From Brixton to Baltimore: There is no ‘Violent Minority’ -Or - Why breaking windows is a perfect Anti-Gentrification Strategy

‘’We cannot be held accountable for the actions of one lone idiot’’ – ‘Organiser’ of Reclaim Brixton

‘’This taste for the “authentic,” and for the control that goes with it, is carried by the petty bourgeoisie through their colonizing drives into working class neighbourhoods. Pushed out of the city centres, they find on the frontiers the kind of ‘neighbourhood feeling’ they missed in the prefab houses of suburbia. In chasing out the poor people, the cars, and the immigrants, in making it tidy, in getting rid of all the germs, the petty bourgeoisie pulverizes the very thing it came looking for.’’ – The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection

When the window of Foxton’s fell, the whole crowd cheered. We screamed and shouted, hollered and hooted, and this should come as no surprise. We had come together that day to impede the process of gentrification that is destroying Brixton, a process that Foxton is an essential part of. Foxton buys up social housing, destroys and ‘redevelopes’ them, then sells them to rich young white people for hundreds of thousands of pounds. If you want a clear and blatant example of ethnic and social cleansing in Britain this is it. The powers that be seen to have decided that Brixton, (with its convenient placement along the Victoria line, perfect for the new generation of ‘Yuppie’, that must be able to get to Central London in 20 minutes, now that even the young rich white cannot afford to live there) will no longer have anything that makes it different from the homogenised half-alive ‘clean’ neighbourhoods of modern international capital. Capitalism calls the ‘’non-clean’’ zones various things. In Occupied Baghdad they called them ‘red zones’, in Brazil ‘favelas’, in the United States ‘ghettos’ and in South Africa ‘townships’. While These places are kept ‘in their place’ by direct violent repression from state authorities, (predominantly the police) and in more ‘economically developed’ places, indirectly through a system of ‘Social Support’ wherein these people are just given enough to survive. Schools exist to repress the spirit of the youth and keep them off the streets, and the area is dotted with prisons that are filled with anyone who strikes back against the system. But these places are not physical locations, but simply areas where the forces of capital have decided are undesirable, and this is changing for Brixton. We should not pretend that the these places are a pleasant place to live, but the transition from ‘non-clean’ to normalised capitalist space is one that is always violent, as everything that makes the ‘non-clean’ zone what it is must be destroyed to make it palatable for the rich.

This destruction is approaching rapidly for Brixton. Winning the 2013 ‘Great Neighbourhood’ award should have been a loud warning shot, celebrating its ‘Unique Character’ alongside its ‘Regeneration’ (As if the place has got worse since 1981). Now a coalition of the state owned Network Rail, Foxton’s, and various representatives of capital large and small, are going to evict the Brixton arches, triple the rents and force out every locally owned thing that can’t cope with this.

From this it is clear that Foxton’s is an active participant in a process of the cleansing of Brixton as Brixton. While the smashing of Foxton was obviously a symbolic act, it was also very much a practical act. Not only will it impede the business of the shop for a week or so, but it will hopefully put enough fear in enough of the rich white rich for it to slow the process of gentrification a little.

So it’s no surprise that we all cried out our joy when the window fell. It had accomplished exactly what we all aimed to achieve that day. But if you listened to the so called ‘organisers’ of reclaim Brixton this act was one totally out of step with the actions of the day. An act taken by a minority of one, who did nothing but make the event ‘look bad’. The first thing these ‘organisers’ get wrong is that it was not one person who broke that window, it was the whole crowd. A single individual smashing windows on a high street will end up nowhere but the back of a pig wagon, but to control a crowd of a few hundred requires a lot more from our masters. The decision of whether or not that window should be broken was one that was taken by the crowd collectively. If we had wished that person to stop we could have made them do so very easily. Instead we provided a blockade of our bodies and shouts of encouragement, and this brought the window down.

The second thing the ‘organisers’ get wrong is the idea that this has made us ‘look bad’. They are right, yes, that the corporate media and the white moderate do not approve of our actions. But this should be a badge of honour that anyone seeking to impose real change on the world should bear upon their chest. Perhaps they are not all wrong when they say that the media focused disproportionally on the smashed window, but such statements forgot that without the window being broken, outlets like the Daily Mail that the ‘organisers’ so gleefully sold out their comrades to would never have reported on the situation. Of course corporate media condemns the ‘violence’ of the broken window. They are all owned by rich white men who would have a great deal to lose if people did not value the continuing existence of a window over the social cleansing of Brixton. Of course the forces that are arranged against us condemn us taking effective direct actions against the edifices of capital. It is necessary for their survival for them to do so. There is a reason that children in British schools are taught of the preacher of non-violence Mahatma Gandhi, regardless of his immense racism and sexism, but you will never hear a word about comrades like Bhagat Singh.

Of course we were not in Brixton that day to demand an end to ‘structural capitalist-racism’, or anything like that. We were there to fight Gentrification. But I doubt many (if any) of those who went out on that day to ‘reclaim Brixton’ went demanding ‘’Please, gentrify somewhere else, cleanse somewhere else, destroy the neighbourhoods of someone else’’. We went there asking for a stop to gentrification, full stop. If we want to make such statements we need to recognise what this means. It is necessary for capitalism to expand, and you cannot have capitalism without it. So whether they are destroying Social Housing in Brixton or the Jungle of Amazon in order to fuel the continuation of oppression and profit we need to see these things as aspects of the same system.

The third thing is that by denying any connection to the ‘violent minority’ our most dear ‘organisers’ think they are doing the ‘movement’ a service. They think that by splitting off the ‘violence’ of the day from the rest that this creates a clean sanctified image, one that can be easily sold and marketed to mainstream media and mainstream ‘opinion’. This approach is firstly based on a fundamental lie, as it imagines that this ‘violence’ is a political decision taken by a small fringe of extremists, (who are often imagined as outsider ‘agitators’, or agent provocateurs) Instead this decision is more often tactical. The thought processes that led some people to ‘violence’ is one that more often looks like ‘‘Am I wearing a mask or other facial cover so as to be able to take illegal action safely?’’ or ‘’Is my immigration and legal status sufficiently secure that I can risk arrest?’’ It is less often an immense moral dilemma, and more often a spontaneous act of individuals in peculiar situations.

The second is that it imagines ‘violence’ as easily definable and separable from the general process of protest. Was it violence when protesters rearranged the letters on the theatre? Was it violence when the road was taken and traffic stopped? Was it violence when a comrade climbed onto Lambeth City Council balcony to drop a banner? Was it violence when Lambeth City Council was occupied? Was it violence when people fought back against police attempts to evict protesters? Or did it only become violence when protesters walked down the road and some took the decision to break a window? (A proper analysis of the ‘violence’ that day in Brixton would recognise that the vast majority of ‘violence’ came from police and not from protesters. This includes property damage, like the destruction of the sound system that accompanied us that day.) For the ‘organisers’ of this protest the definition seems to be whatever the media disapproves of, without any acknowledgment of the sentiment of those who filled the streets that day, that once again make us ask who these ‘organisers’ ‘organise’ for.

The final way that the ‘organisers’ are wrong in the way they seek to serve the ‘movement’ is that their attempts to separate violence from the event does not prevent the alienation of people from the ‘movement’. It in fact demoralises those who went to these protests. For these ‘organisers’ it was not the crowd that broke the window, but a ‘lone idiot’, and if the crowd begins to believe this them they have lost out on the best part of the day. Imagine if you go home from a protest and feel like you did something great, and were involved in something effective at getting what you want. Being told that this thing was in fact done by others, others you should disapprove of, is nothing but an immensely demoralising and alienating event. Not only was it no longer you who took effective action, but you are now supposed to disapprove of these actions. The best part of the day taken away, why it is surprising when people do not come back? We need to recognise that any cooperation with the mainstream media narrative by those who seek to ‘organise’ us is nothing but a direct betrayal of all of us.

While the problem of ‘organisers’ recuperating struggles is one that occurs in Britain, the system is much more professionalised in the United States. In the US people like Al Sharpton (An FBI informant) going to areas in which (black) struggle has turned into a wildfire, and turn it into something harmless for the state and capital. The Democrat Party in the US is also widely known as the graveyard of movements. Social organisations are tempted into their broad tent with promises of monetary and other forms of support, on the condition that they tow the ‘party line’ and purge the radical parts of the movement. Of course the people who choose to integrate their movement within such structures are not the mass base, but rather, once again, the ‘organisers’. They are the ones that benefit from such a move. (as they will now be paid organisers) They are the ones who feel threatened by the radicals within the group, (As they are the ones who will question the privileged position of the ‘organisers’) and they are the ones that desire integration within the establishment. (As the Establishment only has room for a few)

This should make it obvious that the ‘Left Side of Capital’, (I.e. The mainstream forces of the left that are integrated into the Establishment, Social Democratic Parties in Europe) are equally dangerous to Social movements as the ‘Right Side of Capital’. (I.e. The mainstream forces of the right that are integrated into the Establishment, Conservative Parties in Europe) The left side are only closer to us in the sense that their approach to the maintenance of the current system desires to appease our demands into nothingness rather than bluntly repressing us.

The idea that the ‘radicals’ in any movement can cleanly be sliced off from its mass base is one that is present within the minds of all the forces that seek to repress us. At a recent protest I asked a police officer to explain in his terms what had happened this day. In his mind the ‘black bloc troublemakers’ had spontaneously appeared at some point in the protest and that is when violence begun. Ignoring the fact that he was incorrect as to where the violence had come from that day, he was also incorrect as to the nature of the ‘black bloc’. The ‘black bloc’ did not arrive at some point during the day, rather people who were already on the protest decided to change into ‘black bloc’ as the day went on.

Modern Counterinsurgency strategy believes that there are two groups of people that they must deal with within every society, the ‘Insurgent’ and the normal person. The normal person is seen as generally non-political, wishing to be ‘left alone’, but for various reasons can be pushed to support the ‘Insurgent’ is certain circumstances. The correct reactions of the state to the people are attempts to win their ‘hearts and minds’ in order to deprive the ‘Insurgent’ of support. On the other hand the ‘Insurgent’ is fundamentally opposed to the state, and must be exterminated with the maximum level of violence that is acceptable to general society. This is something I had read theory of, but to hear it from an actor in repression as low level as the average police constable was surprising.

So what lessons can be learned from this? We must resist all attempts that seek to break apart our movements into a part filled with ‘radicals’ and a part filled with the rest. Those who would place themselves among the ‘radicals’ must resist it because not doing so means our destruction. If we are broken off, if we take pride at being the edgy ‘radical’ part of the movement that’s separate and better than the rest, the state will smash us. Do not imagine that they will not. If we break ourselves off like that then we cannot defend ourselves. If we break ourselves off like that the rest of society will have no interest defending us. If you have the privilege of living as a white western ‘radical’ then the state won’t have you shot, but they will happily break your bones and teeth, arrest you, imprison you, and generally do anything to make your life a living hell. For those who are part of the rest, you must resist this because not doing so means you will get nowhere. The people that will be broken off will not be the ones you disapprove of. It will be the ones that the forces of repression disapprove of, and the forces of repression disapprove of any effective action. Inevitably these two will overlap. There will be those with in any movement who truly do take inadvised action that will look ‘revolutionary’ but that in reality achieves nothing. The reason for not consenting to this process of separation is not because you approve of everything the ‘radicals’ in your movement do, but rather because you do not control this process. If you truly believe that ‘radicals’ in your movement are causing difficulties, then actually address them. Do not buy into the narrative of the forces that are seeking to ruin you.

Division makes us vulnerable. This is true not only in regards to efforts to break apart our movement, but also in the manner in which we structure our resistance. The rejection of ‘organisers’ comes not only from seeing that such structures limit us in the inherent failure of attempting to create a world free of division with a hierarchal organisation, but also in recognition in the inherent vulnerability of such a structure in the modern day. It was suggested to me that the condemnation of the broken window may have come not from a genuine disgust that the organisers have for the action, but rather simply fears of being charged with ‘Inciting a riot’ or similar charges. While I do not believe this for a second, especially considering the immense gusto that they went about condemning those who would break windows, it does show the immense weakness of a tiered structure in our present reality. Having leaders, having ‘organisers’, having anything like this does nothing but gives the forces of repression something to latch onto, and to either smash or recuperate. The state is not yet able to kill us all, nor fulfil our desires in a way that would end our resistance, but they can do it to a few. In this way it can be seen, the desire for horizontal leaderless methods of resistance is not the foolish dream of the idealist, but rather the hard headed recognition that anything else means our destruction or our irrelevance.

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