°Horizontality, and the democratic horizon
In “Nothing is what democracy looks like,” Rodrigo Nunes offers some sceptical thoughts on the much-touted openness and horizontality of networks while, elsewhere, Dave Antagonism responds - “In the Wake… After the G20″ - to the debates about violence, the Arterial bloc, etc.
Nunes, for his part, notes that the network is not simply the byword of a different form of political organisation (contra the hierarchical), but also the form of labour in particular sectors and, not least, the networked labour of “large-scale media of communication, and the internet.” He also remarks, interestingly, that this coincidence means, in practice, that political organisation is dominated by the “hyperactivists” who can be in those networked spaces.
But, I think he loses the insight this reaches toward by, first, assuming that the arbitrariness of the signifier implies a voluntarism of signification. And so, according to him, “there can be many horizontalities” and, not least, that all that is required is a more authentic democracy.
In other words, and secondly, for all the Deleuzo-Guattarian idiom, what Nunes proposes is the a rather classical distinction between (and alibi of) formal and real democracy. And it’s difficult to see how the result could be anything other than ‘One more effort, comrades, for real democracy.’
So, much as I appreciate the attempt to make notions such as horizontality and openness problematic, that democracy imposes itself as the limit of politics as such in Nunes’ piece is itself the problem. Because the problem with horizontality is, precisely, that it assumes an equality that can only be assured through both/either a common measure and/or exclusion – since any determination of what is common is also, by definition, a determination of what is not common, to be excluded There is no surface/depth contradiction here. This an oscillation that is managed by democracy, that is democracy: horizontality plus hierarchy, citizen plus sovereignty …
Moreover, it’s not “hyperactivism” that I think is the problem, but activism: activism conceived as work; activism assumed to be an elevation from that which is (supposedly) not (political) action; activism conceived, among other things, as net-work. (I wish that I’d read Nunes’ essay before sending off the “Social Softwar” piece to Mute, but I guess this might be read as an extended footnote for that.)
To put this another way, while I liked Nunes’ remark that “horizontality means putting connectivity above accumulation,” I very much doubt the answer here is to “connect.” Sometimes, it means disconnecting, surely. But, more deeply, if one is to differentiate connectivity from accumulation, then isn’t the question here on what grounds connections are made (or not)? That is, are all connections equal, the more connections the better? Is it a matter of accumulation, of numbers, or not?
Which brings me to Dave’s piece on the recent g20 protests in Melbourne. Unlike Nunes, his model of the political is some further distance from that of work, or the net-work – even as he talks about protesters “producing” an event. I won’t go into the debates about the action itself, suffice to note that I think Dave is quite right to insist that the denunciation of the ‘violence’ and the attempts to cast the Arterial bloc as a vanguard should both be refused.
I will, however, add that I think it’s symptomatic that such debates become increasingly abstract the more they become repetitive and ritualised – in the sense that the debates about violence or forms of organisation seem bereft of much, if any, connection to the substantives. In other words, the anti-summit ritual is increasingly marked by opportunism, and of the least interesting kind.
But having discussed that in more detail elsewhere, it’s Dave’s closing remark which I think has to be prised open. He writes: “I feel if we base ourselves in a democratic, horizontal, autonomous and open praxis of resistances then perhaps we can grasp these possibilities.” I have to say that I was a little surprised – not so much by the invocation of “horizontal, autonomous and open praxis of resistances,” even though (as discussed above) all these concepts could do with some rethinking. By which I mean: is there a presumptions of equality at work in the horizontal that is coincident with the equalisation of labours? Is autonomous the same thing as self-determination and self-possession, and where/what are these boundaries of self? Does open mean open or does it, given the prior concepts of horizontal and autonomous, imply certain exclusions (this which cannot be equalised, or is self-possessed)?
All these prior questions lead to the inevitable one: is it really necessary to offer democracy as the model here? Because, if it is, then the implications of horizontal, autonomous and open do indeed begin to suggest the horizontality of citizens, the borders of the demos, the landed property and proprieties of the nation-state?
But aside from this, I was particularly surprised because I fail to see how any model of the affinity group, or indeed the protest which is the topic of debate, might ever be described as democratic. One cannot refuse the thematics, manner or practice of the compliant citizen and, in the same breath, trumpet democracy.
So, either that protest could be denounced for being undemocratic (which it certainly was, refusing, among other things, the monopoly of rightful violence that this inscribes on the side of the police (and military). Or one could begin to untangle the sense in which democracy functions as the horizon (the limit-point) of politics.
This was released today:
A first communique from two uncitizens of Arterial Bloc
Gertrude and Fuchsia
November 22, 2006
There have been many calls for Arterial Bloc to come forward and ‘justify’ their tactics during the G20 protests. The following statement is not a justification of specific actions; it is an exploration of politics. This statement has not been written for or on behalf of the Bloc; it has been written from within the Bloc. None of us can be leaders or spokespeople for each other.
We apologise for the delay. We were not able to head straight from the streets to the Internet. We have been dealing with the consequences of achieving more than perhaps we thought we would, and the aftermath of repression. We have been caring for each other, talking to each other, trying to find out what happened to those arrested and injured; remembering to breathe and sleep and eat.
The demonising [”Crazies! Foreign crazies!”] of Arterial Bloc by other sections of the Left (a demonising that only seems to have escalated in the last few days) has been cowardly, hysterical and, in the deepest sense, uncomradely. A willing eagerness to blame violence on “interstate” or “foreign” agitators is both false and xenophobic. Why must the militant protestor always be an other, both geographically and philosophically distanced from us? Why should struggle respect national or state borders? There has been a belief expressed not only by the corporate media but also by the Left that such actions as occurred at the G20 could not and should not be possible here in Australia. By extension, those involved are not “genuine” protestors but false provocateurs; or, if those involved were indeed “local”, their protest was immature and apolitical.
We did not come out of nowhere and we are not strangers. We do not have “contempt” for “ordinary protesters”; we are ordinary protesters. What was Arterial Bloc? It was a call-out, a costume, and an attempt at internal democracy and communication. It was joined and accompanied on the day by many people who chose, for that time, to work together. Arterial Bloc is not an organization or a party; it is not a homogenous group or a faceless, rootless mob. We are female, male and in between; workers, unemployed, students, union members. We have been on union picket lines; we have created squatted social centres; we have blockaded in forests and cities; we have cooked and distributed free meals; we have leafleted, rallied, called meetings; we have lived together and apart, and tried to love each other. We are ordinary: as scared and as alienated as everybody else. We do not have magical solutions; we have desire that will not be governed.
The fear displayed towards members of the Bloc seems grounded largely in the Bloc’s tactics of masking and disguise. Most criticism of the tactic centres on the idea that “disguise” is somehow sinister; that it leaves the movement open to infiltration by police and/or fascists, and that not knowing or not recognising fellow protestors is a bad thing.
Unpacking the semiotics of disguise is complicated. What follows is an attempt to do so.
Firstly, some history. Contrary to general belief, the G20 protests are not the first time that a “disguised” Bloc has appeared at an Australian protest. Orange Bloc pursued a similar tactic at the 2003 WTO protests in Homebush and the Sydney CBD; orange boilersuits and bandanas were chosen for their visual resonance with the “war on terror” and the ensuing “state of emergency” across the globe, a state of emergency which, as Walter Benjamin once noted, is not an exception but the rule.
White overalls also have a particular historical resonance within the contemporary anti-capitalist movement, having been for many years the disguise of choice for the Tute Bianche, an autonomist group of largely Italian origin who began organising in 1994. Now is not the time or place for an extended discussion of the Tute Bianche, but a decent quote from one of their many documents (freely available on the internet) may help to illuminate the political arguments in favour of disguise:
The white overalls are not a movement, they are a tool which was devised in the context of a broader movement (the social centers of the Charta of Milan) and made available to an even broader movement (the global one). Nowadays the white overalls exist in many countries. The white overalls are neither an institution nor a political current, nor are they to be strictly identified with Ya Basta! or the social centers of North-East Italy […]
One of our soundbites is: “We’re wearing the white overall so that other people wear it. We’re wearing the white overall so that we can take it off someday”.
The white overall is not a “uniform” […] It hasn’t got militaristic origins. Back in Autumn 1994 the Mayor of Milan evicted the Leoncavallo squatted centre and stated: “Squatters are nothing other than ghosts now!” His description was accepted ironically, and thousands of people dressed in white stormed the streets of the city and rioted for hour. That was the real debut of the white overalls […]
After that debut, the imagery of the white overall was enriched by ironic references to the “blue overalls”: nowadays labour has changed […] “flexibility”, part-time and precarious jobs have made exploitation less visible, there’s a new “ghostly” working class.
A white overall or similar disguise is a refusal to claim a space of “citizenship”, as the original Arterial Bloc call out (widely distributed) makes clear. Contemporary capitalism makes ghosts of us all, because it leeches us of our own precious and unique desires – and the embodiment of those desires – in favour of a homogenous “discipline” and “order”. We cease to be human beings; we are mere machinery and leftovers. For those of us who are ostensibly “free” there is the discipline of the workplace; of welfare, police and state surveillance (one must be the “grateful” and “well behaved” poor or be nothing); of educational institutions; and not least the discipline of the average protest. For those who face the brunt of state repression, there is the detention centre, the jail, the ghost prison of an unknown country. These forms of repression and enclosure are all connected: in solidarity with those who are refused citizenship and freedom of movement we also refuse citizenship; as a rebuttal to the fact that we are targeted and profiled on an everyday basis for visible difference – ethnicity, poverty and class, gender and sexuality – we choose to disguise that visibility. We will not “stand up and be counted” as citizens within this false democracy. Capitalism haunts us, and it makes us haunted; we will haunt it.
Socialist Alternative (among others) has claimed that the tactic of disguise “can only be justified in situations of extreme state repression”, and that until such time, we must continue to be “ordinary”. The basic fact is that over the past five years, the “war on terror” has been used as the overarching excuse for extreme state repression, both in Australia and elsewhere. “Ordinary” people have been raided, beaten, locked up, charged with crimes that they never committed; it is time for us to stop claiming the space of “ordinary” and “innocent” as a space of safety. If those of us who attend rallies and public protests are only doing so “on behalf” of those who have been denied the presumption of innocence, what power and privileges are we thereby claiming for ourselves? If we as protestors are always “innocent”, who is “guilty”: rioters in Redfern, Iraqi insurgents, Guantanamo prisoners, Tongan youth?
Capitalism does not tolerate serious, revolutionary dissent; it never has and it never will. The state will do everything in its power to crush revolutionary movements, and it will not care to distinguish between the “innocent” and the “guilty”, between the “good” and the “bad” protestor. Are we revolutionaries, or not? If we are, then we are already enemies of the state. Let us not be afraid of being called so.
“The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry.” (Raoul Vaneigem)
We reclaim the radical ordinary. We do not feel the need to pitch a “central message” through the filter of the corporate media to the mythical “ordinary person” who, apparently, can only comprehend or sympathise with managed dissent.
A false dichotomy is set up between the role of the “disciplined”, politically mature protestor and the inarticulate other. The other is positioned as a person or a group too worn out by oppression to resist tactically. This other is protested for, or on behalf of, but we must never indulge in their tactics. Both property damage and any spontaneous, emotional embodiment of resistance are seen as apolitical, as reactions to be left (pun intended) behind as we attain proper political maturity. “Oppressed others” (in Redfern, Macquarie Fields, Palm Island, Lakemba) who are perhaps never expected by those who call for disciplined protest to reach the requisite levels of political maturity have been rhetorically defended for their “justified” anger. But those who set Macquarie Fields on fire are never presumed to be part of a mass resistance to capitalism; and those who are presumed to be a part of “the movement” are therefore seen as outside of the system that produces such anger.
Property damage can be tactical, and as a tactic it has a long history. As peasant saboteurs and early industrial workers made clear, property damage was a direct disruption of capitalism’s machinery, and of its discipline of lives and bodies in the workplace:
I am not going to attempt to justify sabotage on any moral ground. If the workers consider that sabotage is necessary, that in itself makes sabotage moral. Its necessity is its excuse for existence. And for us to discuss the morality of sabotage would be as absurd as to discuss the morality of the strike or the morality of the class struggle itself. In order to understand sabotage or to accept it at all it is necessary to accept the concept of class struggle. If you believe that between the workers on the one side and their employers on the other there is peace, there is harmony such as exists between brothers, and that consequently whatever strikes and lockouts occur are simply family squabbles; if you believe that a point can be reached whereby the employer can get enough and the worker can get enough, a point of amicable adjustment of industrial warfare and economic distribution, then there is no justification and no explanation of sabotage intelligible to you. — Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Sabotage, Cleveland, Ohio, 1916)
Almost 100 years later, sabotage and property damage can still be used to disrupt the efficient functioning and discipline of capitalism, not only in the workplace, but in each area of our lives where this discipline has reach, which is to say, all of our lives, every day. The machinery of war and of welfare; the militarisation of public space and the containment of protest within sanctioned zones – all these things need to be dismantled. When barricades are destroyed, streets are opened.
Beyond tactics and planning is the exhilaration of embodying refusal – even if only for a moment, and these moments are not without politics. Why should politics and protest be disciplined spaces, spaces without emotion and desire? To be caught up in the moment, in a collective energy, is a rare rupture of the alienation, isolation and powerlessness of our everyday lives. These moments show us what we are capable of; but we are capable of much more. We must preserve a movement of resistance to capitalism that is made up of many different acts of refusal and creation. However, we genuinely fail to understand how anyone who calls herself a revolutionary can fail to find at least some beauty in the sight of a smashed police van.
We can and will discuss tactics and their consequences; a more detailed response to specific events during the G20 protests is being prepared.
With love and solidarity,
From two people who will be known as Gertrude and Fuchsia.
Communique [November 22, 2006 @ 7:23 pm]
I feel that it is possible that the allusions to ‘radical democracy’ as well as other statements made by Dave Antagonism and others in the ‘Arterial bloc’ may not be wholly supported by their authors…
The Arterial bloc, despite declaring that it was not interested in becoming martyrs are heading straight for that final position as the public ‘left’ turns upon them in order to expand/protect their existence. The texts that are coming from this bloc are an attempt to try and gather support for themselves (totally understandable given their position) from the ‘organised left’, hence I feel that these texts have been tailored for that audience.
The actions of the Arterial bloc, should not be considered as a political event in the activist sense. If attempts are made to do so then it is an act by Arterial people to try and get support through some sort of admission of guilt or by green-liberal-social-justice whatevers to gain from their marytadom (eg their anger is evidence of the strength of our orgs suggestions) . The signifcance of the Arterial bloc does not lie within their participation in the spectacle created by stopG20, their signifance is not as a group of activists leading the ‘right’ way to build support or challenge ‘corporate led globalisation by evil big corporations’ but their divergence from this.
What distinguishes the actions of the Arterial bloc from the rest of the stopG20 peeps is that they were counterposed to their ‘carnival’. Even if the initial motivation may have been to participate in the spectacle - to undertake ‘a tactic’ - to draw attention to and attack the G20 this remains true. Nothing changes their experince of the unsheathed reality of social control, not even if the reason for going was to ‘highlight issues’ etc. Their actions meant that they had a lived experience of the reality of control within society - and more importantly the fluidity of that contol. It is the realistations of this relationship, where our obedience is ultimately enforced by violence and therefore not based on objectivity (the law, justice, god etc) that mean that Arterial bloc should be supported… Argueably they were the only people who could say that last saturday was not a dull day (on second thought the police probably had fun as well).
They should be supported so that, through experience, it becomes easier to define our existence(s) against that violent force. But by tailoring articles to get the support of the stopG20 people, the arterial bloc people deny their personal experience and discipline themselves into recuperation, into accepting an ‘object’. Further, it is unlikely that the stopG20 people or other ‘organised left’ groups will support them because that would compromise their own missions in attracting obedient armies for their ‘goods’ - in this they stand with the police and their hunt most clearly. If direct about what they believe then they as well as those in contact with them can learn more about making incisions against this society and in the end do quite well out of the experiences.
Eg Socialist Alternative - “How will this encourage wide layers of people to come to future protests?” (the missing last few words are “then join the party”) or the media man Marcus Greville from the stopg20 media collective “The media has reported only an unrelated and unconnected group of about 50 people and the property damage that they inflicted upon the police van.”
I wonder if anybody is going to do anything…especially considering the first arrestee has been denied bail… for affray and criminal damage?? - because he didn’t have “roots” in Australia… and considering that channel 10 decided to do a crime stoppers style report… and considering nobody has come out to support these kids, or suggest that these things arn’t that good…anywhere?
Nick Richardson [November 22, 2006 @ 11:07 pm]
But not such a divergence that the Arterial bloc could resist taking part - something I think is mixed up in the recourse to democracy.
They may not believe those references to democracy, if pressed and in discussions such as this. But I don’t think such references are merely cynical.
They speak to and of a fear of marginalisation, (from the ‘activist community’ that continues to perceive itself as national in scope, among other things), a marginalisation associated with foreign-ness. That the repression has worked itself around to targetting the non-citizen should, however, ring alarm bells.
Obviously the “uncitizen” thing in the Arterial Bloc statement (thanks to whoever posted it) is a reference to these dynamics - but it could have been clearer. If only because such things often play out deep down. In speaking to rather than against those fears, they get reproduced.
In any case, I doubt that the anti-g20 protests as a whole would have had much, if any, significant coverage had it not been for this particular event.
s0metim3s [November 22, 2006 @ 11:28 pm]
At least we know that members of the Arterial Bloc have good taste in literature. Although Gertrude was pretty committed to retaining hierarchy, from what I can remember of Gormenghast.
I’m pretty unsurprised at the willingness of those who represented themselves as Stopg20 spokespeople to disavow people engaged in property destruction. It puts the absolute lie to the fantasy of ‘horizontal organising’ encouraged by the protest website, with spokescouncils scheduled, lists of affinity groups and advice about how to form them. It’s further proof (not that we needed any) that the language of horizontal/autonomous organising has been totally recuperated as meaningless social capital, in order to manipulate more people into being managed by the ‘organisers’ to do what they want.
Gertrude and Fuschia, whoever you are, don’t apologise for the delay. The only solution to this problem is not to play with those who are now condemning you. Make your own fun, in other words, and leave the (anti) summit hopping to Bono and the rest of the wannabe rockstars.
az [November 23, 2006 @ 10:20 am]
discussion around this communique on indymedia
dr.woooo [November 23, 2006 @ 3:17 pm]
Gawd, onward and upward (or should I say, downward) to the APEC meeting? Does the opportunistic merchandising of political outfits never cease? Does anyone even know why there should be a protest at APEC? As distinct from, say, something somewhere else?
There is absolutely no validity to the trotocrat/socialist dogma that you must build, build, build the ‘movement’ until you get a revolution … The only reason they continue to hold onto such a dogma is because it makes all the work they do recruiting, and expect recruits to do, seem like the March of History. Linear, assembly-line nonsense.
s0metim3s [November 23, 2006 @ 3:30 pm]
hi, i just came across this…
thanks for the comments on ‘nothing is what democracy’. i’m not entirely sure i understand your criticism, although (if i get it right) i think you’ve missed one important point about the tone and intention of the article: there was no (conscious, at least) intention to make an appeal for ‘real democracy’ based on a formal/material distinction that starts from a critique of ‘hyperactivism’. if that is something the text suggests, it’s entirely against my will!
my point was very different — on the one hand to try and make a ‘perspicuous description’, certainly not exhaustive, of the contradictions and limits that all talk of horizontality will always run up against. as a description, it tries to be perfectly neutral, that is, i’m not lamenting anything or blaming anyone, even less saying that if we try again it might just work this time. on the other hand, to point beyond activist work understood mostly as network-and-the-odd-summit to a networked organisation of life that preexists any noble activist intentions, and how in a sense the real political work is the activation/transformation/detournement of these networks… in ways that are always to a great extent blind to themselves, and necessarily limited and messy; but since messy is the only thing we can possibly have…
after writing the text (over a year ago!) i’ve come to question the absence of a consideration on ‘disconnection’. so i agree with that. but (again if i get it) the point made next — on whether all connections are equal, and whether in the end it’s not about the accumulation of connections — is, i hope, a big misreading of the text.
i mean, either that, or the text came out completely different from what i had intended!…
thanks for the comments anyway, and — since i’d never got round to actually writing anything before — congratulations on the blog.
rodrigo [November 30, 2006 @ 1:25 pm]
Hello Rodrigo,
Let me say that I did like the article - it went much further than most do or have. But I thought you pulled back from some of the more (how to put it?) provocative implications. So, consider this a friendly set of criticisms, more a frustration with particular points in what I otherwise mostly agreed with.
there was no (conscious, at least) intention to make an appeal for ‘real democracy’ based on a formal/material distinction that starts from a critique of ‘hyperactivism’.
I guess that’s how I read your argument, not as beginning from a critique of “hyperactivism” as such, but limited by an argument for (shall we say) better democratic practice.
You wrote that you want to “to argue for a democratic practice that tackles this [problematic] nature [of horizontality] head on.” (The tone of the remark about ‘democracy-to-come’ isn’t clear - though I took it as sarcasm, the previous, more explicit remark about what you want to argue overtook that.)
You went on to construct a critique of horizontality in terms of “the moment where real-existing networking runs against the real-existing differences in material conditions of its ‘wider environment’.” (The subsequent remark about liberal democracy’s distinctions between formal/real don’t quite dispense with that as the ground of critique, or not very clearly.) And, rather than talk about ‘activism,’ it seemed to me that you blunted the point by talking instead about “hyperactivism.”
Anyway, the precepts of democracy and activism are indeed deeply-held, difficult to make explicit - but for that reason, being as explicit as possible seems to me particularly important. (Though, I’m starting to hear myself sound like a Habermasian, so enough of that.) But the question of disconnection (of non-relation as well as relation) is pivotal to the questions of democracy, equality, etc.
And thanks for the response.
s0metim3s [November 30, 2006 @ 3:17 pm]
hi, thanks for the quick reply.
i’m not sure what you’re refering to as ‘hyperactivism’ here. (of course i doesn’t help that i’m trying to have this discussion without reading a text written a while ago…) is it what i call ’supernodality’? i’m afraid our respective uses of the word ‘activist’ might be overdetermined by our immediate environments — a lot of the text, particularly towards the end, was written with a uk readership in mind.
but take the example of ’supernodality’; the point there was to describe a function that is, erm, objectively present regardless of any subjective attempts to erase it, and is bound to reocurr even in a situation where you can imagine a network strictly composed of ’supernodes’. the reason why i refer to it as ’supernodality’ rather than ’supernodes’ is precisely to stress how the function circulates freely and is constantly produced by networking itself.
i agree that in the passage you quote there is a nod to the formal/material distinction; but it has no normative purchase at all, since the ‘real’ here is both on the side of what would be a more ‘profound’ (in the sense of a radication in the social tissue that goes beyond mere ‘activist’ applications) application of the ideas of horizontality etc. AND on the side of these inescapable limits. so there is no possible supplement to ‘reality’ that would make it more ‘real’; the path is always blocked, but working on what blocks it, and being aware of it, is part of the work itself. in a way, it’s as if i’m saying ‘one more effort for real democracy, comrades, although we know it won’t work again, and these are the reasons why, but what else can we do?’.
which is why supernodality is just an element among others. even if the function were erased, one would run up against the other contradictions anyway.
so even though the passage bit about ‘a democractic practice’ seems to suggest otherwise — damn, i really wrote that! — the text is actually about different and better forms of ‘lavoro politico’ rather than more and better democracy; and, in a way, it is against using horizontality etc. as an excuse from shying away from this work. once you know something will never really work completely, you’re free to fidget with it. or at least that’s just the way i am…
and don’t worry about sounding like habermas. i actually thought you were pulling a heidegger there.
rodrigo [November 30, 2006 @ 11:14 pm]
i’m not sure what you’re refering to as ‘hyperactivism’ here. (of course i doesn’t help that i’m trying to have this discussion without reading a text written a while ago…)
You wrote: “the realisation of the existence of a restricted number of ‘hyperactivists’ who can attend all these networking spaces.”
Though, now I’m really not at all sure what you mean by “supernodality.”
but what else can we do?’
While I have some sympathy for attention to conditions of possibility/impossibility (if I read your remarks right), I don’t think I can agree that certain conceptual apparatuses are indeed necessary for political practice to be, well, political practice. The onus is rather on thinking through the limits to politics that are enacted here, often in the form of an infinitisation - or should I say, activism and net-working as a perpetual motion machine.
So, for one, I think it is possible to strip political practice of its democratic assumptions, such that the question of the scope, modes of address (or more generally grammar and syntax), exclusions, and priorities of that practice become, well, political questions and not forms of pre-emption (and representation).
s0metim3s [December 1, 2006 @ 11:50 am]