Introduction: On
the 9th of December, 2013, people, as individuals and as delegates of
affinity groups, answered the call-out for an "open meeting for
self-organisation"[1] and gathered in Mehringhof (Berlin-Kreuzberg) for
an open assembly. We hope that the comrades who called for this meeting
will publish the protocol from it in the coming days, which could
provide a better impression of that initial meeting then we can offer
here.
Energized
by this initial meeting, we as a group wanted to take the chance to
reflect on a few aspects of autonomist/anarchist organizing in Berlin,
and particularly on the form of the assembly. We wish to suggest a
possible role that we see open general assemblies playing within our
struggles.
We
agree that we need a scale of organization that is larger than affinity
groups, yet looser and less defined than single issue campaigns or
formal organizations. There needs to be a middle ground between these
two, and this is lacking at the moment.
We
know that lots of discussions are presently stuck within smaller groups
and social circles. We need to find a way for the different questions
and topics each group is mulling over to be discussed collectively. We
want to know what problems and questions others are wrestling with, and
we want to know what you think of ours.
Yet, at the same time, for us it is important to avoid setting up another once-a-month routine that becomes simply one more plenum.
Another ritual that quickly starts to feel bureaucratic, lifeless, and
dominated by the same voices that already dominate conversation within
the "left scene" in Berlin.
We
think that the original call out for an assembly, and the assembly
itself, was a good step in this direction, but we want to further stress
some of the particular ideas that it addressed, and to discuss some of
the problems that we see ourselves facing in Berlin. In the last
assembly it seemed unclear to many of the people present what exactly
those of us assembled there should talk about: was it the basis from
which we struggle and our highest aspirations, or was it the details of
particular struggles in Berlin and how we see ourselves engaging with
them? To some extent we find this to be a false opposition: obviously,
there needs to be space for both. Additionally, it seems to us, that
often times the big picture is spoken about best through the details,
and that the details need to be framed within our larger analysis and
orientation to avoid becoming "activisty", lifeless, and stale. It seems
like this confusion and debate is born out of an instinct to turn an
open general assembly into a kind of informal organization, something
along the lines of the previous Autonome Vollversammlung (AVV). For us
this is exactly what needs to be avoided. Instead, we would like to
suggest that what we need to develop is not one "general assembly" that
starts to look more and more like an umbrella organization, but rather a
culture of general assemblies in Berlin: the open assembly not as a
once a month meeting, but as one of our basic forms of
self-organization. By contrast, it seems like all too often in Berlin
the instinct of the autonomist/anarchist milieu is to rely on relatively
closed processes and closed meetings for planning actions, developing
ideas, and engaging with existing struggles.
Evaluating the recent past:
There
have been many positive new directions in anarchist/autonomist
struggles in Berlin in recent years. We see the recent calls for open
assemblies as a constructive effort to act on the widespread
discontentment and frustration with the demo and (anti-)political
culture in this city.
We
have also noticed and are excited about the escalation of tactics in
the past year or so, and an apparent increase in the strength and
richness of affinity-group based actions. We think that this might be
further strengthened by being combined with a denser fabric of
organization at its base, so that these smaller groups may draw courage
from a real rather than an imagined sense of belonging to a wider
movement.
In
particular the anti-gentrification movement in Berlin has seen
militants and neighbourhood groups using a variety of direct action
tactics in order to forcefully stop evictions as well as act offensively
against a gentrifying urban landscape (e.g. the Berliner Liste).
Although
we would like to see always more in the direction of international
solidarity, there has been a pretty decent show of international and
intercity solidarity in Berlin which has sought to develop active
connections to the current cycle of struggles taking place around the
world.
We've
also been excited about the return of practices of squatting to Berlin,
and the repeated breaking of the Berlin hard line on squatting.
Stillestr, Ohlauerstr, Oranienplatz, Cuvrybrache, the Eisfabrik...these
spaces offer inspiration and encouragement to others for the open
occupation of empty buildings, public squares and empty land. While
neoliberal urban development continues its deterritorializing crawl
across Berlin, spaces of refusal continue to rise up and contest this
moribund vision of the city, assembling other possible worlds.
Alongside
all these positive developments, certain perennial critiques of the
anarchist milieus in Berlin remain true. We find the reliance on
subcultural identities still remains too prevalent. This is not to say
that we should abandon the signifiers of our autonomous and radical
culture, nor exit the subculture in order to "join the masses". It can
be useful to feel ourselves to be part of a visible and recognizable
milieu of dissidents and agitators. However, reliance on political
identities can become problematic for a number of reasons. For one, they
can come to limit the spread of the struggles beyond a certain group
when outsiders feel excluded on the basis of age, style etc. There is
also the risk of adopting a "lefty-identity" in a superficial manner, as
a clique, lifestyle and look, consuming demos and soli-parties while
emptying this identity of any antagonistic content. Wherever it allows
itself to become detached from the struggle against and destabilization
of the metropolitan tissue surrounding us, autonomous culture devolves
into a hollow alternativism, masking the Same with the veneer of
aestheticized difference[2].
Although
the history of the Autonome movement of the past continues to provide
inspiration and a rare sense of a continuity to the development of
autonomous structures in Berlin, we have the feeling that this history
can also be a weight on radical movements in this city today. While the
glory days of the autonome movement have passed for now, people continue
to operate more or less in the cognitive space of its identity,
invoking its symbols, myths, songs, slogans and chants. Once again,
although perhaps comforting, this identity can work at times to block
more heterogenous, dynamic and open-ended forms of social identification
which might be better able to make themselves illegible to the state,
and by tending towards difference rather than homogeneity, be harder for
the state to order, organize, capture and repress. Keeping things alive
that once worked isn’t the worst thing, but we also feel like its often
the superficial aspects of this tradition are being preserved. We
think, for example, that the powerful culture of open assemblies that it
once possessed has been regrettably lost.
At
the same time we have the feeling that Berlin’s radical scene has the
unique status in northern Europe of being big enough to actually
constitute a social force all on its own, and we expect that it will
continue to expand as more active anarchists and autonomists continue to
arrive from elsewhere.
Over
the past decade "the scene" has become far more geographically
dispersed, as the people involved spread out across the wider areas of
Neukölln, Treptow, Wedding, etc. This fragmentation is not a problem in
itself, since it can mean that actions begin to occur in more places,
with radical infastructure and influence spread throughout the city. Yet
there is a risk of isolation and fragmentation when organization and
communication no longer have a basis in frequent informal meetings,
based on geographic proximity and the kind of consistency that certain
locations, such the "dorfplatz", once provided for the scene. This
dispersion needs to be combatted with increased coordination within and
between people located in various neighborhoods, and we see open
assemblies as a step in this direction.
Perhaps
most importantly, we see a large portion of the "left scene" in Berlin
maintaining a 'consumer' relation to demos and other actions: showing
up, but then expecting others to "make things happen". The enabling
condition of this attitude is the practical separation between a small
cadre of active people who organize and plan, and the vast majority who
passively attend without experiencing these events as a result of their
own self-organization.
We’ve
also noticed that the Berlin police have been increasingly effective at
managing and containing us, all the while avoiding escalation. We need a
space beyond our immediate circles to share our observations regarding
the changing menu of police repression tactics and how to break their
spell. For example, it seems like the biggest mobilisations and most
militant street fights lately tend to happen on the defensive rather
than the offensive. There is definitely a more determined spirit
circulating - one need only think of the eviction of Liebig 14, the
eviction of the Gülbol family in Kreuzberg, the unrest during the
police congress, the people on the streets around O-Platz or the recent
explosion of activity in Hamburg. Yet all these events happened as a
reaction to a threat or attack, and as such they have as their backdrop
an already-precarious and endangered existence, i.e. the familiar and
constant attack on our life and freedom by state, capital, and
institutional racism. The recent change up of police tactics, where,
instead of maintaining their usual perpetual presence, they have begun
following demonstrations along side streets and intervening only at
select moments, is just one instance of how governance changes its
approach and strategy.
Where it is successful, resistance holds the
possibility of demasking the existent, revealing it in all its cruelty.
But for this to happen, it is necessary to avoid allowing the time and
space of our struggles be dictated by our enemies. Though this is
neither a new nor a simple question, it remains as important today as
ever. Some people appear to have sought to answer it through an
escalation of tactics. Spectacular acts of sabotage and vandalism have
happened in the last few years in Berlin, including effective
interruptions such as the sabotage of train lines, which are able to be
pulled off with only a handful of friends. Though there have been
several direct actions that seemed to build on one another, they appear
to have remained isolated, not being picked up by a mass of subversives,
and were even misunderstood by people whom one would otherwise expect
to be sympathetic. We think that broader discussions - for example at
open assemblies - can increase the acceptability of such escalated
actions and help to spread them further, by discussing them in a space
that goes beyond the own circle of friends or affinity group. We are
sympathetic with efficient sabotage on a large scale, and for more
uncompromising self-satisfaction of our desires, but we think that this
will not constitute a threat so long as these ideas and practices fail
to circulate. We don't think that it is a coincidence or a symptom of
arbitrary authoritarianism that the repression hit so hard after the
attacks on cops at Kottbusser Tor that took place in solidarity with the
fighting in Turkey, or the coordinated attacks on job centers and the
SPD headquarter during the extended 1st of May 2013. We think it is
because it was obvious that for these actions to have happened people
had to have got together, discussed their situation, and created
relations of subversion between each other which moved beyond reaction
and towards an offensive attack. This is the threat that our enemies are
afraid of, and precisely what we wish to push forward. We think an open
assembly is one of the tools for doing this.
The need for open assemblies as spaces of self-organization:
We
would like to see the recent callout and meeting for self-organization
as first steps towards developing a more general culture of open
assemblies, rather than as first steps towards developing another
institution, or worse, organization. Our hope for the long term is to
create a habit of assemblies at various different levels (e.g. in
neighborhoods, citywide, etc.). There need to be more open spaces for
discussion on all levels: from sharing our theoretical ideas and
anaylsis of the current situation in Berlin, to discussing the concrete
ways in which we see ourselves engaged in current struggles, to
coordinating concrete actions such as spreading counter information,
demonstrations, etc. Sometimes we need to talk about deeper and more
difficult questions; other times it’s really concrete things we need to
discuss. As for the more theoretical discussions, we think that these
can be most helpful when they take a certain form, in which we test out
our theoretical convictions by analyzing specific struggles and demos,
campaigns and their limits, etc. For example, we think it’s cool that
you’re an insurrecto-queer nihilist, but how does this perspective
inform your analysis of the way things at O-platz have gone over the
past 6 months? How have you engaged with it, or why have you avoided
engaging it? Theory should test itself in strategy, and strategy is only
as strong as the principles it serves to actualize.
But
the ability to have time and space for all these discussions means that
the assembly needs to become more than a monthly meeting. Rather, we
need to generalize, using the form as it fits particular circumstances.
We don't need a single general citywide open assembly that takes place
on a regular schedule. Rather, as affinity groups (or looser
constellations), we need to get into the habit of taking the initiative
for calling open assemblies when we feel like we need to exchange ideas
with others in an open space, rather than in the confines of our normal
social and political circles.
For
us, developing this practice is particularly important at the current
moment for several reasons. Perhaps the most important is the fact that,
in our perception at least, struggles in Berlin are heating up. Crisis
politics are starting to affect us here more and more. This makes it
even more important for those of us who are opposed to Capital, the
State and domination in all of its forms to increase our ability to act
together, to build spaces in which we can organize amongst ourselves and
talk with others who are unsatisfied with the reformist solutions that
are presented as answers to our problems. This means cultivating
assemblies that can both be meeting points for those of us who are
already within the autonomist/anarchist milieus as well as ones that
serve as meeting points for those who are struggling and looking for
paths outside those presented by the institutional left.
From
our point of view this becomes even more important when we consider the
particular dynamic of Berlin as a city where more and more radicals
from outside of Germany are arriving every month, driven by economic
crisis as well as political and social repression. These people bring
diverse experiences of struggles, new ideas, and organizational forms
with them, and it is important to build structures that allow for those
who have not been in Berlin for a long time to have a place to start
from, without having to first learn the complicated maze of autonomist
institutions and all the social quirks of the scene. Open assemblies
can, in part, provide this infrastructure.
As
crisis politics increasingly make themselves felt in Berlin, the
attendant ideas of revolt and resistance already quietly flourish not
only among those already won over to anarchist notions, but also
amongst long-time residents. Unrest in gentrifying neighbourhoods,
strikes of refugees, and talks in bars with drunken fed-up people, all
of this indicates to us that there are more comrades outside of the
anarchist/autonomous milieus. Once again, open assemblies can provide a
basic point of infastructure for these newly active comrades where they
can quickly make connections with a variety of struggles, and break the
isolation that is often imposed by the limitations of struggles
happening only in particular neighborhoods or sectors of the population.
They also provide a space where newer voices can be heard outside the
normal confines of single issue campaigns.We have often wondered whether
a strong assembly culture can only develop within the context of a
generalized revolt, such as we see in Greece and Spain. How can it
function outside of such a context? We can't answer this question in any
precise way, nor can we foresee the success to which an open assembly
culture could develop in the relative "social peace" of Berlin. But from
our experiences outside of Berlin as well as what we have heard from
comrades from other places, those assemblies that were the most
successful during heightened periods of revolt were ones which had
already been taking place for some time prior to these revolts kicking-off.
Such
meetings can also help to give us access to other perspectives on the
recent demo culture. What aspirations or feelings have we had while
attending them? What sorts of things might we have wanted to do or see
done during them, but we didn’t feel capable of? If we were to find out
that others feel the same way, or would like things to be headed in the
same direction, we might feel more confident in breaking out into new
sorts of practices, knowing others wouldn’t oppose it, and that they
perhaps might even join us.
Finally,
these assemblies constitute an important strategic component of our
practice that is currently lacking. For example, had the response to the
raid of Rigaerstrasse94 on August 14th, 2013 been to call an assembly
that same night rather than the unregistered demo, it might have given
people time to organize something much more interesting than what took
place. Comrades at Rigaer already made a similar point, when they
wrote,
- "We, as R94, support the initiative, in cases of raids and repression, to come together on the same day at a certain time for a Berlin-wide plenary to exchange information and plan a concerted action. Our feeling coming out of these raids is that it is most important to rapidly create a common information pool in which all the facts can be gathered. We think it makes a lot of sense for there to be a common meeting to open up lines of communication, and to do so independently of digital media, or existing individual or group structures of communication. [...] It is a total pain in the ass to get raided and organize a spontaneous demonstration on the same day. By having a common meeting, we can better share out such tasks and plan things in a more clear-sighted way"[3].
We
need to create a situation in which planning becomes an active process
in which other and more groups get involved. This already would in
itself constitute a huge step toward breaking down the consumerist
dynamic. Smaller groups who don’t presently feel like they want to
shoulder the burden of calling actions all on their own would perhaps
feel more comfortable doing so if they were able to see beforehand that
other groups were interested. And as a result, these assemblies could
potentially lead to more people organizing things than currently
happens. This practical process would also benefit from a wider
circulation of theoretical and analytical materials from elsewhere. Much
insightful and challenging writing from Greece, Spain, the U.S. the
U.K., France, Italy and elsewhere has been circulating lately regarding
the shape and limits of the recent global revolts. This upsurge in
radical thought can help us sharpen our interventions and develop a more
self-critical practice. However, for this material to be able to have
its desired effect, it must no longer be confined to a small number of
hands. While distros and infoshops are indispensible resources, there is
no substitute for face-to-face discussions and critical exchanges,
which provide the only true measure of the portability of these
analyses. A more inclusive organizational practice should therefore also
simultaneously serve as laboratory of theoretical exchange.
A few ideas for moving forward:
Instead
of deciding to have a once a month assembly taking the same format
regardless of the content being discussed, we want to see affinity
groups or other groupings taking the initiative to call assemblies when
they see them as needed, and picking a specific form that fits the
context. Some of the many appropriate moments to call an assembly for
us, could be: after an attack/raid on a house, to discuss how we want to
respond to it; prior to an up-coming demonstration, eviction or action;
in order to have a more general discussion on a specific theme,and to
develop critiques together; to discuss strategies for moving forward and
analysing our current situation in a more general sense; to plan
solidarity with struggles happening outside of Berlin; to evaluate the
successes and failures of a recent large events, and through such a
collective evaluation to also test out our principles and visions of
struggle. This is all too much for a single assembly, or a single kind
of assembly to take on, but we see the need for all of these
conversations to be given space in an open rather than a closed room. In
general, we would like to suggest that open assemblies could and should
act as replacements for what seems to us like a rather tired routine of
Berlin leftist info-events. Rather than sitting and passively listening
to a presentation followed by a lackluster "Q and A", we would like to
see more open talks that are organized from the outset around
participation and the mutual exchange and development of ideas.
Call-outs to participate in the assemblies should consequently be spread
as widely as possible.
We
think these assemblies could help to counteract the fragmentation in
the scene, by sewing deeper relations between groups living close-by one
another. For example, we think it might be an interesting idea, during
the assembly (or else afterwards) for there to be a breakout session
where groups and individuals from each neighborhood can meet each other.
This is especially important for groups coming from areas further away
from traditional hubs of activity in Xberg or Fhain. Certainly, we
anticipate questions about security culture arising from this
suggestion. We get it, but we don’t see this as sufficient grounds to
abandon the idea (we could also imagine assemblies where participants
have disguised their identities)[4]. Even if it means sticking our necks
out a bit at first, establishing more communication between informal
local groups is essential.
We
also know that there is a risk that leftists and reformists may take
advantage of such an ‘open’ format to hijack the conversation, diverting
it into the neutralizing urgency of their frenetic ‘activity’, and
preventing us from forming the bonds we want to form through this
effort. Our experience is that such hijacking and its attendant aimless
circular discussions can often be averted by keeping in mind the aims of
the discussion as well as the basis on which we came together.
Overly-general open assemblies often hover at a superficial level, are
rarely satisfying and tend to only stumble into interesting questions
haphazardly, as if by accident. Perhaps it might work better if groups
put out invitations for open assemblies on a certain topic or content,
which could then serve as a basis for the discussion. This will need to
avoid any excessive reliance on identity-based, pre-digested ideologies,
if we are serious about open assemblies helping us to break out of the
self-constructed cage of the left scene and as a source of inspiration
toward widening revolt. Some guiding questions that come to mind for
writing such a call-out might be: 'Why do we see the need to come
together? Where do we come from with this need? What do we aim for with
such an assembly?'.
NOTES
[1] See the call out at: https://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/99855
[2]
See Tiqqun´s "This is Not a Programme" (2001) for a discussion of the
importance of a coincidence between living and struggling: "What we are
getting at here is the constitution of 'war machines'. By war machines
should be understood a certain coincidence between living and
struggling, a coincidence that is never given without simultaneously
requiring its construction. Because each time one of these terms ends up
separated, however it happens, from the other, the war machine
degenerates, derails. If the moment of living is unilateralized, it
becomes a 'ghetto'. Proofs of this are the grim quagmires of the
'alternative', whose specific task is to market the Same in the guise of
difference. Most occupied social centers in Germany, Italy, or Spain
clearly show how simulated exteriority from Empire provides a precious
tool in capitalist valorization" (Semiotexte version, p.69-70).
Accessible at http://zinelibrary.info/files/Tiqqun%20-%20This%20Is%20Not%20a%20Program.pdf
[3] "R94 – Chronology of the repression", accessible at https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/99427
[4]
As for the question of how open assemblies either increase or decrease
our ability to be surveilled and policed, we know this is a complicated
and important issue, which we will not attempt to deal with at any
length here. For a more detailed discussion, read for example the PRISMA
( https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/23028 ) for the methods and technical possibilities of cops the Polizeibericht 2010 ( https://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/30859
). Gathering in larger sized groups may seem like a win for police,
increasing our visibility and making identification easier. Yet
sometimes gathering in larger groups can make things harder for them
too, making it more difficult to single out certain organizers, for
example. In addition, the usual precautions should be taken: it makes
sense to leave mobile phones at home or take out sim cards and batteries
before you go to an assembly, not only because police are able hack
into the phone and use the microphone to listen to what is discussed,
but also because they can track the numbers and thereby gain an insight
on our social networks. Obviously a lot more remains to be said beyond
this.