Once again we find ourselves around the campfire, in another rebellion. Time passes, but reality makes us feel that we are as if we were stopped in time; governments are still here and there, as are capitalism, religions, patriarchal culture, extractivism and individual and social authority. Sometimes it’s like running on a treadmill, we run, we sweat, we have the sensation of moving forward, but we don’t do it. That does not take away our desire and will to keep fighting, to get up and keep trying to break the treadmill, without giving up. Yes, like those stubborn and maladjusted anarchists, from all sides and all times. Comrades of years or new ones that join with contributions to this rebellion, that never tried to serve as a guru, or guide, or “example of perfect life” of anyone, without impositions perfect life” of anyone, without impositions or demands. Rather, it is only to expose our ideas (always debatable), reflections, experiences, feelings and individual or collective sensations; it is a humble contribution to the great flame, which gives warmth and strength to all of us comrades around the world, and that, at this very moment, many of them are prisoners, fugitives, under surveillance, many are persecuted; but, even so, they continue conspiring, propagating and agitating the social revolution against all authority, in all corners of the planet.
In this region another show of “the Democratic elections 2023”, another change of label but not of content. Now a new character leads this town: “Miky Vanilla” (Milei). A super fascist as president. Again, the sad meme, became reality. The ultra right wing, which hypocritically, put itself as a name: “Partido La Libertad Avanza”. And what they want the least, is the freedom of anyone. They even call themselves: Anarcho-capitalists. Another unreal contradiction, like the name of their Party. Anarchy and capitalism are polar opposites. Like calling themselves anarcho-government or anarcho-authoritarian.
And as expected, the scourge of “every man for himself” never stopped. The slope of social inequality became faster and faster, while the increase of everything is all-encompassing. Misery among the people is in free fall. The lethargy in the social rebellion, generates agonies, also micro and macro adaptations, frustration, disappointment, depression, impotence, anger, wild stories and all against all. And the ship, always straight to the iceberg. The fascist and murderer of Santiago Maldonado, Patricia Bullrich returns to power as Minister of Justice. With a tattoo of Bukele. Ready to be the director of the: Mega Penal-Capital. The “war against terrorism”, again legalized by the terrorists of the State. The mafias of power, repressing the “mafias” for not passing them the “prote”. “They didn’t pay their bribe on time again, boys, a couple of lazy bastards are going to have to fall” says Commissioner Bulrich. Laws and reforms. Congresses and “march on the sidewalk”. Unions and police parties and jailers, respecting the “Anti picket protocol”. And eating, renting, traveling, living for the people is slowly fading away. Meanwhile the facho vindicates the massacre in Gaza from Israel. He whores the Pope and then embraces him. Opposition and officialdom. The “quarrels” between the powerful never interested us… we know that they only distract and stretch the show. But the reality can be seen and felt in the street, the advance of weariness. Also the doubt, the fear, the uncertainty, the resignation. And the conformation with “it is what it is”, continues to reign. And like any power that imposes itself, capitalism never forgives. It will continue to wreak avoidable havoc.
The passage of 2023 was so fleeting, amidst inflation, looting, evictions, repression, and to top it all off: the electoral show. In 2024 it seems that the People are starting to wake up little by little, because of everything that happened, like a very bad hangover. In which they went through “las paso”, the presidential elections, the increases that sometimes were little by little or like a cudgel, at other times. This kept them “dizzy” but “awake” when it was time to vote, with faith in the best meme. And now, they deny their hectic night. This is the current feeling of voters and non-voters alike. They wake up little by little with each increase that personally touches their pockets, seeing that their incomes are farther and farther away from their expenses. And the virtual and social war between those who say: “I told you so” and “we have to give time to the new government”, are the daily battles. Meanwhile capitalism and its scythe of social inequality advance rapidly. And we as involuntary spectators, in the middle of the social “menjunje”, having to endure another day of governments, capitalism, religions and cultural authority. But with the same desire intact, to destroy all this empire of authority.
The massacre in Gaza does not rest day or night. Neither does that of Russia against Ukraine. The business continues and so do the dead. The memory of Claudia Lopez on the 25th anniversary of her cold-blooded murder by the carabineros of Chile. And the tenth anniversary of the murder of Cosme and Lukinio, at the hands of a facho. Their fires will always rekindle our barricades, for those of us who do not forget that we are always accompanied by our fallen. The best tribute is always to fight.
Violence “causes and effects” of the tireless comrade: Amanecer Fiorito. It describes what, unfortunately, continues to be reproduced today. The CEAMCE and the struggle of the neighbors of Catan. And all the consequences caused by the contamination of power and its ambition, without ever measuring the inseparable damage they cause in the past, present and future of the inhabitants of the whole world. Extractivism, which never stops. The daily individual and social adaptation. The capital fever and its multiple mutations to cling to continue with social inequality. The stories of Gaetano Bresci, showing us that there is no such thing as an immortal and untouchable tyrant. All expositions from the mind, the heart and the entrails of each comrade. The Esquelas and Esquelas of the subversive and unsuitable comrades of the existing prison system, with their causes and current situation. The permanent struggle of the comrades imprisoned all over the world. The release of Gabriel Pombo da Silva, who is finally on the street. The trial and “exemplary punishment” carried out by the terrorists of power against comrades Francisco and Monica. The struggle for their freedom will not stop. The death of Alfredo María Bonnano and his agitation against all authority until his last breath. Words always of strength and encouragement, not to give up in the face of the imprisoning world, from comrade Marcelo Villarroel. Freedom for Alfredo Cospito and so many other comrades who resist and fight to the end against this system that wants to erase, annul, disappear or bury us so that we do not continue fighting for the world without authority, which we know is possible. May the social revolution against all authority inside and outside of each one of us, not stop. It is a pleasure to continue sharing a new REBELION with all of you, and we hope that wherever you are, you will never give up! We send you health and strength to every unruly and untamed heart!
We leave you with the excerpt of a note, from one of those many stubborn and misfit to authority: Rafael Barrett and “El Oro” (Gold).
“Gold, money… suppress all the gold in the world: has our true wealth diminished by an atom? Imagine the immense and agitated labyrinth of universal traffic: sweating slaves, stubborn caravans, the slow ox and the light horse, sledges and carts, sailing ships, trains, steamers that drag and distribute bread and luxury, life and dreams under all climates through all impossibilities… Why would the absence of gold bring the enormous organism to a halt? Suppress gold: won’t our muscles remain intact, won’t the gas continue to push the wheel? Remove the gold: what obstacle has been introduced into human motion? None: Everything could go on without a shudder.”
Regarding my convictions and trial charges and the nexus of non-systemic revolutionary struggle action practices and “my” meaning of the anarchist vision
“(…) The reality is precisely this complex thing that cannot be traced back to the results of a judicial proceeding. This will always be arbitrary and will be based not on evidence but on force, not on logic but on domination. Difficult reasoning? Maybe so, but reasoning that once done can never be forgotten” [Published with the title “Noterelle su Sacco e Vanzetti. In margine a un convegno di studi”, in “Anarchismo”, n. 63, July 1989, pp. 36-40].
Alfredo Maria Bonanno, A mano armata, Pensiero e azione, Edizioni Anarchismo
In remembrance, and a warm greeting and see you soon comrade Alfredo!
Note:
To facilitate the writing of the text, I chose to use mainly the masculine as a gender ending. Aware of the importance of rejecting and countering gender abuses (as of any kind), I trust in the reader’s understanding so that no one feels discriminated against.
Premise:
Hello to all, compañeras and to all, compañeros
I am Juan Sorroche, an anarchist prisoner arrested on May 22, 2019 and I write from the AS2 section of the Terni prison where I have been locked up for 5 years.
After my heavy sentence on January 26, 2024 in Rome in the Court of Cassation trial for the action against the Lega Nord, a party that was and is part of the government of the Italian State, a strongly racist, misogynistic and xenophobic party.
As an anarchist prisoner I would like to make clear to comrades, revolutionaries, outcasts and oppressed the connection of the causes of the struggle for which I am here in prison today as an anarchist prisoner.
In the first instance, even though the prosecutor had removed the charge of “political massacre” (285), I was sentenced to 28 years in prison plus 3 years of probation. On appeal, almost half of the sentence, I was sentenced to 14 years and 7 months. A few days ago, the Court of Cassation definitively sentenced me to 14 years and 7 months, a significant and exemplary sentence for the attack.
In the first instance, I want to say that I entered prison already having spent a cumulative period of about 8 years behind bars for my struggles in Italy, which is why I escaped into hiding in 2016 to continue living-fighting. Of these 8 years, 4 years are for the “NO TAV trial”. Subsequently, the other 4 years were different trials related to anti-prison and anti-CPR struggles, anti-fascist and anti-democratic struggles, struggles against technologies, GMOs, “environmentalists”, in which I took part, always trying to include the anti-state and anti-capitalist aspect of anarchism in Trentino as well as in different Italian situations. Including the Susa Valley, a path that I had taken in the past years in the NO TAV struggle against one of the projects of capital and the State and the devastating tentacle of the high-speed train. I was arrested, among many others, for the days of struggle and violent clashes of July 3, 2011. During the trial and during my imprisonment at the time, I claimed with a personal statement those days of struggle and the paths of opposition to the TAV and more generally the anti-state and anti-capitalist aspect. I refused the defense in the “NOTAV Trial”, positioning myself anti-juridically even trying to fight in court by refusing the trial, believing that I should not “defend” myself in that judicial theater, and for this I was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months. And I take those decisions with my head held high.
In May 2019, after 2 and a half years on the run, I was arrested together with another comrade accused of having supported my being on the run, and then the comrade was sentenced for aiding and abetting to a year and a half, a sentence that was significant and exemplary as we had not seen each other for years, and it gave us a hint of the new tenor of the trials to come.
When I was arrested, little by little, I became aware of a series of investigations and trials that see me accused of several attacks (with terrorist aims) in Italy:
– the bombs at the headquarters of the Lega Nord in Treviso for the attack of 12/08/2018, regarding the two explosive devices, one exploded and another full of nails discovered by the bomb squad in the form of a trap to carry out the components of the building and the police; these were placed in the headquarters of the Lega Nord in Treviso and were claimed with the claim:
“Let’s hit them at home!!!: (…) to specifically attack racism and exploitation. To strike at the state, capital and its perpetrators. Direct action makes it clear to us why and how. For an internationalist, rebellious, and anarchist solidarity! Solidarity with all prisoners (…). And to all the rebels locked up in the homeland prisons of the world!”
Haris Hatzimihelakis Cell/Black International 1881/2018
– the bomb at the Surveillance Court of Trento 2014. Sentenced in the first instance to 3 years and 2 months, then acquitted on appeal, I must soon go to the Supreme Court. Claimed anonymously: in solidarity and to give voice to the prisoners who struggle with dignity in all prisons and to the anarchist comrades who were in prison isolated in AS2 in Italy and other anarchist prisoners in the world.
– the bomb against the POL GAI (police academy) claimed by cell H, I report some sketches of the published claim:
“(…) as a cell H (C.A.A.) akin to the Black International and we join the call to action for a BLACK DECEMBER. We attacked one of the armed arms of the state. In this “school” cops from all over Italy and other countries are educated. This is a small signal against war. We stand in solidarity with all the people who are fighting against all states and capital. Our thoughts go out to the many comrades who have been repressed, locked up, tortured, or killed in the present and in the past. In solidarity with all the detainees who are struggling.”
This is in the context of the campaign launched by anarchist prisoners in Greece for a Black December, called international in the context of anarchist action in 2015.
A trial that I will begin shortly.
To date, I have accumulated 23 years in prison.
Actions that I agree with because for me they are part of the history of our movement of struggle in non-systemic revolutionary anarchism of action and of the struggle for freedom of all the oppressed in the world. Regardless of whether or not I am responsible for these facts. And I am determined to move forward in my anarchist life in order to live-fight within my limited possibilities as a prisoner. Continue reading “Italy: Juan Sorroche – ‘Reflection on the General Context of the Causes of the Struggle’”→
CALL TO ACTION AND PROPAGANDA 15 YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF ANARCHIST COMRADE MAURICIO MORALES
“Before going to sleep I embrace chaos as an idea that frees my body and my mind because at the end of the day it makes me feel alive. I do not want the search for the grail that emanates freedom in future societies. My fingers seek the bloody flight of the destruction of the chains of the rhythmic fire, of the nearby fire rhythmic fire, of the nearby fire of power and its masters. And my actions when I sleep are directed in that tomorrow when I wake up, I will break with the routine with the routine and in the individual action with the chest like stone swollen by the destruction of this and any destruction of this and any society. Do me a favor: see to it that anarchy lives.”
-Punki Mauri
In the early morning of May 22, 2009 the anarchist comrade Mauricio Morales, Punki Mauri met his death after the early detonation of the explosive device that he intended to install in the Gendarmerie School in Matta neighborhood, Santiago.
Fifteen years have passed since his death in action and we continue to persist in his memory, remembering his warrior life, spreading anarchy in multiple ways and vindicating the insurrectional political violence that is still alive, that manifests itself in the proliferation of the idea and the facts with varied force and intensity, but always alive.
This call invites to a month of black memory, propaganda and action, to the concretion of public and anonymous gestures, without half measures, that the imagination flies, that we feel the blood in our veins, that the heart beats with emotion when we remember our loved ones.
Anarchy is dangerous and for it to continue this way we must endow it, empower it day by day, with discussion, feedback, with contagious propaganda and violent action, each one decides how to put into practice the ideas he/she propagates, the question is to do, without leaders or leaders, without hierarchies, in autonomy.
This humble contribution seeks to be one more contribution to the expansion of the memory of a comrade, positioning himself from the sidewalk of anarchic conflict against order, law, power and all authority.
Opening the tensions of dialogue, we present the following section of interviews with individuals, collectivities and related spaces that make up the anarchic body in different parts of the world.
The interviews are a valuable contribution to the observation in detail and depth; they come, in a certain way, to broaden the view to give us feedback among comrades and to debate with perspectives and projections, that although they may be different, they converge in the ideas and practices of freedom against all authority.
Without further ado, we have in this first venture of dialogues the comrades of Espacio Fénix.
1-How and when did Espacio Fénix arise, and what projects converge in the space?
Espacio Fénix was born in the middle of the pandemic, at the beginning of 2021, in the midst of a series of ridiculous mobility restrictions and increased police intervention under the excuse of controlling and preventing the spread of covid-19.
Thus, a group of compañerxs got together, seeking to open a crack, a fissure within the asphyxiating panorama that was regulating everything, imposing the rhythm of power and where many seemed to be accommodating or waiting for the authority to give us “permission” to resume our lives.
We embarked on the idea of opening a physical space where comrades could converge, where anarchic material could circulate and where new comradeships could be woven and articulated. Thus in May 2021 we opened the doors of the space, we began to set up its infrastructure and in July we held our first activity in memory of compañero Santiago Maldonado.
Claustrofobia Ediciones, the Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti and various anarchic individualities converge in the space.
2-The “Ciclos de Cine” (Film Cycles) is the tool you have used the most to carry out activities. What is the significance for you of the screening of films, documentaries, etc.?
We started with the film cycles in October 2021 and we have not stopped every Tuesday, month after month, grouping the films by specific themes, seeking to stress our ideas and nourish our arguments with content, it is the beauty of the feedback between colleagues with diverse experiences and views.
From the very beginning, we proposed the screening of films as an excuse to sit down and converse, because after each screening, the central part of the activity comes to life, which is the discussion about what has been screened. There the words run, without leaders, where everyone can expose their dislikes, their liking or the results and analysis that is made of what we have seen. With this gesture we also seek to break the logic of passive spectators, of consumers, very typical of socially imposed roles.
In this sense, we have screened diverse audiovisual material, industry films, documentaries made by compañerxs, films that we like or dislike, always aiming at the discussion and tension between compas.
We do not seek to fill the cultural gaps of authority, nor to be the free panorama for those who lack resources; we seek, by different means and tools to spread our anarchic and anti-authoritarian ideas/actions, therefore the film cycles are just one more tool we choose.
Ciclo de Cine March 2024Ciclo de Cine November 2021
3-Regarding the written material, what is the importance and power that you perceive in it?
The written material certainly has another power, another depth and transcendence, of course the spoken thought is important, but writing allows the ordering of ideas, so as to be able to reflect more carefully on what is going to be exposed and to assimilate/discuss more deeply on what is read.
In a present where immediacy, image culture, the digestible and pyrotechnical, where almost the medium is the message, emptying of content many of our tools, writing/reading is a weapon, which can also serve as a refuge, where to continue polishing and sharpening our ideas.
The written material is an instrument that impels us to grow, to argue and continually revise our positions, widening our views, shining light where there was darkness.
On the other hand, it is necessary to say that written material has always accompanied anarchists, as propaganda for the dissemination of ideas, it is an effective tool to enter into dialogue with more comrades wherever they are: in the street, in prison, or other territories. It is important because it nurtures individual thinking, as well as possible collective discussions.
The written material as propaganda can bring together comrades and depending on the objectives and projections that we have, we can realize initiatives of various kinds. In the same way that we can find ourselves on the path of anarchic struggle, we can also distance ourselves from people who spread anarchist propaganda of other tendencies, for us those who are called to participate in the electoral circus, appeal to platform organization, dream of unity and large federations and those who reject legitimate political insurrectional violence – to give just a few examples – puts us in another place on the sidewalk and in several cases as enemies.
4-There are political-cultural spaces that coexist peacefully with power, while others attract police attention. Why do you think this happens? Are there more dangerous ideas-practices? If so, what would these be?
We don’t think this was the intention of the question, but it is worth clarifying to avoid pejorative atmospheres. For us, anti-power spaces/ideas/practices (truly anti-authoritarian and anarchic, leaving out and fighting the bullshit of “popular power”) by definition do not coexist peacefully neither with power, nor with authority, nor with the police and their investigators of all kinds.
Police eyes and ears are always there, to believe otherwise is naive and dangerous. They let themselves be seen or directly attack depending on conjunctures or panoramas that mark a change of rhythm.
In this sense, it is not the police harassment that defines our comrades’ ties -it is defined by our ideas, values and projections- because valuable initiatives that are undoubtedly a contribution to the anarchic tide, may not receive the police onslaught in an evident and grotesque way and not for that reason be considered “legal”, “innocent” or in any way aspire to coexist peacefully with the power. For example, at present there are activities that do not receive police interference, but that 3 or 4 years ago were seen as a danger and received harassment; we are talking about common pots or self-defense activities. It does not change the activity or the background, but it changes the perception of power or the effect it seeks to achieve as a chain reaction (fear, disarticulation, etc.).
Now, it is important to emphasize that these types of practices carried out by those in power are part of their work, and must be understood as such. They have always existed and will continue to exist, we do not say this in an alarmist way, much less to call for immobility or to “disappear” from certain spaces. Simply because it must be clear, those who consciously decide to undertake a confrontational path to power and propagate it in multiple ways, may encounter those enemy dynamics, therefore, the consequences must be assumed. Continue reading “Chile: Interview with Espacio Fénix EN/ES”→
This is Toby Shone, an anarchist imprisoned in the operation Adream which was an antiterrorist investigation against the counter-information project 325. I am calling from a prison in northwest England, it’s a long term, high security prison, and the fact that we can steal these moments is very important.
As you may already know, Operation A-dream was a repressive attack by the UK state in which 3 collective housing projects, a family home and storage unit were raided by cops. I was accused of being an administrator of 325.nostate, which earned me 4 terrorist charges: section 2 (distribution of terrorist publications), section 15 (funding terrorism) and two counts of section 58 (possession of information which is likely to be useful for terrorist purposes). I was also accused of several direct actions and membership of FAI, ELF and ALF. Hundreds of police were involved in the simultaneous raids and despite this, only one of the comrades were briefly detained and subsequently released for lack of evidence. It’s clear through the conditions of imprisonment I am held under and the constant monitoring that an active investigation continues with tailings and surveillance of comrades on the outside along with observation of anarchist social spaces.
Why is this taking place? It’s because anarchism is a threat to the existing technocratic order, our direct-action groups have a palpable reality in however minimal way in comparison to the task to be done, and the counter-information constellation continues to shine in the dark nights and become easier to use and navigate. Anarchist publishing is viewed as being an unacceptable endeavour by the police and intelligence services. Reporting on anarchist direct action, social struggles, and uprisings because it forms a narrative of subversion is arguably targeted with as much repression as that towards those who carry out the deeds that are being reported. It’s a strategy which has been in existence for a very long time. In the case of Operation Adream, the police was scared of the explicit anarchist insurrectionalist and anti-civilization rhetoric combined with the distribution of electronic and paper publications. During the interrogations a particular concern of the detectives was the purpose of anarchist paper publication. All the electronic documents have a digital forensic signature known as the hash value which can be tracked across the internet and devices even if deleted from those devices. Paper publications on the other hand, cannot be tracked as they are distributed – an investigation into them requires material forensics and a traditional police enquiry: this needs more resources, money, and personnel and especially the underground publishing initiatives which may have an irregular schedule of publishing and “informal” methods of distribution.
This brings us back to the purpose of anarchist publications: paper copies exist and have the power through being passed hand to hand to have an impactful material reality. They also accumulate forensic traces, the books, magazines, and pamphlets we are talking of, dangerous ideas, which can inspire our lives. Their time duration is different from those digital, and we can view that accordingly. With our publications, even if they are doomed to be in university libraries, mainstream bookshops, or worse, museums and art galleries, they always remain controversial and even illegal in some cases. Their purpose is social war and the destruction of the State. In the investigation files of Operation Adream, dozens of anarchist publications were cited many of which we may take for granted, that are freely available at anarchist bookfairs, squats, social centres and stalls at events. Yet to the police, special unit, and prosecutors these publications form part of an amorphous conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the establishment, which is correct, but not exactly in the perverse way that they wish to interpret it. To explain, we are often confronted by the repressive model that has a special function ascribed to theorists and writers, that of “leadership”. They are accused of giving orders and instructions and then cells or cadres then carry out those orders. I don’t need to tell you that this is an offense to anarchist practice, but it was a clear line of questioning put to me by the counter terrorist division. Does possession of 325 magazine indicate membership of an organization? Does that organization execute actions? And is that organisation part of a larger terrorist infrastructure? These are the types of questions bounced at me. With this scheming, marionettes of repression are formed, arranged in hierarchical structures which reflect their feverish minds. So, in those interrogations the investigators focused in some parts on questioning me about administrative functions, decision making flows, statistics figures, target demographics, research and linguistics, or translations. To the latter the cops wanted to know who was responsible for the translations, how they were organized, and who decided what should be translated.
At what level does the level of repression equate to that of our actions? For me, the answer is straight forward. The level of repression is currently far beyond that of the anarchist direct action. It’s the nature of State’s repression to aim to be overwhelming and our struggle is still only an active minority. In the UK the silence and lack of action highlights the social living death. But it was not always this way. And the future remains unwritten. That’s why police infiltration will continue to try to prevent for ruptures and individual attacks. It’s impossible to separate Operation Adream from the consequences of over a decade of anarchist direct action and social riots in Bristol. Although those things are at low ebb currently, it doesn’t mean that it will remain so. Anarchism remains part of the fabric of this South-West region. And where the reports, communiques and analysis are published will remain high in the list of targets for the State. The hundreds if not thousands of publishers across the world, part of a connectivity of contemporary anarchism, add to our ability to stay relevant and expansive.
Huge changes are taking place in society, and mass discontent has the possibility to form into a needed vital resistance. The new anarchist critique of high technology is cited by various intelligence agencies, State and private, as having the threatening ability to infect the population with a deep anger of the digital future. This future being planned by the bosses is a vast surveillance state which is part of the cybernetic matrix, where machines are taking the place of humans, and the artificial intelligence has inserted itself into every place it can be situated. Likewise, we can see human beings are becoming more machine-like, and their environment is degraded and polluted. Increasingly we can talk about the fact that many complete failures are taking place in various social systems, due to the ecological collapse and economic and post-industrial transformation. Huge territories are rapidly changing from floods, wildfires, draughts and intense storms. Unprecedented challenges are coming very quickly with harsh effects on critical points pertaining to agriculture, migration, division of labour, geopolitical conflicts and so on. Our publications and counter-information networks are a direct way in which we can communicate our analysis and methods of organization. Repression recognizes the danger of the contagion of this message, and the narrative which we possess. To the extent that they illegalize our publications and try to impose exemplary sentences is only a means to and end for them. And this is what we have always faced. If we are effective, we meet repression, prison, death. That’s what many comrades face across the world right now. Essentially some of us have been living under surveillance and investigation for so long, everything we do could be considered as crime, simply existing. That’s worth writing about and when we read and know more about what others are confronting and how, we can gain our power.
Lastly, I want to talk about the censorship I am facing here. Since it’s been a consistent feature of my imprisonment and is also part of the topic we’re discussing. Many comrades face problems with their correspondence and receiving publications. This is not unusual. But it’s worth saying here that I’ve been denied access to the majority of my correspondence and books which I am being sent. Even though I am facing denials by the prison administration that this is taking place, it most certainly is. This is the strength of our newsletters, our books, our letters to catch with comrades, that they make the enemy afraid. In my case, I’m also being denied socialist, autonomous-marxist and communist papers and books, which have been sent to me by those in solidarity from the radical left, as well as books on black history, transformative justice, and prison abolition. The very few anarchist books I have managed to receive I hold them close to my heart, here in my cell. Freedom is written with ink and our blood, like it always has been and will be. Value your books, your newspapers, your letters sent and received, combative memory persists, and we pass it to each new generation without efforts alone.
I’ll finish here and so I thank you for your energy and your attention, and a strong hug to all, and especially those under repression for the written word. For from the words come deeds, and that is the topic we’ve encountered today. Love and rage, thank you.
The Final Straw Radio Podcast Interview With Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone
US web-based The Final Straw Radio Podcast has a new interview with imprisoned anarchist Toby Shone in which he gives a background to Operation Adream, his arrest and trial and his recent recall to prisons plus the involvement of the security services in his case and the ongoing harrassment that he has suffered in HMP Garth.
The solidarity group for Toby Shone would like to ask that anyone writing to him could also take a moment to let us know that you have sent him a letter by dropping an email to forestcase@riseup.net
HMP Garth are telling him – as have other prisons he has been in – that he has no mail. The State and the pigs are desperate to isolate Toby and to make him believe that he has no support. This is stated in his probation paperwork as a goal of his probation team and the National Security Division.
Let’s not let them win! We have no control over whether the prison gives Toby his mail and books. We do however have control over writing to him and letting his support group know that you have so that even if he doesn’t receive it, he knows it was sent to him. A letter sent by recorded delivery so that we can tell Toby that yes, this letter arrived on such and such a date is even better.
Toby is very resilient and is always in good spirits. However, he has been very unwell, has lost a considerable amount of weight as a result of the lack of food and calorie count typical of Britain’s jails and now faces a month of no visits due to confusion over bookings. So now would be a really really good time to send Toby a postcard, a letter or an email (and then let us know that you have).
Thanks a million.
The State is the Terrorist.
No one is Alone!
Carlo Carrà, The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, 1910-1911 (oil on canvas, 198.7×259.1 cm, currently at the Museum of Modern Art, New York).
In the sunlight
I had thought, clumsily, that this would go on for less time. Yet, given the stubbornness with which the state wants to silence us (and quickly condemn us), I decided to take the floor again. Which is wise or not matters little. Then again, hard to say whether giving up (whether by compulsion or not) any interaction with one’s affections and struggle is wise.
Sure, there are many ploys that are surely smarter than a signed first and last name black on white. But there is one thing I can’t stop thinking is right: putting your face to it. Yes, this small but profound issue for me is very much linked to what have been (and will be) all the publishing projects or stirring moments that have involved me over the years.
It is what I have always, personally, ardently supported. To say loud and clear that I support and agree with direct action, making explicit what I think is the most congenial method of achieving the zeroing out of the “values” of bourgeois society. The insurrectional method. The attack on men and structures of the state and Capitalism.
Here, I don’t believe there are anarchists who are afraid to say these things. I think it is the essence of the revolutionary himself this obstinacy, this constant quest, to spread and bring out ideas, to create or sustain dimensions of social confrontation.
The attempt to define us as a clandestine and terrorist organization fails not so much in the actual facts, such as our membership in an extremely public anarchist circle, or for editing a newspaper that was distributed not certainly (and perhaps unfortunately) in secrecy in the locker rooms of some factory, but fails and is demolished by the simple fact that anarchists, revolutionaries all in general, spread ideas in the light of day.
We are not a sect of little boys who tell themselves about it, we are proletarians and with other proletarians we interact, spreading the ideas that seem most congenial to us for human liberation.
Depriving us of the availability, then of our books and our venues (which, moreover, are expressly and insistently OPEN to everyone except cops and bosses), would lock us into a vortex of total isolation aimed at a forced “hiding” unable then to operate effectively, alienating anarchism in the eyes of the exploited. Which, in my opinion, we have seen happen and intensify over the past two decades. Dangerous, then, closure. Continue reading “Italy: ‘In the sunlight’ Luigi Palli”→
In memory of Alfredo M. Bonanno (Catania 04/Mar/1937 – Trieste 06/Dec/2023)
…no one is totally the fruit of himself and each person, individual, it is certain that he is within a framework of relationships that can provoke him and affect his reactions, emotions and even the logic brought to that point.
– Antonio Lombardo
Before I began to think about these lines, I had given myself the task of searching and compiling data to write -with the intention of leaving a clue- about some of the many insurrectionary anarchist actions in contemporary Mexico that, although they have been sporadic, have not been recorded by the “official” historiography, either from “our side” or from the academy. The year 2023 marked the sixtieth (60) anniversary of some small attacks in the city carried out by the Libertarian Youth of Mexico, but I left it on the back burner, because I was taken by surprise by the news of the death of comrade Alfredo.
I did not have the opportunity to exchange impressions with him, the closest I got was when I briefly collaborated in the coordination -ten (10) years ago- of the Informal Anarchist Days / International Symposium, in Mexico City. [i] I did not consider it necessary to have a direct approach -because I refuse to pay homage to personality-, since in my opinion everything said about the “insurrectional project” (including the debate around insurrectionalism), was already circulating in our language since the beginning of the year 2000 in some anarcho-virtual forums, and to a lesser extent, in printed form his ideas were also circulating in some publications although only short articles or one or another lecture were disseminated. Unfortunately, no complete text of this tendency could be found; for this reason, in 2005 I acquired several copies of the Cuadernillos Incendiarios collection from the Chilean region, in order to distribute them in these latitudes.
Insurrection vs. Revolution
…there are people who are so miserable that even talking about them makes you dirty. And then, in the society in which we live and with which we have to deal with; we have many other more powerful (and even more serious) enemies and adversaries that we can easily overlook the “bites” of some “mistake”.
– Gianfranco Bertoli to Alfredo M. Bonanno
In spite of the little dissemination of these contributions in our region -which by then were no longer a novelty-, in 2001 informal actions began in different states of the country. At the time, these first attacks would not be claimed. This shows that the “insurrectional project” was already being debated in small groups among a few comrades and was being put into practice by concretizing the praxis. That is to say, from the need for action and, from the experience acquired in a sequence of attacks, theory was generated which, in turn, fed back into action to later distribute in print the new theoretical contributions and consolidate the debate through the international exchange of similar positions. Finally, some Bonannist postulates were abandoned and the attacks began to be vindicated by the different informal groups in operation. Continue reading “Mexico: In memory of Alfredo M. Bonanno”→
Carlo Carrà, The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, 1910-1911 (oil on canvas, 198.7×259.1 cm, currently at the Museum of Modern Art, New York).