Anarchic update news all over the world - 1.03.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  freedom news: Germany: State tries to block university
      anarchist groups (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  bangladesh asf: Review of Walter Rodney's How Europe
      Underdeveloped Africa Part 1/3, News by akmshihab
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  anarkismo.net: Macedonian and the misery of the left by The
      blast [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Celebrating an anniversary: The 100 years of the anarchist
      newspaper A Batalha (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Poland, Workers' Initiative: Depression in the era of
      capitalism [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #291 - Read: Bennett, " I
      do not know what to do nice white people " (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  freedom news: Italian anarchist Federation (FAI-IFA) for the
      general women's strike (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  freedom news: Germany: State tries to block university
      anarchist groups (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1






Federal security agency the BfV was caught recently making a bizarre intervention at 
Leipzig University to demand anarcho-syndicalist union branch FAU Leipzig be banned from 
holding an introductory meeting during freshers week. ---- The university was targeted 
during the approval period for events at the its winter semester 2018/19, which anarchist 
groups have been involved in before without issue. ---- This time however the "Critical 
Introductory Weeks" which are joint-organised by a number of different groups including 
FAU, Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth and Prisma Leipzig got a mention in the BfV's annual report 
and, according to information received by students, BfV made a visit to rector Beate 
Schücking, followed by the announcement of a ban.

Students responded by confronting the university administrators, and had the ban withdrawn 
by vice-rector Thomas Hofsäss, however they fear the precedent being set by interventions 
from the security services. Event organiser Frank Aurich says BfV has interfered before 
and warned the initial ban "gave up free critical discourse in favour of State-directed 
bans on thought and debate."

Anarchists have been raised on the agenda of State security forces ever since the 2017 
Hamburg Summit, which wrong-footed police and sparked a moral panic which saw radical news 
outlets and spaces targeted for shutdowns and raids.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/germany-state-tries-to-block-university-anarchist-groups

------------------------------

Message: 2





Walter Rodney was a writer and activist who was influential in the anti-imperialist, the 
Black Power, and socialist movements across the Black and African worlds. In 1980, Rodney 
was assassinated in his homeland of Guyana by a car bomb while participating in local 
politics. Rodney is probably best remembered as the author of the very influential How 
Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Published in 1972, Rodney's book has become a classic work 
on the political economy of Africa and underdevelopment generally. Rodney has a place 
alongside writers like Andre Gunder-Frank, Samir Amin, Malcolm Caldwell, Arghiri Emmanuel 
and similar theorists who have studied modern imperialism and underdevelopment. This 
tradition foreshadows the development of Leading Light Communism. Even though almost four 
decades have passed since its publication, the book is a must-read for those seeking to 
understand the poverty of Africa and the wealth of Europe and North America. It helps us 
understand how the wealth of First World countries is a result of poverty in Third World 
countries. Rodney's work is an important forerunner of the political economy of the 
Leading Light Communist movement.

Africa prior to large-scale European contact

Imperialism is not just about armies, labor and gold. Imperialism has a cultural 
dimension. When one part of the world systematically oppresses another, it changes not 
only the material make-up of those societies, it also affects the cultures. It is a kind 
of master-slave dialectic writ large, on a global scale. Part of this relation is the need 
by the oppressors to see themselves and their victims as different than they really are. 
To justify their inhuman acts, imperialists must invent narratives where they are not the 
villain. As part of this, imperialists often portray Africa prior to large-scale European 
contact in the fifteenth century as an uncivilized jungle. They portray Africans as barely 
out of the forest, as akin to wild animals, as apes. The most extreme version of the 
racist and imperialist narrative not only exonerates European slavers, but turns them into 
heroes. Slavers tamed apes into men, or at least two-thirds men. Plantations were not akin 
to concentration camps. Rather, the plantation was one big happy family. The master was 
kindly and paternal to his darker "children." So goes the myth, the lie, of the gentile 
South. Some have even claimed that not only that Blacks deserve no reparations, but Blacks 
should be thankful to the United States that they were saved from eternal African night. 
This kind of narrative, and similar and subtler ones, rest on the myth that Africa was 
hopelessly backward prior to large-scale European contact. Rodney thoroughly refutes the 
myth. He demonstrates that Africa had a long and rich tradition of civilization prior to 
widespread contact with Europe. Although Africa's development was not the same as 
Europe's, Africa had long been developing just fine:

"Africa in the fifteenth century was not just a jumble of different ‘tribes.' There was a 
pattern and there was historical movement. Societies such as feudal Ethiopia and Egypt 
were at the furthest point of the process of evolutionary development. Zimbabwe and the 
Bachwezi states were also clearly on the ascent away from communalism, but at a lower 
level than the feudal states and a few others that were not yet feudal such as those in 
Western Sudan." (68)

Rodney states:

"It can be said that most African societies had not reached a new stage of society 
markedly different from communalism." (69)

Early European travelers to Africa were often impressed with what they saw. Rodney quotes 
an early Dutch traveler who visited Benin:

"The town seems very great. When you enter into it, you go into a great broad street, not 
paved, which seems to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes street in Amsterdam...

The king's palace is a collection of buildings which occupy as much space as the town of 
Harlem, and which is enclosed with walls. There are numerous apartments for the Prince's 
ministers and fine galleries, most of which are as big as those on the Exchange in 
Amsterdam. They are supported by wooden pillars encased with copper, where their victories 
are depicted, and which are kept carefully clean.

The town is composed of thirty main streets, very straight and 120 feet wide, apart from 
an infinity of small intersecting streets. The houses are close to one another, arranged 
in good order. These people are in no ways inferior to the Dutch as regards 
cleanliness..." (69)

Obviously, there were great differences between Holland and Africa too. However, it is 
pure racism to portray Africa as barbaric and uncivilized prior to large-scale European 
contact. Such racist conceptions are not based in reality. They are part of a complex, 
evolving, and often contradictory narrative that has been used for hundreds of years to 
justify the plunder and exploitation of Africa by Europeans and other imperialists. 
Similar tales have been used to justify the imperial conquest of the Americas and Asia.

While pointing out early Africa's accomplishments, Rodney does not understate the 
differences between Western Europe and Africa. Rodney does not exaggerate the development 
of Africa prior to the fifteenth century. Rodney could not be further from contemporary 
Afro-centrists who wildly falsify history in order to claim Africa as the center of 
virtually all great advances. Rodney is a scientist, not a story teller and myth maker. He 
is part of the Marxist tradition. He does does not romanticize pre-colonial Africa. Rodney 
is no utopian longing for a return to a "golden age" that never existed. Rodney points out 
that African societies had their own contradictions, configurations and distributions of 
power.

Imperialist and productivist metaphysics

In the Manifesto, Karl Marx describes the development of Western European society, and the 
world, as a march from primitive communism to slave society to feudalism to capitalism to 
communism. Although in other writings Marx sometimes postulated other modes of production 
like the "Asiatic mode," some have held that this march, this pattern of development, is 
inevitable and universal. Often such claims are made with little concrete investigation 
into the particularities of development, especially outside of Europe. Such an outlook is 
often useful to so-called Marxists who apologize for or even openly align with 
imperialism. Unfortunately, these pretenders find some support for their reactionary views 
in certain aspects of Marxist tradition, especially those works that overemphasize the 
development of the productive forces as the driving force of history. Maoists criticized 
certain aspects of the tradition as the Theory of Productive Forces, a revisionist theory.

First Worldists, chauvinists and racists often say that imperialism, despite itself, is 
good for the backward parts of the world because it brings technology, it modernizes, it 
sweeps away primitive and feudal fetters on development. Thus they invoke Marx to echo the 
slaver narrative. This revisionist train of thought is common, in varying degrees, to a 
number of revisionists from Kautsky, Trotsky, Khrushchev, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping. 
It is even found, although usually to a lesser degree, in Marxists who are upheld by the 
revolutionary tradition. By dogmatically clinging to such a Euro-centric and teleological 
scheme, one easily becomes an apologist or open advocate for imperialism. This kind 
Marxoid imperialism is sometimes referred to as social imperialism. Social imperialism is 
especially common to those claiming to be Trotskyists. It is no secret that today's 
Neo-cons have Trotskyist origins. Even First Worldist onetime Maoists have taken this kind 
of view. Bill Warren of BICO fame and the "Strange Times Maoists" have such a view. Some 
of those in the long defunct RIM did too. The argument goes or implies something like 
this: Imperialism is positive because it brings capitalism, thus opening the possibility 
of socialism. Imperialism is a progressive agent of history according to this teleology. 
This view says there is only one road to socialism, the European road through 
European-style capitalism. This kind of First Worldist revisionism is especially 
unscientific considering that the "advanced" First World countries, in Europe or 
elsewhere, do not even have a proletariat and have never experienced anything even close 
to a socialist revolution - unless you count the imposition of people's democracy on 
eastern Germany by the Red Army as a revolution. The First World should not be considered 
developed, but parasitic and maldeveloped in a sense. The reality is that proletarian 
revolution has only occurred in what Lenin called the "weak links" of the world system. 
This is what Lenin meant when he said the storm center of world revolution was headed 
east. In agreement with Lenin, Mao said the East Wind prevails over the West Wind. And it 
was Lin Biao who said the whole cause of world revolution hinged on the peoples of Africa, 
Asia and Latin America. Rodney is part of this emerging Third Worldist thought, he 
correctly points out that Africa does not fit neatly into the Euro-centric teleology that 
underlies much First Worldism and social imperialism:

"Both Marxists and non-Marxists alike (with different motivations) have pointed out the 
sequence of modes of production noted in Europe were not reproduced in Africa. In Africa, 
after the communal stage there was no epoch of slavery arising out of internal evolution. 
Nor was there a mode of production that was a replica of European feudalism...The 
assumption that will underlie this study is that most African societies before 1,500 were 
in a transitional stage between the practice of agriculture (plus fishing and herding) in 
family communities and the practice of the same activities within states and societies 
comparable to feudalism." (38)

This isn't to say that real trends and patterns are absent from social development. And 
certain social development presupposes certain conditions exist. One cannot simply jump to 
communism or even socialism. Rodney's survey of African development shows that the 
complexity of the real world often escapes vulgar simplifications. Yet Rodney does not end 
up in idealism or anarchist utopianism or epistemological skepticism. In this respect, 
Rodney shares much with Mao at his best moments. Mao too did not embrace the idealist 
position that rejects the idea that revolution and development happens in stages. However, 
Mao too understood that development did not always fit into such a linear straight-jacket. 
Mao recognized that building socialism in the Third World would mean taking a path that 
did not match up exactly with the scheme Marx originally predicted for Europe. Mao built 
off Lenin's understanding that imperialism was a real game changer across the world. 
Imperialists imposed a socioeconomic configuration on China that Maoists variously call, 
depending on what aspect they want to emphasize, "colonialism" or "semi-colonialism," 
"semi-feudalism," "comprador capitalism," and "bureaucrat capitalism." These are the terms 
that Maoists have used to describe the underdevelopment that has been imposed across the 
"global countryside," the Third World. Mao saw that imperialism altered the mode of 
production, the political development and cultural life of the exploited countries for the 
worse. The imperialists often enter into an alliance with the most backward segments of 
the indigenous populations, the comprador capitalists and feudalists. In some cases, 
colonialism even imports and imposes feudal institutions alongside capitalism as in parts 
of Latin America. Thus imperialism does not develop a poor country, it underdevelops. 
Imperialism is thoroughly reactionary. This is why Lenin identified imperialism as the 
highest and last stage of capitalism. Capitalism was no longer progressive in the world. 
This is why Lenin called it moribund and decadent. Mao's answer to this was to find 
another road to socialism. Mao united all the popular classes under proletarian, communist 
leadership in a people's war against the two mountains of imperialism and feudalism, for 
New Democracy and national liberation. This laid the groundwork for socialist revolution. 
Mao's theory of New Democracy proposes a different sequence of development than the 
traditional euro-centric one. This was one of Mao's greatest theoretical accomplishments. 
It was Chen Boda and Lin Biao who universalized this aspect of Mao's work. Mao's road was 
not simply socialism for China, but rather Mao's contributions applied far beyond China.

Mao, at times, challenged the metaphysical and teleological model in general. At their 
best moments, Maoists in China understood that there is nothing inevitable about social 
evolution or progress toward social revolution. The claim, common within the revolutionary 
tradition, that the victory of the proletariat is inevitable and an absolute law of 
history is metaphysical and teleological hyperbole. Stalin once stated that the 
proletariat will eventually row the boat to the shore of communism even without communist 
leadership. This kind of statement is an expression of a very teleological and 
metaphysical conception of progress and revolution. Mao recognized that all social 
development is transitional, but in a different way. Mao did not see socialism as a static 
affair. Mao said that there is nothing worse than a stagnant pond. Nor did Mao see 
socialism as calmly marching toward communism. Mao understood that socialism could only be 
understood as a transitional society in flux, filled with violent ruptures, life-and-death 
clashes and antagonistic contradictions. "Never forget class struggle!," Mao warned during 
the Cultural Revolution. Because of the transitional nature of socialism, because of 
remaining inequalities in power and remaining reactionary culture, a new bourgeoisie 
arises within the Communist Party and state. This new class seeks to restore capitalism. 
Thus class struggle still exists under socialism. Counter-revolution is always a danger. 
Socialism does not inevitably transform into communism. Rather socialism can transform 
back to capitalism. There is nothing inevitable about victory. The proletariat could row 
Stalin's boat in circles until the end of time. This is one reason why scientific 
leadership is key. This is why Maoists emphasized the subjective aspect of struggle. This 
is why Lin Biao raised the slogan of "Politics in command!" as part of his Four Firsts 
campaign around 1959. Later the slogan was transformed into "Mao Zedong Thought in command!"

Science learns. Even though socialism has been lost everywhere, the knowledge of that 
experience survives in the form of the highest stage of revolutionary science, Anarcho 
Communism. Even though we lost the Soviet Union, China and other other progressive 
experiments, Anarcho Communism has preserved the lessons of the revolutionary experience 
of the last century. The next time we take power, the proletariat will be able to march 
further toward communism. This is one reason it is so important to struggle against 
revisionism, especially First Worldism. The last two revolutionary waves are defeated. The 
Bolshevik revolution was defeated after World War 2 and the Maoist revolution in China was 
defeated in the 1970s. We stand like Lenin before 1917. There are no socialist states. We 
stand before the next upsurge, the next wave of revolution. We need to continue the 
breakthrough of the Anarchist Movement. Part of this is educating the people in real 
communism. Works like Rodney's are very advanced, even by today's standards. They need to 
be popularized again as part of this struggle. This is part of putting " Anarcho Communism 
in command!" we must abloshe capitalism and Statism from the planet.

Sources

Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, D.C.: Harvard University 
Press, 1981.

http://www.bangladeshasf.org/news/review-of-walter-rodneys-how-europe-underdeveloped-africa-part-13

------------------------------

Message: 3





What we have to worry about in this period is not only the dynamics that we see in the 
foreground but also those we do not see, because only by oversimplifying the harmonious 
relationship between the bourgeois state and the peasants, we forget that they have 
drowning and falling into a completely anti-dialectic phase. The fact that there have been 
left-wing anti-imperialist touches throughout this climate makes things even more ominous. 
Because when everything is intimidating and when everything meets in a cloudy field of 
invocation of the Greek people, who always knows and never understands that all four, the 
critical attitudes are falling back and increasing the confusion of the blur and populism. 
Factors that generate monsters. If not, and this is historically attested.

The Macedonian and the Left's Misery

i) The Movement of Neo-Darkness and its Components

In the last year, the stir of the Macedonian issue has created a strong oppositionalist 
stream of nationalist texture against the SYRIZA government. This year, a major social 
movement has been developed against the agreement to resolve its nomenclature, which has 
even been anti-governmental. The formation of this movement is blurred from the very first 
moment of its formation, representing a broad and diverse political and social geography. 
On the one hand, we have the main opposition to mobilize its broader party base, with the 
help of many media, friends close to it , which, of course, has an important opposition to 
mainstreaming this into its agenda, with the main cause of social unrest against the 
government. From this point of view, the Macedonian issue is also instrumental in its use, 
and very likely if it was in the government to be obliged by the Treaties to apply the 
same policy sample applied by SYRIZA. In the same direction, there are also many different 
voices of the neo-liberal political and media block, which also have more than one reason 
to want a governmental destabilization. We also have the mechanisms of the Greek Orthodox 
Church and of the various mechanisms, organizations, non-organizations and official 
representatives to mobilize the social base of the faithful, representatives of retired 
military officers in the army, navy or aviation, and associations of friends of the army 
and armed forces in their own general public, all kinds of nationalist branches (from the 
now serious, but still a bloody parliamentary Golden Dawn, to the most radical and 
extremist extremist and grupo-sculptures), a wider social base of sprawls that make up the 
common parties and organizations such as ANEL LAOS and the Greek Assembly of Artemis Sora, 
an allied population of paratroopers living still in the climate of 2004 and the frantic 
kitsch festivals for the victory of National Greece (including ancient Greek uniforms, 
helmets, make-up in the color of the national flag and various other idols usefulness) and 
patriotic parties out-parliamentary left as the Popular Unity Panagiotis Lafazani and 
Cruising Konstantopoulou Freedom of Life. It should also be noted that their position in 
favor of the Macedonian protest demonstrates public debate and prominent artistic 
personalities, either through their speeches, as in the case of the left Mikis 
Theodorakis, or by intervening in favor of collecting signatures for a referendum on the 
occasion of a referendum the Prespa Agreement as in the case of well-known 
performer-songwriter Aphrodite Manos who announced that they have signed well-known names 
like composer Stavros Xarhakos, singers B Asilis Papakonstantinou, Lavrentis Macheritsas, 
Yannis Kotsiras, Manolis Mitsias, the actor Thodoris Atheridis, the script writer and 
actor Michalis Reppas, the journalist, Semina Digeni and others. Also in statements 
against the Agreement have advanced well-known entrepreneurs - players in the world of 
football, such as Marinakis, and in many cases groups of supporters have distinctly 
participated in protests, raised banners in competitions, or published notices on the 
issue. It is interesting to see how this movement is shaped at the level of practices 
within this one year. On the one hand, we have mass gatherings and rallies in cities such 
as Athens and Thessaloniki, which show a gradual recession culminating in the day when the 
bill in question was voted, where the protesters were undoubtedly very few. We must not, 
however, miss out on the fact that these massive mobilizations, at their peak, touched the 
limit of half a million in January 2018 in Thessaloniki (as opposed to anti-aggregations, 
which at their gathered only 2,000 to 2,5,000 people in Propylaea February 2018). There is 
also a growing controversial mood of protesters, which is instigated by the far-right 
components of this movement, but on the other hand it is not possible to observe that in 
the concentration on the Constitution on 20/01/2019 the conflicts with the police were 
massive and dynamic. In addition, within this one year, we have seen on the margins of 
concentration the cruel attacks on libertarian and self-organized areas of the wider 
anti-authoritarian and competitive movement (others more successful and others not), 
individual attacks on immigrants or insults on Jewish monuments, but also a revival of 
protest practices that we had seen in the years of frontal anti-monumental struggles, 
which include members' targeting in their regions and attempts to sabotage political 
speeches at events, while we have recently witnessed the phenomenon of student occupations 
on the occasion of the Macedonian one. All of this is of no importance. This year's 
demonstrations and rallies were much more impotent than those of 92, the fascists many of 
the scenes did with the tolerance or cover of the cops, the nationalistic occupations did 
not spread to all schools, and unlike the antifascist speech has now been expressed far 
more extrovert, much more dynamically and much more structured. Is it enough for us to be 
complacent? It is a fact that the movement against the Prespa Agreement is currently, in a 
vertical de-massification as his inability to block the Accord apparently caused 
disappointment in a large part of his base. The same frustration that was caused by the 
weakness of the anticommunication front blocking the passage of the memorandum bills. 
However, as in the latter case, there were broader radicalizations of people who were 
kneeling at the events and were disappointed with their outcome, so there are, and we have 
no doubt about it, now. Besides, it is of great importance that while we are in a time 
when social movements are generally weakened and massive anti-government demonstrations 
are to emerge from 2012, suddenly the political atmosphere and public speech are being 
charged for so long, and with such tension, over a agendas of such orientation, which will 
definitely be left behind. And this is the case for nationalism. For its part, the 
Government has to contend that it solves a chronic problem between the two countries in a 
way that does not go beyond the so-called national line, promoting a narrative about 
peaceful co-operation and of the two peoples, while the opposition accuses her of 
violating the national negotiating line on the issue by conceding things that should not 
have been, such as language and citizenship, and the right-wing, right-wing, 
Christian-Orthodox and Patriot They scream that our Macedonia was sold out. Parallel 
pieces of the left still admit this Agreement, exclusively as a government truce with NATO 
in order to bind the country more closely to the chariot of Euro-Atlantic imperialism with 
the accession of Northern Macedonia to the western military coalition and the further 
encirclement of Russia in the Balkans (to be fair, of course, some left components dare to 
dazzle the past months of critical positions to strengthen the Greek position in the 
Balkans). However, it is worth noting the statements of the KKE and its various 
executives, which he even proceeded to mobilize against the Prespa Agreement (with its own 
framework always, of course, and taking care to stay away from massive centralized 
gatherings), which were added to all those statements from the left, which speak of " 
scandalous "irresponsibility, and for a fake creation of a minority Macedonian issue by 
the EU and NATO forces. 
(Cf.https://www.iefimerida.gr/news/473967/kke-skarfalose-stin-akropol...ikona )

The attitude of the KKE, and several other parts of the Left, in particular the so-called 
anti-imperialist left, plays its own its role in the widespread spread of the nationalist 
frenzy of our days as we will see below. However, in order to better understand the 
magnitude of the moral and political decline of the official Communist and 
anti-imperialist left, it is first of all a brief historical flashback.

ii) Macedonia is one?;

It is now difficult to question the strong presence of the Slavic element in the 
geographical area, which successively recognized the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires 
as a province of Macedonia as early as the 6th century AD. (and that's because more and 
more evidence is coming up). For any population with such deep roots in a region, roots 
that count for nearly 1,500 years, it can only be considered self-evident their right to 
self-identification geography base. The Macedonian Slav Macedonians are Macedonians, not 
because they attract any origin from the ancient Macedonian tribe of Alexander the Great 
(these are indeed nationalist boobs), but precisely because for almost two millennia, 
generations of generations were born to them, they grew up and died in Macedonian 
territory. Because Macedonia has now become the land of their own fathers, so according to 
this most popular interpretation, their own homeland.

Any problem with this population, which defacto has acquired Macedonian locality, starts 
very early and is not really how it will be determined, but what it will be. This was 
because it had the misfortune to take root at a longitude and breadth of the Balkans, 
which it had already formed since the end of the 19th century, a matter of contention for 
three newly constituted national states, which are none other than Greek, Serbian and 
Bulgarian. Each of these three new-born states wished the largest part of the Macedonian 
pie, as long as it was still an Ottoman province, and as it is known at that time, the 
Great Powers were somewhat willing to recognize new nation states, naturally enough to 
turn them into their protectorates, and could of course have credible claims about the 
national origin of the population within them. It is no coincidence that from the middle 
of the nineteenth century different inventories begin to circulate according to their 
origins, showing different demographic results: Greek shows a majority of Greek Orthodox, 
Serbian majority of Slavic Orthodox, and Bulgaria majority of Bulgarian Orthodox followers 
of the Bulgarian Exarchate. Together with demographic cuisines aimed at presenting each of 
these three states with their own majority minority within the Ottoman Empire, the 
propaganda and proselytism of the local people went on to compete for the preservation of 
a national consciousness of the three , compared to others. At the same time with the 
claim of the area, we also have the claim of the people living in it, who are extremely 
mixed with each other. What we actually mean is a clear denial of these three prisoners, 
even to examine on a hypothetical basis , the possibility of creating a new autonomous 
state in the region of Macedonia, which will cut them off from the territories they 
consider privileged. In the years of the so-called Macedonian struggle and the Balkan 
wars, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria's competition over Macedonia includes extreme phenomena 
of violence, terrorism and ethnic cleansing at the expense of the Slav-Macedonian element, 
in order either to recognize any of these three powers as their native motherland or 
simply to leave their home soil,

It is no coincidence that the rebellion of these people, which had preceded in 1903, in 
order to claim their autonomy from the Ottoman Empire, suffered harsh and bloody 
repression with the help of the above states, especially the Greek, to the Ottoman 
authorities. The fact that Ilinden's movement was autonomous and attempted to move away 
from relations of influence with any of the three neighboring states is confirmed first of 
all by the statements of the Chedralists that have been a pioneering force in the 
rebellion: "After the people first became aware of his situation, it has to be taught that 
in such a case this change will be replaced under a new regime providing lifetime and 
price guarantees, but to this end he must understand that he needs a war well-organized 
and able to last for a long time. When there is a timidity, when there are Turks you must 
also inspire that you are aiming at a constitutional status, providing guarantees of equal 
justice in all classes and guarding and drawing the attention of the people to this point. 
At the same time, you enlighten the spirits of the warriors, you should not neglect to 
draw their attention to the Macedonian issue in the middle of the world. You have to be 
addicted to not expecting help from Russia, Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, but 
relying on their own strength. You must develop that freedom is not given as alms to the 
peoples but it is acquired by arms, and when the weapon is in the hand then the force 
increases "..." must not be forfeited because of the possibility that the yoke will be 
released either through Bulgaria or for another force, on the contrary it must have to 
convince them that through the service of existing but recently organized same powers, it 
will be possible to regain that independence ... "It must be noted that the people on the 
Macedonian issue should be enlightened internationally and convinced that Macedonia 
because of ethnological reasons it is impossible to attached to any other state. It is 
necessary to enlighten the people that the purpose of the neighboring states is not aimed 
at the redemption of it, but in the attachment of the country of divorce.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31302

------------------------------

Message: 4





We share below, in translation, a text that appears on the portuguese website, Portal 
Anarquista, marking the one hundredth anniversary of the anarchist newspaper, A Batalha. 
We do so for the newspaper's historical significance, as a testimony to a tradition in 
anarchism of publishing as an intrinsic part of political struggle. ---- With numerous and 
violent interruptions throughout its history, A Batalha is today among the continent's 
oldest anarchist newspapers. ---- A Batalha: 100 years of struggle for a world without 
exploited and exploiters, without oppressed and oppressors! ---- The 23rd of February 
marks the centenary anniversary of the first number of the newspaper A Batalha, "voice of 
the organised worker" and from September of 1919, date of the foundation of the CGT, organ 
of the anarcho-syndicalist labour union. Alexandre Vieira, tipograhper, was its first 
director.

Alexandre Vieira

For 8 years - until the 26th of May of 1927, the date of the last legally published 
edition - it will be a daily newspaper, firm in the defense of workers' rights and voice 
of the necessity of a social revolution that will establish a society without exploitation 
and oppression. It is estimated that its circulation will be in the order of 20-25 
thousand copies daily, being the third (sometimes the second) most widely sold newspaper, 
after the Século and the Diário de Notícias

During this period, A Batalha saw on many occasions its offices invaded by the police, 
editions seized and its journalists arrested, but it will continue to publish until the 
27th of May of 1927, when the police invade its head office (on the Calçada do Combro, in 
Lisbon), ransack and destroy all the equipment, after which the newspaper is prohibited. 
Its last principal editor is Mário Castelhano, who years later, will die in Tarrafal.

Mário Castelhano

MBetween December of 1923 and January of 1927, A Batalha also published a literary and 
illustrated supplement where many of the most noteworthy intellectuals, writers and 
journalists of the time collaborated (see below).

Though independent of the newspaper, between the 2nd of July of 1925 and the 15th of June 
of 1926, the bi-weekly magazine Renovação, sub-titled Revista Quinzenal de Arte, 
Literatura, e Actualidades, was also published. It belonged to the workers' newspaper A 
Batalha, and was closely tied to the ideals of anarchism, defending the revolutionary 
sindicalism advocated by the Confederação Geral do Trabalho (C.G.T.). Many of its 
collaborators also collaborated on the Batalha and, among them can be found important 20th 
century literary figures of the country, such as Ferreira de Castro, Rocha Martins, Emílio 
Costa, Julião Quintinha, Ladislau Batalha, Mário Domingues, Augusto Pinto, Nogueira de 
Brito, Jaime Brasil, Bento Faria, David de Carvalho, Eduardo Frias, Cristiano Lima, 
including illustrations by Stuart Carvalhaes and Roberto Nobre.

During fascism, A Batalha was published for long periods in the decades of the decades of 
the 1930's and 40's, in clandestine printing shops (namely, in a cave in the Lisbon 
neighbourhood of Alcântara), calling for the re-organisation of militant revolutionary 
syndicalists and anarchists in the struggle against the Salazar regime. In the National 
Library, there is a record of the following clandestine editions: nº 1, Apr. 1934- a nº 
10, Jul. 1937; nº esp. Dec. 1944; nº 1, Jan. 1946 a nº 21, Dec. 1949.

A Batalha - III Série (clandestina) Abril de 1934 (jornal)

A Batalha - III Série (clandestina) Maio de 1934(jornal)

A Batalha (clandestina) Junho de 1935 (jornal)

A Batalha (clandestina) Junho de 1935 (2 folhas por página)

A Batalha - IV Série (clandestina) Junho de 1937 (jornal)

A Batalha (clandestina) Dezembro de 1944 (jornal)

A Batalha V Série (clandestina) - Nº 2 de Novembro de 1946 (jornal)

A Batalha - V Série (clandestina) nº 19 de Agosto de 1949 (jornal)

A Batalha - V Série (clandestina) ) nº 21 de Dezembro de 1949 (jornal)

A Batalha began to appear legally once again after the 25th of April of 1974, at the 
initiative of a group of militant anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, headed by Emídio 
Santana and other old activists of the CGT (some of them had also been responsible for 
some of the clandestine editions of the newspaper). The first edition of the new series of 
A Batalha came out in September of 1974 as a bi-weekly, with Emídio Santana as its 
director, becoming then a monthly, and today it is published every two months, with João 
Santiago as director, no longer as an anarcho-syndicalist or revolutionary syndicalist 
newspaper, but a newspaper of anarchist expression.

In the period after the 25th of April, A Batalha had its head office, just after the 
military coup, on Angelina Vidal Street, in the Graça neighbourhood, moving then to D. 
Carlos I Ave., in São Bento, and, later to Álvares Cabral Ave., near the Largo do Rato. 
Currently, its office is located in the Olivais neighbourhood of Lisbon.

On this anniversary, it is important to emphasise the necessity of making available the 
totality of the A Batalha collection between 1919 and 1927 (already digitalised by the 
National Library), along with the clandestine editions, on the internet, to all activists 
and researchers. It is a common heritage, fruit of the labour and dynamic of many men and 
women, and not something to be restricted to a half-dozen academics.

https://anarchistnews.org/content/celebrating-anniversary-100-years-anarchist-newspaper-batalha

------------------------------

Message: 5





Before the upcoming "Manifas", we publish an article by Sylwia Rebosz from the Warsaw 
Environmental Commission, which appeared in this year's Warsaw Gazeta Manifowa. ---- We 
are fosterlings of the capitalist system. From an early age, we hear that in order to earn 
more than the national average, we have to get up as dawn as Jan Kulczyk or, as the motto 
of Amazon, work hard, play with work and create a story. Then we can be sure that our 
effort will be rewarded with avocado food every day for breakfast and a life full of 
satisfaction. But let's return to reality. We work more, our productivity does not 
increase, we return to homes more tired than ever before, and this is reflected in our 
mental health.
As part of my "professional career" I was not employed full time in any place. 
Nevertheless, I had to be present at a specific place at fixed times. I remember once, 
during a standard check-up visit, my then-doctor offered me the release for two weeks. I 
was then overwhelmed by the atmosphere at work, which intensified the symptoms of my 
depression. I refused because I knew that I had to earn the proverbial bread, grit my 
teeth and put in the fifth gear to prove that I deserved to extend the contract every 
month. A few weeks later I was released, which I seriously suffered.

Despite the openness declared in many workplaces, people with mental disorders still 
tremble that co-workers will attach them an "appropriate" patch. Once I was a witness, as 
the person heading the department wondered if the question of mental disorders was ethical 
when recruiting.

She was afraid that the employed person would neglect his work and take unpaid days 
regularly. Meanwhile, from conversations with my friends, I know that when there are days 
when they would not go out of bed most of the time, they usually go to work or, if they 
are taking a day off, they explain themselves to a prosaic illness, for example colds or 
poisoning. They are afraid that at the moment when they will make a depressive come out at 
the workplace, they will face consequences such as exemption. Another form of 
discrimination against people with mental disorders is mobbing, which may additionally 
intensify the symptoms of the disease.

Employers often use subtle forms of violence that are not easy to prove before the court. 
Taking into account the financial and emotional costs of the processes, a large part of 
those affected by the phenomenon of mobbing, prefer to let go than to fight the battle 
with former superiors. This leads to a vicious circle in which the employing company is 
unpunished.

Recently, I came across the statement that for a person with disorder it is better to work 
on a junk contract, despite the lack of a sense of security, than unemployment. This is a 
false optics aimed at deepening class divisions among female employees. Only mutual help, 
organizing in the workplace and consistently talking about what we are struggling with 
will allow us to de -abuse psychiatric disorders.

http://ozzip.pl/teksty/publicystyka/spoleczenstwo/item/2456-depresja-w-czasach-kapitalizmu

------------------------------

Message: 6





Brit Bennett is a young and successful African-American novelist and essayist with her 
first novel, The Beating Heart of Our Mothers , released in 2017. Born in 1990, Brit 
Bennett says she grew up in a family cocoon easy. But in the summer of 2013, when the 
murderer of the young black Trayvon Martin is acquitted, Brit Bennet explains having " 
woken up ". ---- I do not know what to do with nice white people is a collection of nine 
essays published in various journals by Brit Bennett. Nine short texts reacting to the 
news and wondering what it means to be black in Trump's America. ---- Several themes are 
discussed during the tests. In one of them, Brit Bennett talks about the racist crimes of 
the police and its many victims. In another, she evokes the terrible differentiation of 
speech when the terrorist is " white and American " or racialized. Another text attempts 
to show how the pain of black women is often relegated to that of wives or mothers of 
murdered black men. While these women themselves directly suffer the violence of men, 
regardless of the color of the latter. A striking reflection is also conducted on the use 
of nostalgia in political discourse. It was better before, Trump's major axis with its 
slogan " Make America great again ".

The interest of this collection does not hold just to the relevance and the interest of 
the reflections of the novelist. It also articulates wonderfully news and historical 
moments, collective story and personal history, analysis of founding novels or chronic 
current music. Brit Bennet evokes the writings of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Colson 
Whitehead and the music of Janelle Monáe or Hell you Talmbout.

A rich reading that calls for others, original reflections that question and a breath of 
voluntary optimism without excessive lyricism: " The world becomes larger at the same time 
as it shrinks ; it contracts and swells like our lungs. So, let's breathe deeply and put 
us to work. "

Benjamin (AL Angers)

Brit Bennett, I do not know what to do nice white , Otherwise, 2018, 120 pages, 12 euros.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lire-Bennett-Je-ne-sais-pas-quoi-faire-des-gentils-blancs

------------------------------

Message: 7





The Italian Anarchist Federation writes on why it will be mobilising for the global strike 
initiative on March 8th, amid an atmosphere of reaction which has been driving repressive 
reforms. ---- The Italian Anarchist Federation supports the general feminist strike that 
will mark March 8th in many countries of the world. ---- Rather than being any mere ritual 
and done out of purely testimonial logic, the strike is a necessary moment of rupture to 
reinforce and highlight the struggle against all forms of discrimination, against all 
forms of domination that would subject our lives and our bodies. ---- Today more than 
ever, reactionary forces are raging against those who claim freedom and self-determination 
through initiatives and political measures under the banner of sexism and "defending the 
family" - the actions of a patriarchal culture rooted and constantly renewed through its 
roots in and benefit to the logics of exploitation.

Wage differences for the same job, unemployment, underemployment, precariousness, cuts in 
social spending. The social war strongly attacks women by reducing their economic autonomy 
and exalting the role of the family as the best method of survival. A family that rests on 
the consolidation of traditional roles, on sexist morality, on hierarchy, on the 
subordination of women. A family that, the chronicles and the statistics offer us 
merciless testimony, is the first place of violence. This is the traditional family that 
is so dear to priests, fascists and all those who want to impose, as well as poverty, even 
total control of lives and choices.

The family is the fortress around which these forces continually re-found a hierarchical 
and exclusive social and political order. On the left, as on the right, from those who 
would like it extended to homosexual couples to those who want it modeled on the "sacred" 
family. "An institution that is a guarantee of stability for governments.

Familial sexism is the common denominator of many measures and interventions undertaken by 
the Italian government: from the citizenship income welfare scheme, and similar schemes, 
which operate on a family basis, to the budget laws applied to rural families; from the 
review of maternity leave, to the Pillon Bill to fight divorce; from the disinvestment on 
anti-violence centers to the closure of the consultors, to attacks on abortion.

Measures and processes that, in large part, the previous governments have anticipated and 
initiated and which now, with the current government, are being expressed in particularly 
reactionary and repressive terms. Now more than ever it is necessary to develop a lucid 
and attentive debate that tackles the issues of the question and individuals, in addition 
to the articulations of oppression and the strategies that make it possible to overcome 
them, even the contradictions that patriarchal culture can nurture in the sphere of our 
relations.

Today more than ever it is necessary to support the struggles and the self-managed 
experiences that want to counteract the sexist policies and affirm the practices of freedom.

For these reasons, as anarchists, we will be present in the streets of the eighth of March.

8th March Working Group of the Italian Anarchist Federation

https://freedomnews.org.uk/italian-anarchists-for-the-general-womens-strike

------------------------------

Message: 8






Federal security agency the BfV was caught recently making a bizarre intervention at 
Leipzig University to demand anarcho-syndicalist union branch FAU Leipzig be banned from 
holding an introductory meeting during freshers week. ---- The university was targeted 
during the approval period for events at the its winter semester 2018/19, which anarchist 
groups have been involved in before without issue. ---- This time however the "Critical 
Introductory Weeks" which are joint-organised by a number of different groups including 
FAU, Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth and Prisma Leipzig got a mention in the BfV's annual report 
and, according to information received by students, BfV made a visit to rector Beate 
Schücking, followed by the announcement of a ban.
Students responded by confronting the university administrators, and had the ban withdrawn 
by vice-rector Thomas Hofsäss, however they fear the precedent being set by interventions 
from the security services. Event organiser Frank Aurich says BfV has interfered before 
and warned the initial ban "gave up free critical discourse in favour of State-directed 
bans on thought and debate."

Anarchists have been raised on the agenda of State security forces ever since the 2017 
Hamburg Summit, which wrong-footed police and sparked a moral panic which saw radical news 
outlets and spaces targeted for shutdowns and raids.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/germany-state-tries-to-block-university-anarchist-groups

------------------------------