Demanding the Impossible: An Anarcho-Surrealist Manifesto
I is an other. So what if a piece of wood discovers it is a violin…
If brass wakes as a bugle, it is not its fault at all.
―Arthur Rimbaud (1871)
By demanding the impossible, we become impossible in our demands. Make no mistake about it, we demand an end to all forms of domination and insist on the realization of poetry in everyday life. Only by erasing the artificial dichotomy between dream and reality can we sever the ties that bind revolutionary demands to a miserabilist search for the best of all possible rulers. What is more humiliating than to be ruled? What is more beautiful to a surrealist than the shattered glass of reality? All power to the insurgent imagination!
The unfurling of the black flag of anarchy augers all the wonders that can be created when subservience dies and the impossible is unleashed. What is more debilitating than to follow orders? What is more inspiring to an anarchist than the refusal to obey? Mutiny is a collective form of refusal in which the intensity of the fevered desire for liberty breaks the authoritarian chains of duty and coercion in the convulsive heat of mutual aid. Impatient to emancipate ourselves, as soon as the uncharted land of our dreams is in sight, we don't petition the captain to take us ashore, we simply jump ship.
Swimming to shore, we are swiftly carried along by the billowing waves of the social revolution. The splendid winds of change, blowing at gale force as if in harmony with the intensity of our desires, even cause the brass ornaments on deck to reverberate wildly in a jamboree bugle call of Marvelous Freedom. Looking back, we see the floundering ship of state, from which we have only narrowly escaped with our lives, suddenly hit a hidden reef and explode into a shower of debris. In awe, we watch the flying splinters of wood transform themselves as if by alchemy into a thousand screaming violins. In spontaneous freedom, they improvise with the aolian harpsound of the wind, the ocean's leonine roar and the seagulls' incessant cries; all vibrating together in the surreal key of anarchy.
Reality is no obstacle now as the impossible looms up before us on the horizon like the purple aura that circles the moon in a subversive halo of Mad Love. We dance all night in sweaty abandon on the beach, swim naked in the coolness of the moonlight, then fall asleep in each other's arms dreaming of anarchy and surrealism—the impossible compass points of a world turned upside down.
Written by Ron Sakolsky for the Anarchist/Surrealist Jamboree (Vancouver, March 3 - 5, 2006)
If brass wakes as a bugle, it is not its fault at all.
―Arthur Rimbaud (1871)
By demanding the impossible, we become impossible in our demands. Make no mistake about it, we demand an end to all forms of domination and insist on the realization of poetry in everyday life. Only by erasing the artificial dichotomy between dream and reality can we sever the ties that bind revolutionary demands to a miserabilist search for the best of all possible rulers. What is more humiliating than to be ruled? What is more beautiful to a surrealist than the shattered glass of reality? All power to the insurgent imagination!
The unfurling of the black flag of anarchy augers all the wonders that can be created when subservience dies and the impossible is unleashed. What is more debilitating than to follow orders? What is more inspiring to an anarchist than the refusal to obey? Mutiny is a collective form of refusal in which the intensity of the fevered desire for liberty breaks the authoritarian chains of duty and coercion in the convulsive heat of mutual aid. Impatient to emancipate ourselves, as soon as the uncharted land of our dreams is in sight, we don't petition the captain to take us ashore, we simply jump ship.
Swimming to shore, we are swiftly carried along by the billowing waves of the social revolution. The splendid winds of change, blowing at gale force as if in harmony with the intensity of our desires, even cause the brass ornaments on deck to reverberate wildly in a jamboree bugle call of Marvelous Freedom. Looking back, we see the floundering ship of state, from which we have only narrowly escaped with our lives, suddenly hit a hidden reef and explode into a shower of debris. In awe, we watch the flying splinters of wood transform themselves as if by alchemy into a thousand screaming violins. In spontaneous freedom, they improvise with the aolian harpsound of the wind, the ocean's leonine roar and the seagulls' incessant cries; all vibrating together in the surreal key of anarchy.
Reality is no obstacle now as the impossible looms up before us on the horizon like the purple aura that circles the moon in a subversive halo of Mad Love. We dance all night in sweaty abandon on the beach, swim naked in the coolness of the moonlight, then fall asleep in each other's arms dreaming of anarchy and surrealism—the impossible compass points of a world turned upside down.
Written by Ron Sakolsky for the Anarchist/Surrealist Jamboree (Vancouver, March 3 - 5, 2006)
