Libertarian Geopolitics: it is not Ukraine, the US or Russia, it is the War for the New World to Be Born

We thought that this was a dead debate, but due to the avalanche of anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian, pro-American and pro-NATO anarchist publications, has made us take a brief look at the different situations and conditions to decide which option is more in line with the libertarian ideal and if  we anarchist can reach any kind of consensus about.

We must emphasize that we have been surprised by the self-destructive capacity of a movement, the libertarian movement, which, if it continues like this, will simply disappear. 

The clash of powers that determines world geopolitics forces us to take a side. We Anarchists cannot talk about the Ukraine war without remembering the 8 years of support we have given to the Dombass people and the Civil War there since 2014. Numerous anarchist comrades went to fight against Ucronazi forces set by NATO. Today our immediate interests coincide, to our regret, with those of Russia. But our goals bring us much further. Don't be scared by the intro, keep reading, please.

 

Supporting the Dombass

Briefly, remember that since the fall of the USSR, perhaps before, the fascist forces take control of Ukraine and begin to develop a series of progressively segregating measures, which were preparing the ground to the civil war. In 2014 the EuroMaidan riot takes place, in which supporters of the EU stage a coup. Parts of the nation opposes, and the AntiMaidan emerges. The Odessa Trade Union Building was set on fire killing 42 people; it is the turning point. Crimea holds a referendum and becomes part of Russia. While Donetsk and Lugansk ask for their autonomy. This is answered by a series of attacks and bombings; It was the start of the Ukrainian Civil War. 

At that time, the independence or autonomy of the Dombass of Ukraine seemed correct to the libertarian movement. It seemed like a better solution than the Russian annexation of Crimea. 

We also reject the Ukrainian military intervention, its apartheid and its segregationism in the Dombass. We denounce the torture, assaults and murders of civilians and comrades. 

Finally many went to fight for the Dombass; and we support them without fissures. We didn't care then, and even felt relief, knowing that the region was under Russian control. Even knowing that Russia would use it to stop the NATO's expansion by prolonging the conflict.

Our positions, sooner or later, will coincide with the interests of some elites, inevitably; either in favor or in collide, which is usually the most common. Should we stop supporting what we previously believed correct only because of these circumstantial coincidences? Do these coincidences invalidate the previous struggle or could reinforce it? Welcome to geopolitics, anarchists.

 

Our position coincides, to our regret, with that of Russia

Now Russia believes that it is time to carry out the definitive separation between the Dombass and the Ukraine by means of two independent republics, Donetsk and Lugansk; not by its annexation, initially. It is our fault that our interest coincides with that of Russia? 

To Russia does not seem possible to achieve the Dombass autonomy by political means. Russia, for many reasons, has started a war without asking us. 

This war adventure causes a contradiction and dilemmas in the libertarian movement that must be resolved: 

Ukraine

Ukraine is hostage to NATO and the US in the west, and Russia in the east. Debating libertarian support for Ukraine means deciding whether or not we support NATO and the Pentagon, or Russia. 

 Russia 

-On the one hand, Russia kills our Ukrainian sisters. 

-But in turn Russia protects our sisters from the Dombass. 

USA

-The US does not directly kill our Dombass sisters.

-The US does not directly kill our Ukrainian sisters.

-USA/EU/NATO provides the means for our Ukrainian sisters to attack their Dombass sisters. 

As we can see, the contradictions reside on both sides of the trench. All murderers, all with their own reasons. 

What follows is to make a geopolitical assessment of the convenience or not of the postures of one and the other side. Because of the result of this debate we will end up supporting one world or another: NATO or Russia.

Geopolitical assessment of political support

Supporting Ukraine

Supporting Ukraine is not only defending a territory, defending the lives of some people. It doesn't even mean defending our compañeras; is much more.

Before the war broke out, the neo-Nazi government in Ukraine practiced Apartheid throughout its territory and ethnic cleansing in the Dombass.

During the war the fascist militias became battalions of the regular army. It was then that the real war showed its face: runes and swastikas sank into the pavilions. The troops were Nazis, the monster had been reborn.

If Ukraine won, if it joined the EU, NATO and kept the Dombass whihin Ukraine, what would happen? The victory would be for the United States Stablishment, which would continue with its plans. A series of events not very different from those seen so far would be triggered. Are we willing to take on their Apartheid tactics in Ukraine, and let them end their ethnic cleansing? Are we prepared to witness in Europe the same tactics that the fascists employ in Palestine? That they conclude total the nazification of the country? The Europe Nazification progresses? That it spreads around the world? To see the swastika waving as a flag of liberation? Are we thinking in collaborate with ethnic cleansing, genocide, massacres, coups and, ultimately, with our collective political suicide? Neither Ukraine nor the US gov nor NATO can be supported by libertarians.

Supporting USA

The US has not stopped harassing Russia and the rest of countries, generating wars (Yugoslavia, Kwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria) and expanding NATO since 1989. In 2010 NATO goes global. The US has plans to expand NATO to encircle Russia and has shown evidences of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

If the US wins in Ukraine, it would mean its entry into the EU, NATO and the placement of nuclear missiles across the country. Also the admission of Finland and Swedento in the NATO club. These would be answered with the placement of more missiles on the Russia and Belarus borders (proliferation). The US would rise tension with China over Taiwan. They would try to penetrate Central Asia through Turkey, Georgia and Chechnya. It would continue the expansion of global NATO with its swastikas as its coat of arms. The end of the UN. In short, the global expansion of US and its IV Reich goverment plans, that would affect to our northamerican camarades also in the way of repression, jail, policial militarization and fascists militias.

Supporting Russia

Is the suppor to Russi the alternative, which is similarly retrograde, corrupt and has systematically repressed and imprisoned us anarchists? The answer is not very positive. Russia knows very well how to organize a good repression, preventive attacks, occupations, wars, purges or traffickig between mafia corruption. They may now be apparently waging a more civilized war, their geopolitical objectives may be different from those of the Americans, but deep down, it is the same system, capitalism. Once they win, they will do to us what every capitalist system does: use our meat in their metabolism, either on the war front or in their sweatshops.

Russia, however, shows no signs of expansion in the short term and has supported threatened peoples by the IV American Reich throughout the world, such as Venezuela, Cuba or Iran. With Russia as the winner, in the medium term, the perspective of transnational warlike expansion, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Nazism vanishes.

Russia is for now the lesser evil.

Can Russia be supported?

The key question is whether or not Russia can be supported. We can find the answer in all those places where conflicts of interest, paradoxes or dilemmas in the movement have rise.

Rojava 2012

Broadly speaking and with all the nuances, during the Syrian war the Rojava region in Syrian Kurdistan declared an autonomous region. The situation was as follows: Daesh forces at south, Turkey army at north and west  and Syria at east. Rojava was supported by the Iraqi Kurdistan, a presidential and pro-fascist Barzani family. In addition, it was supported by France and the US against Turkey and Syria, while at the end of the war it managed to reach an agreement with the Syrian government and ended up admitting former Daesh Wahavites into its ranks; transforming then into 'brand new libertarian confederates'. Welcome to polyhedrism, comrades.

With such a mixture of intersecting interests, alliances, merges and splits, can Rojava be supported without supporting its imperialist allies? All we anarchist in general very much understood that the Rojavista Democratic Confederalism project was more important than their local and war time politics. Some others criticized it (this same media), others supported it (this same media), others rejected it. Others do not understand that the practice and politics of alliances are different matters. The official war in Syria ended, but the consensus di facto is the same as in Catalonia: autonomy to the region and end of repression, Syria and Turkey. Rojava, despite the tortuous background, remains as a guide, and the project continues to be globally supported.

Venezuela 2014

The most important guarimbas, barricades, rise up against the Venezuelan Regime in 2014. Anarchists side with the revolts and against the state. The guarimbas turned out to be a co-opted movement by the extreme right and ended up calling for US military intervention. Faced with the advent of an occupation war, part of the oppository right demobilized. After the 2017 assault, the right opposition dissolved and failed to recompose several times. In 2019, the US imposes Juan Guaidó as acting president. He calls again for foreign military intervention and American troops in Caracas.

The question is clear, what made some comrades support foreign military intervention in their own country twice ? We hope that the answer is that they took into account immediate needs as more important than strategic needs, because otherwise it would mean that the compañeras supported the US invasion in their own territory and the slaughter of their sisters and brothers.

Catalonia 2017

In 2017 a process of independence form the Spanish region was developed. The conflict was then rightly seen as an attempt by the local bourgeoisie to get rid of the central bourgeoisie, a typical power struggle. Bad cards for anarchists, in both cases, by action or omission, they would end up supporting one or another government without the possibility of grays.

Anarchist comrades took part in the process for secession. Others criticized the process for being reactionary and nationalistic. Others advocated that autonomy, cantonalism, federalism, and aid to fellow anarchists in struggle prevail. The libertarian struggles in Spanish territory were for self-determination and the end of repression.

Belarus 2020

The country was experiencing an authoritarian situation and widespread disaffection with a corrupt regime. In the last elections of 2020 there was a revolt against the winner Lukashenko. These revolts were clearly supported from within by the fascist hordes waving monarchist and far-right flags and from abroad by the Nazis of the US, EU and NATO. The protesters ended up requesting external military intervention in a similar way to Venezuela under the 'Color Revolution' script established by the Pentagon. From that moment they lost strength, the attached forces were dissolved and their leaders fled to the United Kingdom and Poland. Our comrades in Belarus were severely repressed. Did it help to support the far-right that request to bomb its own country? Was there any point in participating toguether with the international fascism remotely controlled movement? Even so, there were comrades who participated defending to set a capitalist dictatorship of the extreme right there.

The contest then led us to the dilemma of what is more preferable, if a socialist dictatorship or a far-right capitalist dictatorship.

We could continue with the deliberation between major, minor, unacceptable evils, red lines and resistance: USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua... let's apply the same logic: is it the alternative better than what is in place? What would happen at a world level if USA/NATO penetrates in the most of national parliaments? Is military balkanization the path to self-managed liberation? Is the destruction of minorities by majorities and minorities admissible?

The 'Dombass Solution'

It is clear that we will desagree regarding the US, NATO or Russia . We don't really know why, but that's how it has been until now. Let's forget about the actors and their propaganda. Let's look at the facts.

What we all could agree is that:

-Ukraine has suffered from an actively fascist government since 2010 with Yanukovych, when hard segregationist and racist measures began.

-Ukraine suffered a fascist coup in 2014, the so-called Euromaidan.

-The Dombass developed a process contrary to the EuroMaidan, called antiMaidan, declaring itself independence.

-The Dombass was attacked by nationalist and openly Nazi forces in a NATO maneuver, starting the Ukrainian Civil War.

-The Dombass must be independent, and its people Autonomous.

-We do not know what will be Russia's next step, but the US advance will continue, and with it global NATO and world Nazification. An even american and brithis fellows will suffer ir.

It is at this point, of an independent Dombass and its Autonomous people, where we all can find the point of union with Russia that we cannot find with the US.

Dilemmas will keep rising up

Regardless of our position in Ukraine, dilemmas will continue to appear in anarchist organizations, especially since there are common topycs, and such a range of opinions, groupings, currents and political tendencies, that it will be difficult for us not to agree with nationalists, fascists, tories, capitalists and even recognized criminals.

The capitalists themselves unfold such a broad spectrum, from the ultraliberal to the ultraconservative, that they will often be tempted to support and even assist us. This is the case of the Social Democrats. In France 2018, when the Yellow Vests movement managed to bring together fascists with leftists. The same thing happened in Catalonia 2017. And throughout Europe, the most abominable far right is leading the fight against NATO and the EU. We will also agree in future on numerous issues, such as pensions, work, environmentalism, energy or industry. Does this put them on our side or Russia's? Yes, specifically, but not generally. We will not stop being enemies.

Are we going to give up our principles and demands because they coincide with those of the fascists? NO! Are we going to allow popular movements to be co-opted as always? NO! We are going to fight on a double front, denouncing fascism and expossing our cause. This, which seems to be a disappointment and a loss of the 'concentration of forces', is the key to win the struggle, to Allianceism and Revolutionary Pedagogy.

The new world to be born

We have before us a cross interests multilevel scenaries in which the capitalist forces are falling apart, trapping our organizations in the middle, and even using them as pawns; meattools.

We must not get carried away by their appels and propaganda, because doing taht, we will be metabolized (intake, digested and excreted).

We must never lose sight of our own declared objectives: the creation of freely federated territorial autonomies and the direct democratization of institutions. The Revolutionary Strategy of "the Three Fronts" and its organization.

Contradictions and Coincidences

When our interests coincide, they coincide; which does not mean unconditional support or sticking to their dialectic. We must continue with our plans for Social Revolution wherever we are, because that is the fate of anarchism; change the world and make it free from exploitation and abuse. If we are forced to collaborate, if we want to attract awareness, it is a priority to constantly explain and criticize collaboration (revolutionary pedagogy again, with the Propaganda for Fact as a fundamental substrate).

The solution to the Ukraine is not the War in the Ukraine, but neither the war against the Dombass. The military conflict is served at the geopolitical level, and they ask, demand, and force us to choose sides. Our place is not with the capitalist armies, it is with the people: stop the war, assist the victims, reduce belligerence, prevent militarization, advance social justice, prevent the advance of fascism, Nazism and nationalism, prevent the proliferation nuclear weapos are our priorities. And protect the Dombass from pogroms and their planned genocide.

Does supporting the Ukrainian government, its army, or the US, achieve our goals? No. It means the proliferation of Nazism and world militarism; just the opposite of our purposes.

 

Does supporting the Russian government achieve our goals? Does supporting the Dombass government achieve our objectives? We do not believe that all the objectives will be achieved, but we can sense that fascism, segregationism, apartheid and genocide will be stopped, and an autonomous region will be achieved.

In short, our options are not good at all and involves collaborating and choosing between an evil and a greater evil (not a lesser evil).

Collaborate with fascism? Never! Double Front

What if our interests coincide with fascist interests? Many understand that this is the situation in both sides in Ukraine. They are not misguided.

We face fascism on a daily basis in our jobs individually. Daily practice shows that our interests often coincide with those of the fascists: to the aforementioned cases we can add Yellow Vests or riots in Hong Kong... But their ability to monopolize the media spectrum makes our revolutionary efforts, and our revolutionary gymnastics, benefit and strengthen those who declared to be our very enemies and who have explicitly declared that they want to eliminate us.

If history shows anything, it is that you cannot collaborate or argue with fascism. Just destroy it. Collaborating with fascism means automatic defeat. The war front in collaboration with fascism means opening a conflict with fascism itself. We cannot assume its premises, nor its conditions, nor its objectives. We cannot assume their speech or their narrative. The closest one can collaborate with a fascist is in the formal and informal, non-military institutions, to counter him.

And yet it has happened, as the example of Rojava shows. How did they survive? Clinging to their principles, developing their own social and military programs, organizing the social environment avoiding fascist infiltration, pro-NATO and pro-Syrian discourse, and a huge propaganda network worldwide. How did they fisicaly defend their advances? Buying weapons from world fascist organizations. They developed a true Autonomy. For example: in the joint military offensives with the US, their declared objective was never towns, but DAESH military positions. There is a difference. Their offensives against Turkish positions did not concern the Turkish people, but the fascistic army of Turkey.

Conclusions

It is not logical that anarchists participate within the Ukrainian army, because it is not true that the Ukrainian territory is in danger. The only attacked territory was the Dombass for 8 years.

Once the war is over, if Ukraine wins, the apartheid against pure non-Ukrainians will continue, Nazification will continue, and them will come the attack to the next country, which may be Belarus or Georgia. Another country to evangelize nailing swastikas and crosses of fire.

Once the conflict is over, if Russia wins, it will impose its political conditions, but it will not impose apartheid or nazification. It will ask for the disarmament and NATO removing from neighbor countries, Finland and Sweden.

The territory that was, is and will be in danger if Russia does not achieve its objectives, will be the Dombass: So it is logical to support its struggle despite the fact that Russia carries out its operations in its own way. The conditions of Dombass are different from those of Russia . The Dombass must be protected.

It is of the greatest interest to humanity that NATO dissolves and that the decaying hegemon, the main focus of current distortions, disturbances and disorders, the United States, falls as soon as possible. Russia must beat NATO. The United State people must be free from NATO.

It would be terrible to see anarchists sister against sister fighting on the front lines because of the publications that give rise to the imperialist call to arms against the oppressed peoples. We sincerely hope that the comrades of Enough14, CrimethInc, Pramen, libcom, ALB, portal Oaca, and an endless number of Anarchist counterinfo pages AYP, continue with their critical work, but reconsider their position and their editorial lines; because they are considered a libertarian think tank, and their opinion can affect thousands of people, and the world libertarian movement itself; and with it to the base of world social movements. They do not realize its key importance or its influence. If we do not achieve a greater consensus around libertarianism and less in the face of the rhetoric of the powers in contention, the atomization will be such that we will end up disappearing from history (as we have already foreseen). They should be binding elements, not diluents.

The old world is burning, and we will not be able to build a New World from its ashes if we cannot completely destroy it, bury in the way that the moster can not rise from the grave.

Dombass must survive, Russia must stop, the US must stop, NATO must disappear. We need to stop world Nazism now.

Health! PHkl/tctca

   _____________

To know more

Gira europea trascendental de Biden para impulsar la 3GM 22.3.2022
Análisis militar Ucrania vs Rusia: de la Guerra moderna a la Clásica en la Era del Descenso 21.3.2022
Más sobre las respuestas libertarias a la guerra | Alasbarricadas.org 15.3.2022
La visión de Ucrania, la visión de Rusia | Alasbarricadas.org 6.3.2022
Europa Battle Zone: Rusia cede a las provocaciones de Estados Unidos, y ésta se cobra tres piezas. Geopolítica 28.2.2022
La Anarquía y sus Aliados: el 'Frente Unido' y 'Agrupación de Tendencia' 10.1.2022 Tommy Lawson. Libro en PDF

Source - TARCOTECA: Geopolítica Libertaria: no es Ucrania, EEUU o Rusia, es la Guerra por el Mundo Nuevo por Nacer Published 8.4.2022, last edition 11.4.2022

Towards an Anarchism in the Philippine Archipelago [Revised Version]

Source - Towards an Anarchism in the Philippine Archipelago [Revised Version] | Anarchists Worldwide 16.5.2020 by Simoun Magsalin

Abstract: The politics in the Philippine archipelago is dominated by hierarchical and alienating politics as represented by reformism and National Democracy. Against these the paper forwards the liberatory politics of anarchism. The paper introduces anarchist concepts such as egalitarian organizing, mutual aid, and direct action for people unfamiliar with these concepts. After situating anarchism in the anti-authoritarian struggles in the archipelago, the paper also argues for a shift in the anarchist politics of the archipelago from an autonomist anarchism towards a revolutionary politics as a social movement.

There is a necessity for a liberatory politics in the Archipelago known as the Philippines and as anarchists we think Anarchism has the framework to fill this need. The dominant forms of politics we have now are insufficient for developing a liberatory politics in the archipelago. This liberatory politics becomes a necessity because politics in the Philippines is currently an alienating affair—a politics done to people rather than people doing politics. We are also dominated by domineering structures and institutions like the market, capitalism, and the state. Against these we forward the liberatory politics of anarchism for a world beyond domination.

Download PDF: Towards an Anarchism in the Philippine Archipelago (revision 2020-04-04)

L’azione di Willem Van Spronsen contro il Northwest Detention Center a Tacoma

Fonte - CrimethInc. : L'azione di Willem Van Spronsen contro il Northwest Detention Center a Tacoma : Con il testo completo del suo ultimo comunicato 14.7.2019

Il 13 luglio Willem Van Spronsen è stato ucciso dalla polizia mentre a quanto sembra portava avanti un’ azione per distruggere la flotta di bus impiegati dal Northwest Detention Center, una struttura di detenzione per migranti privata. Il suo ultimo comunicato, riprodotto qui sotto riferisce del fatto che stesse agendo in risposta ai continui rastrellamenti e deportazioni portati avanti dalla polizia di frontiera (ICE: Immigration Customs and Enforcement). La sua azione coincide con il primo anniversario dello sciopero della fame nel Northwest Detention Center e di un campeggio di lotta al di fuori. Qui una lista di altre azioni avvenute nel Northwest Detention Center.

Sappiamo perchè Willem Van Spronsen ha deciso di dare la sua vita per interrompere la violenza perpetrata contro le persone senza documenti ogni giorno negli Stati Uniti.

Non è un iperbole affermare che i rastrellamenti dell’ICE stiano colpendo i nostri amici e vicini, persone che hanno vissuto e lavorato accanto a noi per anni, a volte decenni. La vulnerabilità di una fascia di popolazione senza documenti per un lungo periodo di tempo come classe altamente sfruttabile ha aiutato miliardari come Donald Trump a trarne profitti ancora più alti di quelli che avrebbero potuto con mezzi legali. E come ciliegina sulla torta i capitalisti dicono agli altri lavoratori che sfruttano che la povertà e la miseria che vivono è colpa di chi è più povero e più oppresso di loro. Difficile immaginare una strategia più cinica.

La disparità dei diritti tra le persone con documenti e quelle senza è un costrutto — esattamente come la disparità di valore che i nazisti avevano istituito tra ebrei e non ebrei. Entrambe sono mere invenzioni; non hanno alcuna esistenza intrinseca se non quella di giustificare la violenza di un gruppo più potente nei confronti di uno più debole. Chi giustifica l’obbedienza alla legge come giusta a priori sta dalla parte dei nazisti le cui leggi hanno condannato milioni di persone a morte nei campi di sterminio, per non citare i razzisti che hanno approvato il Fugitive Slave Act e le Jim Crow laws negli stati del Sud.

Le leggi non sono altro che costrutti. Non hanno valore intrinseco in quanto tali. Servono spesso a legittimare l’ingiustizia in opposizione alla quale, invece la gente potrebbe agire.

Perilous Chronicle@PerilousPrisons

Yesterday a man was killed by police outside Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA while allegedly attacking transportation infrastructure.

Today also marks the 1-year anniversary of both a hunger-strike and a camp-blockade at of the same facility.https://perilouschronicle.com/2018/07/14/hunger-strike-and-encampment-at-northwest-detention-center-tacoma/ …

Hunger Strike and Encampment at Northwest Detention Center, Tacoma - Perilous

July 14-17, 2018: More than 40 detainees in pod A2 begin a hunger strike "to share the opinions of mistreatment that occur inside, and to ask for changes in ICE and GEO’s policies" the detainees say...

perilouschronicle.com

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Più si permette ai propugnatori di violenza razzista di legittimare concetti inventati come la schiavitù e la cittadinanza, più sarà la violenza che perpetreranno— fino ai rastrellamenti, i campi di concentramento e gli stermini di massa. Abbiamo già visto tutto ciò, nella Germania nazista e altrove, e lo stiamo vedendo di nuovo oggi negli Stati Uniti. Le migliaia di morti nelle zone di confine e le migliaia di morti assassinati dalla polizia sono solo un assaggio di ciò che è possibile.

A questo proposito, gli ebrei che stanno portando avanti blocchi contro l’ICE si stanno impegnando nello sforzo razionale di prevenire la reiterazione delle stesse ingiustizie impensabili perpetrare contro i loro avi—proprio come Willem Van Spronsen, cresciuto dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, che ha compiuto la scelta razionale di mostrare che il tempo era giunto per combattere l’ascesa del fascismo, esattamente come chi lo ha fatto negli anni venti, trenta o quaranta.

Se più persone avessero scelto di passare all’azione nella lotta contro l’ascesa del fascismo in Italia e in Germania, la seconda guerra mondiale avrebbe potuto essere evitata, e con essa si sarebbero potute salvare milioni e milioni di vite. Che nessuno dica che è “violento” attaccare le infrastrutture dell’ICE e i mercenari che le mantengono. La vera violenza è la complicità degli “americani onesti” che non fanno niente quando i loro vicini scompaiono, proprio come i “tedeschi onesti” che scelsero di ignorare cosa veniva fatto ai loro vicini negli anni trenta.

Ogni giorno, in tutto il mondo mercenari rischiano la vita al servizio di ricchi e potenti e per i loro piani, obbedendo senza scrupoli agli ordini, sprecando la loro capacità di pensare razionalmente, di provare compassione, di assumersi la responsabilità delle proprie azioni. Milioni di persone uccidono e muoiono ogni anno solo per il vantaggio e il potere dei tiranni che li manipolano. Willem Van Spronsen ha scelto di scegliere per se stesso. Si è assunto la responsabilità e ha fatto ciò che poteva per porre fine a cosa riconosceva come ingiustizia. Non ha usato la difesa stile Norimberga per giustificare le sue azioni come fa ogni poliziotto e secondino.

In questo senso, ciò che ha fatto è un gesto eroico.

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L’uomo che è determinato al suo gesto non è l’uomo coraggioso, è l’uomo che ha chiarito le sue idee, che si è reso conto dell’inutilità di tanti sforzi per recitare bene la propria parte nella rappresentazione assegnatagli dal capitale. Cosciente, quest’uomo attacca con freddezza e determinazione. E nel far ciò si realizza come uomo. Realizza se stesso nella gioia. Il regno della morte scompare davanti a lui. Anche se crea distruzione e terrore per i padroni, nel suo cuore, e nel cuore degli sfruttati, è la gioia e la tranquillità.

-Alfredo Bonanno

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Ultimo comunicato di Willem Van Spronsen

Esiste il giusto e lo sbagliato.
E’ tempo di agire contro le forze del Male.

Il Male dice che una vita vale meno di un’altra.
Il Male dice che il flusso del commercio è il nostro scopo qui.
Il Male dice che i campi di concentramento per le genti considerate meno importanti sono necessari.
L’ancella del Male dice che i campi di concentramento dovrebbero essere più umani.
Guardatevi dai moderati.

Ho un cuore infranto di padre.
Ho un corpo tormentato.
E ho un aborrimento irremovibile nei confronti dell’Ingiustizia.
Ciò mi ha portato qui.
Questa è la mia opportunità evidente di provare a fare la differenza, sarei un ingrato se aspettassi un invito più ovvio.

Seguo tre maestri:
Don Pritts, la mia guida spirituale. “L’amore senza azione è solo una parola.”
John Brown, la mia guida morale. “L’azione è ciò che è necessario!”
Emma Goldman, la mia guida politica. “Se non posso ballare, non è la mia rivoluzione.”

Sono un sognatore con la testa fra le nuvole, credo nell’amore e nella redenzione.
Credo che vinceremo.
Sono un rivoluzionario gioioso. (ognuno di noi avrebbe dovuto leggere Emma Goldman a scuola invece delle stronzate gingoiste [scioviniste n.d.T.] di cui ci hanno nutrito, ma mi sto dilungando.) (Ognuno di noi dovrebbe guardare le foto degli eroi delle YPG se vacilliamo e pensiamo che i nostri sogni siano impossibili, ma mi sto dilungando ancora. Combattimi.)

In questi giorni in cui picchiatori fascisti prendono di mira le persone vulnerabili nelle nostre strade nel nome dello Stato o supportati e difesi dallo Stato.

In questi giorni di campi di detenzione/concentramento altamente redditizi e di battaglie sulla semantica.

In questi giorni senza speranza, di vane ricerche e vuoti aneliti.

Stiamo vivendo in una fase palesemente ascendente di fascismo . (Dico palesemente perché chi ha prestato attenzione lo ha visto sopravvivere e prosperare sotto la protezione dello Stato per decadi. [vedi Storia del popolo americano dal 1492 a oggi di Howard Zinn] Ora ne segue sfacciatamente l’agenda con una cooperazione aperta e piena da parte del governo. Da parte di tutti i governi del mondo.

Il fascismo è al servizio delle necessità dello Stato e del business e lo fa a tue spese. Chi ci guadagna? Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Betsy de Vos, George Soros, Donald Trump, e serve che continui? Lo dico ancora: gente ricca (che pensa che tu non sia realmente tutto questo bene), un governo veramente da paura (ogni governo ovunque, inclusi i governi “comunisti”, perché loro dettano le regole per far diventare i ricchi sempre più ricchi.
Non starci a pensare troppo.
E’ semplice.

(Voi patrioti la dietro siete attenti?)

Quando ero ragazzo nell’Olanda del dopoguerra, più tardi in Francia, la mia testa era piena di storie sull’ascesa del fascismo negli anni trenta. Feci una promessa a me stesso che non sarei stato uno di quelli che sta a guardare mentre strappano i vicini dalle loro case e li imprigionano perché sono considerati in qualche modo inferiori.
Non devi per forza dare fuoco a quei pezzi di merda ma pensi di restare con le mani in mano?

Questo è un test delle basi di ciò in cui crediamo, nella vera libertà e nella responsabilità verso ognuno. Questa è una chiamata anche per i patrioti, per contrastare questa presa in giro contro tutto ciò che ritenete sacro. Vi conosco. So che nei vostri cuori voi vedete il disonore di questi campi. E’ giunto il tempo anche per voi di ribellarvi al denaro che tira i fili di ognimaledetto pupazzo che vorrebbe rappresentarci.

Sono un uomo che ama così tanto tutti voi e questa sfera che completerò la mia infanzia, me lo prometto, essendo generoso.

Eccoci qua, con questi campi di concentramento/imprese di profitto.
Eccoci qua, con gente di colore e persone “non conformi” che hanno paura di mostrare la loro faccia in giro a causa della polizia, della Migra [polizia di frontiera n.d.T.], dei Proud Boys [un’organizzazione neofascista che ammette solo uomini come membri e promuove la violenza contro i migranti n.d.T.], dei boss, delle Beckies [le donne bianche inquadrate nel sistema che li denunciano alla polizia n.d.T.]
Eccoci qua con un pianeta quasi logoro a causa dell’avidità dei mercati.

Sono uno che la pensa in bianco e nero.
I campi di detenzione sono un abominio.
Non resto a guardare.
Non avrei veramente nient’altro da dire se non questo.

Metto da parte il mio cuore infranto e guarisco nell’unico modo che conosco—essendo utile.
Divido il mio dolore, efficientemente, in compartimenti stagni…
E con gioia vado a fare questo lavoro.
(A quelli che avranno il fardello delle macerie delle mie azioni, spero che facciate buon uso di quel fardello.)

Ai miei compagni:
Rimpiango il fatto che mi perderò il resto della rivoluzione.
Vi ringrazio per l’onore di essere stato in mezzo a voi.

Avermi dato lo spazio per essere utile, per sentire che stavo mettendo in pratica le mie idee, è stato l’apice spirituale della mia vita.

Fare ciò che posso per aiutare a difendere la mia gente preziosa e meravigliosa è un’esperienza troppo ricca da descrivere.

I/le mie/i compagni/e trans mi hanno trasformato, solidificando la mia convinzione che saremo guidati verso un futuro agognato dai chi più è marginalizzato oggi. L’ho sognato così lucidamente che non ho davvero alcun rammarico nel non vedere come sarà. Grazie di avermi portato fin qui.

Sono un antifa. Sto con i compagni di tutto il mondo che agiscono per amore della vita in ogni condizione. Compagni che capiscono che la libertà vuol dire libertà per tutti e una vita che valga la pena di essere vissuta.

Continua a crederci!
Tutto il potere al popolo!
Bella ciao.

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Manifesto audio e archivio musicale →

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Che nessuna stupida agenzia governativa spenda soldi a “fare indagini” su questo. Mi sono radicalizzato nelle lezioni di educazione civica a 13 anni quando ci parlavano del parlamento. Allora compresi che lo status quo poteva essere un castello di carte. Letture successive me lo hanno confermato. Vi consiglio vivamente di leggere!

Non sono affiliato a nessuna organizzazione, mi sono dissociato da qualsiasi organizzazione che non sia d’accordo con la mia scelta di tattiche.

L’arma semiautomatica che ho usato è una “ghost” AR-15,economica, fatta in casa e con sei caricatori. Incoraggio con forza i compagni e i futuri compagni ad armarsi. Ora abbiamo la responsabilità di difendere la gente dallo Stato rapace. Ignorate la legge nell’armarvi se ne avete il prestigio, io lo ho avuto.

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Hong Kong: Anarchists in the Resistance to the Extradition Bill - Crimethink

Source - CrimethInc. : Hong Kong: Anarchists in the Resistance to the Extradition Bill : An Interview 22.6.2019

Since 1997, when it ceased to be the last major colonial holding of Great Britain, Hong Kong has been a part of the People’s Republic of China, while maintaining a distinct political and legal system. In February, an unpopular bill was introduced that would make it possible to extradite fugitives in Hong Kong to countries that the Hong Kong government has no existing extradition agreements with—including mainland China. On June 9, over a million people took the streets in protest; on June12, protesters engaged in pitched confrontations with police; on June 16, two million people participated in one of the biggest marches in the city’s history. The following interview with an anarchist collective in Hong Kong explores the context of this wave of unrest. Our correspondents draw on over a decade of experience in the previous social movements in an effort to come to terms with the motivations that drive the participants, and elaborate upon the new forms of organization and subjectivation that define this new sequence of struggle.

In the United States, the most recent popular struggles have cohered around resisting Donald Trump and the extreme right. In France, the Gilets Jaunes movement drew anarchists, leftists, and far-right nationalists into the streets against Macron’s centrist government and each other. In Hong Kong, we see a social movement against a state governed by the authoritarian left. What challenges do opponents of capitalism and the state face in this context? How can we outflank nationalists, neoliberals, and pacifists who seek to control and exploit our movements?

As China extends its reach, competing with the United States and European Union for global hegemony, it is important to experiment with models of resistance against the political model it represents, while taking care to prevent neoliberals and reactionaries from capitalizing on popular opposition to the authoritarian left. Anarchists in Hong Kong are uniquely positioned to comment on this.

The front façade of the Hong Kong Police headquarters in Wan Chai, covered in egg yolks on the evening of June 21. Hundreds of protesters sealed the entrance, demanding the unconditional release of every person that has been arrested in relation to the struggle thus far. The banner below reads “Never Surrender.” Photo by KWBB from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

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“The left” is institutionalized and ineffectual in Hong Kong. Generally, the “scholarist” liberals and “citizenist” right-wingers have a chokehold over the narrative whenever protests break out, especially when mainland China is involved.

In the struggle against the extradition bill, has the escalation in tactics made it difficult for those factions to represent or manage “the movement”? Has the revolt exceeded or undermined their capacity to shape the discourse? Do the events of the past month herald similar developments in the future, or has this been a common subterranean theme in popular unrest in Hong Kong already?

We think it’s important for everyone to understand that—thus far—what has happened cannot be properly understood to be “a movement.” It’s far too inchoate for that. What I mean is that, unlike the so-called “Umbrella Movement,” which escaped the control of its founding architects (the intellectuals who announced “Occupy Central With Love And Peace” a year in advance) very early on while adhering for the most part to the pacifistic, citizenist principles that they outlined, there is no real guiding narrative uniting the events that have transpired so far, no foundational credo that authorizes—or sanctifies—certain forms of action while proscribing others in order to cultivate a spectacular, exemplary façade that can be photographed and broadcast to screens around the world.

The short answer to your question, then, is… yes, thus far, nobody is authorized to speak on behalf of the movement. Everybody is scrambling to come to terms with a nascent form of subjectivity that is taking shape before us, now that the formal figureheads of the tendencies you referenced have been crushed and largely marginalized. That includes the “scholarist” fraction of the students, now known as “Demosisto,” and the right-wing “nativists,” both of which were disqualified from participating in the legislative council after being voted in.

Throughout this interview, we will attempt to describe our own intuitions about what this embryonic form of subjectivity looks like and the conditions from which it originates. But these are only tentative. Whatever is going on, we can say that it emerges from within a field from which the visible, recognized protagonists of previous sequences, including political parties, student bodies, and right-wing and populist groups, have all been vanquished or discredited. It is a field populated with shadows, haunted by shades, echoes, and murmurs. As of now, center stage remains empty.

This means that the more prevalent “default” modes of understanding are invoked to fill the gaps. Often, it appears that we are set for an unfortunate reprisal of the sequence that played itself out in the Umbrella Movement:

• appalling show of police force
• public outrage manifests itself in huge marches and subsequent occupations, organized and understood as sanctimonious displays of civil virtue
• these occupations ossify into tense, puritanical, and paranoid encampments obsessed with policing behavior to keep it in line with the prescribed script
• the movement collapses, leading to five years of disenchantment among young people who do not have the means to understand their failure to achieve universal suffrage as anything less than abject defeat.

Of course, this is just a cursory description of the Umbrella Movement of five years ago—and even then, there was a considerable amount of “excess”: novel and emancipatory practices and encounters that the official narrative could not account for. These experiences should be retrieved and recovered, though this is not the time or place for that. What we face now is another exercise in mystification, in which the protocols that come into operation every time the social fabric enters a crisis may foreclose the possibilities that are opening up. It would be premature to suggest that this is about to happen, however.

In our cursory and often extremely unpleasant perusals of Western far-left social media, we have noticed that all too often, the intelligence falls victim to our penchant to run the rule over this or that struggle. So much of what passes for “commentary” tends to fall on either side of two poles—impassioned acclamation of the power of the proletarian intelligence or cynical denunciation of its populist recuperation. None of us can bear the suspense of having to suspend our judgment on something outside our ken, and we hasten to find someone who can formalize this unwieldy mass of information into a rubric that we can comprehend and digest, in order that we can express our support or apprehension.

We have no real answers for anybody who wants to know whether they should care about what’s going on in Hong Kong as opposed to, say, France, Algeria, Sudan. But we can plead with those who are interested in understanding what’s happening to take the time to develop an understanding of this city. Though we don’t entirely share their politics and have some quibbles with the facts presented therein, we endorse any coverage of events in Hong Kong that Ultra, Nao, and Chuang have offered over the years to the English-speaking world. Ultra’s piece on the Umbrella Movement is likely the best account of the events currently available.

Our banner in the marches, which is usually found at the front of our drum squad. It reads “There are no ‘good citizens’, only potential criminals.” This banner was made in response to propaganda circulated by pro-Beijing establishmentarian political groups in Hong Kong, assuring “good citizens” everywhere that extradition measures do not threaten those with a sound conscience who are quietly minding their own business. Photo by WWS from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

If we understand “the left” as a political subject that situates questions of class struggle and labor at the center of its politics, it’s not entirely certain that such a thing even properly exists in Hong Kong. Of course, friends of ours run excellent blogs, and there are small grouplets and the like. Certainly, everybody talks about the wealth gap, rampant poverty, the capitalist class, the fact that we are all “打工仔” (jobbers, working folk) struggling to survive. But, as almost anywhere else, the primary form of subjectivity and identification that everyone subscribes to is the idea of citizenship in a national community. It follows that this imagined belonging is founded on negation, exclusion, and demarcation from the Mainland. You can only imagine the torture of seeing the tiresome “I’m a Hong Konger, not Chinese!” t-shirts on the subway, or hearing “Hong Kongers add oil!” (essentially, “way to go!”) chanted ad nauseam for an entire afternoon during recent marches.

It should interest readers from abroad to know that the word “left” in Hong Kong has two connotations. Obviously, for the generation of our parents and their parents before them, “Left” means Communist. Which is why “Left” could refer to a businessman who is a Party member, or a pro-establishment politician who is notoriously pro-China. For younger people, the word “Left” is a stigma (often conjugated with “plastic,” a word in Cantonese that sounds like “dickhead”) attached to a previous generation of activists who were involved in a prior sequence of social struggle—including struggles to prevent the demolition of Queen’s Ferry Pier in Central, against the construction of the high-speed Railway going through the northeast of Hong Kong into China, and against the destruction of vast tracts of farmland in the North East territories, all of which ended in demoralizing defeat. These movements were often led by articulate spokespeople—artists or NGO representatives who forged tactical alliances with progressives in the pan-democratic movement. The defeat of these movements, attributed to their apprehensions about endorsing direct action and their pleas for patience and for negotiations with authority, is now blamed on that generation of activists. All the rage and frustration of the young people who came of age in that period, heeding the direction of these figureheads who commanded them to disperse as they witnessed yet another defeat, yet another exhibition of orchestrated passivity, has progressively taken a rightward turn. Even secondary and university student bodies that have traditionally been staunchly center-left and progressive have become explicitly nationalist.

One crucial tenet among this generation, emerging from a welter of disappointments and failures, is a focus on direct action, and a consequent refusal of “small group discussions,” “consensus,” and the like. This was a theme that first appeared in the umbrella movement—most prominently in the Mong Kok encampment, where the possibilities were richest, but where the right was also, unfortunately, able to establish a firm foothold. The distrust of the previous generation remains prevalent. For example, on the afternoon of June 12, in the midst of the street fights between police and protesters, several members of a longstanding social-democratic party tasked themselves with relaying information via microphone to those on the front lines, telling them where to withdraw to if they needed to escape, what holes in the fronts to fill, and similar information. Because of this distrust of parties, politicians, professional activists and their agendas, many ignored these instructions and instead relied on word of mouth information or information circulating in online messaging groups.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the founding myth of this city is that refugees and dissidents fled communist persecution to build an oasis of wealth and freedom, a fortress of civil liberties safeguarded by the rule of law. In view of that, on a mundane level, it could be said that many in Hong Kong already understand themselves as being in revolt, in the way they live and the freedoms they enjoy—and that they consider this identity, however vacuous and tenuous it may be, to be a property that has to be defended at all costs. It shouldn’t be necessary to say much here about the fact that much of the actual ecological “wealth” that constitutes this city—its most interesting (and often poorest) neighborhoods, a whole host of informal clubs, studios, and dwelling places situated in industrial buildings, farmland in the Northeast territories, historic walled villages and rural districts—are being pillaged and destroyed piece by piece by the state and private developers, to the resounding indifference of these indignant citoyens.

In any case, if liberals are successful in deploying their Cold War language about the need to defend civil liberties and human rights from the encroaching Red Tide, and right-wing populist calls to defend the integrity of our identity also gain traction, it is for these deep-rooted and rather banal historical reasons. Consider the timing of this struggle, how it exploded when images of police brutalizing and arresting young students went viral—like a perfect repetition of the prelude to the umbrella movement. This happened within a week of the annual candlelight vigil commemorating those killed in the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4, 1989, a date remembered in Hong Kong as the day tanks were called in to steamroll over students peacefully gathering in a plea for civil liberties. It is impossible to overstate the profundity of this wound, this trauma, in the formation of the popular psyche; this was driven home when thousands of mothers gathered in public, in an almost perfect mirroring of the Tiananmen mothers, to publicly grieve for the disappeared futures of their children, now eclipsed in the shadow of the communist monolith. It stupefies the mind to think that the police—not once now, but twice—broke the greatest of all taboos: opening fire on the young.

In light of this, it would be naïve to suggest that anything significant has happened yet to suggest that to escaping the “chokehold” that you describe “scholarist” liberals and “citizenist” right-wingers maintaining on the narrative here. Both of these factions are simply symptoms of an underlying condition, aspects of an ideology that has to be attacked and taken apart in practice. Perhaps we should approach what is happening right now as a sort of psychoanalysis in public, with the psychopathology of our city exposed in full view, and see the actions we engage in collectively as a chance to work through traumas, manias, and obsessive complexes together. While it is undoubtedly dismaying that the momentum and morale of this struggle is sustained, across the social spectrum, by a constant invocation of the “Hong Kong people,” who are incited to protect their home at all costs, and while this deeply troubling unanimity covers over many problems,1 we accept the turmoil and the calamity of our time, the need to intervene in circumstances that are never of our own choosing. However bleak things may appear, this struggle offers a chance for new encounters, for the elaboration of new grammars.

Graffiti seen in the road occupation in Admiralty near the government quarters, reading “Carry a can of paint with you, it’s a remedy for canine rabies.” Cops are popularly referred to as “dogs” here. Photo by WWS from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

What has happened to the discourse of civility in the interlude between the umbrella movement and now? Did it contract, expand, decay, transform?

That’s an interesting question to ask. Perhaps the most significant thing that we can report about the current sequence that, astonishingly, when a small fringe of protesters attempted to break into the legislative council on June 9 following a day-long march, it was not universally criticized as an act of lunacy or, worse, the work of China or police provocateurs. Bear in mind that on June 9 and 12, the two attempts to break into the legislative council building thus far, the legislative assembly was not in session; people were effectively attempting to break into an empty building.

Now, much as we have our reservations about the effectiveness of doing such a thing in the first place,2 this is extraordinary, considering the fact that the last attempt to do so, which occurred in a protest against development in the North East territories shortly before the umbrella movement, took place while deliberations were in session and was broadly condemned or ignored.3 Some might suggest that the legacy of the Sunflower movement in Taiwan remains a big inspiration for many here; others might say that the looming threat of Chinese annexation is spurring the public to endorse desperate measures that they would otherwise chastise.

On the afternoon of June 12, when tens of thousands of people suddenly found themselves assaulted by riot police, scrambling to escape from barrages of plastic bullets and tear gas, nobody condemned the masked squads in the front fighting back against the advancing lines of police and putting out the tear gas canisters as they landed. A longstanding, seemingly insuperable gulf has always existed between the “peaceful” protesters (pejoratively referred to as “peaceful rational non-violent dickheads” by most of us on the other side) and the “bellicose” protesters who believe in direct action. Each side tends to view the other with contempt.

Protesters transporting materials to build barricades. The graffiti on the wall can be roughly (and liberally) translated as “Hong Kongers ain’t nuthin’ to fuck wit’.” Photo by WWS from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

The online forum lihkg has functioned as a central place for young people to organize, exchange political banter, and circulate information relating to this struggle. For the first time, a whole host of threads on this site have been dedicated to healing this breach or at least cultivating respect for those who do nothing but show up for the marches every Sunday—if only because marches that number in the millions and bring parts of the city to a temporary standstill are a pretty big deal, however mind-numbingly boring they may be in actuality. The last time the marches were anywhere close to this huge, a Chief Executive stepped down and the amending of a law regarding freedom of speech was moved to the back burner. All manner of groups are attempting to invent a way to contribute to the struggle, the most notable of which is the congregation of Christians that have assembled in front of police lines at the legislative council, chanting the same hymn without reprieve for a week and a half. That hymn has become a refrain that will likely reverberate through struggles in the future, for better or worse.

Are there clear openings or lines of flight in this movement that would allow for interventions that undermine the power of the police, of the law, of the commodity, without producing a militant subject that can be identified and excised?

It is difficult to answer this question. Despite the fact that proletarians compose the vast majority of people waging this struggle—proletarians whose lives are stolen from them by soulless jobs, who are compelled to spend more and more of their wages paying rents that continue to skyrocket because of comprehensive gentrification projects undertaken by state officials and private developers (who are often one and the same)—you must remember that “free market capitalism” is taken by many to be a defining trait of the cultural identity of Hong Kong, distinguishing it from the “red” capitalism managed by the Communist Party. What currently exists in Hong Kong, for some people, is far from ideal; when one says “the rich,” it invokes images of tycoon monopolies—cartels and communist toadies who have formed a dark pact with the Party to feed on the blood of the poor.

So, just as people are ardent for a government and institutions that we can properly call “our own”—yes, including the police—they desire a capitalism that we can finally call “our own,” a capitalism free from corruption, political chicanery, and the like. It’s easy to chuckle at this, but like any community gathered around a founding myth of pioneers fleeing persecution and building a land of freedom and plenty from sacrifice and hard work… it’s easy to understand why this fixation exerts such a powerful hold on the imagination.

This is a city that fiercely defends the initiative of the entrepreneur, of private enterprise, and understands every sort of hustle as a way of making a living, a tactic in the tooth-and-nail struggle for survival. This grim sense of life as survival is omnipresent in our speech; when we speak of “working,” we use the term “搵食,” which literally means looking for our next meal. That explains why protesters have traditionally been very careful to avoid alienating the working masses by actions such as blockading a road used by busses transporting working stiffs back home.

While we understand that much of our lives are preoccupied with and consumed by work, nobody dares to propose the refusal of work, to oppose the indignity of being treated as producer-consumers under the dominion of the commodity. The police are chastised for being “running dogs” of an evil totalitarian empire, rather than being what they actually are: the foot soldiers of the regime of property.

What is novel in the current situation is that many people now accept that acts of solidarity with the struggle, however minute,4 can lead to arrest, and are prepared to tread this shifting line between legality and illegality. It is no exaggeration to say that we are witnessing the appearance of a generation that is prepared for imprisonment, something that was formerly restricted to “professional activists” at the forefront of social movements. At the same time, there is no existing discussion regarding what the force of law is, how it operates, or the legitimacy of the police and prisons as institutions. People simply feel they need to employ measures that transgress the law in order the preserve the sanctity of the Law, which has been violated and dishonored by the cowboys of communist corruption.

However, it is important to note that this is the first time that proposals for strikes in various sectors and general strikes have been put forward regarding an issue that is, on the surface of it, unrelated to labor.

Our friends in the “Housewives Against Extradition” section of the march on September 9. The picture shows a group of housewives and aunties, many of whom were on the streets for the first time. Photo by WWS from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

How do barricades and occupations like the one from a few days ago reproduce themselves in the context of Hong Kong?

Barricades are simply customary now. Whenever people gather en masse and intend to occupy a certain territory to establish a front, barricades are built quickly and effectively. There is a creeping sense now that occupations are becoming routine and futile, physically taxing and ultimately inefficient. What’s interesting in this struggle is that people are really spending a lot of time thinking about what “works,” what requires the least expenditure of effort and achieves the maximum effect in paralyzing parts of the city or interrupting circulation, rather than what holds the greatest moral appeal to an imagined “public” watching everything from the safety of the living room—or even, conversely, what “feels” the most militant.

There have been many popular proposals for “non-cooperative” quotidian actions such as jamming up an entire subway train by coordinating groups of friends to pack the cars with people and luggage for a whole afternoon, or cancelling bank accounts and withdrawing savings from savings accounts in order to create inflation. Some have spread suggestions regarding how to dodge paying taxes for the rest of your life. These might not seem like much, but what’s interesting is the relentless circulation of suggestions from all manner of quarters, from people with varying kinds of expertise, about how people can act on their own initiative where they live or work and in their everyday lives, rather than imagining “the struggle” as something that is waged exclusively on the streets by masked, able-bodied youth.

Whatever criticisms anybody might have about what has happened thus far, this formidable exercise in collective intelligence is really incredibly impressive—an action can be proposed in a message group or on an anonymous message board thread, a few people organize to do it, and it’s done without any fuss or fanfare. Forms circulate and multiply as different groups try them out and modify them.

In the West, Leninists and Maoists have been screaming bloody murder about “CIA Psyop” or “Western backed color revolution.” Have hegemonic forces in Hong Kong invoked the “outside agitator” theme on the ground at a narrative level?

Actually, that is the official line of the Chief Executive, who has repeatedly said that she regards the events of the past week as riotous behavior incited by foreign interests that are interested in conducting a “color revolution” in the city. I’m not sure if she would repeat that line now that she has apologized publicly for “creating contradictions” and discord with her decisions, but all the same—it’s hilarious that tankies share the exact same opinion as our formal head of state.

It’s an open secret that various pro-democracy NGOs, parties, and thinktanks receive American funding. It’s not some kind of occult conspiracy theory that only tankies know about. But these tankies are suggesting that the platform that coordinates the marches—a broad alliance of political parties, NGOs, and the like—is also the ideological spearhead and architect of the “movement,” which is simply a colossal misunderstanding. That platform has been widely denounced, discredited, and mocked by the “direct action” tendencies that are forming all around us, and it is only recently that, as we said above, there are slightly begrudging threads on the Internet offering them indirect praise for being able to coordinate marches that actually achieve something. If only tankies would stop treating everybody like mindless neo-colonial sheep acting at the cryptic behest of Western imperialist intelligence.

That said, it would be dishonest if we failed to mention that, alongside threads on message boards discussing the niceties of direct action tactics abroad, there are also threads alerting everyone to the fact that voices in the White House have expressed their disapproval for the law. Some have even celebrated this. Also, there is a really wacky petition circulating on Facebook to get people to appeal to the White House for foreign intervention. I’m sure one would see these sorts of things in any struggle of this scale in any non-Western city. They aren’t smoking guns confirming imperialist manipulation; they are fringe phenomena that are not the driving force behind events thus far.

Have any slogans, neologisms, new slang, popular talking points, or funny phrases emerged that are unique to the situation?

Yes, lots, though we’re not sure how we would go about translating them. But the force that is generating these memes, that is inspiring all these Whatsapp and Telegram stickers and catchphrases, is actually the police force.

Between shooting people in the eye with plastic bullets, flailing their batons about, and indiscriminately firing tear gas canisters at peoples’ heads and groins, they also found the time to utter some truly classic pearls that have made their way on to t-shirts. One of these bons mots is the rather unfortunate and politically incorrect “liberal cunt.” In the heat of a skirmish between police and protesters, a policeman called someone at the frontlines by that epithet. All our swear words in Cantonese revolve around male and female genitalia, unfortunately; we have quite a few words for private parts. In Cantonese, this formulation doesn’t sound as sensible as it does in English. Said together in Cantonese, “liberal” and “cunt” sounds positively hilarious.

Does this upheaval bear any connections to the fishball riots or Hong Kong autonomy from a few years ago?

A: The “fishball riots” were a demonstrative lesson in many ways, especially for people like us, who found ourselves spectators situated at some remove from the people involved. It was a paroxysmic explosion of rage against the police, a completely unexpected aftershock from the collapse of the umbrella movement. An entire party, the erstwhile darlings of right-wing youth everywhere, “Hong Kong Indigenous,” owes its whole career to this riot. They made absolutely sure that everyone knew they were attending, showing up in uniform and waving their royal blue flags at the scene. They were voted into office, disqualified, and incarcerated—one of the central members is now seeking asylum in Germany, where his views on Hong Kong independence have apparently softened considerably in the course of hanging out with German Greens. That is fresh in the memory of folks who know that invisibility is now paramount.

What effect has Joshua Wong’s release had?

A: We are not sure how surprised readers from overseas will be to discover, after perhaps watching that awful documentary about Joshua Wong on Netflix, that his release has not inspired much fanfare at all. Demosisto are now effectively the “Left Plastic” among a new batch of secondary students.

Are populist factions functioning as a real force of recuperation?

A: All that we have written above illustrates how, while the struggle currently escapes the grasp of every established group, party, and organization, its content is populist by default. The struggle has attained a sprawling scale and drawn in a wide breadth of actors; right now, it is expanding by the minute. But there is little thought given to the fact that many of those who are most obviously and immediately affected by the law will be people whose work takes place across the border—working with and providing aid to workers in Shenzhen, for instance.

Nobody is entirely sure what the actual implications of the law are. Even accounts written by professional lawyers vary quite widely, and this gives press outlets that brand themselves as “voices of the people”5 ample space to frame the entire issue as simply a matter of Hong Kong’s constitutional autonomy being compromised, with an entire city in revolt against the imposition of an all-encompassing surveillance state.

Perusing message boards and conversing with people around the government complex, you would think that the introduction of this law means that expressions of dissent online or objectionable text messages to friends on the Mainland could lead to extradition. This is far from being the case, as far as the letter of the law goes. But the events of the last few years, during which booksellers in Hong Kong have been disappeared for selling publications banned on the Mainland and activists in Hong Kong have been detained and deprived of contact upon crossing the border, offer little cause to trust a party that is already notorious for cooking up charges and contravening the letter of the law whenever convenient. Who knows what it will do once official authorization is granted.

Paranoia invariably sets in whenever the subject of China comes up. On the evening of June 12, when the clouds of tear gas were beginning to clear up, the founder of a Telegram message group with 10,000+ active members was arrested by the police, who commanded him to unlock his phone. His testimony revealed that he was told that even if he refused, they would hack his phone anyway. Later, the news reported that he was using a Xiaomi phone at the time. This news went viral, with many commenting that his choice of phone was both bold and idiotic, since urban legend has it that Xiaomi phones not only have a “backdoor” that permits Xiaomi to access the information on every one of its phones and assume control of the information therein, but that Xiaomi—by virtue of having its servers in China—uploads all information stored on its cloud to the database of party overlords. It is futile to try to suggest that users who are anxious about such things can take measures to seal backdoors, or that background information leeching can be detected by simply checking the data usage on your phone. Xiaomi is effectively regarded as an expertly engineered Communist tracking device, and arguments about it are no longer technical, but ideological to the point of superstition.

This “post-truth” dimension of this struggle, compounded with all the psychopathological factors that we enumerated above, makes everything that is happening that much more perplexing, that much more overwhelming. For so long, fantasy has been the impetus for social struggle in this city—the fantasy of a national community, urbane, free-thinking, civilized and each sharing in the negative freedoms that the law provides, the fantasy of electoral democracy… Whenever these affirmative fantasies are put at risk, they are defended and enacted in public, en masse, and the sales for “I Am Hong Konger” [sic] go through the roof.

This is what gives the proceedings a distinctly conservative, reactionary flavor, despite how radical and decentralized the new forms of action are. All we can do as a collective is seek ways to subvert this fantasy, to expose and demonstrate its vacuity in form and content.

At this time, it feels surreal that everybody around us is so certain, so clear about what they need to do—oppose this law with every means that they have available to them—while the reasons for doing so remain hopelessly obscure. It could very well be the case that this suffocating opacity is our lot for the time being, in this phase premised upon more action, less talk, on the relentless need to keep abreast of and act on the flow of information that is constantly accelerating around us.

In so many ways, what we see happening around us is a fulfillment of what we have dreamt of for years. So many bemoan the “lack of political leadership,” which they see as a noxious habit developed over years of failed movements, but the truth is that those who are accustomed to being protagonists of struggles, including ourselves as a collective, have been overtaken by events. It is no longer a matter of a tiny scene of activists concocting a set of tactics and programs and attempting to market them to the public. “The public” is taking action all around us, exchanging techniques on forums, devising ways to evade surveillance, to avoid being arrested at all costs. It is now possible to learn more about fighting the police in one afternoon than we did in a few years.

In the midst of this breathless acceleration, is it possible to introduce another rhythm, in which we can engage in a collective contemplation of what has become of us, and what we are becoming as we rush headlong into the tumult?

As ever, we stand here, fighting alongside our neighbors, ardently looking for friends.

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Hand-written statements by protesters, weathered after an afternoon of heavy rain. Photo by WWS from Tak Cheong Lane Collective.

1. In reflecting on the problems concealed by the apparent unanimity of the “Hong Kong people,” we might start by asking who that framework suggests that this city is for, who comprises this imaginary subject. We have seen Nepalese and Pakistani brothers and sisters on the streets, but they hesitate to make their presence known for fear of being accused of being thugs employed by the police. ↩
2. “The places of institutional power exert a magnetic attraction on revolutionaries. But when the insurgents manage to penetrate parliaments, presidential palaces, and other headquarters of institutions, as in Ukraine, in Libya or in Wisconsin, it’s only to discover empty places, that is, empty of power, and furnished without any taste. It’s not to prevent the “people” from “taking power” that they are so fiercely kept from invading such places, but to prevent them from realizing that power no longer resides in the institutions. There are only deserted temples there, decommissioned fortresses, nothing but stage sets—real traps for revolutionaries.” –The Invisible Committee, To Our Friends ↩
3. Incidentally, that attempt was a good deal more spontaneous and successful. The police had hardly imagined that crowds of people who had sat peacefully with their heads in their hands feeling helpless while the developments were authorized would suddenly start attempting to rush the council doors by force, breaking some of the windows. ↩
4. On the night of June 11, young customers in a McDonald’s in Admiralty were all searched and had their identity cards recorded. On June 12, a video went viral showing a young man transporting a box of bottled water to protesters who were being brutalized by a squad of policemen with batons. ↩
5. To give two rather different examples, this includes the populist, xenophobic, and vehemently anti-Communist Apple Daily, and the “Hong Kong Free Press,” an independent English online rag of the “angry liberal” stripe run by expatriates that has an affinity for young localist/nativist leaders. ↩