re:FUSE '24 congress report

The goal of this report is to share some brief reflections on our recent visit to Hamburg whilst attending the re:FUSE congress. For those who could not attend, we hope that this text will provide some insight. To those present, let this be a contribution to an ongoing discussion and exchange of ideas. We have written this text collectively.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to the comrades who organised this congress. We do not underestimate how much work has been put into making this event a reality. To name but a few aspects: a robust 3 day programme, several locations, delicious food, a bookfair, evening programme, awareness teams, audio recording logistics, a website, translations and a roof over our heads! We are humbled and inspired by this scale of self-organisation.

We've received a warm welcome from many new comrades, especially those involved in Die Plattform, Perspektive Selbtsverwaltung (PS), FAU, ASS and UCL. Some of our most valuable moments were chatting with you over breakfast, catching up after a talk or while walking together from one venue to another. Thank you all!

Before proceeding, we would like to address the elephant in the room. With respect to the broad coalition of groups involved in the formulation, we must express our disappointment with the "On the Current Situation in Israel & Palestine" statement on the congress announcements page. It expresses no explicit support for the palestinian people, their resistance, their national liberation struggle, a demand for ceasefire and an end to genocide and apartheid.

This was referred to by several comrades as a "German problem" and an ongoing site of struggle. We have received copies of the "On Palestine and Israel" statement by Perspektive Selbtsverwaltung which we believe is a vital contribution in this regard, collectively written and published from within the German context.

We were grateful to see many wearing the Keffiyeh, to find many willing to discuss this issue openly and while the programme was largely silent on Palestine, we believe the UCL comrades successfully broke this silence in their Sunday morning talk on anti-racist struggles.

We also want to recognize that for the congress to happen at all, a compromise on this issue had to be reached and we recognize that many did their best in favor of the Palestinian struggle. We hope these comrades will continue the struggle in their own spaces and organisations to fight the so-called "antideutsch" sentiments and express solidarity with the Palestinian struggles.

We would like to share some reflections on 2 of the talks we attended, "Out of the Scene - Into the Class" and "From the past of France to the future of Europe: how our struggle against racism in our countries is an international question". The full program can be found here. A warm thank you to the PS comrade whose whisper translations (in Dutch!) helped us keep up with the discussion.

The first talk was a well moderated exchange involving an impressive list of active anarchist organisations: Die Plattform, Sauerkrautfabrik Harburg, Bergfidel Solidarisch, Perspektive Selbstverwaltung, FAU and ASS. It was inspiring to see anarchism discussed not as a marginal ideal but as something which is daily put to test against reality in neighbourhood unions, labour and student organising and tenant rights struggles.

This discussion raised several questions. What is our shared definition of class and do we see ourselves as part of this definition? What do we understand exactly as "the scene", how do we relate to it and what role does it play? The discussion focused mainly on the concrete daily practices of the participants. It was refreshing to see the format not revolve around individuals but around organisational practice. We heard from anarchists active in organisations they themsevles participated in building. They spoke from their subjective experience on how they put their organisations ideas into practice on the short and long term.

We hope this event and this discussion specifically brought these organisations closer together, but we would have hoped the discussion would also focus more on a long term revolutionary perspective and how everyone could work together to establish libertarian socialism. The moderator brought this point up briefly, discussing their experiences from within the Kurdish freedom movement and the idea of democratic confederalism (DC). We would not advocate for an exact replica of DC but it does give us a reference point, just like federalist communes and council structures which have been advocated for by anarchists since its birth. We can explore this vision of building a fully self managed society, to strategize what needs to happen and to join forces to make this a reality. One could argue that this is too far out of reach to even talk about at this point, but without a discussion on what visions and paths we could follow, we limit our possibilities and imagination. 

The second talk on anti-racist struggles in France was given by comrades from UCL. In short, this was a powerful elaboration of theory and practice which covered a lot of ground and was followed by a rich discussion. They began by outlining their conception of racism and claiming a historical materialist approach. People are not "just" racist, it is not simply a moral or natural phenomena, it is a result of social processes, e.g. pseudo-scientific efforts to categorise people ("race") in order to lay the ideological foundations of white supremacy and justify genocide. These are then used by capitalist-statism to exploit and divide workers and marginalized people.

We appreciate this approach which does not relegate theory to a way to gain "scene points" but as a useful tool with which we can understand our reality. This furthermore reinforces our understanding that "theory is a tool" means anarchists can pick up and use theories from other currents and disciplines to build up a way of analysing and explaining aspects of society. We have seen that claiming "historical materialism" can often  be dismissed as "an authoritarian socialist thing" but we now understand this is simply a conflation of ideology and theory.

What followed was a wealth of tips and concrete stories from anti-racist struggles situated within the context of their union organising. UCL also claim the unions as the current most popular form of counter-power in France and that participation there is critical. For example, several large scale anti-racist demonstrations are organised by the unions themselves. We understood that anti-racist organising is not a "single issue" focus and involves, amongst other things, a commitment to build inter-cultural awareness, solidarity and knowledge exchange.

We would like to draw attention to one question raised on whether anarchists should support national liberation struggles. The UCL comrades briefly covered their historical trajectory with relation to supporting resistance and national liberation struggles during the Algerian revolution and the repression that followed. We understood their position to be, and with which we agree wholeheartedly, that we should support these struggles. The contradiction that is an anti-state critique and the struggle to establish an independent state should not mean we step out of this debate or ignore these struggles. We can maintain our critique and support those forces who wish to bring about the democratic possibility to struggle more broadly beyond state solutions.

We would like to sincerely thank the UCL comrades for breaking the silence on the issue of Palestine. The issue was not discussed in depth but we thank them for the courage to speak in support of the Palestinian people and draw attention to their work on this issue. One additional notable aspect of this talk is that it took place in Rote Flora, a known location for the antideutsch current in Germany.

To conclude, we'd like to share some impressions of the German anarchist movement from our relatively outsider perspective in the Dutch context.

FvGA is currently working towards the launch of a national organisation based on especifist principles. The two pillars of this current are engagement in popular struggles (organised dualism) and homogenious organisation. We are once again impressed and inspired by the German comrades already active and engaged in their popular local struggles and organised in a diverse range of anarchist organisations. These organisation are not affinity groups, they are based on a programme and are a result of a collective effort to reach agreement on specific ideas, strategy and tactics in order to contribute and push forward the class struggles of our day.

We have heard several comrades speak of their involvement in the international sections of the Kurdish freedom movement. We are very curious to learn more from those who are doing this work: how can anarchists build solidarity and co-operation with this movement? What is our understanding of democratic confederalism? We welcome further contributions on this topic.

We have also attended a talk given by Gabriel Kuhn on international solidarity which gave a broad historical overview of the topic. This was a welcome approach but we felt the overall discussion and potential of the moment was not reached. On the reasons as to why modern internationalism is likely weaker than ever, we were left with more questions than answers.

Upon reflection, we believe questioning the format of the congress itself may be useful. re:FUSE took the form of what we believe to be the current hegemonic format of international anarchist congresses, that is, an "exchange of ideas" between individuals. This is of course still welcome but it is also a format which can often leave us wondering how to move forward and take collective action. We believe an international congress which proposes a programme to work towards common direction, strategy and action between organisations could offer new ways forward.

It would appear that this organisational current is taking further root in Europe in the last years. We can see organisations building the especifict/platformist current in France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Britain and Scotland. We are glad to have made face-to-face contacts within this network and are thankful to those comrades who are willing to help us during our foundational process. We continue our work in this direction with a welcome boost of new energy.