[Dissent-fr-info] les réflexions d'un "black bloc" sur l'échec des stratégies émeutières

[Dissent! France Info Newsletter]

mail recu sur notre boite et transmis a la demande de l'interresse pour
debat...

2009/9/29 Dissent! France Info Newsletter <dissent-fr-info at lists.aktivix.org
>

> On a reçu ce témoignage de Grande-Bretagne, et du coup, malheureusement,
> c'est en Anglais. Quelqu'un se sent de le traduire pour que le débat se
> tienne ?
>
>
> Are We Addicted to Rioting?
>
> Sunday, September 27 2009 @ 02:31 PM CDT
>
> Contributed by: Anonymous
>
> Views: 623
> Anarchist Movement
>
> By: Ryan Harvey - September 24, 2009
>
> The G20 is upon us, and though BBC world news featured some of "the
> troubles" in Pittsburgh, on the ground reports hardly match up with the
> media-inflation, police-inflation, and activist-inflation of the actual
> thing. As one who was not present in Pittsburgh, I cannot give a
> first-hand account. Phone calls with friends on the ground and various
> independent and corporate-media accounts are my window to the events.
> But as one who has participated in countless similar events, who didn't
> attend the G20 due to feelings of disconnection/confusion with my own
> people, I felt strongly enough to write this.
>
> As is often the case, big media makes things look a whole lot crazier
> than they actually are, if it's in the interests of higher ratings. And
> though most Americans if surveyed would be against rioting, they love to
> watch it on TV. So the media is hyping the G20 protests up enough to get
> some extra points, but not enough to anger their parent companies.
>
> The police of course have to inflate the threats posed by relatively
> small numbers of protestors to justify the gigantic amount of city,
> state and federal tax-payer money used to buy new weapons, vehicles,
> chemical munitions, and armor. They get to keep all these goodies to use
> against whomever crosses their path in the future. So little pebbles
> getting tossed at robo-cops become boulders and little marches becoming
> security threats.
>
> To match these two forces, the protest groups, especially my own
> comrades in the anarchist groups, inflate their stories, numbers, and
> actions to try to gain support and build momentum, and to make them feel
> better. So a dumpster getting rolled down a street into an intersection
> will be heroized in well-designed pamphlets to come and talked about for
> years the way my generation still talks about the fence-chasing incident
> at A16, (World Bank/IMF protests on April 16, 2000 in DC).
>
> What is so crazy about all of this, this inflation is that it doesn't
> seem to help. As an organizer with a decade of experience in all types
> of work, from anarchist organizations to peace groups to labor
> organizing, I don't think over-hyping our actions does anything for us.
> In fact, I think it works to our disadvantage. It adds to a culture of
> dishonesty, of not addressing our shortcomings, of not reflecting and
> refining our work.
>
> Now Pittsburgh had a crowd of 4,000-10,000 people according to different
> reports. While this is a big number in general, it's not so big compared
> to public opinions on such issues at the bailout, corporate executive
> bonuses, or the global economic order in general. Most folks in the U.S.
> are pretty angry, from the far left to the independent
> right/libertarians. Instead of congratulating ourselves on a "large
> turnout", we should be asking why it wasn't nearly size of most anti-war
> demonstrations that have happened. Not to put ourselves down in anyway,
> but to consider the factors so that we can go about building a stronger
> movement for economic justice. When we don't look into these factors, we
> are walking blind.
>
> Another major issue in these protests is that when militant groups
> over-hype themselves before-hand, to make themselves seem bigger, more
> powerful, and often more willing to use violence or property
> destruction, they invite and allow public justification for large,
> well-funded and well-equipped police action... And they are not prepared
> to take it. They are usually fronting, thinking that talking big will
> make the actual thing big. This is not how organizing works. You
> actually have to do the work, not just front like you have. You end up
> in dangerous situations when you do this.
>
> A flimsy PVC-reinforced banner is not going to last long against a few
> riot-police, it never has. I've seen it many times and it's never done
> anything more than look cool in a photo to those who've never seen the
> damn things break on impact. I once saw a cop beat an anarchist with a
> piece of his own broken PVC "shield" banner.
>
> I came from this scene, learned all the tactical terms, and met many
> good people who I ran in the streets with, and we got into some crazy
> situations. I have been around the bloc a few times. I have inhaled tear
> gas and pepper spray, heard the close-up clicks on the infamous taser,
> and heard the sobering sounds of riot batons breaking human bones. I
> once saw a guy almost burn a hole in his hand throwing a tear gas
> canister back at the police in Quebec City in 2001. At the beginning of
> the Iraq war, I helped drag a 16 year-old girl away from a group of
> police who were beating her in DC. Both her ankles and one of her arms
> were broken. In Miami in 2003, I heard the explosion of "less-lethal"
> weapons and heard a loud pop next to me. As I turned, a middle-aged
> woman was starting to run away with blood literally pouring out of her
> mouth. She had been hit in the face with a rubber bullet.
>
> After that incident I began a long reflective process, one that started
> in the bloodstained streets of Miami and hasn't stopped yet, hopefully
> it never will. Something clicked when the blood poured out of this
> woman's mouth; this is for real. I am really here and we are really
> getting the shit kicked out of us. What before seemed sort of fun, sort
> of therapeutic, sort of educational, now seemed totally dangerous,
> serious, and life-threatening.
>
> It also became clear that our actions in the streets were not usually
> connected to any real strategy to achieve change, no goals that we could
> attain, no real meaning for being there at that time, besides to ruin
> the party for the bigwigs. Not that that's a bad thing to do, it's just
> not worth my eye, hand, or life. It went on like this for years for me
> before I sobered up, took a step back, and realized I was in the middle
> of a big mess, a mess with very few details. It was like a messy room
> that only has large furniture in it, no scraps of paper, no old dishes,
> no crumbs. Everything upon observation was really clear, it was obvious
> what was wrong.
>
> I began to think about my purpose for protest, my desire for economic
> and social justice, peace, and equality. As I reflected, I became
> disillusioned with protest, burned out, depressed, and lost. It took a
> while to crawl out of it, but I came out on top. I learned a lot during
> my down time and came to some understandings.
>
> One of the clearest understandings I reached, one that was really
> solidified recently after reading a book called War Is A Force That
> Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges, is that me and many friends were
> pretty much addicted to these intense street situations. We were
> engaging in "combat scenarios" and really, to a scary degree, creating
> mini-war scenes where we could play out some strange fantasies.
>
> War is A Force That Gives Us Meaning talks about the strange attraction
> that people have to war, even those highly opposed to it. Even those
> scarred by it, terrified by it, and deeply effected by it. Some go into
> war and get real messed up, vowing to never return, only to soon find
> themselves desiring that adrenaline, the fear, the intensity. Hedges was
> a journalist in Bosnia, El Salvador, Lebanon, and Iraq. He realized
> after many years that he was experiencing a type of addiction, seeking a
> high that can only be attained in a combat situation.
>
> I fear that we too, anarchists and street militants, have similar
> symptoms. We intentionally go into situations that we know are
> dangerous, that we often know don't really have any solid plan. Maybe
> it's part machismo, maybe it's part desperation, maybe it's part legit
> too, but I think it's a lot of high-seeking. We desire the intensity,
> the rush. We get to enact roles that we don't get to enact in our
> everyday lives, heroism, bravery, sacrifice, quick thinking,
> fear-testing, and some forms of solidarity. We also get to experience
> prison, pain, and life-changing trauma.
>
> All of this is well worth it if we have our eyes on the prize and are
> fully aware of the risks, reasons, and responsibilities of these types
> of actions. The risks are obvious, the reasons usually are few and far
> between (meaning we usually don't have a very sound strategic approach
> to protest that results in the real changes we desire). The
> responsibilities are usually totally missing, aside from street medics
> and basic legal support. But larger ones, like trauma support for years
> afterwards, support for those abused in prison, networks of real care
> and compassion like those veterans have created with groups like Vets 4
> Vets and Homefront Battle Buddies to heal from the painful experiences
> of violence, don't exist yet.
>
> I have seen all of this go pretty much unnoticed by those of us who
> organized actions that resulted in the trauma, like those of us who
> helped organize in Miami. A lot of us who were there learned that lesson
> real quick afterwards, but a bit too late. I know a woman who has full
> audio/visual flashbacks from Miami, another parallel with war, and a
> common symptom of PTSD. Many of my friends have PTSD from their
> experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would not be surprising if many
> of us have been coping with similar effects from Philadelphia, Miami,
> DC, and St. Paul and didn't know it because we are not in a movement
> that is prepared to handle or reflective enough to admit such things.
>
> While the experiences of violence can easily change you, I don't want to
> dwell on this too much. I don't want my point to get blurred. I'm not
> scared of violence all the time. I'm not against violence all the time.
> I'm not against riots all the time, and I'm not against folks putting
> themselves in harms way just to prove a point all the time. But I am no
> longer lending my support to these acts if they are not solidly rooted
> in an organizational and movement-wide foundation, supported by large
> numbers of people who understand their purpose and the steps to take
> afterwards. If we are "stepping it up" or "escalating" without the
> massive numbers of people that we were previously standing with, we are
> losing people, and are thus destined to fail. I don't want to be in a
> people-less movement, I want to build strong movements that can take
> bold and seemingly dangerous steps together, growing as they move
> forward. This can justify the risk.
>
> On the question of "Violence VS Non-Violence" I opt out. I respond with
> a better question: "What is your goal?". Then I consider the goals, how
> they link up to a larger strategy, and how it effects its movement as a
> whole. "Will it make you stronger?". "Will it hurt your organizing
> efforts?". These are the relevant questions. Then I ask, "What do you
> need to do to achieve your goal?". Then I consider the question of
> violence or non-violence. It's more of a tactical concern, and tactical
> concerns stem from a goal, which usually stems from an even bigger goal,
> which stems from a strategy.
>
> If you roll a dumpster at the police, why are you doing it? To prove a
> point? To block a street? To open a street? To cause a diversion to pull
> off another action? To impress the media? To impress your friends? To
> get it out of the way? To get it in the way? These are relevant
> questions, far more relevant than whether or not it's morally acceptable
> to roll a dumpster around. But then you must ask yourself why you are
> trying to achieve that tactical goal. Are you blockading a meeting? Are
> you causing chaos to make the summit look bad? Are you trying to get
> media attention? Do you want revenge on the police? Then you must ask
> yourself why you are blockading the meeting or causing chaos or trying
> to get on TV. Who are you trying to effect? Who's your base? If you want
> media attention, who are you trying to reach out to? What is your
> message for them? If you are trying to cause chaos, what is the purpose?
> Who is it serving? How is it advancing your goals? What effect will it
> have on your movement next week, next month, next year? What is the
> follow-up to all of this?
>
> That's how winning movements think. Those are the critical questions to
> ask, among others. Unfortunately, I never experienced a single anarchist
> group that considered any of this. We just went out and did the craziest
> stuff, had a few parties/events in the next few months, and started the
> next round of last-minute militant protest organizing, building for our
> next street-fantasy, the omnipresent and mythological "next Seattle". We
> were chasing a high that we didn't even understand.
>
> In pursuit of this high, we got lost in our own imagery and rhetoric. We
> convinced ourselves that we, the anarchists, were the movement. We were
> the ones who were important, the ones who made the difference between a
> dinky permitted march and a history-making mobilization. We used Seattle
> as the ultra-reference, where a group of a few dozen black bloc
> anarchists caused over 4 million dollars in property damage. Nevermind
> the other 49,000 + people in Seattle's actions, sacrifices, and hard
> work. Nevermind the union workers rushing into downtown to defend those
> doing civil disobedience. Nevermind those who locked down peacefully or
> used human chains to blockade delegate hotels. We were too obsessed with
> ourselves to let other folks steal out glory. We called them all
> "liberals", and this was the ultimate diss.
>
> A recent Crimethinc report on the Pittsburgh G20 says that the black
> bloc-portion of the protests "signifies the survival of militant street
> resistance in the Obama era.". But I ask to what end? Militant street
> resistance against what? For what? What kind of vague movement are we
> part of if we discuss our tactics as if they are the very point of using
> them? Is "militant street protest" an end in itself? Why? What about the
> "survival of a sustained movement for economic justice"? Why don't we
> discuss the things we are working for? Are we working for "militant
> street protests" or are we working towards a broad social goal? Do
> anarchists no longer think in terms of issues, goals, or things they
> care about? Just vague notions of "freedom" (like the freedom to light a
> dumpster on fire) or "resistance" (a habit of attending and organizing
> semi-annual pre-staged battles with the police)?
>
> This insurrectionary rhetoric that is so popular today among us young
> anarchists is belittling and destroying anarchism. It's turning it into
> a mythic fantasy world, where things magically change because someone
> breaks a window or quits their job. And it's pulling a lot of young
> people into situations where they are often hurting long-term movements
> for change, rather than reinforcing them. Today's "Anarchism" is too
> disconnected from larger movements, too fragmented in it's own, and too
> carried away with it's own romanticism.
>
> These are serious critiques and questions from a comrade, someone who
> throws their heart into positive work every day for serious, radical
> social change. I write not to piss my friends off or put people down,
> but to challenge -urge- my friends to think very critically, very...
> Critically enough to make a meeting suck. Enough to make you really
> frustrated. Enough to spark heated but respectful discussion. Enough to
> make the work hard and controversial. It's not supposed to be this fun.
> The fun comes from the struggle. The fun is in light of the struggle. We
> don't struggle enough. We play around issues, organizing these events
> where we experience "street liberation", the high, and then spend the
> next few months coming down from it until we re-up. Crimethinc mentions
> the great high later in the same article, without admitting the
> contradictions of this strange addiction: "No words can do justice to
> this experience, but it is real".
>
> Is that why you take the streets, fellow anarchists? Are you searching
> for that feeling that cannot be explained? That adrenaline rush, that
> fear? Ask yourself this, and ask it in a serious way. Because if you,
> are you should reconsider your role in social movements, how you
> participate, how your actions reverberate, what effects they have on
> others. And perhaps you should take a deep breath and consider your
> priorities and those of the people around you. There's too much at stake
> to waste our time and energy preparing for and executing these
> theater-like confrontations.
>
> The anarchist groups are full of good people, committed, and hopefully
> those who will help contribute to positive social changes in our
> lifetimes. It is for you, the committed anarchists, that I write this. I
> want you to take my words seriously, because we have a lot of work to
> do, and most of it is not going to get done in the streets. It's going
> to get done on the doorsteps, the libraries, the churches, the labor
> halls, the schools, the military bases, the parks, the prisons, the
> abortion clinics, the neighborhood associations, the PTAs. And whatever
> it is, it's not going to be called Anarchism and it's not going to look
> like what you think it's going to look like. It's going to be new,
> fresh, original, organic, unique, and real. And it's going to be a
> combination of all of our society's best politics, ideas, experiences,
> and sincerity. And we are going to help make it happen.
>
> Let's take anarchism out of the streets for a while and put it back in
> the communities where it was born.
> >
>
>
>
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