Printed by the Inoperative Committee

Tiqqun
low is it to be done
November 2008
ZONE D`OPACITe OFFENSIVE
On November 11th 2008, French Anti-Terrorism Police
arrested around twentv people in connection with hve
incidents of sabotage in the preceding weeks, in which
electric train lines were shut down, causing delavs. Nine
of these were subsequentlv accused of 'criminal associa-
tion for the purposes of terrorist activitv.` Because manv
of the accused were arrested in Tarnac, a small village in
the Corre:e region of central France, thev have become
know in the press as the 'Tarnac 9.` Thev have been as-
sociated with certain political texts, including the fournal
Tiqqun and the bestselling book The Coming Insurrection.
The press has dubbed them 'anarcho-autonomous` fol-
lowing the Ministrv of Justice which has been conducting
a crusade against this supposed movement for some time.
We are reprinting this text from the fournal Tiqqun in
solidaritv with them.
TOTAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE ACCUSED'
for more information.
www.tarnac9.wordpress.com
1
aov`t /vor rbat ravt,
bvt /vor bor to get it.
Sex Pistols
.varcb, iv tbe |K
I
1\LN1\ \LARS. 1wenty years of covvterrerotvtiov. O rerevtire
counter-reolution.
In Italy.
And elsewhere.
1wenty years o a sleep behind security gates, haunted with security
guards. A sleep of boaie., imposed by curew.
1wenty years. 1he past does not pass. Because war continues.
RamiFes. Lxtends.
In a global networking o local assemblages |ai.o.itif.|. In an original
calibration o subjectiities. In a new superFcial peace.
An arvea peace
well made to coer the course o an imperceptible
ciil war.
1wenty years ago, there was
punk, the moement o , Autonomy,
the metropolitan Indians and the diuse guerrilla.
All at once,
as i born o some underground region o ciilization,
appeared a whole counter-world o subjectiities
that no longer wanted to consume, that no longer wanted to produce,
tbat vo tovger erev ravtea to be .vb;ectiritie..
1he reolution was molecular, the counter-reolution was too.
It saw Frst the oensie,
then durable,
arrangement o a whole complex machine to neutralize all that
carries intensity.
A machine to deuse all that covta explode.
All the dangerous diiduals,
all the indocile bodies,
all the autonomous human hosts.
1hen came twenty years o oolishness, ulgarity, isolation and
desolation.
low is it to be done
Standing up again. Liting tbe beaa up. By choice or by necessity.
\hateer, really, now. Looking at each other in the eyes and saying
let`s start again`. Let eerybody know it, as soon as possible.
\e are starting again.
Done with passie resistance, inner exile, connict by subtraction,
surial. \e are starting again. In twenty years, we hae had enough
time to see. \e hae understood. Demokracy or all, anti-terrorist`
struggle, state massacres, capitalist restructuring and the Great \ork
o the social purge,
by selection,
by casualisation,
by normalisation,
by modernisation`.
\e hae seen, we hae understood. 1he means and the ends. 1he
uture that is resered or us. 1he one we are denied. 1he state
o exception. 1he laws that put the police, the administration,
the judicial authorities aboe the laws. 1he judiciarisation, the
psychiatrisation, the medicalisation o eerything that escapes the
rame. O eerything that fee..
\e hae seen, we hae understood. 1he means and the ends.
\hen power establishes in real time its own legitimacy,
when its iolence becomes preentie
and its right is a right to interere`,
then it is useless to be right. 1o be right agaiv.t it.
One has to be stronger, or slier. 1hat is also why
we are starting again.
1o start again is neer to start .ovetbivg again. Nor to pick up things
where they had been let o. \hat you start again is always .ovetbivg
2
3
et.e. Is always unheard o. Because it is not the past that dries us to it,
but precisely what in it
ba. vot
happened.
And because it is also ovr.etre., then, who are starting again.
1o start again means: to get out o suspension. 1o restore the contact
between our becomings.
Moing,
again,
rom where we are,
now.
lor instance there are tricks
we will no longer all or.
1he trick o society`. 1o be transormed. 1o be destroyed. 1o be
bettered.
1he trick o the social bond. 1hat some would break while others
can pretend to restore` it.
\e will no longer all or these tricks.
One would hae to be a militant element o the planetary-petty-
bourgeoisie,
a citiev really,
not to see that society no longer exists.
1hat it has imploded. 1hat it is only an argument or the terror o
those who claim to re,present it.
1hat which has absented.
All that is social has become alien to us.
\e consider ourseles as absolutely ree o any obligation, o any
prerogatie, o any aFliation
that is .ociat.
Society`
is the name that the Irreparable has oten receied
among those who also wanted to turn it into
the Un-Assumable.
le who reuses this delusion will hae to take
a step to the side
1hat when we are told it is either this or dying, it is always
in reality
this ava dying.
1hus,
human strike
ater human strike, to reach
the insurrection,
where there is nothing but,
where we are all,
rbaterer
.ivgvtaritie..
18
to make
a slight displacement
rom the common logic
o Lmpire and its protest,
the logic o vobitiatiov,
rom their common temporality,
that o evergevc,.
1o start again means: to inhabit this displacement. 1o ace capitalist
schizophrenia in the sense o a growing capacity o ae.vb;ectiri.atiov.
1o desert ritbovt abavaovivg tbe reaov..
1o nee, imperceptibly.
1o start again means: to marshal social secession, opacity, to join the
aevobitiatiov,
draining rom one or other imperial production-consumption
network the means to lie and Fght
in order, at the chosen time,
to scuttle it.
\hat we are talking about is a new war,
a new arti.av war. \ithout ront nor uniorm, without army nor
decisie battle.
A guerilla whose foco. unold away rom the commercial nows
although plugged into them.
\e`re talking about a war ull o latency. 1hat`s got time.
A war o o.itiov.
\hich is waged where we are.
In the name o no one.
In the name o our own existence,
which has no name.
Making this slight displacement.
No longer earing our time.
Not to ear one`s time is a matter o space`.
In a squat. In an orgy. In a riot. In an occupied train or illage. In
search, among strangers, o a free art, that is nowhere to be ound. I
make the experience o this slight displacement. 1he experience
4
1he Stalinists, back then, used to talk o diuse irrationality`.
1here are also writers
who are doing nothing else but
human strike.
Kaka, \alser,
or Michaux,
or instance.
1o cottectiret, acquire this ability to shake o
amiliarities,
this art o dealing, within onesel,
with the most disturbing o all guests.
In the present war,
where the emergency reormism o Capital has to dress up as a
reolutionary to be heard,
where the most democratic Fghts, those o the counter-summits,
practice direct action,
a role is prepared or us.
1he role o the martyrs o the demokratic order
that preentiely hits eery body that covta hit.
I should let mysel be immobilized in ront o a computer while
nuclear plants explode, while one plays with my hormones or poisons
me.
I should start singing the ictim`s rhetoric. As is well-known,
eeryone is a ictim, een the oppressors.
And saour the discreet circulation o masochism
which re-enchants the situation.
1oday human strike means
reusing to play the role o the ictim.
Attacking it.
1aking back iolence.
Imposing impunity.
Making the paralyzed citizens understand
tbat if tbe, ao vot ;oiv tbe rar tbe, are art of it av,ra,.
17
O my own desubjectiisation. I becove
a rbaterer .ivgvtarit,. My presence starts oernowing the whole
apparatus o qualities that are usually associated with me.
In the eyes o someone who would like to consider me for rbat av,
I saour the disappointment, bi. disappointment to see me becoming
.o covvov, so perectly accessible. In the gestures o someone else, I
Fnd an unexpected complicity.
Lerything that isolates me as a .vb;ect, as a body proided with a
public conFguration o attributes, I eel melting.
1he bodies ray at their limit. At their limit, become indistinct.
Block by block, the rbaterer ruins the equialence. And I reach a new
nudity,
an ivroer nudity, as i dressed with loe.
Does one eer escape rom the prison o the Sel alone
In a squat. In an orgy. In a riot. In an occupied train or illage. \e get
together again.
\e get together again
a. rbaterer .ivgvtaritie.. 1hat is to say
not on the basis o a common aFliation,
but o a covvov re.evce.
1his is our
veea for covvvvi.v. 1he need or nocturnal spaces, where we can
get together
beyond
our predicates.
Beyond the t,ravv, o recognition \hich imposes recognition as a
Fnal distance between bodies.
As an ineluctable separation.
Lerything through which ONL - my boyriend, my amily, my
enironment, my company, the state, the opinion - recognizes me is
just that through which ONL takes me to be constrained.
By constantly reminding me o what I am, o my qvatitie., ONL
wants to extract me rom each situation. ONL wants to extort rom
me, in eery circumstance, a Fdelity to mysel which is but a Fdelity
to v, reaicate..
I am expected to behae as a man, as an employee, as an unemployed,
5
such or such contrite or indignant tone,
the human strike is that strike which
PRLlLRS NO1 1O.
1hat slips away rom the assemblage. 1hat saturates it or explodes it.
Pulls itsel together, preerring
.ovetbivg et.e.
Something else that does not belong to the authorized possibilities o
the assemblage.
At the counter o such and such goernment oFce, at the check
out o such and such supermarket, in a polite conersation, during a
police raid,
according to the balance o power,
human strike gies consistency to the spaces between bodies,
pulerizes the aovbte biva in which they are caught,
force. tbev ivto re.evce.
1here is a whole new Luddism to be inented, a Luddism o the
human machinery
that eeds Capital.
In Italy, radical eminism was an embryonic orm o human strike.
^o vore votber., rovev ava girt., tet`. ae.tro, tbe favitie.! was an
initation to the gesture o breaking the expected chain o eents,
to release the compacted potentialities.
It was a blow to ucked up loe aairs, to ordinary prostitution.
It was a call to the oercoming o the couple as elementary unit in
the management o alienation.
A call or complicity, then.
Such a practice required circulation, contagion.
1he women`s strike implicitly called or the strike o men and
children, summoned them to run rom actories, schools, oFces and
prisons,
to reinent or each situation another way to be, another bor.
Italy in the seenties was an enormous area o human strike.
Sel-reductions`, hold-ups, squatted neighbourhoods, armed
demonstrations, pirate radios, countless cases o Stockholm
syndrome`, een the amous letters sent by Moro towards the end o
his detention, were orms o human strike.
16
general strike.
\hat answers the question or to ao. is the ractice o the lUMAN
S1RIKL.
1he general strike meant that exploitation was limited
in time and space,
that alienation was partial, due to a recognizable enemy, and thus
beatable.
luman strike replies to an age in which the limits between work and
lie are ading away.
In which consuming and suriing,
producing subersie texts` and dealing with the most toxic eects
o industrial ciilization,
doing sports, making loe, being a parent or taking Prozac
rer,tbivg i. ror/.
Because Lmpire manages and digests, absorbs and reintegrates
all that lies.
Len what I am`, the subjectiisation that I do not deny bic et vvvc,
eerything is productie.
Lmpire has put eerything to work.
Ideally, my proessional proFle will coincide with my own ace.
Len i it does not smile.
lor in any case, the grimaces o the rebel sell nicely.
Lmpire is when the means o production hae become means o
control
at the ery same time that the opposite reealed itsel to be the case.
Lmpire means that in all things the political moment aovivate.
the economic one.
A general strike is helpless against this.
\hat must be opposed to Lmpire is a human strike.
\hich neer attacks relations o production without attacking at the
same time
the aectie knots which sustain them.
\hich undermines the shameul libidinal economy o Lmpire,
\hich restores the ethical element - the bor - repressed in eery
contact between neutralised bodies.
\here one would expect such or such predictable reaction,
15
as a mother, as a militant, as a philosopher.
ONL wants to contain within the bounds o an identity the
unpredictable course o my becomings.
ONL wants to conert me to the religion o a coherence
that was chosen or me.
1he more I am recogviea, the more my gestures are hindered, ivtervatt,
hindered. lere I am, caught in the super-tight meshwork o the new
power. In the impalpable net o the new police:
1lL IMPLRIAL POLICL Ol QUALI1ILS.
1here is a whole network o assemblages through which I ivtegrate
mysel, and that incorporates these qualities in me.
A whole petty system o Fling, identiFcation and mutual sureillance.
A whole diuse prescription o absence.
A whole machinery o comporte,mental control, which aims at
panopticism, at priatized transparency, at atomization.
And in which I struggle.
I need to become anonymous. In order to be present.
1be vore avov,vov. av, tbe vore re.evt av.
I need zones o indistinction
to reach the Common.
1o no longer recogvie mysel in my name. 1o no longer hear in my
name anything but the oice that calls it.
1o gie substance to the bor o beings, not rbat they are but bor they
are what they are. 1heir lie-orm.
I need zones o opacity where the attributes,
een criminal, een brilliant,
no longer separate bodies.
ecovivg whateer. Becoming a whateer .ivgvtarit,, is not gien.
Always possible, but neer gien.
1here is a otitic. o the rbaterer .ivgvtarit,.
\hich consists in snatching rom Lmpire
the oten interstitial conditions and means
to experience yoursel as such.
1his is political, because it implies a capacity o conrontation,
6
and it corresponds to a new human aggregation.
1he politics o the rbaterer .ivgvtarit,: opening those spaces where no
act is assignable to any gien body.
\here the bodies recoer their ability o ge.tvre which the so cleer
distribution o metropolitan deices - computers, cars, schools,
cameras, cell-phones, gyms, hospitals, teleisions, cinemas, etc. - had
stolen rom them.
By recognising them.
By immobilising them.
By making them spin uselessly.
By making the head exist separately rom the body.
1he politics o the rbaterer .ivgvtarit,.
Becoming rbaterer is more reolutionary than any rbatererbeivg..
Liberating spaces sets us ree a hundred times more than any
liberated space`.
More than putting any power into action, I enjoy the circulation o
my potentialities. 1he politics o the rbaterer .ivgvtarit, lies in the
oensie. In the circumstances, the moments and the places where
we seize the circumstances,
the moments and the places
o such an anonymity,
o a momentary halt in a state o simplicity,
the opportunity to extract rom all our orms tbe vre aaeqvatiov to tbe
re.evce,
the opportunity, at last, to be
bere.
II
low is it to be done Not rbat i. to be aove. or to ao 1he question
o the means.
Not o the goals, the ob;ectire.,
what tbere i. to be done, strategically, in the absolute.
7
Lmpire is araid that we might become rbaterer.
A delimited circle, an armed organization. It does not scare them.
But an expansionary constellation o squats, sel-managed arms,
collectie homes, fve a .e .te..o meetings, radios, skills and ideas. 1he
whole linked by an intense circulation o bodies, and o the aects
between those bodies. 1hat is quite another matter.
1he cov.irac, of tbe boaie.. Not o the critical minds, but o the criticat
cororeitie..
1his is what Lmpire ears. 1his is what is slowly rising,
with the increase o the nows
o social deection.
1here is an opacity inherent to the covtact o bodies. \hich is not
compatible with the imperial reign o a light that shines on things
ovt, to ai.ivtegrate tbev.
Oensie Opacity Zones are not
to be createa.
1hey are already there, in all the relations in which a true
communication occurs between bodies.
All we must do is accept that we are part o this opacity. And proide
ourseles with the means to extend it,
to deend it.
\hereer we manage to thwart imperial assemblages, to ruin all the
perpetual work o Biopower and Spectacle, to extricate a raction o
the citiev.. 1o isolate new vvtoretti. In this recoered indistinction
an autonomous ethical abric
will spontaneously orm
a plan o secessionist consistency.
Bodies aggregate. Breathe again. Conspire.
\hether such zones are condemned to be suppressed militarily really
does not matter. \hat matters, each time, is to presere a sure escape
route.
And then re-aggregate
Llsewhere.
Later.
Underlying the problem o !bat i. to be aove. was the v,tb o the
14
1he question o what we cav do, tactically, frov the situation,
and o the acqvi.itiov o this ability.
low to low to desert low does it work low to make a Ft
between my wounds and communism low to stay at war without
losing tenderness
1he question is technical. Not a problem. Problems are proFtable.
1hey eed experts.
A question.
A question o techniques. \hich reduplicates itsel in the question
o the techniques o trav.vi..iov o those techniques.
low to do 1he result always contradicts the goal. Because setting an
end is still a means.
avotber means.
!bat i. to be aove. Babeu, Chernychesky, Lenin. Classical irility
needs an analgesic,
a mirage, something. A veav. to ignore yoursel a bit more. As a
presence.
As a lie-orm. As a .itvatea being, endowed with inclinations.
Detervivea inclinations.
\hat is to be done Voluntarism as the ultimate nihilism. As the
nihilism peculiar
to cta..icat riritit,.
!bat to ao. 1he answer is simple: submit once again to the logic o
mobilization, to the temporality o emergency. On the pretext o
rebellion. Set down ends, rora.. 1end towards their accomplishment.
1owards the accomplishment of rora.. In the meantime, postpone
existence. Put yoursel into brackets. Lie in the exception o
yoursel. \ell away rom time. 1hat passes. 1hat does not pass. 1hat
stops.
Until. Until the next end.
\hat to do In other words: lie is utile. All that you hae not lied,
listory will return to you.
\hat to do It is the ignorance o onesel cast onto the world.
As ignorance o the world.
8
low to do \e need maps. Not maps o what is o the map.
But naigating maps. Maritive maps. Orievtatiov tools. 1hat do not try
to explain or represent what lies inside o the dierent archipelagos
o desertion, but indicate how to join them.
Portvtav..
III
1his is 1uesday, September the 1
th
1996, just beore dawn. 1he
ROS ,Special Operational Group, coordinates the arrest o some 0
Italian anarchists throughout the country.
1he goal is to put an end to Fteen years o ruitless inestigations o
insurrectionalist anarchists.
1he technique is well-known: abricate a turncoat`, make
him denounce the existence o a wide subersie hierarchical
organization.
1hen on the basis o this chimerical creation, accuse all those to be
neutralized o being part o it.
Once again, drain the sea to catch the Fsh`.
Len though it is only a tiny pond.
And a ew roaches.
An inormatie serice note` was leaked rom the ROS on this case.
It explains its strategy.
Based on the principles o General Dalla Chiesa, the ROS is the
classic example o imperial counter-insurrection serice.
It works on the population.
\here an intensity has occurred, where something baevea, it is the
revcb aoctor o the situation. 1he one that sets,
under coer o prophylaxis,
the lines o quarantine aimed at isolating
the contagion.
\hat it ears is written in this document. \hat it ears is tbe .rav
of otiticat avov,vit,.
Lmpire is araid.
13
or to ao 1he question o bor. Not o rbat a being, a gesture, a
thing i. but o bor it is what it is. 1he question o how its predicates
relate to it.
And it to them.
Let be. Let be the gap between the subject and its predicates. 1he
ab,.. o the presence.
A man is not a man`. A white horse` is not a horse`.
1he question o bor. 1he attevtiov to the bor. 1he attention to the
way a woman` is, and is not
a woman - it takes many assemblages |ai.o.itif.| to turn a emale
being into a woman`,
or a black-skinned man into a Black`.
1he attention to the etbicat aifferevce. 1o the ethical etevevt. 1o the
irreducibilities that run through it.
\hat goes on between bodies in an occupation is more interesting
than the occupation itsel.
or to ao. means that the military conrontation with Lmpire has to
be subordinated to the intensiFcation o the relationships inside our
Party. It means the political is just a certain degree o intensity ritbiv
the ethical element. 1hat reolutionary war must not be conused
with its representation: the raw act o the struggle.
1he question o bor 1o pay attention to the happening o things,
o beings. 1o their eent. 1o the tenacious and silent saliency o their
own temporality under the planetary crushing o all temporalities
by the one o emergency.
1he !bat to ao. as the programmatic denial o this. As the inaugural
ormula o a busy lack o loe.
1he !bat to ao. is coming back. It has been coming back or a ew
years. Since the mid-nineties more than since Seattle. A reial o the
critiqve is pretending to challenge Lmpire.
\ith the slogans and tricks o the sixties. Lxcept that this time it is
aked.
Innocence, indignation, good intentions and the need or society are
aked. 1he whole range o old social-democratic aects are put back
into circulation. O Cbri.tiav aects.
9
Process. 1o the new, cybernetic Process o social alorisation.
In 198, it was in the name o the workers` moement that the Italian
Communist Party, the so-called party with clean hands` launched its
witch-hunt against Autonomy.
In the name o its classist conception o the proletariat, o its
mystique o society, o respect or work, utility and decency.
In the name o democracy` and legality.
1he workers` moement which managed to surie through
oerai.vo`.
1he only existing critique o capitalism frov tbe oivt of rier of 1otat
Mobitiatiov.
A ormidable and paradoxical doctrine,
that will hae saed Marxist objectiism by only talking about
subjectiity.
1hat will hae brought the denial o the bor to an unprecedented
sophistication.
1hat achieed the ultimate reduction o the gesture to its result.
1he wheels o the fvtvre avterior.
O what each thing ritt bare beev.
Critique has become ain. Critique has become ain because it
amounts to an absence. Leryone knows where the ruling order
stands. \e no longer need criticat theory. \e no longer need teachers.
lenceorth, critiqve is allied to domination. rev tbe critiqve of
aovivatiov.
It reproduces absence. It speaks to us rom where we are not.
It propels us elsewhere. It consumes us. It is craen. And stays
cautiously sheltered
when it sends us to the slaughter.
Secretly in loe with its object, it continually lies to us.
lence the brie romances between proletarians and engaged`
intellectuals.
1hose rational marriages in which neither has the same idea o
pleasure or o reedom.
Rather than new critiques, it is new cartographies
that we need.
Not cartographies o Lmpire, but o the lines that nee out o it.
12
Its perection is not to be global, but to be gtobatt, tocat. 1he global
order is the exclusion o any eent because it is the utmost,
authoritarian occupation o the local. 1he global order can only
be opposed tocatt,. 1hrough the extension o opaque zones oer
Lmpire`s maps. 1hrough their growing contiguity.
Underground.
1he coming politics. Politics o local insurrection against global
management. O presence won oer the absence to onesel. Oer the
citizen, the imperial estrangement.
\on through thet, raud, crime, riendship, enmity, conspiracy.
1hrough the elaboration o ways o liing that are also
ways o Fghting.
1he politics o the eent.
vire i. erer,rbere votbivg i. baevivg. It administrates absence by
waing the palpable threat o police interention in any place.
\hoeer regards Lmpire as an opponent to conront will meet
preentie annihilation.
lrom now on, to be perceied means to be deeated.
Learning how to become imperceptible. 1o merge. 1o regain the taste
or anonymity
or promiscuity.
1o renounce distinction,
1o elude the clampdown:
setting the most aourable conditions or conrontation.
Becoming sly. Becoming merciless. And or that purpose
becoming rbaterer.
or to ao. is the question o the lost children. 1hose who were not
told. 1hose with the clumsy gestures. 1o whom nothing was girev.
\hose creature-ality, whose wandering, always betrays itsel.
1he coming reolt is the reolt o the lost children.
1he thread o historical transmission has been broken. Len the
reolutionary tradition
leaes us orphaned. Lspecially the workers` moement. 1he workers`
moement that`s turned into a tool or higher integration to the
11
And again, here come the demonstrations. 1he desire-killing
demonstrations. \here nothing happens.
And which no longer demonstrate anything
but a collectie absence.
Now and oreer.
lor those who eel nostalgic about \oodstock, pot, May 68 and
militancy, there are the counter-summits. 1he setting has been set
again, vivv. tbe o..ibte.
lere is today`s command o the !bat to ao.: to trael to the other
side o the world in order to contest the global commodity,
And then come back, ater a big bath o unanimity and mediatised
separation,
to submit yoursel to the local commodity.
Back home, you`e got your picture in the newspaper. All alone
together!... Once upon a time. Good old youth!.
1oo bad or the ew liing bodies lost there, looking in ain or some
room or their desires.
1hey will return a bit more bored. A bit more tired. \eakened.
lrom counter-summit to counter-summit, they will eentually
understand. Or not.
One doesn`t contest Lmpire oer its management. One doesn`t
critiqve Lmpire.
\ou oo.e its orces.
lrom where you are.
1o gie your opinion about such or such alternatie, to go where
you are called, makes no sense. 1here is no global alternatie project
to the global project o Lmpire. Because there`s no global project
o Lmpire. 1here is an iveriat vavagevevt. Any management is bad.
1hose who demand another society should better start to realize that
there is none let. And maybe they would then stop being wannabe-
managers. Citizens. vaigvavt citizens.
1he global order cannot be taken as an enemy. Directly.
Because the global order does not ta/e tace. On the contrary. It is the
order o the non-places.
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