The Belgian writer (author of some fifty books) and philosopher Raoul Vaneigem died on July 28 at the age of 92. An anarchist, he was a close friend of our colleague Marc Tomsin (with whom we created the radio program "Terre et liberté" in 2008, later renamed "Trous noirs"), who passed away in June 2021. Several texts by Vaneigem can be found on the website "La Voie du jaguar," run by Tomsin, including a tribute to Marc after his death: https://www.lavoiedujaguar.net/Un-hommage-de-Raoul-Vaneigem-a-son-ami-Marc-Tomsin "As heirs to the insurgents of the past, we are laying the foundations for a true international of humankind. Choosing the path of life is now the only recourse against those who sow death across the globe. This is the fight you chose to wage, and your radiant friendship was often more effective than many a diatribe."
Marc Tomsin's publishing house, Éditions Rue des Cascades, published his book "L'État" in 2010. "We are nothing, let us be everything."
He is primarily known for his participation, from 1961 until his resignation in 1970, in the Situationist International and for his *Treatise on Living for the Use of Young Generations*, published in 1967. This book dismantles the mechanisms of domination and seeks in everyday life the forces capable of overthrowing them.
Allergic to Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist ideologies, he participated in May '68 while being highly critical of leftist movements.
He elaborated on his proposals in the book *From the Wildcat Strike to Generalized Self-Management* in 1974.
A few decades later, with his friend Siné, he contributed to the journal *Siné Mensuel*.
His works contrast life with mere survival, giving with market exchange, and autonomy with individualism. Declaring himself an "insurrectionary pacifist," he sought to build spaces where the State and the market would lose their grip. He was very interested in the Yellow Vests ("Democracy is in the streets, not at the ballot box"), Zapatismo, and Rojava as spaces of autonomy and mutual aid, separate from new power grabs:
"The people making their own decisions are in line with the self-management experience led by the Spanish libertarian collectives of 1936. The Zapatistas of Chiapas, the insurgents of Rojava, and the most radical tendency of the Yellow Vest movement in France are unanimously inspired by it today, despite a great diversity of historical, political, and geographical conditions," May 2021.
His 1974 song "La vie s'écoule, la vie s'enfuit" (Life Flows By, Life Flees), performed by Jacques Marchais, is often played in Trous. Black Holes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQWvjqrHdiQ
Serge
Black Holes
P.S.: Below, to better understand his very rich thought, are some excerpts from texts and interviews published notably on the website La Voie du jaguar (The Jaguar's Way)
October 2008
"It is time to lay the foundations of a new society, to build self-management by seizing alternative energies and putting them at the service of communities that refuse to be accountable to the managers of global bankruptcy and the swindlers whose power has no other support than the passivity and resignation of the masses."
"I have never confused revolt and revolution, and even less so emancipation and predation. Rioting is an outlet, revolt can always be co-opted. Self-managed communities will not be." We are neither pirates, nor outsiders, nor marginal figures; we are at the heart of a solidarity-based society yet to be created, and whether we like it or not, we will have to learn to oppose this parliamentary, clientelist, and corrupt democracy, which is collapsing along with the financial powers that supported and devoured it, with a direct democracy.
September 2013
"We believe in God because we lack the means to believe in ourselves, investing in an 'afterlife,' because we are incapable of living in this 'world.'"
June 2019
"We know how the struggle for the proletariat turned into a dictatorship exercised against it and in its name. Communism and socialism have proven this."
"On one hand, we see the absurdity of elections hijacked by a totalitarian democracy that treats people like fools, and on the other, the Yellow Vest movement, which scoffs at ideological, religious, and political labels, and rejects leaders and representatives not mandated by the direct democracy of assemblies."
"Save social gains? They're already lost. Trains, schools, hospitals, pensions are being bulldozed by the state. The dismantling continues. The profit machine, of which the state is merely a cog, will not reverse course. How can we not instead place our trust in the hands that, at crossroads, in community centers, and in assemblies of direct democracy, are working to rebuild the common good?"
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=9124
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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