Call for an international mobilization on 25th April and 1st May
Over the past twenty years there has been a distancing from revolutionary ideas: even comrades have stopped believing that their thoughts have the possibility and ability to go beyond. On the contrary, revolutionary ideas are more necessary than ever at the present time.
To stop struggling, believing in the possibility of “winning”, i.e. of really destroying society and disrupting a history that is swiftly veering towards catastrophe – health, ecological, military catastrophe – has made the oppressed weaker, allowing the bosses to take an authoritarian turn in the management of society. This bitter truth has been more evident than ever in recent years, in a continuum which expressed itself – in the past two years alone – in massacres in jails in March 2020, in factories kept open by ferocious pressure from Confindustria while individuals were locked up at home, in an economic recovery which cared about no one, as dramatically proved by deaths at workplaces, massacres for profit such as that in Stresa, attacks and murders outside the gates of warehouses whose workers were on strike (and the list is endless). It is precisely the absence of a concrete revolutionary horizon that is allowing the bosses to sleep peacefully, authorizing them to demand more and more.
An authoritarian turn with a clear class nature: if proletarians have always lived by submitting to numerous blackmails, starting with the essential one, that of having to work in order to live, these have been multiplying in recent times. The green pass is a further instrument of attack by the bosses, determining daily life in an increasingly totalitarian way. The decrees of the last two years have aggravated above all the blackmail of work, which has always been an instrument of massification and discipline in society.
The method used to make the new impositions and the worsening of control more acceptable is that of pushing towards National Unity, whereby people are called to gather around the flag in order to defend themselves from the enemy. The government and the State become expressions of collectives and communities which are demanding that everyone follow their orders, rendered objective by citing scientists and technicians, the priests of the moment. The sense of community is used to push individuals, both at work and in daily life, to sacrifice themselves for a supposed “big family”, as if we really were all in the same boat. This is not a new practice: normally used during wars, in factories with the Olivetti model and various human resource management dystopias, with the collectivisation of the bosses’ problems and individual accountability of the exploited. Those who don’t answer the call are recognized and labelled as mad or deviated, also losing the dignity to express themselves about their motivations.
A similar dynamic can be seen in the energy policies pursued by the European Union. Over the past year the media have been giving particular attention to the climate emergency, paradoxical result of a capitalism that is destroying the world and wants to give itself the solution to the problems it created. Taking advantage of the New Year, the European Commission reintroduced night-time nuclear power of fourth generation in the list of so-called clean energy in which to invest in the context of PNRR [Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza, national plan of recovery and resilience]. Once again, they will say that those who oppose it are defenders of fossil fuels, enemies of the emergency solution. What they don’t want to see is that the problem is the energy society itself and capitalist industrialization.
In the face of the class war unleashed by the bosses, comrades, without waiting for anyone to do it for them – not only in Italy – have responded with practices of attack, which we share and which are also ours. We are close to our brothers and sisters, the unknown ones and those who are paying with years in prison for their choice of taking a stand and acting against those who are killing us and the world we live in every day. And we are also close to the comrades who are in prison accused of anarchist practices, often even just because of what they said or wrote.
The recent attacks on the anarchist press also seem to be going back, along with many other recent events, to a dynamic of increasing intolerance towards anyone who dissents. As a matter of fact, what is effectively in danger in this new updated version of democracy, is not an imaginary freedom of opinion but coherent words calling for action, explicit solidarity with those who traversed paths of freedom, those who demonstrated with deeds and not chatter that the social order is not unavoidable fate, but can and must bleed.
Coherent words and consequent deeds that we want to continue. National Unity is calling for war. So is our internationalism, but of quite a different kind.
In this spirit we are proposing two moments in the streets for next spring: on 25th April and 1st May in Carrara. As we are aware that it won’t be two demonstrations to have a real impact on the present trend, we nevertheless believe that anarchism must concretely take back the streets with the strength and coherence of its ideas.
For a manifesto of effective propaganda, which doesn’t take one step back on content but is also embodied in this historical period, we thought of the following temporary points, to which others can be added as the situation changes or as comrades we’ll meet on the way suggest:
– AGAINST THE AUTHORITARIAN TURN
– AGAINST NATIONAL UNITY
– AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER
– IN DEFENCE OF THE ANARCHIST PRESS
– IN SOLIDARITY WITH REVOLUTIONARY PRISONERS AND THE PRACTICES THEY ARE ACCUSED OF
Anarchists
If you want to take part in the building-up of the mobilization, see you Saturday 26th February at Circolo Culturale Anarchico Goliardo Fiaschi in Carrara, Via degli Ulivi, at 4pm.
