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Title: Autonomous course & permanent discussion Author: Anonymous Date: November 2012 Language: en Topics: organization, assemblies, insurrectionary anarchy, autonomy Source: Retrieved from "A Few Considerations After the Struggle Against the Construction of a New Closed Centre" published in "Salto: Subversion and Anarchy Issue 2"
As anarchists, considering insurrection and looking for ways to make it
possible is not the same as drawing up a master plan leading towards
insurrection and looking for the cattle to execute it. Neither can it be
about a crowd joining an initiative and not taking responsibility for
thinking for themselves, discussing, creating an autonomous course. Of
course this is a caricature, but it enables one to sketch out certain
mechanisms inherent to each attempt to bring people together without, at
the same time, proposing circles of affinity and permanent discussion as
necessary conditions to enable informal organization.
The enthusiasm at the beginning of a shared project after a period of
searching for affinity is contagious and attracts others who are willing
to struggle. Enthusiasm is one of the driving forces behind every fight,
but it is far from a solid base on which to build a struggle. What
happens when it all becomes a bit less playful and demands a bit more
seriousness? What about when there are difficulties and setbacks? This
is not a plea for marrying a certain struggle or signing a contract at
its inception, but an underlining of the absolute necessity of the
development of an autonomous course. Without autonomy, without being
able to revolt and struggle starting from oneself, and without a project
being offered, one can only be swallowed into projects and able to make
them their own.
But, viewed from another angle, what do you do when you are meeting
other enthusiasts and impatient people in the middle of a struggle?
During the development of the struggle against the new camp some
individuals in Brussels took the initiate to create an assembly, a space
where everyone (except politicians and other leaders) willing to
struggle without trade unions could come to. A space for debate and
coordination in the struggle.
However, discussion and thinking about what one wants need to happen in
a more permanent way, outside of the collective moments, otherwise these
moments become nothing more than moments in which one is either
competing with others (by selling proposals and looking for adherents,
or by shooting down the proposals of others), or letting oneself be
dragged along by the best speaker. An assembly on the one hand risks the
strengthening of a “waiting attitude” (we are waiting for discussion and
proposals until we are all sitting together instead of autonomously
looking for comrades and starting discussions on an individual level of
in smaller constellations), and on the other hand risks strengthening
the illusion of the number. What does that mean? If you consider the
struggle as a struggle growing in “participants,” you automatically
start thinking about what you can share with all these people. You start
proposing things toward “the group,” and if the group takes up the
proposals you give them new proposals, on and on, until it bumps onto
its inevitable limits.
But what are those limits? First of all the paralyzing effect of
collectivity, some kind of dictum that everybody need to agree upon
before something can begin, and so everyone needs to be persuaded of the
validity of a proposal. This causes extremely destructive discussions,
which hurt more than they help-- for example, when the deeper notions of
ones view on social reality or what one demands from a struggle don't
coincide.
Secondly, these sorts of spaces impose a collective rhythm on the
struggle, a rhythm which everyone feels alienated from in the end. It is
a rhythm of action after action without deepening, because deepening is
not possible when discussion is limited to collective moments. And so,
at the end, one doesn't know what one is doing anymore, except
reproducing the same thing. When, in such a space, proposals are charged
with an exaggerated weight, because no one wants to be dragged into an
initiative that seems over their heads. What is known is milked dry
until it becomes routine, what is unknown provokes adverse reaction.
We'll say it again-- this is the consequence of a lack of autonomy,
permanent discussion and thought about what one wants outside of the
collective moments.
Thirdly, those who are accustomed to making proposals will feel
exhausted after a while, because thinking about proposals each time and
taking effort to realize them takes more energy than simply
participating in an action. In every relation, the lack of mutuality
eventually becomes a burden, until one decides to break with it. On the
other hand, the ones that the proposals are coming to will feel passive,
ever more unsure about what they actually want, in contrast with those
who always seem to have a clear idea of what they want. This role begins
to gnaw at us, until one has had enough of it and takes a step back from
everything. An organizational model which is unbalanced can keep burning
on enthusiasm for a while, but when the enthusiasm disappears one is
left with sour feelings.
And so? Every struggle is in need of spaces that can help shape it.
Spaces in which there is discussion or in which one can coordinate for
specific goals (for example the organization of a demonstration).
However, when there is only one space, and this space becomes the
reference point, it will inevitably become a burden to the struggle and
will suffocate people's autonomous courses, rather than giving them
oxygen.