Comments on: How to generate a generation.

By: Generation Occupy | freely associating

Generation Occupy | freely associating — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:11:20 +0000

[…] air. For us this really became apparent during the period of our article’s incubation. The first draft was written from within the stagnant state of limbo that had reigned since the start of the crisis. […]

By: brian

brian — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:51:33 +0000

Pablo

You’re right of course about Jefferson. His comment that “The earth belongs always to the living generation” leaves an awful lot unsaid. Slaves were closer to being “the earth” than “the living generation” – freedom for Jefferson was always partial.

Having said that, I don’t think we should feel bound by what he meant, or what he thinks he meant. Here, he’s just a convenient jumping-off point for some thinking, And yes, he’s definitely no revolutionary figurehead for a libertarian movement.

By: Pablo

Pablo — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:29:43 +0000

Hey, love your work. Keep it coming. I was particularly interested to read this, as my current project is on looking at the intergenerational dynamics between the 60s/70s left and the left of today (if we can even call it “left” – I prefer “post-left”). Although there is lots of learning and transmutation going on, I wouldn’t say the alterglobalisation cycle of struggles has ended just yet.. I would say it has only just begun. We’re still learning to work across difference, to operate non-hierarchically (heterarchically), and we’re also still learning what transnational (translocal) solidarity means and looks like in practice. But yes, the question of generation is a very important one – not just a question of older bodies and younger bodies, but more so of distinct imaginaries and subjectivities formed in particular historical contexts. When there’s a disconnect between subjectivity and context, there is a reification and dogma emerges… This is the farcical repetition of 1917 that you write about. The question of how to prevent thought reifying into dogma, practice reifying into rules, heterarchies reifying into states and parties are all related… The big question of this political generation/cycle of struggle, I feel, is to learn how to constitute potenza as potenza, such that it avoids sedimenting into potere – a permanent Tahrir Square that does not become a state. So yeah, thanks again for your article. I don’t come with a critique, so much as a splurge of all the things your article brought up in my mind… I do have one critique though: Despite all his rhetoric about freedom and equality, Jefferson owned 200 slaves.. I’m not sure he’s the kind of figure through which our movement wants to speak.

By: Keir

Keir — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:47:41 +0000

It seems that the relationships between generations are being worked upon, at least on the level of practical experience:

Anti-Cuts Skill Share <<
Sunday 14th November, 11am – 4pm
LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES (Whitechapel)

It’s becoming clear that we live in times of struggle. To foster a movement where we learn from and support each other, Climate Camp London has organised an anti-cuts skill share. The day is aimed at trade unionists, activists, strikers and trouble makers, in which people from different political backgrounds can share the skills they have and learn new ones they don’t.

The sessions include trainings on: group facilitation, legal observers, blockading, public (dis)order situations, labour law, organising in your workplace, unions and industrial agitation.

We hope that this will chance to meet new people as well, so please advertise this sessions to activists and unionists alike, and encourage people to come along if they want to beat the cuts, but feel they need some more practical knowledge to do so.

Climate Camp London
Collective Learning And Skill Share group (CLASS)
contact: london[at]climatecamp.org.uk

By: Keir

Keir — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:26:58 +0000

Here’s a comment from our Swedish friend Mathias when I asked him if there is anything in English on their experience:

ah, thats interesting. we have translated some texts about it, i send you a short list. but the concept of going from a “general strike to a generalized strik” was also a key koncept of disobbedient in italy and spain, how they used disobbedience as an complementary method to the general strike and workers strikes (for example the general strike in spain 2002). the generalised strike / the metropolitan strike / the “bio-syndicalism” had an important impact on us. but also going back to the roots of syndicalism/IWW-tradition.

actually, it was four different currents coming together: a) a rank and file tendency / grasroot organising within the unions (“folkrörelselinje”), b) the trade union re-organisation within SAC, c) the autonomous conferences on informal workplace collectives (“faceless resistance”) and d) generalized strike / social movement unionism (external solidarity actions and blockades in the city). activists from the alterglobalisation movement entered and helped to build up all four currents.

The irish WSM-activist Ronan McAoidh (living in Copenhagen) has done a huge work translating and writing about our swedish experiencies:
http://swedishzine.wordpress.com/

my text: The second spring of syndicalism:
http://swedishzine.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/second-spring-of-syndicalism-trade-union-re-organisation-within-the-sac/

“Folkrörelselinjen” – Grassroots Unionism in the Workplace
http://swedishzine.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/finished-translation-of-folkrorelselinje-text/

“faceless resistance” and the autonomous research collective “struggle together” (kämpa tillsammans):
http://libcom.org/tags/k-mpa-tillsammans

my interview with “struggle together”:
http://libcom.org/library/possibilities-are-found-struggle-outside-unions-interview-k%C3%A4mpa-tillsammans

our magazine to ESF Malmö, with articles about the feminist group KPF and the solidarity campaign in solidarity of the swedish metro wildcat strike (2005):
http://anarkisterna.com/ESFaction2008.pdf

a film about or solidarity campaign for a wildcat strike in a warehouse (2009):
http://vimeo.com/5290480