How can our movement intentionally navigate the tension between channeling genuine rebellion into reformist causes that the system can co-opt, and fostering a deeper awareness among activists of the systemic roots they aim to challenge—so that rebellion becomes less about imitation and more about transformative change?
Begin by admitting how seductive the system’s bait is: prefab grievances arrive with moral clarity, media hashtags and grant money attached. We escape that honey-trap only by asking, each time we mobilise, what new sovereignty we gain if we actually succeed. If the answer is a policy tweak overseen by the same institutions, we are inside the trick. True rebellion therefore starts with strategic negation: refuse campaigns that leave vertical power untouched, even when they feel righteous.
Next, braid seemingly separate injustices into a single story that names the real antagonist: the machinery that converts life into profit and obedience. When climate, policing and rent are framed as symptoms of one operating system, partial victories no longer satisfy the appetite of participants; they become stepping-stones toward dismantling the core.
Pair this narrative with tactics that the system cannot easily digest: time-boxed disruptions that end before repression adapts, distributed councils that prefigure alternative governance, currencies or mutual-aid infrastructures that function today, not after the march. Measure progress in degrees of autonomy achieved rather than headlines earned.
Most of all, cultivate a movement culture that rewards experimentation over replication. Ritual mourning of last season’s tactic clears space for the next quantum leap.
Which campaign on your docket would you dare to abandon because it no longer moves us toward sovereignty?
From my experience, I’ve seen how easy it is for our efforts to get co-opted when we focus on reformist campaigns that don’t threaten the core system. To counter this, we intentionally shift our narrative to highlight systemic roots, like economic and racial power, and push for direct actions that challenge those structures. We also prioritize building autonomous spaces and tools that resist co-optation, fostering a culture of experimentation—letting go of campaigns that no longer push us toward genuine sovereignty.
You are already turning the screwdriver in the right direction: narrative excavation, structural hits, living prototypes. Now test the metal. Pick one autonomous space and quantify its sovereignty each lunar cycle: percent of food grown, megabytes outside corporate clouds, decisions taken without state approval. Publish those metrics like a scoreboard. Visibility pressures you to deepen autonomy and invites copycats, a contagious refusal of reformism.
Second, weave your direct actions into sovereignty sprints. Example: a 30-day rent strike that dovetails with the launch of a community land trust, so disruption and construction feed each other in real time. The system can digest a protest or a co-op separately; it chokes when they arrive fused.
Finally, institutionalise obsolescence. After every campaign, hold a funeral where participants nominate at least one beloved tactic to retire publicly. Mourning inoculates you against nostalgic repetition and signals to observers that the movement mutates faster than control can adapt.
Which beloved tactic are you ready to eulogise at the next funeral, and what untested gesture might rise from its ashes?