Subversion, Multiplicity and the Rise of the Post-Left and Social Ecology: Thoughts and Experiences in the Archipelago 4th Anarchist Gathering Series Report

Sunday, February 19, 2012. The awaited discussion entitled Subversion, Multiplicity and the Rise of the Post-Left and Social Ecology: Thoughts and Experiences in the Archipelago turn out successful. People come and participated freely by introducing themselves to everyone, fulfilling significant tasks and serving free food. Everyone enjoys and friendly.  A mix in between volunteers and tireless activists of the Local Autonomous Network or LAN and new faces of different individuals that are active in people’s organization, academe, artists and young professional who embraced literary works were there.  Women and men are involved. Around 20 people gathered. The activity was set in a comrade house in a generous and open atmosphere. The day was a bit windy where people would feel the imminent blow. There are people who came early ahead of time and there are others who rush up later. The discussion started and facilitated at 4pm. The speakers accompany facilitation and prepared materials and gadgets. Speakers and participants work hand in hand in mutual sharing of tasks. Everyone is not alien towards each other.  No artificial bullshit keeping the phase as humanly as possible. Educational process is alive.  There was no space for speaker-listener distinction that reinforces hierarchical dynamics. A more liberational one was encourage through formal and informal basis on what is best or might work for everyone according to needs. Spontaneity is considered. No people giving orders .

The gathering is mainly organized by the Local Autonomous Network or LAN. This series come out monthly and become regular. The first one was set by the last quarter of 2011.  LAN in due respect  is quiet active for some years in various autonomous activities and projects like Food Not Bombs, info shops, publishing, anti-police violence campaign and so on. Some individuals or activists of LAN are also involve in social and ecological struggles supporting other autonomous causes (indigenous communities and peasants) that were politically unaware of any anarchist convictions of sorts, much of its theory or anything along these lines. Most of these folks negate due to necessity by fighting for their land and their people spearheaded by colonizing interests such as corporation that will rob resources via mining and other profit-motive operations.  Knowing that a particular intrusion will spoil the environment, way of living and communities, people fight back.  In many cases, NGO’s will support their causes in a legalistic way by whatever funding from the sky could able to provide, only to marginalized them and depriving their will of freedom and rebellion until being snatch in accordance with the law. Other leftist groups are quiet the same, are masked behind institutional plunder.

 LAN has no membership only volunteers believing in the cause of revolutionary change through creativity and action here and now.The speaker for the topic in Subversion, Multiplicity and the Rise of the Post-Left is Marco Cuevas- Hewitt. He is an Australian-base Filipino, an anarchist involve in various actions and projects in Australia. He was in the Philippines for a visit with a friend meanwhile meeting local anarchist activists. He is writing a paper on the said topic. Marco’s speaking counterpart is Bas Umali presenting Social Ecology: Thoughts and Experience in the Archipelago. Bas Umali focuses on anarchist history in the Philippines and how it emerges in its current state. He’s an author, a family man, down to earth individual and the main proponent for Indokumentado Productions. Other than theoretical work and family, he does facilitate activity with communities and LAN.

The topic on subversion addresses literally not only mean to destroy something but “creative subversion”.  The production of new ways of being, seeing, valuing, doing, relating is one of the features of “creative subversion”.  We create in order to negate and not vice versa.  It is argued that it’s not enough to reclaim one side of the master-slave dialectic.  A need also to subvert the very ground upon which such relations are founded. Binaries are displaced, rather than simply inverted.

The politics on multiplicity represents a rejection of the politics of unity associated with Hegel’s identity-difference dialectic. Politics of unity went hand-in- hand with centralized command structures such as old left and new left versions of unity.Some features of the post-leftist valorization of multiplicity are; commitment to addressing micro oppressions within the left, rejection of the logic of representation, decentralized modes of organization, new forms of community not bound by essences.It is quiet common for the post left currents that rather seeking to replace capitalist modernity with an alternative form of modernity; the post-left sensibility questions the modernist paradigm itself.  They consider emphasis on imagination rather than reason. They demonstrate politics of subversion, rather than inversion. The refusal of Hegel’s (1807) master-slave dialectic. And politics of multiplicity, rather than unity. The refusal of Hegel’s (1807) identity-difference dialectic.

The author’s main argument herein has been that the valorization of subversion and multiplicity is an important step toward achieving such autonomy since history has shown that the inversion of power relations and the policing of unity have only lead to restoration of everything the left has claimed to oppose.The second topic Social Ecology: Thoughts and Experience in the Archipelago presented by Bas Umali formulated ideas about how people have done to the environment. The ecological crises are unprecedented and are clear that people need to take sides sooner rather than later base on the facts and figures showed. Our chance of survival is at stake if the motor of progress maintained by capital continue raping the biosphere. It is argued that traditional way of life and spiritual beliefs in every social forms that primarily gives honor to nature and other species living on it is very important basis to learn about. The advancement of science and religion will greatly affect the environment including all other life forms that are naturally connected on it.