#EndSARS

A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media, #EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria.

During these protests the Nigerian state used various tactics to either suppress the protests or to try and demobilise them through insincere “concessions”. To begin with, the ruling class, the state it controls and its head, President Muhammadu Buhari, attempted to quell the protests through window dressing. Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu promised on October 11 that the SARS unit would be disbanded and supposedly replaced with a new unit called SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics). This was an obvious lie, as the same personnel that formed part of SARS would form part of SWAT. Over the last several years the government has made similar announcements resulting in no actual change.

Needless to say, the protests continued and grew into the largest in the history of Nigeria. As the protests grew, the state changed tactics and responded to the escalation with outright violence. Part of this involved the state deploying thugs to attack protestors in order to try and intimidate people off the streets. When this failed to produce the state’s desired result, it deployed the military and implemented a curfew in a number of cities. By October 20, however, the protests had spread across Nigeria. Some of the assets of the Nigerian ruling class were also targeted during these protests and the largest and most lucrative toll road in country, Lekki, in Lagos, was blockaded. On that day the military attempted to brutally end the protests and shot dead 12 people at the Lekki tollgate.

This position paper from the anti-State communist collective Unity & Struggle was drafted before Trump caught coronavirus. We share it here as a good piece to illustrate the state of mind of our comrades fighting on the so-called United States of America's territory. We hope it encourages revolutionaries in the U.S. and everywhere else to debate what we can expect in November, and begin making plans, as what happens obviously has an influence worlwide.

[Français]

As Anarchists, we argue for workers’ revolution across the world and take as our primary duty the fight against the capitalists where we live. Here in Australia, we must fight against the Australian Goverment’s military alliance with the US, including the ANZUS Treaty, the 5 Eyes intelligence group and the spy base at Pine Gap. And we must fight to build a labour movement that can link up with the working class across the region to make revolution against both the capitalists and the Chinese so-called “Communist” Party. There is no other way.

We are not in the front line with capitalists, we are in the front line to change society!

International statement from various anarchist organizations - some being members of the Anarkismo network - about the situation of women in this global health crisis of capitalism.

"We, women, endure the social and economic global crisis which unfolded as the novel coronavirus emerged and evolved into a pandemic, and yet we suffer from sexist violence too. This is not a novelty in the system of patriarchal domination we live under, nevertheless, it has adopted particular new forms in our actual context. We have found the COVID-19 pandemic has relegated us more and more to the "domestic sphere" and has subordinated us more and more to the masculine figure."

[Castellano] [Français] [Italiano] [Português] [Deutsch] [فارسی]

Solidarity with the Struggle of North American People!

We repudiate the cowardly murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis’s police officers, another racist act in the heart of a world imperialist power. This event is added to the countless number of killings of people of colour and the Afro-descendent population in the United States which has been perpetuated since the days of slavery and hasn’t yet stopped.

Racism, a structural element in capitalist society, especially in North American capitalism, is unfortunately intact, but resistance and fighting spirit from people of color and poor people arises in response. Only solidarity and mutual aid will allow us to resist.

[Français] [Deutsch] [Italiano] [Castellano] [Türkçe] [Ελληνικά] [العربية] [فارسی]

See also:

• George Floyd: one death too many in the “land of the free” José Antonio Gutiérrez D. [Castellano] [Türkçe] [Italiano]

• A Raging Fire in the United States Wayne Price [Ελληνικά] [Italiano]