(en) Media, Ukraina, Lviv anarchists hold picket of solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners

Portraits of the prisoners of conscience were hung out near the Belarusian consulate. ---- 
A reader reports about a picket of solidarity with the Belarusian political prisoners that 
was held in Lviv on February 17. Activists of the Autonomous Resistance group gathered 
near the consulate of Belarus to protest against repression against political activists 
and express solidarity with them. ---- “The presidential elections will be held in 
Lukashenka's country in six months. The outcome is known beforehand. But the potato baron 
understands that the example of Maidan can have serious consequences for his rule. For 
example, informal concerts are being banned even today. ---- Activist Aliaksandr 
Frantskevich was thrown into jail for 25 days for disorderly conduct. Mikalai Dziadok, an 
anarchist, has been in prison for four years. He may get an additional year of 
imprisonment for violating prison rules.

These events are interconnected. These people can become leaders of the uprising that can 
give people freedom. Parasites in Belarus don't differ from those in other CIS countries. 
State rats use all opportunities to keep their place near the feeder. Repressions are 
stronger then prisons. Glory to the free people of Belarus. Death to the dictator,” the 
activists wrote.

(en) Media, From Sri Lanka Guardian* - An Anarchist Critique of the Cuban ?Revolution? by Dave Fryett

Regime change in Cuba? Che rolling in his grave? The first shriek comes from a liberal, 
the latter a Marxist. With all due respect to both, I think the former quite confused if 
he thinks that Castroite Cuba more closely reflects his own Keynesian delusions, and the 
latter seems not to understand Che?s significant contribution to the normalization of 
relations between Cuba and the US (even though it occurs long after his death). Che was 
the Beard?s partner in the charade that was Cuban socialism, and his ally in the effort to 
rid that island of all forms of dissent and opposition. This seeming capitulation by Raul 
Castro finds its theoretical justification in a teleology which slithers back through Che 
and Sankara and Deng and Ho and Lenin, and eventually to Marx and Engels in the First 
International. More specifically, this fiasco finds its provenance in a single, 
horrifying, insipid, enervating phrase: the dictatorship of the proletariat.

There will be no regime change in Cuba because the social revolution did not occur. There 
was instead a Leninist reorganization of capitalist social relations and the ascension of 
a new ruling class to enforce them. Was anyone quite so gullible as to think that that 
this would lead to socialism?!? How rich it is to see authoritarian socialists of various 
stripes hang their heads in holy despair as they try to figure out just where the Cuban 
Revolution went off the rails. Did anybody really think that this application of Leninist 
principles was going to produce a different result in Cuba than it had everywhere else? 
Did anyone really believe that a political party; a party which reproduces within its 
infrastructure the bourgeois disparities of empowered and powerless, bureaucrat and 
supplicant, rewarded and punished, rulers and ruled, benefactor and beneficiary; that a 
party so conceived and constituted could actually create proletarian democracy?

Was anyone quite so witless as to believe that a party whose organizing principle was 
centralism; a party which disenfranchises the toiling classes, which expunges all organs 
of worker management and control and utterly divorces the proletariat from public affairs, 
could at the same time emancipate it?

The Cuban Revolution failed because it was stillborn. It died soon after Battista fled and 
its ?leader,? taking a page from the Bolshevik playbook, immediately began repressing 
and/or subverting those student and worker organizations which were instrumental in the 
revolution. Castro created a steeply hierarchical power structure outside which the 
workers stood in permanent alienation.1 With only minor differences, Castro created a 
Leninist terror state. Castro?s chief revolutionary rival, Camilo Cienfuegos, dies in a 
still unexplained plane accident. Other revolutionary leaders are soon arrested and 
denounced as foreign agents (oh, Lenin would have been so proud). The gulag sprang up in 
no time.

Cuba is normalizing relations with the United States because the workers have no power, 
and never have. Purged of their revolutionary ardor long ago, they are now a gray, 
moribund mass accustomed to looking up and awaiting instructions.
Which brings us to the Che myth. Guevara participated in this dictatorship over the 
proletariat for six years!

Che was a Stalinist, and an enthusiastic supporter of the one-party state. Shortly before 
he died, his opinion changed, but for most of his life, including those six years in 
office, he was an open admirer of Stalin, even occasionally signing letters with his name 
rather than his own. He criticized The Revolution Betrayed specifically because therein 
Trotsky renounced the one-party state.

But he was not so much the Stalinist that he couldn?t indulge in Trotsky?s 
counterrevolutionary vices. Che supported the nationalization of the trade unions along 
precisely the same lines as had Trotsky: in a workers? state workers didn?t need 
independent unions. Lenin saw them as ?conveyor belts? providing two-way communication 
between the party and the proletariat (how sweet of him to want to keep in touch!), and 
was critical of Trotsky?s position. Not so Che.

As Minister of Industries, Che outlawed labor strikes (again employing Trotsky?s 
argument). Accordingly, he introduced ?labor correction camps? (my emphasis) for uppity 
workers who didn?t take orders as well as Che would like.
Che also initiated the practice of Administrative Detention. This meant he could hold 
anyone he chose indefinitely without a trial.

Che complained that the USSR exploited the nations under it protection economically. 
Indeed that Leninist state extracted surplus value (capital) from its workers and from its 
colonies in the form of unequal exchange. But Cuba was doing the same thing internally 
with Che?s support.

Che is one of the gravediggers of the Cuban Revolution, if he?s rolling in his then he has 
nobody to blame but himself. From the days of Marx and Engels, they and their followers 
have persecuted other socialist tendencies and argued for a dictatorship.2 Marx got the 
IWMA Congress of 1872 moved to Holland so Bakunin could not attend and then issued 
credentials to loyalists, far in excess of what had been issued at any other Congress, and 
succeeded in getting the anarchists expelled. Then he got the International moved to New 
York so that the Blanquists would not gain control of it. The IWMA didn?t survive Marx? 
Machiavellian machinations.

Purging, justified in the name of ideological purity, became a staple of the first Marxist 
government, the Soviet Union, and those which followed. Lenin launched the Cheka 
immediately, and the lion?s share of its unsuspecting victims were revolutionary workers 
and other socialist tendencies. Then Lenin banned factions within the party. That 
repressive measure not being entirely successful, Lenin launched the CPSU?s first major 
purge. In the effort to rid himself of the Workers? Opposition, one quarter of the 
membership was expelled. (Those workers are just nothing but trouble.)

This was the template which the Cuban Revolution followed, and failed because of it. When 
socialism does take hold, real socialism, as it did in anarchist Spain, then the workers 
will build barricades in the streets and fight to the death rather than hand control over 
to bourgeois predators. After fifty years of Leninism, the workers of Cuba are a 
docilized, compliant, vassalized class so used to obeying orders that they probably won?t 
even notice the changes occurring overhead.

Carlos Franqui?s writings are indispensable. Diary of the Cuban Revolution is quite long, 
but is the best book I?ve ever encountered on its subject. His Family Portrait with Fidel 
is a real treat. Don?t miss it.

In fairness to Marx and Engels, their idea of the dictatorship was quite different from 
Lenin?s.

Dave Fryett is an anarchist in Seattle

http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2014/12/an-anarchist-critique-of-cuban.html

(en) Media, Taksim to Kobani: Turkish anarchists defy Syrian border

Turkish anarchists, who made headlines around the world during the battle for Taksim 
Square, have decamped to the besieged Kurdish town of Kobani to support the fight against 
the Islamic State. ---- While Turkish security forces look on from across the border as 
the Islamic State continues its onslaught against Kobani, a group of Turkish activists 
have crossed the border to support the Kurds. ---- They call themselves Devrimci Anarsist 
Faaliyet (Revolutionary Anarchist Action), and their members were on the barricades last 
year when major protests erupted around Taksim Square and Gezi park in Istanbul. ---- 
Speaking to Channel 4 News, the group reveals it has visited Kobani on three occasions, 
bypassing Turkish border guards and helping Kurdish refugees to escape into Turkey.

We were part of the resistance that started in Taksim and Gezi park.

Turkish anarchist spokesperson

"The most important task was to help civilians from Kobani to pass through the border. 
After that we supported immigrants for transportation, setting up tents, organising the 
distribution of materials sent in solidarity," one group member explained.

"We were part of the resistance that started in Taksim Gezi park. We were part of the 
resistance against police violence, against state terrorism and in the direct democracy 
experience afterwards."

"After Taksim Square was occupied, we have actively participated in resistance along the 
barricades and behind the barricades. However we have to make this clear: we are not only 
in the streets when the turmoil in society is high."

Read more: Kurdish spring: what are the PKK fighting for?

Image credit DAF

Prison conversion

The links between Kurdish groups and anarchists were born from the proscribed PKK 
(Kurdistan Workers Party) leader Abdullah Ocalan's prison conversion to the writings of 
Murray Bookchin, a New York anarchist academic.

In Kobani the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and its armed wing, the YPG, are followers of 
Ocalan, and have attempted to implement an autonomous form of Kurdish direct democracy. 
Turkish radicals are hoping to learn from this experience.

"YPG is organising the fight at the highest level against Isis as a self-defence force. So 
we are trying to support in every way possible," the anarchist explained.

Protest calls

The border near Kobani has seen violent scenes as Turkish forces attempt to control the 
flow of refugees both into Turkey and back to Syria.

In recent days the DAF have been supporting calls for people to come onto the streets to 
protest against the Turkish government's stance on Syria.

Police have used tear gas and water cannon this week as unrest spread to six Turkish 
cities over Turkey's lack of action against IS.

One 25-year-old protester was killed in the eastern province of Mus and there were other 
deaths reported in Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish city.

?
Image credit DAF

Peace process threatened

The activists worry that the government is not taking the ongoing and currently quite 
delicate peace process with the PKK seriously. The fall of Kobani could severely harm and 
hope of peace between Turkey and Kurdish groups.

"The Turkish state is watching with pleasure the Isis bombing of YPG and its march. When 
the people of Rojava feel unsafe and cross the border, the state interprets this as a 
decrease in peoples confidence in YPG," the groups spokesperson claimed.

"Each position that the Kurdish people's movement loses against Isis is interpreted by the 
state as a loss of the power across the table."

"Our relationship with Kurdish individuals and society and the organisation of Kurdish 
people, has been mutual solidarity."

In the UK in recent days the Kurdish community has been holding daily marches and 
attempting to blockade tube stations and airports in a bid to draw attention to its cause.

Similar protests in a number of German cities have ended in violent clashes, with radical 
Muslims using knives in an attack on a Kurdish protest in Hamburg.

(en) Media,Greek police clash with retail employee protesters in Athens

Hundreds of protesters battled with riot police in one of the Greek capital's main 
shopping districts. No injuries or damage have been reported. ---- About 500 protesters, 
which included retail employees but also several anarchists, closed access to shops on a 
central Athens street and handed leaflets protesting the extension of Sunday shopping and 
longer opening hours for the shops. --- A large throng of passers-by protested the action 
and in the end it was riot police who dispersed the protesters pushing them back using 
pepper spray, which also sent passers-by scrambling to avoid the noxious fumes.---Despite 
the protest, which lasted about three hours, shop owners claimed business was brisk before 
and after. ---- Left-wing activists and the Greek Orthodox Church oppose the extension of 
Sunday shopping for different reasons.

(en) Media, Anarchist tactics grow amid Brazil's protests

It was when the tear gas canister rattled around at her feet and a masked young man picked 
it up and tossed it back at police that kindergarten teacher Andrea Coelho decided she was 
for him and his fellow Black Bloc anarchists. ---- Coelho was one of thousands of teachers 
marching through central Rio de Janeiro to demand better wages and school conditions when 
police decided to disperse the demonstration. A few nights before, striking teachers 
occupying the city council building were beaten and dragged out by officers. ---- "It was 
the Black Bloc that protected me in that protest," Coelho, 47, said at the beginning of a 
march last week that again descended into fighting between anarchists and police. "The 
police came in firing tear gas, hitting us with clubs. A young Black Bloc stepped right in 
between me and the police. If it weren't for them, the police would have destroyed us."

That sentiment has helped turn the anarchists in Brazil into a driving force behind 
protests in recent weeks. The demonstrations have lessened in size but not frequency since 
masses took to the streets in June, fed up with a litany of problems that mostly center on 
corruption, woeful public services, and big spending on the upcoming World Cup and 2016 
Olympics.

More protests erupted Monday as demonstrators railed against a government auction of a big 
offshore oil field, which petroleum unions think should remain completely in Brazilian 
hands, and the anarchists rallied in Rio's historic center to support the strike of the 
teachers and oil workers.

Black Bloc is a violent form of protest and vandalism that emerged in the 1980s in West 
Germany and helped shut down the 1999 World Trade Summit in Seattle. It's clear that the 
masked, young Brazilians are following the main anti-capitalist tenets of earlier 
versions, smashing scores of banks and multinational businesses during demonstrations and 
directly confronting riot police.

The twist in Brazil, experts say, is that the tactics haven't been quickly rejected by 
more mainstream protesters as they have been in places like Mexico, Chile and Venezuela. 
That could allow the movement to grow significantly.

During a protest in Rio last week, one young anarchist sprinted through a haze of tear gas 
as his throat burned and ears rang from a series of stun grenades police unleashed moments 
before.

Taking cover behind a battered metal newsstand in Rio's historic Cinelandia district, the 
25-year-old dread-locked man steadied himself, tightened the straps of goggles he was 
wearing, and yelled to a cluster of 30 black-clad demonstrators facing a line of riot 
police half a block away.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" he screamed amid one of Brazil's most violent protests since June. 
"It's all going down right now!"

The protesters hurled rocks at police. The officers responded with more stun grenades and 
tear gas, scattering the adherents of Black Bloc.

"People are fed up, and because of the police violence against peaceful protests, the 
Black Bloc returning that violence has become a way for people to express their 
indignation," the young man said at the end of the protest. Like seven other Black Bloc 
adherents interviewed, he wouldn't give his name, citing fears of arrest and the tactic's 
hallmark anonymity. "I don't expect a majority of people to support it, but I know they 
understand the anger."

Black Bloc jumped via social media from the developed world to places such as Egypt and 
Brazil, where experts say it's potentially more explosive because it feeds off deeper 
social unrest. It's almost certain to affect Brazil's World Cup and Olympics.

"The police, violence, poverty, hardship of life and economic inequality in Brazil can 
radicalize the situation to a greater degree," said Saul Newman, a professor at Goldsmiths 
College in London whose research has focused on anarchism. "It's hard to predict, but 
because of these conditions and because it's new in Brazil, it could grow."

In the interviews with Black Bloc adherents, all repeated what's been heard in the U.S. 
and Europe before: They have no leaders, they operate in anonymity; there are no lists of 
demands for the government to meet.

Wearing black and covering their faces to make it hard for police to identify them, they 
head to demonstrations armed with slingshots, Molotov cocktails and homemade wooden 
shields with "BB" printed in white. Many look to be in their mid-to-late teens.

Their aim is to use action like destroying the property of multinational companies and 
confronting riot police to disrupt a political system they say doesn't allow for their 
participation and only represents entrenched economic interests.

But as in Egypt and elsewhere, the Black Bloc in Brazil says it also exists to protect 
other protesters from heavy-handed police tactics.

Brazilians widely consider their police poorly trained and violent, a force that is 
infamous for extrajudicial killings. A 2008 United Nations report said Brazilian police 
were responsible for a significant portion of the country's 48,000 homicides the year before.

There have been no reliable public opinion polls on the Black Bloc in Brazil and it's 
difficult to gauge wider perceptions about it. Politicians and local media condemn the 
vandalism its adherents carry out, smashing up scores of banks and other businesses in 
major cities.

Yet the tactic is clearly growing in cities like Rio. Six weeks ago, perhaps 50 people 
clearly identifying with the Black Bloc appeared in protests. At the Oct. 15 march by 
teachers, about 400 black-clad demonstrators were in the streets. Facebook pages dedicated 
to the tactic are increasingly rallying adherents.

"The Black Bloc is important for me. It's shown me I can resist in alternative ways," said 
Gustavo, a 17-year-old anarchist at last week's protest who said he lived in a violent 
slum in western Rio. "I can't accept that I will live my entire life in a country that's 
so unjust. Until now, I've seen no other way to make real change and wake people up."

(en) MEDIA, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Thousands marched in Rio de Janeiro to support teachers seeking pay hikes before masked anarchists turned to violence

The demonstration took place over several hours and was peaceful at first [Till police 
escalated it - Ed.]. ---- But once night fell, violent incidents broke out as at least 200 
"black bloc" anarchists smashed a City Hall gate while others broke into banks and tried 
to break open ATMs and set some alight. ---- Demonstrators also torched a bus on busy Rio 
Branco Avenue, and pulled furniture out of banks to use in barricades as they squared off 
with police. ---- Authorities used tear gas to get the crowd under control. ---- 
Afterward, the streets looked like a battle zone, with buildings damaged, trash burning 
and the smell of tear gas. ---- A similar rally in Sao Paulo also turned violent. Seven 
people were injured, including four police officers, the newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo 
reported.

In Rio, the trouble started when the "black bloc" demonstrators tried to break into town 
hall. At first only unarmed security guards were on hand but riot police eventually showed 
up and fired tear gas.

"Without the police, there is no violence. When they are there, there always is," said 
anarchist Hugo Cryois, 23, who had a gas mask dangling from his neck.

"I came prepared," he said. "You can't trust them."

Teachers who have been pressing for a pay raise for two months said 50,000 people marched 
to support them before the violence broke out. Police would only confirm the 10,000 figure.

(en) Media, Anarchism's Egyptian roots - The revolution, back in black

The black bloc in Egypt say they are the defenders of protesters opposed to President 
Mohamed Morsi's rule ---- The last time kids in black caused this much trouble in Egypt, 
it was Satan's fault. Well, at least that's what the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mubarak 
government claimed during the infamous "Satanic metal affair" of 1997, when over 100 
metalheads - musicians and fans - were arrested and threatened with prosecution and even 
death simply because they dressed in black and liked extreme music. ---- The persecution 
of Egypt's metalheads, or "metaliens" as many called themselves, drove the burgeoning 
scene underground for much of the next decade. It did not begin to resurface until the 
mid-2000s, at the same time as political movements like Kefaaya emerged, and the strikes 
in the industrial centre of Mahallah occurred.

This period saw a renewed, if still sporadic, militancy that would coalesce into the 
revolutionary surge of late 2010 and early 2011.

It didn't surprise me, then, to see that some of the key organisers of the 18 days of 
protest were old friends from the country's metal scene. The seemingly sudden reemergence 
of black among Egypt's remaining revolutionaries, specifically the visual markers of the 
black bloc - which despite being described as a group by the media [AR], commentators and 
government, is more accurately understood as a tactic and strategy - thus brings back 
vivid memories, of both the sounds of Egyptian metal and the anarchistic heart beat of the 
original Tahrir protests. Metal and anarchy - as Egypt's political and religious 
authorities have argued with great ferver - have always gone together quite naturally.

Indeed, there was a clear if little remarked upon anarchist presence in Tahrir during the 
original 18 Day uprising; anarchist books can in fact be found in stalls along Talat Harb 
Street on the way to the Square where the group held a public march and prayer. And Tahrir 
itself remains in many ways the epitome of the ideas of horizontalism (horizontalidad) and 
self-organisation (autogestion) that are at the core of modern anarchist theory and practice.

Anarchism's Egyptian roots

In fact, anarchism actually has a long history in Egypt and the Levant more broadly. As 
the research of Edinburgh University Professor Anthony Gorman has demonstrated, it 
stretches back to the 1860s when Italian political refugees first made their way to the 
more hospitable surrounding of Alexandria and other Egyptian cities, where they inspired 
the foundation of the "Free Popular University" in 1901.

Egypt in this period was in the midst of an unprecedented and increasingly desperate 
state-driven modernisation campaign that increased its integration into the global economy 
during the first and in some ways still most intense phase of globalisation. The constant 
movement of northern Mediterranean communities to and through its eastern and southern 
shores going back centuries - as merchants, slaves, pirates, workers and activists - is a 
seminal lesson in how integrated the Mediterranean has traditionally been, and hopefully 
will again be.

Clashes outside presidential palace in Cairo

Italians and Greeks, who by the fin de si?cle had established vibrant communities tens of 
thousands strong in the major cities of the Mediterranean's southern and eastern rims, 
were increasingly enmeshed in the politics of the indigenous labour movements, and brought 
a strong dose of anarchism, including anarco-syndicalism, which specifically focused on 
labour struggles through self-organisation. Anarchist-agitated strikes were being staged 
and arrests being made for illegal organising by the 1890s, if not before.

Anarchism, along with any other political ideology that would compete with Nasserism, was 
sidelined during the heyday of pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 60s. But at least some 
contemporary Egyptian anarchists trace their roots to local anarchist activity in the 
1940s [AR].

The rise of the anti-corporate globalisation movement

Anarchism's appearance in Egypt in the 19th century provides the historical context for 
understanding its reappearance today, during the next great struggle age of global 
integration within a Western-led (but no longer dominated) global neoliberal system. Since 
Sadat's initiation of the infitah, or opening in the 1970s, Egypt has been as deeply - and 
unfavourably - incorporated into this system through its dependent relationship with the 
US, and with the IMF and World Bank as it was into the 19th century European dominated 
global economy.

Mubarak, father and even more so son, tried to use neoliberal policies to strengthen the 
power elite's economic position within Egypt and globally. Policies of privatisation and 
liberalisation offered unprecedented potential for the elite to strengthen its control 
over the economy. The problem was, and remains, that the greater concentration of wealth 
can only come at the cost of a far more precarious economic position for the vast majority 
of the population. This demanded not just increased repression but also the cooptation of 
new actors into the power elite, whether the emerging bourgeoisie of the 1990s (epitomised 
by Gamal Mubarak) or the Brotherhood elite in the last decade.

From Morocco to Syria the struggles for "freedom", "social justice", "democracy", "bread" 
and particularly "dignity" - which has been a key word for struggles against neoliberalism 
at least since the Zapatista movement made it a centrepiece of its discourse in the early 
1990s - are quintessentially anti-neoliberal struggles. In this regard, they are the 
natural continuation of the struggles of the anti-corporate globalisation movements in 
Latin and North America and then Europe of the 1990s and early 2000s (as epitomised by 
Buenos Aires, London, Seattle, Prague and Genoa), which then morphed into the anti-war 
movement that emerged around the US invasion of Iraq.

Theatres of violence

Many of the anarchist organising principles which Egyptian black bloc activists have 
adopted as their own - such as self-democracy and decentralised organisation, as well as 
militant and often violent confrontations with security forces and symbols of systemic 
power - were deployed by the first generation of black bloc activists in the 
anti-corporate globalisation movement. These activists emerged not just out of anarchist 
circles but also groups like Ya Basta!, Tutte Bianche and Attac (which actually had 
branches in some Arab countries).

They in turn were powerfully impacted by Latin American grass roots struggles epitomised 
by the Zapatistas in Mexico, whose movement, I argued already in 2005 in my book Why They 
Don't Hate Us, constituted the best model for then inchoate politicised youth movements to 
emulate. Indeed, the US government-sponsored think tank RAND warned [PDF] that the 
Zapatista uprising "demonstrated how new technology made it possible for 'swarms' of 
'flies' to overrun governments", precisely the kind of tactics that defined the Tahrir 
phase of the Egyptian revolution.


Inside Story ---- Demanding 'economic justice'

It could be argued that the anti-WTO "Battle of Seattle" of late 1999, which first put the 
movement on the media and activist map, would have never received the attention it did had 
it not been for the violence against property deployed by protesters, which was and 
remains a rare phenomenon in the US outside of "riots" in poor minority communities.

However, it was also clear by the anti-IMF Prague protest of September 2000 that the use 
of violence, however theatrical and limited to property and aggressive security forces, 
was becoming counter productive. The police used the threat of such violence to deploy 
ever larger and overzealous forces who arrested (often violently) peaceful activists and 
helped disrupt, as well as infiltrating them with greater frequency. The nadir was reached 
with the killing of Italian activist Carlo Giuliano at the Group of 8 summit in Genoa in 
July, 2001, just two months before September 11 completely delegitimised any kind of 
violence by protesters in the US and Europe for the next half decade.

Simply put, routinised violence against property cost the anti-corporate globalisation 
movement significant support in the US and Europe precisely because the the vast majority 
of people in these countries were not suffering enough under the existing system to 
support the level of chaos and disruption such violence was intended to generate. 
Anarchists and hard-core anti-corporate globalisation activists might have wanted the 
"fall of the system", as Egyptians have chanted since the eruption of the revolution (and 
in fact, before), but most everyone else was only looking for a far less painful process 
of reform.

Militant oppositional politics became even more difficult during the Bush War on Terror 
years, both because there was less public tolerance for them and because governments used 
anti-terror laws to increase surveillance, infiltration and prosecution of militant 
activists. It has reappeared with the rise of the Occupy movements globally, especially in 
Greece, Spain and to some degree the United States. But even in the midst of the worst 
economic period since the Great Depression, black bloc tactics alienated at least as many 
potential supporters of the movement as they attracted, leading normally sober observers 
like Chris Hedges to label the tactic (in fact, like so many others, he erroneously 
labeled it a movement) the "cancer of the Occupy movement".

Globalisation on steroids in the Arab world

The Arab and broader Muslim world constitute a very different environment for struggles 
against neoliberalism and the various policies it involves than did the advanced 
capitalist West. Unprecedented petroleum rents allowed for rapid development of the 
smaller Gulf countries in the last two decades, but for the economic and political 
situation of the vast majority of the region's peoples has become more bleak during the 
last generation. This at the same time that their ability to connect with and become 
culturally - if not economically and politically - integrated with global movements and 
ideas increased at an unprecedented rate.

In a lecture-hall filled with 500 people at the Prague anti-IMF protests of September 
2000, not a single audience member raised their hand when I asked if anyone was from the 
Muslim world. Within a few years, however, activists from the Middle East and North Africa 
were becoming an increasing presence in the global peace and justice movement, while at 
the same time taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by Western 
governments and NGOs to network with their peers (and especially each other) in the 
mushrooming number of "civil society"-related workshops and conferences of the post-US 
Iraq invasion period.

The internet, of course, made it that much easier to learn about tactics - such as that of 
the black bloc's - and allowed various groups both in and outside the region who shared 
similar goals and attitudes to become acquainted. At the same time, the growth of the now 
(in)famous Ultra movement, clearly inspired by similar movements of football fans in 
Europe, provided the perfect laboratory for experimenting and perfecting the kinds of 
aggressive and even violent confrontations with security forces and regime thugs that 
between January 28 and February 4, 2011 literally saved the revolution.

It is not surprising that as their ability to shape the political situation has lessened 
in the two years since the initial uprising, the Ultras and sympathetic fellow-travellers 
among Egypt's revolutionary movements would search out new strategies, tactics and symbols 
to reshift the momentum, and as important, the national narrative, towards more favourable 
terrain. Members of the Revolutionary Socialists, the most sympathetic group to anarchists 
in terms of strategies and political goals (and who've consequently been attacked with 
them by SCAF and the Brotherhood) have from the start of the Revolution repeatedly told me 
that the key to its success will be constantly learning from and teaching ever widening 
circles of people. The explosion of talk about the black bloc in Egypt - even more so 
among the government, its supporters and the Egyptian and Arabic-language media than in 
Western media - is evidence of just how successful their strategy has been.

From an examination of the proliferation of Egyptian black bloc websites (including here, 
here, here, and here), video pronouncements of activists, (see also here), twitter feeds, 
and the use of black bloc description and logos, and discussions with friends in the 
broader Ultra movement and others who've followed recent changes in strategies, it's clear 
that while the adoption of black bloc tactics is centred around the Ultras, it's not 
limited to them, since not all activists who've donned the balaclava or black hoodie are 
members of one of the main Ultra clubs, such as Zemalek or Ahly.

It's also clear that while the activists who came up with the idea to publicly identify 
themselves with the tactic are familiar with its recent history, it would be a mistake to 
assume they share (or even spend time debating over) a coherent anarchist political agenda 
or philosophy, or are all equally grounded in the larger anarchist-influenced discourses 
that have shaped the broader global Occupy movement - which, let us remember, was directly 
inspired by and even born out of Tahrir's historic 18 days of anarchist-style 
self-organisation. On the other hand, some of the self-identified Egyptian black bloc 
activists list their "university" on their facebook page as "UNAM", the National 
Autonomous University of Mexico, which has a long history of affiliation with the 
Zapatistas, while a return to some of the analysis of black bloc tactics written during 
the pre-2001 period reveal similar debates and challenges facing the movement in the West 
then and in Egypt today.

Revolution as creative destruction ---- Egypt's president declares state of emergency

In the wake of the Brotherhood/FJP's electoral victories, the anemic performance of the 
official "opposition" represented by the "National Salvation Front" and a population 
desperate for some sort of economic recovery, revolutionary forces were on the defensive 
in the last few months. But the mass protests and then violence surrounding the Port Said 
verdict and the second anniversary of the start of the uprising on January 25 has 
generated a recalibration of the political scales. The black bloc has become a public (and 
even more so media and government) symbol of the militant opposition that is quite 
literally on the march against the still unstable emerging order.

It's hard to overstate the dangers a well- yet self-organised and decentralised protest 
movement could present to Egypt's power elite. The country's military chief, Abdel Fatah 
al-Sissi, is not exaggerating when he says ongoing protests threaten a "collapse of the 
state"; nor are prosecutors wrong in considering those deploying black bloc tactics as 
"terrorists". For what is the goal of revolution if not the collapse of the existing 
state, and how can protests aimed at that end not terrorise those presently in power?

All true revolutions involve a supreme act of creative destruction - an anarchic and 
ordering impulse that both destroys the old order while creating something new to take its 
place. The reason most revolutions either fizzle out or are hijacked or taken over by 
forces other than and often opposed to those who first led them lies precisely in the 
failure to move successfully from the destructive to the creative phase and discourse. 
This is as true of the axial religious revolutions, including the Abrahamic faiths, as 
well as for modern political revolutions in Mexico, Russia, China, or Iran.

It's anarchic impulse stems directly from the fact it is directly taking on the existing 
system. But if one state - that is, arrangement and network of power relations - is to be 
replaced by another one, a new system has to replace the one that disintegrates. 
Similarly, every true revolution is a powerful combination of what the sociologist Manuel 
Castells calls "resistance" and "project" identities; the former being narrow, closed and 
hostile to outsiders, the latter open, inviting and future-oriented.

You can't bring about the "downfall of the system" and the creation of one in its place 
without both. As important, you can't in the long term keep tens of millions of people 
supporting destruction if the positive vision of the future is not there for them to see. 
The problem is that while the two halves of the creative destruction equation naturally 
overlap for much of a revolutionary period, at some point the destruction has to subside 
and the creation has to become the dominant process, otherwise the revolution becomes 
either self-destructive and nihilistic, coopted, or redirected (often by the military, as 
epitomised by the phenomena of Bonapartism or Caesarism). In such a situation, one time 
supporters will turn against it in favour of the stability of a restored if changed ancien 
regime (if in new clothes).

What made Tahrir truly revolutionary during the 18 days, but sadly too few days since, was 
that in the Square you could see, feel, the possibility of a new Egypt, a different Egypt, 
an Egypt that could fulfill the dreams of the majority of its inhabitants. Young and old, 
rich and poor, Muslim and Copt, metalhead and Sufi, everyone radiated "silmiyya" - 
peacefulness - even as they screamed at the top of their lungs for days on end.

It was clearly a liminal, paradoxical experience, and one which, as Georgetown professor 
and Jadaliyya co-editor Adel Iskandar reminded me in a recent conversation on the present 
situation, was itself a two-part phenomenon: "the one from January 25 to February 4 which 
was violent, confrontational and black bloc-esque... and the Tahrir of the Utopian 
imaginary that dominated between February 4 to 11... The two continue to exist and 
manifest with oscillating frequency."

The key question is, of course, how to control the oscillation, particularly when you 
can't really tell either when the tipping point has arrived and which way it is tipping. 
For two years now the Egyptian "state" has been in this liminal state; the structure at 
its core - that is, the deep state of power holders through whom the vast majority of the 
networks of power and wealth flow in Egypt - has remained seemingly stable, and is 
enlarging a bit as the Brotherhood and its own networks of power and patronage are, with 
some difficulty, absorbed into this elite. But the state remains gelatinous and porous 
outside of the core nucleus, and if the opposition can siphon enough power and legitimacy 
away, the system could, as General al-Sissi warns, move towards collapse.

Millions, if not tens of millions of Egyptians understand that if the state structure 
rehardens or concretises in the shape it's apparently taken, they will be either frozen 
into pretty much the same place they were under Mubarak, or pushed even closer to the 
margins or completely outside the state. Indeed, the "state of emergency" once again 
declared, now by a democratically elected President, and the organised attacks on women by 
forces clearly aligned with the existing power regime, reflects this desperate need to 
clear as many people away from the power networks as possible before the new system hardens.


Follow spotlight coverage of the struggling young democracy

And that's where anarchist and black bloc tactics come in, as they constitute one of the 
most imaginative and creative responses to the hardening process (it's also why those 
commentators who have dismissed them as "pretty silly" have little understanding of the 
history of such tactics or their proven utility in revolutionary Egypt). The question is 
how the majority of Egyptians who are not directly involved in this struggle (but directly 
affected by it) will understand this dynamic. How will they respond to the kind of 
tactical violence epitomised by black bloc tactics and anarchist principles if it 
continues and the government responds with more violence?

Will they see the creative and project aspect of the protests, and accept them as the only 
means not merely to finish the job of taking down the system but of building a truly new 
political and social economy for Egypt? Or will they focus mostly on the destructive and 
resistance element of it - as a one way path towards social, political and economic 
disintegration and chaos against which a religio-authoritarian system, however unpalatable 
in principle, seems the better choice?

However we might want to judge their tactics more broadly, their commitment and loyalty to 
other protesters are hard to question. When women were being brutally attacked in Tahrir 
Square last week, beyond the ability of groups like Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment to 
protect them, black block activists have literally appeared out of nowhere to take on the 
often armed groups of attackers and protect the women and other activists.

Limited success, broader future?

It's worth noting that the success of Zapatismo has in fact been fairly limited on the 
ground. The Zapatistas have managed to carve out a relatively - and constantly threatened 
- autonomous zone for indigenous Mexicans living in the Chiapas region. It has not 
fundamentally changed the broader political economy of Mexico, never mind defeated or even 
seriously challenged "global neoliberalism", against which the movement launched its war 
on January 1 over 19 years ago (although Subcommandante Marcos' words to disappointed 
tourists hoping to visit the local Mayan ruins the day the revolution was launched - "I'm 
sorry. This is a revolution" - was surely repeated to scores of disappointed tourists 
unable to visit the Antiquities Museum at Tahrir Square during the revolution).

While holding off the brutal march of neoliberalism into the Lacondan mountains of Chiapas 
is certainly a victory, the Egyptian revolution cannot succeed if it's limited to one 
geographic region or social group; its initial success and ultimate victory depend 
precisely on its spread throughout society and across the country. There is no partial 
victory, and small "liberated" spaces, such as Tahrir, cannot survive surrounded by an 
ocean of Brotherhood-cum-military neoliberal authoritarianism.

It's clear that black bloc tactics and the militant revolutionaries deploying them will 
not on their own carry Egypt further than the Zapatistas have pushed Chiapas (which, 
interestingly, has a Human Development Index ranking of .646, almost identical to Egypt's 
.644), never mind Mexico as a whole. But if they succeed in throwing the country's 
power-holders off-balance and reinvigorating the youth led-opposition, and can provide a 
creative and ultimately positive vision and strategies for continuing the revolution into 
its third year and convincing increasing numbers of ordinary Egyptians to keep up he 
struggle for real freedom, dignity and social justice, they will have played an important 
role in Egypt's tortured transition from an authoritarian to truly democratic system.

(en) Media, Egypt, The emergence of Black Blocs engulfed Tahrir Square (fr)

Members of the Black Blocs parade with Egyptian flag during clashes with police near 
Tahrir Square in Cairo Monday. 
http://www.lefigaro.fr/medias/2013/01/29/5a8b1c30-6a3e-11e2-96f3-73b5eeff1ffc-493x328.jpg 
---- Hostile to the Islamists, they see the violence as a political weapon. ---- He 
swapped his green beret to Che Guevara against a black uniform. Aside from her voice, 
hoarse and metallic, Mohammed al-Masri is unrecognizable. Leaning to one of the railings 
in Tahrir Square, "his" second home, the young rebellious pauses between "operations". 
Masked, his cronies glean some precautions before dashing headlong towards the Corniche, 
their new battleground against the forces of order. At age 21, Mohammed "the Egyptian" - 
that is the meaning of his pseudonym - is one of the leaders of the Black Blocs. These 
revolutionaries of the year III, straight inspired anarchist movements in Europe, set fire 
the night before, a police vehicle.

A new "weapons that" in addition to rampage, this weekend, the office of the website of 
the Muslim Brotherhood and the attack of the antenna Freedom and Justice Party, the 
political arm of the Brotherhood, in the city of Ismailia - which illustrates the 
lawlessness rampant fleet today in Cairo.


Radicalization of the street
"We were against violence. But today, that's all we have left! "To justify it, the nerves. 
A few minutes ago, he learned that the Attorney General has ordered the arrest of anyone 
suspected of belonging to the group. However, for this former tourist agent unemployment, 
the radicalization of the street is not free. Not since the beginning of December to 
understand. "We fought against Mubarak and against the military. Then Morsi was elected. 
But instead of saving the revolution, he was granted excessive powers. Worse, when we went 
to show our displeasure at the presidential palace, we shot. Result: ten dead and hundreds 
injured, "he rages.

Soon, a network then organized on Twitter and Facebook. Messages calling for anti-Morsi 
refuse to denounce Islamists and a political system that abuses the religion. Last 
Thursday, on the eve of the anniversary of 25 January, the Egyptian Black Blocs eventually 
emerge from the shadows: a video posted on Youtube posting, images of a cloud of black men 
to support their formal training .

With the slogan "confrontation against the fascist regime of the Muslim Brotherhood," 
accompanied by a warning to the police. Since then, the rebels are a new kind of all 
gatherings of all fights. As as protesters in Port Said and Cairo are shot, young black 
hooded join the ranks of protesters. Between rebellion and fad, this movement headless 
brings in its wake a variety of heterogeneous ex-revolutionaries, disaffected youth, the 
ultras of football, hooligans, but also women. "Before, we could distinguish the different 
actors in the dispute. Today, the tracks are blurred. Impossible to understand who is who, 
who does what. It borders on chaos, "says political scientist Emad Shahin. And if the 
Black Power Egypt already have over 20,000 fans on their page Facebook , they are also 
difficult to quantify and define.

Followers of the conspiracy theory, the Muslim Brothers accuse them of being endorsed by 
the Liberal opposition. In contrast, many activists are keen to dissociate. As the blogger 
Mahmoud Salem, aka Sandmonkey who accuses them of "delegitimizing the image of revolution, 
to peaceful purposes." Of all these criticisms, Sherif al-Sharafi has nothing to do. "The 
Front national salvation (the main opposition political coalition, Ed) is a band of 
incompetents. They failed to defend the revolution. The upcoming parliamentary elections, 
we do not believe it. We do not recognize in any politician. We called the "lost 
generation", we are treated to "thugs." But what is important is to save the honor of the 
martyrs, "suggests that student who claims to be a co-founder of the Black Blocs.

Sign of disobedience displayed in relation to power, a large "black parade" is scheduled 
on Wednesday in the Egyptian capital. The Black Blocs also evoke a mysterious operation 
"Gaber", announced Friday. "I can not tell you more. It's top secret. But I can guarantee 
you that it will be hot, "warns Sherif.