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Title: Without Detour
Author: Anonymous
Date: Autumn 2018
Language: en
Topics: insurrectionary, Sans Détour, The Local Kids, The Local Kids #2
Source: Translated for The Local Kids, Issue 2
Notes: First appeared as the editorial of Sans Détour (journal anarchiste apériodique), Issue 0, June 2018

Anonymous

Without Detour

It’s useless to deny it or to look away: with each flare of lucidity we

have the feeling of living in an age where cynical realism and

disillusion reign. A time where relations are increasingly mediated by

technologies, leading to the loss of meaning and the belief that nothing

can be changed about it. A time of generalized dispossession and

collective apathy; where nothing much opposes the domination of money,

the exploitation and commodification of every element of the globe, of

every piece of life (down to the most intimate), the devastation and

poisoning of the earth, the growing hold of the police and army on our

lives. For the rich, the bosses and the statesmen, business prospers.

Whereas a part of the exploited - not believing anymore in the tales of

democracy and progress – seems attracted to the nationalist pest, to the

identitarian dogmas and to the religious straitjackets - preaching

exclusion and a return to traditional values. Weighed down by the mental

idiocy, the social cannibalism and the reactionary ignorance,

revolutionary horizons seem to recede from our existence.

Nonetheless, a flicker stays glowing. For those who know to look for

them - here and there - revolts and conflicts disrupt social peace,

attacks break through the night, rebellious solidarity is forged. So

breaking with the routine of obedience and resignation, and arousing our

will to continue to fight, to hope and think that nothing is lost. As

anarchists we hold a stake in these diffuse conflicts. For us, anarchism

is neither an identity, nor a cocoon woven with certainties in which one

can settle comfortably, looking down on a world that doesn’t belong to

us. It is an idea we carry in our hearts, a tension that navigates our

actions, a will that drives us. In short, a relation to the world that

cannot be developed but in disparity with this one. There is an other

world, but it is in and staunchly against this one.

Hostile against all authority, recalcitrant against all political

strategy and manoeuvre, contrary to delegation and passivity, we

endeavour to reflect upon, to understand the reality that surrounds us

to sharpen the arms of critique and to search new angles of attack.

Because this other world we should cherish, defend, grow, spread. And to

this end we need space, to sweep away this one.

In an age of continuous connection, of virtual social networks, of

flicking through and superficiality, we want to make an effort, to

challenge ourselves and others: to evade the bright lights of the

ongoing spectacle, breaking with the urgency of being part of it. In

order to take the necessary time to exchange and confront positions,

deepen ideas and nourish subversive perspectives and projects. To get

rid of preconceived thoughts, reflexes conditioned by habit, to move

away from roads already marked out. To venture onto unforeseen paths.

But also to take on and amplify the multiplicity, by undermining the

superficial and hypocritical consensus and unity that are always needed

by the politicians and recuperators of revolt.

So a journal to bring forward ideas that don’t belong to a homogeneous

and monolithic group, but that emanate from individuals. Forging them

along their imaginaries, their experiences and their respective

tensions.

A journal that – recognizing the scourge that constitutes any collective

identity – doesn’t look for any other interlocutor than the stray

individuals in search of freedom, thinking far away from the shadow of a

chapel.

A journal that isn’t dependent on the current events of the “movement”,

but that searches to interact with the rebels of its time. Bringing to

the table, on occasion, suggestions for the ongoing struggles.

A journal that doesn’t want to cling on to all the social conflicts, but

that at times sees there a terrain favourable to subversion.

A journal that digs recklessly through the arsenal of distant subversive

experiences, in time and space, as to enrich our present perspectives.

A journal that – attached to this anarchist principle according to which

all separations between what is said and done should be abolished –

doesn’t want to take part in the forum of sterile and inoffensive

opinions, but undertakes to strengthen the bond between thought and

action.

A journal that is also this; an opportunity for those who write it, an

invitation for those who read it.

We are a minority in the minority. But that doesn’t bring us to renounce

a part of ourselves, to silence our disagreement or to feint agreement

in order to grow in numbers. Because the quest for quantity at all costs

is irreconcilable with authenticity and singularity, real precious

sprouts that have to shoot up in all domains of life, and so also in the

complicities that we want to concoct.

The upheaval of this world will not arise from objective conditions,

political strategies or alliances between different social groups. But

rather the propagation of surges of freedom, rage and disproportionate

dreams, the abundance of individual initiatives and of fights to

undertake in chorus. And it is to this that we want to contribute. With

hate and love, poetry and humour. But, straightforwardly.