How to tell a different story
There has been a noticeable level of tension and animosity in regards to evaluating the strategy, tactics, and actions during the street resistance in Saint Paul this September. Critique, open dialogue, and honest communication are an absolutely integral component of growth within the anarchist and anti-capitalist “movement;” and the volume of thought and effort already invested in this has been excellent, indicating both a long-term vision and a renewed sense of immediacy and agency.
However, it seems that often these discussions are developed within a myopic perspective that fails to recognize where a significant portion of both our latent and expressed strength lies. Just as capitalism and the state will fail because of their homogenous, inflexible nature, so, too, do we risk embodying this weakness by replicating the patterns of discourse inherent to capitalism and hierarchy and, importantly, structuring our resistance and our relationships in the patterns we have been socialized to accept and reproduce.
What is apparent in many of the reportbacks, arguments, and commentary following the anti-convention actions of this summer, is a trend of buoying one particular element of the resistance in rhetoric and argument, while belittling other aspects of the mobilization.
This method of dialogue follows a tried and true capitalist model of elevation (of product, ideology, tactic, etc.) through comparison and subsequent degradation of the other (product, ideology, tactic, etc.). This weakens our struggle, as it draws lines in the sand, proclaiming one tactic, one strategy, one way of thinking and being, as the correct, the most revolutionary, the most radical, and failing to see the strength in diversity, complementary action, and, at the risk of sounding trite, cooperation.
Simply said, had any element of the anarchist presence in Saint Paul been absent, we would have experienced a different, and likely a more disempowering, outcome. The blocs that roamed the city on the 1st were possible in a large part because a significant portion of the police and other state forces were occupied elsewhere in the city, responding to a variety of tactical applications of libratory desire. Without the blocs disrupting the veneer of impenetrability, the blockades alone would have failed to create an atmosphere of possibility, a space in which not only the realm of the normal and essential of capitalism was attacked, but the spectacle of democracy disrupted.
And all of it, the solidarity, the friendships made, the sound of bank windows breaking, the sense of possibility, would have simply remained a hoped-for future if not for the organizing that set the stage for all of our actions and interpretations of resistance, of insurrection, of action. For one of the first times, I actually feel a part of something that is larger than its pieces, that is a movement, that is a real and powerful thing because of the relationships within it.
In a world where there is supposed to be only one story, we succeeded in creating a different story. That was our success and it is no small thing.
However, it seems that often these discussions are developed within a myopic perspective that fails to recognize where a significant portion of both our latent and expressed strength lies. Just as capitalism and the state will fail because of their homogenous, inflexible nature, so, too, do we risk embodying this weakness by replicating the patterns of discourse inherent to capitalism and hierarchy and, importantly, structuring our resistance and our relationships in the patterns we have been socialized to accept and reproduce.
What is apparent in many of the reportbacks, arguments, and commentary following the anti-convention actions of this summer, is a trend of buoying one particular element of the resistance in rhetoric and argument, while belittling other aspects of the mobilization.
This method of dialogue follows a tried and true capitalist model of elevation (of product, ideology, tactic, etc.) through comparison and subsequent degradation of the other (product, ideology, tactic, etc.). This weakens our struggle, as it draws lines in the sand, proclaiming one tactic, one strategy, one way of thinking and being, as the correct, the most revolutionary, the most radical, and failing to see the strength in diversity, complementary action, and, at the risk of sounding trite, cooperation.
Simply said, had any element of the anarchist presence in Saint Paul been absent, we would have experienced a different, and likely a more disempowering, outcome. The blocs that roamed the city on the 1st were possible in a large part because a significant portion of the police and other state forces were occupied elsewhere in the city, responding to a variety of tactical applications of libratory desire. Without the blocs disrupting the veneer of impenetrability, the blockades alone would have failed to create an atmosphere of possibility, a space in which not only the realm of the normal and essential of capitalism was attacked, but the spectacle of democracy disrupted.
And all of it, the solidarity, the friendships made, the sound of bank windows breaking, the sense of possibility, would have simply remained a hoped-for future if not for the organizing that set the stage for all of our actions and interpretations of resistance, of insurrection, of action. For one of the first times, I actually feel a part of something that is larger than its pieces, that is a movement, that is a real and powerful thing because of the relationships within it.
In a world where there is supposed to be only one story, we succeeded in creating a different story. That was our success and it is no small thing.
posted by matt iv at 12:46 PM
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