Insurrectional Anarchism – Page 3

The Final Straw Radio Podcast Interview With Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone + A Request By Solidarity Group For Toby Shone

Posted on 2024/03/05 by darknights

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.

https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/03/…

A Request By Solidarity Group For Toby Shone

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!

Forest Case Folks
forestcase@riseup.net

Toby Shone A7645EP
HMP Garth
Ulnes Walton Lane
Leyland
Preston
PR26 8NE

Source: Brighton Anarchist Black Cross

Italy: ‘In the sunlight’ Luigi Palli

Posted on 2024/02/11 - 2024/02/11 by darknights

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” →

Mexico: In memory of Alfredo M. Bonanno

Posted on 2024/02/05 by darknights

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” →

UK: Letter from anarchist prisoner Toby Shone for comrade Alfredo M. Bonanno

Posted on 2023/12/17 by darknights

Farewell, Alfredo

I heard today by telephone as the morning winter sun shone through grey clouds into the confines of my cell that our comrade Alfredo Bonanno passed away during sleep surrounded by the love of his close ones. I too send my incendiary embrace to all those who feel his loss and assert that a combative memory will remain. Alfredo’s contributions to the anarchist movement are undeniable, critical, insightful, and prescient. One of Alfredo’s texts, ‘What are Anarchists?‘ had appeared in an investigation file against me for which I was accused of distributing. His booklet published under the title ‘Locked Up‘ by Elephant Editions is one of the most important documents on the topic of imprisonment in my opinion. Alfredo’s writings for which he was investigated and incarcerated are never mere collections of words but emerge directly from lived experiences, his own and that of the comrades that participate in our struggle for freedom. Affinity groups, informal organization, direct action and the critique of technology and systems: these concepts form the most potent section of today’s Anarchy, let’s put them into practice!

“Hurry Comrade”

Toby Shone

12-12-2023 HMP Garth

Greece: For Comrade Alfredo Bonanno from Nikos Maziotis, Member of Revolutionary Struggle

Posted on 2023/12/17 - 2023/12/17 by darknights

Comrade Alfredo M. Bonanno has passed away at the age of 86. He lived a whole life in the world of struggle and anarchy. He was one of the main representatives of the insurrectionary tendency of the Italian anarchist movement with a great theoretical contribution and editorial work. He was editor of the magazine Anarchismo and other anarchist publications. For his activities he was repeatedly persecuted and imprisoned by the Italian state together with other comrades in the 1990s, e.g. for the O.R.A.I. case (in 1996), the armed expropriation of the Serravalle Rural Savings Bank in the Trento area in 1994 and other attacks.

He had come to Greece several times. The first time I met him was in January 1993 when he visited me in the military hospital 424 in Thessaloniki after 50 days of a hunger strike I had carried out. I had just been released from being a prisoner in the Thessaloniki military prison for refusing to serve my military service. In 1999 he had also come to Greece and had testified as a political witness for the defence in my trial for the bombing of the Ministry of Development in December 1997 as an act of solidarity with the then dynamic struggle of the villagers of the Strymonikos Gulf villages in North Greece – Halkidiki (Olympiada, Varvara, Stavros, Asprovalta) against the installation of the Canadian multinational gold company TVX GOLD, which has been succeeded today by Hellas Gold, a subsidiary of Eldorado Gold. It was a historic political trial in the then annals of the Greek anarchist movement where for the first time in Greece after the fall of the junta there was a defence of armed-dynamic forms of action. In that trial, in addition to the Greek comrades/compañeros, in addition to Alfredo Bonanno, Costantino Cavalleri, a comrade of the insurrectionary tendency of the Italian anarchist movement, and the comrade Hellyette Bess, who was a member of the French guerrilla organization Action Directe and had been imprisoned for several years for her participation in the organization, had testified after an international call for solidarity. The 3 then imprisoned members of Action Directe, Jean-Marc Rouillan, Joëlle Aubron and Nathalie Ménigon, had also sent a written message of solidarity to the court.

The last time I saw Comrade Alfredo was in 2010-’11 in Korydallos prison when we were in custody for our participation in the Revolutionary Struggle. He was also in custody on the charge of expropriating a bank in Greece. With Comrade Alfredo, despite our different approaches to struggle and mode of action, we were connected by an invisible thread, as are so many other comrades around the world who dedicate their entire lives to the struggle to free humanity from the shackles of the state and capital.

THE COMRADE WILL LIVE ON IN MEMORY AND IN OUR STRUGGLES

Nikos Maziotis, convicted for the actions of Revolutionary Struggle.

source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1628067/

Via & translated for Abolition Media by Nae Midion

Anarchist comrade Alfredo M. Bonanno has died on 6th December at the age of 86

Posted on 2023/12/17 by darknights

You will always be alive with us through our action and our lives. “ACTION REPLACES TEARS”

Alfredo Maria Bonanno, born in 1937 in Catania, Sicily, is one of the most prolific contemporary anarchists, responsible for Anarchismo editions and other publishing ventures. In 1977 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his book La Gioia Armata (Armed Joy). This book had been published at a historical moment when the Italian revolutionary movement was openly going on the offensive, while similar conditions existed in other European countries (Germany, Spain, England, Greece, Chile and more) and the question of violence was on the daily agenda. His contribution lies in a celebration of the pervasive class violence that liberates and satisfies the individual, but at the same time he sounds the alarm about the emergence of the armed party, which reduces the class conflict to a militaristic dimension, imposing the mediation of a small minority of armed men on the complexity of tens of thousands of people struggling by all means against the current reorganization of Capital, which at that moment seemed weak.

In the spirit of the book, all authentic liberating and destructive action comes from a logic of satisfaction in the struggle, not a self-sacrificing duty in accordance with the dictates of a micro-bureaucracy. The Italian Supreme Court ordered the destruction of the copies of the book that were in circulation, and sent a circular to public libraries to dispose of any copies they might have had.

Several librarians objected to this Nazi-inspired tactic. Its circulation was generally banned, and copies were confiscated from the homes of anarchist militants in the context of police raids on houses.

Shortly afterwards, the author was accused of being an “instigator” of the Azione Rivoluzionaria, an armed organisation of 1976-79, which operated on the basis of “affinity groups” throughout central Italy, mainly against newspapers and party offices, and similar “manipulative mechanisms of consensus-building”. In 1979 the organisation was practically dismantled with the arrest of 86 people and the arrest of Salvatore Cinieri and Gianfranco Faina. The first went on to die in prison in a scuffle with criminal inmates when he defended a prisoner suspected of submitting an escape plan, while the second was released to die of lung cancer after being diagnosed with a tumour while in custody.

With the retreat of the movement, the author’s interest turned to the critique of traditional trade union and organisational structures, as well as to the new metropolitan uprisings that have been re-emerging in the West steadily since the 1980s, without the guidance of any party, without open demands, etc. Continue reading “Anarchist comrade Alfredo M. Bonanno has died on 6th December at the age of 86” →

Chile: Words in memory of Alfredo M. Bonanno by Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti

Posted on 2023/12/17 by darknights

Words in memory of Alfredo M. Bonanno by Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti

One death always makes us think of many more and it is the beautiful thing in the midst of sadness, our dead come out to dialogue, with us and with each other.
Bonnano did not share the relationship that many comrades on this earth have with those who have died.
Ironically today, his physical departure, makes us remember so many moments around his analysis, also the discussion with him in 2013, after his expulsion, the harshness of his phrases, but the beauty of the meeting, even in virtuality.
Alfredo did not connect with many of our ideas, but he fed many of ours.
Comradeship is also that, to grow in the clash of ideas, to feed tensions, to look for ways, to assume disagreements. It is not calm or permanent affirmation.
The ideas and analysis that he sowed in each one of us, perhaps he never reached the dimension, but they are alive, in practices, in actions, in resistances and offensives.
His seeds are also contained in books, get to know him, there are several of his texts in the library, discuss with his ideas, feed your own.
Reading is the engine of imagination, use it to fight against domination.
We embrace you Alfredo… trying to keep Anarchy alive.

Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti [Antiauthoritarian Library Sacco and Vanzetti]
December 2023
bibliotecasaccoyvanzetti@riseup.net

Source: Informativo Anarquista

Santiago, Chile: Attempted explosive attack on the Scotiabank corporate building by ‘Grupo de Acción 6 de Julio – Nueva Subversión’

Posted on 2023/12/17 by darknights

(Received on 15/12/2023 to the mail informativoanarquista@riseup.net)

Attempted explosive attack on the Scotiabank corporate building

To succeed in an attack is the most expected situation because we like that things turn out according to plan and that our claims are preceded by the sound of an explosion. But getting it right always brings close to the situation of failing, sometimes being too explicit or in others going almost unnoticed; “that the right time has not been chosen”, “that the appearance has not been changed in a place without cameras”, “that the correct route has not been taken”, “that the clockwork has not been confirmed”, etc., are statements motivated by perceiving some error, each one being elementary with its own level of influence for the operation in its entirety and that are not reduced to whether the device worked or not. The target may have exploded, what a satisfaction; but all the hits and misses behind it, how are they counted, how do they look, what do they explain about the action?

When one errs, the worst thing that can happen, besides imprisonment and death, is to be clouded by success, which at the end of the day translates into the frustration of “not knowing how to do things”. It has been said in every possible way by many comrades that there is no secret formula for insurrectional action. Overthinking techniques and conditions in order to find their perfection, ends up overwhelming the attempt of action. Some intellectual efforts become useless because they are devoid of direct experience, of the tension lived in the moment. The ideal field of study for the operative theory is the field of action, woven in the past and present by the subversive guerrilla experiences. Assuming, studying and positively discussing the reality of our mistakes will help us to catalyze a better management of the variables for the next adventure.

We share the views of the Anarchic Brigades Luis Ramirez Olaechea that “to fail an attack is part of the many probabilities that arise in the bravery of the street, when we believe that everything is going well we are surprised that something escapes from what was arranged and planned”. Also from the Conspiracy for the Savage Iconoclast – Cell Kevin Garrido that “to reduce the anti-systemic actions to the result (successful or not) of these, is typical of an exitist paradigm that would only lead us, inevitably, to a militaristic understanding of the anti-systemic praxis”. Continue reading “Santiago, Chile: Attempted explosive attack on the Scotiabank corporate building by ‘Grupo de Acción 6 de Julio – Nueva Subversión’” →

Greece: POPULATION GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGIC THEORY OF TWO OR MORE EXTREMES: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LEFTISTS AND ‘ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS’ TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STATE STRATEGY

Posted on 2023/12/10 - 2024/01/10 by darknights

DN Note: Our collective presents and translates a text written by ‘Assembly against Biopower and Confinement’ detailing a Greek academic who is in alliance with the Greek state, cops and their counter-insurgency tactics against our comrades and any manfestation against the social order. A similar incident in this country of ‘Aufhebengate/Libcom‘ comes to mind when we post this text, how the parasites of academia and its involvement in counter-insurgency, has not only spread to other countries such as Greece, that there is also international co-operation occuring on a far larger scale than before. As seen by the text there is a move to include all theories that are deemed ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist’ as one emcomapssing threat especially because of their use of violence. Academia is the breeding ground of the new technoligcal shift that has already arrived, collabaration with cops in order to repress our circles is unforgivable and anyone connected to such scum as Rosa Vasilaki are not our comrades.

POPULATION GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGIC THEORY OF TWO OR MORE EXTREMES: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LEFTISTS AND ‘ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS’ TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STATE STRATEGY

or

Do we all hate the police? Not all of us…

(on the occasion of the Event-Discussion in Chamadou entitled “The New World Order of the Far Right” by Asymmetric Threat & Opposition Publications)

“I decided to make an international career as a civilian, because Greece doesn’t fit me. Here is my article on the electoral rise of the far-right, hosted by Jakobin…

(Actually, the truth is that without Rosa Vasilaki’s invaluable help I wouldn’t even have made it to Bitola…)”[1]

Nikolai Polykarpov

One year ago, on 13/12/2022, the “Left-Right Lies Observatory”[2] publishes a video with an interview of former Contra Dystopia member Iason Baggeris on the show of the anti-vaccine cop Telemachus Bossios. We all believed at the time that the denunciation of I. B. by the meth/vaccine activists/vaccinators of the Observatory was done in the name of an anti-authoritarian authority: “we never talk to cops and cops’ associates”. The refutation of this erroneous initial impression was not long in coming. A few months later, on 28 August 2023, the main contributor to the Observatory, Polykarpos Georgiadis (Nikolai Polykarpov), published an article on the “coalescence of left and far-right in Greece” in Jacobin, the magazine of the left wing of the ruling Democratic Party in the US. [3] The publication of the article, as he informed his petty followers in a public post on his online profile, was mediated by Ms. Roza Vasilaki, among other “academic ” collaborators of the Greek Police – the latter of course conveniently for him avoided mentioning it. What happened in the meantime? Did Mr Georgiadis renounce his principles in order to make a face to the American democratic readers of Jacobin? No! As we will show in the following text, these “principles” are simply non-existent. But we will not limit ourselves to that. Because the issue for us is not simply the morally unacceptable or inconsistent behaviour of “anti-authoritarian” or “communist”, but the size and depth of the network of surveillance and repression of “dangerous” political activities that the security mechanisms have set up in Greece. And we will start by first answering the question: well, the “prominent member” of the Class Counterattack, Polikarpos is well-known, but who is Ms. Vassilaki?

Ι. TO WORK OR NOT TO WORK (FOR THE POLICE)?

In broad strokes, R.V. is another career researcher among those who use the language of the state and social movements simultaneously and have knowledge gained from participating in research projects that are at the service of capital, its state and the mechanisms of disciplining labour power and repressing class struggles. As such, it has acquired the capacity to be marketed differently depending on the audience. These days she tends to present herself as a militant researcher of the emergence of far-right discourse in Greece, as she writes in the promotional bio on her personal blog: ‘she has conducted extensive research on the far-right, football violence, religious fundamentalism, immigration and refugee integration, as well as feminism and gender-related issues.’[4]

By this point, one might reasonably wonder where the real problem lies. From the quotation of this autobiography, we seem to be talking about a left-wing researcher, one of many in the academic industry, who is conducting in-depth scholarly research on important issues that inevitably have occupied almost all social movements in recent years. Is there something wrong with all this and with Mr Georgiadis’ collaboration with R.V.? Are we referring to the classic combinations of academics of the antagonistic movement with other “networked” members of the academic community which can provide them with a few extra contacts and some professional and political career opportunities? Are we not referring to the various theoretical all-encompassing “conflict politics workshops”, from which indeed some careerists may later end up in the practical conflict politics workshops of the security apparatus of the capitalist state?

I wish we were just talking about this early stage of a political scientist’s career. In a more explicit, previously posted biography of R.V. on the internet, we read that “she has taught history and sociology at universities in Greece, Israel, and the United States. : we have the feeling that she did not teach anything that glorified the ‘Palestinian resistance’] and in Great Britain” and that her “main research interests focus on the changing place of religion in modernity, the emergence of post-secular and post-Western knowledge and theories, and the manifestations and genealogy of violence in the modern world, such as religiously and politically motivated violence and the particular role of security forces in modern states”. [5] Indeed, her professional activities cover a very broad field that basically centres around counter-insurgency policies and technologies, intelligence gathering and methods of preventing and suppressing activities ranging from youth rebellions to Islamist terrorism. Continue reading “Greece: POPULATION GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGIC THEORY OF TWO OR MORE EXTREMES: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LEFTISTS AND ‘ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS’ TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STATE STRATEGY” →

Czech Republic: The Fenix 2 trial

Posted on 2023/09/02 - 2023/09/02 by darknights

On 18 and 19 September 2023, at 8:30 a.m., the District Court in Most will hold the next hearing in the Phoenix 2 case. https://antifenix.noblogs.org/post/2019/03/27/what-is-fenix-2-about/

The main charges concerned the support and promotion of the Network of Revolutionary cells (SRB) https://revolutionarycells.noblogs.org/, insurrectional anarchism, as well as blackmail and harm of others property. SRB focused several years on sabotage of the property of police and capitalists. So far, no one was convicted and condemned for these actions.

The defendant Lukáš Borl https://lukasborl.noblogs.org/ admittedly confessed to spray the walls of prison lettering “desire for freedom the repression will not stop” and “death to the state”. He also admitted that he was identifying by amended identity documents. The damage he caused to the prison, he paid. The Court in these two points acknowledged Borl guilty, but dropped from punishment. According to the Head of Senate, Dagmar Šebková the delicts were not serious and also happened long time ago.

The Court in Ústí nad Labem overturned the judgment of the District Court in Most and remanded the case for a new hearing. An expert in the field of in odorology to look into the issue of “scent traces”.

Recall that four anarchists and one environmentalist are charged with offenses punishable by 3 to 10 years in prison. Support the accused directly in court or by another solidarity action.

More information about the Fénix 2 case on the blog https://antifenix.noblogs.org/