Let’s Talk About Attack

September 22nd, 2021 by Salto

Anarchists sometimes talk about attack; some of them do so a lot. The media, on the other hand, don’t feel as tempted to do so. The news of successful attacks, robberies, escapes, revolts, etc, aren’t always broadcast in the news, and it makes sense. The police are the main scavengers of such news, and as the defenders of order have no interest in displaying these hostilities and broadcasting them through their channels.

Why then, is their censorship so often considered a problem? It seems to us that the problem isn’t so much that what we don’t talk about remains hidden (in terms of mass diffusion, since there are always witnesses who will speak to others, etc; in extreme cases, there remains those who repair the attacked target), but rather that what we don’t talk about (again through the channels of power) cannot even exist in the spirit of many people. Because if it did, the loyal spokespeople (which is to say, loyal to power) of the truth and the news would engage with a word. And so, if we don’t say anything, it’s that it doesn’t exist.

And so it remains up to the Spectacle to decide what exists and what does not. The relationships between people and the relationships between people and the world have been so mutilated by power that we always need a proxy, a product of power, to make our desired connections: the media, internet, phones. That the news of hostilities are only heard through these channels (or isn’t) is a sad reality. If it’s not on facebook, it doesn’t exist, and if we’re not on facebook, how will we talk about it?

That said, the solution to the problem certainly isn’t to participate in the Spectacle. What would we gain from being represented via the channels of power? Where does this hunger/greed for representation in the Spectacle come from, a hunger/greed that always resurfaces; the media serves as a vanity mirror (recognition by the enemy, what a treat!), some proof that says we exist? All this spectacular culture reproduces the world of power and the mechanisms it needs to continue. So, for example, we wait with impatience for riots in the neighborhoods, while remaining blind to the lower-intensity destruction of the structures small or large of power around us – this game between rebels who have an eye for it, and for which no one determines the rules.

Beyond all that, the channels of power deprive hostilities of their content and replace it with a message that will instead affirm power. When the media frogs croak about an arson, a bomb, an assault against an oppressor … it always serves a counter-insurrectional goal. It’s everything but an invitation to everyone to take up hostilities. The newspapers speak of something we were not able to conceal, and always find a way to say it was a marginal act, an absurdity: out of place and incomprehensible to “normal people,” to whom no one can relate since the act comes from a well defined “category” of person (the residents of a certain neighborhood, people who share a certain anomaly, the youth of a certain ethnicity). Thus the hostilities are reduced to one of many diverse phenomena.

In the end, it’s not the fact and the fetish that hand-in-hand can convince whomever (one can find something cool to “like” – but only as a spectator who immediately sets it aside, a mechanism stimulated by the media and all aspects of this existence that push people into a passive role); rather, it is the idea. The idea of breaking in the first person with this world that imprisons us in a thousand ways and has nothing to offer us, the idea to personally go on the offensive. If we think that there are too few attacks in this incredibly rotten world, it’s also because the idea of attack is not present enough. We can find quite a few people who are against something, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are very ready to do something. As long as the conflict with this miserable existence isn’t engaged, the faith in the oracle of power will not disappear; the dependence on the mediated/virtual will remain, as will the thoughts that other worlds aren’t possible or imaginable. A vicious cycle?

***

Well, since we’re talking about attack here, some things should be clarified beforehand, like what is an attack?

To start, let go of the testosterone, the dress codes, the boastfulness. None of this has to do with attack. A child can be courageous enough to attack, and some children do. To attack you don’t need to be a virile Hercules, trained and belligerent, nor have a loud mouth.

The attack breaks with mediation (that which causes one to let go of one’s own life), with the patronage system (the bootlicking of people in power in order to obtain better survival conditions; for example, to obtain public housing or a residency visa), and with waiting. To attack is to stop letting things depend on people with power, and to act with one’s self. It is to break the ongoing chain of the management of your own shit. To put it into words, we’re talking about self-organization (down with official organizations, with politicians, with unions, and other leaders) and taking direct action here and now.

The attack is the refusal of dialogue with the enemy, the refusal of democracy. The attack is irreconcilable. We can’t measure the attack by the number of burned targets. These are without a doubt attacks, but the attack is also more than this. The attack does not come without the strength of will to break with what power offers us. In the same way that it begins with taking a decision and the courage to put it into practice.

When we talk about attack, we give courage to the idea of “to be done with it.” And it’s not just in the desire of wanting to “be done with” a miserable life and those who make this miserable life possible that gives us life, but above all it is detonation of no longer passively submitting and swallowing the shit they push down our throats, that mutilates, kills, and eats from within generations of humans. The attack is thus not only what is destroyed, but is also a horizon of inspiration: the end of oppression; freedom. By not only what is destroyed, but also equally the realization of a mental rupture – the end of resignation, the end of negotiations, the end of bootlicking.

***

To go on the offensive, you need not only the decision or the will, but also the means. That’s another problem. In the past, a portion of anarchist propaganda concerned itself with this. Sabotage manuals were distributed on worksites, for example against war efforts and mobilization. This requires direct contact with rebels, insurgents, or revolutionaries, in the same way it demands the courage to defend one’s own ideas and not to water them down in the hopes that they will be more navigable. In this case, we once again hurl ourselves against the walls of the open-air prison. For as long as someone has not decided to destroy their cage and begin to struggle against power, it remains a challenge to talk about the subject and to make it understood.

It’s a lengthy task, because obviously someone who feels a deep hatred for the singular party of oppression doesn’t automatically become a potential accomplice. In the same way that someone has perfect anarchist theories, but doesn’t know how to throw a rock. Or how defending a certain means of survival doesn’t necessarily mean the development of a completely other ethics on which we could build a new world.

The work of defending our ideas is long and not always easy or pleasant, because many of our convictions shock and repel many people, or are welcomed with a smile without it meaning that the mechanisms of delegation are broken and that the person will go on to attack. On the other hand, if we do not defend our ideas ourselves, no one else will, that much is certain.

Evidently, when you place your hopes on the revolt of the oppressed, you risk disappointment. Cause the oppressed don’t rebel because anarchists tell them they should, even when they perceive themselves as oppressed and share the idea that those responsible for the oppression deserve to be attacked. There are numerous factors in the game: depression, fear, calculation, communitarianism, worry and daily survival, mechanisms of delegation, not being able to take one’s life into hand, the desire for concrete solutions to concrete problems. We could go on and on, but no thanks, rather not. Especially since we are not addressing “the masses,” but rather those who still feel revolt coursing through their veins, those who cannot stand to passively watch so much misery, or to those who don’t content themselves with giving out bandaids for injuries or living a tranquil life, whether in the middle of or in the margins of this crazy existence.

***

If we talk about attack, it’s not because we want to prove something to whoever. Someone who rebels does not need proof to give others to take action. And it isn’t by giving it to others that they will follow the example. This reproduces roles familiar to the system, spectators and actors; this reinforces the mechanisms of delegation – “Good job, bravo!” – and this itself changes nothing about the feeling of powerlessness that an individual can feel. The proposition of diffuse attacks requires the exact opposite, the end of delegation and of command, self-confidence; the destruction of all moralism.

But where to begin?

We can try by forcing, through struggle, spaces to exist that did not before. Spaces where we encounter each other on another level, where recognition is not based on esteem or popularity, but on a shared revolt. These spaces open up and shrink down depending on the intensity of the struggle and other conditions we cannot influence. Within these spaces we’ve opened up, it becomes easier to be understood. A perspective on struggle that proposes to everyone to stop waiting, to stop being a spectator to the misery we live in, a perspective on struggle based on self-organization and attack can thus take on life.

***

If we defend attacking in this space, opened up by struggle, we can be more precise, more concrete, identifying the enemy. Who is our enemy and where we can hit them? Identifying the enemy is like giving out keys to anyone who wants to attack, but doesn’t know where to start.

Let’s take, for example, the construction of a new prison, very original. She who wants to struggle against this construction must know against whom she is fighting, researching whose idea it was, who wants to realize it and the means they plan on using to do so (from the media that promotes the new project, to the access roads to bring trucks to the construction site and carry primary materials, to parts of cells, technological infrastructure…). She who wants the fight to open up into a true struggle must spread this information as widely as possible. To stimulate the diffusion of attacks, it is important that the names of the architecture firms, the responsible politicians, the enterprises … are available to everyone, for everyone has their own reasons to sabotage the project.

But, please, without the campaign logic….Because it’s not about bringing a mean enterprise to better intentions, of forcing it to change its bad habits via punitive measures, nor of pressuring an institution to change its mind. Certainly, sometimes it is necessary in a concrete case for comrades to act this way (for example, to stop the execution of comrades or to make the state back off a specific point because the consequences would be too much). But when we’re talking about, for example, companies that build prisons, TGV lines (Translator’s note: TGV stands for Train a Grande Vitesse, a high speed train), airports, let’s refuse all forms of communication (even the radical ones) with the enemy; let’s refuse all forms of reformism. Better still: we don’t want to spread the logic of reformism, we want to destroy it. The goal is, then, not to convince (by way of damage, material or monetary); the goal is to sabotage and attack the entirety of the project on all terrains. Attack – not to convince, but because we are convinced we don’t want this project. Attacking, not to punish, but to make life harder for the enemy. From the construction companies to the security coordinators and engineers; from the civilian participants to the banks who finance the project.

And yes, we want to really and effectively stop the construction of this prison, but that’s not the only thing that counts. Again, it’s about creating spaces of struggle where everything that came before can be experimented with and understood. It is not always easy to explain in a world where everything is pointed toward obtaining concrete results; where all action, before being taken, is evaluated for its significance, its feasibility, its effectiveness.

Finally, add that the fact that building a prison, for example, is not just physical walls, but also an arsenal of state propaganda calling for more Justice and the raving security that casts its shadow on everyone’s freedom (or the possibility of freedom). A company that will no longer take part in the construction doesn’t change the state’s vast repressive project. That’s why it’s important to not talk only about a single target, a single place, but also to critique with words and actions the context in which the project is built. Why it is built, what is linked to the project. If we don’t do it, no one will become smarter.

***

It isn’t in the name of a dreamy anarchist movement with the muscle capable of bringing the enemy to its knees that information is distributed. It is an invitation to self-organize and to attack, an attempt to stimulate a reciprocal exchange of knowledge, understanding the world in which we live, knowing where to hit the enemy.

So that finally the feeling of facing an invincible reptile can disappear, this feeling of powerlessness when facing a machine that crushes everything. The machine can be sabotaged. It is made up of numerous pieces and gears that are not invulnerable.

But what can we do?”

Talk with people you trust. Attack, damage the machine, put it out of order. Break resignation, hit the arrogance of power in the face. Cause the jail builders nightmares. Everywhere. On the worksites, in the neighborhoods, in the places they want to build the monster. To all the places where a piece of the monster comes from: from ministries to workshops, from university study groups to community boards, from foremen to prison administrators. Take small steps, take big steps, but take steps. Because if we don’t take steps we are always pushed further back.”

* Original published in Salto 4. Translation published in Movement for No Society *

Archipel – Affinität, informelle Organisation und aufständische Projekte

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

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Auf der Anklagebank

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

“Der Staat versucht jene, die ihm eine Gefahr sind, zu unterdrücken, zu verfolgen und zu ersticken. Die Bedrohung sind somit nicht hunderte von Anarchisten, sondern die immer mögliche und unvorhersehbare Verbreitung der subversiven Ideen und Praktiken, die wir tragen. Die Bedrohung, die Gefährlichkeit, ist die Ansteckung, die man sich zum Werk macht, die sich realisiert oder die, zumindest, immer möglich bleibt. Daher auch die Offensichtlichkeit, dass die beste Solidarität darin besteht, die subversiven Ideen und Praktiken weiter zu verbreiten, jenseits jeglichem juristischen oder staatlichen Verfalldatums. Und die beste Verteidigung gegen die Repression ist nicht irgendeine imaginäre Macht zu formen, die ihr gegenübertreten könnte (in der Logik symmetrischer Konfrontationen, die von einer militärischen Vision und Hierarchie der Subversion geprägt ist), es geht nicht einfach darum (oder besser, nicht so sehr), sich Techniken und Wissen anzueignen, sie zu umgehen, sondern eher um Perspektiven des Kampfes, um vertiefte Ideen, um die soziale Suche nach Komplizenschaft in der Verweigerung und des Angriffs auf die Welt. Eigentlich können wir die Frage verallgemeinern um sie besser zu begreifen: Kann ein Aufstand (im anarchistischen Sinne des Wortes, oder anders gesagt als soziales Phänomen) militärisch siegreich gegen die repressiven Kräfte sein? Hängt der „Erfolg“ eines Aufstands von der Zahl der Waffen und der zur Verfügung stehenden „Truppen“ ab? Oder sind nicht die Gründe der „Niederlage“ der Aufstände, eher in dem Mangel an antiautoritären Perspektiven, in der fehlenden „Standfestigkeit“ der Verweigerung jeder Art von Chef oder auch in der Angst vor dem Unbekannten der Freiheit zu suchen?

[…]

Zu sagen, dass wir weder „Schuld“ noch „Unschuld“ anerkennen, dass wir jeden Richter, jedes Gericht verweigern, weil wir Feinde aller Gesetzes sind und somit für jede Übertretung, die von unserem Verlangen nach Freiheit inspiriert ist, ist damit sicher kein taktisches Spiel, sondern gerade ein Ausdruck dieser Spannung in Richtung Kohärenz. Die Solidarität beendet so ihr Sein als simpler anti-repressiver Reflex um zur Möglichkeit der Komplizenschaft zu werden, in dem Sinne, wo wir, jeder und jede „schuldig“ für unsere Ideen und Praktiken sind, die von uns ausgehen.”

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Sleepless nights and starry skies – The World Cup in Brasil and international surges of insurrection

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

The World Cup is not about football. If a country becomes a candidate for organizing this event, it is because football absolves the same function today as the spectacle of the gladiators did in ancient Rome, and because it is a golden opportunity for the managerial State to extend its economic development and political influence by leaps and bounds. The Cup incurs a monstrous cost, however the returns on investment will almost certainly be juicy. Brasil, considered one of the world’s major economic powers, is counting on moving up the echelons by organizing the Cup and the Olympic Games.

The World Cup is also a project of power to bridle social tensions and worship the spectacle. For State bodies and economic interests, it is an opportunity to create the conditions to open up new markets, put an end to certain kinds of resistance and achieve a qualitative leap in the occupation of the territory and capitalist exploitation. This is the modern High Mass of the State and Capital, where the arrogance of power is exhibited in the spectacle of the stadiums, the howling masses, screens, live broadcasts and national pride.

The granting of the organization of the 2014 World Cup to the Brasilian State has meant an immediate systematic intensification of the management of “social peace.” New police units, the Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP), have emerged, created along the model of the infamous “pacification operations” implanted since 2008 in dozens of tough neighbourhoods and favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The State has regained military control of the neighbourhoods in the name of the war on drug trafficking. According to official figures more than 5,500 people have been killed by police in Rio de Janeiro alone in the space of four years. In neighbourhoods where gangs of traffickers have been hunted down, the paramilitaries are now calling the shots.

But the World Cup obviously does not only have the uniformed side to it. For a sum exceeding 3500 million dollars, stadiums have been built in strategic points of the cities. Favelas have been evicted and razed to the ground to build new middle class neighbourhoods, shopping centres, luxury hotels and beach facilities. The transport axis and motorways have been redeveloped and secured; airports, ports and electricity networks have been built or rebuilt. In Rio de Janeiro 250,000 people have been evicted from their homes to make way for construction projects related to the World Cup 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games. Brasilian Justice has not concealed its intentions about its plans for the future of all these stadiums most of which will only accommodate a few games: studies are underway to examine how the new stadiums in Manaus, Brasilia, Cuiabá and Natal could be turned into prisons.

The World Cup is therefore an operation of social cleansing. The State and Capital are getting rid of the undesirables, the segments of the population that have become superfluous in commodity circulation and can only become sources of unrest. All the same it would be a mistake to consider this operation an “exception” that democracies legitimize through the World Cup: it is well and truly a restructuring and intensification of social control and exploitation. World Cup or crisis, war or reconstruction, natural disasters or emergencies… power has us dangling from “emergency situations” that are in fact the very core of capitalist and State progress.

The World Cup ceremony opens up every conceivable market. And this does not only concern real estate speculation or the security industry. For months farmers have been reporting that trucks full of cocaine have been coming and going from Colombia to meet the “needs” of the three million tourists expected. Just as happened during the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, prostitution will grow vertiginously. On the construction sites of the stadiums numerous immigrant workers work under particularly hard conditions, the companies flogging them in order to meet deadlines. Not to mention the different power factions in Brasil that are negotiating and entering into agreements with the government: the drug gangs are taking care of the dirty work of expelling people who resist the urbanization programs too much, whereas the paramilitaries are employed by companies to ensure security on construction sites and to crush strikes and protests through blackmail and murder.

But the new order of things is not just this horror. The new order of things is how in June 2013 Brasil was in flames for almost a month. What began as a movement against an increase in the price of bus tickets turned into uncontrolled widespread revolt against power. Since that month of revolt there have been more and more conflicts around the evictions, resistance against austerity plans, protests against police killings, or even antipatriotic disorders such as on the national holiday of 7 September etc., which have degenerated and escaped the control of classical political mediation. Over the past few months a social imagination has been created in Brasil that could set the streets alight again.

* *

While power and its contenders are trying to stop the wave of uprisings in Syria and the revolts that are infecting more and more areas of the world, drowning them in a pool of blood; while in Greece the population has been oppressed and terrorized to erase the memory of the uprising of December 2008; while in Ukraine, an uprising of the people sees itself trampled by a macabre game between different fractions of power; while in Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia, Libya, etc.. order seems to be reorganizing and re-establishing itself, the World Cup in Brasil presents itself as an attempt to put the social contradictions that are traversing Latin America in a straight jacket.

Taking different forms according to the various contexts and conditions, a restructuring of Capital and the State is underway everywhere in the world. National boundaries are revealing themselves to be more than ever what they have always been: fences and walls to manage the potential revolt of the disinherited. So it is no coincidence if in the face of the obvious contagion between the various revolts of the past few years – a contagion not so much based on similar conditions, but rather on a new non-mediated imagination of the possibility to rise up, of another life – the State is playing on nationalism and reactionary sentiments: from fascist movements in ascension in the European continent to the revival of patriotism in countries that experienced “the Arab spring”, or the cheap anti-imperialism of former leaders like Chavez, right to the fever for national football teams.

But instead of going into the movements of international reaction further, let us rather look at those of revolt and the possibilities they are opening up. During the revolt of June 2013 in Brasil, the rebels shouted, “after Greece after Turkey now it is Brasil’s turn! ” The revolts that we have known in recent years have opened the way to putting an end to here and there. Links between national States on the question of repression have certainly been reinforced at breakneck speed, but that should neither surprise nor frighten us. Given growing social instability and the total intermingling of economies and State systems, one can imagine that when something happens in one place, it could also have consequences elsewhere. And this movement is already in act in the imagination, this particularly fertile ground for rebellion. It is now time to introduce this imagination into our projects of struggle and to seize the opportunities that arise.

There is no such thing as a science of insurrection. Many recent examples – from the riots in London in 2011 to the uprisings in the Arab world – show us the unpredictable character of insurrection. The pretexts might even be quite “trivial”. This unpredictability, however, should not push us into a waiting position for the “next one” somewhere in the world; rather it affirms the need for permanent conflictuality, a preparation in ideas and acts. This is the only way we can hope to not find ourselves unprepared at such moments: it matters little where one is on the planet, one can attempt to give qualitative contributions to pushing the revolts in course in a radically emancipatory direction, making them strike the fundamental structures of modern dominion and its reproduction, the structures that find themselves behind the rows of cops and façades of banks. Emphasis on the unpredictability of insurrection does not mean to say that it fell from the skies. It is fair to say that there may be tensions pointing to increasing opportunities for revolt, but there is no certainty that these will become reality. Conversely, there could be situations or conflicts that give no glimpse of the next outbreak of rebellion at all, yet blow the lid off things. However, the unpredictability of insurrection should not be a serious problem for anarchists who are continuously clashing with authority, it is a serious problem for the State. If we look at the massive investments in control and law enforcement that are being made internationally, it does not appear that the State is completely unaware of this weak point.

Insurrection is a game of unprecedented connections and unanticipated acts. It is not mathematics where numbers provide the final solution. It is not a matter of “external solidarity” applauding the revolt of others. Each context and each moment offers different possibilities and opportunities. Anarchists must give themselves analysis, knowledge and means to go on the offensive and attack.

One should also seek to learn insurrectional experiences, in one’s analyses as well as in one’s practices. Dominion’s time is moving faster and faster, blurring the memory of revolts. Insurrections are not the social revolution and should not be seen as steps in a linear development towards social revolution. Rather they are transient moments of rupture during which time and space escape the grip of power. Given the intensification of repression – the fact that authority is always ready to drown the uprising of the oppressed in blood – and the apparent confusion of the motivations of the many people in contemporary times of rebellion, some shrink from the insurrectionary perspective. And yet. It is precisely insurrection that is breaking the grip of control and repression in a world where mass extermination and organized killing are now the daily routine of State and Capital. It is precisely insurrection that is capable of creating the space for translating rejection and revolt into clearer and more assertive ideas. Fear of the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of insurrection is not only found on the side of order, but also among the revolutionaries who seek salvation in the repetition of old political recipes:instead of attacking everywhere and all the time, the building of a unified revolutionary movement; instead of insurrection, the gradual development of a “counter-power”; instead of the necessary destruction, the illusion of a progressive change of attitudes. We then see the anarchists taking the role of the moribund left or former insurgents in search of certainties ranting on the “proletariat as historical subject” or starting to read Lenin to find recipes for a “victorious revolution”. Yet recent insurrectional experiences all point to the need to find other roads, roads that separate themselves radically and permanently from any “political” vision of social war.

The classical revolutionary perspective of self management is dead. It is time to finally take notice and put an end to attempts to revive it in other words and in other forms. No structure of capital or the State can be taken to be used in an emancipatory way; no social category is in essence a carrier of a project of social transformation; no defensive battle will transform itself into a revolutionary offensive. The contemporary paradox lies in the fact that on the one hand, insurrection needs a dream of freedom to give it oxygen to persevere and on the other, its work must necessarily be totally destructive to have any hope of going beyond extinction and crystallization. Insurrection is necessary to open the path to individual and social liberation; and it is the vitamins of utopia that force undreamed of horizons in order to escape from the social prison. It is from the confluence of insurrectionary practice and ideas of freedom that a contemporary revolutionary perspective could arise.

The destructive nature of insurrection leads to the destruction of the edifice of the social prison we all live in. It is necessary to study and analyze where its walls, guards, watchtowers are today if we intend to strike them. Modern domination has disseminated structures that enable the reproduction of the social prison everywhere. Think of the ubiquitous technological infrastructures that attach each and every one of us to the role of prisoner without having visible chains as such. Or how capitalist accumulation is basically moving towards circulation. In Europe at least, exploitation is no longer concentrated in huge bastions as before, but has spread and decentralized, encompassing every aspect of life. The connections between these aspects are guaranteed by paths, cables, pipelines, railways, underground pipes that represent the veins of dominion. We will certainly not be the last to howl with joy if insurgents set fire to the parliament anywhere in the world, but the anarchists’ contribution to the social war without doubt also consist of pointing to and attacking how and where authority feeds and reproduces itself more specifically.

But destruction is not enough. Deed and thought must go hand in hand. We cannot hope to pull down the walls of the social prison if we are not already trying to look beyond the walls towards unknown horizons, no matter how difficult. You can’t think freely in the shadow a church. That’s true. But the church is not just a building, it is the realization of social relations and dominant ideologies. It is in desiring what these relations and ideologies don’t offer, what they erase from the imagination, whose very possibility to be thought is suppressed, that we will find ourselves at daggers drawn with the existent. We have no need for yet another programme to planify the transformation of the world, nor alternative experiences that would plant the seeds of anarchy of tomorrow. No! What we lack is the projection of ourselves into a completely other environment, dreams. Only leaving behind us the realism that claims a new coat of paint for our cells, longer walks, more activities … can we hope to start dreaming again, give words to our desires, these essential words to express and communicate a revolutionary perspective. The world gives a glimpse of what can be done, we must do what cannot be done. Find an anarchist ethical tension towards what surrounds us again, the spearhead of our struggle for freedom. Not let anti-authority degenerate into a political posture, but make it burn as something that animates us daily, something that intoxicates us with desires, uncontrollable in thought as in deed. Continue starting from the individual, to the autonomous individuality capable of reflecting, dreaming and acting, always and everywhere, during moments of social unrest and bloody reaction, against the winds and tides of conformity and strategic evaluations. The heart of such an impetuous anarchism is also the nucleus of future revolutionary perspectives.

* * *

Nobody has any doubts any more. Nor does the State. The World Cup in Brasil will not go ahead smoothly, just as all the social cleansing projects in the countries of the Amazon have come up against unexpected resistance that will not let itself be disarmed easily. The Brasilian government has allowed itself to announce that it will mobilize 160,000 police and military to maintain order during the high mass, reinforced by tens of thousands of private security guards in training all over the world at this very moment. Each State is accentuating its propaganda for its national team and preparing for the massive influx of tourists and foreign exchange, the other side of the capitalist war. They are preparing us for a global tribute to power and the crushing of revolt.

The World Cup is materializing in a number of fields which are all possible avenuesof attack. In the neighbourhoods of the Brasilian cities, it is taking the form of the militarised urban cleansing carried out by international construction companies, architects offices from all over and the mastodons of technology. National emblems will flood the streets, commercial sponsors will bombard the whole planet with advertisements, the media will ensure live programmes of the spectacle of alienation. Security companies and consultancies are hammering on the gates of the authorities with modern models of anti-insurgency combat in the necropoli, while a tight mesh of communication technologies permits diversified control. The machinery of the World Cup is made up of countless cogs that are closely connected and interdependent: it’s for everyone, all over the world, to consider what wheels are likely to disrupt and paralyse the machinery.

“Não vai ter Copa.” Many rebels in Brasil are preparing to transform the World Cup into a nightmare for the State and a torch of insurrection for lovers of freedom. This torch should not only burn in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo or Porto Alegre, let’s seize the opportunity to illuminate the darkness of dominion everywhere.

Against the High Mass of Authority

For internationalist attack and insurrection

Let’s destroy work (Alfredo M. Bonanno)

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

Work is a subject that is coming back into fashion in a big way in newspapers, academic lectures, papal sermons, electoral speeches and even articles and pamphlets produced by anarchists.

The main questions raised are: what can we do about growing unemployment? How can we give meaning to lost professionalism in jobs that are undergoing the effects of neo-industrial development? What alternatives can be found to replace traditional work? And, finally, and this is the way many anarchists think, how can we abolish work or reduce it to the indispensable minimum?

Let us make it clear right away that none of these problems interests us. We are not concerned with the political problems of those who see unemployment as a danger to democracy and order. We do not feel any nostalgia for lost professionalism. We are even less interested in elaborating libertarian alternatives to grim factory work or intellectual labour, which are unwittingly doing nothing but toe the line of the advanced post-industrial project. Nor are we for the abolition of work or its reduction to the minimum required for a meaningful happy life. Behind all this there is always the hand of those who want to regulate our lives, think for us, or politely suggest that we think as they do.

We are for the destruction of work and, as we will try to demonstrate, that is quite a different matter. But let us proceed in an orderly fashion.

The post-industrial society, which we will come to later, has resolved the problem of unemployment, at least within certain limits, by dispersing the work force into flexible sectors which are easy to manoeuvre and control. In actual fact the social threat of growing unemployment is more theoretical than practical, and is being used as a political deterrent to dissuade wide social strata from attempting to organise in ways that might question the choices of neo-liberalism, especially at international level. So, precisely because workers are much easier to control when they are skilled and attached to the workplace with career prospects in the production unit, there is insistence everywhere — even among the ecclesiastical hierarchies — on the need to give people work and thereby reduce unemployment. Not because the latter constitutes a risk from the point of view of production, but because the danger could come from precisely that flexibility which is now indispensable to the organisation of production today. The fact that the worker has been robbed of a precise identity could lead to social disintegration, making control more difficult in the medium term. That is what all the institutional fuss about unemployment is really about.

In the same way, the productive process no longer requires a high level of professional training, at least for the majority of workers. The need for skilled labour has been replaced by a demand for flexibility, i.e., an adaptability to do tasks that are constantly being changed, and willingness to move from one firm to the other. In short, they must adapt to a life of change in accordance with the bosses’ needs. This is now being programmed from school onwards, where the institutional cultural elements that once constituted the basic technical knowledge from which the world of work built real professionalism, are no longer provided. Not that there is no longer a need for a high level of professionalism. But this now only applies to a few thousand individuals who are trained in postgraduate courses often funded by the big companies themselves in their attempt to secure people suitable for indoctrination and conditioning.

Until recently the world of work was permeated with an iron discipline: the assembly line, strict controls by white collar workers, to the point of secret files and sacking for any deviation from the norm. Holding on to a job meant submission, acquiring a military-style mentality, learning procedures that were sometimes complex, sometimes simple, and applying them, identifying with them. It meant considering one’s self, one’s whole way of life and everything that mattered in the world including one’s ideas and social relations, to be summed up in them. The worker spent most of his time in the factory, made friends with his workmates, talked about problems at work during his time off. He used recreational facilities provided by the company and when the holidays came round he ended up going away with his workmates and their families. To complete the picture the large companies held social events and organised periodical outings to bring families together. Their children went to the same schools, and one of them usually inherited his father’s job when he retired. In this way work went full circle, affecting not only the worker’s whole personality but also that of his family, thereby creating complete identification with the company. Just think of the tens of thousands of Fiat workers in Turin who supported the Juventus football team owned by Fiat boss, Agnelli, for example. This world has now disappeared for good. Even though some residue of it still exists, most of it has disappeared along with its projectual uniformity. A provisional, uncertain work relationship has replaced it. Insecurity about the future is a fundamental element, and lack of skill means the lack of a base on which to plan one’s life as a worker, now left with no project beyond earning enough to make ends meet or pay a mortgage.

In the past, escape from work took the form of searching for alternative ways of producing so as to reappropriate the creativity extorted by the capitalist mechanism. The model applied was the refusal of discipline and sabotage of the production lines in order slow down the work pace and get time off — even if only minutes — free from alienation. In this way the time stolen from meticulous factory supervision had a value as something alternative. Just for a moment, one breathed free from the prison-like atmosphere of the factory or the office. As we can see, such a world has almost ceased to exist, and will go further along this road in the near future.

More than that. The old conditions did not differ all that much from the primitive factory structures — the textile works set up with the British capital that had been accumulated over two centuries of piracy — where the work force fleeing from the English and Scottish countryside literally came to be enclosed en masse. But under these conditions, the taste of regained time was soon poisoned by the inability to give it any meaning beyond the work environment. In other words, time was regained in terms of reducing physical fatigue, not because one had the knowledge or desire to do something different. And this was also due to the fact that one had become part of one’s job, espoused it for life. Even the revolutionary theories of anarcho-syndicalism did not contradict this basic condition. Instead they gave it a libertarian qualification, giving the syndicalist organisation the task of building the free society of the future, starting off from the work categories that already existed.

So, up until a few years ago, abolishing work simply meant reducing fatigue, creating enjoyable alternative work or, in the most advanced and in some ways most utopian and fanciful instances, substituting it with a game, an absorbing game with its own rules capable of giving the individual an identity as a player. One might argue that the game as a logical category has gone far beyond the regulated version (e.g., chess), and taken to its logical conclusion as ludic, individual behaviour: play as the expression of the senses, as eroticism or sexuality, as free self-expression in the field of gesture, manual dexterity, art, thought, or all these elements put together. This had already been theorised of course, starting with Fourier’s genial intuition, similar to Bentham’s theory that the pursuit of personal interest indirectly and involuntarily leads to greater collective interest. The fact that the good travelling salesman Fourier made a treasure of his individual experience in order to weave an incredible web of social relations based on affinity, is not devoid of interest. Nevertheless, none of that escapes the essential rules of work seen in terms of the global organisation of control, even if it is not exactly production in the capitalist sense of the word.

So we see that work cannot be abolished progressively: we need to approach the problem in a destructive manner. Let us see why.

In the first place, capitalism itself has now dismantled its obsolete apparatus, at the same time depriving the individual worker of his identity as such. It has made him ‘alternative’ without realising it, and is now preparing to plant in him all the seeds of the external aspects of formal freedom. Freedom of speech and in ways of dressing, a variety of jobs to choose from, not much intellectual effort, standardised safety procedures explained in simple manuals, a slowing down of the work pace, robotisation of basic procedures, progressive separation between the different aspects of work — all going towards building a different model which does not correspond to that of the past.

To insist on reappropriating stolen time implies inventing a unit of measure along with all the other discretional units relative to the suspension of work, a notion which the worker would have difficulty grasping. Rather than acquire the capacity to envisage a project that is an alternative to working for a third party, he could develop a growing feeling of panic. The fact that far less work is necessary than that required to earn a living wage has already been clearly illustrated by revolutionary theoreticians in the past. This analyses is now being used by post-industrial capital itself, and is often brought up in conferences and meetings concerning the restructuring of production.

A reduction in labour would mean reducing work to the minimum required to produce only what is useful. We cannot accept this theory today as it is now being considered by capital itself. Only the time frame within which this is to come about differs, whereas nothing is said about the methods that would be used. To struggle for a reduction in working hours, even a considerable one of say twenty hours a week, means nothing in revolutionary terms as it would do no more than open the way to solving some of capital’s problems, certainly not lead to the liberation of all. Unemployment as an element of pressure, no matter how slight now that it is finding a considerable outlet in the numerous versions of marginal work, seems to be the only factor pushing capitalist production to look for solutions to reduce working hours at the moment. But in a not too distant future the need to reduce production might become a reason for reducing working hours, especially since international military equilibrium no longer depends on two opposing superpowers.

Voluntary work (about which little has been said, although it is a question that deserves all our attention) acts as a safety valve which could, among other things, provide a solution to the problem of reducing working hours without having to worry about how the masses, relieved of the control of a third of their day, might spend their new-found free time. So we see that unemployment is no longer the most serious crisis capital is having to face today, but it is still one that is constitutionally linked to it. It can become institutionalised, then recuperated as the projectual use of free time by the same companies in structures created for this purpose. So post-industrial capitalism is a homogeneous system within which the concept of a crisis in unemployment no longer exists, the latter having become one of the elements of the productive process itself.

The ‘alternative’ ideal of a life based on the art of ‘getting by’ is also disappearing. Small-scale handicrafts, little self-produced undertakings, the street selling of objects, the necklaces… Infinite human tragedies have unrolled in dingy, airless shops over the past twenty years. Much really revolutionary strength has been trapped in illusions that required not a normal amount of work, but super-exploitation, all the greater because it was tied to the individual’s will to keep things going and show that it was possible to do without the factory. Now, with the restructuring of capital and the new conditions resulting from it, we can see how this ‘alternative’ model is exactly what is being suggested at an institutional level to get through this moment. As always, they see the way the wind is blowing. Other potentially revolutionary forces are now shutting themselves up in electronic laboratories and burdening themselves with work in dark, stuffy little premises, demonstrating that capital has won over them yet again.

If we were to sum up the problem in a simple formula, we could say that if work once gave a social identity, that of the worker to be exact, which along with that of the citizen came to form the perfect subject, any escape from that was a truly revolutionary attempt to break out of this suffocation. Today, where capital no longer gives the worker a specific social identity but tries to use him in a generic differentiated way, with no prospects and no future, the only struggle left against work is that of destroying it, thus procuring one’s own projectuality, one’s own future, and a new social identity in opposition to the attempts at annihilation put into action by postindustrial capital.

Most of the strategies that self-aware workers have used over past decades against brutal, immediate exploitation — about which hundreds of pages could be written — have now become normal procedures for capital itself. It is capital that is now suggesting — when it does not impose — the breaking up of work units, reduced flexible hours, self-defined projects, participation in decision-making, deciding on particular aspects of production, autonomous work islands that become each other’s customers, quality competition and everything else. All the paraphernalia taking the place of the old, monolithic uniformity of work has now reached levels that are no longer controllable by individual conscience in the narrow sense of the word. That is to say, the single worker is constantly faced with the possibility of being pulled into a trap where he ends up bartering his own combativeness (now only potential) in exchange for a few concessions. And if these were once self-determined and could be considered part of the great movement of struggle against work, today, being conceded, they are simply another aspect of work, moreover the one which contains most characteristics of recuperation and control.

If we are to play with our lives and during our lives, we must learn how to do so and set the rules of the game ourselves, doing it in such a way that these are clear to us and incomprehensible labyrinths to others. We cannot just say that a game with rules is still work (which is so, as we have already said), and that if the rules are abandoned the game becomes free, therefore libertarian. The absence of rules is not synonymous with freedom. Rules that are imposed through control and sanctions are slavery. And work has been this and could never be anything else, for all the reasons we have just seen and all those we have forgotten to mention. But the absence of rules could become a different, perhaps worse, form of tyranny. If free agreement is a rule, I intend to follow it and I expect others, my comrades in the agreement, to follow it too. Especially when it concerns the game of my life, and my life is at stake. The absence of rules would leave me in the clutches of the tyranny of uncertainty, which might provide a thrilling dose of adrenaline today, but might not agree with me in the future, or rather certainly won’t agree with me.

Furthermore, freely chosen rules not only build my identity, my being with others, but also my individual knowledge of myself and my desire to open up to others, to live in a world populated with other free — vitally free — beings capable of deciding for themselves. All the more so at a time when there is a move towards the illusory freedom of the absence of rigid rules, at least in the world of production. In order not be taken in by reduced, flexible working hours and exotic paid holidays, or to be beguiled by wage increases, early pensioning or free financing of individual enterprises, it is necessary to devise one’s own project for the destruction of work. It is not sufficient to simply limit the damage.

Here, a few ideas that seemed to have seen their day have become topical again.

A mentality cannot be destroyed. In fact, the professional mentality as expressed even in party and trades union organisations — including the anarcho-syndicalist forms — cannot be destroyed from the outside. Not even by sabotage. When sabotage was used it was only as a means to intimidate the bosses, a hint of something beyond the strike, a way of making it known that one was more determined than others, but was nevertheless ready to suspend the attack as soon as the claim was accepted.

But sabotage is still destructive. It does not affect profit indirectly like the strike but hits the structure directly, either the means of production or the end product, it makes no difference. That means that it acts beyond the work situation. It does not strike to obtain something specific but also, and I would say principally, to destroy. And the object to be destroyed, although it is property, is still work when you think about it, as it concerns something that has been obtained through work, whether it be the means of production or the finished product. We can now understand the horror many workers once felt before acts of sabotage. Here I mean workers whose lives of total dependence had given them a social identity that could not easily be eradicated. I have seen men in tears in front of their factory after it had been attacked and partly destroyed, because they saw a considerable part of their own lives also being attacked and destroyed. And that life, poor and miserable as it might have been, was the only one they had, the only one they had any experience of.

Of course, in order to attack one must have a project, an identity that has been worked out projectually, an idea of what one wants to do even, perhaps all the more so when one considers this to be a game and lives it like a game. And sabotage is a fascinating game, but it cannot be the only game one wants to play. We must have a multitude of games at our disposal, games that are varied and often in contrast with each other, aimed at avoiding the monotony of the rules becoming just another boring, repetitive job. Making love is also a game, but you can’t play it from morning till night without banalising it, without feeling wrapped up in a drowsiness which, although it gives a pleasurable sensation of well being, also dulls us, makes us feel useless.

Taking money from where it is to be found is also a game, one that has its own rules and which could degenerate into professionalism as an end in itself, thereby becoming a full-time job with everything that that implies. But it is an interesting — and useful — game if seen in the perspective of a mature consciousness which refuses to fall into the contradictions of a consumerism that is forever ready to swallow up what one has managed to snatch from the economy as a whole. Once again it is necessary to overcome the moral barriers they have built into us. It is necessary to put ourselves beyond the problem. Reaching out and taking other people’s property is something that is full of risks, even for a revolutionary. Not just legal risks in the narrow sense of the word, but in the first place moral ones. Clarity on this question is important, as it is a question of overcoming the same obstacles that made the old worker shed tears in front of the damaged factory. The idea that property is sacred has been instilled in us since birth and it is not easy to free ourselves from it. We prefer to prostitute ourselves to a boss for a lifetime but have a clear conscience at the end of the day. We feel we have done our duty and contributed in our own small way to producing the national income — which naturally ends up in the outstretched hands of the politicians with the nation’s destiny in mind, who got rid of any scruples about taking what we have accumulated with fatigue long ago.

But the essential part of any project to destroy work is creativity taken to the maximum possible degree. What could we do with all the money of all the banks we were able to rob put together, if the only thing we can think of doing is buying a fast car, a big house, going to nightclubs, or filling our lives with thousands of useless needs and boring ourselves to death until the time comes to rob the next bank? That is something many of the bank robbers I have met in prison systematically do. If all the comrades who have never had any money in their lives think this is the way to satisfy some of their whims, let them go ahead. They will find the same disillusion as they would in any other kind of job that is perhaps less remunerative in the short term, but is certainly less dangerous in the long one.

To imagine the refusal of work to be no more than the listless acceptance of non-activity is a result of the mistaken idea that work-slaves have about those who have never worked in their lives. The latter, the so-called privileged from birth, the heirs to the great fortunes, are nearly always indefatigable workers who dedicate all their strength and imagination to exploiting others and accumulating even more wealth and prestige than they already have. Even if we were to limit ourselves to the great squanderers of inheritances that the tabloid gossip columns take great pains to portray, we would still have to admit that this horrible race are also eternally busy at their daily grind, occupied by their tedious social relations or by fears of falling victim to aggression or kidnapping. This is also work, carried out according to all the rules of obligatory activity. It becomes a true job, where the boss of these exploiters is often their own lust or fear.

But I do not think many of us can consider the refusal of work simply to be an acceptance of the deadly boredom of doing nothing while we keep on the lookout for traps set by others who might try to convince us to do something through solicitations or flattery, perhaps in the name of an ideal, or personal affection or friendship, or who knows what other devilry capable of threatening our condition of complete inertia. Such a situation would be pointless.

On the contrary, I think that the refusal of work can be seen in the first place as a desire to do what one enjoys most, that is to say of transforming obligatory doing into free action. I wrote a long article about this many years ago in Pantagruel, which is still valid today in many respects. But this condition, free action, is not mapped out once and for all. It is not part of a situation that exists beyond ourselves, nor does it rain down on us like an inheritance or the spoils of a ransacked bank. Such incidents could be an occasion, an accident, sought or not, desired or not, to enhance a project that is already in course, it is certainly not the condition that determines it or carries it out. If we have no project in terms of life, projectuality in the full meaning of the word, no amount of money will ever free us from the need to work, to be doing at all costs, pushed by a new kind of necessity, not poverty this time but boredom or to acquire social status.

The dilemma can only be resolved by inventing one’s own creative project or, to put it differently, by reflecting upon what one wants to do with one’s life and finding the necessary means to realise it, without working. If we want to destroy work we must build roads of individual and collective experimentation which take no account of work except to cancel it from the reality of what is possible.

Original title: Distruggiamo il lavoro, in “Anarchismo”, no. 73, 1994.

Translated by Elephant Editions.

Brief an die anarchistische Galaxie

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

Ohne Einladung, dringen wir mit diesem Brief in eine Debatte ein, die nicht die unsere ist. Eine Debatte, die nie die unsere sein wird, da sie sich auf einem Terrain abspielt, das uns für die Suche nach aufständischen Perspektiven und damit einhergehenden anarchistischen Ideen und Aktivitäten unfruchtbar scheint. Aber wieso dann, könnte man sich fragen, einen solchen Brief verfassen? Weil es nichts gibt, das unsere Herzen mehr erwärmt, als die befreiende und zerstörende Revolte, als der Kampf für die Subversion des Bestehenden; weil wir uns weiterhin immer in allen Gefährten wiedererkennen werden, die, angetrieben von einem Verlangen nach Freiheit, zum Angriff auf die Strukturen und Menschen der Herrschaft übergehen; weil wir der Kraft des individuellen Willens, der Suche nach Kohärenz und dem Mut, der trotz allem das Feuer an die Lunte zu legen versucht, einen unendlich grossen Wert beimessen. Betrachtet diese Bemerkungen also nicht als einen vergeblichen Versuch, gefällig zu sein; sie sind ehrlich, ebenso wie unsere Besorgnis angesichts der willentlichen Verstümmelung des anarchistischen Kampffeldes.

Lasst uns kein Blatt vor den Mund nehmen: die zerstörerische Intervention der Anarchisten braucht es mehr denn je, und mehr denn je ist heute der Moment, unsere Kämpfe zu intensivieren, uns auf die Suche nach Möglichkeiten und Hypothesen zu machen, die die Revolte ausweiten, den Aufstand möglich machen und somit die Möglichkeit vorantreiben könnten, diese Welt umzuwälzen. Doch dieser Bedarf und dieser Antrieb entheben uns nicht der Notwendigkeit, über das Was, Wo, Wann, Wie und Wieso nachzudenken.

Kommen wir gleich auf den Punkt: welche Beweggründe treiben Anarchisten dazu an (wohl bemerkt, dass sie bei den Autoritären unschwer zu erkennen sind), ihre Aktionen systematisch zu bekennen und sie mit mittlerweile global gewordenen Sigeln zu unterzeichnen? Was macht sie glauben, die schwierige Frage der Perspektiven durch ein ins Internet gestelltes oder den Medien zugeschicktes Bekennerschreiben lösen zu können? Was treibt sie dazu an, zu glauben, dass sich heute auf einen solchen Weg zu begeben mit einer tiefen Form von Kohärenz zwischen Denken und Handeln, zwischen Ideen und Praktiken verbunden sei, während es sich dabei vielmehr um eine illusorische Auflösung der permanenten Spannung zwischen Theorie und Praxis handelt, jener Spannung, die da sein müsste und die die antreibende Kraft hinter dem anarchistischen Kampf ist?

Diese Manie, die lawinenartig anzuwachsen scheint, läuft schnell Gefahr, die anderen Akte der Revolte in den Schatten zu stellen. Nicht nur die Akte der Anarchisten, die mit Freude ohne die bittere Pille auskommen und über die Bekennerschreiben stets enttäuscht sind, sondern auch und vielleicht vor allem allgemeiner das ganze Panorama von Rebellionen und sozialer Konfliktualität. Dies ist einer der „Gründe“, die uns antrieben, diesen Text zu verfassen. Wir haben es satt, die Tatsache hinzunehmen und immer öfters feststellen zu müssen, dass das anarchistische Kampffeld, jenes des Angriffs, der Sabotage und der Enteignung mit einem Kennzeichen und, als solches, mit einer politischen Repräsentation gleichgesetzt wird; wir haben genug davon, zu sehen, wie sich die Horizonte fälschlicherweise auf zwei Entscheidungen beschränken, die einander scheinbar gegenüberstehen: entweder man entscheidet sich für den „lieben“ Anarchismus und rennt den Vollversammlungen, den sozialen Bewegungen und den Basisgewerkschaften hinterher, oder man wählt den „bösen“ Anarchismus und ist somit freundlich gebeten, seine Beiträge zum sozialen Krieg mit einem Sigel zu versehen – und falls nicht, werden es andere an unserer Stelle tun.

Denn auch wir gehen zum Angriff über. Auch wir ziehen los, um die Maschinerie des Kapitals und der Autorität zu sabotieren. Auch wir entscheiden uns täglich, keine Bettlerposition zu akzeptieren und die notwendige Enteignung nicht zu vertagen. Nur denken wir, dass unsere Aktivitäten schlicht Teil einer breiteren sozialen Konfliktualität ausmachen, einer Konfliktualität, die weder Bekennerschreiben noch Sigel braucht. Nur denken wir, dass ein Akt nur einem jeden gehören kann, wenn er anonym ist. Nur denken wir, dass den Angriffsaktionen einen Stempel aufzudrücken, sie vom sozialen Feld ins politische Feld katapultiert, ins Feld der Repräsentation, der Delegation, der Trennung zwischen Akteuren und Zuschauern. Und, wie es in solchen Debatten schon oft wiederholt wurde, genügt es nicht, die Zurückweisung der Politik zu proklamieren, damit es auch wirklich so ist. Die Zurückweisung der Politik findet sich unter anderem in der Kohärenz zwischen Mitteln und Zwecken, und es gibt kein politischeres Instrument als das Bekennerschreiben, so wie es auch die Mitgliederkarte, das Programm und die Grundsatzerklärung sind.

Wir sehen ausserdem auch, wie eine Verwirrung um sich greift, die wir einmal mehr unterstreichen und bekämpfen wollen. Denn es dreht uns den Magen um, weiterhin die Bedeutungen zu akzeptieren, die gegenwärtig gewissen Konzepten wie beispielsweise der Informalität gegeben werden. Die Entscheidung für eine informelle und autonome anarchistische Bewegung bedeutet die Zurückweisung von starren Strukturen, von formellen Organisationen, von zentralisierenden und vereinheitlichenden Föderationen; also auch von sich wiederholenden Markenzeichen, wenn nicht von jeglichen Markenzeichen. Es ist die Weigerung, Programme aufzustellen, es ist die Verbannung aller politischen Mittel; und somit auch der programmatischen Bekennerschreiben, egal ob sie sich nun selbst digital als formell oder eher als „informell“ definieren. Im positiven Sinne ist die Informalität für uns ein grenzenloses und unbeschränktes Archipel aus autonomen Gruppen und autonomen Individuen, die die auf Affinität und gegenseitiger Kenntnis basierenden Verbindungen unter sich verfestigen und auf diesen Grundlagen entscheiden, gemeinsame Projekte zu realisieren. Es ist die Entscheidung für kleine Affinitätskreise, die aus ihrer Autonomie, ihrer Perspektive und ihren Aktionsmethoden die Grundlage machen, um Verbindungen mit anderen aufzubauen. Die informelle Organisation hat also nichts mit Föderationen, Akronymen und Sigeln zu tun. Aber was treibt dann einige Gefährten dazu an, nicht nur von Informalität, sonder auch von „Insurrektionalismus“ zu sprechen? Auf die Gefahr hin, das breite Panorama von Ideen, Analysen, Hypothesen und Vorschlägen zu schmälern, könnte man den „Insurrektionalismus“ als die Gesamtheit der Methoden und Perspektiven definieren, die ausgehend von einem kompromisslosen Anarchismus versuchen, zu „aufständischen Situationen“ beizutragen. Das Arsenal an Methoden, über die die Anarchisten verfügen ist enorm. Es ist wichtig, zu verstehen, dass der Gebrauch von gewissen Methoden (Agitation, Angriff, organisatiorische Vorschläge, etc.) an und für sich sehr wenig bedeutet: erst in einer überlegten und sich in Entwicklung befindlichen Projektualität erhalten sie ihre Bedeutung im Kampf. Ein Gebäude des Staates niederzubrennen ist immer etwas gutes, doch an sich bedeutet es nicht, dass das in einer aufständischen Perspektive steht. Und dies gilt noch weniger, wenn die Angriffe mit einer einhergehenden Glaubensbekenntnis gegen zentrale und medienwirksame Ziele gerichtet sind. Es ist kein Zufall, wenn in den verschiedenen Momenten von aufständischen Projektualitäten der Nachdruck vor allem auf anspruchslose, reproduzierbare und anonyme Angriffe gegen die eher peripheren Strukturen und Menschen der Herrschaft oder auf die Notwendigkeit der gezielten Sabotage von Infrastrukturen gelegt wurde, Sabotage, die überhaupt kein mediales Echo braucht, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen, wie beispielsweise die Lahmlegung der Transport-, Daten oder Energieflüsse der Macht.

Es scheint uns, dass sich hinter der gegenwärtigen Bekennerschreibenmanie nicht allzu viele Perspektiven verbergen – oder zumindest fällt es uns schwer, sie zu erkennen. Im Grunde scheint es, und damit beabsichtigen wir in keinster Weise der ehrlichen und mutigen Rebellion dieser Gefährten irgendetwas abzusprechen, dass es vor allem die Anerkennung ist, die gesucht wird. Eine Anerkennung von Seiten des Feindes, der seine Liste der terroristischen Organisationen schnell ergänzen wird, ist oft der Anfang vom Ende: der Feind macht sich also daran, einen Teil der breiteren Konfliktualität zu isolieren. Eine Isolierung, die nicht nur ein Vorzeichen der Repression ist (das wäre noch das geringste, schliesslich ist die Repression immer präsent – es liegt uns fern, darüber zu jammern, dass die Macht die Aktivitäten der Anarchisten verfolgt), sondern vor allem, und dies ist der wichtigste Aspekt, die beste Art ist, um eine potenzielle Ansteckung zu verhindern. Im aktuellen Stadium des Gesellschaftskörpers, der krank und faulend ist, kann sich die Macht nichts besseres Wünschen als ein gut erkennbares und konturiertes Messer, das hier und da etwas einzuschneiden versucht, doch es gibt nichts, dass sie mehr fürchtet, als ein Virus, der Gefahr läuft, den ganzen Körper auf unbegreifliche und folglich unkontrollierbare Weise anzustecken. Oder vielleicht irren wir uns ja und es geht um eine Anerkennung von Seiten der Ausgebeuteten und Ausgeschlossenen? Aber sind nicht eben wir, die Anarchisten, Feinde jeglicher Form von Delegation, von erleuchteten Beispielen, die oft nichts anderes tun, als die eigene Resignation zu legitimieren? Gewiss können unsere Praktiken ansteckend sein, unsere Ideen übrigens noch viel mehr, aber nur, wenn wir die Verantwortung zu handeln auf jedes einzelne Individuum separat legen; wenn wir die Resignation als eine individuelle Entscheidung entlarven. Wir können die Herzen entflammen, gewiss, aber wenn sie nicht über den Sauerstoff einer eigenen Überzeugung verfügen, werden sie schnell ersticken und, im „besten“ Falle, folgt daraus etwas Applaus für die werdenden Märtyrer. Gerade jetzt, da sich die politische Vermittlung (Parteien, Gewerkschaften, Reformismus) Stück für Stück erschöpft hat und im Grunde zurückgelassen wurde; jetzt, da die Wut die Hände frei nach all dem ausstrecken kann, was das Leben zerstört, wäre es wirklich der Gipfel, wenn die Un-unterworfenen der Politik par excellance, die Anarchisten, die Fackel der Representation wieder aufnehmen und, dem Beispiel der vorangegangenen Autoritären folgend, die soziale Konfliktualität von der unmittelbaren Subversion aller sozialen Rollen trennen würden. Und es ist dabei relativ unwichtig, ob sie dies tun wollen, indem sie sich an den Kopf von sozialen Bewegungen stellen, sie mit der der Rethorik der Volksvollversammlungen mitreissend, oder als spezifische bewaffnete Gruppe.

Oder geht es um ein Streben nach „Kohärenz“? Unglücklicherweise gibt es seit jeher Anarchisten, die die Suche nach Kohärenz gegen taktische Abkommen, widerliche Allianzen und strategische Trennungen zwischen den Mitteln und den Zwecken eintauschen. Eine anarchistische Kohärenz findet sich, unter anderem, gewiss in der Negation von all dem. Doch damit ist nicht gesagt, dass zum Beispiel ein „Klandestinitäts“-Verhältnis kohärenter sei. Wenn die Klandestinität nicht mehr als eine Notwendigkeit, aufgrund der repressiven Jagd oder weil es ansonsten unmöglich wäre, gewisse Aktionen zu realisieren, sondern vielmehr als eine Art Spitze der revolutionären Aktivität betrachtet wird, bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig vom berühmten A-Legalismus. Anstatt die Kohärenz jenseits der Gesetze und Befehle zu suchen und folglich die Konfrontation zu akzeptieren, wird der Legalismus schlicht zu einem „Illegalismus“ umgedreht, bei welchem, ebenso wie im Legalismus, der subversive Charakter der Aktivitäten durch die entsprechende potenzielle Gefängnisstrafe quantifiziert und bemessen wird. Die Zurückweisung des Legalismus ist nicht dasselbe wie die absolute Entscheidung für den Illegalismus. Es würde bereits genügen, einen einfachen Vergleich mit der sozialen Situation in Europa zu ziehen, um sich ein Bild davon zu machen: nur weil sich tausende Menschen de facto in einer Situation von „Klandestinität“ befinden (die Sans-Papiers), ist es dennoch nicht so, dass sie automatisch und objektiv zu einer Bedrohung für den Legalismus werden und somit als „revolutionäre Subjekte“ betrachtet werden können. Wieso sollte das für die Anarchisten anders sein, die sich in einer Situation der Klandestinität befinden?

Oder vielleicht geht es darum, dem Feind Angst zu machen? Wie man in den Bekennerschreiben oft genug sehen kann, gibt es scheinbar Anarchisten, die glauben, der Macht Angst machen zu können, indem sie Drohungen aussprechen, Fotos von Waffen publizieren oder einige Bomben explodieren lassen (und wir sprechen noch nicht einmal von der niederträchtigen Praxis, aufs geratewohl Packetbomben zu verschicken). Gegenüber den von der Macht organisierten, alltäglichen Massakern, zeugt dies von einer besonderen Naivität, vor allem für die Feinde der Macht, die sich keine Illusionen über verständnisvollere Machthaber, einen Kapitalismus mit menschlichem Gesicht oder korrektere Verhältnisse im Innern des Systems machen. Wenn die Macht, trotz all ihrer Arroganz, etwas fürchtet, dann zweifellos die Verbreitung der Revolte, die Streuung der Ununterworfenheit, die Herzen, die sich ausserhalb jeglicher Kontrolle entflammen. Und es ist klar, dass die Blitze der Repression die Anarchisten, die dazu beitragen wollen, durchaus nicht verschonen, doch dies zeugt in keinster Weise davon, wie „gefährlich“ wir sind. Das einzige, was dies vielleicht sagen will, ist, wie gefährlich es wäre, wenn sich unsere Ideen und Praktiken unter den Ausgeschlossenen und Ausgebeuteten verbreiten würden.

Es verwundert uns also noch immer, wie sehr die Idee einer Art Schatten, die Anarchisten von heute nicht mehr zu verlocken scheint, zumindest nicht jene, die weder resignieren, noch in einer Wartehaltung verbleiben oder bis in alle Ewigkeiten Massenorganisationen aufbauen wollen. Einst waren wir stolz darauf: all unser mögliches zu tun, um den Sumpf der sozialen Konfliktualität auszuweiten und ihn somit für die Kräfte der Repression und der Rekuperation unzugänglich zu machen. Wir waren weder auf der Suche nach den Scheinwerfern der Öffentlichkeit, noch nach dem Ruhm der Krieger; im Schatten, im verborgenen Teil der Gesellschaft leisteten wir unseren eigenen Beitrag zur Störung der Normalität, zur anonymen Zerstörung der Strukturen der Kontrolle und der Repression, zur „Befreiung“ durch die Sabotierung des Raumes und der Zeit, um dafür zu sorgen, dass die sozialen Revolten ihrem Lauf folgen können. Und mit Stolz verbreiteten wir diese Ideen, auf autonome Weise, ohne uns auf Medienechos zu beziehen, fern vom politischen Spektakel, und sei es jenes der „Opposition“. Eine Agitation, die nicht danach verlangte, gefilmt zu werden, anerkannt zu werden, sondern vor allem zur Rebellion ermutigen und, in dieser geteilten Revolte, Verbindungen mit anderen Rebellen knüpfen wollte.

Heute scheinen viele Gefährten die einfache Lösung einer Identität der Verbreitung der Ideen und der Revolte vorzuziehen und reduzieren somit beispielsweise die Affinitätsbeziehungen auf den Beitritt zu irgendeiner Sache. Offensichtlich ist es einfacher, vorgefertigte Meinungen aus den Regalen des militanten Supermarktes zu nehmen und zu konsumieren, als einen eigenen Weg des Kampfes zu entwickeln, der mit all dem bricht. Offensichtlich ist es einfacher, sich durch ein geteiltes Sigel eine Illusion von Stärke zu geben, als zu verstehen, dass sich die „Stärke“ der Subversion im Ausmass und in den Art und Weisen verbirgt, auf die es ihr gelingt, den sozialen Körper mit befreienden Ideen und Praktiken anzustecken. Die Identität und die „Bildung einer Front“ bieten vielleicht die süsse Illusion, etwas zu bedeuten, vor allem im Spektakel der Kommunikationstechnologien, zerstören aber nicht das geringste Hindernis. Schlimmer noch, es weist alle Symptome einer wenig anarchistischen Sicht auf den Kampf und die Revolution auf, einer Sicht, die glaubt, gegenüber dem Koloss der Macht, auf symetrische Weise, einen illusorischen anarchistischen Koloss ins Feld führen zu können. Die unweigerliche Konsequenz davon sind ein sich schliesslich auf eine ziemlich uninteressante Nabelschau verengender Horizont, hier und da einige Schläge über den Rücken und die Konstruktion eines ausschliessenden, autoreferenziellen Milieues.

Es würde uns nicht erstaunen, wenn diese Manie die autonome anarchistische Bewegung noch mehr lähmen würde, in dem Moment, in dem es darum geht, den immer häufigeren, spontanen und zerstörerischen Revolten unseren Beitrag zu geben. Eingeschlossen in der Selbstpromotion und der Selbstreferenz, mit einer auf die Publizierung von Bekennerschreiben im Internet reduzierten Kommunikation, scheint es nicht, dass die Anarchisten zu grossen Dingern fähig sein werden, wenn die Unruhen gleich neben uns ausbrechen (abgesehen von den üblichen paar Explosionen und Brandstiftungen, oft gegen Ziele, die die Revoltierenden bereits selbst fleissig am zerstören waren). Je mehr wir uns der Möglichkeit eines Aufstands zu nähern scheinen, je greifbarer diese Möglichkeiten werden, desto mehr scheinen sich die Anarchisten anscheinend nicht mehr für den Aufstand interessieren zu wollen. Und dies gilt ebenso sehr für jene, die sich darin verlieren, die der Rolle einer sterbenden Linken wiederaufzugreifen, wie für jene, die dabei sind, sich in irgendeiner Ideologie des bewaffneten Kampfes einzuschliessen. Aber lasst uns kurz klarstellen, was wir darunter verstehen, wenn wir von aufständischen Perspektiven und von Aufstand sprechen. Es geht dabei gewiss nicht um eine blosse Multiplizierung der Anzahl Angriffe, und noch weniger, wenn sie das exklusive Terrain der Anarchisten mit ihren Fronten zu werden (wollen) scheinen. Viel mehr als ein einmaliges Duell mit dem Staat, ist der Aufstand der vielfache Bruch mit der Zeit, mit dem Raum und mit den Rollen der Herrschaft, ein gezwungenermassen gewaltsamer Bruch, der zum Beginn einer Subversion der sozialen Verhältnisse werden könnte. In diesem Sinne ist der Aufstand vielmehr eine soziale Entfesselung, die die schlichte Tatsache der Generalisierung der Revolte und der Unruhen übersteigt und in seiner Negation bereits den Beginn einer neuen Welt trägt, oder diesen zumindest in sich tragen müsste. Er ist vor allem die Präsenz jener utopischen Spannung, die fähig ist, nach dem grossen Zerstörungsfest einige Abstützpunkte gegen die Rückkehr zur Normalität und die Wiedereinrichtung der sozialen Rollen zu bieten. Es sei also klargestellt, dass der Aufstand nicht nur eine Sache der Anarchisten ist, auch wenn unser Beitrag, unsere Vorbereitung, unsere aufständischen Perspektiven ohne den geringsten Zweifel wichtig sind und in Zukunft vielleicht sogar entscheidend werden könnten, um die Entfesselung der Negation in eine befreiende Richtung zu stossen. In einer Welt, die täglich instabiler wird, müssten diese schwierigen Fragen wieder in Vordergrund treten, a priori auf sie zu verzichten, um sich in irgendeinem identitären Ghetto einzuschliessen, während man die Illusion kultiviert, „Stärke“ durch kollektive Sigel und die „Vereinigung“ der zum Angriff bereiten Anarchisten zu entwickeln, wird hoffnungslos zur Negation jeglicher aufständischen Perspektive.

Auf die Welt der Fronten und der Sigel zurückkommend, könnte man zum Beispiel die obligatorischen Referenzen auf die gefangengenommenen Gefährten als ein Vorzeichen für die bevorstehende Einschliessung in einem autoreferenziellen Rahmen verstehen. Es scheint, dass Gefährten, die einmal vom Staat verhaftet wurden, nicht mehr Gefährten wie wir alle sind, sondern vor allem „verhaftete“ Gefährten. Die Positionen in dieser bereits schwierigen und schmerzhaften Debatte sind dermassen festgefahren, dass nur noch zwei Optionen übrigbleiben: entweder die absolute Verherrlichung unserer gefangengenommenen Gefährten, oder der absolute Widerwille, der schnell in der Verweigerung endet, der Solidarität noch Körper und Geist zu geben. Hat es noch einen Sinn, zu wiederholen, dass unsere im Knast sitzenden Gefährten nicht über oder unter anderen Gefährten stehen, sondern schlicht und einfach zwischen ihnen? Ist es nicht beängstigend, zu sehen, wie trotz der zahlreichen Kämpfe gegen das Gefängnis, die aktuelle Wendung wieder den Diskurs über die „politischen Gefangenen“ aufgreift, während eine breitere Kampfperspektive gegen das Gefängnis, die Justiz, etc. verlassen wird? Schlussendlich laufen wir Gefahr, das zu vollenden, was der Staat zu erreichen versuchte, als er unsere Gefährten einsperrte: indem wir aus ihnen zentrale, abstrakte und zu verherrlichende Referenzpunkte machen, werden sie von der Gesamtheit des sozialen Krieges isoliert. Anstatt nach Wegen zu suchen, um jenseits der Mauern Verbindungen von Solidarität, Affinität und Komplizenschaft zu fördern, indem alles radikal ins Innere des sozialen Krieges gestellt wird, beschränkt sich die Solidarität darauf, am Ende eines Bekennerschreibens Namen zu zitieren. Dies generiert ausserdem einen ziemlichen Teufelskreis ohne allzu viele Perspektiven, eine Überbietung von an andere „gewidmeten“ Angriffen, anstatt die Stärke in sich selbst und in der Wahl des Wann, Wie und Wieso des Intervenierens in die gegebenen Bedingungen zu finden.

Doch die Logik des bewaffneten Kämpfertums ist unversöhnlich. Einmal in Gang gesetzt, scheint es nur noch wenig daran zu rütteln zu geben. Alle, die ihm nicht beitreten oder ihn nicht verteidigen werden mit Gefährten gleichgestellt, die weder handeln noch angreifen wollen, die die Revolte den Berechnungen und den Massen unterordnen, die nur warten wollen und den Impuls ablehnen, hier und jetzt das Pulverfass zu entzünden. In dem verzerrenden Spiegel wird die Zurückweisung der Ideologie des bewaffneten Kampfes zur Zurückweisung des bewaffneten Kampfes an sich. Selbstverständlich gibt es nichts so falsches wie das, doch es gibt keine Ohren mehr, die das hören wollen, der Raum zur Diskussion ist verschlossen. Alles reduziert sich darauf, in pro und kontra Blöcken zu denken, und der Weg, der unserer Meinung nach am interessantesten ist, jener der Entwicklung von aufständischen Projektualitäten, wird endgültig beiseite geschoben. Zur grossen Freude der formellen Libertären und der Pseudo-Radikalen sowie der repressiven Kräfte, die nichts anderes als die Trockenlegung dieses Sumpfes wollen.

Denn wer will schon heute noch über Projektualitäten diskutieren, wenn der einzige Rythmus, der dem Kampf gegeben wird, die Summe der Angriffe wurde, zu denen sich auf dem Internet bekannnt wurde? Wer ist noch auf der Suche nach einer Perspektive, die mehr will als das blosse Erwidern einiger Schläge? Und, um Missverständnisse zu vermeiden, sei hier widerholt, dass es notwendig ist, hier und jetzt zuzuschlagen, und dies mit allen Mitteln, die wir für angebracht und gelegen halten. Doch die Herausforderung, eine Projektualität zu entwickeln, die versuchen will, aufständische Situationen zu entfesseln, auszuweiten oder zu vertiefen, fordert viel mehr als die blosse Fähigkeit, Schläge auszuteilen. Es fordert die Entwicklung eigener Ideen und nicht die Wiederholung von dem, was andere sagten; die Kraft, eine wirkliche Autonomie in Sachen Kampferfahrungen und Fähigkeiten zu entwickeln; die langwierige und schwierige Suche nach Affinitäten und nach der Vertiefung der gegenseitigen Kenntnis; eine gewisse Analyse der sozialen Verhältnisse, in denen wir uns bewegen; den Mut, Hypothesen für den sozialen Krieg zu formulieren, um nicht mehr hinter den Fakten herzurennen, oder hinter uns selbst. Es fordert schliesslich nicht nur die Fähigkeit, gewisse Methoden anwenden zu können, sondern vor allem Ideen über das Wie, Wo, Wann und Wieso sie zu benutzen, und auch dies noch in einer notwendigen Verflechtung mit einer ganzen Palette von anderen Methoden. Ansonsten werden nicht mehr Anarchisten, sondern bloss eine Reihe von ziemlich tristen und beschränkten Rollen übrig bleiben: Propagandisten, Besetzer, bewaffnete Kämpfer, Enteigner, Schreiber, Randalierer, Unruhestifter, und so weiter. Nichts wäre schmerzlicher, als uns so sehr entwaffnet vor der Möglichkeit des bevorstehenden sozialen Gewitters wiederzufinden, dass jeder nur über eine einzige Spezialität verfügt. Nichts wäre unangenehmer als in explosiven sozialen Umständen feststellen zu müssen, dass sich die Anarchisten zu sehr mit ihrem kleinen Garten beschäftigen, um fähig zu sein, wirklich zur Explosion beizutragen. Nichts hätte mehr den bitteren Geschmack von versäumten Gelegenheiten, als wenn wir durch den exklusiven Fokus auf das identitäre Ghetto davon absehen würden, unsere Komplizen im sozialen Sturm zu entdecken, durch geteilte Ideen und Praktiken mit anderen Rebellen Verbindungen zu schmieden, mit allen Formen der mediatisierten Kommunikation und der Repräsentation zu brechen, um den Raum für eine wirkliche Gegenseitigkeit zu öffnen, die sich allergisch gegenüber jeglicher Macht und Herrschaft verhält.

Doch wie immer weigern wir uns, zu verzweifeln. Wir wissen, dass noch immer viele Gefährten in einem Raum und einer Zeit, in denen jegliches politische Spektakel konsequent verbannt wird, auf der Suche nach Möglichkeiten sind, um den Feind zu treffen und durch die Verbreitung von anarchistischen Ideen und Kampfvorschlägen Verbindungen mit anderen Rebellen aufzubauen. Es ist wahrscheinlich der schwierigste Weg, denn es wird nie eine Anerkennung für ihn geben. Weder von Seiten des Feindes, noch von Seiten der Massen und aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach auch nicht von Seiten anderer Gefährten und Revolutionären. Doch wir tragen in uns eine Geschichte, eine Geschichte, die uns mit all den Anarchisten verbindet, die hartnäckig dabei bleiben, sich zu weigern, sich einbinden zu lassen, sei es in die „offizielle“ anarchistische Bewegung oder in ihren Reflex des bewaffneten Kämpfertums. Mit jenen, die dabei bleiben, sich zu weigern, die Verbreitung unserer Ideen von der Art und Weise loszulösen, auf die sie verbreitet werden, und auf diese Weise versuchen, jegliche politische Mediation zu verbannen, einschliesslich dem Bekennerschreiben. Mit jenen, die wenig Interesse daran haben, zu wissen, wer dies oder das getan hat, sondern es in die eigene Revolte, in die eigene Projektualität mitaufnehmen, die sich in der einzigen Verschwörung entfaltet, die wir wollen: jene der rebellischen Individualitäten für die Subversion des Bestehenden.

20. November 2011

Lettera alla galassia anarchica

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

Senza essere stati invitati, irrompiamo con questa lettera in un dibattito che non è il nostro. E che non sarà mai il nostro, perché si svolge su un terreno che ci appare sterile per la ricerca di prospettive insurrezionali e per le idee e le attività anarchiche conseguenti. Ma allora, ci si potrebbe chiedere, perché scrivere una simile lettera? Perché non c’è nulla che ci scaldi il cuore quanto la rivolta liberatrice e distruttrice, quanto la lotta per la sovversione dell’esistente; perché continueremo sempre a riconoscerci in tutti quei compagni che, spinti da un desiderio di libertà, vanno all’assalto delle strutture e degli uomini del dominio; perché diamo un valore infinito alla forza di volontà individuale, alla ricerca di coerenza e al coraggio che malgrado tutto cerca di dare fuoco alla polveriera. Non considerate queste premesse come un vano tentativo di compiacere; sono sincere, come lo è la nostra preoccupazione davanti all’intenzionale mutilazione del campo di battaglia anarchico.

Senza peli sulla lingua: c’è bisogno più che mai dell’intervento distruttivo degli anarchici, ed è più che mai il momento di intensificare le nostre lotte, di andare alla ricerca di possibilità e di ipotesi per estendere la rivolta, rendere possibile l’insurrezione ed accelerare così la possibilità di sconvolgere questo mondo. Ma questo bisogno e questa pulsione non ci esentano dall’obbligo di riflettere sul cosa, dove, quando, come e perché.

Veniamo al dunque: quali ragioni spingono gli anarchici (sapendo che non è difficile capire le ragioni degli autoritari) a rivendicare sistematicamente le loro azioni e a firmarle con sigle diventate nel frattempo mondiali? Cosa li porta a credere che la difficile questione delle prospettive possa essere risolta mettendo una rivendicazione su internet o inviandola ai media? Che cosa spinge a ritenere che percorrere oggi questa strada sia associato a una profonda forma di coerenza fra pensiero e azione, fra idee e pratiche, allorché si tratta piuttosto di una liquidazione illusoria della tensione permanente fra la teoria e la pratica, quella che dovrebbe esserci e che è la forza propulsiva che sta dietro alla lotta anarchica?

Questa mania, che pare crescere a valanga, rischia di eclissare rapidamente gli altri atti di rivolta. Non solo gli atti degli anarchici che fanno a meno con gioia della pillola amara e sempre deludente della rivendicazione, ma anche e forse soprattutto più in generale tutto il panorama di ribellione e di conflittualità sociale. Ecco una delle “ragioni” che ci spingono a scrivere questo testo. Ne abbiamo abbastanza di subire e dover constatare che il campo di battaglia anarchico, quello dell’attacco, del sabotaggio e dell’espropriazione sono sempre più assimilati ad una sigla e, in quanto tale, ad una rappresentazione politica; ne abbiamo abbastanza di vedere come gli orizzonti si riducano erroneamente a due scelte in apparenza contraddittorie: si opti per l’anarchismo “gentile” e si rincorrano le assemblee, i movimenti popolari e i sindacati autonomi; o si scelga l’anarchismo “cattivo”, venendo gentilmente pregati di timbrare con una sigla i propri contributi alla guerra sociale – in caso contrario, altri lo faranno al nostro posto.

Perché anche noi passiamo all’attacco. Anche noi usciamo a sabotare l’apparato del capitale e dell’autorità. Anche noi scegliamo quotidianamente di non accettare una posizione da mendicanti e di non rimandare l’espropriazione necessaria. Soltanto, pensiamo che le nostre attività facciano semplicemente parte di una conflittualità sociale più ampia, di una conflittualità che non ha bisogno né di rivendicazioni né di sigle. Soltanto, pensiamo che solo quando un atto è anonimo possa appartenere a chiunque. Soltanto, pensiamo che timbrare le azioni di attacco le catapulti dal campo sociale al campo politico, al campo della rappresentazione, della delega, della separazione fra attori e spettatori. E, come è stato spesso ribadito in questo genere di dibattiti, non basta proclamare il rifiuto della politica perché questo sia effettivo. Il rifiuto della politica si situa tra l’altro nella coerenza fra mezzi e fini, e non esiste strumento più politico della rivendicazione, così come lo sono la tessera d’iscrizione, il programma e la dichiarazione dei principi di base.

Inoltre, vediamo l’imperversare di una confusione che vogliamo, ancora una volta, sottolineare e combattere, perché ci è indigesto continuare ad accettare il significato che attualmente viene attribuito ad alcuni concetti, come ad esempio l’informalità. La scelta per un movimento anarchico informale e autonomo significa il rifiuto di strutture fisse, di organizzazioni formali, di federazioni accentratrici e unificatrici; quindi anche di firme ricorrenti, come di qualsiasi altra firma. È il rifiuto di erigere programmi, è la messa al bando di tutti i mezzi politici; e quindi anche delle rivendicazioni programmatiche, poco importa se si autodefiniscono, digitalmente, formali o magari “informali”. In senso positivo, l’informalità è per noi un arcipelago senza confini e non circoscritto di gruppi autonomi e di individui autonomi che stabiliscono fra loro legami basati sull’affinità e la conoscenza reciproca e che, su queste basi, decidono di realizzare dei progetti comuni. È una scelta a favore delle piccole cerchie di affinità che fanno della loro autonomia, delle loro prospettive e dei loro metodi d’azione il fondamento per costruire legami con gli altri. L’organizzazione informale non ha nulla a che vedere con federazioni, acronimi o sigle. E cosa spinge alcuni compagni a parlare non solo di informalità, ma anche di «insurrezionalismo»? A rischio di appannare l’ampio panorama di idee, di analisi, di ipotesi e di proposizioni, potremmo definire «l’insurrezionalismo» come l’insieme di metodi e di prospettive che, partendo da un anarchismo senza compromessi, cercano di contribuire alle «situazioni insurrezionali». L’arsenale di metodi di cui dispongono gli anarchici è enorme. È importante comprendere che l’utilizzo di certi metodi (agitazione, attacco, proposte organizzatrici ecc.) in sé significa molto poco: è solo in una progettualità ponderata ed in evoluzione che essi acquiscono il loro senso nella lotta. Bruciare una struttura dello Stato va sempre bene, ma in sé non significa che si inscriva in una prospettiva insurrezionale. E questo vale ancor più se si indirizza l’attacco contro obiettivi centrali e mediatici con successiva e conseguente confessione di fede. Non è un caso se, nei diversi momenti di progettualità insurrezionali, l’enfasi è stata apposta soprattutto su attacchi modesti, riproducibili e anonimi contro le strutture e gli uomini più periferici del dominio, o sulla necessità di sabotaggi mirati di infrastrutture, sabotaggi che non hanno bisogno di alcuna eco mediatica per ottenere il proprio scopo, come ad esempio la paralisi dei flussi di trasporto, di dati e di energia del potere.

Ci sembra che dietro all’attuale mania di rivendicare non si nascondano troppe prospettive – o, perlomeno, facciamo fatica a scorgerle. In effetti, e con ciò non intendiamo in alcun modo togliere alcunché alla ribellione sincera e coraggiosa di questi compagni, sembra che ad essere ricercato sia soprattutto il riconoscimento. Un riconoscimento da parte del nemico, che completerà rapidamente i propri elenchi di organizzazioni “terroristiche”, è spesso l’inizio della fine: il nemico comincia a darsi da fare per isolare una parte della conflittualità più estesa. Un isolamento che non è solo un presagio di repressione (di fatto, questo sarebbe il meno, essendo la repressione sempre presente – lungi da noi l’idea di lamentarci se il potere persegue le attività degli anarchici) ma soprattutto, ed è l’aspetto più importante, è il modo migliore per contrastare un’eventuale contaminazione. Nello stato attuale del corpo sociale, che è malato e marcescente, il potere non potrebbe augurarsi niente di meglio di un’arma ben riconoscibile e delimitata che tenta di tagliuzzare un po’ qui e un po’ là, ma non c’è nulla che lo impaurisca più di un virus che rischia di contaminare in maniera inafferrabile e quindi incontrollabile tutto il corpo. Oppure ci sbagliamo e magari si tratta di un riconoscimento da parte degli sfruttati e degli esclusi? Ma non siamo proprio noi, gli anarchici, nemici di ogni forma di delega, di esempi illuminati che spesso non fanno che legittimare la propria rassegnazione? Certo, le nostre pratiche possono essere contagiose, le nostre idee d’altronde anche di più, ma unicamente quando rimettono la responsabilità di agire ad ogni singolo e distinto individuo; quando smascherano la rassegnazione in quanto scelta individuale. Potranno infiammare i cuori, sicuro!, ma qualora non dispongano dell’ossigeno di una propria convinzione si spegneranno rapidamente e, nel “migliore” dei casi, saranno seguite da qualche applauso per i martiri in divenire. E proprio adesso che la mediazione politica (partiti, sindacati, riformismo) si sta a poco a poco esaurendo e diventa superata; adesso che la rabbia può allungare liberamente le mani verso tutto ciò che distrugge la vita, sarebbe veramente il colmo se i non-sottomessi della politica per eccellenza, gli anarchici, riprendessero la fiaccola della rappresentazione e, seguendo l’esempio dei predecessori autoritari, separassero la conflittualità sociale dalla sovversione immediata di tutti i ruoli sociali. E poco importa se intendano far ciò ponendosi alla testa dei movimenti sociali, trascinandoli con la retorica delle assemblee popolari o in qualità di gruppo armato specifico.

O si tratta di un’aspirazione alla «coerenza»? Sfortunatamente, ci sono sempre stati anarchici che scambiano la ricerca della coerenza con accordi tattici, alleanze nauseanti e separazioni strategiche fra i mezzi e i fini. Sicuramente una coerenza anarchica si trova tra l’altro nella negazione di tutto ciò. Ma con ciò, non è detto che ad esempio una condizione di “clandestinità” sarebbe più coerente. Quando la clandestinità non viene più vissuta come una necessità, a causa della caccia repressiva o perché altrimenti sarebbe impossibile realizzare certe azioni, ma piuttosto come una sorta di apice dell’attività rivoluzionaria, rimane ben poco in piedi del famoso a-legalismo. Invece di ricercare la coerenza al di là delle leggi e dei comandamenti e quindi di accettare lo scontro, il legalismo viene semplicemente rovesciato in un «illegalismo» per cui, proprio come nel legalismo, il carattere sovversivo delle attività viene quantificato e misurato dall’eventuale pena detentiva corrispondente. Il rifiuto del legalismo non è la stessa cosa della scelta assoluta per l’illegalismo. Basterebbe fare un facile paragone con la situazione sociale in Europa per farsene un’idea: non è perché migliaia di persone si ritrovano di fatto in una situazione di “clandestinità” (i senza documenti) che diventano automaticamente e oggettivamente una minaccia per il legalismo e possano così essere considerati «soggetti rivoluzionari». Perché dovrebbe essere diverso per degli anarchici che si ritrovano in una condizione di clandestinità?

O forse si tratta di fare paura al nemico? Come si vede abbastanza spesso nelle rivendicazioni, a quanto pare esistono anarchici che credono di poter fare paura al potere proferendo minacce, pubblicando foto di armi o facendo esplodere qualche bomba (e non parliamo neppure della pratica abietta di spedire pacchi-bomba alla rinfusa). Dinanzi ai massacri quotidiani organizzati dal potere, ciò denota una particolare ingenuità, soprattutto per dei nemici del potere che non si fanno illusioni su potenti più comprensivi, un capitalismo dal volto umano, rapporti più giusti all’interno del sistema. Se, malgrado tutta la sua arroganza, il potere teme qualcosa, si tratta senza dubbio della diffusione della rivolta, della propagazione dell’insubordinazione, dei cuori che s’infiammano fuori da ogni controllo. Ed è chiaro che gli strali della repressione non risparmieranno affatto gli anarchici che vogliono contribuirvi, ma questo non prova in alcun modo quanto “pericolosi” siamo. La sola cosa che potrebbe voler dire è quanto sarebbe pericoloso se le nostre idee e pratiche si diffondessero fra gli esclusi e gli sfruttati.

Continua quindi a stupirci che l’idea di una sorta d’ombra non seduca più gli anarchici d’oggi, almeno quelli che non intendono rassegnarsi, né restare in attesa o costruire organizzazioni di massa all’infinito, ecc. Un tempo se ne andava fieri: fare tutto il possibile per estendere la palude della conflittualità sociale e renderla così impenetrabile alle forze della repressione e del recupero. Non si era alla ricerca dei neon della pubblicità, né della gloria dei guerrieri; nell’ombra, nella parte oscura della società, si dava il proprio contributo alla perturbazione della normalità, alla distruzione anonima delle strutture del controllo e della repressione, alla «liberazione» attraverso il sabotaggio dello spazio e del tempo affinché le rivolte sociali potessero seguire il loro corso. E queste idee venivano diffuse con fierezza, in modo autonomo, senza ricorrere agli echi mediatici, lontani dallo spettacolo politico, anche d’«opposizione». Un’agitazione che non chiedeva di essere filmata, di essere riconosciuta, ma che voleva incoraggiare dappertutto la ribellione e intrecciare legami, in questa rivolta condivisa, con altri ribelli.

Oggi parecchi compagni sembrano preferire la facile soluzione di una identità alla diffusione delle idee e della rivolta, riducendo così per esempio i rapporti dì affinità all’adesione a qualcosa. Evidentemente è più facile prendere e consumare opinioni pronte all’uso nei corridoi del supermercato militante, piuttosto che elaborare un proprio percorso di lotta che rompa con tutto ciò. Evidentemente è più facile concedersi un’illusione di forza attraverso una sigla condivisa, piuttosto che comprendere che la «forza» della sovversione si nasconde nella misura e nei modi in cui riesce a contaminare il corpo sociale con idee e pratiche liberatrici. L’identità e «la formazione di un fronte» offrono magari la carezzevole illusione di significare qualcosa, soprattutto nello spettacolo delle tecnologie di comunicazione, ma non distruggono il minimo ostacolo. Peggio ancora, ciò evidenzia tutti i sintomi di una visione poco anarchica della lotta e della rivoluzione, una visione che di fronte al mastodonte del potere crede di poter mettere in campo, simmetricamente, un illusorio mastodonte anarchico. La conseguenza inevitabile è l’orizzonte che si restringe finendo in una poco interessante contemplazione di se stessi, qualche pacca sulle spalle qui e là e la costruzione di un ambito autoreferenziale esclusivo.

Nessuno stupore se questa mania paralizzerà ancor più il movimento anarchico autonomo al momento di dare il nostro contributo alle rivolte sempre più frequenti, spontanee e distruttive. Rinchiusi nell’autopromozione e nell’autoreferenzialità, con una comunicazione ridotta alla pubblicazione di rivendicazioni su internet, non ci pare che gli anarchici potranno fare granché allorché i tumulti scoppieranno vicini (a parte qualche abituale esplosione ed incendio, spesso contro obiettivi che i ribelli stessi stavano già distruggendo). Più sembriamo avvicinarci alla possibilità di un’insurrezione, più palpabili diventano queste possibilità, e più gli anarchici sembrano apparentemente non voler più interessarsi all’insurrezione. E questo vale anche, sia per quelli che si perdono nella ripresa del ruolo di una sinistra morente, sia per quelli che si stanno rinchiudendo in una qualche ideologia di lotta armata. Ma chiariamo un momento cosa intendiamo quando parliamo di prospettive insurrezionali e di insurrezione. Non si tratta certo di una semplice moltiplicazione del numero di attacchi, e ancor meno quando questi sembrano (voler) diventare il terreno esclusivo degli anarchici coi loro fronti. Molto più che una singolar tenzone con lo Stato, l’insurrezione è la rottura molteplice con il tempo, con lo spazio e con i ruoli del dominio, una rottura per forza di cose violenta, che potrebbe divenire l’inizio di una sovversione dei rapporti sociali. In questo senso, l’insurrezione è piuttosto uno scatenamento sociale che supera il semplice fatto della generalizzazione della rivolta o delle sommosse, e che porta già nella sua negazione l’inizio di un nuovo mondo, o perlomeno dovrebbe portarlo in sé. È soprattutto la presenza di una tale tensione utopica ad offrire qualche punto di appoggio contro il ritorno alla normalità e la restaurazione dei ruoli sociali dopo la grande festa della distruzione. Che sia dunque chiaro che l’insurrezione non è un affare unicamente degli anarchici, anche se il nostro contributo, la nostra preparazione, le nostre prospettive insurrezionali sono senza il minimo dubbio importanti e potranno diventare, nell’avvenire, decisive per spingere lo scatenamento della negazione in una direzione liberatrice. In un mondo che diventa ogni giorno più instabile, queste difficili questioni dovrebbero ritornare in primo piano, rinunciarvi a priori per rinchiudersi in un qualche ghetto identitario coltivando l’illusione di sviluppare «forza» attraverso sigle collettive e «l’unificazione» degli anarchici pronti ad attaccare, diventa irrimediabilmente la negazione di ogni prospettiva insurrezionale.

Tornando al mondo dei fronti e delle sigle, si potrebbero per esempio intendere i riferimenti d’obbligo ai compagni incarcerati come segnale precursore della prossima reclusione in un quadro autoreferenziale. Sembra che, una volta diventati compagni detenuti dallo Stato, non siano più compagni come tutti noi, ma soprattutto compagni «incarcerati». Le posizioni in questo dibattito già difficile e penoso sono talmente consolidate da far rimanere solo due opzioni: o l’esaltazione assoluta dei nostri compagni prigionieri, o il disgusto assoluto che si incaglia facilmente in una rinuncia a continuare a dare corpo ed anima alla solidarietà. Ha ancora senso ripetere che i nostri compagni che sono in galera non stanno al di sopra o al di sotto degli altri compagni, ma semplicemente in mezzo? Non è spaventoso vedere come, malgrado le numerose lotte contro la prigione, l’attuale svolta riprenda di nuovo il discorso sui «prigionieri politici», disertando una prospettiva più ampia di lotta contro il carcere, la giustizia, ecc.? In fin dei conti, rischiamo di portare a termine ciò che lo Stato ha voluto ottenere rinchiudendo i nostri compagni: facendone dei punti di riferimento centrali, astratti e da esaltare, li si isola dall’insieme della guerra sociale. Invece di cercare maniere per alimentare al di là dei muri legami di solidarietà, di affinità e di complicità, ponendo il tutto all’interno della guerra sociale in modo radicale, la solidarietà si limita a citare dei nomi alla fine di una rivendicazione. Ciò genera inoltre un circolo abbastanza vizioso senza troppe prospettive, una competizione di attacchi «dedicati» ad altri, invece di trovare la forza in se stessi e nella scelta del quando, come e perché intervenire in determinate condizioni.

Ma la logica del lottarmatismo è implacabile. Una volta messa in atto, sembra che poco resti ancora da fare. Tutti coloro che non vi aderiscono o non ne prendono le difese sono assimilati a compagni che non vogliono agire né attaccare, che sottopongono la rivolta ai calcoli e alle masse, che vogliono solo aspettare e respingono l’impulso di dare qui ed ora fuoco alle polveri. Nello specchio deformante, il rifiuto dell’ideologia della lotta armata diventa il rifiuto della lotta con le armi in quanto tale. Ovviamente, non c’è nulla di meno vero, ma non ci sono più orecchie che vogliano ascoltare, lo spazio di discussione è chiuso. Tutto si riduce a pensare per blocchi, pro o contro, e la via secondo noi più interessante, quella dello sviluppo delle progettualità insurrezionali, viene definitivamente accantonata. Con grande gioia dei libertari formali e degli pseudo-radicali così come delle forze repressive, il cui desiderio è nient’altro che il prosciugamento di questa palude.

Perché, chi vuole oggi discutere ancora di progettualità, quando il solo ritmo che viene dato alla lotta è diventato la somma degli attacchi rivendicati su internet? Chi è ancora alla ricerca di una prospettiva che voglia andare oltre la semplice restituzione di qualche colpo? E, a scanso di equivoci, ripetiamo che senza dubbio colpire è necessario, qui ed ora, e con tutti i mezzi che riteniamo adeguati e opportuni. Ma la sfida di sviluppare una progettualità che miri a tentare di scatenare, estendere e approfondire delle situazioni insurrezionali, esige molto di più della sola capacità di sferrare dei colpi. Esige lo sviluppo di idee proprie e non la ripetizione di quanto detto da altri; la forza di sviluppare una reale autonomia in termini di percorsi di lotta e di capacità; la ricerca lenta e difficile di affinità e di approfondimenti della conoscenza reciproca; una certa analisi delle condizioni sociali in cui agiamo; il coraggio di formulare ipotesi per la guerra sociale in modo da non correre più dietro ai fatti, o dietro a noi stessi. In breve, non richiede solo la capacità di saper utilizzare certi metodi, ma soprattutto le idee su come, dove, quando e perché utilizzarli, ed anche qui in un intreccio necessario con tutta una gamma di altri metodi. Altrimenti, non resteranno più anarchici, ma solo una serie di ruoli tristi e circoscritti: propagandisti, squatter, combattenti armati, espropriatori, scrittori, casseur, insorti e quant’altro. Nulla sarebbe più penoso del ritrovarsi, dinanzi alla possibilità dell’imminente tempesta sociale, del tutto disarmati qualora ciascuno disponesse di una sola specialità. Nulla sarebbe più fastidioso del dover constatare, in condizioni sociali esplosive, che gli anarchici si occupano troppo del loro orticello per essere in grado di contribuire realmente all’esplosione. Nulla avrebbe di più il gusto amaro delle occasioni mancate allorché, per l’esclusiva importanza data al ghetto identitario, si rinunciasse a scoprire i nostri complici nella tempesta sociale, a forgiare legami di idee e di pratiche condivisi con altri ribelli, a rompere con tutte le forme di comunicazione mediata e di rappresentazione al fine di aprire lo spazio per un’autentica reciprocità che si renda allergica ad ogni potere e dominio.

Ma, come sempre, rifiutiamo di disperare. Sappiamo che ancora molti compagni sono alla ricerca, nello spazio e nel tempo in cui ogni spettacolo politico è conseguentemente bandito, di possibilità per raggiungere il nemico e per costruire, attraverso la diffusione di idee anarchiche e di proposte di lotta, dei legami con altri ribelli. È probabilmente la strada più difficile, perché non ci sarà mai un riconoscimento per questo. Né da parte del nemico, né da parte delle masse e, con ogni probabilità, neanche da parte di altri compagni e rivoluzionari. Ma portiamo in noi una storia, una storia che ci unisce a tutti gli anarchici che hanno ardentemente continuato a rifiutare di lasciarsi includere, sia nel movimento anarchico “ufficiale” che nel suo riflesso lottarmatista. Che continuano a rifiutare di separare la diffusione delle nostre idee dal modo in cui sono diffuse, cercando così di bandire ogni mediazione politica, inclusa la rivendicazione. Che sono poco interessati a sapere chi ha fatto questo o quello, ma che lo riallacciano alla propria rivolta, alla propria progettualità che si svolge nella sola cospirazione che vogliamo: quella delle individualità ribelli per la sovversione dell’esistente.

[20/11/2011]

Carta a la galaxia anarquista

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

Sin haber sido invitados, nos estamos obligando a un debate que no es nuestro. Y que nunca será, como se establece en un terreno que es estéril para el desarrollo de perspectivas insurreccionales y de las ideas anarquistas y las actividades que se centran en el desarrollo. Por lo tanto, ustedes pueden preguntar, ¿por qué escribir una carta? Porque nada es más cercano al corazón de la revuelta libertaria y destructivo, que la lucha por la subversión de lo existente, porque nunca dejaremos de reconocer a nosotros mismos en todos los compañeros que deciden atacar las estructuras y la gente del poder en un deseo de libertad; porque hay algunas cosas que apreciamos más de la voluntad individual, la lucha por la coherencia y la valentía de encender la mecha, por encima de todo. No creo que se escriba esta premisa, en un intento de complacer, es sincero, como es nuestra preocupación por la amputación voluntaria del dominio de la lucha anarquista.

Seamos claros: más que nunca hay una necesidad de la intervención destructiva de los anarquistas, más que nunca es el momento de intensificar, a la búsqueda de posibilidades e hipótesis que permite la extensión de la revuelta y la insurrección y de esta manera la velocidad de vuelco de este mundo. Pero esta necesidad y urgencia no nos exime de la obligación de pensar qué, dónde, cómo y por qué.

Vamos a ser directos: por qué razones son anarquistas (que no tienen ninguna dificultad en comprender por qué los autoritarios han de serlo) de forma sistemática reivindicación sus actos y la firma con las siglas que se han convertido en mundialmente famoso?¿Qué los lleva a asociar este camino con una forma extrema de la coherencia entre pensamiento y acción, entre teoría y práctica, cuando en realidad se trata simplemente de la supresión ilusoria de una tensión permanente que debe existir entre ellos y que es sin lugar a dudas la fuerza motriz detrás el movimiento anarquista? Se corre el riesgo manía difusión proyectando su sombra sobre todos los actos de rebelión. No sólo las acciones de los anarquistas que alegremente pasan por el trago amargo y decepcionante siempre de la demanda, sino también, y quizás sobre todo, la acción del panorama más general de la rebelión y la conflictividad social. Tal vez esa es una de las “razones” que nos ha empujado a escribir este texto. Cansado de vivir y encontrar el campo anarquista de ataque, el sabotaje y la expropiación de más y más asimilados a una sigla y, como tal representación, política, cansado de ver el estrechamiento de horizonte en dos opciones falsamente opuestas: o bien “respetable” el anarquismo, corriendo detrás de las asambleas , los movimientos sociales y sindicatos de base del comercio, o “malo” el anarquismo, se ruega a los sellos de su contribución a la guerra social con algunas siglas – y si no lo haces, alguien más lo hará por usted.

Debido a que también optan a los ataques. También sabotear la maquinaria del capital y la autoridad. También optar por no aceptar un puesto de la mendicidad y no poner fuera de la expropiación forzosa hasta mañana. Pero sí creemos que nuestras actividades son simplemente parte de una conflictividad social más amplio, una conflictividad que no necesita reclamos y las siglas. Creemos que sólo cuando las acciones son anónimas pueden realmente ser apropiados para todo el mundo. Creemos que colocando un sello en un ataque se está moviendo el ataque de lo social a lo político, en el campo de la representación, delegación, actores y espectadores. Y, como se ha dicho antes en este tipo de debate, no es suficiente para proclamar la negativa de la política: su negativa implica la coherencia entre medios y fines, y la demanda es un instrumento político a la igual que la tarjeta de membresía, el programa, la declaración de principios.

Más allá de eso, hay una cierta confusión que queremos exponer, porque no podemos seguir y quedarnos y ver a un contenido que es cada vez más, y está dando a conceptos tales como la informalidad. La elección de un movimiento anarquista autónomo informal implica el rechazo de las estructuras fijas, de asociaciones, federaciones de centralizar y unificar, y por lo tanto, también se fijan las firmas recurrentes, si no todas las firmas. Se trata de la negativa de la elaboración de los programas, el destierro de todos los medios políticos, y por lo tanto también de las reclamaciones de programación que dicen estar en la posición de delinear las campañas.

Es el rechazo de toda la centralización, y así también de todas las estructuras paraguas, no importa si se declara verbalmente “informal” o formal. En un sentido positivo, para nosotros la informalidad representa un archipiélago ilimitado e indefinido de grupos autónomos y las personas que están forjando vínculos basados ​​en la afinidad y el conocimiento mutuo y que deciden sobre esa base, la realización de proyectos comunes. Es la opción para los pequeños, la afinidad basada en los círculos que hacen su propia autonomía, perspectivas y métodos de acción de base para la creación de vínculos con los demás. La organización informal no tiene nada que ver ni con las federaciones o las siglas. Y lo que llevó a algunos compañeros a hablar no sólo sobre la informalidad, sino de “insurreccionalismo” también? Con el riesgo de devaluar el amplio panorama de ideas, análisis, hipótesis y propuestas, se podría decir que “insurreccionalismo” contiene los métodos y perspectivas que, de un anarquismo sin compromiso, queremos contribuir a “situaciones insurreccionales. El arsenal de los métodos anarquistas de esta contribución es enorme. Por otra parte, el uso de métodos (agitación, ataques, propuestas de organización, etc) en sí mismo significa casi nada: sólo en un pensamiento-hacia fuera y la evolución de ‘proyectualidad’ que adquieren significado en la lucha. El incendio de un edificio del Estado es sin lugar a dudas siempre es bueno, pero no es necesariamente inscrito en una perspectiva insurreccional “como tal”. Y esto cuenta mucho menos para la elección, por ejemplo, con el objetivo de ataques especialmente contra en lugar central, los objetivos espectaculares, acompañados por las confesiones de fe. No es casualidad que en otros momentos de projectualities insurreccional, el énfasis fue puesto sobre todo en modestas, las acciones reproducible y anónima de ataques en comparación con las estructuras más centralizadas y la gente de poder, o en la necesidad de sabotaje certero de las infraestructuras que no necesitan de ecos en los medios de comunicación con el fin de alcanzar sus metas, por ejemplo, la inmovilización de transporte, datos, y los suministros de energía.

Parece que no son todo lo que muchos puntos de vista detrás de la manía actual de reclamaciones, o por lo menos, tenemos dificultades para descubrirlos. De hecho, y esto no quiere decir que queremos subestimar la rebelión sincera y valiente de los compañeros, parece como si no es ante todo una lucha por el reconocimiento. Un reconocimiento por parte del enemigo, que se apresuran a completar su lista de organizaciones terroristas, que significa el principio del fin: el enemigo comienza a trabajar para aislar una parte de la conflictividad de la conflictividad en general, un aislamiento que no sólo es el precursor de la represión (y en realidad no importa, la represión siempre está ahí – no vamos a llorar por el hecho de que las actividades anarquistas siempre están siendo seguidos por los ojos del Argos, y procesado por lo tanto), pero sobre todo, y que el más importante, es el medio más eficaz para luchar contra todas las posibles infecciones.

En la situación actual del cuerpo social, que está enferma y en deterioro, lo mejor es por el poder un cuchillo bien clara, y definida que trata de apuñalar a un pedazo de él, mientras que los peores por el poder es un virus que los riesgos de daño a todo el cuerpo en una forma intangible e incontrolable por lo tanto. ¿O estamos equivocados, y es todo más información sobre el reconocimiento de los explotados y los excluidos? Pero, ¿estamos los anarquistas no contra todas las formas de delegación, de un magnífico ejemplo que a menudo legitimar la renuncia? Sin duda alguna, nuestras prácticas puede ser contagiosa, y nuestras ideas aún más, pero sólo a condición de que traer de vuelta la responsabilidad de actuar de cada individuo por separado, cuando se pregunta la renuncia como una elección individual. Para inflamar los corazones, sin duda, pero cuando esto no tiene el oxígeno de su propia convicción, el fuego se extingue rápidamente y en el mejor de los casos, simplemente se hará un seguimiento por parte de algunos aplausos de los mártires próximos. Y aun así, sería realmente muy irónico que el principal de oposición política, los anarquistas, fueron a tomar el relevo de la representación y, en los pasos de sus predecesores autoritarios, la conflictividad social separada de la subversión inmediata de todos los roles sociales, y hacer esto en momentos en que la mediación política (partidos políticos, sindicatos, reformismo) poco a poco va quedando obsoleta y anticuada. Y no hace ninguna diferencia si quieren hacer esto a la cabeza de los movimientos sociales, hablando las grandes verdades en las asambleas populares o por medio de un determinado grupo armado. O es todo apunta a lograr “coherencia”? Por desgracia, los anarquistas que el intercambio de la búsqueda de la coherencia de los acuerdos tácticos, las alianzas y separaciones nauseabundo estratégica entre medios y fines han existido siempre. La coherencia anarquista es sin lugar a dudas también se encuentran en la negación de todo esto. Pero esto no quiere decir que, por ejemplo, una cierta condición de “clandestinidad” sería más coherente. Cuando la clandestinidad no es visto como una necesidad (ya sea porque la represión nos está persiguiendo o porque es necesario una acción específica), sino como una especie de pinnacle de la actividad revolucionaria, no hay mucho más de izquierda de la infame un legalismo. Con el fin de imaginar esto, podría ser suficiente para compararla con la situación social en Europa: no es que miles de personas están viviendo en una realidad “clandestina” situación (personas sin papeles), que se hace de forma automática y objetiva, una amenaza al legalismo y coronas como “sujetos revolucionarios”. ¿Por qué habría de ser diferente para los anarquistas que viven en condiciones de clandestinidad? O podría ser todo sobre asustar a los enemigos? Un elemento recurrente en las demandas es que al parecer hay anarquistas que creen que pueden asustar a poder expresar las amenazas, la publicación de fotografías de las armas o la explosión de bombas pequeñas (y no hablemos de la despreciable práctica de enviar cartas-bomba). En comparación con la masacre diaria, organizado por el poder que parece un poco ingenuo, sobre todo para aquellos que no tienen ilusiones de izquierda sobre los gobernantes que son más sensibles, el capitalismo con rostro humano, o las relaciones más honestas dentro del sistema. Si el poder, a pesar de su arrogancia, se que temer nada de lo que sería la propagación de la revuelta, la siembra de la desobediencia, la ignición no controlada de los corazones. Y por supuesto, el relámpago de la represión no perdonará a los anarquistas que quieren contribuir a ello, pero eso no quiere demostrar lo “peligroso” que son en modo alguno, que tal vez sólo habla de lo peligroso que sería si nuestras ideas y prácticas se extendiera entre los excluidos y explotados.

Estamos continuamente sorprendido por lo poco que la idea de algún tipo de sombra es capaz de complacer a los anarquistas contemporáneos, los que no quieren resignarse, esperar o construir organizaciones de masas.

Solíamos estar orgullosos de ello: nos pondría a todos en todos para hacer el pantano de la conflictividad social, ampliar y para hacer imposible que las fuerzas de la represión y la recuperación de penetrar. No fuimos a buscar el centro de atención, o por la gloria del guerrero: en la sombra, en el lado oscuro de la sociedad a la que contribuyó a la alteración de la normalidad, a la destrucción de las estructuras anónimas de control y represión, a la ‘ liberación “de tiempo y espacio a través del sabotaje a fin de que la revuelta social podría continuar. Y se utilizó para difundir nuestras ideas con orgullo, de forma autónoma, sin hacer uso de los ecos de los medios de comunicación, lejos de la política espectáculo como la ‘oposición’ uno. Una agitación que no estaba tratando de ser filmado, reconoció, pero que trató de rebelión de combustible en todas partes y establecer vínculos con otros rebeldes en la revuelta compartida.

Parece que hoy más que algunos compañeros han optado por la solución fácil de la identidad de la circulación de ideas y la rebelión, y que de esta manera reducir las relaciones de afinidad con algo de unión. Por supuesto que es más fácil recoger algunos productos terminados de los estantes del mercado de militantes de opiniones y consumir, en vez de desarrollar un seguimiento adecuado lucha que hace una ruptura con ella. Por supuesto que es más fácil darse a sí mismo la ilusión de la fuerza mediante el uso de una sigla común de enfrentar el hecho de que la “fuerza” de la subversión se encuentra en el grado y en la forma en que pueden atacar el cuerpo social con prácticas liberadoras e ideas. ”La formación de un frente de identidad y podría ofrecer la dulce ilusión de tener sentido, sobre todo en el espectáculo de la tecnología de la comunicación, pero no borra todos los obstáculos del camino. Aún más, se muestran todos los síntomas de la enfermedad de una concepción no tan-anarquista de lucha y la revolución, que cree en la posibilidad de plantear un mastodonte anarquista ilusión antes de que el mastodonte de la energía en forma simétrica. La consecuencia inmediata es la cada vez más el estrechamiento del horizonte a una introspección no muy interesantes, algunas palmaditas en la espalda, aquí y allá y la construcción de un marco de exclusiva auto-referencia.

No nos extrañaría que esta manía se para paralizar el movimiento anarquista, incluso con respecto a nuestra contribución a las revueltas cada vez más frecuente, espontáneo y destructivo. De ser encerrado en la auto-promoción y la auto-referencia, con la comunicación reducida a las demandas de publicación en Internet, no parece que los anarquistas será capaz de hacer muchas cosas (aparte de las explosiones e incendios obligatorio, a menudo en contra de los objetivos que el personas en la revuelta ya están muy destruyendo a sí mismos) cuando la situación se está explotando en su vecindario. Parece que cuanto más nos parece que llegar a la posibilidad de insurrecciones, la más tangible de estas posibilidades se están convirtiendo, a los anarquistas menos quiere estar ocupado con él. Y esto tiene el mismo valor para aquellos que están cerrando en sí mismos una ideología de la lucha armada. Pero ¿de qué estamos hablando cuando hablamos de perspectivas insurreccionales? Definitivamente no es sólo de una multiplicidad de ataques, menos aún cuando éstos parecen tender hacia el terreno exclusivo de los anarquistas con sus frentes. Mucho más que un duelo singular armado con el Estado, la insurrección es la ruptura de múltiples con el tiempo, el espacio y los roles de dominación, una ruptura necesariamente violenta que puede significar el comienzo de la subversion de las relaciones sociales. En ese sentido, la insurrección es más bien un desencatamiento social, que va más allá de una generalización de la revuelta o disturbios, pero que ya lleva en su negación al principio de un nuevo mundo, o al menos se debe hacer. Es precisamente la presencia de esa tensión utópica que ofrece algo de agarre en contra de la vuelta a la normalidad y la recuperación de los roles sociales después de la gran fiesta de la destrucción. Por lo tanto, puede ser evidente que la insurrección no es una cuestión puramente anarquista, a pesar de nuestra contribución al mismo, nuestra preparación hacia ella, nuestros puntos de vista insurreccional, podría en el tiempo futuro fuera de toda duda importante y decisivo tal vez para empujar el desencadenamiento de la negación hacia una dirección liberadora . Abandonar de antemano estos temas difíciles – que deberían estar ganando importancia en un mundo que es cada vez más inestable y más – por encerrarnos en un gueto basado en la identidad y el aprecio de la ilusión del desarrollo “fuerza” de las firmas común y la “unificación” de anarquistas que se preparan para atacar, se convierte inevitablemente en la negación de todas las perspectivas insurreccionales.

Para volver al mundo de los frentes y las siglas, podríamos por ejemplo hablar de la referencia obligada a compañeros presos como una señal clara de los mismos dentro de un marco de restricción de la exclusiva auto-referencia. Parece que una vez encerrado por el Estado, estos compañeros no son compañeros ya que estamos, pero son precisamente ‘encarcelados’ camaradas. De esta manera, las posiciones en los debates que ya es difícil y doloroso se fijan de una manera que sólo puede tener dos salidas: o la glorificación absoluta de nuestros compañeros presos, o el rechazo absoluto, que puede rápidamente convertirse en una renuncia de desarrollo y pone en práctica solidaridad.

¿Sigue teniendo sentido seguir repitiendo que nuestros compañeros presos no son colocados por encima o por debajo de otros compañeros, pero son simplemente entre ellos? ¿No es notable que, a pesar de las muchas luchas contra las cárceles, la corriente actual es de nuevo saliendo con “políticos” los presos, el abandono de una perspectiva más general de lucha contra la prisión, la justicia, …? De este modo, corremos el riesgo de completar lo que el Estado ya estaba tratando de realizar en primer lugar mediante el bloqueo de nuestros compañeros hasta: convirtiéndolas en puntos de referencia abstracto, idolatrado y central, que se les aísla de la guerra social en su conjunto. En lugar de buscar maneras de mantener los lazos de solidaridad, afinidad y complicidad a través de las paredes, colocando todo en el medio de la guerra social, la solidaridad se está reduciendo en la cita de nombres al final de una reclamación. Además de eso, se trata de generar un movimiento desagradable circular sin perspectiva mucho más, un mayor nivel de ataques que son “dedicadas” a los demás, en lugar de tomar la fuerza de nosotros mismos y de la elección de cuándo, cómo y por qué intervenir en determinadas circunstancias .

Pero la lógica de la lucha armada-ismo es imparable. Una vez puesto en marcha, que por desgracia se hace muy difícil de contrarrestar. Todo el mundo que no se une y asume su defensa frente a los compañeros que no quieren actuar, o ataque, que se someten a la revuelta de los cálculos y las masas, que sólo quiere esperar y se niegan la necesidad de encender la mecha aquí y ahora . En el espejo deformado, el rechazo de la ideología de la lucha armada es igual a la negativa de la lucha armada en sí. Por supuesto, esto no es cierto, pero para quien quiera escuchar que no hay espacio para la discusión queda abierta. Todo se reduce a un pensamiento en bloques, en favor y en contra, y el camino que nos parece más interesante, el desarrollo de projectualities insurreccional está desapareciendo en el fondo. Para el aplauso de los defensores de las libertades formales y la pseudo-radicales, así como las fuerzas represivas, que no desean nada más que el agotamiento de este pantano. Debido a que todavía quiere discutir proyectualidad hoy, cuando el único ritmo que la lucha parece haber es la suma de los ataques reclamados en la internet? Que todavía está en busca de una perspectiva que quiere hacer algo más que la huelga sea un poco? Hay, por cierto, no hay duda de que: llama la atención es necesaria, aquí y ahora, y con todos los medios que creemos adecuada y oportuna. Pero el reto de la elaboración de un proyectualidad, cuyo objetivo es el intento de desencadenar, ampliación o profundización de situaciones insurreccionales, exige un poco más de la capacidad de la huelga. Que exige el desarrollo de ideas propias y no la repetición de palabras de otras personas, la fuerza para desarrollar la autonomía real en términos de lucha y capacidad, la búsqueda lenta y difícil para las afinidades y la profundización del conocimiento mutuo, un cierto análisis de las circunstancias sociales en el que actuamos, el valor de elaborar hipótesis de la guerra social con el fin de dejar de correr detrás de los hechos o de nosotros mismos. En pocas palabras: no sólo la demanda de la capacidad de utilizar ciertos métodos, pero sobre todo las ideas de cómo, dónde, cuándo y por qué usarlos, y luego en combinación con un espectro entero de otros métodos. De lo contrario no habrá anarquistas de izquierda, sólo un espectro de funciones fijas: propagandistas, los ocupantes ilegales, luchadores armados, expropiadores, los escritores, los interruptores de la ventana, los manifestantes, etc No habría nada más doloroso que nos encontramos tan desarmados frente a la inminente tormenta social que para cada uno de nosotros sólo queda especialidad. No habría nada peor en la explosiva situación social de tener que en cuenta que los anarquistas están demasiado involucrados en su propio patio trasero para poder contribuir realmente a la explosión. Que daría el gusto más amargo de las oportunidades perdidas cuando, al centrarse exclusivamente en el gueto de identidad, abandonaría el descubrimiento de los cómplices dentro de la tormenta social, la forja de relaciones de ideas y prácticas en común con otros rebeldes, rompiendo con todas las formas de la comunicación mediada y la representación y de esta manera abrir un espacio de verdadera reciprocidad que es alérgica a todo el poder y la dominación. Pero como siempre nos negamos a la desesperación. Somos conscientes de que muchos compañeros están en busca de posibilidades para atacar al enemigo y establecer vínculos con otros rebeldes a través de la difusión de las ideas anarquistas y las propuestas de lucha, en un tiempo y espacio que abandona todo espectáculo político. Es probablemente el camino más difícil, porque nunca será recompensado. No por el enemigo, no por las masas y la mayoría probablemente no por otros compañeros y revolucionarios. Pero tenemos una historia dentro de nosotros, una historia que nos une a todos los anarquistas y los que obstinadamente se siguen negando a ser cerrados, ya sea dentro del movimiento “oficial” anarquista, o en la reflexión de lucha armada-ista de la misma. Los que siguen negándose a difundir las ideas por separado de las formas en que podemos difundirlas, tratando así de todos los exiliados políticos de mediación, incluyendo la demanda. Los que no les importa mucho quién hizo esto o aquello, pero no puede conectarlo a su propia rebelión, sus proyectualidad propia que se expande en la única conspiración que queremos: el de las individualidades rebeldes de la subversión de lo existente.

20 de noviembre 2011

Letter to the anarchist galaxy

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

Uninvited, we are forcing ourselves into a debate which is not ours. And which will never be so, because it is put on a terrain remaining sterile for the development of insurrectional perspectives and the anarchist ideas and activities focussing on this development. You could wonder, so why writing a letter? Because nothing is closer to our hearts than the liberating and destructive revolt, than the struggle for the subversion of the existent, because we will never stop to recognize ourselves in all comrades who decide to attack the structures and people of domination out of a desire for freedom; because there are few things we cherish so strongly as the individual will, the striving for coherence and the courage of putting the fire to the fuse despite everything. Don’t think we are writing this premises in an attempt to please; they are sincere, as much as is our concern about the voluntary amputation of the anarchist struggle domain.

Let’s be clear: more than ever there is a need for the destructive intervention of anarchists, more than ever it is the moment to intensify, to search for possibilities and hypotheses enabling the expansion of revolt and insurrection and in this way fastening the turn-over of this world. But this need and urge don’t resign us from the obligation to think about what, where, how and why.

Let be straightforward: for what reasons do anarchists (we don’t have any difficulties to understand why authoritarians would do so) systematically claim their acts and sign them with acronyms that have become famous worldwide? What brings them to associate this road with an excessive form of coherence between thinking and acting, between ideas and practices, while in fact it is simply the illusory abolition of a permanent tension which should exist in between them and which is beyond doubt the moving strength behind the anarchist movement?

This extending mania is in risk of casting its shadow over all other acts of revolt. Not only those acts by anarchists that merrily let pass by the bitter and ever disappointing pill of the claim, but as well and maybe even especially the acting of the more general panorama of rebellion and social conflictuality. Maybe that is one of the ‘reasons’ which urged us to the writing of this text. Tired of experiencing and of finding the anarchist struggle field of attack, sabotage and expropriation more and more assimilated to an acronym and as such a political representation; tired of noticing the horizons falsely narrowing into two falsely opposed choices: or the ‘well-behaved’ anarchism, running behind the assemblies, social movements and base trade unions; or the ‘bad’ anarchism, being friendly asked to stamp your contributions to the social war with some acronym- and if you don’t, someone else will do it for you.

Because we as well choose to attack. We as well sabotage the machine of capital and authority. We as well choose to not accept a begging position and don’t postpone the necessary expropriation to tomorrow. But we do think that our activities simply make part of a bigger social conflictuality, a conflictuality which doesn’t need claims and acronyms. But we do think that only when acts are anonymous, they can truly be appropriated by everyone. But we do think that putting a stamp on an attack is bringing the attack from the social to the political field, to the field of representation, delegation, actors and spectators. And as already has often been said in this kind of debates, it’s not enough to proclaim the refusal of politics: its refusal implicates moreover the coherence between means and goals, and the claim is a political instrument, as are the membership cart, the program, the statement of principles.

On top of that, there is a confusion which we want to expose, because we can’t continue simply standing by and watching the content which is nowadays more and more given to concepts such as for example informality. The choice for an informal autonomous anarchist movement implicates the refusal of fixed structures, of membership organisations, of centralising and unifying federations; and thereby as well of fixed returning signatures, if not of all signatures. It is the refusal of the drawing up of programs, the banishment of all political means; and thereby as well of the programmatic claims which pretend to be in the position of outlining campaigns. It is the refusal of all centralisation; and so equally of all umbrella structures, no matter if they declare themselves digitally ‘informal’ or formal. In a positive way, to us informality signifies an unlimited and undefined archipelago of autonomous groups and individuals which are forging ties based on affinity and mutual knowledge, who decide upon that basis to realize common projects. It is the choice for small, affinitary circles which make outof their own autonomy, perspectives and action methods the basis for creating ties with others. Informal organization has nothing to do with neither federations nor acronyms. And what brought some comrades to speak not only about informality, but about ‘insurrectionalism’ as well? With the risk of devaluing the wide panorama of ideas, analyses, hypotheses and proposals, we could say that ‘insurrectionalism’ contains the methods and perspectives which, out of a non-compromising anarchism, want to contribute to ‘insurrectional situations’. The anarchist arsenal of methods for this contribution is enormous. Moreover, the use of methods (agitation, attack, organisational proposals etc.) on itself hardly means anything: only in a thought over and evolving ‘projectuality’ do they get meaning in the struggle. Putting fire to a state building is beyond doubt always a good thing, but it is therefore not necessarily inscribed in an insurrectional perspective ‘as such’. And this counts even less for the choice to for example aim the attacks especially against rather central, spectacular targets accompanied by confessions of faith. It is not a coincidence that during different moments of insurrectional projectualities, the emphasis was put especially on modest, reproducible, anonymous actions of attack against the more and more centralized structures and people of the domination, or on the necessity of well-aimed sabotage of infrastructures that don’t need echo’s in the media in order to reach their goals, for example the immobilization of the transport, data- and energy currents of the power.

It seems that there are not too many perspectives behind the current mania of claims, or at least, we have difficulties in discovering them. In fact, and this doesn’t imply we want to underestimate the sincere and courageous rebellion of those comrades, it seems as if there is especially a striving for recognition. A recognition by the enemy, who will hurry up to complete its list of terrorist organisations, often signifies the beginning of the end: the enemy starts working to isolate a part of the conflictuality from the larger conflictuality, isolation which is not only the forerunner of repression (and actually it doesn’t really matter, repression is always there- we’re not going to weep about the fact that anarchist activities are always being followed with Argus’ eyes, and so prosecuted), but especially, and that’s the most important, it is the best means to combat all possible infection. In the current situation of the social body, which is ill and deteriorating, the best for power is a clearly recognizable and definable knife which tries to cut a bit, while the worst for power is a virus which risks harming the whole body in an intangible and therefore uncontrollable way. Or are we mistaken, and is it all more about recognition by the exploited and excluded? But are we as anarchists not against all forms of delegation, of shining examples which often especially legitimize the proper resignation? Most certainly, our practices can be contagious, and our ideas even more, but only on the condition that they bring back the responsibility to act to each separate individual, when they are questioning the resignation as being an individual choice. To set alight the hearts, most certainly, but when lacking the oxygen of the proper conviction, the fire will extinguish fast and will in the best case be followed up by nothing more than some applauding for the upcoming martyrs. And even then, it would really be too ironic if the pre-eminently opponents of politics, the anarchists, would take over the torch of representation and, in the footsteps of the authoritarian predecessors separate the social conflictuality from the immediate subversion of all social roles, and do this in times when political mediation (political parties, unions, reformism) is slowly getting completely finished and outmoded in the facts. And it makes no difference if they want to do this by taking the head of social movements, speaking the big truth on popular assemblies or if they want to do it by means of a specific armed group.

Or is it all about striving for ‘coherence’? Unfortunately, those anarchists that exchange the quest for coherence for tactic agreements, nauseating alliances and strategic separations between the means and the goals have always existed. An anarchist coherence is beyond doubt as well to be found in the denial of all this. But this doesn’t mean that for example a certain condition of ‘clandestinity’ would be more coherent. When clandestinity is not regarded as a necessity (be it because repression is hunting or because it is necessary for certain action), but as some kind of top of revolutionary activity, there is not so much left over from the infamous a-legalism. In order to imagine this, it might suffice to compare it to the social situation in Europe: it is not because thousands of people are living a ‘clandestine’ situation by the fact (people without papers), that it makes them automatically and objectively into a threat to the legalism and crowns them as being ‘revolutionary subjects’. Why would it be different for anarchists living in clandestine conditions?

Or might it all be about frightening the enemy? A recurring element in claims is that apparently there are anarchists who believe they can frighten power by expressing threats, by publishing pictures of weapons or exploding little bombs (and let’s not talk about the despicable practice of sending letter bombs). In comparison to the daily slaughter organized by power it seems kind of naïve, especially to those who have no illusions left about more sensitive rulers, humanized capitalism, more honest relations inside of the system. If power would, despite her arrogance, already fear anything, then it would be the spreading of revolt, the sowing of disobedience, the uncontrolled igniting of the hearts. And off course, the lightning of repression will not spare those anarchists wanting to contribute to this, but it doesn’t prove in no way whatsoever how ‘dangerous’ we are, it maybe only speaks about how dangerous it would be when our ideas and practices would spread between excluded and exploited.

We are continuously surprised about how little the idea of some sort of shadow is able to please the contemporary anarchists that don’t want to resign, wait or build up mass organisations. We used to be proud about it: we would put all on all to make the swamp of social conflictuality extend and so making it impossible for the forces of repression and recuperation to penetrate. We didn’t go searching for the spotlights, neither for the glory of warriors: in the shadow, at the dark side of society we were contributing to the disturbance of normality, to the anonymous destruction of structures of control and repression, to the ‘liberation’ of time and space through sabotage, so that the social revolt could continue. And we used to diffuse our ideas proudly, in an autonomous way, without making use of the echo’s of the media, far away from the political spectacle, including the ‘oppositional’. An agitation which was not striving to be filmed, recognized, but which tried to fuel rebellion everywhere and forge ties with other rebels in the shared revolt.

It seems that today not just a few comrades have chosen for the easy solution of an identity over the circulation of ideas and revolt, and have in this way for example reduced affinity relations to a joining to something. Off course it is easier to pick up some ready made product out of the shelves of the militant market of opinions and consume it, rather than developing a proper struggle track which makes rupture with it. Off course it is easier to give oneself the illusion of strength by using a shared acronym, than to face the fact that the ‘strength’ of subversion is to be found in the degree and in the way it can attack the social body with liberating practices and ideas. Identity and ‘formation of a front’ might offer the sweet illusion to have meaning, especially in the spectacle of communication technology, but doesn’t clear off any obstacle from the road. Even more, it shows all of the symptoms of illness of a not so anarchist conception of struggle and revolution, which believes being able to pose in a symmetrical way an illusionary anarchist mastodon in front of the mastodon of power. The immediate consequence is the ever more narrowing of the horizon to a not so interesting introspection, some tapping on the back here and there and the construction of a framework of exclusive self-reference.

It wouldn’t surprise us if this mania would paralyse the anarchist movement again a bit more regarding our contribution to more and more frequent, spontaneous and destructive revolts. Being locked up in self-promotion and self-reference with a communication reduced to publishing claims on the internet, it doesn’t seem that anarchists will be able to do a lot (apart from the obligatory explosions and arsons, often against targets which the revolting people themselves are already very much destroying) when the situation is exploding in their neighbourhood. It seems that the closer we seem to get to the possibility of insurrections, the more tangible these possibilities are becoming, the less anarchists want to be busy with it. And this counts equally for those who are closing up themselves in some ideology of armed struggle. But what are we talking about when we speak about insurrectionary perspectives en insurrection? Definitely not only about a multiplication of attacks, and even less when those seem to tend towards the exclusive terrain of the anarchists with their fronts. Much more than a singular armed duel with the state, is insurrection the multiple rupture with the time, space and roles of domination, a necessary violent rupture which can signify the beginning of a subversion of the social relations. In that sense, insurrection is rather a social unchaining which goes further than a generalizing of revolt or riots, but which carries in her negation already the beginning of a new world, or in any case should. It is especially the presence of such a utopian tension which offers some grip against the return of normality and the recovery of the social roles after the big feast of destruction. So it may be clear that insurrection is not a purely anarchist matter, although our contribution to it, our preparation towards it, our insurrectional perspectives could in future times be beyond doubt important and maybe decisive for pushing the unchaining of the negation towards a liberating direction. A priory abandoning these difficult issues, which should gain importance in a world that is becoming more and more instable, by locking up ourselves in some identitarian ghetto and cherishing the illusion of developing ‘strength’ by common signatures and the ‘unification’ of anarchists that are prepared to attack, inevitably becomes the negation of all insurrectionary perspectives.

To get back to the world of fronts and acronyms, we could for example mention the obligatory references to imprisoned comrades as a clear sign of the restraining of ourselves in a frame of exclusive self-reference. It seems that once locked up by the state, these comrades are no longer comrades as we are, but especially ‘imprisoned’ comrades. In this way, the positions in their already difficult and painful debate are fixed in a way that can have only two exits: either the absolute glorification of our imprisoned comrades, either the absolute disgust which can very fast result into a renouncing of developing and embodying solidarity. Does it still make sense to continue repeating that our imprisoned comrades are neither positioned above nor under the other comrades, but simply in between them? Isn’t it remarkable that despite the many struggles against prisons, the current turn is again coming along with ‘political’ prisoners and abandoning a more general perspective of struggle against prison, justice,…? In this way we are in fact risking to complete what the state was already trying to concretize in the first place by locking up our comrades: by making them into abstract, idolized and central reference points, we are isolating them from the whole of the social war. Instead of looking for ways to maintain ties of solidarity, affinity and complicity across the walls, by placing everything in the middle of social war, the solidarity is shrinking into the quoting of names at the end of a claim. On top of that, this is generating a nasty circular motion without too much perspectives, a higher bid of attacks which are ‘dedicated’ to others rather than taking strength out of ourselves and out of the choice of when, how and why to intervene in given circumstances.

But the logic of armed struggle-ism is unstoppable. Once put into motion, it unfortunately becomes very difficult to counter. Everybody that doesn’t join and take up its defence is being compared to comrades that don’t want to act or attack, that submit revolt to calculations and masses, that only want to wait and are refusing the urge to put fire to the fuse here and now. In the deformed mirror, the refusal of the ideology of armed struggle equals the refusal of armed struggle itself. Off course this is not true, but who wants to hear that, there is no space for discussion left open for this. Everything is being reduced to a thinking into blocks, pro and against, and the path which we think is more interesting, the development of insurrectional projectualities is disappearing to the back. Under the applause of the formal libertarians and the pseudo-radicals as well as the repressive forces, who wouldn’t like anything more than the drying out of this swamp.

Because who still wants to discuss about projectuality today, when the only rhythm which seems to be given to the struggle is the sum of the attacks claimed on the internet? Who is still searching for a perspective that wants to do more than striking a bit? There is by the way no doubt about that: striking is necessary, here and now, and with all means which we think appropriate and opportune. But the challenge of the development of a projectuality, which aims at the attempt of unchaining, extending or deepening insurrectional situations, is demanding a bit more than the capacity to strike. It is demanding the development of proper ideas and not the repetition of other people’s words, the strength to develop a real autonomy in terms of struggle tracks and capacities; the slow and difficult search for affinities and the deepening of mutual knowledge; a certain analysis of the social circumstances in which we act; the courage for elaborating hypotheses for the social war in order to stop running behind the facts or ourselves. In short: it doesn’t only demand the capacity of using certain methods but especially the ideas of how, where, when and why to use them, and then especially in combination with a whole spectre of other methods. If not there will not be any anarchists left, but only a spectre of fixed roles: propagandists, squatters, armed strugglers, expropriators, writers, window breakers, rioters, etc. There wouldn’t be anything less painful than to be so much unarmed in front of the coming social storm that each one of us would have only one speciality left. There would be nothing worse than in explosive social situations having to determine that anarchists are too much occupied in their own garden to be able to really contribute to the explosion. It would give the most bitter taste of missed opportunities when we, by focussing exclusively on the identitarian ghetto, would abandon the discovery of our accomplices inside of the social storm, to forge ties of shared ideas and practices with other rebels, to break with all forms of mediated communication and representation and in this way opening up space for a true mutuality which is allergic to all power and domination.

But as always we refuse to despair. We are aware that many comrades are searching for possibilities to attack the enemy and to forge ties with other rebels throughout the spreading of anarchist ideas and struggle proposals, in a time and space which consequently abandons all political spectacle. It is probably the most difficult path, because it will never be rewarded. Not by the enemy, not by the masses and most probably neither by the other comrades and revolutionaries. But we are carrying a history inside of us, a history which is connecting us to all anarchists which will obstinately continue to refuse being locked up, be it inside of the ‘official’ anarchist movement, be it in the armed-struggle-ist reflection of it. Those that have always continued to refuse the spreading of ideas being separated from the ways in which we are spreading them, and in this way trying to exile all political mediation, including the claim. Those who don’t care much about who did this or that, but who connect it to their proper revolt, their proper projectuality which expands in the only conspiracy we are looking for: the one of the rebellious individualities for the subversion of the existent.

[November 20, 2011]

Egitto. Come il mare

June 26th, 2015 by Salto

La rivoluzione sociale è come il mare. Le sue onde incalzano, urtano contro gli ostacoli che affiorano, schiacciandoli o indietreggiando. Con tutta la violenza di uno slancio indomabile, distruggono colpo dopo colpo le vestigia del potere, dello sfruttamento e dell’oppressione. Una prima ondata, immensa e inaspettata, ha travolto la dittatura di Mubarak. Una seconda ha fatto ripiegare l’esercito che si apprestava a prendere il potere. Una terza si sta sollevando oggi contro il nuovo ordine che gli islamisti cercano di imporre.

La vera bufera rivoluzionaria non obbedisce a nessun partito, a nessun capo, a nessun potere. Al contrario, essi sono i suoi nemici irreconciliabili. Verranno spazzati via man mano che questa si approfondisce. Tra la rivoluzione sociale che sovvertirà ogni rapporto basato sullo sfruttamento e il potere, e gli impostori, i capi, i padroni, i partiti, i capitalisti, gli autoritari d’ogni pelo, non ci può essere che lotta ad oltranza. Perché la libertà e la fine dello sfruttamento presuppongono la distruzione di ogni potere e del capitalismo.

Non è sorprendente che gli aspiranti al potere cerchino di cavalcare l’ondata rivoluzionaria che si infrange attualmente sul paese del Nilo; non è sorprendente che nuovi leader cerchino di imporsi ingannando e mentendo, aiutati dai media e dai governi del posto che parlano di «opposizione»; non è sorprendente che l’autentico slancio rivoluzionario non sia traducibile da alcun programma di partito, da nessun referendum, da nessuna bandiera e non venga riconosciuto da nessun feudo di potere nel mondo. Certo, coloro che oggi si battono in Egitto contro l’attuale potere non costituiscono un blocco omogeneo, così come non aspirano tutti ad una vera e propria rivoluzione sociale. Le lotte in corso sono attraversate da migliaia di contraddizioni: fra oppositori che esigono un’assemblea costituente senza una preponderante influenza islamista e quelli che non vedono salvezza nella democrazia parlamentare, fra chi si batte per gli aumenti salariali e condizioni di lavoro più accettabili e chi vuole cacciare tutti i padroni, fra quelli che lottano ma senza mai mettere in discussione i pregiudizi, la morale dominante, le tradizioni d’oppressione millenaria e quelle che lottano allo stesso modo contro il potere statale e contro il peso soffocante del patriarcato in una sola medesima battaglia, fra coloro che brandiscono la bandiera nazionale e coloro che legano la propria lotta a quella degli sfruttati d’ogni latitudine… Ma forse è proprio là che si situa la forza della rivoluzione che è in corso in Egitto: al di là di tutte le contraddizioni, essa è nata nelle viscere degli sfruttati e degli oppressi. È qui che si sviluppa l’autentica lotta.

Ciò che accade in Egitto conoscerà echi ovunque ci siano al mondo persone che lottano. Se per anni gli islamisti di ogni tendenza hanno potuto presentarsi come combattenti sociali davanti a milioni di persone sul pianeta, forse la loro maschera cadrà oggi in Egitto, come sta cadendo in altri paesi (pensiamo al sud della Tunisia). La rivoluzione sociale in Egitto sarà forse la tomba degli islamisti e della reazione religiosa che si camuffa in una presunta emancipazione sociale.

Alla base della solidarietà rivoluzionaria internazionale si situa il proprio riconoscimento nelle battaglie che si scatenano altrove. Restare spettatori del sussulto insurrezionale in Egitto può contribuire solo al suo isolamento e al suo soffocamento. Per sostenere e rafforzare il vero slancio rivoluzionario laggiù, quello che vuole farla finita con ogni sfruttamento ed ogni dominio, bisogna agire. Gettarsi nella mischia armati dell’idea della libertà, quella vera.

Riteniamo quindi opportuno lanciare un appello per passare all’attacco, per sostenere, laddove ci troviamo, con le nostre idee e con i nostri mezzi, l’ondata rivoluzionaria in corso in Egitto. Se ad Alessandria, al Cairo, a Malhalla… migliaia di persone si gettano nella mischia perché aspirano a un mondo nuovo, facciamo in modo che ogni rappresentante dello Stato e del capitale egiziano ovunque nel mondo ritrovi il conflitto ricondotto alla propria porta. Che ogni statista, capitalista e servitore dell’ordine del mondo intero senta sul collo il soffio della rivoluzione sociale.

Tessiamo legami d’azione tra focolai insurrezionali dappertutto nel mondo!

Per la distruzione di ogni potere!

[11/1/2013]