For the revolutionary anarchist Alfredo Bonanno

On 6 dicembre the anarchist comrade Alfredo Bonanno died at the age of 86 years. Alfredo was an emblematic figure of the insurrectional tendency of the anarchist movement. His political activity extended to the whole range of militant practices of the movement and his writings have addressed a multitude of theoretical, historical and ideological issues, such as the question of insurrection and political organisation, revolutionary and armed struggle, the contemporary tendencies of capitalism, the relationship between nation and class, themes that he addressed with originality and acumen, which places him among the most important contemporary anarchist thinkers.

His revolutionary activities often caused him to be targeted by the repressive forces both in Italy and in Greece, where he has had close political contacts since the early 1990s participating in political events, international initiatives, solidarity movements and editorial projects. It would not be exaggerated to say that some of his works, such as Theory and Practice of insurrection  left a strong mark on the formation of the Greek anarchist movement of the nineties and two thousand.

Alfredo was arrest in October  2009, at the age of 72 years, along with the comrade Christos S. near Trikala, accused of having robbed a bank. Despite his precarious health and the taking responsibility for the robbery by the comrade Christos S., Alfredo was subjected to a vindictive preventive custody until the trial in November 2010 and subsequent expulsion. He was sentenced to four years in prison for “simple complicity” in the robbery and expelled from Greece. Until the end of his life he did not stop fighting, challenging persecution, putting into practice the timeless premise of “fighting to the end”.

During Alfredo’s imprisonment in the prison of Korydallos, three successive members of our collective had the privilege of living with him over a period of time. Endless conversations in the prison yard, always with our disagreements, always with mutual respect. We will remember him in the heat of August 2010, inside the stuffy cell 15 of the first wing, while reading and writing on a chair, telling us that for anarchists to read should be a natural necessity, we will always remember him as a kind figure, one of the figures who inspired us to join the anarchist movement during our adolescence. But above all we will remember him for what he was: an anarchist revolutionary, an eternal guerrilla, an eternal enemy of the State and capital.

Goodbye comrade… we greet you with those unique words that will never cease to thrill us: « The revolutionary struggle is like a sea against which fighting would be vain madness, we must adapt to the sense of the waves, swim now with strength and now with lightness, seize the impetus of life that the sea hides in itself to get to the desired goal. The difficult art of the swimmer conceals the political sense of minority action. The latter highlights its class significance exploding suddenly as the fruit of revolutionary memory and as indication for the present clash ».

Class Counterattack (Group of Anarchists and Communists)
[Ταξική Αντεπίθεση (Ομάδα Αναρχικών και Κομμουνιστών)

via: athens.indymedia.

Translated by Act for freedom now!