COUNTING TO ZERO: a semi-serious call for ideological transformation and horizontal organizing

Pink, Black, Green Radicals of All Lands and Seas,

The Zeroeth Transnational is a rewind of the past and a fast forward to the future. Since it's numbered nought, zero, cero, null, it wants to travel back in time to before the First International and the split between Marx and Bakunin, and socialism and anarchism. The Zeroeth Transnational aims at federating radicals, activists and their struggles in all regions, like the social democrat and revolutionary syndicalist Second International failed to do, succumbing to nationalism and world war. The Zeroeth Transnational wishes to revive the enthusiasm of the communist Third International, when even anarchosyndicalists joined the leninist cause only to be horribly betrayed and purged by stalinist commissars. The Zeroeth Transnational finds inspiration in the global antifascist (and anticolonial) front of the 30s and 40s, but rejects the auhoritarian communism of the Cominform era.

Let's go fast forward now: the Zeroeth Transnational is a 21st century idea, and as such it is inherently postsocialist and postcommunist. It aims at networking and federating the radical currents of the prague-genoa-rostock movement against neoliberal shock therapy and neoconservative war. Since 2000 the so-called antiglobalization movement has rocked the continents and changed political culture, but has failed to reverse the free-market tide and the increasing securitization of politics. Also, it has faild achieve the right to exist and act socially and politically: its people and spaces are threatened by the state like never before. The rebellious youth that has propelled it constantly risks being criminalized by conservative politicians and tribunals, also because the established left and the reformist Porto Alegre wing of NGOs fails to defend and often in fact condemn the deeds of the heretic left, without whose thrust no progress on agriculture, environment, media, labor, discrimination of minorities and persecution of migrants would have been made. We were strong in Heiligendamm, but we are increasingly weaker in our cities where our heretic communities live and act daily.

Why is it so? Why do we get no credit for the biggest global movement since 1968, in spite of the fact it was the generation of those born in the 70s, 80s and now 90s that created it, just as they created the major cultural and social innovations of our era (urban anarchy, digital networking, media subvertising, free software, queer culture, green hacktivism and on and on). There are several reasons for this, but one is rooted in our lack of an ideology that is distinct from those that preceded us. The crucial question today is not "What Is to Be Done?", but "Who Are We?".

The Zeroeth Transnational is convoked precisely for this reason, to discuss together a new ideological landscape that best synthetizes our ideas and practices, to cultivate a sufficiently flexible but cohesive political identity, that can give stronger purpose and meaning to the manifold mobilizations and campaigns against monetarist, clerical, militarist, ecocidal, racist Occidentalism.

Who are we? We are not the official european left of Die Linke and Rifondazione. We are not the reformist unions like IG Metall and CGT. We are no Trozkyists of the Fourth International and Socialist Worker. We love the zapatistas, but we are no indios. We work for an ecotopia, but we are not Fischer's Greens. We block military bases, but we're no pacifists. We think all cops are bastards, but we're no hooligans. Who are we? We seek autonomy and anarchy in the EU and the world. We're pink, black, green. Pink as queer, black as wildcat, green as chlorophyll. We are pink clowns allied with black blocs doing direct actions with green radicals. We are anarcho-syndicalists. You might say we're anarcho-negrians. We fight for no borders and no detention centers. We are part of PGA and MAYDAY. We were on the barricades in Genoa and Rostock. We are zeroists;)

Zeroism. Zeroeth. Zero, kamikaze of thought. Zero, but no less than zero. Count Zero and cyberpunk. Zero after Ground Zero. Zero at the Zero Hour of Europe. Zero in the double-00s, ahocking pink and islamic green 2000s. Zero as Off. Zero as fuck off. Zero as opposed to the One. Zero, the moss on the crumbling walls of oppressive regimes. Zeroism, the idea emerging from the ruins of the leftist ideologies of the past century.

Zeroism is self-evidently a dadaist provocation, a provisional concept for the ideology we lack and that blunts the appeal of our messages and actions for teens and other people who might otherwise join us. Since we lack strong symbols, an array of recycled icons and emerging images is proposed in a creative cacophony where pirate flags, antifa symbols, cyber fists, zapata stars, vegan carrots, critical bikes, circled As and bolted circles are spurious substitutes of the real thing. For fear of exploring our ideological sources and horizons we adopt a convenient multi-identity that leaves us undefended when strong identities, be they statist, nationalist or religious, move against us.

Zeroism. Zeroeth. Zero, kamikaze of thought. Zero, but no less than zero. Count Zero and cyberpunk. Zero after Ground Zero. Zero at the Zero Hour of Europe. Zero in the double-00s, ahocking pink and islamic green 2000s. Zero as Off. Zero as fuck off. Zero as opposed to the One. Zero, the moss on the crumbling walls of oppressive regimes.
Zeroism, the idea emerging from the ruins of the leftist ideologies of the past century.

Transnationalism has been with us since Seattle and will be with us for the foreseeable future. It's different from the internationalism of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th... international. Internationalism brought national movements together in a world alliance against capitalism, fascism and imperialism, transnationalism brings cross-border networks in a europe-wide alliance against nation-state and the neoliberal
eurocracy, and in a global alliance vs corporate capitalism and its headquarters in America, Asia, Europe. One obvious reason is that we are in the 21st century, not in the 20th or the 19th century. And with 1999 and 2001 a new century was historically started. A darker and ecocidal phase, more ominous than the late 20th century, but also one where transnational movements decidedly global elites and the transnational corporations that back their power. The movement's transnationalism has been different in political terms from what it was preceded by on the radical left. We are not only confronted with new issues (rebellious megacities, queer liberation, global war, biospheric catastrophe, meginequality and great recession), but with a new way of looking at revolution and socialization of the means of production, new experiments in coordinatin and self-managing social life and social production. Post-structuralism has radically changed
political discourse and modes of self-expression. Male-worker patriarchy has yielded to transgendered polyarchy. Positivist optimism has given way to scientific catastrophism, socialist industrialism to ecological informationalism as dominant epistemologies on the radical left.

Intrigued? Wanna debate a new ideology and a federating symbology?
Then help us thinking about a 0.0 meeting of the Zeroeth Transnational!

QUESTIONS TO FULLY BAKE CAKE

-what kind of ideology is zeroism?

-what is organisational structure of zeroeth transnational?

-what kind of symbolysm is in pink, black & green tricolor?

-what is the difference between zeroism and communism?

-what is the difference between transnational and international?

-what attitude zeroism has to nationalism and patriotism?

-what attitude zeroism has to revolution?

-what attitude zeroism has to private property and privatisation?

-what attitude zeroism has to state and national state?

-what attitude zeroism has to capitalism, market?

-what attitude zeroism has to weapons, war and militarism

-who is zeroist?