_-_Wheat_Field_with_Crows_(1890).jpg)
A month ago
I went
to the wooden walking paths
on the riverbank of the Paiva river.
Eight kilometers of walk,
under scorching sun.
*
A week ago
That wooden walking path
was burnt down
by the climate crisis.
*
The flyers said they had a plan of extension for the path.
Fossil capital had other plans for it.
The iconic "schist village" Piódão
was under the siege
of the flames.
I thought to myself:
Should I finish the chestnut liqueur
we bought in Piódão a couple of years ago
before Piódão finishes,
or should I keep it?
If I keep it
and if Piódão is burnt down,
will I have the courage to drink it later?
If I keep it,
will I be investing hope on Piódão
for no rational reason?
That was my first thought when I saw the news.
Climate, Galp, Navigator
came later
- a few minutes later.
Solidarity, what to do, now and here
came later
- a few minutes later.
The first thought was
the Piódão that is inside my house.
I felt a bit guilty about this.
Then it passed.
The fire didn't.
I cannot let myself go.
There is a question.
We are working on it,
allegedly.
Some people mobilize
themselves and others,
to do this and that,
to get closer to a resolution,
allegedly.
Some people preach,
or teach,
or write
about the solution
- allegedly.
I am curious
and worried.
I go and ask them,
what the plan is.
Their answers
are non-answers.
And
they
know.
*
Things are
not
under control.
Gosto de contar histórias. Aqui está o que eu vi no dia 25 de abril de 2025. Estou a escrever porque várias pessoas me contactaram por terem-me visto na televisão à frente de uns militantes de extrema-direita perto do Rossio.
*
Eu não estava nada a pensar estar lá, de todo, mas deixa-me contextualizar um pouco: Contra o desfile do 25 de abril, grupos de extrema-direita convocaram uma manifestação no Martim Moniz. (Não vou entrar nos debates sobre "autorizado/não-autorizado", que servem para transportar uma discussão política para uma discussão legal liberal.) Eu simplesmente estava a descer pela Avenida Almirante Reis, para entrar no desfile pelos Restauradores. Às 15h (sim, estava atrasado para o desfile) no Martim Moniz vi umas 50 pessoas antifascistas, no lado da Rua da Palma; continuei a descer e não vi mais nada. (Sem ser a PSP ter interdito a entrada na praça inteira, o que parece-me um overdeliver das reivindicações da extrema-direita, expulsando literalmente todas as pessoas do centro da cidade - imigrante não entra mas nem sequer turista entra.)
Quando cheguei à Ginjinha (a.k.a. Largo São Domingos) é que fiquei muito confuso.
Deixa-me delinear o espaço aqui.
 |
| pelas 15h30 |
A zona amarela não era a área da manifestação da extrema-direita. Foi a zona onde eu notei presença da extrema-direita. Nesta zona, estavam
- uns 100-150 militantes de extrema-direita (com dois toldos),
- umas 200-300 pessoas comuns, com cravos ou algo semelhante,
- uma mulher com uma banca a vender cravos,
- uma banda brasileira de músicos de rua,
- uns 100-200 turistas (nas filas para a ginjinha, em excursões a ouvir um guia falar sobre o memorial às vítimas judias, e outros a tirar fotos),
todas elas completamente misturadas.
Aí, eu parei para perceber o que se passava.
Nem dava para avaliar o nível de risco.
A minha primeira conclusão foi de que isto era uma provocação desenhada pela PSP, que estava a gerir a situação.
Nós não tínhamos qualquer organização ou qualquer plano. As pessoas comuns do 25 de abril estavam completamente expostas. Contei umas 5 situações de tensão (alguém diz algo, outro responde, começam aos berros, etc.) num período de 30 minutos.
Decidi ficar para improvisar um contributo para a segurança do desfile de 25 de abril.
*
Os militantes de extrema-direita quiseram marchar ainda na direção do Rossio, pelo passeio. Uma linha policial bloqueou-os, tipo assim:
 |
| pelas 16h30 |
Como podes ver, isto foi um ato meramente performativo, para produzir fotos e discursos. Nem a extrema-direita queria realmente entrar na praça, nem a PSP queria realmente bloquear.
Houve um empate estranho nesta configuração.
Foi nessa altura que aconteceu a tal coisa de alguém roubar a bandeira aos fascistas e eles correrem na direção da Praça de Figueira (pela frente da igreja). Isto foi interessante, porque quase provou que não havia qualquer linha de segurança em qualquer direção. Estávamos numa situação muito volátil.
Depois de tirarem as suas fotos e gritarem contra o Moedas e por Portugal, os militantes da extrema-direita finalmente decidiram recuar para o largo. Ficou assim:
 |
| pelas 17h00 |
Entretanto já eram 17h e havia muito mais pessoas a chegar ao Rossio, porque o próprio desfile já estava a aproximar-se.
Isto fez-me chegar à minha segunda conclusão. Era preciso cercar a manifestação da extrema-direita e separá-la das pessoas comuns. Isto podia fazer-se com um simples cordão humano. Mas estávamos tão desorganizados que me senti extremamente frustrado com a minha sensação de impotência.
Entretanto aconteceu uma cena. Um grupo de jovens começou a gritar "25 de abril sempre, fascismo nunca mais". Mais pessoas se juntaram, e isso ajudou a separar a extrema-direita do resto. Tipo assim:
 |
| pelas 17h15 |
A parte vermelha são as pessoas que se juntaram às palavras de ordem. A parte vermelha destacada é onde elas foram iniciadas.
Isto serviu de provocação à extrema-direita, que se consolidou e começou a gritar "Portugal".
Eu finalmente consegui tomar um bocadinho de iniciativa e organizei a malta numa linha (que se vê nos vídeos), o que também serviu de segurança para se juntarem mais pessoas atrás de nós.
Então agora finalmente tínhamos duas linhas de frente. A nossa, com braços entrelaçados. A deles, com os "peacekeepers" deles a tentar a acalmar o resto. (Uma anedota interessante é que houve uns 5-10 segundos em que eles conseguiram realmente abafar-nos. (Pode ser só a minha sensação, por estar a 3 metros deles.) Isto aconteceu quando eles trocaram a sua palavra de ordem para "Salazar". Quando os "imigrantes", "islamização", "corrupção" etc. desapareceram e a linha ideológica emergiu das bocas deles é que ficaram realmente animados.)
Por haver duas linhas de frente, nunca se deve concluir automaticamente que há duas frentes. No meio deles continuava a haver uma fila gigante para a ginjinha e turistas a tirar fotos. No meio de nós estava um gajo de extrema-direita literalmente atrás de mim que sozinho conseguiu desfazer a nossa linha. O nosso nível de desorganização continua a surpreender-me a mim, mas pronto, não dava para fazer uma linha melhor naquele momento. Com esta última provocação a linha de frente da extrema-direita também se desfez e eles atacaram, o que produziu aquela confusão que se vê nos vídeos.
Nós, malta pequena, magra e fraca (pessoas comuns, pronto), não temos obviamente qualquer hipótese de entrar em combate físico com aqueles gajos. Uns jovens que não tinham noção dos seus corpos não souberam recuar, outros foram agarrados pelos fascistas, mas em geral conseguiu-se gerir a situação minimamente bem.
Ah, e sim. Na zona vermelha e amarela estão também jornalistas. Só não há nesta zona é polícias. Mas os polícias eventualmente chegaram. E fizeram duas linhas para separar os dois lados. Tipo assim:
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| pelas 17h30 |
Uma cena essencial para mim é que estas linhas azuis são deprimentes. Não deveríamos depender da polícia para formá-las. Tínhamos números suficientes para fazê-las três vezes mais fortes. Só não as fizemos por falta de organização, o que por sua vez permitiu a provocação e o riot porn associado nas televisões. Vou voltar a este ponto daqui a nada. Antes, quero continuar a cronologia.
A detenção do Mário Machado etc. acontece depois disto, mas eu quero contar-te mais dois episódios.
O primeiro é: Durante a criação duma linha policial, obviamente há tensão (particularmente porque ficaram pessoas comuns feridas do lado dos fascistas). Eu estava a tentar reagrupar a malta e politizar as palavras de ordem. Isso também implicou puxar umas pessoas que tentavam ultrapassar a linha policial. Nesse momento, um polícia que estava na linha chamou-me, eu fui lá, ele disse-me "olhe cuidado com este rapaz aí com a garrafa", virei a cabeça e realmente estava um rapaz com cara tapada com uma garrafa de cerveja (que centenas de outras pessoas também tinham porque estavam 27ºC nesse dia). Fui falar com o rapaz, ele obviamente não fez nada com aquilo. Mas isto fez-me notar outra coisa: Então afinal os polícias não estavam propositadamente distraídos (como eu achava), estavam mesmo muito atentos não só ao ponto de identificar novos perigos mas também ao ponto de reconhecer quem poderia servir de peacekeeper no momento.
O segundo episódio é que por esta altura chegou o desfile aos Restauradores. A equipa de segurança da organização do desfile veio fazer uma linha atrás desta zona vermelha, ou seja entre a malta antifa e a Praça Dom Pedro IV, e não deixaram outras pessoas a chegar à zona vermelha. Eles articularam isso com o chefe da PSP (achavam que seria uma forma de evitar escalamento), mas com isso efetivamente abandonaram e isolaram as pessoas comuns que estavam a enfrentar polícias e fascistas.
Depois eventualmente a extrema-direita decidiu dispersar-se, e a vida continuou, com a praça outra vez cheia da malta fixe.
*
Agora vamos voltar ao riot porn.
Temos de reavaliar os nossos pontos de partida.
A normalidade das décadas anteriores já se foi embora. O colapso climático e as outras crises do capitalismo dão-nos informação, que havemos de aceitar ou negar.
A extrema-direita (como movimento, como políticas públicas e como normas sociais) vai crescer, porque isto é o único modo de governância possível numa sociedade em colapso. (As políticas da extrema-direita muitas vezes serão implementadas pelo "centro", e as organizações de extrema-direita vão manter-se marginais ao poder político.)
Estamos a enganar-nos ao achar que se pode voltar a uma paz social dum passado nostálgico. Essa carta não está no baralho.
A única saída deste cenário é para a frente, com uma política popular radical que põe em causa o sistema socioeconómico em si. O que quer dizer que temos de nos preparar e organizar não só para um contexto diferente mas também para uma tarefa diferente.
Em concreto:
Não basta dizer (apesar de ser correto) que uma contramanifestação antifascista dá mais visibilidade aos fascistas. Há razões estruturais globais que fazem a extrema-direita crescer: com o capitalismo selvagem haverá sempre uma espécie de trickle down dos governos para a militância de extrema-direita. Ou seja, ela não será o inimigo principal, mas vai crescer. Enquanto cresce-se, ignorá-la ou tentar desviar atenção abre espaço a provocações.
É possível conter essas provocações sem lhes dar visibilidade (que a comunicação social tanto quer dar), mas é preciso estarmos organizadas e atentas.
Um grupo de 150 pessoas podiam ter cercado a manifestação de extrema-direita, sem qualquer confronto extra nem precisar de depender da polícia. Essas 150 pessoas podiam ser organizadas duma forma improvisada, se tivéssemos tido uma equipa de 15 pessoas alocada ao propósito. Mas essa alocação só pode acontecer se reconhecermos a nova normalidade em construção e reavaliarmos as nossas premissas sobre estratégia.
*
Para arrumar, quero partilhar mais uma coisa.
Alguns amigos viram-me na televisão e ficaram preocupados. Eu estive numa situação de perigo imediato.
Eu estou tranquilo e assustado.
Nós estamos todas numa situação de perigo. Se não nos levantarmos agora, vamos todas estar numa situação de perigo imediato.
Colapso climático desenvolve-se assim. Poucas de nós vamos ser mortas por moléculas de "carbono" ou pelos desastres climáticas. Na seca na Síria na década anterior, poucas morreram de fome ou de escassez de água. A maioria morreu em conflitos sociais. Nós também vamos viver em colapso climático e durante o colapso climático. O colapso climático não é um acontecimento apocalíptico, é uma mudança drástica e chocante das "normalidades".
Ainda não chegámos lá, mas falta-nos pouco tempo. Não arriscar agora não é uma opção. Estamos sempre a arriscar. Ou arriscamos duma forma estratégica e intencional, e teremos uma probabilidade de travar o colapso e mudar de rumo; ou então arriscamos viver numa nova normalidade em que serás tu a ser agredida na rua, na tua casa, no teu trabalho, seja pela extrema-direita, seja pelo governo, seja pela polícia.
Eu estou tranquilo. Preciso de que tu também estejas.
Eu estou assustado. Preciso de que tu também estejas.
Qual é o plano?
This to my mind is such a trivial note that I’m a little confused about why it needed writing (much less by me). I wasn’t aware, until very recently, that this wasn’t obvious for folks.
As European media amplifies noise production in representation of the panic of European capitalists, let’s take stock of Zelensky’s tragedy.
§1. Let’s first set the stage.
There is an ongoing struggle for global hegemony, between NATO (a.k.a. the United States of America) and China.
In the background we can see Russia’s decades-long commercial and geopolitical convergence with China and Russia’s engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative as a bridge between China and Europe. Also in the background we have been seeing a systematically increasing escalation by NATO for “trade wars” against China, in order to maintain and recover markets and influence.
One of the proxy wars is taking place in Ukranian territories, the proxies being Russia and the European Union.
§2. This battle is won by the US.
The EU cut commercial ties with Russia (from oil and gas to financial flows), which were replaced by stronger ties with the US in almost all sectors.
The EU put in place numerous sanctions against Russia, which block the original plan of Russia serving as bridge between China and Europe.
In a swift move, the NATO imposed total censorship to Russia Today (from websites to social media), the main propaganda tool of the Russian government, in order to control the entire narrative directed at Western audiences. Thereby, the only facts and opinions available are passing through the lenses of Western media first.
China abstained (once again) and abandoned Russia in Ukraine.
Putin lost the Wagner group. Plus and consequently, lost capacity to participate in other conflicts (e.g. complete abstention in the Congo massacres).
NATO won Finland over.
As a bonus and to its own surprise, NATO won another proxy-war, in Syria.
Also as a bonus: Apparently the Ukrainian government is so
tired that it can be forced into a neocolonial deal directly with
the US, without any mediation through NATO or the EU.
§3. Trump said he would end this war. (This is partly because Trump himself is on the same side as Putin, and perhaps there might be a more-than-personal shift in geopolitics.)
Trump promised this to its electoral base and to working class people who are tired of wars. He lied, of course, given his passion for genocide in Palestine.
But he managed to promise the end of war and he manages to deliver it because it is won.
To this effect, Trump told Zelensky: “Look, my war is over and I won. Now I’ll have to offer something to Putin for him to save face, and I’ll keep the rest of your territory.”
Probably the offer to Putin is “self-determination” in the regions occupied by the Russian army (via the referendums that Putin has been announcing).
In the meantime, Trump transformed the past US military support into loans. In other words, he declared overnight that Ukraine owed billions of dollars to the US. In return, he initially proposed the mine deal, but it should be the beginning of a neocolonial process.
§4. Russia lost this war on the day China abstained (this was, I think, on the second week of the invasion). From that moment on, Putin has been insisting – with weekly declarations – in a diplomatic solution and negotiations. (Of course, the BBC or the Guardian wouldn’t reproduce these parts of his discourse, available in Russia Today, which in turn is unavailable for people in Europe.)
The hot war itself is in deadlock. Two weeks ago, Euronews made the news that two Russian drones killed 2 people and injured 1 person in Ukraine. This, according to Euronews, was one of four main headlines of the day. In other words, the state of war in Ukraine is currently as mortal as driving a car in Portugal. Until the deal is signed, further operations and bombings will serve to increase his hand in negotiations.
Putin cannot end this war without declaring victory, because his domestic legitimacy depends on the imperial power he represents. That’s why he needs a photo in which he is treated as equal to NATO. Trump offers him this.
§5. Zelensky unfortunately still believes that this has to do with him. But he also understands that the only way of saving his own career is to insist in his chauvinistic nationalism to consolidate his base. (Recall that Zelensky’s party belongs to the alliance right-wing market fanatics, which includes FDP in Germany and Iniciativa Liberal in Portugal.) Both of these aspects went pretty poorly in the last weeks:
Ukraine is about to be divided into two neocolonialized regions, between the US and Russia. A good part of its infrastructure is destroyed, and its people is tired.
After the communication crisis with Trump and Vance, the mobilizations in Kiev in support of Zelensky were extremely weak.
His attitude towards Trump was a disaster for Zelensky. All his team was crying as they left the White House. Zelensky came out as a subsidy-dependent “warmonger”, who wouldn’t stop using Western money and who wouldn’t think about solutions. This attitude proved Russian nationalists and Trump’s base to be right (in their own heads), consolidating support for Putin and Trump.
§6. European bourgeoisie lost influence with this war.
The US won everything, and the EU couldn’t establish any autonomous position: all the terms of the discussion were set by the US and NATO.
They are now in panic. They are holding meetings after meetings, but those meetings don’t have any agenda nor any outcomes other than press conferences.
§7. China hasn’t been proactive in terms of territorial division in the world. It left Libya to be invaded ten years ago; abandoned Syria to itself; abstained completely about Ukraine; and isn’t doing much about the societal collapse in eastern parts of Congo. (All of these are part of the proxy wars between the US and China.)
§8. Obviously, like any other imperial war, the peoples are the ones sure to be on the losing side. The war in Ukraine effectively ended in the last weeks. From here on, the suffering of the Ukrainian people will be the “normal” suffering of exploitation, injustice, inequality and climate collapse.
It was heart-breaking that we couldn’t establish an alternative from the bottom and to the left. (The socialists were banned, some anarchists joined the resistance but couldn’t build up a counter-hegemonic force.) The real options then ended up between Putin’s extreme-right invasion, local extreme-right and Nazis supported by the EU, and the extreme-right of Zelensky. Among these options, the working people will remain on the losing side.
§9. From here onward, we are to hear more warmongering and more militarization in Europe, more money to the military complex taken from public services, and more borders for people. The European Commission doesn’t have a clear direction because there is no consensus among the European capitalists. There is no consensus because they don’t have an alternative to the US. They had an option to abstain in the war in Ukraine, instead they aligned with the US, and now they reached the end of the dead-end street that they had being walking through.
They are playing a hand they don't have.
This is therefore an opportunity for the European left. A clear anti-militarization agenda (refusing any increase in military funding or military capacity) and an accompanying anti-war campaign (connecting Ukraine and Palestine) are the only ways out. This strategy was the right one also a couple of years ago, but now it has much more leverage in Europe.
From the river
We should focus on bread-and-butter issues.
Those are the ones
that people feel in their daily lives
and those will mobilize.
End genocide four thousand kilometers away
You cannot mobilize people
through values and abstractions.
You must start from their
direct
lived experience.
That's what will build up anger.
Tens of millions take the streets for more than one year
Complex issues
that involve global politics
as well as knowledge of history
cannot mobilize the masses.
You need
simple,
immediate problems
to agitate.
Four thousand pro-Palestine protesters arrested eleven kilometers away from Palestine
You can't rely on
people's empathy
or solidarity
to build a persistent mass movement.
You need to address
people's direct suffering.
To the sea
Internationalism is
at most
solidarity between national struggles.
A class consciousness for an international struggle
does not exist.
People won't risk their own well-being
without an immediate personal gain at sight.
When you write
- I was told -
you should write
as if
a worker is checking on you
over your shoulder.
You should be careful
with every choice of
word, preposition, grammatical tenses.
Or else
you might fail
your class.
So I was told
And so I have written
Until a few years ago
When
The examiner
wasn't behind me
but instead
in front of me.
More like an oral exam
rather than written.
She asked me:
- What is the solution?
I parroted some trivialities
which I read in textbooks,
capitalism, bourgeoisie, alienation, hegemony, class consciousness
- the usual stuff.
She wasn't satisfied:
- What's the answer?
My eyes shined.
I had studied that part:
revolution!
She was even less satisfied:
- Show your work.
*
From here
to there,
step by step
each step with rigorous proof.
My blood pressure spiked.
I could feel my heart in my head.
What the hell?
A centuries-old open question
could not be in an exam
Could it?
Perhaps.
It's the finals, after all.
You never know.
*
But also
you do know
I do know
Facing the examiner
facing the class,
class is also facing me.
We have a problem to solve
or else we'll fail.
To my friend who works as a receptionist in a convent-come-hotel in the city center
to my friend engineer friend whose job is to receive and welcome tourists into Airbnb's
to my fifty-year-old friend who rides a tuk tuk
to my friend's date who repairs electric scooters
for young tourists' convenience in the hilly Lisbon
to my friend with a PhD who does morning bike tours
whenever his employee calls him
I say
their jobs are bullshit.
They should never have needed to get those jobs,
and their jobs shouldn't have existed.
Their jobs are not socially useful
and their jobs destroy the city,
the social fabric
and the local economy,
and promote a hypermobile
ultraconsumerist
planet-wretching
lifestyle for the few
and record breaking profits
for the few of the few.
My friends know and agree.
They saw the impacts.
First the poor had to leave the city
then the elderly
then middle-class families
- they themselves also either left already or about to leave.
They also know
that this is the exact same process
that created the "exotic holiday spots"
in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
There were people there,
now there are hotels instead.
There were communities there,
now there are business opportunities instead.
I tell my friends
to march with me
for housing rights and an end to touristification
to campaign with me
to ban Airbnb's in our cities.
I recruit my friends
to fight with me
for the destruction of their jobs.
I admit;
that neither the housing march
nor the anti-Airbnb campaign
have any proposals to give my friends any income security
that the city's entire economy will have to be transformed.
I admit
that we'll have to talk
and figure things out together.
They march and campaign with me. I march and campaign with them.
*
Also
To my high-school friend who works as a flight attendant
to my childhood friend who works in logistics in an international airport
to my recent friend who works in a gas terminal
to my friend who emigrated during the crisis to work
in a transnational oil company
I say
their jobs are weapons of mass destruction.
Their jobs shouldn't have existed
and must cease to exist immediately.
The business they participate in
destroys livelihoods
disintegrates communities
burns entire ecosystems
floods entire cities
makes countries disappear
and collapses the physical-chemical conditions of a livable planet
while making record profits for the few.
My friends know about the climate emergency.
They see it now,
and they have a sense of what is to come.
I tell my friends
to march with me
to take direct action with me
with rage and solidarity
for climate justice.
I admit
that
while we do have a plan to secure them jobs and income
they will have to effectively fight against their current jobs
if we want to have a chance to win,
and that
the entire economy will have to be transformed.
I admit
that we'll have to talk
and figure things out together.
*
I must tell them the truth
because they are my friends
and because they are my class.
They will have to join me
because of their friends
and because of their class.
*
In short
A nuclear weapons factory worker
a soldier in a colonial army
a technician in an oil refinery
a real estate agent in the occupied West Bank
an administrator in a slave trading enterprise
a marketing consultant for SUVs
have a human right to not have these jobs
and a class obligation to fight against them.
Climate crisis means
exponential growth in human suffering
and run-away climate crisis means
unstoppable exponential growth in human suffering;
is what I must tell my friends
without hiding any bit of the meaning of it.
Temos de falar de estratégia, mas na verdade antes disso temos de falar sobre ontologia (lamento).
Desde que tirou-se a essência revolucionária da teoria anti-capitalista (lê-se: Marx sem Lenine, Lenine sem Fidel, etc.), todo o movimento progressista tornou-se uma espécie de ferramenta de comunicação, sem qualquer agência própria. A pergunta filosófica é: Qual é o objeto dum movimento?
Por exemplo, como se define sucesso ou fracasso do movimento pela habitação? E o movimento laboral? Ou movimento pela justiça climática?
A sensação que tenho é que estamos confortáveis.
O nosso auto-critério parece-me: o objetivo dum coletivo pela justiça climática é defender a justiça climática. Que confortável, não é? Sendo assim, nunca falhamos. “O que fizeste ontem?” - “Defendi uma posição.” - “Que bom. Podes dormir hoje à noite tranquilamente e nas próximas noites também.”
Isto é uma posição absolutamente idealista – e aqui uso a palavra idealista no sentido da “Família Sagrada” (Bruno Bauer e companhia).
As ideias não são o objeto da atividade política. As condições reais são.
Proponho um mandato completamente diferente:
O objeto dum coletivo pela justiça climática é atingir justiça climática.
Cada ano em que perdemos dezenas de milhares de pessoas à crise climática é um ano de fracasso desse coletivo. Cada euro de subsídio que vai à indústria fóssil é um falhanço desse coletivo. Cada ano em que as emissões em Portugal não diminuem 10% mostra a fraqueza do movimento.
O coletivo não pode estar tranquilo. Não pode não rever tudo que tentou. Não pode não estar a tentar novas formas de ação, de estratégia, de organização e de comunicação.
Isto aplica-se a todos os movimentos. Vê a diferença entre conformismo e integridade:
uma organização socialista cujo critério de sucesso é se cada ano estamos mais próximos do socialismo VS uma organização que faz agitação cega sobre socialismo sem qualquer reporte mensurável
um movimento pela habitação que ganha habitação pública e digna VS um movimento pela habitação que defende habitação
uma organização pela democracia que torna a socidade mais democrática VS uma organização pela democracia que fala da importância da democracia
uma empresa que faz tudo para aumentar o seu lucro VS uma empresa que envia comunicados a dizer que lucro é fixe
uma organização fascista que transforma a sociedade VS uma organização fascista que faz conferências de imprensa
As primeiras aqui são organizações materialistas.
As segundas são idealistas, mas são mais que isso: estão confortáveis e são completamente unaccountable: não prestam contas a ninguém e nunca vão prestar; nunca falham; nunca entram em crise existencial em que questionam tudo que fizeram e fazem; resumidamente: estão bem, dormem bem. De facto, estão alienadas dos seus valores.
Esta alienação é emocional e pessoal, e é também política e
estratégica. Vamos então falar um pouco da estratégia.
Lembras-te do Alan Kurdi? O rapaz sírio de dois anos cujo corpo foi encontrado numa praia da Turquia em 2015, morto numa tentativa de fugir da guerra civil da Síria provocado pela seca mais forte que o país enfrentou e alimentado pelos imperialismos de costume (com o Estado Turco como o ator principal na equação).
A fotografia dele apareceu nas capas dos jornais na Europa.
Ele foi encontrado numa praia que eu ia às vezes para nadar.
Alan continua a ter dois anos.
Ele pergunta-me:
Tu que sabes da crise climática e do mundo em que vivemos. O que fazes? Estás a ganhar? Já tentaste tudo?
Eu respondo-lhe:
Eu sensibilizei, e sensibilizo. Eu fiz agitação e propaganda, e faço. Eu votei, e voto. Eu marchei e manifestei-me, e continou a marchar.
E não. Eu estou a perder.
As organizações e os movimentos em que estou inserido, nós sabemos o que se passa. Sabemos que o que te matou é simultaneamente um sistema económico complexo e um sistema social mantido por pessoas reais. Sabemos que precisamos do apoio e envolvimento popular. Precisamos de disrupção para parar a destruição (diz o António Guterres). E nós estamos a falhar.
Estamos a perder-te, estamos a perder amigos, estamos a perder cidades internas à crise climática. E isto é só o início.
E não, não tentámos tudo. Aliás, cada mês, pelo menos uma vez, apanho-me a repetir os meus hábitos de ativismo que tenho porque não sei quantas décadas atrás alguém fez aquilo dessa forma.
No fundo, sou negacionista também: é difícil compreender um colapso civilizacional – não tenho ferramentas cognitivas para conectar com isso.
Não consigo dormir uma noite inteira.
Acordo com o teu sorriso.
Hoje vou aprender dos erros meus e dos erros dos meus companheiros.
Amanhã vou fazer melhor.
Espera-se milhares de milhões de refugiados climáticos até 2050. Ou seja, vai haver centenas de Alan Kurdis.
Podemos tentar desresponsabilizar-nos: os governos e as empresas declararam guerra contra a sociedade e o planeta; não somos nós – as pessoas comuns – quem causa isso.
Mas somos nós quem dá consentimento ao genocídio e ao ecocídio.
E se dizemos que somos “politizados” ou “organizados”, jamais podemos desresponsabilizar-nos. Cada dia em que o sistema ganha é uma lembrete do nosso fracasso. Não podemos dizer que estamos a fazer “alguma coisa”, temos de fazer “a coisa”: temos de parar a crise climática. Todas as nossas estratégias devem ser ancoradas nesse ponto final e não num taticismo ou na repetição dumas atividades que alguém utilizou cem anos atrás.
Ou vivemos num estado de emergência climática, ou vivemos num business-as-usual. São os dois lados da mesma moeda, mas se estamos em estado de emergência climática, então não dá não tomar riscos sérios: riscos políticos, riscos estratégicos, riscos pessoais, riscos organizacionais, riscos emocionais…
Estamos num estado de guerra. Estão a matar-nos, num ato de violência lenta, deliberado e coordenado.
Não escolhemos estar neste sítio. Mas cada dia, fazemos escolhas sobre o que fazemos neste sítio.
Temos de parar a destruição e construir a paz. Enraizados em igualdade, justiça, democracia e liberdade, temos de travar esta aflição. Com amor e raiva, com medo e coragem, guiados por solidariedade, temos de parar a ebolição global.
Tentámos tudo?
I wake up. I wake up, and I am in a meeting. Was I daydreaming? Was I just distracted? I am in a meeting room with people talking about the climate crisis. I look around. I recognize these faces. I know these people. They know me too. What’s at stake is everything, but the conversation is once again about everything else. There is talk of movement building, some implicit agreement on system change, there is mention of care and regeneration, and some references to intersectional this and that. We developed such an obscure way of intellectualism that even ourselves cannot see our denialism. Now that I am awake, I realize why I had gotten distracted in the first place. I look around. Are we connected? Are we serious? What’s the plan?
We. Are. Not. Serious. We are fine, actually. It’s a lovely day, today. I have been thinking about in which city I should spend my retirement – you know, thirty years from now.
I look around. There is a mirror on the other side of the room. So when I look around, I see myself too.
We are atheist Jesus-waiters. We hope that someone else, a perfect redeemer, will come and do the thing that we know needs to be done. But we also don’t believe in that someone else. We know that no one is perfect, so no one is the redeemer, but only a redeemer is allowed to dare to do the thing.
We are not thinking of ourselves as the president of the central bank (Che Guevara’s job for more than a year in post-revolution Cuba) as something we would do after one revolution but a little before moving on to prepare another revolution. We are not Ches or Fidels or Lenins or Stalins. We are shy about power because we are afraid of responsibility. Currently, we are just fine. Nobody holds us accountable and we can just pretend to exist. If someone asks, we have our convoluted answers: without a large working class movement,… ; without an anticolonial approach embedded into our organizing, … ; in order to avoid activist burnout, … ; while rejecting fossil fuels, we shouldn’t fall into the mistake supporting extractivist green capitalism, and therefore… . We know why we are not taking risks. We know why we don’t dare. We are sure. We are sure because we are fine. We are fine because we are sure. We are absolutely fucking disconnected.
I wake up again. I am in a different meeting now. What just happened? Is this an ongoing dream? I recognize these faces too. It’s hard to understand the topic of the discussion… has to do with what the “people” value or prioritize or something. We are being realists again. Right after this talk, there will be some smart objectives and activity plans, and a division of tasks where people will check their “availabilities” and “capacities”. I can’t bear remaining awake. What are we even talking about? I close my eyes.
I open my eyes. Now I am in a seminar which is conveniently labeled as a workshop. I occasionally try to genuinely comprehend what people are saying. This is one such moment. The speakers are long-time activists and organizers, they are nice and fine. The governments are sending us to 4 degree warming, they say, and the speakers have a complex, sophisticated and unreliable plan to send us to 3.95 degree warming. They are part of the lesser-evil spectrum. I look into their eyes. They look through me. I respond by looking through them. We are terrifyingly disconnected.
There is an operational question and we are spending most of our energies to avoid looking at it. It’s like a black hole pulling us, and we are orbiting around it with tremendous effort – in vain – to run away from it. It comes closer as we get closer to it, so it becomes harder and harder to avoid it.
There are, though, some special moments, when we are connected, and we look at it straight. It’s not about capitalism, it’s not about justice, it’s not about emissions – those are all on the event horizon, they are the visible, tangible parts of the black hole. When we look at it straight, it is an operational question that doesn’t allow for ambiguous answers. It sometimes wears a small girl’s body. Mine has Alan Kurdi’s smile, mostly. It asks: knowing everything that you know, what is your plan to keep us below 2 degrees warming? What are this week’s deliverables that are compatible with such a plan? What are in today’s to-do list according to that plan? What are your accountability procedures to keep you fucking connected to the meaning of the climate crisis?
It is hard to keep looking. So we divert our attention after a couple of minutes top. Then, we are fine again. It’s sunny today, the rains of last week were really good for agriculture, but it was such a nuisance for biking. Did you see that bananas are ten per cent cheaper in the supermarket this week? We should get some.
This is no clickbait.
If you have been organizing for climate (that means, going to meetings and all, beside participating in actions), then you are probably struggling not only with climate anxiety but also with a bunch of situations and people that are making your activism harder.
There are some ways of making your life easier, but speaking them out is considered politically incorrect so nobody will tell you although many people are using these tricks anyway.
I’ll keep each hint short and will give you a couple of readings when necessary. (Also, I put no images that could distract you.) My working hypothesis is: at least 50% of your organizing efforts are wasted in dealing badly with the following issues; hence these hints will double your efficiency.
Traditional left was built under the assumption that one day there would be a revolution. The Soviet Union’s tactical maneuvers taught them to organize the masses and wait patiently. One of their core slogans is “The struggle continues”.
All of this is, of course, deeply climate denialist.
If you understand climate crisis, you will probably be taking risks in your activism. The traditional left will tell you not to, and will cheer when your risk goes awry. They will be cynical all along the way, because that’s their psychological response to anything other than them. Don’t listen to them. Their organizations have neither the cognitive skills to process climate emergency nor the adequate culture to do activism under climate emergency.
Beware: Whatever you are building on, was built by them. Show them respect for their decades-long struggles. However, the responsibility is also on them that they didn’t win after decades-long of trial and error. They have to change, and they have to change quick. The chances are they won’t.
They don’t feel they have a deadline; you do. Learn to ignore them without being rude to them.
Even though it had a more solid theoretical foundation in the
1960s, today the “New Left” is, for all practical purposes, all
the socialists, communists and anarchists that are not in the
traditional left. There are a few things you have to understand
about the new lefties.
They will sound very intellectual, which they are. They are also the only significantly large social movement that didn’t have any victories. Their talk is inconsequential. Therefore it cannot be true. You may learn from their mistakes, but don’t look up on them by overvaluing their talk.
As part of their intellectualism, they will be very critical about everything you say. In fact, they are extremely identity-oriented. They will have loads of in-group dynamics to judge your actions and your organizations because you are “not [blank]” / “not [blank] enough”. That’s because they had to survive the reactionary 1990s and they were very lonely. Their identity is their survival method.
As they passed through the 1990s, they are resistance-oriented. They resisted neoliberalism, privatizations, financialization, etc. for decades, without any offensive or revolution. They are created under the assumption that you shouldn’t have well-thought-of propositions for the society as a whole, because they were born when “ideology ended.” Their core slogan, “Another world is possible”, was in itself a statement of defeat.
All of this is, of course, deeply climate denialist.
You’ll need masses, and you’ll need to change the whole world. You’ll have to be very tactical and also very visionary, simultaneously.
They will tell you that you are not working class enough, you are not anti-system enough, you are not queer enough, etc. The point with having a climate deadline is that being X enough is irrelevant if we fail to stop the climate crisis. Don’t listen to their fake criticism. They just want to be comfortable.
Once you are big enough, they will join you. Continue ignoring them then, too.
If we won everything now (meaning: zero emissions as of today, plus global justice, plus whatever your utopia requires), temperatures will continue increasing probably up to 1.4ºC . Currently, it already is 1.1ºC warmer than pre-industrial times. You understand what that means?
It means that all the climate catastrophes you watch on television and that motivate you to act, will continue getting worse throughout your entire lifetime. Even an idealistic victory will look like failure.
You won’t get an idealistic victory. In the best-case scenario, you will fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, then win something that looks like a weird beast you have no idea how to feed.
Until victory, everything is a rehearsal. Get on with it. Learn from it and move on.
Victory won’t look like what you imagined. It will be awesome and disappointing. Get on with it.
Some people are worried that we will have a transition from fossil capitalism to green capitalism under an extractivist logic. Those people are wrong and they are distracting you.
Green capitalism exists and will grow. But it is not replacing and will not replace fossil capitalism.
Capitalism and fossil fuels grew from each other. The connection between them is not accidental, it’s structural. There is no such thing as “fossil-free capitalism”. (check Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2002-fossil-capital ) Getting rid of fossil fuels means destruction of capital worth of trillions of dollars. It won’t happen before climate collapse.
Also, it’s empirically not happening. Emissions are increasing, so is demand for all fossil fuels. (check Energy Transition or Energy Expansion, by TUED and TNI: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/energy-transition-or-energy-expansion ).
Keep your eyes on fossil fuels. If we stop fossil fuels, capitalism won’t survive. If we don’t stop fossil fuels, we are fucked. Don’t get distracted by other environmentalist issues. They are a strategic self-trap for you. (If you are dealing with such a trap, my bet is that they are led by the Traditional Left or the New Left just to tell you how you are not perfect, without any reference frame to a possible movement victory.)
Geoengineering is a false solution.
A boring part of the movement thinks that it’s a false solution because it doesn’t bring justice or because it creates other environmental problems or something. That’s not how a “false” anything works. What they mean is that it’s a solution that they don’t like.
Geoengineering is a false solution, because it’s false: it’s not doing what it says it would do. It’s not cutting emissions nor reducing warming. In fact, it’s not happening.
Some people are doing some experiments to deal with minor issues (like a making sure it’s not too hot during a football match) and they are selling it as major breakthroughs. They are lying and they are distracting the public. Their main goal is not to implement geoengineering. Their main goal is to create confusion in public opinion and thereby keep the fossil fuel industry untouched.
Keep your eyes on the ball. Fossil fuels have to go, and emissions have to go down.
It’s comfortable to think that a successful radical left-green political party leader should have implemented some climate justice governmental program to stop climate chaos. It’s comfortable to think that the trade unions should have been doing climate strikes. It’s comfortable to think that the “youth” should mobilize. In general, it’s comfortable to delegate your responsibility to someone else.
If it’s not about what you will do, stop talking about it.
Own it. If you propose something, be ready to execute it. Don’t waste your precious time talking about what some other organization or group should be doing. Talk about what you should be doing, and then do it.
Lots of people will tell you that you are not perfect (duh!). That may be because you are not vegan, you drive a car, you don’t recycle well enough or you bought a cookie with plastic packaging. This is their denial mechanism. Here is how it goes: “You defend something but you are not perfect. Therefore, you cannot be right. As a consequence, I don’t have to do activism because I am also not perfect and I don’t believe I will ever be perfect.” Beautiful tautology, right?
Some people will tell things like “What about the USA?” or “What about China?”. It’s the same denialist logic going on. If someone seriously thinks we have to get the climate policies done in the USA first, that person would already be organizing in the USA. My bet is that they are not doing that. They are just telling you that they don’t want the responsibility.
In short, people who talk about what others should be doing are people who are emotionally uninvested in the climate crisis. You cannot run an honest conversation with them. So don’t run it.
Keep the question simple for yourself and for them: Knowing what I know about the climate crisis, what will I do?
Talk only about what you will do and what they themselves will do.
Every now and then, you or someone else will introduce a discussion or an exercise by saying “This would actually take us an entire week/day, but we will now do a quick version of that in a couple of hours. It will ideally give us a glimpse to… blah blah blah.”
I bet you: this person never actually spent an entire week playing with that exercise. If they did, they would already know how to prepare a useful 2-hour session without apologies.
What they are actually saying is: I don’t know how this tool works and I didn’t do my homework to understand it.
That means they are not in condition to present that exercise to you in an honest way. Don’t trust their words on this.
To be clear: I said this many many times in my life, then one day I was like “fuck it, I’m just gonna dive into this for once.”, and then I realized that obviously I could extract a 15-minute exercise from a one-week-long training content. So I got all angry at myself for hiding my own laziness under some false sense of complexity.
Now, when I want to present something I am not fully familiar with, I say so. I tell people “Look. There is this toy I found. I don’t know how to play with it. I just read some instructions. Let’s play with it. Maybe we discover something together.” Don’t pretend to be more complex than you are.
Intersectionality was introduced in the 1980s in the context of critical race studies. At least 95% of what you do on climate is not intersectional. Do not abuse terminology.
You may mean the root cause of two problems is the same. Then just name the cause. If it’s capitalism, then you are not intersectional, you are just anti-capitalist. (e.g. gentrification and the climate crisis do not “intersect”, they are caused by financial capitalism)
Many people also use the word to refer to simple solidarity. If you want to recognize suffering in some group of people, then say so. Saying “Women are more affected by the climate crisis.” makes you a humanist, not an intersectional activist.
A depressingly overwhelming majority of activists in the movement think that intersectionality theory is equal to either of these two. It’s not.
You could, in theory, do serious intersectional work by studying the specific ways in which the climate crisis affects specific oppressed groups and how overlapping oppressions interact with each other in non-linear ways. There is a 95% chance that you are not doing that.
Two things are confusing people in organizations: First, the allyship discourse coming from the LGBT rights movement (and extending to other anti-oppression movements). Second, many people are questioning their gender or their gender performance.
These are both wonderful. They are also creating a new set of problems (as progress always does).
If you were assumed to be a man and raised as such, chances are that you were “overpowered” throughout your childhood. You have the confidence of a man, you are not used to being demeaned in public, etc. I suggest you own this.
I was in an international climate meeting, where half of the participants were raised as men. Half of those were questioning their manhood, so they stated their preferred pronoun as “they” or interchangeable. They also occupied a large chunk of the debate, though. I was facilitating the meeting. The statistics is that cis-men were a quarter of the room and talked for slightly more than a quarter of the time, others were three quarters of the room and talked for slightly more than three quarters of the time. Now the problem is that participants who were raised as women were half of the room but talked for less than one third of the time. This was entirely invisible to the participants and I couldn’t do anything about it as the meeting facilitator.
I suggest that you don’t blur your experience of socialization. If you are questioning or uncomfortable with your assigned/assumed gender as man, say that openly and ask for support. Do make sure that it doesn’t hide gender dynamics in the group.
There you have it. I know it’s a bit sharp-edged and I seem to ignore subtleties and exceptions. To be honest, I don’t care. This is not an “article”, it’s a blog post. If a tenth of what I say is useful for you, I’ll be happy. If the rest sounds like bullshit, oh well, the internet is full of that, get on with it.
Here’s my guess:
You spend 20% of your activist time worrying about what the traditional left said, what to do with green capitalism or geoengineering and what others should be doing.
You spend 33% of your meeting time worrying about the new left criticism, intersectionality stuff, how long a certain exercise would “actually” take, and men.
You spend 20% of your organizing time worrying about uninvested people who talk about others, the new left activists, and men.
You spend 35% of your life worrying about failure.
Follow my advice, and you’ll be able to focus on your work and save up to 50% of your valuable time.
I am scared
of heatwaves. I am scared of the heatwaves of today and of the
heatwaves to come. I am afraid of not being able to sleep, of
mosquitoes, of melting electricity cables.
I am scared of forest fires. Beside destroying entire villages and burning trees, animals and the soil, forest fires roast human beings. Those people that are roasted are someone’s mother, someone’s nephew, someone’s friend from primary school.
I am scared of climate migration.
Look at Afghanistan’s chronic droughts. How the US occupation and their collaborator governments ignored it, and how the rural populations were abandoned during decades. Look at where that took the country, and look at how the US sanctions will take it forwards.
Look at Syria. A drought that started in 2005 reached its peak in 2007, when all the farmers lost their harvest. The drought continued intensifying. In 2008, they lost their seeds. In 2009, they lost the soil. In 2010, urban areas were flooded by domestic migrants. In 2011, the Syrian uprising started due to housing and food prices. In a couple of years, the country was filled with invited foreign armies, uninvited foreign armies, paid recruits of CIA, paid recruits of the Pentagon, paid recruits of the Turkish foreign ministry, and to top it all the Islamic State.
Many people in Afghanistan and in Syria left their homes in search of a better life.
Such coherent stories of the climate collapse are rare. Reality is convoluted.
In Southeast Asia, it’s mostly the floods driving the migration. In Africa, it’s the droughts combined with the violence of the private armies of colonialism protecting the fossil fuel industry. In South America, droughts are accompanied by the paramilitary structure of the extractive industries. In Yemen and Palestine, the story is one of pure evil.
In all these places, people fight. They fight for their rights and for freedom. Look at Myanmar. Look at Sudan. Look at Chile. Look at Sri Lanka. People die fighting in the streets.
In all these places, some leave – as engineers in Portugal do or as in medical doctors in Turkey do – in search of a better life elsewhere.
I am scared of climate migration. And the climate migrants are scared too. There is generally a language barrier. There is incomprehensible bureaucracy to integrate into. There are precarious conditions at work, if any.
The left has been ignoring the fear at the receiving end of climate migration. That’s a dead end. Migrants end up in a lower income stratum than their country of origin, which frustrates them. They are available to live below the socially accepted poverty line, which frustrates the poor. Many migrants are men, so they are self-entitled to women’s bodies (as are the men in the receiving country). This is not about whether migrants, “they”, are better or worse than “us”. A massive increase of the lowest strata of a society means increase in crime, conflict and unrest. That’s what poverty and inequality does to any society. This is not to say anybody should refuse or deport migrants. But we have to stop ridiculing the fear. The fear is real, well-founded and rational. We need that fear to fight the climate crisis.
People ask me what my vision is. What kind of new society do I imagine. I struggle with that question.
I answer: Peace. My so-called “vision” is being able to go to the beach and calmly watch the waves. Or go to a park and watch the clouds. Having a nature walk in a weekday. Preparing lunch without worrying about the dinner. Walking on the street without being assaulted, harassed or raped.
Our current path is that these are our best days for generations to come.
My bet is that we abort that path.
People ask me about my vision. They want me talk about voluntary simplicity, about degrowth, about connecting with the Earth, about total freedom. It’s nice to have dreams. But my vision is not climate denialist. We will either do zero emissions by 2030 in the Global North, or we are fucked. Current pathways of the EU would reach net zero emissions by 2060. That’s 38 years from now, instead of the 8 years missing until 2030. That’s an error of 375%. I have no energy to dream of utopias.
I have a vague understanding of what is at stake. The climate collapse is beyond the cognitive capacities of our species.
The recent news of floods, fires and storms are all “biblical”, in the sense that they were so rare and so irrational for past generations that they would produce entire religions and corresponding prophets. The only rational explanation for such devastation was divine punishment. Now, that’s monthly news.
We are not ready. Our minds refuse their actual meaning. Our bodies cannot handle it. Our continuation of our own business-as-usual (going to work, paying for our pension funds, or some other normal activity) is denial as cognitive adjustment. It’s natural. And it’s also natural to reject it.
Some tell me I shouldn’t scare people. Some tell me we should give hope.
I am here to tell you that your emotions are correct. We are afraid, we are anxious, we are angry. Those emotions tell you that you are alive. Act on those emotions, otherwise you will be consumed by them.
Your anger tells you to draw boundaries and re-institute justice. Your fear tells you to take action to protect yourself and those dear for you. Your anxiety tells you to prioritize and plan. Follow those emotions. They will take you by hand and bring you to the movement.
The proposals of the climate movement may look ridiculous to you at first. That’s true. We are so close to irreversible civilizational collapse and our societies are so handcuffed by corporate power, that we really need to change everything. We live in biblical times that cross our cognitive limits. It’s just natural that the proposals are also prophetic.
We need communism, in the sense that we need to end private property of the means of production. Capitalism is fine with gender equality, with green economy, with legislative elections every now and then; because it can adapt and co-opt to these. Abolishing private property of the means of production is the ultimate taboo for the system, because it actually threatens the core of it. Nothing less than this will save us.
We need an ecofeminist communism, recognizing as the revolutionary subjects all those who don’t own the means of productions and who need to work to live. These people confront the capitalist exploitation on a daily basis, at the workplace, at home, in their territories.
We need an ecofeminist communism informed by the climate deadlines. We have to learn how to understand “socialism or barbarism”, because we have never been this close to its literary meaning.
There is a slogan that goes “The struggle continues.”, we have to fight that slogan. We have to fight against that slogan. We have to fight against the conformism implicit in that slogan, insisting on a state of climate emergency.
Take your fear with you. Put your anxiety in your pocket. Dress up your anger.
I am not just “agitating” you.
I am offering you a way out. I am proposing a sound, coherent, complex plan to act on your emotions.
If any of this touches you, talk to me.
