Notes on the potential and limits of embedded insurrection

On November 11, 2008, French Anti-Terrorism Police arrested around twenty people, mostly in Tarnac, a small village in the Corrèze region of central France. Nine were subsequently accused of “criminal association for the purposes of terrorist activity” in connection with the sabotage of train lines which had caused delays on the French railways. Very little evidence has been presented against them, but central to the prosecution is their alleged authorship of a book, The Coming Insurrection, and their ­association with what a scare-mongering French government and media have termed an “ultra-left” or “anarcho-autonomous movement.”1 1  - Support the Tarnac 9 website: http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/.

I am part of a generation that tends to find inspiration in, and romanticize, all things Situationist without having knowledge of the specific context in which they arose (and the illusions that they might hide). The arrogance, the revelry, alongside the wit, the intellect. In that sense, The Coming Insurrection² 2 - English translation of L’insurrection qui vient (2007), available online in both French and English: http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/ (last accessed September 2009). by the Comité invisible can be seen as a familiar, yet contemporary, intervention into the landscape of cultural products pertaining to political theory and praxis. At last, a thesis that we can relate to “in our lifetime” and find much-needed dis-alienation through direct references. Indeed, the notion of “cultural products” would benefit from being “reclaimed” outside of academic circles in order to fuel our critique of critique, so to speak. There is value in considering objects through the level of the intensity of feedback loops that they create in terms of inspiration. Despite it being imperfect, one of the main values of The Coming Insurrection lies there: in intensifying current analyses of the world.