Soy mi destino, mi tiempo, mi camino,
mi gran amor, mi guerrera y mi poeta.
Soy la caída, la bajada en picado a los infiernos,
el dolor, el amor, la esperanza.
Soy mi memoria, mi esencia y mi existencia.
Soy realidad y sueño, mi propia ficción…
We remember the violence of capitalist “urban renewal”/”gentrification”, or more correctly, appropriation of commons and repression of autonomy, in events of February, 2006, in Barcelona …
Quel est le but du cinéma? Que le monde réel, tel qu’offert sur l’écran, soit aussi une idée du monde. Il faut voir le monde comme une idée, il faut le penser comme concret.
Jacques Rivette
We are all rehearsing parts of which we are as yet unaware (our roles). We slip into characters which we do not master (our attitudes and postures). We serve a conspiracy of which we are completely oblivious (our masks).
Rivette’s project — a cinema that opposes its theatricality to that of theater, its reality to that of the world, which has become unreal — rescues cinema from the theater and the conspiracies threatening to destroy it.
Gilles Deleuze
The film maker, essayist, and above all, poet, Jacques Rivette, died on the 29th of January 2016. With Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, Rivette was one of the principal figures of the french New Wave. As an apologist of modern cinema, of a cinema uniquely cinematographic, liberated from its dependence on older artistic forms (but not opposed to appropriations from older forms, most notably theatre), his was a radical vision. His films distabilised identification with characters, hero-subjects, narratives, geographies and times. Like Brecht, his ambition was an epic cinema, in which the public would be confronted with its own freedom in poetic creation. We modestly celebrate this art …
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We share below a critical reflection on identity politics and polititicians, by Lupus Dragonowl in Anarchy Magazine and posted on anarchistnews.org. The examples cited are from a united states context, but similar instances of such politics can be found elsewhere. And what is of importance is to critically engage with such a politics, both conceptually and in practice, which the following essay endeavours admirably to do. In sum, our autonomy lies not in the affirmation of an identity, hitherto neglected or repressed, but in the ability to create identities, liberating identities which intensify the possibilities of free creativity.
On Friday, the 22nd of January, the french government announced that will present to the council of ministers a project of law to prolong the state of emergency in the country, declared on the 14th of November, in the wake of the attacks on Paris. The country’s Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, in comments to the BBC at the Davos gathering declared that the state of emergency is “a way to protect the french” and that it will be prolonged for “the time that it is necessary. Until we can finish obviously with Daech [ISIS]”. (Le Monde 24-25/01/2016). But since it is equally obvious that ISIS, or any other future incarnation of the same, will not be “finished” any time soon, the state of emergency promises to stay.
We share below a reflection on idiocy, first and foremost our own, or that of those who believe, in action, if not in thought, that some modicum of happiness is to be found in the splendid isolation of work and consumption. We have for the most part come to accept that our survival, our success, depends exclusively on our own individual efforts (an individuality sometimes extended to the family), that it still remains possible to keep above the water by just working damned hard. What is then sacrificed are friendships, loves, communities, politics in the noble sense of collective self-making, in sum, autonomous creative life. And even for those who are not yet idiots, capitalist social and political relations struggles to assure that all desire to be.
The reflection is the work of Germán Santiago and Belén Quejigo for Periódico Diagonal (13/01/2016). In what follows, we offer it in translation …
(Street Art by Alaa Awad)
A graffito on a wall in Tahrir Square, Cairo read: “The regime did not change, but the people changed”.
It is five years since the eruption of the “Egyptian Revolution” in nationwide mass protests on the 25th of January, 2011. To the cry of “bread, justice and dignity”, hundreds of thousands would take to the streets in daily demonstrations and occupations. The symbolic centre of the movement was occupied Tahrir, where protest evolved into resistance, where rebellion metamorphosed into the creation of autonomy. After 18 days of occupation, and some 1,000 dead at the hands of the national security forces, Hosni Mubarak resigned from power.
The Conclusion of Carlos Taibo’s Rethinking Anarchy: Direct Action, Self-Management, Autonomy (La Catarata, Madrid, 2013) brings to an end, after trials and tribulations, the translation of this work, through which we have sought to share with English readers the work of one of the most significant anarchist voices today in spain. This exercise was motivated by the importance of Taibo’s work in spain, and whatever differences we may have with his views, we believe that the work more than merited our efforts.
The translations of the earlier chapters have already been published on Autonomies.
Prologue and Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
What follows below is the 8th Chapter of Carlos Taibo’s Rethinking Anarchy: Direct Action, Self-Management, Autonomy (La Catarata, Madrid, 2013). This chapter addresses the complex relationship between anarchism, nationalism and the nation-State, as well as the issue of anarchism’s ability to speak people of the South. We have already translated and posted the “Prologue” and the “Chapter 1″ of this work (Click here), “Chapter 2″ (Click here), “Chapter 3″ (Click here), “Chapter 4” (click here), “Chapter 5” (Click here), “Chapter 6” (Click here) and “Chapter 7” (Click here). And we hope to continue in what will be the complete translation of the book. In this way we aim to share with English readers the work of one of the most significant anarchist voices today in spain.
What follows below is the 7th Chapter of Carlos Taibo’s Rethinking Anarchy: Direct Action, Self-Management, Autonomy (La Catarata, Madrid, 2013). This chapter addresses the mutual influences between anarchism and feminism, radical ecology and pacifism/anti-militarism. We have already translated and posted the “Prologue” and the “Chapter 1″ of this work (Click here), “Chapter 2″ (Click here), “Chapter 3″ (Click here), “Chapter 4” (click here), “Chapter 5” (Click here), “Chapter 6” (Click here). And we hope to continue in what will be the complete translation of the book. In this way we aim to share with English readers the work of one of the most significant anarchist voices today in spain.
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TTIP: The audacity of grand capital
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed “free trade” agreement between the european union and the united states, with the supposed aim of promoting trade and multilateral economic growth. The u.s. government considers the TTIP a companion agreement to the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). Negotiations, which are held in secret from the public, are on-going and should be finalised by 2020.
The final aim of the exercise may be summed up as the legal recognition of the economic and political supremacy of transnational corporations over national legislation. (For a summary of what is at stake, one may consult the websites War On Want and Global Justice Now).
On the occasion of Carlos Taibo‘s recently published work, Para entender el TTIP. Una visión crítica del Acuerdo Transatlántico de Comercio e Inversiones/To Understand the TTIP. A Critical Vision of the Transatlantic Agreement of Commerce and Investment (Catarata, Madrid, January 2016), we share below, in translation, an interview that he gave on the subject for CTXT (February 3, 2016). (A portuguese language translation of the same interview can be found here).
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