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Title: Resignation is Death Author: Lluad Date: April 9th, 2016 Language: en Topics: nihilism, critique, critique of leftism, armed struggle, intellectuals, academy, analysis, anarchist communism, insurrectionary anarchy Source: https://blackbannerdistro.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/resignation-is-death-responding-to-the-negation-of-anarchy-2/
âIt also poses the question: where will the revolutionary energy for the
West come from? We hardly understand our own situation, pressed into
pragmatic decisions based on a complex system of dependencies. Maybe
this is the lesson we have to learn for ourselves: what is the truth of
our common situation that we have to understand to begin? This is the
same reason why no other army right now can push back the IS forces in
Syria. In defending KobanĂȘ, the YPG/YPJ based their defense on this same
consciousness. Nobody could believe that they would free their city; it
goes beyond rationalism. Itâs more about faith in yourself and belief in
your revolutionary energy, which evolves out of your desire to live.
That is the thing that has been nearly beaten out of you if youâve been
raised in Western capitalism.
Another friend added that if you really want to create a new society
based in non-oppressive relationships, youâre trying to build something
that doesnât exist yet. It forms part of a new world, another world. How
could you possibly understand it rationally from your point of view
today? Itâs not in the books. You need to get crazy to overcome the
status quo; you need to be convinced by your fantasy and your desire.
Thatâs your problem in Europe, he concluded: you forgot how to do that.â
â Crimethinc, From Germany to Bakur
Under the present conditions in anglo North American capitalist society
I feel surrounded by a pronounced sense of resignation. As has been said
many times before, those of us who seek an end to the dominant social
order have been passed on a long history of loss. The post WWII eras are
heavily affected by anti-communist rhetoric, and a strong identification
with our roles in the consumer/producer economy. This history has set
the stage for a general lack of solidarity between people, a lack of any
attempt at critical thought or any practice which might break the death
grip of domination.
In the general population, this resignation is at least as old as
industrial capitalism itself. There is, however, something all together
different, a type of resignation that is founded in cynicism, that is in
my estimation, especially louder and more widespread than at any time in
recent history. In my daily life that is outside of anarchist or radical
circles, the cynical resignation I come across most often, is that of
right-wing conspiracy theories. In this manner of viewing the world itâs
all way too crazy to get up off your ass, educate yourself and begin to
deal with the problems that affect you directly, or to challenge the
structures of domination through any kind of act of rebellion, and it
sure as hell is seen as impossible to attack.
Within the context of social movements there are a few types of
resignation that are not so new, of course you have the activists with
revolutionary sympathies who are still petitioning, charity or
non-profit organizing, and doing the âgood workâ in lieu of
revolutionary possibilities. But as time goes on, I am starting to
notice that the agency and practice associated with this tendency is
becoming ever more non-existent. Not only is one forbidden from acting
out their own desires against the dominant social order, but they are
forbidden from thinking for themselves or even seeing themselves, their
agency and desires, as in any way important. Those who claim they want
change in the world are becoming more and more resigned, to sit back and
shut up, with every passing day. When sparks of rebellion (such as in
Ferguson) do occur, the most passive forms of resistance are often
idealized, and the more destructive acts are only legitimized through
privilege politics: ârioting is the voice of the unheardâ âŠuntil that
voice is given a legitimate (community) channel. Sometimes both the
right and the left find common cause in their cynicism, believing the
same conspiracy theories about how the oppressed cannot possibly take
action for themselves. Anything that looks like self-organized direct
action is seen as the work of police to justify their brutality.
In the associated social scenes of the left (DIY queer punk for
example), there is a tendency to disengage all together. Generations of
leftists before them used to idealize and romanticize guerrillas and
popular uprisings in other parts of the world while working towards
statist and reformist ends locally. This newer generation of leftists
chooses to âstep backâ in favour of their local idealized oppressed
taking action. Their practice of ânot taking spaceâ limits the
liberatory space of all, since no one is ever pushing or challenging
boundaries. Those who are opposing the structures of domination as an
immediate means of survival (indigenous rebels for example), are often
limited within the framework of democratic rights and legalistic
political maneuvering, at least partially, by the guilt and comfort
driven resignation that plagues these social scenes.
For a number of years now, and from a completely different angle
entirely, there has been a tendency towards resignation being put
forward by people of a nihilist persuasion, primarily from the west
coast of the United States. The trend has been annoying to watch on the
internet and read about through some of itâs established writing and
publication projects, but hadnât much of an effect in my local circles,
acquaintances and friendships until more recently. What privilege
politicians and right-wing conspiracy theorists lack in admitted
self-importance and critical thought, this tendency vastly eclipses with
a form of cynical resignation based in purely academic activity, with an
over-inflated sense of self-importance placed in their ideas alone. Any
attempt to put ideas into practice which doesnât fall into the
militaristic logic of spectacular attacks on infrastructure, is passed
off as activism, especially if it seeks to communicate with impure and
non-nihilist others.
I hadnât found it necessary to critique this tendency until I started
running into the problem locally. The same people who chose
disengagement from revolutionary activities with the cop-out of
âmanarchismâ who like to distribute zines like âwhy she doesnât give a
fuck about your insurrectionâ now have queer nihilism as their basis for
disengagement. Crust punks now have nihilist patches to add to a litany
of other meaningless symbols. Comrades I meet who are totally fed up
with identity politics and community organizers, but who have not even
tried other routes of attack and engagement, are beginning to see a
passive nihilism based in intellectual posturing as the only alternative
to leftist garbage.
It may be that many of these people would never have chosen a practice
that breaks away from the existent, itâs defenders, and itâs false
critics, no matter what was available to them. But I am not convinced
that cynical resignation or an arrogant hatred of all others who have
not developed critiques of the left (although many have this somewhat
implicitly) will bring us any closer to even glimmers of autonomy, from
which a lived anarchy can be more thoroughly practiced, and in fact
limits our capability to produce it in our daily lives. It may be that
revolution (in a planetary moment) is not, nor ever has, nor will ever
be possible, but that should not stop us from carrying out our desires,
whether in the form of attack or in the development of and attempts to
spread, ideas and rebellious social relationships. This is the only way
that revolution could ever be possible, and since we can never know for
certain whether or not this is impossible, we should avoid cutting
ourselves off from this possibility, no matter what the circumstances.
Insurrectionary anarchists in North America have chosen not to respond
to this nihilist resignation by way of written critique. I know for
myself I have hoped to present my critiques through different active
experiments, but perhaps we havenât been taking seriously the disastrous
effects that the internet is having on communication, and peopleâs
imaginations. I present this piece as someone who sees the left as
something that is fundamentally recuperative, and also quickly dying; as
someone who despises the project of civilization, and also loves the
site of social conflict. Generally, as someone who deeply values and
finds great meaning in lived experiences of conflict, and freedom with
others. And especially as someone who wishes to point out that there are
social ways of conceiving struggle that could leave the left in the dust
it deserves, if we can just begin to experiment with them.
There is, of course, a very active nihilist current that operates
outside of anglo North America. Numerous informal cells are waging
attacks against domination on an international scale. Of course attack
itself is not inherently nihilist or anarchist, neither is signing off
communiques for attacks as that of a coherent group or faction.
Historically, the Galleanists, The Friends of Durruti, and many others
have taken up this practice from an anarchist perspective. In the post
WWII era we have seen such experiments as the Angry Brigade in the UK.
Speaking specifically of the Angry Brigade their actions included a wide
range of targets and purposes. Many of their actions were what has
become a staple of insurrectionary attacks, that of responses to
repression of anarchists. Some of their attacks were directed into
ongoing social tensions of the time. Others were attacks against the
spectacle itself, such as one on the âMiss Worldâ competition, and a few
against consumer society. When these attacks acted as critiques of
society they were not directed necessarily at alienated individuals from
within society but more at the functions and institutions of society
that help to prevent self-organized revolt.
In recent years this practice of experimenting with attack and
communication has gone in a very different direction. This trend appears
to have began partially with the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) in
Italy. At the beginning, members of these cells were part of social
struggles via their participation in local anarchist scenes and spaces.
When they waged attacks it was not out of a stated disdain for others
but as an attempt to expand the range of anarchist activity and
solidarity to rebels (often incarcerated) anarchist and not. Nihilism
was not the declared basis for involvement in these actions, and they
were seen as another experiment on a long list of other activities. The
publication Escalation(2006),which documents the positions of members in
these earlier formations states as itâs purpose:
âWe present these papers together here in order to provoke the debate,
and to get the non-violence/violence issue over and done with, out of
the way, and to provide an understanding of insurrectionary anarchist
practice and theory. We call for greater auto-organized activity, at
whatever level, as long as the conflict is permanent, so that all of our
energies can be focused on the matter at hand. The total destruction of
the market and hierarchy.
The time for talking is over, the time for actions is hereâŠâ
Around the same time as the anti-police insurrection that took place in
Greece in December 2008, a different beginning for this tendency was
taking place. The Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF) developing out of
the youth culture in the city centres of Athens and Thessaloniki, began
waging spectacular attacks. And since this time, nihlism and cynicism
towards revolutionary activity (unless it is coming from nihilists) has
become the dominant philosophy for taking these kinds of actions. All
around the world now, actions claimed under the banner of FAI/IRF and
CCF are being framed as the only real anarchist activity, with websites
like 325.nostate.net acting as a sort of ideological platform for
actions and statements taken out of their social contexts. As has been
pointed out by comrades in Barcelona [1] this tendency has a number of
problems associated with it (even from an insurrectionary perspective),
due to its romanticization, and the arrogance of the statements itâs
cells make, cuts itself off from critique and further development.
In âA Conversation Between Anarchists: Conspiracy of Cells of Fire &
Mexican Anarchistsâ [2] the CCF imprisoned cell illustrate this problem
very well. In the interview they make a claim that they, the CCF, are
the only rightful carriers of an anarchist struggle given that they are
the only anarchist prisoners who carry on their struggle inside of the
prison walls. They claim, for example, that after an escape attempt by
their members, that other anarchists âdid absolutely nothingâ when
jailers were taking their comrades back to prison. This would seem a
fair assessment of the incoherence of some anarchists when faced with
repression, the problem is that they leave out some important
information. In January 2014, when individualist anarchist prisoner
Giannis Naxakis publicly criticized the behavior of some of the CCF
imprisoned cell, for behaving in a manner not different from other
prison gangs; for apologizing to the guards for the âimmatureâ behaviour
of himself and others to prison guards and administration, they ganged
up on him and beat him with stakes, leaving him with broken bones. The
public CCF statement justifying the beating, is written in a tone no
different than you would expect from any Stalinist guerrilla, describing
his critiques as slander, delegitimizing him as an anarchist who isnât
following the correct line that the CCF was laying out [3]. Their line
in relation to the beating would vastly differ from the position they
declare later, in the interview with the Mexican comrades, that a
fundamental basis for an anarchist conception of society would be
constant change âanarchists who donât want to be in it and will carry
out a struggle to reach something different, unknown territories never
explored, territories of more freedomâŠ.new deniers of the existentâ.
Their general tone is instead that of a âwith us or against usâ
attitude. They act as if non-nihilist anarchists have not been carrying
out the same struggle for a long time. For example, the Greek prison
revolts of 2007 were sparked by the beating of anarchist bank robber
Giannis Dimitrakis. Is it not unreasonable that the divisions the CCF
have intentionally forged between imprisoned âanarchists of actionâ
might have created the context for the silence they describe from the
other anarchist prisoners? Or perhaps that they are over-embellishing
the silence of these other prisoners?
It should be taken into consideration that we are talking about the
psychology of those who are facing extreme repression at the hands of
the greek state as well as a high level of disdain from the broader
leftist anarchist tradition in greece. The fact that the state is
presently charging many anarchists arrested for clandestine attacks and
bank robberies as members of the CCF, regardless of their actual
identification with the label, as well as the star power they are
receiving internationally canât help but contribute to the paranoia the
imprisoned cell may feel. Of course these comrades didnât help
themselves with this from the beginning by forming a quantitative
informal anarchist organization, an identification with a label, a tally
of attacks, an evaluation of pricier targets, etc. Rather they do not
treat informal organization as qualitative, a tool to be used in the
struggle for anarchy, a means of fluid organization and resisting
representation. For example, is it any better to have the CCF describing
the doâs and donâtâs of real anarchists, legitimizing or delegitimizing
the activities of other anarchists based on their own doctrine than it
is from a card carrying Anarchist Federation member?
I donât intend on placing these actions and positions on everyone who
makes the CCF/FAI/IRF their project around the world. I am merely
pointing out the pitfalls of creating âus and themâ complexes, that cut
out, or ignore any possibilities for struggle that do not necessarily
fall into either the âreal anarchistâ camp, or the leftist camp. I have
faith that the informal anarchist possibility is stronger and more
flexible than such a rhetorical position.
There are certainly some in the anglo north american context who treat
the CCF/FAI/IRF as a stand-in for their own struggle against the
existent. They have the romantic tales of warriors abroad that hold
similar positions to them as previous generations of revolutionaries had
Che Guevara in their time. I also know that there are many who are
simply inspired by the attack for all its potential. I can relate to
this, but I feel we might be setting a trap for ourselves if we canât
separate the attack, informality, and a break from the left, from a
purist and âholier than thouâ attitude. This attitude, itâs disdain for
others who donât practice informality and specific forms of attack,
which often comes from a nihilist perspective, also exists here in north
america.
Looking into the Mexican context we can see a certain digression taking
place. The Autonomous Cells for Immediate Revolution â Praxedis G
Guerrero (CARI-PGG) were one of the more interesting examples of the new
anarchist guerrilla tactic who carried out a number of bombings in 2011
and did not place themselves âaboveâ social movements and insurrections
whether as vanguardist guides or as purist arrogant snobs. It is unclear
why they disbanded. Individuals Tending Towards Savagery (ITS), who also
started claiming attacks in 2011, and whoâs focus of attacks against
progress and technology are perhaps the only interesting thing about
them, are unfortunately a shining example of the purist militaristic
logic that has been applied to an avowedly anti-social position. One
that at least some nihilists in the anglo north american context, who
seek whatever seems the most âbadassâ thing to be âintoâ, as an
understandable but wholly uninspiring reaction to the morality of
pacifists and grassroots politicians within social struggles here, are
uncritically cheerleading and apathetically holding up as a sacred cow.
Ironically, people are seemingly technologically alienated â glued to
the very technology that ITS is trying to attack, passively consuming
the spectacle of these attacks, and so lost in the anti-social positions
they then consume, that they cannot break themselves out of their social
isolation, and turn their rage into revolt.
âLetâs destroy the spectacle of representation and Iâll be the first to
break the microphone!â â Jean Weir, Armed Struggle and the Revolutionary
Movement
America
âAn awareness of how the whole society is structured to facilitate
social control has directed the insurrectionalists in Barcelona with a
more nihilist character to define all of society as the enemy and, in so
doing, assuring their own self-isolation. There are those nihilists who
define âsocietyâ as âinstitutionalized society.â It seems to us little
more than a word game to be able to utter slogans as extreme, appalling,
and cocky as âwe want to destroy society.â Because of the etymology of
the word âsociety,â the historical non-universality of the massified
institutions and forms that are what the nihilists really want to
destroy, and the lack of another term to signify a human collectivity
bound somehow by distinct types of communication, it seems much more
sensible to reclaim the term âsocietyâ as something neutral that can be
hierarchical and institutionalized or not. To signify that which the
nihilists want to destroy just as much as we do, the terms ânation,â
âcitizenry,â âthe public,â âsocial classes,â âmass society,â or âsociety
of the spectacleâ could be used.â â Another Critique of
Insurrectionalism, Anonymous
Anglo North Americaâs versions of nihilist anarchism differ greatly from
what one finds elsewhere in that they function primarily as an
intellectual endeavor. As I stated earlier, critical thinking is
becoming very lacking these days, the left and the associated social
scenes of the left donât exhibit a great deal more capacity for this
than the rest of society. On the left, there are strict programs and
ideological lines to follow, when one takes action, it is expected to be
with a martyristic attitude, generally cut off from any theoretical
development. As a consequence, anarchists who wish to break from the
leftist stranglehold on social struggle have been very committed to
developing their theoretical capacities. This is certainly a good thing.
Thinking about what one is doing is very important so that one can find
the fluidity necessary to change with the circumstances, as well as to
avoid following blindly. Though, there is a problem I see developing in
that anarchists are now taking another reactionary approach to
intellectualism. Unlike the anti-intellectualism one finds across most
of western society, this other trend in modern anarchism is developing a
disdain for practice, and most notably a practice relating to social
struggle, choosing instead to wall themselves up in intellectualism.
The justification for this is commonly an antisocial position. The broad
spectrum of individuals that we see trapped in this cage we call
âsocietyâ are beginning to fill the opposing side of another âus and
themâ complex. This arrogance is certainly imported from the CCF and
others abroad. I myself, until very recently, also spoke of a war on
society in such a sloppy manner. But I think we all need to reconsider
the way in which we use the term âsocialâ and by extension âsocietyâ. As
well, if such a sloppy terminology is a fundamental position for many
nihilists, they may have a great deal more to reconsider.
The journal Baedan, and itâs 2012 publication The Anti-Social Turn [4]
is perhaps the hallmark North-American nihilist articulation of this
problematic relationship to society. Itâs fundamental premise is a break
down of Lee Edelmanâs book No Future, and proposes a queer nihlist
anarchist expansion of the subjects contained in the book. While The
Anti-Social Turn makes an effort to propose a practice of attack, and a
rejection of activism as a result of their analysis, the conclusions
they draw would seem to leave little possibility for experimentation,
and thereby leave one with nothing other than a non-academic
intellectualism, in place of an anarchist theory one develops through
practice.
One proposal in the Anti-Social Turn is âpure negativityâ from an
anarchist perspective. This is put forward from the experience of
queerness. This society, in trying to create subordinate
intergenerational human productive machines, has historically attempted
to repress and kill off queerness and any deviation from the project of
capitalist progress and development. In modern times in North America,
queerness is quickly being incorporated into the structure of
capitalism. Those who hold the most conservative positions in upholding
capitalist family values have reacted to this, trying to identify it as
a threat. The response that No Future and by extension The Anti-Social
Turn has to this is to reject the recuperative aspects of queer
subcultures, and queer capitalism by taking ownership of the perceived
threat that queerness may have to the social order. This is certainly
understandable since this society has, and should have, nothing to offer
us. But this perspective, upon further examination, takes us to a dead
end which is most clearly identified when extended to an anarchist
relationship to social struggle against the structures of domination.
The Anti-Social Turn identifies a number of anarchist projects (Food Not
Bombs etc) that it sees as fundamentally recuperable. It also identifies
the problematic positive positions that many leftist anarchists take in
response to the charges of negativity from anarchist actions against
domination. The problem is that it creates a number false distinctions
in these challenges to the anarchist milieu. The problem with positive
anarchist projects of self-organization is not simply that they propose
an alternative to domination, but that they are often separated from a
relationship of social conflict. A community garden can very easily be
incorporated into the project of gentrification, but it is an altogether
different project when it takes a conflictual approach to legality,
property and civil society. The problem with anarchist proposals of
direct democracy and social justice, isnât simply that these are
alternatives, but that they are alternatives that try to make us
legitimate to civil society. Our positive projects are vital in
proposing and practicing a manner of living that breaks from the
structures of domination, meeting our individual-collective needs and
desires; driving wedges between the identity of the rebel who desires
another life, and that of the productive white person or citizen who
wants to make society more caring and fine-tuned.
In the critique of a positive anarchist possibility, The Anti-Social
Turn would appear to leave us with nothing other than hopeless attack.
Of course in pointing out the recuperative problems of many anarchist
projects, from co-operative businesses to independent media to social
spaces, they conveniently leave out the recuperative problems one finds
too, in attack. In the more high profile examples of attack we have seen
here in so-called âCanadaâ, from the 2010 anti-olympics convergence, to
the Toronto G20, to the 2012 student strike in Montreal, it is clear
that attack is just as vulnerable to being labelled militant reformism,
as any other project is to its own recuperation. Of course, nihilists
might immediately counter that this is due to the context of these
actions occurring within broad-based social movements; but I think the
problem lies in their conflation of communication with representation.
While attack for itâs own sake is highly valuable, it is vital that when
anarchists attack, we must find whatever avenues possible to make our
attacks communicative to other individuals and groups who might seek a
break from participation in this society, to avoid the trap of being
represented by liberal and leftist proposals.
While the nihilists would have us attack until caught, and hunger strike
until death, all for our own sake, I would propose instead that we seek
to spread subversive relationships of conflict at whatever level, for
the personal joy we may get out of seeing domination lose itâs grip
across every social terrain. It is also helpful to point out that like
repression, recuperation can always be a consequence of our actions.
These are the two favored responses that power has towards rebellion.
Since the nihilists would not have us stop the attack for fear of
repression, does it make any sense that we stop experimenting with any
other self-organized activity, simply because power will always respond?
This is also leaving out the problem of passive consumption of internet
communiques, and the spectacularized images that flash across anarchist
media projects like submedia. Whether from the active or passive
perspectives, these mediated forms of communication can influence and
change the ways we relate to the world in a manner the can fall out of
our own control. We must not allow the terms of revolt, or our
relationships to be set by anyone other than ourselves. This would
require an active and experimental approach that if we are serious
enough that we want anarchy in our lives, we would not shy away from.
In the book Attentat, another North American nihilist publication,
insurrectionary anarchism is taken on as just another form of activism,
by the simplistic criteria that acts are carried out, therefore it is
activism. In the piece Professional Anarchy and Theoretical Disarmament
(coming out of Spain)[5], Miguel Amoros criticizes Alfredo Bonannoâs
influence on insurrectionary anarchism. The article lays out Bonannoâs
theoretical development through the rise and fall of the revolutionary
social movements in Italy in the seventies and into the period after.
The article points out like many others, the failure of insurrectionary
anarchism to respond more effectively to repression, but fails quite
miserably in its assumption that anarchist initiatives are failures
because no revolution has occurred. One wonders what would have become
of the anarchist movement in Italy had no break been made from the
suffocating control of anarcho-syndicalism and an industrialist logic
based purely in the identity of the worker. Amoros, coming from a more
staunchly materialist perspective, also finds no value in the
individualist nature of autonomous self-organization, and cannot grasp
the concept that the mass is made up of individuals and therefore the
individual is central to revolutionary activity. Given that anarchists
are individuals with specific ideas about revolution we can then begin
to act, personally and collectively, from the place of these desires,
with the understanding that the rest of the exploited might develop
their own ideas through acts of rebellion. Being unwilling to consider
the needs of the individual who may be able to consider more than their
role in the economy, Amoros writes this off as âvanguardismâ.
This is all very strange however, considering that the editors of
Attentat are nihilists and donât appear to share the same critiques as
Amoros from a theoretical perspective. In Insurrectionary Anarchism as
Activism, the piece in which they lay out their reasons for including
the Amoros article, the only worth the nihilists can find in
insurrectionary acts, is exactly the opposite: individual satisfaction.
As said earlier, they claim insurrectionary anarchism to be essentially
âactivistâ and their positions on action to be a form of morality. I
canât speak for other anarchists influenced by insurrectionary anarchism
but I know for myself that I do not push it forward as ideology. Many of
the insurrectionaries I have met have a wide variety of influences,
contexts that they apply their lessons to, and projects that they engage
in, hardly the sign of a rigid and inflexible ideology.
From the fact that they actually have no affinity at all with Amoros,
but publish his critique as if they find something profound in it at
all, to the fact that they provide no definition of activism or leftism
â except perhaps to suggest that âthe left in a peculiar formâ, implies
anyone who takes an active opposition to the state and capitalism. And
finally that in response to their charges of activism, that they make no
attempt to articulate what they actually intend to get out of âwaitingâ
instead. From my perspective, their charges amount to little more than
name calling. Perhaps most crudely of all, their name calling is
articulated in their suggestion that North American insurrectionaries
all came out of a culture of DIY skill-shares and bike fixing. To what
extent this might be at all true (though quite rare in my experience),
we can apply much of what Bonanno developed in Italy to our varying
contexts. Much of the same principles of number padding, public
education instead of action, and disdain for self-organization and
autonomous action can be applied to the DIY queer and non-profit milieu
that dominate grassroots social struggles here.
If the nihilists see insurrectionary anarchists as âclosest to themâ but
direct their âcritiquesâ in such a disingenuous manner, one wonders what
their actual intent is. I canât help but assume that they are merely
looking for others to have a conversation with, and wish that others who
hate the left would stop making so much goddamn noise. For all their
attempts to distance themselves from contemporary anarchist institutions
such as AK Press and projects like the Institute for Anarchist Studies,
I donât see much difference in effect. I find it trivial at best that
their intellectualizing is extending outside of the university, and the
history of social struggle. I find their proposals (or lack thereof) to
be no less civilizing or pacifying. Just as anarchy is not direct
democracy, militant reformism, or the self-management of my
exploitation, it certainly is no philosophy class either.
If I am ever found melting back into the fabric of white-supremacist,
misogynist, class society through inaction; if I am ever stepping away
from the practice of attack due to the realities of isolation and
repression; if I am doubtful that a mass uprising of the participating
controlled and exploited is ever possible, I never want it to be through
pretensions of reaching a higher theoretical plane, calling itself
anarchism.
I hope that other anarchists out there can continue to keep in mind that
there is a vast array of possibilities for mutual aid, autonomy, and
freedom which include neither the activist with itâs head cut off, the
liberal with itâs sustainable gardening project, the victimized
first-world-third-worldist, nor the stuffy intellectual or the arrogant
hipster. The secret is to really begin.
In Laughing at the Futility of it All [6], a recent interview with
Hostis journal, Aragorn, one of the more noted anarchist nihilist
writers in North America, articulates some of his often more
deliberately confusing positions. The interview covers a wide range of
subjects, from second wave anarchism, to nihilism, to Aragornâs
publication projects, and humor. One subject Iâd like to deal with here,
is the label âstrugglismoâ, with which he paints anarchists who
intervene in social struggles. Aragorn starts off this point by likening
anarchists who desire to participate in social conflict to grumpy Murray
Bookchins who see all anarchist projects outside of the workplace or
civil society as âlifestyle anarchismâ [7]. He then goes on to claim
that his label is more applicable to anarchists in the Bay Area where he
lives, and that he doesnât have the âskill setâ to judge a wide variety
of situations, but then immediately changes his tune by giving examples
outside of the Bay Area.
âTo put this a different way, the Strugglismo perspective is looking for
other peopleâs struggles to intervene in, much the same way as alphabet
soup communists of front organizations (many of which have seduced
anarchists). Their strategy is borrowed from the Italian insurrectionary
anarchist movement, but it is quite different. Letâs see if you can tell
the difference. Around 2009, the Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Puget
Sound area began to throw events such as banner and flyer drops around
the issue of police violence against the local population. While in the
early 2000s (as early as 1995 by some estimates), locals around the
Italian town of Val Susa began to sabotage and protest the building of a
high speed rail line in the town. Insurrectionary Anarchists came to
participate in No-TAV. This distinction, between intervention by
parachute versus by political desire, is a core anarchist question (and
concern). The unfair characterization of Strugglismo points to the
characteristics it shares with activists of the NGO, anti-globalization,
and âally not accomplice â variety. Again, this is not about an
individual but an approach.
That said, I think that anarchists should be involved in unsexy,
difficult, and slow infrastructure work. This seems to have fallen out
of popularity due to its lack of social rewards (for many, it is a lot
more fun to go drinking after the riot than to do Food Not Bombs). But
so-called activists doing prisoner support, food infrastructure,
collective housing, etc. continue to have my respect and attention.â
His counter position of âparachuteâ vs âpolitical desireâ is laughable
here. Anarchists in Italy move (even geographically) to other contexts
and struggles which could be considered just as much ânot theirsâ as
could be the case for American anarchists fighting against the police as
a murderous institution of domination. The anarchists in the Puget Sound
(2009 â 2012) not only did banner drops and flyering as a response to
police killings [8], they engaged in small acts of property destruction,
they organized autonomous assemblies to strategize and co-ordinate with
other anarchists on how to intervene, and they participated in street
demonstrations in a manner that broke the situation out of the control
of leftists who tried to manage them. It is interesting that he leaves
out the trajectory that the anti-police struggles in the Pacific
Northwest took after 2009 since this would take away from the narrative
of futility of anarchist action that he usually likes to throw at
situations in North America.
Further still, Aragorn goes on to praise anarchist infrastructure as a
worthwhile substitute for anarchist interventions in social struggles,
that might be tainted by the baggage of authoritarian communism that has
historically been so strong in North America. Interesting as well, that
he doesnât write off anarchist action altogether, for him only the most
spectacular forms of sabotage are worthwhile. I ask though, what is
infrastructure or attack, if it is not linked in some way to a struggle,
a tension, or a trajectory?
Here in Vancouver, some of us started an anarchist social space at the
end of 2013. Unlike another anarchist social space a couple years
earlier, it has received little support from the broader radical milieu.
Part of the problem has been gentrification: the inability of many to
stay in the city for long periods of time, and to take time away from
the grind for discussion. Another part of the problem is the subcultures
and identity politics that much of the guilty milieu has retreated into.
There are a few collective houses around which espouse
anti-authoritarian politics, but are unable to take ownership of any
kind of political desire and extend these words into anything
meaningful, beyond perhaps a âsafeâ space from the horrible world we are
surrounded by or a hip scene that reproduces its own passivity in much
that same way as any group of friends out there without queer or
anti-oppression politics. The biggest difference of all between this
social space and the previous one is that there are very few struggles
which anarchists are currently engaged in with very much effect. At the
time that the other anarchist space was operating, the struggle against
the Olympics in Vancouver made many people excited about anarchist ideas
and direct action. At present there is a vicious cycle of
behind-the-back shit-talk, and confusion about anarchist ideas stemming
from an inability it put them into practice. The infrastructure is
there, but has very little purpose.
Starting back in the seventies in âCanadaâ, a struggle for the rights of
prisoners started out of hunger strikes by prisoners in Southern
Ontario. Since then, an organization representing rights for prisoners
called âPrison Justiceâ has been active in Vancouver. Through the
eighties and nineties, anarchists were involved in this organization
locally. These efforts had very little linkage to a broader anarchist
struggle (or even a broader prisonerâs struggle), and there had very
seldom been any anarchist prisoners other than the prisoners of Direct
Action in that time period. The organization is now more or less a
non-profit society focused only on providing much needed resources to
prisoners locally, holding annual vigil events on Prison Justice Day,
and is mostly too scared of losing its privileges inside the prison
system to connect these efforts to a social movement or struggle in the
streets. Newer generations of anarchists have had a great deal of
trouble trying to make meaningful contact with organizers from this
group, and have at times met outright hostility. Amélie Trudeau and
Fallon Rouiller-Poisson, two Montreal comrades who were imprisoned in
Mexico recently, highlighted this problem very well when they distanced
themselves from an event (organized by another prison oriented
organization) held in solidarity with them and other âpolitical
prisonersâ that they saw prison reformism and support for âpolitical
prisonersâ as fundamentally a project of recuperation when not linked to
a broader struggle, in any form, against the structures of domination
[9]. Of course, Aragorn isnât referring so much to these organizations,
but more to the Anarchist Black Cross, it shouldnât be hard to see
however that such efforts can also become recuperating, as in only
focussed on rights and resources, if the anarchist space was not engaged
in continual conflict and subversion on the outside or the inside.
In the late spring of 2014, a house of anarchists and indigenous rebels
was raided by the Vancouver police. The raid was in response to a number
of arsons, window smashings and anarchist graffiti, including the
infamous and viral âNo Pipelinesâ tag around East Vancouver that year,
that had taken place in the city over the previous two years. Some of
these attacks had taken place in the context of anti-gentrification
tensions, and others in solidarity with prisoners internationally. Aside
from the âNo Pipelinesâ tags, these actions were not tied effectively to
anarchist projects of counter-information or street demonstrations, and
often lacked meaningful relationships with the struggles they intended
to support. The communication for these actions took the form of
âanarchistnewsâ posts that only communicated with disconnected anarchist
individuals on the internet. After the raid it was very hard to take an
offensive response to the raid, whether the comrades were involved in
the actions or not, given that the attacks and communication of the
attacks were not part of broader anarchist tensions and meaningful
interventions into social struggles. The overall context not only made
some comrades more vulnerable to repression, but even made a response
which could have turned the raid into a more uncontrollable situation
totally impossible.
Stepping away from specific examples about infrastructure, Iâd like to
give another example about attack and interventions into social
struggles that I think highlights the headspace of some of Aragornâs
critiques. When I was in Montreal in May of 2012, there was a strong
anti-authoritarian tension in the streets as a result of repression of
the student strike that was going on at the time. There were nightly
illegal demonstrations of thousands, which often had a very small
minority that fought the police and attacked property. Aragorn, who was
in Montreal for the anarchist book fair, was interviewed for a local
independent radio station (10). The interview was focused primarily on
anti-civ and indigenous perspectives on anarchism. Hid did at one point
however, turn his attention to the conflicts that were happening in the
streets at the time, only to point out how âeffectiveâ the police were
at controlling demonstrations. This was a rather absurd position to take
considering that it was such a small number of people (including
anarchists) who were taking a combative approach in the streets. If the
police were effective, it was more because of the passive approach that
99% of the people at the demonstrations were taking, not because of the
futility of such actions in themselves, or because of the unbearable
power they had. Aragorn was more than happy to discourage the entire
social tension in the streets and those carrying out attacks, more or
less promoting a kind of nihilist counter-insurgency in the face of the
possibility of expansive revolt. Those who might have been fed up with
the leftist manipulation of the masses, taking advice from such an
argument, would have felt the best way to engage such a critique would
not be to practice self-organized revolt, but instead to order books
from LBC and maybe join an online discussion forum.
In my estimation, Aragorn and other North American nihilists, focus more
on futility and fruitlessness in struggle, not because they are
concerned with the recuperation that can come from social struggles, but
more because they are seeking affirmation and a larger network of study
partners. Aragornâs publishing projects, including Little Black Cart,
are exciting at times because of the broader range of thought that they
allow rather than what one might often get out of AK Press or PM Press.
Theory, like infrastructure, is highly valuable to a social struggle.
The activist martyrs who eschew theory in relation to practice certainly
hold a paternalistic viewpoint that suggests we cannot educate
ourselves, as part of our liberation. But like theory and
infrastructure, action and communication are vital to give the former
two meaning, and to ensure that they actually have an effect in the real
world.
So Strugglisti, struggle on! And never forget to think and build, as you
act, so that you do not struggle in vain! And to those throughout North
America, who are smothered under the weight of the left and identity
politics, do not let pretensions of theoretical sophistication civilize
or pacify your rebel spirit nor strangle your abilities to find
accomplices in the fight for liberation!
In conclusion, I think it might be necessary to go back to The
Anti-Social Turn for a second. I think the reason it finds such
resonance among young anarchists, especially those radicalized in the
post-occupy period is the fact that it addresses the lack of a future
that many across society are beginning to recognize. The current context
of capitalist exploitation is one in which all possible dreams for
autonomy from it are crushed. The welfare state is in severe decline and
it is unlikely it will ever bounce back. Recuperation is becoming more
and more effective while offering less and less all the time. Due to
environmental catastrophe and social crises, capitalism is having to
quickly change. In this context, a complete cynicism about the future is
an obvious response, and as anarchists, we should certainly welcome a
lack of identification with the future of capitalism.
The Anti-Social Turn proposes an equally narrow minded relationship to
the concept of the future as it does to society, however. In tying
together Lee Edelmanâs critique of capitalist control over the future
via the interests of the capitalist family unit (signified by the child)
and hostility to queerness, with Silvia Fredericiâs point about how an
attack on womenâs bodily autonomy was essential for the future of
capitalism (in Caliban and the Witch), the authors of The Anti-Social
Turn do their best to limit revolutionary possibilities for the future,
and by extension, the present. The repression of queer sexuality, the
commons, and womenâs autonomy over their bodies, a conflict of the
future of early capitalism with the interests of the peasant who had âno
care for the futureâ, should not signify to us that the future itself is
inherently capitalist; but that the medieval european peasants cared
little for the future of the economy (what else could the future mean
for capitalism?) since their own present entailed the seeds of their
liberatory desire. Do we imagine for one second that these peasants
experienced no joy in raising their children in such a present. Those of
us in the modern context of near total domination should not take this
history lesson as a pure rejection of the future, but instead as a
lesson in the pasts which have existed without domination, even in itâs
shadow, and the possible futures. Is it so impossible to imagine a
future or past in which there are no white people, and queer genders and
sexualities are as mundane as heterosexuality? These are the
possibilities we cut ourselves off from when we surrender our
perceptions of time to capitalism, and imprison ourselves in our
obsessions with negation, when we cut ourselves off from a projectual
approach which seeks out accomplices, which we can then begin to
practice in both positive and negative ways.
âThe social struggles of the Middle Ages must also be remembered because
they wrote a new chapter in the history of liberation. At their best,
they called for an egalitarian social order based upon the sharing of
wealth and the refusal of hierarchies and authoritarian rule. These were
to remain utopias. Instead of the heavenly kingdom whose advent was
prophesied in the preaching of the heretics and millenarian movements,
what issued from the demise of feudalism were disease, war, famine, and
death â the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, as represented in Albrecht
Durerâs famous print â true harbingers of the new capitalist era.
Nevertheless, the attempts that the medieval proletariat made to âturn
the world upside downâ must be reckoned with; for despite their defeat,
they put the feudal system into crisis and, in their time, they were
âgenuinely revolutionary,â as they could not have succeeded without âa
radical reshaping of the social orderâ (Hilton, 1973: 223-4). Reading
the âtransitionâ from the viewpoint of the anti-feudal struggle of the
Middle Ages also helps us to reconstruct the social dynamics that lay in
the background of the English Enclosures and the conquest of the
Americas, and above all unearth some of the reasons why in the 16th and
17th centuries the extermination of the âwitches,â and the extension of
state control over every aspect of reproduction, became the cornerstones
of primitive accumulation.â â Sylvia Frederici, Caliban and the Witch
[10]
I remember when I first read Caliban and the Witch how this realization
jumped out at me. How excited I felt that opposition to domination was
not simply a matter of western progressivism or something that came
explicitly out of the enlightenment. It is interesting how the authors
of Baedan miss this point: that the freedom loving desires of the
european peasants of that era were not simply a negation of the future,
but existed in the context of a fight for a liberated one. It is funny
how so many nihilists are quick to write off revolution as a goal, and
point out how marxism and anarchism alike are a continuation of the
pleas for liberation that often came through a Christian framework
before. But they miss a very encouraging lesson from this; that the
desire for a complete change in the world towards a liberating form of
life is a common response to the misery of domination. And from the
Ghost Dance, to the Peublo Revolts, to the Maji Maji Rebellion [11] we
have numerous examples that might tell us that this millenarian tendency
is not merely something that comes from a Western context of the
Christianized. An exciting possibility that anarchism, not only as
negation, but as a positive proposition could be relevant in an infinite
variety of ways.
As conditions degrade and the world continues to unravel, the
millenarian tendency in human beings who are stuck under the boot of
domination is bound to resurge in response. The question is, are we
going to let Christian fascists and others who might want to continue
the horror of hierarchy be the only ones who attempt to provide an
alternative? [12]
Of course, I am not pointing out this millenarian tendency or
possibility with the intention to craft a kind of anarchist liberation
theology in place of the nihilist trend. Instead I want to argue that
anarchists can take strength in our vision, and put that vision into
practice. As in the case of millenarian movements across the globe, and
any struggle for radical social transformation, vision is utterly
indispensable to a project of immediate revolt.
Anarchy requires strength, vision, knowledge and care as much as it does
rage and destruction. It requires that we do not fall into the despair
that so many others have. It requires that we practice social revolt in
the face of social control. That we do not allow technology and the
dumbing down of society to strain our relationships, and our capacity to
dream. At the very least, it requires that we are not practicing the
counter-insurgency of Alex Jones and all the others who say that our
revolt is impossible, and there can never be consequences to our
actions.
In our attempts to honour the negation inherent to the anarchist
tradition let us ensure that we are not negating anarchy too.
Resignation is death.
Revolt is life.
The anarchist project demands more.
âOUR TASK as anarchists, our main preoccupation and greatest desire, is
to see the social revolution come about: a terrible upheaval of men and
institutions which finally succeeds in putting an end to exploitation
and establishing a reign of justice.
For we anarchists the revolution is our guide, our constant point of
reference, no matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned
with. The anarchy we want will not be possible without the painful
revolutionary break. If we want to avoid turning this into no more that
a dream we must struggle to destroy the State and exploiters through
revolution.â â Alfredo Bonanno, Why Insurrection
[1] âAn Anarchist Response to the Nihilistsâ,
oplopanaxpublishing.files.wordpress.comâAnother Critique of
Insurrectionalismâ,
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-another-critique-of-insurrectionalism
[2] actforfree.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Conversation-book.pdf
[3] actforfree.nostate.net/?s=naxakis
[4] âBaedanâ, http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/baedan-baedan
[5] libcom.org/library/professional-anarchy-theoretical-disarmament-insurrectionism-miguel-amorĂłs
[6] âLaughing at the Futility of it allâ, incivility.org/?p=97
[7] âAnarchy After Leftismâ,
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-anarchy-after-leftism
[8] âBurning the Bridges They are Buildingâ,
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-burning-the-bridges-they-are-building-anarchist-strategies-against-the-police-in-the
[9] âopen Letter from Amelie and Fallonâ,
theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fallon-rouiller-and-amelie-trudeau-open-letter-from-amelie-and-fallon
[10] libcom.org/library/caliban-witch-silvia-federici
[11] In 1890, The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement incorporated
into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings
of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka (renamed Jack Wilson),
proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of
the dead, bring the spirits of the dead to fight on their behalf, make
the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to
native peoples throughout the region.â The Pueblo revolt of 1680 was an
uprising of most of the Pueblo people against the spanish colonizers, in
present day New Mexico.
The Maji Maji Rebellion, was an armed insurgency against German colonial
rule in modern-day Tanzania. The war was triggered by a German policy
designed to force the indigenous population to grow cotton for export,
and lasted from 1905 to 1907. The insurgents turned to magic to drive
out the German colonizers and used it as a unifying force in the
rebellion. A spirit medium named Kinjikitile Ngwale claimed to be
possessed by a snake spirit called Hongo. Ngwale began calling himself
Bokero and developed a belief that the people of âGerman East Africaâ
had been called upon to eliminate the Germans. German anthropologists
recorded that he gave his followers war medicine that would turn German
bullets into water. This âwar medicineâ was in fact water (maji in
Kiswahili) mixed with castor oil and millet seeds. Empowered with this
new liquid, Bokeroâs followers began the Rebellion.
[12] An earlier version of this essay was responded to on The Brilliant
Podcast (http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-eighteen-desert-ii/) by
Aragorn and his co-host. It was a rushed version, unedited, and perhaps
didnât explain the purpose for the last section of the essay very well.
In spite of their responses, I still think the original arguments stand
up as this essay is a response to the effects the nihilist tendency is
having in my own circles, and not so much an attempt at an ego battle.