At least for as long as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War gave rise to great hope, the Boom of the New Economy hid its bad points. Only the positive aspects of this massive cultural shift were ever emphasised. Nowadays, the signs have become more ominous that there are many political, cultural, economic and social conflicts simmering under the cover of digitalisation, info-isation and globalisation. The extent and impact of these conflicts cannot yet be estimated.

Seattle, Melbourne, Prague, Nice, Davos. Quebec has just been added to this list, and Genova soon will be. At first glance it would appear as though a new global protest generation is emerging that endeavours to emulate that of 1968.

However, this simplistic conclusion should not be yielded to. The great social movements of the past centuries, from labour to environment, are exhausted. Simple recipes have lost all credibility.

The field of the political has collapsed into thousands of single fragments, but it is exactly in this chaos that a new activism, with new ways of political articulation and action, is breaking through. All these new beginnings are extremely flexible and operate with tactical and strategic plurality. They strive for up-to-date notions of solidarity and self-determination, and they attempt to link immediate and local conflicts with global ones.

So what has changed?

In former times, people were imprisoned—in schools, the army, factories, hospitals—in order to be disciplined. Nowadays, people are monitored in real time practically everywhere. In all political, social and cultural fields, networking control tactics replace the former techniques of power exertion. Chip-cards, biometric systems and electronic collars control our access to proprietary and privileged areas. The notion of the border is redefined. At electronic frontiers and virtual borders, everything is about matching user-profiles—about networking against one's will.

There is no 'outside' anymore, and that is why the archimedian point of criticism has vanished. The 'New Left', as it emerged from the student settings of the 1960s and 70s, has therefore made its ideological criticism from very safe positions. Little wonder that the remains of such a protest culture excel at complaining, whinging, griping and—to get really radical—at making people feel guilty.

Nowadays, almost all habits of political thinking and action are more or less radically questioned. A redefinition of political practice and its theorising is absolutely necessary. It's important not to abandon all preceding insights. But rather, to investigate experience from a new point of historical upheaval, while remaining in touch with the past. To develop new terms and refuel old ones. To let struggles communicate with each other, regardless of whether they are old or new, or where they are physically located.

So far three layers of net.activism have appeared in a still rudimentary fashion:

• Networking within a movement: The first level of net.activism consists of facilitating the internal communication inside the movement. It means communication on and behind mailing lists and setting up activist websites. It leads to the creation of virtual communities.

• Networking between movements and social groups: The second level of net.activism is defined by campaigning and connecting people from different contexts. It means joining forces, collaborative and cooperative efforts, creating inspiring and motivating surroundings, in which new types of actions and activities may be elaborated.

• Virtual movements: The third level of net.activism uses the internet as a platform for purely virtual protests, which refer no longer to any kind of offline-reality and which may cause incalculable and uncontrollable movements: E-protests like online demonstrations, electronic civil disobedience or anything which might be seen as digital sabotage, ie counter-branding, causing virtual losses, polluting the image of a corporation.

Time is Running Out for Reformism. This is the golden age of irresistible activism. Set a target you can reach within 3 years—and formulate the key ideas within 30 seconds. Then go out and do it. Do not despair. Get the bloody project up and then: hit hit hit. Be instantly seductive in your resistance. The moral firewalls of global capitalism are buggy as never before. Corporations are weakened because of their endemic mad-for-profit practices. The faster things are changing, the more radical we can act. The faster things are changing, the more radical we have to act.

The green-liberal idea of slowly changing capitalism from within no longer works. Not because the Third Way party powers have 'betrayed' the cause, but because we are fast running out of time. Global systems are in a state of permanent revolution. Society is changing much faster than any of its institutions, including corporations. There is no time anymore for decent planning, to go through the whole trajectory from research to implementation.

Government policy is reduced to panic response. The complex society's prime enemy is its blueprints from five years previous. The future is constantly being redefined and renegotiated. Global systems are in a state of permanent flux between revolution and reaction—and so is subversive politics. In short: no one can keep up, and here, lies the competitive advantage of today's mobile actonomists.

Instead of crying over the disappearance of politics, the public, the revolution etc, today's activists are focusing on the weakest link: the point where the corporate image materialises in the real world, leaving its ubiquitous and abstract omnipresence. Boycott the common deliberations over the dichotomy between real and virtual. Get into more sophisticated dialectics. It's all linked anyway, with power defining the rules of access to resources (space, information or capital). Throw your pie, write your code. Visit their annual stockholders meeting, and do your goddamned research first. What counts is the damage done on the symbolic level, either real or virtual.

The new actonomy does not need a General Plan or a singular portal website, let alone a Party. It is enough to understand the new dynamics, and use them. Create and disseminate your message with all available logics, tools and media. The new actonomy involves a rigorous application of networking methods. Its diversity challenges us to develop non-hierarchical, decentralised and deterritorialised applets and applications.

Laws of the semiotic guerilla: hit and run, draw and withdraw, code and delete. Postulate precise and modest demands that allow your foe to retreat without losing face. The principle aim is to make power ridiculous, unveil its corrupt nature in the most powerful, beautiful and aggressive symbolic language, then step back and allow space for change to set in.

Radical demands are not by default a sign of a dogmatic belief system, although of course they can be. If formulated well, they are capable of penetrating deeply into the confused postmodern subjectivity that is so susceptible to catchy phrases, logos and brands.

These days a well-designed content virus can easily reach millions overnight. Invest all your time designing a robust meme that can travel through time and space, into a variety of cultural contexts. Low-tech money-free projects are charming, but in most cases lack the precision and creative power to strike at society's weakest link. Be ready to work with money. You will need it for the temporary setup.

Think in terms of efficiency. Use the staff and infrastructure of your foe. Acting in the new actonomy means cutting the preliminaries and getting straight to the point. A campaign does not rely solely on ones own forces, but on those of your allies and opponents as well. Outsourcing is a weapon. It is a means of giving someone else the problems you cannot solve yourself. Remember that you won't get very far without offices, servers, legal frameworks to receive and pay money, etc. However, you can also treat these institutional requirements as flexible units. You do not need to own them, the only thing you need is temporary access in order to set up the machine ensemble you need for that particular project.

Act in a definite space and with a definite force. Dramaturgy is all that matters. Precision campaigns consist of distinct episodes with a beginning, a smooth or harsh escalation, and a final showdown. Accept the laws of appearance and disappearance. Don't get stuck in dying structures. Be ready to move on.

Refuse to be blackmailed. If attacked, step aside or walk on. Don't panic. Take all the options into account. No one needs cyber-heroes. You are not a lone hacker anymore. The attack may be made by a single person but remember, we are many. The corporate response may be harsher than you expect. It may be better to evade a direct confrontation, but don't trust the media and the mediators. Ignore their advice. If trouble hits, scale down, retreat, reorganise, get your network up, dig deep into the far corners of the Net—and then launch the counter campaign.

Program and compile subject-oriented campaigns! These days a lot of people talk about a global movement of uprising based around, but definitely not limited to, the so called 'battles of the three acronyms': WTO, WB and IMF. But the urgent question is: what new types of subjectivity will rise out of the current struggles? Everybody knows what's to be done, but how many people know what we are fighting for and why? Maybe it doesn't matter anymore: net.activism is charmingly fragile. At the end of the day it means permanently revising and redefining all goals.

Self-determination is something that should be shared. As soon as you feel strength in a certain field, make your knowledge a productive, creative and innovative force. You will open up new possibilities, continuously producing unexpected and incalculable effects.

Ignore history. Don't refer to any of your favorite predecessors. Hide your admiration for authors, artists and familiar styles. You do not need to legitimise yourself by quoting the right theorist or rapper. Be unscrupulously modern (meaning: ignore organised fashion, you are too busy anyway). Create and disseminate your message with all available logics, tools and media, and leave the preaching of the 'techno religion' to others. Hide your admiration for everything new and cool—just use it. Take the claim on the future away from corporations. Remember: they are the dinosaurs.

Read as much business literature as possible, and don't be afraid that it may 'affect you'. It will. So what? With the right spirit you can survive any appropriation. Free yourself from the idea that enemy concepts are compromising the struggle. The challenge is to involve those who have not yet joined the struggle. The challenge is to use resources that may not belong to you in the physical realm, but which are virtually yours.

Sydney/Munich, June 2001
geert@xs4all.nl/fls@kein.org