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Title: Poking Around… Author: Anonymous Date: Summer 2022 Language: en Topics: technology, communication, attack, sabotage, radical movement, Social Movements, Avis de Tempêtes, The Local Kids, The Local Kids #8 Source: Translated for The Local Kids, Issue 8 Notes: Previously appeared as En tâtonnant... in Avis de tempêtes (Bulletin anarchiste pour la guerre sociale), Issue 46, October 2021
“(Isère) Conspiracy theorist and angry with the State, he set fire to
cell towers”
“(Drôme) The Pierrelatte arsonist: anti-5G but not anti-fibre optics”
“(Rhône) Two monks arrested for setting fire to 5G cell towers”
“(Paris) Anti-vaccine, he sabotaged 26 5G antennas to save France from
the Covid-19 conspiracy”
- Headlines from the last months
State institutions have counted hundreds of acts of sabotage against
telecommunication infrastructures since 2018. Arsoned cell towers,
severed fibre optic cables, burned exchange points, ransacked
telecommunication cabinets: these practices have spread throughout the
territory and have clearly seen an increase in the last two years. The
quality of the saboteurs’ nocturnal activities has also taken a leap:
actions affecting particularly sensitive nodes, coordinated actions or
repeated in the same geographic area, some aimed at disrupting the
communications of a specific structure, in a specific area or at a
specific time... In short, attacks continue to target these
infrastructures despite repeated warnings from the authorities, cries of
alarm from operators and a not insignificant number of arrests. After
all, they remain difficult to protect from a sneaky cut or a nocturnal
fire.
These actions undeniably target the veins of technological domination,
but the particular motivations and broader aspirations of the hands that
carry them out often remain unknown. However, repression (one of whose
primary tasks is to identify the authors of mischief that disrupts the
smooth functioning of society) has revealed something of the diversity
of the people who engage in these moonlit strolls. Nevertheless we
should remain cautious with the information published in newspapers or
the words of those convicted “quoted” by journalists. We don’t want to
adopt the “profiles” and “categories” established by the state
institutions for the purposes of mapping, profiling and repression. We
have seen in recent years quite different people being convicted for
attacks on the permanent connectivity. For example during the peak of
the Gilets Jaunes, a number of small groups carried out sabotage within
the framework or on the margins of this kaleidoscopic movement of
revolt. Others who were convicted specified in court their ecological
orientation, their opposition to 5G for its harmful effects on health
and the environment, their leftist affiliation or their refusal of
control. Still others, even when confronted with incriminating evidence
and finally convicted, refused to engage in lengthy explanations in
court or in the press at all. Visions that are not very liberating could
certainly hide behind their stubborn silence. However, it is not because
you refuse to express yourself in front of a cop or a judge and because
you see no sense in explaining your tensions and ideas to a journalist,
that you would necessarily have no “problem being associated with
conspiracy theorists or the extreme right”. In the same way, it is not
because you don’t belong to a more or less “militant” milieu, because
you don’t have a “solidarity committee” to defend your ideas when the
cops come knocking, or because you don’t write public letters to explain
your actions, that you are automatically part of “would-be Nazis” who
plan the outbreak of a racial war by spreading chaos, or of “conspiracy
theorists” who stuff their heads on the digital web or of
“fundamentalists” who see technological innovations as the work of the
devil.
It must be said, the vast majority of attacks against telecommunication
infrastructures have not been followed by a communique and have not
provided any clues of ideological affiliation to investigators or to the
wary guardians of the family tree. In recent months, however, headlines
such as those mentioned at the beginning of this text have challenged
what some might call the “benevolence” towards the silence of the
authors of these attacks. They sometimes even provoked a fit of
existential fever among companions. The reasoning seems airtight: if
there have been people who are rather unsavoury (such as those
enlightened by God, patriotic activists, or particularly confused beings
who are always looking for what isn’t there) behind some of these
anonymous actions, then every anonymous attack should be treated as
possibly, or very possibly, done by dubious people.
The lapse in logic is obvious. But reasoning, arguments and critical or
in-depth evaluations are ignored. Because it is easier to believe that
we are alone in the forest than to see that other non-despicable people
can also move through the bushes (people we don’t know and who have
visions and sensitivities which are perhaps or probably very different
from our own). Alone in the forest, alone as anarchists, pure servants
of a lofty ideal, without contradictions in our lives, without “stains”
on our heritage, without doubts in our thoughts and without “faults” in
our relationships and way of living, clear as a full moon and without
any “revolutionary” or “insurrectionary illusion.” It is always possible
to lie to ourselves. It is always possible to build houses of cards that
will be blown away by reality. However, there are also other paths that
– in order to give meaning to the struggle and meaning to our lives – do
not make abstraction of the world around us and do not put our ideas and
those who embody them on a pedestal above all possibility of error.
Because we are not alone in the forest. We are not the only human
factors of disorder. Humans are not even the only factors that disturb
the fragile equilibriums by which this crumbling world seeks to move
forward. Other people act, perhaps with less developed ideas than yours
or perhaps with more sharpened sensitivities than mine, driven by an
immediate desire for retaliation against a mortifying system, by a dark
revenge against a life deprived of meaning or by an ideological or
religious belief in conflict with the technological march of the world.
“Because ultimately, the essential question is not about the supposed
motives of complete strangers who we will never know anything about
anyway (except in the case of arrest, which we don’t wish on anyone),
but how we want, in the midst of the social war, to make acts resonate
that speak to us and resound with our ideas. Whether they are collective
or individual, diffuse or specific, widely shareable or wickedly
heretical, completely anonymous or labeled subversive, out of the
spotlight or publicized by their authors in different ways.” - Wanted
interconnectés, July 2021
Faced with the fact that the forest doesn’t only shelter anarchists,
there are basically two possibilities, with, as usual, a thousand
nuances in-between.
The first one consists of thinking that the “acts of revolt”, “news of
disorder”, “fragments of the social war” or whatever we want to call
them, certainly make up the setting in which we act, but we must be
careful not to lend them intentions since nobody besides us shares
anarchist ideas (at least in their entirety – in contrast to ideologies
that can be more or less cut into pieces according to the situation or
the tendency of the moment). As intentions escape from the darkness of
the forest and give a particular colour to these acts, a colour that on
principle will never entirely please us (given that anarchists are the
only ones who share anarchist ideas), the more there will be the need to
affirm or clarify our intentions and motivations versus those of others.
Any silence on our part could give fuel to intentions we do not share.
We are then forced to light torches in the middle of the forest and to
make sure that the bonfires we light burn even stronger, higher and
brighter than those of others. Anarchist identity risks becoming our
main concern and we’ll end up establishing (even within our own circles)
a kind of catechism that takes stock of the good and the bad points.
Ultimately we’ll fail to see the diversity and richness of individuals
as a fruit of freedom, seeing it instead as a terrible threat.
The second possibility is always to start from ourselves, from our ideas
and aspirations as anarchists, and to understand the other “factors of
disorder” not as things to be assimilated or presented as if they were –
unconsciously – inspired by the sacred fire of anarchy, but simply as
elements that have their weight and their meaning in the concrete (and
not platonic or idealistic) war waged by humans. A “social” war, if you
like, in the sense that it crosses all of society and always revolves
around the question of power (in all its variations), and where
anarchists are those who defend the necessity of the destruction of
power rather than its reorganization. This “social war” is not an
expression of the tension towards “total liberation” nor towards
“anarchy”. It’s a conflict from which social relations emerge and
change, which in turn shape the modalities of this “social war”. The
(quietly or loudly) expressed intentions of those caught up in this war
are to be placed in their historical context and not to be removed from
it to compare them to a pantheon of abstractions.
This second possibility (apologies for the crude simplification) does
not take the intentions as the only reference, as the only indicator of
reality, but as one among others without denying their importance. The
need to trace a family tree of the “acts of revolt” or to probe the
motivations of their authors, is less felt here – as is the need to
systematically provide explanations of your own. The explanations of
singular actions give way to the elaboration of a projectuality that
tries to go beyond each of them. The fact that this projectuality has
insurrectionary aims (the creation of a rupture) or others, doesn’t
necessarily make a big difference. It is true, as some critics point
out, that this can lead to completely dismissing the importance of
intentions. We run the risk of blinding ourselves to this factor, which
may not be the only one but which remains one all the same. Even if
“intentions” behind the actions of revolt are not the exclusive element
that could interest anarchists in what they generate, this should not
lead to the complete denial of their influence in the reality of the
social war.
“For nothing can be expressed which such a charge of menace as that
which is not expressed.” - Stig Dagerman
Things are of course more complicated in this complex reality that is
ours. All simplifications and insights end up tumbling into a beautiful
mess. So let’s add a couple of reflections.
On the one hand, the silence of the insurgents can sometimes obscure
their intentions. On the other hand, it also responds to the practical
need not to provide clues to the state. Similarly, the need to clarify
reasons in a confused context is hardly in doubt – such as a context of
bitter discontent that comes into contact with a neo-fascist strategy
(as with the current opposition to the health pass and the attacks
against structures such as vaccination centres). But it is also
necessary to remain lucid on the relative weight of words and of what
they succeed in expressing and conveying. This is obviously true for any
linguistic expression; from a poster to a leaflet, from a discussion to
a newspaper or a claim. All of them are dependant on the capacity of the
other to understand what is written or said.
If, for example, we still want to appreciate the actions of others as
diverse expressions within the “social war” (from attacks on the police
in the peripheries to the anonymous sabotage of infrastructures) then
obviously another way of doing so has to be found than simply weighing
them on the small scale of anarchism. Or else we will have to
exclusively refer to actions that are duly claimed by anarchists. That
would be the only way to avoid any risk of speculations, hasty
assessments and harmful inquisitions. And even then, we know that this
validation would only be temporary. An anarchist who accomplished a
beautiful action yesterday can always turn out to be a scumbag in their
daily relations today, or a traitor tomorrow...
It is important to take the time to critically examine our relationships
with other beings in the forest, as well as our ways of acting. There is
no recipe to be applied nor jargon to be recited. At the same time,
there can’t exist instructions that must be respected on “how to do”
things under penalty of being accused of wanting to hide behind vile
would-be Nazis and other zealots. No one (not even the most
narrow-minded) should try to impose on their companions the obligation
to explain their actions, to present and justify their project in
detail, to label their actions according to certain prescriptions, just
to avoid the bitterness of some chronicler of the social war. It will
always be up to the individual to act as they see fit. You can choose to
maintain the shadows that give shelter to the activities of others and
this can mean leaving some in ignorance and misunderstanding. Or you can
inspire others by the clear and precise affirmation of he ideas and
feelings that have inspired an action and this will entail disappointing
some by a display considered too indiscrete.
After all, do actions really speak for themselves? On the one hand, yes.
In the sense that they are the manifestation of a concrete attack
against a concrete structure or person. The destruction of a cell tower
is the destruction of a cell tower, no matter how one wishes to
interpret it. On the other hand, no. Because they cannot by themselves
express all the intentions, tensions and sensitivities that pushed the
author to carry them out. Thus the actions are what they are: a
destructive material fact that can inspire or open the imagination (or
not). No more, no less. At the same time, it is all these actions that
make up the surroundings in which one acts, and of which one is a part.
They make sense in a context, and not only thanks to the possible
explicit expression of the authors. They can never be the exclusive
property of their authors while disturbing, shaking up, questioning the
lives of other people. And the authors will never be the only ones to
give them meaning (no matter if it is to appreciate or to condemn them).
Faced with this, the fact of claiming or not claiming an action does not
radically change the situation. The “others” are not simple passive
spectators. They don’t undergo without flinching both the actions and
the meanings that their authors want to give them. They are directly
implicated, given that their lives are changed (in a more or less
ephemeral way) by the action, given the disgust or the enthusiasm that
it inspires in them, etc.
So, can a claim help to understand an action? Of course, but it can also
make it incomprehensible to its readers. It can be so inflated or backed
up with so many words that the statement almost ends up drowning the
action and burying the simple suggestion it always contains: let’s
destroy what destroys us. By the way, does the fact of claiming protect
us from being lumped together with unsavoury people? We’re inclined to
put all of this into perspective given that the forest is vast and that
actions resonate far beyond our own words (the “effects” of propaganda –
whether through anarchist newspapers or claims – will always remain
relative). And we don’t consider the claim as a kind of magic solution,
a bicarbonate that would solve all the problems posed by actions and
their possible interpretations.
“That leftists are on the streets hand in hand with fascists/conspiracy
theorists for weeks should alert us to the danger of the idea of common
struggle (which means that one doesn’t care who one struggles with as
long as we have the same practices and the same target). One forgets
that these people whose actions one applauds or who one demonstrates
with have positions opposed to ours on just about everything, and that
we would be their target in other contexts.” - Des réfractaires
solidaires, in their claim for the arson of an Orange vehicle in
Grenoble, September 2021
For several months, a large part of the opposition to the government’s
restrictive health measures seems to be led by right-wing figures. In
other countries as well (such as Italy, the Netherlands and Germany),
would-be Nazis have taken to the streets in large numbers and have made
their presence clearly felt in what are otherwise very diverse
mobilizations. On several occasions, anarchists have been attacked by
fascist groups, and fortunately, the opposite has also happened.
However, being on the same terrain of conflict does not necessarily
imply appropriating the indigestible vocabulary of opportunists in
search for “common fronts” or theorizing “objective alliances” as a
political strategy. We always have the possibility to slam the door and
to abandon a terrain of struggle which doesn’t seem to offer any
possibility of subversion or of actions that carry freedom. At the same
time, no conflict will totally correspond to all anti-authoritarian
criteria. To act on a conflictual terrain which is not “pure” (and which
terrain would be?) doesn’t mean to support the authoritarianism which
can be present there. The question will always be much more about how we
act, and with which perspective.
On the other side of the Rhine, there are large parts of the radical and
libertarian left who accuse those who defend anonymous attacks on
telecommunication or energy infrastructures of “joining forces” with the
Nazis or at least, of playing their game (since Nazi activists are
generally not very fond of claims and also theorize about attacking
infrastructure to precipitate Tag X, the Day of Societal Collapse and
the beginning of the “race war”). In addition, attacks on infrastructure
are no longer seen as a sabotage of the techno-world but as evidence of
Nazi virulence since much of the terrain of 5G opposition seems to be
occupied by openly conspiracy-minded (Querdenker) and far-right-friendly
committees. Once the para-police principle that “unclaimed action
against infrastructure equals Nazi action” is established, unclaimed
actions are discredited by antifascist collectives and circles of the
movement. All the more so since some of them (fans of collective and
civilizing progress) cannot understand the subversive significance of
attacks on electricity or virtual connectivity which is, in their eyes,
a “common good”.
A little sentence of Orwell – certainly not an enemy of all authority –
remains disturbingly topical in the face of the current technological
restructuring of domination (however it might be received): “The real
division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries, but between
authoritarians and libertarians.” Across the Rhine, these voices coming
from the German radical and/or libertarian left accuse the anarchists of
wanting to unleash a “civil war” through attacks on infrastructure
(whose main goal is to create disorder and to undermine technological
chains, whether practices are inserted or not in an insurrectionary
projectuality). And then, the accusing finger raised, they insist that
such attacks should at least be accompanied by political certificates of
good will (“social justice” and “progressive emancipation” rather than
the unleashing of freedom, “against the rulers” but always showing
understanding towards the submission and adherence of the ruled). In
fact, they only demand to stay within the good old opportunist tradition
which is certainly willing to use the weapon of sabotage, but only if it
serves as a vehicle and megaphone for their political aims.
What if anarchists here and elsewhere end up doing more or less the
same? By demanding explanations for sabotage actions of infrastructure,
by distancing themselves effectively from any action that is not claimed
as “anarchist”, by seeing only the hand of Nazis, of conspiracy
theorists – and why not, it was a classic of the last century: of
foreign secret services – behind sabotage actions whose authors decide
to remain in the shadows? They would end up rejecting any vision or
desire that wishes and works for an uncontrolled multiplication of the
sabotage of telecommunication, energy and logistic infrastructures. They
would only accept and value the multiplication of sabotage actions if
it’s subject to ideological control. Does this mean defending freedom,
or rather fearing it?
The fact that fascists, conspiracy theorists or even monks have attacked
cell towers doesn’t make it any less relevant to attack these
structures, to encourage sabotage against them, to wish and work for the
uncontrollable multiplication of these attacks. On the other hand, it
could perhaps compel us to think more about why these actions can be
suggested, why we really desire their diffusion, i.e. to reflect in
order to enhance our perspectives. To desert the terrains where others
are also active is not an option and to systematically stamp actions
does not solve the question of the “same terrain.” We have to look even
further: to the perspective that we give to our action, to the ideas
that we disseminate, to the methodologies that we suggest and to the
projects that we elaborate.
“To unleash freedom is to accept the unexpected that disorder carries
within it. It is to accept that freedom is not always sweet, but can
also have a bloody face, and that we still want it. We do not want
freedom emptied of risks, nor do we want to demand that freedom brings
us its certificates of good conduct before welcoming it. That would not
be freedom, it would be domestication camouflaged in libertarian
clothes, the best ground for the seed of authority to start growing
again.” - La forêt de l’agir, April 2021
Which perspectives should be elaborated then? We could perhaps start
here with those that we can understand but which inspire us the least.
For example, the one that often slips between the lines but has
difficulty in making itself explicit. The perspective that has as its
main goal the existence and the qualitative and quantitative
strengthening of the anarchist movement. A stronger, larger, better
organized movement which would know how to face the obscure forces of
fascism, the conspiracy theorist manipulations of genuine anger and the
leftisms whose role seems to be to accompany capitalism and domination
towards more sustainable, more technological, more equitable futures. A
movement that dares to take itself as a point of reference and develops
a capacity of diffusion, of attack and of relevance. A capacity that is
sufficient to constitute a real force capable of weighing in on the
public debate, of making the difference in local struggles and of
chasing the Nazis out of the demonstrations.
There is a strong risk that the quantitative strengthening of the
anarchist movement – even if difficult to imagine (after all, do we
really think that anarchist ideas can be shared by masses of people
today?) – will end up being satisfied with the image of such a
strengthening. The mirror-effect easily provokes showing-off, quickly
emptying the struggle to replace it by an image that is mistaken for
reality. In the end, such a perspective generally aims above all on the
strengthening of the anarchist identity, in order to be at daggers
drawn... with the other inhabitants of the forest. This identity tends
to have an inflated sense of self and to replace the quality of
substance by the prominence of form. It ends up measuring itself in
comparison to all other identities in the mirror of representation.
However, other paths are still possible. Although they are certainly a
little more murky or dangerous. Paths that are not made for those who
are too afraid of the mud or who can’t stand working in the shadows.
Paths at the end of which no guarantees exist, no recognition awaits us.
Paths which do not take the mere existence and survival of anarchists as
the alpha and omega of subversion or anarchy. This path climbs, digs and
sneaks to derail the train of Progress and of the current society. We
don’t want to renounce the diffusion of our ideas (by various means) and
underestimate the usefulness and necessity of anarchist criticism. But
the path we’re talking about aims above all at contributing to the
upheaval of the situation, to the insurrectionary rupture, to the
breakdown of what maintains the productive and social structures in
place. This project, this projectuality, doesn’t aim at the numerical
growth of the anarchist movement, nor at reinforcing its popularity, but
at precipitating conflictual situations towards a wider upheaval.
Because working towards the uncontrolled multiplication of actions and
towards an unanticipated disconnection could allow the emergence of
freedom. Or better, it is one of the faces of the freedom that is
setting sail today.
That some people whose intentions we don’t share or others whose
intentions we don’t know at all are also active doesn’t inspire us with
paralysing fear, nor does it lead us to participate in an exhibitionist
one-upmanship (a trap as old as the world, known and set by all the
intelligence services of yesterday and today). Instead it motivates us
to improve our suggestions, our projectuality and our ethics. Above all,
to push further, with our means and modest capacities, the urgent
demolition of the current society.