The Grupos de Acción Revolucionaria Internacionalista/Internationalist Revolutionary Action Groups (GARI) were a series of autonomous anti-capitalist groups, largely of anarchist inspiration, which coordinated to carry out armed agitation and propaganda actions after the self-dissolution of the Iberian Liberation Movement (MIL), in Toulouse, because of the detention of its members and the death sentence of one of them, Salvador Puig Antich. After the execution of Puig Antich, the GARI will take actions to avoid a possible death penalty for other members of the MIL such as Oriol Solé Sugranyes and Josep Lluis Pons Llobet, in those moments imprisoned and pending trial. Its acronyms appear for the first time the day after the kidnapping of the director of the Paris branch of the Bank of Bilbao, on May 3, 1974.
We are happy to present our latest work, The Great Anarchist Conspiracy, a documentary that charts anarchism’s resilient survival from the 1890s all the way up the 1970s. The fact that you are reading this, and are most likely an anarchist, is proof that our international movement has survived every attempt to crush it. Against impossible odds, and without wielding state power, the anarchist movement continues to spread across the planet, even as you read this.
We follow Peter Gelderloos’ critical evaluation of spain’s “radical” municipalism with a more theoretical reflection, by Amador Fernández-Savater, on the political cycle in the country that began with the eruption of the 15M movement of 2011.
Inspired and borrowing from the work of Giorgio Agamben, Fernández-Savater endeavours to articulate a politics of destituent potentiality, a politics that aspires not to power, but to ways of life that keep creative potentialities open.
And though we share concerns and sensibilities with Fernández-Savater, it is unclear whether his notion of politics as a “potentiality at a distance from power” is robust enough to outline or sustain a radical anti-capitalist and anti-statist politics.
We share the essay below, in translation, as an invitation to through a radical politics that does not reduce itself to creating a counter-power to capitalist hegemony, or to seizing that power for a “socialist” politics.
Peter Gelderloos’ critical appraisal of spain’s “municipalities of change” is timely. (Roarmag 02/07/2019)
In the general municipal elections of 2015, various, large spanish cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, etc.) fell to coalitions that promising greater social and political justice, echoing an agenda of older “social democracy” or of the more recent social movements in the country (most notably, 15M) that sought an institutional expression for their indignation and desire for change. That desire came to an end in the municipal elections of June, 2019, with cities falling to Right-wing coalitions and Barcelona’s Ada Colau hanging on as mayor with the support of Barcelona pel Canvi–Ciutadans (the party of france’s former interior minister, Manuel Valls).
Spain’s “rebel cities”, as they came to be called, are no more.
The end of a political cycle, some may say. Or as we would hope, the end of the illusions of “social democracy”, that is, the belief that an anti-capitalist can be carried through the political institutions of capitalism.
However, if history can be said to teach anything, social democracy is stubborn and as long as capitalist social relations persist, the illusion of the possibility of the institutional reform of those same relations will continue, zombie like.
And again, Gelderloos’ analysis is important, for if the “municipalities of change” failed, so too did anarchist and autonomist movements, in the wake of the enormous social upheaval that was 15M.
South America’s “socialism for the 21th century” is in tatters, mired or lost to corruption and dictatorship. And in Europe, Podemos, Syriza and the like, were only the poor inheritors of an unreformable reformist tradition.
One would like to say that the stage is open for those who would create ways of life beyond Capital and the State. But for that to be possible, both our thought and action must be radical.
One thing that Donald Trump is daily proving is that lying and cheating remain, as always, the key to political success, something that Emma Goldman noted in her 1910 essay, “Anarchism: What It Really Stands For,” the keynote essay in her classic collection of writings, Anarchism and Other Essays. June 27th marks the 150th anniversary of Emma’s birth. How appropriate then to honour her legacy with this excerpt from “Anarchism,” in which she wrote: “One has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve success.” I included selections from Emma Goldman in Volumes One and Two of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas.
From the CrimethInc. collective, an interview with an anarchist collective in Hong Kong, on the ongoing protests against a proposed extradition law with china.
Photograph by Guillaume Amat (from the series open fields)
On the occasion of Raoul Vaneigem’s most recent essay, Appel à la vie contre la tyrannie étatique et marchande, we share an interview, in translation, that he gave to the Ballast journal.
We share an intervention by Miguel Amorós in current ecology debates, from talks on 12 May 2019 at the book exchange fair in L’Orxa (Alicante) and on 18 May at the Biblioteca Social El Rebrot Bord, Albaida (Valencia). More significantly, it offers a radical criticism of efforts at elaborating a “green capitalism”, as well as of movement such as the Extinction Rebellion.
The piece below was posted, in english, on wrongkindofgreen.org and enoughisenough.org. The translation, apparently the work of a “mechanical translator” appears below with changes. The text is available in spanish at Kaos en la red.
The self-managed, autonomous community of Fraguas was born of a rural occupation began in 2013. We have on more than one occasion shared news about the project, as well as calls for solidarity, before increasing State repression. With the community now threatened with physical destruction, and when more support than ever is needed, we again share such a call.
For those who wish to know more about Fraguas, our earlier posts are available here.
G.A.R.I.: Grupos de Acción Revolucionaria Internacionalista
The Grupos de Acción Revolucionaria Internacionalista/Internationalist Revolutionary Action Groups (GARI) were a series of autonomous anti-capitalist groups, largely of anarchist inspiration, which coordinated to carry out armed agitation and propaganda actions after the self-dissolution of the Iberian Liberation Movement (MIL), in Toulouse, because of the detention of its members and the death sentence of one of them, Salvador Puig Antich. After the execution of Puig Antich, the GARI will take actions to avoid a possible death penalty for other members of the MIL such as Oriol Solé Sugranyes and Josep Lluis Pons Llobet, in those moments imprisoned and pending trial. Its acronyms appear for the first time the day after the kidnapping of the director of the Paris branch of the Bank of Bilbao, on May 3, 1974.
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