The Coming Insurrection
The Coming Insurrection is a French radical leftist, anarchist tract written by The Invisible Committee, the nom de plume of an anonymous author. It hypothesizes the "imminent collapse of capitalist culture". The Coming Insurrection was first published in 2007 by Editions La Fabrique, and later translated into English and published by Semiotext. Last Word Press in Olympia, Washington also published an edition. The book is notable for the media coverage which it received as an example of a radical leftist manifesto, particularly from American conservative commentator Glenn Beck. The Coming Insurrection is also known for its association with the legal case of the Tarnac Nine, a group of nine young people including Julien Coupat who were arrested in Tarnac, rural France, on 11 November 2008 "on the grounds that they were to have participated in the sabotage of overhead electrical lines on France's national railways". The Tarnac Nine were variously accused of conspiracy, sabotage, terrorism, and being the author of The Coming Insurrection.
The Coming Insurrection is followed by To Our Friends, and Now.Synopsis
In its original incarnation, The Coming Insurrection consisted of twelve chapters, together with a brief afterword. The English edition of the book was published after the Tarnac Nine arrests, and therefore includes a brief foreword and introduction which touch on the subject of the arrests, for a total of fifteen parts.
The book is divided into two-halves. The first half attempts a diagnosis of the totality of modern capitalist civilization, moving through what the Committee identify as the "seven circles" of alienation, induced by states and capitalism: alienation relating to the self, to social relations, to work, to the urban, to the economy, to the environment, and finally to the state itself.
Beginning in Get Going!, the second half of the book presents a prescription for revolutionary struggle based on the formation of communes, or affinity group-style units, which will build their forces outside of mainstream politics, and attack conventional powers in moments of crisis – political, social, environmental – to foment anti-capitalist revolution. The insurrection envisioned by the Committee entails local appropriation of power by the people, physical blocking of the economy, and rendering police actions irrelevant.
For examples, the book notes the 2008 financial crisis and environmental degradation as symptoms of capitalism's decline. Also discussed are the Argentine economic crisis and the piquetero movement which emerged from it, the 2005 riots and 2006 student protests in France, the 2006 Oaxaca protests, and the grassroots relief work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. These events serve as examples both of breakdown in the modern, conventional social order, and at the same time of the capacity of human beings to spontaneously self-organize for revolutionary ends, which taken together can give rise to partial insurrectionary situations.Foreword
"The book you hold in your hands has become the principal piece of evidence in an anti-terrorism case in France directed against nine individuals who were arrested on November 11, 2008, mostly in the village of Tarnac. They have been accused of 'criminal association for the purposes of terrorist activity' on the grounds that they were to have participated in the sabotage of overhead electrical lines on France’s national railways. Although only scant circumstantial evidence has been presented against the nine, the French Interior Minister has publicly associated them with the emergent threat of an 'ultra-left' movement, taking care to single out this book, described as a 'manual for terrorism,' which they are accused of authoring. What follows is the text of the book preceded by the first statement of the Invisible Committee since the arrests."Introduction: ''A Point Of Clarification''
The introduction describes contemporary civil unrest in Greece and France, and encourages situations which may lead to revolution. The book's association with the Tarnac Nine is obliquely acknowledged, but not confirmed in terms of authorship. For the author, the political goal of the book is a form of communism, although the author intend that word in a simpler sense which is related to, but distinct from, its historical one. The introduction, specifically, is signed and dated: "—Invisible Committee, January 2009".''From Whatever Angle...''
The world is sick. "Everyone agrees that things can only get worse." Social unrest exists everywhere, and is officially blamed on economic crises and nihilistic youth. On the contrary, the author intimate that states, capitalism, and the world economy themselves are the true root causes of the above problems, which really derive from the alienation which they naturally create, to be sketched immediately.''First Circle: "I Am What I Am"''
The first circle presents a criticism of the promotion of individualism in advertising — "It's dizzying to see Reebok's "I AM WHAT I AM" enthroned atop a Shanghai skyscraper." — which leads people to define themselves in terms of their possessions, their internet profiles and so on, as opposed to meaningful interactions with other human beings. The result is "Atomization into fine paranoiac particles." On the other hand, the author emphasize connections and ties as giving meaning and reality to human existence: "What am I? Tied in every way to places, sufferings, ancestors, friends, loves, events, languages, memories, to all kinds of things that obviously are not me."''Second Circle: "Entertainment Is A Vital Need"''
, and specifically the modern French secular state, are characterized as atomizing individuals into the essential category of citizen. Meanwhile, social relations are also hollowed out by capitalism. The end result is a poverty of social relations, which now lack "warmth, simplicity, truth".''Third Circle: "Life, Health And Love Are Precarious-Why Should Work Be An Exception?"''
The precariat and the schizophrenic French attitude towards work are analyzed. The theme is work, as in the case of the refusal of work, and how work affects all other categories of life. Ironically work, and the social dignity which it is supposed to confer, "has totally triumphed over all other ways of existing, at the same time as workers have become superfluous. Gains in productivity, outsourcing, mechanization, automated and digital production have so progressed that they have almost reduced to zero the quantity of living labor necessary in the manufacture of any product." For the author, one implication of this is that wage labor will not readily be replaced by other forms of social control, so that the possibilities for insurrection will increase.''Fourth Circle: "More Simple, More Fun, More Mobile, More Secure!"''
The city and the country are contrasted, but the metropolis is a metaphor for capitalist, statist political reality which now permeates all territories and physical spaces, whether rural, urban, or otherwise. Architecture and urbanism are thus entailed, and the chapter cites examples of urban warfare, foreshadowing the book's later explicit militant project. "Israeli soldiers have become interior designers. Forced by Palestinian guerrillas to abandon the streets, which had become too dangerous, they learned to advance vertically and horizontally into the heart of the urban architecture, poking holes in walls and ceilings in order to move through them."''Fifth Circle: "Fewer Possessions, More Connections!"''
The world economy and, according to the author, the world's contempt for it are discussed. "We have to see that the economy is not "in" crisis, the economy is itself the crisis." Environmentalist and zero-growth or negative-growth concepts, lately adopted by various economists and corporations, are presented as being merely cynical adjustments on their parts, without altruism.''Sixth Circle: "The Environment Is An Industrial Challenge"''
Environmentalism and the effects of global warming are generally discussed. Again, the author dismiss the recent practice of businesses factoring environmental considerations into their plans, as being cynical: "The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they'd like to put us to work rebuilding it, and—to add insult to injury—at a profit." The word environment itself is further dismissed as a cold, clinical word, the use of which indicates an alienated detachment of modern humans from the world in which they live. The purpose of the chapter is not to say that the author are unconcerned for the natural world, but rather to disdain the historical hypocrisy which they ascribe to businesses and states about environmental issues. Continuing with the theme, one positive example of insurrectionary possibility is cited: following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans volunteers and residents established the Common Ground Clinic among other grassroots efforts, and at the same time resisted outside efforts aimed at reappropriation of the territory in the wake of a disaster, with a view towards long-term gentrification.''Seventh Circle: "We Are Building A Civilized Space Here"''
Civilization and states, specifically the French state, are described as being upheld by hypocritical violence. "The first global slaughter, which from 1914 to 1918 did away with a large portion of the urban and rural proletariat, was waged in the name of freedom, democracy, and civilization. For the past five years, the so-called 'War on Terror' with its special operations and targeted assassinations has been pursued in the name of these same values." According to the author, states and civilization as we know it, are on their way out: "There is no 'clash of civilizations.' There is a clinically dead civilization kept alive by all sorts of life-support machines that spread a peculiar plague into the planet’s atmosphere."