Table of Contents:
- Going in Circles: A Critique of “The Coming Insurrection” (A Corps Perdu #3)
- Blanqui or the Statist Insurrection (Finimondo)
- Blanqui in Venaus (Finimondo)
- The Death of Rémi and Confrontations:
The Radical Recuperators Come Out of the Woodwork - Decisions, Compositions, Negotiations (Hourriya #6)
- Here Lies a Corpse (Storm Warnings #3)
- A Composition
The writings of Tiqqun and the Invisible Committee have given rise to the emergence of an authoritarian insurrectionalist tendency that has been recruiting and building its ranks for about the past decade and a half. Although one of the trademarks of tiqqunism is its approach to “invisibility”, or not being legible as a distinct tendency, after so many years and some significant betrayals, tiqqunists have thoroughly revealed who they are and what they want, which is at direct odds with any struggle against authority.
While tiqqunism has crossed the pond from France and taken root across turtle island to some extent, the anarchist critique of tiqqunism has not. This reflects a general commitment to tolerance in the anarchist space, an unfortunate reaction against the ideological dogmatism that silos people in insular and stale subcultural enclosures. Thinking through the lens of this false dilemma comes at the expense of uncompromising clarity around how we relate to power, reformism, representation, and the mechanisms of politics. In short, this tolerance, even when motivated by a desire for openness and connection, blurs the lines which lie at the very foundation of autonomy and self-organization.
Tiqqunism pretends to offer an escape from ideological camps, transcending the confines of identities that no longer serve us and inviting us to be partisans in their insurrectionary composition. Not only is this an empty promise, as the subcultural niche they have formed is highly exclusive, insular, oppressive, and frankly unpleasant, it is also a way of manipulating readers into uncritically adopting, or at least tolerating, their proposals.
This collection aims to shed light on the authoritarian ambitions woven throughout tiqqunist ideas in order to encourage anarchists to abandon tolerance and move towards principled and necessary conflict. Ideas are not neutral, they are not incidental aesthetic preferences or personality quirks, they form the basis of who we are, how we move through the world, and how we struggle. As the authors of Blanqui or the Statist Insurrection remind us, the ideas we feel close to are “not irrelevant, and constitute choosing an unmistakable side.”
Going In Circles is still relevant over a decade later, as it shows how the practices of tiqqunists are entirely predictable from their magnum opus, “The Coming Insurrection.” Blanqui or the Statist Insurrection traces authoritarian insurrectionalism to its source. Blanqui in Venaus gives a brief note on the proposals for recuperation within “To Our Friends.” The Death of Rémi and Confrontations furthers the theme of recuperation, commenting on the tiqqunist mobilization of the State murdering a demonstrator in order to dialogue with it. Decisions, Compositions, Negotiations hones in on their logic of “composition” in the context of land defense struggles, and Here Lies a Corpse speaks to their use of composition to pacify the ZAD. We close with our own “composition,” intended to lay bare the essence of the tiqqunist project in the very words of those not-so-invisible men who love to put their names on things.
While tiqqunism inevitably plays out differently across contexts, we value the insights and experiences of comrades from other territories in recognizing and attacking authority in all its guises. Ill Will Editions recently published a text championing “composition” as the strategy that secured “victory” at the ZAD in Notre-Dame-des-Landes and proposes the same strategy be used in the No Cop City struggle. In bringing these texts together, we hope to spread hostility to this vision of victory and to tiqqunist involvement in the No Cop City struggle, or anywhere else they rear their managerial heads.
For insurrection without vanguards,
Ungrateful Hyenas