Sometimes it is hard to write without running the risk of becoming rhetorical.
The death of Alfredo Bonanno has left what, precisely rhetorically, is referred to as an unbridgeable gap. A lack for many comrades – and they are hundreds – who, once they approached anarchism, drew vital lymph from his writings scattered in books, magazines and newspapers. Analytical writings to better understand the world and the evolution of domination, and to explore the way – one of the ways – in which to try to counter it. His analyses were lenses with which to look at things from another angle, and this way of looking at reality differently, of analysing it with another perspective is perhaps the thing that most fascinates about anarchism and will be most missed of Alfredo.
Whether it was one of his writings, a public discussion at an initiative or a conversation over a meal, he had the ability to stimulate that reflection that often led you to sit in silence and mull over what you had read or heard, taking you to reason differently, perceive other horizons.
Of course, Alfredo was not only a theorist, but also a man of action, perfectly embodying that marriage between theory and practice, between thought and action, which should be the basis of every comrade’s life. He also left traces of this in his writings, in what he wanted or was able to tell, when it was not the media that made a point of revealing what should not have been known.
Anarchism here and now, this seems to us to have been Alfredo Bonanno’s life. A year after his death, we felt a remembrance was in order in a bulletin of anarchist critique and culture such as this; a bulletin that deals mainly with books, those books that Alfredo loved so much. Books that Alfredo wrote, composed, printed, bound and distributed, and inside which he left a rich legacy from which other comrades will continue to draw vital lymph. Those books from which many suggestions will be able to reach new generations of comrades.
From Inattuale, bulletin of anarchist critique and culture, number 3, December 2024.
Biblioteca Anarchica Disordine
Translated by Act for freedom now!