Contributed by: Admin
It's been a long time since we've talked.
And it's mostly our fault—this failure to communicate. We're sorry and we'd like to make it up to you. Like a young mother, too occupied by anxiety and stress at such dramatic change, we've troubled our relationship. So much even that our tidbits of wisdom have been lost in the clamor. We haven't been there for you, we've been growing older, trying to support our families and our communities, dealing with physical and mental health issues, recognizing our surroundings. We've been so preoccupied with attempting to live a different way—or so we thought—that perhaps we've lost touch with what brought us here—this, how you say, struggle?
This is a letter that has been floating around the US anarchist milieu. It was first given out at the National Conference on Organized Resistance in DC last March and continues to prove useful for anarchists negotiating the difference articulated by anti-globalization and anti-war movements. Considering the recent actions in DC and the coming mobilizations against the political conventions, it is important for anarchists to be clear about why, and what and how we do our social movements. Moreover, if we are to participate in another open door to possibilities and history--another constitution of the Movement of Movements--we ought challenge our selves and act critically as to what we wish to constitute in the streets. There's actually not such a thing as a line between charity and rebellion--it's rather thick.
It's been a long time since we've talked.
And it's mostly our fault—this failure to communicate. We're sorry and we'd like to make it up to you. Like a young mother, too occupied by anxiety and stress at such dramatic change, we've troubled our relationship. So much even that our tidbits of wisdom have been lost in the clamor. We haven't been there for you, we've been growing older, trying to support our families and our communities, dealing with physical and mental health issues, recognizing our surroundings. We've been so preoccupied with attempting to live a different way—or so we thought—that perhaps we've lost touch with what brought us here—this, how you say, struggle?
Those of you who found your radical itch—a temptation—within this war[1] are somewhat confusing to us. As we've alluded to, perhaps it's our age; our sense of disillusionment with our impossible desires but it is this point of departure that makes these conversations so stressful and hard for us. Either way, we feel it's important to stress that we too found an irreconcilable desire within a war, but a different one.
another war.
Somewhere between the Gulf War in the '90s and its recent elaboration, the ghosts of Maoism finally died and the lessons of '36 and '68 and '77 lept from our history books and left-communist theory magazines directly into the oncoming traffic of a burgeoning anti-authoritarian tendency dancing from our speakers and secrets we were told by hobos and ex-Brown Berets at Food not Bombs. It was this war that discovered us and there was no other way to frame our political discourse—it was and remains anti-capitalism. Not green capitalism, fair-trade, third-way economics, but anti-capitalism. Here the movements against neoliberalism swam in a liquid made of moving and transforming desires for something new and something different—other ways. Emma Goldman read us bedtime stories about Seattle, Prague and Quebec. She and Marcos came to a surprising conclusion, these events were class war. The same revolutionary class war formally inaugurated by the International Workingmen's Association in 1864 , with a few less members, but a more holistic trajectory. It was this war that radicalized us. It wasn't merely the state repression at the demonstrations; it wasn't just a way to feel good about ourselves and make others feel guilty. We weren't, nor are we currently fighting for others in other worse conditions. We fought and we continue to struggle against a world that enslaves us and alienates us. We fight to totally transform our material and existential conditions.
This marvelous conclusion and it's rich history of struggle uncovered, produced a sense of enthusiasm—perhaps it was called "hope" then—but it quickly bore new questions; some more challenging than others. If it were class war—a modern concept of revolutionary struggle—we were to be engaged in, how did we justify our selves, our perceived class-identities?[2] Moreover, how can a class-analysis birthed in conditions of becoming industrial-capitalism (Marx, classical anarchism), approach new plateaus against neoliberalism and it's elaboration of modern-consequences? That is to say, the lessons extracted from the barricades of '68, revolutionary Black and Brown struggles in the US, changing conditions in gender and sexuality with their relations to power, and the ecological impacts of industrialism forced us to go beyond class war—but, we must emphasize, not without it.
So we conversed with our ancestors, our muses, our partners and non-radical friends and retrieved new ways to explain our struggle. Here, we choose to call it "social-war" because we are most interested in a liberatory project that recognizes the intrinsic beauty in the social. There are still many different ways to talk about it and we can only intend to continue this. Some still say "class war", some say "communism,", some say "total fucking destroy" and some will say "collapse". For example, Some will say civilization must come down—no doubt—but we will emphasize that how we do a politics against politics (?) that must reflect a sense of community or rather sociality. This is a lesson of '68 and all the advertisers got it. War? Of course, but how one points a gun and who one points it at is incredibly important. If civilization as a category can be collapsed, industrialism intentionally deconstructed and done so by the direct intervention of autonomous radical social movements, then the potential for a liberatory future climbs to a new plateau of possibility. If capitalism can be dissolved and done so with a style that reproduces neither The State or its accompanying stratification and oppressive relations, then the potential of continuous dissolution of the work/play binary and master/slave relations may produce a world generously antagonistic to alienation and hierarchy. To put it simply, no matter what our end goal is, if more people express a sense of community through revolt—not a sense of community through more people—and locate themselves in that world then the more likely we are of succeeding in a multiplicity of exodus from the 21st century. Furthermore, the more likely we are at producing and reproducing different worlds. If not, then pogroms and micro-fascism galore are our likely future. We prefer the party atmosphere.
The periphery grows boring
We spoke in code earlier about our roles as parents. Sorry if that comes off condescending but it's hard not to have a sense of responsibility for the present when one was involved in the architecture of the past. It's true though we are not your parents and those of us who were around "back then" are clearly not married to one another either but it is this sense of responsibility or rather desire that we have decided to have this conversation. We have grown quite a bit in the last decade. Some say we've gotten bitter and jaded; while we are angry, we've kind of always been. Either way, we prefer to think we've just grown more wise. We've gained quite a bit of scars. A lot of us and our friends have been to prison or jail[3] or are presently serving time. Some of us have been frightened and have attempted to return to our earlier lives. Strangely enough, this was impossible. We are being seduced again. Our lives are unlivable and we desire something else. Not just this desire for a new world after the Rev but an Other struggle—a different anarchy. We are writing you in these regards because such a project depends on a different equation than the present "1+2+3= revolution." Our we is eager to meet yours' but we must clear some trash out of the way before we can have a sit.
An Other wars
The War is not the producer of capitalism; nor of anti-capitalist struggle. Capitalism is a producer of The [Iraq] War but also an appropriator of war. War is conflict, and we desire conflict—how could we not? Conflict is what we produce. We may not be a military; we may be against militaries but we too are a machine for war—a body composed of our desires for movement, dissolution of borders and of territories currently claimed by capitalism. We are at war with capitalism but always as a defense of our freedom. We de-territorialize capitalist space, we dissolve hierarchies. We desire the production of a permanent state of conflict.
The way we do politics or evade politics reflects these notions. Perhaps this is what we find most confusing in your letters. One speaks of peace, justice and equality. One speaks of "against war." One speaks of democracy. But one only steps beyond the peace of everyday life, when one recognizes the war of everyday life and one only moves from outmoded models of defeat and representation—the current political vehicles—when one recognizes the agency of our small victories, our small conflicts and our affinities. The current anti-war movement is obsessed with it's image. It attempts to digest anti-capitalism, and shit out a more "democratic" and more boring substitute. From the front groups to the anti-authoritarian wings, the anti-war movement seems only interested in the mass march, the popular struggle, the ideology. In its attempt to consume of anti-capitalism, the anti-war movement chokes on the lessons '68 and 1886 alike. It refuses to extract meaning from anti-capitalism, instead it only sees quantity. What the anti-war movement will never maintain and what anti-capitalism cannot help but express is that the social is not necessarily the mass.
When we speak of Seattle or Prague, we don't speak of the mass or magnitude of the event. We don't attempt to measure popular support among a mythological middle-class. Instead, we examine the quality, pleasure and affection produced and replicated by the event. Street fighting and trashing are small victories because they manifest without being isolated-orgasms but rather plateaus of social struggle—easily reproducible but composed of a multiplicity of desires for such a level of conflict. Prague's victory against the International Monetary Fund/World Bank was only possible because of the production of a desire to do social movements in a style that doesn't wait to dissolve hierarchies. The convergence centers, the diversity of tactics being spatially organized, the multiplicity of politics being expressed (not represented) and the coalescing of roles (i.e. affinity groups, medics, legal, media...etc) became the motors to our war-machine.
So this is our proposal young and aging anarchists. We're not interested in competition. We're not interested in too much sectarianism. Ahh, but a game. We are entering into a new series of events and a new round of struggles—the broadening ecological crisis, The Border and all borders and the social consequences of the whole fucking trajectory of The Enlightenment, progress, and liberal democracy, oh my! We aim to seize the stage of history once more and as we've alluded to, we can do nothing but dissolve such a stage if are able to dance again. Aging anarchists, now is the time to resurface and be aided, multiplied. Together we will discover what is beyond a black bloc, Food not Bombs, and infoshops. We will contribute our skills and lessons learned and tinge of skepticism that only comes with betrayal in order to produce new experiences in anarchy. Young anarchists, we will be seeing you soon and not as leaders nor veterans of dead movements, but as peers, co conspirators. We will continue to sharpen our critiques and hope that they can be useful daggers for you too. You continue to challenge our models and interrogate our mistakes. Our game proposal is simply a race for the least amount of scars and y'all already have a head start. We might add, cheating is encouraged.
As they say, Seattle was not the beginning, nor Paris nor Spain and this will certainly not be the end. But lets prepare ourselves for these encounters, these merging flows of similar self and collective-desires, and become an Other anarchy. Let's imagine what a network of our shared desires to dissolve hierarchy put into practice will look like. Let's examine key points of weakness to hierarchy and let's examine escape routes from hierarchy. Let's conceptualize what level, form and style of organization can meet our requirements; what modes are currently available and what must be cultivated. This all seems so complex. Certainly it is but complexity is only as complicated as it's parts and like all complex systems, our parts are made up of us, our desires and what is produced by our desires. An anti-authoritarian network of networks is not a simple task per se, but it is similar to a good party. With the right components it becomes more possible and with good challenges and a sense of mystery and allure, it becomes a more qualitative event. An Other anarchy is surely worth such a good time.
Becoming sober, but intoxicated
We are certain our dreams are as realistic as our nightmares but maintain that the manifestation of either rely solely on the products of our will. None of us thought that through having a good time, eating good food and meeting people we would directly intervene in the course of geopolitical affairs. But we did. The future can be accessed through a deep recognition of our agency to produce different worlds but we lose that agency if we are answering the wrong questions—which are often the questions posed by both current mainstream political discourse but also it's mutation, activism. For The [Iraq] War, a question is not "How do we stop The War?" but "How do we fight a war?" For the broadening ecological crisis a question is not "How do we save The World" but "How do we produce different worlds?" All of these pose more questions and challenges. It is this desire to find out "how" that we must become intoxicated with only once we've been sobered by "why?" To be realistic, we must not merely demand the impossible but produce impossible realities, impossible struggles and impossible victories.
An anti-climactic suggested sites of intervention that we'll be loitering at (if you'd like to chat sometime.)
The broadening ecological crisis and it's social consequences: The border, prisons, The [Iraq/middle east] War[s], a de-industrializing project
Precarity and the current conditions of neoliberalism in the North: the Service sector becoming a class, migration and nomads, sex-work, culture-production. New ways to talk about and transform our material and existential conditions.
Racialized power: white civil society and it's desire to erase black bodies, police, activism
Anti-psychiatry/mental health, schooling, working
Transfeminism and gender theory. Queered genders and Queered sex?
For an Other anarchy and the continued tradition of war against alienation and hierarchy,
-participants from:
The Acme Collective (Seattle/WTO)
The Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc (DC/IMF)
The Anarchist Dance Bloc (LA/DNC)
The Revolutionary Anti-Authoritarian Bloc (DC/Inauguration)
The Blue Bloc (Prague/IMF)
Black Bloc (Cincinnati TABD)
The Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Offensive (Quebec/FTAA)
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Bloc (Denver/TCD)
Anti-Capitalist Convergence (NYC/WEF)
Pirate Swagger (NYC/WEF)
Orange cluster (Sacramento/mini-WTO)
Padded Bloc Engineers SW cluster ( Miami/FTAA)
Alternative Anti-Capitalist Anti-War Village -VAAAG (France/G8)
After party in Adams Morgan (DC/Inauguration)
Suicide March (Scotland/G8)
The Occupation Committee of The Sorbonne in Exile (Paris/Anti-CPE)
The Autonomous Bloc of Rostock/partisans of the failed Plan B
(Germany/G8)
PS: if you fancy a PDF version of this text email: ief-southeast [at] riseup [dot] net with the subject line "how to fight a war"
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1. March 19th, 2003, the US bombs Baghdad, again. Anti-war demonstrations leading up to the event are referred to as "focus groups" by president Bush. Anti-war demonstrations continue as an interesting marketing tool for democratic politicians.
2. The common [mis]understanding of radicals in post/super-industrialized countries like the US is that we all hail from the middle-class and are merely bored. Well, we are bored but the "middle class" slander is merely a myth; even outside of radical class analysis. Do you make fifty -hundred'Gs a year? Who does?
3. For political crimes, yes, but more for survival actually.
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