Subversive bookfair in Brussels

Each one of us has special physiognomies and capacities which distinguish him from his comrades in struggle. We are therefore not surprised to see that the revolutionaries are much divided on the question of the direction of the effort.

But we do not give the right to anyone to say: “Only our propaganda is the true one; aside from ours there is no salvation.” That’s an old left-over from authoritarianism, originated out of a true or false reason, which libertarians may not support.

Emile Henry

We can only feel an exiting exaltation of joy when looking around us and noticing that many are revolting against the current state of affairs. Those ones who, tired of continuing to swallow the usual daily oppression, try to revolt against oppression, can only stir up something inside of us towards we feel our desires closely connected. Now that the expected fires of revolt are spreading, we shouldn’t find ourselves unprepared. We should be able to analyse them in all of their aspects, capturing the courage and pride of the insurgents, as well as their limits and pushing on what links us together, as well as on what separates us from each other. Starting from our own desires, we can develop a how, when and where to be present, while keeping our aspirations close to ourselves. Creating the opportunity for developing revolutionary perspectives, discussing about them, giving ourselves the necessary time and space for it, brings us towards growth and enrichment. Knowing how to interpret the events, as well as how to go beyond them, posing the problem of how to not let the events getting exhausted in a short period of time, or how we can avoid going from an insurrection towards a civil war, can open up the gates for the imagination of our intervention in the existing struggles which are expanding. Enabling the continuation of these moments of intense but ephemeral rupture, as well in time as in space will be necessary. Avoiding, as often happens, a struggle to be framed up in her own specificity; making clear how a partial struggle can be an opportunity serving as a battering-ram towards the subversion of the existent and how we can only tend towards our goal by avoiding to stay stuck in the demands.
So to us it seems appropriate having a look on how certain anarchists have been taking up a position towards all of this, not to strand in a critique, but to create the possibility for reflection and a transgression of the limits.

The continual and ever more massive debarkation of men and women fleeing the misery or brutal repression in their countries is going to “slip in” a western balance which is already unstable. The revolutions of which they have been the creators could bring us to think that these people would bring in one way or another their “oeuvre of renewal” towards Europe, and we could give them a role of “revolutionary subject”, a role which they themselves probably don’t experience nor desire. The frustrated fears of making the revolution which has ever been desired, creates complex reasoning and incomprehensible theories at the cost of people who, already exhausted from a difficult life are probably looking for peace which they don’t find over here.

Certainly, not only looking for peace and that is why we have to keep in mind that this could open up ever more urgent perspectives of social conflict, but it is not said that this will take place the way we wish it to.
A search for a communication channel with this people has been set up, in all possible ways. In all possible ways there has been an attempt to present oneself as the privileged communication partners by, in the largest part of the cases, acting in the way of a sterile social work charity. There was the belief that the method of self-organisation was spread, but it all came down towards becoming the “managers” of these peoples needs and the creation illusions for oneself about the construction of relations which would bring them towards anti-authoritarianism. One is looking for a radicalism which escapes the swamp of immobilisation created by the relative welfare in which we are, despite ourselves, immersed.
The children of the Magreb revolutions were rising up for reasons they felt as theirs, to overthrow dictatorships which had been oppressing them for decades. They have destroyed prisons and courthouses, police stations and barracks. Over here, they will have difficulties fighting to overthrow the democratic orders, since they are unknown to them, they will more easily fight, as it has already happened several times, for a minimum of recognition and rights. Which is fully understandable.

At the margins of the democratic West, where a fata morgana of relative wealth is piling up millions of people in the outskirts, riots burst out at an increasingly regular pace. The youngsters of the outskirts of the big cities decide to express their anger, the diffuse chaos spreads, the big commercial chains get plundered, there is rioting with the police, destruction, arson, elastic movement in small groups which put fire to everything they meet on their way. But what do they want? They are certainly not struggling for a revolution which would subvert the existing social relations based on hierarchy and exclusion (their daily life feeds itself on hierarchy and roles as well). Their anger is an expression of unknown possibilities, of the frustration to feel that all possible inclusion is inaccessible. Their anger springs out of seeing the welfare glitter from so close, while systematically being kept away from it.
Those born under the wrong starry sky, those not accepted to transgress what is accepted, those being nothing but an anonymous number which doesn’t count, decide to express their anger and become uncontrollable.
We’ve seen them ‘playing’, and it fascinated us because it was not a joke. We wanted to join their arson feast and to go beyond it, but we know that we would be strangers, intruders. To uniform ourselves to one that is far from us, with his own cultural and religious ties, is absurd, as it would be equally absurd to ascribe our own perspectives to them.

The struggles we have come across that answer to a social State having troubles staying straight without contestation, have a partial character and tend towards preservation. You can notice many movements which want to preserve their work, others who want to preserve their right on education, many the right on a future, who want to ensure their pension, want to preserve a space which doesn’t kill too fast or a territory which is not destroyed too fast. Many social categories and groups with a territorial character are beginning to make an ever insisting noise. Exhausted labourers occupy the factories and go on the streets, a bit more timid in comparison to the students which give to themselves the gift of an uproar which seems difficult to be pushed back into the ranks of normality, ‘whipped up’ inhabitants which passionately resist to garbage and dumping grounds, others against the construction of highways and railways.
The democratic order doesn’t function the way it should, it doesn’t succeed in guaranteeing that minimum of welfare one was used to. The fear of loosing something pushes all, even the most loyal citizens, into taking the streets, being indignant and climbing on roofs.

In these times of constant change, everything has to be adapted, everything has to be rejuvenated. The current state of society has leaded us to such a widespread and powerful level of estrangement that it has infected the individuals into the deepest layers of the proper spirit. Our aspirations towards another life have become incomprehensible and absurd, which doesn’t let us an easy opportunity for communication. Some think that the anarchists have not been able to catch up with the times.
Others on the contrary think that the antiauthoritarian critique has gone too far, that we were walking on the road of our own theory and praxis, while we should walk on a road on which the masses can walk behind us. Easy, dynamic, accessible, and this in order to gain recognition and credibility, this is how the anarchists have let themselves been taken by the logic of the quantities. There have been too many who consider an intervention in the social movements as a campaign locked up in a specificity which more easily brings us to a massive understanding and a tangible victory. Too many have camouflaged themselves in an attempt towards modesty, abandoning the anarchist content for something more circumscribed and directed, depending on the circumstances. By being a bit more tolerant, at the cost of a too much burning detail, there have been those who thought they could lead or integrate the partial and revendicative struggles. More and more you can notice being said that we can now do with many what we were not able to do with only a few. Believing it is possible to quiet down the separations and deeper aspirations, they have convinced themselves that the form suffices for expressing the radicalism of a struggle and that it is the number which strengthens the struggle, in the illusion of consensus. Things have to happen, too many things have to happen- as is said today- we cannot loose ourselves in a pointless discussion which only creates separations. Now it’s the time for being together.
Affinity, which was in the past regarded to be fundamental in organizing the acting, is now being looked at as a curious tinsel, as something which resembles an extravagant decoration, beautiful to look at, but of few value. Now that the waters are finally beginning to stir and announce a possible storm, everything which could be seen as a obstacle for the agreement with the revolutionary subject of service is put aside or stored at the attic. You will certainly not find a space where the assembly strives towards a common language and a sharing of intentions. There where the majority has all of the reasons and the individual doesn’t have any. Where the consensus irreparably clashes into the desire.
Individualism has become synonymous to loneliness, to autism for which the incapacity to make one understood or only to just led hear of himself is to be blamed. Our critique has become a sign of closeness, expression of an extreme intransigence against those we so called should have tolerated, or learned to conquer.
To us, regarding oneself as unique is not irreconcilable with struggling together, driven by freedom. We don’t want to wait until the masses have “been made conscious”, and even less do we want to wait for permission and for the postulated moments to criticize and act. When we associate ourselves to someone else, it can not be because of opportunism, loneliness or a feeling of desperation, but out of a true corresponding of method and goal. Else we prefer continuing our road, which might be longer and lonelier, but which is truly the road of our revolution.
We don’t want to separate content from practice, because we think the method should be an expression of the world we desire, a world free of authority, without delegation, without concession, without compromise, but a world of individuals who can and want to determine themselves. We are convinced that we don’t need to direct or to guide anyone, we are the messengers of our own voices, promoters of our tensions which are difficult to reconcile with agreements, not concerned about the number and the consensus, who like to think that we meet those who stand close to us because of their will to subvert the existent. Not by obsessively looking out for these people, but by a mutual movement we will meet each other and become able to touch our dreams. We want to be able to hit the system of domination, concerned about the discovery of its nerve centre, using every vulnerability and disruption of her normal management. Indeed, we can profit from the sparks, we can warm ourselves to the fire of joy, but we want more and this will only happen if we use our powers to make it happen.

Two individuals outside of it.