A general and broad definition of 'Mass Mobilization' is when an organization or group of organizations put out a national or international call for participants in a massive demonstration in the group's locality. For example, any of the many protests numbering in the hundreds or thousands that happen in DC on an almost weekly basis.
For the purposes of this discussion, the term 'Mass Mobilization' refers to a specific variety of that tactic. Very romanticized language is used in the calls to action, placing all systems of oppression as embodied in the target for bricks and black-bloc. The language implies a critical and climactic moment in society's desperation, and provides a Now-Or-Never ultimatum in language like "It's time to decide - bow our heads in submission or raise our fists to fight." Throwing that brick and blocking that intersection are absolute imperatives for fighting for our freedom from dominance, and we're told that if we don't do them we will never become free. If we don't fight now, we are weak and selfish.
Because these are feelings that many of us get when frustrated with the bullshit around us, many go into these actions with their entire hearts, laying their personal risk aside because they feel that in a true battle one must not be afraid to sacrifice for the victory of freedom.
The problem is, these brick-throwings aren't happening at our climactic moment. We don't have the entire working class throwing these bricks together in solidarity, so resistance becomes an anarchist club. The folks participating end up going to jail and court, pouring days and months into a jail cell, thousands of dollars from the movement into the pockets of court officials and out of the pockets of common unwealthy people who oppose capitalism and prisons and silenced dissent. We end up drained, tired, frustrated, fearful, paranoid, defeated. Participation in organizing drops due to burn-out. Having placed our passions into the momentum of that brick, we experience ultimate disappointment when capitalism does not crumble under its blow. We lose faith in anarchist values. We give up. We divide.
This is the kind of Mass Mobilization we reference.
- Alicia
For the purposes of this discussion, the term 'Mass Mobilization' refers to a specific variety of that tactic. Very romanticized language is used in the calls to action, placing all systems of oppression as embodied in the target for bricks and black-bloc. The language implies a critical and climactic moment in society's desperation, and provides a Now-Or-Never ultimatum in language like "It's time to decide - bow our heads in submission or raise our fists to fight." Throwing that brick and blocking that intersection are absolute imperatives for fighting for our freedom from dominance, and we're told that if we don't do them we will never become free. If we don't fight now, we are weak and selfish.
Because these are feelings that many of us get when frustrated with the bullshit around us, many go into these actions with their entire hearts, laying their personal risk aside because they feel that in a true battle one must not be afraid to sacrifice for the victory of freedom.
The problem is, these brick-throwings aren't happening at our climactic moment. We don't have the entire working class throwing these bricks together in solidarity, so resistance becomes an anarchist club. The folks participating end up going to jail and court, pouring days and months into a jail cell, thousands of dollars from the movement into the pockets of court officials and out of the pockets of common unwealthy people who oppose capitalism and prisons and silenced dissent. We end up drained, tired, frustrated, fearful, paranoid, defeated. Participation in organizing drops due to burn-out. Having placed our passions into the momentum of that brick, we experience ultimate disappointment when capitalism does not crumble under its blow. We lose faith in anarchist values. We give up. We divide.
This is the kind of Mass Mobilization we reference.
- Alicia
have you guys seen 'Give Up Activism'? it addresses similar issues:
ReplyDelete"We're attempting to take on capitalism and conceptualising what we're doing in completely innapropriate terms, utilising a method of operating appropriate to liberal reformism.So we have the bizarre spectacle of 'doing an action' against capitalism - an utterly innadequate practice."
http://libcom.org/library/giveupactivism
- Joseph Kay