We Have to Break Bourgeois Right

In June 2017, Alain Badiou was invited by the “Conséquences” seminar to give a lecture with the title “What does a politics outside the state involve?” Three comrades from ACTA spoke with him in a preparatory discussion for this lecture; this zine offers a partial transcription of that conversation. In it, Badiou describes the limits of the current cycle of revolts extending from the Arab Spring into the mid-2010's, juxtaposing them with the Zapatistas and the Kurdish revolution in Rojava.

"I’m not a non-violent person, absolutely not. I’ve practiced all this and I think it’s perfectly normal for young people to try it, to absorb it, to know that they can do it. You have to learn not to be afraid of the police, but to despise them, and at the same time protect yourself from them, etc. – that’s not the problem. The problem is much more considerable: it is to know what kind of constraint can be exercised on the state at the general level..."

First published on ACTA, March 28th, 2020. Translated by Verso, August 12th, 2020.