Lee Chun Fung

David Graeber: The Shock of Victory

2011-11-29T15:54:00.001+08:00

David Graeber
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2007graeber-victory
The biggest problem facing direct action movements is that we don’t know how to handle victory.

This might seem an odd thing to say because of a lot of us haven’t been feeling particularly victorious of late. Most anarchists today feel the global justice movement was kind of a blip: inspiring, certainly, while it lasted, but not a movement that succeeded either in putting down lasting organizational roots or transforming the contours of power in the world. The anti-war movement was even more frustrating, since anarchists and anarchist tactics were largely marginalized. The war will end, of course, but that’s just because wars always do. No one is feeling they contributed much to it.

THE SHOCK OF VICTORY

by David Graeber

The biggest problem facing direct action movements is that we don’t know how to handle victory.

This might seem an odd thing to say because of a lot of us haven’t been feeling particularly victorious of late. Most anarchists today feel the global justice movement was kind of a blip: inspiring, certainly, while it lasted, but not a movement that succeeded either in putting down lasting organizational roots or transforming the contours of power in the world. The anti-war movement was even more frustrating, since anarchists and anarchist tactics were largely marginalized. The war will end, of course, but that’s just because wars always do. No one is feeling they contributed much to it.

I want to suggest an alternative interpretation. Let me lay out three initial propositions here:

1) Odd though it may seem, the ruling classes live in fear of us. They appear to still be haunted by the possibility that, if average Americans really get wind of what they’re up to, they might all end up hanging from trees. It know it seems implausible but it’s hard to come up with any other explanation for the way they go into panic mode the moment there is any sign of mass mobilization, and especially mass direct action, and usually try to distract attention by starting some kind of war.

2) In a way this panic is justified. Mass direct action—especially when organized on democratic lines—is incredibly effective. Over the last thirty years in America, there have been only two instances of mass action of this sort: the anti-nuclear movement in the late ‘70s, and the so called “anti-globalization” movement from roughly 1999-2001. In each case, the movement’s main political goals were reached far more quickly than almost anyone involved imagined possible.

3) The real problem such movements face is that they always get taken by surprise by the speed of their initial success. We are never prepared for victory. It throws us into confusion. We start fighting each other. The ratcheting of repression and appeals to nationalism that inevitably accompanies some new round of war mobilization then plays into the hands of authoritarians on every side of the political spectrum. As a result, by the time the full impact of our initial victory becomes clear, we’re usually too busy feeling like failures to even notice it.

Let me take the two most prominent examples case by case:

I: THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT

The anti-nuclear movement of the late ‘70s marked the first appearance in North America of what we now consider standard anarchist tactics and forms of organization: mass actions, affinity groups, spokescouncils, consensus process, jail solidarity, the very principle of decentralized direct democracy. It was all somewhat primitive, compared to now, and there were significant differences—notably a much stricter, Gandhian-style conceptions of non-violence—but all the elements were there and it was the first time they had come together as a package. For two years, the movement grew with amazing speed and showed every sign of becoming a nation-wide phenomenon. Then almost as quickly, it distintegrated.

It all began when, in 1974, some veteran peaceniks turned organic farmers in New England successfully blocked construction of a proposed nuclear power plant in Montague, Massachusetts. In 1976, they joined with other New England activists, inspired by the success of a year-long plant occupation in Germany, to create the Clamshell Alliance. Clamshell’s immediate goal was to stop construction of a proposed nuclear power plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire. While the alliance never ended up managing an occupation so much as a series of dramatic mass-arrests, combined with jail solidarity, their actions—involving, at peak, tens of thousands of people organized on directly democratic lines—succeeded in throwing the very idea of nuclear power into question in a way it had never been before. Similar coalitions began springing up across the country: the Palmetto alliance in South Carolina, Oystershell in Maryland, Sunflower in Kansas, and most famous of all, the Abalone Alliance in California, reacting originally to a completely insane plan to build a nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon, almost directly on top of a major geographic fault line.

Clamshell first three mass actions, in 1976 and 1977, were wildly successful. But it soon fell into crisis over questions of democratic process. In May 1978, a newly created Coordinating Committee violated process to accept a last-minute government offer for a three-day legal rally at Seabrook instead of a planned fourth occupation (the excuse was reluctance to alienate the surrounding community). Acrimonious debates began about consensus and community relations, which then expanded to the role of non-violence (even cutting through fences, or defensive measures like gas masks, had originally been forbidden), gender bias, and so on. By 1979 the alliance split into two contending, and increasingly ineffective, factions, and after many delays, the Seabrook plant (or half of it anyway) did go into operation. The Abalone Alliance lasted longer, until 1985, in part because its strong core of anarcha-feminists, but in the end, Diablo Canyon too got its license and went into operation in December 1988.

On the surface this doesn’t sound too inspiring. But what was the movement really trying to achieve? It might helpful here to map out its full range of goals:

1) Short-Term Goals: to block construction of the particular nuclear plant in question (Seabrook, Diablo Canyon…)

2) Medium-Term Goals: to block construction of all new nuclear plants, delegitimize the very idea of nuclear power and begin moving towards conservation and green power, and legitimate new forms of non-violent resistance and feminist-inspired direct democracy

3) Long-Term Goals: (at least for the more radical elements) smash the state and destroy capitalism

If so the results are clear. Short-term goals were almost never reached. Despite numerous tactical victories (delays, utility company bankruptcies, legal injunctions) the plants that became the focus of mass action all ultimately went on line. Governments simply cannot allow themselves to be seen to lose in such a battle. Long-term goals were also obviously not obtained. But one reason they weren’t is that the medium-term goals were all reached almost immediately. The actions did delegitimize the very idea of nuclear power—raising public awareness to the point that when Three Mile Island melted down in 1979, it doomed the industry forever. While plans for Seabrook and Diablo Canyon might not have been cancelled, just about every other then-pending plan to build a nuclear reactor was, and no new ones have been proposed for a quarter century. There was indeed a more towards conservation, green power, and a legitimizing of new democratic organizing techniques. All this happened much more quickly than anyone had really anticipated.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see most of the subsequent problems emerged directly from the very speed of the movement’s success. Radicals had hoped to make links between the nuclear industry and the very nature of the capitalist system that created it. As it turns out, the capitalist system proved more than willing to jettison the nuclear industry the moment it became a liability. Once giant utility companies began claiming they too wanted to promote green energy, effectively inviting what we’d now call the NGO types to a space at the table, there was an enormous temptation to jump ship. Especially because many of them only allied with more radical groups so as to win themselves a place at the table to begin with.

The inevitable result was a series of heated strategic debates. But it’s impossible to understand this though without first understanding that strategic debates, within directly democratic movements, are rarely conducted as such. They almost always take the form of debates about something else. Take for instance the question of capitalism. Anti-capitalists are usually more than happy to discuss their position on the subject. Liberals on the other hand really don’t like to have to say “actually, I am in favor of maintaining capitalism”, so whenever possible, they try to change the subject. So debates that are actually about whether to directly challenge capitalism usually end up getting argued out as if they were short-term debates about tactics and non-violence. Authoritarian socialists or others who are suspicious of democracy itself don’t like to make that an issue either, and prefer to discuss the need to create the broadest possible coalitions. Those who do like democracy but feel a group is taking the wrong strategic direction often find it much more effective to challenge its decision-making process than to challenge its actual decisions.

There is another factor here that is even less remarked, but I think equally important. Everyone knows that faced with a broad and potentially revolutionary coalition, any governments’ first move will be to try to split in it. Making concessions to placate the moderates while selectively criminalizing the radicals—this is Art of Governance 101. The US government, though, is in possession of a global empire constantly mobilized for war, and this gives it another option that most governments do not. Those running it can, pretty much any time they like, decide to ratchet up the level of violence overseas. This has proved a remarkably effective way to defuse social movements founded around domestic concerns. It seems no coincidence that the civil rights movement was followed by major political concessions and a rapid escalation of the war in Vietnam; that the anti-nuclear movement was followed by the abandonment of nuclear power and a ramping up of the Cold War, with Star Wars programs and proxy wars in Afghanistan and Central America; that the Global Justice Movement was followed by the collapse the Washington consensus and the War on Terror. As a result early SDS had to put aside its early emphasis on participatory democracy to become a mere anti-war movement; the anti-nuclear movement morphed into a nuclear freeze movement; the horizontal structures of DAN and PGA gave way to top-down mass organizations like ANSWER and UFPJ. From the point of view of government the military solution does have its risks. The whole thing can blow up in one’s face, as it did in Vietnam (hence the obsession, at least since the first Gulf War to design a war that was effectively protest-proof.) There is also always a small risk some miscalculation will accidentally trigger a nuclear Armageddon and destroy the planet. But these are risks politicians faced with civil unrest appear to have normally been more than willing to take—if only because directly democratic movements genuinely scare them, while anti-war movements are their preferred adversary. States are, after all, ultimately forms of violence. For them, changing the argument to one about violence is taking things back to their home turf, what they really prefer to talk about. Organizations designed either to wage, or to oppose, wars will always tend to be more hierarchically organized than those designed with almost anything else in mind. This is certainly what happened in the case of the anti-nuclear movement. While the anti-war mobilizations of the ‘80s turned out far larger numbers than Clamshell or Abalone ever had, but it also marked a return to marching along with signs, permitted rallies, and abandoning experiments with new forms of direct democracy.

II: THE GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT

I’ll assume our gentle reader is broadly familiar with the actions at Seattle, IMF-World Bank blockades six months later in Washington at A16, and so on.

In the US, the movement flared up so quickly and dramatically even the media could not completely dismiss it. It also quickly started eating itself. Direct Action Networks were founded in almost every major city in America. While some of these (notably Seattle and L.A. DAN) were reformist, anti-corporate, and fans of strict non-violence codes, most (like New York and Chicago DAN) were overwhelmingly anarchist and anti-capitalist, and dedicated to diversity of tactics. Other cities (Montreal, Washington D.C.) created even more explicitly anarchist Anti-Capitalist Convergences. The anti-corporate DANs dissolved almost immediately, but very few lasted more than a couple years. There were endless and bitter debates: about non-violence, about summit-hopping, about racism and privilege issues, about the viability of the network model. Then there was 9/11, followed by a huge increase up of the level of repression and resultant paranoia, and the panicked flight of almost all our former allies among unions and NGOs. By Miami, in 2003, it seemed like we’d been put to rout, and a paralysis swept over the movement from which we’ve only recently started to recover.

September 11th was such a weird event, such a catastrophe, that it makes it almost impossible for us to perceive anything else around it. In its immediate aftermath, almost all of the structures created in the globalization movement collapsed. But one reason it was so easy for them to collapse was—not just that war seemed such an immediately more pressing concern—but that once again, in most of our immediate objectives, we’d already, unexpectedly, won.

Myself, I joined NYC DAN right around the time of A16. At the time DAN as a whole saw itself as a group with two major objectives. One was to help coordinate the North American wing of a vast global movement against neoliberalism, and what was then called the Washington Consensus, to destroy the hegemony of neoliberal ideas, stop all the new big trade agreements (WTO, FTAA), and to discredit and eventually destroy organizations like the IMF. The other was to disseminate a (very much anarchist-inspired) model of direct democracy: decentralized, affinity-group structures, consensus process, to replace old-fashioned activist organizing styles with their steering committees and ideological squabbles. At the time we sometimes called it “contaminationism”, the idea that all people really needed was to be exposed to the experience of direct action and direct democracy, and they would want to start imitating it all by themselves. There was a general feeling that we weren’t trying to build a permanent structure; DAN was just a means to this end. When it had served its purpose, several founding members explained to me, there would be no further need for it. On the other hand these were pretty ambitious goals, so we also assumed even if we did attain them, it would probably take at least a decade.

As it turned out it took about a year and a half.

Obviously we failed to spark a social revolution. But one reason we never got to the point of inspiring hundreds of thousands of people to rise up was, again, that we achieved our other goals so quickly. Take the question of organization. While the anti-war coalitions still operate, as anti-war coalitions always do, as top-down popular front groups, almost every small-scale radical group that isn’t dominated by Marxist sectarians of some sort or another—and this includes anything from organizations of Syrian immigrants in Montreal or community gardens in Detroit—now operate on largely anarchist principles. They might not know it. But contaminationism worked. Alternately, take the domain of ideas. The Washington consensus lies in ruins. So much so it’s hard no to remember what public discourse in this country was even like before Seattle. Rarely have the media and political classes been so completely unanimous about anything. That “free trade”, “free markets”, and no-holds-barred supercharged capitalism was the only possible direction for human history, the only possible solution for any problem was so completely assumed that anyone who cast doubt on the proposition was treated as literally insane. Global justice activists, when they first forced themselves into the attention of CNN or Newsweek, were immediately written off as reactionary lunatics. A year or two later, CNN and Newsweek were saying we’d won the argument.

Usually when I make this point in front of anarchist crowds someone immediately objects: “well, sure, the rhetoric has changed, but the policies remain the same.”

This is true in a manner of speaking. That is to say, it’s true that we didn’t destroy capitalism. But we (taking the “we” here as the horizontalist, direct-action oriented wing of the planetary movement against neoliberalism) did arguably deal it a bigger blow in just two years than anyone since, say, the Russian Revolution.

Let me take this point by point

·FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS. All the ambitious free trade treaties planned since 1998 have failed, The MAI was routed; the FTAA, focus of the actions in Quebec City and Miami, stopped dead in its tracks. Most of us remember the 2003 FTAA summit mainly for introducing the “Miami model” of extreme police repression even against obviously non-violent civil resistance. It was that. But we forget this was more than anything the enraged flailings of a pack of extremely sore losers—Miami was the meeting where the FTAA was definitively killed. Now no one is even talking about broad, ambitious treaties on that scale. The US is reduced to pushing for minor country-to-country trade pacts with traditional allies like South Korea and Peru, or at best deals like CAFTA, uniting its remaining client states in Central America, and it’s not even clear it will manage to pull off that.

·THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION. After the catastrophe (for them) in Seattle, organizers moved the next meeting to the Persian Gulf island of Doha, apparently deciding they would rather run the risk of being blown up by Osama bin Laden than having to face another DAN blockade. For six years they hammered away at the “Doha round”. The problem was that, emboldened by the protest movement Southern governments began insisting they would no longer agree open their borders to agricultural imports from rich countries unless those rich countries at least stopped pouring billions of dollars of subsidies at their own farmers, thus ensuring Southern farmers couldn’t possibly compete. Since the US in particular had no intention of itself making any of the sort of sacrifices it demanded of the rest of the world, all deals were off. In July 2006, Pierre Lamy, head of the WTO, declared the Doha round dead and at this point no one is even talking about another WTO negotiation for at least two years—at which point the organization might very possibly not exist.

·THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND AND WORLD BANK. This is the most amazing story of all. The IMF is rapidly approaching bankruptcy, and it is a direct result of the worldwide mobilization against them. To put the matter bluntly: we destroyed it. The World Bank is not doing all that much better. But by the time the full effects were felt, we weren’t even paying attention.

This last story is worth telling in some detail, so let me leave the indented section here for a moment and continue in the main text:

The IMF was always the arch-villain of the struggle. It is the most powerful, most arrogant, most pitiless instrument through which neoliberal policies have, for the last 25 years been imposed on the poorer countries of the global South, basically, by manipulating debt. In exchange for emergency refinancing, the IMF would demand “structural adjustment programs” that forced massive cuts in health, education, price supports on food, and endless privatization schemes that allowed foreign capitalists to buy up local resources at firesale prices. Structural adjustment never somehow worked to get countries back on their feet economically, but that just meant they remained in crisis, and the solution was always to insist on yet another round of structural adjustment.

The IMF had another, less celebrated, role: of global enforcer. It was their job to ensure that no country (no matter how poor) could ever be allowed to default on loans to Western bankers (no matter how foolish). Even if a banker were to offer a corrupt dictator a billion dollar loan, and that dictator placed it directly in his Swiss bank account and fled the country, the IMF would ensure billion dollars (plus generous interest) would have to be extracted from his former victims. If a country did default, for any reason, the IMF could impose a credit boycott whose economic effects were roughly comparable to that of a nuclear bomb. (All this flies in the face of even elementary economic theory, whereby those lending money are supposed to be accepting a certain degree of risk, but in the world of international politics, economic laws are only held to be binding on the poor.) This role was their downfall.

What happened was that Argentina defaulted and got away with it. In the ‘90s, Argentina had been the IMF’s star pupil in Latin America—they had literally privatized every public facility except the customs bureau. Then in 2002, the economy crashed. The immediate results we all know: battles in the streets, popular assemblies, the overthrow of three governments in one month, road blockades, occupied factories… “Horizontalism”—broadly anarchist principles—were at the core of popular resistance. The political class was so completely discredited that politicians were obliged to put on wigs and phony mustaches to be able to eat in restaurants without being physically attacked. When Nestor Kirchner, a moderate social democrat, took power in 2003, he knew he had to do something dramatic in order to get most of the population even to accept even the idea of having a government, let alone his own. So he did. He did, in fact, the one thing no one in that position is ever supposed to do. He defaulted on Argentina’s foreign debt.

Actually Kirchner was quite clever about it. He did not default on his IMF loans. He defaulted on Argentina’s private debt, announcing that for all outstanding loans, he would only pay 25 cents on the dollar. Citibank and Chase of course went to the IMF, their accustomed enforcer, to demand punishment. But for the first time in its history, the IMF balked. First of all, with Argentina’s economy already in ruins, even the economic equivalent of a nuclear bomb would do little more than make the rubble bounce. Second of all, just about everyone was aware it was the IMF’s disastrous advice that set the stage for Argentina’s crash in the first place. Third and most decisively, this was at the very height of the impact of the global justice movement: the IMF was already the most hated institution on the planet, and willfully destroying what little remained of the Argentine middle class would have been pushing things just a little bit too far.

So Argentina was allowed to get away with it. After that, everything changed. Brazil and Argentina together arranged to pay back their outstanding debt to the IMF itself. With a little help from Chavez, so did the rest of the continent. In 2003, Latin American IMF debt stood at $49 billion. Now it’s $694 million. To put that in perspective: that’s a decline of 98.6%. For every thousand dollars owed four years ago, Latin America now owes fourteen bucks. Asia followed. China and India now both have no outstanding debt to the IMF and refuse to take out new loans. The boycott now includes Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and pretty much every other significant regional economy. Also Russia. The Fund is reduced to lording it over the economies of Africa, and maybe some parts of the Middle East and former Soviet sphere (basically those without oil). As a result its revenues have plummeted by 80% in four years. In the irony of all possible ironies, it’s increasingly looking like the IMF will go bankrupt if they can’t find someone willing to bail them out. Neither is it clear there’s anyone particularly wants to. With its reputation as fiscal enforcer in tatters, the IMF no longer serves any obvious purpose even for capitalists. There’s been a number of proposals at recent G8 meetings to make up a new mission for the organization—a kind of international bankruptcy court, perhaps—but all ended up getting torpedoed for one reason or another. Even if the IMF does survive, it has already been reduced to a cardboard cut-out of its former self.

The World Bank, which early on took on the role of good cop, is in somewhat better shape. But emphasis here must be placed on the word “somewhat”—as in, its revenue has only fallen by 60%, not 80%, and there are few actual boycotts. On the other hand the Bank is currently being kept alive largely by the fact India and China are still willing to deal with it, and both sides know that, so it is no longer in much of a position to dictate terms.

Obviously, all of this does not mean all the monsters have been slain. In Latin America, neoliberalism might be on the run, but China and India are carrying out devastating “reforms” within their own countries, European social protections are under attack, and most of Africa, despite much hypocritical posturing on the part of the Bonos and rich countries of the world, is still locked in debt, and now also facing a new colonization by China. The US, its economic power retreating in most of the world, is frantically trying to redouble its grip over Mexico and Central America. We’re not living in utopia. But we already knew that. The question is why we never noticed our victories.

Olivier de Marcellus, a PGA activist from Switzerland, points to one reason: whenever some element of the capitalist system takes a hit, whether it’s the nuclear industry or the IMF, some leftist journal will start explaining to us that really, this is all part of their plan—or maybe, an effect of the inexorable working out of the internal contradictions of capital, but certainly, nothing for which we ourselves are in any way responsible. Even more important, perhaps, is our reluctance to even say the word “we”. The Argentine default, wasn’t that really engineered by Nestor Kirchner? What does he have to do with the globalization movement? I mean, it’s not as if his hands were forced by thousands of citizens were rising up, smashing banks, and replacing the government with popular assemblies coordinated by the IMC. Or, well, okay, maybe it was. Well, in that case, those citizens were People of Color in the Global South. How can “we” take responsibility for their actions? Never mind that they mostly saw themselves as part of the same global justice movement as us, espoused similar ideas, wore similar clothes, used similar tactics, in many cases even belonged to the same confederacies or organizations. Saying “we” here would imply the primal sin of speaking for others.

Myself, I think it’s reasonable for a global movement to consider its accomplishments in global terms. These are not inconsiderable. Yet just as with the anti-nuclear movement, they were almost all focused on the middle term. Let me map out a similar hierarchy of goals:

1) Short-Term Goals: blockade and shut down particular summit meetings (IMF, WTO, G8, etc)

2) Medium-Term Goals: destroy the “Washington Consensus” around neoliberalism, block all new trade pacts, delegitimize and ultimately shut down institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank; disseminate new models of direct democracy.

3) Long-Term Goals: (at least for the more radical elements) smash the state and destroy capitalism.

Here again, we find the same pattern. After the miracle of Seattle, short term—tactical—goals were rarely achieved. But this was mainly because faced with such a movement, governments tend to dig in their heels and make it a matter of principle that they shouldn’t be. This was usually considered much more important, in fact, than the success of the summit in question. Most activists do not seem to be aware that in a lot of cases—the 2001 and 2002 IMF and World Bank meetings for example—police ended up enforcing security arrangements so elaborate that they came very close to shutting down the meetings themselves; ensuring that many events were cancelled, the ceremonies were ruined, and nobody really had a chance to talk to each other. But the point was not whether trade officials got to meet or not. The point was that the protestors could not be seen to win.

Here, too, the medium term goals were achieved so quickly that it actually made the longer-term goals more difficult. NGOs, labor unions, authoritarian Marxists, and similar allies jumped ship almost immediately; strategic debates ensued, but they were carried out, as always, indirectly, as arguments about race, privilege, tactics, almost anything but as actual strategic debates. Here, too, everything was made infinitely more difficult by the state’s recourse to war.

It is hard, as I mentioned, for anarchists to take much direct responsibility for the inevitable end of the war in Iraq, or even to the very bloody nose the empire has already acquired there. But a case could well be made for indirect responsibility. Since the ‘60s, and the catastrophe of Vietnam, the US government has not abandoned its policy of answering any threat of democratic mass mobilizing by a return to war. But it has to be much more careful. Essentially, they have to design wars to be protest-proof. There is very good reason to believe that the first Gulf War was explicitly designed with this in mind. The approach taken to the invasion of Iraq—the insistence on a smaller, high-tech army, the extreme reliance on indiscriminate firepower, even against civilians, to protect against any Vietnam-like levels of American casualties—appears to have been developed, again, more with a mind to heading off any potential peace movement at home than one focused on military effectiveness. This, anyway, would help explain why the most powerful army in the world has ended up being tied down and even defeated by an almost unimaginably ragtag group of guerillas with negligible access to outside safe-areas, funding, or military support. As in the trade summits, they are so obsessed with ensuring forces of civil resistance cannot be seen to win the battle at home that they would prefer to lose the actual war.

PERSPECTIVES (WITH A BRIEF RETURN TO ‘30s SPAIN)

How, then, to cope with the perils of victory? I can’t claim to have any simple answers. Really I wrote this essay more to start a conversation, to put the problem on the table—to inspire a strategic debate.

Still, some implications are pretty obvious. The next time we plan a major action campaign, I think we would do well to at least take into account the possibility that we might obtain our mid-range strategic goals very quickly, and that when that happens, many of our allies will fall away. We have to recognize strategic debates for what they are, even when they seem to be about something else. Take one famous example: arguments about property destruction after Seattle. Most of these, I think, were really arguments about capitalism. Those who decried window-breaking did so mainly because they wished to appeal to middle-class consumers to move towards global-exchange style green consumerism, to ally with labor bureaucracies and social democrats abroad. This was not a path designed to create a direct confrontation with capitalism, and most of those who urged us to take this route were at least skeptical about the possibility that capitalism could ever really be defeated at all. Those who did break windows didn’t care if they were offending suburban homeowners, because they didn’t see them as a potential element in a revolutionary anti-capitalist coalition. They were trying, in effect, to hijack the media to send a message that the system was vulnerable—hoping to inspire similar insurrectionary acts on the part of those who might considering entering a genuinely revolutionary alliance; alienated teenagers, oppressed people of color, rank-and-file laborers impatient with union bureaucrats, the homeless, the criminalized, the radically discontent. If a militant anti-capitalist movement was to begin, in America, it would have to start with people like these: people who don’t need to be convinced that the system is rotten, only, that there’s something they can do about it. And at any rate, even if it were possible to have an anti-capitalist revolution without gun-battles in the streets—which most of us are hoping it is, since let’s face it, if we come up against the US army, we will lose—there’s no possible way we could have an anti-capitalist revolution while at the same time scrupulously respecting property rights.

The latter actually leads to an interesting question. What would it mean to win, not just our medium-term goals, but our long term ones? At the moment no one is even clear how that would come about, for the very reason none of us have much faith remaining in “the” revolution in the old 19th or 20th century sense of the term. After all, the total view of revolution, that there will be a single mass insurrection or general strike and then all walls will come tumbling down, is entirely premised on the old fantasy of capturing the state. That’s the only way victory could possibly be that absolute and complete—at least, if we are speaking of a whole country or meaningful territory.

In way of illustration, consider this: what would it have actually meant for the Spanish anarchists to have actually “won” 1937? It’s amazing how rarely we ask ourselves such questions. We just imagine it would have been something like the Russian Revolution, which began in a similar way, with the melting away of the old army, the spontaneous creation of workers’ soviets. But that was in the major cities. The Russian Revolution was followed by years of civil war in which the Red Army gradually imposed the new state’s control on every part of the old Russian Empire, whether the communities in question wanted it or not. Let us imagine that anarchist militias in Spain had routed the fascist army, which then completely dissolved, and kicked the socialist Republican Government out of its offices in Barcelona and Madrid. That would certainly have been victory by anybody’s standards. But what would have happened next? Would they have established Spain as a non-Republic, an anti-state existing within the exact same international borders? Would they have imposed a regime of popular councils in every singe village and municipality in the territory of what had formerly been Spain? How exactly? We have to bear in mind here that were there many villages towns, even regions of Spain where anarchists were almost non-existent. In some just about the entire population was made up of conservative Catholics or monarchists; in others (say, the Basque country) there was a militant and well-organized working class, but one that was overwhelmingly socialist or communist. Even at the height of revolutionary fervor, most of these would stay true to their old values and ideas. If the victorious FAI attempted to exterminate them all—a task which would have required killing millions of people—or chase them out of the country, or forcibly relocate them into anarchist communities, or send them off to reeducation camps—they would not only have been guilty of world-class atrocities, they would have had to give up on being anarchists. Democratic organizations simply cannot commit atrocities on that systematic scale: for that, you’d need Communist or Fascist-style top-down organization, since you can’t actually get thousands of human beings to systematically massacre helpless women and children and old people, destroy communities, or chase families from their ancestral homes unless they can at least say they were only following orders. There appear to have been only two possible solutions to the problem.

1) Let the Republic continue as de facto government, controlled by the socialists, let them impose government control the right-wing majority areas, and get some kind of deal out of them that they would leave the anarchist-majority cities, towns, and villages alone to organize themselves as they wish to, and hope that they kept the deal (this might be considered the “good luck” option)

2) Declare that everyone was to form their own local popular assemblies, and let them decide on their own mode of self-organization.

The latter seems the more fitting with anarchist principles, but the results wouldn’t have likely been too much different. After all, if the inhabitants of, say, Bilbao overwhelmingly desired to create a local government, how exactly would one have stopped them? Municipalities where the church or landlords still commanded popular support would presumably put the same old right-wing authorities in charge; socialist or communist municipalities would put socialist or communist party bureaucrats in charge; Right and Left statists would then each form rival confederations that, even though they controlled only a fraction of the former Spanish territory, would each declare themselves the legitimate government of Spain. Foreign governments would recognize one or the other—since none would be willing to exchange ambassadors with a non-government like the FAI, even assuming the FAI wished to exchange ambassadors with them, which it wouldn’t. In other words the actual shooting war might end, but the political struggle would continue, and large parts of Spain would presumably end up looking like contemporary Chiapas, with each district or community divided between anarchist and anti-anarchist factions. Ultimate victory would have to be a long and arduous process. The only way to really win over the statist enclaves would be win over their children, which could be accomplished by creating an obviously freer, more pleasurable, more beautiful, secure, relaxed, fulfilling life in the stateless sections. Foreign capitalist powers, on the other hand, even if they did not intervene militarily, would do everything possible to head off the notorious “threat of a good example” by economic boycotts and subversion, and pouring resources into the statist zones. In the end, everything would probably depend on the degree to which anarchist victories in Spain inspired similar insurrections elsewhere.

The real point of the imaginative exercise is just to point out that there are no clean breaks in history. The flip-side of the old idea of the clean break, the one moment when the state falls and capitalism is defeated, is that anything short of that is not really a victory at all. If capitalism is left standing, if it begins to market your once-subversive ideas, it shows that the capitalists really won. You’ve lost; you’ve been coopted. To me this is absurd. Can we say that feminism lost, that it achieved nothing, just because corporate culture felt obliged to pay lip service to condemning sexism and capitalist firms began marketing feminist books, movies, and other products? Of course not: unless you’ve managed to destroy capitalism and patriarchy in one fell blow, this is one of the clearest signs that you’ve gotten somewhere. Presumably any effective road to revolution will involve endless moments of cooptation, endless victorious campaigns, endless little insurrectionary moments or moments of flight and covert autonomy. I hesitate to even speculate what it might really be like. But to start in that direction, the first thing we need to do is to recognize that we do, in fact, win some. Actually, recently, we’ve been winning quite a lot. The question is how to break the cycle of exaltation and despair and come up with some strategic visions (the more the merrier) about these victories build on each other, to create a cumulative movement towards a new society.

八零后的社会空间

2011-11-05T16:10:00.000+08:00

遲了一天

2011-10-11T14:55:00.002+08:00

鏗鏘集-百年一願

2011-10-10T13:35:00.000+08:00

一個水樽照亮整個屋企

2011-10-07T01:11:00.000+08:00

from: http://hkscience.blogspot.com/2011/09/blog-post_9773.html

2011-09-29T22:21:00.000+08:00

http://shinminatomura.com/en/about/index.html

2011-09-25T00:35:00.000+08:00

要開始寫一下，一直沒有寫的原因好像是我也不是一個喜歡把自已張揚揚來的人，而且寫的機會一直也不多，就是平日其實不是跑到圖書館也不能集中寫一下的情況，但無論如何，這些日子沒有寫下來的事太多了須。一感到疑惑自已書寫又不知誰在看，又怎麼要公開出來？事實，寫出來沒有什麼，直...無論如何，我覺得現在大家都用fb，反而寫blog會舒服一點，就是寫給自已看，大家是路過就是。

2011-09-19T11:27:00.000+08:00

presentation@Japan_Hatchi

2011-09-16T00:16:00.003+08:00

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17162227

Video streaming by Ustream

Eat and sing 2007@Sing Ming

2011-06-23T22:17:00.004+08:00

2011-06-23T00:49:00.001+08:00

理性的詭辯始終有他的理由,但傷害到別人時,不要為忘記了道德而後悔

深刻反省的人生以降,你還要選擇作為犬儒的出世,還是清醒於眼前的現世

《艾未未作為方法？》討論會

2011-06-07T13:54:00.002+08:00

2011-05-23T15:06:00.001+08:00

we all know that art is not truth, art is the lie that makes us realize the truth,
at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

2011-05-07T23:42:00.001+08:00

2011-05-05T00:42:00.002+08:00

今日的藝術家要咩?

2011-04-24T22:51:00.000+08:00

snowing

2011-02-11T23:55:00.000+08:00

it is the first time for me to see a big snow in TOKYO, ar...beautiful but freezing. i take long time to get used to the new environment, for example the heater in my room, usually i dont use it in HK, even the weather is cold. but it bring me sore throat and fever if i open the heater in the small room...
it is the 12 day i been here, but i havent been get used to many thing.

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

2011-02-03T12:07:00.000+08:00

健忘症

2011-01-04T14:51:00.000+08:00

悼念活化廳街坊陸先生

健忘症好像從沒發生過在他身上,

上海街上的石板,波子與街童,

左邊街角OK轉上曾是教堂,

轉眼是鮮魚行小學的迴旋處,

有檔你和陸太都記得的

竹庶矛根粥

健忘症偶爾還會發生在你身上,

有次你想起周潤發與雲來酒家,

但想不起萬寧樓下之前是那户人家,

上海街多年前寄经有渡輪泊岸,

打銅器師父工作鐺鐺作響,

但正如你們還使用的線裝數簿,

我們看不懂上面的符碼,

新舊承傳你看上好像淡淡然,
但又總是不說不說還是說,

在你身上發現,

懷舊原來是种執着,

我們或許都有健忘症,

把視而不見當成事過境遷。

---

postsprit_openspace Bae

2010-12-22T22:05:00.010+08:00

Too fast, too slow, too many, too few

A few days before I left Busan, Seo talked to me, “fung, don’t leave, one more week, too short.” At that moment, I really wanted to stay. However, when I was reminded of the loads of work that I had to finish as soon as possible after I returned to HK, I had no choice of whether to extend my air ticket or not…when I was on the plane, I looked at the night view of Busan and saw the full moon. Suddenly I realized that it was the same full moon again that I had seen when I came to BAE. Afterall, it was just a very short month I stayed in BAE.

I didn’t expect BAE to be in the rural area before I came here. This was a surprise for me and, thus, my biggest impression to BAE. Green forest, quiet starry night, such atmosphere provided me with a chance to get away from the state of “busying for nothing” and the “hustle and bustle” of city life. I still remembered that I was dashing off my tasks in the morning of the day I travelled to BAE. I rushed to the airport after then.
Sometimes, I think city life is often a oscillation between extremes. Everything are either too fast or too slow, too many or too few. It is difficult for us to focus on a particular job because other jobs interrupt. We all understand the importance of “ leisure”. However, we can by no means get a pause in the city.

In my opinion, BAE has exemplified a new way of connecting art and daily life in response to this pressurized state. I was like provided with a chance to breathe. I didn’t have to worry about the mundanes in my city. I was able to take some time to read, to concentrate on my reflections. Whenever I was available, I walked to the beach myself, time flowed slowly and was always in adequate supply in BAE. It was the best place to reflect on the tempo of life: Is the city's hustle a necessity? Or is leisure an extravagance?

After I returned to HK, I changed some of my habits. I learnt from Shu Yang and started drinking tea. Everyday we brewed a cup of Chinese tea after breakfast and enjoyed the landscape outside our studio before we started our work. Also I learnt the Mongolian style from Amarna. He always wore a smile on his face, so that all of our pressure was eased by his optimism.

In BAE, we cooked our dinner together. We picked chillies and baby tomatoes in the field. Sometimes, we drove to the supermarket. We feel like we are a family. All these experience is treasurable to me. In this short month, artists took care of each other and built up close linkages. I still remembered that I was drunk for the first time after the opening of “East Asia Collection”. That evening, each artist sang a song from his/her city. Ching Yao, Shu Yang and I, Chinese artists with political concerns from 3 different cities and under 3 different political situations, sang the song “Internationale” (song of revolution) together. To me, such experience was very impressive and touching.

Lastly, I do really appreciate the activities arranged by BAE and Thanks Seo for looking after us in every possible way as if he is our big brother. And I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Dae Hong for his kindest care, he is the best artist I met in Korea.

(thx for the translation of Lee Soen Long)

離開bae前數天，Seo告訴我 “fung, don’t leave, one more week, too short.” 那刻心裡其實是萬分希望留下，可是一想到在香港好像有些什麼必須要儘快完成，無奈地最後都是沒有把機票延長。在機上我看到釜山上空的滿月，想起來釜山的時候，Bae的上空也是滿月的，原來一轉眼只是來了很短很短的一個月時間。

來之前我不知道Bae是位於郊外，這可算是意外收獲。綠油油的樹林，平靜的夜空，這是一個難得的機會抽離一下在城市生活中的“無事忙”的狀態，很多時候，記得我離開香港到釜山的早上，我還在趕趕急急的完成香港的工作，又趕趕急急的到機場。因此城市生活就像什麼都處於“太過” 的狀態，不是太快／太慢，便是太多／太少，心中想著一件事，又做了其他，大家都知道“悠閒”的重要，心卻不能真正的停下來。

對應這種壓迫的狀態，Bae正示範了藝術創作與生活的另一可能，情況像是讓我喘喘氣，靜靜地看看書，集中的想一想創作的事，不用去想煩碎事，不用想時間不夠用的問題。在BAE，一有空我便獨個兒散步到海邊，時間好像過得很慢，這狀態最適合反省一下域市生活的趕急狀態是否真的必要，還是悠閒真是屬於奢侈？

回港後，最少改變我好些生活習慣，如喝茶，是從舒陽那裡學回來的，每天早餐過後就是先泡一杯茶，對着工作室外的風景慢慢的待一回，然後才工作。還有Amarna的蒙古風格，遇到什麼事都樂觀地微笑，叫身邊的人壓力全消。

Bae的生活，大部份時間是大夥兒做飯，在田裡摘些辣椒和車厘茄，而且知怎的，總是有點一家人的感覺。藝術家們互相照顧，短短一個月，建立的感情其實也蠻深刻，在East Asia Collection的展覽開幕那夜，我第一次醉倒了，但那次不同城市的藝術家各自唱歌，我，Chingyao, Shu Yang，分別來自三個不同地方的中國人而又在藝術上帶有政治關注的藝術家，還一同唱起國際歌，那是十分難忙的一夜。

最後，我特別感謝Dae Hong的悉心照料，打理bae的工作真不容易，我真衷心感謝。

P

2010-11-28T22:49:00.003+08:00

西九文化對話

2010-11-18T12:28:00.107+08:00

無程程做左呢個訪問, 友人都問為何大部份被訪者都對西九這麼正面, 因為人地問我對西九有咩期望,唔係問有咩批評嗎。

但對我而言,一般反對建西九的原因大都如不認同沒有清浙文化政策前不應建西九,又或局方未公佈西九將來的軟件推廣的比重，但前者其實有排等，後者其實佢地仲諗緊，但還有空間改，如最近增聘創意教育總監。

更重要是我認為起了也沒舍大不了,不起,肯定比現在更差。

我對西九有期望的原因是,香港需要一個當代藝術的集合點,好多野零聲野發生,沒有整合,保存,長遠策劃,有人發聲,無人傳承。西九大可成為藝壇的專業發展付起起動與策劃的示範，那時或帶動政府對文化政!的制定。
而且,有硬件就會創造大量配套活動的需要,不同類型的推廣,教育 ,討論便會出現,只是西九是否做出專業有質素的野出來?

當然,都係一些期望,假設管理的人不是家陣好似報紙都唔會睇的公務員"策展人",假設政府唔會縮水,有場地無野攪,假設其他政府部門不會令西九成為孤島...所以問題多數是未來的管理問題,而唔係起唔起。而討論管理問題，何時也未遲。

莫嘆莫嘆

甘地

2010-11-09T16:11:00.001+08:00

想起AI...

2010-10-21T00:39:00.001+08:00

愛情與民主

2010-10-19T13:55:00.006+08:00

余杰：劉曉波與劉霞的愛情

劉曉波與劉霞的愛情

余杰

刊於《開放》雜志2010年11號

● 曉波九五年坐牢時，他們還是戀人，不讓見面。他們提出結婚申請，劉霞說，「我就是要嫁給那個『國家的敵人』！」在她那羸弱的身體之中，隱藏著一顆怎樣倔強的靈魂。

你從一個得不到新衣裳的女孩，長成了往返於探監路上的妻子......

劉曉波與劉霞早在八十年代便認識了。那時，他們各自有家庭，第一次的認識並沒有「一見鍾情」，而只是愛好文學和詩歌的普通朋友。那時，劉曉波名滿天下，身邊簇擁著不少年輕漂亮的女子，就連在天安門民主運動期間也是如此。天安門運動的學生領袖之一、當時北大作家班的學員張伯笠在回憶錄中寫道，一九八九年五月三日在北大二十八樓開會研究「五四宣言」時，劉曉波要求見各位學生領袖，「那是我第一次見劉曉波，他身後跟了一位打扮入時的女人」。在八十年代，最漂亮的女孩喜歡的都是詩人和作家，而詩人和作家也以擁有許多愛慕者為驕傲。劉曉波說：「那時，我有一種強烈的欲望，要在千百個女人的身上發掘不同的美。」後來，直到與劉霞相愛，他才說出了更加石破天驚的下半句話：「如今，我終於在一個女子身上找到了所有的美。」一匹不馴服的黑馬終於找到了歸宿。

在人生最低谷與劉霞重逢

天安門屠殺之後第三天，劉曉波被秘密警察綁架，此後在秦城監獄被關押了二十個月。當他被釋放的時候，他已經被他任教的北京師範大學開除公職，家庭破碎，一無所有。從昔日文壇上萬人矚目的「黑馬」，淪為了「不可接觸」的「賤民」中的一員，這一巨大的落差宛如過山車一般。就在此一人生的低谷，他與劉霞再度重逢。

這一次的相遇開啟了一段盪氣迴腸的愛情故事。那時的劉霞也剛剛進入單身狀態，找不到人生的方向和真愛。劉霞出身於一個中共高幹家庭，父親是財經系統的副部級高官，長期在中國銀行擔任要職，還曾經擔任過中央財經大學的黨委書記。父親安排她在金融出版社和國家稅務局工作，但她天生就不是當循規蹈矩的公務員的料，這兩份別人垂涎三尺的工作，她都忍受不了，遂辭職成了自由人。與九十年代初紛紛「下海」的人們不同，她辭職不是為了掙錢，而是為了自由。

與劉曉波墜入愛河之後，劉霞的父母並沒有因為劉曉波的特殊身份而加以反對，反倒是全力支持。兩位老人十分開明，他們很喜歡劉曉波這個直率真誠的小夥子，將他當作親身兒子一樣看待。劉曉波與劉霞的弟弟也親如兄弟一般，他在劉霞家中得到的溫暖，甚至比在自己家中得到的還要多。劉霞曾經開玩笑說，父母對她說，我們家的兩個孩子（劉霞和他弟弟）都不愛上學，都沒有念過大學，但女兒一下子就找了一個博士上門來，而且還是中國最有名的文學博士，多麼光榮啊！這當然是一句玩笑話。其實，兩位老人最看重的還是劉曉波的人品。那時的劉曉波，不僅正在完成學術、思想的轉型，也正在完成人格和道德轉型，包括如何在日常生活和家庭生活中當一名好的愛人、好的丈夫。

就是要嫁給那個國家的敵人

一九九五年五月十八日，因為與王丹、陳小平、周舵等人起草「六四」六周年的呼籲書，劉曉波被北京市公安局軟禁，失去自由八個月。十個月後，被判勞動教養三年，關押在大連勞教所。當時，劉霞每月一次一個人奔波在從北京到大連的火車上去探望劉曉波，那是一段怎樣痛楚的旅途啊，三年加起來有三十六趟漫長的來往。劉霞在一首詩中寫道：「駛向集中營的那列火車，嗚咽地碾過我的身體，我卻拉不住你的手......」

一開始，他們只是「戀人」的關係，當局借此阻止劉霞與劉曉波會面。劉霞在勞教所外面痛苦地徘徊。後來，他們向有關部門提出結婚的申請，「我就是要嫁給那個『國家的敵人』！」在劉霞羸弱的身體之中，隱藏著一顆怎樣倔強的靈魂。經過層層手續，曠日持久的爭取，最後才由民政部的一位開明人士發函給公安部，由公安部的一名副部長批示同意，這才獲得了一份來之不易的結婚證書。那是一九九六年。有了這張結婚證書，劉霞這才名正言順地以妻子的身份去探望劉曉波。劉霞說，她看到過那份公安部批准他們結婚的紅頭文件，這是這個共和國最荒誕的一份文件：一對公民最平凡不過的結婚的要求，居然要由一名公安部副部長同意。

他們的這張結婚證書是在大連教養院中領取的。劉霞回憶說：「那天的情形特別詭異，他們說，派專門的攝影師來給我們拍攝結婚照，然後婚姻登記處的人過來現場辦證。但是，當攝影師給我們拍攝時，卻發現照相機突然無法按下快門。那個攝影師驚訝地說，這部機器用了很久，從來沒有出現過這樣的問題。他滿頭大汗地擺弄了半天，始終沒有弄好。幸虧我事先攜帶了我和曉波的兩張單人照，就將兩張單人照拼合在一起，貼在結婚證上，然後請他們蓋上列印。這樣，我們終於成了合法的夫妻。」這恐怕是一份前無古人、後無來者的，用兩張單人照拼合在一起的結婚照吧。後來，當他們談起這段往事時，語氣平和，像是在說別人的故事。這張來之不易的結婚證書，既證明著他們愛情的堅貞，也是一個時代良心犯所承擔的苦難的鮮活見證。這份珍貴的結婚證，一定要存入未來的「中國民主博物館」之中。

逆境中風雨兼程的夫妻

比起失去講台和發表作品的園地，並常年受到公安監視、騷擾甚至囚禁的劉曉波來，這些年來，作為妻子的劉霞也沒有少受罪。從某種意義上說，獄外的日子比獄中的日子更難過，難屬比受難者本人要承受更多的壓力與苦難。我聽到過不少妻子拋棄作為政治犯的丈夫、選擇新的安穩生活的事例。誰也沒有資格居高臨下地去譴責那些無法承受命運之沉重的妻子們，她們有權選擇另一種安穩的生活。另一方面，我也聽說過若干異議人士在長期的高壓之下心理變態，將妻子當作折磨的對象的故事。有一名異議人士就曾當眾宣告說：「以後我結婚了，就把妻子叫『共產黨』；以後我有孩子了，就把孩子叫『共產黨』；這樣我天天打罵妻子和孩子，就是打罵『共產黨』！」人性扭曲到如此程度，多麼可悲啊！

時間與品質直接相關。就政治立場而言，做一天的反對派容易，很多人如流星般升起又落下；但是做二十年如一日的反對派難，劉曉波一直堅守在中國本土成為中共當局「眼中的一根刺」。而從愛情到婚姻也是如此，做一天的恩愛夫妻容易，哪對新婚的夫妻不是如膠似漆的？但是做二十年如一日的恩愛夫妻難，尤其是像劉曉波和劉霞這樣在逆境中風雨兼程的夫妻。與劉霞結婚之後，劉曉波不再是八十年代的那個風流名士，而蛻變為一名標準的好丈夫，在朋友圈子中，若說劉曉波是排名第二的好丈夫，沒有人敢說自己是排名第一的。跟朋友一起在外面吃飯的時候，如果劉霞沒有一起來，吃到好吃的東西，劉曉波立即會掏出手機來給劉霞打電話：「這裡有個某某菜太好吃了，我給你打包一份回來！」曉波在的時候，劉霞是個「苯孩子」，連過馬路都要曉波牽著手，甚至不會用手機和上網。

曉波被捕之後，劉霞才逐漸學會了這些新科技。不過，劉霞也是一名標準的好妻子，她做得一手美味的西餐，正好滿足了喜歡吃西餐的曉波的胃口。劉曉波是少有的喜歡吃各式各樣的西餐的中國人，甚至連麥當勞這種速食，他都說每隔一兩個星期就饞得想去吃一次。於是，劉霞在家中準備了各式中國人家中少有的做西餐的配料，時不時就親自下廚，為曉波做出一大桌子美味的法式或意式大餐來。

日常生活簡單而溫馨

他們的日常生活溫馨而簡單。他們都是夜貓子，喜歡在晚上工作。晚上如果有飯局的話，跟朋友吃飯聊天，盡興而歸，差不多是十點。對一般人來說，是要上床休息的時候，對他們來說，才是工作的剛剛開始。劉曉波泡上一壺濃茶，在書房裡打開電腦寫作，或者在電話上跟朋友們聊天。劉霞則在小小的畫室裡畫畫、寫詩、讀書，或者擺弄自己的攝影作品。可以說是自得其樂，各不干擾。他們家裡有電視，可一般情況下沒有人打開看，除非有精彩的球賽，曉波才會被吸引到電視螢幕前面。後來，劉霞去獄中探望曉波的時候，曉波對她說，監倉有電視，可看遼寧台和中央台綜合頻道，但沒有報紙。劉霞說：「他在家從不看電視，所以看到那些節目他覺得怪怪的，跟現實生活完全不一樣！」

劉曉波寫作非常勤奮，這些年來，就政論而言，數量之多，視域之廣，中文世界幾乎無人可比。有人曾經婉言建議劉曉波說，他的文章寫得太多，有些文章打磨沉澱得不夠，稍顯粗糙。劉曉波坦率地解釋說，他要趁著精力還旺盛的時候多寫，多給劉霞存一些稿費，萬一自己哪天出事了，劉霞也可以靠著這些稿費衣食無憂，而不必靠別人的接濟。劉霞透露，他們的家庭開支完全靠丈夫的稿費來維持。

此次劉曉波被判處十一年重刑之後，劉霞去探監的時候，告訴曉波，她父母說，現在最好不要動那些錢，十一年坐牢出來後，寫東西太累，要省點以後花。幸虧劉霞還有愛她的、經濟上也有餘力幫助她的父母，她母親將自己的工資卡給了她，隨便她使用。

劉曉波經常說，與中共的對抗，乃是一場耐力的比賽，一點都不能夠著急，誰著急誰就失敗了。想當年，如果光緒皇帝比慈禧太后活得長，中國的局勢肯定又不一樣了。因此，他有一種從容不迫的氣度，在他身上從來沒有在異見人士那裡頭常見的焦灼感。用曉波自己的話來說，就是與這個獨裁政權不依不饒地「磕」上了。劉霞更是一個慢性子的人，每次吃飯的時候，她總是最後放下筷子的，她喜歡過一種「緩慢」的生活，有一種不怕折磨的耐心和韌性。這是一場愚公移山、精衛填海、西西弗斯推石頭上山般的戰鬥，這場戰鬥也只有劉曉波與劉霞互相支持和安慰才能義無反顧地走下去。

牛棚搵鬼去　土炮Hello 喂

2010-10-18T09:38:00.003+08:00

2010-10-18T09:36:00.001+08:00

新聞稿

牛棚搵鬼去　土炮Hello 喂！

10月23日　生鬼演繹

在政府產業署十年管理下，牛棚積累了很多怨氣，長期嚴苛的出入政策使牛棚艺術空間與社區分隔，我們今天將這些怨氣轉化為正能量──「牛棚搵鬼去　土炮Hello喂」大型綜合活動，在發展局來臨前以土炮的方式為牛棚打打汽、為社區沖沖喜。節目包括：

下午４時：

「牛棚藝術村與社區」公開討論會

你想知道政府產業署為何十年來積極不開放牛棚?

你想知道發展局對牛棚艺術村未來有什麼想像?

你想知道藝術發展局協調政府部門的困難？

你想知道藝術團体與社區關係可如何發展？

將邀請政府產業署、發展局和藝術發展局官員、牛棚艺術村單位以及社區人士交流藝術村管理經驗與探討未來社區關係發展種種的可能。

一人計多，二人計長，來來來執番正個藝術村!

下午6時：

千人同心齊舞牛　接龍接龍又接龍

天后大坑居民以舞火龍對抗瘟疫，牛棚藝術村飽受政府產業署的苛政，在他們走之前，我們發起「千人同心齊舞牛　接龍接龍又接龍」來驅走瘟神，迎接社區。我們邀請居民把牛棚的願景寫在橫額上，再將橫額串成牛龍，然後邀請街坊齊齊參與舞牛，為牛棚未來的社區關係祈福。

101次瓜田李下尋寶

一處地方沒有理由下嚴密封鎖背後一定隱藏着一個寶藏，不是!是101個寶藏!我們誠邀你在「牛棚搵鬼去　土炮Hello喂」活動當天走遍艺術村尋找101件寶物，獎品實用豐富。政府產業署員工不得參加。

全港首個「鬼影都唔多隻靈異攝影比賽」

參加者需於牛棚拍出一張靈異照片，比賽分為「紀實組」與「擺拍組」。「紀實組」照片相信即時會被各大報張搶先報道並成為頭版照片；「擺拍組」參加者可以利用拼貼或任何電腦技巧為牛棚創作一張靈異照片。所有照片將交往政府產業署，並邀請政府產業署署長郭家強先生出任首席評判，選出的得獎者將獲獎杯一座。

(另外我們將在http://cattledepot.blogspot.com/體貼地為你們提供範图供網友下載發揮創意，請不要埋沒你的photoshop技巧!)

土瓜灣鬼古普查計劃

鬼古是另類口述野史，每個有歷史的社區都總有一些鬼古來豐富地方色彩，我們希望蒐集所有在土瓜灣區流傳的鬼古。（不論親歷其境版、口耳相傳版，抑或胡思亂想創作版，無任歡迎。）在活動當天，我們除邀請街坊來講鬼古，FM101的主持亦會為你們逐個生鬼演繹。俾足戲，唔兒戲！

YouTube精選鬼片放映會

御宅族為你精心挑選嚇你唔死都笑餐死的精彩短片，匯聚成一晚驚心動魄失魂夜。來來來，無論是戀愛中的你，還是單身而勇敢的你，一段精選YouTube可能改變你的一生！不知是聞一多還是徐志摩說，沒有驚恐的人生配不上激烈的愛情。這個年代要接受YouTube的挑戰！

扮鬼扮馬預埋你

這個沒有什麼特別，只不過是迪士尼和海洋公園那些例牌菜的牛棚版，比他們精彩一點互動一點就是了。

其他時運高可能見到的活動包括牛棚打小人、靈異鬼相DIY、掌相研究，還有神秘活動一二三四五六七！

《牛棚社區網絡關注組》

2010-10-14T00:32:00.001+08:00

牛棚封閉搵鬼去．打壓言論唔知衰

位於土瓜灣的「牛棚藝術村」成立至今已近十年，村內多個受藝發局資助的團體定期舉辦不同類型的藝術活動，推動本地文化發展。然而在政府產業署的苛刻管理下，藝術村的發展一直受其限制，如參觀者出入需經身分證登記，禁止村內的拍攝活動，近月更禁絕任何參觀者內進，所有進出人士必須出示展覽單位之邀請卡，令有興趣參觀牛棚的社區人士被拒諸門外。

剛剛舉行的「土人土事」牛棚社區藝術計劃中，藝術家程展緯在展覽單位外牆懸掛出一面批評產業署管理手法之橫額作品，竟遭勒令要求立刻把該作品拆除，明顯是選擇性地借助行政暴力，打壓言論及創作自由，意圖消滅藝術工作者對產業署管理不是的批評。我們對產業署這種為低劣手法感到極度憤怒。

《牛棚社區網絡關注組》由一眾藝術工作者及社區人士組成，連日來我們於網上及牛棚門外發動聯署，並已收集近六百多個網上及附近居民的聯署。我們要求產業署：
1.就打壓言論自由之事件公開致歉；
2.立即檢討並改善牛棚藝術村之管理手法，配合村內發展需要；
３.引入社區參與對牛棚未來規劃的討論

我們認為事件反映了產業署長期未有盡心盡力理解藝術村的發展需要而以其箝制式的官僚思維，不惜為了管理方便而犧牲市民權益，也懼怕批評意見的表達和公眾的討論，未能趕上民主社會的要求。事件也反映了政府部門間欠缺文化素質，部門與部門之間則各自為政，對於民間意見不予理睬，經常忽略民間持分者的意見，寧願執行一式化的僵化條文，也不留市民大眾一條活路。

古蹟保育與日常生活大可融合，而虛有其表的古蹟工程，偏偏政府在規劃文化空間、活化古蹟等上，欠了對於地方生活文化特色的調查認識，公平公開的規劃，拒絕民間想像、以及對此的支援，任由行政官僚直接管理一些條文以外的灰色地帶，扼殺創意，結果自綁手腳，硬把如藝術村的好事美意，弄成了臭名和國際笑柄。

我們認為牛棚藝術村的管理手法，以及此類公共空間日後發展之規劃，有關部門應當作在最早階段即作公開諮詢，容許市民持份者持續參與，帶有社區參與的面向。當中佔用了公共資源的藝術團體不單也有責任向公眾交待他們的意向，更該盡力為其社區街坊服務對象爭取權益。社區藝術的發展，對促進本港藝術生態和市民的文化參與，無疑比君臨天下之勢的西九發展更為根本。

《牛棚社區網絡關注組》

Our TV 訪問

2010-10-02T18:10:00.002+08:00

瑞士的月亮湖

2010-09-20T13:20:00.004+08:00

一湖之隔,對面便是法國。

Indie Space_AGIT

2010-08-27T16:31:00.002+08:00

http://club.cyworld.com/ClubV1/Home.cy/50487244

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/album.php?aid=40215&id=100000046355551&fbid=162050840473127

關於我︳About me

2010-07-27T23:14:00.012+08:00

李俊峰，1984年生於香港。2007年畢業於中文大學藝術系。現從事創作，教育及展覽策劃工作。他過去曾策劃《香港建築傷憐展》（2008）及《風雨飄搖愛國時》年青藝術家六四展（2009）。他現為上海街社區實驗藝術中心<活化廳>成員。另外，他亦是社區電台的藝評節目<後浪>的主持，以公民抗命的心關心香港藝術發展。

Lee Chun-fung is an artist, cultural producer and art educator based in HK. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Fine Arts Department in 2007. He has curated several political art projects such as Hong Kong Anarchitecture Bananas (2008) and FENG YU PIAO YAO AI GUO SHI─ art response to June 4th 20th anniversary (2009) . He is one of the founders of community art space: Woofer Ten, and he hosts an art critique programme post-wave in the community radio station FM101. He, with a heart of civil disobedience, concerns himself with the development of local art.

start223

2010-07-25T02:22:00.001+08:00

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《牛棚社區網絡關注組》

Our TV 訪問

瑞士的月亮湖

Indie Space_AGIT

關於我 ︳About me

start223

余杰：劉曉波與劉霞的愛情

牛棚搵鬼去　土炮Hello 喂

關於我︳About me