The change begun in 2000, but the actual shift took place between December 2002 and February 2003. It was completed in August of 2005 when I finally split with the fake ''anarchist'' sectarians in Sweden (i.e SAC/LS).
WHEN I WAS A SOCIAL LIBERAL ...
In 1998 I considered myself a ''market oriented progressive''. I was willing to accept the neo-liberal market and its project of globalisation as long as it allowed for a minimal safety net for the poor, the a measure of social justice for the disadvantaged, and scope for the self-emancipation of the ''historically marginalised'' ( by this I used to mean Women, Ethnic Minorities, Native Peoples, Gays and Lesbians, etc... )
I believed that the ''New Economy'' (...for me it meant the internet and mobile phones/sms) created a new scope of opportunities for the generation of wealth, and that overall the wealth generated would allow spaces for the extension of democratic participation into the economy and the emergence of an ''e-politics''. Given these, the ''historically marginalised'' would be able to make inroads into cultural and social liberation as they defined it. The poor would be empowered by modern technology. The future looked so bright I had to wear shades ! ... Everything was soooo simple.
Philosophically there was more complexity, I was interested in analysing the social impact of the free interplay of ''technology, identity, and ecology'' in a postmodern context. ''Utopia'' would be ecologically and socially sustainable. My formula for its achievement was 'Stable State Recycling' and 'Consensus' - but I never really tried to define exactly what I meant by these...
The ''Y2K bug'' scam, the dot.com 'phenomenon' crash of 2001, the World.com-Enron malfeasence scandals of 2002, and the December 18th, 2001 social uprising in Argentina progressively eroded any faith I had in the mantra of ''market-oriented progress''. I came to understand that the free market is not capitalism.
The 2000 U.S. ''election'' fraud killed my faith in Western electoralism and furthermore the doctrinal premises that underpin Western political systems altogether. ''One man, one vote'' (sexism aside) means nothing in an era when information technology can be hijacked and deployed to purge voter lists with impunity. Once ''voter suppression'' tactics become legitimate ''elections'' become meaningless. They can always decide not to count the ''provisional ballots'' ...
''LIBERAL SOCIAL DEMOCRACY'' FOR SUCKERS !
The 2002-2004 collapse of Dutch social-liberalism was by far the biggest factor in my desicion to move away from centrism. The so-called ''Libertarian Social Democracy'' of the PODEL model had been my basic '' existing utopia'' during the 1990s. Legal marijuana; absolute freedom of movement, expression, press and speech; free education; free healthcare; state support payments; etc, etc ... I fell for it.
Between the assasination of Pym Fortuyn in 2002 and the assasination of Theo van Ghogh in 2004 the much vaunted PODEL system was dismantled by a viscious ''Christian Democrat'' (sic.) regime and a securitarian police state was erected in its place. The Netherlands today is a poster child of ''repressive tolerance'' buttressed by an openly racist police force. Their Jews are the Arabs.
I ceased to have faith in the possible endurance of a ''libertarian social democracy'' in context of a neo-liberal economy. The official social-liberals of the D66 party joined the neo-conservative regime in 2002. D66 became a right wing neo-liberal party; it abandoned its earlier position that ''both socialism and liberalism constitute part of the truth''. The official change in language in the party constitution (a series of deletions) took place in 2002 , but the shift begun during its 1998 party conference. Suppossedly ''the youth'' forced the transformation (!) .
Desillutioned and lost I begun to look for alternatives. Fortunately, the period of December 1999 to January 2003 was a time of ''upsurge'' against neo-liberalism. It was the era of the anti-globalisation movement. A movement that failed precisely because it failed to break with the Centrist ''Left''. Insofar as centrism penetrated it; it wrecked it.
THE SPRIT OF 2002 ...
I will simply try to relate it as I remember it. It was December 13th, 2002. A cold but sunny day in Copenhaguen, Denmark. I was there to attend the anti-globalisation/anti-war demo planned in protest against the ongoing European Union summit and the impending war against Iraq. The ''lattest'' news was that Colin Powell was hustling support from the EU summit as part of his diplomatic charm offensive following the speech he had delivered before the U.N. Security Council a couple of months before. The Right-Liberal Danish government was fully on board with the Bush Administration. They plegded to send a submarine to help in the desert warfare that was to come - this against the overwhelming wishes of the voting public. The rallying point for the demo was the square infront of the Danish Parliament building. There where several truncheon wielding anti-riot police protecting its gates. The Danish government had issued a decree banning demonstrators from wearing masks (a direct threat to the Black Bloc). There where hundreds of people about: Danish anarchists, Swedish anarcho-syndicalists, German AFA, British left-socialists, the usual troop of anarcha-feminist ''cheerleaders'', the smartly dressed ATTAC social-liberals, the Samba drum squad ... the largest contingent was that associated with the various European anti-war networks. An agitator from the British SWP was rallying it on: ''If you want to send an anti-war message to Bush and Blair then come join the anti-war bloc'', he megaphoned. Something about the passion and conviction in his voice made me follow his summons.
After 30 minutes or so of live agit-prop the march began. I had no placard - only a button. ''Stop The Terror War'' it read, I still keep it. The chant was ''Drop Bush, Not Bombs''. The people of Copenhaguen stood on the sidewalk and watched the stream of protesters. I got the impression they did not know what to think. A glitch in the matrix ? ... the puzzled looks intermingled with smiles. ''No Blair, No war'' the Brits chanted. The samba drummers and anarchist cheerleaders begun to perform their routines. I remember I felt happy to be there. To the locals we were a curious novelty. Very few people from the sidewalks joined, but enough that the demo could have been described as spontanous action. It was like a political street party on the move. The police trailed us at a distance but they did not bother us; to do anything infront of so many people in central Copenhaguen at high noon would have been bad PR.
After an hour or so of street carnival,chants and protest; the demo arrived at the point of what I call THE SPLIT. All of the sudden the members of the black block (the Danish anarchist collective and the German AFA for the most part), donned their black masks in defiance of the police decree prohibiting it. An agitator from AFA stood on top of a car and urged demonstrators in German, Danish and English to NOT march towards the central square (Sankt Hans Torv); but instead to follow the Black Block to the convention center where the summit was taking place. The march had been legally permitted only from the Parliament to the Central Square and demonstrators had been explicitly banned from approaching the vicinity of the convention center. THAT was the moment of truth for me : Should I follow the Black Block anarchists and defy the permit ? Or, should I march with the social-liberal/social-democratic cattle to the pep rally at the Central Square ? I stood pondering the issue for about one minute before it became obvious to me that if I was truly 'anti-capitalist', then I should risk the consequences of defying a permit issued by a capitalist police force. The famous 'permit' and its limits was after all an expression of the laws of capitalism. The SWP-led ''anti-war'' bloc marched towards the square. I was dissapointed that despite their militant sounding rethoric, the agitators of the SWP had decided on this course. The war was being discussed at the Convention Center - not at Sankt Hans Torv ! ... The Black Block wanted to CONFRONT THE SUMMIT IN DEFIANCE OF THE POLICE. The Social-Liberal / Social-Democrat/SWP crowd wanted to POSE OPPOSITION TO THE SUMMIT IN ACCOMODATION TO THE POLICE. The German AFA and the Danish Anarchists stood alone. The Swedish and German ''anarcho''-syndicalists mostly went to the square except for a few renegades. The only non-anarchists to split en toto with the main march where a small contingent belonging to the MLCP-K (Marxist Leninist Communists of Kurdistan) and WPRM (Global Peoples Resistance Movement); the latter held aloft a large banner that read in English and Arabic ''FREE PALESTINE''. That did it for me. I broke ranks with the ''Socialist Worker'' and followed the Black Block, The few anarcho-syndicalist renegades, and the Arab Marxists towards the convention center. On that moment I ceased to be social-liberal and became anti-capitalist.
We did not get too far. Within five blocks of the intersection the split took place, we were surrounded by a large contingent of Danish anti-riot police. They warned us to disband and go peacefully to the square or face arrest. We refused. We sat and occuppied the street. At the center of the circle was the ''FREE PALESTINE'' banner. The police arrested a few Black Block people for refusing to take off their masks. I sat there for about an hour until the Arab Marxists decided to go. I followed them out of the mileux and afterwards went back to the Youth Camp I was staying at (in the vicinity of the Free City of Christiania). The activist from the MLCP explained to me that to stay would have been adventurist. ''We will get other chances'', he said.
Do I ''regret'' following the Black Block and the Arab Marxists ? NO ! ... Had I not done so I would have never learned the lesson of the day: What is The State ? The State is not the government or the politicians or the bureaucrats that constitute it. The State is THE POLICE and beyond it THE ARMY. The State is the armed fist of capitalism. Bodies of armed men that will act to supress and obstruct those who act out of principle to defy the laws of capitalism. On that steet in Copenhaguen, alongside the Black Block and beside the FREE PALESTINE banner, I saw the true face of Western ''Freedom'' without its 'social' and 'democratic' mask. I was forever cured of all illusions.
- Semper Indomitus !
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This article was posted on Indymedia at:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/07/03/18284824.php
An Alternative to Capitalism (which we need here in the USA)
The following link takes you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the
Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
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