The convergence of struggles ("convergence des luttes") sounds like a good idea, but in reality it's a practice of dissuading, exhausting and diluting small-scale and grassroots initiatives, based on the stupid myth that something is successful if it is big. But what if success had nothing to do with size?
Building a coalition in the pseudo-independent, highly competitive, oppressive and toxic local activist milieu means that you are slowly being swallowed up by an opaque machine with unfocused ambitions, where you give up your original objectives for a supposedly nobler transversal goal. Because it's a competition? And is there a noble and nobler causes? And are they subordinate to each other? Is one goal more important than the other? Why? According to whom? Political activism is not a question of subsets, you are not automatically "part of" a cause, there are no sub-causes and main-causes, there is no cause-pyramid and cause-hierarchy, it's nonsense. Political activism isn't a cake, you don't get less of a cause just because someone else is involved in it. Just because someone else is doing it, doesn't mean you have to unite, it doesn't mean you'll be more effective together. Political activism is not an entertainment industry, it's not about how many tickets you sell. It makes absolutely no difference how many you are, really. To join a coalition means to grow, to change scale. You may seem louder on the outside, but on the inside you will suddenly start to echo: the inner space becomes emptier and emptier... Have we given ourselves up to unite, when we have already united?! We have given ourselves up to grow, but we have shrunk in essence. There is always a critical mass in political activism. The semantic field surrounding the coalition, reminiscent of capitalist logic, encourages small organisations, grassroots initiatives, to grow, develop and expand, while it is clear from the very first moment that if a small organisation outgrows itself, sooner or later it will lose its voice, its way, its heart. As this is clear from the outset, the question arises: is the push for coalition not a deliberate cannibalisation, a demagogic rhetorical weapon of destruction from within? We don't need to grow to exist. We don't need to unite to have a stronger voice. We don't need to be loud to be visible. We don't need to be visible to make things happen. The two most effective weapons in political activism today are free and legal: invisibility and unpredictability, both the privilege of small organisations. Perhaps this is the reason for the whole cult of coalitions, perhaps this is why they use cheap tricks to try to absorb and then destroy small organisations: because they are dangerous when they are small, but when they grow they are loud only. The soul is lost in growth.
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Author"Born in Budapest (Hungary), in 1983, and graduated from the ENSAPC Art School (France) in 2016, I am working with art as a means of connection and with education as a means of activism. I am making full evening pieces and short-format performances, holding multi-sensorial political soft-spaces, creating immersive choreographic experiences, and building rebellious communities. In the past 8 years, I dreamed up the School of Disobedience, founded an artist collective then my own performance art company (Gray Box), launched an annual festival (Wildflowers), exhibited in a toilet, performed in a boxing ring, curated in an elevator, gave lectures in a techno club, run classes in a hammam... I like everything that is unusual, unexpected, and nonconformist. I am not kind with assholes and learned how to follow my own path. I think the party is outside the canon." Archives
September 2023
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