Hyperpolitics on the barricades

Hundreds of thousands of French people are protesting against inhumane conditions in schools. Police are throwing grenades at them, but when a fifteen-year-old boy loses his hand, this tactic is at least temporarily suspended. There are also students in Brussels and Liège on the streets. In Spain, meanwhile, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal dies, whose violent eviction from her apartment by police triggered a separate rebellion.

In Slovakia, there is the usual provincial indifference.

Better media, with their tails between their legs, can do no more than reproduce agency reports; commentary remains deathly silent. Europeans only feel like Europeans when it is useful. Otherwise, they are again Slovaks, who do not see beyond the insignificant parliamentary drama of the day, let alone to Paris. And Europe without Paris is not really Europe.

Worse media push a mix of foreign and domestic lies. The central narrative of extreme (?) right is that only Arabs are protesting. To a casual reader or viewer, this is enough to lose interest or even immediately side with the police.

The same monocultural nonsense repeats from Chicago to Sydney, but localized variations can also be found. Youth are not protesting because there are forty students per teacher and there is no heating in winter; they protest, because the state has banned mobile phones in school. Because they are disobedient. Suddenly, everything fits into the story of the decline of respect for authority and the tragedy in Staškov. Hyperreality interpreted by professional liars for the audience of malicious Ťapákovci.

Liberal indifference and the madness of reactionary right are not enough to dismiss; they must be actively resisted by feeling the European significance of these events.

Have things worsened?

In 2006, French students protested against the curtailment of workers' rights. The Economist wrote at the time:

„In this sense, the rebellion appears as the 'natural continuation of the unrest in the suburbs from 2005', which forced the government to declare a state of emergency. Back then, unemployed ethnic subproletariat rebelled against a system that excluded them.

The remarkable feature of the latest protest movement, however, is that this time, rebellious forces stand on the side of conservatism. Unlike the protesting youth from the banlieues, the goal of students and public sector unions is to prevent change and to keep France in its current form.“

Two contrasts with today.

In 2006, The Economist distinguished between unruly students and the “unemployed ethnic subproletariat”. Today, these categories merge, at least in media coverage.

Secondly: back then, students protested against something; today, they protest for something.

Since 2006, two decades of neoliberalism have separated us; a permanent revolution characterized not by purges but by endless and aimless cuts. Precarity is no longer a threat but the status quo. Its unbearable nature thus brings back into play something unthinkable just a few years ago: mass politics in the 21st century. But what kind?

What is hyperpolitics

In the discourse on Gen Z revolutions, two aspects are often emphasized: youth participation and spontaneity. Revolutions are usually the work of youth, so Slovakia is unlikely to face one in the near future; Slovakia is old. Revolutions are usually spontaneous in the sense that, although they have structural determinants, the spark is often a small thing.

However, there is another type of spontaneity: current uprisings lack institutional roots. Parties and unions do not summon them; they only slowly join in. When Jean-Luc Mélenchon walks among the crowd, he appears insignificant and opportunistic, because it is not his protest, nor even a leftist protest.

In the book Hyperpolitics, Anton Jäger addresses the problem of leftist mobilization in the 21st century. He argues that we are witnessing a “repoliticization” without “re-institutionalization”.

The post-ideological chaos of the past decade, in which capitalism was considered the end of history and nothing else was possible, has ended. History will continue, and anything is possible.

But in the last century, when politics still existed, there were also institutions. Various party newspapers and associations, unions, mass movements. These allowed citizens to identify with a certain homogeneous political identity, connect with others, have representatives, a program, and demands. In Central Europe, we talk about political LLCs, but even the old parties of Western Europe are no longer mass movements.

Today, the left has several disadvantages compared to the far right, which Jäger recently explained.

“Common sense” – a set of totally normalized prejudices about reality – is on the side of the right. Moreover, it has access to the money of large and small oligarchs.

Finally: the far right is against the Enlightenment and hates liberalism. That is why it has been able to profit more quickly from the disillusionment of crowds in recent years. The left loves the Enlightenment, and therefore is tolerant of liberalism. Correct, but it is a political handicap.

That is why a new institutionalization of politics is essential for the left. Newspapers, associations, platforms. That is why Jäger and his colleagues advocate the “strategy of patience”: protests are nice, but it is questionable whether they will even achieve their reasonable demands, let alone influence the outcome of elections that will be a referendum on the extreme right.

Protests yes, but institutions are needed. Solidarity yes. But always with the question that must be offered to young “change-seekers” in Slovakia a hundred times more: You demonstrate nicely, but where are your newspapers?

The author is a doctoral student in constitutional theory

The text was created with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, with a representation in the Czech Republic. The publisher is fully responsible for the content; the views expressed in the text do not necessarily reflect the stance of the foundation.