When the facts speak for themselves

That's not to be sneezed at, because it's exactly this separation that
is the reason for the prison to exist. To remove undesirables, for one
reason or another, from their social context to preserve the social
peace.

As it's often the case, these sudden flickerings of revolt surprised
many. For people stuck within the rigid framework of the 'militant',
wild belches of discontent like the ones that occured in the prisons over
the last year and a half show the gap between 'activists' and other people in revolt.
It was nothing different when the French banlieues (suburbs) exploded in
November 2005 and the shock waves were felt also in our own streets.
The most visible answer was the paralysis of a movement that doesn't
understand itself. On top, a number of clever minds have to add
so-called 'constructive' criticism. The only goal of this seems to
prevent that the flame of revolt infects others.

It's not that we, confronted with facts which speak for themselves,
have to throw ourselves blindly into the heat of the struggle. No, but
with facts so clear such as a prison that gets partly destroyed, the
most interesting question is certainly not to investigate into
infinity who has done it, why it happened,... No, the question we have
to ask ourselves is what we are going to do with it. It would say a
lot about the 'ideas' we're defending if we don't succeed in
recognizing our own desires in a burning prison and making this. Not
only because we simply feel sympathy, but because we have something to
say and to do: the destruction of all prisons and the world that needs
them. Out of this perspective we can become accomplices in the revolts of prisoners.

And before the scornful blame that this is only rhetoric extinguishes
every urge for rebellion, we have to take a good look at the facts. To
the prisons which were set on fire, to the prisons of which infrastructures
got partly destroyed during mutinies, to the escapes, to the occupations
of courtyards like recently happened in Dendermonde, Merksplas and Ghent.

Perhaps some make the comment that these revolts are not aimed against
prison as such, that the prisoners are only in it to achieve improvements
or that some rebellious prisoners may well be bastards? Well, nobody
ever claimed that this could not be the case. But if you think that
insurgent movements only come to exist out of conscious revolutionaries,
then better think again. Often it is the practices of such movements
("the facts which speak for themselves") which rise above the narrow
scope of reformist demands, like for example happens with conflicts
on and around the workfloor. While the demands of the struggle are
only of a moderate interest (higher wages, no dismissals,...), it is
the practices which are conspicuous (wildcat strikes, sabotage,...).

What's a better critique of prison then the destruction of one?

Therefore it's up to us, to those who want to get rid of all prisons,
to put forward our own perspective within that conflict - while in the
meantime we make a contribution to the revolt and realise a
qualitative extension of the perspective. This qualitative extension
can only be achieved within the dynamics of revolt, not outside of it
or from above.

When we're talking about 'the prison and its world' then it's not to
turn ourselves to self-pity thinking that we're all imprisoned in this world of
exploitation and dominance, but instead to discover where we can hit
prison. Because prison is not only this institution with its four grey
walls... her tentacles reach into our own street and are vulnerable.

This is not about inciting everybody to become an 'anti-prison
activist'. These kind of specialisations only makes it more difficult
to recognize ourselves, as exploited amongst the exploited, in the
revolts which from time to time causes splits in this rotten society.
Meanwhile, let us not allow ourselves that a revolt in a prison stays
isolated within the four walls. Let us make these revolts ours, with
our own ideas and means and propagate it in the streets.

Les mauvais jours finiront.
December 2007

- This text was published in Uitbraak / La Cavale, correspondance of
the struggle against prison, number 11, January 2008, Belgium.