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Terraces & Peripheries: Left Snobbery & the Radical Right Editorial content | Articles

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Submitted by mute on Friday, 24 November, 2006 - 13:22

ByEmilio Quadrelli

The following is a ruthlessly insightful introduction to tendential 'far right' cultural hegemony in an Italian 'sub'proletariat whose existence is barely acknowledged by a 'demoradical' left in the process of disappearing up its own smug cognitarian arse.

The insistence on specific local factors – the continuing centrality of fascist tradition, the politicised football crowd and working class gym culture – is obviously necessary, just as it's obvious that the argument is also relevant to other places where particular differences in class/race composition mean the same consciousness is not necessarily expressed in terms of traditional fascist symbolism. The text appears in German translation in issue 77 of 'Wildcat' (http://www.wildcat-www.de/), although it's not online yet as it's still the current issue. It was written by Emilio Quadrelli, a Genova-based researcher who has spent years insisting (from first-hand experience on many levels) on the inseparability of developments in the class structure of work, prison, 'crime' and political insurrection. (The original Italian text doesn't seem to be online anywhere; if anyone wants it please contact the English translator at <infuriantATautistici.org>)

...translator's afterthought: it's perhaps worth noting that 'periferie' is a fraught term to translate. The literal reference is to proletarian/'subproletarian' neighborhoods, which are often (especially in terms of radical right recruitment in parts of Italy) though not always, geographically peripheral. The brutal class geography of Paris, where the municipal centre is physically encircled by those expelled from it, is probably the emblematic case. However someone on the aut-op-sy list pointed out that 'peripheries' might be misleading, and suggested 'suburbs' as an alternative. For now, though, 'peripheries' is maintained, partially because 'suburbs' may have an even more confusing class connotation for some anglo-american readers, and most importantly because the way Quadrelli opposes 'periphery' to 'centre' is clearly more social than geographical

Terraces & Peripheries. Left Snobbery & the Radical Right

If anyone still had any doubts much has happened to dispel them. Many of the terraces of the Italian football stadiums are controlled to an increasing degree by the radical right. This is a fact. And it is necessary to start from here to attack, politically and not morally, a phenomenon which has been spreading for some time in metropolitan peripheries and which only becomes worthy of attention when it gains heavy media visibility. Only in the presence of swastikas, celtic crosses or explicit holocaust references dominating stadiums are many people stupefied, as if they were in a remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, and they forget at least a thing or two.

First, they [i.e. the fans associated with the radical right] don't come from the moon, they also have a social life outside the stadiums, lived quite coherently with the 'values' expressed on the terraces. In other words, adherence to the nazi 'lifestyle' is not something purely symbolic and extemporaneous, adopted in a framework where carnival prevails, but a total and in many cases totalising 'lifestyle', with effects on everyday life. The second thing is the consent and legitimation which – without any kind of forcing, it should be noted – they can claim across areas which cannot necessarily be reductively described as belonging to the world of the radical right.

To speak only of the Roman situation, it is worth recalling the 'dead boy' derby match. This spurious story was circulated by some hardcore fringe fans, regarded by the 'experts' as marginal, isolated from the rest of the crowd, but it immediately became the unquestionable truth for the whole stadium. Essentially the story accused the security forces of killing a young boy during the baton charge that preceded the match. The denial by senior officers and by the highest municipal authorities met with a long deafening, chorus of 'shame, shame' (from Lazio and Roma fans alike), which left little room for interpretation and showed that, when it came to choosing between the institutional truth and the illegitimate truth of 'small groups' of 'unruly fans' the whole stadium showed little doubt about which side it was on. And this is only one of many episodes which could be cited. Posing a few questions, then, seems legitimate to say the least.

As they are not aliens, the 'stadium extremists' do not come from outer space, they inhabit urban areas which are not particularly hard to identify: the peripheries. For the left, this should pose a problem. Why have the traditional urban environments of the left suddenly become the ideal breeding grounds for the radical right? Why are the 'culture' and the 'lifestyle' of 'fascist subversion' able to become hegemonic to a large extent in the stadiums and, to a lesser extent, in the peripheries? Perhaps there are 'deep' explanations that require particularly acute insight, but, even when restricted to the 'surface', it is possible to say something. Passing through any periphery, we enter into a desolate panorama which, to put it bluntly, confirms the lack of interest and the unattractiveness of these territories which, a bit hurriedly in the wake of the latest sociologisms, have been assigned to the world of non-places. The prosaic fact that millions of people live there is regarded at best as a mere nuisance, a simple residue or the undesired collateral effect of the postmodern era. But what is so unpresentable about the inhabitants of the peripheries? What faults mark them like the indelible mark of original sin? Plenty to tell the truth. If they work they do low-status manual jobs; 'productive' or 'unproductive' is not a difference that matters very much. For the most part, moreover, when they don't work, instead of contributing to the oh-so-fashionable world of 'post-work' they plunge into the prosaic condition of the unemployed, revealing once more, if that were necessary, the '20th century' residue they always carry with them. But they don't stop there, dated and unpresentable though these conditions already are. In more than a few cases they devote themselves to illegal activities. And once again in this case they show little sign of participating in the contemporary world. Instead of dedicating themselves to illegal practices which are at least respectable as trends, such as computer piracy, they steal, rob, deal drugs, etc. In a word, they don't manage to be cognitive or immaterial in anything, not even in crime. And when, as often happens, together with a few other million individuals they put on a 'blue collar' and every day confront Capital on the terrain of the 'working day', perhaps imagining themselves still to have, if not an historic role then at least a social one, the latest new philosopher rushes to tell them they should stop worrying because, although maybe they haven't noticed, in reality they no longer exist. Not only that: it's often explained that the search for a strong identity is historically obsolete and, objectively speaking, a reactionary operation, because it inhibits the subversive element which, perhaps in spite of itself, the global capitalist era has put into circulation: the age of the individual. But playing as an individual requires the possibility of being one. A dimension which to large swathes of the population can only be denied.

In the global era, as in any other great transformation, if someone wins, someone else can only lose. If many, though still a minority, are enabled by the opportunities global capitalism offers to free themselves from all restrictions (although as Carosone would say, this opportunity almost always depends on mummy's purse) and to assume the light identity of the free individual in the free market, for most life's expectations look quite different. Their destiny can only be that of the perpetually marginal. And that is the only plaintive 'identity' permitted to them.

What does the right offer these masses without history and without future? Not much, to tell the truth. It offers them a collective glue, which, unfashionable as it may be, is still something. Above all it offers them an enemy. The elites, who can regard with cynical and ironic detachment the hold which the conceptual pairing 'friend/enemy' has on the world, are the sole exception: for the majority, those excluded from the gilded world of individuals, the enemy continues to be the indispensable element able to define the 'strong' borders of friendship. To put it simply, the radical right directs the hate of the peripheries towards something 'concrete'. It offers an identity and a hope. In essence, they say: if we are reduced to this today, it is their fault, the inhabitants of the 'centre', who have the money, the means and the power and use it against us. But we will not submit any more. We exist and they will have to take notice soon.

History is always moved by an 'us' which is counterposed to a 'them'; it never escapes from this dimension. The radical right, on the peripheries, concocts a tailor-made 'us' which in some way is able to turn hate into an identity and a project. Certainly it can be objected that all this is laughable and grotesque, but it must always be borne in mind that choices are made on the basis of what is concretely available. And on the peripheries there do not seem to be any alternatives. Through no merit of its own, simply because it has no rivals, the radical right unexpectedly finds itself in a monopoly on the peripheries. It is well known that, for a long time, the left has abandoned friend/enemy rhetoric, opting for 'visions of the world' where the philosophy of 'benevolence' prevails. Moreover, having without qualms adopted the cause of individuals, the left cannot help but show itself to be distant from the anonymous masses of the peripheries. A snobbish attitude which, however confusedly, the anonymous masses perceive. These worlds receive very little attention, aside from small realities where political militants have been unafraid of contamination with the 'base instincts of the people', as in the case of the Livorno football fans, who are regarded by the left as pure folklore. And what is true of the terraces is even more true of the gyms, another instance where the nazi 'lifestyle' has easily achieved a kind of hegemony. In this case too, an ill-concealed intellectualism has consigned these worlds to the realm of 'bare life', which everyone knows there is no reason to take any notice of. A space which the radical right has not done much to occupy, and on which it would be worth the effort to work, even just to investigate.

In its renunciation of everything, the left has ended up regarding it as inappropriate to maintain any kind of organic link with the 'people', who by definition are not (and never have been) very presentable in sophisticated settings, whether economic or intellectual. The result, as everyone who takes the trouble to do the least work on the ground will easily find out, is quite depressing. In the peripheries, the left is perceived, without too many fine distinctions, as one of the various faces of the 'centre', people who come from outside, who live a gilded life out there (or so it seems) in the world of inclusion, of individuals, of post-work and post-something, but who have nothing to do with those for whom every day is a struggle.

This impression is not far from the truth if, for example, we take a look at the isolation in which the revolt in the French peripheries was left last autumn. The biggest and most powerful insurgency from below of the age of global capitalism, at least in the West, was instantly liquidated by the left, when it wasn't stigmatised as a pure cry of pain and desperation from the beggars of the République. That said, despite the far from idyllic situation, a lot of people are taking notice of the urgency and the need to return to occupy the proper spaces of the left and of antifascism. If from this point of view the Livorno fans can be regarded as the reality which has best been able to guarantee a militant and antifascist presence within the stadiums (and not just there), other realities, though objectively smaller, nonetheless exist, and in the present climate this is by no means insignificant. At the end of this summary, perhaps what it makes sense to propose is that experiences like these be socialised across a wider network, so that they become the common property of all those realities (in a minority but still present in a large part of the world discussed here) for whose existence antifascism and class struggle for socialism continues to be an indispensable reference point.

subject: Class | Europe | Identity | Politics | Social Movements

http://makebordershistory.org/workspace/Still_in_Chains

n - Thu, 14/12/2006 - 5:07am

“We, therefore, need to formulate and reformulate state inquiries through radically different vocabularies, and in different dimensionalities in terms of the state as a force, a subject and as an entity in the overlapping fields of history as “fields of struggle.” And since this would involve constant power struggles, state’s identities, meanings, and images remain incessantly contested – always in a constant state of flux. That is one of the ways the state will maintain certain viability (ibid.:). History and the skills of statecraft must be seen as multiple fields of syncretic activities. The sovereign state must be reconceptualized as being produced in a “polyhedron” of fields of activity of relations.”

John Moffat Fugui

George Mwangi's text 'Still in Chains!' fulfils an important role in begining to traces the development of slavery into colonialism and onwards into what we now face, i.e. wage slavery. I refer to a text by John Moffat Fugui, which critiques the 'sovereign state' as a development of colonialism - which includes a critique of nationalism that derives from a myth of 'independence'. (Which also refers to the book "State and Strangers: Refugees and displacement of statecraft" by Nevi Soguk). Another strength of this text is that it stresses the need to privelidge those discourses and cultures which have been eroded and attacked by eurocentrism and colonialism.

The problems we have with that text as well as with 'Still In Chains' is the polarisation between 'foreign' and 'native', which continues through constructions such as 'black/white' 'east/west',which become inprecise, interchangable and open to manipulation.

We have therefore put forward a critique of this polarizing and imperial effect of what we term as 'psychopathic geometry'. We draw from the Scandinavian situationism of Asger jorn. Scandinavian situationism, operating in the 1960s, rather than being a nationalistic construction, it should be noted, works against European hegemony - i.e. against a Eurocentric perspective, within what is conventionally received as 'Europe' itself - i.e. Paris.

We have, along with this, used the ideas of Hindu Islamic 'yogic telepathy' (*as laid out by Agha Ashraf in his book "Complete Telepathy", published in urdu in Lahore, Panjab ) to create a notion of semantic (or social) space. Contra to psychopathic geometry this book posits a telepathic pschogeometry based on yoga and the concepts of 'wahad' or unique one point of thought and 'kathir' or many/fragmented thought.

Thus we have put forward a triolectic dimensionality of space, time and meaning - i.e. we agree with the fact that while spatial or physical chains maybe removed, temporal and semantic chains are still in place. i.e. we are bound within spaces, such as detention centres, but also in time, such as in events which may include temporal constructions such as debt as well as being trapped within social or semantic spaces of constructed meaning such as racism (including spaces of subliminal or institutional racism like, for example the “no borders” network).

* "State and Strangers: Refugees and displacement of statecraft" by Nevi Soguk

* "Complete Telepathy", by Agha Ashraf published in urdu in Lahore, Panjab

Neo-Slavery, No Borders and Anarcho-Racism

"How could so many people have been so stupid as to cause the in Kenya the explosion we called the Emergency? Why even now do the British haver and dither apparently creating a similar situatrion in Rhodesia? These are the big problems only those who really understand the complex origins of political manoeuvers can begin to fathom. But there are the smaller questions. What turns a weak creature into a sadistic bully behind a barbed wire fence? What strange twists of thought made the security forces think they always had God and Right on their side whatever crimes against humanity they committed? What obstinate streak in their make-up forced experienced and hitherto reasonably righteous administrative officers to pursue policies of torture and brutality leading to the Hola Massacre? How could the Kenya Government ever think it could permanently exile 12,000 of its citizens? The future historian of these times may well find it difficult to get our side of the story. Many documents vital to his task will be burnt before independence. But in my narrative of the camps and our strange life together inside them he perhaps well see some glimpses of the truth and justice of the movements of unity, and he may begin to understand why we do not regard the soldiers of the forest as 'hard-core', 'terrorists', or 'murderers', but as the noblest of our fighters for freedom."

Conclusion to "Mau-Mau" Detainee by Joseph Mwangi Kariuki London, OUP 1963

My message titled SMASH PSYCHIC SLAVERY OF ANARCHO RACISTS was infact a reply to George Mawangi of the Colnbrook Detainee Forums speach to Leeds No Borders, entitled STILL IN CHAINS!

I would again like to refer to that speech, and highlight the concluding condemnation the "incorporation of violence in the movement".

http://uo.dczn.net/index.php/Still_in_chains%21

In Fabian's reply to Greg, below, he also mentions the violence of the Anarcho-Racists, although not in such terms. I would like to draw this out and remind people that after we were expelled as members of Voice Forum and despite other foruym members protests, not only were we both physically attacked with an iron bar and broken bottles, and Fabian racially abused for his African ancestry, by LARC Anarcho-Racists, so has another African member of VOICE, but Gaston from Voice has been repeatedly abused - having a computer stolen and then, after been told he cannot be a Director of LARC, because he is a refugee, eventually, the VOIUCE forum was fully hounded out of LARC.

I would also stress that Anarcho - Racism is charecterised by a confusion of the personal and the political realms - like other racists and chauvenists, the anarcho-racist imagines inferiority within himself which he denies and projects onto the other. however the anarcho-racist, instead of creating the myth of the nation or race, the Anarcho-racist creates the myth of the Anarch- the ideal individual. In the ever decreasing circles of greg, alesio, mark brown etc, this is the self - increasingly identified as western european - simultaneously repressing the undesirable aspects of their personality and projected onto the imagined 'other' (the slave which need liberating byu the anarch master) this process is exacerbated by the psychic bakuninism that AnarchoRacism is based in which creates the Anarch as a secret vanguard of the personality! This is why, rather than discuss issues, these people have to expel us as the 'other' - they have an irational fear of the truth - it is shocking that their image of their self is differnet from reality - this is the essence of denial andf the violence it engenders.

We, however, are precise in both theory and practice, and see both of these in a unified communist praxis which we seek to make conscious, deliberate, international revoltionary (proletarian) praxis - we have alwys made our criticisms upfront and to peoples faces - this is why we write any criticisms of No Borders, direct to the NoBo mailinmg list - and not to other discussion lists etc as ionek etc suggest we do.

Asim Butt, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, The Formner British Empire

The Greg Ryan School of Falsification
[edit]
=========================

I was sorry, but not surprised to see that Greg Ryan is up to his usual tricks of debasing the politics of those who disagree with him. This something he has been doing for sometime.

The problems that we encountered with Ryan and his chums at the London Action Resource Centre/London section of Peoples Global Action are not personal as he alleges, but quite clearly political. Ryan's efforts to dismiss them as 'personal' is common strategy implemented by those who wish to forestall a critique of their discriminatory practices.

The facts can readily be attested by those interested:

Asim and I were heavily involved in developing the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), and in 2004 became involved in preparations for the Peoples Global Action (PGA) conference scheduled for that year in Belgrade. One issue of disagreement which arose between us and Ryan and Co. was the whether having meetings from which women were banned was appropriate. We accepted the argument that as women are oppressed under the patriarchy which is a living reality in our society and hence their organisation without men was something to be encouraged, we refused to accept the non sequitur that therefore there should also be men only meetings. Indeed furnished our viewpoint with political and historical parallels e.g. The advent of women only meetings during the struggle against slavery in the USA. For us, this gave very important lessons – how the struggle against slavery had a positive effect on Women's struggles, and how the depiction of the anti-slavery movement as a uniform movement belied the fact that it was heterogeneous movement, which included some reactionary tendencies which expressed both sexist and racist views. We also affirmed our conviction that racism is very much a product of patriarchy, whereby White men prohibited sexual relations between White women and Black men, something which reached its psychotic climax with lynch mobs.

During the preparations for the conference a preparatory meeting was held in London. Rather than deal with our arguments, Ryan and his PGA cronies simply organised meetings behind our back where our views were ignored despite a so-called commitment to consensus. This was also accompanied by attempts to restrict the conference to Europeans and highly offensive remarks by one Marco of the Eurodynsie collective in Holland, who said he would reject applications to attend from Africa as he considered them as bogus attempts to gain access to the EU. Unfortunately Ryan and co. did not take our protests about this seriously.

In the process of organising the conference we saw another face of our erstwhile comrades who we realised were expressing a neo-colonial attitude to our comrades in eastern Europe and Yugoslavia in particular. We found that our working class comrades were being excluded by Andrej Grubacic, an academic with ambitions to further his career outside Serbia. We analysed this as classical neocolonialism and denounced it as such.

As it happens when we got to Belgrade we were able to lay a very positive role, ensuring that our Resnik comrades were not isolated and developing a relationship with the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative there, despite the manipulations of the PGA apparatus. We also published critical material in Mute Magazine (http://www.metamute.org/en/ARTISTS-PROJECT-Over-the-Resnik-Horizon) further elaborating our politics. We missed the final plenum of the conference (we were visiting some striking minors that day instead), and read the minutes with great interest when they were published later that year. We were shocked to read that the meeting had decided that it was acceptable for members of fascist organisations to participate in PGA events, as long as they were not from the leadership or openly offensive. We we asked some people who attended the plenum about this, instead of serious concern about a real issue we were told that it was not important. Alessio Longhi was prominent amongst these people. We also saw how the PGA rumour mill functioned. We were told that the person taking the notes didn't understand English. This blatant lie (the notes were in good English) also showed how as an organisation they were happy that people were excluded from the decision making process due to their limited English. We call this racism, we call this neocolonialism.

The response of LARC and the PGA London crowd – in which Ryan played a prominent part was to organise a show trial for us. This was based in part by blaming us for some posting made to a wiki by someone else, and because we had spoken out against the danger of fascist infiltration of the PGA particularly by New Right Duginists. The PGA rumour mill then went into full flood reviving some smears by Larry O'Hara as regards a criticisms of Green Anarchist a magazine which advocated the indiscriminate bombing of people on public transport back in the nineties.Ryan and Longhi played prominent parts in all of this. Yet despite their attempts to isolate Asim Butt and myself during the Dissent! process organising protests against the G8 in Gleneagles. This had little effect outside London, and indeed contributed to the isolation of the Dissent! London Assembly.

If the story stopped there it would be bad enough, but it gets worse. Yes indeed, there had been fascist infiltration of the PGA. Working with comrades in Poland and Russia, we were able to uncover a certain Leonid Savin as Ukrainian chairperson of the Duginist Eurasia Youth Organisation. However we did not receive any sort of apology from LARC, Lndon PGA or even Ryan himself – our concerns having been proved based in reality. All that happened was that I waqs attacked by one of Ryan's colleagues at LARC with an iron bar.

When Ryan suggests that none of this is political, just personal, he is belittling every time someone has stood up against racism and fascism. How often has it been dismissed as issues of personality? How often have so-called 'illegal immigrants' been dismissed as individuals simply seeking to improve their personal circumstance, who can understandably be excluded by racist laws.

We have seen similar behaviour to Ryan's if we turn back the leaves of history. We all know how the Stalinist Communist Parties did an about face, abandoning their self-proclaimed position at the head of the anti-fascist movement only to cheer lead the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland. Ryan, Longhi and their pals in the PGA apparatus are political manipulators of this ilk who should not be allowed to poison the No Borders network.

Web addresses: http://lists.movingpages.org/pipermail/pga_europe_process/2004/000644.html Resnik Comrades http://lists.movingpages.org/pipermail/pga_europe_process/2004/ PGA Process public e-mails (includes Leonid Savin offering to translate texts into Russian http://lists.movingpages.org/marchives/breakingthesilence/ PGA public gender discussion http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2640 Duginist website featuring Leonid Savin (in Russian)

We do not use the expression Anarcho-Racist without careful consideration.

Smash Psychic Slavery of Anarcho Racists No Platform for Fascists

Fabian Tompsett, November 20th 2006, Limehouse

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