A-Infos (en) Czech, AFED: For free public transport - Reflections on the background of the demonstration against the increase in the price of public transport in Prague (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On Wednesday, February 21, part of the Prague group of the Anarchist 
Federation (AF) took part in a demonstration against the increase in 
public transport prices in Prague, which was organized by the Greens. 
Below I offer not only a reflection on the event itself, but also on our 
own situatedness and the process of negotiating an anarchist 
perspective. ---- Just the fact that we passively came to watch a 
non-radical demonstration indicates that we are willing to support even 
the moderate leftists who (as we think of them) naively believe that the 
elections will change something. If such an event has a clear message 
that we agree with, doesn't just serve as party propaganda, and doesn't 
have overtly authoritarian manifestations, then why not. It should be 
noted that the speech was relatively anti-capitalist (or at least 
anti-neoliberal) and, in addition to a constellation of progressive 
left-wing (aspiring or established) politicians, whose names I did not 
even remember, the camaraderie for the Hezekiahs also spoke. It is also 
true that if we gave some of these speeches at our events, probably no 
one would even recognize that they were not written by anarchism, that 
is, except for the missing cries of 
"a-anti-anti-capitalist/anti-fascist". In short, there was a consensus 
that free public transport was needed and that price increases were 
neoliberal asociality contributing to the environmental crisis. Perhaps 
it was possible to sense a little implicitly that, according to them, 
the problem is in specific right-wing politics and not in the whole 
system, but in general, people (about 200) who are pissed off that 
someone is planning to raise fares, and they know full well that free 
transport would could basically introduce today.

The organizers themselves had no problem with our presence, and even 
invited us to be more visible. Whether it was individual sympathy, a 
mistake, or whether the Greens like us, we don't know, but it certainly 
raises some interesting questions.

Disinformation has shown that we are not loud and proactive

When the organizer came up with the idea that our anarchist banners 
should go in the camera footage so that they would be more visible, I 
didn't find it so shocking that he then asked the fella next to me if he 
wanted to say something ad hoc. I thought he was a guy from 
Deconstruction or AF, and I interpreted that to mean that we were given 
space to talk, and in doing so I kind of disfigured my co-op. And so we 
decided whether or not to use it. I myself offered to say something 
spontaneously, but I am not the initiator of things and I need support 
to go into something like that, also from a psychological point of view. 
The second thing is that I didn't have a collective consensus, and I 
think it could be really bizarre for a lot of the membership (even if I 
wasn't speaking for AF, but as an "anarchist" in general). Personally, I 
feel that if done well, it could be constructive criticism as well as an 
ass...

Anyway, nothing happened, and maybe that's a good thing, because it's 
hard to say if my spontaneous theoretical lecture on the problems of 
representative democracy and state power, ending with the call to ride 
in the dark, would have turned out as well as I would have imagined. 
Still, it gave me a lot to think about: Why not seize such 
opportunities? It makes sense? Is it an unnecessary provocation or is it 
constructive? It probably depends a lot on the context, but it didn't 
occur to me until now that even moderate demonstrations can actually be 
more active and enrich them more than as standard bearers and maybe 
chant something and create a more radical atmosphere (if it seems 
appropriate to us given the context, of course).

Politicians are scumbags, but we don't have to tell them that at all costs

In the context of this demonstration, it would of course be bizarre if 
we just started swearing at politicians just like that. Probably none of 
us have confidence even in the political representation of the Greens, 
but I personally believe that at least the people who spoke are not 
anti-social. Rather, the classic anarchist lesson applies, that state 
politics will turn a good person into an asocial, or that person will 
not last in politics, or simply will not push through anything truly 
radical. It sounds like disgust, skepticism and grumpiness, but even if 
it is not an absolute rule (we must not forget that the motivation of 
many people who go into representative politics may not be only their 
class interest or desire for authority and power, but also an effort to 
actually change something , and the gain of the monopoly on violence 
makes it possible to make various changes), if we want a just world, it 
is necessary for us to be skeptical and critical of any power and any 
politician push some agenda). However, a just world itself means that no 
politicians will exist, or that they will not have decision-making 
powers and no one will have to obey them under the threat of violence 
(this does not mean the absence of delegation of tasks or the absence of 
rules, only that something like this must be controlled from below - see 
e.g. functioning of the Zapatistas).

The anarchist perspective offers both ideas of other possible worlds and 
the practice of collective resistance and networks of mutual aid. Two 
points come to mind regarding public transport:

1) Because power corrupts (the environment of representative democracy 
is toxic) and because the state and capital are continuous vessels that 
cannot exist without each other (capital needs to be protected by goons, 
and the state needs economic growth to exist in global capitalism), and 
the central management of large entities can never reflect the needs of 
all (however, those at the top, even after the introduction of the new 
ten offices, can never gain awareness of what is really happening in 
people's everyday lives, and even if they do, if one group of people has 
control over the lives of other groups , there can be no question of a 
just world), it is necessary to constantly remind that things must be 
managed by the people they concern. If we want public transport for 
free, it is not enough for it to be centrally managed by a privileged 
left-wing elite in a capitalist and representative-democratic 
arrangement. It is necessary to find ways to involve the workers and 
passengers themselves in joint decision-making, and to enable them to 
create voluntary networks of mutual help and alternatives. And we are 
the ones who can show (practically and theoretically) how something like 
that could look like. If we demand a solution to the core of the problem 
and at the same time do not believe in the totality of the proletariat 
(i.e. the violent takeover of the state by the workers), we have no 
choice but to at least be inspired by the anarchist perspective, which 
emphasizes local consensual decision-making and organization without a 
power hierarchy. (So if you take over something by force, do not aspire 
to rule, but instead create structures so that no one can rule; or if 
you are promoting reform, then one that will allow people to live 
outside the dominance of capital and the state and will be in the 
interest of the underprivileged).

2) It is already possible to build mutual aid networks. With regard to 
expensive public transport, mass actions of black driving and collective 
solidarity in paying fines are directly offered. Even something so 
practical cannot be done completely thoughtlessly: such a form of 
resistance should not slip into the subcultural level only if it wants 
to have some greater social significance, etc. However, it is precisely 
this way of thinking that is most typical for anarchism: shit on the 
political set and look for alternative routes. Of course, complete 
isolation doesn't make sense either, but it is precisely the practice 
that makes us anarchists and that has the potential to effectively break 
down ossified orders. If people go home after a demonstration and go 
about their lives as if nothing happened, something is wrong. They say 
that it takes a really tumultuous topic or a lot of mobilization and 
promotion to get people really pissed off and come together... Or it 
would be good if political resistance came from existing mutual 
relationships and everyday life... E.g. the creation of decentralized 
cells, in which hundreds of people would drive illegally and help each 
other with fines and auditors, would ultimately create far greater 
pressure on politicians, and not only that: it would actually positively 
affect people's daily lives in some way, a possible demonstration would 
not only random thing of the week, but part of a wider daily resistance.

So what lessons can we learn? It wasn't my point to call for some 
specific practice (although I have my favorite ideas), it's not my point 
to start yelling at the Greens' demonstrations that we need to 
democratize public transport and drive in the dark until it happens. 
Rather, I wanted to offer a question for reflection, what is our role at 
similar events. Do we go there to look passively and skeptically, or do 
we actively create something? Both variants are perfectly fine. In fact, 
the most important thing is to talk about it together - it is the 
discussions and experiments in the streets that negotiate our function 
and meaning in social friction.

https://www.afed.cz/text/8121/za-mhd-zdarma
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