"We Plebeians"

Brian Holmes

But for a few lone wolves, the Aristocrats are weary, recalcitrant,
suspicious. Dissension has broken out within the very ranks of the
Monarchy. And the eternal muttering of the Plebe has swollen to a
tremendous roar. Such is the world situation in the tripartite terms
of Empire.
Still reeling from the largest deflationary shock and the
worst overcapacity crisis since 1929, the great corporate Houses --
excepting the oil and defense industries -- see nothing to be gained
from unleashing the dogs of war. After a bullish exile to New York
they returned to Davos last month on their knees, begging to regain
our "trust." The world military Powers, after swearing fealty to the
United States in the wake of September 11, are now facing the
inherent contradictions of their regional interests once again; thus
the dissension within the two primary courts of the transnational
police, the United Nations and NATO. And to make matters worse from
these two viewpoints, the unprecedented success of the February 15
demonstrations finally renders it impossible to ignore the presence
of a new actor on the world stage: transnational civil society, or
better, the Multitudes.

Beyond the ongoing collapse of globalized finance, which has
hardly wreaked the last of its effects, two things are of compelling
interest. The first is the continuing, seemingly unstoppable rise in
the self-organizational powers of the Plebe. Since the first Day of
Global Action not even five years ago, in May of 1998 -- which seemed
astounding, because 150,000 people demonstrated in Hyderabad, 50,000
in Brasilia, and a few thousand in Geneva, all against the WTO -- we
have now reached a situation where tens of millions can summon
themselves simultaneously into the streets, and into the screens of
the global media. The February 15 preemptive strikes against the war
were "called for" by the movement of the Social Forums. But what are
the Social Forums, if not a collective name, a collective phantom --
the Luther Blissett of world politics? Anyone can constitute a forum,
and no one can speak in their name; the social forums are tools which
the movements have given themselves, vectors we have invoked from the
historical latencies of solidarity, critique and rebellion. The
strength of the new social movements is to go beyond both the
twentieth-century form of the political party and its mass
megaphones: radio and TV. The February 15 protests were organized
through every imaginable network of tactical media, from word of
mouth and intimate dreams to the Internet. And despite all the chaos,
despite the "lack" of representation, it is overwhelmingly obvious
that these movements speak the truth, which has become too simple to
refuse: intolerable war, intolerable inequality.

There will be more to this story, it's sure: there will be
political crises brought on by this new self-organizing force, and
severe organic crises within the movements themselves, as soon as the
emerging counterpowers begin to divide, to adopt positions of
practical power, forcing us to deal with the differences between what
Miguel Benasayag would call a "situation" of critique and a
"situation" of management. There are no guarantees whatsoever as to
how a post-party politics might work, nor even as to how it might
survive in a hostile world. But setting that aside for the moment,
let us look rather at the shorter term, at the second question of
compelling interest in this ugly present situation. Will the Imperial
Monarchy survive this crisis? By that I mean: Will the seemingly
rational tendency to accompany the globalization of capital through
the construction of a legitimating legal and military governance of
the world succeed in weathering the irrational outburst of aggression
and regional self-interest currently being spat out by the ruling
oligarchy of the United States?

Of course, the Europeans have now "resolved" their crisis
within NATO; of course they have now presented a "united" front for
continuing negotiations within the framework of the UN. This kind of
consensus is the European credo, the bare minimum of European
existence, it will always be obtained between the leaders. And one
can be sure it will be obtained in a way that leaves an open door to
cooperation with the United States, and to military cooperation above
all -- the monarchical function par excellence. As much as the two
historical founders of Europe, France and Germany, wish
philosophically to institute a continental power that can achieve
some economic and political autonomy, still they all want desperately
to maintain the reality of a global military policy, as a bulwark
against the increasingly real possibility of global chaos. This too
is part of the wider consensus. But can this common front of the
political classes be held, in electoral terms, when approximately 80
percent of populations throughout Europe are opposed to the imminent
specter of war? In other words: Will the EU be forced by its people
into creating a division within the Occidental heart of Empire?

To be sure, those 80 percent are opposed to a war outside the
UN framework; and despite Chirac's posturing and Schroeder's pollling
strategies, the miserable probability is that the European leaders
will finally bow to US pressure from within the UN, pushed on by the
imperative to maintain the monarchical courts of transnational
military cooperation. After all (propaganda is when you repeat) 80
percent are opposed to a conflict *outside* the UN framework....

But what if the advance information proves correct: what if
the onslaught in Iraq will be inaugurated by what military strategist
Harlan Ullman calls the principle of "Shock and Awe," whereby the
"Allies" launch up to 800 cruise missiles in two days -- more than all
that fell in the forty days of the first Gulf War? This is a strategy
for the massacres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of Guernica and Dresden,
in our time, for no justifiable reason. Peter Turnley's photographs
from the Mile of Death during the last Gulf War already show what
this can mean. This is not a "just war." The Texas Crown is opening
the door to hell on earth.

What we plebeians must envision is a general strike on a
world scale, if it comes to such a day. An urban strike, a blockage
of our cities, like the piqueteros in Argentina, but everywhere. We
no longer need to wait for the unions, we no longer need to wait for
the political parties, their members will be ahead of them, in the
streets. Only a credible threat from below can stave off the
treachery of our so-called leaders. We must prepare with every
possible form of communication, in whispers that become a roar.
Prepare for what? A total stoppage of all the world's cities in the
event of war: an exodus from hell on earth, reasonable, deliberate,
peaceful and unbending. We plebeians can break the power that calls
for a world of war.