On the eve of the french presidential elections, we share from the Crimethinc collective (20/04/2017), the second of two reflections on french politics, that is, on the only politics that matters, that which comes from below …
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On the eve of the french presidential elections, we share from the Crimethinc collective, the first of two reflections on french politics, that is, on the only politics that matters, that which comes from below …
Since the violent crackdown on the Gezi Park-Taksim Square occupation of 2013, Erdogan and the AKP government of turkey have sought by almost every means to silence dissent in the country: from the persecution of those who participated in the nationwide protests inspired by Gezi, to the arrest of lawyers and doctors who aided occupiers, to the incarceration of journalists and the closure of newspapers. This would soon be followed by the persecution, arrest and the murder of Leftist (in “terrorist” bombings, such as in Ankara in 2015), clandestine support for ISIS as a tool against the Rojava revolution, a war on the eastern “kurdish” towns of turkey, killing hundreds and forcefully dislocating thousands, and military interventions in syria and iraq … and so on. And since the coup attempt of 2016, as power is increasingly concentrated in the figure of the president, all of these measures have only intensified.
We have tried to follow these events in Autonomies, but the latter often surpass our capacity to keep up. Ignorance of the turkish language among members of the collective also render the exercise difficult. Fortunately, we have at times been able to rely on individual sources from within turkey, but more often than not, we have depended on alternative english language media coming out of the country.
It is with this latter in mind that we today express solidarity with the turkish sendika news collective, after the arrest of the organisation’s director in the wake of the April 16th fraudulent referendum that only serves as a fig leaf for Erdogan’s growing power.
With Sendika, we share a statement made by the collective …
A writer speaks above all for themselves. We thus share the words of the anarchist writer Ursula K. Le Guin, a story, a story of rebellion as departure, self-withdrawal from oppression …
We share once again an essay, in translation, by Ruymán Rodríguez of the FAGC – Federación de Anarquistas Gran Canaria (alasbarricadas.org 26/03/2017). What follows is a critical reflection on what it means to be an anarchist, born of Rodríguez’s experience with the FAGC. To simply characterise his position as “anti-intellectual” would be, I believe, a mistake. It is rather a call to all who would assume the name “anarchist” to seriously think or re-think what that term means; indeed, it is to ask the question of whether the anarchist “identity” is of any relevance, and if so, in what way, with what meaning.
We have been late in sharing news of the largest prison strike in united states history. Begun last Fall, on the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising, the strike spread to 24 states and involved over 20,000 prisoners. If the exploitation of prison labour was at the heart of the struggle, other motives were equally present, motives that resonate beyond the walls of the prison. Indeed, what the strike laid out before everyone was the increasingly porous border that separates “prison society” and society at large. In our times of exception, not only are we all just a few steps from prison, literally understood, but the methods of prison surveillance extend increasingly to every domain of social life. To strike against prison is then one further and necessary extension of not only the labour strike, but the more radical social strike.
From the Plain Words anarchist collective of Bloomington, Indiana, we share a reflection on the strike …
In early December of 2014, the Anonymous Nation of Anarchist Libtertarians declared their independence, in the heart of the crumbling and the nation state formerly known as, United Kingdom (8 December 2014) …
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Following on our previous post on housing occupations in Rome, we share below, in translation, an interview with an activist of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca of Sabadell, Catalonia (BCstore 04/04/2017). We have had numerous occasions to write about the PAH in spain. Beyond the movement’s intrinsic importance, it provides, along with parallel movements elsewhere, the occasion to think anew the notions of anti-capitalism and revolution so dear to anarchists. We do not necessarily share all of the ideas expressed below, but there is still much to learn from what follows.
The understanding that capitalism is more than a form of economic organisation-exploitation, that the exploitation of labour presupposes the creation and reproduction of the conditions of that exploitation, and that today the production of those conditions is itself a source of profit, renders any radical or anarchist anti-capitalism that focuses exclusively on industrial labour and the factory as the centre of Capital, irrelevant. As labour was never the lynchpin of the system of social relations constitutive of capitalism, a radical politics confined to the organisation of labour was condemned to failure. In the end, it could but offer more of the same (an improved management of labour) or concede that the capitalists in fact do it better.
The necessity of re-producing the social relations of capitalism force a broadening of perspective, a change viewpoint that reveals a total system that permeates, ever increasingly, every facet of daily life. The struggle against, or to create something beyond, capitalism, must then critically embrace the many concerns and needs of people, and push towards responding to those concerns and needs through autonomous forms.
The example of the struggle for housing in Rome, and in Italy more generally, is in this respect of fundamental importance. Refusing to respect the norms of private property and its protective State laws and apparatuses, defending and fighting to make real autonomous forms of collective self-organisation that transgress the divisions of race, ethnicity, sex, and the like, the house occupation movement in the country’s capital, under the banner of the Coordinamento Cittadino di Lotta per la Casa, animates a revolutionary politics of autonomy. If not unique to Italy, its depth, scope and longevity offer lessons to all.
France: Insurgent Thought in a Fragmented World
From Ill Will editions and anarchist news, a quick and dirty english translation of a review of The Invisible Committee’s Now from yesterday’s Le Monde, along with an interview with Julien Coupat and Mathieu Burnel with Le Monde (20/04/2017) …
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