Subversive bookfair in Brussels

It is beyond doubt that we’ve come to a point where there is much of ourselves to be discarded, to overcome and to re-understand. We could then try lifting ourselves beyond the swamp where the progress of capital and the deviation of pacification have driven us to. We could re-claim what is actually something obvious: we, as anarchists, have a revolutionary, and therefore insurrectional, perspective, which means projects that are going concretely towards that direction on a local as well as on an international level. During the last years, here and there, the urge was expressed for ‘the new, which keeps us waiting for it’ and ‘hypotheses which still have to be invented’, projectualities which can finally overcome the established borders. Maybe even something which could develop outside of the specific struggles we are undertaking (and probably will continue to undertake) in our own context. We are searching for something refreshing around the debate and agitation of our ideas in a general sense, those ideas which are in the end the base from which we depart: anarchy and social revolution.

What does this signify to us today? How do we talk about it? How can anarchy re-become a living, discussable, revolutionary possibility contrasting the current misery? If the classical model of insurrection and revolution is no longer up to date, then what is our perspective for a fundamental social upheaval today? What could a revolutionary practice correspond to today? What could be our qualitative contribution, being an anarchist minority, inside of the social conflictuality? In the every day situations as well as in times of unrest which will inevitably continue to burst out, with or without us. I think that the discussions and hypotheses, the agitation and projectualities concerning these matters should go beyond the specific context and be developed on an international level. The bookfair in Brussels 2011 could be a boost in that direction, but for this to happen, I think we first need to clear out some necessities…

 

About self-restraint and revolt

During the last decades, some kind of self-restraint was developed in the anti-authoritarian milieus, a certain attitude which gives us the impression one is not really taking his own ideas and revolutionary potential seriously. Nowadays, someone that trusts his own ideas and takes his responsibility in developing, for example concrete proposals to act, is often regarded with mistrust. The one that develops his own projectuality and dares to say that we could be able to provoke insurrections, is looked at in a sceptical way. This kind of events are deemed far away from us, they are deemed something dependant on ‘objective circumstances’. The sceptics are using these and other arguments to spread the idea of insurrection as being an abstract future event, and at the same time they forget that the preparation and experimentation of smaller and bigger insurrectionary attempts among anarchists has always been a method to propagate their revolutionary intentions. At least amongst the anarchists who were not able appease their desire for freedom with the ‘milieus libres’, or with waiting for a quantitative growth of some organisation. At least not amongst those who thoroughly believe that revolt is contagious, as well as solidarity. Those who, being oppressed amongst oppressed, wanted to spread their ideas in the struggle and didn’t want to wait for the moment that certain abstract ‘oppressed’ would start to fight.

Insurrectionary agitation is by far no invention of a few Italian comrades, who maybe put it a bit too much into a frame– not to say ideologized (however, it depends on whichever side you are looking at it, since it is not the formulation of a theory, but the decision of individuals who apply it in an ideological or schematical way, or not). The ‘anarchist insurrectionalism’ as it was theorized and put into practice in the Italy of the 80’s and 90’s sprung for the desire to keep the insurrectional practice alive in the times of social pacification. During times when an offensive anarchist discussion and movement was, to say it bluntly, absent in most other countries. This was its quality, which has been an inspiration to many comrades, especially during the last 10-15 years. But this is where we can find its limits today: the fact that these methods have been relatively and exclusively developed by some comrades in a specific context. A context with exact demands and difficulties, but which is too much unknown to me to allow me to speak about possible ‘mistakes’. A context which has nevertheless changed today. It would perhaps be more suitable to critically evaluate the experiences of ‘insurrectionalism’, instead of casting it all aside…

 

About language

To enable a more lively international discussion amongst anarchists, to me, it seems necessary to first of all find a language which corresponds to this need. A language which doesn’t intend to thin out the differences for the sake of a false unity, neither to sharpen them to the point of making all shared debate impossible. A language which avoids getting lost in metaphorical detours or rhetorical tussles, but which tries to express the essence in a clear way. It is only through this way that practicable hypotheses can develop. Also, only through this way we can give rise to projects which are alive not despite but thanks to the differences (differences which in the end exist between all individuals), by giving space to them inside of these projects, as conflicts. As some kind of engine for criticism and self-criticism. In the end what is important is that these conflicts are expressed in a clear way. Because it is a fact that too many of them are referring to personal stories, exploding in the rhetorical fight…

 

Then let’s talk about the language of our agitation. In times where the meaning of words is more than ever being deformed by power, we should maybe think well about the space left to interpretation in our pamphlets and posters, or about concepts difficult to understand or about vague concepts left open-ended. Too often we forget that for those who have not been occupied so much with subversive ideas, their references to words is mainly though the references given by power. If we want to chase away the deformations of power and find a proper language, I think this should be a simple and clear one. A language that calls a cat a cat, a language which can be shared amongst oppressed.

 

At this point as well I would like refer to Italy, where an anarchist agitation was present during the last decades which inspired many comrades in other countries, including their ‘way of writing’. Simply to pose the question; how far has the repression which has been tangible over the last years influenced the choice of words? For example the tendency to use metaphors instead of clearly pronouncing the things? And I am really not adverse to poetry, on the contrary, but isn’t the poetry of the poor often to be found exactly in its simplicity? What about the simple beauty of an Uncontrollable of the iron colon, the unrestrained directness of a Libertad, the non-biased intelligibility of a Malatesta?

 

Nothing to offer?

We have no program which allows passive membership; we have no patented solution that one could follow; there is no form, no practice, no way of living that we could praise as containing freedom as such. We don’t want to put forward the weapon as an ultimate way to salvation, as the trade-unionists do by promoting the strike, as the collectivists do by putting forward the assembly or those who glorify armed struggle. Because we think that it is the why and how that give the quality to the chosen means. By the same logic, we also don’t fight full of hope of reaching some expected, predefined situation. Because in this way we would be scarifying our life here and now, and we would inevitably end up disappointed. Freedom as an ideal is a tension, something to strive towards, but actually not something which you can reach, not something which you can build up and complete. Freedom is a social relation between individuals, in permanent construction; it is not a model, nor a scheme. Desire seeks for its expression according to the context. This is why indeed you could say that we have nothing to offer. Even if it was merely because a relation of offer and taker makes us sick. But the self-restraint mentioned in the beginning has developed some kind of caricature out of this completely correct conclusion: the mistrust for every confirmation of an idea, of a proposal, of a project, by immediately defining it as a political and converting logic.

This mistrust seems incompatible with the desire to bring our own dreams to reality, to confirm the our own ideas or to share them with others, to experiment with them, to develop them more deeply, to create new ideas and throw away others, all of this while walking on your own road and developing your revolutionary perspectives. No, the fact that we have nothing to offer doesn’t mean at all that we don’t have any proposals. Because as anarchists we have good proposals, probably the most promising that I know: to give joy to life and to demolish the walls which limit our imagination and perception of freedom. And yet these are proposals without guarantees, without certainties. They are proposals for which everyone who is inspired by them carries his own responsibility. Because it is only by this road that we can find accomplices, individuals who take the same direction as us, out of their own and free choice.

Let us therefore overcome this self-restraint and confirm with the self-confidence of revolutionaries that we have ideas to get rid of the misery to which the lives of so many people have been reduced. Ideas that are rich of countless experiences, in permanent development, ideas which we are all able to imagine.

Even when it is clear that the discourse in our specific struggles is a revolutionary discourse, I do think we need projects which can bring our ideas into circulation on a social level, in a relatively independent way from these struggles. Projects which give space to the question why and consequently to the question how we want to fight and life. Projects which do not only touch the ideas about an existence without domination, of the individual, of affinity, of self-organisation, of autonomy, solidarity, freedom, but which implement and deepen them again and again in different ways.

 

About revolutionary projectuality and internationalism

If a revolutionary is somebody who has his own projectuality, with a maybe a vague but a personal imagination of the steps to be taken that could be relevant for spreading subversive ideas and stimulating insurrectionary situations; if a revolutionary is not someone with a program in his pocket, but someone who has the impossible in his mind, who senses the possiblities step by step; if a revolutionary is someone who moves around a lot, who knows the international situations, the different conflicts and discussions, and yet, or maybe because of this knows his own context the best; if a revolutionary is someone who develops a perspective and in this perspective tries to realize subversive and offensive projects; if a revolutionary is someone that is driven by love for emancipatory ideas, by the dignity which is always blazing up during revolts and by the intuition of the destructive, creative strength which subverts (the only strength which can unchain a social revolution)- then it seems to me that today revolutionaries are hard to find.

It can be said that today there is no lack of unrest in many countries, but there is a lack of revolutionary practices. I don’t think that revolutionary practices signify following the ‘social movements’, neither the associating with the unrest which is anyways developing, but I do think it signifies being prepared for these unrests and having the capacity to act as revolutionaries, by which I mean to contribute in a practical way and in regards to the content, contributions that push them further.

This void is the unavoidable consequence of the self-restraint, and consequently of the lack of perspectives which has spread during the last decades. And, to say it once again, a perspective is not the same as a program; it is not a plan, but a certain imagination of the possibilities. This is why it is necessary to develop insurgent hypotheses which correspond to the current situation and which can feed this imagination. In those countries where the anarchist movement had only a little or even no continuity during the last decades, it seems there is a more fertile ground than in countries as Italy or Spain. In Italy or Spain the discussion was maybe uninterrupted, but it seems that today these discussions got stranded based on old conflicts or tended towards a thematic specialisation which seems to dominate anarchism. Therefore, it is important to mix the different contexts, experiences, considerations and perspectives. If we want to revive internationalism, we also have to revive the exchange, the travel and the encounter between comrades who try to develop a revolutionary projectuality. Such an internationalism wouldn’t need a formal expression, perhaps not even an accumulation of punctual moments of encounter during international gatherings (the need for this will make itself felt constantly), but especially a multiplication of projects and encounters across the borders, as well as a permanent mutual relations, in our practices and in our writings. It would mean the true elimination of the borders in our heads…

 

Proposal

My proposal would be to strive towards different anarchist journals, which would be only spread inside a country or language area. Journals which are written independently from each other, but which give importance to exchange, mutual relations and debate. The articles would be directed to the international anarchist movement as well as to the people on the street. It would not have the ambition of theoretical complexity, but would contain a simplicity and clearness in the articles. The weight would be put on the finding of a language for our ideas; on the attempts to describe and deepen them from all possible sides. Through analysis or hypotheses, with reason or with passion, through the every day events or through the big dreams, through the revolts of today or yesterday, through our words or through words that withered away a long time ago, or lastly through every instance in this rotten world where we perceive a spark of the life we wish. The ambition then would be to stimulate the thought of that completely other, of what freedom could be- to again spread a revolutionary perspective across all borders.

But let us remember that in times where internationalism was alive, there were diverse anarchist magazines circulating and feeding the debate in many countries. If today we take a look at the emptiness regarding magazines and the written word in general, if we have a look at the vagueness often present in our discussions, there is a conclusion which imposes itself. The conclusion that we probably first have to breach the inhibition for expressing our proper ideas in clear words. In this paragraph I have proposed to strive towards these kinds of magazines, meaning to start their development, but as well to give them the time they need for fertility. Because it seems to me that if they would only be the fruit of the few ‘writers of the movement’, they would be stripped of their potential…

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