Social Movement Appreciation Project
In our rapidly destabilising world, it's clear that nothing will get better without large numbers of people working together. But social movements remain mysterious and under-studied creatures: the Social Movement Appreciation Project aims to shine a warm and loving light on today's many efforts at collective agency and system transformation.
Social Movement Appreciation Project
Anti-fascist football and the Slovak climate movement
For our first entry at Les Résistantes I talk to Mikhail about his activist career, which begins with the onset of far-right violence in early-2000s Slovakia, runs though the world of football ultras, and ultimately brings him to the climate movement, cultures of care, and France’s liveliest activist festival.
*Editor’s note: this episode is harder to keep up with than most! We cover a lot of ground and are pursued for about half of it by Les Résistantes’ iconic New Orleans brass band. This is not a problem if you’re ready for ambience, but if you’d like something more settled then you might want to come back to this one.
We cover:
Introduction to European football ultras as both far-right and far-left
Mikhail's personal journey from subculture into anti-fascist activism in 2003
The incremental growth of far-right politics in Slovakia, as it developed from street-violence to – by the early 2010s – parliamentary politics
Anti-fascist organising in the context of the football ultra scene
^In which we learn that Europe’s best left fighters come from Belarus
^And discover the impressive hybrid of a combined football tournament / leftist political conference / fundraiser
The value ultras bring to the climate movement in Central Europe regarding urban policing in terms of experience, tactics, and organising styles
The question, from this perspective, of violence in the social movement repertoire
The rapid rise and even quicker fall of XR Czechia (and its very Scotland-reminiscent re-formation into Climate Camp Czechia, and mutual aid efforts like a tenants’ union)
Some initial observations on the Les Resistantes’ incredible interpretation hub (for a deeper look at this and where it came from, see later interview with Carl)
The need for new ways of relating to each other as the primary means of resisting the right.
Highlights:
“the people who were fighting in the streets are now sitting as MPs… the left did not manage that kind of jump”
Music credit: much appreciation to ‘shelf-employed’ for the brass interlude (from https://freesound.org/people/shelf-employed/sounds/751844/)
End music: Ode aux Casseurs (‘Ode to the Breakers’) from a spontaneous performance at one of Les Résistantes’ several bars. The song makes the merry case that breaking laws and objects is never justified unless you win, c.f.: 1789, Suffragettes, 1940s, etc.
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