As revolutionaries, we seek the demise of capitalism and patriarchy and wish the advent of
a more just social organization. But not only these goals are largely shared in any part
of the world, but still qualified revolutionary movements by the media as the "Arab
Spring" often turn bitter experiences. Such a finding, if not enough to discourage,
thought-provoking ... ---- Needless to say the entry: far from wanting a background text,
this article is just the reflection of the debate that took place on "Questioning the
meaning of our struggle," at the last commission log CA. ---- There is revolution and
revolution ...! ---- Because we are revolutionaries, we are a priori interested es when
people take to the streets and pose massive acts of direct democracy and
self-organization. Because when dynamic rupturiste creates a balance of power with power,
that certain themes such as social justice are positive feedback, we can work with others
and thereby advance, evolve together. But most people who protest in Libya claim? A state,
army, police ...
In Egypt, the army, which has a very special status inherited from the era of Nasser
government with popular support. The word revolution is nonetheless commonly used to
describe these social dynamics. In Tunisia, for example, it is he who is employed by the
actors and actresses of mobilization. We also hear about "Ukrainian revolution", while
there can be found on the same barricade, revolutionary, nationalist, fascist ... It is
clear that the term is actually used to describe primarily a desire to change the existing
social order as are not specified the desired objectives. Many people find themselves in
the same spirit with the desire to remove powers ("Get out!") however, when it comes to
not only be against but to build together another social organization, things become less
obvious. However, even if such "revolutions" are our eyes missed (they do not lead to the
company as we would like, non-capitalist, non-productivist without male domination and
stateless), it is not just to already come to overthrow a government in power.
Furthermore, it does not generally put in motion with lenses made beforehand and
sophisticated; dynamic snaps "simply", in which can then emerge, emerge and confront
objectives and strategies more or less bearing emancipation.
The disappearance of anti-hierarchical struggles
Number of factors are currently in disfavor of a revolutionary change; First, the
transformation of capitalism that have occurred globally in obviously accompanied by an
ideological hype and hence a change in attitudes. Propaganda served by the media after the
fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the implosion of the USSR (1991) has contributed
significantly to bury the idea of a revolution associated with communism. After it was
drummed into us on all the waves that history had reached its final stage with the end of
the class struggle and the triumph of "liberalism" ("capitalism" has become a dirty word
and obscene, and critical operating on a global scale system is reduced to that of "wild
liberalism" to tout a "liberalism with a human face" in tandem with the parliamentary
"democracy"); and also that the "complexity" of the "global village" produced by the
globalization of the economy should encourage them to rely on governments to manage
uncontrollable situation with ordinary mortals. Since those years has developed in the
western states the soft underbelly of the "politically correct" has more than forci nerve
protest. In France, the secondary sector has been largely undermined by the
"restructuring" and outsourcing, while a magnified when employees were tidy-es in all
formal education, with guidance in "tertiary sector middle classes "(and not the
proletariat proclaimed thereby endangered), which partly explains the loss of class
consciousness.
Before the labor movement marked clear between exploiters and exploited es limits, the
class struggle was clearly understood and the term revolution involved a total overthrow
of the established order to move towards a society without exploitation and oppression.
The revolutionary project has been a backlash in regards ideas of hierarchy and
competition, since they seem nowadays firmly anchored in the heads. Recent decades have
thus proved the antithesis of the 1970s, when the anti-hierarchical struggles,
anti-militarist, antipatriarcales were significant (CFDT itself does not she go back to
the slogan: "The hierarchy is as shelves, more is high and it is less "?). Certainly it
would be wrong to claim that there was a real ideological homogeneity in those years, as
many political movements and expressed faced in social dynamics, but they were then as
they grew Anyway to go forward without stopping these ideological differences. If there is
no need to mystify the 1970s, we note that the struggle against the hierarchy there got
some echo in the population, whereas today much value or at least admit competition and
competition, presented as much stimulation needed for the individual and society.
They-they want to be noticed for their es-"merit" (which is why Sarkozy has had some
success in advocating this criterion to evaluate the work, even when his ways upstart
vulgar and cynical repelled). And this is not the hierarchy that is criticized, but rather
the fact of not being able to belong to him with the same pay (see the claims of some
feminist movements focused on equality of wages in enterprises and accession to high
political office). When people say they want more justice, it is in relation to their
purchasing power, the possibility of reaching satisfy their ambitions and what they do
they have for their children - not so much destroying hierarchical relationships in
receipt of social ascent when they have limited resources. This ascent revealing less
easy, their bitterness against "profiteers" of the highest levels often leads to
abstention or to vote at the far right to far more than a revolutionary commitment.
Labels contending parties do not matter, it is true, since the key word is "liberalism"
and their leaders tend to come from middle or upper classes. The "left" stands out a
little from the right only on said subjects "of society" (end of life, family, descent
...), even if Valls will probably put on hold in an attempt to collect a policy more
"antisocial" and safe part of the right and center around a beleaguered President. The
French PS looks increasingly to the U.S. Democratic Party: it represents a large part of
these middle and upper classes who have an ascending "intellectual" on society through
schools and the media, and it is far Popular classes by their values and concerns. The
"left" reduces the thirst for justice gay marriage or gender in development so for a
company to better integrate women or satisfy some homosexual circles for electoral
purposes. However, if for example some reformist demands as gender equality in
remuneration would be a breakthrough for those who are not at the minimum wage, they are
quite digestible by the system and do not have much to do with social justice, which
passes through both the abolition of wage labor and the disappearance of male domination.
Acceptance of social control
Economic upheavals of recent decades have not a little contributed to changing attitudes
we see now: always idealize without post-68, it is noted that there was then a broad
denunciation of the police apparatus and monitoring in general, as well as strong enough
to fight the influence of the State on the actions and thought envy, and that such concern
seems to be largely fallen by the wayside. In an unfavorable economic context proletariat
worldwide, and an internationalism that is hardly ever claimed that by (small groups)
revolutionary, capitalism does not hurt to get its ideological message. Not only has he
managed to instill the need for hierarchy and competition, but it keeps mandating new
tools that put people under control while pretending to each-e is that it free and
responsible (his fate, condition, situation in the social hierarchy). He praises and
instills the qualities of "autonomy" provided that they are heard only as a "fend for
yourself" and are recovered to its advantage.
Today, the policing is so widely accepted as a perverse effect of modern societies - a
necessity, even if it is deemed unpleasant, so it can continue to ... consumption. Seen
with the development of "social networks", in which people do not hesitate to tell their
life through the menu without worrying about what that power can do their confidences
(they prefer they take the risk rather than to do without). Accepting or seeking social
control also serves to reassure - all instances of power using course to convince them to
trust him to face uncontrollable dangers of modern life, in order to deter any behavior
toward emancipation. Hence the low receptivity obtains the information of the video, for
example. As for police, they seem indispensable to a large part of the population, eager
to protect his despite having little or a lot. This is in addition to reviewing the form
of coercion, the policer avoiding attitudes "unnecessarily" brutal - but compared to the
"marginal", the "sunk" and other youth cited poor, on whom the police can be done by hand
without problem (see the lack of reaction against the curfew in 2005 during the "banlieue
revolt"). Controllers in transit are in the same logical less frowned upon since they are
"humanized" They have done internships to learn how to joke and not be pugs or bulldogs of
yesteryear ... and their profession was largely feminized in the same light "kind."
We also note the acceptance of this police state (formerly regarded as synonymous with
totalitarian society) regarding nuclear power, now considered a "tolerable" risk (nuclear
in France - the art of governing a contested technology Sezin Topcu shows how nucleocrats
relied on resistance to nuclear power to defuse, depoliticize, absorb and to accept their
program). With such a change in attitudes, we felt to backtrack after the withdrawal of
militant field and disenchantment What products failures of successive social movements,
as well as multiple scams from political parties - starting with the deformed recovery
themes of the post-68 about freedom and individual autonomy. The discontent of the people
facing a worsening economic situation and blatant social inequality has been and is
channeled into scapegoats such as immigrants-es and "suburban youth", Roma or
undocumented; mistrust vis-?-vis politics, embodied by the politician-no-s (and their
allies media) and what is their responsibility, continues to grow since, unlike the
post-68 where the idea that "everything is political" was not bad in the air time - that
is, everything affects us directly and we must decide all for everything. We find quite
often the rejection of politics when we come to frequent a priori refusal to take a tract
without even trying to know what it is about. The difference between the policy and tends
to disappear behind the only criticism of the "rotten political and media class" that made
the bed of the National Front. People who have radically opposed to the system, at
present, are therefore often isolated and very weakened by the lack of a consistent enough
solidarity to create a balance of power against repression.
Inadequate dissemination of experiences activists
We can see that the legacy of struggles is transmitted much: everything seems to always
start from scratch, as if each generation had to make his own experiences from itself
almost. Thus, on the women's liberation movement, this "oversight" of the 1970s led in
battle and the negative image of feminism in the following generations were particularly
negative, young women unwilling hardly claim much less in return the torch of protest on
any terrain, and frequently taking for granted inalienable victories such as authorization
of contraception and abortion torn by their elders - the cost of contraception in France
or the evolution of laws on abortion, particularly in Spain, show that it was nothing. The
unattractiveness of the rupturistes struggles seem to have held there in some measure to a
lack of political culture, the transmission of past mobilizations who was not done
properly? It is true that we never knew very well say that we won through struggles, and
it is still what we have lost ...
The desire for a return to order
Of all the brakes go against a radical change in society, it can also raise fast enough in
a lot of people in motion, an application for order for life to continue that business is
picking ... We seen even among those those who fight long and despite the repressive
violence. Or when, in a society seemingly without problems, confusion reigns fear (related
to social insecurity, lack of benchmarks and goals, to the abandonment of the idea of
class struggle, ideological fuzzy all of which help amalgam ...). This aspiration to
return to a certain social order goes against a "permanent revolution", and allows people
who are able to ask and ensure that order to enjoy popular support.
So what to do?
How to counter the current efficiency of the operating system and oppression, in the
absence of power-cons and despite some disillusionment with revolutionary movements? How
do I find a way, give meaning to our struggles? How to revive a class consciousness? How
to build a sufficient force and with whom? How to get out of our activists ghettos, this
tendency to reproduce an enclosing family (family being returned more than ever on the
planet based security and assistance in creating affinity groups)? How to enjoy
("capitalize"?) All lessons and wealth of our resistance? How to put on the agenda the
rejection of the world as it is organized on all terrains including of course that of
morality, and thus the idea of revolution? Extensive questioning ... It is in any case to
recreate the policy - otherwise continue to dominate politics, which only passes the
ballot and / or abstention.
And in a context where the dominant discourse western, that elections lead to democracy or
are the final mark is made more and more evil, even within states which are, with the rise
of ideas and right-wing forces. It always seems to us essential to build and develop in
collective struggles, they focus on education, law enforcement, land or any other matter,
alternatives to the current company to change itself with others, and making tangible and
credible possibility of another social organization. Collective action can exist only if
it is in a common area, and it involves both the local presence and a horizontal
organization, because these two elements help to think collectively and globally. Note
however that many people organized on such a basis and with whom we struggle and share
many of the goals that we want to justly anticapitalist, assembl?istes rupturistes and do
not define themselves as revolutionaries. Is it because the revolution is historically
associated with the use of weapons, the goal of taking state power and the establishment
of another state order? Because always "our revolutions are betrayed"?
Anyway, and not remain on the bleak picture of the period that the finding above prepared
could have drawn some major recent years mobilizations we sang well - such as the
anti-CPE, against pension reform ... or the "Arab Spring" - whatever may have been their
outcome. And some struggles at present only at the level of a region, a city, neighborhood
or business remain attractive to our eyes in many ways. For example that of Chiapas,
anything a territory where capitalism has failed to put a very strong impression, and
where a distinction was made between local organization and revolution. Or of the ZAD of
Notre-Dame-des-Landes, because it is another area of construction, strength and offensive
struggle (note more than the manifestation of Nantes on February 22 against the airport
has highlight how very different people could express themselves both diverse and
inclusive). Or that of CREA (Campaign requisition, mutual and self) in Toulouse, which
aims to make rather than talk - by acting on a specific place (a building in a
neighborhood) with people of different backgrounds and cultures, according to an
anti-hierarchical fashion and direct democracy constantly questioned, and trying to
reinvest political activists without reproducing traditional forms. And also that of
employee-resistant are collectively the deterioration of their working conditions or to
some plan "social" mean layoffs ...
Such experiences often open the field of possibilities, and are in any case antidotes to
resignation and discouragement. Multiply them!
Vanina
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