This Is Our Job

From Liberación Total (June 28, 2010):

It only takes a quick look around to see that we live and breathe prison. We are born in chains and condemned to endure a miserable, empty existence subject to the control of a System of domination that enslaves and feeds on our lives, and whose best weapons against dissent are the prisons charged with sowing fear among those who break the law and clash with order.

Prison is one of the System’s strongest pillars. It was made for those who don’t submit, for those who—consciously or not—exemplify the misery created by the System.

In addition, it’s now a very profitable business. Prison is one of power’s cruelest tools of vengeance: punishment. Inside prison, injustice and abuse abound, revealing the brutal aspiration to destroy people. There, everything is designed to annihilate; to create a meager subsistence; to make one feel the most intense loneliness; to distance; to erase dreams and memories, which are lost to time by those whose minds and voices are unable to scale the walls that use routine and habit to cage something more than bodies. Support and solidarity must then become visible, strike, and shatter the concrete and cold bars, preventing them from silencing the voices within.

When we talk about Repression, we sometimes adopt the attitude of victims, which obstructs our view of reality; namely, that we are immersed in an open war, in which repression is no more than the System’s response to any attack on its foundations. It’s an attempt to restrain us, and that’s why we should always assume a position of conflict, and keep fighting.

The struggle against prison concerns all of us who want to retake control of our lives, who refuse the dying of the light, who don’t want to take part in their lies, who resist further perpetuating the silence of a society that has become complicit in all that tries to steal our lives and oppress us.

Every day, with every gesture, at every moment, we have the opportunity to seize our freedom.

An embrace for all, filled with rebellion, liberty, and complicity.

Every strength, courage, support, and solidarity to Alfons, Nuria, Rodri, Gabriel, Marco, Juan Carlos, Diego, and so many other compas who are struggling and suffering the consequences of repression: May your cries never be silenced, nor your rebel hearts forgotten.

My deepest scorn and hatred for our executioners. It’s not going to be easy for them to defeat us.

DOWN WITH THE WALLS!

—Tamara; June 6, 2010

From Punto de Fuga via Tokata:

February 11, 2010

These letters sent from inside the gray, cold prison of Brians are an attempt to return, in some way, all the warmth and affection to those who, with their support and solidarity, have managed to kill the everyday loneliness and routine concealed by imprisonment; to those who are giving me so much strength and vitality right now, and crossing the barrier that separates us to make sure I never lose the feeling of freedom; to all those who are showing how a simple pen and paper can restore one’s hope and desire to keep fighting; to all those who are struggling against the business of torture, punishment, and repression represented by prisons.

And to all of you . . . what can I tell you that you don’t already know? How struggle is repressed? How voices are walled in? How their filthy laws control our lives?

I could tell you how, on December 15, 2009, before the sun went down, a group of Civil Guards entered my home, took whatever they wanted, and abducted me.

I could try to explain what I felt while listening to cries of pain and fear from a jail cell in a police station.

I could pass along the experiences that some prisoners have shared with me, in which they speak of humiliation, of torture, of helplessness, of solitude.

I could talk about what I’ve been able to observe from this side of the wall, like how the “Penitentiary Business” profits from the people it captures, and how they call this “reinsertion” (strange word).

I could illustrate, with some events I’ve been able to witness during this month-and-a-half without freedom, how the prison health system functions, how methadone and other legal drugs are its best methods of control, and how very little people’s health and lives matter.

I could talk about the sadness I feel in the mornings, when I hear so many say “one day less” instead of “one more day.”

I could tell you that, behind these walls, people are being isolated and destroyed.

But . . . all this rings a bell, right? We’ve heard it all before, we’ve been through it all, it’s all happened to others many times, we know all about it. We know that we find ourselves inside an unjust system that sentences us to a “non-life” in which the false idea of “well-being” blinds and condemns people, in which work shackles us, their laws control us, and prison represses and punishes us.

I refuse to fall victim to all this, and even now I don’t feel like one. I want to be and always will be their “problem.” And that’s why what I really want to get across with these words is the desire for us to keep fighting, to not surrender, to continue coping, to try—at least—to breathe freely and feel alive.

I think of you and I feel alive, free, and strong, and that’s why your solidarity has managed to be stronger than the bars of their cells.

For that reason, this letter is addressed to all those who—every day—make the struggle worthwhile, to all the people being held captive in these Death Camps, to all those struggling inside and outside the prisons.

Accept this sisterly embrace, filled with Freedom and rebellion.

FREEDOM FOR ALL PRISONERS!
DOWN WITH THE PRISON WALLS!
LONG LIVE ANARCHY!

- Tamara (January 26, 2010)

From Punto de Fuga via Tokata:

February 11, 2010

Note from TIOJ: This particular letter was riddled with ellipses, which we assume indicated where the prison censors did their foul business. For the sake of readability, we’ve omitted the ellipses from our translation.

I’m fine, considering the circumstances. It’s now been more than a month since they arrested me, with all the commotion that involved, and I prefer to remember it as a bad dream.

In spite of everything, I can tell you that it didn’t make me fall apart, and I’ve been―and still am―strong enough and itching to keep up the fight. And that’s thanks to you, to all of you out there. Because you have kept me in mind all this time, I have never felt alone, and I think that’s very important to someone in jail. It makes me feel really fortunate because, in truth, the worst thing here is loneliness, which amplifies the desperation, the humiliation, the helplessness, and the fear. That’s why I find myself obliged to be cheerful and to pass along all my good cheer. Because here it’s very easy to be in the yard and find yourself crying to someone for (apparently) no particular reason.

The truth is that right now I find myself somewhat lost and isolated even though I know you’re out there, despite the matter of the confiscation of my letters. But these fucking walls are sometimes very strong, and they prevent me from clearly seeing the reality on the outside (although I can more or less imagine it).

I feel that the best solidarity is to continue the struggle. That’s why I think that, if there is a campaign for me, it must have continuity and a real undercurrent that helps strengthen the anti-prison struggle. Otherwise, it makes no sense to me, and I don’t want other efforts to grind to a halt on my account. Besides, I’m more calm now. Reflecting on what I can, I intend to find a way to keep fighting from this side of the wall.

THE ONLY LOST BATTLE IS THE ONE NOT FOUGHT

- Tamara (January 23, 2010)