Posts Tagged ‘Social Insurrection’
‘Tame Words from a Wild Heart’ by Jean Weir (Elephant Editions)
Wednesday, February 1st, 2017
Preamble
Words. Mere Words. The pages that follow are in part transcriptions of the spoken word—‘the wonder worker that is no more’, as Emma Goldman wrote wistfully over one hundred years ago when referring to the inadequacy of the spoken word to awaken thought and shake people out of their lethargy. Here in the twenty-first century anarchists no longer talk about spoken propaganda to awaken the masses, bemoaning the absence of orators such as Johann Most or Luigi Galleani. In rare encounters organized by comrades today ‘the masses’ are noticeably absent, they don’t even enter the equation. Organized meetings or ‘talks’ as they are dully referred to are well-attended if there are 50–100 comrades. But there is no need for panic. Now all but the most disconnected fossilized anarchists have moved beyond aims of a quantitative growth in a hypothetical anarchist movement—where discourses addressed ‘to the masses’ have degenerated into an insulting populism—to the elaboration of ideas and methods addressed towards immediate action and attack on power in all its forms. Numbers have ceased to be important for anarchists as a prerequisite for attack. The illusion of ‘Le Grand Soir’ was a wonderful dream, it kept the flame flickering and thousands of militants waiting in the wings.
No, lack of numbers is no cause for alarm. They are there, the exploited, all around us—are also ‘us’—and could take us by surprise again at any moment (as could we ourselves). In the realm of the quantitative our task is to experiment and spread an insurrectional method for the self-organization of the necessary destruction of power and subjugation. Small groups with intermediate destructive aims based on affinity that can multiply, spread horizontally and coordinate, without limit. The apparent rift between anarchist theory and practice thus disappears along with the false conflict between individual and mass, and not least the conviction that the tenets of anarchism must be espoused by the exploited before they can fight for their own freedom along with that of others. An informal practice of attack leads to freedom revealing itself qualitatively, in leaps and bounds, far from the straight line of quantity, education, progress and waiting. (more…)
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Analysis, August 2011 Revolt: Anarchy in the UK, Elephant Editions, Greece, Gustavo Rodriguez, Insurrection, Interview, Jean Weir, Korydallos Prison, Kostas Gournas, London, Mexico, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle, Riots, Social Insurrection, Tame Words from a Wild Heart, UK, Zine
Posted in Library
New archive for Elephant Editions – A work in progress
Wednesday, February 1st, 2017
When words mingle with the passion to deepen our understanding of reality they become indispensable weapons for the self-organisation of the struggle against all that oppresses us. They don’t remain on paper – or the screen – but penetrate rebel hearts and spirits, giving courage and decision – for if many of us don’t act against what offends our dignity it is often not courage that is lacking, but that we simply don’t know where to start.
We need to liberate reality from the fictitious dimension created by the media into one that is tangible and exposed to attack. In order to carry this out we require knowledge of the enemy in all its forms, including those that lie concealed within us, crouching, waiting to pounce to push us back into the fold of consensus or manageable dissent. Reading certain texts becomes an encounter, tensions we feel burning inside us become clearer, making it easier to assimilate them in order to act. (more…)
Tags: Analysis, Elephant Editions, Insurrection, PDF, Social Insurrection, UK, Zine
Posted in Library
Communique from Anarchists from D Wing, Korydallos Prison, Athens, for the struggle in Syria (Greece)
Wednesday, October 5th, 2016
1st of October
A minimum response on the call-out for the day of Rage against the massacre at Aleppo.
Even if there are only ruins left at Aleppo, the bombings haven’t stopped. Even now, after 5 years of bombs and sieges, people still live in this city. Some because they didn’t manage to leave, some because they didn’t see a better future at Mediterranean’s seabed, some because they refused to abandon the revolution against the dictatorship of Assad, that started with the Arab Spring. At Aleppo’s ruins a guerilla warfare is taking place, that until now, Assad with Hezbollah, Iran and Russian military machine haven’t achieved to defeat.
If the things that happened with the repression of Spanish Revolution by Franco and the Nazis were the rehearsal of World War II, probably the war in Syria is an image of the post-industrial future on earth. A future, where the democratic excuses collapse and the absolute violence prevails. A world, that despite the gigantic military power of the tyrants, the most effective way to control the insurrection is still by division. A situation of despair, where people in order to defend themselves and survive, are organized in groups manipulated by generals, who only seek more power and who lead the revolting crowds away from the fight against the regime and into a fight for control of the war zones of their interests.
The result is a constant war, a profitable business for the capitalists, who sell weapons and armament to war zones, where trade and economy still exist.
The example of Syria’s punishment is a clear warning to everyone in the world, who even thinks about revolting.
In this chaotic total war, the reference point for us, are the few guerilla groups, organized outside the control the “moderate Muslims” of Al Nusra, or the “cosmics” of the FSA, who are both manipulated from the dominant powers of imperialistic competition, like USA, and both have the same target, a big piece from the power reallocation.
In a situation where people are cruelly attacked from one imperialist, and seek safety from the actions of its rival, we are affected by some revolutionaries, like the Leon Sedov Brigade, who stand against any imperialist and propose the solidarity and unity among the repressed of this world. We are inspired from the attempts of organization from the Revolutionary Coordination Committees against the dividing of the uprising, from the manipulant organizations.
Those rebels who try to self-organize in a battlefield with bombs and chemical weapons, who are still fighting despite the heavy losses, who prefer to die rather than surrender to the murderer Assad, who define and defend their freedom at all costs, they spread the message that in every condition struggle is possible, if there is the will to fight.
They spread a message that the powerful military machines of Al Assad, Iran, Lebanon, Isis, Russia and USA haven’t achieved to defeat them for more than 5 years.
That explains the cruelty of the attack to Aleppo, the capital of revolution. After smaller towns were besieged and lead to starvation, the same tactic was attempted at Aleppo. But there were dynamic demonstrations where banks were expropriated, actions outside the guidelines of the army parties, which control the masses. That’s why Aleppo is now being totally destroyed.
A major factor for the ongoing slaughter in Syria is the absolute absence of social resistance to this war, from the people of the imperialistic countries that invaded Syria.
European people, not only they do not react to the war, but the majority consent to the closure of the borders for refugees, who, if they survive from the death in the sea, are the only fighting, like the great example of Syrian refugees in Paris who went on hunger strike, demand the termination of the war.
We don’t have a clear picture of what happens in movements in the rest of the world, but we are going to talk for the Greek case. Because after all, the economic crisis and poverty here in Greece, except from radicalizing parts of the people, lead more to the pacification. On the one hand we have people who take care of the refugees, rescuing them with their boats, independently from political parties and non-governmental organizations, and on the other hand there were beatings, fascist attacks and actions against the refugees. No big anti-war demonstration though, as happened in the past, because now economy is the only concern. Using it’s left mask, Syriza combining fear management and harsh repression, lead social resistances, in general, to surrender. And now Greek state is placing refugees to concentration camps, obeying the demands of the European Union. Sadly, the solidarity to the refugees is limited to charity, without any reference to the revolution, that lead to war.
For the lefts, the “anti-american” feelings and the belief that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” doesn’t allow them to stand against Assad, while the majority of the anarchists, lacking analysis, refer exclusively to Rojava.
At the same moment, refugees give their own fights like the uprising in Moria, where after destroying a large part of the infrastructure, they escaped, but rather than run, as usually happens, they gathered and demonstrated, resulting their arrest.
In our opinion, we seek the expansion of the solidarity to the refugees, in a more general context, that will regard the war in Syria as an example of an uprising and how capitalists dealt with it, in order to be able to exclude the proper conclusions from it.
It’s obvious, that the unity of the rebels doesn’t come from the big, centralized, hierarchical organizations, that end up fighting each other for the biggest share of power. The only hope is a horizontal organization, that doesn’t allow to any ambitious leader to sell the fight. The decentralized network of collectives that fight with their one will to a common direction, coordinating when possible, exchanging information, know-hows, arms and political ideas.
The views that see hierarchical organization as a necessary condition to achieve victory in a revolutionary war, were tried in the past and were lead to defeat or to the reproduction of the same social systems that they hypothetically fought.
The example of Syria, where small guerrilla groups and no centralized armies stand against the Russian military machine and the alliance of local armies, proves that what is missing is not the proper leadership, but a new mindset of organization. And that applies to every field of organization of revolutionary action, whether it is guerilla warfare, or the spread of revolutionary ideas, that do not persuade anyone because they are signed by the biggest federation, but are spread through initiative, close human contact, and co-action.
The massacre in Syria won’t stop, unless we do something to stop it.
Unless we face it as a part of the repression that we all have felt. If we don’t feel the tenacity of the rebels who don’t surrender. If we don’t realize that the distance from suffocating because of tear gas in demonstrations to the endless gas chamber of Syria is short. As long as we abstain from the streets, we give our permission to this bloodshed.
When captivity and death become universal condition, we are called to make insurrection and solidarity a universal condition.
EVERY DAY, A DAY OF RAGE
WAR AGAINST AUTHORITY ON EVERY INCH OF EARTH
Anarchists from D’ wing of Koridallos Prison (Greece)
Tags: Al-Nusra Front, Aleppo, Analysis, Athens, Brigade León Sedov, Hezbollah, International Solidarity, Iran, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Korydallos Prison, Lebanon, Letter, Migrant Struggle, Rojava, Russia, Social Insurrection, Syria, USA, War
Posted in Prison Struggle
Excerpt from 'Towards the generalisation of armed struggle' by Alfredo M. Bonanno (Elephant Editions)
Wednesday, September 24th, 2014
Insurrection
It is within the perspective of generalised mass armed struggle that the insurrection takes on libertarian meaning, and marks the definitive critique of any ‘closed’ attempt to organise the management of the class conflict.
Generalised armed conflict is the natural outcome of a situation that is getting worse every day. The exploited are beginning to point out this necessity in a series of anti-institutional actions that are continually spreading. The isolated acts of punishment carried out by minority clandestine groups against some of those responsible for exploitation are coming to be accepted with satisfaction and approved by the mass. (more…)
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Elephant Editions, Insurrection, Social Insurrection, Social War, Towards the generalisation of armed struggle
Posted in Library
Video excerpts: "Scenes from a Revolt Sustained" (Tunisia)
Saturday, June 7th, 2014
Excerpts from the forthcoming feature film, Scenes from a Revolt Sustained, about the Tunisian insurrection of 2010-2011.
Tags: Social Insurrection, Tunisia
Posted in Library
The Struggle Continues – “Day of Rage Against Al-Qaeda & Assad” (Syria)
Monday, January 20th, 2014
From Tridni Valka:
Since nearly three years that an uprising broke out in Syria (as a local materialization of the upheavals shaking the whole regions of Maghreb and Mashreq) most of the reactions, comments and critics from militant structures which claim to be revolutionary, internationalist, communist, anarchist… go in the same direction: doubts about what happens, doubts about essential material determinations that give birth to the movements that develop in front of our eyes, doubts about the class nature of these events, doubts about the potentially subversive content of struggles of our class when it doesn’t wave the “good” flags, etc.
Those doubts have been strengthened since the conflict turned into “militarization of the revolution” (as many say) and hijacking of our movement by “opposition democratic forces” and several trends of jihadists, Salafis and other Islamists. But as a militant from Palestine expressed:
“So yes, the Syrian Revolution was indeed hijacked, and we know that there are many Salafis, many jihadists and many other groups, and many pro-America and pro-imperialist groups that tried to hijack the Syrian Revolution. But that does not by any means tarnish the Syrian Revolution, and it also doesn’t mean that just because a revolutionary movement was hijacked that we should stand on the sidelines and stop supporting it. Of course there are still so many revolutionaries working on the ground […] and there are even many non-sectarian armed brigades that we cannot ignore. If the revolution was hijacked we don’t just go and start blaming the people for it being hijacked. We actually do everything to side with the people in order to get the revolution back on the right track. And this is what many leftists couldn’t understand.”[1] (more…)
Tags: Al-Qaeda, Social Insurrection, Syria, Tridni Valka, War
Posted in Autonomy
Archipelago – Affinity, informal organization and insurrectional projects (Belgium)
Monday, July 1st, 2013
PDF Archipelago
This text was translated by a comrade to English. It was taken from the journal Salto, subversion & anarchy, issue 2, November 2012 (Brussels).
Tags: Affinity, Belgium, Salto, Social Insurrection
Posted in Library
Istanbul: Gezi park – Not about trees, but not about democracy either! (Turkey)
Friday, June 28th, 2013
For more than three weeks now, Turkey is being shaken by massive proletarian revolt, that at its peak so far have driven into streets almost 5 million demonstrators all around the country. The movement’s immediate spark was a brutal state repression, i.e. when police crushed a demonstration against destroying and redevelopment of Gezi park in central Istanbul (right next to Taksim square, a place of infamous massacre of workers in 1977 and highly symbolical for proletarian movement in Turkey). (more…)
Tags: Community Resistance, Istanbul, Social Insurrection, Taksim Gezi Park, Turkey
Posted in Autonomy
Conspiración Ácrata: Insurrectionary Anarchism in Mexico 2011 (PDF)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
Updated link: New PDF zine from the editors of Conspiracion Acrata…
Download from Zine Library (75 MB)
Compañer@s,
This publication is a compilation of news from the social war in Mexico during the year 2011. It took us a bit longer than we had hoped to complete it, but we feel it is still valid as a tool to communicate the actions and communique’s of Anarchist Action groups throughout Mexico to the English-speaking world.
Over the last few years, Anarchist direct action has been expanding throughout Mexico, both in quantity and in force. 2011 was in no way an exception, with every-day conflict with the State more and more evident. We make special note of “Black September” in which the social war waged by Anarchist Action groups was at its strongest. We hope that 2012 can be even stronger, not only in Mexico, but in every corner of the Globe. Through these communiques we can learn that we don’t need to be a “professional” to carry out attacks such as these, but that anyone is capable of attacking the State and its symbols of power. (more…)
Tags: Arson, Attack, Black September, Braulio Duran Gonzalez, Conspiracion Acrata, Fuck the Law, Gabriel Pombo da Silva, Insurrection, International Network of Action and Solidarity, Mexico, PDF, Riots, Sabotage, Social Insurrection, Zine
Posted in Library
Massacre and Revolution in Libya
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
An anarchist call for solidarity
The news that is flooding from Libya is very shocking. Qaddafi’s regime is perpetrating a horrible massacre against the masses in revolt, the mercenaries (the equivalent to the Mubarak regime’s ‘Baltajia’) recruited by Qaddafi’s regime, besides the regular army and security forces, are opening fire at unarmed Libyan people or, in some cases, armed with only very light firearms. The regime’s repressive forces are not only using firearms, but also artillery, tanks, jet fighters and gunship helicopters. In a military sense, this cannot be a war. In fact, it is just a horrible massacre conducted by the Qaddafi regime under the supervision of the imperialist powers in Europe and US but, as ever, those powers are concerned only about oil and money, only about profit, not human rights or even human lives. (more…)
Tags: Imperialism, Libya, Massacre, Middle East, Oil War, Qaddafi Regime, Social Insurrection
Posted in Social Control