What Can a Moment of Peril Tell Us about Our Own Dangerous Times?
Seven years ago, anarchists and other anti-fascists converged in Charlottesville, Virginia to oppose the “Unite the Right” rally. The organizers of the rally intended to bring together Klansmen, neo-Nazis, far-right militias, and fascists from the so-called “alt-right” to build a unified white supremacist street movement.
Fascists had already been building momentum in the streets for a year. The rally was poised to establish them as a legitimate pole in United States politics. If that succeeded, millions of Donald Trump’s supporters might join them. All that the organizers of “Unite the Right” had to do was get through the weekend without incident.
A few hundred brave people set out to stop them. The anti-fascists were outnumbered, underprepared, and terrified.
It’s important to remember this today—first, because the Trump era is not over. As exhausting and demoralizing as it is, we still face the same threats and challenges we confronted seven years ago, and the outcome remains as uncertain today as it was then. Revisiting the events in Charlottesville illuminates the stakes of our current struggles—when fascists are less active in the streets, but are seeking to take control of the entire country through the apparatus of the state. At the same time, the outcome of the events in Charlottesville shows how much a small number of courageous people can accomplish by putting their lives on the line when it counts, even when victory seems impossible.
We present here a review of the events, drawing on the recollections of some of those who were on the front lines.
In a 1983 article for Volontà that we share below, Amedeo Bertolo endeavoured to critically diagnose the anarchist movement of his time in a remarkably direct and lucid manner; a diagnoses which we may help us to see through our own times.
In a second essay from 1979 (below), written during Italy’s “years of lead“, Bertolo finds no “cure” for the fragilities of anarchism in violent direct action aimed at people – individuals or groups – and justified as targeting the class enemy.
For those unfamiliar with Amedeo Bertolo, we close with selections from an interview he gave to Mimmo Pucciarelli and published in L’anarchisme en personnes (Atelier de Création Libertaire, 2006).
Dictators as gangsters … a cut-out of Hitler adorns a manuscript of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Brecht’s allegory about the Führer’s path to power. Photograph: Courtesy the Bertolt Brecht Archive, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (The Guardian, 12/06/2024)
Therefore learn how to see and not to gape. To act instead of talking all day long. The world was almost won by such an ape! The nations put him here his kind belong. But don’t rejoice too soon at your escape – The womb he crawled from still is going strong.
Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
We return to Bertolt Brecht, in our effort to trace the contours, the ways and means, of fascism. In the brilliant essay that follows, not only does Brecht bring forth the “theatricality” of fascism, but with the same stroke, he criticises an array of art, ethics and politics centred on “empathy”; on the blind identification with those individuals who pretend to “dramatically” speak not for us, but as us.
In the essay that follows, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is not coincidental.
For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.
James Baldwin,Sonny’s Blues
For James Baldwin, his short story “Sonny’s Blues”, originally published in the Partisan Review (1957) and republished in Baldwin’s short story collection, Going to Meet the Man (1965).
The title “The Uses of the Blues” does not refer to music; I don’t know anything about music. It does refer to the experience of life, or the state of being, out of which the blues come. Now, I am claiming a great deal for the blues; I’m using them as a metaphor—I might have titled this, for example, “The Uses of Anguish” or “The Uses of Pain.” But I want to talk about the blues not only because they speak of this particular experience of life and this state of being, but because they contain the toughness that manages to make this experience articulate. I am engaged, then, in a discussion of craft or, to use a very dangerous word, art. And I want to suggest that the acceptance of this anguish one finds in the blues, and the expression of it, creates also, however odd this may sound, a kind of joy. Now joy is a true state, it is a reality; it has nothing to do with what most people have in mind when they talk of happiness, which is not a real state and does not really exist.
If the hope of giving is to love the living, the giver risks madness in the act of giving.
Some such lesson I seemed to see in the faces that surrounded me.
Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted, what gift would give them the gift to be gifted? The giver is no less adrift than those who are clamouring for the gift.
If they cannot claim it, if it is not there, if their empty fingers beat the empty air and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer knows that all of his giving has been for naught and that nothing was ever what he thought and turns in his guilty bed to stare at the starving multitudes standing there and rises from bed to curse at heaven, he must yet understand that to whom much is given much will be taken, and justly so: I cannot tell how much I owe.
James Baldwin, The giver (for Berdis)
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.
James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (1961) ‘Notes for a Hypothetical Novel’
But I am really saying something very simple. The will of the people, or the State, is revealed by the State’s institutions. There was not, then, nor is there, now, a single American institution which is not a racist institution. And racist institutions – the unions, for one example, the Church, for another, and the Army – or the military – for yet another, are meant to keep the nigger in his place. […] A mob is not autonomous: it executes the real will of that people who rule the State. The slaughter in Birmingham, Alabama, for example, was not, merely, the action of a mob. That blood is on the hands of the state of Alabama: which sent those mobs into the street to execute the will of the State.
James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket (1985)
August 2nd, 2024, marks the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth. And on this occasion, we celebrate his work, his written word, and the life, the many lives, that found expression in his words.
Our choice to do so may strike some as odd, for was it not Baldwin himself who wrote that my “life on the Left is of absolutely no interest” and it “did not last long”? (The Price of the Ticket, 1985) But then Baldwin adds, from that short lived experience, he at least learned “that it may be impossible to indoctrinate me” and we, like Baldwin, have no interest in the doctrinaire.
James Baldwin’s writing – his novels, essays, short stories, plays, poetry – speaks the truth of an experience, speaks “a truth to power”, that we – those of us who make up “Autonomies” – do not have and therefore only with difficulty are able to express. Baldwin’s writing takes “us” into a world that is and is not ours, that of the North American black man of the second half of the 20th century, pushing thereby against the limits of our senses, our thoughts, our imagination; inviting us to risk our “identities” and to share in the creation of worlds that begin from the suffering and violence of the past, so as to try to see with and beyond it, towards truthful freedom.
James Baldwin remains our contemporary, because the beauty and passion of his words continue to burn for us. And for anarchists, Baldwin forces “us” to see, as few others did and do, the complexity of oppression – with its racisms and xenophobias, sexisms and homophobias -, the difficult and complex place of religion in human self-consciousness – which thus calls for a re-examination of “traditional” anarchist anti-clericalism and atheism -, the place of past and present suffering for the articulation of a future -, thereby challenging simplistic celebrations of “progress”, and so much more.
We share below selections from his brilliant essay “Down at the Cross”, the transcript of his intervention at Cambridge University’s Union Hall, in a debate with William F. Buckley (1965), along with the video recording of the debate, the essay, “The White Man’s Guilt” (1965) and a selection of remarkable video recorded interviews and conversations with Kenneth Clark (1963), Nikki Giovanni (1971), Maya Angelou (1975), and the documentary-report on racism and segregation in San Francisco, “Take This Hammer” (1964). And we close with Toni Morrison’s obituary-tribute to James Baldwin (1987).
The Suiza 6 face three and a half years each for protesting outside their workplace
Union branches across Spain have denounced the Supreme Court’s confirmation of prison sentences against six bakery workers for picketing. The workers were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and a fine of over 100,000 Euro. The workers at La Suiza bakery in Gijón took action to protest unpaid overtime and poor working conditions.
Struggle against hoarding of water by agro-industry sees five days of action, culminating in a 10,000-strong march on the commercial port of La Rochelle
The French environmentalist movement Soulevements de la Terre (Uprisings of the Land) is carrying on its campaign against mishandling of water resources. This phase of action began on July 16 with the “Village for Water and Land Defense“, a meeting bringing activists from around the world to discuss strategy. This assembly of culminated in two demonstrations of around 10,000 people on the July 19 and 20, despite severe repression by police including teargas, blockades, and police charges at protesters.
Ilya Shakursky was condemned to 16 years on trumped-up terrorism charges
Franz Kafka’s The Trial opens with the line, “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.” Josef K. is subsequently thrown into a labyrinthian nightmare as he attempts to exonerate himself from an unnamed charge brought against him by a nonsensical shadowy court system. The lurid unreality of The Trial finds an all too real analogue in the ongoing systematic persecution and torture of anarchists and anti-fascists in today’s Russia.
… state-ness is not a binary, where something is a state or not a state, but it’s a continuum. So, things that are more a state or less a state. […] My argument would be that when the state has done something emancipatory, e.g. citizenship, it is almost always done with a pistol at its temple. That is to say it has created new rights when it was threatened in a vital way. […] I think the state is with us as a ruling institution for the foreseeable future. The question is, can we domesticate that state, or will it domesticate us?
“Can we domesticate the state or will it domesticate us?” — James C. Scott Interview, In Pursuit of Development, 2021
In 2014 – and still in the warmth of the “Arab spring” and multiple “occupy” movements -, we posted a review of James C. Scott’s then recently published Two Cheers for Anarchism (Princeton University Press, 2012). The later was a kind of self-refection by Scott on his own politics, distilled from many years of anthropological work on “vernacular” resistance to State authorities by non-state actors.
At the time – and still today -, we consider Scott’s intellectual work of enormous importance and as we look back on it, we can only mourn his death, but also express our gratitude for his commitment to sharing so many of the stories of those who refused and created outside state power.
In our review of 2014, we criticised Scott’s Two Cheers (and it is “two cheers”, not “three“) for not taking his anarchism further, for not considering the possibility that his conceptual-empirical opposition between “vernacular” (the space of anarchist “infrapolitics”) and “official” spaces and practices could itself be overcome by a more radical (“anarchist”) transformation of society, creating thereby, in other words, a free, non-hierarchical, self-managed society.
Today, we are perhaps less sanguine about this issue, for if we imagine “anarchism” in the way that Scott did, then it becomes a permanent possibility and necessity against any emergent “official” politics. And if the latter is a constant risk – even after an “anarchist revolution”, then “anarchist” politics is the ever constant and lucid gesture of refusal.
Is this then no longer anarchism? We leave the question to ideological puritans.
Do you consider yourself an anarchist at this point? Is that a label you’ve taken on?
In a way, no other label works as well. It doesn’t work very well but it works better than anything else. If I had a pistol put to my temple and had to answer “what are you?” I’d say “anarchist” probably. It’s just a point of departure.
(Points of Resistance and Departure: An interview with James C. Scott)
In memory and celebration of James C. Scott’s life and work, we republish our review of his essay, Two Cheers for Anarchism.
This is then followed by internet sources where his work may be found, to interviews and a selection of video recorded lectures and interviews.
Charlottesville, Revisited—2017 to 2024
From the CrimethInc. collective (11/08/2024).
What Can a Moment of Peril Tell Us about Our Own Dangerous Times?
Seven years ago, anarchists and other anti-fascists converged in Charlottesville, Virginia to oppose the “Unite the Right” rally. The organizers of the rally intended to bring together Klansmen, neo-Nazis, far-right militias, and fascists from the so-called “alt-right” to build a unified white supremacist street movement.
Fascists had already been building momentum in the streets for a year. The rally was poised to establish them as a legitimate pole in United States politics. If that succeeded, millions of Donald Trump’s supporters might join them. All that the organizers of “Unite the Right” had to do was get through the weekend without incident.
A few hundred brave people set out to stop them. The anti-fascists were outnumbered, underprepared, and terrified.
It’s important to remember this today—first, because the Trump era is not over. As exhausting and demoralizing as it is, we still face the same threats and challenges we confronted seven years ago, and the outcome remains as uncertain today as it was then. Revisiting the events in Charlottesville illuminates the stakes of our current struggles—when fascists are less active in the streets, but are seeking to take control of the entire country through the apparatus of the state. At the same time, the outcome of the events in Charlottesville shows how much a small number of courageous people can accomplish by putting their lives on the line when it counts, even when victory seems impossible.
We present here a review of the events, drawing on the recollections of some of those who were on the front lines.
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