Without Detour

It’s useless to deny it or to look away: with each flare of lucidity we have the feeling of living in an age where cynical realism and disillusion reign. A time where relations are increasingly mediated by technologies, leading to the loss of meaning and the belief that nothing can be changed about it. A time of generalized dispossession and collective apathy; where nothing much opposes the domination of money, the exploitation and commodification of every element of the globe, of every piece of life (down to the most intimate), the devastation and poisoning of the earth, the growing hold of the police and army on our lives. For the rich, the bosses and the statesmen, business prospers. Whereas a part of the exploited - not believing anymore in the tales of democracy and progress – seems attracted to the nationalist pest, to the identitarian dogmas and to the religious straitjackets - preaching exclusion and a return to traditional values. Weighed down by the mental idiocy, the social cannibalism and the reactionary ignorance, revolutionary horizons seem to recede from our existence.

Nonetheless, a flicker stays glowing. For those who know to look for them - here and there - revolts and conflicts disrupt social peace, attacks break through the night, rebellious solidarity is forged. So breaking with the routine of obedience and resignation, and arousing our will to continue to fight, to hope and think that nothing is lost. As anarchists we hold a stake in these diffuse conflicts. For us, anarchism is neither an identity, nor a cocoon woven with certainties in which one can settle comfortably, looking down on a world that doesn’t belong to us. It is an idea we carry in our hearts, a tension that navigates our actions, a will that drives us. In short, a relation to the world that cannot be developed but in disparity with this one. There is an other world, but it is in and staunchly against this one.

Hostile against all authority, recalcitrant against all political strategy and manoeuvre, contrary to delegation and passivity, we endeavour to reflect upon, to understand the reality that surrounds us to sharpen the arms of critique and to search new angles of attack. Because this other world we should cherish, defend, grow, spread. And to this end we need space, to sweep away this one.

In an age of continuous connection, of virtual social networks, of flicking through and superficiality, we want to make an effort, to challenge ourselves and others: to evade the bright lights of the ongoing spectacle, breaking with the urgency of being part of it. In order to take the necessary time to exchange and confront positions, deepen ideas and nourish subversive perspectives and projects. To get rid of preconceived thoughts, reflexes conditioned by habit, to move away from roads already marked out. To venture onto unforeseen paths. But also to take on and amplify the multiplicity, by undermining the superficial and hypocritical consensus and unity that are always needed by the politicians and recuperators of revolt.

So a journal to bring forward ideas that don’t belong to a homogeneous and monolithic group, but that emanate from individuals. Forging them along their imaginaries, their experiences and their respective tensions.

A journal that – recognizing the scourge that constitutes any collective identity – doesn’t look for any other interlocutor than the stray individuals in search of freedom, thinking far away from the shadow of a chapel.

A journal that isn’t dependent on the current events of the “movement”, but that searches to interact with the rebels of its time. Bringing to the table, on occasion, suggestions for the ongoing struggles.

A journal that doesn’t want to cling on to all the social conflicts, but that at times sees there a terrain favourable to subversion.

A journal that digs recklessly through the arsenal of distant subversive experiences, in time and space, as to enrich our present perspectives.

A journal that – attached to this anarchist principle according to which all separations between what is said and done should be abolished – doesn’t want to take part in the forum of sterile and inoffensive opinions, but undertakes to strengthen the bond between thought and action.

A journal that is also this; an opportunity for those who write it, an invitation for those who read it.

We are a minority in the minority. But that doesn’t bring us to renounce a part of ourselves, to silence our disagreement or to feint agreement in order to grow in numbers. Because the quest for quantity at all costs is irreconcilable with authenticity and singularity, real precious sprouts that have to shoot up in all domains of life, and so also in the complicities that we want to concoct.

The upheaval of this world will not arise from objective conditions, political strategies or alliances between different social groups. But rather the propagation of surges of freedom, rage and disproportionate dreams, the abundance of individual initiatives and of fights to undertake in chorus. And it is to this that we want to contribute. With hate and love, poetry and humour. But, straightforwardly.