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Title: Insurrectionary Mutual Aid Author: Curious George Brigade Language: en Topics: anti-globalization, CrimethInc., direct action, insurrectionist, mutualist, propaganda of the deed Source: Retrieved on June 11, 2009 from http://aftershockaction.blogspot.com/2007/04/insurrectionary-mutual-aid.html Notes: From the Curious George Brigade zine.
While too many anarchists wring their hands about the end of the
rollicking anti-globalization mobilizations of the last decade, others
are conspiring a resistance of direct action in places where we have a
chance to win. The truth is that while we learned many valuable
organizational and tactical lessons during the years after Seattle, most
of our energy was spent on largely symbolic actions. The real strength
of these mobilizations was actually in the organizing: the ability to
awaken many people to the possibility of resistance to global
capitalism, as well as providing a catalyst for regional and
international networks. At no point did these mobilizations actually
threaten to end world capitalism or seriously challenge State power. or
even liberate any socio-geographical territory. As anarchists, now is
not the time to mourn the death of “anti-globe” mobilizations, but move
to the next phase of our resistance — Insurrectory Mutual Aid.
Insurrection — an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a
constituted government through the use of subversion, sabotage and
direct resistance -calling in question the legitimacy and efficacy of
the government.
It is through acting and learning to act that we will open a path to
insurrection. Propaganda does have a role, but that role is limited to
clarifying actions not inciting them, since its context is dependent on
the actions of people. Simply put: waiting only teaches waiting; in
acting one learns to act.
The force of an insurrection is not the state’s military response, but
the social upheaval it generates. Beyond the surface of the armed clash,
the importance of any particular revolt should be evaluated by how it
managed to expand the paralysis of normality in a given area and beyond.
The Zapatistas are a recent example of this. Their limited military
clash, less than ten days long and 150 people killed, with the
government at San Cristobal on New Year’s day 1994 was an example of
insurrection. It was a success, not because of a stunning military
victory, but because it was able to disrupt normality in Chiapas which
is still going on to this day. Recently the Zapatistas have used this
base in Chiapas to launch a new challenge to the legitimacy of the
Mexican State and have expanded beyond Chiapas.
It is this potential expansion that gives an insurrection its power and
drives the fear behind the state’s reaction. In a crisis or emergency
situation, fortune favors the rebel, since, crises are by nature (if
only temporarily) beyond the control of government forces. Governments
have numerous contingencies to deal with a variety of “acceptable
variations” [actual term used in FEMA documents] however they lack
imagination and the lumbering bureaucracy that dominates all governments
make it difficult to react to new situations. If it falls outside their
imaginations they are at a loss to improvise. It can be a short step
from emergency to the emergence of self-organized resistance. Argentina
is one recent example of how an economic crisis can transform itself
into a real counter-force to capitalism and the state.
Mutual Aid — a voluntary giving or lending of resources, labor or goods
to others in a shared community/communities with the expectation that
the entire community will in turn benefit.
Mutual Aid is a concept that is familiar to many anarchists, but often
not fully understood. Mutual aid is not charity nor is it some baroque
bartering system. It rejects the “tit-for-tat” psychology of modern
capitalism while challenging the nightmare of communist distribution.
Mutual aid is freely given help (in the form of services and resources)
to others in our community. The idea is that as individuals in the
community help each other the entire community benefits and that in turn
supports the individuals own goals. It is not dissimilar to the simple
concept of sharing. Mutual aid , like charity, central communism and
capitalism, promotes a specific ideological system. In the case of
mutual aid it supports a libertarian ideology where individuals are
trusted to make economic decisions that promote the entire community.
The state and its flunkies work from a position that charity is an
effective tool to re-establish the status quo. In its most recent report
on Katrina, FEMA summarized the state’s logic on providing assistance to
affected people: “All aid should be used strategically. The use of
sustainable supplies must be administered in such a way to maximize
compliance with the emergency plan. Unfortunately, this may delay some
aid but the primacy of maintaining control in the first few days can not
be underestimated.”
It comes as no surprise that our leaders are willing to let us die while
they implement their misguided plans to maintain law and order. It is
during this period of government hesitation that we need to be on the
ground providing real solidarity for those the state is afraid of and
indifferent to. Solidarity is more than holding protests, organizing
fundraisers and filing indymedia reports. Real solidarity requires
commitment, risk and preparedness. Mutual aid is a direct challenge to
the government and the associated NGOs and religious institutions that
monopolize “helping people.” Mutual aid by necessity promotes an
egalitarian relationship between individuals and groups, where charity
and government aid have buttress hierarchical relationships of
dependence (at best) and oppression (more often). Through the solidarity
of mutual aid, we can show our commitment to those excluded by the
government emergency managers and truly reclaim the tactic of Propaganda
by the Deed.
However, to be effective we need to prepare now. The influx of supplies
and labor to locally affected communities — that we share affinity with
— could mean the difference between the streets of Argentina and the
stadiums of Louisiana. We must be prepared if a crisis happens tomorrow.
A crisis is not the time to have fundraisers to get initial supplies. We
need to be work on getting these things now, so when an emergency
occurs, we can act immediately.
Showing up during a crisis is not like summit hopping. Any
insurrectionist needs to be self-sufficient in the basics and have ready
access to extra supplies of: food, water, medications, power,
communications and shelter. It should be obvious in emergency situations
one can not simply arrive and expect to plug-in to an already organized
network. Unprepared radicals can actually put a strain on scarce
resources by showing up unprepared. When hundreds of well-intentioned
college kids flooded New Orleans during their spring break; it did not
turn out to be the boon organizers first had hopped for. The students
came without adequate clothes, food, water, shelter and so on. One
organizer spent an entire afternoon tracking down some medication for a
student who had assumed they could they important prescription filled at
a local drugstore. The organizers were swamped with the logistics of
supporting these hundreds of volunteers and organizing them to do
meaningful and much needed work. The Food Not Bombs people provide a
positive example on how groups of people can organize themselves and be
adequately prepared enough so the focus can be on the work that needs to
be done. In the weeks following the hurricane more than a hundred Food
Not Bomb and related volunteers served thousands of meals to those in
need. They had their own shelter, communications and supplies. The local
communities did not need to waste limited energy and resources on these
volunteers.
An insurrectionary must also be prepared to deal with real risk.
Anti-Globalization mobilizations did a good job of training and
preparing us for possible arrests and police brutality. Even though the
majority of protesters were never arrested or beaten with billy-clubs,
the very real possibility of state violence allowed one to decide what
levels of risk one was willing to engage in with their affinity groups.
We need to be just as honest and talk with those in our affinity groups
about what level of risk we are willing to crisis mobilizations. During
emergencies all sorts of laws change and the risk of arrests are greatly
heightened along with real violence from the state and others. Real
solidarity is taking similar risks as those most affected, not just
sitting on the side-lines wishing they luck.
Insurrectory Mutual Aid is difficult high risk activity that requires a
substantial of resources and preparedness. It is reasonable to ask if
this tactics is worth it. As anarchists, the revolution is our constant
point of reference, precisely because it is a concrete event; it must be
built daily through more modest attempts which do not have all the
liberating characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense.
These more modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of
the most exploited and excluded of society and the most politically
sensitized minority opens the way to the possible involvement of
increasingly wider strata of exploited on a flux of rebellion which
could lead to revolution. It is never possible to see the outcome of a
specific struggle in advance. Even a limited struggle can have the most
unexpected consequences. The passage from the various insurrections —
limited and circumscribed — to revolution can never be guaranteed in
advance by any method.
Below are some advantages and difficulties involved in practicing
Insurrectory Mutual Aid:
action.
organized along anarchist principles.
mobilizations.
militant resistance.
harder to plan for.
opportunity.
Issurectionaries need to develop a real-time multiply redundant
communications system beyond just the internet.
interests and politics — which we may know very little about.
Mutual Aid is not charity! It is an attack!