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Just another anarchist perspective
Huey - 14.07.2010 15:43
It is always heartwarming to see that people are enthusiastically organising a demonstration like this one about the crisis in Greece. But one can’t help but feel a bit sad and dissapointed at the lack of self-reflection and insight in the Dutch movement. Here are some thoughts.
(it's long...I know..)
Firstly, doing something is always better than doing nothing. But repeating old forms and dances just because we are used to them doesn’t mean we are being effective or realistic even. Having perhaps two hundred people walking a demonstration through Amsterdam with banners and noise will not achieve much of anything and that is a shame, because there seems to be a good group of people willing to stick their necks out despite of apathy and repression.
In today’s dutch society creating a webblog will reach more people than walking around on the streets with a couple of hundred people. The situation in the Netherlands is incomparable to that one in Greece or for example countries like Germany and France with a rich history of protests, strikes and a large section of the population there distrusts politicians and police. The Netherlands has always been different. One cannot understand why Dutch activists hope to recreate a situation from other countries that has never been applied here. The only time people went to the streets en masse was for wage-raises and one off time about nuclear weapons. The wage-raise demonstrations were all very systemic and never amounted to much. It was all part of the game for a pay-raise. The demonstrations against nuclear weapons came in a time when people were genuinely worried about a nuclear holocaust and rightfully so.
Organising a demonstration about the financial crisis in the Netherlands is like organising a vegan barbeque at a butchers convention. The dutch people do not feel like they are in a crisis and by the looks of it they aren’t. People still buy clothes, cars, I-pads, I-phones, I-somethingsomethings, they party and celebrate every dutch football victory and final defeat with liters of beer and drugs. If people in the dutch working-class neighbourhoods are able to buy an excessive amount of orange decoration for their house and can watch football on a giant LCD-flatscreen….what crisis are they in? Why should they go to the streets? And protest against what?
It is lack of analysis in what is left of the Dutch protestmovement that will keep it a marginal section of society. We look to other countries and get inspired by Greek protests and think: ,,We want that!!!” Of course we are internationalists and the world does not stop at the border, but regionalistically it makes no sense to waste your energy here. Go to Greece!! (Or if you hate nazi’s, like most people do, go to Germany and fight them there. Those pathetic 60 Dutch nazi’s here do not even deserve any attention, but in Germany there are thousands of the bastards. Don’t recreate that situation here. Go there!)
People in the movement get pissed off when conservative websites like Geenstijl mock their demonstrations or when they take the piss out of squatter-actions. Having no love for the average white, conservative, racist, sexually deprived, scared of everything that doesn’t fit in their world, in an office working or managing reaguurder I cannot always put the blame on reactionists like Geenstijl. In their twisted logic they sometimes have a point. Take the attack on the anti-kraak bureau for instance. Now who ever thought that was going to win any kudo’s from anyone was sadly mistaken. Now I genuinly hope that support or solidarity for this action was not called for or even wanted. A good direct action is always aimed at the purpetrator and is not done for creating any support. Because you won’t get any from Dutch society outside the radical parts of the squatting movement. All reformists and conformists within the movement will be the first ones to discourage such actions fearfull as they are of the coming squattingban that will destroy their priviliged existence. Sadly enough, a lot of anti-squatters have large sympathy for the squatting movement and sometimes openly admit that fear is the only reason keeping them fron actually squatting. Turning on anti-squatters will not endear a large part of the alternative, possibly anti-capitalist, parts of the anti-squatters who are just artists and students who cannot afford commercial rent housing. But again, I don’t think that was the point of the action.
Another sad example of having no connection with the real world was the call-out to take out the energy-cables during the worldcup football. How will that gain any support from any part of society that is not already primitivist anarchist or die-hard anti-football? Football is the game that is played and watched by billions of working class people in the world. It is not an elitist game. Yes, the players get millions of euros, but 99% of them come from poor working class backgrounds. Football also seems to be the only place where a multicultural existence is not being questioned. Any call-out from Geert Wilders to cleanse the team from non-dutch elements would be met with laughter and would destroy any chances of ever getting as many seats in parlement as he did now with the next elections. If we want to build a greater movement and make them aware of a world crisis we need to stop alienating THE PEOPLE. Of course you must always question an overabundance of nationalist feelings that seem to pop up during footballmatches but one must also realise that it has been footballhooligans helping antifascists out during the last 8 anti-nazidemonstrations. Walking around in Orange and waving the dutch flag during footballmatches isn’t a recreation of the Nuremberg rally. It’s about sports. Critisizing FIFA on their treatment of workers in South-Africa will get more support from footballfans than destroying their fun.
Having contact with “normal” people should be on the forefront of the ones who organise demonstrations that aim to enlargen the movement. Too many of the activist live in small circles and have no friends from outside the movement. It makes people think that they are achieving things, that they are reaching a big crowd, when in reality it’s just preaching to your own crowd.
Dutch society is marked by apathy and mindless entertainment. Sadly, the only times that people actually get excited about politics is when they can bash muslims. We cannot create a Greece here. We cannot create a history of strikes and demonstrations like the rich history of Germany and France with their strong radical unions and students who do more than just consume. The Netherlands has never had this history so there is no base for creating a large countermovement.
Should we then sit on our asses and do nothing? No. Our society can be compared to that of Great Britain and the United States. We have the same consumerpatterns, the same popculture, the same sociatal apathy. If anyone doubts that the Netherlands is a colony of the United States you should spend some time in Germany or France and see that American culture is pervasive throughout Dutch society more than anywhere else. One can even say that there is a large prt of Dutch society that consumes more American popculture than large groups of americans ever will.
The forms of protest that have worked in the US and Great Britain have always been those that were focussed on groups outside “normal” society or have been underground groups. Black liberation, fighting for rights for illegal immigrants, animal rights and earth liberation and supporting those who are kept out of the consumer society like homeless and singlemothers, those are the focal points that have always been at the forefront of succesfull demonstrations and actions. The only solidarity gained was not from white society but from those that were being supported.
Dutch society offers a lot of these fringe groups that need “our” help. Illegal immigrants, discriminated groups like muslims, somalis, maroccans, polish workers and gypsys for instance. And of course there are the countless of animal slaughterhouses and laboratories. Or the wanten destruction of our enviroment.
One issue that could unite society more would be police-repression. Many in dutch society feel that they are being mistreated by police. Footballfans, Maroccan, Turkish and Antillian kids and partypeople get in direct confrontation with the unprovoked violence of the police. The latest “riots” during the Worldcup football being a nice example. Apparently celebrating on the streets with music and laughter is a reason for riotpolice to attack.
These are all issues that might gain support or, in the case of animal liberation, might even gain succes.
Don’t be like Don Quichote and fight the unwinnable, unreasonable fight. Fight the battles that you can win! That is not a sign of cowardice but a sign of clear and strategic thinking.
Saturday will be another exercise in wasting good energy by good and well-intentioned people.
A change in weather is needed.
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| Read more about: vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten wereldcrisis | | supplements | | some supplements were deleted from this article, see policy | | | . | NN - 14.07.2010 15:56
Even tho I agree with most of your points it should be said that that the Griekenland is overal group is a new group and this is just the first showcase to bring it back on the dutch agenda. Even now members of the FNV will participate already wich is rather nice. Further actions will follow.
| | But we ourselves .... | St Precario - 14.07.2010 17:15
Although this piece paints a nice still live of the balance of satisfaction and saturation, the ensuing 'lack of dissent' and also the general fear of loosing privileges (by the majority, not the activists only, mind you), there is something missing.
Apart from being activists, most members of the protest movement are also workers in various trades. Most of them are employed temporarily and lack therefore the general social securities , that most of their surrounding enjoys.
Weirdly enough, these activists do not seem to mind, but ignore this fact completely in their campaigns. While solidaric with workers abroad, migrants and , not to forget cute little animals, they fail completely to include their own social reality.
In fact, they consider themselves too privileged to complain somehow, as if they would in fact have any of the privileges their 'white working class' neighbours do, or, their comrades in greece and elsewhere fight to obtain. Not to forget the migrant, who are willing to risk their lives coming to the european north-west for exactly these privileges.
Just for the record, such privileges include: a permanent working contract, a stable housing situation an integral health coverage.
Most activist type do not in fact enjoy any of this, and do not seem to feel the lack thereof as an infringement on their very own social right, let alone are they willing to organize in their workplace or similar social surrounding to campaign for it. In fact they prefer to go on the streets, for something far away from their own personal situation, in space and content.
Its like a football match somehow: if there is a riot in Greece 'we' win and rejoice, but return to our own precarious jobs and temporary houses (squatted , anti-squatted and alikes) without protests. A real middle class attitude in fact: we own own nothing, but foster the illusion of property (ignoring our debts), just to be able to enjoy not to be working class.
Why not demonstrate for our own sociale rights for a change?
| | anarchist perspective? | nn - 14.07.2010 18:08
Oh ffs. Seriously?!
I've read through your lengthy piece and still have no idea what you've written. Do you think you could condense it into bullet points, not for my own sake but to actually show that you know what you're talking about and can explain it in short and simple terms. i.e. what's your goal, what's your strategy, what's your tactics, and what are various points along the way to achieving that goal? Maybe what your actual criticism/perspective is cause your article reads like this;
You start off talking about the usual one dimensional man, everyone is bought off by western consumer capitalism (a point in which you're this -> <- close to using the word "sheeple"), you then throw in some weird stuff about lack of analysis while seeming to exhibit the same problem, throw in some references to working class, then talk about radicals being seperated from those around them, then (correctly) talk of having no base and alienating actions and even more weird call outs for actions that no one is realisticly going to take up but still get coverage and make anarchists just look batshit crazy and like they're mentalists (though you also seem to equate anti-squat companies with anti-squatters themselves, renter does not equal landlord and vice versa!),then ironicly the need to reach out to the people having just slagged them off previously, then you return a bit more to the apathetic dutch, then show an ignorance of the rich history of the dutch labour movement and radical social movemetns (I'd suggest a trip to the IISG www.iisg.nl) and then try to compare the netherlands to Anglo-Saxon countries. A closer comparison would probably be Denmark, another social democratic european state, with growing racist anti immigrant populism and a radical history of a mass, violence prone and semi successful autonome movement but no organised radical left or anarchist groups or unions currently existing.
Ant then, the best bit, despite criticising alienating actions and pointing out the lack of a significant base or culture of resistance, instead of thinking of ways to counter that and build a movement capable of societal change you pick as examples some of the most alienating elitist types of "direct action" (in the widest yet shallowest conception of the term) by the ELF and ALF, and then some weird stuff focusing on the most oppressed and marginalised ppl in society as if this IS the revolutionary subject rather a small but constituent part of the working class. You, even more hilariously, after having said previously "The situation in the Netherlands is incomparable to that one in Greece or for example countries like Germany and France with a rich history of protests, strikes and a large section of the population there distrusts politicians and police. The Netherlands has always been different." go on to say we should focus on police repression! What!?!
All you're proposing is what the radical left in this country has been doing for at least the last 20 years, focusing on a load of single issue campaigns and thinking that if we can somehow link them all up we'll then have a revolution all the while never working under a wider framework of societal change and structural analysis. That's a dead end and we're hurtling fast towards the wall, I hope we have our seat belts on and are equipped with air bags. The slogan, be realistic demand the impossible, points exactly to the questioning of the very framework under which we live, it's the framework which needs to be questioned and pushed in both our campaigns, our demands and our strategies and tactics.
Great introductory pamphlet on Anarchism and building a culture of resistance:  http://www.afed.org.uk/publications/pamphlets-booklets/163-introduction-to-anarchist-communism.html
The main problem as you almost hit at but in event miss with the greek demo, is not that it's greece and we're netherlands (the demo is simply pointing out that there are austerity measures on the horizon and that there are people out there fighting them in other countries and maybe we in the netherlands could do the same) but rather that yes it's just another march/rally with chants and slogans without any idea or plan of how to go from mobilisation to massification: http://libcom.org/library/mobilisation-massification
| | Also ... | nn anarchist perspective? - 14.07.2010 18:31
What St precario said x2!!!
The politics of everyday life! Stop thinking "we" are somehow seperate from all this, as well as this debilitating concept of our own privilege without realising these so called privileges are concessions made by the ruling class through collective struggle by the working class. i.e. a result of previous class composition. We're so bound up in this guilt and horrendous analysis we can't see how our own lives are being stolen back from us or what is truely radical and revolutionary in the everyday as well as our everyday desires, needs and experiences.
Worth quoting again:
"Its like a football match somehow: if there is a riot in Greece 'we' win and rejoice, but return to our own precarious jobs and temporary houses (squatted , anti-squatted and alikes) without protests. A real middle class attitude in fact: we own own nothing, but foster the illusion of property (ignoring our debts), just to be able to enjoy not to be working class."
We should be alot angrier at our own situation and this needs to be our own point of departure for struggle. The important point is that people start looking at their own situation as something very political – instead of saying: “Well, I can’t be active right now, because I only have a temporary job, or I’m unemployed, or I’m studying, etc etc…” , Say, “What is political about my current situation? How can I make my situation better? How can I make contact and connections with other people in the same situation?”
1. We need to base our struggles in everyday reality, on problems that affect most people, not on abstract issues. We can look at our own experiences and our own needs as the starting point for collective action. Student activism around cutbacks for example, or unemployed workers organising could be good places to start. Even the upcoming austerity measures.
2. We need to make our tactics relevant and easily adopted. Tactics such as large demonstrations or symbolic direct actions might be good for getting media attention once off, but it is generally only a small minority of society that will participate in such actions. You don’t need to be an experienced activist to use them, you can just do it.
3. We need to move away from seeing resistance and struggle as something that is only done by a small part of society. Nearly everybody in society is fighting in some way, but often this way is unconscious and undeveloped. We need to recognise the forms of resistance that already exist and we need to stop seeing activists as an enlightened minority with ‘the right ideas’.
| | Reaction | Huey - 14.07.2010 19:51
As I am not a great power-point presentationist I will not turn to setting bullet-points for goals, strategy and all that.
The mistake that I see in the Dutch left/anarchist movement is that they/we are vehemently trying to gain support (or even think there is already a basis for that support) from the white working and middle class.
The white working/middle class doesn't give a f*ck about poverty, crisis, racism, housing etc. since they have no problems in these areas. Mostly they are the ones creating the problems in colusion with the corporate government.
My suggestions on taking action involves those who are not part of the 80% grey matter that is apathetic and only wants to consume and consume. I never heard of the word Sheeple, but I already love it! White dumb animals afraid of their own shadow and happy aslong as they can consume. And they even need help if they topple over because they cant take care of themselves properly. Thanks!
Any attempt in convincing me that these sheeple do not exist are fruitless as they have shown their true colors by voting for the PVV, VVD and CDA/PvdA en masse.
There is no angry working class out there in the Netherlands the way we would like to see them. Those who are angry are racist and egotistical. Please spare your energy on trying to convince them to become anarchist/communist.
Furthermore:
Taking action on animal or earth liberation issues is far from elitist. How humanly arrogant to say so. If I could spell specieism correctly I would call you a specieist. Earth and animals: elitist. How very communist of you to say so.
And on police violence: I propose to focus our energy on those groups in society that could use a little white priviliged kids help. Like Maroccans, Antillians, Somalis, illegallized people and other non-whites. Police repression towards them is abundant. General society does not care about police violence. They see it as finally cracking down on the scum. But non-whites, and for instance a large group of politically aware football hooligans, know what police violence means. Therefore a focus on police violence might gain you more support than talking about some metaphysical crisis.
Squatters versus anti-squatters: I think I made it clear that we could even get some mild support from anti-squatters and that actions against anti-squatting bureau's doesn't endear the anti-squatters. It will frighten them. Anti-squatters might think "We" hate them aswell and not just their anti-squat bureau's. This in light of some hard actions against anti-squatters themselves in Amsterdam.
Because you asked nicely:
- Strategy: Steer away from the Sheeple. Start talking to non-whites. Scary for most of us since we all live in white alternative realities.
- Goal: Not a revolution, because the next revolution will be a racist one if the majority that is now will rise up. Please keep the revolution to yourself. No, the goal should be to help those who need our help now.
- Tactics: Direct action, non-white community organizing.
| | Rich history | Heuy - 14.07.2010 20:00
I forgot to mention the rich history of the dutch union movement.
I had to laugh. Compared to France, Spain, Germany..the dutch union movement is exactly the example of white priviliged people fighting for their own egotistical rights. It's why an anarchist union has never made it to become even close to the size of the unions in other countries. (CNT/CGT/FAU).
As a reaction to what was said about activist in shit jobs and living underpriviliged lives compared to most people in the working class neighbourhoods. I think it is a good example that we can do with less. Less consumerism, etc. If activists start fighting for better wages and a car for everyone (with I-pod and flatscreen) then the end is near for everyone.
So it's good that these so-called lazy, smelly activists at least give a good life example to the consumerists. Having jobs as waiters, postmen/women, data-entryists, or living of student grants may not be the high-life everyone expected it to be but it gives you more time to do actions.
| | fatalist? | anarchist - 14.07.2010 20:07
I read the text started to write an aanvulling and got confused, stopped and re-read the text again (and this is even an exception here, to even go on the level of answering to something that is put in this forum, and i do it because the writer claims to present an anarchist perspective).
It has problems that pop up a lot on the internet culture: It is badly done. It uses phrases in ways that open up a topic, but don't say much. It looks well intended, but it doesn't really contribute anything. In a situation that is actually worth discussing. The analysis of the text is badly done. And that is typical for the discussion on this forum, people don't take the time to work out a critique properly, sit down, maybe for some more time and trigger something more. The writer has obviously something to express, but does that poorly. Unfortunately.
I will however try to take the writer seriously and answer to some of the "thoughts", but with the request of making more out of it than "thoughts", and to actually leave the internet culture and make something out of it that leaves the misery of poorly worked out critiques, when there is so much contribution from many sides and to actually deepening once's way of working things out.
here some of my "thoughts" that came up while reading this text.
The text is full of fatalistic approaches, full of "i already know how the things will be". Social revolt on a mass basis breaks out at some point, potentially, or it doesn't. That is not something that can be completely predicted. But subversion is something that can be made, and that needs analysis of the society and constant, sometimes hard and boring work. And to me it seems that there is definitely something to learn from a situation like in Greece. it has an important influence on the economic situation in Europe, inside the European Union, but not only. and there is a big chunk of the population revolting at times over the recent two years.
Now, where does that come from, and why should that question not be interesting for the dutch situation of potentially becoming a threat to capital, capitalists, technology and all the progressive movement, which is the source of all the destruction that is going on. The destruction of the environment, the treatment of animals, the ignorance of society towards individuals,- are all details in the social war, details that cannot be solved separately, but by understanding the whole picture of the industry, which is tool of capital and technology, which are tools of power. The situation in greece can obviously not be copied. And we don't have any intention to do so. But a revolutionary who wants to take him/herself seriously has to have an interest in people who revolt. Greece is particularly interesting since it is located at a crucial, neuralgic point for capital and because there are many individuals who are angry and revolting, and I take someone who throws him/herself against power seriously and like to get inspired and recognize myself in those acts of revolt.
How did all the revolting start in Greece, and why did it become a generalized revolt? That is a difficult question to answer. Especially for people who are not part of that society and have not a greater overview over the culture, the dynamics of capital, progress, technology, power in general inside the Greek society. But we are able to communicate, talk to comrades from there and understand a bit. The Greek anarchist discussion is strong. And that not by chance; the Greek anarchists are often hard working people, spending many of their hard earned euros and before drachme on their ideas. And there important work is done ON the streets for decades by now (at least since the people of Greece overthrew the dictatorship 1974 and the people in struggle understood that democracy is just the other side of the same coin and continued struggling against the new shape that power decided to take on) not only on fucking webblogs. They can be useful, i agree, even though fucking dangerous, as we can see with the author above, who idealizes fucked up technology by saying "In today’s dutch society creating a webblog will reach more people than walking around on the streets with a couple of hundred people."
Get off the internet and into the streets. The Greek history seems to have an approach that has potential also for the situation in Holland. The Greek anarchists work in the streets a lot, have a presence, in terms of attack as well as in preparing for that attack, by creating a context. How to create contexts? By expressing your ideas. By pure propaganda sometimes, by opening the field with creating alliances with other people in struggle, making their struggle, your own struggle, by feeling and creating solidarity with other people in struggle. The anarchist presence in the Greek movements has been intense, posters, stickers, graffities, attacks by many different means. consistency in discussion. It is visible that the internet plays a role, but people don't tend to give it too much importance. Same counts for the stupid culture of photography and videomaking. We can never make the mistake of basing our "context-creating" on such a level. Technology is not neutral. It tends to become the master of its users and transforms them to tools for its own purpose: to create more technology and devices and to push for more progress.
Looking at problems in dutch society, where are the crucial points of conflict, where could someone try to raise conflicts, to a point where sparks develop, which actually may trigger revolts. That is something that has to be done by people who stand with both feet in the dutch reality, speak the language of everyone and understand people in the street and see where conflicts develop and where oil can actually be put to increase the fire. Propagating webblogs won't be the thing to do. Webblogs are just a little fart in a dynamic, something that can be used at times, but carefully.
At the same time there is something about each one of us working individually on ourselves, to become wild beasts in concrete opposition to the order of control that the dutch state and bureaucratic system likes so much.
"Having contact with “normal” people should be on the forefront of the ones who organise demonstrations that aim to enlargen the movement."
This brings up a big question: Which movement do you mean? And clarify your proposal concerning the contact with "normal" people, what do you mean?
"Don’t be like Don Quichote and fight the unwinnable, unreasonable fight. Fight the battles that you can win! That is not a sign of cowardice but a sign of clear and strategic thinking."
What is an unreasonable fight for you? And I get more and more disturbed with people who think in an win-loose logic. That is a classic militant approach; win - loose, which leads towards a dualistic way of fighting, militants against the state. Instead of how to go towards subverting power, whenever and however it appears.(But even that is poor now from my side, to speak so short about that)
The whole article is everything else but clear and strategically minded.
| | Clear and strategically minded | Huey - 14.07.2010 20:34
This last reaction by "anarchist" is exactly what I am talking about. Of course I don't care about webblogs...all I am saying is that more people will take notice of a webblog than of 200 hundred people in Amsterdam on a shopping-tourist saturdayafternoon. I care not for technology.
The example given on Greece is a perfect underlining of my statement. Greece had a dictatorship, the people revolted and never trusted the system again, no matter what shape or form it took. Great! "Unfortunately", the dutch only know dictatorship from television and movies. I have been doing actions and demonstrations for over 15 years now and honestly I will be there on saturday again..but never have I encountered a good street dialogue with white working class people who knew anything about "real" politics or even cared to know. It has always been maroccan kids or german, french, spanish, polish students and workers that I have listened to and talked with on the streets about racism, politics and inequality. But please prove me wrong.
I get a lot of critique for not writing in a clear and strategical style. I could be offended, but I choose not to be. I have the feeling that what the counter-authors want from me is some good scientific analytic paper on the dialectic of the movement and dutch society.
In a country like Germany or Greece where students form the greater part of any leftist movement this may be a good point. In the Netherlands however it has no merrit. Boring people with scientific talk is not going to get them more active. They will be confused by the language. Is that arrogant and harsh of me? Yes. But please ask the people around you in your squats or studenthousing or housing-collective or action-group if they have read all the great works by Bakunin, Marcuse, Kropotkin, Makhno, Marx, etc. and see how they answer. As a big fan of the Weather Underground I suggest you read their statements and see how the use of popular language can be very usefull in gaining support from those naturally inclined to side with you.
I think that with the little amount of people we have in the movement they should focus their energy on other issues than larger movements can do in other countries. That is all. Mother Earth needs us, the animals need us, illegalized people need us and maybe non-whites will appreciate our help so that they for once are not the only ones taking a real beating.
| | maoist? | aehem - 14.07.2010 21:24
you really watched that weather underground movie too often.
don't just do that, but please make the time and take what they talk about in the movie critically. that here really is too little space to do that properly, but most of these folks at their time were maoists! or something very close to it. and they had their moments for sure, but be careful with making a myth out of them.
that is the dualistic logic of militant against the state, winners, losers, and in the middle the poor people and animals who we have to fight for, fight for yourself, in the first place and don't help people who can also fight for themselves, otherwise you just become the militant wing of the ngos.
"But please ask the people around you in your squats or studenthousing or housing-collective or action-group if they have read all the great works by Bakunin, Marcuse, Kropotkin, Makhno, Marx, etc. and see how they answer. As a big fan of the Weather Underground I suggest you read their statements and see how the use of popular language can be very usefull in gaining support from those naturally inclined to side with you. "
what do i care if someone has read something, or not, that is sad, that people aren't into developing themselves. but i won't go after that.
| | Some thoughts for now... | Smoke - 14.07.2010 21:25
I am not sure where to start with the text of the OP. It is degenerating, paternalistic, elitair, fatalistic, faux-vanguardist and lifestylist...
..and not in the least actually full of "white guilt" which in some nasty loop disregards the factual make-up of the dutch workingclass and becomes strangly racist in itself.
But some thoughts, quickly penned down, some more might follow.
Apparently, this piece was written in reaction to the demonstration that has been organised for the 17th of Juli. The OP seems to think that this demonstration is solely in solidarity and focussed on the "Greek crisis", instead of connecting the struggle of people in Greece to the struggle of the rest of Europe's workingclass, including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy etc etc AND the Netherlands. The OP shows with stating the "Greek crisis" being a crisis an sich that there is a lack of reflection and analysis on his part, namely of global capitalism.
This demo of the 17th, is a second action of this initiative, which started with a solidarity picket organised by 4 individuals in May, and since that grew towards an openended horizontal initiative where more and more groups and individuals are participating in.
The OP seems to think that when the demo has been done on the 17th, we will sit back with a beer and pat ourselves on our backs how great we are and how we brought the revolution nearer. Nothing could be further from the truth. We see this demo as a part and step in continued organisation and mobilisation; as was already the idea with the first picketaction.
Of course we understand that we cannot create the same revolutionary situation as is the case in Greece. "Go to Greece!!" is what the OP states, but forgets or doesn't know that greek people actually have stated to stay in our own countries and work on resistance everywhere. And going to other countries of course again completely disregards the workingclass in Netherlands itself. OP does not know of the recent struggle of the cleaners? or the workers at Organon? or the postal workers of TNT Post? etc etc?
I never look at "GeenStijl" and certainly could care less what this peabrained "reaguurders" post for nationalist, racist, reactionary bullshit. nuff said.
Why the fuck the OP comes up with this batshitcrazy idea that was posted once on Indymedia about taking down the electricitynet I for the love of whatever don't know. But I can tell you that actually criticising the FIFA and South African state for the worldcup, for instance by pointing at Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front and Landless' Peoples Movement statements, has not gotten ANY, zip, nada support from the tricolour-waving footballfans. Anyways, the OP has a good idea to raise classconsciousness and international solidarity through sports?
"Dutch society is marked by apathy and mindless entertainment." And we simply should thus forget about all in the Netherlands and move to other countries to struggle, instead of actually trying to be part of changing that general apathy in the Netherlands? Oh wait, the OP has the answer here:
"Black liberation, fighting for rights for illegal immigrants, animal rights and earth liberation and supporting those who are kept out of the consumer society like homeless and singlemothers [...] Dutch society offers a lot of these fringe groups that need “our” help. Illegal immigrants, discriminated groups like muslims, somalis, maroccans, polish workers and gypsys for instance. And of course there are the countless of animal slaughterhouses and laboratories. Or the wanten destruction of our enviroment."
Many of the groups and individuals participating in the organisation of this demo struggle for all those things. However, as another reaction already pointed out, these single issue campaigns (when they are that, and that seems the way the OP sees it) lack a bigger analysis of the very system, Capitalism, that orders, legitimizes, facilitates the problems fought against.
"One issue that could unite society more would be police-repression." Come on, are you for fkn real? Have you noted the public outcry/anger over how dutch cops emtpied their guns with live-ammunition during the HvH party (no matter if it were hooligans or not)? I didn't. Did you see the anger of policebrutality during all the 1st of may demonstrations, like Rotterdam and Nijmegen? I didn't.
Well, probably not much of a structure in this reply, but as said, quickly penned down after a full day of flyering, discussing, agitating in A'dam. Might read the OP's piece another time tomorow and get back to this...
| | The opposit of knowledge ... | nn anarchist perspective? - 14.07.2010 21:39
The opposite of knowledge isn't ignorance but ...
Excellent response Huey, now we know that you're stuck in the same little subcultural political mess that people in the last few months have been attempting to counteract and critique since Luca Voorhorst first posted Het politieke failliet van de kraakbeweging? and the ensuing debates and discussions.
http://indymedia.nl/nl/2010/05/67352.shtml
You think you're writing something new but you're not, if anything your ideas as expressed above and in your response represent the very particular bankruptcy and failure of the squatting movement and exactly what needs to change. This white liberal guilt over supposed privileges, a focus on single issues, a focus on the most marginalised minorities and a belief that if "we" do enough "actions" on something we'll bring about change. All this without any strategy or understanding of struggle.
Have you even read that very well put together pamphlet on anarchism I linked to?
Funny that you do seem to so whole heartedly embrace the notion of 'sheeple' with the added subcultural misanthropy and undirected anger with no nuance or understanding. You've produced a teenaged rant that is self perpetuating of the negative and ineffectual tendencies and trends within the dutch radical left.
So, the anarchist movement is small and ineffective but people who don't believe in anarchism and what it can provide are 'sheeple'? That sounds more like the height of realism to me and I say that as an active and self confessed anarchist. What's the great alternative that anarchists are currently offering that would convince ordinary people of their own self activity and ability to change things themselves wothout the need for politicians? We need to build that through meaningful activity that is relevant to peoples everyday experiences, which implies strategic thinking, organisation and commitment.
Perhaps, if you were to go and read the aforementioned pamphlet you may come to an understanding of why anarchists don't seek to gain support from the working class as some political party but rather why anarchists see a point in focusing their attention on those trends and tendencies of collective self organisation and direct action in the working class (which includes, immigrants, football hooligans, squatters and even some of the sociological middle class) as it has existed and currently exists. A focus due to viewing the working class as the vast majority of society having the power and mass to bring about revolutionary societal change. This isn't some crude workerist or sociological analysis as you seem to think but a broader more diverse one. Coupled with an anlysis of both power and capitalism, anarchists seek to focus on workplace, community, social wage and 'identity' struggles amongst others in the hope of creating that revolutionary break with present social relations and structures. Nowhere is it about convincing people of an idea but rather one of creating a culture of resistance, something which you seem to care little about and something which will need the participation of a much larger amount of people than the ones you seem to have selected as worthy of your attention.
Again, and this bears repeating, the rest of your analysis is completely in keeping with the radical liberalism, volunteerism, substitutionism, moralism, guilt and condescension that passes for anarchism in the Netherlands today and brought us to the weak position we currently are in. Nor have you in anyway taken on, understood or engaged properly with any of the response to your "perspective".
What's most disgusting of all is the need for "activists" to take action for others who are in need of our "help". That's 1. belittling, 2. disgusting and 3. has nothing to do with anarchism.
You seem to have no (materialist) understanding of the radicalising effects of being engaged in struggle oneself or how mass struggle (sometimes around seemingly unrelated acitivity or issues) can help in the break down of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc.
The suggestions and emphasis of focus myself and St Precario have offered are the ones that are rooted in peoples everyday experiences and doesn't involve needing "to have more time for actions". What you suggest is completely inapplicable to the vast majority of people, middle class, working class, immigrant, whatever and as such fails the very first test for an effective strategy.
Further, the fact that you call yourself an anarchist but claim not to want a revolution, revealing a level of ignorance that is deserving of either derision and ridicule or of simply being ignored.
As for your comments on anarcho-syndicalist unions, the FAU is not that big at all, pretty tiny in fact with less than 1,000 members. Nor are the CNT that big either relative to country poplulation. The largest anarcho syndcalist union in the world relative to population size is in fact the swedish SAC, part of a radical left movement heavily steeped in everyday activities and concerns and with a more successful track record of fighting racism due to this analysis, emphasis and strategic engagement outlined and suggested in my and st precario's posts above. Other than that, seriously, read a book or go to the IISG! Otherwise you'll continue to come across as ignorant and ill informed.
"Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf."
Also, seriously, read Give Up Activism, your ideas are so 1990's it's unbelievable, at least your beloved Great Britain and US activist scenes have embraced and begun to take on it's criticism.
http://libcom.org/library/giveupactivism
P.S. Criticsing small elite groups of people attempting to blow up dams or liberate animals in the middle of the night doesn't mean I'm a speciesist or in favour of environmental destruction, it's just a critique of small elitist actions as a substitute for mass collective struggle which has a much better record of achieving change, indeed it's pretty much the only thing which will bring about the revolutionary change advocated by anarchists. See the piece on the german anti nuclear movement in the Introduction to Anarchist Communism pamphlet.
P.P.S. I don't know what you mean by metaphysical crisis, it's a crisis that is going to have very real effects on ordinary people's lives through governmanet austerity measures, an attack on the most vulnerable and weakest in this society to cover a giant banking and financial bailout. This is something that is going to affect a lot of people and something which they will give a "f*ck" about.
| | Pessimism of the Spirit, Optimism of the Will | nn - 14.07.2010 21:57
Wow, I'm actually starting to feel some hope again in things here in the Netherlands. Not that indymedia is that representative, but it's good to see that people are beginning to pick up on the obvious flaws and problems in the original post, linking it to the wider flaws and problems in the scene/movement and are even coming up with positive suggestions as well as criticism in their response. All this and some focus on strategy too. Woo! As pointed out above there does seem to be some positive discussion taking place since the squat ban. Now to take it into the real world. Haha.
Also, yeah, Huey, you're not an anarchist, all this liberation talk, fighting for other people, the unenlightened masses, weather underground, immiserationist politics is maoist as all hell dusted off with some particularly dutch radical lifestylism. Read some of the suggested articles and pamphlets linked here for gods sake.
Smoke, spot on! "degenerating, paternalistic, elitair, fatalistic, faux-vanguardist and lifestylist."
| | The main obstacle | no pasaran - 14.07.2010 23:44
Some points I want to make (add to the debate, although not having read it all):
The tendency of the left is indeed to retreat from the "important"-general, from a radical emancipatory political cause -call it overthrow of capitalist economy/relations and re-organise the fundamentals of society or even the less ambitious social-democratic goal of establishing a more fair society with powerful welfare state - and focusing on the particular-"cultural" -protecting animal rights, the extreme poor and suppressed minorities (kind of charity), combat extreme racism (but not fight for real equality), or they just try to defend some basic factors of the welfare state. This is a clear sign that the left accepts its defeat, and sees itself just as a force for fighting for small improvements within the system. It's like fully accepting the argument of the ruling ideology -or class if you prefer: the left has nothing realistic to say about how to run the economy or society, its role is similar to non-governmental organisations.
This is a tendency that is evident today not only in anglo-saxon countries, but also in countries that traditionally had more powerful people-workers' movements, e.g. Italy, France and Greece is not the exception.
Like the original writer, many "proggressive"-left people think that since we cannot change anything really fundamental, and fighting or even talking about a new organisation of society etc. is useless under the current circumstances, the only thing we can do is focus on particular problems, like the ones mentioned above. As neoliberalist attack is gaining ground and intensifies, this tendency becomes more and more intensive and spreads from anglo-saxon countries to traditionally more "insurrectional" ones, like Greece: fatalism is the prevalent enemy that left Greek people have to fight against when trying to convince people and drive them to the streets, strikes etc. Greece is a proper consumerism western society as well, the average Greek's behaviour is not that different from the one "Huey" describes, they buy i-pods, big screens to watch the worldcup etc. Ok, more people will usually go to the demonstrations, but at the end of the day what you call the "sheeple majority" gains.
I think this is a catastrophic policy to be adopted by left people and groups-parties. It is like precisely accepting the post-political claims with the result of neutralising-objectifying the status quo - there is no other possible-realistic way of "being", private property is a natural law, free market is identical to freedom etc. And moreover this attitude takes away all the passion and feeling and belief in a good cause that people used to have in the old days of the big projects/attempts of the left. Thus I think organising an event-demonstration-discussion in such a way that it connects to the "big" issues - yes, economy, consumerism society- and try to show why these issues concern the majority - the white people whose retirement age will be raised, whose salaries will be cut, who have a high potential of becoming unemployed and who feel insecure about their future (and I know that dutch people share all these concerns) - and not just some marginalised Morrocans or under-developed, deserving-our-solidarity Greeks - is more important instead of isolating a particular problem like police oppression, as if it can be analysed and understood outside the context of the current structures of society.
That's exactly what the initiative "Greece is overall" is trying to do, stress out what is important for the majority, the workers and also the part of the middle class that is being squeezed because of the crisis.
Ok, most Dutch-British people will not follow, however, to quote Rosa Luxemburg: those who wait for the objective conditions of the revolution to arrive will wait forever - such a position of the objective observer (and not of an engaged agent) is itself the main obstacle to the revolution. The attitude expressed in "Just another anarchist perspective" is precisely this "main obstacle".
| | Well, your ideas are so 1920's!!! | Huey - 14.07.2010 23:52
I am so glad that my spontaneous outpouring of thoughts on indymedia has created such a good monster of analysis and anarchist reaction. Truly! There is such a lack of discourse!
As I have always seen myself as an anarchist, since I do not like hierarchy, any form of State, capitalism or oppression based on race, gender or sexual preference, I must conclude however that since I am not a revolutionary anarchist I must be a Maoist. Is there such a thing as anarcho-maoism? It is not to ridicule my counter-writers, but please do not claim to have the rights on who can and must be a real anarchist. Let the name be the name, I do not care. Not every anarchist wants a revolution. Especially not a revolution in a predominant racist society where the working class is sometimes more racist than the government.
Quote: ,,You seem to have no (materialist) understanding of the radicalising effects of being engaged in struggle oneself or how mass struggle (sometimes around seemingly unrelated acitivity or issues) can help in the break down of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc."
This is always such an easy cop-out made usually by communists! ,,Don't worry about racism, homofobia, veganism, etc. All these things will be adressed after the great worker revolution!!! Focus on that issue first!" Uhuh.
To me worrying about a global economic crisis is also very single issue. Nothing wrong with that! But admit at least.
On White Guilt: This is the most condesending statement made here. White Guilt? Firstly, nobody asked if I was white or not, but just assumed it. There is nothing wrong with identifying yourself with oppressed people in your country or around the world and asking them what they expect from you. You who lives in a better and more luxurious position than they. It is not paternalistic or racist. Sticking to old views on the (white) working class being the solution to world revolution is racist and condesending.
If you want to help out the real working class, you might want to visit Asia where they produce the shit that our working/middle and upperclass buy.
As to being the militant faction of the NGO's...in the case of animal liberation..I really don't mind NGO's promoting veganism and vegetarianism whilst the underground actually liberate animals. All the efforts help. In the end (after we have a complete vegan society...) we can compare scorecards and see which of the two did better. But at least we fight the same fight.
And personally, and I think this goes for a lot of animal and earth lovers, fighting for animal and earth liberation is fighting for change in a global crisis. Because what you are asking when you are asking for an end to the economic crisis is an influx in jobs and creating more "stuff" to destroy this world. The real crisis is the one that is killing the earth and all animals. The needs of the working class and the consumerism of the middle and upperclass are in direct conflict with the needs of the Earth.
So what ARE the demands of the revolutionary anarchists when the want to fight alongside the working class in battling this crisis? I only hear: End the crisis, we won't pay for the banks! Stop the downsizing! Stop cutting government grants!!
More government grants? More government spending? How anarchist.
More jobs? More work? How anarchist.
I smell Marxism.
If anything, we should encourage this crisis!! More bankruptcy's for everyone! But verelendulung is a marxist idea..so I will stear clear of that..
How are you going to see the world? Everyone in the world a flatscreen, a second car and nice I-pods for the whole family? That's realistic. Or are you going to tell the rich workers here that what they have is an abundance of things and that if the world is to be a better place they have to give up their luxurious life so the rest of the world can have it better? Good luck with that! I'll squat a place for you to stash all the flatscreens that are voluntarily given to you by the dutch people to alleviate the world in general.
On squatting. I am a squatter and I loathe the reformist, conformist squatters that have been trying to make the government not ban squatting. Squatting is only a means not a goal. If squatting is made illegal we might finally get rid of all the lifestylies and fakers. But then again, I can also be an anarchist living in a rented place or a koopwoning!! Maybe even in an anti-squat house..;-) Sorry, but don't compare me to all the punks, tekno's and druggies that infest the squatting movement with their ,,I'm to drunk/tired/doped up to go to a demo/action" bullshit. They only appear when they can go to an egotistical demo on squatting. Much like dutch workers protesting for their pay raises.
Supporting Organon-workers????? WTF???? Organon who has illegaly built one of the largest animal test-laboratories in the Netherlands?? Organon workers who live of blood money? Whose farmaceuticals not only kill animals but polute the environment and help keep so-called mental patients doped up and in isolation cells???
I would rather see all Organon-people without a job. Just as much as I want to see all workers at DSM, slaughterhouses,prisons, detentioncentra, Philips, Ford, Renault, Volvo, BASF, the Rotterdam docks, Eneco, etc. out work by tomorrow!!
But I guess this discussion is now in danger of going nowhere. (I can hear people shout: Anarcho-primitavist!!!)
Who I am is not important at all. I only wanted people to start thinking about their actions and their forms of action. I want them to start doubting their kneejerk reaction to organise demonstrations everytime something happens. To stop wasting everyones energy on a world and social revolution that will not happen. Make the changes you can by direct action. Free an animal. Give an illegalized person shelter. Destroy things that are used in repression so that they cannot be used again. Fight racists. Stop police brutality when you see it.
Create chaos and disorder.
| | omgwtfbbq | Enrage - 15.07.2010 00:45
Seriously, stop embarassing yourself huey.
" This is always such an easy cop-out made usually by communists! ,,Don't worry about racism, homofobia, veganism, etc. All these things will be adressed after the great worker revolution!!! Focus on that issue first!" Uhuh. "
Thats not what (s)he said. What (s)he said was that the material activity of STRUGGLE (not revolution!), that is, demonstrating, striking, blockades, occupations, etc have a radicalising effect, and help in the breakdown of racism, patriarchy etc. Why you might ask? For one, because a strike against wage cuts or downsizing puts the worker on strike, whether he's racist or not, with his face to the fact that it doesnt matter whether the guy next to him is called Muhammad or Jan. He needs him to protect his own interest, to protect his own interest he needs to co-operate with him. And, in taking action, in being on the barricades, who knows, they might get to talking to eachother. And then the racist worker will realise that him and Muhammad arent so different after all: they both work to feed their family, they are both fucked over by the boss, and they have the same dreams of happiness. The same can be said in regard to patriarchy, as men find out that they need women, and women find out that they have power and strength themselves (in as far they dont realise that yet). This is NOT about waiting untill after the revolution, this is about seeing that the dynamic of collective struggle both against big abstract things such as 'the system' as well as against the lowering of wages or whatever contains, in embryo, the destruction of that which divides us (since it unites us against common enemies, with common allies).
Its not about focussing on this or that issue first, its about focussing on how to start a dynamic of collective struggle, perpetuating it, deepening it, and in it tackle all the problems we see today. We cant do this outside the material activity of struggle. If we do, all we end up is positing our opposition against it. Then, the question becomes indeed, about discourse. Lack of discourse is not the problem, its easy to explain why racism is bullshit, this system is bullshit. Then why hasnt that gotten us anywhere? Because it remains abstract, it remains discourse, it remains text.
You might not lack discourse, but you lack practice.
"So what ARE the demands of the revolutionary anarchists when the want to fight alongside the working class in battling this crisis? I only hear: End the crisis, we won't pay for the banks! Stop the downsizing! Stop cutting government grants!!"
They are not exactly demands. They are refusals, but ok who cares. I dont have the idea the crisis will 'end' when the rich and the banks are taxed for all the money they loaned from the banks to put in the banks to save them. In fact, the crisis then will worsen. Because a crisis in capitalism is a crisis of profitability for capitalists.. so if you tax their profit this crisis of profitability will worsen. Our slogan is the refusal to pay for the bailing out of this system. Our slogan is that the working class should not suffer even more because of a crisis they had no part in creating. Our slogan is that this system IS a system of crises, that the system itself needs to be destroyed in order to create a humane society. But untill that time comes we cannot use the cop-out you described, we cannot oh we'll wait till after the revolution for this and for that. Especially because, we need to grasp the possibilites for struggle not ALONGSIDE but INSIDE and WITH the working class in order to create dynamics of collective struggle which in the end may open up the possibility for a radical break with present society.
"Organon who has illegaly built one of the largest animal test-laboratories in the Netherlands?? Organon workers who live of blood money? Whose farmaceuticals not only kill animals but polute the environment and help keep so-called mental patients doped up and in isolation cells??? "
Organon which created the anti-conception pill so that women had more control over their own bodies and could fuck around more if they wanted to.
Look, i agree that technology in the hands of this society often winds up being used in barbaric ways. I agree that people are made accomplice to this. But the solution is not to call for people to be put out of work, the solution is to call for finding a different job for them or change their job so that it is better.. and this can be done the best ofcourse under the management of those workers themselves.
You may not like to work, not like work at all, but so do most people. They dont work for fun, they work to survive. That is the primary mechanism of force/hierarchy in this society. For you to call for them to loose their jobs, means you are calling for the destruction of their livelihoods.
"Create chaos and disorder"
And achieve what, exactly?
Anarchy does not mean chaos and disorder. Anarchy means the absence of hierarchy, not of organisation.
| | Intersectional analysis | anarcha-feminist - 15.07.2010 01:32
"Quote: ,,You seem to have no (materialist) understanding of the radicalising effects of being engaged in struggle oneself or how mass struggle (sometimes around seemingly unrelated acitivity or issues) can help in the break down of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc."
This is always such an easy cop-out made usually by communists! ,,Don't worry about racism, homofobia, veganism, etc. All these things will be adressed after the great worker revolution!!! Focus on that issue first!" Uhuh. "
Hmmm, as has been pointed out by enrage, I think that's a pretty standard anarchist intersectional analysis of struggle and social change, the exact opposite of wait til after the revolution rhetoric.
I think the rest of your post has been dealt with and is pretty much a strawman. You also have this weird labour aristocracy third worldism thing going on which IS standard maoism.
Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality - http://www.anarkismo.net/article/14923
| | nn | nn - 15.07.2010 02:03
Great that this discussion is going on. Huey thanks for spicing it up a notch :)
I dont understand though why smashing up anti-squat burea's might alienate people (mostly students) living in anti-squat arrangement which is a bad thing according to Huey.
But then again all Organon-workers should lose their job together with "all workers at DSM, slaughterhouses,prisons, detentioncentra, Philips, Ford, Renault, Volvo, BASF, the Rotterdam docks, Eneco"
So its the one or the other: Or you provoke reactions, demanding people to take responsibility for what they do in/with their lives, forcing them to choose sides (yes this might get some people upset) or you don't because you don't want to alienate those poor, scared people with whom you want to form the mass-movement of workers and go and hold hands together...
| | greece haha | non fides - 15.07.2010 02:12
It’s already a while since Greece exploded. Demonstrations, riots, fires, shops and banks destroyed, robberies, cops attacked, occupations of town halls, schools, universities... It propagates in all directions, in every town, a big part of the population is involved.
Acts of support for the Greek rioters multiply elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world: in London, Berlin, Istanbul, Bordeaux, Rome, New York, Paris, Moscow, in New Zealand, Uruguay, Cyprus, Scandinavia... consulates and embassies are occupied, police stations and banks attacked, cars burnt, graffitis of support flourish all over the walls. All this in order to express international solidarity with the Greeks fighting: for the proliferation of the riots, of the strikes, of the occupations, or of all of them at the same time. Also because we all know that the living conditions, the exploitation, the inequalities and the state violence are not only reserved for the Greeks. Here and everywhere else the problems are the same.
But the solidarity must also confront its share of repression: arrests, identification of protesters, increasing surveillance, mass police occupations using various excuses — emergency anti-terror plans here, a bomb scare there...
It was the death of a 15-year-old anarchist which put the spark to the gunpowder, as the media explained, but the gunpowder was there for a long time, in all areas of life, as is the case in every part of the world. The average salary in Greece is about 700 euros while the cost of living is as high as in France; tourism commands... The “crisis” doesn’t sort out anything, just as the corrupt governments and their racist and violent police force don’t. Greece has also already used the threat of the general strike... general... for a general exasperation, a craving to push things, not one single professional sector, not a part or a guild, but rather to change the whole system...
And here? What’s happening here? More or less the same stuff, the same shit... here, too, the police kills and capitalism chokes everyone to death. A hail of catastrophic reforms, the high school students’ revolt, police in the schools and high schools, 65,000 people in jail, beatings in the police stations, charges of terrorism, the hunt on immigrants, on immigrants without documents, the police/state indexing of the population, high-velocity embourgeoisement of urban areas, 500 people sacked every day. The stock exchanges collapse but the bosses go up and the state bails out banks to the sound of billions of euros... The homeless continue dying silently in the streets. People regularly demonstrate, strikes flourish everywhere... the health sector, education... but always in sectors, never together...
The different powers of this world know how to form an alliance in order to dominate us.
Many Greeks take to the streets to shout their rebellion.
Of course not everything has changed, but it’s a beginning...
...So what are we waiting for?
War on capital, everywhere, now!
Notes: Leaflet found in France, December 2008, from Non Fides N.3
| | the travels of prometheus | prometheus - 15.07.2010 03:07
The travels of prometheus
“Concerning the social war in Greece and the end of an over here and over there
The mirror of social peace begins to crack. The European social democratic management is expiring and the current political classes take notice of it. While in some other countries the legal bases for this shift have already been voted in the parliaments under relatively peaceful circumstances, the enmities in Greece took an unexpected width. This conflictuality could be put under the banner of the usual social movements against the dismantling of the welfare state, were it not that it is tending towards something very different. An agreement with the state in the logic of the old social pact seems to become less and less probable because there is no economic, political and social base left for it. We are experiencing something new. Accustomed to struggle against the social pacification and its consensus, we might now be facing a new form of management tending towards a climate of war. Therefore it is all the more necessary to develop new perspectives, to venture some new hypotheses on social war.
Other horizons
Risking a schematization of the reality but aiming at sketching out a few analytical routes which permit a more precise intervention in this reality, we can state that a profound restructuring of the economy –but not only- took place at the end of the 70’s. A considerable part of the industrial complex on the European continent was dismantled and decentralized by the integration of new technologies, the transformation of the production processes and delocalization. The existent rigid class relations were thoroughly turned upside down and torn apart. Thanks to the ever more deeper penetration of wares, capital started digging into ‘new’ markets related to the new technologies and strongly marked by the aspect of ‘services’.
Unfortunately, the restructurings after World War 2 and after the dictatorial periods in other countries have for years gambled on a social state which was assumed to accompany this capitalist reform and manage the social tensions accompanying it. From the 80’s onwards the so called ‘social achievements’ are under pressure and during the 90’s it are the international context and the local power structures which define the rhythm of its dismantlement and crumbling. The flexible labor market, the dismantlement of social welfare such as the pension system, the liberalization and privatization of the energy-, communication- and transport sector unsettle that which many had for a long time assumed being certainties.
The ‘financial crisis’ which started last year is in fact not a crisis but a consequence of these new restructurings. While many states have reserved big sums of money to ‘save’ an amount of banks, it was in fact mainly the selling out of ‘public’ institutions and industries that continued. However, the states remain to have massive deficits; a few recipes to replenish their coffers have already been used. They shall have to continue cutting in the human flesh. The current Greek situation gives us a preview of what is awaiting us in other countries.
The economic measures as they are being pushed through today in England, Spain, Italy, Greece and many other European countries are in fact diametrically opposed to what for decades used to be the paradigm of the ‘social state’: an acceleration of consumption on the interior market. On the one hand, the Greek state is reducing the access to consumption (reducing wages and pensions) and on the other hand it drastically increases the taxes on consumption wares hoping to get still some cash. It is clear that they do not longer practice the European model of ‘including the poor’, they openly declare that a whole part of the population which is already touched by misery, must now submit itself to an imposed exploitation and may be happy for it. For years this has been more or less the direction of the European immigration policy. In contrast to the ever more increasing immigration, the so called Fortress Europe manages the migration streams by means of regularizations and an acceleration of the deportation capacity, firmly connected to ever more precarious labor contracts. The existence of a lower layer in the population is clearly accepted and appreciated in function of the needs of the market.
Other conflicts from over the past years (just a few examples: Argentina in 2001 or Bangladesh, particularly in 2006) already pointed towards a harshening of the economical war, the current events in Greece are its objective European confirmation. State and capital are sensing a new horizon and they won’t offer their brutality on a golden plate any longer. Although hard times are announced, especially given the current weakness of the social and revolutionary critique, we have the intuition that for us as well new times might come, times which open up possibilities that we’ve often lost out of sight – and not because of the reasoning “the worse the better”. Although surprise gives us a pleasant feeling, we should make a big effort so that we will not experience the current challenges as being powerless commentators, sucked in the passive role which the domination is trying to sell us since years.
In the country of Prometheus
We have to go back a lot of years in history to find back a moment and space in which the revolutionary movement –moreover largely anti-authoritarian- was capable of being close to the social developments and social struggle as it is nowadays in Greece. It is the temporary result of many years of cross-fertilization between the Greek anarchist movement, in all her diversity, and a certain social combativeness. Many times the Greek anarchists have been standing next to the oppressed that revolted while they are as well able to struggle in times when the rest of society is looking towards the other side. Our enemies are aware of this as well. Not only was Greece assigned the role of the first eurozone country to take drastic social measures against the exploited and the up till now included in function of a new restructuring; not only is Greece an important operating base for the military management of the Balkans and at the same time an increasingly important passage through for eastern immigrants; it is as well the country facing ongoing social tensions and a fierce revolutionary activity.
Now that the institutional left is at power in Greece, she can no longer play her classical role of recycler and inhibitor of a growing social struggle. She has lost this chance when she was elected, on the basis of a ‘progressive program’ following the explosion of December 2008. So the margins of the Greek political class have been considerably reduced and two –nothing new seen from a historical perspective- roads are opening up: either does the hard right succeeds, making use of the demands of the international capital and the latent patriotism, with the aid of a technical administration to restore order which an iron fist, or the possibility of an insurrection rises at the horizon. There is a lot at stake.
During almost the whole of 2009, Greece has known a long series of strikes, blockades, manifestations and attacks against the power structures. The protests accelerated when the socialist government passed in fifth gear facing an increasing speculation against the Greek national debt (note that a big part of these debts is in hands of the ‘Greek’ banks) and the explosion of the budget deficit. It is not exaggerated to speak of a ‘climate of war’ on an economical as well as a political and social scale. From the beginning of 2009 up till now they’ve been cutting in the wages and pensions (from 10 to 30%), direct and indirect taxes were increased, education was restructured, public health care was almost entirely abolished. In order to maintain the structures of the state, the Greek political class and economic elite is obliged to turn Greece into a paradise of imposed exploitation, a spearhead in the European Union. The Greek state has declared war upon the lower classes and it solemnly tries to keep up the appearance of some “care about the people” by making use of patriotism and the spectacle of the “revolutionary terrorism”.
From an objective point of view the situation for the current Greek institutions is at a rather critical point and it has been a long time that a European state has felt the hot breath of a possible uprising. But let us not go too fast. Despite the meaningful but circumscribed disorder (on the manifestation of the 5th of May the trade union leaders of the GSEE could not even say 2 words before getting chased by hundreds of protesters), most protests maintain the directions of the social democrat unions, the Stalinist party KKE and a few leftist structures such as the PAME, because they are still at the base of a few formal initiatives such as the general strikes. Despite the many practical experiences of self-organization in the street (during manifestations, occupations, and riots), the protests do not yet pick up the necessary confirmation of their autonomy. In combination with a fairly brutal police repression and terror of the media, there is the danger of getting dragged into a bruising battle. Without claiming that the general strike (as opposed to “action days” of 24 hours) would be the harbinger of an insurrectionary movement, it stands beyond doubt that it is necessary to paralyze the economical activity and the circulation of wares. For this, a decentralization of the initiative is necessary, or in other words, an affirmed self-organization of the struggle. One of the possibilities to wrest the initiative of the unions and create an empty space in which the seeds of self-organization may flourish seems to move towards the paralyzation of a few economic infrastructures (communication, energy, transport) in a decentralized but well-considered way. And this matter does not only concern the revolutionary minority as some might claim, but it is a practical proposal to everyone, which feeds itself with the many experiences from other pre-insurrectional moments and in which creativity and diffusion outweigh an economist or military way of viewing the proposal.
Insurrection is not the work of revolutionaries and anarchists on their own. It is social, not only because it includes a big part of the exploited, but mainly because it undermines the existent social roles by destroying the structures which support them. But just like it doesn’t shoot at the exploited in order to end with exploitation, but at the structures and the people who enable this exploitation, it can neither let itself being blocked in an apology of ‘the people’ or ‘the exploited’ whose consent in the end is the fuel which makes the machine turn round and round.
The insurrectional hypothesis which seems to emerge in Greece actually follows a very different logic than the paradigm of the urban guerrilla. At moments of an explosively growing social tension it suits the state very well to present the conflict as a duel between two ‘fractions’ (in this case, the state versus the adepts of the urban guerrilla with the population as spectators). Not that she would not on a certain moment be able use the anarchist movement as a whole for this extent and try to let it been swallowed in a big spectacle –this is even very plausible- but it does not seem too intelligent to make it more easier for them by – even if it’s not been made explicit- making hierarchies between the different forms of attack against the structures of state and capital. Insurrection does not need any advance guard or protectors, she needs nothing but – free from all fetishisms- the determination of blowing the wind of subversion through the society. Already today, when the insurrection is still a hypothesis, the question of weapons needs to be put in the perspective of arming everyone, of a generalized offensive with the weapons in hand. We cannot let the armed fact been pushed back to this or that group, letter word or fraction.
The Greek state is beginning to insist on a fast militarization of the conflict, and hopes that the anarchists, maybe because of their generosity, will take the initiative in this. So the state is intensifying the specific repression and terror against the anarchist movement; in the meantime she has made clear as well that there will be dead bodies, that torture will not be hidden, that they are not afraid of an extreme militarization of for example Exarchia, that the fascist para-statal troops can hit fiercer and fiercer. The state does not only want to isolate the anarchists from the social struggle and break up their dynamics, but as well wants to drag them down into the spiral of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, entailing correct and brave counterblows of the anarchists but which could be at the extend of a subversive decline in the wider spheres of society. The state is consciously making use of the media with a contra insurrectional point of view trying to spread terror, making the population afraid (of the growing number of immigrants in Greece, the ‘anarchist terrorists’, the ‘blood thirsty robbers’,…). The state does no longer manage itself by using order, by calling for social peace and conciliation, but by declaring war on all who struggle. It’s difficult not to get trapped, not to get caught into the nets of a military conflict which is beyond doubt the bearer of death for any subversive project. Let’s be clear, the current situation asks for clarity: this is no call for putting down the arms, no discourse that says that the “insurrectional violence frightens the proletarians and therefore should be restricted”. On the contrary, this is the moment to give weapons to everyone who wants to use them; to share the necessity of attack as much as possible with all who don’t want to kneel down any longer in front of the altar of the Nation and the Economy; to give the attack the place that in fact should always be hers: as an act of willful destruction of an enemy structure and not a vehicle for self promotion. Subversion looses strength when comrades only speak after firing.
About a here and there
Now that long stored possibilities are violently trying to storm into the reality in Greece, urgent questions are coming up for comrades from other countries. Not only because what is happening in Greece will most probably have an effect on all anarchists and revolutionaries somewhere else in Europe and beyond, but mainly because a possible contamination is becoming more probable every day. We don’t want to bring the classical domino theory back to life, but it seems to us that because of the ever deeper inter-national integration of the economic and stately structures on the old continent (having the project of the European Union as its formal structure) it would point out to be a self chosen blindness if we look at the borders of the areas where we live, of the national states where we struggle as a horizon that cannot be overcome. The old question of internationalism is coming back and asks for some new answers.
Mainly it are the same questions which have been knocking on the doors of many comrades in December 2008, with the difference that today the question is much more demanding. Although traveling to Greece can be very interesting to exchange and share experiences, we think the question is more of how we in our own context can go further than declaring our international solidarity and push the question further than a generous and encouraging pat on the back to our Greek comrades who at the moment have so much to loose, but especially so much to win.
Considering that, given the extension of the social war in Greece, all struggles and deeds of revolt will have a bigger importance. Not because they would in one way of another put direct pressure on the Greek institutions, but exactly because they could be the feared bearers of contamination. Partly objective and partly dependent of a voluntary effort, it is possible to entangle different ‘local’ struggles with the social war in Greece, and visa versa, exactly because it is the logical consequence of a social connection, a resemblance of the Greek situation which, as whispered to us by our intuition, could happen tomorrow in ‘our’ areas as well. And it is certainly not malicious to state that the forces of subversion in many countries are less strong than in Greece and dealing with an overall presence of a furious reaction (just think about Italy where racism and the political management is having totalitarian edges since there is a terrifying consent in broad spheres of the population). This is why the necessity is pushing itself to go further than solidarity and to really try to intertwine our struggles internationally. Every given blow, can have a meaning that surpasses it; and we have to work hard towards this direction. In this way we could stop the logic of a here and there in our perspectives.
Although the current economic restructuring seems willing to make a new area of accumulation out of a generalized instability (in contrast to a few decennia before), another destabilization which doesn’t aid the domination is possible. It is necessary to think, to think seriously. Is it impossible to make some analyses which bind the local context to what will most probably touch the whole of the eurozone and in this way permit the evaluation of ongoing struggles in function of their potential destabilising effects? Maybe it is, maybe it is not. In any case it seems a challenge worth to be noted. To reinforce each other when a battle won in the drawn out social war could exceed its first concrete result; trying to develop our activities in light of their relation to the activities a few hundred miles away. Trying to go on these roads might help us developing insurrectional hypotheses, and as well avoid being caught up by surprise, to discover opportunities to push the discontent and anger present in many countries (and sometimes expressing itself in a confused way or lacking any libertarian perspectives) towards a social war against all forms of exploitation and authority.
The dream
An insurrectional hypothesis is in need of more than analysis and activity. Even more, it remains a dead letter or a shot in the water when it is unable to communicate its why. Although it is a method, a practical proposal towards everyone, it nowadays cannot fall back on the presence of a series of vague, yet discussed concepts of liberation. The concepts which have been put forward in the social struggles and made it possible to communicate them no longer exist. We must dare ask ourselves how to revive a dream, not as a mirage, not as a myth, but as intentions alive. The revolutionary contribution to the social struggle cannot limit itself to some destructive hints, to incite revolt. Its insurrectional character becomes more real when it manages not only to indentify the enemy and pose a negativity which will definitely encourage all enraged that want to break their chains, but when it is able to communicate about what we are fighting for and is already cherishing it at this very moment. Two decades of eroding and ideologising have caused a lot of damage to the revolutionary thoughts. We are the orphans of ideas which have lost their thinkability. We need to come out of the corner in which we were pushed and stop making a pathetic apology of it. The coming conflictuality which might have a character different from what we have know until now, offers real possibilities to restart experimenting and breaking through the ideological encirclement. Subversions contradiction is hidden in the tension between on the one hand getting closer towards reality and on the other hand to break the dance, to communicate about what is considered impossible.
These words are an invitation rather than an accurate sketch of our current situation, yes, you could even say it is a call to open our heads and look the challenges straight into the eyes. Much can be at stake in the future and our only certainty is that inertia might have some heavier consequences in future times.”
-Some friends of Prometheus
| | Disagree | nn - 15.07.2010 08:19
This is really a bad piece of writing huey. It is an example of an anarchist trying to make anarchism even more sektarian than it already is. Not Furthermore the title of your article is really not saying anything, if you take the time to write an article please make an informative title.
| | disagree | rode jeugd nijmegen - 15.07.2010 08:24
And again an article that is actually making anarchism even more sectarian. And even more you lost the touch with reality completely. Your analysis shows a lack of knowledge about dutch history and show signs of apathie.
But people please quit with the sektarian anarchist perspectives on everything. Please create your own blog where people can react but not here. Please!
| | Weathermen | ja - 15.07.2010 10:32
As the writer of the original article declares himself "a big fan of the Weather Underground" it might be usefull to hear what the survivors of those ultra-avantgardists have to say about their own experience, Like Mark Rudd at Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/rudd12252009.html
Translated into Dutch here: http://www.globalinfo.nl/Achtergrond/wat-er-nodig-is-om-een-beweging-op-te-bouwen.html
Further we can wish 'Huey' good luck if he ever has to live under a fascist occupation, since he seems to know all about how he should resist heroicly. But it might also be advisable to read at least *one* book about the history of the dutch labour movement, or anarchist movement, as he claims toe be one. You could start with 'Waarachtige Volksvrienden' from Dennis Bos, or one of the many biographies of Domela Nieuwenhuis
| | Some catchy title | Huey - 15.07.2010 13:22
First of all: This will be my last response, since I think that part of my goal has been achieved. Finally a discourse on indymedia and people explaining why "we" should go out on the streets and create another Greece here and everywhere.
Secondly though: There seem to be some misunderstandings. Some claim that I am alienating "the people" from "my" form of anarchism. As I do call them sheeple, yes you are right. It is intentional. I have no sympathy for people who only revolt as soon as their livelihoods are in danger of being taken away. They consume, consume and consume, letting illegalized people getting arrested, beaten and mistreated, they eat meat and use products tested on animals and they drive cars and use other items destroying the Earth. But as soon as this priviliged life is in danger they go out on the streets! I am not going to support these egotists. If they ever get really hit by a real crisis here.
Jan and Muhammed: I think that the sheeple have shown that they think kicking Muhammed to the curb is going to be better for the economy. PVV anyone? Jan and Muhammed aren't really becoming friends in this country now are they?
Peter Storm writes on his blog that people in the developing countries are also working harder to buy the same consumer items that we have here. As if to say, all workers are equal. If that is the case, then I will not support any worker anywhere. Buying more TV's, cars and I-pods is killing this world. Peter also writes that all union strikes around the world have always been for pay-raises. This is not true as I have been to many anarchist union demo's in France where they were demonstrating for the rights of illegalized immigrants. Workers took police beatings in order to keep illegalized people safe. But I agree, most actions have been egotistical and I will no longer support the unions.
Even though I disagree with the statement that if you fight for the rights of animals and mother Earth you are being elitist, I have no problem taking an (often times failing) example-role by being vegan, anti-consumerist and mostly earth-friendly.
I will still be there on saturday. For the last time. These discussions have enlightened me to my own path. It is not one of helping the Earth get f*cked more and more. For me the destruction of capitalism means the destruction of all factories and jobs that are not there for the prime essential needs of man-kind. Free food, free shelter, free health-care based on non-animal-experimental(?) medicine and all in a regionalistic fashion based on small autonomous communities that are Earth-friendly.
Viva l'Anarchia!
| | Thanks Huey | John - 15.07.2010 14:06
Great to read the discussion Huey started. Thanks Huey! And about many of the contributions: if another world is possible, please start with respecting other opinions - with doesn't mean you've to agree.
Many of the contributors are only looking to points in Huey's text they could disagree - but shouldn't it be better to first look at the things he/she said who might be interesting in a whatever way? (i've read a few)
The way many people react looks like a wrong a kind of beauty contest: "Look at me - i'm the one who really understand the needs of the masses and the revolution, i know all the books (you don't!) and my look at the present situation and the needs is the very best!"
The one who doesn't exactly think like you is of course the inner enemy! We, the ones who have superior opinions, should fight that enemy - or at least talk about the text with a condescending attitude.
| | old fronts | insurecsyndicalist - 15.07.2010 14:34
The whole debate around this article unveils the old sectarian divides within the anarchist movement: should we be once-and-for-all revolutionists or fight for the daily bread with daily measures?
The 'problem' is that there is not any shortage of daily bread, and even less sentiment for a revolution of any kind. The first fact (although valid for the metropol only, not for the colonies) is the main reason for the latter: As the writer of the original piece already states: why would people rise instead of consuming and watching football ?
In this context, it is maybe useful to point out that the success of socialism (which includes anarchism) is at the same time the reason for its decay. As a positivist political ideology, it has successfully fought for material goal and apparently achieved them so well, that it seems to have outlived its purpose. The formerly revolutionary working class has turned into a middle class, protecting those material achievements and seeing change not as progress but as a threat.
Strange enough, on important aspect of the capitalist production system, has been left untouched by the socialist reforms of the last 100 years: alienation as a result of capitalisation of the workforce. In laymans terms: altough people get rewarded over-adequatly for the time and ebnrgy they spend at the job, they still feel uneasy and bored by the fact, that they have little to say about what and how is produced.
The fact that the great majority chooses individual consumption over cultural empowerment as a way out, maily resulsts from the fact that all the good socialists have no compelling answers as how cultural empowerment would more effectively counteract the nasty feelings of alienation. Let alone that the same majority actually seems to prefer alienation and limited responsibility, to the enormous commitment that 'taking control of their lives' would mean.
This is true for the majority of activists in the same way. Their sublimation of cultural, social and (let alone!) economic empowerment is different but comparable though. Different in brand and colour, ALF instead of AJAX so to say, but similar as in projecting the possible solution to an escape screen ( some action where the activists private live is not affected) rather that tackling the real reason (shitty job with no influence what so ever), and than mainly because it would mean sacrificing 'leisure' time to organizing and taking over 'the bakkery'.
At the end of the day, the 'normal' workers are angry on the activists for the same reason than the activists despise those same normal people: for a choice of style, but both groups shun the enormous challenges, that changing something to do away with alienation would really mean.
Why, oh, why would assuming responsibility be such a scary thing?
| | One of those | squatters - 15.07.2010 21:56
Huey, you say:
Quote:
“verelendulung is a marxist idea..so I will stear clear of that..
On squatting. I am a squatter and I loathe the reformist, conformist squatters that have been trying to make the government not ban squatting. Squatting is only a means not a goal. If squatting is made illegal we might finally get rid of all the lifestylies and fakers. But then again, I can also be an anarchist living in a rented place or a koopwoning!! Maybe even in an anti-squat house..;-) Sorry, but don't compare me to all the punks, tekno's and druggies that infest the squatting movement with their ,,I'm to drunk/tired/doped up to go to a demo/action" bullshit. They only appear when they can go to an egotistical demo on squatting. Much like dutch workers protesting for their pay raises.”
How is getting rid of the fakers not purification?
And secondly, do you think the people who tried to fight the squatting ban are lazy?
If you wrote that out of anger I can understand it, but if you are serious then I wish you luck when they come calling at your door. No more heroes anymore, please!
| | insurecsyndicalist | nn - 15.07.2010 23:45
"revolutionists or fight for the daily bread with daily measures? "
I think if you go back and read the comments you'll see the "revolutionists" as you call them are the ones advocating a politics and engagement of everyday life rather than a continuation of single issue activism. Check it out.
I think they've also agreed as to why people don't want to necessarily rise up, pointing out the need to be more relevant to the everday struggles that are taking place and the need to build a culture of resistance.
As for your points on culture and economics, I think the discussion above with regards contemporary politcs is for a repoliticisation of the economic as the main focus, nor a retreat from culture but seeing how sometimes cuklture may flow from struggle (based around the economic?).
Other than that, you raise some interesting, engaging and valid points.
| | Mass collective direct action | Mother Earth - 15.07.2010 23:54
"Even though I disagree with the statement that if you fight for the rights of animals and mother Earth you are being elitist, I have no problem taking an (often times failing) example-role by being vegan, anti-consumerist and mostly earth-friendly."
Eh, go back again and read what was said, no one is arguing we shouldn't fight for mother earth but saying that collective mass direct action and self organisation may be preferable to the type of actions you are advocating. Look at the example of "The Environment and the Social Wage: The German Anti-Nuclear Movement" in the introduction to anarchism pamphlet linked to earlier. I'll reproduce it for you here if you can't be bothered to click through and read it.
"In 1975 the West German government began building a nuclear reactor
in the tiny hamlet of Wyhl. Since 1971 a grass roots movement
had been building to oppose the new reactor, but had been ignored at every stage of the planning process. On the 18th February, one day after construction had begun, local people occupied the site and were dragged away and beaten by the police. A few days later on the 23rd February 30,000 people came back and reoccupied the site forcing the police to back down. Within a month the construction license had been withdrawn and the reactor was never built.
This was the first major victory for the German anti-nuclear movement which had been growing since the 1960s in the belly of the peace movement and through local citizens’ initiatives. Through the late 1970s hundreds of thousands of people were involved in occupations and direct action aimed at stopping the government’s nuclear power programme. Projects in Wackersdorf and Gorleben were defeated and in 1981 100,000 people faced off 10,000 police with sticks, stones, molotovs and slingshots in protest at a proposed plant in Brockdorf.
The German anti-nuclear movement is the single most successful environmental
direct action movement in recent history. It started with local communities organising themselves to resist building projects through legal channels (lobbying, protests and so on). It grew into a major alliance between anarchists, the libertarian left, local groups and national campaigns that were able to fight and win against some of the biggest police mobilisations ever seen in Germany. In the end, some parts of this movement were co-opted into the German Green Party and other parts faded away as the government backed down, but its influence still lives. Even in 2008, it was possible for 15,000 to blockade nuclear waste shipments and any German government can guarantee that moves towards a new nuclear programme will be met with resistance."
| | some more stuff :D | Elaine - 16.07.2010 10:22
A lot has been said already, but still a few things I'm missing.
1. I think it is really weird to on the one hand say that we should make a struggle with people from Marocco, the Antilles, Suriname, etc. etc. on the other hand turning against the working class people. Because these are not 2 different groups. Supressed minority groups are a big part of the working class people, you cannot seperate the two. Also, racism is not only people openly saying that minorities should go back “to their own country”, but also the way the society works: minorities for the big part work in low paid uneducated jobs, they don't have the same opportunities in life. To fight racism is also to fight this, so it is for a part a working class fight. If you neglect that, that is single issue!
2. There is a tendency of some people to judge people that are fighting for themselves, for their own personal life. You must not forget that (a) most activist throughout the world are fighting first of all for themselves, for exemple on enviromental issues, because they are the ones that are directly affected, and (b) it doesn't mean that people don't see the greater issue. But we should not neglect the personal issues. And finally ( c) a lot of personal circumstances embody the big picture. The personal is politic. If you judge the people that are fighting their own battle, for making their own circumstances better (and also for the bigger picture), and you are promoting fighting the enlightend battle for the bigger picture without demanding better personal circumstances, you are being middle class.
The groups mentioned to fight for; minorities, refugees, illegalized people (not meant as three seperate groups), they also fight for better circumstances for themselves. People are not political people because they are supressed, and the groups above are not necessary political themselves. Sometimes people tend to see these groups as highly potential political, but most illegalized people for example, when they get a residence permit, they just start a “normal” life. And become working class too, in the low paid jobs etc. It doesn't mean they don't see the bigger picture though. And it most certainly doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for.
And finally;
Struggling for enviromental issues and against animal exploitation, is a good thing. I'm all for animal liberation but if we don't change “the system”, animal liberation will always stay necessary, because it will be “dweilen met de kraan open” (mopping the floor with the water still running). So I can't understand why Huey is saying he don't want a revolution. And also let's be fair, although veganism is good, it is not “revolutionairy” in itself. Because it's an individual thing. Being a good-example, is not revolutionairy, because you don't change anything with it. It is actually right in the liking of the government to individually carry out ideals etc. Think about the whole government campaign about “spaarlampen” (saving energy bulbs), the campaign most cleverly takes the attention off the big compagnies that can still consume as much energy as needed for more growth, even getting subsidies for consuming nuclear energy etc. It is not about individuals changing their lives, although it's good if they do, it's about overthrowing a system. Consumerism is not good, but it is not the core of the problem, that is the overproduction of the capitalist system.
| | life is not static | Enragé - 16.07.2010 13:37
"
Jan and Muhammed: I think that the sheeple have shown that they think kicking Muhammed to the curb is going to be better for the economy. PVV anyone? Jan and Muhammed aren't really becoming friends in this country now are they? "
1. not all 'sheeple' think that
2. Well they arent exactly on the barricades for higher wage or whatever now arent they? MY POINT was that at the MOMENT that they come into resistance from the perspective of their OWN interests there is the POSSIBILITY for the destruction of racism, and other things which divide us. The struggle right now is very limited, if taking place at all. Thats why we must seek to create dynamics of struggle, not sit back and denounce the whole world for not being composed of 90% anarchists.
3. Life is a process, not a static thing. That things are like this and that right now doesnt mean they can be different tomorrow. We must try to look for the possibilities for what we want in the situation of today. One of those possibilities is the coming together of 'jan' and 'muhammad' working at some company, even if jan might be racist today, in the common fight for their interests inside and outside that company, against their boss, for their common happiness. We must do everything to ensure that the chance of this possibility coming true becomes greater.
| | Oops, I did it again.. | Huey - 16.07.2010 16:49
Again: Good retorts! I have read many of the links and all of the replies. And even though most of them annoy me with there over-intellectualizing and good old 19th century language and precepts I must say that some of the texts at least help me understand the other point of view more.
My greatest concern with creating (or trying to create) a culture of struggle that one might succeed in getting people to revolt, but that this revolt does not necesarrily mean it will be an egalitarian anti-capitalist one. But maybe that is just my negative outlook on what I call egotistical humanity. If in the best case they do not fight mainly for themselves, then they will fight for "their" tribe.
I still don't know how a culture of struggle will get rid of racism, sexism and homofobia (let alone speciecism). Maybe a worker will realise Muhammed and Jan have the same enemy, State and Capital, but it doesn't take away the precepts of racism. The difference in forefatherly (or motherly) culture, religion, eating and living habits aswell as personal sexual preferences are in large parts disconnected from capitalism as a whole. Especially sexism and homofobia occur in many many non-capitalist cultures. Ethnic struggles have occured in non-capitalist societies. And, for instance, the acceptance of homosexuals is mostly religiously based. And even though Christianity is a very capitalist religion, the Islam has great admiration among the many poor people in the world to whom capitalism is also an enemy. And they don't seem to be to fond of gays and women.
And I won't even mention the animals. (including sheep by the way!!!)
For those who keep wanting to put everyone (and especially me!!) in some idealistic pigeonhole, I can only say: Am I not supposed to like Mao to be even called a Maoist? He was a patriarchial, delusioned dictator in the lines of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Nixon and all the others! Stop calling me a Maoist! And this just because I like the Weather Underground...I'm also a big Prince fan. That doesn't mean I like all his songs or even agree with what he says. The Weather Underground just gave a nice non-intellectual twist to their armed propaganda by using vocabulary that was of the time, man! They were groovy guerilla's.
Some call me a maoist because I like heroism. ,,We don't need more heroes." I disagree. I think this world could use a lot of heroes. Every ALF or ELF activist is a hero. Every antifascist in Russia is a hero. Every woman fighting for her rights in Saudi-Arabia is a hero. Every gay couple in Ghana are heroes.
It still doesn't make me a maoist. You can't pigeonhole everyone. I jokingly called myself a anarcho-primitivist, but I might aswell have pigeonholed myself as a anarcho-antispeciesist or a autonomous-makhnovist. Who cares? If it doesn't fit into my theory I should discard it?? Sektarian!! (and always fun to see that communists/stalinists/Leninists call others sektarian!! Thanks for the laugh Rode Jeugd Nijmegen!!)
Anarchists and activists nowadays seem to have lost all humor and take themselves just a bit to seriously all the time. That is not very attractive. (and no I am not saying that we should become hippy pacifists...but you can burn a police car with a smile on your face!)
Don't forget to bring an umbrella tomorrow! And I will try not to see the rain as a sign of Mother Earth that she is in disagreement with the demo.
| | . | Smoke - 16.07.2010 18:59
Pretty much everything I would have wanted to say in a more structured follow-up reply has been said by others already, also giving all the substantiation for my earlier statement that Huey's text is "degenerating, paternalistic, elitair, fatalistic, faux-vanguardist and lifestylist".
I disagree with the text, but don't mean to disregard it. Discussion is needed, and way more of it. And thanks for starting that Huey, and others. And thanks Indymedia, for not killing it.
I do however want to say one thing about the timing (and execution): is it really helpfull and strategically wise to publish a critique of an action (/movement/whatever) just before that action takes place? Moreover, where there have been several open assemblies/actionmeetings in the run-up to that action?
In any case, after the demonstration there will be another open meeting for continued organisation for which I want to invite you all to join in. A demonstration can indeed not be end in itself, nor is a sufficient means.
| | you can become a hero | @Huey - 16.07.2010 19:39
Fight for gay rights in Amsterdam-West.
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