darknights – Page 149

Spain: Elisa Di Bernardo – “We are winning battles for Gabriel Pombo’s freedom”.

Posted on 2021/09/11 - 2021/09/12 by darknights

“Never having approached drugs, being very clear about his ideas, and his physical and mental strength have helped him to survive in prison, despite the FIES. Almost all of his comrades have died. He survived a genocide” explains in Oviedo the companion of the anarchist prisoner.

Elisa di Bernardo went to Oviedo yesterday to tell the situation of her colleague Gabriel Pombo da Silva. Invited by the group Higinio Carrocera, in collaboration with the local Cambalache, taking advantage of her visit to Pombo to the prison of Mansilla de las Mulas in León, Elisa gave a very complete account of both the legal situation of the anarchist prisoner and his life and struggle in his more than 30 years in the prisons of the State. It was a talk that not only served to have information about Pombo but also to show how, inside the prison walls, “democracy” disappears and one enters a dark world, subjected to physical and psychological torture, to personal revenge by judges and jailers, to prisons inside the prison (FIES). In addition, Elisa gave us perspective and context on how inequality, misery, injustice and poverty consubstantial to the capitalist and statist system manufactures criminals.

Elisa began the talk by taking out of her backpack three important books to know the situation of prisoners and the world of the anti-prison struggle: “Extrema Indigencia, extrema violencia”, “Para que no me olvides” by Madres Unidas contra la Droga and the Informe sobre la Tortura en el Estado español that Elisa explained was censored by the police, as it tells the saddest time of the FIES regime (files of inmates of special monitoring).

After this bibliographical introduction Elisa di Bernardo spoke about Gabriel Pombo’s life trajectory. “They lived in Vigo in a shack until they emigrated to Germany to earn a living. There he discovers a new world and also begins to know the instinctive solidarity among the poor. The first political question Gabriel asked himself was: “If my father builds houses, why don’t we have a house? Continue reading “Spain: Elisa Di Bernardo – “We are winning battles for Gabriel Pombo’s freedom”.” →

Italy: Intervention of Alfredo Cospito to the initiative “Land of Love and Freedom” in Grisolia (24.08.2021)

Posted on 2021/09/06 - 2021/09/06 by darknights

The following text is the intervention of fellow anarchist Alfredo Cospito, currently imprisoned in Terni, for the debate on the book What International?, held in the context of the second edition of the initiative “Land of Love and Freedom”, two days of anarchist publishing in Calabria focused on internationalism and revolutionary continuity, in Grisolia 23-24 August 2021.

Lately I have been wondering with what nerve an anarchist prisoner for ten years as I claim to express an analysis “realistic” about the present, the real movement outside these four walls. The interview with “Vetriolo” caught me still relatively soaked in reality, out of the fray of the struggle, still convinced of having a “realistic” and objective view of the world. What international? is the result of thirty years of practiced struggle, of blows inflicted and received, of affinities and friendships born and then traumatically severed by the wall of a prison. Summing up, today I can say with a certain conviction that the only moments in which I was certain of having contributed to changing things were those moments in which I clashed with the system, in which I risked my freedom and my skin. In those moments I lived, I felt more alive than ever. And the pleasure I felt was incomparable, comparable only to the love for one’s own or one’s partner in the most intense moments of passion. I remember when, as a young boy, it seemed impossible for me to intervene concretely, the level of deepening always seemed insufficient, the practical skills I had didn’t seem up to the task, I didn’t know where to start, at the beginning one feels inept, incapable… I was waiting for a suggestion, a start from my more experienced companions. Often, in exchange for my enthusiasm, I received a good dose of “realism” that dampened or risked dampening any revolutionary “ambition”, any drive to action. Incredible as it may seem, “realism” sometimes makes any action, any impetus, impossible. I came out of this sort of “dead end” only when I decided in an impish, reckless, crazy, provocative way to arm my hands. Then everything became “easy”, failure after failure, step by step, things started to work. I looked for my companions and I found them, we recognized each other by making the refusal of delegation and wait-and-see our compass. Many (perhaps too many) years have passed since that time and today I find myself on the other side, “navigated” anarchist with more “experience”. And what I feel like saying is simply to follow your instincts and not to pay too much attention to the prudence of those who from the height of their lives “lived” push for moderation. Because that popular saying “you are born an arsonist and you die a fireman” is not so far-fetched. Every day in here I fight with myself to remain what I was, and I don’t always succeed. In my words I sometimes glimpse what I’ve always fought, opportunism, paternalism, realism… “politics”. Dynamics that risk making me forget how beautiful it was to communicate only through gestures of destruction and the words that followed them. When I wasn’t in danger of becoming a “point of reference”, when I was a complete stranger. And the stupid things I happened to say remained limited, no one rightly spun them. The tragicomic thing is that the “metamorphosis” is almost painless and does not only affect us prisoners but perhaps even more those who outside these walls every day relate to a reality that tends to normalize. The “realism” drags you to a continuous decline that leads you to judge those who remain “themselves” as naive, provocative, childish, deluded. Continue reading “Italy: Intervention of Alfredo Cospito to the initiative “Land of Love and Freedom” in Grisolia (24.08.2021)” →

Part Three: What’s happening in Cuba? An Anarchic look at the 11-J protests EN/ES

Posted on 2021/09/06 by darknights

ES: TERCERA PARTE: ¿QUÉ PASA EN CUBA? UNA MIRADA ANÁRQUICA DE LAS PROTESTAS DEL 11-J.

-Interview with comrade Gustavo Rodriguez (Third of three parts)

AI: To what extent was the 1959 revolution willing to destroy the system of domination and its protagonists determined to promote a Social Revolution?

First of all, it is necessary to examine thoroughly who were the forces in conflict in 1959; what were the motivations and; above all, the ideological limitations of those involved. Of course, this is an exercise fraught with difficulties for those who continue to be fascinated by the official mythology1 and; equally difficult for those who -from different points of view, even dissidents- cling to the supposed tendencies raised by certain protagonists (Camilo Cienfuegos, Hubert Matos, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Pastorita Núñez, for example), as if trying to decipher (at a distance of six decades) what would have been the attitude of this or that character in a specific situation or whether or not he or she was right at a given time and what would have been his or her action if he or she had greater political weight in the process. In that tenor, the legends of Camilo “anarchist”; Matos “socialist”; Che Guevara “Trotskyist” and Pastorita “feminist” arose. All dilettante speculations that in no way help to understand what those figures hypothetically opposed to revolutionary autocracy and bureaucratization represented. Unfortunately, these digressions do not manage to escape from the legends that must be demolished. Neither Cienfuegos was “anarchist” nor Matos “socialist” nor Che “Trotskyist” and, Pastorita, much less “feminist”. By the way, the latter came from the old nucleus of Fidel Castro’s nationalist militancy2 ; as did Huber Matos, Ñico López, Haydée Santamaría, among other members of the “Orthodox Youth” of the Cuban People’s Party (Orthodox)3 who would found the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement (MR-26-7).

The opposition to the Batista dictatorship was made up of a coalition of traditional nationalist (anti-imperialist) parties4 and the so-called “revolutionary movements” which -from diverse and equally nationalist perspectives- were articulated in the course of the struggle. Among the traditional parties, the following stood out: the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Authentic), which emerged after the nationalist revolution of 1933; the Cuban Orthodox People’s Party, -established in 1947 by Eduardo Chibás, after his break with the “authentic” ones-; the Cuban Revolutionary Nationalist Party (Authentic), which was formed in 1947 by Eduardo Chibás, after his break with the “authentic” ones; the Revolutionary Nationalist Party (PNR) of José Pardo Llada (co-founder of the Orthodox Party) and; the Free People’s Party, instituted by Márquez Sterling and a group of assailants of the Moncada barracks who had broken with Castro and precociously warned: “We come from armed struggle, exile and clandestinity. We have shed blood […] and we invite you to break the hateful conspiracy of silence and fear. Against Batista. Against the Dictatorship. Against the useless blood that serves as a pedestal for new pernicious dictators “5 . Among the “revolutionary movements”, the following stood out: the July 26th Revolutionary Movement (MR-26-J) led by Fidel Castro; the Revolutionary Directorate (DR), created by José Antonio Echeverría – assassinated during the ill-fated assault on the Palace – and led by Faure Chaumón; the Federation of University Students (FEU) and the Radical Liberation Movement, founded by Amalio Fiallo and several “moncadistas” who also distanced themselves from Castro’s dictatorship. Continue reading “Part Three: What’s happening in Cuba? An Anarchic look at the 11-J protests EN/ES” →

A world without mothers? by Silvia Guerini

Posted on 2021/09/06 - 2021/09/06 by darknights

A world without mothers?

The term ectogenesis was coined in the 1920s by geneticist and biologist researcher J.B.S. Haldaine to refer to the development of a new being outside the maternal body. Haldaine considered ectogenesis “an important opportunity for social engineering” inscribed in a eugenic society where a complete separation of procreation from sex would lead to a “liberation of humanity in an entirely new sense.”
Haldain was interested in understanding the origin of life in order to direct and control the development of life itself. His goal was to synthesize living creatures in biochemistry laboratories, an aspiration that, in later years, would take shape in synthetic biology and genetic engineering laboratories.
Haldaine believed that ectogenesis would allow for eugenic selection in which only the best gametes would be used for the next generation. Selection that today has become the practice in the field of MAP techniques. Haldaine and Julian Huxley strongly promoted a “positive eugenics” that in those years resulted – well before Nazi Germany – in sterilization programs regulated by legislation in favor of them in the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and widely funded by philanthropic associations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, issues that we have explored in our previous texts.
Huxley believed that ectogenesis could accelerate, facilitate, and make more flexible eugenic selection. Eugenic thinking is the foundation of ectogenesis and more generally of genetic research and any artificial reproduction of the human and is one of the cornerstones of the transhumanist vision.
The obsession with the creation of life shines through from the very beginning of this research, in the words of the research biologist Jacques Loeb: “I wanted to take life in my hands and play with it. I wanted to manipulate it in my laboratory like any other chemical reaction, to initiate it, to stop it, to study it under any conditions, to direct it at my will”. All this is not just an expression of crazy aspirations of some isolated researcher, but are the transhumanist principles of control and domination over the living.
With the artificial womb, the laboratory of life, which has become a system, wants to disregard the reality of the woman’s body, the reality of procreation, and therefore disregard reality in order to dominate and modify it.
It is in this original meaning and in this horizon that we must insert the research related to the realization of the artificial womb and the latest important developments in this regard. MAP, embryo selection, experiments on embryos, genetic modification, artificial womb are all deeply interconnected aspects of the same transhumanist world. Saving even one of these aspects implies that this transhumanist world proceeds in its direction that, sooner or later, will extend to every dimension of our life and of the whole living being.
We have been writing for some time about the re-signification of birth, mother, and woman, the material consequences on bodies, and the profound ontological and anthropological transformation of the human being that this re-signification entails. Techno-scientific developments are speeding up and every ethical barrier is falling, we are going towards a new neutral and infinitely modifiable humanity, in a post-human and post-nature world. A world without mothers, in order to achieve a definitive and total expropriation of women’s bodies and the dimension of procreation, a definitive and total control over the processes that create life, an engineering of the living and the control of the evolution of the human species itself. Continue reading “A world without mothers? by Silvia Guerini” →

Interview and dialogue with Alfredo Cospito from the prison of Ferrara [Published in anarchist paper Vetriolo, Issue 2, Autumn 2018]

Posted on 2021/09/06 - 2022/11/16 by darknights

What international? Interview and dialogue with Alfredo Cospito from the prison of Ferrara.Part One

Internationalism has always been the principle inspiring the actions and horizons of the exploited who do not accept the role that society has given them. It has always been a vaccine against opportunism of every kind, a guarantee that those who practice it are not the servants of their boss or a foreign boss, but are authentic enemies of all forms of exploitation and authority. Internationalism as tension, as spirit, does not change with the changing of times. But the way it becomes real in history changes. Reformists, opportunists and authoritarians have always tried to pervert internationalism towards their own interests. The question of questions, the lever get the world to rise up, is therefore the International. How, what should the International be today? Should it be a real “organization”, a federation of groups, a “world party”? Or can there be instruments or “structures” that are closer to the anarchist Idea and that are more effective in this historical period?

Like “scientific” socialism, anarchism was born to oppose a global process, capitalism and the advent of the bourgeoisie. It is more than natural that anarchists and Marxists have from the beginning pursued with alternating fortunes an international organizational dimension. In the nineteenth century, with Bakunin, anarchy abandoned the philosophical, idealist level to take its first steps in the real world. First against Mazzini’s messianic liberalism, to then clash with Marx’s state socialism, giving rise to the autonomist federalist currents within the First International.
Continue reading “Interview and dialogue with Alfredo Cospito from the prison of Ferrara [Published in anarchist paper Vetriolo, Issue 2, Autumn 2018]” →

Bristol: Write to the Kill the Bill prisoners

Posted on 2021/09/06 by darknights

Source: Bristol ABC

Part Two – What’s happening in Cuba? An Anarchic look at the 11-J protests EN/ES

Posted on 2021/09/05 - 2021/09/06 by darknights

ES: SEGUNDA PARTE – ¿QUÉ PASA EN CUBA? UNA MIRADA ANÁRQUICA DE LAS PROTESTAS DEL 11-J.

-Interview with comrade Gustavo Rodriguez (Second of three parts)

AI: Do you think a U.S. military intervention instigated by the annexationist yearnings of the Cuban exile is possible?

To speak in the singular of “Cuban exile” is to refuse to see the whole picture. We must refer to “the exiles” and, not only for chronological but even “ideological” reasons. One should mention, for example, a first exile, which originated in December 1958 and the first half of 1959, with the flight of high-ranking army and police officers of the Batista dictatorship (most of whom -including Batista- did not obtain visas to enter the U.S.). Another one immediately after, between December 1959 and January 1961, where the aristocracy and the upper classes of the society (sectors that, curiously, had financed the struggle of the Catholic nationalists to overthrow “the black man” who governed the Island in an apocryphal way 1 ). A third wave would follow, which originated between 1962 and 1965, with the departure of the middle class. During those years, Cuban anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists also went into exile; some of them after having served “political imprisonment”. The story would be similar for a large group of rebels who had fought against Batista -including Castro’s former comrades of the 26th of July Movement- who opposed the Stalinist turn of “their” Revolution. From 1966 to 1979, the first leftist dissidents fled in dribs and drabs. 1980 would be a turning point for Cuban migration with the mass departure of the “scum” (an epithet used to designate thousands of artists and intellectuals, considered until then “sons and daughters of the Revolution”). In 1994, a new chapter was opened with the flight of thousands of ” rafters” who risked their lives in order to escape from the “socialist paradise”. These last two migrations stand out for the high incidence of Afro-Cubans from the poorest strata. And, of course, with the different waves of exiles, there is also evidence of diverse political-ideological positions, from the conservative right to the ultra-left (including libertarian socialists, Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists, Luxemburgists and “pure” Marxists), without forgetting the more hackneyed expressions of that same National Socialism which, from the extremes of the pendulum, aspire to a Castroism without Castro. A reliable example of that political-ideological diversity was the customary edition of the anarchist magazines Guángara Libertaria and A Mayor, in the heart of Miami.

Once these nuances have been highlighted, it only remains for me to underline that the only thing that gives a certain “unity” to the different exiles is the unison rejection of the dictatorship. This common denominator, in fact, has never exceeded the limits of a local industry (very lucrative) that is far from being a binding force capable of capitalizing some political leadership and, much less, consolidating a uniform and monolithic ideological vision (Fortunately!). And this is where the theoretical-practical heterogeneity comes in, which influences behaviors as disparate as the choice of the method of struggle or the geographical site we choose as residence. Of course, in this extensive political-ideological plot, there is also the annexationist position. However, it is necessary to point out that this political figure had a certain prominence in the 19th century and, at present, it is reduced to an entelechy fabricated by the dictatorship. “Annexationism” is significantly small and caricatured. It is so buffoonish that it leaves no doubt that those who express it -on this side of the Florida Straits- are probably on the payroll of the Cuban State. Continue reading “Part Two – What’s happening in Cuba? An Anarchic look at the 11-J protests EN/ES” →

Meuse, France: Solidarity for Boris

Posted on 2021/09/05 by darknights

A few days before the beginning of the Rayonnantes camp, we send all our solidarity to Boris, imprisoned in Nacy-Maxéville since september 2020.

Boris was imprisoned in the context of repression against the wave of incendiary attacks on relay antennas, in his particular case those of the Mont Poupet, which Boris claimed. You can read his declaration here.

A few days ago, a fire started in Boris’ cell and he was transfered to Metz hospital. You can find a communique about his situation here.

You can also find more information on the procedure here.

Our struggles against this energy-consuming world, that pushes the commercialization and artificialization of the world, from Cigeo to relay antennas, are the same.

Our struggles for freedom and autonomy stand against every prison.

Source: Bure Bure Bure

Italy: Green Pass? Block everything

Posted on 2021/09/05 by darknights

Refrain from what has the head on the shoulders, set the pace on that of storms said an adage of some time ago.

Today, Wednesday, September 1, was launched in various railway stations of the Belpaese, an invitation to block trains to criticize the obligation of the green pass, necessary for those who want to travel on certain means of transport. What could happen when the train of resignation to coercion stops, on the wave of “if I can’t move, nobody moves”?

When a telematics control repeater is attacked, when a vaccination center is sabotaged, when a virologist calling for confinement for those who don’t vaccinate is confronted in the street, when a party banquet is overturned, when you have the bright idea to start blocking the movement of human-commodities, how many other possibilities might emerge? When a nascent protest against green passes and the disciplining of people’s movement opens up spaces for anyone, without leaderism or law enforcement, can we begin to develop content that highlights social contradictions as a response to the increasingly asphyxiating controls on our lives?

There are many possibilities for insubordination to explode as thinking individuals. Alone or together with others. In the light of the sun as well as in the glare of the night – with the idea of breaking with everything that suffocates us – we could move away from the cage of politics and the chains of common sense. For with just a little imagination we can attempt to experience unheard of moments of liberation from constraints.

Blocking everything rejuvenates to stop a present made of discriminations forged by the past, restores the imagination of reflection, makes the spirit of revolt fruitful. Unlike the technical vocabularies of the regime, blocking is never an end in itself, it means to provoke cracks of meaning, to open up new spaces where we were unable to grasp them, to create unexpected surprises, to invite us to travel along unknown horizons, to give rise to opportunities for new challenges.

Blocking everything, therefore, to open up with pride to life and finally discover the uniqueness of each individual.

Few and some vagabonds

(flyer distributed in Cremona, September 1, 2021)

Source: Finimondo

Chile: Drawing by our compañera Monica Caballero

Posted on 2021/09/01 - 2021/09/01 by darknights

Nothing to believe, nothing to expect from justice.