We share below a reflection on revolution that was posted on s.nappalos blog of libcom.org. …
This is an article critiquing the idea of a single revolutionary method that leads to truth and revolutionary action drawing from dissonance between choosing how to act and the emergence of large scale forces in capitalism.
On the 15th of June of 2011, a large protest was organised by the popular assemblies of 15M Barcelona, born during the occupation of Plaza de Catalunya, to peacefully “block” the proceedings of the the Parliament of Catalonia, and so disturb or impede the vote on a new austerity budget by the neoliberal government of Artur Mas.
On Monday, the 16th of March of this year, eight of those arrested in the protests were condemned by the Supreme court of spain to 3 years in prison each, after all eight had been acquitted by a lower court (the Audiencia Nacional – the same tribunal responsible for the recent police operations against anarchists in the country). (Periodico Diagonal 04/03/2015)
What follows is a summary and commentary on Giorgio Agamben’s Pilate and Jesus …
Earthly judgement does not coincide with a witnessing of the truth.
Giorgio Agamben, Pilate and Jesus
If a reflection on the trial of Jesus appears anachronistic, or academically esoteric, it is not for Giorgio Agamben, who in his last work continues to pursue an archeology and genealogy of the theological foundations of “western” political thought and practice. And if the exercise is not novel (e.g. Carl Schmitt), its extent and depth is. For Agamben, the decisive confrontation between Pilate and Jesus is of the nature of a historical crisis that, “in a certain manner, continues to play itself out”. (p. 30)*
Spanish authorities have again targeted anarchists, arresting 13 on the grounds of belonging to criminal organisations with terrorist aims and 25 others for resisting the police. Early morning, on the 30th of March, on orders from the Juzgado Central de Instrucción de la Audiencia Nacional (a spanish court that specifically addresses crimes of terrorism, lèse-majesté, etc.), police carried out actions in Madrid, Barcelona, Palencia and Grenada, raiding occupied social centres and private homes.
Against austerity, against the savaging of the public-state services, a commons built through decades of popular struggles against Capital, Québec students, workers, the unemployed, have called for an indefinite social strike in the province, beginning on the 21st of March, with the aim of stopping everything: universities, factories, cities, in sum, the circulation of commodities.
(Photographs by Alexey Titarenko)
In revolution, everything happens incredibly quickly, just like in dreams in which people seem to be freed from gravity.
Gustave Landauer, Revolution
We have merely to tear down the Bastilles of the future, restructure the past and live each second as though an eternal return ensured its recurrence in an endless cycle.
Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life
1. Revolutions “are the only historical events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of the beginning.” (1) The words are Hannah Arendt’s and they impose on any reflection on revolution an equal consideration of time. And as events which do not merely change circumstances, but erupt into history, generating new temporalities, the “subject” of revolution, the creative agency that brings it about, is also not far to be found. The revolutionary subject breaks the flow of rectilinear time, and inaugurates a new time, a new history, the history of freedom. (2) In Marxist attire, the irreversible, linear time of history is constituted through commodity production (time is universal, abstract labour time embodied in commodity exchange value) and all other uses of time must be repressed. The counter-time of revolution is then to be located in the proletariat. “In the demand to live the historical time which it makes, the proletariat finds the simple unforgettable centre of its revolutionary project; and every attempt (thwarted until now) to realise this project makes a point of possible departure for new historical life.” (3)
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The two years old Vio.Me. factory occupation in Thessaloniki, greece, a radical experiment in workers self-management and community solidarity, is threatened by a court decision which risks forcing the liquidation of machinery and factory premises. If the decision goes through, the workers would be legally obliged to quite the factory. The workers have declared that they will resist regardless of the court decision; a determination that testifies to the courage and creativity of this movement.
The aim was disruption; not a demonstration as normal event, a weekend affair to idle away one’s idleness. As Blockupy announced, the March 18th intervention against the inaugural ceremony of the European Central Bank’s new headquarter’s building, was directed at interrupting the flows of capital, in its many forms, and to oppose it, a commune, however ephemeral it might be. “Against the malicious spectacle of capitalism, we pose the actual movement of ideas. The multiplicity of the many is more militant than a black block and more peaceful than a sitting blockade. We act together and we will not fear. Vive la Commune!”
We share below an essay by David Graeber on a report by the the department of justice of the united states on the Ferguson Police Department, originally published on Gawker (19/03/2015). See also Black Skin White Cops.
Syntagma, Syriza: Between the square and the palace
(Photograph by Burkhard Lahrmann)
While the Syriza government of greece engages in a precarious and unequal, and finally self-defeating, wrestling match with its creditors, forced to pay its debts while seeking to meet the aspirations of its voters, it is useful to remember another rebellious actor, or better, actors, in the country; those born in the occupation of Syntagma and other city and town squares during the summer of 2011.
We share below an interview with Stavros Stavrides, greek writer and activist who participated in the Syntagma assembly.
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