Today's Topics:
1. freedomnews: Anarchists react to the death of Santiago
Mondanaldo (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, WSA, ideas and action: Review of "Living Anarchism -
José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement" by
Chris Ealham By Kevin Doyle (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Octobre - Universities:
Selection, the red line not to cross (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. South Africahttps, zabalaza: Tokologo #7/8 - The Way Forward
for South Africa: Class Struggle and Anarchism by Nkululeko
Khubisa (TAAC) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Greece, Anarchist group "dwarf horse" APO - Termination of
criminal prosecution for "4 with flags" (gr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On October 20th the Argentine State admitted that the body of anarchist Mapuche solidarity
activist Santiago Maldonado had been found in the Chubut river, nearly tree months after
his disappearance during a violent police raid on homes near the town of Cushamen. Freedom
has collated some of the responses of Santiago's friends, families and comrades below.
---- Family statement: ---- On October 20th the President of the Nation, Mauricio Macri,
communicated with Stella, mother of Santiago. ---- Beyond the inopportune moment chosen
for his first call, after a silence of almost 80 days, it is important that the President
assume that our only objective is to achieve Justice for Santiago. For this reason, we ask
you, as the head of the Executive Branch, to demand that Minister Bullrich give detailed
explanations of what has been done in this case by the Ministry responsible and the
Argentine National Gendarmerie, guaranteeing full cooperation with Justice in advancement
of research. We also reiterate the request for intervention by the International Group of
Independent Experts to strengthen it.
With respect to some interpretations raised from the absence of visual injuries in the
body of Santiago, we believe that they are premature, misinterpreted by the Judge and
intentionally pushed towards opportunistic and petty goals. The statement does not rule
out that Santiago has been the victim of violent action that triggered his death, so we
must continue waiting for the conclusive results of the experts, ensuring that their work
is carried out without any pressure whatsoever.
The attempt to distort the investigation is a new affront to our pain, it violates the
prudence and respect demanded by the family. We ask the political leadership, the media
and society to help us to move this moment with the greatest possible solidarity, until
the Truth is known and justice is achieved.
We appreciate the support and affection of each and every one of the people who accompany
us and comfort us in this struggle of every day.
Lastly, we ask all individuals and organisations that decide to manifest themselves in
homage to Santiago, asking for Justice in their memory, in Peace and without responding to
any provocation that distorts the true claim.
Anarchists in Puerto Montt-Melipulli:
On October 20 ththe relatives of the anarchist companion Santiago Maldonado recognised
that the body found in the Chubut River was that of Santiago. As an anarchist collectivity
from the other side of the mountain range, we have the obligation to honor the memory of
Santiago struggling to clarify all that happened on August 1st in the Mapuche community PU
LOF CUSHAMEN DE CHUBUT and above all so that his example and memory stays alive in the
fight against the State / Capital.
We know that the companion gave his life by supporting the struggle of the Mapuche
brothers who have a conflict with the Italian capitalist Luciano Bennetton, we also know
that he was murdered by the gendarmerie, and we added to the only truth; his dead body was
planted more than two months later in Rio Chubut by the Argentine State to continue with
its assembly. We join the call of the relatives of Santiago Maldonado.
For this reason, we call on all the anarchist comrades of Puerto Montt, every
conscientious person, our brothers from the Mapuche settlement, and anyone who wants to be
in solidarity with their cause, to participate in a concentration this second October 23rd
at 7pm in the Plaza de Armas of Puerto Montt.
Along with this we will begin, against any communication strategy to divert attention, to
a propaganda campaign to publicise the murder and the reason why the Argentine State
attacked a brother.
Santiago Maldonado will be present in every heartbeat of those who carry a new world in
our hearts as well as the fallen anarchist comrades on this side of the mountain range!
Health and Social Revolution!
Rosario Anarchist Federation statement:
In these last days, it has been three years since of the appearance of the body of Luciano
Arruga, seven years since the murder of Mariano Ferreira and on October 20th it was
confirmed what we all intuited, that the body found on the Chubut river is Santiago
Maldonado's.
A neighbourhood boy disappears because he does not want to steal for the police, one dies
at the hands of a pact to fight against labour precarization, and another one was
disappeared while fighting for the autonomy of the Mapuche people. In all of them there
are elements in common, the repression of the State points to those who are dangerous
because it is part of a youth that does not submit, does not bow its head and does not
assume the mandates of the system.
Against repression in the neighbourhoods, against precarious labour and for the
self-determination of peoples, for all these urgent demands we will continue to fight.
The State showed its most terrible and voracious face, the mechanism of enforced
disappearance is a methodology that the dominant classes, with their peculiarities,
maintain in the different conjunctures. And also it also appears in media operations,
desperate to install in society a discourse that demobilises and seek to blame what has
been happening on those below.
Even so, they have not been able to stop gigantic popular mobilisations of various sectors
in all this throughout, and they fear for the magnitude of the displeasure and the
indignation of our people, that before such an offence to their dignity will appear sooner
than later in the streets of all country.
THE ONES WHO DIE FIGHTING LIVE IN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR COMRADES!
SANTIAGO MALDONADO PRESENT!
Mirta Perel of noticiasanarquistas:
Santiago died. Santiago was killed. They killed him for his ideas. He was killed for
opposing power.
This power summons you to vote this Sunday.
It calls you to legitimise all this with your vote, no matter who you vote for. Whatever.
They will win, those who are always winning. Those who continue to kill those who dare to
oppose power will gain.
The murder of Santiago is a message. They are telling us what they are capable of doing.
We are told that the repressive forces have remained intact since the dictatorship.
That they can kill and will continue to do so.
They're telling us, we can go and kill any of you. They know there will be some lukewarm
protest. They know that many of their leaders play for them and help to calm the mood.
They know that these leaders will take vows and tell the usual lies. They will never say
that they play for them.
These shitty leaders we have, who have unwittingly demonstrated on those crucial days that
winning or losing a ballot matters them much more than any of our lives.
They know they can make this farce seem more important than a life.
They know they sold us this farce of the People's Government and we bought it.
They know that voting nothing will change. They manipulate those who win.
This Sunday, for Santiago and for you, do not go voting.
Voting, you show that your death was in vain.
By voting, you show that they keep winning.
By voting, you show that they can continue doing what they want.
Voting since 1983, without any major change, show them that they are right to take us for
idiots.
No matter what they do, they always win.
This Sunday, tell them: Put the urns on your wretched tails.
This Sunday, if you want something to change.
Do not go voting.
Assemblea Llibertària l'Oca de Gràcia statement:
We wanted him alive, and the State killed him.
It has happened again, another democratic state has taken away a fellow anarchist,
Santiago Maldonado. After 81 days missing, they found his dead body.
On August 1st Santiago participated in a demonstration by the mapuche community resistance
of pu lof in cushamen, located in the Argentine province of chubut.
That was the last time he was seen alive before he was arrested by the national gendarmerie.
In the context of legislative elections in Argentina, we observe with rage such as
opposition and different political actors instrumentalise the partner for his own
electoral ends, hiding his anarchist affiliation and his fight against the State.
We do not care about their power games, we do not want to delegitimise a party or a
particular person, it is capitalism itself and democracy that still performing as a
champion of freedom, continues to murder those who do not fit into their model of society.
Today we mourn your death, but these are tears of rage that propel us even more in our
anarchist convictions.
All our support and solidarity with the family.
A greeting to the who are facing these moments in the Argentine streets with the murder
police.
Let the earth be a mild companion.
The Best Tribute, continue the fight.
https://freedomnews.org.uk/anarchists-react-to-the-death-of-santiago-mondanaldo/
------------------------------
Message: 2
On the cover of Living Anarchism, the publishers, AK Press, point out that the anarchist
movement in Spain in the lead up to the revolution in 1936-37 was the ‘the largest
anti-authoritarian movement' ever created in the world. It numbered in the hundreds of
thousands and resulted from a conscious and deliberate intervention by anarchists in the
everyday world of work and community. Anarchists sought to build a new world in the shell
of the old and they were surprisingly successful in significant ways. Living Anarchism is
testimony to this. Not a history of Spanish anarchism as such, it is nonetheless a window
into the life of that movement seen through the life of one its key activist, José
Peirats. ---- So who was José Peirats? The son of labourers from Valencia province, he
moved to Barcelona at a young age with his family in search of work and a future.
Suffering illness and numerous privations, Peirats eventually found a home in one of the
city's vibrant rationalist schools.
However his education was short-lived and at a young age he entered the workforce proper
as a brick-maker. Gravitating to the anarcho-syndicalist union, the Confederación Nacional
del Trabajo (CNT), he became a key activist in the L'Hospitalet area of Barcelona. Peirats
lived through it all: at the young age of 28 he was in Barcelona as the Spanish Revolution
got underway. He witnessed the enormous achievements and hope that the revolution
generated and he witnessed, in time, its demise and defeat. In exile at the age of 31 he
spent a great deal of the remainder of life documenting the rise of Spain's anarchist
movement, going on the produce The CNT in the Spanish Revolution - an extensive, three
volume history of the largest workers' union in Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil
War. In the last period of his life he said, "I've done almost everything in the CNT: I've
organised strikes, organised workers, spoken in assemblies, meetings, and given
conferences, written articles, attended congresses, used pistols, and, some- times,
explosives; I've been in jail and collected lawsuits, mainly for libelous press articles.
I know what it means to be naked and take a beating in a police station. I was the only
secretary of the CNT in exile to enter Spain clandestinely when they were still shooting
people!"
Living Anarchism is broken into ten sections (if one includes the excellent summation)
which can broadly be divided into two parts - the period leading up to the revolution and
period after the revolution's defeat. If the first section of the book is then a
celebration of what anarchism was capable of building when its activists put their minds
to it, then the second section is, in contrast, the tragedy of defeat at the hands of
fascism and what that came to mean.
Exile
Exiled to South America and later France, Peirats struggled like many of his comrades to
make sense of the defeat that had befallen the anarchist movement in Spain. Defeat is
never easy and the tragedy was compounded by exile and isolation. A movement of Spanish
anarchists abroad came into being but it was riven with division and acrimony. Peirats,
more than most, understood the dilemma: the past could not be ignored and yet the
movement, if it was to survive and rebuild, needed to move on too. It was a delicate and
difficult line to walk along.
Peirats was clearly a product of the university of the class struggle and his early years
and reputation as a resolute union activist in the cauldron of Barcelona was something
that he never departed from. However, another side to the activist was his strong interest
in the practice and spirit of anti-authoritarianism. A significant part of his life -
perhaps deriving from his own early exposure to the rationalist/free school movement in
Barcelona - involved a commitment to the ‘athenaeum': essentially self-organised community
centres envisaged as ‘a focal point of social ferment' for the locality around it. These
centres hosted a library, debates, music recitals, evening classes and threatre
productions. Before and during the revolution, as well as afterwards in exile, it was this
activity surrounding the ‘athenaeum' that Peirats returned to and was involved with again
and again.
Although the person who emerges from his book appears exceptional in many respects,
Peirats would have been the first to dispute this, it seems. Describing himself at one
point as a ‘worker ant' he believed himself to be very much a part and a product of the
CNT. Clearly he was a talented activist, writer and organiser, but there emerges from this
biography a man whose dedication to revolutionary change was absolute. By no means without
faults - and this is explored in Living Anarchism - Peirats nevertheless had an abiding
grasp of the importance and value of anarchist ideas. Given that he had witnessed the
highest point of achievement and an avalanche of low points in its aftermath, he remained
largely upbeat, understating near the end, ‘I did what I could despite many obstacles'.
Durruti
In terms of Spanish anarchism we hear a great deal about people like Durruti but activists
like Jose Peirats, it seems to me, were a lot closer to the soul of Spanish anarchism. For
Peirats anarchism was about democracy, education and the class struggle. In contrast
Durruti was far more liable to be off taking a pot shot at some bishop or other - a
headline grabbing activity but not necessarily as productive as it sounds or looks.
In 2010, the historian Chris Ealham produced what is undoubtedly one of the best social
and political histories of anarchism, namely Anarchism and the City - the story of the
rise of anarchism in the Catalonia port city of Barcelona. Now with this account of
Peirat's life he had done us a further service. He admits at the outset that ‘there are
many aspects of Peirats life that he finds admirable' and while this must certainly colour
this work, it does not distract from what is a clear and concise account of an anarchist
activist's lived life in revolution and defeat.
Matters have moved on hugely since the revolution in Spain in 1936-37 and Peirats as much
as anyone saw this in full measure by the time his life came to an end in 1989. However
there is a great deal to learn from this book. The Spanish anarchists combined a practice
of militant class struggle with a broad visionary belief in human desire and emancipation.
Whatever about claims, dreams and aspirations, in the end it takes people to ma
http://ideasandaction.info/2017/10/review-living-anarchism-jose-peirats-spanish-anarcho-syndicalist-movement-chris-ealham-ak-press/
------------------------------
Message: 3
The government launched a "concertation" aimed at setting up the selection at the entrance
of the university, in the form of prerequisites to integrate the various courses, at the
beginning of 2018. He thinks strong enough to attack jointly employees .es, with the
reform of the Labor Code, and the educated youth, by destroying an achievement that it has
always defended successfully. Undeceive him. ---- The project of selecting the students
who would have the right to enter the university is as old as the school massification.
Inevitably: higher education is one of the most effective ways to legitimate social
inequalities in supposedly egalitarian societies. It is therefore only with reluctance
that the popular classes are allowed to enter. As early as the 1960s, a minister, Fouchet,
proposed selective measures. But it was especially in 1986 that Devaquet tried to set up
the selection and the increase of the registration fees. Devaquet, or the trauma of the
reformers "Of the higher education: a monster mobilization of the lycées and
universities, Malik Oussekine assassinated by the police following a demonstration, the
resignation of the minister and the abandonment of the project.
Since then, it is the red line for the governing as for the students: impossible in France
to select or increase the registration fees in universities without lighting the spark of
revolt.
APB: organized bankruptcy
Various ways of bypassing existed, however, largely favored by the neoliberal reforms of
higher education: selection in some sectors, illegal registration fees ... And a first
breach in December 2016: the first year selection of master's degree becomes possible. The
Macron government has reopened the case, not sparing the recycling of old whims under the
guise of " innovation ". The selection will be effective as of the beginning of 2018,
in the form of prerequisites to integrate the different channels. The ferry, soon reformed
too, will no longer suffice. After a masquerade of " concertation ", the Minister of
Higher Education Frédérique Vidal will announce its decisions in November.
The government is well supported by the organized bankruptcy of the existing system. Since
2008, the access of graduate students to higher education is managed by an algorithm
called APB, for post-bac admission. The students enter vows on a website, the universities
their places in each of their formations. Shake well, and you get a breakdown of the
students who nobody knows the criteria and who displease everyone: the staff of the
universities and the National Education, high school students and their families ...
To this algorithm is delegated the management of the shortage: we have indeed asphyxiated
financial universities without allowing them to create the premises and the sufficient
positions to welcome all those who wish to continue their studies. This led to the
catastrophe of 2017: increasing use of the random draw to select candidates, 87,000
students without assignment on July 15 ...
We can change the algorithm, " direct " high school students, push the walls, 87,000
students, that means that we must build at least three universities. Instead, government
and university presidents are working to make the situation unacceptable, so as to
legitimize selection to " merit ." As if it was not as unfair as the draw in a country
where access to the university is a right. As if it were relevant to ask 18-year-olds to
have already proved themselves, when they began their life in radically heterogeneous
conditions in terms of social, economic and educational environment.
So, the selection, we let them do it ? To defend equality of access to the university is
not to say that there is no salvation outside education. It is to demand their
democratization so that by ceasing to be reserved for certain, they also lose the role
attributed to them: to give less to those who do not. It is to make it a way of
emancipation, among others, for those who wish it. Today, as in October 1967, the walls
cracked under the influx of student students. Anger can explode. For activists high school
students, education, the challenge is to put all the forces in the work of information,
mobilization, to converge this struggle with that against work orders. The government
believes it is capable of carrying out a reform of the Labor Code and the introduction of
selection at the university entrance. Chiche.
Julie (AL Saint-Denis)
Received Selection Ideas
There is too much failure in the first cycle, because there is no selection at the entrance.
False. One student in two does not validate his first year. But one student in two is also
the share of those who have to take paid employment in parallel with their studies during
the academic year (adding those who work only during the holidays). reaches 73%). That
diminishes their chances of success.
Failure in the first cycle is the bacs pros that are allowed to enroll in the university.
False. Professional baccalaureate holders represent 4% of students enrolled in higher
education. A drop of water. It should not be a shambles to give them the means to succeed,
especially through methodological support.
We can not accommodate all students who wish to do so in sectors that do not have enough
opportunities.
False. Ultimately, graduate students find it easier to find stable jobs than others. Often
they do not work in the " natural " outlet of their sector: the university provides a
general training allowing to practice different professions. It is then up to companies to
teach employees what they have to do on the specific job they occupy, even if they try to
subcontract this task to the public service through the imperative of "
professionalization " formations. Contrary to another idea received, university students
do not suffer from a lack of knowledge of the business world, since they already work for
many (see above)!
Data source: Survey Student life 2010 student living conditions.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Universites-Selection-la-ligne-rouge-a-ne-pas-franchir
------------------------------
Message: 4
South Africa is in a mess. That is clear, more than 20 years since the end of apartheid.
We have won many things. It was our struggle that beat apartheid laws and the old
government. But we are not free yet. Corruption, poverty, job losses, hatred, violence,
the apartheid legacy are all part of the mess. ---- What is the way forward for South
Africa? It is struggle by the masses of the people for a better society. ---- What does
that require? ---- EDUCATE! ---- The way forward is unity and solidarity, but that means
we need knowledge. People need to be mobilised and taught about politics - real politics,
not the party system - and this process needs to take place at all levels. ---- If
everybody among the working class and poor could be informed and alert, and brought to the
knowledge about what is really happening around them, and why, and how to fix it, they
will want to take action. And that action will be directed into the right channels, not
wasted-and not captured by the politicians and bosses.
People need to know the most important concepts, which include "capitalism," the "state,"
the "ruling class," "imperialism" and the centrality of the working "class struggle."
Knowing these will allow us to identify the real enemy. Knowledge is a tool to use against
the oppressor. We need to understand how best we can fight back.
THE ENEMY
Capitalism is a system that is based on using money, paying workers wages to produce
things (like food, clothes) or services (like cleaning), which are sold by the employers
(bosses) to make more money: in other words, profit. The profit comes from the workers
putting in more work than they get paid.
Capitalism puts profit first before needs, it is wasteful and unstable. That is why we
have a crisis today, with jobs scarce. Capitalist organisations include private firms like
Lonmin (mining), and government firms like ESKOM (electricity), run by private or
government bosses.
The state - the government - is also caught in the cookie jar of capitalism. The people at
the top of the state include politicians, MPs, top officials, department heads, mayors,
municipal managers, directors, generals, government bosses and so on. These people (state
managers and government bosses) have power, privileges and control over a lot of
production, administration, tax, and weapons, The means of production (factories,
equipment, raw materials) controlled or influenced by the state is not means held directly
by the government (like railways, or ESKOM). It also includes means outside government,
influenced by large share percentages in private firms (government shares in Lonmin),
partnerships (TELKOM), contracting (RDP house building), and laws.
The state supports capitalism since it's beneficial to it and because the state and
capitalism work together. The state pretends to be neutral while it's not. States can't
bring liberation, they oppress the working class and poor. The bosses and the state
managers form the ruling class of a country.
Imperialism is a system in which the ruling class of one country expands to control other
areas and countries, sometimes directly (through invasions and force) or more hidden
(through unfair trade, agreements, pressure and so on). Local ruling classes may
collaborate with, or resist, imperialism-but they are always oppressors too.
RULING CLASS VS WORKING CLASS
The class that is against the ruling class, against exploitation, poverty,
authoritarianism, shortages, high prices, divisions and hatred among the masses is the
working class.
Working class struggle is the only way to overthrow capitalism and the state. The working
class includes all people who do NOT own or control the means of production, or the
administrative power and violence means of the state. It includes the poor and unemployed,
and it is worldwide.
We are kept back because we are not informed. The truth is hidden by the system. We also
need to know that a key part of capitalism and the state to divide and rule us, the
working class majority. This is done through xenophobia, parties, unemployment, job
insecurity, racism, sexism, the way the workplace works etc.
But if we can fight against these factors and become united and determined, we can
overthrow the system of oppression, and cut loose from its chains. Then we can build a new
world.
MOBILISATION, SELF-MANAGEMENT
Our way forward is through anarchism. We have to build organisations that possess the
characteristics of empowering working class communities, co-operation ad mobilisation,
self-management, and class independence - and have a strategy (plan of action). This is
mass anarchism. This strategy focuses on mass organisation of the working class as the
path to revolution and a new society. This means developing knowledge from grass-root
levels, winning the masses to anarchist ideas, using direct democracy, councils,
delegates. We need to also unite anarchists into "specific" political organisations to
work among the masses.
We need to destroy top-down discussion and decision-making, the rule of the elites, the
system that oppresses and exploits. Let us replace thus with real people's power. Unity
and solidarity what we need.
Forward with anarchism!!!!
Published in "Tokologo: Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective", numbers
7/8, November 2017
https://zabalaza.net/2017/10/21/the-way-forward-for-south-africa-class-struggle-and-anarchism/#more-5445
------------------------------
Message: 5
The case of the persecution of the four detainees - one of whom is a member of our group -
after the strike in Patras on September 25, 2013, who were accused of arming because of
their flags, came to an end. The charge against them was withdrawn and their criminal
prosecution was stopped by the Patras Prosecutor's Office, 8 of Law 4411/2016, which
stipulates that each type of offense punishable up to 2 years is time-barred. The 4
persecuted were acquitted of the charges, so we are announcing that our call, as an
anarchist team "Dysenios Equus" for support and solidarity outside the Patras court court
on Tuesday 24 October, is canceled. ---- Failure to do so means that the case loses its
significance. The unprecedented capture of the 4 anarchist flag fighters (!) Was another
episode of the much-publicized "two-legged theory" that attempted to equate the golden
dawn-winning paratroopers (who a few days earlier had murdered Paul Fussa) with the
struggling pieces of society and, in particular, of anarchists. Next to the daggers and
bats of the fascists, the flags of the fighters had to stand to be ideologically hit and
to criminalize the anarchist liberation struggle and to socialize the falsified message of
sovereignty that their rotten and bankrupt system is the only way out,
The causes that have led us to be in the streets against state and capitalist barbarism,
against fascist-parastatic terrorism, against modern totalitarianism, continue to exist.
Today, the organized anarchist movement, as a part of which we perceive ourselves, must
give all its strength in the direction of linking the partial and individual struggles
with the overall proposition of the overthrow of capitalism and the state, as this
reversal is projected as the only way out for the millions of impoverished and oppressed
world.
As anarchists, we do not stop to proudly raise our black-and-white flags and fight for the
social revolution and for building a society of equality, solidarity and freedom.
"High up the black-blacks at the whistle of the wind"
For libertarian communism and anarchy!
Anarchist group "dwarf horse" - a member of the Anarchist Political Organization
For communication:
https://ipposd.wordpress.com/ | d_ippos@hotmail.com
Every Tuesday 19.00 - 22.00 in the self-managed area On the wall (Patreos 87)
------------------------------
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten