Response 911
Anarchists Against the Expansion of Capitalism and the War
Written by:
Arsenal: A Magazine of Anarchist Strategy and Culture
Autonomous Zone
Chicago Anarchist Defense Fund
and other Chicago-area anarchists
"It could have been any of us." Through the shock of 9/11
and the realization that several thousand people were
suddenly dead and missing, we also considered the millions
of lives lost and damaged as a result of unwanted U.S.
government intervention here and abroad. Patriotism and
hysteria are on an upswing, while states and global capital
are negotiating, and sometimes competing, for position
around the world. Anarchists have a role and an
opportunity. The situation demands an analysis that looks
at the past and thinks forward.
Access Denied
Facts will emerge slowly. Some facts will contradict
previously revealed information. We will be lied to. We
will be misled. We will be given heroes we so admire that
we won't see the F-16 or hear the order to shoot down any
aircraft headed for Washington D.C. Attention will be
focused on revenge and diverted from what is real. The
United States will attack and destroy because the flag is
flying. It is the right thing to do.
Anarchists must be clear about what we want and what we
believe, to see what is going on and to specify what we know
and intend. We must categorically oppose all United States
military and political actions (in times of war and in
times of supposed peace). The real enemy of the U.S. is not
terrorism, but any popular movement or mass organization,
any threat to the growth or existence of capitalism,
anywhere.
Governments are opportunistic. One of its primary functions
is repressing localized resistance to global capital.
"Security" will be the cover story for repression and a
"streamlined" legal process that permits arrests without
evidence, imprisonment without charges and severe penalties
with little or no recourse. In "exposing and wiping out
terrorists" government agents will attempt to both gather
information from and infiltrate all dissenting movements.
They want to determine the course for a growing,
dissenting, revolutionary movement. We will be listened to
when we think we have privacy. We will be intercepted when
we want our movement to move. Our people will be detained,
arrested, discredited. Our competency will be challenged,
our mistakes exploited. Because in war, repression is an
acceptable compromise for safety and security.
Silence and inaction will not protect us from repression --
it guarantees that the repression works. As the Immigration
and Naturalization Services, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, National Guard and local police are mobilized and
possibly militarized to take part in counter-insurgency
efforts, we must be ready to organize and resist. Opposing
the US is necessary and right. Sorrow for many of those
injured and killed by the attacks on September 11 is
necessary and right. Solidarity with those who suffer every
day from US policies and military action, whether in our
neighborhoods or around the world, is necessary and right.
Organizing a movement, struggling for freedom from
domination, building resistance, developing critical
analysis, creating trans-national networks to stop the
expansion of capitalism will deliver opportunity for a
future worth fighting for.
Old Worlds and New Worlds
The majority theory on "terrorism" is stuck in old models
of thinking. The belief is that states, such as the Soviet
Union or China, or more recently Libya and Iran, directly
fund and train individual national liberation factions (or
European supporters) from around the world to commit
terrorist acts in foreign countries. Osama bin Laden's
group, and others, are consciously "post-nationalist." They
don't claim a national homeland, and they certainly aren't
fighting for a modern nation-state in any way we typically
understand them. These Islamists now have become "insane"
and "barbaric" "terrorists" in popular U.S. discourse. They
claim to believe in and fight for a world where religion,
not political sovereignty, is the arbiter of our global
society. This is an extremely important point. Anarchists
also struggle for a world without national borders. A
society not based on nation-states isn't some "crazy" idea,
but a foundation for any political theory that is grappling
with the reality of our world. We firmly oppose the
Islamist world that bin Laden and others wish to build, but
we know it is not "insane" to operate outside the
boundaries of traditional political sovereignty.
We cannot operate in a way that has no concern for human
life, for the lives of the people we want to share the
future with, whether they are janitors in the World Trade
Center or subsistence farmers in Afghanistan. Ethics,
strategy and goals must distinguish anarchists from all of
our enemies, not just the biggest or most prominent
enemies. It is important to help build a strong and visible
anti-war position in the U.S. as a component of our
standing opposition to capitalism and the state. We must
build international solidarity and infrastructure that can
compete with both the U.S. and the Islamists' world-views.
We must create a better vision for a world without borders,
without nations, and without terror.
This is a War Zone
This war against the enemy of the moment is the result of
decades worth of policies of domination around the world.
Blockades and sanctions, military responses to any
interference with U.S. oil markets, support for corrupt
regimes, and one-sided and self-interested involvement in
the Palestinian crisis have caused the veneer of safety and
security in the U.S. to crash and burn.
The Gulf War has continued for more than eleven years.
Millions of Iraqis live without clean drinking water,
refrigeration, electricity and basic medicines. More than
500,000 Iraqi children younger than five years old have
died since 1990 due to the sanctions and the effects of the
Gulf War. Israel, backed by U.S. aid (arms, money, global
subterfuge), has used the events of September 11 as a green
light to encroach deeper and deeper into the West Bank. The
invasion of the town of Jenin on September 12th and the
killing of nearly a dozen Palestinians a day since implies
that Israel could move towards re-occupying all of the West
Bank and Gaza, intensifying the apartheid system and
eliminating any chance for Palestinian self-rule.
Now the U.S. is blasting Afghanistan. As in Iraq,
U.S./coalition bombs and bullets kill the poor, working
class and others we would in different circumstances
organize. These are the people who have been begging for
help and struggling against the Taliban ever since that
(capitalist bordering on fascist) regime came to power.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran may all close in and
destroy the camps and training center, fulfilling their
duty as nation states to better control their populations.
But it is impossible to completely police every single
square foot of the globe. And destroying infrastructure,
raw materials and avenues of trade is at odds with efforts
to solidify capitalism. What happens when the expansion of
capitalism is at odds with state interests?
Blood and flags
Almost immediately the flags went up, on baseball hats, in
front of buildings, on taxi cabs and in windowsóred, white
and blue, stars and stripes were everywhere. Maybe some
people, our neighbors and co-workers, family and friends,
felt powerless and attaching the symbol of political and
military might to their office cubicles and t-shirts
restored their sense of identity with a powerful nation.
Some of these flag-wavers went out and demanded that
someone be punished. Some shouted that this is America and
chased people of middle-eastern descent from airplanes.
Some broke windows and attacked and killed people who
looked the way an enemy shouldódifferent. Right and wrong,
good and bad is all figured out if it is backed by this
particular flag.
The U.S. flag is no substitute for authentic connection
with our family, friends and neighbors. Donating blood
(particularly when it is donated to an organization that
sells that donated blood for $300-$1000 per pint, and
restricts donations to those whose lives are deemed
"clean") is not a substitute for building a community and
resisting oppression and policies of dominationóhere and
around the world. The appropriate and traditional color of
mourning is not red, white, and blue, it is black. Black
flags, black armbands, like the dark clouds that swallowed
New York, symbolize our mourning, our solidarity, and our
resistance.
Against borders and racism, for solidarity and freedom
We reject state borders and the racism that invariably
surrounds them. Government repression and popular paranoia
will increase in the coming months. There will be a surge
in anti-immigrant fanaticism, focused particularly upon
Arabs and other Muslims. We believe in the free movement of
people across the globe, and act in solidarity with all who
come under racist attacks. We oppose the inevitable
attempts by fascist groups to organize on the basis of the
current context. The INS has always been a major component
of white supremacy in the United States, and it is already
cracking down on undocumented immigrants of Middle Eastern
descent. We expect that crackdowns on other "unwanted"
populations are soon to follow. We must step up our
efforts to call people out on their racist comments,
organize support rallies in our neighborhoods, and assist
in physical defense of individuals and community
institutions. We must resist the use of 9/11 as an excuse
to roll back the gains of the immigration amnesty movement
and the growth and militancy of the anti-global capital
movement over the last few years. We must fight and
sabotage all efforts at containing and controlling our
future.
The world is changing rapidly, but our course of action is
still clear. We will continue to be part of international
opposition to global capital. We will intervene and disrupt
organizing by reactionaries and fascists. We will develop
groups and institutions that promote our vision of of a
libertarian future. Our resistance will be democratic,
decentralized, and maintain the importance and value of human
life.
