The 18th of March marked a new anniversary of the death of our beloved anarchist anti-speciesist comrade, Javier Recabarren Olivares, who was run over by an ill-fated bus on the corner of Radal and Alameda in 2015. Since then there have been several gestures of comrades who have insisted on keeping his memory alive and present through various actions. We salute the generosity of those comrades because, it is thanks to their stubbornness that Javi’s joyful and restless rebelliousness has crossed the barriers of time and has accompanied us in our permanent antagonism to all authority; especially those of us who did not know him in life.
So, exactly 10 years after Javi’s departure, and seeking to keep his anarchic fire burning, a group of affinities went to the corner where the compa left this plane to complete the final part of a project we had started some time ago: the installation of a mosaic portraying Javi with Taco, the polar bear whose kidnapping at the Metropolitan Zoo in Santiago called for many protests, in many of which Javi participated.
Although the construction of the mosaic took many weeks of meticulous work behind closed doors, its installation on the street was done in broad daylight between the hectic fight of street vendors (most of them people born in other parts of the continent who try to survive the precariousness of the “every man for himself” world) with the bastard citizen security and the yuta (cops) in the middle of the Alameda, attracting the curious glances of the passers-by from whom in some cases we receive words of closeness and encouragement when we know we are people in constant struggle to survive in this ill-fated society. Despite this we must clarify that we do not consider ourselves artists or masters in this, on the contrary, we threw ourselves into this path learning on the fly without fear of disaster with the support of various individualities that were present at different stages, because we continue to insist on the “do it yourself” without authority or leaders, only with the will and desire to be a contribution.
Just days away from a new March 29th, and encouraging the multiplicity of expressions of agitation on this day of active and incendiary commemoration-action, we call to sustain the gestures of memory in everyday life, transcending specific dates. It is in the constancy and the day to day where memory becomes action.
With Javi’s fire on the barricade and Taco’s roar in our hearts!
For the destruction of all cages!
Against all authority and for total liberation!
JAVI AND TACO PRESENTE!
A herd of anarchic affinities
May 24, 2025
