Testimonial and analysis of one resident of the #ZAD #NDDL

The end result is well below my expectations.

We find ourselves divided even within the occupation movement. Various setbacks have happened. Pressure blows, overriding of rules, confiscation of collective communication tools (inter-committee contacts, press contacts); attempts of uniforming the movement; centralization of relations with the other components of the movement, decisions bypassing collective processes; violent and authoritarian political policing.

It now seems necessary to take back what we fought for. To reaffirm our identity against the fascist actions of those who used to be our companions or comrades in struggle.

Almost all of us arrived here with a marginal status that makes us ungovernable, mysterious, disorganized, unknowable and wary of power and its centralization. We applauded each initiative from the most violent to the most inefficient without dissociating ourselves, without individualizing the actions.

Most of us were Camille, we were all Zadists.

We mainly legitimized and explained the political acts of ours equals rather than condemning them. We accepted the chaos and lack of control we had over our neighbours.

Today for me this is no longer true.

Some people have emerged over the years as amazing strategists, bureaucrats, politicians and journalists. Many of us are now the good little soldiers for the political strategies of these groups. We must stay in the rank and file so as not to disturb their tactics and their communications. We must obey and not speak too loudly, or expose ourselves to the threat of being despised or of ending up in a car’s trunk.

I am not against the idea of building a united, shared and resilient political future with other components of the movement. It’s even my greatest hope. But it will not happen at the cost of what I am.

Many of us want the Zad to remain a front line against liberal and patriarchal thoughts, while persisting to be a zone of political, social and peasantry experimentation.

For we have arrived damaged, marginal, impulsive, borderline, pirate, teknohead, druggy, syndicalist, in psychological distress, hypersensitive, engaged, primitivists, drug addicts, alcoholic, hippy, punk … or just fragile.

Some of us are still so, and we will not dress up in a certain way in order to give an “acceptable” image.

Many of us are ready to wage an internal and silent war against those who impose their collective vision or tactics over individual freedom of action and opinion against those who make use of psychological or physical violence for diffirent politics.

In my opinion, the formal groups of the Zad (chips, cmdo, pomps) should officially dissolve, no longer publish texts and no longer come to the assemblies on the Zad as a composant of the movement but as individuals.

Today we see the result of this group-based sectarianism in the minds of each and every one of us, and in this way we are moving away from the humanist values of sharing and solidarity. It drowns the individual and makes them question everyday: Am I legitimate to give my opinion in front of this group of people strongly united to block? Do I have enough affinity to go to such an appointment or assembly? Is this project open if it’s this group that is carrying away with it? Will I be despised by this group of people when I have a contradictory position? Will I be supported by my own group?

The peculiarity of the group is the unified language, the group airs its concerns. Ironically the group often agrees to despise the same thing or the same person, while on the other hand the group can itself be despised without taking into account the individuals that compose it.

I don’t deny the usefulness of federating to carry out a job, a battle, an action. But the group should appear and disappear according to circumstances. It is ephemeral, it must not be named or coagulate, if it is formed, it is already too late. It must change to avoid collapse. If a group is created in the group then it is dead.

And especially if the group silence its individualities then it no longer exists.

The Zad is not a group, it is a territory. The Zad is only a group when it has to organize its daily life, defend itself, communicate, gather or talk about itself. And in these moments it can not bear yet another group acting on its behalf, even from within.

The Zad is a palette of individuality with all colours as rich as each other with a common front.

It is useless to deny the differences which compose it nor to hide them under the sacrosanct concept of unity.

I affirm my desire, as others do, to deconstruct power wherever it is and wherever it is born . Whether it’s a person or a group of people.

It is a daily effort on power that one incarnates or that the other person embodies. As tiring as this work is, it is the foundation of our individual liberties.

I advocate a diversity of tactics, choices and political views, ways of life, past or future experiences, as long as they do not impose themselves on us individually and they do not harm our daily life.

That is to say, I would fight to defend those who will become in necessity of defense, without distinctions, so that we can continue to make exchanges relative to conflicting issues and to the convergences that drive us forward.

(It appears necessary to clarify this: If an isolated political action provokes a repressive state answer on each and every one of us, our values advice us against dissociating ourselves from it. Even if it is it contradicts with our tactics and general opinion. It seems easier to applaud a burnt police car burnt 300 km than to support a smaller action near home.)