Catgirls Book Club ~ lectures pour catgirls anarchistes ~♥

This interview between Warzone Distro & Guta – one of the organizers of EININPAACF, or Encuentro Internacional de Practicas Anarquicas y Antiauthoritarias Contra las Fronteras, which in english translates to annual international gathering of anarchist and anti-authoritarian practices against borders – took place a few days before and after the event. This event, which took place January 25 – 27 in Tijuana, Mexico, reflects a new emergence of individualist, anarcho-nihilist perspectives influenced not only by the current techno-industrial world in general, but also by the perceived failings of leftism experienced by anarchists living in so-called mexico.

Warzone Distro: To start off with, could you give us some background on what inspired the creation of EININPAACF?

Guta: Well, the beginning of ENINPAACF came from just thinking and reflecting on the absence of these kind of meetings, which have the function of having face-to-face communication. Among only close friends, for a long time we’ve had conversations about individualism and nihilism that relate to experiences that we’ve had over the years, both before entering the Anarquíca movement and once already inside. Some of those experiences come from ruptures with Zapatismo or non profits, or in my case I come from a family whose political tendency was Marxist, Leninist and Zapatista, and when I was younger I followed them. With time I abandoned them, because the role of being a victim and sometimes doing things just to be a welfare worker never appealed to me, and then I saw that the same feelings were also held by my close friends, and well we talked about the disappointments we lived through. Of course we all have different positions, but we always have certain threads that weave us in complicity. And that’s how the ENINPAACF started. Then I met some more people and I set up some activities with them last year, I didn’t know them very well, but I really wanted to come back after years of being away from anarchist activities to see what was new in the public sphere. Those actions went very well, and so I thought it was a good idea to propose this meeting.

I consider it important, this impulse of doing things with that passion that encourages you to continue, no matter the difficulties or if there are only a few people involved or if there are no spaces where to develop those things. It is something that has already happened a few times during my participation in the Mauricio Morales Squatted Social Center in 2016 and I could see it coming now. So with that I tried to keep myself with a stoic character to keep going. However, I did not count on that effort quickly spreading to creating the meeting, plus I tried to use all possible tools; talking face to face with people I thought were interested, I went to events to meet people and invite, I sent emails to accomplices from other territories and in short, I see that it was deflagrating individual will. Also something I have learned over the years is that the fewer people involved, the greater the capacity to get things done. I guess, it is not for everyone to not to let the crowds seduce us, I think that in the end, we have always been taught that everything is better when there is quantity, even that it is better to delegate your will to some entity that manages the wills, let’s call it State, political parties, unions, dad, mom, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and so on and so on and so forth.

Also something important to mention, I knew that the most difficult thing was/is to crack the language barrier, something that is necessary, because all that information full of experiences that stirs in the territory occupied by the mexican state is/was/will be necessary to break those borders. In fact that is why this project is said to be against the borders. Someone proposed to me to keep the event limited to within the border. But I thought it would be good to begin to delimit and position it against borders, from a tendency of direct and open anarchonihilist confrontation against colonial dominion.

After some time more and more people started to support it, giving contributions, some translations of the flyer spreading the word about the event, making the final flyer, but more than spreading the word, also offering physical support the day of the event and it was something that felt good to me, it told me a bit about the quality of will that people had to not only attend, but to be directly involved. But it was also difficult, I have never liked the idea of massification of activities, but I also thought it was a risk that was worth it, because that part had been neglected here on this side and in other parts of the mexican territory. Since it is necessary that the flow of counter-information comes directly from those who have something to contribute. And that it travels in all possible directions. It is said that the wolf howls to rejoin his pack…

Warzone Distro: We can certainly relate to the concern of massifying anarchist activities. On one hand, we feel big events like anarchist bookfairs and radical gatherings have their upsides, including providing an opportunity for new connections to be made between accomplices as well as faceto-face accessibility to new information. Unfortunately we also see how these events are becoming increasingly managed by authoritarians posing as anarchists, who weaponize positions of organizational power to impliment liberalized, identity-reinforcing policies. In your personal opinion, what experiences out there do you think led to this new emergence of nihilistic and individualistic anarchist activity?

Guta: I think that as far as experiences that have led to the black wave of anarchy and nihilism in mexico, it seems to me that it is the same as in all territories; I know this because of talks with various accomplices and it is/was/will be the immense desire to appropriate our indvidual lives, to devour them here and now, beyond some ideal or utopian promise of a « new society » or satisfaction with demands, as some people still have the fantasy of a significant change in external conditions. Perhaps such a fantasy exists because of the fear of crashing head-on into reality and leaving that fantasy in ruins. It makes them need the drug of hope and concede their will to something seemingly greater to take care of them and manage them and thus taking over their existence. Something that anarchy and nihilism enjoys is the destruction of those victimist ideas; some of us have no fear of the abyss, and we’ve known that since we were children. And that is why it is inevitable that some of us prefer to take charge of our life. I believe that anarchy and nihilism goes beyond a political proposal, in fact I feel that they are seditious proposals to expropriate life.

I do not think this is something new, it seems to me it’s something natural that there are individuals or groups of individuals who confront body to body against the civilizational domain. It is the never-resolved negation of domination. Maybe there comes a time when it is necessary to hibernate, I do think it is indisputable, but it will never disappear, neither by more social control imposed, nor by more « exemplary » punishments. The individualistic war is energetically present in any territory.

Warzone Distro: Some say that « Total Liberation » – an anarchist tendency that includes animal liberation/vegan rejection of speciesism and straight edge/radical sobriety against intoxication culture died in the 2000’s. Do you think it really died? Did it simply go underground? In what ways do you consider vegan, animal liberation and radical sobriety compatible with anarchist nihilism and individualism?

Guta: As far dying, no, not at all, it has never died and will never die, as I said before, hibernation does not mean it is dead, it means it is in some level of sleep…. But still active. For me, (and others) all of these ideas manifest into dangerous and clandestine practices that insist on individual revolt.

As for the relationship between anarchy, nihilism, individualism, radical sobriety and anti-speciesism, I feel that it is a totally compatible relationship which I have assumed personally, and it is not necessary to frame individualism in sobriety and antispeciesism, because for some of us individualism itself contains these practices, in fact for me it feels unnessasary to call myself anarchist or nihilist because I think that the simple fact of assuming individualism is something that necessarily leads to all these practices and ideas. Something I could add is that drug addiction is something that interferes in the way of assuming ourselves as unique, it deprives us of any action of individual revolt. When you stop being you, you become a machine ready to self-destruct at the mercy of the exploitation of your body. Our body ceases to belong to us. Just as how speciesism seperates us from the primordial relationship with nature, beyond ecologism or animalism. Speciesism and intoxication disconnect us from this animistic spiritual relationship. And it turns us into the first worker who builds the world, humanism.

Let us also remember that specialization and identity are two characteristics which the techno-industrial society use to develop it. The system sees the bodies that make up the Society as entities or numbers. It is necessary for the techno-industrial society to provide bodies with identity/race/gender/sexuality, which contribute to the ways of thinking that develop in the world of humanism peacefully/passively/morally. And to assume certain roles of the architects of progress, some directly as bureaucrats, engineers, architects, military, police etc. and others indirectly, which would be those who participate with their passivity and submission to execute and obey their role delegated by the imposed order. That is why individualism when psychologized is interpreted as a sociopathy, and it is, because at its roots it is an anti-social war. And that is why I feel that individualism is a chameleon that camouflages itself with these two characteristics. It is something that cannot be pigeonholed into any political tendency but neither can it be said that it does not have one, however, it can also be said that it does not have a political tendency. I see it more in affinity with wild nature. I understand that some people have conflict with those two words, wild nature. I do not affiliate myself to any group, except my own and with the relationship I can generate with other beings that live their anarchy in the here and now, defending themselves as nature itself.

Warzone Distro: Generally speaking, we feel many self-identifying anarchists take issue with the notion of wild nature because for them, wild nature implies hostility to controlled spaces. And for many radicals, socially controlling a space or event is the only way to create safety. In your description of the ENINPAACF event, you have adapted the « Dangerous Space Policy” from the Green Scare Anarchist Bookfair. What was the inspiration for those of you using it for this event, and why do you think it is practical?

Guta: Beyond just inspiration, it appeared to us as the awareness that every individual has a responsibility for their own actions and existence, which they can take care of without some kind of moral superiority intervening in personal or interpersonal conflicts. But of course, it does not mean that everyone is just going to be a spectator either, therein lies the danger of EVERY transgression, there are conequences. This contrasts the identity politicians who strive to sanctify themselves as moral divinity (both are one in the same) to « create » safe spaces which take away the individual will of those who make up the spaces, who have removed in one way or another, the ability to face and solve problems, in addition to exempting them from consequences. Identity politicians create struggle of genders, sexes and races. Classifying as saints those who do not generate discomfort and are submissive to the identity commandments, and demons to all those considered “problematic” who find their individuality beyond gender, sexes, and races. Even though their justification for “saints and demons” binary is to reduce violence in the spaces, it is funny, because between them and the « safe » spaces, the phrase « man is a wolf for man » makes sense. Having banned all dangerous beings from entering safe spaces the only thing left is their own violence. These identity politicians eat each other.

I believe that violence among gangs, as well as drug addiction is a deeper problem and I believe that such ‘safe space’ policies do not solve anything, because they are civilizational problems, and to prevent them, first of all, one as an individual will have to take responsibility for their existence, to expropriate it. Second, ‘safe space’ policy doesn’t create a radical reconnection with wildness. Such policy disconnects us from painful reality. And so a being incapable of feeling the pains of the world, sanitized by “safety” in this colonized world, is also incapable of feeling the pain caused to any other being (when I say BEING I mean everything that inhabits the wild nature). And that inability to feel also leads to the inability to initiate decisive responses to the roots of those pains.

Warzone Distro: It seems obvious to us that the concept of a safe space is heavily tied to identity politics. In ENINPAACF you also briefly mention a critique of identity politics. Could you elaborate on your critique of identity politics, specifically by explaining the ways in which you and others have experienced identity politics in Mexico?

Guta: As I said before, the techno-industrial system and society needs the bodies that make up the gears of the machinery to play a role within the machine in order to develop, perhaps some gears are more necessary than others, but even so, in order for it to work, all affiliations of identities and specializations are needed. In this world there is no innocence, therefore the man who sweeps the factories where animals are killed is responsible, as well as the one who built it and the one who manages it. The techno-industrial system needs us to assume ourselves as humanists and specialize in a specific field, it would be unforgivable to just scratch our bellies. Since humanism is the idea that governs progress, without humans, there would be no sense in the fight for power. Besides, only the human is the being that has developed a fetish for power. The world of humanism is based on power and also on time. Being a slow, lazy, thief, is always frowned upon, because you are not contributing to its progress. Perhaps that is why sometimes we feel a certain affinity with street criminals, however, at the end of the day their intentions are not to be the bar that sabotages, but rather, they seek to benefit from the system itself, but to learn from them their modus operandi I think it is salvageable…

As for how identity politics are lived or developed here in mexico, it seems to me that it is something that has begun to gain strength. Moral superiority and the degree of marginalization have begun to be legitimized as authority… now your degree of moralism and marginalization are automatically valid, but your personal experiences with oppression are not valid, and do not matter. Spaces have become congregations, where you are attacked or suspected just because you don’t think alike or are of a different race or gender. Sure, if you are submissive of course you might get a piece of the pie and can make your event/project easier in some space that has those policies. Curiously, as the experience of a group of friends here in Tijuana in one of the spaces that claim to be safe, the space is one of the most unsafe, since they let in people with drug addiction problems who have violated the people who manage the space, and is also one of the places where there is more violence from people who uphold the identity policies of safe spaces, and where now hierarchy is also exercised. Being white or straight or simply not identifying with the LGBTQ+ community, even if you have different sexual or gender preferences, makes you a target of suspicion.

In short, I believe that identity politics have been transformed into devices for the control of revolt or subversion. Their struggle is for the flattening of ideas. The control assembly is still the same as in the Middle Ages, only now it has been adopting nuances of over-socialization. And the punishment for not adopting submission is the castration of subversive ideas. In fact, in my opinion, it is more dangerous this kind of identity devices, we are talking about people having to censor themselves for fear of social lynching. Interesting case, but something like this has been adopted by the Morena government that currently governs with Andrés Manuel López Obrador; all dissidence is pointed out as conservative, regardless of whether they are or not, and the street fights that have taken place during the feminist demonstrations and other anarchist demonstrations have also been pointed out as conservative. No, I don’t think so, it is something intentional and they are indications of a castration of anarchist ideas through the use of morality.

Current mexican politics has been subordinated to identity politics and moralist supremacy in order to control dissidence in their attempt to look like a progressive and inclusive government. The presidential conferences seem like evangelization sessions.

Warzone Distro: It’s very interesting to hear this. We have seen something similar happen here. Any disagreements with identity politicians leads to ridiculous accusations of being a right-winger, and eco-defense, anti-civ individualists are generally accused of being “eco-fascist”. We feel you hit the nail on the head when you said these “are indications of a castration of anarchist ideas through the use of morality”. There seems to be a number of so-called anarchists who weaponize identity politics and morality with the intention of controlling those insubordinate to their authoritarian goals.

There are a lot of people outside of so-called mexico that generally associate mexican anarchists with the EZLN. What is your response to this?

Guta: Of course there was certainly an incantation within many anarchist groups to affiliate themselves with the EZLN and its outreach organizations. However, several have had ruptures since the EZLN tried to take power through an independent candidate for the presidency in 2018, maybe you heard her name is Marichuy, in short that is something that the EZLN does not talk much about outside of Mexico, in fact they never talked about it during the tour to Europe. There are comrades from those lands who made an analysis of their tour in Europe and their position with respect to the institutional assimilationist character in which the EZLN has been directed. Some comrades had already anticipated the intentions of Zapatismo, comrades who worked for a long time, some were vetoed out for not following the revolutionary laws. Others have just recently ended their relationship with the Zapatista movement, after 35 years of contributing within their controlled territories. And I do speak of the federation of love and rage (Amor y Rabia) and other more individualities.

But just as there have been anarchists faithful to Zapatismo, there have always been the gangs that take a more critical stance regarding their Zapatista intentions and always look with suspicion at their comuniques and insistence on hijacking the anarchist movement. As well as with various red guerrillas they have tried to recruit Anarchist practices. Cannon fodder at the service of the Marxist-Leninist armies.

During the first criticisms of the EZLN they began to invent any trick to discredit the experiences lived in their territories. Something that is never mentioned is the infinity of assassinations they carried out for anyone insubordinating them.

My answer to all this is that the EZLN is in a very strong crisis, their territorial strongholds are crumbling, drug trafficking has managed to infiltrate their bases, corruption has reached their governments, at this point anything can be expected from them. The interesting thing is to put back on the table those experiences and criticisms that have been generated within the gang that has coexisted and also from those who see their semantic games as suspicious.

It is very true that Zapatismo loves the power and progress of being another government, they want a piece of the cake. They do not deny the cake, they deny that it is not well distributed.

How do you tell me that your power is good and the other is bad? How do you tell me to organize myself but at the same time you try to seduce me to vote? Some of us do not fall into your Machiavellian moral judgment, and some of us do not believe in the vote nor in the state, nor in any form of authority. How do you explain that you lost credibility by using the same mechanisms of social control that are used by patriarchs, white supremacists and colonizers to oppress you and me?

Will they say it was only a strategy?

Would they have said the same if they had won?

Warzone Distro: Speaking of reformism, some of us here in so-called america feel that generally speaking, leftism doesn’t destroy structural authoritarianism, but pursues recreating it through the establishment of more egalitarian types of colonial societies. What are your thoughts on this?

Guta: Of course, we agree. The legalistic citizen reform movements also share this colonial objective. Although not all people who call themselves anarchists think the same, some anarchists believe in the legitimization of struggles through the state, they move in the civilizational binarism. Good-evil, just-unjust, sin-pure, innocent-guilty, heaven-hell.

Then there are those of us who agree that freedom is an exercise that is carried out individually, without the need for social or state validation, and know that it is necessary the real and material rupture of the forms in which power incarnates our lives. Before anything else, destruction. Because it is only from nothingness that we can decide how to create ourselves.

Warzone Distro: Many radicals here in so-called america have difficulty understanding individualist anarchy as an anticolonial practice. We (Warzone Distro) believe this to be rooted by a cultural worship of Marxist and Maoist thought from which individualism is perceived to be a product of capitalism. What is your response to radicals, including a few Indigenous voices who claim that anarcho-nihilists are « pushing an assimilated individualist ideology »?

Guta: Unintentionally, individualist war is anti-colonial, nihilistic and anarchic. And I say unintentionally, because without taking into account every action against entities of civilization, those actions lead perhaps without realizing something that links the same Egoic desires and it is the ambition to assert ourselves without mediation against that which is the creation of the idea of Man and which appears as sacred and superior before us.

However, I am aware that in some territories the anti-colonial « struggle » has been reduced to processes of demand and legitimization of rights. And this is one of the reasons why I do not like to pigeonhole the individualistic character in the development of ideologies coming from old or contemporary demands.

For, it seems to me a bit absurd to understand the individualist war as a form of contradictions and synthesis between ideologies, since individualism is not a formula nor does it need any validation from the emerging ideologies of our time to be considered « consistent ». The staunch individualism I am proposing is to drive every idea of anarchy to crime. If the spirit of the techno-industrialized society is realized in the creation of rights built upon the creation of rights, then it is a matter of the creation of rights. If the spirit of the techno-industrialized society is realized in the creation of rights built under the motto that the freedom of society will be realized in laws and rights, the liberation of the individualist is realized with all weapons and devices; deception, satire, anonymity, blasphemy are also part of the war and crime against the techno-industrialized civilization and the values under which it is built.

So the individualist, is not an agenda of laws, rights or validations of why and how to improve reality to make it « good », nor should it tend to the benefit of any entity, whether it be institution, law, laws or any individual that embodies the desperation to belong to the meek mass.

The only desires that the individualist satisfies are those of them self, because simply, the individualist violence is for the benefit of and for, the individual. However, it seems to me that unwittingly that same war waged by the individualist connects to other individual wars, without wishing it or naming it, and sometimes leads us to unite in a free association.