Kaukomaiden Mellakat?

I would like to waste some time addressing an article anonymously authored in the spring 2008, issue number five of Rolling Thunder magazine. While I found some of the articles in this issue insightful, especially the one analyzing the effects of government repression, I first had to get past a little slice of divisiveness on page 3 in an articled titled "The Overseas Rioting Issue?" (see below for complete article, reprinted as a "textual liberation"). I wasn’t surprised by what I read. The anti-authoritarian milieu we are part of still finds itself less concerned with critical analysis applied to practice and more in drawing dividing lines in the sand. It seems strange that Crimethinc even chose to print it. How can a group of people speak of anarchist revolution while allowing one of its publications to categorize and divide those who seek it?

I want to respond to the content of this article and its vague references to perspectives put forth in a project of which I take a minor role in, A Murder of Crows magazine. The author in the Rolling Thunder article didn’t seem to like the critical analysis of various revolts and social projects. Mentioning the Bangladesh garment worker insurrections and saying they are "assumed" to be anti-authoritarian is based on the "assumption" that when thousands of workers take to the streets to burn down their factory-slave plantations, they are not doing so because they respect the rule of law made by the authorities. To cast away generalized submission to the work machine, to organize, to act in solidarity, these things inspire in us the beginnings of revolutionary transformation. Next, the author conveys a self-serving tinge of sarcastic disbelief by calling the Oaxacan revolt "tragically coopted". Our comrades in Oaxaca have confirmed this tragedy. The irresolvable division between "red" and "black", political and autonomous, existed in Oaxaca within the organ of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO. History retells the same story of those who want to live anarchy and those who want to organize new charades to silence the uncontrollable. Should anarchists cheerlead the cooptation of revolutionary potential by politicians and reformists just because we hope everything will just work itself out? The critique of the APPO now seems prescient. No amount of cheerleading can change that now.

Lastly, referencing the Really Really Free Markets, that project of acritical affirmation for the "advanced gift economies of North America", as "not even worth mentioning" is not lost on us. I’ve been critical of this project, just as I would any, including those I contribute to myself. I’ll make this worth mentioning now. There’s little "advanced" (whatever that’s supposed to mean) about the gift economies in North America when those gift economies remain limited in time and space and do not foster the self-organized fulfillment of social needs. Sharing and gift-giving can foster a sense of mutuality, trust, and material solidarity, but what is it we are able to share when we have no land to grow our own food and few capacities for individual and collective self-sufficiency? Indeed, we have things to give to others that we do not need ourselves, but what is it we all need? Gift-giving is a part of our propensity for mutual aid. The Really Really Free Market is a practice of this collective desire. However, mutual aid must contend with enforced social relations of exchange, exploitation, and dispossession. Eventually, revolutionary mutual aid will have to collectivize land and organize social production if it is to grow. Do the Really Really Free Markets contribute towards this autonomy? Which projects expand our revolutionary capacities and which diminish them? Which push the boundaries of mutuality, solidarity, and revolt and which become the formulas for another subculture? I ask these questions not just of the Really Really Free Markets but of all our projects. Do we want insurrection or do we want to pace in the footsteps of the defeated past? I ask myself this question often and refuse to go unchallenged.

I understand that you’re trying to represent, and thus reduce, anarchist insurrectionaries in the U.S., complete with distortions that serve a useless premise ("they’re just internet surfers, not real insurrectionists…" and "no matter how many images of Molotov cocktails they screen-print..."). What I don't understand is why. This issue’s table of contents rests below a flock of winged molotovs. How beautiful. Can I borrow that for a screen print? What point are you trying to make about your projects and your methods versus mine, to whom, and why? Why have you set them up for competition and why –for new converts and believers? Who is this "whole niche milieu of anarchist journalism that considers burning cars more photogenic than race or gender caucuses"? Is it A Murder of Crows or Rolling Thunder? There is a long spread of riot photos in this issue (and a burning car!) that seem to indicate a particular editorial attraction to "photogenic" images! Who cares and why does it matter? The photograph is a powerful tool but one that cannot escape the limits of representation. We keep this in mind but use images as we wish. However we’d do well to use anarchist publications for the insight of their ideas rather than an assessment of their taste for aesthetics. Many people like Rolling Thunder for "looking good" but I’m interested in its content much more than its layout, graphics, and design. Ideas that move me in revolutionary directions are much more exciting than any images of revolt. I want to discover how I can live the revolution rather than just watch others participate in it.

Disparaging insurrectionaries by assuming that they simply wear screen prints of molotovs and bask in the glory of mediated revolt is foolish, arrogant, and divisive. Why is this the introduction to an issue that seemingly dedicates itself to "expanding our sense of what is possible"? Possibility begins with the individual but it goes nowhere without forming solidarity and mutuality –that is, revolutionary possibility– amongst those who struggle. Do we want anarchy or programs for anarchy? You provide us no useful criticisms in this introduction, just simplistic categorizations of anarchists who are inclined towards a certain approach, an approach that also cannot be easily categorized despite how many times someone tries to isolate it by doing so. Truth is the first casualty of representation. This article is an excellent example.

It may seem unnecessary to react to this small introduction at all. I think it is important and necessary. Some anarchists in the U.S. have been long fond of creating more pathetic lines in the sand between each other, applying the purity of one approach to a broad and generalized movement for anarchy. I would expect this amongst the radical Left, who embrace celebrity and leadership. But I want no followers. I fight for a world without domination with anyone who shares this dream –red, green, pink, brown, and always black. It seems obvious some critiques have rattled the pen of someone enough to construct the "Quincy Insurrectionists". Please try to at least get your facts straight: "Quincy" was a television show from the good old U.S.A. Whether it was popular in Britain makes little difference to me. Cheap shots make you sound defensive and unimaginative. Assuming anything about anyone is risky. Insult your enemies but talk with your friends. If we want revolution, we’ll need to be capable of open dialogue with each other so we can discover our capacities for revolt. Call us out, but spare us the pathetic insults and self-glorification; it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Rolling Thunder, I don’t need your "help" in laying the groundwork for "real insurrection". Help me help myself but don’t ever try to lead me anywhere I haven’t chosen for myself. I will determine my own course of action but my project of self-determination is not all that dissimilar to yours. Why would you put up walls between us that we’re trying to break down? Are you a "real" anarchist and me a "Quincy Anarchist"? Aren’t we on the same side of the social war? My projectuality has nothing to do with a media-generated bandwagon. If there are Quincy Insurrectionists, trapped in the mediated world of revolt, then you can bet there are readers of Rolling Thunder who exist in the same capacity. Generalizing activity and ideas to an entire group constructs a false unity that doesn’t exist. To those who love to deride "those Crimethinc.ers" as simply being one thing or another, I point out the arrogant simple-mindedness of this perspective. Would you defend me from the same constrictions, as an individual with my own need for autonomy? Quincy Pundit, it looks like your straw men fray easily. And what do you actually know about being situated in Calcutta? Visiting is not the same as situated.

Rolling Thunder, will we share in the project of laying the groundwork for insurrection together or should we await your further instructions? Will we find ourselves on the barricades, immobilized by your terms of division, debating which of us holds the keys to the possible unknown? Will you take any of my criticisms to heart or will you set yourself again to denigrating my perspective instead? Revolution is not about which ideas win the most converts. It is a process in which individuals determine their own theoretical and practical approach on their own terms with whomever they wish. I refuse any debates that seek division instead of solidarity and strength. I refuse any labels and categories that impose themselves upon my ideas and my course of action instead of critically examining them. Against false unities and real divisions, we can find strength in appreciating those differences that contribute to making our revolution mutual, expansive, and uncontrollable.

I do not speak for A Murder of Crows; anonymous individuals who share ideas collectively construct it. I do not speak for insurrectionary anarchism either; there exists no unity of thought or action amongst this milieu. I speak for no one but myself, and I refuse to compete with anyone for anything. My solidarity extends to anyone who desires a world of freedom, of anarchy.

I want to be very clear that I am giving this response openly because Rolling Thunder decided to print this article openly. Did you think we would bite our tongues? I am not speaking of divisiveness in order to create more useless debates to divide us and waste our time. I persuade no one to agree with me on anything. Rolling Thunder is an influential publication for anarchists in the U.S., and it contributes to the theoretical development of our revolutionary strategies. Our differences of approach need not drive any barriers between the struggles we share or the ones we have yet to. Our lives and relationships under capitalism are divided enough already, while our enemies retain their organized strength in the face of an internally-divisive, and thus weak, opposition.

Today they may win. But there is a tomorrow when we will make their game unwinnable. We will need each other’s solidarity if we are to complete this task.

Against division, in solidarity, always

Dante Sepia
September 2008

Jep, ei ollu. Mutta toi koko kolmas kappale ja etenkin viittaukset Bangladeshiin (AMOC #2), Oaxacaan ja Really Really Free Marketeihin oli ihan suoraan AMOCille, ja siihen vastaamiseen toi DS:n kommentti keskittyi. Eikä siitä pääse yli eikä ympäri selittelemällä että AMOCia ei mainittu nimeltä suoraan.