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The Anarchists Against the Wall is a young movement, one
advantage, and an active movement, a second advantage, which succeeds in
leading, through its weekly initiatives and actions near the Segregation Wall,
the remainder of the other groups and their “refugees.” What do these Anarchists
Against the Wall have that transform them into the combative and energetic
factor that we know? Firstly, a very healthy sense of what is good and what is
bad; a sense that allowed them, much before the others, to identify the Wall as
a symbol of the evil of the occupation, and in general, the evil of the global
era built on walls and apartheid. Secondly, a willingness to sacrifice and the
ability to overcome their fears (including a fear of our slanderers and detractors),
which at times paralyze us. Thirdly, a direct relationship with Palestinian
youth of their own age, which permits a much more “flowing” cooperation than
what we knew from the previous generation, when Palestinian-Israeli cooperation
required long days of discussion and political agreements.
The claim that “they have no ideology” is heard amongst
members of the old Left, in addition to “they don’t even know what Anarchism
is!” Quite possibly. However, instead of adopting a patronizing attitude, these
same activists should instead turn the questions on themselves (in fact—toward ourselves—for
I certainly belong to this generational-political category): why didn’t the old
Left have the capacity to provide an answer and an ideological framework for
the generation following it? Why does the generation of the Anarchists Against
the Wall not view itself, for the most part, as a continuation of what was
before?
This generation gap is not unique to Israel, and it is possible to find
the characteristics of the new generation of Israeli political activists in all
corners of the world. Yet there is one significant difference: in other parts
of the world, or at least in most of them, the more veteran generation has
learned to give a central space for the younger generation of women and men
activists.
This is not so with us. In the wake of the central
demonstration against last summer’s war against Lebanon, one year ago exactly,
I commented both to the coalition of organizations against the war and in
public articles, about the ridiculous and sad fact that on the stage, veteran
activists stood and gave speeches against the first Lebanon war, instead of
representatives of the activists standing at the forefront of today’s struggles
against the war and the occupation. Instead of the refuseniks from the
second war against Lebanon,
for example, one of the leaders of Yesh Gvul from 1982 stood on the stage!
Those people refuse to clear the front of the stage—I write front of the stage
and not the entire stage, as they/we still have much to contribute, as simple
soldiers or, sometimes, as those possessing rich and even magnificent experience.
Factors that deepen the break with this young generation,
which the Anarchists Against the Wall symbolize so well: in contrast to their
predecessors, they do not take offense or attempt to fight for their legitimate
place on these same stages or the never-ending coordination meetings, but
prefer to distance themselves, as a movement, from the “politics of the old
men” and to conduct their campaigns by themselves, without an organic or
ideological connection with the overall movement.
A shame, a real shame, but we cannot complain about them but
only about ourselves. There are two things we should attempt to learn: firstly,
the new politics of the generation of Seattle and Bil’in. This is not similar
to our politics, not in its forms nor in its motivations; it does not rely on
tradition and what was dubbed accumulated vertical experience, but on
international horizontal experience; it is not derived from a codex that was
created over 150 years, which determined its borders between good and bad, just
and unjust from the battles of the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the
revolutions of the 20th Century, and the struggle against Fascism,
but from deep personal feelings which generally do not miss their target. They
protest because conscience requires protest, and this same compass of
conscience is the almost sole compass that directs their action.
It also does not take into consideration thoughts of “swaying
public opinion.” Not only does the politics of our anarchists not have a taboo in
determining slogans (with what ease they shout “we will not kill or die on the
altar of Zionism!”), and they also do not take into consideration the taboo of
their partners in the struggle, who, unlike them, are fearful of what will be
reported in the press (which in any case reports less and less) or what Knesset
members from Meretz or the refugees from Peace Now will think…who, anyway, have
no choice but to demonstrate with these same anarchists.
I do not know if all of these characteristics of the
politics of the new generation are good for our struggle, and if this same
historical experience, to which they do not pay any attention, can be used to
improve our struggle. On the other hand, I know absolutely that it does not
interest them, and they conduct their struggles completely without it.
And from here, there is second lesson that we must learn:
more modesty and less patronizing attitude will help us learn not only why we
did not manage to “pass the torch” to the generation coming after us, which is
forced to reinvent the fire itself, but also what is the militant world of the
21st Century, and before which challenges is standing the social
movement that we all wish will be strengthened and succeed.
Is this not the goal of the various social forums—from the
World Social Forum, the thematic forums, the regional forums and the local
forums—which succeeded in creating platforms for horizontal discussions and strategizing,
platforms that are multidisciplinary, but also multi-generational? The success
of the social forums was made possible solely because of a cultural revolution
of the deepest kind, of an older generation, and this generation’s willingness
to learn a new praxis of democracy, both in action and in discussion. Without
this revolution, it is most doubtful if the Seattle
and Genoa of
the youth would have succeeded in creating the anti-Davos and Porto Allegre of
us all.
Here in Israel,
this cultural revolution is still ahead of us. And until it occurs, we must
learn modesty and the ability to listen, to show up in Bil’in and Kfar Shalem,
at the A-Ram checkpoint and in Abu Dis, behind the anarchists who cry out
“after me” and pave the way to a new struggle against the occupation and for
real partnership between the peoples of this land.
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