culture fix

The SI fought against all ideologies (including situationism) and party lines, all of which reduce the individual's capacity to think for herself. They fought for full self-management of society, not only in the factories, farms, and schools but in all aspects of our everyday lives.

"The SI is an international association of individuals who, having demonstrated an equality of capabilities - in general, not in every detail - are equal in all aspects of it's democratic management." -SI

The SI was organized into various national sections that could operate fully autonomously within their home country and that came together for general assemblies of the "international" where theoretical and policy decisions were made. The membership of the SI was always intentionally small, and exclusions from the organization were fairly common.

"Our 'exclusions' only express our freedom to distinguish ourselves from the confusionism around us or even among us. We merely refuse to be ourselves mixed up with ideas and acts that run contrary to our convictions and tastes…

A year doesn't go by when people we loved haven't succumbed, for lack of having clearly grasped the present possibilities, to some glaring capitulation. But the enemy camp objectively condemns people to imbecility and already numbers millions of imbeciles; the addition of a few more makes no difference." -SI

The high point of the SI came in May/June 1968 when large-scale student takeovers of universities inspired some ten million workers to go out on wildcat strikes. While the state and the Communist labor unions fought to repress this revolutionary energy, the SI helped to form worker-student action committees and advocated for the occupation and liberated recreation of all the institutions of France.

After this brilliant upsurge of revolutionary activity, the membership of the SI skyrocketed. But not long afterward, tensions and division grew and the organization fell into decline by 1971.

"The numerous deficiencies that have marked the SI were invariably produced by individuals who needed the SI in order to personally be something; and that something was never the real, revolutionary activity of the SI, but it's opposite … as for us here, we can take part in the SI only if we don't need it. We must first of all be self-sufficient; then, secondarily, we may lucidly combine our specific desires and possibilities for a collective action …" -SI

… BUT NOT THE SI

We strive to be situationists because we choose to be actors in our own liberation. We reject both the passivity of the dominant way of life and also the passive means of resistance so far offered up by those who specialize in "protest" and make careers out of "activism."

We reject such tired goals as "social change" (a non-statement, in that societies changing should be taken for granted) and "social justice," (all too often implies, in practice, the socialization of the warped systems of punishment and dehumanization referred to as "justice" by the state).

"Everywhere there are social confrontations, but nowhere is the old order liquidated, even within the very forces that contest it. Everywhere revolutionaries, but nowhere the revolution." -SI

Inspired by the SI we seek to create an organization in which individuals can still exist and think for themselves, and where an uncompromisingly revolutionary viewpoint can be articulated and fought for. We have no desire to lie about our desires or our demands. We are absolutely fucking sick of this sick society, and we are tired of the lame restructurings of americanism that pass for resistance and exhaust our patience daily.

But the Diaspora Confederacy is not the SI reborn. There is no use in rebirthing the SI, and even if there were, we break with their theory and practice on two rather large points.

First, we reject the SI idea that materialism, and a certain hedonistic, anti-spiritual way of life is somehow revolutionary. The decimation of spiritually centered nations, and the excessive accumulation of material goods is exactly what got us into our present mess. We will not participate in the continued genocidal assault on indigenous peoples worldwide out of some warped notion of revolutionary "progress."

And second, we seek to build an organization much more clearly international than the SI. By this we mean that we can't imagine a revolutionary organization that does not explicitly struggle to destroy whiteness and create one world in which many peoples and nations can exist as liberated equals. The Diaspora Confederacy needs to be, from start to finish, composed of people from many nations and working fully for all of their interests.

In this effort we can take direction and inspiration from numerous individuals, such as Marcus Garvey, Noel Ignatiev, Gayatri Spivak, C.L.R. James, Vine Deloria, Cherrie Moraga, Charles Payne, Nawal el Saadawi, Walter Rodney, Mab Segrest, Franz Fanon, Emiliano Zapata, Rod Coronado, Souad Rashed Dajani, Carter G. Woodson, Leslie Marmon Silko, and many more.