Agustín García Calvo: His passing and his presence

Agustín García Calvo died this last Thursday, the 1st of November.  He was poet, dramaturge, essayist, translator, philosopher; a man of many faces, an anarchist.  For those whom he touched, he will be missed.  But having created so much, part of his beauty remains.

In celebration …

Poetry, Music, reflections on education and at Sol, in Madrid …

Las moras negras – (Poema: Agustín García Calvo / Música: Amancio Prada).

Creí que buscaba
las moras negras,
y encontré la rosa de zarza.

Creí que cortaba
la rosa blanca,
y se hincó la espina en mis venas.

Creí que saldría
clavel caliente,
y brotó un arroyo de leche.

Creí que el arroyo
se hundía en tierra,
y fluyó al Océano verde.

Creí que era aquello
el verde Océano,
y era el río eterno de estrellas.

Creí que hallaría,
cruzando el cielo,
al Señor del todo y la nada.

Y sólo encontré
puñado de moras
que de amor en mi mano sangraban.

Libre te quiero – (Poema Agustín García Calvo/Música: Amancio Prada)

Libre te quiero
como arroyo que brinca
de peña en peña,
pero no mía.

Grande te quiero
como monte preñado
de primavera,
pero no mía.

Buena te quiero
como pan que no sabe
su masa buena,
pero no mía.

Alta te quiero
como chopo que al cielo
se despereza,
pero no mía.

Blanca te quiero
como flor de azahares
sobre la tierra,
pero no mía.

Pero no mía
ni de Dios ni de nadie
ni tuya siquiera.
 

Manifesto of the commune without names. About Education

What children should be taught directly is simply to disobey, to say NO to any command, to any information of doctrine that comes from above, from any centre of power.

To say NO is all that is known and all that can be done between individuals of the people and commonly below others, subject to Power and that who therefore can really do nothing against It.

The world is full of protests, more or less well intentioned, and denunciations against certain exaggerated abuses and violent horrors that some or other confronts the Administration with: opposition parties and labour unions against one form of the other of State or Capital, associations in the defence of those most scandalously oppressed and helpless, novels and films that want to put before the broad public the sorrows and miseries of war, past or almost contemporary, plagues and slavery promoted by the Faith and Fatherland of masters or the Business of the Almighty …

believing that all of these denunciations will do something against Power, something of greater worth than all of the damage that so many bring about by collaborating with It with criticisms from within Its Order, constructive, that makes one shudder a little and comforts those who do not feel themselves to be so oppressed or crushed.

And even days will come, as so often has happened, in which a State, pushed by the intrigues of its economy, orders the conscription of youths for a war against an Other that lends itself for the occasion, or that demands the sacrifice of the time of their life for Faith in the Future that Power and its Media present to them, or that orders them to immigrate en masse to search in the Centres that Captal has established for Its Dealings and to live in the nooks of its rubbish heaps and to raise their children for Heaven, or that demands of them that they dedicate the years of their youth and beyond to climbing the ladder of posts, positions, promotions to jobs ever higher and more servile, without distracting themselves from the traffic stopping to think about what is happening to them, completing their education with diversions or games that the Master sells them or offers them.

And then, when the situations of war come or ruins or emptiness or disasters more obvious, they will see, as on other occasions, those who want to call the young to rebellion, to hold to the value of desertion and to not submit to those who command them.

But the it will be too late: since they were children, they were educated to obedience, at home, in school, on the screen, in stadiums; they will have been made to swallow without feeling the substitutes: they will have convinced them, more or less reluctantly, that what they are told to believe or to buy is good, that they have no other future than the Future that their seniors and the Media offer them and it is for it that they are prepared.

And, so educated, the attempt by a few to rebel and desert, in the midst of the avalanche of obedient majorities, will become so painful and costly that it is no longer worth the effort to continue.

The (conter)education had to have begun much earlier: having created the habit of saying NO, without distinction between the types of Master, Teacher, Nation, Culture, Bank or Logo; at home, in the school, in bars, in Training Centres that effect children, that they know how to take advantage of them (obviously) with a good ear and appetite for whatever may pass their way, by accident, that is good, truly pleasing; a discoverer, undeceived, yet without believing in anything, and, to any recommendation to be as they must be or to be for a future desired by their seniors, that they laugh silently and that they pass it by in tranquillity.

This (dis)education is that which can be of some value against the Administration of death that Power on peoples and things.  Therefore what it is necessary to do, and what can always be done thanks to what for the older remains obvious and without illusion, is to teach the children and those less educated to simply disobey, without distracting themselves with the appearances of this or that priest, or professor, or president, or Regime that touches them, to say NO to any order, any information or doctrine that comes from above, from any centre of Power.

April 8-9 2008

(translated from Editorial Lucina)

Obituaries: Editorial Lucina, CNT