Democracy Ateneo Announcement 6-15-13

Compañer@s,

The Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo scheduled for this Saturday, June 15 follows two recent mobilizations that highlight the naming of the intolerable. These mobilizations are also moments in which hope becomes a social force. In Turkey, a demonstration that began as an effort to oppose the commercialization of Taksim Sqaure quickly turned into a mobilization that exposed the state's use of force and its commitment to quell any criticism of expanding commerce. The effort to save Taksim Square and Gezi Park, one of the only remaining natural gathering places in Istanbul, reflects a clear refusal of the neoliberal model and the fiction that Turkey has been one of the neoliberal success stories. More importantly, it demonstrates a moment when the Turkish people refuse fear and where they claim the courage and valor of a radical hope. It is no longer about saving a park, but about people saying "Enough! We will not be treated this way. You will not take what you please and impose on us what you will" (see the recent vice report, "Turkey's Civil Revolt: Istanbul Rising" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Uwh971f6w>). And at the same time they do not know what will happen, but they know that what they hope for makes sense regardless.

Closer to home, migrant workers are taking part in a nation-wide mobilization to fast in order to make visible what are being called "silent raids" (see "Fired Workers and Supporters Launch a Three Day Hunger Strike to Oppose the 'Silent Raids' " <http://www.nelp.org/blog/entry/fired_workers_and_supporters_launch_a_three_day_hunger_strike_to_oppose_the>). Promoted by Homeland Land Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the strategy reveals an increase effort towards interior enforcement through E-verify --a process that requires employers to determine an employee's immigration status and fire those who can not provide proper documentation. Comrades and allies have been occupying public spaces and fasting in order to draw attention to the everyday impact of violent U.S. immigration policy. Locally, comrades organized a fast in San Jose at Cesar Chavez Park on Tuesday June 11th. The mobilization not only reclaims the plaza, but it also draws attention to the flaws in Senate Immigration Bill S.744. The proposed immigration reform effort increases interior enforcement by making E-verify mandatory for all businesses as well as expands border enforcement and militarization along the U.S.-Mexico Border. The draconian provisions embodied in the mandatory 90% success in apprehensions along the border made possible by the increase funding for Operation Streamline, increased use of drones, and expanded border fencing belies the promise of Registered Provisional Immigrant Status. (See, IPC, " A Guide to S.744: Understanding the 2013 Senate Immigration Bill," <http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/guide-s744-understanding-2013-senate-immigration-bill>)

Mobilizations such as those mentioned above are taking place across the globe. In many ways, these efforts represent the success of the "International of Hope," the mobilization from below that found its clearest articulation in the series of encuentros hosted by the Zapatistas as well as the serial protests that emerged parallel to those gatherings. Hope, Gustavo Esteva writes, is different from the arrogance of expectation, where the future is planned and controlled. Radical hope is instead found in a deeper understanding of humanity and its limits as well as potential, in being open to surprises and enchantment. But it is also a social force present at a time when many are restless and begin to say: "I will no longer obey, I will not submit, and I am not willing to passively accept this terrible fate that has been imposed on us." These moments that unravel the thread of history, Esteva explains, are of radical hope and are nurtured by beliefs deeply rooted in historical experience. No power can make impossible what it is we hope for when people firmly say: Enough! We will not tolerate this anymore. (See, Gustavo Esteva, "Hopes" <http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/06/10/politica/021a2pol>).

Against this hope, many have begun to argue that we are now confronted with a shift in capital relations as a response to the incredible social force of the creative struggles against the intolerable. Esteva suggests that capital's crisis is further leading to its exhaustion and extinction. This exhaustion, he writes, is not in the form anticipated by Rosa Luxemburg or John Maynard Keynes but in something outside of capitalist operation. "Extractivism," or accumulation by dispossession, can help explain how the immense amount of profit produced from dispossession reveals the parasitic tendencies of a capitalism that has reached its limit. Furthermore, this type of operation is always confronted with resistance, which is increasingly met with "pre capitalist, colonial-style" use of force. Lastly, Esteva observes, "this is how the destruction of the nation state, the political regime that was born with capitalism, is being provoked, as well as why its democratic forms are increasingly abandoned." (See, Gustavo Esteva, "Between zombies and vampires" <http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/27/opinion/023a2pol>).

While we are increasingly abandoning democratic fictions of the nation state, as well as parasitic operations of capital, what W.E.B Du Bois named "democratic despotism," we are tasked with asking: how are we managing our lives? Our communities' regeneration? (See, W.E.B Du Bois, "African Roots of War," <https://www.box.com/s/cdc78173f64f16ac7e02>) Across California we are starting to see families and communities denouncing the loss of life to all types of violence. Increasingly, self-organized communities recognize that the further militarization of our communities only escalates street violence and state violence[, >>that] is intolerable. This manifested in the recent, statewide gathering "Justice for Our Communities! Families Organizing to Resist Police Brutality and Abuse," which took place in Oxnard, California on April 28 (see colectivo todo poder al pueblo <http://todopoderalpueblo.org>). We wonder how this recognition of the intolerable refuses to give way to paralysis or desperation, as Esteva suggests, but instead cause stirs of hope inviting us to interrogate democratic forms from below, and in this regard of community safety.

We will convene the Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo, Saturday, June 15, from 2 - 5 p.m. at Casa de Vicky (792 E. Julian St., San Jose <http://www.casavicky.com/>) to continue our regularly scheduled reflection and action space in order to address these and other questions in relation to the struggles mentioned above.

South Bay Crew

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