On the night of 27th
October, the blood-red blossoms of a hundred fires fell on the streets of Clichy-sous-bois. As it did so, it began to burn away the triple glamour of social consensus, consumerist passivity and corporate hegemony upon which the European elite have sought to create a "new" order preserving their power and privilege.

Here is a reality of capitalist society. However many beauty parlours capitalism may visit, whatever gaudy mask it chooses to wear, beneath its silky smooth skin there is always the spirit of REVOLT, seething like molten lava, waiting to burst through the painted crust like a running sore.

The European elite know this only too well. The spectre of rebellion, of insurrection, leers at them in their oldest dreams. And how often has their nightmare awoken in France ? In 1789, in 1848, in 1871, in 1968…As riots erupt across France, from Paris to Rouen, from Strasbourg to Marseille, is it not difficult to imagine them springing up elsewhere ; in Berlin, in Madrid and Amsterdam, in Rome and in Prague, even in London ?

SURREALISTS and REVOLUTION

Do we Surrealists fear the spread of this carnival of the enraged ? No ! On the contrary, we demand it ! In all probability we may have very little in common with the rioters save only our anger and our deep disgust at our sick society. And of course, we would go much further. We do not merely require the tokens of equality for the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the immigrant. We do not call for more jobs, or more pay. Instead we desire the destruction of European civilisation itself. We will dance and piss on its grave.

We do not call for calm from the rioters, for the restoration of social peace. We call for the spirit of insurrection to seed and flower everywhere. In every street, in every workplace, in the heart of every person - regardless of race, of cultural or religious background - enslaved by this miserable and miserablist culture.

We cannot condemn the violence of the riots. Riot policemen, and other agents of oppression are legitimate targets. This is war. Cruelty and inhumanity occur in war and they occur when the oppressed strike back at the oppressor. But such cruelties are but small reflections of the savagery meted out, daily, and as a matter of course, by the bourgeois state.

Fight oppression any way you can.

London Surrealist Group