To revolutionise ourselves [Révolution sur nous-mêmes]. These three words appeared for the very first time in downtown Beirut, the last two words, about ourselves, had been added to the word revolution, which was already stencilled everywhere, on more than one wall, in more than one neighbourhood, chanted wholeheartedly of course, but very quickly fetishised, frozen in its very action, in a word, impeded.
Marking 10 years since the 2013 Days of Struggle, part of the forces of the institutional left have been reviving analyses that criminalise or delegitimize the demonstrations, elaborating a discourse that contends that the seed of the Bolsonarist extreme right was planted then, disregarding the various experiences of struggle as a whole, their complexities, their landmarks and their political successes. Regarding the narratives that delegitimize 2013, we especifist anarchists ask ourselves a central question: who is afraid of popular power? Who is terrified of seeing the people organising and massively revolting in the streets, claiming a basic right?
We receive and transmit this international call to carry out solidarity actions all over the world against the criminalisation of Soulèvements de la Terre. Translated into seven languages [we share the English language call below] and already signed by dozens of collectives, it proposes to multiply protest action from June 28.
Against the criminalisation of Soulèvements de la Terre in France, call for solidarity actions everywhere in our territories!
In France, Macron’s government has just taken an unprecedented step in the repression of the social and environmental movements. On the 21st of June, the government decreed the disbanding of the movement (Soulèvements de la Terre/The Uprisings of the Earth), which claims over 140,000 supporters and more than 150 local groups. This disbanding was accompanied by two unprecedented waves of arrests of dozens of environmental activists across France on 5 and 20 June, notably by police officers from the Sub-Directorate for Anti-Terrorism (SDAT). Two people are in prison already, and dozens of serious injuries have been caused by the police during demonstrations in recent months.
Over the past two years in France, Soulèvements de la Terre have given a new lease of life to the ecological struggles by building a multi-faceted movement made up of farmers’ unions, ecological organisations, activists and people of all ages and from all walks of life. This has included site blockades, mass demonstrations, land occupations, law suits, and ’disarming’ criminal industries like the multinational Lafarge… Participants in The Earth Uprisings adopt a diversity of tactics and take the lead from local territorial struggles to build livable worlds and firmly halt land and water grabs by agribusiness, the concreting over of our soils, the ecocidal ravages of the chemical industry and the destruction of life.
The French government, which has imposed an anti-social pension reform by force, is now trying to dissolve this growing movement, which has already begun to forge links across Europe and beyond.
From France to Uganda, Colombia to Chiapas, the UK to Brazil, Lebanon to India or Rojava, the resistance from ecological and social movements and the worlds they are building, are provoking a violent authoritarian response, destroying lives in the name of power and profit. This authoritarian, patriarchal and neo-colonial headlong rush is leading us towards a deadly future of climate chaos, militarisation, pandemics, technological control and waves of mass displacement.
In the eyes of the French government, this repression and dissolution should mark a halt to the rise of a logical revolt to reclaim our lives, our lands and the commons. And what if this dissolution became, in spite of itself, a call to strengthen a great global resistance movement? A call to make our solidarity resonate across borders, to breathe life into the many uprisings around the world. An invitation to build new global alliances ’from below’, on the scale of our bodies and our territories, in defence of land and life against the capitalist and imperialist predations of nation states and multinationals.
Together, in the days and weeks ahead, we are calling for more acts of solidarity, to show that what is growing everywhere cannot be dissolved! We propose to continue making the Soulèvements de la Terre visible in public space in our territories around the world : in front of social centres, through inscriptions on walls, with banners and parties, rallies and direct actions, and any other actions adapted to our contexts.
For the global uprisings of the earth, and in solidarity with all those around the world who face repression, we, collectives of struggles and organisations from different countries, are calling for solidarity on Wednesday 28 June (or in the days that follow, depending on the context) in a variety of ways. Dozens of rallies against criminalisation will be held across France, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Catalonia… and other territories will follow !
Early on June 24, Vladimir Putin addressed Russia about the unfolding rebellion of the Wagner private military company, saying that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion is “pushing the country toward anarchy and fratricide.”
This is a misuse of words. Fratricide has long been the rule under Putin. Torturing and assassinating dissidents was fratricide. Invading Ukraine was fratricide. Both the Wagner company and the Russian military have made fratricide their profession. Anarchy is the opposite of fratricide: it is the condition that prevails when people do not compete to rule each other. Totalitarianism always leads to bloody conflicts over power.
A message from Serge, Who Survived Attempted Murder at the Hands of the French Police
Below, we present a translation of the first message from Serge since French police seriously injured him along with many other people during a protest in Sainte-Soline on March 25, 2023. Serge spent a month in a coma after a policeman shot a grenade at his head. We have been following his situation with anxiety and it is with great relief that we report that he has recovered enough to post this message.
Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done to men. Whenever a man cries inwardly: “Why am I being hurt?” harm is being done to him. He is often mistaken when he tries to define the harm, and why and by whom it is being inflicted on him. But the cry itself is infallible.
Simone Weil, La Personne et le sacré
There are moments in our lives, in our experiences, which so powerfully call up images and words, that it is difficult not to return to them, as an exercise of recollection, but also of understanding; to verify in fact whether the words once read bring light to what is now experienced and, from this, to learn to read the words again, to feel their life anew.
The recent viewing of drone footage of the surrender of a Russian soldier to Ukrainian soldiers on the Bakhmut front was one such occasion. It was modest of course, in retrospect – for the simple reason that what we saw, we saw from a distance, mediated by a video recording –, but it so forcefully called to mind a late essay by Simone Weil, that we returned to it. And now, we share it, in the conviction that it radically puts into question a great deal about how “we” think about “radical politics”.
We obviously leave it to others to judge the relevance of our experience. But whatever conclusions others may come to, Weil’s essay remains a powerfully eloquent call for a way of life which begins from what she called the “sacred”.
On 14 June 2023, a fishing boat carrying migrants sank in international waters in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Pylos, Messenia, Greece. The boat, which left Tobruk, Libya, on 10 June, carried an estimated 400 to 750 migrants. 104 people were rescued, 82 bodies have been recovered and hundreds are missing and presumed dead. (The Guardian, 04/06/2023)
Circe is a powerful witch that Homer also calls polypharmakos: the one who masters the pharmakon, both remedy and poison. After sharing her bed, the witch tells Odysseus that before leaving for Ithaca, he must go to the kingdom of the dead and see the diviner Tiresias. To go to sea is to leave for this world in between, between life and death, and that, not only because the sea has its dangers. More fundamentally still, what the myth condenses into a sensible idea is that the sea, not being solid ground, does not belong to this or that, its world is between two worlds. Aristotle, who preferred taxonomies to myths, will say that there are three species of human beings: the dead, the living, and those who go to the sea.
We are urgently working to deliver more for people and the planet. … We are urgently working to fight poverty and inequalities. … We want a system that better addresses development needs and vulnerabilities, now heightened by climate risks, which could further weaken countries’ ability to eliminate poverty and achieve inclusive economic growth. … We want our system to deliver more for the planet. … We are convinced that poverty reduction and protection of the planet are converging objectives. … We, leaders of diverse economies from every corner of the world, are united in our determination to forge a new global consensus. … Achieving our development goals, including climate mitigation, will also depend on scaling up private capital flows. This requires enhanced mobilisation of the private sector with its financial resources and its innovative strength, as promoted by the G20 Compact with Africa. This also requires improving the business environment, implementing common standards and adequate capacity building, and reducing perceived risks, such as in foreign exchange and credit markets. This may require public support, as well as sharing reliable data. Overall, our system needs to lower the cost of capital for sustainable development, including through the green transition in developing and emerging economies. … Our work together is all about solidarity and collective action, to reduce the challenges facing developing countries and to fulfil our global agenda.
Emmanuel Macron, Mia Mottley, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Olaf Scholz, Fumio Kishida, William Ruto, Macky Sall, Cyril Ramaphosa, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden[1] (The Guardian, 21/06/2023)
It is difficult to know what to make of these words, from an open letter signed by the leaders of some of the richest countries of the world (as such wealth is measured) – and the not so rich, perhaps as testimony to the “brotherhood of nations”.
Exploding over the past year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s escalating violence and ethnic cleansing in Palestine have become two centers of a deepening global crisis. For the international left, the Ukraine war and Palestine catastrophe, both on their own and together, pose very big tests of theory and more importantly, of politics.
A question has bedeviled the left: Is it possible to support both the Ukrainian and Palestinian struggles, and oppose imperialism, at the same time? Actually, the question should be reversed: How is it possible for a genuinely internationalist left not to support both of these struggles for self-determination and national survival?
On 31 May the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Igor Paskar to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on charges of “vandalism” and “terrorism”. He was found guilty of burning a Z-banner [a pro-war symbol] and the symbolic firebombing of the FSB [Federal Security Service] building in Krasnodar. The day before his sentencing, Igor gave his final statement in court. Here is a translation of his speech:
Almost a year has gone by since I carried out this action. During that year, I pictured this moment time and again, the moment when I would be given the opportunity to make my final statement. I agonised over the words I would say, and the motives that drove me to act as I did.
Ghassan Salhab: If only one wall should remain
From lundimatin #389 (27/06/2023) …
To revolutionise ourselves [Révolution sur nous-mêmes]. These three words appeared for the very first time in downtown Beirut, the last two words, about ourselves, had been added to the word revolution, which was already stencilled everywhere, on more than one wall, in more than one neighbourhood, chanted wholeheartedly of course, but very quickly fetishised, frozen in its very action, in a word, impeded.
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