Quotes from this article:
Before I get started, here's a thing I don't like about Matt's work thus far: He conflates too much with everything else. He does not critique events, he derides them inherently; he does not recognise that most people do not follow the beliefs he claims and builds strawmen to knock down (or talks about the few examples that exist while ignoring the many who aren't examples of what he's discussing).
It must be nice to do that from one of the places with some of the less serious anarchists, with those who fail to even consider people outside of hegemonic power (in any capacity) until they need solidarity (and refuse to give it in return). For it's not their opinions that are ever addressed; they are seen as unworthy until they can be used as baton.
But if we are not struggling as an organised class at work, where should such affinity groups be engaged in struggle? Insurrectionists have typically advocated a politics of ‘constant attack’. They relish in the images of street fights with police, the lighting of fires, and looting of stores.
I'm sorry, what are you talking about? This is not how all insurrectionary anarchists even talk or think, nor is it constant the world over. And it's not that they relish in those images. I mean, you reference Alfredo Bonanno. He deliberates about whether it would've been better to shoot Montanelli in the face than the legs ("Why on earth did these dear children shoot Montanelli in the legs? Wouldn’t it have been better to have shot him in the mouth?" in Armed Joy).
He's not relishing in that image, he's discussing about which tactic was better, what happened subsequent to him being shot in the legs, what would've happened had they shot him in the head, and how heavy of a decision it would've been to do that. He then ends that part by saying: "Revolutionaries are pious folk. The revolution is not a pious event." I cannot see any form of relishing going on here, and it feels insulting to say that insurrectionary anarchists would think this way.
The people you're talking about? Are those who glorify violence as much as they do military action.
Even many anarcha-feminists, who often talk about the theory around Kill Your Local Rapist, do not want to hurt people. They think about the consequences of doing so, and that includes the consequences to themselves and their consciences.
It’s obviously a good thing to feed someone who is hungry and we have no objections to breaking the law, but this is a strange idea of freedom. It assumes the insurmountable permanence of a society based on the existence of bosses, governments, and commodities. It proposes that we act as if capital and the State can never really be overthrown through a concrete transformation of social relations in production. Things can’t be changed, they can only be subverted or defied.
No, it doesn't. The overwhelming majority of insurrectionists I have read or talked to have seen themselves as a line of defense, not the end-all-be-all of getting to an anarchistic world. This includes the very one you fucking cite and the very fucking passage you choose to cite him in: "We have seen that a specific minority must take charge of the initial attack, surprising power and determining a situation of confusion which could put the forces of repression into difficulty and make the exploited masses reflect upon whether to intervene or not."
Not everyone has to intervene in that manner. And he even defines what is meant by 'specific minority', which he says isn't all anarchists or the whole revolution. It's right there.
With the George Flloyd Rebellion the politics of insurrectionary anarchism was put to a serious test.
It really wasn't.
The insurrectionists were presented with a nation-wide uprising which broke from legality and the control of any organisation.
Let's go back to that "specific minority" of people Bonanno mentions. Does this sentence make sense with that part of insurrectionist theory? I don't think so. Because not everyone in the street wants to participate in insurrectionary actions.
The ‘CHAZ’ (which, in reality, was never able to develop beyond a cop-free block-party) quickly stagnated, with no clear aims other than maintaining the occupation. The affinity groups attempted to maintain the rage, but were unable to encourage the rebellion in a revolutionary direction.
He cites an article from CrimethInc that talks about this and still walks away with that basic ass understanding? How do you walk away with that limited critique after you read this part (and the bits after): "At the same time, when the police are still so powerful and the ruling class that they serve is scrambling to legitimize them in the public eye, establishing a cop-free zone involves challenges and risks."
CrimethInc even mentions how these tactics have been used against Exarchia in Greece (which, for the record, goes unmentioned). The same applies to anything else outside the United States.
And even if you read Black Rose's critique and discussion, they don't refer to anyone as insurrectionary anarchists. Because I don't think many, if any, of those people aligned themselves to that theory. They also highlight really big issues (e.g., "no decision making process" and "failure of white ally politics"). It's a brutal misreading and misunderstanding of a theory if you're basing it on one thing in the United States.
All manner of cranks and adventurists were attracted to the project.
That's because this wasn't insurrectionary anarchism in action. I do not know how hard this is to understand, but it feels willful at this point.
Ultimately, a few armed individuals (having appointed themselves as a ‘patrol’) fired on and killed a few black teenagers speeding by in their car. Amidst the fog of uncertainty, vague reports spread on social media, exciting those who equate the use of arms with militancy. The killings were initially lauded in some insurrectionist corners of the internet as a successful case of ‘revolutionary self-defence’ against ‘right-wing infiltrators’.
Is there a point where we actually discuss these things? Instead of tossing them around to play gotcha points and neglecting that, while these are examples of right-wing and/or white supremacy in action, it doesn't fit into what is actually described by insurrectionary anarchism? And again, still requires people to actually align themselves with it?
Along with addressing the points as stated? Because the CrimethInc article he links says that DeJuan Young described experiencing attacks from white supremacists and others who infiltrated (not discussed in this article). It also fails to engage with this element of the Black Rose article, reading: "One of the most disturbing and important lessons from the CHOP is the need to develop well-organized and effective collective self-defense. On the night of Juneteenth, there were literally thousands of people in the space, many of them tourists and party goers."
The same article continues, "The first shooting was not the result of vigilante anti-protest political violence but violence that sprang from sources internal to the CHOP zone. In the days that followed, several more shootings took place in and around the zone. Though the shooters and motives are largely still unknown, it appears likely that a majority of the shootings were the result of interpersonal violence and gang retaliation."
And if we look back to Bonanno, he states: "It is precisely the comrades that are available for action who make up the specific minority. They will be the ones to prepare and realize the insurrection in the ways and forms which the experience of the revolutionary struggle as a whole has transmitted to us, taking into consideration the recent modifications of the State and the bosses. The method cannot fail to take account of minimal organizational forms of the base which will have to solve the various problems that will arise during the insurrectional preparation. In these organizational forms the responsibility for the work to be done must obviously fall on the revolutionary anarchist comrades and cannot be left to goodwill or improvisation. At this stage the very rules of survival impose the indispensable conditions of security and caution. The urgency of action puts an end to pointless chatter."
I wonder why he might say this. Could there have been any historical context for the development of his thought? Maybe some overtly authoritarian organisations in the 70s who kept pushing the working class out? Or any kind of heavy military shit going on in the 80s? Context matters for what people say and think.
Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement in France
Can someone tell me what the ideology of the Yellow Vests was? And what happened to them over time? Because it takes only a few minutes to find out that, while anti-government, they weren't inherently a movement of anarchists. Or insurrectionary anarchists, at that.
Oh, and bonus because this is hidden in a citation:
One can’t help but recall the uncritical enthusiasm demonstrated by many insurrectionary anarchists during the 2014 Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine. Not only was there little interest in the political character of the struggle, but even in the influential presence of far-right elements. People were in the streets, in violent conflict with the brutality of the State… Molotovs were being thrown! ‘What else is there to a revolution?’ This is how an ‘anarchist’ thinks when they are not concerned with class struggle and the need to transform the structures of production and distribution.
Which ones? Because guess what, that shit wasn't true for where I am. Most anarchists of all ilks in Eastern Europe knew better. So let's try again: Who are you criticising here? Because I'm noticing a theme, and it's often for English-speaking anarchists (and some Western ones) to grab hold of movements that they don't understand and to support them uncritically.
Wanna guess what? I can do that with the Anarchist Federation and their uncritical support of the Trucker Convoy in Canada (something suspiciously missing, which I suppose is perhaps because of how overtly right-wing that was and how nonsensical it was that someone in London thought it was at all a left-wing protest), but that doesn't mean it applies to all anarchists. Just like other left-wing groups have held onto the Dutch farmers or have decided to be anti-Ukraine. There are moments where, yes, we need to criticise people for grabbing onto any right-wing movement as if it's a fucking lifesaver (it isn't); it's also worth recognising who is actually involved.
Should I blanket all anarchists for uncritically supporting things we definitely shouldn't? Or should I make examples of the ones who do that, which proves the point that not all of us uncritically support shit? I think the latter proves more useful.
The pamphlet is notable, however, in that – when not simply reducing our class struggle politics to either a strawman of conservative syndicalism, or an opportunistic tailing of social movements – it concedes so much to the mass-anarchist analysis.
So do most insurrectionary anarchists, if you'd bother to spend any time talking to them at all.
... And I can't continue commenting because it turns into something devoid of context and substance, focusing on who Bonanno quotes and how right the author might be about the position he's taken.
