I am not so naive as to believe that what I am living here is something exceptional… and since “the prisoners” are not born here but come from a very concrete social context I do not look for the directly responsible “only” among the salaried jailers and the jailing administration which, in the end, reproduce on a microcosmic scale the politics and the ignobilities of the System and its “Society”… There is nothing to reform; everything must be demolished down to the foundations…
They are mistaken who believe (or imagine) that my radicality comes from the indigestion of “utopias” and various “theories”… actually, in the end and from the beginning I owe “my radicality” to the System and its miserable Society… or, if someone wants to look for the “theorists” responsible for my radicality, they can start in the offices of Department of Corrections and leave in peace the poets of the dynamite…
(…)
For me, I have never been left indifferent to the beggars who fill the metropolis, those who, brutalized by a whole life of wage slavery end their days taking refuge in programmed leisure activities, alcohol and/or drugs… or those who, in order to survive, sell their bodies to satisfy the pleasure of those who can buy bodies as if they were commodities… but it has not been all this legion of miserable and exploited who have filled me with the strength, inspiration and dignity necessary to combat the system that generates all this… for that my brothers in struggle are responsible: some were “bandits” and others were revolutionaries… that is the fundamental difference between the majority of “anarchists” and me… I do not need “excuses” and revolutionary “subjects” in order to confront the System… I hate the System because it taught me to hate it… and in this path of frontal war against the System I am learning who are my accomplices and who are my enemies, beyond “isms” and “conceptualizations”…
Aachen, July 2011
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, más de 30 años preso por venganza política e institucional
Exigimos al Estado español la aplicación de sus propias leyes y el cese de esta venganza que descubre la arbitrariedad del autodenominado “Estado de derecho”. El sistema ejecuta una vez más, una venganza institucional y política. Compañero, no estás solo, esta lucha es de todas, es de todos.
We demand that the Spanish state apply its own laws and put an end to this revenge that reveals the arbitrariness of the self-styled “rule of law”. The system is once again executing institutional and political revenge. Compañero, you are not alone, this struggle belongs to all of us, it belongs to everyone.
The heretic, like the bandit, knows that the loss of his freedom leads him irreparably to the scaffold. What awaits him is a court that will ask him for his actions. A court that will exercise its power and absolute reason in the name of God, the People, the Kingdom or the State. Power and Reason are acts of authoritarian syncretism developed over the centuries by the owners of the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky. Thus, the individualistic anarchist – who is heretic and bandit at a time – is aware that his conviction of own power and his own reasons leads him to the stake. Like a moth, he / she looks for light and succumbs. Like Icarus, she/he flies upwards and the Sun melts its wings. Like Prometheus, he/she steals the fire of the gods for oneself and others; like him,
The drama of the Anarchist is his passion for freedom, his tireless search for accomplices, which he/she seldom finds. She/he despises the conformism of the flock, the cowardice of the crowd, the dogmatism of all faith.
Every priest – of every “ism” – hates her, because she can not be controlled, she/he does not obey her, he/she does not listen to him; and when he/she can, she/he raises the voice to attack the least form of power and authority. Sometimes, these solitary avengers throw the bomb or sink the dagger with the intention – always – to sow chaos in the order of reason, rigorously established as law or supreme truth. At other times, they mix with the discontented with the intention of triggering insurrections. But most of their time they use it to read, because their best friend and hobby is the knowledge of what was and what is. They have no illusions or hopes, but convictions. They know that knowledge is their strength and that it gives them self-determination. They live every day as if it were the last. In a slave society, Liberty is punishable by death. They/they do not resign themselves, they/they do not lament, they/they blaspheme, attack, expropriate. There are not many, but even these few can worry all governments, precisely because they are ungovernable; in love with the total freedom. No matter what it was. They reinvent themselves at every step, every shot, every kiss. They are not strategists because they have no end goal and, therefore, their actions raise the wrath of others. They have no more “partisans” than those who know and love them, apart from their iconoclastic barbarians. Often, they are caricature in the newspapers, since it is thought to be able to prevent people from asking: Who are these mad/crazy? What do they want? How to explain who the anarchists are to citizens who delegate their life and their thought to others?
Yes, they are mad/crazy and they want nothing less than anything. All that has been taken from them and nobody can give them back. Here they are! They have no “arguments”, fire and powder speak for them. A kilo of dynamite and a poem. A kilo of black powder and a new heresy. A “hands up” and they leave. Machines that destroy their Banks, Courts, Commissariats; Barracks, Churches and Political Seating … “What do they want these mad/mad?” Nothing! The destructive nothing that gives way to wild nature. The flowers make their way under the ruins of their putrid “civilization”.
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
on June 5, 2019
somewhere in the Old World
Note: dedicated to our deaths in combat, to our prisoners of anarchist war, to our fugitives and to all the conspirators who acted on the night.
Solidarity with Gabriel Pombo da Silva and all anarchist prisoners
‘There is nothing to reform’
(words from Gabriel Pombo da Silvia via culmine, translated by war on society and published with the Anarchist Library):
I am not so naive as to believe that what I am living here is something exceptional… and since “the prisoners” are not born here but come from a very concrete social context I do not look for the directly responsible “only” among the salaried jailers and the jailing administration which, in the end, reproduce on a microcosmic scale the politics and the ignobilities of the System and its “Society”… There is nothing to reform; everything must be demolished down to the foundations…
They are mistaken who believe (or imagine) that my radicality comes from the indigestion of “utopias” and various “theories”… actually, in the end and from the beginning I owe “my radicality” to the System and its miserable Society… or, if someone wants to look for the “theorists” responsible for my radicality, they can start in the offices of Department of Corrections and leave in peace the poets of the dynamite…
(…)
For me, I have never been left indifferent to the beggars who fill the metropolis, those who, brutalized by a whole life of wage slavery end their days taking refuge in programmed leisure activities, alcohol and/or drugs… or those who, in order to survive, sell their bodies to satisfy the pleasure of those who can buy bodies as if they were commodities… but it has not been all this legion of miserable and exploited who have filled me with the strength, inspiration and dignity necessary to combat the system that generates all this… for that my brothers in struggle are responsible: some were “bandits” and others were revolutionaries… that is the fundamental difference between the majority of “anarchists” and me… I do not need “excuses” and revolutionary “subjects” in order to confront the System… I hate the System because it taught me to hate it… and in this path of frontal war against the System I am learning who are my accomplices and who are my enemies, beyond “isms” and “conceptualizations”…
Aachen, July 2011
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, más de 30 años preso por venganza política e institucional
Exigimos al Estado español la aplicación de sus propias leyes y el cese de esta venganza que descubre la arbitrariedad del autodenominado “Estado de derecho”. El sistema ejecuta una vez más, una venganza institucional y política. Compañero, no estás solo, esta lucha es de todas, es de todos.
We demand that the Spanish state apply its own laws and put an end to this revenge that reveals the arbitrariness of the self-styled “rule of law”. The system is once again executing institutional and political revenge. Compañero, you are not alone, this struggle belongs to all of us, it belongs to everyone.
(From the CNT AIT Cartagena 03/11/2021 and a las barricadas)
…
For more information, see:
CNT-AIT campaign for the freedom of Gabriel Pombo da Silva
El salto diario
Press conference for Gabriel (in spanish) …
For information in english, see:
enough is enough
anarchist news
the free
act for free
…
For solidarity work with anarchist prisoners, see:
Anarchist Black Cross
London Anarchist Black Cross
Green and Black Cross
Till all are free
…
Heretics
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
The heretic, like the bandit, knows that the loss of his freedom leads him irreparably to the scaffold. What awaits him is a court that will ask him for his actions. A court that will exercise its power and absolute reason in the name of God, the People, the Kingdom or the State. Power and Reason are acts of authoritarian syncretism developed over the centuries by the owners of the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky. Thus, the individualistic anarchist – who is heretic and bandit at a time – is aware that his conviction of own power and his own reasons leads him to the stake. Like a moth, he / she looks for light and succumbs. Like Icarus, she/he flies upwards and the Sun melts its wings. Like Prometheus, he/she steals the fire of the gods for oneself and others; like him,
The drama of the Anarchist is his passion for freedom, his tireless search for accomplices, which he/she seldom finds. She/he despises the conformism of the flock, the cowardice of the crowd, the dogmatism of all faith.
Every priest – of every “ism” – hates her, because she can not be controlled, she/he does not obey her, he/she does not listen to him; and when he/she can, she/he raises the voice to attack the least form of power and authority. Sometimes, these solitary avengers throw the bomb or sink the dagger with the intention – always – to sow chaos in the order of reason, rigorously established as law or supreme truth. At other times, they mix with the discontented with the intention of triggering insurrections. But most of their time they use it to read, because their best friend and hobby is the knowledge of what was and what is. They have no illusions or hopes, but convictions. They know that knowledge is their strength and that it gives them self-determination. They live every day as if it were the last. In a slave society, Liberty is punishable by death. They/they do not resign themselves, they/they do not lament, they/they blaspheme, attack, expropriate. There are not many, but even these few can worry all governments, precisely because they are ungovernable; in love with the total freedom. No matter what it was. They reinvent themselves at every step, every shot, every kiss. They are not strategists because they have no end goal and, therefore, their actions raise the wrath of others. They have no more “partisans” than those who know and love them, apart from their iconoclastic barbarians. Often, they are caricature in the newspapers, since it is thought to be able to prevent people from asking: Who are these mad/crazy? What do they want? How to explain who the anarchists are to citizens who delegate their life and their thought to others?
Yes, they are mad/crazy and they want nothing less than anything. All that has been taken from them and nobody can give them back. Here they are! They have no “arguments”, fire and powder speak for them. A kilo of dynamite and a poem. A kilo of black powder and a new heresy. A “hands up” and they leave. Machines that destroy their Banks, Courts, Commissariats; Barracks, Churches and Political Seating … “What do they want these mad/mad?” Nothing! The destructive nothing that gives way to wild nature. The flowers make their way under the ruins of their putrid “civilization”.
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva
on June 5, 2019
somewhere in the Old World
Note: dedicated to our deaths in combat, to our prisoners of anarchist war, to our fugitives and to all the conspirators who acted on the night.
(from the Anarchist Library)