Anarchy 66/Appeal to the international provotariat

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Appeal to the
international provotariat

What is the provotariat?

  Provos, beat­niks, nozems, teddy boys, blousons noirs, gammler, raggare, stiljagi, mangupi, mods, stu­dents, art­ists, rockers, de­lin­quents, anarch­ists, ban the bombers, misfits. …

  Those who don’t want a career, who lead ir­regu­lar lives, who feel like cyclists on a motor­way. Here in the <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: carbon-mon­oxide">carbon-mon­oxide-poisoned asphalt jungles of Amster­dam, London, Stock­holm, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, New York, Berlin, Milan, Warsaw, Chicago. …

  The provo­tariat is the last re­bel­lious group­ing in the Wel­fare State coun­tries. The pro­le­tariat has become the slave of the politi­cians, happy to watch TV. It has joined its tradi­tional enemy, the bour­geoisie, making with it, becom­ing bloated, grey Arse-people.

  The new class op­posi­tion is Provo­tariat versus Arse-people.

  But the provo­tariat is not a class—its make-up is too hetero­gene­ous for that. The provo­tariat is de-classed.

  The provo­tariat is a group­ing of sub­vers­ive ele­ments.

  Why does the provo­tariat rebel?

  The example of mil­lions of elbow-bargers, rat-racers and so­cial climbers is too boring. “Suc­cess”: a home of your own, a car of your own, a TV of your own, a woman-of-the-year of your own, a fridge of your own, a posi­tion of your own.

  We live in a taste­less, mono­lithic, mass-so­ciety. The creat­ive in­divid­ual is an ex­cep­tion. Beha­viour and con­sump­tion pat­terns are thrust on us by the Big Bosses, cap­it­al­ist and com­mun­ist alike.

  But the provos want to be them­selves.

  They want to be the Creat­ive Leisure Activ­ators of to­mor­row!

  Down with Philips, Seven Up, Persil, BMC, Players, MacLeans.

  The provo­tariat de­spises the slave con­sumer.

  We live in an au­thor­it­arian so­ciety. The au­thor­ities (the heads and arms of the Arse-people) de­cide what hap­pens. We can get stuffed. We organ­ise hap­pen­ings. The hap­pen­ing is our con­trib­u­tion to the Hap­pen­ing which is au­thor­ities with­hold from us.

  Against our will the au­thor­ities are pre­par­ing for atomic war. The full wea­ponry of mass de­struc­tion is being stock­piled every­where; in America, England, France and China, and soon in West Germany, Sweden, Indo­nesia, Israel, India and so on. If the War war in Vietnam be­comes nuclear war we can ex­pect the North­ern Hemi­sphere to be un­in­habit­able!

  The Au­thor­ities de­cide our man­ner of living and our man­ner of dying.

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  The provo­tariat is scared of the au­thor­ities’ atomic war.

  So the provo­tariat is at odds with au­thor­ities every­where. The police hit out at us when we demon­strate against the atom bomb, when we organ­ise hap­pen­ings, when the mods and rockers come on the scene in their own way (in sub­con­scious pro­test against this so­ciety). The police work off their spite on us provos.

  Police versus provo­tariat = hier­archy against anarchy.

  The anarch­istic spirit of the inter­na­tional provo­tariat has given birth to the anarch­ist Provo move­ment which at­tempts to make the provo­tariat of the whole world aware of its alien­ation.

  What does anarch­ism want?

  Col­lect­iv­isa­tion. (No priv­ate pro­perty, as much as pos­sible com­mon pro­perty.)

  De­cen­tral­isa­tion. (Abo­li­tion of the State in which Govern­ment holds prac­tic­ally all power.)

  De­mil­it­ar­isa­tion. (Dis­arma­ment and no hier­arch­ies.)

  A new so­ciety com­posed of a fed­era­tion of com­munes, each as auto­nom­ous as pos­sible, in which priv­ate pro­perty is abo­lished. In the ap­proach­ing cyber­netic age elec­tronic ma­chin­ery will carry out the tasks of ad­min­ist­ra­tion which are the eternal pre­text for the ex­ist­ence of politi­cians.

  In such a tech­no­logical so­ciety, de­cen­tral­ised into small com­mun­ities, there will be real demo­cracy.

  Anarch­ism de­mands re­volu­tion!

  Provo des­pairs of the com­ing of Re­volu­tion and Anarchy. Never­the­less it puts its faith in anarch­ism; for provo anarch­ism is the only ac­cept­able so­cial con­cept. It is our ideo­logical weapon against the au­thor­it­arian forces which threaten us. The provo­tariat lacks the strength for re­volu­tion but one thing re­mains to us:

Provocation.

  The subtle pin-prick—our last chance to hit the au­thor­ities in their soft, vital spots. Through provo­ca­tion we force au­thor­ity to tear off its mask. Uni­forms, boots, hel­mets, sabres, trun­cheons, <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: fire-hoses">fire-hoses, police dogs, tear gas and all the other means of sup­pres­sion they have lined up for us, must be pro­duced. The au­thor­ities must be forced to act like au­thor­ities: chin jut­ting, eye­brows knit­ted, eyes glazed with rage, threat­en­ing us right and left, com­mand­ing, for­bid­ding, con­demning, con­vict­ing. They will be­come more and more un­pop­ular and the pop­ular spirit will ripen for re­volu­tion. A re­volu­tion­ary feel­ing will once again be in the air: crisis.

  A crisis of pro­voked au­thor­ity.

  Such is the gigan­tic provo­ca­tion we call for from the Inter­na­tional Provo­tariat.

  Provoke! from anarch­ist groups!

  Provos awake! we are losing a world!

(Provo­ca­tion No. 8, published by provo—an anarch­ist journal,
Amsterdam 1965.)