TACTile1 writes: "Temporary Anti-Capitalist Teams

A Discussion Document

 how things are

Before we go
anywhere we need to look at what the "anti-Capitalist movement" means
(if it means anything at all) as a diverse political movement, how it works,
what it does and who it is. Whilst referencing the international links that
have been made and the global nature of the ideas that drive the movement, this
document is, in practical terms, talking mainly about the UK's contribution.

In terms of
activists, the real number of active people is vastly outweighed by spectators
and sympathisers, by the amount of activity carried out, and in turn by the
effect made on the wider political scene. Adding all the groups together, we
are really only talking about a couple of hundred activists as a maximum. Many
of these activists are firmly wedded not just to their particular political
specialism, but to their particular political group. This group chauvinism has
been a perpetual block on change and unity on the anti-Capitalist Left. Many
groups are quite convinced that their direction is the only direction - like
a Party line without the Party - and don't even have a desire to work within
a wider context.
As a broad
political idea, the anti-Capitalist movement is a continuum of groups from liberal
mainstream organisations that lobby politicians about 3rd World debt, through
Left Parties and reformist groups, to the Anarchists and Environmental activists
- a diverse de facto coalition of
groups drawn together by their opposition. Outside of the organisational core
there are huge numbers of individual sympathisers and a growing sense of unease
at the direction the world is being dragged. Increasingly, efforts are being
made to separate the liberal, social-democratic reformers away from those perceived
as "hardcore" troublemakers, efforts which include new laws to criminalise
dissent in its most aggressive forms. The definition of troublemaker correspondingly
spreads to those groups that use the most effective tactics. The power of the
media in this process is shown by the ease with which individuals who were vilified
as hardcore "leaders" during the G8 protests rapidly became portrayed
as victims of brutal policing in the aftermath.


For us, the
focus is always going to be on revolutionary non-hierarchic organisations, notably
Anarchists (who have tended to act as the engine of protest) rather than reformers,
but there also needs to be a way to draw activists over the line away from the
ineffectual protest movement, if only
as supporters of more dynamic action. The division between activists and spectators
has always been a very fluid one, affected by the political mood and by opportunities
for action. There are a lot of people who have been and gone but who still remain
sympathetic. Unlike in the USA, trade
unionists and trade union work are not part of the existing movement.


The Anarchist
movement in particular is full of interesting ideas, although largely held without
much of an idea about how to use or enact those ideas, and has pathological
inability to make connections with the wider working class. It seems like a
large part of the Anarchist movement is fuelled by
gut-reaction resistance to the State and a lot of wishful thinking. The level
of political debate is embarrassingly low, the profile of Anarchist ideas is
raised only by reference to violent activists on demonstrations, and most of
the time and effort of Anarchists is wasted on irrelevant and juvenile activity.
As a broad cultural expression the lager-and-crusty social scene seems to be
dominant, along with a sprinkling of dreamers and what the French call "casseurs"
- people who reflect the stereotype Anarchist back onto the media that created
it.


The Environmental
movement also has problems with political debate, specifically in its "little
Englander" manifestations. The whole basis of some activity revolves around
the "cars are bad" mentality, at its extreme viewing workers with
cars as the enemy. The loose and ambiguous nature of the politics of the environmental
movement, and an emphasis on individual action, are preventing new ideas from
progressing and allowing consumer-orientated and social-democratic activities
to dominate. The emphasis of the slicker environmental organisations on harmless
publicity stunts, whose intention is to use the media to put pressure on the
State ("indirect action"), means that their members end up effectively
as another set of lobbyists within the status quo.


The SWP's Globalise
Resistance is performing its usual function, that of hoovering up new activists
and jumping feet-first into the publicity vacuum. With their long experience
of parasitical activity, large finances and tight concept of organising they
are becoming fairly successful at presenting themselves as the spotty face of
anti-Capitalism. Any serious alternative to the existing form of the movement
has to address the SWP problem. Whilst in some forums they are currently presenting
themselves as tolerant of different approaches, the nature of their politics
means that as an organisation they believe that their Party alone is the only
one with the right answers for the working class and their historical intolerance
of Anarchism continues unabated.


The Anarchist
end of the anti-Capitalist movement functions as a very loose network of groups,
although there are no formal connections. Allegiances ebb and flow, collectives
set up to organise particular events disappear, taking their contacts and experiences
with them. There is a morbid fear of "telling people what to do".
The small numbers involved allow a degree of social connection, but outside
of that there is no mechanism to draw people together.
In terms of
activity, the emphasis is very much towards travelling to other countries to
demonstrate outside conference centres, and on annual spectacular events like
May Day. Local work in communities or workplaces is at a very low level, and
that which does take place has no clear reference to being part of a greater
whole or global movement. Many activities are purely self-referential, i.e.
only of interest to other activists. There is a sense of detachment from everyday
life and from struggle, leaving activities isolated from cultural and political
reference points. The
knock-on effect of the numerous injuries and arrests at these spectacular protests
is to absorb more and more resources into defence campaigns and other navel-gazing
memorial events.


Particularly
since Genoa (but already a phenomenon beforehand), the wider political climate is
now unable to ignore the anti-Capitalist movement as a source of discontent
and committed activism. There is a very broad sympathy for, if a lack of understanding
of, anti-Globalisation. The business
"world" is certainly running a bit scared of the movement, if only
at a consumer-orientated level. Tony Blair can write us off as a "travelling
circus" partly because as a movement we have no grounding in everyday life,
but the corporations that are targeted fear adverse effects on their profit
margins. Despite the overwhelming failure of the movement to successfully use
the news media, the idea of an anti-Capitalist movement has greater political
currency than it has for 20 years, even if that idea is as vague and incoherent
as to be impossible to easily explain. There are vocal attempts being made (particularly
by the liberal reformers in an effort to distance themselves from radical protest)
to define more clearly what the movement is for, rather than what it is against.
There is significantly
greater popular support (and publicity) for the positive outcomes which revolve
around things like reducing 3rd World debt, the treatment of sweatshop workers
and reducing the power of corporations, than there is for the (largely undefined)
fundamental destruction of the Capitalism system. Raw anti-Capitalist ideas
are being carried at the head of a wave of popular antipathy to Globalisation
and the seismic effect of the protests and deaths in Genoa has dramatically
galvanised activists, even pushing some of the more reformist commentators to
re-assess their positions. It would seem that we are at a time of great opportunity,
or it could be that we are believing our own publicity and over-estimating our
resources.


where its going

If the anti-Capitalist
movement continues as it is now, there are several likely scenarios for the
future. The first is that is does just that - continues as it is now, reproducing
itself via new activists and new
targets, for the foreseeable future. The self-perpetuation of a tired routine
is well within the capacity of the existing movement and something that it has
excelled at in the past, turning out to events like Stop the City until way
after they were useful or even sensible. Part of the recent success of the movement
is due to new forms of organisation thrown together by Environmentalists and
groups like RTS, but these forms have not proved entirely successful at handling
the success they have achieved - the fear of any form of leadership role (either
driven by ideology or by increasingly aggressive targetting by the State) has
led in the past to interesting opportunities being squandered in unfocussed
events, like the Guerrilla Gardening, where unprepared crowds blunder about
waiting for a "sign". Its quite possible that new mutations of existing
groups will continue the ebb and flow of activists within a self-referential
'scene' without ever expanding into something more threatening. The experience
of Italian and German groups have shown that it is possible to create that gradual
expansion, but these groups have travelled much further along than the movement
in the UK has and they are still not getting very far.

Another possibility
that is always on the cards is that this brief upsurge in radical ideas and
activity will gradually dissipate and fade, the liberal end of the movement
becoming recuperated and the activist end becoming burnt out and directionless.
Some people are suggesting that the peak of the current movement has already
passed and we are now on a downhill slide, having missed our chance. The rise
of Globalise Resistance may play a part in this process, if the history of the
ANL is anything to go by. Nice jobs for a few Oxbridge columnists and the dustbin
of history for the rest of us. Some of the indications from France are that
the upsurge of a more focussed reformist movement has already sidelined radical
ideas.
The reaction
of the State and the police indicates that they are completely ruthless in their
desire to see the progressive anti-Capitalist movement crushed. Following the
response to May Day 2001, the shooting in Gothenberg, the murders in Genoa and
subsequent promises of repressive legislation, its possible that a more hardcore
and illegal response will emerge as a reaction, with isolated nutters taking
up arms against the State. I suspect that the paranoia and ineptitude of the
wilder extremes of the Anarchist movement mean that this is more likely to be
a continental
european phenomenon, although I wouldn't discount new attempts by the State
to manufacture such a response (the activities of fake Black Blocks in Genoa
being one example). Tony Blair's behaviour during the Genoa summit, supporting
the violence of the police actions against the protestors, whilst dishing out
hugs all round to the millionaire debt-campaigners Bono and Saint Bob Geldof,
suggest that a carrot-and-stick approach may be used more explicitly, to demonise
the nasty radicals whilst at the same time appearing to support the media-friendly
face of protest as an acceptable and harmless hobby.


Another option
is that, out of the current primeval political swamp, a new creature evolves
- an anti-Capitalist movement that exists as a functioning coalition, rooted
in the wider class struggle and with a coherence of purpose that enables it
to break out of the activist ghetto and begin the process of transforming society.
This option is surely what we all want - the question is how? There are plenty
of good ideas around, and plenty of good activists mired in the existing form
of the movement. There is a chance that a non-sectarian, inclusive, diverse
and progressive current could give new life to the anti-Capitalist movement,
allowing non-hierarchic forms of organisation and new ideas about society to
be built on the broad foundations of community and workplace struggle, feeding
the flames of working class resistance and spreading the possibilities of meaningful
change. This may not change the world, but it could change the movement into
one that had a better chance. BUT for even the possibility of this chance, there
would need to be major seachange in attitudes, a lot of
creative thinking and a lot of work. Sectarianism and group chauvinism would
need to be challenged, the acceptance of plurality and difference would need
to be embraced. Harsh realities would need to be faced - about the status of
the movement, about the relevance of some tactics and
activities, about the need for co-ordination and hard work.
Its reasonably
clear that we are a rag-tag battalion, just a small part of an army of workers
fighting hard in the face of huge odds and an unclear future. We are at a point
where we can consolidate our small successes and move on, or we can be swept
away on the tide of history.




some new ideas

That history
has shown us that there is no 'one big idea' that will solve all our problems
- there is not "one struggle, one fight", but in reality there are
many struggles and many fights. Our response to the current situation needs
to reflect the fluid and diverse nature of the anti-Capitalist movement itself
and the shifting allegiances of the working class as a whole. We need to pick
out the good things that are happening and build on them, developing an inclusive
coalition of different groups and struggles organised in non-hierarchic ways,
with respect for difference and solidarity in action. The liberal social-democratic
path is currently trying to narrow our direction, excluding the radical and
creating a convergence of focus within legal and parliamentary activity - in
response we need to celebrate our divergence and our wide focus of action.

Neither is
there one solution to organisation, other than a necessity for grass-roots activity
and an emphasis on diversity. Its not clear that new structures are needed.
In terms of effort, numbers or resources the prospect of creating a new umbrella
organisation is a very daunting one, without any suggestion that it would be
either useful or successful. What might be useful is a different understanding
of the way we organise and the process by which we make our movement more effective.


Small acts
of resistance occur all over the world every day, carried out by groups and
individuals who (consciously or not) are acting as part of a bigger whole. People
acting in their own way, with their own concerns and struggles. Sometimes those
struggles coincide with others and a more
effective challenge can be made - individual refusal broadening out into a genuine
and fundamental challenge. These shifting connections and allegiances are a
vital part of the anti-Capitalist movement. Part of the task of that movement
is to generate awareness that these everyday
struggles are part of that greater whole, to give practical support and resources
and articulate that sense of solidarity. One of the ways that this can be done
is to celebrate that resistance, lending it a name that draws it into the sphere
of our activity.


The idea of
the Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team is a response to the need for greater coherence
and inclusivity. There are Temporary Anti-Capitalist Teams working all over
the world all the time - every time that a group of workers comes together in
self-defence for industrial action or even
collective bargaining that is a Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team in action. Whenever
people come together in forms of activity that step outside of the domination
of Capitalism, that is a Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team in action. When a community
works together for its own purpose in defiance of
the bureaucracy of the State that is a Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team in action.
And when the groups and collectives that make up the movement are doing what
they do best, that too is a Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team in action. Sometimes
the "Teams" overlap and coalesce, sometimes they are more "Temporary"
than at others, sometimes the link to "Anti-Capitalism" is not
so clear. But a TACT is not a form of organisation, its an idea - about society
and struggle, about interaction and collective response, an expression of resistance:
 
Temporary
- the very nature of our struggles emphasise the fleeting allegiances we build.
We are a fluid and changing dynamic of political ideas. A recognition that we
are not interested in a leadership role, or in accumulating power for a particular
group or speciality (but we must be responsive to feedback, answerable for our
actions and and not afraid to make suggestions). A celebration of a diverse
response to a constantly changing situation. An acknowledgement that this idea
is not the final answer to all our problems.


Anti-Capitalist
- we are a global movement with a common problem, Capitalism. It is the system
that unites us all in struggle, whatever our intended political destination
(there is plenty of time to work that out along the way - now is not the time
for intricate post-revolutionary dogma). We are inclusive, we value difference
- difference of priorities, focus, membership. At its core this is an understanding
of the class nature of society and the imposition of work.


Team
- we work together as a team, with no leaders or cadre within our group. We
are a convergence of commonality with a non-hierarchic way to work together.
We are open, with space for all. As working class people we know that as individuals
we are denied power and that unity is strength. As working class people we fight
all the things that divide us.


The idea of
TACT is to give a name to our activity and to be able to make links with others
who are already active. To articulate opposition in a useful way and to draw
others, already carrying out similar work under a different name, into a wider
movement of overlapping action and commonality, explicitly locating them within
that wider struggle. The very process of spreading the idea of TACT is itself
a process of resistance. No-one has to leave their existing group to join a
TACT - it is an idea,
not an organisation - it is enough to understand that that is the nature of
what you are doing and that you are part of a larger whole that needs your support
and will in turn lend support to you. Its not a question of asking people to
join, its a process of recognition of being a part of a greater whole, recognising
commonality in the struggles of others - there is no membership drive, no monolith
to be built - it cannot be a process of uniformity. No-one is being asked to
organise their own struggle in a
different way (or being told how to struggle), but to be part of a network providing
practical and political support where its wanted, to work together with others
where things co-incide, where its useful.


There are a few fundamentals to consider when thinking about how to break out
of the activist ghetto and engage with the wider class. Whatever is done, it
must be relevant and inclusive. It must be effectively publicised as well as
just plain effective. The relationship between spectacular events and everyday
struggles must be clear - protest is for every day, not just once a year.


For the idea
to work there has got to be one TACT that gets the ball (hopefully a snowball!)
rolling. As things progress there will be many different teams with many different
functions, some will be established groups that carry on much as before, another
could be a new TACT that has the task of producing a bulletin that celebrates
our resistance. There could be a TACT whose role is to go out and spread ideas,
perhaps one that acts as a union, others could focus on particular local issues,
workplace activity, particular events. We could be working together in a diverse
reaction to events or on a specific action - a TACT could be long-lasting, others
could only last a few days (or hours). The teams would not necessarily be defined
by geography, although they could be. The full range of communications technology
must be harnessed to our needs, enabling discussion, the sharing of ideas, support
and solidarity over long distances, the co-ordination of disparate activities,
or just connecting parts of the same city. There will be many ways that these
teams will overlap and interact, and no limit to the number of possibilities.
In this way we will be able to move forward in a collective response to our
political and economic situation, a response that exists as a dynamic, a process
of struggle that is recognised as a part of working class activity - not outside
or 'other' - but within it and of it.
 
http://www.temporary.org.uk
e-mail:
discussion@temporary.org.uk "