This call is no deep theoretical analysis, nor just a wish for another
ruthless riot. In this call, we want to concentrate on the existential
crisis of late capitalism, characterized by neoliberalism doctrine and
the “no alternative” ideology – and what this can mean for the whole
system, that we want to get rid of. We want to take a look at the
reactions of this crisis-capitalism: how its supporters want to save it,
how the fascist want (again) to benefit of it. Finally, we want to
think about our past and present experiences, in order to formulate a
radical answer for the liberated society we aim for.
Download the german or english or french or greek version and come from the 16th May to Frankfurt!
- Break on through -
Overcoming crisis-capitalism
Subprime
crisis, credit crisis, bank crisis, petrol crisis, financial crisis,
Euro crisis, state debt crisis, Greek crisis, Irish crisis, Portuguese
crisis... Social crisis, immigration crisis, housing crisis... Actually
there is only one crisis. Capitalism is the crisis, a way to manage the
world...
Precarity is the norm, temp work, low salaries and
unemployment for all! No more archaisms like social security, health
insurance, pensions, the progress is on its way. It already went to the
southern world in the great times of colonialism. Nowadays the South
goes further North every year...
Barbed wire, uniforms and camps
of fortress-Europe humiliate, exclude and persecute thousands of women,
men and children. Racism is not hidden anymore, it has become a public
and profitable business, sometimes a national sport. Police and armies
are in the streets, with their guns, cameras and helicopters. Control is
everywhere, in your ID chip, and in a DNA file for the luckiest.
Terrorist laws are used to legitimize repression. Resistances must not
grow up.
The media keeps the lid on the pot that is starting to
boil over: games, shows, dreams and games again. Breaking news: protests
result of the action of professional agitators and young immigrants.
Back to normality. The communication agencies are doing their best to
convince us to keep up consumption, while we can hardly pay rent and
food. The snake is eating its own tail.
Tons of petrol wasted in
the oceans, billions of plastic bags decorating the lands, Ibiza in the
North pole and Fukushima mon amour. Animals becoming extinct show the
way to the future generations...
Capitalism creates great opportunities!
This
call is no deep theoretical analysis, nor just a wish for another
ruthless riot. In this call, we want to concentrate on the existential
crisis of late capitalism, characterized by neoliberalism doctrine and
the “no alternative” ideology – and what this can mean for the whole
system, that we want to get rid of. We want to take a look at the
reactions of this crisis-capitalism: how its supporters want to save it,
how the fascist want (again) to benefit of it. Finally, we want to
think about our past and present experiences, in order to formulate a
radical answer for the liberated society we aim for.
Crisis and reactionary forces: blindness, butterflies and fascism
Neoliberalism
won the battle of ideas in the seventies, and then the political power
in the eighties. In United States, Europe and South America, one song
was everywhere: there is no alternative to capitalism. The Soviet Union
and the “real existing socialism” fell down and the end of history was
announced by the great defenders of the system: the whole humanity was
about to be free and capitalistic, the states were supposed to become
tiny structures assuring only the peace of the society and the freedom
of entrepreneurship. Today the glorified free market functions anything
but normal. Even its biggest fans call upon the “redundant” state and
cry for rescue-packages and support. What a surprise! Was there
something wrong with their ideology and way of governing the world?
We
could think so by hearing all these journalists, intellectuals and
politicians talking about the death of neoliberalism. Not to forget the
voices in the anti-crisis protests. But on the other hand, we see that
the measures against “the” crisis are the same as before, they are just
more aggressive. Look at Greece! Cuts in the public services, attacks on
social rights, privatizations, repression, nothing new... “We” are in
crisis, so let's continue the same way, but further. Crazy logic,
supported by the same discourse: before it was TINA to capitalism, now
it's TINA to state intervention. Before we had to be competitive to
fight against foreign economies, now we have to be competitive in order
not to die – by the way, who is about to die? Us or the economic system
we are living in? In this big mess, no one asks the question of the goal
of all these austerity measures: why are “we” doing this? To question
capitalism is too dangerous, it could change too much. The media prefer
to tell the people to make sacrifices in order to go back to normality,
in order to make sure the economy is growing again and the traders can
play with billions.
After all, the thesis about the “death of
neoliberalism” has to be considered dialectically; indeed, the
ideological base of neoliberalism is falling, when even its own
convinced supporters are beginning to doubt. The unquestionable dogma,
the belief that this form is the right one to keep capital stable and
intact, is fading or being doubted in its absoluteness. Nevertheless,
the crisis-management from above still acts in the neoliberal framework
and tries to prevent its mechanisms from getting knocked out by
themselves. The more its death is claimed, the more it is being defended
harshly, and again the more its death is claimed. Where will this chain
lead to? For now, neoliberalism is not yet in a coffin being buried,
but rather fighting a decisive battle to save the face of capitalist
world order.
And some people take part in this battle! Some
social-democrats and green parties want to change the system: they have
noticed the big failures of financial and economic system. For sure they
voted the billions rescue-packages, but with the aim of rebuilding a
capitalism under state control. Some of them call for future
nationalization of bank and limitation of the top-managers wages, claims
that are also supported by most of the old and new communist parties.
They want a change, whether it's radical social democracy or – the
newest trend for “alternatives” - green capitalism: it's a change that
doesn't have anything to do with emancipation. Full-employement,
thirteenth month wage, bio supermarkets, bicycle madness or increasing
gardens have never brought people to autonomy, freedom and happiness.
While
the neoliberal and the reformist liberals are playing their big game,
other actors are trying to react to the crisis. In Hungary, fascist
squads are built up in the population; in Greece the neonazi actions (in
coordination with police) grow every week; in Italy fascist social
centers like Casa Pound are opening in different cities; in France in
the next elections a new and more subtile version of “Le Pen” will make
its reappearance. The crisis always have been the opportunity for
right-wing ideologies to spread more offensive propaganda against the
“foreigners” supposed to be the main reason of all problems; whether
formulated in “racial” madness or covered in “cultural” differences.
Except this usual racist point of view, fascist forces are more and more
claiming for the break-up of Europe and a return to the old national
State, as a barricade defending their phantasmed white identity.
Between
neoliberal management, its reformist make-up and fascist agitation, how
can we find a way to formulate a radical answer for the emancipated
society we aim for?
1. Failure of organization and strategy: The “antiglob” movement
Without
a doubt we can say: we do not have “the” movement that gives a strong
answer or struggle against todays society. Over the last decade in the
western world, the only big international movement that was focused on
economical and social matters was the anti-globalisation one. It brought
about a critique of the new world order, gained momentum in a lot of
countries, created tons of events and gave birth to a lot of different
organizations and networks. The main common denominator to most of the
people involved in this movement was the critique and opposition to
neoliberalism, and the question of the (third world) debt was important
part of this critique. Today debt and financial crisis are a worldwide
issue, which proves that the anti-globalisation movement was, at least
partly, right in its critiques and analysis.
So, how can it be
that we didn't hear from this movement over the last three years? An
easy answer would be to speak about the repression, which for sure has
been increasing: improvement of control technologies, preventive
arrests, European data bases, huge cops mobilization... But the
characteristic of strong movements is not to be afraid or defeated by
repression. We think that the explanation of the “disappearance” of the
anti-globalisation movement has to be found somewhere else, we mean in
its forms and organization, in its strategies and practices. If the
social forums were planned by “the” movement, all the protests were
counter-summits organized in reaction to the meeting of the
decision-makers (G8, IMF, European summit). The movement couldn't really
bring its own agenda on a practical level, it has failed to create
international campaigns fighting effectively against what it was
denouncing. Probably this also results of the inability to create
connections with existing social struggles. Then the way to organize
these counter-summits was quite centralized or hierarchical, the
assemblies were not really free, though of course calling themselves
directly democratic. Let's think of the BlockG8 project in Germany or
the Climate Justice Action network in Copenhagen. It happened often that
some people decided for everyone what kind of action should be held and
how the camps and discussions should go on. A consequence of this were
the never ending discussions on the “allowed” level of violence, whose
conclusion was always rejecting radical actions. And this conclusion
brought occasionally some people to collaborate with the cops to stop
the “trouble makers”. Do you see a better way to destroy confidence and
create division?
2. On the “new movements”: Indignados and occupy
Since
one year, new movements have occurred. Starting from an intensive use
of “social networks” and the will to take the streets, the “indignados”
dynamic spread all over Europe, evolving to different forms depending of
the country. These movements grew in an unofficial part of politics,
they are mostly not related to parties and stay low organized and
heterogeneous. Politically they are not easy to recuperate, because
there is a defense-reflex against “ideologies” and any form of clear
demands or inputs. Although they erupted in an undeniable political
situation and are being recognized as political, they want to guarantee
their broad base by claiming being “unpolitical”. This claim and the
will of being open to anyone can lead to problematic situations that we
have to care about: in Germany some conspiracy theorists tried to
integrate the assemblies and in Greece some fascists came to wave the
national flag in the “indignated protests”. Excluding these points, it
is a fact that these movements have brought a lot of different people
together and that they achieved in most countries mass protests, and in a
few places like Greece, Spain and Italy, interesting direct actions.
Nowadays
the enthusiastic beginning of these movements has passed and the
question is: will they last? Their organization take mainly place on
Internet and in the occupied squares. Now that the majority of the
squares have been evicted, how can the movement continue without any
physical places? People in Spain and Greece answered this question by
developing the movement in a neighborhood assemblies dynamic. Another
development in United States and Spain consists in squatting empty
houses to create living places which can also serve as meeting places to
organize struggles. These dynamics, maybe less visible than occupying
squares, open new possibilities, they fix the processes in the local and
daily lives of people and makes a long-term work possible. These spaces
are opportunities to develop a global critique of the capitalist
system, to get in touch with “common” people and to meet radical
comrades. It is what we are seeking in this movement.
3. Out of isolation !
In
the last three years, since the beginning of “the” actual crisis, we
discovered some differences between the radical movements in Europe. In
Greece you have a growing organized anarchist and anti-authoritarian
milieu, with all its limit, but always trying to be part of social
movements. In some northern European countries like France or Belgium,
you will find an isolated and divided radical left, acting often in the
dark and focusing on limited one-point-campaigns. In Germany, some
campaigns or massive actions have brought some results. But considering
the question of international solidarity or struggles, activists have
globally been unable to make connections with the situations in other
countries. By looking at the radical scenes and movements in Europe, we
can not avoid to point limits and formulate critiques. We see our
deficits and we see they are numerous.
First in terms of
understanding the local situation in other countries. The austerity
measures have been voted in Great-Britain more than twenty years ago, we
could learn from it, try to understand what have been the protests
against neoliberalism in the eighties and why they have failed to break
the government reforms down. Another example is Greece, a lot of
European radical activists “dream” of the Greek situation, some of them
even call up the social destruction to happen - “Let's worsen the
crisis!” - in order to experiment the “unavoidable” insurrection that
will come in reaction. To answer to this silly slogan we have to say
that social misery has been a constant characteristic since two hundred
years in Europe and that it has produced just a few broad revolts, but
many fascist regimes. Moreover the insurrectional moments in Greece can
not be understood without a look at the evolution of the Greek society
and of the anarchist milieu since, at least, the end of the dictatorship
in the middle seventies. Finally, we can surely learn from the street
fighting technics in Greece, but we should also learn from the male
chauvinism and the sometimes violent fight inside the radical scene. We
could multiply examples, the anti-nuclear movement in Germany and its
thirty years history, the social centers in Spain and their ability to
sometimes create strong connections with the inhabitants of their
neighborhood... Globally, we hardly know and take inspiration of what is
going on abroad.
This conclusion also counts for the local
level, to a lesser extent. Many groups and projects are confronted by
internal problems or political limits that have been discussed and faced
hundreds times by other groups in different times and places. But
nearly every group starts to deal with these problems from nowhere,
ignoring what has been discussed, thought and experimented before. The
groups gathering people from different generations can gain a lot of
time and maturity, but we have to ask the question: why are we mostly
unable to create a history of collective dynamics and subversive
experiences, while these are some of our main concern?
We do not
have the answer to this question but we can point some leads to try to
explain this important limit of our side. One of it is the lack of
perspectives and ambitions in a lot of radical circles. For many
political people to take part in some squat activities, to show up once
in a while in a (antifa) demo or to drive a bicycle seems to be enough,
as if being part of the milieu and reproducing its habits was a
reasonable and sufficient political objective. To make it clear, to have
political spaces to live, discuss and party is really important, as
keeping the streets nazi-free, but it can not be our ultimate aim in
this society. Furthermore, these habits, concerning our ways of living,
being dressed, talking, even eating sometimes, limit us. We are many to
have contacts only in the milieu and to act strictly according to our
“radical principles”. In a lot of cities, this strong identity destroys
any possibilities of cooperation between people. Instead of searching a
common critique on capitalism, based on exchanges about local political
situation, social movement or personal experiences, many groups prefer
to wallow in the same routine. On one hand, this influences even our
ways of thinking. Let's see all these anarchist newspaper which
completely miss any historical or practical thoughts. “This world is
disgusting and we want to get rid of it” seems to be the only “analysis”
to write for many radical activists... A bit poor and depressing if we
may say. On the other hand, this routine develop closed-minds and create
divisions: any groups which try to act differently, be it by having an
“official” name or trying to build continuity or act strategically, are
strongly rejected by large part of the radical scene. We wrote above
about the neoliberal dogma, but we have to notice that lots of political
groups have their own...
In conclusion, we can say that these
ways of thinking and being have important effects on our possibilities.
We do not dare to be curious, we do not dare to try to invent new forms
and content, new actions and discourses. The Indymedia network is slowly
dying since years because of his inability to find new ways of
existing. In Greece we needed two years to think to use ropes to smash
delta units. In Wendland, we are still using the old-fashion wooden
barricades, while digging tools are way more efficient to block police
transports on forest roads. Have you often been surprised by the books
and magazines you found in European squat's info shop? And so on and so
on. We have lots of knowledges and experiences to share and to learn
about but we globally do not try to use them, to broadcast them inside
and outside our scenes. To do so, we should try to look further and try
to anticipate, we should also, mainly, get ride of some of our milieu
habits and dogmas. Capitalism is shaking, people are moving, times are
getting interesting! Maybe is it the good moment to leave isolation and
to run into the world?
4. On our way to the next level !
Be
it struggles against the rotten dictatorships in the Arabic world,
workers struggles in China and India, social protest in Israel, the
occupation of Wall Street in New York or the virtual attacks of the
Anonymous, a lot of common people no longer see the system as
unquestionable and untouchable. Many gaps are being opened, that still
have to be filled. And as we have seen it in the past and nowadays, a
lot of different or even opposite things can feed the peoples revolt.
In
the actual situation, we should not be afraid of our radical positions
against capitalism. As the occupy movement shows it, the austerity
measures brought and will bring a lot of people to criticize and to
maybe rise up against the system. The gap between the radicals and a lot
of “normal” people lie probably more in the conviction that capitalism
cannot provide freedom and happiness, and that these ideas can be
achieved by other ways of living than the capitalist one.
The
question is how to develop our radical prospectives outside of our
milieus. We could try to build again a political party, the “good one”
this time. We could try to fight in the frame of (or against) the
national state, it is closer to us and easier to hit. We could try to
create the fifth international, gathering all the oppressed people from
the world in a supranational structure. Or we can try to think and to
act strategically. We can try to develop local and international
prospectives and campaigns. We can try to elaborate long-term struggles
and to organize the means to lead them. We can learn from the
experiences abroad and from the history – and sometimes history is not
that long time ago. Check out the 12th February (and many other) general
strikes in Greece, the No-TAV movement in Italy, the Tahrir square
occupation in Egypt, the Ungdomshuset defense in Denmark and the
anti-castor campaign in Germany. The only common features to all these
relatively successful moments were their (at least partly)
insurrectional character and the fact that a lot of different people
joined forces. If you consider this, it is clear that the only way for
the people to achieve political victories is to accept the different
points of view and ways of action, to manage to work and walk in the
same direction than people you could criticize. In other terms, we need
“moderate” people as much as they need us.
Beyond opportunities
of insurrectional moments, an important objective for us is to be able
to create new international solidarities. During the uprising in the
Arabic countries or the ongoing social destruction in various states of
the eurozone and the world, the radical left could not find a common
language, direction or idea of a concrete content, we globally couldn't
find a way to help or even show effective solidarity to the people
fighting. Capitalism is everywhere, the decision-centers can be a
thousand kilometers from the place where the impact devastates society.
Even “your” government, the one which fucks you up the most (whatever if
it's some bankers or politicians), is probably not in your country, the
miracle of Europe! So if we want to fight effectively the domination,
we should better understand how the beast works, where we can hit it,
and be able to broadcast this knowledge. For the moment the exchange
processes between the struggling people in Europe are still
underdeveloped: in the radical groups some have traveled to Greece or
Tunisia, a bit of riot-tourism, but just a few groups experimented with
more organized collaborations. As mentioned above, we definitely miss
the tools and spaces to coordinate resistances on a European level and
to transmit our own history and experiences.
Furthermore we have
to see the link between capitalistic processes within Europe.
Information must be gathered about how state-institutions or companies
who act transnationally, are active in different countries in order to
maintain capitalist order. Greece is being sold out to international
capital: OTE company to Deutsche Telecom, Thessaloniki Waterworks to
Veolia Environment, Athens airport to Hochtief, the highways, the ports,
the train company and many other things will follow. In order to show
solidarity or in case of - let's be ambitious - international campaigns,
there are always a lot of targets that are more sensitive, and less
protected, than embassies. Let us think about “the” crisis, migrant
repression, ecological disasters and so on. Many structures and
companies may be named in this topic, it is just a work of research, in
order to discover the links between different countries, and afterwards a
work of coordination in order to take action. Then, regardless if these
actions take the form of occupying institutions, direct actions,
counter-information guerrilla or blockades, ideas and prototypes of
resistance can be many and various... However, it is clear that if we do
not try to get organized in this way, if we do not intensify our
exchange processes and adopt a global point of view on the system, we
won't be able to develop our own agenda, we will keep on waiting for the
next spontaneous movement, with the risk of waiting too long and
confirming the myth “there is no alternative” to capitalism. In these
times of austerity and popular revolts, we definitely have to bring our
ways of organization and action to the next level.
… From Berlin
to New York, from Tunis to Athens, everything becomes possible.
Solidarity must be anti-national and concrete. The current situation
gives us the opportunities to talk - between us, with other people, with
colleagues or neighbors; the opportunities to discuss ways of
challenging capitalism. The objective remains the same. Confrontations
on local and international levels must be spread. So that the situation
never goes back to normal. So that the ideas and practices connecting us
to each other become actual bonds. So that we pass from ungovernable to
unforgettable, and reach the system change we aim for.
After a
rebellious year 2011, 2012 offers a wide range of opportunities to take
our lives in our hand and fight : a first attempt will be the European
day of action against capitalism on March 31st. Different actions will
happen in different cities and countries, and a mass mobilization will
take place in Frankfurt, in the city of the European central bank, in
the center of the “beast” as our German comrades write. On the 1st of
May, people over the world will take again the streets. While from the
16th May on Frankfurt will be a second time in the eye of the storm:
groups in Germany plan a European-wide mobilization to organize a big
city-blockade, in order to continue the pressure on the actual
crisis-managers. But there are not only the so called “events” or
“global action days” which are important. Regularity and perseverance
are the words! Be it attacking the ECB (European central bank),
squatting your local construction site or intervene in a radio station
for counter-information reasons: actions can and should be taken
everyday - and night – to overcome this murderous and authoritarian
system!
Break on through together!
International Autonomous Committee against capitalist normality
http://iacommittee.noblogs.org
