Jedidjah de Vries

I like Eurovision. I have very fond memories of Eurovision. I am also deeply pained by Israel's participation and Moroccanoil’s sponsorship of Eurovison. What to do with this? I can boycott, of course. Just not watch. Simple and just. But I also want to take a moment on what is lost. It's not just a fun and silly night with friends. It's the way that the global seeping horror of the neo-fascists steal our joy, how they corrupt and degrade our social spaces and interactions, how we are increasingly left with the no-win choice of staying or leaving (twitter, eurovision, the country, etc.) as everything feels icky and principals feel empty. So I can not watch. I can even come up with some counter programming with friends and have a joyous evening. But the next morning what will I chat about with folks at the coffee shop, the gym, the neighbor on the stairs, and all the other small human interactions that knit together the social web? I will have to explain why I didn't watch then. I will have to play all my cards and hope and even though the stakes are low (this time) suddenly I'm forced to play a game I maybe wasn't up for.

It's a hallmark of fascism, as opposed to just regular right-wingism, that it seeks to colonize and pervade the social sphere. Youth groups, sports teams, social clubs of every kind, are all subsumed, made complicit, tainted. And again, you can refuse, but I'm trying to highlight what that means. Sometimes it means clear consequences, like Stan Cullis getting cut from the team for refusing to give the Nazi salute in 1938 Berlin as part of the English national football team. But often it's quieter, the quiet separation from your neighbor, coworker, friends. Forcing that separation is part of the point, of course, forcing a constant you're either with us or against us system at every level of society, even—or especially—when the stakes seem low. All of which is to say I'm angry. I'm angry at this feeling that they are taking Eurovision—riotous, campy, pan-European, and just plain fun Eurovision—away from us and angry at the feeling of impotence that the most I can do is not watch. This is shit. This is bullshit. This is the fascism we face and that we have to deal with together.

I feel the need to add a small anecdote. I was a 12 year old kid living in Jerusalem when Dana International won in 1998. It was a big, huge, massive, deal. Already then, and even as a kid, there was a feeling that the ultra-nationalist religious right was taking over the country. Now, as an adult with a more sober analysis of history and ideology I can look back and say that already then, and already in 1948, and likely already before, it was too late and Zionism wasn't so much tainted as inherently shit…but I digress. In 1998, as a secular kid living in Jerusalem (but not from Israel originally, life and nationality are complicated), there was a real feeling that the enemy was the religious right. Friends were already thinking about the army and then you saw some Haredi kid across the street who would never have to serve. The politics of the day was dominated by Aryeh Deri & all that nonsense. Fights about Shabbat street closures regularly led to Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at passing cars.

And then…

A trans woman representing Israel won Eurovision! And singing in a Mizrachi style too! (kind of/sort of a similar dynamic to Lil Nas X making it big with a country song). And Jerusalem was going to host all that queer camp goodness with Dana at the center of attention! It felt really good.

After all that it's only fair that I give you with a glorious Eurovison entry, so here is Croatia from 2023 with ŠČ.

I should highlight one more thing: capitalism. Part of what makes boycotting things like Eurovision or the World Cup so hard is that while one the one hand they are owned and driven by monied interests, they also belong to and are given life by us, the fans, the community, the social relationships and connections that are the real reason we care about any of it. This goes back to what I was saying about how it's not just that it sucks to not enjoy watching Eurovision but that it sucks to not talk about it with friends afterwards. But it's worse than that because boycotting means facing up to the fact that we never really owned Eurovision to begin with—even though it's our love for it that gives it value. It's a bit (and I mean this in a hand wave-y metaphor way) like the worker who suddenly can't take the means of production with them when they quit. This duality is even more striking with football. It's absolute bullshit that the beautiful game has been taken hostage by FIFA, sponsorships, sports washing, etc. And it hurts that no matter how much we love, not just the game but the fandom, the community and the connections, that we can't just yank it back from the smug suites in the VIP lounge selling our passion to the highest bidder. We can build and support parallel alternatives, of course, but that doesn't entirely alleviate the pain.

I put together alternative haggadah for Passover. It aims to be radical, revolutionary, and subversive. It is 100% functional and you can use it, just as you would any other haggadah, to guide you through a Passover Seder. It follows all the same steps in the same order. But your Seder will not be the same.

You can download it right here!

The afterword explains in more detail the thinking that went into putting it together. You can, of course, use it as is or remix it for your own needs.

In the violin world when people ask questions like “how do I maintain motivation to keep practicing?” the answer is: habits are better than motivation. Instead of relying on motivation or inspiration to hit, you should make a plan, have a routine, build the habit of practicing day in day out. Politics are the same. When folks ask "how do we get people to care?" the answer is: culture and ideology are better than individual feelings. Instead of hoping people feel moved to act on a specific topic we need to build norms, and yes, habits.

Part of the power of unions is inculcating that culture and identity of “we are union people, which means we show up in solidarity when shit goes down.” Part of the power of anarchism is that you have a ready ideological framework for understanding power and don't have to reanalyze every new situation from scratch. You know what side you're on. You know what to do. You’ve practiced this with your friends.

I know the pervasive Liberalism of our age makes many uncomfortable with this idea. A call for constructing “the human nature of the revolutionary,” or whatever, sound hopelessly outdated. People like to seem themselves as approaching everything with an open mind and thinking for themselves. But that’s a trap. Having the right “hot take” isn’t politics. That’s how you end up arguing about Musk’s Nazi salute is a true reflection of his interiority and whether to be kind to people who voted for Trump and generally feeling overwhelmed, paralyzed, and isolated.

When shit gets real you need to have community and habits to fall back on. You get there by building a shared culture of resistance where norms and practices have become not just second nature but, yes, the new human nature of the revolutionary.

… or why make yet another one?

This is the draft afterword to the alternative haggadah I am working on putting together. It’s also a very roundabout start at saying more about social magic and its role in politics.

The short answer is because we needed one. But haggadahs are no place for short answers. So … do you know the old joke about the Jew who went to sea? They were caught in a shipwreck and marooned all alone on an island. Finally, many years later, a mighty ship with an unfurled sail showed up to rescue them and bring them forth from the island. Before leaving, the old Jew offers to give the captain and crew a tour of the island and show how they had been living all this time. They show off the hut they built, their favorite fishing spot, the best tree for taking nap under, the clever tools they had fashioned, and so on. “And these,” proudly gesturing to a cluster of modest but sturdy structures, “are the three synagogues I built.” The captain and crew are a bit confused. Why three? “Are you very religious?” they ask. “Not at all,” the old Jew replies, “I usually only attend services during the high holidays.” So why three? “This first one, this one here, is the synagogue I go to when I do attend. That one over there, well, I used to go there but I got into an argument,” they continue as a flash of true anger passes over their face, “and I won’t be going back there again.” And the third? Did you quarrel with them as well? “Oh no!” they exclaim with just a hint of smug self righteous satisfaction, “That’s the synagogue that I would never ever go to!”

So when I say we put this together because we needed one, it’s not because we didn’t have any haggadahs on our bookshelves. We have traditional haggadahs and alternative ones; very old and very new; texts full of dense commentary and simplified ones for children; beautifully printed and bound editions and lovingly mimeographed and stapled exemplars; at least four languages and in general just plenty of options. But, like the Jew on the island, we still needed to build our own.

Partially, of course, we wanted texts and references that resonated for our own time and place. Ursula K. LeGuin and Walter Benjamin are touchstones for us. You probably have your own. There is nothing universal about this haggadah. That’s also why we followed the long standing tradition of naming haggadahs after a place (e.g. Sarajevo, Amsterdam, Washington), to emphasis that it’s is a product of context. We created this when we lived in Southern California and, even though we all live elsewhere now, this haggadah is still of then and there. Plus, I also like how easy it is to accidentally refer to it as the “so called” haggadah.

But this is not just an exercise in localization. Even the most traditional seder, one that follows the text to the letter, has plenty of room to for additions as the participants contribute ex tempore commentary that forges connections to their present. After all, connecting past to present is at the core of the seder. And it’s also not that we went beyond addition and into subtraction. I mean, we did. We took out most of the bits with god and all of the bits with odious ethno-nationalism, which together are quite a lot of the bits to be honest. But the point wasn’t to just end up with a haggadah “light”, one that is striped of all the religiosity we happen to not like, keeps the rest, and then leaves the whole evening nothing more than a thin morality play that confirms what we already want to be true. Because it’s precisely the evening as a whole that is important.

Focusing on the written text of the haggadah, looking at it primarily as a story, misses something very important. It treats the haggadah as a narrative that is read when it’s actually a magic spell that is enacted. It is a magic spell in that it is a manual for the performance of a ritual, the ritual of the seder as a whole. And we really do mean magical ritual in the most literal sense. Everyone knows what it takes to cast a spell. You draw your sacred circle. You put in your magical items. You follow the steps and say the magic words of the spell. Sitting around the table together is our circle. The seder plate and everything on it are the magical items. The order of the seder are the steps, and the words of the haggadah are the spells and incantations.

We realize that this runs somewhat counter to how haggadahs—including this one!—often present themselves. Alternative haggadahs in particular like to frame themselves as telling the story of liberation. Telling the story is supposed to serve as a reminder, bear witness, and be a celebration of the past. They hope to raise awareness and morale. To do this, to emphasize their new exegesis, they go about their work like a musician playing a variation on a theme. But we, to tap into the power of the traditional haggadah while creating our own magic, looked for a contrapuntal line to the original. And, to be clear, that power does not come from any inherent truth or true tradition but entirely from the thick accretion of years, community, and reenactment. What this meant in practice was that we had to move according the rules of magic-logic. That’s why we were careful to follow the structure of the haggadah closely. We grappled with the purpose of each step of the ritual, what its role and function was in the proceedings. We meditated on what the spells invoked and manifested. And we tried to carefully craft not just the text of the haggadah but the experience of the participants who would perform it.

And it was important to get it right because this magic is powerful. For us, the seder is a ritual that prepares us for revolution. It’s an act of communal magic that, if successful, fundamentally transfigures us. Through the creation and manipulation of a symbolic structure we hope to change our collective consciousness. But, the truth is, like many great conjurings, we’re not actually entirely sure ahead of time what form the result will take. The future revolution is behind a veil that only a leap of magic can pierce.

Magic is dangerous like that.

The bad faith slippage of moderation = censorship rests on the fundamentally mistaken conception of moderation as the use of rules to decide what content is allowed and what content should be removed.

The problem of moderation—in this (mistaken) conception—then becomes “fairness,” situated either in the rule creation and/or rule application. From here also stems the temptation for a quick technological fix, since technocrats inherently peddle the myth that a technical approach can transcend human messiness and thus be “fair”. But that isn't even the biggest issue.

The bigger issue is that by focusing on the rules moderation becomes entirely oriented towards the individual. Moderation becomes the judging of individuals and their actions according to the rules to determine whether content can stay or must go. Not incidentally this is also what liberal, and especially libertarian, ideology gets wrong about how society works.

Because that’s not what moderation is at all. Moderation is about structuring a space to allow for the community you want. You don’t moderate for individuals, you moderate for the group. The reason for taking an action as moderator isn’t because someone is guilty of breaking the rules but because of how they are affecting the community. This is a fundamentally different guiding principle for moderation. (And also points to the limitations of so many online moderating tools that only focus on removal/limiting who can see what.)

I’ll give just one, very innocuous and apolitical, example. I am a mod on reddit for r/violinist. We have rules and procedures around asking questions that are addressed in the FAQ and are sometimes very strict about it. People then complain that we have unjustly removed their perfectly legitimate question. And, that’s sort of true. There is nothing inherently bad about asking “can you help me pick my first violin?” … except when you’re the Nth person to ask that day and the stream of similar questions is making it difficult regular community members to engage in meaningful and helpful conversation.

This is of course true beyond online spaces. We are always making decisions about how to structure spaces to allow for the people and interactions we want. Thinking of moderation this way helps us escape the trap of focusing on rules and slipping into conversations about censorship. I think it also invites us to rethink a little what we want our online spaces to look like and how we want them to function.

I have been putting my old zines up on my website. Today it's the turn of “Theory Head № 1” … a short zine about the role of theory in the struggle for social change.

I put this together back in grad school to try to explain to my anarchist punks friends why I thought bothering with theory was worth it. As a zine, I still really like it! It's pretty and coherent and satisfying. And, I still think analysis and reflection are important. But, I also think I was far too kind to the world of theory. A lot of it is wordy milquetoast. Instead of offering this to my friends as a defense of theory I should have turned to fellow theory heads and challenged them to do better.

Anyway, here it is for you to enjoy.

I’m seeing a lot posts from folks in the US-sphere about how to “prepare” for the next four years. And they’re mostly good, (though, not entirely¹) and folks are right to fear what may come. For a lot of folks the coming years are going to be hell; let’s call that category 1. But, in a way, I’m more afraid that, for many nothing, will come at all, or at least only very little will change for them. I don’t mean the rich and racist who are salivating for future horrors; let’s call that category 3. I mean all the folks who with a small shrug and a bit of adaptation will blithely and happily continue along with their lives. This is category 2. The thing is, I strongly suspect that a lot of folks (not everyone; I’m not saying that at all) posting, reading, thinking about “preparing” actually fall into this second category, even though they might think they are in the first.

I think a lot of folks are going to be all geared and gussied up to fight fascism and then find that it has come in the night to beat up some folks in that other neighborhood (you know the one) and they at most heard some sirens in the night. I think folks are so focused on being prepared, on their own safety, on knowing how to react, on being the target that they’re going to miss the fact that fascism might not care about them all that much. A story my Grandmother used to tell was that after the war ended a neighbor a few doors down knocked on their door and said proudly (smugly?) “I knew what you were doing and I didn’t rat you out to the Germans.” and my Grandmother politely said “thank you” but in her mind was thinking “That’s the absolute bare minimum you asshole [I’m paraphrasing here]; that’s not being part of the resistance. That doesn’t make you one of the good ones.”

I’m not saying bad shit isn’t going to happen and lots of folks aren’t going to get hurt. That is definitely going to happen. But, well, for example. You’re book club isn’t going to pick Trump’s “Stories of True Patriots™”…but it only has 4 members. The local church, a nice normal church, might though because Lucy really wants to, and the President did ask everyone to read it, and what’s one book to stay friends with Lucy? You aren’t part of that church. What are you going to do about it?

I’m glad so many folks are interested and eager to think about the work ahead. I really am! And I’m not offering a full blown solutions here, which is a weak-sauce cop-out, I know. But I would like to offer one small correction and one small addition to the present discourse. First, yes be prepared but be realistic about what you—you specifically—are actually going to face. Second, to that end, look more closely at how historical and present day fascist and totalitarian states operate. Present day Hungary and India, recently Philippines and Poland, historically East Germany and Portugal are all good examples. Unfortunately there are many. The scenes that play in the popular imagination of jackbooted thugs smashing down your door and sending you to a camp to die the day after you dared say “the Leader is a poo-poo head” are … simplistic. Those regimes are/were scary and awful as fuck. But also more complex and janky than a Hollywood hero movie.

And now this post is starting to veer into what fascism actually is and isn't and how it's not just anything ultra conservative or any big shot who wants to be a dictator but a specific combination of the two that has love of Power (with a specific capital P) combined with a totalitarian outlook, and totalitarian not just in the political sphere but also the cultural, civic, and social sphere which I think we haven't seen play out in the U.S. to the same extent yet.

But that's not what I wanted to say today! I just wanted to say (tl;dr:) I’m glad y’all are thinking about how to prepare but just keep in mind they might not actually be coming for you, or even your next door neighbor, and certainly not necessarily in an overt show of force way and you should also be ready to handle a thousand soft choices while the black shirts are terrorizing that other neighborhood (you know the one) and do you actually know anyone over there? Because—and be honest with yourself about this—your neighborhood might actually continue unscathed for a good while yet. That’s one of the scariest things about fascism.

My grandparents were in the resistance during WWII. They mostly forged and printed identity documents and ration cards. At the end of 1944 they produced a booklet containing a short story by Vikenty Veresaev called «The Star». A few years ago I translated it from their Dutch edition into English. And now you can read it too. I don't entirely understand why, in such a dark hour, they chose to use precious resources to share this particular haunting story.

• The Star — screen
• The Star — print

Recent events in Amsterdam have reminded folks that sports and politics are inseparable. But, it’s not the only such recent sports story, and not even the only one involving Israel and football.

Tonight Israel is playing against Belgium (as part of the Nations League, not to be confused with the League of Nations) … in Hungary. Why is the game taking place in Hungary? Well, UEFA (the folks in charge of football in Europe (why Israel is part of Europe for the sake of football is a whole other post)) decided back on October 19, 2023 that “After a thorough evaluation of the current safety and security situation in the whole territory of Israel […] that no UEFA competition matches shall be played in Israel until further notice.”¹ Which makes some sense, except when you remember that Russia and Russian teams were outright banned from all competitions in 2022². But fine, no one expects UEFA to know anything about ethics.

Because of UEFA's decision Israel has had to play all of their “home” games in neutral venues, in this case in Hungary. While unusual this isn't entirely unheard of. Ukraine has been playing their “home” games at various stadiums in Poland since 2022³ and the last time Palestine played a “home” game in Palestine was 2019⁴! And there are a few other examples not related to ongoing conflicts, like Kosovo in 2018 and Turkey in 2005⁵. So it's a thing, just not a super common thing.

But that still doesn’t answer: why Hungary of all places?

The first “home” game Israel played in Hungary on November 15, 2023 (vs. Switzerland, 1–1) was held at the Pancho Aréna in Felcsút. The Pancho Aréna opened in 2014 and can host 3,865 spectators. Felcsút has a population of 1,688. Felcsút also happens to be the home town of Viktor Orbán (the far right strong man “Prime Minister”) and a bit of a pet project for him. And that basically sets the tone for this whole story. There are really two parts to this: first there is Orbán’s interest in sports-washing in general, and obsession with football in particular; and second, there is Orbán’s relationship to Bibi/Israel/Jews and how it reflects the broader far right strong man constellation of our time.

The first part of this story is fairly straightforward. Like so many other authoritarian regimes, Orbán loves to bask himself in the “apolitical” goodwill glow of hosting large sporting events. In addition to graciously stepping in to host large international sporting events, Hungary has also seen an intense football stadium building spree. In the last decade nearly 2.5 billion euros were spent on stadiums⁶, with a fair chunk of that likely siphoned off to corrupt Orbán friendly oligarchs on at least 19 new stadiums plus renovations and upgrades of many others⁷. That's a lot!

The pinnacle of Orbán's efforts came in 2020 and 2021 with, yes, Covid. First the 2020 UEFA Super Cup final was moved from Porto to Budapest, and held with some restrictions (this was pre-vaccines, when no one else was holding such large events). And then during the 2020 Euros (held in 2021) the games in Budapest were the only ones to allow 100% attendance and had no restrictions. Because … what else do you expect from a far right strong man? It's the perfect mix of sports washing, populism, mass spectacle, anti-science/“elites”.

The second part is slightly less straightforward. Orbán and Bibi are good friends the way only two far right strong men can be friends. Hungary is also providing the neutral “home” venue for Belarus’ games. But, since this is Israel we're talking about, this isn't just about a shared ideology and world view. Orbán has insisted that Hungary is the safest country in Europe for Jews⁸. Then again, he has also spoken against race mixing, downplayed Hungary’s relationship to Nazi Germany, and promoted George Soros conspiracy theories^{9 10}. It’s not actually surprising that a far right anti-immigrant strong man is also basically anti-semitic. What might be surprising (but shouldn't be by now) is his love of Israel. When Orbán speaks of combating anti-semitism in Hungary what he means is banning pro-Palestinian activity and leaning into Islamophobia more generally¹¹. This is the direct parallel of the U.S. evangelical support of Israel. Essentially, Jews are fine, as long as they go live in Israel, help bash Muslism, and no one forgets that they aren't really part of Us (Hungary/American/whatever). A well trodden story, but it's still important to elucidate and call out the bullshit here.

The upshot of all that is that Orbán is extremely happy to come to Israel’s aid, and at the same time Israel is more than happy to legitimize Orbán and his football nonsense.

A common chant at U.S. demonstrations for a while now has been "this is what democracy looks like." I disagree. Marches are a patch for when democracy on its own doesn’t deliver the "will of the people". Ideally we wouldn’t be in the streets; we’d all have a our voices heard in the room. But we march anyway. We understand that sometimes you have to pull on the levers of power you can reach, even while you work to dismantle and rebuild the machine.

The U.S. is, if we are being wildly generous, a deeply flawed democracy. Power is concentrated and fortified by money and violence. Most folks are left out in the cold. We all know this. And yet elections happen. Maybe the outcome only matters a little and maybe the process is warped by the flows of power. But elections still happen. They are still a lever, however inconsequential, that can be pulled.

Some of you are thinking “If voting mattered it would be illegal” and that’s half right, but only half. Power isn’t monolithic. There is a tendency to build up the enemy as a pervasive suffocating power. But in the real world everything is a bit more squishy and porous and human than that. That’s why organizing and demonstrations and all that good stuff sometimes work. Why oppressive power still sometimes inexplicably leaves itself open would require a whole line of analysis that is way beyond the scope of my rant here. The point is that, for now at least, elections are still a thing in the U.S. and, while the process is shit, they’re not yet 100% a puppet show. We have to hit them any way we can, however small.

And some of you are going to start talking about not wanting to consent or be complicit in the horrors of the next administration. There will be horrors. I agree. But voting isn’t a pledge of loyalty. You already don’t believe that the U.S. is a democracy, you already don’t believe that they particularly care about your consent or are in need of your complicity. I know the Liberals like to attach moral baggage to voting. But why would we, as anarchists, accept that? All that talk about “earning” and “deserving” your vote, about the patriotism of participating in the process, about democracy … fuck it. Your vote isn’t any of that. It’s just a thing you can do to maybe make the world slightly better. It costs you practically nothing. At the end of the day those in power are more than happy to take abstention at the polls to mean that you’re basically fine with whatever. Voting is only being complicit if it’s the only thing you do; what matters are the other 364 days.

And I more than admit that the U.S. is system is beyond dumb. If you live in Wyoming or Washington D.C. I don’t care if you vote for the presidency or not. You’re right. You’re vote in that race mostly doesn’t matter. But, and I know this isn't a novel insight, there’s a lot more on the ballot than the presidency. Local races at the city, county, school board, sheriff, judge (can you fucking believe judges are an elected position??) make a massive difference in people’s daily lives. I promise that if you don’t think so you aren’t paying enough attention. Will electing the right people usher in the revolution? Of course not. Neither will not buying stuff from Amazon, using Signal, or running the local Food Not Bombs. But all of those can make the world a little bit better so we do them anyway.

bonus tangent: There is a tension in anarchism between wanting to build alternative institutions and community in parallel to the current world and wanting to challenge the current world. Both streams are living and valid parts of contemporary anarchism. We often try to paper over that difference with talk of “direct action” but I am not convinced that that’s as theoretically robust as we would always like it to be. And my tangent to this tangent is that historically anarchism was all about “propaganda by the deed” and somewhere (if some historian of anarchism could help me pinpoint when I would be deeply grateful!) that fell away. At the very least the idea that anarchists have never wanted to engage with the current system is ahistorical.