this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Solarpunk

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Why a Decade of Protests Didn’t Lead to Revolution | a new book discusses ten years of democratic anarchist protest movements and how they only served to empower right wing autocrats (jacobin.com)
submitted 9 months ago by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net
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Why is this solarpunk? Because changing society takes people power. Because protests change nations. Because for the last decade protests inspired by democratic anarchist principles have sprung up in nation after nation, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. And the after action report of the first two decades of the 21st century shows not just how anarchist-inspired protests began but how they fail - and who takes advantage of that failure.

This article is long, complex, and hard to read. Emotionally hard. It holds some truths that are hard for punks and anarchists to hear.

And if your activism is more than just posting online it may be the most important article you read this year.

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is a lot to unpack in this interview, but it is highly ironic that the author doesn't realize that Lenin / the Bolsheviks are the prime historical example of a reactionary group ursurping a popular uprising very similar to the more recent examples that the author has analyzed in more detail.

[–] dillekant@slrpnk.net 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think the author / article muddies the concepts of "horizontal" and "organised", and I guess also leaves the obvious question unanswered: Why means? Because we've seen what happens when we pursue ends, over and over again.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 8 points 9 months ago

Indeed. Also: I am not so familiar with the Brazilian example, but by the description of it in the article it sounds like it already failed and died down months before this reactionary group managed to abuse the legacy of these uprisings. So maybe it was rather a failure to build on this initial popular push rather than a lack of representation that right-wing groups capitalized on by taking over.