A year ago in Europe a campaign of attack against companies and infrastructures that feed the ecological catastrophe around the world, entitled Switch Off! was launched. Large and small actions have positioned themselves in offensive from the concern and need to confront an evident eco-systemic collapse provoked by the global capitalist machinery that destroys everything in its path.
The intention of the campaign is to “attack the system in a sustainable way”, placing direct action in a common context through anonymous communication with each other, inviting to arm themselves with their own means and go on the offensive against the productive infrastructure and with it the property, without falling into false discursive, institutional and/or technological illusions, “making it clear that there can be no green capitalist alternative, nor peace with the existing conditions”.
In a first statement of presentation we can see more precisely what is the background and objective of why to invite the use of the slogan “Switch Off!”:
Switch off – a call to revolt
(DN Note: We make our own translation into English from the original German text.)
The certainty that the current system will lead to the collapse of the massively damaged ecosystem has already moved countless people and driven them into resistance. Tens of thousands are taking to the streets against the capitalist machinery’s “business as usual”, people are resisting the destructive large-scale projects en masse, the system’s infrastructure is being blocked and courageous fighters are setting fire to the machines that are robbing them of their livelihoods.
What we need in the struggle against the destruction of nature and the resulting social misery is the common striving for the real revolutionary break and the freedom of all. For an initiative that rejects all compromises and cosmetic corrections of the state and brings about a transformation of our social relations.
Because the destruction of the planet by the neoliberal economic system is inextricably linked to patriarchal thought patterns, racism and colonialism. The initiative for this must necessarily come from below. From the struggles of the marginalized. From the struggles of those who oppose the state’s promise of salvation with a self-organized, solidary coexistence. From the struggles of those who see that there can be no compromise in the fight against the systemic destruction of the biosphere.
We should also be aware that we cannot completely prevent the gradual collapse of a massively damaged ecosystem. Not the loss of biodiversity. Not the depletion of resources. We will not be able to prevent the climate catastrophe, as we are already in the midst of it. Admitting this – without any doomsday pathos – does not paralyze us. On the contrary: it should open up the question for us and our contexts of what our lives and our revolutionary struggles could look like in the future.
We can hardly block and sabotage as radically and uncompromisingly as the climate change caused by capitalism requires. But we should not be discouraged by this. Let us question, sabotage and sustainably attack the infrastructure of capitalism in the fight against exploitation. So that another world becomes possible! Let us cooperate with each other in solidarity so that we can live a dignified life. Let us realize our ideas in the here and now and already within our struggles and actions. We will not be lulled into complacency by the attempts at appeasement by those in power.
Against their technological solutions
The solutions offered by those in power for the now noticeable effects of the ecological crisis are primarily technological. This is obviously also driven by lobbying, but above all it is a strategy to legitimize themselves. The development, control and application of the “technologies of the future”, which are supposed to make growth capitalism “sustainable”, are in the hands of the state, industry and science and are inextricably linked to them. If we are being sold the illusion that climate change can be stopped technologically, then this is based on the belief that those in power only need to take the right steps, the right measures, to save this world. For one thing, they have absolutely no interest in ending the expansionist capitalism that secures their position of power. And for another, technological reform, with the new dependencies it produces, is also doomed to failure. Examples of this could be e-mobility or technologies for the production of so-called renewable energies. The required raw materials are often procured in the course of neo-colonial environmental exploitation. The transportation of these raw materials and components is in turn highly dependent on fossil fuels. As a result, a conversion of the current industry to renewable energies before the global oil reserves dry up is unthinkable anyway.
We can no longer afford their wealth
No matter what terms we use, we can no longer afford the wealth of the rich. The struggle over climate change and its effects is about class issues. Who are those who have always been able to profit from the crises and wars of recent years and secure their supremacy? Who is responsible for the majority of emissions of climate-damaging gases? It is not the already marginalized, the refugees and the poor. It is the energy companies, banks and arms companies. It is the rich, whose decadence can only exist on the backs of others. And it is the lifestyle of mass consumption and waste of resources of societies in the global North, which is based on assumptions and conditions of exploitation that we should reject and fight against. It is therefore clear that a fight against the destruction of nature must also have the destruction of property as its goal. Let us destroy the infrastructure of wealth for a world in which everything belongs to everyone.
Attacking the system sustainably
In our struggles, we come up against contradictions that affect our own habits and thought patterns. Can we imagine projects and worlds that break with our patriarchal roles, gender-specific oppression and racist continuities? It remains important that we develop ideas of what solidarity and togetherness can look like in turbulent times.
Those in power, whether they have a green veneer or not, will respond to advances against their plans with increasing severity in the face of the climate crisis. They are clinging to fossil fuels and the dinosaur of the nuclear industry. They are clinging to the lie that renewable energies will save the world. They are getting tangled up in their greenwashing propaganda and they will act all the more authoritarian the more the reality of things calls their promises into question.
We think that militant action and direct attack in all possible forms is an important means – although by no means the only one. Many of the protests, demonstrations, sabotage and blockades that have taken place so far point in an exciting direction. However, we believe that we can only become a serious threat if we seek to communicate with each other. We propose to relate to each other under the slogan “switch OFF! – the system of destruction” and thus place our struggles in a common context.
Our actions must make it clear that there can be no capitalist green alternative, no peace with the existing conditions. Let us dismantle the glittering façade of (green) capitalism! We choose the means ourselves and no one stands above another in a hierarchy. We think it would be great if many people took up this idea.
This is not an attempt at appropriation, but a call to go on the offensive and strengthen the existing struggles. Let’s ignite a long-term wave of action towards revolt! Take care of yourselves and be courageous.
Switch off – attack the system of destruction sustainably.
For a struggle in solidarity under catastrophic conditions – worldwide!
Some of the actions
Since this campaign, dozens of actions have already been perpetrated and claimed; among them, vandalism, glass breakage, arson attacks to companies, construction machinery, trucks, municipal vehicles and sabotage to “critical” infrastructure such as hydroelectric power plants, high voltage lines, railway lines, mining pipelines and gas pipelines. Without making an extensive chronology of all the actions, as we recommend visiting the Switch Off! website, let’s see just a few with excerpts from their communiqués:
-Sabotage of hydroelectric power plant in Berlin (June 12):
Our action is a powerful salute in support of the indigenous struggles in Colombia against coal mining and a sabotage of German climate and industrial policy.
(…) Here in Germany the supposed end of coal is celebrated as an example of ecological sustainability, while in Colombia death and destruction are exchanged for energy for German industry – that is colonialism today – in green.
“El Cerrejón” in Colombia was a crime against people and nature even before the attack on Ukraine. The coal mine occupies almost 70,000 hectares in a semi-desert area of Colombia. The Yukpa and other indigenous groups are no strangers to forced expropriations, evictions, threats and murders of indigenous environmental activists.
(…) Every day, the mine, popularly known as the “monster”, swallows more than 30 million liters of water and pollutes the groundwater. All the coal extracted there is destined for export to Europe, China and the United States. Even before the Ukrainian war, 30 million tons of coal were exported to Germany and burned every year to satisfy our greed for energy. According to rbb, a phone call from Chancellor Scholz to the Colombian president on April 6, 2022 led to the expansion of a controversial coal mine in Colombia. On the same day of the conversation between Scholz and President Duque, indigenous communities were “informed” by the “environment” ministry, according to rbb, that they would now have to leave to make way for the “monster” expansion. Germany secured hard coal exports with agreements during the Ukrainian war and is accepting a further increase in CO². The indigenous, Afro-Colombian and peasant communities, on the other hand, are between a rock and a hard place, for example in their struggle for water and the protection of the Bruno stream in La Guajira.
-Sabotage of electrical systems of mines in Hambach and Garzweiler (July 5):
The attacked cables supplied, among others, the coal bunkers of the Hambach and Garzweiler opencast mines and the Fortuna coal bunker. The aim of the action was to interrupt the supply of coal to the Neurath and Niederaussem power stations and, if necessary, to force their closure. Unfortunately, according to the press, we did not carry enough accelerant to cause serious damage. Next time we will carry more. Nevertheless, this action shows that fossil fuel companies like RWE are vulnerable. And who knows, we may have indirectly contributed to the transformer fire on July 11 at the Hambach opencast mine, which brought the entire opencast mine to a standstill.
The coalfields, in particular, are a very important infrastructure for supplying the power plants. Most of the electrical cables between the substations and the coalfields run above ground and are easily accessible.
(…) The “Shut Down the Destruction System” campaign provides inspiration and publicity for actions against the destruction of nature.
-Incendiary attack on BMW electric cars (July 9):
In recent months, the crackdown on climate activists in Germany has steadily intensified. In media coverage, Last Generation (LG) has received the most attention. Investigations by the Munich public prosecutor’s office into the formation of an alleged criminal organization, house searches, preventive arrests for sit-in blockades, etc… Now the Berlin public prosecutor’s office has announced that in future it will try street blockaders in so-called summary proceedings. The Code of Criminal Procedure allows the judicial apparatus to adopt this approach if the charges against the accused are “suitable for immediate trial due to the simple facts of the case or the clarity of the evidence.”
(…) With this action, we also send a warm greeting to the activists who have been taken to court in recent months for blocking power plants and who have been sentenced to several months in jail. We call on the LG to finally open its eyes and put an end to futile appeals to the federal government. There is no reason to believe that all will be well once the €9 bill and Tempo 100 have been put in place and freely elected “citizens’ councils” have been established as a backdrop to the Punch and Judy show of fossil fuels. The problem is not the misguided or overly hesitant climate decisions of a national government. The problem is the whole damn system!
-Incendiary attack on electric charging stations (June 15 and July 14):
The development of new sources of raw materials, mines and factories to implement the so-called energy transition and the move to electrified private transport are in full swing: gigafactories exploiting groundwater; new lithium mines in Portugal; nickel and gold from stolen indigenous lands in Indonesia; the development of vanadium deposits in Norway and rare earths on Sami territory in Sweden; Cobalt from Congo…. the industrial extraction of copper, cobalt and nickel from the ocean floor; the acquisition of hydrogen on artificial islands in the North Sea or through neo-colonial import strategies from Namibia and Chile… the costs of this energy transition and of carrying on as before with a clear conscience are already well known. The shift to green capitalism is inevitably accompanied by an intensification of the exploitation of people and nature!
(…) We have decided to attack an infrastructure that is currently expanding rapidly and is present almost everywhere: electronic charging stations. They are a necessary component for the transition to Green New Deal mobility and therefore an ideal low-threshold target.
-Incendiary attack on Senator Mäurer’s car (July 19):
It gives the impression that Mäurer has always been a senator of the Interior, but for at least the last 16 years his job has consisted of unscrupulous enforcement of the murderous European and German refugee regulations on the territory of the Hanseatic city of Bremen. He has recently been appointed head of the city for another four years. During this long period in office, he has been responsible for thousands of deportations, arrests and imprisonments with all imaginable consequences for those affected. He has always supported murderous policemen, such as the murderers of Qosay Sadam Khalef and Mohamed Idrissi.
Mäurer had so-called “danger spots” created in order to be able to carry out “independent suspicion checks”. Twice a year, he and his colleagues at the interior ministers’ conferences joined in the chorus: “more weapons, tougher laws, more prisons…”.
-Golf course sabotage (July 24):
(…) the struggle against climate destruction is inevitably also a struggle over class issues. The richest 1% of the population emits much more CO2 than the poorest 50% of society. While the city warns us to conserve drinking water, the golf club has its large lawns irrigated. While they enjoy their leisure activities on a well-watered green, we look at an area of the city that could be a park, a nature preserve or a residential area for affordable housing. We are not surprised that this is of no interest in Blankenese’s parallel society. That will only change when fear changes sides – let’s work on it!
-Armed attack on Deutsche Bahn (July 27):
There are many reasons why Deutsche Bahn was chosen as a target. With this attack we specifically want to pick up on the ongoing protests directed against the so-called “Mayan Train” in southern Mexico and bring them to where the responsible parties are located in this country. Deutsche Bahn, owned by the German state, acts as the shadow operator of this infrastructure project through its subsidiary DB Engineering and Consulting and earns millions from it.
(…) The cynical name “Tren Maya” alone obscures what is really behind it. Because this megaproject is not “just” a train. It is a neocolonial infrastructure project. An ecocidal corporation that means the destruction of the last tropical forests of South America. A counterinsurgency project against the indigenous and Zapatista communities of southern Mexico, their expulsion and seizure of colonial lands. A concrete wall and rails isolating the rich global north from migration from the global south, administered by the Mexican army and co-responsible by the German state through the DB.
(…) German companies are involved in neo-colonial structures all over the world. They benefit from an orientation towards progress and growth that aims to destroy the earth and the basis of all life. This builds their walls on a colonial foundation consolidated over centuries and from which the societies of the global North benefit. Our prosperity here, the lifestyle of mass consumption and waste of resources, is based on the exploitation of the “others”. This means that the catastrophic effects of the prosperity of the few must disappear from local sight. They are visible to those who work for it and whose livelihoods are destroyed by it. This can also be seen in the climate crisis. While the increasing share of so-called renewable energies is making the air cleaner here, mines for German coal-fired power plants are being expanded in Colombia. While electronic cars are rolling down European roads, the extraction of lithium, cobalt and other minerals in Guatemala, Congo, Bolivia and many other places is destroying the ecological balance and turning living flora and fauna into dead and diseased areas.
-Incendiary attack on transmission tower (August 3):
There are often actions that are echoed in the media and planned accordingly. We do not know why our action has not been echoed in the press until now. This is striking and it would be interesting to find out if there is some kind of information blackout imposed by the police or politicians (?) to prevent the diffusion of this kind of actions (?). It is doubtful that acts of sabotage generate any interest in the media. However, we can only speculate in this respect.
However, the real motivation of our project does not lie in media attention, but in concrete attack and destruction.
(…) Our thoughts are with Monica and Francisco, who probably face a long prison sentence. The prosecution has asked for more than 150 years in prison for Francisco and 25 years for Monica. Their resilience and steadfastness, even in such a situation, has spurred us on in our actions.
-Incendiary attack on Züblin’s car (August 10):
As we walk through the city, we repeatedly come across the signs of a handful of companies that want to use them to mark who owns the city. Among them is Züblin, a construction company pouring cement on the explosive rise in rents. Züblin has long been dedicated to the capitalist attack on our living spaces and for this reason was already attacked forty years ago, when construction machinery was burned for its involvement in the construction of the Runway West in Frankfurt. During the Nazi regime, Züblin used forced laborers at Frankfurt airport. Thanks to its connection with Strabag, Züblin has become one of the leading tree destroyers; see the extension of the A49 through the Danni or the A66 through the Fechenheimer Forest.
-Sabotage of freight traffic in one of Europe’s largest ports (September 7):
Millions of tons of goods and raw materials are transshipped in Hamburg every year, increasing the wealth of the exploiters of the global North at the expense of the so-called global South. We wanted to put a real brake on this machinery. At the same time, we are also showing our solidarity with communities affected by industrial destruction around the world and with those behind bars for fighting against capitalism and the state. We also join the growing struggle against the “Tren Maya” infrastructure project in Mexico, involving German companies such as Deutsche Bahn, whose infrastructure seems to us an appropriate target to show our solidarity here as well.
(…) Hamburg is a capitalist metropolis where numerous logistics chains converge. If we want to put an end to capitalism, why not attack the infrastructure that supports it here, with the simplest possible means, which sometimes have surprisingly large impacts on a network that can hardly be protected everywhere? We see sabotage as a real attack on the system of exploitation, as an experiment, but also as a proposal to intensify local struggles against neocolonialism and climate destruction. Global capitalism will continue to destroy this planet, whether with fossil fuels or with the new “green” exploitation of the earth. It will continue to defend the injustice of its wealth with guns and barbed wire against the excluded. As revolutionaries, we consider it our responsibility to attack the wealth of the global North. We must sabotage the advance of capitalist industry at its core, wherever possible.
-Incendiary attack on a car dealership in Gerresheim (September 10):
For some years now there has been a lot of talk about the traffic shift. Despite this, the number of cars in Germany is increasing every year (as the statistics for 2022 also show). It is therefore obvious that fossil capitalism is far from over. And anyone who sees the growing number of electric cars as an alternative is obviously not concerned about climate change, biodiversity or workers’ rights. Private motorized transport must be overcome. The growing number of cars, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, the continuing extinction of species, the dramatic rise in ocean temperatures… all show one thing very clearly: in the not too distant future, there will be a transition from a relatively stable global climate to an unstable global climate. It may not yet be entirely clear how far the global problems will go.
The various parts of the climate justice movement have worked hard to draw attention to what is coming and have made sure that the environment and climate debate is on everyone’s lips. No one who doesn’t want to know still believes that (auto)capitalism is okay. Yet people continue to sell, buy and drive. In view of the disasters we are heading for, it is time to stop the car, get out and burn it! The global conditions that are emerging make the need for a social revolution unquestionable.
We need a profound break with our way of producing, consuming and living. But what to do with this realization? If we compare the need for a radical break with what is or seems possible at the moment, resignation and even depression and agony are not far behind. This is precisely what can most strongly disintegrate the necessary movement. Against resignation, it is important to set perspectives and strategies, however small. We must be honest with ourselves about our possibilities, but realize what is possible with determination and joy in our resistance.
In the actions that are being taken against cars (starving them of air, blocking roads, disabling them) we recognize the possibility of a somewhat larger strategy. Since the mere realization that (auto)capitalism is madness does not make the madness stop, we should make sure that buying, selling and driving cars becomes annoying. And as often as possible. The campaigns of the last generation have shown how effective this can be and our campaign won’t win any popularity contests either. That’s not what these campaigns are about. We propose to continue/reintensify very different actions against cars. In the case of personally owned cars, we think it is smart to choose newer and especially expensive cars for campaigns because of mediation. At the large dealer level, it may be more indiscriminate. If we manage to put 1001 punctures, this strategy may have some effect.
-Arson attack on 15 Tesla cars (September 11):
Tesla is one of our most prominent enemies. This company represents better than any other the ideology of green capitalism and the pursuit of global and colonial destruction. Electric motors are constantly presented as the clean alternative. This is a cynical lie. Like other companies, Tesla extracts resources around the world. The raw materials needed for electric car batteries, such as lithium and cobalt, are mined in Latin America or Africa under miserable conditions. Despite their beautiful green paint, fossil fuels are used to transport and extract them.
All this is linked to the oppression of indigenous communities, whose resistance must inspire us to act.
(…) Tesla is part of a conglomerate of groups owned by Elon Musk. His patriarchal fantasies seem inexhaustible. He is one of those people who wants to dominate the Internet, space, new technologies and artificial intelligence, and seems to know no limits to his fantasies of domination.
SpaceX, for example, is a company that wants to create more resources, rockets and spacecraft to make space a vacation destination for the richest and advance the idea of one day inhabiting Mars. The appropriation and subjugation of territories by capitalism continues, now even to Mars. A dystopia that says it all.
As for the neurotechnology company Neuralink, its goal is to connect the human brain with machines. Therefore, we are experimenting with animals how the flow of thoughts can be read. In the long term, this should be used to cure diseases.
(…) Some may claim that their electric car is not responsible for the destruction of global ecosystems, exploitation and displacement of populations. Some arrogate to themselves the right not to see their privilege of colonial and ecological destruction. We must destroy these patriarchal and colonialist conceptions of the future. They are enemies of a united ecological world and way of life.
-Incendiary attack on two Strabag excavators (September 18):
It is good to see that attacks against companies and infrastructures that fuel ecological catastrophe are currently on the rise. Even if they are but a drop in the ocean, they are nevertheless an expression that not everyone is content to petition the political sphere and is resigned to see the world go.
(…) Strabag, one of Europe’s largest construction companies, is involved in every imaginable infamy on earth and any new construction project means the advancement of the destruction of nature, in favor of concrete deserts that are already almost endless. That is why every interruption in our daily routine is a small satisfaction for us.
-Arson attack on radio tower (October 19):
Attacking the structures that sustain this technological nightmare world opens up opportunities to unleash the instinct to rebel. It is not so much analysis and theories, much less ideologies, that move us, but desires and yearnings, among other things, for something that even we, as anarchists, sometimes omit to say, or speak in hushed tones, because we fear sounding pathetic. We speak of freedom. Of our individual freedom and that of our fellow human beings with whom we want to live. If there is anything that prevents us from experiencing freedom, it is not only material conditions, borders or heteronomy, but also the widespread smartification of life in favor of technologies that trigger bloody wars over resources and claims to power, while leaving people paralyzed in front of screens. All this serves to maintain domination and social order, which has many beneficiaries. But we have found the Achilles heel of the very technology that is supposed to subjugate us and that is the rulers’ greatest tool so far, and we are attacking it specifically.
The concrete and asphalt wasteland continues to spread. In Germany alone, up to 30 hectares of living soil are buried every day under the most sought-after building material. Roads, squares, shopping areas, industrial plants and housing; huge parts of the earth’s surface are already sealed and infrastructure projects such as dams, freeways, bridges, airports, etc. consume several billion tons of concrete every year.
All this is not without consequences. Concrete is considered the ultimate climate killer. Nearly 10% of the carbon dioxide that this system currently releases into the air comes from the cement industry. That is almost three times more than air traffic. At the same time, concrete production consumes enormous amounts of resources. In particular, sand, which is essential for production, is already in short supply, so that coastal areas and sometimes entire islands are being dredged all over the world. With devastating effects on the surrounding ecosystems. (…)
(…) Concrete has come to symbolize an entire era. An era in which capitalism celebrates its expansion to the farthest corners of the earth and has embodied this victory in concrete in the centers of power of the metropolises in the form of monumental buildings. The monster called “civilization” has made its way across the planet through a growing road network that has paved the way for the exploitation and utilization of people and nature on an industrial scale.
(…) In addition to the usual environmental destruction that is part of the daily business of this industry, CEMEX has another particularly bloody history in relation to the Middle East, which we would like to mention now that a devastating war is once again raging in Gaza. In 2005, Cemex took over the Israeli company Readymix Industries, which supplied concrete for the Israeli wall and was involved in the construction of military checkpoints in the West Bank, including Hawara and Azun-Atma. CEMEX makes money from the construction of illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank and operates cement plants in Mevo Horon, Atarot and Mishor Edomim, as well as Katzerin in the Golan Heights.
Thinking about environmental campaigns and perspectives
Analyzing which campaigns have had the greatest repercussion, their scope and the ways in which they are presented, with all their nuances and factors, is an important task to refine in order to promote others in the future so that they do not remain in the void and disappointment of not being responded to with enthusiasm and intensity.
Campaigns provide a quite dynamic communication space when they are composed – in the best of cases – of analysis, illustrations, posters, web pages, public interventions, street agitation and incendiary and/or explosive actions. That composition takes shape both by its conveners and by those who respond to it. But it is the first ones who have a greater responsibility for a starting foot and its respective development.
The paths of anarchy have been broadening from anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian and anti-prison positions, to anti-speciesist and anti-extractivist, giving today an integral approach as if none of them were isolated or independent of each other. A quality at the moment of proposing and disseminating campaigns is the strategy of reading the context and the ties that are enclosed in the recognition of a much more extensive history with respect to such positionings.
Calls for the release of Alfredo Cospito, who was on hunger strike, from the prison regime of 41 bis, and the release of Marcelo Villarroel, who is serving sentences handed down by the military justice system, are examples of anti-prison campaigns carried out during the last period and which respond to a specific context. In the first, the internationalist concern of anarchist comrades to put an end to the torture applied by the Italian State against Cospito was notorious, with meetings being held outside embassies, marches with street struggles, solidarity hunger strikes by imprisoned comrades, documentaries, reflections and a diversity of attack, provoking a great related, mediatic impact, judicial and frightening, affirmed among ourselves by the expansive mobilization of an urgency for the serious tortures applied to the comrade, and reaffirmed by the powerful in the statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani that “an international anarchist campaign has been orchestrated against institutions and private and public property in Italy and abroad”, as well as in the publication of news about direct actions against the comrades in prison. in the publication of news of direct actions and reports uploaded in the media BioBioChile, where they affirmed that “the European anarchist movement declared war on Italy in the face of the worsening health conditions of Cospito and set fire to the streets of Rome and other cities of the peninsula”.
The memory of dead comrades has also been a motive for campaigns, often framed in the black color of the month in which a comrade met his or her death. In Black May, for example, -in memory of Mauricio Morales, who died on May 22, 2009-, there is a considerable increase in anarchic agitation. In 2021, “Exante”, a right-wing media controlled by Canal 13, wondered: “Why May is the month in which the bombings reappear (and the concern in the government for anarchist activism)”, after two explosive attacks, three buses set on fire and street fighting outbreaks from some central high schools. The same for the year 2022 in which a news headline read: “Anniversary of the death of ‘Punki Mauri’ reactivates bombings and arson attacks in the MR”.
In 2008 in Exarcheia (Greece), the murder of anarchist student Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the police became one of the strongest reasons for a revolt to start. Grigoropoulos’ death was claimed years later in a campaign for a “Black December”, raising with this case, the importance of the death of a comrade for the reading, identification and propagation of a campaign. Nikos Maziotis shares an interesting reflection on this point:
(…) That campaigns of struggle such as Black December may have as a theme to invoke the memory of our dead comrades does not in any way mean that they attempt the resurrection of past insurrectional events. Subversive collective memory was, is and will continue to be a vital part of the polymorphic anarchist struggle. The blood of our comrades will never dry up in the pages of dusty books, which form the ideological alibi of the inertia of the official intelligence of the “radical” aristocracy, but will continue to flow through the veins of fighters currently arming their minds and hands on countless occasions to manifest in every possible and impossible way their hatred against the world of power and its henchmen.
Another view and form of the campaigns are those that propose the creation of a network in which it is possible to exchange experiences of urban guerrilla struggle, expand the circles of communication and debate between action groups, and coordinate attacks at local and international level, aiming to provide small or large-scale blows, either with the placement and sending of devices and parcel bombs or armed attacks on people and companies of the domain, among others; All this, without the condition of direct knowledge between groups, since it is necessary a wide reproduction connected only by the acronym and slogan of the proposed campaign. The Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Project Phoenix and Project Nemesis, are some of the most outstanding examples, both for the number of adhered actions and the continuous flow of communication between groups, as well as for the reception they have had until today.
In the Nemesis Project, the definition of the campaign was “an international proposal to create a list with the names of the people in power, so that we can attack them where they feel safe, on the margins… in their own homes”. In a similar vein, on entering the Switch Off page, we find a list that exposes the companies responsible – not people – for the multiple forms of extractivism, divided into categories such as Energy suppliers; Raw materials for the “energy transition”; Agricultural, chemical and pharmaceutical industries; Infrastructures and large construction projects; Banking and investment, deducing the importance in the effectiveness of a campaign, the exposure and vulnerability of the domain by means of the action. Let’s take a look at the list:
-Electricity and energy suppliers
RWE
RWE – Associated companies
Wpd AG
Wintershall Dea
LNG terminal Stade
Wilhelmshaven LNG terminal
-Raw materials for the “energy transition
Deutsche E-Metalle (DEM)
ACISA
Aurubis AG
-Agriculture, chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry
Bayer / Monsanto
BASF
-Infrastructure and major construction projects
Strabag / Züblin
-Banks and investments
KfW IPEX-Bank
At the beginning of the year, the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the institution in charge of protecting critical infrastructures, issued an alarm signal as a result of the immense amount of detailed data and sabotage techniques on digital, electrical, gas, etc. networks that can be consulted via the Internet. The words of the Office were not just smoke and mirrors or scaremongering. The collaborative contributions of colleagues from around the world have forged a space of knowledge that surpasses and annihilates the barriers of exclusive knowledge in the field of warfare techniques.
The autonomy of informal knowledge is partly reflected in the Warrior Up website, which in the words of its creators “is a research project open to any anonymous contribution, looking at the infrastructures and extractive industries on which the capitalist economy depends: how they function and how they are vulnerable to direct action.
The Switch Off! campaign transforms the anthropocentric and positivist precepts and legacies of the old materialist struggles to prioritize the fabrics of an ethical complicity and vital awareness that the earth is elemental matter for our subsistence and therefore must be defended at all costs, giving rise to insurrectional sensations and projections to end the capitalist, racist and patriarchal infrastructures that cement the dominion over nature and humans.
The “green” or “sustainable” alternatives have been an appeasing discourse and a euphemism when addressing the socio-environmental destruction of capital. They have no solution whatsoever, neither on the basis of international treaties, nor in ministerial protocols, nor in the definitions of the companies themselves; these alternatives are only “cosmetic corrections”.
Reading each of the written demands we can quickly observe that although this campaign is being driven mainly in the North, there is a global critique of ecocide and the role of first world capitalists and devastation in other latitudes (and certainly in the same place where the comrades are attacking!).
Switch Off, as an active and developing campaign, offers a space of communication and forceful action to confront domination, with the constant diversification of its objectives and the stimulus to arm ideas and methods in the face of capital’s devastation.
This writing aims to collectivize what is happening in the context of the defense of the land in other latitudes, in the hands of conscious comrades with the will and determination to give body to the attack.
Written by Informativo Anarquista, compiled and translated from different media.