Berlin (Germany): incendiary attack on a telecommunications antenna

On the night of October 19, we placed several incendiary devices on the exposed cable bundles at the foot of the telecommunications antenna in Herzbergstraße, Berlin-Lichtenberg. On a trailer, we tagged the reason for our appearance there: Switch-Off.

Attacking the structures that maintain this technologized nightmare world opens up possibilities for the instinct to rebel. It’s not so much analyses and theories, let alone ideologies, that drive us, but rather desires and aspirations, especially for something that even we, as anarchists, sometimes fail to say, or downplay, for fear of seeming ridiculous. It’s about freedom. Of our individual freedom and that of our fellow human beings with whom we want to live. If anything prevents us from experiencing freedom today, it’s not just material conditions, borders or alienation, but also the extensive smartification of life in favor of technologies, which unleash bloody wars for resources and claims to power, while leaving people paralyzed in front of their screens. All this serves to maintain domination and social order, from which many benefit. Yet it is in technology itself, which enslaves us and has until now been the greatest tool of the powerful, that its Achilles heel lies, and that we are attacking it in a targeted manner.

Some critiques of technologies can seem very dry and technical. They are often analyses designed to help people understand the links, dependencies and “nuisances” of certain technologies, in order to foster a critical attitude towards them. In an “objective” and “fact-based” way, the aim is to encourage others to reflect on their consumption behavior, their social position, their privileges and their own prosperity, which is based on the exploitation of people and resources. This is certainly not wrong, but this kind of criticism focuses solely on human reason, the absence of which is reproached by many technology fetishists. If they were to think “logically” and “rationally”, detached from technological doctrine, then the empathetic human would have to conclude that our society cannot continue to exist as it is. But the opposite is true.

To what revolutionary project does it contribute that an isolated person reflects on his behavior, speaks proudly of it, but does not emerge from his passivity? That no practical consequences follow analysis and thought? No perspective in the search for social revolution can begin and end with “objectivity” alone.

Of course, criticism can sharpen the mind, create and encourage awareness, but if it’s just a matter of identifying various “nuisances”, it remains a limited moral discourse that distinguishes between good and bad causes and behaviors. This kind of criticism is a lot of things, but it’s not revolutionary, and it doesn’t encourage many people to take subversive action. It’s unlikely, therefore, that such limited criticism will inspire people to change their own condition and that of others. Yet change remains the decisive factor and becomes a necessity, even if we consider reality only in fragmentary terms. Senseless violence, absurd wars, environmental poisoning, violence against each other. To understand all this, you don’t need to spend years poring over books, or even studying.

So what is it that drives us to act? If we were dealing with more or less well-formulated “objective” and “reasonable” theories, we’d probably already be living in another world. In fact, the dominant take advantage of the absence of strong individual convictions which, for those who still believe in them, could potentially translate into class consciousness. It is precisely the passivity of the individual that enables domination to maintain its power. The exploited have never participated as much in their own oppression as they do today, through the siren song of digital technology. But the other part of the story is that humans, since they experience oppression, also feel the instinctive need to oppose it. Nobody needs a sophisticated theory to feel pain and anger in the face of abuse and humiliation.

So if “objectivity” and “facts” have little or no effect, what’s left? When we act in a fundamentally instinctive way, analysis and theory are of little help. The opposite is true of strong emotional states, such as fear, which also plays an important role. From a managerial point of view, fear is a functional and complex process designed to enslave us by means of a concrete or artificially created threat. Technology, as it is currently applied, aims precisely to make humans dependent by promising to free them from their fears and “problems”. Dependence is controllable. But can instincts be controlled? Perhaps these are the only aspects of being human that give us the possibility of rebelling to be free. So it’s sensations, feelings, but also fears, anger and love that move us in the truest sense of the word, and this should not be underestimated. It’s the silent cry for freedom that sometimes arises within us, but is too often stifled by reason.

For sabotage, for the exuberant wildness of feelings and the actions that flow from them!

For anarchy!

Anarchists

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via: sansnom Translated by Act for freedom now!