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Perspective: Insurgency?

"It's useless to wait - for a breakthrough, for the revolution, the nuclearapocalypse or a social movement. To go on waiting is madness. The catastrophe is not coming, it is here."

With this urgent appeal, The Invisible Comittee opens it's manifesto "The Coming Insurrection." In 2007, the year the french text was published, the empathic realtion to a logic of insurrecxtion appeared far out to many. "We?re setting out from a point of extreme isolation, of extreme weakness. An insurrectional process must be built from the ground up. Nothing appears less likely than an insurrection, but nothing is more necessary," The Invisble Committee is proclaiming in it's text, a text that would become a international bestseller for it's anticipatory qualities.

With the breakout of the global capitalist crisis of finance and accumulation in 2008, the orientation towards an insurrectionist perspective gained an unforseen actuality. Since then there has been a high frequency and concurrency of struggles, insurections and revolts in numerous regions of the world: Starting with the riots in Greece after the murder of the young activist Alexis Grigoropoulos in December 2008; the successful insurection in Tunisia and Egypt in spring 2011,; the revolts in Lybia and Syria that ended in civil wars; the social struggles and strikes against the passing of the burden of the crisis and the politics of the Troika in Greece, Portugal and Spain; the rapidly and globally spreading Occupy Wall Street Movement; the squattings of public places in Madrid, Barcelona, Athens and other Metropoles to the fierce riots in Great Britain and french suburbs. This new Cycle of struggles, against the backdrop of a continuing crisis of capitalism makes the insurrection a concrete perspective.

Together with our Guests from South Europe and the Maghreb, we want to discuss their experiences and analyses of the insurrectionist movements and social struggles of their countries. We don?t want to create a new insurrectionist hype. We want to know the real possibilities and limitations of movements and struggles to revolutionise the unbearable conditions. We want to also adress the contradictions and setbacks the insurectionist movements are facing. The strengthening of fascist and racist groups in Greece, the increasingly militarised suppression of social struggles in southern european countries, the successes at the ballots islamist parties had in Tunisia and Egypt as well as the tendencies of societal restauration there, the suppression of emancipatorical groups with the militarzation of the conflicts in Syria and Lybia, to the quick slackening of the Occupy-movements und the protests against austerity in the USA, Israel and Europe: Everywhere, new movements and actors face a brutal rollback.

A further Problem is the national limitation of many movements and struggles. While the strategies of crisis management and policies of austerity are decided and executedon a transnational level, at the European Commission and European Central Bank, the struggles against the brutal consequences of these policies contain themselves within national borders far to often. International, coordinated protest, as with the european day of strikes and action in November 2012 or the international wave of self-organized struggles of refugees are rare exceptions.

While the revolt against tunisian dictator Ben Ali in early 2011 spread through the whole region like wildfire, many movements, actors and struggles kept confined to a limited, regiional or national context. Thus, the old regimes can supress the revolts more easily, while international powers or reactionary Countries from the region can secure their influence as well. To be successful and to secure their gains, insurrectionist movements have to surpass national, racial andreligious borders and develop a common emancipatorical perspective.

Thus, effective international solidarity and the practical connection of the diverse struggles and movements becoma an existentioal question. To link the social struggles in Europe with the insurrectionalist movements in northern africa and the arabian regions will be of utmost importance: We need to turn the mediterranean sea, right now a border between rich and poor and a zone were migration is interdicted with often fatal consequences, into a zone marked by the richness of social struggles and insurrections.

But the stable political situations in northwestern Europe also pose urgent questions. Especially the German Federal Government has successfully transferred the consequences of the crisis to other countries. Rising Productivity, low wages, precarous working conditions and a stable social "peace" are the basis of Germanies success as an exporter. The "Modell Germany" is now beeing forced upon the countries most hit by the crisis, via measures of austerity and debt consolidation. The Left has, thus far, been helpless in the face of this developement. Protests against the crisis, like Bloccupy in Frankfurt remained isolated incidents failing to spark a social dynamic.

When will we break the deadly calm here? What role does a marginalsed Left get to play? What can we do against nationalist and racist "solutions" to the crisis? What can we do for a transnational insurrectionalist movement? With whom will we be solidaric - and with whom not? Is the militarization of the civil war the collapse of the insurrection? How do we stand towards military interventions - in favor of insurectionalist movements? All these questions only gained urgency in face of recent developements. Finding answers will be decisive for the future of internationalist politics.

Panel-Discussion "Perspective: Insurgency? Social fights in the South of Europe and Northafrica" with activists from Tunesia, France, Spain and Geek

Friday the 10th May, 8pm in "Freiheiz"(Rainer-Werner-Fassbinder-Platz 1,  100 m next to the S-Bahn Donnersbergerbrücke)