When we thought that we had all of the answers, suddenly, all of the questions changed.
Mario Benedetti
Five years on and the 15th of May movement in spain remains a point of confluence for many who imagine and act for a world against and beyond the violence of capitalism.
Revolution is not ‘showing’ life to people, but making them live. A revolutionary organization must always remember that its objective is not getting its adherents to listen to convincing talks by expert leaders, but getting them to speak for themselves, in order to achieve, or at least strive toward, an equal degree of participation.
… the representation of the working class has become an enemy of the working class.
Guy Debord
“Nuit Debout has no need of intellectuals to reflect. The production of ideas is immanent to the movement, in which each member is an intellectual, the ensemble a “collective” intellectual.” These words appear in a collective statement published in Le Monde (04/05/2016) under the title, in translation, “Nuit Debout contributes to the invention of another world”. However the collective author of the text is a collective of intellectuals!
The insistence with which intellectuals of the Left in france and movements/collectives with which they are associated, judge, propose and endeavour to speak for Nuit Debout, something that nevertheless largely surpasses their theoretical and/or political ambitions, augurs ill, for however fragile their voices are, their words as actions are not without resonance.
The principal function of politics is the configuration of its proper space. It is to disclose the world of its subjects and its operations.
Jacques Rancière, Ten Theses on Politics
The occupation of the Place de la Republique of Paris by “Nuit Debout” has stopped time in eternalising the month of March (it is today the 73rd of March) and removed space from the enforced flows of everyday production and consumption: the Place de la Republique has become the Place de la Commune.
Autonomies has insistently defended a politics of okupations/occupations, as a means of both contesting the legal regime of private property and of generating spaces and times for experiments in autonomous, self-managed social relations. In the panorama of okupied spaces, self-managed social centres do both, as well as serving as points of passage/thresholds for radical activism: they can profoundly alter the social fabric of an urban space and the existence of those who inhabit it; they give life to events, agencies, well beyond the walls of the physical structures appropriated. Indeed, an okupied social centre is never the physical space as such. It is instead the lines of creativity that it brings forth.
We share below a reflection on the autonomous social centre Klinika, in Prague, by Nikolay Savov, entitled The Klinika squat: Revitalizing anti-capitalism in Prague, originally published by Roarmag (21/04/2016) …
2016 marks the fifth anniversary of a wave of occupations of public spaces that began emblematically in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Much can be said about such radical politics, and we have tried in our modest to comprehend these events. The need to reflect and to act however remains constant, as the politics of occupation does cease to lose its animus, as recent events in france’s Nuit Debout are testimony.
We will therefore continue to contribute and share reflections, on this occasion from the now sadly suspended website of Uninomade, entitled “The tactics of occupation: Becoming cockroach” (28/11/2011), by Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos …
In continuity with our reflections on mass migration as a phenomenon to be politicised, and politicised in anti-Statist directions (e.g. no borders solidarity), we share below a reflection on the “migration crisis” by members of the Transcapes Research Collective based in greece.
Crisis or Zemblanity? Viewing the ‘Migration Crisis’ through a Greek Lens
Yannis Christodoulou, Evie Papada, Anna Papoutsi & Antonis Vradis
ABSTRACT
This intervention traces how Europe is being (re-)produced through ‘crises’ on three scales. Firstly, at the level of national territory, looking at the crisis-ridden Greek state. Secondly, through everyday border practices on the island of Lesbos and, finally, in the Mediterranean that acts as Europe’s primary locus for its aggregate (and often experimental) bordering practices.
The self-managed okupied social centre La Morada, in Madrid, was evicted by the riot squads of national police in the early hours of the 20th of April, without any judicial eviction order. During the course of the day, 32 people were arrested for resistance to authority, disobediance, and violation of private property.
What makes night within us may leave stars.
Victor Hugo
The radicalness of a political movement can be measured by the extent of its resonances in different spheres of life and the extent to which it transgresses and creates thresholds between our divided worlds. On the night of the 20th of April, Nuit Debout in the Place de la Republique was given the joy of a performance of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” by the newly formed Orchestre Debout …
Because we wish a new world, a better world, in which justice and culture will be at the basis of society, we have the right and even the duty to rise up. (Le Monde 21/04/2016)
… an initiative to be added to Dessin Debout, Poésie Debout, the “1000 days in March” literary adventure, an eruption of graphic art and graffiti … so many forms of occupying through art.
The anarchist collective CrimethInc. initiated last month a critical analysis and discussion of “democracy”, promising a series of reflections. The series gains in significance with events in france around the movement Nuit Debout. What follows is the fifth essay, Occupy: Democracy versus Autonomy by b. traven, preceded by the introduction to the series and an introduction to the essay. We have shared earlier the first four essays, The Party’s Over, From Democracy to Freedom, From 15M to Podemos, Destination Anarchy! …
Reflections around an anniversary: 15M spain and beyond (1)
On the occasion of the 5th anniversary of spain’s 15th of May movement, we publish a series of reflections on its significance within the context of spain, but also more broadly, for the understanding of revolutionary politics today. This series will compliment our effort to share ongoing reflections on Nuit Debout in france as well as the series being published by Crimethinc, under the title the anarchist critique of democracy. Not all of the texts share the same vision of 15M, but they serve to engage a necessary debate.
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