Subversive bookfair in Brussels

Having a fast look at the era of the first International and the revolutionary brotherhoods which in those days were able to stimulate and stir up a permanent insurrectional tension across the borders, tells us a lot about the paradoxal situation we are now living in. Never before have there been so many means of transport, travel and communication, never before were the curcumstances in different countries so much alike and yet it seems as if we, anarchists and revolutionaries, have never been so much attached to the stately borders. Paradoxaly it seems as if the globalisation of the domination goes together with the de-internationalisation of its declared enemies.

It´s not that all left-overs of the old internationalist tale have been swept away, but let´s be frank: it´s a dim situation. We don´t really get any further than solidary pats on the back and in the best case some sharing of experiences and projectualities. Simply having a look at the shameful lack of perspectives around the insurrections across the meditarenean (or, as you wish, around the revolt of december 2008 in Greece) is sufficient to become aware of this.

As the domination has transformed communication into a ware, into a numbning and alienating instrument, it has equally eroded the dream of the revolutionary internationalism. Today it seems as if the only internalitionalism present in anarchist circles is to be found on the worldwide web distributing passivity, by means of her endless stream of information which is un-understandable (because it´s been detached from its context and from all life), untouchable (because it´s meant to be simply consumed from the screen) and evaporating (because it drowns in the middle of a true databombarding). As well as deeply altering our whole concept of time and space. What was still news today, has already been forgotten tomorrow. And the faster the over there can reach over here through the information chanels, the lesser the over here seems able to dialogue with the over there. It goes beyond doubt that a renewed internationalist perspective is as well in an urgent need of developing a new way of experiencing and conceiving time and space. If not it is doomed only to flourish in the time and space frame of the domination. We could even make a parallel with the old International: in those days the nation-states were fully growing and the creation of an international space was at itself already a rupture with domination.

In which ways can internationalism, international revolutionary solidarity, become again a force which leaves behind its current technological and activist mutilation? We should confront this question again, unless one believes that the universal entrenchement of domination, requires a local microcosmic rooting of its opponents.

Not so long ago there were anarchists who attempted a new sort of International, a project which clearly crashed in a premature way. We think that the re-evaluation of internationalism doesn´t start by means of some sort of formal organisation (even if it declares itself informal), but through the conscious multiplication of opportunities, in discussion as well as struggle. Not only do we all know how important and stimulating the exchange of struggle experiences can be. If it is true that the social instability will contunue to increase during the coming times, and if it is true that the period of 30 years of peace on the european continent is coming at its end, it goes beyond doubt that the development of hypotheses has become of a current interest again. When reading those texts circulating inside of the antiauthoritarian brotherhoods during the times of the International, you could almost speak of an obsession for hypotheses, a permanent sensing (on theoretical as well as on practical terms) of the social horizon for opportunities to light the fuse and prepare the insurrection. Today, it is not only their revolutionary eagerness, neither their untamable enthusiasm which speaks to us, but also their courage to be wrong, to loose, to suffer a defeat (or rather, a series of defeats). When today one is not willing to bang ones head against the wall (which is a constant possible consequence of bringing the utopian desires inside the eye of the storm), can better occupy themselves with the pure comtemplation of the events. Because the complexity of the coming conflicts; the tension as it was described by some, between social war and civil war; the loss of language to express ideas and dreams; the profound and undeniable mutilation of individuals are no longer plain predictions, they have become facts. It´s up to us to find the courage to dream, to dare living the tension by trying to bring them to life, by elaborating them in revolutionary and insurrectional hypotheses; whether they sprung out of a situation which is ready to explode, or from a specific struggle which has lead towards the outcome of attack, or from a courageous attempt to insurge against the parade of slaughter and civil war,…

An example might clarify these words. The insurrections at the other side of the Meditarrenean have temporarily forced open the gates of Europe. Tens of thousands of people illegaly crossed the borders and many of them still with the sweet taste of revolt in their mouths. Regarding this completely new and unpredictable situation, it is not enough to take out our trusty recipes about struggles against closed centres, against borders. Armed with our experiences of struggle, we might have been able to really and concretely think about an hypothesis which could have, through those tens of thousands of people, actually brought the insurrection on the european continent. This counts as well for the period of insurrections in Tunesia, Egypt,…: which initiatives could we have taken to light the torch of the insurrection over here, or how, more modestly, could we have defended and supported the revolts over there? Why did we, aside from the symbolical, did not actually and definitively occupy the ambassieds of those countries and chased away the ambassadors which, especially in the case of Lybia, were actively recruting mercenaries to slaughter the insurgents in their own backyard? I suppose this immediately clarifies the need for an internationalist approach of possible hypotheses. Let´s take a different approach. How many times, during specific struggles, did we not bump into moments in which we were simply in lack of a sufficient amount of comrades (quantatively as well as qualitatively) to try out what seemed possible? We shouldn´t fool ourselves, during numerous insurrections in Europe, it was never only comrades living there who engaged! How many times could the tightening grasp of repression during a specific struggle (intesifed surveillance on the engaged comrades, pressure, limitation of freedom of movement and wasting time in dealing with the watchdogs of the state)  have been solliced by the arrival and temporary stay of a few other comrades? I believe we should face these questions without aprioris and fear, and look for possible roads. We can imagine experimenting with international forms of coordination without grasping back to formal declarations, official congresses or, which is in some way the reverse of the medal, total secret conspiracy which only feeds the ghosts of the international of the examining inquisitors. Maybe we could, for example through a regular bulletin of correspondance, consider the development of a temporality and space of our own which is no longer dependant on the information channels which have the stinking smell of the power sticking on them.

Undoubtably much more is to be said about this issue. I am aware that this text is only throwing some rocks in still water, but here’s the hope that they can contribute to a discussion which dares opening up some possibilities.

A traveller