What characterizes the protests, demonstrations and uprisings that have taken place over the past ten years in a surging movement across much of the world, from Greece to Tunisia and Egypt, on to Spain, USA, Chile, Ukraine, Brazil, France and Hong Kong etc.?

According to the Italian philosopher Marcello Tari, we are dealing with a new destructive communism that rejects the established political system and demands that it resign. Destitution means deposition. The protesters on the streets reject the political leaders and the entire political-economic system they represent. They do not demand other politicians or any other policy, they simply and politically demand that the politicians resign. Thus, there is a clear anti-political dimension in the protests in the sense that it is a radical and revolutionary critique of the whole way in which political today is thought and practiced. The protesters refuse to participate in the political spectacle they say and withdraw, interrupting the political order's recognition forms.

Avantgardebevægelser

Tari's analysis of this anti-political gesture is an important contribution to the analysis of the new cycle of protest and its forms. Many commentators and philosophers have difficulty understanding the protests. They appear without any clear political agenda and seem to be pointing in many different directions – what will the yellow vests in France, for example? Many commentators are quick to dismiss the protests as unrealistic. On the contrary, Tari shows that the protests can be understood as a rediscovery of revolutionary communism, which not least draws on the anti-artistic avant-garde movements and their attempts to merge art and life into a revolutionary art of life beyond the state and money. When protesters walk the streets and block ports or highways or occupy seats, they not only reject the political system, they are engaged in an immediate material transformation of life, as it is lived in the late-capitalist play society. They live another life on the other side of the barricade.

A rejection of the entire representative national democracy.

Tari outlines a historical course that begins with the Argentine piquetero movement in 2001 in the wake of the collapse of the Argentine economy. Protesters blocked roads and intersections, stopping trade and the economy. They did so completely bypassing unions and political parties. The blockades took place under the slogan Que vayan todos! That no one is alone! (They must all go! No one must be left!). As Tari describes, here we have a clear expression of the destructive gesture that characterizes the revolts of today. It is not about challenging one political program with another, it is not about getting other politicians to represent the people, it is a rejection of the whole representative national democracy that has nevertheless merged with the stock market. The protesters are not only dissatisfied with specific politicians, but are tired of politics as an institutionalized phenomenon in the late capitalist societies. As Tari writes, there is at once an almost naive simplicity to the rejection, but it also contains a radical revolutionary critique.

Tari rediscovers the motto of Argentina 2001 in all the protests and revolts that have taken place since 2010. In Tunisia, protesters screamed Decage (Get off) to Ben Ali, and in France the yellow vests demonstrated under the slogan The world or nothing (World or nothing). Limited reforms are rejected, it is another life the protesters want, in other words it is something the current political order cannot give them. Therefore, it must go away. The conflict is clearly drawn up. It is the state facing the uprising.

Benjamin and Agamben

Tari's analysis of the new uprising movement is an important contribution to the rethinking of what the revolution is today. He draws on Walter Benjamin's critique of the violence of the law and Giorgio Agamben's analysis of potentiality and shows how the revolution must be a realization. This is what we can see in all the uprisings: how protesters are trying to disable the state's terrorist counterterrorism and put it out of action. It is a risky undertaking, and the state responds again with full force, while at the same time relieving itself of legal liability.

It's the same picture all over. The counter-revolution organizes itself. We see this in the Mediterranean, where the Italian government, led by Salvini, goes to great lengths to drown migrants. We have seen it in France, where the police have deliberately gone after mutilating protesters by shooting their eyes out. And we see it currently in Hong Kong, where the danger of a new Tiananmen is extremely real. The uprisings just go on and on, but apparently there are no limits to the radicalization of power either.