Notes from ‘Revolt of a Generation’

More than 200 people from different italian cities, together with students and precarious workers from Wien, Madrid, London and Tunisi animated the Euro-mediterrean happening “The Revolt of a Generation” at La Sapienza University on the 12th and 13th of May, in Rome. It was an important moment of discussion and elaboration: the revolution of Tunisi confronted with the experiences of the italian universities; the spanish network of Juventud sin futuro and the UK’s Uncut discussed together with the antiracist student collectives from Wien, while the experience of the Feminist university of Tunisia confronted with the challenge of the self-education and the critical knowledge.

From the very rich debate of this event it emerged the progressive privatization of the public university as a common framework: the fees rising in different countries such as UK, Tunisi, Spain, Italy and Austria. This happening was able to live on the border between Europe and Mediterranean area, showing its asymmetries and inequalities within the knowledge production, where mobility, critical knowledge and the defense of the public space must be able to grasp the challenge of the present.

A generation without future but at the same time without fear: these are the words that the network of Juventud sin futuro has shared with us in Rome. The tunisian collective of Diplomées Chomeurs has explained us how the absent of future for young graduates and the condition of precarity was the core of the Tunisia’s revolution. This is the same reality lived by the book block in Rome, London, Amsterdam, Madrid and Sweden. A generation in revolt that reclaim dignity and freedom met for the first time and discussed together the issues of work and new welfare. How to immagine new kind of common struggles against rent and the global financial capitalism that parasites and exploits our social needs? How to rethink new form of taxation and social redistribution against inequality? These are themes that we have started to discuss in a collective way.

Here few work proposal that emerged from the discussion:

We decided to start a platform of multi-language communication that will be set up in the next months to share materials, political and theoretical analysis to continue a common debate in French, Arab, Italian, Spanish and English. A laboratory to define common target in different contexts: fighting the cuts of public sectors, proposing a new tax system for rich people, elaborating a new welfare against debt and the rising fees, reclaim of houses, spaces, services and income. These are just few themes for common campaign and common struggle.

We are preparing a publication in different languages to collect our different experiences. In the next few weeks we will propose an open call for paper to collect different experience for a generation on revolt from Italy, Tunisia, Uk, Spain, Egypt, USA, Siria, South America and Asia. Lots of work to do and new collective challenges.

We will organize new happening and research seminars in a collective way in Madrid, London and Tunisi to continue our relation and studying the issue of development and the economic alternatives of the present.

The next appointment will be at Regueb, close to the city of Sidi Bouzid during the first week of July, invited by the collective Union Diplomées Chomeurs; the aim of this meeting is to start a federation of graduated unemployed between Europe and Tunisia. A really important appointment to deep new common day of actions and reclaims. Our time is here, it’s starting now!

here the italian, arab, french version

www.unicommon.org

Tunisia is our University

Notes and reflections from the Liberation Without Borders Tour

Anna Curcio and Gigi Roggero

Translated by Jason Francis Mc Gimsey

 

 

Today, Tunisia is an extraordinary political laboratory. Definitively destroying any inveterate reminiscence of the colonial mirror, where the “periphery” should observe the “center” to see the image of it’s future reflected in it, social struggles are determining the most advanced point inside global capitalism. Doing enquiry in this laboratory means the possibility of finding answers and developing unresolved political questions.

Above all, here some fundamental indications emerge regarding the temporality of the crisis. Between 2007 and 2008, when we began developing our analysis of the global economic crisis, we couldn’t envision the deflagration of new cycles of struggle. Or, rather, these new cycles were fragmented in character and not generalized. Today, we can see how the very concept of cycle must be completely rethought: when the crisis is no longer a specific phase but a permanent and insuperable horizontal element of cognitive capitalism, struggles adopt a different temporality. They wait and attack the enemy where it is weakest, i.e. where the composition of living labor is the strongest.

This is why the first insurrections inside the global crisis happened in Tunisia and Egypt. What’s more, they put insurrection and revolution back on the agenda; two things that many people, too many people, had thought they had been freed from along with the old political problems of the 19^th century. But social movements imposed this agenda in new ways. The insurrection is no longer tied to the conquest of the state and the perimeters of national space have been definitively exceeded. One now rises in struggle to destroy borders, to affirm the right to flight and the mobility of living labor.

Tunisian activists have a clear perception of the coordinates of struggle, coordinates that are traced on an immediately transnational level. Again, we can see how another peculiar element of contemporary crisis – that of infection (see Christian Marazzi’s Dairy) – travels in pursuit of the movements of living labor and its organizational practices. The Tunisian insurrection was the spark for the movement in Egypt and the entire Arab world. And now from Wisconson, Spain and Greece the first item on the agenda is: do like in Tahrir square. The infection of conflicts happens over networks, from social networks to text messages. They aren’t simply tools that facilitate the circulation of information and communication. Here, the network is entirely reappropriated by living knowledge, it becomes a form of multitudinary organization and the expression and practice of collective intelligence. What an extraordinary experience to see, concretely, how demonstrators move in the metropolitan space: on a random Saturday morning, the appointment is at 10 a.m. in front of a theater on Avenue Bourghiba. But after 40 minutes there is no one and the police behind the barbwire are tense and don’t understand; in just a few seconds a hundred, two-hundred, three-hundred people gather, shouting at the transitional government that it must go, calling for the continuation of the revolutionary process. When the demonstration is attacked with clubs and knives by undercover police and/or shady figures paid by merchants worried about their business on the verge of the tourist season, everyone disperses in what seems like a sudden, disorganized way, just as they had gathered. But a few minutes later, the swarm recomposes again with even more people in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs, and again in front of the union headquarters to demand the convocation of a general strike.

However, the Tunisian insurrection is not a spontaneous event without a history and without organization. Its has a long genealogy, made of mobilizations and struggles, at least since – as they told us – the beginning of the revolutionary process seen in the miners’ strikes of 2008. But even in the ‘70s and ‘80s students and workers gave life to extraordinary experiences of conflict: Ben Ali’s repressive and authoritarian grip was the answer to them. Youth and Tunisian workers then used, with intelligent pragmatism, the single union of the regime, the U.G.T.T., and the student union, the U.G.E.T.: these were training grounds for activists and spaces of capillary organization that were then overturned against the hierarchy. Again, it was in southern Tunisia that the movement accumulated strength: symbolically, it isn’t by chance that the insurrectional process started on December 17^th in Sidi Bouzid when Mohamed Bouazizi – a young university graduate forced to work as a street peddler – set himself on fire in a public square. That strength became potency when the movement conquered the metropolitan space on January 14^th, the day Ben Ali fled. Since then, thousands of young proletariats have come from the countryside and other cities to the capital, to occupy the Kasbah and continue the revolution.

Therefore, as Miguel Mellino has already explained, the mainstream media images have nothing to do with what is happening in North Africa. “Bread revolt” or the “Jasmine revolution” are labels that try to exorcise the common reality that the Tunisian revolution really speaks of. Various American analysts observe, terrorized, how the composition of the social movements in Maghreb are so similar to the situation in the United States and in Europe: highly-educated, unemployed and precarious young people who no longer see any possible correspondence between a university degree and their salary. So, while others have recklessly given up the category of cognitive labor for misunderstood tactical reasons, or maybe because they are disillusioned by Italian capitalists’ lack of foresight to invest in the “knowledge economy”, this is the very subject that guided the struggles on the other side of the Mediterranean.

In Tunisia, it should be clear to everyone that there is no identitary essentialism in the category of cognitive labor– even to the stubborn who insist in accusing it of a having “progressive” vice. On one hand, it indicates not only the students or youth that are highly educated, but the multitude that produces knowledge and is impoverished by capitalist capture. Therefore, saying “cognitive labor” means saying potency and exploitation at the same time. In the Tunisian outskirts, the young and less-than-young use the network daily and fluently speak various languages, often learned through the parabolic antennas so hated by the anti-consumerists of the western left who don’t grasp the ambivalent process of subjectivation contained in the use of the peculiar “dead knowledge” of communication technologies. On the other hand, the political question that the revolutionary movement in Tunisia plainly shows us is the alliance, or the common composition between the youth of the cognitive precariat and the proletariat of the banlieue. However, these are not necessarily distinct figures. Rather, they the same process seen from different angles. School, university and knowledge definitively cease to be social escalators for labor market mobility used by the declassed middleclass and a promise of social redemption for the proletariat of the periphery. Various other subjects suffering from the crisis have amassed around this composition, starting with lawyers, magistrates and service workers (may of whom are active in telecommunications), and with the accumulation of the workers’ struggles in the south over the previous decades.

Nor was the revolution in Tunisa a “peaceful revolution”: who knows what the icon of the young celebrated in the Italian newspaper Repubblica would say in seeing the girls and boys of the Tunis banlieue proudly show off the commissariats and the RCD party’s offices that they have torched? Who knows if that disincarnated figure can understand what it means to say that today these kids no longer have to lower their gaze when facing a cop or a thug of the regime, the most immediate representations of class oppression.

Nor was this a simple revolution to topple the rais and finally start the process of liberal-democratic development. Ben Ali’s regime was not an exception or a feudal residue, but a fully integrated cog in global governance and financial capitalism. His attitude, in the end, was no different that the attitude of Enron managers or other great “financial scandals”: when they realized the boat was sinking, like Nazi officials escaping from WWII, they grabbed all the candelabras and silverware they could on their way out. Again, the political point is that the problem isn’t the corrupted, but that the system produces corruption. So it isn’t strange that one of the most decisive aspects is the question of debt: social movements are in fact refusing to respect the agreements made by Ben Ali with the great actors of global capitalism.

For all of these reasons, the present phase is extremely delicate. The transitional government – which, after the destitution of Gannouchi imposed by the by second occupation of the Kasbah, is now lead by Essebsi – is trying to impose a repressive normalization, following requests coming from Tunisian business and commercial sectors readily defeatist of the uncomfortable shadow of Ben Ali’s circle. They are all now pledging allegiance to democratic transition that is to reach its apex in the constitutional assembly on July 24^th. In the meanwhile, government offices and Ministries are surrounded by barbwire, tanks occupy the streets, the curfew and the systematic blackouts in the outskirts aim to guarantee the ordered transition to the state of liberal-democracy, i.e. the end of the revolutionary process. Not incidentally, the word “revolution” is celebrated by those who are trying to block it, above all by the moderate Islamic forces who – not unlike the secular centrists – are already candidate as the best allies for imperial stability. This can also be seen regarding the war in Libya. Those who support it are in the moderate block for the most part, while for activists it is clear that it is a war against revolutionary movements. Many activists told us of friends and comrades who wen to fight against Kaddafi’s regime and of the geographic complexities of the insurgents’ battle lines: in Misrata, a composition very similar to the Tunisian composition is concentrated while in Bengasi a succession to the Libyan colonel is attempting to install itself but with a substantial political continuity, in accordance with the forces that are conducting the war.

In front of the Justice Department of Tunis, a lawyer synthetically comments: “we can’t talk about a counterrevolution simply because we still haven’t had a revolution”. This is the question. A few blocks away, hundreds and hundreds of young people who came from throughout the country to occupy the Kasbah don’t want to go home. For the Tunisian proletariat there is no home to go back to if a radical transformation is not produced: the choice of migration or the continuation of the revolutionary process are, in the end, two forms of the same struggle. The explosion of freedom that flows through the streets of the Tunisian metropolis is clashing head-on with the attempt to govern it in order to normalize it: the freedom of commerce opposes, head to head, the potency of the freedom of the common. So, how does destitutent power become constituent power? How does the swarm become a weapon to attack? How can horizontality determine collective verticality, the construction of new social relationships and common institutions? In brief, how does insurrection become revolution? These are the questions that, in the global crisis, the political laboratory of Tunisia are posing.

As we have said, the spatial coordinates of this challenge are clear to the activists here and they are traced on an immediately transnational level: in particular, North Africa on one side and Europe on the other. But it isn’t a question of generic solidarity that risks being trapped by identity or stink of colonial charity. “The best way to help the liberation of the Palestinian people is to liberate ourselves” one activist said. There is much the European left – wallowing in defeat and in sectorial self-celebration without any political vision – could learn from this university if only it had the desire to understand, to do enquiry, to organize the common and breathe this new air of freedom.

 

* See the diary of the Liberation Without Borders Tour: http://liberationwithoutborderstour.blogspot.com/

J30 Meeting – Leeds: Nobody and Nothing Works!

Mobilising for J30 strikes organised by friends of ROU.

A call to all those in Leeds interested in resisting austerity cuts and beyond.

30th June 2011 may well turn out to be the most important step forward in a mass fight against public sector cuts. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be involved in strike action, from as many as four or five different unions including NUT, PCS, UCU and ATL.

Often strike action can be ignored by those in power but also the vast majority of workers not in unions or directly effected by the issues. Therefore we, rank & file union members, students, precarious workers & unemployed are calling for a mass show of solidarity for those taking strike action and to generalise the strike on June 30th.

From early morning pickets, direct actions, occupations & demonstrations – whatever your into – lets all do it on June 30th and amplify the resistance to austerity. This call to action is going out to activist direct action groups, local anti cuts groups, radical political groups, radical unions and student university occupations.

Come to the co-ordination meeting – bring ideas, friends, creativity.

Similar organising meetings have already happened in london, a write up of which can be found here: https://london.indymedia.org/articles/9136

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151694614900989&notif_t=event_admin

It’s Not Just Indignation: Inventing new ways of doing politics.

The following is a communique from the Universidad Nomada to Edufactory/ The Knowledge Liberation Front regarding events in Spain.

It’s true that we’re indignant. But not just that. If it were just indignation that brought us together in the streets and squares of our cities, the movement would have less force. Once the moment of excitement had passed we would have gone home. That is not what is happening. After the demonstrations, groups – some larger, some smaller – have camped in the squares and after being evicted, have returned again and again. This shows a will to be heard which goes far beyond mere indignation, a will which is opening up new means of doing politics on the basis of the idea that “politics” is not only nor principally a profession – the “business” of the so-called political class – but rather that politics is the only way we have to resolve problems collectively. The capture of politics by those professionals who have turned it into their exclusive terrain, reducing it to a matter of representation and exercising it against the interests of a large part of the population, takes out of our hands those tools without which we are doomed to savage competition amongst ourselves, war between the poor.

The increasing intensity of the crisis has made this model of politics blow up. It has shown clearly that the current politicians use the legitimacy which the voting box grants them in order to make citizens ever more impotent against the demands and requirements of a global capitalist class which the politicians either do not know how to or do not want to tame. No one said things were easy. What we are saying is that we need the tools of politics, of a new kind of politics, in order to find solutions to the current situation.

The partial movements that have emerged recently give us hints in this direction. All of them, from platforms like “Victims of Mortgages”, “Real Democracy Now”, “Youth with no Future”, to the offices of social rights, the social centers, and the assemblies of the unemployed as well as many others have shown a tremendous capacity to oppose the measures imposed by the public administration, to construct partial alternatives and to attempt to disrupt the privatization measures and impoverishment which are underway.

So here we have a social Left which does not coincide with the political “Left.” The latter has been absorbed by economic elites to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish between the recommendations of the big business groups and the decisions of the politicians. The narrow filter of party democracy impedes meaningful participation. This is why it is now time to get our imagination rolling and seek new forms of articulation which reinvent the political community, putting our collective intelligence to the test. The internet networks are at work; they give shape to the new virtual political space. But we need more: popular citizen assemblies, open encounters, public discussions, institutions which supervise and control the political parties… it is our future, this is our moment.

Montserrat Galcerán of the Nomad University

Spain: It’s our moment: May the occupations and disobedience continue!

A statement by the anarchosyndicalist CNT of Spain on the May protests and occupations which have swept the country.

The countless demonstrations and occupations that are taking root in the main squares of cities and villages since the 15th are a clear example of the organizational capacity of the people when they decide to be the protagonists of their own lives; overcoming apathy, resignation, and the absence of a self-awareness with which to articulate solutions to take on and construct alternatives to the many problems that today face all of us: workers, the unemployed, students, immigrants, retirees, the precarious…

The organizational formulas developed in these mobilizations prove the viability of direct participation through assemblies for taking decisions that channel our aspirations and demands and make us overcome individualism. We become protagonists, rather than spectators of a system based in representation and delegating authority, which erases our individuality. Assemblies, a rotating microphone, working groups, responsibility, capacity, organization, self-responsibility, coordination, involvement and visibility are the collective teeth that move our gears, capable of challenging the institutions and provoking an expectation and public debate that have eclipsed the electoral campaign and the recurring contents of the national and international press.

The illusions generated by the massive mobilizations shouldn’t allow us to forget that this situation will be an object for instrumentalization, distortion, and management by political, social, and union groups; these groups are even more afraid than the government of losing the small amount of legitimacy that they have left in the minds of some citizens. Likewise, the proposals and messages emanating from these mobilizations must be analized in-depth. Overcoming the two-party system and gaining a modification to the Electoral Law will not make us freer, nor will it favor individual sovereignty. We must state that the demands are centered in the necessary sociopolitical changes; but there is a lack of denunciations or proposals discussing the world of work – clear and explicit denunciations of the collaborationist role of the institutional union federations, of the Labor Reform currently in force, and of the wide legal margin for implementing layoffs and destroying jobs…

Disobedience is the fundamental element that, since the 15th, has characterized all of the mobilization and expressions of protest. It is challenging and defying once again the repression and the attempts to hold back the occupations that are coming from various offices of the government and the Electoral Commissions; it is further strengthening the participation, involvement, and self-awareness of our need to organize ourselves. Disobedience is a collective pulse that demonstrates our overwhelming force when we work together and decide not to give up on our demands. It is a throb in our hearts that fuels an awakening of consciences that will allow us to react, and to extend our mobilization, our solidarity, and the overcoming of the fear that neutralizes struggle.

“Cualquier noche puede salir el Sol” [“Any night the sun could rise” – a line from a popular rock song about revolution, also a reference to Madrid’s ‘Puerta del Sol’], and in Madrid’s central square we’ve already spent a week avoiding the sunset. We have materialized our practice, that it is not only possible but necessary to work together, unite, and fight to change our immediate present and to outline from our self-organization the pillars of a society without power, inequality, repression, and delegation of authority. On May 22 [Election Day], more consciously and visibly than ever, we will respond with abstention, because we ourselves have demonstrated that the politicians do not represent us, nor do we need them.

From the CNT, we will continue participating and calling for a permanent mobilization and struggle, as a means to resolve the problems in all spheres of our lives.

We continue to build at the same time as we disobey. The protest continues!

Night or day, the struggle is ours!

Secretaría de Acción Social del SP del Comité Confederal- CNT

Source: http://libcom.org/news/its-our-moment-may-occupations-disobedience-continue-spain-cnt-21052011

It’s the Real Democracy, Stupid! #spanishrevolution

On 15^th May 2011, around 150,000 people took to the streets in 60 Spanish towns and cities to demand “Real Democracy Now”, marching under the slogan “We are not commodities in the hands of bankers and politicians”. The protest was organised through web-based social networks without the involvement of any major unions or political parties. At the end of the march some people decided to stay the night at the Plaza del Sol in Madrid. They were forcefully evacuated by the police in the early hours of the morning. This, in turn, generated a mass call for everyone to occupy his or her local squares that thousands all over Spain took up. As we write, 65 public squares are being occupied, with support protests taking place in Spanish Embassies from Buenos Aires to Vienna and, indeed, London. You probably have not have read about it in the British press, but it is certainly happening. Try #spanishrevolution, #yeswecamp,#nonosvamos or #acampadasol on Twitter and see for yourself. What follows is a text by Emmanuel Rodríguez and Tomás Herreros from the Spanish collective Universidad Nómada.

IT’S THE REAL DEMOCRACY, STUPID

15^TH May, from Outrage to Hope

There is no doubt that Sunday 15^th May 2011 has come to mark a turning point: from the web to the street, from conversations around the kitchen table to mass mobilisations, but more than anything else, from outrage to hope. Tens of thousands of people, ordinary citizens responding to a call that started and spread on the internet, have taken the streets with a clear and promising demand: they want a real democracy, a democracy no longer tailored to the greed of the few, but to the needs of the people. They have been unequivocal in their denunciation of a political class that, since the beginning of the crisis, has run the country by turning away from them and obeying the dictates of the euphemistically called “markets”.

We will have to watch over the next weeks and months to see how this demand for real democracy now takes shape and develops. But everything seems to point to a movement that will grow even stronger. The clearest sign of its future strength comes from the taking over of public squares and the impromptu camping sites that have appeared in pretty much every major Spanish town and city. Today––four days after the first march––social networks are bursting with support for the movement, a virtual support that is bolstered by its resonance in the streets and squares. While forecasting where this will take us is still too difficult, it is already possible to advance some questions that this movement has put on the table.

Firstly, the criticisms that have been raised by the 15^th May Movement are spot on. A growing sector of the population is outraged by parliamentary politics as we have come to known them, as our political parties are implementing it today––by making the weakest sectors of society pay for the crisis. In the last few years we have witnessed with a growing sense of disbelief how the big banks received millions in bail-outs, while cuts in social provision, brutal assaults on basic rights and covert privatisations ate away at an already skeletal Spanish welfare state. Today, none doubts that these politics are a danger to our present and our immediate future. This outrage is made even more explicit when it is confronted by the cowardice of politicians, unable to put an end to the rule of the financial world. Where did all those promises to give capitalism a human face made in the wake of the sub-prime crisis go? What happened to the idea of abolishing tax havens? What became of the proclamation that the financial system would be brought under control? What of the plans to tax speculative gains and the promise to stop tax benefits for the highest earners?

Secondly, the 15^th May Movement is a lot more than a warning to the so-called Left. It is possible (in fact it is quite probable) that on 22^nd May, when local and regional elections take place in Spain, the left will suffer a catastrophic defeat. If that were the case, it would be only be a preamble to what would happen in the general elections. What can be said today without hesitation is that the institutional left (parties and major unions) is the target of a generalised political disaffection due to its sheer inability come up with novel solutions to this crisis. This is where the two-fold explanation of its predicted electoral defeat lies. On the one hand, its policies are unable to step outside a completely tendentious way of reading the crisis that, to this day, accepts that the problem lies in the scarcity of our resources. Let’s say it loud and clear: no such a problem exists, there is no lack of resources, the real problem is the extremely uneven way in which wealth is distributed, and financial “discipline” is making this problem even more acute every passing day. Where are the infinite benefits of the real estate bubble today? Where are the returns of such ridiculous projects as the airports in Castellón or Lleida, to name but a few? Who is benefiting from the gigantic mountain of debt crippling so many families and individuals? The institutional left has been unable to stand on the side of, and work with, the many emerging movements that are calling for freedom and democracy. Who can forgive Zapatero’s words when the proposal to accept the dación de pago¹was rejected by parliament on the basis that it could “jeopardise the solvency of the Spanish financial system”? Who was he addressing with these words? The millions of people enslaved by their mortgages or the interests of major banks? And what can we say of their indecent law of intellectual property, the infamous Ley Sinde? Was he standing with those who have given shape to the web or with those who plan to make money out of it, as if culture was just another commodity? If the institutional left continues to ignore social movements, if it refuses to break away from a script written by the financial and economic elites and fails to come out with a plan B that could lead us out of the crisis, it will stay in opposition for a very long time. There is no time for more deferrals: either they change or they will lose whatever social legitimation they still have to represent the values they claim to stand for.

Thirdly, the 15^th May Movement reveals that far from being the passive agents that so many analysts take them to be, citizens have been able to organise themselves in the midst of a profound crisis of political representation and institutional abandonment. The new generations have learnt how to shape the web, creating new ways of “being together”, without taking recourse to ideological clichés, armed with a savvy pragmatism, escaping from pre-conceived political categories and big bureaucratic apparatuses. We are witnessing the emergence of new “majority minorities” that demand democracy in the face of a war “of all against all” and the idiotic atomisation promoted by neoliberalism, one that demands social rights against the logic of privatisation and cuts imposed by the economical powers. And it is quite possible that at this juncture old political goals will be of little or no use. Hoping for an impossible return to the fold of Estate, or aiming for full employment––like the whole spectrum of the Spanish parliamentary left seems to be doing––is a pointless task. Reinventing democracy requires, at the very least, pointing to new ways of distributing wealth, to citizenship rights for all regardless of where they were born (something in keeping with this globalised times), to the defence of common goods (environmental resources, yes, but also knowledge, education, the internet and health) and to different forms of self-governance that can leave behind the corruption of current ones.

Finally, it is important to remember that the 15^th May Movement is linked to a wider current of European protests triggered as a reaction to so-called “austerity” measures. These protests are shaking up the desert of the real, leaving behind the image of a formless and silent mass of European citizens that so befits the interests of political and economical elites. We are talking here of campaigns like the British UKUncut against Cameron’s policies, of the mass mobilisations of Geraçao a Rasca in Portugal, or indeed of what took place in Iceland after the people decided not to bail out the bankers. And, of course, inspiration is found above all in the Arab Uprising, the democratic revolts in Egypt and Tunisia who managed to overthrow their corrupt leaders.

Needless to say, we have no idea what the ultimate fate of the 15^th May Movement will be. But we can definitely state something at this stage, now we have at least two different routes out of this crisis: implementing yet more cuts or constructing a real democracy. We know what the first one has delivered so far: not only has it failed to bring back any semblance of economic “normality”, it has created an atmosphere of “everyman for himself”, a war of all against all. The second one promises an absolute and constituent democracy, all we can say about it is that it has just begun and that is starting to lay down its path. But the choice seems clear to us, it is down this path that we would like to go.

Tomás Herreros and Emmanuel Rodríguez (Universidad Nómada)

(hurriedly translated by Yaiza Hernández Velázquez)

please feel free to distribute, copy, quote…

1Dation in payment or datio in solutionem, the possibility of handing in the keys to a property in lieu of paying the debt accrued on its mortgage.

Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia

Call for a transnational meeting in English, French, Arab, Italian, Polish.

Call for a Transnational Meeting in Tunisia

We, students, precarious workers, unemployed, and activists of Europe and North Africa met in Tunis to share our knowledge and begin a process of common struggles. The struggles that have swept across North Africa over the last few months spoke to the entire globe because the absence of a future for the new generations was at the center of these conflicts. The front lines in these struggles were held by the new generation who is always the first to fight and the last to be listened to. In the context of the global economic crisis, there are many parallels in the reasons why we are fighting in Europe and why Ben Ali and Moubarak were toppled.

These struggles are demanding a radical change of a system based on generalized exploitation by parasitic governments of elites over the needs of the many. We are revolting against the misery of the present and to build new social relationships that are produced by processes of liberation and the reappropriation of our collective wealth. These struggles create common spaces that power constantly tries to fragment and repress.

This is why we are calling for a transnational Meeting of activists to share our struggles and to construct common strategies and campaigns. We don’t want to have a “media” event, but to construct a transnational network able to face these times of struggle and great social transformation.

We would like this Meeting to be a laboratory of reflection and common work around the following fundamental questions: migration and the free circulation of people and knowledges, precariousness, the question of debt and social services, free and accessible education for all, the construction of autonomous media and networks, the reappropriation of urban spaces, the mechanisms and the forms of social mobilization and the experimentation of new forms of organization and collective intelligence.

We propose a 3-day Meeting in Tunisia in September 2011, and invite all collectives, groups, individuals and activists who adhere to this call and who wish to construct a transnational network of struggle.

Front de Libération populaire de la Tunisie

Knowledge Liberation Front

Network Welcome to Europe et d’autres activistes du No Border

Soliplenumk Revolte (Gottingen)

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Appel pour un meeting transnational en Tunisie

Nous, étudiants, travailleurs précaires, chômeurs, activistes et militants d’Europe et d’Afrique du Nord, nous sommes rencontrés à Tunis pour croiser nos savoirs et entamer un processus de luttes communes.  Les luttes qui ont traversé l’Afrique du Nord dans ces mois ont parlé à tout le monde parce qu’elles ont mis au centre de leur combat les conditions de vie et l’absence de futur des nouvelles générations, les premières à se battre, les derniers à avoir droit de parole. Dans le contexte de la crise économique mondiale, il y a plusieurs similitudes entre ce pourquoi on lutte en Europe et les raisons pour lesquelles on a chassé Ben Ali et Moubarak.

Ces luttes demandent un changement radical d’un système qui se fonde sur l’exploitation générale et  le gouvernement d’élites parasitaires sur les besoins des majorités. On se révolte contre la misère présente et pour bâtir de nouveaux liens sociaux qui soient produits par des processus de libération visant la réappropriation de la richesse collective. Ces luttes ont créé un espace commun que les pouvoirs cherchent constamment à fragmenter et à réprimer.

Voici pourquoi nous appelons à un meeting transnational d’activistes pour partager les luttes et pour construire des stratégies communes. Nous ne voulons pas faire un « événement » médiatique, mais nous voulons construire un  réseau transnational à la hauteur d’un temps de luttes et de grandes transformations sociales.

Nous voudrions que ce meeting soit un laboratoire de réflexion et de travail commun autour des questions qui nous semblent fondamentales : la migration et la libre circulation des personnes et des savoirs, la précarité, la question de la dette et des services sociaux, la connaissance libre et gratuite pour tous, la construction de réseaux et de médias autonomes, la réappropriation de l’espace urbain, les  mécanismes  et les formes de mobilisation, l’expérimentation de nouvelles formes d’organisation et d’intelligence collective.

Nous proposons un meeting de 3 jours en Tunisie en septembre 2011, en invitant les collectifs, groupes et individus, activistes qui adhèrent au contenu de cet appel et qui souhaitent construire un réseau transnational de lutte. 

 

Front de Libération populaire de la Tunisie

Knowledge Liberation Front

Network Welcome to Europe et d’autres activistes du No Border

Soliplenumk Revolte (Gottingen)

 

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نداء لملتقى في تونس

اجتمعنا طلبة و عمال مفقرين و معطلين عن العمل ،نشطاء من أروبا و شمال افريقيا، في تونس لإثراء معارفنا و العمل على مشاريع نضالات مشتركة.فقد حاز ما حصل في شمال افريقيا من حراك شعبي اهتمام الجميع لكونه ناجما عن تدني مختلف مستويات العيش و غياب افاق مستقبلية حقيقية للأجيال الجديدة،التي على دورها الريادي في النضال تبقى بعيدة كل البعد عن التمتع بحق التعبير عن رأيها في الخيارات و القرارات وفي سياق الأزمة الإقتصادية العالمية نرى تشابها بين اسباب التحركات الشعبية و الطلابية في أروبا و ما أدى إلى سقوط بن علي و مبارك

هذا النضال هدفه تحقيق تغييرات جذرية في منظومة قائمة على الإستغلال و تسلط نخب عابثة على التصرف في شؤون و احتياجات الأغلبية ، يقوم ضد البؤس و الفقر و يسعى لبناء روابط و هياكل إجتماعية جديدة تكون نتاجا لعملية تحرر هدفها إستعادة الثروات المشتركة. وقد خلقت مختلف هذه النضالات فضاء مشتركا تحاول السلط بصفة دائمة تشتيته و قمع مكوناته
لذلك فإننا ندعو الى لقاء دولي للنشطاء من مختلف الأفاق للإستفادة من تجارب الجميع و بناء استراتيجيات نضال مشتركة .
نحن لانريد تنظيم “حدث” على المستوى الإعلامي بل بناء شبكة عابرة للدول تكون على مستوى النضالات و التغيرات الإجتماعية الراهنة

نحن نهدف الى لقاء يكون بمثابة المخبر للتفكير و العمل المشترك في ما يخص النقاط الأساسية التالية:

الهجرة و حرية تنقل الأشخاص و المعارف،الهشاشة الإقتصادية،مسألة المديونية بمختلف أشكالها، تردي الخدمات الإجتماعية،مجانية وتحريرالمادة المعرفية من كل ما يقيدها، إحداث شبكات و وسائل إعلام مستقلة،إستعادة الفضاء الحضري،طرق و أشكال التعبئة،الذكاء الجمعي و طرق التنظم الجديدة
نحن نقترح لقاء بتونس يدوم ثلاثة أيام في سبتمبر 2011 و نستدعي النشطاء المنتظمين و غير المنتظمين الذين يتفقون مع محتوى هذا النداء و يطمحون الى بناء شبكة نضالية عابرة للدول

Front de Libération populaire de la Tunisie

Knowledge Liberation Front

Network Welcome to Europe et d’autres activistes du No Border

Soliplenumk Revolte (Gottingen)

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Appello per un meeting transnazionale a Tunisi

Noi studenti, precari, disoccupati e attivisti del Nord Africa e dell’Europa, ci siamo incontrati a Tunisi per condividere saperi e costruire lotte comuni. Le rivolte che hanno attraversato l’Africa del nord in questi mesi parlano a tutti, perché hanno messo al centro le condizioni di vita e l’assenza di futuro delle nuove generazioni, le prime a scendere in strada, le ultime ad avere diritto di parola. Nel contesto della crisi economica globale, sono molti i tratti comuni tra i conflitti in Europa e i movimenti che hanno cacciato Ben Ali e Mubarak.

L’obiettivo delle nostre lotte è la trasformazione radicale di un sistema fondato sullo sfruttamento generalizzato e il governo delle elite parassitarie contro i bisogni dei molti. Ci ribelliamo contro la miseria del presente e per costruire nuovi rapporti sociali fondati su percorsi di liberazione e sulla riappropriazione della ricchezza collettiva. Queste lotte hanno prodotto uno spazio comune che il potere cerca continuamente di frammentare e reprimere.

Su questa base proponiamo un meeting transnazionale di attivisti per condividere le esperienze di conflitto e costruire percorsi in comune. Non ci interessa fare un «evento» mediatico, ma vogliamo costruire una rete transnazionale all’altezza delle sfide e della trasformazione sociale. 

Il meeting che stiamo organizzando vuole quindi essere un laboratorio di riflessione e organizzazione su questioni politicamente centrali: le migrazioni e la libertà di circolazione delle persone e dei saperi, la precarietà, il debito e un nuovo welfare, l’accesso libero e gratuito alla conoscenza, la rete e la costruzione di strumenti di comunicazione indipendenti, la riappropriazione dello spazio urbano, i metodi e le forme di lotta, la sperimentazione di nuove forme organizzative dell’intelligenza collettiva.

Proponiamo allora un meeting di 3 giorni in Tunisia nel mese di settembre e invitiamo collettivi, gruppi e singoli attivisti che condividono questi temi e vogliono costruire una rete transnazionale di lotte.

Front de Libération populaire de la Tunisie

Knowledge Liberation Front

Network Welcome to Europe e altri attivisti di NoBorder

Soliplenum Revolte (Göttingen)

 

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Zaproszenie do udzialu w ponadnarodowym spotkaniu

My, studenci, prekarni pracownicy, bezrobotni i aktywiści różnych ruchów społecznych Europy i Afryki Północnej spotkaliśmy się w Tunisie by dzielić się wzajemnie naszą wiedzą i stworzyć podstawy dla wspólnie prowadzonych walk. Rewolucje, które przetoczyły się przez Afrykę Północną w ostatnich miesiącach przemówiły do tak wielu osób, gdyż w ich centrum stały warunki życia, brak jasnej wizji przyszłości nowego pokolenia, które po raz pierwszy wyszło na ulicę i zabrało głos. Przyglądając się im w kontekście światowego kryzysu ekonomicznego, możemy dopatrzyć się wielu podobieństw między konfliktami rozwijającymi się w Europie i tymi, toczonymi przez ruchy, które obaliły reżimy Ben Alego i Mubaraka.

Celem tych wszystkich zmagań jest radykalna transformacja systemu opartego na ogólnym wyzysku obszernych części populacji prowadzonym przez rządzące, pasożytnicze elity. Sprzeciwiamy się ubóstwu teraźniejszości i mamy zamiar zbudować nowe relacje społeczne oparte na ścieżkach wolności oraz procesie odzyskiwania wspólnego bogactwa. Te walki wytworzyły przestrzeń, którą władza stara się stale dzielić i represjonować.

Wychodząc z tej perspektywy chcielibyśmy zwołać ponadnarodowe spotkanie aktywistów w celu współdzielenia doświadczeń z toczonych walk oraz po to, by stworzyć wspólnie kampanie. Nie jesteśmy zainteresowani tworzeniem kolejnego medialnego wydarzenia, ponieważ celujemy w  stworzenie międzynarodowej sieci nadającej się do stawienia oporu wyzwaniom, przed którymi stoją nasze ruchy oraz do przeprowadzenia społecznej transformacji.

Spotkanie, które organizujemy w najlepszym wypadku miałoby stać się laboratorium teoretycznej refleksji oraz procesu organizacji skupionych wokół politycznie istotnych kwestii: migracji oraz wolności przepływów ludzi i wiedzy, prekarności, długu i nowego dobrobytu, bezpłatnego i wolnego dostępu do wiedzy, sieci i autonomicznych mediów, ponownego przyswojenia przestrzeni miejskiej, metod i form walki oraz eksperymentów z nowymi formami organizacyjnymi.

Proponujemy zatem 3 dniowe spotkanie w Tunezji we wrześniu, tego roku i zapraszamy kolektywy, grupy i pojedynczych aktywistów, którzy chcieliby pracować nad tymi zagadnieniami i tworzyć ponadnarodową sieć walk.

Front de Libération populaire de la Tunisie

Knowledge Liberation Front

Network Welcome to Europe oraz inni aktywisci NoBorder

Soliplenum Revolte (Göttingen)

An Evening of Excess and Regeneration

Last night saw the Really Open University host the launch of the Free Association’s publication of their anthology, Moments of Excess. Around 40 people, attended to hear members of the Free Association discuss their work, which is the product of years of collaborative discussion and writing aimed at intervention in ongoing struggles and analysis of the conditions of contemporary capitalism.

Moments of Excess, subtitled Movements, protest and everyday life, is a collection of articles written by the Free Association which reflect on the authors’ involvement in the ‘movement of movements’. It addresses ‘questions concerning the character of anti-capitalist movements, and the very meaning of movement; the relationship between intensive collective experiences – ‘moments of excess’ – and ‘everyday life’; and the tensions between open, all-inclusive, ‘constitutive’ practices, on the one hand, and the necessity of closure, limits and antagonism, on the other.’

Members of the Free Association gave a talk in which they discussed, among other things, an idea they have been riffing with recently: ‘fairy dust’. Fairy dust, they argued, could be a metaphor for that ‘magic’ element which enables struggles to resonate beyond their immediate circumstances. After their talk open marxist John Holloway, who described himself as a ‘happy footnote’, gave a short response to some of the they ideas raised, and then the talk was opened up for wider questions and comments.

There is a clear affinity between the political aims and analyses of those involved in the Free Association experiment, and the transformative praxis of the ROU.        The ROU is partly about trying to enact the alternative forms of education which we would want as alternatives to the current hierarchical, commodified form which so dominates in capitalist society. As such we hold ‘concept meetings’ where we aim to have open and inclusive discussion on various topics. The next events are on The possibilities and limitations of activism in and beyond Web 2.0 and What is means to be ‘In and agains tthe university’.

The Crisis of the University and the Educational Significance of the Fees: Reducing the ‘Deficit’ or Fashioning Subservient Human Beings?

The Crisis of the University and the Educational Significance of the Fees: Reducing the ‘Deficit’ or Fashioning Subservient Human Beings?

“man is no longer man confined but man in debt. One thing, it’s true, hasn’t changed – capitalism” (Deleuze)

A one-day discussion seminar jointly organised by PhD students and staff members of the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences (University of Salford, Manchester)

The ‘cuts’ and ‘fees’ imposed by the lib-con government amount to the entrenchment of a new regime of control based on an extremely doctrinaire and contagious political ideology (managerialism) and guaranteed by a new bondage  (compulsory debt-financing). Repeated over and over again, the idea that ‘reducing the deficit is absolutely necessary’ ends up imposing an attitude of resignation in the face of what is taken as inevitable. Yet, we must ask: Why is the ‘deficit’ so bad for governments and so good for students? What if ‘being in debt’ is not just an economic matter, but a coercive pedagogy and a moulding mechanism to produce a particular kind of human being? Why is it that academics, students and support staff allow themselves to be managerialised, that is, pitted against each other?

These and other questions will be addressed in the seminar; topics to be discussed include: The politics of higher education and the question of university autonomy, self-government and academic freedom today. The rule of finance: financialisation and compulsory debt-financing. Managerial indicators of ‘quality’ and ‘satisfaction’: what kind of human beings lie behind such indicators and result from their use? The academics’ attitude and response to the politics of privatisation, marketisation and corporatisation of the university.

Confirmed interventions from:

Sarah Amsler (Aston University, Birmingham)

Peter Bratsis (University of Salford)

Bob Brecher (University of Brighton)

Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London)

Will Jackson (PhD, University of Salford)

Sukh Johal (University of Manchester)

Jennifer Morgan (PhD, University of Salford)

Karel Williams (University of Manchester)

Bob Jeffery (PhD, University of Salford)

Carlos Frade (University of Salford)

Friday 27 May 2011: 10:30 – 6 pm

Clifford Whitworth Conference Room (Clifford Whitworth Library), University of Salford (Greater Manchester)

(90 yards from Salford Crescent train station)

ALL Welcome

For further information contact: salforduniagainstcuts@googlemail.com

March 26th – The emergence of a new radical subjectivity?

by Alessio Lunghi and Seth Wheeler, published in issue 12 of Shift: http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=446

The explosion of militant activity that escaped the A to B route on March 26th led to the inevitable round of condemnation from both the authorities and the mainstream media, as well as the busy hum of internet debate between those in the direct action/anarchist communities and the wider anti-cuts movement.

For us, these subsequent debates have attempted to return participants of direct action to easily codified ideological positions, and as such, has disguised the transformative and fluid nature of a new antagonistic radical subjectivity.

November 10th – the emergent radical subjectivity

Since setting the agenda with the storming of Millbank on November 10th 2010, the student movement has posited a combatative character for the broader fight back against the governments austerity measures. Students have shown an advanced level of self-organisation and a capacity to respond in the face of increased levels of state repression. The attachment to a more ‘immediate’ means of action has led to a convergence with the proponents of direct action, anarchist and autonomist ideas. This ‘meeting of minds’ has produced a dynamic and antagonistic sphere that exists within the broader anti-cuts movement.

The actions at Millbank were welcomed by many in the anarchist/direct action movements, as a breath of fresh air, ushering in a new cycle of struggle that would overturn the long period of sterility in street based action. While the 10th November was reflective of a growing dissatisfaction with parliamentary politics, it was broader in participation than the pre-existing far-left and anarchist groupings. While anarchists and other militants were present, the day belonged to a new, and as yet unidentified, political subjectivity. This subjectivity has since grown in size, confidence and militancy throughout the student demonstrations, occupations and actions that characterised the winter of 2010.

The first crisis of this new movement came on December 9th, when parliament voted through the rise in tuition fees. Rather than abandon the struggle as a lost cause, a period of ‘regroupment’ around university campuses began. Plans were laid out that intended to extend the terrain of struggle beyond the confines of the university. In London, this was expressed in a wave of squatted occupations, such as the nomadic Really Free School, the Anticuts Space in Bloomsbury and the occupation of the Jobcentre in Deptford. These spaces adopted the organisational form and aesthetics of the university occupations defined as they were by political openness, debate, creativity and horizontal formation.

March 26th – One Day, Two Spheres

The March for the Alternative, organised by the Trade Union Congress ( TUC ) – had a clear aim. The Labour Party and their Trade Union allies did all they could to ensure a clear pro-labour, pro-growth message to the day. As March 26th approached, it became clear that two political spheres were beginning to appear on the public stage – the institutional and the antagonistic. The former defined by the limitations set out by liberal democracy (an A to B route, march, rally, appeals to parliament), the latter by its aspiration to circumvent or transcend these limitations.

Dozens of autonomous feeder marches were organised and were subsequently declared “unofficial” by the TUC. This act of control was the the first demarcation between these loosely defined spheres. Many of these feeder marches were organised through the networks and spaces established out of the previous winter’s struggles. As such these marches were characterised by their autonomous and decentralised political forms, some of which had no or limited consultation with the police on agreed routes.

Politically organised calls, such as the ‘Radical Workers’ and ‘Militant Workers’ Blocs further aided the exposure of participants on the feeder marches to more radical identities and ideas, with a large militant Black bloc of around 600 people forming at ULU. The unwillingness from the TUC – the institutional sphere – to embrace the diversity of messages emerging from within these movements, was significant in enabling radicals and militants free reign to build up strength and influence.

The ‘antagonistic sphere’ of the anti-cuts movement acknowledged the limitations of ‘calling upon parliament’ to effect change. Despite the contradictions that exist inside it (e.g. UK Uncut’s militant lobbying) commonalities are shared that emphasise direct democracy and direct action as a means of affecting change.

UK Uncut’s action has focused on a sustained campaign of targeting tax avoidance by corporations. They employ peaceful civil disobedience, theatre and occupation as the form their actions take. The viral dynamic, reproducing replica demonstrations throughout the country, is testament to the accessibility of this form of action. Actions that are both open and participatory, not reliant on someone’s physical ability to confront the police or damage property. Their actions carry with them the possibility of ‘another’ world – transforming banks into nurseries etc – and as such are an interesting model for symbolic protest that both disrupts the flow of capital and posits the possibility of another post-capitalist relationship to space. As such the form their action takes has an ability to generalise but is contained inside a restrictive content that does not seek to posit a systemic critique. While proponents of UK Uncut come from a broad cross section of society, its numbers have been blustered by students radicalised in the fees struggle. As such many of their actions have cross-pollinated, carrying both anti-tax and fee messaging.

There is also another aspect of this broad antagonism, one characterised by property destruction, combative attitudes towards the police and the ability to circumvent police “kettling” techniques. All these experiences, as well as the legalistic and anti-surveillance lessons were learnt in the recent cycle of struggle and as such created the basis for the popularity of the Black bloc for March 26th.

We suggest that UK Uncut and the Black bloc, rather than being projections of separate ideological concerns, are reactions to existing modes of resistance and democracy. Therefore an unofficial union has occurred, a united front of antagonism to the current order of things and for the time being have empathy for each other. UK Uncut’s message is too limiting to express exactly what is necessary to say about the cuts, the crisis and capitalism. The Black bloc freely articulates itself through a symbolic immediacy, but is unable to build the conditions for a wider participation. UK Uncut as well as the Black bloc need each other, and the refusal to denounce one another is reflective of this. As our conceptualization of this sphere suggests, it’s a space that is in constant development, one that seeks to escape fixed identities.

Identity and Boundary maintenance

‘Militancy’ is often conflated with an anarchist identity, bolstered by a lazy media, who at the first opportunity will define any form of action that steps outside of legalism as being derived from an anarchist politics.

Political identity informed by ideology has a tendency to calcify thought. Ideologies contain preformed sets of ideas and interpretive tools that attempt to assimilate and codify possible interactions in line with its own principles.

While the hundreds of red & black flags that many took up on the Black bloc, were useful in reaffirming and uniting the bloc on the day it easily codified the bloc as a purely ‘Anarchist’ expression. In reality the bloc’s ‘politics’ was more than that of its symbolism. Many on the bloc removed their dark clothing, replacing it with normal clothes so as to join UK Uncut outside of Fortnum & Mason’s. We assert that this was more than a means to disappear into a crowd, but representative of the new radical subjectivity, that possesses the ability to shift from one form to another inside this antagonistic sphere.

Placing the ‘militant action’ into a more defined and political constrictive ideology has enabled the media and police to manage the actions of this “violent minority” as separate from legitimate participants (contained inside the institutional sphere) – this narrative exists as the default position of the establishment.

This equation of the Black block with anarchism has been repeated in the analysis of various left commentators and political blogs. Many of these have denounced the Black bloc actions as belonging to an anarchist vanguardist minority. This is ironic given that many of these political commentators supported similar militant actions at Millbank, seeing those as an articulation of a generalised radicalism. Therefore the aesthetics of the Black block (tied to an anarchist/militant identity) have contained how far the actions have resonated.

It could also be argued that the Black bloc on March 26th was an expression of anarchists’ new found confidence to act in conjunction with others, as well as a means by which people radicalised in the recent wave of struggle could enact a militant symbolic engagement.

Some in UK Uncut have been quick to distance themselves from the property damage undertaken by the Black bloc and posit themselves solely as proponents of peaceful, civil disobedience. This has been undertaken for a variety of reasons – as a defence, to enable such actions to continue without huge levels of policing; and to keep UK Uncut’s core message of tax justice separate from other ideological expressions.

Those in the Black bloc who have spoken to the media, have also extended the hand of solidarity to UK Uncut (see Brighton Solidarity Federation’s Open Letter), again promoting the ‘diversity of tactics’ narrative but ideologically positioning themselves outside of what they see as UK Uncut’s limited analysis.

This ideological ‘boundary maintenance’ is an attempt to ‘own’ activity on the day, to clearly delineate and equate action (form) with politics (content). This disguises the fluid nature of the new subjectivity, positing instead pre-formed identities and limitations.

Conclusion

We state that both participants of UK Uncut and Black bloc exist within a commonality, defined by a shared history and a mutual attraction. That this commonality is the basis of a new antagonistic sphere, wider than these two visible elements, that have characterised and shaped an attraction beyond the dominant institutional space which is fast loosing ground to it.

This was illustrated on March 26th when huge crowds stayed to support the Fortnum and Mason’s occupation, the crowd swelling into the thousands, who were then involved in cat and mouse games with the police, resisting baton charges and police dispersal. As yet the political content of this subjectivity is still developing but posits a radicality in its forms, if not currently in its content.

The new subjectivity is categorised by a tendency towards consensual decision making, a rejection of hierarchy, open political debate, participation and a fluidity in how it articulates itself. Our initial investigation leads us to pose more questions than we have answers. These include – but are not limited too: What are the political demands or aspirations that exist within the fuzzy boundaries of this ‘antagonistic sphere’? In what sense are these demands radical? How will this sphere interact with or expand into other forms of struggle?

Taking inspiration from the new movements we believe that inside the context of symbolic engagements, we need to re-conceptualise the meanings of actions that capture the public imagination, inspire confidence and participation whilst fostering collective power. We need wherever possible to escape the straitjacket of the rigidity that ideology can impose on these tactics, that ultimately leads to their over-coding/association with fixed and easily manageable identities.

On the evening of March 26th , Business Secretary Vince Cable, in a pre-written press release, reinforced the coalition government’s message that the demonstration will not change the course of the governments austerity measures, a definitive response to the institutional sphere. It seems that the institutional sphere is fast running out of space to move and accommodate the demands from the antagonistic sphere for more radical action.

The next challenge we see is how this ‘antagonistic sphere’ mutates to embrace any new wave of industrial disputes also faced with cuts and whether or not it can resonate within these struggles. This will be the true test of it and may begin to ‘flesh out’ its political content. When previously contained symbolic actions spill over onto the terrain where capital requires a discipline and dominance for it is stability, things will really start to get interesting.

Alessio Lunghi and Seth Wheeler have been involved in the Direct Action
and Anarchist movements over the last decade and a half. They are
contributing editors of ‘20 Reasons’, a book examining the present cycle
of struggles, both domestically and abroad- forthcoming on Freedom Press
Summer 2011.