A wager for anarchism on itself by Aristides Pedraza

Originally sent by International Libertarian Solidarity network

Day after day, capitalist globalisation reveals how we suffer from
immediately planned, coordinated and hierarchical attacks. Internationally,
we can clearly see how inter- and supra-State forms of control and
management are being set up. The neoliberal grouping together of people,
regions, places and countries force us to build specific and immediate
resistance through mutual solidarity and strategies.

We must unite our strengths, resources and know-hows to face the actions of
bourgeoisie and State systems destined to empty our democratic freedoms and
spaces of all effective content. "Zero tolerance" against protests and
resistance, the low intensity social ware being imperturbably waged by those
in power are desires to criminalise any attempts to build a counterpower and
autonomous direct action movement.

It must be said: the building of an International of alternative, cultural,
political, social, and rebellious left is at the top of the agenda,
especially in a European context where it is both urgent and possible.

Obviously, an International of the rebellious left opposed to any form of
bureaucratic, hierarchical or, in a word, "Cominternian" set-up. This step
forward must be clear in its objectives: building an International of the
rebellious left with a dynamic of movement, of convergence and coordination,
networks, alliances and unity at all levels, especially materially, or over
one specific strategy or another, and even over deeper and more profound
agreements. Federating struggles and resistance, coordinating collectives,
converging goals and actions, acting in small yet tight groups or larger
coalitions with more limited objectives: we must act whenever the
opportunity arises and a need is felt. The only delimitations to this
project must the precedence of democracy over delegation, direct action over
institutional action, the autonomy of the social movement in its ways and
means and demands and desires over conquering institutional power and
participating in managing the State or alliances with Social-Liberal forces.

An enormous social impetus is confronting this capitalist domination which
not only craves to exploit more and more, but also wishes to establish
totalitarian submission to the world order. This impetus is questioning the
dictatorship of the economy and State control through dynamics in which
democratic aspirations are defined and structured with anti-authoritarian
attributes. The Social-Liberal path, both bureaucratic and repressive,
heightens this desire for radical democracy, for this anti-authoritarian and
anti-bureaucratic posture. The representational crises of the liberal
oligarchies -to dub the delegational democracies limited by Capitalist and
State domination over the social majorities- is yet another demonstration of
this criticism.

The demand to spread the wealth, responding to the fair, legitimate and
strongly felt social needs, implies a desire for solidarity, freedom and
equality opposed to a system which divides, imprisons human beings as well
as harming nature.

All of these elements form the grounds on which a multipolar social movement
can be immediately built, forming a federation of resistance and struggle
that is open to the ideas and feelings of the libertarian left.

Opposed to us, statist and neo-reformist attempts are taking shape,
criss-crossed with contradictions, but nevertheless holding, if our
movements of struggles do not impede it, centralised institutional and
authoritarian policies and a strategy to conquest power. These forces
participate in our struggles and invoke participatory democracy. We find
them in almost all struggles and, via "realpolitik" assume agreements whilst
marking the boundaries of convergence. All of this is unavoidable;
unceasingly it brings about strains and discrepancies, establishing a
relationship of forces that we must win.
More often than not, once we have scratched the surface of this
participatory democracy, these calls for grassroots initiative, we discover
policies of delegation, guided towards the State. Scratching a bit deeper,
we discover a Stalinist reference in which History and its balance are
unceasingly manipulated to salvage the essence of its history, an
inheritance and politically organised project which goes, without firing a
shot, from conquering the State to participating in it.

While it is true that "hitting together" occurs amongst these groups, the
"marching separated" must be imposed with the same strength. We cannot
change the need to dispute with neo-Social Democracy, more or less teeming
with Leninist plots and schemes, the battlegrounds, cultural zones and the
building of important and serious references in social movement. We must
confront these forces in struggles and resistance, individually and
collectively representing what is possible and desirable.

We are not trying to draw a single line or the scientific truth behind the
struggles for emancipation, but our choice, our historical experience, with
all of its enormous limitations, mistakes and shortcomings, its dead or
sterile parts, and its need to be put up to date, our libertarian choice is,
in our minds, the best. We propose it as it is and how we live it,
respecting people and their struggles. Whatever our limits are, it goes
without saying that without a very strong libertarian tension in the
struggles and organisational process, in other words, without strong
libertarian organisations, the social movement becomes limited, strangled
and is murdered by bureaucracies, delegation, and the coercion of
institutional control and management.

There is no efficiency in struggles and resistance, even when limited, that
have reformist goals, confiding to a greater or lesser degree in State and
institutional acts. These are missing a certain libertarian push, a certain
vein of radical democracy. The international of the rebellious left that
must be created as quickly as possible is defined precisely by this attempt
to organise pressurein each and every point and by the possibly of
federating this wealth of antagonistic positions.

In this labour, a decisive responsibility is placed on the anarchist
organisations, the collectives and individuals with libertarian stands,
culture and theory. That is why these forces and individuals should define
and carry out their own ways of cooperating and sharing.

All of those who clamour for social anarchism, which emancipates against all
types of oppression, whether they be gender, class, race or origins, or by
existential choice, must come together. We must multiply our meetings and
joint struggles, starting alliances. It is not a question of going back to
the old anarchist synthesis dear to Sebastian Faure, without a backbone,
without a distinguishing mark, a captive of an almost absolute relativism.
We must multiply our political laboratories, the shared experiences, the
catwalks, the analyses of our different paths, the lesson learnt from our
meetings. It is in this vital fusion where we can build a policy of
liberation.

Where there is more agreement is where we will assemble our joint actions
and federations. Wherever and whenever, we will make as many free agreements
is possibly politically, theoretically, strategically and tactically. We
will also carry out a job of popularisation, providing our references, our
joint symbols of identity and our culture. We will put images and emotions
of anarchism at the disposal of resistance and struggle.

Some collectives already started working together on these grounds in
Madrid. We should carry on like this. Firstly, we should deepen our joint
efforts, consolidating them. Then, without being precipitated or excessive,
where circumstances permit it, we should see what else we can do with the
other realities of social anarchism.

Why not, in a few months, if we have managed to work together well, attempt
an exchange of commitments with the International of Anarchist Federations,
without being overly ambitious? Why not start up one or two experiences,
even if only unpretentious agreements?

It's not a question of being idealists, nor pretending to ignore that a
long, bitter, sterile and intolerant history is shared by all the
libertarian families of all shades and hues. If it were possible to make a
wager, it would be that our accumulated history, the present, the struggles,
the crisis of the Left in society, anti-capitalism, the fight against the
system, have been staked by a deep movement which is evidently opening the
boldest, most daring and generous opportunities to act out and make use of.

The International of rebels, the council of tribes, the assembly of united
brothers and sisters, the never-ending dream of insurrectionist and plebeian
republics, is anarchism wagering on itself, on all its capacities of
fraternity, audacity, love, willpower and revolutionary desires.

By Aristides Pedraza

Translated by Apoyo Mutuo

August 2001

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