Mask and the Flag

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From Tahrir Square in Cairo to the "indignados" of Madrid and Barcelona, from Occupy Wall Street in New York to Gezi Park in Istanbul, contemporary protest bears the mark of anarcho-populism, a hybrid political culture where the Guy Fawkes mask of anarchism is donned and the national flag of democratic populism is waved. Addressing the citizenry impoverished by the 2008 financial crisis and disaffected with traditional politics, these movements have scaled up participatory practices previously confined to neo-anarchist countercultures. They have adopted a majoritarian discourse epitomised by references to the "99%", used social media as platforms for mass mobilisation and created hundreds of protest camps and assemblies the world over, often gaining widespread popular support.

Gerbaudo argues that this populist turn has enabled protestors to break out of the activist ghetto and overcome the fragmentation of single-issue politics. However, fixation with leaderless and 'horizontal' organisation has forced these movements to a permanent state of infancy and made them vulnerable to police repression and internal exhaustion. Despite its evanescence the post-2011 protest wave has spawned a hopeful spirit of popular unity and solidarity, leading to new citizen initiatives and organisations that are reshaping politics across the planet.