Bastards of Utopia: Living Radical Politics After Socialism.
By Maple Razsa. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press,
2015. $30.00, paperback.
Kristen Ghodsee, Bowdoin College
In his lucid, compelling, and eminently teachable book, Bastards of Utopia: Living
Radical Politics After Socialism, Maple Razsa examines the political lives of a handful of
anarchist activists in Slovenia and Croatia as they participate in various episodes of the
transnational “alterglobalization” movement. Intended as a companion to the 2010
documentary film of the same name, the book explores the subjective experience of how
individuals choose to live antiauthoritarian politics in a postsocialist, post-Yugoslav space.
Following the stories of four key informants over the course of a decade, Razsa paints an
intimate and ethnographically rich portrait of the trials and tribulations of those who believe
that “another world is possible” (214).
One of the many charms of this relatively short book (only 222 pages of text) is the
clear and compelling voice of Razsa as an anthropologist, filmmaker, and activist. He
expertly deploys the first person narrative to walk the reader through the necessary historical
background and theoretical implications of his work, seamlessly tacking back and forth
between ethnographic anecdotes and analytical insights about the activities and actions in
which he both participated and observed. Indeed, some of the most gripping prose in the
book emerges from Razsa’s own personal reflections on his decision not to participate in a
planned alterglobalization action that morphed into full-scale riots in the streets of
Thessaloniki in 2003 (pages 124-135). Throughout the book, Razsa allows his own
ruminations to guide the reader through the tricky moral and ethical questions surrounding
the use of violence and direct action to effect social change. The book also encourages
readers to look beyond the politics of pure opposition. Razsa writes: “Given the continuing
crisis of the political imagination, in which, despite years of persistent economic crisis, it
seems so difficult to imagine alternatives, I argue that scholars, if they truly wish to
contribute politically, must move beyond the critique of neoliberalism and toward the
affirmation of political alternatives” (27).
The book consists of five chapters plus an introduction and brief conclusion. The first
chapter, “Grassroots globalization on national soil,” investigates the local context of the
anarchist scene in Zagreb. This chapter examines the city as it emerged after the dissolution
of Yugoslavia and the ensuing era of nationalistic wars and the corrupt privatization of
previously state-owned (or “collectively-owned”) enterprises to some 200 families close to
Franjo Tuđman. The key insight in this chapter is the importance of the postsocialist context
wherein critiques of capitalism or representational democratic politics immediately led to
claims that one was sympathetic to, or nostalgic for, the state socialism of the Yugoslav past.
Zagreb’s anarchists were thus both anti-nationalist and anti-authoritarian. They imagined a
future of decentralized and nonhierarchical communities able to co-exist peacefully and
provide for their needs through a cooperative, non-market economy.
The second chapter explores the planning and preparation for large citizen protests in
the lead up to the illegal 2003 Iraq War and Croatia’s participation in the United States led
“Coalition of the Willing.” Razsa explores the tensions between the “NGOniks,” the elite
corps of professional civil society representatives working within formal nongovernmental
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organizations, and the radical and non-hierarchical anarchists who largely despised them and
their insistence on “polite protest.” Razsa beautifully interrogates the roots of these tensions
and the political economy of the third sector in Croatia as it emerged during and after the war
years. The anarchists refute the “civil” in the term “civil society,” and consider their
compatriots involved in NGOs as “sellouts” who benefit from maintaining the status quo.
The third chapter, perhaps the most evocative one of the book, narrates the “gathering
of the tribes” that occurred in Thessaloniki in 2003. It is in this chapter that Razsa is most
explicit about the internal politics of the alterglobalization movement. He explains in detail
how consensus is achieved among groups with differing political ideals, particularly between
anarchists and communists, who, as any student of the European Left knows, have a long
history of murderous internecine struggle. There are also different groups of anarchists – the
so-called “sticks” and “Molotovs”– who disagree on how much violence is acceptable.
Within this context, Razsa describes how individual activists self-select into affinity blocs
and how the rules of engagement are negotiated and agreed upon using non-representational
democratic forms.
Although many anarchists travelled to Greece with the intention of violently clashing
with police – watching reels of “riot porn” to prepare for their confrontation and hoping to
feel the “state on their skin” – the Thessaloniki action escalated into full blown urban riots as
the predetermined rules of engagement were ignored. Razsa is careful to unpack the event
from the point of view of those who participated in it, examining the subjective experience of
direct action rather than merely passing judgment on whether the Thessaloniki actions were
“successes” or “failures.” This is ethnography at its best as Razsa uncovers the emotional
transformation that direct confrontation can inspire. For many anarchists, Razsa argues, the
oppressive nature of the state is something they understand only theoretically until they see
and feel the full power of state forces deploying tear gas, water canons, and batons to protect
rich neighborhoods and the private property of the corporations. The reality of direct
confrontation with this neoliberal state acts as a revelation for some activists who emerge
reborn in their commitments to radical politics.
The fourth chapter returns to Zagreb and a local effort to build a free store in an
abandoned factory, and the fifth chapter travels to Slovenia to explore the contours and
dynamics of the Occupy Movement. Both chapters serve as examples of Razsa’s call to
“affirmative politics” as he documents new ways of thinking about democratic power and
consensus building in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Although the Zagreb free
store meets an untimely end and the energy around the Occupy Movement fades, these
chapters provide useful case studies for discussions about the importance of political
imaginaries. Too often, both liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism are justified
because “there is no alternative,” and yet when activists attempt to experiment with
alternatives, they are immediately dismissed for not having a comprehensive plan for the
future world that will come. Razsa rails against this rhetorical Catch 22, showing that
progressive political practices can emerge in a spontaneous and authentic grassroots way
without the guiding light of some preconfigured ideology. Here Razsa argues that the
ethnography of these political movements can be an important tool for furthering their aims:
“[B]y insisting that creative practice may rush ahead of theory, we can recognize the minor
but important role that the ethnography of direct democracy can play in documenting,
reflecting on, and contributing to a reimagined democracy.” (203)
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In the brief conclusion to the book, Razsa attends to the criticism that ethnographers
might romanticize social movements and therefore ignore their internal power struggles and
persistent hierarchies. He defends his book by recounting exactly how attentive he has been
to the fissures and fractures among his informants and their various affinity blocs. But in the
end, Razsa admonishes the reader to remember the romantic attraction that social
movements, and especially radical social movements, have for those that participate in them.
Powerful feelings of camaraderie, commonality, loyalty, solidarity – even love
for one another and the collective – are a critical part of radical political
experience, born of shred struggle. In some cases, these experiences are at the
very emotional center if individual motivation and inspiration. If scholars
cannot convey these emotional states, critical reflections will only be
cynicism, and blinkered cynicism at that. We must find ways to represent the
powerful emotional charge generated when activists transcend social division
of gender, class, and national belonging, no matter how fleetingly (212-213).
Bastards of Utopia is an elegant ethnography for our times. We live in a cynical and
self-absorbed world, but Razsa wants us to remember that there are still those among us who
harbor an honest sense of purpose and belonging to a transnational network of likeminded
activists committed to changing the world. They know they’re outnumbered –and that they
face vast seas of apathy and intransigence among those who would most benefit from a
radical redistribution of power and wealth – but refuse to give up. Razsa’s wonderful book is
an implicit homage to the romance of struggling for a better future, even if we are unsure
what that future might look like. Bastards of Utopia challenges us to “reckon with the limits
of our own imagination” (222) as the first step in embracing the ideal that a better world is
possible, and that we all might play a role in fighting for it.
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