Radical media, politics and culture.

Sandro Mezzadra, "The Right to Escape"

sgb writes:

"The Right to Escape"
Sandro Mezzadra


Escape, as a political category, has always been suspicious. It seems to have close connections with betrayal, opportunism and cowardice, all categories that are both antipatriotic and foreign to the traditional virtues of political action. However, desertion, as a figure of civil disobedience, has had some success in the peace and environmental movements since the 1970s; and the massive exodus from the former German Democratic Republic that marked the end of Real Socialism was certainly a political movement. If escape has been almost an antipolitical category, it has had other connotations, like that of adventure, journey of exploration, thirst and hunger of life. It is always tied with the concept of movement and restlessness. It has been one of the basic tools to refuse banality and repetitiveness of everyday life and its suffocating restrictions. In that way escape has been almost a privileged way to subjectivity, a road to freedom and independence.

[ Translated from the Italian by Taina Rajanti. This article first appeared in 'ephemera: theory & politics in organization', Vol. 4, Iss. 3 (Aug 2004). The full-text pdf version can be downloaded at http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal ]