It was a demonstration very much like the one described below that set off the Chilean uprising of 2019, triggering copycat actions in the United States. Struggles against the cost of public transit and the murderous police that enforce it continue around the world.
Photographs by Abu Zeek.
Anarchists who want to take action, when confronted with the choice of tactics, often default to large mass actions, like black bloc. Imagination is ceded to tactical hegemony; autonomy diminishes; creativity recedes; resistance is franchised with stale, processed, prepackaged ideologies and tactics; questionable organizational methods like spokes-councils and democratic decision making give a participatory veneer to a sealed deal–just like in any liberal democracy; most participants spectate rather than act, learning by passive imitation of the leaders rather than active involvement in intimate relations with experienced trusted friends.
We hope to put an end to this stagnation by giving anarchists some ideas about tactical alternatives to large mass actions. Here we discuss Coordinated Attacks, an extension of single group clandestine actions to multiple groups operating in loose collaboration simultaneously. While the tactics discussed here are not new, we believe our analysis can help anarchists better understand their action options, avoid getting into a rut of the same old tired tactics, choose the option most suited to their objectives, and most importantly, be creative and experiment with new ways of acting.
Continue reading “From a Matter of Principle to a Matter of Tactics”
