is rioting revolutionary? the london riots as a revolutionary act.

[Sasha]

an surprisingly insurrectionary article from adbusters:


Is Rioting Revolutionary?
(http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-blog/rioting-revolutionary.html)

The London Riots as a political act.
114 comments (http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-blog/rioting-revolutionary.html#comments) Micah White , 10 Aug 2011
(http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-blog/rioting-revolutionary.html#)


http://www.adbusters.org/files/imagecache/splash_image/magazine/splash_image/adbusters_blog_riots_s_0.jpg
Looters run from a clothing store in Peckham, London August 8, 2011 (Reuters/Dylan Martinez)

Watching the left's reaction to the London Riots, I am reminded of a discussion between philosopher Michel Foucault and French Maoist militants in 1971. The Maoists argued in favor of setting up a "people's court" to pass judgement on the police whereas Foucault took the contrary position and insisted instead on uncoordinated, unconstrained brutal "popular justice."
Foucault theorized that any attempt to create a judicial system, even a judicial system purportedly run by the people, would simply replicate the power structure that we intended to oppose. Nor did he shy away from taking this argument to its logical conclusion. Foucault went as far as embracing historic examples of disturbing mob behavior, explicitly recalling, and implicitly endorsing, the rash of extrajudicial executions carried out during the French Revolution's September Massacres of 1792 when over a thousand people were murdered by revolutionaries. This, for Foucault, was what "popular justice" looks like and even the "moral ideology" that finds these illegal outbursts repellant "must be submitted to the scrutiny of the most rigorous criticism." The Maoists, on the other hand, insisted that the people's fury ought to be channeled into appropriate (albeit revolutionary) party structures.
What Foucault and the Maoists were debating goes to the heart of how we imagine revolutionary change will take place. Will the revolution be an uncontrolled insurrection – whose symptoms include looting in the streets of London, for example – where the people's rage against consumerism is fully released and their judgements implicitly trusted? Or, will we fear the mob and act, more or less explicitly on the side of power and the status quo, to quell and control the released flows – grabbing a broom to keep the streets clean for the next day's ecocidal shopping?
This is, for me, the fundamental point: at what point does a riot become a revolution? Must the London youth don Black Bloc attire and shout utopian anarchist slogans while burning cop cars before their acts are recognized as a kind of political rebellion? Must they be able to articulate themselves in a way that is intelligible to readers of Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben and Antonio Negri before their riotous flashmobs are acknowledged as the highest form of networked insurrection yet achieved? I suspect that when revolution comes, the ones who have been too long waiting for it will be the very ones who miss it. For they will be too accustomed to looking in the wrong direction, waiting for the wrong words, the wrong actors, the wrong kinds of political deeds.
We are in a revolutionary moment. Prepare yourself: this global insurrection will unfold in ways we lefties may not like. There might be violence, although we desire nonviolence, and there might be pillaging, although we desire the peaceful transfer of wealth. But, let us pause to consider before passing knee-jerk judgement on the forces unleashed even if they do not act as we would prefer. Before we rush to set up approved structures of dissent, we should ask ourselves why we are so invested in denying that rioting is a legitimate political act. Rather than trying to channel, control or dissipate these forces, we must learn to play off of the chaos of the released flows.
"It is from the point of view of property that there are thieves and stealing," Foucault insisted at the end of his discussion. When we always see looting as nothing but thieving and refuse to grant to it the status of a conscious political act, an outburst of "popular justice" against a corrupt and corrupting capitalist system, we are assuming the point of view of the very forces we are trying to overthrow. The same goes for when we condemn any insurrectionary act that is not accompanied by an insurrectionary tract.
The London Riots may not be pretty but as the old-lefty adage goes: "Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection…" And the London Riots are, whether we like it or not, what an insurrection might look like if the forces of capitalism do not peacefully, voluntarily relinquish their stranglehold.
—Micah White (http://www.micahmwhite.com/), micah (at) adbusters.org



source: http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-blog/rioting-revolutionary.html

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

An article opposing Maoist tactics finishes with a justification of its viewpoint by quoting...Mao.:rolleyes:

As much as our politics are often as one, psycho, I find it difficult to take this article seriously.

The point is not that, as suggested in this article, one has to talk in the mystical language of philosophers and academics to have one violent acts taken as 'revolutionary'. That is a logical fallacy. The point is that the riots themselves were not a revolutionary act because they were thoughtless, careless and ill-conceived. However, the reverse point, which I have stressed many times, is that, though careless and thoughtless and often criminal & against working class people, these riots were NOT mindless or pointless, especially not the latter. They are a SYMPTOM of the ills of Capitalism - particularly neo-liberal economic and social policy since 1979 -, rather than a PROVOCATION of revolution.

[RedSonRising]

A revolution isn't a dinner party, but it's not a rampage of mindless mob behavior, either.


The riots are certainly a result of the class system's oppression, but I think we would all prefer if people organized and coordinated more effectively instead of perpetuating violence that very well may end up hurting more innocents and the working class.

[Kléber]

It's good that they support the youth rebellion, but apparently for the wrong reason - precisely because it's a disorganized riot that makes a lot of noise without taking down the state or building the strength of the proletariat (that would be "replicating")

Foucault was the original adbusters blowhard. The sans-culottes had popular tribunals during the September Massacres.

[Obs]

Foucault's argument seems to make a pretty weird distinction - namely, that we cannot honestly organise ourselves in any manner at all, since that would simply "replicate" the bourgeoisie. That this fellow takes his side is all the more confusing.

What a silly man.

(translated for revleft: fuckin nobs)

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5221
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/12555/16-08-2011/con-dems-to-blame-for-anger-of-youth-mass-trade-union-led-workers-response-needed

The above two articles are from the Socialist Party/CWI and the second article printed is in issue 682 of the Socialist - is an updated and slightly shortened version of the original article under the same title posted on this website on 12.8.11.
NB: The original version included criticism of "the applauding of looting in the Socialist Worker newspaper this week". An article by Gary McFarlane incredibly said:
"Karl Marx was exactly right when he talked about expropriating the expropriators, taking back what they have taken from us. That's what looting by poor working class people represents and in that sense it is a deeply political act".

The article even tried to excuse arsonists who placed people in danger of burning to death, by saying:

"No one set out to try and kill or injure those living above [business] premises."

What a travesty to suggest that Marx would have supported the looting of goods from small businesses or arsonists setting alight to people's homes, rather than the mass, organised working class action that he actually stood for, against the capitalist class.

In reality a mass workers’ movement is needed to defeat the government

The explosion of anger on Britain’s streets is above all a condemnation of capitalism, and its inability to offer the next generation even the measly standard of living that workers have had in the last twenty years. The trade union movement needs to act to show it is on the side of young people, but to be fully effective this needs to be linked to the struggle to develop a new mass party for workers and youth which stands for a socialist society. Only by taking the big corporations that dominate Britain’s economy into democratic public ownership would it be possible to begin to provide a real future for young people. Capitalism is incapable of providing even the basics - a decent job, a home, an education - to the next generation. Democratic socialism would mean production could be planned to meet the needs of all and not for profits of a few.

[CHE with an AK]

A riot is usually a festival of the oppressed. A collective public art work showing society's "owners" a minor look at what is coming later if they continue the current unfair system.