ke "LIVE Anarchist Libertarian Carlos Crespo
CESU-UMSS
INTRODUCTION Following Gordon (2005 th), I mainly anarchism as a movement which is today can be described as a network decentralized, diverse and growing, providing communication and active solidarity between autonomous nodes of social struggle. One of the features of this, also called "new anarchism" (Graeber, 2002), is that not only has its roots in the historical anarchist movement, but rather in a large intersection of movements, indigenous, ecological, feminist, etc. and mainly the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movement, which has seen the revival of anarchist values, including communalism.
The idea of \u200b\u200bcommunity is present in anarchist thought, from its inception, Kropotkin defined anarchism as
"principle or theory of life and conduct without government envisions a society in which harmony is achieved, not by submission to law, and obedience to authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for production and consumption, and the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized "(Kropotkin, 1905).
No hierarchy, free agreements between individuals and groups, organized in decentralized organizational systems, but networked to meet basic human needs, that is the vision kropotkiniana community and has influenced practice and ethics anarchist. But a debate within the anarchist thought now is if desired society will be achieved only when the revolution comes and is gone social state and its powers, as suggested by some libertarian currents insurrectionary. But at the same time, from their practice, build and live anarchic anarchist, ie under anarchist principles in their daily lives, social and political.
As anarchists today build community, or forms of community social cohesion? What are the fields of intervention of the Community anarchist practice? This article discusses these questions, and for this, according to Gordon, (2005 ª) we analyze three issues where anarchist practice is immersed, the fight against all forms of domination, direct action and policies prefigurative, and finally non teleological vision of the community. The second part of the document, defending the importance of strengthening the construction of community in the present, from anarchist practice, recover the arguments of the German anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870-1919), on the relationship between state and community. Gustav Landauer's work is now being revisited in the context of the emergence of so-called new anarchism (Graeber, 2002), among other critical aspects of the traditional idea of \u200b\u200bsocial revolution (Gordon, 2005, 2005a; Day 2005).
As an activist in the libertarian movement
Bolivia [2] , talk and participate in actions and activities, and this text is the result of this experience, particularly as part of the now defunct Support Group Social Movements (GAMS) and currently with the radio program Salamandra (
http://salamandraradio.blogspot.com/ ), whose interviews were a source of important information.
I. THREE PROBLEMS IN THE DEBATES AND PRACTICE
Anarchist Anarchism today
builds community from three inputs, and can be useful for understanding the current Bolivian libertarian movement. First, activists and affinity groups, self-defined as libertarians, anarchists and / or self, from various scenarios and using a multitude of forms, practices develop resistance to multiple forms of domination also exist in the context of global capitalism. Mentioned communities, indigenous groups and individuals anarchist, libertarian environmentalists, radical feminists, also anarcho-punks groups, usually around cohesive bands that are resisting the powers that be. But the struggle against domination is through direct action, applying the principle of "do it yourself, without waiting for leaders, managers or permission of the State, a process already involves live and practice the desired society, in a coherent account of means and ends in the organization of the anarchist collective action, ie, cohesion and community building from the action. Thus, anarchists trying to build forms of community social cohesion, now, beyond the teleological dream of social revolution. It is this paragraph
1. Domination
Under a regime of domination, power relations are fixed and immobile, where one of the subject is subjected to the will of another, over which is exercised unlimited and endless violence, preventing any reversibility of movement by economic resources, military or political (Patton, 1998). In this type of power relationship, groups and people are controlled, alibis, exploited, humiliated, discriminated (Gordon, 2005 meetings) The domination seeking to subject the will of another, to facilitate removal, the benefit of the activity of other and economic exploitation (Foucault, 1996). There are various forms of domination, overlapping, mutually reinforcing, so diverse experiences of exploitation, humiliation and discrimination. Anarchist practice are aimed primarily at visible, challenge and erode these systems and systems of domination, rejecting any structure of domination and systemic violence, and capitalism, the state, patriarchy and racism.
One of the forms of domination where anarchists Bolivian develop practices of resistance today is racism
[3] . The Bolivian government has become, since the exclusion of the indigenous, making visible forms of biological racism and cultural racism, along with corruption, are two features that are part of the "long history" of the country, they feed on each other, and historically have constituted the dominant powers in Bolivia, including the state (Crespo, 2007). With these two power devices, since colonial times have sought to destroy "the common, ie all the strategies and means of access, use of natural resources and its services, based on community systems of reciprocity, mutual aid, solidarity and common good.
Bolivian anarchist movement is fundamentally anti-racist and historically has been supportive and worked with indigenous struggles, as the experience of Local Workers Federation (FOL) in La Paz syndicalist origin, promoting the creation of the Agrarian Federation Department (FAD ) in the decade of the 40 `s, in the fight against the estate and the recovery of lands in the Bolivian Altiplano (Lehm and Rivera, 1998; Rodríguez, 2007)
[4] .
Today, collectives and individuals identified as anarchists are part of or supporting the indigenous struggle
[5] , denounce the new forms of colonialism and domination racialized, in many cases transvestite multiculturalist discourse (Rivera, 2006; Crespo, 2007 ; Social Dreamer, 2003, Soto, 2007; Nestor, Black, 2007).
2. Prefigurative policies and direct action
After the clashes of January 11, 2007 in Cochabamba, collectives and individuals anti-capitalist and anti-fascists promoted the creation of a fascist coordinator, a network of resistance to the emergence of violent and racist groups, particularly young people, linked the Civic Committee of Cochabamba. Libertarian activists participated and promoted the establishment of the so-called Anti-Fascist Youth Coordinator, the antifascist platform emerged around specific actions, such as organizing a march for the anniversary of the event, which ended in the installation of a "chakana" in the place where coca farmer was killed Juan Ticacolque, January 11
[6] . Immediately inside the organization was a debate on anti-fascist platform structure, while the Trotskyists, Communists and groups sympathetic to MAS, advocated a hierarchical structure based on principles authoritarians, anarchists defending a plural form, horizontal, assembly-and consensus, articulated in a network around concrete actions to fight fascism. The anarchists lost the argument and left the antifascist; this, converted into a traditional hierarchical structure, functional organization and ended up as co-opted by the ruling party.
Box 1. Indymedia and the Indymedia
pluralism was established during the Seattle anti-capitalist revolt as a means of alternative information, based on anarchist principles of equality, decentralization and local autonomy, relationships, non-hierarchical and non-authoritative, consensus decision making, transparent (
www.indymedia.org ). In the management of information, Indymedia is governed by open access and exchange of information, resulted in the use of open publishing web systems.
In Bolivia, Indymedia was created in 2001 with the participation of activists, libertarians (
http://bolivia.indymedia.org/ ), at times serving a counter-effective work, in resisting neoliberal regimes. With access to Evo Morales and the MAS government, Indymedia Bolivia became a page used to both support and criticize the process initiated by the ¨ democratic revolution. " Activists related communicators the government, which have become hegemonic in counter-platform, closed the open access section to upload reviews and news, and introduced filters that prevent publication of information related to the opposition, particularly the "crescent." The argument for this was that the website had convetido in "half of the right and the crescent ¨. Indymedia libertarian communicators severely criticized this decision because it violates the constitutional principles of Indymedia and defended the open system of access and exchange of information.
The emphasis of libertarian activists from non-hierarchical organizational forms and autonomous (See also Box 1) is connected with the fact that anarchism is the only political movement that emphasizes the need for desired social relations within the structures and practices of the revolutionary movement itself. (Gordon, 2005a: 4), the anarchist political practice is primarily pre-figurative, it is anticipated the ways and means of the new company expected today (Franks, 2006, Gordon 2005, 2005a, Graeber, 2002). Since Bakunin, the anarchists claimed the impossibility of building the society of freedom (ie the community), through authoritarian means (Bakunin, 1873 -2004). As Otto says, communicator Indymedia Bolivia, "the social transformation will not come from enlightened few, who will be in the government. " Therefore, the libertarian collectives seek to reproduce the future world society to build or create, as the struggle to abolish hierarchies do the same on demand group, in a sort of "propaganda by the deed", it is easier for people agrees with the idea that there can be no bosses or leaders, when this life is displayed in practice, rather than on paper, in short, the deployment of non-hierarchical structures, where domination is constantly challenged, is an end itself (Gordon, 2005)
[7] .
Construction community today, from the direct action is what is historically linked to anarchists and the indigenous movement in Bolivia. As Rivera notes, indigenous communities are self-sufficient entities and are places where anti-authoritarian type of organization has its roots, because the leadership is rotating, as a service to the community (Rivera, 2008).
prefigurative policies contradict the traditional Marxist / Leninist, which considers top-down structures as the best way to conquer the State, one of its paradigms, no doubt, is the Leninist theory of party (Lenin, 1981/1902) whose major concern is the seizure of power through an authoritarian and centralized structure, leaving the building free society "after the revolution."
There is also an individualistic motivation prefigurative policy: "Our revolution must be an immediate revolution in our daily lives ... we must look first and foremost to alter the contents of our lives in a revolutionary way, but to lead our fight to historical changes global will not live to witness ... "(CrimethInc, 2001).
In addition, policies have their side prefigurative "negative" as a mechanism to avoid authoritarian structures and prevent the failure of emancipation processes, but also your face 'positive' or constructive, through the non-hierarchical, collective, communications, networking, are in themselves the basis of reality that will replace today's society (Gordon, 2005) .
On the other hand, policies prefigurative universalize the concept of direct action anarchist, understood as an action without intermediaries, where the individual or group uses its power and resources to change the reality according to your desires, reduce or eliminate their oppression ( Gordon, 2005; Franks, 2006). As stated Aran, libertarian Catalan:
"First, it is about building other relationships social, based on autonomy, mutual support, here and now. Second, the community is from the action and from the "do it yourself"
Through direct action directly involved in a situation, rather than appeal to a foreign agent, as the principle "do it for you same "means acting on their own rather than wait for someone else to do, direct action is an act of freedom and against the creation of" specialists in freedom ", which only create new hierarchies and divisions (Gordon, 2005), and It includes a variety of actions and practices
[8] .
3. Final Policy Another open
Catalan libertarian states that "anarchism is not something that one day will come, but it is something we fight every day is a struggle and internal and external." For anarchists today, in general, the revolution is an ongoing process at the present time and everyday life rather than a
horizon [9] , the German anarchist Gustav Landauer, stated that "anarchism is not something of the future but the present, not a demand issue, but of life "(Landauer, nn/1901). But it is impossible to ensure that even under the best conditions for sociability and cooperation, some individuals or groups do not reproduce exploitative relationships and domination in society, the idea of \u200b\u200ban end to all forms of domination becomes a technological impossibility, because we do not have the complete list of features that are supposed to be absent (Gordon, 2005). Resistance to all forms of domination in society, state, racism, patriarchy, alienated labor, leads to redefine the "social ties" in all spheres of life.
In this context, the notion of an "anarchist society" as an attainable goal is meaningless, since at most is a society in which everyone is an anarchist, that is, a society in which each person is handled against domination. The task for anarchists today therefore, is not "enter" a new society, but do it as much as possible at the present time
[10] .
not forget that anarchism and other grassroots movements are experiencing an area "not delineated" non-hierarchical social relations, thus going against a socialization process, as children, students, workers (Gordon, 2005 ), the various groups are trying to build, with varying degrees of success, other relationships, based on principles of horizontality, autonomy, solidarity and mutual support.
II. Anarchism, state and community. THE FOOTSTEPS OF GUSTAV LANDAUER
The above issues are discussed in the context of a relational conception of power and the state. And Kropotkin (1946/1902) and later Gustav Landauer (2005/1911) showed how individuals and autonomous communities organized around principles of mutual support and alibis have been seduced into statist relations, living a life based on power relations as domination (Day, 2005:136). Landauer is part of the anarchist tradition that considers how state capitalism and not "things" but as a set / set of relationships between subjects (Ibid, 2005:16), stated:
"the state is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a form of behavior human form to destroy other relationships, by behaving differently. "(quoted in Marshall, 1992).
For the Marxist tradition, and some classical anarchists, the state is an institution, a" thing ", an instrument to be exercised either by the ruling class (Lenin, nn/1918, or by representatives of a plural set of interests (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985)
[11] , and therefore can be destroyed with a revolution (Gambone, 2001 : 3) or by building strategies (counter) hegemonic statist ending reproducing relations of domination that wanted to eliminate (Day, 2005).
The landaueriano argument states that we are helping the state's destruction, as we establish another type of social relations, the same Landauer promoted local agricultural and consumer cooperatives, self-managed, as part of the construction of alternative modes of relationship and social organization , economic policy (Gambone, 2001; Martínez Portillo and Ramajo, 2004). Another
landaueriana vision of the State as a network of social relations is the subjectivity of this relationship, the state is in us, how we live our lives, as stated in the anarcho-punk slogan, "the state is in your head." Moreover, men daily living in a state-run relationship, making the state's coercive order becomes necessary and is represented by this and this (Day, 2005: 125). This order can only be overcome to the extent that this relationship between men is replaced by another, who called Landauer people (people), where people are connected between them, where "based on the process of production and circulation are together again as people grow together as a body with countless bodies and members, "but this is done not in the State, but outside, not the state. That also means with the State, because this finding himself together people, reconstituted and / or updates something that has always been present, form community, which exists alongside the state, but excluded and discriminated against, as the Bolivian case shows clearly. Therefore, anarchist society depends on the technological state of things, but people and their spirit
[12] . And, thus destroying the State, is the displacement, conversion will be superfluous, but essentially, according to Landauer is that if groups or experiments lacking sufficient vital communal spirit may not be a community instead of the state the State as they have within them, and therefore reproduce it.
For contemporary anarchism, particularly from the experience libertarian Bolivian a relational view of the state and power, has several achievements:
- social anarchy and daily life in various scales and sizes, today, without waiting for the social revolution ever distant. Create forms of community social cohesion, not mediated by capital and hierarchies and racist state.
- Go beyond merely logical confrontational or reactive to the state or capital, building, with a positive will to power (and without asking anyone's permission "as like to say the Bolivian anarchist Nestor the Black), the company desired today.
- Anarchists can again (re) structuring alliances, collaborations, with movement Indian, this time about the structuring of community social cohesion, beyond the current state hegemonic process, also raised the challenge of structuring productive enterprises and libertarian economy today.
- In a country like Bolivia, where space, time and areas where state presence and its controls are minimal, territorial self-management is possible, as shown in the Indian case, particularly in the lowlands.
- from social ecology and libertarian, in the cities, build self-managed spaces, community. CONCLUSIONS
Five major themes emphasized in anarchism the constitution of forms of community social cohesion. First, build another kind of social relationships based on autonomy, mutual support, here and now, secondly, the community is from the action and from the "do it yourself", third, in a community can not be split social work, among those who think and decide, and more than just obey and execute, fourth, various libertarian and anti-capitalist practices are articulated in a network to coordinate activities and build concrete forms of community cohesion libertarian, fifth, self of these processes.
Thus there are three issues where the anarchists build community today. On the one hand the struggle against various forms of domination in the context of global capitalism, not only of class type. In Bolivia, the struggle against the racist state and its exclusion devices are essential, and together with a historical affinity with indigenous struggles today libertarian anti-racist practice. Second, the practice itself, for anarchists, and other visible the social relations to be built, and direct action is the mechanism for implementing these policies pre-figurative, as the struggle against domination was made using the principle of "do for yourself ", without waiting for leaders, managers or permission of the State. Finally, community building today, the practice of anarchy in society and everyday life now, not necessarily linked with a predetermined purpose (social revolution), breaking with teleological views of politics, such as Marxism.
anarchy society today is connected with an understanding of the state as a set of social relations rather than a tool in the hands of a class or group interests, and following Gustav Landauer, trying to establish other social relations not based on domination and exclusion, but on cooperation and common good, this also implies a break with the internalization of the State in the subjectivity individual and collective.
anarchist practice is building, with varying intensities, scales and magnitudes, anarchy experiences of society and everyday life, but at the same time poses challenges where we must work Bolivian anarchist, anarchy and everyday social life, at various scales and magnitudes, today, without waiting for ever distant social revolution, not mediated by capital and the racist state. Also go beyond merely logical confrontational or reactive to the state or capital, building, with a positive will to power today. Wello would (re) structuring alliances, collaborations, with the indigenous movement, beyond hegemonic process current state, also raised the challenge of structuring productive enterprises and libertarian economics, and from the social ecology and libertarian, in the cities, build self-managed spaces, community. All this in a country like Bolivia, where space, time and areas where state presence and its controls are minimal, is possible.
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[1] Paper the Second Meeting of Philosophy and Humanities (13-15/X/2008) Institute of Philosophy and Humanities Luis Espinal, Cochabamba, Bolivia.
[2] Although some people doubt their strength and even existence. In fact, one of the panels libertarian Cochabamba meeting (July 2008), the topic of discussion was whether there was an anarchist movement in Bolivia, and as articulated.
[3] Other forms of resistance to domination to name, not worked in this text are the struggles against all forms of patriarchy, as the work of Mujeres Creando (La Paz), Girls dynamite (La Paz), Maiden Libertarian (Cochabamba); On the other hand, the struggle against wage labor, from visions "anti-work" to activists and individuals who claim the work ethic and question posed by this alienation.
[4] In a recent interview, Rivera argues that urban Aymara communities were organized and related both to the indigenous communities of origin and with the trade union movement, that in the 20's was basically anarchist (Rivera, 2008).
[5] Network In Apu Tunari Cochabamba is an example.
[6] View http://jcb-cochabamba.blogspot.com/2008/01/pronunciamiento-n4-de-la-coordinadora.html
[7] The decision to assist and coordinate the libertarian collectives and individuals with other non-anarchists will also be based on consideration of these issues (See Box 1).
[8] "Direct action means not only the occupation of a nuclear plant, but also something less dramatic, often mundane and tedious forms of self-management that involves patience, commitment to democratic procedures, long speeches and a decent respect for the opinions of others within the same community. " (Chuck Morse, in Gordon, 2005), while for the anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker direct action is every method of immediate control of employees (or other sections of society) against their economic and political oppressors, ranging from the strike, boycott, sabotage, propaganda and in critical cases, the armed resistance of the people for the protection of life and liberty (Rocker, 1978: 66).
[9] Vision that although it was already present in the classics, coexisted with the notion of revolution as an event, a time of great qualitative change scale of social life: "a universal revolution, worldwide ... the formidable reactionary coalition can only be destroyed by the greatest power of the revolutionary alliance simultaneous action of all the people of the civilized world" (Bakunin, quoted in Gordon, 2005) .
[10] Paul Goodman eleven Described as anarchism Both conservative and radical, for we Must Attempt to preserve liberty Those places WHERE May Be Developed in full, as well as create new ones. (Garner, 1998).
[11] Richard Day says, thus approaching the Landauer foucaultnianas governmentality thesis, we are not governed by "institutions" separate from us, we govern ourselves each other through a network of capillary power relations. (Day, 2005:125), therefore, he has no sense to speak of the state as a locus of relations of domination, to the extent that relations of domination are everywhere All we become social agents, all of us we see each other. The State becomes, as Landauer suggested, rule of relationships (Day, 2005:127).
[12] Landauer said that socialism, as he referred to an anarchist society is possible and impossible at a time is possible when the right people with the will to do so. It is impossible when people, whether or not it will supposedly have, but is not able (2005/1911).
