What was initially presented as a single post now gains form as an ongoing reflection, for the catastrophe is without limits.
Of Precarity
From lundi matin #218 (25/11/2019)
On Friday the 8th of November, a 22-year-old student set himself on fire in front of the Lyon CROUS. He is still at this moment in an artificial coma.
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José Mário Branco was musician, song writer, composer, poet and militant. Though largely unknown outside portugal and lusophone countries, he was a central figure, among others (e.g. José Afonso), in what came to be known in his country as “musica de intervenção“, a politically engaged music that was born of and animated the resistance to fascism and the revolutionary process unleashed by the 25th of April, 1974 coup against the dictatorship.
Politically, Branco would move from student activism in progressive catholic groups to the portuguese communist party (being arrested by the political police in 1962). Upon release from prison, he escapes to france to avoid doing military service in the colonial wars (something that would begin his growing disagreement with the communist party, which defended “political” intervention in the war). Politically and artistically active in france’s “May 68”, he will return to portugal with the April revolution.
José Mário Branco died this last week, on the 19th. Branco’s political ties and affinities – he will move through various “extreme” left-wing parties after 1974 – are however not the reason why we remember him. It is rather for his music, an art which he always situated politically in the struggle against capitalism. As he said of himself, I “was a musician who was in politics, not a politician who was in music”.
If his music reflects a particular history which may seem dated to some, his art is a rare example of ethical-political engagement for a world without oppression.
Below, we share songs (most with lyrics translated), interviews and a lecture (for those with a knowledge of portuguese).
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From the Crimethinc. Collective (23/11/2019), reading events in greece …
New Democracy: The New Face of State Violence in Greece
A View from Exarchia as the Showdown Looms
The neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens, Greece is known worldwide as an epicenter of combative anarchism. For many years, anarchists and refugees have worked together to occupy buildings, establishing housing collectives and social centers that provide a variety of services outside the control of the state. Starting in August, the new government has carried out a series of massive raids targeting immigrants, anarchists, and other rebels, while revoking the autonomy previously granted to universities and introducing a wide range of new repressive measures and technologies. Now the government has given all the remaining occupations in Greece two weeks to conclude lease agreements with the owners or face the same fate. This deadline coincides with December 6, a day that anarchists have observed for ten years as the anniversary of the police murder of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos and the uprising that followed it.
Continue readingFrom Roarmag (21/11/2019), a film telling of the Hong Kong insurrection, by Ross Domoney …
Since early June, a huge protest movement has erupted in the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong against the encroaching rule of China. What started as a protest against a controversial amendment to the Extradition Law that could potentially see Hongkongers being extradited to China has since evolved into a broader pro-democracy movement. The amendment that triggered the protests has since been shelved, but the protests show no sign of abating,
The extremely violent and disproportionate crackdown by the Hong Kong police forces have in turned sparked a more aggressive and organized resistance from the protesters. The movement’s militant “frontliners” have been inspired by black bloc techniques they picked up online watching videos form past protests in Greece and France.
October 1 was the 70th anniversary of the people’s republic of China. On this occasion, up to one million people came out to protest. Nearly all demonstrators wore black and the frontline was occupied by a black bloc of over 10,000-strong, ready to resist and fight the police. It was the first time that Hong Kong police shot a live round at a protester, taking the crisis to a new level.
Ross Domoney was there with his video camera to capture the day as it unfolded.
Ross Domoney is an award-winning independent documentary maker and video journalist. He focuses on non-presenter lead, observational filmmaking about political struggles from around the world. He also produces documentary films that are often character lead. Ross has worked in Syria, Turkey, Ukraine and the DR Congo, to name a few.
The day after November 17, 2019 in Athens: a taste of blood in the mouth
Yannis Youlountas (18/11/2019)
Many of our comrades spent the night between four walls after systematic beatings. Others were injured, three of whom were transferred to hospital by ambulance. Others had to hide for a good part of the evening, or all night, not to be picked up and beaten by police who seemed very excited, as if in a full war video game throughout the neighborhood.
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From Raúl Zibechi, reflections on the fall of Evo Morales and a “leftwing” government; a story repeats itself …
Bolivia: The Extreme Right Takes Advantage of a Popular Uprising
Raúl Zibechi (Toward Freedom 11/11/2019)
What caused the fall of the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia is an uprising by the people of Bolivia and their organizations. Their movements demanded his resignation before the army and police did. The Organization of American States sustained the government until the bitter end.
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From the CrimethInc. collective (13/11/2019) and a blog maintained by Joey Ayoub …
Lebanon: A Revolution against Sectarianism
Chronicling the First Month of the Uprising
Since October 17, Lebanon has experienced countrywide demonstrations that have toppled the prime minister and transformed Lebanese society. These demonstrations are part of a global wave of uprisings including Ecuador, Chile, Honduras, Haiti, Sudan, Iraq, Hong Kong, and Catalunya, in which the exploited and oppressed are challenging the legitimacy of their rulers. In Lebanon, a sectarian power-sharing arrangement dating from the end of the civil war has created a permanent ruling class of warlords who use patronage networks to maintain power by winning elections—confirming our thesis that politics is war by other means. In this thorough account of the events of the past month, an on-the-ground participant describes the Lebanese uprising in detail, exploring how it has undermined patriarchal structures and transcended religious divisions to bring people together against the ruling class.
Report courtesy of Joey Ayoub, writer.
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News from greece, from Yannis Youlountas …
November 12: In the early morning, the refugee/migrant squat of Bouboulinas in Exarchia is besieged and evacuated, after the anti-terrorist OPKE had sealed off the north-east corner of the neighbourhood.
November 11: Anti-riot police encircle some 200 hundred students in the economics faculty of the University of Athens. Among the students, many are wounded after being violently hit by the police. The previous evening, police searches had found material for the making of molotov cocktails used in the resistance against the country’s new authoritarian regime. Dozens are arrested.
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Monday, November 11, early morning. After a long, partly forced silence, here is our latest news from Greece, from Crete to Epirus (near Albania), to Athens, with an unprecedented wave of searches and arrests, false accusations against Rouvikonas , the end of the Golden Dawn trial and Exarchia becoming a powder keg.
Greece: A leaden repression falls upon the social movement!
Yannis Youlountas (11/11/2019)
At all times and in all places, whenever power has hardened, it has always extravagantly named those who resisted it. Under the Nazi occupation or the junta of the Colonels, opponents were sometimes referred to as “terrorists”. Today, this word and others from the same barrel are thrown about all of the time against the rebels of an unjust and deadly society.
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From lundi matin #211 (08/10/2019) …
A few epistemological considerations for the attention of those who wish to rebel against extinction
Let “things go on as before”: this is the catastrophe. It does not lie in what will happen, but in what, in every situation, is given.
Walter Benjamin
It is the negative that we still have to do, the positive is already given to us.
Franz Kafka
In 1681, an English author named Thomas Burnet wrote Telluris Theoria Sacra and gives to the word catastrophe its modern meaning: a fatal upheaval on a large scale.
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Politics in times of catastrophe (3)
Everything is burning already; Let us burn together!
From lundi matin #218 (25/11/2019)
We received this anonymous text from Bordeaux. We liked it very much, so here it is.
I dreamed chaos. I have dreamed of the embrace of possibilities and the burning of the catafalque which cradles our torpor in its eternal fall of boredom.
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