A-Infos (en) : New: Hot Tide Discussion Bulletin #3

[dr woooo <vornman@excite.com>]

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      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
            http://www.ainfos.ca/
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>  From: kk abacus <kk_abacus@yahoo.com>


  Hot Tide is produced by Leila and Sasha, who can be contacted at:
kk_abacus@yahoo.com
  
  We welcome and print responses.
   
  Note: Killing King Abacus issue 2 will be out in about a month. For hard
copies send $3 to Killing King Abacus, 41 Sutter St. PMB 1661, San Francisco
CA 94104. The KKA web site has a new page: Insurrection, Organization,
Activism and Anti-Politics
(http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa.ioaa.html). If you have any
suggestions for articles to put on the IOAA page or the Hot Tide
Anti-Authoritarian/ Anti-Capitalist Analysis Page
(http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/analysis.html ), please email us.
  
  Solidarity, Analysis and the North-South Divide
   
  As capitalism expands its grip extensively across the globe and
intensively within our daily practices and relations the divisions between
its center and periphery become blurred. Third world and first world have
long been approximate categories, many LA neighborhoods have health
statistics that are roughly equivalent to those in the third world and the
elite shopping districts of third world cities have been largely
indistinguishable from those in the rich countries for decades. The recent
acceleration of capitalist globalization has sped up this process;
corporations are moving to where the labor is cheapest, and when possible
labor is moving to where wages promise to be highest. Thus, the difference
between the maquiladoras of Mexicali and the sweatshops of the garment
district of LA is negligible. While the divisions between first world and
third world are blurring in some aspects, this blurring is in no way an
equalizing process. 
  
  While anti-neoliberalization struggles, most often specifically against
the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs, have been widespread in the poorer
countries since the early eighties, many North American activists and
anarchists tend to believe the CNN created image of a singular
anti-globalization movement that is centered in Europe and North America.
Somehow between the words anti-neoliberalization and anti-globalization an
artificial gap was created. The one notable exception is the Zapatistas, who
made sure that their opposition to NAFTA and neo-liberalization in general
was publicized world-wide in part by choosing to attack on the day NAFTA was
implemented. 
  
  While many are ignorant of third world struggles others venerate them.
They embrace third world struggles uncritically because they feel that
people involved in those struggles play at higher stakes than we do, are
subject to higher repression that we simply cannot understand and that we
therefore have no right to criticize them. This argument is persuasive
because it brings up a relevant concern. Struggles occur in specific times
and places; we should not simply slap perspectives and strategies that grew
out of one situation onto another one. That is we should try to take
differences into account, but it doesn't logically follow that we shouldn't
look at struggles in places far or near with a critical eye. Veneration is a
form of ignorance because it refuses to look at the ugly side of a
situation. 
  
  While not all anti-globalization struggles are against capitalism in its
totality, all are against the unlimited penetration of capitalist
valorization into all territories and all relations. The struggles against
the IMF imposed Structural Adjustment Programs are struggles against the
disappearance of spheres such as health care and schooling that are somewhat
independent of 'pure' market forces. As we know, in North America there have
been struggles to protect anything from forests, to jobs, to society as a
whole from the total onslaught of capitalist valorization. Many of these
struggles have goals which are contrary to anarchist aims; some aim to
preserve state control over specific institutions or to increase the
government's control over the economy. But this does not mean that the
motivating forces behind these struggles don't have something to teach us.
 
  For some critique is a reason not to learn about a struggle. The
anti-ideological ideology of Anarchism often results in a black and white
division of reality. Some anarchists seem to think that being against
nationalism solves the problem it poses. Yet just as many anti-globalization
struggles whose aims diverge from ours may have much to teach us the same is
true of National Liberation Struggles. Our analysis could focus on two
levels: that of capital and the state's functioning in a specific places
(the motivations for struggle) and that of the struggle itself and its
strategies. In Irian Jaya at the moment there is an independence movement
that is for the most part anti-development. Factions of the movement are
against the large mining company in the interior. This is partially a
movement against capitalist penetration since Irian Jaya still has large
areas where the people's main means of subsistence are independent of
capital's grasp. But as I have said, resistance to the penetration of
capitalist valorization is a point within many struggles at which analysis
may be useful. The reasons that National Liberation Struggles have surfaced
and that they have appeared in so many places are important potential points
of analysis that we shouldn't ignore. We cannot merely wish away
nationalism. National Liberation Struggles (as well as many
anti-globalization movements) recuperate revolt that could be directed
against the state and capitalism as a whole. We therefore need to be asking
why nationalism is so compelling.
  
  The UNAM strike of 1999-2000 was a struggle which, while not ignored, is
often viewed as much more separate from the recent anti-globalization
protests in the rest of North America than is actually the case. While
Mexico City is closer to San Francisco than New York more people from
California seemed to be going to Prague in September 2000 than those who
acted in solidarity with the UNAM strikers. The strike was another example
of a protest against government cutbacks because of IMF pressure, it doesn't
take much of leap to see the obvious connection between this and the
anti-globalization protests in Seattle, yet they are not immediately
understood as being struggles motivated by the same force--the further
globalization of capital. Anarchists have reason to be critical of the UNAM
strike, it was not anti-capitalist or anti-state as a whole though such
groups were involved in the strike. Many of the strikers were initially even
supporters of the PRD, the ruling party in Mexico City. However, after
strikers were beaten and arrested support for the party waned. The UNAM
strike aimed at stopping significant rises in tuition which would have
prevented sizable portions of the student body from continuing their
education. Tuition hikes are a mechanism of exclusion, they increase the
divisions between classes. The UNAM strike was a struggle against
capital&#65533;s attempts to place more people in a marginalized position so
that they can be more easily and thoroughly exploited.
  
  Regardless of our level of distance from critique of the UNAM strike
there is something to be learned from the students' tactics. The students
engaged in dialogue with the government. The rector called the students to a
last chance dialogue the day before troops invaded the campus. They were led
to believe that they had a chance to achieve their goals through dialogue
but they were deceived. UNAM economics professor Alfredo Velarde summarized
the government's strategy: "The government scorned the struggle of the
students and then applied the same strategy they do with the Zapatistas.
Since the beginning of the student movement, they let the conflict rot, then
feigned dialogue, and refused to fulfill the agreements which they signed,
as happened with the San Andres accords." Javier Elorige put it even more
simply: "It's the same thing, they dialogue to buy time and in the end they
finish it up with brutal force, negotiate to buy time and see who they can
beat up in the meantime." The experience of the UNAM strikers is a reminder
that dialogue with the state is a futile process.
 
  Thus far we have discussed the value of analyzing struggles which one is
critical of, this was not meant to imply that therefore one should extend
solidarity to any struggle. On the other hand, critique is not a reason in
itself to rule out solidarity. When we are critical of those who share our
aims, critical solidarity is a way for disagreements over strategy, tactics
and organization to be aired and discussed without trying to block each
other's actions. If we continually block the actions of others no action
will take place. Notably, since Seattle theoretical divisions have taken on
less importance; now that there is plenty to do theoretical divisions give
way to concerns of practical importance. This was particularly clear in the
call for a revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Block at the A16 Washington DC
protest, which was a significant call for solidarity and joint action by all
those who consider themselves to be anti-capitalist revolutionaries. As a
minority within the movement of the exploited, anarchists must find ways to
work and interact with those they disagree with. At the same time this
doesn't mean that disagreements should be hidden. It is important that the
concept of critical solidarity be understood widely, for all too often a
critical attitude is taken to mean lack of support. We can be critical of
the Zapatistas while we act in solidarity with the struggle of the excluded
in Chiapas against the Mexican state and the imposition of neo-liberal
economics. It is always more important to act in solidarity with people's
decision to create their own lives, than to agree with their theoretical
perspective or the tactics they choose. It is the solidarity with the
becoming-active of others that is most vital. 
  
  Along with a critical solidarity that is always open to the autonomous
action of others we need to build a revolutionary solidarity. Revolutionary
solidarity should be active and in conflict with the structures of
domination. Revolutionary solidarity allows us to move far beyond the "send
a check" style solidarity that so pervades the left as well as the
solidarity that relies on petitioning the state for relief or mercy.
Revolutionary solidarity communicates the link between the exploitation and
repression of others and our own fate; and it shows people the points at
which capitalism or the state operate in similar ways in different places.
It does this through action not propaganda. By creating links between the
struggles against the power structures that form the state and capital,
revolutionary solidarity has the potential to take our local struggles
beyond artificial divisions between the north and south to a global level. 
  
  Assault on the Border
  
  The next WTO ministerial will meet within the safe borders of Qatar. This
is no surprise; did anyone really believe all this talk of dialogue? During
the Seattle meeting, an official from China commented that if the meetings
were held in his country there wouldn&#65533;t be such problems as we saw in
the streets. And so it is. Some British biotech firms are shifting their
genetic-crop testing precisely to China; no elves of the night there yet.
Quebec&#65533;s new wall is being built to protect the FTAA meetings. So
what is to be done? More city based Global Days of Action anyway? How about
an assault on the border?
 
  There has been a lot of talk about globalization as the disappearance of
the nation-state or the border, but the truth is that exclusion is the other
face of capitalist globalization. Borders are getting more flexible for the
flow of capital and commodities and stricter for people. Those who cross
borders illegally are facing harsher treatment. This is necessary for the
continued accumulation of capital. Labor is trapped and separated while
capital can easily pick up and move to where labor is the cheapest.
Maintaining differences in wage rates is essential to an always-globalizing
capital; that is why capitalism can never do without the state and its
borders. Thus nationalism isn&#65533;t an alternative to globalization, as a
minority within the anti-globalization movement would have it.
 
  The border is one of capitalism&#65533;s weak points, both physically and
rhetorically. All the talk of globalization and one world fades under the
harsh lights of the border patrol and the detention centers. Every week we
hear more horror stories of human transport, of escape and capture: escape
from low wages and destroyed lives and capture within new regimes of
precariousness and powerlessness. And the immigrants keep coming. And the
walls must be built higher, the penalties harsher.
  
  Instead of another Global Day of Action in the cities, instead of
activist tourism to Qatar, let&#65533;s target the border, the detention
center, the gated community, the sweatshop (the sweatshop is the child of
the border after all). We need to fight the regime that identifies some as
illegal and others as legal. This division enforces a precariousness upon us
all, a precariousness that disciplines each of us and opens us to greater
exploitation. A continued focus on the WTO and financial capital builds the
impression that we are only against a certain type of capitalism. It also
opens the movement to co-optation by nationalists and the far right. A focus
on borders will expose the wrongheaded arguments of the nationalist
fair-weather friends within the anti-globalization movement, and it will
show that the globalization we desire can only be accomplished through the
destruction of the nation-state and capitalism. Immigration struggles are
found everywhere; for this one we don&#65533;t need to follow the
bureaucrats on their holiday in the sun. The struggle against borders and
detention centers is an ongoing struggle of the excluded, the exploited, to
determine our own fate. We are all illegal until no one is illegal.
Exclusion kills us all.
  
  The targets are everywhere; you choose the tactics. Such a struggle is
not a one-day event.
  
  Response and Debate
 
  "Can you address the issue of "identification", and specifically give
some information on FORENSICS? If small-scale affinity groups are to carry
out serious actions, obviously it is in their best interests to know both
the PROCESSES and the TECHNOLOGIES of forensics, in order to avoid
identification. Question : Is it even useful for such action-groups to
attend large-scale demonstrations, given the fact that they may "identify"
themselves? Or would it be better to pose as "normal citizens" and have
nothing to do with social activism movements that identify one to the FBI
,etc. as possible suspects? If one loves freedom, one should take practical
steps to remain free and not martyr oneself to ideals, no? Just curious
about some of these questions. Thank you for the 'zine and the excellent
work." 
  
  ---Corn"Bob" Toweller 
  
  Corn, These are certainly things people should be looking into. And many
zines have printed articles that might help you out here, see the latest Do
Or Die, for instance. But it is best to go to the library and pay attention
to the news. The latest Do Or Die also tentatively discusses the issue of
the contradictions between underground and above ground activities. This is
a very difficult question as if we separate the two types of activities too
rigidly there is a danger that we will become more and more the
specialists-in-revolution that we have critiqued so thoroughly. This is one
reason why small actions, easily reproducible are probably better than
always upping the scale of actions. This is part of the success of the ELF
to date: it isn&#65533;t so hard for anyone to repeat their&#65533;not to
imply they are &#65533;a&#65533; group&#65533;actions. 
  
  Discussion on Activism and Organization:
 
  Dirty Mirrors and Deformed Reflections
  
  ---A response to Chris Dixon&#65533;s "Reflections on Privilege,
Reformism, and Activism"
(http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/dixon2.html ) , by sasha k . This
article is from a discussion on activism that has been generated after sasha
responded to Chris Dixon&#65533;s Finding Hope After Seattle
(http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/hope.html ). Follow the discussion
on the new Insurrection, Organization, Activism and Anti-Politics Page
(http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/ioaa.html) at the kka web site.
 
  My initial response was pointed and limited in scope. It critiqued what I
view as some significant problems in Chris' original article ("Finding Hope
After Seattle"). It did not state my whole perspective on the problems we
face in the world and how to resist and attack capitalism. Unfortunately,
this has opened the ground for Chris to imagine a whole "approach" that I
"represent" and "epitomize." Most of this is pure invention and assertion,
and certainly cannot be found in my initial response nor in my other
writings. So much of this response is taken up with showing how little this
invention has to do with my perspective. Normally I find correcting such
misreadings to be a rather pointless task, but here I believe it does
clarify some significant differences in our perspectives as well as--I
hope--point towards some theoretical and practical tasks that anarchists
must take on under the present circumstances. Additionally, in my initial
response to Chris, I did not touch on the points I agree with him on as I
was trying to indicate the most problematic aspects of his original article.
For example, I never said or implied that I thought anti-racist organizing
was unimportant, nor did I dismiss it. I guess I feel that that should be
obvious to anarchists (who have been involved in such activity for a long
time, although there are plenty of other areas that anarchists need to be
involved in), but perhaps it isn't. I hope that this effort at clarification
is effective in dismissing some of the most blatant mischaracterizations of
my perspective, so that we can develop a more useful discussion.
  
  In my limited critique I didn't elaborate in great detail other "openings
to different types of self-organization" as that would be a huge essay in
itself. But in the next Killing King Abacus (out soon) there is a long
(around 10,000 words) article that, while still limited, goes into quite a
bit of detail on the matter, and I won't repeat it here.
 
  Let's get some of the more blatant misrepresentations out of the way
first:
  
  1: Anarchists as an elite: this certainly isn't the crux. Chris somehow
reads my mind, only it must be someone else's: "To sasha's mind, anarchists
are an insurgent elite, valiant warriors in an eternal conflict with
'imposed social order.' And with only thinly veiled contempt, he pities 'the
masses' unwilling to make the 'not always easy choice.'" I do not in any way
consider anarchists to be an elite or to be valiant warriors: I do suggest
that anarchists are a minority within the struggling multitude and should be
willing to admit this; in fact, they have to admit this if they are to work
with non-anarchists which is what they must do (we have gone into this in
some detail in both Hot Tide and Killing King Abacus). I also have no
contempt for "the masses"--a term I used sarcastically in my initial
response as I don't believe there is anything called "the masses," which to
me implies a level of homogeneity that doesn't exist in what I usually call
the multitude. It would certainly be bullshit to have contempt for those
excluded, oppressed and exploited and those of them struggling to end such
conditions. I do not have contempt for the excluded and exploited as I am of
the excluded and exploited (this, of course, does not mean that we are all
equally oppressed). There is nothing in what I have written that indicates
any contempt (thinly veiled or otherwise) for the "masses." Such contempt or
pity is much more common among activists who see themselves as standing
above the exploited and excluded.
  
  2: In discussing everyday struggles and forms of resistance, Chris'
assumptions about my perspective reach an absurd level, so much so that this
misunderstanding seems quite willful, or for the sake of argument. He has
somehow decided that I am against everyday forms of struggle, that they
don't fit within my perspective, that I don't "deign to discuss these
all-too-pedestrian realities," and that to me "they apparently don't
constitute a sufficient 'critique.'" ***Nowhere in my initial response do I
attack, put-down, critique, or otherwise disparage such everyday forms of
struggle. In fact, I have (over the years and continue to do so) spent a
significant portion of time writing about such forms of struggle.*** I have
always acknowledged and valorized everyday forms of resistance such as
slacking off, absenteeism, sabotage, and even shop floor 'counterplanning,'
and I have taken part in such activity. More to the point, it is exactly
forms of autonomous and 'unofficial' organizing that I find most powerful.
Living in China, it is hard not to understand the value of such struggles,
as there are no official forms of struggle allowed, and any attempt to
organize lands one in jail. It is out of these forms of non-official and
autonomous resistance that the anarchist ethic grows, and this allows
anarchists to struggle within--not organize from above--the general
population of those excluded and exploited. But instead of paying attention
to what I have written, Chris imagines a whole approach that I "represent"
and then decides what fits into that imagined perspective and what doesn't.
>From someone who claims we should listen carefully to and learn from each
other, this blatant misrepresentation and fabrication is quite surprising.
  
  3: Perhaps more damaging (and more bizarre), Chris states that I am
"...wholly unconcerned with the consequences and dynamics of racism
specifically, and of many other systems of power more generally." And that
this is "embedded in his [sasha k's] assumptions." Quite a shock if it was
true that an anarchist was unconcerned about racism and other systems of
power. Yet Chris makes no attempt to explain how it is that this is embedded
in my assumptions (assumptions that he doesn't even name). Instead, he
constructs a simplistic dichotomy of two types of anti-authoritarians and
then asserts that I am of the worst type of these caricatures and he is of
the other. But my perspective has little relation to this caricature, and
this will be more clear as this response develops. Just because I believe
the state and capitalism need to be destroyed in order to end all oppression
and exploitation (I thought this was the minimal definition of an anarchist)
doesn't mean I am that I believe that they are the only systems of power or
hierarchies that need to be dismantled. This isn't to suggest we have no
differences in our perspectives; we have many.
  
  Reflecting on which tactics further our goals and which don't isn't just
a "rhetorical sleight of hand." After I sent off my initial response I
realized that the sentence in which I said calling a reformist a reformist
was a "simple fact of language" was silly and simplistic--certainly a poor
choice of words. Chris is right in saying "it simply isn't a cut-and-dry
issue." But that is why we need to seriously reflect on our tactics and
goals and not cut off the discussion with simplistic charges of purist
anarchism and white privilege. Chris argues that I exclude discussions of
race and gender: ***never do I suggest that discussions of race and gender
should be excluded. I never said that, nor did I imply it.*** My initial
response focused on the question of activism as a specialized role and as a
form of organization. This limited--in scope--critique did not in any way
mean that other questions would be "excluded" from discussion. If anything
it meant the opposite: A more reflexive look at tactics and goals will, of
course, include an understanding of how race, gender, and class along with
all unequal power-relations work together to maintain the present social
order. And I never said that white privilege was merely rhetoric, that would
be an absurd assertion; just because there is rhetoric surrounding an issue
doesn't mean that there is no reality to that issue. It is the rhetoric
coupled up with an attack on "purist anarchism" that I critiqued as I
believe it cut off important discussion on tactics and goals. 
 
  In my initial response to Chris article, I critiqued him for implying
that just about any tactic or activity that brings about some change or
other to society should be embraced by anarchists. In his response he is
more clear about what counts as a reform worth fighting for and what
doesn't. However, we still have significant disagreements about this point,
and I still feel that he is not reflexive enough when thinking about tactics
and long range goals. (Of course, we both seem to be assuming we have the
same long range goals, which might not be the case.) For most anarchists
direct action has been the chosen tactic for good reason, yet Chris suggests
the use of mediated action as well, and this is what I critiqued him for.
The reason anarchists have chosen direct action instead of mediated action
is nothing to do with trying to remain morally pure--this is what Chris
argued in his initial article--but everything to do with what works. For
anarchists, who want to create a world in which people act on their desires
instead of being trapped by imposed decision, trapped in conditions of
poverty, oppression and alienation, it is usually understood that people
can't take back their power to act through means that give that power right
back to the state or some other transcendent institution (the church, the
Party). We can't use alienated means to end alienation.
  
  The state is a form of alienated power: we have given up our power or it
has been taken from us and it has been instituted in the state form.
Alienated power bends back on us and forces us to act in ways we wouldn't
otherwise act or to not act in ways we wish to act. Anarchists are for the
destruction of alienated power, for people taking back their power to act as
they see fit instead of letting the state act for them. This is the essence
of direct action; it is the opposite of alienated power; it is acting
directly on our desires. If we see something that we feel needs to be done
we do it directly and don't ask the state--a form of alienated power--to do
it for us. Asking or petitioning the state to act for us is mediated action.
Anarchists have recognized that the use of mediated action backfires since
instead of learning to act for themselves people remain dependent on the
state to act for them. We will not learn to act for ourselves nor will we
build power outside of state and capitalist institutions if we use mediated
action instead of direct action, if we rely on alienated power to act for us
instead of our own power. In fact, in most cases using mediated action only
strengthens the imposition of state power and deepens our dependence.
 
  None of this means that anarchists can't work with those who have
reformist goals. As I stated before, we must work with others as we are
certainly a minority within the excluded, oppressed and exploited. Nor does
this mean that reforms won't come about as a result of the actions we take.
Let's look at a couple of examples. The campaign against GM foods is a good
example of how anarchists can work with non-anarchists. For the most part
the campaign against GM foods has used direct action as its means: people
have gone out and directly removed what they see as a dangerous technology.
As a side effect of this campaign, some governments have instituted reforms
in order to limit the use of GM foods. I would guess that these states were
acting primarily out of a fear of people taking direct action; they have
attempted to bring the issue back into the realm of state policy instead of
uncontrollable direct action. Luckily, most of the anti-GM food campaigners
haven't given in to state reform and instead have continued with direct
action (the reforms will be enacted anyway, with or without our dialogue and
compromise). In doing so many have come to learn to act for themselves
instead of relying on the state to do it for them.
 
  Compare this to an example of mediated action: Chris states, "[W]e need
revolutionary strategy that links diverse, everyday struggles and demands to
long-term radical objectives, without sacrificing either. Of course, this
isn't to say that every so-called 'progressive' ballot initiative or
organizing campaign is necessarily radical or strategic." Chris suggests
that anarchists should work for certain "progressive" ballot measures, ones
that enact "non-reformist or structural reforms." First of all, let's admit
that we are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to ballot measures as
we don't have the money to spend to beat our opponents: we are playing in a
game that they invented in order to beat us. Secondly, by using petitioning
and mediated action we give up our power to the state: not only do we
legitimate the state's theft of our power to act, but we learn to rely on
the state to act for us. This deconstructs any counter-power we have begun
to build through direct action. It is through just such mediated actions
that the state recuperates potentially radical movements. While diversity in
struggle sounds good in the abstract, this shouldn't come to mean that
anything that brings about whatever change in society is a positive action.
We need to make choices as anarchists; not all actions move us in the
direction we wish to go, nor are all actions equally effective. It is even
more important to be critical in our reflection on tactics considering that
we are such a minority within those that are struggling to change the world
we live in. 
 
  The center of our disagreement seems to be about tactics, yet as Chris
correctly points out, it actually stems from our different theoretical
understanding of our (as in all humans') present conditions (in all their
complexity). To be clear: Yes, I see capitalism and the state as major
constitutive elements of our society. Yet I don't think that this contradict
the fact that there are "diffuse and interlocking systems of oppressive
power." In fact, capitalism and the state work with and through such diffuse
systems of power. That is why we must simultaneously attempt to bring down
all forms of oppression while we attack capitalism and the state. Such a
task is certainly "complex, messy, and rarely straightforward." And yes, I
do see commonalities in our struggle and our circumstances (Chris critiques
me for using the word "our" as if there were no commonalities). Let's try to
look at the differences in our perspectives in more detail:
  
  To describe the context of the anti-WTO protests, Chris states,
"Foremost, as Pauline Hwang notes, 'What the media and the post-Seattle
'movement' are making a fuss over as 'corporate globalization' or
'capitalist globalization' are the same old imperialist, colonialist and
patriarchal and --yes racist--policies that have plagued the planet for
centuries.'" Such a perspective has serious implications (as do all
perspectives of course). Many people within the 'movement' certainly are
"making a fuss" over corporate globalization and others focus on a
continually globalizing capitalism--a capitalism that has been a plague on
the world for some 500 years. But Chris approvingly cites Hwang's argument
that instead of "making a fuss" over capitalism we should focus on
imperialism, colonialism, patriarchy and racism. Hwang's perspective in no
way suggests a critique of capitalism and the state; in fact, most
perspectives that focus on anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism end up
defending third-world nationalism (and usually, in the process, the
capitalist classes of the third world) in their attack on the racist
policies of first-world nations (and they certainly are racist). Yet even if
racism didn't exist, the third world would still find itself exploited and
excluded by capitalism. Here I have a serious difference with Hwang and,
seemingly, with Chris. I believe that at heart capitalism will destroy the
world we live in; it is doing this daily as it daily destroys the lives of
those it exploits and oppresses.
  
  A perspective that places imperialism and colonialism at its center
often--as in the case of Hwang--excludes a critique of the capitalist logic
which is consuming our world and of the oppressive nature of the state which
maintains it. Hwang and Chris' perspective moves us in the wrong direction
as it forestalls the reflexive development of an understanding of how
oppression and exploitation operate in a complex pattern across the globe;
it forestalls an understanding of the totality of our present social
conditions.
  
  Again, to be very clear, this in no way implies that capitalism and the
state are the cause of all of our problems, nor does it imply that we don't
need to deal with the issues of race and gender. In fact, we can't rid our
world of exploitation, exclusion, and oppression without dealing with issues
such as race and gender, and I would hope this is obvious to most
anarchists.
 
  Perspectives that are organized around the simplistic binary
sameness/difference construct (this does not, of course, mean that there are
not real material basis for such binaries in our world) a series of binaries
that are used to valorize struggle or practice. The most commonly used
binaries are gender, race, sexual preference and class. (Although, in such
perspectives class is understood as a cultural category without paying much
attention to the class relations of the capitalist regime of value. Thus it
is the 'middle class' that stands on the side of sameness and privilege,
while if we understood the 'middle class' from a perspective of capitalist
social relations we would see that most of them are working class in that
they sell their time in order to survive and that surplus value is
expropriated from them. But this short response is no place for a detailed
class analysis.) The most dangerous effect of such a perspective is that
these dichotomies can be used to claim that only those on the side of
difference have the right to speak. And this is exactly what I critiqued
Chris' original article for: people who question his tactics, who critique
them for maintaining or preserving the systems of oppression they are
supposed to be dismantling, are in advance named as standing on the wrong
side of the dichotomy, and thus the content of their critique is ignored and
they are told they have no authority to speak. This is dangerous and it is
self-defeating. The vast majority of humans are exploited, excluded and
oppressed by a complex regime of interlocking power-relations; while we
certainly need to understand our position within such a system, we shouldn't
authorize some to be legitimate spokespeople because of their level of
suffering (or because of their activist credentials) and others as those to
be ignored because they don't stand within enough categories of difference.
This is similar to what happened in Maoist China. I certainly agree with
Chris that all who wish to end our present nightmare need to reflect on
their position in society, yet such reflection shouldn't be used to silence
people.
 
  This brings us to a another misreading which, more than the others,
points to how our perspectives differ; and, therefore, I discuss this
misreading in much more detail as I believe it brings up some significant
differences in perspective that are important for anarchists to pay
attention to. Chris claims that I pay no attention to social particularities
or difference. I find this critique especially strange as I usually get
critiqued for just the opposite, that I stress the particular too much.
Chris states: "I don't think sasha, along with the approach that he
represents [that mythical approach I represent], cares to notice
particularities. The presumption [***one I most certainly never make***] is
a social reality in which we are all evenly oppressed, largely
undifferentiated, 'enmeshed,' as he says, in 'capitalist social relations.'"
Chris makes no attempt to explain how it is that I make this "presumption,"
and he can't, as I never do. Somehow from my statement that we are all
enmeshed in capitalist social relations, Chris assumes that this means I
believe we are all "evenly oppressed, and largely undifferentiated." Only
the most simplistic analysis of capitalist social relations would presume
that we are all evenly oppressed or undifferentiated. That is an absurdity.
Unfortunately, throughout his response, Chris takes me as the representative
of an "approach," then, instead of discussing what I have said, attacks that
imagined approach. But I have very little in common with that approach; in
fact, much of what I have written stands in opposition to just such a
simplistic approach. Instead of confronting my comments, Chris resorts to
creating an easily-knocked-down, cardboard-cut-out of an argument that bares
not even the slightest relation to how I understand the complex pattern of
our present social conditions or the complex pattern of struggle to free
ourselves from them. (I use "ourselves" because it is only in solidarity
with others and by joining together with others that we can liberate
ourselves form such oppressive conditions, and because there are
commonalities in what oppresses us!) If we are to have a discussion, we need
to be better at reading each other.
  
  This all points to the need to develop theory and practice in order to
understand and attack the complex pattern of exploitation, oppression and
exclusion that effects us all. This is not easy: nor can we do so and at the
same time avoid the contradictions and tensions that grow out of such a
process. Far from ignoring the particular, the tension between the
particular and the universal has been central to my writing on anarchism and
resistance for some time. Here I quote from my "The Scale of Capitalism and
Resistance" from Hot Tide 1 and a response to a letter about that article
that was printed in Hot Tide 2:
  
  "[The] problem of the individual and society or of class versus the
individual, has no simple solution; instead, there will always be a tension
in revolutionary practice between scalar levels; one cannot just choose to
privilege one and ignore the other. We want to make the point that it is
false to conceive of individualism and communism as a problem with a simple
solution or a simple choice, and that this has important consequences for
revolutionary practice. Thus we are in fact saying that it is only when the
individual and class are treated separately as purely theoretical issues
that a theoretical solution to the problem can be found, whereas in practice
the tension will remain, it cannot be wiped out by theory. We are critiquing
the use of the individual and of class as pure theoretical constructs for
the very reason that we want to open the fertile space of tension that
exists between them in practice."
  
  And: "The time for thinking in terms of the 'mass' is long gone (if there
ever was one); we need to be able to conceptualize resistance without either
wiping out our differences, or denying commonality in struggle (there is
only one capitalism). There is no homogenous mass, only a multitude of
participants in the struggle against capitalism. This seeming contradiction
between the desires of an individual and the struggle of the multitude is
indeed difficult to attend to but it is enormously important. In moments of
struggle we need to make space for our differences while attacking the many
headed hydra of capitalism."
  
  Chris critiques me for generalizing about the nature of oppression:
specifically he attacks my use of the terms "exploited" and "excluded" as
too general and "individual" as abstract and one-dimensional. There is
absolutely nothing in my initial response that indicates that I believe
individuals are one-dimensional (it might be interesting to hear from Chris
what he means by this). As should be clear from the above quotes I am not at
all interested in wiping out or ignoring our differences; on the contrary,
they are central to my analysis. To be more clear, I believe individuals are
enmeshed within a complex network of unequal power-relations. Individuals
are both differentiated and homogenized, included and excluded, by such
power-relations. The categories of "exploited and excluded" are indeed
general, but if I was to name each individual in all their uniqueness,
particularity and difference every time I wrote, my response would indeed be
a little too long to read in a lifetime. This is, as can be seen from the
above quotes, why I use the term multiplicity instead of mass. We all
generalize in our analysis, and we must. I am no different from Chris in
this matter. Chris uses general categories such as genders, races, and
classes, and he should, but let's not fool ourselves here, they are also
general categories and we can't communicate without generalizing. It has
become commonplace in academic writing to attack other people for using
generalities and then blindly using them oneself; let's not repeat that
pattern here.
  
  Chris focuses on the marginalized--again a general category if there was
one--but somehow he sees this as so much less general than the term
"excluded," which I have used interchangeably with "marginalized" for some
years. This, of course, is not to say that there aren't significant
differences between Chris' perspective and mine; so let's turn back to them.
Chris states that resistance is "...firmly situated in marginalization and
difference...." Again, this is why certain people are authorized as
legitimate representatives of the marginalized and others are excluded from
speaking on the topic. For me the vast majority of humans are exploited and
excluded, they form the multitude of actors from which resistance and attack
grow. As anarchists we are a minority within this current--a minority which,
unlike the activist who stands above the masses to organize them, is part of
that current.
 
  Humans all live under the capitalist regime of value, and while this
unifies us in one sense, it doesn't only homogenize us. Many
particularities--differences, if you will--persist under the all
encompassing regime of value, and many are transformed and even produced by
capitalism. Thus it is simplistic to understand capitalism as simply and
only a homogenizing force. It also follows that a perspective that sees
social struggle as simply difference versus sameness or heterogeneity versus
homogeneity will often find itself operating in complicity with capitalism.
This is most commonly articulated as a battle between culture (usually
crudely represented as national or ethnic-national culture) and capitalism.
  
  While I have always tried to work in the tension between our
particularities and our commonalities (I believe, as I have stated over and
over, that this is what we must do), it seems to me--and correct me if I am
wrong--that Chris sees little commonality in the various social struggles
around the world. Thus Chris even objects to the use of the term "our" when
discussing our present conditions. For Chris they seem to be struggles of
difference and identity, and particularities never come to be understood as
part of a system--a process--that binds them together. While Chris says he
is against capitalism, it seems to drop out of his analysis. Processes seem
to turn into things or disappear altogether. If, however, you study the
social struggles around the globe--especially, especially, those in the
third world--it is notable that most of them revolve around the issue of
value. The majority of social struggles that have come to be called the
"anti-globalization movement" are struggles resisting the domination and
penetration of a single--but complex--regime of value called capitalism.
These range from the everyday struggles in the workplace, to struggles over
housing and healthcare, to the defense of nature, to attacks on
corporations, to the large demonstrations against the imposition of
neo-liberal economics and privatization. 
  
  One of the central reasons we started Hot Tide was to attack the myth
that the "anti-globalization movement" was a first-world movement. We wanted
to bring various analyses of struggles from around the world (from different
nations, cultures, and positions in the hierarchy of nation-states) together
because we think these struggles paint a complex pattern of resistance to
and attack on an ever globalizing and penetrating capitalism (see the Hot
Tide Anti-authoritarian/anti-capitalist Analysis Page). I am reminded of
this daily here in China. Just two days ago workers and their families were
being dragged off by the police for a sit-in in front of a large corporation
right next to the place I live. This wasn't some racist, imperialist or even
multi-national corporation, but a Chinese company, the Chinese capitalist
class exploiting and impoverishing Chinese workers in order to compete
within the global regime of value. And this is happening everywhere around
the world.
  
  Yet, I feel that this struggle over value is usually ignored by those for
whom identity politics is the center of theory, practice and resistance.
Unfortunately, it has been true that many who focus on struggles around
value have often, to their detriment, ignored particularities in theory and
practice. I don't think I have done this and I have continually tried to
work in this tension.
  
  Hot Tide is produced by Leila and Sasha, who can be contacted at:
kk_abacus@yahoo.com
  
  We welcome and print responses.
    
  Killing King Abacus http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/
  Hot Tide Page  http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/analysis.html
  
  Pagina Exceso http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/exceso/exceso.html


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