό», όπως με δειλία φοβούνται κυβερνώντες και δημοσιογράφοι, αλλά ανάμεσα σε όσους —και είναι αναρίθμητοι— έχουν κάθε λόγο να μισούν την αστυνομία και στο φοβισμένο πλήθος όσων σφίγγουν το χέρι των μπάτσων, όταν δεν το φιλάνε. Στην ουσία, στις σχέσεις κυβερνώντων και αστυνομίας διαδραματίζεται μία τεράστια αλλαγή. Για πολύν καιρό, οι δυνάμεις ασφαλείας ήταν κάτι ηλίθιες μαριονέττες, αξιοκαταφρόνητες αλλά βίαιες, που σείονταν ενάντια στους ατίθασους πληθυσμούς. Κάτι μετα­ξύ αλεξιπτωτιστή, αλεξικέραυνου και σάκου του μποξ. Τώρα όμως οι κυβερνώντες έχουν αγγίξει τέτοιο πάτο απαξίωσης, ώστε περιφρονούνται περισσότερο και από την αστυνομία —και αυτή το ξέρει. Το αστυνομικό σώμα, αν και άργησε, κατάλαβε ότι είναι πλέον προϋπόθεση της κυβέρνησης, το κιτ επιβίωσής της, η φορητή της μπουκάλα οξυγόνου. Κι έτσι η σχέση τους αντιστρά­φηκε. Οι κυβερνώντες είναι πια αυτοί που έχουν γί­νει οι κουδουνίστρες της αστυνομίας. Η μόνη επιλογή τους πλέον είναι να τρέχουν στο πλευρό του κάθε γρατζουνισμένου μπάτσου και να υποχωρούν σε κάθε καπρίτσιο του σωματείου τους. Μετά την κατάκτηση του δικαιώματος να σκοτώνουν, την κατάκτηση της ανωνυμίας, της ατιμωρησίας, του πλέον μοντέρνου οπλισμού, τι άλλο τους απομένει να διεκδικήσουν; Άλλωστε, στο αστυνομικό σώμα υπάρχουν ομάδες, οι οποίες έχουν καταλάβει ότι μπορούν να ανοίξουν τα φτερά τους και ονειρεύονται να γίνουν αυτόνομη δύναμη, με δική της πολιτική ατζέντα. Η Ρωσία, στην οποία οι μυστικές υπηρεσίες, η αστυνομία και ο στρατός έχουν ήδη καταλάβει την εξουσία και κυβερνούν τη χώρα για λογαριασμό τους, φαντάζει αληθινός παράδεισος. Η αστυνομία ίσως και να μην είναι σε θέση να αποκτήσει υλική αυτονομία, αυτό όμως δεν την εμποδίζει να βάζει τις σειρήνες της να δηλώνουν, ουρλιάζοντας, την απειλή της πολιτικής της αυτονομίας.

Η αστυνομία βρίσκεται λοιπόν διαιρεμένη σε δύο αντίρροπα ρεύματα. Το ένα, συντηρητικό, «δημοκρατικό», με συνείδηση κρατικού λειτουργού, θέλει να παραμείνει ένα μέσο στην υπηρεσία μιας όλο και λιγότερο αξιοσέβαστης τάξης. Το άλλο βγάζει καπνούς περιμένοντας να μπει στη μάχη, να «καθαρίσει τη λέρα», να μην υπακούει πια σε κανέναν —να γίνει αυτοσκοπός. Τα δύο αυτά ρεύματα θα συμφιλιώνονταν μόνο αν ερχόταν στην εξουσία ένα κόμμα αποφασισμένο να «καθαρίσει τη λέρα» και να υποστηρίξει αδιάσειστα τον αστυνομικό μηχανισμό. Μία τέτοια όμως κυβέρνηση θα ήταν εμφυλιοπολεμική.

Το μόνο που απέμενε στο Κράτος, για να δικαιολογήσει την ύπαρξή του, ήταν η νομιμοποίησή του μέσω των φοβερά δημοκρατικών πλειοψηφικών εκλογών. Κι αυτή όμως η πηγή έχει πλέον στερέψει. Όποιο κι αν είναι το αποτέλεσμα της εκλογικής αναμέτρησης, ακόμα και όταν το ποσοστό δίνει στον νικητή «πολύ μεγάλη ισχύ», οι εκλογές βγάζουν μία ανίσχυρη εξουσία. Τα πάντα συμβαίνουν σαν να μην είχαν γίνει εκλογές. Η μειοψηφία, η οποία κινητοποιήθηκε για να νικήσει ο υποψήφιός της, τον έχει βάλει στο πηδάλιο ενός καραβιού που βυθίζεται. Φαίνεται με τον Τραμπ στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες: η υπόσχεση ότι ξαφνικά θα δημιουργηθεί εθνική ενότητα, γύρισε στο αντίθετό της.

Αφ’ ότου ανέβηκε στην εξουσία, ο υποψήφιος της επιστροφής της τάξης δεν βρίσκεται αντιμέτωπος μόνο με ολόκληρα τμήματα της κοινωνίας, αλλά με ολόκληρα τμήματα του ίδιου του κρατικού μηχανισμού. Τελικά, η υπόσχεση επιστροφής της τάξης εντείνει το χάος.

Σε μία χώρα σαν τη Γαλλία, σε μία χώρα δηλαδή που άνετα μπορεί να αστυνομοκρατείται — αρκεί να μην το λέει ανοιχτά— θα ήταν παράλογο να επιδιώξει κανείς να νικήσει την αστυνομία στρατιωτικά. Στοχεύω έναν ένστολο με μία κοτρόνα δεν είναι το ίδιο με το να αντιμετωπίσω σώμα με σώμα μία ένοπλη δύναμη. Η αστυνομία είναι στόχος και όχι σκοπός, είναι εμπόδιο και όχι αντίπαλος. Όσοι παίρνουν τους μπάτσους για αντίπαλο, απαγορεύουν στον εαυτό τους να ξεπεράσουν το εμπόδιο το οποίο αποτελούν. Για να καταφέρω να τους σαρώσω πρέπει να στοχεύσω μακρύτερα. Απέναντι στην αστυνομία η νίκη θα είναι μόνο πολιτική. Να απο- διοργανώσουμε τις γραμμές της, να της αφαιρέσουμε κάθε νομιμότητα, να την καταστήσουμε αδύναμη, να την κρατήσουμε σε απόσταση, να καταλάβουμε μεγα­λύτερο πεδίο δράσης στον χρόνο που αρμόζει και στους χώρους που ενδείκνυνται: έτσι μονάχα αποθεσμοποιεί- ται η αστυνομία. «Απουσία επαναστατικού κόμματος, πραγματικοί επαναστάτες είναι αυτοί που μάχονται κατά της αστυνομίας». Ας αφουγκραστούμε πόση με­λαγχολία κρύβει αυτή η διαπίστωση του Πιέρ Πεσμώ για το 1968.

Μπορεί για την ώρα, απέναντι στην αστυνομία, οι επαναστάτες να φαίνονται αδύναμοι, άοπλοι, ανοργάνωτοι, φακελωμένοι, το στρατηγικό τους όμως πλεονέκτημα είναι ότι δεν αποτελούν μέσο για κανέναν, ότι δεν υποχρεούνται να διασφαλίσουν καμία τάξη και ότι δεν είναι σώμα. Εμείς οι επαναστάτες δεν έχουμε καμία δέσμευση υπακοής, έχουμε δέσμευση απέναντι σε κάθε είδους σύντροφο, φίλο, δύναμη, περιβάλλον, συμπορευτή, σύμμαχο. Γι’ αυτό και σε ορισμένες αστυνομι­κές παρεμβάσεις είμαστε σε θέση να κάνουμε αισθητή την απειλή ότι η επιχείρηση διασφάλισης της τάξης εν­δέχεται να πυροδοτήσει την ανεξέλεγκτη αταξία. Μετά την αποτυχία εκκένωσης της ZAD στη Νοτρ-Νταμ-ντε- Λαντ, καμία κυβέρνηση δεν διακινδύνευσε να κάνει το ίδιο, όχι επειδή φοβήθηκε να χάσει στρατιωτικά τη μάχη, αλλά επειδή η αντίδραση δεκάδων χιλιάδων συμπαθούντων μπορούσε να αποδειχθεί ανεξέλεγκτη.

Το ότι με μία «εκτροπή» της αστυνομίας ξεσπούν για εβδομάδες ταραχές είναι το ακριβό τίμημα της άδειάς της να ταπεινώνει. Όταν μια παρέμβασή της προκαλεί μάλλον αταξία παρά επιβάλλει την τάξη, αυτό που απειλείται είναι ο ίδιος ο λόγος ύπαρξής της. Και τότε, ή στηλώνει τα πόδια και είναι σαν κόμμα με τα δικά του συμφέροντα ή γυρίζει στο μαντρί. Και στις δύο περιπτώσεις παύει να είναι χρήσιμο μέσο. Έχει αποθεσμοποιηθεί.

Υπάρχει μια κεφαλαιώδης ασυμμετρία μεταξύ αστυνομίας και επαναστατών. Ενώ βρισκόμαστε στο στόχαστρο των επιχειρήσεων της αστυνομίας, οι βλέψεις μας την υπερβαίνουν κατά πολύ. Οι υπερβολικές εξουσίες της αστυνομίας και η πληθωρική αύξηση των τεχνολογικών μέσων ελέγχου δηλώνουν την εφαρμογή μιας νέας τακτικής. Εάν οι επαναστάτες έχουν μόνο δημόσια δράση, είναι καταδικασμένοι είτε στην αδυναμία παρέμβασης είτε στην άμεση καταστολή. Εάν έχουν μόνο συνωμοτική δράση, διευρύνουν μεν το πεδίο παρέμβασής τους, αλλά γίνονται πολύ ευάλωτοι στην καταστολή και πολιτικά ακίνδυνοι. Χρειάζεται επομένως να συνυπάρξουν μαζικότητα και συνωμοτικότητα. Για να οργανωθούμε επαναστατικά, πρέπει να βρούμε μια λεπτή ισορροπία ανάμεσα στο ορατό και το αόρατο, το δημόσιο και το συνωμοτικό, το νόμιμο και το παράνομο. Να αποδεχτούμε ότι η πάλη, στον σημερινό κόσμο, είναι ουσιαστικά εγκληματική, αφού έχουν εγκληματοποιηθεί τα πάντα. Ως και οι στρατευμένοι που ασχολούνται με τους μετανάστες έχουν υιοθετήσει ινδιάνικες τεχνι­κές για να καταφέρουν να ξεφύγουν από την παρακο­λούθηση που υφίστανται και να δράσουν ελεύθερα. Μία επαναστατική δύναμη οικοδομείται μόνο μέσα από τη δικτύωση, με εγγύτητα, έχοντας στήριγμα ακλόνητες φιλίες, καλλιεργώντας φευγαλέα απροσδόκητες σχέσεις ως και στην καρδιά της οργάνωσης του αντιπάλου.

Έτσι ακριβώς συγκροτήθηκαν στη Συρία τα «τανζικιγιάτ», ένα δίκτυο αυτόνομων επαναστατικών πυρήνων, που στη συνέχεια αποτέλεσαν την σπονδυλική στήλη της λαϊκής αυτο-οργάνωσης. Το ίδιο είχαν κάνει κάποτε και τα πρώτα δίκτυα της Αντίστασης. Τόσο στη Συρία όσο και στην Αντίσταση, το στάδιο της διακριτικής, ανώνυμης δράσης των μικρών ομάδων ξεπεράστηκε όταν έθεσαν υπό έλεγχο ολόκληρες γειτονιές, ολόκληρες περιοχές, και οριοθέτησαν ασφαλείς ζώνες.

«Η ζωή είναι στις πράξεις, όχι στον χρόνο», όπως έλεγε κι ο Μανουσιάν.

ΑΟΡΑΤΗ ΕΠΙΤΡΟΠΗ

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Το κείμενο “Όλοι μισούν την αστυνομία” αποτελεί το 6ο κεφάλαιο του βιβλίου της Αόρατης Επιτροπής “ΤΩΡΑ” που έχει εκδοθεί στα Ελληνικά από τις εκδόσεις Opportuna (μετάφραση: Μυρτώ Ραϊς – Ρούλα Δημοπούλου)

The post Όλοι Μισούν την Αστυνομία- Αόρατη Επιτροπή appeared first on Void Network.

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Diagnostic of the Future

Peter Gelderloos

It is no secret that both democracy and capitalism are in crisis. For more than half a century, state planners and their pundits only had to justify democracy as “better than (state) communism.” For the 1990s and most of the ’00s, they didn’t have to offer any justification at all. Democracy was the only possibility imaginable, the teleological destiny of all humankind.

Today, that is no longer the case. On the world stage, democratic institutions of interstate cooperation are in shambles, and the emergence of new alliances and new postures suggests that an alternative is beginning to coalesce. At the level of specific nation-states, the central ground that allowed for a broad social consensus for many decades has all but eroded. There are growing movements on the right to reformulate the social contract—and, at the farthest fringes, to do away with democracy entirely—while the left is preparing a groundswell to renew democracy and smooth out its contradictions by renewing the dream of universal inclusion and equality. Both of these movements suggest that democracy as it currently exists cannot continue.

Meanwhile, the global financial crisis of 2008 has not been resolved, but simply staved off through the massive privatization of public resources and the creation of new, even larger financial bubbles to temporarily absorb excess capital. Capitalism desperately needs a new territory to which to expand. Whatever strategy capitalists adopt will need to offer an exponential growth in profitable investment opportunities and a solution to the mass unemployment that could afflict more than half the global labor force as Artificial Intelligence and robotization renders them redundant.

These two crises are intimately connected. Capitalists will support the governmental models that protect their interests, whereas only the State can open new territories for capital accumulation and quell the resistance that always arises. Pulling at the seams exposed in this interstice, we can begin to conduct a diagnostic of the future that those in power are busily assembling in an attempt to bury the divergent and emancipatory possibilities that lay before us. If we do nothing, this Machine we are fighting will correct its malfunctions. If we analyze those malfunctions and the solutions being proposed, we can act more intelligently. Crisis offers us an opportunity for a revolution that could abolish the State and capitalism, but only if we understand how domination is evolving and set out to block its advance, rather than paving the way for new forms of domination as so many revolutionaries have done in the past.

To accomplish this, we will examine the architecture of the current world system and pinpoint what exactly in this world system is failing. The diagnostic will tease out what capitalism needs to get out of the present crisis and what proposals offer it the most promising horizon, focusing on the possibility of a bioeconomic expansion. In parallel, we will analyze the crisis of democracy, both at the level of the nation-state and the level of interstate, global cooperation, comparing the prospects of fascist, progressive democratic, hybrid, and technocratic solutions to restore social peace and satisfy the needs of capitalists. Within this discussion, we will look at climate change, understanding it as a linchpin that conditions the governmental and economic crises and also suggests—or even requires—a synthesis in the responses to those two crises. Finally, we will address what all this means for us and our possibilities for action.

The Ethno-State

On July 20, 2018, with the signing of the “Jewish nation-state” law, Israel became the first explicit ethno-state. Likud’s actions, and the reactionary coalition they represent, throw into sharp relief the ongoing crisis of democracy.

An ethno-state is a recent reformulation of the sovereign nation-state, that fundamental element of the liberal world order from the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia until today. Ethnos and nation have the same meaning—the former from a Greek root, the latter from a Latin root—so the difference is contextual. From 1648 to 1789, the nation-state evolved into its presently understood form as an institutional complex that purports to give political expression to a nation via the mechanism of representation, as modulated by the Enlightenment worldview and values of legal equality and universal rights.

A reactionary departure from this now dusty model, the ethno-state is a revision of the Enlightenment worldview based on 21st century understandings of the old political terms. In the 17th century, none of the Western nations existed as such; they were still carving themselves out of myriad linguistic and cultural expressions and inventing the social institutions that could assemble the cultural gravity needed to force disparate peoples into a common interclass identity. The most stable proto-nation at the time, the British, was still a hierarchical alliance of several nations. The creators of the nation-state (or interstate) system, those we would anachronistically refer to as the Dutch, were known as the United Provinces or the Low Countries, and what unity they had was based more on shared opposition to the imperial power of Hapsburg Spain than to shared national identity. They did not have a shared language or a shared religion.

Originally, Westphalian sovereignty was a system of segregation and minority rights: strong borders were drawn between political entities, ending the patchwork feudal system in which most land was inalienable and had multiple owners and users. Since feudal rulers had possessions in multiple countries, no country was subject to a uniform political hierarchy. Westphalia cemented such hierarchies, culminating in a supreme ruler in each land, and establishing the religion of the rulers as the religion of the land. However, members of religious minorities still had the right to practice in private as long as they were Catholics, Lutherans, or Calvinists (as only the United Provinces practiced a religious tolerance broad enough to include Anabaptists and Jews). In its inchoate phase, this system used religious identity to perform the segregating function the nation would later play.

As there was yet no science of the nation, the different strategies of nation-building that arose over the next two centuries were initially considered equally valid: the melting pot of the United States, the Enlightenment colonialism of France, the scientific essentialism with which the leading thinkers of academia and government across the Western world attempted to fix ethnicity as a biological reality.

The 21st century reactionary malcontents of the liberal world order appeal to an outdated scientific essentialism to contest the postmodern and transhumanist evolutions of the nation concept. These more adaptable ideological devices pair the increasing global integration of capitalism with a philosophical integration of humankind. The postmodernists unclothed the brute mechanisms of nation-building to portray an alienated sameness that putatively cuts across continents, while the transhumanists adapt liberal values to a cult of the bio-machine, in which the supposed differences between human communities become irrational and an updated, progressive version of Western culture is proposed as the new universal.

Opposing these psycho-economic innovations, the reactionary proponents of the ethno-state use one fundamental pillar of modernity against another, conjuring up a notion of nationality that is simultaneously 19th and 21st century, reviving the white supremacist elements that were always present in Enlightenment thinking, and jettisoning what had been the integrally interconnected element of democratic equality.

In other words, today’s ethno-state isn’t just a reformulation of the classic nation-state: the ethno-state emerges from out the other side of democracy, attempting a break with the old Enlightenment synthesis. Yet, at the same time, the new formulation demands the ethno-state fulfill the ancient putative purpose of the nation-state: to take care of a people and give them political expression. The proponents of the ethno-state judge this task to be more important than what for centuries had been seen as inseparable, concomitant functions within Western thinking: the guarantee of equal rights and democratic participation.

If we look at it clearly, we see that the ethno-state is a reactionary response to a crisis of democracy and the nation-state that is, if not general, certainly global. Noting the first clue that could enable us to identify broader patterns, let us recall that it was the para-institutional left of the alter-globalization movement that first sounded the crisis of the nation-state and called on the State—as it still pathetically calls—to fulfill its duty and take care of its people.

The Israeli state has revealed its willingness to break with democratic equality in order to construct a new synthesis by legislating non-equal rights—explicitly denying Arabs, Muslims, and other non-Jews the right to self-determination or the right to land and housing, and specifically striking even a symbolic commitment to democracy from the language of the new law.

The World System

The period between World War I and World War II represented an interregnum during which the UK fought to retain its dominance in an expiring world system, while Germany and the US vied for the role of architect of a new world system (after the USSR quickly abandoned its meager attempts at a global transformation). As Giovanni Arrighi argues, the 1929 crash marked the terminal crisisof the British system. Since World War II, the US has engineered and led a world system of economic accumulation and interstate cooperation. The ostensible champion of decolonization, itself a nation of former colonies that won their independence, the US won the participation of practically the entire world population in its system by creating the UN and giving all the new nation-states a seat at the table. Through the Bretton Woods Institutions—the International Monetary Fund and later the GATT-cum-WTO—the US improved on the earlier British system and intensified global participation in the capitalist regime by creating a fair set of rules based on the ideology of free trade. The rules were fair insofar as they were supposed to be the same for everyone, in contrast to the earlier colonial system that was explicitly based on supremacy and military might—the sort of naked practices that had been necessary to brutally force the world’s population into a capitalist economy. And the rules were attractive to the dominant players because they removed the obstacles to capital accumulating more capital, so those who had the most would profit the most. Within this diabolical arrangement, the US maintained military superiority—the one element no one talked about equalizing—through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

It might have been an ironclad structure, but power is first and foremost a belief system, and the power of stupidity is such that nothing in the world is foolproof. We should never expect the State to be above the effects of stupidity; on multiple levels, the State is the institutionalization of human stupidity. Real wisdom never needed a State.

With such exceptional power, the US ruling class felt that they were above their own rules. It was the US, and especially its reactionaries, that sabotaged the UN, the WTO, and NATO. Of the three, the hamstringing of the UN was the most cooperative venture, involving Democrats and Republicans in near equal measure, though the Democrats did a better job of making the UN feel appreciated even as they prevented it from carrying out its mission in Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, South Africa, and above all, Israel.

It is fitting that the new synthesis that could sound the death knell for the US world system should find its first manifestation in Israel, its most costly ally and inopportune beneficiary. More than any other bloody client state, it was Israel’s aggressive use of US support that turned the UN into a paper tiger incapable of addressing the most flagrant injustices in the world. Nor was this a necessary price to pay in order to achieve Machiavellian geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arabic states have proven more reliable allies, with more natural resources, than tiny, belligerent, destabilizing Israel. It is possible that this disastrous alliance is less the result of strategic thinking than of white supremacist and Christian thinking—the identification of the US political class with a Judeo-Christian culture. Israeli white supremacy is much more developed than Saudi white supremacy. Not through any fault of the Saudis, who don’t hold back in abusing and exploiting their own racialized underclasses, but because, a thousand years after the Crusades, Westerners still view Arabs and Muslims as a threat.

Granted, with more military aid per capita than any other country in the world (and the highest military expenditures per square kilometer), Israel has been highly useful to NATO as a military laboratory developing techniques not only for interstate warfare but also intra-state warfare of the kind most relevant to the likes of the US, the UK, and France: gated communities defending themselves against racialized ghettos. But other countries could have also served that role in a way that didn’t destabilize a geopolitical hotspot.

World systems always fluctuate and eventually come to an end. The patterns of these changes are useful areas of study. Up until now, successive world systems have shown an alternation between expansion and intensification. The Dutch-led cycle of accumulation represented an intensification of modes of colonial exploitation. That exploitation had already been spread throughout the Indian Ocean and as far as South America by the Portuguese and the Castillian-Genovese partnership, but the Dutch perfected the scorched earth engineering of new economies and new societies.

The British-led cycle of accumulation represented a geographical expansion that saw colonialism (still using what were largely Dutch economic and political models) absorb every last corner of the globe. And the US-led cycle of accumulation represented an intensification of capitalist and interstate relations that had obtained under the previous cycle, as colonies liberated themselves, politically, in order to participate more fully in Western capitalism and global democratic structures.

The accelerating pace of these changes suggests that we are due for a new cycle of accumulation. Arrighi hypothesized that the 1973 petroleum crisis was the signal crisis of the US cycle, signaling the switch from industrial to financial expansion and thus the inflating of a massive bubble, which should make the 2008 recession the terminal crisis. The apparent end of US hegemony, which future historians may date to 2018 unless 2020 brings extreme changes, suggests we may already be in the interregnum. Signs of this include Palestine’s declaration, after the US embassy move to Jerusalem, that there was no place for the US in future peace negotiations; declarations that the EU is prepared to make do without close cooperation from the US; the expanding role of China in geopolitics through the Belt and Road Initiative; the launching of the Transpacific Partnership—the largest free trade area in the world—without the US; and finally the diplomatic end run that North Korea performed around the US, through bilateral negotiations with South Korea and China, and then negotiations with the US in which the latter had no leverage, effectively destroying the most effective international consensus and embargo on the North that the US had ever orchestrated.

Democracy, as the ideology underpinning the US-led world system, is in crisis because US hegemony is in crisis, and it is also in crisis because it is failing to deliver the political expression that will suffice to keep world populations integrated into a single economic and interstate system, from Greece to Hungary to Myanmar.

The reactionary coalition that was created by Netanyahu—not by Trump—does not represent the only way forward from liberal democracy. But the fact that an important state, followed by a growing body of others, is breaking apart an old and hallowed synthesis—turning the nation-state against universal equality—is incontrovertible evidence that the world system that has governed us up until now is falling apart.

The Reactionary Right

As political labels, left and right refer originally to the left and right benches of the Estates General at the beginning of the French Revolution, with different political tendencies clustering together in different rows. Properly speaking, anarchists have never belonged to the left, unless we count those shameful moments when a part of the movement joined the Bolsheviks in Russia or the Republican government in Spain. Rather than exemplars of effective anarchist action, these were mediocre opportunists and possibilists who were unable to temper the authoritarian tendencies of their erstwhile allies nor even to save their own sorry hides.

Nonetheless, anarchists have always participated in revolutionary movements and been staunch enemies to reactionary movements, and as such we have often found a great deal of affinity with the base—not in the leadership—of the left-wing organizations. The very first anarchists to take that name were those enragés of the French Revolution who were too irresponsible to join the Jacobins and Girondins in their power politics, sordid alliances, stifling bureaucracies, and massacres of the peasants on behalf of the bourgeoisie.

In this historical framing, the right is certainly the most repugnant arm of government, but not necessarily the most dangerous for the people at the bottom. In the case of the French Revolution, yes, the peasants were starving under the monarchy, but they were massacred by the Jacobins, and eventually stripped of the commons forever by various brands of progressive liberals.

Of all the tendencies of power, the reactionary right has been the least perspicacious in anticipating the changing winds of fortune. Every progressive change in the organization of global capitalism and the interstate system has taken much more from the Left than from the Right, but this does not mean the right is irrelevant. It is not forward thinking, it can even be described as the part of the ruling class that doesn’t have any good ideas, but the conflicts that the right has pushed past the social boiling point time and again generally shape, if negatively, the regime to come. The future has rarely belonged to the Napoleons and the Hitlers, but they have left their bloody mark, decimating the underclasses and the social struggles of their times. And when the left has been most successful at engineering new, more effective regimes of domination and exploitation, it has been by co-opting the survival responses of the underclasses and smothering the most radical elements in progressive alliances that seemed to be necessary at the time to ensure survival in the face of right-wing assaults.

If the Future is a Machine for bending unknown outcomes in the interests of those who dominate a society, this interplay between Right and Left has long been one of its principal engines.

A historical analysis makes it clear that changes to models of government and exploitation do not occur in one country alone, but rather always in response to dynamics that have been global for centuries now.

The same is true of a new iteration of the reactionary right that across the center of the expiring world system—the anachronistic West—has found common ground in articulating the ethno-state program. Those who follow trends in neo-fascism have traced the international reach of this idea, but they have seldom enunciated the prime role occupied by the Israeli Right, an omission that is no longer tenable since the new law of July 20. The blind spot regarding Israel was ideologically inscribed, given the weight the German Left—influenced by the pro-Israel anti-Deutsch ideology—has had in the articulation of contemporary anti-fascism. But more on that later.

Netanyahu’s Likud party is the leader of a new coalition that includes Hungary under Orban, governing since 2010, Poland, firmly right-wing since 2015, and the new far-right coalition that governs Austria since late 2017.

This political alliance concludes one of the most sterile debates of the 20th century, the one regarding Zionism, in which its many Jewish critics (such as Arendt, Chomsky, and Finkelstein) were delegitimized with that contrived caricature, “the self-hating Jew.” Now that the defenders of Zionism no longer seek to justify their racist project in democratic terms, it is also becoming clear that it is the Israeli Right, not the Jewish Left, that has a politically expedient tolerance for anti-Semitism. Orban has not only made anti-Semitic comments about George Soros, he and his base regularly honor the Nazi collaborators that used to rule Hungary; Poland’s right-wing government recently made Holocaust denial obligatory, criminalizing any mention of the fact of Poland’s complicity with the Holocaust; and Austrian Chancellor Kurz’s junior coalition partner is the neo-fascist Freedom Party, which has toned down their anti-Semitic rhetoric without changing their underlying views.

It makes short-term strategic sense for Israel to attempt to destabilize the European Union and the so-called international community at large, because many within both alliances regard Israel as a pariah for its flagrant violations of international accords. By breaking that consensus, Israel opens up more opportunities to build bilateral alliances and reintegrate into global geopolitics. On another level, however, this strategy surely runs counter to their most basic interests. By driving out the entirety of the Israeli left in what has become a major diaspora, the right deprives the Israeli state of the possibility of a future democratic rejuvenation when things get bad, as they inevitably will. By showing no regard for Palestinian life, they make it increasingly unrealistic that they could expect any mercy from their neighbors the moment US military aid—not only to Israel but also to Saudi Arabia and Egypt—no longer affords an effective shield.

A clear-headed Israeli ruling class would have made concessions, pretended to respect the international order, and adapted its intrinsic white supremacy the way the US ruling class reformulated its own intrinsic white supremacy in the 1960s and ’70s to restore its tarnished legitimacy. As mentioned before, the reactionary right frequently fails to prioritize a lucid understanding of its own long-term interests over the turbid ideologies with which they justify the inequalities and unstable contradictions they impose.

The Nazis effectively committed suicide by thinking they could restore Germany as a colonial power through military expansion, not only against Britain and its allies but also against the USSR. And the xenophobic right today has weakened the US and Europe economically in leaps and bounds. The cutting-edge economy requires global intellectual recruitment, and therefore relatively open immigration regimes, which is why Silicon Valley firms have been vociferously pro-immigrant and anti-Trump. Merkel’s decision to welcome Syrian refugees was immediately preceded by an announcement from the largest association of Germany employers that the national economy faced a shortfall of millions of skilled laborers. Merkel never made any move to rescue Syria’s lower classes from the refugee camps in Turkey where they rotted; her entire program was to regulate the entry of the college-educated, middle-class Syrians who could afford the several thousand euro journey into the EU.

The far right has absolutely no answer for this brain crunch, which currently threatens the strong advantage that Europe and North America have in the high tech sector over China as the emerging dominant world economic power. Through nationalist trade wars and populistic maneuvers like Brexit, they are actually hurting their home economies. By sowing dissension in what had been robust centers of neoliberal consensus—NAFTA and the EU—they are damaging the very confidence to which investors systematically peg economic growth.

Reactionaries are products of their times. They are responding to an unraveling democratic consensus—in some ways anticipating it and in other ways hastening it—and proposing new syntheses. As reactionaries, they are willing to go to great lengths to shock the system in order to restore the elitist values they champion; often, the shocks that they provide galvanize a failing world system to promote a new organizational plan in order to exit the period of systemic chaos, when most actors still have not accepted that the old regime is obsolete. The problem for reactionaries is that the new organizational plan is rarely modeled on the synthesis they propose.

In other words, the rise of the ethno-state model will undoubtedly play a role in destabilizing the neoliberal consensus and threaten the existing configurations of power, but the probability of it representing the new organizational model for the future is small.

Prospecting the Future

The Future is also a discursive machine, building the narrative that draws coherence out of a chaos of conflicting events, reframing all, highlighting some, and misdirecting away from others. As a largely political strategy, this machine mobilizes immense state energies to produce desired outcomes, but the fluid horizon of what is techno-socially possible constitutes a primary limitation. At the moment of clarity in which the new narrative is discovered, there is a political identification of a certain development as a strategic breakthrough. At this moment, the enterprise accelerates to the pitch of a shared campaign, uniting planners and capitalists in a race forward. But before that moment, in the inchoate phase, tech companies and research agencies cast about the darkened frontiers like a slime mold, feeling out untapped possibilities that register as “profitable.” The leitmotif of this phase is the admired intuition of the venture capitalist. Investment in an uncertain future that has not yet been subjected to scientific control must be hazarded blindly, like a gambler’s wagers, rather than evaluated systematically, as in the calculations of the casino owner.

In this situation, vastly different ideas of profit are subjected to the same, stupefying metric. A casino is burning. Putting down the chips for another round of poker might be more profitable than putting out the fire. The capitalist class is exhibiting just this same range of behaviors on the cusp of the end of the current cycle of accumulation.

Practically all the US capitalists besides the steel companies are getting hurt by the tariff war, but they took home hundreds of millions in tax cuts and they are salivating over the possibilities opened by the repeal of environmental regulations. Silicon Valley capitalists recognized that Trump’s anti-immigration policies were a bad business strategy, but their protests have died down. After all, governments don’t just restrict or enable access to markets, as liberal philosophy holds. They also create markets. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Accenture have been dipping their fingers into lucrative ICE and Pentagon contracts, supplying the profitable border regime. Trump’s program is a clear lesson that capitalists don’t simply dictate government agendas. The State is needed to tame social terrain for economic expansion, but states also command so many resources that they can get capitalists to invest in areas that contradict their long- and mid-range interests.

Capitalists don’t know the future. Polling their predictions can be useful, but at best it gets us into the heads of people who are experts at turning a profit but blinded by their ideology to such an extent that they fail to see the contradictory nature of capitalism.

On the whole, what we can see from their behavior is an increase in systemic instability.

The US is still home to the largest or second largest market in the world, depending on how you measure it; however, the typical US investor now keeps 40% or even 50% of their portfolio in foreign stocks, between two and four times the rate in the 1980s. In 2017 alone, the total amount of US money invested overseas grew by 7.6% ($427 billion), mostly going to Europe, including $63 billion of investment in Swiss corporations (plus $168 billion, not counted as investment, deposited in Swiss bank accounts), with even more going to Ireland. Foreign direct investment in the US took a nosedive in 2017, dropping 36%.

The ultra-rich are also investing in luxury doomsday bunkers, paying hundreds of millions of dollars for refurbished military facilities or missile silos in Europe and North America, equipped to support life for a year or more with autonomous air, water, and power systems, in addition to swimming pools, bowling allies, and cinemas. Sales of high-end bunkers by one major company went up 700% from 2015 to 2016, and continued to rise after the presidential elections.

To add to the bad news, experts in Artificial Intelligence, including many of the very people who profit off AI development, are warning that within ten to twenty years, AI could cause massive unemployment as robots and computer programs replace manufacturing, clerical, managerial, retail, and delivery jobs. Of the 50 largest job categories in the US, only 27 are not significantly threatened with replacement by AI. Of the top 15, only three are not threatened: nurses, waiters, and personal care aids. Retail salesperson, which sits in the number one spot, with 4,602,500 employed in 2016, is projected to decline considerably as online sales continue to grow. At the physical stores that will remain due to widely held preferences for purchasing certain products in person, retail staff will persist even after they are no longer technologically necessary, as their primary purpose is to provide a human touch to encourage sales, unlike cashiers (the number two position at three and a half million) who will continue to be replaced by machines.

In fact, most of the job categories that will not be replaced by machines are protected not by technological limits but by cultural limits. Our society would have to undergo a huge shift in values to permit lawyers (no. 44) or elementary school teachers (no. 22) to be replaced by robots. Take the example of waiters, the fastest growing job category. At no point in history has the job been technologically necessary. But having a person whose job is to wait, to be on call to carry your food from the kitchen to your table, creates an experience that people with means have long been willing to pay for.

Though the worst effects of AI and robotization have yet to be felt (outside of manufacturing, telecommunications, and postal services), underemployment is already high, with more and more people struggling to make ends meet. The rates of actual unemployment in the US are said to be historically low, but that is largely because growing numbers of people without jobs are no longer being counted as part of the workforce.

US credit card debt has reached $1 trillion and interest rates are only rising, significantly faster than wages, in fact. This is largely because Trump’s major tax giveaway forced the Fed to raise rates to prevent runaway inflation. The proportion of debt service payments to disposable income per household has recently returned to the high levels seen just before the 2008 Great Recession; in simple language, people have to spend a larger share of their money paying off their debts. Meanwhile, the economic stimulus provided by Trump’s tax cuts is expected to run out by 2020. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister has also warned that by 2020, increasing demand for oil will outstrip falling supplies unless there is a major influx of investments to tap new supplies. And oil prices have already been going up, which tends to increase the prices of all other consumer goods.

Speaking of oil, the industry has largely decided that a carbon-emissions tax is acceptable. Even some Republicans have proposed such a tax. Businesses would have to pay $24 per ton for the right to emit CO2, and that sum of money would go as a payout to poorer households and to upgrade transportation infrastructure. The catch in this proposal is that the government would loosen emissions regulations, so companies could basically do whatever they want to the atmosphere as long as they pay for it, and they would be shielded from the kind of civil responsibility that has been brought down on the tobacco industry and even on Monsanto. All this indicates that energy companies want incentives to develop alternative energies, they expect oil prices to keep rising, and they fear a backlash will force them to pay damages.

Corporate debt is at a new high. The value of corporate bonds outstanding rose from 16% of US GDP in 2007 to 25% in 2017. There is even more corporate borrowing going on in emerging markets, and more risky loans. As long as interest rates are low, most corporations will be able to continue this practice, but if interest rates go up, as they are expected to in order to keep inflation in check, this could cause a cascade of defaults—the popping of the bubble—especially if it coincides with the slowdown in the global economy expected to begin between 2020 and 2022. Interest rates go up as business goes down: companies can’t pay all their debts, or take out new loans to pay off the old ones.

This is not just a US problem. Though Indian and especially Chinese economic growth have been astronomic, China is slowing down and beginning to show signs that it might face a stock market crash, and India is running into the kind of currency problems that could soon put a stop to its growth.

By its very nature, capitalism creates bubbles and sets itself repeatedly on the course of financial collapse. However, these collapses can be very difficult to predict. One of the best retrospective models to date providing a long view of these cycles of accumulation, worked out by world systems theorist Giovanni Arrighi, is already lagging in its predictions. Arrighi charted an exponential acceleration in the frequency of past crises: as capitalism grows exponentially, capital accumulates and collapses more and more rapidly. However, for his model to maintain its geometric accuracy, the 2008 Great Recession should have been the terminal crisis of the American cycle of accumulation. Although according to some measures, that recession has just been staved off and not fully surpassed, the apparent recovery still breaks the pattern of past transitions from one cycle to another.

Part of this can be explained by capitalism’s growing intelligence and institutional complexity, namely, in the growing role of state planning in the economy and increasingly robust and constant state economic interventions. This refutes neo-Marxists who seize any opportunity to announce the obsolescence of the State, no matter how many times they are shown to be wrong.

FDR’s New Deal, a major investment of government money into public works in order to generate jobs, enabled the US to exit the Great Depression ahead of its European contemporaries, positioning it to be the economic savior of war-torn Europe and Asia and hence the architect of the next cycle of accumulation. Massive government spending as a constant economic stimulus has been a hallmark of the American system, tied to the Federal Reserve and a global network of central banks and monetary institutions that keep inflation within acceptable boundaries and bail out private banks or smaller governments that fail.

Paradoxically, this entire regime of economic stability is based on debt. To keep capitalism from falling apart, the US and a great many other states systematically spend far more money than they actually have. The US deficit—the amount it spends every year beyond its actual earnings—is now more than $1 trillion, and total debt is now $21 trillion, larger than the GDP (the total pr

oduction of the US economy). The government will pay hundreds of billions of dollars in interest to its creditors this year.

However, the system is not as volatile as it seems. From a capitalist point of view, it’s quite well organized (although, in contradiction to free market ideology, entirely dependent on the State). About a third of the debt is owed to other governmental agencies, primarily Social Security. This practice of a government borrowing from itself stabilizes a huge chunk of the debt by keeping it out of the hands of private creditors who might cash in bonds or stop making loans. It also gives those capitalists an assurance: if the US defaults on its debt, it can choose to first default on the debt owed to its own ordinary citizens, so the ones who suffer are old retirees, not investors. This is similar to what went down in Puerto Rico recently.

About a quarter of the debt is held by mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, and other private investors, and over a third is held by foreign governments, primarily China and Japan. Both the private and the foreign state investors buy US government debt because it’s considered a sure bet. Anyone with a lot of cash on hand probably wants to put a significant portion of that cash into a safe investment that will continuously bring modest but sure-fire interest payments. But that actually speaks very little to the mathematics of this wager. No one can explain how the US would ever be able to pay off its debt without massively devaluing its currency and thus destroying the global economy. And the more the debt grows, the more the interest grows, until the point when the interest payments due exceed the capacity of the US budget to pay them.

Basically, the favorable rating of US debt only means that within the current global economic system, investors cannot imagine the US not being able to pay interest on its debts. But the only way to avoid a default is if investors and foreign governments keep lending the US increasing amounts of money forever. And both China and Japan (the two largest lenders) have slowed down in their purchase of US debt, whereas Russia recently dumped its relatively minor share of US debt wholesale.

Capitalist crisis is often connected to warfare, as nation-states fight for control of the global system. Warfare is also useful to capitalism because it destroys a huge amount of excess value, wiping the slate clean for new investments. This is basically a way of saving capitalism from itself. The economic system is constantly generating an exponentially growing quantity of capital, until it has more than it can invest. This abundance—and it is not a human abundance, but a purely mathematical abundance, as people are still starving even in these Golden Ages—threatens to destroy the cumulative value of all capital. So a part of it is destroyed through warfare, those who bet on the losing side are removed from play, and the others continue the game.

However, since World War II, there has been no direct warfare between major powers, in large part because of the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction introduced by nuclear weaponry. The technological progress of warfare has outstripped its usefulness as a political tool, except at the scale of smaller proxy wars.

In a debt-based economy, though, it is possible to destroy a tremendous amount of excess value without warfare. Wiping the US debt clean would hurt the Japanese and Chinese governments and hence their economies, it would wreck many a bank and mutual fund, and it would leave most of the US working class without health care or retirement benefits.

In that case, barring revolution, a robust economy capable of a high degree of industrial production and liquid capital for the necessary investments and loans would pick up the pieces, starting a new cycle of accumulation. The European Union or China might be in such a position. The former, because its policy of no-deficit spending gives it a measure of protection and might set it apart as a model of responsible economics should the US model collapse catastrophically; the latter because of its greater governmental ability to adjust the entire economy in a technocratic way, and its massive industrial capabilities.

Depending on how great the political chaos of the collapse and on their ability to project military force, the new global leaders would either repair and rebuild whatever institutional elements of the present system they found most useful to their strategic plans, such as the WTO or the UN, or—if the conflicts had grown into definitive ruptures with the old architecture—they would need to amass the political influence to bring enough players to the table to build a new complex of global institutions.

There’s one problem here. For capitalism to continue, the new cycle of accumulation following the next collapse will have to be exponentially greater than the one that came before it. That seems to be one of the least variable features of the historical model in play. By its very nature, the amount of capital to be invested is always growing. This explains the historical variation between periods of geographical expansion, when new territories are brought in contact with capitalism through a basic relationship best characterized as primitive accumulation under some kind of colonial control, and periods of intensification, when the inhabitants of the zones colonized in the prior period are more fully integrated and reproduced as capitalist subjects, not just engaging in forced labor to produce raw materials for faraway markets and buying up a small portion of excess production from the metropolis, but living, breathing, and eating capitalism, becoming capitalists and wage workers in their own right.

The “American century” saw the intensification of the capitalist relationship within the entirety of territory brought under the control of capital during the British cycle, which was basically the whole world. There is no other terrestrial geography for a future cycle of accumulation to expand to. Sure, the Indian economy is still growing, and Chinese state capitalists are going through Africa, Oceania, and the Caribbean, engaging in the kind of predatory lending to acquire infrastructure that the World Bank pioneered in the 1970s and ’80s, while Google and a couple other companies are making tepid inroads into Africa to encourage a functional high-tech economy there. But these so-called underdeveloped populations are smaller, not larger, than the populations of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, where capitalist development is reaching a saturation point. To simplify grossly, the next terrain for capitalist expansion would have to be larger to accommodate another cycle.

This conundrum is what led to the prediction in “A Wager on the Future” and “Extraterrestrial Exploitation” that the next territory for capitalist expansion was offplanet, on the moon, the asteroid belt, and eventually, Mars. Many of the smartest capitalists today are engaging in serious investment and design to make that possible. But we can thank our lucky stars here on Earth that over the last two years, they have not been making advancements fast enough to save capitalism from its impending collapse.

SpaceX’s reusable rockets and drone recovery system provide one of the most important pieces for a potential extraterrestrial cycle of accumulation—cheap access to space—but none of the next pieces have come into place yet. Those would include a luxury passenger service into orbital space and eventually to the moon, which would never constitute a major industry in its own right but would help inject cash flows at a critical stage in the development of longer-distance capabilities, as well as selling the mega-rich on the desirability of space in order to win more financing. The second, more important piece is asteroid and lunar mining. Japan and NASA are currently in the process of landing robotic probes on asteroids to carry out the chemical analysis that will facilitate future prospecting, among other things, but those probes aren’t due back until 2020 and 2023, respectively, and there are still other missing steps before commercial mining could begin. Without those other pieces, cheaper rockets only contribute to the profitability of a fully geocentric economic activity, the launching of ever more satellites.

There is, however, another possible direction for capitalist expansion. As Richard Feynman said presciently in 1959, “there’s plenty of room at the bottom.”

Bioeconomic Expansion

The seven billion human beings on the planet is a small flock if every life form and every form of life can be plugged into capitalism. There’s no reason a new productive expansion of capitalism has to be geographic, since capitalism works in a space of flows, managing relations, and not in a space of places, managing square kilometers.

A bioeconomic expansion would constitute the invasion of capitalism into the processes through which life itself is produced and reproduced. The precedents for this activity are important, for they represent the first incursions, but they have not yet been developed to the point that they could ignite a new cycle of accumulation. Such precedents include, in the production of organic life, genetic engineering, and in the reproduction of human life, social network technologies. The former have allowed a few companies to make a lot of money, but they have not been terribly effective, and still fall far short of their potential to change our relationship with food production, disease, and other areas of intervention. The latter have produced mass stupefaction and exponentially improved techniques of social control, but they are still measured in the advertising dollars they generate for the sale of real commodities, a quaternary sector rather than an economy in its own right.

A bioeconomic expansion would involve profiting on the planetary processes that, once plugged into a capitalist logic, could be analyzed as “reproductive”; the biological processes that are constantly exploited through primitive accumulation but have still not submitted to a capitalist architecture; the organic chemical processes that constitute the constant unfolding of life; and the social processes grouped under the heading of “free time” that until now have only been clumsily exploited by consumerism. The rudimentary beginnings of profit models targeting the first three can be found in carbon trading, fertility treatments, and gene therapy, respectively.

Over the next two decades, these sectors might expand in the following ways:

• The deployment of orbital reflectors or other devices to decrease and then fine-tune the amount of solar radiation that reaches the planet. Together with an increase in carbon capture technologies, this could enable the business-oriented mechanical control of the climate, not as a biosphere within which the economy takes place, but as yet another realm of economic considerations.
• The use of cloning to prevent the extinction of economically useful species. Together with a total inventory of biodiversity regulated by AI that can deploy drones and genetically coded nanobots capable of identifying and destroying members of target species, this could theoretically allow for total rational control of all ecosystems, with the parameters and objectives set by whatever consortium of companies and governments own the technology and oversee the procedures.
• The assemblage of made-to-order nanomaterials and the use of genetically modified animal/factories to produce complex organic compounds. This would do away with the concept of “natural resources” by turning prime materials into an industrial product unbound by natural limits.
• The development of nanomedicine and gene therapy to further wrest human life away from the vagaries of death and disease, which negatively impact human productivity. Death especially is a problem, as it allows people to escape domination permanently.
• A shift away from open field monoculture to a decentralized total control model of agriculture based in greenhouse production and hydroponics, in which food production takes place in an engineered environment that is totally controlled according to light, heat, atmosphere, water, and nutrients, breaking with Green Revolution agriculture that attempted to carry out food production by industrially modifying the natural environment. Decentralized agriculture would be more energy efficient, reducing dependence on long-distance transportation and heavy machinery, and it would temporarily allow for an increase in employment and investment as agricultural land—40% of the planet’s surface—is redesigned and also potentially reintegrated with urban space.

The capitalization of social processes can progress through the expansion of therapeutic, leisure, sexo-affective, recreational, and entertainment economies and the algorithmic surveillance and organization of those economies. This would entail the total conquest and abolition of that partial victory won through centuries of labor struggles, “free time.”

Once upon a time, capitalists were only able to appreciate the productive value of their underlings, whom they viewed either as slaves or machinery, depending on how progressive they were. The resistance of those exploited classes failed to abolish this relationship, but it did succeed in winning some breathing room. The achievement of higher wages was above all the attaining of “free time.” Workers didn’t want higher wages for the same 12- or 14-hour days; they left that for the professional classes, like lawyers and doctors, whose sense of self-worth derives entirely from their value to the market. They wanted to be able to meet their needs more easily in order to retain a part of their lives for their own enjoyment. The opposition between life and labor could not be more clear.

Capitalism can brook no autonomy, no liberated space, but neither could it overcome the resistance of the exploited. For a century, its strategic engagement with free time was to produce alternative commercial activities to capitalize on the choices people made while not at work. Free time was still free, but if capitalists and state planners could impoverish the imagination and the social landscape to the point that people were more likely to choose consumer activities over non-monetary forms of play and relaxation, they would remain tied into capitalist relations in a way that created artificial demands, thus sustaining new productive sectors.

Public greens and commons were paved over, party politics and state repression led to the wane of workers’ centers, sidewalks and plazas were absorbed as restaurant terraces, the sofa in front of the radio or television replaced the front stoop or the chairs and benches placed directly in the street, communal spaces of sewing and washing were replaced by machines, sports were professionalized and commercialized, bars replaced drinking in the woods or in the parks, walks in the mountains gave way to specialized sports dependent on the acquisition of expensive gear, plastic and later electronic monstrosities eclipsed the simple, imaginative, and physically engaging wooden toys that uncles would carve for their nephews and nieces and the mere sticks that children would pick up off the ground and turn into a million different things depending on their imagined and self-defined needs.

Capitalist incursions into free time necessitated advertising, which took the form of an increasingly aggressive, ubiquitous call for attention, a distraction from the non-monetized possibilities within the terrain of free time, subject to diminishing returns as advertising’s targets became increasingly hostile, cynical, sophisticated, saturated, or self-absorbed. The decreasing effectiveness of advertising reveals that free time still provided people a choice, and though capitalists overwhelmingly won that competition against unmediated nature, imagination, and sociability (here my automatic dictionary jumps in with a squiggly red line to tell me that “unmediated” is not a word)—and the consumer economy has been immensely profitable and only becomes more so as time goes on—the effectiveness of advertising notwithstanding, those in power prefer that we do not get any kind of meaningful choice at all.

So be it: in the new economy there is no more distinction between labor time and free time or even producer time and consumer time; rather, all lived time is absorbed into a unified capitalist logic leading to a qualitative advance in the production of subjectivities. Since the advent of the cell phone, workers are always on call, but the social technologies that have been inaugurated more recently or wait just over the horizon mean that the entirety of our lived time is subject to surveillance, commercialization, and exploitation. Whereas before, information on consumers could be sold to advertisers who could make money convincing people to buy material products, with the entire economic chain dependent on the sale of a manufactured good at the end of the day, we have seen a qualitative leap in which data has become a resource with intrinsic value (think bitcoin), and in order to retain our status as social beings, we have to turn all our processes of sociability over to the digital apparatuses that mine our activity to produce data.

Before, you could still be a sociable human if you played soccer in the park, invited people over for a barbecue, or went camping in the woods rather than buying tickets to the game, meeting at a bar, or going bungee jumping. Today, you are a social pariah as well as unemployable if you have no smartphone, no Facebook or Instagram, no GPS, and don’t use whatever that stupid app is that enables you to invite people to events.

There is no longer the possibility of spending free time in the woods as a non-commercial activity when your movements there are tracked on GPS, allowing the relevant entities to attach a value to natural parks or scheme about how to fill that commercial space.

Nixon took us off the gold standard to allow financial expansion to proceed unchecked. To regain stability, capitalism may well anchor economic value in data—in one form of bit economy or another.

The social economy will need to grow considerably if it is to enable a new cycle of capitalist accumulation, and though getting internet access and smartphones to a global majority is certainly a necessary precondition, that in itself won’t be enough to constitute an industrial expansion. Remember that the US economic expansion of the postwar era was based largely on everyone getting a car, and everyone in the middle class a house in the suburbs. In comparison to houses and cars, phones are rather cheap pieces of equipment to constitute the backbone of an industrial expansion, given that each cycle needs to be exponentially greater than the industrial and financial expansion in the cycle that preceded it.

Room for growth in the social economy will have to include a further integration of surveillance of people’s vital activity and exploitation of their productive potential, so that surveillance is not limited to spotting criminal behavior or identifying which products to advertise, but constantly captures all activity within an economic logic, thus inviting people to express themselves or contribute their creativity to the adornment of virtual and social spaces—allowing everyone to be an influencer in some way. It would also include the ascension of crowdsourcing to a dominant productive model, taking advantage of total connectivity to treat the population as a permanently available labor pool ready to dedicate itself to solving some problem or another, often without any pay in return. There would also be an exponential growth of therapeutic, leisure, sexo-affective, recreational, gastronomic, travel, medical, design, and entertainment economies into a merged quality-of-life economy capable of generating the hundreds of millions of employment profiles that will replace the ones AI and robotization will make obsolete in manufacturing, telecommunications, retail, design and architecture, janitorial and hygiene work, and eventually transportation and delivery, clerical, accounting, and secretarial sectors, supervisory and management positions across sectors, construction, surveillance, and security.

The quality-of-life sector would make up for the misery and alienation of capitalist life through a totally engineered sociability. Everyone would be in some kind of therapy, and the upper-middle-class and higher would have emotional and physical therapists, personal trainers, and dietary consultants; they would eat out far more often than cook at home, and their lives would largely revolve around leisure activities. The precarious would work not only in restaurants and sales but also in an expanding sex-work industry distinguished from other forms of employment by increasingly blurry borders, or else as yoga instructors, guides for extreme sports and adventure tourism, or assistants or filler characters for commercialized LARPing, paintball, and similar games. Designers and programmers would make up a large and highly remunerated segment of the working class, lower only than executives and capitalists, and followed in turn by professionals like lawyers, doctors, technocrats, and professors, then cops, then nurses and other therapists with a wide range of responsibilities and pay grades, then precarious but well paid “creatives,” then the remaining blue collar professions like carpenters and repair workers who deal in situations too variable for AI to handle, then teachers, and then the bulk of the precarious in the quality-of-life economy.

What about Mars?

Incidentally, the technological sectors—planetary, biological, chemical, and social—that would need to advance to open up the territory for another industrial expansion are the same sectors that would need to advance to enable a subsequent extraterrestrial expansion of capitalism and the effective colonization of outer space. A major feature of these technologies, in contrast with the chief techniques of production and accumulation that characterize the cycle that is now ending, is their decentralization. Likewise, the colonization of Mars, to take one example, would require small-scale, decentralized technology. They can’t fly over large industrial compounds; the mission would only be feasible with nanobots, 3D printers, and self-replicating machinery. Made-to-order nanomaterials would be crucial for constructions able to withstand extreme environments, and cloning combined with greenhouse agriculture in totally contained, controlled environments would be necessary to jumpstart food production and biosphere production. What’s more, effective terraforming would be unthinkable if the State did not already have experience with effective climate control here on Earth.

As for the social technologies, they might well be the linchpin. Decentralized technology, such as would be necessary in extraterrestrial colonization, can aid political decentralization. Any capitalist ventures, scientific associations, and state agencies that one day collaborate to colonize Mars or another celestial body will undoubtedly address, along with a thousand other matters of technique, the question of how to keep control of the colonies. Exerting military and bureaucratic leverage on a population that is located one or several months of travel time away is no easy feat. Five hundred years ago, European colonizers accomplished this through the social technologies of Christianity and whiteness, though not without a few major mutinies and defections.

Again, it makes more sense to analyze the situation through the optic of social control than the optic of capital accumulation. Capitalism has long favored far more inefficient, centralized techniques of industrial production because the State lacked the techniques to maintain control over a diffuse production. Rather than the mere organizing committee of Capital, the State supersedes and encompasses Capital, for territory effectively disciplined by the State is the only territory in which capitalism can function. Thus, the diffuse control enabled by new social technologies (that internet of things in which we are the primary things) is a vital component of extraterrestrial colonization.

The Necessity of Climate Change

The recent tremors in the Turkish economy, which almost sent the EU tanking, make it clear that what economic growth is still taking place today continues to be based on an unsustainable financial accumulation. European banks have nowhere in Europe to invest all their earnings, so they fund a huge wave of construction in Turkey, while Turkish companies grow by borrowing dollars, taking advantage of the low interest rate. In the short-term, free money. But as the US interest rate climbs, the value of the Turkish lira plummets, and since the local economy had never demanded the construction boom in the first place, it didn’t have the means to pay back all the loans. Stocks in all of Europe’s major banks dropped. It could have been the beginning of the big crash. But Qatar stepped in with a $15 billion loan for Turkey, again showing the importance of politics: one of Trump’s first diplomatic moves in the region had been to buddy up to Saudi Arabia and give full support to the Kingdom’s ostracism of Qatar. Then Trump got in a spat with Turkey and tried to sink its economy, so Qatar stepped in to save it, for the time being. Merkel, also recently shafted by the US, tried to normalize relations with Turkey when she had been one of its primary critics.

There are similar construction bubbles in Brazil, in China, in Singapore. The next crisis could start anywhere, but it will almost certainly spread everywhere.

If a bioeconomic expansion is the most viable way for capitalism to avoid its contradictions and continue its mad rampage, what political strategies would enable that expansion to take place? Some of the technological changes described above are already happening, but many key elements require such a drastic change that strategic state planning on a global scale would be necessary. This is not a good omen for capitalism, since the global institutions for interstate cooperation are in shambles, thanks in large part to extreme-right figures from Netanyahu to Putin to Trump.

In the end, the War on Terror failed to rally the world powers to create a new era of global cooperation. Because it borrowed too much of the zero-sum Orientalism of the Cold War, it only led to the erosion of the global political structures that maintained US hegemony.

Currently, the only viable platform from which to launch a new project of interstate cooperation capable of deploying and managing the changes that a bioeconomic expansion of capitalism would require can be found in the response to climate change. Climate change provides a narrative of unified global interests. Any political power that acts in the name of addressing climate change can act in the name of all humanity: this offers the possibility to establish a hegemonic project, the same way that the narrative of democracy and human rights undergirded a hegemonic project after the horrors of World War II. Political structures for interstate coordination and global intervention would be justified as holistic measures necessary to save the entire biosphere, and they could also have a justifiably technocratic character, given that the media have successfully framed climate change as a scientific rather than economic or spiritual issue.

The major weakness of the US system was that the UN, as the safeguard of human and state rights, could do little more than protest, whereas the IMF and WTO, sanctioned to carry out technocratic interventions to safeguard the economic order, had a clearly mercenary character, pitting capitalism against human rights when under liberal democracy, the two were supposed to find their synthesis. Under a regime driven by the exigencies of responding to climate change, robust technocratic interventions and the safeguarding of common interests would find their perfect synthesis. As long as climate change is treated as a purely scientific issue, any responses will have to be compatible with the preexisting social relations, funding sources, and regulatory mechanisms through which they are to be carried out. In other words, a technocratic approach to climate change would not threaten capitalism.

But capitalists themselves are incapable of building the platform up to achieve the kind of systemic change they need. Investment in renewable energy fell by 7% in 2017. The volatility of the market will never produce the resources necessary for a phase shift in energy technologies. Liberal capitalism would leave us festering—or rather, boiling—in a fossil fuel economy. A rapid shift to a climate change economy will not be possible without most major governments introducing huge policy shifts and legally mandating investment in alternative energies and environmental protection measures as a significant part of their total budgets, on par with health care or military spending.

Capitalism faces a great need for strategic change, for a governmental mandate capable of redirecting social resources on a coordinated, massive scale. This is where the question of different governmental models becomes extremely important, as certain types of government are better suited to make such a shift than others, and some political tendencies are well positioned to seize the platform of climate change, whereas others are incapable.

Fascism, Historically

Up until now, in mentioning the likes of Netanyahu or Trump I have spoken of the reactionary or far right. There are those who favor emotive hyperbole to historical clarity, and classify the entirety of this reactionary movement as “fascist.” If I dispute this terminology, it’s not because I enjoy semantic squabbles, but because sometimes, words matter. In this case, theoretical precision is especially important, because there is a longstanding tension between dictatorial and democratic modes of state power.

In the dictatorial mode, one portion of the ruling class uses military means to impose their strategic proposals on the rest of the ruling class and on society at large. They do this by relying on a strong military apparatus or by mobilizing a part of the lower classes against a perceived internal enemy—usually, they do both. They may take this course because they feel that the power structures they rely on are being threatened in a way that the rest of the ruling class does not appreciate, or because of a cultural conflict that leads them to see the rest of the ruling class as enemies rather than as peers, or because they do not have the necessary control over the lower classes to generate a social consensus.

In the democratic mode, the ruling class debate strategic proposals and try to win voluntary participation in their strategy, and thus a kind of consensus, from as much of society as possible. While they may engage in bitter fights against their rivals, they do not deny rivals the right to exist, nor do they attempt to destroy the mechanisms that enable debate and participatory decision-making. At various points in history, ruling classes have recognized the advantages of the democratic mode. It enables them to recuperate revolutionary movements and co-opt popular values so that they not only protect themselves from their own underclasses but enlist those underclasses to help manage the processes of exploitation. It enables them to carry out intelligent and periodic readjustments to ruling strategies, making the state apparatus continuously stronger and more scientific. And it creates a positive-sum game that prioritizes the mutual enrichment of all the property-owning members of society instead of negative-sum infighting.

States historically toggle between dictatorial and democratic modes, depending on circumstances; however, states are only able to make the change at the drop of a hat if they have not built up a huge psycho-social complex training people to identify with their dictator or with their democracy. Usually, the stronger a state, the stronger the ideological scaffolding that accompanies and justifies the dictatorial or democratic mode; and therefore, the more stable the mode, the greater the crisis it would take to force a change in mode.

Making a clear distinction between these two modes is important because of how the experience of being governed changes from one mode to the other.

Fascism is a specific political movement that arose in the 1920s in Italy, inspiring similar political movements that took power in a dozen other countries, each a variation on the original model. This model never had time to homogenize itself because fascism was defeated by the democratic and the socialist states, the former of which went on to engineer the new world system.

Some anarchists in the past, like Voline, used a broader definition of fascism in order to criticize the Soviet Union. They did so because fascism was the dominant evil of the day, and because it was politically expedient to use the label more widely. Nonetheless, they did not have to engage in outright intellectual dishonesty in order to broaden this label, the way the Communist Party did by describing the German Socialists as “social-fascists” in order to justify their own collaboration with the Nazi Party in the early 1930s. This is because there were organic relations between left and right authoritarianism at the time. The Italian fascists led by Mussolini largely came out of the Socialist Party and improved upon the socialist tactic of mobilizing an obedient mass movement to conquer state power, and the Nazi police state directly modeled itself on its Soviet counterpart, not to mention the affinity visible in the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact or the effective conspiracy between the KPD and the Nazis to sabotage German democracy.

The broader definition used by Voline and a few contemporaries still enjoyed a basic precision because it distinguished between dictatorial and democratic modes of power. Voline was no lover of democracy, but he knew that it was important to make a basic distinction between such different modes. Thus, the justification for defining the USSR as “fascist” was its suppression of free speech, free press, and elections—in a word, its constitution as a dictatorship.

Today’s social critics for whom Trump and May represent “fascism” make no such distinction. On the whole, they also refuse to define fascism. Instead, they sometimes argue that since certain historians have been even more strict in their definition—disputing whether the Nazis or Falangists also qualify as fascists—they are justified in going to the opposite extreme and being lax in their definition to the point of making no distinction between fascist and democratic modes of white supremacy. Additionally, they present dire warnings that fascism could return in completely different historical circumstances because there were people in the 1930s who didn’t believe it could happen (both of these non-arguments are from “Yes, Trump Does Represent Fascism”). Or they offer elements of a definition that could be applied to practically any state, citing characteristics like “selective populism, nationalism, racism, traditionalism, the deployment of Newspeak and disregard for reasoned debate”—never mind that these are all “features shared by every single form of far-right politics (and in fact, Newspeak is originally a feature of Stalinism)” as I pointed out in an earlier critique.

Or they manufacture the appearance of double standards or common-sense arguments, like McKenzie Wark: “It’s curious that the political categories of liberal, conservative and so forth are treated as trans-historical, but you are not supposed to use the category of fascism outside of a specific historical context… But maybe we should treat it not as the exception but the norm. What needs explaining is not fascism but its absence.”

This rhetorical conundrum is easy to answer. Liberalism is a fundamental plank of modernity. We still live in the economic and political system created by liberalism, therefore the terminology of liberalism is still relevant, still historical. Applying “liberal” and “conservative” to the Middle Ages or early Han China, that would be “trans-historical.”

On the contrary, fascism lost. It never created a world system, and the conditions it arose in response to no longer pertain. There have been dozens of variants to authoritarian politics and white supremacist ideology, most of them mutually opposed or inconsistent. To justify enlisting “fascism” as a catch-all category, someone would need to make a positive argument as to why that gives us theoretical tools we wouldn’t otherwise have. As far as I can see, that argument hasn’t yet been made. It seems that the reason people talk about fascism as an impending present danger is because it sounds scary and it makes them sound important. You don’t get the same reaction talking about “an increasingly brutal democracy” even though democratic governments are responsible for a large share of the bloodiest genocides in world history (including the annihilation or decimation of hundreds of indigenous nations by democratic settler states including the US, Australia, Canada, Chile, and Argentina; mass murder carried out by democratic powers like the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in India, Congo, Indonesia, Algeria, Vietnam, and other colonies; and genocides carried out by post-colonial democracies like Colombia and Myanmar). Most people don’t know that, because so much weight is given to the misdeeds of dictatorial regimes . Democracy’s crimes are covered up. Anarchists should know better, but an increasing number have been choosing political expediency over intellectual honesty and the hard task of sharing the truths no one else wants to touch.

Criticizing this theoretical sloppiness is important because our analysis of history is vitally important. Historical amnesia is one of the greatest recurring impediments to revolutionary movements.

Here’s a working definition of fascism from an earlier article:

“Fascism is not just any extreme right-wing position. It is a complex phenomenon that mobilizes a popular movement under the hierarchical direction of a political party and cultivates parallel loyalty structures in the police and military, to conquer power either through democratic or military means; subsequently abolishes electoral procedures to guarantee a single party continuity; creates a new social contract with the domestic working class, on the one hand ushering in a higher standard of living than what could be achieved under liberal capitalism and on the other hand protecting the capitalists with a new social peace; and eliminates the internal enemies whom it had blamed for the destabilization of the prior regime.”

The abolition of a free electoral system is key. With free elections, no dictatorship; without dictatorship, no fascism. Multi-party fascism with a free capitalist press is a meaningless contradiction that strips language of any precision or usefulness in favor of amped-up demagoguery not unlike the style preferred by populists of all stripes, from Trump to actual fascists.

The presence of a hierarchically organized paramilitary force is also key to break the democratic system of checks and balances and to back up the autocratic creation of a new legality during the transition period. In historical fascism, such blackshirts or stormtroopers were vital in the very first years, only to be weakened or even suppressed after a new fascist legality had been sufficiently instituted.

Ami du Radical warns of “blackshirt organizations in every state,” but this is an exaggeration. The Alt-Right in the US is murderous; denying them a platform and kicking them off the streets has absolutely been the right thing to do. But these rag-tag groups of internet warriors and basement trolls are peanuts next to the historical blackshirts or the KKK during Reconstruction. They have no unified leadership, no extensive military structure, [1] no discipline, and a relatively small body count. The aforementioned paramilitaries were engaged in open civil warfare. The death tolls were in the thousands and tens of thousands. It is important to recognize this, because it is one thing for anarchists to be able to defeat a scattered, marginalized Alt-Right. It would be quite another thing to go up against an actual blackshirt organization.

The different organizational style is also extremely important. If there were an actual hierarchically organized paramilitary organization following a political party with a fascist (anti-democratic) program, that would speak volumes to the weakness of the government and the anxieties of the capitalist class willing to permit such a violation of their own norms. Those conditions simply do not exist now, and anyone who fails to recognize that is tilting at windmills. Secondly, the actual organizational pattern of the extreme right in the US is fully consistent with the diffuse mode of paramilitary violence that exists under democratic governments. Confusing one with the other gives a pass to democratic white supremacy, and constitutes a major strategic error.

There has been an actual neo-fascist party in recent years, with a fascist program aimed at seizing power, and building up a paramilitary force with non-democratic loyalties in the police and military. Golden Dawn, in Greece. Remember what happened to them? They were certainly weakened by anarchist direct actions, but it was the democratic government of Greece that shut them down, from one day to the next, after they exceeded their mandate by killing artists and attacking journalists rather than just killing immigrants and injuring anarchists.

Before and after the prosecutions targeting their leadership, Golden Dawn has used similar rhetoric to the AfD in Germany and other far right parties. The key differences were their paramilitary structure, their continued embrace of Nazi aesthetics even after they came into the media spotlight, and their continued projection of a putschist strategy united around a Führer-figure. Far right parties use the media spotlight to make nationalism and xenophobia palatable. The AfD, for example, celebrated how the Christian Democrats have been adopting immigration-related elements of their platform. Golden Dawn, on the other hand, broadcasts its dictatorial intentions. This is something that in the US, only the most extreme sectors of the far right will do, whereas any group that wants to court the Republican Party or wealthy donors downplays Nazi aesthetics and focuses on getting specific political programs adopted within the democratic system. As for paramilitary forces, under a democracy, these should be handled by intelligence agencies, rather than working directly for a political party. While this distinction is sometimes being blurred in specific instances under the Trump administration, with implications that are both frightening and dangerous, we still can’t speak of anything close to a unified fascist movement with paramilitaries under the direct control of a major political party.

Since the triumph of the democratic capitalist powers at the end of World War II, fascism has been tamed and put on a leash as a pet monster, locked up within the democratic toolbox. Fascists in the Global North are used to push acceptable discourse to the right, to attack and intimidate the socially marginalized, to manufacture tension or political crises—but they are never let off the leash. Fascists who act like there is no leash end up in court, like the leaders of Golden Dawn and the surviving members of a German neo-Nazi cell who had close contacts with the German intelligence services but ended up killing a cop after what I imagine was viewed by their handlers as a successful run murdering immigrants.

In the Global South, the equation is a little different, primarily because the democratic world system has always permitted dictatorships in post-colonial societies. This was in fact the norm throughout the Cold War, during which democratic government was a mark of privilege and advancement rather than a universal guarantee. Dictatorship is particularly compatible with economies based primarily on resource extraction such as mining, petroleum, agriculture, and forestry. When capitalism takes the form of naked plunder, there isn’t much need to cultivate the values of citizenship. Democratization tends to accompany greater and more complex investment as well as local cycles of accumulation—though if democracy fails to establish social peace, dictatorship can reappear quickly. Still, since World War II, most dictatorships have not positioned themselves as opponents of the democratic world order but rather as its allies. Following cues from the US, they took up the crusade against Communism without situating themselves as the heirs of fascism. Incidentally, this was the exact same ideological middle ground that liberal democracy occupied in the 1930s and ’40s.

Alexander Reid Ross’s Against the Fascist Creep is one of the most extensive attempts to map fascism historically and theoretically. The book charts the evolution of the philosophies and the thinkers who would eventually go on to form fascist movements in Italy and elsewhere. The research is extensive and interesting, but the framing suffers from a mistake that makes the work all but useless from a theoretical perspective: it takes fascism seriously as a philosophical movement. Neither Mussolini, nor Hitler, nor Franco, nor Codreanu, nor any of the other fascist leaders were coherent thinkers. They were effective populists, which means they mixed and matched any pattern of claims, philosophies, and worldviews that would motivate their base. This is why fascists were simultaneously Christian, pagan, and atheist; bohemian and aesthetic; capitalist and socialist; scientistic and mystical; rationalist and irrationalist. This pseudo-intellectual aspect has been a fundamental characteristic of the extreme right throughout the 20th century and up to the present day. It’s one more reason why it makes no sense to engage with them on the level of reasoned debate, because they will say anything that provokes the kind of reaction they want to provoke.

It’s silly to trace fascism back to Nietzsche and Sorel unless one has an axe to grind. On a structural and organizational level, fascism borrowed immensely from the left, particularly from syndicalism and the socialist and communist parties. Yet the philosophical genealogists of fascism always attempt to tie it to the more marginalized elements of anti-capitalist movements; nihilists, naturalists, and individualists are common whipping boys. This is not particularly useful for understanding fascism; rather, it is a mechanism by which leftists clean house and further marginalize their more radical critics.

A useful historical analysis of fascism would be largely economic, posing the question: at what point do capitalists begin to support fascist movements? The moment when Germany’s industrial and military establishment decided to support the Nazis was beyond any doubt a watershed in the evolution of a small group of violent wingnuts into a huge party capable of taking over the country. Military and capitalist support also played a decisive role in changing Nazi ideology and toning down many of the more esoteric, anti-establishment beliefs that Ross spent so much time researching.

Without the economic support of capitalists, there is no fascism. Anarchists should be paying more attention to what key capitalists are saying about how to respond to the ongoing crisis and less time on Alt-Right message boards. This is a question of priorities, not a criticism of the latter activity. The Alt-Right had practically no capitalist support besides the Mercer family, mid-range capitalists at best, and when the split went down between Trump and Bannon, they clearly chose Trump (highlighting that there are real discrepancies between democratic white supremacy and fascist white supremacy, as I previously argued, and as the author of “Yes!” disputed by describing Trump and Bannon as “bosom buddies” eight months before their falling out). There are practically no capitalists on a world scale who are looking towards some kind of fascism to solve their problems. And we would know if they were. In the 1930s, Ford, Dupont, and other leading capitalists openly expressed their admiration for Mussolini and publicly organized groups intended to mirror the blackshirts. Some of them also made contacts with the military to discuss a possible coup.

All the evidence today suggests that capitalists appreciate Trump for the short-term tax break he has given them, fear his trade wars and disapprove of most of his mid-range strategies (or what pass for strategies in the Trump camp), and breathe a sigh of relief whenever he puts distance between himself and the far right. Capitalists will deal with Trump as long as he has his little hands on the levers. They don’t care about Bannon. In Europe, investors have trembled at each victory of the far right, from Brexit to the appointment of Salvini in Italy.

The stronger the capitalist, the weaker the commitment to one political vision or another. Capitalists are famous for profiting under completely different kinds of government. They’ll make short-term profit off a government that is committing political suicide, and long-term profit off a government enacting a more intelligent strategy. What they will not do is sabotage a world system that grants them stability, encourage suicidal strategies in countries they depend on, or embark on political crusades that sacrifice profit, increase instability, and put up obstacles to global finance and trade.

Curiously, in the 1930s, the economics were often broadly similar between democratic and fascist New Deals, both of them centering on ambitious government programs to boost employment. This shows how, regardless of political policy, capitalists tend to face the same needs simultaneously on a global scale, and that they can achieve the same broad economic program with a variety of political models. The triumphant democrats convinced international capitalists to invest in American deficit spending, whereas the fascists disastrously tried to go to war with everyone to steal the resources they would need to fund similarly heavy spending. This was clearly a negative-sum game, and it worked out poorly for those who bet too heavily on German fortunes. German capitalists, however, were blocked from colonial markets by the English and French triumph in World War I, so they had little choice.

How many people who cry “fascism!” today have asked themselves if the situation today is analogous? The answer is easy: it’s not. Nor is there an economic need for warfare between major powers as there was in the 1930s. The Mutual Assured Destruction of nuclear war removes the economic benefits that conventional warfare provides, continuing Cold War politics mean that military spending is constantly at wartime levels, and the multiple ongoing wars left over from the War on Terror provide all the needed stimulus for military production.

Democratic White Supremacy

People need to get it out of their heads that democracy is a good thing. Real democracy does not preclude slavery. Real democracy means capitalism. Real democracy means patriarchy and militarism. Democracy has always involved these things. There is no accurate history of democracy that can furnish us an example to the contrary.

We have seen, tragically, how dangerous fascists in the street can be. But US history is full of reminders of how white supremacists can support democracy instead of fascism in order to get away with murder on a much more systematic scale. Similar in some ways to the Tea Party movement, the KKK was born in part to protect American democracy—white supremacist since its origins—from changes that were undesirable to wealthy whites. They mobilized to keep black people from voting, to keep black people from communalizing land seized from plantation owners (and in this they were aided by the Union army), and to attack white politicians attempting to change the historical Southern class relationship. They tried to influence elections via a variety of means (including terrorism in the case of the Klan and media in the case of the Tea Party), but they also legitimized the electoral system, rather than planning to seize control and abolish it.

Going back to the earliest states, all forms of government are based on a combination of inclusive and exclusive mechanisms. Democracy preaches universal rights and therefore inclusion, but it also permits the state to determine who is a citizen and therefore who obtains full rights. It prescribes certain modes of being human and practices genocide and colonization against those who practice other ways of being human. Democratic governments have never conceded human rights to societies that do not accept property ownership or compulsory labor (wage or slave). Conservatives tend to be more exclusive and progressives to be more inclusive, but both have been responsible for wars of extermination against forms of life that do not uphold white supremacist, patriarchal Enlightenment values regarding what it means to be human.

This is why the diffuse model for white supremacy in US history, so different from fascism’s centralized model, is so crucial. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes about a similar pattern when describing America’s “way of war,” based on total warfare and extermination carried out by volunteer militias of settler rangers. This is not a case of racist brutality that has to be organized by a vanguard party; rather, it is a shared expectation placed on all white people. As such, it transcends parties and flourishes in a democratic system.

The crisis of whiteness that Trump effectively tapped into stems from a deeply rooted fear that the historic paramilitary role of whites is becoming obsolete. This is a visceral insecurity that whites’ longstanding role as protagonists has faded. In US history, that role has always been in support of American democracy, violently attacking the enemies of the nation but also defining what it means to be human and to deserve rights. This form of white supremacy even exists within the left of the Democratic Party, as a presumed right to define acceptable resistance by being the protagonists of other people’s struggles, whether as the bestowers of freedom (and capitalist property relations) in the Civil War and Reconstruction, or as “white allies” in the Civil Rights movement and to the present day.

Whiteness was developed precisely for colonial situations in which capitalism required decentralized economic activity and was limited in its ability to centralize political control: in other words, the settler state. Not only is a decentralized, democratic white supremacy more effective in a settler state, a dictatorial or fascistic iteration of white supremacy in such circumstances is highly dangerous to state power. Fascism requires the suppression of privileged elements of society who do not toe the party line. In a settler state, that would force progressive members of the settler caste (whites) into alliances of self-defense with lower ranked elements of the colonial or neocolonial workforce (people of color), threatening the very power dynamic that gives the state life. Consider how in countries occupied by the Nazis, progressive professionals and wealthy families entered into alliances with Jews and working-class anti-capitalists to fight the regime, temporarily moderating their anti-Semitism and classism. In fact, the partisan movement was so broad and powerful as to be able to defeat the Nazis militarily in several regions, and to constantly thwart them throughout much of the rest of Europe.

In their inception, settler states tend to exercise a decentralized white supremacy because the entire point is to get all people who are classified as white to reproduce it voluntarily. As they mature, settler states prefer a democratic organization to allow progressives and conservatives to each enact white supremacy in their own ways. It is probably no coincidence that what was perhaps the largest iteration of fascism in a settler state, Peronism in Argentina, permitted both right- and left-wing variants and did not emphasize racial purity as heavily as all other fascist movements, thus allowing Argentinian white supremacy to be reproduced in a diffuse way, not subject to the centralization of the new state model.

Certainly, a large part of the extreme right in the US are neo-fascists by any measure. They want to transform the US into a white ethno-state and a dictatorship. And traditionally democratic factions of the extreme right have not hesitated to work in coalitions with these neo-fascists. This represents the ideological incoherence characteristic of the extreme right, an exasperation with the Republican party and the democratic institutions that used to uphold a more visibly white supremacist order, and in at least some cases, the willingness of centrist elements to make use of extreme elements in the street, though they understand the extreme elements have little chance of victory and plan to abandon them when the alliance is no longer convenient. In other words, elements of the far right that don’t actually seek to overthrow the US government and set up a dictatorship are either confused about the ideological differences between themselves and other elements, excited by the new energy and media attention the fascist elements bring, as well as their rupturist discourse, or else they simply see the convenience of getting more forces together in the streets and having organizations to the right of them push the bounds of acceptable politics so their own positions will seem more moderate.

It is possible that the historically democratic extreme right in the US could become majority fascist in the long term, though this would further distance it from the institutions it aims to influence. There is, however, the view that capitalists will suddenly change their politics when an economic crisis occurs. Ami du Radical claims that fascism historically is a response to economic crisis. This is erroneous.[2]

The prototypes and first expressions of organized fascism in Italy and Germany were responses to political crises that preceded the major economic crises: the Biennio Rosso and factory occupations in Italy, and the various communes or workers’ republics smashed by the Freikorps in Germany. (Of course, high unemployment arrived with the end of World War I, but it was the explicitly revolutionary situation that motivated the blackshirts and the Freikorps to action). Fascist movements were already well developed, and already in control in Italy, when the economic collapse of 1929 occurred. England, France, and the US suffered the same economic crisis but did not veer into fascism; in fact, two of them moved left, because both the nature of the political crises they faced , and the local long-term strategies of political control were different. Capitalists in countries with hemmed in geopolitical prospects began supporting fascist movements in response to a political crisis, whereas the economic measures they supported were broadly similar to those of democratic states.

In the present case, the new iterations of what some are sloppily calling fascism also significantly preceded the economic crisis of 2008.

The crucible for the reactionary right in the US was the declaration of the “Culture Wars” in the 1970s. Above all, this was a call for investment in a right-wing ideological renaissance. After the progressive changes of Civil Rights and the Great Society, the right wing was structurally powerful but culturally moribund, represented by such embarrassing cavemen as the John Birch Society and the KKK. Rather than pointing out a strategic direction—they had none, and the visionless Nixon and unabashedly Machiavellian Kissinger illustrate their bankruptcy—they identified a strategic weakness and got to work building their own media, cultural networks, think tanks, and other structures that would help formulate an ideology around which to build a new political consensus. Evidently, they even had the support of a good many Leninists turned neocons who were turned off by the identity politics of the New Left and understood the techniques for reaching out to the white working class (in the UK, there’s a similar trend of former Trots turned far-right, pro-business talking heads). Their great labor was not directed at increasing US geopolitical power or improving the efficient management of capitalism, but rather based on intellectual dishonesty, prejudice, and fear-mongering. Their priority was to rescue certain elitist values that they identified with American history and power, rather than making a lucid, strategic distinction between interests and values—a common error on the right. But the tropes they formulated were quickly exported and became an increasingly international ideology.

The Culture Wars succeeded for a time in driving debate to the right, but the anti-globalization, feminist, and anti-racist movements ultimately managed to slaughter all the right’s sacred cows, even as the left succeeded in institutionalizing those movements and limiting their subversive power. In the end, the Culture Wars left entrenched, intractable minorities in the US and some European and Latin American countries, all but incapable of political dialogue and intelligent governance strategies. They contribute to the crisis of democracy, but they do not point a way out.

Some argue that neo-fascists need not overthrow the government if they can create a one-party system within a democratic government. Netanyahu’s Israel, Erdogan’s Turkey, and Orban’s Hungary provide a potential model here, though describing a Jewish government as the architect of a new brand of fascism is a risky maneuver for people not entirely sure about their word choice. It is hard to find other examples of democratic right-wing governments that have held onto power for just eight or nine years—not an unusual time for a party to stay in power in a multi-party system—so even with this meager list of examples, it’s unclear whether the idea of a one-party system within democracy isn’t just an exaggeration. The fact that some claim the one-party system has already arrived in the US due to the Republicans’ temporary majority shows how they have turned panic and impatience into analytical values.

It also shows tolerance for a fundamentally democratic value system. By warning of the dangers of falling into a one-party system, they implicitly identify the victory of the second party, the Democrats, as banishing the threat, a victory for antifascism. This lays the groundwork for a democratic revival.

But let’s take the threat at face value: the advantage of such a model is that the extreme right need not overthrow the government or provoke a destabilizing rupture. In other words, centralizing all the institutions and manufacturing a permanent majority is probably easier today than launching some kind of coup. The disadvantage is that a one-party system misses out on nearly all the advantages of democratic government, such as the recuperation of dissent, strategic course correction, and the institutionalization of political change and renewal. Netanyahu, Erdogan, and Orban have all manufactured fairly stable majorities, which they have bolstered through the recent “nation-state” law, the constitutional referendum, and the restriction on NGOs, respectively. But none of these states provides a model that is easily exportable to major countries, neither are they proving to be economically effective models. Netanyahu’s policies have led to the large-scale exodus of progressive Jews, creating the kind of cultural straitjacket that is not usually associated with economic growth and innovation. The construction of his majority comes at the cost of Israel’s future, a calculation that was only possible in an enclave state that sees geopolitics in primarily military terms. A similar situation pertains in Turkey, where civil war is a defining aspect of domestic politics; Erdogan’s iron-fisted construction of a majority has played a significant role in the destruction of the Turkish economy, alienating the country from multiple possible trading partners including the EU. As for Hungary, where Orban has constructed his majority on the backs of a famously xenophobic rural population, the entrenched right has only limited relevance on the European scale, certainly as an example of the difficulties of cultural integration, possibly as an argument for greater technocratic authoritarianism, but not as a model to follow. From the perspective of EU administrators and European capitalists, Hungary is a troublesome loser state not in a position to give advice to anyone.

As for the US and the UK, there is no solid right-wing majority, and little possibility that the policies of Trump and May mark a permanent change in the political and economic direction of these two countries. But if the proclaimers of a fascist threat are convinced that we’re on the path to a one-party system, let’s call it a bet. They will most likely be proven wrong as soon as 2020, but for their dire warnings to have any substance, we’d need to see this new style of politics stay at the helm for at least three terms, with effective centralization between the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, and increasing right-wing control over the media. The alarmists will be proven right if Trump can hand off power to a successor in 2024, or if he is able to abolish the constitutional term limit and win a third term. That’s probably not going to happen: the present swing to the right will be followed by a swing to the left, in the endless, stupefying pendulum of democracy.

Democratic Renewal

In terms of longevity, the most successful fascist country was Franco’s Spain. Lasting from 1936 to 1976, it outlived its more belligerent co-religionists by decades, primarily because it could kowtow to a democratic world system—in fact, Franco received covert aid from Britain from the very first moments of the coup. The story of the Spanish transition to democracy is of the utmost importance to anarchists, not only because it took place in the midst of one of the largest wildcat strike movements in world history, but because it was the fascists themselves who initiated the Transition, understanding that under a democratic capitalist government, they could profit more and create a more stable, powerful governing structure. More so than US and Soviet victories in World War II, this episode illustrates the conclusive subordination of fascism to democracy. When fascists themselves realize that they can achieve their goals better under the auspices of their old nemesis, democracy, fascism as a governing model ceases to be relevant. [3]

The Transition is also a case study in how fear of or unified opposition to the ostensible exceptionality of fascism has systematically been used by the ruling class to strengthen capitalism. In Spain, the democratic renewal of the 1970s and ’80s succeeded in institutionalizing or repressing very powerful anti-capitalist movements. By dropping their Falangist regalia and joining liberals, socialists, and communists under the aegis of democracy, the fascists of Spain were able to create the conditions for capitalism to grow more steadily.

Similar factors were at work in the conclusions of the military dictatorships of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and most recently, Myanmar.[4[

An anti-fascist democratic renewal is just a variation on the (counter)revolutionary model that democratic movements have used since the beginning of modernity:

• appeal to the lower classes against a common enemy (initially, the aristocracy and the Church);
• build on ambiguous shared principles like rights and equality that seem to be better than the values of the old system;
• leave out the values of the lowest classes such as defense of the commons and non-representational self-organization, on the grounds that these are anti-modern or would “alienate” the bourgeoisie who are in fact leading the entire coalition;
• use the lower classes as cannon fodder and their more radical elements as a bogeyman to scare moderates among the current power-holders in order to chase them to the negotiating table;
• at the negotiating table, include representatives of the formal institutional structures—those that are able to produce representatives and a disciplined, obedient membership—while excluding the radicals and the masses.

Throughout the liberal revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, throughout the anticolonial struggles of the 20th century, this same model has been used time and time again to defuse radical movements that threatened to destroy the entire capitalist and interstate order, in order to institutionalize a part of the rebels and repress the others, enable capitalists and scientific managers to wrest control of government away from more archaic power-holders, and create a state that was more robust, more in control of its populations, and able to engineer the circumstances for capitalist accumulation. We have been defeated by this same model so many times, we should get an outline of it tattooed on our foreheads so we see it whenever we look in the mirror.

The signs are abundant that most of the US elite—especially the most intelligent sectors—are gearing up for a major democratic renewal, using fear of Trumpian authoritarianism as a mobilizing tactic.

Before Trump, US democracy was already facing a crisis, as were multiple other liberal democracies across the world. In the United States, the crisis struck right to the heart of the country’s fundamental basis as a settler state. Huge crowds were forcibly rejecting the right of the police to murder racialized people, and the right of extraction companies connected to the government to exploit or contaminate native land. The experiences of black and indigenous people were at the forefront in both of these struggles, yet at the same time racial narratives were not effectively used to divide people and prevent cross-racial solidarity,though progressives connected to NGOs, churches, and the Democratic Party certainly tried.

With the election of Trump and the temporary rise of the extreme right, the narrative has shifted drastically. The police are no longer in the spotlight, and though they have not done a good job playing the role of neutral peacekeepers preventing skirmishes between Nazis and Antifa, the critics they now face emphasize that they should be playing that role, whereas in the days of Ferguson, the principle demand was that they should just up and die.

The new narrative portrays a corrupt, right-wing government with unsavory ties to extreme-right groups—a government that badgers the press, colludes with arch-enemy Russia, goes easy on dictators, and attacks free trade.

This narrative is ideal for the Democratic Party. The obvious solution is to favor more rigorous legal oversight of campaign financing and lobbying, celebrate the media, encourage an independent judiciary, protect NATO, NAFTA, the European Union and “our” other alliances, condone greater censorship on Twitter, Facebook, and similar platforms, and buckle down for a new Cold War against Russia. It is no coincidence that after an inspiring and subversive albeit brief spate of airport occupations at the very beginning of Trump’s term, the major protagonists of the anti-Trump resistance have been judges, the FBI, the CIA, leaders like Trudeau, Merkel, and Macron, “honorable” politicians like McCain, Hollywood stars, and centrist media such as CNN and the New York Times.

The new social conflict brings together a broad left to fight a dangerous right in a way that does not question any fundamental aspect of the state. On the contrary, the new terrain is shaped in such a way as to funnel our efforts towards the renewal of the state.

This is not to say that the only critical position is on the sidelines. Quite the contrary. The recent toppling of the Silent Sam monument in Chapel Hill is one of several examples of people acting bravely and intelligently in difficult circumstances to simultaneously defeat the white supremacist right and also subvert the pacification of the institutional left. The counterpoint is that the specter of Trump and the far right make it even easier to form relationships of solidarity with more people, and to spread practices of self-defense and direct action, in many more situations than the anti-police rebellions that were spreading before Trump.

The problem is, these new alliances are much more vulnerable to being taken over or neutralized by identity politicians, the authoritarian left, and party activists.

It doesn’t make it any easier when many anarchists and anti-fascists adopt essentially Popular Front politics and do the discursive work of Democrats. In this vein, we have Ami du Radical warning of a “corrupt judicial system,” they and others advocating “human rights,” and Portland anti-fascists demanding that the police receive better training.

Whenever we participate in broadly leftist spaces, such discourses abound. It comes with the territory, and insofar as those discourses are beyond our control, the only question for us is how to effectively respond to them, pointing out their flaws without being bossy or unfeeling. But when we reproduce those discourses in order to fit in, or because we have become so scared of the right that we begin to support the projects of the left, we are digging our own graves. It is vital to articulate specifically anarchist positions with regard to social conflict rather than flocking to lowest-common-denominator stances, precisely because those stances are formulated to favor the interests of social control—in the long run, those stances do notnegate white supremacy.

Warnings of approaching tyranny and fascism abound in the center left. What does it mean when a good part of the content on an anarchist website is redundant to positions published on CNN and in the New York Times? Examples include Jeffrey Sachs writing for CNN about how we are going down the path to tyranny, or the recent bestsellers, On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder, Malcolm Nance’s The Plot to Destroy Democracy, and Madeleine Albright’s Fascism: A Warning. Leading corporations are also pitching in, like Microsoft with its new “Defending Democracy” program.

There is a common perception of Democrats as political bunglers, and they didn’t get that reputation for nothing. Yet they have far more influence in the streets than we might like to admit, especially vis-a-vis anarchists. In 2008, the Democratic Party proved that it could manage a large, grassroots street movement that temporarily silenced more critical efforts and funneled a massive amount of activist efforts into an election campaign. The Women’s Marches showed they have not forgotten how to turn popular anxieties into electoral base-building. The March for Our Lives saw them creating a movement in a much shorter time frame, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of high school kids who will be of voting age in 2020.

And at their most cynical, the Democrats used the movement against child separation to show that they could coopt a movement with potentially radical implications and use it to protect the very border regime it had started out opposing. The protests against the breaking up of immigrant families and the imprisonment of the children of undocumented parents were organized in part by NGOs that receive government money to administer immigrant detention centers. The result was that locking up families together was presented as a victory, the hatred of borders was replaced with a hatred of ICE and Trump (remember that ICE can be replaced by other agencies), and everyone forgot that immigrant children were also locked up under Obama. In fact, courts had to force the Obama administration to stop indefinitely locking up families of asylum seekers—together—in “widespread deplorable conditions” in order to deter other asylum seekers, basically a sort of light terrorism designed to prevent access to what under the democratic order is supposed to be a basic human right. And while the Obama administration only “occasionally” separated children from their parents at the border, every one of the more than 2.5 million people Obama deported left children or other loved ones behind.

Borders separate families. That’s what they do. And those who support borders—which is to say, those who support states and elections and all the other things that go along with them—can either dehumanize immigrants, or they can celebrate humane ways of imprisoning them and breaking up their families.

In the run-up to the November 2018 elections, we will all be told we are monsters if we do not vote to support more humane borders, more humane police killings, more humane wars, and the standard neoliberal trade agreements and political alliances. This process will be stepped up several scales of magnitude for the 2020 election campaign, which starts this November 7. The Democratic Party will be spending millions of dollars to take over or silence the broad left coalitions built up over the last two years of anti-fascist and pro-immigrant organizing. People who maintain critical positions will be called criminals, racists, whatever it takes. The NGO activists who share spaces with us have learned our language and they know how to neutralize us almost as well as the FBI neutralized Panthers in the 1960s and ’70s.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of young and not-so-young Americans will pin their hopes on a progressive rebirth. Young immigrant girls will dream of studying to be lawyers and judges in the “courts of the conqueror,” to borrow a phrase from that historic chief justice, John Marshall. High school radicals will style themselves socialists and go so far as to advocate expanded government health care programs and free university tuitions. They will all, without saying so, conspire to make America great again.

To achieve this renewal, the Democratic Party will have to broker some kind of workable consensus between its centrist and progressive branches. The progressives who won primaries will have to show they can win seats in November 2018; barring that and a major improvement on the grassroots machine that failed to win Bernie Sanders the nomination in 2016, the 2020 candidate will represent the centrist faction. In 2016, the Democratic primaries were basically a referendum on who was best connected to the party machine, rather than who had a better chance of beating the Republicans. If Democrats are equally stupid, and don’t prioritize criteria related to the ability to win, they might lose two unlosable elections in a row. If they wise up, they’ll nominate someone charismatic who is capable of making significant nods to the progressive agendas that will motivate an activist base. This is especially crucial if we look at two factors: the strong left-wing tilt of younger age groups, and the even stronger decline in young voter turnout. By favoring visionless centrist candidates that discourage progressive voters, Democrats are committing political suicide, using a pro-center arithmetic that no longer applies to the current social reality.

The Democrats will get some extra help, maybe even making them stupidity-proof the way Trump wisely made himself controversy-proof, if the economy starts to tank before November 2020. They will have to work hard to not win in 2020, and if they do, they will immediately embark on an aggressive turnaround of US policy. An end to tariffs, closer relations with the EU, a return to the too-little too-late Paris Agreement, a stand against Russian influence in the Middle East, a thaw with Iran, a less belligerent policy of China-containment, and hypocritical attempts to broadcast an inspiring and coherent proselytism of democracy. On the home front, if congressional majorities allow, they will seek a healthcare reform—either shoring up Obamacare or implementing something that actually makes sense—and large-scale legalization of immigrants coupled with a further strengthening of the border and deportation machinery.

Above all, they will sell a dream of an inclusive patriotism, a vision that mainstream media outlets are already trying to peddle. We are reminded here of the SYRIZA government in Greece, the most progressive in all of Europe that, aside from instituting the harshest austerity measures, also won the distinction of being even more militarist than their conservative predecessors.

Over time, Democratic constituencies are likely to continue shifting in favor of the progressive faction, who may field a progressive candidate by 2028. Of course, if the economic collapse is as bad as it has the potential to be, all their policies will revolve around and be constrained by it and the concomitant geopolitical turmoil.

Meanwhile, Trump’s phantom infra-majority will continue to wane. The age groups he won start at 65, so more of them will be dying off every year, and unless progressives suddenly start losing the Culture War, they won’t be rapidly replenished. For some time, though, they will fatally divide Republican constituencies, forcing that party into the balancing act of having to appease two polarized factions, neither of which will be terribly motivated to support the other in elections (especially now that the motivator of the Supreme Court majority no longer applies).

If somehow the Republicans win in 2020, either they rein back in (e.g., replacing an impeached Trump with Pence), or they will cement their destruction of US political hegemony and economic dominance. Trump’s program, such as it is, is not “revanchist” as some hyperbolic antifascists have claimed; rather than trying to recover America’s dominant place in the world it is in fact destroying it. In an economically depressed, geopolitically has-been US in the alternate future in which Trumpist Republicans keep winning, we might imagine the conditions for more fascist movements, but what would all the supremely powerful US capitalists be doing in all the intervening years as they watch their fortunes willfully flushed down the drains? They would be doing everything they could to prevent it, as they already have started doing, with many of the most important US corporations repeatedly speaking out against Trump policies. Again, this contradicts the simplistic anti-fascist assertion that economic recession equals more fascism. It’s much more complicated than that: sometimes, economic crises push capitalists to support more democracy, not less, as happened in Spain in the 1970s and as is happening today.

The question for anarchists, then, faced with a resurgent right and the even greater possibility of a triumphant left, is: what are the positions that cut to the heart of the problem, no matter who is in power, while also speaking to the specific details of how power is trampling people down?

It is not that hard to conceive of a way to oppose state power and racist violence that leaves us ready, primed, and on our feet no matter who wins in November, and many anarchists are doing just that. As anarchists, we will always fight against borders, against racism, against police, against misogyny and transphobia, and thus we will always be on the frontlines against any right-wing resurgence. But are not borders, police, the continuation of colonial institutions, and the regulation of gender and families also a fundamental part of the progressive project?

The principal hypocrisy of progressives can often be found in their tacit support for repression, that unbroken chain that connects the most vicious fascist with the most humanistic lefty. That’s why it makes sense for anarchists to highlight the prisoners’ strike and to bring the question of solidarity with detainees from anti-pipeline struggles and prisoners from anti-police uprisings into the heart of any coalition with the left. If they want to protect the environment, will they support Marius Mason and Joseph Dibee? If they think building ever more oil and gas pipelines at this advanced stage of global warming is unconscionable, will they stand with Water Protectors? If they loathe police racism, will they support the people still locked up after uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore, Oakland and elsewhere, primarily black people fighting back on the frontlines against police violence?

Such an emphasis will separate Democratic Party operatives from sincere activists in the environmental, immigrant solidarity, and Black Lives Matter movements. It will also challenge the illusion that new politicians will solve these problems, and spread support for the tactics of direct action and collective self-defense.

Democratic or Technocratic Socialism

Nothing lasts forever, and though democratic strategies of governance and exploitation might be the greatest present danger today, that doesn’t mean the same will be true tomorrow. Democracy as a governmental practice incapable of realizing its ideals is in crisis domestically in the US and many other countries, but democracy as a structure for interstate cooperation and capital accumulation is also facing a crisis at the global level.

Due to its domestic crisis, democracy is failing to capture the aspirations of its subjects. The kinds of equality it guarantees are mostly either irrelevant or pernicious, and the benefits decrease the further down the social ladder you go. Democratic government has failed to deliver just societies and failed to cover up the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. It has ended up as another aristocratic system, no better than the ones it replaced.

This means that democracy is losing its innovative ability to recuperate resistance. But until roughly 2008, neoliberal elites barely cared about resistance. They thought that they had so defeated and buried revolutionary potentials that they had no need to pretend, no need to toss the crowd any peanuts. As the 1990s and 2000s dragged on, they became increasingly blatant in their crusade to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands while despoiling the environment and marginalizing ever larger portions of the population. Now that they have revealed their true face, it will take some time for people to forget before they can use their siren song again, and this lack of trust in public institutions comes at a bad time for the once hegemonic NATO countries and their allies.

This underscores why it is so frustratingly myopic when radicals help to restore the seductive value of democracy by talking about what “real democracy” should look like: it’s like the story of the engineer in the French Revolution whose life was spared at the last moment when the guillotine jammed—until he looked up and said, “I think I see your problem.”

If the global crisis of the democratic order culminates before the seductive value of democracy is renewed, it will be that much harder for them to prevent revolutionary movements from growing into real threats. This second crisis revolves around the ongoing breakdown of interstate political mechanisms that are decreasingly able to mediate conflicts, and the impending economic collapse that threatens to close the buffet at which most of the world’s states have been engorging themselves, willing to cooperate because they all have opportunities for economic growth.

The many and growing problems of the US-engineered global system have indeed led many state and market planners to talk about tweaking the current democratic system. Different proposals for solving democracy’s domestic crisis include shifts to more deliberative or participatory democracy, to digital or e-democracy, as a way to recover mass civic participation; to re-link socio-economic with political equality; and to check the accumulative power of the elite. This current has decidedly little leverage on political institutions and policy makers. Once advocated by the widely read but poorly connected idealists of political science, it has since migrated to the street, and it is now mostly articulated by people in the tech sector who think their new gadgets can revolutionize government—uncritically assuming that the bad outcomes of government have been the results of technological limitations—and by progressive parties in Europe and Latin America, mostly with influence at the municipal level.

Most politically connected researchers and think tanks take the opposite approach: mass civic participation is an unrealistic or undesirable goal, with many even blaming the plebs for democracy’s downward spiral. One counter-proposal doubles down on representative democracy and solves the crisis through consultation with “mini-publics” that replace mass civic participation, no longer a realistic goal according to proponents, as an institutional check on elite power. Others speak of the need for more professionalism and structurally improved intermediaries(political parties and interest groups), a sort of hybrid between democracy and more professionalized representational politics. But because the first crisis is every bit as much about perception as about outcomes, it is unlikely that stuffed shirt researchers with an ingrained distrust of the public will know how to solve it, regardless of the quality of their data.

However, there is no reason these two currents cannot be combined: more popular referendums and digital polls at the municipal scale; more professionalization, technocratic evaluations, and structural improvement of political parties at the country-wide scale. The former would improve public confidence and feelings of empowerment, the latter would decrease incompetence and prevent sudden disastrous populist shifts in policy. The greatest obstacle to such strategic changes is the political culture, the institutional inertia of a complex system that has already been in place for many decades. Look at the practical impossibility of going beyond a two-party system in the US, and consider that in most countries, any change to the structure of political parties and other intermediaries, beyond mere campaign finance reform (already implemented in many democracies), would require hard-to-achieve constitutional reforms.

As for the second crisis, there seems to be much less debate. Western financial journals evince a near complete consensus on the need to reject economic nationalism and restore “the rules-governed multilateral trading order that the US itself created.” The only voices in favor of economic nationalism are those of some ecologists with little political clout; the leftovers of left Peronist anti-globalism in Latin America, long eclipsed by endogenous currents of neoliberalism following the cues of Lula and company; and some reactionary politicians in the Global North who understand nothing about economics and only came to power because they were first in line to apply advances in data analytics that more centrist politicians, sure of their victories, hadn’t turned to yet. [5] The corporate elite uniformly see economic nationalism as a risk—a bad thing—and are currently hosting a conversation on how “multinational corporations have to overcome the protectionist sentiments among consumers and government regulators and reinvent their corporate social responsibility models.”

There is just one important exception to this consensus, and actually the only real alternative being proposed to the current democratic order: technocracy, which is sometimes identified with a form of economic nationalism unrelated to that proposed by the likes of Bannon.

The Chinese state is the chief model and proponent of such a system, though there have also been frank discussions of such a model in the West. The European Union constitutes a hybrid between a technocratic and democratic model, though it cannot advocate such hybridization, because to acknowledge a gap between democracy and technocracy would contradict the EU’s fundamental identity.

A technocratic system leaves policy decisions to appointed experts who climb the ranks, ostensibly based on performance; appointments are carried out by the institution itself, as in a university, not by consultation with the public. Most leading members of the Chinese Communist Party, for example, are engineers and other scientists. However, it would be naïve to ignore that they are first and foremost politicians. They simply have to respond to internal power dynamics rather than focusing on performing for the general public.

In the United States, the all-important Federal Reserve runs technocratically, although it is subordinated to democratic leadership. The technocratic elements of the European Union, such as the European Central Bank, enjoy far more policy-making power, and are often able to dictate terms to the democratic governments of member states. However, the EU has been careful to take advantage of the old liberal distinction between politics and economics: by relegating technocracy to a putatively economic sphere, the EU maintains its obligatory commitment to democracy.

One of the chief weaknesses of Western democracy that a technocratic system can shore up is the tendency towards sudden, irrational policy shifts that correspond to a populist attempt to seize power. Someone like Trump can make a claim based on misinformation that nonetheless resonates with the lived experiences of a part of the electorate—for example, NAFTA did hurt a great many people, but the reasons that it did, and the effects of his proposed alternative, are quite different than what Trump claimed. In government, the sine qua non for implementing one’s program is to gain control over the instruments of power. Under a democratic system, winning control over those instruments is dependent on successfully appealing to a majority of the electorate through the elitist filters of the corporate media and campaign finance. For a long time, parties achieved this by distinguishing between popular and professional discourses. In other words, they regularly lied to the masses about what they were going to actually do, contributing year after year to the crisis of democracy. Populists like Trump signaled that they would break with this pattern by breaking all the other rules of respectable politics. The problem (from the perspective of the State) is that such a strategy is effective at winning a vote but not effective at pursuing the interests of the institutions of government.

Technocratic systems solve this problem by removing the irrelevant feedback loop of the electorate, basing access to power directly on the performance of the strategies that will amplify power. In doing so, technocrats also theoretically protect themselves from the risk of bad leaders. Stupid, charismatic leaders are a hallmark of democracy, but the danger they present to the system is neutralized by the intelligent, uncharismatic advisers who keep them on a tight leash. George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan were perfect, functioning examples of this model. In breaking the leash, Trump demonstrated that it is not a strong structural feature of democratic government, and thus a potential weak point.

Another advantage of technocratic systems is their ability to centralize interests. In any democratic system, there are many competing interests that make consensus difficult; this can lead to entrenched, polarized, partisan politics. During the Golden Age of democracy, there was elite consensus on the fundamental strategies of governance. Now we are increasingly seeing a divergence of elite interests and the incompatibility of different governing strategies. A technocratic system uses the massive power of the state not to create a terrain in which capitalists can prosper, but to strategically order the operations of capital in a convergent trajectory. In recent years, the Chinese state has been arresting, imprisoning, and disappearing billionaires it accuses of corruption, which means acting outside the Party’s control over the market, engaging in alternate or autonomous market planning.

On the geopolitical stage, the Chinese technocratic model has a certain advantage. Country after country and company after company have bowed to Beijing’s demands and stopped recognizing Taiwan as an independent country. Not only is China a major economy, it has a greater ability to leverage access to that economy for political purposes, combining greater centralization with a streamlined strategic approach that repudiates the division of politics and economics.

However, there is a great deal of myth around technocratic governance. You can’t have a purely “scientific” government because “objective interests” is a contradiction in terms. Bare empiricism cannot recognize something as subjective as interests; this is why scientific bodies have to fabricate discreet ideologies masquerading as neutral presentations of fact, since there is no human activity, and certainly no coordinated research and development, without interests. Yet governments are nothing without interests. They are, at their most rudimentary, the concentration of a great deal of resources, power, and capacity for violence with the purpose of fulfilling the interests of a specific group of people. The relationship becomes more complex as governments become more complex, with different types of people developing different interests with regard to the government and with institutions producing subjectivities and therefore molding people’s perceptions of their interests, but the centrality of interests remains, as does the fact that hierarchical power blinds people to everything outside of a very narrow reality, and such insensitivity combined with such great power is a sure recipe for unprecedented stupidity.

One example of this is the Three Gorges Dam, perhaps the greatest construction feat of the 20th Century, and certainly a symbol of the Communist Party’s ability to carry out strategic planning that sacrifices local interests for a perceived greater good. But the dam has caused so many demographic, environmental, and geological problems that they may outweigh the benefits in energy production. The major motivation for building the dam was probably hubris—the state basking in its technocratic power—more than a measured estimation that the dam would be worth it.

Power politics may also play a role in China’s lending crisis. Smaller businesses have a hard time securing loans from China’s established banking system, which has traditionally favored state-owned companies and large or politically connected firms, so these businesses turned to newer peer-to-peer lending platforms, many of which were shut down by the government or otherwise collapsed, causing a huge loss of savings. The problem takes on additional dimensions when one considers how important new businesses have been in the US economy in the past couple decades: think Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook. Arguably, it is only these companies that allow the US to maintain its top spot in the world economy. And while tech start-ups like Didi and Alibaba have been important to Chinese economic growth, and have also succeeded in climbing the ranks to receive vital state support, they have not yet demonstrated the capacity for cutting-edge innovation that would be required of a global leader. Perhaps they can be more accurately perceived as copies of established Western firms that were able to receive financing only after their Western analogues had demonstrated the importance of such companies. If this is accurate, it doesn’t bode well for the ability of Chinese state-capitalism to create a climate that will favor more cutting-edge innovation than Western capitalist states.

The European Union is also experiencing problems due to technocratic management. Aside from the temporary rebellions caused by the heavy-handedness of the Central Bank, the EU’s number one existential threat right now can be traced to the Dublin Regulation, an early EU agreement, subject to little scrutiny at the time of its signing, that stipulates that migrants can be deported back to the first EU country they entered. The core EU states (Germany, UK, France, Benelux) habitually bully the poorer states, protecting their key industries while dictating which industries poorer members have to expand or abandon. And while the Mediterranean countries were able to tolerate being turned into debt colonies and tourist hellholes, they have not been so tolerant of the immigration policy, which also gives leaders a scapegoat for the first two problems. The EU’s immigration policy is an obvious dumping on Greece, Italy, and Spain, and to a lesser extent Poland and other border states. These are the countries that can least afford a greater burden to their social services, as Germany siphons off better educated immigrants and shunts the poorer ones back to the border states. This policy has been the major cause of all the right-wing threats to the EU’s integrity. Though it is the product of technocratic planners, it reflects the same arrogance that accompanies all power politics.

There is also the question of resistance. The Chinese government is making the bet that it has the technological and military power to quash all resistance movements, permanently. If it is wrong, it risks total political collapse and revolution. Democratic governments enjoy a greater flexibility, because they can deflect dissident movements towards seeking reform, which rejuvenates the system, rather than forcing them to shut up or blow up. European democratic institutions have proven that this pressure-valve mechanism still works, with progressive parties forestalling the growth of revolutionary movements in Greece, Spain, and France. Then there is the problem of continuity. By concentrating so much power in the person of Xi Jinping, the Chinese state sets itself up for the age-old problem of succession; how to eventually hand off power to an equally capable leader.

So the technocratic model is not clearly superior. Even if it were, Western powers would have a hard time accepting it in more than hybrid form. This comes down to white supremacy and its centrality to the Western paradigm. Democracy plays a fundamental role in white supremacist mythology and the implicit claims of white progressives to superiority. Basing the mythical roots of democracy in ancient Greece, whites can think of themselves as the founders of civilization and thus apt tutors to the rest of the world’s societies. Orientalist paranoias are based on the association of Eastern civilizations with autocracy and despotism. The Western sense of self-worth collapses without that opposition.

In fact, the Chinese state makes plenty of claims to democracy, justice, equality, and the common good, every bit as valid as the claims made by Western states. But these claims are validated within a paradigm that is different from the one Western elites use to justify their own imperfections. Chinese democracy draws in roughly equal parts from Leninism and a Confucian science of statecraft. In this model, the CP consults minority parties and interest groups before drafting a consensus position deemed to be in the general interest. This conception doesn’t translate well into a Western liberal paradigm. Western ruling classes cannot be convinced by such a model; they feel threatened by the prospect of Chinese dominance, even as they believe in their own hypocrisy.

The competition between NATO and China is increasingly taking on these cultural overtones. But as geopolitical conflicts between the US, Russia, and China continue to erode existing interstate institutions, the current spats might come to represent a greater shift towards a confrontation between different models of governance on a world scale.

The aforementioned trend, in which multiple countries have changed their diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, has a significance that extends beyond the fate of the island formerly known as Formosa. Many of the countries that have fallen in line with Beijing’s demands are small Caribbean and Central American countries historically anchored to the US. The fact that they are backing away from US ally Taiwan also symbolizes a certain cooling of their relationship with the US itself. In the emerging system, they have alternatives, and these alternatives erode US dominance, not just in Central America but also in a number of geopolitical hotspots. As Turkey’s Erdogan said in response to the usual attempts by the US to strong-arm foreign policy, “Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives.”

Saudi Arabia has shown the same awareness of a new geopolitical situation by expelling Canada’s ambassador and suspending trade deals after a routine human rights criticism, the typical hypocritical rebuke Western countries have always doled out before carrying on with business-as-usual. The Saudi crown’s murder of dissident journalist Khashoggi and the response of Western governments also show that the rules are being rewritten. Some players are trying to change their prerogatives, while others are pushing back. The role that the Turkish state is playing, astutely milking the controversy for its own benefit, illustrates how everything is up for grabs in this situation: every alliance and every country can improve its standing, or lose it.

China’s vociferous criticisms of Swedish racism, after the relatively minor humiliation of a small group of Chinese tourists, are likewise significant. The criticism is valid, but its actual content is irrelevant insofar as the Chinese state could have been making similar criticisms of far more serious attacks against Chinese travelers and immigrants across the West for well over a hundred years. What has changed is that a state from the global South is now challenging the West’s moral high ground, striking at the very heart of self-satisfied Scandinavia, and it is pairing that critique with an economic threat: the Chinese state combined its rebuke with a warning advising its citizens against tourism in Sweden, and there have also been campaigns for the boycott of Swedish products.

If the Chinese state were to become the architect of a new global cycle of accumulation, it would need a system for governing interstate relations compatible with its technocratic model for the state regulation of domestic capitalism. All indications suggest it would seek global stability by explicitly putting state rights over any other kind. This would mean that if Turkey wanted to bulldoze all of Bakur, if Saudi Arabia wanted to virtually enslave its domestic workers, if China wanted to imprison a million Uighurs in concentration camps, that would be their prerogative, and no one else’s business. This is a potentially effective strategy for creating more goodwill and unimpeded economic cooperation between states, with organized military might as the basis for right. It also does not shock us that such a philosophy comes out of the Communist Party, which long ago embraced the Jacobin idea that ends justify means.

The CIA has been intervening in public discourse to warn the world that China wants to replace the US as global superpower. To make this seem like a bad thing, they have to suggest that the world is better off as a US protectorate than as a Chinese protectorate. According to one agent, “I too am optimistic that in the battle for norms and rules and standards of behavior, that the liberal national order is stronger than the repressive standards that the Chinese promulgate. I’m confident others won’t want to subscribe to that.”

Transparently, the US needs to convince the world that the democratic model can provide a better interstate system. But despite more than a century of Western propaganda, this is a hard sell. Not only are populists like Trump willfully flaunting the weaknesses of the democratic system and undermining Western alliances at their most critical moment since 1940—even at its strongest, democracy has delivered disappointing results. The US is famous for systemic racism and injustice. With every Brixton and Tottenham, the UK shows it’s in the same shape, and the growing wave of far-right movements throughout Europe shows that liberal democracies from Sweden to Italy were never less racist than the US, as they liked to believe. The moment that people of color gained visibility in these societies, supposedly enlightened citizens ran into the arms of xenophobic, far-right parties. Even the German far left has begun adopting openly anti-immigrant positions.

In the Global South, where Western powers have long preached democracy as a panacea even as they continue to support military dictatorships, the results of democracy have been disappointing. Across South America, democratic governance has only made manifest the underlying social polarization caused by capitalism and neo-colonialism, and brought back the levels of instability that required military dictatorships in the first place.[6]  In Myanmar, long the cause célèbre of democrats and pacifists, their Nobel Prize-winning State Counselor wasn’t in power for more than a year before her government started carrying out genocide against the Rohingya and persecuting dissident journalists. But what democracy hasn’t ever carried out a little genocide, amiright?

Elsewhere, the moral superiority Western media and government institutions have been trying to build up against the perceived Chinese threat has been equally hollow. In response to growing economic competition in Africa, long reserved as Europe’s “backyard,” article after article has appeared bemoaning China’s practice of predatory lending, unloading cheap loans for largely unnecessary infrastructure on poor countries in Africa and the rest of the Global South, and then appropriating their entire public sector, their resources, and their future earnings when they can’t pay back the debts.

The New York Times describes Chinese debt bondage in Malaysia and lauds the local government for supposedly standing up to the practice. They go so far as to speak of “a new version of colonialism.” There’s nothing inaccurate about this: there has only been one century out of the last twenty (1839-1949) when China wasn’t an active colonial or imperial power with its own brand of ethnic superiority. Colonialism has taken many forms in addition to the particular race paradigm that evolved in the Triangular Trade of the Atlantic. A truly global anti-colonial practice cannot be limited to a Eurocentric understanding of race or a simplistic opposition that places all whites on one side and all people of color homogeneously on the other.

What is in fact inaccurate about the hand-wringing of the New York Times is that this “new version of colonialism” was developed by the United States in the decades immediately after World War II. Anyone familiar with the critiques of the anti- and alter-globalization movement knows that it was the Bretton Woods institutions created in the US that pioneered the practice of debt bondage and appropriation of public infrastructure. The corporate media is apparently hoping everyone has forgotten about those critiques by now.

If this too-late, too-hollow concern is the best that the proponents of Western democracy can whip up, the contest is lost already. It would take a major overhaul to rescue the current institutions of interstate cooperation and create the possibility for another American Century, or at least a US-European one. It would mean turning the UN into an organization that had to be taken seriously, an organization that could isolate countries that did not respect the common legal framework. To accomplish this, the US would have to end its role as the principal saboteur of the UN and make unmistakable gestures like ending military aid to Israel.

State planners would only take such drastic steps if they came to believe that an impartial respect for human rights would be essential for business and greater international cooperation. And in the 21st century, a meaningful respect for human rights would have to take ecological considerations into account, albeit from an anthropocentric perspective. This means nothing short of an intensive state intervention into economic processes to curtail the chasing of short-term interests and take on the humanitarian management of climate and all other geobiological systems. And since such an intervention would be inseparable from the question of technology, and therefore AI, state planners would have to ease democracy’s contradiction between political equality and economic inequality by introducing socialism in the form of universal basic income. All within the next decade or two.

In other words, Western governments would need to undergo a drastic paradigm shift in order to be able to continue shaping the world system. The challenge is probably too great for them. The few visionary progressives who can see what needs to be done are chained, by the very logic of democracy, to the dead weight of the center. It does not help things that China has taken over from Europe as the undisputed world leader in the production of solar cells and other renewable energies. (75% of solar panels worldwide are either made in China or by Chinese companies in industrial neo-colonies in Southeast Asia; this is thanks to an aggressive government campaign pushing state-owned banks to invest.) Meanwhile, the US is headed for another oil glut, opening untapped deposits in the Permian Basin in Texas, described as being even larger than Saudi Arabia’s oilfields.

In other words, we can almost write the eulogy for the US-engineered global system. But what comes next isn’t clear. China itself is headed to economic disaster. Its stock market is shaking, and the country has massive debt, especially its major companies. China avoided the recession of 2008 with a huge artificial stimulus campaign. Now Party leaders are pushing for a clampdown on riskier lending, but this is leading to a scarcity of credit that is causing economic growth to slow. Take the example of Australia, celebrated because the country hasn’t had a technical recession in 27 years: this has also been in part because of major government spending. But households are slipping more and more into debt and therefore spending less, therefore causing a slowdown in domestic spending, and Australia’s main trade partner is China, where the weakening of the yuan will also hurt the ability of Chinese consumers to buy imported goods such as those coming from Australia. With the economic slowdowns in Turkey and Brazil, where over-investment bubbles are also ready to pop, China is the last strong player standing. If it falls, the economic crash will probably be global, and probably much worse than 2008. All the contradictions of capitalism are converging right now.

To prop up the economy, China is following a similar path to the US: cutting taxes, spending more on infrastructure, and changing the rules so that commercial lenders can put out a greater amount of money in loans in comparison to their actual deposits.

The possibility that China might become the architect of a new global system is not based on economic growth or military power. It doesn’t have to win a war against the US, so long as it has military autonomy in its own corner of the world; all previous global architects won defensive wars against the earlier global leader decades before ascending to the role themselves, and China already did this in the Korean War. Rather, it would have to make itself the center for the organization of global capitalism.

The critical question might be, what country most effectively pulls itself out of the economic crisis and opens new directions and new strategies for the expansion of capitalism? And secondly, what will those strategies be?

And the Anarchists?

One of the few certain things is that no one alive today has witnessed such a level of global uncertainty. A broken system may continue puttering along for another two or even three decades, wreaking havoc. A progressive rebirth might rescue that system through democratic socialism, eco-engineering, and transhumanism. A coalition of other states might inaugurate a more technocratic order of great states on the basis of institutions and social contracts yet to be articulated.

None of these possibilities, of course, contain the horizon of freedom, well-being, and the healing of the planet. All of them suppose the survival of the State. I have not spoken of anarchists in the preceding considerations because we are losing our ability to manifest as a social force in the changing circumstances. We have not succeeded in resisting technological convenience, overcoming the various addictions capitalism instills in us, abandoning the puritan habits that pass for politics, spreading revolutionary imaginaries, or communalizing daily life. Our ability to riot was enough to change the social discourse and open a few new possibilities for social movements over the last two decades. If the system does not repair itself quickly, however, our combative skills may become insufficient and invisible beside the far greater conflicts that will emerge. The skill that may be most important, and that seems to be most lacking, is the capacity to turn survival into a communal concern. Sadly, most people seem to be falling out the other side of individualism into the most extreme forms of alienation.

All of this can change, of course. In the meantime, it makes more sense to speak of what life might be like for us in the coming years of systemic disorder. We still have the ability to spread new ideas at the social scale, to play the role of society’s conscience. Capitalism has little legitimacy left; we must drive the final nails in its coffin before it develops a new narrative to justify its insatiable expansion.

To be able to do so, we have to develop an acute awareness of the escape routes still open for those who would preserve and renew capitalism, and undermine them before they can be reinforced and turned into load-bearing elements of the next global narrative structure. Mere critiques of poverty, inequality, and ecocide are not enough. Divorced from an anarchist strategy, each of these lines of protest will only help to lubricate the tracks of a specific line of escape from the present contradictions into a capitalist future.

Once neoliberalism expires and a significant quantity of global value is destroyed by cascading debt defaults or warfare, something like universal basic income will likely become an attractive strategy for reintegration. It could reintegrate the poor and marginalized, provide a new pool for government-backed lending, and offer a solution to AI-exacerbated mass unemployment. What’s more, versions of UBI are perfectly compatible with both a progressive, regenerative politics, and a right-wing, xenophobic politics that would attach such benefits to citizenship. UBI instead of welfare can be justified with both the rhetoric of social justice and the rhetoric of curtailing government bureaucracy. Such bipartisanship increases the possibilities for a new consensus politics. Corporate proponents of UBI—and these are on the rise—can make use of anti-capitalist critiques of poverty and inequality to urge governments to invest in the very forms of social financing and engineering that will ease the problems caused by those same corporations and maintain a viable consumer base that will continue to buy their products.

Critiques of inequality can be most easily answered with promises of greater participation: the aforementioned democratic renewal. As far as critiques of inequality relate to gender, race, and other axes of oppression tied to many of the social conflicts that undermine democratic peace, equality feminism and equality anti-racism have already triumphed. The former has modified dominant conceptions of gender, reinforcing binaries but empowering people to understand gender as yet another consumer choice of self-expression. They are on the way to fully integrating all identities within a patriarchal, white supremacist mode. By nominally rejecting the exercises of paramilitary power that have historically been necessary to maintain social hierarchies (e.g., rape, lynchings), they can finally share outthe behaviors and privileges previously reserved for heterosexual white men. In practice, equality means that everyone gets to act like the normative white male, once that normative subject is demobilized and its paramilitary functions are reabsorbed by professional bodies like the police, the medical establishment, advertising agencies, and so on.

Such a practice of equality neutralizes the threat that feminist and anti-colonial movements have posed to capitalism and the State. The only way out of this is to relate non-normative bodies with practices that are inherently subversive, rather than with identity labels that can be recuperated (essentialism). We don’t criticize the State because there are not enough women leading it, but because it has always been patriarchal; not because its leaders are racists, but because the State itself is a colonial imposition, and colonialism will be alive in one form or another until the State is abolished. Such a view requires putting more emphasis on historical continuities of oppression rather than tokenistic indicators of oppression in the present moment.

As far as critiques of ecocide are concerned, capitalism very much needs to start taking care of the environment. Clearly, we must focus on contesting what that means rather than focusing on the reactionaries who still don’t agree with some version of this sentiment. Capitalist concerns for the environment will necessarily involve managing and engineering nature. Anti-capitalist concern for the environment is meaningless unless it is ecocentric and anti-colonial.

What is being done to the planet is an atrocity. Those responsible should be stripped of all social power and made to answer for the hundreds of millions of deaths and extinctions they have caused; above all, they cannot be trusted with solving the problem they are profiting from. The root of the problem is not fossil fuel, but the longstanding idea that the planet—indeed, the entire universe—exists for human consumption. Unless we can achieve a paradigm shift and foreground the idea that our purpose is to help take care of the earth and be a respectful part of a community of life, there is no hope for saving wild nature, liberating humanity, or ending capitalism.

Technology sits at the crossroads of all of the escape routes from ecological crisis that lay open before capitalism. Technology is not a list of inventions. Rather, it is the reproduction of human society as seen through a technical lens: the how of social reproduction. Everything about how humans relate to the rest of the planet and how we structure our internal relations is modulated by our technology. Rather than wading into the typically idiotic framing of the debate—techmology, good or whack?—we have to focus on how technology as it exists in global society functions as an all-or-nothing juggernaut. The one debate regarding technology that we cannot lose, and that is left out of the dominant framing, addresses the authoritarian nature of technology as it exists today. It is presented as a consumer choice, but each new advancement becomes obligatory within a matter of years. We are forced to adopt it or become totally excluded. Each new advancement rewrites social relations, progressively robbing us of control over our lives and giving control to the governments that surveil us and the corporations that exploit us. This loss of control is directly related to the destruction of the environment.

We are increasingly being sold a transhumanist narrative in which nature and the body are presented as limitations to be overcome. This is the same old Enlightenment ideology that anarchists have fallen for time and again, and it rests upon a hatred of the natural world and an implicit belief in (Western) human supremacy and unfettered entitlement. It is also being increasingly used to make the capitalist future enticing and attractive, at a time when one of the primary threats to capitalism is that many people do not see things improving. If anarchists cannot recover our imagination, if we cannot talk about the possibility of a joyful existence, not only in fleeting moments of negation but also in the kind of society we could create, in how we could relate to one another and to the planet, then I don’t believe we have any chance of changing what happens next.

The system is entering a period of chaos. Social pillars long thought to be stable are trembling. Those who own and govern this world are looking for ways to hold onto power, or to use the crisis to get an edge on their opponents. The structures they have long built up are on a collision course and they cannot agree what correction to make, but they’ll be damned if they let us off this suicidal ride. They may offer us jobs, organic food, and trips to the moon; they may terrorize us into submission.

It is a frightening moment and the stakes are high. Those in power are not in control. They don’t know what’s going to happen next, their interests are diverging, and they haven’t agreed on a clear plan. Nonetheless, they’ll throw everything they’ve got into holding onto power. Meanwhile, their failings are on display for everyone to see, and uncertainty is in the air. It is a moment that requires qualitatively more from us: communal practices of solidarity that can scale up from affinity groups to neighborhoods to society as a whole; visions of what we could do if we were in control of our own lives, and plans for how to get there; and practices of self-defense and sabotage that can enable us to stay on our feet and prevent those in power from getting away with murder again and again.

This is a tall order. By all rights, we shouldn’t even be on the stage anymore. Capitalism has invaded every corner of our lives, turning us against ourselves. The power of the State has grown exponentially and they have defeated us so many times before. Nonetheless, their system is failing once again. On both the left and the right, they will look for solutions. They will try to recruit us or silence us, unite us or divide us—but no matter what, they want to make sure that what happens next isn’t up to us.

This is the Future, a machine busy producing a new version of the same old domination in order to bury all the unmapped possibilities suggested by the system’s decay. We can destroy that Future and regain our lives, beginning the long task of turning the present wasteland into a garden—or we can succumb to it.

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The post Diagnostic of the Future: Between the Crisis of Democracy and the Crisis of Capitalism- A Forecast- by Peter Gelderloos appeared first on Void Network.

What is insurrection?

‘The goal of any insurrection is to become irreversible. It becomes irreversible when you’ve defeated both authority and the need for authority’ (CI)

‘The catastrophe is not coming, it is here. We are already situated within the collapse of a civilization. It is within this reality that we must choose sides. To no longer wait is… to enter into the logic of insurrection’ (CI)

‘It’s enough just to say what is before our eyes and not to shrink from the conclusions’ (CI)

What strategies and orientations can develop insurrectionary anti-politics into a movement actually able to destroy global capitalism? This is the question taken up by The Coming Insurrection, as well as by author such as Alfredo Bonanno. I aim here to use insights from The Coming Insurrection to open onto discussions of various aspects of the future of insurrection. The purpose will be to think through strategic implications of attempting to use a mainly expressive form of action for strategic purposes, and ways to deal with the obstacles faced in the process.

But first of all, what is insurrection?

Insurrection differs from revolution in being an attack on the existence of state power, rather than a seizure of such power. It follows in the tradition of Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘law-destroying violence’, which is directed against the capability for use violence to make or preserve laws. It is not instrumental violence to subordinate others, but rather, exists beyond the mythology of statist violence, destroying the power of death for the sake of the living. Bonanno’s theory of insurrection relies on a concept of social war, which refers to an irreducible antagonism between included and excluded. Insurrection for Bonanno involves the rejection of alienation, especially of subordination to production, and involves both an affirmation of life and desire and assault on the structures of power. ‘Unfortunately civil war is an obligatory road which must be passed in any historical moment of profound, radical transformation’. Yet it must also be playful, generating excitement and a sense of empowerment against the social system as death-machine. Insurrection pits active force against reactive force, and is the point of explosion of accumulated discontent.

It is fundamentally connected to non-renunciation, the refusal to compromise on desire. It is thus connected to an active, affirmative type of desire. It is also fundamentally connected to affinity-networks and bands, as opposed to organisations. It most often arises from standpoints of exclusion or marginality, as opposed to those which are included but exploited. Insurrection has at least three political components. It has an affective or expressive component: attacks which respond to indignity and violation, which are psychologically liberating and inspiring. It has a strategic component: it imposes costs on repressive or oppressive forces, and serves to carve out spaces of autonomy by altering the balance of forces. And it has a prefigurative component, with each act of insurrection pointing towards and attempting to produce in the present a total insurrection resulting in the destruction of the system. Insurrectional agency is effective when the three components are articulated. And this creates issues of their interconnection and the passage between them: how insurrectional acts which are affectively motivated and expressive can nevertheless serve instrumental purposes such as carving out spaces of autonomy and imposing costs, and how and when these spaces and costs reach the point of bringing down the system. We can think of issues ranging from summit protests to squat defence to the SHAC model as examples of how the first connection comes about. The second is more tentative, but raises questions of why for instance the Greek insurrection fizzled out after three weeks. Is there a time-limit on insurrections in the global North, and how can it be overcome?

Just-in-time repression

‘The lid on the social kettle is shut triple-tight, and the pressure inside continues to build. From out of Argentina, the specter of Que Se Vayan Todos is beginning to seriously haunt the ruling class’ (CI)

There is no question that insurrection is growing. This is because the paths of reform and revolution are failing. At present states are becoming less attuned to social struggles, because they are seeking comparative advantage to attract global capital. They are increasingly reluctant to make the concessions they would once have made, to keep social peace. They will accept immovable objects (the Peruvian Amazon struggle for instance) – but only when they are absolutely forced to; and one can normally expect all viable tactics of repression to be employed first. The field of insurrection thus comes to overlap with the fields of reform and revolution, which can succeed only by way of insurrection (though the revolutionaries and reformists are slow to learn this).

Things have changed. Gramsci’s old notion that the frontline of capitalism is now buttressed by the ‘trenches and fieldworks’ of civil society is no longer valid. It spoke of a Fordist and corporatist era which has passed. Today, capitalism is once more engaged in a war of movement. More than this: it is like an army which has all its troops on the frontline. It has corroded all its deep supports, such as legal due process and civil rights, as too costly to maintain. It has pushed its forces of repression further forward, onto a frontline where people can barely speak out without facing repression. But behind this frontline there is an open field all the way into the system’s territory. The mentality of just in time production has been expanded into the fields of politics, security, repression. Just-in-time security means events like 911 are always just about to happen, only just averted – in Powell’s words, they had the information it would happen, but there was too much information to handle, to filter.

So, too, the field of protest: the frontline forces are vicious but are always only just in time to prevent an event. Unexpected events, like the unrest on the first of Britain’s student protests, the Melbourne taxi drivers’ protest which shut down the city, the ‘Anonymous’ DDoS attacks on Wikileaks’ persecutors, the flash mobs which periodically hit major cities, can flare up out of nowhere, taking the state completely by surprise. Emerging like a snake from the spaces of quiet suffering, they pose a constant threat of ‘unknown unknowns’ the system cannot handle. The closer insurrection is to these unpredictable modalities of protest, the less it can be pre-empted, and the more the vast space behind the front lines is open to it.

This provides opportunities for exciting events. But there is also a certain danger in the upturn. Anarchists are not affected by who’s in power, but the wider field of potential resisters clearly are, and this in turn affects things like the numbers resisting and the general level of energy. This ultimately seems to affect anarchists too. Take the situation in Britain. Today, there is a wave of militant resistance to the new Tory government’s cuts programme, with impressive actions in London. Yet it is strange that this has come only now. Things were no better under Blair. Then, a militant opposition emerged (in events like J18 and Mayday), precisely because the broad constituency of resistance was decomposed by Blairism’s clever use of incorporation and lesser-evilism. Now, because of a recession and a Tory government, the masses are moving once again. But the future does not lie with those who will be quieted by a change in government. The future lies with those who do not compromise – which is to say, with the network of bands. The danger we face today is the reabsorption of the bands into a movement of resistance hegemonised by the mass. The opportunity is that people can be drawn from the mass into the network of bands by the experience of struggle.

Texts like The Coming Insurrection are charismatic. They resonate on the basis that they make claims which appeal to the reader, subjective truths which are otherwise hidden. Insurrections, too, are charismatic. And it is impossible to know in advance how resonant they will be, given their exclusion from public discourse by the dominant system. Resonance with the hidden transcript, or with psychologically repressed material, or with groups denied a voice, is hard to predict. Insurrection is also expressive. ‘Instrumental action relates to only one sphere of the lifeworld, another sphere being… [the] expressive’… [T]he pursuit of expressive authenticity is a form of protest against disenchantment, which is brought about by the rationalization of the lifeworld’ (Routledge and Simons 476). The replacement of instrumental with expressive orientations should be one of an insurrection’s goals. There is something inherently appealing in meeting state violence with a counter-attack, something which is missing in other responses, for all their usefulness and bravery. ‘It is high time for them to understand that we refuse to put up with this abuse any longer’ (Black Block Papers, p. 80).

The experience of the excluded and the right to be angry

‘We can no longer even see how an insurrection might begin… our sense of the war in progress [is dulled]… We need to start by recovering this perception’ (CI)

‘No one can honestly deny… this was an assault that made no demands… and it had nothing to do with politics’ (CI)

The intensity of experience sustains insurrection beyond its specific goals. Above all, insurrection is a question of intensity. In bourgeois rhetoric, intensity and violence fuse into one another. Intensity is frightening to the system because it does not take part in the politics of inclusion, it does not sell itself to power. The images of the “violence” of insurrection thus fuse real attacks with imaginary violence, with the state’s fear of its own collapse.

There are of course dangers of insurrection slipping into roles and reproducing the system’s violence, but these dangers are overplayed by critics. Insurrection is not at all a masculine thing, a performance of social roles – it is all about the right to be angry. Similarly, activism of whatever kind if not above all a publicity stunt, not a performance for the mass or state gaze, but something else, an expressive action, an act against or in radical antagonism with the state, imposing costs on it. Fighting the police as enemies stands in the tradition of indigenous warfare, of “popular defense” in Virilio’s sense, not the modern warfare which exterminates the enemy as irreducibly evil or which closes space to prevent action.

Another criticism we can safely ignore is the leftist objection that insurrection is an action of a minority, and that images of insurrection are alienating to the majority. Insurrection is performed to bring about a better world, it is not performed for the gaze of the Other. There is no reason insurrectionists need to be accountable to the majority; we are the excluded, those who are not part of the community, so the majority is not part of the same collective as we are. Why should the excluded always be the ones expected to dialogue, compromise, appeal to others? The system has made clear it has no time for such things. It is putting itself further and further from any possibility of dialogue. Leftists tend to assume that capitalist power is nothing but the alienation of our own power. This is true, if the “we” is cast broadly enough (it is alienated life), but it is not maintained by the insurrectionists, the people who resist; it is maintained by others, whose positions are incommensurable with ours. They are not simply seduced by false consciousness or forced to alienate their labour; they actually desire the present system. Hence, we should not imagine that all of this will dissolve in the event that individualism is replaced by collectivity and struggle. For one thing, insurrectional struggle is on a certain level very much individual.

But more crucially, the structural analysis underpinning this view is flawed. Leftism makes excuses for people’s reactionary ideologies by taking a starting point of ideological submersion as axiomatic, and imagining community or struggle to be a messianic antidote; if anarchists criticise people for being reactionary, they’re prone to call us ‘moralistic’ (meaning we have our own ethical principles, instead of a historical teleology). Of course, insurrection often transforms those who are a part of it, and many people go through moments of revelation in the face of police brutality. Yet insurrectional bands are most often formed from prior individual refusals; the refusal constitutes the community, it does not result from it. On the contrary, movements which start out as reformist or reactionary do not miraculously become insurrectionary simply because people come together. This is because the real basis of revolt resides in desire, not community. People are not simply products of ideology and subjectification until they miraculously break its spell in revolt; the system needs hooks in desire to draw people in. People vary in the degree to which their desires resist this process of attraction. The facts that the social relations have to be continually reproduced, that fetishism is incomplete and can break down at any point, that systems left to their own devices go into entropy, do not at all affect the fact that the system will not collapse while those who desire it exert dominance over those who do not.

The included (including people who are exploited, but nevertheless identify with the system) have betrayed insurrection time and again. In doing so, they have harmed their own position as well as ours. If the included do not care enough about the most basic rights and needs of the excluded, or do not have the power to force the system to concede – why on earth should the excluded hold back, out of concern for their approval? In any case, the mass doesn’t think, it just reacts. Greek “public opinion” supported unrest while it happened, then fell on board with the government line. British “public opinion” was massively against Thatcher at the height of crises, only to return to her at elections. We need a more constant compass than this. The Coming Insurrection is right: there is no prior community, no “we”, only the affinity of those who are linked in aspirations and actions. The ground of resistance is not the community or the majority, but each person’s right to be angry and to resist, based on our difference, our refusal, and our non-renunciation. We shouldn’t feel a need to form links with others who have no desire to form links with us. Against alienation, yes: alienation from ourselves, from others who resist, from the environment… but separating ourselves from reactive force and those who bear it is not alienation, it is autonomy. In Clastres‘ account, indigenous groups maintain autonomy by separating not only from the state form but even from one another, to defend the autonomy of each group. We need to get past the simplistic association of separation with alienation. Of course we can, and should, ask how, if at all, we can bring over some of the people who aren’t resisting to our side. But we must not subordinate our will to theirs, nor imagine we’re doing good by indulging their self-limiting aspirations or their reactionary beliefs, in other words, by compromising on our own desires. We aren’t all in it together

Short of the final collapse of state and capitalist power, the maximum effect of insurrectionary actions occurs when it is nevertheless pushed back, rendering the effects of such actions cumulative, and expanding open or liberated spaces. These strategic effects are difficult to produce, and can only come from a fusion of the brain with the heart: using expressive actions to produce instrumental improvements, which in turn reinforce the expressive states productive of further action. Strategy comes easy to organised movements because they can turn mobilisations on and off. It is harder for expressive movements and bands, but it is still possible, because expressive affects have triggers and varying intensities.

Insurrection rejects the state’s claimed monopoly on force, largely because it pursues a diffusion of all forms of social power. The mainstream attitude to violence in the global North is like the Victorian attitude to sex. There is at once an emotionally invested prohibition, replete with condemnations and silencings, and an attempt to restrict its legitimate expression to a confined proper context in which enjoyment and excess are excluded… and a proliferation in practice, from structural violence to police brutality to organised crime. The ridiculous outrage about insurrectional violence is not only hypocritical – it isn’t really about violence at all. It’s about what are known as ‘feeling rules’, in particular, a prohibition on feeling angry against the system.

A qualification, however. There is a lot of talk in The Coming Insurrection about events, decisions, subjective truths and so on. This is a big theme in French philosophy today, probably lifted from the work of the Maoist Badiou, and can be traced back to the debate between the fascist Schmitt and critical theorist Walter Benjamin. The problem with the use of decisionism in insurrectionism is that the act of decision, the ‘sovereign decision’ as Agamben calls it, is constitutive of the state. Hence why Schmitt, the founder of this concept, could still be a fascist. We need to be clear on how our anti-politics is different from that of the statist suspension of the ethical, the sovereign decision. For Agamben, this distance is created by being all-inclusive and immanent, which is to say, it rejects normativity, it diffuses ethics. For Virno, by a kind of decision which is not sovereign, but which simply emerges from a distributed network. For Benjamin, in the difference between a violence which founds law and a violence which destroys law, which is to say, which diffuses power. I think, too, that the Invisible Committee’s version is different: we do not make the decision, it takes hold of us. It ‘will occur to us rather than being made by us’. What these views have in common is diffusion, the replacement of concentrated relations with diffuse relations (ethics for Agamben, process for Virno, violence for Benjamin). Decisionism is associated with the concentration of power, and hence is part of statist reason. We need instead a diffusion of the power to decide.

Insurrection and band societies

‘the decomposition of all social forms is a blessing. It is for us the ideal condition for a wild, massive experimentation with new arrangements, new fidelities’ (CI)

‘We’re setting out from a point of extreme isolation… FIND EACH OTHER. Attach yourself to what you feel to be true. Begin there’ (CI)

‘All affinity is affinity within a common truth’ (CI)

There is a special kind of group which is the agent of insurrection. I have variously seen it called a band, neo-tribe, neo-sect, bund, pack, fused-group, subject-group. Anarchist groups are, at least partially, band societies. For some, in all or most aspects of life; for others, as the most emotionally intense aspect of lives also lived less intensely in other political forms. As Virilio observes (Speed and Politics, p. 4), street insurrection reproduces the raiding party of our ancestors. Anthropologists such as Ingold have shown that bands are fundamentally different from societies in the usual sense. The band involves a way of constructing social relations which does without the usual hierarchical props. It is absolutely immanent to everyday life. Militant resistance gets its power from its articulation in everyday life, not only in the moments of insurrection themselves, but in the full set of autonomous practices of which they are a part. (What is sometimes attacked as ‘lifestyle activism’ is actually the embodiment of this immanence). The band as a social form seems to reappear wherever organisation isn’t fully implanted. Bands seem to come naturally to children. Anarchists, and far-leftists too, usually end up in bands, even when they want organisations (like Makhno for instance).

Anarchist bands are somewhat distinct from indigenous band societies, being rather closer to the ‘bund’. Schmalenbach’s account of the sect or ‘bund’ suggests that it achieves a social form irreducible to community and society, held together by a special kind of emotional bond he terms ‘communion’. Immediate emotional experiences (often produced through ritual) hold together such groups without the mediation of abstract identities or organisations. Existing without a basis in ascriptive ties such as kinship, the bund cannot exist independently from the social acts which constitute it. It must constantly be re-enacted, or disappear. It is thus an absolutely immanent form of social life. Acts of insurrection constitute insurrectional bands, playing the function of ritual. Bands are counterposed to rational, linear history (since are based in immediacy of affective fusion, not representation).

Perhaps the most commented-on discussion in The Coming Insurrection is the critique of milieus and the argument for communes. Milieus are constituted by the problematic aspects of many activist groups, such as informal hierarchy. They are deemed reactionary because they betray truths and are only concerned with their own ‘sad comfort’. In contrast, communes arise when people find each other and forma common path. A multitude of communes could replace all the various institutions of the dominant system, forming an entire counter-society. ‘The commune is the basic unit of partisan reality. An insurrectional surge may be nothing more than a multiplication of communes, their coming into contact and forming of ties’.

This raises the question of the transition between the two. When do milieus turn into affinity-groups and vice-versa? The difference seems to be defined in terms of their animating social logic and emotional formation. Crucially, communes are defined by ‘the spirit that animates them’, ‘the density of the ties at their core’, and not by ‘what’s inside and what’s outside them’. This defines them in distinction both from right-wing networks and from states and other hierarchies. It also establishes them as very close to the categories of band, pack, neo-sect, fused group, subject-group, and bund. A ‘truth’ is here associated with the intense, immediate emotional connection at the heart of these kinds of groups. The loss of this leads to a ‘milieu’ as direct connection is replaced by some kind of normativity.

In other words, insurrectionists, communes, are always bands. But not all bands are insurrectionist. Formally, all band societies are rather similar. But they differ in how their identity is constructed. The autonomous kind of band should be distinguished from those types of ‘sect’ and ‘neo-sect’ which claim to be the one true way, viewing themselves from the start as something akin to a universal church. Band societies can be reproduced only if they coexist with other bands in a terrain of multiple voices and horizontal connections.

Networks and the everyday

‘The maintenance of the self in a permanent state of deterioration, in a chronic state of near-collapse, is the best-kept secret of the present order of things’ (CI)

‘We count on making that which is unconditional in relationships the armor of a political solidarity as impenetrable to state interference as a gypsy camp’ (CI)

If the band is the basic unit of insurrection, networks are necessary to reproduce it across time and space. In The Coming Insurrection, it is argued that we can no longer find each other in sites such as the factory; instead, affinity is formed through everyday insubordination. It has long been argued that coming-together as affinity-groups is already an act of insurrection; Hakim Bey, for instance, views it as defiance of the capitalist distribution of time. The Coming Insurrection stands in this tradition of emphasising affinity.

Major insurrectional events involve bands, but also swarms. The band coexists with the swarm; swarms emerge when bands come together for an event. Movements over time switch between swarms and bands. When swarms decompose, bands tend to come to the fore. A swarm may arise when a number of bands coalesce. The transition between the two requires a degree of critical literacy, dialogue, inclusiveness, avoidance of silencing. Inclusive networks are the means to make bands into swarms and swarms into bands.

If everyday life forms a site in which insurrection can be built, it follows that insurrection is not limited to those acts the system demonises as ‘violent’; it also encompasses an entire range of ‘nonviolent’ approaches: building links among excluded groups and bands, reconstructing subsistence economies, ‘social weaving’, emotional healing, forming bands and networks which create their own values, the construction of autonomous spaces. The strategies proposed by authors such as Colin Ward and Hakim Bey, or autonomist strategies of ‘exodus’, of defecting from capitalism and withdrawing life-energies and creativity from it, are not counterposed to those of insurrection, but operate as its everyday level, its condition for reproduction. In practice, insurrections emerge from, and extend, networks of power and meaning already operating in everyday life, often submerged or hidden. (This also suggests that insurrection is in continuity with, not entirely separate from, resistance). It is easy enough to find useful things to do, other than actually fighting the system on the frontlines. But this cannot be a substitute for insurrection. Ultimately, the state will respond with violence to the recomposition of forces it cannot control, and the recomposed bands will either have to deal with dispossession or fight – and defeat – the state. We need to radicalise the idea of diversity of tactics as it applies to protests, embracing interdependency and the insufficiency of each actor to the total struggle as part of a broader radicalisation of interpersonal relations. Not everyone can fight the police; not everyone can forego fighting the police.

Insurrection should thus be part of a broader process of reclaiming life from capitalism and the state. This is not to say, however, that unrest short of a final destruction of the system is unnecessary or unproductive. Small, apparently ineffectual insurrections, often deemed ritual protests by researchers, become crucial means for building the subjectivities, repertoires of action and ‘action spaces’ which prepare for insurrections which can bring down the system. An event like the Greek insurrection of 2008 is made possible by the more ritualised showdowns of the November anniversaries and other events all year long.

Place

‘to keep the riots going for a month, while keeping the police in check – to do that you have to know how to organize, you have to establish complicities, you have to know the terrain perfectly’ (CI)

The relation to territory also changes: instead of possessing territory as in state projects, insurrection increases the density, circulation and solidarities of communes, rendering the territory ‘unreadable, opaque to all authority’. This requires a proliferation of existential territories: ‘the more territories there are superimposed on a given zone, the more circulation there is between them, the harder it will be for power to get a handle on them… Local self-organization superimposes its own geography over the state cartography, scrambling and blurring it: it produces its own secession’. The text portrays this, not as a return to local slowness against state speed, but a surreptitious overtaking of the state. Territory should here be understood in relation to the distinction in geography between places, which are sites of meaning for participants, and space. Capitalism is premised on spaces which are not places, ‘non-places’ such as airports, hotels and supermarkets which resist being turned into local places.

The reconstruction of local space creates which is sometimes termed ‘homeplace’, a type of place in which people feel emotionally secure and at ease. The imposition of non-place also imposes generalised insecurity and anxiety. Place, or existential territory, exists in the dense indigenous relations to particular local ecosystems, the detailed spatial knowledge and sense of belonging to a locality of inner-city and banlieue rebels, even (in a mediated way) in the worker’s relationship to the factory. The current phase of capitalism (and not necessarily earlier phases) seeks to replace the experience of place with a mixture of ‘telepresence’ (virtual images) and non-places in which people are controlled and equivalent. In this phase, the restoration of place can be a means to restore autonomy which has been lost by localities. Of course, caution is needed here to distinguish the autonomous construction of place from exclusionary and oppressive types of local identity (such as nationalism and racism), and from a purely defensive orientation to place (such as rural conservatism and working-class nostalgia). An autonomous relationship to space is a localising relationship but also an immanent relationship counterposed to the transcendence of any particular spatial imagining. It is, in the Zapatista slogan, ‘a world where all worlds fit’.

Section 2: The power of insurrection

‘to know that a certain coexistence will end soon, that a decision is near’ (CI)

‘any loss of control would be preferable to all the crisis management scenarios they envision’ (CI)

Insurrection has power when acts are available to insurrectionists which are not available to hierarchical power. The state tries to destroy such advantages, both through recuperation, bringing in approaches which begin outside, and through repressive countermeasures. Insurrections often arise in a cyclical way. The emergence of a new tactic to which the system cannot respond generates new forms of insurrectional power. These new tactics create cracks in the dominant system, which attract other people amd groups who were formerly disempowered. The tactics reproduce virally. In contrast, downturns in militant activity occur when existing forms of action seem to have stopped producing powerful effects.

The motor of change is the instability of the existing order’s ability to ‘govern’ or ‘command’. This relies not primarily on its ability to suppress, but on the persistence of obedience. Each insurrection disrupts or destroys the system’s ability to command. Each time, the system will either collapse or recompose. So far, it has recomposed. Of course, neither insurrectionists nor statists can foresee the other’s ability to invent new tactics or weapons. So both new insurrections and new recompositions of the system are unpredictable. A final collapse of the dominant system will occur when the system cannot invent new responses or weapons quickly enough to contain the ability of an insurrection to undermine command. This also leaves the question of how to reconstruct spaces outside command once the system has collapsed, or while it is collapsing.

Asymmetrical conflict

‘The police are not invincible in the streets, they simply have the means to organize, train, and continually test new weapons. Our weapons, on the other hand, are always rudimentary, cobbled-together… [and] don’t have a hope of rivaling theirs in firepower, but can be used to hold them at a distance, redirect attention, exert psychological pressure or force passage and gain ground by surprise’ (CI)

The tactics and techniques which form weapons of insurrection and repression, as well as the literal weapons, are constantly innovated on both sides. The Coming Insurrection plays up the state’s research capacity to generate new weapons. This is, indeed, a serious problem, though the state tends to develop new weapons modelled on old ones, new weapons which do the same things in slightly different ways (is there really a world of difference between microwave beams, LRADs, water cannons, tear gas and shooting in the air?) In contrast, it suggests the improvised weapons of insurrectionists are necessarily inferior, and implies they do not develop. This is not necessarily true. Firstly, activists through time have innovated a whole range of tactics which later catch on, such as the various innovations in lock-ons, tree-sits and tunnelling in the 1980s. Secondly, there are a great many actors – from smaller state powers to organised crime networks and armed opposition groups – doing research into undermining asymmetrical power. These actors often discover things that are later used in insurrections. Molotov cocktails were invented by the Soviets as a cheap way to fight an invading army. The Internet was originally invented by, of all people, the US military, as a defensive measure against massive assault, before being taken up by hacktivists (consider the Operation Payback actions for instance). Thirdly, age-old knowledge can be rediscovered, as when activists borrow consensus decision-making from indigenous groups. We should look for new vulnerabilities, and tools which exploit such vulnerabilities. In China, the next big wave of asymmetrical technologies are already emerging, in forms such as electromagnetic pulse weapons which take out enemy technologies, and cheap micro-satellites which destroy satellite surveillance. In Iraq and elsewhere, insurgents are pioneering the use of mobile phones as triggers, and even making moves into remote-control and robotics. How many of these measures will eventually have insurrectional uses? Already a remote-controlled graffiti machine has been created. We can expect to see the constant innovation of new asymmetrical techniques for as long as domination persists.

Raising costs

To defeat or push back states strategically, it’s helpful to understand how they think. This is not easy: they think in a way which is so alien to non-renunciated life that it is hard to understand. It helps to think of the state as an instrumental machine: it functions in large part on cost-benefit rationalities. Costs are the Achilles’ heel of repression. They ultimately constrain states, because they can interfere with states’ abilities to pursue other activities, or the competitiveness of their capitalist tax-base. States want control, but on the cheap; and they will usually choose between tolerance and repression based on which costs more. Actually, their thinking is more complicated than this, for several reasons. Firstly, they’ll sometimes bear a large immediate cost (such as the expense of the Battle of Mainzerstrasse) in the hope of future benefits (such as a smaller, more demoralised squatters’ movement). Secondly, the ‘cost’ of the destruction of the system is for the state infinite, and justifies any cost. Thirdly, states sometimes seem to react to incalculable costs (such as moral panics) in unpredictable ways.

If done right, imposing costs allows statists (and capitalists) to be pushed back a bit at a time, cornered, disempowered, and reduced to a much less threatening position. Roughly speaking, this works as follows. If the costs are high enough, states can usually be prevented from repression. For the costs to be high enough, they need to be higher than the costs of toleration. The state may or may not choose to invest in ‘speculative’ repression, which aims mainly to alter the future balance of forces. It is less likely to do this, the less disposable income it has. Hence the reason insurrections are usually more effective during economic downturns. The state’s reasoning will also be affected by activist responses. The less easy activists are to demoralise, the less beneficial the gamble of speculative repression will seem. Spaces crucial to insurrection can be imposed on states. States will concede a lot rather than risk collapse. Most often, these concessions feed back into recuperation. But they can also be used to carve out autonomous zones. Think of examples like autonomous student spaces in pre-neoliberal Japan, squatting in 1980s Germany and Holland, the Zapatista zone in Chiapas, de facto self-governed shanty-towns in major Southern cities, or university asylum in Greece. These are not recuperated spaces, but autonomous spaces the state was/is forced to tolerate.

We can see this statist reasoning across a number of cases. In the case of the UK animal rights movement, the state did not intervene to save various small operations such as Hillgrove Farm, but was prepared to go to very extreme lengths (from government financial bailouts to bogus trials) to protect HLS itself, viewed as central to an accumulation strategy based on biotechnology. The German squatters’ movement was highly successful in the 1980s, mainly by imposing costs – a squat eviction would be met with militant protests, fierce squat defence, and the formation of new squats. This position was reversed in the early 1990s, and some cities are now squat-free. This is partly due to recuperation (most of the old 1980s squatters were legalised), partly to just-in-time policing (the tactic of attacking squats the moment they’re formed, is costly, risky, often effective, but vulnerable to just one or two failures rendering it unsustainable; it is only viable because of the mass legalisations of squats and reduced numbers in the movement). Hence, the state reduced costs of repression, but also took on more costly repression – which can be made sense of in terms of rapidly rising real-estate prices in most of the affected cities.

This allows us to upgrade our sense of our own effectiveness. It must be remembered here that what seem like positive things for the state, such as jailing an activist or fencing in a summit, are actually immensely costly. States regularly spend millions on summits. The Toronto G20 summit reportedly ran to an $850 million bill. Jail costs $20,000 per prisoner per year in running costs alone. In the case of the London Mayday protests, the ‘successful’ repression of Mayday 2001 through mass ‘kettling’ cost £20 million in pre-emptive business closures alone, compared to a £500,000 total cost of Mayday 2000, deemed unsuccessful because of property damage. (The state gamble – which ultimately succeeded – was that this cost would be worth it if demoralisation and fear caused the annual protests to fizzle out). Protest often imposes costs, even when it seems to be effectively repressed. It should be added that Southern regimes often operate on a different basis, mainly because they rely on forms of repression which are less effective, but lower-cost.

This calculation on the state side can be used to modulate insurrection. Reducing the costs of autonomous activity to a point where they are small enough to be tolerated is not an option, as it increases disempowerment. There are exceptions in terms of selectivity: indirect targeting of smaller firms in campaigning against a major company, and squatting lower- rather than higher-value buildings, are two examples. Another option is to actively nibble away at a target in cumulative ways, which never cross the threshold where repression becomes cost-effective, but which add up to the collapse of the target. Usually, however, insurrection implies that ordinary action imposes extensive costs, and cutting these costs is impossible without betraying insurrection.

Raising the costs of repression, on the other hand, is viable. For this to be done, each movement needs, so to speak, capacity held in reserve. This can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, it would be helped by being less ‘hyperactive’, doing fewer things but doing them better, while staying ready to respond to a crisis. Secondly, it would be enabled by links between movements, such that repression of one band which was already fully-stretched produced responses from completely different bands which were not part of the same mobilisation. Hence, effective networking around issues of repression can be an effective way of preventing it. Either way, keeping in reserve a capacity to respond to repression is crucial to preventing it. Keeping up a high level of movement composition – strong connections, sustainable emotional forces – contributes to preventing repression. In Manipur, the Meira Paibis provide an example of a ‘reserve’ force constantly on watch for repression, something like a vastly extended Copwatch scheme, patrolling for hours each day on the lookout for state forces, ready to sound the alarm if abuse occurs. Overcommitting to the moment, at the expense of failing to keep forces in reserve to respond to new developments, impedes the ability of insurrections to handle repression. Activist bands and affinity-networks need to find ways to distribute activity sustainably through time, avoiding overcommitment and burnout.

Another way to think about insurrection is in relation to the SHAC model. This puts a particular inflection on permanent attack: there is still constant action, constant attack, drawing on expressive modalities, but it is varied in intensity and target, to increase its instrumental power. The model is often misunderstood as operating on a human level, as ‘intimidation’. Primarily it operates at the level of the basic logic of capitalism, which is instrumental and inhuman: it imposes costs. Capitalists make decisions to disinvest, because the risk of suffering losses outweighs the profit which can be made. This has proven very effective in pushing HLS to the point where it can no longer function in the capitalist market. SHAC’s vulnerability is that, while it imposes costs on animal abusers, it is open to retaliation by the state, on which it does not, on the whole, impose costs. It can be predicted that people will apply this kind of strategy across a range of issues, and especially, apply it to create the conditions of permanent attack: to prevent the state from repressing, to corrode its repressive capability, to carve out autonomous zones, to retaliate against state atrocities. This would in turn enhance its existing uses too, rendering the likes of SHAC less vulnerable to state repression.

One way to sustain movements in the face of repression is to turn repression itself into a source of anger, and hence of further action. This is shown in certain Southern contexts where killings by police (of activists or of ordinary people) lead almost automatically to responses: police stations attacked, mass protests called, and so on. In Iran during the 1979 Revolution, the tide was maintained because activists’ funerals, held after a delay, became a site of renewed resistance, spreading into new demonstrations. In Kashmir today, when police kill, protests always follow. Even in America, police killings and deaths in custody sometimes spark unrest, such as the recent Oakland uprising. Is it possible to duplicate this kind of response in contexts where the violence used is not usually lethal? If it happened, it would probably turn a particular event (such as conviction) or the use of a particular tactic (such as ‘kettling’ or abuse in custody) into a trigger for protest or for other actions.

Analysing summit protests

The response to summit protests shows the strategic situation clearly. The police effectively lost in Seattle, Prague and Washington, partly because they were unable to hold space, partly because the images went against them, and partly because real disruption occurred. Police responses have followed a standardised model, and have ranged from the relocation of summits to fortified out-of-town encampments, through the use of pre-emptive arrests, “kettling”, and attacks on convergence sites, to a general increase in brutality. There are three strategic rationales to this response. Firstly, it aims to disrupt protest in general (not only militant protest), the apparent purpose being to reclaim media space by showing the police on the attack (rather than delegates besieged, or police being routed). The goal here is to hegemonise the media space. Secondly, it aims to make activists feel powerless, to disrupt devices such as the creation of temporary homespaces at convergence sites and the division of protests into zones to modulate risk, to deploy weapons designed to produce pain and disorientation, and to produce situations of frustration and sheer terror. These measures aim to break morale. Thirdly, the relocation of summits changes little in spatial terms, but reframes a forced outcome as a choice. Previously, it seemed like a defeat that summits occurred under siege, and protesters occupied the surrounding town; now, it seems like a deliberate strategy. This created dilemmas for activists. The previously highly effective ‘swarming’ tactic had to be abandoned. Morale-boosting symbolic victories became less likely.

This response occurred because the state did not wish to concede the space it had effectively lost with the rise of summit protests; it preferred to try to seize back this space through fascistic measures. The state thus gives up many of the deep supports of its existence, the ideology of legitimacy which disguises social war and keeps up an appearance of civil rights. This is, once more, an effect of ‘just in time’ policing: the state has all its forces on the frontline, and no deep support behind it; it has given up the trenches and fieldworks the maintenance of which would formerly have provided security in the event of a frontline defeat, but which restricted what the state could do on the frontline. This basic vulnerability is often missed in critiques of the effectiveness of such protests today. This said, it creates certain problems. The expected effect of such measures would be to reduce overall numbers, make it less likely that first-time protesters will attend, but also to increase militancy among protesters, who will become increasingly angry with the repression. This seems to be what has largely happened. The gap which needs to be addressed on our side is that, if such protests no longer self-recruit so easily, there is an increasing need for other kinds of bridges into everyday life, to bring new people into activism. Protests can no longer be expected to self-recruit.

Hitting the infrastructure of power

‘Power is no longer concentrated in one point in the world; it is the world itself, its flows and its avenues, its people and its norms, its codes and its technologies… Anyone who defeats it locally sends a planetary shock wave through its networks’ (CI)

‘Every network has its weak points, the nodes that must be undone in order to interrupt circulation, to unwind the web’ (CI)

‘Nowadays sabotaging the social machine with any real effect involves reappropriating and reinventing the ways of interrupting its networks’ (CI)

‘It’s within the malfunction and short-circuits of the system that we find the elements of a response whose logic would be to abolish the problems themselves’ (CI)

‘All the incivilities of the streets should become methodical and systematic, converging in a diffuse, effective guerrilla war that restores us to our ungovernability, our primordial unruliness’ (CI)

The idea of targeting crucial nodes of power is not new to insurrectionism. According to Bonanno, because power is exercised through control over physical spaces, it can be attacked in its presence in physical space. A single act of destruction is not the same as bringing down the entire system. But multiplied enough times, it renders parts of the system unworkable. Effective insurrections often take the form of the sustained reproduction of the destruction or blockage of nodes, through time and space. Everything depends on keeping the action going, expanding it, and responding to moves to make it more difficult. There is not a qualitative difference between the small victories, tearing down all the surveillance cameras in an area or making squat eviction impossible, and the eventual destruction of capitalism and the state. The latter is an accumulation of the former, to the point where the system’s functioning becomes impossible. Furthermore, if mechanisms necessary for state control or capital accumulation are taken out in this way, the state and/or capitalism would be expelled from the space in question. Social relations themselves can’t be destroyed by sabotage, but they are embedded in infrastructures which can be physically targeted. The power and extent of such infrastructures affects greatly whether autonomous spaces can appear, and the costs of sustaining them make them a weak link.

There is, of course, also the question of building other worlds in liberated spaces. This process is affirmative, not destructive, and may involve quite different ‘virtues’, quite different forms of social relations from those involved in destroying capitalism. This needs to be done well, because the problems with the system (particularly informal hierarchies, exclusion, and patterns such as racism and sexism) are often reproduced in autonomous spaces. But this process by itself, without insurrection, could not be enough. Furthermore, since social relations recompose whenever a crisis disrupts the status quo (think of New Orleans, the Argentinazo, etc), it seems the insurrectionary part is the more difficult part. In addition, sabotage can help in the reconstruction of other worlds. Sabotage is often highly emotionally empowering. In a Black Block statement (see The Black Block Papers, p. 45-6), it is described as cracking the veneer of legitimacy, exorcising structural violence, turning limited exchange-values into open-ended use-values, changing how we see objects, increasing the ‘potential uses of an entire cityscape’, and breaking spells by making the impossible possible.

The Coming Insurrection makes various contributions to the strategy of sabotage. In particular, it argues for surprise attacks, which it views as central to the banlieuerevolts: ambushing police patrols, attacking police stations at night and so on. In demonstrations, the equivalent tactic is taken to be bypassing the Red Zone and choosing one’s own terrain. ‘The important thing is not to be better armed but to take the initiative’. Another tactic suggested is opening up multiple fronts. ‘Harassing the police means that by forcing them to be everywhere they can no longer be effective anywhere’.

The Coming Insurrection argues that insurrection starts with an unconditional refusal, ‘a truth that we refuse to give up’ – non-renunciation. This then spreads until there is victory, like the proliferation of the German squatters’ movement and the French anti-fascist resistance. To this should be added Bonanno’s observation (And We Will Still be Ready, 26-7) that insurrection requires replicability, not decipherability. The means by which an insurrectionary act spreads is not its comprehension by viewers, but the fact that it can be imitated and taken up by others with insurrectionary intent.

Blocking nodes

‘Jam everything – this will be the first reflex of all those who rebel against the present order. In a delocalised economy [using] just-in-time production… to block circulation is to block production as well’ (CI)

‘the metropolis is one of the most vulnerable human arrangements that has ever existed… A brutal shutting down of borders… a sudden interruption of supply lines, organized blockades of the axes of communication – and the whole facade crumbles… The world would not be moving so fast if it didn’t have to constantly outrun its own collapse’ (CI)

On the longshoremen’s strike: ‘With ten thousand people, the largest economic power in the world can be brought to its knees’ (CI)

‘through the systematic occupation of institutions and obstinate blockading, the high-school students’ movement of 2005 and the struggle against the CPE-law reminded us of the ability of large movements to cause trouble and carry out diffuse offensives’ (CI)

Today, systemic vulnerabilities are concentrated in strategic nodes: transport and communications infrastructures (key roads, airports, high-speed rail links, ports, cellphone towers, electricity infrastructure), symbolic sites linked to capital accumulation (e.g. tourist sites), and distribution depots (e.g. petrol stations, warehouses). Targeting such sites is a growing trend among movements the world over. It is effective because just-in-time production and reduced state spending have left the infrastructure increasingly vulnerable, the system increasingly close to the wire: a small shutdown can shut down a massive network dependent on it, and have immense effects, since the system requires constant flows in the absence of stockpiles.

Just-in-time production leaves the system increasingly vulnerable to blockades. The Coming Insurrection refers to the Argentine piqueteros and the Oaxaca uprising, deemed by statists a disaster on the scale of a hurricane, and an incident in Rennes where only 300 people were needed to shut down the main access road to the town for hours. Examples could be multiplied: the struggles in Bolivia and Ecuador, the Manipur uprising, the costs imposed by blockades of timber sales, the airport and road intersection occupations in Thailand. In the successful Baliapal land grab resistance movement, checkpoints were set up on the four entrance roads to the area, and staffed around the clock. When state forces appeared, conch shells were blown and metal plates beaten to summon protesters to create human roadblocks (Routledge and Simons 488). It might be predicted that blockades will be multiplied, sustained through rolling series of blockades, used as a way to impose costs whenever the system attacks, used to defend and carve out autonomous zones. Indian social movements have pioneered a tactic known as the bandh, in which an entire local area is shut down in response to a (usually localised) abuse or grievance, complete with roadblocks, and sometimes stone-throwing. More than the workplace strike, the bandh is a strike in the full space of capital, creating autonomy in an area by shutting down ‘normal life’. Something like the bandh might be used in areas where local populations are resistant to neoliberalism, to link insurrection to the wider opposition and eat away at state power. There might be a future period, for instance, in which every time American police killed a black person, the nearest city was shut down for a day. One might predict that the number of murders by police would decrease, and that autonomous spaces and feelings of empowerment would increase.

Invisibility

‘turning the anonymity to which we’ve been relegated to our advantage, and through conspiracy, nocturnal or faceless actions, creating an invulnerable position of attack… To be socially nothing is not a humiliating position… but is on the contrary the condition for maximum freedom of action’ (CI)

‘And once we become visible our days will be numbered’ (CI)

The theme of invisibility has a long history. James Scott’s work focuses on invisible tactics of everyday resistance, some of which not only disguise the actor, but also disguise the fact that resistance has even happened. David Graeber’s Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology speculates that there are a huge number of liberated zones around the world, but most of them have stayed liberated by being invisible, and will only be stumbled across by other anarchists. Resistances usually stay invisible because this makes it harder for the state to crack down. It makes it harder to induce moral panics, or to distinguish resistances from passive effects. There are many forms of invisibility. There’s the most familiar forms, such as masking-up, late-night sabotage, security culture. There’s others which create an appearance of being recuperated, without actually being recuperated. There’s still others which make people invisible as part of a large movement, whose members are too numerous to track down in detail.

The more militant an action is, the greater the risk that the state will turn its gaze towards it. This can often be warded off to a degree by forms of invisibility which make it difficult for the state to catch activists. Yet once visibility is established, the state may lash out in other directions, looking for a target – an innocent activist to stitch up, a community to collectively punish, a social movement infrastructure to close down as a scapegoat. When doing things which bring about partial visibility, planning should not be limited to avoiding individual detection. Preparation should also be made to impose costs on the state should it engage in repression.

Fraternising and decomposing the state

‘A massive crowd would be needed to challenge the army, invading its ranks and fraternizing with the soldiers… It is not impossible to defeat an army politically’ (CI)

Can an insurrection win by decomposing the state? Historically, there are cases where statists have gone over to the insurrection, as in Albania and Serbia. Yet this usually occurs when the state machine is already collapsing, and is a prelude to their hijacking of the revolt. We need to realise that statists, as long as they remain statists, are inculcated into a mentality which precludes the emotional responses necessary to identify with revolt. It is hard for compassionate people to understand the brutality of the state, and realise it is not going to decompose through statists’ basic humanity. It happens sometimes with soldiers who are conscripts, or recruits from poor backgrounds (the ‘poverty draft’), but it happens rarely with properly induced state agents. In the colonies, the risk of the military identifying with insurgents is managed in a simple way: they don’t speak the language. In the case of the police, the same effect is achieved through ‘cop culture’, and often the very real blocking of communication through helmets and visors. Not to mention that, as for Crisso and Odoteo, this absense of a common language is now true for all of us when faced with the police. David Graeber argues that activists find police impossible to understand, mainly because the police’s authoritarianism and the situation of conflict provide a barrier to emotional exchange. Berardi argues that the scarcity of attention available today has turned many people into ruthless executors of decisions taken without attention. Virilio argues that today’s warriors are so supplemented with artificial vision that they can no longer relate on a human level. And then there’s the risk that they’ll simply replace human police with robots. If the state ever resorts to sending conscripts or poverty-draftees against insurrectionists, it’s asking for trouble. As long as it can rely on police, robots, or tonton macoutes, it can get away with repression.

Rules of engagement

‘We live under an occupation, under police occupation’ (CI)

Rather than fraternisation, it is more helpful to think in terms of the transformation of the ‘rules of engagement’, expanding the scope for insurrectional action while restricting that of the state. In his paper on the phenomenology of giant puppets, David Graeber observes that, in conflicts between police and protesters, each side acts as if playing a game whose rules it had invented entirely by itself. In fact, the field is conflictual, and rules of engagement between opponents sometimes emerge. Aside from normally prohibiting certain kinds of deliberately lethal force, police in many Northern countries seem to recognise no limits in their rules of engagement. The reason for this is that police seek a monopoly on defining situations – they do not wish to admit the existence of an adversary.

But it does seem that the rules of engagement can be pushed in either direction. Protesters are more daring in some countries than others. Police violence is more indiscriminate from Genoa onwards than before. In practice, rules of engagement are set in two ways: in indirect effects after the event, and in impact on morale. The police have found ways to dominate certain indirect effects, notably ‘bad press’, through psychological operations. But this does not leave them immune to other kinds of indirect effects which impose costs on repressive actions. The ups and downs of each side’s emotions are more fluid and dynamic. Insurrectional acts exist on a continuum between hope and anxiety: there is always enormous gain, in emotional self-empowerment, but this system tries to balance this with enormous risk. The level of risk varies with the countermeasures taken by the system and its ability to handle the broader context. The state tries to terrorise us because it is afraid. Though it is hard to tell when it is truly afraid, and when it simply simulates fear (to cause moral panics, for example). On the insurrectionist side, in principle rules of engagement are rejected as concessions to power, but in practice activists do hold back in all kinds of ways. The question of altering the de facto rules of engagement to our advantage – by losing our own fears, and by imposing limits on the state – may be crucial during prolonged struggles.

Sustaining Insurrection

‘a blockade is only as effective as the insurgents’ capacity to supply themselves and to communicate… Acquiring the skills to provide, over time, for one’s own basic subsistence implies appropriating the necessary means of production’ (CI)

‘the state… instinctively grinds down any solidarities that escape it until nothing remains except citizenship… [The citizen] can’t help envying these so-called “problem” neighbourhoods where there still persists a bit of communal life, a few links between beings, some solidarities not controlled by the state, an informal economy, an organization that is not yet detached from those who organize’ (CI)

‘Inhabiting a nowhere makes us vulnerable to the slightest jolt in the system’ (CI)

‘The destruction of the peasant’s world… meant the disappearance of the means for dealing with scarcity’ (CI)

The longest uprisings in the global North in recent memory have been the Greek insurrection of 2008 and the French banlieue revolt of 2005. Both of these lasted around three weeks. This has, of course, inspired activists used to four-day summit protests or even shorter upheavals, but ultimately, a month is not long enough to bring down the system. In both cases, the state largely sat out the revolt, waiting for it to fizzle out. If the state was genuinely afraid that the revolt could last forever, it could not have responded in this way. Bolivia has experienced a number of peasant shutdowns which have lasted for months. Thailand has seen protest camps which have taken over key intersections in the capital for months on end, eventually repressed by police, only to reappear a month later with similar staying-power. The Manipur uprising of 2004 was six months long at its peak. Parts of Palestine, such as the village of Bil’in, manage to continue recurring waves of protest. Argentina, Albania, Oaxaca, Ecuador, Kabylie, Kashmir… the list goes on. In other words, Northern insurrections face a pressing problem of endurance.

One possible reason movements in the South have such temporal resilience is that they are operating out of local economies which are only marginally subsumed in capitalism, and networks of everyday practices which produce a social fabric irreducible to the system: they could persist because they were really autonomous across the board, and could shut down the capitalist economy without destroying themselves. To be able to endure, an insurrection needs an autonomous economy or subsistence-system. This intersects with issues of defeating the commodity system by re-localising ‘production’, and expands onto broader issues in green anarchism around gift economies and ludic alternatives to work. ‘Subsistence perspective’ writers such as Maria Mies argue that subsistence provides a global alternative to commodity production, recognising the importance of nurturing the forces which actually produce life. The Coming Insurrection also refers to the Kabylia uprising of 2001, which effectively pushed the state out of the region. ‘The movement’s strength was in the diffuse complementarity of its components’, irreducible to its most formal manifestation the village assemblies. The ‘communes’ ranged in this case from the young people fighting police to the producers of resistance symbolism and people sustaining subsistence production, without which the blockades of the commodity economy could not have been so constant and systematic.

Subsistence is also a question of producing types of bands which can be sustained over time. In a paper on precarity, Silvia Federici has argued that ‘no movement can survive unless it is concerned with the reproduction of its members’. Whereas the peak of struggle today tends to be associated with events such as demonstrations, we need to be alert to questions of how to reproduce the movement through time. When communities in struggle are able to reproduce themselves – as in the indigenous movements of Bolivia and Ecuador – she argues that their anti-system struggles can become more radical. She also argues for a reexamination of the tradition of working-class mutual aid, prior to the Fordist period. These arguments echo with Hakim Bey’s discussions of recreating sociality, autonomist discussions of recomposition, and primitivist discussions of rewilding. What links these fields is the creation of conditions in which insurrection can be sustained through time, which in turn, is necessary in rendering the state superfluous, and hence in destroying it. Would a successful insurrection lead beyond the current status of activism as ‘bund’, as entirely non-ascriptive band? This question comes down to the issue of the place of childhood in sustainability through time. Ultimately, it can be hoped that loose bands and overlapping networks can provide a context in which ascription remains redundant.

The issue of subsistence also speaks to broader issues of vulnerability. Subsistence economies operate on an orientation which favours systemic redundancy, and hence resilience, over efficiency./ Efficient systems usually produce one thing as cheaply as possible, leaving people vulnerable to shocks if what they produce is no longer in demand or if production is disrupted by social or natural crises. Subsistence economies spread their activity across a wide range of sectors, so that problems in any one sector aren’t as likely to destroy the entire band. Resilience is an alternative to ‘security’ (the control of space to pre-empt the unexpected) in dealing with human vulnerability.

The limit in subsistence capabilities is what is holding back the temporal scope of insurrection in the North. Today’s activist bands in the North do not have the degree of autonomy that some Southern movements achieve. Most often, such bands are sustained by marginal employment or state support. This is supplemented by what might be called a ‘raiding’ economy, taking items from the system by means such as squatting, skipping, urban foraging and autoreduction. This should not be viewed as simply an extension of the system. Indigenous groups besieged by state forces similarly rely on a mixture of raiding, marginal production and benefits. Raiding, marginality and bottom-up tribute extraction are strategies whereby systemic capture can be prevented or minimised. Yet there is a limit to how far it can sustain a movement which actually poses a threat to the system. A commune, The Coming Insurrection rightly observes, can’t bank on a raiding economy forever, it needs to increase its self-organisation to meet needs. Ultimately, what prevents recomposition is dispossession: it is easy enough to live without forces work, provided one can seize back enough of what one needs.

Local knowledge

‘The circulation of knowledge cancels hierarchy; it equalizes by raising up’ (CI)

‘Freedom isn’t the act of shedding our attachments, but the practical capacity to work on them, to move around in their space, to form or dissolve them’ (CI)

The recomposition of subsistence goes hand-in-hand with the recomposition of local knowledge. The Coming Insurrection recognises the need to recreate and draw on local knowledges in order to sustain insurrection. ‘There’s a whole set of skills and techniques just waiting to be plundered and ripped from their humanistic, street-culture, or eco-friendly trappings’, not to mention ‘the intuitions, the know-how, and the ingenuity found in slums’. Such techniques will have to be deployed both to ‘repopulate the metropolitan desert’ and to sustain insurrection beyond the early stages, in fields such as food, transport and communications. At present, our ability to attack the metropolis is compromised by our dependence on its services. Escaping this situation requires a long ‘apprenticeship’ in a wide range of practical skills. Communes should seek self-sufficiency, and should seek to limit their own size to prevent hierarchies emerging. In effect, what is proposed here is a recomposition of local knowledges, corresponding to a recomposition of bands.

This is excellent, as far as it goes. But it needs to go a few steps further. Band societies and subsistence economies do not begin and end with practicalknowledge, though they have plenty of it. They also have very different epistemologies and cosmologies from those familiar in metropolitan societies. In practice, this always includes a spiritual element, which if examined closely, turns out to be a way of managing and reproducing emotional states. The question is not only practical but cosmological, because cosmology is necessary to sustain indefinitely the emotional states which produce insurrection. Indigenous cosmology interconnects with local knowledge, providing the frame within which it has meaning, and creating narrative structures which render local knowledge memorable and emotionally resonant. This is a situation where the truth which the band society refuses to renounce is not empty. It is, rather, the truth of a local context in its entirety. Similarly, it is not entirely the case that ‘[e]verywhere it’s the same chilling void, reaching into even the most remote and rustic corners’ (CI). There are still places where stones can speak.

“Walking through the Witches Market in La Paz – a day after the road barricades were cleared on January of this year – I realized how deep the Western view has been innoculated in my mind… I realized that my perception of reality has been modified and trained according to one model of interpretation, which standardizes the notion of the world in order to impose on us a set for socialization… In this world, life is about something else. If you cannot hear the murmur of stones there is no way you can communicate with this secret world.‘ – Jesus Sepulveda, ‘Stones Can Speak’, Green Anarchy 21

This re-localisation also changes the nature of knowledge. Local knowledge does not function like global science. Instead of recording a set of facts, it diffuses the power to create knowledge. There is much in the process of insurrection which must necessarily be a matter of situated, local knowledge and which thus, cannot be expressed in articles or books. Local knowledge has characteristics very different from those in dominant forms of knowledge in the global North. Studies of local and indigenous knowledge reveal that it usually involves a very reflexive sense of locality, situatedness, and relationality, i.e. the fact that knowledges are produced by particular people in particular places, and are relative to their process of construction and the place where they’re produced. Indigenous languages tend to encourage all claims to be situated in the speaker’s social position, and use words which refer to relations instead of things. (And it is quite possible that we will need to create a new language, or at least, inflect our existing language-use in ways which restore these characteristics). The Andean conception of wealth emphasises wealth in connections, not in things. An emphasis is placed on the practice of ‘doing’ knowledge-production, rather than the outcome. Hence, local knowledge is not a set of facts, but rather, a process of learning and sharing knowledge located in particular ways of life. It is often expressed in practices rather than communicated through books. It usually takes a holistic perspective on knowledge, rejecting the division of the world into spheres or categories, the separation of humanity from nature, and the separation of both of these from the supernatural (whether through the disenchantment of reality or the abstraction of transcendental religion). Local knowledge tends to be expressive rather than instrumental. And it tends to prefer inconclusiveness and difference to rapid decision, involving for instance long consultative processes when reaching decisions. It can be argued that local knowledge is largely a product of a subsistence economy, corresponding to a way of life which is itself situated and relational.

How can local knowledges be recreated? It is not a matter of simply importing content from other local knowledge systems – borrowing DIY skills, indigenous medicinal knowledge and so on – because this misses the importance of process in local knowledge. Nor is it about copying the rituals of other groups, or playing at being like them, which turns the immanence of local knowledge into a transcendentalism of social roles. Of course, the importation of particular knowledge-content and of techniques such as rituals can play a crucial role. Yet is it more important to recreate the generative level of local knowledge, its construction as process in an intensely situated locality. The concepts of local knowledge should not belong to the massified world, but to an intense connection to a local ecology and to those with whom one relates to this local ecology. Other aspects of local knowledge need to be recovered: an intense awareness of relationality (and corresponding rejection of ‘unmarked terms’ of privilege), and a replacement of instrumental orientations with a cosmology oriented to expression. Both the reifying tendencies of existing language (to focus on things instead of relations), and its pressures towards universalism and generality (towards taking one’s own subjectivity as “obvious” and meanings as shared), need to be resisted.

Section 3: Dangers to insurrection

Strategies of tension

‘As an attempted solution, the pressure to ensure that nothing happens, together with police surveillance of the territory, will only intensify’ (CI)

The most visible danger to insurrection is the danger of repression. Its contemporary manifestation as “war on terror” follows a model of counterinsurgency shown clearly in Italy in the 1980s: creating a civil war of a type the state could use to destroy the movement under the ideological shadow of a struggle with an invisible enemy. What went wrong in Italy was not that the movement was drawn into conflict, but that sufficient costs were not levied on repression (in contrast, for example, to the pariah status which strategies of tension often bring on regimes in the South). This lack of costs has two dimensions. The first dimension is ideological: the state was able to rely on ideological gestures such as moral panics and media imagery to maintain legitimacy even while cracking down. The second dimension is the failure in the Italian case to find sufficiently effective asymmetrical means for imposing costs on repression. In other circumstances – in Chiapas, the Niger Delta, Bougainville – the strategy of tension has backfired. Research on armed opposition groups shows that repressive counterinsurgency only works with a specific kind of group, whose basis is in any case rather weak. In any other case, repression simply emboldens resistance. What’s more, refraining from insurrection is no guarantee that the state will not resort to terror. And there are cases where the existence of more ‘extreme’ forms of opposition creates the conditions in which states are forced to tolerate less ‘extreme’ forms. Above all, we need to avoid aiding the state’s order not to think. The point of terror is to make resistance unthinkable. Any move which aids this, aids the power of the state.

It can be argued that the global ‘war on terror’ is actually an indirect response to the failure of existing mechanisms of domination in the aftermath of Seattle. A strategy of tension has been unleashed which uses moral panics around terrorism and other issues to create a sense of fear which is used as a pretext to close space. This strategy plays to the psychological vulnerabilities, not only of the mass, but of activists too. A part of this dynamic is the state’s attempt to ‘contaminate’ activism by ignoring the diversity of tactics and the division of protests into zones, adding in random attacks on less-militant protesters, bystanders, associates of protesters, people with similar ideas… In a more alert context, this could easily be met by vigorous responses. It seems, in fact, that the strategy of tension is revived to deal with each protest wave. It will fail when the fear is insufficient to curb a wave.

Moral panics

‘The new economy cannot be established without a similar screening of subjects and zones singled out for transformation. The chaos that we constantly hear about will either provide the opportunity for this screening, or for our victory over this odious project’ (CI)

‘”Terrorist threats”, “natural disasters”, “virus warnings”, “social movements” and “urban violence” are, for society’s managers, so many moments of instability where they reinforce their power, by the selection of those who please them and the elimination of those who make things difficult’ (CI)

‘It’s useless to react to the news of the day; instead we should understand each report as a maneuver in a hostile field of strategies to be decoded, operations designed to provoke a specific reaction’ (CI)

Moral panics serve as perhaps the most important state weapon today, turning what are otherwise empowering events into sources of anxiety, fear and isolation, eliminating the ‘bad press’ which repression would otherwise cause, and providing an enabling context for escalating repression. News coverage often functions as counterinsurgency. Police and other state agencies consciously deploy psyops to hegemonise the media field. The media complies, running police reports as fact. But there are also cases where the media targets a movement, particularly a sphere of everyday resistance, and draws the state in. Moral panics function through the dynamics of what Virilio terms ‘telepresence’: they focus on a single image, taken as iconic, and make the image stand for the event, at the same time turning the glare of attention on it, on condemning it, on catching the perpetrator and so on. Usually, the image is unrepresentative. Sometimes, it is created or set up deliberately by the state. Always, it is taken out of context, and used to slander entire movements. It is a major reason insurrections sometimes fail to resonate, to be replicated: they are received by potential supporters through a distorting frame.

The function of moral panics within anarchist and related movements is weaker than in the wider society, partly because people reduce exposure to, or selectively interpret, mainstream news. But there are still effects. Particularly worrying in this regard was the response to the Greek movement to the Marfin Bank incident which, while tragic, was at worst an accident and quite possibly a state set-up. The effect was to paralyse the movement, destroy the day of action and create a context where the police could storm Exarcheia with little opposition. It also led to recriminations among anarchists, and in particular, other currents turning on insurrectionists, internalising the wider demonisation inside the movement. This is not the only instance. For example, a strike wave in Korea has been defeated because support evaporated after a media scare over a video with a parodic execution of a boss. Tree-spiking went into sharp decline after an accidental death. And I suspect 911 had a similar effect on activism in America: the less composed layers were drawn into the paralysing effects of mourning, at the expense of the broader context.

Moral panic is not a tactic we can afford to recognise as legitimate. Of course we have our own ethical positions, but these can have nothing in common with systemic moralities. An incident like Marfin can only be viewed in the context of far greater slaughter and suffering resulting from the system’s actions, in normal conditions of everyday life. The biggest danger here is in holding back from actions for fear of moral-panic responses. The state will not stop with one wave of panic; if the tools are allowed to work, they will be used against every form of resistance until none is left. It is always possible to deduce some risk, however unlikely, which could rule out an action. Derrick Jensen’s As the World Burns contains a powerful parody of this strategy: an eco-sabotage action which might, indeed, would have killed children, if only they’d walked two miles from the nearest school and thrown themselves into the burning building. In Germany and in Britain we’ve seen moral panics about how police ‘could have been’ killed by people throwing stones, or dropping objects off buildings (despite the fact that such acts have been done a million times, without killing police). Then there’s the roadblocks which ‘could have’ stopped ambulances, the tree-sits which ‘could have’ caused an agent of repression to fall while removing someone, etc. Giving in to moral panics lets the state close all autonomous space, issue by issue, band by band. Instead we need to build emotional and social barriers among our bands, which prevent moral panics from being internalised either in our psyches or our social groups. We should not be trying to distance ourselves from others deemed to be truly excluded, whereas we are the ‘good’ protesters. We are the excluded, and we reject the boundary between included and excluded, the state’s right to select, the division into good and bad subjects.

So, what to do when a moral panic is turned on activists? The current responses fall into two categories: either to persist, to ignore the newfound visibility and carry on as before (which happens with animal rights), or to back off, holding back from action until the hostility dies down (which seems to have happened with tree-spiking). Neither is very effective. Persistence lets the state get away with persecution, which becomes more likely as activism continues as before. Backing off actually rewards the state for persecution. Yet alternatives seem limited. The third option is to meet escalation with escalation, but opponents may not have the forces in reserve to do this. A frontal confrontation on an issue is difficult, because the state can and will concentrate forces in the aftermath of a moral panic. The possibility remains, however, of sideways forms of retaliation for moral panics, disempowering or costing the state in broader ways. In particular, while it may prove difficult to get around the blockage at the site of repression, the fact of repression can be used as a trigger for actions elsewhere. This requires among other things that the affective impact of state terror be offset or transformed.

There are precedents for responses to moral panics, which involve a certain intensity of action being ‘normalised’, so that the response of moral panic becomes increasingly unavailable or is denied an effect. The German autonomes provide, at their peak, the main example: in the early period, moral panic was in full flow, and activists were often given long jail sentences; as the movement grew, it became impossible to suppress, and moral panic was actually reeled back, with sentences reduced and previously suppressed activities tolerated. A crucial aspect of this movement was that any act of repression, from evicting a squat to jailing activists, was met with militant protests or direct action. A similar effect might be achieved if, for instance, convictions of activists, deaths on protests, or incidents of ‘kettling’ led to sabotage sometime in the following weeks. If the link was clear, a cost of repression would be established.

The danger of massacre

‘When things get serious, the army occupies the terrain. Whether… it engages in combat is less certain… a bloodbath… for now is no more than a threat, a bit like the threat of using nuclear weapons’ (CI)

The one remaining rule of engagement, that the state normally refrain from lethal force, is rather anomalous. It does not seem to prohibit occasional statist murders which can be passed off as situationally justified or as aberrations by individual bad cops (from Carlo Giuliani to Ian Tomlinson to Alexis Grigoropoulos, to the Kent and Jackson State shootings). But it is very noticeable that the state has not so far adopted a policy of large-scale shooting into crowds. This is a historical and geographical exception. Massacre was a normal accompaniment of state repression of insurrection in the nineteenth century and perhaps up to the Second World War – think of the massacres at the Paris Commune, the 1848 insurrection, the 1918-19 German council rising, the Haymarket Martyrs, and various labour disputes in the US. And while massacre is not exactly normal in most of the global South, it certainly happens with disturbing regularity. 60 people were killed during the El Alto ‘gas war’, to take just one example; think too of Acteal, of Bougainville, of retaliations in West Papua, of the Argentinazo of 2001, the Peruvian Amazon protests, events in Kashmir and Palestine, not to mention that twenty years ago, some regimes (such as Indonesia) used massacre as a matter of course at every minor protest or dispute.

Why is the state holding back? It is impossible to imagine for a moment that it cares about the lives of insurrectionists or about human rights. Most probably, the state has realised that massacre has unwanted effects. Even with the current psyops dominance, a massacre generates ‘bad press’. It produces further waves of protest, as people mark the funerals of the dead or turn against the police. It risks the emergence of armed opposition (the long IRA campaign, for instance, was caused by the Bloody Sunday massacre). It shows the world that social war is going on. The allergy to ‘violence’, the Victorian attitude to it, is notably absent in much of the global South. The current system is premised on the denial of social war, the denial that an adversary exists. It is also sometimes argued that recourse to massacre defeats the point of power, which is to rule, not to destroy: in showing that the state can crush resistance only by failing to govern, by recognising that the spirit of resistance cannot be defeated, the state effectively admits its own illegitimacy, its basis in violence. On this view, a spirit of resistance can always render a state powerless (Routledge and Simons, 493-5). Understanding this is crucial, because a successful insurrection, in which ‘less-lethal’ weapons had failed, would push the state to the point where massacre would be considered as an option. The state will only use the option if it believes it will work. The way to make it certain it will not work, is to make the state certain that it will not stop the insurrection this way, that it will only inflame it further. The Argentinazo and the ‘gas war’ were largely successful, in spite of the state turning to such measures. During the Gujjar protests in India, the police were given orders to stop killing protesters, apparently when protesters started responding in kind against police. The state’s ‘zero option’ is not undefeatable. A situation needs to be created in which its activation would be suicide for the state.

The danger of state conspiracy

The basis of insurrection is affective and immediate. It is thus dependent on how people feel. People either get angry about something or they don’t. People either feel empowered by an act or they don’t. Insurrectionists can’t conspire to produce effects the way the state can. The state can do things in sneaky, instrumental ways which minimise the risk it faces. For instance, it can realise cumulatively, or under the veil of recuperation, things that would spark revolt as one-off measures.

As a result of its instrumental basis, the state can also conspire to change the ‘rules of engagement’ almost overnight. There is a frequent problem that, just as some issue is about to be won, just as Huntington Life Sciences is about to close or summit protests are successfully holding cities, the state makes a move which can only seem unfair, altering the entire situation in which the conflict occurs. Bush famously boasted that his opponents analysed reality, but, being driven by belief, he could simply change it at will. While his opponents are busy catching up, he’ll change it again. It is necessary to be prepared for such moves. At present, they have a highly decomposing effect on activist movements, particularly when repression is ratcheted up (think of the impact of Genoa and its aftermath in Italy, or the effect of the post-911 period in America). Being aware of such problems can help avert them, but it is also necessary to keep active on the current terrain, and not hold back out of fear that the state will make such moves. It is hard to come up with answers as to how to respond to this risk, but three possibilities come to mind. Firstly, that a capacity to respond overwhelmingly to escalation, held in reserve, could serve to ward it off. Secondly, that enabling the state to make other moves of partial retreat can make such options of escalation less attractive. The risk in any such preparations is that they could also enable recuperation. Thirdly, enacting similar alterations of the ‘rules of engagement’ on one’s own side can disempower the state’s own ability to change the rules. Insurrection needs to stay unpredictable, and innovate constantly.

Recuperation

‘no guaranteed income… will be able to lay the foundation of a New Deal, a new pact, a new peace. The social feeling has already evaporated too much for that’ (CI)

Where repression fails, there is always recuperation as an alternative. It is a quieter, less obvious way of defeating insurrections. Recuperation is an ambiguous response. It often involves real problems being addressed, sometimes even with the same responses which might occur in a liberated context, and with the recognition or tolerance of autonomous spaces. Yet it addresses such problems one by one, in such a way as to keep the system in place and hence to keep generating problems.

Recuperation follows a common pattern. The state will decide, in the event of defeat, to tolerate the costs of autonomy, because they are less than the costs of repression. But it will also try, simultaneously, to alter the future strategic balance by decomposing the basis for resistance, usually by drawing people inside on the margins. There is thus a common pattern of the state conceding something (squatters’ rights in Germany, Aboriginal autonomy in Australia, a halt to road-building in Britain…), waiting for the struggle to abate, and then attacking again 20 or 30 years later.

The main threat posed by periods of recuperation is that the networks sustained by resistance fall apart, and the emotional states arising from struggle become harder to sustain. It can be difficult to retain social composition at times when recuperation is at work. There is a tendency for the number of activists to decrease, and for people to be less angry. Previous partial victories, such as the creation of autonomous spaces, then become vulnerable to a backlash after a period of time. Ways need to be found to ‘lock in’ such victories during periods of downturn in struggle. This could be achieved by deepening resistance in everyday life, or by radicalising the break with dominant ways of seeing.

In place of a conclusion: crisis

‘What makes the crisis desirable is that in the crisis the environment ceases to be the environment. We are forced to reestablish contact, albeit a potentially fatal one, with what’s there, to rediscover the rhythms of reality… [of] something to inhabit’ (CI)

‘Reconnecting with such gestures [of defying the state and making do with what’s available], buried under years of normalized life, is the only practicable means of not sinking down with the world’ (CI)

‘There is a clinically dead civilization… only decision will rid us of the corpse’ (CI)

Capitalism is in crisis. Maybe this is one of capitalism’s periodic cyclical downturns. Or maybe it is something deeper, a crisis of the dominant system, connected to the ecological crisis, to the end of abundant energy supplies, to ecological exhaustion. The world-systems analyst Sing Chew suggests that civilisations eventually collapse from ecological exhaustion, when they run out of resources to exploit. After the collapse, there follow ‘dark ages’, which Chew, as a progressivist, tends to fear – but which for us, could be periods of hope. In ‘dark ages’, diffuse power proliferates, populations disperse from centralised spaces, local knowledge predominates over global knowledge.

Crisis creates opportunities for rebuilding. The Coming Insurrection refers to the experience of New Orleans: crisis created a space in which accumulated practical knowledges were deployed. This suggests something important: recomposition is only ever a crisis away. It has to be actively prevented by keeping the lid on the pressure-kettle, by actively decomposing. It reappears the moment a crisis makes the lid come off. They argue that movements are strongest when they take advantage for the opportunities for self-organisation created by moments of suspension of normality – from Islamic parties providing para-state services in marginal zones to left parties exploiting crises. The implication is that gaps created by crises can also be filled by activist bands, recomposing other ways of living.

Hence, we have a range of paths forward for insurrection, a range of possible futures. Certain strategies seem likely to proliferate. In particular, the warding-off of repression is likely to produce new strategies, and subsistence orientations could well re-emerge. Insurrections should be thought of in terms of counterposing a social network based on bands, swarms and affinity to a social system based on hierarchies. It is also a struggle of expressive against instrumental conceptions. The success of insurrection depends on the prevalence and intensity of diffuse power, counterposed to concentrated power. The current crisis provides a potential opportunity to expand spaces of autonomy, but certain fundamental problems would have to be addressed before Northern movements can sustain an insurrection indefinitely. Whether these problems will be addressed, remains to be seen.

source: Anarchy a Journal of Desire Armed  #70/71 & #72/#73

The post The Future of Insurrection – by Lupus Dragonowl appeared first on Void Network.

Octavio Alberola, Revolución o colapso

What follows is an exercise in the sharing of ideas, of visions.  The most recent essay by the invisible committee, NOW, continues a reflection-intervention that began with The Coming Insurrection and To Our Friends, and offers a powerful critique of contemporary politics, along with a defense of “autonomy”.  What is proposed here then is a partial translation, summary, and occasionally a commentary and exemplification, or simply a montage, of some of the ideas that animate their vision of our times.

It also may be taken as a commentary on our recent posts dedicated to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Jacques Rancière, as well as on Spain´s 15th of May movement.

The apparently seamless order of the our world belies its tattered fragments.  The promised unity of a global order is sustained only in the realm of illusion by the flickering of screens bleating forth a continuous flow of images.  The content of the latter is meaningless, it is the flow that matters, that there be images, the spectacle of our own ongoing passivity.  But all about us are the shards of “society”, “science”, “labour”, “states”.  The seeming homogeneity of desires is fractured by unmanageable spaces, proliferating knowledges, precarious, uncertain ways of survival and sovereign authorities that exist only through open or less than hidden states of exception. Fragmentation devours all that is solid in its path, like the touch of a King Midas of instability.

“Wage labour explodes in all sorts of niches, of exception, in conditions of anomaly.  The idea of the “precariat” opportunely conceals that there is simply no longer any common experience of work, even precarious.  So that as well there can no longer be any common experience of its cessation, and the old myth of the general strike can be placed on the shelf of useless accessories.  Western medicine is reduced to tinkering with techniques that explode its doctrinal unity, such as acupuncture, hypnoses or magnetism.  Beyond the usual parliamentary fiddling, there is no longer, politically, any majority for anything.  The wisest political commentary, during the conflict generated by the Labour Law of the spring of 2016 [France], noted that two minorities, a government minority and a demonstrating minority, clashed with each other before a theatre of spectators.” (the invisible committee, Now, 19-20)*

Even our own selves dissolve in a confusing stream of disconnected feelings, experiences, thoughts, held together again in the delusion that meaning is to be found in the blind collecting of consumed experiences.

“The contemporary experience of life in a world comprised of circulation, telecommunications, networks, a chaos of information in real time and of images aiming to capture our attention is fundamentally discontinuous.” (20)

The presumed general interest dissolves and states can do no more than call upon their militarised police and their policing military to see through even the most modest of plans (e.g., Val de Suse, Gezi Park, the airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, Standing Rock, and the like); each “public” investment, each infrastructure project, is seen for what it is, criminal theft.

The unities of the past, the person, the nation, the state, the society and economy, and so on, were always fictions, but they were effective fictions.  “What is for sure is that the illusion of unity no longer succeeds in making illusory, in reigning in, in disciplining.  In everything, hegemony is dead and the singularities become savage: they carry with them their own meaning, and await no general order.  The little overlooking point of view that allowed anyone with a little authority to act as ventriloquist  for everyone else, to judge, to classify, to hierarchise, to moralise, to notify each person what they must do and how they should do it, has become inaudible.  All of the things that “must” be done have been laid low.” (21)

History, progress, the roots of tradition and the hopes of the future fall away.  The fragments that remain reduce our temporality to the present, to a now.  The authority of states and all that they command must thus force the illusions of History evermore, but in so doing, only further reveal the emptiness of what is supposed to seduce.  History is nothing before the latest, new and improved, consumer object/relation/experience that is condemned to obsolescence in the very moment of its consumption.  If the State’s ambition is to manage, and to manage the totality of the social life that it gives form to/creates, then it is an ambition that is increasingly strained, depending on ever greater violence and police rule; the more it tightens its hold, the more “society” implodes at its base.

“Of unity, only nostalgia remains, but it speaks louder and louder.  Everywhere candidates present themselves to restore national grander, to “Make America great again” or “bring order back to France”.  At the same time, when one is nostalgic for French Algeria, what can one be nostalgic for?  Everywhere, one promises then to remake by force the lost unity.  Only that the more one “cleaves” by discoursing on the “sentiment of belonging”, the greater the certainty that one does not belong to any of this spreads.  To mobilise the panic to restore order, is to miss what is essentially dispersive in panic.  The process of general fragmentation is so unstoppable that all of the brutalities which will be used to remake the lost unity will only accelerate it, rendering it more profound and more irreversible.  When there is no longer any common experience, except that found in front of screens, one may well create brief moments of national communion after “terrorist” attacks by deploying an array of drooling sentimentality, false and empty, one can decree all manner of “wars on terrorism”, one can promise to retake control of all “no-go areas” that one wants, all this remains a newsflash on BFM-TV, at the back end of a kebab shop, and whose sound can’t be heard.  This kind of nonsense is like medication: for it to remain effective, the dosage has to be continuously increased, until the final neurasthenia.  Those who look favourably on the perspective of ending their existence in a cramped and over-militarised citadel, even one as large as France, while all around, the water rises, carrying the bodies of the unlucky, may very well call “National traitors” all of those who displease them.  In their barking, nothing but their powerlessness is heard.” (27)

And for those who would contest, struggle against, this established order, to appeal to the same false unties that underlie capitalism would be to contribute to those same illusions, restraining what is possible within the frame of those illusions and a future order, or said differently, making possible the capture of struggles by the State.

Everything becomes plural, local, situated; paradoxically sharing the common trait of flight.  “It is not only that the people are wanting … they have already made their suitcases, in a thousand unsuspected directions.  They are not only abstentionist, in retreat, nowhere to be found: they are in flight, even if their flight would be nothing but interior or immobile.  They are already elsewhere.” (28)  And it will not be the new populists of the left, a Mélenchon or Iglesias, who will bring them back.  “What is called ‘populism’ is not only the glaring symptom of the disappearance of the people, it is a desperate attempt to hold on to what remains of the haggard and disoriented.” (29)

In the tired marches and demonstrations of labour unions and left-wing political parties, those who parade are like marionette ghosts, repeating gestures and slogans mechanically, lifelessly.  The Internationale falls like a corpse from their lips, to be swept up by the municipal street cleaners who follow.  What life erupts from these pacified processions of the living dead does so, as it did in France during the 2016 Spring, when the head of the marches were “taken” by those desirous to break with the imposed sleep, by the casseurs, the “violent rioters” quickly labelled “anarchists” and “black blocks”.  But the names hide more than they reveal, for what happened on these occasions, and again the French example is helpful, “is that a certain number of deserters created a political space where to compose their heterogeneity, an ephemeral space certainly, insufficiently organised undoubtedly, but attainable and, for the duration of a Spring, really existing.” (Now, 30)  Our fragmented world is acephalous, mirrored and multiplied in endless forms, including in the futile and paralysed left.  But those who took the “head” of the protests in Paris, for example, did not do so to provide them with a new leadership, but rather to unleash the autonomous multiple gestures that they harboured and rendered possible.

These last months, a remarkable wind of protest rose against labour law.
Facing it, the government, its ministers , its president and its police, have opted for political and police repression , at a rare level and multiplied the blows of force to quell the movement . Normalising, social violence and media manipulation are all so many symptoms that reflect the massive discomfort of a society where the people are strategically muzzled . This film is the voice of those who revolt, whoever they are, and especially those we never hear, despised by authorities, mass media and dominant discourse.]

[Gloss: The “global” occupy movement of 2011, beginning with the Arab Spring and seemingly replicating itself in numerous other countries and cities, is the most significant “social-political movement” of our time. To speak in the singular here though is to suggest a unity of intention and/or ideology across these movements which does not exist. And yet their shared occupation of city squares intimates some commonality, to be sought at other levels of lived reality. Tomás Ibáñez, writing of the Spanish movement 15M of 2011, states that it “marked in a clear way a before and an after in the scenario of protests and collective conflict.” (Anarquismos a contratiempo, 263) Ibáñez’s judgement may not be extendable to other countries for various reasons, but in the Spanish context, it echos true. However, the intensity and resonances of the movement are not due to any unified organisation, ideology or aim born with 15M. The “movement” was and remains as fragmented as the politics that it emerged to challenge. Its force, its radicalness, must therefore be found elsewhere. And for Ibáñez, everything changes the moment we focus on 15M’s organisational forms and practices of struggle, conceived and put into effect without any conscious appeals to past ways of doing politics (15M is a movement of the radical present, for good or ill).

“The originality of 15M consisted in the fact that it was an event, in the full sense of the word, that introduced new things into the political scenario charged with an unquestionable political radicalness, that curiously contrasted with the absence of any radicalness in its explicit demands.” (266) Instead of merely expressing opposition and through protest seeking change, typically at the level of State policy, 15M was much more. “Even though in the beginning, it was the usual popular concentration to express a protest and make a demand, this very quickly transformed itself into a different phenomenon. The thousands of people who invaded the streets and squares did not do so only to demonstrate against this or in favour of that, but they did so also to institute themselves or, more precisely, to self-institute themselves as subjects in a political process.” (267)

…

“This process of self-institution required that the people organise themselves, debate, elaborate collectively their own political discourse, and construct in common the necessary elements to make possible the maintenance of the mobilisation and the development of political action.”

“The importance that the rejection of representation acquired in the heart of the movement – the famous ‘they don’t represent us’, of course, but also accompanied by the refusal to be represented by any permanent entities: ‘no one can claim the right to represent us’ – indicates what the novelty was that the movement introduced into the conventional political game. In effect, a radical rupture was produced with practices that consisted of responding to agendas elaborated externally, that is by others who basically were not among the mobilised. In the public squares, diverted from its conventional and authorised uses, the imagination set to work to create spaces, construct conditions and elaborate procedures that would permit people to elaborate by themselves and collectively their own agenda, at the margin of pre-established and imported ideologies.”

“From the moment that the rejection of representation constituted itself as the active principle of the action of 15M, the only discourses, the only compromises, that were recognised and that were assumed as legitimate, were those that came from the very interior of the movement, those generated from within. Only what the movement produced through and by itself was accepted, autonomously, following the rules of free debate in a non-hierarchical frame.” (268)

The extraordinary significance of 15M thus lies not in what it promised for the future, nor in any rehabilitation of some glorious revolutionary past, ideological or practical, but in what it realised in the present. “If anything profoundly characterised 15M, it was its unyielding will for autonomy, a generalised demand for autonomy and self-determination that imposed the fixing of its own objectives and the determination of its own ways of being, as well as the rejection of domination, not allowing itself to be lead by any external entity, and to decide to act for itself.” (268)

As a political movement, an essentially plural movement, 15M sought not to weld the fragments of social life into a new, false unity, but to create a space of passage, a threshold, through and from which different agencies could enter, gain sustenance, and depart, to possibly return again. If 15M resonated and resonates still in the country, it is because its political children are many. And at its most intense, it not only shared ideas, but bodies. That is, for very, very many who came to the occupied squares of Spain’s cities, what they found was not a politics segregated from all other spheres of life, “politics” as usual, but a politics embedded in life and the care that makes possible the reproduction of forms of life in radical opposition to capitalism, if any such opposition is to be true. 15M was not ideology, organisation, fixed practices, leadership, representatives, but the sharing, to speak metaphorically, of wine and bread in a life giving meal that could be re-enacted and edified into a form of life.

Podemos is Judas at this supper, but the murder that it desires and with which it is complicitous has so far failed.

The invisible committee is critical of Nuit Debout, France’s incarnation of the “occupy movement”, precisely for its fetishism of form, democratic form, voting upon matters that could have no possible execution and which in the end only served to domesticate the occupation. If it too was lacking in any homogeneity, if unplanned gatherings and demonstrations also gestated in its midst, if it also contributed to making the movement against the proposed labour law reform of 2016 in France much more than simply another protest movement, it came to grief on the separation of politics from life and the presumed and desired sovereignty of the former; the belief that life can be governed, mirrored in the image of government of the self. (Now, 52-6)

The invisible committee’s argument here takes us further than most of the political readings of the occupy movements. For what emerges from their considerations is a re-thinking of the very concept of autonomy. So often imagined in terms of self-possession, it finds expression in the State and in the person in the concept of sovereignty. Neither of the two, State or person, are conceivable without it. But then neither are imaginable without violence, the violence that represses and/or destroys that which escapes rule. The task then is to think and live autonomy beyond sovereignty; a sovereignty which in any case has been irretrievably lost in the debris of capitalism’s disaster. The anonymous many who have filled streets and city squares are the uprooted and disoriented offspring of the disaster, who gather not as the “people united”, but as a community of the nameless.]

If any semblance of unity continues to structure State authority, it is only through fear, surveillance and the physical presence of police.  The law, the armour of declared and legislated rights that is supposed to protect each citizen’s moral and physical integrity, and thus the guarantor of social unity, is an edifice of ruins.  Indeed, as far as the invisible committee is concerned, the Law no longer exists. (33)

“As long as the security of our fellow citizens justifies it, as long as administrative search warrants [passed without a judicial decision] that only the state of emergency allow are indispensable, it is advisable to maintain the state of emergency.”  The words were proffered by Emmanuel Macron during the French presidential election campaign and they are now confirmed by his desired extension of the legal exception until the 1st of November, bringing the state of emergency in France up to two years.  Whatever hesitations he may have had in the past have vanished (“We cannot live permanently in a regime of exception.  It is necessary to return to ordinary law … and to act with the right instruments.  We have the legislative apparatus permitting us to respond, over time, to our situation”).  And in parallel, there is a proposal for a new and additional anti-terrorist law. (Liberation 24/05/2017)  As such laws multiply, both in France and elsewhere, states of emergency in fact cease to be exceptional; such laws create distinct legal subjects with different rights and duties.  And as they do so, the diminished rights of suspected criminals and terrorists seep into the fabric of general law, rendering everyone a potential suspect.

The German legal theorist Günther Jakobs elaborated a distinction between two criminal laws: one for “citizens” and another for “enemies”.  For Jakobs, the latter includes the rabble, radical opponents, thugs and rogues, “terrorists”, “anarchists”, in sum, all of those who fail to sufficiently respect the reigning democratic order and thereby represent a “danger” to the “normative structure of society”.  Should not then such “dangerous individuals” be treated as enemies of society? Do they not exclude themselves from ordinary criminal law, justifying the elaboration of a criminal law for enemies? (33)  But to elaborate a law for enemies, is to erase the Schmittian distinction of friend-enemy, which places the enemy outside a constituted sovereignty.  That is, it makes all of us potential enemies, it renders the exception normal, thus destroying “normal” criminal law altogether.  (The example of the increasing criminalisation of dissent in Spain in the wake of 15M, with the law of Citizen Security of 2013 and the recent police operations, pandoraand piñata, against anarchists, is but one example among many today).

“However paradoxical this affirmation may appear, we live in the time of the abolition of the Law.  The metastatic proliferation of laws is nothing but one aspect of this abolition.  If each law had not become insignificant in the rococo of contemporary law, would it be necessary to produce so many?  Would it be necessary to communicate, with each event, by means of the enactment of new legislation?  The aim of the great legal reforms over the last years in France amount almost all to the abolition of current laws, to the progressive dismantling of all judicial guarantees.  So much so that the Law, which professed to protect men/women and things before the hazards of the world, has instead become what adds to their precariousness.”  The state of exception today reigns “under the form of the law.” (34-5)

[Gloss: “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the struggle against Fascism will thereby improve.” Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History]

There are two ways to respond to the state of emergency, we are told by the invisible committee.  The first is to denounce it and call for the return of a state of law; an illusory exercise that calls for what never really existed, because the law depends upon the exception, on the constitution of those who are outside the law.  There is no law without the violence of separation and that violence is always potentially and in fact directed at the body constituted by the State. The second response is to assume the exception of the law.  If the State frees itself from its laws under the exception, then it is for those who contest the State to do the same.  “There are those who protest against a phantom, the state of emergency, and there are those who take action and deploy from their own state of exception.” (38)

Before the permanent state of exception, “the maintenance of order is the principle activity of an already failed order”. (109)  And the greater the fragmentation of social order, the greater is the presence of an increasingly militarised police.

The loss of all hope among the increasingly superfluous many is also the condition for pure revolt, a “revolt that no longer seeks support in what it denies and which is its own self-authorisation”. (110)  Before such disobedience, potential or active, politics is reduced to a vast, daily police operation. (110)  And thus rebellion can only direct itself at the body of the State, namely, the police.  In Paris, the slogan was, “Everyone hates the police”.

That this statement should appear shocking to some is testimony to the successful imposition of sovereignty by modern State power.  At the beginning of the 17th century, for the first thinkers on sovereignty, the police were held to be the very constitution of the State, its very form, rather than a mere instrument of State authority.  The police was thus “all that can give ornament, form and splendour to the city” (Turquet de Mayerne), “the ensemble of means that serve the splendor of the whole State and the happiness of all of its citizens” (Hohenthal).  Its role is to “lead man to the most perfect felicity that he may enjoy in this life” (Delmare). (111-2)  The police then are the government of all of the conditions that render this felicity possible, from the cleanliness of streets to the imprisonment of vagabonds. (112)  It is the police as identical with to be policed, that is, ordered, administered, governed by policy, belonging to the city, the polis, the realm of the civilised, in contrast to the savage, those outside the city, inhabitants of unpolicedforests.  The police in this instance are the very end of sovereignty: the ideal, legal and ultimately fictional order of the world.  The police however must also assure that the order is real, or as real as possible.  And here it appears as a means to its own ideal end.  Yet without the former, the latter reveals itself as a fiction, and thus “the function of the police as a means is to ensure that from the outside the order desired appears to reign”.  Failure however haunts its double role.  To act from the “outside” with “necessary” violence is to act from outside the law, to act illegally, to preserve the law.  The police is the very embodiment of the paradox of sovereignty, the paradox that the sovereign who defines the legal order does so in an initial act that is a-legal; that the sovereign who defends the constituted order does so through illegalacts.  The police “are the proof that the legal is not the real, that order does not reign, that society does not hold because it does not hold by itself“; that all are the work and consequence of their force, a permanent agency of exception in the heart of constituted and “constitutional” political authority.  “If the state of exception is this temporary suspension of the law that permits re-establishing, by the most arbitrary and bloody measures, the condition for the rule of law, the police is what remains of the state of exception when these conditions have been restored.  The police, in their daily functioning, is what persists of the state of exception in normal circumstances.  It is why its sovereign functioning is itself so hidden.” (113)

A French CRS police officer, after arresting someone for no reason during the Paris Spring protests states: “I do what I want.  You see, it’s anarchy for me also!” (113)

“The police thus ensure an apparent order that is from within only disorder.  It is the truth of a world of lies, and by continuous lies.  It confirms that the reigning order is artificial, and that it will sooner or later be destroyed.” (114)

The police is unmasked.  It is not that everyone in fact hates the police.  They do not.  But for those who cry out loudly that they do, they have excellent reasons for doing so.  The fragmentation of State power and authority however changes the relation between government and police.  Once the mere instruments of politicians, the generalised discredit of the latter renders the police the very condition of government.  It is the politicians who now turn to them before any crisis, and cede to them on every demand.  Few police bodies would be able, or even willing, to assume openly political autonomy; and for such a body to do so would be to engender a government at war with all or a part of its population. (115-8)

And in response: “It would be senseless to seek a military victory over the police. … The police is a target and not an objective, an obstacle and not an adversary.  Whoever takes the cops for an adversary prohibits themselves  from breaking through the obstacle that they are.  To be able to sweep them aside, one has to aim beyond.  Against the police, there is only political victory.  Disorganise their ranks, strip them of all legitimacy, reduce them to impotence, hold them at a good distance, grant oneself a larger margin of manoeuvre at the desired moment, as in the chosen places: thus is the police destituted.” (118)

Suffered, the processes of fragmentation may push us towards misery, isolation, schizophrenia.  Life may be lived as a pure waste.  Nostalgia then possesses us; nostalgia for family, nation, or so many other fictions of wholeness.  For is not belonging the only thing that remains to those who no longer have anything?  Yet this same fragmentation can also be a starting point, it may also give rise to an intensification and pluralisation of the “relations that make us.” (41)  Perhaps then we may see finally that it was our “integration in society” that was “a slow loss of being, a continuous separation, a slipping towards ever greater vulnerability, and an ever more disguised vulnerability.” (41)

“There is in the fragmentation something that points towards what we call ‘communism’: it is the return to earth, the ruin of everything made equivalent, the restitution of all singularities to themselves, the failure of subsumption, abstraction, the fact that moments, places, things, beings and animals all acquire their own name – their own name.  Every creation is born of a rupture with the whole. … If the Earth is so rich in natural milieus, it is in virtue of is complete absence of uniformity.  To realise the promise of communism held within the fragmentation of the world calls for a gesture, a gesture to be repeated interminably, a gesture that is life itself: that of to provide passages between the fragments, to put them into contact, to organise their encounter, to open the paths that lead from one friendly bit of the world to another without passing through hostile territory, that of establishing the good art of distances between the worlds.” (43)

What these connected fragments are remains open, changing.  But they are held together in moving affinities of plural forms of life, archipelagos of life beyond the politics of institutionalised and enforced spectacular commoditification.

__________

*Unless otherwise indicated, all references are to the essay Maintenant, published by La fabrique, 2017.

source: http://autonomies.org/2017/05/reading-our-times-with-now-the-invisible-committee/

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