BEYOND MOLOTOVS: A VISUAL HANDBOOK OF ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN STRATEGIES
The new volume from IRGAC and kollektiv orangotango published by transcript Verlag brings together more than 50 first-hand accounts of anti-authoritarian movements, activists, artists, and scholars from around the world, focusing on the sensuous and emotional dimension of their strategies
Around the world, countless people, collectives, and movements develop powerful and creative strategies to oppose nationalist, racist, classist, and anti-feminist forces. Many of these strategies go well beyond a narrow definition of “defending democracy” or “resistance”. They do not defend the catastrophic status quo against the far right, but propose different, more just and more democratic ways of being together.
These strategies and struggles carry ideas, emotions, and practices that are the seeds of another world. “Beyond Molotovs – A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies” brings together 50 first-hand accounts of anti-authoritarian struggles from around the world, focusing on strategies that address the sensuous, emotional, and aesthetic dimensions of authoritarianism. These are neither the only, nor necessarily the most important, strategiesof resistance. From classical antifascist organizing and monitoring work on the ground, to mobilizing broad social strata in defence of democratic rights, to militant struggle against oppressive regimes, a wide variety of initiatives is needed to counter the authoritarian attacks on democracy and social rights. By proposing to go “beyond molotovs”, we are not disregarding the importance of these myriad forms of resistance. Instead, we want to enrich them by bringing in new perspectives focused on dimensions that are all too often neglected when we discuss our strategies against authoritarianism.
At a time when authoritarian ideologies are on the rise, democratic rights under attack, and emancipatory horizons seem foreclosed, this book argues for an anti-fascism that goes beyond the defence of what is, proposing paths by which we can radically reclaim the future and build real, lived utopias.