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Contribution type: New Concept
Concept: Reactionary and revolutionary intercommunalism
Name of the contributor: Sophia Wathne
E-mail of the contributor: sophia.wathne@sns.it
Huey P. Newton’s (1942-1989) concepts of reactionary intercommunalism and revolutionary intercommunalism are great tools to describe our current neo-liberal world order, drawing on the work of John Narayan (2017, 2020). Huey P. Newton is best known as one of the founders of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and we should take him more seriously as a thinker as well. Intercommunalism describes a world where states matter less, and communities interact across borders, which to many sounds like a dream.
However, Newton points out that, what Narayan notes we today call neo-liberalism, has created an intercommunal world, but not a radical one, a reactionary intercommunalist world. This means that oppression is no longer mainly coming from the state but from several different actors and potentially from any geographic location. There is no longer one actor to topple in a revolution to create a new society. So, for Newton, the counter to reactionary intercommunalism instead is revolutionary intercommunalism, where the aim is liberated territories and communities fighting back by creating a different world within the current, and standing together in solidarity.
Newton’s analysis is of course shaped by the work of the BPP, and perhaps especially their survival (pending revolution) programs, which both prefigured infrastructure for their communities and made sure they survived another day, through e.g. free breakfast for school children and free health clinics. Through this prefiguration the BPP were aiming to create liberated territories, which is also an excellent description of prefigurative action in general.