{"id":235,"date":"2018-09-09T00:29:32","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T22:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/k115.org\/?p=235"},"modified":"2019-03-05T23:05:16","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T21:05:16","slug":"nikdy-neslo-jen-o-antifasismus-rozhovor-s-kolektivem-115-o-analyze-akci-i-emancipaci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/2018\/09\/nikdy-neslo-jen-o-antifasismus-rozhovor-s-kolektivem-115-o-analyze-akci-i-emancipaci\/","title":{"rendered":"Kolektiv 115: It\u2019s never been just about anti-fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>A member of Kolektiv 115 \u2013 an emerging radical left group in Prague, talks about activist burnout, efforts of bringing together different protest movements, and a search for a new emancipation vocabulary.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"768\" height=\"753\" src=\"http:\/\/k115.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/The-future-is-unwritten.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"236\" data-link=\"http:\/\/k115.org\/?attachment_id=236\" class=\"wp-image-236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/k115.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/The-future-is-unwritten.jpg 768w, https:\/\/k115.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/The-future-is-unwritten-300x294.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>What led you to start the new radical left group Kolektiv 115?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">The first push came from people\naround Iniciativa ne rasismu! (INR) who were a bit frustrated by\nweakness and fragmentation of the Czech movement, so they came with\nan idea of setting up a wider group that would be better organized,\ncapable of greater cooperation, and also more actionable. Thus, the\ngroup could handle more topics at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Is it just a vision or has it became a reality yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">K115 is already bigger than INR, because it connects people from various collectives. The key is that it is something qualitatively different. We collaborate with people from different groups and each of them has their own agenda. But we\u2019re far from absorbing already existing initiatives, it\u2019s more like interconnecting their members into a wider collective. Right now there are three work groups within the organization: anti-fascist, feminist and a group focusing on the right to the city. We\u2019re also plannig an environmental working group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>The motto of K115 \u201cAnalysis, Action, Emancipation\u201d resembles a German post-autonomous organization TOP Berlin (\u201cTheory, Organization, Praxis\u201d). Is it by accident or was it an inspiration?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">We are familiar with the group\nTOP Berlin, so it is possible, that it could have been inspiration\nfor some people, but we chose the motto for it\u2019s meaning, not as an\nimitation. There is no coherent activism without analysis, without\naction you can\u2019t move anything, not a piece of shit and\nemancipation leads to more liberate and more fair arrangements for\nboth individual and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>The establishing of your collective goes hand in hand with termination of INR, although the problem of xenophobia is on the rise. Was this a good time to end INR?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Assuming that K115 would just\nleave the topic of anti-fascism, it would be wrong to terminate INR,\nbut that didn\u2019t happen, it\u2019s still a part of our politics. But\nwhile some time ago the biggest problem was militant neonazis and the\nstrategy of INR were public protests and blockades, current situation\nis different. What we see today is takeover of etabled political\nstructures by fasists. That\u2019s why we need to find new strategies\nand tactics and anti-fascist praxis, which is one problem we want to\nsolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Is there a connection between the exhaustion of INR with reactivity, like, since you reacts to moves of your political opponents all the time, there is no space for opening topics of your own political agenda?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Yes, to some extent. But for INR\nit was never just about anti-fascism and we tried to present our own\nvision of politics including feminist topics or critics of\ncapitalism. But for such a small group maybe it was too much which\nmay lead to a frustration. In K115 we may be able to prevent burn-out\nand even make it easier to return to activism because there are no\nboundaries between the working groups. When someone is tired by\nradical anti-fascism he\/she can focus on social justice and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>In your manifest, instead of traditional left-wing terminology, you use pop-culture references: you quote Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Galadriel from Lord of the Rings or Morpheus from Matrix. Do you want to touch the younger generation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">We wanted to lighten a little bit\nthe opening statement, we\u2019re not a bunch of academics that know Das\nKapital by heart and we want to be an inclusive collective. Not\neveryone got into politics by theory, people got there through\nsubcultures or life experince. The language of left-wing theory is\noften hard to understand and K115 wants to talk to people also\ndifferently then just by language of theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>But can we actually find some references to left-wing politics in those pieces?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">That was not our intention. We know that Tolkien was a conservative, Harry Potter a liberal and Morpheus kind of an elitist. It\u2019s about the meaning of those sentences, not the whole piece. I have noted that some people have problems with it but our choice of quotes doesn\u2019t mean we gave up on left-wing terminology. We just want to update it and make it more inclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Does it work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">It\u2019s an opening statement. We\nwill produce different kind of texts in the future, including\nacademic ones. But people came beacause it touched them. Our\nexperience from the past says this strategy works. It was the same\nwith INR. Where we gave up some words beacause they were like red rag\nto a bull. It is the same with Klinika, as they have shown similar\ncreative usage of language. In our (post-communist) context we can\ntry to explain over and over again that we don\u2019t want authoritarian\ncommunism, but it\u2019s kind of endless struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>You want to learn from the mistakes of the past emancipation movements. What mistakes do you have in mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Mostly the age-old disease, the sectarianism, for example in the form of strictly subcultural structures or the ideological puritanism and fundamentalism. It is important to discuss ideology and politics, but such issues cannot became rigid dogma. Similarly, the subcultures should not fetishize their own style of life. We dont want to pursue the change through the state structures, for sure. In the same time, we are far from \u201coutlaw style\u201d anarchism, especially the idea that utopic goal is to be achieved only by immediate violent uprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Are you trying to reconcile revolutionary marxists with anarchists?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">We are using the term \u201cradical\nleft\u201d because it is umbrella term for more traditions of thought\nand we are trying to grasp the most important from them. In th\ncollective, there are people influenced by anarchism as well as\nanti-authoritarian Marxism or democratic socialism. Identitarianism\nis not important at all for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>You\u2019re planning an event called Rebel Prague: Days for right to the city. Who has the right to the city and how we should practice it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Definitely the people who live\nthere. There are many possibilities and topics dealing with the right\nto the city. From housing as a human right, through bike lanes, to\ncollapsing bridges. There are differents ways of how to take the city\nback, nevertheless we have to remember, that the city today is shaped\npredominantly by the developers and the market logic, which is the\ncase of the Metropolitan plan. Rebel Prague combines both praxis and\ntheory, offers analysis as well as practical workshops where you can\nlearn for example what to do to avoid evicition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>What is your attitude towards direct actions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Direct actions are part of the\nradical left repertoire and we will definitely not give them up. But\nthey shouldn\u2019t be done just because we can feel good about it. In\nthe case of the Days for right to the city we don\u2019t want to tell\npeople what they should do, we want to connect activists who are\nalready active in this sphere with people who are concerned about the\nstate of their city. Together they can find the ways how to take the\nright to the city in their own hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right\" class=\"has-small-font-size\">Luk\u00e1\u0161 Rychetsk\u00fd<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>Interview was published in magazine A2 n. 18\/2018. Illustration by Alexej Klujkov.<\/em><br\/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A member of Kolektiv 115 \u2013 an emerging radical left group in Prague, talks about activist burnout, efforts of bringing together different protest movements, and a search for a new emancipation vocabulary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k115.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}