#intercommunalism

[Cedric J. Robinson] found in the culture, in the anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' ¡Afrika" sung across the continent, a liberatory vision of "people building, sweating, and toiling for a new world." He met people determined to be free, willing to take on a settler regime backed by Western capitalist nations, by any means necessary. In this brief essay, we can see Cedric coming to terms with the Black Radical Tradition:

The African, unable to operate openly, resorted to the only weapons he has been allowed to keep; his mind and his hands. He burns down missions and farms in the country areas because he is not strong enough yet to face the guns in the cities and townships; where meetings are banned or closely watched, he sings spirituals as the American slaves did a hundred years ago, to tell his people that they will be free again, soon. He has sent delegations repeatedly to the U.N. to plead for his life. He has not been rejected but he has not been effectively helped either, but still he tries.

Introduction

Intercommunalism is an ideology which was adopted by the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party after its turn away from revolutionary nationalism in 1970. According to Huey P. Newton the development of intercommunalism was necessary "because nations have been transformed into communities of the world."[1] Intercommunalists believe that most forms of nationalism are obsolescent, because international corporations and technologically advanced imperialist states have reduced most nations down to a series of discrete communities which exist to supply an imperial center, a situation called reactionary intercommunalism. They also believe this situation can be transformed into revolutionary intercommunalism and eventually communism if communities are able to link "liberated zones" together into a united front against imperialism.[2] Intercommunalism is a lesser-known aspect of the Panthers' legacy as much of its development occurred at the height of the party's suppression and reorientation towards survival programs.[3][4][5]

Reactionary Intercommunalism

Newton believed that imperialism had developed into a stage of reactionary intercommunalism. Reactionary intercommunalism is typified by the development of a tiny community of elites with a monopoly on technology and state power within a single hegemonic empire (currently the United States).[15][5]

This 'ruling circle' is different from the Bourgeoisie, which the Panthers treated as a much broader phenomenon. Newton said that "[t]here are very few controllers even in the white middle class. They can barely keep their heads above water, they are paying all the bills, living hand-to-mouth, and they have the extra expense of refusing to live like Black people." The Black bourgeoisie in particular is a "fantasy bourgeoisie" which could be rallied to a revolutionary cause through sufficient education.[12]

The ruling circle's monopoly on technology and education is important to maintaining reactionary intercommunalism, as it prevents the rest of the world's communities from fulfilling their material needs independently of the center, leaving them dependent on the Empire for advancement.[15] The ruling circle uses 'peaceful co-optation' more often than military invasion to reinforce its aims.[5]

Reactionary intercommunalism allows for no independent national sovereignty, as the dominance of the global hegemon means that all nations bend to the 'weight' of its interests.[4] Instead nations have been reduced down to constituent communities, or "a small unit with a comprehensive collection of institutions that exist to serve a small group of people." Each of these communities "want to determine their own destinies," but can only do so by joining into a revolutionary bloc. All of the communities have no superstructure apart from global capitalism, and while they have different economic conditions they are all 'under siege' by the same forces.[15][4][5][10][9]

Newton believed that if allowed to continue, reactionary intercommunalism would bring more and more of the world's population into the lumpenproletariat, including white workers. However he did not think that this would end racism, in fact he thought white workers would increasingly blame their exploitation on minorities, especially the increasingly proletarianised third world.[5]

Revolutionary Intercommunalism

Intercommunalists believe that Revolutionary Intercommunalism will come about when communities are able to break the technological monopoly of the center. Through technology, communities would be able to solve material contradictions and "develop a culture which is essentially human." Even though the Panthers disavowed the nation-state as a viable form of revolutionary political struggle, they continued to support state socialist countries such as China, North Vietnam and North Korea against American Imperialism. Indeed, they were considered the vanguard of revolutionary intercommunalism through liberating territories and establishing provisional governments ahead of the global turn towards revolutionary intercommunalism.[16] However such states could still be co-opted into reactionary intercommunalism through the introduction of western markets.[5]

While the party no longer believed in Black nationalism, they continued to believe that Black Americans would play a special role within the struggle for revolutionary intercommunalism. Due to the Atlantic slave trade, Newton believed that Black Americans were the "first real internationalists" due to their mixed cultural origin and wide dispersal among a range of communities. Since he believed Black Americans constituted a significant force for revolution within the United States, and the destruction of the United States seemed to be a prerequisite for world revolution, the Panthers continued to view Black Americans as "the vanguard of the world revolution."[17]

Criticism

"The Israeli nationstate is at war since its foundation. The slogan is: an eye for an eye. Fire cannot be fought by fire, though. Even if Israel enjoys relative security thanks to its international support, this is not a sustainable solution. Nothing will be permanently safe as long as the capitalist modernity has not been overcome. The Palestine conflict makes it clear that the nation-state paradigm is not helpful for a solution. There has been much bloodshed; what remains is the difficult legacy of seemingly irresolvable problems. The Israel-Palestine example shows the complete failure of the capitalist modernity and the nation-state."

- Abdullah Occalan, Democratic Confederalism

The second basic way in which corporate ideology comes to prevail, particularly at the foreign policy level, is by the very fact that the dominant reality of society is corporate, and therefore political ‘realism’ dictates for any statesman or politician that they work within its framework and accept its assumptions. If the horizon of political choice is limited to an area in which the corporate interests is not directly challenged, because it would be both imprudent and impractical (utopian) to do so, if the framework of private property in the means of production is accepted as not realistically subject to change, then the ‘national’ interest, which is the concept under which politicians and statesmen tend to operate (particularly in foreign policy), necessarily coincides with the interests of the corporations, the repositories of the nation’s wealth, the organizers of its productive power, and hence the guardians of the material basis of its strength. In a class-divided society under normal (i.e., non-revolutionary) conditions, the national interest vis-à-vis external interests inevitably is interpreted as the interest of the dominant or ruling class. Thus, in a corporate capitalist society, the corporate outlook as a matter of course becomes the dominant outlook of the state in foreign affairs.”

Call for an Intergalactic Week on the ZAD (Aug. 27-Sept. 2, 2018) 

A3-sized poster HERE

After the long awaited victory against the airport project, we are trying to lift ourselves out of the brutal spring, a season marked by two phases of evictions in which the government made sure to avenge the affront that the ZAD had represented for so many years. The massive police operations caused many injuries, the destruction of a part of the living spaces of the ZAD, and a long military presence. But the state was forced to give up going any further and entirely eradicating our presence in this bocage. Resistance on the ground, solidarity elsewhere, and the negotiation process resulted in a status quo that safeguarded dozens of homes, common spaces and activities on most of the land held by the movement. Nevertheless, what we managed to preserve today could very quickly be attacked again, administratively, politically or militarily. Whilst the ZAD recovers from its wounds and recomposes itself, the work in the fields and the constructions resumes, as we project ourselves towards the struggles of the next months. These however go beyond just us, and connect up with others around the world. They concern the collective and respectful use of the land, the sharing of the commons, the questioning of nation-states and borders, the reappropriation of our habitats, the possibility of a way of producing and exchanging that is free from the shackles of the market, of forms of self-organization on territories in resistance, and the right to live there freely...

Following more than two years of regular building work and a new month of construction this summer, this week of August 27 to September 2, will also be the inauguration of the Ambazada, a space intended to welcome rebels and struggles from around the world to the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. To honor and celebrate the opening of the Ambazada the obvious thing to do was to make a call for a new intergalactic week. We hope that it helps to bring back momentum and horizons before the autumn mobilizations at home and abroad.

Open encounters between autonomous territories in struggle There are questions that have not ceased to inhabit us during this past season on the ZAD. These include: How to throw  the anchor down for the long term, without becoming domesticated? To be community-centered, or more porous in our movements? How to deal with the power struggles and frontal relationships with the state, and move toward possibilities of victories that can last? We had to find our own partial answers during the recent emergency, to make decisive choices against the tanks and under dramatic pressure. We want to re-open questions around these issues, and to share them with other territories born out of battles and that have traced their own path. Part of the week will be devoted to open encounters with guests from the Wendland in Germany, Christiania in Denmark, the free district of Lentillères in France, Errekaleor in the Basque Country and perhaps Exarchia in Greece. Each of these territories will tell us the way in which they handled these issues, followed by a debate between all of us. At another scale, there are people resisting cultural assimilation and liberal ideology all over the place. We’d like to take a moment during the week of  meetings to discuss this subject as well.

Historical junctures and revolutionary legacies We would also suggest that during certain evenings we time travel across decades of important struggles in different European countries. Revolutionary Italy in the 1970s, the German autonomous movements of the 1980s or the radical anti-capitalist ecology of the UK in the 1990s, among others, all of which reconfigured our political language, actions and organizational practices. We’ll dive back into these vibrant stories, in search of the legacies and imaginaries  they offer us, as a way of thinking through our present.

Other workshops and simultaneous meetings  A lot of other content is still being put together, including: - an afternoon meeting with a Kurdish activist around the women's liberation movement in Kurdistan, and its role in society and the movement. - A presentation on the political, social and struggles situation in Mexico following the presidential elections in July and the campaign of indigenous candidate Marichuy. - Testimonies of undocumented people in Nantes and groups who organize their support in squats and in their administrative procedures. An update on the asylum-immigration law. The feedback from a group that organized the occupation of the University of Nantes this winter with undocumented people and an overview of the current situation. Participants are welcome to offer contributions to the announced discussions. You can contact us to make additional proposals for workshops and discussions. However, we have made the overall choice to favor a few major themes and common moments in which to advance together, rather than to superimpose a multiplicity of parallel discussions. - We are thinking of organising another gathering in parallel at another site of the ZAD, with groups of trade unionists and students who will dedicate certain days of the week to taking stock of their mobilizations of the past year and looking to the future. We envisage a cross pollination between those attending this and the intergalactic week.

The mornings will be devoted to building work on various sites, to strengthening the ZAD's commons, as well as to running the logistics of the camp. 

Let us know you’re coming, and let’s organize it! Tell us if you want to come!! We need to plan the logistics in advance, and therefore to get a sense of the number of participants (we have provided infrastructure for about 300 people during the week). We hope that the participants will stay the entire week, and to take the time to develop a  collective sensibility with one another. Please let us know by July the 31st, how many of you will be present, and on which dates. Canteen facilities will be organized on site, but do not forget to bring a tent and sleeping bag. Also tell us what language(s) you speak, so we can better organize translation.

For contact, registration, and questions: [email protected] The complete program of the intergalactic week will be online soon on: https://zad.nadir.org/ and on www.zadforever.blog PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR NETWORKS AND REBEL FRIENDS

Above: Timber frames of the Ambazada being raised during intergalactic camp 2017

BFP just had a wonderful meeting and we talked about so many things! if you wanna be involved in conversations like these and help us start IN-PERSON, GLOBAL LIBERATION SCHOOLS, beginning with Washington, DC, New Orleans, LA, and Sydney, NSW, Australia (yep, that’s the big news we’ve been hiding), join our discord server (link in bio)! any and all ages/walks of life are welcome, but our main focus is on middle school through university-aged youth, esp youth of color!

i’m so excited to work with y’all :D

image description below