Open Flows

Many events and actions are called protests. Not all expressions of protest, however, can be said to challenge the established cartography of the world and our experience of it.

For instance, demonstrations which reassert the roles of managers/workers or government/governed may well express opposition to specific decisions by employers or governments, but they do not disrupt the division which grants some the right to make decisions for the many.

Moreover, there are many groupings and networks which are defined as being part of this or that movement. But not all groups, networks or protests can be said to move. Movement is not stasis, it is not the accumulation of people into enclosed and fixed spaces.

The traditional view on movements only sees movement where there are manifestoes, spokespeople and slogans. According to this view, those who move across borders in order to seek a better life are not a movement: there are no leaders who speak to the media or write manifestoes; no slogans or badges; no organisation to which they all belong or which has defined what 'a better life' might be. There are those who regard this as a lack, and who then confer upon themselves the role of manager or representative, claiming that they are able to mediate between those who move and governments, and granting to themselves the role of spokespeople for all those who move without papers.

Against such conceits, it is necessary to insist that the millions of people around the world who move without papers are indeed a movement who, in their very actions, articulate an analysis of the current state of the world and carry out a strategy of opposition and protest.

OpenFlow events are those which pay homage to this strategy of movement across borders as the most prevalent protest movement today. OpenFlow events are those which seek not to establish new enclosures but to dismantle existing ones. They can happen at demonstrations, bordercamps or strike meetings; they are defined by the experience they create of opening flows toward something that has not been experienced before.