Source: https://roundrobin.info
Via & Translated by Act For Freedom Now!
In February 2019 I signed the declaration that I submitted at a review trial for Operation Scintilla. My responsibility for writing the text is entirely my own. The piece in question presents numerous problems, the most serious certainly that linked to the refusal of the alleged indiscriminate nature of certain practices which unquestionably belong to the history of the anarchist movement. The phrase in question is: “the idea or the will to harm ‘an unspecified number of people’ such as could be office secretaries, employees or passers-by, does not belong to us in any way”.
At the time of elaboration of the text I firmly believed that I was capable of expressing myself, that I was able to take a stand about my life, accept or refuse the accusations and profiles constructed upon me by the prosecutor. I expressed what I thought sincerely, as if I could do that without any problem. As an anarchist individuality I don’t belong to any group or court category, I have my own way of thinking and, reasoning superficially, I said to myself: “why can’t I express it?”.
I got it all wrong. What I was strongly experiencing was just an incredible lack of lucidity, I had naively fallen into a trap. As soon as I was free again, the world, that world which had been my life for years and years, came crashing down on me in all its force.
The comrades who realized my absurd mistake blocked me immediately; thanks to them, and not without anger, I understood what had really happened. No one came and tapped me on the shoulder, certainly I was helped, but my life has drastically changed for the worst. The emotional impact was heavy, and if it might interest anyone, it has rightly catapulted me into deep torment. To take such positions in an inappropriate place, publicly, and in the absence of a fugitive co-accused, is a serious mistake, showing confusion and indecisiveness.
It can’t be fixed, there is no solution; but we need to talk about it clearly, ensuring that others, young people or new comrades, can understand how to face repression the right way and not make similar mistakes. I tried to do it by moving around far and wide, I didn’t seek discussions because there is no discussion or debate where I feel I can speak, but I talked about mistakes and weaknesses, above all I never hid, I never holed myself up in private. As I thought, the modalities used have not been understood and now we have come to this.
I have always refused the descriptions that are built upon the anarchist movement, categories are only inventions of prosecutors; each anarchist carries a variegated world of ideas and practices, each anarchist is an individuality and as such they cannot be classified, they conceptually escape all categories. Anarchists carry with them a history of revolutionary violence positioned according to different, eclectic, new and old practices and modalities. Indiscrimination, massacres, terror spread among the population, all belong to the State, the Italian state for example, which murders prisoners in Modena, tortures them in Santa Maria Capua Vetere and kills harmless people in trains, squares and railway stations.
Anarchists know who, what and how to strike. Radical critique, polemics, taking a position, the debate in the anarchist movement no matter how vicious and heavy, are all useful to better understanding, to finding new ways to face problems and heal wounds. This is what I have been trying to do for some time, even if from an external position, trying to see where I went wrong and get everyone to understand it. These words might also be pointless, perhaps, as I believe, they cannot be the last ones or ridiculously restorative, but they come from my heart, and however stupid or banal it might appear, that is the truth. Should it be necessary or considered important, I will present the same idea in front of those courts that I hate so much.
Antonio