Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 09:58:16 -0800 (PST)
From: none none <heytravil_nomad-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [postanarchism]  The Insurrectionary Act and the Self-Organization of Struggle




villon sasha k <il_frenetico-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:From Aporia issue #2

http://aporiajournal.tripod.com/insurrectionary.htm

To discuss Aporia go to: 

http://pub47.ezboard.com/fanarchykkafrm4

Insurrection 1: The Insurrectionary Act and the
Self-Organization of Struggle


By sasha k


For anarchists the questions of how to act and how to
organize are intimately linked. And it is these two
questions, not the question of the desired form of a
future society, that provide us with the most useful
method for understanding the various forms of
anarchism that exist. Insurrectionary anarchism is one
such form, although it is important to stress that
insurrectionary anarchists don't form one unified
block, but are extremely varied in their perspectives.
Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological
solution to social problems, a commodity on the
capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an
on-going practice aimed at putting an end to the
domination of the state and the continuance of
capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to
advance. Historically, most anarchists, except those
who believed that society would evolve to the point
that it would leave the state behind, have believed
that some sort of insurrectionary activity would be
necessary to radically transform society. Most simply,
this means that the state has to be knocked out of
existence by the exploited and excluded, thus
anarchists must attack: waiting for the state to
disappear is defeat.


I will spell out some implications that some
insurrectionary anarchists have drawn from this
general problem: if the state will not disappear on
its own, how then do we end its existence?
Insurrectionary anarchism is primarily a practice, and
focuses on the organization of attack (insurrectionary
anarchists aren't against organization, but are
critical of forms of organization that can impede
actions that attack the state and capital). Thus, the
adjective "insurrectionary" does not indicate a
specific model of the future. Anarchists who believe
we must go through an insurrectionary period to rid
the world of the institutions of domination and
exploitation, moreover, take a variety of positions on
the shape of a future society--they could be
anarcho-communist, individualist or even primitivist,
for example. Many refuse to offer a specific, singular
model of the future at all, believing that people will
choose a variety of social forms to organize
themselves when given the chance. They are critical of
groups or tendencies that believe they are "carriers
of the truth" and try to impose their ideological and
formal solution to the problem of social organization.
Instead, many insurrectionary anarchists believe that
it is through self-organized struggle that people will
learn to live without institutions of domination.


While insurrectionary anarchists are active in many
parts of the world at the moment, the points in this
article are particularly influenced by the activities
and writings of those in Italy and Greece, which are
also the countries where insurrectionary anarchists
are the most active. The current, extremely varied
Italian insurrectionary anarchist scene, which centers
around a number of occupied spaces and publications,
exists as an informal network carrying on their
struggle outside of all formal organizations. This
tendency has taken on the “insurrectionary anarchist”
label to distinguish itself from the Italian Anarchist
Federation, a platformist organization which
officially reject individual acts of revolt, favoring
only mass action and an educational and evangelistic
practice centering around propaganda in
“non-revolutionary periods,” and from the Italian
libertarian municipalists who take a largely reformist
approach to “anarchist” activity. 


Insurrectionary anarchists are not historical
determinists; that is, they don't see history as
following one set path, as something with which we
need to move in tune. On the contrary, history is an
open book, and the path that it will take depends on
our actions. In this sense, a true act does not happen
within context, but to context. To break with the
present we must act against context, and not wait for
a historically determined time to act, for it will
never come. The act does not grow out of context, it
happens to context and completely changes the context,
turning the impossible of one moment into the possible
of the next. And this is the heart of the
insurrectionary event. As the insurrectionary event
transforms the context of possibility, it also
transforms the human and human social relations. 


Yet, for an insurrectionary event to occur that opens
a break with the present we need to pay attention to
the question of organization. Anarchists must do what
they can to open and develop the potential of
insurrection. Certain forms of organization, however,
stifle our potential to truly act against the present
and for a new future, to move towards insurrection and
a permanent break with the state and capital.
Permanent organizations, organizations that attempt to
synthesize those struggling into a single, unified
organization, and organizations that attempt to
mediate struggle are all forms of organization that
tend to close the potential of insurrection. These
ways of organization formalize and rigidify the
relationships of those struggling in ways that limit
the flexible combination of our power to act. Our
active power, our power to create and transform, is
our only weapon, and that which limits such power from
within the movement of the exploited and excluded is
our greatest weakness. This does not mean that we
should remain unorganized (an impossibility--we always
have some level of organization no matter how
informal); in fact, it poses the very question of
organization: how do we combine in a way that promotes
our active powers?


1. Against permanent organizations: Permanent
organizations tend to take on a logic of their own--a
logic that supercedes that of insurrection. One just
needs to look at the operations of authoritarian,
Leninist groups or leftist, activist organizations to
see this at work. It is usually all about building the
group, recruiting above all else--permanence becomes
the primary goal. Power is separated from those active
in struggle and becomes instituted in the
organization. The organizer becomes separated from the
organized, and tends to take on the role of
disciplining and speaking for the struggle.


2. Against mediation with power: As organizations
become more permanent and worry about recruiting, they
often begin to worry about their image, and attempt to
limit the actions of others within the struggle who
might give the movement a bad name. The more they
institute power within their organization the more
they tend to limit direct confrontational action and
to encourage dialogue and mediation. Naively, they
come to want to harness the power of a mass of bodies
in order to get a seat at the table of power. This
process is heavily at work in the anti-globalization
movement; larger organizations are increasingly
attempting to mediate with power. It is also the role
unions take in society. For anarchists, of course,
being against capitalism and the state in their
entirety, there can be no dialogue with instituted
power. The willingness of those in power to initiate a
dialogue may be a sign of their weakness, but it is
also the beginning of our defeat when we limit our
active power to join them in discussion. 


3. Formality and informality: Formal organizations
separate the people into formal roles of organizer and
organized. The roles of organizer and organized, of
course, mirror the very social roles necessary to the
operation of the society that we as anarchists are
trying to overcome. In addition, formal organization
tends to separate decision from the moment and
situation of the act itself, separating decision from
its execution, and thus limiting the autonomy of
action. Both of these tendencies rigidify the social
relationships that are vital to those in struggle.
Formal organizations often also take on the role of
the representation of the "movement," shifting the
struggle from social in nature to political.
Insurrectionary anarchists tend to promote informal
organization because they recognize that we, as
anarchists, are part of those struggling, and don't
stand outside and above the exploited and excluded
politically organizing them. 


4. Organization grows out of struggle, struggle
doesn't grow out of organization: Most formal
organizations first attempt to build the organization
then organize the struggle or "movement."
Insurrectionary anarchists see this as backwards.
Informal organization, based on the affinity group,
grows out of struggle. Affinity groups come to build
links in struggle and then often coordinate actions;
but, the level of organization depends on the level of
struggle, not on the demands of a formal organization.



5. Autonomous action and solidarity: Insurrectionary
anarchists recognize that the actions of individuals
and affinity groups are autonomous, that no
organization should be in a position to discipline the
action of others. But autonomous action becomes strong
when we act in revolutionary solidarity with others in
struggle. Revolutionary solidarity is active and in
conflict with the structures of domination; it is
direct action that communicates a link between one's
struggle and that of others. 





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hey sasha just a question dou you relly want to say "history is a open book"?

i would agree with hiddegger and that history is not linear but is something more subjective than the book metaphor which is very objective and marxist .just a note i have my antimarxist anti hegel mode on. sorry 


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