Evil Insurgency. A Comment on the Interface ‘Strengthening Planning’s Effectiveness in A Hyper-Polarized World’

The Interface on planning in a hyper-polarized world (Trapenberg Frick & Myers, 2018) assembles a collection of views on citizens’ activism in today’s age of widespread discontent, anxiety, and hate. The contributions address the conservative common sense of the opposition to development in England (Andy Inch); First Nations’ opposition to a huge pipeline project in Alberta and British Columbia (Heather Dorries); the impact of rising, strong conservatism experienced by planning in the United States (June Manning Thomas); the precarious situation of immigrants and the right to sanctuary (Willow S. Lung-Amam and Gerardo Sandoval); and the contested field of climate change and climate planning policy (Ann W. Foss).

My comment does not set out to review this exciting Interface. I was surprised, however, that hardly any of the contributions mention the close relationship between growing hyper-polarization and the rise of evil insurgency. I therefore wish to add a few thoughts on the dark side of insurgent citizenship: the ‘angry citizen’ (Wutbürger) and evil insurgency.

Citizens’ activism comes in many different shapes, and in a ‘hyper-polarized world’ it can be expected that some activism is neither docile nor law-abiding, but rather insurgent and upsetting to planning authorities. In order to analyze such activism, phrases like ‘insurgent historiographies for planning’ (Sandercock, 1998) and ‘spaces of insurgent citizenship’ (Holston, 1998) were coined. Insurgent citizenship and insurgent planning were recognized by planning theorists as legitimate forms of citizen engagement (see, e.g., Beard, 2003; Caruso, Hammami, Peker, Tulumello, & Ugur, 2014; Davy, 2012: 208–210; Davy & Pellissery, 2013; Delaney, 2014; Friedmann, 2002, 2003, 2011; Galbraith, 2014; Goonewardena & Rankin, 2004; Holston, 1998, 2009a, 2009b; Irazábal & Neville, 2007; Lane & Hibbard, 2005; Meth, 2010; Miraftab, 2009; Miraftab & Wills, 2005; Rangan, Ng, Porter, & Chase, 2017; Sandercock, 1998; Shrestha & Aranya, 2015; Sweet & Chakars, 2010; Watson, 2012; Winkler, 2009).

Insurgent citizenship has captured the attention of planning theorists for obvious reasons. Being a citizen, and not just a human, sounds inclusive and promises a right to belong. As long as citizenship is merely formal, however, marginalised individuals and groups often feel dependent and vulnerable. The concept of insurgency adds zest to citizenship and offers activists a dignifying opening to move away from the paralysing welfare state. After all, one of the most eminent founders of citizenship studies called both social citizenship and town planning ‘the architect of legitimate social inequality’ (Marshall, 1950, pp. 9 and 62). Marginalised individuals and groups can reduce ‘legitimate social inequality’ and improve their positions through insurgency (Friedmann, 2002, pp. 75–78; Holston, 1998, pp. 46–53; Watson, 2012, pp. 86–89). Insurgent citizens struggle for ‘the defense and preservation of existing human and citizen rights’ and claim ‘new rights’ (Friedmann, 2002, p. 78), for example through community projects, active participation in planning processes, and acts of solidarity.

Planning theory relates insurgent citizenship to T. H. Marshall’s theory of social citizenship and Rousseau’s social contract theory (Friedmann, 2002, p. 77; Holston, 1998, p. 52) or to Robert Owen, Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Peter Kropotkin (Friedmann, 2003, p. 9). However, the concept of insurgent citizenship contradicts or at least transforms Marshall’s social citizenship; insurgent citizens do not merely ‘receive’ social assistance, but claim functionalities. In this sense, ‘the social’ does not refer to the domain of a welfare state, but to citizen activists, grassroots movements, and the public domain beyond formal democracy. The struggle for Tierra y Libertad (Ankersen & Ruppert, 2006) or property ‘in the margins’ (van der Walt, 2009), local initiatives to preserve communal land ownership (Godden & Tehan, 2010; Manji, 2006), or ‘property outlaws’ (Peñalver & Katyal, 2010) combine insurgent citizenship and land policy (Davy, 2012).

Insurgent citizens claim their right to the city (Lefebvre, 1996, pp. 147–159; Mitchell, 2003). This comprises a broad range of activities. The American civil rights movement (in the 1960s) or peace activists claiming missile-free cities in many European countries (in the 1980s) are archetypal examples of acceptable – or even laudable – insurgency, and so are guerrilla gardeners or community activists. But therein lies the danger of ‘romanticising insurgent practices, because Robin Hood is more lovable than the Sheriff of Nottingham’ (Inch et al., 2017, p. 483). Do German citizens blocking access to or fire-bombing a refugee centre, or gun-toting cattle ranchers seeking an armed confrontation with law enforcement also qualify as acceptable insurgents? Incidents of both kinds have occurred (2015 in Saxony, Germany, and 2014 in Nevada and Oregon, United States) and become symbolic of a particular strand of contemporary identity politics. The incidents – crimes, really – remind us of the fact that being Robin Hood is not an objective category, but a claim. In the case of the fire-bombing of a refugee centre, the perpetrators claimed that they were defending their German homeland against an invasion by Muslim foreigners. In the case of the stand-off between cattle ranchers and law enforcement, the cattle ranchers claimed their right to use federal land and asserted that the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to own vast tracts of lands.

In 2010, the German journalist Mr. Dirk Kurbjuweit in an essay for the weekly DER SPIEGEL coined the expression Wutbürger which translates as ‘angry citizen’ or ‘furious citizen’ (pronounced woot-burger). Kurbjuweit was referring to citizens, who sweepingly oppose government policies, ranging from the huge infrastructure project Stuttgart 21 to the allegedly preferential treatment of migrants and refugees. Wutbürger are ‘politically conservative, wealthy, and not so young any longer’ and disgusted by what they perceive as the political establishment (Kurbjuweit, 2010). Wutbürger, the Word-of-the-Year in Germany in 2010, became a popular expression for a huge variety of angry, dissatisfied, anguished, frustrated, and fed-up individuals. A Wutbürger takes issue with current government policies, including but not limited to, regional and urban planning, public investment programs, public policy goals. Some angry citizens are convinced that climate change, world hunger, racial discrimination, sexual exploitation and violence, or regional planning problems have been invented by the United Nations, the European Union, the central (federal) government, or the ‘fake news’-producing media. Wutbürger believe that these inventions have the purpose of patronizing citizens and annihilating traditional values. The attitude of the Wutbürger is reminiscent of the ‘paranoid style’ defined and discussed by Hofstadter (1996). I am concerned about the surprising career of insurgency in the era of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. Angry citizens in Western countries engage in xenophobic and nationalist grassroots movements (like the alt-right movement in the United States, Pegida in Germany, or many Brexiteers in the United Kingdom) and have gained substantial political significance through insurgent practices.

Sandercock, Holston, Friedmann, Watson, and others do not want to empower evil insurgents. But it is not easy to draw the line between good and evil insurgency. What are the elements of insurgent citizenship? Friedmann (2002, pp. 77–78) assumes four elements:

• Insurgent citizenship is self-declared and voluntary.

• Insurgent citizenship is achieved through active participation in temporary, non-territorial political communities.

• Insurgent citizenship aims at the expansion of the spaces of democracy.

• Insurgent citizenship entails solidarity across all borders with those who are committed to insurgent projects.

The most significant difference between T.H. Marshall’s and Friedmann’s citizenship concepts seems to be the role of the individual. Marshall’s social citizen can be a rather restrained and obedient individual, who receives social assistance from the welfare state (Marshall, 1950). As soon as social citizenship has been achieved as a political goal as well as an entrenched government practice, no need for political activism remains. Social citizenship can be limited to the peaceful consumption of welfare benefits. A similar tranquillity cannot be found with insurgent citizens. Although ‘insurgency’ in the sense in which planning theorists use the term does not necessarily entail violence or armed resistance, it is neither restrained nor obedient. Insurgent citizens are actively involved in solving problems vital to their community which neither the government nor any welfare state institution (e.g., a planning department) care about.

Friedmann’s examples of insurgent citizens included, amongst others, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, the World Wildlife Fund, or the Pan-Indian movement in North and South America (Friedmann, 2002, p. 67–68). With respect to planning theory, Friedmann (2003, p. 9) asserted that insurgent planning is ‘rooted in civil society rather than the state’. Radical or insurgent planning is:

“allied with social movements for the right to housing, feminist concerns, socially and ecologically sustainable development, bio-regionalism, gay and lesbian rights, anti-racism and others, and is inspired by the normative theories undergirding these movements. (Friedmann, 2003, p. 9)”

Holston examined ‘insurgent performances’ of the urban poor in São Paulo (Holston, 2009b, p. 250). The protection of the environment, the support of political prisoners, the promotion of unity among different American Indian groups, or the mitigation of urban poverty are causes that can be called left or liberal. Many planners easily identify themselves with such causes, and are familiar with the tactical consequences of ensuing insurgencies: collecting money and signatures, rallying in front of town halls or industrial facilities, sending petitions to members of parliament, civil disobedience, debunking legal processes as a deception by obsolete authorities, physically occupying spaces of power, the use of physical violence against property or, as a very last resort, humans. Although many planners would not condone all stages of insurgency, surely they think that some rage against the machine must be considered legit.

How then does the Wutbürger, the angry citizen, fit into the theory of insurgent citizenship? Over the past 20 years, angry citizens have crowded out the typical left or liberal version of insurgent citizens. Here are two examples:

• In the United States, the 1993 Waco siege by law enforcement and US military against the Branch Davidians (led by Mr. David Koresh) inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Mr. Timothy McVeigh. White power, gun show culture, a distorted view of private property rights, and a profound hatred of government are typical of the fringe groups of right-wing terrorists and fundamentalists appearing, for example, as sovereign citizens, the wise use movement, the alt-right (i.e. alternative right movement), or supporters of the Bundy family in their fight against grazing fees on federal land in Nevada and Oregon. The Republican Tea Party movement, Mr. Donald Trump’s America First campaign, and, of course, the use of Twitter by the current President of the United States are examples of how right-wing insurgent citizens have found a voice in the political establishment they claim to oppose.

• Dating back to the infamous firebombing of the home of Vietnamese refugees in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992, xenophobic activists in unified Germany have employed the whole gamut of strategies available to insurgent citizens. In 2014, Mr. Lutz Bachmann initiated a Facebook group rooting for Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Pegida) which translates into ‘patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident’. Pegida soon called its followers to join in demonstrations in Dresden, but similar groups were also formed in other German cities. On the wave created by these groups, following the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, a mostly neglected right-wing political party called Alternative für Deutschland (AfD; Alternative for Germany) became Germany’s third-strongest political party in the 2017 federal elections.

The obvious question raised by anti-government, xenophobic, nationalist, and potentially violent individuals and groups is whether they are ‘insurgent citizens’ in the sense meant by eminent planning theorists. Sure, evil insurgents like the alt-right or Pegida do not fit the typical examples listed by Friedmann (2002, pp. 67–68; 2003, p. 9), but sadly, they fit his definition (2002, pp. 77–78), at least as far as Wutbürger understand themselves: They are self-declared and voluntary, their active participation is temporary and non-territorial, they wish to expand their view on spaces of (what they think is) democracy, and they seek comradeship from anti-government, xenophobic, nationalist, and potentially violent individuals and groups.

This is both disappointing and frustrating. Surely, nobody, who cherishes Sandercock’s, Holston’s, Friedmann’s and Watson’s concept of insurgent citizenship or insurgent planning, identifies with the sovereign citizens movement, the alt-right, the Tea Party, Breitbart’s readership, America First, Britain First, Brexit, Ukip, Pegida, AfD, or other varieties of right-wing insurgency. It is remarkable, however, how strongly right-wing insurgencies have emulated and even improved strategies typical of urban guerrillas, feminists, the anti-nuclear movement, animal rights groups, and other initiatives fighting for social reforms, environmental justice, less sexism, or animal rights: concealed communication, secret plans to overthrow ‘the system,’ a strong sense of inclusion (comradeship), a similarly strong sense of exclusion (of e.g. the police and courts or media hostile to the cause), civil disobedience, even violence.

The most significant innovation of Wutbürger insurgencies is the use of so-called ‘social’ media – the Internet, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others – for what actually amounts to anti-social propaganda (Trapenberg Frick, 2016, pp. 109–111). Although social media has also been employed by others (such as presidential candidate Mr. Barrack Obama or the insurgents during the Arab Spring), right-wing Wutbürger achieved unprecedented success in spreading their hate messages through social media. A constant flow of hateful messages fed to its followers turned Wutbürger not only into an energized audience, but also generated an inexhaustible feedback loop of inspiration.

As a refugee from Austria under Nazi government, Friedmann was familiar with nationalist and racist propaganda and the power a dictator can harvest from ‘ordinary people.’ Through his life (particularly in Latin America), he observed right-wing insurgencies (Friedmann, 2017). Citing Sandercock and Holston, Paula Meth convincingly analysed insurgency as transformative, yet also repressive (Meth, 2010, p. 258). Watson (2012, p. 88) even thinks that ‘repressive insurgency and transformative insurgency are not necessarily dichotomous, and can be mutually constitutive and enacted by the same community.’ The two-faced appearance of freedom fighters as terrorists also illustrates the ambiguity of insurgency. Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo were not always celebrated as heroes, but also persecuted as criminals. Mahatma Gandhi, whose image in the West has been romanticized by Lord Attenborough’s movie, was connected to the mass insurgency against the British empire through his profound nationalism, as expressed by his influential book Hind Swaraj (Gandhi, 1910). What distinguishes the Wutbürger from insurgent citizens cannot be identified easily as moral inferiority. With regard to Brazil, James Holston (2009a, p. 13) noticed that the emergence of insurgent citizens may be accompanied by evil developments:

“At the same time, moreover, that a generation of insurgent citizens democratized urban space and key aspects of its planning, creating unprecedented access to resources, a climate of fear and incivility also came to permeate public encounters. These new estrangements produce an abandonment of public space, fortification of residence, criminalization of the poor, and support for police violence.”

It is obvious, but still needs to be mentioned, that good and evil insurgencies must not be conceived of as a dichotomy. In fact, the line between acceptable and unacceptable insurgency is rather blurred. The French ‘yellow vest’ movement (mouvement des gilets jaunes) is a recent example of how confusing the mixture of legitimate protest against the government and violence or anti-Semitism can become. Insurgent citizens react to their political, social, economic, and ecological environments, but such environments also react to insurgent citizens. We must not misunderstand this relationship as being one of cause and effect as might be explained to us by our physics teacher. However, an electorate voting for a white real estate mogul in order to prevent a woman succeeding a male African-American as President of the United States can be regarded as responding to a perceived humiliation (Fukuyama, 2018). In this sense, the theory of insurgent citizenship helps in ‘understanding democracy as a field of destabilization as well as of electoral competition’ (Holston, 2009a, p. 28).

Evil insurgency is not merely a question of property fascism in Oregon or racial hate in Saxony, it directly affects planning. Just imagine a public hearing on a proposed development plan with an audience of white supremacists or Pegida followers. Even a very patient planner would then start thinking desperately about a reversal of Arnstein (1969) and look for a ladder of dis-participation! As far as I can see, the theory of insurgent planning would not assist this patient, but desperate planner. John Friedmann’s application of Holston’s concept is probably the best theoretical approach to insurgent planning. Friedmann’s view of insurgent citizenship implies substantial distrust in ‘the state.’ Depending on which part of his rich works one has in mind, this distrust is based on experiences with weak or corrupt governments as well as courageous citizen groups and bold initiatives for neighbourhood improvement and social reform. In each case, however, ‘the state’ is hardly ever the hero in Friedmann’s narratives, neither as larger-than-life Leviathan nor as personification of left solidarity or liberal good-will. Although Friedmann was arguably one of the most morally concerned writers on spatial planning, his moral outlook is clouded (or informed) by scepticism of public planners and state institutions. He wants radical and transformative planning through social mobilization (Friedmann, 2017, p. 30). The public domain is for bold citizens much more than professional bureaucrats (Friedmann, 1987). This makes insurgent citizenship attractive to left and liberal planners, but also vulnerable to infiltration by anti-government, xenophobic, nationalist, and potentially violent Wutbürger. Because of its inherent openness, insurgent citizenship is not Wutbürger-proof.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Crystal Legacy, Karen Trapenberg Frick, and Andy Inch for helpful comments on a draft version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Davy

Benjamin Davy is Professor of Land Policy, Land Management, and Municipal Geoinformation at the School of Spatial Planning (University of Dortmund) and Visiting Researcher at the Faculty of Law (University of Johannesburg). Currently, he is the President of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP). Benjamin Davy is co-editor of Town Planning Review, essay editor of Planning Theory, and member of the editorial boards of Planning Theory and Practice and Journal of the American Planning Association.