Anti-authoritarianism is the new non-violence.

In Wretched of the Earth, Fanon talks about how at the critical moment, when colonized peoples awaken to the situation and engage in decolonization, the colonialist bourgeoisie, enters and introduces a new notion: nonviolence.
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Today, that is 'anti-authoritarianism'. Sure, nonviolence is called for as well in the form of peace-policing and denouncing riots. But the more insidious version I see coming from within the left is this ahistorical notion of anti-authoritarianism.

Allow me to explain.
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Fanon writes, “In its bare reality, decolonization reeks of red-hot cannonballs and bloody knives. For the last can be the first only after a murderous and decisive confrontation between the two protagonists.”

Decolonization, as well as revolution, is always a violent.
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When Haitian slaves revolted and overthrew their French colonizers, it was an authoritarian act. When the FLN blew up cafes, distributing pamphlets declaring “colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat,” it was an authoritarian act.
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Even movements lauded as non-authoritarian were created out of authoritarianism means: The Paris Commune, Rojava, the Zapatistas, these spaces were all a product of the barrel of the gun. Suppressing the imperialists and bourgeoisie.
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and when the yt slave owners stole Black people from their homeland, enslaved them, and dispossessed the indigenous nations of Turtle Island, it was a series of reactionary authoritarian acts.

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What do we mean when we say authoritarian? It is the use of force. It is to coerce someone to do or not do something they would otherwise do.

Ideally, the bourgeoisie would dismantle the state, surrender to the proletariat, and liquidate themselves as a class,
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then we could have a non-authoritarian revolution.

It's not going to happen through worker coops. Authoritarianism is a class tool. Creating land reform, driving out transnational corporations exploiting people and the land requires authoritarian measures.
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Peasants engaged in revolution around the world understand this. But online (mainly yt) ppl in the imperial core will likely get up in arms over this simple fact.
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