Since the firebombing of the RBC in Ottawa there has quickly emerged a debate around whether the cops were behind the action. We can't understand how believing and suggesting the firebombing was done by agent provocateurs strengthens the anarchist community. What is this debate about? Is there any strategic or tactical advantage to echoing concerns that this action was actually mounted by the State?  Do we really think it will increase police repression? As though there weren't already plans to send riot cops, helicopters and tear gas to the G8 and G20 summits?

What the debate reveals is the fact that there is a lot of talk of who we are fighting against, but when action happens, we can't possibly believe it could have anything to do with us. Instead of support and discussion, we hear criticism, cynicism, paranoia, and fear. Despite the fact that an anarchist group directly took responsibility for the action in their communiqué, we dismiss and doubt it.

We either don't believe anyone among us could mount a fight, or we are too scared to think we could. Do we not even hope we can make change?

If we can't even believe that, than we sure can't believe we can win.

In this last week deep cynicism and privileged inaction have been sharply apparent. Our cynicism and comfort is especially fucked up now, when capitalism and our planet are in such serious crisis. If there was anything for the cops to capitalize on, to divide and conquer us, it is exactly that cynicism.

We complain about the pacifists, but we are regularly policing our own movement, or being afraid to believe in the power we could have. We program ourselves to do demos where we get boxed in by riot cops. Still, we make our way towards the barricades. 

Everyone knows the game. It's comfortable, how predictable it all is.

Sabotage in resistance movements is nothing new, especially when movements are not strong enough to make frontal attacks on the state. The communiqué asks for the torch to be passed. The fire this time…

It was a good action, well directed on a common target, with a solid political message that many people can get behind. Property destruction is not violence. It's sabotage. It's a legitimate part of the struggle.

Can you imagine opening up the newspaper to see bank fires burning across the country? Can you even imagine it?

We have to remember that our day-to-day lives are a reflection of where we are. More than anything these days they reveal the hypocrisy of our claims that we are engaged in a serious political struggle.

Morality is not neutral. It is socially and politically constructed. 

Those who don't expect to win should think about whose side they are playing into.

Thanks for the inspiration FFFC-Ottawa!!

-Message Heard